#can't they do it on literally anything else

[romanticatheartt]

You know what I want- no what I need in Gwynriel book?

For Azriel to realize to have a love and relationship like his brothers you don't have to be with your mate. I want him to realise, his brothers being mated to the love of their lives, it's a bonus. I want him to get to this point of his friendship/relationship with Gwyn where he's like "I don't care if Gwyn isn't my mate, she's my person and the only one for me". The very thing he didn't do with Mor and Elain.

In the books we keep reading how he is waiting for a bond to snap with Mor. He's not even trying to get to know her on deeper level, form a friendship or create a safe space for her to be vulnerable with him. Because somehow he delude himself into believing she's his mate and is waiting for it to happen. He's not even trying to be close to her and prove himself a worthy partner, if it gets to that point. He thinks having a mating bond is deal done for his mate to accept him for who he truly is.

With Elain is also the same situation. He's thinking she should've been his mate, why the Mother gave his brothers 2 of the sisters but "the third" to another? He thinks he can claim her because yet again he delude himself into believing she is his mate, even he and literally everyone else knows the shared bond between Lucien and Elain is as real as it gets. In his head being mated to Elain makes sense just like being mated to Mor did, even tho it literally doesn't. It shows he's desperate, he really wants that bond because he genuinely believes no one will want him, unless there's a bond (not specifically love, I don't think he believe in someone actually falling in love with him. And he doesn't know what love is lol).

So with Gwyn I want something absolutely different. He already doesn't see her as a potential anything lol. He genuinely just sees her as Gwyn and not his possible mate or lover. We even have him say he doesn't even consider her a friend, which people think it's bad thing but I think it's a perfect opportunity for Azriel, to have no expectation from that person. To don't wait for a mating bond to happen. To get to know Gwyn and she gets to know him and Azriel being himself. Because he always hid parts of himself from Mor and Elain. Specially Elain.

I want to see him unguarded with Gwyn, open in a way he never was with any of those two. And we saw how he can be, in bonus chapter. The way we learn a very personal thing about him that we have never known throughout the whole series, and Gwyn being the one to receive that information says a lot. So I can't wait to see a completely new Azriel that he never shows to anyone in his book.

[maxwell-grant]

The Penguin: Episode 1 Breakdown

Thank you Lauren LeFranc, Mike Marino, Colin Farrell and Matt Reeves, we owe you the world for this, good God. It's finally here everyone and I've decided I'm gonna give each episode it's own post/breakdown of thoughts, because hahaha holy shit you guys this is beyond what I even dreamed of, and we're gonna be covering this for a while I think. I've worked out enough madness about this out of my system by talking with friends and I can't seem to be able to work on anything else till I get this done, so let's do it.

Bottom line: This isn't even just a must-watch if you like the Penguin or if you like The Batman, this is something I'd recommend to just about anyone in a heartbeat, something I can point to when people ask "why do you like The Penguin so much" and, instead of the elaborate nerd ramble that usually turns them off, I can just tell them to watch this. A friend of mine (who already loves Batman and digs the Penguin quite a bit) even told me as much, that he's starting to get why I love the character so much, and truly, is there a better feeling than this? Well, there is, and it's watching the show. Let's dig into this first episode:

Right upfront I'm gonna say that this doesn't really seem to be the Sopranos rip-off that people have been calling it before release, although there are definitely Sopranos comparisons to make here. I've spent the past months finally watching The Sopranos in order to get the comparison and definitely want to talk about those comparisons after I finish it (and this show ends). This thing aims to stand on it's own legs as a crime show and it's smashing out of the gate with an extremely promising first episode.

So this just casually opens with the reveal that all along, there was a second rich Gotham the whole time that was completely unaffected by everything we saw in the movie, already throwing a great twist on the events of that movie, and further reinforcing how fucking full of shit The Riddler was. All we saw Batman and the others deal with in the movie was just affecting the poorer parts of the city. All Eddie did was drown rats, and make life worse for the people already in the bottom, while never even getting close to targeting the systemic rot that ruined his life. He retains ideological worshippers in subways obsessed with the corruption of the city without doing anything to actually improve it, and because of him, the streets of Gotham are waterlogged shitholes while the rich Falcone suburbs are doing just fine, peachy even.

I said a while back that, in spite of having about 6 scenes/10 minutes of Penguin runtime, The Batman managed to squeeze impeccably controlled Penguin Trademark Scenes, and this show opens with the last one they didn't get to then: Penguin killing someone for making fun of him. In the movie, he tries doing that with Falcone and is beaten to the punch, so here he gets to actually do it to disastrous consequences.

Fucking adore that the inciting incident of the show is based on the fallout of Oswald killing someone for making fun of him. He pours his heart about the dream he lives his life for, his new boss makes fun of him for being an embarassment to their profession and then he does the most typical Penguin thing by killing him for it and laughing afterwards. And then he realizes how badly he fucked up, and then we get a fucking perfect titledrop with his musical theme, the exact moment we finish The Batman and enter The Penguin.

God it is so fucking cool how the make-up/lighting, the scar across his face, makes it look like he's got a genuine beak from certain angles, how they're able to achieve that effect without giving him a more literal beak for a nose. Everytime they talk about the character, Reeves and Farrell always emphasize how integral the make-up was to them figuring out what to do with Oz, how little they knew what to make of his six scenes until Marino created their monster and suddenly everything fell into place. Mike Marino fully deserves co-credit for the creation of Oz.

Pretty amusing that Victor, as designed to be Penguin's Robin, has exactly the same origin as Jason Todd, a poor street kid trying to steal the hubcaps off the Penguinmobile (I'm sure this bodes very well for his odds at survival), as is the way in which Oz goes on about his recruitment. He press-gangs this kid at gunpoint to help him bury a body arguing with himself and eventually the kid why shouldn't he just kill him to be safe, while trying to impress the kid with his car and air freshener and later that bullshit about "What, you think I hire any schmuck off the street?". From the tile drop onwards, he's doing everything on the fly while also spinning long-term plans set in motion as soon as he's on screen, he's taking this kid in out of sympathy and because he enjoys a power dynamic over someone weaker than him and because he very much needs someone to help him get stuff done. I'm extremely interested in exploring Penguin having a mentorship dynamic and I'm beyond curious as to what happens with Victor from this point onwards, but that poor kid is in for a terrible fucking time.

Found it very funny how much he half-asses the murder threat to Victor. Like it's his first time actually doing it and he's trying to be serious, but not too scary because he's already seeing himself in the poor kid with a stutter and wants the kid to think he's also a cool guy like he wants everyone to think he's a cool guy. I also think having Victor as the POV helps to sell moments like these, because it's still terrifying to him. Even as we follow their stories, these power players of Gotham are still big scary monsters to people caught in the dregs and Victor helps to reinforce that.

I enjoy Oz being friends with sex workers and drag queens off the street as much as I enjoy Oz being depicted as the kind of guy who deludes himself into thinking the prostitute he's with actually likes him, Lauren and Farrell launched into a bit about in on the podcast and I'm curious to see what's going on with him and Eve here.

Lots of perfect funny little character moments across the whole thing. Oz insulted by the idea of taking extra pickles off a poor kid's dirty mouth, but with zero hesitation whatsoever for picking jewelry off his boss' corpse. Dude is governed by principles even as he actively has to break them to survive.

"Technically it's plum." "He is the - or was the - new kingpin", "He's got nurse-like qualities." The show is not overtly trying to get you to find Penguin likeable as much as it wants you to find him engaging - making you think he's likeable is Colin Farrell's job and he's masterful at it, definitely a lot more matured within the character compared to the movie.

If there's anything in particular I'm thankful for regarding Gotham (well okay Gotham led directly to Telltale Penguin which was the basis for this one, so really I do have a lot more to be thankful with Gotham), it's the decision to give him a legit waddle via the broken foot, but the way they incorporate it here with the club foot does so much for him, so much as a modern day reinvention of The Penguin. Adds so much to why he's never been a serious candidate for mob leadership, why he kinda had to spend all his time in the Lounge, why he actually needs someone to help him run affairs, why he has such a gaping ego wound and is so murderously angry at people making fun of him / calling him a goddamn penguin, adds so much validation and so much darkness and nuance to Oswald's overwhelming anger and bitterness over how the world treats him (and so much power should he opt to reclaim it, in turn). It's the kind of thing that frankly feels like it should have always been part of the character, like what all the previous versions were itching closer to or trying to get at. Of course this is a guy gets called a penguin and he hates it badly enough to murder people over it, of course.

This gets to really highlight how differently Oz acts depending on who he's with. Traditionally, one of my favorite things about The Penguin, and one of the things that puts him above the other villains, is that, due to his position, he has to interact with a lot more people than the other Bat-villains. He has to manage a lot more relationships and dynamics, he has to play peacekeeper and puppetmaster. he's the only one in the United Underworld who's regularly interacting with and recruiting other villains to do business with. He's the guy who you pin stuff on like the Gangland Guardians, Team Penguin, doing betting pools with the Rogues taking cover in his Lounge while Joker War is happening, having to rig games to keep good standing with Maxie Zeus and Frenchy Blake in Batman Audio Adventures, and so on. So I greatly enjoy this beat here of him talking about how makes himself smaller before the Falcones, and that moment of him adjusting his outfit and practicing expressions in the mirror before meeting with them. How he contorts himself is present in all of his relationships, and retroactively adds to the way he carries himself in The Batman.

It seems that Oz is functionally regarded as the Paulie Walnuts of the Falcones: useful muscle, loyal for the most part and amusing to keep around, but largely an unstable self-serving dumb asskisser kept where he belongs, a liability if not kept on a short leash. I think the show does a good job of highlighting all the reasons why Oz has never been seriously regarded as a viable option for a boss, even putting aside his disability. He is a fundamentally embarassing person for these serious respectable criminals to be around and of course, the joke is ultimately on them..

Of course, there is only two people in the show who actually know what he's capable of, Francis Cobb and Sofia Falcone, said to be the central relationships defining the show moving forward. Both of them also a defining commonality with Oswald, being people who are looked down on and dehumanized, and characters who are underestimated until it's time to bear their fangs.

Extremely invested in where they're going with Sofia Falcone, Cristine Milioti's been killing it, and will in fact not stop killing it. What a perfect villain for Penguin they've set up with her, someone who has his Kryptonite: she does not underestimate him. Although we know in advance that Oz is going to live and be in the next movie, the question here isn't even so much who's going to win the gang war, and rather how much damage these two freaks will do to the city until Batman gets back. In many ways, Sofia represents the shape of things to come just as much as he does.

She is this embodiment of both the pristine unfathomable wealth and privilege and power that he both detests and strives for, as well as this brutal new breed of madness and violence attacking the streets that he has to survive against and make deals with (and is himself very much a part of, however he denies it). She is Falcone's legacy in every way that matters, both a Kingpin of Gotham whose existence creates the oppressive conditions under which a Batman or a Riddler are created, as well as the Arkham Rogue, the larger-than-life sadist with a tragic origin and a signature torture-murder method and an embarassing name for the papers.

Even the fact that she is The Hangman, and Carmine was defined around his penchant for brutally strangling women - regardless of whether or not she did the crimes that got her in Arkham, she's become this larger-than-life themed expression of a violent obsession in a way that sets her up as every bit the Batman villain that The Penguin is. The two champions of the two Gothams, duking it out in this new world The Batman and The Riddler made, The Penguin vs The Hangman.

I am so glad Lauren LeFranc made the call for binning Alberto in the first five minutes so the rest of the show can focus on Sofia and make a real character out of her in a way nobody's ever really done before, every step of the way so far LeFranc has been perfectly on the ball about where to take these characters and their conflict. And speaking of those,

I feel very confident in saying that this is the first time anyone's ever really had something worth doing with Oswald's mother as a character in her own right and not just a source of anguish for Penguin (Gotham was almost onto something with Gertrude, but not nearly enough). When it comes to Penguin origin stories, my favorite's always been the Pre-Crisis one, where he's poor and bullied but happy with his mom and birds until she dies and the government seizes everything he has, which doesn't necessarily involve her much. But here? Francine Cobb is a real character in what little time we get to know her, and what a character she is. We quickly understand the role she's playing in Oz's life, not just as his mom and person he loves and strives to protect, but the person who's sculpting him into the man he's going to become.

She is vulnerable and she does need meds and she's not quite all there, and Penguin's need to care for her is visible in other actions of his. But then they turn it around by showing how strong and demanding she is, how she is fiercely ambitious and pushing him to be something he would otherwise not be, how much she loves him and sees greatness in him. She knows he's a people pleaser, she knows how to push his buttons, and she wants him to be more, so of course he's going to be more, because he lives to please his mom.

Related to this is this absolute bullseye of a summation of The Penguin, that Lauren LeFranc delivered in the podcast: "Perhaps his greatest fear is that love is transactional. And that yet, everything he does, every decision he makes, is as if that's true. As if "love is transactional" is a truth he abides by". Oswald's conception of power is being loved and revered like Rex Calabrese, and the love he wants most in all the world is the one from his mother. So in turn this, and all extensions of it, drive him to greater and darker lengths.

He doesn't have that ambition quite down yet, it's his mom that does. She who's pushing him to take over the city and not just be a guy scraping by for survival. He's smart and ambitious and extremely good at slipping out of trouble, but she's pushing him to be the guy who will be taking the city by the horns because that's what he has to be for their sake. Her legacy to her son is nurturing him having that dog in him that will make him the supervillain who picks fights with Vengeance. She is the force that's turning Oswald into The Goddamn Penguin and I can't wait to see how she's developed.

Of course he reprimands Victor in that scene for lacking ambition, who do you think he gets it from?

Really love what they've done with Sal Maroni in here so far. I like adaptations that take these throwaway Batman backstory gangsters and make something out of them, in this case, with Clancy Brown lending his power and voice and reputation as The Grand Boss of Villainy to play the last Respectable Gangster of Gotham, this intimidating principled old tiger who's inversely proportional to how much of a petty and scummy piece of shit Carmine Falcone was. Extremely a guy I'd want to see playing a hand in the creation of Two-Face. Just as crucial is the fact that he is the one who gets the most effortlessly outplayed by Oz here, because this is The Penguin Show: no room for traditional or respectable gangsters anymore, their purpose is to be crapped all over by our wacko birdman.

There's a lot about this that re-contextualizes his behavior in The Batman and the one I'm gonna point out is: even though he can't be sure his plan didn't completely go to shit, he is still keeping his wits and not being terribly scared about being beaten up and tortured and staring down the scariest Falcone with a gun shoved in his throat. But he craps his pants at the sight of the Batmobile. He gets pain, he gets indignity, but he doesn't get Vengeance, what kind of sick freak would come up with the stuff that guy does. A gun in his mouth and Falcone torture is just Tuesday, but a car that wants to eat his soul is some psycho shit he's just not ready to deal with.

It is the delicious tasty fucking irony that Oswald thinks Vengeance is this weird freak who doesn't play or bend to any rules and is here to fuck up everything, just like the madman who flooded the city, and thinks of himself in turn as a justifiable guy standing for the respectable old-fashioned empathetic way of doing things, instead of the exact same thing that Riddler and Batman are. Only Sofia gets what he really is, the same thing as her, and that's why she is the arch-enemy / the biggest thing he's gotta defeat in life for now.

God, how fucking PERFECT it is that he gets caught and tortured because he, after stabbing out a man's eye and causing him to get run over by a schoolbus, stops to wave at the kids in that schoolbus while covered in blood. Just the Rex Calabrese of it all, the self-image, this guy who's both a mean nasty son of a bitch and also a real bleeding heart softie and in ways that ruin his life and allow him to slip and wriggle his way out of shit he has no right to, as demonstrated by the finale.

Thinking about Sofia chastizing Oz saying he thinks she is a toy to play with, while rattling off the ways in which she owns him and everything he has, all the ridiculous little accessories her daddy let him play him, and he in turn is a ridiculous little accessory for the family she is twisting until it breaks. Perfect fucking villain for him. Can't wait to see how badly these two are gonna burn Gotham.

I knew deep in my heart that all I wanted out of a Penguin show, the thing that I simply needed to have in it, was Penguin pulling a heist set-up in advance, and it fucking delivered. He doesn't even complain at Victor for being late, because if anything, getting captured and tortured while the car crashed was even better for him. No, he complains at Victor for not being sufficiently gruesome with the body. See, unlike other cowardly anti-hero reinventions of Bat-villains, the show never wants you to forget that Oz is a weird freak and a disgusting piece of shit, even if he is a very likeable and even aspirational one. Only by the most random stroke of fate it wasn't Victor that he fed to the wolves at that moment, that he sees himself in the kid isn't exactly ensuring that he's gonna make out of this in one piece.

