#if only i can get my passive income going

[q-kanbas]

I hate it but I think I'm going full speed on merch stuff.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

I assure you, an AI didn’t write a terrible “George Carlin” routine

There are only TWO MORE DAYS left in the Kickstarter for the audiobook of The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

On Hallowe'en 1974, Ronald Clark O'Bryan murdered his son with poisoned candy. He needed the insurance money, and he knew that Halloween poisonings were rampant, so he figured he'd get away with it. He was wrong:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Clark_O%27Bryan

The stories of Hallowe'en poisonings were just that – stories. No one was poisoning kids on Hallowe'en – except this monstrous murderer, who mistook rampant scare stories for truth and assumed (incorrectly) that his murder would blend in with the crowd.

Last week, the dudes behind the "comedy" podcast Dudesy released a "George Carlin" comedy special that they claimed had been created, holus bolus, by an AI trained on the comedian's routines. This was a lie. After the Carlin estate sued, the dudes admitted that they had written the (remarkably unfunny) "comedy" special:

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/01/george-carlins-heirs-sue-comedy-podcast-over-ai-generated-impression/

As I've written, we're nowhere near the point where an AI can do your job, but we're well past the point where your boss can be suckered into firing you and replacing you with a bot that fails at doing your job:

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

AI systems can do some remarkable party tricks, but there's a huge difference between producing a plausible sentence and a good one. After the initial rush of astonishment, the stench of botshit becomes unmistakable:

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

Some of this botshit comes from people who are sold a bill of goods: they're convinced that they can make a George Carlin special without any human intervention and when the bot fails, they manufacture their own botshit, assuming they must be bad at prompting the AI.

This is an old technology story: I had a friend who was contracted to livestream a Canadian awards show in the earliest days of the web. They booked in multiple ISDN lines from Bell Canada and set up an impressive Mbone encoding station on the wings of the stage. Only one problem: the ISDNs flaked (this was a common problem with ISDNs!). There was no way to livecast the show.

Nevertheless, my friend's boss's ordered him to go on pretending to livestream the show. They made a big deal of it, with all kinds of cool visualizers showing the progress of this futuristic marvel, which the cameras frequently lingered on, accompanied by overheated narration from the show's hosts.

The weirdest part? The next day, my friend – and many others – heard from satisfied viewers who boasted about how amazing it had been to watch this show on their computers, rather than their TVs. Remember: there had been no stream. These people had just assumed that the problem was on their end – that they had failed to correctly install and configure the multiple browser plugins required. Not wanting to admit their technical incompetence, they instead boasted about how great the show had been. It was the Emperor's New Livestream.

Perhaps that's what happened to the Dudesy bros. But there's another possibility: maybe they were captured by their own imaginations. In "Genesis," an essay in the 2007 collection The Creationists, EL Doctorow (no relation) describes how the ancient Babylonians were so poleaxed by the strange wonder of the story they made up about the origin of the universe that they assumed that it must be true. They themselves weren't nearly imaginative enough to have come up with this super-cool tale, so God must have put it in their minds:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/29/gedankenexperimentwahn/#high-on-your-own-supply

That seems to have been what happened to the Air Force colonel who falsely claimed that a "rogue AI-powered drone" had spontaneously evolved the strategy of killing its operator as a way of clearing the obstacle to its main objective, which was killing the enemy:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/04/ayyyyyy-eyeeeee/

This never happened. It was – in the chagrined colonel's words – a "thought experiment." In other words, this guy – who is the USAF's Chief of AI Test and Operations – was so excited about his own made up story that he forgot it wasn't true and told a whole conference-room full of people that it had actually happened.

Maybe that's what happened with the George Carlinbot 3000: the Dudesy dudes fell in love with their own vision for a fully automated luxury Carlinbot and forgot that they had made it up, so they just cheated, assuming they would eventually be able to make a fully operational Battle Carlinbot.

That's basically the Theranos story: a teenaged "entrepreneur" was convinced that she was just about to produce a seemingly impossible, revolutionary diagnostic machine, so she faked its results, abetted by investors, customers and others who wanted to believe:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theranos

The thing about stories of AI miracles is that they are peddled by both AI's boosters and its critics. For boosters, the value of these tall tales is obvious: if normies can be convinced that AI is capable of performing miracles, they'll invest in it. They'll even integrate it into their product offerings and then quietly hire legions of humans to pick up the botshit it leaves behind. These abettors can be relied upon to keep the defects in these products a secret, because they'll assume that they've committed an operator error. After all, everyone knows that AI can do anything, so if it's not performing for them, the problem must exist between the keyboard and the chair.

But this would only take AI so far. It's one thing to hear implausible stories of AI's triumph from the people invested in it – but what about when AI's critics repeat those stories? If your boss thinks an AI can do your job, and AI critics are all running around with their hair on fire, shouting about the coming AI jobpocalypse, then maybe the AI really can do your job?

https://locusmag.com/2020/07/cory-doctorow-full-employment/

There's a name for this kind of criticism: "criti-hype," coined by Lee Vinsel, who points to many reasons for its persistence, including the fact that it constitutes an "academic business-model":

https://sts-news.medium.com/youre-doing-it-wrong-notes-on-criticism-and-technology-hype-18b08b4307e5

That's four reasons for AI hype:

to win investors and customers;

to cover customers' and users' embarrassment when the AI doesn't perform;

AI dreamers so high on their own supply that they can't tell truth from fantasy;

A business-model for doomsayers who form an unholy alliance with AI companies by parroting their silliest hype in warning form.

But there's a fifth motivation for criti-hype: to simplify otherwise tedious and complex situations. As Jamie Zawinski writes, this is the motivation behind the obvious lie that the "autonomous cars" on the streets of San Francisco have no driver:

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/01/driverless-cars-always-have-a-driver/

GM's Cruise division was forced to shutter its SF operations after one of its "self-driving" cars dragged an injured pedestrian for 20 feet:

https://www.wired.com/story/cruise-robotaxi-self-driving-permit-revoked-california/

One of the widely discussed revelations in the wake of the incident was that Cruise employed 1.5 skilled technical remote overseers for every one of its "self-driving" cars. In other words, they had replaced a single low-waged cab driver with 1.5 higher-paid remote operators.

As Zawinski writes, SFPD is well aware that there's a human being (or more than one human being) responsible for every one of these cars – someone who is formally at fault when the cars injure people or damage property. Nevertheless, SFPD and SFMTA maintain that these cars can't be cited for moving violations because "no one is driving them."

But figuring out who which person is responsible for a moving violation is "complicated and annoying to deal with," so the fiction persists.

(Zawinski notes that even when these people are held responsible, they're a "moral crumple zone" for the company that decided to enroll whole cities in nonconsensual murderbot experiments.)

Automation hype has always involved hidden humans. The most famous of these was the "mechanical Turk" hoax: a supposed chess-playing robot that was just a puppet operated by a concealed human operator wedged awkwardly into its carapace.

This pattern repeats itself through the ages. Thomas Jefferson "replaced his slaves" with dumbwaiters – but of course, dumbwaiters don't replace slaves, they hide slaves:

https://www.stuartmcmillen.com/blog/behind-the-dumbwaiter/

The modern Mechanical Turk – a division of Amazon that employs low-waged "clickworkers," many of them overseas – modernizes the dumbwaiter by hiding low-waged workforces behind a veneer of automation. The MTurk is an abstract "cloud" of human intelligence (the tasks MTurks perform are called "HITs," which stands for "Human Intelligence Tasks").

This is such a truism that techies in India joke that "AI" stands for "absent Indians." Or, to use Jathan Sadowski's wonderful term: "Potemkin AI":

https://reallifemag.com/potemkin-ai/

This Potemkin AI is everywhere you look. When Tesla unveiled its humanoid robot Optimus, they made a big flashy show of it, promising a $20,000 automaton was just on the horizon. They failed to mention that Optimus was just a person in a robot suit:

https://www.siliconrepublic.com/machines/elon-musk-tesla-robot-optimus-ai

Likewise with the famous demo of a "full self-driving" Tesla, which turned out to be a canned fake:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-video-promoting-self-driving-was-staged-engineer-testifies-2023-01-17/

The most shocking and terrifying and enraging AI demos keep turning out to be "Just A Guy" (in Molly White's excellent parlance):

https://twitter.com/molly0xFFF/status/1751670561606971895

And yet, we keep falling for it. It's no wonder, really: criti-hype rewards so many different people in so many different ways that it truly offers something for everyone.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/29/pay-no-attention/#to-the-little-man-behind-the-curtain

Back the Kickstarter for the audiobook of The Bezzle here!

Image:

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

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

--

Ross Breadmore (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/rossbreadmore/5169298162/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[shaykai]

Nightmare But He’s Randomly Passive

This is an official update post on the state of the comic

Currently speaking, the comic is discontinued. I have a lot of love for it still, but making comics takes a lot of time and effort that I don’t have to dedicate to it, and my focus has shifted from UTMV to other interests.

I want to thank everyone so much for all the love and support you’ve all shown the comic, it was an amazing experience and I still smile when I look back on it

Beginning of The Comic

Below the cut are the unedited scripts for the next parts for anyone who is interested.

(Full disclosure, I use the word ‘script’ loosely. A lot of the comic work was done on the fly, so a lot of the details are vague at best)

Dream: (eyes go wide) Nightmare is here- we need to figure out what he’s up to before something terrible happens.

Blue: You got it! Let’s go get him-

(Killer throws a knife, Blue narrowly dodges)

Killer: The Boss shows up once and you’re ready to just pretend I’m not here? Ouch. Guess I’ll have to remind you who to keep your eyes on. Horror, mind helping out?

Horror: Not at all.

***

(They convince NM to go on missions with them. Dream notices but can’t reach him- write a star sans segment where he plans out how to get to NM. They fight like three times without trouble- fourth time is when dream finds NM)

Stars & Bad Sanses fighting

Dream’s eyes go wide as he senses NM’s aura: Blue, Ink, he’s here- do you have them under control?

Ink: We got it!

Blue: Be safe!

Dream starts B-Lining for NM, Cross notices

Cross: Shit- he’s after Nightmare!

Cross takes off after him only for Blue to get directly in his way: Sorry! Dream’s busy.

The others take off after Dream, Ink catches Dust and Horror as Killer narrowly skirts by. Ink tries to catch him as well but Horror and Dust intervene. (Ink catches them with several bone attacks before getting slammed into a tree by a gaster blaster, barely ducking his head down as an axe gets stuck in the tree)

Ink: Shoot- Dream, incoming baddie!

Dream: Killer-! (Killer tackles him, Dream holds a knife inches from his face between his sabers)

Killer: Heya Dreamboat! Sorry ‘bout the Boss, his schedule is pretty packed today. Maybe we can hang out instead, whaddya say? (Dream manages to shove him off, they start circling each other)

Dream: I don’t have time for this- whatever Nightmare is up to, I’ll stop him.

Killer: That a no? Too bad, you were cute, too. (Winks)

(They fight, it’s pretty back and forth and Killer keeps Dream from getting too far away until Ink appears, catching Killer’s feet with paint and making him trip, Dream’s sabers are about to be brought down on his soul- unintentionally- Dream looks as scared as Killer does)

Nightmare throws his weapons and knock Dream’s sabers to the ground. They both freeze and stare at each other, Dream starts shaking.

Everyone stops to stare at them before Dust teleports over and helps Killer up.

Dream: Nightmare-

Nightmare gives him a hard stare before turning and running into a portal. The others teleport over and run into it, the portal closes before the Stars can get to it

Dream: Brother, wait-!!

Ink: Was that… Nightmare? Why does he?…

Blue: Oh Stars…

(Dream is crying, they both hug him)

Killer: Boss-

Everyone slouches as Nightmare’s aura lashes out. He rushes to his room.

Dust: …. Fuck.

***

Horror slides some food in- figure out what it is??

Nightmare: (He’s been cooking everyone’s favorite food.. Hm.)

NM exiting his room for the first time in weeks

Dust: Boss?

Killer: Wow, are you a piece of paper? Cause you look straight up terrible.

Dust: (ha) that pun was awful.

Cross: Have you been sleeping?….

Nightmare glares: I don’t have to sleep.

Horror: But you can and you should.

Killer: Yeah, like any of us do what we’re supposed to.

Horror: ‘Least you came back out… You need help with something?

Nightmare: I’ve reread everything in my personal library. I’m gathering new books, then I’ll be gone.

Dust: I’ve got a few recs for ya. If uh, you want them, that is.

Nightmare: …… Make it quick.

Dust: You got it.

(They get a few books, Nightmare vaguely compliments Dust’s taste in literature) (maybe Dust offers up a book he’s already read, NM says as much before hesitating and taking it)

Dust: Hey. Before you go back to your room, maybe you could… Stick around for a bit. Seeing you around is good for morale, you know.

Nightmare: Your morale is fine without my immediate presence.

He leaves back to his room to find a stack of papers and a few pencils with a small note saying “sometimes drawing helps. Dumb, I know. Try it out sometime.�� From Cross and one of Killer’s cats (maybe with a whoops how did this get in here, note)

He sighs, pushing the papers off of his desk

Nightmare: this is ridiculous. (He sits, going to grab a book before the cat jumps onto his lap) no, get off- (it lays down, comfortable and purring)

Nightmare: How does Killer put up with you? (He scowls at the cat, glaring for a long moment before reluctantly petting it. He does that for a moment before signing and rolling his eyes as he picks up one of the books Dust gave him) Ridiculous.

(Those are all the script pages I had! I had plans for more after this, specifically a scene for the Star Sanses to plan and console Dream, and a plan to talk to Nightmare. I don’t remember if I worked out an ending or not, but it would’ve been happy! I’m a sap and I need the brothers to hug.)

[theloverlylo]

Eddie Diaz Is Bad With Money And It's Perfect

You know what I love about this show? They seed character flaws. Not every negative quality gets a plotline or becomes a thing. Sometimes they just toss a couple lines in here and there, so if they need something later. Case in point: Eddie and money.

Eddie is an impulsive, if not reckless, spender. In season 2, he treats the cost for Chris's private school as a non-factor, as if it has no value. He lavishes Chris with whatever he wants, something Shannon calls him out for. In Season 3, he buys a truck on a whim. Yes, he had extra money from the fight club, but he still made a major purchase on "fuck it, it's hot". Throughout the seasons, Eddie buys whatever he wants at the drop of a hat. And yes, it's TV, but the other characters still mention money, budgets, et cetera. Eddie never does.

So him spending every penny on a fixer-upper in El Paso when he'd been content to rent for years in LA fits him perfectly. He just doesn't handle money well.

And again, I love this show, because they those throwaway lines of reckless spending tie perfectly into Eddie's backstory. As we've seen more of Ramon and Helena, we've seen what kinds of parents they were. Passive-aggressive, guilting people into things, but also the kind who were very focused on how they looked to other people. The trophy emphasis? That's what that is: being more concerned with other people's views than their children. And that kind of parent is absolutely the kind that treats money and things as proof of love.

