#Parallel Array Sorting

[dollfacefantasy]

LOCK AND KEY ♡

pairing: yakuza!ryomen sukuna x fem!reader x yakuza!satoru gojo

summary: you finally have a chance at a big break in your career, a story that would take you from a measly crime reporter to a real journalist. the only catch is it's about the two most dangerous men in the city. when they find out about it, surely nothing will go wrong...

cw: nsfw (18+), smut, non/dubcon, kidnapping (sort of), threesome, p in v, blowjobs, facefucking, biting, spitting, praise/degradation, mentions of violence + blood + murder + typical crime stuff

a/n: this is a belated birthday gift for my bestie @kaitkatme who i love so very much. i hope you like it <3 also thank you to @explorevenus @nexysworld and @fearcvlt for beta reading!! as always reblogs and comments are appreciated.

Your eyes fluttered open to stare at the ground below you. They found carpet you didn’t recognize. The spot directly beneath your face was soaked a darker shade by a pool of your blood. You could feel the source — a steady stream of crimson leaking from your nose. A dull ache throbbed through your skull as you tried to recall what led you to this point. Where were you? And why were you waking up here?

Lifting your head, you scanned the rest of your surroundings. Whoever was keeping you put you in a dark room doused in red lighting. Windows speckled the walls parallel to you while a large grand door took up the one opposite. Every surface appeared ominous, drenched in shadows. Obsidian carpet dusted the floor. You were thankful for that aspect since you’d been positioned on your knees. That foamy layer was the only thing sparing your joints from soreness right now.

Furniture was sparse throughout this place. A large sectional couch with thick seats sat in one corner while what looked to be a small kitchenette took up another. It seemed like a guest house; though, you didn’t see any makings of a bedroom. Perhaps it was located in the alcove you couldn’t see to your left.

Near the entrance stood a mirror. Through its reflective pane you were able to see your situation and the position of your limbs despite the stiffness in your neck.

You were bound at the wrists with restraints that tied to your ankles. They connected back to the wall behind you as well. That was how you managed to stay upright even while unconscious. Thankfully, all of your clothes had been kept on. Despite the bruising and blood on your face, you couldn’t see or feel any signs of other injuries.

Still, these factors didn’t answer any questions.

Your memories were returning to you, slowly and one at a time, but building a bigger picture nonetheless. This morning you’d woken up at the same time you always did. You went through the usual steps of your routine before walking to work. A man had catcalled you on your way. When you’d told him to fuck off, he called you a ‘stupid stuck-up bitch’ in return. You remembered fishing your phone out, jotting down a sentence in your notes app about doing a story on street harassment at some point in the future.

Earlier in the day, gray clouds had masked the sky as water drizzled down like half-hearted tears. When you arrived at the dreary office complex that constituted your workplace, you strolled right into the elevator and stood silently. Two men entered after you, crowding your smaller frame towards the back. They spoke as if you weren’t even there and carried on their conversation about potential solutions to the problem that was their wives not putting out enough since having babies number two and three.

Another note. A potential investigative report into marital rape.

When the doors in front of you had finally parted, you squeezed between the two sets of broad shoulders to freedom. You made your way through the array of desks ahead and found your own towards the back corner of the room. Right away, you slipped your phone into the drawer before booting up the computer. Those other stories could wait. The one you were working on today blew both out of the water.

You had clicked on the little folder in the top right corner of the screen. The one with no label. A slew of documents popped up across your screen. Faked financial forms, criminal records, suppressed victim statements, old news clippings. And your itinerary with one last interview lined up for tonight at 8 pm. 

The final nail in the coffins that you built for Satoru Gojo and Ryomen Sukuna.

It would be the last piece of evidence you needed on the two leaders of the worst crime families in this city. An exclusive account with a former member of the Gojo Clan who worked closely with Sukuna’s circle on their shared endeavors and was now turning on them both as he fled for his life? This would make your career.

No longer would this paper have you reporting on the lower rungs of the crime beat. With all the work you’d done for this, your editor would be forced to acknowledge your talent and dedication. You’d be given good stories that would help innocent people and make actual change. You wouldn’t have to interview burnt out cops or clueless onlookers about a car accident. With Satoru Gojo and Ryomen Sukuna’s collective downfall as a mark on your resume, you would do so much more.

Finally, you would be a real journalist.

The rest of the day had been pretty mundane if you remembered correctly. You’d spent most of your hours writing the beginning of your article and then prepping for the interview later.

The interview…

You’d been on your way to that when the memories stopped. The sky was already dark when you left the building. Golden streetlights glowed every twenty feet or so along your path. You remembered running your questions through your head as you walked, preparing for the possibility that you’d have to talk this guy back into sharing if he started getting cold feet.

Someone had called out to you though. It startled you. That you remembered. You didn’t see anyone else on the street, but that deep tone hailed you all the same. He hadn’t said your name. It’d just been something vague like lady or miss. Clearly not anyone who knew you.

But you looked in that direction all the same. Your eyes met a shadowy figure before pain radiated through your entire face.

Then everything went dark.

The most obvious conclusion to you now was that this had something to do with your scheduled interview. But you figured if that were the case, your body would already be floating through some river by now. Such was the fate of those who came too close to toppling the house of cards.

Something similar happened to the last guy who tried to expose the Yakuza syndicates. It was a few years ago, but you didn’t forget. How could you? He’d sat at the desk closest to your left. You could still remember his pudgy face and thick glasses.

Even worse, you could still remember the photos of him strung up in that slaughter house.

Well… at least you weren’t strung up yet. Bound and bruised maybe, but that didn’t mean certain death. After all, this was a pretty nice room to keep someone in for the sole purpose of execution.

The thoughts swirling through your head soon came to an end as you heard muffled voices outside the room. They started out barely noticeable but grew louder as seconds ticked on. You had just enough time to mentally brace yourself before that large door opened.

Two men entered the room. Your eyelids were still a bit heavy, but you didn’t need 20/20 vision to recognize them.

Standing next to each other, the pair looked like polar opposites. Both were muscular, but one was lean and the other bulky. Both wore designer t-shirts, but the lean one sported black while the bulky one chose white. Both of them looked at you like an apex predator, but the one in black with piercing blue eyes and the other in white with smoldering red.

Satoru Gojo & Ryomen Sukuna.

Your heart stopped beating in your chest. As if lifted by mere survival instinct, your eyes no longer gave you trouble. You could see in clear view as the two men approached you. An unnerving smile claimed Satoru’s face. The arrogance was there on Sukuna as well, just a much more muted version of it.

“Good. She’s awake now,” you heard Sukuna’s deep voice rumble. “She’s been passed out for a few hours.”

“I bet. Poor thing’s probably tired. Looks like your guys roughed her up a bit,” Satoru said, his lips turning into an exaggerated frown.

Your eyes flitted between the two of them. They didn’t have any weapons that you could see. Maybe you’d be spared for a little while longer.

“What… what’s going on?” you asked, struck by how raspy your own voice sounded.

The two of them looked at you, taking in your haggard appearance along with the will to survive you still possessed.

Satoru grinned impossibly wider.

“Awww, that’s how you know she’s a good little reporter. Already asking questions,” he teased.

His hand stretched out towards you as if he wanted to pat you on the head like you were a prized pup. Instead, you wrenched away like a wounded animal. You tried to escape his touch with such force that you nearly toppled over. He simply laughed at your close call, but another strong grip on your shoulder spared you from faceplanting.

Nausea rolled through you at the sudden touch. Never in your life had you wanted to crawl out of your own skin so badly. Sukuna’s palm was warm but rough. Something someone might mistake for human if they didn’t know the kind of man it belonged to. You looked up at him through your lashes. Unlike Satoru, he didn’t wear a teasing smirk or hold any amusement in his eyes.

“Let go of me,” you whimpered. You hated how weak your voice sounded. It came out scared and desperate, which to be fair, you were both. You just didn’t want it to be so obvious. But something about Sukuna stripped you bare, shattered your usual methods of concealment.

“Quiet,” he said. 

To your surprise, his fingers released your bicep, giving you a second of peace. But that was only so they could grab your jaw instead. The calloused tips dug into your cheeks. There was no pulling away now.

Satoru clicked his tongue. “You’re gonna learn real quick that you wanna be nice to me, sweetheart. I’m much more friendly than him.”

While held still, Satoru fished a white cloth from his pocket. He brought it to your face, wiping the tacky blood off your nose and lips before tossing it onto a nearby table.

Despite his minor kindness, you chose to ignore all that his statement implied. In your mind, both of them were equally horrible, and you didn’t want to get to know them well enough to discern which of the two was slightly less evil.

At work, you were forced to look at pictures of them constantly. Their cocky grins and intense stares filled the paper. You had to flip through page after page of stories about their scandalous escapades or legal dramas to get to your pieces at the back. 

You loathed it. 

Everyone in this city knew they were dirty. All of you knew that they made their money from the blood of others, that they stayed in power by shooting down any competition. But somehow everyone came to an agreement that you would all pretend they were just typical elite socialites. That their money came from their established bloodlines and that they kept it up through skillful investments.

You’d been so close to unraveling the lies. But it didn’t matter anymore. Not right now anyways. All you could do in this moment was survive. And to do that, you decided to focus on the more serious member of the duo. You figured he would give a better chance at getting out of here. Or at least a way of reaching a destination without so much drawn out anticipation.

“Where am I?” you asked.

Another brief moment of silence went by. Your question remained unanswered.

“Why are you keeping me here?” you tried.

“You really don’t know?” Sukuna said. The words sounded rough and scratchy, but his cadence was so smooth it sickened you. “You’re a clever girl. I’m sure you have some idea.”

You shook your head.

With your face held in place by Sukuna’s strong hand, Satoru reached out and actually managed to sweep his palm over your head. And not just once. He took advantage of your predicament and pet you several times, smiling at the grimace that overtook your features.

“Come on. Don’t insult us. We know you’re smarter than that,” he teased. “You’d have to be to find out all that you did.”

“How did you-” you started to ask. You’d been so careful. You secured every connection, terminated every unnecessary history of contact, kept all your information as private as possible. They couldn’t have traced you, so how did they know?

“It doesn’t matter how,” Satoru said.

“I was careful! I-”

“You were so careful, you didn’t think that it was possible we might have a few of your coworkers on our payrolls?” Sukuna interjected.

Fury, anguish, and humiliation rushed through you all at once because, no, you hadn’t considered that. You’d never entertained the idea that any of the people you worked with would sell you out. No part of you regarded any of them as paragons of journalism, but some optimistic shred of your psyche had refused to even contemplate that idea.

“That’s right, sweetheart,” Satoru said, taking clear enjoyment from your faith in the world being shattered.”Your boss couldn’t have been more willing to give you up. He let us know all about your little story a few weeks ago.”

That reveal stung even worse. The past few weeks, all the nights you stayed late, all the hours you spent poring over documents and trying to find people willing to talk, all for nothing. In fact, you wouldn’t be surprised if that interview you’d been heading to had been set up under the supervision of one of them.

You tried to stifle any further dismay, not wanting to give them any more satisfaction. You should’ve known asking how was futile. You had to change your angle, focus on the relevant information. They had discovered your intentions to go after them. Now you just had to look for a way to survive.

Internally, you tried to contemplate your current options. Really only two came to mind. Comply or deny. Neither sounded appealing, but you decided on the one you believed would speed things along.

“So what? Why am I even here? You killed my story already. There’s nothing else I can do,” you said. You fought with your vocal chords to keep your words even, to appear some kind of tough.

“Do you think we really believe you’ll just let this go?” Sukuna asked in return.

“We know you won’t accept a pay off. You’re way too honest for that. And a few vague threats won’t do the trick either,” Satoru said, squatting down to be eye level with you. “But-”

“Why haven’t you just killed me then?” you asked, cutting Satoru off. Your eyes stayed angled at Sukuna.

For the first time, your defiance seemingly got under his skin. It cracked the cocky exterior he’d so carefully crafted with each word he spoke. That sparkle in his eyes dulled a little bit. 

Before you could really register it, his hand darted for your face again. He wormed his long fingers underneath the thickness of Sukuna’s palm, flexing off the other hand. With a small jerk, you were looking at him again.

“What’d I say about being nice?” he asked. The words weren’t overtly angry. Impatient, low and tense sounding, but not angry. Not yet.

You didn’t dignify the question with a verbal response. Without even breaking your harsh glare towards him, you spit. Your saliva flew across the small gap between your faces and struck his cheek. The clear glob landed right below his eye. You almost flinched at the contact, so certain a volatile reaction from him would follow. But it didn’t. Instead, that sparkle flickered again. Amusement glowed at the center of his irises once more.

With a quiet chuckle, he wiped your spit from his cheek. He then brought those same saliva-coated fingers to his mouth and popped them inside, cleaning them of your fluids. 

Your face twisted into a grimace. You couldn’t recall seeing something more repulsive in your entire life. That made him laugh.

“You’re disgusting,” you said.

“And you’re so cute,” he teased, pulling you back in his direction.

On his other side, Sukuna tilted your chin upwards. He didn’t interject to help you, didn’t bother pulling Satoru back. He just watched as the other man leaned forward, brushing his nose along the shell of your ear before nipping at the lobe.

Your eyes squeezed shut, and you tried to pull away. Satoru’s tongue slid from between his lips to trace a path down your neck. He kissed along the thumping artery in your neck, his lips pressing against your skin in time with the strong pulse.

“We have other uses for you,” Sukuna answered your original question, his grip on your neck still firm. “You’re much more valuable to us alive than dead.”

Uses. The word sent a chill down your spine.

“I’d never do anything to help the two of you,” you said.

He chuckled, deep and raspy, not at all concerned with your protest. “That’s not your decision, little one.”

A rush of involuntary heat flooded your body following the term of endearment. You refused to acknowledge it. Your body was just confused by the objectively pleasant touches. 

His hand slipped around to the back of your neck as he crouched to be level with you too. He gave the sensitive flesh there a squeeze. You had limited mobility with your limbs bound, but you still tried squirming away from Satoru’s wandering mouth.

Upon feeling you recoil, Sukuna’s hold tightened further, like an owner’s grasp on the scruff of their puppy’s neck.

“Just tell me what you want. You don’t have to torture me first,” you whimpered.

“Oh c’mon, princess. Does this really feel like torture?” Satoru cooed with a final kiss to your cheek. He pulled back to look into your eyes. Despite the softness in his voice, he still looked so fucking smug. You hated it.

“What do you want from me?” you tried again. 

While you could put up a good fight, you found your resistance breaking down pretty quickly under the constant touching. Half of you trembled with visceral hatred, pure revulsion at the feeling of their skin on your body. But the other half, the one you wouldn’t admit to if you could help it, felt something closer to frustration welling up because they were teasing. They weren’t giving you any real satisfaction.

Everything was too much, and you just wanted away from them. The contradictory mix of emotions was making your head pound and your chest ache. You closed your eyes tight again, hoping that maybe if you believed it enough, this would turn out to be some sick nightmare, and you’d wake up alone in your own bed.

“All we need from you is your cooperation. Be a good girl and listen,” Sukuna said. He gave the nape of your neck another squeeze, his nails digging into the delicate skin.

Your eyes opened again, connecting with his red ones. They gleamed so bright it looked as though actual rubies had been embedded into his sockets. 

At the same time, Satoru ducked in again to lay some more kisses upon your throat. His hands settled on your waist, smoothing up and down your soft curves. Every time they lowered, you could feel them pushing the line, testing how far they could delve beneath the hem of your shirt before you gave a severe reaction.

“You know this feels good,” Satoru murmured between kisses.

“No it doesn’t,” you said.

He chuckled at that, not letting up in the slightest. With a soft, disapproving click of his tongue, he tutted at you. “You’re lying. You can say you don’t like it all you want, but your body betrays you. Your skin is getting all warm, you’re squirming, and I bet… if I were to feel right here, you’d be all nice and wet for me,” he whispered as his right set of fingers slid between your legs, pressing on the seam of your slacks.

You jolted in surprise. A small squeal bursted from your lips at the sudden pressure there. You tried clenching your legs shut without losing balance, but it didn’t matter. His lithe digits continued sliding back and forth unobstructed.

Against your will, you whimpered. You couldn’t help it. He was stroking you just right, and as much as you hated it, it felt fucking good. His fingertips coasted over your pulsing clit and massaged your entrance where you already knew, true to his inference, you were starting to drip.

Drawing your attention back to him, Sukuna’s other hand came up to cup your jaw. His thumb landed on the seam of your lips before nudging its way in.

“Try to bite, and we’ll both lose a finger,” he warned.

You didn’t even entertain the possibility that he could be bluffing. If you caused the slightest bit of pain to his thumb, you were certain he’d inflict ten times as much onto you. So you did nothing. You felt the warm thickness of it on your tongue, felt the calloused pad against your soft muscle.

He pulled it back and forth a bit, in and out, testing you. In all honesty, you didn’t find yourself wanting to bite. Rather, your lips closed around his thumb with more purpose, actively accepting the digit instead of loosely allowing it.

“There you go,” he praised. “You already know what to do.”

Nausea bubbled up in the back of your throat again, but it was short lived, overpowered by the muted bliss Satoru was stroking into you down below. You let your eyes droop closed and even laved your tongue on his digit. 

It was slowly setting in that you weren’t going to get out of this. You figured the next best thing would probably be playing nice until another opportunity for escape arose.

Seconds later, you felt warm breath puffing against the side of your throat unoccupied by Satoru’s mouth. Little chills broke out over your skin. His other hand fell from the back of your neck, down your spine to the small of your back. He pulled you a little closer to the both of them. As close as he could while you were still restrained.

“You don’t have to admit you like it, little one. Just stop fighting. Let it happen.”

With that, he moved in on your neck too. He was rougher than Satoru. His teeth scraped over your sensitive flesh before his mouth latched onto a specific patch of skin. He bit it. Not just a little tantalizing nip. An actual bite. You gasped, tilting your head back and inadvertently giving them more access.

