#the ascendance crew

[purringysalamiri]

Thrawn in 'Tyrants of Lothal' card game.

[ofmdee]

unsure what, exactly, is going on here but i know it is inappropriate deck behavior 🌈

[garbeanery]

Not a jjk fan but he seemed right

[debbeh]

[worldsokayestmagicalgirl]

So I guess hot fish people are my new brand?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 🌊🌙⛈️

New DnD PC for a new campaign to be DMed by @kyroki . I am EXCITE to start working on some art for it ❀(*´▽`*)❀

[finality-and-origin]

"The Ascendant" || Deduction Quests + Rumor + Skills

Rumor: Born from arrogance and befallen by tragedy, this homunculus aims to take back everything from others who wronged her.

Skills:

Space Barrier [External Trait]

Due to the Ascendant's unique nature, the space surrounding the Ascendant is lighter than normal. Survivors and items caught in the Space Barrier have slower movement and interaction speeds, and may even be subject to momentary sub-zero gravity, floating up into the air when attempting to vault pr any way to launch oneself into the air. Space Barrier has 2000 charges on it, and using her skills depletes the charges of the barrier. The less charge the barrier has, the smaller the radius is and the weaker the debuffs are. She passively gains charges back.

Spatial Displacement [Ability]

Using her unique abilities, the Ascendant can relocate items and survivors through Spatial Displacement. Using Spatial Dislocation costs 150 charges, but using this means the Ascendant can lift any object with ease, including chests, cipher machines, and survivors. She can simply relocate them, or even throw them across the map. [2nd Presence] The cost and cooldown to use Spatial Displacement goes from 150 charges and a 20-second cooldown to 100 charges and a 10-second cooldown.

Dragon's Claw [Ability]

Summoning the spirit of her old friend, Bella, the Ascendant cuts a hole through the space-time fabric and commands a powerful strike against her foes. Survivors hit by this attack take 1 damage and can be terror-shocked by this move.

I. Fairytales are sweet little lies.

The first book she ever read was a fairytale. In the story, the princess was promised a happily ever after. But she knew, from her hospital cell, such promises were nothing but lies.

Basic Objective: ⭐ Discover a Survivor 2 time

Advanced Objective: ⭐ Discover a Survivor 3 times ⭐ Discover a Survivor 4 times

Conclusion: A torn children's book lays on the library table, half of it consumed by an otherworldly source. A note is attached to the book. 'I consumed part of the book. I am sorry, Miss Librarian.'

---

II. The world moves on all the same.

It doesn't matter who dies. The world does not revolve around you, nor does it wait for you to get better.

Basic Objective: ⭐ Hit Survivors with a normal attack 1 time

Advanced Objective: ⭐ Hit Survivors with a normal attack 2 times ⭐ Hit Survivors with a normal attack 3 times

Conclusion: A photograph: A small child, carrying a shovel in the pouring rain. There's a crudely made tombstone, reading the words "Experiment Failed" on it.

---

III. Glowing Hearts and Plum Roses

"These roses are for you, beautiful miss."

Basic Objective: ⭐Destory 1 pallet

Advanced Objective: ⭐Destory 3 pallets ⭐Destory 5 pallets

Conclusion: A diary entry: I didn't want her roses. But... I couldn't say no to such a gentle and pretty face. I suppose I will keep them for now.

---

IV. Good for Nothing...

But these chocolates... I will accept them, for now.

Basic Objective: ⭐Hit Survivors within 'Space Barrier' 1 time

Advanced Objective: ⭐Hit Survivors within 'Space Barrier' 2 times ⭐Hit Survivors within 'Space Barrier' 2 times

Conclusion: A photograph: Two young women out at a cafe, talking. They're sharing a slice of strawberry shortcake.

---

V. ...What are you doing?

"Get that freak reject out of our city!" "Evil witch!" "Demon!" "Look, she's holding that woman hostage!" "How despicable!" "Freak!"

Basic Objective: ⭐Place Survivors on the Rocket Chair 2 times

Advanced Objective: ⭐Place Survivors on the Rocket Chair 3 times ⭐Place Survivors on the Rocket Chair 4 times

Conclusion: A torn diary entry strained with purple tears: I'm not a monster... I'm not... please... I'm not a monster...

---

VI. No More.

I've done everything right... haven't I? Kept quiet, did as I was told... I never fought back, not once. I did everything right... so why does everyone hate me?

Basic Objective: ⭐Displace one cipher using spatial displacement

Advanced Objective: ⭐Displace two ciphers using spatial displacement ⭐Displace three ciphers using spatial displacement

Conclusion: A torn diary entry: I've tried everything I can, Bella. I'm at a loss. Please... give me your guidance, old friend.

---

VII. I've had enough.

Fine. You win. I am a monster. Let me show you how monstrous I can be.

Basic Objective: ⭐Down 1 Survivor using Dragon's Claw

Advanced Objective: ⭐Down 2 Survivors using Dragon's Claw ⭐Down 3 Survivors using Dragon's Claw

Conclusion: An old TV station news report, broadcasting the destruction of [REDACTED] City. It is forever stuck on a giant dragon, bathing the city below in purple flames.

---

VIII. I've wiped you off the map.

Serves you right.

Basic Objective: ⭐Break 1 pallet using Dragon's Claw

Advanced Objective: ⭐Break 2 pallets using Dragon's Claw ⭐Break 3 pallets using Dragon's Claw

Conclusion: An old map. Part of the map is burned past all recognization. Experts still aren't sure what used to be in that area on the map.

---

IX. This is not justice.

This is not revenge.

Basic Objective: ⭐Eliminate all survivors

Advanced Objective: ⭐Eliminate all survivors ⭐Eliminate all survivors

Conclusion: This is the finality. This is the end. Your time... is over.

---

X. Voided

Die.

Basic Objective: ⭐...

Advanced Objective: ⭐... ⭐...

Conclusion: I can see you reading this. And, I'm coming for you.

---

[graunblida]

mad as hell i couldn't mosh tonight (my physical therapist's look of disappointment would hurt more than the pit anyway pff) but managed to finesse my way to the front and snagged one of trollfests' setlists so things are looking up milhouse!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

“The Fagin figure leading Elon Musk’s merry band of pubescent sovereignty pickpockets”

This week only, Barnes and Noble is offering 25% off pre-orders of my forthcoming novel Picks and Shovels. ENDS TODAY!.

