Red Lobster was killed by private equity, not Endless Shrimp
For the rest of May, my bestselling solarpunk utopian novel THE LOST CAUSE (2023) is available as a $2.99, DRM-free ebook!
A decade ago, a hedge fund had an improbable viral comedy hit: a 294-page slide deck explaining why Olive Garden was going out of business, blaming the failure on too many breadsticks and insufficiently salted pasta-water:
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/940944/000092189514002031/ex991dfan14a06297125_091114.pdf
Everyone loved this story. As David Dayen wrote for Salon, it let readers "mock that silly chain restaurant they remember from their childhoods in the suburbs" and laugh at "the silly hedge fund that took the time to write the world’s worst review":
https://www.salon.com/2014/09/17/the_real_olive_garden_scandal_why_greedy_hedge_funders_suddenly_care_so_much_about_breadsticks/
But – as Dayen wrote at the time, the hedge fund that produced that slide deck, Starboard Value, was not motivated by dissatisfaction with bread-sticks. They were "activist investors" (finspeak for "rapacious assholes") with a giant stake in Darden Restaurants, Olive Garden's parent company. They wanted Darden to liquidate all of Olive Garden's real-estate holdings and declare a one-off dividend that would net investors a billion dollars, while literally yanking the floor out from beneath Olive Garden, converting it from owner to tenant, subject to rent-shocks and other nasty surprises.
They wanted to asset-strip the company, in other words ("asset strip" is what they call it in hedge-fund land; the mafia calls it a "bust-out," famous to anyone who watched the twenty-third episode of The Sopranos):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bust_Out
Starboard didn't have enough money to force the sale, but they had recently engineered the CEO's ouster. The giant slide-deck making fun of Olive Garden's food was just a PR campaign to help it sell the bust-out by creating a narrative that they were being activists* to save this badly managed disaster of a restaurant chain.
*assholes
Starboard was bent on eviscerating Darden like a couple of entrail-maddened dogs in an elk carcass:
https://web.archive.org/web/20051220005944/http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~solan/dogsinelk/
They had forced Darden to sell off another of its holdings, Red Lobster, to a hedge-fund called Golden Gate Capital. Golden Gate flogged all of Red Lobster's real estate holdings for $2.1 billion the same day, then pissed it all away on dividends to its shareholders, including Starboard. The new landlords, a Real Estate Investment Trust, proceeded to charge so much for rent on those buildings Red Lobster just flogged that the company's net earnings immediately dropped by half.
Dayen ends his piece with these prophetic words:
Olive Garden and Red Lobster may not be destinations for hipster Internet journalists, and they have seen revenue declines amid stagnant middle-class wages and increased competition. But they are still profitable businesses. Thousands of Americans work there. Why should they be bled dry by predatory investors in the name of “shareholder value”? What of the value of worker productivity instead of the financial engineers?
Flash forward a decade. Today, Dayen is editor-in-chief of The American Prospect, one of the best sources of news about private equity looting in the world. Writing for the Prospect, Luke Goldstein picks up Dayen's story, ten years on:
https://prospect.org/economy/2024-05-22-raiding-red-lobster/
It's not pretty. Ten years of being bled out on rents and flipped from one hedge fund to another has killed Red Lobster. It just shuttered 50 restaurants and declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Ten years hasn't changed much; the same kind of snark that was deployed at the news of Olive Garden's imminent demise is now being hurled at Red Lobster.
Instead of dunking on free bread-sticks, Red Lobster's grave-dancers are jeering at "Endless Shrimp," a promotional deal that works exactly how it sounds like it would work. Endless Shrimp cost the chain $11m.
Which raises a question: why did Red Lobster make this money-losing offer? Are they just good-hearted slobs? Can't they do math?
Or, you know, was it another hedge-fund, bust-out scam?
Here's a hint. The supplier who provided Red Lobster with all that shrimp is Thai Union. Thai Union also owns Red Lobster. They bought the chain from Golden Gate Capital, last seen in 2014, holding a flash-sale on all of Red Lobster's buildings, pocketing billions, and cutting Red Lobster's earnings in half.
