#it's like even though it doesn't take extremely long it's still one of those things that is hard to carve out a little portion of the day

[twilightofthesandwiches]

so uh, yeah pretty interesting how the effects of recruiting or not recruiting every darkner have gotten more severe as the game progressed. I sure as hell didn’t expect that to determine whether tenna and jackenstein live or not. You think that could imply anything about how the game’s ending(s?) would play out? Or that the effects of not recruiting everyone could escalate or add up over time?

...I suppose you can look at it like that.

I always saw Chapter 2 as leaning hardest into moral choices, y'know, with it being the splitting-off point for the Weird Route. And... on a Normal Route where you didn't Recruit anyone, that ending still felt like a huge downer.

I guess no one actually died though, right? Like, the Darkners of Cyber World returned to being inanimate objects and programs when the Fountain got sealed, but plenty of Darkners are content with a happy 'life' of being an inanimate object as long as they can fulfil their 'purpose' with the Lightners (that's the whole premise of Tenna's happy ending). So once Hometown's internet is fixed, folks are gonna use the Computer Lab again and most of the minor Cyber City Folks are gonna fine... eventually....Although Queen would still be a bit lonely in Castle Town....

But if you don't Recruit enough TV World Darkners, Tenna is literally actually dead, or... like, still conscious on some level even though he's broken to a point where he can't fulfil his one reason for living anymore? Which might be worse? Jackenstein is less explicit but the implication does seem to be that he died on a Violent Route.

Honestly, my perspective is that I still have no reason to doubt the Word of Dog

There is one ending, but there are some things more important than reaching the end. I always took it to mean like...

1. The ending will be the same but it will be recontextualized by our choices. Like, we'd get hailed as heroes across the land, but is it going to feel like a just reward or deeply ironic considering all the horrible things we secretly did? That would depend on our choices.

(kinda like how the Card Kingdom storyline always ends with King in prison and all the denizens becoming our subjects, but our choices change whatever this feels like justice being served or us evading consequences for our actions)

2. Our choices can effect other things that are important even if they don't effect the ending.

I think this is especially where Tenna and Jackenstein come in. I honestly think the most probable reason why their lives depend on Player Choice is because... they are not going to be as plot-critical to the continuation of the story as Lancer, King or Queen are. Jackenstein is a Mini-Boss and so far most of those haven't been that important plot-wise, while Tenna's Happy Ending takes him out of Castle Town. So whatever they live or die doesn't matter that much to the overarching plot and the ending... but you can argue that keeping these two alive and happy is one of those things that are more important than reaching the end.

Would you be content with your happy ending knowing you could have saved Tenna and Jackenstein if only you were a little kinder?

I dunno if we'll get more Major Characters who can live or die depending on Recruit quotas or other kinds of Player Choice... it's possible, it does raise the stakes. But I also feel like as we get closer to the endgame, it's more likely we'll go back to introducing Extremely Plot Relevant Bosses whose lives will be fixed in places for the sake of the ending.... but that doesn't mean the game can't introduce new angles for making our choices matter in little ways. Because there's something more important than reaching the end.

[blacktabbygames]

Slay the Princess Concept Art

We shared a bunch of concept art on Twitter today. Sharing it here, too, where you can find it all in one post. Post contains spoilers, so proceed with caution (or just play the game already if you haven't 😉)

Going to start with the first piece of concept art Abby drew for the game.

In the earliest stages of development, we toyed around with the concept of there being multiple "end game" forms of the Princess.

The initial outline, rather than being tied together by an overarching metanarrative, structured a full playthrough as a 5-6 chapter long, self-contained journey down a single route, determined by your decisions in chapter 1. Here's an alternative late-game form:

The idea of deviating end-game forms didn't lost for very long, though. As we explored the game's themes more deeply, it made the most sense for there to be a singular "true" form.

If your reality is shaped by subjectivity and perception, then the "truth" has to be what's left when that subjectivity is swept away. the Shifting Mound's final design feels like that initial truth for the Princess, though there's also another truth if you push back against her and press on into the final cabin.

We really liked this "void" design, and I played around with the idea of it being an intermediary to the final form. The "void" Princess would be what you saw upon encountering the final Princess without understanding your own truth, but once you had that understanding, you would see her as the Shifting Mound, as depicted in the game.

That gave way to the intermediary design of the SM being a sea of disembodied limbs, and we also took parts of both designs and incorporated them into the protagonist (particularly the wings.) You can see the eyes and feathers for this void form in the ending card of the original trailer below:

You can see extremely early concept art for the spectre (top), nightmare (top-right), stranger (left), beast (bottom) and ??? (right) as well!

The eyes became a motif in the Nightmare route (Paranoid's manifestation of the fear of being watched), but I also like to think of them as a part of The Long Quiet's truth. You are space and emptiness, but you're also that which observes those things, and it's your perceptions that give the Shifting Mound shape.

Anyways, on the note of the original original concepts for the game, the Princess was initially going to remain human for several loops before taking on more monstrous forms. Some concepts of that are below. Had to get Abby to tone down some of the more horrifically cartoonish designs because they creeped me out and I didn't want to romance them in a video game.

We had to hold our cards close to our chest in the non-metanarrative early drafts, which is part of why, even in the first demo, the cabin doesn't really change much in chapter 2. More room to subtly play with the concept of transformation over time.

There were a lot of reasons we moved in a different direction for the full release. The branching was unmanageably large to write, and the game felt like a slog to write.

Using an overarching narrative as a framing mechanism in the final version gave us a lot more freedom to explore wildly divergent ideas within routes while still driving the player towards the originally planned finale.

Anyways, now we've got some concept art for individual princesses. There's a lot more than this lying around somewhere, but it's all in sketchbooks, and we'll probably wait until we make an art book to show it off.

First is the tower, who really didn't change much at all. (She got a little thicker, I guess. All of the Princesses did)

Not a lot to say about her, other than the fact that we knew we wanted a set piece where she gets so big that the trees and cabin orbit around her.

The stranger went through many many redesigns over the course of development. Here, she was a "princess skin" filled with a hive of sentient bugs. The script wasn't working for me, though, so instead she became a peak behind the curtains without the necessary context to know her.

A lot of people ask how these earlier drafts of the Stranger route would have played out, and the answer is I can't tell you, because I couldn't figure out something worth writing.

The writing process for individual routes didn't really start with outlines or plot beats. Rather, the routes started from a theme and a relationship dynamic, and I organically found their outcomes by exploring actions within those themes, and then seeing if those passed Abby's editor brain.

Neither of us found actions we wanted to explore with those versions of the Stranger, at least actions that weren't a beat-by-beat retelling of chapter 1, which contained way too much variation to put on a single chapter 2 route.

If each princess examines a relationship formed by perception and first impressions, the Stranger examines one that's fundamentally unknowable. One where you've seen too much, too quickly.

An insect hive-mind pretending to be a person seemed like a good starting point, but it was too difficult to write any interactions that didn't immediately feel knowable, if still strange. So the final version of the Stranger was designed in such a way where her unknowability makes interacting with her on a human level fundamentally impossible, and you don't get to have a real conversation with her unless you satisfy extremely specific criteria.

Anyways next up is the razor's final form. We decided she needed more swords.

Hearts became an accidental motif very quickly in the development process, too. (The fact that it is only strikes to the heart that fell her in the demo was accidental, but it felt poetic so we extended it to the rest of the game.)

So on top of adding more swords, we made her heart visible. This is something we did with the fury as well, as a way of showing their emotional (and physical) vulnerability.

Here's an early version of the Adversary and what would eventually become the Eye of the Needle, back when she was still called the Fury. Originally her hair was going to be fire (as seen on the right), but it didn't feel right in its execution.

She's hit the gym since this concept art. Good for her :)

And we're going to end with the Beast, who at this point was called the Adversary. I think this was before the Witch was added? The Beast was originally designed to be a Questing Beast who lurked in the shadows, where you'd only see glimpses of her, and where each glimpse would make her appear to be a different animal. This was too difficult to execute, though we gave her a more chimera-like appearance in the final game.

This design was from when we still has the Voice of the Obsessed, and the route was going to be a more feral mirror of what eventually became the Adversary, but it felt too thematically similar while being less interesting, so we moved in the direction of making the Beast about consumption as a form of love.

Anyways, that's all we've got for you right now. Hope this was fun!

[sevsbunny]

So something I've been thinking about is how after Sev becomes a Councilor how she probably couldn't, or shouldn't, visit Babette's anymore due to "appearances" (we could say she doesn't give a shit about those, but her "you look weak" to Vander tells me otherwise :) ). I think there would be a more private, fancier brothel in Piltover for 'elites' (maybe not even called a brothel?) And I was wondering how Sevika would navigate that as she gets more pent up with her new status. :) Girls probably act different there too.

Sorry this is anon, my own thoughts embarrassing me. Lmao.

taking it slow

councilwoman!sevika x brothel!reader

not sure with the word count on this one!

18+ ! sensual touching, light teasing, oral / fingering (sevika!) light hair pulling, reader admires the shit out of sevika. sevika is a little shy coming here. just taking care of sevika <3 switch!sevika & reader.

i’m aware that when she’s councilwoman she has her cunt ass bob but for the sake of this fic…she has her old hair. however! there will be other parts to this so…she will have her bob back

EIGHTEEN PLUS. MEN AND MINORS DNI.

sevika was extremely nervous as she walked up to the brothel doors, a few months after the fact that she became councilwoman.

it was hard being as big as she was going out to places like these — it could ruin her status and make the citizens of zaun look weak, like she has other things on her mind. respect her less, even.

she struggled a lot with wondering what she can do that’ll make her happy, without worrying different members of the board. after all, it was her downtime to get a break. she just hated her telling her in the back of her head, ‘don’t fuck this up.’

fortunately though, the higher end brothel piltover offered was of gold status — and it seems like some people who worked as guards in the palace also frequented.

she surveyed the area, the wet air moistening by the minute after a particularly hard rainfall a few hours earlier. she took out a small bag of coins, tossing them to the brothel bodyguard at the front, a head nod from the man after he poked through the pouch and he opened the velvet curtain for her to step through.

she knew there was no way to conceal who she was coming into this place, her stature at 6 foot made her stand out like a sore thumb, along with this deep ruby red cape she wore to conceal her mech arm when it wasn’t in use too much.

she kept her eyes forward, looking through her peripheral vision to see bodies on bodies together. there were suede couches set up against the wall, some arranged in funky places to create a more intimate circle of people. tables littered with cups of alcohol, ashtrays of cigars and joints ashes out or still lit.

skin on skin was everywhere, the sound of moans reverberated over the music and to her ears, making her body shiver. she hadn’t heard anything like this in such a long time, she was worried she’d be overwhelmed with the amount of stimuli until she saw you.

standing there with a hip popped out, you had on a deep purple two piece — a dark purple leather crop vest on your chest that dipped low into your clevage, matched with a dark purple leather skirt that hugged your hips, and if you bent over enough she’d be able to see your clothed pussy. two amethyst stud earrings were in your ears, matched with a black and purple collar that was adorning your neck — the metal loop in the middle in the shape of a heart with a small diamond hanging on the end of the heart.

you wore no makeup, you were gorgeous even under the different colored lights in the brothel. she caught her breath in her throat when you looked over at her, your eyes widening just a smudge before you settled on giving her a short wave

blushing as she averts her gaze, she brushes past people in the crowd as she made her way towards the bar you were standing at. her skin was on fire being this close to you, something she didn’t know she’d ever be able to feel around someone else.

“haven’t seen you before,” the classic pickup line left your sweet lips and ran right through her soul. she perked up after ordering her drink. she nodded, an elbow leaned up against the bar table, her body moving to face you

she had to look down at you, really. you were that short to her.

easy to toss around.

“what brings you in? or i should be asking, who?” you swirl around the drink in your hand she didn’t notice you had, your eyes locked with hers as she struggled to find something to say

what the fuck was wrong with her? she’s never not been able to speak to someone, let alone a gorgeous girl like you.

after a few moments of unspoken silence, you shrug, taking a swig of your drink as the bartender pushes sevika’s drink towards her. “not much of a talker, huh? that’s okay. most people come to suck and fuck before having a drink and conversation.”

it was true, that’s the normal clientele that came through here did, even if they paid good enough they were still assholes. working in piltover did give you a pretty penny, but at what cost?

