#and the risk of being hacked i guess

[redstonedust]

god media giants like google and twitter putting in inactive account deletion policies is just. horrific. it'd be one thing if it was just inactive empty accounts. but any inactive account being at risk of deletion fills me with dread. we all pass away one day, and so do our surviving relatives, until one day our online legacy gets wiped out because nobody was around to occasionally check our emails, i guess?

google's statement says that its because older accounts are at more risk of being hacked and repurposed into phishing accounts. but theres no reason they couldnt put in a mechanic of, say, locking inactive accounts from use while still keeping the content up. its not like they cant afford the server space. we've been forced away from physical media only for the internet to continue spiralling its way into a digital dark age. its depressing, man.

#this is a very new policy at least so im hoping it get overturned before december #but auuuugghhhh

[mostlysignssomeportents]

When private equity destroys your hospital

I'm on tour with my new novel The Bezzle! Catch me TOMORROW in PHOENIX (Changing Hands, Feb 29) then Tucson (Mar 9-10), San Francisco (Mar 13), and more!

As someone who writes a lot of fiction about corporate crime, I naturally end up spending a lot of time being angry about corporate crime. It's pretty goddamned enraging. But the fiction writer in me is especially upset at how cartoonishly evil the perps are – routinely doing things that I couldn't ever get away with putting in a novel.

Beyond a doubt, the most cartoonishly evil characters are the private equity looters. And the most cartoonishly evil private equity looters are the ones who get involved in health care.

(Buckle up.)

Writing for The American Prospect, Maureen Tcacik details a national scandal: the collapse of PE-backed hospital chain Steward Health, a company that bought and looted hospitals up and down the country, starving them of everything from heart valves to prescription paper, ripping off suppliers, doctors and nurses, and callously exposing patients to deadly risk:

https://prospect.org/health/2024-02-27-scenes-from-bat-cave-steward-health-florida/

Steward occupies a very special place in the private equity looting cycle. Private equity companies arrange themselves on a continuum of indiscriminate depravity. At the start of the continuum are PE funds that buy productive and useful firms (everything from hospitals to car-washes) using "leveraged buyouts." That means that they borrow money to buy the company and use the company itself as collateral: it's like you getting a bank-loan to buy your neighbor's mortgage out from under them, and using your neighbor's house as collateral for that loan.

Once the buyout is done, the PE fund pays itself a "special dividend" (stealing money the business needs to survive) and then starts charging the business a "management fee" for the PE fund's expertise. To pay for all this, the PE bosses start to hack away at the company. Quality declines. So do wages. Prices go up. The company changes suppliers, opting for cheaper alternatives, often stiffing the old company. There are mass layoffs. The remaining employees end up doing three peoples' jobs, for lower wages, with fewer materials of lower quality.

Eventually, that top-feeding PE company finds a more desperate, more ham-fisted PE company to unload the business onto. That middle-feeding company also does a leveraged buyout, pays itself another special dividend, cuts wages, staffing and quality even further. They switch to even worse suppliers and stiff the last batch. Prices go up even higher.

Then – you guessed it – the middle-feeding PE company finds an even more awful PE bottom-feeder to unload the company onto. That bottom feeder does it all again, without even pretending to leave the business in condition to do its job. The company is a shambling zombie at this point, often producing literal garbage in place of the products that made its reputation. Employees' paychecks bounce, or don't show up at all. The company stops bothering to pay the lawyers that have been fending off its creditors. Those lawyers sue the company, too.

That's the kind of PE company Steward Health was, and, as the name suggests, Steward Health is in the business of stripping away the very last residue of value from community hospitals. As you might imagine, this gets pretty fucking ugly.

Steward owns 32 hospitals up and down the country, though its holdings are dwindling as the company walks away from its debt-burdened holdings, after years of neglect that have rendered them unfit for use as health facilities – or for any other purpose. Tcacik's piece offers a snapshot of one such hospital: Florida's Rockledge Regional Medical Center, just eight miles from Cape Canaveral.

Rockledge is a disaster. The fifth floor was, at one point, home to 5,000 bats.

Five.

Thousand.

Bats.

(Rockledge stiffed the exterminators.)

The bats were just the beginning. One of the internal sewage pipes ruptured. Whole sections of the hospital were literally full of shit, oozing out of the walls and ceiling, slopping over medical equipment.

That's an urgent situation for any hospital, but for Rockledge, it's catastrophic, because Rockledge is a hospital without any hospital supplies. Steward has stiffed the companies that supply "heart valves, urology lasers, Impella catheters, cardiac catheterization balloons, slings for lifting heavier patients, blood and urine test reagents, and most recently, prescription paper." Key medical equipment has been repossessed. So have the Pepsi machines. The hospital cafeteria had its supply of cold cuts repossessed:

https://www.reddit.com/r/massachusetts/comments/1agc1j4/comment/kolicqo/

It's not just Steward's nonpayments that reek of impending doom. Its payments also bear the hallmarks of a scam artist on the brink of blowing off the con. The company recently paid off a vendor with five separate checks for $1m, each drawn on "a random hospital in Utah" (Steward recently walked away from its Utah hospitals; its partners there are suing it for stealing $18m on their way out the door).

This company – which owns 32 hospitals! – has resorted to gambits like sending photos of fake checks to doctors it hasn't paid in months as "proof" that the money was coming (the checks arrived 22 days later).

Steward owes so much money to its employees – $1.66m to just one doctors' group. But the medical staff keep doing their jobs, and are reluctant to speak on the record, thanks to Steward's reputation for vicious retaliation. Those health workers keep showing up to take care of patients, even as the hospital crumbles around them. One clinician told Tcacik: "I watched a bed collapse underneath a [patient] who had just undergone hip surgery."

Rockledge has nine elevators, but only five of them work – the other four have been broken for a year. The hospital's fourth floor has been converted to "a graveyard of broken beds." The sinks are clogged, or filled with foul gunk. There's black mold. Nurses have noted on the maintenance tags that the repair service refuses to attend the hospital until their overdue bills are paid. The fifteen-person on-site maintenance team was cut to just two workers.

Steward is just the latest looting owner of Rockledge. After the Great Financial Crisis, private equity consultants helped sell it to Health Management Associates. The hospital's CEO took home a $10m bonus for that sale and exited; Health Management Associates then quickly became embroiled in a Medicare fraud and kickback scandal. Soon after, Rockledge was passed on to Community Health Systems, who then sold it on to Rockledge.

Steward, meanwhile, was at that time owned by an even bigger private equity giant, Cerberus, which then sold Steward off. That deal was performatively complex and hid all kinds of mischief. Prior to Cerberus's sell-off of Steward, they sold off Steward's real-estate. The buyer was Medical Properties Trust, who gave Cerberus $1.25b for the real-estate: three hospitals in Florida and three more in Ohio. Steward then contracted to operate these hospitals on MPT's behalf, and pay MPT rent for the real-estate.

This complex arrangement was key to siphoning value out of the hospital and to keeping angry creditors at bay – if you can't figure out who owes you money, it's a lot harder to collect on the debt. The scheme was masterminded by Steward founder/CEO Ralph de la Torre. De la Torre is notorious for taking a massive dividend out of the company while it owed $1.4b to its creditors. He bought a $40m yacht with the money.

De la Torre was once feted as a business genius who would "disrupt" healthcare. But as Steward's private jet hops around "Corfu, Santorini, St. Maarten and Antigua" as its hospitals literally crumble, he's becoming less popular. In Massachusetts, politicians have railed against Steward and de la Torre (Governor Healey wants the company to leave the state "as soon as possible").

Florida, by contrast, is much more friendly to Steward. The state Health and Human Services Committee chair Randy Fine is an ardent admirer of hospital privatization and is currently campaigning to sell off the last community hospital in Brevard County. The state inspectors are likewise remarkably tolerant of Steward's little peccadillos. The quasi-governmental agency that inspects hospitals has awarded this shit-and-bat-filled, elevator-free, understaffed rotting hulk "A" grades for quality.

These inspectors jointly represent a mismatched assortment of private and public agencies, dominated by a nonprofit called Leapfrog, the brainchild of Harvard public-health prof Lucian Leape, who founded it in 2000. Leapfrog likes to tout its "transparent" assessment criteria, and Steward are experts at hitting those criteria, spending the exact minimum to tick every box that Leapfrog inspectors use as proxies for overall quality and safety.

This is a pretty great example of Goodhart's Law: "every measurement eventually becomes a target, whereupon it ceases to be a good measurement":

https://xkcd.com/2899/

But despite Steward's increasingly furious creditors and its decaying facilities, the company remains bullish on its ability to continue operations. Medical Properties Trust – the real estate investment trust that is nominally a separate company from Steward – recently hosted a conference call to reassure Wall Street investors that it would be a going concern. When a Bank of America analyst asked MPT's CFO how this could possibly be, given the facility's dire condition and Steward's degraded state, the CFO blithely assured him that the company would get bailouts: "We own hospitals no one wants to see closed."

That's the thing about PE and health-care. The looters who buy out every health-care facility in a region understand that this makes them too big to fail: no matter how dangerous the companies they drain become, local governments will continue to prop them up. Look at dialysis, a market that's been cornered by private equity rollups. Today, if you need this lifesaving therapy, there's a good chance that every accessible facility is owned by a private equity fund that has fired all its qualified staff and ceased sterilizing its needles. Otherwise healthy people who visit these clinics sometimes die due to operator error. But they chug along, because no dialysis clinics is worse that "dialysis clinics where unqualified sadists sometimes kill you with dirty needles":

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/the-dirty-business-of-clean-blood

The bad news is that private equity has thoroughly colonized the entire medical system. They took hospitals, fired the doctors, then took over the doctors' groups that provided outsource staff to the hospital:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/04/a-mind-forever-voyaging/#prop-bets

It's illegal for private equity companies to own doctors' practices (doctors have to own these), but they obfuscated the crime with a paper-thin pretext that they got away with despite its obvious bullshittery:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/21/profitable-butchers/#looted

The financier who decides whether you live or die depends on an algorithm that literally sets a tolerable level of preventable deaths for the patients trapped in the practice:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/05/any-metric-becomes-a-target/#hca

Private equity also took over emergency rooms and boobytrapped them with "surprise billing" – junk fees that ran to thousands of dollars that you had to pay even if the hospital was in network with your insurer. They made billions from this, and spent a many millions from that booty keeping the scam alive with scare ads:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/21/all-in-it-together/#doctor-patient-unity

The whole health stack is colonized by private equity-backed monopolies. Even your hospital bed!