Red Lobster rose to success – 700 restaurants nationwide at its peak – by combining no-frills dining with powerful buying power, which it used to force discounts from seafood suppliers. In response, the seafood industry consolidated through a wave of mergers, turning into a cozy cartel that could resist the buyer power of Red Lobster and other major customers.
This was facilitated by conservation efforts that limited the total volume of biomass that fishers were allowed to extract, and allocated quotas to existing companies and individual fishermen. The costs of complying with this "catch management" system were high, punishingly so for small independents, bearably so for large conglomerates.
Competition from overseas fisheries drove consolidation further, as countries in the global south were blocked from implementing their own conservation efforts. US fisheries merged further, seeking economies of scale that would let them compete, largely by shafting fishermen and other suppliers. Today's Alaskan crab fishery is dominated by a four-company cartel; in the Pacific Northwest, most fish goes through a single intermediary, Pacific Seafood.
These dominant actors entered into illegal collusive arrangements with one another to rig their markets and further immiserate their suppliers, who filed antitrust suits accusing the companies of operating a monopsony (a market with a powerful buyer, akin to a monopoly, which is a market with a powerful seller):
https://www.classaction.org/news/pacific-seafood-under-fire-for-allegedly-fixing-prices-paid-to-dungeness-crabbers-in-pacific-northwest
Golden Gate bought Red Lobster in the midst of these fish wars, promising to right its ship. As Goldstein points out, that's the same promise they made when they bought Payless shoes, just before they destroyed the company and flogged it off to Alden Capital, the hedge fund that bought and destroyed dozens of America's most beloved newspapers:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/16/sociopathic-monsters/#all-the-news-thats-fit-to-print
Under Golden Gate's management, Red Lobster saw its staffing levels slashed, so diners endured longer wait times to be seated and served. Then, in 2020, they sold the company to Thai Union, the company's largest supplier (a transaction Goldstein likens to a Walmart buyout of Procter and Gamble).
Thai Union continued to bleed Red Lobster, imposing more cuts and loading it up with more debts financed by yet another private equity giant, Fortress Investment Group. That brings us to today, with Thai Union having moved a gigantic amount of its own product through a failing, debt-loaded subsidiary, even as it lobbies for deregulation of American fisheries, which would let it and its lobbying partners drain American waters of the last of its depleted fish stocks.
Dayen's 2020 must-read book Monopolized describes the way that monopolies proliferate, using the US health care industry as a case-study:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/29/fractal-bullshit/#dayenu
After deregulation allowed the pharma sector to consolidate, it acquired pricing power of hospitals, who found themselves gouged to the edge of bankruptcy on drug prices. Hospitals then merged into regional monopolies, which allowed them to resist pharma pricing power – and gouge health insurance companies, who saw the price of routine care explode. So the insurance companies gobbled each other up, too, leaving most of us with two or fewer choices for health insurance – even as insurance prices skyrocketed, and our benefits shrank.
Today, Americans pay more for worse healthcare, which is delivered by health workers who get paid less and work under worse conditions. That's because, lacking a regulator to consolidate patients' interests, and strong unions to consolidate workers' interests, patients and workers are easy pickings for those consolidated links in the health supply-chain.
That's a pretty good model for understanding what's happened to Red Lobster: monopoly power and monopsony power begat more monopolies and monoposonies in the supply chain. Everything that hasn't consolidated is defenseless: diners, restaurant workers, fishermen, and the environment. We're all fucked.
Decent, no-frills family restaurant are good. Great, even. I'm not the world's greatest fan of chain restaurants, but I'm also comfortably middle-class and not struggling to afford to give my family a nice night out at a place with good food, friendly staff and reasonable prices. These places are easy pickings for looters because the people who patronize them have little power in our society – and because those of us with more power are easily tricked into sneering at these places' failures as a kind of comeuppance that's all that's due to tacky joints that serve the working class.
