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wandamaximoffsbadgirl · 10 months ago

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Throw A Tantrum

Mafia Boss!Lizzie Olsen x fem!reader

Summary: Lizzie won't stop asking you to marry her, it's become a game between you two now, but when Lizzie doesn't handle a situation right you blow off and go on a little shopping trip with her card

Word Count: 1.6K

Warnings: Lizzie and you have an argument

A/N: This is based off of this post

You always knew there was something different about Lizzie. Growing up together in the quiet suburbs, she always had this aura of command around her, even as kids. But you never imagined that one day she would become the head of the mafia, and you certainly didn't expect her to want to marry you.

Living with Lizzie in her sprawling, luxurious penthouse was an experience in itself. The place was a stark contrast to your childhood homes, filled with top-of-the-line furnishings and an almost intimidating level of sophistication. But despite the opulence, there were small touches that made it feel like home—photos of the two of you over the years, your favorite books on the shelves, and the cozy blanket you always curled up with draped over the back of the couch.

One evening, you were curled up on that very couch, reading a book, when Lizzie strolled into the living room. She leaned against the doorframe, her presence both comforting and intimidating, a paradox you had come to accept.

"Marry me," Lizzie said, for the hundredth time, her tone half-serious, half-teasing. Her dark green eyes sparkled with mischief as she looked at you.

"No," you replied with a smirk, not even looking up from your book. It was a ritual between you two by now, a game you both enjoyed. Despite your refusals, Lizzie never stopped asking, and you never stopped saying no, but it was all part of the dance you two shared.

"You know," Lizzie began, walking over to sit next to you on the couch, "you'd make a perfect mafia queen. You've got the attitude for it."

"And you have the persistence of a stalker," you shot back, finally meeting her gaze. Her eyes softened, a look that made your heart race.

"I just know what I want," Lizzie said, reaching out to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear. "And I always get what I want."

You rolled your eyes, though the fluttering in your chest was hard to ignore. "You can't just go around deciding people's lives for them, Lizzie."

"Maybe not everyone," she conceded, a sly smile playing on her lips, "but you? You're different."

"Different how?" you challenged, leaning in slightly.

"Different as in, you're already my wife in every way that matters," she said softly, her fingers grazing your cheek. "I spoil you, protect you, and love you more than anything in this world."

Your heart skipped a beat at her words. Despite your playful refusals, you were deeply in love with Lizzie. You just couldn't admit it out loud, not when her life was filled with danger and uncertainty. But every touch, every glance she gave you made it harder to resist her.

"You're delusional," you teased, trying to keep the mood light, but your voice betrayed your true feelings.

"Maybe," she whispered, her lips now inches from yours, "but I wouldn't have it any other way."

Before you could respond, she closed the gap, her lips capturing yours in a kiss that was both gentle and demanding. It was a kiss that spoke of years of friendship, unspoken feelings, and a future you were too scared to embrace.

When she finally pulled away, you were breathless, your resolve crumbling.

"One day," Lizzie murmured, her forehead resting against yours, "you'll say yes."

"Maybe," you admitted, your voice barely above a whisper. "But until then, enjoy the chase."

Lizzie chuckled, pulling you into her arms. "Oh, I am, darling. I am."

And as you nestled into her embrace, surrounded by the familiarity of your shared home, you knew that no matter how much you teased or resisted, Lizzie would always be there, loving you in her own fierce, unwavering way.

================

Lizzie's penthouse had five bedrooms, each more lavish than the last. Yet, from the moment you moved in, Lizzie had insisted that you share her bedroom. "For your protection," she'd said, her tone brooking no argument. You had reluctantly agreed, knowing that her insistence came from a place of love and concern.

One night, after a particularly trying day, you found yourself lying in bed with Lizzie. The room was dimly lit, casting a warm glow over the plush bedding and elegant décor. Lizzie's arms were wrapped around you, her hands roaming over your back in a soothing, familiar pattern. Her lips found yours, and you melted into the kiss, feeling a mixture of love and frustration.

You loved these moments and hated them all in one breath. The intimacy, the warmth of her touch, the way she made you feel safe and cherished—it was intoxicating. But it also made you painfully aware of how much you wanted to submit, to be hers completely. And that terrified you.

Lizzie's kisses grew more passionate, her hands exploring with a hunger that mirrored your own. You responded eagerly, your fingers tangling in her hair as you deepened the kiss. Yet, in the back of your mind, a voice whispered that you couldn't allow yourself to fully give in. Not when her life was filled with danger and uncertainty.

When she finally pulled away, her eyes searched yours, as if seeking answers to unspoken questions. "What are you thinking?" she asked softly, her breath warm against your skin.

You hesitated, struggling to find the words. "I... I love you, Lizzie. You know that. But I can't—"

"Shh," she murmured, pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead. "You don't have to explain. I understand."

And she did. Lizzie knew your fears, your doubts, and the reasons behind your resistance. She respected them, even if it meant enduring the ache of unfulfilled longing.

"I just want you to know that I'm here," Lizzie whispered, her fingers brushing away a stray tear from your cheek. "Whenever you're ready, I'll be here."

You nodded, unable to speak past the lump in your throat. Nestling closer to her, you allowed yourself to bask in the comfort of her embrace, even if just for a little while longer.

=================

It started out as a minor disagreement, something trivial about the way Lizzie handled a situation with one of her lieutenants. But, as things often did with the two of you, it quickly escalated.

“You never listen to me, Lizzie!” you shouted, frustration boiling over. “You just do whatever you want, without considering how it affects others!”

Lizzie’s eyes narrowed, her calm demeanor cracking just a bit. “I always listen to you. But sometimes, there are things you don’t understand about my world.”

“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” you retorted. “It’s your world, not ours. You always have to be in control.”

The argument continued to spiral until you stormed out, grabbing your keys and slamming the door behind you. You needed space, a chance to cool down and clear your head. And maybe, just maybe, a little bit of retail therapy.

Hours passed, and you found yourself at the most luxurious boutiques in the city. Every swipe of your card felt like a small act of rebellion, a way to assert some control in a situation where you often felt powerless. Designer clothes, expensive jewelry, anything and everything caught your eye.

Meanwhile, back at home, Lizzie was dealing with the aftermath of your fight. She knew she had pushed too hard, but her pride wouldn’t let her admit it. That is, until her phone rang.

“Miss Olsen,” the bank manager’s voice was cautious. “There’s been an unusual amount of spending on one of your accounts. We wanted to verify—”

“It’s fine,” Lizzie interrupted, a wry smile on her lips as she realized what you were doing. “Just my future wife throwing a tantrum.”

There was a pause on the other end, followed by a tentative, “Understood, Miss Olsen. Should we impose any limits?”

“No,” Lizzie said firmly. “Let her buy whatever she wants. She’ll come home eventually.”

And she was right. Laden with shopping bags and feeling a mix of satisfaction and guilt, you finally returned. Lizzie was waiting, her expression a blend of amusement and exasperation.

“Had fun?” she asked, eyeing the mountain of bags you set down.

“Immensely,” you replied, though your tone was softer now, the anger having dissipated.

Lizzie stepped closer, taking your hands in hers. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I do listen to you, and I do care about what you think. Sometimes I just get… carried away.”

You sighed, leaning into her touch. “I know. And I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have stormed out like that.”

Lizzie pulled you into a hug, her arms wrapping around you tightly. “It’s okay. Just promise me you won’t run off and bankrupt me every time we argue.”

You laughed, the sound muffled against her shoulder. “Deal. But only if you promise to actually listen.”

“Deal,” she echoed, pulling back to look into your eyes. “Now, let’s go through these bags and see what my future wife bought.”

As you sat together, sorting through your extravagant purchases, you took a deep breath and decided to take the plunge. "Lizzie," you started, your voice steady despite the butterflies in your stomach.

"Yes?" she looked up, her eyes full of curiosity and a hint of apprehension.

"Ask me again," you said softly.

Her brows furrowed for a moment before realization dawned on her face. A slow smile spread across her lips as she took your hands in hers once more. "Will you marry me?"

You smiled, feeling a warmth spread through your chest. "Yes, Lizzie. I'll marry you."

Lizzie pulled you into a kiss, her arms tightening around you as if she never wanted to let go. And in that moment, surrounded by shopping bags and the remnants of a heated argument, you knew you had made the right decision. No matter the ups and downs, you were ready to face them together, as partners, as lovers, and now, as fiancées.

#ley writes #ley writes drabbles #elizabeth olsen x reader #elizabeth olsen x female reader #elizabeth olsen x fem!reader #mafia boss au #mafia boss!Elizabeth Olsen #lizzie olsen #lizzie olsen x fem!reader #mafia boss!lizzie olsen #wanda maximoff #wanda maximoff x fem!reader #wanda maximoff x female reader

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azen13 · 2 months ago

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CW: Yandere Themes, Arranged Marriage, Stalking, Forced Kiss

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

You had thought for years that the prophecy wouldn't be true. It hung over your head like a crimson moon, equal parts beautiful and haunting, words lingering on your lips like a young lover.

As decreed by the Mnestia long ago, Kephale would one day take up a lover who would wield witticisms and words as weapons forged in an ever-burning mind. At the time, it had seemed preposterous that a Titan, much less Kephale, would take up a lover. If not for a servant scribbling those utterances down and telling his children, who told their own children, who told their children, so on and so forth, the prophecy would have been lost to time.

If it had, would you still be in this predicament?

The first time you had heard of the prophecy when studying poets of old, you had brushed it aside as a simple legend. Kephale had already laid down a prophecy of his own by this time of how new heroes would soon conquer Coreflames to inherit the Titans' divinities, but you knew none of the Chrysos Heirs.

