#i say ‘it works’ on a world building level

[merwgue]

Why Feyre as High Lady Could Lead to the Night Court's Downfall (Or, How to Ruin a Court in 10 Easy Steps) comming from someone who is planning to study international relations and whos whole family is quite familiar with it:

Look, we all love Feyre. She's fierce, she's brave, and she can paint a mean flower. But let's be real: as High Lady of the Night Court, she's a Fucking diplomatic nightmare. If there were an award for "How to Piss Off Every High Lord and Their Neighboring Courts," she'd win it. Twice. Here's why Feyre's reign might just bring the Night Court crashing down faster than rhys can growl or cum to the image of his child

1. Explosive Temper and Poor Diplomacy Let’s talk about the High Lords meeting in A Court of Wings and Ruin. Remember that? Feyre’s blow-up at Beron wasn’t just a passionate defense—it was a major diplomatic fuck-up. Yes, Beron was being a total asshole, but diplomacy often means biting your tongue and playing the long game. Feyre's outburst could have easily cost them an alliance with the Autumn Court, potentially turning Beron into an outright enemy. With Hybern on the horizon, losing any potential allies could have been catastrophic. Instead of keeping things cool and trying to find common ground, she let her temper flare, risking everything Rhysand had worked for to keep the courts united. Feyre basically threw a damn match onto a pile of political dynamite.

2. Alienating Potential Allies Ah, the Summer Court fiasco. Remember when Feyre decided it was a good idea to steal from Tarquin? Not just any theft, but a "Hey, let's be friends—JK, I’m taking your most powerful magical artifact" kind of theft. Brilliant move. And then she had the nerve to act all shocked when Tarquin was pissed about it. "What do you mean you're mad I stole from you? We're supposed to be allies!" Gee, I wonder why Tarquin wasn’t thrilled about that little betrayal. It's like borrowing your friend's car and returning it on empty, with a dent in the side. And by "borrow," I mean grand theft auto. Feyre, maybe try not to screw over potential allies next time? Just a thought.

3. Emotional Decision-Making Feyre often lets her emotions drive her decisions. While being passionate isn't inherently bad, it becomes a problem when it overrides logic and strategy, especially in the high-stakes world of Prythian politics. The High Lords meeting is one instance, but it happens repeatedly. Her open hostility toward Tamlin, even if understandable on a personal level, didn't help the broader cause. By pushing him further away instead of seeking some form of truce, she risked driving him into Hybern's arms. A High Lady needs to think beyond personal grudges to what’s best for her people and her court, and Feyre struggles with that balance. You can't just say "screw it" and go off on people when the fate of your entire court is on the line.

4. Ignoring the Complexity of the Night Court And let's not forget the Night Court's lovely little secret: Hewn City. You know, that underground hellhole they basically keep under lock and key. Rhysand and Feyre are all "Oh, look at Velaris, it's so pretty and free!" Meanwhile, half their court is rotting in a glorified dungeon. And what's Feyre's big idea for dealing with Hewn City? Oh, right, pretend it doesn't exist. Smart. Because ignoring a potential uprising within your own court is definitely the way to keep things stable. It's like the French Revolution all over again—if the Night Court were France, then Feyre's approach is like Louis XVI ignoring the starving peasants while hosting extravagant parties. Eventually, ignoring the discontent and keeping people oppressed leads to revolution. Treating Hewn City like an inconvenient problem rather than addressing it is a recipe for disaster.

5. Undermining Rhysand’s Diplomacy Rhysand spent centuries mastering diplomacy—playing the long game, keeping everyone in check. And then comes Feyre, storming in like, "Oh, you spent centuries building these delicate alliances? Well, watch me fuck it up in five minutes." She's like that one friend who always says, "Hold my beer," right before doing something incredibly stupid. Rhys is trying to keep the court from crumbling, and Feyre's out there acting like diplomacy means "scream at the enemy until they go away." Newsflash: That’s not how this works. This isn't some street brawl where whoever yells the loudest wins. It's politics. You know, the art of not making enemies out of every living soul around you?

Conclusion Feyre's got the passion, the guts, and the fighting spirit of a warrior. But when it comes to actually leading a court? She’s like a bull in a china shop, if that bull also happened to have a grudge against every piece of porcelain in the room. Being High Lady isn’t about who's right in the heat of the moment; it's about playing the long game, keeping your people safe, and not, you know, burning bridges with every other court. If she keeps going down this path—alienating allies, ignoring the needs of half her own court, and letting emotions drive her decisions—the Night Court is in serious trouble. Feyre needs to understand that diplomacy isn’t about who can throw the best tantrum. It’s about avoiding a revolution and ensuring the stability of your people. Otherwise, the Night Court might fall not because of an external threat, but because its own leader is too busy screwing things up from the inside.

[captainmera]

Am I crazy or were you the person who made that hc of Philip and Caleb being half brothers? I've been looking for it forever but I can't find it- thought I might ask in case it was another artist! :"0

I headcanon them as half-brothers, yes! Different fathers. I like playing with the social stigmas of the time, and being a bastard carried a much heavier burden back in the days. :)

Why do you ask? :0 /lighthearted/curious

More rambles under cut.

It also gives a layer of pressure between the brothers, since Caleb knows and Philip doesn't. Caleb pretends they're full-blooded brothers, to spare Philip the shame and stigma.

But it also adds some flavour to the drama - since it means Philip’s father isn't dead, and thus not an absolute orphan (if his father would accept a bastard son, concieved in those circumstances, that is.)

Meaning that IF his father wants him, Caleb has kept that from him. And if he doesn't, the rejection might scar him irreversibly.

Caleb is doing a lot for Philip that Pip is clueless about. As often is the case when you protect people you care about.

He doesnt know if this is something Philip wants to know about himself or not. So he's waiting for a day it is either unavoidable to converse about, or when he feels Philip is mature enough to handle it.

Caleb often dangles Philips youth over him. Telling him he's too little to participate in things he's doing. It's worked to do that, but now that tactic has developed into a complex, where Philip wants to prove himself as an equal. That he's both smart and mature enough to do what Caleb does.

So Philip doesn't want to play, he wants to study, and he's acting aloof and like he doesn't care about "silly childish things" because he wants to be respected as an adult - he's not an adult. He's a teenager acting like he's older than he is. He uses big smart words and inserts himself in hopes to blend in.

This, of course, is just a foundation to who he becomes as Philip when Luz meets him. Someone who is goal oriented and only sees social interaction as a means to get ahead, not make friends.

Caleb is someone who makes friends because he knows it's always good to have allies, but also because he's painfully lonesome and worries for Philip. Philip sees Caleb making friends and getting favours, without a cost. He doesn't see the depth of Caleb's interactions or build up. He just hears the compliments and charms, and mimics him on a surface level.

Which also is what makes Philip (when he meets Luz) as the sort of person who just says things (to Lilith and Luz) because he knows it'll make them trust him.

Philip observes his brother in his role as an adult, guardian, older brother, etc.. and uses that as a template to strive for.

If he's the same way, Caleb must think of him as an equal after all.

It's just the two of them. The Wittebane brothers are only a family of two. As far as Philip is concerned, Caleb is his only family and his best friend. He admires his brother. he's both his hero and life mentor. Caleb is the only one who gets him, stands up for him, tutors him in life.

Caleb wants Philip to go play, have fun, Philip doesn't want to. He resents all the playfulness and doesn't see it forvwhat it is.

Adding to why he, as Belos, doesn't let the grimwalkers play around or make friends either. Why he's fine with letting a child like Hunter have an adult role as a golden guard.

And ultimately also why he goes to "save" Caleb. Saving him from a witch would not only prove himself to his brother, it'd prove to himself too.

He's stuck in the idea of his brother. Much of which is half-of Caleb's fault for keeping so many things to himself. But also, like, it's not necessarily a bad thing to have done.

When Philip kills Caleb, he chooses to remain in his ideas.

I think belos as a character is supposed to represent someone who cannot let go, chooses to remain in his escapism world,to never face the pain and loss he's caused/experienced.

Luz being told she's "just like him", I always felt was an odd line for him to say. Based on what?

Thematically, it makes more sense, as Luz is also running away into escapism to avoid the grief, loss and pain shes dealing with. She latched onto the Azura books to escape and feel understood.

Just like Philip latched on witch hunting to feel part of his town, and his brother, and ny extension - understood.

And both are willing to sacrifice everything even themselves to save the people they love.

The difference is that Belos cannot let go. He remains stuck in fantasy because that's what he understands.

Caleb was the only one who understood him, and he's dead. He made no new friends, he didn't move on, he made grimwalkers to be understood by and they betray him - forever the victim. Never to blame. He hides behind moral righteousness and thinks he's above it.

Him mockingly saying things like "sure, I'll play." Clues me into that he's always kind of seen it as a bad thing. He and Caleb played, but then Caleb most likely had to stop; asking Pip to play with other children and make friends.

And it probably didn't go so well. Philip is probably like Luz, holding up snake skin and dramatically re-enacting the death of a witch.

And gave up all together. Because puritan society is a bitbrougher in their rejection than modern society. And Caleb most likely had a long talk with him about covering that up (like Camila sending Luz to camp).

And what he and Caleb played were witch hunter and witch. And listened to Calebs amazing tales of heroes, and how that must've given Philip (later Belos) a moral code to be a hero (like Luz) because it's the good and righteous thing to be.

But yes, anyway....

Half brothers.

Caleb doesn't think it makes them less family, even if society and culture would think that. He loves Philip. What is tightfully his, to him, is also rightfully Philip’s.

He's kept it quiet because not only would people treat him very differently, his opportunities in life would be halven. He wouldn't be eligible for some legal things, either, or be considered a good match as a husband one day. People would be expecting him to be fundamentally "off."

One day, Philip will find out. And think that's why he doesn't fit in. That it's why he's unlike other kids and teens. And realise that Caleb has always known, and seem them as equal in blood. Given him his father's surname, claiming him.

That sort of grace and love is, in that era, pretty bold and mighty.

Caleb had no obligation to keep and raise his mother's bastard son. Or share his name with him. Cloth and feed and love him; even be expected to abandon him.

He did it anyway. Caleb gave up his dreams and life and childhood for him.

To feel indebt is an understatement. To feel even further from truly being seen as his equal, is also an understatement. Now he has more to prove.

And then Caleb was taken to the demon realm.

And the tale goes as you know it. :,)

[batmanlovesnirvana]

Money in massive amounts is never clean.

