#there was absolutely zero reason to service that hard

[empressofmankind]

In other episode 1083 news, can we talk about that slow pan they did up Law's tiddies with the lighting like that?

Cuz I am having extremely complicated feelings about my son now.

[ma1dita]

BABEEE happy birthday!! (i'm so terribly late i'm so sorry) congrats on 23💖

🐥 so i'm having thoughts right now about luke x reader and physical affection. like maybe one of them being touch starved and always craving the other person's touch and the other person noticing it and doing it more? maybe from platonic (i will go down with best friends to lovers) to romantic, i'm just on this brainrot tonight

🐥🐥🐥🐥🐥

luke castellan x reader

a/n: back from the klerb but here with a classic 4am post 🥂 but the hangxiety wont let me rest until this is out! ill edit this in the morning... or not 😗

wc: 1.1k

���

It’s hard to miss what you’ve never had.

Luke Castellan was never a touchy guy. Sure, he’ll hold a new camper’s hand during welcome tours (especially the little ones who can barely keep up with his long legs; if they’re lucky they get a piggy back ride), and he won’t shy away from a clap on the back when his strategies for capture the flag bring his team to victory (they always do, mind you), and when he feels like it, he’ll even shove Annabeth playfully to show her he adores her (but she packs a punch now that she’s older).

It never really goes past that, and he’s never had to think too hard about it—physical touch.

He’s the one who takes care of others—a part of his nature like it is for Hermes’ cabin to take in unclaimed demigods. But something changed in the months that he’s gotten closer to you. At first, he’d bite his tongue at the way you’re so open to patting his cheek when he does something funny (which he doesn’t try to make a show of, but now…), how you choose to sit so close to him during bonfires that your knees touch (the Apollo kids could be singing about the heavens falling down on them for all he cares but he zeroes in on every word that leaves your lips), and the way you’d lock your fingers with him for a pinky promise after every little thing ‘to make sure it’s real’ (Luke didn’t understand the merit of a pinky promise over whether you could have his dessert for the next week if you took over arts and crafts with the kiddie campers for him; truthfully he’d give it to you anyway). It was unusual for him to have someone comfort him, to show care without a true reason. But he didn’t realize how much more it bothered him now that you wouldn’t even look him in the eye.

Silena and some of the other Aphrodite children had asked you the very defining question of, “Do you like Luke Castellan?” and having never thought of it that way, or being able to put your feelings for him in words instead of fingers in his belt loops or in the muss of his curls—that shit was terrifying!

You spent all Saturday afternoon at the docks with them belly down under the glare of the sun’s rays as they explained to you what the five love languages are. By the end of it, sunburn wasn’t the only reason you felt hot.

“Your love language is physical touch,” one of Silena’s older half-siblings—Connelly, says like he’s explaining that the sky is blue, “And Luke’s not that type of guy! Think he’s more acts of service…”

“Ooh, or words of affirmation….” another one of them muses, but the sound of your heartbeat tunes it all out. Well shit, have you been sending him the wrong signals? Or are there even any signals you want to send him? 

Nevertheless, in the matters of love or even the tiniest whisper of it—maybe there’s no one else you can trust with this stuff besides Cabin 10.

Wrong.

Absolutely wrong. Whatever the hell you’ve been convinced or whatever’s changed since last weekend��Luke just knows he hates it, and he’s angry. He’s angry at how you gasp in surprise every time you brush shoulders during archery practice when you used to let him fix your form, he’s angry at how you’ll squeeze campers’ shoulders to tell them they’re doing a good job carrying the strawberry crates—and all he gets is a mumbled ‘Thanks, Castellan’ when he stacks them up and takes your load.

Luke’s so terribly angry that Travis told him he’s been walking around like a big strawberry, face red and irritated—but not at you. 

He realizes he’s also angry at the fact that he can’t protect you from the onslaught of a rain cloud—or maybe it was the fact that you’re so okay with the rain touching your skin and seeping through your orange shirt like he wishes you’d let him. He’s angry at the way the wind blows your hair into your face and your fingers brush the strands away like he wishes he can. Most of all, Luke Castellan is angry that he didn’t know how good a simple touch could be until he lost it—before he even really got to appreciate yours.

You’re sitting on the opposite end of the row in the amphitheater laughing with your friends and the furrow in his thick brow is a tell-tale sign of his discomfort. Luke doesn’t dare to remember what it’s like before you to be honest—he’d rather give up Elysium instead of having you ignore him like this. He calls your name, a tinge of both anger and desperation until you look over at him, eyelashes kissing your cheeks. The hold you have on him transcends the physical touch of your fingers but he wants, no—needs you next to him.

“C’mere! Why are you so far away?”

Luke hopes it doesn’t sound pathetic, but a crooked grin splits across his face as soon as you make your way over, sitting down and crossing your legs away from him. It’s still too far, even if he can feel your breath on his shoulder.

“Did I do something to make you angry? I…” The words escape his mouth in a jumble—quick wit from his father escaping him, though he knows not to rely on that asshole, god or not. You mutter words that almost escape him too, and he leans in, chasing your hands and putting them in his own until they’re gentle and soft in his lap.

“No, no…. I just… don’t want to push your boundaries. I know you don’t like it when I’m too touchy,” and he thinks his heart clenches a little like how you’re squeezing his hands. Luke shouldn’t feel instant gratification from a subconscious action. He wants to know you mean it with him—that’s what he can’t put into words.

“I….like it when you do.”

You notice the way his fingers tangle tighter with yours, pinkys interlocking with yours. When he lets go, Luke wraps his arm around your shoulders until you’re able to laugh in the crook of his neck. He chooses to place a kiss on the corner of your mouth when your head sways to face him at the silly tune about centaurs and then you realize that Luke loves the way you love him. You wonder if he accidentally missed meeting your lips, but then the noise in your head quiets down when he pulls you closer, lips locking tenderly, intentionally—as they were always meant to.

You both hear a giggle that sounds a lot like tinkling bells belonging to children of Aphrodite. 

For once they were wrong about love. 

Luke’s tongue parts through your lips and meets your own like they’re in a long awaited embrace, dancing and devouring you from the inside out but this, you— are what he can rely on. This, your touch, and how he chooses to let it consume him, never letting go.

[wonderjanga]

Hello!(⁠≧⁠▽⁠≦⁠) Yeah, this is just a random thing that I suddenly came up while browsing some Shazam fan arts

What if, Shazam can control his pulse and/or heartbeat/heart rate. Like, a JL league could check his pulse while he's asleep(For no reason or fun) and it's absolutely zero. So, it's hard trying to tell if Captain Marvel is asleep or dead. And about him controlling his heartbeat/heart rate, he can literally control how fast it goes. Sometimes it's just so slow that it's like a dying person, and sometimes it's so fast(I kinda want you to write a story about this...😔😔 If you have time, and have a good day!🫶🏼)

I’ve actually already done this before. Or, I at least had a little tidbit of it in one of my earliest posts. (Marvel Messing with the JL post) I think I also touched up on it a bit in my Barely Human Cap post too, but I’m happy to expand on it though!

Billy can control his heart rate as Marvel. It’s something he found out he could do after Solomon happened to let it slip one time. So, he uses it to his advantage.

Like, the time Junior and Marvel were talking at a little get together thrown by the JL. Then for whatever reason the room just happened to go silent as Junior said what was probably the worst and most embarrassing sense Billy had ever heard. The silence was so loud.

Marvel and Junior: *just standing there as the JL stare*

Thankfully though, Billy and Freddy came up with a plan if anything would ever happen like this.

Marvel and Junior: *lock eyes*

Marvel: *sighs for what he’s about to do, slowly lets his heart rate start to increase and stumbles to lean on a nearby table*

Freddy: “Cap?” *fake concern*

Marvel: *let his hand clench at his chest as he lets out a groan*

That’s right. He’s faking a heart attack.

Marvel: *lets himself fall, continuing to clench his chest*

Supes: *can hear his heart rate and looks horrified* “OH MY RAO!?”

There was a lot of screaming and yelling and all that. Freddy got them out of there thankfully without having to take him to the medbay.

They’ve pulled this move several times.

Anyways, another way he’s used this move before is lying. Since Supes can detect lies based on heartbeat, it’s kinda easy for Marvel. Don’t get him wrong, he’s completely screwed if Diana uses her lasso though.

Marvel: “It’s true!”

Supes: “It is not!” *smiling cause Marvel is a funny guy*

Marvel: “But it is! I fought a giant purple magnifying glass that tried to burn the earth to a crisp!” *making sure his heartbeat is steady*

Supes: “No way…”

Though, he has faced some problems due to this skill. Like the time he went to sleep in one of the medical cots. Just face down, ass up, sleeping without a care in the world. After all, these guys are his friends so why would he care?

Unbeknownst to Billy, because, of course, he was sleeping, Martian Manhunter came in, saw him, laying motionless on the bed and thought he was injured so he went over to check his pulse. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Not a single beat. He panicked and alerted the other members. That’s how they held a funeral service with a coffin they got from somewhere.

Marvel: *stirring awake*

Flash: “Can we at least call somebody? I know he has no listed contacts or relatives, but surely we can call someone.”

Wondy: “Flash, it’s highly likely any of Marvel’s relatives would probably be deceased, considering the fact that he’s a demigod.”

GL: “What about that Junior kid? Crap… did any of us call him?”

Marvel: *sits up* “Junior?”

The JL proceeded to let out the loudest culmination of screams ever heard. Canary even accidentally used a bit of her powers.

Supes: “Captain!” *flies over checking Marvel over*

Marvel: “Yeah?” *scratches head, a little too groggy to register the casket he was just in and instead floats out and lands on the ground*

They proceeded to dog pile on him.

[inchidentally]

Inchie we need your words of reason again 🙏 Newer fans have bled over from other hockey rpf and keep crossing lines 🫥

babe idk how wise I am ?? at all but I'm a firm believer in using common sense about rpf. and I haven't personally seen the stuff you're alluding to but! I've seen posts referring to it and I heard smth about another ship suffering a containment breach… so can't hurt to throw my 2c in as well ?? idk?

tl;dr that landoscar is NOT the ship for you if you 're going to try and force it to be "real" in a l*rry way*. this ship adores the real life friendship without having it compete with the guys' other many friendships - and we do NOT hate women and women partners or pretend they're beards/fakes/conveniently open relationship. and we absolutely do NOT push rpf outside of fandom. you'll get blocked/reported if you do. this is NOT the space for you to find your next "omg what if they're actually fcking" ship. Lily and Oscar are basically forever, Lando is rightfully loving his life sharing his beautiful body with people, and the fan fiction for the ship is staggeringly amazing so we're very very happy w the status quo <3

and we do NOT share rpf content with Lando, Oscar, anyone in F1, the families - basically if they're not someone you know solely in fandom, you don't share rpf with them. again, you will not find support for that here.

I "officially" joined landoscar fandom around Silverstone 2023 and these have been the hard lines taken for as long as I can remember and from all of the OG people in this fandom. esp from people who've been here since Oscar's Alpine tweet bc landoscar is unique in not having led with a PR image and we've all gotten to see every nervous, stumbling and authentic progression of their partnership and friendship along the way - at no point feeling the need to cross the boundary between fic and reality. it truly is charming and intriguing and rewarding as it exists in reality!

as far as the 'why' essay I'll drop all that where it can be ignored easily aslfgjalgf

like I said - landoscar has always been the exception of no one ever slipping over into trying to "make it real" in large part bc Lando and Oscar don't do the PR bromance/fake gay/fan service stuff which !reminder! is content in other ships I absolutely eat up and is 100% targeted to me but !! I'm also aware is connected to a lot of inappropriate fan behavior from ppl who blur the lines between amusing PR content and reality. trust me, I had to basically abandon carland0 which was my very first f1 ship bc to this day - fully out in the open - I see casual misogyny thrown around about Rebecca and ppl truly loudly thinking Lando and Carlos - who have always referred to each other as brothers and who laugh at the "gay" stuff they do precisely bc it's not real - genuinely fcked and/or dated. I will never care enough about an rpf ship to willingly encounter that shit on a regular basis. I know there's a lot of good ppl in the ship who don't engage in that stuff but I have such a hard line about wag hate that it's not worth it for me.

ironically or maybe because of, Lando and Oscar are the only drivers to NOT engage in playing gay for laughs BUT also who hit multiple progressive bullet points in things like discussing romance and dating in gender neutral terms and not making a big deal out of consuming or discussing queer media etc. they actually walk the walk in not pushing gender identity or sexual orientation on hypotheticals or on each other. they also don't do any macho/tradmasc behavior with each other or even bro-ey stuff like rough-housing or loud, aggressive humor (nothing wrong with loud bro stuff tho as long as it doesn't veer into toxic territory! I come from hockeyblr originally so it can be really sweet!)

and landoscar is also the exception in that we all ADORE Lily and have zero interest in trying to erase her let alone anyone be hostile toward her. in straight people culture they're basically already married and that's how they were when landoscar started as a ship! a lot of us have regularly made posts similar to this for newer fans to remind them that Lily (and whoever Lando ends up with as a steady partner) are NOT pawns in an rpf game. Lily is a real human woman with a real life relationship with Oscar and while no one is obliged to engage w wag content, respecting her existence is the bare minimum expected.

the last point I should make is that there's a very clear difference for instance on my blog where I see fanservice ship content about say charl0s or frand0 or n0rtrell and lose my mind over it and love it etc. but then there's Alex or Rebecca or Pietra on my blog! bc I can have fun without erasing women or losing common sense!!

whereas whenever I post stuff about a friendship that rly does make me Feel Things and write my insane essays, it's bc of what the relationships verifiably are and not what they aren't. Max F truly has a complexity and level of depth in his relationship with Lando that is unique and special to each other's lives. in the same way, Lando and Oscar truly do have a particular charm and fondness for each other that's made them approach each other unusually tentatively and slowly - while also having such intense blushing fondness as well as a uniquely intriguing maturity to their professional partnership. this stuff is fascinating and those two examples in particular swim around into all kinds of social/emotional territory.

in ways that do not require conspiracies and fan theories of them fcking or dating to make them compelling.

