#{ also makes it easier if the generator goes off again }

[mosttrusted]

Did I buy this for my cabin next week cos I'm a super serious adult? Maybe...... 🐥

[what-even-is-thiss]

Hello I know almost nothing about assassins creed but I know a few things about costume design and history so I’m gonna look at all the assassins creed box art/default outfits of the various protagonists and take a look at their inspiration, practicality, and rough historical accuracy.

I’m gonna go in chronological order by time period just to be an ass about it

Alexios and Kassandra, Greece, 400s-ish BC

They put boobs on Kassandra’s version which immediately puts them on my shit list. That makes the armor easier to pierce because it gives blades a convenient slide towards the center of your chest.

Those concerns aside though, I haven’t really seen an armored torso piece with this exact design but the historical inspiration is clearly there. I’ve got no real issue with the Spartan helmet.

They’ve got a belt for a purse but no purse. And normally I wouldn’t criticize that because they could be keeping their weapons there but they’ve got an embarrassment of belts here. They’re also wearing red which is a fairly expensive color compared to yellow or blue or something but whatever it does look pretty cool

Looks pretty good, has the period vibe even if it’s not accurate, and is relatively appropriate attire for a soldier for hire, if a bit flashy. 8/10 broken spears

Bayek, Egypt, 49 BC

No offense but I think that this man saw into the future and witnessed both a hot topic circa 2008 and a 20th century orientalist depiction of the Middle East and tried to recreate both of them with what he had lying around.

So the collar thing seems to be based on actual Egyptian armor but it looks leather instead of metal. I don’t know what his weird menstruation skirt is supposed to be or why he’s wearing pants. During this point in Ptolemaic Egypt I’m not sure anyone would’ve even heard of pants unless they’d heard stories from the far north.

As far as practicality goes I mean he’s guarded from the sun I suppose. He’s got gloves for handling his eagle. I can’t tell what his clothes are made out of. If they’re made of cotton or linen he might stay cool but if some of that is leather like I think it is he’s not gonna be comfortable in there.

I would criticize all of those belts again but at this point I think they might be holding his outfit together. I don’t wanna dignify this one with a rating.

Basim Ibn Ishaq, Baghdad, Abbasid Caliphate, 800s AD

So the armor I mostly don’t have a problem with. It’s a bit short but it’s clearly based on actual period designs so I’ll let it go. Even if it does commit the sin of too many belts.

The assassin outfit… confuses me. Makes me conflicted. So around that time there were a lot of different colors and patterns available for fabric however he’s gotta keep with the white outfit aesthetic. I get it. He’s also got a cute pop of blue in there. His outfit is flowy and loose fitting and will keep out the sun. That fits the time period vibe.

However this guy would still stick out like a sore thumb. First of all, random armor pieces. Second of all, too many belts. Third of all, there were so many things you could’ve done with turbans in this setting? And veils? There was and is still a style of wearing a turban where you leave part of it hanging off the side or back and so many things could’ve been done with that to cleverly and mysteriously obscure his face.

There’s potential here but I do deeply wish that potential had actually been used. 3/10 houses of wisdom

Eivor, Norway & England, late 800s AD.

This protagonist comes in both boy and girl flavor and for once the outfits match. I appreciate that.

This person also has an actual purse to go with their embarrassment of belts and the underlying tunic and pants at least have the general vibe of being period accurate.

As for their armor though, they either aren’t wearing any or they have some secret chainmail under their tunic. And those random bracers that don’t look particularly Viking.

Their little fur cape there would probably be warm but also wouldn’t function great as a cape. Or as a blanket.

Weirdly historically accurate but also not accurate at all. Kinda extra. Kinda like it though. Looks warm. 9/10 ravens

Ezio, Italy and Ottoman Empire, 1400s AD

This is the og guy. Weirdly enough unlike many of his successors he doesn’t actually have an unreasonable amount of belts.

What I will say in favor of this outfit is that the color and metalworking isn’t improbable for his time period. I mean they had the technology.

Everything else about it though? Uuuhhh idk where they got any of this. Collars in that style weren’t really much of a thing yet, that belt is huge, and hoods would’ve been more likely to be separate garments from the rest of your clothing. This guy looks badass this is a very compelling design but nothing about this dude screams renaissance Italy. If his goal is to remain hidden he’s going to have a very tough time. 6/10 da vinki paintings.

I’ve reached the image limit. I will finish this list in a later reblog.

[ducksido]

I've been loving how you've written all of my requests so far. I love your writing in general so that isn't really a surprise. Well, onto my request. Could you do the Housewardens with a s/o who has a stutter? It usually isn't noticeable but sometimes it gets really bad, bad enough that it gets frustrating to communicate. Also the reader(s/o) gets embarrassed over the stutter due to some people making fun of them when they had to present in front of the class before.

-🥀🪻

(of course 🥀🪻)

Housewardens with Yuu who has a stutter

Riddle Rosehearts

At first, Riddle isn’t quite sure how to respond—he's not used to emotional nuance thanks to his strict upbringing.

But he listens. Listens intently. When you get stuck mid-sentence, he doesn’t rush you. He lets the silence stretch without pressure, a quiet signal of: I’m here. Take your time.

After learning about your classroom experience, he gets visibly upset—not at you, but at the people who made fun of you. “You were brave enough to speak. They didn’t deserve to hear you.”

He studies up on speech therapy techniques and gently asks if you’d be okay with a hand signal system—like you squeezing his hand when you’re too frustrated to continue, so he can read the room for you.

If you're ever in a class presentation again, he’ll stand in the crowd, meeting your eyes the whole time, anchoring you with nods of encouragement.

Leona Kingscholar

His first instinct? "Who the hell made fun of you?" Yeah, someone’s getting buried in the sandpit outside Savannaclaw.

He’s laid-back enough to not pressure you when you’re struggling to speak—he’ll just raise an eyebrow, smirk a little, and go: “Tch. I got time. No one says it like you do anyway.”

If you get upset or start shutting down, he won't go all mushy—he knows you hate feeling pitied—but he’ll bump your shoulder, mumble: “You don’t gotta be perfect to make me listen.”

Leona will be your unshakable wall. If anyone dares laugh again, one glare from him and the room goes dead silent.

Azul Ashengrotto

Internally? Panic. Externally? Calm and courteous. He's terrified of saying the wrong thing, especially given his own trauma with bullying.

He understands. Oh, he gets it. You remind him of himself—polished on the surface, but vulnerable in moments of exposure.

When you stutter, he subtly slows his own speech to match your pace, making it feel less awkward. You don’t even notice at first—it’s just suddenly easier to talk to him.

One day, when you’re particularly embarrassed after tripping over your words, he gently reaches over and takes your hand. “I used to dread speaking too. But every word you say is worth hearing—even the ones that need a moment.”

Kalim Al-Asim

Pure sunshine. Doesn’t even notice the stutter at first—he’s too focused on your smile, your ideas, your energy.

But when he sees you frustrated or pulling away from conversations, he gently asks, “Hey, are you okay? Did I talk too fast?”

You explain your stutter, and he immediately hugs you. “That’s okay! That’s just how your words dance a little before they come out!”

You can’t even stay embarrassed around Kalim—he celebrates every time you speak. “Yes!! I love when you tell stories! Even the way you say things is fun!”

If you’re having a bad day, he’ll offer to speak for you if needed—no judgment, just support.

Vil Schoenheit

Vil is hyper-aware of how you carry yourself. The first time he sees you recoil mid-sentence out of embarrassment, he’s already dissecting the entire situation.

“Someone made you feel ashamed. Unacceptable.”

He never interrupts your stutter—not once. His patience is calm, dignified, and never patronizing. If you apologize, he cuts you off with a firm but gentle, “You are not flawed. You are human. And I admire that about you.”

Vil even works with you on breathing techniques—not to fix you, but to help you feel more confident. He adapts some stage projection tricks to your comfort.

If someone mocks you, Vil absolutely eviscerates them with a cold, cutting line that makes them rethink their life.

Idia Shroud

Idia is so anxious around speech in general. He stutters himself, so when he realizes you do too, he’s like: “Wait… you mean… I’m not the only glitching NPC in the cutscene?”

He's instantly more comfortable with you than anyone else. Conversations are awkward, yes, but real. Soft. Shared.

When your stutter gets bad, he doesn’t even blink—just continues typing on his tablet, then flashes it at you: [“No worries. Wanna just chill in silence or type today?”]

If you cry out of frustration, he panics and offers you snacks, games, a blanket, and then just shyly says: “I-I like your voice… It sounds like you’re casting a spell when you talk... like real magic.”

Malleus Draconia

Malleus is unbothered. The idea of mocking someone for their speech is so beneath him he can’t comprehend it.

When you stutter, he tilts his head and patiently waits, giving you space like a quiet glade in the woods.

If you get upset or try to hide it, he places a hand over yours, warm and grounding. “Child of man… Do not be ashamed. Each pause is a breath of your soul. Let it speak.”

He never makes you feel like you have to perform for him. Silence or speech, you’re cherished either way.

If someone mocks you in his presence? Oh, dear. Malleus may not react loudly, but the drop in temperature and faint green flicker of flame in his eyes sends a very clear message.

[lessi-lover]

just let go II p.bueckers x a.fudd x reader

just let go II p.bueckers x a.fudd x reader 1.9k

you were exhausted. no, scratch that you beyond exhausted. your body ached from head to toe, your muscles stiff and sore from the sheer amount of work you'd put them through this week. every step you took felt heavier than the last, your limbs moving slowly, your thoughts even slower. it was the kind of tired that crept into your skin and kept clawing at your insides.

there was a lot of good things that came with being a college athlete, but there also came a time where you wish you were anything but. however being on a completely different path to both your girlfriends was more challenging than you had anticipated.

you were all constantly on opposite schedules, and although people agreed that the opportunities you got to travel across the country were amazing, always being apart from them was difficult, especially when they had each other.

they were able to be in the comfort of each other all day, they had their routines, their games, their trainings. and you? you had your nightly factimes with the pair, that's if you were lucky to have a free moment at the same time of course.

normally, this kind of distance didn't really bother you that much. you were quite an independent person and always had been, you never really liked to rely on other people because you knew you could only really put trust in yourself. in general you would get to see paige and azzi at least twice a fortnight, but it had been weeks since you'd last seen them because the last five of your games had been away fixtures.

your busy week deprived you of being able to talk to them, so you learnt how to deal with the distance. but almost over a month of no contact was wearing you homesick, and you couldn't stop thinking about them as much as it killed you. on average, volleyball handed you at least two matches a week, and when you weren't playing or training, you were studying, desperately trying to catch up on content you had missed because of it.

you knew paige and azzi had been trying to reach you. texts, calls, voice messages, every one sitting unanswered by you. you weren’t ignoring them out of anger, and it wasn’t that you didn’t want to talk to them. quite the opposite.

but every time their names flashed across your screen, the knife in your chest twisted further. seeing them together on facetime, their interviews coming up on your socials, knowing they had each other while you felt miles away, it hurt. it was easier to pretend you were just too busy to talk than to admit how much you missed them.

but of course, they knew you better than that.

your teammates had casually started dropping hints, as if they had been told you weren't reaching out. “paige texted me earlier,” one of them had said to you after practice. “azzi, too. they were asking if you’re doing okay.” you brushed your teammate off, claiming you were fine, just caught up and you would make sure to call them later.

but their concern didn’t stop there. your captain had pulled you aside after a game, you'd thought she wanted to celebrate the win but it was far from that. “they’re worried about you, you know. you should call them.”

you knew she was right.

as much as you tried to handle everything on your own, holding everything together by a loose thread and as much as you wanted to believe you could just push through the loneliness, you couldn’t keep going like this. the exhaustion wasn’t just physical anymore; it was in your head and was plaguing you like death.

you needed them. you needed the way paige would roll her eyes at your stubborn way of taking care of yourself before pulling you into a hug anyway. you needed the way azzi could make you laugh even when you felt like crying. you needed them and they can't be there for you.

it was like when you bite the inside of your cheek and at first it stings, but then you do it again and again until it just goes numb. that was your head right now, completely numb to any feeling your body tried to communicate. you knew ignoring them and yourself wasn’t fixing anything, but seeing how close they were while you were off doing your own thing, was worse. so you kept pushing them away, trying to convince yourself it was easier like this.

you managed to make it to the door of their dorm, grateful that you hadn't collapsed on the way up the elevator. the only thing that was keeping you going was knowing that you couldn't let them be worried about you anymore. the guilt was eating you alive and the messages you'd ignored over the month sat at the pit of your stomach, mercilessly punching you without fail.

and of course, paige and azzi knew immediately.