To amass a certain level of wealth, there’s inevitably a little blood on your hands. That's why I prefer the Wayne family with a touch of moral ambiguity—keeps things interesting.

Sure, we can say Thomas Wayne was a good guy (I mean, "good billionaire" sounds like an oxymoron, but I’ll let it slide since he's fictional). He’s a surgeon, sometimes a co-CEO, and in some versions, he even takes a shot at being mayor. But let's be real—his wealth didn’t come from rainbows and fairy dust.

No, the Wayne fortune wasn’t built on saving puppies and planting trees. Somewhere in the family history, there’s probably a dark corner filled with skeletons, or you know, a handful of emerald mines for exemple. I wouldn't be shocked if Thomas's great-great-grandfather named a labor camp after his wife—romantic, right? Sweet sentiment aside, you don’t just wake up one day swimming in billions without a few questionable "business decisions" sprinkled in.

Yeah, the Waynes are old money, but we’re talking about billions—like "richer-than-Queen-Elizabeth" money. Battinson alone is worth what, 9.2 billion? And in the comics? Bruce is probably a trillionaire, and that fortune didn’t just materialize from charitable bake sales.

You can’t convince me that all of the Wayne money is squeaky clean. Even if Bruce himself isn’t aware of it, some of that fortune likely came from, oh I don’t know, oil deals that were less "above board" and more "we took it from the Middle East." Because, like I said, you don’t build an empire like the Waynes’ without some shady dealings. Let’s face it, billionaires don't get to that level of wealth by being saints.

Now with the new Penguin series, we’re about to see how wealth is really made—without the rose-tinted glasses. Sure, Oswald Cobblepot is a mobster and criminal, but money is money. You can work hard, play by the rules, and become a millionaire—that’s fair, that’s normal. But billionaires? I guarantee you they’ve done worse than Penguin to reach their fortune.

Fictional or not, it makes for a more grounded and realistic Gotham and I do hope Reeves will explore this idea.

In Nolan’s trilogy, we had the shiny, perfect Thomas Wayne and his oh-so-virtuous family, but we never really dug into how the Waynes probably weren’t doing great things for, you know, the rest of the world.

In the Snyderverse, we got that backstory about the Waynes being hunters and building their fortune by selling furs to the French, if I remember right—but still. You don’t become that filthy rich by just selling that.

We always pin the morally questionable label on the Kanes or the Arkhams (Martha Wayne's family), but the Waynes? They’re consistently portrayed as Gotham’s golden dynasty.

Anyway, that’s my ramble for the day.

[mantisgodsdomain]

We ought to write more Pokemon fic some time. We want to recreate the Pokemon Manners/Human Manners cheat sheet that we made a few years ago we think that this site would like the Sliding Scale Of Politeness When Greeting A New Pokemon You've Never Met Before.

[insert-funny-url-here]

Hey random life pro tip but you can and should always examine your thoughts, opinions, beliefs, and assumptions because they all come from somewhere. ESPECIALLY the ones you take for granted. It can be super helpful to just get a little curious and ask yourself "hm. That's interesting. Where did I learn that?" (The answer is usually your parents/family or culture/society/religion).

For example, if you feel worthless because you don't have a job, take a moment to think about where you learned that you need a job to be a valuable member of humanity. That idea didn't come out of nowhere. It probably came from being raised in a capitalist society built on the Protestant work ethic. This also applies to ideas like "I'm boring" or "I'm ugly" or "nobody likes/loves me" or "nobody will like me if I x" or "I have to do x or else y" or "x people are y" or really any other thought/belief.

Importantly, you should not shame or judge yourself when you realize that some of your thoughts/beliefs may have come from somewhere you *really* disagree with. I think this happens a lot for folks who leave a religion or political party and keep some lingering values like purity, keeping up appearances, and needing to atone for "sin". There's nothing to be ashamed of during this process because it's our weird, squishy brains that hold onto values so tightly without us necessarily consciously knowing that it's happening. Our brains don't come ready-made with the ability to disentangle your more conscious beliefs that you may have fully abandoned from less conscious ones that you've perhaps never noticed without conscious effort. When you notice these things, simply acknowledge them, label them, and ask yourself questions about where they came from and if you truly do believe them and why.

This is a continuous process that can take someone's whole life, because we are constantly picking up messages from others around us about how we as human animals "MUST" live in this world. I'm not going to lie and say this is an easy process to go through because you will likely be tempted to feel guilty and ashamed about holding beliefs that don't like up with your actual values, but just remember that it ALWAYS makes sense why/how you got to this point. We are all products of our genetics, relationships, and life experiences, and if you work hard enough and have enough information, you can track down where all the different parts of you came from. I would also highly recommend getting yourself set up with a counselor who you like and trust because they can help you work through disentangling these things without shame.

REEXAMINE YOUR BELIEFS ALWAYS. YOUR THOUGHTS ARE NOT REALITY, THEY ARE JUST THOUGHTS MADE BY YOUR SQUISHY ELECTRIC MEAT.

[spamtoon]

(Out of nowhere, you are approached by a familiar lightbulb-headed Cog.)

Ah, it's you, cat. Thinking you're oh-so-slick. Muttering and whispering under those raggedy whiskers of yours... Thinking I am unable to hear it all...

Well, you've simply underestimated my fantastic hearing. You probably want to know the reason why I'm here, taking a 'break' from my incredibly important scientific breakthroughs? It's quite simple, really!

(She gets close, and squints her eyes.)

I know what you are.

Farewell, now!

(She then leaves the way she came from.)

(Spam giggles immensely, covering her face... it always seems like she's giggling, isn't she? This lasts... at least thirty seconds. Longer than usual.)

And I know what I am too, Sparky! You broke through something, that's for sure. Really, broke through...

(She looks down, continuing to laugh nervously.)

You know, I find it odd you Havent tried to bulb blast me into the stratosphere by now. I mean knowing how you acted with Frostbite. Is there something peculiar about me that you perhaps can't quite track? Something about me that you... don't know what I am?

I know, I know, I'm talking to nobody again. But you were there when I had a moment today with the one the only Frostbite The Bravecog. You may be remaining. Lurking in the shadows. Knowing about these thoughts that I'm thinking.

(The giggling resumes, lasting far shorter this time.)

Your brother's a piece of fucking barp, by the way

(She braces for impact for a few seconds, wincing while smiling, before comically looking around to realize nobody's there. She sighs.)

Wow, okay maybe toony superhero show logic doesn't apply in this situation. Cool.

WAIT I JUST FUCKING REALIZED WHAT SHE MEANT but like. Dude if she meant that then what's the point I mean the whole ahh sellbot department barping knows unless you're Really low on the ladder. Heheh... maybe she did mean what I thought she meant.

Oh i'm so fucking screwed. What kind of bitch gets filament fever

[alteredphoenix]

There's a part of me that definitely would like to do Kagurabachi fics but it's still too early to do so (at the time of this post, we're 19 chapters in) when events are focusing on the now (re: post-Sojo fallout, the Rakuzaichi auction and the Sazanami family plus Hakuri) and the worldbuilding is spoken of and hinted at but is still in the process of laying down its foundations.

[phantomrose96]

Okay I have a story.

So my birthday is this Sunday (May 26th). My mom ordered some presents for me but one of them (an Etsy purchase) was seemingly stuck in transit and might not make it on time. I tell my mom all good, no worries. She gets in contact with the seller. After a long delay in response they get back with "Right we'll fix it!" It ships, tracking label and everything, good to go! ETA May 22nd (yesterday.)

During the work day I check the tracking and it says it's been delivered in/at mailbox! I double check with my mom "hey, is it mailbox size?" because if not, I don't want it sitting at the front door where anyone walking by could snag it.

She says "it's definitely NOT mailbox size." Okay. I text my neighbors in the building "Anyone seen a package delivered? It's a birthday gift from my mom and I wanna make sure it gets inside!" Success! Floor 2 David (not to be confused with Floor 1 David) had brought it inside. Inform my mom. All good!

I stop by home briefly around 4pm, because yesterday was hot-hot and I just installed my window A/C that morning in the living room, and according to my cat cam my stupid cat hasn't spent a single second in the climate controlled living room and is, instead, voluntarily baking herself elsewhere so I'm like "great" and hop on my bike to go home (10 minute ride) to check on her.

I get in the building door. Patches is crying from the top floor because she heard me. I maneuver my bike in the front hall. The ugliest fucking 6-foot-tall cat tree(?)/totem(?)/statue(?) I've seen in my entire life is just. Standing there.

My first thought is "What the fuck is that." My second thought is "Oh fuck that is for me." I look around at the floor in case there's perhaps anything else that might, in fact, be the gift.

No. Me and Cat Pole.

It's taller than me. I turn it around to face me and its face is painted and this is, in fact, uglier than it looked from the back.

Um.

Patches is crying. So I just haul it up to my level. MAYBE it was supposed to come with twine that I wrap around it (and hide its face from the world) for Patches to scratch. Maybe this is a prank. Maybe this is an inside joke, because when my mom moved into her current house the neighborhood gifted her some ugly-as-hell totem that apparently, by tradition, each newest-comer to the neighborhood is required to have and display in their window so maybe this is a very good riff on that.

Patches rubs against it. She's not afraid of this horrid facsimile of her kind.

Great.

Meanwhile SHE'S fine and the condo is a little toasty but totally liveable so I'm like "Good, cool, you're not baking. You're having a good time. Enjoy your new sister, I guess, I'll see you later."

I go back to work because this is a problem for later me.

After work, after my run, after whatever, I get home and it's like 8:00pm and Patches is so happy to see me and the totem pole is still just. There.

I text my friends like "so a bday gift is here from my mom and it's the Biggest Ugliest cat pole I've seen in my life. Is this a bit? Did my mom go 'that's so ugly haha! send!' Maybe she genuinely found it cute. How do I navigate this." My friend Sarah has the good advice to maybe text my mom neutrally like "Got the cat pole!" and feel the waters whether my mom is like "Isn't it ugly? 😂" or "Hope Patches likes it! 🥰"

My mom goes to bed early so I don't do any of that yet. Problem for tomorrow me.

This morning, Patches wakes me up for breakfast. I get her situated and I'm staring at the fucking Cat Pole again. I wonder if my Mom's been wondering all night what I thought of it.

I take a picture. I text her.

Okay.

