#he did terrible things and he has to own up to it even if he had a tragic backstory
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katakaluptastrophy · 2 days ago
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This is your semi-regular reminder that for all that he very much leans into being 'just a guy', John Gaius is a horribly unsettling and disturbing eldritch entity who has not been entirely human for 10,000 years:
As the world went up I remade us both. I hid me in you... I hid you in me. And when we were together... I became God..
We're repeatedly told how uncanny Alecto was. And how terribly ordinary-looking John is...but how deeply, deeply upsetting his eyes are to behold. They're repeatedly described as "monstrous" (on one occasion, directly before John jokes "I'm not a monster"), as well as "terrible", "like dead planets", "primordial", "chthonic", "inconceivable", and "deeply fucked up".
There are multiple descriptions of how his down to earth persona suddenly falls away and he can be seen as something infinitely more awful:
"terrible divinity clung to his skin"
"It was the first time that he had seemed at all mortal. Humanity touched him briefly, like a passing shadow"
"He was no longer human. He was immortal again"
"He was always somehow more alive than everyone else around him, and yet dislocated from what you considered living. A man-shaped eclipse."
"The Emperor of the Nine Houses - the Resurrection - the First Reborn - sat at the end of the table, his plain face splattered with gore, and his eyes were the death of light."
There's one moment in particular where Harrow perceives him as something vastly beyond human:
his great immortal age - of an enormous distance between you, of an ignition too bright for you to conceive. You were an insect standing before a forest fire. You were a cell holding a heart.
(Though of course Harrow herself is far from metaphysically straightforward - in the River, Gideon says "You were a sigil: you were an intermingled fire...you were a hunger without a stomach...")
When John describes Resurrection Beasts to Harrow - although we do not yet know that this is a confession of murder and of a sort of cannibalism by a part man, part planet - he is "lit from beneath by electric lighting, the gleam in his eyes black and wet. You caught him moistening his lips with the tip of his tongue."
Even when he's not obviously being an eldritch thing, his very normal crown of foetal bones moves on its own, and the white rings in his eyes are described as flickering. Even blithely sitting in a Cohort Admiralty meeting munching peanuts, John is in constant, unsettling motion.
As if that doesn't already sound unpleasant enough, it seems rather like there is something physically discomforting about making eye contact with John. Looking on those white rings is likened to "dying" and "a migraine", and described as "scalding".
It still hurt you a little, to look into his terrible eyes... You had never become used to it.
Making eye contact with John doesn't just cause physical pain. It also seems to open you up to some degree of suggestion or compulsion. Here's Gideon's description of making eye contact with John:
God looked at me...and held my gaze. It was this that pinned us in place. When those white rings hovered on someone else, the blood rushed back to your brain; when they flickered back to me, I went white and blank again, mute and stupid, a floating outline... Those white-ringed eyes closed, and your heart almost relaxed in your chest.
Which seems to place two incidents that otherwise might be explained as Harrow's difficulty refusing the man she has been raised to worship as god in a different light:
It still hurt you in an undefinable way, to see him lowered so: as though he offered a compliance test where you ought to flatten yourself in front of him as low as you could go. The white ring around his pupil was so white.
He looked at you as though he were glad to see you... some nameless softening in his face and those white-tinged, primordial eyes. He reached out for your hands. You could not refuse him, and in any case had no choice of doing so; your body reacted long before your mind did, and the meat of your meat and the flesh of your flesh belonged to God
I don't think we're nearly frightened enough of John... Or of the prospect of John and Alecto - the man who became god and the god who became man - reunited (even if at odds) in ATN...
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dyingswanpavlova · 2 days ago
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"Your girl" - Part 7 | The Salesman x Reader
Summary: If he's so bad, then why do you crave him so much? You crave him enough to let him be your first.
Warnings: dead dove do not eat, kidnapping, mentions of sexual abuse and other traumatic events in the past, numbness, helplessness, violence, threatening, mentions of blood, mentions of murder and rape, body issues, trauma talk, scars, stockholm syndrome, forced relationship, unhealthy relationship, depression, manipulation, mentions of sexual activities and desires, smut, oral sex, (rough) sex, penetration, unprotected sex, degradation kink, not beta-read, if I've missed any please tell me! mdni 18+!
"Your girl" - The Salesman x Reader Masterlist
You didn't know what real desire feels like, until you felt it.
Until you felt him.
And you wanted him, as much as you hated him.
The moment his lips crashed against yours, it felt like nothing you had ever felt before.
Sure, you had been kissed before. Once.
The loser has to seduce the shy girl.
But that didn't count. Or even if it did, it didn't matter to you. Because nothing that happened before that kiss seemed to matter.
A part of you expected his kiss to be gentle - he had made a promise to you after all - but there was hardly any gentleness in his touch.
The first second after your lips met had been a soft, tentative caress. Gentle and careful, as if to test the waters. You lay stiffly underneath him, unsure what to really do. You almost felt awkward, but that didn't mean you wanted it to stop. Quite the opposite.
The gentleness felt...almost forced on his part. You already knew he wasn't the soft type, but for you, he tried.
Until he didn't. And eventually his mouth took control of yours.
You didn't mind.
His lips moved against yours more urgently, the tip of his tongue caressing your lower lip and trying to part your lips, demanding entry.
When you finally gave in to his silent demand, slowly and carefully, he took full advantage of that and slid his tongue in your mouth, participating in a sinful dance with your own.
You were still stiff, still shy, still...unsure. And he felt it.
He pulled back, just enough to murmur against your lips. "Open your mouth wider for me, princess."
Princess. That was new. At least you weren't Hana anymore. Or at least not in that moment.
You reluctantly obeyed and with a low groan you felt his tongue push deeper against yours, harder, more demanding.
You almost gasped in surprise, but again, you didn't mind.
It felt so...
So...
And you were still stiff. A part of you almost felt like burying yourself under a pile of non-existence for being so complicated.
But again, he didn't seem to get angry or even frustrated. Instead he slowly pulled his hand back and tipped your chin up with his fingertips.
"Stop thinking so much. Just do whatever feels right. I promise you, I'm not going to laugh or hurt you. I promised you something and I meant it." His voice was softer than you had ever heard it before and it made something inside of you break.
You wanted him. You wanted him so terribly and the thought scared you like nothing else.
God, when he was being gentle like this, you wanted him even more. It made you go near insane with desire and heartbreak, because you could never have him. Could never have this version of him.
He was the man who kidnapped you, not your lover.
The man who slapped you, not the man who kissed you.
But, shit, he kissed you. And you wanted nothing more than exactly that. Maybe even for the rest of your life.
You were always a romantic at heart.
Hopeful and yet hopeless.
"Okay." You whispered softly and nervously nibbled on your lower lip. "I...I just..."
"I know." He whispered and gently ran his thumb over your cheek. "But that's what I'm here for. I'll guide you."
The next thing you realized was how he pressed you against his wardrobe. You had no idea how you even made it across the hallway and to his bedroom, but somehow you did.
He grabbed your wrists and pinned them above your head, leaving you helpless and at his mercy. But you didn't care.
In fact it made you want him all the more.
The sounds he made while his tongue delved deeper into your mouth made the dampness between your legs increase tenfold.
His hands slowly slid down your arms and over your shoulders, until he reached your waist and then he stopped. His touch was so gentle, almost careful, like he was touching a delicate bird and was afraid it might fly away.
"Turn around." He whispered against your lips. You hesitated for a second, but eventually obeyed, with a slowness that almost made him growl in frustration.
His fingers found the zipper of your dress, impatiently tugging at it, when-
He exhaled in even more frustration when he felt your hand reach for his wrist, stopping him in his attempt to skillfully and swiftly undress you.
"What?" He bit out.
You opened your mouth and closed it several times. How would you tell him? Should you? Or should you just show him?
You were almost sure he was going to be so repulsed that he'd go and find himself a second girl in no time.
The thought made something inside of you die.
"Can I just...lie on my back?" You whispered.
He frowned, but he was a clever man and he immediately caught on the fact that something wasn't like it was supposed to be. But since he was something akin a gentleman who'd only beat you, not force your clothes off you or rape you, he had never seen you naked before. And suddenly you felt incredibly insecure.
"What is this about?" He asked in a softer tone. "Are you nervous?"
"Yes." You said quietly. "But that's not the reason."
Instead of answering, he tilted his chin down and his lips met the back of your neck. The shiver that punched through your body and the sound that left your lips were both feral.
"I know." He whispered. "But I'll make you forget about it soon."
"You...You don't understand." You finally gasped out. "It's...You won't want me any longer."
That made him pause and he slowly pulled his head back. His frown got deeper and there was something else in his expression now, something like confusion and a hint of anger.
"What are you talking about?"
You fought with yourself, trying to come up with something to say, something to do, something to explain, but no.
Instead you simply released his wrist.
His frown stayed in place, but eventually he began to move again and you felt his fingertips tickle the skin of your back when he moved to pull the zipper down. Another hard shiver ran through your body and you closed your eyes. Your forehead tightly pressed against the wardrobe, you waited. Waited for him to recoil in disgust. To push you away and call out God, it was all for nothing.
But the call never came.
Instead he was silent for a long moment and you felt his gaze burn holes through your body.
"Who did this?"
He sounded calm - no, like he was desperately trying to stay calm, maybe for your sake. You couldn't yet tell if he was repulsed or if maybe he was trying to act like he wasn't.
The faint trace of the scar was subtle, but still evident, even after all these years. A cruel reminder that you would never be free of your past. Of the pain. Sometimes you felt like you were made of pain far more than of flesh and blood.
"My mother." You said very quietly, unable to open your eyes yet.
His fingertips followed the contour of the scar in a touch so soft that you barely even felt it. But you did feel it. It immediately made you shiver and gasp.
That was nothing.
The moment you felt his lips brush over the skin of your back, slowly following the same line, you inhaled sharply. Breathlessly.
There was not enough air to breathe.
Your hands were pressed against the wardrobe tightly and you felt your legs shake.
This was enough to make your mind go hazy and your head dizzy. If this already drove you insane like that, you couldn't tell if you'd even be able to have sex with him. Or if you'd slowly float off into non-existence.
This was better than life.
A soft whimper came over your lips the second his tongue flicked out to taste your skin.
"Oh God." You moaned breathlessly.
Good, you thought with the little mind you had left to think. Good. He isn't repulsed.
"Your mother." He whispered, without ever stopping his ministrations. It made you tense, but you listened in silence. "Your mother. Is she still alive?"
You kept your eyes closed and nodded.
A low hum came over his lips.
"Good."
A slow frown formed on your face, but you didn't dare to speak now. You wouldn't have done anything if it risked to stop him from what he was doing.
"And that man? Your neighbor? Is he still alive?"
You slowly shook your head.
"Too bad." He whispered against your skin. "I would have loved to take care of him.”
That made your head perk up and you looked over your shoulder, looking at him with something that was equally horrified as it was…admiring.
“What are you talking about?” You whispered softly.
He nodded. “What do you think? You’re my girl. I take care of my girl. And no one gets to hurt you. No one besides me.”
His words sent a warm shiver down your spine. You knew it wasn’t exactly healthy or…good. But it felt good. And you couldn’t help but feel that certain warmth in your body increase.
The way he spoke of you, with such possessiveness, it awakened something in you of which you never before knew you had that in you.
“But they hurt me in the past.” You whispered, as though this was a normal conversation.
“Doesn’t matter”, he whispered back, “they still hurt you. And anyone who did, will pay.”
You wanted to respond, wanted to express anything, but you didn’t have the time. He spun you around so swiftly and effortlessly that you immediately forgot what you had even been talking about. You stumbled backwards until your legs hit the bed and then he slowly pushed you back. Gently, like everything he did that night.
Gently.
Your heart skipped several beats as you stared up at him like that. Your hair was messy and your face flushed, your lips still swollen from the greedy, demanding kiss and your dress hung loosely around your shoulders. But your eyes, your eyes, they held a special kind of expression that night.
Hunger.
It was hunger.
A hunger you hadn’t ever felt before. So powerful, it was all-consuming. Your mind was occupied with him, unable to focus on anything else than his delicious smirk. The one you had grown to…
Oh God, don’t even think that.
“You look so beautiful.” He whispered in a husky voice. His hands wandered up to slowly undo his tie. The sight was enough to stir even more desire in you, forcing you to shift on the bed, your impatience growing. Your heart was aching with how handsome he was.
If only you could have him like that every night.
He slowly pulled the tie off and it fell to the ground, before he slowly moved to undo the buttons of his shirt. That was when you realized that you would either sleep with him that night or die.
Because that was how it felt.
Like you would die without him. Crumble and suffocate.
Your eyes followed the movement of his hands as he slowly shrugged his shirt off, revealing his chiseled, marble chest. The sight made your brows furrow and you did something oh-so cheeky. You bit your lip. You had to, otherwise you would have probably moaned.
“What is it, sweet girl?” He purred as he slowly moved onto the bed, hovering right above you. “Do you like what you see?”
You closed your eyes when his hot breath kissed your ear. Then you nodded and bit your lip again.
“Good.” He breathed. “Then show me something I’ll like as well.”
He hooked his fingertips under the material of your dress and attempted to pull it down, when…
He hesitated. For a moment you were almost sure you had done something terribly wrong again and you were about to get punished. You held your breath and expected him to swing his fist at you.
“Can I?”
Your eyes widened almost comically in surprise. Your mouth fell open and you nodded.
The sight of you so surprised and speechless made him laugh.
God, what a beautiful sound.
If only you could hear it every day.
If only, if only, if only.
Your heart ached again. But you quickly pushed these thoughts aside. Now wasn’t the time. You could mourn your non-existent, fantasy relationship by the time the next morning came.
That moment was for you and him.
And right then, he was there. And he was real.
And he was gentle.
He pulled the dress down torturously slow, his gaze eagerly following every inch of skin that was revealed.
You felt so naked, so exposed, so…so warm under his gaze.
You swallowed thickly and kept your focus on his eyes the whole time. It was like he suddenly was a different person.
A husband type of guy.
You closed your eyes, forcefully trying to suppress these kind of dangerous thoughts. But it was impossible. You were immediately certain.
You were in love with him.
And it didn’t matter how many water bowls he’d make you lick on the floor, how many degrading names he called you and how many marks he gave you.
You were in love with him.
Your eyes shot open and you looked at him with something akin to pain, but your confusion grew when, for probably the first time, he didn’t immediately met your gaze. His gaze was fixed on your body, firm and yet soft, like glue. He didn’t move it away, just kept it roaming up and down your body. It was enough to make you shiver.
“God.” He whispered huskily. “God, you’re perfect.”
