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sprenthecreator · 2 months ago

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IMPURITIES EP. 2 | Kirisute Gomen

Male reader x Sakura x Male character

word count: 8.3k words

tags: anal, face fuck, spitroast, dp

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For now, the incident in New York had remained just an anecdote; it hadn't affected your relationship with the girls, either positively or negatively. It had simply happened. Much of it was due to the fact that you were still on tour, and there was no time for trivial matters like that. «The show must go on». That's what you'd told yourself to avoid thinking about it.

Because if you were honest with yourself, every time you remembered that night, you got the urge to make it happen again. But your professionalism was stronger, as was your common sense. It wasn't you who should make that decision; it was them. And if they pretended for the moment that it hadn't happened, you would play along until they wanted it.

A week had passed since then. New York was followed by Washington, DC, and from there, the next stop was Atlanta. Your arrival had been at night. A relief for your body, as you were able to go straight to your room and sleep peacefully, with half your worries already resolved since you'd gotten ahead on your work during the trip.

But in the morning, the problems started.

You didn't know if it was the Atlanta air or something, but that morning everyone seemed to be in a bad mood. Including the girls. You weren't a person who got angry easily, but by midday, you were already feeling at your limit. The venue staff were all idiots. All of them. Not one was spared. And if that weren't enough, there were countless problems at the sound check that tested you as a manager, both your patience and your aptitude.

It didn't end there. The hotel staff were also incompetent idiots, and they also caused you more than one damn unnecessary problem. The most incredible thing was the fact that they had made a mistake in the room reservation, and it turned out Kazuha's room belonged to someone else. It was a huge fucking mess. The person, understandably, was as pissed off as you were. But when you discovered it was actually the Ritz-Carlton's fault, they were forced to solve the problem for you as quickly as possible.

The next day, thank goodness, the problems were minimal. The venue staff had taken note of every technical detail you'd pointed out and resolved them. They were still rude jerks, but at least they did their jobs well. Everything went wonderfully during the concert: impeccable sound, impeccable stage, impeccable logistics, and impeccable performances.

"Good job, yeoreobun!" you said aloud as the backup dancers and the girls left the stage after the encore, handing out bottles of cold water from a small cooler.

Everyone accepted the bottles and headed backstage after removing their in-ear microphones and the heaviest parts of their outfits. You stayed behind for a moment, talking with the production technicians and the setup staff to get everything settled before leaving the area and going backstage with the girls.

There was still a good while until your departure, since you had to wait for the entire dismantling process to be completed and for the girls to change and eat their respective snacks for that evening, as you always did after each concert. You had gone off to discuss some pending matters with the staff, and when it was getting close to time to leave, you returned to the girls.

"Hey, it's time gi..." You noticed something was off as you entered. One, two, three, four... "Uhm... where the hell is Kura?"

They looked at each other, and the common expression was one of ignorance. Of course, knowing them, you couldn't trust them. They already had a history of covering for each other. But it's likely that wasn't the case, and that she was just in the bathroom or something.

"Get your things together. I'll go get her."

The venue was a little bigger than you'd have liked for a search. It was a facility designed for theater productions, so the backstage area had multiple dressing rooms of different sizes at different heights, with the ones on the second floor being the smallest. Downstairs, there was no one, not even in the bathrooms. You hoped that with so many people circulating, someone had seen her, but apparently Sakura had inherited ancient techniques from her ninja ancestors and had used them to vanish. It was too strange, and you were panicking a little. Not too much. Just a little.

Upstairs, things weren't much different. The person you were asking was the person who had never seen a 180cm Japanese girl, blonde, beautiful, and with a body to die for. And you no longer felt panic, but despair. Everything was empty. You only had one dressing room left, and you were already feeling like throwing in the towel and calling HYBE to get a scolding.

Desperate, you placed your hand on the doorknob and opened it. It was pitch black inside; the hallway light wasn't shining in due to the arrangement of the lamps. You squinted—purely out of instinct, not because it would make a difference—and felt along the right wall for a light switch. Nothing there, so you moved to the other one. This time you had better luck. When you flipped the switch, however, you instantly regretted it.

"Oh my fucking god," you sighed.

Sakura, who had previously been hiding very still in the darkness, was pressing her hands against the right wall, her plaid shirt on the floor and her baggy jeans halfway down. Adam, one of the backup dancers for the tour, was standing behind her with his hands on her tiny waist. The compromising position they were in automatically made your blood pressure rise.

"Adam, get lost," you ordered, pointing your thumb outward. "I know the idea wasn't yours."

Adam gave Sakura a nervous glance and let go of her to walk past you and out of the dressing room.

"Are you crazy or something?" you asked as passive-aggressively as you could, while Kura pulled up her pants and grabbed her shirt from the floor. "We're in a fucking public place. Have you lost your fucking mind?"

Kura snorted and rolled her eyes.

"It was just going to be a quickie!" Kura protested with a frown, walking toward you. "No need to make a big deal out of it."

You chuckled in disbelief.

"No?" You raised your eyebrows. "What do you think would have happened if someone other than me caught you? Like, I don't know, someone on the cleaning staff. Word will spread like a freshly lit fuse. Let alone if someone on the damn staff found out!"

"I know!" She snapped, palms down. "Have you ever thought about how I've felt this whole week? With so much fucking shit going on at once. I know my body! I know I need it because I'm a human being, and I need that kind of thing!"

"Kura, it's risky!" You unintentionally raised your voice a little. The stress was taking its toll on you.

"It's the only way!" Kura raised her voice back.

"And against the damn rules!"

Kura couldn't help but laugh as if you'd told a joke. You frowned in confusion as she raised her eyebrows at you.

"Against the rules? You can't be serious."

"I'm so damn serious, Sakura."

"I don't remember hearing you talking about rules last week, manager-nim," Kura took a step toward you, standing two feet away. "When you fucked Yunjin and Chaewonie. Or did you forget my room was next to yours?"

Shit. No, you hadn't forgotten. In fact, you'd been mulling over the matter all week. Anxious about the possibility that she'd heard absolutely everything. You closed your eyes and let out a heavy exhale.

"For God's sake, tell me Eunchae didn't hear anything," you said before opening your eyes again.

"She didn't; she went to her room early. But I did hear you," Kura took another small step closer to you. Now close enough to be able to see her eyes in detail. "Please forget your position and fuck me like I'm all yours," she mimicked Chaewon, with the same moans in between. Then she laughed.

Your cheeks grew hot.

"Sakura, that was a special case," you said, trying to pull your feet out of the mud. "They broke the rules first. They offered me to keep them out of trouble in exchange for..."

"Fucking them?" Kura finished the sentence for you. "You agreed. You could have easily said no, right?"

"Well..."

Kura placed a hand over your mouth and stared at you with those big, pretty eyes.

"You have no excuse," she said, then took her hand away from your mouth. "You deliberately decided to do it. It's your fault."

"Still, it doesn't make it right," you sighed. "I don't want what just happened to happen again, because next time it won't be someone as lenient as me who catches you."

Kura was silent for a moment, as if calculating her response.

"Well, I'm sorry to say, manager-nim, I might keep doing it," she said, and looked you up and down. "Unless, of course, you help me yourself."

For God's sake, not again.

"No fucking way," you shook your head and took a step back. "I won't fall for the same game twice."

Kura closed the distance again and grabbed you by the back of your neck.

"Would you rather be caught by someone I can't bribe?" she asked, tossing both strands of hair behind her shoulders and puffing out her chest so you could notice her beautiful tits beneath her white top. "Or would you rather be the one in charge of satisfying this tight little body?"

Your eyes dropped to her tits, beautiful beneath that tight top, and then to her toned abdomen, with two small moles next to her belly button. You were going fucking crazy.

"Kura..."

"Go ahead, touch."

Kura took your hand and placed it on her tummy. Still trying to resist the temptation, you didn't move your hand, just kept your fingers still as she had you rub her abdomen. Then she had you slowly raise your hand to place it on her right breast.

"Squeeze," Kura murmured.

"Sakura..." you repeated, wanting her to see reason. But from the convinced look in her eyes, you guessed it was too late.

"Squeeze, manager-nim," she insisted.

Against your own better judgment, you did so. But you didn't regret it. Her breast felt soft beneath your fingers, and with the first squeeze, you immediately gave it a second, slightly harder one. Kura's lips curved into a slight smile, and she lowered her own hand to the bulge in your pants to give it a gentle squeeze.

"Do you like it?" Kura asked, rubbing your cock up and down with the palm of her hand. "Well, if you want to have me all to yourself... you'll have to compete with Adam to see if you can fuck me better than him."

"You're in no position to set conditions, Miyawaki," you said, and released her breast. "I could just turn around, walk away, and pretend this didn't happen."

"You could, but you're not going to," Kura countered. "You don't want to. Besides, look how hard you are."

Kura removed her hand so you could see. Your bulge was prominent and hard, easy to notice since you were wearing sweatpants that day.

"Ah fuck," you groaned, annoyed. Sakura, isn't there a better way to solve this?"

"You want to nip this problem in the bud and prevent it from happening again, don't you?"

You pursed your lips, huffed, and stared up at the ceiling. For God's sake, what had you done to deserve such an insolent group of girls? It was as if they were competing to see who could test your patience the best and fastest.

"Your room or mine?"

Kura smiled.

"Mine. I'll tell the girls I'll be sleeping so no one comes near."

"You know Zuha's room is two rooms away, right?"

"That girl will be playing games or listening to music or something. She's the one you least need to worry about."

"Whatever. Let's get out of here. They're waiting for us."

You turned around, turned off the dressing room light, and left with Kura.

The excuse Kura had given the other girls—which you confirmed they indeed knew nothing about her escapade with Adam—was that she got lost in her search for a bathroom. You weren't sure how well the lie had gone down, but no one asked too many questions about it since the venue was large enough to be believable.

You arrived back at the hotel around 10 p.m.

"Girls, please make sure you get enough sleep," you said as you entered the lobby. "The flight to Dallas is early in the morning, and I don't want to see any bags under your eyes. The good thing is that in Dallas you'll have two days off."

The girls nodded without much protest, happy to sleep early since they were visibly exhausted. They went straight up to their rooms, while you stayed behind helping the staff unload things from the vans. From there, you went up as well and took a quick shower before heading to Kura's room.

Outside, right in front of her door, you took a moment to think carefully about what you were going to do. You had allowed yourself to get carried away with Yunjin and Chaewon because specific circumstances had arisen and it was practically impossible for you to refuse the seduction of those two vipers, but now you had time to think about it.

But as you did, you couldn't stop thinking about how good Kura's breast felt under your hand, and how firm and tight her tummy was.

Fuck it. You only live once. And you were already horny.

You knocked on the door twice.

"Come in!" Kura said after a few seconds.

You opened the door, and upon entering, your mouth immediately watered. On the couch directly across from the door and by the window, Kura was lying on her side, in nothing but a pretty cream-colored bra and panty lace set. Every corner of her body was insane: wide hips, tiny waist, beautiful legs, toned tummy, and even nicer tits.

"Hello, manager-nim," Kura said in a seductive tone, leaning on her elbow with her cheek resting on her hand. "Come here. Adam should arrive any moment."

Kura sat up and waited for you to sit next to her before straddling your lap, wrapping her arms around your neck, and crashing her lips against yours, not even giving you time to say or do anything.

As your lips became entangled in a fiery exchange of saliva that didn't cause you the slightest remorse, you left your hands on her small waist and gripped your fingers there. Kura ground her hips against you, rubbing herself against your growing bulge. Her right hand moved up to the nape of your neck and stroked the hair there, then slid both hands to your shoulders. Your cock hardened beneath her, and Kura placed a hand on your chest, lowering it and inserting it inside your sweatpants and boxers, firmly grasping your cock between her fingers to rub it.

"Hmm, you're already throbbing for me, manager-nim," Kura moaned against your lips. "I'm going to undress you. Can I undress you?"

"At this point, do whatever you want, Miyawaki," you replied.

Kura slipped her hand from inside your pants and used both hands to pull your hoodie over your head and off. She then climbed off your lap as you took off your shoes, and knelt on the floor between your knees to remove both your sweatpants and boxers. Her round eyes shone like two beautiful street lights in winter as she freed your cock.

"Oh wow," Kura gasped, and planted her mouth on the back of your cock to kiss and lick all the way to the tip. "You're bigger than you look, manager-nim."

"And you're sluttier," you countered.

Kura smiled, wrapped two fingers around the base of your cock, and swirled her tongue around the tip a few times while looking into your eyes.

"You're right about that," she said. "I may be small and nerdy, but I love a good cock in my mouth and in my pussy. Especially in my pussy."

With that, Kura took you into her mouth, moaning as she took the first few inches between her lips until she reached your midsection. Then she began pumping her head at a slightly rapid pace, pulling you out of her mouth every few seconds to lick and kiss around your tip. As the seconds passed, she sped up, until she was slurping saliva from your shaft.

"Mmm, you're delicious," Kura gasped, moving her hand down your cock and spreading her saliva over it. "Would you help me with my underwear, manager-nim?"

She didn't need to say much more before you stood up, took her hands, and helped her stand up. You wrapped an arm around her waist and laid her down on the bed. You positioned yourself on top of her and intertwined her hands with yours, planting kisses on her neck. From there, you moved wet kisses down her collarbone, and when you reached her breasts, you slid your hands under her back to unclasp her bra and free her very, very pretty breasts.