The bite on your neck wasn’t hard enough to draw blood, but it was sure to leave a mark. He started with just that one before continuing with a series of more down towards your shoulder.

Despite this, Satoru remained relatively gentle. He worked in the opposite direction, heading up towards your lips. His eyes rose to be level with yours. That same cocky attitude glimmered within.

“Still think I’m disgusting?” he asked.

“Repulsive even,” you replied.

“Let’s see if I can get you to think of some other big words to describe me,” he said, ducking in to connect his mouth with yours.

At first, your body tensed. You stiffened up under his touch. But in a matter of moments, you slowly began to kiss back. Your lips tentatively mimicked his movements before you found yourself settling into a rhythm. He was still vile, but his kisses maybe weren’t so bad…

With Satoru occupying most of your attention, you didn’t notice Sukuna’s hands falling away or his mouth receding from your marked-up neck. Your eyes were shut while making out, so you also didn’t see him stand up. You didn’t catch him undoing his fly and dropping his pants either.

The first indication of his changed position you got was the fat leaky tip of his cock nudging your cheek.

Reluctantly, you disconnected from Satoru’s mouth, turning your head to eye the interruption. As it came into your view, you had to make a conscious effort not to let your brows raise to the ceiling. In all your life, you’d never seen a guy so big. Not only was his shaft long, but it was so fucking thick. Your mind wasn’t even concerned with who it belonged to right now. You could only watch in awe as his fist slid up and down, stroking it with a tight grip.

Satoru didn’t seem as phased as you. He grabbed the other man’s cock without hesitation, eliciting a sharp hiss from him.

You watched as he gave it a couple strokes of his own while rising to his feet. It was only a few before Sukuna pried his hand away with a strong grip on his wrist.

“Watch it,” he warned, similar to the tone he used with you.

“Cool it, big guy. You’re just as bad as her. Acting like you don’t like something that obviously feels good,” he teased.

You were sure if anyone else had said that, they wouldn’t get the chance to speak like that again. But Sukuna only scowled at him before reaching for your head. He pulled you in closer, looking down at your wide eyes as his dick slid across the side of your face. 

He rubbed it across one of your cheeks, then the other. His eyes took in every little reaction you had. The small crinkles of discomfort, the shuddery breaths of desire. He took his time, toying and teasing before he actually brought it before your lips, so close that a few beads of precum smeared on your bottom lip.

“Wha- what do you want me to do?” you said. 

It wasn’t that you didn’t know. It was that you didn’t think you could.

For the first time, he laughed. And it wasn’t like Satoru’s. Nothing about the sound was lighthearted or fun. It was a deep, sadistic rumble. A sound that was the final many heard before they met their end.

“What does it look like I want you to do? Open that pretty mouth and suck it,” he said. The hand on the back of your head moved you in closer, slipping the tip just past your lips. “Same rules as before: you try biting, and I’ll make the slaughterhouse seem like a fantasy.”

You hadn’t planned on resisting anyways, but after hearing that, all the fight seeped out of your body. At first, you didn’t put much effort in either. You just kind of sat there on your haunches, letting him do as he pleased.

He pushed his hips forward. His cock slid into your mouth inch by inch. It was only a second or two before you felt his head starting to nudge the back of your throat. The urge to gag pricked at you, but you tried your hardest to suppress it.

You squeezed your eyes shut while keeping your jaw loose and your fists clenched. He rocked in and out of the warm embrace your throat provided.

Even with your eyes closed, you still sensed Satoru’s presence. His spindly fingers caressed the top of your head and trailed along your temple. A touch probably intended to be soothing, but one that came across to you as teasing.

Following a few more shallow thrusts, you felt a tug at the back of your head. It was too jerky to be Satoru. Your eyes opened to find those same red eyes staring down at you again, a lecherous grin spread across Sukuna’s mouth.

“Trying to make me do all the work?” he said. “You’re still as a corpse down there. If I wanted to fuck one of those, I would’ve killed you.”

You tried mumbling out a sorry, but around the dick in your mouth, the word was incoherent. He didn’t need to give further direction. You began lightly bobbing your head. The movements started off tentative, as if you were still figuring out how to move at all, but slowly, you found your rhythm.

Your eyes closed again, but this time not as tight. Like his thumb before, his cock served as a distraction. You didn’t have to think right now. Didn’t have to worry about how you would get out of this. Didn’t have to ruminate over how you would day get revenge. All you had to do was work on taking his dick farther and farther down your throat with each push of your head.

“Atta girl…” he mumbled from above.

A slow exhale blew from your nostrils. His relaxed tone eased your nerves as well. The pace at which you sucked became more languid. Your head swooped closer to his pelvis more fluidly. Saliva oozed from your mouth, thoroughly coating his length and your chin.

In the midst of losing yourself to the task at hand, a whisper broke through your bubble.

“Gonna untie you now, princess, so we can both play with you.” Satoru’s breath fanned against your ear as he spoke. “You better behave. I won’t mind chasing you down, but I don’t think it’ll be as fun for you,” he said as his fingers came around back to free your arms from their bindings.

The ties fell loose and dropped to the floor. Instantly, you brought your wrists to your chests, massaging the skin that felt raw from the rough material of the restraints. You swiveled them to get the blood flowing normal again all while still flicking your tongue against the ridge of Sukuna’s tip.

You heard him choke out a groan before pulling you off, a ragged breath spilling from his lungs. At the same time, you sucked air in. You took in all that you could while your airway wasn’t obstructed.

“Fuck… that’s a good girl,” he praised. You again ignored the heat that flashed through your lower abdomen.

Your eyes opened again, your lids feeling a little weighted this time around. They both came into your view. Sukuna’s cock hung between you and him, shining with your saliva and dripping pearly precum from the head. On the other side, Satoru also had his dick out now. He stroked it in your direction. It was also impressive in size, long and thick enough to make your mouth water, but after seeing the monster between Sukuna’s thighs, you didn’t feel apprehensive.

“Cute… she already looks a little cockdrunk, and she’s only had you,” he said.

Less patient than his counterpart, Satoru yanked your head closer and sheathed himself entirely inside your mouth in one go. You actually gagged this time around, globs of your spit leaking from your mouth as your eyes watered. Your hands flew up to his thighs in an attempt to brace yourself, but he kept you as close as possible, your nose nestled against the swath of coarse white hair.

You could hear them both laugh a bit and say something back and forth to one another, though specifics evaded your ears. Sweet humiliation floods your veins at the sounds. Satoru keeps you in place, not moving while throbbing in your mouth.

Although Sukuna had explicitly said no biting, he never said anything about your nails. You dug them into the meat of Satoru’s thighs as hard as you could, until the pale skin turned pink with little crescent markings.

Instead of hissing in pain and ripping you off of him, Satoru moaned. His hips bucked forward, lodging his shaft so deep in your throat you actually thought you were at risk of choking and dying. Your vision faded and noises grew distant.

Just as you thought you were about to lose consciousness, he tugged you backwards. Not all the way off his dick, far enough that you were still drooling on the tip as oxygen came back to you. The clear fluid oozed from between your lips like a leaky faucet.

“There we go. That’s better,” he hummed before easing your mouth on him again.

You took some initiative, hoping that might spare you from another close call with blacking out. Your tongue slithered over his veins as you’d done for Sukuna. The other man in question who was reaching out to stroke your head.

“Don’t forget about me,” he teased, nudging his hips at you a bit.

Your hand came up without thinking. You wrapped your fingers around his thicker shaft and began stroking it at a rhythm a bit slower than the one your mouth moved at. It seemed to satisfy him. He didn’t say anything else, nor did he make a move to handle you.

Satoru did however.

Your mouth’s smooth pace only staved off his enthusiasm for so long. Before you knew it, each of those large hands came to rest on either side of your head. They held you in place, held you still so he could take over the motions.

He wasn’t too rough at first, gentle as someone could be while fucking your face. His thrusts remained shallow and even. You kept your focus on twisting your hand around Sukuna’s length. You couldn’t see what you were actually doing, but as large as he was, there wasn’t really a chance of losing him.

As the pleasure started to build for Satoru, he got a little faster, a tad overeager. He wasn’t ramming his dick down your throat, but he was starting to move faster. You could barely keep up with it. It was intoxicating in a way; left you feeling lightheaded and spun out of order.

We have other uses for you. Sukuna’s earlier statement echoed through your mind again. They definitely were using you. Satoru rutted against your mouth as though it was a toy crafted just for him, and Sukuna watched the skilled swivel of your fingers like it would be eternal.

You lost track of time down on your knees.

You weren’t quite sure how long you’d been down there by the time Satoru was stepping back and letting his cock drop from between your lips. Not that it mattered. It wasn’t like you were so eager to see what else they had in store for you.

Your eyes cracked open again. You hadn’t realized they’d even shut. The first thing in your line of sight was Satoru’s shaft, still hard and flushed and soaked with your saliva. From there, your pupils rose, gazing upon the two grins above.

Satoru reached out to pet your head, and this time you didn’t pull away in the slightest. Instead, your head leaned into the tender touch, nuzzled at the palm providing you a sliver of comfort.

“That’s it. You’re coming around,” he cooed. “We just have to break you in a little.”

His voice actually sounded kind of nice when it wasn’t polluted by that arrogant lilt. It hit your ears all smooth and soft, like a steady stream of champagne poured into a glass.

Almost a polar opposite, Sukuna spoke from beside him.

“Get her up. Move over there,” he said, tilting his head in the direction of the couches.

“You got it,” Satoru said in a sing-song tone.

He gave your head one more caress before ducking around back to untie your ankles. The restraints came apart quickly under his nimble fingers. After they slipped off, you felt the same relief flood your feet that you’d felt earlier in your hands.

He scooped you up off the ground, cradling you in his arms like a bride. Despite being leaner than Sukuna, he didn’t lack any strength. He moved with the same fluidity that he’d entered the room with.

Under normal circumstances, you would have fought him every step of the way. Each step would have seen you kicking and squirming, trying to get him to drop you just so you could scramble to freedom. But in all honesty, you were in no condition to scramble. Being on your knees so long had left them feeling like jello. You doubted you could successfully make the short trip to the couch let alone bolt through an unfamiliar house in an unfamiliar area.

Upon reaching the luxurious seats, Satoru sat down and put you in his lap, another move you would have protested if you didn’t feel so off balance right now. He held you to his chest, stroking down your neck and onto your shoulders. Sukuna sat one cushion over from the two of you.

Without saying anything, he took your legs into his lap. You just watched, unsure of his intentions. But all that came of the move was the soothing feeling of his thick fingers massaging your calves one at a time.

All you could do was blink. You weren’t sure what you’d been expecting, but that wasn’t it. His digits dug into your muscle with obvious strength, but it wasn’t at all painful. If anything it felt nice, like an aid to your circulation after being bound for hours on end. You just couldn’t comprehend why he would want to do it.

Breaking you from your confusion, Satoru whispered in your ear, “Let’s get you out of this dirty thing.”

At first, you didn’t know what he meant. However, upon looking down, you realized the front of your shirt had become stained with both blood and saliva. It was in rough shape, much worse condition than when you’d put it on this morning for work.

You didn’t really try to stop him from pulling it off your body. It would be pointless. Instead, you remained motionless as he slid each of your arms from the sleeves and guided it off your torso. The fabric’s absence sent a small shiver through you.

He brought the shirt up, using it as a makeshift cloth to cleanse your face of any remaining spit from your jaw.

“So pretty even when you’re all messy,” he praised quietly, dropping the garment to the floor beside the couch.

You assumed your bra would be the next thing to go, but Satoru’s fingers targeted the button on your slacks instead. He popped the silver out of place and slid the zipper down before shimmying you out of them. Again, with your current lack of strength in your legs, the process went easy, like removing clothes from a doll.

“You’re being so good right now. Keep it up, and you’re really gonna like it here,” Sukuna said while continuing his slow massage on your legs.

For a split second, that sentence triggered your journalistic instincts that you thought Satoru’s cock had knocked out of your head. You’re gonna like it here. So they were planning to keep you around. This wouldn’t be a one thing. They weren’t sending you out with a bang. It was as Satoru had said. They were breaking you in.

You didn’t really understand why. The trouble of keeping you prisoner didn’t seem worth the spoils they gained from it. At least in your mind.

Reading the confusion written all over your face, Sukuna’s palms slid up to your thighs. He tugged you down a little bit. You shifted from Satoru’s lap to the cool material of the couch, leaving only your head on his thigh.

The large hands spread your legs apart. Another shudder coursed through your body. You felt completely vulnerable in this position, like a small puppy caught between two wolves, your soft belly left exposed for their sharp claws and teeth.

Though nothing so ghastly happened. Sukuna’s fingertips continued to ghost over your inner thighs and hips, the touch feather-light.

“You have something to say?” he said.

But you shook your head.

“You do,” he continued. “Come on. I won’t bite. Not again anyway.”

“I just… so you’re really not gonna kill me?” you said, your voice wary.

“We already told you we weren’t,” Satoru chided from above, his hand stroking your cheek.

“But why? What’s the point? Why would you keep a loose end?” you asked. You knew you should probably shut up. Why argue against your own survival? But the innate curiosity inside of you craved an answer.

“You won’t be a loose end,” Sukuna said. “You’ll be under lock and key here. There won’t be any risk of you getting loose.”

His hands began to push your thighs up against your sides. Heat flooded your cheeks. The position left you totally exposed in the most compromising way. You wanted to ask why; although, you had a hunch, but you figured they may begin to grow annoyed with your questions.

He could tell you weren’t satisfied.

“You may not understand why, but killing you would be such a waste. You’re smart, calculating, and you’re not bad to look at,” he said. 

One of his thumbs began to graze the center of your panties, eliciting a gasp from you. Up and down, the pad of his digit traced from your slit up to your clit.

“You’ll be nice to have around, a good little stress reliever. And when you’ve proven yourself enough, you’ll be useful to the business as well,” he went on, completely matter-of-fact.

“I don’t want to-” you started to whimper. But he cut you off with a swat between your legs.

“What did I tell you? It’s not up to you. Would you rather end up like the last guy?”

You shook your head again.

“Good. So don’t worry about that for now. Keep being a good girl, and we’ll talk about it more later,” he said.

His fingers hooked around your panties, beginning to tug them down your legs. You squirmed in response; both the cool air hitting your most sensitive spot and the idea of him seeing all of you like this making you anxious. Your thighs tried to close on instinct, but he blocked that and kept you open to his eyes.

“Ah-ah. Behave,” he tutted.

He pulled your panties the rest of the way off without incident. His eyes trained on your now revealed pussy like it was prey.

“You really are pretty,” he said. “I’ll have to get a taste later.”

Later. A part of you was almost disappointed. But before you had time to register that disappointment, his fingers swiped through your folds.

You gasped softly. His digits caressed over the slick skin with an exploratory touch, gauging how wet you were.

At the same time, Satoru’s fingers slid beneath your bra straps. The smooth pads of his finger tips also ventured South as they coasted towards your breasts. He squeezed them under the material of the cups. His thumb and index finger toyed with your nipple for a second before undoing the clasp in front so it could end up pooled with your shirt on the floor.

“You’re gonna take both of us,” Sukuna said as his fingers glided across your entrance.

“At the same time?” you squeaked.

“Not today,” Satoru teased. He leaned forward, smiling upside down at you.

“We don’t wanna ruin you right away,” Sukuna added.

You wondered what exactly not ruining you would entail, but you didn’t have to wait long. Seconds later those thick fingers receded from your cunt and tapped your hip.

“On all fours. Facing me.”

You followed the order as though you were being timed, flipping over and swiveling around. Satoru rewarded your new position with a firm smack to your ass. You bit your lip in shame. Neither of them needed to hear the embarrassing sound that wanted out of your mouth.

The sound of ruffling clothes came from behind you. Probably Satoru removing his shirt. You didn’t make an effort to find out for certain. It was only background noise to the man in front of you.

He held your jaw in the palm of his hand. With a bit more pressure, you were sure he could crush the bones there. But he didn’t. He just kept you still, watching every little reaction on your face.

You felt Satoru line up behind you. It was obvious when he started to push in. Your brows furrowed. Your lips rounded out into a little ‘o.’ Even though his girth hadn’t made you gawk, it still stretched you a little as he worked himself all the way inside.

A small squeak forced itself from between your lips as he bottomed out and his silky tip bumped your cervix.

“Good girl,” Sukuna purred from in front of you. “Just keep holding still.”

The deep timbre of his voice had your insides fluttering. Your walls massaged Satoru’s shaft with every little contraction.

He groaned from behind you. “Fuck… she’s tight,” he sighed as he began to rock his hips.

You moaned, the motion of him unsheathing himself from you almost as nice as when he filled you up completely. He started off at a slow pace, back and forth in a nice steady rhythm, striking deep with every thrust. Your breaths grew shaky, and your fingers clutched the cushion beneath you.

It was only a matter of moments before he started to speed up. He wasn’t jackhammering yet, but he was on the road there. His pelvis slapped against your ass in quick succession, the sound beginning to echo in the dark room. You bit your lip while letting yourself adjust. If not for Sukuna’s palm below your chin, you had no doubt your head would be hanging by now.

He just continued looking down at you, scarlet eyes baring into your very soul, making absolutely sure you got no break.

“You’re taking it so well, letting him get you all warmed up for me,” he praised.

Your body shuddered. You could only imagine what Sukuna would feel like. Thicker than Satoru but just as long. Would he handle you like this? Would he go harder or slower? Would he cum quick or last until you were begging for mercy. You supposed it wasn’t really worth thinking about. You’d find out once Satoru finished, and given how often he was moaning back there, you had a hunch that would be sooner rather than later.

You kind of wished you could see his face — how that pretty pale skin flushed with desire, how those dark pupils dilated within the eerie blue irises. After how he’d humiliated you, you wanted to see the proof of his desperation as well. But the sounds would have to suffice. Them and his increasingly tight grasp on your hips.

