#right now is when we SHOULD be making the threats to not fucking vote because its all these ghouls care about
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the fact that we're a year out from a major election year in the United States and instead of encouraging people to vote for their local and state elections I'm already seeing Dems on socials lecturing about "not expecting perfection" and "lesser of two evils" during a time where there is widespread objection to Biden and crew literally funding and supporting Israel's genocide of Gaza is just
ah yes, damn youths and their inability to compromise on silly non-issues of *checks notes* actively supporting and financing genocide
#ffs I bought into 'voting as harm reduction' for much of my adult life#but when one guy will participate Just As Much in the federal project of military colonialism#then what is the meaningful difference! just because one will be more polite on Twitter!!#like truly if participating in active ongoing genocides (Congo as well!) isn't your moral red line then WHAT IS#what DO you stand for then????#'oh these idiot gen z-ers daring to demand ANYTHING better'#well its not just Gen Z that thinks if we keep voting for these assholes then they WON'T change shit!#right now is when we SHOULD be making the threats to not fucking vote because its all these ghouls care about#I'm not going to endure a whole year of this shit in between photos of dead and injured Palestinians christ
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Shortly after the settlement was reached, CNN reported that part of the terms of the settlement was that Fox News will not have to acknowledge on air that it promoted lies about Dominion during the 2020 election.
Jake Tapper Loses It Over Fox Citing ‘Journalistic Standards’ After Dominion Settlement
Fox News got away with EVERYTHING. No matter how anyone tries to spin this, Fox News got away with helping Trump incite a riot and attempt a coup.
And it’s sickening that we have to rely on a corporation to expose the cancer that is Fox News, because congress refuses to admit the problem exists. It is sickening that they will never have to tell their audience that they lied, and it is sickening that the entire Fox News Cinematic Universe will now lie that they were totally exonerated or some shit like that, while they incite the next mob for the next coup attempt.
Fox News got away with it. All the fascists on the air at Fox News got away with it.
And when Smartmatic comes up, Fox News will get away with it again.
It’s just appalling to me that we don’t have laws in America that would prevent a propaganda organization like Fox News to do all of this and to get away with it.
News Corporation will make all of this money back, and more. Dominion’s executives will be rich beyond their wildest dreams. Everyone is happy, and nothing will change. Stop saying a big fine is a big deal. It isn’t. Actual, meaningful accountability -- including AT A MINIMUM an on-air acknowledgement of their lies -- is a big deal.
Capitalism was able to make this about money, when it should never have been about money. This was about a massive, coordinated, deliberate conspiracy to lie to their entire audience, and to promote the lies and the liars that all made January 6 happen.
So fuck Fox News and all the fascists it empowers. And fuck Dominion and fuck all of its new multimillionaires. They had a chance to force Fox News to go on the record, to expose this whole fucking thing, and they just got paid, instead.
This company is involved in the most sacred part of our Democracy: the right to vote, and it just sold out all of America to the greatest threat to our right to vote in the nation’s history. Some things are bigger than money and more important than a single company. Dominion had the best chance to make a difference, and they chose to get paid.
Despicable.
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The thing that confuses me about the "don't vote" left (not the "I don't want to vote", I'm talking explicitly the "don't vote" left. I don't agree with the "I don't want to vote" left either but I can understand their logic) is they lose me at the final step of the logic. I've tried to connect the logic here, even if I don't agree with a political position I do try to understand where people are coming from (empathy for someones situation is not the same as cosigning it), but I just can't connect the dots here in a way that isn't deeply cruel.
Does United States politics prioritize the lives of those in the US (and often white) over those in the Global South? Yes, it's a fucking atrocity. We should continue to make noise about it, cus Biden has used less drones and that shows progress, even if it's not enough.
The part where I lose the plot is where the conclusion to this injustice is to let even more people die? Cus that's kinda how I see the idea of not voting: I can pick between shit and more shit, and at the end of the day, I'm picking whoever allows the most people to make it to the next day. Given Trumps stance on everything but specifically climate change, I feel like Biden is pretty significant harm reduction.
I don't think both things can't be true: that every life lost is a travesty we should not forget AND the more people we can save is worth fighting for.
The thing is, I have seen nothing among the "don't vote" far left (and I am talking here specifically about the people who both loudly announce their intention not to vote and try to convince others to do the same) to convince me that they actually care about harm reduction or stopping genocide. They only care about what makes them look the most Correct and/or superior to the Democrats. They yelled bloody murder about Obama using drones, they went dead quiet about Trump using them even more (even when he nearly started WWIII by assassinating the Iranian general Soleimani with one), and then said nothing at all when Biden reduced the drone program to almost nothing and withdrew the US from a failed war in Afghanistan it had long ago lost. Now they will yell all day about Israel/Hamas (something that Biden did not start and has had no direct military role in responding to) but they don't care about Russian genocide of Ukraine and Syria, Chinese threats to invade Taiwan, etc, because those governments are "anti-western/anti-American" and therefore should be defended. Their opposition to human suffering is extremely conditional and rests on whether they can look good out of it, and they never interrogate the hypocrisies of their own ideology.
Likewise: every country in the world prizes its own citizens above those of other countries. It's just a basic fact. Yes, the US has a grim history of intervening in other countries and causing untold civilian damage (especially during the Cold War and then in post-9/11 War on Terrorism). Yes, that legacy is complex and needs to be acknowledged. But literally none of that will be fixed, not to mention all the vulnerable people in America itself who will be punished, by Trump getting into power again. Biden is not just a grudging "lesser evil," but has done a lot of truly good and helpful things, regardless of the Online Leftists' constant lies, misinformation, and misrepresentation. If you spend all your time announcing what a champion you are for non-American marginalised people and/or those undergoing terrible suffering, and then deliberately and knowingly adhere to a course of action that will increase that suffering tenfold not only for those people but your own neighbors, friends, and family, then no, I don't believe you are a brave champion of social justice. You just want to know what categories of people you can gleefully and righteously punish and make to suffer for not believing the same things as you, that makes you just as dangerous as the right-wing fascists, and I can and will call out your ass accordingly.
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Total Drama: Alejandro's All Star reunion
Request: "hi! i know you wrote this like forever ago but i was wondering if you could do a pt two? where Alejandro and reader see eachother again during all stars?"
💗Masterlist | WIP Page
In all honesty, you should have seen this coming at some point or another.
Running into any of the old castmates was very easy now that you've been connected with a majority of them.
And that included Alejandro.
Sure, you saw him at the finale, but this felt different.
For the first few days, you were able to avoid him pretty well.
After what happened last time, you didn't want any chance at getting close or vulnerable.
It's All-Stars, after all, so who knows what it will cost you this time when Alejandro decides to plot against you.
Unfortunately, he was just as persistent to talk to you.
"(Y/N)."
Fuck, here we go.
"As you are aware from the last time we saw each other, I wasn't totally honest."
"That's a fucking understatement." You snorted, earning a glare from him.
"Anyway," He said, "I'm sure by now you have watched the season and figured out why I did what I did. I-"
"Oh for fuck's sake, kicked me out." You said, crossing your arms, "You can fucking say it! You kicked me out!"
"Yes, well-"
"You kicked me out because you couldn't handle some god damn teasing from the others." You said, "It was a stupid fucking reason." You sighed, "But, I guess that comes with the territory of it being a game, doesn't it?"
"It was for protection."
"Ha, like you needed any. Everyone loved you. You had a working plan." You said, "It worked for Bridgette and LeShawna. It would've worke-"
"Except that my focus would slip and it risked everything." Alejandro paused, "So, I had to eliminate the risk."
Eliminate the risk
Eliminate the risk
Oh....oh.
Everything you remembered and watched about the season suddenly made much more sense.
You never actually considered the option that whatever was happening between him and you was in anyway real, especially a threat to Alejandro's standing.
After that, you tried your hardest to continue to keep your distance and guard up, waiting for a repeat.
Though, to your surprise, you found that Alejandro was just as hell bent on keeping you close.
Something about wanting to make amends for what happened last time.
For once, he seemed......sincere---which was a bit unsettling for a look on him.
Once the teams merged, you weren't surprised to find that he wanted to form an alliance.
Yeah, sure, that's what we'll call it.
"I guess I get it now," You grinned towards the confessional camera, "Besides, its not like I'm on my top game right now," You paused, "so, yeah, I get it." You then suddenly remembered that you were still in the confessional, "I mean not like I would give him the satisfaction of knowing that. His ego is already so big." You said.
The both of you knew what it really was: picking up where world tour left off
Though, it made it just as ironic that you made it further than him.
Especially since part of it was your fault, voting him out in a pact with Gwen, Courtney, and Scott.
You're sure that he understands.
Even if it meant that you went through the rest of the competition with the same lonely-guilty feeling that he had.
"Was it satisfying? Yes." You said, barely glancing at the camera in the confessional. "Do I regret it?" You paused, "Eh.....?" You shrugged your shoulders, "Do I miss him? Yeah, I do." You sighed, knowing full and well that Alejandro was gonna tease the shit out of you for this confessional, much like you had with his previous ones in World Tour. "But, it had to be done."
#total drama#total drama headcanons#total drama alejandro#total drama all stars#tdas#td alejandro#tdwt alejandro#alejandro burromuerto#td alejandro x reader#total drama x reader#td x reader
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From the river to the sea
hey all! firstgrave here
I was somewhat recently banned on tumblr for “targeted harassment”. the post that got me banned? a post in which I said Israeli settlers and former IDF soldiers had actively engaged in ethnic cleansing and genocide.
I attempted to appeal the ban but have gotten nowhere, and I do see this as the final reason in why I should stay away from tumblr as a whole. I am no longer interested in coming back to tumblr, and will be making no future efforts to do so.
however, some important updates I want to give: many people whom I was mutuals with were there for my entire law school journey, the passing of the bar, and my entrance into the career of public defender. this is something I’ve been dreaming of and working towards for years now.
in october, the union which represents the office of public defenders I work with, and the majority of public defenders in NY entirely, proposed a resolution on the genocide in Palestine, reinforcing the rights of union members to speak out against apartheid and ethnic cleansing and calling for an end to Israeli occupation. in response, four Zionist members of the union have commenced a lawsuit in attempt to get an injunction against the union members voting on the resolution. the union has now filed a motion to move the case to federal court, thus removing it from the jurisdiction of conservative Long Island state court judges, but also to have the action deemed as an unconstitutional infringement on free speech.
since the lawsuit was filed, a supervisor at my office has cursed out myself and the 8 new attorneys I was hired with, telling us to “get the fuck” out of her office if we don’t support Israel, and we do not deserve to work there if we do not agree with her. so now we are also in the process of filing a union grievance and EOC claim against the supervisor. this has put us at significant odds against management and we may very well lose our jobs over this (we are at-will employees for the first 3 years of our contract, so while discriminatory firings are illegal, it would be near impossible to prove in this instance.) I am likely to lose my dream job that I have worked years to reach over this.
The attempts to silence any and all people who speak out against the atrocities being committed with our tax funding cannot be ignored. When we look back at the atrocities of history and wonder how they were allowed to occur, it is because many people feel more comfortable turning a blind eye to the suffering of those “other” to them, and those that do care are faced with coordinated censorship campaigns armed with threats of loss of employment, homelessness, incarceration, violence, and even death.
In the time all of this has occurred, thousands of men, women, and children have been senselessly and brutally massacred by Israeli forces, aided by other world powers. The US is actively and happily funding the genocide of Palestinians, as well as Britain, Canada, and other imperial nations. Babies have been abandoned and denied humanitarian aid, cities have been leveled, and families have been devastated.
Attached here is the proposed resolution of the legal aid union. I stand by it wholeheartedly, and ask others to share it as well. There is no excuse for silence or complacency in the face of genocide. Those who are not in Palestine, have not witnessed and experienced the horrors in which every Palestinian citizen has been forced to endure, do not get the benefit of turning a blind eye.
May we see a free Palestine in our lifetimes.
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Hierarchy (Part 7)
Heirachy: a system, especially in a society or organization, in which people are organized into different levels of importance from highest to lowest.
Pairings: Mafia Changbin x Reader
Word Count: 6.2k
Genre: Mafia AU, friends to lovers, slow burn romance
Warnings: 18+, minors dni, swearing (too much), verbal threats, gun violence, blood, gore, murder and mayhem
You have always been utterly uninteresting, safely boring as close. You had a normal job, normal friends and the sweetest bestie on the planet but now everything is upside down and that best friend of yours is far more dangerous than you could have ever imagined.
Changbin knew they would give him shit the entire way to the meeting but he would put up with it for the small risk that he might not see you again, this life was violent and ambushes and double crosses were not uncommon he had to be sure you knew he would risk everything to keep you beside him and safe.
"When did that start?" Chan asked breathlessly still laughing at Hyunjin's dramatics.
"Today" he shrugged.
"So it's official then? Should I not have left her with Han and Minho then?" Chan teased.
"It is and she would crush them if they tried anything" he smirked "She may be just a normal girl to the rest of you but she has the over protective bitchy streak that even floors me and Felix sometimes".
"I would believe that she was quite protective of Jeongin and Seungmin the other day" Chan conceded making the other's stop with their joking around.
"What do you mean?" Jeongin asked furrowing his eyebrows.
"The other day before she gave us the journal locations she might have given Chan some lip" he sniggered looking proud.
"Might have? she straight up told me if I couldn't assure her the two of them were safe she wasn't giving me shit" Chan smirked looking pleased.
"Why would she do that?" Seungmin seemed slightly confused by your apparent need to protect him
"Because your a member, she understands that when we do things like this we have each others backs, she is just showing the same care for you as she does Lix" he shrugged watching the others turn soft for you slowly.
"Well she isn't protective of Chan" Jeongin pointed out
"Not that you have seen" Chan smirked trying to rile him up again
"Yeah, yeah whatever you can give me all the shit you want if we get out of this unscathed" he sighed looking at their surroundings and realizing they were only a few minutes away.
"Ok boys we have done this a hundred times before you all know your role" Chan turned serious quickly "when we get home we can tease the happy couple as much as we like but right now heads in the game"
"Boss" they all chorused one after the other falling silent for the rest of the way.
"Once again standard plan, we meet and see what they want, we either leave and vote or if we are getting fucked over we make a decision there are five of us here if we all agree that is all that matters" Chan repeated for the third time that day.