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/05/hillrom/#baxter-international

Then there's residential care. Private equity cornered many regional markets on nursing homes and turned them into slaughterhouses, places where you go to die, not live:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/23/acceptable-losses/#disposable-olds

The palliative care sector is also captured by private equity. PE bosses hire vast teams of fast-talking salespeople who con vulnerable older people into entering an end-of-life system before they are ready to die. Thanks to loose regulation, the nation is filled with fake hospices that can rake in millions from Medicare while denying all care to their patients (hospice patients don't get life-extending medication or procedures, by definition):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/26/death-panels/#what-the-heck-is-going-on-with-CMS

If you survive this long enough, Medicare eventually tells the hospice that you're clearly not dying and you get kicked off their rolls. Now you have to go through the lengthy bureaucratic nightmare of convincing the system – which was previously informed that you were at death's door – that you are actually viable and need to start getting care again (good luck with that).

If that kills you, guess what? Private equity has rolled up funeral homes up and down the country, and they will scam your survivors just as hard as the medical system that killed you did:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/09/high-cost-of-dying/#memento-mori

The PE sector spent more than a trillion dollars over the past decade buying up healthcare companies, and it has trillions more in "dry powder" allocated for further medical acquisitions. Why not? As the CFO of Medical Properties Trust told that Bank of America analyst last week, when you "own hospitals no one wants to see closed." you literally can't fail, no matter how many people you murder.

The PE sector is a reminder that the crimes people commit for money far outstrip the crimes they commit for ideology. Even the most ideological killers are horrified by the murders their profit-motivated colleagues commit.

Last year, Tkacic wrote about the history of IG Farben, the German company that built Monowitz, a private slave-labor camp up the road from Auschwitz to make the materiel it was gouging Hitler's Wehrmacht on:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/02/plunderers/#farben

Farben bought the cheapest possible slaves from Auschwitz, preferentially sourcing women and children. These slaves were worked to death at a rate that put Auschwitz's wholesale murder in the shade. Farben's slaves died an average of just three months after starting work at Monowitz. The situation was so abominable, so unconscionable, that the SS officers who provided outsource guard-labor to Monowitz actually wrote to Berlin to complain about the cruelty.

The Nuremberg trials are famous for the Nazi officers who insisted that they were "just following order" but were nonetheless executed for their crimes. 24 Farben executives were also tried at Nuremberg, where they offered a very different defense: "We had a fiduciary duty to our shareholders to maximize our profits." 19 of the 24 were acquitted on that basis.

PE is committed to an ideology that is far worse than any form of racial animus or other bias. As a sector, it is committed to profit above all other values. As a result, its brutality knows no bounds, no decency, no compassion. Even the worst crimes we commit for hate are nothing compared to the crimes we commit for greed.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/28/5000-bats/retaliation#charnel-house

#pluralistic #Rockledge Regional Medical Center #private equity #looting #Steward Health #ponzis #maureen tcacik #Medical Properties Trust #Ralph de la Torre #Massachusetts #florida #Cerberus #too big to fail #pe #guillotine watch

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Dirty Work 17

Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as bullying, familial discord/abuse, and possible untagged elements. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.

This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: You start a new gig and find one of your clients to be hard to please.

Characters: Loki

Note: It's friday again.

As per usual, I humbly request your thoughts! Reblogs are always appreciated and welcomed, not only do I see them easier but it lets other people see my work. I will do my best to answer all I can. I’m trying to get better at keeping up so thanks everyone for staying with me.

Your feedback will help in this and future works (and WiPs, I haven’t forgotten those!)

I love you all immensely. Take care. 💖

Once Leslie leaves, you lock yourself away again. Your father's taken to the cold shoulder over his previous aggression. You don't mind, it assures you of a tenuous peace. So long as you don't draw his attention, you're okay.

Your anxiety remains piqued. Not only by your father's stewing ire but the thought of what looms both behind and ahead of you. With all that happened at work, you have little hope of tomorrow being better. There is also the question of Mr. Laufeyson's surprise... you can't even begin to guess what he has in mind.

Another test, no doubt. Like today. You're certain you failed that one too. You took his kindness and showed yourself to be ungrateful. You questioned him when you should have just accepted it with a smile on your face.

It is not your place to worry about his intentions, as he has made it clear, you are not on the same level. He is your boss and you do what he says. So you will do that and nothing more.

Is that his voice in your head?

You sneak out for a shower but it doesn't do much to calms your nerves. You spend another night tossing and turn, kept awake by the television set a top volume and the dissonance of your anxiety. Even with the extra hours granted, you find yourself painfully awake at the same splitting hour.

You get up to make your tea. Your father's snoring on the couch at the TV continues to blare. You don't disturb either as you put on the kettle and ready a mug. You rub your eyes and yawn. Leslie will be here soon. You should wake him and get breakfast going. It will lighten her load.

When you have your cup steaming, you stay at the counter and sip tentatively, weighing your next steps. You leave your father as he is and return to your room, dressing and cleaning up before you descend again. You have your phone in hand, almost hoping a notification will pop up. Maybe Mr. Laufeyson will change his mind and you can be off before you have to face your dad. The phone remains lifeless. 

You sigh and shut off the television, hoping the sudden silence might rouse him. He continues to snort loudly. You bite down on your cheeks as your skin buzzes and itches. He's not a morning person. 

The memories of him exploding to consciousness in a furor of hollers and kicks keep you from shaking him. You back away as the doorbell rings and does the job for you, your father grumbling as you go to answer it.

Leslie enters with her usual blustering brightness. She greets your father and stops short, hands on her hips as she tuts.

"Now what is the meaning of this?" She huffs, "Charles, you can't sleep down here."

"I'm not," he sits up and hacks into his hand before sliding the oxygen tube back into place. "You woke me up."

"What's gotten into you?" She accuses, "I told you yesterday I'm not here for your attitude. You're not some teenager, you're a grown man."

"Bah, I need coffee," he snarls.

"You need a cold shower," she retorts as she goes around the couch and snatches up the pack of smoke on the cushion beside him, "and a swat on the snout. What're you doing with these things?" She pauses and looks at you, "he can't be having these in the house."

"I don't... know where they came from," your murmur.

"Don't matter, if you see them, you toss them," she reproaches, "this is a team effort, alright? Now yesterday, this place was a right mess. I'm here to help, not play maid."

"I'm sorry, I..." you snap your mouth shut. You did clean up, as best you could before work, but you'll have to do better.

"Not her fault she's useless," your father quips.

"Charles," Leslie warns as she points at him.

"Sorry, hon," he puts his hands up, "was only a joke."

"Not a very nice one," he rebukes.

"I know, I know," he chortles.

"So don't apologise to me," she flicks her finger towards you.

Your father stops his laughing and quiets. He crosses his arms and slumps his shoulders as you stare at the back of his head. You wait as Leslie tilts her head dangerous and cross her arms.

"Charles," she girds.

"Don't worry about it," you croak, "it's fine. I'll... I'm going in late so I'll get breakfast started."

"Oh yeah, she don't gotta go polish that man's silver early," your dad growls.

"Charles," Leslie snips again, "I mean it, be nice."

"I am nice, hon, I'm being funny."

"You are not," she insists.

"Come on, Les," he lowers his voice as you pad towards the kitchen, "I'll be good, alright? Don't give me that look."

She sighs but you don't look back, "alright, no more smokes."

"I'm tellin' ya, honey," he speaks so softly you barely recognise his voice, "I didn't touch 'em. Found them in the couch but I didn't smoke any. Don't be mad at me."

You shake your head and try to roll the tension out of your shoulders. She's been here just over a week and he talks like he's known her forever. He's actually nice to her. He cares about what she thinks, what she feels. But you, his own daughter, you get the blame for it all. You're the reason he hates himself and his life. Maybe if you'd never come along, he'd still have the woman he loved. 

🧹

You set off just after eleven, the bus due not long after. As you come down the overgrown walk with its cracked pavement and uneven tilt, your eyes are drawn up by the snap of a car door. Footfalls scuff on the pavement as you look over the curb to the shiny car parked there. It's an unusual sight in the rundown neighbourhood.

Mr. Laufeyson proudly steps up as the window on the passenger's side rolls down. A pair of similarly green eyes peer out as she takes in the sight of the yellow duplex. You want to run and hide. You can't imagine either of them ever had to dirty themselves in a place like this.

"Mr. Laufeyson," you rush towards him, "I--- you said noon."

You pull the phone out and check the time. He puts his hand on the roof of the car calmly as you stop a few feet away. He chuckles, amused by your panic.

"It's so quaint," Frigga remarks as she remains firmly in the front seat, "dear, how are you?"

"Um, I'm well, Frigga," you answer with a tight gulp.

"Good, good, you look well," she praises, "a bit tired. Tell me he's not overworking you."

"Mother," Laufeyson shoots a glance in her direction.

"Er, it's fine," you clutch the strap of your bag, "I... did I do something?"

"No, no," Frigga waves off your suspicion, "I simply insisted my son bring me to see you while I'm in town."

"Oh, I was just on my way..." you look at Laufeyson confused as he gives an expression you can't quite read. He's expecting something but you're not sure what.

"We have lots to do so no sense in waiting around," she trills.

"Oh?" Your lips part. "Did something-- is the house okay?"

"The house is just fine. That old place only needs a little light, but see if my own son hears me," he rambles, "Loki, don't be rude, get the door."