While we truly live in an age of ascendant monsters who have hijacked our country, our economy, and our imaginations, there is one consolation: the small cohort of brilliant, driven writers who have these monsters' number, and will share it with us. Writers like Maureen Tkacik:

https://prospect.org/topics/maureen-tkacik/

Journalists like Wired's Vittoria Elliott, Leah Feiger, and Tim Marchman are absolutely crushing it when it comes to Musk's DOGE coup:

https://www.wired.com/author/vittoria-elliott/

And Nathan Tankus is doing incredible work all on his own, just blasting out scoop after scoop:

https://www.crisesnotes.com/

But for me, it was Tkacik – as usual – in the pages of The American Prospect who pulled it all together in a way that finally made it make sense, transforming the blitzkreig Muskian chaos into a recognizable playbook. While most of the coverage of Musk's wrecking crew has focused on the broccoli-haired Gen Z brownshirts who are wilding through the server rooms at giant, critical government agencies, Tkacik homes in on their boss, Tom Krause, whom she memorably dubs "the Fagin figure leading Elon Musk’s merry band of pubescent sovereignty pickpockets" (I told you she was a great writer!):

https://prospect.org/power/2025-02-06-private-equity-hatchet-man-leading-lost-boys-of-doge/

Krause is a private equity looter. He's the guy who basically invented the playbook for PE takeovers of large tech companies, from Broadcom to Citrix to VMWare, converting their businesses from selling things to renting them out, loading them up with junk fees, slashing quality, jacking up prices over and over, and firing everyone who was good at their jobs. He is a master enshittifier, an enshittification ninja.

Krause has an unerring instinct for making people miserable while making money. He oversaw the merger of Citrix and VMWare, creating a ghastly company called The Cloud Software Group, which sold remote working tools. Despite this, of his first official acts was to order all of his employees to stop working remotely. But then, after forcing his workers to drag their butts into work, move back across the country, etc, he reversed himself because he figured out he could sell off all of the company's office space for a tidy profit.

Krause canceled employee benefits, like thank you days for managers who pulled a lot of unpaid overtime, or bonuses for workers who upgraded their credentials. He also ended the company's practice of handing out swag as small gifts to workers, and then stiffed the company that made the swag, wontpaying a $437,574.97 invoice for all the tchotchkes the company had ordered. That's not the only supplier Krause stiffed: FinLync, a fintech company with a three-year contract with Krause's company, also had to sue to get paid.

Krause's isn't a canny operator who roots out waste: he's a guy who tears out all the wiring and then grudgingly restores the minimum needed to keep the machine running (no wonder Musk loves him, this is the Twitter playbook). As Tkacik reports, Krause fucked up the customer service and reliability systems that served Citrix's extremely large, corporate customers – the giant businesses that cut huge monthly checks to Citrix, whose CIOs received daily sales calls from his competitors.

Workers who serviced these customers, like disabled Air Force veteran David Morgan, who worked with big public agencies, were fired on one hour's notice, just before their stock options vested. The giant public agency customers he'd serviced later called him to complain that the only people they could get on the phone were subcontractors in Indian call centers who lacked the knowledge and authority to resolve their problems.

Last month, Citrix fired all of its customer support engineers. Citrix's military customers are being illegally routed to offshore customer support teams who are prohibited from working with the US military.

Citrix/VMWare isn't an exception. The carnage at these companies is indistinguishable from the wreck Krause made of Broadcom. In all these cases, Krause was parachuted in by private equity bosses, and he destroyed something useful to extract a giant, one-time profit, leaving behind a husk that no longer provides value to its customers or its employees.

This is the DOGE playbook. It's all about plunder: take something that was patiently, carefully built up over generations and burn it to the ground, warming yourself in the pyre, leaving nothing behind but ash. This is what private equity plunderers have been doing to the world's "advanced" economies since the Reagan years. They did it to airlines, family restaurants, funeral homes, dog groomers, toy stores, pharma, palliative care, dialysis, hospital beds, groceries, cars, and the internet.

Trump's a plunderer. He was elected by the plunderer class – like the crypto bros who want to run wild, transforming workers' carefully shepherded retirement savings into useless shitcoins, while the crypto bros run off with their perfectly cromulent "fiat" money. Musk is the apotheosis of this mindset, a guy who claims credit for other peoples' productive and useful businesses, replacing real engineering with financial engineering. Musk and Krause, they're like two peas in a pod.

That's why – according to anonymous DOGE employees cited by Tckacik – DOGE managers are hired for their capacity for cruelty: "The criteria for DOGE is how many you have fired, how much you enjoy firing people, and how little you care about the impact on peoples well being…No wonder Tom Krause was tapped for this. He’s their dream employee!"

The fact that Krause isn't well known outside of plunderer circles is absolutely a feature for him, not a bug. Scammers like Krause want to be admitted to polite society. This is why the Sacklers – the opioid crime family that kicked off the Oxy pandemic that's murdered more than 800,000 Americans so far – were so aggressive about keeping their association with their family business, Purdue Pharma, a secret. The Sacklers only wanted to be associated with the art galleries and museums they put their names over, and their lawyers threatened journalists for writing about their lives as billionaire drug pushers (I got one of those threats).

There's plenty of good reasons to be anonymous – if you're a whistleblower, say. But if you ever encounter a corporate executive who insists on anonymity, that's a wild danger sign. Take Pixsy, the scam "copyleft trolls" whose business depends on baiting people into making small errors when using images licensed under very early versions of the Creative Common licenses, and then threatening to sue them unless they pay hundreds or thousands of dollars:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/24/a-bug-in-early-creative-commons-licenses-has-enabled-a-new-breed-of-superpredator/

Kain Jones, the CEO of Pixsy, tried to threaten me under the EU's GDPR for revealing the names of the scammer on his payroll who sent me a legal threat, and the executive who ran the scam for his business (I say he tried to threaten me because I helped lobby for the GDPR and I know for a fact that this isn't a GDPR violation):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/13/an-open-letter-to-pixsy-ceo-kain-jones-who-keeps-sending-me-legal-threats/

These people understand that they are in the business of ripping people off, causing them grave and wholly unjust financial injury. They value their secrecy because they are in the business of making strangers righteously furious, and they understand that one of these strangers might just show up in their lives someday to confront them about their transgressions.

This is why Unitedhealthcare freaked out so hard about Luigi Mangione's assassination of CEO Brian Thompson – that's not how the game is supposed to be played. The people who sit in on executive row, destroying your lives, are supposed to be wholly insulated from the consequences of their actions. You're not supposed to know who they are, you're not supposed to be able to find them – of course.

But even more importantly, you're not supposed to be angry at them. They pose as mere software agents in an immortal colony organism called a Limited Liability Corporation, bound by the iron law of shareholder supremacy to destroy your life while getting very, very rich. It's not supposed to be personal. That's why Unitedhealthcare is threatening to sue a doctor who was yanked out of surgery on a cancer patient to be berated by a UHC rep for ordering a hospital stay for her patient:

https://gizmodo.com/unitedhealthcare-is-mad-about-in-luigi-we-trust-comments-under-a-doctors-viral-post-2000560543

UHC is angry that this surgeon, Austin's Dr Elisabeth Potter, went Tiktok-viral with her true story of how how chaotic and depraved and uncaring UHC is. UHC execs fear that Mangione made it personal, that he obliterated the accountability sink of the corporation and put the blame squarely where it belongs – on the (mostly) men at the top who make this call.