The meeting had been called at the edge of the two territories in an currently disused industrial area that was technically on neutral turf but both considered their end border. Appearing that they were the first on scene Chan instructed that they dropped Hyunjin, Seungmin and Jeongin at a different warehouse before continuing to where the meeting would occur.
"If they aren't here in 30 minutes we leave" Chan spoke knowing the others would hear him through their ear pieces.
"You think we are the set up and they will hit the company then?" Hyunjin hissed "I should be back at the house then"
"I'm not sure, but stay put until we know either way" Chan groaned knowing that Hyunjin was worried about both Han and Felix, both could fight, both could shoot and both were smart, they would be fine but they were younger so naturally Hyunjin was protective.
"Hyun, they will be fine" he echoed Chan's sentiment knowing that they would be, moving behind cover he and Chan started their wait for the Ateez crew.
"Boss we have approaching vehicles, three vans" Jeongin's voice broke the silence.
"Fuckers" Hyunjin snarked
"Got it" Chan replied angrily that it was already going to shit.
They were trying their best to make you relax but Felix could tell you were trying your hardest to give them a brave face to hide how scared this was making you. You were just sitting quietly on your phone as they spoke in hushed tones on their phones on and off to who you assumed were all their guys.
"Do you want me to explain what we prepare for regardless of what we expect to happen?" he asked softly wrapping one arm around you to pull you closer.
"Are you allowed to do that?" you quirked you head as Minho and Han both started to rejoin the two of you.
"Bin has already told you a fair bit I'm guessing just based on what he said upstairs" he smiled
"He's told me he's killed people, that he doesn't necessarily regret it and he would happily do it again to protect you or me. He told me how it all started with Chan and where each of you came in. He also said if I want to know nothing he wont tell me but if I want to know what he is doing he will be honest with me" you sighed chewing your lip.
"So you want to know then?" Han asked nodding.
"Yes, I don't have to know everything I just need to know the basics so I'm not totally lost and left to freak myself out" you cautiously replied partly concerned that you were crossing a line with them and partly because you knew Han could do terrible things and you didn't really need to know about that part. "He thinks this is a trap" you finished.
"He does, well we all do really" Minho admitted "but where not sure if the trap is for them or for us here which is why three of us are here with you"
"Shouldn't you be with them to protect each other?" you frowned looking slightly shaken "This place is a fortress I would be safe on my own".
"We don't all need to be together to keep ourselves safe. Hyunjin is a talented sharpshooter, Jeongin is a pretty good one too, Seungmin is great in a fight not that you could tell by looking at him and Chan has held his own since he was a kid" Felix reassured you gently.
"Besides Chan and Changbin would be beyond furious if we left you alone" Minho shrugged.
"Yeah like you wouldn't rather be with them than babysitting" you grumbled making Felix roll his eyes and Han laugh at you.
"Did you want to try listening to the voice again?" Minho asked trying to steer the conversation towards something productive.
"Ok I will figure it out eventually I guess" you smiled softly as Felix loaded the file up on his phone again. You listened to it another three times before it clicked why it was familiar. "Felix can you make the voice slightly higher I think it's too low"
"You recognize something princess?" Han excitedly smiled bouncing a little in his seat.
"Yeah but the voice isn't quite right" you furrowed your brow as Felix dashed out to get his laptop "I think".
Felix returned a few minutes holding his already booted up laptop running the program he began fiddling with the pitch of the voice running it again and again for you as he tweaked it.
"It's my boss" you whispered suddenly eyes widening as you realized, you had listened to that voice for years yet just the slightly off pitch had confused you so much.
"Your boss?" Minho repeated to be sure he had understood you.
"Yeah...um...here....fuck" you dug your phone out of your pocket and held it tightly "I'll show you" dialed you bosses number.
"Hello I was wondering when you would check in again, have you been feeling better?" Director Kim's voice floated around the room as you placed it on speaker phone so they all could hear.
"Yes Director Kim, I am. I was just ringing to talk about me returning to work in the next day or so, if you haven't already contracted a temp of course" You had put your best sweetened phone voice.
"Of course, I can give your temporary replacement notice that she is no longer needed, I would much rather spend my day looking at you anyway" He had always been flirty with you but now that you knew he was behind the phone calls your skin was crawling.
"Thank you Director Kim, I have missed being at work, I think it will make me happier to return to normal as soon as I can" you rapped up feeling queasy and a little dirty for playing along.
"We will happily welcome you back. Goodbye for now" he purred into the phone making you almost gag.
"Goodbye Director" you chirped hanging up and looking up at the three men in front of you shaking slightly.
"Oh it is totally your fucking boss" Han spat venomously breaking the silence.
"I'm calling Hyunjin" Minho announced as he walked from the room.
"You did so good bubs, Binnie will be super proud of you when he gets back" Felix soothed pulling you against him to make you feel a little better.
"Why would it be my boss Lix? I don't understand" You murmured cuddling into him further hoping it would make you feel better again.
"I don't know bubs but I will bet you everything I have that Bin will find that out for you" Felix chuckled darkly stroking your hair.
Changbin had known from the get go that this was going to be a shit show, everything about this whole fucking mess had been, but he knew his members better than the back of his own hand and he knew Minho would have put in a call or two to make sure they had enough back up at the company.
"Here we go Bin, just remember to not get too mad too fast" Chan muttered remaining stoic looking.
"Got it" he whispered back putting on his death glare for their arriving company.
"Gentlemen" Chan greeted smiling tensely as Hongjoong exited his vehicle flanked by San.
"Mr Bang, thank you for agreeing to meet me, Mr Seo pleasure to see you again" Hongjoong drawled.
"Cut the crap Hongjoong" he growled already annoyed by the whole charade making San narrow his eyes at him threateningly.
"What he means is why did you want us here Hongjoong? need to explain something to us before things escalate any further" Chan raised his eyebrow waiting for an answer.
"Well it has come to my attention that my boy Mingi has been indirectly fucking with you" Hongjoong gestured to the man on his left who nodded "and of course we come to offer our sincere apologies for this"
"Yes we are aware of that, we have his cousin as a guest of ours currently" Chan drawled looking bored.
"His cousin?" San spluttered instantly looking both angry that he was being held and at the casualness of Chan's tone.
"He's a very easy talker Hongjoong, did you know that?" Bin smirked watching the two men in front of him faces change almost imperceptibly at the news.
"Yes he's been quite accommodating and I am sure Mingi would like him returned as unscathed as possible, however his associates Jihoon and Jonwoo will probably not be returned" Chan continued trying to keep his calm demeanor intact.
"Ah I see that you are aware of the situation" Hongjoong sighed "In that case perhaps we can explain before this escalates further"
"You think Hongjoong, maybe explain why we shouldn't kill you and your crew for fucking with us?" Binnie snarled furiously at the other man.
"Changbin" Chan reminded coolly
"Mingi's uncle owes a lot of money to both our crew and the Exo crew, they want him dead for not paying fast enough, he figured out a way to get their money at the very least but enough to get him out of debt" San began evenly trying to keep everyone calm.
"Bin your girl has figured out the voice, it's her fucking boss, Mingi's other fucking uncle" Hyunjin's voice came to life in their ears making his fury bubble to the surface at an alarming rate. Chan knew it was about to go to shit so he very quickly decided to take charge before Changbin went postal.
"Continue" Chan prompted knowing the other two men could see the change in his rage level
"He was to do a job for some company director that was an associate or some shit of his uncle, he wanted what Mingi said was a simple job in exchange for twice the amount of cash owed, we thought it was just some company wanting to ruin another one" San continued while eyeing him with caution.
"Fucking enough" Chan sanpped stepping closer to Hongjoong and San threateningly causing Changbin to re focus on Chan "You were allowing Mingi to have one uncle to pay of the other's debt for the small favor of procuring him a girl that he wanted. Am I fucking wrong?"
"Yes, the money would be used to pay off his debts to both Exo and us but the girl was never going to be harmed, we don't fucking traffic women, we don't fucking traffic anyone" Hongjoong defended angrily.
"Then what were you planning to do the money wouldn't have been exchanged without her, would it? Even you're not that fucking stupid to think otherwise" Chan snarled knowing that they were lying to his face. Moving one hand to his side he gave a very subtle signal to the other members watching who instantly understood.
"Where are your men Hongjoong? Surely they would have come to the rescue by now" He asked menacingly, his hand twitching as he wanted to reach for his gun.
"There is only one way to deal with this little problem as far as I can see it" Chan continued "There are rules we all live byin this life, business is business it isn't personal, you don't fuck with innocents and you never go after a members family" Chan lectured letting the pair of them stew in their own obvious fear "These are what separate us from animals, this is what keeps us successful"
"Family?" Hongjoong blinked looking between both Chan and Changbin.
"Did that motherfucker forget to mention who the woman was Hongjoong?" Changbin grinned psychotically making Hongjoong look to San for an explanation.
"Who the fuck is the girl San?" Hongjoong spat grabbing San by his collar.
"She's a fucking no one" San spluttered eyes wide before hanging his head.
"She isn't fucking no one though is she? If she was we wouldn't be here having this fucking conversation" Hongjoong yelled at the younger man letting him go and stepping back.
"No she isn't anyone" Chan smiled finally gesturing to him to move "She's Changbin's girl, she's the Queen of our syndicate and your cock splash of a member has gotten you both killed for it" He smiled dangerously as Changbin pulled his weapon from his side, and aimed at San.
"Wait, if she is your girl then we can work this out in a way where you get revenge and send a message to every other crew in the country" Hongjoong interjected quickly looking Chan dead in the eye.
"I'm listening" Chan replied apathetically motioning for him to lower the weapon slightly.
"We had no idea we were messing with your lady, we would never do that knowingly, I will give you Mingi and his family and any other member of my crew who is involved and in return we put this behind us and never repeat it" Hongjoong proposed nervously.
"Changbin what do you think?" Chan asked him smoothly waiting for him to considder.
"You're willing to let me end every member in your crew who knew what this was? Loyalty isn't your strong suit is it?" he asked looking from Hongjoong to San who both nodded.
"If you lie to us now and double cross us later" Chan interjected "I will let Changbin unleash hell on all of you and it wont just be you who will receive his wrath".
"I swear on it" Hongjoong sighed relieved holding out his hand for Chan to shake, which he did cementing the deal that would end this mess properly.
"Now gentlemen, we need to get back" Chan smirked gesturing for the van to collect them.
Felix had made you a hot chocolate and had bundled you up with blankets in their meeting room so that you were close to him while he continued to work monitoring the CCTV around the perimeter of the company while Han and Minho came and went checking on you from time to time and to give Felix updates.
"Where are your men?" Lix suddenly asked as both of them appeared in the room again.
"Mine are in the garage and at the front keeping the entry points locked down" Minho replied casually.
"Han?" Felix asked again looking at the screens confused by what he was seeing.
"Oh mine are out of the fence line of the two gates but there are only a couple of them why?" Han looked over Felix's shoulder at the screen.
Are either set in vans? That black one has driven past four times now" Felix frowned as the same license plate displayed on the screen from the camera that scanned everyone who passed.
"No those aren't ours" Han agreed agitation in his voice. Your phone started vibrating making you look towards where it sat beside you Binnie's name flashing across the screen.
"Binne?" you smiled widely feeling so relieved to hear his voice "Are you ok? Are the others alright?"
"Were fine baby, we're on our way back now" you could hear the smile in his voice. "Is Felix with you? can you relay a message to him?"
"Of course Binnie" you sighed softly enjoying the way the tightness in your chest was leaving you knowing he was coming back to you.
"Thank you baby, tell him it was a trap and that you may have incoming, everything will be fine though we made a deal" he sounded slightly annoyed but you could help with that when he got home "I know this is probably scary but I will be back soon with Chan and the others, you're safe and no matter what happens between now and when I get here you need to do exactly as the guys say, can you do that for me baby doll?" he sounded calm which made you relax, further knowing they all were safe.
"I'll tell Lix, promise" you smiled
"Good girl baby" he muttered as you could here the others teasing him in the background before he hung up.
"Lix" you interrupted the three guys talking while all looking at the screens.
"Yeah Bubs?" he smiled turning to you slightly.
"It was a set up, Chan has made a deal and you may have incoming but they are on their way back now" you listed quickly making Felix grin at you proudly.
"You know after this a think we need to teach you how to shoot" He mused looking between you and Han.
"Oh no I don't believe in guns" you stammered putting you hands up.
"Well that's just nuts because they are very real" Han giggled pulling his hand gun from his holster and coming closer to give it to you.
"Um...no" you stuttered hiding your hands in Changbin's hoodie making Han properly begin laughing.
"You aren't freaked out by Bin getting angry, all the shit we have collectively done, over hearing screaming, seeing me covered in blood or the idea of breaking someone nose or knees but a gun makes you want to hide. That is gold" he cackled making you look to Felix for help
"Man don't tease her" Felix warned eyebrow raised.
"Han, if she tells Bin you have been scaring her with a gun he will be likely to beat the shit out of you" Minho forewarned
"She's not a snitch she won't tell Bin will you princess?" Han smirked while still waving the gun around making you shrink back into the cushions.
"Han, seriously" Felix growled getting pissed off himself now.
"Or what Felix you going to get all defensive of the girl you want but wants our brother" Han teased again getting slightly more chaotic.
"Fuck off Han! you don't know shit" you snapped glaring up at him "Don't be such a fucking arsehole"
"Ah there she is! There's the little mobster wife!" Han look pleased with himself.
"God you are a cunt" sighed Felix.
"You know it's not snitching if they get back and you are waving that gun around right?" Minho added chuckling how well he played you and Felix.
"It's not snitching if I let him see the CCTV either" shrugged Felix grinning evilly.
"I'm pretty sure it's not snitching if I bite you right now" you fumed throughly annoyed by Han "you would be the one who has to explain it"
"I don't get how you two didn't figure this out sooner" Minho smiled watching you muttering under your breath.
"Huh? who figures what now?" you quirked your eyebrow at Minho curiously.
"You and Changbin, obviously" he chuckled in reply.
"We haven't figured it out, this literally just happened" you sighed feeling frustrated but looking to Minho as kindly as you could "It is almost as new as the whole idea that Bin and Lix are gangsters, that you're all criminals, it's too new for anyone to say figured it out".
"But you love him so it's pretty much settled" Han chipped in tilting his head to look at you.