Eddie didn't need to join the military to provide for his family. It would have been harder to go to college or trade school and work, and would have required leaning on family for support, but it would have been possible. But Eddie didn't. He enlisted to support his family, because he was raised in an environment where money and material goods were the proof you love someone. It's why his reupping worked as an excuse: he was providing money, the strongest proof of love. We see in Season 6 that Ramon and Helena don't rank the presence of a parent as much as a high income, and in flashbacks, their arguments that they can provide a better home for Chris is rooted strongly in money and things.

Circling back to Eddie's military service: a decent number of enlisted are shit with money. I get this from my dad, who was a JAG for 22 years (8 active duty, 14 national guard). He helped a lot of young servicemen through debt and bankruptcy issues. The pattern he saw was this: men who enlisted young and didn't have family's on-base tended to have poor financial control. Policy at the time (80s, might have changed now) was that for a length of time, at least Basic and possibly beyond), a service member didn't get their full pay. Half was paid then, and the other half deposited into an account they could access after graduation. A decent number of those young, single service personnel would then see that big chunk of change and then blow it, typically on sports cars (Dad did work on a lot of repos).

Eddie enlisted young. Young is key, because these are the people who went from their parents' home to basic training. They never had to manage their own money, set budgets, pay bills, and the military (at least back then) didn't teach financial literacy. All the money of an adult, with far fewer responsibilities.

The other part of that pattern, though, doesn't seem to fit. Eddie was married with a kid, not single. But the reason it was single service members was that they lived in the barracks, and when you live in barracks, you don't have to pay rent or utilities. We're never told that Shannon and Chris lived on base with Eddie when he was stateside. We only ever see them staying with Ramon and Helena. (No wonder Shannon broke.) This means that Eddie likely lived with his parents and/or on base, in barracks, eliminating his biggest expenses while likely remaining eligible for housing and food supplements for his family.

Thus, for the duration of their marriage, Shannon and Eddie's finances probably went thus: Eddie deposited most of his paychecks into an account Shannon could access. There was likely an amount set aside for fun money for Eddie, but he would have very few bills while on base or in-country. Instead, Shannon, the accountant, handled their money. She did the budgets, paid the bills, clipped the coupons, et cetera. Eddie only had to buy things he wanted.

And that mindset never changed, even when Shannon left and Eddie had to take over the money. At no point had Eddie ever had to sit down and learn to handle money long-term. And he still hasn't. He gives Chris whatever he wants, or even what he thinks he wants because he thinks that's love. Chris has to tell Eddie to save his money in Season 8, because Chris, at this point, has more financial sense than his father.

Proof of that: All Eddie's savings went to the down payment on a fixer-upper. I took a quick hop over to Zillow. El Paso is not a super expensive city to buy in. Lots of fully renovated homes for $175-300000. The down payment on a $300000 house can vary, from as low as $9000 (3%) to as high as $60000. The average rate is 8%, which is $24000. But Eddie didn't buy a $300000 house. He bought a fixer-upper. So lets cut that by a third to a half. That's $12000- 18000 dollars. Eddie, after two decades of working (2 6-year tours + 8 years LAFD), got wiped out by less than $20000 dollars. And yes, medical bills, separation costs, cost of living. But having that little savings, after that much time, after Shannon's estate and her life insurance (he was still her husband at the time; he'd get everything), and never giving an indication of living paycheck to paycheck (again, he bought a car ON A WHIM)? That's not just bad with money, that's pathologically bad with money. I hope Shannon's estate got placed in a trust for Chris or he is beyond fucked when it comes to college.

TL;DR Eddie is brain-meltingly bad with money, and Buck should handle all their finances.

[aussiexlovexaffair]

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨ Roommate!Luke Headcanons ୧⋆ ˚｡⋆

- moving in with Luke happened by chance

- he was pretty keen on staying with Liz for longer, but seeing as he was moving away to London to continue making music with the band, he couldn't do that.

- it didn't help that the label he was signed to, though the band was getting popular slowly, didn't have enough money for an apartment for the boys. they could only provide the studio.

- so he started looking online and around bulletin boards of the coffee shops he went to for adverts

- and lucky you— he saw yours ;)

- he didn't catch the name on the sign, just quickly taking one of the numbers from the bottom of the poster

- he reached out very kindly, saying that he was working in the area and he would have a stable-ish source of income

- and you, desperately needing some company and someone to help pay the bills, immediately suggested you get together over coffee to get to know each other better

- but he didn't expect you to be a girl— let alone a hot one.

- "hello, sorry to bother you, but do you mind if I sit with you? i'm waiting for someone." "oh of course, I am too, anyways!" "oh, neat!.. who are you waiting for?" "i'm meeting someone who is looking to room with me." - "....me too." - he just stares silently, blinking every once in awhile until you have to ease the awkward energy in the air, "are you Luke?" - "yEah." he cringes as his voice breaks

- but instead of making fun of him, you giggle at the red creeping up his neck and tell him it's alright

- and suddenly he's starting to think that taking that number was totally worth it. - he totally finds himself texting the boys groupchat after you two meet like "i just met the love of my life and i'm gonna be living with her 0-0"

ₓ˚. ୭ ˚○◦˚Living with Him˚◦○˚ ୧ .˚ₓ

- he makes a mess in the shower

- he wasn't a "making potions in the bath" kid but he does make them now with your skincare and haircare products in the shower

- his room is relatively clean, but it gets messy occasionally when he finds himself, like all boys his age, getting lazy

- he likes to split chores up evenly but he will try to convince you to do his

- one of his favorite things to do is jam out with you

- he likes having speakers around the house so no matter what time it is or where in the house you are, you two can listen to music and sing along

- he has stuffed animals given to him by fans all around the house because he can't find it in himself to toss them— and about a hundred get donated to you

- like all of the boys, he can be a bit of a perv

- especially when the boys are around and you walk out of the room because you can hear calum call him out for staring at you as you walk away

- but somehow he never gets yelled at by you because he does that thing when he gets caught making a suggestive joke or gesture when he goes all wide-eyed

- but the minute you do the same thing, he's gone completely red and he's rubbing the back of his neck softly as he tries to wrap his mind around the fact that you did that.

- he thinks about it for the next week at night.

- speaking of which, he's a very peaceful sleeper, but if he's really tired, he sounds like a foghorn

- luke is the type to wash his dishes and do yours too, but if he gets mad at you, trust the next time you go to the sink, all you will find is your own plates left to clean

- he's petty like that— especially when you bring home another person.

- he's got a bit of a temper and his reactions to them are more passive aggressive than straight on— and everything is whispered under his breath

- he'll bring it up over breakfast when he's having his bowl of cheerios, "...'saw some new shoes at the door last night..." "yeah, i brought someone over last night." "they looked cheap." "oh!.."

- and he'll do it to them too.

- and he'll interrogate them if he can.

- "so, d'you got a job?" "ah... no." "looks it."

- if he has a moment alone with them, the side eye he gives is INSANE

- "are you happy in your relationship, y/n?" "uhm.. yeah?" "...huh."

- but he's also incredibly sweet if you ignore his pettiness

- if he doesn't have anywhere to be and you have the night off, he'll insist you two do something

- at first when you suggest facemasks and doing each other's nails, he has an internal battle.

- he likes you, of course, and doesn't want you to see him as girly or like just a best friend, but after a bit of convincing, he's got a strawberry peel-off on his face and he's trying to stop the shaking of his hands as he delicately brushes on nail polish over your nails with a chick flick in the background

- but he's holding your hand, so it isn't that bad :))))

- he cannot cook for his life, but if you need help with something, he'll try his hand at anything

- he nearly burnt the apartment cooking soup at one point and from then on you decided he'd just be reading off the directions and cleaning up

- but he could make a mean mac and cheese, so if you ever get sick, trust he'll be making you some

- he's kinda icked out by sick people, but he ignores it because he's got a thing for you, so he comes into your bedroom with tea and mac and cheese while holding his breath.

- "Luke?" "..mmph?.." "are you holding your breath?" ".....mhm." - he isn't afraid to stand up for you though

- if you go to a bar, he'll insist on coming with you.

- he doesn't want a creep making a move on you when you're intoxicated

- if you get up and dance, he's a little more hesitant to follow you because while he might do it at the apartment, dancing in front of so many people his age seems like social suicide

- but seeing a guy coming up behind you and dancing with you has the most pathetic whine leaving his lips as he drags his hands through his quiff and he finds himself dragging a very intoxicated roommate back to the house

- "you shouldn't flirt with people like that, i don't know why you'd do that really." "but they were cute!" "so am i!" - and now he's gotta stop you from stumbling as he walks you to your room and brushes your teeth for you and helps you change— all the while he's staring at the ceiling and you're making fun of him for it. - but he can't leave you— you're drunk! - so now he's curled up at the foot of the bed, fully dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, converse and beanie still on, and laying on top of the blankets because he doesn't want you to get the wrong idea when you wake up.

- btw there's an aspirin and a bottle of water on the bedside table— courtesy of Luke Hemmings

[ratlesshonret]

(This is a very long and disorganized rant. It may come off as very aggressive, but know that it is simply the way I speak when I want to ramble and not indicative of any true anger/malice)

Follow-up to my last post, it is kind of a pet peeve of mine when people almost brag about winning Limbus encounters with winrate.

Like... if you don't like the gameplay, just say that. If you want to just get to the story, that's fine. But sometimes I'll see a creator act like they're so amazing at Limbus, like "I'm so good I can win even with winrate"

But. That's not. Being good at the game? That's just letting gacha luck and the autowin button play the game for you while you take all the credit.

Idk, I kind of hate it, as someone who genuinely likes and appreciates the intricacies of Limbus gameplay. Esp when they whine and fucking complain about how a fight is "too hard" because they have to read two lines of text and then manually select a few skills instead of letting the win button carry them.

Even worse is when these people go play Ruina and complain that it's way too complicated because there isn't a single button that lets them win any fight. Hot take incoming everyone, but Ruina is really not that hard, literally 90% of the game is learning to read. And there's a difference between "ooh lmao i missed that one line when going over the passives, i can't read lol" and "i genuinely refuse to read the passives even when i am losing over and over again"

And that's the thing, some of these people literally REFUSE to read card/skill effects and passives. When they'd probably save more time reading them both by losing the fights less and becoming better at the game.

I feel like in the start, "Project Moon fans can't read" was just to describe a phenomenon of missing/misreading a line or two in the text and making a silly mistake because of it, but now it has gone to become a genuine phenomenon and almost an excuse for itself. Creators and redditors and many others literally refusing to read the text and then excusing it with "well limbus fans can't read it's fine"

And now it is seeping into the story discussion. People wanting to have the story neatly summarized for them by someone else, because they aren't willing to have their own thoughts and interpretations. I mean, what if I'm wrong guys?!?!?! What if I had an incorrect interpretation of the story that harmed nobody and only served to slightly confuse me for a short period?!?!?!

In some ways, the phenomenon of creators like ESGOO neatly summarizing IDs and their gameplay so that winrating Limbus streamers can know what to shard for to put as little effort into playing and enjoying the game as possible has seeped into every corner of the fandom. It's like: "Guys I've GOTTA know what my smart Limbus gameplay guy says about the new ID/EGO. I've GOTTA have Reddit summarize the story for me. I can't have my own thoughts about the gameplay or the mechanics or the story or anything, I need to have someone else package it for me"

I know that not everyone is a diehard fan. Some people are just casuals. It's okay to not enjoy the gameplay and want to get it over with, and to some degree it is helpful to have other people do stuff like explain what IDs/EGOs are good, and what to look out for in both your own and the enemy's skills so you can spend as little time as possible being bogged down with reading pages of text.

But when I see people complaining like "they should just put the source code in the ID skill text" or "omg this new ID is a fucking novel who wants this" it just makes me a little sad. Are we so averse to reading, what, like two paragraphs total of text, that we need to complain every time a new ID comes out that has more than two effects per skill?

And when I see people blatantly misunderstand the story, possibly now because they just skimmed the dialogue and had someone else explain what happened and then formed their opinions based on how they felt when the pretty colors were on screen, it makes me wonder what we're doing.

It almost feels like something Project Moon would tackle in their own works. A society so unwilling to think their own thoughts, so unwilling to take even the barest effort to understand the world around them, that they rely on a few select people they've just decided are smart to summarize and explain everything confusing that happens so that they can go back to mindlessly mashing buttons.

And this behavior being reinforced, through memes like "Project Moon fans don't read" and "me when I winrate the final boss" and "just spam fluid sac lmao," as well as through batshit insane plot theories and interpretations that seem like people are just saying whatever.

I don't really have a point other than that... maybe we need to encourage more actually reading? Instead of just having a semi-formed thought and going to the nearest 'expert' to ask "hey what do you think about X story thing" we actually encourage people to have their own thoughts and feelings and opinions instead of just listening to whatever the generic fandom hivemind says about the plot and mechanics.

[hannie-dul-set]

[it’s okay, i have him blocked (no you have not)]. > @.you shared the post: pomodoro technique 25 minutes study, 5 minutes think about what went wrong and how can i make things right again.   > @.matthew commented: oh my god.   > @.hao commented: ?!?!? GIRL HELLO??? 😭😭😭           > @.gyuvin replied: is this about……

> @.you shared the post: damn haha just took an extra dose of adderall the side effects are crazy i miss him already.   > @.taerae commented: you’re so fucking messy.   > @.ricky commented: please stop embarrassing yourself.           > @.you replied: i blocked him it’s fine.               > @.gunwook replied: LMFAO.

> @.you shared the post: me? getting back with my ex? HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH if he wants to. > @.you shared the post: fuck nonchalance. i miss you. please come back to me please please please please please—   > @.yujin commented: this is getting painful to watch.           > @.you replied: shut up. go to bed.               > @.yujin replied: ur not my mom.

> @.you shared the post: if 1 plus 1 equals two, i miss you don’t you miss me too 😞😞😞.   > @.hanbin commented: maybe….text him to find out?           > @.you replied: i’d rather DIE.               > @.matthew replied: coward.               > @.ricky replied: chicken.               > @.gunwook replied: pussy.

> @.taerae mentioned you in a post: where’s your i miss you posting today or did you finally stop being mentally ill.   > @.hao commented: hey i thought i was the only one waiting for it.           > @.taerae replied: it’s my nightly newspaper.   > @.you commented: give me a second.

> @.you shared a post: hi what’s a good message to wrong send i need an excuse to talk to him again.   > @.taerae commented: balance restored.   > @.matthew commented: ask him if he’s open for a survey.   > @.yujin commented: ask him if he’s interested in generating a passive income.   > @.gyuvin commented: maybe start by unblocking him first.   > @.jiwoong commented: personally i think a simple hello would do.           > @.gyuvin replied: holy shit.           > @.ricky replied: 🍿🍿🍿           > @.gunwook replied: YOOOOOOO           > @.you replied: WHAT THE FUCK.           > @.you replied: HDHEJEJ?!?!??HJ           > @.you replied: I THOUGHT I HAD YOU BLOCKED?????               > @.jiwoong replied: maybe you should have double checked first.

