#and you dont have to commit to it either. pick it up and drop it whenever you want

[satsuki-yumizuka]

whats a show or game you love that you cant recommend to people

one piece. not because theres anything unrecomendable abt it but bc most people i know are weak of spirit and also feel this really weird need to read the entirety of something or none of it

[gizkasparadise]

2023 wrapped: kdrama edition!

taking a page from @dangermousie, here's a list of all the kdramas ive watched this year, in order from least liked to most liked! because i dont have a spotify wrap-up to share :'D

cdrama one here!

and i'll do a webtoon one too /o/

overall i didnt watch too many kdramas this year, and finished less. kind of a "meh" kdrama year for me overall (with 1-2 exceptions). with that in mind, full disclosure that i didnt love a ton of what i watched this year in kdramaland:

we barely knew ye: ones i dropped only a few eps in

sweet home 2. dropped after ep 2. direction it went in is v much not my thing, my fave surviving characters were either killed off or put on the bench, and im not that motivated to see what happens next. might jump back into the franchise if word-of-mouth on s3 is good, we'll see

moon in the day. first ep was actually great and i enjoyed it a lot!! but im not doing cancer storylines rn so that killed momentum. may try this one again later

king the land. watched the first ep. simply did not vibe.

death's game. ditto ^

black knight. i LOVE a good dystopian scifi. this was not that. i was really bored after the first ep and didnt bother with the rest

my dearest. i watched the first ep and liked it, but just wasnt in the mood/wasn't immediately hooked. i'm going to give this one another try when i hit the Angsty Sageuk craving again

dramas i watched at least half of

6. twinkling watermelon.

it's pretty wild to put what i believe is the current #1 show on mydramalist as my bottom pick for the year, especially since it's written by my favorite screenwriter, but here we are. this one is far from objectively the worst drama but it's here because it made me the most mad!! the female lead and second male leads were both off-putting and selfish to me, and the whole drama i was actively rooting for ryeoun's earnest and endearing male lead and shin eun soo's underwritten second female lead to escape and have mother/son adventures on their own away from the rest of everyone else

5. arthdal chronicles: sword of aramun.

sigh. i was a big believer/supporter of this season, even with all of the recasts. but despite a few moments of brilliance, it was overall a slog to watch and just kind of joyless. too much time spent on the ago tribe, too many nonsensical victories and deus ex machina coincidences, and the bag was very much fumbled with some of the characters (particularly saya, who was to me the most interesting character in s1 and you KNOW ljk could have rocked that ruthlessness). positive standouts were kim ok bin flawlessly scene-chewing as taealha and lee joon ki working what he was dealt

4. worst of evil.

adored this drama for the first 2/3rds! it was gritty, neo-noir that reminded me a lot of the old school hong kong crime films like infernal affairs. lots of style, great acting, messy and flawed characters. but the last arc/ending was a boring dud for me. still very much enjoyed the ride up to that point though!

3. perfect marriage revenge.

so! much!! fun!!! just. full commitment to making a show as gloriously makjang/soap operay as it could get and it was a blast watching because of it. made on pocket lint for a budget but it rocked what it had and a special shoutout to lee min young's absolutely fantastically camp evil stepmother. the excitement died down a little toward the end, but still a good time overall

2. the glory, part 2.

a satisfying ending to a really excellent first half. love that the female lead just got to execute revenge and there was no moral or sanctimonious hangups about it. enjoyed the way the ending was set up as "the adventure continues," and all in all this was a really solid and enjoyable dark drama! only thing that was kind of a bummer is that the time split between airing the first and second halves killed the momentum a little, but that's entirely netflix fuckery and not the fault of the show

moving

hands-down the best kdrama i watched this year, and possibly my favorite kdrama ever. i didnt plan to watch this one because im sick of superhero everything, but the cast got me wanting to at least try it and omg im glad i did. great acting from literally everyone, wild action scenes, and just beautiful characters and dynamics across every level. the family narratives are so, so good and the whole show is expertly grounded in the concept of planting seeds so your children can see flowers. please give this one a try if you're on the fence about it!

2023 kdramas that i plan to watch (but didnt get to yet!)

my lovely liar

a good day to be a dog

my perfect stranger

revenant

mask girl

bloodhounds

my demon

AWARDS

Favorite ship: juwon and jihee from moving absolutely destroyed me in the like 3 eps they were in, so they win this one. he's a gangster who gets the shit kicked out of him for a living and loves stories with happy endings. she's a weary but always brave sex worker (coded, but still) who decides to trust a lonely man crying in the street. i never thought a motion-sensor light could wreck me the way theirs did. "you have worth to me, and i have worth to you."

Favorite FL: song hye kyo's dong eun in the glory just barely edges out han hyo joo's mihyun in moving. song hye kyo needs to play, like, all the villains and anti-heroes ASAP because that's been the most fun ive had watching her. she took on a dark character and rocked it

Favorite ML: juwon from moving, definitely. to quote my older post:

Moving really said hi this is Juwon. he has scars from gunshots all down his arm. he opened a chicken restaurant. he’s a gangster. he loves pro wrestling because the good guys win. he tried to rip out his own galbladder to prove a point. he’s a proud girl dad. he is unkillable. he stands in the street and cries.

Favorite 2FL: lee min young's incredible, over the top, villainous camp queen lee jung hye from perfect marriage revenge was just so much fun to watch and she ate every single scene she was in. 10/10 would watch her throw lawn chairs in a ballgown all day

Favorite 2ML: i would die for bongseok from moving. precious sunshine child who deserves only the best

Best Cast: im a broken record, but moving. so many characters with such great depth given to them and this was truly an ensemble show A+++

Best WTF: yura eating her paternity results in perfect marriage revenge!!

[fulgurbugs]

an extremely thorough review of the monster fest draculaura food truck playset

was getting something for my mom today for her birthday, and since now that im home, the target and the walmart actually close together, decided id see if they had Monster fest cleo and the draculaura playset. they had both! i picked them up with some birthday money i got.

this set retails at 59.99.

up first: the box. i’ve seen some problems online me with this doll having her clothes stolen due to the open packaging that allows you to touch her without unboxing her. i respect the lack of plastic, but i doubt they’ll be packaging any future releases like this. the doll herself is near impossible to remove without scissors though.

i will say, she was quite easy to remove from the box. all the sticker decals are separate, and the instructions included have corresponding numbers telling you where to put them.

here’s all the parts the playset comes with. it was too large for my desk, so here it is on my bed lol

all sides before opening (with decals)

the interior of the food truck section. the little door can hold all of the included food accessories, luckily, so they won’t be loose.

the stage section. folded up, it’s like a dressing room, with slots to hold the guitar and microphone. folded down, it’s a stage

also, be careful before you commit to putting those stickers on. i put one of those mirrors on crooked and it did NOT peel off clean

now onto the draculaura. she is certainly…. less extravagant than the other monster ball dolls.

she is 100% polypropylene. oof.

face card. i actually love love love the makeup on this draculaura. green is a rarely used color on her, but it’s cute and subtle in this makeup! her headpiece is separate inside the box, and is not worn on her head in the box, and thus has no head tabs. it falls off pretty easy.

my draculaura is missing her green necklace…. i couldn’t find it any of the bags of accessories she came with either….

budget body. (this seems to be the norm with all playset dolls.) i honestly don’t miss the chest articulation that much, but she already feels a bit barebones….

quick shoe check. i actually love these, they’re a lovely level of shiny irl, with really cute molded details. maybe they just need some green and pink paint to make those details pop?

now to make some proportional comparisons! venus will be assisting today, since she’s one of the larger dolls.

unfortunately, there is no way i could find to make her sit nicely in the driver’s seat :(

the pop up section of the food truck is accommodating to both of their heights though.

draculaura on the stage. it’s extremely hard for her to hold the guitar due to it lacking a string or a second handrest. i bumped her and she dropped it again. also, why is it blue? doesn’t match anything on her outfit….

i do enjoy the bat microphone, though! very cute

ended up tucking the truck away down with my peach riots, but im sure i will eventually put it into storage. i dont have much interest in the playsets. i think maybe displaying some dolls on the stage could be cute though? (maybe catty….)

and that’s monster fest draculaura! honestly, if i wasn’t specifically a draculaura collector, i’d pass. the playset is huge, and the doll herself is not nearly as cool as the rest of the monster fest lineup. i do really want to give her a little tlc and some paint on those accessories to see if i can really make her shine though!

[mikka-minns]

I know I'm very much the "they changed it so it sucks" person when it comes to mk12, but I really don't understand a lot of the choices they're making. Like, I don't trust nrs's writing on a good day, but-

I'm afraid they won't actually explore the consequences of the stuff they're changing? Like, they're REALLY unwilling to commit to their story changes, as we've seen by the way they retcon the shit out of the story when they feel like it and reboot the whole fucking thing when they write themselves into a corner

Like, how am I supposed to care about your game's story when I'm constantly thinking "they're just going to start from the beginning when they get tired of trying to figure out where to go with this story"?

Maybe I'm just too picky and old-at-heart, though

No, no, i feel the exact same way.

I LIKE some changes cuz they seem intresting. I mean, why make a new timeline if you dont explorer new things. But thats the thing, im afraid the WONT explore the new timeline and these new takes on the characters.

They can do something intresting with Raiden and his relationship with Liu Kang. Does Raiden know he was once a god? Have he and Liu Kang known each other before or did they Just meet in this timeline? (i think they Just met cuz of the first trailer, but im not 100% sure) Im afraid they might just make him the new Liu Kang and make Liu the new Raiden and give us nothing new, but i do hope they do something intresting. We haven't seen them interact so that might mean their relationship id either realy important or realy non-existant. 😭

And everyone is intrested in Mileena and what her story may be but she Also might just be the first bad guy that gets killed off. I would like her to be there till the second half (at least) and have some important role and an arc, but i dont even think they added her cuz they like her, but cuz they didnt want to upset the fans. Tho that just might be my paranoia.

And, yes, they are most likely not done with changing the timelines. If we are unlicky enough, they will change it mid-story and make another mk11 plot.

After everything, i dont trust nrs only Jeremy.

Im REALY hoping they pick up on some things fans like. Give characters good dynamics and some intresting motives. It looks like Johnny and Kenshi will have a 'rivals to friends' so im hoping they dont drop that the moment their chapter ends. Also, it would be nice if they showed Kenshi's little journey of relearning self-worth after he loses his sight since this is the first time in the games that it doesnt happend off screen.

They Also might not kill off Kung Lao in this game and finaly let him live😭 but im sceptical about that😭

I have hope, but im keeping it low so i dont get TOO dissapointed.

[gretasworld]

Greta is straight. The proof is in the series itself. Let's debunk then. Let's prove it.

People talk about this character Greta being a polyamorous and bisexual. The lgbt wiki which is run by sjws and no authentic source also show Greta as bi. 🤣 I strongly disagree. 🚫 Let's show Why and how she is NOT bi - she says this line like a joke to make Alucard cheer up - " I mean I had a boyfriend and a girlfriend at the same time but they never tried to kill me. " Then after, immediately she says the rest of the sentence and reveals the truth " ACTUALLY, NO ! I TELL YOU A LIE. HIS WIFE WENT AFTER ME WITH A PITCHFORK ! " and Alucard immediately breaks into laughter. Then Greta says this " I KNEW YOU WOULD BE STRANGE. " This confirms that she is NOT queer or a sexual deviant or poly or messed up in the head. She finds these " things " WEIRD clearly according to her own words. Her dialogues are your PROOF and she is sensible enough for all that shit. I have seen lgbts cherry pick the " boyfriend and girlfriend " part to make Greta a member of their community but always omit the rest of the lines. Even the pro lgbt websites that speak of fictional characters' sexuality claim this just to add more to their team. 🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕

" Actually I tell a lie ..... " Why do the abc rainbow freaks always cut out the later lines when making her bi in their websites? It's because she is not and they somehow have to make her.

Even the website Lgbt wikia which is run by lgbt people has speculated this character to be an A.B,C like them. Well. If you understand paid propaganda and how websites run with certain purposes,then you will realise and agree that the fandom website is infact trash and contradicts source materials.

Now speaking of poly relationships, partners in poly relation are in harmony with one another with full consent of each other and they dont try to beat each other or attack each other in order to get rid of them out of jealousy or whatever. If poly was Greta's case she would not have to run away from the man. She would never have to be chased of by the wife with pitchfork. So yea, she never really had two people of different genders at the same time and her full dialogue confirms it.👍

TRUTH # What Greta says in this scenario is ACTUALLY this - She was in a deceitful love relationship with a man who was married but she didnot know she was being tricked into being his sidechick and when his wife found out about the affair, Greta was chased off by the wife for obvious reasons to protect her marriage OR Greta was helplessly in love with a manipulative man despite knowing he is married and couldnot help herself and the affair ended after the wife of the man found out that Greta was a sidechick. In either case,its a shame and insult to Greta to have been in this situation and had to ultimately drop her feelings for the married man. There was never a girlfriend or a boyfriend thing going on together ! We see this sort of scenario in real life quite often. No self respecting person wants to share their partners with someone else so Greta naturally had to move away after being caught because man's wife would not tolerate her.

Her dialogues also point to another thing. Relationships and marriages are the most exclusive bonds. There are reasons why monogamous marriage is defined in all religions as SACRED and most functional. The reasons its this way is rooted in holding strong the family structure, morals, commitment,responsibility,to avoid disruption, to keep peace and healthy atmosphere for couple and children both, to keep devotion and loyalty to your home and not hurt your spouse.

Relationships are the very core unit of every society on which the society stands. Family is where human beings are born, grow up,learn their values and they all need an undisturbed stable father figure and a mother figure who love each other and donot cheat or fuck around. Fathers bless children in one way and mothers are well,mothers. This is how it has been. This is how it intends to remain. Because monogamy works. Pushing for throuples,justify cheating or open relationships,same sex and poly relations destroys organic family structure and children living in it most. People living in the west especially with multiple partners are DEGENERATES and raising some very unfortunate children who again learn from their deviant adults. They should be punished by law. It should be criminalized. They are severly penalised outside US for these acts.

These unfortunate children raised by them are being deprived of their rights to learn the organic morals necessary for them in their own lives. These unfortunate children grow up with the warped views of their no good worthless parents who screw them.