"I don't even know that yet" you admitted quietly knowing that being this honest with them might backfire on you but you could stop yourself you began fiddling with your fingers and looking at the floor.
"Bubs?" Felix tentatively whispered getting up and moving to crouch in front of you making sure you were looking him in the eye "Bin didn't force anything on you did he?" his voice so soft that you were sure his words were only for you.
"No! no Felix, you know he wouldn't hurt me" you whispered back completely taken aback by his line of questioning.
"Shit no bubs, I mean did he just tell you that you are together now, did he actually give you options to take this slowly or maybe even not get together" Felix explained hurriedly.
"We..um I asked him what it meant and he said I was his and he would never give me up, so that's what we are" you murmured embarrassed you didn't like talking about the two of you in front of the others but they were trying their hardest to look busy focusing on the CCTV screens which made you feel a little better.
"Is that what you want though?" he implored looking at you softly
"I think so... he makes me happy, he always has, he makes me feel safe" you smiled slightly seeing how concerned Lix was for you "It feels natural to be with him, I've never felt like that before" Felix let go of a deep breath and grinned at you.
"You do love him bubs you just might not be in love with him, not yet anyway" his voice still quiet but happier.
"Their back" Minho interrupted clearing his throat and glaring at Han to not open his mouth who looked gleeful about the whole conversation.
Changbin was still angry even after the silent drive back, as they got closer he noticed the first of another few vans that were scoping the area but they scattered once they identified that they were returning not wanting to risk anything with the full syndicate in attendance.
"Fuckers still prowling about" Hyunjin snarled sounding equally pissed off.
"When we get back sort out the other two but leave the kid, for now" Chan instructed casually "Unless we have any disagreements on that course of action" when none of them spoke up Hyunjin nodded firmly.
"We need to discuss what we have learnt too" Jeongin sighed disgruntledly "If this is going to end in a all out war we need to all know how and why before we start tearing people apart"
"Tearing people apart? Ha! they will be lucky if that is all Bin does to them" Seungmin dryly sighed as they parked in the garage and began making their way up to the meeting room where they already knew the others were observing the surrounds from.
Storming into the room they were collectively stopped dead by the sight of you glaring at Han waving a gun around.
"I swear to god Han once I learn how to use this you are the first person I am fucking shooting" you growled glaring hard at the man in front of you who seemed to find the whole thing amusing.
"Bubs, this is why you aren't allowed to hold a loaded gun" Felix tried to calm you reaching for the handgun in your hand as Minho turned to look at the guys who had just entered shrugging.
"Fine I'll stab him then" you snarled pulling the butterfly knife you had been carrying all afternoon from your pocket.
"No kitten, you can't stab him either, Bin would be annoyed if you stabbed Han" Minho chuckled as Han doubled over laughing.
"To be fair I don't care if she stabs him, motherfucker probably deserves it" Bin smiled feeling himself instantly begin calming down watching whatever chaos was unfolding around you.
"Binnie" You beamed dropping the knife on the floor for Felix to pick up rolling his eyes walking into his arms which he wrapped around you tightly.
"Hey! you are meant to be on my side" Han pouted indignantly.
"You started it when you started waving a fucking handgun in my face you twat" you glared again at him.
"You fucking what?" Changbin snarled looking at Han his anger rising again.
"It was a joke how was I supposed to know she's frightened of guns?" Han defended himself taking a step back from Bin.
"Because she told you she was" Felix sighed shutting down the surveillance feed from all the screens in the room.
"Then you after I had spoken to Felix about something important asked me if criminal cock is superior to any other type of cock" you added as the others all either face palmed or groaned at him.
"Fucks sake" Binnie sighed letting you go so he could take a seat then pull you into his lap, he softly kissed your temple and squeezed you slightly, you were relieved to sit there waiting to see if Chan wanted you to leave or not.
"Can we go over what we have learnt or do you need to keep shit stirring?" Chan asked harshly looking directly at Han who sat and nodded quickly.
"Our end was productive in the sense that we have made a deal with Hongjoong, he will give us Mingi, his co-conspirators and anyone else involved. In exchange we leave at least him and San alive since they did not know half the intel we did" Chan explained.
"Makes sense since we now know who the calls are coming from" Minho agreed easily.
"Now little one we need to be sure that the voice really is your boss alright?" Chan continued albeit slightly gentler with you.
"Oh we know it's him" Han interrupted "She called him and spoke to him in front of us to show us. Felix, Minho and I all agree it's defiantly him" he smiled at you before poking out his tongue which made you roll your eyes at him.
"I guess the only other part that we need to consult you on is whether you think you can cope with what is about to happen? It is going to be something you can never talk about with anyone outside of us, you can never admit you knew anything about it and you need to act as though you had no clue about any of this" Chan's voice was serious but still considerate as he stared intently at you.
"Because you are going to kill them all?" you asked bluntly meeting Chan's eyes.
"Yes" Chan's answer was exactly what you expected honest and to the point.
"Will I be safe afterwards?" you asked as you continued to meet his gaze.
"You will never be 100% safe in this life but you will be much safer after this" he admitted and you nodded silently leaning back into Binnie's chest, you could feel his warmth seeping into you back, and smell the lingering scent of his cologne swirling around you making you feel at ease.
"Does it actually matter what I think?" you asked almost cynically knowing that you needed to remain honest at all times when it came to what they did, you couldn't allow misunderstandings or confusion.
"Of course it does baby" Changbin murmured from behind you.
"Well it shouldn't" you sighed "This is your life and your job, for a lack of a better word for it, I shouldn't get a say. If your asking whether I would ever turn you in I wouldn't and if your asking if I can live with what you all do I don't get a choice you live the lives you chose and if I chose Changbin then I have to live with that too" you carefully removed yourself from Changbin's grasp before walking out of the room leaving them sitting in silence.
"Ha" Chan half laughed half sighed "She is something else"
"Of course she is" Felix breathed worriedly watching the door you had just left through before looking back to Changbin.
"I'll talk to her after we are done here, she will come around to it but she is never going to like what we do Lix" he rubbed his hand over his face tiredly.
You had yet to ask Mrs Choi if she could make up another room for you, now that you were something to Changbin you felt as though you needed to give him at least a little space to himself. You had meant to do it today but things had once again gotten a little to intense for you to worry about something as small as a spare room. However, one on the others must have mentioned it to her for as soon as you left the meeting room you found her waiting for you.
"Come Miss I have prepared you a new room" she smiled seeming her manners still perfect despite your previous efforts to have her treat you more informally.
"Thank you Mrs Choi" you whispered following her up the stairs and past Changbin and Felix's rooms to the very end of the last hallway of that wing of the house.
"This used to be guest rooms but they have seen little use since our young gentlemen took up residence here" she informed you as you looked down at the 3 last rooms you hadn't know existed before.
"I guess you don't get many guests here" you noted nodding slowly as she led you the door at the very end of the hall.
"No it is a rarity for us, this one has the nicest view of the gardens which I thought you would like" she affirmed opening the door for you and letting you enter first. The room was not all that different to the others that you had seen, ridiculously large with an oversized bathroom, but it was not personalized in any way just light grey walls and white soft furnishings the large window that overlooked the garden made you realize you must be above the library on the lower floor.
"Thank you Mrs Choi it's lovely" you smiled genuinely at her.
"We can have it personalized for you if you are staying with us for longer but I have had my maids collect your clothing which is in the dressing room on the left here and we can have anything else you would like brought in for you" she explained kindly gesturing around the room.
"Thank you" you murmured again looking around yourself.
"Mr Han thought you might need more space, I was surprised he is usually not concerned by much of the goings on here but this he was sure needed to be ready for you by this evening" she finished bowing and excusing herself before you could ask any questions.
Han? you didn't even think he thought of as anything other than a new person to annoy and tease, you blinked to yourself before going to the wardrobe to find some clothing to change into that you could shower and get ready for bed, you knew they would be meeting for a while and you were exhausted being so tense all day. Finding your comfy bunny pajamas you made your way to the bathroom for a long hot shower to try to get you relaxed before you tried to sleep.
"So how will this all work Chan? I'm assuming you have some sort of plan" Minho asked curiously watching as Chan's brow furrowed slightly as he thought.
"I'm thinking we will need to either grab her boss and see if Mingi comes running or we might have to play as dirty as they have been" Chan replied slowly the cogs in his head still turning.
"Alright I'll bite, how would we grab Director Kim?" Felix quizzed everyone in the room "We can't just waltz into his house and grab him".
"No it would have to be much more covert than that, we would need to assume he may know that we are suspicious of him so it would have to either be a full infiltrate of his security or grab him while he is going to or from work" Chan mused
"What is playing dirty Chan?" Changbin finally asked knowing he would probably not like the answer but he needed to know.
"We would need to lure him out into the open, we would to have our little one play bait" Chan sighed causing the room to pause around them. He stared hard at Chan he knew that it was a possibility that you would be needed to lure the fucking scumbag out but he never anticipate Chan would suggest it as a proper option.
"No fucking way" Felix protested angrily frowning.
"Lix it might come to it but it's not our main plan" Hyunjin tried to calm his friend gently.
"You can go down that route if you want Chan, but you will have to look her in the eye and tell her what might go wrong, what she might lose" he stated lowly starting at his oldest friend aside from you.
"That's why I suggest figuring out how to grab him" Chan groaned "I don't want her in danger truth be told I'm becoming quite fond of that little firecracker, she is a good fit with this family"
"What about another option which might just be a little less risky for the little princess" Han proposed looking from Chan to him patiently.
"Shoot" Chan replied allowing Han his input.
"Well like I said earlier she called her boss in front of us, said she wanted to go back to work which he seemed very happy about, so why don't we just let her do that?" Han finished blinking at them "We could keep her safe with the hack we already have in their security system and you could even show up and take her to lunch or something that way Mingi will have to go for her himself and we will be on hand to deal with it"
"That could actually work well for us" Hyunjin chimed in.
"I still have a guy inside" Seungmin added
"We could easily throw in another few guys as security and interns in a day or so" Jeongin agreed nodding easily.
"Ok we can try this as long as everyone is agreement and we can get it organized on time. If we can't we drop it and go back to the first idea" Chan paused "You want to talk to her or do you want us to all do it?"
"I'll do it" he replied not liking the idea at all but needing to accept that it really would be the easiest way to get to Mingi, getting up to go back to his room.
"She won't be in your room tonight" Han announced suddenly making him narrow his eyes at the younger man. "Mrs Choi set her up in one of the guest rooms, I thought she might need some space from all of us to think" he smiled slightly.
"That is actually really smart for you at least" Seungmin remarked snidely
"Fuck off, she seems to be a bit lost to be honest and besides I like her she's chill and fun" Han groaned annoyed that he was going to be the butt of the joke for the rest of the night.
"How many of you are wrapped around her fingers now? Bin, Lix, Chan, you..."Hyunjin laughed heartily
"Don't forget Minho who threatened to ask her out of Bin didn't get his shit together" Chan added making Minho shrug indifferently.
"You are all wankers you know that" he rolled his eyes at the others still making his way out to speak to you.
"You love us man" Lix grinned cheekily making the others laugh again.
A/N: Sorry this has taken me so long I've been struggling with personal stuff and it has sapped all my will to live. However I am still writing so please forgive the time between chapters. Any likes, comments or reblogs are deeply appreciated and adored you guys make my whole week xx
Taglist (open): @christopher-bangnaldoskzz,@3sriracha,@deakyspuff,@symptoms-of-moonlight,@yoonguurt,@shownus-bebe,@ateexyz,@oiphoebe, @leanimal90,@armystay89,@frozenpeasworld,
#seo changbin x reader#changbin x reader#Mafia changbin au#stray kids imagines#skz imagines#stray kids fanfic#skz fanfic#changbin fanfic#bang chan#lee minho#hwang hyunjin#han jisung#lee felix#kim seungmin#yang jeongin#stray kids angst#stray kids smut
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why would you ad men to a poll about girls?
I suppose I had better explain this one since I know a lot of people weren't here right since the start.
When I first opened the submissions my policy was to run qualifier polls on characters that I didn't think unequivocally qualified. While I was still operating under this policy, three male-aligned characters (Captain Jack Sparrow, Patrick Bateman, and Miles "Tails" Prowler) were submitted, and I ran qualifiers for them accordingly. After a few days of this, people began to complain, both because of the men and because of a glut of joke submissions, and I started taking my responsibilities as an officiator of this poll more seriously. I started taking more liberties with what characters I disqualified by executive fiat, including enforcing my policy of keeping this a girlboss-aligned tournament. However, the three men that were submitted had been submitted in good faith, and had passed the qualifier poll. I felt it would be a betrayal of their submitters to disqualify them now. So yes, those three men did make it in.
I'll also address the nonbinary characters now. I haven't seen as much outcry over this, but a couple people were confused so I'll clarify - it was always my intention to allow canonically nonbinary characters to enter the poll. This is because I myself, as a plural system in which certain members are nonbinary, do not mind having the girlboss label applied to me. Nonbinary experiences are a vast set of spectrums, and this can include people who use genderless, gender-neutral, or alternative-gender pronouns but still allow themselves to identify with traditionally feminine-aligned labels. It was never my intention to suggest that canonically nonbinary characters such as Chara were women, and I apologize if I failed to make that clear.
One other thing I've seen coming up vis-a-vis Jack Sparrow is the fact that he is played by Johhny Depp. I will say this only once: fuck Johnny Depp. However, Johnny Depp the actor is not Captain Jack Sparrow the character, and being a fan of one is not the same as being a fan of the other. In general, I am against excluding media from this tournament, whenever possible. I have allowed characters from Homestuck and Hazbin Hotel to enter the tournament, despite the problematic history of the creators, because I believe that people should be allowed to engage with media on a basis that does not require them to be constantly aware of its creator, and that censorship of media based on its morality is rarely excusable. The exception to this rule is that I have not allowed Harry Potter characters to be submitted, because the Harry Potter universe is not only laced with problematic elements in itself, but all proceeds from it essentially, at this point, go to fund an antisemitic, racist, transphobic political hate campaign.
Finally, I will once again remind you all that any hate in my notes will get you blocked. You have the right to disagree with others and you most certainly have the right to disagree with me. That does not give you the right to attack and insult others over anything - how they choose their vote, how they run their tournament, how they engage with media, etc. I have seen actual death threats in my notes towards submitters of characters people did not like. I shouldn't have to tell you all that I will not tolerate that, but here we are.