> @.jiwoong replied: and don’t worry. i miss you too. 

[dollfacedsl1ut]

Chanel purse

➼ compendium : you bought another purse without permission

➼ dynamic : !sugar mommy zyu x !fem reader

➼ warnings : guided masturbation, vibrator, squirting, onsided masturbation, phone sex, mommy jihyo obv, reader has a degradation kink, dirty talk (just jihyo), passive aggressiveness from zyu, reader is horny hearing zyu scold her :((

requested?? : nope (request are open tho)

➼ word count : 637

a/n: I’ve been obsessed with zyu recently LIKE OFMFKDKDJ (⸝⸝⸝O﹏ O⸝⸝⸝) not proofread Oopsie

˚₊‧꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ ˚₊‧꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ ˚₊‧꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ ˚₊‧꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

You shut your laptop after buying yet another Chanel purse with jihyos credit card, shes been on her work trip for the past 2 weeks her absence drove you mad as you started to buy any online purchase that sparked your interest including a 1.5k pink purse with a pearl handle

Your phone rang with a incoming call from jihyo, answering her raspy voice started to speak fast over the phone “y/n another purse what the fuck are you doing” you put her on speaker phone picking up your cup of tea “I got bored my bad” rolling your eyes jihyo could sense that you didn’t care about the purchase “y/n I’m so serious” her voice deepened causing you to squeeze your thighs together “m’sorry I just missed you so much I needed to occupy myself” she sighed into the mic before lecturing you, her voice just turned you on forgetting about why she even called you, the uncomfortable feeling of your panties sticking to your clit made you rock your hips against the bed the friction caused soft whimpers to escape your lips.

Thinking about using your vibrator you were a bit scared jihyo would hear the buzzing sound your eyes scanned over the bed as your eyes landed on the white hitachi wand turning it on low and sliding your panties aside the wand touched your clit as your breath hitched, rocking your hips steadily with the wand you picked up your phone before placing it on your chest you can tell jihyo was finishing her rant before a particularly loud moan escaped your lips which caused jihyo to stop talking…

“Y/n…” you could hear the dussaponntmebt in her voice “I’m sorry i couldn’t help myself-“ your whiny voice made her show a little mercy on you “are you using the hitachi wand I got you” looking down at the at the wand placed between your folds “yes I’m sorry- I just like the way your voice changes when you’re upset” your voice shook as you felt your release nearing “so you like my voice sweetheart?” The tone of her voice causes your brain to fog “it’s such a shame in not there to fuck my pretty girl silly” jihyo heard your high pitched moaning knowing you were near your release you rocked your hips faster against the wand the vibration still on low the faint buzzing sound was the only thing you heard besides your moans and jihyo helping you cum “I’m so close” your voice barely above a whisper, she heard your pleads to let you cum “turn it up higher” pressing the button the vibrations sped up you stopped rocking your hips as your legs shook and repulsed “please I need to cum please” pleads barely audible, you heard jihyo chuckle at your pleads

“why should I let you cum you spent money on a new purse without asking then proceeded to fuck yourself as I lectured you” your heart sank as you kept the vibrator to your clit trying to delay your release, thinking of a good comeback you decided to keep it to yourself really needing to cum “you know I don’t reward for bad behavior y/n” she sighed again in the mic making it harder for you to hold back “since I’ve missed your pretty voice… I’ll let you cum sweetheart” you whimpered loudly as you let go squirting all over the bed your thighs quivered as you kept the vibrator against your clit, your juices spewing out occasionally “now cut the vibrator off” removing the vibrator before powering the wand off you sat up examining the mess “I want the sheets changed by the time I get back you have 2 hours get it done” seeing the condition of the room you knew you had to get started right away

© psychoz4nymph.tumblr please do not copy, steal or translate my work without permission

˚₊‧꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ ˚₊‧꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ ˚₊‧꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ ˚₊‧꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

[nanamineedstherapy]

Third Wheeling Your Own Marriage

F!Non-Sorceress CEO Reader x Gojo Satoru x Nanami Kento

CHRO Reader x Higuruma Hiromi

Snippet -Gojo grinned. "Nanami? Working. Someone’s gotta fund couples’ therapy." He leaned back, laugh-rich. "Kidding! He’s suspended like me—so these days he reads about pregnancy, cooks nutritionally balanced meals, day trades and lets our wife cheat in video games. Very sexy, very domestic." WormTakeTheWeel: GOJO, BLINK TWICE IF NANAMI HAS A GUN. As if summoned by his sins, you appeared in the doorway. Gojo lit up like a kid handed a lifetime supply of sweets. "Wifey! Hi!" Unaware of what he was sharing in the stream, heavily pregnant in Nanami’s sweater, you balanced a tray of snacks. “Here,” you murmured—strawberry slices, chocolate-covered crackers, strawberry Pocky milk. The kind of effortless care that came from loving someone past the point of sanity. Gojo melted, feeding you a grape. You hummed, patted his head like a misbehaving puppy, and waddled out. “Thank you, sweetheart,” he crooned. The chat imploded. MechamarusLeftKnee: WAIT, THAT’S HER?? SHE'S SO CUTE??? SuguruForgotCondoms: HOW DID U TWO LAND HER? SHE’S LIKE ‘RICH’ RICH. NonConsensualForeheadStitches: BRO, SAY SORRY AGAIN, WTF? DO NOT FUMBLE A BADDIE, BRO!

Summary: You should be overjoyed that Gojo Satoru & Nanami Kento are your husbands. But you feel your skin crawl as you become the third wheel in your own marriage. Chapter Summary: Gojo Satoru has two settings: ‘Unhinged God’ and ‘Emotionally Constipated Golden Retriever.’ Nanami Kento is a spreadsheet with a pulse. Their wife? A heavily pregnant, introverted CEO who’s one Sims murder spree away from filing divorce papers in triplicate. Featuring: Parisian apologies, cursed twins rewriting reality, and a group chat that’s 47% memes, 53% war crimes. Love is stored in the passive-aggressive barista. Some smut. A/N: Sorry for the delay, besties—I was spiritually kidnapped by capitalism and the brainrot gods, but this chapter wouldn’t exist without WhatDidIJustRead on AO3/ @blackrimmedrose on Tumblr (who slid into my DMs like a reverse curse technique to beta this mess). I was out here lost in the void, vibing with my last two brain cells, when she showed up like an exorcist asking, "Hey, wanna be normal?" And I said, "Absolutely not." She beta-read, supporting my Sukuna x Nanami delusions, and told me to go full K-Drama Kaisen (which, btw, may or may not foreshadow a tragic villain(not human or living thing) in the story ahead. Who's to say? 👀). For this chapter: read the usernames (yes, they mean something, no, I won’t elaborate), tell me your favorite scene (because I know it’s long but I believe in your attention span—barely), and get ready because we’re in the endgame. Three more chapters and then we either crash and burn in angst or soft-launch a happy ending. Choose wisely. Also, special-grade Nanamin incoming (read that in Yuki’s voice), and CHRO should be read as another reader. Can you guess their backstory? I can bet, it's more unhinged than you think. Also I was kinda thinking what if in this fic the husbands look like the header. This chp is only happening the way it is bcs I may or may not be ovulating rn :P Had to break this chapter in two posts bcs Tumblr won't let me post it. Link to the next part at the bottom.

Previous Chapter 19 (alt ending 2.10) - The Anatomical Weight of Neglect in Infinite Drops - Part 4 (Tumblr/Ao3)

Chapter 20 (alt ending 2.11) - The Fault Lines: The Honored One’s Guide to Fumbling the Bag (And Other Love Languages) - Part 1

Discovery #1: Gojo Has Been Emotionally Waterboarding Himself for Fun—and Maya Is Into It (Professionally)

Maya swirled the questionable contents of her chipped coffee mug—definitely not coffee—and leveled Gojo with a look that could curdle milk. "You know what's hilarious? I actually thought you'd take this therapy seriously. My mistake."

Gojo, sprawled across the couch like a discarded prom dress, grinned. "Maya, darling, when have I ever taken anything seriously?"

"Point taken." She leaned forward, eyes gleaming with the predatory interest of a scientist observing a particularly fascinating train wreck. "Now explain why you spent last night watching old home videos of your wife and pausing on frames where she looked happiest."

Gojo blinked. "Is that... not normal?"

Maya's smile was razor-thin. "Oh, sweet winter child. That's not nostalgia—that's psychological self-flagellation. You're emotionally waterboarding yourself. For fun." She took a sip of her mystery drink, which smelled like industrial solvent. "Were you trying to break yourself like a CIA intern?"

Gojo adjusted his sunglasses. "Not intentionally."

Maya's clipboard hit the floor with a clatter. "YOU ZOOMED IN ON HER HANDS AND STARED AT THEM FOR TWO HOURS, GOJO."

"They are so small. I was appreciating them!"

"YOU'RE SIX-FOOT-THREE. EVERYONE'S HANDS LOOK SMALLER COMPARED TO YOU. EVEN KASHIMO'S. AND I CHECKED."

Gojo's brows furrowed. "Wait, why were you—"

"FOCUS." Maya's cheeks flushed—vodka or Kashimo-related trauma, unclear. "Then you fell asleep listening to an AI voice read her old emails."

Gojo perked up. "Wait, you can do that?"

Maya exhaled through her nose. "Do you understand how normal people process guilt?"

Gojo beamed. "Not even a little."

Maya lit a cigarette directly under the NO SMOKING sign.

Discovery #2: Nanami Has Been Micromanaging the Apocalypse—Maya Approves (Almost)

"I want it on record that I don’t want to be here," Nanami said, posture stiffer than a starched collar.

You rolled your eyes while Gojo was busy sniffing your new shampoo.

“Freud would eat you alive.” She leveled Nanami with a smirk. 

Nanami adjusted his cuffs (and your ovaries did the thing). "Freud was a hack."

"So are most of my methods," Maya said cheerfully. "Now explain why you’ve been running a full intelligence operation on your wife."

Nanami didn’t blink. "It’s meal planning."

Maya slid a photo across the table. "You sent me a risk assessment on her caffeine intake."

"She exceeds the safe limit."

"You hired a private nutritionist. He’s disguised as a barista."

Nanami’s expression didn’t flicker. "Efficiency."

Maya’s eye twitched. "You tagged him 'P.N.' in her contacts like a Cold War spy. The man was in her Uber eats app."

Nanami sipped his tea. "It was a suggestion, not a command."

Maya stared.

Nanami stared back, deadpan.

For a brief, terrifying moment, Maya looked impressed. "And the sleep journal?"

"Observational research."

"You logged her REM cycles and fetal heartbeat counts without telling her."

Nanami’s lips thinned. "She was fidgeting in her sleep."

"You are insufferable." Maya cackled like a woman who’d just lost a bet. "You’re also scarily good at this. Ever consider corporate espionage?"

Nanami blinked. "I’m not sure you should be suggesting that."

Maya shrugged. "Neither does my license but here we are."

Nanami’s eye twitched as Maya continued, "Nanami. You’ve been tracking how many times she turns over in bed."

"Sleep quality is important."

"YOU GAVE HER A WEARABLE MONITOR WITHOUT HER KNOWLEDGE."

You and Gojo turned very, very slowly to look at him.

Nanami didn’t meet your eyes. "I didn’t want to wake her."

"THAT’S NOT THE PROBLEM."

Nanami narrowed his eyes, the human equivalent of a spreadsheet glaring back. "Would you rather I didn’t care?"

Maya massaged her temples. "No. But I’d like you to behave like a human man and not a passive-aggressive government drone."

You bit your cheek to keep from laughing. Gojo was already on the floor, wheezing.

Discovery #3: Wife Is Weaponizing Spite Like a Professional—Maya Finds It Charming

Maya turned to you with the weariness of someone who’d seen too much and drunk too much about it. "Now you."

You blinked. "What?"

Maya grinned, all teeth. "Explain the sabotage."

You sipped your water. "Is that bad?"

"Oh, sweetheart," Maya crooned, "it’s art. You’ve been unplugging Nanami’s alarm by exactly three minutes every night."

You shrugged. "Interesting."

"And Gojo’s autocorrect? Changing ‘baby’ to ‘bankruptcy’? Inspiring."

Gojo gasped from the couch. "Wait, is that why my texts sound financially threatening?"

Maya cackled. "And The Sims?" Her eyes sparkled with something unhinged. "You made their Sims, made them cheat on you, then made them suffer."

"That’s just called gaming."

"YOU LOCKED GOJO’S SIM IN A BASEMENT AND MADE NANAMI’S SIM WATCH THROUGH A WINDOW."

You smiled. "Sounds like a Tuesday."

"DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW UNHINGED THAT IS?"

"Maya," you said patiently, "have you ever played The Sims?"

"THAT’S NOT THE POINT."

"Then what is?"

Maya sighed. "You’re deliberately making yourself angrier instead of addressing your pain."

You shrugged. "It works."

"No, it’s therapy-adjacent." Maya winked. "Illegal in couples therapy, but therapy-adjacent." She narrowed her eyes at Nanami's PPT. "Wait. Why do you own ten pairs of noise-canceling headphones?"

You hesitated.

Maya pounced.

"YOU STOCKPILE THEM BECAUSE YOU THINK PEOPLE WILL LEAVE, AND YOU NEED TO DROWN OUT THE SILENCE."

You stiffened.

Maya leaned in, voice softening. "That’s not a normal purchase pattern, sweetheart."

---

The Verdict

Maya slumped at her desk like a woman who’d seen the abyss and found it lacking. "After careful consideration," she announced, "I’ve reached a conclusion."

Nanami rolled his eyes. "Which is?"

"That the three of you should never have been left unsupervised."

Gojo beamed. "Thanks!"

Maya turned to you. "And you—do you ever process emotions like a normal person, or is it all silent suffering and revenge Sims scenarios?"

You sipped your water. "That feels like a loaded question."

"YOU MADE A POWERPOINT TITLED ‘THINGS I WILL BRING UP IN A FIGHT IN FIVE YEARS.’"

Nanami side-eyed you, hard.

You coughed. "I have hobbies."

"NO, YOU HAVE A VENDETTA."

Gojo clapped.

Maya threw a pen at him. "AND YOU—" She whirled on Nanami. "Mr. ‘I Will Prove I Love Her Through Spreadsheets and Covert Ops.’"

Nanami frowned. "That’s reductive."

"No, it’s accurate. You’re micromanaging her entire existence instead of facing your guilt. How many meals have you prepped this week?"

"Forty-one."

Gojo blinked. "Bro."

"She’s pregnant," Nanami said flatly.

"SHE’S NOT SEVEN PEOPLE, NANAMI."

"SHE’S CARRYING TWINS, MAYA."

Gojo whistled. "Ouch."

"Satoru, shut the fuck up."

Maya took a deep breath. "New plan. We’re fixing this."

