#And I think this is one of the major problems with it

[luulapants]

Some of you are falling hard for the Trump/Musk anti-federal worker propaganda. I think part of the problem is that a lot of people genuinely don't know how the federal government works, so here's an overview on the intended and current state of the so-called fourth branch of government, the federal bureaucracy:

Executive agencies are considered to be within the executive branch, officially, but can only be created, disbanded, funded, and have new leadership appointed through congressional approval. Well, in theory that is.

The majority of staff in federal agencies are called "career staff" who are nonpolitical civil servants who do every kind of work you can imagine, from IT to accounting to scientific field work to livestock inspections to nursing at VA hospitals. They do not, typically, change from one administration to the next, which is essential to ensure the government is able to continue functioning without interruption. These individuals of course can and do hold their own political opinions, but there are stringent rules on how, when, and where they can express them. It is arguably the most racially diverse workforce in the country. Many are veterans, and many are disabled.

Each agency is headed by a political office appointed by the president and confirmed by Congress. This includes a Secretary or Administrator and all of their hand-picked office staff, who are called "politicals." However, even before Congress confirms the president's nominee, the president can appoint an interim leader with no approval, who has essentially all the same powers but can't hold the position for very long. In short, even in those offices where a leader has not been confirmed by Congress, they are being led by Trump appointees.

When Trump makes an Executive Order, those orders are immediately dispensed through the executive agencies, who must abide by the letter of the order. I saw someone say NPS was "complying in advance" by taking the T off LGBT, but these changes were made across all agencies in direct response to Trump's "Defending Women" order. Any career who did not follow this order would have immediately been fired with cause, no unemployment eligibility, and in the current environment we also know their position would be permanently dissolved.

This is what we're dealing with right now. Trump (and his puppet master Musk) do not have the authority to dissolve government agencies, but they are trying to gut them, harassing careers and making the public turn against them, conducting illegal firings, threatening them into resigning. When people leave, their positions will disappear. Their intent is to diminish the staff until the agencies are non-functional. That's why careers are picking their battles. We're holding on by our fingernails to keep federal agencies alive and functioning. We're in the midst of a hostile takeover, a literal coup of the US government.

Yes, it's awful the T was removed on the website. We don't want this. But I promise that is small potatoes compared to the other battles being fought. I have trans coworkers being forced back to the office and they don't know what bathroom they can use. Our personal information is being leaked to hate groups. Careers are getting threats and spam to their work and personal emails. Most of us expect to be illegally fired. Soon. Last week was the largest layoff in American history, and it's just the beginning.

Please support federal workers. We are under attack.

[trekbec82]

This is so fucked. I've done all my ebooks that way so that they're duplicated on my computer in case my Kindle has a major problem and needs to be factory reset.

Rather than bulk downloads, if the files are already on your Kindle, you should be able to just plug it into a PC and copy entire folders across in that direction, I would think? Someone please correct me if I'm wrong about that, but logically it'd make sense, and it'd be a lot faster than downloading one by one.

Just a quick note from your friendly neighborhood bookworm/indie author

if you use kindle for the majority of your library, they will be shutting down the function that allows you to download your files and transfer them via USB on the 26th of February. Which doesn't sound like a huge deal, but this also means that if a book is taken off Amazon for any reason—like it being banned—they can scrape it off your kindle as well. So maybe backup your library?

[rcvcgers]

Rotten Apples, pt. 3

masterlist , part one , part two

pairing: caleb x non!mc reader

synopsis: you go out with caleb but things turn south.

word count: 8.1k words

warnings: extreme loathing, kinda funny, sad at the end, a good mix of everything! a hint of foreplay! mentions of death! not proofread!

author's note: hi all! this is a bit on the longer side so i apologize! part four is most definitely in the works, though! i hope you enjoy the chapter! i hope i got everyone who asked to be tagged! please yell at me if i forgot you!

taglist <3 : @kebarney , @pinkismyfavcolor , @romils , @erisnxxi , @rik0shii , @reni502 , @spacehopper27 , @llamabois , @likesvader , @pandoras-rabbit , @princessfruit , @lukassafespace , @jexizia , @etsuniiru , @tinnyrabbit , @orianakira , @xiaorixx , @beomluvrr , @sanzy4 , @vickykazuya , @blcknebula , @sleepydang , @flamedancer13 , @gojosbedwarmer , @silmeria-lafleur , @ikiru-wa , @animecrazy76 , @fealy , @jexizia

Seven o’clock is approaching fast and you have yet to find anything to wear. Your closet has been emptied, clothes scattered across the vinyl flooring of your apartment. Dresses, pants, and blouses fill in the blank spaces of the floor. You tip toe around the messily laid out outfits, sending pictures to your closest friend for her opinion,

It doesn’t really surprise you when she video calls you, laughing at how seriously you’re taking this dinner.