And as for Netflix, it just bastardized every character in Castlevania to fill up the woke check boxes to be politically correct. Greta's shit dialogue has NOTHING to do with the character or her real sexual identity. Netflix does the same thing to other shows as well to fill diversity inclusivity quota and destroys the magic of literature/source material in the process. Take a look around you and you will see Netflix does it in every show of it.

Honestly, if they showed Alucard and Greta having sex and more romantic moments of them from season 3, we would all be happier and the show would be more successful. Sad they didnot even include a picture of Greta in any of their posters.

Lastly, NO I am not a bigot. I simply debunked a confusion and stated the truth of what happened. OF WHAT IS HAPPENING. If you want to check it again and match my words, re watch Season 4 properly. Oh, and yes, our Alucard is also canonically in the games and manga, a cis white straight man AND SO WAS THE REAL SON OF THE REAL DRACULA IN HISTORY. Such a beloved character got ruined the most by the makers in Netflix because now it is fashionable to hate straight white men and women and destroy straight canon characters like him.

Check the screenshot below. 👇👇

[fetabathwater]

would llonvyne ever have a family? kids, partner, pet dragon? or does that depend on the vampirism and super charged daedra soul?

ive actually been debating inflicting her with the woe of child/ren but also demiprince type bc who knows whaddahell is going on there. smth smth stop fucking around and finding out with daedric princes etc etc. but yeah like. idk. i genuinely havent thought much further ahead than kind of mentally spacing out each campaign/dlc/thing that is going on in her life, kind of picking up npcs that i think kind of clicked in some way with dialogue and llon. she has inadvertently managed to become a mother hen to a number of young murderous teens/young adults, but like i dont think of it as 'mothering' more like. hm. i dont wanna classify it as being all 'big sister' energy either that i guess is stereotyped into expectation. she's there, she'll help, she is going on her own way but she'll keep in touch if ur bird manages to find her and deliver the letter? or eventually she'll return to her home and read everything back.

like idk with also definitely running with being a silencer and . ok forgot the title u receive in thieves but like. busy ms llony. also llon is doing things on her own time, and yeah like. theres the vampirism which was fun when she was like. idk. 200 or w/e but now shes like 400 or smth if you count the forced slumber i forgot what yr i said she was born, and she's tired and not sure how it works with a supercharged soul gem and like 40 kinds of blessings and curses from daedric princes, and azura and meridia kind of trying to drag her left and right and she's also still getting sea sick which is so weird like. also almalexia is there and vivec city still isnt built and also time travel exists but this could be a dragon break all along?

llon publishes a memoir but then turns out the dragon break ends and it doesnt exist LMAO

and then like i think it would be so funny if she was nerevarine. like idk how committed i am to it of course but the fucking. shit hitting the fan for her that literally no god will let her die???? flipping off the elder scrolls and also that rly cool idea ppl were rolling around of nerevarine steadily looking more chimer vs dunmer as everything progressed. also cool. but thats also like. another era away for her.

BUT YEAH SORRY TO ANSWER THE QUESTION got sidetracked. idk about starting a family if not inadvertently like. not even just in a vamp thing and dunmer have a small amount of kids thing but i could only see it rly happening by accident and a 'hm. this shouldnt happen' weird shit or having a daedra spawn dropped in her arms. llon doesnt count anyone who didnt go to arkay priests to ask for a blessing and remove any possible vampirism after a night of necking. idk about her having a consistent partner, i did make an altmer/imperial looking just ur average roman citizen about to commit warcrimes who also was bit by lamae but i forgot to play them further:) might take them out for a spin and dress them up. then forget again.

[wittynameme]

how do I put this

I want to preface this with

NOt every Jewish person is a Zionist. You can be antizionist and hate antisemitism

A lot of horrible people have always used free Palestine as a dogwistle. They never liked either Jews or Palestinians

I do not like the violence, of course I don't

I dont know why I'm sitting here on my bed texting on Tumblr what MY opinion is on this war. Like I know anything or have any authority on the matter.

I am a 21 year old American. I live all the way across the sea on another continent where a country full of colonist war-profiteers pump out tons of pro-isreal propaganda.

Case in point the famous"we would need to make an Israel" speech.

I can only impart what I know from my experiences.

I've been in BLM protests and seen with my own eyes how horrible the police treat the protesters and how the news twists it in their favor, depicting them of being bloodthirsty violent rioters and when they can't in any way rationalize that they at least say there was "wrong on both sides".

I've researched propaganda, particularly blood lible in order to understand how people condemned Jewish people and perpetuated theofacist nationalism.

I've seen the ridiculous double standard we have for violence. Why do we only cry "violence isn't the answer" when someone who doesn't benefit the profit of the state does it but in any other case they were acting alone or defending themselves or "the cycle of violence is complicated and theirs nothing we can do about it"?

When Russia invaded Ukraine , claiming it was there territory actually and that they were freeing it from terrorism, we were record breaking levels of fast to call Putin out on his bullshit. In an unpresidented display of across the table unanimity we agreed to fight Russia. We also still viewed the Russians as victims and not as a monolith.

We associated it with the other times we've faught in Europe. WW1 and WW2 , times we have glorified to high hell and back as the war the USA taught valiantly in single handedly and definitely did nothing wrong. It was the last time we faught a unanimously "good" war. The Nazis were evil and we killed them...we definitely didn't join the war late. Inspire gas chambers and sell them tanks...and uh...what we did to Asia....well uh...we had too, war is messy and we picked the greater good. Now shut up before I send you to the principal and finish up that 5 page report on WHY we did the right thing when we dropped that bomb... And that other bomb.

When Israel invaded Palestine , claiming it was their territory actually and they were freeing it from terrorism ...we sided with them and stood by for 75 years as they became that theofacist ethnonation . They committed a genocide, they nearly erraticated the Palestinians. How many babies do you think died in their holy war?

Then word gets out that some of them killed babies in retaliation. I'm yet to see any evidence of this but it instantly got the whole UA up in arms . They viewed the entire rebellion as the same. All of our anti propaganda training just whent out the window in a second. Where's the "they were acting alone" or the "liberation is messy" or the "wrong on both sides "?

No. I don't condone war. There is no such thing as good war. It's always fucked.

But I find it insanely hypocritical, entitled and audacious to even use the word "condone".

This is an excellent example of people getting angry only when people fight back.

It would be remice of me to tell these people "yes I know they started it, but don't you dare try to end it, just sit there and take it because violence is wrong even when other people do it".

Who the hell am I to say anything?

At least I'm philosopically consistent. Are you? How do you neutralize the contradictions the government makes about violence?

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Don't believe Obama's Big Tech criti-hype

Obama’s Stanford University speech this Thursday (correctly) raised the alarm about conspiratorial thinking, and (correctly) identified that Big Tech was at the center of that rise — and then (wildly incorrectly) blamed “the algorithm” for it.

https://thehill.com/policy/technology/3382803-obama-points-finger-at-tech-companies-for-disinformation-in-major-speech/

Obama was committing the sin of criti-hype, Lee Vinsel’s incredibly useful term for criticism that repeat the self-serving myths of the subject of the critique. Every time we say that Big Tech is using machine learning to brainwash people, we give Big Tech a giant boost:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/02/euthanize-rentiers/#dont-believe-the-hype

You may have heard that the core of Big Tech’s dysfunction comes from the ad-supported business model: “If you’re not paying for the product, you’re the product.” This is a little oversimplified (any company that practices lock-in and gouges on repair, software and parts treats its customer as the product, irrespective of whether they’re paying — c.f. Apple and John Deere), but there’s an important truth to it.

The hundred of billions that Google and Facebook (or Meta, lol) rake in every year do indeed come from ads. That’s not merely because they have a duopoly that has cornered the ad market — it’s also because they charge a huge premium to advertise on their platforms:

https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/online-platforms-and-digital-advertising-market-study

Why do advertisers pay extra to place ads with Googbook? Because Googbook swears that their ads work really well. They say that they can use machine learning and junk-science popular psychology (“Big 5 Personality Types,” “sentiment analysis,” etc) to bypass a user’s critical faculties and control their actions directly. It boils down to this: “Our competition asks consumers to buy your product, we order them to.”

This is a pretty compelling pitch, and of course, ad buyers have always been far more susceptible to the ad industry than actual consumers. Think of John Wanamker’s famous quote, “Half my advertising spend is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half.” How wild is it that Wanamaker was convinced he was only wasting half his ad spending?!

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and the evidence for the efficacy of surveillance advertising is pretty thin. When Procter and Gamble decided to stop spending $100,000,000 per year in online advertising, they saw no drop in their sales:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/05/florida-man/#wannamakers-ghost

Every time someone tries to get an accounting of the online ad market, they discover that it’s a cesspit of accounting fraud — Googbook lie about how many ads they show, and to whom, and how much money changes hands as a result:

https://doctorow.medium.com/big-tech-isnt-stealing-news-publishers-content-a97306884a6b

This is where criti-hype does Big Tech’s job for it. It’s genuinely weird to look at Big Tech’s compulsive lying about every aspect of its ad business and conclude that the only time these companies are telling the truth is when they assert that their products work really, really well and you should pay extra to use them.

After all, everyone who’s ever claimed to have invented a system of mind-control was either bullshitting us, or themselves, or both. From Rasputin to Mesmer, from MK Ultra to pick-up artists, the entire history of mind-control is an unbroken chain of charlatans and kooks.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/11/rhodium-at-2900-per-oz/#hypernormal

It’s entirely possible that Big Tech believes they have a mind control ray. Think of Facebook’s hilarious voter turnout experiment. The company nonconsensually enrolled 61m users in a psychological experiment to see if they could be manipulated into voting in a US election rather than staying home.

The experiment worked! 280,000 people whom the experimenters predicted would not vote actually voted! 280,000 people is a lot of people, right?

Well, yes and no. 280,000 votes cast in a single precinct or even a single state would have been enough to change the results of many high-salience elections over the past couple of decades (US politics are generally balanced on a knife-edge and tip one way or another based on voter turnout). But Facebook didn’t convince 280,000 stay-homers in one state to vote: they convinced 280k people out of 61m to vote. The total effect size: 0.39%.

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2012.11401

US elections are often close run, but they aren’t decided by 0.39% margins! The average US precinct has 1,100 voters in it. In the most optimistic projection, Facebook showed that they could get 4.29 extra voters per precinct to turn out for an election by nonconsensually exposing them to psychological stimulus.

Now, it’s possible that Facebook could improve this technique over time — but that’s not how effects in psych experiments usually work. Far more common is for the effectiveness of a novel stimulus to wear away with repetition — to “regress to the mean” as we adapt to it.

https://locusmag.com/2018/01/cory-doctorow-persuasion-adaptation-and-the-arms-race-for-your-attention/

Remember how interesting Upworthy headlines were when they arrived? Remember how quickly they turned into a punchline? Remember that the first banner ad had a 44% click-through rate!

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/04/the-first-ever-banner-ad-on-the-web/523728/

So Facebook performed a nonconsenusal psych experiment on 61m people and learned that they could improve voter turnout by 4 votes per precinct, with an intervention whose effectiveness will likely wane over time. What does that say about Facebook?

Well, on the one hand, it says that they’re a deeply unethical company that shouldn’t be trusted to run a lemonade stand, much less the social lives of 4 billion people. On the other hand, it shows that they’re not very good at this mind-control business.

That’s where Obama’s Stanford speech comes in. When Obama blames “the algorithm” for “radicalizing” people, he does Googbook’s work for them. If Mark Zuckerberg invented a mind-control ray to sell your nephew fidget-spinners, then Robert Mercer stole it and used it to make your uncle into a Qanon, then Zuck must have a really amazing advertising platform!

But like I said, Obama’s correct to observe that we’re in the midst of a conspiratorialism crisis, and Big Tech has a lot to do with it. But Obama — and other criti-hypers — have drastically misunderstood what that relationship is, and their own contribution to it.

Let’s start with the ontology of conspiracy — that is, what kind of belief is a conspiratorial belief? At its root, conspiracy is a rejection of the establishment systems for determining the truth. Rather than believing that scientists are telling us the truth about vaccine safety and efficacy, a conspiracist says that scientists and regulators are conspiring to trick us.

We live in an transcendentally technical world. You cannot possibly personally resolve all the technical questions you absolutely need to answer to be safe. To survive until tomorrow, you need to know whether the food safety standards for your dinner are up to the job. You need to know whether the building code that certified the joists holding up the roof over your head were adequate.

You need to know whether you can trust your doctor’s prescription advice. You need to know whether your kid’s teachers are good at their jobs. You need to know whether the firmware for the antilock brakes on your car is well-made. You need to know whether vaccines are safe, whether masks are safe, and when and how they’re safe. You need to know whether cryptocurrencies are a safe bet or a rampant scam.

If you get on a Southwest flight, you need to know whether Boeing’s new software for the 737 Max corrects the lethal errors from its initial, self-certified, grossly defective version (I live under the approach path for a SWA hub and some fifty 737 Maxes fly over my roof every day, so this really matters to me!).

You can’t possibly resolve all these questions. No one can. If you spent 50 years earning five PhDs in five unrelated disciplines, you might be able to answer three of these questions for yourself, leaving hundreds more unanswered.

The establishment method for resolving these questions is to hold truth-seeking exercises, which we call “regulation.” In these exercises, you have a neutral adjudicator (if they have a conflict of interest, they recuse themselves). They hear competing claims from interested parties — experts, the public, employees and executives of commercial firms. They sort through these claims, come to a conclusion and publish their reasoning. They also have a process to re-open the procedure when new evidence comes to light.

In 99% of these exercises, we can’t follow the actual cut-and-thrust of the process, but we can evaluate the process itself. Honest regulation is a black box (because most of us can’t understand the technical matters at issue), but the box itself can be understood. We can check to see whether it is sturdy, honest and well-made.

The box isn’t well made.

The regulatory process has been thoroughly captured, and is now more auction than truth-seeking exercise. Regulators themselves are drawn from the executive ranks of the companies they are regulating. How could it be otherwise? 40 years of antitrust malpractice has led to incredible concentration in nearly every industry:

https://www.openmarketsinstitute.org/learn/monopoly-by-the-numbers

When five (or four, or two) companies control an industry, the only people who truly understand that industry are the executives at those companies. What’s more, all of those executives are awfully cozy with one another, even if they’re notionally bitter competitors. An industry with just a few companies is one in which most executives have worked at most of those companies at some point in their careers. They are godparents to each other’s children; they’re executors of each others’ estates. Hell, they’re married to each other.

https://locusmag.com/2021/07/cory-doctorow-tech-monopolies-and-the-insufficient-necessity-of-interoperability/

This coziness — between competing companies, and between industries and regulators — makes regulation incredibly susceptible to capture. And since the administrative agencies (not Congress) have the most immediate and profound effect on your quality of life, this matters.