Solution 1: Gojo—Sit in the Void Like the Man You Are

Maya gestured with her cigarette. "Your diagnosis is ‘terminal avoidance with god-tier deflection.’"

Gojo grinned. "Sounds serious."

"You’ll survive." She snuffed the cigarette out on her desk. "You’re going to sit with your feelings. No jokes. No memes. Write them down."

Gojo blinked. "I don’t like that."

"I don’t care."

"But it’s bad in there, Maya."

"Then fix it. You’re the strongest, right? Fight your demons."

"Maya, be fr, my demons do MMA."

"Or I’ll have Kashimo babysit you."

Gojo paled. "No, no, not the gremlin."

"Then behave."

Solution 2:  NANAMI—Stop Being a Passive-Aggressive NSA Agent

"Nanami," Maya said, flipping a page, "controlling her life isn’t an apology."

Nanami frowned. "Your suggestion?"

"Cold turkey. No trackers. No secret baristas."

"Impossible."

Maya shrugged. "Then prepare to be waterboarded by me. Emotionally ofcourse. Or worse—Kashimo."

Nanami sighed. "Fine. What else?"

"Tell her one genuine thing you love about her. Every day."

Nanami stared. "That’s manipulative."

"You’re manipulative. This is called emotional availability."

Gojo snorted. "Nanami, buddy, you’re fucked."

"Satoru, I will kill you."

Solution 3: YOU—YES, YOU—Quit Playing The Sims In Real Life

Maya leaned in. "You. You’re the worst."

You raised a brow.

"You avoid intimacy like it owes you money. You set people up to fail so you can say ‘I knew it.’"

You scowled. "I don’t do that."

"No? You casually bring up old betrayals at dinner?"

"Maybe."

"You pick fights right before things get vulnerable?"

"Potentially."

"YOU PRETEND TO BE FINE THE SECOND SOMEONE TRIES TO APOLOGIZE?"

You smiled. "That one’s a cultural reset."

Maya sighed. "You self-sabotage like a trained assassin. You’ve convinced yourself you don’t want to be loved."

You blinked. "Thank you. It works."

Maya smirked. "Until it doesn’t. You’re going to stop. No more preemptive strikes. No more exit strategies. Let these disasters love you."

Nanami and Gojo nodded in unison. "Agreed."

Maya groaned. "You all deserve each other." She waved a hand. "Now get out. I have a date with poor judgment and worse liquor."

---

Mr. Gojo “My Wife & My Husband” Satoru

After discreetly evacuating the women flirting with your husbands—and Megumi had handled your mother and Nanami’s Tokyo-sized crater—the internet’s first lesson about Gojo Satoru was clear: Never let him near social media.

The second? His wife was far too good for him.

Gojo wasn’t a streamer. He wasn’t even a social media guy, unless you counted hacking Jujutsu High’s alumni page to memeify Geto’s Oily Hair Era (RIP) with a pixelated shrine emoji.

But after the incident—after he and Nanami stormed a corporate office like rom-com leads gone feral (hospitalizing security, yeeting a man into a cactus, and letting Nanami fold a salaryman like a lawn chair)—the world had questions:

Why attack a gaming office?

Why panic like a golden retriever at the vet?

WHO IS THIS WOMAN???

It was his wife. The mortal who’d reduced the Honored One to a knees-bent, apology-babbling mess. The one whose existence made Gojo Satoru—arrogant, untouchable, walking calamity—drop like a marionette with cut strings the moment she turned her back.

He wasn’t famous, not in the way of streamers, influencers or athletes.

He was known, but in the way natural disasters were known—whispered about in legal documents, feared by politicians, mentioned only in hushed tones.

A quiet, bureaucratic, private nightmare.

But the corporate world had cameras, and those cameras had gone viral.

So now, here he was—perched in front of your gaming setup, Nanami’s reading glasses upside-down on his nose (purely for spite), streaming PUBG to 3,000 baffled strangers who had not signed up for this level of intimacy.

The stream title, “🔥LIVE NOW: DILF Gaming 🚀 PUBG Duos w/ Nanamin! (HELP WIFE STILL MAD AT ME!)🔥”—was a war crime. It lured normies, lost souls, chaos enthusiasts, and three vengeful ex-sorcerers—including Utahime, halfway through a wine bottle and seething.

PandaIsMyTherapist: IS THIS A CRYPTID???

NanamisTieStrap: WHERE’S THE BLONDE DILF??

CurseTheseNuts: Sir, this is a Wendy’s.

SixEyesNoBrain: Wife’s a QUEEN dump his ass. 💅

Gojo was a man of many talents: strongest sorcerer, Six Eyes wielder, government-toppler before breakfast.

And yet—

67 minutes into this dumpster fire, the chat raged with “Who’s Nanamin??” and “Is your wife single??”

And more.

RatioKingKenthoe: Bro, who even are u?

IWasNanamisTrueAwakening: IS THIS THE GUY FROM THE VIRAL OFFICE VIDEO???

"Okay, okay, listen," Gojo drawled, tilting his headset. "I know what you’re thinking—Gojo, why are you like this?—and the answer is: Love." His in-game avatar promptly ate a sniper round. "See that? Forty-seventh death today. This is love, okay?!"

NanamisSecondBiggestRegret: How’s your wife?

Gojo exhaled, smile bittersweet. "Radiant. Brilliant. Currently incubating two gremlins who already hate me. Also? Merciless. Actively Googling how to jail husbands internationally."

He popped a grape into his mouth and chewed.

TojisLeftSandals: So she still hasn’t forgiven you for the whole… office rampage thing?

"Uh, no?" His laugh frayed at the edges. "Formal apologies to: the eighteen guys Nanami hospitalized, the dude I yeeted into a cactus, and the intern who saw Nanami fold a man like origami. Special shoutout to the guy I threw into a marble wall and the soul who watched me kick down a boardroom door like a divorced dad on Christmas. In my defense? Panic. As for Nanami?" He shrugged. "Zero defense. He was just pissed."

LegallyNotaKaori: THIS IS WHY MEN SHOULD BE LOCKED UP.

TojisUnwashedBoobies: Apologize properly????

"Fine—shoutout to Kenjiro Tsuda from Voice-whatever-department! Sorry about the cactus! And, uh… sorry Nanami turned Dave into abstract art!"

InumakisVoiceCrackASMR: His name was Dan.

Gojo waved a hand. "WHATEVER. Therapy’s expensive, folks! Donate to the Wife Forgive Me fund! But not really because I’m VERY rich."

SukunasToenailClippings: Is your wife single now?

Gojo clutched his chest like he’d been stabbed. “MODS. BANISH THIS HERETIC.”

SixEyesNoBrain: Why’d you even attack her company??

“Because she left.” His face went eerily still; then he groaned, slumping over the desk. “She just… vanished. And I know my wife. If she’s avoiding us, she’s drafting divorce papers in three languages.”

GetosMissingPantaloons: So are you guys still living together?

Gojo stretched, smug. “Technically. She’s on maternity leave, so we’ve… reintegrated ourselves into her life like stray cats she can’t evict. She’s mildly tolerating it.”

MahitosLeftTesticularTorsion: WHERE’S THE BLONDE ONE?

Gojo grinned. "Nanami? Working. Someone’s gotta fund couples’ therapy." He leaned back, laugh-rich. "Kidding! He’s suspended like me—so these days he reads about pregnancy, cooks nutritionally balanced meals, day trades and lets our wife cheat in video games. Very sexy, very domestic."

WormTakeTheWeel: GOJO, BLINK TWICE IF NANAMI HAS A GUN.

As if summoned by his sins, you appeared in the doorway.

Gojo lit up like a kid handed a lifetime supply of sweets. "Wifey! Hi!"

Unaware of what he was sharing in the stream, heavily pregnant in Nanami’s sweater, you balanced a tray of snacks. “Here,” you murmured—strawberry slices, chocolate-covered crackers, strawberry Pocky milk. The kind of effortless care that came from loving someone past the point of sanity.

Gojo melted, feeding you a grape. You hummed, patted his head like a misbehaving puppy, and waddled out.

“Thank you, sweetheart,” he crooned.

The chat imploded.

MechamarusLeftKnee: WAIT, THAT’S HER?? SHE'S SO CUTE???

SuguruForgotCondoms: HOW DID U TWO LAND HER? SHE’S LIKE ‘RICH’ RICH.

NonConsensualForeheadStitches: BRO, SAY SORRY AGAIN, WTF? DO NOT FUMBLE A BADDIE, BRO!

SwallowedByKenjaku: THE WAY SHE JUST… BROUGHT SNACKS. I’M WEAK.

MommyYukis_YearOldMilk: SAY SORRY AGAIN OR I SWEAR—

MonkeyWithDaddyIssues: TELL HER YOU LOVE HER RIGHT NOW.

JogosFinalFumes: GOJO, APOLOGIZE ON YOUR KNEES OR I WILL.

JunpeisType_YourMom: THIS IS ENOUGH TO MAKE A GROWN HUMAN WEEP.

LawAndOrderTheseTittiesHiromi: I’d let her step on me.

“Aww, look at her. So into me.” He turned to the camera, eyes starry. “Bringing me snacks. I love her so much. She’s sweet even when plotting my demise. Nanami, though?” He snorted. “I brought him coffee this morning, and he said, ‘I don’t accept offerings from traitors.’”

MeiMeisCrows: Why’s she still letting you live there if she’s so mad?

His grin faltered. For a heartbeat, vulnerability flickered.

“…Because she still loves us.” His voice softened, raw. “She’s just… hurt.”

TojisChildSupportNotice: Do you think she will ever forgive you two?

Gojo hesitated. The silence stretched.

“…I hope."

Then, his fingers drummed on the desk. “Anyway, therapy’s great. Nanami takes notes. I make jokes. Wifey fantasizes about our double homicide.”

His hands flew across the controller—reckless, frantic. He kept dying for it.

“I CAN DO THIS.” Gojo gritted his teeth, strangling the controller like it owed him rent. “I AM THE HONORED ONE. I DO NOT LOSE.”

You’d seen this before. The thing about Satoru? He mastered anything he focused on.

This could not stand.

Meanwhile, across the penthouse building in Megumi’s penthouse, Haibara grinned at his screen. "Ohhh, this is too good."

In your penthouse suite, just in a different room, you logged into your gaming account and cracked your knuckles. “Let’s wreck him.”

Haibara whooped. "Operation: Divorce Speedrun is a go!"

Back on stream, Gojo’s character respawned. “Alright, this time, I’m gonna—”

An enemy player materialized and obliterated him.

Gojo blinked. “…Huh.”

Then it happened again.

And again.

“I AM LOSING MY MIND,” Gojo howled as his pixelated corpse hit dirt. “WHO ARE THESE DEMONS?”

“The second he figures out the mechanics, it’s over,” you muttered to Haibara on discord. “If we don’t stop him, he’ll come back tomorrow on ultra-hard mode. I refuse to live in a world where Gojo beats me at my own stuff.”

Haibara cackled. "Damn, you’re a great wife."

"I know."

Gojo had no idea.

[TittyFucker69 set fire to HeadshotHubby’s hideout and stole their resources.]

[HaibaraWasHere sniped HeadshotHubby from a cliff.]

“WHY IS EVERYTHING ON FIRE?!” Gojo wailed. “I’M JUST TRYING TO LIVE. THEY WON'T EVEN LET ME GET A GUN.”

TakahashiTheRaccoon: THEY GOT HIS ASS. 😂😂😂

Then he squinted at his killer’s username: TittyFucker69.

"... Wifey."

GojosRestrainingOrder: LMFAOOOO HIS WIFE’S DOING THIS?

JogosFinalSmokeInhaler: Bro’s getting cyberbullied by his own wife.

And then—

A notification appeared.

[QuietlyCalculating has entered the server.]

You froze.

From the trees—a shadow moved. Silent. Precise.

[QuietlyCalculating has sniped HaibaraWasHere.]

[QuietlyCalculating has dropped rare loot near HeadshotHubby.]

"No." You narrowed your eyes. "It can’t be."

Gojo’s voice crackled through the chat: "OH MY GOD, WHO IS HELPING ME?!"

And then—

Nanami’s voice, dry as aged whiskey, filtered through the mic, no video. “You’re embarrassing us, Satoru.”

“Nanamin!!!!”

HeavenlyRestrictedManMilkers: WHY IS HIS TEAMMATE HOT??

SingleAndReadyToJujutsu: WAIT, HE’S GOT THE SEXY ACCOUNTANT VOICE.

Menace_Flakes: No, because WHO tf is playing against them? Why are they so good??

GetosWorstNightmare: His name is Nanamin?? How does a man named Nanamin sound this fine?

Then the kill feed lit up.

[TittyFucker69 killed HeadshotHubby.]

Gojo’s screen went black.

"NOOOOOOO."

Nanami sighed. “You should’ve used cover.”

Gojo, mumbling passive-aggressively, started a new game.

The Discord VC hummed with quiet menace as Haibara, you, and now Megumi coordinated your next assault through stream snippets.

"Place your bets," Haibara's grin was audible. "How many more humiliations before he rage quits?"

"He's Gojo," you muttered, lining up your shot. "He doesn't quit. He stays suffering."

Megumi adjusted his scope with deadly precision. "Then we'll make it memorable."

[TittyFucker69 threw a Molotov cocktail at HeadshotHubby.]

[Player_Unknown shot HeadshotHubby in the kneecaps.]

[EldritchHorror69 ran HeadshotHubby over with a jeep.]

"WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?! KENTO, HELP!" Gojo's voice cracked mid-scream.

CorporateSorcererOfMyPanties: LMAOOOOO IS HIS WIFE SICKING HER DEV TEAM ON HIM?!!

SugurusLeftEarring: HE JUST CALLED HIS TEAMMATE KENTO??? IS THIS ILLEGAL??

Gojo spun wildly in-game, spraying bullets at phantom enemies. "SHOW YOURSELVES, COWARDS!"

Your smirk was weaponized. "With pleasure."

[TittyFucker69 knocked HeadshotHubby out with a frying pan.]

"I AM GOING TO SCREAM."

Nanami's sigh crackled through comms. "Stay down. I'll revive you."

"Took you long enough," Gojo pouted.

Nanami ignored him, focus unbroken.

The chat collectively short-circuited.

SixEyesNoThoughts: NOT THE DEEP-VOICED TEAMMATE SAVING HIM.

InfinityAndBeyondDumb: omg he’s so patient; he’s gotta be his husband and used to it.

NanamisTrauma2TheElectricBoogaloo: Is this real life???

CertifiedFeralBitchSukuna: HIS VOICE IS SO FINE, HELP. (NO HOMO THO.)

"Kento," Gojo whined as Nanami healed him, "I'm being cyberbullied by our wife."

"You deserve it," Nanami deadpanned.

"YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE ON MY SIDE."

"I am. That's why I'm ensuring you suffer productively."

SealedLikeaTupperware: lmfao, look at his Face. You cryin Gojo? 😏

SukunasTaxReturns: Sucks to suck. 🤡

Haibara's cackle echoed through Discord. "Alright Fushiguro. Wanna deliver the coup de grâce?"