After a period of study, you soon began to craft your own verses. You much preferred the solitude of your home to the bustling crowds of the city, so you didn't hear how quickly your works began to gain popularity. Bards had a new repertoire to learn, and schemes and conceits never once imagined flowed through the air.

When one of the Chrysos Heirs himself began knocking on your door every day, demanding your attention, you realized your popularity had shattered any preconceived zeniths. Phainon was his name, he said, and from what he had heard of you, he was enchanted. The look in his eyes was such a hazy, skylit blue, it seemed like he truly had been the victim of some bizarre spell.

Every day he came and encroached more and more upon you and your home. At first, he stayed outside of your door, but eventually, he began to barge in, sitting at your table or searching amongst your shelves for any subjects he could strike a conversation with you on.

Despite his idiosyncrasies and his forthright behavior, despite the occasional memory igniting in your mind, reminding you of the prophecy, you didn't worry about it. Phainon had told you many times how he longed to take the Coreflame of Nikador, not Kephale. When word spread through Okhema over Nikador's defeat, whatever lingering doubts seemed to be extinguished. You were fine. The prophecy wasn't true, or perhaps it was meant for another Chrysos Heir, another poet.

Weeks later, you found yourself regretting your assuredness. It started, as many no-good things did, with a knock on your door. As you begrudgingly walked to open it, expecting to see perhaps a bard or a fool, you instead were greeted by Phainon. Despite the weariness in his eyes, his hands shot out and clenched your shoulders with such speed and strength, you nearly leapt out of your skin. His nose nuzzled into your neck, taking a deep breath. For what seemed like hours, he mumbled and babbled and blathered and prattled about Coreflames, Nikador, Kephale, and the prophecy. After his tirade, his grip tightened.

"But, at least you're mine now." The words seemed to shackle themselves around your wrists, binding you and your attention.

For a moment, you were so dumbfounded you couldn't find the words to express what you wanted to say. Had your situation been any less confounding, you would've found your speechlessness a wonderful little paradox. "Phainon, wha-what do you m-?"

Before you could finish your sentence, Phainon sealed away any remaining restraint he had with a brutally tender kiss. He seemed to push against your lips with the goal of wearing them down until they molded perfectly against his. The kiss itself seemed to metamorphosize with how long it lived; at first it was tender, like new shoots of life growing in spring, but as it grew in age, so did its greed. Phainon seemed intent on savoring every second as an eternity in its own right.

When he did break the kiss, he gazed at you with an otherworldly devotion. It was a look of such sweet softness that it could kill. "I might not have Kephale's Coreflame yet, but I will. I'll do it. Just for you." Though he said he didn't have a Coreflame, his eyes burned with passion brighter than the sun. It scorched your tender skin, branding you with illusory markings of possession. A declaration, almost, that you were, in fact, the subject of Mnestia's dreadful prophecy.

#yandere phainon #yandere hsr #phainon x reader #hsr phainon #phainon #yandere #yandere x reader #yandere x you #yandere drabble #yandere imagine #yandere honkai star rail #yandere hsr x you #yandere phainon x reader #i LOVE prophecies so much asodkgjsogj they're such a fun trope imo #especially when they're tragic like...YES we love #also so sorry if there are grammar errors? i promise im trying my best but i v much tend to flop when it comes to editing sobs

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unadulteratedsoulsweets · 2 months ago

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A DC X DP IDEA #43

Stitches

Imagine dis…

I was just cleaning my room when I came across an old stuffed toy of mine. It is full of stitches like an amateur trying surgery for the first time and flopping it. I just remembered sewing my stuffed toy together as a kid. Like I was playing on them too harshly or one of my younger siblings got a hold of it and roughed it all up. So when I noticed my mom had no time to help me stitch my toy, I did it myself and the results varied…

…

John Constantine, aka the Laughing Magician, wasn’t an idiot. A drunk? Absolutely. A smoker? You bet. Had the worst bloody taste in romantic or sexual partners? Well, that’s a given. But an idiot? Not a chance. He knew, better than most, that the world he lived in was held together by nothing more than spit, lies, and a hell of a lot of bloody stubbornness.

But lately, something felt off…

Every time some wanker in a bright-colored cape and spandex punched, both literally and figuratively, through time or ripped an open hole to another dimension, it began as if reality was fixing itself.

He still remembered the bloody heart attack he nearly had the first time he read those sodding reports on time travel and dimension hopping. The second his eyes skimmed over the first few lines, he buggered off without so much as a goodbye, diving headfirst into the mess to sniff out whatever godawful consequences those spandex-clad pillocks had left in their wake. So imagine his surprise when, after dragging his sorry arse across the whole damn world, he found… nothing.

Not a damn thing.

No lingering paradoxes, no dangerous tears leaking out eldritch nightmares. It wasn’t natural. And anything unnatural coming from the bastard that split his soul like some two-bit, overachieving Voldemort, made his skin crawl.

So, like any poor sod with a knack for bad decisions and a bloody inconvenient conscience, he followed the ripples.

And that’s how he ended up standing in the inky void between worlds, a cig hanging off his lips, watching some scrawny teenager go to the fabric of reality that was torn apart by yet another one of those bloody spandex-wearing tossers, with a needle, like the universe had personally pissed in his pint.

The kid sat cross-legged in the void, stabbing his bloody needle through the fabric of space-time, and from the looks of it he was fueled by nothing but caffeine and a serious dose of spite. The thread he was using was bright blue, flickering with silver and white specks. Like tiny stars in each thread. Each stitch yanked the frayed edges of existence together, a bit rougher than necessary, like he was pissed off at the whole damn universe.

Constantine blew out a long stream of smoke, taking in the mess around him with a grimace. A sorry bloody sight, that’s for sure.

The kid had already clocked the audience, rolling his eyes so hard it was a miracle he didn’t give himself whiplash. He didn’t even bother with a glance, clearly unimpressed.

The kid introduced himself as Danny, then stretched out another few feet of thread and got back to stitching, like he hadn’t a care in the world.

The kid, Danny, if Constantine heard right, grunted, clearly unimpressed. He didn’t stop working, shoulders hunched in exhaustion like he’d been doing this for far too long. The whole cosmic janitor routine: they rip holes, he stitches 'em up. Same old, same old.

Bloody typical.

Constantine crouched down, eyeing the erratic stitching with a mix of curiosity and skepticism. This wasn’t normal, not by a long shot.

Danny let out a sharp, humorless laugh, clearly fed up. He jabbed the needle into a particularly stubborn tear with all the force of someone who'd had enough. The sarcasm practically dripped from him. Seems he was well and truly done with his unglamorous role in this cosmic mess.

Constantine felt a prickle of unease, the kind that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He didn’t need to ask, but he did anyway.

What happens if you stop?

Danny’s response was all sarcasm and sass, if there was any doubt left, it was gone now. He didn’t even need to elaborate. The answer was bloody obvious if the kid, Danny, ever stopped stitching.

Danny snorted, flashing Constantine a wicked grin, all teeth and mischief. The kind of smile that made his gut twist.

Ah. Bugger.

Constantine didn’t need a bloody prophecy to know what that meant. If the kid stopped, the world wouldn’t just fall apart it would unravel, slow and steady, like a seamstress unpicking stitches, one by one, until nothing was left. And worse? There’d be no afterlife waiting to catch the poor sods caught in the collapse. No heaven, no hell, no second chances. Just the abyss, swallowing everything whole. No way in. No way out.

Now Constantine was scrambling, doing everything in his power to keep the kid from buggering off while there were still holes left to patch. And, just as importantly, making sure those spandex-clad pillocks finally got the memo, no more bloody time travel or dimension-hopping shenanigans.

The kid must’ve clocked what he was up to because, without a word, he handed Constantine a green-glowing bat with “Creepstick” printed on the side. He didn’t think much of it at first up until, after one particularly miserable day, he swung the thing in frustration and accidentally clocked Superman, who had just been reaching out to ask if he was alright.

For a second, Constantine felt guilty. Then he remembered that the Kryptonian had probably punched more holes in reality than anyone else. That guilt? Gone. Replaced by pure, unfiltered glee.

With renewed purpose, he set his sights on the next offender, the red spandex speedster responsible for most of the timeline’s headaches. The rest of the heroes caught on quickly that he was on some kind of unholy warpath. So when he casually knocked the Man of Steel on his arse with a single swing and grinned like a serial killer who’d just found his next victim, they did the smart thing they got the hell out of his way.

Some of the ones with super-hearing overheard his next target: one of the Flashes.

Constantine knew damn well he wasn’t getting into any afterlife, but for fuck’s sake, if they didn’t stop tearing holes in the bloody universe, none of them would have a place to go. No heaven, no hell just the abyss waiting to swallow them whole. And he wasn’t about to let that happen on his watch.

…

PS: If someone out there wants to continue or make a fic about this you are free to do so, don’t forget to tag me though.

PPS: I tried using Constantine POV throughout the entire prompt and as you can see that I over did at the Brit slang.

PPPS: Though, how did I do?….

#dc x dp #dc x dp prompt #danny phantom #ghost king danny #john constantine

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wheredostarsgowhenyoudie · 16 days ago

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Because KLAROLINE is still a thing.

Giving you a list of my favorite Klaroline fics to go back to. 🩷

Theme - Because Time Travel is a thing

She Deserves Better by CrazyGirl92

After a life of regret, this time she's going to choose herself.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/23645335

Only Human by peaceful village

She travels back into his past to know about the man, and returns to him in the present with a surprise.

Let's Go Back by Sam0728

She goes back in time to save Henrik.

Theme - Short, Light & Sweet

the world that's waiting for you by prettypinklips

Short & funny. She tries to rehabilitate our favorite hybrid.

Happy Birthday, Klaus by TheCivilState

Because she cares about things like his birthday.

Theme - Some things just hurt.