His arms vibrated with the strength it took to hold on, to not cum too soon. He clearly wanted to savor you a bit more before relinquishing you to the other man’s hands. Your back arched like a cat’s as his strokes brought you more and more pleasure with every blow.

The change in your posture prompted him to swivel his hips, to find a new angle that could brush against something else. He found what he sought in no time at all. Your toes curled and your eyes rolled back as he slammed against that sweet spot within you.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” you whimpered before you could stop yourself.

An annoying, breathy chuckle came from behind. “Right there, huh? That’s where you like it?”

Reluctantly, you nodded. To your surprise, he didn’t say anything else to mock you. He just kept drilling into you like his life depended on it.

The both of you started to pant. Your arms wobbled underneath you, barely able to support yourself upright. You knew you were fast approaching your own release alongside Satoru.

Sukuna released your jaw, and that was when you let yourself collapse. Your arms buckled, and your cheek squished against the couch. Satoru held you in place there, pounding into you even harder than he had been before.

You came first. It crashed over you in a sudden wave. You choked out a whine, your body tensing up under him as the bliss rolled through you. And he just kept going.

He had better stamina than you’d expected. You whimpered and squirmed beneath him, hoping he’d hit his high soon and let you get some relief. But he continued to hammer into you without hesitation.

Only when he’d battered you firmly into the depths of overstimulation did he finally let himself go. He slammed all the way in and shot rope after rope of sticky, hot release into you. It was a good thing you were on the pill. Not that they had bothered to ask. But really, why would they? You doubted they would be concerned about any potential problem that arose from this. They were in the business of making things — people — go away.

With a sigh, Satoru eased himself out of you. He gave you a pat on the hip before sinking back into the couch and pushing his now damp white hair out of his face.

You didn’t get the same chance at relaxation.

Before you could even roll onto your side, Sukuna had his fingers around your wrist. With a tug, he guided you into his lap. He’d sat down since letting you go. He’d also taken his shirt off, allowing you a clear look at his sculpted figure. Your hazy eyes raked along the muscles covered in scars and tattoos.

He laughed quietly at your obvious interest. His large hands took each of your thighs and spread them over his lap so that you were straddling him. It was nice in a way, to be maneuvered so gently. To be positioned like a doll, not having to exert any effort yourself. In the past, you would’ve thought it’d be something you hate. But in this situation, it didn’t feel so bad.

His hand splayed across your chest next. It kept you upright and looking at him.

“You look so pretty. Like you can barely remember your own name,” he mocked, a grin slowly spreading on his face.

The hand that wasn’t propped on your chest slipped down between your legs to grab his cock. He angled it upwards, dragging the head over your folds a few times, nudging it against your skin without actually entering. You squirmed a little at the feeling, slightly in discomfort but mostly in wanting what was being offered.

“Calm down. You’re gonna get used to this in no time,” he said. Threat or promise, you couldn’t really tell.

You were completely soaked between your thighs. The combination of your own arousal mixed with Satoru’s cum leaking out of you left a mess, but it had you slick enough that he slipped inside without issue.

Your eyes widened. It wasn’t just his size or the stretch but also the overstimulation that had your nails digging into his bicep. Strangled whines erupted from you as a weird, sweet sting settled in your center. He hushed you, the hand from your waist running up and down your back while he pushed his hips up.

“Shhh shh shhh, you’re a good girl, remember? You’ll get used to it,” he said, a sinister smirk across his face.

You squeezed your eyes shut, nearly doubling over from that tone alone. The physical sensation truly wasn’t that bad. Not as bad as you expected anyways. With a few deep breaths, you found yourself more comfortable. He was doing all of the work. It was just that fact that this was happening at all that knocked the wind out of you.

He continued to slide you all the way down on his dick. Once you were settled against his lap, ass flush against his thighs, he let you sit there for a minute. You stayed motionless on top of him, just taking in the raw feeling of him tucked inside you.

“Feels good, doesn’t it?” he asked. You looked up at him, at that fucking smile. “Think you can ride it for me?” he said.

You knew he was mocking, and you wanted to say yes, just out of spite. You wanted to push yourself up and bounce on his dick till he was moaning for you just like Satoru had been. But the fact that you could barely find the energy to get any response out told you that wasn’t a realistic possibility. So you shook your head no.

“That’s what I thought,” he said. He tugged you close to him. Your upper body landed against his chest with a small thud. “But that’s ok. You don’t have to do anything. Just let me take care of it.”

He grabbed your hips and began lifting them up and down on himself with ease. His hips also rocked up into you from below. And you just let it happen like he told you to.

Your eyes drooped close and your grip on his arm became weaker. He was much quieter than Satoru, barely making any noise at all compared to the other man’s near-constant moaning and groaning. But you were quieter this time around too. Maybe it was the lingering effect of Satoru. Maybe your adrenaline was wearing off. But despite the pleasure swirling in your lower half, you felt almost floaty. Your brain felt like it had melted down into a small puddle that was slowly leaking from your ears.

“You’re gonna be a perfect fit around here,” he rasped. The words almost sounded divine, whispered into your ear from the heavens. “You might act up a little at first, but I know how to handle a brat. And you’re already showing how good you can be.”

It got no response out of you. You were in no shape to argue or disagree.

That didn’t matter to him though. He slammed up into you harder, getting a sharp gasp from you.

“I’m gonna have fun getting you to crack,” he said.

At that, you whimpered. If this was how it felt, there was a good chance you’d have fun too.

He kept thrusting up into you, pumping his own cock into your slick hole where Satoru had already spilled himself. You couldn’t keep track of how long it took for him to reach the peak too. Everything was in a fog right now. You heard yourself moaning, felt him fucking into you, but everything was distant. It was possible you came again, but overstimulation gave you a constant high so you couldn’t really tell.

But before you knew it, his breaths became heavier. His chest puffed against you at a quicker rate. His balls smacked against your ass with more force. You turned your face against his chest. You knew the end was near but every sense you had was so overwhelmed you could barely stand it.

He came with a quiet groan. The most noise he’d made the entire time. He fucked the warm fluid into you in the same way Satoru had. Maybe they’d shared someone before.

For a few minutes after finishing, he just sat there basking in the afterglow with you melted on top of him.

But then you felt a cool hand on your back. One that didn’t belong to Sukuna. Your eyes opened to find Satoru next to the both of you.

“Hey, princess. You ready for a nap?” he teased.

You whined and went to shove his face away even though, in truth, the answer was undoubtedly yes.

He just laughed, catching your hand and pulling your arm around his shoulder. Sukuna squeezed your hip before lifting you off of him completely and allowing Satoru to scoop you up like he had before.

“You did good for the first time. Let Satoru help you, and get some rest,” he said. He stood up, reaching for his clothes scattered around the floor.

You didn’t get the chance to say anything before Satoru was walking away with you in his arms. Lazily looking around, you saw he brought you into a small bedroom, just off the alcove next to where you’d been tied up.

He placed you on the bed gently and walked away to grab something. You watched as he grabbed a small towel before returning to you. With gentle hands, he cleaned up the mess between your legs. 

He confused you. Well really, they both did. While he was seemingly the more mean of the two, the one who’d tease and mock, the one who’d pound you into the couch without care for how it affected you, he was also the one coddling you, caring for you as though you were made of glass.

And Sukuna. Apparently he was the rough one, the least tolerant of bullshit, the one who’d threaten you about biting but mark up your neck like he was a wild animal, he’d been relatively gentle while you were on top of him.

It left you with a lot of questions, but you had the mental capacity for none of them right now.

“See, it’s not so bad here,” Satoru said while tending to you. “I’m sure you won’t love it right away, but you really will be a good fit soon enough.”

You stayed quiet at that. Whatever job they had planned for you after having their fun, you didn’t want to know. You couldn’t imagine doing something so polar opposite of everything you stood for. But would you give up your survival if that was the cost of refusing? You weren’t sure.

Soon enough, Satoru had wiped you thoroughly enough. He discarded the towel and smiled down at you for a second. His fingers came out and ran just along the bruise on your eye.

“I’ll bring you some ice for that. Just try to get some sleep for now. When you wake up, I’ll have them bring you some dinner. And we’ll be back to check on you later,” he said with a grin.

You didn’t bother asking who “they” were or where he and Sukuna were going or what they would do next. All would be pointless questions, and all you wanted to do now was sleep. You could think of a different angle for this when you woke up. But for now, you let your eyes close as the main door to the place shut. Vaguely, you heard the lock click into place.

[artbyblastweave]

I know dc has sort of already tried this a few times, but if you were to create an Ultimate Universe (the early 00s one) style interpretation of the DC universe, which characters would you deconstruct (like hulk or hank pym) and which would you reconstruct (like spider-man)?

I'm not sure who, if anyone, I'd take to the woodshed in the way they did Bruce and Hank. But in a more positive direction, I think Ultimate Superman writes itself.

One thing that the Original Ultimate Universe caught basically infinite shit for was that Spider-Man was the only likeable hero out of the entire roster- everyone else was a jingoistic government stooge, a sellout, an ineffective moron, a vindictive moron, or involved in whatever label you want to stick on the clusterfuck that was the Ultimate X-Men. Certain commentators treated this as something that happened by accident- like somehow Spider-Man was the only character to slip through a net- but this was actually a very deliberate thematic and political choice. The early Ultimate Universe in particular was undergirded by a running theme of the ways in which the heroes were compromised and made dirty by having to exist in a world that was remotely politically realistic. Captain America was unexamined in his patriotism in the way that a guy unpaused direct from the end of world war 2 would realistically be; likewise the celebrity and proximity to power of the classic Avengers lineup was characterized as insidious and complicit in the crimes of the Bush Administration even as they embark on flashier superheroic exploits. The Fantastic Four's dimension-trotting adventures were explicitly underwritten by their work building new ways for the Military to kill people in the Middle East (paraphrasing a direct quote.) The X-Men were a hotbed of moral compromise, seediness and occasional bouts of ethically-dubious psychic-assisted ass-covering, with the repeated drumbeat from multiple writers that they were letting their own narrative about being feared and hated overwrite their awareness of how their entire enterprise was a complete circus- itself a metatextual commentary on the out-of-universe observation on the fact that, for all they bloviate about being oppressed, a significant chunk of their lineup consists of cishet white people with supermodel good looks:

As shown here, a consequence of all this is that Spider-Man, despite not changing much in his characterization from Baseline Peter, came out looking like a paragon. His early-career anger and sense of put-upon-ness is significantly more justified in this continuity because the entire world actually is out to get him; he got his powers through gross negligence by a military industrial complex contractor, he spends his time constantly beating the crap out of more of their runoff, and American Intelligence is circling him like a hawk waiting for an opportunity to headhunt him and sicc him on their enemies. Bendis narratively tied this to his youth; he's able to be a hero in the classic mold because the world hasn't dragged him down yet. The forces arrayed against him, of which there are many, haven't found a way to pin him down and make him sell out. Everybody is expecting him to sell out. Kingpin has a whole speech about it; Jameson's hatred of him is expressly tied to the fact that he lives in a world where skepticism of good intentions is generally pretty justified. But Peter remains, fundamentally, an outsider- in a way that feels contrived in mainline Marvel but incredibly well-earned in this context- right up until the forces aligned against him actually do get him killed. Accounting for comic book time, poor bastard only lasted a couple years before the bottom fell out and his lifestyle caught up with him. Only the good die young.

So. Superman. The parallels here are obvious, right? Superman, like Spider-Man, wants to do classic Superhero Shit. He's not overtly political and he isn't ambitious. He wants to go out and save people, he wants to stop people who're trying to hurt people from hurting people. He's the nicest guy in the world and he can eat guns and it's almost impossible to make him do something he thinks is the wrong thing to do. But if you live in a world remotely like ours, having that level of power and using it to go out and help people and save people means that you fall somewhere on the scale between weirdo and enemy of the state, and the bad guys you have to stop from hurting people work for the duly elected government, or they run the economy, and the guns you have to eat belong to the cops and the military as often as they do bank robbers in white striped shirts. Putting a nice guy who wants to do the right thing into a setting with a remotely appropriately cynical outlook on politics is basically an instant deconstruction without you having to do anything extra to the hero himself, it's like throwing a sodium bomb into a bathtub.

This sequence from Batman vs Superman is one of my favorite pieces of superhero media that exists, and any Ultimate-style spin on the character would be extrapolated directly from this. The Snyder take gets some flak for taking itself too seriously, being too dark, yadda yadda yadda, but Superman himself is very pointedly not the site of any of that darkness. Superman is just Superman. He spends this whole sequence doing Classic Superman Shit- no violence whatsoever, just rescues- and the talking heads won't stop picking him apart, looking for the angle, looking for the catch, looking for a lever to get him under control. Tyson trying to make him into some kind of existential harbinger of Man's insignificance in the universe, juxtaposed against a mother in a flood zone crying tears of joy because God didn't send boats or a helicopter but spraypainting Superman's logo on the roof actually paid off. Lex wants him dead in this version mainly because a guy this powerful being this nice makes him insecure.

What really sells this for me is that Clark is visibly aware of, and deeply uncomfortable with, the immense impact he's having on everyone- he's asking all the same questions about the implications of his own existence as the talking heads. He doesn't know either! But there are still people in burning buildings and flood zones. Someone's gotta do something, and he's someone, and he can do anything. And he is, of course, dead by the end of the movie.

[whinlatter]

The Ginny and Peter parallel though?? How have I never thought about that?? It‘s so horrifying and insanely compelling to me at the same time. I would love to hear (read?) you elaborate on that.

"Sirius, Sirius, what could I have done? The Dark Lord… you have no idea… he has weapons you can't imagine…. I was scared, Sirius, I was never brave like you and Remus and James. I never meant it to happen��. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named forced me - " "Harry – oh, Harry – I tried to tell you at b-breakfast, but I c-couldn’t say it in front of Percy. It was me, Harry – but I – I s-swear I d-didn’t mean to  - R-Riddle made me, he took me over..."

thank you so much for this question anon.  i have been thinking about this for a long time - about how ginny weasley might have made a really, really good traitor - and would love to talk more about my thinking behind it. a little meta on traitor talk - who flips, and why, and why ginny weasley might be the peter pettigrew to the trio's marauders after all - can be found below the cut (with spoilers for beasts chapter 14). 

hp, as a series, puts great moral emphasis on the concept of choice. after all, it’s about a world at war, where the question of whose side you're on is often a matter of life or death. double agents, deception, treachery, people serving the interests of others (either consensually or under duress): these are recurrent tropes, on both sides of the wizarding war. the plot begins the ultimate act of betrayal - that of lily and james potter by peter pettigrew - and the series concludes with the revelation of another (snape). throughout the books, there are all sorts of characters who spy, or flip, for all sorts of reasons. you have those who knowingly pretend to be serving the interests of one side when actually serving another, for principled reasons, either ideological motivation or out of selfless loyalty to another person: snape, peter, likely rookwood, quirrell, fake moody/barty crouch jr, both sirius and regulus black, kreacher, and narcissa in the forest. and then you have the group who betray either out of fear, or who are manipulated into acts of betrayal and deceit, sometimes through possession but otherwise through blackmail and intimidation, to varying degrees: xenophilius lovegood, mundungus fletcher, pius thicknesse, marietta edgecombe, bertha jorkins, bathilda bagshot, those types. (in a sign of jkr’s consistently dicked-up biases re gender in the series, women are never allowed to be interesting enough to actively betray anyone unless they’re doing it out of maternal love eg. narcissa - they can only ever actively be led astray or hoodwinked, whereas male characters can have a vast array of complex motivations and all sorts of shades of moral grey. we'll come back to that in a minute).

in chapter 14 of my postwar fic beasts, during the course of the hogwarts inquiry, augustus rookwood takes the stand and testifies of an attempt by him and his fellow death eaters to find someone who could play double agent to pass secrets about the resistance, the order and harry to the other side during the second wizarding war. rookwood - himself a former double agent - talks about how to make a traitor. he discusses the different motivations of traitors, how to find a target and how to exploit their existing vulnerabilities and weak-points to get them to come around to your side. he also reveals that, during the death eater seizure of the ministry and hogwarts school, he and his peers identified a would-be target in ginny weasley. in the fic, i have him describe the process of traitor-identification as ‘the pettigrew playbook’: finding someone who is connected, who knows the order’s secrets, who has the information you want, and who will flip less out of an ardent ideological commitment, but more because they are weak and scared but also disrespected and resentful and more inclined to save their own neck than act out of loyalty

i’ve always been very struck by peter pettigrew’s attempts to justify his betrayal of lily and james in PoA (see above). peter pettigrew is always a slippery and elusive character, rendered mostly through other people’s memories or descriptions of him. this is one of the very few times he explains something of his own worldview - though, as we know he is a liar, and in this instance errrr trying to save his own life as sirius threatens to kill him (slay), we have to take even these lines with a pinch of salt. we know pettigrew is a character that acts, at all times, out of a desire for self-preservation, trying to secure his own survival. he was tolerated but never respected by his schoolfriends, made the potters’ secret keeper as a ‘perfect bluff’ because he was a  ‘weak, talentless thing’ voldemort would never bother going after, a trait which ultimately made him the perfect and most vulnerable target. when outed as the real spy by sirius and remus here, he acknowledges he is aware of his deficiencies and weaknesses, and talks about his fear for his own life, his sense of how he did not live up to the principled bravery of his friends, and claims  that voldemort ‘forced him’ to surrender lily and james - presumably through the threat of terrible violence, suffering and death. 