Without her prompting, you took one of them to your mouth. Kura gasped and placed both hands on your head. She twisted strands of your hair around her fingers, gently tugging as you swirled your tongue around her nipple. Moving to her other breast, you took as much of it into your mouth as you could and sucked on it, licking her hard nipple with the tip of your tongue. Kura, aroused, shifted subtly beneath you, arching her back and grinding against your body.

When you left a trail of saliva on each breast, you allowed yourself to move down to her tummy. Her tight, attractive, firm tummy. Kura moaned when you pressed your lips there and showered it with kisses you were sure you enjoyed more than her. You held her by the waist, moving your kisses down to her lower abdomen and moving closer to where the skin parted with the fabric of her panties, which you grabbed by the hem and slowly pulled down her legs.

"Are you going to eat my pussy, manager-nim?" Kura asked, a finger on her lower lip. "Adam isn't here yet. This is your perfect opportunity to get a little advantage."

"Say no more then."

You took Kura's legs behind her knees and spread them side to side. In front of your face, her beautiful pussy was glistening with wetness. It looked like a real delight, and you didn't hesitate for a second to plant your mouth there and taste it.

The sweet moan Kura emitted when you began licking and kissing between her soft folds sweetened your hearing. Her pussy was delicious. Instantly addictive. You breathed deeply, letting your hunger for her take over so that she would love every second you spent eating her pussy. Within seconds, the room was filled with moans from the petite Japanese girl, who had one hand stroking your hair and the other on her own breast.

"Fuck, you're incredible, manager-nim," Kura moaned, squirming her hips as you gave her clit quick licks.

Your only response was to keep going, looking up every few seconds to watch as you made her melt with pleasure. Kura gave you a harder tug, and she arched her back as you pressed her thighs back and attacked the sensitive spots her moans indicated.

"Right there," Kura sighed, her thigh muscles tensing beneath your fingers. "Oh yes, yes!"

Kura tightened her fingers in your hair and pressed you even harder against her pussy, practically suffocating you against it. Seconds ticked by, and she began to tremble. Until with a loud moan, Kura closed her thighs on either side of your head, arched her back, and came in a series of spasms that gave you an immense satisfaction.

And just then, three knocks were heard at the door.

Kura's thighs moved away from your head, allowing you to lift it. Kura turned sideways to face the door.

"Adam?" Kura asked aloud.

"Who else could it be at this hour?" Adam replied from the other side of the door.

"Come in!"

When Adam walked in and saw the situation you were in, his face turned pale. He quickly closed the door and looked down, embarrassed not by seeing Kura naked, but by seeing you naked. You also had a sneaky suspicion he had no idea you were going to be there at that moment after catching them both early.

"Not a single fucking word of this to anyone, or I swear I'll find out," you told Adam in a perfect English that you knew he understood. "And act like a normal guy, for God's sake. I won't make fun of you if you have a micro-dick."

Adam nodded silently and finally looked up at Kura.

"You're late," Kura said, kneeling on the bed to reach the edge and pull Adam up by his shirt. "Someone already got a little ahead of you."

Kura kissed him before he could excuse himself. Adam didn't protest and wrapped his arms around her. You stayed on the sidelines for a moment, lying on your side and staring only at her back and ass. You understood that the one in charge there wasn't you, but her. So you were going to limit yourself to acting only when she ordered it, directly or indirectly.

Adam's clothes were on the floor in mere seconds. Kura rubbed his cock until it was hard, lowering her lips to his neck and then his chest. She slowly moved her knees back, bending so she could reach his lower torso until she was resting on her hands, her ass raised and her knees apart.

When Kura took Adam's cock in her mouth and shook her ass, knowing you were watching, you knew it was time to get back into the action.

You knelt behind her and placed your hands on her buttocks, squeezing them both. Then you lowered your right hand between them and rubbed her pussy slowly before inserting a finger. Kura moaned with Adam's cock in her mouth. After a few pumps, you inserted a second finger, both with the tips facing down to stimulate her pussy walls as you moved your wrist.

Kura picked up the pace, pumping her lips against Adam's cock with her hands gripping his thighs. He just kept panting, one hand on Kura's head and the other behind his back. The guy wasn't paying you the slightest bit of attention, which you certainly appreciated. The last thing you wanted was to feel uncomfortable because he couldn't just ignore you being there.

Your cock throbbed against Kura's left buttock, aching from how much you needed relief for yourself. So after a few quick pumps with your fingers, you pulled them out and positioned yourself to replace them with your cock, slowly inserting it into her extremely tight pussy. Kura stifled a moan around Adam's cock and pulled it out of her mouth to look at you over her shoulder.

"How does my pussy feel, manager-nim?" Kura asked with a moan, looking up at you with lust-filled eyes as you took every inch inside her.

"Fucking unreal," you gasped, once you were all the way inside her pussy.

Unreal was definitely the best word to describe it. It was the second time in a week that you'd been inside one of the girls you managed, and you didn't know how to feel about it. All you knew was that those three pussies felt like heaven, and their naked bodies were beautiful sculptures that invited you to admire them all night.

And fuck them all night.

With your hands on her tiny waist, you began to move slowly, watching your cock go in and out of her grippy pussy. Kura brought Adam's cock back to her mouth, now moaning around it with each gradually faster pump, growing frantic as you went harder.

"Adam, fuck my mouth," Kura asked after a gasp, jerking him off as you moved with hard thrusts.

Adam gathered Kura's hair behind her head and held it in a ponytail with his left hand. A moment later, he began pumping his hips, close to the rhythm you were setting yourself. Kura couldn't take it all in her mouth, so she was soon gagging on his cock. Despite that, Kura seemed to be enjoying every second, her head still and her pussy clenching around your cock.

Your grip on Kura's waist tightened, and your jaw tensed as you doubled your efforts. A few seconds later, her buttocks became your focal points; you squeezed both of them as you pounded her pussy as hard as you could. Kura moaned again and again, her saliva spilling down her chin and onto the sheets as Adam added fuel to the fire.

Adam now moved to grip Kura's ponytail with both hands, both very close to her scalp, thus pulling harder. On your side, you gave Kura a light spank on her left buttock, making her grunt with pleasure. Her pussy suffocated your cock exquisitely, signaling that she was close to cumming. It finally happened when, after a few more pumps and spanks, Kura squealed with Adam's cock in her mouth and thrust her hips back, her body writhing in spasms.

Kura placed a hand on Adam's lower abdomen and made him stop once her orgasm went away.

"Switch roles," she said, panting. "And put in the effort. I'm testing you with every single thing you do."

Just what you needed. Years of studying and working hard to get to where you were, only for more fucking tests. Great.

Adam pulled out of Kura's mouth, and you pulled out of her pussy. Kura then turned around and lay on her back, her head hanging off the edge of the bed. You climbed off and knelt in front of Kura's face. Meanwhile, Adam climbed onto the bed and knelt between Kura's open legs. He entered her pussy, and you entered her mouth.

Kura took as much of your cock as she could, which was roughly a few inches past the middle of your shaft. You placed your right hand on her pretty neck, slowly beginning to fuck her mouth. Adam had her held behind her knees, both pressed against her body. He wasn't as gentle as you; he was going just as hard as he had been a few seconds ago, even though Kura must still be sensitive.

A little less than a minute passed when you decided to pump as the situation demanded, causing Kura to choke on your cock. Her lips were as closed as possible around your cock, but when she felt overwhelmed, she finally opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue, allowing you to use her however you wanted.

Kura, being fucked hard by Adam, tried to moan around your cock, but only gagging sounds came from her mouth. Her saliva pooled inside, soon spilling out and dripping onto her cheeks. Then you increased your speed, fucking Kura's mouth with your clenched teeth and your hands gripping her tits.

Soon, everything reached a breaking point when Kura gripped the sides of your thighs and dug her nails into them as she came again. As Adam slowed down, Kura slapped your thigh a few times, and you pulled out of her mouth. She took a sharp intake of air.

"You're not allowed to cum inside me until I say so," she said, heavily gasping. "Go on, but do it outside."

When you came back inside her mouth, Kura squeezed her eyes shut in an attempt not to cough as you gagged her with your cock. Adam resumed his thrusts, now bent forward with his fists resting on the mattress. Focused on your own pleasure, you and he fucked both holes vigorously. You were the first to feel the tingling, and you immediately pulled out of her saliva-dripping mouth to stand up and masturbate over her tits.

When you came and your semen began to fall in long strips onto Kura's tits, Adam also pulled out of Kura to stroke his cock, aiming for the Japanese woman's tight abdomen. It took seconds for Kura to become a perfect canvas for the two of you, covered in cum on both areas of her body.

The scene seemed like the perfect ending to a night for many. You might even say it was dream-like. But you knew Kura wasn't satisfied with that, and that the fun had just begun. You confirmed it when she sat up, looked at her cum-covered areas, and looked at you as if nothing had happened.

"Get some toilet paper, manager-nim," Kura ordered, pointing. "I'm not done with you two yet."

Clearly.

In a show of unconditional obedience, you immediately turned around and went to the bathroom to grab the toilet paper roll, gather some around your hand, and throw it to Adam. A minute later, Kura's previously stained body was spotless again after a little cleaning. Just in case, you left the toilet paper roll on the nightstand to the right of the bed.

Anticipating Kura's next move, you and Adam both knelt on either side of her. Kura sat back on her heels and brought both hands to your sides to cup your balls and play with them, gently squeezing and massaging them. She went first to your side and carefully brought your limp cock to her mouth, sucking it slowly with a perfect use of her tongue that made you shudder. Then, while jerking you off with her hand, she moved to Adam's cock to repeat the process.

"Sorry if you're still a little sensitive," Kura lamented after removing Adam's cock from her mouth. "But I need these cocks hard."

Masturbating you both, Kura gently pulled you together and brought your cocks as close together as possible without touching, using her tongue to swirl around your tips while massaging your balls. After a few seconds, she took you into her mouth again. Just a little while each. Until after a few delicate sucks, both cocks were covered in a thin layer of saliva and throbbing.

"Manager-nim, lie on your back," Kura said, then looked at Adam. "You'll sit over there until I say so. You can touch yourself if you want. But don't you dare cum, or I'll send you back to your room with your balls tied with nylon."

Damn. That was messed up.

Adam got out of bed and sat right on the middle seat of the couch, while you lay down with your head resting on the pillow on the right side of the bed. Kura crawled on top of you, her knees on either side of your torso, and kissed you, her tits pressed against your chest. You wrapped your arms around her small frame, one around her waist and the other across her back, feeling her slightly sweaty skin beneath your fingers. Not long after, Kura grabbed your cock and impaled herself on it with a muffled moan against your lips.

Kura began to move her hips in her own rhythm: slow, deep, twisting her hips every time she went down. It felt incredible for you, but it must have felt even better for her. Her hands cradled your face as she kissed you, and you felt her breathing become heavier against yours. You prowled her body with your hands, running them up and down the sides of her torso until you moved down to her ass and squeezed it. Only then did Kura decide to go a little faster.

The need to moan louder made Kura break the kiss and hold onto your shoulders, moving her face a few inches away from yours so she could look into your eyes. Her pretty face was blushing again. She then straightened her back slightly, lowering her hands to your chest to bounce her ass against your cock. It was a skillful control of her buttocks that you certainly didn't expect from her.

"My god, since when can you move like that?" you gasped, moving your hands to her waist. Then you moved one to her right breast.

"I may not be an excellent dancer, but I know how to use my body to my advantage," Kura replied, and moved a hand up your collarbone until you brought two fingers inside her mouth. You sucked on them without hesitation, making her lips curl into a small, satisfied smile.

With her fingers still inside your mouth, Kura planted her feet on the bed and began bouncing on your cock, hard and fast to make it enjoyable for both of you. You noticed your cock making her tight belly bulge, which drove you wild. Kura bounced faster and faster, pumping her fingers in and out of your mouth until she pulled them out, grabbed your chin, and with a hard push down, she came.

Kura collapsed against you and kissed you again, muffling her moans against your lips as she slowly moved her hips up and down. Her tight pussy, contracting around your cock, made you moan as well, in the middle of the kiss. You squeezed each of her buttocks hard, helping her move until her orgasm passed and she climbed off of you.

"Adam, come here. Manager-nim, you know where to go."

Unfortunately, you did.

Reluctantly, you stood up as Adam returned to the bed. You went to sit on the right side of the couch, watching as Adam lay on his back in the center of the bed, stacking two pillows under his head. Kura straddled him, and followed the same process as with you before impaling herself on his cock.

Before Kura came while riding you, you already felt like you weren't going to last much longer, so you decided not to play with yourself too much so you wouldn't return to your room with your balls tied with nylon, just enough to stay hard while you watched the scene unfolding a few feet away from you.

Kura didn't start slowly like she did with you, now considerably hornier than she had been a few minutes ago when she was just refueling her engine. She was going at a slightly faster pace from the start, her hands on Adam's collarbone and her face buried in his neck, peppering it with kisses and hickeys. Adam had his hands around her waist, but didn't seem about to move them anytime soon. He, much to your chagrin, was as still as a mannequin.

But that was to your advantage. If Kura found him boring, you'd end up winning the competition.

Wait a minute, what the hell were you thinking? Were you really that eager to win the pseudo-competition Kura was setting up for herself? You were supposed to be more self-conscious about it; if you won, it would mean that woman would seek you out week after week for sex. That might have seemed ideal, but it wasn't all roses. Yunjin and Chaewon were also lurking hungrily. For now, you were safe, but as soon as you had some free time without worries, you were sure those two would hunt you down like an owl hunts a rabbit in the middle of the night.

