#market cycles explained

[woso-dreamzzz]

Bike II

Chelsea Women x Child!Reader

Part of The Big Adventures Universe

Summary: You're good at bike riding

"I'm so tired," Erin complains, fanning herself," God, it's hot today."

"I need a nap," Millie agrees.

"A nap and to do nothing for the rest of the day," Niamh says as she passes by, stripping off her sweaty training shirt," I'm just going to go home and melt."

"Home and an ice cream," Zećira continues, nodding and completely satisfied with her plan," I can't wait to get home."

"You'll all have to wait," Magda says decisively from the day. She'd come in earlier than everyone else, taking you into the building for a toilet and hydration break.

Most of the team had actually been quite worried about you.

This heat is sweltering and you're still tiny and excitable with energy that makes you run all over the field. It's like an accident waiting to happen.

Pernille had you stop and take long drinks from your water bottle all through practice until it ran out and she sent you off with Magda to fill it up.

You and Magda never came back though so everyone just presumed you'd already been bundled up in the car where there's air conditioning to use while you wait for Pernille to finish up and change.

"There's a surprise out the front."

"Is it an ice cream van?" Guro asks," Because that's the only thing that will make me happy right now."

"It's not an ice cream van."

"Then I'm out."

"No you're not," Magda says sternly," You're all going out the front with a smile and you're going to celebrate and clap and give compliments. Got it?"

"It's hot," Sam complains," Can't we rearrange this surprise?"

"No, Sam. We're doing it now."

"Give them a second to change, Magda," Pernille says," We're all hot. We're all irritable. Give them a sec."

Magda huffs. "Fine. I'll be out the front." She points a finger at everyone in turn. "I expect you all out there in ten minutes."

Pernille manages to shepherd everyone out in five.

"Right," Millie says, adjusting her cap so it properly shades her from the beating sun," What's-Oh."

"Look!" You say," I'm riding my bike!"

You peddle quickly around the car park, little legs pumping as you turn your handlebars so you're going around in circles.

You're doing impressively well on your bike, a very slow for an adult but fast for a little kid. It's even more impressive when the team note that you've not got any stabilisers.

A little basket that wasn't originally there when Sam bought it sits on the front and in it sits your swan and moose toy as well as a little bouquet of flowers that Pernille bought you at the market this morning.

Most of the team is speechless until Jessie starts clapping.

"Well done!" She calls out," You're doing so well!"

You beam at the praise, puffing out your chest in pride and pump your legs even faster.

Magda also puffs out her chest and Pernille has to smother her laughter.

"I taught her to ride," Magda brags," We took her stabilisers off last week. Isn't she so good?"

"The best!" Jessie agrees warmly, still clapping.

"Best ever!" Sam yells out," Look at you go!"

The team seem to have forgotten their exhaustion as you skid to a stop nearly half an hour later, everyone crowding around you as you pant from your cycling.

"Look at this!" Zećira exclaims," It's such a cool colour!"

"It's red," You tell her," Like Arsenal and Sweden's goalkeeper shirt! I love red!"

"It is!" Zećira says, nodding along," And you've got a little basket!"

"For my toys," You tell her," And my water bottle. And I've got a bell!"

You demonstrate by flicking it, letting the noise rings out through the car park.

"That's so cool!"

You grin at Zećira before looking at Jessie, suddenly shy.

"Did I do good, Jessie?"

She grins at you, ruffling your hair. "So good. I'm very impressed. I didn't know you could ride a bike!"

"Morsa taught me," You explain," And Momma did too. At the park. They say if I keep practicing and getting better and better we can all do a ride together! Do you want to go on a bike ride with me, Jessie?"

Jessie grins. "I'd love to."

[reasonsforhope]

"The transformation of ancestral lands into intensive monoculture plantations has led to the destruction of Guatemala’s native forests and traditional practices, as well as loss of livelihoods and damage to local health and the environment.

A network of more than 40 Indigenous and local communities and farmer associations are developing agroecology schools across the country to promote the recovery of ancestral practices, educate communities on agroecology and teach them how to build their own local economies.

Based on the traditional “campesino a campesino” (from farmer to farmer) method, the organization says it has improved the livelihoods of 33,000 families who use only organic farming techniques and collectively protect 74,000 hectares (182,858 acres) of forest across Guatemala.

Every Friday at 7:30 a.m., María Isabel Aguilar sells her organic produce in an artisanal market in Totonicapán, a city located in the western highlands of Guatemala. Presented on a handwoven multicolor blanket, her broccoli, cabbage, potatoes and fruits are neatly organized into handmade baskets.

Aguilar is in a cohort of campesinos, or small-scale farmers, who took part in farmer-led agroecology schools in her community. As a way out of the cycle of hunger and poverty, she learned ecological principles of sowing, soil conservation, seed storage, propagation and other agroecological practices that have provided her with greater autonomy, self-sufficiency and improved health.

“We learned how to develop insecticides to fend off pests,” she said. The process, she explained, involves a purely organic cocktail of garlic, chile, horsetail and other weeds and leaves, depending on what type of insecticide is needed. “You want to put this all together and let it settle for several days before applying it, and then the pests won’t come.”

“We also learned how to prepare fertilizer that helps improve the health of our plants,” she added. “Using leaves from trees or medicinal plants we have in our gardens, we apply this to our crops and trees so they give us good fruit.”

The expansion of large-scale agriculture has transformed Guatemala’s ancestral lands into intensive monoculture plantations, leading to the destruction of forests and traditional practices. The use of harmful chemical fertilizers, including glyphosate, which is prohibited in many countries, has destroyed some livelihoods and resulted in serious health and environmental damage.

To combat these trends, organizations across the country have been building a practice called campesino a campesino (from farmer to farmer) to revive the ancient traditions of peasant families in Guatemala. Through the implementation of agroecology schools in communities, they have helped Indigenous and local communities tackle modern-day rural development issues by exchanging wisdom, experiences and resources with other farmers participating in the program.

Keeping ancestral traditions alive

The agroecology schools are organized by a network of more than 40 Indigenous and local communities and farmer associations operating under the Utz Che’ Community Forestry Association. Since 2006, they have spread across several departments, including Totonicapán, Quiché, Quetzaltenango, Sololá and Huehuetenango, representing about 200,000 people — 90% of them Indigenous.

“An important part of this process is the economic autonomy and productive capacity installed in the communities,” said Ilse De León Gramajo, project coordinator at Utz Che’. “How we generate this capacity and knowledge is through the schools and the exchange of experiences that are facilitated by the network.”

Utz Che’, which means “good tree” in the K’iche’ Mayan language, identifies communities in need of support and sends a representative to set up the schools. Around 30-35 people participate in each school, including women and men of all ages. The aim is to facilitate co-learning rather than invite an “expert” to lead the classes.

The purpose of these schools is to help farmers identify problems and opportunities, propose possible solutions and receive technical support that can later be shared with other farmers.

The participants decide what they want to learn. Together, they exchange knowledge and experiment with different solutions to thorny problems. If no one in the class knows how to deal with a certain issue, Utz Che’ will invite someone from another community to come in and teach...

Part of what Utz Che’ does is document ancestral practices to disseminate among schools. Over time, the group has compiled a list of basics that it considers to be fundamental to all the farming communities, most of which respond to the needs and requests that have surfaced in the schools.

Agroecology schools transform lives

Claudia Irene Calderón, based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is an expert in agroecology and sustainable food systems in Guatemala. She said she believes the co-creation of knowledge is “key to balance the decision-making power that corporations have, which focus on profit maximization and not on climate change mitigation and adaptation.”

“The recovery and, I would add, revalorization of ancestral practices is essential to diversify fields and diets and to enhance planetary health,” she said. “Recognizing the value of ancestral practices that are rooted in communality and that foster solidarity and mutual aid is instrumental to strengthen the social fabric of Indigenous and small-scale farmers in Guatemala.”

Through the implementation of agroecology schools across the country, Utz Che’ says it has improved the livelihoods of 33,000 families. In total, these farmers also report that they collectively protect 74,000 hectares (182,858 acres) of forest across Guatemala by fighting fires, monitoring illegal logging and practicing reforestation.

In 2022, Utz Che’ surveyed 32 women who had taken part in the agroecology school. All the women had become fully responsible for the production, distribution and commercialization of their products, which was taught to them in agroecology schools. Today, they sell their produce at the artisanal market in Totonicapán.

The findings, which highlight the many ways the schools helped them improve their knowledge, also demonstrate the power and potential of these schools to increase opportunities and strengthen the independence of women producers across the country...

The schools are centered around the idea that people are responsible for protecting their natural resources and, through the revitalization of ancestral practices, can help safeguard the environment and strengthen livelihoods."

-via Mongabay News, July 7, 2023

[aventurineswife]

aventurine x reader, but they both worked in the IPC together, until Reader faked their death to escape it. Aventurine kinda loses himself for a bit, but is sent on another planetary mission (idk what ipc assignments are called 😔) he notices one of the citizens looks a bit too much like a previous friend

Reader realizes Aventurine found them, and feeling too scared to face him after never saying goodbye, warning or anything, they run off to a secluded area aven follows them to, and boom we get angsty argument, bittersweet love confession, and happy or sad ending up to u!!

i hope this made sense

The Gamble of Lost Hearts | Part 1

Summary: After faking your death to escape the IPC and live a quiet life, You encounters Aventurine years later on a remote planet. Desperate to avoid facing him after leaving without a word, You run, but Aventurine tracks you down to demand answers.

Tags: Aventurine x Reader, angst, reunion, faked death, confrontation, bittersweet, passionate kiss, unresolved feelings, hurt/comfort, happy ending.

Warnings: Intense emotions, mention of grief and faked death, brief argument, bittersweet themes, kissing.

A/N: Thank for the request, Anon! Of course it made sense and I hope you like it!! I decided to go for a happy ending but lmk if you want a sad ending too 😇🤭

(Part 2)

The tall silhouette of the IPC headquarters still felt like a ghostly shadow looming over you, even on this remote planet. You'd spent years running from it, from him, leaving behind everything you knew to escape the endless cycles of high-stakes deals and veiled dangers. Faking your death was your only way out. A drastic choice, but one that had kept you free.

For the most part, it had worked. You’d blended into a quiet, new life here, far from the frenetic energy and luxurious intrigue of IPC. But today was different. A mission had arrived from IPC. You hadn’t realized who would be leading it—hadn’t dared to imagine he would come to this far-flung place.

And yet, here you were, ducking down behind market stalls, holding your breath every time he brushed past. His sandy-blond hair, elegant stance, and that gambler’s grin that still haunted your memories—it was all here. And with him came a flood of feelings you'd kept buried for years.

Somewhere along the winding paths of this new city, you’d slipped. He'd caught sight of you, and that glimmer in his eyes told you he knew.

You didn’t waste time running. You veered down alleyways, taking shortcuts and dodging through side streets, ignoring the heart pounding in your chest. The cliffside path outside the city led to a hidden grove where you’d often retreat to watch the waves crash far below. Maybe there, he would lose your trail.

But there was no outrunning someone like him.

“Quite the bold tactic—faking your own death,” His smooth voice sounded just as you remembered, laced with that same easy charm but edged with something new—something raw. “Did you think I wouldn’t find you?”

You took a breath before facing him, his piercing gaze pinning you down as soon as you met his eyes. He stood mere steps away, looking as striking as ever, the faint roulette motif on his overcoat catching the last of the setting sun.

“Aventurine, I…” The words failed you. How could you explain years of silence? Of leaving him to mourn?

“I grieved you, you know.” His voice was soft, nearly breaking. “I searched, hoping it was all some misstep. Until the day I accepted you were…gone.”

The ache in his words stung worse than you’d anticipated. “I didn’t have a choice...” you whispered, but your words sounded feeble, empty even to yourself.

“No choice?” Aventurine scoffed, a bitter laugh escaping him. “We were supposed to be partners, weren’t we? You could have trusted me.” He took a step forward, anger blazing in his eyes. “But instead, you turned me into a fool. For years, I mourned a ghost while you built this quiet little life on the fringes.”

“You don’t understand,” you argued, feeling that familiar pang in your chest. “It wasn’t just about leaving IPC. I couldn’t… If I stayed, I would’ve lost myself. That place…it consumed everything.”

“And you think I don’t know that?” Aventurine’s voice softened, his hand reaching up to brush a strand of hair from your face, a tender gesture that held the weight of all the things left unsaid between you. “Do you think I didn’t want to leave with you?”

You swallowed hard, caught off guard by his words. The idea of Aventurine—the gambler, the thrill-seeker—longing to escape had never crossed your mind. But here he was, his eyes reflecting a deep sadness that mirrored your own.

“I’m sorry,” you murmured, the sincerity in your voice mixing with the regret that had gnawed at you all these years. “But I couldn’t drag you down with me.”

“You didn’t give me the choice.” he whispered, voice barely above a murmur. His eyes searched yours, desperate to find a reason, a justification that could somehow absolve the pain he’d carried all this time. And then, with a hint of frustration, he leaned in, capturing your lips in a fierce, desperate kiss. It wasn’t gentle—it was raw, full of the emotions he’d held back, the years he’d spent believing you were lost.

The kiss stole the words from your mouth, every excuse, every apology dissolving in the intensity of that single, electric moment.

When he pulled back, his hand still lingered at the side of your face, thumb tracing the faint line of your jaw as he gazed at you with a newfound resolve. “If you run again, I’m coming with you.” he murmured, his voice steadier now.

You met his gaze, realizing he meant it. There would be no more running, no more hiding. Aventurine wouldn’t let you.

“I’m not going anywhere,” you promised softly, the weight of your words sinking between you both. “Not without you.”

A flicker of a smile returned to his lips, tempered by the hurt that had yet to fully heal but brightened by the glimmer of hope that you could finally face whatever came next—together.

[uzurimisery]

the space between two bodies. / satosugu x reader / part 1

Warnings: MDNI, happy ending, angst, cheating (not really this is explained in part 2), unhealthy relationships/coping mechanisms, suicidal ideation, depression, smut, no sorcery au, unedited

A/N: I started thinking about Gojo with anxiety and nihilist Geto and then what that looks like in a poly relationship with someone as flawed as they are

part two

“We’re sorry but we’ve decided to go with another candidate now. We will retain your information on file should a more suitable role open up.” 

The email stared back at you, the words on your phone screen blurring as droplets of rain hit it as you read it over for the hundredth time. Today was just another shitty fucked up day in the endless string of shitty fucked up days that had become your life. The third consecutive month of unemployment in a row. At least previously you could get temp jobs but now each day that passed just ate away at you with how useless you felt. 

Pocketing your phone, you pull out a 100 yen coin and put it in the vending machine.

You didn’t even like your old job but Jesus it was like no one was actually hiring. And when you did get an interview, you’d get ghosted afterward. On the rare occasion they didn’t ghost you, you’d receive a rejection letter like this one. It was preferable, you supposed, that your existence and effort were at least acknowledged, no matter how much it stung. Still hurt like a bitch to be told you weren’t good enough. 

Anything would be better than this, fuck you’d take being overworked and underpaid if it felt like you were doing something. This endless cycle of gnawing uncertainty and applications, interviews, followed by rejections. Worse than that you were out of deodorant and trying to find some in Japan was a Herculean effort. 

Yeah, it’s been a shit go and you’re fucking exhausted.

Maybe you’d go be an English teacher like everyone else who moves to Japan. You wouldn’t need a co-teacher so the pay would be better if you were just starting out. Not that you wanted to teach again dear god that was less than ideal. Thank god you had settled status. The thought of having to deal with visa issues at the same time made you feel sick. 

Maybe you could work at a host club. You turned, staring at your reflection in the glass. Your boobs weren’t half bad as you pushed them up from the underside like a push-up bra would. Or sell feet pictures. The market was probably oversaturated at this point but maybe there would be some interest.

Wait Jesus had your hair looked like that all day? Fuck. No wonder that girl kept staring at you on the train she thought you were a lunatic.

Sighing you press the button for 4H. It wasn’t like you’d always been this way, sort of drifting in a sea of uncertainty abroad your boat of doubt with no wind to guide your sails. There was a period of time, maybe a five-year stretch after you had graduated from university where your life was on track. An entry-level job in your degree field, a long-term boyfriend turned fiance, wedding planning, and a great group of friends. Shit, you had it all. 

The fiance was the first to go. 

As it turns out, finding your fiance in bed with the girl he swore you didn’t have to worry about, his tongue halfway down her throat like he’s trying to do an endoscopy, is a terrible way to find out you’re being cheated on. When he noticed you standing in the doorway he had the gall to sputter some bullshit about how it was your fault it happened. You were too focused on your work, you didn’t give him attention, blah, blah, blah. It was you who broke the relationship up by working so much and being married to your job. And as he paid for the overpriced four-bedroom apartment in an area of Tokyo that you didn’t even like, you lost the apartment in the breakup. 

You couldn’t slum dog millionaire your life away on Shoko and Utahime’s couch forever eating tubs of ice cream and binging TV after that, so everyone told you, or rather forced you, to move in with Suguru and Satoru. Bouncing around from couple to couple. It did give you some stability and just as things go up so must they come down. 

The company you were working for was liquidated after an investigation by the federal government found years of tax fraud. Luckily they got bought out, and you thought maybe if you put in work you could still climb the ladder. But all those late nights in the office, conbini dinners, and unpaid overtime, you were just another name on a severance list.