pettigrew’s remarks are particularly interesting when put alongside the justifications and excuses of another character who has betrayed harry to voldemort, albeit under very different circumstances. like peter, ginny’s confession is given through floods of tears as a desperate plea to be believed and excused. in it, ginny begs harry to understand her own lack of culpability. just as wormtail does, she insists to harry she was forced by riddle to cause harm to others and to hand information about harry over to riddle, and to play an integral role in returning lord voldemort to life.  of course, the series always frames ginny’s actions in CoS as the behaviour of an entirely innocent person. but even these lines show a streak of self-preservation and a certain amount of weakness and cowardice that runs throughout ginny’s encounter with the diary. ‘I couldn’t say it in front of Percy’, she says, suggesting she feared getting in deep trouble with no proof of riddle’s hand in her actions. in fact throughout the diary episode, ginny shows real moments of acting to save herself rather than do the right thing and come forward with the truth. she tries to dispose of the diary, but doesn’t go to a teacher about what it has been making her do. she stole the diary back not to protect harry but to protect her own secrets and prevent him from discovering her complicity (at least by TMR’s telling). she even watches hagrid get falsely accused and sent to azkaban, and stays silent in the process, a distinctly pettigrew echo if ever i heard one. 

of course, we know ginny and peter pettigrew’s relationships with voldemort are not alike in dignity. it’s clear that, in so many ways, ginny’s encounter with the diary is much more clearly an experience of victimhood than of malicious intent. we know that ginny was possessed; we know she is not a character who would commit murder without that level of involuntary mental surrender. but there are more uncomfortable echoes of pettigrew in her experiences in CoS. we see them in the decisions of a character acting of fear and a desire to save their own skin in ginny’s experience of the diary than we might like to think. ginny ofc was targeted by lucius malfoy because of who her family was, as stalwarts of the anti-voldemort pro-muggle resistance during the first wizarding war, with powerful enemies determined to discredit and undermine them at every turn. but, as TMR makes clear, what makes ginny such a good target in the end, so vulnerable and so useful, was that she was weak. she was insecure, and lonely, teased and misunderstood and feeling inadequate. in all of that, there was a very rich opening for TMR to access her innermost fears and secrets and to use them to manipulate, pressure and threaten her into compliance, in addition to the active possession of her body to conduct deliberate acts of attempted murder. it’s not a perfect pettigrew parallel by any means. but there’s more than a little bit of pettigrew in that, too. 

maybe more parallels with ginny and peter pettigrew than meets the eye - particularly in ginny’s relationship to the trio. there are a few posts that periodically do the rounds on tumblr and reddit that talk about neville’s relationship to the trio as the parallel to peter pettigrew’s with the marauders - as this post compellingly puts it, ‘all who peter could have been’. neville, these posts usually point out, was a character who was weak and much less talented than his friends, an outsider who needed the protection and patience of cooler classmates, who was always on the outside looking in on a friend group that largely excluded him. what distinguished neville from peter was his approach to his own weakness, and how that approach drove him to heroism rather than betrayal and villainy. it’s an interesting idea, and there’s something to it. but the more i thought about it, the more i thought - is neville + the trio the only parallel with peter + the marauders? what about ginny? 

it’s remarkably under-appreciated in fandom that ginny is remarkably poorly treated by the trio for much of the series. ‘go away, ginny’ - that’s how ron banishes his sister at the start of PoA, because harry mutters to his two mates that he wants to talk to them in private and to ditch ginny. neither harry nor hermione object to it - hermione, though kind to ginny when the dementors arrive, makes no defence of her right to stay. ginny duly leaves, hurt, to go sit by herself on the train back to school, returning to hogwarts for the first time after her deeply traumatic experience in the chamber, dismissed and dispatched. not meaning to drag ron here - this is, ofc, how big brothers have behaved for time immemorial, as is their wont. but it’s kind of the statement for how the trio treat ginny for much of her school career really until HBP, harry and hermione included. ofc there are many textual/plot reasons ginny needs to be held at arms length from the trio. but it is striking that the effect of this plot habit for the reader is a usually unkind and sometimes even callous exclusion of ginny by the trio throughout many of the books.

in CoS itself, ginny is never invited to join the trio or spend any time with them: when she isn’t, you know, trying her hand at possessed attempted murder, she’s doing a light bit of potter hero worship that does recall a certain lakeside snitch-catching display of yore. it’s ginny who’s left feeling left out when the trio are swapping suspicious eyes and sirius secrets in GoF, ginny who is hermione’s back-up friend when the ron and harry showdown kicks off over the triwizard tournament, ginny who shoulders the role as harry’s consolation prize friend when ron and hermione go off to the prefects on the train in ootp (and takes him to neville and luna), ginny who goes defenceless when the trio are demanding to be included in order secrets and is physically removed from the room with no protest from the others, ginny who has to fight her case to be taken seriously and included in the department of mysteries plot to rescue a man she too is friends with (‘I care about Sirius as much as you do!’), being patronised by three friends who pick her up and put her down when they feel like it (always enjoy hermione being like ‘we need three thestrals!’ and ginny being like ffs we need four why won’t you show me an ounce of respect). in fact, when ginny is revealed to be becoming popular in a different social circle throughout ootp and hbp, it is something of a shock to harry and ron, who have spent a good six years making no effort to include her and now are finding she has built a much more successful social life beyond them (you reap what you sow, lads). i don’t say this to overstate the trio’s malice nor to overstate the pettigrew comparisons (ginny is clearly both conventionally attractive and much more socially adept).. but i do think it’s striking that  if there is a character with pettigrew echoes in the trio’s surround, always orbiting the trio, trying to feel included (and hero worshipping the potter at the heart of it), it’s more often young ginny than it is neville. so many of the things that made ginny vulnerable to TMR - her loneliness, her isolation, her insecurities and sense of inadequacy - are not helped by the trio in the years afterwards, and in some cases, actively reinforced.

(to briefly say something on gender - sometimes wonder if ginny were a male character if people would have made more of this. percy stans, for instance, go to great lengths to point out all the ways percy was bullied or teased by his family as an excuse for his errrrr war crimes. would people care more about many ginny's exclusions if she were a maligned misunderstood young man? probably? it's noticeable too that all traitors in hp are men lol, a classic example of jkr’s weird and fucked feminism striking again. women are led astray or hoodwinked - men get the complex motivations and agency arcs. but i digress).

why does any of this matter? we know ginny doesn't take the path of pettigrew, however much she might have good reason to. harry's endearingly naive line in DH ('I trust all of you, I don’t think anyone in this room would ever sell me to Voldemort’) ends up being borne out: there are no betrayals during the second wizarding war, and certainly not by ginny (though the sword heist almost ended up doing it on accident). but i found myself thinking a lot about this as i was sketching out the plotline for beasts and thinking about ginny’s war, and what is asked of ginny in it. i was particularly thinking about it relation to how the second wizarding war plays out, the unique position of danger ginny would have been in as a hogwarts student in the 1997-1998 academic year, and what a good target she would make for death eaters on the hunt for a spy within the order of the phoenix.

when i was reading DH for the first time, i remember thinking that it is absolutely bonkers that ginny weasley goes back to hogwarts in september ’97. by that summer, the weasleys are the order of the phoenix. no longer just the blood traitors’ blood traitor, they’re now the face of the wizarding resistance, both parents and (nearly) all sons in active combat, something the ministry certainly knows about even when trying to normalise death eater rule and allowing the facade of arthur et al going to go to work in the ministry/gringotts etc. ginny’s family home is order hq: she lives there all summer, and trots off to the hogwarts express straight from the kitchen table where order meetings take place. when death eaters descend on the wedding, she’s there alongside the rest of the rest of dumbledore stans. she is also famously in the DA, and fought death eaters alongside the trio in the department of mysteries, and again in the battle of the astronomy tower. and then there’s the obvious point that hinny shippers everywhere have pointed out is baffling since the dawn of time, which is that the world and his wife knows that ginny weasley is harry potter’s ex, something that might put a big fat target on her head for a death eater or two to have a pop at trying to get some secrets and intel out of her. 

of course, there’s a compelling case for why ginny has to go back. ron’s already used the splattergroit excuse, and arthur’s going to work, and so is bill, and the twins (at least for a bit), and the weasleys are going for normalisation and at least a fig leaf of compliance. so off ginny goes, into the belly of the beast, back to school, despite all the access she has to order secrets and intel, as well as information on harry and the trio. she is in a uniquely dangerous position of risk: it’s a fortress run by death eaters and her card is marked. she finds herself in an unenviable and unrivalled position as a very good person to go after if you’re a death eater fancying some intel about what the guerilla resistance - and harry potter - are up to. we know there are death eaters about who would like to claw themselves back into some level of relevance by working towards the big man and trying to curry favour (yaxley). we know there is a family intimately aware of ginny weasley's weakness and failings who are desperate to get back in voldemort's good books (the malfoys). we also know there are witnesses to ginny's exclusions both from the order and from the trio over the years - in particular, one witness that already sold secrets on the order to death eaters, namely kreacher.

the reason i came back to thinking about parallels between ginny and peter in beasts is because beasts is a story about ginny’s war, but also in part about morality in the wizarding world, about war and sides and choices. at various points in beasts, i’ve tried to play with ginny’s echoes with characters that waver morally - including regulus - or who find themselves drawn to or in some way embroiled in darkness, and who are at times governed by fear and cowardice and self-preservation in a moral universe that prizes bravery, loyalty, and self-sacrifice. so this plot came from putting all these pieces together - ginny's existing vulnerabilities and insecurities, her position of privilege and access, but also her alienation and mistreatment, and this interest in moral motivations and what experiences or traumas might lead a person, or even justify, a person's treachery, moral inaction, or active moral failing. it was even more interesting for me to play with the idea that other people might have noticed ginny weasley's weird position relative to the trio and the order too, people who want to know what she knows and who would be willing to exploit the cracks in those relationships for strategic wartime gain. and that's for chapters fifteen and sixteen!

[otissbluebearshirt]

you got me flowers?

Will 🥺

Flowers - [ Will Halstead ]

Prompt: “You got me flowers?”

Word Count: 976

Warnings: female!reader, fluff

Masterlist | Will Masterlist

It was like Will could sense when you’d had a bad day at work. That he had some sort of alarm go off in his head anytime you so much as felt a hint of stress or frustration. It’s what you loved about him. How caring he was. How he always went above and beyond to make sure your day ended better than how it had gone.

Maybe it was the doctor in him, you didn't know. All you knew was that you had struck gold in terms of the perfect guy and for as long as you both lived, you would never even think of anybody else but him.

You always looked forward to going home, more so now that you had someone waiting for you. Someone who loved you and would do anything to make sure you never forgot that. Some days Will wasn’t there because he was on shift, but even on those days he made sure to leave you a little something special to come home to. Something he knew would make you smile when he couldn’t himself.

However you knew he’d be home today. Waiting eagerly to make you feel better after your God awful day at work, one you were wanting to put behind you as quickly as possible.

The whole way up to your shared apartment you were twitching with excitement, trying your hardest to think of what it might be this time. What little thing he’d prepared for you or which item he bought that might make you smile and the second you unlocked the front door you simply dumped your bag on the floor and beelined for the living room.

Will was sitting on the couch, his back to you and the moment he sensed your presence he jumped. Literally. He was on his feet faster than you could blink, looking all embarrassed as he’d lost track of time and hadn’t finished preparing his surprise for you.

“You’re early.” He babbled out, scratching at the back of his head as you furrowed your brow a little, slowly making your way towards him.

“No I’m not.” You replied, rolling your lips a little as you couldn’t help but smile over his minor fluster. You folded your arms, taking another step forwards to feel your legs press against the back of the couch as you craned your neck to try and see what he was hiding behind his back. “Whatcha got there?”

“Nothing.” Will said casually, leaning his body parallel to yours to stop you from peeking, making you huff a little and pout dramatically. “It’s not ready yet.”

“Oh come on, just let me see.” You whined childishly, pouting again as you clasped your hands under your chin and batted your eyelashes at him. He never could say no when you gave him your best puppy dog eyes, something you abused greatly, and you could tell he was about to break. “Please?”

Sighing, Will ran his hand through his hair, mumbling a faint ‘fine’ which in turn enticed a quiet ‘yay’ to escape your lips in a way that made him smile, his heartwarming over just how downright adorable you got in these moments. He stepped aside, offering you a full view of the bouquet of flowers he had been trying to put together, most of which were still scattered across the coffee table and hadn’t made it into the vase yet.

“You got me flowers?” You said softly, your heart all but bursting in your chest as you rounded the couch, eyes never once leaving the colourful array covering the table.

“I was trying to make you one of those mixed bouquet things.” Will replied, gesturing to the mess behind him. “But it turns out that flower arranging is a lot harder than it looks.”

“Oh, Will.” You breathed out, feeling the slight warmth begin to form in your eyes as you subtly wiped at them.

You didn’t care if they were only flowers. Didn’t care that he’d bought you them plenty of times before. It was more the fact that he’d been trying to put together his own bouquet for you, that really got to you. He didn’t have to do that. He could have gotten a florist to do it, picked a premade one or even grabbed a small bunch from a stand on his way home from work.

But he hadn’t.

Instead he’d gone to all this trouble to, not only gather up all your favourite flowers in your favourite colours, you might add, but he’d spent what seemed to be hours trying to arrange them for you himself. And if that wasn’t love, then you didn't know what was.

“Baby?” Will stepped forward, taking your hand in his and drawing your teary attention away from the mess of flowers. He pulled you gently towards him, his free hand cupping the side of your face the second you were close enough. “Are you okay?”

“I’m perfect.” You whispered, voice a little shaky as you leaned into his touch. You turned your head a little, placing a soft kiss against the palm of his hand. “You’re perfect.”

“I take it you’re happy with the flowers?” He asked, a quiet chuckle escaping his lips as he brought you into his arms, allowing you to rest your head on his chest and feel the rhythmic beat of his heart beneath it.

“I’m more than happy.” You sighed contently, and honestly the flowers went forgotten the minute he encapsulated you in his warmth, feeling the touch of his lips atop your head as he kissed you.

You may have loved all the little things he did for you, but pretty much all of the time it was simply Will himself that was capable of making your day one hundred times better than you ever could have asked for.

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[krispdreemurr]

what js everything we know about ch3+4 rn?

there's guys in it

ch3:

-tv theme

-confirmed enemies: cool shadow noir people who the party wear cool suits to fight, elnina and lanino the weather channel duo who are like that one annoying couple making out at starbucks

-theres a character named Tenna who probably is the tv itself based off Spamtons array of crt-based epithets (and who may be a game show host for the same reason). he/him used for him so far. fucked over spamton/maybe divorced him, and also possibly fucked over mike

-there's a character named Mike who spamton gets really upset remembering and who he thinks needs to be protected from tenna. one he/him usage but I'm ignoring it <3

-rouxls is there again. somehow. he's eating the snacks.

-one area called the green room with suspicious parallels to Asriel and Kris' room. there's a maus there

-theres a mini game that may or may not have been cut where everyone wears cowboy outfits. similarly there's a sneaking section that was cut. this doesn't really help w knowing what's actually in there huh

-the intro area is some sort of docks with like the same design sensibility as the first bit of the supply closet dark world. sea of some sort of tendrilly thing (im guessing carpet fibers)

-one armor item is what appears to be a cookie cutter worn as a bracelet

chapter 4:

-kris and susie are gonna get food at qcs

-kris and susie are gonna throw rocks in the lake

-noelle will be in there! she's in a dark room full of what looks like presents, which I suspect is in her house (attic/basement)

-it may rain at some point

unknown chapter:

-there's an adorable little cup guy :)

i think this covers everything we've seen so far... lemme know if there's anything I missed!

[ak-vintage]

Quarry - Chapter 18

Pairing: Din Djarin (The Mandalorian) x f!reader

Summary: Din Djarin is on what he expects to be his last bounty hunt for Greef Karga. After all, Nevarro is swiftly moving away from its previous reputation as a Guild member’s paradise, and Din has more important concerns now, like finding a Jedi to train his mysterious foundling. However, after capturing a wanted starship engineer who would rather go anywhere other than “home,” the Mandalorian is forced to reassess his priorities.

Your taste of freedom had been brief but glorious. Now you are a prisoner of the most infamous bounty hunter in the Outer Rim – it’s only a matter of time before he turns you in. There isn’t much you would not do to keep from being sent home, but as you find yourself growing closer to your captor and his strange little companion, you start to wonder whether escape is really what you want.

Set after Chapter 13: The Jedi but before Chapter 14: The Tragedy.

Chapter Tags & Warnings: 18+ MDNI! Reader is Mando's live-in starship engineer, second-person POV, no use of Y/N, minimal descriptors of reader character, canon-typical violence, descriptions of injuries, heavy angst, Din is coping poorly and is acting like an asshole in this one, y'all

Series Masterlist | Read on AO3

When you were a child on Chardaan, your parents had acquired an extensive library of starship reference manuals. Hull configurations, engine builds, weapons arrays, life support systems, and just about every flavor of modification you could imagine for nearly every model of ship ever designed – all organized by manufacturer, design purpose, and years of production. It had been your father’s favorite pastime – collecting, sorting, studying ship design, one that he passed on to you at a young age. You could recall sitting on the floor of his office, small enough to fit in the snug little nook under his desk, with a portable holoprojector, swiping through model after model, watching them spin in the palm of your hand. Even then, they had inspired your imagination, and the fire that imagination had lit in you led you to acquire far more than your fair share of ship design expertise long before Orron Halcard ever called you up for service in the shipyards.

And yet, even with such expertise, you found that Boba Fett’s ship was unlike any you had ever encountered.

Under different circumstances, you would have been falling over yourself for an opportunity to review the schematics, to examine the power generators, to get your hands on the hyperdrive reactors or the clearly heavily modified weaponry. As it was, when Din deposited you unceremoniously in one of the chairs that lined the edges of the ship’s navigation room, all you had the energy to do was watch, dumbstruck, as the ship’s walls began to rotate 90 degrees around the stationary platform under your feet. The cockpit, which had once been parallel with the navigation room, now sat above you, and had you not already been sitting, you thought you might have lost your balance at the vertigo-inducing visual of the two-story viewport suddenly dropping from the ceiling to the forward wall. Instead, you simply allowed your head to drop into your hands, elbows resting on your knees, refusing to look.