#asks#long post#important#please respect your local pollrunners#its hard work and rarely appreciated
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So, dragon society is basically a kratocracy, right?
There's 0 explanation why dragons suddenly decided they needed a king despite living without one for a presumed while but I imagine it went something like this:
SOL REGEM: I am your king.
EVERYONE: Well, we didn't vote for you.
SOL REGEM: You don't vote for kings. Now do you want to repeat that to the dragon that can bite your face off?
So now dragons have a king, hurrah! But oh no, humans have done a naughty!
LUNA TENEBRIS: I am your queen.
HUMANS: Well, we didn't vote for you.
LUNA TENEBRIS: You don't vote for queens. Now get the fuck out of my country before this dragon bites your face off.
We know Thunder just straight up brawled for the right to take the throne because LT didn't leave an heir. (Royal bloodlines matter a lot to dragons, don't you know. They're just like us!) Zubeia, my useless angel, can still bring herself to let out the occasional mighty roar or lightning flash to scare others into line. EVERYONE has to listen to these violent lizards who just said "OBEY ME."
Remarkably, we're also supposed to see the dragon monarchy as a good thing that should continue, despite it providing very little benefits as far as I can tell. Most elven societies are self-sustaining and have their own rulers. Dragons are undeserving emperors who -- what? Keep other dragons in line? I haven't seen much evidence of that yet. They also fail to protect drakes from elves, which seems fucked up to me, but hey. The social stratification of that which may loosely all be called dragonkind is not for me to comment on, as it seems like the writers didn't think about it at all.
With all this in mind, when Ezran steps up to ask a bunch of dragons do to do him a solid, are they obeying him simply because the show wants to pretend Xadians have no issue with humans? Because they see the threat as more important than their pride or prejudice? Or because Zubeia is a wrathful queen who shares her husband's propensity for an iron fist, and she's hulking menacingly behind Ezran? Are dragons, Ezran's horrific weapon turned against his own people in season 3, representative of the unquestionable power granted by the divine right of kingship, and thus when he acts in authority, even when intending to be 'diplomatic' and 'peaceful', it is always with implicit threat of violence? Makes ya think!
#*#tdp critical#i don't even think implicit threat is like. a terrible way to write your ruler.#but the show won't ACKNOWLEDGE that's what's going on#they act like ezran is the world's biggest pacifist and it's like ???#you are no aang!
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sooooooo i guess i'll say it
to the people who are bitching about ship polls, no one gives a shit. stop being so disrespectful and dramatic about people enjoying things. no one has the right to send death threats based on a fucking poll on a hellsite.
i will admit i'm a younger user. i'm 20 years old and i am gender queer whatever doesn't matter but i am afab and lived most of my life as fem presenting/using she/her pronouns. seeing people say that "oh you hate women cause you voted for the ship with male presenting characters" jesus fucking christ. get a hold of yourselves i am guessing you're older than me but i have never met or interacted with someone who is fandom oriented that is around my age that gives so much of a shit.
if you are not emotionally mature enough to admit that other people enjoy different things from you maybe don't look at the polls??? have you thought of that???
this post is in direct response to this poll
the notes/tags in this are full of homophobia and calling those who voted aziraphale/crowley women haters and all that jazz.
and guess what i couldn't find! good omens fans hating on dr who!!
but what was extremely prevalent?
i'll show you!
like yeah nothing is fucking perfect why do you think amazon prime picked up this show over another company. it makes people happy! the world is changing and you all need to get over it.
and before anyone says shit about me not having seen dr who or being biased, i watched dr who. i didn't like it much and that should be just fine. i get why people don't like good omens and that is also just fine. i honestly didn't like rose as a character much either but that doesn't mean i hate women. i don't usually like women characters written by men for a male audience which, btw, is what dr who does.
it is absolutely possible to exist on the same website without saying you're going to kill the author and writer of whatever fucking media because a different ship won some stupid poll.
i didn't even vote in this! i've never voted on one cause i know how absolutely fucking upset id be about it. i actively try to avoid them but when this came up i was immediately upset and had to start blocking people cause jesus fucking christ let other people be happy and let another fandom enjoy something.
i am not a "new tumblr user" because i like good omens. i have been on and off this shit site for like 8 or 9 years now due to this absolute buffoonery.
just sit the fuck down and stop being stuck in your teenage years when things were more simple. it is 2023 and most people have grown past superwholock cause it's actually not 2013 surprisingly. enjoy things without it being a war of what's better and maybe idk give a new show a chance without thinking it's going to revoke something from you. we are literally all just people trying to enjoy shit and you are making it literally so fucking nasty to even try too.
thanks
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so for your poll abt abelism in fandom communities - i voted yes + reblogged but i will say i dont 1000% know im doing this right.
but for my experiences its been a lot of stigmatising of cluster b personality disorders. i have BPD which is already incredibly misunderstood/stigmatised but especially in fandom spaces where its "i headcanon x character w bpd" and immediately met with "no u cant bc ppl w bpd r evil and functionally not even ppl!!! all they do is hurt ppl they care about fuck them fuck ppl w bpd!!!" which
is incredibly harmful, as you'd imagine.
as well, i have autism and suspected schizophrenia and OCD (autism diagnosed, i am working on getting evaluated for schizophrenia and/or OCD) and fandom spaces can be incredibly rude to people with autism. whether it is schizophrenia related or not, i deal with extreme bouts of paranoia. fandom spaces also have a tendency to play into this - ie "joking" threats to be in my walls to hunt me down to kill me because i have a different fandom opinion.
its. alot. and i avoid most fandom spaces because of it.
Anon, I'm so sorry this has been your experience, because it absolutely should not be. This is the entire point of doing the poll and using the data to work on an essay - this behavior needs to be addressed and acknowledged as harmful.
I'm autistic with OCD myself, and this website is definitely bad to people with OCD. The misunderstanding of intrusive thoughts and how so many people become purity police and assume those intrusive thoughts actually mean you want to do something instead of understanding that they cause OCD folks extreme distress and anxiety is really, really harmful. And don't get me started on autism - I've been out in the real world doing self-advocacy for over a decade now, and the way a lot of people in fandom spaces treat autism is abysmal - there's even a lot of internalized ableism on that front, i.e. "I can't be ableist because I'm also disabled!" We all have internalized ableism to work through because of the world we live in.
Cluster B personality disorders and psychotic disorders get it the worst, though, with people treating those with them as "inhuman" and "evil" more often than not. No one is inherently more "evil" than anyone else. A personality disorder doesn't necessarily indicate that a person is bad. A psychotic disorder doesn't, either. BPD in particular actually makes a person very vulnerable to being abused due to the nature of how it works, but people love ignoring that part.
RE: people using your paranoia to send hateful anons, be really careful about what you share about yourself online. If you give too much information about what specifically can be used to hurt you, some people will absolutely do it. I know I may sound like an overly cautious adult to many of you (I'm 34), but when I was a teenager, we didn't put any personal information online in order to keep ourselves safe. If you aren't talking to people you really trust, don't necessarily share that information, because people are often cruel when they feel they can be so without any repercussions. Don't put all your triggers in your Carrd, don't make massive DNIs with all of the things that can hurt you in them - just use the block button and protect yourselves. Not everyone is acting in bad faith, and indeed, most humans aren't, but there are always some who will, and if they know how to hurt you or get back at you, they won't hesitate to hit where it hurts.
I'm sorry you have to remove yourself from fandom spaces just to feel safe, anon. It really isn't fair and you should be allowed to have a safe experience too.
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5. The Third Magician
STOP! YOURE MAKING HIM SELF CONSCIOUS!!!!!!!!!!
Well this is just fucked
OH FUCK THIS IS THE ONE THING YOURE NOT SUPPOSED TO DO AS A MAGICIAN!!!!!!!!!! About to get blackballed by the magicians guild
Well no wonder he keeps revealing his secrets hes not supposed to lie. thats like, the main thing magicians do.
Ok I'm gonna be honest I think a human would also be concerned about this
Number 3 on my Top 5 things to say to get kids to REALLY want to investigate the house right here.
Kenichi like breathes and Atom is like screaming because it was so loud
Again just appreciate how straightforwardly evil this is
Tezuka had a lot of fun drawing these panels I can tell. It reads like a wheres waldo page.
Really great way to consolidate all the paintings into several easy to transport vans so they can get stolen easier.
Ok I do gotta hand it to Tawashi this is a great hiding spot
On my "'Tis" and "Indeed" bullshit yet again
First calves vs. boots mistake(s) I've spotted since Plant People, but it's possible I missed one in Deadcross. All panels leading up to this have boots, he loses them for 3 panels, then they come back.
I want to stress again that calves vs. boots does not matter. I just like pointing it out.
Okay embarassment may be a little harsh
I hate him but he is pretty relateable. Me trying to escape problems as well.
This type of thing is common at the police agency (as we'll see) and Atom overhearing it is Also fairly common. I can't say its not relatable to have heard people say things they believed were behind closed doors about like. Your humanity and human rights.
Anyway, Ochanomizu is not likely to react well to you asking for that change but feel free to go for it I guess.
Actually so badass.
Atom's very unprepared for a debate like this, and clearly Tawashi is embarrassed he's been caught in being a bigot who pretends not to be one.
This interaction is bringing forward like, memories of the way Blue Knight's (2003 specifically) logical and straightforward but passionate approach was really clear to me as a kid. It was like, so simple that to go against it would immediately make someone look bad. They would have to admit the core conceit that they did not think robots deserved rights, nor did they deserve to Leave or be properly compensated - and from there, it's a different conversation.
This Atom, in this moment, just doesn't have any idea of what strategies to use, what to say, what to do. It's sad! And it's overwhelming. No wonder he's about to cry and resorts to "You're being mean!"
For anyone, myself included, who has been put in this situation while wholly unprepared to advocate for their own rights, this scene might hit pretty hard. Or maybe I'm just not normal about the comic book.
This would just be really scary and humiliating and upsetting. For anyone. I'm glad he has someone like Ochanomizu who can support him and guide him through it, but in an ideal world he wouldn't have to go through it at all.
Then again, ideal worlds don't make the best stories, do they?
I do love these moments when the roles are reversed from what we've seen before, and Ochanomizu is Protecting Atom from something he can't fight (human bigotry) instead of Atom protecting Ochanomizu from a more direct physical threat.
This whole portion of the story just makes my heart ache a little
Here we see a completely peaceful demonstration by robots to defend an ambiguous existing law that allows robots to act autonomously.
Atom's conceit here is that "If we offend the humans now, it'll only make things worse!" does not work - They will make things worse if the robots do nothing. Should they not at least show that they disagree? That they don't want to go down quietly? The human police are attacking a peaceful protest.
This is all stuff we're plenty familiar with. Atom's idealism is the same as liberalism in many ways. Go out and vote, don't disrupt the way things are. It allows the status quo to go almost entirely unchallenged, and all that needs to happen is a workaround for some votes. A system rarely actually listens to its most vulnerable.
This is the angriest we've seen him yet in the omnibus order. "Maybe I'm not in the mood to listen!" speaks to some righteous anger we rarely see from him - he's sick of always listening, always being patient. This is the way he knows to enact change. Fighting and punching work. When fighting and punching are out of the question, he feels helpless.
FUUUUCK YES DOGGY POLICE CARS FUCK YES ITS EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm biased but I do especially love how this was interpreted for Astro 2003. That said I can't find an image online immediately so everyone that's reading this please join me in imagining the 2003 dog cars.
...
It's great, right?
Oh good thing there's only one big place for us to check huh?
To be continued in a reblog. For reasons.
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Yellow City, Chapter Eleven - a Malevolent AU
Where were his parents? Wait, no, they wouldn’t be there anymore. Cloud City, he lived in Cloud City, not there, not for a long time. But his parents should have been there, in the village, smiling, working. Where were mom and dad? No, he knew they were gone, this was all wrong, this was—
Vertigo. All he could feel right now was vertigo. He made a small, soft sound.
Chapter eleven of Yellow City. Warning: this fic is explicit, though this chapter is not.
AO3
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Arthur had never been in a room more dangerous.
He walked slowly, trusting his partners to stay on his heels, to have his back. And he needed his back had here.
Everyone who was anyone in Cloud City was in this place, wearing fucking cufflinks worth more than Arthur’s rent. People who killed, and people who schemed. Gowns that sparked like painted depictions of the unseen night sky. Jewels like rain dangling from eaves. Thieves and owners of thieves. Those who claimed to uphold the law and also broke it.
People Hastur used to work with and call his peers.
This had to be awkward for Hastur at best, and awful at worse. Maybe it hadn’t been a good idea to bring him. “You good, partner?” he said, turning to look up (and his leash was long and thin like golden thread and there was plenty of slack and so it did not tug and bother him when he turned).
“Of course, little detective,” said Hastur, and he was slurring. “Why would I not be?”
Arthur gasped. “Are you drunk?”
Hastur laughed, low and terrible, and stroked Arthur’s hair. “Silly little detective.”
“Hastur!” Arthur hissed. “We need to be on our best game right now! What were you thinking?”
“That this is not the threat to me that you seem to think it is,” said Hastur, adjusting Arthur’s (fine golden collar) white bowtie.
“Fuck,” said Arthur, and looked to Parker. “Are you drunk, too?”
Parker stared at him. “No.”
“Good. Because we gotta pick up the slack.” He gave Hastur a dry look, then shook his head. “I get it, I guess. Just wish you’d told me it would fuck you up so much to see your old cronies.”
“My old cronies, you say,” said Hastur, delighted and slurring.
“You’re lucky he’s this sensible,” said Parker. “He’s been a nut for days. Ever since you—”
Arthur heard tied the knot, and some part of his mind hurt, and deep in his chest hurt, but both stopped at once and he felt fine.
“—didn’t even put you down for one fucking second. Carried you around like some kind of doll,” Parker complained.
“It’s a honeymoon, Parker. I don’t know what you expected,” Arthur said a little defensively.
Parker stared. “It was not a fucking honeymoon! He stabbed you through the heart.”
Arthur was a grown man, and only colored a little. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”
Parker covered his face with his hands and screamed, close-mouthed, into the meat of his palms.
“Grow up, Yang.” Arthur said. “Well, as long as we make it through the performance, we should at least get out alive.”
“Performance?” Parker said weakly.