I get on call with my mom. I ask for clarity that the ungodly horrid thing is NOT my birthday gift and is in fact a mix-up from the seller who sent me this instead of my actual gift. She's wheezing between words. She thinks I'm being too charitable for the amount of Absolute Fucking Ugly this is. I have to gently talk her out of using the word "monstrosity" while messaging the seller asking what the hell happened here.

I tell her I need to apologize for harming her dignity with Floor 2 David, who thinks this fucking thing is my mom's idea of a great birthday gift for her to-be-28-year-old daughter.

My heart goes out to the poor soul who did actually order this cat totem and is lacking it on this lovely day.

[bilal-salah0]

Before the war, after I left Gaza for Germany, I used to call my dad almost everday and tell him about my day. He would tell me how everyone else was doing and say that Salah,my little nephew, kept asking where I was.

Now, I hardly ever reach my parents or any of my siblings.I don't think Salah even remembers who I am any more as he struggles to carry water containers. I always find myself agonizing and wondering if I'll ever meet my family again, whether the newborns will see me one day and know that their uncle longs to hold them in his arms.

Every time I look at my dad's picture in our home, smiling and surrounded by his grandchildren, it breaks my heart into a million pieces. The house he dreamed the kids would grow up in was leveled to the ground in a split second. Nothing is left, not even both his shoe shops where he worked so hard to build a future for us all. My siblings are unable to work or finish their studies. There are no schools left for the children. There is no proper food, water, or sanitation, no life; only death and rubble all around.

When my brother sent me a photo of my dad lighting a fire, he still had that same old smile on his face. I was relieved to see him somewhat hopeful but it broke my heart even more. My father is the most resilient and hard-working man I've ever known. He always supported us in whatever we wanted to achieve. His only hope was that his grandkids would grow up safely and happily in their home. He never complained from work and taught us the true meaning of sacrifice and perseverance. Instead of living peacefully with his family, he, the kids, and everyone else have to endure life in a makeshift tent,God knows for how much longer, while their lives are constantly threatened by airstrikes, starvation, and disease. No child, elder, or adult should go through such hardships for this long.

As the injustice persists, we only find solace and hope because the free people of this world are still standing with us. Please continue to support us any way you can. I don't even have the words any more to say how grateful I am to everyone. You have already done so much for us but we need you now more than ever.

Please donate if you can and reblog as many times as possible.

[ketchuppee]

During the 2008 recession, my aunt lost her job. Her, her partner, and my three cousins moved across the country to stay with us while they got back on their feet. My house turned from a family of four to a family of nine overnight, complete with three dogs and five cats between us.

It took a few years for them to get a place of their own, but after a few rentals and apartments, they now own a split level ranch in a town nearby. I’ve lost track of how many coworkers and friends have stayed with them when they were in a tight spot. A mother and son getting out of an abusive relationship, a divorcee trying to stay local for his kids while they work out a custody agreement, you name it. My aunt and uncle knew first hand what that kindness meant, and always find space for someone who needed it, the way my parents had for them.

That same aunt and uncle visited me in [redacted] city last year. They are prolific drinkers, so we spent most of the day bar hopping. As we wandered the city, any time we passed a homeless person, my uncle would pull out a fresh cigarette and ask them if they had a light. Regardless of if they had a lighter on hand or not, he offered them a few bucks in exchange, which he explained to me after was because he felt it would be easier for them to accept in exchange for a service, no matter how small.

I work for a company that produces a lot of fabric waste. Every few weeks, I bring two big black trash bags full of discarded material over to a woman who works down the hall. She distributes them to local churches, quilting clubs, and teachers who can use them for crafts. She’s currently in the process of working with our building to set up a recycling program for the smaller pieces of fabric that are harder to find use for.

One of my best friends gives monthly donations to four or five local organizations. She’s fortunate enough to have a tech job that gives her a good salary, and she knows that a recurring donation is more valuable to a non-profit because they can rely on that money month after month, and can plan ways to stretch that dollar for maximum impact. One of those organizations is a native plant trust, and once she’s out of her apartment complex and in a home with a yard, she has plans to convert it into a haven of local flora.

My partner works for a company that is working to help regulate crypto and hold the current bad actors in the space accountable for their actions. We unfortunately live in a time where technology develops far too fast for bureaucracy to keep up with, but just because people use a technology for ill gain doesn’t mean the technology itself is bad. The blockchain is something that she finds fascinating and powerful, and she is using her degree and her expertise to turn it into a tool for good.

I knew someone who always had a bag of treats in their purse, on the odd chance they came across a stray cat or dog, they had something to offer them.

I follow artists who post about every local election they know of, because they know their platform gives them more reach than the average person, and that they can leverage that platform to encourage people to vote in elections that get less attention, but in many ways have more impact on the direction our country is going to go.

All of this to say, there’s more than one way to do good in the world. Social media leads us to believe that the loudest, the most vocal, the most prolific poster is the most virtuous, but they are only a piece of the puzzle. (And if virtue for virtues sake is your end goal, you’ve already lost, but that’s a different post). Community is built of people leveraging their privileges to help those without them. We need people doing all of those things and more, because no individual can or should do all of it. You would be stretched too thin, your efforts valiant, but less effective in your ambition.

None of this is to encourage inaction. Identify your unique strengths, skills, and privileges, and put them to use. Determine what causes are important to you, and commit to doing what you can to help them. Collective action is how change is made, but don’t forget that we need diversity in actions taken.

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

SFX Magazine Issue 372 - Designing Good Omens ❤ 😊

PRODUCTION DESIGNER MICHAEL RALPH REVEALS HOW THE SHOW’S CENTREPIECE SET, WHICKBER STREET, WAS GIVEN A DEVILISHLY CLEVER UPGRADE FOR THE SECOND SEASON

WORDS: DAVE GOLDER

Invisible Columns And Thin Walls “The new studio is Pyramid Studios in Bathgate – it used to be a furniture warehouse. And unfortunately – or fortunately, because I accept these things as not challenges but gifts – right down the middle of that studio are a series of upright columns. But you’ll never spot them on screen. I had to build them in and integrate them into the walls and still get the streets between them. And it worked.

“There’s all sorts of cheeky design values to those sets. Normally a set like this is double-skin. In other words, you do an interior wall and an exterior wall, with an airspace in between. But really, the only time a viewer notices that there’s that width is at the doors and the windows. So I cheated all that. I ended up with single walls everywhere. So the exterior wall is the interior wall, just painted. All I did was make the sash windows and entrances wider to give it some depth as you walked in.”

GOOD OMENS HAD A CHANGE of location for its second season, but hopefully you didn’t notice. Because Whickber Street in Soho upped sticks from an airfield in Hertfordshire to a furniture warehouse in Bathgate, Edinburgh. It’s the kind of nonsensical geographical shenanigans that could only make sense in the crazy world of film and TV, and production designer Michael Ralph was the man in charge of rebuilding and expanding the show’s vast central set. “I wish we could have built more in season one than we did,” says Ralph, whose previous work has included Primeval and Dickensian. “We built the ground floor of everything and the facades of all the shops. But we didn’t build anything higher than that, because we were out on an airfield in a very, very difficult terrain and weather conditions, so we really couldn’t go much higher. Visual effects created the upper levels.”

But with season two the set has gone to a whole other level… literally. “What happened was that the rest of the street became integrated into the series’s storyline,” explains Ralph. “So we needed a record shop, we needed a coffee shop that actually had an inside, we needed a magic shop, we needed the pub. To introduce those meant we had to change the street with a layout that works from a storylines point of view. In other words, things like someone standing at the counter in the record shop had to be able to eyeball somebody standing at the counter in the coffee shop. They had to be able to eyeball Aziraphale sitting in his office in the window of the bookshop. But the rest of it was a pleasure to do inside, because we could expand it and I could go up two storeys.”

For most of the set, which is around 80 metres long and 60 metres wide, the two storeys only applied to the shop frontages, but in the case of Aziraphale’s bookshop, it allowed Ralph to build the mezzanine level for real this time. According to Ralph it became one of the cast and crews’ favourite places to hang out during down time.

But while AZ Fell & Co has grown in height, it actually has a slightly smaller footprint because of the logistics of adapting it to the new studio.

“Everybody swore to me that no one would notice,” says Ralph wryly. “I walked onto it and instinctively knew there was a difference immediately, and they hated me for that. I have this innate sense about spatial awareness and an eye like a spirit level.

“It’s not a lot, though – I think we’ve lost maybe two and a half feet on the front wall internally. I think that there’s a couple of other smaller areas, but only I’d notice. So I can be really annoying to my guys, but only on those levels. Not on any other. They actually quite like me…”

Populating The Bookshop “The props in the new bookshop set were a flawless reproduction from the set decorator Bronwyn Franklin [who is also Ralph’s wife]. It was really the worst-case scenario after season one. She works off the concept art that I produce, but what she does is she adds so much more to the character of the set. She doesn’t buy anything she doesn’t love, or doesn’t fit the character.

“But the things she put a lot of work into finding for season one, they were pretty much one-offs. When we burnt the set down in the sixth episode, we lost a lot of props, many of which had been spotted and appreciated by the fans. So Bronwyn had to discover a new set decorating technique: forensic buying.

“She found it all – duplicates and replicas. It took ages. In that respect, the Covid delay was very helpful for Bron. There’s 7,000 books in there and there’s not one fake book. That’s mainly because… it’s a weird thing to say, but we wanted it to smell and feel like a bookshop to everybody that was in it, all the time.

“It affects everybody subliminally; it affects everybody’s performance – actors and crew – it raises the bar 15 to 20%. And the detail, you know… We love a lot of detail.”

(look at the description under this, they called him 'Azi' hehehehe :D <3)

Aziraphale’s Inspirational Correspondence “There’s not one single scrap of paper on Aziraphale’s desk that isn’t written specifically for Aziraphale. Every single piece is not just fodder that’s been shoved there, it has a purpose; it’s a letter of thanks, or an enquiry about a book or something.

“Michael Sheen is so submerged in his character he would get lost sitting at his own desk, reading his own correspondence between takes. I believe wholeheartedly that if you put that much care into every single piece of detail, on that desk and in that room, that everybody feels it, including the crew, and then they give that set the same respect it deserves.

“They also lift their game because they believe that they’re doing something of so much care and value. Really, it’s a domino effect of passion and care for what you’re producing.”