How did the Sackler family start the opioid epidemic that has killed 800,000 Americans (and counting) and walk away with billions? Their regulator slept on their transparently bullshit claims that their blockbuster drug Oxycontin was effective and non-addictive.

When someone tells you they won’t trust vaccines because Big Pharma is full of profit-maddened murderers who don’t care who they kill to make a buck, and their regulators are in on the scam — they’re not wrong.

From aerospace to pharma, agriculture to transportation, labor to the environment, privacy to broadband, the administrative branch has failed us again and again — and every time, the process itself is grossly, obviously rigged.

In Anna Merlan’s excellent Republic of Lies, she illuminates the relationship of trauma to conspiratorialism. When you are injured — especially by a corrupt process — you are no longer able to trust the process. But you still need some way of resolving complex questions you yourself aren’t qualified to answer:

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/09/21/republic-of-lies-the-rise-of-conspiratorial-thinking-and-the-actual-conspiracies-that-fuel-it/

This produces a condition of epistemological chaos: you no longer trust the process, but you don’t have anything to fill it. Into this void rushes conspiratorialism, communities of people who attempt to answer the brutal logic of “caveat emptor” by “doing the research” themselves.

Obama presided over eight years of extremely consequential regulatory failings, starting with his decision to continue bailing out the banks instead of borrowers. That led to the foreclosure crisis, financial consolidation and the finance sector’s bid to corner the market on housing.

Obama’s FDA failed to stem the opioid crisis. Obama’s DoJ and FTC permitted waves of mergers and acquisitions, from Facebook/Instagram to Dow/Dupont to United/Raytheon to Heinz/Kraft.

Big Tech’s mergers and misdeeds during the Obama years were especially grave, and Obama himself was extremely deferential to Big Tech’s claims to be benign, efficient, and (especially) brilliant. When Obama accuses Big Tech of fueling conspiratorialism through algorithmic radicalization, he’s merely restating his belief in their genius.

But they’re not geniuses. As I explained in my 2020 book, “How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism,” the role that surveillance plays in conspiratorialism is in finding people, not convincing people.

https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59

That is the actual mechanic of Googbook’s advertising efficacy: by spying on us all the time, Big Tech is able to target ads. So if you want to sell cheerleading uniforms, Big Tech can show your ads to cheerleaders. That is a big change in advertising, but it’s not mind control.

The internet is a system that allows people to find each other — for better and for worse. If you hold a socially disfavored view (“gender is a spectrum,” “Black lives matter”), tech will help you locate others who share that view, without requiring you to go public with it and risk social sanction. Unfortunately, this also lets people who hold odious views (“Jews will not replace us”) do the same thing.

What’s more, the ad-tech parts of the system help grifters locate and target vulnerable people. If you want to sell anti-vax (which has its own line of products, from fake vaccine cards to quack remedies), ad-tech will put your message in front of people who participate in conspiratorial communities.

And yes, Big Tech makes people vulnerable to conspiratorial thinking — but not by bypassing their cognitive faculties to put outlandish ideas in their heads. Rather, Big Tech — like all monopolies — creates the conditions for epistemological chaos, by demonstrating, day after day, that our regulatory process is an auction, not a truth-seeking exercise. Every day that goes by without the US having a federal privacy law with a private right of action is a day that wins converts for conspiratorialism.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/04/stop-forced-arbitration-data-privacy-legislation

Upton Sinclair said that “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” Obama would prefer to believe that Big Tech has a mind control ray because the alternative is recognizing that deference to corporate power has plunged the world into political chaos.

This is where the centrist/liberal world overlaps with the far right. Recall that when England erupted with a racial uprising in 2011, Prime Minister David Cameron — a far right ideologue — insisted that the whole thing was down to “criminality, plain and simple.”

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/05/ideomotor-response/#qonspiracy

This is effectively mysticism. “Criminality” in this view, is some kind of defect that naturally occurs. It has no causal relationship to the outside world. It can’t be measured (though maybe if it could, we could precrime all the people who have it and put them in jail?). As a political philosophy, the idea that problems arise from “criminality, pure and simple” is about as useful as blaming problems on demonic possession.

Likewise Obama’s thesis, that Qanons are the result of Big Tech mind-control, and not material circumstances. It poses Big Tech’s leaders not as mediocre, sociopathic monopolists, but as evil sorcerers who must be tamed. It forecloses on weakening the companies by denying them their illegitimate market power, and it deflects any inquiry into why people are vulnerable to conspiratorialism.

All of this is to Big Tech’s advantage. If you’re Google, Obama’s condemnation of your powers of mind control is something you can add to your sales literature: “We have a data-advantage that makes our ads unstoppable — even Obama says so!”

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/11/halflife/#minatory-legend

Image: Shira Inbar https://shira-inbar.com/

Onezero https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59

[peachiimilquetea]

something angsty with tenya leaving fem reader for the event? ty! prompt: “you can’t leave me. i don’t know how to survive without you.”

“𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐦𝐞. 𝐢 𝐝𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮.” + tenya iida

a/n: bro… i don’t really like angst without the potential for a somewhat happy ending so i hope you’re ok with the fact that it’s not completely sad. i did pull on the heartstrings quite a bit tho, i hope you enjoy! check out the event here

contains: angst (obviously), iida being heavily influenced by his family, tensei to the rescue lowkey, crying, insecurities, mentions of alcohol, ambiguous ending, miscommunication

length: 2.0k

at first things had started off small.

iida worked long hours as the work of his brother’s hero agency fell on his shoulders. he tried his best to make time for you, but it always felt like your schedules could never line up just right.

you tried to work something out, quick calls on break times and cute messages around the house to remind you of one another, but most efforts fell flat.

then things started to get worse.

long and empty nights were spent building up resentment towards the man you had married. he was always doing something, something that took precedence over the vows you made when you walked down the isle no more than three years ago.

you knew his family didn’t like you that much, feeling that a marriage for love was a waste of such a powerful commitment. a commitment that could built them an empire, and boost the rank of their hero agency, solidifying a legacy for them.

tenya defied them for you, boldly declaring that he would marry whoever he wanted and that you were in it for the long haul. you were the girl of his dreams, he said, and anything that got in the way of his happiness was not something he would subscribe to. that only made them hate you more.

so when his texts of encouragement grew shorter and more sparse, and he began to have more special responsibilities bestowed upon him by none other than his father, you knew it was on purpose.

unfortunately, it was an effective strategy to chip away at a young and unseasoned marriage.

“tenya can you please just check your schedule? i really want to spend more time with you.”

he sighed and rubbed his temples as he sat in his office. why were you bothering him with something so insignificant? you knew how important this transition of power was for the iida family, for the legacy of ingenium, but you still persisted.

he could feel the anger beginning to build until he looked in your eyes and saw the sadness brimming in them. his heart squeezed in his chest as he watched you, his wife, plead with him to spend time together. when had things come to this?

“i’ll try my best, but i cant promise anything.”

at this point, that was better than anything you could’ve hoped for.

with a kiss to his forehead you left him alone to get the heaps of paperwork he had to do, spirits lifted at the prospect of spending time with him again. just like the way it used to be.

you checked the time on the microwave for the 9th time. fifty-seven minutes had passed and your husband was officially late.

you should have seen it coming really, empty promises were becoming more and more common amongst the two of you. he would promise to try harder and you would promise to cut him more slack, the constant push and pull never being enough for either party.

getting up from the barstool at your kitchen island you made your way to the wine cooler to get a drink. not even bothering to pick up a glass you slumped on the couch, kicking off your shoes and splaying yourself out, just wanting the cushions to swallow you whole and dull the aching in your heart.

he wasn’t coming.

he was never coming.

you laid passed out on the couch when iida finally came home 2 hours later. he was only stopping by for a quick break, then going back out on patrol and he completely forgot about the things he said, smiling through tired eyes as he thought, this time i’ll make it up to her.

at the very least he could clean you up and tuck you in. he could brace himself for the impending fight later, but he was concerned about you. you never drank, not unless there was something wrong.

iida easily hoisted you up over his shoulder, discarding the various wine bottles and taking you to your shared room, although he wasn't sure if it was still considered shared anymore.

he laid you on the bed softly, changing you into one of his old shirts. his fingers ghosted over your cheek as he watched you sleep, the reality of where he was sitting heavy on his heart.

he loved you and yet there was nothing he could do to help at this moment. he had to leave for night patrol. he had to leave you.

his gentle touches roused you from your sleep and your eyes felt heavy as you tried to blink them open.

“you came?” you breathed, voice sounding foreign even to yourself.

iida gave you a small smile, “im sorry.”

your demeanor did a 180 at his apology. he was sorry. he was always sorry. but sorry couldn’t fix this. not when it had been so broken.

you winced and sat up, “sorry for what? sorry that you broke your promise for the thousandth time or sorry that you’ve been such a shit husband for the past few months?!”

“______-”

“no tenya. you do this every single time! every time i want to spend time with you theres always something more important! what could be more important than your wife?!”

“______ you know my father-”

you laughed bitterly at the mention of his dad. he always had to be such a good little iida child, always on daddy’s beck and call. it made you sick.

“your father doesn’t even want us to be together! cant you see that he’s doing this on purpose! youre a grown man! not a child permanently tied to his mommy and daddy!” you spat

“hes giving more responsibility for the sake of the agency! for the ingenium legacy! why are you always so selfish when it comes to these things?”

“selfish? selfish?” you asked, incredulous. you couldn’t believe your ears.

“yes selfish. do you know how much i sacrificed to be with you? how much i already have on my plate on top of trying my best to make time for you?”

you stared in astonishment.

sacrifice?

what had he sacrificed for this relationship? he got to do what he wanted, come and go as he pleased with virtually no regard for how you felt or what you did. what sacrifice was there in that way of living?

“fuck you, tenya.”

tenya took a deep breath and ran his hand down his face. he chose his words carefully before finally saying, “i cant do this. im leaving.”

you could hear a pin drop in the room. you felt your blood pound in your ears as you stood up quickly, dizzy from the alcohol but still trying to process the words you had just heard.

leaving?

“youre leaving?”

“yes, i have to go. im not doing this with you, not now.”

your heart felt like it had been smashed by a sledgehammer, as you tried to regulate your breathing. leaving. he was leaving.

“w-wait,” you feebly attempted to cling onto him as he gathered a few of his things.

“tenya you cant leave me.”

“_____ i do not want to do this right now,” he sighed, easily shaking you off and moving to collect more things. his words were buzzing around on the inside of your skull. he was leaving.

leaving without so much of a second thought. he had been planning this. still unsteady on your feet you hobbled after him as quickly as possible, desperation taking over every fiber of your body. you didn't want to lose him, you just wanted your husband back, you happiness back.

“y-you cant do that! you cant leave me! i dont know how to survive without you, tenya, please-”

“_____, just go to bed. you’re drunk.”

you trailed him around the house,“no, you don’t get to decide when this is over. i'm the one whos been hurting for months you cannot just leave me by myself.”

iida spared you one last glance before grabbing his bag, “goodbye, _____”

crushed, you sank to your knees, leaning on the couch for support. you felt like you were dying., hell, you probably were dying. you had never had so much to drink in your life, and you were desperate to make the pounding pain in your chest stop.

you cried yourself to sleep that night, waking up to the sunlight coming through the window with a splitting headache. you felt like your skull was trying to crack itself open from the inside but you shakily got to your feet, remembering bits and pieces from your fight with iida.

you could tell he didn't come home last night; everything was exactly the way you had left it last night. the house alarm was still on, and his shoes were gone.

he actually left.

anger bubbled in your chest as you thought about what had actually happened. you would not let him get the last laugh, or be the last one left, the one waiting on him patiently to pick up the pieces after trying to keep it together. you would leave too, as much as it hurt, and show him just how selfish you could be.

in a flash, you haphazardly packed a bag with essentials and had texted your friends that you needed a place to stay for a few days. you didn’t get into specifics- your heart ached too much to relive the events of the previous night- but you told them you had reached your limit and you needed to take some time to cool off.

alternatively, iida did not sleep that night. after finishing patrols, he stayed at his brother’s apartment out of pure convenience, not feeling prepared to face you after everything that had transpired between the two of you.

the dark-haired man laid staring at the ceiling of tensei’s guest bedroom, wracking his brain and trying to pinpoint how things had gone south so fast. he wanted to fix things, but really didn’t know how. he couldn’t even tell you what was broken, let alone how to begin to fix them.

his brother had tried to give him advice after listening to the entire story, but there was only so much he could do. he knew that you were right, their father was keeping him from you on purpose, slowly making tenya think that he was in the right in an attempt to break you up, but he couldn't be the one to tell him.

tenya had to come to that conclusion himself. he needed to be the one to set boundaries and save your relationship, but from the looks of it, soon any attempts would be futile.

“_____? darling?” iida called as he came into your home. immediately noticing your missing shoes, he moved to the bedroom in a flash, checking to see if you had just moved them or something.

the room was a mess, drawers left open and clothing strewn across the bed and floor. the bathroom had been cleared of almost all your essentials, and a note was left on the dresser. gingerly, iida picked it up and read it, offering up a silent prayer that it didn't say what he thought it did.

i don't know when you'll see this, or if you ever will. if you're reading it, that means you came back home but you will not find me there.

im tired, tenya.

im tired of always being the one to extend the olive branch or bend over backwards for you.

i refuse to be in that position any longer. i love you… i love you so much it hurts sometimes because i know this isn't the way things were supposed to be. but you left, and so i decided to leave too.

if a way to fix things exists, i want us to find it, but right now i need some time to reevaluate us and what that means. i hope you understand, i know you will.

if you want to reach out, im open to talking about this further, but for right now i need to think.

goodbye.

--------

[holdmecloser-gandydancer]

Either "I meant to grab the popcorn, not your crotch, sorry" or "there’s a real creep at the club trying to hit me up right now and you look pretty fit so pls pretend to be my date so he can leave" with taakitz? 👀 (both were so good I couldn't make up my mind lol)

Decided to go with "there’s a real creep at the club trying to hit me up right now and you look pretty fit so pls pretend to be my date so he can leave!" Thank you!!

