#i have one option i found on some foreign site but i would like to have someone's opinion if there is someone who uses

[rapidhighway]

i need a pen grip that works similar to this is this possible to achieve does anyone use something like that

[anamericangirl]

You'll have to be more specific about what an "unsafe" abortion is and where you have seen a massive spike. All abortions are unsafe because a procedure that kills a human being is unsafe by definition.

Well no, medical professionals would disagree. A safe abortion is that one that isn’t high risk for women. Safe abortions clinic abortions have less than 1% chance of severe complications, it’s one of the safest medical procedures there is.

Back alley abortions were not just illegal abortions done by medical professionals & even when they were, it was more complex than that. A lot were done by those who didn’t have a medical license or by the women themselves.

Illegal abortionists sometimes opted instead to simply induce enough of a miscarriage that their patient could go to a hospital and get one without a problem. They did this often by inserting a foreign object, like a hollow tube catheter, through the cervix. In some cases, they used type of catheter with a balloon on one end. Filled with saline, it would put pressure on the cervix, like a fetus’s head would towards the end of pregnancy, causing it to fully dilate. Just sticking any catheter in could prompt a miscarriage as the body tried to expel the object.

People who couldn’t find or afford an illegal abortion often tried to give one to themselves. It’s impossible to say how many of these happened every year, but there are records showing thousands of people coming into emergency rooms with septic infections of the uterus and reproductive organs in the 1960s.

This was dangerous obviously. It could cause hemorrhages and embolisms. And catheters had to be left in for a while, along with gauze packed into the patient’s vagina to staunch the blood. This could cause infection and with patients trying to hide from authorities, they often didn’t seek treatment until near death.

The coat hanger was another method done by women themselves, it was one of many objects women would try to insert through their own cervical openings. The goal was not necessarily to complete an abortion at home but rather to induce enough bleeding and symptoms of miscarriage that the person could go to a hospital, say they were having a miscarriage naturally, and get a hospital D&C.

We can learn from data from other countries who have outlawed abortion vs those who keep abortion legal.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(20)30315-6/fulltext

https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-worldwide

https://gh.bmj.com/content/7/3/e007151

https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736%2817%2931794-4

https://www.guttmacher.org/sites/default/files/factsheet/ib_aww-latin-america.pdf

I also find it very ironic that the states in the US with the strictest abortion bans are the ones with the highest maternal mortality rates. And also the ones with the weakest maternal support since they are among the states that refuse to expand their Medicaid programs.

This is very long so I'll make sure to put a "keep reading" option for scrolling ease.

Abortion is Not Safe

I don't know where you found or came up with the idea that abortion clinics have less than 1% chance of severe complications and that it's one of the safest medical procedures there is but you could not be further from the truth.

If a safe abortion is one that isn't high risk for women, like you claim, then a safe abortion doesn't exist. All abortions are high risk for women in multiple different ways.

Abortion triples the maternal mortality rate (and, interestingly, it was also found that a safe delivery is linked to reduction in mortality risks that are associated with both miscarriage and abortion).

Abortion increases the risk of premature death for a woman by 50%.

Abortion harms women's mental health

some bullet points from the article:

″Women who have had an abortion have an 81% higher risk of subsequent mental health problems compared to women who have not had an abortion.

″Women who aborted have a 138% higher risk of mental health problems compared to women who have given birth.

″Women who aborted have a 55% higher risk of mental health problems compared to women with an "unplanned" pregnancy who gave birth.

″Women with a history of abortion have higher rates of anxiety (34% higher), depression (37%), alcohol use/misuse (110%), marijuana use (230%), and suicidal behavior (155%), compared to those who have not had an abortion.

Abortion increases the risk of breast cancer by 44% in women who have had just one abortion and the risk gets even higher with multiple abortions.

There are multiple risks associated with abortion.

More ways abortion hurts women.

Some bullet points from the above article:

31% of women having abortions report suffering physical health complications (1)

10% of women having abortions suffer immediate, potentially life-threatening complications (2, 3, 4)

Women have a 65% higher risk of clinical depression following abortion vs. childbirth (5)

65% of women suffer symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) after abortion (1)

Women’s death rates from various causes after abortion are 3.5 times higher than after giving birth  (6, 7)

Many women describe their experience as ‘a nightmare’, which can hardly equated with ‘choice’. 60% of women surveyed after abortion responded that: ’Part of me died’ (1)

Suicide rates among women who have abortions are six times higher than those who give birth (7, 8)

Abortion increases a woman’s risk of future miscarriages by 60% (9)

A procedure that carries all these severe risks is not safe for women so I don't know where you get the idea that it's one of the safest medical procedures in existence or that there's a less than 1% chance of severe complications because that is absolutely not the case. And, honestly, even if that were true (but it's not) you continued to use rape victims to argue for abortion even though abortions due to rape account for less than 1% of abortions so if less than 1% is a valid statistic for you to use to base an argument on, then it's valid for me too.

Anyone who is genuinely concerned with the health and safety of women and isn't just using it as a shallow political prop would not advocate for abortion or brush off the multiple studies that show how harmful it is.

And I just want to point out here how contradictory it is to claim abortion is one of the safest medical procedures there is while at the same time claiming if it’s illegal women are going to die and seriously hurt themselves through illegal abortions. You do see how it’s contradictory, right? One of the “safest medical procedures there is” wouldn’t become life threateningly dangerous when done illegally. Both those statements can’t be true.

Illegal Abortions

Before I officially get into this section, let me ask you this: how would you react if I said making child trafficking illegal will not stop it from happening and just enables children to be hurt in more dangerous ways. We need to create a legal and regulated method for child trafficking so that it can be done safely? Would you agree with that? Hopefully not. And it's not a good argument for abortion just like it's not a good argument for child trafficking. We do not make intentionally harming and committing acts of violence on innocent people legal and "safe" because some people will have the means and motive to do it anyway. That is an awful argument for legality.

I don't know where you got any of your claims regarding illegal abortions so I'm just going to give some general information regarding the reality of illegal and legal abortions.

First, it's just not true that the legality of abortion has no influence whatsoever on whether or not a woman chooses to have an abortion. The data simply doesn't agree with that assertion.

The CDC found that "from 1970 through 1982, the reported number of legal abortions in the United States increased every year." The reported number of abortions massively increasing every year after it became legal heavily suggest that the legality actually does impact the abortion rate. But this is not all we have that shows us that.

The abortion rate of non-metropolitan women is about half that of women who live in metropolitan counties.

Studies have found that public funding of abortion makes services accessible to women who would otherwise carry unintended pregnancies to term.

The abortion rate of women with Medicaid coverage is three times as high as that of other women.

Mississippi's "two-trip" requirement, which was the first of its kind to be enforced, reduced the abortion rate for Mississippi residents by over 15% in the first 12 months.

So, if you pay attention to the data here, it tells us that women who live close to abortion facilities are twice as likely to have an abortion as women who don't, and women who can have abortions publicly paid for are three times as likely to have an abortion. Meanwhile, having to take a second trip to the abortion clinic makes women 15% less likely to have an abortion. There are a lot of factors that influence a woman's decision to have an abortion and legality is a big one, despite what you've heard from other pro-choicers. It turns out when something is made very convenient and you don't have to go through the trouble of breaking laws, you're more likely to choose certain things, even when it comes to abortion.

So now that we have that out of the way we can address the fear mongering argument of "but without abortion being legal women will just have back alley abortions or use coat hangers and hurt or kill themselves!!!!!!!" This is such a hypocritical argument for any pro-choicer to make btw because you're acting like you're concerned that someone might die while arguing for the "right" to commit murder.

Dr. Bernard Nathanson, who cofounded NARAL, is one of the reasons people like you think there was and will be again an epidemic of women dying from illegal abortions if abortion is outlawed as he is one the people behind the claim that around 10,000 women died each year from illegal abortions before Roe v Wade was passed. But in his work Aborting America he wrote:

How many deaths were we talking about when abortion was illegal? In N.A.R.A.L., we generally emphasized the drama of the individual case, not the mass statistics, but when we spoke of the latter it was always "5,000 to 10,000 deaths a year." I confess that I knew the figures were totally false, and I suppose the others did too if they stopped to think of it. But in the "morality" of our revolution, it was a useful figure, widely accepted, so why go out of our way to correct it with honest statistics? The overriding concern was to get the laws eliminated, and anything within reason that had to be done was permissible.

We also have this quote from Dr. Christopher Tietze, who was the chief statistician for Planned Parenthood and the CDC around the time this was being spread.

Some 30 years ago it was judged that such deaths (from illegal abortion) might number 5,000 to 10,000 per year, but this rate even if it was approximately correct at the time, cannot be anywhere near the true rate now. The total number of deaths from all causes among women of reproductive age in the U.S. is not more than about 50,000 per year. The National Center for Health Statistics listed 235 deaths from abortion in 1965. Total mortality from illegal abortions was undoubtedly larger than that figure, but in all likelihood it was under 1,000.8

The year before Roe v Wade was passed the CDC started collecting data on abortion mortality and they found that there were 39 deaths from illegal abortions and 24 deaths from legal abortions. This information makes it quite clear that there is not a bunch of women going out and dying from illegal abortions, or even attempting them, like you pro-choicers claim is inevitable and will happen on a large scale if it abortion is illegal.

But here is something interesting to note: The National Abortion Federation has asserted that between 1970 and 1980, legal abortions may have prevented around 1500 pregnancy related deaths in the US. So let's just give them the benefit of the doubt here and assume they are right. During that same time period, 15 million people were killed by abortion. The lives "saved" by abortion account for 0.0001% of the total amount of lives that it took. So if you want to talk about the lives at stake with the legality or illegality of abortion the numbers are incomparable. There is no question that the amount of lives arguably saved by abortion is virtually nonexistent when you compare it to the number of human lives abortion kills.

The next thing to address here is the idea that a legal abortion is a "safe" abortion and illegal abortion is an "unsafe" abortion because pro-choicers love to spread the idea that women are going to be performing surgical procedures on themselves with coat hangers in dark alleyways. Those of you who make this argument need to understand that what has made abortion "safer" is not its legal status but improvements and advancements in medical technology.

Mary Calderon, who was the former director of Planned Parenthood, wrote an article in 1960 that was published in the American Journal of Public Health and in it she estimated that around 90% of illegal abortions were performed by licensed physicians and that with the improvements in medical technology, abortion, whether done legally or illegally, is not dangerous.

Abortion is no longer a dangerous procedure. This applies not just to therapeutic abortions as performed in hospitals but also to so-called illegal abortions as done by physicians. In 1957 there were only 260 deaths in the whole country attributed to abortions of any kind. In New York City in 1921 there were 144 abortion deaths, In 1951 there were only 15; and , while the abortion death rate was going down so strikingly in that 30-year period, we know what happened to the population and the birth rate. Two corollary factors must be mentioned here: first, chemotherapy and antibiotics have come in, benefiting all surgical procedures as well as abortion. Second, and even more important, the conference estimated that 90 percent of all illegal abortions are presently being done by physicians. Call them what you will, abortionists or anything else, they are still physicians, trained as such; and many of them are in good standing in their communities. They must do a pretty good job if the death rate is as low as it is...abortion, whether therapeutic or illegal, is in the main no longer dangerous.11

In 2009, research done by the The National Abortion Federation confirmed Calderons claims. See, the future of abortion is more medical than surgical. Using medication to induce abortion or finding a doctor who is willing to perform an illegal abortion since they will already have the necessary tools would be the most common methods of procuring an illegal abortion rather than women attempting to perform surgery on themselves with a coat hanger. That's just an emotional appeal not based on facts.

Most of this information can be found here and here and it will also direct you to other source material if you are actually interested in learning more about this.

Maternal Mortality

I'm going to try to keep this section as brief as I can since this is already super long, but I looked over your links and I'm not sure what point you're trying to make with them. I didn't see a compelling argument for abortion in any of them. It seemed like most were just saying "abortion is going to happen even if it's illegal" and I've already addressed that point.

This image is a little blurry, unfortunately, but what this chart shows us is that the maternal mortality rate in childbirth is nearly 0% in most of the developed countries around the world. This shows us pregnancy and childbirth isn't killing women and abortion isn't saving lives.

The claim that abortion restrictions directly correlate to a higher maternal death rate is unfounded doesn't stand up to scrutiny. If abortion restrictions contribute to higher maternal mortality rates how do you explain Poland? Abortion is almost entirely restricted there (it only has one or two exceptions) and it has one of the lowest maternal mortality rates in the world.

So implying that some states have a high maternal mortality rate because they have strict abortion laws is completely unfounded. Many things can contribute to maternal mortality but so far there is no evidence that directly connects abortion restrictions to those factors.

And this is not to say we can't do better. We can always work to improve our conditions and our healthcare and there is a lot that still needs to be improved in the medical field and we can do a lot better when it comes to pregnancy and childbirth (I've seen a lot to suggest that increasing the usage of midwives could reduce somewhere around 80% of maternal deaths but I don't want to get into that right now because I would have to do a lot more research on it).

So you can look at one or two areas and see a correlation and immediately assume the mortality rate is because abortion is restricted but that narrative falls apart when you open the door and walk outside. We will not ever completely eliminate maternal mortality. That's impossible. But if abortion restrictions increased maternal mortality, then it would only be logical that everywhere with strict abortion laws would have a higher maternal mortality rate but that's not what we see.

Pregnancy, even though there are isolated incidences of women who experience fatal complications, is overall not killing women, as you can see from the chart and there is absolutely no historical or medical evidence that suggests abortion saves lives. And even if it did, we saw earlier that alleged percentage of lives saved is not a good trade off for the number of lives it takes.

I could go on but I'll stop here because I've said a lot and I doubt you'll even read it but there it is. Before I go, though, I want to give a shout out to @thepro-lifemovement because I discovered a lot of these resources through her blog where she has been compiling them for some time and would encourage you to check her out if you want to go deeper into some of these issues.

[rocohen20]

I just feel like I have to rant about it to someone, and considering the fact that non of my friends or family are fans of hockey I guess this is the perfect place. 

I live 7 hours ahead of north america, so naturally most of the games are at 2am/3am in my timezone. In previous years when I was at highschool and such I had less obligations and could’ve afford to view more games live. However, right now the games I see the most are weekend games because those are the ones who start at a reasonable time in my timezone.

I mostly watch Stars games and Flyers games, so I was excited to see the Flyers-Bruins game at 8pm. I even cleared my schedule in order to see that game. Where I live there’s hardly any snow year round, so sports such as ice hockey are basically non-exsisting in my country. The only channel that maybe would be on TV that broadcast any of those games is a foreign sports channel. The one that do broadcast them now is not part of my family’s cable deal (and a month from now my parents are going to cancel our cables anyway). So literally the only option for me to watch any games are by going online.

I know that there are different officials streaming services that I could pay and watch from them, but I don’t think that the price would be worth it for the amount of games that I would be able to watch. And also I know that even for the people who do pay for them, there are problems from time to time. So, that’s why I’m basically only watching from a free stream online. The few previous years I used to see games from the website nhl66 and another one that used the same server. However, since the beginning of the pre-season I found out that those websites do not work anymore. 

Since then it was really frustrating, because even if I read about all kind of different sites that I could use, non of them worked for me when I tried them. Which bring me once again to today’s game. Finally I tried some website that I used once before. It worked however it didn’t show me the bottom line with all the different options (such as going back to live, unmuting the serving, etc.). That meant that I couldn’t change the game into full screen. And also what aggravated me was the fact that only the home server was loading fine, the away server was full of pop ups that wouldn’t go away. 

All of those things meant that by the time I finally managed to watch the game, it had already begun, I had to watch it with the Bruins’ coverage and I had to enlarge the screen by the setting’s option and put the focus on the game’s part of the page. 

I could’ve ignored all that if it hadn’t meant that now I was pissed off and without the ability to concentrate on the game.Plus, I don’t know about you but what of the things I loved the most about nhl66 was the fact that it was commercials free. I don’t live in North America, I don’t need to see their commercials. I would use those time offs to read fan-fictions on my phone or a physical book if I didn’t mind keeping my desk lamp on. But in this site there were commercials, and it made it harder for my already distracted and pissed off self to get any reading on. 

During the first intermission I went to my brother’s room to complain about all the things I mentioned above. I knew that he couldn’t care less, but I just needed to let someone know. When I came back to my room it was towards the end of the first intermission, so of course it was the perfect time for the server to get stuck. I didn’t really trust this website and I wanted to mess with him as little as possible. But after good few minutes that the server was stuck with the three laoding dots on the screen, I hit the refresh botton. It worked and it did load the page once again. The second period was at the 16 minutes mark and I couldn’t unmute the server. That was the final straw and when I decided that watching the game would not be in my cards tonight.

I know that most of the people who started reading this post gave up half-way through (if they even started reading it). But I had to get it off my chest. Because tonight was just a pre-season game. But if this kind of things would happen in the regular season it would just suck. Hockey is my happy me time. I hate being this frustrated over something I wanna do for fun. And it’s not like I’m planning on watching that many game anyway in the upcoming season, so it’s just sucks! 

[that-dinopunk-guy]

I already did a post like this a while ago, but since I have since come up with versions I like better I'm doing it again. So here is a series of portraits of the protagonist of a dinopunk sword and sorcery story I'm currently planning out, done as best I can with the character customization options and armors in Conan Exiles. I also used mods.

Kuda was born in a western frontier province of Qitai (fantasy-China), to an impoverished peasant family in a region ravaged by warfare between two local warlords. She was sold at a young age to a foreign trading caravan that was passing through the region for money to feed her siblings, but as she was being transported west to be sold into slavery the caravan was raided by a tribe of steppe nomads called the Staaka (fantasy-Scythians), one of whom decided to adopt her to raise as his own. It was among the Staaka that she got her name; I haven't nailed down her original Qitan name yet, because by the time of the story she barely remembers it anyway.