This is a point Adam Conover made in his latest Factually podcast, where he interviewed Propublica's T Christian Miller and Patrick Rucker:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_5tDXRw8kg

Miller and Rucker published a blockbuster investigative report into Cigna's Evocore, a secret company that offers claims-denials as a service to America's biggest health insurers:

https://www.propublica.org/article/evicore-health-insurance-denials-cigna-unitedhealthcare-aetna-prior-authorizations

If you're the CEO of a health insurance company and you don't like how much you're paying out for MRIs or cancer treatment, you tell Evocore (which processes all your claim authorizations) and they turn a virtual dial that starts to reduce the number of MRIs your customers are allowed to have. This dial increases the likelihood that a claim or pre-authorization will be denied, which, in turn, makes doctors less willing to order them (even if they're medically necessary) and makes patients more likely to pay for them out of pocket.

Towards the end of the conversation, Miller and Rucker talk about how the rank-and-file people at an insurer don't get involved with the industry to murder people in order to enrich their shareholders. They genuinely want to help people. But executive row is different: those very wealthy people do believe their job is to kill people to save money, and get richer. Those people are personally to blame for the systemic problem. They are the ones who design and operate the system.

That's why naming the people who are personally responsible for these immoral, vicious acts is so important. That's why it's important that Wired and Propublica are unmasking the "pubescent sovereignty pickpockets" who are raiding the federal government under Krause's leadership:

https://projects.propublica.org/elon-musk-doge-tracker/

These people are committing grave crimes against the nation and its people. They should be known for this. It should follow them for the rest of their lives. It should be the lead in their obituaries. People who are introduced to them at parties should have a flash of recognition, hastily end the handshake, then turn on their heels and race to the bathroom to scrub their hands. For the rest of their lives.

Naming these people isn't enough to stop the plunder, but it helps. Yesterday, Marko Elez, the 25 year old avowed "eugenicist" who wanted to "normalize Indian hate" and could not be "[paid] to marry outside of my ethnicity," was shown the door. He's off the job. For the rest of his life, he will be the broccoli-haired brownshirt who got fired for his asinine, racist shitposting:

https://www.npr.org/2025/02/06/nx-s1-5289337/elon-musk-doge-treasury

After Krause's identity as the chief wrecker at DOGE was revealed, the brilliant Anna Merlan (author of Republic of Lies, the best book on conspiratorialism), wrote that "Now the whole country gets the experience of what it’s like when private equity buys the place you work":

https://bsky.app/profile/annamerlan.bsky.social/post/3lhepjkudcs2t

That's exactly it. We are witnessing a private equity-style plunder of the entire US government – of the USA itself. No one is better poised to write about this than Tkacik, because no one has private equity's number like Tkacik does:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/02/plunderers/#farben

Ironically, all this came down just as Trump announced that he was going to finally get rid of private equity's scammiest trick, the "carried interest" loophole that lets PE bosses (and, to a lesser extent, hedge fund managers) avoid billions in personal taxes:

https://archive.is/yKhvD

"Carried interest" has nothing to do with the interest rate – it's a law that was designed for 16th century sea captains who had an "interest" in the cargo they "carried":

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/29/writers-must-be-paid/#carried-interest

Trump campaigned on killing this loophole in 2017, but Congress stopped him, after a lobbying blitz by the looter industry. It's possible that he genuinely wants to get rid of the carried interest loophole – he's nothing if not idiosyncratic, as the residents of Greenland can attest:

https://prospect.org/world/2025-02-07-letter-between-friendly-nations/

Even if he succeeds, looters and the "investor class" will get a huge giveaway under Trump, in the form of more tax giveaways and the dismantling of labor and environmental regulation. But it's far more likely that he won't succeed. Rather – as Yves Smith writes for Naked Capitalism – he'll do what he did with the Canada and Mexico tariffs: make a tiny, unimportant change and then lie and say he had done something revolutionary:

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/02/is-trump-serious-about-trying-to-close-the-private-equity-carried-interest-loophole.html

This has been a shitty month, and it's not gonna get better for a while. On my dark days, I worry that it won't get better during my lifetime. But at least we have people like Tkacik to chronicle it, explain it, put it in context. She's amazing, a whirlwind. The same day that her report on Krause dropped, the Prospect published another must-read piece by her, digging deep into Alex Jones's convoluted bankruptcy gambit:

https://prospect.org/justice/2025-02-06-crisis-actors-alex-jones-bankruptcy/

It lays bare the wild world of elite bankruptcy court, another critical conduit for protecting the immoral rich from their victims. The fact that Tkacik can explain both Krause and the elite bankruptcy system on the same day is beyond impressive.

We've got a lot of work ahead of ourselves. The people in charge of this system – whose names you must learn and never forget – aren't going to go easily. But at least we know who they are. We know what they're doing. We know how the scam works. It's not a flurry of incomprehensible actions – it's a playbook that killed Red Lobster, Toys R Us, and Sears. We don't have to follow that playbook.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/07/broccoli-hair-brownshirts/#shameless

[bolognamayhem117]

Hot Take: Astarion does NOT hate flowers. You just missed a few subtle hints through Act 1 and early Act 3.

Astarion's negativity is directed toward just about anything remotely pleasant as you move through early act three, starting the moment you leave Wyrm's Rock. First thing after Gortash's coronation he marvels near tears at the colors of the city in daylight. If you ask if he's alright, it pisses him off.

There's other instances I can't quite remember but he's a straight crank throughout early Act 3 and it took me several hours of gameplay to have a lightbulb moment about his newly crappier attitude.

He just spent the last two hundred years seeing everything in the overwhelmingly warm dim tones of indoor lighting via sconces, rushlights, and braziers, or the dingy blue gray of moonlight outside. Daylight colors are something he had more than a lifetime to forget and now that he has a chance to remember that vibrancy in his own home town, he knows he's going to have to forget it all over again either by death or by remaining a vampire spawn forever. The worm isn't going to live rent free in his head forever, and killing Cazador to ascend in his place likely feels like an insurmountable and impossible fight against a literal titan who could stomp him flat without a corm of effort.

He doesn't hate flowers, he hates EVERYTHING right now because it's all going away very soon and if he convinces himself he hates everything then he won't miss it when it's all gone again. He was denied this for two hundred years and he's PISSED at what was stolen from him and PISSED it's all going away again.

He behaved similarly in Act 1 about anyone besides him enjoying physical intimacy. Some of this content was cut, to my best knowledge, but the overwhelming majority of his dialog addressing the PC romancing anyone but him are negative or backhanded. This is for two reasons, I think. A: his Simple Plan just dissolved right before his eyes when you chose someone else which in his mind means he has zero safety net, and EVERYONE gets to enjoy sex (key wording being ENJOY, not simply having) except him... And it pisses him off.

He also gleefully interrupts the bug bear and the ogress, I think for the same reason as the above paragraph, being: If he doesn't get to enjoy intimacy neither do they.

He reacts with anger and disgust at anything he's being unfairly denied. Which... That's fair. His feelings are valid, but his reaction to it is pretty shitty and meanspirited.

The other companions I tend to keep in my party, (that is Lae'zel, Halsin, Karlach, and Wyll) however, are actually appearing to behave pretty patiently with him in Act 3 which I find interesting.