It felt like waves were crashing over you, each one larger than the rest. Almost like you were tied to a dock during a hurricane, a tsunami, or some fucking natural disaster that threatened to drown you if you didn’t hold onto something but there wasn’t much to hold on to. You could hold onto the minuscule amount of friendships that you had at least. It was far too awkward and messy to keep up with anyone else other than your main four since the rest were so tied to your ex-fiance and his life. Stupid fucking lawyer. 

The four of you were close-ish. Less close since Shoko had gone on rotation at a university on the other side of Tokyo. It meant she and Utahime had moved nearer to it since Utahime was willing to commute. But Suguru and Satoru were still close with you and still dating.  Biting as that felt at times. 

You met Geto first in a shared philosophy lecture. One of those run-of-the-mill ones, but the content that really got the two of you talking was nihilism. It was the seminar groups after class you shared where he really saw you. Stripped away of pretenses and your nerves laid bare. Not just another face in a lecture hall but something more, something human. The deep indents of nails in your palms and the rubbing of your hands together under the table. He had seen right through you, recognized the darker parts of himself in you- it made you feel understood.

The machine made a mechanical noise and the lights flickered. Sighing you kick the machine lightly to see if anything happens, if life could give you this one thing today that you so desperately needed. Just like everything else, nothing goes your way and your stupid drink stays logged on the shelf. So like every reasonable person you kick the machine again. 

“Stupid fucking piece of shit machine,” you murmur a growing string of profanities under your breath as you repeatedly kick the machine

.

All you wanted was one of those ¥100 coffee drinks that were loaded with caffeine to keep going through your slog of a day was that so hard? Maybe it would be best if you just packed it up and called it quits. Move back home with your parents and be berated daily. Why aren’t you married? Why did you and Kosuke break up? When are they going to get some grandchildren? They aren’t getting any younger you know. Face the cutting shame of fucking up another opportunity, another chance. 

What was the point in trying anymore when you couldn’t even get a stupid drink that you don't honestly even want at this point out of a vending machine so you can go home and masturbate to audio porn before you cry yourself to fucking sleep? 

Suguru’s voice cut through the spiral of thoughts, your name on his lips. 

“What are you doing here? I thought you had an interview and you’d be home late?” 

Of course, he’d catch you like this. 

“Hey Sugs,” it came out as a groan as you kicked the machine again, a loud clang following as your drink hit the bottom of the dispenser. Bending down, you grab the can before turning and facing him. “I did.” 

“How’d it go?”

“Like shit.” Maybe you should work on your delivery. This flat effect is really making you should like a bitch. Are you a bitch? 

Geto’s eyes raked over you, infuriatingly calm and measured. He was always so carefully disheveled, the type of person to look effortlessly put together no matter the occasion. Stupid name-brand black sweater over a white button-down half tucked into chinos with a chain on the belt. His hair, shiny and perfect, was neatly tucked into his signature half-up-hald-down look to keep the strand out of his eyes, minus the one for style. Notably, he was wearing his glasses for once, sleek frames perks on a tall nose. Oh, he smelt nice too, his sandalwood and bergamot cologne hitting you as he stepped closer, extending his umbrella to cover the two of you. Fuck he was so handsome it wasn’t fair.

“I'm sorry to hear that,” Geto replied softly.

You shrugged, trying to brush it off. “ It is what it is.”

But the reality of it clung to you and drug you down, down, down into the depths of your psyche. That small, scared feeling you tried so hard to suppress started bubbling up again, twisting your insides into knots. It made you feel sick, so much like a lost little child in a world that had grown far too big and complex. Here it was, rearing its ugly head, in front of one of the top ten people you never wanted to see in such a shit state.

But that's all Gojo and Geto do at this point. They pick up the broken, crumbling pieces of yourself that slip between your fingers. You feel like a cracked vase leaking water all over the place no matter how desperately they try and patch up the ceramic. Each day the gap between you and them grows more apparent. They were both soaring and you were falling to the ground and rolling around in the mud. 

Geto had just done a four-page spread in Architects Digest, even though he was a pretentious motherfucker who hated the magazine. And Gojo… God, he’d just opened for Prada at Paris Fashion Week. They went viral on every social media platform a while back for how hot and gay they were. You’d been caught in the crossfire of your accounts being tagged and gained a social media boost, but that also meant a bunch of people DMing you telling you to take pictures of them. 

The most fucked up thing about it all was the gnawing feeling that chewing on your bones that you were being dragged around like an accessory to remind them how good they had it. A permanent third wheel they’ve been stuck with since university. Two talented lovers on the brink of permanent importance and their weird little friend who follows them along like a lost puppy. It wasn’t even true and that's why it hurt so much. You knew they believed in you, thought that you could be a successful artist, and supported you in it even, but the jealousy rotted inside you like a festering wound. You weren’t even jealous of their success, only just partial, but it was like you weren’t good enough to be around them. 

Maybe you were better off as wall decor in the life they were building together. Something quiet and serene that didn’t demand anything from them. Better that than the bitter, jealous mess you were every time you saw them succeed.

He starts, the same spiel he goes to when you get like this. “You can always-”

“No.” your voice comes out sharper than you intended, but you don’t care. 

“I don’t know why you act like it’s such a bad off,” Suguru presses, his calm demeanor only pissing you off more.  

“I don’t want to work for you.” 

“Why not.” 

You snap. “Because I don’t want to, Suguru! Is that so hard to understand?”

Fuck, you wanted to storm off, go back to the house, and slam the door behind you as you went. But it didn’t matter if you stormed off, you lived in one of his guest bedrooms. Both of you were just headed to the same place. Sad little rescue that you were.

Suguru assessed, his eyes softened, breaking you down. He picked out every one of your insecurities as he stared at you. Microscopic inspection, each of your cells was being assessed for your state of being. Have you eaten? Was it enough? Had you slept? Are you even capable of taking care of yourself in this state? 

The weight of his gaze made your chest tighten, and before you could control it, try and reel it back in, tears welled up in your eyes. Blinking them back, you swallowed hard, the lump in your throat bobbing as you did. You hated this. Hated the way his care, his pity, felt like a knife twisting in the last remaining shred of pride you clung to. 

Pity was the killy of pride and you should accept that your pride was already decomposing in the septic tank in the backyard. 

Fuck up, fuck up, fuck up. All you ever were, all you’d ever be. Every loose thread of your shirt feels like it's cutting against your skin. The hem of your trousers drowns your feet like you're wearing your parents' clothes. Shabby. Uncouth. Inept. 

Wordlessly, you turned on your heel and fled, rushing out of the side street as the tears spilled past your lash line. You couldn’t do this anymore--no more questions, no more pity. No matter how hard you tried, how hard you struggled, clawed your way through the fucking dirt, you could never be like them. Never be good like theme, never right like them, never fit like them. They had these perfect little lives that they could boast to everyone about. When they spoke, people listened. People cared what they had to say. The world parted for them, it was the Red Sea and they were Moses, making space. There’d always be room for them to shine. 

But you were screaming into a void, your throat raw, bloody, and you were aching from the endless effort to be seen, to be heard. You wanted to be looked at like your own person, your own successes. Hard to be noticed for something that rarely happened. No matter how loud you screamed, how much you begged, your voice was just lost in the noise. 

You knew Suguru would follow. He always did. Even if you didn’t live in the same house, he’d have followed you. His voice was muffled by the pressure in your ears but you could hear him trying to talk to you. He let you get all the way home and inside the gate of the house before he grabbed your wrist and yanked you backward. 

Trying to pull away, your shoulder wrenched painfully as you trashed in his grip. 

“Calm down,” Suguru spoke firmly, pulling you into his chest. His sweater was soft, and your face smushed against the fabric as sobs wrecked your body, trembling like the earth in an earthquake.

It was hard to speak through the tears, so all you could do was try and slip out of his hold as you sobbed. You didn’t want this comfort. You wanted to run from your failure. From how suffocating life felt and that no matter what you'd never be enough. Worse than that, the sweet sickly feeling that trickled down your throat that when he held your life this, it made the world feel just a little bit more bearable. As if somewhere you could survive another day if he kept touching you. It wasn’t yours to feel and he wasn’t yours to hold. 

Suguru lets you wiggle around. You hit his torso a few times, your strength fading as you cry. When your sobs turned to hiccups and gasps for breaths, he gently cupped your face, thumbs brushing away the tears that still spilled from your eyes. 

“Talk to me,” he said softly, barely above a whisper. The songs of a city nearly eclipsing it. 

What could you say? How could you explain this feeling? This horrible guilt, pain, and jealousy ate away at you every single day. The tears came harder now, speeding up as if to help drown you in your misery and take you out of it for good. Hiccuping you drew breath, sharp and quick, hoping to speak but nothing comes out. Words claw at your throat, digging it with sharpened points. It hurts the way they hang onto you.

“Is it all too much again?” His voice is so soft, warm like fleece pajamas fresh out of the dryer as he holds you so delicately.

This wasn’t the first time that one of the three of you had been so consumed by dread, suffocated by the weight of life itself. Suguru knew it all too well himself, from high school to know he held it tightly in his hands. It never went away from him, he just learned to live with it, let it fade into the background, and let a constant hum of despair serve as the baseline for the day-to-day. 

His thumbs brush over the apex of your cheekbones again and the tenderness shatters you, another wave of sobs tearing through you. They pull you under, out into the open ocean, and through their rip current.

“I just..” you start, it scratches your throat, thick with phlegm. “ I can’t do this anymore.” 

His voice remained steady. “Do what?” 

“Any of it. I can’t do it.” 

“You’re capable of it. You can do it.” 

Jarring, rough, whipping across your skin as the rubber band pulls too tight and snaps. You lash out, and it stings where it hits. The anger cuts through your skin like your fingernails leave crescent moons in your palms. 

“No, I fucking can’t!” It's ripped out of you as you stalk away like a wounded animal. “I can’t okay. I can’t do shit. I can’t keep a relationship without being cheated on. I can’t manage to get my own place. I can’t get a fucking job. I can’t sit here and pretend like I’m not fucking wasting away in my own misery watching you and Gojo and Shoko all succeed and be the only one of us still shooting for the stars and coming crashing down to earth every single fucking time. You and Gojo with your perfect little lives look at me like a charity case to be fixed.”

“We have never looked at you like a charity case.” His tone was firm.

“Really? Then what the fuck do you look at me like, huh?” You press the question circling back around. “Is it pity? Did the two of you see some poor stray that you wanted to take in and keep like a pet when we met at university? Is that it?” 

His eyes were hard, unreadable.

“It is that. You pity me.”

“Jesus, no! We don’t pity you- I don’t pity you! Is it so hard to believe that I care about you?”

“Yes, it is! There’s no reason for you to care,” 

“What the hell wouldn’t I care?” Suguru’s voice raised to a shout, frustration cracking his facade. 

“Because I’m just like everyone you hate!” Your chest heaves as you let out a flood of emotions. “ No ambitions, contributing nothing to society, just leeching off others.” 

“You’re not like them.” 

“I am. On paper, I’m exactly like them. The only reason that you’d keep me around is because it makes you feel good to watch me suffer or you pity me.”

“How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t pity you?” His voice cracked with emotion, but you didn’t stop.

“Then tell me why you care!” It comes out so desperately. You're begging him for understanding, to know why he stays. To know why he lets you in.

For once he looked uncertain. His mask slipped, revealing the cracks in his facade. It’s been so long since you’ve seen underneath it you’d almost forgotten how he looked when he wasn’t pretending to be happy. 

“Or is it that you don’t care?” 

Something flashed in his eyes, flickerings of things you only saw when he looked at Gojo. He opens his mouth to speak and then closes it. There's a fear in his eyes, like if he acts in this moment something may crack and crumble like the foundation of a house that leaves him crumpled in a pile of wood. He doesn’t, or won’t, give you an answer. 

So you turn on your heel, the conversation over in your mind, and head to the front door. You’ll go up and pack a bag before heading across town and crashing on Shoko and Utahime’s couch before calling your parents and groveling to them. 

But as you reach the door, Suguru reaches you. His arm wraps around your waist and he spins you around and pushes your back against it. He’s got you pinned. 

“It’s because I love you.” It’s the faintest breeze that passes from his lips, like a car driving past on a hot day, sweat making your shirt stick to you. “I care because I love you.”

Everything is frozen in a still frame. Neither one of you moves, neither one of you breathes. A still moment that holds you tight, threatens to squeeze you so tightly your heart bursts. 

“What do you mean by that?” You swallow as you speak, like pebbles in your throat. 

Suguru blinks back tears, looking up and then back at you. “That I love you. Fuck! I’m in love with you.” 

Disbelief makes your voice shake. “No, you’re not not. You’re with Satoru.” 

“And? I can’t love both of you?” 

“No, you can’t,” Hypocrisy tastes acrid on your tongue. You know damn well you could never pick between the two of them, that this blighted jealousy you feel towards them is more the fact they have the other rather than their success. It’s something you don’t admit but it’s there. “Besides, you’re lying to me.”

“No.” His response was firm and immediate. The whole time you’d known them, their worlds had revolved around each other. They’d been the only thing for each other for so long. It was an unspoken truth that they were made for each other in a way that could only be sewn by the fabric of the universe itself. Something so profoundly and divinely created it had been written in the fabric of life at the moment of the Big Bang. 

“I’ve seen you watching.” Suguru’s tone is low, cutting, it vibrates through you as he has you pinned. 

A sick, icy dread wraps around your spine. It starts in your toes and crawls up your body. Your muscles lock in place as it climbs up until it's all the way in your head. Paralyzing fear grips you.

“I don't…” The lie is transparent before it comes to fruition. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” It’s brittle, cracking on your teeth as it passes through them.

“Don’t play innocent.” Suguru’s voice was sharp, cutting through the air like a blade. The tension between you tightens and winds up to pitch, but there's a current that punctuates it. One that feels heady and warm. One that excites you in the same way it embarrasses you. “I’ve seen you watching. I’ve seen you for years. The first time, maybe it was a mistake. But last week? Three weeks before that?”

Your mouth went dry, choking on the excuse that tried to bubble up. Like finely ground chalk powder coasted every surface of it. “I—”

He cuts you off before you can even try to defend yourself. “I know you get off on it too. Leave your curtains open while you touch yourself. Saying his name, my name.”

Horror twists inside you like a knife, your heart dropping to the pit of your stomach. You’d always been so careful, never acting when you thought they were home. Never want to risk exactly this happening. Your face burned like you drank half a liter of vodka in a go. Maybe you’d wake up and realize this was a nightmare. The humiliation was unbearable. 

“Imagine my surprise,” Suguru continues in a low chuckle, left hand slotting perfectly against your waist, “when I came home early one day and saw that.” 

The tears that had stopped in your flash of anger spill hot and fast down your cheeks. The raw, hot shame and embarrassment muddle you. It makes you want a sinkhole to open up beneath you and swallow you whole. You can’t meet his gaze, your vision blurry. 

“I’m sorry. I’ll move out.” you stammer out, the words falling in a chopping spiccato, desperate to create space between the two of you. You’d never be able to face him again. 

“Who said anything about moving out?” Suguru comes, pulling you closer to him till you're flush against his chest. He bends down, breath tickling your ear. You feel the sharp pressure of his teeth grazing the shell of it, a jolt going through your body. “You don’t get to leave now.” Pulling back, he meets your eyes in a half-lidded gaze. 

Both of you are playing the game again. Looking for something unspoken, some cryptic clue you need to decipher. He was searching for discomfort, disgust, anything to make him draw back and stop. You searched for understanding, dissecting how it got to this point. Every moment, every glance, every touch from him that you had ever overlooked. 

He always held a soft glint in his eyes when he looked at you. Something subtle, normally reserved for Satoru. It warmed the edge of his voice when he spoke and crinkled the corners of his eyes when he smiled. There was that softness for Shoko, but it was different. The one he had for you was a more reserved, pulled-back, and dialled-down version of what gripped him when he looked at Satoru. He had always viewed you this way.

The times you sat sandwiched between him and Gojo, your legs brushing against him, his arm slung around your shoulders to reach Satoru. Pulling you against him on the train, in clubs, at parties, the bump of your hips against his own. Compliments when you wore flattering, his pushing Satoru to dress you up. He liked it best when you were in shorter dresses and skirts with tights. 

Suguru had always wanted you, but you had failed to notice. 

Instinct took over before reason could temper it. You pushed off the door, your hands flying to the loose part of his hair at the nape of his neck. The strands feelt just as silky an shiny as they look between your fingers. Without hesitation, the space between you two diminishes. You aren’t sure who closes the distance first, but your lips lock hungry. Teeth knocking against each other as you both desperately cling to the other. It's rough and aggressive, both of you starved animals feasting on flesh. The taste of copper spreading in your mouth as he bit down on your lip making you whine. His breathing becomes your own, heady mix of desire and dark, primal urge..

His tongue pushes against yours, taking advantage of your now open mouth, wet and warm brushing against the back of your teeth, laying claim to your mouth. Geto was dominating in all aspects of his life so it was unsurprising that he set the pace and led you to where he wanted to be. He moved your legs up, patting your ass to jump, to then wrap around his waist as he pressed you against the door. You grind your hips against his growing erection as he holds you there, and you can feel the heat of him even through his pants.

Suguru pulls away panting. His eyes are half closed, lips blushed a beautiful red and damp with saliva. He moves in again, this time to your neck, where he bites down hard. You squirm as he sucks a dark and angry mark, his mark, on your skin. The bite of his teeth against your skin feels right. It eats away at the jealous monster inside you every second he’s latched onto you.