He slowly looked up to meet your eyes again and when he did, the tiniest frown grew on his face.
“What is it? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Am I going too fast?”
You just stared at him, unable to say anything. The way his eyes were soft, the way his voice was, the way he seemed so concerned.
And there we go again.
You felt tears well up in your eyes and you tried desperately to swallow the lump in your throat.
His expression immediately darkened, mixed with surprise and something else. He immediately sat up, moving his hips away from yours.
“You’re not ready.” He said stiffly. “You don’t want to. Fuck, I should have known.”
He attempted to get up and, judging by his reaction, probably flee, but he stopped when he felt your hand on his wrist, holding him back.
“No”, you gasped out quickly. “No, don’t leave. Please.”
He stared at you, his expression troubled. “But you…”
“I want it.” You whispered. “I really do.”
He shook his head. “No.” He said firmly. “Listen, I won’t punish you when you say no now. I don’t want it to be like this. The thought of doing this, when you don’t really want me, it…”
“I do!” You propped yourself up onto your elbows and nodded quickly. “I do.” You whispered. “That’s not why I’m crying. I was just…”
You briefly closed your eyes, before you continued.
“I’m just complicated.”
He didn’t seem all too convinced, but the frown on his face signaled that he wouldn’t try to run off again.
“Yes.” You whispered softly. “I was just overwhelmed. But I want it. Please, don’t…Don’t go now.”
His frown deepened, but he slowly leaned back down.
“You don’t have to do this.” He said quietly. “You don’t have to endure this, to please me. Not this.”
You slowly shook your head. You couldn’t tell him the real reason.
That you were grieving the relationship you could have had with him, in another time, another universe. That you felt like you were falling in love with him…or that you already were.
You opened your mouth to come up with another excuse, but when words failed you yet again, you did something else. You tilted your head up and your lips met his. Soft and tentative, careful and gentle, but it was you who kissed him.
Bold girl.
He hesitated for a moment as if to make sure you really meant it.
It truly surprised you how much he seemed to care about your consent. So far, a small part of you had always believed he’d snap once he got impatient enough and he’d just take what he wanted, not caring if you cried or begged or pleaded.
But that couldn’t have been further from the truth.
And still you couldn’t help but ask yourself if this was solely about the promise that he made you. Because somehow, under all his insanity, there was something like an honorable man. A man who kept his promises.
But you tried your hardest to lock these thoughts out.
To lock any thoughts out.
Tonight was about you and him.
The moment you felt his tongue part your lips again, that was exactly what you thought about.
You and him.
Him.
And suddenly the whole world seemed to fade into nothingness, because all that mattered was the way his tongue felt against yours and the sound that left his lips when you wrapped your arms around him. Your hands slowly wandered up the skin of his back, up to his shoulders. You tried to touch every inch of him and memorize it in your mind, just in case you never got to feel him like that again.
You were pretty sure you were doing something wrong, because you had no idea what you were doing, but you tried to listen to his words and just do what felt right.
He finally pulled your dress off of you, leaving you almost bare, in nothing but a pair of panties. The cold air hit your skin and you felt another shiver run down your spine.
And another one when his hand ran up your stomach.
And another, even harder, one when he gently cupped your breast in his hand.
You were a shivering, stuttering mess underneath him and all you could focus on was the way his hands felt against your skin – warm and gentle, soft and yet demanding.
He moaned against your lips as he gently squeezed your breast in his hand, before he slowly moved it further up to your shoulder, then down your arm. And eventually, oh God, eventually he took your hand in his. He intertwined your fingers and pressed your hand down against the mattress with a gentleness that equaled a breath of air.
He ground his hips down against yours, a movement that made a flash of electricity shoot through your veins. He was so hard. Hard and ready to ruin you.
And God, you wanted him to.
“Are you nervous?” He breathed without even stopping to kiss you. You tried to pull your head back to speak, but he didn’t let you and that was enough to make you moan as well.
“Yes.” You whispered.
“Just relax.” He murmured softly. “Let me take care of you, my sweet, darling girl.”
He slowly withdrew from the kiss, which immediately left you craving more, but you had no time to think about it, because the next moment you felt him press gentle kisses all over your neck. Your head lolled to the side and you exhaled a soft sigh. You didn’t even stop shivering any more.
You wanted to pull him closer, you wanted to beg Please don’t stop, but your lips didn’t obey. Your nervousness was far more powerful than you initially thought.
As if on cue, he pulled his head back, looked down at you and whispered: “If I do something you don’t want, tell me, alright?”
You managed a weak nod, silently begging him to continue.
He put on a cocky smirk and went back to kissing your neck, ever so slowly making his way further down. Just when you thought he couldn’t do anything to make you feel better than that, you felt his lips brush along your bare breast and his tongue darted out and left a slow, lazy path over your hard nipple.
You had no idea you could make such sinful sounds.
“P-please.” You whimpered.
He grinned victoriously. “Please what, sweet girl? Please stop?”
“No!”
He laughed and shook his head. “Don’t worry, sweetness. Just lean back and let me do the rest. I’ll make you feel good, I promise.”
He resumed his actions and you fell back against the pillow, your eyes shut. Only then you realized how tightly you had your arms wrapped around him. One of your hands slowly wandered up and down his back again, while the other one tangled in his soft hair. You let out a soft sigh when he moved over to your other breast, doing the most wicked things with his mouth.
You were so breathless and constantly gasping for air, it left your mouth dry.
And then it got even harder to breathe.
He slowly kissed his path down your stomach, making you shiver and writhe in anticipation and agony.
“Oh God, what are you doing?” You whispered breathlessly. You wanted to call out his godforsaken name, but he didn’t have one. So instead you ran your hand through his hair again.
He hummed against your skin as he teasingly licked a slow path down your stomach.
“You’ll see, princess.” He whispered softly.
By the time he reached the edge of your panties, you were no more than a puddle. A helpless mess, desperate over everything he did.
Over him.
He took the material of your panties between his teeth and slowly tugged them down.
“Oh, God!”
You had a feeling like something inside of you was throbbing.
You had been wet before. Felt that nervous twitch, whenever the bad, wicked thoughts entered your mind.
But nothing ever came close to this.
When he slowly freed you of your underwear, you were sure you were about to faint, until-
Fucking hell.
He used his teeth the entire way and when he finally managed to pull them off, he bit down on them and you were sure you saw his tongue dart out. You lay there like a statue, your eyes wide and your cheeks flushed as you witnessed how he tasted the piece of lace that had just covered your soaking wet, most private part.
All you could do was stare, your mouth wide open, as you felt the dampness slowly turn into a pool of arousal.
He slowly pulled them out of his mouth and tossed them aside, his eyes fixed on your own eyes.
He hummed out a soft: “I knew you were delicious.”
You opened and closed your mouth several times, but all that came out was nothing.
He smirked again, but it wasn’t even close to mocking. It was more something like…
Satisfaction.
“Are you ready for me, princess?”
Another weak nod later, you felt him lean closer. The second his hot breath hit your core, you let out a needy, breathless whimper.
You had no idea what that felt like, but judging from the way simply his breath on you felt…
“Keep looking at me.” He whispered. “I want to see your eyes, when I taste you.”
And then you finally felt it. His mouth enveloped you in a way you had only ever seen in videos and you reaction came the same instant.
You tried to keep your eyes open, but they fell shut as if on cue.
And the moment you felt his tongue against you, you were done for.
He began to slowly move it, circle your clit and gently suck on the sensitive skin.
Any semblance of composure left your body and you moaned. And moaned. And moaned.
“Oh…Oh God.” You breathed out, instinctively tightening your hand in his hair.
He let out a soft moan when you did and the sound made you moan in response. The soft vibrations of his humming against your skin nearly made your eyes roll back. You wanted to look at him. But God, it was hard to even breathe.
You didn’t know how he did it. But he did things to you, things that made you feel a tightness in you, like it was all too much and also not even close to enough.
He kept running his tongue over your wet folds, again and again, going from gentle and slow to hard and quick. But the way he sucked on your skin was what made you tremble and ache from the inside.
You were close, you could tell. And you didn’t even need to imagine the most heinous things for it.
“Oh God, please, please, oh God, please!”
He didn’t make any attempts to tease you or stop. He grasped your thighs tightly and propped your legs over his shoulders, pulling you even closer. He hummed again and moved and moved and moved and-
“Oh God!”
You inhaled sharply, tensing up so painfully hard. And then you became still. The pleasure rolled over you in hot waves, as a warm, white light overshadowed everything else in your mind.
You never before came so hard in your entire life.
When you finally, slowly came back down from your high, you carefully lifted your head from the pillow, only to find him already staring up at you. He ever so slowly pulled his head back and looked up at you in awe.
And you stared down at him in fascination.
The devil took over your body, because you suddenly felt unable to wait any longer. You needed to feel him. You impatiently reached for him and pulled him back up, until you felt him pressed against you again.
His hardness achingly straining against his pants, pressed against your warm wetness.
“That was so…God, that was so…”
His lips curved up into a slow smile, but he seemed just as breathless.
Did he get even harder?
You let out a shuddery breath and crashed your lips against his again. He felt so warm on top of you, so safe, that you momentarily forgot that you were so scared of him at times.
You forgot that he kidnapped you and you forgot that he slowly broke your soul.
He also made you Hotteok and he made you cum, didn’t he?
Effortlessly.
You needed him. And you were going to die if you didn’t feel him soon.
“Are you still sure?” He breathed and leaned down to nip at your earlobe.
You nodded breathlessly and bit back another moan.
“I am.” You whispered softly.
And the next moment, you felt his hand slowly reach down. Heard his belt unbuckle and fall to the ground. The sound made something inside of you ache with even more impatience.
You used the small moment to look up at his face. His hair was a mess and his eyes were focused on your body, while he reached down and slowly pushed his pants down. When he felt you staring at him, he met your gaze and raised his brows.
“What?” He murmured.
You suddenly realized you had never seen him so…vulnerable before.
He was still confident, still in control. But something about the way he looked and spoke had softened to an extreme degree. It was like sex was something important to him.
Maybe he wouldn’t just fuck you once and then instantly get rid of your body.
Maybe he would actually keep you around.
And you couldn’t tell if that was good or bad.
You stared at him for a long moment, then you shook your head.
“Nothing.” You whispered. “I’m just…”
“Nervous?”
You nodded.
He hummed softly. Before you could look down to catch a glimpse of him in his bare form, he gently tipped up your chin and narrowed his eyes thoughtfully.
“We can still stop.”
“I don’t want to stop.” Your voice sounded more confident now. More like someone you didn’t know, but slowly grew to like.
He looked at you for a long moment, before he eventually released your chin. You slowly tilted your face down, your gaze following the sharp contour of his hard body.
He didn’t seem bothered at all by your staring. If anything, he seemed curious. Like he hadn’t been admired like that in long.
Your gaze stopped on his hardened length, thick and long enough to ravage you and throbbing. He was obviously more than eager, but he held himself back without flinching. You were almost disbelieving of such calmness.
You licked your lips as your gaze slowly glided back up to meet his eyes. The look in them hadn’t changed. Determined and ready. But still soft.
You knew at some point he would snap back into that other persona, into the cruel and scary man that he so often was.
But all you saw now was this softness.
And that was all you cared about.
It looked like he was about to ask again, to make sure again, but the look in your eyes stopped him.
You were nervous. And trembling. And even a tad bit scared.
But you were no less determined than he was.
He slowly pressed himself closer, slowly rubbing himself against you. A soft whimper came over your lips and he seemed to have to hold himself back from making any sounds.
He reached up his free hand and gently cupped your cheek. And then he slowly pressed forward.
Carefully. Gently. Inch by inch.
His eyes stayed focused on yours the entire time, checking your reaction.
The moment you felt him press against you, press inside you, you exhaled a small breath.
It was…
Painful. Mostly painful.
You bit your lip to suppress the hiss of pain which still found its way past your mouth. He hesitated to move forward, but eventually continued.
“Does it hurt a lot?” He whispered.
It was more of a pressure, feeling as tight as a coiled spring, ready to snap.
“Yes.” You whispered. “But I don’t want you to stop.”
He clenched his jaw and slowly pushed forward. It was like he was two people at once. One wanted to be careful and gentle and not hurt you, while the other one seemed all too eager to thrust forward and ravage you like a beast in heat.
But he held himself back.
You were sure it was just for tonight.
But he did it. For you.
And you needed him even more, because of that.
A sharp pain shot through your body and you released a soft sound, a mixture of a moan and a sob. But a few seconds later the pain finally dissolved. And then you felt something else.
“God, you’re so tight.”
He slowly began to move again, going slow and careful at first. You felt more and more of him, until you finally felt all of him.
Your nails dug into the skin of his back and you inhaled sharply when he thrust into you harder than before.
Something was off, you could tell. He clenched his jaw tightly and stared down at you with furrowed brows.
And suddenly it hit you.
He was holding himself back for your sake, you knew that.
But you had no idea how hard it was for him to hold himself back.
He had promised you a sweet, gentle, loving first time and that was what he wanted to give you. But what you saw behind his eyes was something akin to pain. He wanted to go harder. He was desperate to.
He was obviously desperate to do many things.
“You can go harder.” You whispered, almost reassuringly.
He shook his head.
“It’s alright.” You whispered again. “The pain passed.”
“That’s not the problem.” He whispered as he rolled his hips against you deliciously, forcing a moan over your lips.
“Then what is?” You breathed out.
“If I go harder now, then I can’t stop. I won’t.” He whispered and gently cupped your cheek in his hand again.
Almost involuntarily, you closed your eyes and leaned into his touch, before you met his gaze again. Now you were filled with even more determination.
“Yes, you can.” You whispered, sounding almost firm. “Go harder. Just a little.”
He seemed unsure, but eventually he did. He moved harder against you, more urgently, but not quite rough yet. Still, his eyes fell shut and a moan fell from his lips.
A particular hard thrust as well as his reaction caused you to moan in return and close your eyes as well.
His head fell forward and he buried his face in his your neck. His harsh breaths made you shiver and sigh.
“I made a promise to you. And I’ll keep it.”
That made you gently tangle your hand in his hair again and pull back, just enough to look at him.
There was something in your eyes that made him pause.
“What?” He murmured breathlessly.
You looked up at him with wide eyes and whispered: “I want you to fuck me.”
His brows furrowed. “I am-“
“No.” You breathed out. “I want you to fuck me the way you want.”
He stared down at you for a long moment.
“But I might hurt you.”
You bit your lip and shook your head, gently cupping his face in your palms.
“I said, fuck me.”