-

Going to the club solo is rarely a good idea. When you go by yourself, you can’t bully the person you came with to take your picture in the cool club lighting so you either have to resort to using the self-timer or deign to ask someone to take a picture for you. And they never really turn out as good as you hoped; all weird angles and blurs instead. You’re also forced to bring your drink with you everywhere you go because you’re not about to leave it on the bar when you run and pee because you’re not an idiot. This means you either expose your drink to gross bathroom particles or you waste no less than $30 over the course of a night for all the half-drunk drinks you unceremoniously drop into the trash.

Sometimes going to the club solo is a good idea. When you go by yourself, nobody thinks you’re entangled with whoever you brought. Typically this means anything from free drinks to a dance partner to a quick hookup in the gross club bathroom. If you’re into that kind of thing.

Going to the club solo is an unequivocally bad idea. Mainly because you can’t pretend to be dating who you came with when some sleazy Eurotrash hipster decides that you’re the object of his affection for the evening. And because you don’t get a constant hand to squeeze if all your senses get a little overwhelmed and you realize you’re one accidental touch of an unknown sticky surface from committing arson.

Taako knows all of this, of course. If there was a book on club dos and donts, it would probably be easier to enumerate anything Taako hadn’t done. Life’s short and all that, right?

But what’s unfortunate is that knowledge of a thing doesn’t equate to knowing how to handle a thing. So while Taako knows that being hit on by some bleach blonde German dude is always a possibility when he goes to the club, that doesn’t make the reality of it any less hellish.

“Oh, come on darling, why the looking so glum?” The dude asks, leering at Taako with a vacant smile that seems too toothy.

“Stomachache.” Taako says bluntly. He hopes that if he can make this conversation as unpleasant as possible, creepy dude’ll leave him alone. And it isn’t even a lie, this whole situation is giving him a stomachache. Not that he particularly gives a shit about lying to a stranger.

Taako glances around discreetly as he looks for any semblance of an escape route. All he sees is the densely packed club. Shit.

“Hmm. Pity. Bigger pity someone pretty as you is standing here all by yourself. It looks like you are needing a uh dance partner.” A lascivious wink is sent Taako’s way.

Taako can feel himself squirm under this guy’s gaze. He seems harmless but still too creepy for Taako’s taste. And considering how low his standards gets when he drinks, that’s saying something.

“Not really looking for a dance partner, my dude.” Taako glances around again and scoots a little further away from this guy.

The guy takes a step closer and is giving Taako that same too toothy, too sharp smile. “What are you looking for then? I am sure I can be of the assistance with whatever you are needing.” He reaches a hand out towards Taako.

Taako stiffens, takes one more step back, and feels himself collide with something solid. Bingo. With barely a glance at whoever he just bumped into, he snakes his arm around this person. “My man, I get that I’m the hottest person in here by a country mile but I don’t appreciate being hit on while I’m on a date!” Taako glances at the bastard he’s roped into this mess. He smiles a little; guy has a real kind, handsome face. Definitely could have picked worse.

If the guy is confused, he doesn’t show it. He narrows his eyes slightly as he casts a glance between Taako and the other guy, whose smile drops from his face in an instant.

Taako grins and gets on his tiptoes. He places a steadying hand on the man’s chest as his lips nearly brush the shell of his ear. “I’ll buy your next round if you keep up this charade until this guy leaves,” Taako murmurs quietly. He returns his heels to the floor and raises his eyebrows a millimeter.

In lieu of a response, his temporary date wraps a protective arm around Taako’s shoulders.

“There you are babe! I got worried you ran off on me,” he says with an easy smile.

“Wouldn’t dream of it. Just got caught up on my way back from the bathroom,” Taako says, sending an icy glare to tall, blonde, and creepy.

“Hmm, I sense we are having a misunderstanding. You see, I was not aware that you were having a date.”

Taako squeezes his temporary date’s side while leaning into him. “Well, I am and I gotta say, I don’t appreciate the interruption.” He smiles as he feels himself being pulled in a little closer. Taako has to give the guy credit, he’s selling it well.

“Yeah, so if you don’t mind, we’d really like to get back to it,” his temporary date says, a stern edge creeping into his voice.

Taako breathes a sigh of relief as his nuisance of the night gives one final scowl before stomping off to another part of the club. “Hey, uh, thanks for that. Normally I can give dudes the slip pretty easy but he was persistent.” He glances back at guy who doesn’t seem to be in any big rush to move his arm from Taako’s shoulders. Not that Taako minds, exactly.

“No, don’t thank me, it’s no big deal. You okay?”

Taako nods. “I’m all good. Now, I do think I owe you a drink, handsome.”

This elicits a grin and a deep flush from his new friend.

“I’ll take a rum and coke.”

“Hmm.”

He laughs. “My drink choice not up to your standards?”

“It’s not anything with gin so I guess you’re okay,” Taako says with a smirk as he waves down a bartender. “Rum and coke for him, vodka sour for me.”

“I’m Kravitz, by the way. Figured it’s about time we were properly acquainted.”

“Taako. And you know what, Kravitz? You were really believable back there.”

“I guess being your date comes naturally.” Kravitz smiles at Taako as the bartender slides their drinks across the bar.

“I mean, I guess there’s only one way to find out,” Taako says, sipping his drink.

“Seems to be the best way I could spend my evening,” Kravitz says evenly.

“Well, play your cards right and we’ll see how the night goes.”

As Kravitz gives Taako a crooked smile, Taako has to think that going to the club solo has one benefit.

[lucky-catttt]

Maxwell Lord’s Aphrodite - Pt 2

Summary: When Maxwell Lord’s world comes crashing down, you, his personal assistant bring him back from the pits of despair.

Pairings: Maxwell Lord x Reader (female), Maxwell Lord x You

Rating: Mature 18+ ONLY, NO MINORS ALLOWED TO READ.

Word Count: 3,885

Warnings: Prepare to put a towel down or go touch some grass after, either or LOL Mention of genitals, oral sex, squirting, face fucking, choking, names, foreplay, degradation, aftercare, BDSM, sexism/sexual harrassment.

A/N: This is my first fan-fic, so the writing might not be fantastic, but if you have any pointers/advice please tell me! I’ve also added images and gifs to help readers imagine the scenarios and reactions!

“So what kind of proposal were we thinking of that would save Black Gold corporation?” Max quizzes, leaning back against his chair. You pause to think while finishing your pastry. “Well” you begin “This space is huge, around 4,300 square feet. The lease Black Gold is renting this office floor has no major restrictions on it, so you could potentially sub-let the space on the floor for a monthly or fixed term lease to people who work remotely or teams that don’t want to commit to a larger office space. It's becoming more common because of the GFC, people can't commit to large long term leases for whole office floors anymore. You could also rent out the boardroom by the hour & also lease the private manager offices to businesses that want their own private room. And we already have a reception near the lifts, just re-hire them and make them pretend they work for all the businesses on the floor, answering their calls, doing admin work like scanning and faxing etc. As far as the business’s clients that show up are concerned, each business looks like they own the whole floor.

If we do a cost analysis and then get a small investor to cover the startup costs, we could guarantee them a return if businesses pay contract deposits or pay their lease in advance up front. Plus the landlord we owe money to. And with the top floor with amazing views and location, we can charge top dollar” Max stares at you in disbelief. “Wow, are you sure you don’t wanna be CEO?” He laughs, still in shock. You laugh, blushing. “I started working on a business proposal for one of my university assessments, if we customise it for this project we could pitch it to some investors and banks and speak to the landlord about it as well” You reply. “I could kiss you right now.” Maxwell sighs, gripping his fist. “Please do” you giggle, leaning towards him. Max reaches out both hands to cup your face, before planting a passionate kiss on your lips. “Well, I guess we have a lot of work to do!” Max yells, before striding towards the bathroom to take a shower. Two weeks go by and the proposal is ready. Max calls you from the company car, on the way to your house to pick you up before the big investors meeting. “I’ll be right outside your place in a few minutes my sweet” He coos, beaming with excitement to see you. As his car pulls up, you collect your compendium, presentation cards and your pointer rod. Struggling with all you have to carry, Alfred rushes out of the car and up the steps to the front door, collecting all of your belongings. 

Maxwell peers over the top of his shades but the sun from behind your house blinds him. He shuffles across the seat and opens the car door, the sun now hiding from his view. As he removes his shades and looks up the stairs towards your front door, he sees you standing there, fixing your outfit. He’s stunned. 

It might be 1984, but you’re wearing a stunning outfit pulled straight from the 50s. A black suit dress with a pleat in the front with a thin gold belt around your waist. You accented the look with strap Mary jane heels, a black and gold handbag and a neat beret fascinator. Your hair was curled, accentuated with bright red lipstick and a single set of pearl earrings.

Max looks like he’s about to drop to his knees in awe, but his knees bend into a lengthy stride up the stairs, rushing to your side. “A heavenly vision of beauty'' Max gasps, giving you a kiss on the cheek in an attempt to preserve your makeup. He puts out his arm and you wrap your hands around it, as he leads you down your stairs to the car, staring at you the whole time, letting the universe guide his steps as this absolute goddess graces his presence. You both slide into the back seat of Max’s company car, his large hand immediately passing along your back and resting on your hip and ass, pulling you as close to him as possible. “I dont know how this presentation is going to go, but I can be absolutely certain that myself and every other person in that room will be enraptured by your presence”. he murmurs into your neck, squeezing your ass.

Max was wearing a pinstripe royal blue suit with black laced oxfords. His matching tie and pocket square peeking out. “I would kiss you right now but i don't want to get lipstick on your face just before our meeting” you blush, rubbing your nose against his. “I know. We have all the time in the world after” Max replies, running his nose down your neck, breathing gently against your skin.

 “We should probably prepare for the meeting, Max” you chuckle, seeing the office building not far up the road. You pull out your compendium and flip to an architectural blueprint of the office floor. 

“I had this drawn up by an architectural drafter last week. As you can see the large blank space is your office and private room, you already have the glass frosted for privacy. All the other office cubicles will be converted to private offices, as well as boardrooms, co-working areas and remote working hot spots.” Max’s eyes widen with surprise at the level of detail. “How did you get this done? I certainly don't remember commissioning this'' rubbing his chin. “I paid for it” you respond, nonchalantly. “You spent your money, for me?” Max inquires, now in disbelief. “Of course. I told you I would help you, Max. Consider it an investment”. You wink, flipping through more pages of the presentation. Just when Max thought he couldn't fall more in love with you than he already has, your hard work and giving nature makes his heart swell even larger to make room. After a few minutes the car pulls up to the investor’s office building. “Before we go in there, I want to ask you something.” Your eyes widen with intrigue. “While we're there, I’m not sure how these businessmen will react to a woman being anything more than my personal assistant. I’m not intimidated by you at all, but I suspect some of them might be” He continues, his eyes falling to your lap as he holds your hands. “Max, this project is my dream, but it’s your company, so i’m giving it to you to present. You’re the only person I trust with this”. 

As Maxwell begins to get himself together, you take a seat adjacent to where Max is standing. Although your knees are together with one ankle behind the other, you can feel some of the businessmen closest to you looking you up and down like a piece of meat. You quickly turn to face Max, giving him your undivided attention. “Well, I know you’re all very busy, so lets get started” Max smiles, wringing his palms together. The businessmen listen intently to Max’s pitch for the restructure of Black Gold corporation, before they begin to ask questions on financials. You begin to notice the men losing interest and Max starting to lose his confidence. He looks at you, his expression half pleading and half embarrassed. Without any hesitation, you stand up from your chair, striding over to Max’s side, picking up the pointing rod from the easel and pulling it to full length with one swift pull. 

The men all sit upright at attention from the sound of the rod. “If I may, Maxwell” you butt in, politely. “Gentleman” You steady the pointer rod against the chart on the easel “the profit figures on the project are as follows; 36 external view offices, charged at $3,000 per month each, generating $108,000 gross profit. The 25 internal offices with no view will be $500 per month, generating $12,500. We also have hot-desks with memberships starting at $20 per month. If companies want us to answer their phones, do their mail, bring them coffee, do their shopping, take their dry-cleaning, walk their dogs or bring them lunch, that's an additional fee. Essentially, we are looking at a monthly profit turnover of $150,000+. Our current lease fee is $50,000 a month with about $15,000 in body corporate and utilities, leaving $85,000 per month net profit, $225 thousand per quarter and over a million annually. We currently are looking for a combined setup cost of around $500,000. The more you invest, the bigger your return.” You swing the pointer road and rest it on your shoulder. 

Silence fills the room and you panic. Your assertiveness may have turned them off, so you pretend to be ditzy and dip one of your feet inwards. The men who are all sitting up at attention, look between each other and nod. Your charm and business acumen seemed to have put them under some kind of spell. “Thanks for your time gentleman. If you have any questions please feel free to call” you finish, walking around to hand each of them Max’s business card. The men begin to chat amongst themselves, before one of them approaches Maxwell. They introduce themselves and begin chatting about the pitch “You should be very proud of your assistant Maxwell” they chuckle “she seems very switched on and driven”. Max shoots you a smiling glance, before turning back “Yeah, I’m actually going to make her the CFO” he responds. “Well, we’ll deliberate here and be back in touch with our offer”. The meeting finally wraps up and you both head back downstairs where Alfred is waiting with the car door already open. You both slide inside and Max wraps his arms around you before passionately kissing your lips as the car drives back to his office.

“You want to make me the.. CFO?” you pant, breaking from the kiss. “Yes” Max smiles, staring into your eyes. “You have worked so hard and today at the presentation..I know you’re the woman for the job. Do you want it?” You blush, holding his face “Well how can I say no?”. The company car finally pulls up back at the office and you both head through the lobby and into the lift. Max stands behind you with his arms wrapped around you and his head on your shoulder, talking about the enormous amount of work that will potentially need to be done if this deal goes through. As the lift doors open into the reception area, you both step out and Max hears the phone in his office start to ring. You give him an excited smile, encouraging him to go take the call in private. He begins striding through the empty office before making it to his office, pushing the doors open and heading over to his desk.

You take your time walking back to his office, giving Max time to finish his phone call. As you approach his office doors, you hear the click of the receiver as he hangs up. You watch Max’s shadow behind the frosted glass walk up to the doors and swing them open, a neutral look on his face. You look puzzled, thinking it was bad news before he burst out laughing with a smile, swinging you over his shoulder and carrying you to his bedroom. “You did it baby!” He yells, slapping your backside before throwing you both down onto the bed. “We did!?” you scream, a wave of relief and excitement washing over you. “Yes! I’m so proud of you. You saved Black Gold corporation. You saved me.” Max smiles, brushing a lock of curls away from your face before cupping your cheek and passionately kissing you. 