And you were thinking of putting another predator on your neck? Had you gone fucking crazy?

No. The truth was, no matter how you tried to convince yourself—with convincing and more than logical arguments—that this was a terrible idea, you were letting your heart win over your brain, because it was impossible to resist those women. No matter how you looked at it. They were always going to win.

A louder-than-usual moan brought you out of your reverie. Refocusing, you saw Kura squatting on Adam's cock. Adam had his hands under Kura's thighs, somehow encouraging her to bounce harder. That was absurd. He thought he could twist the tables to try and gain some control, but Kura was very confident in what she was doing, making sure her body language made that clear without her having to say anything.

The big fumble came, in your opinion, when Kura brought her fingers to Adam's mouth, hoping he would suck them like you. But Adam hesitated and hesitated, until Kura gave up and grabbed him by the neck. She didn't say a word, and she bounced hard just the way Adam wanted her to. They both moaned in unison, and Kura was the first to cum.

You expected her to get off Adam once she stopped shaking, but she continued bouncing on his cock.

"Let me know when you're about to cum," you heard Kura mutter.

She kept bouncing, aiming to get Adam off as soon as possible. Adam gestured not long after, giving Kura the signal. Then, she quickly got off him and then off the bed. Adam frowned in confusion.

"H-huh?" Adam propped himself up onto his elbows, watching Kura walk around the bed to join you on the couch and sit on your right.

"Masturbate and cum on your own," Kura said, not looking at him, her tone of disdain implicit. "Consider it your punishment."

"Punishment for what?!" Adam demanded to know, watching Kura press herself against the side of your body, one thigh draped over yours.

"I don't know, you tell me," Kura replied, her eyes fixed on you, spitting into her hand as she brought it to your cock and stroked it quickly. You wrapped your arm around her body and grabbed her by the waist to hold her closer to you.

"Ugh, damn!"

Adam had no choice but to take care of himself, closing his eyes so he could focus again.

Kura had her full attention on you, her eyes carefully observing every tiny twist in your movements as she moved her wrist at full speed, making you tense your glutes and curl your toes. Her hand slid easily over your sloppy shaft, with practically no friction. You turned your head to look at her, and all it took was the sight of her biting her lip to make you explode.

You bucked your hips and moaned as Kura jerked you through your orgasm. Jets of cum shot out, staining both your abdomen and her hand. Your eyes were closed, but you could hear Adam moaning from the bed, probably having cummed too.

Kura kept moving her hand, amused by your squirming. She paused for a moment, only to resume keep moving it a second later. Seeing you squirming again, she let go of your cock with a giggle and settled back on the couch to bend down and clean you with her tongue herself, under the jealous gaze of Adam, who had also made a mess of himself but was forced to clean you with toilet paper instead of the tongue of a sexy Japanese woman.

After cleaning you, Kura took you into her mouth and finished the job, giving you slow, gentle sucks to leave your cock gleaming again.

Kura sat back on her heels and leaned closer to your ear.

"You're ahead by a landslide," she whispered. "All that's missing is a mere formality to cap it off. So don't screw up."

"Having a blast, huh?" you whispered back. "I've lost count of how many times you've cum."

"It's been a while since I've had this much fun, yeah. And that's your fault. So just accept the consequences."

"My fault? I'm just following orders. If it were up to me, I'd leave you all stranded in the rain," you joked.

Kura raised her eyebrows and let out a laugh of disbelief.

"Hey! What nonsense are you talking about?!" Kura nudged you in the shoulder, making you laugh. "Do you want me to kill you?"

"You're going to kill me from stress one of these days. No need."

Kura rolled her eyes, shook her head, and stood up to face Adam, arms akimbo, her weight on her right knee.

"You can continue, right?" Kura asked. "I hope you learned your lesson."

"Sakura, I still don't know what I did to deserve punishment," he replied, sitting with his back against the headboard. "And yes. I can continue."

"Great, because I have one last little surprise for you," Kura pointed to her backpack, leaning against the side of the bed. "Open the front pocket and take out what's inside."

Adam leaned down and opened the pocket. From it, he took out a small, unopened bottle of lubricant. The shape of the bottle made it look like a perfume.

"Oh wow," Adam raised his eyebrows, reading the label on the bottle. "Uberlube silicone-based lube…" he looked at Kura. "Very naughty of you."

"Give me that."

Kura took the bottle from Adam's hands and moved her legs apart so she could lie on her back on the bed. She spread her legs, her pussy facing you, and beckoned you with her finger. You did so, kneeling to her left. Adam did the same on the opposite side.

"You're going to finger me. Both of you. At the same time," Kura said, removing the cap from the bottle and pressing the spray bottle against her palm several times until it was full of lube. No one could tell you that shit didn't look like a bottle of perfume. "You can do that, right? Or do your fingers need a break too?" She then brought the lube-filled hand to her pussy, sliding her palm down to her butthole and back up.

"No, Miyawaki, our fingers don't need a break," you retorted, taking the bottle from her.

"Great. You'll take my ass," Kura told you, then looked at Adam. "And you'll take my pussy. Be good boys, and I'll reward you before we move on to the final act."

With the bottle of lube in your hand, you grabbed Kura's leg and hooked it behind her knee to the left side of your body. Then you filled your fingers with lube, tossed the bottle to Adam, and brought them to her butthole to play with it superficially, tracing the outline and rubbing it up and down. Adam did the same with his fingers, and unlike you, he put them directly inside Kura's pussy after a few brief rubs.

Kura moaned as the first two fingers entered her, followed by one more. You slowly inserted your middle finger into her tight butthole, moving it around to stretch the hole a little before adding your ring finger. Kura held your arm with her hand, her face slowly twisting in pleasure as both pairs of fingers began to pump in and out of her.

"Oh yeah, I can already begin to imagine how that's going to feel," Kura moaned, holding you both with your trembling legs wide open.

Adam finally did something good for his own neck and poured more lube between Kura's legs, making it easier for both of you. Soon the room was filled with the wet sound of fingers going in and out of those two wet holes at full speed. Kura began to squeal like she hadn't all night, overwhelmed by the new sensation.

"Yes yes yes! Keep going, don't stop!" Kura whimpered, arching her back. When seconds later she came between violent spasms, she looked up at you with teary eyes. "MORE!"

"Jesus, girl. Are you made of steel or what?" you asked, impressed by her durability.

"I haven't had orgasms this good in YEARS, so just shut up and keep going!" Kura demanded, digging her nails into your elbow.

More scared to death than anything else, you and Adam continued pumping your wrists nonstop until Kura came again, now with a few tears running down her cheeks and her whole body shaking.

"God... god..." Kura gasped, her chest rapidly rising and falling. "Both of you, stand at the edge of the bed."

Your fingers left Kura's body, and you stood where Kura indicated. The Japanese woman then turned toward you and leaned on her elbows, extending her feet toward each cock, rubbing them up and down. You also didn't find the skill she had with her feet surprising. But damn, she did an incredible job getting you hard in a matter of seconds, caressing your balls and tips until you were throbbing.

"Reward earned," Kura said. "Now come here and use both of my holes."

Adam was quick to move to the bed with her, lying on his back and pulling her on top of him. Kura positioned herself on top of him, her knees at either side of his waist, just as Adam grabbed his cock and guided it into her pussy. You climbed onto the bed as well, kneeling over Adam's left thigh so you could get a good angle behind Kura and, after lubing up your cock, press the tip against Kura's other hole. Her ass yielded relatively easily, swallowing inch by inch of your shaft until it was completely filled.

"Oh my god," Kura lay very still, her eyes closed, both cocks buried to their full length inside her. "Don't move. It feels... oh fuck. Use me. Fuck me hard."

You and Adam got to work, both of you pumping slowly at first. Adam had her by the waist, his fingers firmly pressed there, and you had your hands on both of Kura's ass cheeks, spreading them to the sides to watch on full display as your cock slid in and out in a deliciously hypnotic way from that ass, which was even tighter than her pussy. Kura went completely wild, not knowing where to hold on. Her moans weren't that loud, but you knew it was only a matter of time before she started making a scene. No sooner said than done, Kura began to scream as you and Adam began thrusting faster and harder, instinctively covering her mouth so as not to alarm whoever passed by outside the room.

Her beautiful platinum-blonde hair soon acted as your grip point. You pulled it into a messy high ponytail, pulling her neck back to slam your pelvis against her ass. Adam wasn't far behind and wrapped both arms around her, holding her tightly and pumping his hips as hard as they could in that position.

"So good, oh my god!!" Kura groaned, clawing at Adam's chest. "Mmmgh!!"

Kura came in a violent maelstrom of spasms that made every part of her slim, toned body tense. More tears fell down her cheeks, more whimpers that evoked pure pleasure. She clung to Adam's shoulders, her hips twitching as you pumped considerably slower.

"Sw... switch holes," Kura managed to say in a small voice. "Manager-nim, stand up and carry me."

You pulled out of Kura's ass and helped her off of Adam, taking her hand as she climbed off the bed with you. Kura wrapped her arms around your neck and jumped up so you carried her in the air, her legs wrapped around your torso. Adam got off the bed and stood behind her, and then he entered her ass and you entered her pussy.

Kura's head fell back and her eyes rolled back as she began to be fucked in both holes again. Her fingers clutched at your hair, and you held her behind her knees as you slammed her pussy harder and harder. A few seconds later, with Adam now also mercilessly drilling her ass, Kura dropped back to rest her back against Adam's chest, her left hand clamped around your neck and her right hand on Adam's head. She came in record time, making it difficult for you to keep her still in the air.

"Cum inside me!" Kura whimpered in the midst of her orgasm. "Fill every corner of my tight holes, please, please!"

Those magic words were like music to your ears, because you'd been longing to do so for quite some time now.

Adam was the first, cumming inside her with a primal growl that made him sound like an animal. Kura's eyelids fluttered as she felt the first load inside her, and her eyes rolled back when, a few seconds later, you exploded inside her pussy with a loud moan.

"Oh yes..." Kura sighed, her head resting on Adam's shoulder, feeling you shoot your entire load into her sweltering pussy, which throbbed around your cock. "I feel so full... so good."

You and Adam pulled out of her pussy seconds later. Both of your thick loads fell to the floor, dripping steadily until they ended up in small pools on the carpeted floor.

Kura, still panting, raised her head to look at you and then at Adam.

"I... I need to sleep. Clean me up and leave me in bed," she said, her hair messy and sticking to her face with sweat.

You stepped back and led her to the bed. Adam and you grabbed toilet paper and cleaned up your respective messes. When Kura was clean and under her blanket, you both got dressed, ready to go. Adam left first after saying goodnight, but before you could, Kura grabbed your wrist and made you lean in to whisper something in your ear.

"Needless to say, you won, manager-nim" she said. "But you better get ready, because you just earned yourself a very thirsty Yokai. God bless you."

#lesserafim smut #sakura smut #izone smut #kpop smut #smut fanfic #x male reader smut #male reader smut #male reader insert #x male reader

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judesmoonbeauty · 2 months ago

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Ikémen Villains 2025 Vil Fest 280 Hearts ECB Story: Jude Jazza

This is a fan translation only. Please expect grammatical errors and translation inaccuracies. This is a full translation. Creative liberties are taken for characterization and smoother translation process. Cybird owns everything. Re-blogs are appreciated, but please do not post my translation elsewhere. Thank you for your support! ☾.

This is a stand alone story and has no bearing on the main election story.

On the way back from the port, Jude passes by a warehouse and stops when he spots someone inside.

Kate: Do you know them?

His gaze was fixed on a middle-aged man holding a cane,

Jude: He's the president of a company that was in the red ‘n struggling ‘til a few months ago.

Jude: There was talk o’ the business shuttin’ down, but now it’s gotten so much better I can’t explain it.

Seems like he’s suspicious of the company’s president he had business dealings with……

Kate: What kind of deal is he doing?

We stick close to the door of the warehouse and watch what's going on inside.

The company president took a pocket watch from the trader, and inspected the watch’s details.

With a meaningful smile, he produced a contract.

Jude: ….Ha.

And then this company president smiled meaningfully -

Jude: What’re ya lot doin’ here?

He pushed the warehouse door open with his foot and went inside.

Kate: Wait, Jude?!

When I quickly try to stop him, the people in the warehouse drew their swords all at once.

President With A Cane: Who? Jude Jazza?

Jude walked coolly, not even minding the sword pointed at him.

President With A Cane: Ah!

He snatched the pocket watch from the president's hand.

Jude: Dale Watches…..That’s a good business deal.

(Dale is one of the leading luxury watch brands in the country.)

Dale watches are luxurious timepieces whose dials are individually hand-painted by craftsmen,

It’s said that the appeal of the same product is that it has slightly different designs.

President With A Cane: Oh, yeah that’s right. An acquaintance of mine just so happened to provide me the job to distribute them.

I felt something was off about the president's unsteady gaze,

Jude: Ah, sorry. I made a mistake.

Jude pointed to the logo on the back with a warped smile.

Jude: It’s a sham Dale’s watch.

Kate: What…..

Jude: The size o’ the logo, scratches on the joints, ‘n even the dial’s got printed paper pasted on it.

Jude: Ya made money by sellin’ counterfeit goods to idiots who didn't know if they were real, ‘n got outta financial trouble.

Jude: Fer an incompetent president, ya sure put a lotta thought into it.

The company president grew frightened and trembled, when he saw him throw the watch away.

President With A Cane: I’ll kill you, Jude Jazza!

With those words, the men who had been waiting suddenly attacked Jude.

