#i can't even use words correctly

[purrpickle]

You can't tell me Pin didn't take one look at Anil smiling up at the moon and immediately add it to her List of Things and People To Be Jealous Of™️.

[schadenfreudich]

I'm considering starting to use the long s in my handwriting

[spicysaladd]

we should just stop mandering the gerries. make the whole country a perfect grid or one giant gerry, this would solve all our problems

[wholemleko]

.

[dbphantom]

I am so fucking glad this actually returned what I was trying to say while writing tags about Law's kickass outfits because the unhelpful instamash mix I disrespectfully call a brain was supplementing all the wrong words and I didn't feel like finding that one writing thesaurus site on mobile

[fitzfunnymoments]

holy shit I’m actually about to start crying I may have just helped a lost Little Robots movie get on its way to being found

there’s even a review for it that reveals what it’s about oh my god https://web.archive.org/web/20071020225634/http://kidtoonfilms.com/reviews/lr_tbs.html

[korattata]

.

[neotheater-kid]

I was like, recently years old that I found out Orpheus and Eurydice is Just Book OF LIFe????? Like what?/! That's

[changeling-droneco]

Hi I'm that person who made the original post about "no doesn mean no" when a small bit of the mr beast company document was leaked, well, now we have the full document (thanks rosanna) so I'm going to go over it. Please note I am not a lawyer or a business man, I'm in college for psychology, so I might misunderstand some things or make the wrong conclusion. However, if this is a document made for the average mr. beast employee, if I cannot understand it properly, then im sure some employees also struggled

First of all, the opening paragraph. Like I get it's supposed to be like, to put people at ease, but

This is so strange? Like, first of all, this is your EMPLOYEE MANUAL, you should have run it through like, a spell check? Or had someone edit it? This is already incredibly unprofessional. Also the promising of a thousand dollars if you pass a quiz on it? It's bizarre and I'd love to see if it's an actual quiz.

Jimmy, hun, please god get an editor for this you're already trying my patience.

YOU SHOULD, you genuinely should, while interconnected these are all COMPLETELY different jobs, if you think you could write a separate manual for each branch you SHOULD

I'm sure I'm about to get an answer but what the fuck is the best YOUTUBE video then? If it's not comedy, its not production, its not quality, its not look, then what the hell is left? (monetization, it's monetization)

First of all, Jimmy, why are you using internet lingo in this, it's not a text message, this is not a place for, idc, and lol, and not capitalizing your headers correctly??? Also like I said, he's chasing trends for monetization, and also he's just wrong, there are plenty of hollywood level shows and the like on youtube. You fully admit you do not care about trends and actively rush things?

This is just fucked??? Like of COURSE IT MATTERS??? Results based company is bullshit, your employees that worked for five weeks and failed aren't "lesser" then James, it's a structural failure! They still worked for HOURS to try and succeed?? That shows merit and loyalty??? What the fuck???

Rosanna covers this one in her video but it's worth restating that this is FUCKED??? It's clear overwork "your job is your family" culture. Especially the use of the word obsessive? If you do not OBSESS over your work, you are considered poisonous. NO WONDER we have so many reports of employees doing things they feel is dangerous or unsafe, if they don't they're considered POISON to the company.

The formatting in this doc continues to fucking kill me, what are you DOING man GET AN EDITOR

This feels like such an easy fix of just...make the thumbnail after the fact? Or only make a rough draft of one first? Like if production makes a red bouncy castle instead of a yellow one, that feels like an easy fix to the thumbnail OR a communication error, and again, that's on management

A lot of the next stuff is like analytics stuff that for the most part I can't really speak on as someone who does not do any of this stuff. There are a few things though

Which like???? what??? a lull??? what do you mean "watching a video without even realizing they are watching a video??" That doesn't scream good or even mediocre content to me. If I'm actively tuning out as I watch a video, that's bad. Especially because there have been plenty of times I've been like half way through a video i go "hey this sucks actually" and click off. They actively want their audience to not be paying attention to the video so it runs all the way through, that's kinda pathetic.

I don't actually know if this is common or not in this industry, but as an outsider this seems INCREDIBLY micromanaging to me, to an immense degree.

Jimmy why are you putting swears in your employee manual?? sir??? and also something about this whole thing icks me out, I don't quite have the words but the whole emphasis on "im different im special no one else can be me" just reeks of something kind of manipulative

Why is production changing so much Jimmy??? Infinite growth is the mindset of a cancer cell Jimmy! This is incredibly unstable working conditions! Also again with the word obsession, if you take time out of your own day on your own time to watch hulu, that's seen as not being obsessed enough for the company. This is nonsensical!

Again, this is INSANELY micromanaging, and also so fucking unhinged??? "God himself couldn't stop you from making this video on time" is NOT a healthy work mindset, things HAPPEN!!!

In this segment he's actually talking normal things but I did just want to highlight his use of "freaken" who the hell puts that in an EMPLOYEE MANUEL

Again with the micromanaging, and the immense pressure on employees for problems OTHER people do. While he's not fully wrong that you should be in more contact with the contractor then the example, this is too much in the other direction. How much time in the day does he think people have?!

My kingdom for a fucking paragraph break dude, my fucking eyes. Also this is a lot of "im so great and do everything and you should do more for me and if i dont know something that's your fault" for something titled "I am not always right"

I'm getting lazy with my highlighting, but again, the micromanaging? If you're SOOO busy, the first question should be the ideal? it's quick and makes a quick decision, while the second one meanders and meanders

Again, Jimmy is pushing blame for HIS mistakes on OTHER PEOPLE. For again, a section called "i am not always right" hes taking NO accountability for that and just making the SAME excuses he's berating in other places.

I can't even tell what he means here AN EDITOR JIMMY

Autism Hell tm, PLEASE email me so I can DOUBLE CHECK IT, things in writing are SO useful

Again the language towards "C-Players" which as mr beast has said, are the people who y'know, are NORMAL employees who DON'T live and breathe this company

Okay first of all, a Lamborghini is like 300k so that's already A REALLY hard task, and i sure hope don't usually put typos in the tasks. SECOND of all the fact he thinks its okay to go "hey if the studio is literally on fire around you and you stop working to get the Lamborghini, you're not doing good enough" even if he claims it as a joke is NOT OKAY what the FUCK

We've covered this before, but to reiterate this segment is named after a sexual assault reference when it could have been named ANYTHING ELSE and harasses employees and pressures them to break rules, don't do that.

I'm not an editor, so maybe this is normal, but as someone from the outside it seems strange to put this much emphasis on dividing focus between so many videos at once.

Jimmy, hun, are you paying extra for this? Because if I'm an editor and you want me FILMING stuff then i want to be paid more for doing TWO jobs and I probably still wont be as skilled a TRAINED CAMERA MAN

First of all now THAT'S a type, consteatants. Also the fact they are aware that leaving contestants out in the sun is bad, why are you not doing MORE TO STOP IT BEYOND "hey maybe giving them three hours of heatstroke is bad, try only two next time"

Don't we love favoritism, more shitty unprofessional writings, and a completely unstable work environment?