You kick off your shoes, belt and take off your beret fascinator as Max removes his suit jacket, suspenders and belt, before kissing each other again. “I was so turned on by you today” Max moans, writhing his hands all over your body, before ripping the bust of your dress open, the two buttons pinging off onto the carpet. “Watching your voluptuous ass in that dress walking into that boardroom and how you commanded the room’s attention, took control and sealed the deal. I wanted to put you over that boardroom table and worship you like the goddess you are. But I guess I can do that now”. Something about wearing your favourite suit of his, the unwavering progressive support of women and eagerness to pleasure you unlocks your most ravenous sexual desires. You stop Max, sitting up at the foot of the bed. He gets up from laying down and looks at you, worried he said or did something wrong. “Whats wrong my love?” he asks, looking concerned. ****MAJOR SMUT WARNING AHEAD**** “Max… you’ve shown me the romantic love making version which was so beautiful, but I want to make you feel worshipped” Max gives you an interesting glance. “You’re such a giving person but I want to give back. You’ve suffered neglect and mistreatment most of your life. I want to give you a different kind of passionate sex. I have fantasies and wild ideas that I think will give you immense pleasure. I want you to….” You stop yourself, not sure how he will react. Max's eyes widened with intrigue. “Go on?” Max squeezes your hand. “Well” you begin. The passionate fire is burning hotter and hotter within you. “I want you…” you hitch up your skirt and sit across Max’s lap, with one leg over each side “to straddle my chest and fuck my throat while I rub my clit” you get closer to Max’s face, pulling on his tie “And I want to cum while you’re throat fucking and choking me with your cock” you begin to undo his tie “And then I want you to cum in the back of my throat and make me swallow it”. There’s dead silence, so you bat your eyelash extensions, throwing a sexy yet innocent gaze followed by “hmmm?”. Max’s mind goes completely blank, the blood rushing from every inch of his body straight to his cock, which you feel hardened against your crotch as you straddle him. “Uhh wow honey that sounds very dangerous.” Max chokes, embarrassed he's getting turned on at the idea of hurting you. 

“For you or me?” You giggle, biting your lip. “For you” Max says, wrapping his arms around you. “Are you sure that’s something you want me to do to you Hermosa?”. “Yes Maxwell. I love the way you worship and pleasure me, but I want you to feel the same way. I have a kink when it comes to being dominated. Seeing my man so turned on and using his strength and body to please himself using me, makes me feel incredible. I know you would never hurt me, it’s something I would love for you to experience” You answer before kissing his neck. “You really are too good to me, princessa” Max sighs, running his hands down your back to your ass, squeezing both cheeks. “Of course, we don’t have to if you don’t want to, Max” you give him a reassuring look, worried you might have overstepped. “No baby, I’d love to, if that’s what will bring you the most pleasure” He coos, kissing your neck.

You begin to take off your dress, revealing under a black and gold laced lingerie set. “Black and Gold” you chuckle, watching Max’s eyes widen at the level of detail. “How did I get so lucky?” Max pants, pulling off his shirt and pants, leaving his boxers to contain his rock hard cock. You go to reach for Max’s crotch when his hand stops you. “Before we do this” Max begins “I want you to stop me at any time if it hurts or you can’t breathe or you just don’t want to do it anymore. That is the most important thing to me”. You nod and smile at Max, leaning in to kiss him, before your hands start to remove his boxers.

You reach down and begin to tease his cock, tracing your fingers tips against the tip. With your other hand you guide Max’s hand down, placing it at the top of your panties. As he starts to put his hands under your panties, he notices there’s a hole in them. Max stops to inspect. “Crotchless panties? Me vuelves loco” Max pants before he begin kissing and biting all over your body.

You’re in for it now. Like a virus, you’ve taken over Max’s brain, flooding it with animalistic desire and passion. A switch has been flipped and hell bent on blowing your mind, leaving all of his inhibitions and reservations about what he’s about to do to you at the door. Max climbs on top of you, wrapping his large hand around your throat, gently squeezing as you gasp for air. “Is this what you want?” He growls into your ear, nibbling on your earlobe before kissing down your neck. You manage to nod before moaning, indicating that you’re enjoying it. He’s never treated a woman like this before, but he manages to find the personality and words seemingly from thin air, like it was repressed all this time. “Start touching yourself for me now” Max commands. You slide your hand down into your panties and start rubbing your clit, sparks flying through your body and the slick now leaking out of your pussy. He groans at the sight of you touching yourself. Max moves up the bed before straddling over your chest. With your head propped up on some pillows, you look in Max’s eyes and ready your mouth and jaw for his throbbing cock. Max thumbs your bottom lip before grabbing just under your jaw to keep your face steady. “Open wide like the good little whore that you are” he hisses, smacking the tip of his precum soaked cock on your face.

The degrading name only makes you wetter, as you furiously rub your clitoris whilst pinned under Max’s legs. You moan as Max pushes his cock into your mouth and down your throat. “Oh my god my love your mouth feels incredible” Max moans, his character from before severely altered by the pleasurable sensation. He realises his mistake and compensates by pushing his cock as far as it will fit into your mouth and throat. “That’s it, take it all” he smirks, exhaling with a moan. You use two fingers to scoop up some of your slick and rub it into your clitoris, which is now super sensitive. Your stifled moans humming against Max’s veiny cock cause it to twitch. With your hips bucking from pleasuring yourself, Max takes both of his hands and puts them on your cheeks. “Fuck your mouth feels so good” Max moans, slowly thrusting back and forth out of your mouth, his cock touching your uvula and causing you to gag with each stroke. Your eyes begin to roll back in your skull as you continue to moan & choke, your swollen clitoris edging closer and closer to orgasm. “You like this huh? You like it when Daddy fills your throat up and fucks it?” Max hisses, wrapping your hair in between his fingers, gripping hard as his thrusts gain more momentum. Thick strings of spit is now spilling out of your mouth, down your chin and onto your breasts. “You look

The taste of Max’s precum coating the back of your tongue. You’re fighting to contain your orgasm but Max’s cock and brutal punishing words are sending you dangerously close to the edge. “Mmmmm, mmmmm!” You choke, tears welling in your eyes as you’re trying to nod and send Max a pleasured innocent gaze, driving him wild. You concentrate on breathing through your nose, each time Max’s cock leaves the back of your throat for a split second, giving you enough time to take in air. You decide to start moving your flattened tongue against the shaft, rubbing against the tip as it passes back and forth. Max let’s out a groan “You’re such a good little putá for papá”. There’s no holding back now, you increase your moans to signal that you’re on the precipice of an orgasm. “Cum for me” Max hisses, continuing the ecstasy inducing tempo of thrusts into your mouth and throat. You continue to rub your clit and gesture for Max to keep his cock still inside your mouth and throat for this moment, riding the crashing wave of your orgasm, squirting furiously onto your legs and sheets below. The writhing and shaking of your body underneath him, the sound of your squirting and muffled cries and moans from behind his cock is too much and brings him closer much faster than he ever anticipated. The eye-watering sensation causes the tears to flow down your cheeks, causing your mascara to run.

As your orgasm begins to subside you gesture for Max to continue thrusting, which he does as he moves his large hands to cup your face. “That felt fucking amazing” Max moans, continuing his fast and hard strokes. Your gaze, burning with passion and framed within smudged running eyeliner locks with Max’s, his domineering yet still showing affection. “I’m gonna cum” Max pants, keeping the pace as his grip on your face grows tighter. “Fuckkkk!!!” He shouts, holding your head still as he holds one final thrust as far in as it will go. Your eyes roll back into your head again as you feel the warm thick ropes of cum spurt onto the back of your throat. It was lucky you had taken a large enough breath before that moment, enough to sustain you for the few seconds Max held his cock still inside your mouth, throbbing and pulsing as he moans and shudders, cursing in Spanish. Coming back to reality, Max immediately pulls his softening cock from your mouth and wraps his large hands on the top and bottom of your face, closing your jaw shut. “Now Swallow” he commands, bending down so that his face inches from yours. With a cheeky gaze you oblige and swallow the remains of his cum tangled in your throat, before opening your jaw to allow him to inspect if there was any left. “My good little leche putá” he whispers, before spitting in your wide open mouth.

As if like breaking character on a movie set, Max immediately reverts back to his original self, climbing off to the side to lay next to you. “Was that good for you my love? How do you feel?” Max asks, worried he’s harmed your physical and mental state. “Incredible” you pant, smiling, lying in a pool of your own squirt. Breathing a sigh of relief, Max quickly brings up the blankets to cover you both, embracing you and peppering your spit, mascara and tear soaked face with kisses. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?” Max quizzes, checking your chest and throat over. “No” you reply, your throat somewhat hoarse. “Okay good. I love you so much” Max sighs, brushing your hair out of your face and kissing your forehead. “I love you too, Max”.

————————

I got impatient and wanted to post it now so I guess this chapter is finished 💀

@anaaaispunk @mandoalorian @pintsizemama

[mp100fanworkstranslation]

Better than when you found it -Part 2-

Part 1 Here

-The Second Day: Saturday- 

Ekubo: Yawwwwn~~What are we doing today?

Reigen brushing teeth: There’s a DVD rental kiosk around the corner. Wanna check it out? 

Mob: Yes I’m here

Reigen: Wait, Mob what? (btw you have foam on your face.)

Mob: Weren’t you asking me where I was?

Reigen: No?

Serizawa pops out: Did someone say movie?!

Mob thinks: I keep hearing someone calling my name.

One unspecified adult: What movies are we getting?

Another unspecified adult: Lets go take a look at what they have.

--20 Minutes Later--

Unspecified Adult: Alright! What do we have? 

(It’s not specified who is speaking here, but based on the speech form it’s either Reigen or Ekubo, not Serizawa)

Ekubo reads: The Hunger Games?

Someone else: We’ll that’s....

Mob: I’ve heard of it before.

Ekubo: Yeah?

Mob: Master told me about it. -He holds up a clothes hanger-

Mob puts the clothes hanger on his head: Yeah! Hunger Games!

Ekubo: Um....

Reigen: NO NO, That’s not it.

(Can someone explain this reference to me? I’ve never seen the Hunger games. I have no idea what this is about.)

Somebody: Whatever. Lets try it. 

There is a loud scream from the TV. Serizawa is startled into dropping his tea tray. Ekubo covers Mob’s eyes. 

Reigen is pissed: WHO PICKED THIS VIOLENT FILM?! Take care of Mob!

Mob peeling Ekubo’s hands off his face: Um... I’m fine with it. I just.....I just feel like something is wrong. 

(He’s actually referring to the presence of the spirit in the apartment. He’s been talking about it since the first panel. The adults are having too much fun they forgot.)

Reigen: You.....You’re not likeing this violence are you?  hmmmmmm

Reigen: Okay Mob! Listen up! I’m gonna teach you the right way to approach media like movies and TV.

You gotta put yourself in the shoes of the protagonist.

(I LOVE THE WAY THIS PANEL IS DRAWN. The framing of the panel is encouraging and mentorly, like a coach telling his player to go out there and do his best, ........except it’s Reigen...teaching Mob to watch movies.... He’s 14, I’m sure he’s seen movies before.)

Reigen puts his hand on Mob’s shoulder: You think you can do it? 

Mob: um....

Reigen: Try it out! I guarantee you’ll get a different experience out of it.

Mob is watching intently while all three adults look bored. The room is filled with fighting sounds.

Mob: That looks like it hurts.

Reigen looks over at Mob and fails to notice the rustling behind him. 

Reigen’s Phone Rings: Crap I forgot

Mob: Is it a client?

Reigen: Yeah

Reigen: I’m just going to go on my own, it’ll be quick.

Ekubo: Are you gonna be okay on your own?

Reigen: Yeah it’s fine, It’s just an in-office consultation. I’ll be back at around noon.

Mob: Okay, see you later

Reigen: yep

Ekubo: So.... what are we gonna do?

Serizawa: Ummmmm

(I like how Ekubo hangs out on top of Mobs head, the way he does all the time as a spirit.)

Serizawa gets an idea looking at the microwave: How about we cook while waiting for Reigen to return?

Mob: That’s a good idea, he’d be hungry when he comes back Mob thinks: I don’t know how to cook though. 

Ekubo rolls up sleeves: Lets do it! It’s not like we’re busy. I’ll show you my signature dish!

Serizawa: Ekubo-kun...

Ekubo: Alright lets divide up  the work.

Mob: Okay

Serizawa: ah! Yes!

They start cooking. Mob cuts himself chopping vegetables.

Serizawa: Ah! You’re bleeding!  Mob: Ow ow... Ekubo: You cut yourself AGAIN?!

They’re almost done.  Mob: Im hungry Ekubo making fried rice. Should we make something more than just this? Serizawa: Ah, we can add a salad!

It’s 12:42

Reigen Returns: Ugh this place is so far from the office. I’m starving.

He’s jiggling the key in the lock: lock is acting up again. 

Huh?

(This is a callback to the beginning when he was working the lock, he told everyone to do things in pairs to avoid being possessed. He forgot and went off on his own.) Reigen gets possessed

The door clatters and he enters the apartment. 

Mob: ah! Master! Welcome back!

Mob: Master?

Reigen: What have you guys busied yourself with? 

Ekubo: Um.... what?

Serizawa: We made lunch

Mob: eh? ehhh?

Reigen:THIS is what you’ve decided to whittle away the last few hours on?

(This is so hard to translate, but it’s what I love about translating. His word choice here is saying that 1. they acted without permission. 2. they did something that wasted time, and resources and was ultimately unnecessary. 3. they’re screwing around like children.)

Reigen: No one asked you to do this. Why you did is beyond me. 

Others: ?!

Reigen: I put a lot of effort into planning what foods to bring and what the meal plans were going to be.

(Reigen doesn’t normally have light colored eyes. That’s a nice touch.)

Ekubo is looking at Mob

Mob: I....Im sorry

Ekubo remembers how eager mob wanted to cook for Reigen, how he cut him self trying. 

Serizawa: Mr. Reigen, this is very unlike you. Is something wrong?

Ekubo to Reigen:  I don’t like your tone.