Everything, Everything by Anya-Paradox

Angsty & painful but beautiful & worth the read.

Trapped in a world where everything is different and they are humans, it's supposed to be hell until it isn't.

Theme - Because he's lived long enough to have learned patience.

The Man Who Waited by candidshot

Sweet AU one shot with a captivating narration.

Then Marry Him by TheOneTrueBear

He gives her the unexpected advice, one she's bold enough to take.

Their Nightly Ritual by bellamywinchester

He calls everyday to ask about her day.

Theme - Where the girl saves the hybrid.

not for him a watery grave by MyLadyElise

She decides she can't stand him dead and suffering.

at the end of the day by bananzie

She dreams of his torture and just has to see him safe.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/49457902

80 Years of Remorse by driver picks the music

He turns up at her shore years after they buried him in the Pacific.

#klaroline #the vampire diaries #tvd #vampire diaries #klaus mikaelson #caroline forbes #the originals #fanfiction

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chuuyalvover · 2 months ago

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“hold me, console me.”

Kang dae ho x reader angst+oneshot

A/N:: this is inspired by No one noticed!

In a deadly game where only one can live, a cruel game where emotions are a weakness and love is a death sentence, despite this dae ho alongside reader find themselves falling anyways. Maybe in another life, they'll get a second chance.

((listen to the song above while reading :3 ↑))

—“when we get out of here I'll take you to paris.”

Naive. It was like holding out a marble, believing in a promise crafted to be broken. Naive was when you embraced a deal to play ’Simple games'—in beneath your knowledge, each passing round was crafted to be a gamble between luck.

"Red light, Green light". A simple game you played throughout your early days of life. A game that involved running. Running from death that is. A monotonous voice spoke out declaring the game to be "Red light, Green light". A simple game that involves agility. A huge doll distanced from you and the remaining 456 players fated to play stood out. “green light!” the doll says as a 5 minute timer started. Almost immediately, players sprinted forward chaotically.

In the breeze of the moment, what seemed like a 'simple' game turned into a twist of destiny. You stood still, caught in a paradox of anticipation and fear, as the doll's voice echoed, declaring, "Red light!" Your body remained frozen in place, aware that time was slipping away around you. The seconds ticked by—4...3...2...until at last, the doll chimed, “Green light!” In that instant, you surrendered to the weight of your fate. Fortunately, in that last second, a man, 388. grabbed your arm, rewriting your Fate and causing you to live, on the other hand, others who didn't make it? Shot.

Amid the chaos, you met the man, Kang Dae-ho. In a place where trust was lethal and hope felt like a cruel joke, he became something that felt real. He was the voice that kept you grounded, and the one who saved you from a terrible fate, someone who made this nightmare feel a little less lonely.

You stuck together, always. When the lights dimmed and the air grew heavy with exhaustion, you found each other in the shadows. Some nights, the silence stretched between you, comfortable and unspoken. Other nights, words spilled freely, filling the emptiness.

You remembered the first time he really spoke to you, beyond the necessary words of the game. It was after lights-out, the room filled with uneasy silence, the air thick with unspoken fears. You lay beside each other, staring at the ceiling, waiting for sleep that never came.

"Why Paris?" His voice was barely above a whisper.

You hesitated before answering. "I don’t know. I guess… it always felt like a place to start over. A place where no one knows me." Silence stretched between you, and for a moment, you thought the conversation was over. But then, Dae-Ho exhaled, a slow, measured breath. "My father wanted a soldier." You turned your head to look at him, but his eyes remained fixed on the ceiling, lost in something distant.

"I grew up in a house full of sisters. I was never the strong one, never the one he was proud of. So he sent me to the Marines. Said I needed to ‘man up.’" His voice was flat, like he was reciting someone else’s story. "I did what I was told. Followed orders. And for a while, I thought that if I was good enough, if I was strong enough, he’d finally look at me the way he looked at my sisters."

His fingers curled into fists against the cold floor. "Then the shooting happened."

You didn’t ask. You didn’t need to. Whatever happened that day, it haunted him still. "People died," he continued after a moment, his voice tight. "Good people. And I—I hesitated. Just for a second."

A bitter chuckle escaped him. "Guess my father got what he wanted. I became a soldier. I became a killer. And in the end, it still wasn’t enough."

Hold me,

The weight of his words pressed into the silence, heavy and unshakable. You swallowed hard, unsure of what to say—I mean, what could you say?instead, you reached for his hands

His fingers twitched beneath yours, tense at first, before slowly relaxing. For a long time, neither of you spoke. Then, just as your eyelids began to grow heavy, his voice broke through the stillness.

"When we get out of here, I’ll take you to Paris."

Console me,

It wasn’t a promise. It was something softer, something fragile. A dream shared between two people that isn't meant to come true.

And maybe, just maybe, that was enough.

As the days slipped by like grains of sand in an hourglass, filled with fleeting moments and hushed anticipation, the time had come for yet another game to unfold. A game that involved playing in pairs. So of course, you and Dae-ho teamed up.

Little did you know, you would be competing against eachother.

The rules were simple—win, or die.

You stood across from Dae-Ho, a bag of marbles weighing heavy in your hands. The game was cruel, but not as cruel as the look in his eyes—the quiet resignation, the unspoken goodbye. "Let’s play," he murmured. His voice was steady, but his hands trembled as he picked up the first marble.

You both knew what he was planning. You weren’t stupid. You saw the way he barely aimed, how his shots missed by just enough. He was letting you win.

"Stop." Your voice cracked. "Play properly."

He smiled gently, a hint of something resembling fondness in his expression. "I am," he said. Another miss. Another marble lost.

"Dae-Ho."

You wanted to scream. You wanted to throw the marbles away, to refuse the game, to grab him and run. But there was nowhere to go. The masked men stood by, guns in hand, waiting for the inevitable.

Dae-Ho exhaled softly, rolling the last marble between his fingers."When we get out of here," he murmured, "I’ll take you to Paris."

The final marble slipped from his fingers. Too soft. Too weak. It never stood a chance.

And before you could even breathe—before you could even beg him to take it back—

The game was over.

And Dae-Ho left without a trace.

#Spotify #dae ho squid game #kang dae ho #dae ho x reader #dae ho imagine #dae ho #daeho x reader #daeho x you

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raz-writes-the-thing · 1 year ago

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A Little Paradox Never Hurt Nobody (Doctor Who One-Shot)

Tenth Doctor x Eleventh Doctor x Fem!Reader 18+ ONLY / requests are open

Summary: It's been six months since Eleven joined you both, and it's safe to say things have escalated a little.

CW: smut, threesome, filthy stuff im so proud of this

DW: @nyxiethesimp @quickslvxrr @midnight--raine @blueberry-sunshines @stevekempscocktails @go-bonkers-go-foolish @peytonpenguin37 (send an ask to be added to a tag list!)

___ ___ ___ ___ ___

See, the thing about Time Lords is that they are notoriously competitive. Particularly Time Lords of different regenerations in the same place at the same time. Particularly Time Lords of different regenerations in the same place at the same time who both had (or was it has?) the same companion. Said companion was you. Said Time Lords were the Tenth and the Eleventh regenerations of the Doctor.

When the eleventh Doctor had spouted his way out of a portal and into the tenth’s console room, there had been rather a lot of shouting, a lot of confusion, and a lot of use of the word ‘paradox.’ Quite frankly, if you never heard that word ever again it would be far too soon.

After that, there was a lot of discussion around Eleven not being able to be there because he already knew how all this was going to go. All the things Ten had yet to live, Eleven had already been through and while it was general knowledge that one should not attempt to change one’s own past- one was not always able to control oneself if that particular opportunity should arise.

They’d tried pretty hard at first to figure out how to get him back. There was some ‘timey wimey’ reason as to why they couldn’t just use the TARDIS, and that had been about the extent of time and space travel knowledge you had, so you didn’t put any other suggestions in after that.

And so, Eleven was still with you six months later.

You didn’t know, of course, that Eleven still had you with him after Ten was due to regenerate in the future, not that you knew when that was, but what you also didn’t know until about a month into Eleven’s presence was that your relationship with Ten continued on with Eleven after a brief adjustment period. Fair enough.

And then Ten found out, and as they were both technically (but also not really) the same person, you ended up sleeping with them both. It had been their idea, though you were pretty sure that it had just sort of happened and they decided to take the credit.

Anyway, all this to say- Ten and Eleven knew how to play your body like a violin, and when they worked together it was as if they moved in tandem. It’s own kind of chaotic different to when they were feuding. They did that a lot too, to be fair.

Today it seemed as though they wanted to work as one. Riling you up every way they knew how. Lingering touches in bed, a hard squeeze on the way past you, whispered words of desire in corridors and spare rooms. Ten had rutted himself up against your thighs at some point and had unfortunately had to leave before he or yourself could finish- some urgent TARDIS thing.

Eleven had you pressed into the wall of his bedroom and had you grind yourself silly on his thigh. You’d not been able to get off, and Eleven had tutted when you’d whined that you needed more. You’d practically begged him, but he’d said no- “later, Petal.”

Things had continued on like that, teasing and close calls where whomever it was teasing you had to run for whatever reason.

Of course- they’d been planning it that way. The two of them, working together to get you as desperate as they possibly could so that when they finally had at you, you’d succumb to the pleasure with no thoughts left in your pretty little head.

“Oh, look at that,” Ten said from behind you, pinning your legs open with his own. You made some sort of sound- you weren’t even sure it sounded human. “Haven’t even been fucking into you for that long yet- already fucked dumb, love.”

Ten’s hands were wrapped around your waist, squeezing comfortingly as Eleven laid one hand on your knee and the other on your breast, flicking at the nipple while he fucked his hard cock into you over and over without mercy.