Mr. Vengeance gets Nirvana, and Mr. Boniface gets Dolly Parton, perfect credits.

In conclusion: Out of everything they could have done following the thunderous success of The Batman and it's ensuing influence over the DCU, out of all the offers Reeves must have gotten to helm their new universe after delivering a megahit reinvention of their breadwinner blockbuster character, Matt Reeves went "Nah, I listened to my crew, and what we really want to do is 8 hours of television about the waddling freak who's in my movie for 10 minutes", and he and his crew deserve the world for that. I dreamed as a kid of getting to make a big Penguin story or show, a wild impossible idea that would never actually happen, and now it's here and it's better than anything I'd ever imagined.

I'm fit to burst with joy and riding a high of no longer having to hunt for scraps and washing away decades of put-downs for the character and enjoying a Penguin renaissance like one I never imagined happening. I am extremely not an unbiased reviewer here, this show rules and I've waited for it since I was a kid and it's here, drink it the fuck in cause it's only the beginning.

[bbsmuts]

Mistaken Identity ft. Allissa Shin

A/N: Aaaaaand we have a special guest tonight, Miss Allissa Shin! I imagine this is something of a curveball, since I've never broken away from K-Pop idols, but here we are. I can't find fics of her ANYWHERE, so I guess it's good that I get to be the pioneer of it. Note that she will be one of the only people I write about outside of K-Pop, so don't bother requesting Taylor Swift or anything. This was another phenomenal pitch from @xiaoondc, the main contributor to my current success. It's also starting to seem like my readers are into BBC gangbangs, considering the number of pitches I have and have had that involve them. Allissa Shin looks so much like Rosé it's almost impossible to tell them apart in some photos. I'm ramping up the use of daddy and of tildes in this one at the suggestion of readers. So without further ado, I present Mistaken Identity. Forgive me if I spell her name with only one L, my brain thinks it should be spelled like that. Also prepare yourself for overly excessive use of tildes in Allissa's speech.

{Note: Any and all photos of Allissa Shin used in this work are 100% real and can be found on her Instagram, allissashin}

-상훈

Length: 5.34k

Possible TW: Bondage, spanking

Tags: Gangbang, BBC gangbang, DP, bondage, spanking, 69, cunnilingus, rimming

Allissa rapped the counter with her knuckles and traded another bill for another shot of whiskey from the bartender. She swallowed half of it, relishing in the spicy, woody taste with the subtle hint of sweet, and the burn that followed the liquor down her throat, making her wince a bit.

"Too strong?" The bartender asked, rubbing a glass with a pristinely white cloth. "I can get something lighter."

"Nah, it's perfect." She downed the rest of the shot and handed him back the shotglass, leaning back in the plush seat. "How many was that?"

"Nine." He replied, washing out her glass and drying it before it took its place in the cabinet. "Going through something?"

"Nope. Just felt like a being a little extra drunk tonight."

He chuckled. "Well, I'd advise you to be careful, Miss Shin. There are some who would take advantage of your intoxication."

"Thanks, I'll keep that in mind."

A huge, hulking black guy took the seat to her left, quickly joined by four of his buddies. From a glance in their direction, she could see that each and every one of them was not only very muscular and very attractive, and they were all wearing tank tops and sweatpants to prove it. The one closest to her had a large dragon tattooed on his right arm. She felt a distinct rush of arousal course through her, which might've been from the alcohol, but she liked it either way.

"The usual, I assume, Ekon?" The bartender asked. (I figured Ekon would be a good one because it's an Nigerian name that literally translates to "strong", which is quite fitting, considering who he is.)

"That's right. And one for all of my homies, on me." The guy on her left said in a deep, rumbling voice.

The bartender nodded and whisked away to prepare the drinks, and the guy threw a glance at Allissa.

"Oh shit, is that you, Chaeyoung? Yo guys, it's Rosie! Wassup!"

She looked over, confused, as the other guys erupted into cheers.

"Uhm...h-hi." She replied amongst the whoops. "Not to be rude or anything, but do I...know you guys?"

"Wow, after all this time you forgot about yo closest homies?" another one said, feigning tears. "Daaaamn."

'They must be mistaking me for someone else," she thought, watching them all colloquially fake being sad, during the course of which she conveniently heard all their names. 'Well...they are all really cute, I guess it couldn't hurt to play along.'

"Oh, shit, hey! I didn't recognize you guys at first!" She said in a bright tone, smiling. "Sorry about that, it's been too long!"

"Man, you gon' break a brother's heart messing 'round like that, forgettin' us." said the one directly to her left.

She laughed. "Yeah, sorry about that, E."

"Nah, you all good. Ayo!" He called to the bartender, who was still mixing the drinks. "Lemme get one for my homegirl over here too!"

He nodded and continued his mixing.

"What'd you order?" She asked.

"Girl, you don't even remember my go-to? Damn, we really ain't seen each other in a fat minute. I got all us some good shit, rum and liqueur and stuff."

"Ah." She said. "Sounds good."

"Trust him, it is good." One guy on the end tapped in. "And don't take too much, because that shit'll have you on the ground if you take one sip too many."

"Yo, remember back in high school? She couldn't handle anything!" This caused a fair amount of laughs, which needled her into speech.

"Yeah? Let's see how I am now then. I already had nine shots of Jim Beam."

"That's true." The bartender chimed in, bringing over the seven drinks. "Nine shots."

"Damn." Ekon said, accepting the drink and adjusted the chain on his neck. "Thanks, man. Somethin' musta changed since we last saw each other Chae, back then you could barely take one shot of henny. Nine shots of Jim Beam? That ain't never happenin' seven years ago."

Allissa suddenly realized something. 'Are they mistaking me for Rosé?' She thought. 'No way...well, still can't hurt to play a long a bit.'

"Well, a lot's changed in seven years." She said as the other guys calmed down, taking a small sip of her drink. "This is good."

He nodded. "Sure is. Rum, coconut liqueur, pineapple juice, orange juice, stuff like that. So how you been?"

"Pretty good. You?"

"Same. Life's been good. You ever get that modeling gig you was always after?"

"Funnily enough, I did." She had actually gotten into modeling, just not the gig he was referencing. "Pretty successful."

"Oh, so you got some bands. Nice. I got a question though, don't answer if you don't wanna."

"Go for it."

"You still a virgin?"

"Hell no." She replied immediately. Allissa didn't know whether or not Rosé was a virgin, but she certainly wasn't.

"Really?" He downed the last sip of his cocktail. "Something's changed about that attitude too. Last time we saw each other you was saying you weren't gonna lose it until you got married."

"Guess I changed my mind." She took another sip of hers.

"How many?" Another guy down the line, who'd been lying attention to the conversation said. She didn't have to ask what he meant.

"Nine." She replied.

Ekon nodded. "Respectable amount. Less than I would've expected, to be honest."

She raised an eyebrow. "I said I'm not a virgin, not that I'm a whore."

He raised his hands. "My bad, gang, my bad. So you going anywhere else tonight?"

"I wasn't planning to, but I wouldn't mind."

"You wanna come back to our place?"

She was suddenly very aware of how sheer and tight her dress was, and more aware of how the defined muscles of Ekon's arms rippled with every movement.

She didn't say anything, but he could definitely figure out the change in expression on her face.

"Well?"

"S-sure, yeah." She said, voice wavering a little.

He turned to the guy on his left. "Yo, she coming home with us. Y'all finished?"

The other one smirked, nodded, and passed the news on while Eli turned back to Allissa, a smirk on his face too.

"You finished with the drink?"

Despite her anticipation and slight nervousness, she put on a bolder face and downed the last bit of the cocktail.

"I am now."

"Alright," he said, smiling wider, grabbing his keys, and tossing the bartender a wad of bills. "Let's roll."

...

Bursting through the doors into the cool night air was refreshing after the interior of the bar. Though cozy, it was warm and a little stuffy inside. Her steps were definitely weaving a little, but she made it to Eli's car alright. A classic '69 Pontiac GTO, painted black.

"Yo! You driving?" One of the other guys called to Ekon.

"Nah, you drive, Adrian. I wanna, uh...catch up with Rosie."

Allissa took the back seat, Adrian driving and another riding shotgun, and Ekon in the back with her. The engine awoke with a roar and the headlights switched on, illuminating the dark parking lot.

"I gotta say, Chae, you been doing some developing." Ekon commented as they started down a dark boulevard.

She had a feeling she already knew what he meant, but she asked. "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean..." he gestured to her body then outlined a curvaceous figure in the air with his hands.

She blushed, hitting him on his muscular arm. "Stop!"

"I ain't joking, man. I mean...damn."

She giggled. "Thank you..."

He grinned. "Really is good to see you again though, Chae."

"You too. What are we doing when we get there?"

"We gonna figure that out when we get there. But I know you ain't stupid, you could take a good guess."

One look at his expression told her all she needed to know, and she looked away, the thought causing a thrill of anticipation and a fresh wave of arousal to a certain place in her lower region. She pressed her thighs together, trying to stave off getting turned on, but she couldn't stop her gaze from wandering over to his chiseled torso, on which every line, curve, and detail was put on display by the tight white muscle shirt. She found herself unconsciously licking her lips as her gaze roved over his perfect cumgutter abs, outlined pecs, and massively ripped arms. And from what she could see, he had a hell of a package in his boxers. (I feel so gay writing this entire part💀)

"Like what you see?" Her excitement and intense gaze did not go unnoticed.

"Mm, yes, I do~" It might've been the alcohol fueling her words, but part of it was coming directly from down below.

He chortled. "Yeah, I bulked up. Been going to the gym a lot recently."

She slid a hand over his rock-hard thigh, gently squeezing the fibers which felt like steel under her fingers. She gasped in pure arousal as her hand moved onto an absolute monster of a cock, which was massive without even being erect.

"Oh my god~" She massaged the phallic behemoth and moved closer on the seat, allowing him to put his arm over her shoulders and pull her into him. His powerful grip and iron-fiber muscles around her turned her on even more. His hand moved slowly downward, caressing the soft round of her breast through the thin fabric of her dress. She gasped again softly as his index finger traced her nipple, her sensitivity kicked up by the alcohol and how purely turned on she was.

"Save it for the room, y'all," said Adrian. "Ain't no one wanna see that."

"Don't even lie, bro, you know you want a piece." Ekon fired back. "Homie try to bullshit me..." he muttered. The other shrugged and stopped talking.

It was only a short ride more before they arrived at a large, mostly White House that resembled a a palace, with marble columns and everything. Allissa, even being the owner of a not-so-humble estate herself, was shocked at the sheer size and grandeur of the mansion.

"This is where you live?" Pleasure forgotten temporarily, she pressed her face against the window and gazed like an awestruck child.

Ekon chuckled, bringing his hand down to her now-exposed ass and giving it a strong squeeze. "Yup. There's five of us, we all live in the same joint."

"Wow..." His fingers wandered a little lower, pulling up the bottom hem of her dress so her thong was exposed.

"Damn, Chae, a thong?" He chuckled a little more. "Didn't know you was gettin' yo freak on so much."

"Mmhmm~" She bit her lip at the sight of his cock hard and straining against his sweats. "Fuck, you're big..."

Undergoing a sudden change of demeanor as they pulled into the driveway, he pressed her against the seat by the neck and spoke in his deep rumble of a voice. "And you want that, don't you?"

"Yes, daddy, I do~" Her voice came out as a whimper, his dominance only serving to make her more needy. "I want it a lot~"

"Well, yo ass bouta get it, hard."

"Oh yes, please, daddy," she moaned, his hands on her making her wet. "I want it!"

Ekon had opened his mouth to say something in return when the voice in the passenger seat piped up again.

"Y'all! We are 20 feet from the damn house, hold off for a second!"

"Aight, my bad bro. But you," he said, returning his hand to her neck as she giggled at Adrian, "better keep your little slut mouth shut."

"Yes, daddy," she said submissively, getting wetter by the second. They all got out of the car and walked quickly into the house, followed by the other two from the other car. The moment they all piled in through the door and it closed, Ekon pinned her arms to the wall above her head with one hand and kissed her, tongue aggressively pushing into her mouth. She moaned, his other hand going to her neck, while other hands pulled up her dress and caressed various other parts of her. Before long she was rid of her dress and left only in her bra and panties.

They backed off momentarily to admire her curvy, sexy figure. After a few "damn"s, they converged once more and she was pinned against the wall again.

She bit her lip as hands slipped into her panties and bra, teasing her sensitive spots and making her moan. Her hands, helplessly held above her head, twisted and writhed as multiple fingers plunged into her entrance, teased her sensitive clit, and rubbed over her nipples, assaulting her senses from every side. It had been a while since she had anyone, and she found herself quickly approaching her first orgasm.

"I'm gonna cum," she panted, gasping as several fingers found and roughly fingered her g-spot. "Oh god yes, I'm gonna cum!"

"Already?" Ekon said, triceps inconveniently flexing and turning her on more as he pushed against her hands and throat. "You little slut."

"Mmm, yes~" She moaned with rapid breaths, arching her back in pleasure. "You're gonna make me cum~"

His hand left her throat and slapped her face, leaving a small stinging mark in its wake. She was surprised at first and then felt a warm surge of sensual humiliation send a jolt straight to her pussy.

"A-ahh, fuck, yes, yes, ngghh yes, I'm cumming!" She bucked her hips off the wall, crying out in loud pleasure as she squirted on the many hands teasing her. She slid down the wall as the guys backed off, chest heaving even from the light orgasm she just had.

Apparently they weren't patient enough to postpone fucking her, so with little more ado they hoisted her to her feet and onto the rich white leather couch, a couple of them removing her panties and bra. Shirts were removed around her, filling her sight with abs and ripped arms. Jeans and sweats were next, taking boxers with them and leaving everyone present completely naked, and the other guys backed off as Ekon approached and went behind her.

She let out a sharp cry as a massive cock penetrated her pussy and immediately shattered whatever semblance of coherent thought she had left. The sheer size inside her stretched her walls out and caused a fair deal of pleasure and slight pain.

"Please," she murmured quietly, arching and then wiggling her ass to allow him better access, "ruin me."

He wasted no more time and started ruthlessly pounding her, loud claps on skin on skin sounding as he slammed his hips into her ass. She couldn't control the cries that left her mouth, face contorting in pleasure.

"Fuck!" She yelled, his cock reaching unbelievable depths inside her. "Oh my god yes, you're sso big! Oh yes, daddy, fuck my pussy!"

She could hear commentary from the five others, but her mind was too far gone to pay attention to it. He roughly grabbed her arms and held them behind her back, ramming her into the couch and leaving her helpless to the relentless assault on her tight tunnel.

"Yes, yes, yes, fuck! Don't stop, please keep going daddy!"

"Shut the fuck up and take it, you little whore." He leaned some of his weight on her, letting him growl in her ear, and pressed his hand over her mouth, muffling her moans.

"Mmph! Yes daddy!" Her voice was muted by his hand. He let go of her mouth and she turned her head to the side to survey his body. His hands left the couch as well, abs flexing to hold himself up as both hands were brought down on her supple ass in a punishing smack.

"Oh yes, spank me! Spank me harder daddy!" He gladly complied, landing more hard slaps on her ass. The sting brought her a blissful mix of pain and pleasure that was building up an orgasm like an edifice inside her.

"Shit, I'm gonna cum!" She heard the low groan behind her, accompanied by a few more spanks, and bucked her hips back into him as much as she could.

"Are you ready to take my cum, little slut?"

She nodded eagerly, still being slammed into the couch by his relentless thrusts. He delivered another hard spank to her ass, grip tightening on her arms behind her back.

"Try again."

"Yes, daddy!" She cried, eyes rolling into her head as the pleasure overtook her. "I want all of it, give me your cum, please daddy!"

A moan sounded behind her and a second later, a hot current of cum streaming into her pussy. The feeling of being filled with his cum overwhelmed her senses and threw her headlong into a strong orgasm; a wail of pleasure left her as she arched her back and squirted hard onto him.

She got barely a few moments' recovery before all the others approached and loaded onto the couch. Ekon stepped away and let them take their turn, and after one of them lifted her leg and positioned himself under her, she was penetrated in her ass and pussy by two enormous cocks.