In the instance with the flowers Karlach doesn't bother trying to convince him otherwise of his opinion, she just tells him how they make her feel instead and rather than getting snippy or doubling down he more or less agrees to disagree. I also don't recall anyone disagreeing with Astarion during Gale's last quest tasks when he mentioned that he quit praying to gods who wouldn't hear him a long time ago but to be fair, I think the gods did everybody in this crew dirty and they all know it. It seems like they're consciously giving him the space to be mad about things, is what I'm saying.

Everyone I know including myself who crawled out of a long-term hot garbage situation kinda went wild for a bit with freedom, spoke poorly, behaved strangely, had extreme emotional reactions to things, and made some particularly terrible choices. I think that's just a part of recalibrating yourself, healing and learning how to be okay again.

Point is, I wouldn't conflate too many of the turbo-negative things he says with how he actually feels about anything. We certainly know what he says and what he feels are two very different things.

[nasa]

ALT: This video shows blades of grass moving in the wind on a beautiful day at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. In the background, we see the 212-foot-core stage for the powerful SLS (Space Launch System) rocket used for Artemis I. The camera ascends, revealing the core stage next to a shimmering body of water as technicians lead it towards NASA’s Pegasus barge. Credit: NASA

The SLS (Space Launch System) Core Stage by Numbers

Technicians with NASA and SLS core stage lead contractor Boeing, along with RS-25 engines lead contractor Aerojet Rocketdyne, an L3Harris Technologies company, are nearing a major milestone for the Artemis II mission. The SLS (Space Launch System) rocket’s core stage for Artemis II is fully assembled and will soon be shipped via barge from NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans to the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Once there, it will be prepped for stacking and launch activities.

Get to know the core stage – by the numbers.

Standing 212 feet tall and measuring 27.6 feet in diameter, the SLS core stage is the largest rocket stage NASA has ever built. Due to its size, the hardware must be shipped aboard NASA’s Pegasus barge.

900 miles

Once loaded, the barge – which was updated to accommodate the giant core stage -- will travel 900 miles to Florida across inland and ocean waterways. Once at Kennedy, teams with our Exploration Ground Systems team will complete checkouts for the core stage prior to stacking preparations.

18 Miles + 500 Sensors

As impressive as the core stage is on the outside, it’s also incredible on the inside. The “brains” of the rocket consist of three flight computers and special avionics systems that tell the rocket what to do. This is linked to 18 miles of cabling and more than 500 sensors and systems to help feed fuel and steer the four RS-25 engines.

8.8 million

Speaking of engines… Our SLS Moon rocket generates approximately 8.8 million pounds of thrust at launch. Two million pounds come from the four powerful RS-25 engines at the base of the core stage, while each of the two solid rocket boosters produces a maximum thrust of 3.6 million pounds. Together, the engines and boosters will help launch a crew of four Artemis astronauts inside NASA’s Orion spacecraft beyond Earth orbit to venture around the Moon.

733,000 Gallons

Achieving the powerful thrust required at launch calls for a large amount of fuel - 733,000 gallons, to be precise. The stage has two huge propellant tanks that hold the super-cooled liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen that make the rocket “go.” A new liquid hydrogen storage sphere has recently been built at Kennedy, which can store 1.25 million gallons of liquid hydrogen.

Four

The number four doesn’t just apply to the RS-25 engines. It’s also the number of astronauts who will fly inside our Orion spacecraft atop our SLS rocket for the first crewed Artemis mission. When NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch, and Victor Glover along with CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen launch, they will be the first astronauts returning to the Moon in more than 50 years.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

[kaivenom]

Heyy, i love your dilf headcanons and your writing in general! Could you write one with the dilf in a relationship with a significant younger partner? Sfw and nsfw please ❤️

The One Piece Dilfs with a significant yourger partner HCS

Characters: Doflamingo, Mihawk, Crocodile, Smoker, Shanks

A/N: the reader will have 23-25 years old.

Masterlist

Dracule Mihawk

A little concerned, but mostly because he is powerful and a wanted men.

When he was a sichibukai, Doflimingo made a bad comment and he instantly attacked him.

That was the first time people saw him actually getting agressive.

He is just very diligent and a little into bondage, BDSM and prey play, so, with a significant younger partner, expect to have a steamy session of kinks at least once in every two weeks, cause your pretty and younger body needs training.

Donquixote Doflamingo

This men has already dated Viola so he has a experience in dating people younger than him.

That doesn't mean that he wont be telling jokes about you being his slave, his sex toy, his sugar baby, etc. The usual mean Doffy.

In the case that you were starting to feel really bad about the jokes, he would joke about your attitude and then try to make you understand that he doesn't feel that way to you.

In sex, just the height difference and your "inexperience" compared to his, he could melt from the expectation.

Sr. Crocodile

Doesn't care, even if you were his age, people would still think you are his sugar baby.

He doesn't joke about it but he finds it hilorious.

The good thing he gets about this is to spent his money on something and developing a sir/daddy kink.

He already has it but you being significantly younger and smaller than him, does a boost up on the kink.

Smoker

He is constantly worried about others opinions.

This is mostly because of the command chain and how people will think you are doing it to ascend on it.

He just develops a sweet spot with you, he can be a big and intimidating marine but with you he feels like a teenager again and just becomes a ball of awkwardness.

He is so sweet and caring during sex, he just thinks he might hurt and starts to get anxious so, he goes nice and slow.

Akagami Shanks

Since you both are always on the ship and the crew knows you, he doesn't worry that much.

He even tries to make jokes to make you feel better about it and convince himself.

Sex with him is funny and comforting, especially if you had a rough day, someone said something mean or whatever.

He will also make some sort of a mission to make you rediscover sex, since he is very experienced, he just loves to "teach" you things.

[noearchives]

things that you do that make his heart skip a beat!

characters: portgas d. ace, sabo, trafalgar d. water law, sanji.

note: you ever get that feeling when your heart feels like it fell out of your ribcage when the person you like does Something . yeah

cw/ tags: gender neutral reader, short drabbles, fluff ^_^

portgas d. ace

when you say "i love you" out loud.

- it's simple, yet it makes his heart stop every time you say it. many people throw around those three words like it meant nothing at all, but to him, it weighs heavier than the entire world.

- when you say it out loud to his face, he immediately beams brighter than the sun.

- he'll never get tired of how those three words roll of your tongue-- it's a reminder of how you love him and him only, out of everyone else on this planet.

- even if the whole world's against him, you still chose him.

- "say it again," he says, the glint in his eyes like a puppy's.

- when you do, he lets out a chuckle and wraps you in his arms, squishing the air out of your lungs as his cheeks turn warm.

- "oh, i love you. iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou," he mumbles into your neck.

sabo

when your fingers accidentally brush against his.

- god, it makes him feel so stupid because you've been together for a while now, and it's silly to get so flustered over something so minor. what is he, 12?

- but whenever the two of you reach for the same pen at the same time and your fingers overlap his during the process, the way you giggle as you say "whoops, sorry about that" makes his poor little heart flutter.

- the effects only double if it happens when the both of you are on a mission together with the rest of the revolutionaries.

