#how when there are 3 choices does one choice get over 50% of the vote? it’s not impossible but unlikely

[lovely-hikari-cosplay]

Alright, atp, Tricolor needs to be reworked so that the team in the lead is always defending (since Tricolor is supposed to be a catch-up opportunity for the losing teams) or the points need to be reduced.

There is no reason for Tricolor to still be 18 points if the leading team can be in any position, meaning they have a greater chance at winning period and thus unable to be unseated from the lead position.

You can correctly assume who is winning Tricolor by who wins the popular vote every time since they changed it to get more matches made, and that is antithetical to the purpose of Tricolor battles

[archivalofsins]

It's funny to see "have fun with your cult trial 3" takes. Like, do people really think everyone is here, like, let's have her start another cult. Because that's such a reduction it's funny. Also she's starting it regardless and has already moved to do so. So, like what does that have to do with anything at this point?

People will go, "Don't reduce her to abused kid." Then proceed to reduce her to her religious beliefs. Like, I'm sorry to burst any bubbles, but I don't support cults. However, there's frankly more to this situation than the voice drama or just the mv. I believe what she did wasn't wrong and how she takes that is fully on her just like with all the prisoners. The job as prison guards is to judge the prisoners sins not what they could possibly do later the sin they already committed.

That's what I want to judge above all else. If people want to take these other things into consideration, that's their prerogative, but not everyone has to. Hell, I've even taken it into consideration in specific high-risk situations. However, I'm not about to be deluded into believing this verdict will stop something that's already happening. Lol.

Cult trial three is literally just trial three at this point. If she's got one follower, she can get more. So, unless people are hoping a Guilty (Unforgiven) verdict kills her, I don't see how it's going to stop anything. The ball is already rolling. A person can either choose to chase it or kick it away. If you do the latter, just know they tend to bounce back with the same amount of force they're hit with.

Overall, it's just odd to fall back on the cult thing anyway. Taking into consideration her current state is a direct result of Kotoko's actions. If Kotoko wasn't innocent, chances are she might not have jumped anyone, and people wouldn't have needed medical care.

It's stupid to attempt to shift the blame for the outcomes of the choices the wardens made onto any of the prisoners. Because like Mu said we could have just voted everyone innocent, but people were too scared to even try that. Heck we haven't even been able to get a 50/50 for the same reasons.

It's all just so silly. Most don't even realize their part in all this either. Yet, you're going to be hard-pressed to find me regretting any of my decisions here. Because in the areas I have the freedom to do what I want, I live my life in a way that I feel will lead to regretting the least. At the end of the day, I'm gonna do whatever I feel is right to me in that moment.

Because I know when the consequences come, I can stand up and face it. So, i don't have to act under this feeling of fear of what-ifs. The very worst feeling to me is letting someone change your mind over what could happen and it going poorly anyway.

Innocent (Forgiven) or Guilty (Unforgiven) at the end of the day are words that only hold as much meaning as what the individual gives them. So, people should be able to do whatever the hell they want. If everyone only acts in fear of what could happen, we'll never know what can happen. So, until the end, I'm not going to let my resolve waver; I'm gonna vote the way that feels truest to me in a voice that is uniquely mine.

Then, when the consequences come, I can stand tall and face them head-on with the comfort of knowing I did something I believed in that I wanted to do. If I can say that at the end of Milgram, that to me would be the happiest thing.

Regardless of if the verdict I back wins or loses I want to be able to take solace in the fact I did what I felt was right. Not something I felt forced to do-

I don't want to make decisions while thinking things like "It can't be helped" or "This has to be done". That's just not the way I want to live. So, I'm gonna do my best not to live that way.

[lotlvision]

Dora 2024 first(ish) listens!

Alen Đuras - "A tamburitza lullaby" I'm not sure how I feel about this. I'm always biased against songs in English, but I have to admit that it's pretty catchy - I'm also a big fan of the actual backing. It does feel a little bit more special than a pop song, so I'll give it 7/10

Baby Lasagna - "Rim tim tagi dim" I'm immediately taking back my English bias, this is SO fun. I think the staging will be really important to sell this as a winner, but I can hear the Cha Cha Cha influence so I already adore it. 9.5/10

Barbara Munjas - "Nepobjediva" Not a fan of her vocals... I assume they're a stylistic choice? The song feels like a mishmash of several genres and not in a cohesive way. I mostly zoned out of listening to it, so it's not bad background music if nothing else! 4.5/10

Boris Štok - "Can we talk" I'm not sold on this song. Sad white man singing about a break up without the Taylor Swift pizzazz I like in my breakup songs. Useful lyrics to steal for fic titles, but that's about it. 5/10

Damir Kedžo - "Voljena ženo" Song five and FINALLY some Croatian! That said, it's not my personal preferred style. It's definitely got strong vocals, and with the right staging it could do well. I'm not sure how the Dora votes are split, but if it's 50/50 Jury and Public then it'll do well with Juries! 8/10

Erna - "How do you love me" Immediately back to singing in English... I hate the breathy whisper-singing, and the song itself doesn't really have anything special about it. Sorry Erna, but this is not a song for me. 5/10

ET - "Pametnom dosta" Time for the (apparently) mandatory club song! It doesn't really build or climax the same way similar Eurovision songs have (thinking Lights Out), and it doesn't feel like there's anything particularly special about it. 6/10

Eugen - "Tišine" Not my style again, however I am reaching for my phone to turn the light on and wave my arm slowly back and forth. I think it could do well with Juries, and well with the Public too. It's got a nice build toward the end. 8.5/10

James Night - "Nebo plače" This is definitely just a pop song. The vocals don't seem as strong/polished as some of the others so far, however these are all recorded rather than live, so there's no telling how they'll sound on stage. It's not super special, but it's an earworm and I'm enjoying it. 6.5/10

Lana Mandarić - "More" This song is definitely a builder. I'm not a huge fan of the style, but I can understand the appeal behind it. Staging will really make or break this. 7.5/10

Lara Demarin - "Ne vjerujem ti" I was enjoying myself and then some guy started rapping over Lara's lovely singing. I don't feel like that added anything - more it just detracted from what was a nice song. 6.5/10

Let 3 - "Babaroga" Let 3 are already back! This song isn't anywhere near as good as Mama ŠČ!, and having heard them live the autotune stands out even more than it does just listening. They sound more like dolphins than humans. However, I love the weird shit in Eurovision, so this is right up my street. 8/10

Lu Dedić - "Plavi leptir" This is not my vibe for listening to on a regular basis, however as a standalone song for one night it really could be my winner. With the right staging, lighting, costumes, choreography I could want this to win. It gives me the same vibes as I get during the wedding in Miss Saigon (this is an AMAZING thing, it's so soft and beautiful). 9/10

Marcela - "Gasoline" I do really enjoy this song. It is in English, and it is just a pop song, but the vocals are really strong and the lyrics are very catchy. It might not do well, but it'll be going onto my playlists. 7.5/10

Mario Battifiaca feat. Robert Ferlin - "Vodu piti trizan biti" When a song on eurovisionworld has a 1.5 star rating you're either in for a treat, or you're going to listen to something truly awful. This is just boring, and slow, and the longest 3 minutes of my life. 2/10

Misha - "One day" This song isn't very special. It's a pop song, but without the really upbeat and fun nature of a pop song. It's catchy, but that's about it. 5/10

Natalie Balmix - "Dijamanti" This is a fun song! I think the current rating is maybe a little bit high, but there's a lot of potential and I think it could be a contender with the right staging. For now, 8/10

Noelle - "Baby, baby" It's just a pop song. It's nothing special, there's nothing that makes it a real Eurovision entry, but there's nothing overtly bad about it either. 6/10

Pavel - "Do mjeseca" I am SO upset at the low rating for this. Sure, the vocals aren't the best, but the song has such an ABBA vibe to it! It's so fun! This is the guilty pleasure song of the 2024 NF season, I'm calling it now. 7/10 and everyone giving it less can (affectionately and light-heartedly) go fuck themselves! (My vote on the website took the song from 1.6 stars to 1.8 stars my power omfg)

Saša Lozar - "Ne plačem zbog nje" The song isn't very memorable to me, it doesn't really stand out. The only noteworthy thing I can think of saying is that this guy looks like if Fred from KEiiNO got hit by a car. Which is maybe quite rude but oh well. 5.5/10

Stefany Žužić - "Sretnih dana dat' će Bog" Another fairly unremarkable song. A lot of the songs later in the list online seem to be rated quite lowly. Another 5.5/10

The Splitters - "Od kad te sanjam" I'm quite conflicted about how to rank this song. I feel like, even as I continue to listen to it, it's growing on me and I'm wishing I gave it a higher rating on Twitter than I did - but I've already sent the tweet and submitted my vote. The song is, objectively, not the best, but it makes me feel more than the other pop songs I've rated similarly so I feel like I should've ranked it higher? But it's not that good! Argh! I'm conflicted! 6.75/10

Vatra - "Slatke suze, gorka ljubav" This song is like exactly my taste, however I also recognise it's not objectively the best in this line up and that it's not a Eurovision song in the slightest. I'm going to enjoy it, but I'll give it a hopefully unbiased 6/10

Vinko - "Lying eyes" In the least insulting way possible, this sounds like Lin Manuel Miranda trying to cover a Coldplay song: Fix You specifically. Honestly, the guy even looks like a Coldplay/LMM lovechild. I'm not a fan. 5/10

[ladala99]

I'm heading back over to Wolvden next week and I am preparing now!

This is a big reminder post for my sake of what I do that's different from regular Wolvden gameplay. I'm writing this stuff for my reference so some of it's going to not have a lot of context. It's mostly just to get it all in one post so I don't have to go digging.

((Note as always, the Wolvden Democracy Calculator is entirely my own doing and does not reflect normal Wolvden gameplay. Other mechanics I describe below are my own ruleset to limit gameplay.))

Rank

The Pack Leader has a rank of 4.

The Pack Leader’s Mate has a rank of 3.

The Pack Leader’s pups have a rank of 2.

Other wolves (siblings of Pack Leader, mates of pups) have a rank of 1.

This is how many votes they have each vote.

Home Tile Weirdness

Leader can only Explore places adjacent to the home biome. If I want to Explore somewhere else, I'll need to move the whole pack.

Scouts can only Scout areas adjacent to the home biome (though can rescout anywhere). I will need to move to fill out the map.

Hunting I guess should also be in adjacent areas.

Always return to home biome during Autumn through Spring.

Herbalist-specific stuff

The Herbalist will start with 100% healing points, just to give it a name, each day. The Herbalist can only cure as long as they have healing points left.

The first cure of any illness takes 100%, so to start off, a novice Herbalist can only cure one illness a day.

Each time the Herbalist cures an illness, they get better at curing that illness, and it’ll take half the healing points it took before to cure it next time. So the first Open Wound takes 100%, the second 50%, the third 25%, and so on. I might use fractions instead of percentages just for easier math.

Democracy

Decisions will be run over the weekends like on the Lioden fight calculator, for each season's Hunting/moving and Lunar event if either are happening the next week. When I come back to Wolvden, the next week will be a Lunar Event and it will turn Summer in two days, so I need to roll for both of those (as well as what I'm doing in Spring).

What Rolls with New Pups

Hunting preference for the season: Largest Prey, 50% catch chance, 30% catch chance (even chance for each option). 1/3 chance no opinion, 1/3 chance weak opinion, 1/3 chance strong opinion.

Lunar event preference: Bases, Decor, Eyes, Markings, Claws/Skin/Nose (even chance each option). 1/3 chance no opinion, 1/3 chance weak opinion, 1/3 chance strong opinion.

Favorite Biome: home biome, randomly-chosen non-home biome (even chance for each option). 1/3 chance no opinion, 1/3 chance weak opinion, 1/3 chance strong opinion.

Focus: Not a roll - choose it yourself and make it different each wolf.

Breeding Preference: 9/10 straight; 1/10 randomly roll whether gay, bi, or ace. Gay=same-sex Pair Bond; Bi=any Pair Bond; Ace=may have Pair Bond, may not, will never breed. Not democracy-related, but pair bond related. Non-canon wolves chosen to be mates will not roll; they'll be whatever's most convenient.

Breeding Origin: 3/4 from non-canon hunters, 1/4 NBW

Speaking of, Mate Choices

Runner is this generation's mate's mother. Runner's pups/NBWs will form their own parallel hunting team. Pair bonds will be set once the canon pups become 4 years old, at which point they can start having pups of their own (if able).

This hunting team will be in flux until the Pair Bonds are set, being the best NBWs and best pups of Runner, matching up to the canon wolves' preferences.

What happens next generation to the non-leader lines?

Depends if the leader has/can have pups! If they do, the rest of the pack gets phased out (usually Chased) so their pups take over. If not, other young wolves in the pack will fill out the roles and be treated as if they were the pack leader's pups.

How long will this generation last?

If my math's right, assuming I take no breaks it'll go until late October. Which means I'll miss the Wolvden November event again. But also means I get a chance at some Lioden October stuff, which I missed last year. (I took a break from both sites around the end of the year.)

[winsomejaak]

Counterbout: Why Voting Matters in a Debate-Style Format

Counterbout: Why Voting Matters in a Debate-Style FormatVoting matters in the United States, and yet many people either don’t vote or don’t know how to vote in an informed way. People who don’t vote are essentially giving up their power as a citizen to have any effect on the political process, while those who know how to vote but just don’t bother also give up their power, since they could be influencing the outcome of an election by making their opinion known.Point 1 - Voting is ImportantIf you want to make your voice heard, it’s very important to vote. However, if you don’t cast your ballot, how can you expect to be heard? If no one votes, politicians will continue to cater only to those who do. It’s an absolute necessity. When people say that voting doesn’t matter because all politicians are corrupt, I disagree. That's like saying that because there are bad cops out there, we shouldn't have police officers at all. Politicians are human beings and they need our help just as much as anyone else does. Letting them know what you want is vital for making change happen. You may not think your single vote matters but when millions of people around the world unite on issues that they care about, things get done!Point 2 - Most People Do Not VoteIt is unfortunate, but true. According to The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), between 1982 and 2012, voter turnout for eligible citizens aged 18-24 was about 37%. If you add people aged 25-29 to that demographic, overall voter turnout was 50% during those same years. But it’s not just young people who are staying home on election day - overall voter turnout was around 55% in 2012.Point 3 - Nobody Votes. What Can I do About It?Over 60 million Americans, including 7 out of 10 18 to 29 year olds voted in 2012. However, only 55% of eligible voters participated in 2016. This means that over 45 million people who could have voted and changed American democracy did not bother voting. This is largely because they do not believe their vote matters or that they have time to spare on politics. We’re here to tell you it does matter, and we’ll make sure you have time. Follow us on social media and get involved with our current polls! Make your voice heard!Point 4 - Setting ExpectationsExpectations are everything. What do you expect from people you work with? What do you expect from yourself? The expectations you set will likely have an impact on your performance, so it’s important to realize that they are subjective and flexible. This means your results will vary depending on which expectations you choose. Here are some examples of objectives and their corresponding outcomes.ConclusionTo get informed voters to pay attention to upcoming elections, even if they don’t happen to agree with what their preferred candidate/party has to say. By presenting debates that can change minds, we hope Counterbout will make it easier for people across America who agree on some issues but not others (like supporting gay marriage while opposing abortions) to better understand and relate to one another. We hope Counterbout will help voters think critically about political ideas and make more informed choices at their polling places come

Election Day.