Megumi exhaled through his nose. "Fine."

[Player_Unknown headshotted HeadshotHubby.]

[Player_Unknown killed QuietlyCalculating.]

NanaminHater69: NOT NANAMI BEING OBLITERATED. 😭

HeianEraFuckboy: WAIT, WHO TF IS THIS NEW ASSASSIN??

Megumi’s low voice came through on the live stream: “You both should quit now.”

MeiMeisCrowFood: Megumi?? AS IN FUSHIGURO??

YutasSimpArmy: Isn’t that the CEO guy??? WTF IS GOING ON?

TodousType_Dead: His wife is playing against him. His teammate is a DILF. His enemy is a CEO?? Is he living in an Indian daily soap???

Gojo slumped back, controller dangling. "This is my 13th reason."

Nanami typed a private message: [You're on your own.] Then vanished from the server.

As if scripted by cosmic comedy:

A new donation popped up in Gojo’s chat.

[BodySnatcherSupreme_MilfSuguruWhoDLC donated $5]: GG loser. Get better. Your wife outclasses you.

MegumisAbandonmentArc: Peak content.

SukunasIRSProblems: PLS MAKE THIS A REGULAR SERIES.

DeadbeatWithBenefits: NO BC WTF DID I JUST WITNESS?

SukunasToeJamCollector: ARE THEY IN A POLYCULE OR A TERRORIST ORGANIZATION? I CAN’T TELL.

Final death count: 72. The internet had crowned its newest disaster polycule.

The next morning, your PR team ambushed you via Slack. "We weren't supposed to do this but—just look."

The screen displayed Gojo's smirking face: "Nanami's the responsible one, our wife's scary, and I'm the hot one. That's balance."

“They love you guys,” the PR rep emphasized, scrolling through comments. “Your marriage is trending. People are calling your relationship ‘the most insane but oddly wholesome thing they’ve ever seen.’ ‘Protect this weird fam,’ ‘Wholesome insanity.’ Japan wants… merch.”

"...I'm defecting to Antarctica."

"Too late." The junior rep winced. “Marketing made hoodies. ‘DILF Grade’ with Mr. Gojo’s face.”

Gojo’s voice carried from the hall, “make mine a crop top!”

---

Group Chat: Wife Support Network 💅 Horny, Helpless, & Heavily Pregnant

(Inc: You, Shoko, Maya, CHRO)

Postmortem Baddie: How’s it going?

Perpetually Horny: Terrible. He made me sit through a movie marathon.

Postmortem Baddie: What’s the issue?

Perpetually Horny: All three Shrek movies.

Postmortem Baddie: Ah.

Perpetually Horny: He acted out the dialogue. Every single line. He knows them all by heart.

Cuntyest Bitch Alive: Hahaha

Postmortem Baddie: I… I’m sorry.

Perpetually Horny: At one point, he turned to me and whispered, "You know… I’m like Shrek."

Postmortem Baddie: And you said?

Perpetually Horny: "Because you’re big and scary?"

Postmortem Baddie: 😭😭😭

Perpetually Horny: No. "Because I have layers."

Cuntyest Bitch Alive: In my professional opinion, both your husbands combined bring the IQ of an onion to your marriage.

Perpetually Horny: I know. 😔

---

Nanami noticed it first.

A flicker at the edge of his vision—a hairline fracture in the air. The world stuttered, reality peeling back like burnt film.

One moment: morning light gilded your cheek as you sat across from him, fingers curled around a mug with Gojo’s face. The next—

Your hometown café. Coffee-stained walls. Burnt espresso and cloying vanilla.

This wasn’t real.

But there you were—older, weary, pregnant—standing where you’d stood years ago, demanding to pay for your first date. Your hand pressed to your temple, veins stark as the twins’ cursed energy warped the air like a heat mirage.

Nanami tried to speak.

Does it hurt?

Do you remember?

Can you hear me?

His throat sealed. Iron bands cinched his ribs. The twins’ power folded time into origami cranes with razor wings, slicing the present into shards of memory.

A memory rewritten with teeth.

A memory repainted with present horrors.

Rewritten. Repainted.

This—this was a cruelty he hadn't expected.

A nightmare stitched from his deepest dread: losing you.

Your eyes met his—wide, disoriented—then dropped to your stomach, where the twins kicked not against flesh but the fabric of the moment itself.

You laughed, frayed. “Well… this is new.”

He reached for a napkin, pulled his ever-present pen, and wrote with clinical precision:

I’d choose you every time.

Your finger traced the words. Another laugh, brittle. “You’re such a dork.”

He wrote faster, ink bleeding:

I know.

The world ripped.

Now he was in Shoko’s infirmary, the day of the lynch mob. Gojo crashed through the ceiling, grinning through a bloody nose.

“My babies are menaces. I love them.”

Shoko didn’t glance up. “Get out of my morgue.”

Walls twisted.

Colors leached. Machines gurgled like dying throats.

You gripped a cracked glass, trembling. “It’s getting worse.”

Nanami lunged—

Night. Kitchen. Empty air.

Gojo dangled upside-down off the couch. “Welcome back! I just won—”

“Where is she?” Nanami’s voice flayed.

“Bathroom. Threatened to drown me.”

The door stood ajar.

Black static curled through the crack—the twins’ energy, hungry, wrong.

You sat on the tub’s edge, cursed energy coiling like serpents of smoke and grief.

Nanami knelt. A glass pressed into your grip.

You drank. Shuddered.

“…Still choosing me?”

“Every time.”

Outside, unnoticed, Haibara slipped a plastic bag on the doorstep. Inside—iced tea. The kind you’d mentioned once, casually, about your grandmother making it for you when you were sick.

He didn’t knock. He knew Nanami would find it.

But Haibara didn’t care about anything else, only that you must have been craving something from childhood, something that wasn’t tainted, something yours.

Awakening: 4:03 AM

Nanami woke choking.

Cold sweat. Racing heart. Empty bed.

He fumbled for his phone—

[Haibara, 2:14 AM]: Left iced tea on the step. Her grandma’s recipe.

His pulse hammered. She’s gone. She’s gone.

Gojo answered on the second ring, his voice sleep-heavy. "What? Nanamin, it’s... Jesus, it’s 4 AM."

Nanami could practically see him—half-asleep, limbs tangled in the blankets, face buried in the crook of your neck.

"Is she with you?"

“Of course she’s here; where else would she be?"

Nanami heard the shift of blankets and Gojo’s low curse.

And then—your voice. Faint. Sleep-muddled. "...What’s wrong?"

Gojo's voice softened as he nuzzled you closer, rubbing your now-taut stomach. "Nanamin's being dramatic, sweetheart. Go back to sleep."

You sighed, melting back against Gojo’s chest.

Nanami said nothing.

Gojo was already passed out again, arms loosely coiled around you, utterly unaware of the weight pressing on Nanami’s chest.

He hung up and stared at the ceiling, shadows dancing along the intricate plaster.

By 4:30 AM, Nanami was at the gym.

It was empty.

Or—almost.

Haibara Yu and Megumi Fushiguro were already there in the predawn gloom, the only other souls insane enough to be lifting weights at the ass-crack of dawn.

The gym at 4:30 AM was a cathedral of shadows, iron, and sweat.

Nanami’s shirt clung to the ridges of his abdomen, damp with the kind of sweat that came from running from something, not toward it. Special Grade wasn’t just a title—it was the way his muscles coiled like live wires, the way his gaze could strip a curse to its marrow.

Tonight, though, his discipline frayed at the edges.

Haibara, swayed from the pull-up bar like a panther testing a rotten branch, all coiled menace. The nursery rhyme curled off his lips wrong—London Bridge is falling down. Falling down. Falling down—each note flatter than a surgeon’s blade. Former MI6, current serial killer headache moved with the lazy definiteness of a man who’d gut you mid-laugh.

He dropped soundlessly, boots whispering against concrete. Every motion carried that same contradiction—the indolent roll of shoulders, fingers flexing like he missed the weight of a garrote. Discipline had long curdled into pandemonium here: the clatter of Megumi’s water bottle “accidentally” kicked across the gym punctuated his sets, a metronome to his amusement, because that’s what Haibara came to the gym with Megumi for was-amusement, mockery. Nanami counted three fractures in the plastic. Haibara counted the seconds until Nanami’s patience snapped.

When he grinned, it wasn’t an expression. It was a trapdoor.

His gaze scraped over Nanami, amber eyes dissecting tendon from bone with the clinical interest of a taxidermist. “Look what the guilt dragged in.”

Megumi, CEO of too many corporations at this point and the spitting image of Zenin Toji with a cursed technique—if his father had traded high-profile assassinations for boardrooms—hoisted 700 kg with brutal clarity, probably less than his usual. The bar groaned under the weight, his shadow pooling at his feet like ink stirred to life. No suit here: just a sweat-soaked tank top, corded muscle, and the kind of focus that could split atoms.

Nanami didn’t need a cursed technique to read him. Every lift was a silent snarl, the clang of iron a substitute for the crack of bone. Megumi’s eyes stayed locked mid-air, as if envisioning a skull beneath the barbell.

Not friends. Never friends. Just two predators sharing a cage at dawn.

He didn’t acknowledge Nanami.

Nanami ignored them.

He needed the burn of iron, the scream of muscle—anything to drown out the static in his skull.

He plugged in his headphones, trying to drown it out.

It didn’t work.

Not today.

How had Gojo felt when he wasn't with him and you?

Nanami tried not to think about it—the sleepless nights resulting in dark circles under Gojo’s eyes, the empty space where he should have been, the 3 AM texts, the subtle, desperate offerings left outside the penthouse door like Gojo was some stray cat who didn’t know what else to do but leave gifts and his hope.

Nanami had hated it.

The pettiness. The possessiveness. The weakness of it.

Now, he missed it.

He even missed the insufferable smirk he’d wanted to punch every day.

Nanami exhaled sharply, adjusting his grip on the barbell.

Pathetic.

He was losing it.

And worse? He was scared.

Not of Haibara’s cursed technique—though even now, Nanami couldn't pin it down beyond the fact that it was wrong, like a joke that lingered too long after the punchline.

Not of Megumi’s shikigami—deadly, obedient, and always watching.

But of the twins.

What if they had time-affecting abilities?

What if they inherited Gojo's Infinite Void?

What if they inherited Nanami’s own Domain—Fractured Eternity?

Or—what if they were worse?

That was the part Nanami couldn't stomach.

Not because of the obvious horrors—time manipulation, reality-bending infants, diapers vanishing from existence—but because he was ill-equipped.

He was Special Grade, yes. But what did Special Grade matter when your own children could, theoretically, rewrite the laws of causality during breakfast?

Gojo, for all his recklessness, could handle it. He had infinite void; he could probably stabilize it. He could make it fun, like a game.

Nanami?

Nanami followed rules. Nanami needed rules.

What did rules mean to toddlers who could rewrite them with a giggle?

The thought settled in his stomach like lead.

Gojo would be better at this.

Gojo, who could handle nonsense, who saw power like a second language. Who, even at his most irresponsible, was still more capable of raising gods than Nanami ever would be.

The thought tasted like betrayal.

Haibara slid onto the bench beside him, grinning like a shark.

“You look like shit.”

Nanami didn't flinch.

Across the room, Megumi froze mid-lift, eyes flickering toward them.

Nanami finally met Haibara’s gaze. “What do you want?”

Haibara tilted his head, wolfish. “Just wondering—when she finally leaves you, think she’ll let me babysit?”

Nanami’s fist clenched.

Megumi’s shadow curled under his feet like it was alive.

Haibara laughed as he stood, unbothered. “Relax. I’m joking.”

He wasn’t.

“You’re tense,” Haibara said, rolling his shoulders to hide the fact that he was observing Nanami like a guinea pig, his grin sharp like a switchblade. “Worried she’ll realize she married the wrong disaster?”

Nanami’s grip tightened on the barbell. 685 kg. He lifted it like a sacrament.

“Or is it the twins?” Haibara’s voice dropped, velvet and venomous. “Heard they’ve been rewriting reality. Cute trick. Must keep you up at night.”

730 kg. The plates rattled.

Megumi’s shadow twitched.

“Imagine,” Haibara continued, “explosive diarrhea turns into a time loop. Or naptime… poof. Voided.” He leaned in, breath grazing Nanami’s ear. “You’re not built for chaos, Kento. You’re built to break under it.”

Nanami slammed the bar down. The crash echoed like a gunshot.

Megumi paused, knuckles whitening around his own bar.

“Fuck off.” Nanami’s voice was calm. Too calm.

Haibara laughed—a sound that belonged in a back alley, not a gym.

They both knew he wouldn’t.

Haibara was a ghost. A paradox. A cursed technique even Nanami couldn’t parse—wrongness wrapped in a razor grin.

Nanami put in his headphones again and tuned out anything more that came out of Haibara’s mouth.

His mind circled back to the drain:

The twins.

Gojo’s children. His children.

What if they unraveled the world before they could crawl? What if their laughter cracked the sky?

Special Grade meant nothing here.

He’d built his life on order. On ratios. On the clean slice of his blade through flesh and bone.

But this?

Chaos with their eyes. Chaos with Gojo’s smile.

He’d seen Gojo cradle your belly last week, grinning as the twins warped gravity into a kaleidoscope. “Cool, right?”

Nanami had almost vomited in the ensuite.

Haibara laughed again at something Megumi said. Nanami didn’t care.

He missed you.

He missed Gojo.

He missed Takahashi.

And worse, he was terrified.

So he headed straight home; he didn’t care about rules right now, or he’d end up with matching hair as Gojo by breakfast.

On his way, he thought about how he became a special grade sorcerer—something he honestly never even dreamed off.

He had been in his early twenties at the time—

The sky had been the color of a rotting bruise that day—the day he was supposed to save some children and get them to safety instead of staying to save one singular person.

The special-grade curse hadn't even been human-shaped.

Nanami had exhaled through his nose, adjusting his grip on his sword. His uniform had been torn—jacket missing, sleeves rolled up, dress shirt stained with things he hadn't been thinking about right then.

The thing in front of him had pulsed.

It hadn't been a curse, not entirely. Something older. Something hungrier. He had been able to feel it under his skin, the same way a man could feel a spider crawling across his bare chest in the dark.

Nanami had seen plenty of horrors since becoming a sorcerer, but this—

This had been wrong.

The battlefield had been quiet. Too quiet.

Nanami had rolled his shoulders, his body aching with exhaustion, his cursed energy flickering like a dying ember. His technique could only do so much when the thing in front of him had refused to obey the laws of physics, of logic, of anything.

It should have been Gojo there.

Gojo should have handled it.

He had been the strongest, hadn't he?

And Gojo had been there—unconscious in the rubble.

Nanami had swallowed down the bitter taste in his mouth.

He remembered the children's screams from earlier that day—innocents he'd walked past without hesitation because thirty meters ahead, Gojo had been bleeding out.

Japan's shield.