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/23/spineless/#invertebrates
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— out of this world (and into another) : genshin impact
premise: you could've sworn the transmigration curse didn't have an effect on you... so what exactly are you doing here?! (alternatively, you tumble straight into your favorite video game; and you're kinda fucked)
...or, a genshin manhwa otome game inspired au.
act i: scaramouche, alhaitham, wriothesley.
↳ act ii: lyney, neuvilette, kazuha, kaeya. (next)
warnings. fem!reader but can be imagined as genderless if u'd like hehe, a shit ton of manhwa tropes in one, this is a hot mess aka not proofread all that much, half clunky half decent writing
a/n: as promised via the poll heh,, while i do plan to make this an actual au, im not that sure ^^; just the tip of the iceberg here tho!!
MAIN MASTERLIST | AU MASTERLIST (coming soon)
YOU — unsuspecting civilian turnt transmigrator
you've always been too attached to fictional characters for your own good.
yes, even the ones that are remarkably irredeemable (the power of a backstory is very formidable) and complex (complexity is a virtue!)
villains have always been destined to die, be cursed, or destined to curse others. it was heartbreaking, really. you've wished for a chance to rewrite their fates for them to find even a sliver of happiness, even when the fate of their plot says otherwise.
which is why when you find yourself awake into the game of your dreams, “Teyvat's Seven Stars”, like any lover of cliche novel and manhwa tropes, this is the time you think that maybe life wasn't so shitty on you.
....there's only one tiny, teensy, itty bitty problem here, actually.
you're not the protagonist. you're not even one of the protagonist's faithful friends and underlings that light protagonist's road to conquering the world and its men (and as of the 4.0 update, it's women); no, you're none of those.
you're a no name extra, and not to mention, a character involved with the game's main villain characters who are coincidentally the love interests of the game's black route!
[ unlock transmigration package: ultimate transmigrator's route ( ????? MODE ) ]
[ no ] [ yes ]
( 国崩 ) SCARAMOUCHE — the tyrant
“as of today, you will be engaged to crown prince kunikuzushi, who is her grace the shogun's rightful heir to the throne.”
when given approval to stare at your so-called soon to be husband, you expect the worst, mostly. the multitudes of character dialogue you've played through detailing his rather discourteous personality (which basically meant he was a huge asshole) don't exactly paint a pretty picture.
however...
who was this tender hearted looking scaramouche that ‘obliterated armies in the blink of an eye?’ the t in tyrant stands for tyrannical, not timid!
eyes like lighting framed by the longest eyelashes you've ever seen and an unfairly pretty face, comparable to a fair lotus. after fawning over his otherworldly countenance, a sinking realization of dread pools in your stomach.
oh, you are so screwed.
essentially tied to the indigo-haired ticking time bomb of a future tyrant due to the strong standing of your family for a period of until the main story starts, you're destined to never get crown prince scaramouche's affection, being his fiancée who scaramouche is arranged to for political means only.
not to mention, you're in an even more deadly position; of all the characters you switched souls with, it's the one that essentially dies by their own fiancé's hand because they were horrible to him! what atrocious luck!
frantic, you wrack up about three ways to survive.
plan a) win over the shogun's favor by being an appropriate partner unlike the original flavor of this body, who resorted to bullying the innocent prince and unknowingly digging their own grave or b) be a guiding friend to scaramouche as he learns the ways of the world and c) make sure you don't end up giving the protagonist a bad ending via his twisted personality.
weighing all these options, you decide to do all three in hopes to cement a life instead of a deathflag. prevention is better than the cure (aka: the protagonist) after all!
(you may also just want to spend time with your favorite character. having a time limit and a sign that says ‘i'll die in the future!’ should at least warrant you extra time to show some affection to scaramouche, at least.)
so, you do what anyone in your position would do: give affection! lots of it.
admittedly, it wasn't all flowers and rainbows. scaramouche—ahem, kunikuzushi—was very shy and reserved indeed, with his mother ei even worse off! (besides, who trains and studies all day and has to stop crying every time they were injured?! that was just too much!)
it was rather hard at first, the frigid atmosphere of the usually silent Tenshukaku Palace almost impossible to permeate. but with your amazing charm (read: deathflag radar) and social skills, you manage to let the members of the Royal family open up to you.
speaking words of praise in ei's cooking (a very difficult feat to accomplish), spending afternoons with your fiancé and teaching him ‘how to be a shoujo worthy male lead, name-version’ (very confusing to explain), and the cherry on top, driving away that vile teacher of his—the Doctor—once word got out that he'd been taking advantage of scaramouche as a political puppet king in the future. trauma enabler destroyed! look at your immeasurable powers!