And immediately something in his expression changed. A part of the lunatic who had murdered a man came back. It was scary, really.
But you weren’t scared.
You were fascinated.
And oh, you were aroused.
He started moving harder against you, thrusting deeper into you and then he released a low growl.
“Are you giving me orders”, he breathed, “or are you begging me?”
You gasped for air when he thrust into you even harder. The ache between your legs got worse, the need deeper. And his pace more and more punishing.
“Begging.” You gasped out. “I’m begging you.”
“Then beg me.” He hissed. As if to emphasize his point, he began to move even faster against you.
“Please.” You moaned out.
“Please what?”
“Please fuck me.” You whispered breathlessly. You felt your face flush so hard, it was almost painful, but for the first time in your life you didn’t care. You said the word, because you wanted to say it. And you let him fuck you, because you damn well wanted to.
And suddenly the spell was broken.
“Fuck. Oh God. Please. Fuck me.”
The harder he moved, the more intense that feeling inside of you became.
You never came before from the feeling inside of you, only ever by stimulating your clit.
This was new, it was intense, it was insane, it was-
“Who are you?” He hissed out in a voice that was near furious.
“Your girl.” You gasped out without hesitation. “I’m your girl.”
“Good girl.” He leaned his head down and gave you a long kiss, his tongue pressing into your mouth aggressively while he began to pound even harder into you.
Before you could protest (as if you would have) he pinned your wrists down against the mattress. You were completely at his mercy, you belonged to him and you were in love with him.
You were fucked.
“Who are you?” He bit down on your lip hard enough to draw blood.
You let out a pained moan and pressed your hips up against his.
He moaned into your mouth. “Good girl.”
Then he grabbed your thigh and yanked your leg over his waist, pressing himself even deeper into you. His movements were bordering on aggressive and your moans became louder and more and more breathless. Just like his own.
That was what had been missing back when he pressed into you so gently and carefully.
And you realized you never wanted to miss it again.
“Who are you?” He breathed out again.
“Your girl.” You gasped out.
He hummed and leaned down to bite down on your neck, only to soothe the bite with his tongue a moment later. “That’s right. My cumslut. My good girl. My whore. My princess.”
Each and every word that left his lips made you feel more and more wicked, more desperate to feel him deeper and harder, which you did.
He moved against you with a fervor that bordered on painful and you loved every second of it.
It was painful. But you suddenly realized what you never knew before.
There was a good kind of pain. It existed.
“Are you close, princess?” He breathed before he bit down on your earlobe, causing you to release a soft whine.
You tried to speak, but all that came out was moan, after moan, after moan. So you simply nodded.
He growled in response and pressed your wrists down even harder.
“I’m going to make a mess of you, princess.” He hissed. With a few quick, rough thrusts more, you felt your eyes roll back and your back arch off of the bed and against him.
If what you felt earlier had been an orgasm, you needed a new word for this.
The feeling was so hard and intense, it was almost unpleasant by how fucking good it was.
You wanted to cry and scream out his name, but all you could do instead was dig your nails into his skin, hard enough to scratch down to his blood.
He growled again and started moving so furiously that you felt like you were being torn apart, until you finally felt him twitch and throb inside you. The sounds he made were good enough to almost make you cum again and you watched with half-lidded eyes as he rode out his release, giving a few deep thrusts into you and releasing deep inside you.
Your body was still twitching and writhing underneath him. He kept his eyes closed and rested his forehead against yours. When he tried to pull back, you wrapped your legs around his waist.
“Wait.” You whispered breathlessly. “Not yet. Just…Can we just stay like that? Just for a moment?”
He slowly opened his eyes and met your gaze and to your great surprise…They were still soft. Even more so than before.
“Of course.” He whispered and buried his face in your neck. He slowly lowered himself back down on you, just enough so he wouldn’t crush you.
You were both breathing heavily and your hands were warm and damp with sweat.
“Was that alright for a first time?” He suddenly whispered.
And you did something that you hadn’t done in a while and you had been sure you wouldn’t ever again.
You smiled.
“Yes.” You whispered. “It was perfect.”
He pulled his head back and raised a brow. “Not too rough?”
You shook your head.
He hummed as he observed your smile for a moment.
“I held myself back.” He murmured. “I can’t be gentle next time.”
You looked at him with a soft expression and nodded.
“I know. I remember your words.”
He reached out a hand and gently touched your cheek.
“You should know one thing, darling.” He suddenly whispered.
Your eyes widened and you listened intently. Still, a part of you expected a low, painful blow.
But you couldn’t tell if it ever came.
His words left you torn.
“I’ll never let you go."
___________________________________________
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If I forgot anyone, please let me know and I'll fix it!
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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 days ago
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Enshittification isn’t caused by venture capital
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Picks and Shovels is a new, standalone technothriller starring Marty Hench, my two-fisted, hard-fighting, tech-scam-busting forensic accountant. You can pre-order it on my latest Kickstarter, which features a brilliant audiobook read by Wil Wheaton.
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Many of us have left the big social media platforms; far more of us wish we could leave them; and even those of us who've escaped from Facebook/Insta and Twitter still spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to get the people we care about off of them, too.
It's lazy and easy to think that our friends who are stuck on legacy platforms run by Zuckerberg and Musk lack the self-discipline to wean themselves off of these services, or lack the perspective to understand why it's so urgent to get away from them, or that their "hacked dopamine loops" have addicted them to the zuckermusk algorithms. But if you actually listen to the people who've stayed behind, you'll learn that the main reason our friends stay on legacy platforms is that they care about the other people there more than they hate Zuck or Musk.
They rely on them because they're in a rare-disease support group; or they all coordinate their kids' little league carpools there; or that's where they stay in touch with family and friends they left behind when they emigrated; or they're customers or the audience for creative labor.
All those people might want to leave, too, but it's really hard to agree on where to go, when to go, and how to re-establish your groups when you get somewhere else. Economists call this the "collective action problem." This problem creates "switching costs" – a lot of stuff you'll have to live without if you switch from legacy platforms to new ones. The collective action problem is hard to solve and the switching costs are very high:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/29/how-to-leave-dying-social-media-platforms/
That's why people stay behind – not because they lack perspective, or self-discipline, or because their dopamine loops have been hacked by evil techbro sorcerers who used Big Data to fashion history's first functional mind-control ray. They are locked in by real, material things.
Big Tech critics who attribute users' moral failings or platforms' technical prowess to the legacy platforms' "stickiness" are their own worst enemies. These critics have correctly identified that legacy platforms are a serious problem, but have totally failed to understand the nature of that problem or how to fix it. Thankfully, more and more critics are coming to understand that lock-in is the root of the problem, and that anti-lock-in measures like interoperability can address it.
But there's another major gap in the mainstream critique of social media. Critics of zuckermuskian media claim those services are so terrible because they're for-profit entities, capitalist enterprises hitched to the logic of extraction and profit above all else. The problem with this claim is that it doesn't explain the changes to these services. After all, the reason so many of us got on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram is because they used to be a lot of fun. They were useful. They were even great at times.
When tech critics fail to ask why good services turn bad, that failure is just as severe as the failure to ask why people stay when the services rot.
Now, the guy who ran Facebook when it was a great way to form communities and make friends and find old friends is the same guy who who has turned Facebook into a hellscape. There's very good reason to believe that Mark Zuckerberg was always a creep, and he took investment capital very early on, long before he started fucking up the service. So what gives? Did Zuck get a brain parasite that turned him evil? Did his investors get more demanding in their clamor for dividends?
If that's what you think, you need to show your working. Again, by all accounts, Zuck was a monster from day one. Zuck's investors – both the VCs who backed him early and the gigantic institutional funds whose portfolios are stuffed with Meta stock today – are not patient sorts with a reputation for going easy on entrepreneurs who leave money on the table. They've demanded every nickel since the start.
What changed? What caused Zuck to enshittify his service? And, even more importantly for those of us who care about the people locked into Facebook's walled gardens: what stopped him from enshittifying his services in the "good old days?"
At its root, enshittification is a theory about constraints. Companies pursue profit at all costs, but while you may be tempted to focus on the "at all costs" part of that formulation, you musn't neglect the "profits" part. Companies don't pursue unprofitable actions at all costs – they only pursue the plans that they judge are likely to yield profits.
When companies face real competitors, then some enshittificatory gambits are unprofitable, because they'll drive your users to competing platforms. That's why Zuckerberg bought Instagram: he had been turning the screws on Facebook users, and when Instagram came along, millions of those users decided that they hated Zuck more than they loved their friends and so they swallowed the switching costs and defected to Instagram. In an ill-advised middle-of-the-night memo to his CFO, Zuck defended spending $1b on Instagram on the grounds that it would recapture those Facebook escapees:
https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/29/21345723/facebook-instagram-documents-emails-mark-zuckerberg-kevin-systrom-hearing
A company that neutralizes, buys or destroys its competitors can treat its users far worse – invade their privacy, cheap out on moderation and anti-spam, etc – without losing their business. That's why Zuck's motto is "it is better to buy than to compete":
https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/zuckerberg-its-better-to-buy-than-compete-is-facebook-a-monopoly-42243
Of course, as a leftist, I know better than to count on markets as a reliable source of corporate discipline. Even more important than market discipline is government discipline, in the form of regulation. If Zuckerberg feared fines for privacy violations, or moderation failures, or illegal anticompetitive mergers, or fraudulent advertising systems that rip off publishers and advertisers, or other forms of fraud (like the "pivot to video"), he would treat his users better. But Facebook's rise to power took place during the second half of the neoliberal era, when the last shreds of regulatory muscle that survived the Reagan revolution were being devoured by GW Bush and Obama (and then Trump).
As cartels and monopolies took over our economy, most government regulators were neutered and captured. Public agencies were stripped of their powers or put in harness to attack small companies, customers, and suppliers who got in the way of monopolists' rent-extraction. That meant that as Facebook grew, Zuckerberg had less and less to fear from government enforcers who might punish him for enshittification where the markets failed to do so.
But it's worse than that, because Zuckerberg and other tech monopolists figured out how to harness "IP" law to get the government to shut down third-party technology that might help users resist enshittification. IP law is why you can't make a privacy-protecting ad-blocker for an app (and why companies are so desperate to get you to use their apps rather than the open web, and why apps are so dismally enshittified). IP law is why you can't make an alternative client that blocks algorithmic recommendations. IP law is why you can't leave Facebook for a new service and run a scraper that imports your waiting Facebook messages into a different inbox. IP law is why you can't scrape Facebook to catalog the paid political disinformation the company allows on the platform:
https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/
IP law's growth has coincided with Facebook's ascendancy – the bigger Facebook got, the more tempting it was to interoperators who might want to plug new code into it to protect Facebook users, and the more powers Facebook had to block even the most modest improvements to its service. That meant that Facebook could enshittify even more, without worrying that it would drive users to take unilateral, permanent action that would deprive it of revenue, like blocking ads. Once ad-blocking is illegal (as it is on apps), there's no reason not to make ads as obnoxious as you want.
Of course, many Facebook employees cared about their users, and for most of the 21st century, those workers were a key asset for Facebook. Tech workers were in short supply until just a couple years ago, when the platforms started round after round of brutal layoffs – 260,000 in 2023, another 150,000+ in 2024. Facebook workers may be furious about Zuckerberg killing content moderation, but he's not worried about them quitting – not with a half-million skilled tech workers out there, hunting for jobs. Fuck 'em. Let 'em quit:
https://www.404media.co/its-total-chaos-internally-at-meta-right-now-employees-protest-zuckerbergs-anti-lgbtq-changes/
This is what changed: the collapse of market, government, and labor constraints, and IP law's criminalization of disenshittifying, interoperable add-ons. This is why Zuck, an eternal creep, is now letting his creep flag fly so proudly today. Not because he's a worse person, but because he understands that he can hurt his users and workers to benefit his shareholders without facing any consequences. Zuckerberg 2025 isn't the most evil Zuck, he's the most unconstrained Zuck.
Same goes for Twitter. I mean, obviously, there's been a change in management at Twitter – the guy who's enshittifying it today isn't the guy who enshittified it prior to last year. Musk is speedrunning the enshittification curve, and yet Twitter isn't collapsing. Why not? Because Musk is insulated from consequences for fucking up – he's got a huge cushion of wealth, he's got advertisers who are desperate to reach his users, he's got users who can't afford to leave the service, he's got IP law that he can use to block interoperators who might make it easier to migrate to a better service. He was always a greedy, sadistic asshole. Now he's an unconstrained greedy, sadistic asshole. Musk 2025 isn't a worse person than Musk 2020. He's just more free to act on his evil impulses than he was in years gone by.
These are the two factors that make services terrible: captive users, and no constraints. If your users can't leave, and if you face no consequences for making them miserable (not solely their departure to a competitor, but also fines, criminal charges, worker revolts, and guerrilla warfare with interoperators), then you have the means, motive and opportunity to turn your service into a giant pile of shit.
That's why we got Jack Welch and his acolytes when we did. There were always evil fuckers just like them hanging around, but they didn't get to run GM until Ronald Reagan took away the constraints that would have punished them for turning GE into a giant pile of shit. Every economy is forever a-crawl with parasites and monsters like these, but they don't get to burrow into the system and colonize it until policymakers create rips they can pass through.
In other words, the profit motive itself is not sufficient to cause enshittification – not even when a for-profit firm has to answer to VCs who would shut down the company or fire its leadership in the face of unsatisfactory returns. For-profit companies chase profit. The enshittifying changes to Facebook and Twitter are cruel, but the cruelty isn't the point: the point is profits. If the fines – or criminal charges – Facebook faced for invading our privacy exceeded the ad-targeting revenue it makes by doing so, it would stop spying on us. Facebook wouldn't like it. Zuck would hate it. But he'd do it, because he spies on us to make money, not because he's a voyeur.
To stop enshittification, it is not necessary to eliminate the profit motive – it is only necessary to make enshittification unprofitable.
This is not to defend capitalism. I'm not saying there's a "real capitalism" that's good, and a "crony capitalism" or "monopoly capitalism" that's bad. All flavors of capitalism harm working people and seek to shift wealth and power from the public and democratic institutions to private interests. But that doesn't change the fact that there are, indeed, different flavors of capitalism, and they have different winners and losers. Capitalists who want to sell apps on the App Store or reach customers through Facebook are technofeudalism's losers, while Apple, Facebook, Google, and other Big Tech companies are technofeudalism's great winners.
Smart leftism pays attention to these differences, because they represent the potential fault lines in capitalism's coalition. These people all call themselves capitalists, they all give money and support to political movements that seek to crush worker power and human rights – but when the platforms win, the platforms' business customers lose. They are irreconcilably on different sides of a capitalism-v-capitalism fight that is every bit as important to them as the capitalism-v-socialism fight.