Serizawa: Ekubo-kun!*

Ekubo: Look, I’m not sure what’s gotten into you but.......

Reigen: Hmm?

(*This wasn’t made all that clear in the manga, but Serizawa is ALWAYS very deferential around Reigen. He’s never direct with him, meekly suggests things rather than outright stating them. He doesn’t treat their relationship as that of equals, he’s the subordinate and he expresses this in the language he uses and the tone he takes. As opposed to Ekubo who is direct and not afraid to confront Reigen. Ekubo’s pronouns, word choice and tone expresses the belief that he is an equal if not better than the people around him.

Which is why Serizawa is shocked that Ekubo is so direct. Like, How could he just outright say “I dont like your tone” TO Reigen?)

Reigen: got something to say? 

Ekubo: ....how dare you? What gives you the right?

Serizawa: ....?

Reigen: What gives YOU the right? It’s not YOUR body. It’s not like I asked you to possess this man. You did that yourself. 

Serizawa notices that there’s something on Reigen: Ekubo-kun w...wait!

Ekubo: Bastard, if you don’t stop running your mouth....

Reigen smiles: Hmmm? Are you not an evil spirit? You REALLY think you live a normal human life again? 

(I love that panel with Reigen’s silent open-mouthed smile, he knows he’s won.  He’s gonna pull the trigger now.)

Ekubo: ..... I see 

Mob: Eku~ Ekubo: I understand now. -He walks out and closes the door being him-

Mob stands at the door: Ekubo?

Serizawa: Ekubo-kun

(AAAHHH I LOVE HOW YOU DON’T SEE EKUBO’S EXPRESSION IN THE FIRST PANEL THERE)

Reigen: Enough.... he’s so much trouble.

Mob is still at the door:..... Ekubo

Mob: When we were cooking, he said....

Ekubo: He’s considerate in a way.... For an evil spirit like me, he treats me no different than anyone else around him.... that’s something. 

Mob: Eventhough Ekubo is an evil spirit, and a dangerously powerful one at that,... he’s an uncharacteristically a good person.

Mob opens the door and runs outside after him. 

TO BE CONTINUED

I like this part SO GODDAMN MUCH. Reigen is really good at reading people and knowing what to say. He can use his words to get people to feel how he wants them to, and the idea of him getting possessed and unleashing his ability on other people to destroy them is so goddamn cool. 

You’ve heard of Empaths. They are people that easily understand the emotions of others. But in psychology, there’s a lesser known personality type called a “Dark Empath” that can understand peoples feelings well but is also a sociopath that has no problems hurting other people.

Dark Empaths use their understanding of other people to hurt, defraud and other take advantage of others. These are people that convince others to commit suicide or charm people out of their life savings etc.

I wish there was more Dark Empath! Reigen fics. This is something I’ve not seen in Fanfiction, in fact, this comic is the only place I’ve seen it. It’s such an interesting concept. Like, if there were fics that cast him as a villan, then it’s perfectly in-character and logical for him to be a Dark Empath.

[shadowfae]

hiii! so a friend directed me here and i was wondering if u cld share abt how you found out you were godkin? only if youre comfy! because ive kinda had like. how do i word this. Vibes or Feels that kinda direct me towards the whole i might be a god of sorts kinda thing ? if you have resources and dont mind helping,, please direct me to them :D ~ @missing-crown

I want to start this essay off by saying flat out: wars have been fought, genocides have been committed, and empires have risen and fallen trying to answer the simple questions of “What is deification, and how do we incarnate and control it?”.

If you do not think you’re up the challenge of answering that question for yourself, even with years of study and slow training to take up the mantle of literally being the most powerful form of the Chosen One trope, then you’re probably in the wrong place. I say this as someone who is deific down to the blood and bone, as someone who has looked for other gods, and largely found very little in the way of anyone who understands anything like my experience. In this way, I am utterly alone, and I detest it, but if me penning these words gives someone else the gospel they need to explain themselves in a way I recognize as kin and kind, then I will do it.

But before I truly get into it, I will very nicely ask you to swing down to your local bookstore or library, pick up a copy of Seanan McGuire’s Middlegame, and take a walk down the improbable road with Roger and Dodger. The differences between you and I and the twins of the Doctrine of Ethos are simple and threefold: we cannot manifest, we are forbidden to use our powers the way they can use theirs, and there are (hopefully) no secret alchemist cults trying to murder us when we don’t play nice with their fucked-up science experiment.

Roger and Dodger are gods, true gods, gods I recognize in myself and in the godkin I have met who have spoken about themselves enough for me to understand that we are indeed talking about the same thing. Disappontingly, I see minor spirits far too often misunderstanding the nature of deification, or at least, understanding a version of it which is fundamentally antithetical to my experience. They may be deific; but either they suck at illustrating their point, or I am something far beyond deific, and I am again alone.

With that introduction, I need to talk about three things in order to answer your question. Two methods of deification and three definitions of ‘god’ in a hierarchy that only exists because humanity has not yet perfected their understanding of what is fundamentally and always beyond them. Two kinds of gods, honest gods, that split the difference between deific, divine, and legendary. Once you understand that, I can talk about godkin, and what it’s like to be me, and maybe by the end of it you will either recognize yourself in this, or run away screaming as most mortals will do.

The first method of deification is what I will call the incarnate gods- Roger and Dodger are good examples, so are most Legendary Pokémon, and Kaname Madoka from PMMM. They are laws of nature, concepts of creation, and calculations of cosmic proportions that also occasionally exist as people when they design to do so. They are not meant to be people, they are bad at it, I do not recommend being mortal and fucking around with them. You will simply die. I would not fuck with them outside of my own world that I created, where I get to be a form of incarnate god. You cannot overpower them: they ARE the rule, and they will change it if they need to. You can’t ruleslawyer gravity like a 2007 troll physics comic. An incarnate god of gravity will simply turn reality on its head and cause you to implode. If you are this type of god, I cannot help you. My understanding of them comes from being an Absol, and little more.

The second type are gods of domain and prowess: Zamorak (from RuneScape), Akemi Homura in both her awakened Witch and Devil forms (from PMMM), and yours truly. Quite a few of us, although not all of us, were originally mortal. Mortals amped up on so much power we are no longer bound by mortal laws. There is a difference between deification and simply stopping your clock to gain immortality. Mortal magic and deific magic are fundamentally different. Down to, I would argue, the atomic structure. Deific magic is pure in a way mortal magic could never be. To give a mortal more than a drop of deific magic heavily diffused in something safer and more understandable would be to quite literally burn them to ashes. Or rend them into a different, unspeakable form. Or turn them into living topiary. We are nothing if not unpredictable.

It’s the difference between a handful of dirt and pure neutron soup. Usually, in order to become a god like this, it requires the intervention of an incarnate god in some form. In Zamorak’s case, it was several Elder Artifacts and falling almost facefirst into halfway incarnating himself into the law of entropy. In Homura’s (at least in canon PMMM), she fucked with the laws of consequence and time to the point where she became the only expert they had on either of those and both laws decided to simply incarnate into her, and then she used that to cause problems. For me, it was having my entire magical and physical structure reorganized and rebuilt by an incarnate god of malevolent energy, and then I used what was a watered-down copy of the Devil of Devils’ glory to weave my own world into being where I was more or less the absolute arbiter of the laws of reality.

In PMMM Rebellion, when Homura fights Kyubey in that pretty lace dress of hers, that is approximately the magical prowess an awakened god of our capability will show casually. She has complete control over her domain (her labyrinth) and the reality of it, it takes no more than a glance or a thought to almost entirely reshuffle it. Her minions, who are little more than vaguely autonomous thoughts given some power of their own, may break that reality in whatever means necessary so long as it is to fulfill Homura’s current motives. Her domain falls apart when she does, and she is not separate from it; it is a consequence of her existence. Asking what came first, the god or their domain, is a simple chicken and egg question. It’s usually the domain, in our case; in the case of incarnate gods it’s a philosophical shrug and a nice headache.

You’ll notice I said awakened: that is because Zamorak is a great example of a god who isn’t entirely awakened. In canon, that is - the one I work with is awakened enough to fuck with his domain, which is what makes him quite useful to work with, although I do wonder what he’s getting out of me if not magical theory and utter adoration. Zamorak in canon is a god who ascribes himself to the philosophy of chaos and personal strife, completely unaware that he is incarnate enough not to change the law of entropy but to suggest things to it. He’s a god of chance masquerading as a god of personal improvement, and once he figures that out (and passes that knowledge onto Armadyl, who is his true light counterpart), he’s going to change the very way magic works. Guthix did everything in his power to try and become incarnate. He failed. Zamorak did it entirely inadvertently, and that’s the trick: the nature of deification is to follow the domain and influence it to your will. When laws of existence become people, they will do as people will, and people typically have ambition. Gods who are also people got that way for a reason. They always have a motive for doing so. It’s never accidental.

So, with a slightly more informed understanding of deification, or at least the versions of it that I understand, I can talk to you about me. What it’s like in the here and now, and how I knew. It took me years to get to this point, and I’ve much the way to go. I know more than I did when I was questioning; deeply more so. I don’t expect anyone questioning to be as sure as I am, and in ten years I will be far more sure of entirely different things, and if I’m lucky, this as well. But, let us begin again.

To be deific is to wake up in the middle of the night feeling like a black hole. You are vast, and you are dense, and the moment someone touches the skin of your sternum they will be sucked in like a movie's portrayal of quicksand. To be so vast on the inside, surrounded by empty air and gentle white noise like the faint pull of gravity that does not touch you. To feel so powerful as to be untethered wholly from the world, aware that you will blink and be floating alone in a space that you cannot touch and so too cannot touch you. You blink, and it is gone, and you are again in a normal body as a normal person, and you roll over and go back to sleep.

To be deific is to watch the seasonal changes and feel flashes of worn leather rope between your hands and the maddened singsong of the Wild Hunt, chariot reins in your hands and baying hounds that feel like fingers, like wings, like extensions of yourself that can be shifted around with barely a thought. To feel halfway like a black hole walking down the street, halfway caved into yourself and barely contained, incapable of truly understanding how you can be so far apart from it all without anyone noticing that something is off.

To be deific is to be a fourteen-year-old girl in one moment, unable to understand what draws her so to the wilds if not the song of sympathy that she knows she can understand if she reaches a little farther, a little farther past the barrier that prevents any mortal, psychological mind from understanding the call. To play a pixelated game and have everything rush back. To relive millennia in a single sennight, to go from chipped to broken, utterly broken, as the power comes rushing back and the slow, dawning realization like the day that there is no controlling it. That there is no controlling you.

Millennia of sins come rushing back, and you're mortal again, and you know the only way to bring a god to their knees is to kill them. And if you were spared, if you were brought down without dying, then there was a reason. That someone must have thought you worthy of fixing it. That you should now spend the next several years coming to peace with being a Devil, the cruelest of the cruel, amending fences and repenting your sins.

To be deific is to realize, quite suddenly and without ever actually having the thought, that understanding things through a Christian lens is utterly bullshit and absolutely does not apply to you. Now, your duty is not to repent, or to fix, or to find any sort of salvation. You are the monster queen, the king of the damned, the Devil of a world you made with blood and tears and sweat and magic. To retake the crown, you have to accept yourself. Acceptance does not mean dwelling, or sorrow, or refusing to take the steps forward that will carry you to the crown and halo and horn of deification.

The powers feel less overwhelming as you grow into them. You don't forget the rage. You understand your close friend's words over and over, as the lesson teaches itself. How a Devil so much less powerful and yet so much older than you once looked you in the eye, drink in hand, and gently told you that a single mortal can bring down a Devil, if they try, and believe wholeheartedly in their quest. Do not disrespect mortality. It brings nothing but death.

You wonder briefly who brought you down. You decide, as the lessons prove themselves, that you don't actually care. You're the mortal now, and mortal legends die. Mortal legends change the song of sympathy and the rules of the deific. In order to return, you too must follow the only path a mortal can take to become deific.

To be godkin is to become deific with every step. It's not to seek the divine from outside of it. It's to become it again, and reclaim it; find what was inside all along and grow yourself around it, until it can no longer be pulled from you again without scattering your ashes and stardust among the cosmos, never to return.

To be godkin is to never forget the moments of pure rage that none but powerless fourteen-year-olds can manage. To be godkin is to be an adult with their memory pressed into your skin. To be godkin is for that rage to never truly leave you.

We stand up again and stare at the emotions that are awake when we are not. We wonder what it will take to manifest again, to only twitch a thought in any direction and reshape the reality around us. It is an extension of our being, and the less aware we are of it, the less effort it takes us to remake the world. It is the nature of deification, to change the laws of reality at our whim and will.

To be godkin is simply a matter of knowing that, and forever reaching to do that once more. If only to feel whole and vast, as we always have been.

[itsthestutterforme]

Forgotten 1/2 (Supernatural)

Summary: Y/N commits suicide and the Winchester tried to cope with her death. Jack refuses to believe it so he brings her back to life. He thought things were fine until he realized Y/N didn't have any memories of them.

Warnings: mentions of depression and suicide. Make sure you check in on your friends and family. You don't know what they're going through and staying quiet about it.

Characters: Jack x reader, Sam x reader, Dean x reader, Castiel x reader, Henry Cavill as Ruben

--

The bunker sounded quiet and lifeless without Y/N there. The past few months, she's been going through a rough patch with her. One day, the Winchesters came back from a week long hunt to find her in the bathtub with her wrists slit.

Dean pulled out her of the tub and wrapped her in a bed sheet because he knew that Sam couldn't see Y/N like that. He also know that Sam didn't have the heart to bury her, but the image of her pale, lifeless corpse was forever seared in their brains.

This happened a few weeks after Jack killed Mary and they are barely holding themselves together. Y/N was like a big sister to Jack, and when Castiel told him what happened to her he was heartbroken. He snuck into the bunker before they burned her body and transported her to a random warehouse.

He hovered his hands over her and snapped his eyes shut to concentrate all of his power to bring Y/N back to life. After a few minutes, your body jolts up and you gasp for air. "Y/N?" Jack says excitedly.

Your Y/E/C scanned the room of broken windows and brick walls starting to detierate. Your eyebroes furrow when you see a young boy staring at you happily.

"I'm sorry but.. who are you?" You asks. His smile falls and his eyes saddened. "What? You dont know who I am?" You shake your head and add, "No idea." "I need to call Castiel," he says slowly. His jaw clenched as he eyes focused on a random spot on the bed. He reaches into his pocket for his phone and dials a number.