Also, the Staaka ride domesticated horse-sized alioramin tyrannosaurs:

Rule of Cool is fully in effect in this setting.

Among the Staaka Kuda grew into a fearsome warrior, participating in many raids, killing many people, selling people into slavery, and performing ritualized cannibalism. By our standards, she is not a good person at this stage of her life by any stretch of the imagination. By Staaka standards, she's pretty awesome. Also at some point she falls in love with one of her fellow warrior women.

Unfortunately, since this is a story, and stories need conflict, the Staaka are eventually attacked and defeated by a larger nomad tribe, Kuda's girlfriend is killed, and she and the other survivors get a taste of their own medicine when they're marched off to the nearest fantasy-Greek colony and sold into slavery themselves. From there, Kuda is taken south to Khimt (fantasy-Egypt), where she is bought by a local minor noble.

Her actual tattoos in the story would more closely resemble real Scythian tattoos, just with dinosaurs instead of deer and panthers and shit. There used to be a mod that added actual Scythian tattoo designs into the game, but it no longer works. So I used the ones shown here because I think they look neat.

Eventually the noble's wife got tired of this EXOTIC FOREIGN TEMPTRESS prancing about the estate and tempting her husband (never mind that Kuda hated both their guts), so she nagged him into sending her south as a gift to a friend of theirs who was governor of a far-flung colony. Unfortunately during the trip the galley she was on was attacked and sunk, so she never made it there. Instead she washed ashore on Alkebu (fantasy-Africa), where she was found by a local tribe called the Irombe. She lived with the Irombe for a time, during which she proved herself as a capable warrior and was given the ritual scarification to mark her as such.

Eventually though her nomadic upbringing had her itching to move on, not to mention her unfinished business on the steppes: find and kill the man who'd killed her girlfriend. So she got passage with a passing tribe of Ouled-Nail-inspired nomads and headed north.

Kuda eventually made her way back to the steppes, where she managed to join another nomadic tribe who were opposed to the one that had attacked her people. She rode with them for a while until the two groups finally clashed, and she was finally able to take her revenge. Finally, after killing her hated enemy and having a drinking bowl made from the top of his skull in the tradition of her adopted people, she visited the site of her tribe's defeat and then left the steppes to see more of the world.

Her wandering eventually took her to the coastal city-state of Dar-Shelem, where she takes a job as a mercenary escorting the king's daughter to an arranged marriage to a prince in the neighboring empire of Matuwali.

And the princess, Yemsher, is the story's narrator. Being an inquisitive and bookish girl, she immediately becomes curious about the exotic-looking female warrior in her retinue and eventually gets her to recount her life story to pass time on the journey. The story would then be Yemsher's account of everything she was told, written down at the encouragement of her new husband who just so happens to also be a huge fucking nerd.

And that's the story as I currently have it outlined. I'm not worried about spoilers because anyone who reads all this will probably completely forget about it by the time I actually get around to writing the damn thing.

Also because one person has already asked, no, I'm not planning on the two of them hooking up. Though given Matuwali and Staaka attitudes towards sex Yemsher could probably have Kuda as a sidepiece if she wanted. (I'll leave that up to the fanfic authors.)

[umichenginabroad]

Week 4 - Planning and Preparing: the underbelly of studying abroad

G’day everyone!

This week's blog is a bit different than the previous few for a couple of reasons. Firstly, this week was relatively uneventful, but I will give it a recap. Secondly, this blog is meant to give an all-encompassing view into the studying abroad experience, and this week I’d like to dedicate most of this blog to some of the less glamourous aspects of being out here.

So most of this week was a scramble to confront our mounting school work and the pressure to find a place to live for next week. We attended three different “inspections”, essentially open houses. I became a member of the State Library of New South Wales which has some of the best study spots in the city. 

This Friday was Australia Day, which is the more controversial version of Independence Day for the States. We relaxed on the beach for most of the day and that night we met up with some of the friends we met at surf camp. They led us to the harbor, where the opera house was lit up with a mixture of patriotic and aboriginal images. 

The next day was spent surfing and reading at Bondi Beach.

We finished our day taking Anika Satish up on her local food recommendation at this delicious Italian place called The Corner House.

Now for the less glamorous aspects:

Housing

We went a more unconventional route when it came to finding our housing. Many abroad students opt into the student housing complexes, FYI most on-campus accommodations are filled up before you can apply and there are few abroad students living in anyways. However, by the time we were looking for housing, most of the accommodation options that kept my friend and I together were either too expensive to justify or too far from the areas we wanted to be, namely the beaches near Coogee and Bondi. 

During our initial search, we met three girls whom we knew through friends and so two became five, but still no place made sense. We explored the prominent Australian real estate sites domain.com.au and realestate.com.au but quickly discovered we would have to be in person to inspect the property and have an Australian bank account before we could submit an application for a lease. 

So, a little out of desperation, we turned to Airbnb for housing, it was slightly pricier but our only viable option while we searched from the states. We found a 3-bedroom apartment near Coogee that would house us from the 4th of January to the 1st of February. We spent the first few nights in a hostel while our Airbnb was opening up.

And now to the stressful exciting part, it is January 28th at the time of writing this blog and we still don’t know where we are going on the night of the 1st. This past week has been filled with three inspections and two lease applications, both places being in ideal locations and at a very reasonable price. That being said, in many ways, we are going in blind. Who knows what documents the Australian housing market favors over others in leasing applications or even what chance we have in general because on paper we’re five barely adult-aged students getting funded primarily by our parents from a foreign country. I know I wouldn’t accept me…

But anyway, I’ll know one way or the other by next Sunday (hopefully sooner). One piece of legal guidance that has been invaluable in our search: it is Australian law that a renter can terminate a lease no matter what and if they fulfilled at least half of their time then the only penalty is two weeks of rent. This is relevant because most leases here are at a minimum 6 months long and we have a little less than 4 months left in our Australian adventure.

And for practical advice, talk to the realtors that are representing these places, they have been across the board open with their advice and generous with their guidance. 

Budgeting

The three things you aren’t supposed to bring up at a dinner table are Religion, Politics, and Money, well the first two can wait for later blogs… but this next part is concerned with everything financial. The bits I wish I knew before coming.  

I underestimated just how quickly costs would accumulate and how unsustainable the first few weeks would be financially. Below is the financial sheet provided by IPE for budgeting this program.

These estimates are pretty good but there are a few areas I’d like to dig into and update based on my experience so far.

If the “figure it out as you go” approach to housing appeals to you then you could be saving up to a couple thousand dollars. Our first month at this Airbnb plus the few days of hostels were $1450 + $150 and then assuming we get one of the two places we’ve applied to then it would be around $4000 for the remainder of our trip so the rough total comes out to $5600. 

The Meals and Personal Expenses sections are highly personal but I’ll give my breakdown. For food, I’m personally spending around $250/300 a month on groceries and also spending around $80 a week on eating out or $360 a month. This comes out to somewhere between $2750 to $3000 for the time I’m here. Another item that deserves a separate column in your budget sheet that I didn’t consider was alcohol. In Australia, it is one of the highest-taxed commodities which translates to ridiculously expensive drinks when going out. If you do plan on drinking I highly recommend buying alcohol at Aldi’s or BWS which we’ve found to have the most reasonable prices. In dollar terms, it comes out to $160 a month or around 700$ for the duration of my time here. 

For personal expenses, it is again very personal but there are several things that I wanted to highlight. I’m recently scuba certified so boat dives, shore dives, and more certifications can quickly add up. I’m budgeting around $1500 for the total expenses related to scuba diving and another $500 for expenses related to surfing. Disclaimer: when it comes to buying scuba gear, a surfboard, and most things honestly, Facebook Marketplace is your best pal, you can also sell back the items at the end of the semester. 

And then finally I would budget at least $2000 for day, weekend, and week trips while you’re here. When will you be on this side of the world again??… it's what I told my parents at least. The academic schedule for UNSW has three separate weeks off during your time here, all great opportunities to explore the rest of Australia, New Zealand, and even Southeast Asia (probably the cheapest option of the three). 

My total personal budget sheet is closer to $30k once trips and scuba adventures are factored in. Overall, there are many ways to be frugal here without compromising your experience, such as buying flights far in advance or building a trip around the cheapest flights you can find, camping rather than staying in hotels (when you can), pregaming a night out, and reselling bulky semester-use items. I’m sure there are more but I hope some of this helps.  

Cheers mates!

Grant Touchette

Aerospace Engineering

University of New South Wales

Sydney, Australia

[winterstares]

Lost media and foreign piracy

Okay, so, this is a video idea for the future (aka whenever I get my voice back) but I’m so passionate about it rn that I just need to infodump somewhere.

Btw, sorry for my english, it's 1 am and I have like 4 hours of sleep.

So, in the last couple of years I have seen a lots of instances where lost media (extra contents, dubs and episodes) have been found in pirated copies of series or movies.

And there is something that has captured my attention.

And that’s the fact that many of these cases have been found in latam countries.

If you don’t know, latam has a HUGE piracy scene, I can personally attest to that. It’s not unusual to find people selling pirated movies on the streets and local stores, and there is a culture where watching/buying pirated copies is not really that bad? Like, everyone has at least on pirated movie somewhere in their house. CDs where everywhere in the early 2000s, but its prices always put people off buying the official stuff. Personally, I mostly have hello kitty and Disney official movies because they had extra content and games and the price made it worth it for little ol’ me, but if the extra content wasn’t very promising or you weren’t looking for it, a pirated copy would always be the cheapest option.

Anyways, I’m going off topic-

What I meant to say with this is that the mere existence of this whole market in latam can probably help find a lot of lost media that many english speakers are looking for, with the only thing stopping them being the language barrier.

Also, the censorship in latam has always been laxer, so there is some stuff that has been censored in united states that haven’t received the same treatment over here.

Like, seriously, when I was a kid/teenager me and my friends would constantly talk about how we would buy pirated movies and end up watching an extra scene or alternative ending without noticing until we discussed it with other people. Sometimes the CD stuff would have more stuff depending if you bought the version with subtitles or the one in Spanish.

And even if things have considerably slowed down with the wave of streaming sites, there are still stores that exist that are dedicated to sell pirated movies. I’ve heard that Mexico still has a huge market, and I can kind of vouch for countries of south america if my personal experiences have anything to say.

And latam is not the only place! I’ve heard about india still having piracy stores along with some countries in Africa. And really, lets be honest, what country DOESN’T have a couple of piracy shops?

[roulette-strategy-software]

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[the-firebird69]

I can see that he's still there and we have warrants on him for everything he's invading is trying to harm us all the time I'm so sick of this it doesn't cover us up at all you idiots better get your s*** together you sons of mine Jesus Christ is stupid

Mac

We need to do stuff to that guy and get rid of them tell you what some stuff draws them out of there and some stuff draws people in right now we should go fight over the Genesis auto dealers it's a great idea and it's comforting his father and mother and we should also fight to buy them but you can't buy them yet and I'm going to tell you something if you're driving around so we should have Tommy F to volunteer driving around with terminators into traps you don't care just get rid of them

Daniel

I'm going to do that and take a bunch of those as an option I'm just going to send it in see if you guys approve and work much smoother and you too BGA this guy's a goddamn nuisance

Tommy f

I'm going to take our share and we're going to send it in and I want the light cycle place opened up and I want everybody to pitch in take the stupid son of a b**** down such a f****** loser he's an animal needs to be killed

Bja

I'm going to shoot him I'm going to shoot his kid I'm going to shoot every single damn one of them until they stop coming back it's like pet freaking cemetery over here with these dumb assholes it's so goddamn stupid they revive anything it's gross

Bg I'm going up there I know the nature of the job and his people will be there too I tell you what every once in a while we're going to stand up there and pick all of them off this would be a huge pile of stupid head I'm so sick of that happening it's a matrix and we have to find it I don't think so I think these idiots are stupid

You're finding the talk disgusting but we keep doing dumb things I keep bothering people trying to take the stuff we won't go do anything logical and won't team up that's just the way it is and we're going to lose at least we are

Trump

Yeah you're going to lose you're going to lose your life you're going to lose your licenses your positions I'm going to start firing you I don't care if the Maxi yes or no I'm going to fire you and order people to do stuff and it'll look like them having me do it it's a trick I'm going to start doing it and holy s*** you are a huge a****** you need to get away from you f****** f****

Biden

I can't believe you're afraid of a $200 front thing you are such a loser we're bringing you up on charges of treason you be shot on site if you found guilty of treason and you wouldn't even know it you're such a freaking huge loser I can't believe how f****** stupid you are you get away from him and we're going to send orders I want him out of there anybody in the way of it it's going to get killed so Stan's not the way of it you can't do anything he's under threat by this guy there's way too many down here the federal government needs to send down a lot more troops so I'm going to order that now

Camilla

We're sending troops in their Max too we have to get these assholes out of here and the foreigners too they got a good contingent to them I got to clean out New York and other areas too this sucks so bad they're so gosh darn stupid where are they coming from maybe they're coming from New Zealand making clones

Biden and robots my nephew sent us grandson that it says

We could have told you so don't leave him down there alone just going to keep sending s*** heads here

Billium

[gryficowa]

You know what? I have a game that I call myself "My own lost media", because no matter who I ask (In my country) it cannot give me the correct answer (Usually what it mentions is not what I am looking for), google doesn't help me either, so great, here I will describe what I remember (I was a kid when I played it, so the graphics may differ, but I'm 100% sure the game was 2D)

In my country there was a site where there were games and this game was in the cover of an MMO (Although it was not in this genre, I'm sure of that)

Now it's not in this cover, I know it because I checked

I will give a description of what I remember: The game was in 2D, my memory tells me that it had a style similar to anime, although I cannot say if it was 100% this style, but it was similar and that's why I mention it

The game started with choosing a character (Gender and her appearance), the character appeared in the class photo (In the school suit, as my memory is not crazy, it was navy blue), the character moved into the city (To such a high block, next to it there was a bar, when you went to it, you met characters, I remembered that apart from the waitress, there was only one female figure, the rest were boys, I think there were five / six of them together)

One of the girls in the bar took you shopping (Regardless of what gender your character was, I checked it, I played it a few times, but I still didn't remember the title, once I didn't pay attention to the name of the game and I remembered the thumbnails, but now it is I don't even remember it and unfortunately it had its negative effects, as you can see)

I played the game when I didn't have an account, which caused me to reset and all progress disappeared, so I know that no matter what gender your character was, it didn't change much anyway, in the game it took some time to walk (I mean, it didn't have to be to wait, but in the game it worked so much that time passed, so you had to be careful to come home soon enough, because then yours slept too long and well, you had little time, in short)

Apparently you could buy a vehicle to move faster, but I could never afford to buy it, so I could walk, the view from the game was from above and you mainly used the mouse to move (You were choosing a place and there was a message how long will it take, as I mentioned, there was no need to wait)

I mentioned the bar, you could visit the characters who stayed there (In their house), if you pressed a plant or a pet it supplemented the needs of the character you controlled, you could buy food in the bar, because if you didn't buy it, the character couldn't go to sleep and wake up too late again (Sounds logical)

There was also a work and school option, but it was available once a day for a few days, because then it was popping up that you can't, because you have zero days to do it (Maybe if I had an account there, maybe it would work differently, I don't know, as I mentioned, I didn't have an account and the game was resetting)

I don't know what else to add to describe it better, but not all places were available, because it would take too long to reach them, and without a vehicle, it was impossible to get there (There weren't any buses in the game, but maybe I I did not notice)

To this day, I do not know what the name of this game was (For obvious reasons), and when I ask people from my country, they do not know, or they give another game that is not what I am looking for, google did not help me in any way, although I wrote all possible passwords, someone wrote to me that the game could be called "Student's Life" and I found this game, but there was such a problem, that the game did not work, there was a white screen and nothing else, so I do not know if this is the game, because when I entered the title, the sims and other games popped up where this thing appears

Hence, this clue is flawed, because I do not know if it was called that or not, the game does not work, there is no ss, there is nothing, the game is just gone and there is no

The game has simply evaporated and I cannot find it anywhere, there is a greater chance that I will get more answers on the foreign Internet than on the Polish one, which is why I describe the game here, I can not throw anything out of my memory, there were speech bubbles (Because the characters with each other they talked like that), I don't remember the names, I don't remember anything but the gender of the characters, nothing, I just don't remember anything, the only thing I didn't mention was the possibility of being in a relationship with a character in this game, but I don't know if that can help me find this game, I've been looking for it for a long time and nothing, no consequences

I started calling this game "Lost media" for a reason, because it is such a case (At least for me)

And there were a lot of situations where many games that were lost in the media at some point found themselves (You could not always play them, but there were gamplays and the title of the game itself), I do not count on being able to play the game (Looking at for a flash plug), but at least I would feel that after so long I know the name of this game and this type, the game was a browser, so that's where I mentioned the flash plug, because I don't know if this game would work at all

I don't know if the translator translated it all correctly, unfortunately, I can't correct everything when I'm not sure if it's correct or not

Nevertheless, I can hope that it is all reasonably clear

[batsandbugs]

Daminette December

A/N: Okay so this one spiraled out of control a little bit, but I’m so happy with how it turned out! Marinette and Damian back to being chaotic little shits, Marinette being understanding, and Damian going a little too far but finding the one person who doesn’t mind. Let me know what y’all think. Thanks @daminette-december2019-2020​

Daminette December Day 15 – Cats

If you had told Marinette back in May that by Christmas she would be living in the most crime-infested city in America going to college, working at a pet store that was most likely a front for the Russian mob, and trying to unravel a 300-year-old curse on said crime-infested-city…

… she would have believed you.