Alternative Music “My daughter Mickey is lead graphic designer [two of Ralph’s sons worked on the series too, one as a concept artist, the other in props]. They’re the ones that produced all of that handwritten work on the desk. She’s the one that took on the record shop and made up 80 band names so that we didn’t have to get copyright clearance from real bands. Then she produced records and sleeves that spanned 50, 60 years of their recordings, and all of the graphics on the walls.

“I remember Michael and Neil [Gaiman] getting lost following one band’s history on the wall, looking at their posters and albums desperately trying to find out whether they survived that emo period.”

It’s A Kind Of Magic One of the new shops in Whickber Street for season two was Will Goldstone’s Magic Shop, which is full of as many Easter eggs as off-the-shelf conjuring tricks, including a Matt Smith Doctor Who-style fez and a toy orang-utan that’s a nod to Discworld’s The Librarian. Ralph says that while the series is full of references to Gaiman, Pratchett and Doctor Who, Michael Sheen never complained about a lack of Masters Of Sex in-jokes. “He’d be the last person to make that sort of comment!”

Ralph also reveals that the magic shop counter was another one of his wife’s purchases, bought at a Glasgow reclamation yard.

The Anansi Boys Connection Ralph reveals that Good Omens season two used the state-of-the-art special effects tech Volume (famous for its use in The Mandalorian to create virtual backdrops) for just one sequence, but he will be using it extensively elsewhere on another Gaiman TV series being made for Prime Video.

“We used Volume on the opening sequence to create the creation of the universe. I was designing Anansi Boys in duality with this project, which seems an outrageously suicidal thing to do. But it was fantastic and Anansi Boys was all on Volume. So I designed for Volume on one show and not Volume on the other. The complexities and the psychology of both is different.”

[exeggcute]

the great reddit API meltdown of '23, or: this was always bound to happen

there's a lot of press about what's going on with reddit right now (app shutdowns, subreddit blackouts, the CEO continually putting his foot in his mouth), but I haven't seen as much stuff talking about how reddit got into this situation to begin with. so as a certified non-expert and Context Enjoyer I thought it might be helpful to lay things out as I understand them—a high-level view, surveying the whole landscape—in the wonderful world of startups, IPOs, and extremely angry users.

disclaimer that I am not a founder or VC (lmao), have yet to work at a company with a successful IPO, and am not a reddit employee or third-party reddit developer or even a subreddit moderator. I do work at a startup, know my way around an API or two, and have spent twelve regrettable years on reddit itself. which is to say that I make no promises of infallibility, but I hope you'll at least find all this interesting.

profit now or profit later

before you can really get into reddit as reddit, it helps to know a bit about startups (of which reddit is one). and before I launch into that, let me share my Three Types Of Websites framework, which is basically just a mental model about financial incentives that's helped me contextualize some of this stuff.

(1) website/software that does not exist to make money: relatively rare, for a variety of reasons, among them that it costs money to build and maintain a website in the first place. wikipedia is the evergreen example, although even wikipedia's been subject to criticism for how the wikimedia foundation pays out its employees and all that fun nonprofit stuff. what's important here is that even when making money is not the goal, money itself is still a factor, whether it's solicited via donations or it's just one guy paying out of pocket to host a hobby site. but websites in this category do, generally, offer free, no-strings-attached experiences to their users.

(I do want push back against the retrospective nostalgia of "everything on the internet used to be this way" because I don't think that was ever really true—look at AOL, the dotcom boom, the rise of banner ads. I distinctly remember that neopets had multiple corporate sponsors, including a cookie crisp-themed flash game. yahoo bought geocities for $3.6 billion; money's always been trading hands, obvious or not. it's indisputable that the internet is simply different now than it was ten or twenty years ago, and that monetization models themselves have largely changed as well (I have thoughts about this as it relates to web 1.0 vs web 2.0 and their associated costs/scale/etc.), but I think the only time people weren't trying to squeeze the internet for all the dimes it can offer was when the internet was first conceived as a tool for national defense.)

(2) website/software that exists to make money now: the type that requires the least explanation. mostly non-startup apps and services, including any random ecommerce storefront, mobile apps that cost three bucks to download, an MMO with a recurring subscription, or even a news website that runs banner ads and/or offers paid subscriptions. in most (but not all) cases, the "make money now" part is obvious, so these things don't feel free to us as users, even to the extent that they might have watered-down free versions or limited access free trials. no one's shocked when WoW offers another paid expansion packs because WoW's been around for two decades and has explicitly been trying to make money that whole time.

(3) website/software that exists to make money later: this is the fun one, and more common than you'd think. "make money later" is more or less the entire startup business model—I'll get into that in the next section—and is deployed with the expectation that you will make money at some point, but not always by means as obvious as "selling WoW expansions for forty bucks a pop."

companies in this category tend to have two closely entwined characteristics: they prioritize growth above all else, regardless of whether this growth is profitable in any way (now, or sometimes, ever), and they do this by offering users really cool and awesome shit at little to no cost (or, if not for free, then at least at a significant loss to the company).

so from a user perspective, these things either seem free or far cheaper than their competitors. but of course websites and software and apps and [blank]-as-a-service tools cost money to build and maintain, and that money has to come from somewhere, and the people supplying that money, generally, expect to get it back...

just not immediately.

startups, VCs, IPOs, and you

here's the extremely condensed "did NOT go to harvard business school" version of how a startup works:

(1) you have a cool idea.

(2) you convince some venture capitalists (also known as VCs) that your idea is cool. if they see the potential in what you're pitching, they'll give you money in exchange for partial ownership of your company—which means that if/when the company starts trading its stock publicly, these investors will own X numbers of shares that they can sell at any time. in other words, you get free money now (and you'll likely seek multiple "rounds" of investors over the years to sustain your company), but with the explicit expectations that these investors will get their payoff later, assuming you don't crash and burn before that happens.

during this phase, you want to do anything in your power to make your company appealing to investors so you can attract more of them and raise funds as needed. because you are definitely not bringing in the necessary revenue to offset operating costs by yourself.

it's also worth nothing that this is less about projecting the long-term profitability of your company than it's about its perceived profitability—i.e., VCs want to put their money behind a company that other people will also have confidence in, because that's what makes stock valuable, and VCs are in it for stock prices.

(3) there are two non-exclusive win conditions for your startup: you can get acquired, and you can have an IPO (also referred to as "going public"). these are often called "exit scenarios" and they benefit VCs and founders, as well as some employees. it's also possible for a company to get acquired, possibly even more than once, and then later go public.

acquisition: sell the whole damn thing to someone else. there are a million ways this can happen, some better than others, but in many cases this means anyone with ownership of the company (which includes both investors and employees who hold stock options) get their stock bought out by the acquiring company and end up with cash in hand. in varying amounts, of course. sometimes the founders walk away, sometimes the employees get laid off, but not always.

IPO: short for "initial public offering," this is when the company starts trading its stocks publicly, which means anyone who wants to can start buying that company's stock, which really means that VCs (and employees with stock options) can turn that hypothetical money into real money by selling their company stock to interested buyers.

drawing from that, companies don't go for an IPO until they think their stock will actually be worth something (or else what's the point?)—specifically, worth more than the amount of money that investors poured into it. The Powers That Be will speculate about a company's IPO potential way ahead of time, which is where you'll hear stuff about companies who have an estimated IPO evaluation of (to pull a completely random example) $10B. actually I lied, that was not a random example, that was reddit's valuation back in 2021 lol. but a valuation is basically just "how much will people be interested in our stock?"

as such, in the time leading up to an IPO, it's really really important to do everything you can to make your company seem like a good investment (which is how you get stock prices up), usually by making the company's numbers look good. but! if you plan on cashing out, the long-term effects of your decisions aren't top of mind here. remember, the industry lingo is "exit scenario."

if all of this seems like a good short-term strategy for companies and their VCs, but an unsustainable model for anyone who's buying those stocks during the IPO, that's because it often is.

also worth noting that it's possible for a company to be technically unprofitable as a business (meaning their costs outstrip their revenue) and still trade enormously well on the stock market; uber is the perennial example of this. to the people who make money solely off of buying and selling stock, it literally does not matter that the actual rideshare model isn't netting any income—people think the stock is valuable, so it's valuable.

this is also why, for example, elon musk is richer than god: if he were only the CEO of tesla, the money he'd make from selling mediocre cars would be (comparatively, lol) minimal. but he's also one of tesla's angel investors, which means he holds a shitload of tesla stock, and tesla's stock has performed well since their IPO a decade ago (despite recent dips)—even if tesla itself has never been a huge moneymaker, public faith in the company's eventual success has kept them trading at high levels. granted, this also means most of musk's wealth is hypothetical and not liquid; if TSLA dropped to nothing, so would the value of all the stock he holds (and his net work with it).

what's an API, anyway?

to move in an entirely different direction: we can't get into reddit's API debacle without understanding what an API itself is.

an API (short for "application programming interface," not that it really matters) is a series of code instructions that independent developers can use to plug their shit into someone else's shit. like a series of tin cans on strings between two kids' treehouses, but for sending and receiving data.

APIs work by yoinking data directly from a company's servers instead of displaying anything visually to users. so I could use reddit's API to build my own app that takes the day's top r/AITA post and transcribes it into pig latin: my app is a bunch of lines of code, and some of those lines of code fetch data from reddit (and then transcribe that data into pig latin), and then my app displays the content to anyone who wants to see it, not reddit itself. as far as reddit is concerned, no additional human beings laid eyeballs on that r/AITA post, and reddit never had a chance to serve ads alongside the pig-latinized content in my app. (put a pin in this part—it'll be relevant later.)

but at its core, an API is really a type of protocol, which encompasses a broad category of formats and business models and so on. some APIs are completely free to use, like how anyone can build a discord bot (but you still have to host it yourself). some companies offer free APIs to third-party developers can build their own plugins, and then the company and the third-party dev split the profit on those plugins. some APIs have a free tier for hobbyists and a paid tier for big professional projects (like every weather API ever, lol). some APIs are strictly paid services because the API itself is the company's core offering.

reddit's financial foundations

okay thanks for sticking with me. I promise we're almost ready to be almost ready to talk about the current backlash.

reddit has always been a startup's startup from day one: its founders created the site after attending a startup incubator (which is basically a summer camp run by VCs) with the successful goal of creating a financially successful site. backed by that delicious y combinator money, reddit got acquired by conde nast only a year or two after its creation, which netted its founders a couple million each. this was back in like, 2006 by the way. in the time since that acquisition, reddit's gone through a bunch of additional funding rounds, including from big-name investors like a16z, peter thiel (yes, that guy), sam altman (yes, also that guy), sequoia, fidelity, and tencent. crunchbase says that they've raised a total of $1.3B in investor backing.

in all this time, reddit has never been a public company, or, strictly speaking, profitable.