Kate: Jude!

Jude: Tch.

He avoids the men attacking him with weapons, punching and kicking them away.

During the fierce battle unfolding before me,

I notice out of the corner of my eye, the president holding the cane trying to make a get away.

Kate: Hold it!

I grab his hand, but another man appears from behind and grabs my arm -

Kate: Ah!

Jude: Oi!

President With A Cane: What should I do to this woman?

The president who was trying to escape, seemed to feel cocky about having caught me, and brought a sword close to my neck.

Jude: Why’d ya get caught ya idiot.

(Idiot…..)

Kate: Is that anyway to talk to your girlfriend?

However, our president that looked at me with exasperation, then instigated me with a smile,

Jude: Yer not gonna ask me to help ya with somethin’ like that are ya?

(As if!)

Unable to contain my irritation at the sight of that face, I kicked the man who had captured me in the shin with all my strength.

President With A Cane: Damn!

Kate: Mnn!

The moment my restraint was released, the tip of the sword grazed my neck as I was thrown aside, and Jude’s eyes widened when he realized that.

Jude instantly grabbed my arm and pulled me towards him,

And then he grabbed the sword that had fallen from the crouching man's hand -

Jude: Ya know whose woman ya laid yer hands on, yeah?

President With A Cane: Hic- ARRGGGGGH!!

The red that splattered from the cut-down man reflected in the sunset.

President With A Cane: N-NO! This woman…..GAAAHHH!!!

With quiet anger he cuts off the arm of the sword-wielding president in one slash.

Although I was frightened by his icy expression, I also thought he was beautiful.

As I was admiring this unusual behavior, Jude pointed his sword at the president's face and spoke.

Jude: I’ll make sure ya never screw ‘round like that again.

With that, the battle inside the warehouse ended.

Afterwards, the men were taken away by Ellis, who had come to check out the situation.

On the way back in the carriage, Jude treated the wound on my neck -

Kate: Um, Jude.

Jude: …….

Kate: Geez! It’s only a scratch!

(Only a little skin peeled off!)

As I grabbed the hand that was bandaging me, I blurted out something I shouldn't have.

Kate: Most of the marks you make-

Jude: Hah?

(Ah-)

I quickly shut my mouth, but it was too late. Jude slowly smiles.

Jude: Just what was my princess thinkin’?

Kate: Nothing!

He stopped bandaging me, grabbed my chin and kissed me.

Jude: Why ya gettin’ hurt by anyone other than me?

Jude: I’m pissed as hell.

Kate: Mnn…Ju-

Unable to resist the kiss ravaging my mouth, I cling to him.

Then Jude said with a serious expression.

Jude: There’s no next time, stupid Kate.

That expression of quiet anger is so lovely, that I want to see it again…..There’s no way I could say that.

—So, I give myself over to the drowning kiss.

[Event Master List]

If you wish to be added (and 18+ YO), or removed from my translations tag list, please let me know!

Tag List: @sh0jun @theimaginativelyreticent @sapphire-323 @velisle @nateko @greatwitchsongsinger @injudescoat @aeyumicore @complexivelovely @yuoi-the-magnificent @husbandosandladders @nawlink @justgiulia @vickietickie @greedyqueensfavourite @sharigax @cosmowgyral @lunaaka @rosalyne08 @8the-perfect-lie8 @voydsoul @goustmilk @kraiyne @midnightsrunaway

#ikevil translations #cybird translations #ikevil jude #jude jazza #jude jazza translations #ikevil #ikemen villains #ikemen villains translations #Dividers:@.natimiles

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vintagerpg · 2 months ago

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Greater Harad (1990) features one of Angus McBride’s oddest covers for MERP. It doesn’t feel at all like Middle-earth, though that doesn’t mean it isn’t awesome. The buildings in the background, in their sunset pastels, are absolutely gorgeous. And, I mean, come one, black-clad assassin with a cobra cowl riding a war camel with red eyes? The Art of Angus McBride book claims that guy is just some cultist, but my head canon is that it’s Akhorahil, the fifth Nazgul, and that’s just what Black Riders ride down south.

This is one of MERP’s big setting books. There are some adventure ideas in the back, but for the most part this is gazetteer of important people, places and things in the gigantic region south of Mordor. It forms the backbone of half the MERP product line, which developed the region for play as a way to avoid the preconceived notions that accompanied games set in the same region as the books. As such, this amounts to a cornerstone for a sizable “expanded universe” or an elaborate fanfic, depending on your predisposition.

I used to really dislike the Harad material. It was too big, it doesn’t feel like Middle-earth to me at all and lacks the plausibility that makes Star Wars EU stuff generally work. I’m a little more positive on it now, though. It’s so preposterous that I find it hard to dislike, and I think a lot of the design work winds up informing Shadow World in interesting ways. I also think it is a massive improvement over Tolkien’s depiction of the Haradrim. While he doesn’t position them as inherently evil (a common and understandable mistake) he does have them firmly and totally under the heel of Sauron’s boot. Here, though, there are plenty of Free People struggling against the Dark Lord, and many do so effectively. And while the Harad material often strays into tedious fantasy analogs of real world cultures, it is also kind of nice to have the kind of cultural diversity that’s on display here, which is unusual in RPGs. Like, all of them except maybe Talislanta and RuneQuest.

Interior art is by Ellisa Martin, who I am unfamiliar with. It’s fine, but she doesn’t reimagine cultural garb in a way that is anywhere near as interesting as McBride’s paintings.

#MERP #Iron Crown Enterprises #Greater Harad #roleplaying game #dungeons & dragons #tabletop rpg #rpg #d&d #ttrpg

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im-not-a-ghost · 1 year ago

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Who is your soulmate/twin flame? - Pick a Bangchan aesthetic edition

Twin flame is usually a term used to designate a specific type of soul bond/ soul contract between two individuals. They are sometimes refered to as « a single soul coming from the same egg » that got seperated before being incarnated. Each bearing different wounds, they navigate lifetimes to hopefully heal and reunite, becoming one again. Twin flames could be what you could say is Plato’s definition of soulmates. In modern times, the term soulmate refers to two distinct souls that have shared many lifetimes together and are meant to cross paths again in this lifetime to teach each other lessons and help each other resolve karma. Whether we are referring to one or another, both have in common a deep sense of love and connection. Whether you enquire about a twin flame or a soulmate, know that they aren’t necessarily a romantic partner. They could be of any gender. They might not be incarnated yet. They could be a child, an adult, a parent, a friend, a coworker. If you proceed with this reading, you should step in it with an open heart and mind. Take only what resonates and leave doubt at the gate. As you read, you may find that the person I’m describing sounds like you. That is because soulmates/TF tend to mirror one another. If it doesn’t feel like anything that makes sense to you, then maybe this reading held no messages for you today. Yours truly,

Just a ghost.

Group 1 - Rocky Chan🤘 Channeled song : BTBT from B.I feat Soulja boy & DeVita

Tarot : 8 of wands, Queen of swords, ace of swords, 9 of wands, 2 of cups, The Fool

Oracle cards : Ametrine - Make your big dreams your big life, Shiva Lingam - Go all in on your essence, 3 Dolphin - Socialize and celebrate life, play

Messages from Merlin :

Mandragora spell - Be the master of your beliefs : Your fears and anxiety are the product of your beliefs. Stop ruminating, for none of it is meant to happen. Your beliefs shape your reality so transform them to make them reflect your wishes and thus materialize them.

Red dragon & white dragon - Shed light onto your shadow : Shed light onto your inner conflicts. By accepting your mistakes and fears with humility, you’ll allow your trust and harmony to take back their rightful place in your realm. Don’t hesitate to apologize to and forgive yourself.

Whyvern spell - Choose consciously : Before you give in to temptation and follow a thought, a project or a person, take the time to learn more about them. Listen to your reason and intuition in order to avoid delusions. You can then peacefully envision what’s next.

Significant signs : Pisces, Gemini, Scorpio, Cancer, Sagittarius, numbers 8 1 9 2 0 3, letters F P A S L , colors like pastel pink / purple / ocean blue /red, dolphins, snakes, white dogs

Key words : idealist, hopeless romantic, Peter Pan syndrom, mommy issues, creative, connection, playfulness, emotional immaturity, soft hearted, touch starved, loyalty, inner child healing

This reading is going to be quite lengthy so bear with me. Grab a pen and a notebook if you wish. This person feels rather masculine. They are a soulmate of yours without a doubt. In terms of looks and general information, they have rather wavy hair and a lean body. They’re a swimmer or they enjoy any kind of activity related to water, like fishing or diving. They have tanned skin. They probably have kind of a surfer vibe. They live near an important body of water or they want to live near water. They likely have clear and shiny eyes, big doe eyes and kind of a lost puppy look. Their style feels pretty flowy and laid back. Probably casual most of the time. They feel gender fluid. They could identify as being bisexual. They are likely younger than you. If so, they are only a few years younger. You might want to check group 2 as well if you hesitated between the two groups. They could like painting as well, especially water coloring.

This person is a dreamer. Eternally dissatisfied with life, they long for more. They seek for thrilling and exhilarating sensations to make them feel alive. They are carefree, playful, innocent in many ways. It’s like they never had the time and space to really grow, to be a child with childlike occupations and worries. They had to grow up and be responsible too quickly too soon, probably because they were the eldest of their siblings or because they had to take care of an ill relative. They are an idealist. They tend to be very harsh on themselves, they struggle with the feeling of being good enough. They are the people pleaser, the mom friend, the psychologist, the cutie bestie of the group that gives so much but only gets so little in return and would never say a thing about it because they think they don’t deserve to demand anything. They are the social butterfly, the « I have so many friends » that they barely know type. They crave attention, they crave love. They love the idea of love. They are often in their little bubble, wishfully thinking about life and people. They are probably the type that wonders where in the world their soulmate is and WTF they are doing. They idealize love. Probably because they’ve never really been in love. They are incredibly intuitive and sensitive, caring and lovable. They like to make people feel good, to show love through acts of service and affirmations. They are all over the place. They are so excited by life and what it has to offer. They are an over thinker. They are pretty communicative. Though they are innocent and naive, they know pretty well what they want. They don’t hesitate to cut people off when needed. They have a lot of responsibilities on their shoulders. The concept of love and being in relationships is pretty new to them. They lack experience in the matters of the heart. They are a wanderer. They like to travel and explore places but also mindsets and people. This person has the potential to astral travel. They have very vivid dreams and nightmares. Intimacy scares the shit out of them but they crave it just as much as they dread it. This person wants to have children. They love children, love the idea of a big family. Since this person is so creative and dreamy and they have the Play card, they could very well be an artist or someone that has a meaningful presence online. They work in the entertainment industry in some way, shape or form. They tend to burn themselves out. They lack patience sometimes. They might struggle with ADHD or any other form of neurodivergence. They could be on the spectrum. This person’s purpose in life is to bring healing by alleviating the weight of other souls. Hence the entertainment thing. They are meant to distract people from their struggles and shadows so that they can appreciate their existence to a bare minimum and breathe a little. They could enjoy working with kids specifically. Being a teacher or a social worker could also be a thing they are into. They like to share and evolve in groups. Because they struggle with finding a sense of belonging. They feel sometimes like they are not from this earth and something more awaits them. Especially if they are on the spectrums (LGBTQIA+, Autism and so on). It can be hard for them to relate to other people or read the atmosphere in social settings. Being the comic relief of the group helps them deal with the stress that generates. They often wear masks to be liked by other people which gets pretty tiring. Hence they have no energy left to tend to themselves which is why they look for connections where they can rely on their partner without asking for or worrying about anything. They like to be pampered and praised, especially in bed.

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Group 2 - Smiley Chan 😄

Channeled song : You can’t hold my heart from Monsta X Significant signs : Scorpio, Leo, Sagittarius, Gemini, Libra, Taurus, letters S L J P B K, snakes, ravens, numbers 37 19 9 6 11, colors like pastel green / sandy grey / soft blues

Tarot cards : Queen of wands, The Sun, 9 of wands, The Lovers, Page of swords, Justice Oracle cards : The Pillar, 37 Candy Basslet rx - Know your worth, Shungite - Get real with your truth, Bloodstone - Power up your vitals

Messages from Merlin The Wizard :

The 9 Guardians of Avalon - Ask and you shall receive : They guard the order of all things. They ensure the threads of fate twist and twine as they should and at the right time. Be sincere about what you wish for and they shall answer in their own way. Pay attention!

Guinevra Queen of Arthur - There is no King without a Queen : you need the qualities of both masculine and feminine. Combine your thinking with your sensitivity and creativity to your decision making skills and influence. It is within this fair and balanced union that fruitful projects can be birthed.

Tuatha Dé Danann - Message from the silent people : We became Sidhes, people from the underground of the earth we seek to protect. Faes and divine beings, our magic is powerful. Come meet us in the forest, by a lake or a river. Seek our help in the form of a simple prayer and we shall know how to comfort you.