Fennec offered you a sympathetic smile and assured you that you would get used to the ship’s…unique design. She also directed you to a yellow-painted ladder that led to the lower decks, which filled the long, narrow body of the ship now that it was “vertical.”

“It’s not much,” she said wryly, “But if you take it all the way to the bottom, there’s a ‘fresher you can use. Why don’t you go get cleaned up? You’ll want to get that dirt out of your burns before we try to treat them.”  

You glanced over at Din, reluctant to go off on your own and leave him alone when he clearly was not himself. However, rather than the nod of approval or the request to stay that you had been expecting, you found him standing with his back to you at the edge of the room, arms folded across his chest, visor fixed on the approaching blackness of space.

He was somewhere else entirely, and he was entirely unaware of you.

Swallowing against the lump that had formed in your throat, you sent a half-hearted smile in Fennec’s direction before rising slowly to your feet and descending the ladder.

As you would expect given the size and function of the vessel, the lower decks of the Firespray proved to be rather cramped and utilitarian, but you were, nonetheless, impressed by the variety of functions Boba Fett had managed to account for in such a restricted space. Directly below the navigation room, you found what appeared to be a multipurpose common area not dissimilar from the Razor Crest’s cargo hold. You spotted what looked like a kitchen counter complete with a double-burner hot plate that had been bolted to its surface, a wall lined from floor to ceiling with anonymous-looking cargo bins that had been lashed into place with tactical netting, and a little rusted table with two well-worn chairs mounted to the deck plating. The next level down featured nothing but a closed door behind which you assumed was Boba’s personal bunk, while the following level included six low-ceiling bounty cells arranged into two columns of three. The first one on the left had clearly already been claimed, as the cell door had been left open, and you spotted a small arsenal of blaster rifles and an open bag full of jet-black clothes stacked in the corner. The others remained closed, their insides visible only through the gaps between the bars that crossed the narrow doorways.

At the sight of them, you felt a rush of belated gratitude for the Razor Crest’s mobile carbonite freezer. You couldn’t imagine toting around multiple, conscious bounties at a time as this ship was designed to do, like some kind of deep space prison warden.

The ‘fresher Fennec had referred to was at the very bottom of the ladder, the last stop on the long way down. It was, somehow, even smaller than the one you had built on the Razor Crest, as this one featured only a durasteel privy and a single-person sonic shower stall, but in the state you were in, you were in no position to thumb your nose at it.

Your whole body ached as you stripped down to your skin, sore from the hurried climb down and then back up the side of the mountain, sore from the impact of the Razor Crest’s explosion, sore from your abrupt collision with the hard ground as the blast knocked you off your feet and into the air. The vibration of the sonic waves was soothing on your muscles, allowing them to finally unclench, though by the time the cycle ended, the angry, red flesh on your face, neck, and hands had become even more so. Though now clean and suitably sanitized, your skin felt more inflamed than ever, and it throbbed with the incessant stimulation of the sonics. You opted for leaving your boilersuit undone as you redressed, tying the sleeves around your hips so you didn’t have to drag the coarse fabric back over the protesting skin.

As you ascended the ladder to rejoin the group, you found yourself taken aback at the sight that greeted you in the common space. Stiff and rigid in his chair sat the broad, beskar silhouette of Din Djarin. On the little table before him sat an unlabeled, sealed jar about the size of his fist and a reflective silver packet you recognized as medical-grade disinfectant wipes. He glanced up at you as you came into view, saying nothing, but you dismounted from the ladder just the same.

“Din,” you acknowledged, surprise and something like relief coloring your tone. You hadn’t expected him to seek you out, not after how you had left things on Tython.

However, there was no warmth in his gaze, no softness in the way he turned to face you. The set of his shoulders remained tense, and his raspy voice held none of its characteristic fondness as he said without preamble, “Fett gave me some ointment for your burns. He says it’s not bacta, so the effects won’t be instantaneous, but it will get the job done.”

You blinked at him. “Oh. Right. Thank you.” You found yourself approaching him cautiously, as though he was a wild animal you were wary of spooking. It had been months since you had felt this kind of unease in his presence. It was wrong, on a fundamental level, and it left you feeling unmoored, adrift and painfully alone even though he sat only a handful of feet from you. “Din… Din, I’m so sorry – ”

But he did not allow you to finish offering your condolences. He broke your gaze instantly, angling his visor away from you and interjecting, “No. Don’t apologize.” Gesturing toward the other rickety chair at the table beside him, he added, in a tone that brooked no further argument, “Sit. I’ll help you put it on.”

You drew your lower lip between your teeth, chastened, and did so without protest, watching as he removed a couple of those disinfectant wipes from their package and used them to wipe down his leather gloves. The wipes came away dusty and stained and left the faint scent of antiseptic behind, burning your nostrils. Unscrewing the lid from the jar of ointment, Din dipped his first two fingers into the oily salve, streaking the dark orange leather with its residue.

You frowned at that, taken aback. “You sure you want to get that all over your gloves? You could just take them off.”

The Mandalorian shook his head sharply, the dim light reflecting off his helmet. “Not here.”

Ah. You should have known. Even just that small scrap of skin was too much exposure, too much vulnerability on this unfamiliar ship with its unfamiliar crew. Internally, you mourned any potential glimpse of his body you might have hoped to see on this journey. You doubted he would even be removing any of his armor pieces for any longer than it would take to use the sonic shower until you arrived on Nevarro.

He gestured for you to lean forward in your seat, and you obliged, allowing him to begin swiping the thick salve across the burns on your face. He did so silently, not even his breathing audible through his vocoder, and though his touch was gentle, he felt to you like he was a million miles away, as inaccessible as the other side of the galaxy.

“We’re going to find him, Din,” you murmured, eyebrows drawn inward in sympathy.

His reply was quick, cold. “Don’t. Please.”

You swallowed, feeling the stretch of the scorched skin of your neck and wincing slightly. “Okay. We don’t have to talk about it.”

“No, we don’t.”

Stifling a sigh, you continued, “Can you at least…tell me how you’re feeling right now? If there’s anything I can do to help?”

Din’s fingers paused at the hollow of your throat, having moved on from your face, and he hit you with a stare so impenetrable, so stern and yet so detached that you felt your heartrate spike with anxiety under his touch. The man looking back at you through his visor was as much a stranger to you as he had been all those months ago when he had first clapped you in binder cuffs, and you swore a part of your heart withered in your chest.

“Okay. Understood.”

He finished applying your ointment in utter silence, moving on from your neck to your chest, then from your chest to your hands. The familiar touch of his gloves on your skin felt alien to you now, and although the warmth of him was pleasant, and he was never rough with you, somehow this almost clinical approach was more disquieting than comforting. By the time he completed his task and began wiping down his gloves and resealing the ointment jar, your stomach had tied itself in knots so tight you felt nauseous, and you found it difficult to breathe.

Sliding the jar across the table to you, he said, “You’ll need to reapply twice a day until we get to Nevarro. Should be all healed up by then.”

You nodded your understanding and accepted the container, feeling more than a little lost.

After a beat too long of tense silence, Din rose to his feet. “You should get some sleep.”

“Do you…want to join me?” A spark of hope made its way into your voice, but you knew the moment the words left your mouth that they were foolish.

“I’m fine,” he replied curtly.

He wasn’t fine. He wasn’t. Neither of you were, not after everything that had just happened, not after all of the ways in which the last few hours had gone so horribly, disastrously wrong. Beloved ship gone, beloved child gone, hurt and exhausted and broken. He wasn’t fine.

“You’re not,” you snapped, feeling anger begin to broil in your gut at his determined detachment, his forced distance.

“I’m not bleeding, am I?”

You clenched your teeth against a growl of frustration. “You’re going to need your rest.”

“I have the whole flight to rest.”

“Din.”

“Cyare.” He held your gaze steadily, not rising to meet your level of ire, not moving an inch. “Go to sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Gods damn him.

“…Fine.” With a defeated sigh, you rose to your feet, suppressing a groan at the stretch of your weakened muscles. You found yourself suddenly hesitant to allow him to see your pain, and you knew you wouldn’t be seeking out his assistance with your burn ointment for the remainder of the trip. Crossing the narrow room to the ladder once more, you offered him one final brush of your hand against his pauldron, fingertips catching on the outline of his Mudhorn signet. “I love you, Din.”

The Mandalorian sighed deeply at that, his chin falling to his chest as his tense shoulders dropped. “Good night, cyare.”

You chose the bounty cell across from Fennec’s, crawling into the narrow bunk as exhaustion suddenly weighed heavily on your aching body. And if you permitted yourself a few tears as you curled up alone under a threadbare blanket, dampening the pillow beneath your cheek, it hardly mattered. No one was there to witness them anyway.

---

When you woke several hours later, you found that while your muscles felt somehow worse than they had the day before, the burns on your skin had already begun to heal. Making your way down to the ‘fresher was a chore, your limbs feeling weak and gelatinous, but as you applied a thin layer of ointment to your face and neck in the mirror, you swore you could see the dry, scaly skin soaking up the greasy substance, calming the redness and easing the inflammation. You were even able to pull your rumpled boilersuit all the way up today, the abrasive fabric nowhere near as irritating against your neck and hands as it had been the day before.

It took you longer than you would like to admit to climb back up the ladder. Your arms and legs trembled by the time you reached the deck with the makeshift mess hall, and you determined that you would pause there and catch your breath before making your way up to the navigation room. However, as you stumbled off of the ladder to lean against the nearest bulkhead, the metallic sound of a closing cabinet door caught your attention. Whirling around, you found Fennec Shand, already dressed for the day in her sleek black and orange tactical gear, standing at the counter. She had a worn-looking steel mug in one hand and a tall, unlabeled cannister in the other, and she looked as though you had caught her in the middle of something.

She inclined her head at you in acknowledgement, offering you a small smile. “Good morning. You’re looking better.”

You dragged yourself away from the bulkhead, standing on unsteady legs. “Thanks. That ointment Boba gave me is powerful stuff.”

“Well, if anyone would know about burn treatment, it’s him,” she replied wryly. “I was just about to make myself a cup of caf. Can I get you one?”

What had that meant, Boba knowing about burn treatments? You would be lying if you said you hadn’t noticed the uneven texture of his skin, the slight discoloration that stretched from his forehead to the top of his bald head. Burn scars, perhaps? They looked old, long since healed, so you hadn’t given them any thought when you had noticed them the day before, but now you wondered whether the ointment he had lent you was something he had concocted himself, rather than just choosing to stock such a thing in his first aid supplies.

Before you could think to ask further, you realized that Fennec was waiting on a response from you, and you startled back to yourself. “Oh, you don’t have to,” you said.

“Please, I insist.” Reaching into one of the cabinets below the counter, she pulled out a second mug and got to work assembling two cups of the dark, bitter beverage. “Have a seat.”

“Okay. Thank you.” Gingerly, conscious of your weakened muscles, you lowered yourself into one of the two chairs at the little table, and a companionable silence settled over the room. The other woman’s movements were even and methodical as she scooped generous helpings of the powder concentrate from the cannister into the two waiting mugs. A kettle of water steamed on the surface of the two-burner cooktop you had noticed the night before, and once she was satisfied with the temperature, she removed it from the heat, pouring a measure into each mug.

Although you had hardly known her for more than a day, you didn’t find the quiet uncomfortable or awkward in any way. Rather, it was nice to be in the company of another person and feel no pressure whatsoever to strike up a conversation. She seemed perfectly content in the silence, and there was an air about her that you found soothing. She felt…steady. Competent. Safe. After the events of the last day, it was a welcome reprieve.

As she handed you one of the steel mugs, now full to the brim with steaming brown liquid, you found yourself saying, “You know, I wanted to…thank you. For helping me yesterday. And for agreeing to help us go after Grogu.”

Fennec slid into the other seat across from you and propped her elbows up on the table, bringing her own mug to her lips. “We keep to our word. We agreed to protect him in exchange for Boba’s armor, but we failed to do that on Tython.” Something that looked suspiciously like regret shined in her dark eyes. “Until we can live up to our end of the bargain, we’re at your disposal.”

You nodded, opting to study the furls of steam pouring from your cup rather than meet that empathetic expression. That was what you had gathered from the conversation yesterday – that the familiar green armor you had seen the older man wearing had, indeed, come from the armaments storage on the Razor Crest, that it had, indeed, belonged to Boba Fett. You couldn’t help but respect the commitment the two of them were showing to this bargain they had made with Din. If you had been in their position and you had witnessed the person you were charged with protecting being kidnapped by an Imperial light cruiser, you weren’t certain you would have been as conscientious.

After all, what could two Mandalorians, a sharpshooter, and an engineer hope to accomplish against such a warship?

“You know, I saw the way you put yourself between him and those troopers, up on that henge,” Fennec recalled, pulling you out of your own musings. “You’re very brave.”

You felt your eyebrows raise to meet your hairline, scoffing. “Mando is brave. I was terrified.”

“I know. I could tell.” The other woman smirked and took a sip of her caf. “But you did it anyway. As far as I’m concerned, that’s the definition of bravery.”

You waved the compliment away, feeling your cheeks burn and your tender skin prickle. “Well, luckily, no one ever made it up there until after I was gone. Doubt I would have lasted long if any of those troopers made it past you guys.”

“I take it you’re not exactly experienced in combat?”

Returning her smirk, you shook your head. “Not at all. I could count on one hand the number of times I’ve even held a blaster.”

“And hand-to-hand?” Something like concern tightened the corners of her eyes, and you struggled to maintain eye contact with her suddenly sharp gaze.

“Never. I’m an engineer.” You shrugged, trying not to let on just how inadequate this conversation was making you feel. “I’m a fixer, not a fighter.”

Fennec’s reply was quick, almost as though it had been rehearsed, like it was something she had said often. “You don’t have to be a fighter to learn how to defend yourself.”

She wasn’t wrong, you supposed, but that feeling of inadequacy deepened in your chest all the same. This situation with the Storm Troopers, with Grogu – it reminded you of why Din had been so insistent when you accepted the position on the Razor Crest that you shore up your combat skills, why he had demanded to train you with a blaster. He led a dangerous life; both Fennec and Boba clearly did, too. You, on the other hand, had never even left the star system in which you were born until you were well into your adulthood, until you had taken it upon yourself to sneak your way out. You were no stranger to a little risk taking, but what these people did, the lives they had found themselves living – it was on a completely different level. You had never felt so woefully unprepared.

Before you could come up with a suitable response, the sound of heavy boots on metal rungs echoed through the room, and a pair of long, armored legs appeared on the ladder, climbing down from the navigation room above. Silver, you noticed quickly, not green. Din. Your eyes went to his face instinctually, drawn to him in a way you couldn’t have prevented even if you had tried, and as though he could feel your gaze on him, he turned slightly, pausing his descent a handful of rungs above the mess hall floor.

You caught a glimpse of your own reflection in his ink-black visor, your eyes wide, your injuries still more visible than you would like, marring your forehead, your nose, your cheeks. Tension stretched between you, thick and palpable, and somehow you knew then that he hadn’t been coming down to look for you. In fact, he probably hadn’t intended to run into you at all, though in a ship this size, you wondered how he thought he was going to accomplish that.

You forced your expression into some semblance of a smile, but the words to invite him to join you died on your tongue as he gave you and Fennec both a stiff, silent nod then continued down the ladder. Your heart sank at the clear dismissal, all of the anxiety and the uncertainty and the hurt from the night before surging back to the forefront of your mind, and you swallowed against a sudden lump in your throat.

“Something on your mind?” Fennec asked after a beat.

Sighing, you raised your mug and took a deep drink, willing the caf to seep into your bloodstream, to fortify you against the abrupt wave of emotional exhaustion Din’s arrival and immediate departure had triggered.

“He never went to bed last night, did he?”

The other woman shook her head, a sympathetic downturn quirking the corners of her mouth. “No, I don’t think so. I know that after you went to sleep, he spent some time talking with Boba in the cockpit, but by the time I went to turn in, he was in the navigation room, staring out the viewport. When I came up this morning, he hadn’t moved an inch.”

“Dank farrik.” You scrubbed your hands over your face, immediately wincing as you disturbed the still-healing wounds on your skin. “I hate seeing him like this.”

“Mando is a man of action. Sitting on his hands, stuck in hyperspace? Doesn’t really seem like his style.” Fennec leaned back in her chair and downed the remainder of her cup in one swallow. “Though I’m sure you know that better that me.”

“Yeah. It’s something he and I have in common, actually,” you confessed. “Neither of us do well without something to keep us busy. Even in the best of circumstances.”

“Well, you’ve got almost a week before we get to Nevarro.” Rising to her feet, the older woman offered you a dry smile. “I’m sure you’ll find something to keep yourself occupied in the meantime.”

You huffed a laugh through your nose at that. “If you see me starting to climb the walls, you’ll know what happened.” Raising your mug in her direction, you added, “Thank you again. For the caf.”

“Anytime.” With an easy grace, she swung one of her long legs up onto the closest ladder rung, hooking the shallow heel of her knee-high boot around the metal rod. “Try to take it easy today. You got the kark beat out of you less than 12 hours ago. You’re allowed to take a break.”

An unexpected wave of emotion swelled in your chest, chief among them being an immediate fondness that warmed you from the inside out. You were going to be fast friends with Fennec, you could already tell.

“I will,” you promised.

---

By day three of your journey, you were dangerously close to making good on your threat of climbing the walls.

Your body was slowly recovering from the impact of the explosion, your muscles and joints feeling less like you had run headlong into a duracrete wall every day and your burns steadily receding with every application of Boba’s ointment. As relieved as you were for the improvements and the promise that you would soon be back to normal, you found that the better you felt, the more difficult it became to tolerate the extended period of inactivity. The more the trauma of your body healed, the more the trauma in your mind made itself known.