“Mm- she does, rather, doesn’t she?” Eleven commented, taking the hand on your breast to grab you by the chin and turn your face side to side. With your muscles so lax, you didn’t fight the motion, and Eleven wasn’t being rough with you anyway (yet) so it wasn’t a big deal. You whimpered, eyes screwing shut and head lolling against Ten’s shoulder. “Desperate little thing, aren’t you, love?”

You could barely form a response, tears welling as Eleven found a particularly good spot and rammed his cock into it repeatedly. Your muscles were non-existent by this point, having been eaten out twice and fingered to completion once on top of that as well. Ten had to keep your legs spread with his own, and he did so without complaint. Getting to see Eleven fuck you silly over the top of your shoulder was more than enough of an incentive for him.

On top of barely being able to form a response to anything your boys were saying, you could barely keep your eyes open. You were so cockdrunk that nothing was registering for you except the deep thrusting of Eleven’s cock into your g-spot over and over like a mantra you never wanted to end.

And because you were unable to keep your eyes open for more than two seconds at a time, you didn’t notice Ten’s fingers trailing over your hips to rub at your clit. You felt it though, and Ten had to tighten his muscles to keep you from snapping your legs shut around Eleven’s hips.

“Oh, my darling,” Ten cooed, pressing a kiss to the top of your ear. “I know, darling. I know, love. It’s so much. It’s too much. You can do it, oh yes, I know you can. You’re such a good girl for us, aren’t you?” It was all you could do to not start crying with the overstimulation.

And it wasn’t to say you didn’t feel good. You felt fucking amazing, so so good, but it was so much. So much pleasure firing through your nerve endings. You could feel how puffy and swollen your lips were stretched around Eleven and it only served to make you cry out louder.

“Hush now, dear,” Eleven said, pressing his hand over your mouth to keep you quiet. You didn’t argue, whole body limp against their whims. Whatever they wanted, you would give it to them. Anything at all.

Eleven grinned breathily, and fucked up into you harshly, not seeming to care how fucked out you were in the slightest. You wriggled against the fingers on your clit, and clung to Ten as though he were your lifeline.

“There there,” Ten said softly, fingers rubbing tight little circles. “Oh, darling, oh yes, I know. He’s so mean to you, isn’t he? Mhm. Oh yes.”

Eleven grumbled though it evened out into a moan when your cunt fluttered around him. His head dropped forward, already mussed hair falling into a curtain in front of his eyes. He gave his hips a few especially hard rolls, and your eyes fazed out onto the ceiling above you.

“Oh, look at that, Doctor,” Ten said, cooing and shushing you comfortingly. “We thought she was fucked out before. Look at her now. Maybe we should give her a break, eh?”

Eleven grunted, hips rocking softly now for a moment, giving himself time to think on it.

“Nah, don’t think so,” Eleven replied, getting back into his rhythm.

Ten’s fingers revived their assault, rubbing against you with such ferocity that you were afraid you might actually combust. Your mouth opened in a silent scream as your body forced you to climax again, the pleasure bordering on pain with how intense it was. Your clit almost felt like it was burning- and yet you didn’t want it to stop. Ten shushed you gently, rubbing his nose along the shell of your ear and pressing kisses to your sweaty hair as your body spasmed between them.

Your cunt contracting harshly around Eleven forced him to cum, ropes of his seed painting inside you. The heat of them- warmer than a humans- filled you up so nicely that you were genuinely concerned under the foggy waves of pleasure that you might start crying.

Eleven rode his high out with your body, no care given for your poor overstimulated cunt, and finally when the last rolls of pleasure were done with him, he pulled himself out. He did so slowly, and you grimaced slightly at the tug of your puffy walls around him.

Eleven cooed and pressed a kiss to your cheek to placate you.

Ten let his legs slide down the bed, and yours followed accordingly, unable to hold themselves up for even another minute more. God, you were well and truly fucked. Literally, not figuratively (at the moment, anyway). You lolled back against him, nuzzling your cheek into his neck.

You hadn’t even noticed Eleven leave, but you definitely noticed him returning, towel in hand and water dripping off his face. Ah, he’d gone to clean up.

“Now, Ten, dearest, are you planning to fuck her before we all retire for the evening?” Eleven asked without much charm. He was just like that. You didn’t take offence. In fact, his crass command of language was one of the things that made you love him more. “Only asking in relation to clean up, of course.”

You could feel Ten hard against your backside, and you gave a half-hearted attempt to grind up against him. You were quite sore, but you wouldn’t say no if he wanted to use you.

“Can fuck ‘er tits if you like,” Eleven added, noting the way your legs subconsciously closed themselves. The ache was intense, but you considered it an added bonus to the pleasure you’d just been subjected to.

“Oh, big load of charming you are,” Ten scolded. “Blimey, you’re lucky I was there to lay the foundations for you both or you’d have had no chance.”

“Now, now, boys,” you said- the first words in a fair while to come out of your mouth and it was to stop them bickering. Even your voice sounded as though it had been thoroughly ravaged.

“Can I?” The Doctor asked, turning his attention back to you. One of his hands squeezed at your tit, and you swore you could feel the lust rolling off him in waves from that one action alone. You nodded tiredly. Of course, he could.

Ten leaned you forward so he could escape from behind you. Eleven took his spot without issue, pulling you up to sit against him rather than lay against him as you did with Ten.

Eleven brushed the hair behind your ear as Ten positioned himself in front of you. You looked up at his eager face, running a hand over his chest and down over his tummy to wrap around his upper thigh.

Just as you were about to let go and hold your breasts together for him, Eleven’s big, warm hands took their place, pressing against your skin, one forefinger flicking at a nipple quickly just to tease.

“You’re so gorgeous,” Ten breathed, dribbling some lube onto your tits. “So brilliant, love. Just like that- oh, yes- f-fuck.”

“Look at him,” Eleven whispered hotly into your ear. “Not even started yet and already stuttering.”

You let out a giggle of a whimper, and Ten’s hips started to rock against you. Your tired arms wrapped around the backs of his thighs, giving his ass a little squeeze.

Ten groaned, fucking your tits desperately. He wasn’t going to last long after having been teasing you and therefore himself as well all day, and it was barely another two minutes before his cock was starting to twitch and he started to moan with that lilt that he always did when he was close to spilling.

“Please,” you whined, head dropping back against Eleven’s shoulder. “Ten, please- Doctor-”

“Well, you heard the lady,” Eleven tutted, pushing your tits together that little bit harder to create a touch more friction for him. “You’d better cum then, shouldn’t you?”

Ten groaned, throwing his head back and exposing his gorgeous neck to you both. Eleven nipped at the tip of your ear, causing you to gasp.

“Cum on me, please- I need it,” you whined, brows drawing inwards in desperation. Ten seemed to finally hear you, and he let out a desperate little ‘o-hoh, yes, fuck-’ and he was cumming, spilling over your tits, rolling his hips back and forth to make sure he got the most out of his orgasm.

You groaned pleasurably as Eleven let go of your breasts. A drip of cum dribbled off the curve of your tit and onto Eleven’s hand, who deftly and without hesitation licked it up.

You were so fucked out and so busy thinking about how covered in spend you were that you barely noticed as Ten decided to collapse softly on top of you both. He snuggled close, not caring about the fact that he was now also covered in his own cum as well, and you huffed out a grunt.

“Oh, that’s just lovely,” Eleven said sarcastically, now being crushed under two grown people. “Now I’m trapped. I suppose you’re both happy, aren’t you?”

You giggled out a nod, and you could see Ten trying to contain his laughter as well.

“Alright,” you say, yawning tiredly. Wow, that came out of nowhere. Suddenly you were oh-so-tired. “Ten minutes of cuddles and then it’s group shower time, yes?”

“Maybe fifteen,” Ten replied tiredly.

“Yes, dears,” Eleven added, and you could hear the affectionate roll of his eyes.

Was it wrong, perhaps, to wish that Eleven would stay forever? Possibly. Was it going to stop you from wishing it quietly to yourself anyway?

Absolutely not.

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noneorother · 1 year ago

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Oh my god, season 2 is The Tales of Crowley Hoffmann

I guess this has to be a series now too. Part 1 l Part 2

When Aziraphale wants to perform a show-stopping magic trick in S2E4, he is shown the "Professor's Nightmare," a rope trick, and references "Prof Hoff himself" at the end of the minisode.

Because we love double meanings so much around here, I decided to actually watch the Powell & Pressburger epic opera film "The Tales of Hoffmann," assuming it was the another P&P easter egg and the other Hoffmann (not the magician) that was being referenced.

One, this movie is unhinged. Two, this season IS The Tales of Hoffmann. Allow me to explain...

There are shot for shot quotes literally everywhere throughout the season.

P&P The Tales of Hoffmann (Automaton Ball) & Good Omens Season 2 "The Ball"

P&P The Tales of Hoffmann (Hoffmann watches Stella perform) & Good Omens Season 2 "The one with the zombies"

P&P The Tales of Hoffmann (Clerk in Automaton Ball) & Good Omens Season 2 "The Ball"

P&P The Tales of Hoffmann (Tale of Antonia, Hoffman & Antonia) & Good Omens Season 2 "The Clue Crowley & Aziraphale"

P&P The Tales of Hoffmann (Prologue) & Good Omens Season 2 "The one with the Zombies"

P&P The Tales of Hoffmann (Tale of Giulietta Banquet scene) & Good Omens Season 2 "The Clue Banquet scene" *By the way Hoffmann wears a goatee for this tale

P&P The Tales of Hoffmann (Prologue "Dragonfly dance") & Good Omens Season 2 Prologue "Before the Beginning" *This is Stella and un unknown devil drangonfly, NOT Hoffmann

P&P The Tales of Hoffmann (Tale of Antonia) & Good Omens Season 2 "The Clue"

P&P The Tales of Hoffmann (Tale of Antonia) & Good Omens Season 2 "The one with the Zombies"

P&P The Tales of Hoffmann (Automaton Ball) & Good Omens Season 2 "The Ball"

P&P The Tales of Hoffmann (End credits through Hoffman's glasses) & Good Omens Season 2 end credit scene.