Key words : daddy issues, ambition, balance, communication, spirituality, intensity, depth, grounding, self confidence, self worth, anger issues

There is a lot to cover here and this is going to be a lengthy reading so bear with me. Feel free to take notes, make your own research if you feel called to especially when it comes to the crystals mentioned. So first of all, I want to say that this person’s energy feels like it’s currently in it’s feminine era. Though this person is very balanced in general they are indulging more into their feminine side. They could have long hair and rather tanned skin. They like going outdoors, bathing into the sun, going for walks or running. They are athletic and pretty active. The reason I am saying this is because all of the tarot cards we have here are illustrated with very feminine characters. Now this person is very much owning their power and doing their best to unapologetically be themselves. In the past, they struggled with their body image and sense of self but it seems like they are coming to terms with that. They have strong boundaries and there’s a depth to them that could really trigger/scare people, including you. This person has been through so much they can’t be bothered anymore. They don’t have time for mind games, petty lies and arguments. They want to be treated with respect and are willing to do the same so long as you don’t cross them. They are very much down to earth and simple in their functioning : all or nothing type of mentality, be good to me and I’ll be great to you, stab me and I’ll bring hell upon your head. They don’t forgive and forget easily and could hold grudges. This person values honesty, fairness, integrity. They have a strong moral compass and look for people who can match their intensity. They are cerebral. They like to think, to imagine, to create. They have the energy and mentality of a leader, a pioneer, someone that people look up to because they pave the way in a very unique manner. This person really stands out from the crowds. They tend to burden and pressure themselves because they hold themselves in high regard. This is due to their upbringing. They were raised to be the man of the house, regardless of their gender. I have a gut feeling they could identify themselves as genderfluid. They value love and connections, loyalty and compassion. They give their all in relationships and are very protective of the people they love. They are very sensual, kinky even. This person is likely to be a potential romantic partner, whether you know them already or not. They are definitely not a child, though they can sometimes harbor the energy of one. They are bratty and stubborn AF. They get under people’s skin easily whether for good or bad reasons. They elicit strong reactions from people because their vibrations are beyond anything people can fathom.

Sometimes they overextend themselves. They like to give and be of help to others. People tend to feed off of their light like leeches. They could attract a lot of narcissistic people, naysayers and haters just by breathing. This person’s job in this lifetime is solely to trigger people and shake their dusty and sterile belief systems. Which is probably what they’re also meant to do in your life. Honestly, this feels like a twin flame connection. If you were ever wondering if you had one, now I guess you know. If we get more detailed about their looks and general information about them, I’d say they’re pretty curvy. They kinda set the usual standards of beauty off. This person was never meant to fit into a box. They’re their own goddam category. Very very strong energy here. They’re the type of person that maybe wouldn’t match the traditional beautiful/pretty girl/boy stereotype but instead would look magnificent because of what they radiate. Their morals and ideals are their beauty. They’re beautiful because of the way they think, the way they treat people with equity, the way they are deep down when no one is looking. They have unconventional interests or an unconventional way of going about common interests. Their eyes could be what draws you in. Other than that, their voice can be pretty addictive. Their whole being is addictive actually. They are likely to be a foreigner or someone that was raised with a different culture than yours. This person likes to play with their appearance and the way they present themselves. Their fashion style can vary depending on their mood.

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Group 3 - Dreamy Chan Channeled song : My Oasis from Sam Smith feat Burna Boy

Tarot cards : 5 of pentacles rx, knight of pentacles, 2 of cups, 6 of pentacles, 7 of pentacles, king of cups Oracle cards : Ascension, Labradorite - Protect your magic, Pyrite - call on your core power, 15 Clownfish spirit - Protect your home, 43 Koi fish spirit - Just for fun

Possible signs : Pisces, Taurus, Scorpio, colors like soft greens and yellows, baby blue, cows and bulls, white dogs, letters A L P K C

Messages from Merlin The Wizard :

Mordred's betrayals - Don't let anger be your master : your anger isn't a good advisor. Shout, write, dance, talk about your suffering to let go of it but don't let it dictate the next chapter of your story. Whatever struggles you face, stay calm, transmute your anger and then you shall know how to deal with it and find solutions.

Merlin crazy in love - What are you ready to let go of? : To choose is to sacrifice realities that could have been. With each decision, you create your story by giving up on other possibilities. If you are wondering what to do, ask yourself what you would like to experience and what you are ready to let go of in order to get there.

Shadow magic - Transmute fear into strength : It is there, lingering in the shadows. Your fear. It doesn't know how much of a strength in can be instead of weakness. Understand your fear and challenge yourself to be stronger than it. Use it as a fuel to improve and have twice as many reasons to be proud of yourself.

Key words : caring, friends to lovers trope, morning calls and text, feeling lost and helpless, laidback, no strings attached, humanitarian work, anger issues, trust issues

This person is a soulmate of yours. They feel both masculine and femine. Their energy is pretty balanced and comforting. They are likely older than you. They have a look and a body type that's pretty common. Not too fit but not that bad either. They kinda blend in the crowd. You wouldn't notice them unless they wanted you to. They likely have long brown/black hair and tanned skin. But that's just a detail. I heard their appearance doesn't matter, they focus more on the soul. They think they're not pretty is what it is about. They are prettier than they think. But more than anything, they want to be known and loved for who they are deep in their core. When it comes to jobs or interests, this person could do something that inspires people. This is very general and can match a lot of jobs and activities. They like to raise awareness and learn from other people, so humanitarian work seems relevant. Artist could also be a possibility. This person is appreciated in their community for their strong values, their gentle side and work ethic. They never judge anyone or look down on people. They are very giving and patient, understanding. They know what it's like to be afraid or struggle. They've known pain on so many levels that at this point they have a black belt in life struggles. I feel like they want to protect people from the shitty sides of life. They want to help people avoid going through the struggles they faced when they were young. Like, let's say this person is queer and had a very hard time being themselves without facing backlash from other people, now that they've come so far they want to advocate for queer rights and help people that may be going through the same experience. Or if this person was abused, now that they've done their healing they want to help victims of abuse. This person has a lot of empathy and understanding of human condition. They are pretty down to earth and realistic. They like routines and patterns. They either work a nine to five or if they don't, they make sure they always do the same things : get their coffee first, set their equipment and tools, check their emails and notifications then get to work. Get a coffee on their way back, wash when they're home, check their mails again, work some more, overthink. Repeat. They strive for more. They long for more than the life they're experiencing right now. They're going through an awakening. This person had been neglecting the spiritual realm. They were only focusing on the material aspects of life. Concepts of souls or connections that went beyond distance and matter didn't resonate with them up until now. They recently had to let go of something that was important to them. Their life has been filled with sacrifice. This person would let opportunities pass, out of humility or out of love for others. They would put other people's needs first, no matter how much pain they were in. But the scales tipped when someone betrayed them or something felt very unfair to them. Like they were screwed over. This person lost confidence because of this and went through a very dark time in their life. They have struggled with depression and anxiety. They've had health issues, their abundance was affected by this situation. They could have lost a lot of money or important business partners, for instance. They could have lost their job or home or even their family. This person is now at a place in their life where they're back on track. They've worked on themselves, fought to regain control over their life and create a reality they could be proud of. Their finances are going well, they somewhat feel fulfilled but in the back of their mind it's like something's missing. They long for connection and attention. Something genuine and light hearted. I think this person has started to date. Or at least, they're open to the idea.

#Pick a card #spiritual pac #love pac #soulmate #twin flame

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anheliotrope · 7 months ago

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Rambling About C# Being Alright

I think C# is an alright language. This is one of the highest distinctions I can give to a language.