(and tbh the fact that Lando has some form of "crush" on a lot of handsome men and subconsciously/consciously "flirts" is absolutely fine to enjoy... as long as none of it gets outside of fandom.)

and the fan fiction for landoscar is truly TRULY staggeringly prolific and immensely talented so that's where we go for imagining them in any other type of reality <3

*do not get mad or whatever abt this - if you did or still do just want to ship l*rry privately then whatever but that's the like terrible gold standard for horrific real life repercussions of taking rpf seriously and why fandoms should never ever allow that to happen. there's no debate about that.

[cas-edspace]

why the hell not:

Random Hermit Headcanons

———

Everyone is completely comfortable with being in hybrid form with Tango.

Anyone who normally hides it, just lets out the ears, wings, etc with Tango. He isn’t aware that not everyone has seen Etho’s face, ears, or that no one realizes that there are two vampires on the server. He also makes sure they eat, (dad) (acts of service) (and the vamps do not feed on Tango, because that gotta taste like lava or an equivalent)

—

…Just realized that I planned on adding someone to this random hc hc listing and he’s not even in Hermitcraft but who cares: Here’s one for Scott;

He’s a shapeshifter, and no one seemed to caught onto that yet. Not the floating crystals in Last Life or the fact he was suddenly half fish in Limited Life.

—

Doc and Martyn are jokingly “fighting” over Ren, but the guy somehow doesn’t realize? The pup is just rping as pirates, pirate rats, and his ears apparently doesn’t pick up “He’s mine” comments.

Zero braincells <3

—

Etho keeps thinking about the family dynamic from Limited Life, because Scar randomly calls Cleo Mom still and… gave himself a step parent? And reassigned Etho’s role?

(This is based off of the Hungry Hermit conversation:

Scar: I wanna see mom and dad play!

Tango: Yeah, sure, I’ll play

.

.

Etho: Who’s mom?

Tango: Does the answer change if you’ll play or not?

Etho: I’ll play (don’t remember exact line)

(^This actually happened, so did this v)

Scar lost his permits

Tango: *sighs* I’m going to sound like a total dad here, but where did you last have them? Retrace your steps.

Scar: (something something, doing this from memory is great, it is 2am) Alright, dads come over here

Etho and Tango follow

. . .

Etho is asking himself about the complexity of the dynamics, does Bdubs know about the new step parent? Did Scar tell him or is he supposed to- Is he overthinking the bit? Absolutely, and should he just forget it? Yes, but it creeps back up

—

Impulse is a dragon hybrid (not demon), which means he can talk to Jean, the Ender Dragon. And he does!

Doesn’t stop her from trying to kill him, though

Rest of ZITS make fun of him for this.

—

Speaking of Z, Zedaph wasn’t always a pink sheep hybrid

Cue stereotypical (cliche but I do like em) Lab experiment trauma- jk, no, he did that to himself. With science! …and not with using dyes, like he most definitely should’ve done. No one knows what other side effects that the experiments had may have caused him, but Zed is happy because he’s pink.

—

All older hermits have killed Watchers

Grian doesn’t know this.

Hermitcraft has proved itself again and again to not be easy pickings. There are reasons that the server is lasting.

—

Joel misses his wife- wait that’s just normal Joel-

—

Gem is Ares in God Games, in EPIC the Musical

Change my mind

—

Boogeyman kills leave permanently deep scars on the slain.

Bdubs once saw Tango without his shirt and… Seeing those long, jagged, deep as the day he got them scars that goes from his right shoulder to just above his left hip…

Bdubs now struggle sleeping through the night, seeing the marks he left…? The Boogeyman curse is not forgiving and makes it impossible to hold back. And Tango’s back proves it.

—

Doc can cheer…leading? He is a cheerleader. But not for the Dallas Cowboy ifykyk

—

Cub somehow cannot be trolled. we don’t know how he does it

—

When Pearl zones out, she’ll float upwards. Her dogs are trained to go get someone to help Pearl before she zones back in and falls to her (not) death. Being a ghost on a server is hard

—

Wild Life powers doesn’t fully go away. I’ll elaborate on a different post

Because this is too long, and it is 2:30 am now and I should sleep

[blacktabbygames]

Hi, I admit I dont really know what the process for this looks like, but would you ever consider adding Slay the Princess to the Playstation Plus subscription service, or to Xbox GamePass? Even temporary, with a time limit?

This might be something we do towards the very end of Slay the Princess' life cycle, but subscription services are a pretty hard sell for us in general. I don't think they're sustainable for the games industry as a whole, and they're a contributor to some of the race-to-the-bottom mentality. (Absolutely zero judgment for folks who use these services, btw. *I* use these services, but then I also know that I never actually buy a game after getting it on Game Pass or PS+; this is really just about the corporate side of things)

A big news item in the industry over the past month was the closure of Tango Gameworks, the Microsoft-owned studio that made Hi-Fi Rush last year, a wonderful game that got a bunch of awards and scored an 87 on Metacritic.

There's been a lot of speculation around this closure, and to add to that speculation, I believe that at the end of the day, Hi Fi Rush lost a lot of money, at least on paper.

It was shadow-dropped as a day 1 gamepass exclusive, which meant that there was no marketing done in advance, and sales were immediately cannibalized. (Side note— Hi-Fi Rush is maybe the only game I've picked up on Game Pass that I turned around and bought a Steam copy of, mostly because I wanted to play it on my Steam Deck.)

Since Tango was owned by MS, this was almost certainly a deliberate choice to make Game Pass seem more appealing, and even then, the studio behind a *hit* game was closed for financial reasons. So we're not sure that's a part of the industry we want to dance with.

I know this probably seems at odds with our stance on piracy, but at the end of the day, I think they're different beasts, and it's the scale, perceived legitimacy, and corporatization of subscription services that gives me a lot of pause, especially with Game Pass, which tends to double-release for PC and console. And on the flipside, I legitimately don't think piracy hurts developers.

So again, I think if we were to do something like this, it would be towards the end of the game's life, or it would be something tied more to an isolated ecosystem (i.e. if we do mobile, something like Apple Arcade, since people don't really *buy* mobile games, and the overlap with console + PC is very small.)

[nanamineedstherapy]

The Symphony of Spite

Ryomen Sukuna x GN!Therapist Reader x Nanami Kento

Gojo Satoru x ..... (he's after one of your manz)

Also Crybaby!Gojo getting backshots from his Yandere

Summary: No summary. Read at your own risk. Because I don't even know what a good summary for this would be. A/N: I wrote this for fan-service. The fan was me.

Warnings (May Contain Spoilers): Crack Fic, NSFW Content, Explicit Language, Manipulative Relationship (just one, & it’s not yours—so relax), Toxic Dynamics (again, not yours—seriously chill), Office Romance, Love Triangle, Yandere (not your husbands, so breathe easy!), Corporate Shenanigans (think “The Office” but with more messy), Jealousy (why would you think yours? Do you not want a healthy relationship?! Let someone else have fun for once, please!), Mild Dub-Con (but only if you squint really hard), Possessive Behavior, Power Dynamics (because we’re all about that corporate ladder climbing), Modern Corporate AU, Gojo is not all mighty here—just the office bimbo (yes, you read that right), you are a therapist married to Sukuna & Nanami (because... I honestly don't know), Satosugu genuinely hate each other (it’s not a enemies to lovers rom-com & has more punches), everyone wants to beat Gojo up (you'll see why), & yes, Haibara (the third wheel in your own marriage-one) is here for some reason winks. No use of y/n but you are referred to as wife once. Also, dycraphilia, fuckbuddies, & eventual smut—so if you’re underage or have a blog that’s ageless, please DNI. No, you can't skip it because they are talking during & it's essential to the plot. Enjoy the mess & remember: it’s all fun & games until someone gets a stapler thrown at them!

Nanami Kento and Ryomen Sukuna were two sides of the same corporate coin. Both had impeccable work ethics, immaculate wardrobes, and zero patience for corporate buffoonery. Their days were spent navigating a gauntlet of coworkers who couldn’t meet deadlines, bosses who made PowerPoint presentations last longer than historical eras, and HR seminars that reeked of faux positivity. And you? Their doting, mildly chaotic therapist wife, who absolutely did not have them as patients. That would be unethical, of course. But boy, did they unload their workplace woes at home as if you were billing them hourly.

It routinely started over dinner. Nanami was delicately slicing his steak while Sukuna gnawed on a chicken drumstick like he had a vendetta against poultry.

“Today,” Nanami began, his tone weary, “Kusakabe spent thirty minutes explaining why we don’t need to update our software, only to accidentally delete half the department’s spreadsheets because he clicked ‘yes’ on a pop-up without reading it.”

“Amateur,” Sukuna snorted, reaching for another drumstick. “I had to sit through three meetings about synergy today. Three! Do you know what synergy is? Nothing. It’s a fancy word for ‘waste Sukuna’s time.’”

You took a sip of your wine, your ears tuned in to the cacophony around you. It was as if a perfectly dysfunctional symphony of grievances had taken the stage, each voice blending into a chorus of disdain for corporate absurdities. Seriously, could someone just ask about your day? But of course, sharing anything meaningful was off the table, thanks to that pesky confidentiality clause.

---

A week later, you had a plan.

The idea struck during a particularly gruelling session with a patient who wouldn’t stop playing victim to her own bad decisions. You needed a release. No, they needed a release. Something cathartic but harmless. Something that could channel all their workplace frustrations into an outlet that wouldn’t get them arrested for arson.

You spent the weekend hunting for the perfect gift, eventually finding it in a quirky little music shop downtown. The shopkeeper had described it as “an instrument for anarchists.” Perfect.

That Monday evening, as Nanami and Sukuna returned home, you greeted them with an unsettlingly bright smile.

“What’s that face for?” Sukuna asked, suspicious.

“I have a gift for you both,” you announced, producing two brightly wrapped packages.

Nanami raised an eyebrow, his wariness palpable. True to form, Sukuna tore open his package without hesitation.

“What the hell is this?” he asked, holding up the obnoxious plastic horn.

“It’s called a vuvuzela,” you explained, barely containing your glee. “It’s an instrument. Well, sort of. It makes noise. Awful, horrible noise. Think of it as a stress reliever.” It was the infamous "instrument from hell,” notorious enough to be banned for its ear-splitting sound from hell.

Nanami opened his package with the resigned grace of a man who knew chaos was inevitable. His gift was a slightly different model, a kazoo. He held it up, inspecting it like it might bite him.

“You want us to... play these?” He asked, skeptical.

“No,” you said, grinning. “I want you to weaponize them.”

The next day, chaos reigned in their respective offices.

---

Nanami waited until Kusakabe began another ill-advised rant about company expenditures. He pulled the kazoo from his pocket, raised it to his lips, and unleashed a tuneless, nasally wail that drowned out Kusakabe’s voice.

The room fell silent. Kusakabe blinked. Nanami calmly put the kazoo back in his pocket and resumed taking notes as if nothing had happened.

Sukuna, predictably, took a more aggressive approach. During the fourth meeting of the day, as Fushiguro Toji, Chief Sales Officer (CSO) , droned on about “leveraging assets,” he stood, raised the vuvuzela like a battle horn, and blasted a deafening note that shook the windows.

“Consider that leveraged,” he growled before storming out.

When they returned home that evening, you were greeted by two men who looked far more relaxed than they had in months.

“You’re a menace,” Nanami said, setting his briefcase down.

“Best. Wife. Ever,” Sukuna declared, pulling you into a bear hug.

You smiled innocently. “So, how was your day?”

“Peaceful,” Nanami deadpanned. “Kusakabe hasn’t spoken to me since.”

“Same,” Sukuna added. “They’re terrified of me now. It’s glorious.”

You couldn’t have been prouder.

In the end, the vuvuzela and kazoo became permanent fixtures in their work lives, an ever-present reminder to their coworkers that some battles were better left unfought. And you? You had achieved the impossible: turning corporate hell into a symphony of spiteful joy.

---

Nanami had long accepted that Kaisen Publishing wasn’t a company—it was a living, breathing disaster. As the Chief Finance Officer (CFO)—a position he’d achieved through sheer competence, meticulous planning, and the soul-crushing acceptance that mediocrity often reigned supreme in corporate life—his role demanded precision and discipline, qualities he wielded with brutal efficiency. Yet, despite his best efforts, he often found himself surrounded by chaos personified by Ryomen Sukuna, the Chief Visionary Officer (CVO), a title as nonsensical as Sukuna’s presence in the corporate world.

Sukuna was a walking HR violation, somehow both loathed and revered. His title was a sham, a position created purely to keep him from actually burning the office down. He spent his days offering “visionary” ideas like turning the break room into a paintball arena or replacing desks with throne room-like chairs. How he landed the role remained a mystery, though most suspected it involved intimidation, bribery, or sheer dumb luck.

Their hierarchy wasn’t just about titles—it was about grudges. Higuruma Hiromi, the Chief Legal Officer (CLO), had made it his life’s mission to bury Sukuna under an avalanche of formal complaints. “Improper use of company funds,” “harassment of legal staff,” and “general misconduct” were regular entries on Hiromi’s weekly HR reports.

Shoko Ieiri, the Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO), was Hiromi’s closest ally. Where Hiromi wielded legal jargon like a sword, Shoko was the sniper, striking with pinpoint precision. She could cite obscure clauses from the employee handbook with terrifying speed, and her ability to weaponize HR policy was unmatched.

Sukuna, naturally, responded with equal malice. “You’re like cockroaches,” he told Hiromi and Shoko during one particularly tense meeting. “Impossible to kill and even more annoying to deal with.”

Hiromi adjusted his cuffs. “And you’re like a plague—persistent, destructive, and entirely preventable.”

Shoko simply smiled. “We’re just doing our jobs, Sukuna.”

“Your jobs are ruining my life,” Sukuna shot back.

“Correct,” Shoko said, her grin widening.

---

Nanami’s greatest regret was hiring Gojo Satoru. It had seemed like a good idea at the time—Gojo had potential, an impressive academic background, and a confidence that bordered on arrogance. Nanami thought he’d mold him into a competent executive assistant (EA). Instead, he got... this.