After all, it wasn’t the weirdest thing that had ever happened to her.

But back to the pet store.

There she was a week before Christmas living in a shoebox apartment, drowning in fabric and notions, with a magical box filled with tiny gods who loved to squabble and give conflicting vague advice. They were supposed to work on how to break the giant magical curse laid out across the city, but Marinette had gotten hired at the local pet store down the street because if she spent one more minute sequestered inside trying to decipher the handwriting of centuries-old monks, without a break, she would scream.

Plus, the animals were ridiculously cute and the current owner obviously had no clue how to take care of them – which is how she concluded the store was a money-laundering front. The owner, a Mr. Petriov, had known her for all of three days before leaving her to manage the shop by herself. That hadn’t changed much in the month she had worked here, but at least the animals were in better shape now and she had a slightly larger budget for the endless amount of coffee she drank.

Marinette swept the back of the room, trying to make sure it was as clean as she could get it. Despite her best efforts at trying to cheer the place up, the plastic Christmas decorations and lively music did little to distract from the poor living conditions of the animals. Marinette wished there was some way to help, but she was rather limited in her options in a foreign city and Plagg’s suggestions of stealing all the animals and burning the place down was not a viable one.

No matter how much Marinette wanted to sometimes.

The store bell rang.

“I’ll be with you in just a moment,” she called. She finished sweeping the last of the room, before putting the broom away, and coming out to the main part of the store. “Hi there, I’m Marinette, how can I-”

“Did you know that Gotham Department of Health and Safety Regulations, Section 45: Animals and Livestock, subsection C.1: Living conditions, states that cages for cats must be 30 inches in width, 28 inches in length, 30 inches in height, and 30 inches on the diagonal? And that yours do not match those specifications?” There in the center of the store stood a man about her age. He was dressed head to toe in black, with a long, expensive, looking coat billowed out behind him. His voice was posh and smooth, and his tone could cut glass. He looked around the store in thinly veiled disgust.

Marinette vaguely recognized him. He’d been in the store about two weeks ago. He hadn’t said anything when she asked if he needed help. He just went around to all the cages watching the animals through the bars. She had gone about her normal routine, and then he left a little while later. The only reason she remembered him at all was he was wearing the same designer coat with wool Marinette’s hands itched to get a hold of.  

“I- I did not. Although, this is not my store.” The man glared at her, and had Marinette not been used to a lifetime of truly piercing glares from Chloe, she might have crumbled underneath it. “I’ve only been working here for a month and let me tell you it’s better than it was before.”

“These conditions are intolerable.”

Marinette usually kept a cool façade with the few customers who came in here, but this man was obviously looking for a fight; not that she didn’t completely agree with him.

“I’m well aware, but I’m doing the best with what I have here, especially since my boss doesn’t care.” One of the cats mewled loudly, and Marinette sighed. She knew exactly who that was. Walking over to one of the cages she opened it up. A tiny grey cat with tipped black ears and paws jumped into her arms. Marinette had named him Macaroon since Mr. Petriov hadn’t bothered to give any of them names.

“Sorry,” she said. “Macaroon likes attention, and he’s good with people so I bring him out when others come in to pet them.” The man came over and let the cat sniff his hand before scratching under the his chin.

“He looks well taken care of,” he complimented, although he still scowled. Marinette couldn’t help but think he would be much more handsome if he smiled.  

“As I said, I try my best. I take them all out of their cages so they can stretch their legs, and not just the dogs either. But that’s whenever I’m not cleaning, or prepping food, or taking care of the paperwork.” Or at home trying to figure out how to banish a city-wide curse, Marinette thought to herself.

The man hummed. “Look, you seem… nice.” He said the word in such a way that implied he didn’t believe the concept existed. “So, I’ll let you know ahead of time, but this store is going to get raided tomorrow. It’s a-”

“Front for the Russian Mob?” Marinette finished. The man seemed taken aback and immediately glared at her again. “Yeah, I figured that out within a few days of working here. I just had no clue as to who to go to about it. Who’s going to help a tiny French girl about a corrupt business in a city known for corruption?” She raised an eyebrow at the man who seemed taken aback by her abruptness.

“Fair point. So why are you working here then? If you know it’s corrupt.”

Marinette sighed; it was true she had plenty else to be doing, school was over for the semester sure, but there was always magic to learn, or sites to go check out to see if they were connected to the curse, or she could have gone home for the break and visited her parents, but…

If she did any of that, no one would be here to look out for the animals. And just because she couldn’t actively be a hero, didn’t mean she was going to turn up her back on those who needed her, even if they were of the four-legged variety.

She looked back at the handsome man; how could she explain any of that to him.

… not that she should.

Because that would be bad.

She didn’t know him at all.

Even if he was ridiculously good looking.

Fuck. 

She did not have the time to get caught up in anything else, especially not a crush.

So instead, she went with a mostly true answer. “Just because the people running the store are bad, doesn’t mean the animals are. I would come by here on my way from school and would want to let the poor things out of their cages. So, when I finally had enough time, I applied for a job.” The look on the man’s face was a cross between surprise and understanding. “And you’d want to do something else too if the last three months all you did was stare at miles of hand-sewn hems and contemplate if death would be kinder.”

Marinette bet the man would deny it if pointed out, but the side of his mouth turned up at her comment.

“Understandable.”

“My question is,” she asked, stroking Macaroon who was happily purring away in her arms. “Why would you tell the person working at the Russian mob front that you’re going to have the store raided the next day? Doesn’t that seem a little counter-productive?” Not that Marinette was in any way complaining, she had been waiting for an opportunity like this for weeks.

“It depends on whether you tell your boss or not.”

“Hell no.”

Finally, the man’s face morphed from a resting scowl into a self-satisfied smirk.

Oh no, he’s even hotter like that, Marinette thought.  

“Then I think telling was exactly the right idea. You’ll need to give a statement to the department doing the raid, but you won’t be in trouble for anything that went down here.”

Marinette nodded, and then remembered something. “Would pictures help?”

“Pictures?”

“I’ve been taking pictures of all the documents that come through the front desk. The legitimate ones and the less legitimate ones. It’s only about a month’s worth of stuff, but I have it on a flash drive.”

The man’s smirk grew a bit more. “Yes, I do believe that would be useful.”

Marinette smiled, finally glad this place would get shut down, but then she looked at Macaroon so snuggly in her arms, and all the other lovely creatures throughout the store came to mind. “And the animals, will they be okay?”

“Of course, I wouldn’t allow anything to happen to them. They’ll all be going to reputable shelters or good homes through the Wayne Foundation.”

Marinette readjusted Macaroon in her arms. “That’s good. So, should I bring the flash drive when I give my statement or-”

“I can take it,” he said quickly. “I mean,” he cleared his throat. “You can give it to me, and I can hand it off to the… proper authorities.” The glint in his eye spelled trouble. Marinette thought it was completely unfair how attractive she found it.  

“It’s in my apartment. My shift is only another hour, but….” She thought about her mess of an apartment covered in yards of fabric, questionable ancient artifacts, and the tiny floating talking gods. “It’s a bit of a mess, how about we meet elsewhere?”

“Yes,” the man responded quickly. He looked down at Macaroon and stroked the cat’s back, a light blush playing out over his cheeks. “Of course, that would be acceptable.”

“Coffee then?” asked Marinette, glad to have a little longer to chat with him.

“Sounds good. Inman Perk at 7th and Forge Street?”

“I love that place. I’m Marinette by the way, I think I said that.”

The man smirked again, “You did, but it’s nice to hear it. I’m Damian, Damian Wayne.”

“I’d shake your hand Damian, but my arms are a little full.” She readjusted Macaroon, moving over to his cage placing the content cat back inside. Marinette smiled, happy to know this would be the last night the animals would have to sleep in these too-small cages. She turned back to Damian and offered her hand.

“I’m looking forward to working with you, Mr. Wayne,” she said with a grin.

He clasped his hand with hers, and she delighted at the chill it sent up her spine. “Not nearly as much as I am with you, Ms. Dupain-Cheng.”

Marinette paused for a moment, “I don’t think I ever gave you my last name?”

Damian paused, his face of a person caught with their hand in a cookie jar. “I may, perhaps, have done a slight background check on you before I decided to confront you today.” He retreated his hands and clasped them behind his back. “Uh, I- I apologize if that comes off a little…” he trailed off.

“Invasive, creepy, overbearing?”

Damian’s face fell. “Yes.”

Marinette tried hard to hold in her smirk. “Or protective, concerned, over-invested? I’ve had friends like that before.” Thinking particularly of Kagami, or her own actions towards Adrian during those early years. “It’s a little much, but not so bad especially when confronting someone who may be part of the Russian mob.”

Damian’s face went from contrite to an all-out grinning smirk. “You? Part of the mob? A little hard to believe.”

“Oh, you never know”’ she teased back. “I think I could pull it off, no one ever expects the tiny French girl.”

A bark from the back of the store interrupted their flirting, soon all of the dogs were barking, and Marinette realized the time.

“I’ve got to get them all taken out and fed. I’ll be finished in about an hour, I’ll grab the stuff from my apartment and meet you at… 8:30?”

Damian nodded. “Of course, see you there.” And with that he turned on his heel and walked out of the store, his long coat billowing like a cape behind him. Marinette watched him disappear from view and waited a second before she punched the air. She couldn’t wait. She kneeled back down at the cage and scratched Macaroon’s chin.

“Thanks for being such a good luck charm.” The cat purred back happily. Marinette headed off to finish what she needed to get done, wondering what the heck she was going to wear.

Permanent Tag List 

@loveswifi​ @fusser90​ @animegirlweeb​ @ihavehomeworkbutistillhere​ @your-resident-chicken-nugget​ @nathleigh​ @moonlitceleste​   @m3owww

[cyberneticpeoplespolis]

New Zealand’s Paternalism and Imperialism in the Pacific

This is something I wrote back in early march for mainstream news publishers, but didn’t get finished in time before the news cycle moved on from the PIF break up. I’m putting it here for posterity and it might also be of interest for anyone curious about why New Zealand still uses its diplomatic weight to bully its neighbors into line.

New Zealand is losing its grip on the Pacific. That might be a good thing.

This year is the 50th anniversary of the Pacific Islands Forum. Many are talking as though it will be the last.

Last month the Micronesian sub-region, comprising Nauru, Kiribati, Palau, the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia, left the PIF. Since only the Polynesian and Melanesian sub-regions remain, the forum now has a distinctly more South Pacific orientation. But alongside the island nations are three big powers who like to think of themselves as “first among equals”. Two are the settler-colonies of Australia, and New Zealand. The third is France, which effectively has two votes at the forum via its tightly-held colonies of New Caledonia and French Polynesia.

Ostensibly, the breakup is the result of a broken “gentleman’s agreement” wherein each sub-region takes turns providing a candidate for the role of General Secretary. This election was Micronesia’s turn, but instead of supporting Micronesia’s Marshallese candidate, Gerald Zackios, the forum instead elected Cook Islands PM Henry Puna.

Much has been made of this “gentleman’s agreement,” but it was an unwritten rule, and hardly a democratic one. The fact that it was made at all speaks to the low stakes of the forum, and the fact that it was broken speaks to the greater consequences for this election than those prior. 

These consequences will largely be felt by those outside the Pacific islands. The Pacific Islands Forum always meant a lot more to diplomats in Canberra, Wellington, Paris and Washington than islanders, who see it as relatively inconsequential. 

This was reflected in the coverage of the forum’s breakup. Australian, New Zealand, and U.S. outlets and pundits all vied to levy blame on one another for the catastrophe, and painted the election as part of a grand proxy war between competing powers.

Depending on who you talk to, it was all part of a scheme by Australia, New Zealand and France to snub the interests of the United States in the Pacific. Or it was all the result of New Zealand and Australia’s indifference and poor diplomacy. Or it was the result of U.S. militarisation of the North Pacific and strong-arming of island nations. Many pointed out that the split represented an opportunity for China. Great power conflict also affected the framing of the candidates. Zackios is seen as Washington’s man in the region, and this seems deliberate, since he has a long history of cooperation with U.S. military and diplomatic projects. Likewise Micronesians claimed Puna is a proxy for either New Zealand or Chinese interests, despite considerably less evidence for the claim. All of these narratives of great power diplomacy and conspiracies do have some truth to them, but the framing does seem to deny a lot of agency to Pacific peoples. Apart from a few Micronesian diplomats and politicians, few have expressed any appetite for cold warfare. In fact there is a great deal of anxiety around escalating tensions, reduced aid, militarised borders, and foreign navies.

In western media narratives, we can see the lingering spectres of both cold war proxy warfare and colonial entitlement. Western nations are framed as enlightened protectors shielding islanders from threats they couldn’t possibly understand. It is an unwritten assumption that this  paternalistic form of leadership endears western powers to the South Pacific. In reality, the former colonial powers are perceived as unwelcome interlopers. For New Zealand especially, the rhetoric used mirrors the way we talk about our own indigenous relations. There are pretensions of partnership, but always with the Crown as the ‘major’ partner. Beneath the surface lurks an uncritical, vestigial paternalism from days gone by. The question of whether New Zealand is fit to be a regional leader is never asked, just as similar questions are never asked in Canberra, Paris or Washington.

This paternal attitude is a complex thing. It is equal parts denial of past abuses, denial of present economics and new cold war paranoia.

An inconvenient past

There is an unspoken assumption that  New Zealand is a benign force of leadership and regional cooperation. However, this assumption becomes stranger and stranger the further back we look. Holding it necessarily entails forgetting about New Zealand’s long history of open and shameless colonialism, from Seddon’s project for a “Britain of the South Pacific” to Massey’s acquisition of Samoa at Versailles. It means forgetting the unnecessary deaths of a fifth of Samoa from pandemic mismanagement, and disregarding the Black Saturday massacre on the streets of Apia. It might be said that those incidents are too distant to be relevant today. How about something more recent, like the environmental devastation of strip-mining Nauru for phosphate, conducted under a New Zealand-Australian joint venture, or decades of using Vanuatu as a tax haven for New Zealand businesses? Even that’s a bit far back. What about in 2015, when the GCSB was found to be conducting a massive spy operation across the Pacific through Waihopai, while simultaneously operating a hidden spy outpost, codename “Caprica,” in the Solomon Islands? 

All of these events represent massive breaches of trust, yet New Zealand often acts as if recent history is the ancient past when it comes to the Pacific. It takes its diplomatic relationships for granted and expects neighbors to forget about the past, and turn a blind eye to the present. 

Trade Imperialism

The fact is that the most detrimental effects New Zealand has on the Pacific aren’t even intentional; it’s the passive, downstream consequences of the New Zealand economy and its trading relationships which undermine Pacific islands the most.

It’s a truism of economics that good businesses buy low and sell high. But what happens when that takes place on the scale of whole nations? When low-waged countries countries trade with high-waged countries, their goods often fetch a uniformly low price regardless of quality or productivity. On the flip side, high waged countries can always get a good price, often more than their goods are worth. This is a phenomena called “Unequal Exchange,” first noticed in the context of recently-decolonised African nations in the 1960s. The reasons for this are complicated, and have a lot to do with the fact that people can’t move between international industries as easily as money, but suffice to say that the Pacific’s trade with New Zealand is a perfect example of the problem. While Pacific peoples earn an average of only $300 a month, New Zealanders earn about $2,800. The end result is that the goods produced by a New Zealand employee in one day can be worth as much as 9 times the amount a Pacific worker could produce in the same time.

This means that when Pacific nations trade with New Zealand, they immediately lose a lot of money paying for overpriced goods, and can’t make enough off their own exports to cover the cost. Even with the Government’s “Pacific Reset” policy which increased the dwindling Pacific aid budget, the small amounts New Zealand pays in aid are overshadowed by its profits.

Naturally, a lot of island nations want to trade with each other instead. By building up each other’s industries and establishing equal terms of trade, they can avoid the crushing dependency on goods made in New Zealand, Australia, and the U.S. But New Zealand exporters would be vehemently opposed. If Pacific nations  were to shake their dependency, they might get a fair price for their goods, and eventually compete with New Zealand business on an equal playing field. 

Instead, Australia and New Zealand often use the Pacific Islands Forum and other regional bodies to torpedo any proposals for deals that don’t include them, and push their own trade deals. One recent deal was PACER Plus, which was criticised heavily by groups like the Pacific Network on Globalisation for the effects it would have on Pacific communities. One Canadian expert also claimed that deals like PACER Plus are precisely what makes Pacific nations want to trade with China instead.

A Cold War in the Pacific

In recent years the Pacific has split down the middle on the question of addressing trade imbalances. It’s one of those problems everyone recognises, but each solution comes with significant risks. On the one hand, groups like the Wellington-based Pacific Co-operation Foundation argue that unbalanced trade deals like PACER Plus are a positive trend, and any imbalance in outcomes only reflects the poor terms of trade already in place. They say Pacific economies need a chance for capital inflows from New Zealand and Australia, even if the latter countries ultimately benefit much more than the islands ever could.

While once upon a time, this was all that Pacific islands could hope for, nowadays there are other options. Semi-developed economies like China can offer many of the same products as much richer countries, at prices Pacific nations can actually afford thanks to much lower wage costs. But in the context of escalating trade warfare �� and possible military conflict – between China and the United States, some island economies have chosen to tie their fates more tightly to superpowers in the hopes of receiving more aid and investment. The U.S. in particular requires new island construction sites across the Western Pacific in order to give strategic depth to its plans for an extensive network of missile and aircraft bases to be aimed at China by 2022.