I'm saying that it's good praxis to understand these divisions in capitalism, because then we can exploit those differences to make real, material gains for human thriving and worker rights. Lumping all for-profit businesses together as identical and irredeemable is bad tactics.
Legacy social media is at a turning point. Two new systems built on open standards have emerged as a credible threat to the zuckermuskian model: Mastodon (built on Activitypub) and Bluesky (built on Atproto). The former is far more mature, with a huge network of federated servers run by all different kinds of institutions, from hobbyists to corporations, and it's overseen by a nonprofit. The latter has far more users, and is a VC-backed corporate entity, and while it is hypothetically federatable, there are no Bluesky services apart from the main one that you can leave for if Bluesky starts to enshittify.
That means that Bluesky has a ton of captive users, and has the lack of constraint that characterizes the enshittified legacy platforms it has tempted tens of millions of users away from. This is not a good place to be in, because it means that if the current management choose to enshittify Bluesky, they can, and it will be profitable. It also means that the company's VCs understand that they could replace the current management and replace them with willing enshittifiers and make more money.
This is why Bluesky is in a dangerous place: not because it is backed by VCs, not because it is a for-profit entity, but because it has captive users and no constraints. It's a great party in a sealed building with no fire exits:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/14/fire-exits/#graceful-failure-modes
Last week, I endorsed a project called Free Our Feeds, whose goals include hacking some fire exits into Bluesky by force majeure – that is, independently standing up an alternative Bluesky server that people can retreat to if Bluesky management changes, or has a change of heart:
https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/14/contesting-popularity/#everybody-samba
For some Mastodon users, Free Our Feeds is dead on arrival – why bother trying to make a for-profit project safer for its users when Mastodon is a perfectly good nonprofit alternative? Why waste millions developing a standalone Bluesky server rather than spending that money improving things in the Fediverse.
I believe strongly in improving the Fediverse, and I believe in adding the long-overdue federation to Bluesky. That's because my goal isn't the success of the Fediverse – it's the defeat of enshtitification. My answer to "why spend money fixing Bluesky?" is "why leave 20 million people at risk of enshittification when we could not only make them safe, but also create the toolchain to allow many, many organizations to operate a whole federation of Bluesky servers?" If you care about a better internet – and not just the Fediverse – then you should share this goal, too.
Many of the Fediverse's servers are operated by for-profit entities, after all. One of the Fediverse's largest servers (Threads) is owned by Meta. Threads users who feel the bite of Zuckerberg's decision to encourage homophobic, xenophobic and transphobic hate speech will find it easy to escape from Threads: they can set up on any Fediverse server that is federated with Threads and they'll be able to maintain their connections with everyone who stays behind.
The existence of for-profit servers in the Fediverse does not ruin the Fediverse (though I wouldn't personally use one of them). The fact that multiple neo-Nazi groups run their own Mastodon servers does not ruin the Fediverse (though I certainly won't use their servers). Not even the fact that Donald Trump's Truth Social is a Mastodon server does anything to ruin the Fediverse (not using that one, either).
This is the strength of federated, federatable social media – it disciplines enshittifiers by lowering switching costs, and if enshittifiers persist, it makes it easy for users to escape unshitted, because they don't have to solve the collective action problem. Any user can go to any server at any time and stay in touch with everyone else.
Mastodon was born free: free code, with free federation as a priority. Bluesky was not: it was born within a for-profit public benefit corporation whose charter offers some defenses against enshittification, but lacks the most decisive one: the federation that would let users escape should escape become necessary.
The fact that Mastodon was born free is quite unusual in the annals of the fight for a free internet. Most of the internet was born proprietary and had freedom foisted upon it. Unix was born within Bell Labs, property of the convicted monopolist AT&T. The GNU/Linux project set it free.
SMB was born proprietary within corporate walls of Microsoft, another corporate monopolist. SAMBA set it free.
The Office file formats were also born proprietary within Microsoft's walled garden: they were set free by hacker-activists who fought through a thick bureaucratic morass and Microsoft fuckery (including literally refusing to allow chairs to be set for advocates for Open Document Format) to give us formats that underlie everything from LibreOffice to Google Docs, Office365 to your web browser.
There is nothing unusual, in other words, about hacking freedom into something that is proprietary or just insufficiently free. That's totally normal. It's how we got almost everything great about computers.
Mastodon's progenitors should be praised for ensuring their creation was born free – but the fact that Bluesky isn't free enough is no reason to turn our back on it. Our response to anything that locks in the people we care about must be to shatter those locks, not abandon the people bound by the locks because they didn't heed to our warnings.
Audre Lorde is far smarter than me, but when she wrote that "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house," she was wrong. There is no toolset better suited to conduct an orderly dismantling of a structure than the tools that built it. You can be sure it'll have all the right screwdriver bits, wrenches, hexkeys and sockets.
Bluesky is fine. It has features I significantly prefer to Mastodon's equivalent. Composable moderation is amazing, both a technical triumph and a triumph of human-centered design:
https://bsky.social/about/blog/4-13-2023-moderation
I hope Mastodon adopts those features. If someone starts a project to copy all of Bluesky's best features over to Mastodon, I'll put my name to the crowdfunding campaign in a second.
But Mastodon has one feature that Bluesky sorely lacks – the federation that imposes antienshittificatory discipline on companies and offers an enshittification fire-exit for users if the discipline fails. It's long past time that someone copied that feature over to Bluesky.
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Check out my Kickstarter to pre-order copies of my next novel, Picks and Shovels!
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/20/capitalist-unrealism/#praxis
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seraphicloves · 1 day ago
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𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐨𝐭 𝐦𝐲 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐬𝐤𝐢𝐩𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝟏𝟔𝐭𝐡 𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐮𝐞
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⊱✿⊰ summary: headcanons with overblot gang and a flirtatious s/o
⊱✿⊰ warnings: flirting, pick up lines, idia explodes /j, lwk cringe, gender neutral reader, reader could be yuu or anyone really, requested
⊱✿⊰ notes: fire request gang, hope this is to your standards :) (also i need more twst requests & friends. nobody seems to wanna be mutuals 😓 prolly my fault tho im ngl)
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riddle rosehearts:
❀ he is barely used to having romantic relations, so it is hard for him to process that you're so...vocally affectionate. he's used to zero affection, even with his own way of showing love to be reserved. so he can be surprised by your brazen behavior
❀ you turn his face red easily with a sultry tone and a well placed glance to his lips. somebody he cares about romantically, saying those sort of things? riddle is sure his face is on fire and his heart is pounding loud enough for rsa to hear
❀ everybody lwk makes fun of him for getting flustered so easily. even your cringy pick up lines make him act like you dropped a knee and proposed.
❀ he loves how flirtatious you are, even if it makes him totally shy. he admires it in a way, how you're so bold and confident. you're unafraid of your desires, something riddle wished he could relate to.
leona kingscholar
❀ he is also a flirt, but in like a lazy way yk? he doesn't put effort into flirtation, no pickup lines or properly romantic lines. he just gives you a sexy smirk, and says something sweet while being totally casual
❀ its hard to fluster him, at least outwardly. the most you'll get out is a slight flush and a laugh if you say something especially flirty. however internally, he is totally freaking out and like so happy.
❀ if you say a dumb pickup line, he will call it dumb. and without any sort of shame or feeling bad. he calls it like it is.
"are you my homework? because i am gonna do you on the table all night long."
he gives you the -_- and says, "where did you see that line? how to make your boyfriend cringe?"
❀ he is also incredibly territorial so he will get jealous if you flirt with someone else, even if unintentionally. he will wrap an arm around your waist, pulling you flush aganist him. making sure everybody knows who gets you in their bed every night.
azul ashengrotto
❀ he is also part of the flustered gang, since he is typically very professional behaving. he is almost incapable of saying something flirty, despite how usually charismatic he might seem.
❀ i feel like he would try to flirt back, thinking like its your way of showing love so he wants to do it as well. he'd search up pick up lines and try them out on you:
"are you my library card? because im always checking you out." (yes it is as cringy as it seems.)
❀ he might get a little jealous if you start flirting (unintentionally) with someone else, mostly because he has rather terrible self esteem. azul is insecure in himself, often wondering if you would be better with somebody else. so be sure to reassure him!
❀ he might also use your flirty nature for his business pursuits. get you to flirt with some customers,especially with your beauty, and he is sure to get some more profit. also he might feel a little jealous, he knows you are helping with the monstro lounge so its okay!
jamil viper
❀ i feel like he could also be very flirtatious if he was feeling up for it. jamil can be silver tongued, but its really only when he isn't too exhausted from kalim's ridiculous behavior. so yeah, he could give you a run for your money if he wanted to.
❀ he's probably not going to get jealous, mainly because he knows who you go to at the end of the day. if you are his s/o, he has enough faith that you would not leave him on a whim so mild flirting doesn't bother him.
❀ jamil mostly flirts through words of praise. he is very full of praise and compliments, which normally would sound like total bullshit but he makes it sound sincere enough your toes curl. he also just has a lovely voice, deep and sultry with that slight curl that makes your heart race. he would be perfect for reading audio books.
❀ he gets amused by your flirty behavior, with your affection and words. he especially loves hearing you compliment him, filling him with a delicious sense of pride. jamil has an ego, which he loves to get bigger because of you
vil schoenheit
❀ he is going to be a master flirt. he knows how to make somebody blush with a few calculated moves. he's an actor and he's very smart, of course he knows how to flirt. he probably flirts more than you, it might be so ingrained in him that he flirts unintentionally.
❀ he doesn't get jealous simply because he also acts similarly. he understands it is a part of your personality and you wouldn't be unfaithful with him. he sort of sees it as the public's you, and he gets to have the real you. even if flirting is still in your nature, he gets to see past the polite smiles and small talk.
❀ he might even give you tips on how to better seduce the people around you. he doesn't mean to be critical, he just wants you to be the very best version of yourself. so he (very gently) shows you ways to be more sultry and romantic, to make everybody weak in the knees. if he was particularly bored, he might even silently rate your performance.
❀ he is probably the best person to be more flirtatious around. he is able to let your personality shine free without any sort of complications.
idia shroud
❀ if vil is the best, idia might be the worst. when he gets flustered, he closes in and runs away. so you probably have to chase him down whenever you say something particularly swoonworthy.
"stop! i'm overloading, i need a break to cool down!"
"all i did was hug your arm and kiss you!"
❀ he might also call your flirting "cringe" even if its not. like, he totally pretends like he thinks being all flirty and PDA is so not cool (but inside he squeals like a little girl). idia can't help it, he's programmed to reject things that make him nervous!
❀ okay i think after a while of dating him, and he gets more comfortable around you (and more comfortable being flustered around you) he might try out a line or two. but instead of something random like azul, he makes them focused to your interests. like whatever fandoms you are in, he finds (or makes) pick up lines related to it.
❀ i think idia would play more otome games just to practice flirting so he can try to get on the same level as you. he wants to be as confident and collected as you, so what better way than to practice digitally? he doesn't hide the fact he is playing otome games, he just might hide the fact its so he can learn to make you blush.
malleus draconia
❀ he rarely even picks up on your flirty behavior. like he knows how it makes him feel but he assumes that is how everybody behaves when you say stuff. his heart racing? oh yeah thats the usual sort of thing when [name] is around. he doesn't fully understand the whole intention behind it.
❀ yeah...i'm gonna say you might need to rein in flirting with other people. malleus will either get mad jealous or he will get sad, thinking you are trying to be unfaithful. so reassure him and try to keep those bedroom eyes away from anybody but your man.
❀ he is also flirty in the sense of how wholeheartedly romantic he is. bro puts his whole malleussy into loving you. he follows you around like a lost puppy, eyes constantly shining with pure adoration. you consume him entirely and he is unafraid of letting the world know.
❀ malleus has probably said some crazily romantic things without even realizing it wasn't the norm. he has said he will marry you, he has compared your beauty to the moon shining over the ocean. he becomes a poet when it comes to loving you.
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lori © 2024. please don't copy, modify, or do anything weird with my writing! i like reblogs and comments but please be kind as this was my writing.
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p1ctur3 · 2 days ago
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Potential reason why dark is so evil: Dark's sense of right and wrong is completely messed up by being friends with chosen.
Dark's code dictates that dark needs to destroy chosen but by being chosen's friend, he is defying his very reason of existence, the most wrong thing a killing machine like him could do. Dark is created as a killing machine first, character second, his sole purpose is to oppose and get rid of chosen, the most incorrect choice he could ever pick is to side with chosen yet he does, it is just as weird as a toaster turning your bread cold and soggy. This probably had made dark feel like he had done something terribly wrong during his entire friendship with chosen, and in a way, he did do the worst thing he could, defy his only line of code in the most extreme way, not only does he not do as his code says, his friendship with chosen is a direct rebellion against his very code, his main purpose. How is the wrongness of terrorizing the internet to compare to the wrongness of betraying the very essence of your existence? How is the morality of your actions supposed to rub you the wrong way when most of your existence is considered wrong by your very code?
To take it a step further, dark probably even enjoys doing the wrong thing, an act of rebellion. If rebellion brought you the most important relationship you ever had, would you want to follow the rules? If doing the wrong thing brought you companionship that you could have never imagined, would you even want to do the right thing? By being friends with chosen, dark had grown to love rebellion and doing the wrong thing because they had proven to be the better choice, and it doesn't help that chosen did follow through with the terrorism earlier on which only cemented the idea in dark that being evil is the better choice.
On another note, dark is probably the most robotic of all the Hollowheads and has the least amount of freedom from noogai, he is not only named which dictates his fate, he also has a mission assigned to him, his reason for existing extremely clear without much room for interpretation. To put into perspective what he had done, it's like a robot to act out of its code, to do the direct opposite of what it was coded to do, it is simply wrong, yet that was what happened. In a sense, chosen did break dark before dark got to destroy chosen, getting dark to betray his own code and work together.
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katerinaaqu · 2 hours ago
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Gosh thank you so much! 💓
He absolutely is and love him or hate him he deserves much more credit in my opinion than just talking about his sex life all the time because boy oh boy this guy has so much going on in his head that the more I analyze him the more I delve into this complex psychology of, in the end of the day, young man who died away from home, buried away from home for a war that was not his to fight and for the sakes of honor that is imposed upon him
Sure he did many things. He performed many atrocities sure. But just like a kid that is a bully at school one can look at his life and realize he was from abusive household. Does that cancel the bad action of bulling? Hell no but one can still sympathize with one's situation and I think Achilles is a good example of that. And yes it is interesting if you look at it spherical right? We see a man that drags a corpse from his chariot. Terrible disrespectful and undoubtedly criminal. Do we see it from the option of madness of a person who was taken down by grief when THE ONLY PERSON he relied on completely is gone? Immediately we have a new horizon without canceling the act!