“just here to look,” sevika finally responded, her voice cracking from lack of usage. she cleared her throat before taking a long swig of her drink, the cool liquid running down her throat and into her system.

she would need a few more with how uptight she was feeling right now.

“look?” you questioned, leaning against the bar as you look up at her. “like you’re shopping for something?” she shakes her head, realizing how she must’ve sounded when she said that

“no! i didn’t mean it like that i…” she huffed, watched you shift from foot to foot waiting for an explanation. “this is just my first time coming as…councilwoman…” she whispers the last part, as if some people didn’t notice her here already.

you hummed at her response, taking it in and going over it in your mind before settling with a solution. “that’s okay, baby. everyone is new somewhere.” you laid a hand on her arm, the arm not covered by her deep ruby red cloak. she feels goose flesh pimple over her skin before she feels her cheeks burn.

you can tell she’s nervous, her shoulders are locked up, you can tell she she hasn’t shaken that, ‘someone is watching me,’ mindset with the way her eyes dart from each exit, looking at everyone in the crowd to remember a face just incase something goes sideways.

you run your thumb on her forearm to soothe her, and at first is kinda throws her off, eyes darting down to where your thumb is rubbing her skin.

“it’s okay, come on. let’s go somewhere quieter.” you say, your tone sweet and gentle as you pull on her arm softly. without her thinking, her feet started moving along with you, following you towards the back. you part open a curtain that looks similar to the one up front, revealing a long hallway of various doors on each side

you don’t say anything as you walk down with sevika’s forearm still in your hold. sort of felt like you were walking your own pet with how big and tall she was. it made your skin shiver with the amount of authority sevika held and how easy it was to get her to calm down and follow you.

“my rooms near the end.” you say, but sevika isn’t really paying too much attention. she grunts in response so you don’t think she ignored you — but she’s more focused on the other rooms with some doors left ajar and wide open.

bodies inside having sex, smoking weed, laying and touching each other. sometimes there were parties of 4+ people, making sevika’s head snap towards the front.

she wasn’t sure why she felt so…awkward when it came to sex now a days. she felt anxious most days, out of place along the seats of piltover people, wearing gold and admonishing their money towards everyone who would listen. she felt out of place, like she wasn’t meant to be here.

she also hadn’t touched another girl in months.

“just down here.” you say again, your hold still gentle on her arm as you pull her up towards your room. a sign on the outside decorated in pretty font with stickers all attatched to the door, she knew it was your room without you telling her.

you unlock the door and turn on the light, pulling her inside. there she looks at your room.

she’s met with the strong scent of rose water and vanilla, some candles look like they had been burned prior to your leaving of your room. she looks around, a four poster bed in the center with baby pink silk sheets, pillows to match and a few stuffed animals on the comforter.

there was a bookshelf that was over flowing with books at this point, she wasn’t sure if the shelves would be able to hold any longer. you didn’t have any things on your walls, explaining that even if you lived here full time — the room still technically wasn’t yours. she commented on the door full of stickers but you laughed and shrugged. “they can take the money from my paycheck.”

in the far corner you had a desk. filled with loose leaf pieces of paper and a few different ink bottles with black quill pens. on the other side of the large desk there was an alter.

candles half burned and old wax running down the sticks. there was a big pink conch shells sitting in the center with pink pearls loosely draped over the shell. around the candle and the conch shells sitting was various items — old pocket change, dried up flowers that looked like carnations and roses, a small glass jar of sand with some other smaller shells, and an over abundance of gold jewelry.

“Aphrodite,” you speak up behind sevika which has her startled, jumping gently in her skin. you come up behind her with a little lighter reaching for one of the pink candlesticks. you held the flame to the wick and watched it burn as you placed it back on the candle holder.

sevika watched the flame flicker slowly at first, before it rose in a straight line and stayed like that for a while. “she’s really nice to work with. especially while here.” you comment, taking a small gold ring from your pinky finger that was adorned with a small ruby, onto the altar right next to one of the old coins

“have you worked with her long?” she asked gently, watching your movements as you nod your head with a soft smile on your face. you walk over to your bed, curling a leg under you as you sit half on and half off the bed. sevika looks around and finds a plush chair with a blanket draped on the back in the corner of your room with a small side table and night lamp on top.

she takes a seat, keeping her arms on the arm rest and relaxing her fingers, and trying to keep her eyes on anywhere except your body. her brain swims back and forth with a long list of bad possibilities of what could happen with her sitting in a place like this.

first of all she could get her title ripped away, not like she wanted it anyways. it was situational. then she wouldn’t be able to protect her people, the ones who meant the most to her. second of all…what if someone busted her? someone called in a anonymous tip to the committee? then she’d surely get fucked.

but the way you were looking at her, your eyes soft and gazing over her figure like you were drinking her in, trying to figure her out — her heart rate slowed. she took in a deep breath, closing her eyes before opening them again, to meet your gaze right back.

you seemed a bit startled, gasping a soft breath as her eyes look towards you and she could see a subtle red blush on her cheeks. you brought your other leg on your bed, before sitting criss cross and your hands in your lap.

“you’re pretty, you know that?” the little laugh that left her lips told you that she didn’t get told that very often. you spread your legs out before moving back against your pillows and smiling. “what?”

sevika hadn’t been called pretty in…well has anyone actually called her pretty like that?

“what makes me pretty, doll?” your breath caught in your throat at the nickname that played on her lips, her eyelids lowering just a smidge, enough for you to notice the gaze in her eyes darkening.

“well…” you get up from your bed, sauntering your way over to her. your feet were bare now in your room, the only sound in the space was the way your foot pressed against the plush carpet with each step towards her, and the soft breathing from the two of you. she swore you could hear her heart hammering in her chest.

you came to her side, your finger trialing along her exposed forearm, her eyes darting up the expanse of the skin up to sevika’s chest, where multiple straps and buttons kept her tightly in her clothes.

your fingers itched to undo them slowly, run your lips down her skin and between her breasts, just to hear how she sounded. you licked your lips before shaking your head to yourself. she wasnt comfortable with that, she didn’t seem comfortable being here in the first place. you knew that wasn’t the case, that sevika had frequented places like this before but only in zaun. but you figured being councilwoman made her tense.

you kept your finger trailing up her arm to her shoulder, before tucking in a stray piece of her hair that fell from her half bun, right behind her ear. “first of all, you smell really good.” she chuckled, looking up at you as she taps her mech fingers slowly on the leather chair. “like sandalwood, smoke,” you whispered gently.

“your eyes…breathtakingly easy to get lost in.” you trailed off as you walked behind her, your hand coming to cup the bottom of her chin as you stood right behind her head. you pulled her head back enough to look down into her eyes, her uneven full lips parted as a soft breaths escapes her throat.

she blinks at you, and you blink back, eyes trailing over the scars and blemishes that decorate her warm, brown skin. your thumb runs over her bottom lip softly, pulling on it enough to make it wobble back into place when you release it. you keep her gaze for a second, your fingers going to undo the clasp that held her cloak together.

she resisted from stopping you, knowing you wouldn’t make a move on her without asking her first. the way you were touching her, softly and gently as you list out the things you find pretty about her. her head swims full with just the feeling of you touching her skin, the sound of your voice light on her ears.

your hands come to pull the cape off entirely, hanging it up quickly on the hook next to the door before coming to her left side with her mech hand. “and this, i mean…” you trail your finger tips down the smooth gold metal of her arm. you watched in real time as the gears ticked back and forth, forever having her arm on the go. “this is beautiful.” you murmur softly, looking up to meet sevika’s anxious gaze.

you pouted your pretty pink lips, making the anxiety go for a moment as she looked at you. “what is it, doll?” she turns her head slightly as she looks at you curiously, her eyes darting between your eyes, to your nose and quickly to your lips before she snaps back to your eyes.

“can i touch you?” you ask softly, a silent permission to say no if she so desired. but the way you were looking at her right now as you moved in between her spread out thighs, your own bare thighs touching hers, she couldn’t help but nod.

you smiled gently as you grab a soft pillow from your bed before sink to your knees, your hands running over the fabric of her thick thighs. “gonna need you to say something, angel.” you asked softly , digging your nails gently into her thighs. she shuddered softly, the authority written all over your face.

“yes, you can touch me baby.” her voice is low, barely above a whisper as your eyes darken. you smile in response, leaning to give her knees two quick kisses before your hands come up the expanse of her thighs and to her pants button

you pop it open with ease, sliding the zipper down and with sevika’s help as she lifts her hips, her pants come off in one swift movement. you discard them next to you, eyeing her clothed cunt. you look up at her and meet her gaze, her eyes lids lowering, pupils widening.

you lean in, your nose bumping against her clothed clit. you inhale deeply, smelling her arousal and mail, your mouth watering to get a taste of her. you lick a soft stripe up her clothed cunt, a shudder leaving her lips as she watches you with a lustful gaze.

“can i taste you?” you ask softly, eyelashes batting up at her as she nods quickly, moving to push her boxers down before your hands rested on hers, sopping her movements. “let me, baby.” you coo, authority dripping form your tone but your gaze is gentle as you speak to her.

she feels her cunt throb at the action.

you leaned forward, taking your fingers and hooking it into the crotch of her underwear, drinking in the feeling of how wet she made the fabric. she lets out a soft gasp as you reveal her wet cunt to you, the cool air hitting her lips and making her shiver.

“another thing that’s pretty is this pussy,” you breathe out, looking up at her momentarily before you take your other hand and thumb her clit slowly, pulling the hood up just a bit to reveal the rest of her swollen clit.

her hips jerked in reaction, a grunt leaving her throat as you sat there and touched her, softly. you didn’t do anything else with your hands, your eyes just fixated on the way her cunt clenches gently in anticipation, under her gaze.

leaning in, your tongue poked out jsut enough to circle around her clit, tasting her on your tongue instantly. you let out a soft groan as you taste her, your eyes rolling shut as you position your hands to keep her thighs spread wide for you.

“fuck…” she breathes out, leaning back in her chair and moving her hips forward to give you better access to her cunt. your tongue makes slow movements, licking down her clit, her folds and to her dripping hole. you circle the tip of your tongue around her entrance, making her flesh hand come to grip the back of your head.

“don’t tease me, babygirl.” she groans as she pushes your face a bit further into her cunt. you obey her command, gripping her thighs as you slip your tongue into her cunt, warm and wet around the muscle. you moan, and you can tell she’s enjoying herself as she starts to needily grind her hips against your face

“just like that, shit…” she tips her head back, eyes fluttering shut as she focuses on the languid motions of your tongue against her folds, lapping up every single drip of slick that falls from her pussy. you could feel her arousal stick to your chin and cheeks, dripping down the chair and onto your skin.

you didn’t care, you loved how messy she was getting, her moans getting louder and deeper with each thrust of your tongue fucking into her hole. you brought one hand from her thigh as you pressed your thumb against her clit, firmly rubbing circles as you continues the assault of your tongue on her cunt

she squeezes your tongue, making a moan rip from your throat against her. she feels the vibrations of your moan rip through her from her cunt, her hips bucking against your face. you took your other hand, her legs staying spread, as you took your tongue from her hole. she whined in protest from the loss of your muscle, but shortly letting out a groan as you slip two of your fingers into her hole.

“there you go, baby. you like that?” you ask gently, peering up at her and watching as her chest rise and falls each each thrust of your fingers, moans slipping form her lips.

she lets out a whimpered, ‘yes,’ her back arching off the chair as she lets go of the armrests of the chair and right to your head, fingers digging into your hair and pushing you closer to her cunt, if that was even possible.

“pretty moans,” you moan against her as you suck her clit harshly, circling your tongue and flicking her clit as she moans out, riding your face and grinding messily into you. “you gonna cum, vika?” she moans in response, her cunt clenched your fingers as she meets your gaze, a fucked our expression across her features.

“fuck, yes, please i’m gonna cum…” he grips your hair as you feel her cunt squeezes your fingers as she cums, tasting her squirt on your tongue which made you moan as the taste, your fingers slipping easily in and out of her puffy cunt.