Fed up with the door, Suguru opens it and carries you through the threshold. He moves the two of you through the genkan, toeing off his shoes while you kick your own off, and into the living room where he drops you on the couch. There’s an air about him, so intense it’s nearly oppressive, as his fingers inch up underneath your sweater, sliding it off of you. It’s a predator circling their prey, the success of a hunt now that he’s got you on your back against the soft fabric of the couch. He’d been waiting for this far longer than you thought and it spurs you on.

Suguru moves in tandem with you, tugging off his sweater and button-up shirt, exposing his happy trail. The dark dusting of hair makes your mouth water. Once his shirt is off, his hands cover your chest through your bra, palming your tits like stress balls. It's unpadded and lacey, and it lets him feel as if your nipples get hard. He pushes the cups down, leaving them to rest under your breasts, and pushes them up slightly, accentuated by your being on your back.

His fingertips close around your nipples as he pinches and pulls at them. You knew how much of a sadist he could be. One night you watched him edge Satoru for an hour straight. Seen how hot he looked with Gojo in his mouth as he writhed around. A sweet moan escaped you as he played with your nipples and rolled his hips against yours. It makes your head feel fuzzy, thoughts focusing purely on him. His weight presses down on you, so heavy and right it makes you ache.

You lunge forward, propping yourself up on your elbows to kiss him again. It’s just as messy and hungry as before, years of built-up desire between the two of you saturating your every pore. It settles in your bones that pulses in time with your heart. 

Suguru doesn’t separate from you, but he slides your trousers and underwear off in one go as you kick your socks off. He tugs his own off hastily, boxer briefs following in turn. His public hair is trimmed, a close crop like you’ve seen it before. Like every other aspect of him, it’s neatly maintained, put into its place, and kept there. 

His fingers dig into the flesh of your hips as he pulls your hips up by his head. Your back is half off the sofa as he places your legs over his shoulders and parts your core with his fingers. He blows cold air onto your clit that makes you squirm before he licks your clit. Moaning, you try to grind yourself against his face but his hands tighten on your hips, holding them firm. You’d get what he wanted to give you. Fight against it and get nothing, or accept it. 

He was slow to start. His tongue lazily explores you, getting familiar with your taste. It pushed against your clit, wide and flat, before swirling his tongue around it. The ball of his tongue piercing rubbed against the most sensitive part of you. Your hips jerk forward and he looks up, a warning in his eyes, but he doesn’t stop. Suguru curls his tongue again, this time moving it side to side, letting his piercing catch on your clit purposefully.  Every action he takes is measured as he picks up speed while latching his lips around it to add delicious suction. Two of his fingers slide inside you, reaching far deeper than your own ever could. He pumps them in and out of you, driving you closer to the edge.

You felt your pussy drooling, liquid gushing out and covering his chin. The muscles in your abdomen tightened with each passing second until you swore they'd cramp. It was all too much as you came, jerking and contracting in on yourself. Black spots dot your vision as your world shakes on this axis. 

Sugru watched as you came, pulling back from your pussy to stare at your face. His eyes never left yours as he rubbed soothing circles into your skin with his thumbs. He could cover nearly all of you with how big his hands were, warm and calloused. Minus a cold spot on his left hand. 

His engagement ring. 

The silver felt like it burned your skin as he smiled at you and planted a kiss on your inner thigh. It glimmers in the low light, bouncing light off like a homing beacon. Bubbling sickness, bile rising in your throat, disgust palming at your skin. What had you just done? You’ve just violated a boundary so gigantic with Suguru. Let your own selfish need for intimacy lead you to this. He was engaged to your best friend. They were getting married next year.

You rushed to grab your clothes, panic surging through you. The world spins around you. 

“What’s wrong?” 

“We shouldn’t have done that,” you buttoned up your trousers, throwing your sweater on. Your hair is a mess and your skin feels clammy and flushed. The need to vomit is overwhelming. “This was a mistake.”

Suguru’s rising from the couch, trying to grab you, stopping you from moving but you dodge his hand. “A mistake?” 

Your left hand meets your mouth as you bite the nail of your thumb. It clicks against your front teeth. 

“Satoru won’t mind-” 

“A mistake Suguru,” You shake your head, bending down and grabbing the rest of your stuff. “Please. Just forget this.” Without waiting for his reply, you run up the stairs and slam the door behind you. 

You really are a bitch.

©️ uzuzrimisery

[twstfanblog]

*~Period Drama~* Thursday

A/N: Guess this one won XD Very excited, the end is near for this series and then I can start to hyper-focus on ANOTHER SERIES. Please tell me if you want to be tagged for any of my series! Pairings: Malleus/Jamil/Azul/Yuu poly WordCount: 7.1K Warnings: Allusions to assault briefly, She/They OC Pronouns

@twistedcece @deltrea @krenenbaker @koebishrimpuwu @cat100200 @emyluwinter @obsessionswithfandoms @ady-hilborn @lucid-stories @girl-nahh-two @itz-hydrodeptus-foxy7 @chyluna @riddlesimps @death-the-jo @a-twistedheartslonging @qixlin @chaosistheonlyway @welcome-to-my-horde @abell2029cluster @kirans-wonderland @coffee-or-hot-cocoa @the-ace-reader @iamsoconfusedallofthetime @chroniccorvus @marvelous-maxi @prolonged-eyecontact @lozplayer @jabberwocky-warrior @thateldribitch @bun-lapin @mel1rose @ladyraeka @ladyzsgolla @kimdourden @noncreativepage-blog @girl-nahh-two @shironakuronatasa @colombia-chan @roseapov @anunholyabomination @koebi-channnn

Start, Part 2 (Octavinelle), Part 3 (Heartslabyul), Part 4 (Savanaclaw), Part 4.5 (Diasomnia pt1), Part 5 (Diasomnia pt2), Part 6 (Pomfiore), Part 7 (Here)

The Pomefiore trio didn't stay the night. Vil commented that they had already skipped their afternoon classes and he wouldn't allow them all to get more off routine by spending the night. Thankfully, Vil helped Yuu properly twist and wrap their hair with Rook producing a silk scarf from seemingly nowhere before they left.

Hours later, Crewel arrived with even more period panties in his possession along with their dinner. He asked multiple questions; if the seams were too tight, if the fabric felt uncomfortable, if anything had leaked. Delighted that all seemed proper, Crewel launched into how he had never thought of the need for such a product. But he admitted that such areas on the body had fluid leaking from them at some point. It'd only make sense that if it was made they'd at least look fashionable.

Crewel stated that he would speak to his aunt, the current design head of his family's fashion house, about the underwear and if she saw a market for it.

“If so, I will make sure you get a cut. Since you were the one to insight such a need…”

He left them a small pamphlet with info on taking care of their new underwear before leaving for the night, hugging them tightly and patting them on the head.

Another hour later, Malleus and Lilia had returned to the house. Malleus was pouting heavily and crawled into the nest to hold them with no word. Lilia sighed, explaining that Malleus spent the entire school day keeping Jamil and Azul trapped in the Mostro Lounge back office. The prince tried his best but Lilia and Jamil remained firm on not allowing Malleus to change their prior agreement. Azul proved to be the weakest link in half-siding with Malleus. While he didn't fully agree with Malleus impregnating Yuu as soon as possible, he did state that something had to be done about their periods in the long term.

‘They were on campus for no more than four hours; the smell of blood still lingers in places…’

Yuu laughed, turning in Malleus’s hold to hug him back, “Do you still smell blood now?”

“...” Malleus’s eyes widen, “Now that you ask, no. Has your ailment ceased?”

“Nope. Still bleeding, but…” Yuu lifted their night dress, showing the brightly patterned underwear before lowering their gown, “Crewel got me cute new underwear to contain my biohazard.”

Lilia sighed, sitting beside the couple in the nest, “Well, that's good at least. Though didn't you say your normal cycle only lasts four days? Shouldn't it have eased by now?”

“I mean…it should. But it also wasn't normal for me to not get it for nearly half a year. Best I can do right now is play it by ear”

Malleus pouts, eyes glaring at the wall as though it could fix anything and simply refuses to help, “I dislike this, I dislike this greatly.”

“Aw…” Yuu tilted their head back, pressing a kiss to Malleus’s jawline before snuggling back into his embrace, “I hate it too. Wanna watch a movie with me?”

“...It would be an upsetting one, wouldn’t it?”

“Most of my favorite movies upset you guys. But, no, it shouldn't.” Yuu clicked at their laptop playing up their Netflix, “It's called ‘Damsel’. It's got a dragon in it-”

“Does the dragon die?” Lilia quickly asked, eyeing the screen in distrust. Yuu had claimed many times they would love a movie, only to then show them deeply distressing media.

“No, the dragon lives and even gets his just revenge-”

Malleus looks at the screen with a suspicious eye, “Does a woman die within the first few moments of this film?” Malleus had watched many movies with Yuu, and every time they insisted he would love a movie a woman would be dead within the first few minutes of the film.

Yuu playfully slapped their hand over Malleus’s mouth, pressing play on the video, “It's for the plot, now shush, and watch the damn movie.”

Malleus was dragged out of the nest by Lilia early in the morning, forced to gaze at Yuu’s equally upset self before being marched back to Diasomnia. Seems part of Malleus’s punishment for kidnapping and detaining Azul and Jamil was that he wasn't allowed more than eight hours of supervised ‘Yuu Time’. So once those hours were up Lilia was manhandling a nearly seven-foot pouting dragon out of a sleeping Yuu's embrace and out of Ramshackle.

Yuu sighed, starfishing in the nest with a severe pout. Most of their period symptoms had eased, though they were still bleeding and bloated. The number of techniques Vil and Rook had given them helped what little of their cramps were left without the need for pain medication. So now all they were left with was an intense sense of boredom.

After the sun had started to peak through the windows, Yuu decided they might as well get started on their extensive chores list. One could only put off washing dishes for so long…But, now, staring into the sink filled with dishes, Yuu wondered if they could…pretend they didn't see them. Each side had dishes neglected and stacked neatly against the porcelain. Plates, pots, and pans from the past week untouched and unsoaked. Looking around the room only made their body cry out more to go back to the nest and sleep. Floyd cooking was already a coin toss on how much of a mess he left behind and they lost. But it didn't help at all that Lilia had been in the kitchen only a few days ago as well. Scraps of food burnt and crumbled on the floor that was long overdue to be swept.

More than likely the only reason the dishes were in the sink was because Vil had put them there as a form of passive-aggressively telling them to wash them.

While they were wondering if they could put their cutting board over the sink to block out the image, knocks rang out downstairs, pelted in a constant rhythmic beat. Yuu walked from the kitchen, smiling as they saw a flash of white, burgundy, and gold from the window beside the front door. They wait, opening the door on an offbeat to Kalim’s surprised expression making the Scarabia second-year whine.

“Yuu! I had a really good beat going…”

“Hello to you too, Kalim. What do I owe this visit?”

Kalim smiled, resting his hands on his hips when he remembered why he was there, “Well, me and Jamil-”

“Jamil's here?”

Kalim laughed, not at all offended when Yuu lightly shoved him out of the doorway to look down the path. Sure enough, the vice warden was walking up the stone steps, looking through a large duffle bag slung over his shoulder and wheeling a rolling cart filled with cleaning supplies behind him with the other.

Smiling, Yuu quickly unwrapped her hair to allow the curls to seductively frame her face and wave, “Hi, Jamil~! Let me help you bring that stuff in-”

Yuu had barely placed their foot outside of the house's threshold when Jamil snapped his eyes toward them. Glaring hard enough that a flicker of red seemed to spawn in his pupils before he yelled, “Get back in the fucking house!”

“Okay. Damn.”

Yuu and Kalim both scurried into the house, each wearing a mildly fearful expression but waiting patiently for Jamil to walk inside like chastised children.

Once through the doorway Jamil closed and locked the door, situating his cart against the entryway wall. He pulled Yuu closer by the hip, his other hand resting gently on the back of their neck as he pressed his lips against theirs. The kiss lasted only a few seconds before he pulled away, giving their lips a final peck at the corner before wrapping both arms around them in an embrace. Yuu hummed, returning the affectionate hold before allowing Jamil to pull away.

Yuu smiled, tilting their head in question, “What's got you all worked up? That was a ‘Put that shit back’ kinda yell…”

“The last time you left this house, you bled all over the campus and Leona-san nearly died.”

“I didn't bleed anywhere and what the fuck does my bleeding pussy have to do with Leona dying!? He was fine the last I saw him!”

Jamil huffed, pressing one last kiss to Yuu's temple before collecting his cleaning cart, “I’m sure Leona-san would blame you for the fact he had to fight Malleus to keep him from storming Ramshackle.”

Yuu's face pinched, a hybrid expression of annoyance and confusion on their face. Turning to Kalim they gestured as though he'd have the answer they were seeking, “When was this!?”

Kalim laughed, shrugging his shoulders, “Well, there was that massive storm on Monday. A tree got tossed into the library.”

Yuu frowned, folding their arms and rolling their eyes, “I'm not taking responsibility for that. All I did was bleed and bitch. I didn't attempt murder even once Monday!”

“Uh-huh, sure hayati. Go sit with Kalim for a few hours while I go clean up.”

Jamil knew his datemate; habitually, emotionally, and physically. Every mannerism filed away in his head, be it for his own sake of mind or just because he found their quirks cute. Jamil knew in their current state of constant pain, Yuu was not doing upkeep at their normal pace. And while a part of him groaned in annoyance — one of the few days off from school he allowed himself and he's going to spend it cleaning his datmate's dumpster fire of a house — he knew that Yuu's health and mood would only improve once chores were done.

Yuu frowns even harder, moving to grab Jamil's cart and pull the sophomore back, “Wha-no! Jamil, you don't need to do my chores for me. I just gotta...suck it up and do them…and I will…at some point. But-!”

“No, buts, hayati.” Jamil yanks the cart from Yuu, cupping their cheek and caressing it with a soft smile. He looked into their eyes, snake charmer not even needed as he cooed, “Let me take care of you, okay, baby?”

Yuu instantly yielded, giggling and twirling a strand of their curly hair, “Ehehehehehe, okay Jamil~...”

Seeing his datemate properly subdued, Jamil quickly dropped his flirty tone and moved to the kitchen, “Good. Kalim, look after them for me.”

“You can count on me, Jamil!” Kalim was already guiding a still giggling Yuu toward the lounge at the back of the house with a gentle push to their shoulders.

Kalim had adored the nest instantly, flopping into the cushions like it was his own bed. He wanted to add to it, making it even bigger with some fine patterned blankets back in Scarabia. Maybe a few more pillows-

Yuu, finally free from the effects of Jamil's easy-going smile and hooded eyes, had laughed and quickly stopped the housewarden from touching the nest in an effort to change it. Stating that Malleus had built it just for them and they really liked how it looked as is. While he pouted, he yielded to Yuu’s desires, only after she had promised to make a pillow fort in Scarabia once they were all better. 

While cozy in the nest, Kalim had produced a sleeve of artisan crackers that he offered to feed them. Yuu agreed, though confused on why Kalim wanted to feed them. But quickly understood as the second-year smiled and held a cracker up, “Pspspspspspsps-”

“KALIM-”

Now lounging cozy in the nest, the sleeve of crackers slowly disappearing between them. Chatting contently with the idea of talking until Jamil called them for lunch. Chats that became on and off in topic as Kalim had locked eyes with a faded smear of blood on one of the towels under his leg. He would answer Yuu's questions after a second of staring at the smudged, rusty stain in total focus. Before long, he couldn't take the vision of it, his own mind working against him. Images of blood splatters on finely threaded sheets, children wailing in terror as innocent mothers and siblings lay in the deep red puddles during what should have been joyous celebrations. Even the more horrifying scenarios of the Viper family quickly disposing of stained bedding, older sisters and younger moms being consoled as they cried in the early mornings. Suddenly Kalim reached forward, grasping onto Yuu's hand and holding it tightly to his chest.

Kalim smiled, an edge of something uncharacteristically serious clinging to the corners, “Yuu, can I be honest?”

“Um…Yeah? Go for it, Kalim.”

“I've got a lot of moms. Lots of siblings too, so there are a lot of people in my house all the time. And…” Kalim’s grip on their hand tightens, his smile falling a bit as his eyes cast downward, “A lot of…a lot of bad stuff happens at my house sometimes. Stuff that shouldn't ever happen…so…you can tell me, ya know? I can take it.”

“...Tell you what?”

Kalim looks back up, crimson eyes cold and more determined than Yuu had ever seen them, “Yuu, if someone hurt you, you can tell me. No matter who you say did it, I'll believe you and take care of it.” Kalim placed one hand against their shoulder, the other squeezing their joint palms to his heart, “You're like a sister to me. You make Jamil happy and that's the most wonderful thing I could ever ask of a friend of mine. If someone did something to you and you lied for whatever reason, you can tell me the truth now and I'll believe you no matter what.” 

…

Yuu couldn't stop the snort they made, head tilting down as they strained against a laugh. Nothing Kalim said was funny, it was purely a moment of stunned reaction rather than comedy. Last Saturday seemed so long ago, the cloud of confusion and panic as their friends all came to the conclusion they had been assaulted, the horror they all felt and the pure devastation a few of them displayed. Each of them clearly ready and willing to maim whoever they pointed a finger at. It was…strangely heartwarming.

Covering their mouth, they moved their hand from Kalim’s hold to tug him closer into a hug, “No one hurt me, I swear. But, thank you for being so willing to believe me no matter what. It makes me feel…safe.”

Kalim hugs back just as tight, taking a deep breath before letting out a shuddering sigh. Smiling, he nuzzled into Yuu's shoulder before pulling away, “That's a relief…but…” his expression turns concerned, eyes drifting downward, “Are you…just leaking blood from down there?”