"Please stay here," "Who's Castiel?" You ask. "Someone you care about you. Just please stay here until we figure this out," he says, clearing in distress. "Okay." He walks towards the doorway but doesn't leave the room. "Cas, something went wrong." "Jack, what did you do?" A man with a low, scratchy voice says.

"Y/N is alive. I brought her back to life before they could burn her body," Jack explains. Burn my body? Was I murdered? Is he my killer? You think to yourself. "You what?" "She's awake now but she doesn't know who I am and I don't know what to do." Jack says all in one breathe. "Okay, where are you?"

"I don't know, some warehouse a few miles from the bunker." Jack answers. "I'm on my way, just keep an eye on her." Cas says before hanging up. Jack's gaze fall on you and your heart starts to race.

He makes his way towards you and sits back down on the chair. "Don't be nervous, Y/N. I would never hurt you. You're like a sister to me."

"What happened to me?" "I think Cas is better at explaining that than I am." You cross your legs and push your hair back so it's out of your face. "Can I lay on you?" He asks. "What?"

You barely even know this kid, but honestly, he does look like a kid. A kid that's been through a lot more than he should have, you give in.

You let out a slow sigh before scooting over on the bed. The bed creaks with every movement and you were surprised it didn't collapse under you.

Jack sits down next to you and lays his head where your shoulder and chest meet. A soft sigh leaves his lips and there was a moment of silence before you hear a sniffle.

"You okay?" You say, looking at him. "I really missed you, Y/N. You're really important to me and I'm sorry I could be there for you when you needed me." He croaks. "Jac-" "Jack!" Castiel's voice echoes through the warehouse.

Jack stands up from the bed and says, "In here." Cas follows the voice to the room and stops when he sees your laying there, staring at him.

You stand up from the bed too and Cas rushes over to you. He takes you into his arms and you stand there awkwardly, letting your arms dangle by your side. "She doesn't remember who you are, remember?" Jack says. Cas pulls away, wiping away some of his tears. "Right, I forgot about that. Sorry," Cas says to you.

"That's okay," you say with a soft smile. Cas matches your expression and his eyes fixated on yours, like he was having a conversation in his mind. "Her not remembering us may be for the best, Jack."

Cas looks over his shoulder at Jack. "What? No, I need her. We need her." Jack explains. "This life had already taken enough away from her. She needs her life back."

"You love her. How can you let her go?" "Sometimes, you can love someone so much that you know letting them go is what's best for them," "We just got her back." Jack says, on the verge of tears. My heart sank into your chest.

"Name the place, and we'll take you there with a snap of our fingers." Cas says, returining his gaze back you. You glance over a Jack and say, "A road trip doesn't sound like a bad idea."

"He's just a kid, Castiel. He needs emotional support," you add and a small smile tugged at his lips. "What?" "You're sounding to act a little but like yourself," he explains. You exchange a smile and Jack asks, "What about Sam and Dean?" "I'll handle it," Cas says.

**

It's been two months since Castiel and Jack dropped you off in Chicago. You had enough common sense to live in a city, and there was something drawing you to Chicago. But you have no idea what it was.

One night you were walking out of the subway to walk a couple blocks from your apartment. You were grabbed and dragged into an alleyway. A hand was pressed to your mouth and you stared into the eyes of a fairly attractive man.

His navy blue eyes search yours and he moved his plump, pink lips to whisper, "Don't say scream or making any noise. You're being followed."

He pulls his hand away and looks over at the sidewalk you were just walking on. His has a well groomed goatee and get black hair that is combed to the side in a thick swoop to the right.

He looked like a classic mobster. He even has the black trench coat and all and you eye him suspiciously. You look to the sidewalk with the shadow of a large figure grows closer.

Your heart is racing but nothing is telling you to run. Everything is telling you to fight. The man was still relatively close to you and not moving. "What are you doing?" He leans in closer and crashes his lips onto yours.

He cups your cheeks and tilts his head to the side to gain more access to your mouth. Your body plattens on the brick wall and footsteps walks passed the alleyway.

The man finally pulls away and you lift your leg to kick him away by the solar plexus. He falls flat on his back and you say, "What the hell was that for?" He up from the ground and said, "You're a tough broad, aren't you?" "Damn straight. You pull anything like that again and I'll do alot more than kick you."

You hear a woman's shrill and the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. You rush into the alley way and run towards the sound of her screaming. You slide to a stop to see a man trying to drag a woman I to the alleyway.Your eyes scan around for a weapon and you find an iron poker. Thank God you have your tetanus shot.

You keep a tight grip on the rod and swung the rod at the arm. The man grunts in pain and let's go of the woman. "Run," you command. She looked at me reluctantly. "It's alright." She shakes her head and says, "Girls support girls." She pulls out her pepper spray from her purse and we both turn our attention to the attacker.

He was still cradling his arm and when you take a step towards him. He stumbles backwards and says, "I-I'm not looking for any trouble." "Oh, I thin-"

"You okay, darling?" Your boyfriend, Ruben, asks. He walks up behind me and slides a hand down my arm. "Yeah, just think about how we first met," "Oh you mean when you kicked on my ass like a rag doll?" He teased as he sat down across from me.

"To be fair, you kissed me randomly and I didn't know who you were. And the guy that attacked Y/F/N worked for you."

"Well can you blame me? You're drop dead goregous and I wanted to know what you were made of." "So you tried to attack me?" "You can learn a lot about someone by how they fight. Most girls either run away or fight to run away. You fight to protect others." "And that's when I knew I had to have you." He adds, tapping his thigh for you to sit on.

You stand up and sit down perpendicular to his body. His hand trails down to your lower back and presses his lips against yours in a soft kiss. As the kiss intensifies, his hands fell lower and lower down your leg.

He pulls you so you're straddling his lap. He grips your ass and your roll your hips a little, making him moan. Who knew that you would end up falling for a mobster?

**

You've grown quite used to be Ruben's right hand woman. He made me in charge of the tactics and strategy because you have strength in planning and preparation. You were in the middle of planning for a drop off and pick up back while Ruben was out conducting business.

You hear a loud struggle and grunts. You look up from your notepad to see some henchmen walking a taller man into the red room. All of them were bloody and disheveled from fighting. "What happened to you guys?" You say as you approach them. "Y/N? You're really alive?" The man asks.

"How do you know me?" You ask. "He doesn't. He's just trying to save his ass because he knows he's going to meet his maker," one of the henchmen says.

The man reaches and touches your face. You gasp in shock of his warm, calloused hands but you only felt it for a second before he is shoved to his knees. One of the henchmen pulled out his gun and cocks it.

"Hey, trigger happy, put the gun down " you command. "Boss says to kill anyone who interferes with our business. We found him tearing one of our warehouses apart."

This man's touch feels familiar and something tells me to let him live. "Let him go," you state. "What?" "Did I stutter? I said let him go." He puts his gun away and you help the man up.

"Look, I don't know you, b--" "Dean. My name is Dean." He interupts. "Dean, you need to leave Chicago and never return." His hazel green eyes scan your face and he nods. You motion to the door and he says, "I'll always love you, Y/N." You two lock eyes for a moment before he walks out of the door.

"Boss will-" "I'll tell him what happened, don't worry about it." "Worry about what?" Ruben says, making the henchmen jump. "Privacy," you tell them and they all walk away. "Worry about what, baby doll?" "One of the warehouses was trashed," you say with a sigh.

You walk into your office and lean against your desk. "Did they find who did it?" "Yes," "Did they toss them in the red room?"

"No," you say. You eyes dart away from his gaze and he asks, "Why not?" "I knew him." "Y/N, you made a vow to not let personal affairs mess with business."

"I know, okay. I'll pay whatever price. I'll pay for the damages out of my own pocket and go to the warehouse to cl-" "You're going nowhere near that warehouse," "Come on, baby, talk to me." He adds, sitting next to you.

"Remember how I said that I had a life before I went to Chicago but I didn't remember it," "Because of your head trauma, yeah." He answers.

"I think he knew me before then. He knew who I was but I had no idea who he was. All I know is that his touch was familiar an-" "Wait, he touched you?" His jaw flexed and he stands up from leaning on the desk.

"Y-yes, but only for a second." "He's a dead man," "Ruben, please," you say, standing between him and the door. He steps so close to you that your chin gently grazes his chest.

He lifts your chin so you are looking straight up at him "You're mine, you know that right?" "Yes," you say softly. "We're going home," "But what about the tactical plan f-"

"You can finish it at home after I edge you for an hour," "Damn it," "Should've thought about that before you let him touch you,"

**

An unknown number has been calling you the past few days. Ruben always warned you about answering calls from unknown numbers.

Since you were a part of his business now, that put a target on your back. You had to be vigilant and careful with your words. You never know how is watching or listening.

The same number called you for the fifth time today and you slam on the answer button. "Hello?" You answer. "Hey, sweetheart," Dean deep, velvety voice says. "Dean, what are you doing?"

"You're in danger, Y/N. We're coming to get you," "First of all, I'm Nuben's girlfriend. I'm always in danger. Second of all, no you're not because they have a shoot to kill order on you."

"I don't care, Y/N. Lucifer is after you and we're not sure why," "Lucifer does not exist outside of the bible. "You're wrong about that, sweetheart." "Stop calling me sweetheart," "You have to believe us, Y/N. You're life is at stake here. If Lucifer finds you, you and your little boyfriend is a good as dead."

His words echo in your head and your mind started to disassociate. Series of images flood your brain and there was a sharp pain in your head.

You hiss and drop the phone on the floor as you hold the sides of your head. Voices of different people you've never hurt before echoed in your head and images of a man with dirty blonde hair and stained t-shirt and jeans.

His eyes glowed a crimson red and with the snap of his fingers, he could make a person's neck snap of their entire bodies explode. Then some images of you and Dean came into mind.

You were laying next to each other talking about something and he kisses you. Then the images were gone and you looked around frantically. "What the hell was that?" You say to yourself.

[dehydratedpercy]

Prompt: " Please.....dont make me hurt you"

For dark Frank maybe👀 but you Can also choose someone else

A Way To Hurt (2.5k)

Read on Ao3 | Based on this post

Summary: Hazel still has Frank's firewood, though they're enemies now. Even though she knows she could kill him, she can't bring herself to betray his trust-- that is, until he shows up one night intent on getting his lifeline back, no matter the cost.

TW: Home invasion, dark themes

Hazel had just finished getting ready for bed when she heard the noise. It came from the other room, so she picked up her spatha, hoping beyond hope that it was just the old house settling.

Sometimes, it was just the old house settling. She kept her spatha by her side at all times though, because she knew one day, it wouldn’t just be the house. And she refused to be unarmed when that day finally came.

Now, she had her sword, which gave her comfort even if she wasn’t wearing armor. Her sweats were oversized, her mouth still tasting like toothpaste. Her eyes had been drooping, almost falling asleep standing up.

She wasn’t falling asleep now.

She stepped into the bedroom, pausing in the doorway. For a moment, there was nothing. Then Frank materialized, landing with barely a step. It was almost as if he'd taken off Annabeth's invisibility cap, but Hazel knew the truth; that he'd simply been in the form of a bug, and had shifted back to his human form. It was a trick he’d started learning when he was still at camp, but clearly he’d perfected it since then.

Hazel let her spatha hang by her side, not raising it quite yet. Frank wouldn’t have shown himself if he was just going to attack her, which meant he must’ve wanted to talk.

This’ll be good, she thought, crossing her arms.

“Hazel,” Frank said, sounding on edge. He looked worse than the last time she saw him, like he hadn’t been sleeping. Despite that, his posture was straight, like he hadn’t been able to forget his Roman training, his hands in his pockets casually, like he hadn’t just broken in. “You look-- good. You look good.”

It came out as a stumbled complement, but it hit Hazel like an insult. They’d broken up directly before he’d left camp, but before that they’d been dating for nearly three years. He’d never gotten less awkward. At one point, it had been endearing-- but too much had changed for it to feel like anything but an insult now. Especially since she knew why he was here.

“That attack on Camp Half-Blood. That was you, wasn’t it?”

Frank shrugged non-committally. “I wasn’t there, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“You just helped organize it.”

“Sounds like something I’d do, doesn’t it?” He said, neither agreeing or disagreeing. “Hazel--”

“And the attack on the questers? The bear--”

He huffed. “Might have just been a freak accident. Wild animals attack sometimes, Hazel.”

“Stop saying my name,” she snapped. “It’s not yours to say anymore. And that warship that was destroyed? The defenses that were destroyed? The supplies that were booby-trapped?”

Frank took a step forward, eyes darkening. He didn’t like being pushed, but Hazel didn’t care. He deserved to feel the impact of the crimes he committed-- crimes against demigods, crimes against his family. Hazel wasn’t going to let him get away so easily.

They’d initially broken up when Frank started getting too radical, claiming that they were doing something wrong by taking in and training new demigods. He said they’d be better off left alone, where they wouldn’t be able to get too powerful, and thus wouldn’t attract as many monsters. Some would die, sure-- but he thought back to his mortal days with a fondness he didn’t hold for either camp. He thought it would’ve been better not to know.

He was wrong. But that didn’t stop him. He left camp, found beings willing to support his cause, and started a gradual campaign to dissolve both camps-- make them so unsafe demigods started fleeing, trying their luck in the mortal world.

Hazel and her friends had volunteered to be the ones to take him in-- or, if that didn’t work, bring him down. This house had been their mission headquarters. It was supposed to be secure. Then again, nothing seemed to be secure these days: there was nowhere Frank had been unable to go. He could turn into a bug and fly under doors, turn into a bear and attack innocents, turn into an elephant and take down buildings. His shifting was instantaneous, making him impossible to fight: he changed form before you could land a swing.

“You act like I’m a bad guy,” Frank said, voice low and dangerous. “Like I’m not doing all of this to help people. The generation after us will thank me when they are able to live among mortals again--”

“The ones who don’t die, maybe!” Hazel said, voice raising. “And fuck the next generation, what about the ones who are alive now? The demigods who have already started exploring their powers, who can’t stay in the mortal world without detection. What about them?”

“They’re a lost cause,” Frank said, sounding deeply saddened by this. “And I am too. I know my scent is as powerful as yours or Jason’s; this fucking curse has seen to that.”