“Are you trying to impress him?” Your friend snorts. You prop your phone against a book on the counter. “I thought you didn’t like him?”

“I don’t,” your response is immediate and snappy, “I would like to have a nice dinner, though.”

“How do you know you’re actually going out to dinner? What if he’s there to kill you, you know, like some serial killer type shit.”

“He is our beloved Colonel, after all. I can’t pass up the opportunity he’s handing to me.”

“An opportunity to what? Find another military sugar daddy that wants you on his arm? Bitch, please,” Your friend rolls her eyes and shakes her head when you hold a red dress to your body. “I don’t think you should go. My expertise tells me that this is a bad idea.”

“Your expertise?” You throw your head back and laugh. “Your expertise from what? All of the true crime documentaries you’ve watched?”

“Yes, actually,” she proudly states, a ‘fuck you’ smile spreading across her face.

“I’m going,” a fake smile spreads across your face when you glance at yourself in the mirror. “It’s a free meal. I’m not going to pass it up!”

“You’re making a major mistake! You should go in sweatpants. Put in no effort whatsoever. He’s the guy you’ve been trying to forget, right?”

“Yeah,” you shrug, glancing at her face on the phone screen, “he’s kind of hard to forget, though. He’s—”

“A dreamboat? Got you a single butterfly toy when you were kids? Has the prettiest eyes? This is going to end up horribly and you know it. I’m not going to stop you…just don’t come crying to me when he breaks your heart.” Your friend hangs up after that.

You stare at yourself in the mirror, eyes focused on the dress that you hold up in front of yourself. It slips out of your sight and your eyes drop down to the baggy sweatpants you have on.

They haven’t been washed in a couple days and there’s a stain from the takeout you ordered the other day when your favorite show had its season premiere.

Sweatpants, you roll your eyes with a chuckle, he’d hate that.

A slow smile spreads across your face. Maybe you will be in sweatpants and the shirt you sleep in when he shows up. You never agreed to the dinner, after all. What could Caleb possibly be expecting from you?

It’s not like this dinner is going to solve all of your problems. It’s not going to wash away the sins he’s committed against you nor will it bring you much solace even if things go well.

A black dress catches your attention from the corner of your eye. The hanger finds itself between your fingers. you slowly lift it into the air, silently examining it, before holding the dress against your body. Your steps are slow and meticulous. They’re almost hesitant to see what it looks like on you.

Your hands trail across the soft fabric of the dress. It has a box neckline, cutting low on your chest, with long sleeves, and a skirt that stops just halfway down your thigh. You squint at the dress, familiarity tingling in the back of your mind.

It couldn’t be…no…right?

The dress falls to the floor. It pools at your feet, your body shuddering. You grasp the spot over your heart, feeling the beats speed up. A faint ringing buzzes in your ears. You didn’t expect to see the black garment in your closet.

Did your mother pack it without you knowing? She was horrendously overbearing while you packed your room up. The move from Linkon to Skyhaven was brutal on her. She had almost convinced your father to follow you so she can have the peace of mind knowing that you know somebody there. Thankfully, he talked her down, but it didn’t make her maternal instincts go away.

Out of all the things she helped pack for you: did she have to pack that dress?

Grumbling obscenities under your breath, you cleaned your apartment, wasting time.

You simply weren’t going to go. Your friend was right, all this is going to do is bring back bad memories and ruin your night. With the floors now cleared and free from your disastrous attempt at fashion, you flop onto the couch, kicking your feet up onto the coffee table. The television switches on, the laughs from Skyhaven’s news anchors filling the silence of your apartment. You roll your eyes and click to the next channel. A reality show pops up with older white woman screaming at each other.

It’s trash but it works.

You grab your phone and the screen lights up. Just as fate has it, a notification pings, the banner floating at the top of the screen. You don’t recognize the number and shrug it off, swiping it away. You move to a familiar app and begin to play the game.

It only feels like a few minutes, when in actuality it’s been an hour, when there’s a knock at the door. The sound floats in the air before it comes again, much more demanding this time. You turn around, looking over the edge of the couch you have sunken into, and raise an eyebrow.