“Yep…”

“...” Kalim leaned away, his arms getting pressed between his legs and sympathy pains slowly crept into his gut as he grimaced, “I can't catch it right?”

Yuu falls over in the nest, cackling loudly while Kalim kept looking worried, “Kalim. I swear to you, your pussy isn't going to spontaneously start peeling and juicing it. And if it does, that's a concern. Get that checked out, babes.”

“Well, you should get checked out too then! Let me bring one of my doctors to the school, they won't say a word about how weird your body is and we can make sure you're healthy!”

“The fuck-How weird my body is? Fuck you.” Yuu snicked, rolling on the nest to tilt their head back to smile up to Kalim, “No. I'm going to ignore every ailment my body develops until it's too late like the born American I am.”

“Yuu, that's concerning!”

Kalim wanted a snack, a snack he begged her to let him make himself. The heir had stated he was getting better in the kitchen compared to the first few cooking lessons Yuu and Jamil had given him. Kalim had proudly bragged that Jamil had even allowed him to use the stove unattended now.

(Yuu knew from Jamil’s past venting it was only to watch boiling water, but it was using the stove…)

The two walked into the kitchen, noticing the sweet scent of grapefruit in the halls. A guilty feeling settled in Yuu’s stomach after seeing how clean their kitchen was in the single hour they and Kalim had sat and chatted in the lounge. The dishes were all washed, the sink and cabinets wiped down of every sauce splatter Yuu had long neglected. The floor was swept to perfection and a part of Yuu hoped that the fresh fruit adjacent smell was only the simmer pot and not a freshly mopped floor. Looking into the single pot on the stove, Kalim and Yuu gave pleased hums as they took in the scent of sliced grapefruits, vanilla beans, and sprigs of fresh thyme. 

With the instructions of being careful should a fairy be sleeping in any of the pots or in the oven, Yuu let the Scarabia warden have free reign of their kitchen while they went searching for their boyfriend. 

The muted sound of their washer knocking against the wall led them toward the laundry room.

The Ramshackle laundry room was one of the few rooms that weren’t locked but simply hidden from view. The Tweels had been the ones to find it during Azul’s brief ownership of the building. A false wall that could unlatched and slid to the side to show a certified massive-sized matching washer and dryer set, a wall of cabinets and a wooden topped counter island. Jade had cleaned up the room a bit as an ‘apology’ for giving them such a hard time during the duration of their contract. Floyd had stated he wasn’t sorry but to call him if they ever used the laundry powder found in the room; apparently it had been discontinued years ago for safety reasons.

Dubious washing powder aside, the laundry room was weirdly whimsical. Over the years, a bush had managed to break a window to grow throughout the room making a living ivy wall all along one side of the space. The vines had grown strong enough over time to act as a crisscross of clothing lines. Walking into the room, Yuu watched Jamil stare in complete focus at a towel in his hand standing at the island. The duffle bag was opened on the counter, a few jars and bottles with handwritten labels pulled from it and one opened in Jamil’s free hand. He watched whatever the mixture was doing before moving the towel under the running water of the built-in sink.

Yuu knocked on the doorway, smiling when Jamil looked up from his task, “What ya doing?”

“Why are you here? Go entertain Kalim.”

“You are so mean to me. Just for that, I'm gonna bother you and love you and-”

Jamil sighed, holding up the towel in his hands, “Hayati, please. I'm trying to spot-check things you bled on.”

Yuu frowned, walking over and leaning against the counter to stare at Jamil's concentrated face, “You can do that and let me kiss you on the mouth…”

“Normally, I'd love to make out with you while waiting for laundry to run its cycle, but I need to focus. Blood is easy for me to get out of things at this point. But blood and whatever else is coming out of you changes how the detergents react.” The first few towels with corroded holes from too strong a solution mix backing up his claims…

Pouting, Yuu bumped their hip against Jamil's. They repeated the motion until the sophomore finally yielded and reached for their hand, holding it gently as a blush dusted onto his cheeks. Smiling, Yuu leaned their head against Jamil's shoulder muttering under their breath, “Thank you.”

“Just let me work in peace…”

Once their load of pre-period clothing was in the dryer, Jamil had remarked that their period blood was easier to remove than normal blood spills surprisingly enough. And that he would replace the few towels the protein dissolvant had eaten though. Then he demanded they bring him every last article they had bled on. The longer they remained untreated, the harder the stains would be to remove.

Jamil had already started to separate the towels by dark and lights, taking a moment to gently shove Yuu away from his side, “Go back to the lounge with Kalim; I’ve got this handled.”

“Oh, Kalim’s in the kitchen-”

“He’s what-”

“It’s fine! He just wanted a snack-”

“The stove is on-”

“Jamil.” Yuu had managed to keep the second-year from rushing out of the room, tugging him back by the arm and smiling at his panicked expression, “Kalim is a seventeen-year-old boy. He can be trusted to work a stove. Remember? How you're both trying to be less codependent? How Kalim can manage to make himself a snack without you having to drop everything to make it for him?”

“...” The pout Jamil turns away to hide was foul, almost a sneer if Yuu could have looked at it closer. He was quiet for a few more moments before sighing, “Fine…but if I smell smoke-.”

“He'll be fine.” Please don't let that fucking jinx anything…

Two sets of hands were better than one. A simple fact Yuu kept repeating until Jamil yielded again to their whims. Now they followed him around the house, helping to collect any stray articles that had their period blood on them. Jamil groaned lightly as he looked at the nest. He was aware every couch cushion was used to construct it, along with nearly every last clean pillow, towel, and bedding. But, he wouldn't be able to check if anything was dirty until the nest went away. A feat he wasn't going to perform himself since both Yuu and Malleus were fond of the structure.

So he picked the next best location of Yuu’s bedroom. A mistake on many parts, but he honestly expected no less…

He stared into the room, Yuu sheepishly standing beside him and refusing to look even vaguely in his direction. Jamil wasn't sure if the room was an absolute mess when the group had stormed the area on Saturday, but he could see it was the aforementioned dumpster fire he was expecting the rest of the house to be. Clothing was everywhere, a pair of patterned pj shorts on the ground with a darkened blood stain on the crotch, equally blood-spotted towels in a pile and bedding swirled around as though someone fought their way out. There were several empty bowls, snack wrappers, and juice bottles littering every surface, nearly twelve bottles were all on a single end table.

Jamil turned to Yuu, sighing deeply when they still refused to meet his eyes, “I'm not mad-”

“Yes, you are.”

“You're right, I'm furious. How do you let it get so bad?”

“In my defense…I haven’t been up here for a few days-”

“Yuu, I bought you that bottle of juice.” Jamil pointed to the bedside table, eyes locked on a half-empty bottle of a limited-edition flavor that both Kalim and Yuu had begged him to let them try, “That bottle has been here at least a week.”

“Look-”

“I am. That’s why I’m upset.”

“Let’s just clean this up and you can scold me later. Help me strip the bed.”

Jamil grumbled, looking at the floor and making a mental note to bring his cart upstairs to mop Yuu’s bedroom once she was distracted with Kalim again. While Yuu started to remove the numerous bottles from the side tables, Jamil grabbed the edge of a blanket and pulled it off the bed only to jump at the loud thud that followed. Both looked at the floor under the blanket Jamil had In his hands.

A jug. A half-full jug of bright blue liquid with a label consisting of cartoon-styled fruit and waves.

“...” Jamil grabbed Yuu before she could scurry away from him. Pointing at the juice container he tilted his head with a smile, “What is this? Because it surely can't be an entire gallon of juice. In your bed. Because that'd be insane, wouldn't it?”

“...I mean it's mostly empty-”

“Yuu.”

“It's not that bad! I get thirsty at night and sometimes I don't want to go all the way downstairs for a glass of water…”

Jamil jerkingly gestured to the ensuite bathroom, no more than four feet away from where they were both standing.

“Bathroom water is good, but kitchen sink water hits different, you know?”

“If I didn't love you…”

Jamil tried to keep quiet as they both stripped the bed. With every blanket and pillow removed, more and more items were revealed; half-eaten bags of chips, opened containers of cookies, more select bottles of juice and soda. The real kicker was the empty containers, each closed tightly to not let crumbs out onto the sheets.

Pulling out another package of cookies, Jamil cast a withering glare at Yuu, “Please tell me you aren’t teaching Kalim how to do this…”

Yuu laughed, waving off their boyfriend’s concern, “Oh, no. Bedrotting is way too advanced for him. He’d get crumbs everywhere just putting a plate on his bed.”

“At least we’re in agreement there…” He finally pulled the sheet off the bed, clicking his tongue at seeing his worst expectation. The number of towels and blankets still allowed the blood to reach the mattress, barely staining the cotton fabric top a dull red, but still visible, “Damn…How much do you bleed during this? You’ve been taking the iron supplements, right?”

“Yeah…” Yuu walked over, frowning at seeing they had stained their mattress, “I’ll be honest, I barely know what the normal amount to bleed is. It’s also lasting longer than normal though…”

“Hmm…” Jamil placed the folded sheet on the bed, moving to press his hands against Yuu’s face and neck as a means to check them over, “I’m only noticing it now, but you’re a little bloated. Is that part of it? Do you know how long it lasts? Bloating could be a sign of something else being wrong…”

Yuu smiles, placing their hands over Jamil’s and pulling them away, “Yes, the bloating is part of it. I’ll be fine once this hell week is over. I'm used to this only lasting like four days. The whole week is just cruel and unusual…”

“Four days?”

“Jesus. You said that like when I told you I’ve eaten belladonna berries as a child. The fuck are periods like here?”

“A lot less bloody for one…And not as long. Menses generally isn’t normal unless it’s after birth, and even then it’s fairly rare if done in a comfortable medical setting.”

“Is the word actually menses? Because that’s hilarious. The medical name for a period is called menstruation.”

“...‘Menses’ is the term for vaginal bleeding and discharge. The process is commonly known as ‘The Refresh’. Thinking it over it’s decently similar; the food cravings, agitated moods, lethargy. However, The Refresh lasts, at most, two days. Any longer than that and it’s a medical concern. I’ve never heard of the process being painful either…” Growing up with a younger sister and a household that had a revolving door of pregnant women made him more knowledgeable than he realized. 

“...” Yuu bit her lip, smiling and nodding their head as a mask to the spike of fury that coursed through them, “I will find out how to cast endometriosis and destroy nations…”

“What the fuck is endometriosis?”

“Something that’ll take out half you fuckers, but whatever.” Yuu sighed, flopping down onto the bare bed and letting themselves metaphorically puddle into the slab.

Jamil sat beside them on the mattress, running his hand along their back and massaging in small intervals, “The pain can get that bad…? How do you feel now? You don’t have it right, endometriosis? Or is it a phase of this?”

“Stop asking me questions, you’re worse than Riddle…” Yuu moved their face from the cotton top of the mattress, looking from the corner of their eyes at Jamil, “I don’t think I have it…cramps are just really bad but not like…to the point of ‘I need hospital attention bad’, I think…Periods are just sucky and I hate it.”

“Are there other ways to help? You aren't taking any more pain potions, right? You've been taking…a lot in a small amount of time…”

Yuu hums, reaching a hand to play with the end of Jamil's braid, “I mean…orgasms help with pain relief? But, Vil taught me a bunch of other stuff yesterday to help with the cramps. Plus just a nice soak in warm water does wonders…Jamil?”

“...” Shrugging his shoulders, Jamil slipped off the bed, “Eh, it's just blood.”

Yuu threw a questioning glance over their shoulder, “Wha-Jamil!?” She shrieked, being flipped onto her back. Raising up on her elbows, she sees Jamil kneeling between her now-opened legs.

The second-year smirks, his hands already massaging the tops of her thighs, “I'm down here all the time anyway. Might as well give you some relief.”

She sputters, smiling and trying to flip back over and cross her legs, “Oh, my god. You didn't even ask-” another tug pulls her closer to him and moving her hips over the edge of the bed and letting him kiss against their pelvic, “JAMIL!”

“Kalim, are you still in the kitchen? What have you been-...” Yuu froze in the archway of the kitchen, looking at the now-dressed small square table pushed against the wall.

Perking up from the freezer door, Kalim smiled, “Oh, hi Yuu! I just finished making the brownie ice cream sandwiches, but everything else is ready for lunch. Where's Jamil?”

“Washing his face. Kalim, did you order this food?” They pointed at the table, bewildered at the spread.

Sitting at the center of the table was one of their glass serving pitchers filled with juice, a platter of chicken tenders, and two smaller serving bowls of what looked to be mixed vegetables and mashed potatoes. There were placemats and proper dishware all set for three people. Yuu even noticed beside the pitcher was a napkin sloppily folded to look like a candle.

He frowns, folding his arms, “No? I made it! Since Jamil was so busy cleaning, I thought I would help out by making us lunch.” He smiled, closing his eyes with an expression that spoke of how proud he was of himself, “I made us girl dinner for lunch all on my own!”

Yuu opened their mouth, poised to correct the housewarden only for Jamil to appear behind her.

Jamil was gently yet insistently pushing Yuu away from the doorway, “You know I don't like you being in the kitchen while I cook.”

“You don't like anyone being in the kitchen when you cook. But, Jamil, look! Kalim made things…”

Looking at the table in silence, Jamil surveyed the dishes before turning to Kalim with a look of disappointment, “You know you're not supposed to open doors to let people inside.”

“I? I didn't order this? I made it!”

Jamil pointed to the table, brows furrowed and looking far too much like a frustrated mother, “You expect me to believe you made chicken tenders, by hand?”

Kalim opened his mouth but quickly closed it, looking to the side sheepishly, “I…ok, I didn't do that.” he gestured to the large fridge he was still standing by, “But Yuu had a bag of chicken tenders in her freezer that I put in the air fryer. I got the vegetables from a can and heated them up. And, I put three tablespoons of butter and garlic salt to taste in the instant potatoes.”

Yuu flitted their hands like an excited mother, smiling before pressing against Jamil to make sure he was listening to Kalim, “Tell him about the brownies. You said something about brownies.”

“Oh! Yeah. You had a container of brownies on your snack cart that were going out of date. So I was extra careful and cut them to make sandwiches with some ice cream I found.”

Kalim smiled, hands on his hips as he took his stance in pride again, “I made girl dinner all myself.”

“You didn't even make girl dinner, you just made dinner. Kalim! You cooked! All on your own!” Yuu rushed over, arms wrapping around his waist and lifting him up to spin him in the hug, “You cooked! I'm so proud of you!”

Laughing loudly, hugging Yuu back and nuzzling his head against her’s. He looks over, still smiling wide only to freeze and have his smile drop at seeing his friend’s expression, “...Jamil?”

The second Scarabia student was silent, staring at the table filled with food with a blank expression. His eyes seemed to scan every last dish on the table trying to find anything wrong. Possibly a visible flaw in the food or something to point to poisoning or poor preparation.

“...” Setting Kalim back down Yuu pats Jamil's chest, rolling her eyes and trying to help him to the table to sit, “He's just having a baby mental breakdown. Once he snaps out of it, he'll be just as proud. Let's eat!”

Jamil snapped back the second he bit into one of the tenders. He grabbed the platter, taking it back to the air fryer and placed half of them inside, “You put all of these in at once didn't you?”

“Yes? I put a lot in to make sure we'd have plenty to share!”

“Kalim, these weren't cooked properly…”

“Ah…My bad.”

Besides the small threat of salmonella poisoning, the rest of the day went peacefully. Both Yuu and Kalim tagged along as Jamil found more places to clean. They had managed to annoy him enough before they had even started the second load of laundry, tossing clothing and having a faux fashion show instead of folding, like Jamil had asked of them. So they were banished back to the lounge.

Jamil appeared again hours later, sighing and saying that all of Yuu's laundry was washed, dried, folded, and placed in their appropriate areas. He then plopped face-first into the nest, only moving enough to wrap an arm around Yuu's waist and groan that they were too messy to live alone. Prompting Kalim to once again offer to permanently house them not only in Scarabia, but his family's estate. An idea that was instantly vetoed on different fronts by the couple.

As the trio were just thinking of what to make for actual dinner, the front door opened. Lilia and Malleus entered the lounge, each pleasantly surprised to see their respective favorite Scarabia boy in the nest with Yuu.

Lilia lifted up a large carry bag with the logo of the Mostro Lounge, a smile on his face, “Good thing Floyd was in such a good mood today, he gave us extra on our order.”

Malleus was already in the nest, sharing a kiss with Yuu before tucking hair behind Jamil's ear to kiss his cheek, “Would you like to stay for dinner?”

Jamil didn't look up, but the tips of his ears had slowly turned red the second Malleus’s fingertips grazed across his cheek. Of any of them, he had yet to get used to Malleus’s almost spontaneous bouts of affection. He turned his head more into Yuu's thigh, praying it could hide the rosy tint of his cheeks, “We didn't have dinner plans yet, so…I don't see why not…”

Even after dinner, neither Scarabia boy was allowed to leave. The thought never crossed Kalim’s mind and Jamil was trapped under Malleus’s arm, the horned fae being more affectionate as an apology for threatening him on Monday. Lying between his two warmer-blooded lovers, arms locked around their waists to hold them close in a cuddle. Kalim and Lilia were crowded close, the two vibing to the low music from Kalim’s phone and drifting off to sleep.

Yuu hummed, nuzzling into Malleus’s chest, “This is nice…we should invite Azul to cuddle with us.”