Visit : Counterbout uses a debate-style format to present opposing points of views on topical issues so you can vote for the most convincing argument

[opedguy]

Deep State Leak Stuns Supreme Court

LOS ANGELES (OnlineColumnist.com), May 3, 2022.--Creating another D.C. shockwave, a Deep State leak from the U.S. Supreme Court released to the liberal news cite Politico a draft of the Supreme Court’s legal opinion reversing the 1973 landmark ruling Roe v. Wade, legalizing abortion in the United States.  Chief Justice John Roberts, 67, expressed his outrage over the political sacrosanct High Court getting struck with a Deep State leak.  Whoever the leaker, it’s obvious they wanted to sabotage the expected ruling created a maelstrom before the Supreme Court announces their ruling before the Court convenes sometime in June.  Pro-choice activists took to the streets to protest the expected Supreme Court ruling that could reverse nearly 50 years of legal precedent on the abortion issue, a cause celebre for the Democrat Party.  President Joe Biden, 79, reacted today saying that abortion is a woman’s inalienable right.    Having a confederate, Deep State mole in the venerable Supreme Court shows that no one in today’s Washington is immune from the kind to yellow journalism that fills the pages of the New York Times and Washington Post, spreading to almost all broadcast journalism outlets.  Whatever the First Amendment means in theory, the U.S. news media closes rinks with the Democrat Party to advance a one-party agenda for domestic and foreign policy.  When it comes to abortion, the press is outraged by even the suggestion that on a matter of Constitutional law, the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling “was egregiously wrong from the start,” according to the draft released to Politico. “To the extent this betrayal of the confidence of the Court was intended to undermine the integrity of our operations, it will not succeed.  The work of the Court will not be affected in any way,” Roberts said in response to the leak.    Roberts was dumbfounded by the leak but really shouldn’t be that shocked because the controversial nature of the ruling on Roe v. Wade.  Pro-choice groups around the country don’t care whether Roe v. Wade is Constitutional or not, they care only about the principle of women controlling their own bodies, their own medical care.  Doctors and other health care workers assisting in a medical procedure, AKA as a dilatation and curettage [suctioning out the uterus], aren’t concerned about Constitutional issues, only doing their jobs.  Horrified by the leak, Roberts doubled down on the High Court doing its job, much like Congress asserted its right to certify the Electoral College vote Jan. 6, 2021.  With protests massing in front to the High Court, Roberts insisted the Supreme Court would not be influence by the mob. Whatever the final ruling, Roberts wants the public to know the High Court will do its job.    Like other federal bureaucracies, the Supreme Court carefully vets its employees, both short and long-term.  Rogers announced that the Marshall of the Court would conduct and investigation to find the source of the leak. “We at the Court are blessed to have a workforce—permanent employees and law clerks alike—intensely loyal to the institution and dedicated to the rule of law . . ,” Roberts said, insisting the Court would find the leaker.  Roberts confirmed that the draft published on Politico was authentic but added that it was a “draft,” not a final ruling.  Written by 72-year-old Associate Justice Samuel Alito, the draft went into great detail about how Roe v. Wade was a flawed ruling from its inception, mirroring popular political trends more than Constitutional law.  “Justices circulate draft opinions internally as routine and essential part of the Court’s confidential deliberative work. . . “Roberts said.    All the mass demonstrations in Front of the Supreme Court have no bearing on whether the draft ruling reflects the final ruling or even the final vote by the Justice who wrote the draft ruling.  “Although the document described in yesterday’s reports is authentic, it does not represent a decision by the Court or the final position of any member on the issues of the case,” said Roberts.  “We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled . It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives,” said Alito in his draft published by Politico.  With the High Court holding a 6 to 3 conservative majority, it’s conceivable that Alito and other so-called conservatives will agree with Alito’s reasoning.  Associate Justices recently appointed by former President Donald Trump, including Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, may agree.    Whatever happens with the final rulings, Democrats will use the ruling to advance their political agenda this fall of keeping majorities in the House and Senate.  Biden’s staffers raised the issue of galvanizing Democrats heading into the Midterm election to vote for pro-choice Democrat politicians.  “It will fall on our nation’s elected officials at all levers to government to protect a woman’s right to choose.  And it will fall on voters to elected officials this November.  At the federal level, we will need more pro-choice Senators and a pro-choice majority in the House to adopt legislation that codifies Roe, which I will work to pass and sign into law,” Biden said. What a great distraction for Biden now mired in the Ukraine War and hyperinflation wrecking the U.S. economy.  Whether admitted to or not, ending Roe v. Wade could galvanize Democrats heading into the Midterm elections. About the Author John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.

[fermented-writers-block]

PART 1 of 6 of the Owl Deity Hooty Theory

[NEXT PART]

[OWL DEITY HOOTY THEORY MASTERPOST] (in development)

(TLDR at bottom of post)

Over several long months of research and analysis since March of 2020, I have been following an utterly fascinating thread of potential misdirection and subtle details throughout The Owl House, and today, I would like to start weaving together of what I believe could become one of the biggest and most cleverly disguised twists in the entire show.

To begin, let’s take a look at the B plot of Understanding Willow:

On first glance, it’s an ultimately inconsequential sidestory with the sole purpose of justifying an excuse to keep Luz and Amity in Willow’s mind, as well as providing some well-needed room to breathe and release tension after the veryemotionally charged confrontation with Inner Willow. After half an episode of Eda and King outdoing the other in ridiculous ways to win Gus’ vote and Gus running off in frustration at the end of the episode from Hooty’s inane rambling, it’s easy to laugh off Gus’ pick and assume that nothing/of value was said when he closed the door for the interview.

However, if one pays close attention to that very scene, Hooty actually canstill be heard (if faintly) underneath Eda and King’s grumbling, interestingly talking about how “It all started with a hunt. Blood red skies. That’s right, I was created-.”

Now, while it may seem silly to focus on dialogue from Hooty of all characters, this A) tells us that there was an event in the past involving blood red skies and a hunt of some kind, B) that Hooty had been created close to said event, and C) implies that what he knows but can’t tell as a story worth a damn is EXTREMELY important to be included and be hidden in such a manner.

For comparison, the only other instance of dialogue being tucked away in the background in the entire show is in Wing It Like Witches:

During the lecture at the beginning of the episode, the history teacher openswith lore on Belos appointing a head witch to each coven over 50 years ago, immediately cluing in the audience to try and decipher the rest of the lecture as it moves to the background. Adding to this is how the musical sting when Luz shows off her movie obscures what he says even further, making it even more of a intriguing puzzle that the creators clearly intended for viewers to pick up on and attempt to solve.

In contrast, the hidden dialogue of Hooty’s interview is much shorter and not as hard to decipher as the teacher’s history lesson, but at the same time, there are few to no indicators whatsoever in that scene to clue in the audience to even check for something like that. It comes at the end of an episode where most viewers would have been paradoxically tired out and driven abuzz by the revelations of Amity and Willow’s relationship, doesn’t attempt to draw much attention to itself, and frames itself as a comedic subversion of audience expectations with neither the “greatest witch who ever lived” or the self-proclaimed king of demons being picked by Gus.

Instead, he picks someone that the show portrays constantly as an oblivious and gullible idiot after being described as a “state of the art defense system” at the very beginning of the series. Someone who, despite it being played for laughs, is scarily capable of casually subduing Lilith offscreen one episode and then beating her and an entire squad of Emperor’s Coven members without even the slightest change in personality or temperament.

Someone who, due to being the Owl House itself, could be considered the titular character of the entire show, yet is taken for granted by those who inhabit him and barely gets any respect from even the cutely patronized King - including when Hooty could be interpreted as having potentially been full on DEAD for a time given the use of extremely cartoony X eyes and a lack of vital signs in The Intruder.

And someone who Eda at best tolerates and at worst abandons in personal interactions and only occasionally acknowledges him when he’s actually doing his job. Yet at the same time is so implicitly trusted beyondprotecting her home to the point where - when up against the closest person Eda has to an equal outside of likely Belos - the only actually recognizable spells Eda used in combat were 1) stereotypical energy blasts, 2) a single shield spell in Covention, and 3) a noticeably large reliance on imitations of Hooty above any other spells she could have decided to use instead.

In short, the show repeatedly tells us he is just an idiotic gag character through and through, but at the same time demonstrates he has immense power through both onscreen and offscreen demonstrations, implicitly tells us his importance ahead of time through Eda’s imitations in actually serious situations, and treats his interview and origin story as - if not even more- important to keep secret than a long lore dump about how Belos’ reign works.

After all, there being only two instances of hidden background dialogue in the entire season is already intriguing on its own, but for one to get plenty of clues to draw in people’s attention and for the other to be treated as just another gag about a “mere comic relief character” - aka a good way to draw away attention and lower one’s guard - heavily suggests a far deeper significance buried under layers of misdirection, comedy, and conditioned audience expectations.

I mean, when Eda bragged about being “a bad girl living in a secret fortress,” Hooty followed with a remark about how “I’m the secret.” While that line may sound like Hooty simply being confused as part of a one-off on the surface, it’s an odd dialogue choice for the writers to pick when you think about all the other reminders of his nature as the house itself throughout the season. With the precedent these moments set, it would have been much more appropriate for him to latch onto the “fortress” side of “secret fortress” AND it would have been just as equally funny of a joke about his awareness skills, but instead, Hooty broke away from the established trend to say something that would make people suspicious were it to come from anyone else.

In a way, this reminds me much of the many subtle bits of foreshadowing strewn across the show, like Luz unknowingly describing Amity in Witches Before Wizards and Eda burning a hole through Luz’s coven type quiz that coincidentally selected the same track she had taken at Hexside as “a punky potionist.” At the time of airing, these initially seemed like one-off jokes, but eventually came back in full force several episodes later with Amity’s hidden sensitive feelings and love for the Azura books becoming clear in Lost in Language, and the reveal of Eda’s school track in Something Ventured, Someone Framed with her school misdemeanor pictures.

That said, compared to these individual bits of minor foreshadowing, the jokes about Hooty in Understanding Willow appear to simply be the most obvious pieces in a giant puzzle, implicitly and outright telling attentive viewers that there’s a major mystery to be uncovered here.

In fact, I feel bold enough to say that we could be looking at a twist on a similar scale to that of the Pink Diamond/Rose Quartz and Stanford Pines twists in Steven Universe and Gravity Falls respectively, what with this particular puzzle piece coming from how Gus wanted to make THE greatest interview of all time, and how he was looking for someone who was “interesting, accomplished, AND noteworthy:”

Note the emphasis on the ‘and’ here, as Gus had made a big deal that “people aren’t meantto be all those things” at the beginning of the episode, so as a result, stripping away all the comedic framing of his subplot leaves the intriguing implication that whoever - and, perhaps, what- Hooty is, they really are the most interesting, accomplished, AND noteworthy person out of everyone.

I could go further and talk about why I suspect the mystery surrounding King’s origins, whether true or not, is partially meant to misdirect us from paying attention to Hooty, or how the TOH crew’s could be disguising legitimate clues to his nature among made up and highly meme-able joke answers in order to proliferate said concepts throughout the fandom - thus letting us do all the dirty work of getting ourselves used to the ideas and used to dismissing them at the same time - but to bring things to a close for now, I’d like to leave you all with a question that I’ll start answering next time:

What does it mean when both the most powerful and notorious witch on the Boiling Isles and the possible actual king of demons/the Titan itself/something don’t match up to a house? And what do you think it is that makes him so special to warrant such misdirection?

TLDR: Between Eda’s golem spells, the show stressing his nature as the titular house, his implicit strength, and the odd dialogue and structure of Understanding Willow‘s subplot in relation to him, I believe I have good reason to suspect the show has been giving us many hints towards Hooty being much, much more important than it would like us to currently believe or even joke about. Particularly, through clever uses of comedy to establish and enforce a strong audience bias against looking closely at him or unironically taking him seriously, and to potentially plant the seeds for something I will start exploring in Part 2.

[thoughts-on-bangtan]

Three Asks

It’s been a while since we answered some asks so today and maybe tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, we’ll collect some and answer them since we’ve gotten while a few in the last two or three weeks.

In today’s post I picked out the three most recent asks we’ve received, two of which are ones I’d usually just delete because answering is pointless but one of them showcased a popular pattern so we decided to reply just this once. So this time around the questions are about Namjoon and Seokjin, next time we’ll do ones about Tae and Jimin (and vmin), and so on.

Ask 1 - Did Namjoon have to bring up the criticism he received in 2015/16 in the Juju Chang interview?

Ask 2 and 3 - questions from either diet solos (someone who isn’t quite a solo stan just yet but exhibits the same thought patterns as solos do) or full on solo stans.

From anon: So you must have seen their interview alongside the President right on a news show? Most of it was fine and I liked how involved they were especially JK, but a point Namjoon made is what I'm kinda dicey about. He addressed that they were called out for WoH lyrics but the thing is I'm not sure if it needed to be brought up. Especially in American media and the way they contextualize things..

Obviously he meant that they grew from it but not sure if that was the way to put it I guess?

I will admit, there aren’t many times when asks that get sent to us annoy me, but this one in conjunction with the absolute nonsense that took place about this on twt just made my blood boil. Let’s look at the question and answer so we have full context when it comes to the interview and then, after that, we’ll look at the greater context of why Namjoon saying what he did is significant and a big deal.

Juju Chang: You guys are an all male band and, let’s face it, Korea, historically, has been a very male dominated culture and yet here at the UN one of the core values in Sustainable Development is educating women and having gender equality. You have a lot of female fans. What would you say to them about gender equality and working towards that?

Namjoon: Personally, I received a lot fo criticism regarding misogyny in 2015 and 2016, which led me to get my lyrics reviewed by a women’s studies professor. That experience, in turn, was an opportunity for me to self-reflect and question whether I’d been insensitive toward gender equality. I want to do the best I can to take interest in the topic, learn and make improvements. That’s my perspective now. 

Namjoon used a personal story as framework to showcase that even someone like him, a man in a position of power/influence from a country which, as the interviewer explained, is very male dominated can learn, grow and, in the long run, contribute to change. It takes tremendous bravery to do something like this, to not only admit that you made such a mistake, but also to take it and grow from it, take the time to reflect and strive to better yourself to never repeat it again. And also talk about doing so not only during an international broadcast but also while your own president sits right there next to you.

Perhaps there are a relatively big number of countries in the west where equality is much closer to being a reality, where it is a core value to respect woman, one that you are raised with, but here the context was specifically BTS and their background, their country and their culture. From K-ARMY we know that things have taken a turn for the worse in Korea when it comes to women’s rights and the behavior of men toward them, how feminism is treated essentially as a dirty word and you will get hunted down for using it or for behaving in a feminist manner. Namjoon himself was placed on some list made by misogynists labeling him as a dirty, dirty feminist. The same men who even went after the military to get them to stop using a hand gesture which could, if you really want to, be used to make fun of a man for a small d*ck. In polls men in their 20s and 30s have voted being against feminism and I don’t mean just like 10 or 20% of voters, but rather 50-70%, even some presidential candidates have apparently been revealed as anti-feminists.

Circling back to Namjoon, having this context, do you now get why it was a big thing for him to say this, why it makes him a role model and why it was important to do so? Besides this isn’t just about the WoH lyrics which, to be frank, were never an actual issue but instead were made into one (the line I know that usually get’s brought up most is “The girls are equations, and us guys are solutions” which, if you think about it, actually means that boys and girls are equal since 2+5=7, the equation and the solution are the same, and also the song is satire about hormonal boys and their behavior which people have decided to ignore for the sake of sitting on their high horses instead). Namjoon wasn’t even the only member credited for the lyrics yet he took the blame upon himself, used this to better himself even though we know 2015 was an extremely dark time for him. But he is the leader, he took responsibility and he grew from it. He stands as example of how change is possible even in a country that is male dominated and misogynistic.

From anon: Reading your post about My universe I can’t but be heavy hearted. 

It’s such a beautiful song but Jin not having almost any lines ruined the experience for me. He deserves so much more than being a mere backup vocal. Same goes to Jimin but I’m not as effected as Jin, since we’ve all seen a pattern there. 

We know the boys decide collectively decide LD and how it fits their personalities and voices but I can’t but feel icky about Dynamite, not today, BS&T and now MY. 

I truly hope this doesn’t continue and BH decides to respect Jin more as an artist. He’s one of the biggest reasons the group is where it is now.

Though I can’t say with 100% certainty that this comes from someone that has consumed too much solo stan “content”, it does very much feel like it and the only reason why I’m even answering this is that I’d like to highlight something, a pattern we've seen a million times over for years now in regard to line distribution but that is even more glaring and flawed in this case, after we’ve seen how My Universe was recorded:

“We know the boys collectively decide” and yet “and BH decides to respect Jin more”, with this you’re basically saying that you know all the members, including Seokjin, are involved BUT since giving him and the others slack for it would make you look bad, you instead throw blame at BH, which in this case had no say in the line distribution. That choice was Christ Martin’s to make. If you already complain about line distribution, at least have the guts to direct your hate at the people you just said yourself make the choice--the members. Solos already belittle Seokjin’s efforts as it is, and constantly demand an acting debut of him which basically, to me, just comes across as them wanting him to act because they don’t value his singing and music, so would it be really that farfetched for them to also hate on him for, what, not speaking up and demanding more to satisfy you?

Seokjin was so happy and excited while recording My Universe, while meeting Chris Martin, someone he’s admired and been a fan of for so long. He gave his best while recording and sounded absolutely marvelously, and yet instead of celebrating him, his voice, and what we do hear of him, you just focus on the negatives.

BH isn’t perfect by any means, don’t even try to come into our asks calling me a company stan or whatever because I’m far from it, but in this case they had nothing to do with it. Coldplay and Chris Martin did. We saw all the members record the chorus, and we heard it, we saw and heard Seokjin sing absolutely beautifully and get praise for it, and we saw how happy this collab has made him. Why can’t you just let this be a happy time, why must you immediately search for things to be negative about?

Would I have liked so hear more of his voice on My Universe? Obviously, I even said as much in my post about the song. I love Seokjin and his voice a lot, he is my bias wrecker for a reason. But the song has already happened, been recorded, mastered, and released. What will a negativity parade change? What? Absolutely nothing except for make him feel bad because you can’t just say “Seokjin did amazingly, I love his voice”, no, you have to go around yelling “OMG he is being cut from the song because BH hates him”. What does that do for him? Like really, tell me, because I don’t get it.