"baby, you look like you’re about to collapse." paige muttered as soon as you stepped into their apartment. she was already reaching for you, her fingers brushing over your wrist, then wrapping around it as if you'd slip away if she wasn't fast enough. you allowed the blonde to move you into her dorm, eyes staring blankly as she called out for azzi.

before you could even think of saying anything, azzi was by your side, her hands finding your waist to steady you. you hadn't seen either of them in weeks and the empty look in their eyes was enough to make you want to cry.

"baby! where have you been?" you felt your throat close up at how concerned the brunette looked, you hadn't realised the extent of their worries but it all washed over you as they waited patiently for you to answer. "you should've told us you were this bad." azzi said, trying to guide your frozen body to the couch as your feet dug into the ground in defiance.

"didn't wanna-" you yawned mid-sentence, your body swaying slightly in exhaustion as you held strong in attempting to stop them from moving you around. paige clicked her tongue disapprovingly at you. "yeah, yeah, didn't wanna bother us. sound familiar, az?"

"mhm," azzi hummed, nodding as she glanced back at paige. "she forgets we know her too well." before you could even attempt to argue with them, paige’s grip tightened on your wrist. then without hesitation, she bent down slightly and lifted you into her arms.

"paige." you mumbled weakly, but even you couldn’t bring yourself to fight it. your body went limp almost immediately, too tired to do anything else but let your body surrender to her touch. "nah," paige cut you off. "you’re done mama. i got you." and she did. she always did.

paige's skin against yours only sparked tears, they came unexpectedly, but they weren't born from pain. you felt every part in your body just broke, the explosion in your chest an overwhelming waterfall of emotion that just dropped out of you.

"oh love. you're okay, we've got you. stop fighting us."

azzi's words seemed to wrap around you like a blanket, her arms tightening around your body, as paige settled you down on the couch. the blonde swiped her fingers over you face, wiping away the fragments of you tears and brushing away the hair that had stuck to your face.

you pulled your head away from paige's hand, starting a with frightened look at the two of them.

her arms were secure around you, one wrapped under your knees, the other supporting your back. azzi's grip was effortless, as if her hands dug into your body like a second skin and you welcomed the comfort she offered you. she followed closely, her hand resting against your shoulder as she tried to calm you down.

"you should’ve texted us," paige murmured, her voice full of concern but trying to downplay the anger she had obviously been feeling. "we would’ve come and picked you up."

"s too much," you mumbled, your head falling against paige’s chest. "what’s too much, baby?" the blonde asked, adjusting her hold on you slightly so your back was positioned against her. you exhaled sharply, your fingers weakly gripping the fabric of azzi's shorts. "everything. my head’s too loud."

paige and azzi exchanged a look over your head. you liked the feeling that they were silently talking over you, they were taking your control and that was all you wanted them to do right now. you'd been in a washing machine for the past week, your thoughts just mixing with your feelings until you couldn't differentiate any longer. you needed them to take this from you because you didn't want it anymore. it was too much of a responsibility that you couldn't handle right now, paige and azzi would calm the storm you didn't doubt that.

"relax," azzi asked you, her fingers pressing gently into the knots in your muscles. "you don’t have to do anything right now. just let us take care of you." paige hummed in agreement with the brunette, her hand running through your hair in slow, soothing motions. "we’re in charge, okay? just let go." you felt your eyes flutter shut and your thoughts slip away.

it took you a second to process their words, but when you did, something inside of you unraveled. your body that had been locked up tight with stress, finally sagged against your girlfriends. your brows unlocked, your fingers unclenched, your arms hung limply at your sides, you let your back sink further into paige.

you were too tired to move, but you didn’t need to. they had you. "good girl," paige praised, pressing a kiss to your temple. "that’s it mama. just breathe for us."

a small hum escaped your lips. your head was still loud like before, still chaotic, but their voices cut through the pain, they were the certainty you had been craving.

azzi let her fingers move lower, kneading at your upper back now, working out the thick tension with slow movements that let you drift away. "you’re so tense, babe." she mumbled, more to herself than anything. "no wonder you feel like crap."

"i don’t feel like crap," you smiled sleepily, though it was an obvious lie that anyone could see through. paige chuckled, shifting slightly so she could wrap her arms tighter around you. "baby, you can barely keep your eyes open. just let go, okay?"

you didn’t answer, but you didn’t fight them either. it felt good being taken care of like this. it wasn’t often that you let yourself be vulnerable, but you always felt safe around paige and azzi. paige pressed another kiss to your hair, then let her lips linger against your temple. "you’re safe, baby. just rest for us."

"there you go," she murmured. "just breathe." azzi’s touch became lighter now, more of a gentle swipe of her fingers against your skin than anything else. "how’s your head?" she asked softly. it was a loaded question. your head was still loud, still a mess of the frustration and overstimulation that had been bubbling inside you, but it was quieter than before. you didn't feel the need to be above it.

"better," you admitted, your voice barely audible.

"good. that’s all we want."

[seasidefallenangel]

she's got those evil eyes (2)

bllk boys and their mean girlfriends ft nagi seishiro, hiori yo, michael kaiser

notes: i got asked to make a part 2, reader is still a bitch, hiori and kaiser's kinda suggestive?, part 1

༄ nagi seishiro:

✣ his pr team asking him to care about his girlfriend’s actions is like pulling teeth - only twenty times more frustrating. whatever you say goes as far as he’s concerned. even if he himself doesn’t wanna do something, the glare in your eyes with your foot tapping impatiently on the hardwood floor causes a quiet, “yes, boss,” to fall from his lips in submission. maybe he’s a tiny bit scared of you, but he also knows it’s just easier to give you whatever you want and be your watchdog to shield you from criticism instead.

⁀➷ if nagi died in the next five seconds then he would be satisfied. going out with your nails gently massaging his scalp while he snuggles against your stomach and plays on his phone is probably the closest to heaven anyone has ever been. so when that hand is so cruel as to leave his head in favor of smashing the keys on your phone, he’s very obviously displeased. “come baaack,” he mumbles with a slight whine in his voice. you’re unresponsive, causing him to move and look up at you, asking, “what are you doing now?” he has a vague idea of what considering his manager is rapid texting him to log onto your account and delete your tweets, but he simply mutes the conversation. you mutter that it’s nothing he needs to worry about, and he just responds with, “mkay,” before tugging your hand to his hair again, intent on being coddled by you. 

༄ hiori yo:

✣ the devil on your shoulder whispering to do all this stuff in the first place. he knows he looks completely harmless, so you’re the perfect cover for him to let out all his deranged thoughts by proxy. it looks like he has a tight leash on you, but the reins are barely even held in his hands. kurona sends him an interview one of the paparazzi managed to snag of you walking out from the grocery store, and hiori flat out leaves practice because he needs to see you now.

⁀➷ the recording of your voice echoes from his cell phone while he enters your shared home after rushing there. a grin lies on his face as he hears you tell the reporter how you’re thrilled that his worthless life led him to hassling a soccer player’s girlfriend before yanking his camera and throwing it on the ground. a fair share of comments say you had every right to do so considering the invasive nature of the press while the rest disagree, saying it was far too aggressive. if anything, hiori wishes you were more aggressive.

you can’t even get a word in as he sits on the couch, gripping your wrists almost painfully while tugging you into his lap. his lips are on yours faster than you can blink - kissing you so hard you feel lightheaded but it’s just not enough. hiori needs you pliant beneath him, that nasty streak of yours quelled by his suffocating hold. despite that, part of him wants you kicking and cursing him out, teeth gnashing as blood from your lips trickles into his mouth. his heart is clawing its way out of his chest and eager to jump into yours, for you to become an extension of his body. an endless plethora of breathy “i love you”s is his confession of how badly he wants to break you, and have you break him in return.

༄ michael kaiser:

✣ be serious - he’s the one you’re fighting with the most. there’s nothing he loves more than to rile you up, knowing how fast your temper will crack. a self proclaimed expert at getting under your skin if he had to describe it. though he still enjoys seeing how harsh you can be with the general public, his favorite pastime will always be pissing you off. quite frankly, he tends to get jealous when you’re paying just a bit too much attention to others during your rampages. 

⁀➷ an amused smirk rests on kaiser’s face as he leisurely stands against the frame of your shared bedroom’s door. if he’s being honest, part of him isn’t even listening. you’re busy spitting out insults about his demeanor towards one of your friends and all he can think about is ripping the attitude out of you. not forever, of course. the enjoyment he gets from your outbursts is far too valuable. maybe just for a night or two so he can enjoy his docile puppy before you begin baring your teeth towards him once more. even now as you grow more irate, he’s walking over like he has all the time in the world - completely unbothered.

his fingers curl around your chin, paying no mind to the way you try to bite them off. instead, he’s cooing at you like you’re a harmless child. “hm? what’s got you all worked up, haschen? have i not been giving you enough attention?” his all-knowing tone infuriates you and you’re about to try and mutilate him until his hand slides down to your throat, squeezing just enough to know that he can and will rip the breath from your lungs. voice eerily low, he stares into your eyes with a piercing grin and unsettling smile, asking, “should i show you how i deal with feral animals?”

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The Google antitrust remedy should extinguish surveillance, not democratize it

I'm coming to DEFCON! On FRIDAY (Aug 9), I'm emceeing the EFF POKER TOURNAMENT (noon at the Horseshoe Poker Room), and appearing on the BRICKED AND ABANDONED panel (5PM, LVCC - L1 - HW1–11–01). On SATURDAY (Aug 10), I'm giving a keynote called "DISENSHITTIFY OR DIE! How hackers can seize the means of computation and build a new, good internet that is hardened against our asshole bosses' insatiable horniness for enshittification" (noon, LVCC - L1 - HW1–11–01).

If you are even slightly plugged into the doings and goings on in this tired old world of ours, then you have heard that Google has lost its antitrust case against the DOJ Antitrust Division, and is now an official, no-foolin', convicted monopolist.

This is huge. Epochal. The DOJ, under the leadership of the fire-breathing trustbuster Jonathan Kanter, has done something that was inconceivable four years ago when he was appointed. On Kanter's first day on the job as head of the Antitrust Division, he addressed his gathered prosecutors and asked them to raise their hands if they'd never lost a case.