An uncomfortable silence fills the air. The knocks don’t continue nor can you hear anyone, like your landlord, calling your name. There are no alarms and no sound of chaos from the hallway.

Huh. Weird.

 You turn back to your game, groaning when your tiny character falls off the platform and into the lasers below. You chuck your phone into the other side of the couch, head rolling back and over the arm rest. You stare at the door, laughing to yourself.

That would be so fucking crazy if that were Caleb at the door. How would he even know where to find you? You definitely didn’t tell him where you live nor did you confirm this dinner he invited you on.

Life is weird though. Dead men come back to life and they suddenly pay attention to you. What’s even crazier is that the dead man wants to see you tonight.

KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.

Your body jumps from the couch, the sudden sound scaring you back to life. You land on your feet, sharp pain shooting through your ankles. You gasp and collapse back onto the couch, loudly whining.

You hear your name through the door followed by continuous knocking. Quickly making your way to the door, you swing up open and quickly dodge a balled fist that misses the door.

“Woah!” Caleb’s voice causes you to groan. “I almost got you there! Sorry about that!”

Your eyes narrow at him and that damn charming smile of his. You lean against the doorframe, pulling the door to your side to block the view of your messy apartment. Caleb’s a head taller than you, though, so your efforts are in vain as he cranes his chin up, looking inside.

“How did you find my apartment? How the fuck do you know where I live?” You ask, completely baffled by his presence.

“I may or may not have abused my power when you didn’t answer my texts,” he says it so casually that even you think that what he did was okay. You blink for a couple seconds, comprehending what he just said, when your eyes get caught on his outfit.

He wears black dress pants matched with a white dress shirt. He sports a black jacket over his arms and shoulders with no tie hanging around his neck. unconsciously, your eyes drift to the collar of his shirt. You expect to see a certain silver necklace around his neck, one that you’ve seen in countless social media photos.

It isn’t around his neck.

Hope strikes your heart, causing it to skip a beat. Your cheeks heat up.

You hate how easy it is for you to like him again. Is the bar that low that him opting not to wear a necklace has you wanting to go to dinner with him?

Fortify your mental walls, dammit! Do not give in to the temptation that is Caleb!

“I love the sweatpants look. Very classy. But you should probably change, our reservation is in thirty minutes,” his purple eyes scan the small sliver of your apartment.

It’s actually a lot different than from what he initially imagined. The couch is in the middle of the room with the television pushed up against the wall. Behind the couch is a small table with two chairs. He assumes that the kitchen is to the right of it because your bedroom is to the left. The walls are somewhat bare. Only a few pictures and decor hang from them.

At least your place feels alive and lived in compared to his.

You raise an eyebrow. He mimics you with a chuckle. You purse your lips and Caleb has to mentally tell himself to not close the distance and kiss you.

“A reservation?” He nods in response to your question. “I can’t. My heater broke I’m…waiting for maintenance to come by and fix it.”

“I can fix it,” his reply is immediate.

“No, it’s fine, really—”

“It’ll take me five minutes! You can get dressed while I fix it,” he speaks over you so casually as if this were everyday banter between you two.

It’s like that with his pipsqueak, but never you.

Caleb pushes some of his weight onto the door but you push back. He stops and looks down at down, brows furrowed.

Why won’t you let me help you? He thinks to himself.

Caleb rests a hand on the door, palm flat and fingers stretched out. He leans down and inspects your face.

You wear a large frown which is matched with a deadly glare, one that he isn’t particularly fond of since your years together in high school. Your eyes keep moving away from his, looking everywhere but at him, and he frowns.

“You’re lying to me,” Caleb states. His posture straightens, arms crossed over his chest. You match his posture, throwing him a dirty look.

“No I’m not.”

“Yes. Yes you are,” he leans down to your eye level. You get a closer look at his eyes, noticing that the gold you saw before is actually more of a bronze. Perhaps he’s never been a golden boy this whole time. Your hardened expression falters. “Go get changed. I’ll wait inside for you.”

Caleb takes a step towards you, the door creaking open. Your hand smacks against his chest, right on top of his heart. His heart thumps inside his chest. Your fingers involuntary curl into his chest, pushing him back. Your eyes remain trained on the top button of his shirt.

“No,” you say, finally looking up into his big eyes. “Stay…right here.” You swipe your foot in a line in front of your apartment door. He watches then looks back up at you. “Don’t cross this line. I’ll be right back.”

You slam the door in his face and quickly lock it. Caleb stands out in the hallway. He blinks at the door, unsure of what just happened, and turns around to face the hallway.