And if my opinion isn’t valid enough for you, it is, after all, just an opinion, take Seokjin’s opinion about the collab instead:

Or asks such as this one:

From anon: I honestly can’t wait for Seokjin to go solo one day. Go where he’s appreciated for his talents and musicality, not cuz he’s just a “hyung” or “comic relief” or “WWH”.

Where, tell me, has he ever expressed an interest in going solo? No, I’m serious, where, because all I know is that he is happy with his members, with what he does, that he enjoys making music and getting more involved than he used to. Just the other day during the interview with Juju Chang he spoke about how he misses the old times where he could go for soju and food with Yoongi to spend some time together.

And just a few years before that Yoongi said that Seokjin has been good from the beginning, and there are tons of other examples of the members praising Seokjin in terms of his voice and musicality. When he was going through burnout last year, Bang PD encouraged him to channel his thoughts and feelings into music, recommended him a producer he thought work well with him, and Seokjin said it really did help him. And we got Abyss as result from it all, a gorgeous and raw song. 

Yes, he gets praise for being a good hyung, because guess what, he is a good hyung. Maybe for you that’s not good enough, but he’s proud of it, has always taken the fact that he’s the eldest seriously even when goofing around with his members. How is that a bad thing?

Seokjin loves his members and they love him. Seokjin loves ARMY and we love him back tenfold. Just because solos hate the members and aren’t satisfied with Seokjin, how is that my issue or even his? If you’re a genuine fan of his, support his hard work, support all his contributions to BTS’ music, their performances, their dancing, and everything else. Because he is part of BTS regardless if you like it or not, and as far as we are aware, he doesn’t plan on changing that any time soon, or at all. 

[honeymoonjin]

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DAY SIXTEEN

The realisation of the decision you have to make hits you like a truck the moment you wake up.

You hadn’t lied to Yoongi last night. Chatting with him about it was helpful, and you’re insanely grateful for his attentiveness and the fact that you can be honest with him about things like that. But it doesn’t mean you’re any closer to knowing who you want to be eliminated.

You’ve barely been awake and coherent for a minute before your phone buzzes noisily on your nightstand. Blinking blearily at the screen, a message from Taehyung lights it up. Bunkroom, please.

He’d sent it two minutes ago, your phone giving you that 2min reminder. It must have been what woke you. Your sleepy fingers manage to type out a quick coming now before you force yourself out from the cosiness of the covers and heading down.

Jimin is already there when you arrive, arms crossed to preserve the warmth of his body and perched on the foot of Taehyung’s bed. The masseuse had picked the two-set of bunks, directly across from the door, and he sits wrapped up in blankets, cross-legged and leaning against the far wall. He pats the mattress with a covered hand and you sit between the two, Jimin naturally scooting up to sandwich you between the two.

“Is this an intervention?” you joke weakly, voice still croaky from sleep.

“Not really.” You feel the pressure of Taehyung’s head on your shoulder. “Do you know who you’re voting out yet?”

You let out a self-deprecating scoff. “I do not.”

Taehyung goes silent for a moment. “Well… I have an idea.”

Jimin turns to face him, clearly just as in the dark as you are. “About who to vote out?”

“Kinda,” Taehyung murmurs. The only light in the room is what sneaks in through the crack of the doorway. You let your eyes slip shut as Taehyung winds his fingers into yours. “I want you to vote out me.”

Both you and Jimin go stiff, protesting at the same time. “Tae…”

“No,” the older man to your left says harshly. “Why would you want that?”

Taehyung seems to similarly shrink away and lean in closer, making himself small. “It would be easier on Y/n,” he states in an equally small voice.

Your eyes snap open even though you can only see grey-scale versions of the boys. “Tae, that’s not how this is meant to be. I’m a big girl; I’ll live.”

“You don’t get it,” Taehyung insists, sitting up and untangling himself from you so he can face you full-on. “I know the decision is hard on you. But it’s really hard on us too, and I realised last night that it’s not because I’m worried about getting voted out, it’s because I hate seeing you so upset. We’ve already made a promise to each other. I’ve seen more of you and shared more with you than most of the other guys, and I just think… You know, fuck the competition. You and Jimin both mean more to me than the game, and so I think I’d be happy to take that hit to make things easier on all of us.” His gaze drops, fingers picking at the thread of the blanket. “And, you know, maybe we’d be able to keep us a secret longer if the others saw you vote me out.”

While you sit stunned into silence, Jimin burst into action, gripping your thigh gently but emphatically. “It should be me, then. You’ve been nothing less than a sweetheart this entire time, Tae, you don’t deserve last place. Let Y/n vote me.”

Taehyung chuckles, no sadness or resentment in his voice. “Nobody would believe that Y/n would vote you out, Minnie,” he quips, his teeth gleaming in the dim room. “You’re too good at what you do.”

“I’ve been an asshole. I got in a fight the other day. I don’t think it’s hard to believe at all.” Taehyung makes a noise of protest in his throat, so Jimin cuts back in before he can voice it. “At least let’s flip a coin for it. Leave it up to chance.”

Your body goes lax against the wall with a silent sob of miserable irony. Just yesterday Taehyung had jauntily suggested you could choose who to vote off with a coin toss, and now he was rifling through his bag for one, to see if he or Jimin would be the one to leave. “I haven’t even said yes,” you point out lowly, “I haven’t said I want this. That I’m happy for one of you to leave.”

Jimin lets out a quiet sigh, his face cast in the warm hallway light as Taehyung opens the door wider to see more. “But would you be happier if you made one of them seventh place? Had them think they’re the worst in the house?”

“At least this way we won’t be offended or mad at you,” Taehyung assures as he returns, running his thumb over the engravings on a 50 won coin. “Doesn’t that count for something?”

They’re waiting for you. You bite down on your tongue and force yourself to think. To picture the faces of the others, of how they might react. Hoseok if he was on the chopping block for the second time in a row. Namjoon if he felt like his inexperience was his downfall. Jungkook thinking the fight yesterday was the nail in his coffin, or Jin seeing your elimination as a rejection of him and his feelings. Yoongi after letting you confide in him only to send him figuratively packing.

You’d have to eliminate them eventually. All but one of the guys on this show would face that goodbye at some point. Was it selfish of you to push it off for one more week?

“You can flip it,” you decide after a moment, your stomach sinking immediately. “Fuck, this sucks. I’m so sorry.”

Jimin’s grip on your thigh squeezes once comfortingly, and Taehyung rubs your shoulder, before he turns to his elder. “Min, heads or tails?”

“Heads,” Jimin picks without hesitation.

Taehyung, however, does hesitate. “Doesn’t heads come up more often?” he questions warily.

Jimin grits his teeth and nods. “It should be me.”

The masseuse frowns, his black curls like a dark halo as he steadies the coin on his thumb. “Whoever’s comes up gets eliminated?”

Jimin nods again. “Flip it, Tae.”

The second he flicks his thumb and the coin rises, you squeeze your eyes shut, not even breathing. Hoping that the moment where both of them are going to stay in could last a little longer.

The two boys go silent. You feel their eyes on you, then their hands, both slipping into yours just seconds apart from each other. Feeling your eyes prickle, you clear your throat. “Who is it?”

Without a word, your right side becomes heavy as Taehyung buries his face into your shoulder, free arm wrapping tightly around your waist.

You begin to cry before you can even think to stop it, leaning back into him as much as you can with both your hands occupied. Opening your eyes, they remain too blurry to really see out of, but you feel the two of them shift, fingers wiping under your cheeks and cupping your jaw.

“Hey, shh, don’t cry, petal,” Taehyung voice croons, smooth like velvet. “It’s okay, we’re okay.”

You sniff shudderingly, detaching your hands from theirs so you can press over your eyes, composing yourself. “Sorry,” you mumble in a thick voice, “I’ll just miss you.”

You blink away the last of your tears so that his face comes into focus, lips curving slightly, eyes swimming with emotion and with tears of his own. “Hey,” he soothes again, “I’m not going anywhere. All this means is that I can’t have sex with you. It’s not like sex is the only valuable thing about you, the only thing I like about you, you know? I can still hold your hand, I can still be beside you, I can still make you smile. I wanna see that pretty smile again, petal.”

Even though you probably look like a mess, and your heart is fizzy with mangled emotion, you can’t fight the smile that stretches across your lips. Taehyung brightens at the sight, praising you softly as you reach out and shove him playfully. “You sap,” you whine petulantly, heart settling nonetheless.

Having let the two of you share that moment together, Jimin finally pitches in, his voice bright and soothing like yuja tea. “Worst case scenario,” he jibes lightly, “you’ll just have to fuck pup with his hands tied and take the punishment.”

Your laugh is watery but it’s genuine. “Ah, Tae, are you gonna put me in some crazy lingerie or something?”

“I don’t have to when you look gorgeous in everything you wear already,” he admits with a fond smile, before it stretches wider, a cheeky glint in his eyes. “Lingerie sounds nice though. Good thinking.”

Jimin clears his throat lightly and stands up off the bed, slipping his phone out of his pocket to consult the time. “It’s just gone eight, so you have about an hour. I’ll give you two some privacy, yeah?”

Jimin shuts the door behind him, inadvertently pitching the room back into darkness. Taehyung lets out a breathy giggle, getting up to stumble around for the curtains.

You wince and shield your eyes when the white walls gleam with the brightness of the morning sun.

Taehyung looks more gorgeous in the well-lit room than he did in a dim one, so you will your eyes to quickly adjust, drinking him in. Deep chocolate curls resting on his brow, he shakes them back as he gestures up with a single hand. “We should probably go on the top bunk.”

You blink. “Huh?”

“I don’t wanna get my hair caught on the metal springs on the bottom there,” he explains, leaning forward to wrap his fingers around the network of wire that holds up the mattress of the top bunk just above your head. “I swear I’ve done that so many times in just this one night. It hurts.”

Slipping out dutifully, you climb the few rungs of the ladder to sit atop the bunk, reminded of the last time you stayed here with Namjoon and Hoseok. The mood is so different now, only emphasised by the way Taehyung gently tips you back against the pillow the second he joins you.

“Tae, what are you- Tae,” you gasp, feeling the slight tickle of his hair on your neck as he leans in and pulls the neckline of your sleep shirt over your shoulder, baring the flesh. His lips leave light butterfly kisses over the sensitive skin, making you sigh out at the feeling. “What are you doing, Tae?”

He sits up, braced by his forearms on either side of your head. Like this, his hair casts a shadow over his face, but you can see the insistent fire in his eyes. “I want to touch you, petal,” he confesses, “one last time.”

Your heart is seized with emotion, a lump thickening in your throat. “It won’t be the last last time, Tae.”

“True,” he acquiesces, “but for the rest of our time here I’ll have to see the others with you, our Minnie will be able to still be with you, but you and I won’t be able to do any more than hold hands. Won’t you let me treat you like your deserve before then?”

You nod quickly, breath hitching. “Touch me, Tae.”

This time he doesn’t waste time shifting the fabric to the side. Instead, his large palms slip under the small of your back, guiding you to arch it so he can slip your shirt off entirely, tossing it down all the way to the floor.

You sit up and peer over the edge with a wince, glancing back up at Taehyung. “Please don’t fall over,” you plead in a small voice.

The masseuse grins fondly, taking a peek before moving the other way, towards the wall. “It’s not that high,” he protests softly, even as he props himself up on one elbow, his leg thrown low over your thighs, keeping you locked in close too. His hand lowers to run lightly down your side, making you shiver. “Better?”

You bite your lip and nod. “Better.”

With a slightly bemused hum, Taehyung dips his head and his lips find your skin again, making use of the lack of shirt to trail kisses lower, unhurried even with the very real threat of the deadline hanging over you.

You let out an airy sigh at the intimate way he moves down your shoulder, over your collarbones, to the swell of your chest. Instead of a straight line, every kiss is plotted out in mindless curls and loops, like he wants to cover as much ground as possible.

As his hair tickles your skin, it sends tingles running down your nerves, your nipples peaking as they anticipate his attention. “Tae…” you breathe, giggling when his chaste touches make you shiver.

His voice vibrates slightly against your skin. “You’re so beautiful,” he praises, his free arm slipping over to gently grasp your arm, thumb running over the crook of your inner elbow. “So gorgeous, petal.”

His palms are like hot coals against your skin as it breaks out in goosebumps, hair standing on end. It feels like a quiet eternity before his mouth reaches one of your nipples, closing around it with the sudden wet heat of his tongue. You cry out at the unexpected stimulation and jerk, but the weight of his head, leg and arm carefully pinning you against the sheets keep you steady.

Taehyung takes his time worshipping your breasts, sucking your nipple with a wet pop as his hand shifts once more to play with the other. Pausing to lick the pads of his thumb and forefinger, he returns to roll the bud between them, making heat pool in your core.

Part of you feels like pushing his head between your legs, or wrapping your legs around his waist and demanding he fills you, but you don’t want this moment to be over any sooner than it has to be. Instead, your fingers wind into his hair, cradling his head to you as you arch your chest up into that delicious stimulation.

Even as you feel his cock plump up between the layers of clothing that separate you, he doesn’t so much as grind his hips, focussing fully on your pleasure. After what could be mere moments or entire minutes, he swaps over, leaning to the opposite breast to lave his tongue over it, baring the slightest nip of teeth to make you gasp.

It feels like a lazy eternity before his hand moves again, this time running a flat palm between your breasts, down your stomach and slipping under the worn elastic waistband. Wanting to give yourself a little room to breathe under the baggy pants you’d worn to bed, you’d foregone panties, and Taehyung hisses in sharply when his fingers run over your mound and immediately dip into your folds.

Recovering quickly, he begins to massage your hooded clit, using your own wetness to lubricate it for a smoother slide. You let out a throaty moan, legs parting to make more room for his sizeable hand. “Tae,” you pant out again, whimpering when he begins pressing kisses to your stomach.

“Yes, petal?” Taehyung questions sweetly, his movement on your clit so slow that you find yourself rocking your hips against him just for more stimulation.

“Want you to kiss me.”

“I am kissing you,” he counters, lips dragging over your hipbone as he speaks.

You whine. “On the lips, Tae.”

His fingers delve lower, parting your folds. “Which ones?”

Though the thought makes you clench around nothing, you push weakly at his shoulder in protest. “Up here, Tae, wanna kiss you properly.”

He gives in, shifting up to join his swollen lips to yours for the first time since you’d gotten up here. Just as you hook your hand on the nape of his neck and kiss him, he breaches your walls with two slick fingers, making you cry out into his mouth.

Taehyung chuckles, massaging you from the inside, fingers scissoring and curling rather than thrusting. “That feel good, petal?”

You nod shakily, eyes fluttering shut as you put your mind into kissing him properly, tongue running down the seam of his lips so that he parts them for you. He continues to work you open with languid grace, his fingers so long and deft that even the most minimal movements take your breath away.

He may be focused on your pleasure, but he doesn’t seem to be pushing you to orgasm, instead letting you bask in the warmth of your arousal and his steady stimulation. Even as he slips a third finger inside you and uses the base of his palm to rub against your clit, you’re reminded of a massage. The way he draws out the moment so that you can enjoy the experience of it, not just the final result. Your muscles go lax and one of your legs hitch up to spread yourself wider for him, but still his ministrations are so slow that you can’t even hear how obscenely wet you must be.

Still fully clothed, you can feel Taehyung’s hardness against your hip, his leg splayed over one of your thighs to keep you still for him. As your pleasure steadily rises, but that familiar curl in your stomach never tightens, you begin to grow needy. First attempting to rut against his fingers, then nipping at his lip in the hopes of riling him up, you eventually resort to pulling away from him and giving him your best puppy eyes. “Please, Tae, I want you to fuck me.”

His eyes are still blissfully shut from the kiss, and his brows furrow just slightly, hand stilling inside you. “I wanna make this last.”

You bite your lip, pressing a hand to his cheek fondly. “I don’t want to run out of time. We’ll end up being late to the meeting.”

Taehyung sighs, tilting his head to press a kiss to your palm. “Who cares if we’re late?”

Your lip twitches. “Sejin, probably. Do you want him coming up here at one minute past nine, interrupting us?”

The masseuse winces, his fingers slipping out of your wet heat. “You think he’d do that?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t wanna risk it either,” you offer up.

“Fuck.” Taehyung sits up and quickly tugs down your waistband, making you squeal and giggle at his sudden change of pace. “You’re right, shit.”

He strips himself even quicker than he did you, jimmying out of his boxer shorts and tugging his shirt over his head like it’s scalding him. Immediately you feel his erection against your thigh, heavy and wet with precum. Instead of getting back up on top of you, you feel Taehyung’s hand - still sticky from your arousal - pulling your hip up to guide you to lie on your side.

With legs intertwined, he hitches your outer leg over his waist and lines himself up at your entrance. Almost shaking with excitement, you cling to him and hold your breath as he pushes forward, his head entering you slowly but surely.

It’s quiet in the bunkroom, the only sound being your shared breathing, but there’s something so vulnerable and tender in that silence, and you tremble as he bottoms out inside you. The angle you’re both at, lying side by side, makes it feel like he’s deeper than you’ve ever felt before, filling you completely. You picture his cock so far inside you that it presses against your stomach, and the thought makes you tremble.