(“you're not a failure.” clasping kunikuzushi's hands in yours as he reels back from you. damn that doctor.
his tears shot a wave of heartache through you. you can't bear to see your favorite in such suffering. “whatever happens in the future, i won't abandon you.
no matter what, i'll always be on your side, okay?”
kunikuzushi looks at you with something in his eyes—something like adoration. “do you promise that?”
“yeah.” you say without hesitation, the glow of the sunlight hitting your face so dazzlingly that kunikuzushi's eyes widen that his mouth hangs agape in awe. “i promise, kuni.”)
to your greatest delight, your efforts worked in your favor.
ei now spends time with her son, and though it's almost always just a tad bit awkward, you and the guuji yae miko get the two to strike up conversation, and overtime, kunikuzushi becomes more open to you.
(“[name], what kind of man is your type?”
“huh? well...” you think for a while. this was a great opportunity to say it, right? that life changing protagonist quote!
“to me, the only person i'll ever like the most is you, kunikuzushi.”
“do you really, really mean that?” and oh, he looks so cute—flustered and red from your words. worth it.
“yup! now, i made some shimi chazuke, try some—”)
(admittedly, lots of favoritism is involved.)
—and while you reap the fruits of your hard work, you spend warm, sunlit afternoons with ei at tea, even learning about other nations from scaramouche's aunt nahida and even befriended a few of his future affiliates—childe (though for some reason, kunikuzushi always pulls you away from him whenever he spots the two of you together), signora (she tolerates you, you think) and etcetera.
(“then, if i do well, can you kiss me on the cheek, [name]?”
you agree, much to his delight. scaramouche avoids the gaze of a certain pink haired fox eyeing him questionably. unbeknownst to you, he glares at the woman's scrutiny.)
unprecedented things unrelated to the plot happen too; like how your family, which basically only saw you as a political bargaining chip and an unwanted child they could get rid of easily—no longer sent you any demeaning letters demanding money once scaramouche found out....
(“they've been leeching off of you for how long?” so scary... is this was kunikuzushi is like when he's worried?)
(“...kunikuzushi, how long will you keep up that weak-hearted facade of yours? if they find out how.... dishonest you are....”
“i don't need the reminders of a foxy old hag that doesn't know her place. this is fine as it is.”)
(you don't need to know.)
but, you're nothing compared to the inevitable flow of the plot. inazuma is wracked with war, and it just so happened that you'd been unceremoniously kidnapped by a certain resistance leader's trusted general, used as a hostage bargain for approximately the majority of your life. in the worst moments in your dreary cell, there's only one thought in your mind.
....kunikuzushi's face, devastated when he tries to reach for you, before slipping away from him like sand— face morphing into an unbridled state of rage that's too natural, too familiar. when did he learn to make a face like that?
(they say the kingdom was wracked with thunderstorms all night that day.)
afterwards, fate doesn't make it kind for you.
years go by in the blink of an eye, with your capture fervently forgotten in the midst of the growing animosity of the two conflicting forces.
although you did hear that yae sent out a search party for you while at the resistance's base, the shogun's forces never reached you.
eventually, you got released secretly by sympathy of kokomi, the leader of the resistance, who felt pity for you getting caught in the crossfire. letting you go under the condition that you'd likely never meet any of the precious characters you've gotten to know and change was a heavy price to pay, but you didn't have any choice.
indeed, no matter how much you tried to divert the plot, your duty as an extra has ended, and you were even lucky to even be alive. you could only hope that your fiancé—ex-fiancé—took note of your lessons well, bidding farewell to inazuma as you hop on the boat to mondsdat.
by now, you at least hoped that scaramouche and the protagonist met, his true chance at happiness starting now that you were basically dead.