Stella & Aziraphale. This one makes me laugh.

There are SO MANY MORE, but tumblr has an image limit. Seriously, it's nuts.

2. It seems simple and straightforward, but it's not at all

" Why would ambitious filmmakers simply film an opera? Many admirers of the work of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger have assumed that their decision to make The Tales of Hoffmann (...) was in some way an admission(...) that they couldn’t go on making their edgy, over-the-top melodramas after the rejection and interference they’d suffered (but) there’s a case for considering The Tales of Hoffmann as one of the finest and boldest works that Powell and Pressburger produced, so far ahead of its time as a wholly “composed” film, combining visual and musical elements, that it has still not been fully appreciated... Late in his life, Powell himself said that he thought it was one of the best films that he and Pressburger had made. What makes the film so remarkable is a series of paradoxes: the fact that it virtually reinvented the freedom and fantasy of silent cinema while making full use of Technicolor and a stellar cast of dancers and singers..." - Criterion, The lives of marionettes

3. The structure of the story is the same as the show

Here is the story of the Movie** (Not really the Opera that inspired it) In the prologue, we see the dance of the dragonflies onstage at a ballet. Count Lindoff (very bad dude) is spying on both the principal dancer Stella, and the audience member Hoffmann (who's admiring her). Lindoff is behind the scenery. During her dance, Stella passes a love note to her assistant for Hoffmann. The bad dude intercepts it out of jealousy. During the intermission, Hoffmann goes down to the tavern next door, watched by his sort of buddy in red, Nicklaus. People ask him to tell stories to while away the time, and so he tells 3 stories (actually four but we'll get back to that).

We launch into 3 tales/minisodes in other times and places : 1. The Tale of the Ball of the Automaton where he falls in love with a robot. He is humiliated. 2. The tale of Venice (Giulietta) where he falls in love with a courtesan/double agent who crosses him. 3. The tale of Antonia, where he falls in love with a girl who feels trapped by her living dad, her dead mom and a mysterious bad dude (Lindoff). She is murdered in a ring of fire, but becomes a ghost and is resurrected and sent back to earth. At the end, we snap back to the tavern in the real world. Hoffmann reveals that these three women are all metaphors for how he feels about Stella, his true love. He's drunk and depressed now, thinking she never sent for him after the show. Stella arrives in the tavern looking for Hoffmann, ready to run away, but now accompanied by Lindoff (dressed as an angelic figure) who followed her. She looks to Hoffmann to save her, but he's too blinded by the fact that he doesn't think she loves him back to pick up on the signal. He gives up, and she goes back up the stairs guided by Lindoff. Her assistant (who was bribed by Lindoff at the beginning) is given the go ahead by Lindoff to go back to the tavern and taker over. They close the door to the tavern, while she walks up ethereal stairs with the bad dude. THE END.

The one story that doesn't fit into the minisodes and is told in the real world is Kleinzach. We understand by the end of this one that this is Hoffmann's self loathing about never being good enough for Stella, because Stella is perfect and Hoffmann is ugly and deformed. The main love interest attempts to steal Kleinzach's essence through a mirror by the end. 4. Powell & Pressburger recast four actors in new roles In The Tales of Hoffmann, P&P decided to recast four of the principal actors/dancers from the film The Red Shoes in new roles, wanting to recreate the magic that they brought to the first ballet film. Sound familiar?

5. Crowley is Hoffmann

"The Tales of Hoffmann" original 1881 costume concept for Hoffmann & Crowley costume sketch for S2E3 1827 Edinburgh. Glasses are a really important aspect for Hoffmann in both the opera and the movie versions of The Tales of Hoffmann. Hoffmann is gifted metaphorical magic glasses that he wears to be able to perceive his love in a way they aren't really in real life. In the opera, he wears dark glasses to shut out the real world, not just as a metaphor. Check out a modern day version of the opera's Hoffmann costume :

He's french and slamming a beer but you get it. Crowley also canonically loves watching movies. It would make so much sense that his minisode recountings with him and Aziraphale would resemble different styles of movie that he loves. Seeing as we see him drive away at the end as the last character, an argument could be made for him being the ultimate narrator of the story in season 2.

6. The original American release of The Tales of Hoffman had 14ish minutes cut out of it by the studio. So we all know by now that whole debacle about having the clocks jump 14-15ish minutes during the kiss?

"The Tales of Hoffmann found an audience far wider than expected, despite Korda’s misgivings about the movie’s running time and his decision to cut 14 minutes out of the film for its American release." - Criterion, The Tales of Hoffman

I have been unable to unearth what the difference between the American & British versions of the P&P Tales of Hoffmann is, if you know let ME know. I want to know! _____________________________________

And I HAVE SO MUCH MORE. This is long enough already so I'll save the more detailed stuff for a new post.

**The opera is a whole other beast. You can read about it here, but basically there's a lot more going on in the opera because the composer died before finishing it, and multiple versions exist after the original uncompleted score got lost IN A FIRE. Anyway. Here's part 2

#good omens meta #good omens season two #art director talks good omens #go season 2 #good omens 2 #go meta #good omens season 2 #go2 #crowley x aziraphale #anthony j crowley #aziraphale and crowley #aziraphale x crowley #crowley and aziraphale

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666writingcafe · 10 months ago

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Feeling a Bit Tense?

A (Mildly NSFW) Text Conversation Between Barbatos and MC

Barbatos: *waving emoji*

MC: *gif of someone waving tiredly*

Barbatos: Rough day?

MC: *gif of someone shrugging*

Barbatos: Do you need or want to talk about it?

MC: Should I?

Barbatos: If it will make you feel better, yes.

MC: *keeps typing and erasing messages*

Barbatos: Does this have anything to do with Solomon? If he's been messing with you, I'll be more than happy to talk to him for you.

MC: No need.

Barbatos: Do you genuinely feel that way, or are you just trying to get me to back off?

MC: Regarding this particular issue, he hasn't done anything wrong.

Barbatos: Okay.

Barbatos: So, what sort of "issue" are you dealing with?

MC: I'm not sure how to put it delicately.

Barbatos: Don't worry about sounding prim and proper. Just tell me what's on your mind.

MC: Here goes nothing...

MC: I'd like to get laid.

Barbatos: I see.

Barbatos: And you're worried about doing it with someone from this timeline, aren't you?

MC: I mean...wouldn't that cause a paradox?

Barbatos: Isn't it a bit late for you to start worrying about paradoxes, considering that three of us know your true identity?

MC: You, Diavolo, and/or Thirteen would have figured it out one way or another. We just figured it would be easier to be open about it with you guys than risk ending up dead or in prison.

Barbatos: Fair point.

Barbatos: Anyway, as long as you don't produce something that's not there in your timeline, you should be good to proceed.

MC: Except I don't trust many people here.

Barbatos: Understandable. I feel the same way.

MC: This is probably a pointless question, but have any advice?

Barbatos: I would say take care of it yourself, but that's not going to help much, is it?

MC: I mean, it's taken the edge off, but nothing I use is going to be quite the same as having another living, breathing person with me.

Barbatos: So you're looking for a physical connection.

MC: Kind of?

Barbatos: My next piece of advice would be to arrange a meeting with an escort, but as you've already stated, you're rather wary of most people here, and personally I don't like dealing with them. They ask for WAY too much when they realize that they're servicing the Young Master, and that doesn't just apply to money.

MC: *whistling crow sticker*

Barbatos: Maybe ask one of the brothers?

MC: *no sticker*

MC: We're not NEARLY that close for me to successfully get away with that.

Barbatos: Is there anyone else who lives here that you had some sort of a relationship with in your timeline?

MC: Yes, but they're out of the question.

Barbatos: Not necessarily.

MC: Trust me.

Barbatos: They're members of royalty, aren't they?

MC: *eyes emoji*

Barbatos: Interesting.

MC: Good or bad?

Barbatos: Not bad. Actually mildly impressed.

MC: Thanks?

Barbatos: So...

MC: *questioning sticker*

Barbatos: If you will allow me to be blunt for a moment, how would you like me to fuck you?

MC: *gif of someone spitting out water*

Barbatos: Simply being practical.

Barbatos: I'm not sending you back to Solomon.

Barbatos: The prince is too busy to help with this, sadly.

Barbatos: And I don't trust any of the other royals to not harm you. I want you to be able to return to your timeline in one piece.

Barbatos: Unless you don't trust me?

MC: It's not that.

Barbatos: Then what is it?

MC: In my timeline, I was your first.

Barbatos: Then that's perfect. We'll still keep that part of it accurate. It'd just happen sooner, which isn't a super big deal.

MC: If I didn't know better, I'd think this was your intention all along.

Barbatos: What, to get in bed with you?

MC: *nodding sticker*

Barbatos: I'd be lying if I told you that hasn't crossed my mind once or twice during your stay here so far.

MC: *gif of someone saying 'i knew it'*

Barbatos: What can I say? Like it or not, I'm a creature of desire.

Barbatos: Also...

Barbatos: Your scent has given you away a couple of times, so I figured that I'd had a fair shot if I ever DID want to indulge.

MC: *blushing emoji*

Barbatos: We'll talk more when you return to the castle.