“that’s it, thank you vika, fuck…” you moan against her, feeling your cunt clenching and clit throbbing at the whole ordeal, how she spread for you like this in your chair, leaving herself vulnerable for you to take.

and you fucking have.

she frowns as she’s wheats you thank her for cumming against your tongue as you slip your fingers slowly from her cunt and into your mouth, sucking the digits while looking up at her

you lower face was covered in her slick, dripping down your chin. she leans forward quickly before you can even blink an eye, gripping g the back of your head with her metal hand and her flesh hand coming to grip your chin.

she pushes her lips against yours, moaning as she tastes herself on your tongue as she pulls you closer, a shim pier leaving your lips. you felt your body melt into the plush floor below you, into her touch and lost in the way her lips felt against yours.

she pulls away after a moment, her lips shiny with spit and her slick, eyes heavy lidded as she stares as you. “my turn to list all the things pretty about you now, doll.”

[dresshistorynerd]

The Morrisian case against fast fashion

Today I discovered that H&M made a William Morris collection some years ago. The heath death of the universe can't come quickly enough. We can stop now. Satire is dead and we killed her.

It's not just the whole concept of H&M using William Morris' designs for their fast fashion which is insanity inducing, but also the critical response it garnered. Like sure, people did realize this is insane and there was a lot of think pieces about it at the time, but I read several of them and they all seem to still miss the point in spectacular way.

The basic premise of these think pieces go along the lines of: "Would William Morris spin in his grave with a speed of light because of the H&M collection of his designs? A difficult question indeed. William Morris was a complicated man. He wanted art to be affordable to everyone. Isn't H&M affordable? That kinda fits. Though probably he would have some concerns about H&M's practices."

On the surface - yes - but like in reality - fuck no. There's no nuance in this particular issue. He talked about many times what he though of the H&Ms of his time, the retailers selling poor quality industrially produced "fashionable" bullshit. We know exactly what he would have thought of H&M. Here's couple of quotes from his 1884 lecture "Art and Socialism", which makes it very clear.

"It would be an instructive day's work for any one of us who is strong enough to walk through two or three of the principal streets of London on a week-day, and take accurate note of everything in the shop windows which is embarrassing or superfluous to the daily life of a serious man. Nay, the most of these things no one, serious or unserious, wants at all; only a foolish habit makes even the lightest-minded of us suppose that he wants them, and to many people even of those who buy them they are obvious encumbrances to real work, thought and pleasure. But I beg you to think of the enormous mass of men who are occupied with this miserable trumpery, from the engineers who have had to make the machines for making them, down to the hapless clerks who sit day-long year after year in the horrible dens wherein the wholesale exchange of them is transacted, and the shopmen, who not daring to call their souls their own, retail them amidst numberless insults which they must not resent, to the idle public which doesn't want them but buys them to be bored by them and sick to death of them."

He is describing the birth of consumerism, which was taking form during his lifetime in the late Victorian Era, which fast fashion is the extreme logical conclusion of, and he fucking hated it. He specifically railed against endless consumerist products, which H&M is the perfect representation of. It was definitely not the art and beauty he believed everyone required and deserved. He makes the distinction often.

"Now if we are to have popular Art, or indeed Art of any kind, we must at once and for all be done with this luxury; it is the supplanter, the changeling of Art; so much so that by those who know of nothing better it has even been taken for Art, the divine solace of human labour, the romance of each day's hard practice of the difficult art of living."

"And here furthermore is at least a little sign whereby to distinguish between a rag of fashion and a work of Art: whereas the toys of fashion when the first gloss is worn off them do become obviously worthless even to the frivolous—a work of Art, be it ever so humble, is long lived; we never tire of it; as long as a scrap hangs together it is valuable and instructive to each new generation. All works of Art in short have the property of becoming venerable amidst decay: and reason good, for from the first there was a soul in them, the thought of man, which will be visible in them so long as the body exists in which they were implanted."

When he thought of popular Art he thought of the craftsmanship of the common people. The art people have made from useful everyday objects with skillful handicrafts. This is what he means by "divine solace of human labour". It's not reverence of Puritanical work ethic, on the contrary, it's the reverence of creation, of the earnest joy people feel when they get to express themselves through their creative pursuits. He certainly didn't believe in work for work's sake, work needed to be worthwhile and enjoyable. He summarized his own position on what labour should be thusly:

"It is right and necessary that all men should have work to do which shall be worth doing, and be of itself pleasant to do; and which should he done under such conditions as would make it neither over-wearisome nor over-anxious."

He urged his middle class audience to reject consumerism (the lecture was for a very much middle class atheist society):

"For I say again that in buying these things: 'Tis the lives of men you buy! Will you from mere folly and thoughtlessness make yourselves partakers of the guilt of those who compel their fellow men to labour uselessly?"

I think it's glaringly obvious H&M and fast fashion in general is what he would consider luxury. Rags of fashion that are just churned out and discarded without thought and produced by compelling people to labour uselessly. It's not popular art that's made by workers and craftsmen, who are able to express themselves through it. There's no agency for the abused workers in H&M's sweatshops, they are not expressing their joy of creation, they are simply labouring uselessly.

Morris didn't shame workers for buying affortable things even if they weren't Art with big A, because that's the problem he despised the whole economic system for, for taking away the popular Art from people, making it inaccessible, and selling back mass produced products with very little practical or aesthetic value. So I don't think he would have problem with people who can only afford fast fashion today. They are the victims of capitalism too, because Art has been taken away from them. But the idea that some of these think pieces had that perhaps the H&M's Morris collection can be good actually if you squint, that H&M has the capacity to bring the art and beauty Morris advocated for for the people, is level of stupidity that's hard to express in words.

Morris didn't believe anything made with exploited labour could be truly beautiful, truly art. In his 1879 lecture "The Art of the People" he put it like this:

"That thing which I understand by real art is the expression by man of his pleasure in labour."

The way I understand this, is that art is communication. Through it we communicate feelings, ideas and thoughts, that is it's purpose. So for that communication to work, for it to be imbued with message, the person making it needs to feel passion and love for it's creation. How can there be love and passion if the hands making the garment belong to a tired exploited worker who has no agency what so ever in their work and can only think about survival to the next day?

Beyond the fundamental exploitativeness of H&M and fast fashion, this collection would still get zero points on aesthetic values from Morris even with his own designs. Because the work itself was such an important part of art for Morris, good design was nothing without good craftsmanship. Good design in his mind was always relative and dependent on it's purpose.

"For everything made by man’s hands has a form, which must be either beautiful or ugly; beautiful if it is in accord with Nature, and helps her; ugly if it is discordant with Nature, and thwarts her; it cannot be indifferent." (The Lesser Arts, 1877)

Here when he says nature, he means the nature of the thing that is made - basically it's purpose and function - and the nature of the materials it's made from. Basically, the design must always be made to bring out the function of the art and the qualities of the material it's made from, not fight against them. This is because he believed handicrafts were uniquely suitable for expressing the love of creation, therefore superior labour, and to really bring out the qualities of the craftsmanship and enjoy the creative process, the design should be suitable for that craft. The other side, which was the joy of using and experiencing art, required the craft to be selected for the suitable purpose. Using poorly functioning furniture for example is not very enjoyable, nor is using clothing that's made from materials that are not suitable for the climactic conditions it's supposed to be used in.

H&M of course utterly fails in this. They use Morris' designs in fully unsuitable ways. They print patterns made for example for wall papers on poor quality fabrics with synthetics dyes they weren't made for. This line from one blog post I came across really got me: "Therefore, without cheapening the artistic value of Morris’ designs, H&M’s collection offers an unparalleled potential for accessibility to them." No. Fuck no. They do in fact cheapen Morris' designs in every single way possible. Literally this is atrocious.

Despite the popular depiction, Morris wasn't in fact against industrial machinery or industrial art even, or at least he wasn't once his views on art and politics matured. He did think technology was useful, but he thought the people should use industrial methods for the benefit of all, not be enslaved by the industrial machine.

"I have spoken of machinery being used freely for releasing people from the more mechanical and repulsive part of necessary labour; and I know that to some cultivated people, people of the artistic turn of mind, machinery is particularly distasteful, and they will be apt to say you will never get your surroundings pleasant so long as you are surrounded by machinery. I don't quite admit that; it is the allowing machines to be our masters and not our servants that so injures the beauty of life nowadays. In other words, it is the token of the terrible crime we have fallen into of using our control of the powers of Nature for the purpose of enslaving people, we care less meantime of how much happiness we rob their lives of." ("How we live and how we might live", 1887)

However, he thought that the designer should approach it the way they approached any craft, by designing for the strengths of the machine work.

"But if you have to design for machine-work, at least let your design show clearly what it is. Make it mechanical with a vengeance, at the same time as simple at possible. Don't try, for instance, to make a printed plate look like a hand-painted one: make it something which no one would try to do if he were painting by hand..." ("Art and the Beauty of the Earth", 1881)

He did use some machinery for fabric and wall paper printing, but he was very intentional about their use. Still his designs weren't made for the type of methods these modern H&M machinery uses and he did for example use natural dyes. Particularly insulting is that some of the H&M clothes are made from viscose, rayon made with viscose method. Viscose method is extremely toxic and is known to cause long term health consequences for the workers and the people in surrounding areas. This has been well proven knowledge for ages. William Morris' wall paper factory in the beginning used the typical method used at the time which involved arsenic, but once he learned this could pose risks for the workers, he changed the method. Many of the new synthetic dyes were toxic at the time, which is the major reason he so favoured natural dyes, known to not cause health issues for workers or pollute the environment.

The question many of these think pieces about the H&M Morris collection posed was, would Morris disapprove and should we care? The first part of that is very easy to answer. Yes. Of course Morris would disapprove. He is currently powering the whole of British Isles with purely the kinetic energy his grave-spinning produces. Should we care though? If you care about Morris' art, if you want to see more of that kind of art in this world, you should care. Morris' art is not about the superficial qualities. Copying his designs and aesthetics and styles, will only lead to hollow imitations, that are exactly what he described the rags of fashion to be; as the shininess of novelty wears off they will reveal themselves to be soulless, useless and utterly empty. This collection is just that. To see more of the kind of art that makes you feel like his art makes you feel, not just something that reminds you of that feeling, you should focus more on the way the art is made and less on the specific aesthetics. If his vision of labour and art was realised, all art produced of course wouldn't be loved by every person, but all of it would be loved by someone, even if that someone was just the maker. And that would be more worthwhile than every single rag of fast fashion.

I will stop William-Morris-posting now and return to my thesis.

The full texts I quoted here:

Art and Socialism The Art of the People The Lesser Arts How We Live and How We Might Live Art and the Beauty of the Earth

[oikarma]

number one girl

pairing: max verstappen x reader

summary: the story of ynmax is a very, very heated topic riddled with holes and chock full of conspiracies: a couple and split to rival brocedes. it's mostly an a f1 thing, though, until you release an album and the internet tries to deduce what ruined a decades-long friendship.

a/n: angst warning. bear with me, you're in for a long ride. we go from twitter to insta to reddit to sdfsd. this was SO FUN!

part one / part two / part three

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

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liked by stevienicks, georgerussell63 and 3,104,827 others

yourinstagram: "number one girl" out now.

view all 411,295 comments

user1: mother??? music???

user2: our multitalented baby <3

stevienicks: so proud of you ❤️

yourinstagram: so thankful for you 🥺 your support is immeasurable in worth

user3: max verstappen did you-

user4: george listening to this so he can justify bullying max next season

user5: please 💀 i choked on my water reading that

user6: CHARLES IN THE CREDITS FOR PIANO?? how many side quests has this girl roped people into

user7: they're still good friends lol just cause she and max stopped speaking doesn't mean she's not close w the rest of the grid user8: @/user7 right! she and alex have also posted each other quite a bit after the rhode collab

user9: is no one talking about the lyrics 😃 gut wrenching, yes, but the way it all lines up w max??

user10: no babe dw we're all talking about the lyrics user11: my roman empire...

user12: who's this max guy and what does he have to do with my queen y/n

user13: @/user12 he's a formula one driver, they ued to be best friends user12: @/user13 like nascar? omg what i only knew that she debuted in shadow n bone but WHAT IS THIS

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A PAGE FROM Y/N's JOURNAL November 15, 2021

Max is a plane right now to see Kelly. I feel like I've been punched, three times over. The nausea is getting to me.

How could you? Just say all those things, like you always do. Do you mean any of them? When you say "I love you, more than anyone in this life." When you say "You're worth it, really. "When you say "forever." Does anyone ever really mean forever? Forever is part of the foreseeable future. You cannot capture what is beyond that.