The image of that red laser burst streaking through the atmosphere was burned into the backs of your eyelids. The ruthless way it tore through the Razor Crest, the way the blast had momentarily deafened you as it flung you off your feet, the helplessness and the disorientation that followed. The smoking crater it left behind, the way you were certain your heart bore a matching scar as you watched the only real home you had known in your adult life go up in flames.

And Grogu.

Stars, Grogu.

You had been preparing yourself for the eventuality of saying good-bye to him ever since Din had revealed the boy’s Jedi origins. But you hadn’t been prepared for this – to know that the people who had taken him intended to do him harm, to be powerless to stop them. And now to not know where he was, to not know if he was hurting, if he was afraid, if he was even still alive. You couldn’t allow yourself to think on it for too long. If you did, you would surely fall apart.

You thought it might have been easier to cope if you did not feel as though you were doing so on your own. As it was, even days later, Din had hardly spoken more than a few words to you. He hadn’t been outright hostile, nor had he given any indication that he was angry with you for any reason. However, he had refused every attempt you had made to connect with him; every well-meaning question after his wellbeing or offer of dinner or even a shared cup of caf had been turned down, and although he had been sleeping in the same bunk as you, he had taken to do so in alternating shifts so that by the time you were ready to turn in for the night, he was only just waking.

You were certain that you would have felt less lonely had you actually been alone, and you would have given anything for someone to put a hydrospanner or a fusion cutter in your hands and give you something else to occupy your thoughts.

But this wasn’t your ship. It wasn’t even Din’s ship. So there you were, worry eating away at the lining of your stomach, mind racing and yet somehow numb, sitting on your ass in the navigation room with nothing to do. Again.

“You’re sighing.”

Fennec’s dry voice pulled you from your thoughts, and you glanced over at where she sat studying some star chart or another at the console to your right. She faced away from you, the streaking blue and white lights of hyperspace illuminating the complex twists of her long, black braid, but you could tell from the tense set of her shoulders that she was growing annoyed.  

“Sorry,” you replied meekly, feeling yourself flush. You needed to get ahold of yourself. Sitting on your own for so long in silence was only making the situation inside your mind worse. Fennec had been more than kind to you since you had departed Tython; she didn’t deserve to be on the receiving end of your melancholy.

However, after quiet once again descended on the Firespray, you couldn’t seem to stop yourself from slipping back into the same state. Grogu, Din. Grogu, Din. Over and over, in a never-ending spiral with no way out, no way to break the surface, to breathe. You felt helpless. Useless. Alone.

A sigh slipped from your lips before you could smother it, and then Fennec was closing down her program and spinning around in her seat.

“All right, stand up.”

You startled, cursing yourself at the dark flash of aggravation in the older woman’s eyes. “Oh, kriff, I’m sorry. I’ll shut up – I promise.”

But she wasn’t having any of your empty promises today. “Stand. Up,” she repeated, her sharp tone brooking no room for argument. You were on your feet in an instant, aware for perhaps the first time that this woman was lethal – a master assassin and a deadly sniper, someone who commanded respect with both her actions and her demeanor. She had been kind to you, yes, but you didn’t savor the idea of testing her patience any more than you already had.

“What are we doing?” you asked, tentative.

Closing the distance between you in a handful of long strides, Fennec beckoned to you with both hands, gesturing at her own chest. “Try and punch me,” she said.

Your eyebrows shot up, and your jaw dropped open dumbly. You were sure you had misunderstood. “What?”

“You heard me. Try and punch me.”

“Fennec – ”

She advanced another step toward you, her gaze hard, and you stumbled back despite yourself, feeling a rush of intimidation flood your system. “You told me you’re woman of action. That you’re an engineer, a fixer. But there’s nothing we can do for the kid until we get to Nevarro, and Mando won’t let you put him back together right now. I’ve watched you try for days, and it’s going nowhere. So instead of focusing on them, you’re going to focus on you.”

“By punching you?” You could feel a wave of defensiveness rising at her words, but you couldn’t deny that she was right. There was nothing for you to fix here, and it was not-so-subtly driving you mad. But punching her? You would never. You wouldn’t stand a chance!

“Yes. You’re feeling restless? Helpless? Afraid? Then do something about it.” She took yet another step toward you, driving you across the deck until the backs of your knees hit the next chair over. “You need someplace to put all that energy? Put it right here.” She patted her chest, the sound muffled by her leather gloves and padded jacket. “Let me teach you how to fight.”

Her words had you taken aback, but you couldn’t deny the wisdom of them. Perhaps at one point, Din had planned to teach you himself, but clearly, he was too preoccupied at the moment to do so. You had nothing else to occupy your time for the remainder of the journey; your daily routine of babying your injuries and moping around the ship wasn’t doing anyone any favors, least of all you. And no one could deny that in an expedition to track down a child that had been kidnapped by a fully-armored Imperial light cruiser, you were far and away the weakest link of your band of misfits. If you were being given the opportunity to shore up those skills, even in the smallest of ways, you would be foolish to turn it down.

Steeling your nerves, you nodded once to Fennec. “Okay. Where do we start?”

The older woman smirked, pleased, and brought her fists up in a ready stance. “Put your hands up, girl. Let’s see what we’re working with.”

You took a brief moment to take in the angle of her body, the way she had spread her feet apart, one in front of the other, the position of her fists up near her face. You tried to emulate her as best as you could, and then, after a deep, steadying breath, you swung.

---

Your muscles were sporting a new kind of soreness as you emerged from the ‘fresher later that evening, hair long and loose around your shoulders, boilersuit hanging onto your hips with the sleeves framing your legs. Your eyes were heavy, exhaustion weighing on your joints, but it was a good kind of tired – the kind that felt particularly satisfying after a long day of physical activity. You were almost looking forward to finally collapsing on the thin mattress of your bunk; you knew you would pass out the moment your head hit the pillow. However, just as you wrapped your palms around the ladder to climb up and do just that, a familiar pair of brown boots appeared above you, and Din dropped the last few rungs onto the deck below.

“Din,” you acknowledged, surprise coloring your tone. “Hi.”

He turned to you then, extending his leather-clad hands to you without preamble. “Let me see your hands.”

You frowned in confusion. “What?”

But the bounty hunter did not repeat himself, nor did he wait for further reply. Instead, he simply snatched each of your hands from down at your sides and brought them up to his eye-level. You winced at the rough handling, your hands more than a little tender after Fennec’s lessons, but if he noticed your discomfort, he didn’t let on. He simply studied your fingers in the dim light, running the pads of his thumbs across the ridge of your knuckles.

“No split skin. Nothing looks broken,” he murmured, voice low and raspy, almost as though speaking to himself rather than to you. “A bit of bruising and swelling, but no more than I’d expect for a novice.” He dropped your hands and took a step back out of your space. “Looks like Fennec is a good teacher.”

“She is,” you replied. You cradled your fists close to your body, feeling suddenly, inexplicably self-conscious at his cool appraisal. That was the most he had spoken to you in days, the first time he had touched you since he had helped you with your burn ointment that first night, and the lack of warmth was almost more disquieting than the avoidance.

“I did say I wanted to work on your combat skills,” he said, matter-of-fact. “If you wanted to learn how to fight, cyare, all you had to do was ask.”

You drew back sharply at that, feeling something acidic and bitter begin to roil in the pit of your stomach. “Really?” you hissed acerbically. “How would that have gone, exactly? You’ve been avoiding me for days, Din. You haven’t hardly said two words to me since we jumped to hyperspace.”

The Mandalorian cocked his helmet at you, taking a step back in your direction, then another, driving you back toward the ‘fresher door. Had your hackles not already been up, you might have found the way he crowded into your space intimidating, but as it was, you were completely undaunted. You kept your eyes on his, jutting your chin our defiantly as he rumbled, “Forgive me if I haven’t exactly been in the mood to chat. I’ve been a bit preoccupied, if you haven’t noticed.”

“Oh, I’ve noticed. You’ve been sulking so loudly, I couldn’t not notice.”

“Sulking?” His modulated voice had taken on a dangerous edge, and something deep inside you, something animal, suddenly registered Din as a threat. It was a side of him you had rarely seen, something usually reserved for quarries, and it made a primal part of your psyche crack open an eye, watching your exchange with lazy interest.

“Yes. Sulking.”

For a moment, the bounty hunter appeared at a loss for words. You could hear his breathing through his helmet, so close and yet refusing to touch you, hands balled into fists down by his hips, also very carefully not touching you. But then, just as you were sure he was about to snap back with a quip of his own, he released a weighty sigh, spun around, and headed back in the direction of the ladder.

“Din, wait – ” Your hand flew out to snag on the sleeve of his flight suit, wrapping your fingers him somewhere between his pauldron and his vambrace. “I’m sorry. I know I can’t imagine how you’re feeling right now.” The words poured from your mouth before you could stem them, everything you had been wanting to say to him for days all bubbling to the surface at once. There was no holding them back any more. “Losing the Crest, losing Grogu, not knowing where he is, not knowing if he’s safe – ”

“Don’t.” Din pulled his arm from your grip, but still, he didn’t retreat any further, and in spite of his warning, you took it as a sign to keep going.

“I don’t want to fight with you, Din. I want to help you. Please. Please just let me help you.” Thick, hot emotion rose in your throat, flushing your face, pricking the backs of your eyes with the burn of unwanted tears. “You don’t have to bear this on your own. We’re in this together, okay? Please don’t shut me out anymore. I…” You hiccupped, a single tear breaking free of your wet eyelashes, spilling down your cheek. “I love you.”

For a long, tense moment, he said nothing. He continued to face away from you, though now rather than looking ahead toward the ladder, he stared at the deck, chin pressed to his chest, broad, proud shoulders hunched inward on himself as though to shield himself from your fraught confession. Almost too softly for his helmet vocoder to pick up, he whispered, “I know, ner kar’ta. I love you, too.”

Another tear slipped down your face at the endearment, the gentle, lilting syllables of Mando’a settling over your shoulders like a warm blanket.

Ner kar’ta.

My heart, you recalled, and you swore the sound of the words made your soul ache.

And then you watched as all of the softness and vulnerability seemed to wash away, the Mandalorian drawing himself back up to full height, straightening his shoulders and his gaze right before your eyes.

“Get some ice on your hands before your next sparring session,” he said, once again cool and detached. “It will help with the swelling.”

In two long strides, he was back at the foot of the ladder, and that ache in your soul became a physical pain, one that had you clutching your hands over your chest, pressing on your breastbone, willing it not to split apart under your palms.

In two short minutes, he was gone, and you lost the battle with the remainder of your tears.

---

Note:

As you may have noticed, I have taken some creative liberties with the internal layout of Boba's ship, the Slave I. You will find that in every depiction of the ship, there are variations as to the exact floorplan, and there is a great deal of debate as to whether the cockpit or any other levels rotate because of the way that the ship flies "vertically" but lands "on its back." For my adaptation, I have combined a few different internal schematics I found online with the rotating navigation room mechanism described by Jon Favreau and team in the Disney Gallery - Star Wars: The Mandalorian episode "Making of Season 2." Since that is the one that is depicted in the show, I felt like it was important to align with that source material first and foremost. (Please don't ask me how many hours I spent scouring forums and fan sites looking at Slave I blueprints and cutaways lol)

[bestworstcase]

i generally don’t believe that penny will come back again, but i did realize that if she came back again it would have a sort of parallelism to salem, if she were to become immortal via ascension or some other means. specifically given your reading that the GoL killed salem before dropping her in the pool. thoughts?

if it happens, ambrosius did it

given what was laid out thematically in V9, i don’t think there’s any path for penny to return as penny. she died. anything that takes the choice of what her next life will be away from her is wrong, both light’s afterlife (eternal stasis) and being rebuilt by her friends/family.

but i think it’s quite likely that a) remnant’s afterlife is some form of reincarnation cycle with the pattern having been set by salem’s deaths and resurrections in the divine pools, and b) as discussed in the linked post, what they asked ambrosius to do with penny bent the rules so far that his power was partially freed. (note oddities like him lingering out of the staff after time started moving again and penny’s robot body disintegrating after he made the portals even though it explicitly should not have been destroyed at all because he only assembled it.)

thus, the possibility that penny may be subject to special circumstances based on ambrosius having recreated ascension with his own magic.

the interesting piece for penny is that she was not designed to have agency. the atlesian military built a soldier, a weapon, and gave her a soul because—presumably—ironwood wanted to explore the feasibility of transferring the maiden powers into robotic soldiers as a solution to various Problems. penny was not supposed to be a person and, of course, her personhood was only tolerated to the extent that she followed orders and the entire atlas military pivoted away from defending atlas from salem to forcing penny to submit and obey the instant penny failed to fall in line. it is also made clear in V8 that penny’s friends/family also impinge on her agency in ways that make her really quite unhappy, mainly out of overprotectiveness.

so, if this character has been plugged into a sort of bootleg ascension—what does it look like for her to, as ambrosius put it, “come to the surface” after her death?

human!penny represented what her friends wanted for her, and the whole ordeal is by turns bittersweet and horrific; the death of penny’s robotic body is downright gruesome because it is framed strictly from penny’s point of view, and in the subsequent fight there are multiple beats showing that penny has lost important pieces of herself (floating array, her tactical software). and of course penny has never once expressed feeling an actual problem with being a robot.

at the same time, though, her robotic nature did leave her uniquely vulnerable to certain forms of compulsion (watts’ virus, pietro’s remote control) and intensified the dehumanization she experienced in the atlas military. so i think penny likely had complicated feelings.

in the end, every choice she could have made was systematically stripped away from her until the only thing she had left was who to hold in her final thoughts; weiss, or winter. the pragmatic choice or her best friend.

she chose her friend.

if penny then found herself in a place where the only thing that can happen to her is what she wants, what does she choose? who does she become? penny is dead, but her essence lives on. (there’s a possible rhyme here with “salem lives, but the woman you hold dear in your memories is gone”—the god of light has nothing but disdain and malice for salem, and she has not changed in the way he implies, but it is true that she isn’t the same girl ozma knew millions of years ago.)

the other factor is that fractally, penny is repeating ozma, and both the virus and the remote control are metaphors for his parasitic reincarnation so she is thematically connected to ozma’s immortality in an overt way. so in the event she returns during the run of the show i imagine it would be in some form that answers ozma’s curse, i.e., as a new person without her memories a la ascension and definitely not as a voice in [winter’s/ruby’s] head as is the common set of theories.

but i also tend to think that if it happens it’ll be an epilogue thing—after the war is over—because penny was built to be a soldier in that war and the last choice she made before she died was defiant of that purpose. it makes sense to me that she would return to a time of (genuine) peace.

[godslush]

TokeiWoman.EXE

A central NetNavi for a large corporation, who oversees all scheduling and finances across multiple subsidiary companies. Very little is known about her other than she is not owned by an individual Operator, instead being owned by her 'company', and seems to have very little autonomy… but with nobody issuing orders, who knows what transpires when no eyes are on the code…

Tokei has two forms. Most will first encounter her ‘Combat Projection’, an aggressive, dual-blade wielding monstrosity upholding security in her region.

Instead of being a time stopper, her Combat Projection enforces a metronome on her board; combat with her and any minions/viruses occurs "on the beat" (akin to Crypt of the Necrodancer), with the background and floor pulsing to indicate the timing.

Instead of a catchy dance beat, the music would be... much more foreboding.

Her own attacks are strong but telegraphed with zones, and she's invulnerable except on beat-based intervals (and the window of opportunity changes every round, indicated by her markings’ color shifting). However, her gimmick is balanced by her Projection having low HP (akin to a slightly stronger Virus), though it can be resummoned when destroyed after taking some time to recharge.

The nature of her primary attacks involve throwing her clock-hand blades out, which linger on her opponents’ side of the board as a damaging tile. They can then either be dropped to create ‘ice’ tile zones, or recalled to do returning trajectory damage on the way back.

Tokei’s ‘true’ NetNavi form is much more subdued, quietly toiling away at a computer, chained to a desk in the center of her drive. She clearly doesn’t want to be there, but as far as she knows, she has no other choice.

Tokei is not housed in a PET, but instead runs from within a gargantuan supercomputer array at the heart of her owner corporation. It’s necessary for not only analyzing and crunching massive amounts of data, but also to make moral and ethics calls when it comes to managing things like sick leave, time off, and other intra-company HR decisions for thousands of employees per day.

Tokei’s ‘zone’ exists in an Overclocked state, where everything appears to move normally but is in fact moving at hyper-speed, causing the outside world to appear to move very slowly. This is what allows her to do so much work in a seemingly short amount of time. However, it has two downsides; it disables Operator-to-Navi communications, alongside causing other NetNavis to run out of energy and burn out very quickly while anywhere near her online presence when she’s working; she can avert this by ‘freezing’ them in a sort of stasis, to preserve them until they can be appropriately retrieved. The only reason she is able to function at those speeds without running out of energy or otherwise overheating is due to her ‘core’ body being plugged into the system for power and coolant.

This comes with the caveat that she is almost if not completely powerless outside of her domain.

Though stuck in a draconian job, especially when it comes to things like time-off requests and raises and employee welfare, Tokei will always put employees first over management and bottom-line, and the reason she gets away with it is that she insisted and eventually proved that having happier employees is better for the companies than keeping them unmotivated and wanting to quit. Despite her cold exterior, she's very much "The people who do the most work deserve to be happy." Wishful thinking on her part, but it keeps her going.

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

A funney idea along the lines of SlashGirl.EXE. I changed it from Tokay to Tokei and removed the more obvious gecko parallels because Tokay herself has significant narrative importance outside of MM, so I wanted to make it more concrete that the Navi is separate (just inspired).

I'd started thumbnailing designs a while back on my Twitter priv, but decided to give it a big overhaul, especially after seeing ClockMan.EXE and noting the similarities to my older passes.