Jamil reaches a hand up, eyes still closed as he presses a finger to Yuu's lips in a silent motion to be quiet, “Let's not traumatize him any more than he has been…”

Malleus frowns at Jamil, pouting as Lilia snickers, “I already apologized for scaring you both during our talk yesterday and Monday.”

“Also, why is me asking him to come cuddle a cause for fear?”

Opening his eyes, sighing and lifting his head from Malleus’s chest to raise an eyebrow, “You've noticed how he's almost going out his way to avoid being around you?”

Yuu shrugged, pouting and pressing her cheek harder against Malleus, “I just thought he was busy…”

Malleus looked to the side, remembering how squeamish and withdrawn the Octavinelle student was when discussing Yuu's period, “He was very…frightened the last I saw him. Your period seems to be a factor of intimidation for him.”

“Female caecilians are aggressive during mating season, enough so that they could potentially kill the male trying to mate with them.” Jamil groaned, rolling his eyes remembering the day's long talk he was magically spawned into, “It was why he nearly agreed with Malleus to jump-start your pregnancy vow…”

“I still believe I'm justified in my stance. Azul would also have nothing to fear if Yuu was already pregnant.”

“Malleus, we’ve talked about this, my period can still happen if I’m pregnant-”

Jamil snapped to glare at Yuu, “I’m sorry, what-”

 Yuu smiled, a hand moving to pat Jamil’s face to ‘calm’ him, “Anyway, since we’re talking about stuff that no one wants to talk about, what’s this about you almost killing Leona?”

“...” Malleus blinked, quirking his lip as he looked off to the side, clearly showing his disinterest, “Kingscholar was…fine the last I saw him.”

“And when was that?”

“A few…days ago?”

Jamil’s hard stare shifted to Malleus, “Was that a question?”

“I don’t tend to think much, of Kingscholar.”

Yuu snickered, “Don’t you mean about?”

“I don’t see the difference.”

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Social Quitting

In “Social Quitting,” my latest Locus Magazine column, I advance a theory to explain the precipitous vibe shift in how many of us view the once-dominant social media platforms, Facebook and Twitter, and how it is that we have so quickly gone asking what we can do to get these services out of our lives to where we should go now that we’re all ready to leave them:

https://locusmag.com/2023/01/commentary-cory-doctorow-social-quitting/

The core of the argument revolves around surpluses — that is, the value that exists in the service. For a user, surpluses are things like “being able to converse with your friends” and “being able to plan activities with your friends.” For advertisers, surpluses are things like “being able to target ads based on the extraction and processing of private user data” and “being able to force users to look at ads before they can talk to one another.”

For the platforms, surpluses are things like, “Being able to force advertisers and business customers to monetize their offerings through the platform, blocking rivals like Onlyfans, Patreon, Netflix, Amazon, etc” and things like “Being able to charge more for ads” and “being able to clone your business customers’ products and then switch your users to the in-house version.”

Platforms control most of the surplus-allocating options. They can tune your feed so that it mostly consists of media and text from people you explicitly chose to follow, or so that it consists of ads, sponsored posts, or posts they think will “boost engagement” by sinking you into a dismal clickhole. They can made ads skippable or unskippable. They can block posts with links to rival sites to force their business customers to transact within their platform, so they can skim fat commissions every time money changes hands and so that they can glean market intelligence about which of their business customers’ products they should clone and displace.

But platforms can’t just allocate surpluses will-ye or nill-ye. No one would join a brand-new platform whose sales-pitch was, “No matter who you follow, we’ll show you other stuff; there will be lots of ads that you can’t skip; we will spy on you a lot.” Likewise, no one would sign up to advertise or sell services on a platform whose pitch was “Our ads are really expensive. Any business you transact has to go through us, and we’ll take all your profits in junk fees. This also lets us clone you and put you out of business.”

Instead, platforms have to carefully shift their surpluses around: first they have to lure in users, who will attract business customers, who will generate the fat cash surpluses that can be creamed off for the platforms’ investors. All of this has to be orchestrated to lock in each group, so that they won’t go elsewhere when the service is enshittified as it processes through its life-cycle.

This is where network effects and switching costs come into play. A service has “network effects” if it gets more valuable as users join it. You joined Twitter to talk to the people who were already using it, and then other people joined so they could talk to you.

“Switching costs” are what you have to give up when you leave a service: if a service is siloed — if it blocks interoperability with rivals — then quitting that service means giving up access to the people whom you left behind. This is the single most important difference between ActivityPub-based Fediverse services like Mastodon and the silos like Twitter and Facebook — you can quit a Fediverse server and set up somewhere else, and still maintain your follows and followers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/23/semipermeable-membranes/#free-as-in-puppies

In the absence of interoperability, network effects impose their own switching cost: the “collective action problem” of deciding when to leave and where to go. If you depend on the people you follow and who follow you — for emotional support, for your livelihood, for community — then the extreme difficulty of convincing everyone to leave at the same time and go somewhere else means that you can be enticed into staying on a service that you no longer enjoy. The platforms can shift the surpluses away from you, provided that doing so makes you less miserable than abandoning your friends or fans or customers would. This is the Fiddler On the Roof problem: everyone stays put in the shtetl even though the cossacks ride through on the reg and beat the shit out of them, because they can’t all agree on where to go if they leave:

https://doctorow.medium.com/how-to-leave-dying-social-media-platforms-9fc550fe5abf

So the first stage of the platform lifecycle is luring in users by allocating lots of surplus to them — making the service fun and great and satisfying to use. Few or no ads, little or no overt data-collection, feeds that emphasize the people you want to hear from, not the people willing to pay to reach you.

This continues until the service attains a critical mass: once it becomes impossible to, say, enroll your kid in a little-league baseball team without having a Facebook account, then Facebook can start shifting its surpluses to advertisers and other business-users of the platform, who will pay Facebook to interpose themselves in your use of the platform. You’ll hate it, but you won’t leave. Junior loves little-league.

Facebook can enshittify its user experience because the users are now locked in, holding each other hostage. If Facebook can use the courts and technological countermeasures to block interoperable services, it can increase its users’ switching costs, producing more opportunities for lucrative enshittification without the risk of losing the users that make Facebook valuable to advertisers. That’s why Facebook pioneered so many legal tactics for criminalizing interoperability:

https://www.eff.org/cases/facebook-v-power-ventures

This is the second phase of the toxic platform life-cycle: luring in business customers by shifting surpluses from users to advertisers, sellers, etc. This is the moment when the platforms offer cheap and easy monetization, low transaction fees, few barriers to off-platform monetization, etc. This is when, for example, a news organization can tease an article on its website with an off-platform link, luring users to click through and see the ads it controls.

Because Facebook has locked in its users through mutual hostage-taking, it can pollute their feeds with lots of these posts to news organizations’ sites, bumping down the messages from its users’ friends, and that means that Facebook can selectively tune how much traffic it gives to different kinds of business customers. If Facebook wants to lure in sports sites, it can cram those sites’ posts into millions of users’ feeds and send floods of traffic to sports outlets.

Outlets that don’t participate in Facebook lose out, and so they join Facebook, start shoveling their content into it, hiring SEO Kremlinologists to help them figure out how to please The Algorithm, in hopes of gaining a permanent, durable source of readers (and thus revenue) for their site.

But ironically, once a critical mass of sports sites are on Facebook, Facebook no longer needs to prioritize sports sites in its users’ feeds. Now that the sports sites all believe that a Facebook presence is a competitive necessity, they will hold each other hostage there, egging each other on to put more things on Facebook, even as the traffic dwindles.

Once sports sites have taken each other hostage, Facebook can claw back the surplus it allocated to them and use it to rope in another sector — health sites, casual games, employment seekers, financial advisors, etc etc. Each group is ensnared by a similar dynamic to the one that locks in the users.

But there is a difference between users’ surpluses and business’s surpluses. A user’s surplus is attention, and there is no such thing as an “attention economy.” You can’t use attention to pay for data-centers, or executive bonuses, or to lobby Congress. Attention is not a currency in the same way that cryptos are not currency — it is not a store of value, nor a unit of exchange, nor or a unit of account.

Turning attention into money requires the same tactics as turning crypto into money — you have to lure in people who have real, actual money and convince them to swap it for attention. With crypto, this involved paying Larry David, Matt Damon, Spike Lee and LeBron James to lie about crypto’s future in order to rope in suckers who would swap their perfectly cromulent “fiat” money for unspendable crypto tokens.

With platforms, you need to bring in business customers who get paid in actual cash and convince them to give you that cash in exchange for ethereal, fast-evaporating, inconstant, unmeasurable “attention.” This works like any Ponzi scheme (that is, it works like cryptos): you can use your shareholders’ cash to pay short-term returns to business customers, losing a little money as a convincer that brings in more trade.

That’s what Facebook did when it sent enormous amounts of traffic to a select few news-sites that fell for the pivot to video fraud, in order to convince their competitors to borrow billions of dollars to finance Facebook’s bid to compete with Youtube:

https://doctorow.medium.com/metaverse-means-pivot-to-video-adbe09319038

This convincer strategy is found in every con. If you go to the county fair, you’ll see some poor bastard walking around all day with a giant teddy bear that he “won” by throwing three balls into a peach-basket. The carny who operated that midway game let him win the teddy precisely so that he would walk around all day, advertising the game, which is rigged so that no one else wins the giant teddy-bear:

https://boingboing.net/2006/08/27/rigged-carny-game.html

Social media platforms can allocate giant teddy-bears to business-customers, and it can also withdraw them at will. Careful allocations mean that the platform can rope in a critical mass of business customers and then begin the final phase of its life-cycle: allocating surpluses to its shareholders.

We know what this looks like.

Rigged ad-markets:

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

Understaffed content moderation departments:

https://www.dw.com/en/twitters-sacking-of-content-moderators-will-backfire-experts-warn/a-63778330

Knock-off products:

https://techcrunch.com/2021/12/08/twitter-is-the-latest-platform-to-test-a-tiktok-copycat-feature/

Nuking “trust and safety”:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/twitter-dissolves-trust-safety-council-2022-12-13/

Hiding posts that have links to rival services:

https://www.makeuseof.com/content-types-facebook-hides-why/

Or blocking posts that link to rival services:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/19/better-failure/#let-my-tweeters-go

Or worse, terminating accounts for linking to rival services:

https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2022/12/twitter-suspends-mastodon-account-prevents-sharing-links/

That is, once a platform has its users locked in, and has its business customers locked in, it can enshittify its service to the point of near uselessness without losing either, allocating all the useful surplus in the business to its shareholders.

But this strategy has a problem: users and business customers don’t like to be locked in! They will constantly try to find ways to de-enshittify your service and/or leave for greener pastures. And being at war with your users and business customers means that your reputation continuously declines, because every time a user or business customer figures out a way to claw back some surplus, you have to visibly, obviously enshittify your service wrestle it back.

Every time a service makes headlines for blocking an ad-blocker, or increasing its transaction fees, or screwing over its users or business customers in some other way, it makes the case that the price you pay for using the service is not worth the value it delivers.

In other words, the platforms try to establish an equilibrium where they only leave business customers and users with the absolute bare minimum needed to keep them on the service, and extract the rest for their shareholders. But this is a very brittle equilibrium, because the prices that platforms impose on their users and business customers can change very quickly, even if the platforms don’t do anything differently.

Users and business customers can revalue the privacy costs, or the risks of staying on the platform based on exogenous factors. Privacy scandals and other ruptures can make the cost you’ve been paying for years seem higher than you realized and no longer worth it.

This problem isn’t unique to social media platforms, either. It’s endemic to end-stage capitalism, where companies can go on for years paying their workers just barely enough to survive (or even less, expecting them to get public assistance and/or a side-hustle), and those workers can tolerate it, and tolerate it, and tolerate it — until one day, they stop.

The Great Resignation, Quiet Quitting, the mass desertions from the gig economy — they all prove the Stein’s Law: “Anything that can’t go on forever will eventually stop.”

Same for long, brittle supply-chains, where all the surplus has been squeezed out: concentrating all the microchip production in China and Taiwan, all the medical saline in Puerto Rico, all the shipping into three cartels… This strategy works well, and can be perfectly tuned with mathematical models that cut right to the joint, and they work and they work.

Until they stop. Until covid. Or war. Or wildfires. Or floods. Or interest rate hikes. Or revolution. All this stuff works great until you wake up and discover that the delicate balance between paying for guard labor and paying for a fair society has tilted, and now there’s a mob building a guillotine outside the gates of your luxury compound.

This is the force underpinning collapse: “slow at first, then all at once.” A steady erosion of the failsafes, flensing all the slack out of the system, extracting all the surpluses until there’s nothing left in the reservoir, no reason to stay.

It’s what caused the near-collapse of Barnes and Noble, and while there are plenty of ways to describe James Daunt’s successful turnaround, the most general characterization is, “He has reallocated the company’s surpluses to workers, readers, writers and publishers”:

https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/what-can-we-learn-from-barnes-and

A system can never truly stabilize. This is why utopias are nonsense: even if you design the most perfect society in which everything works brilliantly, it will still have to cope with war and meteors and pandemics and other factors beyond your control. A system can’t just work well, it has to fail well.

This is why I object so strenuously to people who characterize my 2017 novel Walkaway as a “dystopian novel.” Yes, the protagonists are eking out survival amidst a climate emergency and a failing state, but they aren’t giving up, they’re building something new:

https://locusmag.com/2017/06/bruce-sterling-reviews-cory-doctorow/

“Dystopia” isn’t when things go wrong. Assuming nothing will go wrong doesn’t make you an optimist, it makes you an asshole. A dangerous asshole. Assuming nothing will go wrong is why they didn’t put enough lifeboats on the Titanic. Dystopia isn’t where things go wrong. Dystopia is when things go wrong, and nothing can be done about it.

Anything that can’t go on forever will eventually stop. The social media barons who reeled users and business customers into a mutual hostage-taking were confident that their self-licking ice-cream cone — in which we all continued to energetically produce surpluses for them to harvest, because we couldn’t afford to leave — would last forever.

They were wrong. The important thing about the Fediverse isn’t that it’s noncommercial or decentralized — it’s that its design impedes surplus harvesting. The Fediverse is designed to keep switching costs as low as possible, by enshrining the Right Of Exit into the technical architecture of the system. The ability to leave a service without paying a price is the best defense we have against the scourge of enshittification.

(Thanks to Tim Harford for inspiring this column via an offhand remark in his kitchen a couple months ago!)

[Image ID: The Phillip Medhurst Picture Torah 397. The Israelites collect manna. Exodus cap 16 v 14. Luyken and son.]

[artistsfuneral]

a/b/o, but for once the story is actually about the beta

big no progrom pack with Geralt, Eskel, Lambert, Gweld and Gardis and Aubry and Clovis

with Lambert still being the youngest of their pack, a beta (thank fuck) who they all say matches really nicely with their scent

Lambert, fresh out of presentation (still changed his body, still felt weird and intrusive and absolutely exhausting, even without it ending in a heat or rut) just goes with it - surely they know what they're talking about

so Lambert is pack. he sits with them, eats with them, trains with them and shares a den (not his bed, he needs his own bed) with them

and nobody really explains anything to him? do they just assume that he knows what to do?? have Gweld and Gardis instinctively know what to do once they presented as omegas? then, why doesn't he know what to do??

why does it feel so wrong?

cue Lambert, during his pack's heat cycle, feeling more like a handmaiden than a pack member. when Gweld and Gardis care for their omegas, they're rewarded with bright smiles and soft kisses, when Lambert does he gets a 'good job'? when Gweld and Gardis care for their alphas, they're hugged and scented and when Lambert does he gets a pat on the shoulder?

do they even want him there?

it feels obvious that they do not. so after their cycle is over he walks out on them (hates that his instincts won't let him leave while they're still at it, while he still can work for them) and doesn't look back

two years later he finds himself in Tretogor of all places, chewing through a stale piece of bread that seriously has seen better days but was half off at the market, while watching a newly mated alpha omega pair making eyes at each other

and he just- he feels his pack bond breaking and he cries, silent tears running down his face while he eats a piece of bread that suddenly tastes so much worse

Meanwhile Madison is grappling with the fact that not every issues can be settled by committee

meanwhile six other witchers are going absolutely nuts over the fact that they feel the bond to their youngest, sweetest, grumpiest pack member fading away

this is how things went from their perspective:

they're litter mates, close knit and seemingly perfectly balanced: two alphas, two omegas, two betas

and then - decades later - they scent a new pack mate and it's that one guy, only surviver of his cohort, half-feral, spicey, grumpy Lambert

he doesn't really fit a beta's usually calm, softspoken demeanor, but they don't care, because he fits their pack so well, they never knew how much they needed him until they met Lambert

immune to their omegas' charm and their alphas' dominance, Lambert does what Gweld and Aubry would never be bold enough to do

he openly berates them when they're being stupid, always saying out loud what he thinks, doesn't cower in front of the alphas and neither is too soft with their omegas

but

but he never initiates anything that could be interpreted as more than just friendly, sleeps in his own bed, doesn't seem to like prolonged contact and not once has asked for anything during their heat cycle

they just assumed Lambert wasn't interested. because he's always so up front with everything else, surely he'd just say something, right?

wrong. and they realize that as soon as he vanishes right after they calm down from their latest cycle - "I thought he just stepped out for a moment, what do you mean he's gone?!"

and for two years he doesn't return to Kaer Morhen and the pack grows morw and more worried

and then they feel their bond to him fail

and all hell breaks loose

[crosshairlovebot]

birthday revelations / crosshair x gn!reader

pairing: crosshair x gn!reader (no y/n). reader has a nickname.

description: crosshair discovers it's your birthday, and in an effort to try and understand birthdays, he gets you a gift.

word count: 3,793

warnings: none. crosshair ovethinks a lot

Another request! Maybe not technically a request, but @starrylothcat sent in an ask for an ask prompt and said it would be nice to see me write a fic where crosshair buys a gift for the reader for their birthday or christmas and it's been stuck in my head since! so here you go! i hope i did it justice!

also posted this on ao3. feedback is welcomed, reblogs are appreciated <3

Crosshair didn’t like crowds. He gritted his teeth as he walked alone through the market on Sorgan, sidestepping people as they entered his path. It was noisy, but that didn’t bother him so much. Vendors called out to passersby, promoting their various goods for purchase with enthusiasm. Voices chattered and laughed. The smell of food wafted through Crosshair’s nose and his stomach tightened with hunger. Rations were poor choices compared to the sizzling of flavourful meat on grills, but he didn’t have enough credits to buy himself something to eat.