Taglist: @lost-in-time-wanderer, @fuzztacular, @dianedancer18, @sweetbrier2908, @flare-love, @completelyshatteredbrokenmschf, @thunderlightning351, @l3v1chan, @anxious-chick, @5mary5, @expressionless-fr, @tenkobitch

#obey me shall we date #obey me nightbringer #obey me mc #obey me barbatos

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mostlysignssomeportents · 4 months ago

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All the books I reviewed in 2024

I reviewed 26 books this year: 15 novels, 5 nonfiction books, and 6 graphic novels. Even though I feel perennially behind on my reading (and objectively, I do have 10 linear feet of "to be read" books on the shelf), I think this is a pretty good haul.

Books are pretty much the ideal gift, if you ask me. Of course, I'm biased as a former bookseller and library worker, and as an author (of course) – I had three more books come out in 2024 (see the end of this post for details).

I started a lot more than 26 books this year. Long ago, I figured life was too short for books I wasn't enjoying, and I'm pretty ruthless about putting books down partway through if I think they're not going to reward finishing them. I probably start 10 books for every one I finish. However, I do review more than 90% of the books I get through. It's rare for me to keep reading a book all the way to the end if I'm not enjoying it enough to unconditionally recommend it. I rarely review books I don't like – there's not really any point in cataloging the list of books I think you won't enjoy reading, and most books I don't like very much are broken in ways that are too banal to comment upon.

The list below is pretty great, but if you're looking for more, here's the haul from 2023:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/01/bookmaker/#2023-in-review

NOVELS

I. Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford

A fucking banger: it's a taut, unguessable whuddunit, painted in ultrablack noir, set in an alternate Jazz Age in a world where indigenous people never ceded most the west to the USA. It's got gorgeously described jazz music, a richly realized modern indigenous society, and a spectacular romance. It's amazing.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/04/cahokia/#the-sun-and-the-moon

II. After World by Debbie Urbanski

An unflinching and relentlessly bleak tale of humanity's mass extinction, shot through with pathos and veined with seams of tragic tenderness and care. Sen Anon – the story's semi-protagonist – is 18 years old when the world learns that every person alive has been sterilized and so the human race is living out its last years.

The news triggers a manic insistence that this is a good thing – long overdue, in fact – and the perfect opportunity to scan every person alive for eventual reincarnation as virtual humans in an Edenic cloud metaverse called Gaia. That way, people can continue to live their lives without the haunting knowledge that everything they do makes the planet worse for every other living thing, and each other. Here, finally, is the resolution to the paradox of humanity: our desire to do good, and our inevitable failure on that score.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/18/storyworker-ad39-393a-7fbc/#digital-human-archive-project

III. Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind by Molly McGhee

A dreamlike tale of a public-private partnership that hires the terminally endebted to invade the dreams of white-collar professionals and harvest the anxieties that prevent them from being fully productive members of the American corporate workforce.

We meet Jonathan as he is applying for a job that he was recruited for in a dream. As instructed in his dream, he presents himself at a shabby strip-mall office where an acerbic functionary behind scratched plexiglass takes his application and informs him that he is up for a gig run jointly by the US State Department and a consortium of large corporate employers. If he is accepted, all of his student debt repayments will be paused and he will no longer face wage garnishment. What's more, he'll be doing the job in his sleep, which means he'll be able to get a day job and pull a double income – what's not to like?

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/08/capitalist-surrealism/#productivity-hacks

IV. The Book of Love by Kelly Link

If you've read Link's short stories (which honestly, you must read), you know her signature move: a bone-dry witty delivery, used to spin tales of deceptive whimsy and quirkiness, disarming you with daffiness while she sets the hook and yanks. That's the unmistakeable, inimitable texture of a Kelly Link story: deft literary brushstrokes, painting a picture so charming and silly that you don't even notice when she cuts you without mercy.

Turns out that she can quite handily do this for hundreds of pages, and the effect only gets better when it's given space to unfold.

It's a long and twisting mystery about friendship, love, queerness, rock-and-roll, stardom, parenthood, loyalty, lust and duty.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/13/the-kissing-song/#wrack-and-roll

V. Lyorn by Steven Brust

The seventeenth book in Steven Brust's long-running Vlad Taltos series. For complicated reasons, Vlad has to hide out in a theater. Why a theater? They are shielded from sorcery, as proof against magical spying by rival theater companies, and Vlad is on the run from the Left Hand of the Jhereg – the crime syndicate's all-woman sorceress squad – and so he has to hide in the theater.

The theater is mounting a production of a famous play that's about another famous play. The first famous play (the one the play is about – try and follow along, would you?) is about a famous massacre that took place thousands of years before. The play was mounted as a means of drumming up support for the whistleblower who reported on the massacre and was invited to a short-term berth in the Emperor's death row as a consequence.

The plot is a fantastic, fast-handed caper story that has a million moving parts, a beautiful prestige, and a coup de grace that'll have you cheering and punching the air.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/09/so-meta/#delightful-doggerel

VI. Till Human Voices Wake Us by Rebecca Roque

A teen murder mystery told in the most technorealist way. Cia's best friend Alice has been trying to find her missing boyfriend for months, and in her investigation, she's discovered their small town's dark secret – a string of disappearances, deaths and fires that are the hidden backdrop to the town's out-of-control addiction problem.

Alice has something to tell Cia, something about the fire that orphaned her and cost her one leg when she was only five years old, but Cia refuses to hear it. Instead, they have a blazing fight, and part ways. It's the last time Cia and Alice ever see each other: that night, Alice kills herself.

Or does she? Cia is convinced that Alice has been murdered, and that her murder is connected to the drug- and death-epidemic that's ravaging their town. As Cia and her friends seek to discover the town's secret – and the identity of Alice's killer – we're dragged into an intense, gripping murder mystery/conspiracy story that is full of surprises and reversals, each more fiendishly clever than the last.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/16/dead-air/#technorealism

VII. The Steerswoman by Rosemary Kirstein

Randall "XKCD" Munroe pitched me on this over dinner: "All these different people kept recommending them to me, and they kept telling me that I would love them, but they wouldn't tell me what they were about because there's this huge riddle in them that's super fun to figure out for yourself. "The books were published in the eighties by Del Rey, and the cover of the first one had a huge spoiler on it. But the author got the rights back and she's self-published it."

How could I resist a pitch like that? So I ordered a copy. Holy moly is this a good novel! And yeah, there's a super interesting puzzle in it that I won't even hint at, except to say that even the book's genre is a riddle that you'll have enormous great fun solving.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/04/the-wulf/#underground-fave

VIII. Moonbound by Robin Sloan

Moonbound's protagonist is a "chronicler," a symbiotic fungus engineered to nestle in a human's nervous system, where it serves as a kind of recording angel, storing up the memories, experiences and personalities of its host. When we meet the chronicler, it has just made a successful leap from its old host – a 10,000-years-dead warrior who had been preserved in an anaerobic crashpod ever since her ship was shot out of the sky – into the body of Ariel, a 12-year-old boy who had just invaded the long-lost tomb.

This is doing fiction in hard mode, and Sloan nails it. The unraveling strangeness of Ariel's world is counterpointed with the amazing tale of the world the chronicler hails from, even as the chonicler consults with the preserved personalities of the heroes and warriors it had previous resided in and recorded.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/11/penumbraverse/#middle-anth

IX. Fight Me by Austin Grossman

Aging ex-teen superheroes weigh the legacy of Generation X, in a work that enrobes its savage critique with sweet melancholia, all under a coating of delicious snark. The Newcomers – an amped-up ninja warrior, a supergenius whose future self keeps sending him encouragement and technical schematics backwards through time, and an exiled magical princess turned preppie supermodel – have spent more than a decade scattered to the winds. While some have fared better than others, none of them have lived up to their potential or realized the dreams that seemed so inevitable when they were world famous supers with an entourage of fellow powered teens who worshipped them as the planet's greatest heroes.

As they set out to solve the mystery of the wizard who gave the protagonist his powers, they are reunited and must take stock of who they are and how they got there (cue Talking Heads' "Once In a Lifetime").

The publisher's strapline for this book is "The Avengers Meets the Breakfast Club," which is clever, but extremely wrong. The real comp for this book isn't "The Breakfast Club," it's "The Big Chill."

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/01/the-big-genx-chill/#im-super-thanks-for-asking

X. Glass Houses by Madeline Ashby

Kristen is the "Chief Emotional Manager" for Wuv, a hot startup that has defined the new field of "affective computing," which is when a computer tells you what everyone else around you is really feeling, based on the irrepressible tells emitted by their bodies, voices and gadgets.

Managing Sumter through Wuv's tumultuous launch is hard work for Kristen, but at last, it's paid off. The company has been acquired, making Kristen – and all her coworkers on the founding core team – into instant millionaires. They're flying to a lavish celebration in an autonomous plane that Sumter chartered when the action begins: the plane has a malfunction and crashes into a desert island, killing all but ten of the Wuvvies.

As the survivors explore the island, they discover only one sign of human habitation: a huge, brutalist, featureless black glass house, which initially rebuffs all their efforts to enter it. But once they gain entry, they discover that the house is even harder to leave.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/13/influencers/#affective-computing

XI. The Sapling Cage by Margaret Killjoy

A queer coming-of-age tale in the mode of epic fantasy. Lorel wants to be a witch, but that's the very last of the adventurous trades to be strictly gender-segregated. Boys and girls alike run away to be knights, brigands and sailors, but only girls can become a witch. Indeed, Lorel's best friend, Lane, is promised to the witches, having been born to a witch herself.

Lorel has signed up for witching just as the land is turning against witches, thanks to a political plot by a scheming duchess who has scapegoated the witches as part of a plan to annex all the surrounding duchies, re-establishing the long-disintegrated kingdom with herself on the throne. To make things worse (for the witches, if not the duchess), there's a plague of monsters on the land, and the forests are blighted with a magical curse that turns trees to unmelting ice. This all softens up the peasantfolk for anti-witch pogroms.