“All is ready,” Hastur said, tentacles rising, many eyes glowing briefly golden behind his mask.
“Yeah,” said Arthur, looking around. “There’s Lauren Darling. I gotta talk to her.”
“Who? Why?” Parker said.
“The vote,” said Arthur simply.
“You’re remembering that all the time,” said Parker softly.
“It’s important. We’re the only hope those kids have,” said Arthur, as if that explained everything.
“His memory has improved,” said Hastur, eagerly. “Lead the way, little detective. I have your back.”
“That’s just what I wanted to hear.” Arthur checked his hand, where he saw a ring (so many rings) that matched the hammered gold bands (beauty) on Hastur’s tentacles. His heart did a happy little skip. “First job as a married man. Let’s get this done.”
Hastur’s laugh was deep and pleased.
Parker’s leash had plenty of slack. He hung back. Lauren Darling was Pers, Hastur’s half-sister, a horrible bitch Parker did not care to go anywhere near, and he wondered if Arthur would crazy his way into her graces, too.
He hated this place. Knew it well. Had spent nearly four fucking years here, suffering. Suffering. Unable to appease his god.
His god, whom he’d been sure would free them from all other gods. He’d been so sure.
The floor was slimy, and the walls were slick. Insects squirmed in the corners. The dais and throne—which he’d never seen the Defiler use—gleamed dully with whatever awful slime grew all over it.
He’d have to fucking burn the skin off his feet once they left here if he wanted to feel clean again.
He crossed his arms over his chest. Hastur was happy, clearly—his tentacles all undulated, the edges of his robe fluttered without breeze, and his crown somehow cut the air in a way that even Parker couldn’t parse without feeling like his brain was being stabbed. Paker let them get so far away that the leash was almost taut.
He couldn’t hear them. Pers (in all her freakish pink glory) was being threatening, leaning over, tentacles pointed like knives, but Arthur didn’t seem to see—or possibly didn’t care. It’s not like she’d try anything with Hastur right there. Probably.
He could admit to himself he didn’t know for sure. In this moment, surrounded by towering gods who paid only enough attention to him to avoid stepping on him, he could admit he didn’t know a lot.
He used to know. He used to see, to feel. To wield magic by will, channeling power he thought he’d earned in pursuit of his goal. He’d been so close.He’d pleased his god. Then, he’d failed.
Hastur laughed. The room shook; gazes turned his way. Even when it wasn’t his fucking party, he had to make it about him. Parker rolled his eyes.
Arthur was working his own magic, though, whatever it was. Pers’ body language had calmed, her pink tentacles lowering, and she was laughing, her nearly human guise almost smiling right, though the eyes were too wide, and she had too many teeth.
Parker shuddered. Turned. And found himself facing sagging flesh, puckered skin, the pocked and oozing putrefaction of the one he’d once called lord.
He had never been one who startled, who spooked. He went stiff, but neither cried out, nor stepped back. Instead, he looked up.
There was no head. Parker looked there anyway. He’d determined, in the nearly four years of unending torment, that regardless of the putrid and melting form taken, Y’golonac always watched from that place.
Silence. Y’golonac dripped onto the tiles, and his smell twisted the air.
Guilt, fear, hope chased each other down Parker’s throat, clogging it. He had never been good with words.
“Having fun with the Peacock King?” the Defiler finally said through his disgusting left hand.
The smell of rotten meat carried those words. The sheer yellow fabric Parker wore began to sort of wilt, like flower petals under intense heat. “It’s fine.”
“You’re miserable,” said the Defiler with his right hand. He produced another arm with too many fingers, each of them with tips torn off, oozing something pink from the shattered bone tips. This is what he used to touch Parker’s leash, pinching it between his fingers. “Do you want to come back?”
Yes, Parker wanted to come back. Not to suffer more, not to hurt, but to regain acceptance. To unearth the favor he’d lost. To find the… he wouldn’t call it love (it had never been soft or fond), but the approval.
It was the tone that tipped him off, though: mocking. Beyond teasing. Cruel. “You’re not offering.”
“No. I’m not offering.” The Defiler said.
It wasn’t as though they’d Contracted; Parker couldn’t host him. Y’golonac’s servants had come, or there’d been signs in dreams. And the power; there’d always been such power, strength, healing, health. Parker never got sick, even when the whole department did. By the time Arthur had been chosen as vehicle, by the time Parker was many murders in and blindered, he’d felt fucking invincible.
More importantly, though, he’d felt approval, and that had been his drug.
It was all gone now. His heart hurt. “What’s it gonna take to make up for it? If you’ll just fucking tell me, I’ll do it.”
“He’s going to give you back soon,” Y'golonac said. On either side of his pinch, the leash lost its gold, began to darken and grow stiff.
This was bad. This was good. This was complicated. “He say that?” Parker managed, both terrified and hopeful.
“No. But I know him. Flighty; distracted. He’ll want his favorite happy, and…” Both the Defiler’s hands laughed, spraying Parker with saliva that stank, that burned. “How happy do you think he’ll be when he learns just what was traded for you?”
Not happy at all.
It seemed like the one consistent thing left in Arthur’s shattered brain, and no, he would not be happy. He’d never blame his precious Hastur. No. Parker knew how it would go down.
The Defiler was getting him back. It wouldn’t be a joyful reunion. He wanted it to be, but it just was not.
So many things twisted under his tongue, in his head, but only one came out of his mouth, out of nowhere, bad. “Do you hate me?”
“Yes.”
Even when being tortured or sent on endless, punished errands, he hadn’t been told that.
Hard to breathe around the weight of what he’d lost. Crying would be so fucking dumb. “I can make up for it. I can.”
Y'golonac said nothing.
Behind him, gods laughed. Arthur had done something entertaining, and the laughter was followed by light applause. Well, that figured. Arthur had always been… likable. Even at his lowest, grouchiest, most self-destructive.
Parker had never been likable, even at his best. Words were too fucking hard.
Parker tried: “I’m sorry I failed you.”
“I don’t care.” Light tone, flippant, almost covered by the voice behind, by Hastur’s booming pleasure.
“Yeah, you do,” Parker dared.
Y’golonac studied him, face unseen, and the mouths in his hands smiled. “I don’t hate you because of your failure.”
Hastur’s voice rose, some questioning prompt. Arthur replied, and their audience cheered again.
Parker couldn’t find words.
“I hate you because you’re everything I hate,” said the Defiler almost kindly, as the leash began to crackle where it had blackened, the rot climbing toward Parker’s throat. “I’ve always hated you. Virile. Strong. Healthy. Smart. I hated everything about you from the very beginning.”
Parker staggered back one step as if that had been a physical blow.
Was this happening? Really? Laughter danced over his shock, pressing his sinking heart deeper into drowning. “But you… kept me that way,” he finally said.
The floor beneath them darkened, foul. “I had to. You had to serve me, didn’t you?”
Hated by his god. By the one he’d done everything for. It hurt. It hurt. Parker clenched his fists. “Why are you talking to me right now, huh?” he choked out.
Y’golonac shrugged, and the sound was like wet leather being twisted.
Parker looked at the leash. The darkness was a foot from his throat.
He should cry out. Step back. Something.
There didn’t seem to be a point.
Always hated him. There’d never been approval. Only tolerance and manipulation. Like all of them. Like the ones he’d dedicated his life to ending.
Parker stayed still and did not raise his voice, but he decided at least to ask. Why not? There was nothing left to lose. “What would you have done to me if I’d succeeded?”
“Let you die.”
Said like a cheap gift.
Said like an unimportant thought.
Says like an already-faded bouquet.
Parker couldn’t find his words anymore.
“I won’t let you die now, though,” said the Defiler. “Not after what you cost me. I’m keeping you. I hate you.” The rot was nearly at the end of the leash. “You failed me. With all the power I could give you, all the tools, all the time. I’ll keep you so long, you won’t even remember why I hurt you. I’ll find new ways. You’ll never adapt. You’ll never know joy or peace. Anybody who fails me will know—”
An inch from Parker’s skin, the rot stopped crawling up the leash.
“Back away from him,” said Arthur from behind the enormous god of rot.
Surprise made those puckers tighten, squirting a little unidentifiable fluid, and the Defiler turned.
Arthur. Holding a… something like a gun, pointed right at the Defiler’s midsection. “I said back away from him, or you can fucking say goodbye to your kidneys.”
Behind him, Hastur. Chuckling. So amused. “Brother,” he said.
“Brother,” said the Defiler. “That’s a dangerous toy to give your pet.”
Arthur’s thumb moved. Parker thought he might have “cocked” whatever he was holding. “You deaf or just stupid?”
“You’re making a mistake,” seethed Y'golonac like boiling shit.
“I suggest you step back,” said Hastur. “I will let him use it.”
Whatever that black thing was, it apparently was serious, because the Defiler took a single, wet, heavy step back.
“Parker,” said Arthur, hand and eyes still steady on Parker’s fucked-up god. “You good?”
“Yeah,” said Parker, aware now that he stank, aware that his yellow frothy gold had withered, fried, turned crackling and sticky.
“Come on over here,” said Arthur. “I’m covering you.”
Hastur tsked. “My, my, what have you done?” he said, and his tentacles slid over Parker, and the stench was gone, and the tiny bits of burning, and the leash gleamed, and the fabric frothed like golden mist and reformed perfect and sheer and pointless.
Parker knew he should say thanks. The only words he could find were angry. He clenched his jaw shut.
“You have some balls,” said Y’golonac, calmly, “pulling this at my gathering.”
“I don’t care if it’s your mama’s kitchen,” said Arthur. “Stay the fuck away from my partners.”
Hastur chuckled.
Y’golonac made no sound at all.
“Fuck, shut up, Arthur!” Parker whispered.
“I’ll remember this. Do you think you can get away—” The Defiler stopped. The Defiler stared. “You marked him?” he bellowed.
Voices dimmed.
Parker looked around. Everyone was staring. His eyes went wide. It was that big a deal?
“Yes, I did,” said Hastur bombastically.
Y’golonac leaned away as if Hastur was the contagious one. “You’ve gone crazy.”
Hastur chuckled. “Just because I have better taste than you hardly means that.”
Arthur didn’t seem to be hearing this. “Deep breaths, man. You’re safe now.”
Parker stared at him. “What the fuck did you antagonize him for? He’s dangerous!”
“You needed it,” said Arthur.
“I’m not your fucking friend,” Parker snapped, and thought that would work.
“You’re my partner,” said Arthur. “And I’m your friend because you fucking need one. Now, listen: this party’s a wash. I’m doing the music number, and we can get out of here.”
It was whiplash, talking to this guy. “What? What number?”
“Arthur Lester,” said Y’golonac. “Your owner traded his vote to me for the sake of your new friend.”
And every single being around them went quiet and still.
Parker’s stomach turned. Bile filled his mouth, made his eyes water, and he struggled not to throw up.
Arthur stared.
The Defiler laughed, a wet sound, unpleasant. “He didn’t tell you?”
Parker couldn’t stand straight; the cramping in his stomach—
Arthur looked up at Hastur. “Is that true?”
Yeah, it was true, and it was over. That’s what the Defiler had been doing, talking to him. Building it up, marinating his meal, getting Parker ready to be traded back.
It just… there was no way out. Parker covered his eyes.
“Yes,” Hastur confirmed.
Arthur sounded so… hurt. “Why? Why would you do that?”
“You asked for him,” said Hastur, all calm.
Such heavy silence, bored gods waiting to see how this played out. Parker knew how it would play out. He bent almost double. He didn’t want to see Arthur’s betrayal, Arthur’s sorrow, and finally, Arthur’s hardening accusation. Weak, pathetic, he thought, because the kindness Arthur had given him had somehow become precious. I’m a fool.
“Your vote?” said Arthur.
“Yes,” said Hastur.
“You…” Arthur stopped.
“So fix it,” said Y’golonac. “Make your pet happy. Trade back. Now.”
Had it been this quiet in this room three minutes ago? Had there been so many eyes, such weight of attention?
“Why would you do that?” Arthur whispered.
“Because that was what he wanted,” said Hastur.
The Defiler laughed. “He didn’t even try to bargain.”
“I knew there was no bargain,” said Hastur. “He said what he wanted.”
Here it came. And suddenly, Parker decided he’d say goodbye. Goodbye to this absolute lunatic, a guy he’d respected, a guy so crazy he probably wouldn’t even remember.
A guy he’d helped break by fucking around with knowledge of his daughter’s murder.
A guy he’d thought would never break.
The last kindness he would ever know had come from this guy. He owed a goodbye. Parker stood and faced him.
Arthur wasn’t hardened. He was frowning, deep in thought. Looking back and forth between the huge deities. He stopped, looking at Hastur. “I believe you.”
Parker swallowed more bile. What?
“I wish you’d fucking told me,” said Arthur. “But I get it.”
The Defiler had not expected this. “I said he traded his vote!”
“Yeah, I heard you,” said Arthur.
Parker felt slow and stupid. “You’re all about votes. This is suddenly fine?”
Arthur looked at him. “It’s not fine, but look: if we can’t swing enough votes that Hastur’s matters that much, we were fucked anyway, because they’ll just roll a second vote and win. It has to be decisive. But more important… Parker, we had to get you free. This is about people. The vote’s about people. I’d be a hypocrite to trade a life for a vote in the name of more votes.”
Parker gawked at him, mouth hanging open, throat closed.
(How many people had he killed, all for the greater good?)
There wasn’t another sound in this room.
(How many times had he violated his conscience, saying the one for the many, like the many weren’t made of ones?)
Everyone stared.
“Right,” said Arthur, handing the not-a-gun back to Hastur. “Time for my number. How do I look?”
“Perfect,” purred Hastur, and by gods, he sounded like he meant it.
Arthur nodded, moved as if removing a non-existent jacket and handing it to Hastur, then headed for the dais at the other end of the room.
And Hastur had to ruin the moment with himself. “You thought that would be a deal-breaker, didn’t you?” he said so smugly that Parker almost wanted to be returned out of spite. “You don’t know my little detective. I do.”
“You’ll get tired of it eventually,” Y’golonac snapped. “When your pet forgets him. You haven’t marked that one, and you won’t.”
No, Parker would definitely not be marked.
“I don’t have to mark him for him to be mine,” said Hastur, making no damn sense, and then Arthur’s musical number began.