“Okay?” Taehyung checks in, giving you a moment to adjust.

You nod and lean forward to capture his lips, savouring that familiar embrace. “Ready, Tae,” you confirm, clenching around his girth. “Fuck me like you mean it.”

Taehyung lets out an unbidden groan, and just like that his patience is dissolved, rutting up into you with short, staccato thrusts that punch the air right out of you. Your fingers curl, clutching onto him for dear life as your nerves are set alight.

Every rock of his hips grinds his cock into the base of your clit, and you find yourself grinding against him, helplessly seeking out the best angle. “T-Tae, fuck, so good,” you manage to force out, voice wobbling even more than your legs.

His hands are all over you; running over your thighs, stroking your back, gripping your ass to meet every thrust. As you look over to him blearily, that same desperate hunger is evident in his face. You take a few moments to appreciate him. This will be the last time in a while that he’s writhing in carnal bliss because of you, and you fight to memorise every last inch of his face.

His hair is messy from sleep and the roughness of your current predicament, some curling at his temples even as the rest sticks up at odd angles, but on him it looks like some kind of wild halo that just makes him all the more gorgeous. His eyes are clenched shut even as his mouth goes slack. The tiniest gloss of drool gathers in the corner of his lips, which are a swollen pink, contrasting so beautifully with his olive skin. Light moans and exertions fall past those lips like a steady river, rushing louder every time you clench around him.

Unable to hold yourself back any more, you lurch forward, teeth pinching your lip with how eagerly you rejoin yourself to his. His responding whimper is muffled, but the way his thrusts stutter as his hands fly up to cup your face close to him speaks volumes.

The movement of his cock deep inside you isn’t measured, or ruthless, or graceful. It’s seeking pleasure and giving pleasure mindlessly, wishing to be as close as you possibly can for as long as you can, barely even speaking to each other.

His lips are equally uncoordinated as they slant against you, his tongue dipping out thoughtlessly, teeth nipping needily. You lose your mind to this primal moment between the two of you, sense of time fading away as minute details like a drop of sweat rolling down your back take centre stage. All you can focus on are his fingernails lightly pressing into your cheek; the roughness of his leg hair against your calf; the squeaking of the springs beneath you.

You can’t even tell if you’re making any noise yourself, so lost in those divine notes that slip off his tongue. At one point your mouths slide apart and he tucks his face into the crook of your neck, focuses on thrusting harder. You dig your fingers into his shoulders, trying to meet those thrusts but every moment your pleasure mounts it just gets harder to make your body obey.

When Taehyung speaks, it’s impossible to tell how much time has passed, if Sejin is waiting outside or if you still have most of the hour. Once he buried himself inside you, you slowly stopped caring about the outside world. Those doors felt like an impenetrable wall that would keep you and him secure for as long as you needed it. His voice comes to you muffled, a tickle on your collarbone. “Wanna feel you cum, petal,” he confesses, voice hoarse. “Are you close?”

You gasp, writhing against him. “Need more, Tae.” You barely manage to finish your sentence before fingers are grinding against your clit, pressing it between the pad of his thumb and his cock. Immediately, heat rushes through you, making your eyes roll back. “Fu-fuck, right there,” you cry, core pulsing with every thrust.

With an added source of pleasure, your orgasm begins to quickly approach, your entire body alight with it. At some point your eyes have fallen shut, and you’ve failed to meet his thrusts, almost entirely unable to think, your mind just overwhelmed with the feeling of his cock moving so deeply inside you.

Taehyung, although similarly delirious with pleasure, seems slightly more put together than you. His hips begin to snap faster, fucking into you without abandon even as the angle prevents him from getting too much momentum. His thumb speeds up, rolling your most sensitive bud over his shaft as it drives into you, and his free hand is trapped between you and the sheets, fingers tangled in your hair.

“Close, so close, gon’cum soon, Tae,” you warn him in a garbled stream when the stimulation begins to surmount what your body can handle. Toes curling, you pant and wait before your orgasm to hit any second, whining every time his length pulls out.

When Taehyung speaks, it’s breathy like a prayer. “Kiss me.”

You have just enough time to seek out his lips before the dam breaks and you’re cumming around him. Still seeking his own end, Taehyung ruts into you and makes out with you messily, groaning into your mouth when you tighten, nerves singing with raw pleasure, an orgasm that never seems to end.

You continue to kiss him as he finally begins to spill inside you, going tense and grinding his hips rather than thrusting. It feels so right, being joined like this with limbs entangled and every breath shared.

It takes you a few moments of coming down from your high to notice the wetness on your cheeks. At first you think you’re crying, overwhelmed from a powerful orgasm, but as you crack your eyes open you see Taehyung pull back, shoulders jerking and a hand clapped over his mouth and nose.

He cries silently, tears soaking the pillow and dripping off his nose, but there’s nothing you can say. It’s just a game, you still have me, we only have to wait a little while, these things wouldn’t bring him any comfort, not when he already knew them. His wasn’t a sadness you had to explain away or solve, it was one he just needed to feel in its entirety.

So, just as quietly as sobs wrack his body, you wrap your arms around him, burying your face in the crook of his neck, and hold him close.

He calms down eventually, pressing his cheek against the crown of your head, but the two of you stay like that for every last minute that you have left.

When your phone vibrates, followed quickly by his, you know that your time is up, and you dress in silence.

--

The meeting starts at 9:12 a.m. You know this, because by the time Taehyung descends the stairs - joining you several minutes later to prevent suspicion - Sejin is wearing a hole in the carpet, informing the group there is a schedule for a reason.

“Can we get started now?” Sejin asks in a snappish tone, before taking in a measured breath, calming himself. “Sorry. Long day.”

“But it’s only nine… thirteen a.m.,” Taehyung supplies helpfully. Sejin doesn’t seem to find it very helpful. “Sorry. Yes, we can start.”

As the masseuse settles himself on a couch beside Jimin, you do your best not to look their way. Sat beside Sejin on the edge of the coffee table, you’re facing the whole group, but there is a strange sense of calm that comes over you when you look at the others. Knowing they’re safe for at least another week.

“Once again,” Sejin announces, knee bumping yours, “the gentlemen have a chance to defend themselves before Y/n makes her decision. Clockwise around the room; Namjoon, we’ll start with you.”

It’s been a pretty rainy morning, a cold front frosting up the windows and making the heatpump slow to act. The academic has himself bundled up in a thick brown sweater and chunky pants, hands slipped between his own thighs for an extra bit of warmth. Somehow, the stocky clothes just make him look smaller. “Y/n,” he begins, “I know I’m never going to be as experienced as the others beside me, but I do really want to keep learning with you, and exploring different things. You make me feel really comfortable and at ease, which is unusual since usually I panic even thinking about kissing someone, and so I’d be really sad if I lost that learning curve that I’m going up with you. I hope you enjoy our time together enough that you’ll let me stay a little longer.”

As he is most days, Hoseok sits beside Namjoon, half-leaning on the taller man. He’s wearing sleek black today; skinny jeans, fitted turtleneck and a cinched waist. Reminiscent of the first two scenes you’d done together, you wonder if he’s wearing those clothes strategically. “My turn? Y/n, if you’re thinking of voting Namjoon out, vote me instead, and if you’re thinking of voting out any of the other guys, good luck to them.” His cheeks lift in a warm smile as you laugh, the humour skimming off some of the tension that weighs the room down. “But on a serious note, I think you and I are extremely sexually compatible, and I take great pleasure in watching you fall apart for me. I want for you to see me as somebody that you can trust to take care of you, but also push you and challenge you. For that, I do hope you choose not to eliminate me.”

You suck in a slow breath. It’s strange hearing them out with no intention of voting them out anyway. Rather than making you feel more indecisive, it reaffirms all the good that you have in this house, that you’re lucky to still retain after the meeting today. You owed Taehyung a massive thank you.

Wedged on the other side of Hoseok is the youngest gentleman. Jungkook has his legs tucked under him, fluffy grey bedsocks peeking out. When Sejin looks at hiim expectantly, he clears his throat. “I actually, um, have a presentation.”

As the rest of the room watches in bewilderment, he hops off the couch and flicks on the television. On the screen, two mirrored selfies of him pouting and winking bracket a message, VOTE FOR JUNGKOOK.

He sucks in a breath suddenly, whirling around to face you. “That should say don’t,” he explains in a rush, “don’t vote for Jungkook.”

Turning back, he crouches beside the cabinet to where a laptop is hooked up to the back of the TV. Changing slides, he straightens up again. A crossfade gives way to a slide which begins with the title, Who Is Jungkook?

“Fucking hell,” Yoongi grumbles, shifting to get himself comfortable on the middle couch he shares with Jin. “Wake me up when it’s my turn.”

Clearing his throat, Jungkook begins to read off the screen. “Who is Jungkook? Successful camboy, avid gamer, budding chef - that’s a picture of me helping hyung cook - and most importantly… Objectively the most attractive guy in the house.”

Even as he hurries to change slides, the other men - namely Jin and Taehyung - protest with cries of outrage and disbelief. Jungkook ignores them, just raising his voice enough to carry over their complaints, waiting for the new slide to bounce in above the previous one. “Why should you save Jungkook?” This time, Jungkook stays crouched, each bullet point having its own slide with a related picture of him. “I will stream with you. I will help cook for you. I will let you play as Widowmaker. I will work out every day so that I stay capable of lifting you easily. I will show you the unflattering pictures I take of the hyungs.” Somehow, Jungkook’s managed to capture a shot of Hoseok mid-yawn, nose scrunched and jaw wide open at the dining table. The man himself lets out an indignant huff, only relaxing once Jungkook switches slides again, a dissolve transition leaving you with a final selfie with Jungkook biting his lip and flicking the camera a peace sign. Jungkook straightens up. “I will give you all these things and more if I’m still in the competition, so please, don’t vote Jungkook.”

Taehyung’s hesitant smattering of applause fills the room as Jungkook switches off the television, sitting himself back down beside Hoseok. Even as he smiles and acts casual about it, you can see his nerves in the way he wrings his hands in his lap. Even if you hadn’t already decided to vote out Tae, there was no way you could’ve voted Jungkook out this week.

Jin is next up, on the couch directly in front of you. His ment is simple. “Vote me out if you think I deserve it. If you genuinely think I’m the worst in the house. I don’t think you do.” The rest of the room falls silent, waiting for him to continue, but he sits back and shuffles Yoongi’s shoulder to indicate his turn.

Sitting up, honey blonde hair disheveled from the back of the couch, Yoongi clears his throat and looks over at you. “You and I spoke last night about the others, about reasons for them to stay in, reasons for them to be voted out. But you didn’t cover me, so here’s mine. Pros: I know my way around the female body in general and, I believe, your body specifically. I’m very willing to give most things a go, I learn fast, and you know that I can keep my head above the water in moments of crisis. I’m a safe person to have in the game.”

You grin. “And your cons?”

Yoongi harrumphs, pouting petulantly. “Well, I’m not going to say them now, am I? I’m trying to promote myself.”

Your bemusement is quick to evaporate when you realise it’s Jimin and Taehyung that are last to defend themselves. Running clockwise, Taehyung is the one who has to speak up now. His eyes dance around the room rather than settling, fingers fiddling with the zipper on his jacket pocket. “Y/n,” he announces, voice so soft and tentative, “I think you and I have a lot of, um, potential together in the bedroom, and, you know, if you keep me in the game, you’ll be able to enjoy the best hands in the business. And I really enjoyed my time with you so much, especially this week. It’s like we have an understanding when we...” Taehyung’s mouth opens, closes. “Uh, so… Don’t vote me out, because you’ll miss out on those things.”

You try not to let the blue cloud in your chest show on your face, staying neutral. You and him both knew you would miss out on those things. That you would miss those things too. Giving a little nod, hyperaware of your reactions, you turn to Jimin.

He’s looking you dead-on, barely moving. “You should vote me out,” he says plainly. “Not...any of the others.” Not Taehyung. “I was a dick the other day, I’ve been an asshole mostly this whole time, and I’m sure the other guys would love it if you did, because they all know I’m the biggest competition. If you ever miss me, I have countless videos online you could watch, or you could watch me fuck one of the guys here. And I’m sure you already have a name in mind, but change it to mine. It should be me.”

Your mouth goes dry, heart racing sickly in your chest. Taehyung’s staring at Jimin with puppy eyes, a silent protest. On the other side of the room, Jungkook lets out a surprised chuckle. “Reverse psychology!” he chirps. “Nice, hyung.”

“So, Y/n,” Sejin asks, voice warm with sympathy, “who’ll it be?”

With eyes stinging, you duck your head, the name on your tongue bitter like battery acid. What you wouldn’t give to throw yourself away instead. “Taehyung.”

The room goes dead quiet. No sighs of relief, expressions of condolence. No announcement from Sejin.

In the two weeks you’d been here, you’d been in this position once before. But that time, exactly one week ago, you’d been subject to a sudden change in events that saved everyone. Now, with Taehyung’s name still hanging in the air like a melancholy ghost, the weight of this decision and its finality sit heavy around the room.

The first cut is the deepest, and as Sejin begins to instruct Taehyung on how to proceed as an eliminated member, you feel like your heart has been sliced in two. The half of you that wants to rush up to him and kiss him silly and take back what you said, and the half that’s filled with an overwhelming relief that you’ve kept the others safe for now.

Taehyung doesn’t look at you much as he leaves. There’s a moment, a single glance, where he gives you a teary smile of approval and comfort. A million words that you can’t say in front of everyone. But then he turns, and he walks out the front door.

Jungkook, who was too shocked into silence to even be listening, straightens up with the wooden thunk of the door closing. “He’s not leaving for good, is he?”

Sejin shakes his head stiffly, before clearing his throat and slipping back into his producer mode. Even as he does so, you can see the elimination upsets him too, his eyes sad. “Taehyung is going around back to the confessional booth for his exit interview. He doesn’t need to be around for prompt distribution, so he’s going to just do it now. Which brings me to this week’s theme.” Sejin pauses for dramatic effect, but it only serves to highlight the sullen mood in the room. “Work hard, play hard.”

You frown in confusion. The first two weeks were easy. Locations, roleplay. You knew what type of thing would be occurring even if you didn’t have the specifics for each member. But this time, you felt totally lost.

Sejin continues. “This week, prompt distribution is also different. Usually, we have you randomly pick a prompt from the bunch. But this time, we have a Bangasm Bomb coming into play. Week 3’s Bangasm Bomb is that whoever won fan favourite in Week 2 will distribute the prompts for Week 3. Yoongi, that’s you.”

Though all of you are a bit reserved, you can’t help but perk up, the interest around the room growing. Yoongi, sat beside Jin but taking up most of the couch, sits up suddenly. “So I give them out randomly, or…?”

“You read all of the prompts and assign them however you choose. Without revealing the prompt to the rest of the group, I ask that you give a reason for each choice.”

Yoongi grins, jumping up in an usual show of liveliness to get the slips of folded paper off Sejin. “I guess I picked the right week to absolutely kill it in the audience vote.” He makes you wait an eternity as he painstakingly opens them all and considers them, eyes dark as they search the room, making little noises of consideration and indecision. Finally, he stands up straight and immediately pockets one.

“A reason, Yoongi,” Sejin reminds.

The doctor blinks. “Because I want it?” Moving to the next one in his pile, he approaches Hoseok first. “Okay, this one is because I think it’s best done by a professional.”

Hoseok takes the slip and holds it close to his chest as he reads, brows lifting. “That’s probably a good idea,” he affirms. “Thanks, hyung.”

Yoongi, clearly gleeful with his position of temporary power, glances at the next slip. “Ooh! Okay, this one is for Jin-hyung because it fits perfectly.”

Jin accepts the slip warily, letting out an exasperated laugh when he reads it. “You little shit.”

Yoongi’s grin is wide enough that you can see his gums. “I love this,” he informs Sejin, “whoever came up with this needs a raise. Anyways; next one.” Opening a fourth piece of paper, he immediately seeks out Namjoon. “I’m giving this to you because I think you’ll get a kick out of it, and I heard through the pipeline that you like to be called daddy.”

Namjoon goes red faster than a changing traffic light, spluttering violently on a lungful of air when he reads the prompt.

Before he has the chance to put it away, Hoseok puts a strong hand on his shoulder and holds him in place so he can quickly sneak a peek of it, collapsing into a peal of laughter when he sees it. “You’re probably right,” he quips to Yoongi, who preens in satisfaction.

“Okay, moving on,” Yoongi continues, “Jungkook, this one’s for you. I figure you’re such a switch that you could play this either way, and I’m curious.”

You furrow your brows, as does Jungkook, but the moment the youngest man reads his prompt, the lines in his face smooth out in realisation. “Thanks, hyung,” he offers up sweetly. “I like this one.”

“I’m sure you do, kid,” the doctor says with a pat of his shoulder, before handing Jimin the final prompt. “And I’m giving you this one because it’s the last one left.”