He flinches and drags his hand away from the top of the car, "yes, mother."

He moves to open the back door, gallantly opening it for you. You feel like you've been dropped into an alternate universe. This can't be happening.

"Get in," he says. 

You blink at him and he tilts his head, gesturing to the back seat. You obey with some reluctance and sit the large leather bag beside you. You slowly pull the seat belt down and click it into place. Laufeyson strides around the bumper as you peek in the mirror at Frigga's silvering curls.

"Right, then," Laufeyson opens the driver's door and lowers himself into the seat, "there we are."

"How are you feeling, darling?" Frigga's eyes meet yours in the rearview before you quickly look away, "are you very hungry or can you wait a bit longer for lunch?"

"I... Lunch? I'm okay," you assure. You can't figure this out. "Thank you."

The car whirs and rolls into motion. You're uneasy as you watch the street pass by. If he takes a left, he can get back to the main roads and-- no, he's going right?

"Mm, alright, the boutique first then," she orders her son, "I'm wondering if perhaps they could squeeze us in at the spa. It has been a while since I had some clay done. Oh, and my nails are ragged."

You try to connect the dots as your brows stitch together. Is this his surprise? His mother? Why are you there? You should be figuring out what's going on with the squeaky hinge on the closet. 

"I can't wait to see the new season's colours," Frigga carries on as you tune her out, lost in the riddle of her presence and your own.

Surely, you're being brought along as some sort of valet. Of course, Laufeyson would offer you to carry her bags as she splurges on her pretty dresses. And she is always dressed so nicely whenever you see her. And make up, her lips are a pleasant shade of rose. She would likely spend even more on shoes, don't forget the silver sparkling at her throat and the gemstone dangling there... 

Right, you see. Another lesson. He wants you to remember what you don't have. After your slip-up yesterday, he has to remind you of where you belong; squashed under his sole.

"Oh, is Eliana still at the salon, I should stop in and say hello," Frigga's voice once more punctures your distraction. "She was always so sweet."

"Mother, I... don't know about that. Maybe a different salon."

"You are such a pessimist, what are the odds we run into her?" 

"Don't even tempt fate," he warns.

"No one said you were invited, hm? You said you had business down at Heimdall's."

"You are stubborn, mother," Laufeyson tisks.

"It's where you got it from, dear," she taunts, "so, darling," she peeks in the mirror again and you shy away, "how about it, you and I? It will be so nice. I haven't gotten a day out in so long."

"Oh, you haven't? Should I ask father about that?"

"Let's not mention your father," she rebuffs him smoothly and his shoulders slump.

"Um, well, that's nice, but..." you protest meekly

"It's my treat," she insists, "please. You're doing me a favour."

"I really don't know--"

"I don't mind," Laufeyson interjects, "and it won't affect your hours."

"I did soften him up a bit," she purrs.

"Mother," he hisses again.

"Oh you are so serious," she chides, "she needs this more than I do, I'm sure, with a stickler like you."

He twitches but says nothing. You sense he wants to say it again, 'mother', in the tone of please be quiet. It would be laughable if you weren't so perplexed by it all. Maybe it is a dream. Maybe you didn't wake up and you're oversleeping your alarm, having stress dreams about what will happen when you wake to reality.

"He's a good little chauffeur," she pats his arm playfully, "so he will drop us at the salon, won't you, dearest son?"

He grips the wheel tight and you see his knuckles turn almost translucent, "yes, mother, whatever you wish."

🧹

Mr, Laufeyson drives through the downtown area. You don't come there much, or at all. You passed through on your way to the hospital and on occasion to sort out a billing issue with the bank, but there wasn't much for you there. Along the west side, the nicer shops reside and several buildings with businesses you could never figure out.

Laufeyson pulls up into a marked spot beside a meter. As you stare out, still puzzled by it all. Everything's going so fast and you just want it to slow down. You look at your boss and feel a pang in your chest; how many times had he mentioned your clothes? This isn't a favour, this is him saying you're not good enough.

"Come, come," Frigga gets out and opens your door for you, "let's not drag our feet."

You undo the seat belt and go to grab your large leather bag. As you get out, Frigga catches you by the shoulders. "You won't need this," she takes the bag and reaches past you to put it back in the car, "only your pretty self."

"Oh, uh, sure, okay," you look again at Laufeyson but you're not sure why. He isn't going to help you. He's plunged you into this situation. He only arches a brow in response.

"Just going to give you a nice refresh," Frigga pulls on your elbow and shuts the door, tugging you onto the pavement. "You would do wonderful with some highlights."

You stumble along beside her, overwhelmed by her enthusiasm. She directs you to the shining transparent windows of a salon, a sign overhead with a curled iron bar across the top. You peek over your shoulder again as Mr. Laufeyson lingers another moment before steering out into traffic.

The door chirps as it opens and you're ushered inside to the sound of jazzy pop covers. You can't choose where to focus as the sleek shelves of colourful bottle behind the pure white counter refracts the lights of a spindly chandelier. Velvet chairs are arranged around a table in the little waiting area as stylists gab with clients in chairs.

"Frigga," a woman with platinum locks flutters over with the clacking of heels, "oh, it's been so long."

"Eliana! It has, look at you," they embrace and part, Frigga playing with the tall woman's pin-straight tresses, "what happened to the black?"

"Got a few grays and a divorce," the woman, Eliana you presume, cackles, "and who's this?"

They look at you as you're ready to fade into the black and white stripes on the wall.

"Oh, a friend, she's lovely," Frigga comes back and takes your hand, drawing you forward, "she just needs a little touch-up."

"Oh, she's a natural, she won't need much at all," the stylist approaches you, "I know just the woman; Luciana," she claps and looks back, "I have someone to fill in that cancellation.”

#loki #dark loki #dark!loki #loki x reader #fic #dark fic #dark!fic #series #au #maid au #dirty work #mcu #marvel #avengers #thor

[fioras-resolve]

"Is the Berlin Interpretation still relevant?" Part 10 - Results

So, I guess I should finally explain what I'm talking about. I promise I'll stop spamming these tags now.

The Berlin Interpretation of Roguelikes is a genre definition that was made at a roguelike dev conference in 2008. It was a handful of people who were inspired by Rogue to make their own procedural death labyrinths. This was just before Spelunky. It was before The Binding of Isaac, it was before FTL, and it was before Risk of Rain. In other words, this interpretation was made right before the definition of a roguelike radically changed. Before these genre fusions, roguelikes were mostly games like NetHack and Angband, games that were directly inspired by this RPG from 1980. They were roguelikes, because they were "like Rogue."

But let's talk about what this interpretation is actually doing. It is not, in fact, a set of rigid guidelines of what features a game needs to be part of the genre. It is a set of high and low value factors, that a game may not have all of, but the more it has, the more it is, well, Rogue-like. There isn't a game that purely embodies each of these factors, because there's doesn't have to be. Even Rogue isn't fully faithful to this interpretation. It's just that if your game has enough of these factors, then it's clearly working in the same design space, and part of the broader conversation. That's all it was doing.

So is it still relevant? Well, kind of, but not really. Sure, permadeath and procedural generation are still important to people, but for it to be turn-based and grid-based aren't necessary anymore. And I guess for the later polls, either people got tired of me posting these in their tags every day, or they just don't have an opinion one way or the other, because their vote counts didn't even hit the triple digits. It seems like complexity, resource management, and exploration/discovery are still important, while non-modal gameplay and hack-and-slash aren't as much. But I hesitate to give these results the same kind of credence because of how many people from the earlier polls didn't vote on these ones.

It seems like, these days, the roguelike isn't really about its base mechanics. It's a structural genre. You can graft any base mechanics onto it, as long as you start a new run after you die, and each run is made unique by randomness. It seems pretty straightforward.

Okay, what about Mystery Dungeon?

The Mystery Dungeon games these days are mostly known for being Pokemon spinoffs, but the series goes back to the 90s with games like Shiren the Wanderer. These games are directly inspired by the original Rogue, complete with grid-based movement, item discovery, and heavy resource management. It's more "like Rogue" than a lot of modern roguelikes. But because it's structured more like a Japanese RPG, with checkpoints, persistent progression, and a full-blown story, it would probably nowadays be called a "roguelite." Even though it precedes that term by decades!

I'm honestly really surprised that Mystery Dungeon doesn't come up more in discussions about roguelikes. Like, it's a really obvious point of contention, and one that's worth talking about. But only one person in my replies actually mentioned Mystery Dungeon in their thoughts about permadeath. I suspect it's because most of the roguelikes people are invested in these days are indie PC games from the West, while Mystery Dungeon is a Japanese series on console and handheld. But I can't prove it.

Speaking of roguelites though, we have to talk about that term. I don't think that "roguelite" is an inherently elitist term, or that it's useless as a label. it clearly serves some purpose in conversation, even if I wouldn't use it myself. I don't want to prescribe my definitions of terms from on high. I want to understand how people are using these terms in daily practice.

And it seems like it comes down to two definitions. One is the Berliner standpoint. It's less common, but it sees some use. Basically, if you're not making a grid-based dungeon crawler, you're not really making a game "like Rogue," are you? Genre fusions like Risk of Rain and Slay the Spire play completely differently from the roguelikes of old, so it feels weird to just call them roguelikes. This is treating it as a mechanical genre, defining roguelikes by dungeon-crawling in the same way we define a shooter by shooting.

The other definition is a broader one, defined by two key features: procgen and permadeath. This is the most common one in modern conversations about roguelikes, because it takes it as a given that these genre fusions are what roguelikes Are. By this framing, a roguelite is any procgen game that features persistent upgrades. Something like Rogue Legacy, where your progression isn't just you as a player, but your character growing more powerful. Permadeath and procgen serve a very specific purpose in conjunction with each other, and there is a sense where either of these factors being diluted misses the entire point. But plenty of people don't put stock into the like/lite distinction, because they don't see it as mattering. No definition here is wrong, they're just all operating under different beliefs.