You were my life. The words, every moment. An inescapable reminder.

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

liked by charles_leclerc, brunomars and 2,819,305 others

yourinstagram: "toxic till the end (ft. lewis hamilton)" is up on youtube and all music platforms ♡

view all 309,418 comments

user1: what. the. fuck.

user2: is she dating lewis? what? y/n girl please stop being cryptic my head can't take all of this 😭

user3: if this is part of the press tour i must say i am now extremely invested in the ynmax drama and i didn't even know who max was until i saw a thread on number one girl...

lewishamilton: Best of luck with your future endeavors, Y/N 🫂 Will be by your side!

yourinstagram: you better be 🫰 user4: the friendship we didn't know we needed

user5: lewis with...pink hair...

user6: max emilian verstappen fumbled so hard

user7: imagine ghosting THE y/n l/n and then she drops this

user8: well, 4 years later but yeah user9: what even is a wdc...

user10: what does the heart mean y/n

user11: bro

user12: so i guess the harry styles dating rumors were all fake 😔 but omg lewis music!!

kellypiquet: Face and voice of an angel 😽

yourinstagram: me? please, pregnancy glow has been treating you good 💕 user13: at least they don't have any hard feelings...

user14: bruno in the likes is the most random thing ever

user15: acting career, check. singing career, check. formula one side quests??? multple checks

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liked by kellypiquet and 4,103,697 others

lewishamilton: Behind the scenes of Miss Y/N's "toxic till the end" music video

tagged: yourinstagram

yourinstagram: looking good there, lew

lewishamilton: Very kind of you to say user1: trust me we are witnessing the start of a great romance

user2: i don't want to delulu too hard but PLEASE tell me y/n's moved on with lewis it would be the ultimate baddie move

user3: imagine...you won abu dhabi but you lost the love of your life to the guy you beat 🤪 user4: we're all insane but i'm just going to keep dreaming

charles_leclerc: Why am I not in your dump?

yourinstagram: face card wasn't lethal enough user5: she's brutal 💀 user6: our charles's facecard could start wars idk what she's on

user7: daddy please give me ONE chance

user8: give me some of that maranello?? he looks so good oml

user9: focusing on music videos and not racing...no wonder he's washed

user10: @/user9 can you stfu and touch grass user11: @/user9 literally no one asked

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AN UNSENT LETTER FROM MAX November 2021

Dear Hey, Y/N.

I realized you blocked me. It hurts. I don't know what to say or what to believe anymore. I miss us. Overstepping was the wrong choice, if you must, but going back is not impossible.

We've been friends for so long. Why can't you won't you try?

I miss you.

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r/Fauxmoi · 1 day ago hamilton7xc

Max Verstappen and Y/N L/N's infamous split explained?

feralonsos: So she's been pretending he led her on when she lead him on

parking23: I don't know anymore. I know nothing. Don't even talk to me.

forzamcqueen: I want to say it's not about YNMax but 21 (as in 21, when they split?) and Y/N has been coming out with music recently. When you look at the "number one girl" lyrics from Boy's perspective it lines up with this submission. That Max wanted reassurance from Y/N and she gave it to him, but she couldn't give him everything he needed.

↳ roses_berg: @/forzamcqueen I don't know...it seems kind of unlikely. Y/N has a lyric about "chasing the prize" or something like that. What prize would she be chasing? On the other hand, you have Max who has clearly said racing is his passion and he loves winning.

↳ forzamcqueen: @/roses_berg I see where you're coming from but there are a few interpretations. Toxic Till the End suggests she thought his attachment to her was maybe unhealthy, and he kept trying to find ways to keep her by his side. Y/N has mentioned in past interviews (promo for her role in Shadow and Bone, when she was starting to do acting) that she's had bad experience with past relationships and is hesitant on starting a new one.

↳ januaryblues11: @/forzamcqueen Sorry, what interview? Could you link it?

↳ forzamcqueen: @/januaryblues11 No worries, I put it down below. The part I'm referring to is around 5:41.

↳ WolffHornerFan: @/forzamcqueen Okay, okay. I need a timeline then. She must've started filming Shadow and Bone in Oct 2019, then wrapped 4 months later in Feb 2020. This might be the "prize" she's chasing? Her own career. Before it was announced that she was in the series most news referred to her as "close friend" or "best friend" of Max Verstappen. Now a lot of people know her for S&B or Top Gun Maverick, etc.

↳ CautiousOwl: Might've not wanted her relationship to overshadow her career. It's understandable, if she wanted to be taken seriously instead of a "nepo friend."

↳ 4norrisop: She's amazing in Shadow and Bone! Definitely recommend checking that out, but I don't understand why she ghosted him.

↳ ynluv07: @/4norrisop he was dating kelly at the time. she might've thought it was a bad idea after it happened (i'm referring to the kiss, which i assume happened because she explicitly refers to it a few times in "number one girl") and distanced herself. maybe she told him it wasn't okay?

↳ ICEMAN_bwoah: Brain hurts.

↳ brooksies: Well if she did give up her happiness because she thought Kelly deserved better, that's great. No wonder they're still on good terms.

↳ DauntingParrot91: @/brooksies Yeah, sure...

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AN UNSENT LETTER FROM MAX January 2022

Y/N, I'm sorry I asked for too much; I'm sorry I pushed you. I'll take my bags and go quietly, this time. Maybe you'll open the door again someday. I love you too, my best friend always.

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liked by lewishamilton, taylorswift and 4,103,269 others

yourinstagram: Burnout.

comments on this post have been limited

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AN UNSENT LETTER FROM Y/N February 2022

Wish you'd take a little longer to pack up your bags. You're moving too fast. Make me want to hate you more than I hate myself, so I don't have to miss you. Make a mistake, please. So I have someone to blame.

Please, won't you stay a little longer? I would call you babe, just to make you smile. I wouldn't mean it that way, but I still love you. You're my best friend. Why wasn't that enough?

I'll be okay, sometime. You say it's written all over my face, and I wonder, what is? I'm fragile, now. I'm speechless, now. Don't leave me in pieces. I'm sorry, let me fix it. It won't be good for us, but oh-how I want to.

I'm already having trouble breathing. Please, stay a little longer. I can't stand these four walls without you inside them.

Come back, be here.

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

liked by kellypiquet and 1,249,805 others

maxverstappen: She stayed a little longer 🖤

tagged: kellypiquet

view all 91,432 comments

user1: GUYS HE DEF HEARD THE SONG

user2: do we think kelly asked him to post it

user3: tbf given on how sweet her n yns interactions are i wouldn't be surprised if she listened to burnout

user4: kelly. you are the strongest woman i know

user5: so i can convince you the minute i kiss you speak a little softer so i don't have to answer and make it okay before you can say

user6: i just know he had a little breakdown inside after he heard the album

user7: max rn: CHARLES HOW COULD YOU PLAY PIANO FOR HER

user8: max: alexa play that should be me user9: ho-olding your handdd

user10: who are we blaming today

user11: at least max is finally someone's number one girl

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AN UNSENT LETTER FROM MAX Summer 2024

Sometimes I look to the television and you're on, flying a plane or wielding magic, whatever it is you do these days. I knew you could act. I knew you'd make it far. I hear you were nominated for a Golden Globe, too.

I was mad for a long time. I was upset you kicked me out of your life so abruptly.

Kelly's expecting. I think she will be as good a mother to our child as she is to little P. A family is what I have always wanted, you know. It was not what you wanted.

I am sorry. I have said that many times, but one day I will need to say it to your face. I am truly, irrevocably sorry for all the hurt I caused you, in the name of love.

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

r/PopCultureChat · 1 day ago forzamcqueen

"Burnout" by Y/N L/N

How do we feel about the release of the full album? Moreover, how do we think it fits into the YNMax narrative? I, for one, have been listening non-stop trying to figure out the story.

lec_clerc16: I think it's funny how many people have gotten into F1 because of her music. Lol.

↳ NaturalOtter5: Well Lewis & Charles were on it so I would say the F1 community is pretty interested in the tea aswell.

↳ lec_clerc16: @/NaturalOtter5 Right, but YNMax is old drama. Sure, someone's posting in r/F1 every other week about an old photo or new quote. It's still been around for a while. This is fresh meat 😋

jennyowens1342: such a player...LOL who is gameboy about atp

↳ sassybanana: TBF Y/N's dating life has been a lot more quiet than Max's. There have been rumors but she hasn't hard launched anything. Maybe the one public "relationship" was enough for her.

museapollo: the more i listen the more convinced i am that y/n did not want the relationship as max did and decided it was best for them to stop being friends. the whole album is about a codependent relationship and the two people can't deal with leaving but they know it's better for both.

↳ janitorsclosetmonster: yess!! that's what i've been saying. we can't blame y/n for everything, it must've been confusing for her as well. having to navigate everything. idt she'd dated anyone at that point. max was her only close friend.

↳ EggplantParmesan713: But did max cheat...that's the real question. When did THE kiss happen? And who started it?

↳ museapollo: @/EggplantParmesan713 idk. i can't figure if she actually loved him (romantically) bcs it's clear he did but her side is a bit more hazy. you have: 1. "i just WANT it to be you" - it's not actually him she loves but she desperately wants it to be him 2. "cause even when i said it was over / you heard baby can you pull me in closer" - she's telling him it won't work out but he's not listening. 3. "please, won't you stay, stay a little a little longer, babe?" - she pauses before babe, like it's her trying to convince him to stay. mb she thought it was best to distance herself/end the friendship for a bit but she still loves him a lot because they've been friends for so long

↳ forzamcqueen: @/museapollo The best explanation I have heard so far. You can't force someone to love you the way you do. At least they've matured and moved on.

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January 2025

Dear Max:

Congratulations. I'm sure you will be a wonderful father, as I have always guessed. 2024 was a great year for you. I watched all a few of your races; you've still got it.

I'm putting out an album soon. I thought you should know. I already had a talk with Kelly, she's listened to some snippets and she likes it a lot. Some of the writing is about you the things I never said.

It was wonderful being your best friend. We had a good run, better than most.

Missing you Wish you the best, Y/N L/N

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

February 2025

Dear Y/N:

Occasionally, I think of all that could have been.

But we had many years together, and I will always cherish those moments.

Kelly loves the album, she puts it on while she cooks or does her makeup. P sings along in the car. She says she wants to go out for a tea party with you sometime. I listen to it even when they're out of the voice, for a reminder of your voice. You've made quite a name for yourself. I'm sorry I couldn't be there by your side.

Thank you for writing it. There are some things that you have to hear once, just for yourself.

Love Always Yours, Max Verstappen

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

what did you think?? i might do a part 2 of yn & max talking for the first time in forever but i wanna know if you guys liked this one first LOL

[ms-demeanor]

The driving times you've given are so interesting to me because for the same distance in the uk, using all motorways so 70 mph speed limit, is 5 hours for 300 miles and 9 hours for 500 miles without traffic which is absolutely impossible.

I regularly drive 70 miles (1 way) and that still takes me around 2 hours even being 95% dual carriageway (70 limit) and 5% country roads (60 limit) with decent traffic I am exhausted by the end. I couldn't imagine ever doing that as a commute!

But I'd love to do a long drive on american roads at least once to see how it differs

Sometimes I drive like an absolute asshole so the drive from LA to Vegas (about 250 miles from my departure/arrival points) takes under 3 hours when I'm driving in the middle of the night and there's no traffic. That kind of thing is pretty easy when you leave at 1am and show up around 4am and you can do 80-90 easy for most of the drive when there's no one around on a tuesday night. 90 also doesn't feel all that fast on a wide, straight, well-maintained highway. I don't think I'd ever do 90 on, like, the 10 through Pomona where there's always traffic and lots of construction and the road is full of potholes, but on the 15 between Barstow and Vegas? For sure.

But also my 30 mile one way commute to the office takes a minimum of 45 minutes in good traffic and took 2 hours the last time I drove in. It averages about an hour on an eight lane freeway with a speed limit of 65mph. THAT is exhausting. But that's traffic, which is different than just driving, which is relaxing.