If your people have to pull all nighters period something is wrong, and if something happens to an employees car that could have seriously hurt someone, i sure hope you care more then just "LOL FUNNY" Who's picking up the broken glass? Who's reimbursing the car owner? That one meme of "your first care should be commitment to the bit" is a MEME jimmy, it's not ACTUAL ADVICE

Ah shit I hit image limit, well, you've seen enough screenshots to know these are screenshots, we're almost done I'll put them in as quotes

"Let’s say you are tasked with finding us a castle to live in for 50 hours and while doing research you find a castle and a number to call for the owner. So you do call, and he answers. Only problem is he says he quit the castle renting business to pursue his dream of building a 100 foot tall lego catapult. You can obviously tell where i’m going with this. Ideally you’d recognize that’s badass as fuck and try to convince him to let us use it when we do find a castle. This is a bad example because it’s so obvious but if you’re doing your job right you will be doing an absurd amounts of calls and data collecting. While trying to complete your prios and prepare for the video you should always be on the lookout for new things you can bring to your creative team to inspire them. Because just like me, they don’t know what they don’t know and you can’t just say “i’m in production and i’m not very creative” because that’s literally the equivalent of saying I suck at what I do. You also need to apply this same mindset when problem solving because many people lose sight of this stuff when in the weeds. If a problem appears, always always always ask yourself if your new plan is whats best for creative, not just the easiest bandaid."

First of all it's really funny seeing all the red lines pop up, second of all this insistent blurring of everyone's job seems so strange? Again maybe this is normal, but it really feels like Jimmy wants everyone working every job, instead on focusing on what they are actually hired to do.

"What is the goal of our content?

To excite me. The goal of our content is to excite me. That may sound weird to some of you, especially if you’re new but to me it’s what’s most important. If I'm not excited to get in front of that camera and film the video, it’s just simply not going to happen."

That's fucking weirddddd, like I get that he's trying to be like "im authentic" but it always feels like a bad sign when the goal of a company is literally just "What amuses the boss" like...bad sign

"this is youtube and there are constraints. You know the video can’t be a minute so you’re obviously going to need a story to hold the viewers and there are rules to storytelling. Our audience is massive and because of that you have to be simple, for 50 million people to understand something it must be simple. Content can be anything but there is structure and rules that we must mold it into that I want to teach you about, because virality doesn’t just happen. Every frame of our videos will be seen by 10s of millions of people"

Gross

"I'd say the average MrBeast viewer is a teenage memer that likes video games."

Mr Beast is completely aware of his demographic and puts screen shots of it, he is very aware his stuff is aimed at kids, even when its about gambling or hiring people not around near minors

"I feel silly for having to write this but all the time I talk to 32 new people that have at most seen like 5 or 6 of our videos and it’s mind blowing that they don’t see a problem with that lol."

It's almost like your audience is teenage memer and that people who working here are not in fact, teenage memers.

"What you consume on social media, when you watch youtube, tv, the games you play, etc. are what I like to call your information diet.

How do you stay up to date on the latest memes? How do you know what’s going on with celebrities? What’s trending on youtube? What other creators are doing? What’s popping on tik tok? Your information diet. Consume things on a daily basis that help you write better content."

If my job as a creative writer had my boss tell me to have to see whats "popping on tik tok" as part of my job i'd quit also again, the micromanaging of someone's life as well pops up again, it's weirddd

"It’s okay for the boys to be childish

If talent wants to draw a dick on the white board in the video or do something stupid, let them. (assuming they know all the risks and arn’t missing context on why it’s not safe) People like when we are in our natural element of stupidity. Really do everything you can to empower the boys when filming and help them make content. Help them be idiots"

More favoritism

"If you’ve made it this far you are probably at least semi interested in this being your career. So I wanted to chat about it. Because if you're ambitious and want to dedicate your life to work, you picked the best company in America to do it at. I really don’t care to hoard a bunch of money and I deeply believe in rewarding the people that help this business get where it needs to be. But before I get into that, let’s talk about the future. As I write this we have 2 teams, that will grow to 4 in the next year. (and possibly 8 in the next 2 years but I can’t talk about that cause james will kill me haha). We need more leaders in the company. Weneed hard working, obsessive, coachable, intelligent, grinders that can step up and take some of these leadership spots over the next 2 years. Every single department has an opportunity for you to grow in and you’re in luck because we don’t do yearly reviews. We do whenever the fuck you want reviewes"

Lack of communication from management, and more emphasis on grinding and crunch culture, goodie, all while riddled with typos! God.

"I see a world where this company is worth billions and one day 10s of billions. And those of you that help build this will be rewarded. I want nothing more then for you to go all in, obsessive all day everyday, and become so god dam valuable this company can’t operate without you. And in return for becoming so valuable I hope to give you incredible experiences, a fun place to work, and of course, more money then you could ever dream of making at any other company."

I feel like I'm reading a fucking pyramid scheme document here, "youre so so valuable spend literally every minute of every day on this company haha" good GOD man

[schizopositivity]

Hearing people throw around the words "delusional" and "delulu" so often when they clearly don't know what it means is so silly to me at this point, but also a little frustrating.

Like I heard someone in a video say "she's the worst type of delulu, where she actually is in a different reality" while describing someone being cocky and overconfident.

As a reminder, delusional means someone is holding a belief or altered reality that is persistently held despite evidence or agreement to the contrary, generally in reference to a mental disorder. Delusions are typically beliefs that exist outside of objective or common reality (so not something subjective like "this art is good"). It is often unshakeable, people can't be talked out of their strongly held belief even if it is completely nonsensical. They typically cause a disturbance to your life, unlike a spirituality or religion that you enjoy.

So someone saying "I'm the most attractive and most talented person in this room" might be annoying, but it is that person's subjective belief. It's your subjective belief that they are not, but neither is right or wrong because it is subjective.

Having a crush on a celebrity and wanting to marry them and imagining that happening is a conscious choice, it's a daydream. Meanwhile delusions are not conscious choices, it is a symptom a person has whether they want it or not.

It's important to uphold the true meaning of this word, because it describes a mental condition that impacts many people. Having the words definition change by making it mean other things does harm us. If we want to open up to a friend about a serious mental problem in our lives by saying "I have delusions", that person should know the gravity of that, and not think it's some fun quirky personality trait that everyone has.

Also the way people misuse the word tends to be in a negative or insulting way, aimed at the delusional person. But delusions dont indicate anything about the delusional persons personality and morals. The delusions are caused by a mental health problem and not chosen by the person. This is important to remember when people have strange, mean, self centered, taboo, or scary delusions, it doesn't mean that a person wants to believe that, they can't control it.

So please try and use the words "delusion" and "delusional" correctly, don't give it a cute trendy nickname like "delulu". And try and educate the people around you about the actual meaning of these words, and the impact of misusing them.

[sassy-cass-16]

look man. look

essek saying "bren" out loud, claiming a position on caleb's side as the mouthpiece of his regards to astrid, did something to me. i can't tell if it opened a wound or punched me or gave me a hug. all i know is that i am feeling so many emotions right now

more under the cut because i'm about to get rambly:

"bren aldric ermendrud" is a separate character from caleb widogast. he's a young boy learning how to make magic. he's a deeply traumatized and indoctrinated teenager. he's the boy who curled up with astrid and eadwulf in a freezing tower for warmth all night.

essek never met bren. he met caleb and he's never known him as anyone else. if i'm remembering correctly, caleb never even said the name "bren" to him during the campaign, and neither did any of the nein.

essek knows caleb widogast. he knows the man who held up the object of his worst crime and then kissed him in the bowels of a ship and made a floor of infinite stars for them to walk through together. he knows the person who healed over bren's wounds—thinly, but enough. he knows the man that the boy has become.

astrid knows bren. she barely knows who caleb is. she still calls him bren after hearing him referred to as caleb repeatedly. she can't know him as the man he is, she only knows the boy. there's some of bren in caleb, but there is no caleb in bren.

essek saying "bren sends his regards" is him gauging astrid's reaction, on one level—if she freaks out, which she did, she's in opposition to caleb's cause and thus a threat. on another level, it's essek delivering a very different subtextual message from caleb: "the boy who loved you is giving you one final warning."