- he's supposed to be professional and serious, but when your hand brushes against his when you walk side-by-side, he feels like he has to drop everything he's doing to kiss you silly.

- oh, darling, how can you do something so scandalous as such in front of your fellow coworkers...

- he fights against every fibre of his being to not hold your hand right then and there. it's like torture to him!

trafalgar d. water law

when you bandage his wounds.

- most of the time, even when he says he's alright and he can handle it on his own, you insist on helping him bandage his wounds and take care of him until he's healed.

- he was forced to mature too early when he was a wee child, and he's been taking care of himself ever since-- there's no time nor place for him to be gently cared for.

- so when your mind is focused on nothing but his wounds, delicate fingers wrapping him up as if every movement is calculated to make it hurt the least, his heart melts right there in his ribcage.

- "sorry- did i press too hard?" the look of worry in your eyes is so adorable. he might just pretend that it actually hurt so he can see the knot between your brows tighten more as you apologise frantically.

- not to mention the way you unintentionally stick the tip of your tongue out as you focus on taking care of him is so goddamn adorable. he would tease you with a kiss if not for the fractures in his bones.

- your cool fingertips on his skin makes his entire body tingle. thank god he doesn't have a monitor showing how fast his heart is beating right now.

sanji

when you hug him from behind his back.

- his favourite love language is definitely physical touch...

- when you catch him off guard when he's busy cooking for the crew, he feels like he just ascended to heaven.

- the way your arms rest so perfectly around his waist, the way your face is buried in his back, the way that you smile at him when he turns his head around...

- it just feels so domestic! it's like everything he's fantasized about when he was younger, with him cooking on a casual friday afternoon, with the love of his life behind him saying something like "mmm, love, that smells so good..."

- this is all he's ever wanted. him doing his favourite thing (cooking), with his favourite person (you), in his favourite place (the thousand sunny).

- it makes him think of a future with you in it.

- he bites his tongue to hold himself back from saying "let's get married right now."

[lagomorphique]

an overlooked curly line from the HFIM DLC which highlights curly's fundamental loneliness as a character.

he feels at home neither in space nor on earth. people who spend a lot of time in space in this universe losing touch with friends and family bc they've been away for so long.

jimmy is the one constant that he has. he thinks curly is the life of the party, but he strikes me as the kind of guy to have a lot of acquaintances but not so many friends. he knows a lot of people, but none of them really Know Him.

the way curly talks to anya about jimmy, it's clear that he knows jimmy is volatile and lashes out. when jimmy berates him, curly gives up defending himself immediately. i very much associate him with dog imagery - jimmy can do or say anything he wants to him. curly will keep going back for more, craving that dynamic even. although it hurts, it's familiar, and there's comfort in that pain's familiarity

by the time of the crash, curly doesn't even trust his own perception of reality any more. gaslighting gets thrown around a lot these days, but it's what jimmy does to him in the exact textbook sense of the word at several points in the game. 'your recollection of things is wrong. the way you feel is wrong. the way you felt and reacted was different to how you remember them.'

he has to keep this professional distance between himself and the crew. it's one of the things that stops him grabbing on to anya's olive branch of friendship. the end result is that both of them are so fucking lonely

the only one without a piece on the board... the crew choose to spend their leisure time together, even jimmy, but curly isn't there. is it because he's working? is he being self-sacrificing, because only four people can play the game? either way, he isolates himself from the others.

curly's hallucination/flashback/prophetic stress dream in ch3 (maybe out of chronological order?). he's alone, with nowhere to go but blindly onward. the broken off ladders that lead nowhere in either direction.. he can neither ascend nor descend, just stuck halfway up with cold, dark water constantly lapping at his heels

in all of curly's dialogue you get this profound sense of unfulfilment, of always trying to run away from something. he wants to be better, to do more, but the prospect of change terrifies him more than anything else.

tldr; curly is lonely as fuck and pretty much no sense of self

[deadghosy]

THIS DUO AS READERS X HAZBIN HOTEL GANG

prompt: two gen z twins fall into the grasp of hell and the hotel crew as they cause such an entertaining impression.

These two cause so much trouble in one go. Like literally you guys plopped into hell just causing chaos as the pink twin started to set hospitals and buildings on fire as the green twin was just scamming sinners😭.

The twins died looking like their favorite colors, green and pink as the smart one was green and the slight dumb one was wearing pink. The twins even have matching bracelets that have the other’s color. They also died as Gen z’s.

Oddly enough, the pink twin can go into the wrath and pride ring as the green twin and can stay in the pride ring and go into the envy ring.

You two can’t even BE LEFT ALONE HOLY SHIT- LITERALLY CHARLIE HAD YOU TAKE CHARGE IN THE HOTEL ONLY FOR THE BAR TO BE BURNT DOWN AND A HOLE IN THE WALL 😭😭

Alastor found the green twin amusing as they are very quick and smart. Hell they were the one to figure out that Alastor was in a leash when they first met him. So alastor made it his goal to try to trap the green! reader. He also found the pink one amusing, but they were just a nuisance at times 

Pink reader and Angel dust is such a funny duo as he seems to look after you since you aren’t good at taking care of your own self which is sad but at least someone cares for you.

“You’re not ascending to godhood. You’re just dehydrated….” “OUT OF MY WAY GAYBOY!” *few minutes later* the pink twin was breathing heavy on the floor. “Hopital..”

I feel like Lucifer would definitely try to adopt the twins as he find them adorable. Like Lucifer had most definitely made a pink and green duck with a magnet that makes the two ducks hold feathers.😭💗

Niffy love the twins equally as they like to hang around with the hotel maid as she shows them how to clean.

Sir Pentious find you two amazing as literally green! Reader overthinks a lot but pink! Reader doesn’t think and just acts head on. So he gets green! Reader to help with his building as pink! Reader just decorates.

The egg boiz love hanging out with the twins as they just walk around and cause havoc inside the hotel and to residents.

Headcannon on pink! Reader knowing how to use and gun and accidentally shooting themselves only to regenerate themselves as everyone panics except their own twin.

I imagine Cherri trying to bring the twins to a club and the green one is like “if you’re bring us, prepare for shit to go down.” And Cherri didn’t believe it until the club is ablaze as pink! Reader just smiled with their sharp teeth showing with their twin beside them having a tired face like. “I told you so.” Cherri’s face was so traumatized at how you did it.

Vaggie most definitely has some rules for you, even a bed time for pink as they are so adhd core 💀 so she need to drain their energy before they set anyone on fire.

It was a dark hellish night as the green twin walked into their shared room for the big dinner. “Hey just double checking, you cleared your calendar for dinner tomorrow night with the staff right? I’m dying to go to that new place like I can’t-” the green twin stops seeing their own twin spacing out. “Oh sorry, dinner, tomorrow, me.” “YAYYY” the pink reader starts to clap excitedly

Husk hates pink! Reader as they are so damn energetic and have no filter. Yeah husk has no filter as well, but pink! Reader has the worst filter ever to the point husk wants to duct tape their mouth.