It was a canny trap. As the proud, victorious DOJ lawyers thrust their arms into the air, Kanter quoted James Comey, who did the same thing on his first day on the job as DA for the Southern District of New York: "You people are the chickenshit club." A federal prosecutor who never loses a case is a prosecutor who only goes after easy targets, and leave the worst offenders (who can mount a serious defense) unscathed.

Under Kanter, the Antitrust Division has been anything but a Chickenshit Club. They've gone after the biggest game, the hardest targets, and with Google, they bagged the hardest target of all.

Again: this is huge:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/boom-judge-rules-google-is-a-monopolist

But also: this is just the start.

Now that Google is convicted, the court needs to decide what to do about it. Courts have lots of leeway when it comes to addressing a finding of lawbreaking. They can impose "conduct remedies" ("don't do that anymore"). These are generally considered weaksauce, because they're hard to administer. When you tell a company like Google to stop doing something, you need to expend a lot of energy to make sure they're following orders. Conduct remedies are as much a punishment for the government (which has to spend millions closely observing the company to ensure compliance) as they are for the firms involved.

But the court could also order Google to stop doing certain things. For example, since the ruling finds that Google illegally maintained its monopoly by paying other entities – Apple, Mozilla, Samsung, AT&T, etc – to be the default search, the court could order them to stop doing that. At the very least, that's a lot easier to monitor.

The big guns, though are the structural remedies. The court could order Google to sell off parts of its business, like its ad-tech stack, through which it represents both buyers and sellers in a marketplace it owns, and with whom it competes as a buyer and a seller. There's already proposed, bipartisan legislation to do this (how bipartisan? Its two main co-sponsors are Ted Cruz and Elizabeth Warren!):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/25/structural-separation/#america-act

All of these things, and more, are on the table:

https://www.wired.com/story/google-search-monopoly-judge-amit-mehta-options/

We'll get a better sense of what the judge is likely to order in the fall, but the case could drag out for quite some time, as Google appeals the verdict, then tries for the Supreme Court, then appeals the remedy, and so on and so on. Dragging things out in the hopes of running out the clock is a time-honored tradition in tech antitrust. IBM dragged out its antitrust appeals for 12 years, from 1970 to 1982 (they called it "Antitrust's Vietnam"). This is an expensive gambit: IBM outspent the entire DOJ Antitrust Division for 12 consecutive years, hiring more lawyers to fight the DOJ than the DOJ employed to run all of its antitrust enforcement, nationwide. But it worked. IBM hung in there until Reagan got elected and ordered his AG to drop the case.

This is the same trick Microsoft pulled in the nineties. The case went to trial in 1998, and Microsoft lost in 1999. They appealed, and dragged out the proceedings until GW Bush stole the presidency in 2000 and dropped the case in 2001.

I am 100% certain that there are lawyers at Google thinking about this: "OK, say we put a few hundred million behind Trump-affiliated PACs, wait until he's president, have a little meeting with Attorney General Andrew Tate, and convince him to drop the case. Worked for IBM, worked for Microsoft, it'll work for us. And it'll be a bargain."

That's one way things could go wrong, but it's hardly the only way. In his ruling, Judge Mehta rejected the DOJ's argument that in illegally creating and maintaining its monopoly, Google harmed its users' privacy by foreclosing on the possibility of a rival that didn't rely on commercial surveillance.

The judge repeats some of the most cherished and absurd canards of the marketing industry, like the idea that people actually like advertisements, provided that they're relevant, so spying on people is actually doing them a favor by making it easier to target the right ads to them.

First of all, this is just obvious self-serving rubbish that the advertising industry has been repeating since the days when it was waging a massive campaign against the TV remote on the grounds that people would "steal" TV by changing the channel when the ads came on. If "relevant" advertising was so great, then no one would reach for the remote – or better still, they'd change the channel when the show came back on, looking for more ads. People don't like advertising. And they hate "relevant" advertising that targets their private behaviors and views. They find it creepy.

Remember when Apple offered users a one-click opt-out from Facebook spying, the most sophisticated commercial surveillance system in human history, whose entire purpose was to deliver "relevant" advertising? More than 96% of Apple's customers opted out of surveillance. Even the most Hayek-pilled economist has to admit that this is a a hell of a "revealed preference." People don't want "relevant" advertising. Period.

The judge's credulous repetition of this obvious nonsense is doubly disturbing in light of the nature of the monopoly charge against Google – that the company had monopolized the advertising market.

Don't get me wrong: Google has monopolized the advertising market. They operate a "full stack" ad-tech shop. By controlling the tools that sellers and buyers use, and the marketplace where they use them, Google steals billions from advertisers and publishers. And that's before you factor in Jedi Blue, the illegal collusive arrangement the company has with Facebook, by which they carved up the market to increase their profits, gouge advertisers, starve publishers, and keep out smaller rivals:

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

One effect of Google's monopoly power is a global privacy crisis. In regions with strong privacy laws (like the EU), Google uses flags of convenience (looking at you, Ireland) to break the law with impunity:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/15/finnegans-snooze/#dirty-old-town

In the rest of the world, Google works with other members of the surveillance cartel to prevent the passage of privacy laws. That's why the USA hasn't had a new federal privacy law since 1988, when Congress acted to ban video-store clerks from telling newspaper reporters about the VHS cassettes you took home:

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

The lack of privacy law and privacy enforcement means that Google can inflict untold privacy harms on billions of people around the world. Everything we do, everywhere we go online and offline, every relationship we have, everything we buy and say and do – it's all collected and stored and mined and used against us. The immediate harm here is the haunting sense that you are always under observation, a violation of your fundamental human rights that prevents you from ever being your authentic self:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2013/jun/14/nsa-prism

The harms of surveillance aren't merely spiritual and psychological – they're material and immediate. The commercial surveillance industry provides the raw feedstock for a parade of horribles, from stalkers and bounty hunters turning up on their targets' front doors to cops rounding up demonstrators with location data from their phones to identity thieves tricking their marks by using leaked or purchased private information as convincers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/06/privacy-first/#but-not-just-privacy

The problem with Google's monopolization of the surveillance business model is that they're spying on us. But for a certain kind of competition wonk, the problem is that Google is monopolizing the violation of our human rights, and we need to use competition law to "democratize" commercial surveillance.

This is deeply perverse, but it represents a central split in competition theory. Some trustbusters fetishize competition for its own sake, on the theory that it makes companies better and more efficient. But there are some things we don't want companies to be better at, like violating our human rights. We want to ban human rights violations, not improve them.

For other trustbusters – like me – the point of competition enforcement isn't merely to make companies offer better products, it's to make companies small enough to hold account through the enforcement of democratic laws. I want to break – and break up – Google because I want to end its ability to bigfoot privacy law so that we can finally root out the cancer of commercial surveillance. I don't want to make Google smaller so that other surveillance companies can get in on the game.

There is a real danger that this could emerge from this decision, and that's a danger we need to guard against. Last month, Google shocked the technical world by announcing that it would not follow through on its years-long promise to kill third-party cookies, one of the most pernicious and dangerous tools of commercial surveillance. The reason for this volte-face appears to be concern that the EU would view killing third-party cookies as anticompetitive, since Google intended to maintain commercial surveillance using its Orwellian "Privacy Sandbox" technology in Chrome, with the effect that everyone except Google would find it harder to spy on us as we used the internet:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/googles-trail-of-crumbs

It's true! This is anticompetitive. But the answer isn't to preserve the universal power of tech companies large and small to violate our human rights – it's to ban everyone, especially Google, from spying on us!

This current in competition law is still on the fringe, but the Google case – which finds the company illegally dominating surveillance advertising, but rejects the idea that surveillance is itself a harm – offers an opportunity for this bad idea to go from the fringe to the center.

If that happens, look out.

Take "attribution," an obscure bit of ad-tech jargon disguising a jaw-droppingly terrible practice. "Attribution" is when an ad-tech company shows you an ad, and then follows you everywhere you go, monitoring everything you do, to determine whether the ad convinced you to buy something. I mean that literally: they're combining location data generated by your phone and captured by Bluetooth and wifi receivers with data from your credit card to follow you everywhere and log everything, so that they can prove to a merchant that you bought something.

This is unspeakably grotesque. It should be illegal. In many parts of the world, it is illegal, but it is so lucrative that monopolists like Google can buy off the enforcers and get away with it. What's more, only the very largest corporations have the resources to surveil you so closely and invasively that they can perform this "service."

But again, some competition wonks look at this situation and say, "Well, that's not right, we need to make sure that everyone can do attribution." This was a (completely mad) premise in the (otherwise very good) 2020 Competition and Markets Authority market-study on "Online platforms and digital advertising":

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5fa557668fa8f5788db46efc/Final_report_Digital_ALT_TEXT.pdf

This (again, otherwise sensible) document veers completely off the rails whenever the subject of attribution comes up. At one point, the authors propose that the law should allow corporations to spy on people who opt out of commercial surveillance, provided that this spying is undertaken for the sole purpose of attribution.

But it gets even worse: by the end of the document, the authors propose a "user ID intervention" to give every Briton a permanent, government-issued advertising identifier to make it easier for smaller companies to do attribution.

Look, I understand why advertisers like attribution and are willing to preferentially take their business to companies that can perform it. But the fact that merchants want to be able to peer into every corner of our lives to figure out how well their ads are performing is no basis for permitting them to do so – much less intervening in the market to make it even easier so more commercial snoops can get their noses in our business!

This is an idea that keeps popping up, like in this editorial by a UK lawyer, where he proposes fixing "Google's dominance of online advertising" by making it possible for everyone to track us using the commercial surveillance identifiers created and monopolized by the ad-tech duopoly and the mobile tech duopoly:

https://www.thesling.org/what-to-do-about-googles-dominance-of-online-advertising/

Those companies are doing something rotten. In dominating ads, they have stolen billions from publishers and advertisers. Then they used those billions to capture our democratic process and ensure that our human rights weren't being defended as they plundered our private data and put us in harm's way.

Advertising will adapt. The marketing bros know this is coming. They're already discussing how to live in a world where you can't measure clicks and you can't attribute actions (e.g. the world from the first advertisements up until the early 2000s):

https://sparktoro.com/blog/attribution-is-dying-clicks-are-dying-marketing-is-going-back-to-the-20th-century/

An equitable solution to Google's monopoly will not run though our right to privacy. We don't solve the Google monopoly by creating competition in surveillance. The reason to get rid of Google's monopoly is to make it easier to end surveillance.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/07/revealed-preferences/#extinguish-v-improve

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[lovecoatedwords]

”Promised vows Pt.6”

featuring: poly marauders x reader (arranged marriage au) angsty but also fluff (later on)

Series master list

previous chapter

You’re curled in one of the armchairs, shawl wrapped tight around your shoulders, still in the dress — too tired to take it off, too proud to cry.

The silence is the only honest thing left in the house.

Then: the door creaks.

James enters first, still in his waistcoat, tie tugged loose like a man unraveling by degrees. His eyes find yours for a second—something flickers behind them, something too human—but he says nothing. Just pours himself a drink and sits across from you, jaw tight.

Remus follows not long after. Slower. Hesitant. His coat’s gone, sleeves rolled up, hair mussed like he’s run his hands through it too many times. He pauses in the doorway when he sees James, then you.

Then he sits. Not close. Not far. Enough to mean something.

You don’t speak.

You just watch the way James clenches his glass. The way Remus doesn’t look at him.

And then, predictably, Sirius arrives last — half-laughing, half-buzzed, the collar of his shirt undone and boots loud on the wooden floor. He stops short when he sees the room.