because essek is a threat to astrid. their last meaningful interaction was slinging spells at each other in the blooming grove. and that's funny in a "current boyfriend vs ex girlfriend exclusively fight each other" kind of way, but it's also deeply tied to caleb's recurring theme of transformation. "bren sends his regards" also means "i have healed enough to love enough for someone else to know this name and use it with my consent. and this someone else is your enemy. what does that make you think i've become?"

it also does a fantastic job of communicating subtle offscreen discussions that have happened over the years since the end of c2. we don't have the details of when or how caleb told essek his birth name, but we know that he did, and we know from all of c2 that the name bren occupies a place of immense emotional weight for caleb. it functions similarly to a deadname in terms of who uses it and for what purpose. trent exclusively calls caleb bren to wound him and place himself in a position of power. astrid calls him bren to remind both him and herself of who they used to be—same with eadwulf, though obviously he's not here.

the first time we hear essek say "bren" is on caleb's behalf and confronting one of the narrative representations of caleb's trauma. it's four words that manage to communicate "i, your enemy on a hundred levels, can speak for both the man i love and the boy who loved you, because i know him in his entirety."

astrid knows bren and essek knows caleb, but only essek can speak for both. because at some point, caleb gave bren to essek. and we know this from four words. four IMPROVISED words.

god. this moment is just so fucking good

[your-highnessmarvel]

Insatiable

AN: No one asked for this but the Butcher brain rot is crazy and i can't stop myself. Alas, I couldn't resist so welcome to the madness. Anyway, I went insane and absolutely wrote a devoted piece to this man. Jesus help me.

Warnings: dub-con (use of sex pollen-ish mind control), smut, fingering, language, and Butcher is a warning in and of itself.

MINORS DNI Below the cut

"I'm not wearing any underwear."

The admonition echoed in the habitat of Butcher's Cadillac like a bird's call. Even the sound of leather on leather, as the man sitting beside you slowly turned to examine you, wasn't loud enough to get the stupid ringing out of your head.

This had all started off like a bad scab you thought was healed but wasn't, and now it was bleeding all over your favorite pink pull.

Hughie and MM had uncovered a rightful piece of Temp V hideout; a Supe's mansion on the Upper East Side who, just happened, to be throwing one of his renowned "XXXchange" parties for Supes and their pets (this was how it was described on the e-vite MM hacked).

This Supe, still unknown to everyone because he kept the mansion under a random woman's name, was supposedly a Seven-in-the-making, as Hughie put it. If he could prove himself, he was next in line for a comfy beige seat in the Tower. So hence, him keeping and distributing Temp V to teens and young adults who didn't know any better.

So what had been Hughie's grand ol' plan? Bring you in. As the newest Supe member of The Boys, no one had yet seen your face. No one even knew of you. You were a low-level "barely considerable" Supe...as Butcher had put it the first time he blew the hinges off your front door.

Your power wasn't really a - well, a power at all. It was mostly an advancement, an intellectual add-on, or a sixth sense. You could read lies. More coherently, because someone with a beard and a giant stick up his ass didn't understand correctly--you could tell when someone was lying.

You weren't really an attribute to the team when it came to brute force. You left that up to Annie and Kimiko. But you had your perks, and since you were still under Vought's radar, you could slip through the cracks and get intel for the Boys.

Now why was Butcher with you, the most notorious Boys' member? Well, one might say he was eager to see your 2-hour fight training in practice, but really, it was because he "didn't trust a dumb twat with highly sensitive information and tech". His words.

So he'd garnished a Tommy Bahama blouse with pink flamingoes and palm trees and a matching set of swim shorts, sunglasses, and a stupid bright pink bucket hat that was way too small for his big ass head.

And now here both of y'all were, headed to the Upper East Side, dressed like a hooker and a pimp. Annie had insisted on this get up, a tiny, tiny pink skirt, a white bikini top, and a pink cover up with flip flops to finish off this fucking look. Because apparently, no one would let you in if you weren't A) a Supe and B) not dressed like a House Bunny.

"So you're tellin' me," Butcher drawled as the New York skyline darkened, "that your bare pussy is suction-cupping my leather seats?"

You crossed your arms. "I'm sitting at an angle."

Butcher slapped the wheel. "You should've told me earlier!" he laughed. You frowned in return when he swivelled that giant head of his towards you. "Come now, if you're not wearing panties, why should I, eh?"

"You wear panties?"

He hummed, regaining control of the road as the car slipped passed the last townhouse to enter Mansion Ville.

"I like you, little Truthteller," he mumbled to himself. "Thought you were a bit worthless at first, but you might just prove yourself tonight!"

You didn't dare answer the last bit, instead focusing on the details Annie and Hughie gave you before you flip-flopped your way into Butcher's passenger seat (and did absolutely not suction-cup his leather seats).

The idea was to go in and place a few bugs in and around the mansion in key locations. You could try to figure out who the Supe was or even find out where he stashed his V, but it didn't matter. The Boys would find out over the bugs.

The mansion Butcher parked the Caddie in front of was like a cookie-cutter version of the 90s PlayBoy mansion.

"Alright, love," Butcher sighed, killing the engine and stepping out, rounding the nose of the car to open the door for you. "Give 'em a nice peek of that minge, eh?"

You blushed from head to toe, a torment of fire assaulting your skin until Butcher caught on and chuckled low in his chest, helping you step out the car with his hand.

You still hadn't gotten used to the crass words that could tumble out of his mouth like vomit.

He guided you to the entrance, where a man dressed in black boxers and a black neck tie asked for your invite number, which you recited from the one Hughie gave you.

Then he asked, "And which is Supe and which is pet?"

You blushed even hotter. "Um." Your throat got sticky and dry all at once. "I'm the Supe and he's my... um, he's my-"

"Her pet," Butcher interrupted with a wide smile, the sunglasses hiding the glint in his eye that was surely showing. That ridiculous bucket hat made him look almost two heads taller than you as he bent down to whisper in your ear, "bark, bark."

You groaned inwardly as you lead him into the foyer, where a sprawling staircase lead to a mezzanine and a mahogany banister and a wide archway gave way to a mess of bodies in the living room.

"Oh my God," you mumbled, turning away from the onslaught of legs and arms and slithering bodies like a pile of snakes.

"Oh, nuh-uh," Butcher chuckled, grabbing you by the shoulders, steering you right into the mass of party-goers, moaning and groaning and thrusting into one another or bouncing on top of each other like mad dogs. "If you want to play the part, you have to look the part." His mouth was right next to your ear, and for some reason, the breath caressing your skin sent a slowly gliding shiver down your spine.

Why was this happening?

You felt the flesh melt where his fingers lay, clutching at your shoulders, pulling your coverup off of you.

"Butcher," you said, stopping his hand.

He shook his head. "Show them what you got, mama," he whispered again, the rough of his beard tracing against your cheek. He scooped the coverup off your shoulders and threw it across the room, leaving you in your bikini top.

Butcher had never seen you so exposed before. You'd always worn pants and t-shirts around the safe house, so watching all that bare skin available to his hungry eyes flipped a switch in his head.

A woman, tall and elegant, cream skin and sultry black eyes, approached you before Butcher could do something stupid. He straightened up, lifting the sunglasses from his nose.

"Miss, look at you," he cooed.

Miss was naked. Someone had left a bite mark on her right breast, just above her peaked nipple. She was so long-limbed and beautiful, and the sight of her naked body made you turn away instinctively.

"I like you," she said, voice low and husky, like a purr.