(even if your heart felt like breaking into a million pieces.)
....is what you thought would happen, but why is it that after three years from your supposed capture, inazuma was still at war?
“that crazy prince... he's still working to find his former fiancée... and he's razing almost every village apart looking for them!”
“—didn't the shogunate say that whoever finds her would receive almost 3 million mora?”
“the entire lot of them are lunatics, i tell you. all because of a missing person, too!”
what's more, why was it still going because of you?!
( 艾尔海森 ) AL-HAITHAM: the information guild master
to be fair, normal people don't really run into one of their favorite characters often after transmigrating.
but to be fair, again, you certainly didn't think you'd actually be in your favorite video game franchise caged in bed with essentially one of its main love interests.
eyes wide and unceremoniously looking—definitely not ogling— at the toned body that's currently enveloping you in its arms, the soft tuft of ashy gray hair caressing the crook of your neck, murmuring incoherent mumbles of—is that another language?
???????
you blink, looking down at the bare body currently embracing you. oh. oh.
you're an extra.
you're just an extra, but why are you in bed, currently being served breakfast by the most gorgeous man you've ever laid your eyes on, with a pretty view of the rainforests' canopy?
“you should lie down. if i recall, sufficient sleep is required in order for the human body to perform its basic bodily functions. although our partnership is temporary, to let you fall to harm is a situation i'd like to avoid as much as possible.”
“....what?”
“...?”
the guild master, al-haitham, is a character in Teyvat's Seven Stars that is heavily debated on whether he's technically a villain or not. in the game, he's the right hand of sumeru's leader, nahida, working as the overseer of the AKASHA, a guild that gathers information to the nation's leader. he's a pretty shady character—always working behind the scenes and very unfalteringly blunt—and a ‘villain’ for crown prince scaramouche's route, helping the protagonist escape his clutches.
he's often the subject of comedic ire, his banters with a certain broke architect always the highlight of any bonafide al-haitham fan.
“we're expected to work together by lord kusanali's decree in the duration of investigating the hivemind project the lord suspects the baron siraj is partaking in.”
right, that one scene in the game where al-haitham needed to go undercover to infiltrate a coup de etat staged by one of the factions against nahida... right... what.
you were that extra! the one that fell in love with him and pined for his affection!
(“well, i get that part, but does sleeping together really have to play a part in this...?”
al-haitham gives you a mere quirk of the lip, tilting his head. “we do have to play the part of a married couple in dire straights, do we not? this cover is more efficient.
...besides, i don't have anything to complain about. you're certainly better company than kaveh.” )
in truth, al-haitham wasn't bad company. far from it. aside from the internal giggling and fangirling (you) and the incredible stack of books (alhaitham) that you have to see more than the grey haired man on a daily basis, the two of you work out a rapport that stems from memories of the body you transmigrated in.
he's nice to be around, surprisingly considerate when he wants to be—he tells you about the books he always reads....
(who even reads ‘20 Tongues Language Memorization Guidebook: A Basic Overview of Vocabulary and Terms’ for enjoyment?
the content makes your head run in circles because of how complicated it is; but who wouldn't like to listen to an extremely attractive man overexplain to you with a calm and pretty voice?)
...is generous enough to provide meals and cook dinners that have you crying tears of gratitude because you know how awful yours compares (it was either too bland or too seasoned; al-haitham is surprisingly picky when he wants to be)
(you assigned al-haitham the title of “absolute s-tier husband material”— his capabilities are out of this world!)
by chance, you once gave al-haitham a little tidbit of information that proved to be valuable later in the investigation—courtesy of your avid game knowledge—when you two had been lost to the psychological illusion magic cast by siraj when you two finally broke in his estate.
(“whatever happens, if siraj messes with your mind, just make sure to think of me instead of anything else.” al-haitham lets his hand find yours.
“you once asked me if i trusted you, [name].”