Gojo was, in many ways, the embodiment of corporate absurdity. His filing system was an enigma (folders labeled “stuff” and “more stuff”), and his scheduling skills were so bad they bordered on sabotage. Once, he accidentally double-booked Nanami for a budget meeting and a Zumba class. Nanami still hadn’t forgiven him for that because he'd never even taken a Zumba class to begin with.

“Satoru,” Nanami said one morning, staring at a calendar filled with overlapping meetings. “What is this?”

Gojo peeked over his shoulder, his blue eyes wide with feigned innocence. “Your schedule?”

“It looks like a Jackson Pollock painting,” Nanami deadpanned.

“I thought it’d be more efficient to, uh, multitask?” Gojo offered weakly.

Nanami pinched the bridge of his nose. “Satoru, if incompetence were an Olympic event, you’d not only take home the gold medal—you’d set a world record for sheer stupidity. Your talent for failure is truly unmatched.”

Later that day, Nanami would find Gojo crying quietly in the break room. But to his credit, Gojo showed up the next morning, ready to mess up all over again, still chasing the impossible dream of Nanami’s approval.

If Nanami’s life was an exercise in patience, Sukuna’s was an unrelenting storm of his own making. Geto Suguru, Sukuna’s EA, was the only reason Kaisen Publishing hadn’t imploded.

Geto Suguru was the miracle worker. If the company were a body, Sukuna was the ruptured artery, and Geto was the overworked surgeon keeping the patient alive with duct tape and sheer willpower.

Sukuna’s visionary ideas were like abstract art—vague, nonsensical, and utterly useless in their raw form. But Geto, with his near-superhuman patience, could transform them into actionable strategies. He charmed investors out of their skepticism after Sukuna’s profanity-laden tirades and even managed to prevent most board meetings from devolving into WWE matches.

But for all his professionalism, Geto had one vice: bullying Gojo Satoru.

When Gojo had first joined the team, Geto had felt immediately threatened, not just by his impressive academic pedigree but also by his striking looks. With that tousled hair and captivating features, Gojo was undeniably attractive. But his endless blunders quickly overshadowed any initial worry, making him seem more like a crybaby than a competent assistant. Geto had breathed a sigh of relief when Gojo’s probationary period ended, but the incompetence persisted, even after six months. It was as if Gojo had a talent for turning every simple task into a disaster, and Geto was all too happy to remind him of it at every opportunity. Geto knew Gojo was harmless—a pretty face with no bite—and he took full advantage of it.

“Hey,” Geto had said one day, leaning casually against Ijichi’s cubicle wall, sipping tea like it was a spectator sport. “Did you manage to file those reports yet, or are you too busy giving the CFO more wrinkles?” Yes, they were not friends by any stretch of the word. Not in this life.

Ijichi didn’t even look up from his screen, muttering, “Leave me out of this.”

Gojo, caught mid-fumble with a stack of papers, flushed from humiliation. “I—I filed them!” he stammered, clutching the documents like the last Horcrux.

“In the right Google form this time?” Geto’s smirk widened, his tone dripping with mock concern.

Gojo’s voice dropped to an inaudible mutter as he stared at his shoes.

“Don’t be too hard on him, Suguru,” Sukuna interrupted, striding past with the air of a man who owned the universe—or at least the vending machines in the break room. He cast a lazy, disdainful glance at Gojo. “The kid’s got a real talent for screwing up. It’s practically a superpower. Almost admirable, really.”

Geto snorted and followed Sukuna, leaving Gojo stewing in the ruins of his confidence.

His shoulders slumped under the weight of their mockery, but a flicker of defiance ignited within him. Maybe one day he’d prove them wrong.

Who was he kidding?

Gojo wasn’t just bad at his job—he was transcendently bad.

Every quarter, Geto tried to have him fired, but Nanami’s pesky kindness kept Gojo’s name off the termination list. One time after too many drinks at a company event, Nanami had described Gojo as “a lost puppy with a degree from Tokyo U,” and though the description fit, it didn’t make him any less insufferable.

All Gojo was now good for was being the office eye candy that no one took seriously.

What baffled everyone was Gojo’s persistence. After five years as Nanami’s executive assistant, he still couldn’t properly file an expense report. His "innovative" solutions caused more problems than they solved, like the time he scheduled a board meeting in the break room.

Sukuna had been there, loudly devouring a double cheeseburger while Toji, the CSO, and Kusakabe Atusya, the Director of Customer Experience (DCE) , lectured him on “professional decorum.” The lecture ended abruptly when Sukuna offered them half his burger.

Meanwhile, Hiromi Higuruma, the CLO, had stormed into Shoko Ieiri’s office to debate whether Sukuna’s habit of blowing a vuvuzela during lunch breaks qualified as workplace harassment. Shoko had suggested they would add it to the HR policy under “miscellaneous noise violations.”

And Nanami? He was in his office, typing a scathing email to the COO. He wasn’t defending Gojo because he believed in his potential anymore. That ship had sailed after Gojo accidentally attached a frog meme to a quarterly earnings report.

Now, Nanami’s argument was simple: “Firing him would violate our commitment to inclusivity. He’s… special needs.”

Despite the madness, Kaisen Publishing somehow continued to function. Hiromi and Shoko kept the legal and HR departments running like well-oiled machines, albeit fueled by spite. Geto ensured Sukuna’s chaotic energy didn’t destroy the company, while Gojo... well, Gojo tried his best.And Nanami? He soldiered on, kazoo in hand, ready to face another day in the madhouse.

---

The next day, Nanami arrived early, as always, to find Gojo already there. The younger man was standing in front of the coffee machine, staring at it like it had personally murdered his parents.

“Satoru,” Nanami said, exasperated, “what are you doing?”

“It’s… it’s broken,” Gojo sniffled, holding up a coffee pod. “I think I jammed it.”

Nanami sighed. “How do you jam a coffee machine?"

“I don’t know!” Gojo wailed, his silver hair catching the fluorescent light like some tragic anime protagonist.

Nanami sighed and pulled out the kazoo. He didn’t plan to use it, but just holding it gave him a sense of power. “Fix it, or you’re fetching coffee manually.”

Gojo’s lip quivered. “Y-Yes, sir.”

Despite his constant failures, Gojo clung to the job with a desperate determination that was almost admirable. At night, he cried over Nanami’s stern lectures, but every morning, he showed up, sky-blue eyes shining with a mix of hope and masochism.

His crush on Nanami didn’t help matters.

In Gojo’s mind, Nanami was the epitome of competence and discipline—everything he wasn’t. Every scolding felt like a dagger to his heart, but it also fueled his ridiculous fantasy that one day Nanami would notice him as more than just a walking disaster.

He did not know Nanami was married, let alone with Sukuna in the same boat.

Speaking of Sukuna, his morning was less composed.

“Mr. Sukuna, you can’t just ignore CLO’s emails,” Geto said as they walked into the office.

“I can, and I will,” Sukuna growled, swinging the vuvuzela over his shoulder like a baseball bat.

“You do realize he’s filing another complaint with HR?”

“Good,” Sukuna smirked. “Keeps them busy.”

As if summoned, Hiromi appeared, clutching a thick stack of papers. “Sukuna,” he said icily, “you can’t keep calling mandatory meetings and then not showing up.”

Sukuna raised the vuvuzela . “Mandatory this,” he said, blasting a note so loud it set off the fire alarm.

And you? You were at the club with your friends, chugging espresso martinis, unaware of the havoc your gifts were causing.

---

The next day, Nanami’s day started with a knock on his office door.

It was Gojo, holding a bouquet of flowers.

“What is this?” Nanami asked, already annoyed.

“I’m sorry for jamming the coffee machine,” Gojo said, eyes glistening. “And to schedule that meeting in the break room. And for... just everything.”

Nanami stared at him, torn between frustration and pity. “Gojo, you can’t fix incompetence with flowers.”

Gojo’s shoulders slumped. “I just… I just want you to not regret hiring me.”

Nanami sighed deeply. “Gojo, do your job, and maybe I will be.”

“Go easy on him, Kento-kun,” came a smooth voice from the corner of Nanami’s office.

Gojo was startled and whipped around his head. He hadn’t even noticed Haibara Yu, the Chief Editorial Officer (CEO), lounging there like a king holding court.

Nanami grumbled something under his breath, refusing to look up from his laptop.

Gojo blinked, his surprise melting into pure joy. “You’re back, sir?”

“Of course,” Haibara said, his lips curving into a slow, knowing smile. “How have you been, Satoru? Hope Kento hasn’t tortured you too much in my absence.”

Gojo beamed, practically glowing under Haibara’s attention. “Oh no, he’s a good boss,” he said, glancing nervously at Nanami.

“I’m hard on him because he’s incompetent,” Nanami muttered, still not sparing Gojo a glance.

Gojo’s smile faltered, the corners of his mouth trembling.

“Don’t say that, Kento. He’s trying his best, and he’s loyal to you,” Haibara said, his tone dripping with a faint undertone of righteousness.

Haibara was one of the few people in the office who was genuinely kind to Gojo. He never joined in the teasing, never snapped at him for his constant mistakes. Nanami was kind too, in his own brusque way, but Haibara? Haibara felt like safety for Gojo.

Nanami murmured something under his breath that Haibara didn’t pay attention to.

He turned fully to Gojo. “Give me those flowers if he won’t take them.”

Gojo walked over and handed him the flowers with a smile, trying his best to hide his broken heart.

“They are beautiful, Satoru.” Haibara eyed them with a smile. "Kento, please have Ino move them to my office. Also, I’m borrowing your assistant for coffee; I hope it’s ok.” He asked, already rising to his feet.

Nanami waved a hand dismissively, still typing. “Borrow him permanently if you can.”

Haibara smirked. “You know Ino would kill me.”

---

They were out the door before Gojo could process what was happening.

Haibara made small talk as they walked, his tone light. “How’ve you been holding up while I was gone?”

Gojo ranted a little as Haibara listened with a quiet intensity that made Gojo feel seen.

And then, without warning, Haibara shoved him into the private bathroom adjoining his luxury office and locked the door with a soft click.

“Sir?” Gojo started, his voice trembling, but he didn’t get to finish.

Haibara’s mouth descended on his with a ferocity that stole the air from his lungs.

Gojo hesitated for half a second, his brain scrambling to catch up. Then a soft mewl escaped his throat as Haibara’s hand cupped him through his pants. It was as if that sound broke the dam. Gojo’s hands flew up, tangling in Haibara’s hair, pulling him closer as they kissed with a desperation that bordered on violence.

It felt like drowning and breathing for the first time, all at once.

Haibara broke the kiss only to bite Gojo’s neck, his teeth sinking into the delicate skin. Gojo gasped, his breathing ragged as Haibara turned his jaw to the side, exposing more of his neck.

“I asked you a question, princess,” Haibara murmured, his voice low and commanding.

Gojo blinked, trying to form a coherent thought through the haze of sensation. "I... I messed up again,” he stammered. “They hate me. The reports had errors, and the budgets—Geto explained the formula to me many times, but I still... I’m sorry.”

Haibara hummed, his lips trailing down Gojo’s throat as he unbuttoned his shirt.

“I broke the printer,” Gojo confessed, his voice breaking. “Shoko, Ijichi, and Hiromi fined me. I don’t even make enough.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Haibara said, his voice a velvet promise as he undid Gojo’s belt. “I’ll take care of it.”

Gojo whimpered as Haibara’s hand wrapped around his dick, stroking with a deliberate, almost punishing rhythm.

“I’m sorry, I’m so stupid,” Gojo babbled. “Sukuna, Toji, and Atsuya threatened to report me to HR because—because—”

“Because what?” Haibara asked, his tone gentle.

“Because I accidentally flashed them my waist during off-day tennis,” Gojo admitted, his face burning with humiliation. “I thought polo shirts were fine, but they said HR mandates suits, even off-duty. Did I do something wrong?”

“They’re messing with you,” Haibara said, his voice reassuring now, though his hands gripped Gojo’s slender waist possessively, almost bruising him as he placed him on the sink counter. “You’re not stupid.”

Gojo barely registered the words, his mind a blur of shame and pleasure. “Takuma’s trying to take my position,” he gasped. "Please... please take him back. I—I can’t lose this job.”

Haibara’s eyes darkened, a flicker of something dangerous flashing across his face.

“Don’t worry about Ino,” Haibara said, his voice soft but carrying an unmistakable edge. “He was only reporting to Kento because I was on the business trip overseas.”

Gojo shivered, closing his eyes as Haibara’s fingers, slick with Gojo’s precum, traced circles around his rim.

For a moment, everything else faded—the humiliation, the fear, the endless cycle of mistakes. All that remained was Haibara, his touch, his voice, his overwhelming presence.

Sensing Gojo’s silence, Haibara reassured him again. “He’s not going to take anything from you. Keep talking.”

By now Gojo’s suit was rumpled, shirt open-untucked, and hair sticking up in all directions. By contrast, Haibara’s suit remained pristine, not a single strand of his neatly styled hair out of place.

Gojo grabbed Haibara by the collar, dragging him down into a kiss that was all teeth and tongue. He bit Haibara’s lower lip, desperate, breathless. “I can’t wait anymore. Please...”

Haibara chuckled, low and indulgent, his fingers trailing down Gojo’s chest. It seemed Gojo’s masochistic tendencies under Nanami’s berating also extended in the bedroom, where he’d take all of Haibara right now with barely any prep. “You’re so impatient, Cupcake. Are you sure? I don’t want you crying about it later.”

Gojo nodded furiously, his hands clutching at Haibara’s shirt like he was clinging to a lifeline. “Yes, Mr. Yu. Please, sir.”

Oh, how Haibara loved it.

And Haibara would give anything those big, watery doe eyes begged him for.

Freeing himself from his pants, Haibara gave himself a few slow pumps, his eyes never leaving Gojo’s flushed, needy face.

Gojo was trying his best not to drool because just looking at Haibara’s cock was making him dumb dicked.

Then, with excruciating deliberation, he pressed into him, inch by inch, watching as Gojo’s mouth fell open in a soundless cry.

“What else happened?” Haibara asked, his voice calm and almost conversational, as though they weren’t in this compromising position.