Instruments blared out of nowhere, human percussion, human brass. Bright and syncopated, jazzy and fun, and Parker startled. “What the fuck?”
“The music is his arrangement,” said Hastur, ignoring the Defiler while standing in his house. “From his mind. He’s been working on it for days.”
It was lively as fuck, and Arthur was no tap-dancer, but he moved his feet on the dais as if it were a stage, conducting with his whole body, not just his arms, leading the sound of an invisible big band. Then, still conducting, he turned to face the room and sang. “Well, it's a marvelous night for a moondance / with the stars up above in your eyes / A fantabulous night to make romance / 'neath the cover of October skies.”
Parker stared. “What the fuck is this song?”
Hastur laughed darkly.
“That’s…” said some god Parker didn’t know. “How does he know that? He can’t know that.”
“He dreamed it!” Hastur proclaimed, raising all his limbs, and Arthur’s whole body shimmered. Suddenly, Arthur wore a white tux and tails, top-hat included. Suddenly, there was a spotlight, and numerous shadows as if dozens of musicians rose in tiers behind him.
Parker might never find words again.
Arthur tapped in time, swaying his hips, directing the unseen orchestra he imagined in place of a putrid throne, and sang again. “And all the leaves on the trees are falling / to the sound of the breezes that blow / You know I'm tryin' to please to the calling / of your heartstrings that play soft and low.”
The gods were dancing.
Parker felt insane.
They were… lurching, or tapping, or… he recognized that. Fucking jitterbugging?
“But that song was never written anymore,” somebody protested.
Parker could believe that. He’d never heard anything like it. Jazz? Sure, it was jazz, but utterly unfamiliar. Some future-age jazz, unknown. He stared.
Arthur spun. His eyes sparkled. His hair, slicked back, shone in red-gold waves. And this time, still directing an orchestra that didn’t exist, he sang… to Hastur. Arm out, eyes fixed, a smile on his face. “Well, I wanna make love to you tonight / I can't wait 'til the morning has come / and I know that the time is just right / and straight into my arms you will run / And when you come, my heart will be waiting / to make sure that you're never alone / There and then all my dreams will come true, dear / There and then I will make you my own.” And he spun back around and directed with his whole body, white tail-coat dancing with him, unseen instrumentalists following his every move as they changed key.
The place was in an uproar. Almost all of the gods were moving now, and while they didn’t have faces, they were… they were…
Happy?
Parker had never seen happy gods apart from Hastur. It hit him like a brick to the head, that thought. He turned slowly on his bare-footed heel, jaw open, staring at wriggling, tapping, dancing gods, and felt completely out of his mind.
Was insanity catching? Had he really fucking lost it? Was—
His collar gave a terrible yank, a nasty pull that slammed him right onto the slimy marble floor, and he hissed in pain as something in his shoulder cracked.
One of the Defiler’s lackeys sneered at him. “Oops,” it said, ears dripping with puss that bubbled and popped.
Hastur smacked it.
One tentacle, casual as anything, smacking the lackey right down, and it crunched beside Parker and cried out.
Had that been… equivalent exchange? What the fuck just happened?
Something in his shoulder was broken. The shock was done, and pain was catching up, rising, climbing. Unfair, that dead people could feel pain. Unfair.
Hastur picked him up. “Silly little traitor,” he said, and he healed that shoulder.
The pain vanished. The crunching stopped.
I’ve lost it, he thought, because the fuck?
The orchestra of Arthur’s mind followed his direction, ending at last with a screaming-brass dissonance and glory, a chord that felt like rising sun and jazzy joy and life, and in Hastur’s grip, Parker panted.
Arthur jogged down the dais steps to wild applause, somehow not slipping on the slime everywhere in the Defiler’s house. His white tux shimmered, disappeared in golden mist, became his little sheer yellow drapes of ownership. He was beaming.
Parker had to admit some grudging amazement. Hastur really did manage to take over any situation. Well. Whose fault was that? Y'golonac shouldn’t have invited him, if he didn’t want that.
“Well done, little detective,” said Hastur in a low and hungry voice.
“I figure we can go now,” said Arthur. “Obligations done. And I don’t think we’re getting more votes tonight.”
“Likely not,” said Hastur, picking him up, too.
Parker thought he’d get more, but he wanted no reason to stick around.
“Gotta watch it,” Arthur said, low. “Kissinger’s gonna get us back for this. Not that I regret it. Just saying.”
“He will try,” Hastur agreed, heading for the door.
“You promised,” said Pers, “and you delivered. Magnificent.”
“I told you,” said Hastur.
“Ma’am,” said Arthur, tipping a hat he did not have.
She purred, a higher sound than Hastur’s, almost trilling. “Lovely.”
“Yes, he is,” said Hastur, and at last, they were free.
Parker hadn’t believed he’d actually get out of there. But they were out. They were out. Somehow, he’d gotten out.
He lost it, great big gulping sobs like some rube, and couldn’t rein them in.
“Hey, man,” said Arthur. “Hey. Come on. You’re okay.”
“Fuck,” whispered Parker, wiping his eyes. He couldn’t stop.
“You have done so well, my little detective,” Hastur rumbled.
Arthur looked at Hastur like he’d hung the moon.
Parker hated Hastur. He did. But alongside guilt, alongside the heavy weight of failure, he could not kill the tiny seed of gratitude that now grew like deep-rooted weeds.
#
Hastur made them eat.
Arthur didn’t wanna. “I don’t—” A bite of stew chewed and swallowed, meat and root vegetables and herbs boiled soft. “I’m not hungry.”
“Eat,” Hastur said, not giving him a choice.
Parker picked at his own stew. The taste of bile was long gone, and all the muck cleaned off. Hastur had let him share the enormous in-ground pool, hot and scented. Had focused on Arthur and let Parker scrub himself red, scrub himself bleeding, not stopped him from crying into his hands or repeatedly punching the water.
Parker couldn’t understand any of this. He tried to find some words. “Hey. Hastur.”
“Hmm?” More stew, which Arthur obediently chewed and swallowed.
“Why did you stop him?” That wouldn’t be clear enough. “You hate me, too. Like he does.”
“I don’t hate you, little traitor.”
He had words for that. “I sleep on a damn table.”
“That is because it’s funny.” Hastur kept Arthur occupied, little touches, mouth full. “I don’t hate you personally, viscerally. I just don’t feel better yet.”
Parker frowned. “Better yet?”
“Hastur, I’m tired,” said Arthur, and looked it.
“A little more,” said Hastur.
He couldn’t mean… “What, from when I fucked him?”
“Yes,” said Hastur. “He listened to you instead of me.”
That’s what this was about? Parker stared. “Years ago!”
“Yes.”
Gods were stupid. Stupid as mud, all of them. “He did that because you made him mad!”
Hastur said nothing.
Parker bared his teeth. “That’s who he fucking is. Make him mad at you, and he runs in the opposite direction just to spite you, even if it’s into a damn wall!”
Hastur’s response was both infuriating and unnerving: “I don’t feel better yet.”
Parker gripped his head in both hands and leaned on his elbows. What in hell was he supposed to do with this?
His afterlife was over. Being brought back was a big thing, disruptive; whatever was meant for him in the Dark World would never come to pass. He had to make this work. He didn’t want to just go completely crazy like Arthur (whom he’d never thought would). There had to be another—
“Hey,” said Arthur all of a sudden. “We need to talk about Charlie.”
Parker looked up at him very slowly. “What?” he said in a small voice.
“Curious,” said Hastur. “I seem to have visitors. Well. You both need to rest, anyway.”
Arthur yawned. “Sure. But we need to talk about him.”
Parker's voice was vicious. “You don’t know nothing about Charlie.”
Hastur was carrying them toward the enormous bed.
“Hey,” said Arthur. “I gotta talk to him a minute.”
“As you wish,” said Hastur, and for a moment, held Parker over the little table as though about to drop him on top of it. Instead, he put them both in the enormous bed, and had the gall to chortle as he tucked them in.
“What the fuck?” said Parker, hackles up.
“Need backup?” said Arthur.
“No. This is a request from the Mother,” he said.
Arthur translated. “Security. Oh, yeah. You handle that.”
“You’re just leaving me here?” said Parker, freaking out. “A trap?”
“No,” said Hastur. “He’s mine, now. Marked. You could never take him from me.” And Hastur left them there while Parker gawped after him, and Arthur snuggled down into the enormous sheets and against the enormous pillows that made them both look like children.
If he hit Arthur, he wondered if Hastur would hurt him. Or throw him out.
Parker didn’t want to hit Arthur. Arthur, who lay there, looking at him, deadly serious and absolutely crazy.
“Charlie,” said Arthur.
Parker nearly hit him anyway. “You didn’t know Charlie.”
“No. But I know what he was to you,” said Arthur.
Parker curled up and lay with his back to Arthur. “What do you know?"
“You loved him. He made you happy,” said Arthur.
Parker was not at all prepared for this today. He curled tighter. “Maybe crazy’s easier. Has to hurt less,” he muttered.
Arthur ignored that. “I heard something tonight, Parker. I know you never caught who killed him. I heard—ended up down by the docks without his head, full of white worms. Right?”
Parker didn’t answer. That…
That had been the worst day. Of all his days, even the day he’d failed, that had been the worst day.
“I thought maybe you’d killed him for a while,” said Arthur.
Parker clenched his hands so tightly his nails bit into his palms. Through his teeth, he said, “No.”
“No. I know. I heard.”
“You heard,” said Parker, bitterly. “You dreamed, probably.”
And he didn’t know how he knew it changed. Didn’t how how he could tell, or what was different in Arthur’s voice, but in that moment, Parker knew that Arthur was sane: “Yeah. I did," said Arthur. "But I’m right.”
Parker turned to face him.
The ordinary, focused look was gone. Arthur looked aged, strained, almost ragged. “He made you happy. Charlie.”
“Yeah.” Words sucked. Happy. Yeah, Charlie had done that. He’d made Parker actually look forward to the remade world, instead of focusing on taking it away from the gods. Charlie made him feel like there was a future.
“It pissed Kissi…” Arthur shuddered. Closed his eyes. Opened them, and the strain of sanity added wrinkles to his skin and red to his cheeks. “The Defiler. It pissed him off. He had to put up with you being… fucking healthy, but happy was too much. He had him killed, Parker.”
No.
No, that wasn’t it.
That couldn’t have been it. “He did not,” said Parker.
“He did.”
No. “He kept me fucking motivated. There is no damn way Y’golonac had him killed.”
Arthur sighed. “What seems more his taste, huh? Acting out of hope, in faith you can build a life? Or out of bitterness that eats away at you, driving you with anger and burning you the fuck up on the way?”
Parker stared.
The sanity flickered in Arthur’s eyes like a dying light bulb, and in the next blink, it was gone again. “Fuck of a night, right? That room was as dangerous as the fucking Wastes.”
“You’re not wrong,” said Parker in a voice he didn’t recognize, because he had to parse this, because if Y’golonac hadn’t said what he said tonight, Parker would have dismissed this information, just laid that murder and loss at the feet of the gods like he did all Cloud City’s sorrows, but (I hate you) it seemed more likely, now, didn’t it, and such a seismic shift ground Parker's thoughts against each other, crushing rock and causing quakes.
The temple doors opened.
Hastur hovered there, backlit by the double suns. Behind him, several dozen witches stood in silhouette, gathered. Quiet. Solemn.
Parker sat up. Every instinct he had said something had just gone real weird.
“Come to me, Arthur,” said Hastur.
Arthur slid out of the bed, yawning, and padded to him, nude and uncaring.
Hastur picked him up.
No one said anything to Parker. He slid out of bed and followed, anyway.
Hastur carried Arthur and traveled to the edge of the city. He was silent, leading a train of silent, grim women.
Asenath was here? Yeah, Asenath was here, looking kind of serious, marching along.
Fuck, Parker did not want to talk to her. He’d never liked her, never liked her attitude, and she was just on top of the world here, even if he had gotten to kill her. But likely, she knew what was going on. He sighed and edged his way toward her. “Hey.”
“Hello, trashpanda,” said Asenath.
Trashpanda? The fuck was… Right. That was a distraction. “What the fuck’s going on?”
“Dreamlands changed,” said Asenath. “Connected to Arthur.”
That was such an insane couple of sentences that Parker laughed.
Asenath did not laugh.
“Sure, Asenath. Right. Tell me another one.”
“Dreamlands changed,” she said. “And it is connected to Arthur.”
This was baloney. “Okay, one,” said Parker, “they don’t change. There aren’t enough people. And two, why would Arthur have anything to do with it, and three, why would anybody know he did?”
They’d reached the outer wall. Nobody went beyond the outer wall of Carcosa. It would be like stepping into a raging sea, a blender, a whirlpool. Here stood the tall, black gates which would only ever open to Hastur’s command. No one was going to the gates; they were just lifting up, flying to see over the wall.
Parker couldn’t fly. He eyed the wall, considering how to climb it.
“Fuck’s sake, you could ask,” said Asenath, and grabbed him by the back of his neck like a young dog. Suddenly, they were airborne. Parker did not startle easily, but this one came pretty close to getting him.
“Right, so,” said Asenath. “The perimeter guards spotted it, so.”
They reached the top of the wall—high, so high, higher than the tallest buildings in Cloud City, and so wide that all six of the police force’s cars could ride along side-by-side. And past the wall—
Past the wall, madness, swirls of color, lightning jumping into the sky, sideways rockstorms, shrieking that tore flesh and remade it, ground that was not for no reason and closed over the falling again at random, and—
There was a little town out there.
There had definitely not been a little town out there before, but here it sat: quaint, cute, orderly. They were high enough to see over its wall; it had sweet little thatched-roof cottages and neat little stone-paved streets. Organized, with a well in the center, it would have been idyllic if not for that wall, which looked gouged, which looked burned, which looked like giants had taken bites out of the tops of it.
“So,” said Asenath. “That’s Harper’s Hill.”
Parker had to think for a moment. “That’s where Arthur’s from.”
“Yep.”
“What… wait.” This made no sense. “The fuck is that doing here?”
Asenath made the I dunno sound, exaggerated and shrugging.
Wait. “That can’t be here,” said Parker.
“Yeah, I know,” said Asenath.
Hastur was holding Arthur so he could see the place.
Why? What did they all think was going to happen? What, he’d explain where it was from, or the thing would grow legs and walk away, or—
“That’s… familiar,” said Arthur dreamily.