Nothing but a gutteral, throaty moan was produced by her already overworked vocal cords. But she noticed two more guys walking around to her backside, and a thought crossed her foggy mind. They weren't going to...were they?

Her question was answered as the feeling of two more hard, throbbing tips pressing against her entrances sent signals of ecstasy to her receptors. With little more ado and no consideration for how much they were stretching her out (which was overloading her with pleasure), the shafts of the tips thrusted inside her.

"Fuck!" Pleasure turned her mind to mush for a moment as she briefly lost touch with reality. Two cocks in each hole; she hadn't been fucked like this in ages.

No, she hadn't been fucked like this ever.

Various murmurs of dirty things reached her ears, but none of them really registered with her brain. She kept up her dialogue of submissive moans, her pleas growing more and more wanting as she got more and more desperate.

"Oh yes, fuck my pussy," she panted, yelping as the smacks pelted down on her ass cheeks. "Fucking give it to me! Harder!"

All four cocks were pumping in and out of her with furious vigor; her pussy was soaked like a monsoon, and was made even wetter by the obscenities and degradation coming from behind her.

"Yeah, take these dicks, you slut!"

"You like being filled up like this, whore?"

"Yes daddy~" she whimpered, being overloaded with sensation. "I want all of your cocks in my tight little cunt! I'm your slutty little toy, keep fucking me just like that, yes!"

More spanks rained down on her ass, causing more waves of pleasure-pain to spread through her and intensifying the telltale tingling in her pussy.

"Oh fuck yes! More!" She cried. "Spank me harder!"

To her slight dismay, the slaps stopped. But a second later, something that stung a lot and something that was definitely not a hand made contact with her pinkened ass cheeks. She glanced around just as the strap was brought down on her once more, and a hand slapped her face. Her arousal turned to the max, she bit her lip and turned back around to a cock in her face. Without a second thought she opened her mouth and allowed it to push past her lips. She sucked passionately and hungrily, ignoring the slight discomfort she felt when his length went down her throat.

"Fuck, such a good little slut. Ain't that right, Rosie?" Ekon's deep voice was easily recognizable.

She nodded vigorously and continued impaling her throat on his massive cock. Her eyes rolled back and she gagged as her mouth and nose made contact with his pubes. She flicked her tongue out to trace circles on his balls as he grabbed her hair and held her right where she was. Slurping obscenely, she stuck out her tongue as far as possible to let him push every last centimeter into her squeezing throat.

"Mmph!" Her moans and gags were muted, but had she been able, the whole neighborhood would have heard her screams. She was going to cum and she knew it, the many cocks invading her holes proving to be too much to handle.

"Phhk!" More strikes from the strap, more thrusts from the guys. "Guhnuh kmm!"

Their hands stroked and caressed her passionately, in stark contrast to their cocks brutally, mercilessly pounding her. No relent, no mercy, no caring for anything more than raw pleasure. And she loved it that way.

"Daddy, I'm gonna cum!" She brought her head off Ekon's shaft and cried out to the room. "It's so fucking good, yes!"

She couldn't take it anymore. Her back arched and her hips bucked against them as her third orgasm slammed into her like a truck, her body trembling with the force of her squirting. Her arms gave out and her front half collapsed, burying her face in the couch. Still, there was no pause in the way they pitilessly railed her, driving their thick cocks in and out of all her holes.

Vaguely, she heard every single one say they were, too, on their way to orgasm, which brought her back to reality. She threw her head back and shouted out her pleasure, and her desire to be filled with cum.

"Please, daddy, cum inside me! Fill me up like the pathetic little cumslut I am! I want all of daddy's cum inside my tight little pussy!"

She bucked her hips into them in desperate need of another orgasm. Slaps landed on her face, heightening her arousal and making her even wetter, making her clench around the rods fucking her, adding to their pleasure.

"Fuck yes, breed me daddy! Fill up my pussy with your hot cum and breed me!" Her own dirty talk was turning her on as well as them, a fresh coat of slick lubricating her.

And then suddenly all four of them pushed as far as they could and bottomed out inside her, simultaneously painting her walls with thick ropes of warm, white cream and triggering her fourth orgasm. With a scream and a shaking body her pussy erupted, spraying their thighs with her own cum. One by one, each cock slid out of her, eliciting a whimper from her, and she was able to let her hips fall. Trembling and hypersensitive, she turned over and laid flat on her back, already feeling the cum start to leak out of her and drip down to the couch.

After a minute she sat up slightly and looked between her own thighs, where their cum and her juices were slowly soaking into the couch cushion.

"Oops," she giggled, letting her head fall back over the couch arm. "Guess you might have to get a new cushion."

Ekon chuckled from the other couch. "Chae, if we gave a damn, we'd fuck you on the bed."

He got up and walked away, his massive, semi-hard cock swinging from side to side. Despite having had four orgasms already, she found herself getting wet again at both the sight of him and the thought of getting fucked again. She reached down and gasped as she accidentally brushed her own clit; the touch sent pleasure shooting through her. Her soft moans did not go unnoticed, and as she fingered herself, they converged. She spread her legs eagerly, but instead of fucking her, one of them lowered his head to her soaking, tingling pussy and pressed his tongue against her clit. A high-pitched gasp left her mouth and her hands clamped down on the cushion as her hips immediately and automatically started grinding into his face.

"Oh god, yes," she moaned, eyebrows contracting up as he deftly swiped at her pussy. "Fucking eat me, daddy..."

Allissa felt her arousal and pleasure growing quickly. Clattering came from the next room where Ekon was.

"Oh yes, give it to me, daddy!" She cried, closing her eyes bucking her hips hard against his tongue. "Your tongue feels so good!"

She felt a cock press against her lips and immediately opened her mouth to let it in. She sucked on it hungrily, bobbing her head up and down.

Then someone pushed her legs up into the air, bringing her hips up, and she felt the tongur slide lower, down to her asshole. She shivered at the foreign sensation, and at the same time felt movement above her. To her slight shock, a second tongue planted itself on her pussy, and she looked down to see that the man whose dick was in her mouth had maneuvered into the top side of a 69 to eat her out. This allowed him enough leverage to thrust his hips into her face, driving his cock deep down her throat.

At that moment Ekon returned, a glass of whiskey in one hand and a massage wand in the other. Pinned down by 150 pounds of muscle, she could do nothing as he slipped the wand under the abs of the other guy and pressed it against her nipple. She moaned into his base, the vibrations adding to all the stimulation she was getting. The tongues probing her holes were very quickly catapulting her to her fifth orgasm; they had her bucking her hips and moaning with ease. Ekon's vibrator made her want to writhe and squirm, but she was helplessly trapped by the muscular body above her. Together, the sensations proved too much once more.

Wailing in ectsasy into the thick member in her throat, she clutched at his back and squirted intensely right into his mouth; the tongue in her ass was suddenly replaced by the head of a cock, closely followed by its shaft. Tears sprang to her eyes as she orgasmed again, hips jerking wildly as more cum streaming out of her.

Someone grabbed her and turned her over, sliding under her and pushing into her oversensitive pussy. Before she even had time to react, two more stretched out her saliva-covered asshole, and Ekon's cock returned to her mouth. From behind her, someone grabbed her hands and roughly tied them together. Someone grabbed her hair and pulled viciously, and Ekon slapped her face on both cheeks.

As soon as the others had come, she felt that all-too-familiar buildup of heat in her core. They reached points inside her she never knew could be hit, fucked her harder and better than she had ever been fucked in her life. Hands tied behind her back, hair being savagely pulled, ass being spanked hard, pussy, ass, and throat being mercilessly railed and used. There was no return to normal sex after this.

More slaps landed on her ass, thighs, face, and breasts, each one sending a jolt of pleasure-pain through her. She could feel herself and all the shafts inside her throbbing with need for release, and that they got.

The first one set off a chain reaction. The one under her groaned and buried himself balls deep inside her, explosively cumming and sending another tirade of warmth into her. At the same time, she and Ekon both met their orgasms, another load spurting down her throat. Several streaks of cum splattered onto her stomach, breasts, and face from the bystanders. A spray of her own cum splattered the thighs of the two fucking her ass, and the increased tightness of her ass caused two more loads to jet into her bowels. And then a second orgasm in a row hit her.

"FUCK!" she screamed as Ekon's softening length slid out of her mouth. Waves of ecstasy and intense pleasure slammed through her one by one, her mind going blank as they overtook her. Her world was a haze of bliss, and she could barely manage to crack open her eyes once the throbbing in her well-fucked cunt died down.

Each cock pulled out of her holes, followed by a steady flow of slick and thick cum. When she had recovered sufficiently, she raised her head and saw that her body was a mess of handprints, red marks from slaps and spanks, bruises, cum streaks, and sweat droplets. Spent and well-used, she let her head fall back onto the armrest.

A short while later she got up and wiped all the various bodily fluids off herself with a towel and then returned to the living room, once-coiffed-and-pretty hair disheveled and, in her opinion, sexy as hell.

"Seems a lil' bit ironic to ask, but did you like it?" Ekon asked, reclining in a seat, as she flopped onto a different couch.

"Yes~" she replied, biting her lip and giggling. "A lot."

Gesturing to the amount of cum still leaking out of her pussy and ass, she said, "You boys really outdid yourselves this time, hm~"

He smirked and returned his attention to the glass of whiskey with an approving nod.

Then it occured to her that they were still under the impression that she was Rosé.

"Can I...can I be honest for a second?"

He nodded nonchalantly. "Go for it, homie."

"Well...I-I'm not Rosé." She said in a small voice.

All sets of eyes in the room roved around to her, a few eyebrows raised. "What?"

"I'm not Rosé." She blushed under their intense gazes. "You guys thought I was at the bar, and I thought you were really cute, so I played along, but I'm not Rosé, or whoever it is you thought I was. I'm really sorry."

Ekon and all the rest looked at her for a long moment, and then they all started laughing. Slapping their knees, rocking back and forth laughing.

"Wait, wait, wait." Adrian said, fighting to control his laughter. "So you tryna tell me I been fuckin' some random girl all of us dumbasses thought was our old homie?"

She nodded meekly, glad at least that they weren't mad.

The laughter erupted again, each one of them crying with mirth. Her face turned hot, her embarrassed in a way.

"Aww, she so cute when she blushin'," commented Ekon, still giggling over the mistaken identity.

"Shut up!" She blushed harder, giggling and covering her face with her hands.

He raised an eyebrow. "Come again?"

Realizing what he meant, she fell silent, a small blossom of arousal rushing to her pussy at his dominant tone.

"Do we need to punish you again?" His voice turned low, dangerous. She was silent for a moment, the small blossom blooming into a large and very wet flower.

"Yes please, daddy~"

A/N: I searched everywhere for more Allissa Shin smuts, and they don't exist. I mean, I searched on Tumblr, AO3, FFN, AFF, everywhere. So I guess I get to be the pioneer of Allissa Shin fics. Yay. This shouldn't have taken me a month to write, but wifi router problems, a considerable period of writer's block, work, and a fair amount of procrastination delayed it. Hope you enjoyed.

[fools-ramblings-and-whatnot]

Fool's Rambling #29:Will you leave me for 1 million thaumarks?

There's this new Kdrama where the female lead accepts the bribe of the mother in law to leave her son.

And I just think it would be funny for Yuu if it were the same.

Premise, feeling bored, Yuu watched a new TV show and got an idea to play a prank with their boyfriend.

Yuu: Ask me if I will leave you for 1 million thaumarks.

Twst boy: What??!

.

.

.

Riddle: Will you leave me for 1 million thaumarks???*questions the question*

Yuu: No I won't!

Riddle:*smiles*

Yuu: Unless tax is excluded, too.

Riddle: OFF WITH YOUR HEAD!

.

.

.

Leona:This is stupid.

Yui: Just say it!!!

Leona:*sighs* Will you leave me for 1 million thaumarks?

Yuu: No, you're way more richer than that!

Leona:Damn right I am.

.

.

.

Azul: Will you leave me for 1 million thaumarks?

Yuu: Never, but I will leave you for 5 million.

Azul: That's my entrepreneur!

Yuu:Haha! I thought you'd be sad on the prospect I'll leave you.

Azul: Incorrect. You may leave me, but who says "I" will leave you? We are bound by a contract of love. Your money is my money.

Yuu:Greedy.

.

.

.

Jamil: I'd leave you for a goodnight's rest...

Yuu: Hey!You were suppose to say the question to me! *sulks*

Jamil: *sighs*Yeah yeah...will you leave me for 1 million thaumarks?

Yuu: Never, I love your cooking too much. I literally can't live without you.

Jamil:*proud smirk*

.

.

.

Vil: What a stupid game.

Yuu: Come on, just say it.

Vil: *raises an eyebrow* Hmph..you're better off doing something else. And I already know you'd never leave me for money so meager

Yuu: So you think I'd leave you for a higher amount?

Vil:*clicks his tongue* You better not, you should know what's good for you *stares at Yuu has offended him already*

Yuu: Yes yes...sorry, Vil. Of course not, you're my #1. The best thing in my world money can't buy.

Vil: Don't patronize me, darling.Besides, you can't buy anything, you're broke.

Yuu: Ouch, reality check.

.

.

.

Idia:Is this one of those dumb TV show tropes?

Yuu: So what if it was? Come on, ask me.

Idia: *sighs* Will you leave me for 1 million thaumarks?

Yuu: I'd leave you right now for free.

Idia:...

Yuu: I'm joking...Don't give me that look

*Spends hours consoling him*

.

.

.

Malleus: I'd never leave you for all the riches of the world, beloved.

Yuu: Wait, no. YOU ask ME.

Malleus: Oh? Why should I? Are you thinking of it? Leaving me for such a petty sum?

Yuu: No!!! Ofcourse not.

Malleus:*teasing* So a higher sum, then?

Yuu: NO SUM AT ALL!!!*blushes because they realized they were teased*

Malleus: Good to hear, my love. But just in case, let me remind you...*drops several jewels into their hands* That leaving me would be foolish,for I can even offer you the stars if you wish, so perish the thought.

[tinystepsforward]

autocrattic (more matt shenanigans, not tumblr this time)

I am almost definitely not the right person for this writeup, but I'm closer than most people on here, so here goes! This is all open-source tech drama, and I take my time laying out the context, but the short version is: Matt tried to extort another company, who immediately posted receipts, and now he's refusing to log off again. The long version is... long.

If you don't need software context, scroll down/find the "ok tony that's enough. tell me what's actually happening" heading, or just go read the pink sections. Or look at this PDF.

the background

So. Matt's original Good Idea was starting WordPress with fellow developer Mike Little in 2003, which is free and open-source software (FOSS) that was originally just for blogging, but now powers lots of websites that do other things. In particular, Automattic acquired WooCommerce a long time ago, which is free online store software you can run on WordPress.

FOSS is... interesting. It's a world that ultimately is powered by people who believe deeply that information and resources should be free, but often have massive blind spots (for example, Wikipedia's consistently had issues with bias, since no amount of "anyone can edit" will overcome systemic bias in terms of who has time to edit or is not going to be driven away by the existing contributor culture). As with anything else that people spend thousands of hours doing online, there's drama. As with anything else that's technically free but can be monetized, there are:

Heaps of companies and solo developers who profit off WordPress themes, plugins, hosting, and other services;

Conflicts between volunteer contributors and for-profit contributors;

Annoying founders who get way too much credit for everything the project has become.

the WordPress ecosystem

A project as heavily used as WordPress (some double-digit percentage of the Internet uses WP. I refuse to believe it's the 43% that Matt claims it is, but it's a pretty large chunk) can't survive just on the spare hours of volunteers, especially in an increasingly monetised world where its users demand functional software, are less and less tech or FOSS literate, and its contributors have no fucking time to build things for that userbase.

Matt runs Automattic, which is a privately-traded, for-profit company. The free software is run by the WordPress Foundation, which is technically completely separate (wordpress.org). The main products Automattic offers are WordPress-related: WordPress.com, a host which was designed to be beginner-friendly; Jetpack, a suite of plugins which extend WordPress in a whole bunch of ways that may or may not make sense as one big product; WooCommerce, which I've already mentioned. There's also WordPress VIP, which is the fancy bespoke five-digit-plus option for enterprise customers. And there's Tumblr, if Matt ever succeeds in putting it on WordPress. (Every Tumblr or WordPress dev I know thinks that's fucking ridiculous and impossible. Automattic's hiring for it anyway.)

Automattic devotes a chunk of its employees toward developing Core, which is what people in the WordPress space call WordPress.org, the free software. This is part of an initiative called Five for the Future — 5% of your company's profits off WordPress should go back into making the project better. Many other companies don't do this.