(sigh) Look, genre is a lot like gender. In fact, in some languages, they're the same word. It's vague, it's arbitrary, and it doesn't make sense if you squint too hard. But it's important to people, either to describe what they're doing or to understand what others are doing. There's never going to be a strict, clear definition of roguelike that perfectly covers all cases, because that's just not how genre works. Roguelikes are what we mean when we talk about roguelikes. It's very easy to poke fun at a genre label like this, but it's a lot harder to understand what it's doing, and what it means to people. That's the conversation that really matters here.

Is the Berlin Interpretation still relevant? Not as much as it used to be. But your interpretation is what's really important.

#roguelikes #game design #nethack #angband #dwarf fortress #pokemon mystery dungeon #mystery dungeon #shiren the wanderer #Tales of Maj'Eyal #ADOM #minesweeper #slay the spire #dead cells #the binding of isaac #risk of rain #hades #ftl #darkest dungeon #into the breach #spelunky #rogue legacy #vampire survivors #cult of the lamb #one step from eden #dicey dungeons #dungeon of the endless #minecraft #prey #brutal orchestra

[trashlama]

Heeeeeyyyyy.... guess who's ADHD can't let them write for shit?~ This bitch✨~

I suuuuuucck guys I know! I did a poll and everything just so I would have to write some of these! I just couldn't help but get side tracked.... My brain is in the LMK and Spiderverse fandoms!!! Though I will say I basically got this Rise Donnie x Big Mama Assistant req almost done. Almost I say. We'll see if I post it in the next two days and not something else random instead.... I suck lol

Anyways— here's my 3am thoughts from the other night that I'm finish up tonight ironically at 3am again. Soooo bare with me these are basically a bunch of summaries/plots/not fully flushed out possible one shot ideas I might do. Probably could've re-read it a couple more times buuuuttt it's about to be 4 now so....

I hope you guys enjoy!

Sorry this is long↓ I don't own these memes. I've never claimed to do so. I just come across them on Pinterest when I'm on break at work and think they're funny so I like to share them. If I mistakenly put one on here that I shouldn't have please let me know! I like to respect people's wishes. And if you could add the creator names too that would be great so the same mistake isn't made twice. Sorry for the inconvenience that my sharing may cause. I hope you have a good day.

+++++++++++++++++++

Sooooo I was going through the Across the Spiderverse tag(specifically Miguel O'Hara) because you know he's hot. Priorities— Anyways— I kinda had an idea. Brahhzz what if I just took the whole Miguel kidnapping his dead wife/lover's alternate dimensional copy deal that everyone has been throwing around and introduced a new take on this tale?

We all know that the Spiderverse is very open to a wide selection of possibilities and versions of Spiderman and we're all aware that the same thing applies to other characters as well. Soooo who said that Y/n has to be a civilian/or a version of Spiderman for this idea to work?

My fellow peeps I introduce to you Earth 2099 Miguel O'Hara x  Villain/Alchemax worker/Morally Grey scientist Reader!

I can kinda see this playing out in a few ways.

1.)Villain reader investigating the strange phenomenon that occurred a couple months before hacking the multi verse and stirring up trouble. Miguel intervenes and takes what he wants.

For the last year since the bizarre phenomenon in downtown Brooklyn you've been stirring up more trouble than you typical due to collecting the materials needed for your "experiments" to figure out what that phenomenon really was and what the hell was Alchemax —your ex-employers— were up to with your research. With some finessing of the illegal kind you figure out what the corporation was up to. Before being fired you had discovered the existence of the multiverse however before you could investigate any further you were let go. Now that you have your research back you're able to Doc Octo this shit and break into the multiverse. If you could pull this off nothing was stopping ya' from fulfilling yer goal and maybe scoring some fame while you were at it. After some convoluted ass science mumbojumbo. You manage to Doc Octo this shit and break into the dimensional web that held the spider verse. Inside the alternate universe you immediately start messing up shit straight off the back as soon as you fly through the colorful portal. Miguel is quick to pick up on this anomaly and sends some Spiders out to handle the issue. Long story short— they fail. Forcing Miguel's hand to go and correct the anomaly himself. Only to find that it was you. Her. His dead wife/or dead lover. The only problem is that you're obviously not a good guy. Miguel being Miguel will try to rationalize it to himself as he demolishes your equipment/suit that you're not his Y/n, you're a villain, he can't keep you without risking a whole universe just for his selfish desires. However as he stood over your defeated helpless form. He decided. If one anomaly can exist and not destroy existence why can't another? There were ways around this. There had to be. Holding you in his grasp again the hero wasn't sure if he could let you go once again....

2.) You're an inventor/scientist that works at Alchemax/or your another rogue scientist . Either way you're looking to get into the Spider verse. Since the phenomenon from a couple months ago you've been intrigued by the strange occurrence. The news labeled it a "strange weather occurrence" however you knew that wasn't the case. If you're working at Alchemax you've known about the phenomenon since the beginning. If you're an inventor/scientist (with some grey morals) you found out after some research and trespassing. Either way your tinkering pays off thanks to the help of some stolen tech from Alchemax and an interesting glitch from the hacked tech. You eventually have yourself a fully operational universe hopping watch. And where do you end up? Right in the middle of Earth 2099. Miguel is immediately alerted of your presence. An obvious stranger to this Jetson world you find yourself quickly apprehended by a small group of spiders/or Miguel. Either way the red & blue leotard nosferatu as soon as he catches sight of you the dude is all over you. Miguel may be a man who would like to believe he is in control of himself and his rash decisions buuuuttt that's gonna be a nah. Never had the Spiderman ever expected to speak to an alternate version of his dead wife. Especially in person. Every time he's stolen a glance it was from a distance or behind one of his various monitors. He couldn't risk ruining another verse. However somehow regardless of his attempts to keep his desires at bay you've still managed to break past that last thing that was keeping you from him. Now that you're here the thirty year old wasn't sure if he could let you leave him again...

3.) What if instead of breaking into the multi verse. Alchemax employee/Morally Grey scientist Reader! is lured into the multiverse? In your home verse the Miguel who you had married was dead. Struggling with piling debt and depression you choose to bury your problems under research into the weird phenomenon that occurred in downtown Brooklyn a few months before. During this time of trial and error you figure out how to access the multiverse thanks to some misplaced Alchemax files and risky choices. The documents aid in building the device that would aid in your plan to find your ex-husband's alternate universe copy. All the while you were walking right into Miguel's clutches. Cause like you Miguel was having an equally hard time getting over his family's death. Although they are gone the widowed father couldn't help but, search for his loved ones amongst the various worlds that rest at his finger tips. He needed them. He needed you....and you needed him. Although you guys weren't from the same earth you both can replace the pain that was birthed from this tragedy and regain something more. Just be a family.... Hopefully you want to play his game because Miguel couldn't watch from the sidelines any longer.

Alrighty guys that's all for now! Sorry if they're a little all over the place. Regardless I hope you guys liked them and I hope you guys have a good week!

#im a simp #yandere #male yandere #yandere x reader #male yandere x reader #yandere spiderverse #yandere across the spiderverse #across the spiderverse #across the spiderverse yandere #yandere spiderman #yandere miguel o'hara #miguel o'hara #yandere x you #yandere x y/n #dead doves do not eat #lol i suck #rough idea #rough draft #incomplete #spiderman #miguel o'hara x reader #yanderecore #miguel ohara #miguel ohara x reader #miguel ohara x y/n #miguel ohara x you #yandere miguel ohara #yandere spiderman x reader #yandere marvel

[makethatelevenrings]

HAPPY 3K FOLLOWERS!!!! (Also congrats on making it to the halfway point of your thesis!)

For the bingo, could we pretty please get "Wanna bet?" with Dick Grayson?

thank you!!!! hope you like :)

want to join in the celebration? see the bingo sheet here

“I don’t know if you could tell but I just rolled my eyes,” you commented. A low chuckle sounded over the comms and then that warm, honey sweet voice followed.

“I felt a disturbance in the force,” Dick Grayson teased. “I take it you didn’t like that last joke?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, that was supposed to be a joke?” He snorted at your tone and you continued on, “I figured you plucked that straight from the shitty pun section of the Reader’s Digest.”

“I hate that you guessed that right.” A gleeful chuckle escaped you. Ever since Barbara told you that she needed to expand her operations and enlisted you to help, you never figured you would become Nightwing’s “person in the chair” but here you were, set up in your small Bludhaven apartment with various pieces of technology strewn around you and three monitors tracking crime reports in the city.

“Nightwing, we have an attempted robbery currently three blocks to your right on Roosevelt Avenue.”

“On it, Pythia.” The name came from being an oracle of Apollo at Delphi, something Barbara was very proud to come up with once you agreed to take over Nightwing’s operations so she could focus on Gotham.

Since starting this working relationship with Nightwing, you had become fast friends with the snarky vigilante and you appreciated his love and devotion to this city. You saw the risks he took and the people he fought. You saw it all from behind the screen of your computer and it broke your heart. You wished you could do more than give him information in an attempt to give him a leg up, but sometimes he came limping back to you with a black eye and that shit-eating grin and you were helpless but to apply an ice pack to his eye and bandage his cuts.

“Done and dusted,” he crowed. You sighed in relief and then let your lips curl up in amusement as you watched his fight from a security camera you hacked into.

“That was some fancy footwork there, ‘Wing. You trying to impress someone?”

“Nah,” he hummed over the line. “I’ve got my hands full already.”

You clasped your hands together and rested your chin on your knuckles, eyes peering at the map as you waited for a new dot to appear to dispatch him. “Hmm? I thought a charming man like you would never let himself be tied down.”

“I’m not usually the one being tied down,” he retorted. You stifled your laugh and played with the small silver band that rested on your ring finger.

“Oh, really? That’s salacious. I should tell the tabloids. Local vigilante spends his free time tying helpless folks up. Whatever shall we do?”