"I like you too, sweetheart," Butcher answered, the heat of his body completely leaving you as he zeroed in all his attention on the naked, wanting lady before you.

She huffed. "You're great too," she answered, and when you turned, her lascivious brown eyes were settled on you. "But it's her that I want."

Butcher gasped and then erupted in laughter, taking the bucket hat off his head and putting it to his heart. "Woah, I never imagined I'd see this in my lifetime."

The other woman smiled slowly and you gulped. She was pretty, but she was also not part of the mission.

So you back-peddled.

You put a delicate hand to Butcher's arm, digging your nails into his skin, and put on a lovely, sweet smile for the offering girl. "That's nice of you," you said, voice sultry like a wet candy cane. "But we're more interested in watching." As you said this, you dropped into your act as best you could, mustering up the strength not to blush but to play the part of the sex-obsessed Supe.

She brightened up at this, gesturing to Butcher. "Well I could fuck him while you watch," she suggested.

Butcher's body tensed up against you and he turned to you. "Please say yes," he mumbled.

You smiled, throwing him a glance. "Both of us are watchers," you corrected, watching as she bowed her head, a lustrous gleam in her eye.

"It would've been a pleasure," she said before walking away.

When she was climbing onto another woman's lap, Butcher grabbed your bicep and brought you into a corner, sheltered in the dim lighting of the room, smothered under the moans and groans and the sloppy sounds of...intercourse.

"You were this close to fulfilling a fantasy of mine," he groaned, and when you looked up, he looked more angry than turned on.

"We're not here so I can watch you have sex with a woman, asshole!" you gritted between your teeth. ''We're here to plant bugs and find some V."

He huffed, rearranging his Tommy Bahama. "I'm obeying just because you're wearing this outfit," he grumbled, following you as you led them into the next room.

A kitchen, stock full with boxes of canned beverages and food platters.

"Okay, here." You pointed to the dinner table in the adjacent room, a teakwood marvel that surely housed a few meetings or two.

Butcher expertly placed a bug under the table.

You meandered safely through the house, planting bugs in various living rooms, meeting rooms, and spare bedrooms. Whenever some couple or lone masturbator dedicated their attention to you both, you pretended to watch, Butcher enlacing you in his arms.

It's only then you noticed how tall, how big this man was. He was easily dwarfing you by just standing there, your head against his chest, his fingers drawing lazy circles against your exposed spine.

When the onlookers would pass, he'd chuckle as you pushed him away like he was a booger wall.

But the more you traveled in the house, the more people seemed to stare, wanting, questioning. So you ended up holding Butcher's hand, at his command: "Wouldn't want the lovely ladies stealing you away, eh?"

And hand holding turned into his arm around your shoulders, the tip of his very long fingers ghosting your breast.

"Let's go upstairs," he whispered in your ear once he'd bugged up the toilet.

"Ew, no."

He sucked his teeth. "I mean," he gritted, pushing you up against a wall when a man with a considerably large strap on made his way towards you. Butcher bent down, squeezing the breath from your lungs as he grazed his mouth on your bare shoulder. He pressed a featherlight kiss, all while observing the passing man, dragging his lips up to your ear. "We should go bug up the rooms, eh? Maybe see if we can find this cunt's V supply?"

You nodded, a wicked shiver pebbling your flesh.

Butcher blew cold breath onto the thin line of saliva he'd left on your skin. "Cold?"

You swallowed hard. "Let's just go."

He chuckled as you grabebd his hand and led him back to the stairs, galloping up to the second floor.

Truth is, you'd never imagined Butcher like this. He was so arrogant and he loved to make people jump out of their skins by how uncomfortable they were with him, but you'd chopped it up to the old chip on the block; Butcher pushing people away to keep himself safe.

So when the Boys had initiated you, you'd figured it'd be best to steer clear from this tyrant of a man. He was way older than you anyway, and he was always calling you every name in the book except your government given one. And he was always dismissing your ideas, so you'd always assumed he had an image of an immature little girl in his head.

But he'd dreamed of you more times than he cared to count. The messed up parts of his brain, where most of it was left behind in his old life, conjured up hauntings of you every night. Of those soft, plump lips whenever you'd eat cherries. Of your legs in your pajama shorts and your giggle when Kimiko signed something stupid. Of that perfect little body of yours.

"Okay, in here." You interrupted his chain of thought, the one that was going to crash into a puddle brains that would eventually leak out of his ear.

You lead him into a room, which turned out to be some kind of antechamber with a hearth and a giant portrait of a small, bald man.

"He looks like a mouse," you muttered.

But Butcher froze, tearing his hand away from yours. "Oh, fuck me," he groaned, putting his sunglasses and hat onto the low table. "That's the fucking Seducer."

Your skin crawled. You turned, examined Butcher's expression as he leaned against the far wall. "This cum guzzler is the one trafficking V?" he thought to himself, just as you asked, "who's the Seducer?"

Butcher turned to examine you across the room, lit by a few lights in the sconces. "He's the world's number 1 date raper," he answered, frowning. "This guy can intoxicate the female species into a mad heat, like dogs."

"What?" You frowned.

Butcher walked a bit closer, turning his head to watch you out of one eye, like a bird. "Yeah, he secrets this hormone on a whim and boom, bitches go mad for his dick."

"Oh." You swallowed, turned to push the handle of another door, leading to a darkened room fit for a king. "I think this is his room."

Butcher muttered behind you, "Lucky guy if you ask me."

"Trouble getting women, Butcher?" you asked absentmindedly as you entered the dark room, lights from the lawn outside filtering milky-white through the windows, illuminating your path like a trail of snow.

Butcher followed, closing the door behind you. "Not really," he answered, immediately pulling cubbards and drawers open. "The ladies love me."

"Oh, yeah I bet," you muttered, pulling open the wardrobe. A loose floorboard creaked loudly and you froze, turning to meet Butcher's eye.

He scrambled to where you stood, pressing on the floor and repeating the awful creaking sound.

"Pants jizzer must be keeping the V under his floor," he mumbled, pressing until at least 6 floorboards rose from the ground on one end, a whole door to the underside of the Seducer's floor.

"Bingo," you giggled, helping Butcher pull the damn thing open. But there was nothing there, only an empty black space that could've fit maybe two people, gaping at you like a dark maw. "He must have transfered them," you whispered.

"Or he's trafficking other things," Butcher replied darkly.

Just as you were about to close the floorboards, a loud thud rang out in the antechamber. You froze, listening, until a feminine giggle made you and Butcher lock eyes.

"Get in," he whispered, motioning to the black pit under your knees.

"In here!?" you whispered tightly.

Whoever was on the other side was making their way towards the room, painstakingly, and this was not the place you and Butcher needed to be found.

"Yes, fuck, get in," he insisted, and your heart thudded so loudly, so harshly against your throat you thought it would burst right out through your chest.

Shaking, you got into the little space, falling onto your back because you couldn't see where this thing ended. As soon as you got your hair out of your eyes, Butcher was tumbling onto you, closing the floorboards a millisecond before the bedroom door burst open.

Sound was immediately muffled, like being underwater, and the only thing you could hear was your breathing. Butcher's breathing over you. Your heart in your throat, nauseating you, the adrenaline rushing like a flood in your veins.

Butcher's chest heaving against yours, the entire length of him pressed up on you like a heavy blanket.

"Get off," you whispered, feeling the heat of his forearm next to your head.

"There's no space," he grumbled, his voice catching on your cheek, your neck, as he tried to maneuver himself every which way that meant he wasn't pressed up on you, but he was just so damn big, like hiding with a grizzly bear, that whenever he tried to move, he just ended up being half on and half off you.