Warning: This post is verbose and rambly and probably only good at telling you why someone might like C# and not much else.

~~~

There's something I hate about every other language. Worst, there's things I hate about other languages that I know will never get better. Even worse, some of those things ALSO feel like unforced errors.

With C# there's a few things I dislike or that are missing. C#'s feature set does not obviously excel at anything, but it avoids making any huge misstep in things I care about. Nothing in C# makes me feel like the language designer has personally harmed me.

C# is a very tolerable language.

C# is multi-paradigm.

C# is the Full Middle Malcomist language.

C# will try to not hurt you.

A good way to describe C# is "what if Java sucked less". This, of course, already sounds unappealing to many, but that's alright. I'm not trying to gas it up too much here.

C# has sins, but let's try to put them into some context here and perhaps the reason why I'm posting will become more obvious:

C# didn't try to avoid generics and then implement them in a way that is very limiting (cough Go).

C# doesn't hamstring your ability to have statement lambdas because the language designer dislikes them and also because the language designer decided to have semantic whitespace making statement lambdas harder to deal with (cough Python).

C# doesn't require you to explicitly wrap value types into reference types so you can put value types into collections (cough Java).

C# doesn't ruin your ability to interact with memory efficiently because it forbids you from creating custom value types, ergo everything goes to the heap (cough cough Java, Minecraft).

C# doesn't have insane implicit type coercions that have become the subject of language design comedy (cough JavaScript).

C# doesn't keep privacy accessors as a suggestion and has the developers pinkie swear about it instead of actually enforcing it (cough cough Python).

Plainly put, a lot of the time I find C# to be alright by process of elimination. I'm not trying to shit on your favorite language. Everyone has different things they find tolerable. I have the Buddha nature so I wish for all things to find their tolerable language.

I do also think that C# is notable for being a mainstream language (aka not Haskell) that has a smaller amount of egregious mistakes, quirks and Faustian bargains.

The Typerrrrr

C# is statically typed, but the typing is largely effortless to navigate unlike something like Rust, and the GC gives a greater degree of safety than something like C++.

Of course, the typing being easy to work it also makes it less safe than Rust. But this is an appropriate trade-off for certain kinds of applications, especially considering that C# is memory safe by virtue of running on a VM. Don't come at me, I'm a Rust respecter!!

You know how some people talk about Python being amazing for prototyping? That's how I feel about C#. No matter how much time I would dedicate to Python, C# would still be a more productive language for me. The type system would genuinely make me faster for the vast majority of cases. Of course Python has gradual typing now, so any comparison gets more difficult when you consider that. But what I'm trying to say is that I never understood the idea that doing away entirely with static typing is good for fast iteration.

Also yes, C# can be used as a repl. Leave me alone with your repls. Also, while the debugger is active you can also evaluate arbitrary code within the current scope.

I think that going full dynamic typing is a mistake in almost every situation. The fact that C# doesn't do that already puts it above other languages for me. This stance on typing is controversial, but it's my opinion that is really shouldn't be. And the wind has constantly been blowing towards adding gradual typing to dynamic languages.

The modest typing capabilities C# coupled with OOP and inheritance lets you create pretty awful OOP slop. But that's whatever. At work we use inheritance in very few places where it results in neat code reuse, and then it's just mostly interfaces getting implemented.

C#'s typing and generic system is powerful enough to offer you a plethora of super-ergonomic collection transformation methods via the LINQ library. There's a lot of functional-style programming you can do with that. You know, map, filter, reduce, that stuff?

Even if you make a completely new collection type, if it implements IEnumerable<T> it will benefit from LINQ automatically. Every language these days has something like this, but it's so ridiculously easy to use in C#. Coupled with how C# lets you (1) easily define immutable data types, (2) explicitly control access to struct or class members, (3) do pattern matching, you can end up with code that flows really well.

A Friendly Kitchen Sink

Some people have described C#'s feature set as bloated. It is getting some syntactic diversity which makes it a bit harder to read someone else's code. But it doesn't make C# harder to learn, since it takes roughly the same amount of effort to get to a point where you can be effective in it.

Most of the more specific features can be effortlessly ignored. The ones that can't be effortlessly ignored tend to bring something genuinely useful to the language -- such as tuples and destructuring. Tuples have their own syntax, the syntax is pretty intuitive, but the first time you run into it, you will have to do a bit of learning.

C# has an immense amount of small features meant to make the language more ergonomic. They're too numerous to mention and they just keep getting added.

I'd like to draw attention to some features not because they're the most important but rather because it feels like they communicate the "personality" of C#. Not sure what level of detail was appropriate, so feel free to skim.

Stricter Null Handling. If you think not having to explicitly deal with null is the billion dollar mistake, then C# tries to fix a bit of the problem by allowing you to enable a strict context where you have to explicitly tell it that something can be null, otherwise it will assume that the possibility of a reference type being null is an error. It's a bit more complicated than that, but it definitely helps with safety around nullability.

Default Interface Implementation. A problem in C# which drives usage of inheritance is that with just interfaces there is no way to reuse code outside of passing function pointers. A lot of people don't get this and think that inheritance is just used because other people are stupid or something. If you have a couple of methods that would be implemented exactly the same for classes 1 through 99, but somewhat differently for classes 100 through 110, then without inheritance you're fucked. A much better way would be Rust's trait system, but for that to work you need really powerful generics, so it's too different of a path for C# to trod it. Instead what C# did was make it so that you can write an implementation for methods declared in an interface, as long as that implementation only uses members defined in the interface (this makes sense, why would it have access to anything else?). So now you can have a default implementation for the 1 through 99 case and save some of your sanity. Of course, it's not a panacea, if the implementation of the method requires access to the internal state of the 1 through 99 case, default interface implementation won't save you. But it can still make it easier via some techniques I won't get into. The important part is that default interface implementation allows code reuse and reduces reasons to use inheritance.

Performance Optimization. C# has a plethora of features regarding that. Most of which will never be encountered by the average programmer. Examples: (1) stackalloc - forcibly allocate reference types to the stack if you know they won't outlive the current scope. (2) Specialized APIs for avoiding memory allocations in happy paths. (3) Lazy initialization APIs. (4) APIs for dealing with memory more directly that allow high performance when interoping with C/C++ while still keeping a degree of safety.

Fine Control Over Async Runtime. C# lets you write your own... async builder and scheduler? It's a bit esoteric and hard to describe. But basically all the functionality of async/await that does magic under the hood? You can override that magic to do some very specific things that you'll rarely need. Unity3D takes advantage of this in order to allow async/await to work on WASM even though it is a single-threaded environment. It implements a cooperative scheduler so the program doesn't immediately freeze the moment you do await in a single-threaded environment. Most people don't know this capability exists and it doesn't affect them.

Tremendous Amount Of Synchronization Primitives and API. This ones does actually make multithreaded code harder to deal with, but basically C# erred a lot in favor of having many different ways to do multithreading because they wanted to suit different usecases. Most people just deal with idiomatic async/await code, but a very small minority of C# coders deal with locks, atomics, semaphores, mutex, monitors, interlocked, spin waiting etc. They knew they couldn't make this shit safe, so they tried to at least let you have ready-made options for your specific use case, even if it causes some balkanization.

Shortly Begging For Tagged Unions

What I miss from C# is more powerful generic bounds/constraints and tagged unions (or sum types or discriminated unions or type unions or any of the other 5 names this concept has).

The generic constraints you can use in C# are anemic and combined with the lack of tagged unions this is rather painful at times.

I remember seeing Microsoft devs saying they don't see enough of a usecase for tagged unions. I've at times wanted to strangle certain people. These two facts are related to one another.

My stance is that if you think your language doesn't need or benefit from tagged unions, either your language is very weird, or, more likely you're out of your goddamn mind. You are making me do really stupid things every time I need to represent a structure that can EITHER have a value of type A or a value of type B.

But I think C# will eventually get tagged unions. There's a proposal for it here. I would be overjoyed if it got implemented. It seems like it's been getting traction.

Also there was an entire section on unchecked exceptions that I removed because it wasn't interesting enough. Yes, C# could probably have checked exceptions and it didn't and it's a mistake. But ultimately it doesn't seem to have caused any make-or-break in a comparison with Java, which has them. They'd all be better off with returning an Error<T>. Short story is that the consequences of unchecked exceptions have been highly tolerable in practice.

Ecosystem State & FOSSness

C# is better than ever and the tooling ecosystem is better than ever. This is true of almost every language, but I think C# receives a rather high amount of improvements per version. Additionally the FOSS story is at its peak.

Roslyn, the bedrock of the toolchain, the compiler and analysis provider, is under MIT license. The fact that it does analysis as well is important, because this means you can use the wealth of Roslyn analyzers to do linting.

If your FOSS tooling lets you compile but you don't get any checking as you type, then your development experience is wildly substandard.

A lot of stupid crap with cross-platform compilation that used to be confusing or difficult is now rather easy to deal with. It's basically as easy as (1) use NET Core, (2) tell dotnet to build for Linux. These steps take no extra effort and the first step is the default way to write C# these days.

Dotnet is part of the SDK and contains functionality to create NET Core projects and to use other tools to build said projects. Dotnet is published under MIT, because the whole SDK and runtime are published under MIT.

Yes, the debugger situation is still bad -- there's no FOSS option for it, but this is more because nobody cares enough to go and solve it. Jetbrains proved anyone can do it if they have enough development time, since they wrote a debugger from scratch for their proprietary C# IDE Rider.

Where C# falls flat on its face is the "userspace" ecosystem. Plainly put, because C# is a Microsoft product, people with FOSS inclinations have steered clear of it to such a degree that the packages you have available are not even 10% of what packages a Python user has available, for example. People with FOSS inclinations are generally the people who write packages for your language!!

I guess if you really really hate leftpad, you might think this is a small bonus though.

Where-in I talk about Cross-Platform

The biggest thing the ecosystem has been lacking for me is a package, preferably FOSS, for developing cross-platform applications. Even if it's just cross-platform desktop applications.

Like yes, you can build C# to many platforms, no sweat. The same way you can build Rust to many platforms, some sweat. But if you can't show a good GUI on Linux, then it's not practically-speaking cross-platform for that purpose.

Microsoft has repeatedly done GUI stuff that, predictably, only works on Windows. And yes, Linux desktop is like 4%, but that 4% contains >50% of the people who create packages for your language's ecosystem, almost the exact point I made earlier. If a developer runs Linux and they can't have their app run on Linux, they are not going to touch your language with a ten foot pole for that purpose. I think this largely explains why C#'s ecosystem feels stunted.

The thing is, I'm not actually sure how bad or good the situation is, since most people just don't even try using C# for this usecase. There's a general... ecosystem malaise where few care to use the language for this, chiefly because of the tone that Microsoft set a decade ago. It's sad.

HOWEVER.

Avalonia, A New Hope?

Today we have Avalonia. Avalonia is an open-source framework that lets you build cross-platform applications in C#. It's MIT licensed. It will work on Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android and also somehow in the browser. It seems to this by actually drawing pixels via SkiaSharp (or optionally Direct2D on Windows).

They make money by offering migration services from WPF app to Avalonia. Plus general support.

I can't say how good Avalonia is yet. I've researched a bit and it's not obviously bad, which is distinct from being good. But if it's actually good, this would be a holy grail for the ecosystem:

You could use a statically typed language that is productive for this type of software development to create cross-platform applications that have higher performance than the Electron slop. That's valuable!

This possibility warrants a much higher level of enthusiasm than I've seen, especially within the ecosystem itself. This is an ecosystem that was, for a while, entirely landlocked, only able to make Windows desktop applications.

I cannot overstate how important it is for a language's ecosystem to have a package like this and have it be good. Rust is still missing a good option. Gnome is unpleasant to use and buggy. Falling back to using Electron while writing Rust just seems like a bad joke. A lot of the Rust crates that are neither Electron nor Gnome tend to be really really undercooked.

And now I've actually talked myself into checking out Avalonia... I mean after writing all of that I feel like a charlatan for not having investigated it already.

#software #programming #anpost #csharp

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practically-an-x-man · 2 years ago

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ok y'know what. I'm tired of all the same questions in ask games so I'm taking matters into my own hands

OC/Writing Art Asks

For the character:

Pencil: does this character have any "sketchy" habits? Have they ever broken the law? Do they regret it?

Pen: what's one minor moment your character regrets? A small mistake, but something they "can't erase"?

Paintbrush: How often does your character "brush over" conflict instead of facing it head on? Is there something specific they don't like to face, or do they avoid conflict as a whole?

Marker: what's one thing your character would never tattoo on their body, even if they were paid a million dollars for it?

Crayon: what was your OC like when they were four years old? Were they loud? Shy? Were they the resident "weird kid" or did they get along with others their age?

Colored Pencil: if given the choice, would this character splurge on an expensive (but potentially worthwhile) branded product, or buy a low-budget alternative even if the quality suffers?

Copics: what is this character's most expensive habit or hobby? Do they ever feel guilty about the money they spend on it?

Graphite: what's something decently common that your character does in a unique or different way? (like how graphite is present in all pencils, but not everyone uses pure graphite)

Charcoal: share any unique physical features about this character that are not scars or tattoos.

Tortillon: does your OC "blend in" with the people around them? Physically? Metaphorically?

Pastels: Give me three colors that best represent your OC. Now give me three colors that your OC likes best. Is there an overlap?

Chalk: what was one activity this character enjoyed with their sibling(s) as a kid? If they don't have siblings, what they did with their neighborhood friends

Eraser: what's one way this character has changed over time? Either over the course of their story, or over the course of designing them as an author.

Palette: list four of your character's primary skills, then share at least two ways these skills might blend or overlap

For the work:

Starry Night: are there any scenes in this work that take place at nighttime? Is this significant, or just the passing of time?

Mona Lisa: oh, it's the fanfic writer's favorite word. Do a find-and-replace on the word "smirk" and share any lines that pop up.

The Scream: are there any moments in this work that you think could scare a reader? Are there any moments where the characters themselves are profoundly scared?

Persistence of Memory: are there any moments in this work where a character's memory plays a strong role? Either an individual memory, or simply a character's ability to recall the past.

Girl With a Pearl Earring: are there any moments in this work where a character's clothing or accessories play a major role?

The Kiss: share your favorite kiss scene from this work. If there's no kiss scene, share your favorite moment of intimacy (romantic or platonic)

American Gothic: what's one relationship between characters in this work that you think people wouldn't expect? (i.e., how the people in American Gothic are not married, they're the painter's sister and dentist)

Guernica: look through a few of your imagery/descriptions in this work. Are they generally straightforward, or are they more "abstract"?

Wheatfield with Crows: are there any scenes in this work that involve birds? Do the birds play a definitive role, or are they simply part of the setting?

Woman with a Parasol: are there any moments in this fic that feel "blurry" to you? Is this a stylistic choice, or would you go back and clarify the descriptions if you were given the chance?

A Sunday Afternoon...: pick one "little moment" from this fic. How representative is it of the fic's tone and story as a whole?

Creation of Adam: choose one character that is not present at the beginning of this work. How did you introduce them into the story?