“....” you're treated to one of al-haitham's rare smiles, one that warms you up from within. “i do. so don't let yourself get hurt.”)
however, your temporary partner had faltered for once, flinching when siraj took the form of his old grandmother who'd passed to exploit al-haitham's mind, hesitating and frozen in place while siraj inched ever closer to finding out his weakness.
and you couldn't stand it, the character you cared for—the al-haitham that always had a plan, always knew how to stay calm, had looked so unsure and hopeless.
(“wake up, al-haitham!”
with you cradling his face, al-haitham stares back at the only constant in the memories of his grief, eyes meeting yours. “you don't have to do it all alone. i'm right here, aren't i? believe in me.”)
your (fake) husband snaps back to reality, finally allowing enough time to apprehend siraj and put a stop to his malicious project.
(“thank you.” al-haitham tells you solemnly. it hits you that this may be the last time you may ever see him. “i'm grateful that you brought me back to y— to my senses.”
there's a sincerity in your voice that rings from your heart. “anytime, al-haitham.”)
you thought that was the end of it.
defeating siraj meant you two no longer had to associate with each other, but somehow, to your great surprise, al-haitham doesn't stick to the plot at all. you were sure you didn't interfere with the game, though?
for some reason, al-haitham doesn't erase himself from your life, unlike the original route's flow.
in fact, he's become... easy to run into, a constant in your otherwise mundane life. he takes you out to lambad's tavern for an occasional drink, says he's lending you his headphones when you find yourself overwhelmed by the city (you were never good with noises) and even helps you out as you vent your problems to him.
(the day after, said problem conveniently disappears. how strange....)
and most of all, allowing you to enter his personal space... leaving kaveh's jaw dropping when he accuses al-haitham of having a lover.
“you're always going who knows where with them! what else is there to figure out?”
“...we are merely friends.”
“a friend that you let into your personal library? do they know that you still keep the ‘fake’ ring in a box inside the closet?” kaveh laughs. “nice try, al-haitham.”
(after all, kaveh could never unsee the way al-haitham's eyes softened at the feeling of the head on his shoulder lean onto him, with you no doubt asleep. he even took his headphones off! kaveh has never seen him actually take them off in order to keep the person who's sleeping on his shoulder as undisturbed as possible.
in fact, kaveh doesn't think he's ever seen al-haitham be this touchy or considerate with anyone this much before.
.....and most importantly, kaveh would never forget the way al-haitham, a man who found no merit in politeness and preferred bluntness, a man who preferred solitude rather than company—deliberately getting close to someone—pressing a fleeting kiss on the crown of your head.
kaveh blinks. it seems even the throes of love can reach even the most unconquerable of peaks....)
( 莱欧斯利 ) WRIOTHESLEY — the monster duke of the north
“—i need you to gather information on duke wriothesley. serve him undercover as one of the prisoners of the fortress.”
the duke of meropide—a man swamped with terrible rumors. they say he was exiled from the nation due to murdering his entire family. they say he possessed a face worthy of the title of a beast— grotesque, littered in scars. they say that any who end up in his estate, the iron prison of the north, meropide, never saw the light of day again.
(“only criminals of the worst kind are fated to be sentenced there. nobody returns, so we've stopped questioning it...” )
so to say you're not fearing for your life that bad right now is a massive understatement.
“now, mind telling me how you were able to sneak into the most impenetrable prison in all the land, miss prisoner?”
how did it end up like this?
so you wake up and find yourself in jail. lovely.
seriously, of all the places you can transmigrate into, why did it have to be fontaine?! Teyvat's Seven Stars chapter 4's main starting point, the nation of justice is littered with dark themes and high difficulty capture targets.
.... such is the case with the man in front of you. unlike what the rumors of him say, duke wriothesley paints a rugged yet dashing picture of a nobleman, even if he was —if you recall— one of the hardest capture targets to conquer in the game.
a villain character who you played once during one game route, acting as the driving force during one of the love events of one of the protagonist's other love interest, lyney. duke wriothesley almost assassinates lyney's younger brother, freminent, leading lyney to rally up a certain group to bring the nobleman down.... a typical side character villain, who's existence was added as late as 3 patches away from lyney's.