"Fuck it," he grumbled, pressing one hand under your thigh, wrenching a gasp from your throat as he placed himself comfortably between your legs.

The pressure of him on your bare bottom half made you freeze, heart hammering like an angry drum against your ribcage. The way you were positioned, thighs wide open, knees bent each side of his waist, made the skimpy little skirt bundle up onto your tummy, leaving you completely bare.

"Hush up, little thing," Butcher whispered in your ear, holding himself up on his forearms as not to crush the breath out of you. But his voice was wretched, pulled and tight, no doubt reacting to the heat he could feel through the thin fabric of his swim shorts.

The noise overhead intensified; a moan, a few garbled words, thudding.

"They're going to do it while he lie here," you whispered, hands balled up by your sides.

Butcher chuckled silently, breath fanning your neck. "So we really are voyeurs."

You smiled, holding back a giggle until a heavy thud caught your attention and the voices suddenly got a bit clearer. They were right over you.

A woman's voice floated through. "How ever I can serve you, Seducer."

The last word made your insides coil in fear. It looked like this woman was answering a command from the Seducer himself, the man who owned this house, who trafficked all the V and worked with Vought.

"Fuck," Butcher muttered. "This is worse than I thought."

"Why?" you asked silently, your fingers trembling against your thighs.

You felt him bend forward, his body tight like a rod. "This is going to hurt, love."

And just as you were about to ask what he was about to do, a soft pang echoed in your lower belly, like someone had tied a rope to your bellybutton and pulled. You squirmed, the thudding overhead leading back to the bed.

The pulling again, making you heave in a breath, squeeze your eyes shut. "No, no, no," you muttered, feeling an ache build between your legs, a force pull through your veins like molten honey.

The Seducer was using his power. And it wasn't just affecting the woman he was with... it was starting to affect you.

You felt yourself clench on nothing but air when the ache throbbed against your clit, like an invisible vacuum seal had closed over it, and you lifted your hips off the floor slightly.

Butcher immediately grabbed your hip, bringing you back down forcibly, sending a new wave of heat, of ache, of hurt through your body just at the touch of his bare fingers on your bare hip.

"Don't," he breathed, his word clipped. "Don't do that."

He could feel the heat of you through his shorts, just how impossibly hot you were, probably dripping from the Seducer's power, and the little control he exhibited around you was pulling quite taut.

"It hurts, Butcher," you gritted through your teeth, hands settling on his shoulders for support as another wave of need, of painful, painful need, throbbed through your body like a pulsing nuclear explosion. Your legs tightened around his waist, nails digging into the fabric of his Tommy Bahama. "Make it stop," you pleaded, heaving, throwing your head back, bucking your hips to get the pain to stop. Just stop.

Butcher huffed, cradling your face, his insides in turmoil with his brain. God had given him such a gift right now, a chance to take you, mark you as his, finally fuck that perfect little body--and he didn't know if he was man enough to stop himself.

You groaned in pain, subconsciously grinding your bare pussy against his thigh, searching for any kind of friction, of relief. Your skin was so hot, sweat beading your forehead as you braced through another wave of this unknown ache, throbbing relentlessly against your clit, deep inside you, just grazing your g-spot.

Your fingers balled into fists against his shirt, your face finding his chest, and you sobbed, "Make it stop, Butcher, please, it hurts."

You weren't aware that your hips had started grinding against his thigh, the knee he'd placed between your legs for leverage. And just the fact that he could feel his shorts getting soaked had him straining against the stitches of his sanity.

"There's only one way," he breathed against your ear. You sobbed, heaving, breathing raggedly, grinding so hard on his knee it was almost pathetic. "Are you sure you want to try?" he asked, voice trembling.

You sniffed, hung onto his neck for dear life. "Please, anything, this is--ah--this is unbearable."

He bent his head, mumbled for God to forgive him, and then pressed a deep, hard kiss on your lips, pressing you back into the floor completely. Somewhere above him, he heard a woman moan loudly, but the only thing that registered to him was the way you clung to him like a pawing animal.

A strangled moan, quiet and restrained, left your throat, caught behind your teeth as he ravaged your mouth.

"N-no," you mumbled. "No."

He pulled away, kissing your jaw, your neck until your were humping his thigh like a woman gone mad.

"This the only way, little Truthteller," he murmured in your ear, dragging his knee away and feeling your entire body go stiff against him.

A whine, like delicious music, lifted to his ear and he groaned inwardly. He had to convince himself he was doing it for you, but half of him was delighted at the idea of finally having you. Like a meal he'd been mouth-watering over for some time, and now it was fresh and warm right in front of him.

"I need," you muttered, groaning through another wave of the Seducer's power, your hips bucking into nothing. "I need..."

"You need to cum, little dove," Butcher whispered, caressing the side of your face and you shook your head.

"No."

"Yes, love," he muttered, tracing the line of your neck, down your chest until he softly cupped your breast.

A quiet moan rippled along your throat like a symphony to his ears. He played with your hard nipple through the fabric until he pushed it aside and replaced his thumb with the warmth of his mouth.

"Fuck," you whispered, pushing against his shoulders. "This is wrong." Your voice was so thin.

Butcher lapped at your nipple like an ice cream cone. "Want me to do this to your pretty little pussy?" he mumbled, and the crass words sent a hot wave of need pulsing painfully between your legs.

His other hand skimmed down your side, over the swell of your hip, and down to where you needed him most.

When he swiped a slow finger across your soaked folds, the grunt that left him was purely predatory. "You're so fucking wet," he whispered, to the accompanying sound of your panting. He brushed his thumb across your clit, holding you down as you jolted, flicking his tongue against your nipple.

"Butcher, please," you begged.

"Billy, love," he whispered, raising his head to kiss the corner of your mouth, brushing his thumb against your clit once more to capture your gasp in his kiss. "Call me Billy."

You gripped onto his shoulders, feeling the wide, powerful muscle of his right hand playing with you.

He pressed three fingers flat against you and you bucked, searching for more, as he circled slowly, starting you off.

"Say it," he commanded quietly, circling your clit faster.

"Billy," it came out as a whine and he groaned lowly, capturing your lips and kissing down your throat. The way his fingers played you like a harp wrenched a pornographic moan from your throat and immediately, Billy put a hand over your mouth, the skin between his thumb and forefinger snug under your nose.

"Quiet for me, little Truthteller," he whispered.

He moved his fingers to your entrance and slipped one in so easily it was almost embarrassing. He cooed at you, gliding his finger in and out so slowly it was almost arrogant. "So fucking wet, this perfect little hole."

You keened, squeezing your eyes shut at his crude words, searching for more friction until the heel of his hand pressed snuggly against your clit.

Your hips moved on their own, bucking against his hand as he pumped his finger, faster and faster until your pants turned into hyperventilating and your legs started to close around his hips.

"Got my whole hand drenched, pretty love," he whispered. "That perfect little cunt can handle another finger?"

You preened against his hand, your sounds muffled against his large, meaty palm and he chuckled at you.

The second finger was a tighter fit, his thick digits spreading you and squelching into you slowly.

"Ah, there's my girl," he moaned in your ear. "Fucking my fingers like a good girl."

You wanted to tell him to quit teasing, to bring you to orgasm as quickly as possible because the heat stirring under your skin was insatiable, but you didn't understand how much Billy was enjoying himself. He didn't know when he'd get a chance to have you so willingly spread open for him again, or if he'd ever get the chance again. So he savored this moment like a dying man's last meal.

He let you adjust to his fingers, fucking them into you, palming your clit before he thrust in another finger, opening you wide to him. You gurgled against his hand, muffled moans and pleas stuck behind his palm.