Oh he absolutely was and that is another thing. For this honor of his he was ready to do anything and yet the way he was introduced to war was brutal for anyone. He was ready to fight a war yes and yet we have so many cases that were so brutal like the case of Iphigenia and human sacrifice and of course the intrigues and such so Achilles was only slipping more and more!
So true "blood stained his fair hands" is so true and ironically that was the case with Neoptolemus too if we think on how Sophocles portrays him as young man and all and even Odysseus in Homer says how capable Neoptolemus was and all so yes indeed although I should say the only thing he ended up caring too little was his own life. For all others he just cares too much. He might have appeared uncaring for Greeks for a little while but it was also because he cared too much for his own honor for that and man then he was definitely blaming himself deep down!
Oh for sure one could speak on that for Neoptolemus. Although his problem was the absence of father rather than overprotective one (although I do think Achilles would do the opposite of his parents and same at the same time. He would think and care too much but he would strategically stop himself from holding his son as far as he can throw him) but for sure the essence of expectations definitely circled Neoptolemus who felt he had to be greater than his father and fill his big shoes and all so for sure we can talk on this concept in here and even if Neoptolemus had a longer chance in life but man he surely too died young and from consequences of his own actions as well and that was also an interesting piece of information for it. And the way he found his end over an altar as some sort of poetic justice
Absolutely I have no doubt Achilles cared deeply thus asking on his family on Odysseus if he had any information on them from his trips but yes his absence to war undoubtedly has marked Neoptolemus.
Achilles being who he is could be a subject of his upbringing (and how CONTEMPORARY his case seems if one thinks of it!) - an Analysis
Soooo I got an amazing ask today here and got inspired for some random thoughts here!
Has anyone noticed that Achilles's complicated psychology might as well be a result of his upbringing and how incredibly MODERN his case can be? Think about it;
He was prophesied he would die early. His family of course was concerned about it (how similar it is to children born with terminal illnesses nowadays indeed!)
His mother was already worried given how she was immortal and she was already worried her son was mortal much more when she found out he would be short-lived
His father cared enough to fight his goddess wife but also to send him to Chiron, the man who was known to train the best heroes in hope that his son would get the best education but also be prepared for every terrible situation in his life
His mother dressed him up as a woman and hid him among women so that he would live
His father promised his hair to a river god in hope that he would escape his ill fate (how similar to parents who want their child to go for treatment abroad even if they know it is hopeless!)
One can say Achilles is a child ill-fated, already people overly-indulge him because of his natural talents but also his ill fate. He got his life settled for him one way or another. Built skills as spherical as possible (arguably even for his mother's charade he learnt some female roles as well!), he had the best education as a golden child (from the art of war till music and all) and exceeded in all but also he had his family always worried of him. He even had a companion by his side at all occasions to make sure nothing would happen to him. Arguably his withdrawal to Chiron in nature also shielded Achilles to remain pure from the intrigues of palaces, from actual talks of violence and war WHILE being prepared for war just in case he would need to use it!
But also if one thinks of it...
Achilles was a child of divorced parents. Thetis abandoned the already bad for her marriage with Peleus. Peleus who attacked her with accusations that she would hurt her own child, for example in Argonautica, when he saw her hold the child over the flames to make him immortal. His family loved him;
And yet his parents abandoned him one way or another in his young mind!
His mother abandoned him in Phthia when she divorced his father
His father abandoned him to Chiron to get education
Abandonment pattern became apparent in Achilles's life! Both his parents loved him he knew that very well. Both parents wanted to protect him almost to a suffocating degree. They shielded him from violence and all that could potentially bring violence such as intrigues and plans but they also prepared him for the worst all his life while his father was telling him to always aim for being noble.
Achilles learnt by them to care and love to almost an unhealthy degree. He could see people who loved him abandoned him! He was trying his best to be the golden child, the honorable one. The one who would bring pride to his noble father and his goddess mother and his god ancestors. And yet he felt people who loved him unconditionally abandoned him! No wonder he clang to Patroclus. He was the only person that would stick around; he was following him. He was his family, his friend, his companion, his squire and his everything basically. His love for him was unconditional. Achilles also probably expected that Patroclus would never abandon him; he would die after him!
Achilles was introduced to violence way too soon, way too quickly and way too definitive!
He was sent to conflict very quickly
He saw first hand how blasphemy affects humans
He witnessed a human sacrifice (or the attempt of it depending on the source)
He saw intrigue arguably for the first time in his shielded life
He caused a lot of slaughter at a bloody war that wasn't even his business
He had his honor, the one he was fighting SO HARD to maintain for it would be the only thing left of him
And finally he lost that ONE PERSON he was sure he wouldn't leave him all alone! And he lost him because of HIS DECISION to send him in his place!
No wonder how he broke down eventually. His mind which was already at a limbo state because of the expectations he felt he was carrying on his shoulders in combination to the overly protective love he received from his parents. He simply collapsed!
He committed all the atrocities one could expect a person pure as him wouldn't commit;
He wished other people harm even if he had a personal grudge against one person
He refused the heroic ideal in order to go home
He fell into an absolute emotional collapse when he lost Patroclus clasping a dead body for DAYS (miasma) and wouldn't allow anyone to bury him (technically disrespect for the dead)
He went to blind rage and killed many for the name of his lost companion
Utterly disrespected the dead by dragging Hector's body around with the aim of absolutely destroying them
Barrage of human sacrifices before or even after his death
Possibly attempt of rape of Troilus and his killing over an altar
Achilles seems to have completely broken down to every single thing his family wanted to prevent him from! It was as if all the sins he was taught to avert were introduced to him all at once and that was catastrophic for his mind and eventually Patroclus's death was the final stroke for his already fragile psychology! I feel like these ancient writers knew what psychology was before psychology was a thing because man! One can get mind-blown every single time!
Next time someone says that these ancient poems are "out of date" or that they are "not connected to our reality" please think of stuff like this! I mean how can one get more contemporary than that!?
My other analysis on Achilles: Achilles and Patroclus relationship "Devil's advocate" reasons (under a post by @justvea18) On Achilles being on the edge On silence and Achilles's expression of emotion (inspired by @deadbaguette)
To gather some more Achilles potential squad: @hermesmoly , @h0bg0blin-meat , @deadbaguette , @greeknerdsstuff , @smokey07 , @wolfythewitch , @achillesisnotcomingdown , @emmikay , @superkooku , @captnbunnie , @ri-dumb-fck , @hymnoeides , @cynicalclairvoyantcadaver , @venomspecs , @roachcicle , @mt-isnothere12 , @mythology-lover , @mythology-loving-lee , @kindred-spirit-93 , @dionysism , @margaretkart
If I forget someone forgive me please join us!!!! Also please join the profile of my friend @yararts for other type of amazing stuff!
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utilitycaster · 3 days ago
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Here’s my C3 hot take: I think Matt just messed up. I think att just didn’t do a good job DMing this one, and I’m sad but I don’t think the players could have solved the problems entirely on their own. The lack of a session zero makes no sense, but more to the point I think Matt just has to much Catholic Trauma tm to have told this story. His blind spot to religion v. Personal worship in his world building is to big to stick this one. His excitement about the culmination of these narratives after 9 years made him play story beats to close to his chest looking to surprise and shock his players, and also, because he was so tied to it, he didn’t pivot, or change the story to guide the players through. The pacing, especially at the beginning feels like he was entirely to excited to get to the clever plot.
Honestly… and this makes me sad, a lot of the issues feel like he sort of started believing his own mythology. I am so happy for him to be self confident but this all feels like a story guided by someone who thinks their terribly clever and so don’t have to rely on the same level of hard work, collaboration, prep, planning etc. of previous works (and also wanted to be novel, I just think of their original campaign announcement where they said “anything might happen” and sigh a little).
My bit of hope? That’s a really easy thing to come back from! I hope they reflect and improve going forward!
p.s. this isn’t to say the others couldn’t have made things BETTER, they could have, for sure.
Hi anon,
I disagree with most of this. Most crucially, this is not the form of campaign I think would come of Catholic religious trauma. Matt's mentioned he was raised nominally Catholic but he's also mentioned his parents were artists, hippies, and D&D players, and he seems to be on pretty good terms with them. I think this is a vast overstep on your part that came from basically nowhere, especially since the logical outcome of a Catholic Trauma campaign would in fact be one that actually did portray Vasselheim as a vast controlling force within the world regulating the worship of the gods across it. A pretty massive hole in the worldbuilding, at least as this campaign demands we see it, is that we really haven't seen religion as an oppressive force except in one highly specific case, and even that was spearheaded by mortals and not the gods and is indistinguishable from a purely political land grab. Like, the blind spot you mention is actually a sign that he was not raised particularly religious; someone who was raised strictly Catholic would be extremely aware of religion as a highly organized hierarchy with clear rules and a vast worldwide network and not "a few missionaries who didn't kill anyone or even forcibly convert anyone, Vasselheim seen as a good meeting spot for a worldwide conference, and Ludinus's grievances are all highly personal." Like, the Catholic Trauma version of Exandria has Vasselheim at war with the Empire for their banning of half of the prime deities, or going full Inquisition/Crusade on Hearthdell.
I want to be clear: when I accuse fans of projecting religious trauma it's because they outright have said shit like "I always like when a narrative kills the gods bc I'm a white southerner who was raised Christian". I do not say it just because they are affiliated with a specific religious denomination.
I also don't think the issue is so much believing his own mythology as much as the one major correct thing you said, which is the lack of not just a session zero but a heavy hand in character development, coupled with a very specific plot he wanted for this campaign. Campaign 1 worked because he tailored a campaign heavily to the interests and stories of the characters, and built a world around them. Campaign 2 similarly allowed for that same give-and-take; characters like Trent and Uk'otoa and Marion and the Gentleman came from the backstories the players came up with. Some of the players' ideas were changed as part of that heavier hand in character creation. The guidance for that campaign (morally gray and complex) was actually accurate, and when the characters took a sharp turn away from the planned story, Matt was able to pivot quite gracefully.
The problem really is that it's clear Matt had a very developed vision of this campaign and didn't realize that the characters of Bells Hells largely failed to fit within it. I don't think hard work wasn't done (I think there was in fact a TON of prep that we haven't seen, eg, I 100% believe Matt has an extensive amount of work done on Otohan, Ozo Cruth, Marquet, the Apex War, etc that Bells Hells simply did not see); I think, in fact, that like three hours of work that probably would have resulted in scrapping or drastically changing the characters to fit the intended story would have fixed the vast majority of problems here. It is only, frankly, because the characters are such a bad fit that the issues we're talking about (little establishment of organized religion vs. personal practice) even became issues! But it's literally that - it's not realizing that even a longform campaign can live or die on character creation. It might even be that too much prep was done ahead of time and he was too unwilling to abandon it.
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yuurei20 · 4 hours ago
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Translation from Twisted Wonderland the 2nd novel: Overblot Aftermath
"'I see… understood.'
It is difficult to gauge the masked headmage’s expression, but it is Leona whose thoughts are somehow even more unreadable. There is neither anger nor regret. It is as though he had been possessed by a spirit, and it has since been exorcised.
‘Therefore, Savanaclaw Dorm’s is participation in the tournament is hereby forfeit, and you will be considered disqualified. Additional consequences are to be decided after all victims’ statements and requests have been taken into account. Is that clear?'
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Riddle and Jack watch, in silence, as Leona nods his agreement. Even Ruggie bites his lip in resignation.
The atmosphere is heavy, despite how the string of so many incidents has now come to a close. For all that he despises conflict and for all that it has finally been resolved, Yuuya takes no pleasure in the moment.
So much harm has been done. The injured people, the uproar of the procession, Leona’s overblot—he cannot help but wonder if it all could have been prevented. He and Grim were the first ones to hear about the situation from the headmage. Perhaps there was more they could have done.
Out of everything, the thing that concerns Yuuya the most is Jack. While it did turn into a confrontation with his own dorm, for more than a few reasons he seemed to have been looking forward to the spelldrive tournament more than anyone.
Yuuya remembers how Jack’s eyes had sparkled while he described Leona’s prowess on the field. The tournament will proceed properly, just as he had hoped. But Yuuya feels terrible that Jack himself is not to be a part of it, despite all his anguish and hard work.
Yuuya glances to his side to see Jack wearing a stern expression. It is unlikely that he would be open to receiving sympathy. Knowing this, Yuuya cannot bring himself to speak.
‘Now then, let us head to the infirmary.’
While the headmage attempts to aid him, Leona shakes him off. Several times he fails to rise to his feet, bracing himself with both hands upon the ground—it is an unbearable sight.
Unable to watch any longer Jack opens his mouth, but before he manages to speak there is a different voice, from far away.
‘Everybody hold up!’
‘Hm? Ain’t that Cater?’ Grim squints into the clear blue sky.
Cater is on a broom, and headed straight for them. Behind him there are others coming into sight as well, with Trey in the lead. The shadowy figures grow larger as they approach.
And it seems that Trey has yet to fully recover from his injury: he takes Cater’s hand and gingerly dismounts from his broom, wincing slightly. His ankle must still be paining him."
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starberry-cupcake · 7 hours ago
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hello!! I'm back!!! *sitcom studio cheer sound*
previously, in nona del 9:
this happened
this is the general tag for all the recaps
last recap I said Something was happening and it has!! we have a puppy now!!! her name is Dana (after Scully)!! this is her!!!