Gojo struggled to answer, but his thoughts scattered the moment Haibara moved, his hips pressing forward, slowly. Gojo’s hands flew to Haibara’s hair, tugging as if he were going to fall. His voice cracked when he finally spoke, “Nanami-san... still hates me—ahhh!” Then cut himself off when Haibara pushed into him to the hilt, making Gojo’s back arch and eyes water.

Haibara wiped away a stray tear from Gojo’s cheek and licked it off his thumb as he started a slow, punishing rhythm. “Poor thing. Can’t even handle a little dick without crying, huh?” He teased with a smirk. “Keep going, sweet Satoru.”

Gojo whined, his voice trembling. “I mixed up the Compliance and Risk Management files with the Financial Forecasting ones... and sent them to the client by mistake. It cost the company so much money. Nanami didn’t talk to me for a week. I—I hated myself so much.”

Haibara kissed down Gojo’s chest, nipping at the sensitive skin of his nipples. His lips curved into something resembling soft, soothing coos. “Don’t hate yourself. It’s okay. It was an innocent mistake.”

Gojo was struggling to focus on Haibara’s words while he rearranged his inside by bullying his G-spot.

“No,” Gojo whimpered, his head falling back against the mirror. “Geto warned me what not to mess up, and I still did. I knew better.”

Haibara was at a loss for words now; he really dug himself there, but his rhythm didn’t falter. “Still, Kento overreacted. He’s always been stuck up like that.”

Gojo’s cries grew louder, his fingers digging into Haibara’s shoulders. “I just want him to see me as competent. I want to make his life easier, but I only make it worse—for him, for Geto. He humiliates me every day, and I deserve it. I’m useless. I make him feel like he’s doing two people’s jobs.”

Haibara stilled for a moment, his hands tightening on Gojo’s hips. “Do you want me to fire him?”

Gojo’s eyes widened, panic flashing across his tear-streaked face. “No! No, Mr. Yu, please, sir. Sukuna won’t let it happen, and I don’t want you getting hurt. He’s... he’s violent.”

Oh, his office bimbo—his crybaby. He hadn’t realized Haibara could fire anyone, even Sukuna if necessary. But as he considered it, keeping Geto around might not be so bad if it meant having the little crying angel all to himself. “Fine. I won’t touch him. But don’t just listen to him. Stand up for yourself. Or tell me, and I’ll talk to HR.” His thrusts grew faster, rougher, each movement a reminder of his control.

Gojo clung to Haibara like his life depended on it, sweat-drenched hair plastered to his forehead. His wide, glassy eyes fixed on where Haibara disappeared and reappeared into him over and over again, his lips parted in broken gasps.

“Agreed?” Haibara asked, his brows furrowing as his voice dropped to a low, commanding tone. He yanked Gojo’s hair, compelling him to meet his gaze.

Gojo, still being impaled, couldn’t help but let out a soft moan. He hid his face in Haibara's shoulder, his voice breaking with a choked moan. “Yes, sir…. Thank you,” he sobbed, his voice trembling. “But I feel so bad for Nanami-san. He’ll never see my love for him. I’m just so useless to him.”

Haibara leaned in, his tongue tracing the tear-streaked paths on Gojo’s flushed cheeks. The way Gojo’s dick twitched against his stomach told him he was close, teetering on the edge. But Haibara wasn’t done. Not yet.

He pulled out abruptly, ignoring Gojo’s whimper of protest, and dragged him down from the sink counter.

Turning him to face the warm-lit, golden-bordered mirror, Haibara pushed into him again, burying himself to the hilt in one smooth motion. Gojo’s fingers tangled in Haibara’s hair, clutching desperately as Haibara licked, bit, and sucked on the delicate skin of his shoulders and back.

Haibara’s smirk darkened as he watched Gojo’s reflection—flushed, tear-streaked, and trembling under his touch.

His crybaby. His alone. The thought of Gojo’s unrelenting admiration for Nanami sent acid through his veins, but the jealousy only fueled him. He’d make sure Gojo stayed this vulnerable, this wrecked, for him and him alone.

Without warning, Haibara grabbed Gojo’s neck, holding him still as he reached for the small velvet box on the counter. He placed a custom Hermès necklace around Gojo’s neck, the gold gleaming against his sweat-slicked porcelain skin.

Gojo blinked, dazed, too overwhelmed to notice until Haibara whispered, “Look.”

"But... but what’s the need?” Gojo stammered, his voice cracking as his eyes flitted between the mirror and the necklace. “I already barely get to wear the Bulgari Serpenti Viper one you gave me...”

A smile tugged at his lips despite his protest.

Haibara chuckled, tightening his grip on Gojo’s neck just enough to make him gasp. He adjusted his angle, thrusting harder, deeper, drawing a strangled cry from Gojo. “It’s to remind you,” Haibara said, his voice a low growl, “that you’re not as much of a fuck-up as you think you are. I don’t spend a week hunting down the perfect necklace in Paris for just anyone.” He punctuated his words with sharp thrusts that made Gojo’s knees buckle.

“But Nanami-san…” Gojo’s voice was barely audible now, his legs trembling, threatening to give out. He was pent up after months of dry spell.

“Don’t worry about him when I’m making you feel this good.” Haibara pinched Gojo’s ass, grinning wolfishly as Gojo let out a high-pitched cry.

“Ahh, Mr. Yu!”

Haibara’s pace stayed unrelenting, his stamina endless and the dick to back it up with the way it bullied him in the right places.

“Now, I’ll ask again,” Haibara said, his voice dark and firm, “do you understand?” He gave a particularly hard thirst because he knew Gojo was close with the way his body was trembling.

“Y-yes, Mr. Yu,” Gojo sobbed, his voice cracking as he gripped Haibara’s arm and the counter for dear life. “Harder, please.”

Haibara’s lips curled into a satisfied smile as he watched Gojo unravel, each tear and whimper intensifying the dark, possessive hunger within him. His crybaby was so easy to break. He obliged, his movements rough and unforgiving.

The necklace brought him immense joy; unbeknownst to Gojo, it concealed the initials H.Y. and G.S., visible only under a microscope.

This was his. His crybaby. His angel. And no one—no, one—was going to take him away.

“Cum for me, Pumpkin,” he ordered, stroking Gojo’s cock, his tone leaving no room for disobedience.

Gojo’s lips trembled. “Are you calling me fat?” His voice wavered, and fresh tears welled in his eyes as he looked down at his chest and stomach.

Ah, this was also one of his annoying habits—to overthink everything.

“No, I just find you cute as a pumpkin with a pretty bow on top.” But Haibara was nothing if not his good yandere.

Gojo let out a choked laugh, his cheeks flushing deeper.

“Now cum for me, Sweetheart,” Haibara commanded, his voice dripping with authority.

Gojo’s legs would have given out if not for Haibara’s arms holding him, trembling violently as he fell apart, making a mess of himself. His cries echoed in the mirror, raw.

Haibara followed soon after, burying himself deep as his release tore through him. His grip on Gojo’s waist tightened, keeping him steady as both of them tried to catch their breath.

He pressed a soft kiss to Gojo’s shoulder. “Mine,” he thought to himself—against Gojo’s skin, the word more a promise than a statement.

Haibara gazed at the tear-streaked, thoroughly wrecked man in his arms, possessiveness tightening in his chest like a vice. No one—not even Kento—would take Gojo from him. Ever.

Gently, Haibara began fixing Gojo’s disheveled shirt and straightening his hair. If he left it up to Gojo, his clumsy ass would walk back into the office with something glaringly out of place, and the whole roaster would piece together what they’d been doing behind closed doors for over a year.

It had all started when he’d found Gojo crying alone in Nanami’s office after everyone had left, his resignation letter in his shaking hands.

That night, Haibara hadn’t just talked him out of it but also fucked him brainless until Gojo couldn’t move and forgot everything—Nanami, the resignation, his doubts—until all he could do was cling to Haibara, unable to think, or even breathe without him.

But what Haibara wouldn’t admit to anyone—not even Gojo—was that it wasn’t luck that led him there that night. He’d spent months trying to get close to him, memorizing every detail of Gojo’s life, from his coffee order to his laundry instructions. He’d followed him for months after hours, cataloguing every habit, every vulnerability, and beaten the shit out of those print factory workers harassing Gojo, catcalling him on his way into the building. Haibara made sure they never showed up to work again.

Now, they were office fuckbuddies, not that Haibara wanted it this way. Gojo still had that infuriating crush on Nanami, still sprinted off to fetch his lunch or his coffee like a lovesick puppy. But Haibara wasn’t worried. He was patient.

For now.

He caressed Gojo’s cheeks as the latter giggled, his fingers brushing over the gold custom Hermès necklace. His eyes sparkled, oblivious to the weight of Haibara’s stare.

“Wanna grab dinner tonight?” Haibara asked absentmindedly, smoothing the collar of Gojo’s shirt. He was ready for the usual rejection.

Then something shifted—just for a moment. Gojo looked at him differently, as though he was almost seeing him.

Haibara’s chest tightened, hope flickering dangerously.

But then Gojo’s phone buzzed, and he gasped. “Oh my god, I’m late to get Nanami-san’s lunch!” He spun, ready to bolt out the door.

Haibara’s hand shot out, catching Gojo’s wrist mid-step. His grip was firm but gentle, his thumb brushing over the delicate pulse point inside. Gojo froze, his breath hitching as Haibara leaned in, pressing a lingering kiss there.

Haibara’s dark eyes locked onto Gojo’s wide, cerulean ones.

Gojo’s cheeks flared red, the blush creeping up to his ears. He stammered something unintelligible before taking his hand back and sprinting out the door.

Haibara watched him go, his lips curling into a slow, satisfied smile.

---

Meanwhile, Sukuna was dealing with HR.

“This is the fifth complaint this week,” Shoko said, leaning back in her chair. “You can’t keep terrorizing the office with that thing.”

Sukuna smirked, spinning the vuvuzela in his hands. “Prove it’s me.”

“We have video evidence,” Hiromi snapped.

“So?” Sukuna shrugged. “I’m a visionary. Visionaries disrupt.”

“You’re disrupting my sanity,” Hiromi muttered.

By the end of the next week, the vuvuzela and kazoo had become infamous. Employees fled at the sight of Sukuna, while Nanami’s kazoo had become a symbol of silent ‘fuck you’ to corporate overlords. Even Gojo seemed to improve, if only slightly, terrified of losing Nanami’s approval.

---

Next week, it all came to a head when Sukuna proposed a company-wide retreat at a remote hot spring. “We need to boost morale,” he said, grinning like a man with ulterior motives.

“What you need,” Hiromi snapped, “is to stop submitting reimbursement requests for your vuvuzelas."

Shoko added, “I think we should approve the retreat. The HR department could use a break from writing up Sukuna’s infractions.”

Nanami sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. Somewhere in the background, Gojo tripped over his own foot, spilling coffee all over the floor. Geto muttered something about bringing bleach to the retreat—“for the stains,” he clarified when Hiromi raised an eyebrow. Toji and Kusakabe almost got written up by Shoko for laughing.

As the meeting dissolved into a podium fight, Nanami reached for his kazoo. Sometimes, it was the only thing that kept him sane.

And you couldn’t be more proud. After all, corporate life was all about making your mark—and thanks to you, your husbands were leaving theirs in the loudest, most obnoxious way possible.

---

Later that day, the boardroom was uncharacteristically quiet, the air thick with confusion and the faint hum of the overhead lights. No one had any idea why they’d been summoned.  

“Why are we even here?” Shoko leaned toward Hiromi, her voice low and tinged with boredom.  

“To meet the elusive COO,” Toji replied with a shrug, stretching his legs under the table.  

Ino, perched nervously next to Haibara, was painstakingly organizing a pile of notes into immaculate fonts on his tab. Geto had his arms crossed as he watched Ino’s note-sorting with mild disdain.  

Kusakabe adjusted his coat and looked around. “Seriously, though, how come we’ve never met this COO? It’s weird.”  

“Germophobia,” Ino offered matter-of-factly. “Someone in HR said he avoids public spaces entirely.”  

The sound of a door creaking open cut the conversation short.  

“Sorry to keep you waiting.”  

The voice was unfamiliar yet strangely resonant, coming from the far end of the room.

Everyone turned to see a figure stepping out of the shadows—a tall man with striking white hair, his suit sharp enough to cut titanium.  

For a moment, no one spoke. The employees exchanged puzzled glances, and Shoko tilted her head in confusion.  

“Gojo?” Geto broke the silence, his voice laced with disbelief. “Did you screw up another meeting schedule? We’re supposed to be meeting the COO, not—”  

“No, Suguru.” 

Geto bristled at Gojo's use of his first name; one time he nearly received a ticket from HR for threatening violence over it, while Gojo sniffled near the ferns.

But this time, the voice was steady and calm, a whiplash from the bumbling tone they had come to expect from the clumsy assistant as the white-haired man stepped fully into the light, exuding an air of confidence and ownership.  

Nanami’s expression shifted from tired annoyance to something closer to alarm. “What… is this?”  

Gojo—or whoever he was—smiled faintly, but there was no warmth in it. “Allow me to formally introduce myself. I’m Gojo Satoru. Chief of Operations (COO) of Kaisen Publishingbarely. ”  

The room froze.  

“Excuse me?” Hiromi’s tone was accusatory.  

“I understand this might be a bit of a shock,” Gojo continued, his voice perfectly even. “But the truth is, I’ve been observing all of you from a different perspective. And now, it’s time for me to take a more active role.”  

Geto’s jaw tightened, his composure cracking. “You’ve been... what? Playing the fool? For five years?"  

“Precisely.” Gojo’s smirk widened slightly, his icy blue eyes scanning the room. “I needed to see who I could trust, who would rise to the occasion, and who would crack under pressure.”  

“Trust?” Sukuna growled, his tone low and dangerous. “You mean to tell me you’ve been watching us like lab rats?”  

“I prefer the term ‘case study,’” Gojo said, his voice as smooth as olive.  

Shoko let out a low whistle, breaking the tension enough to speak. “This is some next-level corporate psychodrama. You’ve been playing dumb for years just to—what? Test us?”  