With Micronesia situated close to the massive US naval base at Guam, it is not surprising that the Mircronesian bloc at the Pacific Islands Forum has taken a strongly anti-Chinese stance, in some cases going further than Washington itself. Three of the nations are official associates of the U.S., and three have fostered ties with Taiwan, a strong US ally which is itself heavily dependent on american military and political backing.

On the other side of the divide, most Polynesian and Melanesian nations have attempted to stay out of the escalating tensions. They have continued to trade with New Zealand and Australia, while simultaneously pushing for greater self-sufficiency, including a growing trade relationship with China. The reason for the shift is perfectly logical: China can offer better terms of trade, and its banks can fund major infrastructure projects that almost no western bank would even consider backing. But what of Chinese debt trap diplomacy? All of the Pacific island nations, apart from the Micronesian bloc, have repeatedly ignored the dire warnings by western diplomats about potential asset seizures for defaulting on their huge Chinese loans. The answer is simple: as an exhaustive analysis from The Atlantic recently pointed out, the debt-trap narrative was made up from the start. It’s one of those post-truth narratives that exist beyond debate no matter how many times it’s debunked. This is especially true in the Pacific, where despite obvious vulnerabilities, experts contend that there is no evidence of debt traps. None of that has stopped the spectre from being raised yet again in the wake of Micronesia’s walk-out.

With nothing much to offer except fearmongering and sabre-rattling, is it any surprise that Pacific nations are seeking alternatives to western trade and aid dependency? If New Zealand is serious about restoring trust and equality in the Pacific, it may want to start by recognising island nations can currently get better deals elsewhere, and try to match them. If it wanted to take a more transformational approach, it would consider something like a Pacific Common Travel Area that could allow labour to move as freely as goods, and permanently mitigate the effects of trade imperialism through better remittance income and wage equalisation. Of course, such things would run counter to too many vested interests to be considered.

Just another Pacific island nation

Returning for a moment to the coverage of the breakdown of the Pacific Islands Forum, let’s re-examine the implicit understanding that New Zealand ought to be taking a leadership role. Part of that is natural – New Zealand will always be the biggest island chain among many – but at least part of that sentiment echoes the colonial entitlement of Seddon or Massey. Why should New Zealand be taking a leadership role when its trade interests will always endanger Pacific sovereignty? What about the last century of Pacific-NZ relations would even remotely suggest that New Zealanders are trusted in the Pacific? This distrust is certainly apparent when it comes to Micronesian leaders, who have criticised Cook Islands PM Henry Puna as a lackey of New Zealand, since his islands are still part of the New Zealand Realm. This is hardly fair to Puna, as his personal positions are clearly at odds with New Zealand’s vision for the region, but the fact that his links to New Zealand are such a handicap speaks volumes about New Zealand’s image across the Pacific.

New Zealand’s foreign policy vacillates between an out-of-touch paternalism and an equally out-of-touch assertion that it is an equal member of the Pacific community. Government reports on the Pacific Reset and PACER Plus are filled with this confusing language, speaking of equal partnership one minute and unilateral leadership the next. Both positions are quite blind to New Zealand’s actual reputation, and its ongoing exploitation of Pacific workers via trade imperialism.

It also says a lot that in every opinion piece published on the PIF debacle, the writers have had but one concern: influence. Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was one prominent voice bemoaning the loss of Australia and New Zealand’s influence in the island forum. But what are the actual consequences for island nations? As Stephen Howes and Sadhana Sen pointed out, there aren’t many. Countries were willing to risk a split because no one really had any stakes in the forum. No trade deals were directly tied to forum membership, even those negotiated through its channels, and most of the genuinely important regional initiatives like the University of the South Pacific won’t be affected. 

The only people really bemoaning the loss are those in New Zealand and Australia who used the forum as an opportunity to intervene in Pacific affairs, or those who wanted an opportunity to engage in some old-fashioned cold warfare. Regionalism and cooperation are very good things, but when it comes to diplomacy and trade deals between islands, maybe Australia and New Zealand should sit it out, as their idea of regional leadership is often closer to being the local bullies.

When New Zealand realises the immense imbalances in economic and political power it has perpetuated in the Pacific, maybe then it will be one island nation among many. Until then, it has to earn that right.

[katnissmellarkkk]

I *DEMAND* part 3 of shattered pearl. I repeat. I *DEMAND*.

Hahahahaha omg. Well, I decided to legitimately dig through the archives of my writing drafts and found chapter three of the Peeta-Wasn’t-Hijacked fic. It’s been given like 1,000 different names on different sites. I’ve never loved any of them. And I don’t really think this is my best writing ngl. But I also figure ... why be so stingy, ya know? If I have an incomplete draft, that I probably won’t finish, why not post a little bit? Especially since I literally left everyone and their brother who were reading this fic on a cliffy for over a year.

With that said.... I wrote this part like ... 15 months ago? 14 ? 13 ? Something like that. And I haven’t edited it since so ... yeah! Here’s a small chunk of chapter three! 🥳🥳🥳 Hope it’s better than I remember it being!

But it’s lacking something and it’s only then I realize, what I’m searching for inside Gale’s mouth, is the spark that only Peeta’s ever ignited in me. I keep waiting in vain for the warmth that started in my stomach and then rose up and exploded in my chest, for the craving that no matter what I couldn’t manage to satisfy, for the thrilling, almost hysterical, tingly feeling, to overcome me and leave me lightheaded in a completely foreign way. A way that couldn’t be attributed to lack of oxygen.

But it never does. I pull back and wipe my mouth carelessly on my arm and sigh, already sensing Gale’s demeanor taking a nose dive at my lackluster reaction.

I’m not disappointed when I look to see his expression. His eyes are frustrated, his mouth is downturned, his eyebrows are pinched together. And I feel as bad as I knew I would. Because no matter what, I’m hurting someone I deeply care for.

But how I feel upon seeing Gale’s face isn’t even comparable to the amount of remorse that fills me, that overtakes my entire being, when I see Peeta standing in the doorway, having watched our entire exchange.

/

I yelled his name as he disappeared down the hall. I tried to rip out all the needles and wires connecting me to the machines and the stiff, sterilized bed but Gale used all his strength to push me down flat. I was overpowered and exhausted and my left side was screaming mercilessly, and I don’t even know what pain was the bruised lung and what pain was my hurt ribs and what pain was my heart violently smashing into the pit of my stomach.

All I know is that if I had been able to reach Peeta before he evaporated, I have no clue what I would have said to him.

What I could have said to make it alright.

Gale tried to talk to me again after that but I entirely tuned him out, no longer caring if I wounded his feelings, or anyone else's for that matter.

It seems like no matter what I do, no matter how careful or cautious or preemptive I try to be, someone still got hurt in the end.

I wish I could just shut out the world, like I did during those first few weeks in Thirteen. Hide inside closets when I had a flashback. Shove myself into a minuscule crawl space with every nightmare. Refuse to speak to anyone who wasn't Gale or my family. Only eat when my mother nearly forced me. Show no remorse for how rude or how clinically insane I came across.

But now there was an agreement in place, an agreement I made to protect the victors—namely the one who just disappeared down the hall on me—and the people who had no voice on their own. The people who’s only chance was a half-crazed, shell-shocked, battle worn seventeen year old girl, who was just gunned down on national television.

Even if I wanted to retreat to some safe haven inside my head—if such a thing even existed for me—like Annie Cresta, I knew it could never happen.

For me, that wasn’t an option. If I don’t fulfill my duties to Coin, Peeta, Johanna, Annie and probably countless more people will suffer. The districts would undoubtably suffer. Gale would suffer. My mother and Prim would suffer.

I was proven right when later that same night Plutarch came to visit me again. I'd been lying on my side to avoid having to see Gale, who was still soldered to my bedside. My good side was thankfully opposite his seat.

When the Gamemaker spoke I thought I would be forced back to work. Forced to head back to the rebels and engage in their plans.

And I was resigned to it, well aware all along that I wouldn't be given the luxury of time to grieve the hurt I just caused Peeta. Or even the pain I knew I was inflicting upon Gale. The constant seesaw my heart was bouncing up and down on.

I was endlessly thankful that I was still pumped with morphling when Plutarch said that I was needed in Coin's office, because it heavily suppressed any real emotion I had brewing deep inside.

Morphling can cause you to let down your guard sometimes, make you say or do things you wouldn't otherwise or allow things to happen you'd ordinarily have the sense to stop. But it also causes all your severe emotions, all your heightened feelings, to dull as well. And for that, in light of everything that had just transpired, I was eternally grateful for.

When the doctor had removed all the needles from my arm, and I had been given a robe to go over my hospital gown—which, shockingly, was even uglier and thinner and itchier than the gowns they gave in the Capitol hospitals—Gale escorts me down the halls, through the corridors and to President Coin’s office.

I don’t speak to him the entire time. Looking at him makes my stomach churn with remorse and regret, though I’m not even sure who those feelings are directed towards. I’m not even sure how to articulate the way I feel right now.

And, as much as I try to force him out of my mind—as much as I do my best to rip him out from wherever he crawled beneath my skin and flooded into my veins—I inexplicably miss Peeta.

In more ways than I even know how to decipher. Even inside my own head.

I thought that feeling of longing would have ebbed away once he was rescued from Snow and his twisted mansion, but even knowing he’s safe here in Thirteen, I still crave his presence next to me.

I still want him next to me almost all the time.

It’s at least partially attributable to the fact that for so long, it was me and Peeta against the world. He has been my partner in this whirlwind rollercoaster since the first games and, even when I feel like every single aspect that could potentially go wrong has, sometimes it seems like I couldn’t have gotten luckier with who was chosen that fateful reaping to stand by my side the entire horrific ride.

I wipe my eyes as inconspicuously as I can but Gale sees and almost instinctively puts his hand on my shoulder. And proves he knows me better than I give him credit for. “I’ll talk to him, Katniss.”

“Don’t,” I immediately hiss. “You’ll just make it worse, Gale. He-he,” I struggle with explaining what I want to say and I curse my best friend for even addressing my moment of weakness because now I have to go talk to Coin, looking like an unstable mess—with a near bullet wound—and I blurt out the very first thing I can think of. “He doesn’t even know you, okay? You’ll just-“

There’s no malice in Gale’s voice as he softly replies, “Well, he was fine when I went and saw him before you woke up.”

I stop now, dead in my tracks. “You saw him? After I was shot?”

He nods slowly. “Yeah, I felt like should check on him. I know...” He pauses and looks upwards and I recognize, once again, this whole thing isn’t easy for him either. “I know he means a lot to you. And I heard what happened when he saw you go down. So I went and checked in on him...” He stops again before shrugging nonchalantly. “He was calmer by the time I saw him. He was nice. He’s always been nice.” At that Gale rolls his eyes. “Too nice. Probably why Snow wanted to hurt him.”

I start walking again, moving ahead of him a few paces. “You’re not helping,” I state, my voice a monotone.

“I’ll talk to him,” Gale offers again, running to catch up.

“Please don’t, okay? Just let it be. I don’t even know if he’ll speak to me, I don’t want to have to worry about what you’ll say to him.”

I vigorously shake off his hand on my shoulder when he tries to comfort me again, and feel him root into place as I make the rest of the way to Coin’s office.

And I wonder if I hurt him now too.

I wonder if I managed to completely annihilate them both from me in one night.

/

Much to my surprise and, to be completely honest, my utter disappointment, Coin doesn’t want me to head back out and fight for the rebellion. She doesn’t want me to even film more propos.

Plutarch does, but his ideas now are pretty frivolous and have more to do with him being still stuck in the fantasy of putting on a good show and less to do with fighting for the good of the country.

Coin simply says, “You did your job, Miss Everdeen. You united the districts,” in her calm, disingenuous—completely unsettling—tone.

And argument I put up is met with a simple shake of the head and a pursing of her lips. All indisputable rejections, her cold, blank eyes telling me wordlessly that in no way could I sway her once her mind was made up.

Still doesn’t stop me from trying though.

“I want to help the rebels,” I plead, looking to Boggs behind Coin’s chair, his face still stoic but his eyes giving me a look that isn’t altogether dismissive.

That was something. It was more than I was getting from either Coin or Plutarch.

Coin though brushes off my words and cuts me down infuriatingly quick with a single sentence. “Plutarch wanted to see Peeta earlier, talk about some propos. But when he sent for him, one of the doctors working with Peeta said he wasn’t having a good day.”

Her tone is smooth and pleasant enough but there was an undercurrent to her words that she knew I would hear. “Do you know how Peeta is? I would have thought with your waking up this morning, he’d be in better shape than he was but if you two aren’t getting-“

“Me and Peeta are fine,” I snap, not liking whatever she’s implying.

She nods, slowly at me, choosing her next sentiment carefully. “Well, let’s hope so. We need both of you now to remain the faces of this revolution. And I wouldn’t want you to do anything rash because of... problems between you and your... between you and Peeta.”

I’m shaking my head, feigning certainty, before she even finishes. “That’s not why I want to help the rebels,” I insist firmly.

“Irregardless, Miss Everdeen, we don’t have a job for you. You aren’t qualified to go into the fight and we no longer need your propos to unite the districts. Your job is done. Thank you for your help.”

And I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I’m being definitively dismissed now. Indefinitely.

I don’t make any effort to keep my cool, instead choosing to storm out of the room, slamming the door cacophonously behind me and wonder why I let that woman get to me so much. Why her words and implications slice me open like a knife.

Why no matter how much I try, I just can’t like her.

Something about her rubs me the wrong way and, once again, I wish Peeta was here with me in the room, because he of all people could understand what about Coin felt off and strange and so familiar.

I curse myself again, as I suddenly miss him even more than before.

Unable to force myself to put my focus elsewhere—especially now that Gale is surely angry too—I change directions and head towards the recovery room.

I don’t even knock before entering. I push the door open, only to find him sitting on top of his bed, a sketchbook in hand, a lot more tranquil than I pictured.

He looks up as I enter—and then, simultaneously freeze in the doorway, like the coward I truly am inside. Before he can speak though, I blurt out, “I know you’re mad about me kissing Gale and I don’t know how much you saw or heard, but it wasn’t... it wasn’t exactly...” I stop because once again, I’m unprepared and out of my element and have no rhyme or reason in what I’m trying to say. I don’t know the right thing to say. I never know the right thing to say.

Maybe if I did, I wouldn’t screw always everything up. “It wasn’t,” I finally force myself to continue, off his patient and somewhat bewildered glance. “It wasn’t what I wanted... I didn’t want it to happen. I don’t, I don’t even know what-“

He finally puts me out of my misery now. “Katniss,” he speaks my name along with a sigh. I watch carefully, feeling a lump build in my throat, as his blonde brows furrow over his baby blues.

He shakes his head, slow and calm. Far more reasonable than I ever anticipated. “I’m not mad at you, Katniss,” he promises, with all the genuineness in the world.

I bite my lip, befuddled by his words. “But... where have you been then?” Why did you leave me? A small voice in the back of my mind demands.

He shrugs, his gaze falling down to his bed now. His demeanor is almost embarrassed, I realize with a start.

“I wanted to give you and Gale space. I’ve been practically mauling you since you woke up so I thought-“

“But I didn’t want you to leave,” I abruptly burst out, unable to shove the words down any longer.

A pang of embarrassment shoots through me though, for the pathetic crack, evident in my tone. And I mentally berate myself.

Not for the embarrassment. For the pathetic crack itself.

And for the fact that somehow I’m the frenzied one here and Peeta is the voice of reason.

Which used to be our norm but after everything that’s transpired, I would have thought things would be reversed by now.

He just stares at me for a long moment, carefully considering his next words.

Finally, he opens his arms slowly and utters, “Come here,” in a tender murmur and I practically fly into his arms before I can second guess the offer.

I feel my injured side screaming as I curl up like a ribbon in his arms, but I surpress the wince to the best of my ability and instead bury my face in his shoulder, breathing in his sweet scent like a mad girl.

He softly presses his lips to my messy locks, carefully massaging the back of my head soothingly. “I’m sorry I ran away,” he whispers, barely loud enough for even me to hear. “I was just embarrassed. I know—I’ve always known deep down—that it’s not right for me to constantly hold you to the things you said in the games. Or to project my own feelings onto you.”

“You didn’t,” I refute venomously, my brows knitting together.

“Katniss, I know you and Gale have had something between you for a long time.”

“Gale was just a friend until me and you came back from our first games. Maybe he wanted to be more even before, I don’t know, but I never felt anything romantic for him. I swear.”

“You don’t have to defend your feelings to me,” he states softly.

“I know, it’s just...” I sigh, moving to sit upright across his thighs. “No matter what I do, it’s wrong. If I say I’m confused, you’re both hurting. If I say I want to kiss you or sleep with you or just be with you, I’m leading you on because I can’t-I can’t make any promises about my feelings right now, because I don’t even know up from down anymore. And if I say I do or don’t want to kiss Gale or be around him or hunt with him still, I’m hurting him or giving him the wrong idea or telling him the wrong things, and it all gets confused and there’s an entire rebellion that I’m the face of, and now I don’t even know if I’m a part of that, but Snow and his followers all hate me still so I know family still won’t be safe until this is all over. And you. You and Johanna and Annie went through the ringer over me. And Gale gets upset whenever he sees us together—it hurts him to see us—but I can’t always seperate you two from one another and I just-I don’t know what I can do. I don’t know what to do anymore.”

Peeta lets me rant the whole entire spiel out, his hand slowly moving in circles to rub my back, from the top of my spine down to my backside. “Katniss,” he whispers once I’m done. “You don’t have to defend yourself to me. I get it. You’re under immense pressure. The last thing I want to do is make things harder on you.”