APIs and third-party apps

reddit has offered free API access for basically as long as it's had a public API—remember, as a "make money later" company, their primary goal is growth, which means attracting as many users as possible to the platform. so letting anyone build an app or widget is (or really, was) in line with that goal.

as such, third-party reddit apps have been around forever. by third-party apps, I mean apps that use the reddit API to display actual reddit content in an unofficial wrapper. iirc reddit didn't even have an official mobile app until semi-recently, so many of these third-party mobile apps in particular just sprung up to meet an unmet need, and they've kept a small but dedicated userbase ever since. some people also prefer the user experience of the unofficial apps, especially since they offer extra settings to customize what you're seeing and few to no ads (and any ads these apps do display are to the benefit of the third-party developers, not reddit itself.)

(let me add this preemptively: one solution I've seen proposed to the paid API backlash is that reddit should have third-party developers display reddit's ads in those third-party apps, but this isn't really possible or advisable due to boring adtech reasons I won't inflict on you here. source: just trust me bro)

in addition to mobile apps, there are also third-party tools that don’t replace the Official Reddit Viewing Experience but do offer auxiliary features like being able to mass-delete your post history, tools that make the site more accessible to people who use screen readers, and tools that help moderators of subreddits moderate more easily. not to mention a small army of reddit bots like u/AutoWikibot or u/RemindMebot (and then the bots that tally the number of people who reply to bot comments with “good bot” or “bad bot).

the number of people who use third-party apps is relatively small, but they arguably comprise some of reddit’s most dedicated users, which means that third-party apps are important to the people who keep reddit running and the people who supply reddit with high-quality content.

unpaid moderators and user-generated content

so reddit is sort of two things: reddit is a platform, but it’s also a community.

the platform is all the unsexy (or, if you like python, sexy) stuff under the hood that actually makes the damn thing work. this is what the company spends money building and maintaining and "owns." the community is all the stuff that happens on the platform: posts, people, petty squabbles. so the platform is where the content lives, but ultimately the content is the reason people use reddit—no one’s like “yeah, I spend time on here because the backend framework really impressed me."

and all of this content is supplied by users, which is not unique among social media platforms, but the content is also managed by users, which is. paid employees do not govern subreddits; unpaid volunteers do. and moderation is the only thing that keeps reddit even remotely tolerable—without someone to remove spam, ban annoying users, and (god willing) enforce rules against abuse and hate speech, a subreddit loses its appeal and therefore its users. not dissimilar to the situation we’re seeing play out at twitter, except at twitter it was the loss of paid moderators;  reddit is arguably in a more precarious position because they could lose this unpaid labor at any moment, and as an already-unprofitable company they absolutely cannot afford to implement paid labor as a substitute.

oh yeah? spell "IPO" backwards

so here we are, June 2023, and reddit is licking its lips in anticipation of a long-fabled IPO. which means it’s time to start fluffing themselves up for investors by cutting costs (yay, layoffs!) and seeking new avenues of profit, however small.

this brings us to the current controversy: reddit announced a new API pricing plan that more or less prevents anyone from using it for free.

from reddit's perspective, the ostensible benefits of charging for API access are twofold: first, there's direct profit to be made off of the developers who (may or may not) pay several thousand dollars a month to use it, and second, cutting off unsanctioned third-party mobile apps (possibly) funnels those apps' users back into the official reddit mobile app. and since users on third-party apps reap the benefit of reddit's site architecture (and hosting, and development, and all the other expenses the site itself incurs) without “earning” money for reddit by generating ad impressions, there’s a financial incentive at work here: even if only a small percentage of people use third-party apps, getting them to use the official app instead translates to increased ad revenue, however marginal.

(also worth mentioning that chatGPT and other LLMs were trained via tools that used reddit's API to scrape post and content data, and now that openAI is reaping the profits of that training without giving reddit any kickbacks, reddit probably wants to prevent repeats of this from happening in the future. if you want to train the next LLM, it's gonna cost you.)

of course, these changes only benefit reddit if they actually increase the company’s revenue and perceived value/growth—which is hard to do when your users (who are also the people who supply the content for other users to engage with, who are also the people who moderate your communities and make them fun to participate in) get really fucking pissed and threaten to walk.

pricing shenanigans

under the new API pricing plan, third-party developers are suddenly facing steep costs to maintain the apps and tools they’ve built.

most paid APIs are priced by volume: basically, the more data you send and receive, the more money it costs. so if your third-party app has a lot of users, you’ll have to make more API requests to fetch content for those users, and your app becomes more expensive to maintain. (this isn’t an issue if the tool you’re building also turns a profit, but most third-party reddit apps make little, if any, money.)

which is why, even though third-party apps capture a relatively small portion of reddit’s users, the developer of a popular third-party app called apollo recently learned that it would cost them about $20 million a year to keep the app running. and apollo actually offers some paid features (for extra in-app features independent of what reddit offers), but nowhere near enough to break even on those API costs.

so apollo, any many apps like it, were suddenly unable to keep their doors open under the new API pricing model and announced that they'd be forced to shut down.

backlash, blackout

plenty has been said already about the current subreddit blackouts—in like, official news outlets and everything—so this might be the least interesting section of my whole post lol. the short version is that enough redditors got pissed enough that they collectively decided to take subreddits “offline” in protest, either by making them read-only or making them completely inaccessible. their goal was to send a message, and that message was "if you piss us off and we bail, here's what reddit's gonna be like: a ghost town."

but, you may ask, if third-party apps only captured a small number of users in the first place, how was the backlash strong enough to result in a near-sitewide blackout? well, two reasons:

first and foremost, since moderators in particular are fond of third-party tools, and since moderators wield outsized power (as both the people who keep your site more or less civil, and as the people who can take a subreddit offline if they feel like it), it’s in your best interests to keep them happy. especially since they don’t get paid to do this job in the first place, won’t keep doing it if it gets too hard, and essentially have nothing to lose by stepping down.

then, to a lesser extent, the non-moderator users on third-party apps tend to be Power Users who’ve been on reddit since its inception, and as such likely supply a disproportionate amount of the high-quality content for other users to see (and for ads to be served alongside). if you drive away those users, you’re effectively kneecapping your overall site traffic (which is bad for Growth) and reducing the number/value of any ad impressions you can serve (which is bad for revenue).

also a secret third reason, which is that even people who use the official apps have no stake in a potential IPO, can smell the general unfairness of this whole situation, and would enjoy the schadenfreude of investors getting fucked over. not to mention that reddit’s current CEO has made a complete ass of himself and now everyone hates him and wants to see him suffer personally.

(granted, it seems like reddit may acquiesce slightly and grant free API access to a select set of moderation/accessibility tools, but at this point it comes across as an empty gesture.)

"later" is now "now"

TL;DR: this whole thing is a combination of many factors, specifically reddit being intensely user-driven and self-governed, but also a high-traffic site that costs a lot of money to run (why they willingly decided to start hosting video a few years back is beyond me...), while also being angled as a public stock market offering in the very near future. to some extent I understand why reddit’s CEO doubled down on the changes—he wants to look strong for investors—but he’s also made a fool of himself and cast a shadow of uncertainty onto reddit’s future, not to mention the PR nightmare surrounding all of this. and since arguably the most important thing in an IPO is how much faith people have in your company, I honestly think reddit would’ve fared better if they hadn’t gone nuclear with the API changes in the first place.

that said, I also think it’s a mistake to assume that reddit care (or needs to care) about its users in any meaningful way, or at least not as more than means to an end. if reddit shuts down in three years, but all of the people sitting on stock options right now cashed out at $120/share and escaped unscathed... that’s a success story! you got your money! VCs want to recoup their investment—they don’t care about longevity (at least not after they’re gone), user experience, or even sustained profit. those were never the forces driving them, because these were never the ultimate metrics of their success.

and to be clear: this isn’t unique to reddit. this is how pretty much all startups operate.

I talked about the difference between “make money now” companies and “make money later” companies, and what we’re experiencing is the painful transition from “later” to “now.” as users, this change is almost invisible until it’s already happened—it’s like a rug we didn’t even know existed gets pulled out from under us.

the pre-IPO honeymoon phase is awesome as a user, because companies have no expectation of profit, only growth. if you can rely on VC money to stay afloat, your only concern is building a user base, not squeezing a profit out of them. and to do that, you offer cool shit at a loss: everything’s chocolate and flowers and quarterly reports about the number of signups you’re getting!

...until you reach a critical mass of users, VCs want to cash in, and to prepare for that IPO leadership starts thinking of ways to make the website (appear) profitable and implements a bunch of shit that makes users go “wait, what?”

I also touched on this earlier, but I want to reiterate a bit here: I think the myth of the benign non-monetized internet of yore is exactly that—a myth. what has changed are the specific market factors behind these websites, and their scale, and the means by which they attempt to monetize their services and/or make their services look attractive to investors, and so from a user perspective things feel worse because the specific ways we’re getting squeezed have evolved. maybe they are even worse, at least in the ways that matter. but I’m also increasingly less surprised when this occurs, because making money is and has always been the goal for all of these ventures, regardless of how they try to do so.

[nope-body]

.

[chronicas]

When I say Dungeon Meshi is on level with Tolkien’s works I’m being insanely serious. It has such an insane level of care and detail put into it with a clear love for the genre. The pacing matches that of epics similar to how Tolkien wrote his books. Of course I’m not to say these stories are comparable in ways of what the stories are about, they both handle incredibly different themes, but dungeon manga is derivative of D&D and D&D is derivative of Tolkien.

In a very common genre it stands out with an extreme amount of attention to detail and in-depth world building. It’s also predictable in the best way possible, it doesn’t rely on shock value to surprise and excite you. Throughout the entire story there was never any point that any decisions from any of the characters felt out of place.

And on top of it all it’s an extremely relatable piece an an autistic person. Laios as an autistic character is so fucking well written and his narrative is shaped very strongly around the experience of growing up autistic.

I could keep going on and on about why I think Dunmeshi is fucking peak fantasy but literally y’all know what I’m about. Read it if you haven’t I’m so serious.