Gojo’s gaze landed on Nanami, who looked like he’d just been handed a live grenade. “And you,” Gojo said, his voice softening just slightly. “Thank you for your patience, Kento. You believed in me when no one else did.”  

Nanami’s face hardened. “I believed in someone who didn’t exist.”  

The room fell silent again, the weight of the revelation sinking in. Gojo adjusted his cufflinks, the faintest trace of a grin playing at his lips.  

“Well,” he said, stepping back toward the door. “I hope this clears up any confusion. From now on, you’ll be seeing a lot more of me. Let’s make sure Kaisen Publishing continues to thrive.”

Before leaving, he stopped and turned, “Also, Haibara, a word?”

Whatever was going on in Haibara’s head, he didn’t show, just followed.

And with that, Gojo walked out, leaving the boardroom in stunned silence.

A/N: I swear, this started as a cute little fic about the reader giving Nanami a kazoo, & somehow it spiraled into corporate angst, smut, & crybaby gojo for some reason. Like he's the office bimbo who no one takes seriously, truly a man in women-dominated fields. haha.. I’ve only written smut four times, & yet TWO of those have Nanami topping & Gojo being a bottom in two, while Haibara & Sukuna top somewhere in there. I'm baffled! Like… how did we get here? I’m confused because canon Gojo radiates I’m-the-top-but-I-cry-after energy, yet here I am, dragging him into bottom hell AGAIN. (Honestly? No regrets; all of us would lick his tears too, SHAMELESSLY!) Haibara, though… HAIBARA. Listen, I gave myself whiplash writing him. He’s my own OC from my fic 'Third Wheeling your own Marriage," & yet I’m feral for him. You guys hyping him up like he’s canon-validates every single unhinged decision I made there. We never saw adult Haibara, but I was like, "What if he was hot, obsessive, & dom-coded?” And here we are. This man fights for Gojo, literally & metaphorically, while Nanami sighs in the background with his kazoo. Quick sidebar: Tumblr, confuses me. For an app full of people who swear they don’t self-ship, why is every other post a “x reader” fic? No hate (I’m guilty too), just an observation. Shoutout to my AO3 gang, though—we ride for our ships. Nanago nation, rise up. I said what I said: Nanago makes more sense for adult Gojo. Don’t agree? Go argue with a wall. I love Satosugu; I do, but Nanami is just… superior. (Maybe because I, too, am a corporate baddie barely holding it together. We’re twinning.) Anyway, sorry for the rant. Toji & Kusakabe backtracking on Sukuna mid-lecture because they wanted his burger was comedy gold, btw. Did you check the links? Bonus points if you did!

Oh, & about the ending… what do you think Gojo called Haibara for? Did they agree to date, or did Gojo threaten him with something? Let me know, because even I’m questioning their dynamic at this point. Okay, bye for real this time! 💕

Next Chapter 2 - The Symphony of Stress-Relief (Tumblr/Ao3)

All Works Masterlist

[sol-consort]

im obsessed with the line from allers about creepy turian fan mail. love letters that are so sentimental and tender they cross over into frightening. being way too intimate in writing to someone who barely knows them, if at all. it's so fun🌹

A well-structured society built on self-control, service of others, and utter devotion to the cause makes the best soldiers in the galaxy. The most efficient and organised military.

but...as an unforseen consequence, turians have absolutely zero chill.

"As uptight as a turian" is a common galactic phrase for a reason. It's hard for them to come off as casual. More often than not, it results in awkward encounters in their sincere-but-misinformed attempts at befriending the other species.

Their social awareness covers all the appropriate terminology to address your superior, a fellow man in arms, innocent civilians, an unruly enemy, they even have a whole script on addressing a once fellow soldier turned enemy.

But not friends.

It doesn't extend to coming up with good pick-up lines for the hot human at the bar, either.

The lines between "charmingly invested" and "intrusively creepy" tend to blend when it comes to a turian. They end up shooting themselves in the foot by either coming off too strong and intense or too cold and detached, depending on their self-restraint for the day.

All those feelings they keep repressed in order to be the ideal turian model have got to come out somewhere somehow.

Much like we need sunlight and physical touch or our mood inexplicably sours. Turians need to blow off steam every so often in order to remain the epitome of discipline, or they will grow agitated and feral.

And if a cute human celebrity catches their eye, oh, you've earned a loyal turian fan for life. The creepiest war-nerds fans you'll ever have, but immensely devoted.

Making the most hardcore fans you'll ever meet. Their admiration tethering on the edge of obsessing. Their fanmail is shamelessly intrusive and overwhelmingly intimate.

Pouring all of their intensity into this one person that they decided to worship for life. There is determination in their step, head fringes more puffed, talons shinier, shots more precise than ever. A noticeable improvement in their health and performance ever since they started writing you weekly letters.

Greatly detailing the events of their last dream where a batarian group kidnapped you and their team was tasked by the government to rescue the human celebrity, instead of the human military because "turians just do it better"—how you ended up clinging to their arms as they carried you to safety, calling them your hero, looking in awe at their sharp talons, asking if you can touch them. The sensual kiss that followed, your cute pink human tongue, oh so short, their longer blueish one easily covering it whole.

—only for their eyes to snap open, looking up at the ceiling, laying on their bed, alone.

The sound of their purring filling the room whole, they've never heard it that loud before, the vibration in their throat is overwhelmingly intense.

The taste of your lips at the tip of their tongue, their soft sensation ghosting over their hard shell.

As for the reminder of the letter, they mention all their favourite moments in your last interview. They made one of your shots during it their omni-tool background! They're absolutely in love with your new wardrobe. Human fashion is so eyecatching and tantalising, especially the colour you wore in the interview. Did you know its the same colour as their clan tattoo? What a small world, or maybe it's fate? You'd look amazing in anything, actually. Even nude, especially that. Sometimes, you wear really tight shorts and flimsy tops, and they picture a vivid image of the silhouette of your soft body underneath. By the spirits, how are humans so plump?

[roo-bastmoon]

The Great Radio Debate: Roo's (limited) Understanding of this Issue UPDATED

Disclaimer: Sensitive topics are discussed below the cut; please do not incite drama, speak hate, or engage in bullying. This is a collection of my thoughts about what is currently happening with regard to Jungkook's single SEVEN and the implications it could mean for Jikook and ARMY. If you click below this cut, you are assuming responsibility for your own behavior and agreeing to engage with my blog and others respectfully, or you will be blocked.

We now by know that Jimin's music was not promoted to radio. We know this because when we went to request it from various major radio stations, it was not an option in the drop-downs; we had to manually type it in. Being "sent / promoted / serviced to radio" means a compressed file is sent from the company to radio stations so DJs can play high-def spins that are universally compatible with their station's set up.

None of Jimin's songs for Face were serviced:

The airplay audience was the lowest for any song this decade:

The controversy around Jungkook's SEVEN began last week when one DJ tweeted the following:

As we now know, "serviced to radio" means they sent a compressed file (which they SHOULD have done for Like Crazy English Version, but didn't). They did service to radio for Butter and Dynamite and it was a huge help. Even Yet to Come was serviced, so it cracked Top 50 on the charts, but none of Face's songs were sent, which makes zero business sense any achievement on that chart amazing.

Because even when serviced, it doesn't guarantee spins... "Add" means they hope radio stations will add the song to rotation:

But then the DJ had to go and say this:

So they have already sent SEVEN to the radios, hoping for spins. And now one person is publicly saying the song absolutely will get spins immediately. This heavily implies payola, because why else would a song without demand or requests immediately spin multiple times on everyone's shows the second it was released?

I feel (I, Roo Bastmoon, personally think and feel) Seven is being pushed this way for two reasons:

Billboard's recent changes around what kind of sales (physical, digital, bundled) will counts on the charts puts songs without radio play at an extreme, nigh-insurmountable disadvantage; even with excellent streams (which are heavily culled and filtered), it will be hard to break into the top 50.

Additionally, Taylor Swift's Speak Now re-release has dropped this week and will be gunning for the charts next week when Jungkook debuts, and that is a personal problem for Scooter Braun.

For those not familiar (as I surely wasn't; I live under a rock), Taylor Swift felt compelled to leave her old management company back in 2018. To do so, she had to abandon the rights to any original music she made with them. They kept her masters and sold them off to Scooter Braun.

Each time someone wanted to play one of her original songs, they had to ask his permission and pony up money for a license fee. Scooter Braun also managed Kanye, and I'm sure everyone knows the Beyoncé is the Greatest of All Time award show fiasco that led to some bad blood between those two artists, so it added insult to injury for Taylor.

Taylor has now re-recorded everything and released Speak Now: Taylor's Version. Of COURSE her fans are motivated to support her and get every single song they can into the highest position on the Hot 100 for as long as possible... and frankly, I am not a Swiftie but I can't blame them because if someone did that to BTS, I'd make it my life's mission to chart them as a big Fuck You, too.

But it does put a lot of pressure on Jungkook's single, because now it's very likely been weaponized in a personal dick-measuring contest where Scooter is concerned. Not sure if I mentioned it but I truly hate that man so I'm not sure I can be impartial when talking about him but I will try.

So Jungkook's single has been set up so far with pre-orders on iTunes and compressed files to radio, which is a first for any member's solo work. He also has a debut stage on Good Morning America, which has a huge range beyond k-pop.

So far, none of this is foul play. It is a company doing its best to represent and set up the best conditions for its artist under changed circumstances. You can make a case for favoritism, clearly, but at the end of the day, companies are about making profits and sometimes they grossly underestimate what has potential and what the market wants.

The issues fans are facing now around Seven lie in:

1) the neglect around Jimin's Like Crazy English Version, which is still so stable that it could be smashing charts if only it would get radio play so this just seems to make zero business sense and be more of a slight than anything else, so Jikookers are left wondering what that means for the relationship and,

2) the fear that Hybe America under Scooter Braun has abandoned BTS' founding values and taken the easy way out by paying to play on radio, which would severely damage credibility that BTS worked so hard to build as an organic, fan-driven success.

I think we'll have to wait to see how many sales, streams, and spins Jungkook gets to figure out if payola was likely. Maybe that one DJ was tweeting his own assumptions like they were facts. Or maybe Hybe has now decided to do payola. If that is so... not gonna lie, I will be extremely disappointed. I will need to take a break and figure out what this means for me as a fan.

The next question is how much did Jungkook know about all this? There seems to be two camps of thought here: one says the boys are involved in every step of the way and choose everything that happened around their releases.

(I know Jimin is very humble but I HIGHLY doubt he ever said to his company "Please rush my release in between other releases so I get physically sick trying to keep up with it; please never restock my physicals in WeVerse and don't send a file for the English song I studied for to US radios; and please also never post about my world record nor celebrate my albums' success in any way; yes, I worked 10+ months on this very personal opus but I absolutely don't want any of that." I very, very much doubt the ways Face was handled after Hot 100 #1 was Jimin's choice. This also makes me doubt if all the ways Seven will be handled will be Jungkook's choice.)

The second camp of thought is that the artists have absolutely no say in the marketing and promotion styles of their work, and that they are kept out of sales matters altogether. And here's the limit of my understanding, because I've not seen or read much on Hybe / BigHit's strategic plans around distribution for either BTS' group or solo works.

(Side Note: I have seen them set up TXT for a Billboard Top Ten, only for their collab to come in at #135, which shows a gross misunderstanding of their market right now--as well as disregard for their artists' feelings and reputations. My heart goes out to those boys; they worked hard.)

But drawing on my own experience decades ago when I used to work in entertainment out in LA, I can tell you, even as Chief Editor, plenty of my media content was changed without anyone informing me--back-cover blurbs, cover designs, release dates, shelf talkers, pop ups, print runs, print houses, store placements, advertising, interview articles--at some point in my former career, all of those things got changed around and I found out after the fact, on my own projects. Which pissed me off but I'd signed NDAs and couldn't do a single thing about it. And the authors / creators didn't know until *I* had the hard job of informing them. And they couldn't do anything about it because they were under contract.

So I think the level of members' involvement in solo works is somewhere in between. I think as artists and performers, BTS members can have a great deal of say in their look, styles, lyrics, choreo, merch, and venues. But not total say. Definitely not deciding-factor say.

I think the company can make them water down their lyrics, change up the choreo, and flat-out tell them no when it comes to music videos, performance venues, pretty much anything budget-related. They don't even have to explain why; it's their budget and their bottom-line. (In the old days, it seems like the members could freely express opinions around the works and even challenge management when it came to creative content. Maybe that is still true.)

As far as Jungkook's involvement in Seven's style, we have a stylist going on record about how some of the options were their ideas and that Jungkook had a lot of input on the look and feel, so it was a mixture:

For this reason alone, the fact that things like mud were added to clean pants or spikes to a jacket after Jungkook had input makes me truly feel this was his way of honoring Jimin and Face. It just seems like something our Jungkook would do--he may not always say it, but he's always watching Jimin-ssi.

As for sales and marketing strategies? The boys may never get looped in. Or they may be told the plans, but not invited to give input. Or they may sit down and plan it all out to the last detail with each department. I genuinely don't know. And because I don't know, I will not be assuming the worst of Jungkook or any member until I have all the facts. That is anti behavior, in my mind, and I just cannot stomach it. I can never bring myself to believe the worst of anyone until they fully and consistently show me that's who they are.

We've spent ten years with these guys. They are flawed human beings, yes, but not cheats, not assholes. I think they omit plenty of details but I don't think they straight-up lie to us. I don't think Jungkook would ever look his staff and executives in the eye and say "Yes, I want you to illegally pay money under the table so this single will top the charts." Jungkook is competitive, but also a stickler for fair play. You spend any amount of time watching Run, and the only time he "cheats" is when he wants to be with Jimin (lol) and he's pretty endearingly obvious about it; guy has almost no game face.

Okay but joking aside, I'm honestly very worried for JK. It sort of feels like he's being set up. Many questions have arisen over the stylistic choices for Seven. There's the fan frenzy around having a hot female protagonist in his video. And now the question about how much radio play Seven will get, and why. That's a lot of controversy to hang on a young man's shoulders. Especially in light of the recent book that's come out, in which it's clear now that the company and the artists are aware of hate-trending hashtags in English. GOD THAT MAKES ME SICK TO MY STOMACH.