“You’re not,” I say, shaking my head insistently. “You’re not making anything worse, Peeta. It’s-it’s not you.”

“Okay,” he concedes and unconsciously wraps me up tighter in his arms. “Just relax, okay? Relax and breathe.”

I quiver and quake against him. “I don’t think I can.”

I barely realize I’m crying until Peeta leans down to kiss my tearstained cheek softly. “Katniss, it’s okay. I’m not mad. And Gale shouldn’t be. If he is, then that’s on him. The rebellion isn’t just your responsibility. Do not let them put all that weight on your shoulders. I know they already have but it’s not all your responsibility. And no one is going to let anything happen to your mom or sister.” He pushes my hair away from my forehead, pressing his lips there for a long moment. “Or you. I promise I will not let anything else happen to you.”

I swallow hard as he rests his forehead against my temple. I squeeze my eyes shut in hopes that it will make my head stop spinning somehow. Deep breaths to center myself fail miserably and in the end, I feel my bruised ribs and lung disagree with the movement and ache worse than before.

Peeta feels me cringing against him in pain and remains careful as he shifts, reaching for something off his bedside table.

I’m in too much pain to react as pushes off my robe and tugs my hospital gown down in order to slide against my skin, his hand holding it firmly to my side.

The icy temperature brings some sort of relief to me almost instantly, and I let out an audible sigh of relief, feeling my rigid body relax even a minuscule amount for the first time.

“I don’t blame you for having feelings for Gale,” Peeta murmurs, drawing my attention back to our conversation and away from my painful left side. “And if you want to be with him, I won’t hold it against you. I’m not going to lie, I’d be ... sad but... it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t still be your friend. It doesn’t mean I wouldn’t still be at jere for you however you needed me. There’s no ultimatums here, Katniss. I’m still here for you, even if you’d rather be with Gale.”

I pause for a long moment, absorbing his words. He’d be willing to be my friend, even if I hurt him? Even if I chose someone else over him? Even after everything we went through, even after all the ways he’d been abused because Snow could see how much I care for him? How much I need him. He’s still willing to put it all aside and be there for me, no strings attached.

And I try not to compare but my brain draws the conclusion almost involuntarily, and I can’t stop myself from realizing that, in the same position, Gale would likely not be telling me the same thing.

I burrow my face deeper in his shoulder, shutting my eyes in exhaustion.

Peeta catches me off-guard, moving my hair aside to kiss my neck, eliciting a flare of heat in the place where his lips brush my skin, and I may not know exactly how I feel, but I know in that moment exactly what I want right now.

“The only person I want to be with tonight is you,” I whisper honestly, looking up at him with pleading eyes, begging him to somehow understand an emotion I don’t know how to admit. “The only person I want right now is you, Peeta.”

[khantoelessar]

Hogan’s timeline prior to Stalag 13

The purpose of this meta is to make an attempt at trying to fit Robert Hogan’s timeline pre-Stalag 13 to match something close to that of the actual historical timeline of World War II. I’m not saying this is actual canon, more like suggesting a possibility to stimulate conversation about Hogan’s timeline before being shot down and also an interest in World War II itself.

There are going to be holes in my theory. I’m well aware of this. However, trying to fit Hogan’s Heroes canon timeline to actual historical timeline is like trying to piece it together with baling wire, duct tape and glue. But that is half the fun anyway.

So on we go.

Our first semi-confirmed date for the series is the pilot episode which tells us it is the winter of 1942.

We also have a semi-confirmed date from A Tiger Hunt in Paris that “Frank Dirken” escaped Stalag 13 December 1942. Now America entered the war when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour on 7 December, 1941. Roosevelt officially declared war on Germany on 11 December, 1941.

But actual hostilities did not commence right away. There was the problem of getting all those men and material across the Atlantic but also, and I mean no disrespect to the Americans when I point this out, but due to America’s neutrality and non-intervention policy a majority of those in uniform at that time had no combat experience.

What this means in terms of Robert Hogan’s past prior to Stalag 13 is that it greatly constricts the time Hogan would have had to fight if he had first arrived in Britain with the rest of the USAAF. The first of the US 8th Air Force didn’t arrive in Britain until 12 May, 1942. (1) The first joint RAF/USAAF bombing raid was in the Netherlands on 4 July, 1942 (2) and the first solo US bombing raid in Europe was on 17 August, 1942, over Rouen. (3)

This would leave at the very most seven months for Hogan to not only establish his reputation as a bomber commander but also get shot down and then get the Stalag 13 operation up and running. In “Happiness is a Warm Sergeant” Le Beau says:

Le Beau: “Maybe we can tame [Kreb]. If he likes strudel.”

Hogan: “Come on. It took us six months to get Schultz to look the other way.”

Le Beau couldn’t have gotten the ingredients to make the strudel that is Schultz’s main bribe prior to the operation being set up, not from a POW camp.

Then there was the raid on the submarine base in Breman mentioned in “Two Nazis for the Price of One.”

Hogan: “I supposed you’re talking about the bombing mission I flew against your secret submarine base in Breman.”

There were three raids on Breman between May and December of 1942. 3-4 June, 25 – 28 June and 19 November. However there were other raids prior to that. (4)

One more interesting detail that I want to add before putting forward my theory as to Hogan’s timeline is that the first of the B17 flying fortresses saw action in Britain when the RAF used them to bomb Wilhelmshaven on 18 July, 1941. (5)

So here’s my theory. Hogan was flying for Great Britain before the US entered the war. There have been fanfics written on this which I highly recommend. However there is one snag with them. Hogan could not have been enlisted in the US Army Airforce when he did so. Not only was the US officially neutral in the war until 7 December, 1941 but it was illegal for US citizens to fly for Great Britain under America’s neutrality laws. But many did so by sneaking across the border into Canada with false papers, claiming to be Canadian or of other nationalities and travelling to Britain to join the RAF. (6) I think it is worth taking a moment to honour the courage of those men and what they risked. In the beginning the United States did not take these transgressions lightly as this story posted on the Warfare History Network attests.

“As they boarded the train for Montreal, the two Americans tried to look as inconspicuous as possible. They were well aware that if they were caught they would be in trouble. At the very least, they would be sent back to the United States. There was also the possibility that they could be sent to prison, as well as fined more money than they had seen in their entire lives.

At the Canadian border, the train stopped and several sinister looking officials got on board. They wanted to know where the two were going and why.

“We’re on our way to Montreal to see a cousin who runs a fish hatchery,” was the reply. One of the unsmiling officials—probably an FBI agent—wanted to know if they were fliers. “Don’t be silly. Do we look like fliers?”

The officials were apparently satisfied by the reply. One of them opened the suitcases of the two travelers and rummaged through the top layer of clothing. He did not look any deeper. If he had, he would have found what he was looking for—flying helmets, goggles, and logbooks. Instead, he closed the lid and wished the young fellows a pleasant trip.

The two Americans, Eugene “Red” Tobin and Andy Mamedoff, were not smuggling contraband. They were going to Canada to enlist in the air force of a foreign country which, in the early weeks of 1940, was against the law. “The Federal Bureau of Investigation kept a pretty close check on all Americans going to Canada,” Red Tobin later said, “so we had to watch our step.”

You can read the rest of the article here. (7)

The men who chose to go to Canada risked not only fines and imprisonment but also loss of their citizenship. (8)

It wasn’t until 19 November, 1941 that Britain officially revealed that there were three squadrons of American pilots called the Eagle Squadrons. (9)

Another fact the prohibits Hogan being part of the USAAF prior to the American entry is that prior to the war America had start to build up its own armed forces. (10) It began on 15 June, 1940. By 7 December, 1941 they had over 2 million in all branches. (11) This means that the USAAF was in desperate need of competent and skilled pilots to not only lead attacks but also to train new ones in its Air Corp tactical school. (12)

Combine these and I think it highly unlikely that the USAAF would have turned a blind eye to one of its best and most brilliant tactical pilots and officers to go AWOL to fight for a foreign country, especially at a time when the isolationist movement was strong.

There is another route open to Hogan having fought for the RAF and even during the Battle of Britain that I would like to explore here as a possible . . . let’s say, alternative headcanon.

He could have taken the route mentioned earlier by those other Americans, crossing the border into Canada, getting training there and then going onto Britain. I can see Hogan doing something like this. In the face of the news of repeated atrocities being committed by the Nazis and his country refusing to get involved, I can see Hogan taking on a false identity and slipping across the border in order to join the fight.

But this is also the same reason I think that Hogan was not allowed to go AWOL from the US Army. It would have violated Roosevelt’s Neutrality Laws, even though he declared,

This would have crossed to far over that line, to have an American USAAF officer openly fighting with the British, especially after Hogan started gaining fame as a war ace and bomber commander. If he was so feared by the Nazis that Biedenbender was jumped from Colonel to General;

Biendenbender: “You see I am the reason you are now here as a prisoner of war.” Hogan: “Thanks.” Biendenbender: “When the bombing raids of the squadron you commanded started to become . . . oh slightly annoying to the Third Reich I was assigned to study your tactics, to get inside your head, I know everything about you . . . so I was able to predict precisely the planning of your last bombing raid on Hamburg in which you were shot down, and I, hah, I was shot up to a General.”

then his fame would definitely have spread to the Commonwealth and then to America.

This is why I put forward the possibility that Hogan never enlisted in the USAAF. Also, Wikipedia states “None of the Eagle Squadron pilots had previously served in the USAAF and did not have US pilot wings.” (14)

There is the option that Hogan never joined the Eagle squadrons directly but flew for the RAF separately. First of all, according to the Wikipedia site (13) none of the Eagle squadrons flew bombers, let alone B17s. Also, in the episode “Some of Their Planes are Missing” and “Funny Thing Happened on the Way to London” we are told that Hogan was attached to the RAF.

If we take this into account when we look at Hogan’s timeline, we get a lot more room for Hogan to have accomplished all that he did. If he snuck across the border into Canada under a false identity prior or during the Battle of Britain which was July through September 1940 (15) he would have over a year of experience, including making his bombing runs on Breman before being finally transferred over to the USAAF and the 504th bomb squadron once America entered the war. The same Wikipedia site quoted before also states that the ranks in the RAF were transferred after some negotiations to the nearest equivalent rank.

There is another detail from the series that supports Hogan’s story links to Britain and the RAF over that of the USAAF and that is the fact that he reports to London, not Washington. Almost all his links to the Allies are British. There are a few Americans, General Barton in “The General Swap”, General Tilman in “How to Cook a German Goose with Radar”, the captain of that submarine in “The Pizza Parlour” and we do see the alliance of the British and the Americans in “Easy Come, Easy Go”.

But other than that all of his contacts and command structure that he reports to are British. There is no mention of the OSS or of Washington. When Hogan is flown back to England for the briefing before D-Day in “D-Day at Stalag 13” the General (we are not given a name) is British, not American and the “old man” they refer to is Churchill, not Roosevelt.

General: “Even to tell you this much this much had to be cleared at the highest level of intelligence, the Old Man himself.”

Hogan could have been one of those Americans who crossed the border into Canada, got false papers there and traveled to Britain to joined the RAF. He didn’t join the Eagle Squadrons (although I can see him qualifying on the spitfires because they were one of the best planes out there) because he’d been transferred to Bomber Command. When America entered the war, he transferred to the USAAF with the equivalent rank of Colonel and put in charge of the 504th bomb group (even though in reality the 504th flew in the Pacific theatre and not the European one and was part of the 20th Air Force) because by then his reputation had long since proceeded him. He was part of the US mass bombing raid on Ploesti on 12 June, 1942 (16) but was shot down after that and was transferred to Stalag 13 just about the same time as Klink, who (I’m assuming was there to solve the massive escape problems) as we are told in “The Kommadant Dies at Dawn”

Hogan: “Are you kidding, before I arrived you had so many escapes they were going to put a revolving door at the front gate.”

Now like I said this headcanon is not water proof. There are some holes that I can’t fill.

Hogan does say that he was assigned to the Pentagon in “Klink vs the Gonculator”

As mentioned previously, I don’t think the Army would have let him go AWOL to fight for a foreign country if he was already an officer.

On the other hand I should point out that he was talking to Klink and was running one of his cons on him. It is also possible that he was assigned briefly to the Pentagon after Pearl Harbour but before he was shot down. His experience and connections in the RAF would have been invaluable. So maybe this possible headcanon of mine still holds water.

There are also other people who could have taken this path to the war and that is Kinch and every other black POW in Stalag 13.

The Tuskegee Airmen, the only black American squadron in World War II were first deployed overseas in North Africa on 24 April, 1943. (17) That’s too late for Kinch and the other black POWs to be shot down and sent to Stalag 13.

But while the American forces were segregated Canada and Great Britain weren’t quite so insistent on it. They couldn’t afford to be. This is not to say there wasn’t discrimination. Both Canada and Britain did have discriminatory practices (18) (19) that limited enrollment to all but the most general positions to those not of white European descent. But in practice a person of colour’s ability to not only enlist but to serve in a role beyond that of support personal depended very much on the recruitment officer as shown in this story.

“In 1939 the so-called colour bar that prevented black people from serving in the British forces was formally lifted, largely because the Second World War meant that the Army, Navy and Air Force needed to recruit as many men as possible.

The lifting of the bar didn’t necessarily mean it was easy for would-be West Indian recruits to get in however.

There were people who would try three or four times to get in, or pay their own passage to come to Britain from the Caribbean.

Another route in was via the Royal Canadian Air Force. Canada may have been freezing cold but it was considered to be a warm and tolerant place for prospective black servicemen.

Billy Strachan couldn’t get into the RAF, so he sold his trumpet and used the money to pay his own passage to travel through U-boat-infested seas to London. He arrived at Adastral House in Holborn and declared his desire to join the RAF. The corporal at the door told him to “piss off.”

Happily however, an officer walked past who turned out to be rather more welcoming. He asked Strachan where he was from, to which Strachan replied  “I’m from Kingston.”

“Lovely, I’m from Richmond” beamed the officer.

Strachan explained that he meant Kingston, Jamaica.

Shortly after that, he was training for aircrew.”

He went on to do a tour as a navigator in Bomber Command, then retrained as a pilot and flew with the 96th squadron.” (20)

See this link for the full story.

There were black fighter pilots in the RAF as shown in the links above. Not only that there were women of colour as well, such as Lilian Bader who joined the WAAF and Noor Inayat Khan who was one of the Special Operations Executive’s top agents in France. (21)

This is not to say that there wasn’t discrimination against people of colour in Canada and Britain. There certain were as the websites quoted here show.

But the racism was not as bad or as extreme as it was in the United States. People of colour could fill high ranking and highly visible prominent positions in the Second World War as shown in this article here. (22)

So this is a route that Kinch, Baker and the other black POWs could have taken to Stalag 13. Sneaking across the border, getting fake papers, training in Canada and then heading to Britain.

One of the holes in this possible theory is the issue of their uniforms. Unlike the American pilots who were white the black Americans pilots (if there were any) would not have been have been given equivalent rank in the USAAF or even been allowed to fly in the Eagle Squadrons once they were transferred to the USAAF. America was adamant on segregation, as shown here,  (23) something that caused extreme tension in Britain.

While there was racism in Britain towards people of colour the racial hatred demonstrated towards black servicemen by the American G.I.s came as a shock to the British population. (24)

Hogan could have protested segregation all he wanted, demanded Kinch be allowed to fly until he was blue in the face (assuming he and Kinch did know each other as implied in “Prince of the Phone Company” episode).

Kinch: “Hogan?” Hogan: “Robert. Hogan.” Kinch: “Ha Ha! Of course! I went to school with this man in America.”

The Americans would not allow an integrated air force. At best Kinch and the other black pilots would have been sent back to the States to join the Tuskegee airmen.

At this point there are two routes open for Kinch and the other black POWs to have been in Stalag 13 in time to help Hogan start his operation. One, they had been shot down prior to the arrival of the 8th Army USAAF in Britain by 12 May 1942.

The second option is that they remained with the RAF instead of transferring to the USAAF. As this article point out some of the Eagle Squadron members decided to remain with the RAF instead of transferring to the USAAF. (25)

So my theory for a possible route could work for Kinch as well as for Hogan. They could have both snuck into Canada as civilians, got official training and then joined the RAF. Hogan joined bomber command and gained his reputation as a war ace and tactician then joined the USAAF after America entered the war. Kinch was either shot down on a mission just before 12 May 1942 or remained with the RAF and was shot down later. Hogan flew several more missions until Bienderbender overwhelmed him. The Red Cross would have notified Britain about Kinch and the others and Britain in turn would have notified the US who in turn would have had the American Red Cross send the black POWs American uniforms.

This may have led to a reduction in rank for Kinch. The role of navigator (originally titled observer in the RAF) which he fills in “Hogan throws a birthday party”,

was usually filled by commissioned officer, see link (26), but could hold any rank from airman second class to Group Captain. The rank of flight sergeant in the RAF is the equivalent of a Master Sergeant in the USAAF. But if Kinch held a rank higher than that (which seems likely given the skill and high level of responsibility) then his being a sergeant in Stalag 13 would have meant a reduction in rank.

But as I said, this is just speculation on my part in an attempt to try and put the canon of Hogan’s Heroes into something that fits the actual historical timeline. I freely admit that there are holes in my theory.

Which is why I’m saying that this theory of mine is put forward as a possible alternative route that Hogan, Kinch and the other black POWs could have taken to get to Stalag 13 and leave them enough time for them to do all that they did and I hope it stimulates discussion and thought and (not to sound like I’m getting on a soap box here but I love research) a desire to research World War 2 for interest in the subject. Certainly that is what Hogan’s Heroes did for me.