STOP IMAGINE PINK! READER DRIVING LIKE SPONGEBOB AS GREEN! READER IS READING OFF A MAP SO CALMLY😭😭

“IM DRIVIN THIS HOOEEE” pink yells as green just calmly looks up and point to an exit turn as pink swerves the car as if this shit was Tokyo drift.

The combat the twins is so strange but destructive, like literally green’s combat is martial arts and poison as pink is street fighting but also just weapons like guns and bombs.

The Vee’s fucking hate the twins with a passion as those two are just bad luck for them.

lol I can see pink just bursting into the Vee’s tower on accident as green just waves at the three overlords.

Velvette finds the twins worthy of being models for her, but the thing is when she finally got the twins to meet her. They both accidentally ruined her studio as there was fire on the floor and curtains. HELL EVEN THE FIRE IS ON FIRE?! HOW TF-

Vox had found green amusing at how smart you are with calculations. He thought he could trick you with his hypnotizing power, but nah you poked that bitch’s eyes. He yelled falling to the floor just screaming at green being a bitch and a whole lot of degrading words. 

Valentino likes pink..for some reason . It’s because you are pink like Angel dust… but like then his admiration fell so quick when you glitter bombed his whole porn studio.

Pink! Reader was arguing with Vox as green! Reader has a needle ready to drain blood from the tv overlord. “Fuck you, YOU BITCH” “ya mama.” “YA MAMA, with cha bald headed ass.” “Ahh you mad.”

Yeah pink has a restraining order from the Vee’s as green just gets a warning 😭

Pink is a pyro maniac as green is a mad scientist type shit. 🦆

Yeah so the twins lore is that they were in a bad household with a mom who was a stay at home mom and an alcoholic dad that cheats. The parents were very verbal and physically abusive. So the twins only had their self.

I can imagine that green! reader had told pink! Reader a joke and was going to tell another resident only for the pink twin to fuck it up cause they found it so funny.

“Did you know, that 1981 was the year that-” “AAAAaaaAAAAaaAA-”

Tbh green is the reason why Alastor is sometimes scared to talk to them about his plans. Like green would stare at Alastor and Alastor would just sped walk away. 😭😭

The twins troupe is also “calm friend x chaotic friend” cause of course it fits them but really green is also a psycho in a making

Green was the type of kid to burn ants and dissect frogs and animals. As pink also burnt ants but thrown rocks at houses and cars. But they most definitely burnt old houses and thrown hot honey buns at people 😭

“I FEEEL LIKE A FEM QUEEN! I FEEL LIKE FEM QUEEN! I FEEL SO CUNTY!” Is how pink! Reader felt when Angel dust did their makeup as they watched RuPaul‘s drag race series.

Imagine the sibling fights just being so chaotic as they literally have to wear a “get along” shirt lmao 😭

The two siblings literally was playing rock paper scissors when all of a sudden a bomb was heard off in the distance making green immediately looks at pink who just nervously laughs and runs off.

There was a time when pink awakened their hell powers on a Thursday as green was so confused. “Pinkie, how are you doing that?” The green reader says pushing their glasses to their face seeing their twin floating. “I-I-I- I don’t know broccoli, I’m scared.” “Well come down.” “I can’t. I-I-I- I can’t. Get help.” The pink twin says to the green twin as they are floating to the ceiling.

Yeah Lucifer had to take them down as he put a spell on pink! Reader for it to never happen again.

Below the cut I show I imagine then personally💗

Their personalities:

Green! Reader- calm, secretly crazy inside, smart, protective, over thinking, sometimes snappy, just wants to be loved.

Pink! Reader- cunty😘, crazy, starve touched, hyperactive, not focused much, under thinking, destructive.

Their appearance:

Green! Reader- looks like a teen and an adult. Has straight hair with glasses. Possibly have a mole by their cheek or lip but definitely has freckles. They are skinny but curvy as they don’t gain weight much.

Pink! Reader- looks like a young adult and a teen at the same time. Has curly hair with glasses but eye sight isn’t as bad. Has a mole by their eye and has freckled skin. They are slight chubby but more on the thicc side with the right thickness in their body.

Their specific pronouns:

Green! Reader- any, but people usually call them a he/him & she/her

Pink! Reader- she/they and them/her.

[blueishspace]

HermitShift/EmpiresShift

Part 2

Previous part

Impulse (Pearl's role)

(Saint + Scarlet + Regular)

Was part of Evo smp for a short while before meeting Bdubs and joining the Empires server.

Died at the end of Empires after linking his life force to his empire, accidentally ascended to godhood, symbolic flower is the Aster flower.

Joined Hermitcraft in season 8 and joined the boatem crew, just in time for the moon falling.

Won Double Life after being abandoned by his soulmate OVER A CLOCK...no, he is still not over that, thank you for asking.

Has an... interesting relationship with Skizzleman.

Pearl (Cub's role)

(Vex + Old + Regular)

Aussie mad scientist is a pretty interesting combo lmao.

Vex, I headcanon Scar and Cub to not have been born vexes but to have become vexes trough magic, soooo Vex Pearl.

Still wears her hoodie under the lab coat.

Got corrupted by sculk at one point, they told her to stop putting the catalysts on people's bases and she was very compliany... started putting them UNDER the bases instead.

Started going all "cleaning lady" on the permit office and poe poe at one point and ended up becoming the new leader for both.

Cub (Skizz's role)

(Third Life + Regular)

Scar's best friend, has a survival ultrahardcore server with him where they play together and accomplish weird tasks. Why do that when Scar is...well, Scar? You see, that's the point.

Was present in all the life series but always gets out early mostly because he doesn't really care about winning, just causing psychological torment. So like...the opposite of our Skizz.

Joined Hermitcraft in season 10, got roaped into the Poe Poe pretty much randomly, he is very efficient at it though.

Skizz (Gem's role)

(Season 10 + Red Life + Regular)

Just a universe travelling angel, used to be in Empires and have a kingdom of lapis lazuli but that kinda went really badly. He met Impulse there though, that's really important.

Joined Hermitcraft in season 8 , got caught in the moon crashing, you already know that much.

Is not nearly as threatening as Gem? Still fought a lot of people but mostly to actually get better...and it kinda worked? Not as good as like a top pvp'er but still, improvement.

Got betrayed by Impulse, will never forgive, will never forget.

... In season 10 leans a lot more into the pirate aspect then Gem, feels like something he would like.

Gem (Joel's role)

(Last Life + Esmp 2 and 1 + Regular)

Like Scott she has been in many many many smp's.

She did not choose the mesa in Esmp1, she would have rather chosen the mountains but Skizz had already claimed them and doing something new is always fun!... Right?

Did not gain godhood like joel, she just revealed her pre-existing celestial goddess-ness to the other. That's because unlike the convex I do think she was born a celestial and therefore that doesn't change with the roleswap.

Does not go crazy when red like our Joel, no, she fully locks in and that's just as scary. Still took a while to get the win mostly because being hyperfocused on an objective or mission has a tendency to leave you... Vulnerable to surprises.

Hermitcraft season 10's top rated pop star, creating top selling music disks left and right.