So Lorel has to learn witching, even as her coven is fighting both monsters and the duchess's knights and the vigilante yokels who've been stirred up with anti-witch xenophobia.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/24/daughters-of-the-empty-throne/#witchy

XII. Blackheart Man by Nalo Hopkinson

A story that will make you drunk on language, on worldbuilding, and on its roaring, relentless plot. The action is set on Chynchin, a fantastic Caribbean island (or maybe Caribbeanesque – it's never clear whether this is some magical, imaginary world, or some distant future of our own). Chynchin is a multiracial, creole land with a richly realized gift economy that Hopkinson deftly rounds out with a cuisine, languages, and familial arrangements.

Chynchin was founded through a slave rebellion, in which the press-ganged soldiers of the iron-fisted Ymisen empire were defeated by three witches who caused them to be engulfed in tar that they magicked into a liquid state just long enough to entomb them, then magicked back into solidity. For generations, the Ymisen have tolerated Chynchin's self-rule, but as the story opens, a Ymisen armada sails into Chynchin's port and a "trade envoy" announces that it's time for the Chynchin to "voluntarily" re-establish trade with the Ymisen.

The story that unfolds is a staple of sf and fantasy: the scrappy resistance mounted against the evil empire, and this familiar backdrop is a sturdy scaffold to support Hopkinson's dizzying, phantasmagoric tale of psychedelic magic, possessed children, military intrigue, musicianship and sexual entanglements.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/20/piche/#cynchin

XIII. Julia by Sandra Newman

Julia is the kind of fanfic that I love, in the tradition of both The Wind Done Gone and Rosencrantz and Gildenstern Are Dead, in which a follow-on author takes on the original author's throwaway world-building with deadly seriousness, elucidating the weird implications and buried subtexts of all the stuff and people moving around in the wings and background of the original.

For Newman, the starting point here is Julia, an enigmatic lover who comes to Winston with all kinds of rebellious secrets – tradecraft for planning and executing dirty little assignations and acquiring black market goods. Julia embodies a common contradiction in the depiction of young women (she is some twenty years younger than Winston): on the one hand, she is a "native" of the world, while Winston is a late arrival, carrying around all his "oldthink" baggage that leaves him perennially baffled, terrified and angry; on the other hand, she's a naive "girl," who "doesn't much care for reading," and lacks the intellectual curiosity that propels Winston through the text.

This contradiction is the cleavage line that Newman drives her chisel into, fracturing Orwell's world in useful, fascinating, engrossing ways. Through Julia's eyes, we experience Oceania as a paranoid autocracy, corrupt and twitchy. We witness the obvious corollary of a culture of denunciation and arrest: the ruling Party of such an institution must be riddled with internecine struggle and backstabbing, to the point of paralyzed dysfunction. The Orwellian trick of switching from being at war with Eastasia to Eurasia and back again is actually driven by real military setbacks – not just faked battles designed to stir up patriotic fervor. The Party doesn't merely claim to be under assault from internal and external enemies – it actually is.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/28/novel-writing-machines/#fanfic

XIV. The Wilding by Ian McDonald

McDonald's first horror novel, and it's fucking terrifying. It's set in a rural Irish peat bog that has been acquired by a conservation authority that is rewilding it after a century of industrial peat mining that stripped it back nearly to the bedrock. This rewilding process has been greatly accelerated by the covid lockdowns, which reduced the human footprint in the conservation area to nearly zero.

Lisa's last duty before she leaves the bog and goes home to Dublin is leading a school group on a wild campout in one of the bog's deep clearings. It's a routine assignment, and while it's not her favorite duty, it's also not a serious hardship.

But as the group hikes out to the campsite, one of her fellow guides is killed, without warning, by a mysterious beast that moves so quickly they can barely make out its monstrous form. Thus begins a tense, mysterious, spooky as hell story of survival in a haunted woods, written in the kind of poesy that has defined McDonald's career, and which – when deployed in service of terror – has the power to raise literal goosebumps.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/25/bogman/#erin-go-aaaaaaargh

XV. Polostan by Neal Stephenson

Not a spy novel, but a science fiction novel about spies in an historical setting. This isn't to say that Stephenson tramples on, or ignores spy tropes: this is absolutely a first-rate spy novel. Nor does Stephenson skimp on the lush, gorgeously realized and painstakingly researched detail you'd want from an historical novel.

Polostan raises the curtain on the story of Dawn Rae Bjornberg, AKA Aurora Maximovna Artemyeva, whose upbringing is split between the American West in the early 20th century and the Leningrad of revolutionary Russia (her parents are an American anarchist and a Ukrainian Communist who meet when her father travels to America as a Communist agitator). Aurora's parents' marriage does not survive their sojourn to the USSR, and eventually Aurora and her father end up back in the States, after her father is tasked with radicalizing the veterans of the Bonus Army that occupied DC, demanding the military benefits they'd been promised.

All of this culminates in her return sojourn to the Soviet Union, where she first falls under suspicion of being an American spy, and then her recruitment as a Soviet spy.

Also: she plays a lot of polo. Like, on a horse.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/04/bomb-light/#nukular

NONFICTION

I. A City on Mars by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith

Biologist Kelly Weinersmith and cartoonist Zach Weinersmith set out to investigate the governance challenges of the impending space settlements they were told were just over the horizon. Instead, they discovered that humans aren't going to be settling space for a very long time, and so they wrote a book about that instead.

The Weinersmiths make the (convincing) case that every aspect of space settlement is vastly beyond our current or reasonably foreseeable technical capability. What's more, every argument in favor of pursuing space settlement is errant nonsense. And finally: all the energy we are putting into space settlement actually holds back real space science, which offers numerous benefits to our species and planet (and is just darned cool).

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/09/astrobezzle/#send-robots-instead

II. Dark Wire by Joseph Cox

Cox spent years on the crimephone beat, tracking vendors who sold modded phones (first Blackberries, then Android phones) to criminal syndicates with the promise that they couldn't be wiretapped by law-enforcement.

He tells the story of the FBI's plan to build an incredibly secure, best-of-breed crimephone, one with every feature that a criminal would want to truly insulate themselves from law enforcement while still offering everything a criminal could need to plan and execute crimes.

This is really two incredible tales. The first is the story of the FBI and its partners as they scaled up Anom, their best-of-breed crimephone business. This is a (nearly) classic startup tale, full of all-nighters, heroic battles against the odds, and the terror and exhilaration of "hockey-stick" growth.

The other one is the crime startup, the one that the hapless criminal syndicates that sign up to distribute Anom devices find themselves in the middle of. They, too, are experiencing hockey-stick growth. They, too, have a fantastically lucrative tiger by the tail. And they, too, have a unique set of challenges that make this startup different from any other.

Cox has been on this story for a decade, and it shows. He has impeccable sourcing and encyclopedic access to the court records and other public details that allow him to reproduce many of the most dramatic scenes in the Anom caper verbatim.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/04/anom-nom-nom/#the-call-is-coming-from-inside-the-ndrangheta

III. The Hidden History of Walt Disney World by Foxx Nolte

No one writes about Disney theme parks like Foxx Nolte; no one rises above the trivia and goes beyond the mere sleuthing of historical facts, no one nails the essence of what makes these parks work – and fail.

The history of Walt Disney World is also a history of the American narrative from the 1960s to the turn of the millennium, especially once Epcot enters the picture and Disney sets out to market itself as a futuristic mirror to America and the world. There's a doomed plan to lead the nation in the provision of an airport for the largely hypothetical short runway aircraft that never materialized, the Disney company's love-hate affair with Florida's orange growers, and the geopolitics of installing a permanent World's Fair, just as World's Fairs were disappearing from the world stage.

In focusing on the conflicts between different corporate managers, outside suppliers, and the gloriously flamboyant weirdos of Florida, Nolte's history of Disney World transcends amusing anaecdotes and tittle-tattle – rather, it illustrates how the creative sparks thrown off by people smashing into each other sometimes created towering blazes of glory that burn to this day.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/15/disnefried/#dialectics

IV. Network Nation by Richard R John

An extremely important, brilliantly researched, deep history of America's love/hate affair with not just the telephone, but also the telegraph. It is unmistakably as history book, one that aims at a definitive takedown of various neat stories about the history of American telecommunications.

The monopolies that emerged in the telegraph and then the telephone weren't down to grand forces that made them inevitable, but rather, to the errors made by regulators and the successful gambits of the telecoms barons. At many junctures, things could have gone another way.

Most striking about this book were the parallels to contemporary fights over Big Tech trustbusting, in our new Gilded Age. Many of the apologies offered for Western Union or AT&T's monopoly could have been uttered by the Renfields who carry water for Facebook, Apple and Google. John's book is a powerful and engrossing reminder that variations on these fights have occurred in the not-so-distant past, and that there's much we can learn from them.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/18/the-bell-system/#were-the-phone-company-we-dont-have-to-care

V. A Natural History of Empty Lots by Christopher Brown

A frustratingly hard to summarize book, because it requires a lot of backstory and explanation, and one of the things that makes this book so! fucking! great! is how skillfully Brown weaves disparate elements – the unique house he built in Austin, the wildlife he encounters in the city's sacrifice zones, the politics that created them – into his telling.

This series of loosely connected essays that explains how everything fits together: colonial conquest, Brown's failed marriage, his experience as a lawyer learning property law, what he learned by mobilizing that learning to help his neighbors defend the pockets of wildness that refuse to budge.

It's filled with pastoral writing that summons Kim Stanley Robinson by way of Thoreau, and it sometimes frames its philosophical points the way a cyberpunk writer would.