Jimin scoffs at the weak reasoning, but his eyes dart up to you immediately once he looks at what it says. With a lip curling in bemusement and interest, Jimin thanks Yoongi. “This suits me just fine.”

Done assigning prompts, Yoongi turns to Sejin. “If this show gets greenlit for a second season and you don’t offer me a job, I’ll be personally offended.”

Sejin rolls his eyes with a begrudging smile. “Good job, Yoongi. And meeting adjourned, ev- Wait, no! There’s more; almost forgot.”

You lift your brows, waiting for some other groundbreaking twist or dramatic flair that seemed to keep cropping up during these meetings.

The producer stands himself up, patting his back pocket where his phone rests. “I just had a meeting with the showrunners, and they’re not happy with the punishment for breaking elimination rules. I’ll go tell Taehyung this after, since it mostly concerns him and Y/n, but as an FYI, the protocol around eliminated members has changed a bit.” He takes a breath, hands up and ready to gesture his explanation. “Basically, our old system was that if an eliminated member touched Y/n sexually, he’d be out of the house for good, and if Y/n touched the eliminated member sexually, she had to wear an outfit of that person’s choice. Uh, it seems that second system isn’t really that drastic, and could easily be manipulated, so we’re changing it up upon the showrunners’ request. Now, if the eliminated member touches Y/n sexually, he’ll have to leave as usual, but if Y/n touches him sexually, her punishment has changed to being taken out of the house for 24 hours.”

You tip your head to the side. “That doesn’t sound like a punishment.”

Sejin gives a strained smile. “You’ll be taken out of the house for 24 hours, handcuffed to me.”

“Huh?” Jin asks incredulously. “Bit wish fulfilment isn’t it, big guy?”

The producer has the good grace to blush. “It’s not like that, and it wasn’t my decision. Apparently, the viewers these days are taking more interest in the workings of staff. Additionally, as with the clothing rule, handcuffing Y/n to another member of the house is once again too easy to work around. Anyways, that’s the new rule. Got it?”

You blink. “So… let’s say I run outside right now and touch Tae’s dick. I’d then have to be handcuffed to you for a whole day and like, do producer shit? Meetings and editing and stuff?”

“That is correct.”

“What happens when one of us needs to pee?”

Sejin lets out a weak laugh. “You’d be allowed out of the cuffs to use the bathroom.”

“What happens when it’s nighttime?” you question, heart sinking as you realise your loophole to Tae is quickly closing up.

“Well, I usually go home around 11 each night, and my girlfriend is happy to take the couch should that happen.”

“What- What if-” Your mind whirls as the other guys chuckle at your predicament. “What if I wake up in the middle of the night to get a drink but you’re still sleeping? What if the guys in your meetings ask why you have a young girl handcuffed to you and I have to explain it’s technically a sex thing? What if-”

“All the things that make this a punishment, Y/n. I suggest you practice restraint and avoid breaking the rule.”

Your glare is softened by a petulant pout. “You’re a sadist.”

“This wasn’t my idea, Y/n. It’ll be a punishment for me too.” Sejin clears his throat. “Anyways; meeting adjourned. I’m off to catch Taehyung up.”

The stunned silence lasts no more than ten seconds once Sejin leaves. Jungkook, a toothy grin and cheeky eyes, starts bouncing in his seat. “Y/n and Sejin sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-”

“Shut up,” you shout with a whine. “This sucks.”

“Such a relief you have six other dicks still to choose from,” Yoongi drawls. “I’m sure you’ll live without one.”

Without thinking, you stick your tongue out at him, making him laugh at your antics, before pushing on Jin’s thigh to stand up. “Well,” the doctor announces, “I, for one, could do with a celebratory brunch.”

Jimin frowns. “What are we celebrating?”

Yoongi beams. “Me making you all my little bitch,” he declares, letting out a startled hoot when Jin jumps up to tackle him, manhandling him towards the kitchen.

As the two chefs of the house begin to lug out ingredients from the pantry, Jungkook turns to the rest of the group with a worried frown. “D’you think Tae is gonna be really sad?” he asks in a small voice.

Finally getting up off the hard surface of the coffee table, you make your way over to him, perching yourself on the arm of the couch. “Maybe,” you admit honestly, “but I think if he needs space, he’ll go upstairs, and if he wants comfort, he’ll come back to us. We should let him choose.”

As it turns out, Taehyung chooses both. The kitchen is steaming with a delightfully savoury aroma by the time he comes back in through the front door. He hovers in the entrance to the kitchen and dining area for a moment or two, waiting for the chatter to die down once everyone catches sight of him.

Announcing that he was taking a long shower but that he’d be back down and not to wait up, he’d rushed to his bedroom and left you all to confusedly finish preparing the food. He doesn’t return until you’ve all almost finished eating.

When he does, though, he appears like an entirely different person.

Wearing a raggedy shirt and pants, face red from a hot shower but hair dry, he dumps a white plastic bag on an empty space on the table with a dramatic flair.

Jimin watches him warily. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Taehyung chirps easily, “we’re dying our hair today.”

The words out of his mouth are totally unexpected, and everyone freezes into a bewildered silence.

Hoseok, with a spoonful of soup and green onion halfway to his face, falters. “Sorry, what?”

“I’ve been thinking,” Taehyung explains, like this is the most important thing he’s ever said. “I don’t want to be excluded and I want to have some fun with you guys instead of moping, so we’re going to dye our hair together.” Pushing aside empty bowls and half-eaten side dishes, the masseuse begins emptying the plastic bag onto the table. Bleach, developer, blood red dye, an emerald green and a deep royal blue.

“Where did you even get those from?” Jin asks, abandoning his plate to eye the products with interest.

“Ordered them online,” Taehyung answers with a shrug. “Well - technically I ordered them ages ago, Jungkookie wanted the e-girl TikTok hair, but I reckon we should just go for it. Some of us are in urgent need of a dye job. Namjoon; that’s you.”

The academic recoils, tugging at his grown-out faded purple ends. “Okay, that’s fair.”

Hoseok winces. “We don’t all have to dye our hair, do we?”

“‘Course not, hyung, you can supervise.”

It takes Yoongi insisting that everyone help clean up the table first that springs everyone into action, and in no time at all Taehyung has scoffed up whatever leftovers remained, and Jin has gathered additional supplies like bowls, towels and tin foil, hustling your ragtag group of eight down to the first-floor bathroom.

It doesnt take long before a temporary salon has been set up in there. With chairs taken from the kitchen, product being mixed in little black bowls on the sink benchtop, and three willing victims clutching towels over their shoulders.

In the first chair, Namjoon is watching in mild alarm as Jimin mixes bleach and developer in a bowl, eyeballing the measurements. With gleaming blue hair of his own, Jimin seems more experienced than some of you, but his job is more difficult than the other stylists of the day, since he had to get rid of Namjoon’s purple before bleaching and dying the lot.

You’d chosen the easiest of the three, Jungkook, and painstakingly consult with some of his favourite TikToks for the right amount of hair to section out as Taehyung takes charge of mixing his own concoction of bleach.

Finally, it’s Jin who has also volunteered to dye hair, although it’s not his own that he wishes to dye. Yoongi sits with a bitter scowl on his face as Jin pours in different coloured dyes into one bowl like a mad scientist. With already blonde hair, Yoongi at least has the luxury of skipping out the extra step, but it just gives Jin more time to conceive a crazy colour.

Hoseok, happy to take on the supervisor role, flutters around and hypes everyone up; massaging Namjoon’s shoulders, letting Jungkook show him countless videos and grimacing at what Jin has in his bowl.

“Hey, Tae,” Yoongi calls out in a forced casual tone, “why is it that when you were the one who bought the dye, you aren’t the one getting chemicals all over his hair?”

The masseuse shrugs easily, a tea towel thrown over his shoulder as he stirs away. “What can I say? I’m an artist, not a canvas.”

Jungkook blinks up at him past your shoulder. “I’d like to see you dye your hair, Tae. You’d look pretty with any colour.”

Taehyung reaches out to pinch the maknae’s cheek fondly, but accidentally leaves a smear of white behind. Jumping into action, you hold Jungkook’s chin steady as you wipe it off with your thumb, feeling his eyes on you and his breath hitch.

“Oh, you’re not- Y- You’re going straight in there,” Namjoon stutters shakily. Letting go of Jungkook’s face and stepping away, you glance over to Namjoon and Jimin.

The younger man has Namjoon’s hair sectioned with clips, painting thick globs of bleach onto the purple in his lower layers. “Don’t worry,” Jimin assures, “you’ll look fantastic after this.”

“Worst case scenario, you can lop it all off,” Jin points out cheerily.

Yoongi’s arm reaches out between folds of the towel on his shoulders, keeping Jin at bay. “You better not lay a fucking hand on me with that mindset.”

“Don’t be silly, Yoonie,” Jin teases, adding in some more green. “You’re my Mona Lisa.”

Yoongi humphs and collapses back against his chair, pink smattering his cheekbones.

Taehyung’s hand wraps lightly around your wrist, handing you the bleach he’d mixed up. “We’re good to go,” he declares to you and Jungkook, “I wanna go see what colour Yoongi-hyung’s getting. You guys start.”

Left in charge of the bleach, you turn back to Jungkook. Standing over him, it’s impossible to ignore the way his doe-eyes observe your every move. “Are you still good with these two chunks?” you check.

He nods quickly, lips pressing into an eager but shy smile. “Do you think it’ll look good?” he asks hopefully.

“You’ll look gorgeous.” Getting him to hold the bowl of bleach up for you, you dip the brush included in the box and begin to brush the white, thick liquid over the strands of black hair. He doesn’t flinch as the brush moves higher, sitting so still and patient. “What colour are you going to get it?”

His cheeks puff as he blows air into them. “Hm, I don’t know. Tae said maybe pink? I could mix in only a little bit of red so it’s not so strong. But then pink fades fast.”

You hum, switching to the other side. “You could dye it red and then when it fades it would fade to pink.”

He lets out a little gasp. “That’s smart! I like it.”

From down the room, Taehyung’s voice echoes. “Hyung, you’re fucked!”

“Hey!” Jin cries. “It’s going to look good, just trust me on this!”

Taehyung leans his back against the sink and clasps his palms together like he’s praying. “Yoongi-hyung, picture this. You’re Bob Ross. You’re painting a beautiful lake on a sunny day. Blue sky, clear water, lush riverbanks. Can you see it?”

Yoongi frowns. “Sure.”

“The little cup of dirty water you used to clean your brushes with? That’ll be your hair.”

“Oh, god,” Yoongi moans miserably, slumping so low he almost falls off the seat.

“Disrespectful little brat,” Jin enunciates as Taehyung moves back across the room. “This was your idea!”

It takes the entire rest of the day, but by the time you all sit down on the couches for dinner - courtesy of a food delivery app, Yoongi and Jin both too tired to cook - three of the eight of you have shiny new looks.

Jungkook looks undeniably striking with his stripes of firetruck red framing his face. Contrasting sharply with the black of the rest of his hair, you could easily mistake him for a Twitch streamer or something, pulling off the look with a natural coolness.

Done with purple, Namjoon had taken advantage of Jimin’s decent level of expertise and let the blue-haired man work his magic, bleaching his hair a couple of times and dying it to the unusual choice of silvery grey, the roots slightly darker so that - in Jimin’s words - he could get away with regrowth for longer.

But perhaps the biggest surprise of all is Yoongi, who smugly peacocks around the room with a unique shade somewhere between mint and teal in his hair. Jin had quietly confessed to you and Jungkook when he was cleaning his bowl that it wasn’t in fact, the colour he intended it to be, but that what Yoongi didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

The blue-green tones are somewhat reminiscent of the clear lake Taehyung was describing, and it brings out the soft pink of Yoongi’s lips and his dark lashes so beautifully. How Jin’s luck never seemed to run out, you didn’t know, but part of you wished you had volunteered yourself for a dye job too. Now you, Jin, Hoseok and Taehyung were the leftovers with natural hair.

Like some sort of unspoken agreement, the seven of you keep a close eye on Taehyung throughout the evening. You let him pick a movie for all of you to watch, pile extra food into his bowl, Jungkook even brings a secret stash of chocolate down from his room to share with him. All of you sensitive of how he must be feeling, it’s only natural that you take extra good care of the masseuse.

And, when it finally comes to head up to bed, Taehyung is flooded by offers to keep him company in the bunkroom. It’s Jungkook he picks, the two thick as thieves, and shortly after midnight your phone goes off from a text that Jungkook has sent to everyone except Taehyung. Just two words that are enough to allow your mind and body to rest. He’s okay.

[calicorn]

My experience with WeLoveFine/ForFansByFans as an artist.

This in regards to the Act 6/7 Tarot Project, which occurred from 2017 to 2018. I also want to thank @aryll for the chance to participate in such a project, and thank you for doing what you could with the group and what occurred. I realize this is a few years late, however, but it’s been bothering me ever since it occurred, and I only chose to speak my mind about it. But to summarize, the project started out as unofficial, however we were approached by FFBF in February of 2018. They were willing to sell the deck as official merchandise on their store. I have my own opinions on the company, as it’s known they underpay artists severely for their work despite selling most items for extremely high prices. A similar payment issue occurred with the Official Homestuck Zine, and one of the artists of the Tarot Project posted this in the comments:     “Can relate OP. I did work for the new tarot deck (using my throwaway account for that reason lol) but we aren’t being paid at all. No money. The only compensation we are getting is a free deck and an exclusive enamel pin which is pennies compared to what they’ll be making off us. One might argue that the project wasn’t supposed to be printed so I should be grateful it’s even happening but I expected a big company like WLF to y’know, pay artists... The only reason I agreed to letting them use my art was to get a free deck. I also honestly dislike WLF’s artist compensation policy. My art has been selected from the Fan Forge before and the idea of being able to sell my HS art was so appealing, but the execution is so poor. They don’t pay us until we sell $100 worth of shirts, but that is so difficult in a market that is so oversaturated. I wish they like, cycled designs in and out. Instead, they just keep adding more and more designs, drowning out old ones and just flooding the entire market. Plus, they get to withhold money from artists until every hundred-dollar mark. I can’t imagine how much they’ve made off of small time artists that get their design accepted and sell maybe 3 shirts since it happens so often.” So. What exactly happened? I’ll explain under the cut given there’s a decent amount to go through. Though to summarize; WeLoveFine/ForFansByFans is an extremely egregious company that does not value their artists whatsoever and will do what they can to pay them as little as possible. Please support said artists on sites that actually do give them fair pay, or support them via commissions.

There were a few bumps during the tarot project, though overall it went extremely smoothly and we released our art to the Tumblr blog. FFBF approached us during this time, and we were all given the option to agree to continue working or the project or decline. However, this is what was an important piece to the initial email sent out by the Tarot Project team;      • Each participating artist will get a full finalized copy of the deck, COMPLETELY free. This includes packaging and free shipping of the deck.      • Each participating artist will get an enamel pin commemorating the project, EXCLUSIVE to the artists of this project only, with a custom design as chosen/designed by us. What will most likely occur is that everyone who wishes to submit a design for the pin can do so, and as a group, we will vote on which one we would like to submit as our final design choice!     • Each participating artist will receive FULL COMMISSION on any further usage of their artwork by What Pumpkin or For Fans By Fans. For example, if they release a mini-print, wallet, etc. with your design on it, you will be paid in commission for the usage of your work. (If you have ANY questions about how this would work, please don’t hesitate to ask and I will hook you up ASAP with a For fans By Fans representative who can go over the details with you further.)     • Each participating artist will have a window in which they will be able to make updates or revisions to their illustration(s) before the project is released. This means that if something is bugging you about your work, or you feel that it does not reflect your current level of skill, you will be allowed to resubmit a new version before the project officially goes up as merchandise! So, the majority of us agreed to continue forward with the project and retouch our cards. From there, things continued, and we were emailed by a FFBF representative on occasion to discuss how the process went, as well as various other things that required discussion, plus asked to assist in the promotion of the 4/13/18 celebration on their website. This is where the issues began and would continue through the entire project, with it still being seen post-release of the cards. We were sent an email in April of 2018 requiring information to be provided in the  accompanying booklet of the deck, as well as being asked to answer various interview questions that would be posted to FFBF’s Tumblr, and most importantly; the Commission Agreement form. So what did it entail? This was the form I was sent. My interview was never posted. I have looked multiple times and never seen evidence it ever was, either. And this was also included in the email;    • We are going to be hosting a pre-order bonus promotion surrounding the new tarot set, starting 413. Anyone who pre-orders the set will be entered into a drawing to win a commissioned art piece from a random artist who worked on the tarot. You will be paid by us, FFBF, for this commission work in the amount of $50.  So we had to draw more art with a very close deadline date to obtain a payment  for art we had already created, both of which should have easily been worth more than $50 total. I signed without thinking, which looking back on, was incredibly idiotic, despite my own worries over the fact that even at the time, $50 did not seem like a lot. Progress continued. An exclusive pin was designed and created for the artists, though the production and delivery dates would be delayed to September of 2018. During this time, we were also invited to join FFBF’s Discord server as well, which I am still in, though am not active in. And eventually, we were provided a Commission Schedule. I do not know if I’m missing an email between the enamel pin shipment and this schedule post, however I cannot find any trace of it. This is the Commission Schedule email, and what it consists of. Of course I found it strange, because looking at the schedule, I could never find any sign of myself having been added. Obviously I should have replied then and there due to that, but I didn’t, and that is my own fault. But that rolled into October of 2018, when I did finally email back and asked about why I hadn’t been added. I was sent back this; “Hi Calicorn! I’m sorry I misinterpreted your response as not wanting to proceed:“3)  I am completely willing to sign up for being one of the artists for the commission raffle event, though I must say $50 would be underpaying considering most artists’ base prices for commissions tend to be $50 or more.” Then I sent “If you do not want to be part of the give-away, that’s totally ok. We are offering $50 for these commissions but if that price is not within your comfort, there’s no pressure!” You never came back with anything so I didn’t want to proceed since it seemed like you were uncomfortable with the amount we were offering – I’m really sorry if I misunderstood! The giveaway is actually over I’m sorry to say but I appreciate you following up about this. I wonder why the message went into spam.. Please let me know if there is anything else I can do for you Thanks!” And one of the most glaring issues popped up in October as well. When we finally received our decks in the mail, our project’s Discord group began to discuss the fact that our emails had been printed in the pamphlet without our permission. Mind you, this was also a project that included minors in it, and our emails had now been given away without our knowledge. Another issue with the pamphlets is the fact that FFBF had reused the same text from the Homestuck Kickstarter Tarot Deck, as seen on the New Booklet/Old Booklet, and here/here. FFBF then decided to remove the booklet from every outgoing tarot that gets ordered, with customers receiving a corrected digital PDF that was coordinated in its creation by Aryll. And apparently previous customers would receive this PDF via emails, as well as a link to download it on the product page. Thankfully FFBF seemed to have at least posted the PDF on the product page, however this seems extremely lazy compared to simply including the newly reprinted booklet. Though this may not be the last of issues, as I stumbled across the Amazon product page for our tarot deck earlier before typing this all up. To say the least, it is extremely infuriating, especially given the quality of the cards and how many people of complained about them on both Amazon and FFBF’s websites. Of course we, the artists, were never alerted to this development, nor were we paid for such.