To me, it feels (it feels--as in, my gut is telling me this; I have no receipts) like the company is using JK to experiment with a different way of doing business--a way that may stray from their founding values.

And there's so much potential for this to blow up in JK's face. There are solos who will insist he's stealing Jimin's style. Antis who will insist he's cheated on the charts. Insecure shippers who will lose their minds if anything flirty goes down with Han So-hee on screen. K-poppies, Swifties, and local racists all insisting on undermining his creativity, talent, and character because they fear the competition.

This release on Friday has the potential to be a blood bath. And I just don't trust the company to have his back and take ownership of their part in this, if so. From everything I've seen about Jungkook, he deserves the benefit of the doubt.

My biggest question mark is how Jimin will respond to all of this. If he comes on live one day and says in a flat tone something like: "I was really surprised to see how similar Jungkookie's concept was to my own." or "How interesting that Seven got sent to radio--good for him, good for him. I wonder how that happens?" Then I'll take that to mean Jimin wasn't looped in on JK's plans and he doesn't feel great about it; that won't sit well with me.

Then again, if Jimin raves about Seven and plays it on live or joins JK in New York and mentions how flattered he was that they share the same style, how they click, how proud he is of JK's hard work and asks please ARMY give it a lot of love? Then I'll infer he was definitely looped in, this is a homage, and JK's actions were always above board. I will assume that because I will never doubt Jimin's integrity. If Jimin approves, I will approve. Jimin has earned my complete trust.

So this week is a very tense one (for me at least). But it does provide quite the distraction from the stress tests and specialist consults I have lined up, I'll give you that. Never a dull moment. (I am so ready for this fandom to have some dull moments.)

In the end, I'm going to chose to believe in the very best of our members until there's solid evidence to think otherwise. As of now? I think the only dirty cheater in the mix is the music industry at large. I know the entertainment world is corrupt, but Jesus, they are so blatant about it all.

Anyway, we may not get radio data for several days or weeks after the initial drop date, so I'm prepared to hang in there for a good bit. And if there is evidence of payola and JK knew about it... I'm gonna need time to process that and figure out where I go from there, as a Jikooker, as an ARMY. I will honestly be shocked.

One thing you'll never see me do is spout hatred for human beings. I will likely rant about the company. And there are plenty of people Scooter Braun that I viscerally dislike. But I'm making a commitment now not to spread dehumanizing hate speech on the timeline.

That's not what BTS or Jimin would ever want. That's not what I want for myself, especially if my days in this life are limited. I don't need that kind of toxicity or karma.

Am I furious about all the crap that's gone down for Jimin (and other members too, to a lesser degree)? You bet your buttons, as my Nana used to say. I could rage and froth all day about it.

But I also remember who came online over and over to say Jimin's name, play Jimin's songs, mimic Jimin's interviews, giggle at Jimin's video clips, and invite Jimin into his life.

And based on moved lamps and dog scratches and Jimin bulking up, it's likely Jimin has accepted those invitations.

Whenever we do get to glimpse Jimin with Jungkook, he seems as endeared and besotted as he always has.

I trust Jimin to know if someone did him dirty, and to act accordingly. I do not believe any aspect of the Jikook relationship is performance.

For those reasons, I'm gonna be withholding judgement until all info around Seven comes in.

I hope you will too, but I understand if you feel differently and I'm not on this Earth to judge other people's viewpoints or experiences. I just ask that if you want to be friends with me here, you try to be civil in your words and actions, even in the sway of big feelings. Every person behind the screen is a work in progress; we are all fighting invisible battles; there are many sides to each story.

All any of us can do is our best with what we are given. Let's wait and see what Jungkook (and Jimin, and the company) give us.

If you made it this far through my ramblings, kudos! I welcome ideas, so feel free to comment--but just remember, rudeness will be removed. There's no space for meanness on my blog.

Love and deep respect to you all,

Roo

UPDATED:

So, it would seem the DJ who is hyping JK's Seven is also open to playing Like Crazy. This would imply it's been sent to some radio because before I remember he tweeted that he needed the compressed file in order to play it on his station (I am sorry I didn't save that link but he was talking about Hobi and Jimin if I recall, back at the time!).

UPDATE 2:

The radio stations that took requests (including the one mentioned above) back at that time were playing the music video version available to the public, not a compressed file sent by the company:

And when I check on this linktree of top radio stations in the US, Like Crazy does not come up as any option in rotation. I have to manually request still, after four months of being stable on the charts.

So if Jungkook gets immediate spins and requests immediately come up in rotation... is that because radio stations really love Jungkook? Or is this a company "networking" deal? (And in any case, would JK be involved in that aspect?) Everything still remains to be seen. Let's be patient and try our best not to assume the worst.

Many thanks for JMDBJK for mentioning in the comments the likelihood that a title track would be sent out, which prompted me to go look soon as I could get to my computer. I really do value anyone willing to take the time to help me learn more info about this industry!

[kandisheek]

FIC REC WEEK 35 - HUMOR

just another day in her superhero life by Hyoushin

Pairing: Steve/Tony Rating: G Words: 556 Tags: Kamala Writes Fanfic, Crackfic, Making Out

Summary: She realized why Cap and Iron Man engaged in a protracted exchange of saliva felt like deja-vu.

Reasons why I love it: Oh Kamala, my beloved. The premise of this is comedy gold, and I love how traumatized Clint is by watching mom and dad kiss. This fic is amazing, and you should definitely read it!

Tony Stark, Doo Doo Doo-Doo Doo by rebelmeg, sleepoverwork

Pairing: Pepper/Tony Rating: G Words: 3,935 Tags: Family Dynamics, Parent Tony and Pepper, Adopted Teenagers

Summary: Tony has Dad Brain, Morgan is disinterested in her nap, FRIDAY is amused, and a whole pack of teenagers are watching it unfold from behind the couch.

Reasons why I love it: The puns are strong with this one! Tony's merry band of teenage geniuses is hilarious as always – trolls, the lot of them. And I love how Tony tries to negotiate with Morgan, it's very cute. Definitely check this one out, it's wonderful!

the hedgehog (and one million blue whales) by soliloquent

Pairing: Steve/Tony Rating: T Words: 8,263 Tags: Nicknames, Domestic Fluff, They're In Love Your Honor

Summary: “Hm. But, how hard?” Tony challenges. Steve ponders for a second. “As hard as one million blue whales sitting on you.” “One million?” Tony looks genuinely in awe. “I reckon that would crush one tiny hedgehog, don’t you think?” “Nah. You’re all spiky. Small, but feisty. The whales wouldn’t stand a chance.” Or: Steve and Tony’s relationship unfolding through a series of everyday moments in the span of two years, pieced together to paint a canvas of their intertwined lives — a domestic portrait of quirky whale-themed endearments, meaningful acts of service, soothing showers, cherished gifts, steamy make-outs, and one adorable hedgehog mystery.

Reasons why I love it: Oh my god, this fic is the cutest thing ever. And I'm (not) ashamed to say that Tony's whale-ish dad jokes made me laugh more than once. My heart melted every time Steve called Tony 'hedgehog', Jesus Christ, I will never get over that, it's so fucking cute. This fic is wonderful, and you absolutely HAVE to read it, if you haven't already!

boxing with deep fried mars bars by SleepWontVisitMeAnymore

Pairing: Steve/Tony Rating: G Words: 1,251 Tags: Domestic Fluff, Oblivious Avengers, Secret Relationship

Summary: On one fateful tuesday, Clint thinks something weird is going on...and what he finds is SO not what he was expecting.

Reasons why I love it: I've never had a deep fried mars bar, but I am intrigued now. I love Tony and Steve being idiots in love while keeping the rest of the team guessing, it's super fun. I highly recommend you go and check this one out for yourself!

Boredom Levels Zero Percent by bumblewyn

Pairing: Steve/Tony Rating: G Words: 1,093 Tags: Dates, A Baboon, Crackfic

Summary: Tony and Steve go on a date with hilariously destructive consequences. At least they are never bored.

Reasons why I love it: This fic very much reminds me of that one Supernatural episode – if you know, you know. It's really fun, and I have to commend Bruce for not losing his cool in the face of Tony being Tony. Definitely check this one out, it's great!

[thelittlepalmtree]

Hey y'all, expecting Jewish folks to speak out against Israeli occupation has the same energy as expecting Arab folks to condemn 9/11. Let me give you some examples of when it is and isn't appropriate:

Antony Blinken: US Secretary of state. Has Jewish ancestors. He is one of the main people in our government in charge of policy. Not only should he be asked about the conflict he is a person who can make change and has power. He is also expected to have a competent knowledge of the situation, history, and current data. He should be questioned and criticized. However, there should not be the underlying assumption of Zionism due to his heritage. He has actually been more supportive of Human rights in Gaza than Biden has.

Gal Gadot: Gal Gadot served in the IDF and currently lives in Israel. She has posted multiple times in support of Israeli occupation. Her Instagram is currently chock full of pro-Israel posts. It is completely fair to question her stance on the Palestinian lives lost because she is actively discussing this conflict. Again, though, her status as Jewish should not mean that she is evil or inhuman. She should be evaluated on her statements not her heritage.

Natalie Portman: Made the movie Freezone about the issues between Israel and Palestine in a way that was very humanizing to both groups. She has an Israeli father and has spoken to the UN about the need for a peaceful solution. She supported Israel after the October 7 attacks but has been noticably silent since them. It is appropriate to question this silence and even criticize it, but it's not fair to paint her as a zionist who has never cared for Palestinians when she has been critical of Israel in the past.

Sarah J Maas: Jewish. Visited Israel once. Literally has not spoken about her experience in years. Has never made any comments about the occupation or Israeli policy. To be honest, probably doesn't know anything about it. There's absolutely no reason why anyone should go to her for any political opinion she is deeply unqualified to make any kind of statement. You shouldn't be asking her for one.

Taylor Swift: Not Jewish. Knows nothing about this. Is just rich and famous. We have no reason to believe she has any understanding of this conflict. Not only should she not be asked for a statement, it would be deeply irresponsible for her to give one as she is neither a stakeholder in the area nor an expert in its history.

Now if you're full of rage because you read this and you think you're somehow saving Palestinian lives by commenting on all of Taylor Swift's Instagram posts, let me give you another ego hit. I'm Egyptian. I am not a direct stakeholder, but obviously, Egypt has a long history with this conflict and currently borders Gaza. Not only that, the US government essentially provides money to Egyptian dictators that they use to imprison public critics in exchange for Israeli security. My family members in Egypt run the risk of imprisonment if they speak ill of the government and the US government facilitates this in order to protect Israel's apartheid state. So I do not make this post because I believe Israel to be good. I think that when we resort to antisemitism, we delegitimize our cause.

I understand that you are angry. I understand that it feels like Israel gets away with so much. That doesn't mean antisemitism is okay. Racism is still bad when it's in service of what you think is a just cause. Dehumanization is still bad when it's being done against people who dehumanize others. It is easy to blame random people you know who actually have zero power here. It is hard to accept the people who have the most power (Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu) are unreachable because of their own horrible convictions. It is hard to accept we (Americans) have all accepted and contributed to a system in which the majority of us are powerless. It is hard to accept your own powerlessness. But that is what you must do.

You cannot do anything but bear witness.

[7surreality7]

When the show was first announced, I had already decided that I would watch this show because of JM. 

Now, he's my absolute bias and I watch every single thing that he's in. I don't do that for every other member. I love BTS and I am ARMY but I am a rather chill fan if I may say so and I don't go crazy over views, numbers, statistics. I don't put my all into working night and day in the aim of breaking or creating new records for the boys (even for JM, for that matter) when their music is out. Heck! I am not even on Weverse! And I don't intend to join it anytime soon either. Once BTS makes a comeback, we shall see.

All I do, when their music is out, is listen to their music (single or the album) and if I like it play it a number of times, add it to my favorites and playlist across a couple of streaming services. If I love the songs I listen to them on loop, all day every day until I have exhausted my listening capabilities. And I appreciate and love them for their talent and hard work and for being so adorably relatable even though they are ginormous international superstars!

But for JM, one exception I make is to watch all of his content that is available out there. I first became his fan around the Face era and I consumed all the promotional activities, all the shows he went to. I make sure I watch all of his lives and all the Bangtan bombs that he is a part of. I don't do that for other members. I will watch if Jimin is also featured with them but not always otherwise. With other members, I watch some things and skip other things but with Jimin, I don't skip anything. And that's why I WAS SURE that I would watch Are You Sure? Heh heh!

You really don't have to be a Jkkr to want to watch it. If you are ARMY it's a good enough reason to watch it. I wanted to watch it to get to see Jimin primarily since I miss him big time and jk-jm being in a show together doesn't really affect me because unlike jkkrs I have zero belief in them being a couple. In fact I am even more convinced than ever at this point that they have a purely brotherly bond between them and their dynamics scream of those that are between younger-older siblings. Nothing more, nothing less.

Now, getting Tae do a guest appearance was not on the cards and it's apt to say that both tkkrs and jkkrs are having a collective meltdown at this point, for completely different reasons. 

As a Viminie though? I couldn't have asked for more, could I? 

I can't really guess what or how JK feels about having Tae on this show. Although, knowing how they've been close friends and family for over a decade, I know he wouldn't harbour any ill feelings towards Tae's inclusion here. I will go so far as to say he would have rather enjoyed having the three of them together. The maknae line. They have their own precious dynamics. 

Nothing from the trailer gives off the vibe that JK was being sarcastic towards Tae or wanted him out, the way a lot of jkkrs are making it out to be . Do you actually believe JK to be such a mean person? Tae is family to him, not you. You're being pathetic atp.

As for JM, he is over the moon having Tae beside them, y'all.

I'd bet my life on it. You'll see.

[x-ash22-x]

Instead of updating the post I already made, I’m going to make a new one in hopes of getting this circulating again!! (If you’re seeing this, and wanna help a broke non-binary b*tch out, please reblog!! Maybe even add more tags if I forgot any, thank you!!)