Sources

1.      World War II Database: https://m.ww2db.com/event/today/05/12/1942

2.      History.net: https://www.historynet.com/first-usaac-raf-joint-combat-mission-july-4th-1942.htm

3.      World War II today: https://ww2today.com/17th-august-1942-the-usaaf-makes-its-first-raid-on-occupied-europe

4.      Bombing of Bremen in World War II: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Bremen_in_World_War_II

5.      World War II Database: https://ww2db.com/aircraft_spec.php?aircraft_model_id=4 \

6.      Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-British_personnel_in_the_RAF_during_the_Battle_of_Britain#United_States

7.      Warfare History Network: https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/2017/01/18/americans-in-the-royal-air-force/

8.      Royal Air Force Museum: https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/online-exhibitions/americans-in-the-royal-air-force/eagle-squadrons/

9.      WWII: The Complete War Report. Directed by Various. Mill Creek Entertainment. 2017

10.  Not Even Past: https://notevenpast.org/inching-towards-war-military-preparedness-in-the-1930s/

11.  National World War II Museum: https://www.nationalww2museum.org/students-teachers/student-resources/research-starters/research-starters-us-military-numbers

12.  The US Army Airforces in World War 2: https://media.defense.gov/2010/Nov/05/2001329898/-1/-1/0/aaf_wwii-v1-2.pdf (pages 85 & 142)

13.  Teaching American History: https://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/radio-address-delivered-by-president-roosevelt-from-washington/

14.  Wikipedia: Eagle Squadrons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle_Squadrons

15.  Britannica.com: https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Britain-European-history-1940

16.  142nd wing : https://www.142fw.ang.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/1211286/redhawk-reflections-on-the-first-american-mission-in-europe-1942/

17.  Tuskegee Airman: https://www.tuskegee.edu/Content/Uploads/Tuskegee/files/TUSKEGEE_AIRMEN_CHRONOLOGY12.2011.pdf (page 9)

18.  Historyhit.com: https://www.historyhit.com/was-the-raf-especially-receptive-to-black-servicemen-in-world-war-two/

19.  CBC.ca: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/black-canadians-second-world-war-1.5793974

20.  Historyhit.com: Was the RAF Especially Receptive to Black Servicemen in World War Two? | History Hit

21.  Second World War Experience Centre: https://war-experience.org/lives/noor-inayat-khan-soe/

22.  Royal Air Force Musuem: https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/online-exhibitions/pilots-of-the-caribbean/across-the-commands/

23.  Royal Air Force Museum: https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/online-exhibitions/pilots-of-the-caribbean/answering-the-call/the-second-world-war-1939-to-1945-segregation/  

24.  Theconversation.com: https://theconversation.com/black-troops-were-welcome-in-britain-but-jim-crow-wasnt-the-race-riot-of-one-night-in-june-1943-98120

25.  The National Interest: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/these-americans-flew-royal-air-force-during-world-war-ii-168713

26.  Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Bomber_Command_aircrew_of_World_War_II

[haiyuta]

|| sugarbaby.com || bang chan

Summary: Struggling college student Y/n is on her last year of college as the bills stack she’s in a tough situation. Her roommate recommends her a website for local sugar daddies. That's where she meets Mr. Bang Chan a producer who is just a nice guy that has a lot of money.  

word count: 5.1k || genre: smut, lots of smut, kissing, dry humping, light choking, praise kink, soft dom chan, like soft, like he’s a caring daddy btw, light barely their daddy kink. 

a/ n: the end plot is so sloppyyyy but I put lots of plot and love and smut this could be better but its 5k of hard work so enjoy yall~

Chewing on your lip you eyed the website your finger hovering on and off the signup button.

Sugarbabys.com the website read on the front page in a quote read "where sugar babies meet high-quality Sugar daddies".

Taking your finger away you gave it a thought all the scenarios going through your head. What if it didn't go well? What if the men were creepy? Your friend already gave you tips 'meet in a public place' 'only if you want to you have to' things like that.

Your bank account was desperate though. Between school and working, you were left with little money. Lingering in the back of your brain you knew you couldn't the reality of having to borrow more money from your friend making you cringe.

Were you desperate enough for money to even sign up for this site? It was something you considered before knowing a few girls who used the website your roommate included for a while until she got what she wanted her debt paid off.

'Its easy just sign up it couldn't hurt' she explained to you. You grimaced it could hurt the many thoughts popped up in your head bad and good.

Your finger hovered over the signup button with great reluctance decided to sign up. Entering your email and information you looked at the rules. It was simple enough the men contacted you based on profiles near them. They recommend you do a date in public for safety reasons etc.

Some of the profile content was questions like the financial level you needed and what you could provide and some small information about yourself.

Your fingertips hovered over the keys writing some info about yourself.

"Hello I'm a graduating student soon with ambitions to join the workforce soon financial help would be the main  and I am very open with new options and experiences"

Finishing off with some fun facts age and a pretty picture your friend took of you. etc you clicked the finished profile you sat back looking at the website shaking your head you closed your laptop work was going to be early tomorrow.

You didn't check the website but a lingering message sat in your inbox.

As the week went on it a few messages popped in your inbox with a variety of guys some seeking immediate sex for money, some promising you the world but then there was one message.

Bang: Hello I'm sure you got many messages you're very pretty I was wondering if you wanted to go on a date with me. I'll pay of course and see if we are matchable. If not just ignore this.

The message made you quirk your eyebrow it felt real and raw in a way the others didn't. And with no picture, you decided to go and message 'Bang' back.

You: Thanks for messaging me I would love to just send your phone number and I'll talk to you more.

Nerves in your stomach grew as you waited for his message. A night went by until his reply.

Bang: Thanks so much here's my number can't wait to talk to you more :)

You've been texting back and forth with Chan for a week till he scheduled a date setting a date that was good for both of you.

You were nervous your stomach turned with butterflies, the restaurant you were in was a fancy Italian restaurant downtown it had deep mood lighting with a clean crisp look to it.

"May I help you," the hostess gave a kind smile.

Shifting in your tight black dress your own but the gold necklace with a nice handbag were thanks to your roommate.  "Um yes," you said nervously "I have a dinner date with Mr. Bang," you said.

Looking at the list she nodded "oh yes he's waiting for you," she said leading you to the back.

Walking through the restaurant your stomach twisted leading towards the table. Questions ran through your mind. Why were you even doing this? It was to late to back down now you thought.

"Here you go," she gestured to the table. Laying your eyes on him you were slightly taken aback at his appearance. He was handsome.

Looking up from his phone a handsome smile lit his face. Slipping the device into his pocket he got up quickly.

"Let me," he gave a sheepish laugh moving toward you. The smell of his cologne filled your senses it was nice really nice.

"Thank you," you said sitting putting your loaned clutch on the table. Drinking in his features you noted he had sandy blond hair, deep dimples, and perhaps an accent. Dressed simply in a black button-up and black jeans expensive chan sat handsomely on his neck.

An awkward silence filled the table until he chuckled "I'm sorry I didn't even introduce myself I use Mr. Bang on my profile but you can call me Chan," he said. Yup, definitely an accent you noted.

His friendly smile radiated causing you to let a small smile "I'm Y/n thank you for taking me out". More like thanks for messaging me and taking me to a restaurant normally college boys would take you out to the best they could do. A local taco joint close to the university which was amazing but you did yearn for something romantic.

"You were beautiful I had to," he flirted with a charming smile. Stomach knotting at the word beautiful and how his foreign accent whispered them out.

"Thank you," you beamed shifting in your seat. The more you talked to him the more comfortable you became with him.

"So, you work in the music industry," you asked wanting to get to know him. Quickly thinking of his profile on the website. Young, producer and money to spend. The website though matched you and you couldn't directly message them until they choose you. Chan would be snatched up quickly if any sugar baby could choose.

"I do I'm a producer I also sing and rap a bit," he explained, "its something I like to do a lot" he added.

"That sounds like a lot of fun," you giggled poking at your food already full from the soup and salad but wanting more.

"It's long hours of editing and writing music," he perked up his eyebrow you noted he had a small cut in his eyebrow. "Hearing my music be sung by artist and people loving my lyrics is all worth it."

"But it's my passion but sadly my passion is mostly inside so it's hard to meet people," he explained eyeing you.

"May I ask why a guy like you would be on a sugar baby website," you said hoping you weren't overstepping your boundary. "I mean not that you can't be on these sites," you quickly blurted out feeling warm at the question you asked.

He laughed a little "I'm not a 40-year-old businessman with a wife and kids," he smirked out.

"Kind of," you trailed off staring at him.

"Well some of my friends were doing it recently saying they met some great people," he said "I also like showering my girl with money might as well see if this will work." he finished.

"Ah okay," you hummed eating some food.

"I'm just a nice guy who has a lot of money," he grinned his cheeky dimple popping out.

You snorted at the comment "wow," you laughed a little.

"Sorry was that cringy," he gave a sheepish smile.

You nodded covering your mouth trying not to laugh out loud.

"Anyway what about you," he asked.

You explained a bit about yourself adding what he needed to know you were almost out of college the struggle to finish was getting harder. He understood explaining he came to Korea from Australia looking for a fresh start. He found his talent when he sold one of his songs for the first time. You were shocked that it was called "Why so lonely" a classic a song that use to be on your freshman playlist every day.

The experience was new but something you would soon treasure a good conversation a lovely meal and getting money for it.

"Did you like the meal," he asked eyeing you placing his black card in his wallet writing down a quick tip.

"It was amazing," you gave a gentle smile. A little bummed this dinner had to end. Also anticipating if he wanted to continue this.

"May I drive you home," he asked giving you his arm. You smiled nodding slipping your arm through his arm.

The small private parking lot on the side as you browsed the expensive cars till you landed on his BMW with admiration a beautiful car that fit his aesthetic. Playful yet luxurious. Sliding into his car you shivered at the cold leather seats.

"Where do you live," he asked.

"Student apartments right next to the university," you explained "just that general area," you said hitting yourself of how dumb you sounded.

The car ride had light chatting he played some music from he wrote. You were shocked to find out it had some of your favorite artists under it. Learning he did some music for a trio group named 3racha.

Coming up to your apartment you sighed glancing at him "thank you so much," you paused letting out a soft "sir" at the end of it.

A moment passed over the both of you until Chan let out a laugh "Sir," a deep cute laugh.

A blush went to your cheeks at his laugh"You're cute enough you don't have to try okay," he assured his you pressing his hand to your cheek gently.

Your face was warm but his hand felt warmer. "Sorry about that," you said softly cringing at yourself. How natural this felt was amazing.

"May I kiss you," he whispered out his lips so close.

Your eyes connected to his light brown eyes your lips wanting to touch his "please."

It was a swift moment as his lips capturing your own. It was soft as he greedily consumed your kiss you were shocked at how good it was to be kissed.

Pulling gently apart your eyes flickered to his noting his eyes were so warm and deep you could drown in them.

"Um thank you for everything," you said feeling warm and frazzled at him. Opening the car door you could feel your heartbeat a little faster and your mind swirl with want.

"Your welcome baby girl," he winked watching you with as you trailed yourself up the steps and into the apartment building.

Its been a few months since your first date with Chan. Honestly, it felt too good to be true. Soon as got home he texted you some information and the next thing that morning a pretty number with 4 digits now sit in your account.

It took all your will not to scream in a pillow at the money. That's what you make in a month for a date.

As the relationship continued Chan was giving you money for your attention dates, kissing, sex all of the above. Honestly, he could pay you nothing and you would still jump at the opportunity to sleep with him. You shuttered a little thinking of the sex simply put it was amazing.

Some basic rules were gently inforced. 1. You or have the right to end it at any time 2. Stressed the fact that this was an exclusive relationship. Light rules but Chan was very laidback.

Currently, you were in a store way too expensive well use to be way too expensive picking out a dress that would look good for this event with Chan. "This one," you hummed walking out in a cream-colored dress. It hugged your ass but the color was sort of off-putting.

Chan sitting on the seat in the private dress area leaning back his hair messy and untamed with a touch of curls. Your fingers always itched to touch those curly locks.

"I don't love it," he hummed eyeing you up and down. "Just the color it looks amazing on you though," he grinned. Sitting next to a pile of dresses that you both didn't like very much.

You frown this was the fifth dress you've tried but to be honest you didn't love it that much either.

"Okay I have a few more," you bit your lip as you went back to the dressing room. The event was tomorrow night performance of some underground rappers and Chan said he might perform with 3racha if he had time. Being on his arm for this event was important.

You shyly claiming you didn't have many dresses for something like that.

Sipping into the dress that caught your eye the most a deep rose gold dress with just a touch of sparkle. Eyeing yourself you smiled at how the dress fit you the price tag with the glaring 1k on the tag.

Slipping out the dressing room your gazed landed on Chan his eyes ran up and down your body. "Wow," he whispered out getting up to inspect the dress. "Do you like it," he asked placing his hand on your hip.

"I love it," you paused eyeing you and Chan in the mirror admiring how you looked and how he looked next to you. His eyes glazed with lust. "It's pricy though," you hummed looking at the price.

Chan leaned over kissing your temple "you know I'll buy it for you," he grinned pushing his hips closer to you.

"You spoil me," you hummed posing lightly in the mirror. It complimented your skin the way it fell made you feel utterly amazing.

"You look beautiful," he said pressing his body against yours. His chin resting atop your head as he stared at your dress in the mirror. You giggled at the reflection. He looked at you with an admiring lust-filled look. You perked up when you felt his bulge pressing against your ass.

Glancing at him through the mirror his deep brown eyes basically told you what he wanted. You've had sex with Chan before and to say the least you would fuck this man for free. You were just lucky enough he was paying your tuition with a sweet payday every other Friday.

You pushed your ass into him feeling his eagerness waiting for you. "We shouldn't," you hummed glancing at him. Leaning over he hummed his lips connecting with your neck. You sighed at the kisses leaning away for more access.

"We just need to be quiet," he whispered in your ear. Grabbing your hand he lead you to the small bench settling you on his lap.

His lips captured yours hungrily your mouths moved in a gentle rhythm. Pulling away Chan looked at you grabbing your exposed thigh placing you across his jeans. "Come on baby we don't want to wrinkle this beautiful dress up," he said pushing the dress up.

A small mew slipped out of you at the feeling of Chan lightly bouncing his leg. Wrapping your arms around his neck to steady yourself you moaned as he added more pressure to your clothed slit.

Your body was heating up at the feeling "come on baby girl," Chan whispered in your ear. Biting your lip you squeezed your eyes closed feeling your stomach twisting at the sensation. God, he got you off so good your mind raced with want.

Clenching your thighs around his you gave a soft moan as you rocked against his leg. The lewd act of humping his leg made your stomach twist with want.

Chan let out a light chuckle you gave him a small embarrassed glare at your current position. "Don't pout you look adorable," he gave a small smirk. "We better finish this off before we are found," he grinned as he proceeded to bounce his leg.

You were already damp as it seeped into Chan's black jeans. Pushing your head into his neck you let out small whimpers as you got closer to the edge. Ready to fall any moment but Chan holding you so tight you never wanted to let go. Pushing down on his thigh you gave a deep moan as you desperately humped his leg.

Leaning over you placed your lips moaning in the kiss. Your eyes twisted shut as waves of heat rolled down your body.

Chan pressed his lips hard against you as you sloppy kissed him. You came down from your high it took a moment but you felt Chan hand run up and down your back.

Biting your lip you gazed up at him giving him a light smile "we should get out of here," you hummed pushing your dress back down and getting up,

You lightly grimaced at his leg with had a decent size wet mark on them. "Fuck sorry," you said also eyeing his bulge.

He hummed grabbing your hand "don't worry about it lets just buy the dress and go back to my place," giving you a wink.

Your stomach stirred thinking of going to his house with him laying in his bed as he pushed your deep into his sheets "Let's," you grinned eagerly.

"How does it look," you asked your roommate coming from your room in the dress you bought last week. It took a dry clean to get the smell of sex from the dress but it still looked clean and new.

Her gaze went from her phone taking a double-take at your dress. "Look at you in that dress," she hummed. Smiling you gave a small twirl the gold shimmering.

"I know I love it so much," you hummed going to the mirror to check your makeup and hair.

"So Y/n how's Chan," she said leaning on the couch her eyebrow raised at you.

"He's good he's taking me to a club tonight," you said.

She nodded "so you don't have feelings for him or anything right," she hummed out looking at you.

Pausing you stared at your eye makeup looking at her through the mirror image you felt your heart leap "of course not he pays me," you told her.

"Yeah I mean your college semester is almost over when will you break it off," she asked. You paused wondering if you would. You did get mostly what you wanted. Clothing, money, your schooling has been paid up to last semester. The thought of breaking it with Chan made your stomach drop.

Before you could answer you heard your phone ring. Grinning you picked it up avoiding your roommates grilling question.

"Hey baby are you ready," Chan spoke.

Glancing at your makeup and outfit you looked good. Shyly remembering what you did in this dress earlier that week. "Yeah I'm good," you hummed out.

"Great I'm downstairs," he said.

"Okay bye," you said clicking off the phone.

Your roommate was still looking at you "you're like into into him," she commented.

"I'm into his money," you easily lied to yourself. The money was great the clothing, the tuition all was amazing. But Chan as a person he was the best of all the gifts. Repressing these growing thoughts was the best you could do.

"Sure you are," she said pulling out up her Netflix. "Just let me know when you move into with him so I can find a new roommate," she teased.

Rolling your eyes you stuck out your tongue  "will do but won't happen," you said leaving.

"Have a nice night," she called out.

"Thanks," you yelled back leaving. Your stomach turned excited to see Chan. Hurrying downstairs you quickly came outside to see Chan leaning on the side of his car. You eyed him loving his outfit.