“What’s this?” he asks, grinning crookedly. “A lovers’ tribunal?”

No one laughs.

Sirius’s smile falters.

You straighten, finally. "I didn’t realize I invited anyone."

“Didn’t realize you needed to,” James mutters into his drink.

That’s when the air tightens — a rope pulled too taut.

Remus’s voice cuts low. “She doesn’t owe us anything.”

“Funny,” James says, glancing up at him. “You sure acted like she did last night.”

Remus’s jaw ticks. “And you didn’t?”

His voice isn’t sharp — it’s quiet. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that hums with restraint. Like he’s holding himself back from finishing the thought: You touched her like she belonged to you. Like she didn’t matter.

James goes still.

Sirius steps between them before either can speak again, his hands raised like he’s breaking up a duel. “Alright. That’s enough bloody posturing. We're not twelve.” He glances between them, then over at you with a softer edge. “Can we just... sit? Like human beings?”

James exhales hard through his nose. Remus steps back.

Sirius walks to the decanter and pours drinks — generous ones.

He passes one to James, one to Remus, then one to you. His fingers brush yours longer than they need to. It’s not flirtation this time. It feels like confusion . Like guilt but not apology. Like he doesn't know how to hold it in words.

Sip slow,” he murmurs. “You’re not used to this.”

“I vote we drink until nobody feels like fighting anymore,” he says, forcing a grin. “Or until we forget why we started.”

———

The fire crackles quietly now. The shadows on the walls have stretched long, softening the corners of the room. Everyone’s still here — James slouched deep in an armchair, shirt collar undone; Sirius on the rug, back propped against the coffee table, lazily swirling what’s left of his drink; Remus on the end of the couch near your feet, one ankle resting over his knee, quiet and half-turned toward you.

Your glass is nearly empty. You hadn’t meant to drink it all, but the warmth slipped down easier than you expected. Everything feels a little fuzzy around the edges now. Not bad. Just… slow. Safe.

“I think I’m drunk,” you say into the cushion, your cheek smushed where you’ve half-lain down on the couch.

Sirius laughs — not loud, but fond. “That’ll do it.”

James glances over from his chair, lips twitching like he wants to make a joke but can’t be bothered to form the words.

Remus murmurs, “You’re alright,” like he’s saying it more for himself than you. “Just rest.”

You hum in response. The fire makes a popping sound. Your limbs feel too heavy to move.

A few more minutes pass in quiet conversation you stop following. Someone says something about the Ministry, someone else groans. There’s a rustle of fabric as Sirius shifts on the floor, and the soft clink of ice in James’s glass as he swirls it absentmindedly.

You’re only half aware of any of it.

The last thing you really feel is a hand — light and warm — brushing the hair gently from your face. A whisper near your temple. You don’t catch the words.Then everything fades.

—————-

“She’s out,” Sirius says quietly, sipping the last of his drink. “Didn’t even finish the whole glass. Lightweight.”

James glances over. “First time properly drinking, I think.”

“Explains the early collapse.”

Remus watches you for a long moment — your breathing even now, one hand curled loosely near your chest, your shawl slipping halfway off your shoulder.

He reaches out and gently pulls it back into place.

Neither of them says anything when he does it.

James is the first to stand. “I’ll get a blanket.”

Sirius stays seated, eyes still on you. “She looks peaceful.”

Remus nods once. “She deserves to be.”

James watches for a long moment, jaw tight.

“I’ll pick her up,” he says abruptly, voice firm but not unkind.

Remus’s eyes flicker sharply. “I will.”

James stiffens, setting his glass down a little too hard. “I’m perfectly capable.”

“No,” Remus replies softly, but with undeniable strength. “I’m the one who knows when she needs quiet.”

A silence settles between them, tense and thick as the smoke in the air.

Sirius sighs, hands raised like he’s defusing a bomb. “She’s asleep. Let’s not start a war over this.”

James’s gaze snaps to Remus’s. “You always think you know best.”

Remus shrugs, voice steady. “Maybe I do.”

The words hang between them, but James finally nods, conceding without a fight.

Remus stands, lifting you carefully in his arms. His touch is gentle, steady—unlike the harsh weight of James’s usual command.

James watches, lips pressed tight. Sirius steps forward, quietly murmuring, “Remus wins.”

And with that, Remus carries you toward your room, the tension lingering in the quiet space they leave behind.

————-

*next day*

The soft knock at the door is almost hesitant.

You glance up from where you’re sitting, wrapped in the shawlfeeling the quiet weight of last night.

Remus stands there—tie undone, sleeves rolled up, the calm after the storm you didn’t know you needed. His eyes search yours for something, maybe permission, maybe just connection.

“I thought… maybe we could get out,” he says quietly. “Dinner. Just the two of us. No pretense.”

You blink, surprised by how the invitation feels like a lifeline.

You nod before you even realize it.

“Good,” he says, relief flickering through his features. “I’ll wait for you downstairs.”

You take your time—no velvet or silk this evening. Just something simple, something that feels like you and not a costume. A soft, cream-colored blouse with delicate lace at the collar, paired with dark jeans that hug your legs just right. You brush your hair into loose waves, letting a few strands fall free around your face.

When you step out of your room, the house feels different less heavy, less like a stage.

Downstairs, Remus waits by the front door, his expression quiet but hopeful. His shirt sleeves are still rolled up, the hint of a smile tugging at his lips when he sees you.

“You look… like you,” he says, voice low and steady.

You feel the warmth behind those words, like a spark just for you.

He holds out his hand.

“Shall we?”

——

The restaurant is cozy, tucked away in a quiet corner of town—warm light spilling from the windows onto rain-slicked cobblestones outside. You slide into the booth across from Remus, the soft hum of quiet conversation wrapping around you like a gentle blanket.

The rain begins then, soft at first, tapping a rhythmic lullaby against the glass.

Remus watches you for a moment, his eyes tracing the curve of your jaw, the way your hair catches the light.

“It’s strange,” he says, voice low, “how something as ordinary as rain can feel… like a promise. Like it’s washing away the weight we carry, if only for a little while.”

You glance at him, surprised by the softness threading through his words.

He shrugs, a small, almost shy smile tugging at his lips. “I guess I’m saying I want tonight to be that—for both of us.”

You breathe it in, the words settling somewhere deep and quiet. Outside, the rain intensifies, but inside, there’s only this moment warm, real, and maybe a little like hope.

You lean back against the booth, fingers tracing the edge of your glass, watching the rain blur the world outside.

Remus’s gaze never wavers from you. “I don’t think I ever told you how much I admired your strength,” he says quietly. “Not just the way you hold yourself in front of everyone, but… the parts you don’t show. The parts you try to hide.”

You shift, unsure what to say. The honesty in his voice is raw, almost vulnerable.

He reaches out, just resting his hand near yours on the table. Not pressing, just… there. Solid.

“I know it’s been hard. And maybe it’s too soon to say this, but I want to be someone you can lean on. Even if you don’t want to admit you need it.”

A small smile tugs at your lips. “Maybe I don’t know how to lean just yet.”

He chuckles softly, a warm sound that feels like a balm. “Then maybe we can learn. Together.”

You watched the droplets race each other down the glass, and felt the warmth of Remus’s hand near yours, steady and reassuring.

“So,” Remus began, voice low but sure, “how are James and Sirius doing these days? With you, I mean.”

You blinked, a small laugh escaping despite yourself. “Warming up, maybe? But honestly… they’re still so rude. Like, it’s almost impressive how cold they can be, even when we’re all in the same room.”

Remus’s brow furrowed, eyes thoughtful. “I get that. They can be… difficult.”

You sighed, twisting your napkin between your fingers. “Difficult is putting it lightly. Sometimes I feel like they’re trying to push me away, even when I’m right there. Like I’m this… this inconvenient truth they don’t want to face.”

Remus nodded slowly, his fingers brushing the back of his hand against yours, a silent encouragement to go on.

“It’s weird,” you said, voice dropping. “Because when I’m with you, or even alone, I can almost forget how sharp they are. But then you put us all together, and suddenly I’m back to being the outsider again. Like I don’t belong in their world, no matter how much I want to.”

Remus’s eyes softened, and for a moment, he looked like he wanted to say more but held back.

“James and Sirius,” he said finally, “they’ve never been great with… expressing things straightforwardly. Especially when it comes to what they care about.”

You glanced at him, waiting.

“They’re… possessive,” Remus continued, voice low, almost guarded. “Not just in the way you might think. It’s not about jealousy in the usual sense. It’s deeper, more complicated. They’ve known each other longer than most people know themselves. They’ve built walls and defenses around everything—around their feelings, around each other. And now, with you in the mix, it’s like those walls are being tested.”

You bit your lip, absorbing his words. “Possessive how?”

Remus shrugged, a small, rueful smile tugging at his lips. “James, for one, has this way of being distant but always watching. Like he’s ready to snap at anyone who gets too close—not just to you, but to what he considers ‘his.’ Sirius is different. He masks it with charm and teasing, but beneath that is a protective edge sharp enough to cut.”

Your heart tightened at the image. “So, that’s why they push me away? Because they’re scared?”

“Exactly,” Remus said quietly. “They’re scared. Not just of losing you, but of losing each other. They’ve been through so much together. The idea of letting someone new in—someone who changes everything—that’s terrifying for them. But that doesn’t mean they don’t care. It just means they don’t know how to show it.”

You sighed, the knot of frustration loosening just a bit. “It’s just hard. Because when I look at you, I see someone who… actually wants to understand. Who doesn’t pretend I’m invisible.”

Remus’s fingers finally closed over yours, a gentle, grounding pressure. “I want to understand. I want to be someone you don’t have to pretend around.”

You looked up, meeting his gaze. There was a flicker there—something fragile but real. “Do you think… James and Sirius will ever get there? Or is this just the way it’s always going to be?”

Remus’s eyes darkened slightly, thoughtful. “I think they’re trying. In their own ways. Maybe awkwardly, maybe painfully. But beneath the cold, beneath the words they don’t say… there’s something there. Something worth fighting for.”

You let out a shaky breath, feeling the weight of it settle between you. “I want to believe that. I want to believe that they can see me—not just the version they’re comfortable with, but me.”

Remus gave your hand a soft squeeze. “And they will.

——

The moment you step outside, the world seems to dissolve into a blur of rain and night. The streetlights cast halos in the downpour, turning the slick pavement into liquid gold beneath your feet. You barely notice the cold soaking through your shoes or the way the rain clings to your hair, twisting strands into dark ribbons across your face.

Remus is beside you, umbrella forgotten on the sidewalk, his coat already soaked but his expression steady and calm, as if the storm outside could never touch the quiet storm brewing between you.

You swallowed hard, your chest tight with the fear of what you were about to say. The words were fragile but real, ready to fall free at last. You looked up at him, feeling the raindrops cling to your lashes.

“Remus…” Your voice trembled just enough to betray how much this mattered.

He shifted closer, his gaze never leaving yours. “I’m listening,” he said softly, voice thick with something you couldn’t quite name yet.

The moment stretched, heavy with the sound of rain rushing all around you, drowning out the rest of the world.

“I love you you breathed, the words tumbling out like a prayer finally answered. “I don’t know when it started — maybe from the first time you touched my back while helping me with that damn zipper. Or when you kissed my cheek tonight and it wasn’t just some polite gesture, but real. But it’s there. In every quiet moment, in every look, in everything I’m too scared to say out loud.”