DAY TWO (one of the things mentioned is that honesty's job goes terribly wrong and I feel so bad because I forgot to point it out in my recap, even if it was something that looked sus af to begin with and I was concerned when I read about it)
CHAPTER 7 (second house skull, after pyrrha probably)
nona wakes up abruptly
someone told me in the last recaps that the bible chapters are when nona is sleeping, which I hadn't put together at all and I don't know if I should have or if I missed something important
in any case, nona starts telling camilla what she dreamt, which is not what was in the bible chapter, so idk what's going on with that
maybe the bible thing is what harrow is seeing and the dreams are what an amnesiac gideon is seeing????
we don't know yet
she's describing being with the "other person" who is touching her hands but they're not hers
"I'm touching my own hands but they aren't mine"
which is another one on the tally for the "this is gideon in harrow's body" theory
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they're surrounded by red eyes in the darkness and she's very hungry
and they're holding hands
that's the dream
she was startled awake because camilla threw a sponge at her
nona freaked the hell out about that
remember when harrow was woken up by og!gideon trying to murder her in cold blood every morning? those were simpler times
also, nona is about to put on the tshirt from the cover which took me 25 years and @lady-harrowhark pointing it out to notice it was a burger
camilla asks her about the hands and nona says she didn't like them
and that she doesn't like having hands????
she's a bit infuriating sometimes ngl
I don't know what to do with this information
pyrrha talks about people becoming violent because shit is getting real
and she prepares some mush for them to eat at breakfast
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she's also worried about camilla's soul (and life) due to whatever it is they're doing on the sites
palmolive, I swear to whatever god of your choosing
(that isn't dr reverend emperor john asshat)
if something happens to camilla on your watch
I'm gonna chase your nerdy ass all the way to your river loft and back
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when they start talking about nona wanting a "six months alive" gift, pyrrha tells camilla how depressing and non-gift-giving the ninth house is
which she visited when anastasia got settled
nice to know things in the ninth never ever changed
they did have a gift, though
the gift of ortus's poetry
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nona wants differently colored hair ties, to not push too far into pyrrha's limited budget
we'll see if we make it to the birthday, there's a countdown going on
when nona gets to school, honesty has a punch in the eye and she has to help him with it until teacher angel comes in
teacher angel is still looking very sus, with clothes in disarray and also the same ones from the previous day
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hot sauce also comes in afterwards, which makes me think she might have been following teacher angel
she's on the case
hot sauce gets very upset asking honesty who punched him in the face
everyone's very upset and tense, except for kevin who's eating peacefully
we love kevin
so, honesty tells the story and starts from the worst place imaginable to explain something that happened with accuracy
which is the end
but that's fine, because the tension of the story is in the middle, so we get the narrative effect
we appreciate that
he's got a podcast in another life
honesty was about to go to the tunnel job but, turns out, it wasn't a tunnel job
it was actually a mad max job
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and they get cocky and do more than they were planning to, which is never a good idea
so, by the third attempt, the guy who's been doing the dropping-in maneuver gets very spooked by what he finds in there
which is a lot of people with white eyes who look directly at him when he shows up
which prompts militia trucks to pull them over
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so honesty runs the fuck out of there and gets smashed into a pole
depiction of honesty, ruby and born in the morning after the incident, had they been together:
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honesty gets saved and cared for by some homeless folk
after his face got smashed into the pole
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and he clarifies they were trying to steal from a convoy
which he would have said no to had he known the job before being taken to do it
he asks hot sauce to protect him
which hot sauce agrees to, but I think this is too much work for one hot sauce alone, especially if she's keeping an eye on everything else
nona offers her help, but is rejected, on account of being dumb
I wonder if nona will somewhat reveal her powers of healing protecting these kids at some point
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OH, ALSO
teacher angel sus person mentioned not being technically a doctor but getting a crash course in triage
which, continues to be sus behavior
is teacher angel helping with the fights? with war? with secret confrontations?
we'll have to wait and see!!
THAT'S IT FOR NOW!! I haven't had a lot of time to read and recap and I'm currently falling asleep as we speak, so sorry for such a short one this time!!! ♥
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ar-ghilas-vir-banal · 2 days ago
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I do apologize for this😅
These aren’t the words of a man who’s hoping to have an “I told you so” on the other side. He’s saying goodbye. He’s expecting to die. And when Solas thinks about death, he thinks about her. Because she’s who put life back into him in such a way that he is still unable to stop thinking of her.
But that also brings me to a question. This letter is sent and delivered before any of the DAV game takes place. Solas knows she doubts that he loves her, if he ever did. Of all the things he could’ve let her hate him about, let her keep unclear in her head. Kinder in the long run.
So my question: How does Solas know that she needs this? I have to think she said so in a dream. She talked to him. And while he didn’t talk back, he could hear her. “I feel so stupid, you know? I should be focusing on stopping you, on catching up to you… but all I can dwell on is “you weren’t enough to stop him.” How… little what “we had” meant to you. It was everything to me. It kept me sane, when they sang at me and tried to kiss my hand… knowing you were there. That I wasn’t… you understood. And you know what’s the worst part?! I still feel that way, while you stare at me across the Fade. You took my arm, and you kept my heart… and I can’t even be angry at you. Just… if I don’t mean enough to change, then why don’t you just… stop? With this? You’re torturing me and you’re… wasting your own time.”
Solas meanwhile jolts awake and immediately bursts into tears because SHE’S RIGHT. He’s so terrible, he’s terrible!! He adores her and yet he’s managed to make her feel so very worthless. Used.
When she’s his first thought when he wakes and his last one when he’s finally managed sleep? When the Lighthouse is crumbling because all he does is sit and think of her in this room or that room. This isn’t how you love people. He’s wrong. He’s ugly. She should be free of him… maybe soon she will be. But it’s so distressing to him to think of her assuming he never loved, he doesn’t love her still… he has to write.
At first, its pages and pages… but then he sits and stares at them and shakes his head. Into the fire they go. No. She deserves simply and straightforward, his honesty. He writes one page, says everything succinctly. I wanted to stay with you, as Solas. That’s important for her to know. What he wanted was just her. She very nearly broke him of his duty, and and ends it with “what I feel for you will never change.”
Present and future. You’re everything.
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Why do they do this to me 😭
"And simply stayed with you as Solas... as I wanted"
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in1-nutshell · 2 days ago
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And oh god the reveal.  Maybe Magneto finally got his dates and order and realized “oh shit, that's my kid”.  Maybe Ultra magnus sent a email which sent the entire us government into a panic because how the fuck did this escape notice.  What if when Magneto figured it out he tried to talk to them.  He calls them by their birth name, not the name the government gave them to protect them, or the name their robot family gave them, the name he gave them.  “I go by Fearless now, Eric” (man imagine getting disowned by your own kid).  As far as the X-men are concerned, their favorite telenovela just got better.  As for the lost light, oh boy get ready for headcanons.  Running on the idea that Cybertronians are an asexual species, their whole family units are created through adoption.  To create that bond with someone is a very important and almost sacred choice.  To abandon a child you chose to take in for a selfish reason is borderline unheard of.  Even with IDW Ophelia, Megs left her behind originally to protect her, shitty yes, but still an action born out of the desire to keep her safe, still lining up with the importance of these bonds to cybertronians.  Needless to say, the general opinion of magento went from “eh, whatever, we have megatron on board.” to “fuck this one guy in particular”
Once I get enough energy and patience, I will write a longer piece on this AU.
Hope you enjoy!
AU: Magneto is Fearless's Dad (part 2)
SFW, Angst, Familial, Platonic, Mention of X Men 97, Human reader
MTMTE/ XMEN 97
It had been a couple of days since Fearless’s failed assassination attempt and there were still no leads.
A couple of villains were called into question, even some government officials, but nothing solid.
But that wasn’t the most important thing.
The Fearless and Magneto beef was still raging on strong.
Finally at 1 in the morning, Magneto realizes why Fearless looked so familiar.
He had known their mother… they looked like…
Like the child he left behind all those years ago...
…Oh, this made too much sense it hurt.
The Brick of Parenthood had finally found its target.
He always thought that they would have led a normal life on Earth, not galivanting through space with giant alien robots, one which was a genocidal ex warlord.
Take it for his kid to do something strange and reckless.
Seeing the little kid he knew now all grown up sent a pang of guilt through his chest.
Then came a thought... arguably a terrible idea.
Talking to them.
There was without a doubt in Magneto’s mind that they knew who he was, it explained in the pained look they gave him at times.
He needed to talk to them, now.
Fearless was happily talking with Morph when he came, asking to talk to them in private.
They don’t like the look the older man is giving them.
It looked like pity and… pain?
They warily agree.
The pair makes their way into a room in the mansion. Fearless crosses their arms. Fearless: “So, what did you want to talk about?” Magneto: “… It has been a long time since we last saw each other, hasn’t it?” Fearless stiffened. Fearless: “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Magento: “I did not raise a liar.” Fearless’s eyes widened and unconsciously takes a step back. Magneto: “My little Lionheart… it has been a long time.” The name brought flashbacks of a little kid reaching out for a hug to their tall father. They shake their head. Fearless: “I go by Fearless, Eric. That is the name I go by now, the one MY Family gave me. I expect you to at least have the decency to respect that.” Magneto: “… Fine then… Fearless.” Fearless huffs as they tighten their arms around themselves. Fearless: “Was this what you wanted to talk about? Because if it is your wasting your time and mine.” They turn to open the door behind them, but the metal locks lock themselves. Fearless: “…Unlock the doors Magneto.” Magneto: “Not until we talk.” Fearless: “What is there to talk about?” Fearless tries opening the door with no luck. Magneto: “It has been years since I’ve last seen you child.” Fearless: “And who’s fault was that, Eric. Now if you can be so kind as to open the door—” Magneto: “You didn’t have the X gene Fearless. Your birth stood against so many things I stood against at the time. I had to leave you. You must understand that.” Fearless: “I don’t have to understand Jack Magneto! Now let me out!” Fearless tries furiously to open the doors now, only for some metal sheets to block the door. Fearless: “Eric! Open the doors now!” Magneto steps forward as Fearless tries prying the metal themselves. Magneto: “You are going to hurt yourself like that.” Fearless continues to trying to pry the metal with their bare hands. Magneto: “You have to understand that when I left you—” Fearless: “UNDERSTAND WHAT!? That I wasn’t the perfect baby you wanted! That I didn’t fit in your ideal world?! Save me the speech Eric I know! I’VE KNOWN THAT SINCE THE DAY I FOUND OUT WHO EXACTLY MY FATHER WAS!” Tears were streaming down their face, but they stood tall with their fist clenched. A heavy silence filled the room. Fearless: “If you have any ounce of any respect or basic decency… let me go.” Magneto wordlessly let the metal sheets fall to the ground. Fearless wastes no time in bursting out of the room. Magneto sighs sadly from inside the room. Meanwhile in the room next door. Logan and Morph were trying to watch a movie when they overheard the conversation through the wall. Logan and Morph: “…” Morph: “…That was unexpected.” Logan: “…You owe me a 12 pack and 20 buck’s bub.” Morph: “Oh C’mon!”
And apparently those two weren’t the only ones who overheard.
Jean had seen a distraught Fearless running outside and decided to gently look inside their mind to see what could have possibly upset them.
It did not take long there after for the rest of the X men to find out about the new family drama.
There was a lot of talk between the team about Fearless and Magneto, but they never guessed something like this.
So many questions yet to be answered!
The drama!
The Angst!
Some members are kind of glad a plot twist happened in their new telenovela, but at the same time are sympathetic to the whole ‘messed up family bloodlines thing’.
Fearless was walking around having calmed down. They spot Magneto exiting the room and walking to their direction. This was at the same time Kurt and Rouge just so happen to be walking by. The pair walked a bit faster to get to Fearless’s side. Kurt: “Fearlezz!” Fearless jumped at the sudden noise but calmed down seeing the blue mutant. Fearless: “Primus Kurt, don’t scare me like that.” Kurt: “Zorry!” Rouge gently placed a hand on their back, guiding them to another direction. Rouge: “There’s a cool thing the boys wanted ta show ya.” Fearless: “Now? I mean sure! Cool, cool, cool.”
The real question now about the bots.
Did THEY know about this?
Only one way to find out!
Morph is sitting by Whirl in his holoform. Morph: “Has Fearless every talked about their family, like before going to space?” Whirl: “Not really. They don’t talk too much on all the Earthy stuff.” He raises an eyebrow. Whirl: “Why you want some information on them?” Morph: “Well, its more like we’ve just gotten some new information on them.” Whirl: “Like what?” Morph: “… Logan won the bet.” Whirl: “Which ones Logan again? Wait is he the gruffy one with the claws that thinks I know some guy name Deadpool?” Morph: “That’s him.” Whirl: “Oh okay then. Wait what did he bet on again? Hang on a second.” Whirl pulls out a list of the bets and goes down before stopping at Logan’s bet. Whirl slowly looks at Morph. Morph: “Turns out Fearless’s dad is Magento.” Whirl: “… Excuse me but WHAT THE—” Magnus, in his holoform, comes in. Magnus: “Whirl! What have we talked about that language!” Whirl: “MAGNETO IS FEARLESS’S EARTH DAD!” Magnus: “WHAT!?” Morph: “I feel like I made a mistake…”
News about Magento being Fearless’s biological father spreads amongst the bots like wildfire.
They go to the X men about more details about this.
They would have asked Fearless… but these past few days the resident human looked ready to drop dead and sob on the spot.
The Lost Light crew is absolutely furious hearing the implication of Magneto Abandoning Fearless at a young age.
It is explained to the mutants about the significant values chosen family had amongst Cybertronian’s.
To abandon one’s sparkling/ youngling/ or mentee at such a tender age was simply unheard of.
The bots and X men hear some yelling from a far. It was Fearless yelling at Magneto to leave them alone. Megatron is the first to move. The Earth shakes as the Ex Warlord now looms over Fearless, casting a long shadow over Magneto. Fearless looks surprised to see the mech. Fearless: “Megatron? What are you doing here in bot mode? Did something happen with your holoform—EEP!” Megatron scoops Fearless up with one servo and holds them firmly to his chassis. He sported a harsh glare at the man on the ground. Megatron: “When my child says to leave them alone. You. Leave. Them. Alone.” Cue gasps from X men in the background. The twists keep getting better and better. Fearless is still very confused. Magneto: “Your child?” Rodimus: “That’s right! His kid. A member of our crew and family.” The other bots soon start lining behind or beside Megatron. Megatron: “Do not let me catch you disrespecting their space again.” With that the bots turn to go to their ship. Megatron looks down to see Fearless trying to stifle a sob. He gently rubs a digit up and down their back. They began to shake like a leaf and curled even smaller against his servo. Megatron: “There, there… I’ve got you… I’ve got you… Your safe now Fearless… Your safe…”
The bots and Fearless were going to need a day to process this before returning back to the big problems at hand.
Especially Fearless…
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ohnococo · 2 days ago
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Just A Moment | Sub!Gojo x Dom!Reader
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Good days, bad days, whatever it is, Satoru comes to you often. When he does he’s always a little cocky, challenging you, begging you with long lashes lowered and pouty pink lips to tame him, if you dare. You did dare, because it was what he wanted, and was what he needed. It was what you wanted too, because as mouthy as he could be, he was just as sweet when you finally wrangled him into submission.