I have fanfiction commissions open currently!! Lemme tell ya a little bit about ‘em!!

I charge $2 per 100 words, and $20 per 1k words!!** I accept payment on PayPal only!! This is because the funds will go into my PayPal Wallet where they will remain for future use. (Any and all tips are appreciated, but not required!!)

**I have since instated a word count limit; about 3.5-4k is my absolute limit at the moment. I will update this if anything changes.

I use Google Docs for these commissions, and by default I will not post your commission anywhere. If you’d like me to post it somewhere like AO3, please let me know!! (Also, let me know if you’d like to be kept anonymous if so.)

I do fandom and non-fandom fics!! Canon x OC is completely okay in my book, so long as it falls in line with what is deemed acceptable (no minor x adult or shipping relatives please). Here’s some of the fandoms I’m most familiar with:

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure

My Hero Academia

Demon Slayer **

Berserk

DOOM

Resident Evil

Genshin Impact

Honkai Star Rail

Zenless Zone Zero

Undertale/Deltarune

Five Nights at Freddy’s

Stardew Valley

Pokémon (anime series & games)

The Persona/Shin Megami Tensei series

Marvel **

Star Wars **

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic **

Steven Universe **

Rick & Morty **

Gravity Falls **

**I need a refresher on the lore of these, but I’m still willing to do fanfiction about them.

I can do SFW or NSFW commissions, with (almost) any kink/fetish you like!! A few of the big NO’s are piss, scat, diaper, inflation (excluding cumflation)/blueberry, hard vore, and DDLG. Anything else is on the table!! (I would suggest still asking in case I forgot one, thank you!!) Please include links to examples of your kink/fetish if I have expressed that I’m not into it/not familiar with it.

I WILL NOT do detailed scenes of r*pe, and absolutely no scenes portraying inc*st or p*doph*lia. Those three are big no-gos for me, and no amount of negotiation will get me to write about such things. (I also will not hesitate to block/report if I have reason to believe someone supports these things.)

I am most certainly willing to negotiate most of these terms, but please be reasonable with your requests. If you’ve made it this far, thank you so much for your interest in my wares and services!!

To contact me, please DM here, on my Instagram (@x.ash_22.x), my Twitter (@x_ash22_x), or on my Discord, 🥀x.ash_22.x🥀#1977 !!

[masschase]

chase, i am once again in your ask box begging for lore.

18 and 23 for the ask meme if you haven’t done them and i hope you have the best day today :3

I'm so sorry this took 2 days! My brain just didn't seem able to finish 🥲

Ask me about muh girlie

18. What was your character’s presidency like? How did they campaign?

OOH THIS QUESTION IS SO EXCITING :D

OK I'll start with her campaign.There were huge calls for the person who disabled the nuke to be the President at first.

The tv cut to news footage of the Boss on the screen, still in her suit in the slightly destroyed Oval Office being hounded by press. "I'm sure you'll get to know me soon enough. For now, just know this. I'm the leader of the Saints. If you've ever doubted us or our brand in the past, remember this: I just saved the BLEEP world BLEEPs. So you better show us some BLEEEEP respect.". The news cut to footage of crowds chanting while the anchor spoke again. "People are calling for the leader of the Saints to enter the running as President- if we can only get a hold of them..."

Pierce, Shaundi and Kinzie meet Casey in DC the following day and set up a press conference for the day after that. Funnily enough they do discuss the possibility of Pierce posing as the leader but he declines for personal reasons mostly regarding his sexuality and his overall safety. Casey decides she's just going to have to go for it and they talk about the angle they're going to take.

She thought for a second. "Is there any chance they're gonna buy that I'm a sweet wholesome Michigan girl?" Pierce raised an eyebrow. "Absolutely zero." he confirmed. "Yeah, I thought so..." she mused, thinking to herself again.

They decide they have a better chance at going with strength. Power. The fact that the Boss is not afraid to get her hands dirty to get shit done.

Unfortunately, the media manages to dig stuff up before the press conference. Kinzie was very thorough at encrypting Casey's name and real age (now 25) when she discovered them back in 2014. However there are pictures of her various aliases, her fake age (28, still too young to be president) and some of her exploits all over the news.

Pierce calls in a favour (he seems to "know a guy" in every city and I think we all know why) to makeover the Boss while he tries to persuade her to dress with a little more class, and eventually they give her a new image (something she mostly managed to swerve when the Saints hit fame by encouraging Pierce into the limelight.)

At the press conference they focus on strength, security, defense, and most importantly, finding ways to appeal to both sides. Overall the Saints policies are fairly left-wing, some more radical than the Dems but they pay lip service to the right too. I'm actually planning a post on this press conference soon; initially I was going to write it as a transcript but I find it way, way more interesting as a fully written piece because Casey's thoughts and feelings during in make it far more interesting. Here's a snippet.

"Yeah, sure, maybe I have been a little intense at times. But I'm not a violent person.". Hoo boy, that was hard to say with a straight face. All politicians lied though, right? She bit her lip a little but managed to compose herself a little. "I am not an attacker. I'm a defender, and I will stop at nothing to defend my country. I will kick terrorism's ass. I will beat poverty into submission. I will put a bullet in the gun violence in this country.". Ooh, she still really liked that part. She looked around at the approving crowd. "As for the most marginalised in our society... if you are downed... I will Pick. You. Back. Up. Again."

It's all ridiculously cheesy to be honest, but what else did you expect? The speech was written primarily by Pierce but with input from the other three (a bullet in gun violence was Shaundi's idea which means it was actually iamkinzie's idea in our rp) and Casey did ad-lib the odd part. She manages to deal with questions fairly well at the end, though the final one basically refers to her being spotted with women so she makes the decision to come out as bi and takes a clear pro LGBTQ+ stance (I can really see this appealing to some of the disillusioned Bernie Sanders fans). She relies on more platitudes to balance this out.

"If you have any kind of issue with this, I urge you to try and remember what country we are in. I want to ask you what freedom-" she emphasised. "'-means to you. Because the last I checked... this was America."

Cringe cringe. Yes a lot of this probably wouldn't work in real life. But c'mon guys she's a fucking Saints Row IV Boss. At times her tumblr version reaches full cartoon character. She had to win somehow, I'm just rationalising that the best I can. 🤣

The Saints were doing well for an independent, but overall it wasn't enough to swing things, even as late as mid-2016. They also still needed to do something about the age on the constitution. This is where the 4th July party came in. This is where the Saints manage to gain much of the support and investment needed to get the age changed as well as step up their campaigns for a greater share of votes.

This is also the same time the fake relationship for the media between Casey and Pierce began. The idea was to present it as a "we can't be public with this because of our work but awww we're secretly in love 👉👈" thing to cover up Pierce's then-closeted queerness and Casey's promiscuity, and they had relative success with it tbh.

I think it was never a dead cert, but once the amendment passed, it sent a very clear message they were likely to win. There was still a little uncertainty right up until Novemver. But they just about scraped the win.(woooo fuck Trump!)

The actual presidency? I think she was competent enough actually, at least with the team she had around her. I don't imagine the promised vision came around overnight, but they were getting there. Trouble was, she stopped giving a fuck about her public image. She started dressing more like herself, giving less of a fuck about speeches, put less effort into covering up the drinking, drugs and sex. Kind of leading into what we see in IV with the really low approval ratings.

Casey would not have gotten a second term. In the unlikely event she did, Pierce had already resigned effective then (he's already made it clear he's not her second in command anymore, and Kinzie and Oleg would've probably would've left together too.

If anything, this was why she had to spend much of Saints Row IV earning back her friends' respect.

23. How did you structure the series’ timeline for your character?

Ooh so I don't know if this means what is the timeline or why I chose the timeline? I have answered an ask on this before but I can't find the link and I love my timeline so always happy to talk about it 😊

2006: Saints Row, spread across the summer probably June-Aug/Sept? Obviously SRIV says "the Saints made themselves known to the world in 2006" or something to that effect, obviously the game came out in 2006 and I just think it is mostly agreed that's when that took place

2011: Saints Row 2, July/Aug to Oct. I can't see the coma being exactly 5 years and this too seems to take place over the summer. Fairly easy decision, I didn't use any particular dates from the game I don't think.

2012-2014: Saints rise to fame.

2014: Saints Row the Third: September-December. In-game news reports span autumn/winter.

2015: SRIV Zero Saints Thirty/disabling of the nuke. Probably around September/October time. This is when the presidential campaign starts. I decided on the date because SRTT dlc stuff is apparently the first half of 2015, and just to make the other dates work.

2016: Main past section of my fanfic in June/July. Casey elected President, November obviously. I think maybe it's implied in a jokey way that the Boss just fell into the job but then it's also clear they're still in their first term 5 years later so... really this makes sense and is in line with actual election dates.

2020: Main bulk of Saints Row IV. March-May. Obviously it needed to be before November and I'm not quite sure why I settled on March but yeah, earth was invaded by the Zin on the 3rd March. Just for fun, some of the character's rescue dates: 6th Mar-Casey 9th Mar- Matt 17th Mar- Shaundi 25th Mar- Pierce 15th Apr- Johnny So again it's not actually a full 5 years, but I feel like it's close enough that one would term it "5 years later"

2021: Gat out of Hell. Idk I felt like placing Kinzie's birthday in May and it fit for story reasons and stuff. I'm not the biggest fan of GOOH. On balance it does add some important stuff to my story but... meh.

2022: Start of my fanfic future section. (February) I feel like I could add more and more dates but as time goes on, the reasoning for where they're placed becomes more and more of a case of "because I said so" 🤣

[hug-your-face]

I cannot overstate how accurate this is.

My own disclaimer: 1. Although I actually know a little something abt how modern "AI" works, having studied neural networks in undergrad in prep for going deep in them in grad school (but decided there was no career in it apart from research bc the datasets weren't there), I'm not deep into the ChatGPT roadmap; 2. While I have made a career out of consulting to exec leadership of startup and midsize businesses and directors of global businesses, I'm not a business prognosticator.

The gamble, and the hype and social effects around the gamble, that @phantomrose96 explains are both spot on. And it's important to understand BOTH. I only understood the first in my undergrad years when I still believed people as a whole act rationally. If I'd understood the second part I might have stayed in the AI game.

To be clear:

The primary gamble is that G-AI can disrupt existing corporate cost structures to the same degree that robots and assembly lines disrupted the cost of manufacturing back in the days when most things were built by hand. And it's hard to tell yet if the tech will ever be able to do that or not. I personally don’t believe it will.

But if it DOES, then the effects on corporate profitability would be SO huge that the mere possibility creates incredible attention and interest. Investors and therefore companies simply cannot afford to ignore it.

This hype creates a secondary gamble: gambling on the hype itself. If there is enough BELIEF that G-AI can reduce costs so much, then there is money to be had in exploiting the hype. As @phantomrose96 said, companies can add in G-AI simply to get more investor cash. Companies can scare their competition by having something the competition doesn't -- whether it works or not. It's like buying stock in a company just because everyone else is buying the stock even though the company is bleeding money: if enough people believe in it, you can still buy low and sell high.

And now we get to the really worrying effect: that companies are going to do whatever they can to CONVINCE investors that they've cracked the code to near-zero operating costs when they absolutely have not. That can include laying off vast numbers of employees and, when whatever service the company delivers becomes nearly-unusable because of course it will, covering up that pesky little fact. Trying to blame customers for making "unreasonable expectations." Making the customer do the work themselves. Passing on the cost of errors to the consumer. Major enshittification, but hailed by the companies as a good thing.

This last bit is the new version of "if you can't afford to pay your workers then your business model is broken." Okay, fine, say the companies: We will just let go of our workers and charge customers more for shittier service.

Woe, doom, gloom! We're all gonna die in G-AI enshittification!

Fear not, there is something we can do. But we have to do it collectively:

We have to call out when companies are regularly failing to deliver what they supposedly say they are delivering. There needs to be counter-hype. Investors care about what the market (that's you and me) think. If a company tries to sell investors on the amazing profitability of their G-AI solution but the investors can say "yeah but people hate your stuff and are trying to not buy it," then the investor will be less likely to invest.

So we need to loudly show that the market thinks: "if you cannot afford to pay your workers -OR- you cannot delight your customers with the workers you have, then your business model is broken."

How you do it is up to you.

It can be as personal as telling this story to others when they experience enshittification. Reminding friends that "actually no, your expectations for the product or service you're buying ARE reasonable. You should look for a different provider."

It could be organizing others into calling out companies posting great profits that are doing it by delivering shit. And loudly saying how you are looking for a different provider, or finding ways to do without.

It could be in hyping up companies that DON'T do this kind of G-AI enshittification. Loudly sharing what a great product or great service you got from a company that actually has enough capable people to take care of you.

(Is there yet some site that rates companies based on how well staffed they are and how good a service they provide as a result? Someone, please make that app.)

It can be as political as raising the issue to your mayor, senator, or congresscritter. Sending stories to consumer protection agencies. Many companies would extract your blood and make you pay for the privilege if they could; it's only being required to operate within the law that makes them do otherwise.

It's gonna be hard, because when EVERYONE is riding the hype train then it's hard to find alternatives, which makes it hard to vote with your dollars.

But it's worth fighting for. Don’t settle for G-AI enshittification.

Thank you @phantomrose96 for writing and publishing what I've been gnashing my teeth about and trying to explain to my friends, family, and clients.

If anyone wants to know why every tech company in the world right now is clamoring for AI like drowned rats scrabbling to board a ship, I decided to make a post to explain what's happening.

(Disclaimer to start: I'm a software engineer who's been employed full time since 2018. I am not a historian nor an overconfident Youtube essayist, so this post is my working knowledge of what I see around me and the logical bridges between pieces.)

Okay anyway. The explanation starts further back than what's going on now. I'm gonna start with the year 2000. The Dot Com Bubble just spectacularly burst. The model of "we get the users first, we learn how to profit off them later" went out in a no-money-having bang (remember this, it will be relevant later). A lot of money was lost. A lot of people ended up out of a job. A lot of startup companies went under. Investors left with a sour taste in their mouth and, in general, investment in the internet stayed pretty cooled for that decade. This was, in my opinion, very good for the internet as it was an era not suffocating under the grip of mega-corporation oligarchs and was, instead, filled with Club Penguin and I Can Haz Cheezburger websites.