(even inazuma would be better than this! at least the tyrant route could be avoided, and let's not mention the easy sumeru route as well...)
“well, miss prisoner, cat got your tongue?”
in summary: fortunately for you, the body you transmigrated is in the position to spy on the current affairs of the fortress of meropide, with courtesy and with permission of one of Fontaine's leaders, neuvillette. unfortunately for you, it seems our dear monsieur wasn't able to inform wriothesley beforehand, leading to the current situation.
aka, you're pressed dangerously close to wriothesley's chest, with a knife at his throat and his hands pinning you against the wall, noses almost touching. you're not sure if this is even the kind of tension that two people who are trying to kill each other are supposed to have...
(“i'm an ally!” you sputter out. wriothesley raises an eyebrow at you. “monsieur neuvillette sent me.”
“how am i supposed to trust you after i saw you slinking around here, knife at my throat?” he replies, eyes narrowing. “i know that i'm labelled as a beast, but i don't really know what came over that pretty little head of yours when trying to sneak into my chambers.”
what does he take you for?! “...are you accusing me of something indecent?!”
“just saying — i've met lots of prisoners with your excuse, my lady.”
“i'm prepared to use this knife, you know.”
“hah.” wriothesley grins. “how aggressive. more aggressive than most. do you want me that bad?”
“stop twisting my words!”)
in any case, you hate wriothesley. you know he's one of the characters in Teyvat's Seven Stars and is a villain for one of the easy love interest routes in the game, but his personality is... a real piece of work.
you'd rather the protective and kind kazuha, or even the charming and elusive lyney! why did it have to be him?
not only did he not believe you, he even told you to prove your authenticity! you're just glad that his assistant sigewinne had been there to vouch for you — you're not sure if you'd even be on your two feet right now if she didn't.
so now you're stuck constantly on your feet, running to and fro — helping the dark-haired man record new prisoners, establishing trading routes to the main city of Fontaine, and treating other prisoners of the fortress with sigewinne.
your biggest surprise by far, though, is just how... different the duke is from the rumors. his scars were merely battle scars of honor (to which sigewinne rolls her eyes, “your grace, please stop trying to look cool”) he got from various succession fights, not scars to show how he was cursed to turn into a beast. he has a love for tea, but always seems to have a cup of your favorite blend with him when you feel tired after a long day of working (laboring) for him and the estate.
(“your daily report of new convicts, your grace.”
“-this is the tea you like, your grace. i've prepared it in advance.”
“you're very adamant on proving yourself. aren't you sick of such tasks by now, miss prisoner?”
“no.” wriothesley's expression screams 'why not?' on it. “ it's because of my own misjudgement of you.”
“...elaborate.”
“i may have had unnecessary prejudices on your conduct thus far. but you're... not like what the rumors paint you out to be.” you say sincerely. “you're more amazing and incredible than anyone else. i truly do admire you.”
wriothesley's expression; you couldn't decipher it. “i see.”)
he's battered, but caring. sigewinne makes you watch (in horror) as she doodles cartoonish looking characters on his face when he's asleep — wriothesley never fusses, only an exasperated sigh to his assistant. he's harsh with his tasks and duties, but is the first to rush you into sigewinne's infirmary to tend to you after you pass out from overwork.
(“don't worry, [name]. the duke may not look it, but he's very gentle!” sigewinne giggles. humoring the little girl who was the first to show you actual decency in this place, you try to nod. sigewinne doesn't seem convinced.
“i'm serious! after all, compared to other people who've snuck into the fortress, you're the first he's treated this way.” she says cheerily.
“what does that mean?” you can't help but scoff at that. “so he just works someone to the bone from the get go?” you shudder. damn production zone...
sigewinne blinks. “ oh no, not like that. it's just that he's never been so lenient before. in fact, when you fainted, he even gave me the order to prioritize treating you over anything else.”)
well, this wasn't exactly what you thought you would be doing when you transmigrated into your favorite game, but you suppose you can take it.
besides, you'd miss a certain duke otherwise. life truly is full of strange twists....
a/n: thank you for making it this far! if anyone asks why wriothesley's was short, listen, this was completely impulsive and i was out of inspiration LOL, but i do hope you enjoy! look forward to new parts though hehe :3
@ ICEUNHIE: do not repost translate or plagiarize my works.