The man who carried the weight of their entire world.

The choice had calcified in his bones before he'd even registered making it: let the weak die to save the essential.

Gojo hadn't been weak.

He hadn't been fragile.

But even he—especially he—had had limits.

And when this thing had tried to devour him, Nanami had made a decision.

A stupid one. A reckless one.

But Gojo had been a light, hadn't he? The kind that burned too bright, too hot—always throwing himself into danger because he had known he would survive.

But sometimes, light had needed something to block the worst of the storm.

And Nanami had always been the type to stand in the way.

Blood had dripped down his forearm, pooling at his wrist before hitting the ground in soft, rhythmic splatters. His vision had blurred for a moment, the exhaustion creeping up his spine, curling around his throat like a noose.

He had been about to die.

The realization had settled in his bones like a quiet, unshakable truth. He had had nothing left.

No more clean cuts. No more weak points to exploit. No more cursed energy worth a damn.

But this thing couldn’t come out of this alive.

It had been a thought that hadn't felt like his own.

Nanami had inhaled.

If the children died, Japan would mourn.

If Gojo died, Japan would burn.

If I die here, Gojo will live.

That had been enough.

Nanami had never been sentimental, had never cared for heroics.

But if his death had meant the strongest would keep breathing, if it had meant the world wouldn't have to watch its brightest flame flicker out—

Then let him be the last person he protected.

The thing had moved.

Nanami had barely registered it before it had been on him, tendrils of something wrong wrapping around his limbs, his throat, squeezing like a vice.

Black spots had danced at the edges of his vision. His fingers had twitched.

Not yet.

Not when Gojo had still been lying unconscious in the rubble, too far to stop what had been coming.

Not when Nanami had been the only thing standing between the strongest and death.

The thing had let out a deep, wet shudder—like it had known he had been breaking, like it could taste the moment he would shatter.

Nanami had closed his eyes.

And then—

Something had cracked.

Not the thing.

Him.

The thing had been a tangle of twisting, sinewy limbs and jagged mouths, a writhing mass of hungry, shifting flesh. It had breathed, and the sound alone had made Nanami's skin crawl—wet, sucking, starved.

Not a curse borne of petty hate or resentment. No.

This had been something else.

A curse born from repetition.

From the same unbreakable cycle of exhaustion, of waking up to the same crushing reality every single day. A curse born of salarymen who had died faceless and forgotten, whose existence had been ground down into the pavement, leaving behind nothing but resentment towards time itself.

It had been a curse that had not just killed.

It had devoured.

And Gojo had nearly been its next meal.

Nanami's fingers had curled tighter around the hilt of his dull blade, steady despite the deep ache in his bones.

The thing had not spoken. It had not needed to.

Because it had understood him.

It had seen him—for what he had been.

A man who had once walked away.

A man who had once believed he could be free.

And a man who had returned, not because of duty, not because of honor—

But because he had had nothing else.

Nanami had inhaled.

He had had one strike left in him.

And it wouldn't be enough.

The thing had lurched, shadows stretching and curling around him, reality bending at the edges of his vision—

Nanami had moved on instinct. One last clean cut.

And then—

The fracture.

It hadn't been physical. Not like a broken bone, not like a severed limb.

It had been deeper.

A fundamental split—an unraveling, the careful stitching of his sanity giving way beneath the weight of inevitability.

And in that moment—

Nanami had stopped resisting it.

Cursed energy had erupted from his body, not in a surge, not in a flood—

But in segments.

Golden lines had cracked through the air like fault lines in glass, slicing through the battlefield, the air, even time itself.

Nanami had exhaled.

And the world had fractured.

It had been small at first, a fracture so delicate he had almost not noticed. But then it had spread—like glass spiderwebbing under a hammer, like bones snapping beneath unbearable weight.

Something in him—something fundamental—had broken.

And for the first time in his life, Nanami had stopped thinking.

It hadn't been a surge, hadn't been a flood.

It had been a detonation.

The curse had screamed.

Nanami had stood in the center of a domain that had not felt like a domain at all.

The world around him had been broken apart, shattered into an infinite gridwork of golden lines, each pulsing with controlled energy.

The battlefield had no longer been whole.

It had been segmented.

Divided.

And Nanami had been the only one who could navigate it.

The curse had tried to move—

It had tried to retreat.

It couldn't.

Time had stopped in certain places, its limbs frozen mid-lunge.

Nanami had stepped forward, and time had snapped back—only for the creature's own weight to work against it, limbs twisting in on themselves, bones shattering from the sheer imbalance of movement.

The curse had screamed in sheer agony.

Nanami had not blinked.

It had tried again—its shadow stretching out, seeking purchase.

Nanami had raised a hand—the one not holding his trusted blade.

The segment of reality where the curse's attack had existed simply had ceased to function.

Its own energy had been turned inward, redirected to itself, and the resulting collapse had crushed its ribcage before it could even react.

This had not been a battlefield.

This had been a machine, and Nanami had been the only constant inside it.

No chaos could exist there.

Only order.

His order.

He had moved, and the fractures had shifted with him, the golden lines bending to his will.

A blade of raw cursed energy had manifested in his hand—not just one. Multiple.

Nanami had raised them, eyes dull, distant.

And had brought them down.

Each strike had erased a portion of the curse's body, carving through flesh, bone, existence itself.

It hadn't been screaming anymore.

Because it had been divided too many times to remember what pain was.

Nanami had exhaled.

And then—

He had collapsed equilibrium entirely.

A single point of space where every force, every movement, every reaction had been allowed to break free at once.

The resulting detonation had rippled through the segmented air, shattering the remaining pieces of the curse into something smaller than dust.

Silence.

Nanami had stood alone.

And in that moment—

He had no longer been the same.

Like he had finally let go.

The thing had tried to retreat.

Nanami hadn't let it.

The next second he had stood over the corpse.

It had taken three slashes.

Only three.

The domain had faded.

The fractures in the air had smoothed out.

Nanami had blinked slowly, his vision adjusting to the return of reality.

His breath had been steady.

His hands had no longer ached—everything had healed.

The weight that had always been on his shoulders—the unbearable burden of duty, of expectation—

It had been gone.

Not lifted.

Just gone.

Nanami had exhaled.

And for the first time in his life, he had not felt tired.

He had not felt righteous.

He had not felt kind.

He had simply felt efficient.

A sound had caught his attention—something shifting in the rubble.

Nanami had turned.

Gojo had been awake.

He had been watching him.

Nanami had met his gaze, something unreadable passing between them.

And then—

Then Satoru had smiled.

It hadn't been cocky. Hadn't been smug.

It had been something else entirely.

Something that had felt like acknowledgment.

It hadn't been relief.

It hadn't been gratitude.

It had been recognition that he didn't have to be alone anymore.

Satoru had seen it.

The change.

Nanami hadn't looked away—held his gaze, unflinching.

His breath had been slow. Controlled. His hands had no longer ached. His cursed energy—

It had felt different. His hands were finally free of their constant ache. His cursed energy... it had transformed entirely.

Nanami had sighed, bracing himself, but the weight hadn't come back.

And today—now he was opening the door to his home.

The thought sometimes came unbidden—would he have ever met you if he hadn't ascended to Special Grade that day?

Well—what was there to wonder—he wouldn’t have, and Gojo would have either died or returned with you—his wife—from abroad, happy in your own world.

And Nanami would have died a thankless death, watching you both from a far. Never in. 

The penthouse smelled of caramelized sugar and recklessness.

Gojo Satoru currently stood shirtless at the stove, pancake batter dripping down his abs. “Nanamin! Perfect timing—I’m inventing the Unlimited Syrup Technique.”

Nanami offered his usual faint smile before continuing down the hall.

He found you in bed, curled under the duvet. Your belly rose and fell with the rhythm of life he couldn’t control.

He slid in behind you, his broad chest molding to your back. His hand settled over the swell.

The twins kicked.

Once.

Nanami’s breathing relaxed.

Then another.

Small. Insistent. Alive.

You stirred, sleep-soft. “Hey, stinky.”

His quiet laughter shook through both of you.

Haibara was right.

He would break.

But not today.

Today, he’d hold the line.

For you.

For them.

For the man humming off-key in the kitchen, syrup in his hair and limitless infinity in his veins.

Special Grade wasn’t a title.

It was a life sentence. You lived with it until you died because of it.

The only thing it really did was that it made one harder to kill.

Maybe he didn’t have the answers. Maybe he never would.

But this—this was more than he deserved.

Later, he gave you the iced tea Haibara had sent and asked for the recipe. From then on, he made it for you every day, even though Haibara had messed up the recipe, and it would never taste the same. But you still wanted it.

People often thought he regretted that day when those kids died because he never really talked about it.

But the truth was—

Nanami didn’t feel a thing that day.

No remorse, no regret.

Because it was better to save the one who would save the world than to die saving insignificant creatures.

And it worked out for him. Had he not saved Gojo that day, he wouldn’t be here—married to you, both with his and Gojo’s twins kicking against his palm as you lay against him. Nanami would make that choice every time. The children's ghosts could haunt him. The guilt could fester. But Gojo's mischievous giggling in the kitchen and your sleepy smile against his chest—these were the only absolution he needed.

That was efficient, wasn’t it?

Take a small loss to save the long-term investment.

---

Nanami was mindlessly staring at your company’s stocks when the next TikTok came.

"If your man doesn’t put together the nursery without being asked, he doesn’t deserve the baby."

Nanami’s eye twitched.

Then:

"Kento."

Nanami’s head snapped up. You were standing in the doorway.

"Did you finish the nursery?"

Nanami’s jaw flexed. "No."

"Interesting."

Nanami’s gaze sharpened.

Later that night, he stayed up until 3 AM assembling a crib while you fought your own demons.

Group Chat: Wife Support Network 💅 Horny, Helpless, & Heavily Pregnant

(Inc: You, Shoko, Maya, CHRO)

Perpetually Horny: Shoko. He’s building a crib. 🔨👶

Postmortem Baddie: Aww. 💖

Perpetually Horny: SHIRTLESS.

Postmortem Baddie: Oh. 👀😳

Perpetually Horny: He’s using a screwdriver. The muscles in his back are moving. Like I’m watching the Discovery Channel. 📺🍑

Postmortem Baddie: So…? 😏

Perpetually Horny: So I almost threw myself at him. [Send help.] 🥺🙏

Cuntyest Bitch Alive: Bitch. I’m too drunk. But if you let him hit. I’ll hit you. 🔪

Perpetually Horny: Is that who I think it is???? 👀

HR Baddie: Sucks to be you, loser. 🤣

                  Attachment: Blurry photo of a dark-haired man untying her heel strap.

Postmortem Baddie: Holy Shit!!!!

Cuntyest Bitch Alive: Respectfully, let's ignore him. Tell me what else did the idiots do. I need entertainment; Kashimo’s sleeping.

Perpetually Horny: He took me to a farmers’ market.

Postmortem Baddie: Nanami core.

Perpetually Horny: I pointed at some melons 🍈 and said, “Wow, those are big.”

                                Then, this man, without blinking, said, "I’ve seen bigger."

HR Baddie: What the fuk does that even mean?

Perpetually Horny: I’m scared. What has he seen.

Cuntyest Bitch Alive: You need to find out.

Perpetually Horny: No thanks.

Later in the night, there were other struggles going on.

Group Chat: Dad Crimes 💀 Anonymous

(Inc: Nanami, Gojo)

Father Time: She’s nesting.

Daddy: Did you see her reorganize the closet? At 3:40 AM?

Father Time: Yes. She put labels on the baby bottles.

Daddy: Yeah. She also labeled the spice rack.

Father Time: Do you think she’ll label us next?

Daddy: "Idiot 1" and "Idiot 2."

Father Time: Accurate.

---

A/N: OMG who do you think dark haired manz isss????? Three more chapters and then we either crash and burn in angst or soft-launch a happy ending. Choose wisely. (Comments fuel my Sukuna/Nanami agenda. Choose wisely.)

Next chapter 20 (alt ending 2.11) - The Fault Lines: The Honored One’s Guide to Fumbling the Bag (And Other Love Languages) - Part 2 - (Tumblr/Ao3)

All Works Masterlist

Beta - @blackrimmedrose

Tag-list = @lady-of-blossoms @stargirl-mayaa @dark-agate @tqd4455 @roscpctals99 @sxlfcxst @se-phi-roth @austisticfreak @helloxkittylo @itoshi-r @kodzukensworld @revolvinggeto @luringfantasy @xx-tazzdevil-xx @unaaasz @thebumbqueen @holylonelyponyeatingmacaroni @whos-ruru @helo1281917

[howi99]

Weiss: Ruby, can you tell me what da- i mean jaune is doing?

Ruby: Taxes.

Weiss: ... What?

Ruby: Yeah, it seems he was the only one who knew how to make them.

Weiss: W-well, i'm certain it cannot be as complicated as you seem to believe! I was tutored by the greatest in Atlas after all.

Jaune: *using only paper and pen* ... So with an annual revenue of 43260… remove 15%… yo Weiss, you forgot to add your passive income. And since the SDC is no more, i would strongly advise you put them in your taxes if you don't want to get arrested. Though if you put the dust you buy as work expenses, you could be saving almost 7000$.

Weiss: ... What?

Ruby: Yeah, i saw the kind of school he came from. He learned what we were learning in history and math in beacon when he was 10.

Weiss: What?!

Ruby: Seems also he paid his false paper to enter Beacon by doing Roman and Neo taxes and doing accountability for Junior.

Jaune: *still calculating* my mom told me i should have continued my scholarship in university. But it was really boring you know?

Weiss: *sweating* J-just to know, which university were you supposed to go?

Jaune: Atlas university of robotic why?

Weiss: ... Jaune, that university is one of the most prestigious one in remnant. You are a genius!

Jaune: Nah, i think you are the real genius. Being good both in combat and school? I wish i was half as good as you are.

Weiss: ... My pride was just shattered by your honest opinion.

Ruby: yeah... I know that feeling.