[cuckoo-on-a-string]

Paper Pirates

MDNI

An unconventional member of an unconventional crew, you find yourself wrestling with frustrations out of your league

Shanks x f!reader (more relevant in part 2)

It was supposed to be a one-shot.

There are many roads to piracy.

Paperwork shouldn’t be one of them.

Sailors fly the jolly roger for adventure, for freedom, for greed. Sweet or savage, pirates turn to the sea for a thrilling life away from responsibility. Not for double-entry accounting.

It should be all swords and swashbuckling, especially on a yonko’s flagship. Music and tuneless singing have steeped in the ship’s hull along with sea brine and rum, staining the Red Force with a mighty reputation.

And yet. Here you sit: ink-stained fingers, spectacles, and all.

The financial charts, ledgers, and reports from across the Emperor’s territory make a compelling excuse to skip the evening’s celebrations. Light from the overhead lantern trembles with the rhythmic force of a dozen idiots dancing – or fighting – on deck. You have a job to do and frankly can’t be assed to even feign interest, not that you put much effort into the pretense since your first introduction.

Shanks called for this particular event because it’s a day ending in y. No one has cannons aimed at the Red Force, and there’s no pressing need for sobriety. Standard practice, really.

The exposure to the crew’s merry making itches under your skin like sun blisters. You’ll burn if you get too much, but it’s an unavoidable hazard at sea.

Even if you’re only half-crew.

You’re a leap and a bound above a coddled passenger but so removed from the functional hierarchy you don’t even have a title.

Except. Well. There was always…

“Nerd!”

You drag your eyes away from ledger lines and decimals to blink at Yasopp. The sniper is drunk and enjoying himself. And pointing at you.

“Captain says you have to have a drink when you’re done.”

One finger curls over a notebook’s cover, and you contemplate how many more hours of work you can eek out before you’re too tired for responsible accounting.

“I swear the books get worse every time I come back.” It’s lighthearted, but also too fucking true. “I’ll be working late.”

Yasopp shakes his head. Grins. “Orders.”

Your eyes roll away from the pirate and back to the mathematic wreck on the desk. “Whatever. Just leave me something and I’ll lift a glass to your unconscious ass before I sleep.”

Cackling, Yasopp ferries your answer back to the party, and you work the puzzle of knotted equations until the lantern stops swinging and the racket falls silent. Pirates not on watch stumble through the corridors on their way to their bunks, slurring and laughing on the other side of the wall. Even that goes quiet eventually.

Your eyes burn from focusing too hard to blink for minutes on end, and you decide it’s safe to stop for the night. Off come the glasses, neatly folded and tucked into a desk drawer. They’ll be safer there than on your person, and you only need them for reading fine print. You didn’t used to. Not when you started. But that’s true of a lot of things.

With joints that creak like the steps you ascend, you head up on deck. Bodies of the fallen sleep under a blanket of stars – the ones who drank themselves to sleep or refused to leave the party before waking in the morning. The few on watch peer down from crow’s nests or attend minor chores around their comrades’ spread limbs and upturned bellies.

Yellow lights contrast with the velvet black-blue stitching together endless sea and sky, and you can’t help relaxing just a little as you approach the one table with a conscious crewman. The cherry of his cigarette burns bright, and smoke curls into the breeze.

“Benn.”

He nods, mumbling your name. As you sit, he slides a large tankard to your side of the table.

It doesn’t look like wine. Doesn’t smell like beer. It’s the wrong color for sake. “It’s rum, isn’t it?”

“Didn’t send Yasopp with a preference,” the first mate says. The telling glint in his eye betrays his good humor. “This was all we had left.”

“I’ve seen the inventory. There’s plenty for the next week of travel, even if the crew gets shit-faced twice a day.”

Benn shrugs. “It was all that was left on deck.”

You doubt it, even if it’s more plausible, but there’s no point arguing. Time to finish the last task of the day.

Lifting the heavy cup, you tilt your head back and chug.

“Steady.” Benn watches with his arms crossed.

You drink rather than answer. Swallowing fire, you drain half of what was left for you.

“I’m tired,” you say when you stop to breathe, “and I want to go to bed.”

Bed is a hammock in the groaning belly of the ship. Surrounded by other hammocks. Full of pirates. Who snore. Loudly. A night of drinking never helps the volume, but maybe your share will help you black out.

“If I drink fast enough, I’ll be asleep before it hits and it won’t matter.”

“If you say so.”

He’s very good at letting people make their own mistakes. You’ve watched him to it. But this isn’t the first time you’ve rushed through liquid social obligations on your way to rest. He doesn’t know you as well as he thinks, you’re sure.

The second half of the rum goes down like the first, and you aren’t even tipsy as you take your leave and head below. It’s a good plan. Maybe it would’ve worked, too, if it weren’t for the chaos you find in your assigned quarters.

While the little study always holds records, you aren’t aboard often enough to have a dedicated sleeping space. No cabin. Not even a bunk. Just a hammock in the hold with the lower ranks. You left your small trunk by one near the door, and you’d slept there for the past five nights running without issue.

Until now.

There must’ve been a brawl, or one of the bigger men misjudged his approach under the influence, because a wad of ripped and tangled hammocks sits piled in the center of the room. All the remaining options, including your unofficially claimed space, are full.

You can’t go to bed.

There is no bed.

Benn doesn’t seem surprised when you come back.

Sooner or later, the rum will hit, and you know better than to wait for it on your feet. So, you pick a place by Benn’s table and settle with your ass on the deck and your back against a wall.

Technically speaking, you’ve slept in worse places.

Realistically speaking, you usually sleep in better.

Honestly speaking, you’re too old for this shit.

This is the consequence of your actions. Today it’s glasses and rum. Tomorrow it will be a sore head and an aching tailbone. The day after it will probably be a cannonball to the face. No matter how lackadaisical the crew behaves, they’re all pirates at the end of the day, and so are you.

Why are you a pirate? Why are you here? Your life was so slow and orderly before a big grin and a thatch of red hair flipped it on its head. Did you ever actually agree to this life, or did you just fail to argue with the plan? That must be the problem. If you never learn to say no, whatever comes is your fault. But if you learn to say no, you’ll have to learn to say yes, too. That might be worse.

Of course, Benn can’t let you mope in peace.

“What’s eating ya?”

“Mosquitoes, maybe.”

“Nah.” He stubs out the butt of his cigarette and reaches for the pack. “Been off since your last sabbatical. Longer, if we’re being honest, but it really has its teeth in you now.”

“Nothing.” Gods. You sound like a teenager.

He hums, lights up a fresh smoke, and leaves it alone.

You can’t even explain why you’re in a bad mood. It’s just vibes. A feeling that makes sense until you try caging it in words.

You’ve been part of Shank’s entourage for years now, and you’ve seen the impact of his influence.

He makes things better. Things grow under his care.

That’s good. That’s great. That’s better than most folks in the New World ever expect to find in their lifetimes. But somehow it doesn’t apply to you.

You let your head fall back against the wall. The hollow thunk sounds as empty as you wish you could make your skull.