But overall, we were hardly paid for our time and effort during this project, which is a massive disappointment, but perhaps that much should have been expected from WeloveFine/ForFansByFans, who are notorious for underpaying artists and overpricing products. Their actions are inexcusable, and I am still both disappointed and furious with this company as a whole. But thank you for reading, and please spread the word, as I do not want FFBF’s actions to go unnoticed.

[arcticdementor]

Other possible Holocausts: why pro-lifers are lying to us, and why thats a good thing

…

Ive had a running argument over the past few years that the raw lack of anti-abortion terrorist action proves no one really thinks abortion is murder, ie. intentional 1st degree murder of a life equal to yours or mine.

Ive always gotten pushback to quote WillyWang:

The "revealed preference" of those that oppose abortion but don't firebomb clinics and kill doctors? It won't help, you'll be made an example of in the negative sense, and civilized norms are more important than a useless symbolic point. One clinic destroyed won't end abortion, after all.

From which this Effort-post got its Genesis:

Would you say the same about those who participated in the french resistance or Warsaw Ghetto rising to Nazi Germany?

Everyone of those claims applies there: they were likely to be made examples of, they were damaging civilized norms, and any given action had relatively little to no impact.

Yet the same people who insist abortion is murder, and thus that America is committing a holocaust, yet denounce any of the people who employed violence against abortion doctors or clinics, and can’t distance themselves fast enough from any call for violence... none of those people apply the same logic to the first holocaust. None of them say the frenchmen who bombed german police stations where dangerous terrorists who deserved their executions, none of them denounce the Warsaw ghetto rising as an attack on civilization.

…

If anti-abortion advocated genuinely believed a fetus was a equivalent human life to yours or mine or the little kids they see walk to school, and that this was an ongoing holocaust of American Children at a scale possibly 10x or more what was done to the jews... they wouldn’t need to come up with ad hoc reasons why they don’t resort to violence, their mind would be screaming at them to take bloody vengeance 24/7 in righteous outrage, demanding that oceans of blood and fire be unleashed that it might wash clean the horror, that nuclear fire would be be an acceptable emergency shut off to end such wanton and cruel slaughter... and if thinking through all the logic they concluded that no violence wouldn’t help and they must pursue some peaceful negotiation to stop the slaughter, then their minds recoil and call themselves cowards and the moment of coming to that conclusion would be an ongoing trauma they’d carry with them for the rest of their life, even if they knew they were 100% right. They would meet the “pro-choice” and barely be able to conceal their desire to see them dead or imprisoned... they would meet women who had had abortions and scream bloody murder at them and tell them they deserve the death penalty, the way many of the same people react when presented with women who’d murdered their children, but after their children had left the womb.

The people who were jailed for assassinating abortionists, or fire-bombing clinics would be folk heroes lionized in songs and crowd funded hagiographic documentaries and folk traditions, like John Brown, or John Wilkes Booth, or Louis Reil, or Saco and Vancety, or Huey Newton, or Malcolm X, or David Koresh, or Levoy Finecolm... or hell even just Jesse James, or Killdozer.

Americans abort on average 1 million plus babies a year... that means if abortion is murder and those are human lives, then the 50 years since Roe vs.Wade has been a worse crime than the holocaust, slavery, or the crimes of Stalin, and we’d have to consult a historian to see if they were worse than Mao (on a per capita basis, certainly)...

This would be the worse crime ever commited, the greatest mass slaughter ever perpetrated in human history, and 50 years later our society would remain committed to repeating it in the next 50 years.

If that does not demand violence, then nothing in human history ever has, no even defensive war has ever been justified, and only Jainists and Jehovah’s witnesses are morally acceptable actors. An extreme unexceedable pascifism we know the vast majority of anti-abortion advocates do not endorse, since they overwhelming supported or at-least did not conspicuously oppose the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (over a mere 3000 Americans dead, and a less than a years abortions worth of Iraqis killed by Saddam) and continue to conspicuously “Support our troops” troops that exist to carry out violence, despite their moral commitments saying they can apparently never in human history be justified.

.

When i say this proves “Pro-lifers” clearly do not believe a fetus is an equal human life, thats me being incredibly charitable. That is me extending a overwhelming large olive branch, that is me expressing a stupendous care and concern and sympathy and brotherly love to rival the best 19th century dinner host, the dearest of friends, a benevolent older sibling, a lover, a parent, a mother who on hearing the taped confession of her son to serial murder, doesn’t hesitate once before screaming “you monsters you’ve drugged and tortured him! What threats have you made to my grandchild! He would only say such things to save his daughter’s life!”

My claiming they are full of shit and lying to themselves, to you, and to me, is an expression of love and faith in my fellow man which until now I did not realized I possessed nor was capable of...

Because if I merely took them at their word? If I believed that they believed what they say they believe? They would be monsters.

.

Lets play a game called “Other Possible Holocausts”. Approximately 800,000 babies where aborted this year.

Lets imagine the US government has just announced that crime has gotten to cumbersome and that over the next 3 years it plans to execute every single one of the 2.4 million people in US prisons jails and Jeuvenile detention centres.

Lets imagine that to reform education, the US resolves to kill the bottom 1% of all 80 million students in the country based on an age adjusted standardized test every year.

Lets imagine hatred of the obese takes off, and a policy is passed to resolve America’s 30% obesity rate by the mass instituting of bounties on hunting and killing the obese... that every year 800,000 to 1.5 million tags will be issued for a fee to allow the hunting of the obese in return for monetary rewards on successful hunts and getting to keep the carcasses for meat base animal foods and the manufacture of fuel, or fat based household products. These bounty hunters become known a “whalers”.

Lets imagine the US announces its done with African Americans... if the problem hasn’t been solved since 1619, its not going to be... and so they’re going to genocide all 40 million African Americans at a rate of 2% a year, for the next 50 years.

Lets imagine opposing extremists get in charge and decide the racists rednecks have to go, and so they’ll be forming death squads to roam the South, Appalachia, and the rust belt, with the objective of killing 800,000 poor whites a year, “until the problem is solved”... with many happily stating 50 years of this would be acceptable, while others state it’d be perfectly fine to renew it another 50 years after that.

…

These are all American lives, and according to pro-lifers of equal moral value to the babies aborted every day, no better, no worse.

By saying this and by saying violence is not and cannot be justified to resist it, they are saying that their reactions to any one of the above eventualities would be to continue to live their lives as they have lived the past 50 years.

I do not know how to respond to that. Even if Abortion is truly murder of an ensouled equal human life... The Pro-choicers committing the murders don’t think it is... hell the Nazis murdered 6 million jews and a further 5 million undesirables, but they didn’t think of them as human, they thought they were monstrous and “life unworthy of life”, like a burning man begging you to shoot him so he doesn’t suffer or hurt his fellows... a mercy in a way.

Pro-lifers on the other hand claim these are equal viable human lives of equal status to yours or mine or perhaps even greater.... They’re Children.

And their reaction to the greatest mass slaughter in human history, the reaction of almost half the electorate, who regularly talk about the need to resist tyrrany and defend the weak (as both left and right in the US do, in their way), their reaction is to vote every 4 years, and have it perhaps not even be the #1 issue if the economy seems bad, they have the opportunity to vote for the first black president, or the Orangeman says something crude about Mexicans... they won’t be single issue voters even when it comes to the greatest crime ever committed in human history?

.

I refuse to believe it. Even I, cynical as I am, have to believe we are not that far gone, and the age of men has not come crashing down... i would believe the US capable of such a crime, but to believe that a double digit percentage of Americans could look at that, recognize the victims as their fellow humans,recognize their state and society as committing mass murder of their neighbours, future friends, and relatives...to recognize that they have a moral imperative to act on this... and then just go “welp them’s the breaks, gotta be civilized” because 9 people in black robes said it wasn’t murder?

Holy fuck. No that is not how people work, that is not how humans behave, I cannot accept that, and leftists who spent the summer rioting in response to fewer than a thousand police killings of black men a year, who remember the civil rights and anti-war movements, who kinda vaguely recall that they’re supposed to remember Huey Newton, or Saco and Vanseti, or those Rossen...something people... who like to imagine they’d have been abolitionists in the 19th century. They’re right to call bullshit.

They’re right to call the pro-lifers liars who don’t believe their own messaging, and instead just want to control women’s bodies, after a lie like that to their face, they’re right to treat them with scorn.

…

Pro-life is rescuable as a sentiment and an activist movement...

But not while it claims a Holocaust is going on and somehow magically no violence could ever be justified to resist it, thus lining up all the arguments that will allow the next holocaust to be committed without resistance.

There have been a double digit, perhaps even a triple digit number of mass murders and genocides in the hundreds of thousands or millions of people, since the 20th century. America is enabling its ally Saudi Arabia to commit one against the Yemenis right fucking now.

We need to be very fucking clear about what it is justified to do to members of a regime that commits such a crime, and what it is definitely justified to do to the immediate perpetrators of the murder. And That we will back violent resistance to such a horrible crime by the state even if it serves only to make the resister a martyr we’ll praise, or it degrades “civilization” (what civilization could remain in such a regime?), or it ultimately has no effect (it is on the survivor to try harder)... The major members of the House of Saud deserve the Gallows under international law for what they’re doing in Yemen , as do their American attaches and core enablers... and if that comes from a Judge in the Hauge or from a convoy of irregulars in pickup trucks, or from lone assassins who manage to get through to them, It is justice, and i will praise it.

What we cannot do is pretend that genocides and mass slaughter on unconscionable scales are occurring and then come up with excuses for why we should do nothing and anyone who does resist is a criminal. Or else those excuses will be the ones that allow the next real genocide in the west or on US soil to actually happen.

If there is a genocide or democide or whatever you want to call mass slaughter. You must recognize the justice the violent resistance to it, even if you personally do not participate, or you must admit you were lying about there being such a crime... to say otherwise, to say a state can commit such a crime and still retain its right to your loyalty, to say a people up to and including its victims must obey such a thing, a creature made of bureaucracy that has set its sights on massacring humans by the thousands if not millions... it is to side against the human race in a war of extermination.

And as someone whose pro-choice as they come, I’d much rather, if the pro-lifers really believe its murder, I’d much rather they start a bloody civil war, than for it to become the norm that that is ethically acceptable.

[stayndays]

𝐊𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐑 𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆'𝐒 𝐀𝐋𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐄 𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐓𝐄𝐒 & 𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 𝐀𝐍𝐒𝐖𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐃

time to dive into this hellhole of a series once again

if you haven’t read killer king, there are MAJOR spoilers in this post! you have been warned.

So! This was highly requested in the final survey of Killer King: to reveal the other routes if you didn’t choose the Escape Route. To start off, though, I first have to talk about something that was brought up multiple times throughout the voting boxes of Killer King, which is:

“Why is Jisung helping Minho/Is Jisung aware that Minho’s the killer/What is Jisung and Minho’s dynamic?”

Minho and Jisung, to say the least, is probably the most interesting duo in the series. They didn’t met before the party, but rather, at the party before the mansion owner was killed, and quickly formed a strong bond. You could infer that Minho wanted to pull in a party guest that would most likely stay and solve the murder, just so he has a puppet to control if things go haywire. Minho was also inspired by Jisung’s poem, which results in how his killing techniques were put into place. 

Because Jisung is kind of naive in this story, he ends up being manipulated by the killer himself, and accidentally becomes Minho’s #1 ally for the entire series. Minho grabbed the key from the mansion owner’s coat, and gave it to Jisung for him to protect, saying something along the lines of “If anybody tries to flee the mansion like a coward, they won’t be able to because you have the key.” 

Oh, also, Minho attempted to frame Jisung by leaving the white glove in Jisung’s bag. I’m like.. slowly recovering info from this series because I already forgot most of the plot.. October was a fever dream guys wheeze

But now, this duo leads us to our first route I’ll cover today! The duos all have a certain goal: Hyunin wanted to escape, another group wanted to kill the killer themselves, and another group simply wanted to solve the murder. This duo is different, however, because Minho is literally the killer. 

So the route would’ve played out somewhat like this:

You choose to align with Minho and Jisung, regardless of whether you lie or not

When the house fight occurs and everybody is split off into groups, you have the option to stay with Chan, Changbin, and Minho. If you choose this, you would get an additional chapter where you have the decision to come with Minho upstairs, or to stay behind with Chan and Changbin.

If you choose to come with Minho, you would be forced by him to throw a knife at Jeongin, who’s alone on the stairs. (this would’ve been REALLY fun to write)

Even if you chose not to follow Minho, as long as you prove that you’re truly loyal to him, he’ll eventually reveal to both you and Jisung that he’s the killer, and urge the both of you to work with him to eliminate the rest of the house members.

THIS IS THE FUN PART

Basically: Jisung doesn’t want to team up with Minho. Instead, he wants to try and kill Minho (I assume that Jisung has multiple reasons as to why he doesn’t want to tell the other members, probably because he has no evidence). As a result, since Jisung also trusts you, he tells you his plan, and now you have to choose between the two.

And according to my notes, no matter if you team up with Jisung or go solo, if you choose to betray Minho, you will die. It is impossible to succeed in this scenario. You have to team up with a murderer in order to win.

You could also try and convince Jisung to come with you and Minho’s side. Knowing me, I’d probably spin a wheel to see whether Jisung would agree with you or not LOL. If he doesn’t though, he’s gonna die. That’s that. 

So if you team up with Minho (regardless if Jisung is still alive or not) and the two/three of you are able to successfully eliminate the rest of the members, you win! And you get the ending “The Killer’s Sidekick” (even better: if you identity as a female and/or use she/her pronouns, you could be “The Killer Queen” :D)

The other two routes don’t have nearly as much info as Minsung’s route, though. One of them wasn’t even planned at all. Let’s talk about them!

Changlix’s Route: Kill the Killer

Basically, if you openly state to either Felix or Changbin that you’re also interested in killing the killer, you’d be put into this route!

In this route, you’ll tend to make more impulsive decisions without thinking straight (aka your choices will be pretty dumb) because you’re after blood, not justice.

If you kill the wrong person, that’s an automatic game over.

If you hesitate to kill Minho, he’ll kill you first, and that’s a game over.

And if you successfully kill Minho, you’ll get one of those “You won.. but at what cost?” endings, kinda like the ending you guys got! (it’s because you killed somebody, that’s why.)

Chanmin’s Route: Catch the Killer

I have nothing written down for this route. It’s pretty self explanatory. Find the killer, and trap him in a room until the police come. That’s pretty much the route, along with trying not to get killed yourself.

If you chose this route, it would probably be even more stressful than the escape route, and would probably be the most boring route to write.

If you have any questions, let me know! But now let’s dive into the questions you guys put in for the survey.