He only had enough to buy something for you.

He had been helping Tech with cataloguing files when he saw one on their nat-born medic. You had joined Clone Force 99 just over half a standard cycle ago with your plucky yet kind attitude, falling into the group dynamic easier than Crosshair had thought. Sure, it had taken some adjustment for him and his brothers to become used to another presence they had not grown up with, but it was inevitable you would eventually find your place in the team. You were hardworking, strong and compassionate. You paid attention to each of his brothers, giving them your undivided focus during conversation and indulging them in questions about what they were doing or their chosen skill. He had watched you talk with Tech about data decryption, Wrecker about proton-based explosives, Hunter about tracking strategies, Echo about ARC trooper training, and of course, him about sharpshooting.

He recalled the way you sat next to him for the first time on his bunk during their time in Hyperspace. He had disassembled part of his Firepuncher rifle, readjusting the scope and the barrel after it had unexpectedly jammed on their previous mission. He’d been annoyed – his prized weapon never faltered, and he was trying to figure out why it had failed on him when the thin mattress dipped next to him, and you asked what he was doing. When he’d given a particularly surly response, you nodded and then just continued to watch him. His eyes had slid to you.

“Can I help you with anything else?” He hadn’t meant it to sound so icy, but he had been frustrated with this rifle, with himself.

“Can you…explain what you’re doing?” you had asked hopefully.

He had looked at you sceptically. “Why?”

You just shrugged. “It looks interesting.”

He had studied your expression, trying to discern if you were being genuine. But you were. You always were with things like this.

So, he explained what he was doing, answered your questions and by the time his weapon was fixed, he didn’t even really remember his initial annoyance. You had smiled at him, your mouth stretching in a way that made your eyes light up. He felt a little flicker of something in his stomach before it was promptly extinguished.

Since then, you have spent time with him like that more often. Not just when he was cleaning his rifle, but other things. Like throwing Lula back and forth across the bunks as you both talked, joking about things that happened on missions. Sharing looks over briefings. Stealing Wrecker’s snacks.

But his favourite time with you was drawing on your datapad and trying to guess what the other was drawing. He had learnt you liked to draw and enjoyed drawing out something other than a medical diagram. He felt a sense of pride in making you laugh so hard you cried with his silly caricatures during long hyperspace trips. Exaggerated doodles of his brothers, tookas and the like, a portrait of you with a funny expression. You liked to draw him with a smile too big for his face, chuckling as you drew and then collapsing into laughter when you showed him. It always made the thing in his stomach flicker.

He really liked having you around.

So, when he came across your file when helping Tech, he couldn’t help but open it. You had told them all any information they had asked for, and information they had not. There wasn’t really anything you kept secret. But when he saw your ID holo looking particularly embarrassing: with wide eyes and a half-formed expression – like you were taken off guard by the photo, the corner of his mouth twisted up in an impish smirk.

He had intended to tease you about it; set the holo to the show on every Marauder screen so it was everywhere.

He opened the file to take a copy of the holo when he spotted details about your age and date of birth.

He frowned at the date. “Tech, what is today’s galactic date?”

Tech looked up from his datapad, adjusting his goggles before rattling off the date. “Why?”

He said your name before telling him, “It’s their birthday tomorrow.”

“Oh.” Tech blinked.

Age and birthdays were almost foreign concepts to clones. With accelerated aging and growing in a capsule, they didn’t really matter to them. Awkward to calculate, they weren’t celebrated. Crosshair had no idea when he had been ‘birthed’ or decanted, and if the Kaminoans documented such dates, then it was classified information. He knew his chronological age, but his biological age was a little murky. He knew he was a “mature clone”, however with the accelerated aging, he didn’t know where exactly he stood. None of their brothers knew any of these details. It was normal for them.

He read the date and your age. What would it be like to be so sure of something like that? To be sure of the parts that made up who you were?

Crosshair cleared his throat and closed the file without even copying the ID holo. He frowned to himself. Maybe he should’ve asked you about it before, but birthdays weren’t a part of his world, so he hadn’t thought to. But they were important to nat-borns, weren’t they? At least that’s what they’d all been told during their training modules.

When he lay in his bunk that night, he circled his mind for all he knew about birthday traditions. Gatherings. Food. Gifts. Would you like all that? Did you like all that? You seemed like you would. He didn’t know if it was something he would enjoy if he had a birthday…it didn’t really seem like his thing, but maybe he would. He would never know. He thought that Wrecker might be the only one who would enjoy a birthday. Maybe Echo too if you did it right. Same with Hunter.

But you hadn’t said anything about your birthday.

He had tossed and turned. You were part of their squad. You cared. Listened. Laughed. Did you not feel you could share the date with them? He didn’t know, and a part of him felt a little hurt that you might not feel you could. Were you not friends? Crosshair didn’t have many friends, but he knew they were supposed to tell each other things.

He turned again, crossing his arms against his chest as he faced the wall. Why did he even care? If you didn’t want to tell him it was your birthday, fine. He wouldn’t mention it.

He squeezed his eyes shut before sitting up on his elbows and craned his head to see you sleeping in your bunk. Through the darkness, his enhanced eyes saw you curled in yourself, and your nose twitched as you breathed deep and evenly. Something in his chest pinched. He sighed before laying back down and pulling the thin blanket over his head.

Now, as he found himself in this market the next day, he wondered what he was even doing here.

Once they had landed on Sorgan, they completed their mission easily with no complications. But Crosshair was still distracted by your birthday. You hadn’t even said anything when everyone woke up this morning. Just acted like it was any other day. You had just smiled at him as you tucked into a ration bar, saying good morning before throwing one to him to eat.

It puzzled him.

When you all started walking back to the Marauder after the mission, Hunter could tell something was up with him, nudging his shoulder.

“You alright?”

Crosshair had scowled at his brother. “…Yes.”

“You look deep in thought,” Hunter pointed out, falling into step with him.

Crosshair broke his gaze and looked away, back towards where they came, to the village they had just liberated. The thought had barely formed before he said, “Do we have time before the next mission?”

Hunter’s surprise showed in his voice. “We have a couple of hours, why?”

“I’ll be back later,” Crosshair walked off in the direction of the village before Hunter could say anything. His long legs carried him to the marketplace, where he stood now amongst the bustling bodies.

He just couldn’t get your birthday out of his stupid head; that you hadn’t said anything because clones didn’t celebrate birthdays. Just because he didn’t understand them, doesn’t mean he couldn’t try…for you.

He started combing through the vendors, most of which were finishing up resetting their stands after they fled suddenly several days prior. He moved from stall to stall, gazing at the different items over people's heads. Kriff, what were you even supposed to buy people for birthdays? Something they needed? Something they wanted? It was all a little overwhelming. And Crosshair didn’t get overwhelmed.

“Looking for something in particular, my friend?”

Crosshair startled and looked up to see the vendor, a greying man with a wrinkled face, horns protruding from his forehead and curled up in an elegant spiral shape.

Crosshair frowned, clearing his throat. “It’s…my friend's birthday today.”

The man’s face lit up. “Wonderful! Birthdays are special.”

Crosshair’s mouth tightened as the man continued to speak. “What were you thinking of gifting them?”

The hairs on Crosshair’s neck stood up with nerves. “I…I don’t know.”

The man’s face lit up. “Perhaps I can help.”

The man then went through the different items at his stand. He held up scarves, strings of beads, and handmade pottery. Crosshair thought they were all nice enough, but he wasn’t swimming in credits. And none of the items really felt like you. The vendor was patient, more patient than he should’ve been. Either he really wanted to help or was desperate for a sale in a competitive marketplace.

After many minutes and many items, Crosshair felt himself gradually stiffening, becoming more and more on edge and uncomfortable. He felt so out of his depth. He was always so sure of everything, and trying to do this thing he had no experience in, made him more vulnerable than he had in a long time. It was not a feeling he felt comfortable with. Never had been.

And as much as he liked you, maybe this was all a stupid idea. You hadn’t mentioned your birthday for a reason. He shouldn’t bring it up. If he did, he’d have to explain how he found out…and he didn’t want to go through that awkwardness. He was about to open his mouth and tell the over-enthusiastic vendor: thank you, but he wouldn’t bother with a gift, when the vendor clapped his hands loudly, making Crosshair jump.

“I may have something back here, hold on,” he said as he turned away to rifle noisily through a crate behind him.

Crosshair felt his fist curl at his sides, and this should’ve been his opening to slide away unnoticed until he looked down and saw a brown leather book. Crosshair halted and lifted a gloved hand to the soft worn cover, running his fingers over the engravings in the bound leather. He opened the cover, seeing it was a blank notebook, and it had a writing implement tucked into the spine. Not many people recorded things the traditional way anymore; datapads were much more efficient and stored more information than the pages of a notebook. He flicked through the pages, fanning them with his thumb. The dust drifted up and it was a smell he didn’t recognise, but he supposed it was the smell of paper.

“That’s a good choice.”

Crosshair retracted his hand as if he was a cadet being scolded, and looked up at the vendor, who held an oversized pot that would break the second it came aboard the Marauder.

“That would be a perfect gift,” the vendor continued, nodding at the notebook.

Crosshair looked at him before picking up the notebook – more surely this time, and turned it over in his hands. He imagined you in your bunk, scribbling in it at night with a torch in one hand. He imagined you keeping it under your pillow for safekeeping. He imagined you doodling in it, showing him your drawings with that smile on your face. He imagined drawing in it with you. The corner of his mouth twitched upward.

“How much?” Crosshair asked.

“It’s yours.”

Crosshair’s head snapped towards the vendor. “What?”

The vendor waved him away. “Take it.”

Crosshair blinked, confused. “…I have to pay you.”

“No, you don’t. I’ve been trying to sell that for years. You’d be doing me a favour.”

Crosshair furrowed his brow. “…Isn’t the customer supposed to be right?”

The vendor barked out a laugh. “Not this time, my friend.”

Crosshair dug into his pocket anyway and pulled out half the credits. “For your patience…at least.”

The vendor chuckled and took them. “Thank you. I hope your friend likes it.”

Crosshair didn’t respond as the man turned away, placing the pot down before calling out to other marketgoers, trying to entice them.

Crosshair walked back through the market, the notebook feeling heavy in his hand. Leaving the village, he made his way back to the Marauder, thoughts swimming in his head.

Kriff, what if you hated it? Or thought it was stupid? What if all his knowledge on birthdays was completely inaccurate and you would think him strange for giving you something? Or what if you just thought he was weird for getting you something at all?

Crosshair’s grip on the notebook tightened. He just wanted to do something nice. Like you always did for them. But this is why he avoided it. It was so vulnerable being nice. Being nice left you open for hurt, open for aching. It was much easier to keep it at bay, to restrict it. To hide it behind actions inconspicuously where it wasn’t out in the open. Being so open with it for you…he wouldn’t admit it out loud, but it scared him. The doubt crept in. Crosshair had conviction and confidence, and he wasn’t used to it wavering like this.

He was just about ready to throw the notebook into a bush and never speak of it again when he heard your voice ring out from the steps of the Marauder.

“Crosshair!”

You placed your datapad down and ran over to him. He hid the notebook behind his back with both hands, gripping it so hard he knew his knuckles would be white as you approached him with a smile.

“Hey,” he said, hoping he sounded normal.

“Where’d you go? You disappeared after the mission.”

“I was just…looking for something,” he said carefully. Dank farrik, how was he supposed to do this? He thought he might just leave it on your bunk when you were distracted with a little note written inside the cover saying, ‘Happy Birthday’. That way he could avoid your reaction when you saw it. He didn’t even know how to get into the Marauder with it now that you were here in front of him.

You tilted your head with a quizzical smile. “Looking for something?”

Crosshair nodded. “I couldn’t find it,” he lied.

“Oh…okay,” you looked at him weirdly. Would you look at him like that when you saw his gift?

Crosshair nodded to the Marauder, desperate to get on board and stow the notebook away until he could leave it on your bunk. “Should we go inside?”

You looked at him, narrowing your eyes. “What are you hiding?”

“I’m not hiding anything, meshurok,” he lied, his grip tightening again.

“Yes, you are,” you sidestepped him to look behind him and he leapt out of the way. You grinned. “You are! What are you hiding, Cross? Why can’t I see?” you tried to chase him around, but Crosshair kept angling himself away. Kriff, he had never felt so stupid in his whole life.

“It’s nothing. Get your meddling hands away from me, you di’kut,” he walked backwards in a circle, his face and neck hot.

“Crosshair,” you chided, smiling at him. “Come on, is it really that bad?”

“Go away,” he grumbled, hands aching from holding the damned notebook so tight.

“Crosshair,” you said his name again, and your face was stretched in that playful grin that he’d unwillingly memorised. That thing in his stomach flickered again.

Then he remembered how you didn’t tell him about your birthday. And how you were friends, but you didn’t say anything about it. And how he had this unexplainable feeling he couldn’t name sitting in his stomach that compelled him to go to a village market and pick out a stupid gift for a birthday tradition he didn’t even understand just to do something nice for you the way you did for him and his brothers.

Crosshair’s expression flared and he shoved the notebook at your chest. You startled at your hand came up to grab it, sliding against his like a searing snake. He pulled his hand back and balled both at his sides as he gritted out, “Happy birthday.”

All he saw was your eyes were wide before he stalked off, almost stomping his way to the Marauder. His face burned, and embarrassment flooded his body. He felt so stupid, and he hated feeling stupid. He hated the feeling of being on the end of someone’s judgement. He hated knowing that he’d just been forced to make himself vulnerable. But mostly, he hated the feeling of you not trusting him with what was supposed to be the important parts of you.

“Crosshair!”

Your voice came from behind him, but he didn’t turn around. He was already planning different ways he could avoid you. He was going to lock himself in the ‘fresher until the next mission and make sure Hunter placed him on watch at opposite times to you. Whatever it took. His heart panged. You were one of the only people outside his brothers he liked. He would mourn the shared jokes and laughter, and time spent with you, knowing it couldn’t happen anymore.

“Crosshair, wait.”

He felt a hand on his arm pull him back. He swayed backwards, but he let you stop him. He avoided your gaze, scowl burning an outline in his brow as he stared off into the middle distance. Your hand stayed on his arm, and he felt it through the plastoid wrapped around his forearm, squeezing him there. It felt like part of him, and that made him feel both warm with content and spiked with anger simultaneously.

“Cross, please look at me,” your voice said quietly, and his heart squeezed. He slowly moved his gaze, looking down, then sliding his eyes to your bare hand on his arm before they lifted to your face. Your brows were slanted downwards, looking at him with such softness in your eyes he felt the flickering in his chest again.

“How did you…” your voice was soft and trailed off, notebook in your other hand.

“It doesn’t matter,” he dismissed with gritted words.

He felt your hand flex with your grip. “It does to me.”

He studied your face carefully before saying, “…I was helping Tech with cataloguing his files. I saw your birthday in yours.”

You continued looking at him with an indecipherable gaze and moved your hand slowly from his arm to his wrist, your bare fingertips brushing his gloves. You gently grazed his fingers as you let his hand drop softly. He watched you as you inspected the book, hands turning it over, fanning through the pages. He studied your expression, trying to discern what you thought, feeling anxiety grow in his stomach, his throat tightening. He felt something hot poke inside him as he watched your mouth turn up into a smile as you gazed at his gift.

“I’ve been so busy this year that I forgot about my birthday.”

Crosshair hoped he hid his surprise. You not telling him about your birthday…it was never about him. Of course, you had forgotten. The past six cycles had been a whirlwind for you trying to adjust to a soldier’s lifestyle, countless missions and trying to fit in with his brothers. His face burned again. He was a fool.

You looked up at him, a smirk itching the corners of your mouth. “Been too busy keeping you boys in line.”

Crosshair scoffed lightly, letting a puff of breath out of his nose. Your smile widened.

“This is a beautiful gift, Cross. Thank you for getting it for me,” you place your hand on his arm again, squeezing gently to show your appreciation He felt his heart lift and his cheeks redden, but this time, not in embarrassment.

He nodded at you. “I’m…glad you like it. I don’t have much experience with birthdays.”

Your smile touched the edges of your eyes. “That’s what makes it even more special.”

You reached up on your tip toes and wrapped your arms around his neck, embracing him. Crosshair stiffened in shock and surprise before he slowly wrapped his arms around your torso. His fingers grazed your sides, and there was something wildly comforting about holding you like this. He could feel the side of your face pressed into his neck, just below his ear, and your breath tickled the sliver of open skin not covered by his blacks. You were so warm. He felt you squeeze him gently and he didn’t stop himself from squeezing back.

You were his best friend, after all.