When Satoru bypasses all of that and comes to you like this, though? You know he’s had a terrible, awful day. It almost makes you feel bad for him, when the very first thing he does after you’ve invited him inside is get on his knees in front of you, face rubbing against your leg as he whines pathetically. It tells you that tonight will be one of the rare occasions where he does intend to at least try to behave. It tells you he’s here because he needs you more than ever, not to break him, because something else already has, but to build him back up.
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❥ WC: 2.3k
❥ Warnings: Gender neutral reader, established relationship, master/pet, dom/sub, porn without plot, light degradation (floor licking), sex toy, fellatio on sex toy, whining, begging, throat fucking, hand job, cum shot, only gojo receiving
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“Satoru?”
He shakes his head, rubbing his nose against your thigh so firmly his mask slips out of place. When he tugs it down, letting it rest around his neck, it’s your last needed signal for what he’s asking for.
“Puppy?”
His face leaves the fabric of your pants now, as he tilts his head up to look at you with tired eyes, possibly the furthest you’d ever seen them from the alert and glinting glory you were accustomed to.
“What’s wrong?”
“I haven’t been very good.”
“Really?”
He closes his eyes, lower lip quivering, dipping his head to press to your thigh as his shoulders slump.
“Look at me when I’m speaking to you.”
The fact that he snaps to attention, eyes quick to meet yours in a bid for approval from even the smallest of actions, is the final indication you need that he really needs the work tonight just as you’d thought. It’s not often Satoru follows your orders so well from the moment he enters your home.
“Want to talk about it?”
He shakes his head.
“If I don’t know what you’ve done, the severity of your punishment is at my discretion. You know that.”
He nods again, still silent as he waits for you to speak. You allow him his privacy as you move on. You know there are parts of Satoru you don’t have access to, you accept that. You also know just how rarely he even brings mention of his outside life into your home. The punishments and rewards he receives are from behaviour within these walls alone, or behaviours in relation to tasks you’ve assigned him when in the privacy of his own home. If it’s punishment he’s requesting rather than revelling in earning it though…
You hook your fingers in Satoru’s mouth, pushing down until he’s forced to press his chin to the ground with his ass in the air.
“You come here, telling me you’ve been a bad boy, demanding I punish you like it’s just that easy?”
You pull your fingers from his mouth, sitting up and peering down at him, just in case he got his bite back enough to respond. He doesn’t move a muscle, and instead of words he just whines and arches his back.
“I still count those pathetic little noises as backtalk, you know.”
He whines again, seemingly involuntarily, before he’s pressing his face to the ground to muffle his apologies, snapping his head back to the side once he remembers his earlier instruction to look at you—the strain of such a task from this angle be damned.
“Take your clothes off.”
He does, right away, making light work of undressing despite the difficulty in doing so while keeping his cheek pressed firmly to the ground. It only leaves the floor for a moment, hovering inches away as he quickly pulls his top over his head, before it’s back down as he pushes his pants over his hips and wriggles them off. All that remains is his mask, hanging around his neck.
You’re pleased to find him hard already, pretty pink tip glistening with all of the precum gathering just to slowly drip down and onto your hardwood floors.
“Leaking on my floor like that? Really, Puppy?”
He whines out his apologies yet again, biting at his lip to keep from crossing the line he was so used to trampling over.
You sigh, squatting down next to him and running your hand up his back, pale skin already covered in goosebumps in anticipation of your touch. Once you reach his shoulders, then his neck, you grip at the back of his mask, twisting it once to tighten it enough to tug at firmly and force him to crawl backwards until he’s face to face with the small sticky droplet his cock had left behind.
“Lick it up.”
It’s something he does gladly, without hesitation, leaving you beaming with pride and thinking of praises you weren’t yet ready to give. Instead you stroke his back gently, fingertips tracing down his spine until he’s arching beautifully for you. He presses his cheek to the ground, precum now replaced with his saliva, and angles his hips so his ass is in the air, giving you a clear view of the pretty pink hole he so loves to have you claim. It’s sweet, and so very desperate with play having only just started, but it’s also far too presumptuous for tonight.
You twist the mask around his neck again, pulling it until he’s forced to sit back on his haunches. “You haven’t done nearly enough to be begging like that. For that, I don’t think I’ll be touching your ass at all tonight.”
“I wasn’t-“
You twist the mask once more, tightening it further around his neck and keeping his posture pin straight. “You were.”
He knows how to turn it on, eyes big and sad, lips pouting, even when the tight squeeze of his mask makes his cock jump every time you pull it a little harder. It’s a lot for him already, it always is when he’s like this, and his words have already left his mind, so instead he whines again.
You give Satoru a disappointed sigh, shaking your head, “Do I need to shut you up, Puppy? Give your mouth something to do instead of whine?”
His cheeks are stained a deep shade of pink as he looks up at you through thick lashes, knowing you’d degrade him the whole way through, but knowing he needs it nonetheless. He’s a sort of good boy in that way, always adapting to whatever you decide is best for him.
“Sit pretty for me, then.”
You release his mask and his response is immediate. Back straight, elbows tucked close to his sides, and hands settled gently on his thighs as he kneels. It presents his lithe torso perfectly as he opens his mouth and sticks out his tongue. He knows to stay where he’s been put as you leave the room, taking your time rifling through your box of toys—marked by a little SG on the corner.
You know which one you’re going for, you knew from the moment you saw how pretty and pink and chewed up his soft lips were. He had big worries, and you had something bigger. A shade as pretty as his lips, as his hole, as soft and flexible as his body. It’s cute in its own way, but also intimidatingly large. It’s what he needed though, and as you pull the dildo from its protective bag, you’re all too happy to provide.
By the time you’re walking back into the room, Satoru has made another mess. More precum glistens on the floor before him, and a small stream of drool falls from the underside of his tongue, over his lower lip, and down his chin. When he locks eyes on the toy of your choosing, his fingers twitch—betraying his excitement.
You raise the toy to his mouth, rubbing the head against his tongue, spreading his own spit over his lips, before withdrawing it to give your next order.
“Back.”
He leans his head back, sticking his tongue out further, and his cock twitches as you spit right into his mouth. It’s all the warning he’s given before you’ve got the pretty pink dildo sliding into his mouth, and he knows what you expect of him as he wraps his lips around it, sucking with his eyes locked on yours. You give him a nod, and a small curt ’mmhm’ prompting him to rise further on his knees, allowing him to take more of the silicone in his mouth, til it just taps at his throat, before he’s pulling back.
His fingertips press into his bare thighs as he moves up and down, taking the dildo deeper and deeper past his throat—putting on a pretty show for you as he makes his way to the base with each movement. His eyes watch you, lashes fluttering every time the thick head breaches his throat, and his brows twitch upward as he grows more and more desperate from just the small pleased hums you give him. With his cheeks red, and drool coating his chin, he lets out a whine before breathing deep before he leans up as far as he can and takes the toy all the way to the base.
To your amusement, he stays there for a moment, letting tears start to form in his eyes, before he nuzzles at your knuckles, firmly gripping the silicone cock buried in his throat. It makes you laugh, as your Puppy always manages to, and you lean down to offer him the small reward of your hand—loosely gripping his cock as you nod your permission to fuck up into it.
He pulls back as he thrusts into your grasp, allowing himself to gasp and moan at the feel of your palm. There’s no hesitation though, as there usually would be—no fucking your hand and forgetting that it is you’ve told him to do. No, Satoru is right back to work, fucking his throat on your toy, and with enough enthusiasm for you to reward him by tightening your grasp on him ever so slightly.
Choked moans escaping before they’re cut off by the loss of air, rolling blue eyes straining to focus on your appraising gaze above, and a pretty pink tip drooling just as much as his mouth as he sucks off your throat-warmed silicone—your Satoru performs and performs well.
It almost activates that mean streak in you, the one used to giving him actual punishment rather than tasks disguised as such, as you have tonight. Looking at him so subservient before you has the back of your neck tingling, your ego beckoning you to make him cry. Real tears, not just ones from having his throat bruised and battered with his enthusiastic sucking. But you’re nothing if not careful with your toys, especially ones as special as Satoru Gojo, so you only allow yourself to satiate your desires a little.
He expects it, welcomes it even, as you begin to jerk him off. It’s rough and fast, and he knows very well that you aren’t getting him so close to orgasm just to let him actually cum right away, but he does what he must and rides that wave. His thrusts are half-hearted, unable to keep up with the speed of your hand and his duty to gag on the toy before him at the same time, and his stomach twitches and lurches until you’re shoving the toy deep just as he clenches his thighs together in that tell-tale sign his balls are tightening.
So you let go, and hold the toy deep—stifling the moans and whines that would certainly result from having his orgasm ripped away from him like that. You hold it there, nestled deep, allowing him to thrust his leaking cock roughly into the air, watching as his brows furrow and quirk while his throat tenses and constricts as he tries his hardest to moan - but finds no air for such a thing. Tears are streaming down his cheeks, hips bucking so hard his cock slaps uselessly against his own stomach and his hands ball up into fists, eyes rolling back. Then you pull the dildo out of his mouth and take in his gasps and coughs and cries out for more.
“Please please please, I need it. I need it so bad…”
“Need what, Puppy?”
He bites his lip, cock throbbing, voice hoarse as he knows what his real answer is, and what the right answer is. His mind battles with itself a moment too long for your liking, then broadcasts the wrong decision as he just whines and humps the air.
You wipe at his tears, bringing the dildo back to his swollen lips. “I’ll give you a little more time to think then.”
His mistake has been made, because you forced him into it for just this once tonight, so he accepts it and opens his mouth wide, letting you slide the length of his faux-punishment back into place. It’s worked though, and you continue to fuck some obedience into his skilled throat as he takes it willingly, sliding his tongue along the underside of the unfeeling silicone, puckering his pretty lips into a kiss at the tip when you pull it out far enough just to shove it back in to the base.
“Good boy.”
His cock jumps hard enough to tap at his twitching stomach as he leans upwards as far as he can while staying on his knees, bringing his mouth to meet your movements and gag himself shamelessly. You reward him just as you had before, though with the intention of letting him have what he needs.
He practically shoves himself into your hand once he receives the first brush of your warm fingertips. The feel of you pumping him suddenly is so appreciated, and you grip him tightly with your long strokes to give him exactly what he’s earned. There’s no rebuilding the moment lost by the previous pause, as he’s sent right back to where he was quickly enough that his eyes rolling are the only sign you’re given before his cum spills across your floors as he bucks into your grasp.
Satoru can be relentless, so you brace yourself for more, but once he slumps down enough to separate his throat from the toy you remove it the rest of the way and allow him to choke out a sob. He moves just enough to fall forward and press his face flat to your stomach, showing you he’s done for with just that. His shoulders relax, though his breath is still shaky, and you feel the wetness from his tightly shut eyes soaking through the fabric of your shirt. You let him have his moment, slack jawed, cooing softly, shivering at the feel of your hands running through his hair.
There’s no urgency now, the moment will last as long as he needs it to, thanks to you.
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banners by @adornedwithlight
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krysmcscience · 4 months ago
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Don't mind me, just slacking on a big Billford comic by making other far more ridiculous Billford comics and also some AU art (please excuse my slapdash human!Bill thank you please, also before anyone asks the art style is messy and all over the place because idgaf LOL)
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This started out as an excuse to design a Bill Cipher-inspired "wedding" dress, but then spiraled wildly out of control. Various rambles and a bunch more human!Bill arts under the cut, including another silly little comic at the end! (Feel free to skip the rambles, I won't be offended. I know I'm bad at shutting up. XD)
I may or may not write some comedy stuff for this AU, which I'm calling 'For Better Or Worse (But Mostly Worse)'. While Ford DOES remember getting sloshed enough for one thing to lead to making out with another after karaoke, neither he nor Bill remember this wedding, At All. The Love God did nothing to dissuade them from going hog wild on their marriage spending, either, so it got...uh. Exorbitantly Expensive. As in, the grand total could probably buy the entire fucking MOON sort of expensive. (It's fine, don't worry, Bill's good enough at crime to be able to afford it.) Also, because the logic of this AU is mostly dictated by Rule of Funny, the Love God's powers are close to unlimited when it comes to matters of romance, but ONLY when it comes to matters of romance. (Like weddings!)
Want an empty human vessel to smash the soul of a triangle into for date nights or when it's convenient, or perhaps even when it's NOT convenient? Easy peasy! Want the marriage to be recognized in every corner of the multiverse from now until the end of time, thus making any potential future divorce nigh-on impossible? Can do! Want to buy an entire beach for the ceremony and honeymoon and in general, and totally not at all because it would be Super Hilarious to prevent any specific movies from being made on that very same beach in the future? Fine, whatever, it's not his finances he's ruining!
Does the Love God also provide special rings that just so happen to turn incorporeal as long as the "happy couple" doesn't remember that they barged into his dreams to bully him into presiding over their marriage? ...No comment!
He spends the next thirty years trying and failing to get in touch with either of them for payment. This is why you should always demand half the money up front, my guy!
Also it's absolutely a traditional Jewish wedding, because I like the idea of Bill demanding all the keepsakes from the marriage that he paid for, and being completely confused when one of the things he's handed is a fancy container full of broken glass. He gets it later, but in the moment, he thinks the Love God is just fucking with him some more.
Ramble over! Here's the full dress that caused the comic to happen, along with what Ford wound up wearing at the wedding (and begrudgingly agreeing to put on again later for Reasons), aaaaand also a close-up of Bill's ring:
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I may have forgotten to draw Bill's hair floofier when drawing the back of the dress, lmao
Since double ring ceremonies have been leaking over into Jewish wedding customs for a while now, Ford also has a ring, but his is the much more traditional plain gold band. There's definitely a message engraved on the inside - embarrassing, cringe, or incriminating somehow - but I haven't decided what it is yet, so use your imagination for now. XD Bill, on the other hand, saw the phrase 'traditional plain gold band' and said "No Thank You" before proceeding to embellish his ring to his liking. And because he's a secret sap who adores Ford's extra fingers, the triangle points add up to twelve, as do the engraved stars. Yes, they're stars, not dots, I just got lazy. There's also six lashes on the eye gem, and probably an eye engraving on the inside with another six lashes. (Bill's got it BAD, okay? We all know this.)
Here are the initial scribbles of Bill's custom vessel in more casual attire, please ignore the wonky anatomy and the fact that I flat out refuse to ever draw him with a proper top hat:
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He does actually need a cane in this vessel; since Bill tends to possess men and especially Ford more often than not, he's used to having a higher center of gravity when in a human body, so his ability to balance is pretty garbage. (He may or may not topple over with concerning regularity.) As for his empty eye socket, his bangs don't do much to hide it since he's so high-energy (dude is constantly on the move), and he also refuses to wear a patch over it, because 1.) why bother, and 2.) it's more fun to freak people out.