“Yes,” Hastur prompted.
Arthur shook.
He stared at it, stared, and an odd stream of dust rose from the place as if it were disintegrating into the wind.
Arthur shook harder.
“I do not care for this,” Hastur said mildly.
“Arthur,” said one of the witches. “Do you have anything to tell us?”
“No.” Arthur turned and hid his face against Hastur’s cowl.
“I told you there was no point,” said Hastur.
“The Mother has questions,” said another witch.
“The Mother will have answers,” said a third.
“Chill,” said Asenath, hovering closer and still gripping Parker by the back of his neck. “It’s okay, buddy. It’s okay.”
Arthur shuddered.
“Too big a day,” she said. “Take him back. We’ll monitor this. She might want to see him again.”
“I don’t know if I care to allow that,” Hastur growled.
Asenath’s eye-roll was incredible. World-class. Devastating. “Nobody wants your woobie. We were kind of hoping he’d see it and respond with, like, information. If he does say anything, you need to tell us.” She points. “That is unknown. That could be dangerous. If it had appeared in the fucking wall instead of outside it, we’d all be exposed.”
“Fair.” Hastur clearly wanted done with this. “We are going home.”
“Yeah.” Asenath sighed. “Tell us the second he says anything relevant.” She dropped Parker.
He shouted—only to find himself floating gently down, like a feather.
The witches laughed. Not cruelly, but… not really nicely, either.
Well, he didn’t like them, either, and stayed for a moment on all fours in the lush grass, breathing hard.
“Home,” Hastur commanded, and flew back that way.
Parker did not want to be caught out here, left out here, vulnerable. He ran after.
#
Arthur kept his eyes shut and tried not to remember home, which hadn’t felt like home since he was a small child, which he didn’t even know he’d recalled in that level of detail. It felt wrong being completely empty, even though it had been mostly empty by the time he and his parents left, and seeing it…
Seeing it felt…
Where were his parents? Wait, no, they wouldn’t be there anymore. Cloud City, he lived in Cloud City, not there, not for a long time. But his parents should have been there, in the village, smiling, working. Where were mom and dad? No, he knew they were gone, this was all wrong, this was—
Vertigo. All he could feel right now was vertigo. He made a small, soft sound.
Hastur liked his whimpers. Hastur was under contractual requirement to see him suffer. Had that been why this happened?
“Sleep,” said Hastur, and Arthur had to obey, did not even try to fight, and slid with gratitude into a quiet, dark rest magically and gratefully free of dreams.
Notes:
The song Arthur is doing. Decades after his time.
#cloud city#yellow city#malevolent au#malevolent fic#hastur/arthur#parker yang#kiy malevolent#arthur lester#tw:explicit
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Brumous Sneak Peak!
Chapter Six: The Escape From Hogwarts
Dumbledore nodded, his moon-shaped glasses sliding down his nose. “You know that Harry must go back to his aunt and uncle’s, don’t you, Sirius?”
Sirius let out a bitter laugh. “No.”
Dumbledore’s eyes softened. “I know you care for Harry-”
“I’m his godfather,” Sirius emphasized. “You know how important of a role that is, don’t you? Or did you forget?”
“I did not forget,” Dumbledore said in a soft, yet sad voice. “Harry may remain here until the end of the week. Then, he must go back to his aunt’s house to renew the blood protection. Order members will be outside the house around the clock. We must make it clear to Harry that he is not allowed to leave the house,” Dumbledore continued, pulling out a solid silver bracelet. “Harry is to wear this at all times. If he leaves the house, we will be alerted immediately so that we can stop him.”
Sirius stood up and shoved his hands in his trouser pockets, eyeing the bracelet. “No.”
“Sirius, this is not a request,” Dumbledore commented in a stern voice.
“Harry will stay here with me,” Sirius continued, ignoring Dumbledore. “He will not leave Grimmauld Place. He can wear the bloody bracelet here.”
Dumbledore sighed. “Sirius-”
“HARRY WAS POSSESSED!” Sirius shouted, his jaw clenching. “You think sending him to his Muggle relative’s house with a fucking bracelet is enough to keep him safe? He was attacked last year by Dementors! Now, he’s being possessed! He needs to stay here and learn Occlumency! He needs to be here with me so I can protect him!”
Dumbledore’s eyes softened. “I understand you care for Harry a great deal, Sirius, but you need to do what is right by him.”
“I am,” Sirius hissed. “I am tired of you telling me how to raise my godson. Mine, Dumbledore! Not yours!”
Dumbledore sighed. “You are a wanted man, Sirius. You have no legal rights over Harry. Petunia is Harry’s legal guardian. He needn’t come here at all.”
“Is that a threat?” Sirius challenged. “You’re going to keep him from me now?”
“I do not want to keep Harry from you, Sirius,” Dumbledore assured him, but Sirius didn’t feel any comfort from the words. “But you must stop thinking about what you want and start thinking about what is best for Harry.”
Sirius scoffed, his head shaking. “All I think about is what is best for that kid. Being with his abusive aunt and uncle is not what is best for him. This house is under the Fidelius with you as Secret Keeper. If you think you can’t keep him safe in a house hidden by you, then what makes you think his Muggle aunt and uncle, who would gladly shove him out the door at Voldemort’s feet, can keep him safe?”
Dumbledore surveyed Sirius over his moon-shaped glasses. “Did James ever tell you what Fleamont requested of me on his death bed?”
Sirius licked his bottom lip. This should be good. “No.”
“He asked me to keep Lily, James, and Harry safe, no matter the cost,” Dumbledore explained. “And I failed Lily and James. I am determined not to fail Harry as well. I must admit to you, Sirius, that after Halloween all those years ago, I needed someone to blame besides myself. I blamed you. I refused to speak with you, voted against you having a trial, and advocated fiercely against you, all because of my grief. I have attended the funerals of five generations of Potters, each one more terrible than the last. The deaths so sudden and unfortunate. When Henry died, I lost my brother. Henry was there for me at a time that no one else was. I know, you above all others, know how precious a friendship with a Potter is. Loyal and true until the very end.”
Sirius chewed on the inside of his cheek, remembering clear as day as he stood next to James while they laid Henry Potter to rest. Sirius hadn’t known him that well, but James had been devasted to bury his grandfather. When Fleamont died, Sirius remembered attempting to be strong for James even though he felt like crumbling to the ground at losing the man who had claimed him as a son.
“Then you must understand that it’s been hard for me to not fulfill my promise to James to not only keep Harry safe, but to raise him as though he were my own if anything should happen,” Sirius said in a thick voice. “You helped doom me to twelve years in Azkaban for something I didn’t do. I am trying my fucking hardest to be there for Harry, but you have micromanaged his life to the point that I have zero say or control.”
“Sirius, I have only kept him safe,” Dumbledore insisted.
“At the cost of his happiness,” Sirius snapped. “Did you not check on him for ten years at the Dursleys? Did you not read the will where Lily explicitly stated that Petunia was in no way, shape, or form supposed to have anything to do with Harry in the event of their deaths?”
“You and Marlene were listed as legal guardians of Harry,” Dumbledore explained. “Neither one of you were able to care for him. Petunia was the only blood relative Harry had left. Lily’s sacrifice helped me solidify a blood protection between them. Lord Voldemort was not able to touch Harry without great harm to himself.”
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People are apparently saying "well I'm not gonna vote/vote for trump if tik tok is banned!"
I'm pretty sure they were already going to do that, this is just their excuse of the week
But more importantly, if a stupid app matters more to you than the actual lives trump and the republicans will deliberately destroy, well that says more about them don't it?
But wait... I thought they weren't going to vote because of Gaza/because Biden hasn't personally forgiven THEIR student loan/because something something corporate centrism/because something something garble garble??! Does this mean their excuses just change by the week according to whatever's in the headlines and have no actual logical coherence or adherence to a guiding principle? Surely you jest, good internet sir and/or madam. Shocking.
Anyway, also... they realize that this effort is being spearheaded by Republicans and is pretty transparently an attempt to get another huge social media platform (after the Bird App Formerly Known as Twitter) into the ownership of an ex-Trump Cabinet official and an investor group with Russian ties? And that voting for Trump would directly play into those people's hands? And that... wait, never mind. I still expect logic or reason to have any place in this discussion, and it doesn't. Just tell me Why They Aren't Voting For Biden!!! next week and maybe I can get ahead of the curve for once.
This, however, is likewise why I oppose this rushed and Republican-driven move to "ban TikTok!!" in a highly consequential election year and think somebody needs to talk some sense into Biden and/or the Senate that this is a stupid idea and should be shelved (or at the least, heavily revised or modified). Yes, TikTok being owned by a group with Chinese government ties isn't great, but there's no morally pure ultra-megacorp that's going to rush in to fill the void. Forcing the Chinese owners to divest will just create an opening for Trump's ex-Treasury Secretary and his Russian businessmen buddies to step in instead, and I don't know about you, but I don't think that's a net positive in terms of keeping Americans' personal data out of the hands of hostile foreign entities. We already have Musk shilling for the alt-right and the Russian government every chance he gets, using Twitter to prop up their narratives and their operations, and selling TikTok to a Trump/Russian-linked consortium in fucking 2024 would be an incredibly massive own goal and give MAGA and company virtually hegemonic control over American social media content. That is why I think this is a stupid idea and should be opposed, but also, I agree that people who are using this as their Excuse of the Week to not vote were deeply, deeply unlikely to vote in the first place.
This is also a perfect example of why "well now I won't vote >:[!!!!" as a threat/temper tantrum backfires every single time. If there are young people who are concerned about TikTok possibly being banned, and their response is to immediately throw temper tantrums about not voting, all that does is reinforce to elected officials that young people never vote, there is no need to make legislation that champions their interests, and they don't need to fear any electoral backlash because these people have already spent years announcing their intention to Not Vote at every opportunity and clearly aren't about to start now. They remove themselves further from the civic process at every turn, and they reinforce the narrative that young people as a group are not worth having their concerns or ideas prioritized, because even when politicians do other things that young people like and/or support, young people are poised to turn against them and urge No Vote!!! :( at the drop of a fucking hat. So, yeah. "Don't vote!" is always a stupid and self-defeating message, but I can't see how it's possibly supposed to convince politicians that a group of people already predisposed not to vote is going to make any difference from what they already do. So yeah. Like. Not that this surprises me, but it's literally the same threat they've echoed at every single turn, doesn't represent anything new, and will probably be changed 10 times before the election anyway.
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TD 2023 Review: The Final Chapter
Spoilers Down Below.
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Episode 9: I ain't gonna lie from the way they structured this episode in the beginning. I already knew Caleb was winning immunity.
Funny screenshot I grabbed ^.
I started off this season liking Mkulia because I saw it as an alliance between two equals. But ever since the cheating plotline, they've only ever used MK as a punching bag. And then the cherry on top is Julia eliminating her for a second time.
Left a sour taste in my mouth tbh. And I can believe the hockey bros were dumb enough to vote her off. But you're telling me that Julia somehow convinced Priya and Damien that MK is the bigger threat between the two? She literally told you guys she eliminated Nichelle. But consistency be damned I guess.
Episode 10: I kinda wish the memory game was more about remembering events that happened through the season and less press a button on a ipad.
This julia vs damien rivalry is cooking. It's about time Julia faced some opposition in this competition.
A bit ironic considering they're athletes but I don't think Wayne and Raj have done well in a single competition this season.
Priya admitting she knows Julia is manipulative and then proceeding to get manipulated by Julia. ://////////
Me going into the elimination scene: Oh so the praleb drama is resolved! Priya or Caleb is going home right?
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???
WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN DAMIEN GOT ELIMINATED? WHAT THE FUCK???
Ok Julia shared her immunity with Caleb. Vote off Priya? She won last season??? It's not that hard???
"Sorry bro we can't vote off Priya because she's in love with Caleb" WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT LOGIC? That's exactly why you should vote her off!
Damien running around the island looking for his idol and then getting dragged away screaming is legitimately pitiful to watch.
This season loves giving ppl undignified exits but this was the worst one of all.
I want to add on that I knew there was a very low chance Damien was gonna win given how his arc was structured. But this elim was bullshit, should've been Priya.
Episode 11:
Starting off the episode with the hockey bros saying they miss Damien is lame. Ya'll never interacted and you voted him off. Fuck off.
Julia starting an off screen alliance with Caleb is lame. I don't want to hear the excuse "They can only fit so much into 22 minutes." They did perfectly fine in S1? Why the steep downgrade in quality?
We finally get a non gen 1 cameo and it's fucking McArthur. God I hate this season.
This is the worst challenge of the season. This is the third time ya'll have done run around and be chased by animals challenge. At least nobody is farting this time around.
Maturing is realizing Raj was never gonna get a character arc and he's only here to be comedic relief. Sigh..
Julia being a challenge beast doesn't feel as fun as it did in S1. Probably because she's casually steamrolling the game rn.
They waited way too long to boot off one of the hockey bros. We literally only have two episodes left. How are they gonna be able to make wayne idependent and stand out on his own?
Episode 12:
Why is Julia so insistent on gaining Wayne's vote when she has the immunity idol?
Caleb really is whatever the plot demands him to be. He spent the first half of the season being a wannabe f boy. Now he wants to act all sweet n shit and say he don't wanna lie on Total Drama. Like please get the fuck out of here. Not even Millie was this annoying. Steroid ass freak.
Maybe it's the inner fanfic writer inside of me. But imagine if Damien was in this fear challenge and his final fear to overcome was Scary Girl. Would've been peak imo.
They're really giving Wayne a last minute character arc about learning how to be himself without Raj around.
Tennis Rivals cameo? Isn't RR supposed to be an in universe spinoff? Why are there more RR references than like Revenge or Pahkitew? Are those seasons getting swept under the rug?
They really tried to make this elimination suspenseful when we already know Julia has the idol.
I still like Priya overall. But i'd be lying if I said Season 2 makes it hard to do so. Besides a few mentions from Chris, her being a canonical winner has no effect on the story. Her storyline is a near identical repeat of last season but worse. Just change the genre from friendship to romance. And replace Millie with Caleb. It naturally ended in episode 10 but the writers wanted to stretch this shit as long as humanely possible so here's more problems for the two to overcome. I could go on and on but to sum it up, priya x caleb is ass.
The Finale:
Hmm. Who should I root for?