There are lots of other companies in the space. GoDaddy, for example, barely gives back in any way (and also sucks). WP Engine is the company this drama is about. They don't really contribute to Core. They offer relatively expensive WordPress hosting, as well as providing a series of other WordPress-related products like LocalWP (local site development software), Advanced Custom Fields (the easiest way to set up advanced taxonomies and other fields when making new types of posts. If you don't know what this means don't worry about it), etc.

Anyway. Lots of strong personalities. Lots of for-profit companies. Lots of them getting invested in, or bought by, private equity firms.

Matt being Matt, tech being tech

As was said repeatedly when Matt was flipping out about Tumblr, all of the stuff happening at Automattic is pretty normal tech company behaviour. Shit gets worse. People get less for their money. WordPress.com used to be a really good place for people starting out with a website who didn't need "real" WordPress — for $48 a year on the Personal plan, you had really limited features (no plugins or other customisable extensions), but you had a simple website with good SEO that was pretty secure, relatively easy to use, and 24-hour access to Happiness Engineers (HEs for short. Bad job title. This was my job) who could walk you through everything no matter how bad at tech you were. Then Personal plan users got moved from chat to emails only. Emails started being responded to by contractors who didn't know as much as HEs did and certainly didn't get paid half as well. Then came AI, and the mandate for HEs to try to upsell everyone things they didn't necessarily need. (This is the point at which I quit.)

But as was said then as well, most tech CEOs don't publicly get into this kind of shitfight with their users. They're horrid tyrants, but they don't do it this publicly.

ok tony that's enough. tell me what's actually happening

WordCamp US, one of the biggest WordPress industry events of the year, is the backdrop for all this. It just finished.

There are.... a lot of posts by Matt across multiple platforms because, as always, he can't log off. But here's the broad strokes.

Sep 17

Matt publishes a wanky blog post about companies that profit off open source without giving back. It targets a specific company, WP Engine.

Compare the Five For the Future pages from Automattic and WP Engine, two companies that are roughly the same size with revenue in the ballpark of half a billion. These pledges are just a proxy and aren’t perfectly accurate, but as I write this, Automattic has 3,786 hours per week (not even counting me!), and WP Engine has 47 hours. WP Engine has good people, some of whom are listed on that page, but the company is controlled by Silver Lake, a private equity firm with $102 billion in assets under management. Silver Lake doesn’t give a dang about your Open Source ideals. It just wants a return on capital. So it’s at this point that I ask everyone in the WordPress community to vote with your wallet. Who are you giving your money to? Someone who’s going to nourish the ecosystem, or someone who’s going to frack every bit of value out of it until it withers?

(It's worth noting here that Automattic is funded in part by BlackRock, who Wikipedia calls "the world's largest asset manager".)

Sep 20 (WCUS final day)

WP Engine puts out a blog post detailing their contributions to WordPress.

Matt devotes his keynote/closing speech to slamming WP Engine.

He also implies people inside WP Engine are sending him information.

For the people sending me stuff from inside companies, please do not do it on your work device. Use a personal phone, Signal with disappearing messages, etc. I have a bunch of journalists happy to connect you with as well. #wcus — Twitter I know private equity and investors can be brutal (read the book Barbarians at the Gate). Please let me know if any employee faces firing or retaliation for speaking up about their company's participation (or lack thereof) in WordPress. We'll make sure it's a big public deal and that you get support. — Tumblr

Matt also puts out an offer live at WordCamp US:

“If anyone of you gets in trouble for speaking up in favor of WordPress and/or open source, reach out to me. I’ll do my best to help you find a new job.” — source tweet, RTed by Matt

He also puts up a poll asking the community if WP Engine should be allowed back at WordCamps.

Sep 21

Matt writes a blog post on the WordPress.org blog (the official project blog!): WP Engine is not WordPress.

He opens this blog post by claiming his mom was confused and thought WP Engine was official.

The blog post goes on about how WP Engine disabled post revisions (which is a pretty normal thing to do when you need to free up some resources), therefore being not "real" WordPress. (As I said earlier, WordPress.com disables most features for Personal and Premium plans. Or whatever those plans are called, they've been renamed like 12 times in the last few years. But that's a different complaint.)

Sep 22: More bullshit on Twitter. Matt makes a Reddit post on r/Wordpress about WP Engine that promptly gets deleted. Writeups start to come out:

Search Engine Journal: WordPress Co-Founder Mullenweg Sparks Backlash

TechCrunch: Matt Mullenweg calls WP Engine a ‘cancer to WordPress’ and urges community to switch providers

Sep 23 onward

Okay, time zones mean I can't effectively sequence the rest of this.

Matt defends himself on Reddit, casually mentioning that WP Engine is now suing him.

Also here's a decent writeup from someone involved with the community that may be of interest.

WP Engine drops the full PDF of their cease and desist, which includes screenshots of Matt apparently threatening them via text.

Twitter link | Direct PDF link

This PDF includes some truly fucked texts where Matt appears to be trying to get WP Engine to pay him money unless they want him to tell his audience at WCUS that they're evil.

Matt, after saying he's been sued and can't talk about it, hosts a Twitter Space and talks about it for a couple hours.

He also continues to post on Reddit, Twitter, and on the Core contributor Slack.

Here's a comment where he says WP Engine could have avoided this by paying Automattic 8% of their revenue.

Another, 20 hours ago, where he says he's being downvoted by "trolls, probably WPE employees"

At some point, Matt updates the WordPress Foundation trademark policy. I am 90% sure this was him — it's not legalese and makes no fucking sense to single out WP Engine.

Old text: The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks and you are free to use it in any way you see fit. New text: The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks, but please don’t use it in a way that confuses people. For example, many people think WP Engine is “WordPress Engine” and officially associated with WordPress, which it’s not. They have never once even donated to the WordPress Foundation, despite making billions of revenue on top of WordPress.

Sep 25: Automattic puts up their own legal response.

anyway this fucking sucks

This is bigger than anything Matt's done before. I'm so worried about my friends who're still there. The internal ramifications have... been not great so far, including that Matt's naturally being extra gung-ho about "you're either for me or against me and if you're against me then don't bother working your two weeks".

Despite everything, I like WordPress. (If you dig into this, you'll see plenty of people commenting about blocks or Gutenberg or React other things they hate. Unlike many of the old FOSSheads, I actually also think Gutenberg/the block editor was a good idea, even if it was poorly implemented.)

I think that the original mission — to make it so anyone can spin up a website that's easy enough to use and blog with — is a good thing. I think, despite all the ways being part of FOSS communities since my early teens has led to all kinds of racist, homophobic and sexual harm for me and for many other people, that free and open-source software is important.

So many people were already burning out of the project. Matt has been doing this for so long that those with long memories can recite all the ways he's wrecked shit back a decade or more. Most of us are exhausted and need to make money to live. The world is worse than it ever was.

Social media sucks worse and worse, and this was a world in which people missed old webrings, old blogs, RSS readers, the world where you curated your own whimsical, unpaid corner of the Internet. I started actually actively using my own WordPress blog this year, and I've really enjoyed it.

And people don't want to deal with any of this.

The thing is, Matt's right about one thing: capital is ruining free open-source software. What he's wrong about is everything else: the idea that WordPress.com isn't enshittifying (or confusing) at a much higher rate than WP Engine, the idea that WP Engine or Silver Lake are the only big players in the field, the notion that he's part of the solution and not part of the problem.

But he's started a battle where there are no winners but the lawyers who get paid to duke it out, and all the volunteers who've survived this long in an ecosystem increasingly dominated by big money are giving up and leaving.

Anyway if you got this far, consider donating to someone on gazafunds.com. It'll take much less time than reading this did.

[venus-is-thinking]

DRDT Chapter 2 Episode 14: Initial Thoughts

What an episode! I can't believe that we're probably starting to near the end of the Trial. But, considering we're almost there, we DEFINITELY have a lot to talk about. It's a longer episode, and there's a LOT to go over, so buckle in!

SPOILER WARNING FOR DRDT CH 2 PART 2!

T/W: Murder, hanging (with depictions)

The Reactions

Hu is literally so pretty.

I wasn't expecting her to get a whole mechanic defending Nico, but it makes sense. Letting other students cut in during the Class Trial is a great way to draw specific attention to a character point, and it's very clear that Hu's over-defense of Nico is going to be important moving forwards.

RIP to my "using the weight rack as the carousel" theory. The fan probably makes more sense. I just still have no idea how the 300-ish pound or whatever weight rack managed to get knocked over in the struggle.

I'm glad they directly pointed this out. Trying to kill everyone in the Class Trial was the EXACT thing Hu was so pressed about David doing. It's a weird double standard to be so forgiving of Nico when they tried to do the same thing.

Insane thing to say if Eden is the culprit and killed Arei because she didn't believe her. Then again, if my explanation for a lot of Eden Trial dialogue is "she's speaking out of regret for killing Arei now that she knows Arei was being legit," maybe she's just calling herself cruel as well.

This is honestly very valid.

Do you think "here" implies Nico trusts someone in the outside world? Based on their secret, it seems like they probably didn't have many friends. Could also be referring to animals? Or Mai Akasaki?

Big psychic damage to Hu though, considering we know she thrives on other people relying on her. She wants Nico to be someone who relies on her sooo bad, but they just... don't.

Like, girl. They literally JUST said that they don't trust anyone. That includes you.

She's clearly projecting in some way, though, which is definitely an oof. I wonder if Hu wishes she had someone who was undeniably on her side in the past...?

(To be clear: I think Hu is a very well written and interesting character. She fits the fucked up vibes of Despair Time, but coming from a more surprising angle of "that really nice and caring person can also be fucked up." She's just clearly in the wrong here, so I get to clown on her as I clown on everyone else.)

Ace is honestly so valid for this. Like, yeah he's kind of a bully and he sucks sometimes, but. Like. He did almost get murdered and people are, like, mad at him for it? Huh???

If Ace does end up being the Chapter 2 killer because he snapped, I honestly think he's so valid for that.

It is my personal agenda to record every instance of J being notably anti-murder. I don't know where it's going but if it does go somewhere I want my credit because it is Apparent.

(The entire fanbase nods in agreement.)

I know some people definitely still think/thought that Hu and/or Nico was responsible for the crime, so we've all DEFINITELY been squinting at that alibi. I fully believe it's true, but that doesn't change the fact that I wouldn't put it past Hu to make a fake alibi to protect Nico. Idk if Nico would go along with it, though.

I got so jumpscared by the Closing Argument-style CG.

I'm so glad we did get a definitive answer on how this thing worked. I was so afraid that we were just gonna solve the Arei murder method and the exact solution of Ace's would be a "left to audience interpretation" kind of thing.

I'm not exactly sure where the blood on Ace's fingertips comes from? Maybe he cut his hand on the wire when he was trying to struggle after he woke up or something.

This makes so much more sense than anything I saw theorized though, lol. The fan falling from drop hanging totally checks out as a way that the murder mechanism could fail.

I have NO fucking clue why Nico opted for this as the murder mechanism, though. I get wanting to use Hu's wire to frame her, but why didn't you just cut Ace's throat with the wire in the first place???

where did their cape go :(

Potentially suspicious line from Ace? I don't know what he's referring to as "go through all this." Like, maybe just reliving the murder attempt, I guess...? Could also be going through the Class Trial, though, if Ace killed as a result of Nico trying to kill him.

*Levi's secret quote looms*

Things that make me think Nico is either a victim or a survivor. Like, are you really gonna say this and then go try to kill someone else? ...Or Ace again, I guess??

Fun fact: this was actually what guided me to my initial killer picks, before I discussed with anyone else or read any theories! I thought the killer was trying to frame Nico, so it had to be Eden or Ace. The tape and everything else was just what locked it in for me. It's fun to see Teruko follow more or less the same path that I did when I was trying to solve the mystery :)

TAPE TIME :D

The use of the Bound Wrists truth bullet actually really confused me at first bc I didn't realize we were just talking about the tape. I was like, were Arei's wrists bound because Ace's were and it was intended to be another similarity???

Maybe Eden's just being nice, but I find it really suspicious that her instinct after all this time is "didn't MonoTV take it" and not "oh I guess Ace is probably the murderer."

Teruko has now outlined two different ways that it makes sense if the killer was in the gym that night. If I were Eden, and I were innocent, I would be realizing that there's a very small suspect pool left, and I know that I'm not the killer, giving me additional information. Instead, she's questioning the validity of the tape argument, which isn't useful for narrowing down the killer-- it's useful for keeping the suspect pool wider and not leaving herself as one of three (but basically two) options.

I kinda get why people are upset with Rose here, but it's also kind of an oof because they're only mad because Rose is really smart. Like, no one's out here like "oh my god Ace you didn't recognize the tape??" Y'know, because they think he's stupid. Rose has a really good memory, which raises the standards really high, which sets Rose up for failure.

In Rose's defense, she also never saw the tape in Nico's gym murder OR on the carousel for Arei's murder. She only saw the pieces in the trash can, which seemed to be inside out. Against Rose's defense, it would probably have been for the best if she'd gone in to look at the crime scene.

Am I tripping, or is "fish misunderstanding" a weird way for David to phrase this? The misunderstanding with Teruko was assuming that the murder happened last night, which was in fact because of the fish-- but the thing Teruko should have noticed, which makes it Teruko's mistake specifically, was the body swinging.

I'm probably reading into things too hard, but it's so hard with David. What do you know!!!

Damn, Teruko is SPEEDRUNNING this character arc. Considering we basically know she's locked in for all 6 chapters, I'm really surprised to see her making this much progress this fast.

I'm guessing that this means that Teruko is probably due for a major setback sometime sooner or later. But, interestingly, this makes me feel like Teruko realizing that working alone doesn't work isn't her character arc's end destination; it's the willingness to open herself up to caring about others even in the face of the consequences of losing someone you love. Teruko is closing herself off from everyone because she knows she's going to lose them. Maybe her end destination is allowing herself to love people, even if she might lose them someday.

This was fruity as hell btw. I'm starting to think Rose may be our replacement support if Charles does die in Chapter 3.

It's so funny that this is basically Teruko claiming in-universe protag privilege. Go off, queen.

I also said something along the lines of "Hu are we really doing this again." Totally forgot that the BDA is still relevant, lol.

I personally find the way Veronika phrased this to be very telling from an author's POV. Veronika doesn't say "she must not have committed the murder," she says "she must not have witnessed the murder." It would be totally reasonable for any of the students to forget that the rule is written in a way where a killer could fail to see the moment of murder, but DRDTdev wanted to draw attention to the rule's exact phrasing again, which is a deviation from the phrasing in the canon games.

To be clear here, I stand by this even if Eden isn't the killer and the BDA group really is Eden/Whit/Teruko. I still think it could be a reminder for a future chapter when it comes up. But, I don't think it makes sense to change the phrasing of a base rule unless there's a specific reason you want it to be different. Whether now or later, this feels like a reminder that it IS possible for the blackened to trigger the BDA.

I don't necessarily "believe David," per se, but I do think it's interesting that we're drawing attention to this. I don't really think it matters, especially because I doubt the characters remember, but I'd place my bets on Eden being the last one because of that, "Teruko, wait!" thing.

It doesn't matter because, if David or anyone else saw the body, no one can confirm which two of Teruko, Whit and Eden set off the BDA, but it's an interesting note.

It's so funny how no one, fanbase or in-universe, can tell if David is lying though. Like, he COULD have seen it, but he also easily could just be making shit up to try to throw the Trial again.

will I EVER understand what the fuck this man is cooking

Why. I thought you wanted to end the killing game to finish what Xander started. I don't know what's happening :( /pos

My guess for now is just that he's still trying to kill Teruko, in keeping with Xander's plans?? Idk how making her more distrustful makes her more likely to die, though.

I do find it very interesting that Eden's approach/reaction has been to be very quiet and freaked out whereas Ace's approach/reaction is to freak out VERY loudly. Ace's is fitting because what does he do other than freak out loudly, but I might have expected Eden to do... idk, something else? It makes enough sense though, considering either the group is right to suspect her, or she's still coping with losing Arei a little bit ago.

...*squints REALLY fucking hard*

The music and voice acting in this section is REALLY fucking good. It's sad/charming/soft enough that it feels like it could be genuine, but there's still a little something that makes you have to question whether or not it's real. You WANT to believe Eden, but it's so hard to do so fully.