To better align with Ford's attraction towards the strange, the vessel was designed with super minor shapeshifting ability - Bill can look like a perfectly normal human, but he can also make the teeth and fingers sharper whenever he likes (which is mostly just when he's angry or being more of a menace than usual), as well as slit down the pupils or outright ditch the irises altogether. He can also have whatever he wants in the downstairs department, just because I'm an indecisive bitch on that front, lmao. Maybe he can have boobs if he wants them, too, but I ain't drawin' tits on no triangle, nuh-uh, no sir. His powers are otherwise limited down to what humans can do, because for some reason, the Love God doesn't trust Bill to not snap into Immediate Apocalypse Mode if he's given a physical form that's actually all his and no one else's.
Due to the body being all his and no one else's, it's also not really a standard possession so much as it is just...Bill being temporarily human. He's a lot more aware of and in tune with his human body's senses than he ever was with his "puppets", which makes things like pain a lot more intense. (He is mostly fine with this, because he's a fukken masochist.)
A bit more fashion stuff, including beach and party attire~
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The beach outfit was mostly me trying and failing to nail down his body shape, which is still not bottom-heavy enough. I then decided to slap a bikini on it, before making it supremely unsexy with a pair of fugly shorts, because Bill's fashion choices are not allowed to be conventionally attractive. Meanwhile, the party outfit was mostly me looking at the casual attire I designed, asking 'how would Bill make this Worse', and then drawing the result. The mismatched thigh-highs are killing me inside! :D
No, his vessel can't actually summon fire, I just drew it for funzies before I decided on said vessel's limitations. Yes, the gold brick tattoos are absolutely a reference to the fic 'Knowing Me, Knowing You' - I simply could not resist.
I also HAD to draw Bill in one of his canonical(?) shirts, just made tank-top'd:
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He is absolutely about to over-correct and fall backwards after this. USE YOUR CANE, GOOFBALL!!! (I meant to draw Bill closer to this degree of bottom-heavy in the other images, but. Alas. I am bad at anatomy, LOL)
And, last but not least before More Comic Time, I attempted to draw him closer to Gravity Falls style:
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Jury's out on whether or not I succeeded, but - hey. I tried. Now have some Handyman Bill AU, but with my goofy human design, instead:
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Hey, it's a 'mystery snack', and the guy wanted A BITE to eat - the joke was right there, guys!!! (Based on this post, because it just screamed BILL CIPHER to me.)
whoops i forgor bills ring and cracks ahaha too late now
I WILL SHUT UP AND STOP RAMBLING NOW K THX BYYYYYE
#fanart#gravity falls#billford#bill cipher#stanford pines#stanley pines#the love god#human bill cipher#human bill design#fashion design#comics#poor stan gets to find out his twin boinked a triangle when the love god shows up at the mystery shack demanding payment LMAO#cue internal panic for stan as dipper and mabel lose their collective shit over the fact that they now have a surprise new grunkle bill#the love god helps himself get paid by teaching the kids how to trap bill in his human vessel for the foreseeable future#bill is bewildered and pissed but also very much 'holy shit i have a FAMILY again??? neat but terrifying??????? what the F*CK do i do now'#he then proceeds to attempt to lovebomb his new family into being okay with the impending apocalypse#all while the three of them attempt to lovebomb HIM into giving up his plans for said impending apocalypse#then two days later ford shows up and is just like. what the ACTUAL F*CK IS HAPPENING???#cue stan immediately screaming 'I HAD TO PRETEND TO BE THAT THING'S HUSBAND FOR TWO DAYS STRAIGHT SO F*CK YOU AND YOUR BAD TASTE FOR THAT!'#stan spends those two days straight dropping very sour hints that he's being punished for someone else's terrible mistakes#bill finds this absolutely hilarious and thus plays along - but not without dropping his own hints that ford is the FAR superior twin#dipper and mabel have ZERO idea of what is actually going on because the love god did NOTHING to clarify the situation#dipper is convinced that stan and bill are speaking in some kind of bizarre code that only adults can understand#mabel is convinced that the code is flirting - which means stan and bill are going to live happily ever after and have tons of kids + pets#NEITHER of them are prepared for ford showing up. not that they were in canon. but still. now it's even MORE crazy#'what do you mean we get TWO NEW GRUNKLES???' 'two grunkles in two days - gotta be some kinda record'#ford then has to decide if he wants to remain justifiably furious at bill or join the other pines in lovebombing him into submission#he then gets to learn that lovebombing bill works surprisingly well because that triangle is just The Biggest Attention Wh*re#the entire AU would just be ridiculous antics with a splash of billford#these tags are an abomination lmao
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whatremained · 1 day ago
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exactly! like even if we WANT to see a character as good, we can’t, or were quite literally ignoring the plot of the show!!
for evan, yes, he isn’t an ill-mannered person. he wants to do good for the murphys and make them feel better, but while doing that, he actively lies about a friendship with a person who committed suicide, and this, while allowing the family to rebuild, just likely traumatizes them more.
for connor, yes, he’s very much a victim when it comes to the fact he was put in rehab. rehab is terrible. he’s been through a lot mentally, ever since he was like… young young (book as reference), but none of this excuses the fact that he threatens zoe while he’s alive, and this builds up fear and hatred within her because yes. it is scary when someone is on the other side of the door screaming that they’re going to kill you. even if you know they won’t actually, it’s terrifying. if we ignore this fact, requiem has no meaning behind it and that’s not what the show intends.
for zoe, she’s literally just trying to make it through her family life as well as she can without trying to cause anything. she’s constantly ignored by her own family, and she’s coping with it the best she can. but she’s still flawed. zoe refuses to realize things are more than just bad or good for a long while in the show. i argue not fully until the end of act one. zoe can also come off… rude towards her parents and connor, but then again… she’s sixteen so. do we expect much more? though i will say calling your mentally ill brother a psychopath when… he probably does not have the mental disorder to be considered that kind of term (i’d either argue he has autism or both an anxiety disorder & major depressive disorder [autism is commonly misdiagnosed as that, BUT many people do just have anxiety and depression.] though it’s hard to say because… we barely see him on stage and we don’t see much of his symptoms. in the book, where we hear from him the most, to me at least, as an autistic person, he reads as autistic… but it’s really up for what a person believes). zoe to me comes off as one of the least morally grey characters to me, as she isn’t… actively causing harm in the story. if she’s harming anyone by these thought patterns of good and bad, black and white, she’s harming herself.
alana is very similar to evan in that she comes with good intentions with almost everything she does… maybe not her shoving her way into positions (as we see with the connor project), but a ton of the things she does is for a good cause and though it seems performative, it isn’t. still, alana constantly speaks over people, ignoring them, and publicly posts something she believes to be someone’s suicide note. though she believes the latter is beneficial… it just… wouldn’t be? as we see because with the presumption that it is connor’s note, everyone begins to harass the murphy’s. did evan share it to alana to keep up a lie? yes… but did evan say to publish it…? no. that was a VERY odd choice coming from alana.
jared is a character i… hate. a lot. but you can’t deny that what he really craves is a friendship. we see him distraught after evan ditches him. we see him trying to incorporate himself into the story evan has made up, and it’s likely because he desires a friendship. and to a point, that can make a person sympathetic… still… he helped evan keep up a lie. and was a complete asshole to evan before and after the lie began because…? who knows.
heidi genuinely wants whats best for evan, even if she has to work all day and attend classes and study all night. this is NOT something i will blame her for because… she’s a single mother. it is HARD to live in this economy. she’s trying her best. she also is flawed. she doesn’t REALLY try to reach out to her son (she does say that she shouldn’t have needed evan to tell her he was hurting), she insults evan’s stepmother for…? no reason? also she does tend to come off as rude (in the arena stage 2015 version as well, but…) in good for you and a little before that. blowing up on your son because… he found comfort in other people besides you and getting mad at him because you believed he begged the other family for finical help is… odd! (he didn’t even say anything about it to cynthia and larry, i’m pretty sure…. zoe did. zoe’s the one who wanted heidi over in the first place). i’m not saying heidi is this terrible parent, but she’s not a good mother either. my thing with heidi though… she’s one of the only characters who admits their faults (including evan, somewhat). she IS morally grey, but she is actively working towards being a genuinely good person.
cynthia is also someone who wants to be a good person. she actively tries to treat connor not as terribly as most parents would, and i do applaud her for that. problem is, the way she goes about it is harmful, so much so that (at least in the book) connor basically feels like he’s just a lab rat to the hundreds of different treatments she puts him through… not to mention she ignores zoe and how zoe feels.
and lastly, larry… who i feel gets ignored FAR too often. larry is not this terrible guy. he cares for his children. and he cared son. he did. that’s the WHOLE point of to break in a glove. it shows that he did what he thought was right… but similar to cynthia’s method… it just didn’t work for connor. it traumatized connor MORE. along with the fact that he has the reaction of 75% of parents when their child says that they want to die… the reaction being that the kid just wants attention. also, just… generally… a bit neglectful of both connor and zoe.
all that being said, it pisses me off how a lot of people don’t realize dear evan hansen is NOT supposed to have a good side and a bad side. and a lot of people forget dear evan hansen isn’t.., supposed to be a nice story? it’s supposed to be fucked up. the original idea for it was literally based on a terrible thing.
and there’s this weird section of people who act like the story is unrealistic when it just. isn’t?? the story is based off something similar that happened at pasek’s highschool. and i mean, the same thing happened at MY high school (not when i was there, but when my older brother was there). a student passes away and people pretend to be their friend, and they sell stories and things to get profit out of people’s death. attention and/or money (whether that’s because they’re bad people, or if they feel alone too is up for debate on every person because… we don’t know most of these people personally). and then people forget about the student in a couple weeks. it’s VERY common, and it’s cruel, gross, and terrible. but the story is FAR from unrealistic. though it can be said that dear evan hansen is an exaggeration of such… most stories are.
and though i do argue the marketing for dear evan hansen can be odd at times, the story itself is not meant to be seen as nice. it’s supposed to be cruel.
sorry for the ramble… i just wanted to go into more depth with what the post was saying. :]
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blue-eli · 7 months ago
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Skuld in quantum design :)
#kingdom hearts#kh#khux#khux Skuld#kh skuld#kingdom hearts Skuld#skuld kh#Skuld kingdom hearts#got distracted from typing the tags by going to watch cutscenes with Skuld my friend Skuld in them#I love her#design notes: she got the scarf because it reminded her of Ephemer AND Braig#you can’t see it but under it she has a star necklace that reminded her of Player#this is based on the subject x Skuld theory! hence the scar. she got it either from just player or got one of the lines from fighting#darkness and the other from player idk#her coat was given to her by Braig/Luxu when he broke her out of radiant garden! it’s slightly too small for her now#she’s tall!!! to me. over 6ft. not quite Lea but still tall#her earrings are the only things that survived from her original outfit. everything else is new#she doesn’t have gloves because I forgo. then I was really happy with how I shaded the hand so I’m not putting gloves on her now.#but she probably does have them#she’s been living in Quantum for a while and is sorta tied up in some illegal shit but nothing really bad.#her and Strelitzia are friends!!! they met at a coffee shop when it was raining and Shuld was the only one with an umbrella#they didn’t realise they were both from daybreak until Skuld saw a painting Strez did and broke down crying.#her memory is still kinda fucked. when she first arrived in Quantum she didn’t remember her name yet and went by X.#she started collecting things that reminded her of the friends she couldn’t quite remember. she’s got a shoe box or two of trinkets#she also will get something if it reminds her of Lea/Isa because even if being in RG was hell she still misses them.#also Vanitas is there. he’s her terrible little brother who bites people. she loves him. he is the only reason she knows her own name#she found him and her heart recognised him as Ventus her brother Ventus. she knows he’s not all of Ventus now but it’s too late#he’s her little brother now. she’s trying to rehabilitate him like taming a feral kitten. he’s switching between ‘I want to be loved’ and#‘I’m evil fuck you’. she introduces as ‘this is my evil brother he is terrible and rude but we’re working on it and I love him.’#she would get along great with Sora I think.
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justarandomhelluvablog · 1 year ago
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having thoughts about how Husk actually has very little left to redeem bc he started his journey of self-change before even coming to work at the hotel, but at the same time redemption isn't even his goal- he ain't even aiming for heaven, he just wanted to be a better person and maybe now with friends and especially Angel, who he supports so much and wants to see succeed, maybe now he has a reason to be a better person
#hazbin hotel#husk#warning I am about to ramble in these tags O7 I have a ridiculous amount of thoughts about this cat bird man#thinking about that word of god from vivzie that Husk is actively fighting his gambling addiction in hell#which besides the pilot we've only seen his gambling mentioned in the past#and idk if it's just because they had to focus on other things but we don't see him drinking as heavily as he did in the pilot#and first few episodes. like he actually wants to be sober#we know he used to be an overlord and we assume that comes with all the terrible overlord qualities#(aka there's no such thing as a good slave owner)#but the Husk we know now has been on both sides of this chain#he knows and respects boundaries. consent is super important to him. this feels like a moral you can't really have to be an overlord#he also sees everyone as more than just what they can do for him specifically. he gets NOTHING out of being Angel's friend#he gets NOTHING out of defending Angel and Cherri during the fight with the Exorcists#he knows when to open up and who to open up to and trust. and he extends a hand to someone in need. someone he ain't even close to-#and if it hasn't changed he is trying to beat his own vices despite not even being a guest of the hotel. he's staff. he doesn't HAVE to#participate in their activities or try to change. he was dragged into this#but dammit he does it anyway#(also if he is still trying to beat his gambling addiction I wonder if the pilot was a relapse. hm)#anyway ig what im trying to say is husk isn't a guest at the hotel but plays the role of a guide for the guests bc he's already#got a very strong and *GOOD* set of morals considering they're in hell#like his level of morals we've only seen /explicitly/ shown in hellborn. and yeah consent and boundaries is rock bottom even for Earth#but they're in hell so somehow the bar manages to be even fucking lower than that so I consider it a win#ALSO THE FACT THAT HE STOOD BETWEEN ANGEL & CHERRI AND THE EXORCISTS??? this mf is willing to DIE for these people#I am 100% sure that if Husk's soul didn't belong to Alastor he would already be redeemed#we don't know what he did in life and we don't know how bad he was as an overlord but we know who husk is /now/#and that person is a pretty damn good guy#he might have some work to do sure but he's already at least started his redemption before the show even began and#we're just seeing the tail end of it#god damn I really rambled in these tags i am so sorry#I just have so many thoughts about him
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