[signedkoko]

Oo could I request romantic Vees with a reader who's this famous singer/idol in Hell? (Think, way more than Fizzarolli-level famous)

Valentino | Velvette | Vox [Romantic]

In which you are one of the most popular performance artists in all of hell. Reader is female.

Your name was more than just 'known'; it was plastered along buildings and chanted by millions

He was always scouting for personalities, following trends in people to see who he could drag down into his vicing grip

But you were untouchable, the first thing he couldn't command to their knees before him

Even so, if Val wanted to meet you, he could, and it was extremely new to the overlord to have to go out of his way to meet someone, but he felt it was worth it

He claims it was because you had possible talent, but those closest to him know he had a bit of a celebrity crush

Valentino is not one to be nervous; he would be direct when telling you that he wanted you, again and again, until you eventually granted him at least one night out, just the two of you

Once he has his chance, he'll pull out every stop just to hear you say that you'd like to see him again

He gets so distracted with you that he forgets the part about getting you into his company, eventually brushing it off by saying you 'didn't suit what he was looking for'

Avoiding being under his contract meant he could never command you, which meant he never had anything to be angry with you about

According to him, you were a role model for all the demons he owned

Famous stars require famous stylists, and who better than Velvette?

You'd actually reached out to her personally, since a lot of her work inspired your current stylists, and you wanted an upgrade for your tour of hell

Idol's like you were the exact thing people like Velvette dreamed of having in their portfolio, and she insisted on meeting you so she could see what you were looking for

In all her years, she'd never met an idol so genuine—most were snobbish, greedy, or just told her to 'do whatever'

You came in with photos of things you liked, hell, even fabrics you preferred, and a set list of what your songs would look like in order

She was already in love

You get her personal creations, and she insists on being the one to tailor you herself

" Only the best for the best, right? "

She can feel her bitchy attitude melt, and though she gets extremely bothered when anyone interrupts your sessions together, you ground her

It's not long before you two become official, and while she can't follow you into the deeper rings of hell, she will always be sure to watch your performances in the background while she works

She constantly calls you 'doll', because she's always dressing you up

Influences, aristocrats, idols—none of it was new to the king of social media

Everyone contacted him for their social management, or his team, at least

He didn't do much of the personal work himself; he had far too much on his plate, but he always checked on who was requesting his services

Mostly for the ego boost, knowing the image of so many self-proclaimed "stars'' relied on him

But there was also a list of people he wanted to work for, a list that brought his ego back down and told him he hadn't met his goals yet and had to try harder

You were at the very top

He'd seen a plethora of your performances recorded and reuploaded: best takes, most underrated performances, and unforgettable sets

But he'd never had the chance to see you live until he got a PR package regarding your newest album release

Him? It was certainly interesting to...no shot, you sent him hidden tickets for 'friends only'

He is not fangirling except maybe a bit; he's already cleared his schedule that evening so he can get there and making sure his outfit is cleaned up and ready

Your performance was out of this world, and he is beyond pleased when he is invited backstage to speak with you

There you were, taking off your earrings in your dressing room, smiling at him as if you were old friends

" How was the performance? I'm so glad you came. "

For a moment, hes almost worried you have the wrong person; he seems uncertain of what to say until you continue

" I heard you are hard to win over, so I figured I'd go all out before I ask if you'd consider running my new album compaigne? "

He acts cool, but when he gets home that evening, he is pumping his fist in the air and screaming

Author's Note - I was thinking lilith-level famous, you are THAT girl... Thank you for requesting! I went for a fem! reader because it was no specified

[scarletlizzard]

Inked Desires - Part 2

Read Part 1 right here

Summary: After your one night stand with a stranger turns into a regular hookup, feelings begin to develop between you and Natasha. A night out at the bar with your friends has her begging wanting more with you.

Pairing: gp!Natasha x fem!Reader

Tags MINORS DNI: natasha has a dick, buff out this world & covered with tats and piercings, little bit of yearning and pining, mentions of alcohol, smut, blowjob, unprotected sex, breeding, begging, miscommunication

Masterlist

A/N: Part 1 blew up like crazy! I never ever thought I would EVER get that many notes. Especially for, essentially, a smut piece I wasn't used to writing. After being asked a few times, I agreed to make a part 2, buuut I've been in a (bad) writing rut lately. So I wanna shout out the person who gave me so many good ideas and an actual plot to work with. Y'all can thank just her for there actually being a part 2 cause there almost wasn't one 🙏 Thanks for helping, kisses for your big brilliant brain.

Hopefully, she and y'all like it? It's a bit longer. Let me know what you think, please, and thank you thank you so much for reading 💞

That being said, there will be a part 3 😄

"Split? Like down the middle?" Kate asks with a look of shock on her face. You walk in step beside her along the concrete path on campus.

"Right down the middle," you laugh and adjust the bag on your shoulder, thinking back to just a few days ago when Natashas skillful tongue worked its magic on your body. Your cheeks heat up at the memory.

That first night you met, Natasha had given you a kiss goodbye and gave you her number before you took a very drunk Kate Bishop home. Since then you had seen the redhead multiple times over the course of the last few weeks. Neither of you seemed to be able to keep your hands off of each other. Each time you met it was for sex, and even the time she had taken you to dinner it ended with you getting fucked into her mattress again.

You knew the basics about each other, where you lived, eachothers jobs... the more you thought about it the more it upset you. The physical level the two of you were on was heavenly, but really, well, you barely knew her.

Kates voice interrupts your thoughts as you enter the English building, and you stop walking as she does.

"What was that?" You ask, looking to the smirk plastered on her face with curiosity.

"I said, speak of the devil," she chuckles and nods her head in the direction of a very tall Natasha striding your way. "See you in there," Kate says and walks into the classroom, leaving you in the hallway.

You want to drown in the sight of her, wearing dark jeans and a white t-shirt with old, dirty vans on her feet. You smile, trying not to drool at the way you can see the pops of color show from underneath her shirt or the way the sleeves seem too tight against her biceps as she grips the strap of her backpack.

"Hey there..." Natasha greets you with a smile, head pointing down as she stills before you. "Been a few days, haven't heard from you," she adds, her eyes baring into yours. You want to slap yourself for not replying to her text by the almost hurt look in her eyes.

"Well it hasn't even been a week, you miss me already?" You ask her with a little tilt of your head up at her, biting your lip as you see a blush spread across her cheeks. Her hand moves to the side of her neck, scratching at the ink awkwardly.

"No, no. Wait, I mean -" She lets out a sigh and shakes her head as you giggle at her. It was interesting, the difference in her appearance verses this nervous demeanor. "Maybe I did?" Natasha raises an eyebrow, the silver ring lifting higher.

"I might have missed you too," you shrug casually and watch as her face eases back into a smile. "I'm sorry I haven't texted, I've just been so busy with school and work." You point to the classroom next to you that Kate had entered. She follows the direction and nods.

"No worries, you're a busy lady. I actually took Mr. Furys class last year. Maybe I could take you for a coffee and give you some tips? Or maybe just um, talk?" Natasha asks, her tone quiet as she looks down to you.

You smile at the sincerity in her eyes. "I'm free after this class?" You take a step back, towards the room and match the wide smile on her lips.

"Sounds perfect," Natasha nods, and you can't ignore the way your heart speeds up in your chest. Instead of taking another step away you walk forward, leaning up on your tip toes to press a soft kiss to her cheek.

Natasha can feel the burn on her cheeks, the affect you had on her drove her wild. You lean back and smile at her flustered state, leaving her alone in the now empty hallway.

An hour and a half later, you emerge from the classroom, the butterflies in your stomach fluttering around at the sight of Natasha sitting on the floor. She had a book in her hand, closing it the moment she saw you and Kate walking towards her.

"Have you been sitting there this whole time?" You ask and tilt your head, watching the way her muscles flex as she runs a hand through her auburn hair.

"Uh, maybe?" A small blush hints on her cheeks, and she smiles at you and your friend. "I'm Natasha, by the way," she says and holds out her hand in front of Kate.

Kate chuckles at the formality, and you hit her arm, giving her a look. She shakes Natashas hand, "Kate... nice to finally meet you," She smiles back and looks next to her at you. "I'll see you tomorrow night, you should invite your friend."

You roll your eyes at Kates tease but nod and tell her you'll see her later.

"Coffee?" Natasha asks, and the ridiculous grin on her face is enough for you to agree to just about anything.

As you walk side by side, you can't help but admire her gentle personality. This woman, covered in tattoos and piercings with an intimidating gaze, was the complete opposite. She spoke to you about her schedule and that she was in school for sports medicine with a glint in her eyes.

"Like physical therapy?" You ask her curiously. You watched the way her face lit up at your interest, and she beamed down to you.

"Yeah, exactly that. If all else fails, I'll just be a personal trainer," she lets out a small chuckle, and you take the second she holds the door open for you to admire her toned body.

"How do I sign up? I need a good workout partner," you say with a flirtatious tone, brushing against her as you walk inside. You relish the blush on her cheeks and the small smirk on her lips as the smell of fresh coffee hits you.

"Didn't get a good enough workout last week?" Natasha replies.

"Oh, I had a great workout... but if I had a personal trainer, I'm sure I could get a good workout in at least a few times a week. Isn't that recommended?" You look up to her, seeing her neck redden and her eyes darken.

"I would definitely recommend that," Natasha mumbles as the two of you walk up to the counter.

As Natasha orders, you can't help but notice the change in her posture and attitude. Suddenly, she was standing straight, an impassive and series look on her face. Her tone was low as she talked to the woman at the counter. Natasha turns to you and nods for you to order. You do, and as she hands the woman her card, you smile up at her.

"Thank you for getting this for me," you say gratefully, watching her melt under your gaze. The smile was back, and her eyes came to life again. It seemed she had a soft spot for you.

"Of course, it's my treat," she says and walks you to a small table in the corner.

From there, you spend the entire rest of the evening actually talking and getting to know Natasha. As you already knew, she works out religiously, and you told her how lucky you felt that she had skipped her workout today just to sit down with you. She got her first tattoo at 18 and loved it, so she just never stopped getting them. The first piercing she got was on her eyebrow, and the same there, she just kept going.

It felt as if you were sitting in front of a whole new person than the one you met just weeks ago. The one who pile drived you into the mattress at a party and left you weak in the legs and sore the next day. Natasha was kind and sweet, funny, and surprisingly shy. Any time you made an attempt to flirt or give an innuendo, she would chuckle shyly and blush the slightest.