His breath hitched, the silence between you thickening, charged. You searched his face, seeing something raw and vulnerable flicker in his eyes — something that mirrored your own trembling hope.

Without thinking, he reached out, fingers brushing the wet strands of hair from your face, tucking them gently behind your ear. His hand lingered, warm and sure against your skin, grounding you.

“I’ve been holding this in, too,” he confessed, voice low, rough. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to say it. How much I’ve wanted to say it.”

Your heart hammered as the space between you closed, the storm outside fading into nothing compared to the electricity between your bodies.

Slowly, his lips found yours — soft at first, tentative, like a question whispered into the dark. Then deeper, urgent, desperate to catch up to all the years of silence. Your hands found his chest, gripping the fabric of his coat as if anchoring yourself to him.

The kiss was everything you’d dreamed and feared, filled with unspoken promises and raw emotion, tasting of rain and hope and something wild and new.

When he finally pulled back, his forehead rested against yours, breaths mingling in the cold night air.

“I’m yours,” he murmured, voice thick

His breath mingled with yours in the cool, rain-soaked air, and you could feel the steady thrum of his heartbeat beneath your hands. For a long moment, neither of you moved — caught in that fragile space between confession and what came next.

Then, his voice broke through the quiet, soft but unshakable. “I love you too. Remus said, his words low and certain, like the weight of a truth that had been waiting to be set free for too long.

Your heart stuttered, the world narrowing down to the sound of his voice and the electric pull between you.

Before you could even think to answer, his lips were on yours again — this time deeper, more demanding, as if he needed to make up for lost time. The kiss pressed into you like a slow burn, his mouth soft and warm against your cold skin, teasing, exploring.

His hands slid from your waist, tracing your sides with gentle urgency, pulling you flush against him. You felt the rough texture of his soaked coat, the steady strength of his body grounding you against the storm raging around you.

Every brush of his lips spoke of patience and longing — of a thousand unspoken promises folded into the simple act of holding you close. His tongue traced the seam of your mouth, tentative at first, then bolder, coaxing you to open to him.

Your hands tangled in the collar of his coat, fingertips trembling as you pressed into the kiss, desperate to hold on to the moment — to him. The rain ran down your cheeks, cold against the warmth blooming in your chest.

When he finally pulled back, his forehead rested against yours, breaths ragged but eyes shining with something fierce and tender all at once.

“I’ve never been more sure of anything,” he whispered, voice thick with emotion.

You smiled through the rain, your fingers still locked in his coat.

A/N:

I didn’t even realize it had been a month since I posted :/ I was just into vacation mode lmao.Anyway my lovelies—I think I made it upto you with this one ;) also my uni is starting again tomorrow. How do we deal with the back to uni anxiety?? 😭 lmao anyway taglist is OPEN so are REQUESTS!

tags:

@0yo @doyouseethewords @yvessentials @daydreamandforget @zellington @kinghalchalamet @literishdegree99 @helloxgoodbi @eli0eli0eli0 @dearsarahriley @maraudersgirlie @screamingsilence3 @arielthee-potterhead @spencers1nonlygf @magicwithaknife @notmonstersapocalipse @amo-a-los-postres @therealbr1gh7ey3s @electronicexpertshark @cloudyzip @mattheoriddlewifesblog @keiththepaddledonk @msmarklee1213 @hawaii2320 @broccoleni @treefairy-28 @sillysugarplum @https-star0 @boo8008 @ricearoni84 @happycatanxie @marrass @pansyitcanton @hellothere7 @poetry-beauty-love-writez @kamarimartell @nerdalert16 @cosmic-rainestorm @fionaapplelover2010 @vermithoraxis @bellatrix-lestrange5 @delusional-4-fake-people @siriuslykiller, @dearsarahriley, @pearlwuei, @m4r4udersmyluvs, @queenanababy, @vermitoraxis, @bellatrix-lestrange5, @helloxgoodbi, @emily-2010, @planetlexie, @fairysush, @cocolovey, @eevjee4, @sodavrr, @superxovas, @let-it-sn0o0ow, @lunxrstellx, @screechingovercaffeinatedgumball, @redheadrenaissance, @huyasalamandra, @poetry-beauty-love-writez @woofgocows @arielthee-potterhead @duruxoxo @imdeloulou @certified-womanizer @itssophieyall @timelessreader @estelllasenpapel @bellatrix-lestrange5 @thewitchesofart @simp-for-fiction @soghal22 @rllytiredrn @pottermagiczz

[sandraharissa]

I think one of the many things wrong with Jinx this season is how like, half of her personality was cut off and thrown out.

Like her reaction to grief. We see her suicidal after Silco’s death and she’ll be again very suicidal after Isha’s death. Makes sense. Don’t have notes on that part. However I have so much notes on her rage. In s1 we see Powder sometimes responding to bad situation by being shy and sad, but sometimes she reacts in a more adversarial way, like complaining they should try fighting Piltover or trying to stand up to Mylo. But we also get these moments like when she’s left behind and has an absolute meltdown and starts wrecking shit but more importantly her reaction to Silco. He says they’ll show them all and she throws the audience the most rage fueled look you’ve ever seen. When really pushed beyond her limits this is Powder’s emotional reaction to tragedy/being wronged. We see that all throughout acts II and III and we see it when she blows up the council after Silco dies. And that’s the problem cos that’s the part that’s missing from s2. They cut her personality in half and only kept one half. Anger as part of her personality and reaction to grief was discarded when writing her in s2. Even tho she goes through a lot of grieving in s2.

Another example is Isha. Jinx prioritizing family and just chilling? Wanting affectionate interactions with family? Having an easier relationship with a younger family member cos there aren’t any expectations or need to prove anything or gain anyone’s attention? No fear of abandonment/betrayal? She just has this kid who hero worships her and follows her around like a puppy so no stress? No notes. However I have a lot of notes about Jinx’s paranoia and how not normal and possessive and toxic she is about relationships. And I have notes on the generational trauma. Where did all that go? That’s not how ppl work. Living in a messed up society and Silco’s parenting won’t just evaporate like that cos Isha is just so overwhelmingly cute. It’s more likely that Jinx would corrupt the kid. (which you could argue on paper she does cos the kid in the end thought that suicide was dope but why did the narrative frame it as this beautiful thing lol)

And on the topic of fighting Piltover where did “we beat the enforcers with just the four of us imagine what the whole Lanes could do” go? Jinx definitely prioritized family more but she wasn’t neutral or indifferent on the Piltover matter. The enforcers wrong her/hurt her/threaten her family yet again, they kidnapped Isha, and she just acts panicked and sad, but also jokes and quips while on the mission. Where’s the rage and hatred and desire for revenge on the ppl who wronged her? Sometimes it’s just ppl around her being mean or lying or smth, anyone could be her enemy, like Sevika, Silco or Vi, but a lot of the time it’s Piltover, they killed her parents, they were her fathers’ enemies and drove them to hate each other, they chased them as kids and tried to arrest them, they kidnapped and abused Vi in prison all her adolescence, they would have killed Vi so she blew up the whole blockade, Council tried to turn Silco against her and now he’s dead so she bombs them, all her life she can see that the quality of their life is bad bcos of Piltover, she’s in Jayce’s apartment and immediately goes for the sandwich. Jinx doesn’t come off as a very politically/ideologically motivated character but what happened to all her personal beef with Piltover?

They also inexplicably just ceased to write her fucking up all the time. what about her y’know, being a jinx? In s1 even in acts II and III when she is proficient in fighting and bomb-making they still constantly show her being more of a burden and fucking up in other ways. While never explained (which was good) to me it came off as a symptom of trauma and being neurodivergent, like how ADHD kids can’t escape the allegations that they’re lazy, but on a meta level it did make it feel like she was supernaturally cursed. Part of what felt so profound and empowering about s1 finale and her embracing being jinx it that it was her embracing that she’s different (and ‘wrong’ in some ways) and can never live a happy life in the society she lives in and so she lashes out. Now she just chills and nothing ever doesn’t go her way (ig until Isha died but that wasn’t even directly her fault, Isha just acted on her own choice and agency). Suddenly her mental issues don’t exist or get in the way of her socializing and being a part of society. This bigoted, violent and unfair society.

Don’t even get me started on her mannerisms. Remember how she would bite her lip? I’m not sure if she does that even once in s2. “Sister, thought I missed her”??? let Jinx rhyme sometimes and in general say weird shit, not one-liners.

So the only way for the writers to have Jinx do nothing, heal up completely and just chill with a kid in her lair (and really everything else she does (or doesn’t do) this season) is to get rid of half of her personality, the traits that would dictate she take action and feel wrath and lash out/hurt her loved ones in the process.

All of her tragic traits from s1 that made her Jinx were just erased, not changed throughout the course of an arc, absent from the get go, so that they can have her say that Jinx is dead and have it make sense in the context of s2 cos from her very first appearance is s2 this Jinx was devoid of pretty much all of her jinx-y character traits from s1.

[f1gur4t1v3]

Part 2 of my “Jason and his many parents”

I will forever love the idea of Harvey “I lost all that I loved due to a freak accident, so I will be the dad who stepped-up” Dent, and his adopted son, Jason “My past father figure and I get into physical fights weekly and I need someone who won’t abandon me for who I am” Todd.

Bruce Wayne played an important role in both Jason and Harvey’s lives, Bruce was the man who took Jason in and failed to save him when Jason needed him most. He was also Harvey’s best friend, supported him through out his campaign to become mayor, and then failed to save Harvey from the acid that made him the man he is now.

Harvey understands the pain Jason feels, they both resent the same man and it makes it easier for them to bond. Jason doesn’t think he’ll ever see Harvey as a father figure no matter how hard he tries, the last two he’s had hurt him more than anything in the world, so maybe if he doesn’t believe Harvey is his dad he won’t hurt him as well.

Of course with a super villain dad you get some fun though, Jason doesn’t help out with heists but he doesn’t exactly stop them either. He’s sorta just there eating a sandwich or stalking Harvey from a far off building to make sure his other family doesn’t beat the Two Faced man to hard.

And then you obviously have the crime family. Aunt Harley and Ivy come around often to have tea with Jason, Harley likes to talk with him about life and just making sure he’s doing alright in general.

Obviously you also have Uncle Cobblepot as well, Jason’s not the biggest fan of him. He feels odd calling someone who owns the club he’s seen Bruce stripping at before in his Bruce Wayne persona uncle. That doesn’t stop him from seeing him as a part of the crime family though.

Who could forget Step-mom Selina as well, she helps Jason catch up on Bruce and his siblings lives. He can’t be there to experience it but just hearing about what’s happening from Selina is more than enough to make him happy.

Last but not least you have Edward and Crane. They’re not exactly uncles to Jason. They’re better than Penguin though because he’s never had to see a naked Bruce dancing for them before. He helps Eddie out with Riddles, giving personal hints about the Batman’s life to spice up the stakes. Then he is able to study Scarecrows latest Fear Toxin remake before he goes and holds some poor guy hostage.

To say Jason wasn’t spoiled either would be an understatement. From necklaces that compliment his eyes from Selina’s latest burglary, to Penguin setting some of his men up around Crime Alley to keep Batman out of his territory. He may not be the kid any of the major Villians wanted, but by god do they love him.

He’s their giant ball of pure muscle who looks like he could snap you in half, but inside he’s just a sweet boy who’s been looking for someone who’s willing to tolerate and love him, especially when it feels like nobody will. The villains refuse to let another soul stray down the path they did, so they all take the broken Robin under their wings and teach him how to fly again with hopes that one day he’ll rejoin the bats in their nest.