Then around the 2010-2012 years, a few things happened. Interest rates got low, and then lower. Facebook got huge. The iPhone took off. And suddenly there was a huge new potential market of internet users and phone-havers, and the cheap money was available to start backing new tech startup companies trying to hop on this opportunity. Companies like Uber, Netflix, and Amazon either started in this time, or hit their ramp-up in these years by shifting focus to the internet and apps.

Now, every start-up tech company dreaming of being the next big thing has one thing in common: they need to start off by getting themselves massively in debt. Because before you can turn a profit you need to first spend money on employees and spend money on equipment and spend money on data centers and spend money on advertising and spend money on scale and and and

But also, everyone wants to be on the ship for The Next Big Thing that takes off to the moon.

So there is a mutual interest between new tech companies, and venture capitalists who are willing to invest $$$ into said new tech companies. Because if the venture capitalists can identify a prize pig and get in early, that money could come back to them 100-fold or 1,000-fold. In fact it hardly matters if they invest in 10 or 20 total bust projects along the way to find that unicorn.

But also, becoming profitable takes time. And that might mean being in debt for a long long time before that rocket ship takes off to make everyone onboard a gazzilionaire.

But luckily, for tech startup bros and venture capitalists, being in debt in the 2010's was cheap, and it only got cheaper between 2010 and 2020. If people could secure loans for ~3% or 4% annual interest, well then a $100,000 loan only really costs $3,000 of interest a year to keep afloat. And if inflation is higher than that or at least similar, you're still beating the system.

So from 2010 through early 2022, times were good for tech companies. Startups could take off with massive growth, showing massive potential for something, and venture capitalists would throw infinite money at them in the hopes of pegging just one winner who will take off. And supporting the struggling investments or the long-haulers remained pretty cheap to keep funding.

You hear constantly about "Such and such app has 10-bazillion users gained over the last 10 years and has never once been profitable", yet the thing keeps chugging along because the investors backing it aren't stressed about the immediate future, and are still banking on that "eventually" when it learns how to really monetize its users and turn that profit.

The pandemic in 2020 took a magnifying-glass-in-the-sun effect to this, as EVERYTHING was forcibly turned online which pumped a ton of money and workers into tech investment. Simultaneously, money got really REALLY cheap, bottoming out with historic lows for interest rates.

Then the tide changed with the massive inflation that struck late 2021. Because this all-gas no-brakes state of things was also contributing to off-the-rails inflation (along with your standard-fare greedflation and price gouging, given the extremely convenient excuses of pandemic hardships and supply chain issues). The federal reserve whipped out interest rate hikes to try to curb this huge inflation, which is like a fire extinguisher dousing and suffocating your really-cool, actively-on-fire party where everyone else is burning but you're in the pool. And then they did this more, and then more. And the financial climate followed suit. And suddenly money was not cheap anymore, and new loans became expensive, because loans that used to compound at 2% a year are now compounding at 7 or 8% which, in the language of compounding, is a HUGE difference. A $100,000 loan at a 2% interest rate, if not repaid a single cent in 10 years, accrues to $121,899. A $100,000 loan at an 8% interest rate, if not repaid a single cent in 10 years, more than doubles to $215,892.

Now it is scary and risky to throw money at "could eventually be profitable" tech companies. Now investors are watching companies burn through their current funding and, when the companies come back asking for more, investors are tightening their coin purses instead. The bill is coming due. The free money is drying up and companies are under compounding pressure to produce a profit for their waiting investors who are now done waiting.

You get enshittification. You get quality going down and price going up. You get "now that you're a captive audience here, we're forcing ads or we're forcing subscriptions on you." Don't get me wrong, the plan was ALWAYS to monetize the users. It's just that it's come earlier than expected, with way more feet-to-the-fire than these companies were expecting. ESPECIALLY with Wall Street as the other factor in funding (public) companies, where Wall Street exhibits roughly the same temperament as a baby screaming crying upset that it's soiled its own diaper (maybe that's too mean a comparison to babies), and now companies are being put through the wringer for anything LESS than infinite growth that Wall Street demands of them.

Internal to the tech industry, you get MASSIVE wide-spread layoffs. You get an industry that used to be easy to land multiple job offers shriveling up and leaving recent graduates in a desperately awful situation where no company is hiring and the market is flooded with laid-off workers trying to get back on their feet.

Because those coin-purse-clutching investors DO love virtue-signaling efforts from companies that say "See! We're not being frivolous with your money! We only spend on the essentials." And this is true even for MASSIVE, PROFITABLE companies, because those companies' value is based on the Rich Person Feeling Graph (their stock) rather than the literal profit money. A company making a genuine gazillion dollars a year still tears through layoffs and freezes hiring and removes the free batteries from the printer room (totally not speaking from experience, surely) because the investors LOVE when you cut costs and take away employee perks. The "beer on tap, ping pong table in the common area" era of tech is drying up. And we're still unionless.

Never mind that last part.

And then in early 2023, AI (more specifically, Chat-GPT which is OpenAI's Large Language Model creation) tears its way into the tech scene with a meteor's amount of momentum. Here's Microsoft's prize pig, which it invested heavily in and is galivanting around the pig-show with, to the desperate jealousy and rapture of every other tech company and investor wishing it had that pig. And for the first time since the interest rate hikes, investors have dollar signs in their eyes, both venture capital and Wall Street alike. They're willing to restart the hose of money (even with the new risk) because this feels big enough for them to take the risk.

Now all these companies, who were in varying stages of sweating as their bill came due, or wringing their hands as their stock prices tanked, see a single glorious gold-plated rocket up out of here, the likes of which haven't been seen since the free money days. It's their ticket to buy time, and buy investors, and say "see THIS is what will wring money forth, finally, we promise, just let us show you."

To be clear, AI is NOT profitable yet. It's a money-sink. Perhaps a money-black-hole. But everyone in the space is so wowed by it that there is a wide-spread and powerful conviction that it will become profitable and earn its keep. (Let's be real, half of that profit "potential" is the promise of automating away jobs of pesky employees who peskily cost money.) It's a tech-space industrial revolution that will automate away skilled jobs, and getting in on the ground floor is the absolute best thing you can do to get your pie slice's worth.

It's the thing that will win investors back. It's the thing that will get the investment money coming in again (or, get it second-hand if the company can be the PROVIDER of something needed for AI, which other companies with venture-back will pay handsomely for). It's the thing companies are terrified of missing out on, lest it leave them utterly irrelevant in a future where not having AI-integration is like not having a mobile phone app for your company or not having a website.

So I guess to reiterate on my earlier point:

Drowned rats. Swimming to the one ship in sight.

[lordfrezon]

It’s 2025

Video games were absolute fire last year

Let’s go over those.

I played a lot of indie games this year and overall think that’s the best strategy for finding enjoyment now and in the years to come.  The mainstream games industry is absolutely a mess, with new layoffs happening every other week it felt like.  Indie studios aren’t doing much better, but your money is a lot more appreciated there so it also lets you feel good too.  Plus, they’re doing better things than most of the AAA studios.  Case in point...

#1 1000xRESIST

I wrote about this one a few months back, but tl;dr, it’s a walking simulator with some insane themes and incredibly good voice acting.  I again urge you to try it without learning too much about the game because the way it emotionally connects is so satisfying to engage with.  Gameplay-wise, it’s not stellar, but in terms of story and emotional impact there hasn’t been a better game in years.

#2 Armored Core 6

What a triumph of fun.  This is a game that sticks you in front of speed demons, dozens of machines out for your blood, an apocalyptically tall walker, a hundreds of feet long mecha-worm, and you know from minute one it’s your time to shine.  You are the best there is and everyone knows it and when the bad guys realize who they’re messing with the comms are just amazing.  This is effectively an Ace Combat game in story and a frenetic action game in gameplay and it was a blast.  It takes a special game to get me to play it three times in a row but this did the trick.

#3 Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree

Fromsoft has been on a tear of late, and the DLC to Elden Ring does not disappoint.  It was an incredible experience exploring this new world that felt just as big and mysterious as the original.  It’s not perfect, there’s some glaring difficulty issues, finding things is pretty hard, and the Soulslike issue of needing a wiki open is on full display, but there’s not much bad I can say about how it makes you feel like the god-slaying champion you know you are.  Also, I praised voice acting above, but the English VA for Igon not getting nominated for anything is a travesty.

#4 Signalis

If there was ever a game that was gonna make me trans this would be it.  But beyond that it’s a very spooky horror experience with excellent theming and story, also just gorgeous imagery and an OST that hits hard.  Very good game.

#5 Sucker for Love: Date to Die For

It’s more sucker for love, it’s silly, it’s not as spooky as 1 but it’s a good short time.  Really liked the ending and there’s more gameplay too.

Interlude: Stuff I’ve played before

Like most years I replayed some games.  Some of those were better than others.  Let’s talk about that fast

Project Wingman: DLC came out for PC, it’s good, the final boss fight is absolutely insane.  This is like the 10 Million Relief Plan DLC for AC7 but for a good game.  Highly recommend the base game (obviously) as well as the DLC.

Path of Exile: This year had the absolute best league for PoE ever, for one simple reason: in game trading.  I was able to dump/pick up currency and basic items at a moment’s notice.  I picked up the best items in the game because I felt encouraged to keep playing the same character for over 200 hours.  That’s some real shit right there.  Wish there was a sequel to this game.

Ace Combat 04: I think I just play this one yearly at this point, it’s still incredible, highly recommend emulating it.

ULTRAKILL: P-Ranked Violence, game still great

Katana Zero: I come in intending to do one mission and end up beating the game, still great, DLC never

Warframe: Several new updates that were decent, 1999 which was good.  Warframe remains a perfectly serviceable 7.5/10 game for when you need that.

Last Epoch: The game is out(ish) and still fine.  But PoE was better this year.  I’ll be back when the story is done.

League of Legends: I think I may finally be done with this game.  I haven’t played since August and frankly it’s not looking like I’ll return.  Their monetization has gotten more predatory (somehow), the gameplay is worse, and they show no signs of fixing longstanding issues.  I haven’t uninstalled but I don’t think that’s far on the horizon.

#6 Fallen Aces

An immersive sim set in an alternate 1920s-30s where there’s costumed heroes and villains about.  Think Watchmen pre-Dr. Manhattan.  It’s good, not fully out but I spent a good amount of time playing through the first chapter.

#7 Kinki Spiritual Affairs Bureau

It is very janky but the story is great and it’s pretty funny.  You’re an exorcist who goes to this village, ghosts appear, and you pull out an M-16.  Good times ensue.  Echoes of Call of Duty and Metal Gear are all over, but the game’s world feels original and it’s a good length at 5 hours.

#8 Severed Steel

Another in the line of SuperHot/Katana Zero/Ghostrunner.  It’s fun, not too long, and has a lot of custom stuff if you want more.

#9 Balatro

This is a fun timesink.  But it’s no Vampire Survivors.  That said, if you often find yourself with some spare time you could use to game, there’s a mobile version and it’s pretty easy to pick up/put down.

#10 Ctrl Alt Ego

I mentioned this last year as something I had real high hopes for, and in general 90% of the game meets that expectation.  But the last level left such a bad taste in my mouth that it dropped my overall opinion of the game significantly.  That said, a lot of fun to be had here in this very British-style humor scifi immersive sim. 

Interlude: Things I tried/Demos

I also tried a bunch of games.  Some I’m waiting for a full release, some I’m waiting for the fancy to strike me to pick up more fully.

Of the Devil: Only the demo is out now but this game looks great, has excellent characters, and can get tense as hell.  Eagerly awaiting the full release of episode 1.

Hades 2:  Most of the game is out but it’s missing the story which is the main reason I played Hades 1 so waiting for this to be done, but if you dig good gameplay this has it in spades.  Also has a spade.

Echo Point Nova: By the same guy(s?) who did Severed Steel, a movement shooter with some real cool world design.  Definitely one I need to finish.

Animal Well: Another one I will need to finish.  Very interesting game, a lot of style, but also kinda confusing?  Regardless, there’s a lot of love here and it’s well worth the low price.

Pacific Drive: Very atmospheric, but not enough to do, and it’s a base builder which I’ve got mixed feelings about.  But if you want to take an old car through The Zone Stalker, this is certainly that.

Children of the Sun: Stylish but didn’t jive with the core gameplay.  You’re a kid escaping from a cult, you also are a sniper with the ability to curve the bullet.

Still Wakes the Deep: An Amnesia-like game, where you’re a very Scottish guy on a very VERY Scottish oil rig that pulled up Something Which Must Not Be Seen from the ocean.  I played an hourish, realized I knew what the game was doing, and was like “ok we good”.  But if you like that style of game this is a good one.

Other stuff I started and will come back to... eventually: Divinity Original Sin 2; BURGGEIST; Void Stranger; Tunic; Return of the Obra Dinn; Picayune Dreams; No Man’s Sky

#11 Nine Sols

I understand why people love this game.  I did for a while too.  But it is far too unforgiving at base difficulty, punishes you for lowering the difficulty, and has a lot of really dumb sections where you’re not fighting enemies but your own ability to interact with the game.  After running into a mandatory stealth section, I closed it up and uninstalled.  If you like Sekiro style combat give it a shot, it looks wonderful and the story/worldbuilding are cool as hell, but the gameplay really can grind.

#12 Path of Exile 2 Sigh... Guess I’ll talk about it.

This was a pretty big disappointment.  The design direction of GGG suggested that they’d be slowing the game down but they just made it feel grindier and less fun.  Combine that with the fact that a lot of core power is just locked away behind super rare resources/insanely difficult challenges and that the game isn’t finished, I played 20ish hours and realized I was not into it.  I’ll finish when the entire campaign drops but for now, I’m not into it.

That about wraps it up.  A lot of very very good stuff got played this year, and my to-play list is still super long.  In the past couple days I��ve started playing like 4 new things that all rock so expect a similarly long list next year.  Hopefully we get Silksong.