There were a few times you even had to squeeze your thighs as you thought back to that night. Any time her tongue would wet her lower lip or her eyes would travel to your neck. She loved your neck, you noticed. Every time you had hooked up her lips would go straight for the skin there, nipping at the few small freckles that adorned the area.

"That's a long time to be friends with someone," Natasha states as you finish telling her about yours and Kates relationship. Best friends since the fourth grade, completely inseparable.

"It's nice to have someone so close, who knows me so well. Especially since I'm an only child," you reply and watch her brow lift.

"Oh really? I have a sister, Yelena. She bugs the hell out of me, but I love her to death. She goes to the college just a couple of hours from here. Actually," Natasha looks at her phone, checking the time. "I'm supposed to meet her soon... she came home for the weekend."

You nod slowly and look around, realizing everyone had left and the two baristas were cleaning up. As the two of you stand, Natasha suddenly towering over at you, you feel a little disappointment in your chest. You were having more fun with her than you thought, and you found yourself not wanting to part.

"Hey, Kate and I are going to this bar tomorrow night. A few of our friends are getting together. Joes?" You say to her, smiling to yourself as she once again holds the door open for you.

"Yeah, I've been there a few times before," Natasha says with a grin, standing outside the coffee shop with you.

"If you want, maybe you and Yelena can meet us? You don't have to, of course, but..." You trail off.

"I will definitely be there. Text me a time?" She asks, and you nod happily. Natasha leans down, and you think for a second she's going to kiss you, but her lips land on the soft skin of your cheek. You put your hand on her arm as she does, feeling the tattooed skin burn underneath your touch.

****

Joes Bar is crowded, but that's to be expected on a Saturday night near a college campus. A local alternative band plays loudly on the small stage on one side of the room, and you find yourself on the opposite side sitting at the bar. Kate is nearby talking to friends and a few strangers, but you only had one person in mind.

You glance at your phone again, seeing no notifications. With a sigh, you finish your second drink, ordering a third as you contemplated the possibility she wasn't going to show up. This is why you didn't do this type of thing. You don't hook up with hot strangers. You don't get coffee with gorgeous, sweet women. You stayed to yourself, guarded your heart, and let yourself be safe from any type of rejection or heartbreak.

But God Natasha was worth breaking your rules.

You found your way back to reality as the bartender handed you a drink and said thank you before grabbing it and removing yourself from the bar stool. As you turn, you bump into someone, almost spilling your drink on them.

"Oh shit I'm so sorry!" You apologize, shaking the liquor off your hand as you had spilled a little on yourself.

"It's okay, I was just trying to squeeze in next to you," the woman says, and in your tipsy state, you raise an eyebrow. She seemed about your age, dirty blonde hair, and a familiar grin on her lips. You definitely hadn't seen her in here before.

"I was just getting up, actually. You can have my seat. Is that an accent I hear?" You ask curiously, moving out of the way so she could take your place.

"Yeah, I still have a bit of an accent, I was born in Russia. Lived there for a while," she says and nods. She then orders two drinks before turning back to you.

"Wow, you're a long way from there. You go to school here?" You ask her and sip your drink, feeling Kate stand behind you.

"No, but my sister does, though," the blonde smiles and grabs the two bottles of beer from the bartender. She looks at you and extends her arm towards Kate to hand her a bottle. You give her a confused look.

It's only then you realize, as an inked hand reaches over you to take the beer, that it's not Kate standing there, but Natasha. You turn instantly and look up, a habit your neck was quickly getting used to doing.

"Well, well, look who showed up," you say and take your bottom lip between your teeth. Natasha smiles at your words, noticing the way you take in her appearance.

If it was possible, Natasha looked hotter than ever. She wore a black t shirt underneath a leather jacket. Her flaming hair was behind her in a braid with a few loose strands framing her face.

"I see you've met my sister, Yelena," Natasha chuckles and nods in the direction of the blonde woman.

"Nice to meet you, Y/N. Natty here hasn't been able to shut up abou-" Yelena is cut off by Natasha flicking the bottle cap at her face, a stern expression on the older woman's face.

You smile at the siblings' banter, watching Yelena laugh and shrug innocently. Whether it be the alcohol flowing in your bloodstream or the way Natasha looked at you, you slide your hand into hers. She tenses at first, not used to the public display of affection from you, but quickly relaxes as you intertwine your fingers with hers.

"Come on, come meet everyone," you say and tug on her hand in the direction of Kate.

You find them huddled around a pool table, watching as Kate lines up the pool tip to the cue ball with one eye closed. Carol stands leaning against her own stick, shaking her head and putting out the cigarette she smokes into the ashtray on the edge of the table.

"Anyday, Bishop..." Carol groans, earning a laugh from the group.

"Seriously, how long are you going to take?" Peter chimes in.

Kate ignores them and continues to stare intensely at the 8 ball. Her arm begins to pull back to take the shot, but as Yelena comes into focus on the opposite side of the table, Kate is finally distracted by the beautiful blonde. The cue ball misses her target completely, rolling across the table and sinking into the pocket.

"Scratch!" Carol cheers and high fives Monica. Kate looked up at Yelena, her lips parted as if she was going to speak, but no words came out. Carol then steps up to the table and sinks the 8 ball, ending the game with a dramatic bow.

You smile at the group, raising an eyebrow at the silent state of your best friend. "Guys, this is Natasha and her sister Yelena," you say, receiving waves and friendly greetings from everyone. You introduce them to the Romanoffs a little more before they rack up for another game.

"You any good?" Carol nods to Natasha, who gives a humble shrug.

"I'm decent," she replies with a smirk on her face as she brings the bottle to her lips. Carol hands the pool stick over before going to get drinks for the group.

"Hope you're good, Romanoff. We still haven't beat Y/N," Peter says begrudgingly. You only hum in response as Kate hands you her stick, positioning yourself across the table.

"Is that so?" Natasha watches with playful eyes as you skillfully break, the balls rolling in different directions along the table and a few of them sinking into the pockets.

When you lean up, you smile and reach your hand up to pat her cheek. "Good thing you didn't bet anything," you chuckle.

After a few back and forth turns, Carol returns with shots, to which you all cheer and take at the same time. The alcohol was definitely settling its way into your system now, and you were hot to the touch each time Natasha had to lean down to take her shot. Between the focused look on her face and the way the pool stick slid between her fingers, it was enough for you to want her right there.

You step forward next to her, looking at the direction of the shot she was trying to take. "That's a tough one, baby," you say to her, the term of endearment catching Natasha off guard.

Her body visibly tenses as she looks to you with a visceral reaction and swallows hard. You feign an innocent smile, taking a mental note to call her that again just to see her reaction. Natasha misses the shot and curses under her breath.

"That's not fair," she says and shakes her head as she stands tall. The red head removes her jacket, finding that the room was getting hotter.

You shrug and easily pocket two more balls on your turn. When you look to Kate to make a comment about the shot, you realize she's strayed from the group, chatting up Yelena. With your friends being in their own worlds at the moment, you decide to have a little fun with Natasha.

"You're not so bad, you know. The others have a hard time keeping up with me," you smile as she leans down, and your hand rests on her back, rubbing over her shirt.

"Y/n," Natasha mumbles, the blush on her cheeks evident she enjoyed your touch.

"Yes, Nat?" You pur, watching the muscles flex understand the fabric. Knowing you had this type of effect on her gave you a sense of power that only made you hungry for more. Your hand slithers underneath the bottom of her shirt, nails scratching at her back. She misses. You smile.

"You're a cheater, you know that?" Natasha says in a playful tone, her body naturally leaning towards you.

Your hands rest on her stomach, "I don't know what you're talking about." You lean up and plant a soft kiss on her lips, smirking as she leans down and melts against your mouth. "I'm just having fun," you whisper.

At that, you step away from her, crossing over to the opposite side of the table. You lean down more than you need to, and you don't miss the way Natashas eyes dart back and forth from your breasts to your neck. She finishes another bottle, and you can tell you've stressed her out by the way her hand grips the glass.

You continue to do the same thing for the remainder of the game, teasing her with every shot she took and making sure to bend in front of her any chance you could. It came down to the 8 ball, and you had to admit, you were dragging the game on longer than you needed to.

"Last one," you sigh and put your hand on the back of her neck as she leans down. Your fingers squeeze gently as she clears her throat, trying to ignore the shivers that run down her spine every time you touch her. You lean down with her, your lips brushing against her ear. "Good luck, baby," you whisper and kiss her cheek.

Her neck gets red at your words, and her grip on the stick only tightens. You think it'll snap in half with how hard she holds it. Natasha quickly shoots and misses, causing you to raise an eyebrow with just how quick she took the shot. Instead of stepping back, she continues to stand pressed against the table. "All yours," she mumbles and holds her hand out to the table, shifting uncomfortably as she stands.

You line up the shot and sink the black ball easily, looking up at her with a wide smile. She only gives you a small smile back with a nod. "Aren't you going to give me a victory kiss?" You ask as you step back to her.

Natasha hesitates for a moment but finally turns to face you. Your hands move up to wrap around her neck, your body pressing against her front as she leans in. Before your lips can touch your eyes, widen the slightest. You now realize the reason for the sudden uncomfortable physical shift she had taken when you felt her bulge pressing hard against you.

"Oh... was I teasing you too much?" You ask with a smirk on your lips. She rolls her eyes and moves to pull away, but you don't let her. "What was it?" You ask her.

"What was what?" She replies, her hands moving to your waist. You press your body further into her and relish the hiss that leaves her mouth.

You search her eyes, thinking to the moment her demeanor had changed. Suddenly, there was that power-hungry feeling again when you realized the reasoning. The fact that you could get her hot and bothered by a simple word leaving your lips, by your voice alone, and the thought of you driving someone like her mad. Natasha was weak in the knees for you, and she struggled internally with the way you made her feel. She wasn't used to it.

"Why don't you let me help you take care of your little problem... baby, " you whisper to her, feeling her shoulders tense above you. "Come on." You slide back and take her hand in yours, leading her away from the pool table and towards the bathroom.

As soon as both of you are inside and you lock the door, the two of you are on top of each other just like the first night you met her. Natasha kisses you feverishly, like she'd never been kissed before, with your back hard against the door. You welcomed her tongue into your mouth, moaning as the two halves wrap around your own.