PT 3

[etirabys]

Being a parent (who is having a great time with it) has made me more interested in "parental horror" as a literary genre.

I'm trying to write a weird mythopoeic short story with lot of this – I'm stuck on writing it so why don't I just tell you how the whole thing goes.

A minor character is the only adult survivor of a weird advanced civilization and had to raise ~10000 children in a time loop. They had to batch the kids in groups of ten and do that a thousand times. At the end of this, they are borderline insane. They live at the periphery of the civilization that arose from those 10000 people. They're called the Greatmother and they live at the source of a river of milk.

Every first gen kid raised by the Greatmother experiences their childhood as abusive and neglectful, but they wouldn't describe it in those terms because there's no other baseline. This sets the tone for their whole culture in ensuing generations.

The protagonist is a young woman whose family was cursed with infertility by a clan they're feuding with. (All the characters can be rounded off as Greek demigods, by the way.) She wants a baby.

The only authority powerful enough to override the curse is the Greatmother. The protagonist goes up the river of milk to find them – possibly meeting a series of increasingly powerful and dangerous mothers, each of whom says "I can't do it, but maybe my mother can, go upriver".

The Greatmother overrides the infertility curse, but one of the princes of the rival family catches wind of it and is like, you are NOT having a baby that you're happy with on our watch. I'm going to reincarnate myself as the baby and make you miserable.

The name of my text file is EVIL BABY.

Babies vary on a number of axes. The prince hits the worst-for-the-parent extreme on every single one of them. He won't sleep. He screams and will not be consoled. Or he pretends her latest attempt to make him stop crying worked, watches for when she thinks she's got it, and then starts up again. He bites during feeding, gets genuinely hungry, which makes him genuinely cranky, which makes being an evil baby even easier.

He's having a lot of fun with this.

After some time he's pretty sure he's got it. The woman is exhausted and depressed. Her family wants to boot the baby into the wilderness to be eaten by wolves. He's going to be abandoned now, he can change shape and go home to his old life.

She does not abandon him! She goes, this is insane, but I'm locked in now. This is my kid. If my family won't have us anymore, I'm going to leave home and make it work somehow.

The guy's like, oh shit. What's this feeling? Do I feel… bad? She has been awfully nice to me. It's kind of nice being sung to. Sometimes after a long hard day of being difficult, I do like to snuggle. I think... that this person... is my mom?? But not in the way my normal mom (who wasn't around much) is my mom? idk, all of this is weird.

But it's going to be Not Right to just swap myself out with a random baby. She likes this baby, the baby that I am. (Which is nuts.)

Also, being her baby is nicer than being home with my original family in a way I wasn't capable of imagining before… so… I'll wipe my memory and be a baby for real.

With the implication that the change he works on himself is not permanent – upon adulthood he'll regain his memories and titles. In this world, there is no permanent escape from himself or his clan.

After fifteen years or so, his family notices he's been gone for a while, but it's too late! He created an interfamilial bond deeper than adoption, maybe deeper than marriage. She gave birth to him! The feud ends. The more major gods preside over the reconciliation ritual.

Most people from the two families are confused and annoyed. They were sorta ready to catch Romeo and Juliet shenanigans but they weren't genre-savvy enough to nip whatever the fuck this was in the bud.

And uh, (embarrassed voice) love wins. Thanks for coming to my Pixar movie.

[krea2re]

im more annoying about this on twitter but iwtv fanartists have got to realize that louis is not that darkskinned. he's not darkskinned at all actually, jacob anderson is like. kind of hilariously lightskinned. this goes for (bailey) claudia too but since she is obviously lighter than louis people seem to recognize that a bit easier than they do for louis for some reason (but the problem still persists. it's just not as egregious because i rarely see depictions of her cross into darkskinned territory)

when youre a passive consumer of art and fanworks this can come off as more of a non-issue but when you're an artist depicting characters played by real people, it would do you good to stop and think about the choices you are making when you put pen to paper or tablet and colors to those drawings.

i know that likely a lot of artists go darker when depicting black characters or even lighterskinned black actors because of the general association of black person = darkskinned as well as out of a fear of possibly be perceived as whitewashing a figure if the values end up a bit off, but it is in fact still a colorist mindset to believe darker is better for someone who is not.

reiterating again that this is primarily about the depiction of LIVE ACTION CHARACTERS with real people

this is also a general plea for artists to stop drawing jacob, delainey, and bailey as random black person #73728

black features are not interchangeable and black features vary greatly if that wasn't obvious already from our cast. generalized depictions of black people in the spots of louis and claudia coupled with colorism ends up coming off as not only lazy but immensely disrespectful to the actors we are trying to depict. even moreso when people can easily nail lestats or even armands likenesses or put more effort into doing so, then on the other hand deliver unrecognizable louclaudias.

i also find it extremely outrageous seeing drawings where louis is noticeably darker than armand even after we got the line of claudia very specifically making a remark about armand being darker than louis.

i also implore non-artists and artists alike (especially if you are nonblack) to point out when they see stuff like this happen in fanarts. obviously in Good Faith and without Hostility or Dogpiling.

no excuse can reasonably prevent someone from trying to adapt a persons ethnic features into their own style. there is no excuse other than laziness or other deep-seated resentments one might avoid acknowledging.

ive seen people draw louis with MY skintone and below is a picture of me and jacob anderson to hopefully drive home the point of how egregious that kind of depiction of louis is in practice

flex^

[parkerluvsu]

nsfw alphabet for art donaldson.. not requested but i wanted to do it so.. enjoy it!!! <3

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex): i think that art definitely feels the pressure of society to be the dominate person in a relationship, so he does all the classic stuff, cleaning you up, brushing your hair cuddling with you.. but as he gets more comfortable in your relationship i think that he is open about the fact that he wants to be taken care of too.. he wants aftercare to be mutual, and he wants you to clean him up and tuck him into bed just like he does for you <3

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s): art definitely isn't one to toot his own horn.. but if he was being honest i think he'd say his abs! he's worked so hard for them, training everyday + he likes when you rake your fingernails down them <3 for his partner.. i think he would say their hands! i think that art just generally runs cold, so having his partner warm him up with their hands would be like... a dream. also he just loves getting shoulder massages and getting his hair played with! (and all the other good things you can do with your hands) <3

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically): the one thing challengers fandom can agree on... art cums a lot and is loud. he always wants to jerk off but the cleaning after is a total buzz kill! whether he's humping his pillow or fucking his hand, the amount of cum he has to clean up is frankly.. embarrassing. he's also extremely loud.. he's just very sensitive and can't help but whine and moan and pretty much cry when he cums <3

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs): when he was younger, arts dirty secret was definitely jerking off, growing up in a strict household made it seem like masturbation was taboo.. but now that he's older, he definitely keeps his kinks close to his chest, so id say his secret is that he enjoys being dominated, yet again he feels pressure to be the dominant one in a relationship but there's nothing he enjoys more than being dominated and taken care of by his partner <3

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?): i think that by the time he's in college, art has had his fair share of girlfriends but has rarely had sex with them, he just feels like sex is the ultimate connection with someone.. and it makes him nervous to do it with someone he even has a bit of doubt about. art is actually naturally gifted at sex for some reason, the first time you're together, you get ready to give him a little tutorial on eating you out, but he immediately gets to work, doing exactly what he should do <3

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying): any position in which he can see your face is arts favorite, he's a classic guy and he loves missionary, and he loves when you ride him too (you may be able to convince him to let you do a freaky little amazon position too) <3

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.): art is totally serious, he just gets very nervous that he's gonna mess something up or embarrass himself or hurt you, that he couldn't make a joke even if he tried! <3

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.): college art definitely shaves everytime he showers, he just hates the feeling of body hair on him, and he loves the way his body looks soft and shiny when he is shaved. older dilf! art definitely gets waxed, he makes regular appointments because it's easier than shaving for him, and it still makes him feel pretty <3

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect): art is romantic to a fault, he absolutely puts you first in every aspect of your relationship, especially when being intimate so he tries to set the mood as best he can, being sweet and romantic (more than usual) almost like the first time you had sex, every time <3

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon): art jerks off a lot. he just has a high sex drive, and it relaxes him, there's nothing more he wants to do after a long day than hump his pillow and fall asleep <3

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks): i think that art only explores his kinks when he feels really comfortable in a relationship and they kind of come out one by one.. first he says he like to be dominated.. then he amps it up to say maybe he wants you to rim him.. then it's pegging and before you know it he's calling you "mommy" <3

L = Location (favorite places to do the do): in bed. seriously the only place he'll do it. once, he got a little too tipsy and you guys did it on the couch but never again. he sees sex as a private thing, and that's what a bedroom is for! <3

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going): literally just looking at you.. i mean you could just be sitting doing your homework at your desk and he'd only be thinking about you sitting on his cock <3

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs): many things i can think of.. but mainly he isn't into anything "gross" aka bodily fluids, or pain, the occasional love bite or hicky is okay with him, but i think he just can't really wrap his head around why you would want to hurt him during sex in the first place, after all he'd never hurt you <3

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.): art could 100% go both ways, eating you out pretty much gets him off too (you can't count the number of times he's came in his pants just eating you out), but the feeling of your hot mouth on him is as close to heaven as he thinks he'll ever get <3

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.): at the start, art goes slow and deep, really angling his hips to find that soft and squishy part in you that makes you scream. once he gets closer to his orgasm.. it's like he's in his own world, he doesn't even really pull out to thrust anymore, mostly just humping into you faster and faster until he does one last push of his hips to get his balls as snug as they can be against you when he cums <3

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.): art doesn't like quickies, he prefers to do all the romantic parts of sex, like kissing, making out, foreplay etc. you can't really do that in a quickie, it leaves him feeling unsatisfied <3

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.): in any part of his life, art likes for others to take the lead and make decisions, so you'd have to be the one to bring something up, and you'd really have to encourage him to be honest, because it's in his nature to say yes to everything in order to please you, even if he maybe doesn't want to do something <3

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?): art is completely drained after one round, he just gets so overstimulated and sensitive after that it would just be painful to go again, he'll totally eat you out after sex though, if you're still not satisfied <3

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?): i firmly believe that patrick got art a fleshlight for his birthday one year and.. art didn't leave his room for a week. but once he has you, he doesn't really see the need for toys for himself, and it would take a little bit for him to see your toys as partners instead of competitors <3

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease): art is not a teaser at all, i mean he will get on his knees for you at any time, especially during sex, so he's never be able to tease you about something since he's just as eager as you are <3

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.): like i said before, art is loud. he moans, whines, pants, every noise under the sun. "mmmf.. more.. more" "fuck 'm gonna melt you're so warm" "'s feels so good" "k-keep squeezing me like that.." "fuck 'm close.. please- please keep going" "i wanna cum.. i needa cum for you.." <3

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character): as a birthday present, patrick got art a pack on flavoured condoms but art had no one to use them with so art just fast tested them by himself 😭 <3

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes): i think that art is average thickness, maybe a little on the long side, like 6.5 inches, nothing too uncomfortable. a cute pink tip that drools pre and gets almost purple when he's about to cum.. and pretty round balls that slap deliciously against you and feel great to suck on <3

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?): art is horny 99.999% percent of the time, he just can't help himself. but for art, horny doesn't necessarily mean he wants to have sex with you, it just means that he wants to be close to you, i mean he gets a boner every time you're around, so it's just his way of saying i love you <3

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards): art gets extremely tired after sex, if he could just stay inside you after sex and go right to sleep he absolutely would. but he's responsible.. so he cleans up, forces you to go pee and then presses his face into your chest and is out like a light in approximately 5 minutes <3

[3liza]

i know ive done hundreds of hours of either actual protesting or doing equipment and training prep for protesting and then another hundred hours of research about riot weapon mitigation and maybe someone remembers and was expecting me to Post about it again but i just cant do a big posting marathon about it this time im sorry.

so heres the short version of what i have learned through personally being chemically attacked multiple times in multiple protests, and doing hundreds of hours of research in medical literature.. take it or leave it.

probably the single most important thing i can tell you is wear some kind of head protection (a head injury is the #1 way people get seriously hurt and killed at protests. i dont care if it looks dumb, wear a helmet).

one thing about chemical weapons is they are all different and sometimes you can make shit worse for one chemical by treating another. at the riot you wont know for sure what youve been exposed to because police use mixed products specifically to make treatment harder.

the best riot weapon treatment is to avoid being sprayed, gassed or shot in the first place. wear a helmet. wear protective clothing and if you have it, armor. buy a respirator or gas mask with an unused nato nbc filter, and do not use milk for tear gas or chemical treatment in your eyes. water is not really effective for a lot of exposures either but wont injure you, it will however often cause additional pain because riot weapons are often in oil based carriers and wont wash off with water and are designed to activate when they come into contact with it. ie, the water will make it hurt more until it wear off/evaporates.