Y'all think Eden's crying is reminding Teruko of whatever Arei's crying reminded her of?

i'm out of images :(

I really like Teruko assuming that Eden is innocent first. She's too distrusting and also reasonable (it is life or death after all) to just hard clear Eden based on nothing, but she's offering a bit of a reprieve to Eden. Eden's friendship means that she isn't going to get immediately targeted in her most down moment, and that's it. It's a small way to show Eden she does care.

On another note, the fact that Eden got to hug Teruko and that Teruko said the "let go of me" NOW is honestly one of the main reasons I trust Eden more. I felt like that was obviously going to happen, but I was expecting the post-Trial. Putting it here is wild.

Theory Update/Analysis

Oh boy, it's accusing time! It makes sense that we're going to start with Ace. At this point, I can honestly see it going either way. Major props to DRDTdev either way, but ESPECIALLY if Eden really is the culprit. I was so confident in it, but they're really making me question my assumptions.

I think that both Ace and Eden have good reasons to be the blackened or not to be, and good reasons to die here or to not. I'm going to do my best to make a list of reasons for both characters and give a bit of my thoughts on them. They're roughly ranked in most to least important order imo, but I didn't think too hard about it.

EDEN

Reasons Eden Would Be The Blackened:

THE TAPE: It would be easier for her to take the tape than Ace, as attention was on Ace in the gym. The tape's disappearance from the background also happens to coincide with Ace knocking her over and her standing back up.

THE NOTE: Eden already knows all the info she would need to know to write that note. She could have put the note back together to give herself a defense, to try to disprove herself as the culprit with her handwriting, because Rose was going to do it anyways, and/or to frame Arturo if she didn't know he had an alibi. I think any of these reasons, or a combination of these reasons, are enough to make it possible, and while Ace could've overheard, it's definitely less easy for him.

NOT BELIEVING AREI: Both Arei and Charles have, in this trial, been shown to question whether or not Eden believed Arei wanted to be Eden's friend. If Eden simply did, this plot point goes nowhere.

A GOOD PERSON: Eden has been called a good person, but other than that freaky CG, nothing has really come of it. Is the plot relevance of Eden being a good person really going to resolve by saying "Eden is a good person, she'd never kill her friend!"? If a good person isn't gold, Eden still feels like a missing piece of that puzzle.

INCENTIVE TO FRAME NICO: This one's a bit more of a reach, but I don't really understand the point of framing Nico if you're Ace. Of course Ace is going to insist Nico is the murderer no matter what. If you're Eden, you have a direct audience to setting it up similarly: Ace. If you can get Ace to go all in on Nico, that's one less person who was in the Gym who suspects you. Eden and Teruko feel less likely to say "oh well it looks like Nico's murder so it MUST be Nico."

HEAVY FOCUS IN CH 2: DRDTdev seems to give the chapter death's important content shortly before their deaths. Eden has been one of the most prominent characters this chapter, which could be a bad sign.

Reasons Eden Wouldn't Be the Blackened

HER EMOTIONAL REACTIONS: I think I stand with everyone else when I say that the thing giving me pause with Eden!Culprit is how devastated she truly seems to be. I do still think it could be a combo of guilt and panic over the prospect of dying, but it's hard to justify everything.

HER FRIENDSHIP WITH AREI: Sort of a spinoff of the last one, but Arei was at least offering to Eden to be friends and to protect her. If Eden did believe that, to any extent at all, it's hard to imagine her killing Arei in cold blood.

THE FISH: The biggest question when it comes to evidence as to how Eden could be the killer. If Nico fed the fish and they were all still there last night, and Eden had an alibi until after the Relax Room closed, how would she have gotten the fish to add to the crime scene?

THE BDA: Easy to ignore imo considering we've already called it into question within the series proper, but still worth talking about. For Eden to be the culprit, either someone else saw the body first and isn't claiming to have (or it's David), or we're burning the "Eden didn't witness the crime and thus could still trigger the BDA" card here.

GENDER BALANCE: Possibly an irrelevant point, but it is true that we've had 2 women and 1 man die so far. If a man was the killer, it'd keep it even. Unlikely to be relevant as any disparity could be easily balanced out in Chapter 3 with (presumably) 3 death slots.

Points About Eden That Could Go Either Way

THE FORK CG: I firmly believe that this could be setting up for Eden being a more important character throughout the series or to die after a moment of intrigue, possibly letting us explore/imply more in her post-death bonus episode.

RELATIONSHIP WITH HU: Hu has lost David as a sane ally. Nico is telling her that they don't want her speaking for them and that they don't trust her. Would DRDTdev prefer to fully isolate Hu moving into Chapter 3 by getting rid of Eden, or to leave Hu with one friend who still believes in her.

CHARLES HAVING EDEN'S SECRET: By telling us Eden's secret ahead of time by Charles revealing it to Teruko, extra focus was given to Eden's secret. Was this just the easiest way to get everyone's secrets revealed based on character dynamics, or was it meant to imply that Eden's secret is extra important? Is that because she's the killer? Is it a #ArEden sweep???

ACE

(why are they both orange)

Reasons Ace Would Be The Blackened:

NO EVIDENCE-BASED ISSUES: This is the biggest and strongest point across the whole board imo. There is no tangible, evidence-based reason why Ace COULDN'T have done the crime. Out of all 13 currently surviving students, he's the only one who that's true for. That obviously makes him a viable suspect.

WOULD ABSOLUTELY FUCKING DO IT: Ace has been Freaking The Fuck Out this chapter. I could VERY easily see him deciding to kill here. I don't think anyone is trying to argue that Ace is too emotionally attached to the cast to try to kill all of them, because he clearly isn't.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?: I'm not really sure where Ace's character is going to go from here. I'd be interested in seeing more from him, but, like, where is his character arching to if not a killer? Ace is so disliked and intense that it's hard to imagine him really, fully pivoting and caring about others, but if he can't do that, is he destined to be a killer eventually?

HEAVY FOCUS IN CH 2: DRDTdev seems to give the chapter's death important content shortly before their deaths. Ace has been one of the most prominent characters this chapter, which could be a bad sign.

Reasons Ace Wouldn't Be the Blackened

OBVIOUSNESS & POINT OF CHARACTER: Of course Ace would be willing to kill Arei or whoever and the rest of the students. This is kind of the inverse of my "would absolutely fucking do it" point-- I don't know exactly how much surprise it would carry if Ace were to be the culprit. And, more than that, I feel like the point of Ace is that he is a victim here, but he's so unlikable that no one wants to acknowledge that or believe in him. I think it'd be an interesting comparison, if everyone really wants Ace to be the killer, but he just isn't. To everyone's dismay, Ace is still here. Now what?

SECRET LARGELY UNRESOLVED: Ace's secret hasn't really had any plot relevance yet. It seems like most people's do. I'm like lowkey expecting them to bring back the starvation motive from SDR2 in Chapter 4 and have SOMETHING happen with Ace there. Either way, while it could be reserved for his bonus episode (a la Min and Xander), I'd expect that his secret would have more main-story impact before he dies.

EXISTENCE OF SCRUM DEBATE: We're suspecting Ace first, but we still haven't done the scrum debate for this trial. Unless the scrum debate is "do we just vote for Ace without ever really pursuing Eden" and the answer is "yes," I don't see how we get out of this suspecting Ace period with a scrum debate without at least entertaining the idea of Ace's innocence.

STRONG CONNECTIONS TO OTHER CAST MEMBERS: Ace is very relevant to the Levi, Nico and Hu plotlines right now. Are they really going to just... get rid of him, when that's what both Nico and Hu would want?

ABILITY TO FIGURE OUT THE CONTRAPTION: Ace would not only have to recognize the way in which Nico was trying to kill him (which, to be fair is easier if he did wake up partway through), he would also have to conceptualize and figure out how to make the playground contraption successfully. I think Eden's clockmaking skills and... generally higher intelligence imo would be better suited to that.

COWARDICE: Ace is so fucking scared of everything. Would he want to put himself into harm's way by becoming the killer and having a do or die moment in the Trial? But, is he more scared of dying as a victim in the killing game, after seeing how close Nico came to killing him?

Points About Ace That Could Go Either Way

TAYLOR LORE DROP: Ace's friend, named Taylor per a Q&A with the dev, got vagued about in this Trial. Is that something to be pursued in a later Ace free time (following the one with Levi), or is that something that's going to be explained further in Ace's bonus episode (which could VERY easily be about friendship, considering it's Mai fucking Akasaki as the other person in the convo).

ACE'S BREAKDOWN @ LEVI: When Ace said he didn't fall for Levi caring about him at all, was that him affirming himself that it was the correct decision to try to kill, even if it'd put Levi's life at stake, who he previously kinda liked? Or was he lying to himself, and, at least previously, he wouldn't have wanted to kill Levi, no matter how harsh he seemed on the surface?

Well, that's all I got! Please let me know if you can come up with any more points for any of the 6 categories, because I'm very very curious to hear them! I'm thinking I might try to do an expansion on this in a separate post before next episode if I have time, exploring the ins and outs of each point with more textual evidence to back it up. I'd love to discuss any reader-suggested points too, if y'all have some in mind!

For now, I'm still personally leaning towards Eden as the culprit over Ace, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it be either of them. Well, other than the fact that my reaction to the killer being revealed is going to be :O no matter what.

[glassedplanets]

i cannot believe it's taken me this long to do a destiny AU but wow better late than never

playing very fast and loose with both canons here - pirate crews = renegade clans, marines/world gov't = vanguard (sorry actual vanguard whomst i love). the one piece is the traveler??? who knows. anyways:

luffy, human lightbearer

subclass: yippee!

loadout: wahoo!

ghost: mugi, one-of-a-kind shell given to him by shanks as a kinderguardian. the shell seems to change when he supers. What's Up With That!

all prismatic all the time, basically a dark age guardian. zero boundaries between class and subclass. just does whatever is fun. doesn't care until he Does and then you're fucked.

regularly wears (steals) class items from clanmates, it was a little alarming at first but they all feel whatever about it now

should not be trusted with raid mechanics.

zoro, awoken titan

subclass: strand

primary: breakneck (OG roll)

secondary: ergo sum (void/caster/wolfpack)

heavy: falling guillotine (OG godroll, WWB/relentless)

exotic: stoicism (inmost/star-eater or inmost/synthos)

ghost: wado, received from kuina after her death (don't think about this too hard. jaren ward/shin malphur situation. whatever). wado's shell was cloven by mihawk in a duel.

wears sanji's old bond looped into his mark, will not answer questions about this

specced hard into banner for a fuckoff insane melee loop, rotates melee buffs with luffy and sanji

mostly DPS/add clear, uses that ergo roll so that sanji/luffy/franky (haz prop) can get wolfpack, if the boss can't be meleed then Why Is He Even Here

flat-out banned from participating in the mechanics of several raid encounters on account of going to the wrong fucking place (vault, gatekeeper, sol inherent, totems, etc.), if he gets torn between dimensions or anything but first in queenswalk then everyone just has to desperately pray for the best.

ran vanguard bounties regularly until he eventually refused to cooperate with the then-head of the cosmodrome's operations; luffy found him with kuina's ghost bound and freed them both. The Rest Is History.

distributary-born but doesn't know (or care), kept being greeted weirdly by people in the dreaming city (which i guess is where we have wano's events......... kaido is literally a dragon, so)

VJ-G-66-03 sanji, human (?) warlock

subclass: prismatic, solar super

primary: fatebringer (OG fatebringer roll™)

secondary: tarrabah

heavy: apex predator (recon/B&S)

exotic: solipsism (assassin/synthos)

ghost: mignon, received from zeff after voluntarily giving up his light for sanji

wears zoro's old mark tied below his bond, will not answer questions about this

specced into Burn Motherfucker Burn, solar buddy + snaps, frontline add clear alongside luffy and zoro, also part of the "if the boss can't be meleed/snapped then why am i even here" gang

CAN be trusted with raid mechanics but is often better utilized keeping adds off the other half of the fireteam

sanji's body is riddled with vintech implants that don't seem to do anything. they're most definitely new, and sanji wasn't rezzed that long ago, but vintech was lost in the collapse along with everything else and the only thing that really survived is a bunch of muddled records found at old vega collective sites.

sanji was the vintech patriarch's one failed experiment; his consciousness refused transfer to an exo body and after many attempts, he was discarded but managed to survive through the kindness of dark-age guardians until he was taken in by zeff.

he has three vertical black facial markings; each experiment has a number of markings corresponding to their order (and color) in the sequence.

and other straw hats! i have a little less about them, but:

nami, human hunter

subclass: arcstaff (Throw Stick/well of bad/i don't remember its actual name)

primary: patron of lost causes

secondary: riskrunner

heavy: stormchaser

exotic: liar's handshake

ghost: zeus, stolen from big mom (tangerine shell)

(was tempted to do stormcaller unlimited power but arcstaff is... you know)

usopp, human hunter

subclass: solar, precision goldie

primary: succession

secondary: trinity ghoul

heavy: scintillation

exotic: nighthawk

ghost: merry (sheepshead shell)

can and should be trusted with raid mechanics along w/ nami

and the rest of the crew i'm not 100% set on buuuuut:

chopper: exo warlock (well of radiance)

robin: awoken warlock (strand? void?)

franky: exo titan (thundercrash)

brook: exo hunter (stasis)

jinbei: awoken titan (stasis? arc?)

misc others:

law: awoken prismatic hunter, blinky knife

reiju-0: exo void hunter, tether + smoke bomb, le monarque

ichiji-1: exo solar hunter, blade barrage

niji-2: exo arc titan, striker, ACD/0

yonji-4: exo strand titan

and textless, glow-less versions if you got this far!

[autistichalsin]

My chapter-by chapter analysis of The Hunger Games, chapter 1

Disclaimer: this and all future chapter analyses will contain spoilers for all the books.

What really strikes me about this chapter is what a masterpiece it is; a masterpiece of foreshadowing, establishing moments of characterization, worldbuilding and more, all without ever feeling like we're actually getting infodumped on. This is accomplished with Katniss's stream-of-consciousness storytelling. I've heard it criticized so much, but even aside from the very salient point that it fits her characterization as an emotionally stunted, traumatized, poorly-educated teenage girl, it still helps the story in moments like this. We feel Katniss's inner chaos, and it makes the story that much more immersive.

On to the spoilery part of the analysis:

When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold. My fingers stretch out, seeking Prim’s warmth but finding only the rough canvas cover of the mattress.

There was a post, a while ago, that I can't find but wish I could. In it, the OP talks about how Prim is literally doomed by the narrative, not "heavily foreshadowed death," but literally doomed by the narrative, and this paragraph is the first sign, because Katniss reaches for Prim and feels emptiness instead. And re-reading this, I agree. The first thing we see Katniss do is reach for Prim, and find nothing. This time, it's temporary, but by the end of the series, it won't be. We've been warned, even if we don't realize it yet: Prim is doomed.

Scrawny kitten, belly swollen with worms, crawling with fleas. The last thing I needed was another mouth to feed. But Prim begged so hard, cried even, I had to let him stay. It turned out okay. My mother got rid of the vermin and he’s a born mouser. Even catches the occasional rat. Sometimes, when I clean a kill, I feed Buttercup the entrails. He has stopped hissing at me.

Katniss loves her sister and will do literally anything for her. Katniss also has no moral qualms about drowning kittens. With just one paragraph, we learn what a simultaneously harshly practical yet beautifully caring, loving person Katniss is. She has no room in her life for useless things like pets, and drowning strays probably helps the people of 12 in the long run by leaving vermin to be eaten by those on the verge of starvation. But her sister wants to keep Buttercup, and so she will. Katniss will sacrifice anything to keep Prim happy.

Foreshadowing. Prim is doomed.

Entrails. No hissing. This is the closest we will ever come to love.

STILL more foreshadowing, for different themes: both for one of Katniss's biggest complexes (I'll get into details about this later) and for the theme of love. Katniss doesn't truly love anyone but Prim. Her entire world, we know, is going to be shaken when she does finally feel that for someone else again. Once again, we are being introduced to the recurring themes of love vs practicality and the classic question, "how much pain is love worth?"

Katniss is going to answer this question again and again: for Prim, there is no amount of suffering too great. For others... she'll find different answers. Eventually.

My father knew and he taught me some before he was blown to bits in a mine explosion. There was nothing even to bury. I was eleven then. Five years later, I still wake up screaming for him to run.