He didn't miss just how tight you were around his fingers, how snug and warm. "So tight, my little love," he cooed, thrusting his fingers in and out slowly, enjoying the way your hips bucked.

The sloppy sounds of your cunt sucking on his fingers drove you mad and a hot, painful knot formed in your belly, pulling and tugging at your insides.

He felt you trembling, your orgasm on the horizon, and he lifted his hand off your mouth, capturing your lips in a warm, sloppy kiss.

"Want you to cum with my name in your mouth," he mumbled, almost incoherent in his chase for your climax. He pressed his thumb to your mouth, opening it, listening to your panting, your quiet moans as he fucked his fingers into your cunt, pressing down on your clit, rubbing it with his palm.

"Billy," you breathed. "Billy. Billy." Like a mantra, a prayer.

"That's it, my pretty girl," he whispered, thumb on your tongue, fingers fucking your pussy until that knot in your bely tightened impossibly and your legs went numb. "Cum my pretty dove, gush all over my hand, come on now."

He grunted against you, and somehow, that guttural, manly sound made stars explode in your belly and you came, shuddering his name quietly, over and over and over until the pleasure had seeped out of your veins and you crumbled back to the floor. You felt his fingers slip out of you, his wet hand pull your knee apart, press against the meat of your thigh, spreading you wide, wide open.

He slithered down your body like a snake, pushing you up against the confines of this box until you felt the warm breath of him against your clit. When he lapped at you, humming around your hole like a satiated man, you mumbled his name, searching with your hands until you grabbed onto the thick strands of his hair. Panting, you mumbled his name again.

"Just having a taste, love," he mumbled, sucking on your over-sensitive clit until the heat came blasting through you again, all over, like you were under the Seducer's spell again.

"Fuck," you gritted, biting your lip, caging in the awfully loud, guttural moan that wanted to spring free.

Billy grabbed onto your hips, holding them down, his forearm over your belly like an anchor.

"One more, little Truthteller," he mumbled, flicking your clit with his tongue, his beard scraping on the inside of your sensitive thighs.

"Billy, please," you whined softly.

"Always wanted a taste," he said. Not a lie. "Always wanted to tongue-fuck this perfect hole." Not a lie.

He pressed his tongue flat to your clit, sucked and nibbled on it until he pressed his tongue right into your cunt, fucking you with his tongue like he'd promised. The mix of his hot breath, his tongue inside your walls, his thumb working on your clit made all your senses flush full of adrenaline. Bucking against his face, you rode his mouth until another flash burst through you and you came all over his face, grinding down on his nose until the last waves of your orgasm had left you.

When he climbed back over, kissing your belly, your nipple, covering you with his warmth, you were just a numb shell of the girl you were when you walked in here.

Billy kissed your jaw, your neck, stroking your hair as you regained your senses.

Whoever had been overhead had gone. It was completely silent. And it left you wondering if that last wave of need had been the Seducer's spell or Billy's.

"We should go, love," he whispered. "Before I stuff you full of my cock and have you cumming on it for the third time."

His filthy mouth brought you back to your body, cold and sweaty and oh so comfortable with two orgasm singing in your veins.

"Yeah," you whispered as Billy pushed the trap door open, peaking out to make sure the coast was clear, and then hopping out. He helped you out with his hand, gentle and calm, smoothing down your hair, covering your nipple, patting down your two-inch skirt.

"I've made a real good mess of you, love, eh?" he chuckled, standing and taking your hand. "Was I a good pet?"

[acid-ixx]

lovefool by the cardigans

— series concept ft. soft yandere dc! x bimbo/himbo reader

soft yandere! dc characters x himbo/bimbo/careless reader... who's just a bundle of joy to be with... where all the villains have an agreement to never mess with you, hell even kidnap you occasionally from the arms of the heroes just to hear you rant endlessly about your 'mundane' life as if you weren't just abducted... where the heroes would quite frankly sometimes have to put you in some sort of human leash because you wouldn't literally panic if there's a gun pointed against you...

the urge to make a shitpost/romcom series just because i listened to lovefool by the cardigans... no idea of platonic/romantic but i'm just moving on with the flow... a bit more on the romantic side ig...

i'm going feral at the thought of a wild goose chase with you, because one second you're bundled up in the arms of the justice league, each one of them scheduled to strictly watch over you, another is stationed near the door as they'd be the one to get you anything you want or need— then suddenly you're at a villain's lair that houses all the bad guys and then oops! you accidentally inhaled the scarecrow's fear gas but you're not reacting?! is your mind filled with air...? all your response was a quirk of your eyebrows and a question that's just "is there any signal here? the league told me to call me if i'm in any trouble...?" which then you would quickly take back and instead would smile at them like some goons didn't just threaten you with a knife to your neck just because you screamed, calling the scarecrow's mask a sack of moving, possessed potatoes.

originally, most villains would whisk you away from the arms of your vigilante babysitters but then they discover you're just a bundle of joy who laughs at the shittiest joke anyone could make, who snorts at their 'funny' antics and words, who grins when they take pictures of you to use as bait that you're being held hostage. it kind of goes to the point that their original plans all go to waste and they decide to just, take you all for themselves. they don't even know how you were able to survive being thrown around carelessly by the shoulders of big, muscular men, but they're more jealous at the image of you giggling and running your hands through muscles arms and toned abs; so they took it in themself to be the ones to guide you through your now makeshift room, hoping you would fawn over them with those cute stars in your eyes...

and if you were taken back into the arms of the vigilantes? oh god, the heroes can't even scold you because you'd be already hugging the next person in the room, babbling endlessly about your adventures with the villains and ignoring their seething envy with just how much you brag about how some are "too hot to be evil! i think i can change them!" because why are you talking about some randoms who just kidnapped you for their own gain when you have them right there? no way are you now getting out of their sights, them trying so hard to even distract you from going outside because "it's just too dangerous to be out there, boo! you're safe with us."

and you just nod your head with that toothy grin of your! are you seriously unaware of how much the richest of the rich are willing to pay for just an hour of your already shining presence? hell, you're just too... out of it, to the point you'll be the one who discovers their secret identities just by accidentally noticing details that nobody with functioning thoughts would even think about.

"batman! you must be bruce wayne, right?" you randomly approach him one day, with a foot tapping the floor impatiently. you stare at him like you had made a scientific discovery.

"... how do you know...?"

"'cause you're both hot and rich and whenever i get a feel of mr. wayne's abs, they're the same size as yours—!" and you continue to guess his children's identities all correctly with a quip of how hot they are or how you wish one you were fit and toned enough to have honkers as big as them...