^^^^ this thing should b e standard issue protest equipment for all street medics and i dont know why they arent except that people just dont know they exist. i want these to be the new meta. fill them with clean water or preferably saline (contact solution) before going in. the cup goes over your eyeball and then you squeeze and your eyeball gets sprayed off, which is the procedure that is hardest to accomplish in the middle of a protest because tear gas makes you clench your eyes closed involuntarily. a good street medic will basically restraint you like a dog at the vet and pry your eyelids open to rinse your eyes. this is a lot easier to accompkish with the proper equipment

you should be carrying sterile saline or lactated ringer for chemical weapon flushing, and you should get an eyewash bottle from a medical or industrial supply. or amazon. if you cant buy lactated ringer then those big bottles of contact solution with the little spray tips are also good because you can use the water pressure to spray chemical particulate off the affected surface while rinsing. sudecon and other chemical weapon ntreatment wipes also work somewhat but last time i looked into it years ago, it was very hard to source and purchase, expensive, and had limited efficacy

i did all the research on this and this was the conclusion of many papers and many military and police tests that i read.

additionally, rinsing your eyes with the lactated ringer BEFORE being contacted by riot weapons worked better in one trial than trying to treat exposure afterwards. no one tested this but i suspect that generously applying Visine to your eyes, mouth, and nostrils before getting gassed or sprayed would have a very similar mitigating effect

for skin surface treatment in the field, a 50/50 mixture of water and liquid antacid (referred to as LAW) is effective for some agents and wont hurt for the others. unfortunately the majority of chemical agents have to evaporate off you to stop hurting. all the serious, EMT-trained and experienced street medics i know carry and use LAW. i have used it on patients and on myself and i think it's more effective than water.

this web page concentrates a lot of the information and challenges about this stuff into a short amount of reading. i dont know anything about the site or the owners but the information on just this page agrees with what i found in my own research.

people will argue with me about this because theres a shitload of "folk wisdom" about protesting like the onion thing etc and most of it is straight bullshit that has been reinforced through superstition. since riot weapons wear off after a period of time, a lot of people will put stupid shit on their burns and then claim it "works" when the pain inevitably stops after X minutes. stick to saline and water if you dont know what youre doing, then wash your skin with dish soap when you get home and isolate your poisoned clothes immediately. using a clean oil and then soaping it off in a shower can help too but ONLY if you are removing the oil completely (dish soap again). oil is not a good field treatment and will make things worse if you apply it without soaping it off.

also for reasons probably related to nicotinic receptors, smoking a cigarette after tear gas inhalation helps with acute recovery. i dont know why, and it probably is obnly going to work for people who have smoking experience. there's no research about this, its purely personal observation

dehydration will make you sick and crazy and stupid faster than you think it will, so will low blood sugar. bring candy bars and water and salt to eat during the protest. bring extra to give to people.

as always, if someone is exhibiting asthma or anaphylaxis symptoms they need actual medical attention asap

reblogs off because i dont want to deal with the inevitable panic-based arguments this information always triggers

[seththemusehub]

fantastic. got some issues already. my phone and internet are paid off for the month, but I need toilet paper and am running pretty low on food again. I just got some stuff from the food bank, but it's not gonna last a super long time. also I have surgery coming up on june 12th, and I could use a couple of things to make that just a little bit easier. including a couple months worth of internet and phone in advance.

as a quick thing for anybody who doesn't know, I'm a permanently disabled trans man who is multiple flavors of queer. I don't have any income, and while I can get a little help with a couple things (like my powered wheelchair) I generally am left to my own devices to figure out how to do things like pay bills and feed myself after I run out of food stamps for the month. I'm waiting on disability still. have been since, like, 2017. I have reapplied and appealed several times and it's getting ridiculous by now.

my surgery coming up is a hysterectomy! which means no more uterus! but it's kinda a major surgery that will take a while for me to recover from, which means I might not have the brainpower or energy to do a lot. including begging online for money to pay off bills or get groceries delivered, unfortunately. so uh. yeah. I have an amazon wishlist for stuff I could use for that, if anybody has a few bucks to spend and wants to make sure it goes towards one thing specifically. some of it is just disability stuff that would make my quality of life better, but will also help during recovery. I also have a wishlist for snack things that would be nice to have by me so I don't have to struggle getting around the first few weeks after surgery.

as for the phone and internet, the combined bill is $50 per month. a majority of the phone bill is to pay for my phone specifically. the reason I need help with my food stuff is that I have some stupid restrictions on what I can and can't eat, and unfortunately a lot of what I end up needing to get is not cheap. my phone and internet bills are taken care of for this month, but I'd like to pay ahead a few months so I can recover without having to worry about it. please ignore the deadname on there. anything I get there is going to go towards phone and internet bills for the next couple of months after I get some food stuff delivered.

if anybody has any questions about my situation, I'm more than happy to answer them.

[mythicmanuscripts]

i just know that sub!aemond gets really embarassed the first time he properly moans during sex.. like he knows that «only weak guys does that» so he’s really self-concious about it, but after gettibg comfortable it’s ALL he does🤭

I love this!!! I’m always glad to write more soft subby and a little angsty Aemond.

NSFW sub!Aemond below the cut :))

So my first thought when I read this was actually about the time Aegon made Aemond lose his virginity at the brothel? Obviously we know he felt so exposed and vulnerable and never went back or slept with another person until he met you, but I think there’s more to it than that actually.

Obviously he’s nervous, and even though he’s scared it does feel good. He whimpers and moans a little and every time he does the brothel worker chuckles and calls him adorable? But she’s so patronising about it and it just makes Aemond even more uncomfortable.

He doesn’t even consider laying with another again before he meets. Obviously it’s an arranged marriage and he’s very stiff at first, but he gets comfortable and he realises you’ll always care for him and he just finds a safe space.

I think that once Aemond starts to relax and let his walls down, he tends to actually be quite a bit louder? I don’t mean just sexually. I mean when it’s just the two of you and he feels safe and loved then he tends to laugh a lot easier and louder, he’ll also whine more and hum more and just generally be much more expressive. He doesn’t speak as softly either.

As he relaxes he gets louder and he stops being put together. It’s something he doesn’t actually notice and you make a conscious decision not to mention this to him because you know he’ll retreat back into himself if he knew.

And because it takes weeks of just getting to know him and forming a bond before anything sexual happens, you encounter this louder relaxed version of Aemond way before you actually sleep with him. Sometimes he’ll walk into your shared quarters and when he removes his eye patch it’s like you can physically see the weight lifted off his shoulders. He’ll stand there for a moment and then smile wider than he ever does in public and come to join you on the couch or in bed.

When things to get sexual, Aemond struggles to not lose control. I don’t mean fighting you for dominance, because of course we all know he’d never want that, I mean that his head gets all fuzzy and he gets desperate and needy and he so badly wants to just relax against you and let you control him.

The first time you hear him moan is when you’re kissing him and straddling him? Aemond feels like he’s on cloud 9. He’s gripping your hips and panting into your mouth and overwhelmed in all the best ways. You grind your hips down against his crotch and he throws his head back and moans, shaking a little.

It’s quite possibly the hottest thing you’ve heard. But the moment he realises what he’s done he goes stiff and pushes you off. You sit next to him, asking him what’s wrong and he just mumbles he’s sorry and he didn’t mean to do that.

“Didn’t mean to what?” You ask him, pulling him closer and wrapping your arm around his shoulder, “Didn’t mean to feel good?” He blushes and burrows his head in your shoulder in response, clearly embarrassed.

You let it go this time, just letting him relax until he’s asking for more kisses. The make out session ends without much more happening.

The first time you touch his cock, he tries SO hard to stay composed? He’s literally shaking and grinding his teeth to stop himself from making sounds.

You aren’t having it this time though. You pull your hand away and make him look you in the eye and let him know that if wants your attention then he can’t hold back his sounds.

For the next few weeks it seems like every time you do anything sexual for him he only gets louder? Pretty soon he doesn’t even try to stop himself, letting himself whine and moan and beg.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

book 7 part 9 thoughts!!

***THIS POST CONTAINS MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR BOOK 7 PART 9 OF THE MAIN STORY!!*** Please note: this is NOT meant to be a summary or a translation; these are only my initial thoughts on the events that roughly unfold. There may be details overlooked or misunderstood in this post, so PLEASE do not use this as a translation.

Kind of a short update this time! It spans parts 140 to 157.

As a reminder, only Vil is following Yuu and co. into the next dream. This is because traveling around with too many people may cause a bug in Idia’s dream hacking and/or it may make it easier for Malleus to notice them.

They land in Kalim’s dream!! There is a segment where Vil freaks out about falling and we get to see his cute squeaky-voiced vulnerable side again. (Yes, the others tease him about it 😂)

They use DREAM FORM CHANGE to swap between dorm uniform (for combat) and school uniform (for general interactions within the dream).

And this new location is…

HUH WHATm/s tHIS?????

It seems like the Scalding Sands, but we’ve never seen this before.

OOP THEre’S THE BOY

Those colors look really good on him!! But the hat looks like it’s floating or sitting on just the scalp… It feels like maybe it should be further down on his head. (Sorry about the weird screenshot chsvskwguejsk)

Kalim doesn’t seem to recognize our squad, nor NRC. He says that he goes to Qasr Sultanate Academy (guess that’s where the name of his new uniform comes from). It is founded on the generous spirit of the Oasis’s Master (the Sultan). The school was established 2 years ago by his rich ass father, since this area did not have a magic school prior to that. THIS IS NEPOTISM AT ITS FINEST, FOLKS

***Note: "qasr" -> castle or palace, "sultanate" -> a place governed by a sultan!***

Idia reasons that Kalim might be this way to avoid the tragedies that play out at NRC. The dream is sheltering him…

Everyone is dying of heat, so Kalim uses his UM to give them cool drinking water. He also has some servants (no Jamil) bring the roof over to them to help them cool off???