The Swing: are there any moments in this fic where the characters get to slow down and have fun? If not, why is that?

The Last Supper: does this fic incorporate any symbolism based on religion, theology, or mythology? If so, give an example.

For the author:

Paper: Who do you feel is your most two-dimensional or underdeveloped OC? Why is this? (including those that are still in development/haven't been written about yet)

Canvas: Do you ever "prep" your fics with outlines or warmups before you start writing, or do you just dive right in?

Graffiti: Have you ever had to research something that felt illicit or illegal for a fic? What was it?

Photography: What's one moment from any of your fics that you feel is preserved in your memory?

Clay: Do you usually take time to "sculpt" your OCs before you write them, or develop them as you write?

Film: Which one of your fics do you think would work best if turned into a movie? Who would direct it?

Adhesive: when you write, do you usually "stick" to one character or story for a while, or bounce around various characters and ideas?

Cricut: are there any characters you've had to "cut" from a story? Are there any moments/chapters/stories you've had to "cut" entirely?

Felting: how often do you include soft moments when you write? Do these moments play a role in the main plot, or do you include them as an escape from the rest of the story?

Weaving: are your works typically similar to one another? Pick two works, and share one similarity and one difference between them.

Finger Painting: share a small snippet from your earliest work (or the earliest that you can get back to). How would you rewrite it today? Either share the rewrite itself or just describe how you'd do it.

Creative!: free space! share something you've been dying to share about your writing! Could be an OC that never gets the limelight, a moment you were proud of, or anything else you'd like to share

#ask game #oc asks #oc ask game #ask meme #writer asks #writing asks #author asks #new ask game #fanfic asks #fanfic ask game

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neeahtao · 3 months ago

Note

Do you hc any part time jobs for john and dirk in the roommates au?

I wish I could just respond to this like a normal person :D

here’s some background information before I start rambling

So taking place after the credits, we know that Jane has already established Crocker Corp and Jake has founded Skaia Net Enterprises on Earth C. I assume Crocker Corp is a technology, military, and baked goods? production company, while Skaia Net could focus on Jake’s expedition work, battleship production, and television network.

From the credits and epilogues, we know that Dirk played a major role in both Jane and Jake’s ventures on Earth C. At this point in the timeline, he is likely designing and prototyping most of the tech and robotics.

Meanwhile, John is depressed, spending his early 20s isolated in his house, watching old movies and probably eating junk food. He tries to recreate the happiness he felt as a kid, relying on nostalgia-driven dopamine hits to distract him from the grief of losing his father.

I think what contributes to this is that John’s self-worth is deeply tied to how others perceive him, playing into his subconscious insecurities. He relies entirely on external motivation—when someone tells him what to do or validates his actions, he follows through. This worked in a high-stakes environment like the game, where there was always a clear goal and people guiding him. But once that structure is gone, and no one is there to push him forward, he stagnates.

He doesn’t place much value on self-improvement or internal motivation. While he struggles with insecurity and low self-esteem, he is also stubborn—if there’s no external force compelling him to change, he resists the idea that he should.

Dirk on the other hand, he is motivate by self-improvement. Growing up entirely self-reliant, he never waited for direction—if he had, he wouldn’t have survived. Providing for himself was a necessity, and that mindset shaped him into someone who constantly pushes himself. Whether it’s achieving his own goals or helping the people he cares about reach theirs, he puts immense pressure on himself to always be productive.

John doesn’t necessarily need a job or some greater purpose to be happy, but he does need motivation to take better care of himself, spend more time with friends, and find something to keep him productive. Since he ties much of his self-worth to what he can do for others he is susceptible to getting caught in a cycle, isolating himself, avoiding friends, and not contributing anything being both the cause and result of his depression. The longer he stays in this rut, the more reluctant he becomes to reach out, fearing he’ll be seen as a disappointment.

Both of their relationships with external validation are ultimately self-destructive. However, Dirk internalizes it more intensely than John. When things go wrong, John can separate his actions from his character—he sees the issue as something he did wrong, not something inherently wrong with him. Dirk, however, is much more personal in his perception of failure. He doesn’t just see mistakes as things to fix—he sees them as flaws within himself that he must constantly work to correct.

#dirkjohn #dirk strider #john egbert #homestuck #dirkjohn roommates au #tao talks too much

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billionviewsbllogpost · 3 months ago

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The Best Side of latest patent search

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lura-valentine · 6 months ago

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DabiHawks Fanfic - my Pillow

Notes: Please note that English is not my first language. So forgive me for the mistakes

Dabi leaned against the cool brick wall of an inconspicuous building and lit a cigarette. The smoke curled in the evening air, while his thoughts drifted far away. It had been three days since Hawks had gone on his mission, and the emptiness in Dabi's life felt almost overwhelming. In his hand he held his cell phone, which he impatiently unlocked again and again, hoping for a message, a sign of life. Nothing.

"Damn," he muttered quietly to himself and put the phone back in his pocket. His eyes wandered through the busy street, which was lit up by bright neon lights. People hurried past him busily, each in his own world.

Sighing, he threw the cigarette on the floor, kicked it out and set off without a clear goal. His steps eventually led him to a shopping street that he usually avoided. It was lined with shop windows that displayed all kinds of hero items – costumes, action figures, posters and stuffed animals. Dabi had never been sure if these goods made him laugh or shake his head more, but today was different. Today he felt a strange attraction.

He stopped in front of one of the shops, the window of which was decorated with plush figures of various heroes. A larger-than-life figure of All Might dominated the center, flanked by smaller plush versions of other well-known heroes. Dabi was just about to avert his gaze when something caught his eye.

Among the plush toys was a smaller Hawks, with his characteristic red wings and mischievous, almost cheeky expression. It was almost uncanny how well this stuffed animal caught him. Involuntarily, Dabi stepped closer to the shop window, his eyes fixed on the plush.

"You're crazy," he whispered to himself, but his feet seemed to have a will of their own. Before he knew it, he was standing in the store, surrounded by even more merchandise. It smelled of plastic and new fabrics, a smell that tickled his nose. His gaze wandered restlessly through the shelves, which were crammed with an incredible variety of hero products. The eyes of these smiling, heroic images looked at him from all sides, and yet he was looking for only one.

A salesman, a young man with a striking yellow-green hairstyle, noticed Dabi's presence and approached him in a friendly manner. "Can I help you?"

Dabi hesitated for a moment before nodding at the shelf with the plush hawks. "The ... how many sizes are there"

The salesman smiled broadly and nodded enthusiastically. "Oh, we have them in all kinds of sizes! From key chains to giant 1-metre plush toys. Hawks is one of our bestsellers right now!"

Dabi glanced briefly at the salesman, then again at the stuffed animals. "Show me the greatest."

The salesman led him to a shelf in the back of the store, where the larger Hawks plush toys were lined up. Dabi looked at her in silence. They were all lovingly designed, with the distinctive wings and the easy-going posture that made Hawks so special. He reached out and touched the fabric of one of the stuffed animals, running his fingers over the soft surface.

"They are really nicely made," the salesman remarked and watched Dabi curiously. "Are you a big fan?"

Dabi hesitated, the truth burning on his tongue, but instead he just snorted softly. "Something like that." His gaze wandered further through the store when he discovered a large package that magically attracted him. It was a Dakimakura pillow, almost as tall as himself, with a life-size image of Hawks stretching across the fabric.

He stepped closer, his eyes fixed on the pillow. The look on Hawks' face was familiar, almost as if Dabi could hear his voice, teasing him with that teasing tone. The thought of the nights he now had to spend without Hawks gnawed at him again. His bed was cold and empty, and it looked like it would stay that way for many more nights.

"That... is new," said the salesman as he followed Dabi's gaze. "It's very popular with the fans. It almost feels like you really have him with you"

Dabi stared at the pillow, his heartbeat a little faster than he imagined the nights he could hold this pillow in his arms. He wondered if it could somehow fill the empty space in his bed and in his heart until Hawks returned.

"Oh, and it's pretty soft," the salesman added, hoping to close the sale.

Dabi bit his lower lip and finally nodded slowly. "I'll take it," he said, his voice hoarse.

The salesman beamed. "Wonderful! I'll get it for you right away."

Dabi stood there, his eyes still fixed on the pillow, while the salesman took it off the shelf and carried it to the checkout. As he paid and watched the salesman put the pillow in a large bag, he wondered if Hawks would make fun of his choice. In the last few weeks, their initially complicated relationship had become something real, something Dabi had never felt before in his life.

Dabi left the shop with the bag in his hand, the cold wind outside a sharp contrast to the warmth inside. He pulled up the zipper of his jacket and held the bag tightly to him as if it contained a piece of Hawks that he could keep for himself. "Well," he murmured into the darkness, "it's better than nothing."

The streets had become quieter, and the way home seemed longer than he had expected. But somehow he was comforted by the thought that Hawks would be with him in some way – at least until he was back.

With the pillow safely in the big bag, Dabi entered the gloomy bar. The smell of alcohol and smoke hung heavy in the air, permeated by a subliminal tension that was always present in this place. Kurogiri stood behind the bar as usual, with his typical stoic attitude, while Shigaraki sat in a corner and scratched his neck, lost in thought. Twice and Himiko, who was on the move as always, sat nearby on a worn sofa.

As soon as Dabi had closed the door behind him, the eyes of the others turned to him. Himiko jumped up as soon as she saw him, her eyes flashing with curiosity. "Dabi!" she exclaimed and hopped over to him. Her eyes sparkled playfully as she pointed to the large bag in his hand. "What do you have there? Show me!"

Dabi pulled the bag closer to him and glared at it. "It's none of your business," he growled, his voice sharp as a blade.

Himiko pulled a snout, but wasn't so easily brushed off. She stood close to him, her hands clasped behind her back, and rocked on her heels. "Come on, is it something interesting? A new toy for us?" She laughed softly, her eyes full of mischievousness.

Dabi pushed her ruthlessly aside as he walked past her. "Get out of here, Toga. You really don't want to know." His voice was cold, but there was something in his tone that made even Himiko keep his mouth shut.

Twice, who had overheard the conversation, leaned forward and shouted across the table, "Oh, a secret! Now I really want to know! But no, wait, I don't want to know... Or is it? Ah, I'm so torn!"

Shigaraki barely raised his eyes as Dabi walked past him, but his lips curled into a sardonic grin. "Did the big bad Dabi buy a gift? For whom?"

Dabi ignored the taunting and took two steps at a time to get out of the reach of the prying eyes more quickly. He could feel the energy of the group behind him, felt the tension that was always there when he entered the room. But today he was not in the mood to get involved. He had other things on his mind.

With a deep breath he pushed open the door to his room and entered. As soon as the door closed behind him, he dropped the bag on the bed and leaned his back against the door as if trying to shut out the outside world. His room was simple, barely furnished, with only a bed, a table and a chair. The walls were bare, and the only window let in little light.

Dabi walked to the bed and pulled the bag closer to him. With a certain slowness, as if he were delaying it, he opened the package and took out the Dakimakura pillow. It felt surprisingly soft, almost too soft for someone like him. But it was the face on the pillow that made him pause. Hawks' familiar smile, looking at him from the fabric, seemed to hit him straight to the heart.

He sat down on the bed and ran his fingers over his face on the pillow. It was crazy, completely crazy, that he had bought this thing. "What the hell are you doing to me?" he murmured softly, his voice little more than a whisper.

It was as if he was staring at something that brought him to the brink of madness. Every moment he'd spent with Hawks seemed to be woven into that pillow—from the heated, dangerous moments to the rare, quiet moments when they'd just been lying next to each other, far from the expectations and chaos of the world.

Dabi let himself fall backwards on the bed, holding the pillow tightly in his arms. The heat of his body seemed to transfer immediately to the pillow, and for a brief moment he closed his eyes, imagining what it would be like if Hawks were really here, his warmth, his smell, the calming presence that had pulled him out of the darkness so many times.

But it wasn't the same. It couldn't be the same. Dabi stared at the ceiling, his thoughts confused. "Why did I have to fall in love with you of all people?" he whispered bitterly. Hawks was the opposite of everything he knew—a hero, an optimist, someone who sought the light while Dabi lived in the dark. And yet... it was exactly this light that magically attracted him, that captivated him again and again.

He pressed the pillow tighter to him and closed his eyes, as if he could dampen the longing in his chest. "You're driving me crazy," he murmured softly, almost reluctantly, but he couldn't deny the truth in those words. Every fiber of his being longed for Hawks, for the closeness that only he could give him. And now, in the solitude of his room, with nothing but a damn pillow to spare him, the emptiness felt deeper than ever.

Every night since Dabi bought the pillow became a strange ritual. It was almost ironic that someone like him, so familiar with the harsh realities of life, would take refuge in something as mundane as a pillow. But in the darkness of his room, where only the faint light of the moon penetrated through the window, the pillow was the only comfort he found.

On the first night, the pillow was right next to him. He had turned on his side, the pillow carefully in his arms, as if it were fragile. His fingers clutched the soft fabric, his face only a few inches away from the printed image of Hawks. He could smell the familiar scent from his own bed, but it wasn't the same one he really wanted. The smell of ash and smoke mingled with the memory of the fresh, bird-like smell of Hawks robbing him of sleep.

Dabi stared into the eyes on the pillow, which didn't really look back at him, and sighed. "You're not here," he whispered, almost as if to remind himself that this was all an illusion. But despite this knowledge, he eventually fell asleep, the warmth of the pillowcase in his arms, as if it were actually Hawks.

On the second night he had pulled it halfway over his upper body, his hand resting on the pillow, his fingers grasping one of the corners. The familiar heaviness of a body, which he missed so much, was only faintly imitated by the pillow, but it was better than the emptiness. He closed his eyes and imagined that Hawks was really on top of him, that this heaviness and pressure on his chest was real. The thought of how Hawks' wings could envelop him in a protective embrace comforted him, even if it wasn't reality right now.

On the third night, Dabi woke up and found himself lying on the pillow, his face pressed firmly into the soft fabric. It was as if his body had unconsciously tried to seek as much closeness as possible to the object that gave it this illusion of Hawks' presence. He growled softly into the darkness, a hint of anger and confusion in his voice. "Damn it," he murmured, rolling down from the pillow and staring at it as if it could give him an answer to his inner restlessness. It didn't, of course not. It was just a pillow, a damn pillow.

But the following nights remained the same. Sometimes the pillow was under him, sometimes he pressed it tightly to his chest, as if it could protect him from the cold of the room. On other nights, when the loneliness became particularly unbearable, he pulled the pillow tightly to him and buried his face in it, as if to alleviate the pain of Hawks' absence. He didn't talk about it, not even to himself.

Two days before Hawks' return, however, Dabi found himself in a new kind of turmoil. He sat on the edge of his bed, the pillow in front of him, running his fingers nervously over the edges of the fabric. His thoughts raced.

"What the hell am I going to do with the thing when he comes back?" he whispered, his eyes fixed on the pillow as if it could give him an answer. Of course it remained silent, but that didn't stop Dabi from continuing to speak, his voice was almost desperate. "Will he tease me with it, laugh at me? Or worse, will he think I'm weak, that I need him too much?" His thoughts went round in circles, pulling him deeper and deeper into uncertainty.

For a moment he reached for his coat, which hung on a chair, his fingers trembling slightly. His quirk burned under his skin, ready to set the pillow ablaze, to destroy it before anyone, especially Hawks, could ever see it. The idea that Hawks could laugh at him, that he could see him in a moment of weakness, was almost unbearable.

But then he paused. The warmth of the pillow under his fingers brought him back to reality. He let go of the jacket again and ran his hand through his disheveled hair, a deep, dissatisfied sigh escaped him. "No," he murmured, almost reluctantly. "Not yet."

He got up, walked up and down the room, his steps heavy as he tried to think clearly. How would Hawks really react? Maybe he would laugh, but in that warm, loving way that Dabi hated so much and missed at the same time. Maybe he would understand, even appreciate, that Dabi had missed him so much that he clung to this ridiculous thing.