1. Was Hyunjin super suspicious in the beginning as a red herring?

I think they were all super suspicious in the beginning just so the reader jumps into the story completely blind. It wasn’t intended as a red herring, but it definitely could be to you!

2. Why does Felix and Changbin want to kill the murderer? 

Simple: bloodlust. I just needed that violent duo, y’know? 

3. Were Jisung and Minho conspiring together? If not, was Minho going to pin it on Jisung?

No and yes, that was his intention!

4. Why does Minho have a hankering for murder?

He wants revenge on his step father, the mansion owner, for neglecting him all those years. Also the dude has anger issues. Bad temper.

5. Why could Minho pass the mattress but not 5 guys?

He is immortal. He is god. He is- just kidding. He was probably doing something stupid and unplanned, like using the bathroom on the downstairs floor. That’s the best answer I can give you for now.

6. Why did Jisung decided to team up with Minho? I mean what benefit will he get from it if there is a chance Minho might even kill him too? and also did Jisung know that Minho is the killer king in the first place?

He didn’t realize he was teaming up with the killer, and if Minho did reveal that he was the killer, Jisung would most likely try to turn on him (and fail). Nope!

7. What was Minho's motive (was it just him hating the victim or was there something deeper)?

Both that, and probably bloodlust as well.

8. How did Minho get the white glove to blame Jisung later when he wasn't with us while we were searching the room?

He bought a fresh pair of white gloves before the party started. He also, most likely, placed it in Jisung’s bag before committing the murder without him noticing.

9. If we were to just body search everybody at once, would we find the throwing knives on Minho and just end the whole thing? (this was on my mind the whole time lmao, like why didn't we search OURSELVES too??)

yeah true ngl i can’t argue with that Knowing Minho, he probably has a bunch of knives hidden all around the house, secretly planting them here and there while mingling with party guests.

10. Were really 2 killer kings? 

Nope! Only Minho. There would only be more than one killer king if you ended up choosing the Minsung route. However, good idea! I should’ve thought of that.

11. Why in the hell was jisung helping minho like how did they end up as a team?

e x p l a i n e d  a l r e a d y. see i told you guys a lot of people were asking this

12. I still don't understand changbins fascination with the blood type.

This was an easter egg I was proud of but nobody caught!! The same blood type mentioned by Changbin (I think it was A?) is the same type Seungmin has! After a google search or two, I learned that blood types were passed down by family members, so if you arrange Seungmin’s family tree correctly, you’d learn that him and the mansion owner shared the same blood type, meaning that Seungmin is related to the mansion owner. Far stretch, I know, but I think it works out! If you figured this out, you would realize how smart Changbin really is as a scientist.

13. Why did jeongin light two matches?

Extra precaution! Also, he’s the youngest. He thinks fire is cool.

14. Was Minsung a team for the ~ Minsung Vibes? ~

It was not intentional at first, but then I realized the rest of the duos were popular ships in SKZ (minus Chanmin) so that was interesting!

15. Just in general why were the teams aligned the way they were?

Minsung - They’re good pals Changlix - For the bloodlust similarity Hyunin - They were both emotional enough in this story to want to escape Chanmin - It’s literally Chan and Seungmin, and Seungmin is close with the mansion owner

16. Which one was your favorite route?

MINSUNG’S ROUTE!! I wanted you guys to choose this one because it would so different from other murder mysteries!! But the escape route was my second choice, thank god.

17. Will you be doing another series similar to this next year?

90% no because of how physically and mentally draining this series was to write, but you can get a sequel if the finale somehow gets 50 notes! That won’t happen for a while. Just FYI. 

18. Did the knife in y/n’s hand ever come out or was it just stuck in there the entire time?

It was there the entire time until Hyunjin pulled it out at his house. I actually still don’t know if this is medically accurate or not, I literally had to ask my mom what to do in this situation. Our text messages went something like:

Me: If a knife goes through your hand, should you pull it out or leave it in? Asking because of a TV show  Mom: Leave it in and go to the hospital... Me: Ok thanks mom

I think that’s it? I still have a lot I want to talk about, but that information will only come out if people ask me! So come ask me hehe have fun. Thank you, so incredibly much, for following Killer King. It is my pride and joy, literally.

taglist: @desertofdessert @crscendoforsung @cotccotc @leggomylino @skzctnightnight @freckledberries @nizhonimoon @hanniiesuckle17 @binniesbabybear @tsuki-moons @lbxgsunshine @csbverse @mangoisawesome @peachyhan @worldtriiiip @golden–rain @bubblyjisunq @kimpchi @loey-letters @pokyloky @wherevermyway @avrea-tt @bossuns @sunoo-luvs @katherineee19 @ph0ebevix @qt-k1mb @444scb @grandmasterslickfox @k-pop-valda (now we can all abandon this series for good!)

[anarchist-soupkitchen]

ooop its a really long essay

A brief list of why the Tories is pretty rubbish

 Before we start, I have a few things to say. As this is intended for UK audiences it might be a little difficult for people outside of the UK to understand the wording of certain topics, I will include somethings that need more explanation up here but if I do not include it here, please feel free to ask down in the comments.

Tory: someone who is a part of the conservative right

Anglicanism: the English church’s version of Christianity

This essay is a PERSUASIVE ESSAY this means its BIASED I hope you could tell from the title. This essay is from the view of someone who is white I am not trying to speak over people of colour on issue like race and I encourage you to look at non-white creators within the UK to get views on this matter.

I am pretty armature when it comes to my writing so do not expect something ground-breaking. And with that out of the way, let us begin.

1.       The tory party we know today was founded in 1834, you would think that would be plenty of time for its members to grow and shape the party into the best organization it can be. But with the tory party still stuck on the same ideas that Anglicanism is the only true religion, and that queer people should not have rights you would think that the party is straight out of the early 20th century, or still stuck on the same ideas the party was founded upon. It does not matter what side you are on and how your choice to view the tory party, people can agree on the prominent figures inside the tory party from old to recent. An example of a prominent tory of old was Winston Churchill a well know racist who also, coincidentally got us through WW2 when he was appointed by Chamberlin. He fostered such views that white people should govern over the “primitive” black and indigenous people of Africa and that Indian people “bred like rabbits”. To anyone who knows their UK history, 1983 was a very eventually year for politics and the UK as a whole. You now have to wear seatbelts in the front seats of cars, the dismembered victims of serial killer Dennis Nielsen are found in his London flat, unemployment was on a record heigh since the 1930’s and a general election found that Margaret Thacher was to be the next prime minister after a landslide win in the polls. Over the course of her 11-year reign of terror she periodised free-market capitalism and privatised public sectors including transport, railways and mines. Then because she did not like the Scottish government, she through a hissy fit and closed all mines in Scotland. Just like that she fucked up the economy, where in the big mining areas of the past are still experiencing the aftershocks today. I remember my granny telling me how she made up food packages for the miners around town and how it was so devastating to the town’s economy. Everyone was unemployed and starving, even my grandad. These examples really show that the Tories will support people who are the worst in British society if they have the parties’ interests at heart. You would think the tory party cannot get any worse but with modern polices such as pledging to get 50,000 nurses for the NHS while only giving them a 1% pay rise, which is only £7.78 for a low band nurse, by 2023. Or being “tough on crime” even though 96.4 crime were recorded by every 1000 people in 2019. You can see how tough they are about carrying out their polices. Let me tell you my favourite of the lot, Boris Johnston, our current PM, wants to limit immigration by 100,000 people. They want to only let in “the brightest and the best,” what a load of shite. Our immigrants are the backbone of our society doing everything people like the Tories would not even dream of doing. Imagen seeing Boris working in a McDonalds or in your local call centre. That fucker probably has not worked a day in his life. According to the migration observatory, migrants make up 50% of the low pay workforce. Either way you look at it, its abysmal. The government should do more for these people that letting them rot in a McDonalds or in a low paying job. If you have taken time to be a model citizen, train and get your qualifications, possibly learn a new langue to mover over to a shitty wet rock I do not see any problem with the government providing necessities to get you started in your new life. We have got the money.

2.       Can I ask you, what side do you think Boris Johnson is on? I will let you think for a moment. The Working class makes up more than half of our population according to the BBC’s class calculator. They say that a government is reflective of the people’s views and I think that is bullshit. Out of the working-class eligible to vote, who do vote, only three in ten vote conservatives. Do you want to know why people in the working class do not vote tory? Because under tory leadership since 2010, 6000,000 more children and their families were forced into poverty. The need for foodbanks skyrocketed 12.3% in the last five years and that is no even accounting for the pandemic. It is clear by now; I have given you enough time to think. “we know whose side Boris Johnson is on- the billionaires, the bankers and the big business.”- labour shadow chancellor, John McDonell. We know the conservatives are very busy committing acts of voter suppression and giving money to their friends instead of caring about you. They are buzzy introducing laws that make it mandatory to have voter ID in order to vote. If you do not make it free people will stop coming. The electoral commissions think 3.5 million voters just will not come back. this is all a part of, “takle[ing] every aspect of electoral fraud”- tory manifesto. It is well known that many rich people have been investing in the party for quite a while. Here is just a few: Anthony Bamford head of machinery in JCB, he gave £12.1 million since 2005. Charles Cayzer owns a shipping tycoon, he gave £480,00. Did you also know, Boris is known to be very generous when it comes to giving back. You’ve probably herd in the news about the conservatives handing out £3mil in contracts to tory owned covid PPE companies over the course of the pandemic. Some of that went to a MP, Nadim Zahawi who is a shareholder in SThree. SThree was given £1mil in contracts over the course of the pandemic. With all the evidence I have given above you’d think the government its rolling in it, I suspect they are but I doesn’t look like it from the outside. They have cut funding to courses drastically, as well as benefit schemes. Like cutting access for eighteen- to twenty-year-olds to the housing benefits. Yet with all the money they been cutting away from services and councils who desperately need it they still have enough money to cough up a commission for a royal yacht named after the duke of Edinburgh, costing over £200 million. Seems sweet does it, name a yacht after the ghoul of Edinburgh, right? You probably know the just of it now, your wrong. Not only is the yacht being paid for by taxpayers, but they are also naming it in honour after a racist. Or how the BBC would phrase his words as “memorable one-liners”. Here is a selection I find quite fitting: “The Philippines must be half empty if you’re all here running the NHS”- while meeting with a Filipino nurse. “If you stay here much longer, you’ll be all slitty-eyed”- he said to a group of British students while on a royal visit to China. My favourite must be “It looks like it was put in by an Indian.”- referring to and old-fashioned fuse box in Edinburgh. He is supposed to be the duke of the bloody place! I really like how one article what I read put it “[Prince Philip] screams out loud what other racists like him have learned how to conceal and camouflage in what they think and project as civilised demeanour.”- Hamid Dabashi.

3.       What I find absolutely astounding, is the Tories inability to show compassion to the people who have nothing. If you did not know the vagrancy act among other things crimeless the homeless and rough sleepers, which is by far a very bad mixture with the recent homelessness statistics, homelessness has risen 28% since labour was last in office and if the Tories continue down the path they are now, it is only going to keep rising. What you would find is most shocking is that there’s solutions for the homeless crisis right in front of us, what the Tories must to not be able to see. Layla Moran of the liberal democrats thinks they “must take a more compassionate and holistic approach, starting by scrapping the vagrancy act”. I think that would be a step forward and away from the old ways of prosecuting people for not being as fortunate as the rest of us, but there is something even more simple than that. Repossessing the 200,000 buildings that have been vacant in the UK for more than six months. Not only would that put a sizeable dent in the houses we need, but it also saves space. The UK is small collection of islands and I do not think the Tories can see that. We do not have the land available to just start building everywhere while leaving all those homes empty and unfilled. Its not a way to solve the housing crisis and its certainly not a way to save the money we supposedly need. Even the homes the Tories are building are left dormant because they are too expensive for the area, they are located in. With the way things are going the Tories will have to build more houses than they ever built before, because by 2041 homelessness is expected to doble. That is 400,000 more households if things do not change -a study by heriot-wat university. The evidence suggests that whatever the Tories are doing to end homelessness it is not working. Everything is not as bleak as I just told you though, the conservative has ended homelessness before. In the hight of the pandemic the conservatives got 90% of all rough sleepers off the streets and put them in hotels or hostels. This helped people apply for benefits, find jobs and get some more permanent assistance. People was helped during the pandemic, but when the funding ran out last July, homeless and the rough sleepers in the hotels and hostels where back out in the streets again. Alone and forgotten by the government that promised to end the very crisis they are apart of years ago. Theis shows that the Tories have the money to help the unfortune but they would rather sit on their arses chatting about what colour they should paint the walls of their house. More recently the Torie introduced a law what will fine people for sleeping in doorways. It really shows what the Tories care about, getting linings for their pockets. The Tories have the money to stop homelessness and when it was a danger to them, they stopped the issue what has been so recuing in our politics for decades. They helped the people who so desperately needed it only to chuck them back into the cold when covid-19 was no longer a danger to them.

4.       The conservatives fail to keep minorities safe in the society that they created. It is not surprise that the Tories are the most incompetent as ever. A study by BBC radio 5 found that hate crimes have doubled since 2013. An optimist would assume that is great, that there must mean that people have been reporting it more, right? Partly so. Although we have seen a rise in reports of hate crimes, the rate of prosecution has dropped down from 20% to just 8%. And that is just the tip of the iceberg, in a survey of faith-based organizations; the home office found that seven in ten of the employees surveyed has never reported a hate crime to the police where one happened. For a country where we are supposed to be the most tolerable it is no surprise that a big portion of the hate crimes committed are ones where the religion the victim followed played a big part. Our population, like many others, is influenced by our politicians. After Boris described Muslim women in burkas as “letterboxes” in an interview; citizen UK found that there where a surge in hate crime directed to Muslim women where the word “letterbox” was used. Again, continuing with the theme of hate crime against religions, Muslims made up half of the statistics in 2018 – 2019. The biggest spike we have seen in the last few years has been to Jewish people, where hate crimes against them have more since doubled. It is not a surprise since people seem to relate being a ‘good’ Jew to being a Zionist. Other minorities like trans youth under sixteen in England and whales now must go through everything that goes with puberty on top of not wanting to have the body you cuntly have all because TERF’s and conservatives do not think puberty blockers should be available to them.  At this point I genuinely think they want trans kids dead, how could you not see that the benefits of puberty blockers far out way the potential consequences. If puberty blockers really where the target they would have taken them of the shelfs completely, but they did not do that did they? They just restricted the rights of an already marginalised group more. Its not just trans kids but the fight for a third gender to finally get recognised is still waging on despite it being a battle since 2018. The government petition has been signed 136,000 times demanding non-binary finally be recognised as a valid gender in the eyes of the law. I hope I can get recognised as well as everyone else. It may not seem a big deal to some of you reading this but it is to thousands. Especially the people who want to go on hormones and medically transition. Because right now I and many other people are restricted and not allowed to get that service. If you are in the UK and you are of age, I urge you to signs the government petition. In other news the conservatives are just now getting to outlawing conversion therapy three years after they announced they would do so. It just shows how the party is not on target. On the topic of not on target let us talk about the increasing number of racial minorities becoming homeless because of lack of funding to their communities. Since the conservatives got into power in the 2010 racial minorities now make up 40% of all homeless despite being only 15% of the current population. It really shows how much they care about anyone who is not white. Yet people like my gran will continue to say they are doing enough for these underfunded communities.

the tory party really has nothing going for them, they are certainly not for the working class, they cannot solve homelessness and they do not give two fucks about minorities. To think anyone would vote form them is just amazing. Its fucking stupid to believe that they are anything but a bunch of rich shites dawdling around and thinking up ways to get more money into their pockets. To end this really all over the place essay, if you vote tory you are a massive twat.

Sources in comments:

[littlefoxwithbighat]

The sides denying aspects of themselves

I could write 50 essays on this topic but you'd all get bored and it would be incoherent. So let me talk about some of the parts of the sides that they deny. You probably all already know these but I think it's interesting to talk about and look at the examples--so here we go!

Logan "I don't feel anything" Sanders

OK, right out of the gate this is so untrue. Its so, so, so untrue. You know it, I know it, we all know it.

We've seen him happy:

Angry:

Scared:

Frustrated:

And empathetic/ remorseful:

We've also seen him passionate (Crofters musical), defeated (SvSr) and childish (Losing my motivation)

And all of this requires feeling.

I think what's interesting about this, is that the veil is so thin for this lie. For the pieces I wrote on Roman and Virgil, other characters have had glimpses of the parts they deny but for the most part it's pretty hidden. However Logan having feelings and denying them is common knowledge. Like all the characters know it.

Even Deciet, who yes, is incredibly astute and intuitive, picked it up within knowing the guy for like 10 minutes of canon interaction.

But what is most interesting about all of this to me is that CHARACTER THOMAS KNOWS.

Not only KNOWS but has canonically called him out on it!