When I was taking my trip from LA to Texas, I ended up driving through large parts of Arizona and all of New Mexico; it was mid-week and we were on one of the main interstate highways (40) and there were stretches where I wouldn't see another car on my side of the highway for a good ten minutes at a time. I just looked it up and the population density of New Mexico is 17 people per square mile. The population density of the UK is 740 people per square mile. The population density of LA county is 2467 people per square mile (though California as a whole is about 250 people per square mile - the drive from LA to San Francisco takes me around 5.5 hours and is about 400 miles because a lot of the area between those two huge metro areas is extremely sparsely populated! But also I once drove from Sacramento to LA and it took me around 4.5 hours to get from Sacramento to Canyon Country (330 miles), then another 3 hours to get from Canyon Country to Culver City to the area I live in (60 miles) because I hit morning rush hour traffic).

One of the things about the US is that it's HUGE. But another thing about the US is that there are many parts of it that are very, very empty. I live in an area that is VERY very crowded, but it's relatively easy for me to get to someplace that is very empty, and really I think that's the thing that makes it different in terms of driving.

[randomhealer]

Okay but- Boothill (sfw-nsfw)

warnings: GN reader, not reviewed, nsfw, I lost everything and I'm living on a bench in Penacony. this is crack don't take it seriously pls, hmmm tetanus :)

okay but- Boothill likes to rub his cheek against yours, just because he can't feel you with other parts of his body.

He blushes when you kiss his face but secretly (not so secret since he says it openly) it's his favorite thing

He gets upset easily with anyone who is close to you and this always causes problems for you because he doesn't like it when people touch you, whether they are men or women.

then he follows you behind you like he's your shadow and one second he's behind you quietly and the next he's on the other side of the street fighting with a guy who was looking at you for 5 seconds longer than Boothill would like...

he is vindictive, yes. Once a guy complimented you by giving you a light kiss on the cheek and Boothill spent a week calling this guy and saying threats like: "I know where you live, and I'm going to put a bullet in your head before learning not to touch something that isn't yours"  ends up coming out as "I know where you live, and I- I hope you have a good day" because of his filter

And when did you take him to the Express with you? guy could make a second explosion wanting to fight with everyone until you fight with him so he stays quiet and he will sit on the couch, opening his legs completely while looking at you, waiting for you to sit on his lap. He has no shame as he buries his face in your neck and stays quiet for just a minute before he starts teasing you by biting or licking you. (in front of everyone at Express)

He gets extremely upset if you deny him something (especially a kiss) he will be grumpy all day, mumbling all day almost dramatically. he will complain about this even with a Warp Trotter, But it won't be long before he gets to you and pins you to some surface to take what's rightfully his.

Boothill loves it when you encourage him in something or when you praise him. See you looking at his body with curiosity in your eyes? He can't help but have a smug smile. he smiles more seeing how small your hands are on his chest gives him slight satisfaction but he'll still pat you if your hands wander too much.

He can drink the most variable things possible but he won't drink Himeko's coffee, for some reason his body warns him as if it were a dangerous substance so he always passes the coffee to you as if it were a bomb and an apologetic look...

You may or may not wake up to him in the morning eating bullets from his gun next to your in the bed and he will just look at you with a smile and offer you one even though he knows it's impossible for you to eat it 

NSFW (pls don't read this far if you are underage)

His favorite thing is probably fingering you, he loves doing that because he can occupy himself on your neck while you squirm

but he loves to eat too, to stay between your legs for hours while you get to the point where you start crying and whining while trying to pull his head away from you. His hair is a bit sensitive so he might end up growling and blushing when you pull it.

Does it bite you in every possible place, chest, thighs, neck? yes! your curves? yes too... 

He misses his body, how he could feel your chest on his, the heat of your body on his and how good it would be to feel how hot and tight you are inside, he hates it but he still feels a surge of satisfaction in him as he feels it. see what he can do with just his fingers and his mouth on you.

He may or may not be jealous of vibrators... I mean... are those things giving you more pleasure than him? Ugh but it's okay, he can use these things to his advantage...

Give you more compliments than degradation, not because he wants to but because it's the only thing he can do...

"I know you can give me one more, aren't you my little sunshine?" (this was supposed to be a my little bitch)

He loves to be mean to you in bed, if he can't put words into words then he will act, he loves pulling your hair to kiss you, bite you hard, make you beg for not giving you anything and make you cry for giving you more than you asked for.

His day ends more satisfied when he sees you getting out of bed, shaking with wobbly legs and dirty with your own juice and sweat... aren't you the cutest thing he's ever seen? almost like a little bunny...

[silasoctakiseron]

I understand why this is the case, to be clear, because what we see of his character is extremely limited, but I find that so much fanon characterization of Colum Asht relies on the presumption that he's a normal person. Specifically, that he's a normal person who could be rehabilitated by people treating him normally.

In context, this is generally true, because he exists primarily in relation to an obsessive religious zealot whose external socialization consists primarily of telling people about themselves with zero regard for whether that's a normal or decent thing to do in context. Because we see Colum, with very few exceptions, constantly attached to Silas throughout GTN, he looks significantly more like a regular person who's sort of being forced to drag around a purse dog who bites. I believe no one has ever deserved to step outside for a cigarette and stare at nothing more than Colum; again, I understand where the characterization comes from. I do however think it's wrong. This post is very long. Sorry or whatever.

Colum Asht is deeply, fundamentally Eighth. I've talked before (warning: another long post) about the fact that Houses have individual cultures, rather than personality traits. Colum is exactly as bound up in Eighth religious practices as Silas is, even though those religious practices are explicitly used to oppress him into an early grave rather than elevate him to a position of power.

Until the full implications of Lyctorhood come to light, at no point does Colum ever reject a wholehearted embrace of Eighth beliefs. I think a lot of people consider the argument he has with Silas in ch. 28 to be a criticism of the religious beliefs Silas embodies, and I sincerely could not disagree more. Colum is angry about the fact that Silas has grown into someone who could be deliberately duplicitous and lie to another person to take advantage of them. He might be angry about the institutional processes that made him that way. He does not believe that this means that he, personally, should have expanded rights over his body or that his cavaliership to Silas is something he could or would walk away from. He does not believe that Silas is wrong with regard to his attitudes toward the Ninth as a whole.

We know this because Colum isn't exclusively following Silas around throughout the book, and he takes actions independently that are still indicative of deeply ingrained religious bigotry. Colum is perfectly allowed to talk to other people, but individually refuses on principle to talk to Gideon one-on-one or be in a room with her outside of a specific social context. Colum is explicitly not apologetic about taking Gideon's weapons from her when she comes into the Eighth's rooms despite being aware that it places her at a disadvantage and requires her to trust people who actively distrust her.

Even when Silas is present and seems to have more power over Colum's actions, Colum isn't uncomfortable doing things like asking Gideon to leave a common space entirely so Silas doesn't have to try to consume food and look at her at the same time. He wholly expects Gideon to acquiesce to this, not happily, but at least without argument. Colum isn't at all fazed by Silas accusing an entire room of people of being faithless sinners for refusing to bow to the will of the Order.

Silas' methods aren't Colum's methods, and Colum seems normal in comparison to him because he's significantly quieter about his beliefs and doesn't always follow Silas to every rhetorical extreme. Colum tends to do the polite thing where Silas is extremely blunt. He won't be in a room with Gideon or speak to her alone, but he'll bow to her before he leaves. Colum is sitting at the Fifth's dinner party speaking to Babs in some way that sounds normal enough for Babs to keep haranguing him, while Silas is telling Ianthe her parents should have been willing to experiment more when she was born dying/dead. Either way, neither of them acknowledge Harrow's existence.

Colum doesn't disagree with the basic religious principles on which Silas generally acts. Colum is fine with that shit. If Silas hadn't tried to resort to lying and taking advantage of another person to achieve his ends in a manner offensive to Colum's sense of honor and morality, there's zero evidence that Colum would have found anything else about his conduct objectionable enough to raise as an issue.

All this to say that I think if Magnus Quinn invited Colum for a pint he would show up and be reasonably respectful and courteous the entire time while calmly saying what to literally any other person would be the most deranged religious claptrap they'd ever heard. Colum thinks it'd be more humane to simply nuke the Ninth out of existence too fast for anyone to feel it rather than conducting a systematic inquisitorial dismantlement of the church involving spiritual torture. Colum is referring to necro/cav relationships using insanely antiquated and offensive terminology that he genuinely believes is the polite and considerate way to talk about them as opposed to deliberately derogatory language more commonly employed on the Eighth. The second Colum leaves Magnus orders himself five shots and includes them on his expense report.

[burningcheese-merchant]

I think more ppl need to see this

Yeah for real lol. That's exactly what it is with him. Not to toot my own horn too much but I believe this post I made ages ago hits the nail on the head haha

"I'm bored" is... technically true. In a sense. Personally, I think it's a very simple and vague allusion to the real problem. That thin sheet of snow coating a massive, freezing cold iceberg. Just barely obscuring it from proper view.

imo it's been a bit disappointing seeing people take to extremes with Burning Spice's character. I've seen people either woobify him, downplay or excuse his actions by saying "he's not evil! He's hurting! He's depressed! He doesn't hate people, he's lashing out because he can't internalize his pain anymore!", or just demand he be put to death immediately on sight without trial. You can like a morally repulsive character and sympathize with their issues while also acknowledging that they're repulsive and need to face justice for their crimes. Burning Spice is one of my favorite characters, I love everything about him, he's sexy as fuck, I understand why he's the way he is, I'm still happy to see his ass beat because he's a piece of shit and he deserves it lol.

Not to throw shade at "simpler" villains ofc. I love me some assholes that are assholes just because they can be. Like Jack Horner in Puss in Boots 2. But Burning Spice isn't Jack Horner and he honestly shouldn't be. The deeper, sadder, more complex reasons governing his actions suit him better than just "I'm bored fuck this shit" and nothing else ykwim

and of course, he's still wrong. Burning Spice's view of the world is wrong. Does a book begin just to end? Does a song play just to finish in a few minutes' time? No. They begin so that we may read, listen, and enjoy. So that they may make us laugh, or have us shake our heads in disappointment, or tell us some hidden truth. Make our days and lives a little more interesting than they were before. Life is beautiful BECAUSE it is fleeting. Born, grow, wither, born, grow, wither. Yes, that's how it goes. But there's so much more to those things than just what we can gather from those three words. Every day is different. Though the sun rises every morning without fail, it's never quite the same color, is it? Always a bit of a different shade of yellow, orange, red, bleeding into the sky a little differently each time. There are so many things to see and do, games to play, people to meet and love and cherish. Maybe some of those things and those people won't be here someday but that doesn't mean their existence never meant anything. We are not born to die, we are born to live. We must die for those who are to live, and live for those who have died. Regardless, we must never lose sight of the intrinsic value of all that surrounds us. Burning Spice very much did. Underneath his bitterness and anger and (not unfounded, to be fair) lamentation for the unstoppable cycle of life and death is a deep-rooted selfishness and fundamental lack of understanding and appreciation for life and other people. In the face of despair, he gave in and chose evil. He was and is wrong for doing so, regardless of why he did it. He could've stepped down. He could've just admitted he didn't have what it took to be the Herald of Change. Hell, if he really hates being alive so much, he would've committed suicide a LONG time ago. But he never did any of that; instead he chose to inflict an equal or greater suffering on everything and everyone else, even the undeserving. And for that he MUST pay. And Golden Cheese, with her personality and her experiences and the wisdom she came to attain when faced with the exact same despair as Burning Spice, is exactly the right person to make him do that

[fyodor-s-rat]

BUNGOU STRAY DOGS - you telling them "please, be gentle" before your first time

ft.: dazai, chuuya, kunikida, ranpo, akutagawa, fyodor, edgar

tw: nsfw!!

"Please, be gentle..."

Dazai

oh boy, he's enjoying himself too much

he's very cocky about the whole thing, he's teasing you because he loves how easily frustrated you are

but at the same time, he's honored that you chose him for this special occasion

how could he resist to you? you were so beautiful

when you let out these words, he stopped teasing and actually showed some affection

"Don't worry, belladona, everything will be okay. We can stop whenever you want."

Chuuya

like Dazai, he's also proud that you trust him enough to be your first

i feel like he would make everything kinda romantic, candles, roses, red wine, etc.

even though he has a short temper, he would be patient with you

he would take time to prepare you, he definitely thinks that foreplay is very important before sex, especially when it's your first one

so prepare for long making out and cumming on his fingers first

after a while, when you said those words, he just gave you a smirk

"I will be as gentle as you want, sweetheart."