People drink to forget, or so some sad, broken soul tells you in every bar in every port you’ve ever visited. It’s a neat trick you never learned, though. Booze makes you think. Then it makes you speak. Then it makes you sleep.

It doesn’t make you the party girl the Red-Haired Pirates clearly hoped for the first time they dragged you into a night of carousing. It didn’t help your on-again off-again crewmate status. No one besides a handful of the most seasoned officers knew how to speak to you, and you could count those on one hand.

If you could bring yourself to care less about what you did, you would’ve flipped everyone the bird ages ago, refused to board the Red Force after one of your little layovers and made a home somewhere.

But you can’t, and you don’t, and the alcohol fumes up from belly to brain with old memories.

Once upon a time you bumped into a grey-haired man at the dock. His hands were full of loose papers and notebooks. When they clattered to the ground, you immediately helped pick them up, because that was just good manners. As you gathered the pages, you saw the numbers, and your brain leapt ahead of your mouth, so as you handed the collection back to Shank’s first mate, you blithely mentioned, “You have some transportation and duplication errors in the top account that are throwing off your totals.”

And, low and behold, the next day the first mate – one Benn Beckman – tracked you down and discussed working for one of the most powerful people in the Grand Line.

You almost turned him down. You tried, actually. But he insisted you at least hear his captain out, face to face. And then Shanks smiled, and it was all over.

They gave you a strange job.

Emperors reigned in their own ways. Force and threats were standard, but Shanks followed no rules. He governed without actually doing anything, relying on booty stolen at sea and the generosity of thriving island economies to maintain his ship and crew. At least it looked that way from the outside. But the system relied on more than luck and good looks.

Your tasks follow a cycle. The Red Force drops you at an island, leaves you there, then picks you up a few (many) months later. When you’re aboard, you review and balance the ship’s books. When you’re on land, you do the real work. You record how things work on the island, or how they don’t, and you gather the numbers to prove it. Then Shanks and his commanders use your data to find the best ports for long stays, to spot unrest before it became insurrection, and to generally handle pirate business.

Honestly, you enjoy it. You never thought your uncanny skills with numbers could lead to so much travel, and you like island hopping. It’s nice to be special. It’s nice to be needed, even a little. It should be enough. You have more than most.

The itch in the back of your mind has been getting worse, though, especially as you start looping back to hubs you visited in your early days as a quasi-pirate.

Things have grown. People have put down roots. They flourish and offer good fruit in return.

But you haven’t found a way to grow into the Red-Hair Pirates the way other people settle into their lives. Your roots grasp at salt water.

At the start of this adventure, years ago, you let the tide wash you out to sea. It’s no one’s fault but yours, and that doesn’t make you feel any better, so you self-isolate and avoid what you can’t explain.

Pirates aren’t big on feelings talk.

And you’re at least half a pirate.

“Eh, nerd still can’t hold her rum?”

Apparently, Shanks hasn’t surrendered to tomorrow’s hangover yet.

You huff as Benn’s chuckle rumbles over you. Without opening your eyes, which slipped closed at some point you can’t be fucked to remember, you say, “Nerd can hold her rum. Nerd’s hammock was a casualty of war.”

“Ah.” A chair creaks as the captain joins Beckman’s table. “Should’ve known you wouldn’t stay out voluntarily. And if you hold your rum so well, why don’t you have another with us?”

“I did my duty. I just want to sleep.”

Shanks tsks, and you finally crack an eye open. He’s taken the chair closest to your spot on the floor. “Why aren’t you sleeping?” You knock your boot against his bare ankle, frowning. “You should take better care of yourself.”

“Are you going to nip at me like a sheepdog until I do? Come on, you’re awake. Have another drink.”

The insistence is inching towards an order. While the Red Hair Pirates have never followed conventional standards of respect, when Shanks tells you to do something, you listen.

Groaning, swearing, and taking your precious time, you stretch and inch away from the haze of sleep. You spare a filthy look for Beckman as you clamber onto a chair, because you can easily reason your way into this being his fault. The bastard smirks around his cigarette.

Maybe he really did plan this. Maybe Shanks did. Maybe the rats are in this together. Fuck knows what “this” is, but you’re sailing through Tipsy on the way to Drunk, and clearly there are plans in motion to blow you to the far shores of Hammered.

Fresh bottles have appeared on the table as if by magic, and you pull your discarded tankard over, resigned to your fate. It’s already been refilled.

You drink. So does Shanks. Beckman enjoys his smoke.

It’s…companionable. If it was always like this, maybe you could set your roots in the Red Force’s planks. Trust it to be a home.

But you’ll be ashore again in a few days, and if you let yourself grow into the crew, you’ll tear yourself apart when they leave.

And if they never come back?

Even a Yonko can die. And Shanks is changeable. One day they may not come back for you.

Did you eat dinner? The rum glows warm in your blood.

You find yourself ready to forgive Beckman. For… whatever. He was responsible. He was never the problem.

Shanks is deep in his thoughts, famous red hair drifting in the breeze. As he quietly enjoys his sake, you glare.

“Do you realize how frustrating you are?”

His cup pauses against his lips. His eyebrows leap up. “Eh?”

Yes. This is what you’ve been wrestling with it. He’s the problem.

“You’re the strongest.” You gesture as you speak, and rum splashes out, burning the cracked skin over your knuckles. “No one else can take care of you, so you better take care of yourself.”

Another kick. You aim for your captain’s ankle again, but you hit his shin. It’s not a big deal. It’s not like you could hurt him if you tried. While you aren’t the weakest aboard the Red Force, you’re pretty damn far from the strongest.

Shanks whines anyway, and Beckman’s dry laugh sounds like old leaves rattling in the wind.

“Seriously.” You empty your cup. That gives the truth time to percolate. There’s no helping it now. You’re smashed, and your dignity has flown. Your fist props up your drooping head as tangled thoughts spin out into thread.

“It’s so frustrating. You have no idea what’s like being weaker than someone you love.”

The immediate silence takes a minute to catch up with you. The rum has floated you beyond a standard perception of time, and your head is too loud to notice everything outside hasn’t kept up.

You frown.

You think.

And you realize.

In that moment, you aren’t a ship. There is no chair, table, or lantern to keep you steady. You’re floating in the black abyss, and you know without seeing that a sea king is circling for the kill. There’s no air. Or light. Or distraction. Just terrible, dreadful awareness.

Oh, gods.

Stars, seas, and sabers. Fucking hells and all the horrors below.

You love Shanks.

It’s the stupidest thing in the world, and it makes perfect sense.

You just informed on yourself. To yourself. And possibly to the two men eyeing you, but there’s grace in nebulous phrasing, and no one should be taken too seriously after so much rum.

You leap to your feet and point straight between the captain’s eyes.

“I am drunk, and I refuse to face the consequences of my actions.”

Shanks just blinks at you, and Beckman keeps his thoughts to himself as you back away, trip over your chair, and stagger back down to the study. You hold your head so high you can’t see your feet, and you earn a dozen nicks and bruises on your way.

You sleep in the corner with your jacket as a blanket, and in the morning, you tell yourself nothing happened at all.