The first hints of Katniss as a deeply traumatized girl emerge. Sometimes, when you're traumatized enough, thoughts can segue into The Event with no warning, just by proximity. And through the combination of blunted language and stream-of-consciousness leaps, we can see just how broken this has left Katniss. Unfortunately, this is only the start of Events for her.

My father could have made good money selling them, but if the officials found out he would have been publicly executed for inciting a rebellion. Most of the Peacekeepers turn a blind eye to the few of us who hunt because they’re as hungry for fresh meat as anybody is. In fact, they’re among our best customers.

A brilliant bit of worldbuilding. The Peacekeepers are working off of deeply corrupt laws, which they ignore because they too are being mistreated and systematically starved, even if they aren't as at risk as the people of 12. The system doesn't care about the very same people it safeguards to enforce its rules. This is the first hint we get that the system isn't sustainable, and it comes before we even fully understand what kind of hell this government is.

The theme of "bread and circuses" is going to be hammered down to us again and again that this is how tyrannical governments, including this one, pacify the masses. But when only the bourgeoisie are being given the bread and circuses, well.... the proletariat aren't going to take it forever.

The book hasn't shown itself to be the anti-capitalist masterpiece it is yet, but this is the first hint that we're reading a tale of class warfare.

“District Twelve. Where you can starve to death in safety,” I mutter. Then I glance quickly over my shoulder. Even here, even in the middle of nowhere, you worry someone might overhear you.

I have seen criticisms that this is an egregious case of showing and not telling, with Katniss constantly talking about the dangers of badmouthing the government while never facing them. But in truth, it's the opposite. Yes, Katniss hasn't been caught despite repeated statements that she could have, but we'll learn, here and in future chapters, that 12 has been receiving a sort of tradeoff with other districts; their more severe poverty places them below notice. No one thinks them capable of causing real trouble, and even their district specialty- coal- is later proven to be basically useless, busy-work. So they get ignored... for now. Until the oligarchs start seeing what the proletariat can actually do and crack down all the harder to ensure they keep their cheap labor.

Are you seeing the resonance with the real world yet?

Even at home, where I am less pleasant, I avoid discussing tricky topics. Like the reaping, or food shortages, or the Hunger Games. Prim might begin to repeat my words and then where would we be?

Here we see the dual themes of parentification and sacrifice. Katniss will be the adult, even though she ISN'T an adult, for her sister. She will keep quiet on things that hurt her, and upset her, to set a better example for her sister and keep her from getting hurt. Prim gets to have the normal and safe childhood Katniss never had, because Katniss has invested everything into ensuring she does.

We are taking a step up the ladder of self-sacrificial acts, here. In other words: more foreshadowing. Katniss will give everything for Prim. Prim is going to die, because Katniss is going to lose everything she cared about in the process of protecting everything she cared about.

In the woods waits the only person with whom I can be myself.

Katniss can't be a teenage girl. She has to be Prim's mom. She has to be tough. She has to be a provider. She has to be a trader. An advocate. She so rarely complains about it, too. But it shows here just how much she's given up. Only one place, and one person she can be herself with, and yet...

Gale.

Isn't this ironic. Because we are about to see, throughout the entire series, that this day is going to be the last time Gale actually lets Katniss be herself (and even here, there are strong hints that Gale wants Katniss to be something very different).*

*Disclaimer, because it seems important: my opinion on the Katniss/Gale vs Katniss/Peeta ship war is "team nobody." I think both of them were very bad for her in different ways. Any comment I make that seems like it is favoring one ship or the other... isn't.

“Hey, Catnip,” says Gale. My real name is Katniss, but when I first told him, I had barely whispered it. So he thought I’d said Catnip. Then when this crazy lynx started following me around the woods looking for handouts, it became his official nickname for me.

Maybe I'm overanalyzing, but I feel like this sums up the Katniss/Gale relationship so much. Katniss tries to speak, and Gale doesn't hear or understand her. Gale projects something onto her, and Katniss rolls with it. Sure, in this case it's a cute nickname, but it represents so much more to me.

Gale doesn't understand Katniss. Fundamentally. He understands the Katniss he wants to exist. The one who will run off with him and play house in the woods and indulge his little fantasies. He doesn't know very much about the real Katniss, at least as long as he's looking at her through a romantic lens.

“Look what I shot.” Gale holds up a loaf of bread with an arrow stuck in it, and I laugh.

Despite what I just said, I do love Gale and Katniss's friendship, and it breaks my heart that their friendship was as doomed as Prim. (Hint. Hint.) Katniss needed someone who understood the unique pain of parentification due not to abuse, but poverty- the kind where you aren't 'allowed' to feel angry at anyone within reach. Which is the worst kind of injustice. Getting mad at someone who harmed you is one thing, but getting mad at a system you can never (... yet) hope to change is different.

She must have really loved him to leave her home for the Seam.

It's said in a casual and sort of admiring way here. But Katniss is going to learn firsthand about the intersection between love and sacrifice. With the generational mirroring as a theme, especially between Katniss and Peeta, we're being given more foreshadowing that Katniss has self-sacrifice "in the blood."

I try to remember that when all I can see is the woman who sat by, blank and unreachable, while her children turned to skin and bones. I try to forgive her for my father’s sake. But to be honest, I’m not the forgiving type.

Another little glimpse into Katniss's pain and trauma. Her mom wasn't there when Katniss needed her most, and Katniss and Prim both almost died as a result. It wasn't her fault, and we see later that she regrets it deeply, but this still leaves scars. Your parents, above everyone else, are supposed to protect you. Katniss's mom didn't, Katniss nearly died, and because of that, Katniss had to sacrifice what remained of her childhood to become Prim's mom.

Katniss and Prim's relationship never goes back to just normal sisterhood after this. From the moment Mrs. Everdeen's trauma rendered her catatonic onwards, Katniss and Prim's relationship was infused with a mother-child dynamic that never left, not even when Mrs. Everdeen became well again.

It's so painful, all the more so because it's so real. I lived this with my little brother, albeit with stakes maybe 1% this high, when my mom became an alcoholic and my dad was too busy just trying to survive to really do anything. I was the one to take care of him emotionally, to show someone cared, to provoke my mom's anger so he wouldn't be hit, to make sure homework got done and he didn't skip school (I failed. Badly.) He still considers me more his parent than either of our parents. It never really goes away, even when you're both adults; that overdeveloped feeling of responsibility stays with you. Always.

And the worst part of it is when the parent who made you have to do this decides, on their own, that the time is right for them to come back. Katniss's mom is far more gracious about it than my own. She at least understood Katniss's pain, and didn't try to force the role on her; it happened only when Katniss was ready. But that too, as we'll see in a minute, was painfully real for me.

“I never want to have kids,” I say. “I might. If I didn’t live here,” says Gale. “But you do,” I say, irritated. “Forget it,” he snaps back. The conversation feels all wrong.

Once again, a hint that despite their sweet friendship and similarities, these are two tragically, fundamentally incompatible people. Katniss is in too much pain to think of ever having a family, and Gale is in too much pain to think of not ever having one. Katniss wants to survive the way she always has (which she doesn't realize isn't her destiny yet) and Gale wants to flee and survive literally any other way.

Both change in the end, but the underlying incompatibilities in their life approaches are still there.

And even if we did . . . even if we did . . . where did this stuff about having kids come from? There’s never been anything romantic between Gale and me. [...] Besides, if he wants kids, Gale won’t have any trouble finding a wife. He’s good-looking, he’s strong enough to handle the work in the mines, and he can hunt. You can tell by the way the girls whisper about him when he walks by in school that they want him. It makes me jealous but not for the reason people would think. Good hunting partners are hard to find.

A few very interesting things are happening here. One, we're getting another hint, first dropped during Katniss's thoughts about Buttercup, that Katniss has a pathological inability to believe others actually like her- romantically or otherwise. Part of it is low self-esteem, part of it is putting Prim on such a pedestal that Katniss feels she can never live up (and giving her more self-esteem issues) and feeling like anything she attributes to herself might take away from Prim, and part of it is just raw cynicism. And maybe a dash or two of the feeling of permanent othering trauma gives you. Especially when that trauma involves a realization that you're never going to be able to rely on others to meet your own needs. You're responsible for your needs and your loved ones' too.

(Katniss is one of the most complex and real characters of all time. I relate to Katniss an uncomfortable amount sometimes.)

The other interesting thing is that you're getting a sense, for the first time, of how much trouble Katniss has recognizing and processing her own emotions- a very common trait in neurodivergent people. She can sort-of-understand a feeling of jealousy, but can't quite put her finger on the reason, and fitting with her attitude of relentless practicality, she decides that it's the worry of losing a useful hunting partner. Because, after all, Prim is the only person she loves, she can't care for anyone else, there isn't room for that. To care about anyone else would be to "take away" something from Prim.

Katniss repeatedly raises the question of when self-sacrifice crosses the line into self-harm by proxy. When altruistic love becomes self-negation instead. It's sweet that she loves Prim so much, but the codependence... If this is the benchmark for love for Katniss, it's no wonder that she feels at this point that she can't feel it for anyone else. This isn't sustainable.

(Prim is doomed. We've been warned.)

I found the patch a few years ago, but Gale had the idea to string mesh nets around it to keep out the animals.

This is going to be a recurring theme; Katniss is too impulsive and lacking a sufficient cause-effect pathway to be a planner/strategist. Gale makes the plans now; later it'll be Peeta and Haymitch.

(Also, this is foreshadowing Katniss's lack of agency. She is about to become an audience member in her own life story. She found the strawberries, but she didn't decide what to do about them. Gale did. That's about to become her entire life.)

No one in the Seam would turn up their nose at a good leg of wild dog, but the Peacekeepers who come to the Hob can afford to be a little choosier.

There is a hierarchy still, where the Peacekeepers are starving, but not as starving as the people in the communities they're sent to. Everyone is hungry, but some are hungrier than others.

Hint. Hint.

“That’s not her fault,” I say. “No, it’s no one’s fault. Just the way it is,” says Gale.

"Remember who the real enemy is." Katniss gets told this repeatedly, by Haymitch and others, and eventually she learns the lesson in time to lead a successful revoltuion.

Gale does not learn this lesson. He will end up destroying everything he cares about in his pursuit of revenge against the Capitol and anyone associated with it.

Gale would normally say that there is a huge difference between Madge, the mayor's daughter who is pampered and comparatively privileged, versus the willfully malicious Peacekeepers; the middle class are still part of the proletariat, after all. But Gale, in his pain and fear, loses sight of it and lashes out. This time, it's just words. By the end of the series, when he gets actual power, it will lead to something far more catastrophic.

Prim is doomed to die, Gale and Katniss's friendship is doomed to end in the most bitter way possible, and Gale is doomed to be his own worst enemy.

Gale knows his anger at Madge is misdirected. On other days, deep in the woods, I’ve listened to him rant about how the tesserae are just another tool to cause misery in our district. A way to plant hatred between the starving workers of the Seam and those who can generally count on supper and thereby ensure we will never trust one another. “It’s to the Capitol’s advantage to have us divided among ourselves,” he might say if there were no ears to hear but mine. If it wasn’t reaping day. If a girl with a gold pin and no tesserae had not made what I’m sure she thought was a harmless comment.

Gale knows he's wrong to say things like that. But again, as said above, his pain and fear get the better of him, and cause pain to those around him. His normal philosophy is correct, but he loses sight of and discards it far too easily.

(Gale is going to lose everything because of his scorched-earth approach to anger.)

Also, a note: this is how the real world operates too. Culture wars to distract from class war. For an entire generation of readers, this was their introduction to the basic principles of socialism.

But what good is yelling about the Capitol in the middle of the woods? It doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t make things fair. It doesn’t fill our stomachs. In fact, it scares off the nearby game. I let him yell though. Better he does it in the woods than in the district.

Katniss is still hung up on practicality. When she rants about the Capitol, she is, subconsciously, crying for help. But venting for the sake of venting doesn't make so much sense to her, given her stunted emotions.

Another bit of characterization I really enjoy here is the realistic teenage behavior. Yes, they're the oldest in their families, responsible for their entire family and only able to support them by hunting, and they should "know better". But they're teenagers in a fascist government, with an already extreme list of traumas and corresponding problems with emotions. Of course they're going to act irrationally at times and scare off game because they're having a meltdown- even non-traumatized teens would do that sometimes!

They're teenagers. Incredibly well-written, realistic teenagers. They don't have fully developed frontal lobes with the corresponding gifts of planning, impulse control, cause-effect relationships, and other things yet. They're more mature than most, but they're still going to behave foolishly sometimes.

Prim is in my first reaping outfit, a skirt and ruffled blouse. It’s a bit big on her, but my mother has made it stay with pins.

This is probably a "the curtains are blue because they're blue!" moment, but this is another bit of symbolism I enjoy. Katniss, at Prim's age, was hunting and entering the Hob. Prim is being kept alive by both Katniss and Mrs. Everdeen. She has a dress that mostly fits. She has good meals now. She is protected where Katniss wasn't. The dress represents both the sacrifices Katniss made for her and the fact that now, Prim has the adoring mother Katniss didn't have. She has two loving people looking out for her, willing to do anything to keep her safe, healthy, and happy.

(Prim is doomed.)

To my surprise, my mother has laid out one of her own lovely dresses for me. A soft blue thing with matching shoes. “Are you sure?” I ask.

Katniss can't comprehend her mom doing motherly things for her. Both because of the parentification, and because Katniss still fundamentally can't believe that anyone, even her own mother, actually cares for her enough to want to do anything for her. Not after four years of Katniss carrying the entire family on her back. It's incompatible with the world she's lived in for the last four years.

Katniss is painfully relatable.

I’m trying to get past rejecting offers of help from her. For a while, I was so angry, I wouldn’t allow her to do anything for me.

Painfully. Relatable.

What Katniss is feeling in this scene, I don't think I can describe to anyone who hasn't been there. It's relief-bitterness-anger-hope-longing-mistrust.

"Oh great, look who's finally here to help now that things are okay again and I figured everything out on my own! I want you back. I want a parent back. I don't want to do this anymore. I can't stop it. I can't trust you not to make me do it again. I'd better keep doing it so I don't get my hopes up. How do I even live without doing this? How do I live as a person and not a caretaking robot for my family? Am I allowed to do that? What kind of selfish person would I be if I did, especially now that I've seen what will happen if you fail again? No, I'm not letting you do this. I'll let you pretend to the little one because they need a parent figure and they deserve to feel normal, but me? Hell no, do you think I'm stupid? I am taking care of myself, I already learned what it costs to trust other people to see to my needs and that is not a price I'll pay a second time, thankyouverymuch. Yeah, mom I love you. I'm glad you're okay now. And thanks for doing this for me, I guess."

It goes something like that.

But I digress.

In just this paragraph Katniss expresses so much of the pain of parentification, so succinctly yet vividly that it makes my chest hurt.

I just really, really love Katniss, okay?

“You look beautiful,” says Prim in a hushed voice. “And nothing like myself,” I say.

Ow. Just... ow. She says it so matter-of-factly. Like she's just accepted it into her worldview; Prim, the embodiment of everything good in the world, is beautiful. Katniss, the leftover, the thing that exists just to take care of Prim, is ugly. That simple.

I wish we could have seen Prim respond here; surely she doesn't like anyone, even her sister herself, talking about Katniss this way? Or maybe Prim is so used to these kinds of casual self-put-downs that she's stopped trying to talk Katniss out of it.

Again: painfully relatable.

I protect Prim in every way I can, but I’m powerless against the reaping. The anguish I always feel when she’s in pain wells up in my chest and threatens to register on my face.

Once more: Painfully. Relatable. You put so much into protecting 'your kiddo'. And then something comes along and reminds you that you're even more powerless than the useless adults in your life. It hurts. It feels like you failed. It's one thing for you to get hurt, you already know how to deal with it, but them?

Ugh. Dystopian fiction isn't usually where my inner abused and parentified child gets validated, but this series unlocked some things in my neural pathways.

Thank you, Suzanne Collins, for Katniss. I feel so seen in so many ways through her and her story.

Sorry. I know this is supposed to be an analysis, not a love letter, but damn if Katniss doesn't play my heartstrings like a fiddle.

“Tuck your tail in, little duck,” I say, smoothing the blouse back in place. Prim giggles and gives me a small “Quack.” “Quack yourself,” I say with a light laugh. The kind only Prim can draw out of me.