Kunikida

first time with Kunikida would be the best

this man knows exactly what to do

he tries to make everything perfect. every little detail. including the time, the place, the atmosphere,...

he would keep asking if you really want to do this and if you're comfortable

but you were secretly nervous

when those words left your mouth, he gave you a reassuring smile.

"Y/n, you have nothing to worry about with me. I'll be extremely gentle, I promise."

Ranpo

when you told him that you want to have your first time with him, Ranpo felt even more confident than usual

even though he doesn't have much experience, he would be a great lover

when he heard you say those words, he just replied with a cocky smile:

"Sweetheart, you have nothing to worry about. You couldn't have chosen anyone better than me, the greatest detective."

you just frowned.

his thrusts are slow and sensual

he's keeping you close to his body, stroking your cheek

constantly making sure you're okay

Akutagawa

you're also his first, so you would be both nervous

he doesn't admit it tho

however, you can easily see through him

you see how frustrated he is, how his cheeks burn, how he's already sweaty

you would be the one reassuring him that it will be okay, i think

but when you said those words, Akutagawa realised how much you depend on him

he wouldn't really know what to say

"I... won't be harsh, I promise. If it... hurts or something, tell me."

boy would be extremely gentle, constantly worrying about hurting you and not living up to your expectations

Fyodor

why would you choose him to lose your virginity to?

i have absolutely no idea how experienced Fyodor is, but he would act confident no matter what

he would enjoy this little moment with you so much

he would love how you entrust your body to him

how he has complete power over you

he obviously knows how nervous you are, but he doesn't even try to reassure you

hovewer, when you whispered those words, he actually showed some kind of affection.

"Darling, I don't want to harm you in any way, I still have plans for you."

even though you didn't really understand what he meant, he somehow managed to slowly and gently thrust into you, trying to cause you as little pain as possible

Edgar

he would be probably more nervous than you before your first time

he would be constantly worrying and asking you if you really want it

it might be annoying, but honestly it's lovely how caring he is

"My sweet Y/n, of course that I will be gentle. I will be extremely careful, if you get uncomfortable, tell me. Promise?"

he, indeed, was extremely gentle with you.

-

[wlwsoccerfics]

Self doubt (LionessesXDeafReader)

Warning: deaf reader

A/N : when i Put something in ' ' it means it's signed

Summary: you get called up for your first England Camp and people are not taking it well. the fact that you are Keira Walsh's Baby sister doesn't make it any either. And you start doubting If you even should be there.

You sit on a bean bag in the gaming/TV room at England Camp. It was just the first day. The comments you have read so far were mostly great and supportive under the Team list of who made the cut. But then you read comments about yourself. Lots of mean ones including:

'how is she supposed to win us anything? she can't even hear instructions!'

'she is only on the team cause of Keira. she must have put a good word in for y/n.'

'her on the Team feels like a charity case!'

There were lots more of those comments. Which only made your self doubt become worse. Even though if it was just a first full day everyone had noticed that you were acting distant. Especially towards your sister & on top of that Grace. Your girlfriend. You just wanted to focus on football. Deep down you knew you were able to play at this level. You were one of the Star Players at Arsenal. Yes you and your sister played for two different teams. So did you and your girlfriend. But your best friend Alessia was playing for Arsenal with you. While your girlfriend Grace was playing with your other best friend Tooney. If you weren't any good Sarina wouldn't have called you up to play for the lionesses. But still theres a part of you hurt by people thinking just because you were deaf that you couldn't do your job. In the last five games for Arsenal you scored 7 Goals. That alone was saying alot. Yet there were still people wanting to bring you down.

'you are avoiding me!' you see your girlfriend sign, she showed up out of nowhere so you put your phone away.

'i am not!' you look at her and frown.

'you are! you are also avoiding Keira, Less & Tooney. And basically everyone!' she was clearly concerned.

'grace i am fine. just let it go.'

The fact that you didn't use a cute pet name for her was confirmation enough that something was totally not right.

Less and Tooney were also in the room, looking over at the two of you. they knew something was up as soon as you said you didn't want to play cards with them. And the discussion you had with Grace only confirmed that for them as well.

At the same time with Keira, Leah and Lucy...

"Keira, i think i know why your sister is keeping to herself." Lucy told her. Handing her Phone over to her. Showing the comments under the Squad post that are related to you.

"that's nasty!" Leah said, after Keira wordlessly showed them to her.

"i hope she knows that this Is crap. Nothing about this Is true!" Keira stated.

"well you should try and talk to her about that." Lucy replied.

'yeah either you do it or i will. If we wait for too long she is gonna Spiral!" Your England Captain and Arsenal teammate said.

"i will talk to her, don't worry about it." Keira let them know and then went to look for you.

She found you and Grace still arguing. Looking over at Less & Tooney.

"what is this about?" Keira asked your two best friends.

"y/n is claiming how fine things are and that she is not avoiding anyone! Even though we all know she is!" Tooney stated.

"they going back and forth now for almost 20 minutes!" Alessia explained.

"i want to know why she is avoiding us." Tooney stated and Keira grabbed her own Phone to show her and Lessi.

"Lucy thinks this might be the reason and honestly i think so too!" Keira let them know.

"oh my god. This Is terrible. And not true! She deserves to be here!" Alessia stated.

"which is why i will talk to her now." Your sister answered.

The Talk with Grace has gotten to a point where you both have gotten frustrated with one another that you stood up and wanted to race past your sister but Keira quickly grabbed your hand.

'stay. We need to Talk.'

'no we don't!'

'you do need to start letting us in on what's happening.' Alessia looked at you. Worry written across her face.

'fine. what do you want to know?'

'why you are acting this way. You avoiding us is not normal.'

'i don't belong here.'

'so it's about the comments!' Keira let out a soft sigh. Grace now standing next to you.

'what comments?' she wanted to know. Keira showing her the comments. Grace looked mad now.

'those comments are not true! you are amazing and you deserve this place in the Team!' Grace let you know.

'deep down i know. but those comments still hurt. i just want to show them how wrong they are!'

'then let's do that!' Tooney smiled at you.

The team put out a Statement that there is no place for bullying in any form. And that people who are disrespectful towards the players, especially the Younger ones Like you (you were only 22 years old) shouldn't watch the games.

You could Show them what you are made of during a Game against Portugal were you scored two Goals during your debut which sure did shut up the haters. Getting praised by your teammates and Sarina.

You couldn't hear but your eyes were working perfectly fine.

[merakiui]

Oh our dearest Mera!

It is the birthday of everyone’s favorite egg man!

Might I please request some birthday egg blurbs?

Apocalypse octatrio receiving a virgin darling bride who they realize their anatomy is more than capable of holding clutches by the dozens!

Sincerely,

Mer Eggs Anon.

(Also ps: I am just being overdramatic for the funny hahas, you don’t actually have to do it lol)

MY LOVELY MER EGGS!!!! (づ๑•ᴗ•๑)づ🎂 HAPPY BIRTHDAYYYYYY!!!!!!!! May it be an occasion full of happiness and sweetness!! <3 please enjoy these apocalypse thoughts!!

It really is so perfect you're capable of holding lots of clutches than other brides. There's no need to prepare you more extensively or force you to drink all manner of potions to prevent any strain on your body. But if you were to ask I'm sure they would be accommodating.

Azul likes to think you were made for him, a selfish, delusional thought he can't help having every time you're in his arms. And you're a virgin!!! He couldn't have asked for a better bride. Because he's neurotic and likes to be prepared, he'll have given you the overview well in advance just so you'll know what to expect. It's not as if you can get out of this contract and partnership anyway, but knowing what's to come does put one's mind at ease. He doesn't even know your limits, or lack thereof, until he's through with the first few eggs and there's still plenty of room.

Octo-mers are known to produce and lay lots of eggs because very few survive. Greedy to a fault, he'll want to see how much more you can hold. And wouldn't it be great if more eggs than usual survive!!! >w< he'll make sure of it, he'll promise you over and over, as he's peppering your neck in venomous kisses and stuffing you full of all the eggs he can possibly give.

Floyd likes to surprise you, so of course you're doing it in his mer form when you aren't expecting it. It's better that way. Plus, more babies!!! :D something something the toll on your body isn't so extreme if he does it this way,,, or that's what Azul claims anyway. He doesn't really care about statistics and evidence. He can smell how anxious you are, taste it on the air, feel the tension in your body when you press yourself up against the pool wall. There's nothing to be scared of. He'll treat you nice and good. Even though it sounds earnest, that slimy grin of his tells you otherwise. You're scared of his strength and size, of those two impossibly huge and inhuman cocks that curve up from his slit, but this is your duty as a bride.

I think Floyd would make sure to prepare you, spending an obnoxiously long time between your legs, his long tongue thrust up inside you, fingers working you open. He's really careful with his teeth and claws. Such a sweet eel who craves the taste of you and every cute sound you make. He'll fill you with some fluid (you think it's cum, but then you're not sure) that makes you feel hot and numb,, pain is the last thing you'll feel when your hole stretches around his cock(s). Floyd expects you to take half a clutch, maybe even the full clutch if you're able to, so it's a very thrilling surprise when you're able to take more than that. His Shrimpy sure knows how to surprise him hehe. >:D it's a good thing, too. He has plenty more eggs to give. :) you're not leaving that pool until you're really knocked up,, so much so he'll have to help you out.

Jade..... orz in the time leading up to breeding season, he tells you that you ought to prepare yourself. He can help, of course, but you shooed him off because that sharp smile is not to be trusted. So instead he was keen to sit and watch as you struggled around the dildos he gave you,, all for training. It was humiliating even though you know he's your husband now and so this shouldn't be so embarrassing. Still,,, you hated how he could look at you so casually, seemingly unaffected by the erotic display in front of him. He has fun gently bullying you.

By the time you're slipping into the pool with him, you think you're ready. You'll have to be. You tell him you're a virgin and he says he knows this because it's written in your file, and you splash him because now is not the time for his smart-ass remarks. You're not sure what to do, so he takes the lead, taking hold of your hips. You watch in fascination and horror as his own anatomy is made present and suddenly you wonder how this is ever going to work. But then he's pressing his mouth to yours and you taste blood, and within minutes you're hot and desperate and begging him to just put it in and stop teasing. You'll get what you desire, and maybe because you feel so euphoric you don't even register any pain or the eggs as they slip into your womb. You'll cry because it feels too good, and Jade is in utter awe at the way your greedy womb takes in more eggs than he was expecting. This is good; he wasn't intending to stop even if you were past your limits. :)

[zillychu]

hi hello looks at the tags of ur recent act 5 sif art. i wld LOVE to hear more about the stress level mechanic you mentioned if you perhaps wanna ramble about it 👉👈

I kept putting off answering this ask forever bc I wanted to finish the idea it came with, but idk when that will happen so here we go!

This was a game mechanic I thought of while refining an idea for a hypothetical sequel (two actually, for a trilogy), where Siffrin essentially remains OP as hell. But this does not actually make things easier.

Ramblings about the distress level mechanic, and story thoughts under the cut! This contains spoilers!

Re: In Stars and Wind

(get it. re: because it's a sequel. and also re:wind. wind is important. and there are no loops but Sif rewinds. god I'm so funny)

[[ Act I, part I ]]

Starts as a slow, cute holiday where the player gets to control different party members for each part of the story for different points of view and inner thoughts, to get a better feel of where everyone is emotionally.

Now in Bambouche, the party is traveling together, the atmosphere very much a relaxed and welcomed vacation. We see some of the new, but very mild conflict they have to juggle–how everyone has different opinions on handling their exploding fame, different ideas on where to go next… acclimating to Siffrin’s new demeanor and ailments. 

It's nothing terrible! Siffrin is more susceptible to Crafting sickness now, like an old injury that's fully healed but can get sore easily. Using Craft normally tends to mean lingering fatigue, maybe a nap or two. Heavier usage, and he gets body aches and fevers. 

He's also…different, now. They all know, they understand, they take it all in genuine stride. It's just a bit bumpy when Siffrin brings up something he shouldn't know, references things that never happened, still instinctively reaches for their knife or looks for easy ways to die when they feel cornered. Sometimes he gets unreasonably scared in battle, sometimes unreasonably scary. His power fluctuates from lv.1 to lv.999 (wait, wasn't the level cap supposed to be 99?)