“Well, see, now I’m going to have to make sure you don’t spill my secrets.”

“You’ll never be able to silence me.”

“Wanna bet?” The rough, throaty tone that he spoke in made your body tingle and warmth flushed through your veins. You cleared your throat and studied the map once more. It was a slow, quiet night for once. Even though it was only two in the morning, he could afford to take off early.

“Come home and show me,” you murmured.

“Don’t have to tell me twice.”

Tag List:

@someoneimsure @perpetual-fangirl900 @visagebrise @cursedandromedablack @alexxavicry @the-wayward-daughter @raging-trash-of-mind @bunny-kawa @khaylin27

#dick grayson x reader #dick grayson imagine #nightwing x reader #nightwing imagine #dick grayson #honey's 3k celebration

[crownmemes]

Dr Death Sentences

(Sentences from Dr Death (2021-). Adjust phrasing where needed)

"We're all human. We all make mistakes. It's just that, in this line of work, the consequences of those mistakes are simply more consequential."

"You need to stop reading the news. It's bad for you."

"You've got to believe you can beat death - otherwise, what's the point in doing what we do?"

"Do me a favour? Make sure that door shuts behind you on the way out."

"You're still operating? After what you did?"

"Was it you? Were you the one talking shit?"

"Hacking's not really my area of expertise."

"If you're really a doctor, what kind are you?"

"I've gone over all of your cases, and I don't see any signs of genius at all."

"I guess I just thought you had so much more potential, you know?"

"We're having a baby and you haven't said a word about it!"

"Most people are so close-minded - so narrowly focused on their tiny, little cocooned worlds that they don't even understand the greatness that I am offering them."

"You're not a doctor; you're a butcher!"

"I'm going to fix you."

"I sleep better at night knowing you'll never practice medicine again."

"Gloating feels so good."

"You're old enough to know that the truth in our world rarely works out for the teller."

"I want to call this a tragedy, but that implies no one could see it coming."

"Yes, I think I can handle myself around a sexy, charming doctor."

"I don't think I have instincts when it comes to something like this."

"Well, that is an interesting way to say hello!"

"I'll sleep when I'm published!"

"Us being together, it could cost me my job and my reputation, but I think this thing we have is worth the risk."

"Do you ever have any doubts?"

"I'm sure our secret would be safe in Russia."

"If you're trying to impress me, it's working!"

"So many people think that when you're exposed to death and suffering every day, you become immune. It's quite the opposite."

"A wedding should be a happy thing! It should be something to celebrate!"

"This city makes people crazy."

"You get too attached to your patients. That won't lead anywhere good."

"What I don't understand is why my best friend can't be happy for me!"

"Sometimes I think that I cannot trust anyone but myself... And you."

"Why are we meeting like spies?"

"Some ethical walls are meant to be breached, especially in service of the truth."

"Actually, I don't smoke. Neither should you."

"Why is it so hard to do the right thing?"

#rp meme #rp memes #roleplay meme #roleplay memes #rp prompts #roleplay prompts #sentence starters #specific; #crime drama; #medical drama; #filmtv; #dr death;

[aita-blorbos]

AITA for wanting retaliation on a "friend" who tried to kill me?

My (kid, F) friend G (kid, M) who's been gone for a while messaged me asking my help, as he was trapped in a now abandoned mall we used to visit when it was open. Being my best friend, I went to rescue him! We managed to keep in contact through walky-talkies when I got there and he instructed me on what I needed to do to get to him.

G told me to deactivate an old security system so that I could progress, and I also had to be careful of the remaining automated mall attractions that still roamed; they saw me as an intruder, I guess. I also got an electronic mask that helped me hack the system. I was putting my own life on the line there for my friend.

This rescue mission took me to depths I never imagined the mall to have (I'm talking underground caverns and glowing mushrooms type of deep.) Why would G be so far below?

Down there I finally fully shut down the security and got to my friend G! Or so I thought.

Instead I found a weird robot that sounded just like G, using a walky-talky to talk to me as G this whole time.

It would've killed me there, but one of the automated mall attractions R (robot, F) intervened to save me, as she still remembered me from when the mall was open! She fought the robot to allow me to run, when the real G managed to contact me to help me get to the exit. He led me through the right path while the weird mimicking robot chased me, but I managed to get into the elevator to get me up.

G could talk to me through the speakers. He explained me that the weird robot had been down here for a really long time. The security system I worked through was to keep it hidden but since I shut it off, the robot was now free. G then said that he couldn't risk being followed... so he wouldn't let me escape, despite everything I've done for him.

He cut the elevator and sent it crashing back down with me inside, and the only way I can interpret it is that he tried to kill me.

But I didn't die.

I should have, all things considered. But I didn't by what I assume was luck. But I'm hurt, in more ways than one.

I want to claw my way out and get back at G for betraying me like this, after everything I went through to save him because I thought he was in danger! That's what friends are for!

But friends also do NOT try to kill each other.

And G was the one who chose to burn that bridge first- and burn me along while I was in it. However, I managed to get up off the bridge's ashes.

So yeah, I'm very mad and hurt, and I feel like I'm justified in being upset at someone for trying to murder me.

So, once I escape, WIBTA if I seek out G and get back at him for being such a traitor?

#aita #am i the asshole #unreality

[yonpote]

another thing is like... under capitalism, business success and wealth begin to alienate you from others who don't have that. and that alienation can feed into greed, like why not keep investing and making business deals and buying expensive stuff? and no one around is really going to call you out because they are either capitalist hacks or maybe people who once struggled who now rely on you.

so like, I don't inherently expect much from creators like dnp who come into money. even though they probably have more financial freedom than many other creators because of all the tours, books, games, etc (because they are good at business!)

so like, as their fans who ultimately are their consumers, I think it's good to call them out, especially because they have shown before that they have good intentions.

am I expecting much from them? no. wealth can be corrupting and speaking out comes with risk to business/career interests. but they have a special relationship with their audience, as we're mostly all fellow queer and neurodivergent people with similar interests. so we can provide feedback and be the ones to try to ground them and be like "hey that wasn't cool please do better." stopping engagement with them and their content entirely doesn't really do anything to help, unless they did something they needed to absolutely be deplatformed for. stopping engagement is a valid personal choice, but when I see stuff that begins to resemble like 'they aren't being activists right now time for everyone to unstan' I'm like... if that makes you feel better, fine, but I would rather parasocially / affectionately be like "hey I expect more from you!" in a way that is constructive. which is something I would want to do with my friends, but the difference is, if my friends didn't change or try to then I probably would distance myself from them. Whereas Dan and Phil are entertainers we don't now irl, we have a different relationship with them. but compared to many other creators, they really do tend to be more sensitive to their audience (which has helped their success).

but so this time the (mostly leftist) phannies calling them out actually got them to do a fundraiser so that's cool! even if it's because of the backlash like, that's what the point of backlash is! we should want people to change behavior. not to just abstractly punish them, for something they could be unlikely to do without pressure. though hopefully it will lead to less instances of having to pressure them.

idk this brings up interesting stuff about parasocial relationships, the transactions between creators and their audience, and capitalism. so of course I had to rant about it for a sec lol.

thats completely true! thank u for the rant lol but yeah i dont want to come across as being like, NEVER EXPECT ANYTHING FROM YOUR FAV CREATORS it was more like, with dnp specifically we know where their heart is i guess so it can be unnecessary to call for whatever. BUT you're absolutely right in that they probably wouldn't have done a charity stream were it not for pressure from fans. and maybe this is ME being parasocial but i'd like to think that this isn't for damage control or performativism (i mean it is a LITTLE cuz any publicity is a little bit abt looking good) but rather like, putting their money where their mouth is basically! and showing to their core audience like hey we care about this thing too and we fully hear you.

i was thinking about this General concept wrt dnp because i think there have been other moments where dnp were called out about something or criticized for like their more offensive humor and they stopped doing that and educated themselves which is better than most creators who put up fakeass apology videos. ive seen a lot of ppl say they want dan to talk about and apologize for his racist and sexist humor (and honestly only asking dan but not bringing up that phil also had his share of racist jokes) but it's like. at this point what further could he say? he's not a 21 year old shit head anymore (and yeah good for you for being a socially aware 21 y/o in 2024 but that offensive humor literally was just the culture of that time period) and they both have SHOWN that they have grown and even talked about it in like the pinof react video where they talked about "yeah we bullied kristen stewart a lot cuz it was just popular to make fun of her and justin bieber and that really sucks that we did that" like they have changed and shown change! they do not need to make a grand apology statement cuz like if you wanna talk performativism then lets talk about the fakeness of basically every apology video on the internet????

sorry thats unrelated to what u were talking abt but it just made me start thinking BUT YEAH THANK YOU FOR YOUR HOT TAKES!!!!