[8figurehustler]

Affiliate Programs That Aren’t A Scam | 💰💰💰

below are affiliate programs that i’ve tried. rated from 1-10 and why

ShareASale - rated a 10 because it’s the only affiliate company that ive tried and that actually brought me good passive income. not only that, since they are a company, they have multiple businesses that you can choose from depending on what your niche is. a lot of affiliate programs im in right now ive registered through shareasale. link : www.shareasale.com

Shein Affiliate Program - rated at a 9 because it would be a 10 if shareasale wasn’t so good. if you’re into fashion & beauty and your niche revolves around these, go for it. i would suggest only applying if you have purchased from shein before and have bought the products that you’ll be promoting. Currently they only accept you if you’re active on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok & Twitter although you can apply your links elsewhere, these platforms are just needed to application process & for them to view your social media presence. link : www.sheinaffiliate.com ( if you can’t find the affiliate program, type in affiliate directly in the search bar on the app and it will take you straight to the page itself )

Amazon Associates - rated at a 4, it’s not a bad program to be in but to really make bank on there you’d need to have a really wide social media presence, a constant trending niche and you’d have to post multiple links from different products to make a decent amount. i was active on it for about a year and only made around $50 in the end because majority of the brand are quite stingy and pay a very low commission percentage, im talking like 2% -10% so im the end, id really get a few cents from commissions but then again, i do faceless digital marketing and i was just a beginner so my social media presence wasn’t as big as it is now. maybe in the future i would give it another go but for now, nah. tip: if you have you own blog site with you own domain and receive a lot of traffic this might do good for you. link : www.amazonassociates.com

Digistore24 - rated at a 3. there’s not much to say about this affiliate program, i think the rating says enough. maybe others have had good experiences with it but me? nah. from the get go, i knew they were bad. first of all, the thousands of emails i got already put me off & the worst part is, it wasn’t even related to anything i was involved in & no unsubscribing doesn’t work, as long as you have an account with them, trust you’ll be getting all those emails. then, majority of their programs also have the same commission rates as amazon associates, on top of that, the businesses they have aren’t really lucrative & flexible. it really only revolves around a few select niches. i used it for about a few months and i made $0, not even a cent. ive also done research and quite a few users have issues with payouts, they have a very few select payout processes and if you live outside of the us, you may have trouble setting up your payout information. that being said, just because it didn’t work out for me, does not mean it will have the same end result for you. link : www.digistore24.com

so far these are majority of affiliate programs i’ve tried out, excluding small individual programs ive personally joined through my own weight & how they’ve done for me. i will continue to browse and experiment, of course keeping you in the loop, so follow me to stay updated !

—

Read Why I Would Choose Faceless Digital Marketing Over Becoming An Influencer

Start monetising your pinterest, through paid ad, affiliates and more : click here

Grow your pinterest account to a million monthly views in less than 6 months and get it ready for digital marketing : click here

[msschemmenti]

Are You Jealous?

Chessy x Reader

prompt: jealous chessy :)

a/n: i rewatched parent trap recently and the craziest plotline in that movie was martin and chessy being lovers. both of them were clearly gay.

a/n: sorry this took so long lol unedited and probably pretty bad

“I’d love to see you tonight.” Y/n smiled down the phone. It’d been about a week since she and Chessy had seen each other and with the house to herself, Chessy was going to take advantage.

“Well Nick and the girls are going camping for the weekend, if you’re up for a drive out to the vineyard?” Chessy asked hopefully.

“I think I can swing that. What time should I be there?”

“Everyone should be gone by 5. So anytime after should be good.” Chessy grinned.

“I’ll be there by 5:30. SHould I bring anything?” 

“Just yourself. I’ll make us some dinner and we can crack open something from the cellar to go with.”

“Sounds divine. I’ll call before I head out. See you soon.” Y/n smiled down the phone and waited for Chessy’s reply.

“Can’t wait.”

-

“Dinner was great Chess. Thank you so much.” Y/n smiled around her glass as she sat at the kitchen island watching Chessy move around the kitchen. They’d been dating for about four months and were as smitten as a couple could be. After Meredith, Nick started renting out the vineyard as a wedding venue as a bit of passive income. Y/n’s company had been one of the first to host a ceremony on the grounds. she’d been lost and had somehow driven up the Parker’s driveway and was met with a very beautiful woman waving her hands to stop her. from there their romance only flourished. 

“anything for you honey. after i finish these dishes we can go sit under the stars for a bit?” 

“i’d love to. why don’t i dry do we can start relaxing sooner? i need as much relaxation as i can get with this current bride.” 

“well get your cute butt over here and get to work. the stars won’t wait forever.” chessy grinned, reaching to pull the woman close by the waist. The couple washed in tandem, giggling and stealing kisses as they went. really just enjoying each other's company. Just as they put the last dish away, voices floated through the open floorplan startling the couple apart.

“Chessy, who’s car is that?” Hallie called being the first to enter the house. It wasn’t long before more footsteps were heard and before they knew it they were no longer alone. Now standing face to face with a very intimately domestic scene.

“Uh. Hi guys. What are you doing back so early?” Chessy asked, stepping toward the small family.

“Rain at the campsite so we decided to try again next weekend.” nick shrugged eyeing the guest placing the last of the dried dishes in the cabinet.

“Bummer. I’m sure next weekend will be better. We’ll just be going then.” Chessy answered quickly grabbing Y/n’s elbow in an effort to leave the kitchen. Before she could even move around the island all four members grinned mischievously at the nanny and moved in.

“Wait Chessy, aren’t you going to introduce us to your friend?” Annie asked looking past Chessy and toward Y/n. Chessy fixed them with a withering glare but sighed pulling Y/n forward as she prepared for the embarrassment. 

“Everyone this is Y/n, my friend,” she smiled toward the twins in censorship.

“Y/n, this is Nick Parker. He owns the vineyard. Elizabeth James, and their daughters Annie and Hallie.” 

Y/n smiled, politely extending her hand to shake each member of the family’s hand before stopping briefly at Elizabeth’s. “I know this is a long-shot but you wouldn’t happen to be the Elizabeth James? Like the wedding dress designer Elizabeth James, would you?”

“Guilty,” Elizabeth smiled.

“Oh I love your work. I’m a wedding planner and all the best dresses I’ve seen in the last 12 years have come from you.” Y/n gushed causing Elizabeth’s cheeks to glow in a blush. 

“How sweet, I’m so glad my dresses seem to rank so well.”

“Oh most definitely, I hope you’re still designing by the time I finally have a wedding of my own. I’ve always imagined I’d be in an Elizabeth James original for my special day.”

“I would love that, have you already got ideas? I could roughly sketch you something since we’re all here for the evening.” ELizabeth offered. Y/n took a step around Chessy to follow ELizabeth before turning back to her girlfriend.

“Do you mind Chess?” Y/n asked quietly, knowing that if Chessy said she did, she’d politely decline and hope she got the chance another day.

“No, go ahead, knock yourself out. Just come find me when you’re done.” Chessy smiled, pushing the woman over toward Elizabeth with a smile.

“Great, I can even show you some recent stuff I’ve been thinking about.” Elizabeth grinned, pulling Y/n through the hall toward her work room. As soon as the women disappeared Chessy could feel three pairs of eyes on her.

“Your friend, hm?” Hallie grinned rounding the counter to one side of the nanny.

“How come we’ve never met this friend before?” Annie asked rounding to the other side, effectively caging Chessy between them.

“That’s none of your business. And rain at the campsite? When’d you all become such babies?” Chessy chided, poking the girls in their ribs. They giggled helplessly as the older woman tickled them. “Wanna watch a movie?”

-

The movie had been on for half an hour and the other women had yet to return. Chessy’s attention had been divided the moment they pressed play. During the quieter parts of the movie, she could hear giggles floating through the halls. Chessy’s eyes wandered from the screen in hopes of catching a glimpse of her girlfriend returning, but she wasn’t rewarded. Both Annie and Hallie had anchored themselves on either side of Chessy, legs stretched to each end of the couch. They’d both been commenting on the film and asking questions and Chessy tried to keep up but after noticing her gaze shift to the hallway for what felt like the 100th time they took to giggling and quietly talking to each other. 

As the credits rolled across the screen, Chessy was finally granted some reprieve from her torture. Elizabeth and Y/n came around the corner arms linked, quietly giggling over a sketchbook. 

“Oh Y/n, you’re just delightful. I can’t believe you’ve done four weddings here and I’m only just meeting you.” Elizabeth shook her head in disbelief.

“My brides are always extremely high maintenance. They make it a bit hard to socialize at all!”

“Well, I’ll have to have you come by my local studio sometime. We just have to get together again.”

“Oh Elizabeth, that’d be great. I’ll have Chessy give you my info and we can connect sometime soon.” Y/n smiled as she placed her hands on Chessy’s head affectionately over the back of the couch.

“I’ll be sure to share that.” Chessy mumbled gazing up at the two of you. Both of their eyes still on the sketchbook. 

“Perfect! Girls, it's getting rather late. Say goodnight.” Elizabeth smiled down at the twins while rubbing her hand over Y/n’s shoulder. The girls obediently wished their goodnights before leaving the room. As they left Y/n caught sight of the time herself. 

“It is a bit late, I should head home. I’ve got a few early meetings. It was lovely meeting you all. Chess, will you walk me out?” Y/n asked, finally meeting the older woman’s gaze. The older woman followed behind Y/n closely and as soon as they were out of sight of the family her hands were resting on her waist. 

They came to a stop outside of Y/n’s car and the younger woman turned to face Chessy, “Well that was fun.” Y/n smiled as Chessy backed her into the car. 

“Well I’m glad someone had fun.” Chessy mumbled wrapping her arms around Y/n’s waist with a pout.

“And what’s that supposed to mean? Did you not have fun tonight?” Y/n frowned as Chessy sighed and dodged her eyes.

“I barely saw you tonight.” Chessy huffed. 

Y/n looked over the nanny’s face with a smile. Seeing the jealousy simmering in her mind. With a grin Y/n splayed her hands across Chessy’s chest and pulled on the collar of her shirt. “Wait a minute. Are you jealous?” 

“What? Pshh, No.” Chessy rolled her eyes. 

“Oh I don’t think that’s true at all.” 

“Well, I think you spent the whole evening with the Elizabeth James.” 

“Chess…” Y/n dragged out, pulling the older woman closer to her.The older woman grumbled but ultimately sighed as the younger woman pinched her cheek. “You know I would’ve stayed if you asked.”

“You seemed so excited. Listen I’m just grumpy the evening didn’t go as planned. I don’t particularly like sharing you.” 

“Well next time, we’ll aim for no interruptions hm?” Y/n smiled sweetly.

“I like the sound of that.” 

“Now give me a kiss so we can say goodnight.”

taglist: @theonefairygodmother , @sleep-deprived-athlete

[thaltro]

Random question about Psych - Sorry if this is a little outdated as I'm basing it on his old reference sheet. Also sorry it's so long haha.

As I understand it: He has reversion magic - and by touching somebody he can revert them back to a state before they experienced some sort of trauma. If multiple traumas occurred, Psych can exert a lot more energy to go back several stages. However, direct contact with his soul is a lot more potent/unstable and can result in a lot more extreme outcomes.

As for my question, let's use a typical fanon Passive Nightmare story as an example (sorry, I'm not really all caught up on Atrophy's whole deal and I think regular UTMV Nm may fit the scenario better LOL), where usually it'll be something like:

Passive chilling -> Passive gets attacked -> Passive eats the apples -> "HELP ME PLZ IS COR---Corrupted.exe: I here HAHAHA"

Let's assume eating the apples here was the main, "big" trauma, and getting attacked, although still traumatic, gets lumped into the general bullying thing and was bog-standard by this point (i.e. that specific instance of bullying didn't lead him to eat the apples, but it was rather the culmination of all the bullying lead up to that incident, and that was the straw that broke the camel's back.)

If Psych were to use his powers on that Nightmare, at what "stage" would he be reverted back to? Would it be right before the Apple incident, (the beginning of Substance Corruption) and then ergo that means Nightmare would still be pretty banged up? Or would he just be 6 years old again with none of the injuries? And if the latter, when in time would his code be? A day before the trauma? A week? Or would it place him in some random time before, with some variability? (E.g. performing two separate reversions on Nm could pull his code an hour before the incident and then 3 weeks before the incident).

OR, if the former, let's assume that one Negative apple is okay for you, but 999 isn't. Would this, again, revert him right before Nm supposedly takes a bite? Or somewhere in the midpoint of Apple eatery? Again comparing this to Substance Corruption, it is noted that:

"A potent substance that shouldn’t be within a monster gets in a monster and overwhelms their code permanently."

This implies that there are possibly instances where a substance does get in a monster's body, but the body is able to fight it off/expunge somehow, if I'm getting that right? So in this example, Maybe Nightmare gets reverted to only having 3 apples, because maybe 3 apples is okay for his body to deal with. But 4? Crossing the line there, bub. SUBSTANCE CORRUPTION INCOMING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Again though this is all sort of based around UTMV Nightmare and I know how Atrophy came about is extremely different from the standard Dreamtale story, so I can understand if maybe the semantics here of UTMV Nightmare can't really be applied in Nightwatch as a whole. I also understand the concept of Psych's abilities reversing trauma might've been changed for the concept of reversing corruption, so forgive me if this entire thing is asking questions about no longer relevant information haha.

Also sorry if this was a bit ramble-y and didn't make sense. I tried my best to make it as understandable as possible but I completely get it if there may be some confusion, haha.

Good question, I’ll explain how the cannon reversion works now.

So essentially I dropped the trauma states thing because it brought up many issues, mostly what is defined as trauma or traumatic enough. Didn’t really wanna work through that.

So instead reversion works as a code destroyer. It atomizes parts of a code in some way reverting things to their original basic states. That’s why it’s useful for corruption. Corruption is complex but it’s essentially code with changes or additional features to it.

In nightwatch monsters have an organic code which is code that happens naturally. This code is more set in place and hard to get rid of. Corruption is when inorganic code is applied onto that organic code.

This isn’t always extreme, most commonly flus and sickness are corruption as it’s a foreign code that interrupts the normal organic process. Most monsters can survive this, but reversion shots and pills are made so you can get almost instant reversion of those loose weak inorganic codes.

But Chronic Corruption is different

Think Geno Sans or Atrophy, this is when that loose inorganic code is so strong it becomes attached permanently to the organic codes.

This is when Psych needs to come into play because he is trained to do procedures to manually remove those parts. Which again because the inorganic codes are so potent and viral, it makes it much more difficult to remove as you don’t want to accidentally destroy original organic codes.

Think of how a problem with chemo therapy for cancer, the whole body is affected with the treatment and in the process of removing the cancer it also removes normal healthy cells. Psych is supposed to negate that issue and he guides his magic to only remove the corruption.

Typically resulting in reconstructive surgery as the body might need to be repaired after this very invasive procedure. It’s not always perfect, but psychs reversion procedures and surgeries are very affective to reverting amalgamations. Memory being one of his successes

Now to answer your nightmare question

Atrophy eats one apple and he instantly corrupts btw, his slime just melts and consumes the rest of the tree after. But if I’ll work with typical nightmare, maybe a few apples is corruption that would make one very ill and in need of a injection. But after an overwhelming amount of inorganic code, the corruption would be chronic.

And If psych where to revert atrophy, the code would be set back to somewhat match the bone density of a monster instead of slime, and form something soul like. Atrophy’s soul is dispersed in peices around the slime so it’d be very difficult to selectively protect those parts. Psych would have to take that now purified slop and surgically rebuild atrophy to look like a person again. It’s what he did to memory already.

Mentally he’d still be an adult because psych would avoid reverting that organic code. Just would be free of corruption and with a newer body.

What if psych didn’t selectively revert and instead just,, did it? Without thinking?

You’d die, even immortals could die since their code would be fully atomized. That’s what happens if you jump into the atomization void at the end of the multiverse (where the core leads you) as it indiscriminately disperses your codes across time and space. If you somehow survive it leaves a damaged husk of what you used to be. In nightwatch it’s called atomization syndrome which core frisk and some gasters have!