Her 'tick tock' rhythm mechanic and broken clock/hourglass details (plus the 'noose' clock hand necktie) are all very evocative of a "your time is running out" death motif, but her also working in finances just makes her a big "death and taxes" joke at the end of the day.

[grelleswife]

Hey this is maybe a strange request but I was wondering if you had any good anime recommendations ?

I've been watching JJK and I've been left feeling a bit disappointed with the writing (it feels kinda all of the place and it feels like characters are dying just for the sake of dying)

So I'm kinda looking for something with darker themes and also maybe with supernatural elements, but that gives all the characters good arcs and development and also maybe is a bit on the happier side?

But honestly anything will do I'm just looking for some new stuff

I've been thinking of watching Vanitas no Carte so that one's already on my list

Hi, anon! I understand your frustration; the despair of the Shibiya arc had become rather gratuitous by the end of Season 2. :/

VnC was one of the first shows that came to mind while I was reading your ask, so you’re already ahead of the curve! Content warnings I recall off the top of my head include child death, nonconsensual blood drinking (which carries certain unpleasant implications in vampire media), use of children for scientific experimentation, and unsavory dynamics (aka the man repeatedly disregarding the woman’s boundaries) in the canon m/f pairing. However, the quality of the story and its unmistakable queerness still make Vanitas no Carte a worthwhile watch, in my opinion. And the manga is even better!

Some other recommendations I can think of, albeit with varying ratios of darkness to good character development and happy moments, are listed below. Please note that content warnings provided are based off my hazy recollections and thus are not comprehensive.

Mushishi

Though existing beyond the realm of human perception, the diverse array of primitive lifeforms known as mushi can warp their surroundings—and the people inhabiting them—in bizarre, sometimes frightening ways. As a mushishi, Ginko is one of the rare few who can see and interact with these creatures, and travels Japan lending assistance to those struggling to coexist with the mushi. Suffused with a quiet melancholy, this anime is perfect to watch on a rainy day with a cup of tea in hand.

Content warnings: Body horror

Mononoke

Nope, not the Studio Ghibli film that gave birth to the classic “I’ll cut your throat” ship meme. This 2007 anime follows the enigmatic and possibly immortal Kusuriuri (medicine seller) as he helps people impacted by mononoke, malevolent spirits that latch onto negative emotions. However, he can only dispel these spirits by uncovering their true nature and the reason for the appearance, forcing him to play detective along the way. Though a spiritual cousin of sorts to Mushishi, the two shows vary radically in style: Whereas Mushishi’s color palettes tend to be earthy and subdued, Monoke’s animation pushes the envelope with a dizzying, gaudy spectacle that could have come straight out of a drug-induced nightmare.

Content warnings: Violence (including violence against women), discussions of forced abortion, body horror, a highly questionable relationship between a monk and his sister, eyestrain (the colors are gorgeous but can be a bit overwhelming at times)

Otherside Picnic

College students Sorawo Kamikoshi and Toriko Nishina team up to periodically explore the Otherside, a parallel universe where urban legends pose all-too-real threats, growing closer over the course of their adventures. Fans of the light novels on which this 12-episode anime is based have criticized the differences in tone between the adaptation and the source material, complaining that the anime tends to come across as a bit goofier. However, as someone who went into the series blind, I had a fun time! Otherside Picnic also numbers among the rare examples of sapphic anime with adult protagonists, although most of Sorawo’s and Toriko’s relationship is relegated to slow-burn due to the short run time. Their black cat/golden retriever dynamic is still a joy to behold!

Content warnings: Occasional gun violence, body horror

Death Parade

The souls of the recently deceased are pitted against eachother in nerve-wracking games meant to uncover the darkest corners of their psyches so that beings known as arbiters may pass judgement on their fate—reincarnation, or eternity in the void. Alongside his assistant, Chiyuki, the arbiter Decim begins to gain greater insight into humanity while starting to question the very role for which he was created. This underrated gem will probably reduce you to a puddle of tears at least once, so have a box of tissues ready.

Content warnings: Violence, assault, suicide, depictions of alcohol use (much of the action takes place at an otherworldly bar)

Noragami

Hiyori Iki’s ordinary middle school life is turned upside down when a bus accident weakens the link between her body and soul, enabling her to perceive the gods and spirits in our midst…including Yato, a brash yet destitute young god without a single shrine to his name. How will their fates intertwine? Written along a similar vein to Fruits Basket and Kamisama Kiss, Noragami charms the viewer with its sillier shenanigans while ripping your heartstrings to shreds during the darker moments. Although the manga (at least what I’ve read of it) is superior, and the anime only adapts a handful of the original arcs, it still holds its own. And the OPs are excellent! 👌

Content warnings: Body horror, child death, suicide

[wsjyuyuyuau]

Can you do Big Band from Skullgirls Please?

Name: Ben Birdland/Big Band

Series: Skullgirls

Gender: Male

Status: Alive

Family: None as of Now

Flower Motif: Bronze Pansy (Viola tricolor hortensis)

Flower Meaning: Showmanship

Weapon of Choice: Instruments

Associated With: Interdimensional Hero Club (Ally)

Hero Form Appearance: A combination of a jazz star’s costume and YuYuYu’s Hero Form Outfits. The undersuit of the outfit is a jet black so the bronze can stand out- and while the main outfit is indeed bronze all around, accent colors of black, yellow, gray, silver, gold, and crimson help make sure the outfit doesn’t look like a third place trophy. Meanwhile; the boots, gloves, breathing mask, and hat all have patterns of pansies on them, and the only other accessory is a bronze pansy brooch on his left breast. The flower’s petal shape can be seen in the tailcoat and collar.

Full Bloom Gauge Location: Left Fist

Guardian: Syre (Based on a Greek siren)

Favorite Food: Opera Cake

Parallel To: None

Bio: Ben Birdland has seen a lot in his time, including the worst of the Grand War. But nothing was worse than what he saw as a beat cop in New Meridian. When he ran afoul of his crooked unit he was given a violent early retirement, and his broken body was left to spend the rest of its days in an iron lung. That would have been the end of Ben’s story if it hadn’t drawn the ears of the Anti-Skullgirl Labs. With little left to lose, he agreed to be rebuilt with their experimental procedures. Melded with the machinery that allows him to breathe and a powerful an array of pneumatic weaponry, he was reborn as “Big Band.” Now a senior member of Lab 8, he’s become a father figure of sort to the younger ASG soldiers. A firm believer in their cause, he has stayed with the project through its controversies and still sees his place on the front lines against the Skullgirl. His technology may be dated, but he more than makes up for it with experience and fortissimo.

[hospitalterrorizer]

diary545

3/28-29/25

friday - saturday

better day for music.

i think i kind of figured something super awesome out... for guitar synths, at least. it's not 'new' necessarily, the idea, it's just one that like, seemed so simple to me always and also kind of irritating, that i never did it, too simple to work, it seemed, and too time consuming to try, but i tried it today, and i'm happy i did. i decided to use several instances of massive set to mostly sin waves and to set them up in accordance to the low e string being strummed, just like, placing the harmonics by pitching up various sin waves across the oscillators in massive, about... idk 6 instances? idk actually i should check, might be a little over, that + a high passed physical modeling synth to help with attack and some extra harmonic stuff happening, + some noise in another massive instance. the thing that i think really helps with this setup is 1) no weird low pass dimness from trying to roll of highs to make something sound less bright in a bad way and then losing any good sharpness and 2) i could modulate specific harmonics to do weird things, in the higher ranges i noticed some move around in pitch in weird ways, a sort of wavering, so i could use some of the lfos independent of one another to modulate the pitches really lightly to match what i was seeing in the eq. without any effects on this, it'd be super pointless, though, it wouldn't really sound like a guitar at all, it'd be a weird synth sound is all, but with the harmonics all laid out like that, and the decays of each something i can also set up on each cluster of harmonics to decay differently to help shape the tone better as well, or create different tones or even, it works kind of like an eq as well, it all interacts with saturation and distortion in really really good ways. i also have used almost every weird trick i've thought up on this thing, the low wetness reverb before pickup simulation to help make it seem like there's signal moving through space, and it also helps bring out brightness in a smear-y way which is super useful, rather than having it be over-articulate it's more ready to be noisy, i didn't do the flanger thing on particular harmonics because i shouldn't need to, with what i set up w/ the oscillators, but it's an option that is available to me, also. i used the fast fourier transform to get some extra weird transients out of it,,, which i'm super pleased with, it adds something hard to place, mostly, unless i opt to shut off the dry signal which runs parallel to it and that is a really good sound. i did something with it today. it kind of needs weird distortion to pick up the pick-y ness of a guitar but that's what i spent a lot of time doing, i kind of decided to create multiple effects racks for different distortion methods, and one's like, useless it just kind of makes something hideous happen, but the others are really super useful, they're all maybe a touch similar in ways, but idk, different flavors of useful distortion that i've set up to be easy to turn on and off with automation, some delay chain also that i've made, i'm thinking of that as like an array of pedals, which feels exciting, it's like i've gone and collected new toys but i made them myself, so i'm hopefully going to keep liking this guitar sound and find stuff i can do with it on problem songs + maybe new stuff with it. when i make these sounds i test them with lots of different kinds of riff ideas, this one seems really capable of doing a lot, so that makes me excited, also, it might be able to do some things for some songs i've really struggled with, maybe i'll try it on one in particular i've thought of as being like, impossible to fix, basically. we'll see though. some songs are just always hard to get right.

but i also went into the feedback thing, with it, and i like this sound i can get, it's that super short delay / ugly spring reverb sound on some no wave stuff, kind of, and i also really like how the fft thing makes the guitar super weirdly bright, and the distortion also really pleases me. idk. i'm super taken with this but maybe it's just because it's new...

like:

or:

(or that spray paint record from yesterday)

time to read now, i'll listen to more sleetmute while reading, that fits the book...

the book is finished. i really like it, and i'm also super tired. so my thoughts might be limited. tomorrow i'll read all of an interview between paul curran (author) and thomas moore, who is another writer i admire actually, so that's a match made in heaven, for me.

but the book, really special thing. i hope it lingers in me, it's a really strange and complicated thing, some of the interview i caught confirms a couple things, in part, the way text creates people/ the possibility of 'self' understanding in the way we tend to, here is paul on that:

by presenting monotonous instructions in the same tone, with sometimes extreme and sometimes mundane content, I wanted to put the reader into that confusing state where it’s unclear if consciousness controls bodily movements or is a retrospective narrativization of them.

this is a subject that's always interested me, it's always occurred to me with things like memory, as i've had at a point in my life, false memories revealed to be false and then what was actually there not really coming back to fill it in, just that emptiness and knowing something years ago didn't happen, or didn't happen that way, which colors everything, and then this path of your life, stemming from that history, the narrative is wrong, you're not really there, it's something else, it feels like. with the body, this is also a common sensation, what did you hear or feel, why did i do that, sometimes i have really poor motor control, i notice it when i try to keep beats and things, i jitter a lot, this isn't so intense as doing evil things, even then, i guess compulsive self harm, biting myself and hitting myself for no reason, cutting, things can come in to explain them but in the moment, it's kind of a fact articulating itself, you're there seconds after sort of a witness to it. beyond this though, the more internal/emotional aspects, this is also something one needs to think through to topple phallic humanism/enlightenment thinking i think, that the body is this upright thing that exists in accordance to a hierarchy and the mind is this moral principled logical function, basically, when it is all disarray and discontinuity.

here are some portions of the book:

this one made me think about life right now, surrounded by images of people dying, torture on the mind, too, the strangeness of violence so accessible and placed before you, this evokes that. the book's been republished in 2020, but originally it's i wanna say... 2013? very salient, although the world's always been a meat grinder. part of this book's inspiration is also clearly the horror-show the internet has always churned out.

and from the final section:

i think this also gets at a lot of the theoretical stuff this book is trying to approach/attack, to undermine discipline, when transgression meets the limit, the limit closing itself, the relation back to the law, or maybe moreso, the effort of the law to link itself back to these acts/functions of a desire for dissolution, chaotic non-things and the effort of the law to establish bounds upon them, to implicate itself back into some circuitry.

quite liked the image of the flagpoles made of bones bending in wind.

i like how the sun functions here, it reflects off everything, implicating itself and giving shape to everything, its act of giving shape/form also makes it impossible to not see, as well, this passage is strongly tethered to the one i posted just before as well. integrity is an interesting thing to think about, fear and lack of faith in the body, a crumbling thing. i suppose this is a common feeling, i feel it daily in some sense, with fear of becoming ugly, aging, etc, this will not last and it would be better to be dissolved in acid or fucked to death than to have to go on with the worrying, which i can't discard, because the worrying is also an investment i have in the act of living. that makes it sound rather heavy, i guess from far off, from this vantage, it is, i was thinking a lot about psychic bdsm in the shower today, the techniques we have for abstract pleasure and things, self denial was one i thought about a lot, it's one i engage in somewhat often, where there is a strange distant satisfaction in saying no to myself. the perversion of the ascetics.

lucy was trying to shake him off like an insect caught in a summer dress.

beautiful image to me.

lots of painful penetration in this final section. it really made me wince.

i really like this book. not sure what else to say. it's a complicated mess of a thing, a pile of organs under streetlight, digestive fluids as grammatical function.

that feels related to the lines, in the final quoting, which is also the final paragraph, wishing for something to disappear, its definition grows, this also feels related to the mechanics of intrusive thoughts, which kind of color the violent images that travel through the book.

i feel like i really need to watch aria tomorrow, as some kind of counterpoint to this. although, idk, to be honest as pleasant as that show is, counterpoint makes them feel more opposed when they're both ambivalent feeling to one another, which is more interesting. not that they'd ever be actually related, but putting them beside one another in my head, it's not really like they negate one another. it's a silly thing to think about, but i am simply having fun.

here are some old photos i took. i also felt a need to post things that aren't ripe with blood, or at least evidently. everything is kind of like that to me, everything implicates everything else, at all times.

tomorrow i will also probably resume work on the minecraft textures too... looking forward to painting small things again.

now it's almost 5 am,,, oh no... i have to sleep,

wait, one last thing, i finally got frosted mini wheats, the trader joe's kind... they're good. so that's good, that makes me happy. i wonder if i should have asked my gf for oat milk to go with them instead of almond milk, but the almond milk is okay too.

so,

byebye!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[hob28]

Advanced C Programming: Mastering the Language

Introduction

Advanced C programming is essential for developers looking to deepen their understanding of the language and tackle complex programming challenges. While the basics of C provide a solid foundation, mastering advanced concepts can significantly enhance your ability to write efficient, high-performance code.

1. Overview of Advanced C Programming

Advanced C programming builds on the fundamentals, introducing concepts that enhance efficiency, performance, and code organization. This stage of learning empowers programmers to write more sophisticated applications and prepares them for roles that demand a high level of proficiency in C.

2. Pointers and Memory Management

Mastering pointers and dynamic memory management is crucial for advanced C programming, as they allow for efficient use of resources. Pointers enable direct access to memory locations, which is essential for tasks such as dynamic array allocation and manipulating data structures. Understanding how to allocate, reallocate, and free memory using functions like malloc, calloc, realloc, and free can help avoid memory leaks and ensure optimal resource management.

3. Data Structures in C

Understanding advanced data structures, such as linked lists, trees, and hash tables, is key to optimizing algorithms and managing data effectively. These structures allow developers to store and manipulate data in ways that improve performance and scalability. For example, linked lists provide flexibility in data storage, while binary trees enable efficient searching and sorting operations.

4. File Handling Techniques

Advanced file handling techniques enable developers to manipulate data efficiently, allowing for the creation of robust applications that interact with the file system. Mastering functions like fopen, fread, fwrite, and fclose helps you read from and write to files, handle binary data, and manage different file modes. Understanding error handling during file operations is also critical for building resilient applications.

5. Multithreading and Concurrency

Implementing multithreading and managing concurrency are essential skills for developing high-performance applications in C. Utilizing libraries such as POSIX threads (pthreads) allows you to create and manage multiple threads within a single process. This capability can significantly enhance the performance of I/O-bound or CPU-bound applications by enabling parallel processing.

6. Advanced C Standard Library Functions

Leveraging advanced functions from the C Standard Library can simplify complex tasks and improve code efficiency. Functions for string manipulation, mathematical computations, and memory management are just a few examples. Familiarizing yourself with these functions not only saves time but also helps you write cleaner, more efficient code.

7. Debugging and Optimization Techniques

Effective debugging and optimization techniques are critical for refining code and enhancing performance in advanced C programming. Tools like GDB (GNU Debugger) help track down bugs and analyze program behavior. Additionally, understanding compiler optimizations and using profiling tools can identify bottlenecks in your code, leading to improved performance.

8. Best Practices in Advanced C Programming

Following best practices in coding and project organization helps maintain readability and manageability of complex C programs. This includes using consistent naming conventions, modularizing code through functions and header files, and documenting your code thoroughly. Such practices not only make your code easier to understand but also facilitate collaboration with other developers.

9. Conclusion

By exploring advanced C programming concepts, developers can elevate their skills and create more efficient, powerful, and scalable applications. Mastering these topics not only enhances your technical capabilities but also opens doors to advanced roles in software development, systems programming, and beyond. Embrace the challenge of advanced C programming, and take your coding skills to new heights!

[south-sea]

AU Masterlist

Disclaimer: cringe is dead and staying dead. I like to incorporate the multiverse in a lot of my AUs by default, so sometimes they overlap/OCs have a chance of being mentioned etc.