Odile and Isa are the first ones seen discussing how odd that is. They saw those after-images of him running through the House on his own, they know he's strong. Much stronger than anyone could be even with years of fighting Sadness. (How long was Siffrin trapped in those loops, anyway?) Hell, he had the power to become something akin to a god.

They chalk up his moments of weakness to Craft Sickness, perhaps even a new and lingering disorder. They're not worried about it being a bother, they're just worried about what it could mean for him. They've brought it up before, but Sif also looked a bit confused and would say he just felt weak and tired for some reason. They think maybe his ridiculous power back then was only there due to the Wish Craft that no longer exists–maybe they're blowing things out of proportion.

Though all in all, everyone is happy! They're all together, seeing new places, becoming closer. 

At the end, they have a campfire picnic at night. It's then that everyone solidifies they're family now, and Sif is struck by how similar it all feels to that night. The night he wished he had back. He breaks down into tears and they try to comfort him, but he's happy. He tells them about that night now lost in the loops, how everything went right that day. Everyone laughs and cries and it's full and bright, their little campfire shining like a star in the night. They all love, and they're all loved. 

[[ Act I, part II ]]

Despite all the warmth. Despite all the joy and progress they've all made. 

Siffrin is still hiding something. 

Back in purely Sif's POV, we find out there's much, much more to his condition than everyone realizes. 

He struggles with keeping his masks in order, some of them popping up against his will. He doesn't have multiple personalities, but he is a bit more extreme with his personas. He tries to be Siffrin, the rogue, the traveler, the friend. But he's also Siffrin, who endured over a year stuck in a time loop, who aged what feels like eons, whose power now rivals a god's and can barely contain his extreme reactions to distress, to knowing or even thinking his family is in danger.

Sometimes, during a fight, he thinks a Sadness hit a friend a bit too hard–and he eviscerates it, gaze too dead and too cold and he can see the way his allies freeze up. Can see their uncertainty, their waiting fear (just like that time). Thankfully, he can shake it off once he notices they're safe, and they relax when he's “back to normal" easy enough. 

But it isn't just battles when this can happen. Sometimes even doing the simplest most mundane thing can slowly slip the contentment off his face (even if he's still happy!), or habitually slip into masking too hard with unnervingly fake smiles. Sometimes he'll simply order some food only to find the shopkeep staring at him warily.

But that's okay. He's used to acting. His family tells him he doesn't need to do that, that he shouldn't hide anymore. But this isn't the same, is it? He really is happy, he's just covering up some weird muscle memory that'll disappear in time. This is a good thing, actually! He's being more honest this way! Right? 

Like he's being “honest” about the Time and Wish Craft irrevocably etched into his soul now. He's not lying, he really does get Craft Sickness easily now! It's just. It's maybe not all coming from his “injury" of overusing Craft and nearly destroying the world. Not entirely. But that's part of it, so he's not lying! 

(Lying by omission is still lying. Stupid. Useless. Don't you ever learn? When will you learn? Can you learn? Why do you keep repeating the same mistakes–)

They're not the same mistakes though! He's getting better at talking to his friends, letting them know when he needs help. He's changing he's changed too much go back go back go back just like they are!

He knows he needs to tell them if something big happens. And he will! He'd never get trapped in a another time loop and not trust them enough to avoid relying on them. He knows now how much it hurts to see a loved one shoulder so much pain when you can be there to help split the burden.

But what's going on is nothing. It's silly! It's just him being silly. There's no reason to tell them about something they'll probably get all worked up over when it's really not that big of a deal. Friends don't tell friends absolutely everything, they've all admitted as much too! Sometimes you do have to balance little white lies, little secrets. Pick and choose which battles to share, which to keep personal. 

So it's really not that big of a deal! He's figuring out why his body still innately uses Time Craft sometimes and he rewinds the world a bit. 

Okay. Okay that sounds so much worse than it is. Really! He's not stuck in a loop anymore, he doesn't rewind whole days. He'll just. Sometimes he'll get hurt, or really scared, or really upset and the world kinda. Blinks back a few minutes, or hours. Back before the thing that caused him distress. 

They don't need to know about that. It's no big deal. Nothing has ever changed drastically anyway (Bonnie would have just gotten scuffed up falling down that hill, that stomach wound Odile sustained could have been easily healed, Isa would have recovered from a broken fractured leg, Mira could have dealt with that overzealous fan herself) 

It wasn't like he watched them die again again again, he didn't die, the world wasn't ending. Everything was fine!

Did that weird cat just talk. 

[Gameplay changes from here, traveling from town A to town B. There are still a lot of Sadness roaming about, you save a couple people, etc etc]

[[End of Act I]]

[GAMEPLAY DIFFERENCES]

Everything is the same, but has additional statuses now!

Buffs and debuffs have two levels, normal (1 level) and critical (2 levels)

In addition to HP, there's now distress (DL= distress level)

Distress increases with: 

Battle duration

Damage taken (healing proportionally reverses this) (lower HP = bigger increase)

Allies getting hit with Criticals

Allies getting low on HP

New enemy attacks that inflict negative emotions

Distress decreases with: 

Healing

Shields and buffs 

New distress-specific items

New neutral Craft ability: Breathe

Resets to 0 after battle victory

Effects of distress:

When personal distress hits a certain percentage, allies gain certain debuffs and/or buffs (intentionally made to show stress can be beneficial, up to a point)

20%: ATK/DEF/ATKSPD up (1)

40%: ATK/ATKSPD up (1), DEF down critically (2) (most mob fights stop around here)

60%: ATK up (1), DEF/ATKSPD down critically (2)

80%: ATK/DEF/ATKSPD down critically (2)

100%: Cannot act. Essentially frozen, can only be decreased with specific items/skills or battle end.

Siffrin only: 

As personal distress increases, the chance increases that Siffrin loses control of his strength, dealing massive damage 1.5x above a Critical, but at a cost. These are called Overclocked attack/Crafts (haha, get it?)

Overclocked attack: Hits all enemies and your party, lowering HP (including yourself)

Overclocked Craft: Increases both ally and enemy stress (including yourself)

80%: Act 5 Siffrin unlocked. Sprite permanently changed until distress is lowered under 50%. All attacks/Crafts are now Overclocked, and he only has DEF down critically. Allies gain distress 1.5x faster.

100%: Unleashes Wish Craft immediately (regardless of turn order), dealing massive damage to all enemies and allies, and brings HP down to 1. Gains special “Craft Sickness" status, where all stats are down critically for the remainder of the battle. 

This state is Siffrin instinctively attempting to go full bigfrin, but non-fatally stabs themself to keep their mind grounded :)

(You eventually obtain equips and/or Craft skills that minimizes the backlash of Siffrin's Overclocked hits and Wish Craft, making it a viable strategy to intentionally distress him. This has an effect on the story! It's not healthy to burn yourself out to achieve more in life, stop that.)

And that's all I have for now! I'm not sure if/when I'll get the urge to finish things up, but I have a super rough draft. Can you guess what the weird talking cat is about? :) Teehee

[gallusrostromegalus]

11 and/or 42 for Zaraki?

Answered 42 already, so 11: If someone was impersonating them, what would friends / family ask or do to tell the difference?

Many, many people have attempted to impersonate Zaraki Kenpachi.

Mostly ronin, criminals and other live-by-the-sword types trying to cash in on his reputation- Zaraki had a LOT of jobs while he was roaming the Rukongai, and his reputation as an inhumanly strong and bloodthirsty fighter was well known in the outer districts. So some idiot was always trying to get hired as a retainer or invited into a gang by trying to claim his identity- It's not hard. There aren't reliable photographs for most of his time out there, so he's only known as "Extremely tall, with long black hair and a large scar on his face, carrying an odachi and a small child". It works more often than not- the Rukongai is a very big place and Zaraki is but one man so it's not like a comparison can be made.

It's a scam that ONLY works at a distance though, for two reasons:

None of them hold a candle to the genuine article.

The first thing is the sheer weight of his reiatsu. The only people with anything even near that level of casual power output are a handful of Shinigami an a few actual Kami. Even those not blessed with Reiryoku can sense it- the air around him takes on a sharp, staticy quality that makes your hair stand on end as well as a heaviness that can make it hard to breathe, like an impending typhoon. Even among the Captains and Kami, nothing feels quite like he does- like the first gasp of air after breaking the surface when you were about to down and a battering ram to the chest at once.

People also consistently misjudge his intelligence and charm. One cannot feed oneself AND a small child on forage alone, and a too-fearsome reputation will get him banned from working anywhere. Hence, face-to-face Zaraki is unexpectedly disarming to talk to and agreeable company to stay with. Civilians are no good in a fight, but he took a name specifically because of how lonely he was, so he has learned the manners to rapidly ingratiate himself with any company. He's quick with a joke and tells a good tale or ten, and so at ease knowing there is no threat to him (or if there is, that it will be fun) that it puts those around him at ease as well. It's also hard to be frightened of the man after watching him lose an argument about not having candy for dinner to the most adorable little girl you've ever seen. Eventually, it gets around in the circles that hire such people that Zaraki is the best body guard you could possibly hire- Dedicated, Incorruptible and Ferociously protective- Especially of children, the most vulnerable charges.

Zaraki loves bodyguard work actually- All he has to do is keep at least one semi-functioning eye on Some Fucking Guy and the fights come to him! Fun fights too, like "An Entire Shinobi Sect At Once" or "Ancient And Revered Immortal Master Come Down From The Mountain" or "LMAO IDK But It's Got Tentacles And That's Always Fun".

His borderline disinterest in the client beyond their capacity as a fight magnet makes him remarkably immune to corruption- he doesn't want a bribe, he wants a battle! Neither does he want to attempt to leverage his position over a client- it straight-up never occurs to him that he could threaten the client. Why would he? They're not going to be any fun to fight??

After he starts raising Yachiru, his reputation becomes even more revered. Zaraki is a maniac, sure, but he is a maniac who *is good with children, and there is no safer place for a child than "within arm's reach of Zaraki", so Yachiru grows up with Princesses for playmates. It's very hard for most men of the sword to impersonate someone who is as at home on the field of battle as he is playing teatime with a toddler. Few try, none succeed for long.

...But even after he becomes captain, people still try to impersonate him. The most common ruse is someone in a remote district pretending to be a Captain On Official Gotei-13 Business to the residents as part of some con to attain money or power. Sometimes, a particularly bod criminal will pretend to be A Captain to the people in the C46 or Noble house to scam benefits out of the ruling powers. This happens to every captain, and it ends in catastrophe every time but it is an ESPECIALLY bad idea to impersonate Zaraki because:

2. Zaraki is very aware that people try to impersonate him, and is very eager to meet himself.

The first time Zaraki heard of someone using his name he was bewildered and offended and tracked the sonofabitch down, and then had a Jolly Good Time kicking his ass. The second time he heard of someone claiming his identity, he sought them out a little more calmly this time and had ANOTHER jolly good time kicking their asses. So the THIRD time, and every time since, the news that someone is attempting to pretend to be him makes Zaraki cackle with glee and vanish for a week or so (with his daughter and lieutenants in tow, if not the whole damn division), before turning back up with someone that's been wanted by the law for a decade or an entire Criminal Organization or suchlike under arrest.

In addition to being startlingly honest and cunning, Zaraki is extremely romantic, and since he is courting The Lady Unohana, he brings not a dozen roses, but instead presents the arrested Miscreants to the the Fourth Division Medical Corps as "Volunteer Organ Donors". One can hardly blame her for absconding with him for another week after.

...50/50 chance he, or anyone else in the 11th actually remembered to send someone to go tell Yamamoto where they were and what all that screaming and pleading for mercy in the general direction of the hospital is.

[quantum1mmortality]

so… I heard about curly free use kink on one of the posts???? pls I need this so bad

hi guys I'm not dead isn't that crazy

I'm still working on my full length fic and my asks are still closed but I didn't wanna leave you guys starving. Bare with me, I'm almost 2k words into that fic and I still haven't introduced Curly yet 😭😭😭 shits gonna be long and I'm trying not to rush

Tw/cw; nsfw shit, semi public sex mentioned, a short one this time

Not proofread

I genuinely forgot I even mentioned free use in one of my other fics, I think it was in my househusband!curly hcs? Forgive me if I'm wrong.