But most the time you just straight up die. Psych really could kill people if he was smart but he’s not

I know this doesn’t answer everything since the questions framework was on the outdated magical system, but I’m glad I can answer some parts and I just like talking about my dumb dumb world building. I really liked this ask thank you

Other post related to the vial of anti corrupt, there’s a better drawing then what I drew in a few seconds here haha

[888-fr]

WHY I DON'T RETIRE MY SKINS: an essay

Disclaimer that I'm speaking from a point of being established here, because not everybody can afford to run their skin shop like I do. I don't judge less established artists for needing to limit their skins because they can't afford to print a run with only 2 people on it. I'm also not judging anybody who does retire their skins after a set number of prints - whole different matter! I'm giving an opinion piece based on my own personal thoughts about running my own skin shop.

Okay, now that's out of the way. I really dislike the idea of time-limiting my skins. There's just no actual justification for me, as an established skin artist, to limit skins I know will sell... aside from prestige, and putting buying pressure on my customers. So there's a couple of reasons I don't like that:

1) Erodes trust in the artist.

Yes, I could probably make more money if I kept my skins limited so people HAD to pick up my skin on release. Maybe even all 4 colors of the skin, including the one they don't really keep in their hoard. Just in case they want it down the line but it won't be available anymore.

Is this good business practice though? Do I want people to start feeling panicked every time I ping for a release, because they just picked up a new project and really really CAN'T afford to be buying skins right now but there's 5 colorways of my skin available and they'll probably be resold for 2kg as soon as they retire?

Personally, no! I want people excited when I ping, not feeling dread in their hearts and budgets. I want people to be thinking: 'Awesome, a new skin! I can't afford that right now but I know he always keeps a few on the AH at print price even after preorders end. Even if I can't buy a skin just this moment, I'll be sure to keep an eye on his thread for when I have gems again.' Or: "Awesome, a new skin! This one doesn't appeal to my lair aesthetic, so I will just nod and smile. I don't feel the need to buy it in case it gets popular for resale, because it will always be on the AH for print price."

People tell me about unsubscribing from GASP because they get anxiety being pinged for skins they want but can't have. So I want people to stay on my pinglist because there's no pressure on them whatsoever to purchase anything. It'll always be here, okay? In the meantime, just enjoy the art, maybe preview it on a scry or two. I'll be here if you're back in three weeks, or three months.

2) Passive income!

I lied. I probably would've made less money time limiting all my skins than by keeping my skins restocked. A couple of reasons for this:

- My earlier skins sold worse. This isn't psychology, it's just numbers. Some of my most popular stock were made early on in 2021/2022. I didn't have that many sales then, so could you imagine if I had retired them immediately after that? There's 230something copies of SAILOR'S WARNING out in the world right now. If that skin was time limited after preorders died down, I would've sold "only" 50 forever.

- People see my shop stock whenever you ping for a new releases. I get 3-4 sales off auction house whenever I release something new and people check my front page. It's not a lot but it's consistent.

- It's a win-win situation, okay? If a skin is popular, there's no reason to time limit it to drive up sales. If it IS popular, then people are going to see it on other people's dragons, go "damn that's a nice skin," and maybe do an AH search for it. And if there's a cheap print price copy available, they're gonna buy it.

2) Reprints are easy!

It was a lot more annoying to keep track of queue numbers and inventory back when reprints had to go through regular queue for a week. Did I put in 10 copies of SUNHEAVEN already? Wait, are my kitsune aethers back yet? How many of MOLOCH are still listed?

Now I can put in a blueprint and get my reprint instantly. No fuss at all.

3) I don't want to buy into the 'this is a retired skin' hype...

This is just personal preference. It makes me feel a little bad when a public skin I made is popular and people can't afford to have it. I'm not judging anybody who does like it when their skins are rare, special, and sought after.

It's just... I get that part of my brain scratched from my customs. They're gorgeous, they're 5 prints, they're on the AH for 30kg if you really want one. Most importantly they're niche and high coverage enough that even if someone hadn't paid me to draw an exclusive skin specifically for their dragon, they'd never do well as a public skin anyway.

Here are some tips for people looking into keeping their skins unlimited:

- You don't need to do it like I do.

Blueprints are expensive. Even I don't have my entire catalogue stocked, only the ones I noticed always have reprint requests. For example, only SAILOR'S WARNING out of 4 total colors for my impm skins is kept stocked because the others don't sell enough to justify it.

If you can't afford to stock them 10 at a time, have the customer provide the blueprints. Shelving your skins but having them be reprintable with a BP and a fee (350g is good for 850g print prices; remember, 500g of that went to you purchasing blueprints in the public run, so it doesn't make sense to charge customers a whole 850g when they're already providing the blueprint) is a good alternative to permanently retiring your skins. You don't get a ton of people who can afford that, but the option is there for people who want it.

- Notice which skins sell!

If you already have a good amount of skins in catalogue and have trouble figuring out which ones to begin stocking, you can start by checking in with your pinglist. Poll them and see which ones you'd want to rerun.

- Don't have so many recolors.

It's a law of the universe that they more recolors you have, the worse they sell collectively. I usually do 2, no more than 3. If you have to time limit your skins to get 6 recolors to hit print, then it's time to cut those recolors down.

There's reasons for this: it's choice paralysis, people may want 'complete sets' and will skip out if you're making that complete set cost 4kg total, and it just plain doesn't make sense for very similar color schemes to cover 4 different skins. Feel free to print personal recolors or have custom recolors open.

[boatemlag]

Build guide for the NEW 5* hydro polearm fWhip!!!

Ok so when I heard the archon was coming out this early in 6.x i was suspicious, but holy moly this kit is INCREDIBLE. Absolutely gonna be insane for all sorts of teams. This guide is going to teach you a generalist fWhip support build. Leaks r saying he's gonna look good for taser meta going forward, but I dont talk about leaks in these so shhh you didn't hear it from me.

✦✦✦ Explaining the kit ✦✦✦

◇ Basic Attack:

Normal, basically just does 4 strikes. Pretty slow compared to other polearms, and the charged attack is not the spinny one.

◇ (E) Skill:

Jumps up and plunges a spear into the ground, dealing hydro in a small AoE and draining 10% of his HP. For every 40 HP drained, increase fWhip’s crit DMG by 1%. Up to 100% crit DMG can be gained in this way.

Basically your benchmark is 40k HP, which is super reasonable of a buff. Not the best non transformative reaction based buffer for someone like Shrub or Etho, but probably gonna be busted for upcoming dpses and old crit dpses alike.

◇ (Q) Burst

Causes nearby party members to enter the Inspired state. While in this state, normal attacks will be faster, and charged attacks will consume less stamina. Additionally, at level 9, for every max 1000 HP fWhip has, reduces nearby enemies all-type resistance by 1% to a maximum of 40%.

Really busted res shred.

◇ Passives

Gradually heals the 10% HP from his skill back, even when off-field. Also heals the on field party member by 70% of this healing. Additionally does AoE hydro DMG around the active character for each tick of healing.

The crit DMG gained by fWhip’s skill applies to the whole party.

Ghrelian local specialties on the map!

✦✦✦ Constellations ✦✦✦

C1: Increases all-type RES PEN by up to 50%, and cdmg increase by up to 125%.

C2: Passive 1 heals 150% to on field character other than fWhip.

C4: After using fWhip’s skill, infuse his attacks with hydro for 10s. Infusion will be canceled when he leaves field.

C6: When fWhip is on field, increase the cdmg and all-type RES PEN gained to 2% instead. (Basically means max RES PEN is 100%, and max cd gained is 200%. I really thought no way this was getting past V5, but holy shit.)

Obviously C6 >>>>>>>> everything in the game, but all of his cons have great value. If I had to say, C6 > C1 = C2 > C4. C1 has a crazy good value. Definitely C1R0 > C0R1. We'll get to his sig in a second, but C1 and C2 are great value.

✦✦✦ Ascension & Talent Materials ✦✦✦

◇ Drops: Skulk Crawlers

From the new-ish underground area in Hermitopia, which is really interesting to me. Wonder if there's a lore reason.

Whisper piece x18

Echo shard x30

Wailing cry x36

◇ Felicitous Claw

From the new Ghrelian boss, Animalian Hoarde. x46!

◇ Innovation Talent Books

Monday/Thursday and Sunday! This is really close to the waypoint from the southmost tip of Hermitopia, so you can just run there and unlock it. Pro gamer tip.

◇ Raw Gold

New Ghrelian local specialty.

◇ Mask of Deception

From the Winterfell weekly boss, The All-Knowing All-Seeing God of Terroir-eating.

✦✦✦ Artifacts & Stats ✦✦✦

Autonomous Art’s Grim Calling (Grims) is his sig set. The 4pc is decent, increasing incoming healing and EM for on field characters and the wearer (great for bloom comps), but you could even run 2pc Grims 2pc Seven Days for the HP bonus. Hell, if you have Echodark pieces lying around, 2pc 2pc HP is fine for him too.

If you have C4 and are running fWhip as a DPS, you might wanna be more picky and go with STBN for the attack speed bonus.

The most important thing with fWhip is to hit these benchmarks:

HP: 40k (50k if C1)

ER: 140-150%

Everything else is on an as needed basis. EM is nice, but depends on the team. Focus too hard on crit ratio and you can go crazy as a sub-dps, but hitting benchmarks is the most important for burst uptime and max buffs.

✦✦✦ Weapons ✦✦✦

Should you go for his sig? Eh. Caregiver Spear is only really viable for DPS/C4 fWhip. I think the lack of infusion in his kit really makes this weapon meh on him. It's a decent weapon to have for Mumbo or other 4 stars with no signature as long as you're running them with fWhip, but otherwise I say it's a skip.

Pearl's sig is GREAT if you have it. But his BIS is actually R5 Telemetry for the healing bonus & ER. Alternatively, you could run Asclepius or Nighttime Arrow as an HP stat stick.

✦✦✦ Talent Priority ✦✦✦

Burst = Skill >>>>>>>>> NA. Don't level up NA unless you have C4 imo.

1/10/10 lbh, but 1/9/9 is also fine.

✦✦✦ Team Comps ✦✦✦

Like I said, he really works with any crit DPS. Here are some fun ones, tho.

Sausage mono-hydro: Sausage main dps, skizz for additional shred, fWhip support, and flex crowd control. If running with Joe, I'd say a rotation could look like Sausage skill -> skizz burst, skill (for ERR) -> fWhip skill -> Joe skill, burst -> fWhip burst -> Sausage burst

Lizzie mono-hydro: Literally the same as the above team, but a different rotation. Hydro mono cracked.

EMmaxxing Swirl support: Oli as a reaction driver, fWhip for off field app, Grian for off field, Scott for off field. I'm realizing this is "archons and oli" team, but this would go crazy for just constant reactions.

Hyperbloom premium: fWhip off-field, on field crit benefiting dendro like Etho, electro False to drive hyperbloom, and a flex unit, like Pearl. This rotation might look like Pearl skill -> fwhip skill, burst optional -> Pearl burst -> False burst skill -> etho full rotation with skill and burst while procing hyperblooms

You can run fWhip in so many comps he's just cracked. He's probably getting a dedicated DPS in 6.x, and if leaks are to be believed, it's gonna go crazy. Abyss is about to be insufferable without him.

◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆

That's all! Put your predictions or questions in the comments and I'll try and answer as many as I can! [NettyNom]

[hongluboobs]

(sending myself an ask I got on Retrospring a while back because I was able to get a really interesting answer with help from a friend and I think more people need to be aware of this stuff. the original asker was anonymous and this question was sparked because I was compiling Hong Lu's lines for something and noticed just how many tildes and ellipsis he uses... and that it was making its way into my own typing patterns lmao)

about the hong lu ellipsis/tilde thing: i remember hearing an offhand comment from a kr speaker that hong lu's speech quirk is talking girlishly, and while i am not an expert in korean by any means, i've read that women tend to speak softer and more passively, drag out their last syllables (probably the reason for all the tildes), and end their statements with rhetorical question tags more often, among other things. it's unfortunately generally theorized this is a result of misogyny in korean culture. i wish i could say more but i really don't know korean and i don't how it compares to like, everyone else in the cast

(Original post can be found here )

This was interesting to me and i’m lucky enough to know someone who natively speaks korean and plays limbus in kr so i asked him about it! All credit to Ciel @/10seisan for this incoming text wall :)

Here’s what he had to say:

I, too, read that Hong Lu’s tone and speech patterns as being more feminine. Specifically, I would describe his tone as sounding like a mixture of customer service and feminine speech, if that makes sense. His vocal inflexions are more noticeable and they tend to go upwards in pitch, which is associated with feminine speech patterns. I would say that what the asker sent about how women tend to speak here is accurate, and I think that misogyny plays a large role in it as well. As an example, the passive speaking, we have the word 돌려서 말하다, which means “to indirectly speak about a topic” or “beat around the bushes”. This is somewhat expected for people of all genders in formal situations to be polite, but women tend to do it more often and in less formal situations as well due to societal pressure to not seem “aggressive” by coming across “too strong”. Tangents aside, Hong Lu’s tildes in the text corresponds to the voice lines where he drags out syllables, speaks more softly, and/or has a particularly noticeable rise in inflexion at the end of a sentence, so they certainly are indicative of his feminine mannerisms in speech. As for the ellipses, this depends more on the context, since they can be used simply to indicate pauses, but I wouldn’t be surprised if at least some of them coincided with something specific to his speech mannerisms as well. As for how he compares to the other sinners, I would say that, in some ways, his speech sounds similar to Rodya’s, actually—more so than the other sinners. Especially when it comes to the (canonically) male sinners, his speech is not at all similar to any of them. Yi Sang may be the closest if I were required to choose—solely due to his voice being on the softer side—but even then, Yi Sang has very little inflexion and typically ends his sentences with a fall in pitch, unlike Hong Lu

(Ciel’s thoughts end here)

This is all really interesting to me because as an english speaker (and as a person who tends to tune out vocal performance in general, esp if it’s foreign) i can only catch some of it. The delivery on Hong Lu’s lines make sense, especially when taking his background from his source book into account. (whether you want to purely read this as overly formal speech bc of the whole “family is like a cohort of kin looking for a chance to stab you in the back” thing or you want to read gender in it is up to you)

The fact it’s most similar to Rodya’s speech patterns is interesting too… I notice this in the english text as well (i’ve seen people mistake abnormality log text written by Hong Lu for Rodya and vice versa on numerous occasions) Rodya plays up her feminity a lot as a mask so it makes a lot of sense that it’s the closest to Hong Lu’s but still. very interesting. I’m a huge fan of their dynamic in general but that’s a tangent for a different ask, it’ll just be interesting to see if/what can make Hong Lu drop those speaking patterns…

I could yap a bit more on this but i think i’m just gonna leave it be for now because Ciel did a really good job at explaining it all :)