But what if he didn't? What if the pillow ruined everything they had? Dabi cast an angry glance at the pillow as if it were the source of all his problems. "Damn, you're really driving me crazy." In the end, he realized.

He let himself fall heavily on the bed, the pillow firmly in his hands, his thoughts confused and contradictory. Should he just burn it? Solve the problem before it even became one? Or should he keep it, maybe even show it to Hawks, to prove to him how much he missed him?

He didn't know. And that only made him angrier.

Dabi closed his eyes, his grip on the pillow tightened, almost desperate. "No matter what happens," he murmured softly, "I'll find a way. No matter how crazy it is."

He let his mind wander as he stared at the pillow he still held tightly in his hands. The inner conflict had exhausted him, but he told himself that he still had time. "Two nights," he muttered to himself, feeling the heaviness of tiredness creeping slowly into his limbs. "I've got two more fucking nights before you come back, chicken."

He sighed deeply before pulling the pillow to him and lying on his side. The mattress gave way under him, and the familiar smell of smoke and ash mingled with the scent of the pillow, which smelled faintly of fresh fabric. It was a faint, deceptive memory of the scent of Hawks, but at that moment it was enough to calm him down a little.

He pulled the pillow closer to him, almost under his chin, and closed his eyes. His breathing was slow, calming down as he tried to silence the relentless stream of his thoughts. In his head echoed the words he would never have said out loud: "I need you."

He clung to the pillow, pulling it tightly to his chest as if it were a lifesaver in a sea of darkness. His legs tightened slightly, his forehead leaned against the pillowcase. It wasn't the same as Hawks' warmth, not the same as the reassuring security he felt when the hero lay next to him. But it was all he had at that moment. "Damn," he murmured again, but his voice was now quieter, almost soft. "How could something like this happen to me?"

With this last thought, the tiredness finally allowed no more resistance, and Dabi fell into a restless sleep. His breathing became more even, his grip on the pillow loosened a little, but it remained firmly in his arms.

But his peace did not last long. A faint sound entered his consciousness, a faint scratching, perhaps the door that opened. He ignored it, moved slightly in his sleep and pulled the pillow closer to him. But then came the voice—familiar, warm, and imbued with an amused tone that was more than familiar to him.

"You're not serious, are you?"

The words pierced through the veils of sleep and Dabi's brow twisted as he tried to make sense of the voice. He grumbled indignantly, wanted to turn over and go back to sleep, but something stopped him. Something about the voice... by the words...

"You're not serious, are you?"

Slowly he opened his eyes, blinked tiredly and tried to organize his thoughts. His vision was blurred, and it took him a moment to recognize the shadow that stood at the edge of his bed. At first it was just a silhouette, but then the sparse moonlight fell on a familiar face, and Dabi's heart skipped a beat.

Hawks stood in front of him, his arms loosely crossed, his feathers glowing soft red in the dim light, and a crooked, amused grin played around his lips. "You really missed me, hmm?" Hawks asked, his tone light, but curiosity and maybe even a little affection were clearly audible in it.

Dabi blinked again, his mind working slowly, as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing. "Hawks...?" he murmured, his voice hoarse with sleep and confusion. His eyes fell from Hawks' face to the pillow in his arms, and suddenly the situation became clear to him. The pillow—the damned pillow—was still firmly in his grip, the image of Hawks staring at him.

A feeling of heat rose into his head, and he suddenly felt awake and alarmed. "Damn..." He sat up quickly, the pillow still in his hands, as if he didn't know what to do with it. His gaze quickly shifted between the pillow and Hawks, who was watching him with a big grin, as if he was watching the funniest spectacle in the world.

"Will you explain to me what this is?" asked Hawks, his voice a mixture of amusement and genuine curiosity. His smile widened as he saw Dabi press his lips together in embarrassment.

Dabi looked away angrily, trying to ignore the heat on his face as he gripped the pillow tighter. "The... That's not what you think," he muttered, although he himself knew how unconvincing that sounded.

Hawks laughed softly, a warm, melodic sound that seemed to fill the room. "Oh yes? So that's not my face you just slept on?" His voice was soft, teasing, but there was also something serious in it, something that Dabi couldn't quite classify.

Dabi glared at him with narrow eyes, and his voice dripped with biting irony as he answered, "Yes, that's your face. And do you know why the pillow is better than you?" He paused for a moment, his words like sharp blades, before continuing. "First, it does not discuss. And secondly," Dabi's voice grew darker, almost dangerously quiet, "I can do what I want with it without it resisting. Unlike you."

Hawks' grin froze on his lips for a moment before it disappeared completely. His eyes narrowed, and the friendly amusement gave way to a stinging coldness. "Is that so?" he murmured, his voice little more than a growl. Without hesitation, he let one of his sharp, feathered blades shoot out of his wing.

Dabi recognized the danger too late. Before he knew it, a red flash flashed through the room, and the next second he heard a sharp, tearing sound. The pillow in his arms fell apart, the soft filler poured like snow on the bed and the floor. Dabi's eyes widened, a shock spread in his gaze, followed by a hot wave of anger.

"You fucking idiot!" he yelled, grabbing Hawks by the collar. His grip was tight, the heat of his whisk bubbling just below the surface of his skin, threatening to erupt at any moment. "First you don't show up for 14 days because of your fucking work and then you come back and get jealous of a pillow?!"

Hawks didn't seem to be afraid of Dabi's wrath, looking him straight in the eye, his expression as angry as he was determined. "You prefer a pillow to me?" he snapped back, his voice now sharp as a knife. "Really, Dabi? A piece of cloth instead of me?"

The anger in Dabi boiled over, but at the same time there was something else, a feeling he didn't want to admit. Instead of letting go of him, Dabi pushed him hard onto the bed. "Shut up, chicken," he growled, his eyes flickering with anger, but also with what looked like relief. "You have no idea what it was like to be without you for two weeks. And now that you're back, you're flattening the first pillow I've ever owned?"

Hawks' anger melted a little, and he let Dabi have his way, feeling the heat emanating from him. He saw the tension on Dabi's face, the anger slowly giving way to another feeling—the need to have him with him. "So the pillow was really just a substitute?" he asked softly, his voice softer now, almost gentle, when he looked into Dabi's eyes.

Dabi sighed heavily and let go of the fabric of Hawks' jacket, his fingers trembling slightly. "Yes, damn it. It was only a replacement. Because you weren't there." He looked away, his voice had become quieter, almost as if it was difficult for him to pronounce the words. "But it wasn't the same. It could never be the same."

Hawks put a hand on Dabi's cheek, gently forcing him to look again. "Then let me take the place of the pillow again," he whispered, a slight smile playing around his lips again as he pulled Dabi closer. "I'm here now. And I'm not going anywhere."

Dabi looked at him in silence for a moment before sighing and closing his eyes. "It would be better," he murmured, his voice calmer now, the anger gone. "Otherwise I'll tie you to the bed."

Hawks laughed softly, pulled Dabi closer to him and let him sink into his arms. "I want to see that," he whispered, his voice full of affection and a hint of challenge.

Dabi snuggled up to Hawks, resting his forehead against his chest and sighing deeply as the warmth of the other man slowly enveloped him. "You're really driving me crazy, chicken."

Hawks' wings closed gently around them both, and he pressed a kiss to Dabi's hair. "I know," he whispered softly, "but that's the beauty of it, isn't it?"

Dabi snorted softly, but he couldn't quite suppress the smile that formed on his lips. He felt the warmth of Hawks' body, the gentle weight of his wings enveloping him. For a moment, everything else seemed far away, and he could concentrate fully on what he had with him now.

Hawks took a deep breath, as if searching for the words he wanted to say next. "Dabi..." he began hesitantly, his voice had become quieter, almost tender. "I missed you too. Very much so." He paused for a moment, his fingers running gently through Dabi's hair as he continued. "But unlike you, I couldn't get a Dabi pillow."

Dabi lifted his head slightly and gave Hawks a skeptical look, his eyes narrow with suspicion and amused at the same time. "Because I'm a scoundrel, or what?" he asked, his voice dripping with irony, but there was also a hint of curiosity in his tone.

Hawks smiled faintly and shook his head slightly. "No, not because of that." He looked into Dabi's eyes, and his gaze became softer, almost melancholy. "Because... Because I need you as you are. There is no pillow that can replace you. Nothing that even comes close to what you are to me."

Dabi felt something in him give way, a tension he hadn't even noticed was released. His eyes sought Hawks's, and for a moment there was a deep, meaningful silence between them. Then he sighed and let his head sink back onto Hawks' chest. "You're really a fucking idiot, do you know that?" he murmured, but there was no sharpness in his voice anymore, just a quiet, deep affection.

Hawks' smile widened, his arms tightened around Dabi, as if he never wanted to let him go. "I know," he answered softly, and his voice was full of warmth. "But I'm your idiot."

Hint

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 7 months ago

Text

de Adder

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

November 8, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Nov 09, 2024

Social media has been flooded today with stories of Trump voters who are shocked to learn that tariffs will raise consumer prices as reporters are covering that information. Daniel Laguna of LevelUp warned that Trump’s proposed 60% tariff on Chinese imports could raise the costs of gaming consoles by 40%, so that a PS5 Pro gaming system would cost up to $1,000. One of the old justifications for tariffs was that they would bring factories home, but when the $3 billion shoe company Steve Madden announced yesterday it would reduce its imports from China by half to avoid Trump-promised tariffs, it said it will shift production not to the U.S., but to Cambodia, Vietnam, Mexico, and Brazil.

There are also stories that voters who chose Trump to lower household expenses are unhappy to discover that their undocumented relatives are in danger of deportation. When CNN’s Dana Bash asked Indiana Republican senator-elect Jim Banks if undocumented immigrants who had been here for a long time and integrated into the community would be deported, Banks answered that deportation should include “every illegal in this country that we can find.” Yesterday a Trump-appointed federal judge struck down a policy established by the Biden administration that was designed to create an easier path to citizenship for about half a million undocumented immigrants who are married to U.S. citizens.

Meanwhile, Trump’s advisors told Jim VandeHei and MIke Allen of Axios that Trump wasted valuable time at the beginning of his first term and that they will not make that mistake again. They plan to hit the ground running with tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, deregulation, and increased gas and oil production. Trump is looking to fill the top ranks of the government with “billionaires, former CEOs, tech leaders and loyalists.”

After the election, the wealth of Trump-backer Elon Musk jumped about $13 billion, making him worth $300 billion. Musk, who has been in frequent contact with Russian president Vladimir Putin, joined a phone call today between President-elect Trump and Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky.

In Salon today, Amanda Marcotte noted that in states all across the country where voters backed Trump, they also voted for abortion rights, higher minimum wage, paid sick and family leave, and even to ban employers from forcing their employees to sit through right-wing or anti-union meetings. She points out that 12% of voters in Missouri voted both for abortion rights and for Trump.

Marcotte recalled that Catherine Rampell and Youyou Zhou of the Washington Post showed before the election that voters overwhelmingly preferred Harris’s policies to Trump’s if they didn’t know which candidate proposed them. An Ipsos/Reuters poll from October showed that voters who were misinformed about immigration, crime, and the economy tended to vote Republican, while those who knew the facts preferred Democrats. Many Americans turn for information to social media or to friends and family who traffic in conspiracy theories. As Angelo Carusone of Media Matters put it: “We have a country that is pickled in right-wing misinformation and rage.”

In The New Republic today, Michael Tomasky reinforced that voters chose Trump in 2024 not because of the economy or inflation, or anything else, but because of how they perceived those issues—which is not the same thing. Right-wing media “fed their audiences a diet of slanted and distorted information that made it possible for Trump to win,” Tomasky wrote. Right-wing media has overtaken legacy media to set the country’s political agenda not only because it’s bigger, but because it speaks with one voice, “and that voice says Democrats and liberals are treasonous elitists who hate you, and Republicans and conservatives love God and country and are your last line of defense against your son coming home from school your daughter.”

Tomasky noted how the work of Matthew Gertz of Media Matters shows that nearly all the crazy memes that became central campaign issues—the pet-eating story, for example, or the idea that the booming economy was terrible—came from right-wing media. In those circles, Vice President Kamala Harris was a stupid, crazed extremist who orchestrated a coup against President Joe Biden and doesn’t care about ordinary Americans, while Trump is under assault and has been for years, and he’s “doing it all for you.”

Investigative reporter Miranda Green outlined how “pink slime” newspapers, which are AI generated from right-wing sites, turned voters to Trump in key swing state counties. Republican strategist Sarah Longwell, who studies focus groups, told NPR, “When I ask voters in focus groups if they think Donald Trump is an authoritarian, the #1 response by far is, ‘What is an authoritarian?’”

In a social media post, Marcotte wrote: “A lot of voters are profoundly ignorant. More so than in the past.” That jumped out to me because there was, indeed, an earlier period in our history when voters were “pickled in right-wing misinformation and rage.”

In the 1850s, white southern leaders made sure that voters did not have access to news that came from outside the American South, and instead steeped them in white supremacist information. They stopped the mail from carrying abolitionist pamphlets, destroyed presses of antislavery newspapers, and drove antislavery southerners out of their region.

Elite enslavers had reason to be concerned about the survival of their system of human enslavement. The land boom of the 1840s, when removal of Indigenous peoples had opened up rich new lands for settlement, had priced many white men out of the market. They had become economically unstable, roving around the country working for wages or stealing to survive. And they deeply resented the fabulously wealthy enslavers who they knew looked down on them.

In 1857, North Carolinian Hinton Rowan Helper wrote a book attacking enslavement. No friend to his Black neighbors, Helper was a virulent white supremacist. But in The Impending Crisis of the South: How to Meet It, he used modern statistics to prove that slavery destroyed economic opportunity for white men, and assailed “the illbreeding and ruffianism of the slaveholding officials.” He noted that voters in the South who did not own slaves outnumbered by far those who did. "Give us fair play, secure to us the right of discussion, the freedom of speech, and we will settle the difficulty at the ballot-box,” he wrote.

In the North the book sold like hotcakes—142,000 copies by fall 1860. But southern leaders banned the book, and burned it, too. They arrested men for selling it and accused northerners of making war on the South. Politicians, newspaper editors, and ministers reinforced white supremacy, warned that the end of slavery would mean race war, and preached that enslavement was God’s law.

When northern voters elected Abraham Lincoln in November 1860 on a platform of containing enslavement in the South, where the sapped soil would soon cut into production, southern leaders decided—usually without the input of voters—to secede from the Union. As leaders promised either that there wouldn’t be a fight, or that if a fight happened it would be quick and painless, poor southern whites rallied to the cause of creating a nation based on white supremacy, reassured by South Carolina senator James Chesnut’s vow that he would personally drink all the blood shed in any threatened civil war.

When Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter in April 1861, poor white men set out for what they had come to believe was an imperative cause to protect their families and their way of life. By 1862 their enthusiasm had waned, and leaders passed a conscription law. That law permitted wealthy men to hire a substitute and exempted one man to oversee every 20 enslaved men, providing another way for rich men to keep their sons out of danger. Soldiers complained it was a “rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.”

By 1865 the Civil War had killed or wounded 483,026 men out of a southern white population of about five and a half million people. U.S. armies had pushed families off their lands, and wartime inflation drove ordinary people to starvation. By 1865, wives wrote to their soldier husbands to come home or there would be no one left to come home to.

Even those poor white men who survived the war could not rebuild into prosperity. The war took from the South its monopoly of global cotton production, locking poor southerners into profound poverty from which they would not begin to recover until the 1930s, when the New Deal began to pour federal money into the region.

Today, when I received a slew of messages gloating that Trump had won the election and that Republican voters had owned the libs, I could not help but think of that earlier era when ordinary white men sold generations of economic aspirations for white supremacy and bragging rights.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#deAdder #Political Cartoons #Letters From An American #Heather Cox Richardson #american history #history #The American south #the Civil War #misinformation #disinformation #crazy memes

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