Sorry, I am going to try to not repeat myself so much, but once again it just... Prim gets to be a child, because of Katniss. She gets to be a normal-ish 12 year old who makes silly animal noises and can't tuck her dress in. Katniss was fighting for her life and trying to find food. And of course it's not Prim's fault- I love Prim. But there's something just so painful about this contrast. Katniss had her childhood stolen from her, first by the tyrannical government she lived in, then her father's death, then her mother's mental illness, and finally the needs of a child she never should have been responsible for.

It's no wonder Katniss spends so much of the series in that emotional state abused, neglected, and traumatized children know all too well. You're simultaneously precocious and childish. Too grown-up one minute and acting like a child the next. Katniss never got to experience linear growth, and her psychology sure as hell shows it.

Painfully. Relatable.

Also, yet again: Prim. Is. Doomed. She's the most important thing in Katniss's life, the rationale for every decision Katniss makes, the reason she gets out of bed in the morning. The one person who makes Katniss's life worth living. Precious, sweet Prim, who retains her innocence and kindness in a world that aggressively stomps out both, is doomed by the narrative in every possible way.

Anyway, Gale and I agree that if we have to choose between dying of hunger and a bullet in the head, the bullet would be much quicker. The space gets tighter, more claustrophobic as people arrive. [...] I stare at the paper slips in the girls’ ball. Twenty of them have Katniss Everdeen written on them in careful handwriting.

When you're a child, you can't comprehend something awful happening to your parents, because your life experience just hasn't shaped yet to show you that it's even possible. You don't understand that it can happen.

When you're an adult, you can't comprehend something awful happening to your child, because your life experience has shaped to show you exactly how it's possible. You know exactly how it can happen, so you can't believe that it can actually happen.

Katniss is at a stage of her life that would already be transitional in normal circumstances, where she'd start contemplating mortality- but she's already dealt with it for years.

Her own death doesn't scare her anymore. Her sister's scares her so much that she doesn't even think it's a possibility. After all, everything she's done for the last four years of her life has been for Prim. To keep her alive and give her the childhood Katniss lost suddenly and traumatically.

Prim is doomed.

Taking the kids from our districts, forcing them to kill one another while we watch — this is the Capitol’s way of reminding us how totally we are at their mercy.

We got hints of apathy and cruelty before, but now the curtain is, for the first time, being peeled back. This isn't a system built on simple oppression. It's a system built on raw sadism.

It's another sign that Panem isn't sustainable. People can endure a lot of cruelty when their loved ones are hostages, but there are limits. When those limits get pushed (hint), something will have to give.

To make it humiliating as well as torturous, the Capitol requires us to treat the Hunger Games as a festivity, a sporting event pitting every district against the others.

Bread and circuses. The poor give labor (food) and entertainment, and the rich receive them. The rich live sequestered lives full of privilege, yet ultimately just as much under the thumb as the tyrant as anyone else. But still supporting the system because they lack the empathy to want change when they benefit from the status quo more than they would from a new system, so they think. They are simultaneously disgusting and pitiful.

Like the comfortably wealthy Trump-supporting boomers we all know and loathe.

The last tribute alive receives a life of ease back home, and their district will be showered with prizes, largely consisting of food.

Our very first, incredibly subtle hint, that winning the games might be even worse than losing them. The first time reading, of course, you'll take this at face value. Later, though, you'll think of this and realize it was all only mockery and isolationism, a way of guaranteeing that the victors would be scapegoated by their District, ensuring they would never find companionship again even if their trauma didn't prevent it. And they can't complain, because, after all, they now have a life of comfort.

So many things are intersecting here; class warfare (Victors being an allegory for "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" and the American Dream) and the isolation of trauma and mental illness and more.

But suddenly I am thinking of Gale and his forty-two names in that big glass ball and how the odds are not in his favor. Not compared to a lot of the boys. And maybe he’s thinking the same thing about me because his face darkens and he turns away. “But there are still thousands of slips,” I wish I could whisper to him.

Katniss so rarely worries about herself, only those she cares for. Again; her own mortality is okay to her. It's those she protects she can't let this happen to. But since she can't even bear to face the possibility of Prim being chosen (Prim is doomed) yet, she focuses her feelings on Gale, not only worrying that he'll be picked, but worrying that he will be upset that she might be. She only spares thoughts for herself for a few brief seconds, in the next paragraph.

Katniss gets accused of being selfish so many times, but it's notable that those moments only happen once she volunteers to go into the arena, once her survival depends on a bit of selfishness. Before then, she's one of the least selfish people in the entire series, and I'd argue that even at her worst she doesn't count as truly selfish. She's a teenager trying to survive and return home to her family, not a toddler who won't share toys.

I’m feeling nauseous and so desperately hoping that it’s not me, that it’s not me, that it’s not me.

But, of course, even when you are theoretically okay with dying, being faced with the actual thing will still inspire terror. So for just a moment, Katniss lets herself lapse into worry about herself.

For just a moment, she thinks about herself- and just that fast, Prim is placed in danger.

(This is how Prim will die too, by the way; being put in danger the one time Katniss is focused on something other than her. Prim is doomed.)

Effie Trinket crosses back to the podium, smoothes the slip of paper, and reads out the name in a clear voice. And it’s not me. It’s Primrose Everdeen.

The unthinkable has happened, and Katniss's life has been changed forever.

And even though she can save Prim this time, it's only temporary.

Prim is doomed. Nothing in the world can prevent it now. Prim would die in the arena, but by going instead, Katniss has put herself in a position where any and all actions she does will spark a revolution that gives her a Pyrrhic victory.

There is no version of events where Prim lives.

Prim is doomed.

[funkyplantguy]

cumbo. ough. they make me violent. idiots. I think one of them could be flirting in the most obnoxious entirely obvious way and the other would be sooo oblivious. Either of them could fill that role. Maybe they’re both doing it. They’re stupid. witness geminitay is in fucking shambles she hates them (she knows because grian was witnessing it first and he couldn’t do it alone he had to drag someone else into it) scar (violently aromantic but doesn’t know) thinks both cub and mumbo are being normal and he doesn’t understand why gem and grian are so dramatic. they r literally just awkward grian… you literally told me last week you wanted to elope that’s just what friends do. gem proceeds to beat grian to death with a shovel for not inviting her to the wedding. this is not a 200 word prompt sorry I’m a yapper. only important bit is the cumbo the rest is implied.

YES. yes. you get it. you Get It. they're both so fucking weird and Not Normal About Anything in the best possible way. i feel like they make each other SO much worse. you think you've seen cubfan135 be Weird? watch as i introduce the world's most wet cat of a man to the scene. it's autism x autism but like, slightly different flavors so it could either go so horribly wrong or they could end up making out sloppy style and i have personally decided that it's the latter. but yes i too love the highkey flirter x oblivious dumbass trope. big fan of the idea of cub trying to hit on mumbo SOOOOOO hard (in his own weird-ass way) and mumbo being truly so fucking unaware. like, painful levels of unawareness. everyone around him is .2 seconds away from strangling him at any given moment. gem and grian have already planted 37 tnt minecarts underneath his base for when they inevitably can't take it anymore and need to blow something up but luckily cub gives up and just straight up asks him if he wants to make out before they can pull the trigger anyway. please come yap in my asks (or dms) anytime you'd like. i too am a yapper and will talk your ear off about cumbo (or anything, honestly) for 7-9 business years

[rosinkreutz]

How do you think Asuka's and Aria's friendship was like when she was alive?

This is a really hard question. I keep sitting down to write this and deleting everything because I'm not satisfied with the answer I can provide. The problem is me because I've realized I'm not sure how to describe any friendship, let alone one so vaguely developed in the source material... However. I will try. This is all kind of speculation based on what I've interpreted from the characters. - First, I think when you analyze Asuka's actions it seems that he feels a certain sense of ownership toward the world. Not in an entitled sense, but moreso a guardian. Which makes sense, really, as a disciple of the Original, savior of humanity. Especially considering the other disciples were explicitly uninterested in humanity's advancement, so he's the only one interesting in following in their teacher's footsteps. The problem is that he completely defines himself by it (which is kinda why I think Asuka was very young when he was taken in to be a disciple, because it's like it's all he knows). - So with that in mind, and knowing that before Aria met the other two, she was extremely isolated from her family and other people in general, I think the power dynamic in the relationship would end up being rather skewed. Literally, yes, since he's a sorcerer, but also psychologically. Aria's someone whose not used to having any support, and that's all Asuka wants to do. He never thinks of himself first, and the only sense of self he has is this self-appointed guardian role. He would go so far out of the way to make her happy, because he loves her very much. But he also thinks that he knows what's right for her and may have been controlling at times- which I think is why Frederick works so well in this dynamic because he's so anti-authority and free-thinking. His influence and just overall presence would keep the two of them from being too overly dependent on each other. After all, they love him as much as they love each other, as best friend, boyfriend, whatever. Obviously there's more to him in the dynamic but this is about the other two. - (As kind of a side-note, keeping Aria happy is one of the few ways he himself can feel fulfilled in his role as a guardian. The Original kind of had it easy, as world-saving goes, because he knew exactly what was going to burst (black tech) and had the exact solution to the problem (magic). The world Asuka's "inherited" has a million different facets and problems all piled together in one big powderkeg with an invisible fuse. He really can't just go out and fix everything alone as a socially inept 20-something, good at magic as he is. Which he understands, as an objective thinker, but given that guardianship is the only thing he defines himself with as a person, he's inevitably going to feel worthless and hate himself for not being able to do anything. Hence, why when the Gear Project gets picked up by the military, he goes crazy trying to fix it because just imagine what it would feel like that the whole world could be destroyed by something you made while trying to fix it.... But... If he could get what people need for advancement (gear cells) safe and unweaponized and if he could have someone else powerful to help and support him (Justice, maybe Sol?), he could use that to REALLY save the world AND Aria in the process. Win-win, right?)

[octuscle]

Hey, support! So I’m Gus and there’s this really handsome muscle daddy at this marine research center I work at and I want to get him to notice me. He’s really into beefy, well-dressed himbos with nice facial hair and big pecs. Could you help me out please? I don’t want to be too dumb cuz I really want to keep this job, but you can change me however else within what would be his type.

Chronivac is currently experiencing a few technical problems. But I've heard about this tanning salon. “Magic sunbed”. Ask for sunbed 2. 20 minutes should be enough. Definitely no more. Otherwise I can't guarantee anything.

Bekim has had a shit day so far. The turnover isn't right, his boss has given him a telling off. You're only the second customer. He greets you like an old friend. Couch 2 is free. Special offer for today only and for new customers: 30 minutes for a surcharge of just 10 percent and the special lotion at half price. Bekim explains that 20 minutes is basically useless. The skin only tans after 20 minutes. A lot helps a lot, you think. You've never been to a tanning salon before. The staff will know what they're doing.

You go into cabin 2, strip off and rub yourself with lotion. The lotion stinks. You look for an expiration date. Obviously still good for over a year. Then the smell of musk, sweat and sperm must be… Should you leave your underpants on now? Or take them off? To be on the safe side, you undress completely and lie down on the couch. You look for a switch to start the process. You are struck by lightning. It gets light, it gets warm. You close your eyes and try to sleep.

Sleep is out of the question. It's so hot. You're lying in a puddle of sweat. And the stench of the lotion is getting worse. So more intense… You don't actually find it bad any more. More like… Exciting. Your cock is getting hard. You start to wank. Your colleague from the lab in front of you. You can literally feel him running his fingers through your beard and pulling down your dungarees to suck your nipples on your monstrous pecs… Wait a minute! Dungarees? No, lab coat. Right? Never mind, your cock is almost bumping into the top shell of the tanning bed. Your balls are bursting. And then you shoot a geyser out of your cock. A fountain forms three or four times. And soon you're lying in a puddle of sweat and cum. Shit, you could have saved yourself the lotion…

The tanning process ends as abruptly as it started. Cold and dark. The upper bowl slowly rises. Shit, there's only the towel, which is far too small as always. But where are your things? “Yo, Bekim, where the heck are my clothes at?” you shout. Bekim knocks and brings you your dungarees, jockstrap, socks and work boots. The submissive pig couldn't resist wearing your clothes. You noticed he had a crush on you months ago when he started working here. You were one of his first customers. And then you became a regular customer. Shit, he was so excited, he did everything wrong. Well, today he's one of the old hands here. And somehow a buddy of yours. As long as the clothes are neatly laid out and not full of wax, it's okay if he lives out his fetish during your tanning session. Bekim wants to suck you off as a thank you. “Next time, Buddy,” you say. You have to go back to the lab. Your pager has already beeped four times. Some damn ventilation system isn't working as it should.

Bekim is like, the top dude of all time. He's not just about making sure your tanning bed is always ready for your regular sessions. He also hooks you up with the good stuff so your biceps stay swole and your nuts stay juiced. That's how the guy at the Marine Research Center where you work likes it. He's a real muscle daddy. And he's into his dumb janitor hoe.

[nakylvr]

Oh can I do the 5 & 8 fluff prompts with katseye Daniela x fem!reader? Maybe Daniela has to deal with an ankle injury and Reader is with her?

i loved this so bad...thank you so much for requesting 🫶

— LIGHT

daniela avanzini (katseye) x fem!reader

summary: fluff prompts 5("you feel like home to me") + 8("i'm never leaving you, you're stuck with me") from my 100 follower event

warnings/tags: language, established relationship, fluff

main masterlist | katseye masterlist

"this. fucking. sucks."

"don't be a baby."

"i literally can't move!"

you shoot a look at daniela who's sitting on the bed next to you with her right leg propped on a pillow, her ankle in a tight brace after getting hurt while practicing. "do you need to move 24/7?" you question.

"it's the adhd!" daniela replies, slouching back against the bed which causes her hair to bunch up in the back.

"you don't even have adhd!" you retort, rolling your eyes at her.

"well!" she starts but can't come up with anything. "oh, whatever! this still sucks!" she pouts, crossing her arms over her chest.

"yes, it does. but you have to rest or else it won't get better," you tell her, pointing a finger at her.

daniela pouts more, mumbling a "fine" as she looks at the tv. a silence fills the room after that, but a comfortable one. you two could sit in silence for a short amount of time before one of you had to start talking. and just like always, it's daniela that speaks up randomly.

"thank you," daniela says out of nowhere.

"hm?" you glance over at her. "for what?"

"for being here with me," she responds, looking over at you. "i really appreciate it." her voice cracks slightly, and you can tell she's about to cry.

"woah, woah, woah!" your eyes widen when you hear her voice, waving your hands side to side. "are you going to cry? please don't cry! oh my god."

"sorry," daniela's voice cracks again. "i'm just really glad you're here with me. you feel like home to me. m-my mom would usually help with this stuff. so i really appreciate it."

you can see the tears forming in her eyes, and while you don't understand where this suddenly came from, you're not irritated that it's happening. "hey, hey," you say softly, cupping her face in your hands. "it's okay. really, it's okay. i don't mind doing this. i love you so much, dani. i would do anything for you, i would. i'm never leaving you, you're stuck with me."

your words have the tears falling from daniela's eyes the second you say you love her, and she isn't able to hold it in anymore. she had always been a crier, but even more once she started dating you and would be told loving words. it would cause her to tear up every time you said something remotely romantic, and she would cry usually. but, dealing with her injury already had her feeling worse, so it wasn't that much of a shocker that she was breaking down.

"i love you too," daniela manages to get out past her crying. "you're stuck with me too, okay?"

"i'm okay with that," you smile at her, pressing a quick kiss against her lips and wiping the tears from her eyes with your thumbs.

she smiles back at you when you respond, and the feeling of your thumbs on her cheeks have her subconsciously leaning in towards you more like a puppy wanting more attention. you chuckle lightly when you notice this, and you wrap your arms around her before laying down comfortably as possible given she couldn't move her leg.

daniela's smile grows as soon as she feels your arms around her and pull her down onto the bed with you, giggling softly and leaning her head on your shoulder. "do you think we can order takeout for dinner?" she asks out of nowhere.

"i think sophia would kill us if we ordered food for us and no one else," you respond with another chuckle.

"true, but i'm really hungry," daniela replies, dragging out 'really' as she talks in a whiny tone.

"fine, fine. i'll order something," you give in quickly, as always whenever she wants something and says it in that tone.

"you're the best!" she grins, kissing your cheek.

"yeah, yeah."

[goodolddumbbanana]

I can't help but feel second hand embarrassment from nexus literally every other character served more cunt when evil than him sun wasn't even evil and he still did more damage to blood moon and eclipse nexus is trying so hard but it isn't enough dude needs to eat a snickers or something idk sun needs a break or to go apeshit soon man's going to hit his limit sooner or later and it isn't going to end well for everybody else

Sun said he's going to break something these days soon. I pray it will be Nexus's kneecap.