C!Thomas [to Logan]: This just serves as testament to the fact that you have a temperament- which is fine, you just haven't accepted it (-LNTAO)

C! Thomas [to Logan]: I've seen you scared. (-Embarrassing Phases)

This is so so fascinating. Firstly, it's worth remembering that Thomas is in control here.

As Virgil said "You're the boss Thomas. Anything you want to know, you can know. You just have to be open to hearing it."

They're his sides. He ultimately has control over them. And Thomas knows that Lo is hiding his emotions, so WHY doesn't he resolve this? Because, let us be clear, it might take time, but if he wanted to, he could.

A) He doesn't think that ultimately, it doesn't matter

B) He doesn't want to

C) He hasn't actually adressed the matter

D) He is concerned about the consequences

Personally I think it's a combination of all four, although perhaps less so D.

We never really get long enough to pause on this topic and see the other sides reactions to this, so it's difficult to draw any firm conclusions. The best we really have is The Puzzle Song in LNTAO, and from that we can conclude Roman is frustrated, and Patton and Virgil are empathetic, but also a bit frustrated and trying to facilitate change.

OK, we've established that he has feelings and looked a little bit at other character reactions. Let's move on to our favourite blue boy himself.

Firstly, motive. WHY does he do this. This is one is easy, and widely canonically established, its his overwhelming need to be taken seriously. Right?

Well sort of.

That what I would have said at first too, but I don't think thats exactly right. It's because he needs to be LISTENED TO, and it's important we make that distinction. I think Crofters is a great example. He made a bit of a fool of himself in that video, and what's more, he didn't care. And I don't think it's becuse of his powerful love of Crofters overtook his sensibilities (lol) it's because he didn't have a point he needed it express in that video. His emotionless, serious personna was created is that the other sides, and Thomas, would listen to him, when he expresses facts and opinions. Because that's all Logan wants.

So it's pretty heartbreaking that it hasn't worked.*

*(Please note I do not think the sides were unjustified in talking over him in some of this points and that some of them are clearly a result of high emotional stress. That said its still clearly getting to Logan)

This is even more distressing when you consider that for Logan listening and learning, going both ways is very much his love language (See Joans explanation of Sunrise from In The Heights on his playlist, and his reaction to Thomas saying he might take an astronomy course). Logan is killing himself trying to be listened to, trying to be loved, and it's not WORKING (Hmm, remind you of another side?)

But this is a progressive development. Maybe it's partly a result of Thomas not having the characters super fleshed out when the series started, but even so, this personna Logan is putting up is coming up more and more often, and he's clearly repressing his feelings more and more. It's kind of difficult to show this, but just watch Logan in early season 1 compared with now, there is a marked difference.

But actually, I think there are two things that illustrate this perfectly.

First, him making himself into a textbox in POF. I mean it goes without saying, but textboxes aren't people. They don't have emotions. Logan feels he can't even show up anymore, because he as a person, is not worth paying attention to. I don't think it's a coincidence that he chose a form that cannot be talked over, and pops up on the front of the screen, impossible to hide, or cut out of shot. Remember, it was Janus who created the skip button.

(That being said I think I'm not saying this is a sign of him having a healthy ego and interfering, if anything it implies the opposite)

Second, the unicorn onesie. The unicorn onesie is something I keep coming back to when I think about Logan because... UNICORNS. They're a fantasy creature, there's not a jot of science or reality about them. Of all of the choices, Logan, fact oriented Logan, doesn't understand figures of speech Logan, doesn't like cartoons because they're not realistic Logan, WHY does he pick a UNICORN!?

In my opinion, the unicorn onesie is something of a confession. Vulnerability. It kind of represents all of the feelings and fantasy and fun that Logan tries to repress. And that kinda makes sense doesn't it, I mean, feelings, fun and fantasy, that's what unicorns often stand for.

So I think it's telling that throughout the series, we first see him embarrassed, but not too torn up about being seen in his onesie (able to show and engage with his feelings fairly openly, but trying to keep fairly calm and serious) to being unable to wear it around his friends in a relaxed environment, WHEN THEY ARE ALL WEARING ONESIES (Can't show any emotional vulnerability at all and suppressing all his feelings in order to seem serious and be listened to.) Thinking about it this way, Roman saying "no onesie, no vote" could be an interesting parallel to how the sides view this. Because, again this isn't working, and if anything, the deeper Logan goes into this emotionless front, the less he seems to be listened to, which makes him go even deeper, and it's an endless positive feedback loop, which is ironic considering how soul-crushingly negative this is.

What I'm trying to say is that we've seen repeatedly, that the point in the episode where a/the side(s) get emotionally vulnerable is often the point in the episodes where everyone calms down and listens to one another, so this emotional repression is doing nothing but damaging Logan.

That being said, you can understand how he's worried about letting his front it down. Because Logan is right.

There will be times where he needs to be heeded, and ignoring him could lead to disastrous consequences. The biggest example of this is DWIT. If he wasn't there they could not have gotten rid of Remus, everyone else would be panicking, and Thomas' mental state would be in the gutter.

Thomas NEEDS Logan.

So if Logan feels like showing his feelings will stop him from being listened to, then logically, he has to continue to hide and suppress them.

I think in season 3, maybe even the season 2 finale this will be adressed and be a big part of his character arc, and I for one, can't wait.

Anyway I think that about does it for this one. Thanks for reading!

[patins54]

PolkaParty

PolkaParty – potential projects

Description

In recent years global finance has made remarkable progress. One of the latest and significant advances in the world of technology is Cryptocurrency. Decentralized finance, also known as DeFi, is a rapidly growing sector of the cryptocurrency industry. Defi gives you the opportunity to grow your investments using Defi's complex features like Staking & Farming However, these Decentralized finance operations are complex and require a very efficient brain to understand and perform. Many investors are frustrated in crypto when they can't get the same profit as friends, colleagues, because of your inability to understand all these DeFi requirements.

PolkaParty is made for you, as this platform allows users to get access to all DeFi features (swapping, liquidity provisioning, yield farming, NFT, etc) just by joining one party.

What is Polka Party?

The solution was to create a platform that would allow anyone to create or join a party with friends, family and most importantly DeFi veterans, navigating a landscape of endless profits from smart decisions.

You will no longer be frustrated with DeFiety (DeFi-Anxiety), or FOMO being a bad move for not knowing what to do, because you will be able to research, chat and vote with your colleagues

PolkaParty aims to create a profitable DIY DAO (Party) service designed as a convenient path for all participating party members to raise their funds for various financial activities and features.

PolkaParty provides a never-before-seen platform to join your friends and make real waves in the market. Not only will you compete for sweet profits, but we aim to create a competitive environment that rewards the most loyal and passionate parties.

Why Polka Party?

PolkaParty aims to expand the capital barriers that are set indiscriminately for active communities. The idea is that individual retail investors will no longer suffer the consequences of a drastic drop in the price of public token sales, but instead can participate in seed & private sales by having the right capital to devote to early stage projects.

The ultimate goal of the entire PolkaParty experience is to allow all users to be easily integrated into the entire DeFi ecosystem, without having to understand a lot of the technicalities of decentralized finance. Our belief is to create an easy-to-understand user journey, as individuals will have the opportunity to chat, research and immerse themselves in their respective groups with more experienced personalities, who understand the formalities of the more profitable methods in crypto.

Polkaparty Features

Yield Farming — A dedicated party for produce farming will be available on PolkaParty where a regulated wallet will supply liquidity. This allows users to share a greater reward when farming together than if they farmed alone.

Loans — PolkaParty will allow users to borrow funds from parties without withdrawing their investment. Users will have access to funds without affecting their credit scores, with more flexible payment options, as well as instant approval for secured loans.

Crowdfunding — Crowdfunding on PolkaParty will be available to allow users to connect with each other through tokens and projects with similar interests. This feature will be beneficial to engage with the community and share a greater return on investment.

ICO Launchpad — PolkaParty will showcase upcoming ICO projects and allow them to create parties to join and help increase liquidity to fund them, as it becomes a popular choice for new projects to raise capital through crypto launches.

Property Investment Pools — Investment pools are a great way to bring real investment into the crypto world reducing barriers to entry into the property market. It will also allow people around the world to invest in property in countries they may have never had access to before.

How Does PolkaParty Work?

1. The party will consist of members, whose personal wallet is integrated into the party wallet.

2. Depending on the criteria set by the party, the parties will consist of voting and non-voting members.

3. Wallet addresses with voting power will eventually be able to provide party guidance with voting actions

4. HouseKeys are generated for all users creating parties (Public or Private), through which users can join parties seamlessly on the main dashboard within the PolkaParties Portal.

5. HouseKey is required to sign the smart contract, so your wallet will be integrated into the party wallet.

6. PolkaParty has built a time interval based model that allows created parties to allow Partygoers to withdraw funds within a specified timeframe

7. From the action of the party, the user will be given a Daily, Monthly or Yearly + Withdrawal Time Sequence, to withdraw the profits back to the personal wallet.

8. Penalty for early withdrawal of funds before the distribution interval for party members.

Polkaparty Governance fund action in 4 models.

Democracy — Democratic parties are used to equalize and manage a group regardless of who, where, and how many. Democratic parties are straightforward, everyone gets the same vote. Democrats use multisign wallets as a form of governance where every registered, active address is entitled to a transaction confirmation sent to EVM. This is one of the most technically basic forms of party government.

Weighted Democracy — The Weighted Democracy Model aims to provide an alternative solution to funding governance. In this model, the user has a vested interest in a party and can track their Party Power percentage. Simply put, the higher the proportion of parties a partygoer has, the more power he has over the governing vote. Technically, party weights can be compared to LP pools. The more pools you have, the higher the percentage of your payouts, prizes and party benefits.

Monarchy — Monarchy is the simplest and most risky type of party. Here at PolkaParty, believing in decentralization and equality, with this in mind, allow a Party to be created that gives all Party governments to one purse, the King.

Republic — The Republic changes the game not only because of its ability to manage funds in an untrustworthy manner, but because it is the most efficient way to validate transactions or decisions of individuals within a small group (such as a board of directors) representing a larger entity. This is the most efficient model because it only requires the full attention of some parties. This governance model is the pinnacle of PolkaParty's innovation as it allows a representative body to create and manage their own funds. PolkaParty is very focused on creating a universal experience in allocating funds appropriately and adequately for large investments.

Kickback PolkaParty

Kickback is an IDO event held every three months for early-stage projects launched on the PolkaParty platform. This early-stage project will soon receive verified parties on PolkaParty, get priority promotions on the platform for short-term token launches, as well as for long-term product features.

Harvest farm party

Yield farming with joint funds can be more beneficial than farming alone. In short, yield farming protocols incentivize liquidity providers (LPs) to stake or lock their crypto assets in smart contract-based liquidity pools. Many liquidity-related pools take into account factors such as time and amount staked. Therefore, it might be a good idea to find a LP provider instead of lending it yourself. Polkaparty provides a mutually beneficial relationship for this farming platform as a larger amount of liquidity will be provided.

Social Council

This Social Council will outline the competitive ranking of each party, as well as the party's categorical growth in funds, members, activities. The platform will begin to grow organically in volume, users and overall activity, as well as competitive associations with each party. It is important to take advantage of this competitive spirit of Partygoers, as members will take great pride in their personal relationships with popular and well-liked parties. This distinct quality is the reason for Social Council, the exclusive dashboard for Partygoers to have fully accessible data based on the ranking, funding and growth of the most important parties on the platform.

PolkaParty Gifts & Gifts

After the collection of the daily distribution fee, the total amount that has been collected will be paid back to the user, up to 50% of the total daily distribution fee collected on the platform, which stakes the POLP on the platform. If the volume & number of trades increases on each side, the bonus/payment of holding the POLP will also increase.

What are Polkaparty POLP tokens?

POLP is PolkaParty's governance token and the main catalyst behind most of the platform's products and features. All protocol management decisions are made by the POLP holder: from new products to asset rebalancing, strategy and integration. POLP allows its holders to take control of their financial future.

Tokonomics

Nama Token: POLP

Total Supply: 200,000,000

Private Sale : 500,000 (20 million Tokens)

Public Sale: 250,000 (781 NFT) (7.81 million tokens)

Private Selling: $0.025

POLP at launch: $0.032

Conclusion

Polaparty, where you, your friends and family can all share a wallet with customizable built-in governance. As a collective, you can all be part of the big decisions that involve what coins you want to invest in or when you feel the time is right to sell. Polkaparty also has a leaderboard system set up with weekly prizes for whichever side has the most profits based on their percentage.

Read More Here

Website:   https://www.polkaparty.io/

Telegram:  https://t.me/PolkaParty

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/Polka_Party

Media:  https://polkaparty.medium.com/

skates

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=3356871

[aliceasonal]

Bimbo or Billionaire - Ali, Round 2

“Welcome back, everyone.” Leah cooed as the cameras returned focus to her, “While we were on break, we collected your votes and we have a winner. Well....more accurately, we have tie!”

The screen revealed two winning vote getters: Painted On, and More Fun. Well, Ali thought, they certainly could have done worse.

“So how does this work exac-” She began to ask before she found out for herself. A tingling sensation spread over her face and lips, and she rushed over to a mirror to see what was happening to her. What she found was a beautifully made up face with dark lipstick, eyeshadow and blush, framed by flowing blonde hair that had replaced her light brown. Experimentally, she ran a finger across her lips only to find that none of it smudged. Her overall face had changed too. She was prettier now, and she had a feeling that “More Fun” had changed more than her hair color; that it had made her not just blonde, but everyone’s idea of a hot blonde.

“Ali, darling.” Leah called from the setup in Ali’s bedroom, “You want to come back to the game now.”

“Uh...yeah. Sure.” Ali said, returning to it sit before the camera, “I’ll take box number....2.”

The tile on the screen flipped over revealing a gold tile with a treasure chest symbol on it.

“Well, isn’t this your lucky day.” Leah said, “You start off with an easy change, and now you’re already getting one of your rewards.” She smirked, “You see, Ali here has a bad case of breast envy. Isn’t that right?”

Ali’s sudden crimson blush was answer enough.

“She grew up with with a busty mother and a busty little sister, but she just ended up tall and flat.” Leah continued, “I guess she was feeling a little left out, because a nice shapely pair was one of the rewards she asked for.”

Ali’s eyes went wide and she rushed back to the mirror. There was a tense, thought not at all unpleasant, pressure building up in her chest.

“Oh shit oh shit oh shit.” She said, tearing off her shirt to reveal the rapidly overflowing bra beneath. But she breathed a sigh of relief as it seemed to grow right along with them rather than exploded. When they stopped, she had a perfectly shaped, perfectly sized and perfectly attractive pair.

“This. Is. Awesome!” Ali said, leaping into a fist pump only to be thrown off balance when she landed and the weight of her new chest nearly tipped her over.

“Okay, well...it’ll take some getting used to but this game rules!”

“That box will also net you a cool $1,000.” Leah said,  “Are you ready for your next selection?”

Ali sat down and looked over the screen. 2 down. Three more before she had her first chance to exit the game. So far, she was doing alright.

“Okay. I’ll take space number 13!” She said, “Let’s just get that unlucky one out of the way.”

It flipped over revealing a pink square baring the symbol of a coat hanger.

“Oooh, bad luck indeed, love.” Leah said with a smirk, “That’s going to be a clothing change. Let’s see what options we’ve come up with for you. And remember: our reality warping technology insures that our contestants’ will be safe from the weather and society no matter what they get stuck wearing. So don’t go soft on them for fear they won’t be comfortable or accepted.”

She began to read them.

“Option 1. Pinup Princess. Your clothing choices will now be limited to sexualized 50s fashion. Whether it’s flowery dresses, nude aprons or lingerie for those more intimate moments, you will henceforce be dressed like a pinup model.”

Ali shrugged at that. It could even be kind of cute.

“Option 2. Frisky Fitness. Yoga pants. Sports bras. Running shorts that barely cover that cute little butt of yours. Your wardrobe will forever tell the world ‘I’m here to get looks, not get fit’.”

“Oh, come on! That’s not even practical!” Ali protested. Yet her next choice was even worse. “Option 3. Club Crawler. Micro skirts, high heels, minidresses, and everything shiny and skintight. If you can’t jump the line at a nightclub wearing it, you’ll never be able to wear it again.”

“Option 4. Beach Bunny. Yes, that is what it sounds like. Whether you wear one piece or two, you’ll be stuck in sexy swimwear from now on.”

“Oh god...each of these is worst than the last....”

“And finally, Option 5. Belated Birthday Suit. You’re awfully fond of saying clothes are overrated. Now you’ll put that to the test. If this option is chosen, you’ll never have to worry about them again.”

“What? No! That’s insane!”

“Sorry, Ali.” Leah smirked, “Your our first contestant on the online format, so we’ll be throwing in a few extreme options in each of these to get a sense for how mean spirited our audience here truly is.”

The camera cut Ali off and the poll appeared. It was time to vote.

------- (Counting comments is hard. You can still leave them if you like, but I’m linking a poll right here as well ^__^ http://www.strawpoll.me/19574318 )