With one hand, you hold onto the front of her shirt, gripping tightly, with the other you slide it in between your bodies, letting yourself grope the hard bulge in her jeans. Natasha lets a hint of a whimper leave her lips, one you hadn't heard since the first time with her, and you smirk into the kiss.

"What's the matter, baby? Do you need some help?" You ask innocently, lips ghosting hers. She breathes heavily and nods as your hands move to undo her belt.

"Sweetheart... please," she says, and you decide in that moment that you need her to say that again. Just the idea that this strong, formidable woman could so easily melt in your presence made you thrilled.

Her hands rest on either side above your head, pressed flat against the door as you slide her pants down. You can see the precum dampening a spot on her underwear, and you feel yourself get wet at the sight of it. She needed you, bad.

"Please, what?" You ask, your hand moves to grab her through her boxers, and you stroke her length through the thin fabric.

"Fu-fuck," she barely breathes out, eyes searching yours. Natasha hadn't begged a day in her life, but she would happily beg for you. She was at the point right now that she was willing to get down on her knees and beg for you. You made her desperate.

"Please touch me, please. You feel how hard I am for you? Just -" You squeezing a little harder makes her gasp before continuing. "I need you to touch me. Please, sweetheart... please, " she begs. You smile at her words, enjoying the way her body melts at your touch and the way she begs for you.

At her words you slide down her boxers, and her cock twitches at the feeling of finally being released. She lets out a sigh of relief as your delicate fingers wrap around her. "Is this what you wanted?" You hum, beginning to move your hand up and down. Natasha nods, chest beginning to rise and fall rapidly at your movements.

When you stop, she looks at you with a disoriented look, eyebrows lifting as she watches you drop to your knees. You take her cock in your hand, letting your other rest on her thick, toned thigh. From here you can see her happy trail peaking from underneath her shirt, making your panties wetter. The way she looks down at you with a breathless expression and parted lips makes you want to live your life on your knees for her. Your lips kiss along the side of her length, teasing slowly with your tongue licking up it. Natasha groans with pleasure at the feeling and her hips instinctively buck towards you.

You give in, not wanting to tease her anymore tonight, and take her cock into your mouth. The moan that leaves her mouth is outright sinful, and her fist hits the door with a thud as you begin to bob your head. Your cheeks hollow out when you begin moving faster, taking as much of her as you could. When the tip hits the back of your throat your eyes sting, tears threatening to leave your ducts. Natasha pants heavily above you, savoring the moment of you on your knees for her, sucking her off.

"Look at you, such a pretty girl with my cock in your mouth- fuck," Natasha speaks low to you, her eyes dark as she watches her cock disappear against your lips. Your fingers on her thigh dig in, your nails digging into her skin to leave crescent shaped marks, at her words. "All night you've been teasing me... this is the only way to shut you up, isn't it?" She says and you moan against her, the vibrations sending her close to the edge.

Her breathing gets heavier and you can tell she's about to cum, but before she can you quickly remove your mouth, your saliva coating her as you release with a pop. You stand, not ignoring the frustrated look on her face.

"Baby, I think you're confused," you say, your hands moving to the top of your dress. "You're not in charge right now," You let out a small laugh and pull down on the fabric, letting your breasts spill out. Natashas face reddens in response, and she immediately moves to kiss your chest. You can feel the marks she leaves as her lips trail across your breasts, her skillful tongue pleasuring your sensitive nipples.

Natashas' large hands move to the bottom of your dress as her kisses begin to litter up your neck. You let her move the material above and over your hips, but stop her as she reaches your panties. "I wanna hear you," you mumble out. She lets out a huff and pulls away from your neck.

"Y/n... please." Natasha says. You only continue to look at her with innocent eyes. The fact that she would beg for you - is begging for you, made you feel instant gratification.

"Please, pretty girl? Please let me make you feel good. I want to fuck you, want to make you feel good so bad..." She begs, and you let her slide your panties down your legs. Natasha slides her tip between your closed thighs, her cock now being coated from the wetness that spread between your legs.

She slips in between your folds, waiting for your words. Her fingers dig into your hips. "You drive me so fucking insane," Natasha whispers as her head ducks to your neck again. "I could cum from just looking at you. Just hearing you say my name. You know how much control you have over me?" Her hips continue rocking against you, your thighs squeezing her hard cock. She begins to pant again, her neck red and hot to the touch as you wrap your arms around it, interlocking your fingers behind her head.

"Please," Natasha whimpers, and the sound is enough to make you moan. You needed to feel her inside you immediately, hear more of those moans leave her lips.

"Show me how bad you want me, how insane I make you feel," you finally say and lean forward to bite her lower lip. She wastes no time lifting you up, helping you wrap your legs around her hips. Your back presses against the door again and with one hand she guides her cock inside of your warm velvet walls, easily ,with how wet you were for her.

Natasha begins to thrust up into you, a feeling you had become accustomed to these past few weeks, although you weren't sure you'd ever get used to her size. She groans against your chest, nipping at the skin. The small bathroom fills with the sounds of her pounding into you, both of you moaning practically in sync with every thrust.

"So good, pretty girl, feel so good wrapped around my cock. I love fucking this pretty pussy," she breathes heavy against your skin as she speaks. You hold on tightly to her, only breathless moans escape your lips in response.

Suddenly, from the outside, someone bangs on the door, Natasha doesn't halt her descent on you. "Can you hurry the fuck up in there?" A stranger yells from the other side. Your eyes widen, a little bit of adrenaline rushing into your chest as she continues fucking into you.

Natasha smiles, now at your flustered state. "Occupied," is all she replies before her thrust picks up the pace. "You better keep quiet, sweetheart. You don't want everyone to know how much of a slut you are for me, letting me fuck you in the bathroom."

You squeeze your eyes closed as she fucks herself into you, trying your best to keep quiet. Each thrust was now hitting that special spot inside of you and drawing you closer to an orgasm. The feeling of her muscles flexing around you only intensified that feeling.

"Fuck I-I can't I'm-" Natasha stutters out as she groans into your neck, feeling your hot cunt tighten around her cock.

"Me too, Nat," you moan along with her, and your legs squeeze around her waist. "Let go, baby... wanna feel you fill me up." You watch her face twist in pleasure at your words, and the fact that it was enough to make her cum only added to your ego in the moment. Natasha grunts against your skin as she does just what you say, filling you up completely.

The sensation alone is enough to make you follow right behind her, the burn in your lower stomach blazing as you scream out her name.

"That's it, sweetheart, that's it... such a good girl for me," she coos as you fall apart in her arms, kissing your face as you breathe heavily. Your head falls against her shoulder, face panting in the crook of her neck as she holds you tightly, letting you come down off your high.

After a few moments she pulls out slowly, and you can feel the mixture of both your arousal dripping down your thighs. Natasha carries you to the sink, letting you rest on the hard surface while she pulls her pants back up and you fix the top of your dress.

"Hi," she says with a smile. You giggle, remembering she said the same thing afterward on the first night at her party.

"Hi," is all you reply, grabbing her shirt in your hand and pulling her closer to kiss you again.

****

"They have eight legs and eight eyes. How are they not scary?" Peter drunkenly speaks to Monica, who sits next to him with an amused look.

After your time in the bathroom with Natasha, the two of you had rejoined the group, and over the course of two hours, you had become increasingly wasted with the rest of your friends. As Yelena joined in on the topic of spiders, you feel Natasha rest her head back against your front.

She sat slouched back in one of the chairs that scattered near the table while you stood behind her, hands stroking her neck and massaging her shoulders. You can't help but smile down at her.

"You're so cute," you giggle and watch her brow raise. Your finger traces the dark lines on her neck.

"Anything but cute," Natasha groans, with a playful smirk on her face. "Why do you say that?"

"You're different than you look, you know? Why are you so nervous around me?" Your words slur, and she chuckles at your drunken state with a shrug, looking at the beer bottle she held in her hand.

"Must be the alcohol?" She says. You shake your head and poke her nose.

"You were drinking when I first met you, and you weren't like this," you point out and watch her swallow. You decide to move in front of her, settling yourself between her muscled thighs. As you stand in front of her, she sits up straighter, the two of you now practically the same height.

You take her hand in yours, playing with her fingers. She smiles a little as she looks at your intertwined hands.

"Maybe I was drinking that night to get enough courage to talk to you... and maybe I- maybe I'm drinking tonight to get enough courage to say I want more with you. More than... the hookups," she says and finally looks back up at you. Your heart races in your chest at her words, panic written on your face as you freeze in front of her.

That was exactly what you wanted. More of her, more of this beautiful person who was even more beautiful inside. To get to know what makes her really tick, what makes her happy, how her day was, how she likes her coffee. She wanted more, too, so why were you not speaking out loud?

"What?" Is all that comes out of your mouth.

Natashas face falls completely, misinterpreting your flustered state for a sign of rejection. She had hoped this wouldn't happen. Part of her wondered if this had just been a hook up, but the other part of her desperately hoped it wasn't.

Before the words could leave your parted lips, Kate calls over to you, taking the attention of both you and Natasha.

"Y/N, you ready to go? You can stay if you want, I'm gonna take Pete home, though," she nods to the direction of where he sat drunk rambling to Yelena.

"No, not -"

"Actually, Yelena and I have a lot to do tomorrow. We should head out too," Natasha interrupts you and stands, her hand moving to your lower back as you stare up at her with a pout.

"Are you sure?" You ask her, your hand reaching out to her side. She tenses under your grasp.

"Yeah, I'll text you later," She smiles at you, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes this time.

You nod anyways and smile back, leaning up to kiss her lips softly. "Thank you for tonight.. Hopefully, we can do it again soon?"

And while you were talking about hanging out with her, Natasha assumes you were talking about her fucking you.

"Yeah, soon," she lets out a breath and grabs her jacket, not taking a second look back at you as her and Yelena exit the bar.

***

A smile fills your face as your head hits the pillow, the soft comforter pulled over you as you lie on your warm bed and mull over tonights events. You wondered why Natasha had left in such a hurry before you could say anything, but you decided not to think too hard on it. She probably did have to go. It was early in the morning by the time you left, and besides, you would hear from her later.

Every morning, she texted you a quick and sweet text, telling you to have a good day.

Your chest swelled at the thought of it, how sweet it was that such a small, simple thing could brighten your entire day. What you assumed would happen tomorrow is that the two of you would talk about wanting more and how desperately you agreed with her about it.

But when the late morning came and the sunshine streamed through the windows, no text came with it.