"Hey," you grinned going to him wrapping your arms around his neck. Your eyes held his from the told of his dirty blond hair to the way he had a smile chain around his neck and his signature black style.

"Aw you missed me," he grinned a small dimple popping out.

"Always," you flirted back.

Giving you a quick peck he opened the door for you. The drive to the small club was nice his hand firmly on your thigh as he navigated the roads driving up to the club.

"You'll meet some of my friends just fellow producers," he explained. The word date stuck to your brain well you were his date. The words girlfriend would be amazing to hear out his mouth.

"Do your friends have any sugar babies," you asked out the blue. Remembering he told you months ago some of his friends use the site.

He pursed his lips "some do some have two or more," he explained closing the door on the side parking.

Taking his arm nerves bubbled up in your stomach as you entered the low lit club. It was loud with live music on the stage was a male he had dark black hair with deep black makeup and he was rapping.

"That's Jisung he's a close friend and producer," Chan said leading you toward the back. The club was lowkey as people enjoyed the fast rapper on the stage.

"He's really good," you called out to Chan.

He nodded "yeah we are underground rappers are normally producers but we like to stay out of the limelight," he added. "I'll be on stage in a bit hope you'll cheer for me," he grinned.

"Always," you grinned. Sipping on the drink you were introduced to lots of people Felix an upcoming solo artist in the company.

"Time to get on stage baby girl," Chan hummed giving you a light kiss on your lips. His eyes lingered on you for a moment "After my set will get outta here," he said.

"Sounds good," you replied.

Felix stayed next to you as you two chatted while Chan was in the back. "Yeah, Chan told me a lot about you."

You nodded "can I ask about," you asked curiously.

Felix nodded his head "just you're really good for him is what I'm going to say," he explained.

Before you knew it the lights went down once again as Chan got on stage with Jisung and another male "who's that," you asked Felix.

"That's Changbin he is just an underground rapper Chan likes to promote with they call themselves 3racha," he explained.

You watched Chan on stage it was like he was a natural. His smile lit the stage his outfit clean making him look fashionable and handsome. That messy hair was darkening.

Your heart speeds up as you watched his performance him bouncing on stage, the way he hyped up the crowd and his fellow rappers.

Chan never really talked about the performing aspect of this. You were transfixed on the performance the lyrics, his movements it was all amazing. Then cheers filled your ears Chan had a small layer of sweat on his forehead "thank you for coming everyone we have so many new acts tonight please keep a lookout for them," he yelled in the mic.

"They were amazing," you said excitedly.

"Yeah, I love watching them perform," Felix agreed. "It doesn't happen often but when it does it's always great," he praised his friends.

Soon after Chan came back to the table with Jisung and Changbin behind him. A layer of sweat on all of them. "Guys I want you to meet Y/n," he said. "My girlfriend," he said glancing at you for a second.

Your eyes widen at the work girlfriend but decided to act cool "um Hi guys I love your music Chan's showed me some samples," you said.

"Ah thank you so much welcome to our little circle Chan's been meaning to introduce us to you," Jisung said giving a wide smile.

"Has he well my boyfriend is so mean not introducing me to his friends sooner," you side-eyed Chan. You felt Chan wrap his arm around your waist.

"Well we should all get together for some food soon," Felix added.

"That would be great," Chan said slipping his arm around your waist. "Sorry to be rude me and Y/n have to dip," Chan said. Giving his friends a few fist bumps he pulled you out the dark club soon after.

The cool night hit you giving you some much-needed space to breathe. "So Chan girlfriend," you quirked an eyebrow stepping away from his. Your insides turned at the word.

"I'm sorry that just slipped out," he spoke quickly apologizing, a red from the tips of his ears to his cheeks maybe from performing but it made him look different. Vulnerable to you like a confession. "I meant it I'll admit it," he added.

There was a pause as you looked at him and he looked at you. Before you knew it your lips were on his. His plush lips felt so good your heart beating rapidly at his confession and you think you got your answer across. He wrapped his arms around your waist pressing deeply into the kiss.

Pulling apart you gazed up at him he had a handsome smirk on his face. "your place," you bite your lip.

He hummed "I gotta hear it one time," he raised an eyebrow.

"Can my handsome boyfriend take me to his place," you admitted your arms thrown around his neck.

Grabbing his keys he and you hurried to his car. You praised his performance as you rode to his place. His hand now firmly placed entwined in your hand.

Stumbling into his condo you and his lips were attached to one another. Closing the door behind him you giggled as his hand slide through your once neatly curled hair now messy from the night.

Grabbing your hand you lead him to his bedroom it had deep blacks and grey al round. Your lips met in a messy haze of lust.

"Fuck you do things to me," Chan whispered pulling his lips away from you. His fluffy hair was now matted to his forehead attractively from his performance those brown eyes of his blazing with want.  

Sitting on his bed eyeing you from the high ground. "Look what you've done," he chuckled out touching himself. Your fingers itched to unzip him and help him.

"Can I," you asked reaching for his zipper.

"Ask properly," he leaned his hands behind him his hooded eyes stared you down.

"Please daddy," you whined out  On your knees, you unbuttoned his pants revealing Calvin Klein's you loved so much. When you got a peek of those they really set you off.

Slowly touching the hard outline you licked your lips in concentration as you teased him from the base circling around the tip feeling he was wet.

"Fucking hell Y/n," his hips involuntary jerked up to your touch. Your fingers raised under his black tee feeling his solid abs under your fingers tips.

"I love your body," you hummed feeling his stomach circling little shapes right above his waistline.

"Yeah," he stared down at you with hunger loving the praise that you gave him. Something you learned early about Chan is praise could get you a long way. Your nails dragged down his abs loving the feeling of them under your fingertips.

Pulling him out you admired his length. You gave his slick head a small kiss as you gently bobbed.

Chan lifted his hips letting you slip more into his mouth. "Fuck," he moaned as he started to hit the back of your throat.

"Relax your throat Y/n," he said gently brushing your hair. Chan gently rolled his hips deeper in as you relaxed your throat. You lightly choked on it pulling off quickly. You blushed realizing even with the training you couldn't take him very far.

"Sorry," you flushed embarrassed you couldn't even deep throat him.

Pulling you onto the bed Chan's eyes were gentle and lustful. He lightly patted your head lovely "you got better," he hummed. Grabbing your wrist he gently took it placing gentle kisses across your wrist. He stared at you with a smoldering look of want.

Leaning down his mouth attacked your neck you felt so close to him you could hear his heart race just like yours. His dick hard against your thigh so close to your entrance.

"Chan I need you," you moaned in his ear as he left wet kisses across his neck.

Pushing your dress up his fingers went to your panties taking them off "where do you need me," he groaned. His finger went across your slit petting you lightly.

"Right there," you moaned body heating up from the petting. He pulled your hips so close to him "please chan," you hummed desperate him to fill you.

He gave a cheeky smile "no need to beg," his Australian accent deep and thick. He grabbed your leg hiking you up. Hooking your leg around his hip as he entered you. The feeling of him stretching you making you wince as you took him between your folds.

"Ah fuck," he cursed out his face twisting into pleasure. His nose scrunched up in pleasure as his hips rocked into you.

Pushing your head into the pillow you let out mews of pleasure as he gave gentle thrust. The closeness of him in you made your head twirl. "Harder," you panted feeling him almost hitting that sweet spot.  

You felt his hips pace start to pick up as he went deeper. "Ah," you moaned out feeling the tingle of an oncoming orgasm come. You pushed the feeling down trying to savor the feeling of the pleasure.

Looking up at Chan his mouth slightly slacked as he focused on his thrusts fuck he was handsome you thought. A vulnerable look of want and pleasure twisted on his face.

He looked down at you a small smile lit on his lips "you look hot on your back for me." His words made your stomach twist with want and love.

"May I," he hummed his fingers wrapping around your neck. Your stomach tingled with want something about choking made you excited.

"Please," you begged.

Wrapping his hand on the side of your throat made you lick your lip making your head dizzy. Honestly, you didn't know you had a choking kink until Chan introduced you to it.

"Thank you, daddy," you hummed loving the way he pressed lightly on your throat his thumb gently tracing your windpipe. His thrust hit hard as he tightens his hold restricting your breathing.  

"Your welcome baby," he said thrusting into you deeper. Lifting into him you enjoyed the way his body pressed into you.

"I'm close," you moaned out feeling him hit that spot over and over making your eyes roll back.

"Hold your breath baby," he said tightening his hold. His pace got faster as he chased his own orgasm small groans left his lips lovely. "Fuck," he moaned "You feel so good," you moan feeling the sudden warmth of his cum spurt out. The warmth of it pushed you over the edge.

Clutching your leg behind his back black and white spots filled your vision. Chan let out sensual groans as he came down from his high. His hand released your neck as he went to pet your hair. 

Shifting your leg you felt him pull out of you. You bite your lip smiling at the feeling of him pulling you close. 

“Fuck,” he moaned taking off his shirt laying on the silk sheets. You turned to him a grin on his face. 

Wrapping his arm around your midsection he curled up to you. “Chan you smell like sweat,” you whined at the smell. 

“You know you love it,” he grinned as you pushed your face into his curly hair. 

“Mmmhh,” you hummed feeling him pet your head as his fingers up and down your body. 

[13dead-ends]

Option Two

Devil!Tom Hiddleston x witch!reader

Summary: You fucked up your summoning spell and The Devil has plenty of ideas of how to punish you.

Word Count: 4K

Warnings: SMUT, name calling (slut mostly), teasing, rough sex, unprotected sex, NON-CON just in case, it is a deal with the devil, but you enjoy it, dom/sub, fingering, orgasm denial, forced into submission, lots of choking, taking you from behind, (if i missed anything let me know!)

A/N: So this is the most intense thing I’ve written so far, hehe. I really hope you like it! I wanted to do something freaky for Halloween and I’m obsessed with Tom Hiddleston as the Devil. And @hellcaster901​ read this first and helped me get some ideas going so thanks girl! ilysm. Happy Halloween!

I stared at the pentagram drawn in chalk on the dirty floor. The abandoned hospital I choose was chilly and smelled musty and damp, but it was the only place secluded enough. Candles were set at each point and were lit. They were the only light besides the full moon shining through the broken window behind me. I took a deep breath. My coven was going to kill me. No. They’d bind my powers and then banish me. We were white witches, they said, we practice good magic. I rolled my eyes. They didn’t understand that magic was magic. I don’t buy the white magic, black magic crap. I’d use whatever type of magic I want to get what I want.

              The spell book was on a broken gurney, open to the summoning spell, but I had the words memorized. This was an old spell, and it was difficult to say the least. I’m just glad there’s no bathing in pigs’ blood or something messy. I’ve never done anything like this though. I hadn’t harnessed this kind of magic alone before. I took a deep breath and started reciting the foreign words. I held out my hands over the circle, one holding my own ceremonial dagger. I cut the other hand and winced at the sting. I watched as my blood fell onto the circle. Time seemed to stop as the blood splattered. A gust of wind blew in a whirl around the room. My hair whipped around me and my ears popped. I fell to my knees as the wind disappeared, the candles blown out, the only light was from the moon. I felt blood trickle from my nose and the cut on my hand burned now. I tried wiping the blood off my face, but I felt it just smear on my cheek. I caught my breath, looking around the room for any sign of the demon I was summoning. It was pitch black except for the shape the window made on the floor. I fumbled for a candle and my matches. It took a few tries, but I lit the match. I held it up to the candle and saw a face in the light. Green eyes and sharp cheek bones, a slight grin on his lips. I screamed and flung my body backwards, the match going out and the candle rolling away.

              “Who the fuck are you? Where the hell did you come from?” I yelled into the dark. I couldn’t make him out with out the match. “Come into the light!” A few footsteps and a man in a sweatshirt and jeans came into the moonlight. He was tall and on the skinnier side, dark curls on his head.

              “I was dared to come in here. Haunted hospital and Halloween and all that.” He crouched down and picked up a candle, no doubt noticing the pentagram under his feet. “What are you doing?” He cocked an eyebrow. I cleared my throat and stood, feeling shaky. A simple memory spell wouldn’t hurt him. I’d just send him back out to the friends who dared the poor guy. I whispered the spell, but felt nothing. “And how about you come into the light. This better be some stupid prank.” I whispered it again. He should be running away. Why isn’t my magic working? The spell. It must’ve drained me, but nothing happened. I heaved a sigh.

              “It is a prank, actually-“ He began to chuckle, shaking his head.               “Oh, little witch, you really believed this?” He held his hands out.

              “What?” I swallowed.

              “Poor thing can’t even manage a little memory spell.” The candles all relit, one by one. I stepped back, feeling a chill run up my spine.

              “You’re the demon I summoned.” I whispered.

              “Not quite, witch.” His eyes changed to red, and horns grew out of his head. I heard a ruffle of feathers and his wings sprouted from his back. They were charcoal black and touched both walls beside him they were so large. They were covered in layers of feathers, looking soft, yet strong. I could see tendons flexing underneath the skin. I gasped at the site.

              “No. I didn’t mean to-“

              “Oh, I know what you meant, dear, but that doesn’t really matter anymore.” I took another step back, eyes wide with fear. He changed back into his human form and grabbed my face, fingers pressing into one cheek and thumb pressing into the other. Suddenly I saw an image of my mother leaving me on a church doorstep, then she changed into the nun from my Catholic school who splashed me with holy water and told me the devil was in me. Then it was girls from high school, calling me a freak, they changed into the women in my coven, shooting down my ideas, boxing me in.

              “No!” I yelled, not wanting him to know, not wanting him to see. I was-

              “Pathetic. You’re pathetic.” He pushed me back into the wall so hard it hurt the back of my head, his hand squeezing my cheeks. “I don’t care about you; I just want to know how you did it.” The last twenty-four hours replayed in my head. “Hm, interesting.” His face came back into my vision, he stared into my eyes and I couldn’t look away. “What am I going to do with you?” He whispered. I was shaking now, my heart racing in my chest.

              “I’m sorry, I was just trying to-“ He squeezed harder

              “Look at you, blood on your face,” He turned my head violently to the side, looking closer at the smear of red. “Drained of your power, weak.’ He spat the word. “It gives me plenty of ideas.” His hand slid down to my neck, his long fingers wrapping around it easily. He was going to kill me. He clicked his tongue. “I’m not going to kill you, not tonight.” He chuckled lowly. “You’re not getting off easy though.” My breath was blocked by his grip on my throat. My hands came up to clutch his wrist instinctively, and he only laughed at me. He snapped his fingers and an old chair slid into the center of the room. He took me by the neck and sat me down in it. My hands and ankles felt bound to the chair, but there wasn’t rope tying them there. He let go of my throat and I took a big breath.

              “What are you going to do?” I muttered as he walked in a circle around me.

              “If you really want to defy your coven so badly,” He was behind me now and his voice was a whisper in my ear. “We can do something that’ll really make them talk. What do you think they’ll say after tonight, after you make a deal with the devil?”

              “I’m not making a deal with you.” I stated. “I didn’t mean to summon you.”

              “Sure you will. I’m going to punish you for messing with forces you can’t handle.” I inhaled to tell him I could handle it but my mouth wouldn’t open. “Don’t try and tell me that you can, witch. Sure you had the power to summon Satan, but you barely managed that, and it wasn’t even on purpose.” I tried to speak again but he was making it impossible. “Because it was a mistake I will let you choose your punishment.” He walked around to face me. He leaned down, pressing his hands over mine that were gripping the chair arms with white knuckles. His face was level with mine and his red irises flickered like flames. “Option one: I claim your soul. Classic choice.” He smiled. “Oh, and I bet your soul would taste immaculate.” I clenched my jaw as he licked his lips. “Option two: you’re mine for the rest of Halloween night.” I shuddered. What does that even mean?

              “It means, I get to do whatever I please with you for the night. He pushed his face closer to mine, our noses almost touching. “Anything I choose. Anything I want.” I gulped. “It’s your choice completely, my dear.” He raised an eyebrow and leaned back, still staring at me. The force keeping me from speaking ceased.

              “I-I want to keep my soul.” He smirked, lips curling into a grin.

              “Then you get to be my play thing for tonight.” I shook my head. “It’s either one or the other, witch.”

              “Alright fine. I’m yours for the night.” He laughed out loud, almost cackling.

              “Since there isn’t a pad and paper around, I’ll have you sign the deal another way.” He wink and came close to my face again, I flinched away, but he grabbed my face in his hands, holding it still. He pressed his lips to mine and they were hot, almost tingling on my own. I heard a whooshing in my ears and I knew the deal was sealed. I pulled away from him and he gave me a wink. My heart thudded in my chest as he stepped back, stroking his chin.

              “You will only do as I say from now until sunrise. Any disobedience will be punished.” I pursed my lips together. “Now be a dear and stand up. I want to take a good look at you.” The pressure on my hand and legs disappeared and I stood slowly. I was bathed in moonlight and I felt naked under his gaze. His eyes dragged down my body and I wanted to cross my arms over my body, but I was too afraid to move. “Take off your clothes.” I hesitated, but his eyes narrowed at me, so with shaking hands I undid the button of my pants and slid them down. Goosebumps rose all over my skin as the cool air hit them. As I stepped out of the jeans, I saw him bite his lip. My fingertips found the hem of my shirt and I pulled it off. It had a few drops of blood on the collar.