Like for real, Nexus literally lives with Sun, but he couldn't learn shit from him.

Sun didn't need to go evil to make people concerned and kinda scared of him.

We don't talk about some big things like breaking the Computer, killing Bloodmoon, Eclipse or making Lunar runaway....

No... What I am talking about is some small things like...

He makes Catnap scared and steps away from him. He sasses Eclipse to the point he feels like his life is meaningless. He blackmails Creator, threatening to snap Ruin Monty's neck and stand strong in front of Nexus when he gets angry at Monty for almost letting Earth be killed.

Even Monty knows Sun's limit and does not dare to touch it. He slowly backs away when he sees Sun become really mad.

Etc....

It is just... I think Nexus needs to take an additional course from Sun. Or even Monty for him to become a better bad guy. Because right now, he is still too naive.

He never takes anything from others so he didn't know how to do it. He just screams and threatens to hurt them to the point they obeys like some based beta villain. And he wasn't even good at his job.

Ruin talks shit behind his back. Dark Sun has really big plans which could relate to him to get snap. Sun didn't even stutter when seeing him, and Moon even at his crippled down, still calling him an idiot.

With that outfit and new pronouns, he was supposed to serve more cunt than any villain combined but right now...

He was just like Eclipse when he went cuckoo. He is a good boy who only does what people say and teaches him.

He hijacked Moon and Ruin's head because Monty did that to him. He tried to sass Moon but his skill issues made him get snatched back. If people don't pity him, have a hidden agenda plan for him, then they are just annoyed by his appearance and don't pay attention to him. (Expect Sun)

He is just so sucks at being a bad guy that became so sad to watch every time he opens his mouth.

Like even Eclipse didn't say he is horrible or God every time he is on screen. Nexus just has no dips and style :(

He is just a child, naive and easy to manipulate.

And yes, I pray for Sun to snap to. He should be, as a treat for everything horrible happened to him.

[according2thelore]

i love the es/ls verse SO MUCCCHHHH!!! sam’s self-hatred towards his younger self in that last one is just - mwah! chef’s kiss! he’s so jealous of him and he also believes that that kid doesn’t deserve dean!! meanwhile younger sam hates older sam for what he’s become, but he’s jealous, too. ah!! amazing!

and dean not understanding and getting angry with sam’s self hatred is so wonderful. it’s like one if their key issues, but now it’s not a theoretical issue, it’s A Guy. and his name is 23y/o Sam Winchester.

you’re sooo amazing. love this so much. would love to see more if you’ve got it - the deans not understanding the sams’ negative feelings towards each other, and getting protective over it

hello, anon!

you get it: "it’s like one if their key issues, but now it’s not a theoretical issue, it’s A Guy. and his name is 23y/o Sam Winchester." HAHAHAHA you nailed it!

thank you so much!!! that means a lot--mwah mwah! <3

i always have more of it, lol!

~~~

"hey."

sam looks up sharply, startled. dean--his dean, young dean--is standing in the doorway of their shared bedroom in the bunker. his arms are crossed, and he looks peeved. he leans against the doorway, and he crosses his ankles in a practiced show of nonchalance.

"you don't need to talk to him like that." dean says, jaw ticking. sam snorts derisively, turning back around. he continues folding the shirt in his hand, and smacks it to his bed with enough force that it comes unfolded again.

sam doesn't reach for it again, just grabbing another.

"yeah. great. thanks dean." sam says. he's exhausted. anger--his old friend--rises up in him, but he can't even be bothered to put the energy in to stoke it.

after he confronted older sam in the kitchen, older dean's words pierced deep. i'm disappointed in you. sam feels like a chastened child. he is, in a way.

"what's that supposed to mean?" dean asks, stepping into the room. sam can feel him get closer. hates it. he folds his shirt faster, and doesn't look up at him.

"you took his side. i knew you would." sam spits the words like the poison they are. of course dean would pick the sam that doesn't fight with him, that doesn't want anything else.

dean stops, somewhere behind him, and sam hates that he can feel his brother without seeing him--a skill he had gotten on his knees and thanked god for when he was younger.

"okay what's with this--" dean fumbles for words. "this 'side' thing? it's just one side."

"no." sam finally whirls on him, dropping the shirt onto the bed. "it's not."

"sam." dean's brow is furrowed, and his voice is firm. "you need to back off. he's trying. he's been super cool with us staying here and--"

sam scoffs.

"spare me your hard-on." he spits. dean's eyebrows raise, and heat starts spotting his cheeks. sam wants to take him to the ground, until the reason dean's cheeks are pink are sam's hands, sam.

"that! what the fuck is that? back off!" dean shouts, and his hands ball at his sides. he doesn't deny it.

"back off? back off?" sam is incandescent with rage, his earlier apathy lighting aflame like dry tinder. "am i suddenly an asshole for not wanting to be here? for wanting to get home? i though that's what we wanted."

"it is--you know it is!"

"do i? do i fucking really?" sam gets in dean's face, shoves him back a step. "you're practically salivating whenever he walks into a room, you take his side in everything, you act like he's mother fucking teresa--"

dean's cheeks keep rising in colour, but his face is drawn into a furious scowl. he shoves sam back. sam's skin screams, buzzes, where dean touches it.

"he's you!"

"no, he's not!" sam shoves him back.

"sam." dean looks at him like he's crazy. sam feels like he is crazy, that this whole thing has driven him completely mad. "he is. he literally is. you're dogging on my little brother."

sam blinks hard, trying to fight off the sudden, blinding bite of tears.

"fuck you." sam spits. fuck dean for saying that like it's nothing. for claiming him like it's nothing. my little brother. dean only has one little brother.

"i'm--" sam starts, but cuts himself off because his voice is humiliatingly high. dean's face changes, irritation slipping into incredulity. sam wants him to stop thinking immediately. "stop that."

"are you--" dean's face splits into a grin.

"shut up, i swear to god--" sam begs, sitting down on his bed heavily and covering his eyes with his hands.

"you're jealous! or something! you're weird!" dean crows, and sam pitches to the side as dean's weight slams down onto the bed next to him.

sam moves his hands. dean is sitting on the side of his bed, tilted towards him and looking down at him. sam scowls.

he knows their MO is mockery and sarcasm, but for one fucking second, he just wants his brother to take him seriously. to take his side.

"i will take you down." sam threatens lowly, and throws an arm over his face. he waits for a beat, hoping dean will go away.

"sam." dean's voice is disappointingly close. "sammy, look at me."

sam is so shocked that dean has given him his name back that he moves his arm away. he sits up on his elbows. dean looks surprisingly somber, as he says:

"i'm not built to look at people be mean to 'sam.'" dean puts air quotes around his name. sam snorts, but dean just raises his eyebrows. "i'm not. i am hardwired to want to fuck up sammy's bullies. kinda my whole thing."

he's smiling a little at the end. sam softens. just a bit. he's not used to dean wanting to protect other people. he's not used to becoming a second priority in dean's life, in dean choosing a third party over sam's opinion, not since dad died.

"are you...are you calling me a bully?" sam asks, half-amused, half-irritated. dean rolls his eyes, but looks frustrated, like he can't even tell what he means.

"i'm saying. i...don't know. i'm kinda...protective over the guy. he's a sammy." dean shrugs. sam tilts his head, thinking.

"so you're saying if i get him to be a dick to me, you'll suplex him over a table?"

"oh yeah. i'll get a stepladder to reach him and everything." dean assures. sam snorts.

they sit in silence for a second, dean looking down at sam's face, and sam looking up at the ceiling, to give dean the chance to look. in a few minutes, it'll be sam's turn to look at dean while dean looks away.

a thought occurs to sam, though, and he looks over. dean obediently looks away, though there's a frown tugging at the edge of his lip, like he's annoyed his time was cut short.

"i'm not promising anything until you promise to be nice to big dean." sam says, and dean makes a disapproving, alarmed noise. he looks back at sam, eyes wide.

"that old fart? that's totally different. he's a dick. sammy's actually great and brilliant and nice and huge, so." dean tilts his chin up, like he's made a point. sam's chest seizes briefly around the impression of something--unused to and displeased with hearing dean praise someone else like this.

"hey!" sam says sharply, holding up an accusing finger. "dean's not that bad."

"hypocrite." "hypocrite." they say at once, dean's lower tone layering underneath sam's.

they blink at each other.

and--for the first time in too damn long--two brothers dissolve in, frankly, giggles. sam slumps forward into dean's arm, and dean scrubs a hand through his hair.

~~~

"he's trying his best." dean mutters into sammy's bare shoulder. sammy closes his eyes, enjoying the feeling of dean's chapped lip on his skin.

their younger selves were probably hashing it out, too, a wing away.

sammy turns around in dean's arms, and sam nudges his way under dean's chin. dean lifts his head obediently, and sam exhales against dean's bare chest. he wishes he were still small enough to fit here completely.

even his younger self couldn't do this, anymore.

"i know." sam says, finally. he doesn't have to ask "i think...i think i hate him."

dean's arms seize around sam's shoulders.

"no, you don't. he's a kid. a baby."

my kid. my baby. dean's words don't say. sam hears them. he hates them. that's why he hates this kid. among many reasons. he's so blindly arrogant, so violent, so harsh. so fucking prideful. head full of his own words and heart full of fire. and dean looks at him like he looks at sammy.

"no, i don't." sammy acquiesces. and he doesn't. "resent" is probably a better word.

dean reads his silences so well that he starts petting through sam's hair. it should feel infantilizing, but it doesn't. sam sighs. he's an adult. and in a second, he'll pull away and deal with this like a regular person.

"do you miss him?" sam asks, after a long pause. him. sam. the sam i used to be. the sam that sits a dozen rooms over, talking to his own brother.

"i'll always miss you." dean says. "all versions of my pain in the ass are my pains in the ass."

sam snorts, but it's half-hearted, quiet.

there are worse things, sam supposes, than being loved to the point of absurdity. to the point of forgiveness. to the point of dean loving all versions of him, all the time.

"as long as i'm your favourite." sam murmurs. dean noses along his hairline, breathes deep in sam's hair. sammy knows dean isn't good at saying it out loud. but the soft lips at his temple are answer enough for him. dean's horrifyingly sappy when he's quiet.

you're always my favourite.

~~~

thank you for your patience, anon! i hope you enjoyed!!!! life kinda came at me w a baseball bat, so i'm sorry it took so long to respond! i hope you see this :)

-lizzy

[hashimasims]

Absalom: That's not fair. You don't know what happened then, what it was like. You weren't there. And as far as not knowing now - The Bond didn't go dead til this morning. Something happened yesterday early in the morning she was sleeping then I felt fear and I was going to come then but then she was asleep again. I assumed she had a nightmare. I thought it odd she was sleeping so long but I know I sent her through a mental breakdown by just revealing everything to her and thought she was just avoiding the world. I was trying to give her time to process everything before I took her away. I know that's not going to help anything but what else am I suppose to do, I can't let her go. And what about you?! Why didn't you come to her? Why didn't your Bond tell you anything?

Kanaloa: I already told you, my Bond only tells me she's alive. She has to send anything else she wants me to know down the tether. But I don't need to know her emotions or thoughts through the Bond when I can just observe her. Pay attention to the sound of her voice, the way she gets a little wrinkle between her brows when she's REALLY thinking hard about something, or the way her eyes glaze over and she becomes distant EVERY time she's worrying or thinking about something, or someone, that has hurt her. I know she prefers sunflowers over roses, water to any other beverage but loves a good coffee date, who her favorite authors are and I can tell you when she's reading a particularly good smut scene in public by how stone faced she gets but she can't hide how her pupils dilate or that she's reading faster. I've known just by watching her that she's had emotional scars since childhood that have only gotten worse as she's ignored them and shoved down her own issues to appease others - like you. I just didn't know the extent of it until a few days ago. I know all this because I actually courted her; taking her on dates, constant texts and calls, making dinner for her here, while you pretty much said we're fated to be together you don't have too much say in the matter. I wanted to know WHO she is rather than WHAT she is to me before staking my claim. You moved up that time table on me because I didn't want to complete the binding until I had the chance to tell her everything but I was scared she was going to do something stupid after how I found her and I needed to be sure she had a literal lifeline if she did. I'm quite proud of her for giving you the boot when you pulled that pregnancy stunt but I'm also glad that, though she still feels bruised by it, she's moved on from it and forgiven you though I personally don't understand how. It means she can heal from her trauma and with help can maybe overcome her mental problems and insecurities. You want the truth? All she wants is to be loved and accepted and doesn’t feel she’s worthy of it nevermind being worthy of a couple of GODS! The more information that gets thrown at her the more she pulls into herself. Give her time to process and she starts to accept it. She still doesn’t understand how her family considers her one of them after everything came out but she’s getting better. She just needs time Abs and we need to be patient.

Beginning|Previous|Next

[vandal-flower]

Great Power Comes with No Responsibilities

Ror men with a powerful but lazy s/o.

Requested by 🦅 anon.

Characters: Qin Shi Huang, Jack the Ripper, Buddha and Loki.

Warnings: A bit of angst in Jack's part. 😶

Notes: Do you think I wrote too much this time?

Scenario:

"Female god reader who is extremely powerful but lazy , lazy in the means she liked to lie down and sleep a lot , if she wants to she could kill zeus and she can be really intimidating but shes soft around them."

Qin Shi Huang

He didn't even notice you were a god.

You looked too exhausted to function, and yet you were ready to fight whomever tried to harm him.

He would take care of any obstacles that would dare present itself to him, but he loves how you sort the situation than he does.

There were times where you offered to lift his curse, but he declined.

According to him, if he as an emperor could not endure this curse, how could he rule a nation.

You haven't heard such wise words from anyone else before. You smile at him, and gently give him a kiss on his head.

No one dares to challenge either of you as they fear the both individually.

In private, he declares his love and loyalty for you, as the two of you embrace each other.

"Even if the Heavens dare to object our love, we'll remain ontop."

Jack the Ripper

He's honestly surprised how someone like you could love a man like him.

He has faced many hardships, threats and much more from people who knew him and those who don't.

However, when it comes to you, he can't help but cry a little at the smallest hint of love and kindness someone has ever given him.

Someone who is even more powerful than Zeus himself. Despite your intimidating nature, he finds it soothing.

Especially when you are so soft around him. He often wonders what he did to be loved and cherished by someone like you.

Many wanted to end his life even before he fought Hercules. He is very thankful that you continue to defend him even with your reputation at stake.

You often don't mind defending him against the other gods, after all he is your lover.

It's unknown how you two got together, but it does not matter as the two of you are head over heels for each other. (Good for you.)

"I don't know what I did to have to have you in my life, but I promise to cherish our time forever my dear."

Buddha

My guy here is taking advantage of the whole situation.

You can't blame him though, he is literally in a relationship with someone who is as strong, if not stronger than a primordial god!

Many wonder how in the world did you end up with someone like him, but seeing how lazy you are, it makes sense.

Often times, when Zeus threatens to punish him, you put Zeus in his place, promising an eternity of pain should he ever hurt your lover.

The smirk on his face says it all. (Me too.)

He is happy at the fact that even though you are powerful enough to defeat Zeus, or any chief god, you don't get arrogant.

Despite how powerful you are, he treats you the same way he treats everyone, just with more affection.

You bet he's telling Jataka about you, and how much he loves you!

"Thanks for taking care of the other gods for me. I'll cuddle you later if you want honeybun."

Loki

Another one on the list of taking advantage of this, however to an even greater degree. (What did you expect?)

Whenever he pranks Thor or Odin, he immediately runs to you. The two can't do anything but give him a death glare.

He's busy giggling his bum off behind your back, as you wake up from your nap and question who woke you up.

He often questions you if Zeus truly is the Grandfather of the Cosmos. To which you reply an exhausted, "No, it's only because he is powerful and looks older than he is."

At first he thought you were a demigod due to how sluggish you were acting. But quickly straightened up after seeing Zeus treat you with more respect than anyone.

He tried pranking you, but you were too tired to notice anything. And when you did notice, it backfired on him, resulting to him being confined in the emergency room.

He definitely thinks you're weird and has voiced this, but knows you won't care either way. He also tries to get a reaction from you.

He likes telling you the latest stories (or gossip) from the Heavens. You sometimes stay awake just to hear them.

"Apparently there was a rumors spreading around about Aphrodite's beauty salon."

I probably wrote too much didn't I.

My inbox is open. Check out my Rules.