#myrambles

[aiscapades]

touchstarved m5 as npmd songs

i already did arcana x npmd so might as well do touchstarved

leander — dirty girl, hatchet town

vere — nerdy prudes must die, the summoning

ais — literal monster, the best of you

mhin — bury the bully, if i loved you

kuras — cool as i think i am (reprise), dirty dudes must die

defending myself brief explanations:

leander

dirty girl: he is a toxic alpha male "daddy" who would say the cringiest shit if it worked to manipulate mc. being attracted to someone you know is Not Good For You. the grace (mc)/max (leander) dynamic "you got me hypnotized / i'll never ever tell you to behave / i am expecting you to betray me" + "i am expecting you to behave / you want a tour of the house you better straighten out your crooked ways" just fits imo. he's so slutty. hatchet town: this song encompasses the anyone-could-be-a-monster mass hysteria that fills me when i look into leander's eyes.

vere

nerdy prudes must die: almost self-explanatory. he is in every shadow, hunting you. you cannot rid of him. he wants you dead? you're dead. the lyrics give cat-playing-with-their-prey vibes and that fits vere best imo. the taunting, the insults, the pettiness. sucks to be a nerd i guess. the summoning: i was conflicted abt this one. first i assigned it to kuras for the biblically-accurate angel vibes; then i wondered if it fit ais & ocudeus. i settled on vere because... he speaks in riddles similarly to the lords in black + vere is def the type to ask for what you cherish most in return for helping you + "take all our kingdoms back" because vere was once revered as a god but has now been reduced to the senobium's pet. also nibbly wanting to eat souls is vere-coded. && wiggly claiming to be their friend but obviously having nefarious motives. "our true form would melt your minds" can apply to kuras but i think vere would be pretty frightening as well. "you gamble it on the roll of the dice" befriending vere is a gamble; is he going to toy with you, kill you? or love you?

ais

literal monster: of all the m5 monsters, i think this fits ais best. "his fists are always half-cocked" ais is prone to violence. he's always up for a fight. worrying about associating with him because you are at risk of falling victim to ocudeus. "no one's gonna stop him" nobody seems to care he leaves people for dead?? people are too scared to interfere?? the best of you: this is a vague happy-lovey-dovey song that could apply to them all, BUT it reminds me of how ais seems especially attached to mc from the beginning and doesn't want them to lose themself to the seaspring. "i need the kind of love from someone else" + "it's like you test me but not to best me" their witty banter/teasing dynamic.

mhin

bury the bully: cutting up the body of some mf who bothered them is so mhin haha. not in a crazed killer way; the song is very matter-of-fact and it fits their medical vibe. they stuck their dagger in the neck of a soulless like it was nothing. "we're gonna hack all his limbs off / how else he gonna fit?" if i loved you: this is classic tsundere mhin vibes. arguing that they don't love you as they sing a love ballad—like c'mon!!

kuras

cool as i think i am (reprise): this is the part where pete is telling steph it's okay to sacrifice him if it ensures her safety. that is very kuras-coded to me. "let me take the bullet / is it really a crime if you get to live your life to the fullest?" he has lived for thousands of years; he would rather you have a fulfilling life than continue with his own miserable one. "if i loved you more than the stars above / i'd have to let you go" dirty dudes must die: the themes of repentance and sinning fit kuras; he's still a monster who has probably committed horrible atrocities (what is he repenting for?) even if he presents as a noble angel doctor. this song kinda gives the vibe of his bad ending maybe? giving in to your own sins to make those around you repent for theirs? "who will pray for you when your body is gone / this is the consequence for what you've done"

#touchstarved game #nerdy prudes must die #i'm fine being the only overlap in these fandom it's fine it's OKAY (lying) #second time today i dissect songs to fit the m5 #my ability to equate npmd with visual novel love interests is crazy #i wanna try other starkid shows next #anyway back to making food and doing laundry :D

[profounddestinyrebel]

I'd love Tim to be cloned by Ra's Al Ghul and just, have no idea. Ra's keeps it so secret not even Talia knows because he's paranoid that Tim will find out. I'd prefer the clone to be a girl, because Ra's is hella biased against women and he's totally underestimated a female Tim. Whether or not the clone has Tim's memories is up for debate but she does have his curiosity and sneakiness.

So Clone Tim (henceforth referred to as CT) finds out she was cloned because Ra's is obsessed with Tim after he blew up Ra's bases and survived Ra's personally trying to kill him. She is. Not happy. Here's where it can diverge. If CT has Tim's memories then she didn't need to find this out, but she has no one coming for her and is not sure of her welcome if she makes it away from Ra's. And it is an If. Without killing, her chances of winning any fight are low (with an unfamiliar body that hasn't been trained and no weapons) and she's probably not familiar with where she's currently being kept. So, she either chooses to escaping when she's finally left alone and try to signal for help or (and I like this one) she decides Ra's is an exception and she's not making it out of here without taking him out. He'll track her down and just take her back. Remember no one knows she exists, so no one is searching for her and many people would love to get their hands on a vulnerable Red Robin/Robin/Bat whether for info or revenge. So she kills Ra's, preferably without evidence, and then burns the body so one can put him in the Pit.

Or, CT does NOT have Tim's memories and finds out about Tim when she investigates. Now, I love feral Tim Drake AUs so much and I love the idea that young Tim was naturally just feral as a part of his personality. So CT, no memories would Absolutely take Ra's out. Children are taught morals by their families and by society. CT Would be taught that killing is good by Ra's (however long he's had her). I picture her at about 10-12 years old (she's probably only been alive for a couple moths to a year). She might or might not know about the Pits but would probably burn the body anyway to get rid of the evidence.

Now this is where it crosses into DP. CT has 2 choices (with and without Tim memories). She can either find someone to get her to the Bats or she can avoid them. I personally think that CT would avoid them. If she has Tim's memories then she knows Damian wants Tim dead. Would that extend to her? Not to mention Jason. CT probably wouldn't be willing to risk it, not with having broken the no kill rule as well. That's right, either way I think CT would have had to kill Ra's to escape. She doesn't really have the resources or allies to escape without killing him. If she doesn't have Tim's memories then all she knows is that she killed someone, and being a clone (made by Ra's Al Ghul nonetheless) is not will to risk going to the Bats for help.

Here's where it crosses into the DP universe. So CT is just traveling, exploring the world, when she runs into another girl doing the same thing. Maybe they both break into the same house. Maybe they both get into a fight. Maybe they literally one into another. But they decide to team up, after talking to each other. If you guessed Dani Phantom, you guessed correctly! Two blue-eyed, black-haired girls just sightseeing across the world. Together they get into twice the amount of trouble but also get out of it much easier with a partner. They bond over being clones made by evil rich men. Dani uses her invisibility to help them make a quick escape. CT would hack (without her memories I think she'd learn to do it as a necessity and to have something in common with her original) into evil people/organizations to find targets. The two of them, without any supervision? Would totally steal from and ruin anybody they thought deserved it. Also, researching interesting places on the internet and then just, going there.

I love the idea of these two just messing with any hero that comes after them. The panic that Tim would get into if he found out? Not to mention the rest of the Bats. How do track someone down if they can just go invisible and fly?

If someone wanted to add to this, that would be amazing!

#DC x DP #Dani Phantom #Ra's Al Ghul #female clone tim #dead Ra's Al Ghul

[surplus-of-sarcasm]

Numéro 23

Part 2

Guess what, ya girl finished a snippet on the plane!!

Words: 1.28 k

TW: Violence, bone fracture, slightly depressed and pretty anxious hero, questionable agency, bone fracture, guns, attempted murders, restraint mentioned

The file was dropped onto their desk curtly, no words spoken, like every other assignment Hero got. Their newest target didn't have a name, no alias of some sort, and the picture of them had shown them fully masked in a sleek, black suit, no inch of skin showing; a faceless caricature. However, their kill count, in three digits, was important enough that any other details seemed inconsequential next to it.

Besides, Hero had been taught to treat their targets more like tasks than people. 

So the crime-fighter trained till they were left dead on their feet, till their knuckles were all ripped skin and covered in bloodstains, till their exhausted muscles felt like they were on fire. 

“Hero! Don’t you think you’re going a little overkill, boss?” Sidekick asked, folding their arms across their chest and leaning against the doorframe.

The young hero was the closest thing to a light in the agency’s pitch black darkness; the soul that gave life to a lifeless place, like a flame lighting the slowly dwindling, half-melted candle that was the older crime-fighter’s life. 

“I. . .can’t, Sidekick,” the hero replied breathlessly, hauling their form up for yet another pull-up, having done so many that they’d lost count. “This new target is unlike all the others before the-”

“Yeah yeah, but when are you not being paranoid about one of your enemies?” the teenager replied, cutting them off. 

“Their kill count is in three digits,” the crime-stopper retorted almost impatiently.

“Bloody hell,” Sidekick interjected, eyes going wide.

“Watch your language,” Hero chided, but a sly smirk danced across their face. 

“Okay, I wasn’t expecting that, but what good will it do if you show up to fight this bloody - sorry - serial killer exhausted? Weren’t you the one who kept lecturing me on the importance of rest for maximum work efficiency?”

The hero may have been stubborn, but they realised their protegé was right. They couldn't risk showing up to fight someone like their mystery killer while tired, so they decided to make their way home.

Normally, a hot bath would easily clear their head. Sure, they could still feel the tension blissfully seep from their form, the warmth relaxing overworked muscles, but their mind remained a raging firestorm of anxiety. It frustrated them how they couldn't even enjoy something this simple, the one moment where they no longer had to think or be whatever the hell they needed to be at the moment. "At least I smell nice," they scoffed, wishing to get this over with much faster. 

They let out a heavy sigh, leaving the tub and slipping into a bathrobe, trudging to the desk in their room to use the old, but still functional laptop. Ironically, being a hero barely payed for rent. 

For someone so high and mighty, their little terrorist wasn't completely difficult to find. Or maybe the hero was really a 'natural with the keyboard', since it had taken them a bit of hacking to find their target. Who's to say? 

Changing into their suit, Hero stared at their reflection with such intensity, that it would look to most people like an attempt to shatter it to a thousand shards by just looking at it. In reality, their own harsh gaze bore into the dark corners of their mind, wondering for the umpteenth time if they were enough. It didn't matter because they'd still have to do this anyway, whatever the cost.

"Target spotted," they whispered into their comm, standing on their knees for long enough that their muscles ached, waiting for their enemy deigned to show up. 

"I will engage now." 

The killer's movements resembled that of a panther, and the crime-fighter would have been lying if they'd denied finding it graceful. They were fast and agile, almost impossible to keep up with, not even giving them the chance to reach for the gun in their waistband. But the hero was no slouch either. They aimed a harsh kick to their enemy's shins, their body slamming into the asphalt with an audible thud. Still, the figure in black remained undeterred, kicking the crime-stopper on top of them in the ribs, sending them toppling down across the street, making their head throb and effectively destroying their flimsy communicator.