In those hcs, though, I wrote curly as being extremely submissive and a bottom. Because of that, I do think he'd be into free use. You provide for him, the least he can do (in his mind) is offer himself to you completely like the good househusband he is.

But these hcs aren't about him being a househusband. Or, maybe they are, idk 🤭🤭

Curly would have a high sex drive. Definitely high before you guys met, but even higher after. He can't get enough of you, and he's fully aware of that.

While he's always in the mood, he knows you aren't. He respects that, you work hard all day, and while he can imagine a few ways to take your mind off things, he's willing to put those thoughts aside.

But if you were in the mood, he'd prefer it if you took it out on him.

It doesn't matter when or where, public or in the privacy of your own home, if you want him, he wants to help you, YOU just have to let him know how.

You guys could be shopping at the mall and just whisper something in his ear and he's immediately dragging you off to the nearest bathroom.

Or, could be cooking dinner for you. You come up behind him and give him a hug, slowly slip your fingers under the waistband of his pants.. yeah, you're both eating something else that night.

He really just doesn't care. If you're horny, he's horny. If you're not, he's still horny but he'll keep that shit to himself.

A/n; lazy post this time sorry chat. I got my tongue and my septum done today(like 15 minutes between each) and I'm in so much pain I can't even think clearly 😭 my tongue hurts a lot and I can barely eat or drink. My septum doesn't tho which is kind of surprising. Overall, the pain of both of them combined doesnt even COMPARE to my industrial

[lockpickingliar]

Kokichi would have thrived in the SDR2 class, actually.

Like, I dunno. I just feel like they would have been much more willing to work with him rather than fight against him like the V3 cast constantly does. In particular, one of the things that makes a notable difference between 77B and V3 is this:

Flexibility for Individuality and Willingness to Address Other Points of View

Class 77B are all much more understanding of one another's neuroses and make room for each other in a way that the V3 cast just doesn't. They communicate a lot more in a way that makes everyone feel included, and everyone has room to voice their concerns and have them taken seriously. V3 by contrast is almost always arguing in a way where everyone is fighting to be heard, but no one is actually listening.

Mahiru voices her complaint over Twogami appointing himself as leader, and discussion follows to why exactly Twogami would be the best fit for the position anyway, assuaging her concerns. There are misunderstandings between them, like with the intentions behind Hiyoko's shrine being misconstrued as malicious due to her poor taste, but those feelings and intentions are discussed and everyone comes around fairly quickly. Fuyuhiko throws his weight around a lot in the beginning as a the Ultimate Yakuza, and even threatens to kill, but everyone at the very least recognizes this as posturing and leaves him alone until he's able to come around. The only genuine threat is Nagito, who takes clear and focused action to cause harm in chapter 1, and even then he is simply tied up for a single chapter. He's still taken care of and acknowledged as a member of the group by others in the class, and when he falls ill to the Despair Disease, he is given extra care due to his weak constitution.

In that sense, I feel like they would be a lot more willing to make room for and work with Kokichi's particular ways of coping and engaging with others, because they understand that everyone in the class has their "thing" that makes them who they are. They're going to work with those things to make sure everyone is on the same page and everything gets done.

Unlike the rest of his classmates, Kokichi himself is also flexible in this way. He bounces off of people in whatever way he thinks would work best with them, and is only met with resistance from the V3 cast specifically because of his own neuroses and coping mechanisms with regard to lying and making jokes and pranks to lighten the mood. You could argue a lot of his jokes are kind of mean-spirited, but they frankly pale in comparison to Hiyoko's unprompted bullying and Fuyuhiko's blatant grandstanding. He leads people around during class trials, but Nagito does that too, and is honestly a lot more condescending about it. Even so, everyone in the class is willing to hear him out and follow along if it means getting to the bottom of things. That's the thing that separates them from the V3 cast, who go out of their way to try to shut Kokichi down simply because they think he's just fucking with them. Class 77B understands that whatever the others are saying, there's a reason behind it, and so are willing to pursue the issue to find out where it might go.

I could go on and on and on about each member of class 77B individually, but frankly that'd be an extremely long post and this one is already really long on its own. If people want to ask my opinions on Kokichi's chemistry with anyone in particular, they're free to send me an ask about it. I've already gone on a rant once about how I think he and Hiyoko would interact in the tags of a poll. Overall, I just feel like he'd fit in with that class a lot more than he would with V3.

For now, though, under a cut, I want to start with what I believe to be the microcosm of each class: the protagonists. In particular, how Hajime approaches his classmates, how Shuichi approaches Kokichi, and how I feel Hajime would be different about it.

Hajime Hinata and the Drive to Understand Others

Out of everyone in the SDR2 cast, Hajime himself is markedly the least tolerant, especially at the beginning. His entire arc is honestly largely about his rigidity and learning to be flexible with the rest of the class. Just based off his wariness in the prologue and how long it took him to click into the idea of just enjoying the trip, he has a long way to go. Even then, though, it wasn't necessarily his other classmates themselves that he was intolerant of. He was just freaked out about the situation and was perplexed that no one else seemed to be. It wasn't that he thought they were wrong, per se. It was more that he couldn't wrap his head around their point of view.

However, moving on through the rest of the game, Hajime goes out of his way to work to understand where the others are coming from, and becomes increasingly more tolerant and willing to work with his classmates the more he gets to know them. Even Nagito, who leads him around trials by the nose in a MUCH more overt and condescending way than Kokichi ever did with Shuichi. Hajime comments as much during many of the trials, how he knows Nagito's pulling some bullshit and it's frustrating him but he still goes along with it because he knows everyone is just trying to survive in their own way. He rolls with Nagito's punches to get to the bottom of things, even if he doesn't understand why Nagito's doing it the way he does in the moment. At the end of the day, Hajime knows that Nagito has some kind of logic set that he subscribes to, and wants to understand it so they don't have to constantly fight and make things harder for themselves (see: Nagito's FTEs).

Actually, the entire THEME of the FTEs in SDR2 is Hajime's desire to get to know his classmates and most importantly, understand their logic and motivations. He wants to know why they are the way that they are, not so he can change them, but so he can better mesh with and comprehend them as they are, to the point most FTEs to my knowledge end with something to the effect of "I think I understand XXX a little more now!" From that approach alone, Hajime is quite famous for ending his FTEs in a very close and friendly relationship with every single one of his classmates.

Shuichi Saihara and the Rigidity of One's Own Beliefs

Shuichi meanwhile is constantly at odds with Kokichi and telling him to stop doing what he's doing because he is intolerant of Kokichi's point of view. He doesn't get Kokichi at all and he doesn't really try to beyond a bewildered exclamation of Why!? for no reason other than to vent his frustration. He doesn't engage with Kokichi's methods in any way, making snap judgements as to whether Kokichi is lying or telling the truth (usually that he is lying) without inquiring further, and honestly spends most of his time trying to compete against them because he inherently believes that those methods are wrong simply because he can't make sense of them.

This even rings true in his FTEs where Kokichi spends the whole time goofing and playing games, and rather than engage with and try to understand the language Kokichi is speaking, Shuichi spends the entire time hung up on the inane concept that Kokichi made a threat on his life in the very first FTE. And it's like, I know, I KNOW about the good ending to Kokichi's Shot Through the Heart event. I know that Shuichi's best outcome with him is to tell him that he could tolerate Kokichi's lies, but that's not understanding, that's not comprehension.

That's a defeated white flag of "you do you, I'm too tired to fight you on this anymore."

Shuichi doesn't really want to understand any point of view that doesn't fit in well with his own. He gets along well with many of his other classmates, but that's primarily because they don't challenge his worldview as heavily as Kokichi does. Then, since the player is intended to engage with the story through Shuichi's perspective and Shuichi carries the driving ideology for the rest of the class, Kokichi suffers greatly for it.

Hajime's Approach to Kokichi

Don't get me wrong, he would be frustrated. He would be so, so frustrated with Kokichi's bullshit. However, I don't think he would be any more frustrated than he already is with Nagito's meandering nonsense during class trials. And above all else, he would not reject the fact that however Kokichi sees the world is real and sensible to Kokichi, and that in itself makes it worthy of understanding.

With all that in mind, I imagine that when faced with Kokichi's lies, he would take a more inquisitive approach: asking lots of questions regarding the details of any given story Kokichi may spin to better understand the narrative Kokichi is going for and thus deducing his intentions. Don't misunderstand—he would not necessarily believe anything Kokichi says. However, he wouldn't automatically accuse Kokichi of lying, either. Rather, he would treat Kokichi's words with the sentiment of Schrodinger's Truth. It is simultaneously true and false until Kokichi's intentions are deduced, thus coloring the reasoning behind the claims themselves.

Remember, Hajime values the idea that everyone has a reason for their actions and that reason follows a logic set and intention that can be examined and understood. Peko is very cold and distant due to a very strong sense of duty and justice. Gundam is very fantastical in his language because he feels more comfortable engaging with the world through fantasy. Akane is always laser-focused on food because of a poor childhood. They have reasons behind acting the way that they do, whether Hajime knows those reason or not, and those reasons and the behaviors attached to them should be respected.

So while Kokichi's lies may be frustrating and confusing at first, Hajime would not disregard the fact that they hold some sort of meaning to Kokichi, and so it would be better and more productive to engage with those lies on Kokichi's level. That would mean poking and prodding to get to the bottom of things. Needling around to feel out the truth. In Kokichi's infamous words, cornering psychologically.

So no, he would not believe everything Kokichi says at face value, but he wouldn't not believe it, either. He would recognize that Kokichi is very deliberate in the way he words things—little breadcrumbs to follow to whatever Kokichi thinks is important—and would very directly play his game and pry into those words to find whatever Kokichi is trying to show him. The claims themselves are not the important part, it's the greater topic and the implications such a claim entails. Just like Nagito does, Kokichi is trying to point at a particular detail without outright saying so, for one reason or another, and Hajime would recognize the value of that.

Putting this Approach into Practice

As an example, I want to examine the nature of Kokichi's FTEs and how Hajime might approach them. I dunno if I might want to write an actual fic of it at some point—it honestly sounds like a fun exercise—so I won't go into too much detail, but the way I think it would start is like this:

The instigation and overall behavior from Kokichi would be relatively the same. Hajime would come asking about his organization, so Kokichi would divulge a lot of (frankly ridiculous) information about it in a grandstanding lie, only to end the conversation threatening to kill Hajime for knowing too much. The only things I think might change are what specifically Hajime would focus on in this interaction.

From the very beginning, there is one thing that Kokichi always consistently does when talking about his organization that I think Hajime would take an interest in:

Kokichi always, always follows this format when introducing his organization:

He is the leader of a secret evil organization.

It has 10,000 members.

He is a liar.

Him being the leader of an organization is the truth.

It's like clockwork and I think Hajime would find that very interesting. It isn't really about the organization at this point, it's about the wording itself. Kokichi always introduces himself this way, so beyond the literal claims, what could the intention behind this format possibly be?

And Hajime might conclude that it's a tutorial.

Through this one scripted introduction, Kokichi conveys two very crucial things:

He lies, but he doesn't lie about everything.

He often lies about specific details of things that otherwise are true, either to embellish or for some other purpose.

So what does this mean for Hajime? That means this is a precedent that he is going to have to get accustomed to and figure out how to work with. Kokichi treats himself like a puzzle and he wants Hajime to figure him out. From this, he can finally start to think about what Kokichi is telling him:

He is the leader of a secret(?) evil(? probably not) organization.

It does NOT have 10,000 members.

He lies a lot, so don't take every detail of every thing he says at face value.

But at the end of the day there is always a grain of truth somewhere to be found.

From that point on, I imagine the way Hajime approaches the interaction and the details he decides to focus on would be very different. He would still be frustrated over the fact he has to do it at all, but he will do it anyway because at the end of the day he wants to understand Kokichi as he is.

And to understand Kokichi, he has to engage with him on his own terms.

Conclusion

This honestly got way longer than I was expecting it to, so I'm not entirely sure how to end it, but I hope it makes sense. I think about it a lot, how Kokichi might have been accepted a lot better in class 77B than in his own cast of V3. I would have loved to see how he might have been able to flourish and engage and help more directly in an environment where his thoughts and opinions are valued regardless of how he conveys them. If anyone wants me to elaborate on a particular part, or take a closer look at how any of the other members of class 77B might interact with Kokichi, please let me know!