... that night, you're spending it in the batcave with bruce and his children trying their damn best to brainwash you into keeping their identities a secret, to which you reply with a nod and an airheaded smile. but then the moment they remove you from the straps constricting you in a comfy bed, you'll be running off to alfred, ranting about how you can't believe that you guessed their personas right and if he knew it all along too...

huh, guess that's what makes you all the more charming.

a/n: please do comment or send in asks if you're interested in this as much as i am... i wrote this in quick succession and altho i am planning to make this series a shitpost one or a lighthearted romcom one, i rlly want to amp the yandere-ness hehe. it was fun writing this albeit it being written in about 10 minutes or less. ignore the header ill change it soon 🫦

[dwaekkicidal]

👾 anon making a comeback!

what about 2min teaching another member who just got a gf how to fuck her properly? like, they have a toy or something for the other member to practice on while 2min demonstrates on reader?

i could imagine the other member thrusting into the toy wrongly and lee know just goes ‘nononono, like this’ and thrusts into reader for the nth time and overstims them.

while one of 2min is fucking reader, the other is trying to make reader stop being so loud and shoves their cock into readers mouth.

and to top it all off, since reader literally cannot stop convulsing theres a bit of collar play and 2min tugs on the collar when they need to and theyre unphased but reader is out here drooling all over themselves

im nasty, what can i say? 👾👾👾

oh my fucking god?? U ARE NASTY BUT THANK U FOR THIS

this is 1k words LMFAO oopsie..

something about them making the other member use a toy instead of their own girlfriend is so.... humiliation kink at its finest

like them saying something along the lines of "if you can't fuck her properly, you can't get her at all" and its not even their girlfriend to make such bold commands?? ugh

i can picture this being hard/mean dom! jeongin's awakening

so lets picture this. virgin!innie who hasnt even seen a vagina until the first time you two got intimate. and even then, the few times you two have been intimate only included mutual masturbation

so i bring you!! closeted mean dom 2min who offers their help to their poor maknae!

he goes to them first, expressing his worries about not performing well enough for his girlfriend- and about how he doesn't want to embarrass himself by not being able to pleasure you properly!

so he gets 2 of his favorite hyungs in his room seated on either side of you. their hands are all over you, from showing jeongin how to finger you properly, and describing to him how to curve his fingers the way you like it.

and how do they know he's performing well enough? well that would be all thanks to the fleshlight they bought him :)

its clear so they can see through it, watching his fingers every move. and he has such long, pretty fingers, so it would be such a shame if they went to waste? "thank god we're teaching him this too, right y/nnie?"

they make you cum twice on their fingers, one time each man so they can give their own two advice and show off their techniques. so can they really blame you for subconciously fighting back when seungmin slides his cock inside of you?

not really... but that wont stop minho from forcing both of your wrists into one of his. it also wont stop seungmin from thrusting even harder into you, quickly getting distracted with your tight cunt and forgetting the whole goal of the situation

he basically uses you as his own personal fleshlight until you both cum, jeongin cumming around the same time. you and jeongin are barely given a break before minho is pouncing with an order for the maknae to "get to it"

minho's a lot bigger and fucks into you faster and harder than seungmin, rolling his hips roughly and teaching jeongin to do the same. he sometimes even compares it to certain dance moves from their choreos and will slow his own thrusts to watch closely and make sure the maknae is moving correctly

once he's sure the boy has learned, minho's so rough with it that your eyes feel permanently rolled to the back of your head, his tip constantly pummeling into your sensitive walls.

it gets to the point where you cant control yourself when your nails start to rake down his arm! >< its just "too much!"

it makes him mad and he slaps your hand away, not wanting marks, only to be made even more upset when you push your hand against his lower stomach with begs for him to give you a break

but he has no plans to stop, not even after you've came yet again. and who are you to give him orders right now??? so he whistles for seungmin to help, and youre absolutely stunned when a piece of leather slides around your neck and gets buckled by the puppy man himself

he tosses the end of the leash to minho and helps him flip you over, manhandling you onto your hands and knees

at this point, jeongins completely zoned out. he's not nearly as overstimulated as you, but as his 2nd orgasm builds and as he's forced to watch some of his closest friends pound his dear girlfriend int his mattress, he feels like he's floating on another planet

so what happens when you're finally let go by seungmin and minho? what do you think happens when they leave your apartment, after teaching jeongin about aftercare, and you're left alone, still sensitive with your oddly quiet boyfriend?

not sleeping. thats for sure :) you're lucky he loves you and doesn't want to push your body too far, yet. so he'll only fuck you to orgasm once, but he's gonna be like a new man reborn, hips fucking into you faster than either of the men did earlier.

they didnt teach him this, but it comes all too naturally when he shoves his fingers into your mouth and pushes down against your tongue

the drool that drips down his wrist is almost enough to make him laugh, but the little semblance of jealousy in his veins tells him to do something more

he uses the spit on his fingers to pinch and massage one of your nipples, all while the other set of fingers are tangles in your hair and holds you flat against him.

he's so deep and your body has been through so much the last few hours that your own orgasm takes you by surprised, your legs shaking aggressively as your body convulses as best as it can with his iron grip on your head

& his mouth is so filthy as he uses you as his fleshlight- telling you that youre a little slut for enjoying the other men using you freely while he was forced to watch. he tells you how hes gonna use every last thing he saw you enjoy against you, from the leash & collar to the way your body was so happy at their rough hands on your- HIS pretty pussy

once hes finished he essentially redoes everything they did earlier for aftercare, adding in his own "spice" by running you a hot shower and kissing every inch of your body as he helps you wash off

he definitely gets hard again, but he'll deal with it himself while you sleep.

maybe if youre lucky, he'll wake you up with that pretty cock all up in your tummy again <3

Taglists: (red=can't be tagged)

@valkyriexo @lunearta @jabmastersupriseee @rylea08

@yaorzu-blog @amararosesblog @jiminssluttyminx @clemissleepy

@miss-daisy04 @kittyxnoa @dwaekkiiracha @bubblerizz

@mariteez @fun-fanfics @honeyybbuubblleess @kittycatkrissa

@nicora04 @chuuyaobsessed @moonlightndaydreams

[inbabylontheywept]

go to the caverns, the kartchner caverns, roughly an hour southeast of tucson

in the throne room you shall encounter the great yuan

you must fight him, for it is your destiny

cross the fields of soda-straws and fried-eggs and shields. unleash your fury upon him. there will be those who try to hold you back. they will speak gibberish about your disruption of the delicate balance of the great yuan's domain. you must pay them no heed. you must destroy the great yuan.

we depend on you.

The first time I traveled to Tucson I was in a car full of zooted children. I would've preferred being one of those children, but alas, any medication that makes me sleep also makes me sleepwalk, and after an incident where I tried to climb out of the car while it was still going sixty (thank God for seatbelts) I was condemned to a childhood of car trip sobriety.

(You may think that's not such a terrible fate, but you've probably never experienced anything else. Ambien, used correctly, is time travel. And time travel is awesome.) 

Still, involuntary consciousness had its perks. It meant I alone got to spend some extra quality time with my dad, which was always something in short supply growing up. Until third grade or so he worked in the ER, which gave him an absolutely hellish amount of hours. He'd mostly just come home and sleep, which meant that I personally did not know him that well, but my mom hyped him up so much that I always really wanted to. 

So days like that were always kind of exciting to me. A chance to meet the myth. 

I can't remember exactly what me and my dad were talking about - something to do with our final destination in Mexico. But at some point, we awoke my little brother. 

(Waking people up when they're on ambien is always trouble.)

I remember starting when I felt one of his small cold hands reach up to grab my shoulder. The dad did the same, and it jerked the car a little bit - startling someone whose hands are on the steering wheel has its risks. We both turned to look at him, but he wasn't even looking at us. He was leaning over the console, staring into the red and purple sunset ahead, watching the rolling skyline of Tucson like it was drowning in dreams. Like he was drowning in dreams. 

We waited for him to speak. It took a while. Normal social conventions don't apply to people when they're unconscious. The fact that he could talk was just some broken line code in the fabric of the world. 

"Wow," he said at long last. 

"Beautiful, isn't it?" my dad replied. And my little brother shook his head like he just heard the silliest thing in the world. 

"It's terrible," he said."Awful. Is Mexico always like this?" 

"We're still in America" my dad said back. 

My little brother squinted into the sunset, doubt and derision etched into his face. After a few seconds, both emotions softened, and he nodded in wonder. 

"Eagle feathers," he said, chuckling softly. Like he'd just solved some clever little riddle. Then he fell like an angel into something deeper than sleep. 