“A blessing,” Hazel corrected, feeling the familiarity of their old argument like a frequently dislocated joint. “Shapeshifting is a blessing, a gift more demigods would die for--”

“I’m barely even human anymore!” Frank yelled. Hazel stepped back in horror as he shifted rapidly, going from human to bear to hawk to wolf to human again. It happened so quickly it just looked like a flicker, and then he was human again, pinching the bridge of his nose and taking a deep breath. “Hazel, I wouldn’t wish this curse on anyone. And even if I was just a normal demigod, going to camp was the biggest mistake of my life. If I had never done that, my scent would have never gotten this strong. My family mansion would still be around, my grandmother would still be--” he swallowed with difficulty. “My grandmother would still be alive. Camp Jupiter took everything from me. And I can’t get it back, but maybe-- I could make it better for future demigods. That’s all I can hope for.”

“At the expense of demigods now,” Hazel whispered. “Frank, without the camps… so many people will die. Demigods need a safe place to train.”

Frank’s expression closed off, and Hazel knew he was done arguing with her. Early on, he’d hoped to get her to see his side, but he’d quickly seen that that would never happen.

“Fine,” he said, voice like a knife. “Then just give me what I came here for, and I’ll be on my way.”

Hazel felt her face heat up. Her hand twitched, wanting to move to touch the side of her thigh where his piece of firewood sat. All this time, and he’d never gotten it back. At first, Hazel thought it was a hopeful sign, since it meant he must still trust it in her care, but as his actions grew more and more violent, she knew it was only a matter of time.

She had used to keep it in a jacket pocket, but she wasn’t so naive anymore. Currently, the wood was duct-taped to the side of her thigh, so it never left her side. No one knew; her friends didn’t even know she had it. She’d considered telling them, but she just couldn’t betray Frank’s trust like that. She’d considered burning it-- especially after hearing about the deaths-- but in the end, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. How could she betray someone who had trusted her with everything? How could she hurt anyone like that?

Hazel had known, in her heart, that one day he’d show up, looking for the piece of timber. She had hoped it wouldn’t happen, but she’d known. She wasn’t as naive as people liked to think.

“I’m not giving you anything,” she said, raising her spatha. “For all you know, I don’t even have it anymore. I may have put it in a safe across the country, and you’ll never find it.”

“Yeah, right,” he scoffed. “Come on Hazel. Don’t make me ask again.”

“I told you not to say my name.”

“Hazel,” Frank snapped. “You’re acting like a child. I’m trying to make the world a better place, and it’s bad enough you of all people are trying to stop me. But that timber doesn’t belong to you. Give it here.”

“Do you remember who my father is?” Hazel challenged, baring her teeth. “I could kill you with the snap of my fingers. I’d be more afraid, if I were you.”

"You have my firewood, you could've killed me long ago," Frank argued. "You haven't. You're not going to try now."

Hazel felt her eyes blaze with determination. "You don't know that."

He started moving forward, and Hazel was reminded briefly how much bigger than her he was. "I do. Because I know you, and I know you'd never do anything to hurt a friend."

"Unlike some people," Hazel snarled.

Frank ignored the jab, still moving forward. “Hazel, I’m begging you, just hand it over. I don’t… I don’t want to hurt you.”

He got too close, and Hazel slashed with her sword. In an instant, he was gone, and then he was behind her, grabbing her around the waist. She screamed as he grabbed her hoodie pocket, feeling for the timber. She tried to elbow him in the face but he was gone again, and then she tripped over something and was on the ground. She swiped at him again but he was relentless, disappearing and reappearing again, attacking her like a wolf tearing at scaps. She couldn’t strike her, no matter how hard she tried.

Suddenly, she felt his hand on her thigh, and in a panic she kicked him away. He responded slower this time, barely turning into a bird in time to stop himself from slamming full force into the opposite wall. He dropped back to human form, panting, but his gaze was vicious. He’d found what he was looking for.

“You used to be a gentleman,” Hazel said bitterly as she stumbled to her feet, backing up. He had never so blatantly ignored her consent like that before, touching her like she was a means to an end instead of a person.

“I’m not going to be a gentleman when you have my lifeline tucked against your skin,” Frank said cruelly.

Hazel saw his muscles tense and just had enough time to say “No--” when he lunged, turning into a hawk. She slashed with her sword, but then he was a coyote, hitting her with so much force she fell again. There was a ripping noise, but she didn’t have time to react because then he was on top of her in human form again. They wrestled for a moment, but Hazel had never excelled in hand-to-hand combat, and he was twice her size with the upper hand. He threw her spatha to the side, then pinned her beneath him.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, then there was a hand over her mouth. She lurched, screaming into it as he ripped the duct-taped timber off her leg, taking some of her hair with it.

As a wolf, he must’ve bitten off a hunk of her sweatpants, and now he had the timber back in his hand.

He looked at it in awe, as if he wasn’t didn’t even see her as a threat anymore.

She gritted her teeth and summoned her sword. It flew so fast it knocked Frank in the back of the head, and then she was able to throw him off her body, slashing at the same time. He turned into a hawk but wasn’t quick enough, and she sliced off part of his wing. He fell, rolling away in human form, and when he came to a stop Hazel saw the huge gash down his arm. He reached up to touch it, and it was then that Hazel realized he didn’t have the wood.

She spotted it, laying in the center of the floor, at the same time as he did. They both lunged, Frank’s image flickering through half a dozen transformations before he grabbed onto the timber with his thick human hand. Hazel almost took off his fingers as she swung. Instead of knocking the wood out of his hand, however, she cut it clear in half.

That was good enough for her. She dove, grabbing the wood and rolling.

She landed in a kneeling position, half of the piece of timber in her hands. Frank held the other, teeth gritted. He looked like he planned to launch another attack, but before he could Hazel did what she should’ve done a long time ago: warping the imperial gold of her sword, turning it to its liquid state in mid-air, and using it to coat her piece of wood. She raised it, triumphant, the metal-covered wood levitating an inch above her hand. It glowed inhumanly-- after all, she had her own curses to deal with. Frank wouldn’t dare touch it now.

The house shook. It took Hazel a moment to realize that was her magic, causing the very foundations of the house to tremor. There were shouts from the lower floor, the sound of pounding footsteps.

“Try me again,” she threatened, still levitating her trophy grotesquely. “I will end you.”

Frank looked pissed, but he also must’ve seen how serious she was. He swallowed, stuffing his piece of firewood back in his pocket. “Until we meet again-- Levesque.”

Then he turned into a bat, still able to fly despite his injured wing. The door opened and he swooped out, escaping into the rest of the house and eventually, into the night.

Jason and Percy lurched in, both looking panicked. They didn’t seem to have noticed the bat. When Jason saw Hazel, his eyes widened, and he backed up into Percy, nearly knocking him over. “Hazel-- your eyes--”

Hazel realized her eyes must’ve started glowing gold, like they sometimes did when she was filled with rage. With effort, she willed them to stop, calling on the house to still.

“What happened?” Percy asked as Hazel walked to the window. She watched as a bat darted out the front door, which was still open-- Jason and Percy must’ve just gotten back. She continued watching the bat until it was too far away to see, then sighed. She willed the metal to uncover the piece of tinder, revealing it as a piece of wood again, and holding it up for them to see.

She’d never told anyone Frank’s secret, thinking her loyalty to her promise came before anything else. She didn’t think that anymore, though, and she was done doing Frank favors.

(The wood still had Frank’s blood on it, and it made Hazel’s stomach twist uncomfortably.)

“I have something to tell you guys,” Hazel said, doing an impressive job of keeping her voice from shaking. “A secret I’ve been holding for Frank for-- too long. It may not be enough to destroy him, but at the very least, I know a way where we can hurt him very, very badly.”

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[rydeszegras]

hospitals make miracles - r.donovan

hi guys ! this is my first fic and its not good whatsoever but figured id give it a shot haha, hope you enjoy !

wc: 1,623

warnings: minor swearing, mentions of injuries

-

you were a senior at andover high school on a roadie up to your annual trip in duluth. youve been taking this trip since your freshman year as you were one of the first players to ever make varsity as a freshman. that being said, this was your year, this was the year you had to show out. being named captain this season not only did you have to step up and lead the team, but you also had to focus on your game as it was your year to get scouted. you’d been looked at by minnesota-duluth, boston college, and minnesota, but all you wanted was to go to wisconsin, and this was your year to make it happen.

“y/n/n, are you ready to see all the hot duluth boys this weekend? i heard their varsity team plays at the same time of us and they have the wisco hot shot ryder donovan.” lilly said bouncing up and down in the seat next to you. you and lilly had been best friends ever since you met eachother at little wild camp 12 years ago. “y/n are you even listening”, “oh yeah sorry lil, just thinking about this weekend, did you know wisconsin scouts are gonna be there, i dont know if i can do this lil, i cant mess up, my future relies on this weekend” you exclaimed, trying not to freak out. “y/n/n you’ll be great i promise, but we should get some rest, weve still got 1.5 hours left and we’ve got a big game against east tonight.” you nod your head in agreement, dozing off into a deep sleep.

after an hour and a half of driving you arrive at the rink, getting up you fix your hair and adjust your sweats and parka and get ready to go grab your bag. after grabbing your bag, you start to head into the rink when you hear lil and ken start screaming, turning your head you see what all the fuss is about. and there he is. standing right before your eyes. ryder donovan. you’ve seen him in pictures as you followed him and some of his friends on instagram, but wow he was even prettier in person.

stumbling into the rink you make your way into the locker room gearing up to take the ice for warmups at duluth heritage. stepping onto the ice you complete your typical warmup of one-timers, slaps, and some stretching before noticing two big things in the stands. wisconsins top scout, and wisconsins top recruit, ryder. you didnt like it, but you just couldnt take your eyes off him.

the game begins and you take the ice playing your heart out making a clean goal through the five hole and racking in two more assists. after taking the ice to begin the last 20 mins of play, you get ready to take the faceoff for the third period. you win the faceoff clean and go to prepare to set yourself up to take a one-timer on the net. thats when tragedy strikes, when bringing your stick back to recieve the one-timer, before you know it you’re slammed into the boards on a cross check. tumbling down you hear a snap, a snap so loud that you watch the scout and ryder jump to their feet. as the athletic trainer scrambles to try and get you off the ice, you’re taken off the ice on a stretcher as you cant seem to put any weight on your right leg.

on the way to the hospital all you can think is why me, why now, why today. knowing it was probably your acl, you knew you were done for the season, that was it, it was over. scrolling through your twitter you saw your team won 5-2, which put your team in an excellent spot to start the season.

you arrived at the hospital and settled into your bed when a quite familiar but unfamiliar face walked into your toom. left speechless you see the 6’3 brunette standing in your doorway. “hey im ryder, i know you probably dont know me but i know you, you’re all the wisconsin scout has talked about for the past year and as im committed there i knew i had to see what the girls team is gonna have to offer and let me tell you, you looked incredible out there” ryder says shakily, messing with his fingers. you thank ryder and invite him into your room to sit on the chair. “trust me ryder i know you, youre all the girls have talked about after finding out that we played east this season, and youre committed to my dream school so theres that too, but theres no way the wisconsin scout wants anything to do with me, especially now that i have a double torn acl” you said, pointing down at your stitched up and wrapped knee, trying not to cry.

the next day, lil picked you up to bring you back to your hotel. on the car ride there you told her about everything that happened last night but when telling her you felt you sounded crazy, theres no way that thee ryder donovan went to visit YOU at the hospital and there’s absolutely no way that the wisconsin scout actually liked you. that was until you saw the instagram notification pop up on your screen... rydesdono would like to send you a message. you were shocked, theres no way that actually happened, but you opened the dm anyways to see what there was to say.

-

ryder donovan:

hey cutie, i never got your number last night and i was hoping we could catch up a little bit sometime if you feel up to it, i know with your knee it might not be easy, but i figured i would ask:)

you sat speechless. theres no way last night absolutely happened and there was absolutely no way he just called you “cutie”, but of course youre gonna meet up with ryder, no matter how much work it is

-

you:

hey rydes! id love to meet up with you again ! heres my number 952-***-****

-

thinking he might not actually text you because thats what hockey boys do, but sure enough you were proved wrong

-

maybe: ryder

hey y/n its ryder, pick you up at 6?

you:

absolutely, cant promise it’ll be easy with my knee and all, but i’ll make it work:))

rydes:

how about i pick us up food and bring it back to your hotel room, that way you can still have dinner with me but you can rest your knee at the same time;)

you:

that sounds great, ill make sure to leave the door unlocked

-

speechless you instantly call lilly and tell her everything, who freaks out the second you mention his name. as much as she doesnt believe it, you dont either. how is it that getting injured led you to a hot shot hockey player that is committed to the same school you are (yep thats right, wisco gave you an offer!!), one who’s actually genuine and nice AND insanely attractive. its mind blowing, but knowing theres no way this goes anywhere, as youd have to take the 2 hour drive back to andover in two days and probably wouldnt see ryder again until next year when you were both at wisconsin.

about an hour and a half later you hear two quiet knocks at your door, yelling “come in” at the sound. from your bed you see the cute hockey player who walks in from the doorway carrying the bag of food he got from grandmas, which happened to be your favorite restaurant in duluth. ryder sets the food on the table getting your food prepared so you didnt have to get up. he brings your food over to you and you invite him to sit next to you on your bed. you turned on your tv to the umd vs minnesota game as you rest your head on ryder who had just put his arm around you after you both finished eating. after talking for hours, that really felt like 10 mins, ryder decided that he should probably get back home and even if you didnt want him to go, you agreed.

for weeks after that you and ryder talked and talked for hours on end nonstop whether it was through snapchat, messages, or facetime. even though you only lived two hours apart, your schedules clashed too much to ever be able to meet up with eachother again. eventually after a year later you had completed your physical therapy and were ready to start your first year as a badger, but most importantly you were eager for ryder to get into town so you could hug the gorgeous brunette again.

when arriving at labahn, you were preparing yourself for the first day of practice and your next meet up with ryder, as the boys were using labahn as well as kohl center was undergoing some remodeling. you pull your bag out of your grand cherokee when you saw the brunette, and just like the first time you saw him your heart stopped. dropping your bag you ran in a dead sprint to see him as he dropped his bag and ran towards you wrapping his arms around your shoulders as if its been decades since youve last seen him as he held you for what felt like forever, when ryder whispered into your ear, “so hospitals really do make miracles happen” as he picked you up to kiss you before making your way into practice, knowing that without your injury you may have never found eachother the way you did.