BUT THEN jAMIL PULLS UP AnD

iT’S SO WEIRD, WhY’ShE SO PERKY AnD KIRAKIRA…………………… ……. …… …. … . ……. .. . … …. . . . HE;S SMILING TOO MUCH, IT;S SUS...... THIS iS wROng (Side note, those colors are also nice on him!)

Dream!Jamil explains that he was hired by Kalim’s father but that their families never cared about their different statuses. In this dream, they basically grew up as real childhood friends and always talk honestly with each other.

The group reminds Kalim that Jamil isn’t REALLY like this. Vil especially lays into him, roasting Jamil’s character and going into how untrustworthy he is, etc.

Jamil tries to keep Kalim in the dream by using Snake Whisper. Eventually Kalim has his breakthrough, which is where the Groovy for his new card comes from. He realizes that he believed in a false yet convenient Jamil, he cannot face him anymore.

WAHHHHH look at him 😭 He’s leaking like a faucet… but he’s also trying so hard to wipe away his tears, to be strong and stand on his own to fight against the fake Jamil! Let’s give him a round of applause, folks 👏

(This also means that there is potentially a pattern being established with these new limited main story cards; the Groovies will probably be the character crying as they have their realization that this world is a fake one. Does that mean… Crying J word next time??????? Maybe??? Or nah??? 😭 GOD PLEASE NO MY HEART WOULDN’T BE ABLE TO HANDLE IT—)

Vil tells Kalim that he also did something embarrassing in his own dream so it’s fine. Kalim callously laughs when he hears about Vil bossing Neige around, then quickly apologies because he realizes he was supposed to deny how bad it is.

Kalim joins the party!! He says it feels weird because usually Jamil is the one to wake HIM up.

They hop into Jamil’s dream!! They appear to have landed in a Silk City bazaar. Ortho takes headcount of them like they’re students on a casual field trip, lol

Kalim enjoyed the jump but Vil seems to be having a hard time keeping up. Ortho and Silver will stay with Vil while the rest of them look for Jamil.

Yuu and co. fuck around in the market a little, getting coconut juice (well, Kalim buys 10 at once) and whatever. Guys… now is seriously NOT the time.

While giving them juice, the vendor suddenly becomes hostile towards Kalim and demands payment instead of letting him put it on his family’s tab.

OMG?????? Apparently in Jamil’s dream, the Al-Asims are broke and scam free stuff from the vendors 😭 WHILE JAMIL IS RICH AF

The vendor is calling the POLICE

Silver comes running to save the day!! He says he will pay for his friends and we avoid being hauled off to jail ✨

We continue our search for Jamil, deciding to trek to Kalim’s home in Silk City since that’s where the Vipers live irl. INSTEAD THEY FIND THIS DESOLATE PLACE (reusing the dried up oasis background)

A bystander explains that the Asim familt’s business failed so they had to give up their house. It got moved and repainted black and red… AND NOW JAMIL’S THE MASTER 💀

A guard comes to chase them off and recognizes Kalim as a servant. Turns out, the Vipers bought the old Asim home and employed them as servants to help them out.

… I saw this coming from a mile away, but the cringe of seeing it for myself is too much to bear…

LMAO????? Now we get a rhythmic/twistune of Yuu and co. marching in a parade with Jamil at the head of it.

WhAT YHE FUCK iS ThiS InTERIOR DESIGN, THAT’S LITERLLY A STatUE OF jAfAR DoING THE GOLFING SWING

Jamil is not enrolled in NRC; he is also enrolled in a new magic school called Jahir Sahar College (?).

***Note: "jahir" -> jewels, "sahar"/"sehri" -> wizard or magic!***

Jamil scolds Kaim for wearing a uniform of the wrong color and “corrects” it for him. Kalim casually says thank you but Jamil tells him it is, “JAMIL-SAMA, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!!” He reminds Kalim that the Asims owe the Vipers a debt so large that they cannot hope to repay it in their lifetime, so be sure to be useful to him.

… Bro is power tripping so hard 😭

Jamil becomes suspicious of us but Vil plays it off like we’re students come to research the Scalding Sands for a Film Club activity. He allows us to stay but backhanded comments that we look dumb so we won’t pose a threat.

Jamil then offers to give us a tour SiNCE HE’S THE STUDENT COUNCiL PRESIDENT (Rollo called he wants his title back). I’m guessing this is the case instead of him being dorm leader so Jamil is the ONLY top dog around.

Oh yeah!! Minor thing, magic carpet comes in at some point. Its its colors are closer to that of the magic carpet in the Aladdin film.

He orders Kalim to prepare a feast; Kalim provides water with Oasis Maker and grabs food from the kitchen—all of Jamil’s favorites! But no matter how eager to please he is, Jamil tells him off and makes remarks about how useless Kalim is 😔

xbshgejwgsowkw Yuu and co. are like “WOW, Jamil’s imagination is so strong so it’s going to be hard to wake him up!!” It’s okay, you can say he’s delusional/j

Jamil wavers a little because Kalim begins talking about their childhood memories. It’s stirring up his own recollections, and I think the dream’s interpretation of these evens is clashing with the reality that Kalim shares.

Blah blah blah

Dream!Kalim arrives to kiss Jamil’s ass :v aaand Jamil descends into the darkness…

What we see is a potential future in which Jamil succeeded in book 4; Azul and the Scarabia mobs are under his hypnotic influence… Kalim is gone… and Jamil plans to use the dirt Azul has collected to blackmail the other dorm leaders and take them down. (This lends credence to the idea of him being student council president in his dream because he wants to be the ONLY one in charge.)

LMAO????? Jamil shit talks the dorm leaders 💀 Like saying that no one likes Riddle anyway, how Leona is probably another lazy nepo baby, etc.

AnD THEN AfTER THE DoRM LEADERS HE’s PlANNING ON GOInG AfTER CROWlEY’S iRRESPONSibLE aSS 😭 Jamil has his sights set on ruling over the entire school…

AyO??????????

I THINK KALIM PUNCHED JAMIL AnD THEYmRE fISTFIGHTING?????? PLEASE, THIS IS PATHETIC

They shout about the things they hate the most about each other. Jamil hates Kalim’s optimism, Kalim finally FINALLY declares that he hates how two-faced Jamil is. It’s so intense even the hypnotized students are stunned????

Sebek wants to pummel Jamil too but Silver holds him back. His reasoning??? Sometimes people get emotionally charged and it’s better for them to let those out through their fists instead of their words.

I cannot believe that Silver Vanrouge in our lord 2024 really went, “No, no. Let them cook :)” 🤡

Kalim starts laughing because this is a unique experience to him?? Apparently he and Jamil never fought for real in the 17 years they knew each other. Jamil agrees and says if he neat Kalim up “irl” it would cause problems for everyone… and he realizes his wording and begins questioning the dream world because of that.

He finally wakes up! xbsnbsjwkwkwvdk Kalim is so excited his live 2D model is bouncing on the screen!

The goop returns and drags Jamil to a familiar scene where he OBs and then squares off against his Phantom, similar to what happened with Idia and Vil. Jamil calls his OB self pathetic and always looking for someone to blame. He now sees that view as narrow-minded and limiting.

His Phantom tries to goad him by likening their situation to being genies trapped in a dark and small space, existing to be used their entire lives and not being allowed the freedom they wish for. Admittedly, Jamil has pretty cool lines, saying he doesn’t like the Phantom forcing its own wishes on him. He’s reclaiming his freedom by renouncing the idea of pitying himself. He doesn’t plan to spend his whole life inside that lamp and his wallowing, he is going to make his own wishes come true—not 3 or 10 or 100, but every single one.

(Cue insane Jamil laughter here)

He of course gains the upper hand and rises victorious. Jamil tells Dream!Kalim that he is so polite and subservient it’s disgusting, then he uses Snake Whisper to send him away.

Jamil says there’s no point in changing roles or positions because ultimately the power to decide what happens is his and his alone. He also says he is not interested in power or freedom granted to him by someone else��� He will take what he wants on his own! (Not sure why he’s announcing this when no one asked, but pop off I guess 😂 Vil gave a similar speech when he was facing his own demons, but shorter and I don’t think Idia just mumbled to himself before getting back in contact with Ortho.)

Meeting back up with Yuu and co., Jamil is added to the party! (Kalim tries to glomp him in a hug but Jamil expertly dodges ‘xbssvzjav$c(/?/)

Okay, so Vil is staying behind because he doesn’t feel well and doesn’t want to hold the group back. Kalim also stays behind because he’s still covered in bruises and such from fist fighting Jamil. This will probably be another pattern that occurs moving forward; only the OB boy moves on with the group.

Next time… Octavinelle’s dreams and maybe J word crying card 👀!

I think by this time, we already know what to expect in terms of general events. Going into a dream, experiencing it for a short time, learning shocking news about the circumstances, character uses UM, character learns the truth, character cries and fights the dream (who is trying to keep them there), character joins party. If it’s an OB boy, then they will get more screen time and a dedicated segment to fighting their Phantom and then giving a speech about their character development before joining us. Then only the OB boy will dream hop with the Yuu, Grim, Silver, Sebek, Idia, and Ortho while the boys stay behind with the projected selves Ortho creates. Rinse and repeat the formula, and you can probably easily predict what’s coming in future updates.

In terms of this update, I gotta say that I’m impressed Kalim finally followed through on the promise of decking Jamil… a promise he made all the way back in book 4!! While he doesn’t do it with any malicious intent, I think it’s a large stride going forward in having Kalim assert himself and acknowledge the faults that Jamil very obviously has.

As for Jamil... I think it’s becoming pretty obvious what they’re going for in those OB boy scenes; clearly, they mean to have it be like he is speaking to his “other half” in the mirror, a reflection of himself. In this way, each boy confronts the worst aspects of them and comes to terms with it. It’s meant to represent their character growth from when they first appeared in the main story. I’m just… not sure if I like how it’s been handled overall; I do like everyone’s speeches so far (they are good; Jamil’s especially slays with all the thematically appropriate allusions to genies and wish-granting), but I’m less enthusiastic about the context under which these speeches are given. I will most likely make a separate post going into detail about this, but I figured I’d at least lay my general thoughts out here first.

ahbfbyoqwv8yfqwv8q The highlight of this update this time was just seeing how unhinged Jamil's desires are when given no limitations. It's such a shockingly large role reversal to stick himself in the head honcho seat with zero opposition AND force Kalim into being humbled. When the tables turn on him, Jamil is so quick to being a ruthless and cold master 💦 HE'S FR THE TYPE OF GUY THAT ISNT JUST SATISFIED SUCCEEDING, HE ALSO NEEDS YOU TO FAIL The more of these dreams we see, the more we get the sense that Malleus's idea of happiness is VERY shallow. This was something already verbalized by Idia last update, but I feel it needs repeating because of how difficult to resolve Kalim and Jamil's relationship is. The way his solutions are so... absolute (Kalim and Jamil being besties and/or a complete role reversal) reminds me of the points I often hear from fans who say, "Kalim could free Jamil! Kalim should talk to his dad!" There's good intentions behind it, but it ultimately misses the forest for the trees (that being the complicated social nuances surrounding their families). It's an out-of-body experience seeing that viewpoint displayed via Malleus's magic, but it also feels cathartic to see it being dispelled as being nothing close to reality.

Those are all my thoughts for now!! Really looking forward to the next installment :)) and its potential for... crying J word... Though who knows, maybe it’s just for light trio only and I’m delulu—