You pulled away, but not before you cupped his face and placed a kiss on his cheek. Crosshair flinched and his eyes widened as you lowered yourself back down on flat feet with one of the most joyful smiles he’d ever seen gracing your face. The action had surprised him more than anything else had.

“I’m going to show everyone what you got me,” you said before running off towards the Marauder.

“No, don’t, they’ll—” Crosshair started but you were already halfway up the gangplank. His brothers’ teasing was going to be ruthless.

He sighed, shaking his head before following you, that thing flickering in his chest. He didn’t understand it, but he didn’t try to extinguish it.

banner art by @vimse

mando'a / meshurok = gemstone thank you for reading! i did find this one slightly challenging bc it's very much crosshair in his head and i tried to write him how i thought he would react to a situation like this, but if it's a little OOC, i apologise! but i think he would react like this if someone he cared about didn't tell him something important about them; someone who was his friend and who he liked very much. i think he'd be kinda mad and hurt but he cares too much to not do anything at all. i have more gen requests on the way, so stay tuned if you're interested! <3

tags @starrylothcat @sinfulsalutations @moodymisty @nahoney22 @freesia-writes @nobody-expects-the-inquisitorius @bobaprint @crosshairsnose @jesseeka @thegalaxys-edge @snarky-mans-gf @chopper-base @wenalena @shredderwest @leavingkamino @rexamongthestars @r2d2staser @bluebird-dreams @pb-jellybeans @a-streakofblue @theawkwardartist12 @mylifeisactuallyamess @padawancat97 @littlecrowtime @jedipoodoo

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[valtsv]

can you explain what's the silt verses or what is it about? i saw the god-bitten post and got curious

the silt verses is a speculative fiction/folk horror audio drama based on the premise of a society built on polytheistic worship of gods, which are empirically real and tangibly affect the world the characters live in. these gods, and the sociocultural and political frameworks surrounding them, are used as a narrative vehicle for themes of anticapitalism, body horror, alienation, the nature of humanity, relationships between people and how they form and fracture, grief, consumerism, cycles of abuse, and the idea of power, among other things. it draws inspiration from true detective season 1, the works of horror fiction writers such as robert w. chambers, existing folk horror stories such as the wicker man, and of course real life. the primary protagonists you follow are are carpenter and faulkner, two worshippers of an outlawed river god - one a naive, zealous neophyte, the other an old, jaded child of the faith - but supporting cast gradually take up paths that widen the scope of the narrative - paige, a disillusioned marketing executive who wants to find a way to use her skills as a driving force for real change; hayward, a cynical law enforcer aware and resentful of his own dead-end existence; shrue, a controversial electoral candidate hoping to reform the system from within; and VAL, an experimental sentient weapon with her own perspective and will.

[yaksha-lover]

Track #2: Sunlight - Hozier Drabble Masterlist

Azul Ashengrotto x Reader

Summary: Azul treats everyone as a business arrangement. He thought it would be the same with you, until he realizes he’d much rather have you than your resources.

i. all the tales the same

An octopus has three hearts - that’s the explanation Azul’s mother would always give when he’d come home crying as a child. It was comforting, to explain away his sensitivity in a single phrase. You have to be more careful with yours, Azul, she’d say, rubbing his back. There’s more of you to break.

He understood what she meant far too well. Every tease, every taunt, every comment muttered behind his back (and most of the time to his face) was far too much for him to bear. They were only children, but so was he. Is it any wonder he’d stopped seeing people as more than transactional when all they’d seen him as was a joke?

If he didn’t care for them, if they were reduced to nothing but an inky signature, how could their words hurt him? They were nothing.

He thought you’d be nothing too.

You started off like most ‘relationships’ in his life; a business transaction. At least, that’s how he’d thought of you.

You, who was so blissfully kind and innocent, doe-eyed and naive, thought of him as a friend, and then eventually, more.

To him, you were easy prey. It would be simple to gain your friendship, your trust, maybe even your heart if he was so lucky. Then, it would be oh so simple to gain access to all that you could do for him.

ii. told before and told again

The plan requires more commitment than he’d realized, but he knows it will be worth it in the end. You, the sole heir of your father’s estate, will be in a position to let Azul gain access to a brand new market he’s been looking to expand into. If he has to play friend, he’s willing to do it.

You’re…lonelier than he expects. Azul isn’t exactly a social butterfly himself (at least, for non-business related reasons), but your eagerness to spend time with him certainly stems from more than just his ‘great companionship.’ He almost feels bad, for a moment, to lead you on, but he steels himself with the justification of his success.

You won’t mind, right? He gets your help, you get his friendship, even if it is manufactured. It’s an equal trade, he tells himself.

Spending all this time together, he learns things about you. Things that are disconcerting.

Azul hasn’t had trouble sleeping since he was a child. Everything he did was perfectly scheduled; how was he to function if not by keeping up a meticulous sleep cycle which guaranteed him a satisfying eight hours of rest per night?

He thinks you’re the reason he’s started lying awake. He can’t stop thinking about the things you’ve told him - maybe ‘let slip’ is the better term.

He’s used to coaxing information out of his clients; it’s good for business. Now he only wishes he wasn’t so good.

They aren’t so much secrets; it’s not as though you’ve made a great effort to hide them, only that no one has made an effort to look in the first place.

He’s played the dutiful friend long enough to know how…pitiful you can become after a night out or a hard day. He’s been there to take care of you, always making sure you get home safe or that you’re well fed. You’re a poor, unfortunate sight; you’re lucky it’s only Azul taking advantage of your resources and not someone much worse. His stomach churns at the thought of it - that’s one of the many things that keeps him up. It’s not that he’s worried; no, no, you were only a business arrangement of his. If anything were to happen to you, his whole plan could go to ruin.

That’s why he stays the night in your apartment, sleeping on the couch so he can check on you despite the fact that the commute will make him late for work and his back will hurt all day from the lumpy sofa. That’s why he can’t sleep, forced to make sure you’re sleeping soundly every few hours.

You’ll apologize in the morning for being a mess; you always do. The two of you put on a charade of sorts - you promise it won’t happen again, that you’re sorry for forcing him to take care of you (although you’d never asked a thing from him) and he pretends that none of it matters, that it’s not a big deal.

It’s only for the sake of business when he asks you to spend more time with him; if you’re not with your undesirable friends (who only get you into trouble, he thinks) then you (and his deal) will be safe. It’s certainly not because the last time he’d come to check on you, you’d had light bruises peppering your neck, almost as if someone had nipped at your skin gently and-

Azul perishes the thought from his mind. So what if he hasn’t won your heart? That’s not his goal, he doesn’t need your love to get your help, he’ll just-

iii. a soul that’s born in cold and rain

You kiss him, one night. You’re at his apartment, and it’s been a peaceful evening. He’d invited you over for dinner, cooking you one of the most recent dishes he’d been testing for his restaurant chain. The two of you had settled into his sofa, a movie playing in the background.

He noticed you hadn’t been paying attention; he was watching the screen, but you kept sneaking (not so subtle) glances at him every few seconds, putting him on edge. He turned to you, about to ask what was wrong, when you kissed him.

Your lips brush against his lightly; he almost wonders if he’d fallen asleep and was only dreaming the whole thing. He’d only just closed his eyes when he felt you pull away and begin to apologize for kissing him without asking. He can’t even form a response, only pulling you in to continue what you’d started.

Things only seem to spiral from there. Azul is, admittedly, a sensitive soul, perhaps too sentimental for his own good. He’d vowed to be utilitarian about his relationships; to view everyone only per their use value, and thus to never have to care. Caring, for him, typically meant getting hurt in some way, but he can’t quite help himself with you.

Your affection feels good. Your love is addicting. He refuses to let either of them go, thoughts of business and markets pushed to the furthest place in his mind.

It’s only natural, then, that the two of you quickly become closer than ever before. A toothbrush at his apartment quickly becomes you moving in; he’s a busy man, after all. What better way to see more of each other than living together (you practically spent all your time with him, anyway).

If you depend on him, that’s okay. That’s how it’s always been with the two of you, hasn’t it? He takes care of you, he always has.

iv. knows sunlight, sunlight, sunlight

He’s drifting off to sleep with you in his arms when he hears you speak.

“Azul?”

“Yes, darling?”

“I’m sorry.”

That makes him open his eyes. He moves to turn on the lamp, but you stop him. “Sorry? For what?”

“For taking advantage of you.”

That almost makes him laugh. “Pardon? I don’t seem to recall such a thing happening.”

“I know, Azul. You…you don’t need to pretend that you like me. I know you just want access to my father’s contacts. I knew since the beginning and I should’ve put a stop to it. I’m so, so sorry I just - you were so kind to me, and I couldn’t help but bask in your sunlight a little. But it’s gone too far. Look at us. You never should’ve had to become so close with me, it was wrong for me to hold on. For that, I’m sorry. There’s no need for us to continue this charade, I’ll give you the contacts you want. And…and I’ll be sure to get out of your life…”

Azul is silent for a moment, before he can’t hold back his chuckle any longer. He tries to contain himself once he sees the tears begin to pool in your eyes. You start to pull away, but he pulls you close with one arm, wiping away your tears with the other.

“Oh dear, you’re truly serious! You’re laying in my bed, in my arms, and you think you’re taking advantage of me? You thought I only wanted you for your resources and yet you feel sorry? I suppose your tender heart and naïveté are endearing, but it won’t do for you to be so vulnerable, my love. It’s a good thing I love you so much, any less and I might truly be tempted to take advantage of such a poor soul like yours~”

You look at him in confusion. “You mean it…but how can I trust you, Azul?”

His arms move to slip around your waist, pulling you in close to him. You can feel the heat of his smooth skin move against your body, the warmth of his breath on you face.

“How indeed, my love? I suppose I’ll have to show you, then. Actions speak louder than words, after all.”

With that, Azul lifts himself off the bed, drawing you under him and capturing your lips once again.

[soulprompts]

hello it is i, your local tumblrarian, here to drink tea from her pumpkin mug and tell u the following important announcement: being on tumblr every single day is possibly not a great idea. let's use a metaphor here. it's like squeezing a lemon every day, but it's only got so much juice, you'll only end up getting frustrated and upset that the juice is no longer flowing. and then it's building up this habit of squeezing lemons every day, but then one day you're not around and you're worried, because what if the lemon had juice today? what if we missed the juicing opportunity?

but now let's sprinkle in the following notion: every once in a while, we step outside of the lemon juicer, and we go to the market to buy more lemons. the next day, we wake up, we go back to the juicer, and what do you know! the juice is flowing again!

gonna step back from the metaphor here to just explain a few things. we have all been in the situation of staring wretchedly at the computer screen, begging for a drop of inspiration. most of us are online each and every day. and that's okay! i'm the same! but maybe we need to refresh the cycle here, because i took a day to myself today, i consciously refused to go online until 6PM, and even that 24 hour break was enough to get some very exciting ideas going! and tomorrow i'll be writing more than i have in weeks!

we put too much pressure on ourselves to be here 24/7, and it's time that we just knocked that out and started treating writing as what it always was: a hobby. so go take a break. go out for a walk, go get lunch in a nice cafe, step away from the computer and just let yourself do something that isn't absorbed in writing or in your education/career.

[another-lost-mc]

Hi Jes!!! Happy Sunday!!!

I’m curious; what do weekends usually look like with some of your obey me faves? Do you tend to just relax at home, or is your social calendar packed full? 😋

➤ sunday routines

characters: leviathan, asmodeus, barbatos, solomon & simeon, mephistopheles

content: sfw. established relationships with gn!reader implied. implied polyship with solomon and simeon. mostly domestic fluff/slice of life (slightly suggestive in solomon/simeon and mephisto's sections). wc: 0.7k.

a/n: thank you for the ask, andy! also my fav bias is showing.

Leviathan is dreading another long week of RAD classes. He invites you to watch TV in his room and if he gets the sense that you're anxious or just not in a great mood, he'll suggest that you pick what you both should watch. He won't complain even if it's some random movie or series he hasn't heard of or doesn't like. He plays his handheld with his head in your lap and every now and then he follows you to the kitchen for drink and snack refills.

Asmodeus meets you in the laundry room with his hamper full to the brim with clothes from the past week. He reminds you how to sort things to preserve their colours and the delicate fabrics. He even has his own special brand of laundry soap that just happens to be scented exactly to your liking. He's gotten angry at his brothers in the past for using it without permission, but he has no reservations about adding it to your own laundry. Usually he takes you to his room while you wait for the wash cycle to finish so you can relax. When it's time to fold and put the laundry away, he follows you to your room and helps if you'll let him (he insists you can take it easy on his bed or at his vanity while he puts away his own clothes). Afterwards, he takes your hands in his and examines your nails when he notices some of last week’s polish is chipped. He gives you a manicure, complete with a hand massage, before painting your nails with a fresh coat of polish for the week ahead.

Barbatos gets up early as usual and visits the street market. He already has his young master's dinner planned out and the ingredients on a list in his pocket, but he browses the daily offerings of fresh vegetables and imported foods while he debates what he wants to make for you. Sundays at the Demon Lord's Castle are usually more relaxed while the staff finish cleaning up from any gatherings the evening before. It'll give him enough time in his surprisingly flexible schedule to make lunch for both of you and it's the highlight of Sunday afternoons for both of you.

Solomon and Simeon invite you to Purgatory Hall to catch up on any last-minute homework you might've neglected or forgotten about. They're both extremely knowledgeable and kind when they explain concepts you might still struggle with, and you're glad you don't always have to bother Satan for his help. Solomon wants to charm you with a home cooked Sunday dinner, and he tries to sneak away from the table when he thinks Simeon is too focused on his work (and you) to notice. The best way to avoid culinary chaos is to offer to help both of them with dinner, and they're glad for your company. Sometimes they find your presence a little too distracting because they're hungry in more ways than one, but perhaps a break in one of their rooms can help.

Mephistopheles has a busy schedule and it's hard to predict what he'll be doing on any given Sunday. Sometimes he's helping his parents with errands related to their duties as high-ranking nobles in their community. Sometimes he's helping his younger brother with homework or they're playing games together. If he has no other obligations, he rides one of his favourite horses through the wooded trails behind his family's estate and lets you know when he's returned (he rushes to shower and dress before you arrive). He's more than happy to send a car to pick you up so you can have dinner with his family, or sometimes he's particularly greedy and sets up a private dining table in the lounge connected to his bedroom for the two of you. It's only when you're interrupted by the incessant vibrations of your D.D.D. later that night, and when he groans his frustrations into the crook of your neck, that you realize you lost track of time. Lucifer means well, but his timing is terrible. Some Sunday evenings, Mephisto accompanies you back to the House of Lamentation after instructing the driver discreetly to take the scenic route. Other times, you're glad you thought to bring an overnight bag with you and send Lucifer a hasty goodnight text before turning off your phone. You happily focus your attention back on the demon who pulls you onto his lap and eagerly picks up where he left off.

read more: obey me masterlist

[absurdumsid]

I need info on saejun an you obviously know him better than me, so can i have you favorite hcs, theories (how he joined the mtt), or interactions on him w/ the mtt :)

OF COURSE U CAN !! so sorry, it took me a bit to compile all of this from my older notes aaaa have a compensation doodle bc i took SOO long GHGHHHGH

anyway saejun nation pspspspss

saejun !! THE beloved if u will

he regularly speaks korean but learned english after meeting nightmare and killer

i love to think he's very very strong, he can beat the mtt in a fistfight kind of strong (not like he would, but he'd win)

he can cook decently but he'd choose his brother's cooking any day (even if pilsu is still um learning)

he also really likes spicy dishes !! he bonds over that with dust !

he'd forgive ppl who steal from the farm but he wouldn't forgive harming the crops

he HATES pesticides (i think this is canon actually) but also really hates strong smells in general

sleepy 24/7 he lays in the grass to photosynthesize (he just passes out, pilsu wakes him almost every time)

probably knows a lot of offhand herbology/biology trivia (he can explain the aerobic and anaerobic cycle by heart)

his general attitude toward the mtt/bad sanses is not to pry unless they're the ones who open up to him (even now he only rlly learns about their situations through nightmare who doesn't talk that much about it anyway)

he accepts mtt with open arms and its that accepting (almost forgiving) nature that makes them so super attached to him !!

for me, it's the concept of meeting a version of yourself that lives the most peaceful life and being happy for him, but ALSO not being shunned by that alternate version for being violent and hurting the people that you both love

as for how saejun met mtt, my general interpretation of it is that nightmare struck a deal with saejun for food supplies in exchange for manual labour (so mtt and nightmare help a lot with the harvests! the only ones who really know about it is pilsu, saejun, anseung, and suggu)

killer // 고통씨 (Mr. Misery/Grief)

saejun meets killer first and was the only one helping around the farm

i don't think saejun would be the type to pry into their pasts so he doesn't question killer about himself or anything

killer is the one who opens up to him one stormy night after a stage 3 episode where he holed himself up in the shed and saejun found him cold, shaking, and curled up embracing himself

he calms killer down and tells nightmare abt it and that's how he finds out about killer's past (he doesn't bring it up, but he's always there to help killer after his panic attacks)

he likes to do the chores with killer most of the time just in case he has a run in with chorongi or suggu (the kids are very silly and tend to mess with him and he doesn't know how killer is with children)

they photosynthesize together and sometimes nightmare just comes to get killer in the evening and finds them in the grass

horror // 취급주의 (Handle with Care) or 주주씨 (Mr. Vermillion)

he meets horror second (after he gets kidnapped by nightmare) and saejun isn't really scared of him because he figured that he probably has some hidden issues like killer

saejun thought horror was really fragile at first (because he was very thin and had a skull injury) so he actually had him do mostly little chores like going to the market or gathering eggs from the chickens

after a few months killer doesn't come in (was sent to a mission somewhere else) and saejun needs someone to handle the heavy hay bales (<- he could've done it himself but hes lazy) and horror just kinda Does It and surprises saejun

he starts to depend on horror more and actually admits that he was underestimating him out of concern for his wellbeing and horror says its ok because he was also underestimating saejun (until he saw him carry killer AND a bunch of crops home that one time)

they start to cook together and do the heavier chores (while making silly jokes abt killer) together

horror starts to learn korean by talking with dorihye, saejun, and pilsu as well as asking nightmare for some reading material ! (after finding out that dust also speaks korean, he starts practicing conversation with him !)

dust // 유골씨 (Mr. Ashes)

saejun's meeting with dust was noooot planned at all, nightmare just kinda forced mtt into a portal to farmtale during one of errors visits

horror mostly stayed with dust at first who was just dead silent and stayed in one spot (saejun asked if he wanted any drinks and it took ten excruciating seconds before horror had to answer water for him)

its not until pilsu comes into the house and greets killer and horror and makes a remark about a new brother that he starts to actually talk

dust doesn't exactly warm up to pilsu and more like forces himself to because pilsu starts to ask him what his favourite pasttimes are, his favourite food, if he wants any snacks, etc (killer and horror went through the same thing)

dust eventually gets carried off to the kitchen to cook with pilsu and that's how pilsu finds out dust speaks fluent korean even though they have different dialects

saejun goes into the kitchen and has a little talk with dust (where he learns they both speak korean !! and that that's why dust wasn't speaking that much !) and they bond over pilsu's silliness (dust talks about how his papyrus also loved to cook etc etc, saejun notices that its in past tense but doesn't dig any deeper)

dust eventually starts to visit farmtale with horror frequently to exchange makguksu and ramyeon recipes with pilsu !!

dust is also relatively close with dorihye, anseung, and suggu who tend to remark that "the other saejuns dont really talk much" to which horror always chuckles

that's all (for now) !! TYSM FOR ASKING ABT MY BLORBOS BGHGHRGRHG

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

as someone who's an azul kinnie im curious why you placed azul on the slightly dislike list considering you like scheming characters

[My TWST character tier list is here.]