The guy who just became relevant last episode?
Generic romance plotline guy?
Overpowered villainess?
I like Julia the most out of these three. But a complete Julia steamroll would be mid. Like if she won S1, I'd be cool with that. Because she fought tooth and nail to get into the final 4.
First boot to winner is a neat idea but I don't want it wasted on a bad character like Caleb.
Wayne exists.
Wait so Ripaxel is still together? Why was she so distant towards him in their elimination episode? So Ripper legitimately quit for no reason then? And didn't Chris say last season if you quit then you owe him a million bucks? Is that never coming back up?
Say it with me everyone, "This season is ass!"
Team Caleb not giving a shit about him is so real.
Why is Julia surprised that only MK wants to be on her team?
I don't know how many of you have seen it. But there's this fanmade show called Disventure Camp. And the finale challenge for that show is almost identical to this one. Not accusing anyone of copyright.
I just thought it was interesting to point out.
Considering Chase's pizza obsession that got him eliminated in season one. Shouldn't he have been the one to go back for pizza? This season can't even remember the minor details.
I thought they were gonna do bald julia for a second lol. Mullet Julia looks cool though.
Wayne won. My honest reaction: :/
I can't be the only person who thinks it's sus that Terry McGurrin. The white straight ally who likes hockey. Wrote the final episode where the white straight ally who likes hockey wins. :/
People have been comparing his win to TDI Owen.
Owen was a goofball but at least he had a S Tier social game and interacted with loads of ppl (cody, gwen, trent, heather, duncan, izzy, noah)
And he was decent at the challenges. (dodgeball challenge, eating challenge)
Wayne sucked in every challenge and only talked to Raj and sometimes Julia.
Honestly might be the 2nd worst winner this series has ever had. Mike still holds the crown for worst winner.
If they really wanted an underdog finalist they should've went with Damien. He was an underdog and actually did shit in the game. And they built a rivalry for him and Julia. Only to throw it away immediately.
Kinda wish these were the two pairings instead of Ripaxel and Praleb.
I know they teased a S3. But if it's the same level of quality as S2, I don't want it.
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I Would Give Up the World For Your Touch
Summary: Commission for @ticklishraspberries! I was stoked to write for these dorks; I’ve been italicizing DEH in my fandoms list for so long in the hopes that someone would request it for anything and that day has finally come~ Miguel doesn’t get his personality super explored in the book aside from what Connor tells us, so I kind of just went a direction with it, which I hope works for how you see him. I hope you enjoy!!
Notes: Weed has a habit of making Connor honest and Miguel mischievous, a combination that’s bound to end poorly.
He wasn’t quite sure when it had happened, but somewhere along the way Connor had transformed from being a fully fledged human being into a world of senses. Everything was so much clearer that night. The smoke from his blunt trailed in the air above him forming strange spirals in his air that he traced idly with his finger when the mood took him. Cool, October winds snuggled under his jacket making him shudder in a manner that was almost worth it if it meant Miguel’s arm curling around his shoulder, drawing him into the comfortable warmth of another human body.
There was a part of him that yearned to point out that typically friends didn’t cuddle. Or stay up all night talking just to hear the other’s voice. Or kiss at a party and then pretend like nothing had happened the entire week after.
There was a part of him that wanted to say a lot of things, and yet he didn’t. Possibly because he was a coward. Possibly because he couldn’t handle bringing them to that level of intimacy yet. Possibly it was all those reasons and a million more all tied neatly together with the threat of Miguel’s rejection.
Possibly it had to do with the smile on Miguel’s face whenever he looked at Connor, and the way Connor would do just about anything to keep that smile from disappearing.
“You’re happy,” Miguel guessed, raising an eyebrow as he brought him shooting back to the present. “Snuggly.”
“I’m fucking cold,” Connor mumbled in response, the answer not sounding even remotely convincing as he squirmed impatiently to get closer to him. He knew he was being clingy, but it was hard not to be in this state. He wasn’t sure whether or not this kind of thing was allowed, whether or not they were at the ‘cuddle stage’ of whatever the fuck they were at this point, but Miguel hadn’t shoved him off yet and it felt too nice to stop now. “We should go inside or something. Watch a movie and make hot coco, some stupid teenage shit like that.”
Miguel chuckled and even that sound was smooth and languid in Connor’s addled brain. He wished he could capture the sound to replay on repeat during the nights when everything was harder and reality was more difficult to hold onto to—something to tether him. “Maybe I could convince my mom that I wasn’t high, but you look like you’re on another planet right now. I vote we stay here a bit longer and wait till you mellow out. Besides, what’s better teenage behavior than sneaking out to look at constellations and get high instead of doing the homework you are most definitely putting off right now?”
“Constellations are overrated," Connor grumbled. "I hear heat’s what’s in right now—really making a comeback now that that whole summer thing’s over with. Besides, it’s hardly sneaking out if we’re in your parent’s driveway.”
His words were slow and sleepy, a reflection of his current state. Miguel was distractedly tracing his arm, and each cycle forced Connor’s eyelids to drift gradually shut. If it wasn’t so cold, he might have been asleep right now, but as it was it was impossible to fully relax when any moment an icy gust could come to startle him right back awake.
And Miguel. Miguel, who kept nudging him each time he started to drift off, pointing to a new set of stars that Connor couldn’t care less about.
“And that one’s Gemini. Stands for—”
“The twins, yeah, yeah, we get it.” Connor took another drag, delighting in the smoky exhale it caused. “Anyone who’s taken even a year of astrology knows that, you’re not as impressive as you think you are.”
A sharp glance in his direction. “Really?”
Connor narrowed his eyes. “Yes, really.”
“Because last I heard, you haven’t shown up to class in the last, what was it—since freshmen year? So, when you take that under consideration, I really don’t see where you would have found the time to even take an astrology class—”
“Oh, fuck off—”
There was a shove, followed by an answering shove and a tumble of laughter that descended into several lazy hits. It was clumsy and haphazard and it was clear it was more an excuse to touch the other than anything else. Connor was still holding the blunt and laughing while he tried to ward him off with one hand, and Miguel was getting handsier and more creative, poking and pinching at his arms while Connor hissed out in protest.
A well-placed poke to the side had Connor yelping out an admittance of defeat, but Miguel barely noticed until Connor was giggling and scrambling under him, whacking his shoulder weakly.
“Get off you dick, that shit fucking tickles—!”
There was a pause in the scuffle, not long enough to provide Connor relief, but enough to be noticeable as Miguel processed the sentence. “You’re ticklish?”
In a sober state of mind, Connor could have deflected the statement. He could have shoved Miguel off, made up some bullshit lie, created enough distance between them to make sure Miguel couldn’t try anything. Instead, he continued to struggle weakly to get Miguel off and muttered out a ‘No’ so unconvincing that it was hardly even a protest.
High Connor was a menace to Actual Connor, and later, he decided, he was going to have to have some very serious words with the former about his decision-making processes.
Connor yelped as Miguel’s intentions flipped in an instant, hands rapidly devouring every inch of torso they could grab, slipping under his shirt to get at his bare skin. The silly giggles from before quickly became desperate and panicked as Connor did his level best to curl up without burning either himself or Miguel with the still lit blunt.
Miguel hardly seemed to care, so delighted was he in this new discovery. “You’re ticklish. That’s—do you know how amazing that is? How can someone as eternally grumpy and cynical as you possibly be ticklish? All this time I’ve been listening to your smart-ass comments on every little decision of mine, when apparently all it takes is a little poke and you’re in stitches.”
“I’m n-nahat fuhuhucking tihihi—ehe, tihihicklish! Shihit!”
It was hardly a substantial refute, but it was hard to form sentences when all his thoughts were devoted to Miguel’s hands which were touching skin now, touching him, and he couldn’t even enjoy it because every minuscule touch was so damn tickly. He could feel each poke acutely, their effects doubling and tripling up until it felt like there had to be far more than only two hands tickling him.
All of this would have been difficult enough to deal with on its own, but he was running into a much bigger problem.
Logically, Connor knew laughter was a completely normal reaction to tickling. He’d experienced it as a kid and even engaged in it a bit himself before things had grown so uncomfortable and disjointed with him and Zoe. He knew that the utterly embarrassing and stupidly helpless giggles practically ripping out of his mouth were natural and nothing to be ashamed of. He knew he should be able to relax into it and allow the oddly pleasant sensations to wash over him until it felt like his own skin was in on the action.
And yet.
Even as his thoughts were consumed by the distracting fingers drifting towards his hips, he couldn’t help but focus on everything else around the theoretically cute scene. He was overly aware of the scrunch of his neck against his chin, the way his eyes practically disappeared into his head when he squeezed them shut, the blotchy red color overtaking his face, and the sweat almost certainly accumulating under his hoodie from all the squirming. And the laughter. Squeaky, high-pitched, babbling laughter like he was five years old all over again.
If there had been any part of Miguel that had wanted to try that kiss again, surely it had shriveled up and died by now.
Connor scrambled for Miguel’s hands, insistent on ending this to save himself even a tad bit of dignity but the latter was relentless. He seemed to have a talent for finding each spot that made Connor want to crawl out of his own skin, which forced Connor to jerk his hands back in quick protection. Miguel’s hands were buried under his arms—which Connor was sure were sweaty and gross by now—and now that he thought about it, he couldn’t remember the last time he had washed this particular hoodie, but it tickled far too much for him to even try to communicate any kind of apology for it.
“Wow, Murphy.” Miguel whistled softly, more impressed than mocking. “I think this is the most expressive I’ve seen you since… well, since ever, to be honest. You’re making me feel ticklish just looking at you, jesus christ. I would feel bad, but honestly you look far too cute like this for me to regret it.”
The word ‘cute’ reverberated in Connor’s head like a drum echo, a constant beat of confusion as he fell into another fit of cackles when Miguel experimentally dug his thumbs in. Admittedly, he didn’t have many other friends aside from Miguel but he was pretty sure they didn’t call each ‘cute’ if they wanted to stay just that—friends.
They didn’t kiss each other either, but Miguel had been drunk, and so had Connor if he was being honest; he wasn’t sure if Miguel even remembered anything from that night. And now he was high and Connor couldn’t help a pang of annoyance that these ‘moments’ never happened when either of them were sober so that Connor could at least get a clear read on them.
He wanted to grab Miguel and interrogate him, pin him down and demand an explanation for the behavior, but the weed was making his movements slow and it was hard to do anything but giggle like an idiot under current circumstances. So instead, he resorted to the only method he could think of in his hazy state—he decided to fight fire with fire.
A flinch. Tiny, but there, when Connor reached out and grazed over Miguel’s ribs. It was a haphazard swipe, born out of desperation and impulse, but it was enough to slow down Miguel’s movements enough that Connor could seize the upper hand. Another swipe, followed by another, and another, and then a poke and a pinch, and suddenly Miguel was stumbling back into the cluster of discarded backpacks behind them.
The switch to defense meant that his hands were too occupied protecting his own torso to tickle Connor’s, and Connor tried to ignore the phantom sensations still ghosting over his sides. At the very least, the mortifying wheezing was done with; he tried not to focus too much on the odd yearning prickling at his skin and demanding more.
Besides, the smile slowly forming on Miguel’s face was well worth his attention.
“Connor,” Miguel said calmly, a placating gesture that Connor refused to fall for. “Trust me, you don’t want to do this.”
Connor tossed one leg over Miguel’s waist, straddling him effectively. “Oh really? And why’s that? Can’t take what you dish out?”
Miguel shifted nervously under him, arms up to try to fight off a potential attack. His eyes were laser focused on Connor’s hands, his body jumping a little every time they moved, and Connor bit back a small smile at that. “I’ll get you back you know. If what I just saw is any indication, tickling appears to be your kryptonite and I’m not afraid to use that information when necessary.”
A thrill coursed its way down Connor’s back at the threat of a continuation of that night. He swallowed, straightening up a little as he forced a confident smirk onto his features. “Maybe. But if you’re going to do it anyway, I might as well have my fun now.”
Miguel’s eyes widened, and he didn’t have a chance to protest the point before Connor struck.
To his credit, Miguel’s self-control was far stronger than Connor’s. He tensed as his hands scribbled over the thin material of his shirt, his own quickly rising to his face to cover his growing blush and grin. His stomach trembled with the effort of holding in his laughter, twitching whenever a spider of fingers ran over a particularly sensitive spot.
“What’s wrong, Miguel?” Connor asked, the tease softer than he would have liked it as he admired the flustered boy beneath him. “Ticklish?”
“H-Hardly,” Miguel managed, the ‘H’ sound fluttering a tad as a laugh nearly slipped through. “This is nothIHing!”
“Nothing, eh?”
Connor climbed gently up his sides, each step jerking Miguel’s knees up another inch—a reaction that did not go unnoticed by Connor. He pressed gently into the divots in-between his ribs and Miguel hissed out a soft intake of breath, his grin curling wider.
“S-Stop.”
“Stop what? You’re gonna have to be more specific.”
“Stop—stop teasing. Just do it if you’re gonna do it.”
“Just stop me if you’re gonna stop me, then,” Connor parroted calmly. He wiggled his fingers gently over his bottom ribs, startling a huffed giggle out of Miguel. “You should be careful, you know. Some people might get the impression that you like getting tickled if you keep this up.”
A hypocritical argument, but Miguel didn’t need to know that.
“W-Well,” Miguel admitted, his tone cockier than it should have been while on the verge of an embarrassing burst of laughter. “It’s not so bad w-when it’s, aha, yohou.”
Crimson shot to the tips of Connor’s ears and he hunched his shoulders up defensively. “Right. Well. I have a feeling you're gonna regret admitting to that.”
Miguel's eyes widened, but he hardly had any time to protest before Connor struck for real this time.
Laughter rang out through the abandoned street as Connor’s fingers began to vibrate at alarming speeds over the other boy’s ribs, causing him to break the stoic act at last and squirm to his heart’s content. Connor knew he wouldn’t be able to keep this up for very long without Miguel’s mom noticing all the noise, so he made the most of it, his fingers painting over Miguel's body like a brush to a canvas as he hungrily devoured his reactions.
Yet all the while, he couldn’t get those seven, simple words out of his head, meaning nothing and everything all at the same time.
It’s not so bad when it’s you.
#tickle fic#conguel#dear evan hansen#commission#commissions#fanfiction#tickling#connor murphy#miguel
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