The hero swore, muttering something ironically much more profane than what they'd chastise their sidekick for, but they rolled away, out of the bastard's reach, quickly getting back on their feet. Their assailant was quick on their feet, chasing after them, but Hero was faster. They'd managed to slip behind an old building, trying to quiet their laboured breathing. They slowly reached for the gun in their waistband, removing the old magazine and replacing it with a new, loaded one.

They waited painstakingly for their target to reach the perfect spot.

Bang. They fired, aiming for the kill, three perfect shots. 

Except the bastard was wearing bullet-proof armour, the bullets ricocheting off of them uselessly. They were certain that underneath their dark cowl, the criminal must have had an infuriatingly smug smirk on their face, but right then, they recieved an entirely self-satisfied tilt of the head to the side. 

Their only option was to destroy a piece of the armour and shoot them there. 

The fight between them continued being a draw, one striking, their opponent blocking, and neither causing any real damage. Until the killer had managed to back Hero into a corner, kicking them to the ground and twisting their leg into a horrid angle, the crime-fighter crying out in pain as a grotesque crack rang in their ears. Tears sprang in their eyes and with whatever little movement they could manage, they furiously ripped their nemesis's mask off.

It wasn't the face of a stranger, like they'd expected, nor was it the face of someone entirely close to them, not that there were many people, aside from their sidekick, who obviously wasn't the ruthless murderer before, instead, it was their quiet lab partner from college, Villain, the one that sat next to them every day, brought them coffee and the occasional dessert, and doodled silly cartoons in their notebook to keep them both sane during boring classes, the closest thing they had to a friend that had nothing to do with the agency.

Their mouth was left agape, their eyes wide, their whole world spinning, but Villain didn’t even blink. They fired, straight into the hero's chest, utterly remorseless, no readable expression on their stone hard face.

Hero woke up. Woke up? What the hell? But Villain had killed them, yet here they were, lying on a soft mattress underneath a wonderfully thick comforter, with their leg in a cast, bandages crisscrossed across their chest. The only thing ruining the strangely mellow coziness they felt (possibly painkilling drugs) was the fact that they were handcuffed to the nighstand. 

The bullet had missed their heart. But surely an expert marksman like Villain wouldn't miss, right? This, for some strange reason, was intentional. 

We like to believe that our expectations have a foundation in truth, that they are of considerable value, that they can have even the slightest effect on any future outcomes. Yet, that is a fool's dream, a fruitless effort to calm a racing mind in fear of the unknown. Just when you are at the peak of your certainty, when you fully believe your fate is sealed, a spontaneous twist, the slightest change sets you on a path you were never aware existed. Our choices, our words, our actions have meaning, yet they only hold the power of a few tidal waves in the vast unpredictable ocean that is our future because destiny is a weapon one can only hope to master.

✨️Le Taglist: @larinzz @syberianjade @lateuplight @altu-interactions @enbious-prince @astr0-mj @thelazywitchphotographer @usernotfound000 @addictedsandwhichaki @justalittlecorrupted @quaggasus @theangstyclown @vernilliom @mothmancommitsarson @starssabove @kurai-hono-blog @talkingsperm @muffinrebel44 @sunnynwanda @annablogsposts @cardboardarsonist @itsmyworld23 @onlywhump @shr3ya @crotchgoblin69 @wtfevenisausername

Wanna be on the taglist? This'll take you there!

#prompt #hero x villain #snippet #mysterious #assassin hero #assassin villain #assassin x assassin #angst #whump #fight scene #tw bone fracture #tw guns #tw attempted murder #tw questionable agency #tw anxiety #college students??? #female writers #natalia's writing #writers on tumblr #fiction #heroes and villains community #hero x sidekick #nat writes

[tanadrin]

law and economics-type conservatives aren’t just partisan hacks hiding behind insight porn (though they are that, too), they are self-evidently liars who believe in nothing, because they will support tort reform and limiting damages for corporate malfeasance and come up with elaborate policy justifications as to why this won’t have severe public policy consequences when it turns out you can dump basically unlimited quantities of crude oil in prince william sound with no consequences, and then turn around and endorse three strikes laws, which take the exact opposite tack (the only way to ensure law-abiding behavior is to increase punishment without limit), despite the raft of social science showing such legislation is totally ineffective at deterring crime

because what’s really underlying their decisions is the same loose bundle of biases that governs most people’s initial appraisal of similar situations: deference to preexisting structures of power (Exxon is rich and important; therefore Exxon can’t be punished too harshly), contempt for the powerless (anybody actually at risk of being punished by a three-strikes law), and an energetic desire to create a post-hoc rationalization for this worldview, even if it makes no sense under the ideology that they themselves espouse

and that’s a forgivable enough sin in your average citizen, who has not thought too deeply about these issues, but for the people who are supposed to be at the apex of the legal profession and who are hailed as luminaries of conservative legal thought, it’s absolutely pathetic. but then again, the strongest intellectual american conservative jurisprudence could produce in recent memory was antonin fucking scalia, a moron with the moral sensibilities of a playground bully, so i guess it’s unfair to expect too much. but i wish onlookers who were not part of the conservative legal movement at least had the intellectual sophistication not to be so frequently taken in by this nonsense.

[simpletale-officiale]

WE COULDNT DECIDE HOW VARISK SHOULD LOOK SO IM PUTTING IT UP TO THE COURT OF PUBLIC OPINION!

yo, less popular traditional loser russ making its first solo post

the varisk redesign was actually discussed earlier beforehand in which i told frosty my honest opinion; the original design they drew for risk was already good as it was and that they dont need to replace it

so you could guess how i felt when they posted the exact design i issued no to

anyhow we are now at a standstill and i want YOU to help US! (and by us i mean me because i did not inform winters that i was gonna do this)

Design Number 1 - Risk

(Original Redraw by Frosty - made when we were first discussing the reboot of simpletale)

(me my draw this is how look if win :])

Pros (from Yours Truly);

fits their personality, as they are roleplaying as hero

would be way easier to draw and "sprite"

personally prefer the colors

PERFEKTO

Cons (according to Frosty);

Would be harder to sprite(?)

Mostly original, doesn't use any beta aspects and isn't based off anything that came before undertale.

Doesn't fit the modern setting, a kid in fucking medieval clothing running around feels weird. [It's not like he is wearing fucking armor, Frosty! LET THEM HAVE CHILDLIKE WONDER!]

Don't like it.

Design Number 2 - Varisk

(This Motherfucker by Frosty - made behind my back >:[)

(just to be fair i did my own also here)

Pros (from Winters);

Actually based off something, being The Halloween Hack. * simpletale is about using beta stuff, toby fox stuff and concept art to make a fun parody, so this checks out

Fits the modern setting. [GRAAAAHHH!!!!]

Fits the story better!

Much simpler to sprite and draw(?)

Perfect!

Cons (according to me);

dont fit the personality as much

i like the colors less then the original

atleast like, 10% harder to draw

when compared, i dont like it

VOTE NOW!!!!!!

https://forms.gle/UXkGBrYDa6rf4mB19

https://strawpoll.com/7MZ0AEBrKyo

and if anybody asks for both, that'll only happen if both of these links somehow get the complete opposite answer, and you only get 1 shot at voting so i don't think you'll be able to cheat for that to happen >B)

#simpletale #simpleverse #frisk #simpleswap #fellsimple

[readingandwritingandreading]

Some Hearts ~ Part 1

My Blurb: Guess who finally got around to watching the Reacher series! This girl. Guess who immediately fell in love with the introverted giant with biceps? Also this girl. Y'all should have known this was coming. He’s so my type, it’s not even funny. 

Disclaimer:  Alas, I own nothing but my ideas. I do not give permission for my writing to be shared anywhere without my consent. 

Summary: Reacher never needed anyone, he was a lone wolf and preferred it that way. But when he finds his mate beaten and bruised one night, she and the rest of the 110th show Reacher the benefits of being in a pack. Fated Mates, Shifter AU

Pairing: Jack Reacher x OFC Morgan Stone

Warnings: There are some darker things in this fic. Morgan is a rape and abuse survivor. Nothing is explicitly detailed but be advised. Your media consumption is your responsibility. This is a fated mates, wolf shifter AU and will contain claming, biting, mating and other wolf pack related things. 

Tagging: @pioched | @ashes-writing

Add yourself to my taglist HERE

Follow Along: Some Hearts Masterlist

Also Check Out: Main Masterlist

Margrave, Northern Georgia

He…missed, I couldn’t believe it. Wincing, I slid my feet over the edge of the bed, pulling the sheet with me and paused when I was fully standing. Pain radiates through my core, he hadn’t been gentle, despite knowing I had been a virgin. The tears hadn’t helped either and I could still feel the sting from when he had slapped me, telling me to “shut up and take it”. My lip was raw from where I had bitten it to try and stifle my sobs, and my shoulder hurt from the throbbing bite wound. But there was no pain or discomfort that would have come from disobeying an Alpha command, which meant his claiming bite hadn’t sealed the bond. 

Pulling the sheet around me, I carefully made my way to the en suite bathroom. Squinting at my neck by the light of the moon I almost sobbed. I didn’t dare turn on a light for fear of drawing attention to the fact that I was out of bed but the reflection in the mirror showed he had missed my mating gland by mere centimeters. He had issued the alpha command to “stay in that bed and be ready when I get back”  before stumbling off and from what I could tell had left the property, if the drunken yells, car doors and squealing tires were anything to go by. 

I shuddered as the situation sunk in, KJ was going to be furious when he realized. There would definitely be more hitting and he would do it again, forcing himself on me before making sure he hit his mark. And it would be soon, he was too proud of his excellent marksmanship to risk anyone finding out about this. 

You could leave, the thought floated through my brain and I clung to it. Could I though? I had no money, no family who would help me, nowhere to go. I had been isolated my whole life so my father could hide my condition so no friends to turn to. I slowly stepped back into the bedroom, my eye drawn to the closet door KJ had left open when he got dressed. I had heard a safe beeping before he reappeared and gave the command. 