I think the easiest way to explain it is that I came in with the wrong expectations of him? I thought Azul would be similar to what Jade’s character actually was, so Jade ended up upstaging him in that regard. Essentially, not all scheming characters are equivalent; Azul has other traits which weigh him down for me.

I’ve mentioned this before, but I’ll reiterate it here because I feel it is very relevant for Azul. I… tend to not like “main” guys because of of how much they appear everywhere (including merch and marketing); it makes me feel like I’m being “pushed” to like them specifically rather than being allowed to think for myself about who I like. This is the case for dorm leaders, which includes Azul. Additionally, “main” guys tend to get more of a story focus (also true of the dorm leaders), and that in of itself can be a double edged sword. It means more information + backstory about that character, and while that’s great for lore and fleshing them out, it also means potentially polarizing the fans who were content with their perception of the character prior to the reveal. Once that change happens, it completely shifts how you see the character and then you can’t go back to how you felt before. This was a painful factor in what I call the “stock market crash” of my opinion of Azul Ashengrotto.

I actually quite liked him at first. I took his hand at the start when I first started playing TWST back in 2020 ^^! I even *gasp* simped a little??? (weird AU where Azul was my oshi instead of J word…) He was every bit an intelligent and calculating deal maker as I suspected he would be—well, at least that’s what the few vignettes available at the time and book 2 implied. Back then, only books 1 and 2 were available in full and book 3 was slooowly being updated in chunks. And really, I was liking book 3 a lot (he was still being a silly little scumbag, lol) and took no issue with it… UNTIL THE LAST PART DROPPED 💀 AND WE GOT HIS BACKSTORY…

Now 💦 I’m aware that the OB boys’ backstories usually garner sympathy and enhance the preexisting love we have for those characters but… Azul’s backstory actually had a very strong opposite effect on me. It was the moment I realized, “Hey, maybe I don’t like you as much as I thought I did.” I’d describe the feeling like having a pleasant dream and then you’re suddenly violently awoken by a loud alarm clock, a screeching parrot, and Sebek shouting in your ears at once.

I want to be clear when I say I do not mean to demean or to diminish Azul’s experiences of being bullied. I also do not mean to shame Azul for being (rightfully) upset about his circumstances or for being emotional. When I say that I started disliking Azul because of this backstory, it’s for a very personal reason: I just don’t like stories where a victim of bullying becomes a bully, thus perpetuating the cycle. It’s sad to see someone go down that path, spreading more hate because of the hate they had received before… and I’ll never believe that revenge is a good response for an injustice 😔 Azul’s case is a little different, as he does eventually go on to recognize how far he has strayed from the benevolent ideals of the Sea Witch and is now actively trying to work on himself (which I appreciate and applaud him for). However, it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth that I can’t quite scrub away. I think it’s because I found myself relating to kid!Azul in some ways, so that personal connection amplified the disappointment I felt in the decisions he made. It feels like looking into an alternate reality where I, too, went down a dark path—and that thought is unpleasant, to say the very least. Now I view Azul more like a cautionary tale and keep a safe distance from him.

[worldsewage]

Salmonid holidays??? 👁👁

Salmonids are very religious, I’ve got yet to get into Salmonid/Inkling/Octarian religion— but they’ve got Multiple Gods and hell of ways to celebrate their ideas. Let me run through a few of the very popular “day off” holidays that aren’t “splatoween” or the sort.

This holiday— festival, rather— lasts a week, and usually begins with a holiday that is known as “fishing day” and celebrates when (religiously) the first clutch of Salmonids began to walk on land, this holiday resembles the travel across the ocean and is represented by a week long celebration across the main streets to act as “the river”. Usually chick (baby/young) salmonids who are in school get the week off this holiday. It’s definitely one of the more prevalent ones…I’m sure half of the Salmonids who celebrate wouldn’t be able to explain the history behind this holiday, they’re just here for all the fried squid.

This holiday is celebrated late September.

In Salmonid religion, they have many gods, BUT, the “devil” type figure in their religion is a giant squid that would pull salmonids deemed “unworthy to ascend” (ie transform in the HOMERUN) into the depths, essentially killing them and preventing them from reincarnation or reaching heaven. Eating squid— while a main part of this holiday— is in general symbolic of prosperity. It’s common to eat squid in celebrations before salmonids get sent to Run.

Inkling Membrane is sold nearly everywhere, it’s hard to come buy and is cheapest to buy and eat during this time. This is literally Inkling and/or salmonid flesh that gets washed onto shore after salmon runs that gets washed, dried out into gummies and jerky respectively, and sold with honey as a snack.

This is another music centric Festival... Celebrating the dead Salmonids who have completed their life cycle via reproducing and dying in the home run.

They believe the “transformation “ they undergo is to prepare them to — when they die — swim up the waterfall in the afterlife to reach the salmonid equivalent of “heaven”, as the common Salmonid forms aren’t strong swimmers. They believe these forms are traits gifted down from the gods, blessing them with the necessary strengths to go to heaven— the more good you do the more “blessings”. (Of course this is all religion, there is no scientific backing, this is just an allusion to the wacky and strange forms salmonids take on when they grow into “bosses” and “kings”.)

(Not relevant to the holiday, but in Salmonid religion, you will keep reincarnating until you climb the waterfall to Paradise.)

Traditionally, high rank Salmonids would cook great feasts TWICE, one for the people, and one encased in gold, they believe this is how they are able to send food to the gods. Nowadays, food is encased in a honey-like caramel, which they believe the gods in heaven will mistake for gold, and bring to heaven. They do this to gift “meals” to relatives who have gone on Homeruns and have died, this is a way to honor and keep them fed, even in heaven.

Sometimes, mementos, wood carvings, flowers, toys, etc— are encased in resin or amber or honey to mimic “gold”, so they will bring them to their relatives. Salmonids will leave out change (which is typically gold colored) at the front door and it’s common practice to visit neighbors or relatives, take the change, and to leave gifts in turn, (traditionally to incentivize the Gods to do the same, letting them know it’s free to take, Salmonid Gods are comparable to animals with a vaster understanding of knowledge that they loop around to being almost aloof and childlike because they are so beyond common Salmonids.)

Much like Anawm’Ghri Adaroi — this holiday is an outdoor market / parade centric holiday where you get to dress up in traditional garbs and have fun.

(This holiday, is NOT related to the Great Turf War, it just coincidentally overlaps with the end of the Great Turf War, salmonids consider this victory worth celebrating solely because warfare is symbolic of going to heaven (due to its relation to the battles Salmonids face during Runs.) with that said, they probably wouldn’t have romanticized this as such a large holiday if not for Inklings celebrating shoving the Octarian underground lmao. They celebrate it more feverishly East in more Octarian Communities as a sort of ‘anti-inkadian holiday’ because it’s Salmonid Centric, and less Inkling Centric.)

Is a holiday about rebirth and in general celebrates the homerun, this holiday is sort of comparable to a potluck, and is more so a stay at home get together with your family— this event is usually hosted by Salmonids of your family name who are set to Run later in life (ie wealthy / influential salmonids), these events are usually large and grandiose and are all about eating and drinking. Visiting your extremely important name holders isn’t a requirement, but chances are SOMEONE in your family name will be incredibly influential— and it’s fun to attend for the hell of it.

There’s usually a few party games for this holiday, but the main idea is releasing lanterns into the sky to symbolize “lighting the path home.”

This Holiday takes place late November, and no vegetables are served during this holiday, you’re intended to eat light rice in the morning and wait until night— then it is all Alcohol and Meat. If u don’t feel like shit the next day (whether you drank or not) then you’ve celebrated wrong.

[valyrfia]

I am VERY skeptical about the RBR Charles thing but they (see: Charles, RBR personell of all kinds) keep being SO WEIRD AND SUSPICIOUS about it

Yep yep yep. I go through cycles of being completely convinced and then calling myself delusional, but the fact remains that Max changed his tune on being teammates with Charles recently, Charles keeps talking about Max in interviews praising BOTH his performance and the car, Christian Horner is posting Max and Charles on Instagram as is the RBR account. I genuinely believe Red Bull are at LEAST trying to seriously poach him.

I'm still unsure as to whether they're working towards 2024 or 2025 (as Red Bull have proven with the recent talks with Lando, they're more than happy to buy out someone's contract), but I am leaning more towards 2025, and I believe that Charles at RBR is a real, serious possibility in 2025. Let me explain why.

First, Checo still has a contract through 2024 and while Red Bull aren't always great with honouring contracts, I think the recent popularity and love they've witnessed first-hand for Checo in Texas and Mexico might change their mind on letting him go early. Ultimately, Red Bull Racing is marketing for Red Bull, and Checo obviously brings in sales in North America, and them mistreating Checo might lead to a sales dip in that region. This is why I think, despite the media frenzy, RBR are highly unlikely to drop Checo for 2024. There is no way that RBR is renewing Checo's contract, but at least he can see it out and they can part ways without much damage to either of them at the end of the F1 2024 Season.

Charles's current contract with Ferrari is also up at the end of the 2024 season. Again, even though 2023 has been absolute dogshit for Charles and Ferrari, I don't see that contract ending early. For one, Charles has apparently been promised that the 2024 car will be developed according to his needs and preferences, and it is ridiculous to leave a team who has made you that promise, even if that team is as flakey as Ferrari. I think Charles is waiting to see if the team does change in 2024 before he pushes for contract renewal. It's important to note here that contrary to popular opinion, I believe the ball is completely in Charles's court here when it comes to renewal. He is the Ferrari golden prince, he is Ferrari in a way that no driver really ever has been before, I think it was evident in Monza this year most of all. Carlos drives for Ferrari, and Charles is Ferrari and you could see it in the way that the tifosi treated them. They love Carlos, they adore and worship Charles. This is how Charles managed to convince them to build a car for him in 2024, and it's how I believe Charles is putting off the contract negotiations. This is a key point. Carlos's extended media team and family have complained several times about Carlos not being able to begin contract negotiations because of Charles in some way and Ferrari unwilling to negotiate with Carlos until they've settled Charles (I think this is due to the fact that they only intend to keep one of them and they'd like it to be Charles, but that's an essay for another day). So Charles has himself in a position where he doesn't have to commit to the team unless he sees that it is going to grow in the way he wants it to.

To quote Charles, "I view it in a way that whenever I won’t believe in the project anymore, that probably will be the time when I’ll have to go away. Because it’s in these kinds of situations that you don’t get the best out of yourself, that you don’t help the team as much as it needs to be helped. But this is definitely not the case at the moment. I believe in the project as much as I’ve ever believed in the project before. Especially since Fred arrived. So for now it’s clear. Then it’s also clear that I want to win. But I believe in this project and I’m sure we are working in the right direction.”

So maybe 2024 happens and Ferrari brings a championship-contender car, in which case Charles signs with Ferrari, they get rid of Carlos and probably bring in Alex Albon as a n2.

But I'm not interested in that outcome, I'm interested in what is (in my mind anyway) the far more likely outcome, sheerly due to money and Ferrari internal politics (which again, whole other essay!) which is that nothing really changes for the better at Ferrari. Maybe Charles gets a win by sheer luck and a slightly better car, but overall the strategy continues to not favour him, and Charles in general loses faith in what he refers to as the project. And we know from Charles himself that when this happens, this is when he goes away.

So I've presented an argument for why Red Bull are going to let Checo see out his contract, I've presented a strong possibility for why Charles might be looking to leave Ferrari at the end of 2024. Now I'm going to try and convince you of why out of all the options it'll be Charles joining Red Bull.

First of all, from Charles's point of view regarding teams. I'm going to rule out Alpha Tauri, Haas, Williams, Alfa Romeo, and Alpine, either because they're junior teams or I don't see them willing to fork over huge amounts of money to get Charles onboard. This leaves Mercedes, McLaren, Aston Martin, and Red Bull.

Out of all the non RBR options, I'd say that Mercedes is the most likely, but both their drivers are signed until 2025. There is always a possibility that Lewis Hamilton decides its time to leave the sport and buys himself out of his own contract, but I think that's not likely to happen next year.

Similar to Mercedes, both McLaren drivers are signed until at least 2025 and both look likely to honour that contract. Red Bull have tried to poach Lando multiple times, and Lando doesn't seem too keen on it yet, so we can assume that he intends to at least see his current contract out. Aston Martin is slightly trickier because I see them as being willing to fork over the millions needed to get Charles Leclerc to drive for them, but on the other hand they don't look close to producing a championship car, and Charles Leclerc is not switching away from Ferrari to not win a championship.

So, this leaves RBR as Charles's best destination for 2025 were he to leave Ferrari. Not only do they have a seat opening up, but they also have shown themselves capable of constructing recent championship-winning cars, and outclass every other team almost every weekend on strategy at the moment. Now that we've established that Charles's team of choice would be RBR, the final point of the argument has to be establishing why Charles would be RBR's driver of choice over let's say, Lando or Daniel.

To me the answer is simple, as so eloquently illustrated by my great friend and scholar Nat (@tsarinablogs) in her The PR of Lestappen in 2023 Essay (also known as Lestappen Gate 2023), Charles is not just good at PR, he's brilliant, and Red Bull isn't a racing company, it's a marketing venture. Having Charles on board would be their greatest asset and Charles has done much to make himself desirable, from being personable in almost all fan interactions to building a solid digital following, to being sometimes sneaky and subliminal with his sponsorship messaging (him always putting on APM Monaco immediately after a race, even before the podium and interviews, hell even Charles and Privateplanegate yesterday), to signing with a literal US entertainment agency. I cannot stress enough how the timing of the WME signing is not accidental, this is Charles making himself be seen as a highly desirable PR asset. Charles has the second highest following on social media out of any current driver, second to only 7 TIME WDC WINNER LEWIS HAMILTON. That sort of audience, and the kind of exposure it can bring to your team and your brand is insane.

Also, as an addendum to Nat's essay using something she herself brought up to me yesterday: any PR for RBR is good PR because it means that Red Bull as a concept is sticking around in people's heads, which means they're more likely to notice and buy the drinks off the shelves. Extrapolating from this we can see that Red Bull signing Charles would ultimately be better marketing than Red Bull signing Lando just because of the absolute uproar it would cause. Whether you think that Red Bull saved Charles from Ferrari, or Charles betrayed Ferrari for Red Bull, or Charles saved himself from Ferrari, or Red Bull as the Big Evil Team poached the Prince of Ferrari, there's a compelling narrative in there and people will talk about it for years to come.

Finally, not to talk about the driving aspect of motorsports, but Charles is the best fit for Red Bull driving-wise as well. Him and Max have spoken in the past about how they both prefer very similar types of car (ie. strong oversteer, borderline undriveable to anyone else) which would make car development much easier for the team. Christian Horner has also been pretty candid about wanting two n1 drivers à la Lewis and Nico (although without the toxicity), and whether you believe that Charles matches Max in equal machinery or not, Charles's racing record is a lot stronger than Lando's or Dan's (the two other possible competitors for the RBR seat). Charles fits the bill, driver-profile-wise, of the complement to Max that Christian Horner is looking for.

So, long story short, I am watching Ferrari VERY closely these next few months. If the SF-24 doesn't make Charles happy, I am going to make a bold claim that we will see Charles Leclerc driving for Red Bull in 2025.