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Can you write about toxic policule of andrew x reader x ashley. Reader is Ashley childhood friend, who genuinely befriended her not trying to get to Andrew. The type that will try to throw them food during quarantine.
The polycule is in shambles ❤️
Andrew and Ashley x ChildhoodFriend!Reader
Befriending Ashley Graves was no easy task
She made you work for it to say the least
Giving you her homework to do because a good friend wouldn’t let their friend fail.
Some girl was saying stuff about her, so a good friend would go punch her square in her ugly face!
A good friend wouldn’t stare at other people, or make other plans
Ashley was exhausting, yes- and a lot of the time you wonder why you’re even her friend.
You catch yourself wondering that sometimes too…
“Yeah! Fuck off to your whore mothers!”
Your vision was still hazy- only being able to crack it open ever so slightly as to not mess with your black eye. You flinched as a small hand placed itself on her bruised cheek.
“Hold still!” The shrill voice snapped, “Lemme get a look at cha..”
LeyLey hummed, her lips pursing as she inspected your beaten up face. She retracted her hand and reached into the pocket of her overalls, and pulled out a crumbled up bandaid still in the package. She fumbled with the wrapper and placed the bandaid overtop the cut on your chin. It did nothing, but she smiled proudly.
“There! Now if those assholes do that again, just let me know! I’ll make Andy join me!” She grinned. You couldn’t help but smile back.
No one ever stood up for you as a child, and Ashley always made the bullies go away.
Albeit, out of fear- but fear was better than anything
So you stayed by Ashley’s side, because without her….you’d just be a target again. She told you herself.
Being so close with Ashley only mean being close with her brother as well
To an extent
Ashley pitched fits whenever you two hung out without her, claiming you were scheming against her to leave her.
Neither of you would do that
There was a silent agreement between you and Andrew to shower Ashley with as much affection as you both could when you three were together
This is probably how you became so used to their closeness
You and Andrew somehow managed to find common interests outside of Ashley, something she made fun of you two for on a regular basis
You don’t know how, and you don’t know why, but you slowly fell for both of them
It just hit you like a bag of rocks
To say you were subtle would be a blatant lie, so it didn’t take long for the siblings to catch on.
And make note to tease you about it…
“Here, let me help you with that Y/N..”
Sirens went off in your head as Andrew pressed himself against your back, trapping you between him and the counter. He reached over you, grabbing the bowl you had been reaching for. The few seconds he did that felt like an eternity, and you feared your face boiling from the heat that had risen to it. Your brain buffered, not registering that he had left to sit with Ashley on the couch.
Mr and Mrs Graves were out, and normally this led to a movie night the pair would invite you along. It was just a movie, you told yourself, you could handle it.
Oh you could not have been more wrong.
The pair felt far more….touchy than usual- and it was slowly killing you. As you sat, sandwiched between the pair, Ashley clung tightly to your arm. Her nails dug into your skin possessively as she rested her chin on your shoulder. Andrew had his arm over the both of you, claiming to just be resting it. He was also awfully close.
You slowly blocked the movie, and any other sounds out, the only thing being audible to you was the rapid beating of your heart.
You could’ve sworn you died for a second when both of them placed a hand on your thigh.
Both of them had a bet to see how long it would take you to tell them
Neither had anticipated it would be over the phone…
The quarantine hit and you weren’t allowed to see them
The entire thing made you anxious
Parasites in the water supply…
As dramatic as it was, you were worried you wouldn’t see them again
So you called them, confessed everything
And like any good siblings would….they decided to share you <3
They took turns staring down at you fondly from the balcony when you came by to throw them food
They called you late into the night to pester you, Andrew especially when he couldn’t sleep
Eventually security became so tight you couldn’t even go near the apartment without risk of being shot.
And the calls had stopped
You were worried they were mad at you…that they hated you…
Until they showed up on your doorstep one night….
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