You could leave, the thought came again, stronger this time as I walked into the closet and did a quick search, finding the safe behind the door. And it was…open, just barely. Like he had swung it as he turned and didn’t wait to see if it latched. With a shaking hand I reached out and pulled it open, gasping when I saw the stacks of money sitting inside with several envelopes. 

Turning away, I quickly swept my eyes around the closet. If I was going to leave, I needed to disguise myself. Once he realized I was gone, he would start looking and I knew enough about his family to know that they would hack into any surveillance footage they wanted. Dropping the sheet and ignoring the pain I moved quickly. Pulling on a pair of sweats and then layering a couple t-shirts under a black hoodie. I thought about wearing his shoes to disguise any prints but it would make me clumsy so I pulled my own on. Stuffing my hair under a hat I took a look at myself in the mirror. The large baggy clothes made me look heavier, hopefully enough to not warrant a second glance if they were looking for me. Heading back to the closet I grabbed two stacks of the cash, shoving one in my bra and splitting the other between my sock and my pocket. 

I could hear voices downstairs when I pulled the door open enough to peak into the hallway. Of course he would have left guard in place but I was praying he had been relying on the Alpha command to keep me in place. Closing the door gently, I turned to the window that faced the back of the property. It opened quietly and I breathed a sigh of relief when it looked like I could climb down. It was painful and I expected to hear shouts at any moment but I made it to the ground with a soft thud. 

Southwestern Foothills of the Adirondack Mountains, New York

Reacher waved his hand as the bus pulled away. Waiting for the dust to clear before heading down the hard packed gravel and dirt road that wove its way away from the highway and into the Black River Wild Forest. Five miles of walking later and he catches his first glimpse of Rock Hill Village, Home of the Rock Hill Pack led by Neagley. Most of the 110th had settled there making it the closest thing he had to what could be considered a home. 

Technically he owned a cabin here, it was all Neagley and Dixon’s doing. They had done all of the decorating and furnishing; refusing to let anyone else live there. Told him that when his lone wolf days were over, it would be waiting for him. 

He hadn’t been back in nearly a year but Neagley always knew when he was coming. He argued that he set off the pack boundary sensors early. She said it was because he was part of her pack whether he wanted to be or not. Regardless, his cabin was always warm and ready for him. He wasn’t sure why or when he had decided he was coming back this time. He was in New York before he even realized it, like something was pulling him here. Sure enough, by the time he made it to the shrine of the Moon Goddess in the village square Neagley was already standing in front of the bar that doubled as the pack house and her home. 

“Welcome back boss.” She grinned at him, arms crossed before nodding her head to the bar and opening the door for him. 

Two Weeks Later, Black River Wild Forest, New York

I shivered despite the coat I was bundled in. The heart of New York this time of year was cold, made colder by the wind that was threatening to blow in a storm. Fighting the urge to head back to the town I skirted around a few miles ago, I headed into the tree line. According to the map I had picked up, once I made it through the Black River Wild Forest I just had to get across the border and then I would be in Canada. Shifter laws were different there and I was hoping I would be far enough from KJ that he would never find me. 

Once I had snuck off his property, I had headed to Atlanta and taken the first bus leaving. Not wanting to risk being caught immediately after escaping. The last two weeks had been a series of buses and walking. A plane would have been faster but I didn’t have any form of identification and I was sure airports were being watched. I had avoided big cities as well, despite the desire to attempt to lose myself in the bustling crowd of New York City. 

In an effort to save money and keep away from cameras, I had spent the last week sleeping in the woods or abandoned sheds. Not that I got a lot of sleep regardless, my nightmares always woke me after a couple of hours. Every night I dreamed of KJ finding me and dragging me back to Georgia, so every night I pushed myself as far as I could. 

An hour later, the wind had picked up and a small drizzle had started falling from the sky, soaking me to the bone. I was deep in the forest now, exhaustion and cold blurring my vision as I searched for somewhere I could take shelter. 

Keep going, the thought flitted through my brain. The trees began to thin out and I moved faster, praying to the moon goddess that there was a house or something ahead. Bursting through the treeline I barely stopped myself from plummeting down a slope and into a shallow river. My senses were dulled but I could just make out light coming from ahead, a village from the looks of it. 

I had just settled on a place to cross when a gust of wind came from the trees and knocked me off balance. I grabbed a nearby bush to steady myself but the ground beneath me gave way and I slid down the slope and straight into the river. The icy water knocked the breath out of me and I just managed to keep my mouth closed against a scream when my arm slammed into a rock as I hit the bottom. 

Gotta swim, keep going. The thought bombarded me and I pushed off the river bed with all my might, gasping for air when my head crested the water. The arm that had hit the rock was useless, pain shooting up and down as I tried to swim towards the shore. The water was pulling against me and I barely grabbed a log that was sticking out of the bank. Pulling myself along with my good arm I managed to get out of the water and collapsed. I was freezing now and so tired. I’ll just rest a minute before I head towards the lights.

Rock Hill Village, New York

“Reacher, you got a copy?” Franz’s voice crackled through the earpiece.

“Affirmative.” Reacher replied, focusing on removing a tree limb that had blown itself across the fence behind the repair shop. He’d been in Rock Hill for a week before Neagley had put him on the security team that monitored the pack lands for threats. Few wolf shifters dared to cross into their territory but rogues and ferals were always an issue and Neagley ran a tight ship. Everyone in her pack had a job and role to play. Reacher respected that and had agreed to the job without argument. 

Franz’s voice pulled him out of his thoughts. “We just got a ping on the southern boundary by the river. Something bigger than a normal animal crossed it. Alpha wants it checked out.”

“I’ll investigate,” he replied, abandoning the tree limb in favor of shifting to his wolf form and heading towards the river. 

A couple minutes later, another wolf joined him on the path. He recognized Franz’s wolf and nodded his head, following him to where the boundary had pinged. He caught the scent of another shifter before he saw her. 

The woman was pushing herself to her feet as they approached and shifted back to their human forms. Her right arm was cradled against her chest and she was covered in mud and soaking wet. He could see her shivering and she looked terrified. Lowering his hands and putting them face up so she could see them, he slowly approached. 

The woman's eyes darted to Franz, looking him over before switching to Reacher’s, her face paleing further as she took in his size. He was used to looking intimated but a churning deep in his gut told him his wolf didn’t like that she was frightened. She locked eyes with him and his breath caught as a spark erupted from his chest and collided with one that came from hers. Glowing briefly in a shimmering light that had them all shielding their eyes before disappearing.

“Reacher, Franz. Do you copy?” Neagley’s voice echoed through the radio that had come unhooked from the earpiece during his shift.

Reacher ignored it as his eyes refocused on the woman, just catching her eyes rolling to the back of her head and her body starting to fall. He made it to her side, catching her just before she hit the ground. 

“We need Roscoe at the hospital asap.” Franz yelled into the radio, his wide eyes catching the confused look on Reacher’s face. 

“What did you find? Sensors are pinging in your area like crazy” Neagley’s voice sounded winded, like she was already running.

Standing and quickly heading towards the village, Reacher answered “We found my mate.”

#micole writes things now #reacher x ofc #jack reacher #reacher #alan ritchson reacher #not tom cruise reacher #never tom cruise #fated mates #shifter au #some hearts

[bluerskiees]

RYUUGUJI KEN FLUFF HEADCANONS ☁️

☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️

• Loves doing your hair.

• Buys you food with a flag along with mikey's.

• Probably has a lot of vids and pics of you.

• Adores the way you look so small compared to him.

• Teases you because you're short.

• Teaches you to fight because he doesn't want anything happening to you when he's not around.

• Teaches you some hacks like how to fix your bike etc..

• Would love to carry you on his back.

• Tsundere. Wouldn't let you know he likes you until he actually confesses.

• Hard Dom but likes soft sex.

• Cuddles are a must.

• He takes you and mikey out a lot.

• Did mikey get tooo close to you? Here comes the jealousy.

• Y/N: If I die, my funeral is going to be the biggest party ever and you’re all invited

DRAKEN : If?

MIKEY: Great, the only party I’ve ever been invited to and they might not even die.

• DRAKEN, looking at the mirror stressed: My life is in the hands of an idiot!

MIKEY, motioning to himself and Y/N: No no no no no, TWO idiots!

• He definitely fucks you in his bike darling. In an open field.

• Would act annoyed everytime you and mikey do some silly shits but would secretly love it.

• Loves your smile more than anything.

• And if he was the cause of it? Baby, you're giving him diabetes. Its too sweet for him to handle.

• You and mikey stole his bike's keys and blackmailed him to walk in heels for a day to get it back.

• He fell. Almost broke his ankle but atleast you both enjoyed.

• Loves you homemade cooking. Since he didn't have a mother who cooks for him growing up, he genuinely loves it.

• Tries his best to not get hurt during fights because he doesn't wanna make you sad.

• Would buy a maid outfit for your bday.

• Loves it when you calls him daddy.

• If he was an emoji, he'd be "🐉"

< a dragon symbolizes supernatural power, wisdom, passion,strength, and hidden knowledge. Guess who else posses the same qualities ? DRAKEN. Draken is usually straightforward, not afraid to voice out his opinions yet being sympathetic about others emotion. He's strong yet he needs someone to lay his down on. Draken isn'tafraid to take risks when its about his friends. Just like a dragon, draken too has an unwavering spirit. And honestly, I think there's no other animal that would match his personality other than the majestic, royal dragon >

• Absolutely done with the shits you and mikey do. But what if u get into a problem? Draken is there travelling at a 400mph to get you both out. Yeah u get an hour of scolding from him later buts it's all worth it <3

⤷ ୨🎐୧࿐ @southside-otaku

#ken ryuguji #ryugugi ken headcanons #tokrev #draken #draken x reader #draken x y/n #toman gang #toman headcanons #toman draken #toman fluff #draken fluff #draken fanfiction #draken fic #draken x you #ken ryuuguji x reader #ken ryuuguji x you #ken ryuuguji headcanons #kenchin #drakken #🌬🖤