The kind of book that challenges how you feel about the crossroads we're at, the place you live, and the place you want to be.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/17/cyberpunk-pastoralism/#time-to-mow-the-roof

GRAPHIC NOVELS

I. Death Strikes by David Maass and Patrick Lay

"The Emperor of Atlantis," is an opera written by two Nazi concentration camp inmates, the librettist Peter Kien and the composer Viktor Ullmann, while they were interned in Terezin, a show-camp in Czechoslovakia that housed numerous Jewish artists, who were encouraged to make and display their work as a sham to prove to the rest of the world that Nazi camps were humane places.

Death Strikes was adapted by my EFF colleague Dave Maass, an investigator and muckraker and brilliant writer, who teamed up with illustrator Patrick Lay and character designer Ezra Rose (who worked from Kien and Ullmann's original designs, which survived along with the score and libretto).

The Emperor's endless wars have already tried Death's patience. Death brings mercy, not vengeance, and the endless killing has dismayed him. The Emperor's co-option drives him past the brink, and Death declares a strike, breaking his sword and announcing that henceforth, no one will die.

Needless to say, this puts a crimp in the Emperor's all-out war plan. People get shot and stabbed and drowned and poisoned, but they don't die. They just hang around, embarrassingly alive (there's a great comic subplot of the inability of the Emperor's executioners to kill a captured assassin).

While this is clearly an adaptation, Kien and Ullmann's spirit of creativity, courage, and bittersweet creative ferment shines through. It's a beautiful book, snatched from death itself.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/23/peter-kien-viktor-ullmann/#terez

II. My Favorite Things Is Monsters Book Two by Emil Ferris

The long, long delayed sequel to the tale of Karen Reyes, a 10 year old, monster-obsessed queer girl in 1968 Chicago who lives with her working-class single mother and her older brother, Deeze, in an apartment house full of mysterious, haunted adults. There's the landlord – a gangster and his girlfriend – the one-eyed ventriloquist, and the beautiful Holocaust survivor and her jazz-drummer husband.

Ferris's storytelling style is dazzling, and it's matched and exceeded by her illustration style, which is grounded in the classic horror comics of the 1950s and 1960s. Characters in Karen's life – including Karen herself – are sometimes depicted in the EC horror style, and that same sinister darkness crowds around the edges of her depictions of real-world Chicago.

Book Two picks up from Book One's cliffhanger and then rockets forward. Everything brilliant about One is even better in Two – the illustrations more lush, the fine art analysis more pointed and brilliant, the storytelling more assured and propulsive, the shocks and violence more outrageous, the characters more lovable, complex and grotesque.

Everything about Two is more. The background radiation of the Vietnam War in One takes center stage with Deeze's machinations to beat the draft, and Deeze and Karen being ensnared in the Chicago Police Riots of '68. The allegories, analysis and reproductions of classical art get more pointed, grotesque and lavish. Annika's Nazi concentration camp horrors are more explicit and more explicitly connected to Karen's life. The queerness of the story takes center stage, both through Karen's first love and the introduction of a queer nightclub. The characters are more vivid, as is the racial injustice and the corruption of the adult world.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/01/the-druid/#

III. So Long Sad Love by Mirion Malle

Cleo is a French comics creator who's moved to Montreal, in part to be with Charles, a Quebecois creator who helps her find a place in the city's tight-knit artistic scene. The relationship feels like a good one, with the normal ups and downs, but then Cleo travels to a festival, where she meets Farah, a vivacious and talented fellow artist. They're getting along great…until Farah discovers who Cleo's boyfriend is. Though Farah doesn't say anything, she is visibly flustered and makes her excuses before hurriedly departing.

This kicks off Cleo's hunt for the truth about her boyfriend, a hunt that is complicated by the fact that she's so far from home, that her friends are largely his friends, that he flies off the handle every time she raises the matter, and by her love for him.

Malle handles this all so deftly, showing how Cleo and her friends all play archetypal roles in the recurrent missing stair dynamic. It's a beautifully told story, full of charm and character, but it's also a kind of forensic re-enactment of a disaster, told from an intermediate distance that's close enough to the action that we can see the looming crisis, but also understand why the people in its midst are steering straight into it.

Packed with subtlety and depth, romance and heartbreak, subtext that carries through the dialog (in marvelous translation from the original French by Aleshia Jensen) and the body language in Malle's striking artwork.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/25/missing-step/#the-fog-of-love

IV. Bea Wolf by Zach Wienersmith and Boulet

A ferociously amazingly great illustrated kids' graphic novel adaptation of the Old English epic poem, which inspired Tolkien, who helped bring it to popularity after it had languished in obscurity for centuries.

Weinersmith and Boulet set themselves the task of bringing a Germanic heroic saga from more than a thousand years ago to modern children, while preserving the meter and the linguistic and literary tropes of the original. And they did it!

There are some changes, of course. Grendel – the boss monster that both Beowulf and Bea Wulf must defeat – is no longer obsessed with decapitating his foes and stealing their heads. In Bea Wulf, Grendel is a monstrously grown up and boring adult who watches cable news and flosses twice per day, and when he defeats the kids whose destruction he is bent upon, he does so by turning them into boring adults, too.

The utter brilliance of Bea Wulf is as much due to the things it preserves from the original epic as it is to the updates and changes. Weinersmith has kept the Old English tradition of alliteration, right from the earliest passages, with celebrations of heroes like "Tanya, treat-taker, terror of Halloween, her costume-cache vast, sieging kin and neighbor, draining full candy-bins, fearing not the fate of her teeth. Ten thousand treats she took. That was a fine Tuesday."

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/24/awesome-alliteration/#hellion-hallelujah

V. Youth Group by Bowen McCurdy and Jordan Morris

A charming tale of 1990s ennui, cringe Sunday School – and demon hunting.

Kay is a bitter, cynical teenager who's doing her best to help her mother cope with an ugly divorce that has seen her dad check out on his former family. Mom is going back to church, and she talks Kay into coming along with her to attend the church youth group.

But this is no ordinary youth group. Kay's ultra-boring suburban hometown is actually infested with demons who routinely possess the townspeople, and that baseline of demonic activity has suddenly gone critical, with a new wave of possessions. Suddenly, the possessed are everywhere – even Kay's shitty dad ends up with a demon inside of him.

That's when Kay discovers that the youth group and its corny pastor are also demon hunters par excellence. Their rec-rooms sport secret cubbies filled with holy weapons, and the words of exorcism come as readily to them as any embarrassing rewritten devotional pop song. Kay's discovery of this secret world convinces her that the youth group isn't so bad after all, and soon she is initiated into its mysteries, including the existence of rival demon-hunting kids from the local synagogue, Catholic church, and Wiccan coven.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/16/satanic-panic/#the-dream-of-the-nineties

VI. Justice Warriors: Vote Harder by Matt Bors and Ben Clarkson

Vote Harder sees Bubble City facing its first election in living memory, as the mayor – who inherited his position from his "powerful, strapping Papa" – loses a confidence vote by the city's trustees. They're upset with his plan to bankrupt the city in order to buy a laser powerful enough to carve his likeness into the sun as a viral stunt for the launch of his comeback album. The trustees are in no way mollified by the fact that he expects to make a lot of money selling special branded sunglasses that allow Bubble City (and the mutant hordes of the Uninhabited Zone) to safely look into the sun and see what their tax dollars bought.

So it's time for an election, and the two candidates are going hard: there's the incumbent Mayor Prince; there's his half-sister and ex-girlfriend, Stufina Vipix XII, and there's a dark-horse candidate Flauf Tanko, a mutant-tank cyborg that went rogue after a militant Home Owners Association disabled it and its owners abandoned it. Flauf-Tanko is determined to give the masses of the Uninhabited Zone the representation they've been denied for so long, despite the structural impediments to this (UZers need to complete a questionnaire, sub-forms, have three forms of ID, and present a rental contract, drivers license, work permit and breeding license. They also need to get their paperwork signed in person at a VERI-VOTE location, then wait 14 days to get their voter IDs by mail. Also, districts of 2 million or more mutants are allocated the equivalent of only 250,000 votes, but only if 51% of eligible voters show up to the polls; otherwise, their votes are parceled out to other candidates per the terms of the Undervoting and Apathy Allotment Act).

What unfolds is a funny, bitter, superb piece of political satire that could not be better timed.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/11/uninhabited-zone/#eremption-season

As I mentioned in the introduction to this roundup, I had three books out in 2024; a new hardcover, and the paperback editions of two books that came out in hardcover last year. There's more on the horizon – a new hardcover novel (PICKS AND SHOVELS) in Feb 2025, along with the paperback of my novel THE BEZZLE (also Feb 2025). I just turned in the manuscript for my next nonfiction book, ENSHITTIFICATION, which will also be adapted as a graphic novel. I'll also be shortly announcing the publication details for a YA graphic novel, a new essay collection and short story collection.

If you enjoy my work – the newsletter, the talks, the reviews – the best way to support me is to buy my books. I write for grownups, teens, middle-schoolers and little kids, so there's something for everyone!

I. The Lost Cause A solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency. "The first great YIMBY novel" -Bill McKibben. "Completely delightful…Neither utopian nor dystopian…I loved it" -Rebecca Solnit. A national bestseller!

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865946/thelostcause/

II. The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation A detailed disassembly manual for people who want to dismantle Big Tech. "A passionate case for 'relief from manipulation, high-handed moderation, surveillance, price-gouging, disgusting or misleading algorithmic suggestions. -Akash Kapur, New Yorker. Another national bestseller!

https://www.versobooks.com/products/3035-the-internet-con

III. The Bezzle. A seething rebuke of the privatized prison system that delves deeply into the arcane and baroque financial chicanery involved in the 2008 financial crash. "Righteously satisfying…A fascinating tale of financial skullduggery, long cons, and the delivery of ice-cold revenge." –Booklist. A third national bestseller!

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle/

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