              “Oh you pretty thing you.” I felt more goosebumps rise as he spoke. I wasn’t sure if those were from the cold or not. He cocked an eyebrow at me, now only in a bra and panties. He let a finger trail down my neck, I’m between my breasts and stopped at my belly button. “Have you ever fucked a demon before?” My heart stopped and my voice caught in my throat so I shook my head. “You’d be surprised how many witches summon my incubuses just to see what it’s like.” He smirked. “Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, you got me instead.” I inhaled deeply as his hands began to travel my body. They were hot like his lips, sending heat over my skin every time he touched it. I held back a gasp as he gripped my waist, pulling me to him. I flinched away as he came closer, turning my head to the side and squeezing my eyes closed. He turned my head back, pushing my chin with his finger. His lips pressed into my mine again and this time it felt like fire was underneath his skin. I was completely still, but something inside me wanted to kiss back. His lip massaged my own and I felt his hands move up my body and to my breasts, still covered in a bra he held them in a painful grip and I gasped at the feeling. He stuck his tongue in my mouth and I held his shoulders.

              “If you stop resisting,” He pulled back, letting go of on breast and taking my neck in his hand, palm pressing on my throat. “This’ll be much easier for you.” The hand on my breast began kneading and pressing. My jaw went slack at the shockwaves it sent through me. “You like this. You know you do.” He turned my chin again and began devouring my neck, sucking and grazing his teeth against my skin. My hands gripped his shoulders and my knees felt like jelly. “I love how your body reacts.” He muttered in between kisses. “If you’d only give in.” I shuddered and before my knees could give out completely, he slammed us into a wall, and I saw dust and pieces of the ceiling fall over our shoulders. My entire back side hurt with the impact, but his lips crashing into mine distracted me from the pain. I let my lips react to his and I felt him smirk. His hand gripped my throat a little tighter and I could barely get air in. He moved my head to the side and kissed my neck again, this time traveling all the way down to my bra. I felt the metal hooks begin to come undone on their own, and the straps slid off my shoulders. As the fabric slid off his mouth landed on my nipple and I whimpered. He flicked his tongue over it and then bit it harshly.

              “Ah,” I cried out, but the pain was mixing with the heat of his lips and the touches of his wandering hands. It was all pooling in the pit of my stomach.

              “Are you enjoying it, little slut?” I bit my lip. “I can tell.”  He switched breasts and let his hand take over the other one.

My nails scratched at the wall and he gripped my waist, pushing me harder. He traveled back up to my mouth, not waiting to tangle his tongue with mine. My hands moved on their own, sliding up his chest and lacing behind his neck. He hummed in my mouth.  “See what I can make you do?” Was he making my hands move? I almost thought- Him harshly biting my lip cut into my thoughts. He chuckled lowly as he watched my lip snap back against my teeth. His lips latched on to my neck again and I couldn’t help but lift my chin to give him access. One of his hands traveled down my body, pausing for a moment to roll my nipples in his fingers and then slowly he slid them down over my hot skin of my stomach and then stopped completely at the top of my panties. My hands had found there way into his curls and the tugged when he stopped.

              “The little witch is enjoying it.” He said into my neck, his hot breath hitting my skin.

              “I can’t-I-I don’t-“

              “Don’t lie to me.” He took my neck again and slammed us on the ground. I cried out in pained, tears pricking my eyes, he just squeezed my neck tighter. We were on the second floor and I felt the weak boards below me give a little, as he straddled me. “I can read your mind, feel your feelings. There’s no use in trying to hide.” I choked under his grip, my legs kicked and I held his wrist, my nails cutting him. He loosened up and I inhaled, the fuzzy feeling the lack of oxygen gave me only went straight to my core. He dragged a thumb over my lips. “Don’t bother speaking if you’re only going to lie.”

              “Okay,” I whispered and he started kissing me again, keeping his hand away from my panties. He kept one on my neck, and let the other wander back to my breast. He worked me up again, just like before, only slower. I squirmed as his lips moved to my nipples again. His fingers tickled over my skin, feeling like little sparks against me. I took in in a shaky breath and it came out as a moan. I scrunched my eyes shut, biting my tongue.

              “Yes, moan like the slut you are.” I held back as he let his fingers dance over my thighs. “Do as you’re told, witch.” He leaned over me, staring down at me. “Fine, I’ll make you moan myself.” He trailed his hand up to my panties and snapped the band against my skin, I squirmed at the feeling of him so close to my now dripping pussy. He smirked at me as he dipped a hand into my panties, letting a finger slid through my folds. I did moan at the contact, louder than before. “Soooo wet, darling.”

              “Yes, moan like the slut you are.” I held back as he let his fingers dance over my thighs. “Do as you’re told, witch.” He leaned over me, staring down at me. “Fine, I’ll make you moan myself.” He trailed his hand up to my panties and snapped the band against my skin, I squirmed at the feeling of him so close to my now dripping pussy. He smirked at me as he dipped a hand into my panties, letting a finger slid through my folds. I did moan at the contact, louder than before. “Ha, so wet. You’re loving this.” He slowly moved his finger up and down, with the lightest pressure possible. I felt my back arch, but he only moved his finger with me, teasing me. “You think I’m going to give it up that easily? This is still a punishment remember?” I whimpered at his words. He continued with the same slow motion for what felt like hours. I was gasping and moaning, sometimes choking whenever he decided to grip my throat. My eyes shot open and I whined as his hand left my panties. “Shh, let me get these off.” I heard the fabric rip and he pull my panties off. The cold air on my pussy made me shiver. He moved so he was in between my legs and he pushed my knees apart. He leaned forward and dragged his hands up my thighs. “I think you’ve earned a little more this time.” His finger came back to my slit and this time he pushed it inside and I moaned, arching my back again. “Fuck, you feel so good.” I gripped his shoulders, and he pressed his lips on mine. He pumped his finger in and out and he muffled my noises with his mouth. He was still taking his time, working me out as slow as possible. Without warning he pressed his thumb on my clit. I pulled away from his lips to toss my head back into the floor. I squirmed as he rubbed slow circles into my clit, and I couldn’t catch my breath. I felt a coil build in my stomach and I reached a hand down to grab his wrist. I clutched it as he went faster with his fingers and I felt my whole body tighten. Then he stopped. My chest heaved up and down and I stared at him.

              “You should really see yourself, desperate and absolutely at my mercy.” His hand pulled away from me and I tried pulling it back, but he just grabbed my wrist instead pining it above me. “I haven’t decided if I’m going to let you cum yet.” I clenched my jaw and squirmed at the lack of contact. He sat back and stared at me again. “Maybe I’ll taste you, maybe I won’t.” He trailed his fingers up my thighs again and leaned over me, whispering in my ear. “But maybe you could convince me to.” He bit my earlobe. “I’d love to hear you beg, slut.” I took a shuddering breath.

              “Please,” I whispered.

              “What was that?” He kissed along my jaw.

              “Please taste me.” I said louder. “Please, I want you to.” He laughed at me.

              “That’s my witch. Say it again.” He was down to my shoulder now, and he bit into it.

              “I want you to, please.” I sounded whiny and breathy. “Please, I need something-I need you to-“ I could barely form sentences.

              “What do you want? Tell me.” He traveled down to my breast, never forgetting to play with my nipples.

              “I want you to-“ I shivered as his kissed down my stomach. “I want your mouth on me, please. Please, please I-“ He hovered his lips over my pussy and I held my breath. It felt like hours he stayed there, not moving, just letting me wait.

              “Sorry, I’m not convinced.” He sat up and flipped me over onto my stomach. My face hit the floor and I tried to get up onto my hands and knees, but he knocked my hands out from under me, and my cheek smashed against the floor. He kept my as up though and I heard a zipper being pulled. I quivered as he pulled me by the hips, dragging me to the right position. I felt his cock press against my ass and I bit my lip. He chuckled, placing the tip at my entrance. I moaned out loud, he was huge. I wasn’t sure if I could take it all. “I’ll make you take as much as I want.” He gripped my neck and pushed inside. I was splitting down the middle as he went deeper and deeper. Tears rolled down my cheeks as he stretched me out. He grunted as he buried himself to the hilt. I was choking out sobs and groans at just the feeling of him. “What were you so worried about? You’re taking all of me like a whore.” He pulled me up by my hair and my back pressed into his chest. He wrapped his hand around my throat again and tightened his grip. He thrust into me as I clawed at his hand. I couldn’t move or breath as he moved in and out of me. My walls clenched around him, almost sucking him in farther. “You’re tight little cunt wants me deeper.” He growled in my ear, then slammed me down. He held the back of my neck with one hand and held both my arm behind my back with the other. He pounded into me relentlessly and I was seeing stars. He was grunting behind me and I was whining and squirming underneath him. I felt my cheek drag on the floor when he really slammed into me. I felt his cock pulse inside me, only adding to the pleasure.

              “I’m-ah, ah.” I felt the coil tighten again and my walls kept clenching. “Please, let me-“

              “Oh, she’s learned her manners now.” I felt his cock twitch at my words though. He only chuckled, and thrusted faster. It didn’t take long for me to climax. I screamed and cried as my body convulsed and shook. He didn’t stop though and couldn’t do anything about it. He only pounded me faster and went deeper. I couldn’t see through the tears in my eyes now and I was so stimulated that it was more painful than pleasurable, but his hips stopped when he went as deep as he could go and I felt ropes of cum filling me up. He let me go, letting me slump into the ground. My throat burned and it felt like my body was pulsing. He pulled out of me and my pussy clenched on nothing.

I fell over on my side, my body going limp. He buttoned his pants up. He hadn’t removed one piece of clothing the entire time. I looked past him at the window and saw the dark sky was lighter now. I winced at an ache in between my legs as I curled up, covering myself with my arms. He began to walk out of the room, and I shivered as the cool air settled over my sweaty body. “Y/N,” The only time he called me by my name. I didn’t even realize he knew it. “That coven of yours,” He sighed. “You’re too powerful for them.” He disappeared and I wrapped my arms around my knees, feeling my eyes close.

[putschki1969]

My Experience with Japanese Online Shops, International Shipping and Proxy Services

In the last few months I have ordered from many different Japanese online stores and I have made use of a bunch of new international shipping and proxy services so I thought it would be a good idea to sum up my experiences and write a little review so everyone knows what to expect. Without further ado, let’s get to it.

Content

tenso

Buyee

WorldShopping

HMV International Shipping

CDJapan

Amazon.co.jp

1. tenso.com

A staple for everyone who wants to register for various Japanese services (e.g. fan clubs, streaming platforms, etc) or enjoys shopping in Japanese online shops. It cannot be said often or loud enough how indispensable tenso is for fans of anything Japanese, their service is a true lifesaver! The H-el-ical// Online store even recommends using them! These days many Japanese sites accept foreign payment methods but one thing that’s still almost always required is a Japanese address. And that’s where tenso comes in. They will provide you for free with a Japanese address and phone number which you can use to register on almost any site. You can have your fan club stuff and purchased items sent to that address (the tenso warehouse) and they will then ship it to you. There are not a whole lot of shipping options available but that’s fine. Air Mail is definitely their best offer but if your package is too big you will end up having to choose EMS (which is quite pricey but typically very fast - not during the pandemic tho, at least not for Austria). A big advantage is the possibility to edit the package description. You can lower the value of your items to avoid import taxes and custom fees in your country. Please note that tenso does require an identity verification which might act as a deterrent but I can assure you, they are totally trust-worthy and reliable. I get a LOT of use out of them. Of course I have all my FC related stuff sent to their warehouse but tenso also came in handy for my orders on Tower Records Online, Animate Online and the Universal Shop/H-el-ical Shop/mu-mo Shop.

※ With the exception of the Universal Shop, I was able to pay at all the above mentioned stores with my foreign VISA.

2. Buyee

Another staple and the very first proxy service I ever used. You will need them in all those places that do not accept foreign payment methods (there are still too many out there unfortunately). Their customer service is impeccable and I have never had issues with them. They have gone as far as to contact Japanese stores on my behalf even though it is not part of their usual service. They offer a very wide range of features and shipping options, their service fees are also not too high (although I will admit that they have slightly increased throughout the years). They operate on so many different Japanese online shops, it’s rare to find a big store that does not collaborate with them. Also, if you want to thrift Kalafina related items, THIS is your go-to service. Be it Yahoo Auctions, Mercari or Suruga-ya, you can use Buyee on all those sites. They even have their own English user-interface for some of the major Japanese online stores and you can take advantage of their browser add-on which makes shopping a lot easier. The only downside is that they will not allow edits to the package value so if you live in a bureaucratic country like myself with very strict tax and custom regulations, you will have to make sure to send your packages wisely or just expect to pay quite a lot of fees. This time I used them to order my Wakana cover album copies from Rakuten Books (I REALLY wanted their tokuten). Since Buyee offers the biggest variety of shipping options, I got these copies before anything else, they were here super fast.

※ It’s funny how I am able to register my credit card for Rakuten Pay in order to purchase music on mora.jp but I cannot use that very same credit card to actually buy stuff on Rakuten.

3. WorldShopping

A fairly new service as far as I know but it seems like they are quickly expanding and trying to give Buyee a run for their money. Their banner has been popping up on almost all Japanese sites I have visited in the past few months but up until recently I wasn’t really feeling like trying a new service (I am always hesitant when it comes to new stuff). At least until I found myself in dire need of the Sofmap store specific tokuten for Wakana’s cover album XD. Unfortunately Sofmap does not accept foreign payment methods and Buyee also does not operate on their site so I took a leap of faith and made my purchase through WorldShopping since their banner looked so inviting. It was surprisingly straighforward since they are providing their own interface on the Japanese sites. I didn’t even have to go to the WorldShopping main page to register or anything before using the service. Their fees are acceptable but not exactly low. I was a little wary because I didn’t have a proper account but they did provide a link in the initial email where I could more or less keep track of everything. It took VERY long for my purchased item to be registered at their warehouse (for tenso and Buyee it takes around 1 day) and I didn’t get a notification email that it had arrived so those are not the best aspects of their service. The only shipping method they seem to offer is EMS (which again, is very pricey). Anyways, at the end of the day, my package arrived unscathed in Austria (including the tokuten) so I am a happy camper. While I will probably not be using their service regularly in the future I can still recommend WorldShopping to you with a clear conscience. But please keep in mind to check your status link regularly!

※ Please note that the WorldShipping interface in Japanese online shops overrides the site’s very own purchasing option so if you want to make an order using your own account with your tenso address and a domestic shipping method (let’s say in the mu-mo shop for example) you will have to deactive all WorldShopping services on the page.

4. HMV & BOOKS Online International Shipping

Another first for me. I had no idea they offered international shipping so when I saw the little button on KEIKO’s Lantana page, I couldn’t resist. Since Amazon.co.jp is no longer an option for me, I was desperate to find other stores that offered international shipping and tokutens. Unfortunately, their international shipping service is not a very good replacement for Amazon.co.jp since it takes VERY long. I registered as a guest and made my order without any trouble. I expected them to ship the item on the release day (or the day prior) but that was not the case. I am almost entirely sure that they use a “hidden” proxy service but still promote it as direct shipping. Which is why the process is taking so long. I think it wasn’t until the fifth day after the release date that I finally received the shipping confirmation. Also, don’t get thrown off by weird phrasing in their e-mails. They kept saying that they had shipped “the first part of my order” when in fact there was only one part. Since they only offered EMS as shipping option it once again took quite a while for the package to get to me even though the shipping fee was very high (please note that EMS is typically very fast but as I mentioned earlier, COVID-19 has changed everything). Overall, I can’t really complain about their service, if you are willing to wait a while, HMV International Shipping is definitely worth a try. HMV always have some of the best tokutens so be sure to check it out.

※ I originally tried to register properly but that turned out to be quite complicated so I recommend registering as a guest just like I did.

5. CDJapan

The first site I ever used to order Kalafina-items. I have never had issues with them. They are very reliable and of course the best thing is that they ship directly to your country. However, these days I hardly ever shop at CDJapan anymore because they rarely have tokutens. Also, items you purchase on their site will not be calculated into the daily and weekly sales data for Oricon music charts so that sucks. As you know, I want to support my girls as best as possible (and that means contributing to their chart numbers). Sometimes CDJapan do offer tokutens so they are definitely a viable option for foreign fans. They have lots of payment and shipping methods to choose from and typically their packages arrive very quickly. I bought Hikaru’s RE of “disclose” (only the LE came with tokutens) and one of my “Lantana” copies (CDJapan did in fact have a tokuten for that. YAY).

※ If for some reason, CDJapan isn’t your cup of tea or doesn’t work for you I think YESASIA is a good alternative. However, I haven’t used their service yet so I am not sure how reliable they are. They offer free shipping if your order total exceeds a certain amount so that’s definitely pretty neat!

6. Amazon.co.jp

Amazon.co.jp has been very reliable for the past few years but this year they have really let me down. Just like HMV they do offer an international shipping service but theirs is actually a DIRECT shipping service and it’s SUPER fast. Also they estimate the import/customs fees of your respective country and they charge a deposit which they can use to pay the customs office to speed up the shipping procedure. If this doesn’t happen, packages will usually end up being stuck at customs for a very long time until they have been processed. Last but not least, they often have some of the coolest and most unique tokutens. These are all reasons why I loved to use them but it seems like the pandemic screwed things up for many foreign fans. When I was logged in and checking the product pages of the Kala-solo-releases, they would either show me that everything was out of stock from the get-go or no longer shippable to my country. However, when I wasn’t logged in and checked the Japanese version of the product page I saw that there were in fact still copies available. Now that the pre-order period is over they seem to have restocked a little bit and some versions have finally become available again for foreigners. For example, I could now technically order the LE of “Lantana” with a tokuten. I really wonder why that stuff wasn’t there when I needed it *grumbles*

※ I am not 100% sure if the pandemic caused all these issues but I kinda hope that was the reason because that would mean that next year things will hopefully work fine again. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.