# Second Chance AU: Shadow doesn't make it after SA2. The nature in which he's revived means he can't return to his home timeline and has to find a new purpose in life. Metal meanwhile gets ejected from his own timeline after a fight with Super Sonic and lands in the same general world as Shadow. Shadow catches him as he falls, and the two gradually become inseparable. They're considered a QPR in this, but it's kind of just a title of convenience as the closest approximation. (This doubles as the catch-all tag for a side plot involving Mr. Tinker's return, but that's rarely discussed.) (If you don't specify in asks and such, I'm going to assume you're referring to this AU in general)

# Semi-modern AU: Refers to the Shadow native to Second Chance Metal's original timeline. Timeline diverges around the point of shth/06/Rivals 2; this Shadow is considered "missing" up until after the second IDW arc, when in actuality he's investigating reports suggesting Mephiles has been spotted on some other timeline. Strong-arms his way into said timeline after figuring out it must be possible due to the events of Rivals 2. Befriends said Mephiles, who may or may not be suffering from their own sort of amnesia. (Is considered an extension of Second Chance AU on account of the two timelines co-existing thanks to Metal, and Mephiles getting their own second chance.) (Shadow: He/They, Mephiles: They/Them)

# Lab Rat AU: Shadow never makes it to the normal timeline's earth. The escape pod slips into a parallel world without/post mobians where he's found, eventually sold to a group of scientists, and subjected to an array of tests/experiments in the interest of medical research due to the dire straits the world is in. The Metal that exists in this AU is made more in his image to act as his caretaker/companion. (Focus isn't likely to be on the actual lab/experimentation aspect, so don't worry about mentions of gore or anything. Discussions about this one begin at the point Metal frees them)

# Neutral End AU: Thinking it's the best thing for him, Black Doom takes his son back before the GUN raid can happen. For a starving race, nobody truly wins. It's a necessary end. (This AU exists just to let Aruna be a dad)

Misc stuff:

AU Black Arms Hives, which are associated with and occasionally referenced throughout other AUs

God Mephiles, related to Semi-modern AU and overlaps with Aruna backstory details

Robot Infinite, who definitely exists, somewhere

[as-if-and-only-if]

C++(20) time again! Zoinks: threads and parallelism.

So I'm trying to kind-of-sort-of create a thread pool and a worker queue (or queues) to handle all the jobs. Each job represents a candidate in a really big search space, so I definitely need that 6× speedup!

But I can afford to not go fully general; here's my situation.

(threads (6); jobs (many); global processes (1))

I want one thread per CPU core.

Each thread processes a job and either completes the job and goes straight to the next, or, very very rarely, needs to propagate a message to stdout and write to a file.

Instead of picking from a common queue, I expect each of these jobs to take roughly the same amount of time, and be pretty quick. There are just going to be a lot of jobs. I think this means I can give each worker thread its own queue, and dispatch jobs to queues cyclically (put the first job in the first queue, the second in the second, etc., then cycle back).

I have a function that adds something to the queue(s) one by one, but does so very rapidly. Probably faster than my worker threads can keep up. And there will be so many jobs to handle that at some point, I'll need to pause adding to the queue(s) and wait for the queues to be a little emptier. Somehow. I have no idea how.

Each thread needs its own designated block of memory to work on. This region can be reused from job to job. I'm currently thinking of using a global array for each thread , but would a vector be just as good? Where do I look for learning how to manage memory ownership by threads?

[milijanakomad]

Product design and psychology: Unpacking the Phenomenon of Loot Boxes in Video Game Design

Keywords: Loot Boxes, Video Gaming, Game Design, Player Engagement, Psychological Manipulation, Gambling Mechanics

Abstract:

This scholarly study explores the deployment of "loot boxes" in video games, seen as a psychological manipulation technique designed to enhance player engagement and monetization. Detailed case studies illuminate the implementation and consequences of loot boxes, providing an exhaustive understanding from a senior product designer's standpoint.

Introduction:

The gaming industry has witnessed various monetization strategies, one of which is the controversial "loot box" system. These virtual grab bags, which provide randomized in-game items, have been a subject of scrutiny due to their similarity to gambling. This paper will delve into the complexities of the loot box system, its use, and its effects on players. The evolution of the gaming industry has introduced an array of monetization tactics, among which "loot boxes" have notably garnered substantial attention and controversy. As part of the intricate fabric of video game design, these virtual containers, alternatively referred to as "loot crates" or "prize crates," furnish a randomized assortment of in-game items. The contents may vary from cosmetic modifications, denoted as "skins," to character enhancements, power-ups, and a plethora of elements poised to amplify the gaming experience. Despite the prevalent use of these systems, the underlying resemblance to gambling activities and potential implications for addictive behaviour has spurred considerable debate. This manuscript seeks to dissect the structural nuances of the loot box system, the reasons behind its usage, and its consequent impact on the gaming community.

Explanation:

At the core of the allure of loot boxes lies the element of uncertainty. The revelation of the enclosed items post-transaction engenders a rush of suspense and exhilaration, analogous to that induced by gambling. These items, classified according to their scarcity, further contribute to a continuum of potential outcomes; players may procure commonplace objects or, less frequently, exceedingly rare and sought-after ones.

The deployment of loot boxes, despite their capacity to enhance the thrill of video games, has ignited significant controversy. This contention primarily originates from the structural similarities between loot boxes and gambling activities, their ability to foster addictive tendencies, and their availability to minors. The psychological underpinnings that fuel the appeal of loot boxes, including the unpredictability linked to 'unboxing,' the thrill derived from acquiring rare items, and the incentive to make in-game purchases, are potent drivers of player engagement. However, these same mechanisms have instigated regulatory interventions in jurisdictions like Belgium and the Netherlands, where legislative measures or outright prohibitions on loot box usage have been implemented, underscoring their intimate relationship with gambling.

In the broader gaming landscape, loot boxes materialize as digital containers purchasable in games, often with real-world currency. They embody the thrill of chance, as their contents remain concealed until post-purchase, paralleling the excitement associated with gambling. The encapsulated items, sorted by rarity, offer gamers the possibility of obtaining either ordinary or exceedingly rare and valuable items.

The use of loot boxes in popular games, though undoubtedly contributing to their allure and enhancing the visual aesthetics, has concurrently kindled considerable debate, attributed to their semblance to gambling, potential promotion of addictive behaviours, and accessibility to a young audience. The psychological dynamics in action, encompassing the exhilaration of unveiling the unknown and the desire to amass rare items, have prompted certain regions, such as Belgium and the Netherlands, to enforce regulatory measures or outrightly ban the use of loot boxes in video games.

Loot Boxes in Gaming: Conceptualization and Design

Loot boxes are virtual items that players can buy with real-world currency or in-game achievements, containing randomized rewards. The uncertainty and anticipation surrounding their opening make them a potent tool for psychological manipulation, exploiting the same reward system mechanics found in gambling.

Case Study: Overwatch

Blizzard's team-based shooter Overwatch provides loot boxes that can be purchased or earned through gameplay, containing cosmetic items of varying rarity. Each loot box contains four items which can be player skins, emotes, voice lines, or sprays. The rarity of these items is tiered, with the rarest items being the most coveted. The random nature of the rewards keeps players engaged, instilling a "just one more" mentality similar to slot machines.

Case Study: Star Wars Battlefront II

Electronic Arts’ Star Wars Battlefront II was initially released with a loot box system that had a significant impact on gameplay, prompting extensive criticism and leading to a complete overhaul of the game's progression system. The controversy also spurred legal and regulatory discussions about the ethical implications of loot boxes and their resemblance to gambling.

Case Study: FIFA Ultimate Team

In this mode of the popular FIFA soccer games, players can buy packs of cards (essentially loot boxes) containing random soccer players to add to their team. These packs can be purchased with coins earned in-game or with "FIFA points," which are bought with real-world money. The randomness of pack contents and the potential to pull highly-rated players can make this an addictive, and potentially costly, aspect of the game.

Case Study: Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS: GO)

In CS: GO, players can purchase or earn loot boxes called "weapon cases." These cases contain random weapon skins that change the appearance of the player's in-game weapons. The skins are purely cosmetic and do not impact gameplay, but rare skins can be highly sought after by the game's community.

Implications for Game Design

While loot boxes can increase monetization, they also pose ethical and design challenges. Their gambling-like characteristics can lead to problematic gaming behaviours, particularly among younger audiences. Designers need to weigh these considerations carefully, as they might lead to reputational damage and legal issues, as seen in the Battlefront II case.

Conclusion:

The loot box phenomenon, as a method of psychological manipulation in video gaming, presents a complex intersection of design, psychology, and ethics. As video game designers, we must consider these factors and strive for responsible and sustainable monetization models that value player experience and satisfaction. Future research on loot box impact and regulation will undoubtedly continue to shape the gaming industry's landscape.

References:

Drummond, A., & Sauer, J. D. (2018). Video game loot boxes are psychologically akin to gambling. Nature Human Behaviour, 2(8), 530–532. doi:10.1038/s41562-018-0360-1

Zendle, D., & Cairns, P. (2018). Video game loot boxes are linked to problem gambling: Results of a large-scale survey. PLOS ONE, 13(11), e0206767. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0206767

Macey, J., & Hamari, J. (2018). eSports, skins and loot boxes: Participants, practices and problematic behaviour associated with emergent forms of gambling. New Media & Society, 21(1), 20-41. doi:10.1177/1461444818786216

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[nursingwriter]

Sensory Systems Systems involved in visual processing are constantly being bombarded with various stimuli. In order to function effectively, these systems must selectively attend to information that is pertinent to the task at hand. Several biological and cognitive functions are employed or implemented for the execution of any visual task. Moreover, the visual system does not passively absorb all external stimuli, but instead introduces systematic bias in order to attach meaning to stimuli, or process raw visual data into usable information (Rosenzweig et al., (2004). Several factors influence the process of visual information, including visual masking (Macknik, 2006), spatial location and color of stimuli (Grabbe & Pratt, 2004), the manner in which stimuli are grouped (Min-Shik & Cave, 1999), as well as expectation of the presentation of visual stimuli (Anderson & Carpenter, 2006). Visual masking happens when visual targets become invisible through the modification of the context in which they occur, without modification of the targets themselves (Macknik, 2006). Macknik (2006) explained how there is a minimum number of conditions that are necessary for the maintenance of awareness of the visibility of stimuli that is not being attended to. First of all, in order for targets to be visible, spatiotemporal edges must be present, and they must be encoded by fleeting bursts of spikes observable in the early visual system. Visibility fails if these bursts are inhibited. Another factor required for the achievement of visibility is a rise in activity within the visual hierarchy and further processing within the occipital lobe. This researcher also explains the important role that lateral inhibition plays in visibility, because it results in interactions between spatially positioned stimuli and forms certain responses to stimuli temporally. Lateral inhibition essentially acts as a filter that sorts through and discards or enhances visual information before it is sent through the optic nerve to the brain. Also, lateral inhibition has been shown to increase in strength for both monoptic and dichoptic stimuli throughout the visual hierarchy (Macknik, 2006). Both color information and position information are involved in the process of visual stimuli. Grabbe & Pratt (2004) examined whether these factors were equivalent in their influence on visual processing. In this study, participants observed a briefly flashed array of letters and were then asked to report a letter of a certain color from a specific region of the presentation. They were also asked to report any other letters they could remember from the presented stimuli. The results indicated that in the reports of additional letters, more letters were reported of similar location than letters of the same color or neutral color. This suggested that location information has priority over color information when participants had to perform letter selection based on these two factors. Furthermore, according to Grabbe & Pratt (2004), "position information had a unique role in top-down - guided visual selection, and that it predominates over color when selection is required on both dimensions." This spatial dimension priority is demonstrated when the instructions for the task do not explicitly indicate that there is only one selection dimension, and location seems to be the default dimension under these circumstances (Grabbe & Pratt, 2004). The actual pathways on which spatial information and feature information, such as color, travel from the eye to the brain may be separate but parallel (Grabbe & Pratt, 2004). This would mean that there is a fundamental anatomical and functional difference in the way these types of information are processes. Furthermore, "selection happens by differential activation (excitation, inhibition, or both), of certain representations (not necessarily location representations) (Grabbe & Pratt, 2004)." What are the specific anatomical areas responsible for spatial and nonspatial information? Spatial information is routed into posterior parietal areas, while nonspatial information is directed into inferior temporal cortical areas. Attentional focus may also play a role in the fact that location information took priority over color information in the study by Grabbe & Pratt (2004). If visual targets are within attentional focus, reaction times for detection are decreased and accuracy of discrimination in responses increases. The researchers suggested that spatial attention was focused first to locate the appropriate section of the visual target, which was followed consecutively by color selection in top-down guided selection tasks (Grabbe & Pratt, 2004). The mechanisms involved in feature-specific attention to color were investigated by Muller et al. (2006) through the examination of selective stimulus processing using an electrophysiological measure called the steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP). In this study, participants observed a display of red and blue dots that were intermingled and randomly and continually shifted their positions. The frequencies at which these red and blue dots flickered differed, and this resulted in the elicitation of distinct SSVEP signals in the visual cortex. Selective attention to either the red or blue dots resulted in an enhanced amplitude of its specific SSVEP. These signals were anatomically localized to early levels of the visual cortex through the use of source modeling (Muller et al. (2006). This observed amplification of signals associated with attended color items provides empirical evidence for the rapid identification of feature information during visual search tasks (Muller et al., 2006). Perceptual grouping functions may also play an important role in determining location in visual selection tasks (Min-Shik & Cave, 1999). There are generally two hierarchical, functionally independent mechanisms contained in visual information processing theory (Min-Shik & Cave, 1999). These are an early, preattentive, parallel mechanism and a later, attentive, serial one as well. The first mechanism occurs when participants recognize and detect a target with no increase in reaction time as the number of present distractors increases in tasks where the taret is defined by a certain feature, such as color. Based on this observation Tresiman has proposed the feature integration theory of attention (FIT). This theory maintains that there is a preattentive stage of the visual system that processes all the information pertaining to primitive visual features of stimuli, such as orientation, color, brightness, depth, etc. (Min-Shik & Cave, 1999). This information is processed spatially in an automatic manner, and this is done so in parallel across the entire visual field. However, when object recognition must take place according to a conjunction of certain features, spatial attention is required, and this preattentive stage can not execute the required selection. Min-Shik & Cave (1999) used this theory as a basis for their research into the role that perceptual groupings play in visual processing. These researchers contrasted two different types of visual search models, which either emphasized the role that perceptual grouping plays in visual search or did not. The former type of visual model propose that visual search begins with a preattentive stage in which the visual field is segmented into distinct objects according to gestalt properties like contiguity, similarity and proximity. Attention can then step in and continue on the process using these perceptual units that are already preattentive organized. In this class of visual search model, location of the target is considered to be equivalent to all other properties, including color, movement, shape, etc. (Min-Shik & Cave, 1999). The other type of visual search model propse that location plays a special role in visual selection, and that spatial information organizes representations necessary for the search task (Min-Shik & Cave, 1999). The study by Min-Shik & Cave (1999) demonstrated grouping processes based on selection of certain locations. Results of their study indicated no significant evidence for task irrelevant color grouping effect in a simple feature search. However, findings did indicate a grouping effect that was location-based in a conjunction target that is defined by nonspatial features. Furthermore, "arranging elements into groups affected conjunction search but not feature search (Min-Shik & Cave, 1999)." Overall, these results support the idea that spatial attention functions in visual search tasks by inhibiting nonselected locations based on grouping principles rather than on an individual basis (Min-Shik & Cave, 1999). Expectation also plays a crucial role in the processing of visual information, and this expectation depends almost exclusively on previous experience (Anderson & Carpenter, 2006). This is empirically demonstrated through the fact that expectation influences response time to a visual stimulus. Anderson & Carpenter (2006) used this observation as a basis for their investigation into the effects of experience on visual processing. In this study, the probability of a visual target changed suddenly during the experiment, and this resulted in the response time for eye movement adapted and continuously changed. This change in eye movement was observed to eventually stabilize in a way that reflected the new probability that was presented. The researcher attempted to model this change based on the assumption that the brain discards old, irrelevant information about the probability of an event by a certain factor that is relative to new probability information (Anderson & Carpenter, 2006). This factor represents a compromise in processes between accurately and rapidly responding to actual changes in the environment and not hastily discounting any information that may still be valuable (Anderson & Carpenter, 2006). Moreover, Anderson & Carpenter (2006) demonstrated that the visual environment of the real world is continuously changing and the probability of the appearance of visual targets is dynamic. Fluctuations in expectation may be described by a model that actually calculates expectation using a weighted combination of new and old information. According to this model, when the probability of a target's appearance changes abruptly, a smooth change occurs that encodes prior probability. This model even predicts small changes in expectation even when there is a constant probability of appearance of the target (Anderson & Carpenter, 2006). The experience-based techniques employed that are used to predict probability of the appearance of a stimulus requires that certain pieces of information are held in storage over several trials, which requires an additional number of neurons for the process. Anderson & Carpenter (2006) explain how "the main virtue of (their) model is its simplicity and ease with which its exponential decay in the effect of stimulus history can be implemented by biologically plausible means." Reference Anderson, A., Carpenter, R. (2006). Changes in expectation consequent on experience, modeled by a simple, forgetful neural circuit. Journal of Vision, 6(8), 822-35. https://www.paperdue.com/customer/paper/sensory-systems-involved-in-visual-41424#:~:text=Logout-,SensorySystemsinvolvedinvisual,-Length6pages Grabbe, Y., Pratt, J. (2004). Competing top-down processes in visual selection: evidence that selection by location is stronger than selection by color. Journal of General Psychology, 131, 137-49. Macknik, S. (2006). Chapter 11 - Visual masking approaches to visual awareness. Progress in Brain Research, 155, 177-215. Min-Shik, K., Cave, K. (1999). Grouping effects on spatial attention in visual search. Journal of General Psychology, 126, 326-52. Muller, M., Anderson, N., Trujillo, N., Valdes-Sosa, P., Malinowski, P., Hillyard, S. (2006). Feature-selective attention enhances color signals in early visual areas of the human brain. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 103(38), 14250-4. Rosenzweig, M., Breedlove, M., Watson, N. (2004). Biological Psychology: An Introduction to Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience (Fourth Edition). Read the full article