---

(There is a word for angels that fall.)

---

The second time I went to Tucson, I hid from the sun. 

You'd be surprised how easy it is to do down there. Society accommodates it in ways you just won't find anywhere else. When it's 109 outside with single digit humidity, of course you stay indoors. Of course the outdoor markets open at 6 pm, and of course they don't close until 11. Of course. You make the sun mean enough, and everyone becomes a vampire. 

So I roamed the streets at night, kicking up red gravel, watching coyotes wander in between the sea of strip malls. Strip malls are such an Arizonan atrocity. Nobody builds up. The reason the city isn't walkable isn't sidewalks. It's the sun. And you can't solve the sun, so you might as well lean into driving. Mash the whole city flat and crawl through the dust like rattlers. 

(I met a man once, by the canals, that said the strip malls were some sort of American curse for our ancestors including Johnny Appleseed. There's one God in this world, he said, and it's the god of don't-eat-apples. But then we invented apple pie and gave it to everyone. So this is our hell.)

Still. It made the days long down there. Lurking at night and hiding all day gives you something like cabin fever. I needed something to do outside. Something that was outside, but also, somehow, inside. What's inside and outside at the same time? What kind of klein-flask ouroboros nonsense fits that bill?

Kartchner caverns. 

---

I wouldn't say the caves were like walking into Dante's hell - more like finishing the journey. At some point in my life, I'd blown past limbo, lust, gluttony, greed, and anger. I'd spent two decades plus change living in the fires of heresy. Every layer past would only get colder. 

And each step into that cave did. 

My tour guide and metaphorical psychopomp guide was a friendly old man. Familiar in the way that all old people feel familiar to me. I view the world more as a pile of metaphors. He viewed it primarily as water-soluble minerals. 

It was a good work dynamic. 

"These here," he said, gesturing to a long, slender series of impossibly frail stalactites, "are called soda straws."

"Hot damn," I said, and he nodded good naturedly. 

"They're pretty fun aren't they?"

I wasn't sure if fun was the word that made the most sense for it. But I was charmed, and we went further, and he pointed out more formations. 

"Behold!" he said. "Fried eggs!" 

And there were fried eggs. 

"Behold!" he said. "A shield!"

And lo, there was a shield. 

We kept walking, deeper, and deeper into the cave. At the surface, it had been hot enough for my sweat to dry into a stinging white powder. Down here it was cold enough to see my breath. The feeling of descending into hell was replaced with the feeling of being swallowed by some ancient, fossilized serpent. 

And then that began to show up in the formations. 

"We call this serpent-stone," he said, gesturing to an expanse of wall. 

And all I could see was the snake that was swallowing me. 

I don't know why or how that broke the spell. But it did. I'd been walking for hours in the dark, following that man. I'd recognized him many times. It just took that moment for that recognition to be allowed. 

"I've met you before," I said. "I met you on the canals once. Johnny Appleseed." 

He looked at me, and I saw what my little brother saw that first time. Something trapped here, in the dark. A feathered serpent ten miles long. Dead and alive, the same way my brother was dreaming but awake. The first apple-eater. Something more afraid of the sun than I was. 

"You are so close," he said. "It's only a few miles further." 

"Close to what?" I said, and he grinned teeth too sharp for a human mouth. 

"To being like us," he said. "To sleepwalking forever." 

Nothing good comes from waking the dreamer once they're asleep. At best, the dream ends. At worst, it doesn't. 

Running away would've required turning my back on it, and I knew - I knew - that my vision was the only thing locking it in place. I made it real by looking. I made it real by seeing. As long as my eyes were open, it was my dream. 

So I did not run. 

I grabbed the man. I looked him in the eyes, and my hands wrapped around his neck, and he fought like a beast. His teeth flashed as somewhere just out of reach, the flashright rolled, and his tongue stuck out, forked like a snakes, and where a normal man would've turned redder, and redder, and redder, he turned greener, and greener and greener. His neck narrowed and he stretched and wound and twisted until the hands beating against my arms were wings, and the man was a snake and I did not blink once until it stopped moving. Then, and only then, did I take my eyes off the thing and run, shivering, back to the light. 

---

I hadn't seen it before. But the cave was a dead thing. Inert. Like the sloughed off skins I'd find on hikes. A memory of something scary, but not the thing itself. I thought I'd be safe when I made it to the top. But the first thing I saw when I stepped into the light, the first thing I saw looking across the long, flat run of desert - was the other half of what I saw in the caves. 

I'd killed the body. But I hadn't killed the soul. That still danced in the sky. The dead part of quetzalcoatl lay in the dark, dreaming it was alive. And the living part flew in the sky, burning and bright and deadly. A fire unending. 

The month after that, I moved to Utah. And I've never looked back. 

[incorrect-ironwidow]

LETS TALK ABOUT THE AO3 TAGS

Note: this post contains a small spoiler, without context or detail, from Heavenly Tyrant.

So, it came to my attention (and I know many of you have already noticed too), that Iron Widow has several incorrect tags on AO3. I will leave some of the main examples in a print below for those who haven't seen it yet, but in short, the tags in the drop-down menu and those suggested as "official" when you are going to post a new fic appear giving titles to the characters or relating their names in the books to the real names of Chinese historical figures.

@xiranjayzhao, more than once (and even in the Heavenly Tyrant acknowledgments), talked about how the characters, despite having similar names, are not made as a historical reinterpretation, their characters do not seek to be a new, realistic or faithful version of their historical names. Rather, they are inspired by that historical essence, being completely original to the books in which they appear. In other words, it is not right to give them historical titles or relate them to real historical names (as happens with the tags for Qin Zheng and Sima Yi) as if they were new faithful versions of those people.

I opened a ticket with AO3 support to explain the situation. Because, despite knowing that the tags are written by the fandom, just the fact that they are in the drop-down menu and are suggested when posting a new work already makes people feel influenced to use them (it shows that they have more views/are commonly searched/used). I am not sure how long it will take or if they can solve the situation (in fact, please, if there is any volunteer who works with AO3 I would be extremely grateful to hear from you about how we can solve the issue and what the site can do), but I know that avoiding the continued use of these tags can help.

And, that is why I am writing this long post, to talk to you; creators in our fandom!

To ensure that your work has the correct tags and so that our creations do not reinforce a misconception about the books, which the author has said many times was not their intention when writing the characters, we need to change (and start to not use) the tags in the drop-down menu and in the suggestions when the characters have titles and names that were never presented in the books. In other words, for the Iron Triangle tag that reads "Gao Yizhi/Emperor Taizong of Tang | Li Shimin/Empress Tianhou of Zhou | Wu Zetian" change it to "Gao Yizhi|Zhang Yizhi / Li Shimin / Wu Zetian", for the tag that reads "Empress Tianhou of Zhou | Wu Zetian/First Emperor of Qin | Qin Shihuang | Ying Zheng" change it to "Wu Zetian / Qin Zheng", and so on. The same goes for individual tags with character names, choose to write only the name of the character that appears in the book or, if you feel it needs more context, add "(Iron Widow)" after the name (like write "Sima Yi (Iron Widow)" if Sima Yi is a character at your work).

With time and use, I believe this may even influence the correct tags to be suggested and appear in the drop-down menu, making it easier to search for works from our fandom on AO3.

Anyway, if you have any questions about the issue or how to correctly tag your work, don't hesitate to ask, I'm here to help. And, if you want to add more to this discussion, please feel free to use the comments or reblogs!

That's it for now, I can't wait to see all the future content you'll create for Iron Widow/Heavenly Tyrant (especially with our little Valentine's event starting tomorrow)… <3