Progress. That’s what this is. It’s progress. Progress towards you two reigniting the spark of friendship. The Colonel hopes it turns into something more. He needs it to be more than slammed doors and tense moments in interrogation rooms and apartment hallways.

Caleb watches as people pass by in the hallway. He can’t hear you inside, most likely deep inside your bedroom getting changed.

Getting ready for him.

The thought of you getting all dolled up for him gets Caleb excited. His smile grows with every passing second. A few men walk by and Caleb makes for sure to glare at them, arms crossed, chest puffed out, asserting dominance over them.

He sighed when the last one disappeared into the elevator. The faint click of the door’s lock catches his attention and he takes a single step back, watching as you slowly open the door.

His heart pounds in his chest, ears and cheeks growing warm from the sight of you.

You look absolutely stunning in the black dress you wear. He likes how the sleeves cover your arms yet it leaves your upper chest exposed. It’s like you’re teasing him, luring him in for more. Your hair is pulled back and out of your face. Your face isn’t beaten, instead opting for a more natural and casual look, and you shrug your long purse strap over your shoulder. You’re much taller, too, and his eyes fall onto a simple pair of heels. Looking back up, Caleb smiles.

You are the image of perfection.

His eyes barely skim over the top of your head now. Maybe his neck won’t hurt as much looking down at you.

“You look…amazing.” Caleb can barely get his compliment out, fumbling over his words and growing feelings towards you. His heart swells at your small smile and nod. You turn, keys jingling in your hand. You take a second to breathe. The warmth in your cheeks irritates you.

You hate how your body constantly betrays you when he’s around. It’s a curse, not a blessing.

“Ready?” His voice quips once you turn around from locking your apartment door. You hesitantly nod, forcing a smile onto your face, but it falls once he extends his hand to you.

You stare at his fingers, which have a few scars wrapped around his skin, before looking back up at him. Caleb’s smile is so hopeful. The corners of his eyes slightly crinkle. You sigh, stepping around him, his fingers brushing against your arm.

Caleb watches as you walk down the hallway, your jacket draped over your arm, purse bouncing against your side. He releases a disappointed sigh, fingers curling back into his palm. He forces his feet to chase after you, watching as you press the elevator button.

The Colonel attaches himself to your side, making sure to keep a respectable yet close distance. It’s silent. The faint dings from the elevator grow louder. The doors slide open and you step inside, Caleb following suit.

The metal box slowly lowers. Caleb’s eyes remain on you, utterly captivated by the sight. You look forward, opting for the buffed metal door.

Caleb would be lying if he said he wasn’t jealous of the door.

“Where are you taking us?” You break the awkward silence of the elevator. You glance at him and your eyes meet. You slowly bat your eyelashes at him, sighing.

Please prove me wrong, you internally plead, inner voice desperate, please prove that you aren’t the same boy I knew in high school.

Before he can respond, the elevator slide open. An obnoxiously large group stands on the other side. They wear bright pink cowboy hats and sashes, their eyes half-lidded.

Oh shit. It’s a bachelorette party. That’ll be fun to listen to tonight.

They wave hi, which you and Caleb return. As they slowly pile into the elevator, their voices grow loud, causing your ears to ring.

Caleb slides in front of you, gently pushing you against the back wall. His forearm rests against your head, the man trapping you in your spot. You look around him.

The elevator is completely packed. The inhabitants push together, morphing into one big blob. Your eyes dart to Caleb’s torso, noticing that there’s a few inches of space between you.

Your breath hitches in your throat. You look up, his face hovering in front of yours.

Your lips barely graze over each other. He’s slightly hunched over, face slightly grimacing from the bachelorette party bumping into him, stepping on his feet.

You hold back a laugh, covering your mouth. Caleb turns his attention back to you, a half-amused grin tugging the corner of his lips up.

“You’re laughing? At a time like this?” Caleb whispers into your ear, leaning in. The strands of his hair tickle your forehead. He leans in closer, lips grazing against your ear. “C’mon now…cut me some slack. I’m trying to be a gentleman.”

His breath is hot on your ear. Shivers run down your spine, the tingles making themselves at home in your stomach. Frozen in place, your eyes move to his shoulder.

A small speck catches your eye. Inside the small elevator, you push your arm against the pressure from the other people. Caleb’s gaze follows your hand. You breathe in sync with him, both watching as you pluck a single eyelash from his cheek, right below his eye.

Your fingertips graze against his skin, leaving electric shocks in their wake, and scoop the small eyelash from his skin. You inspect the eyelash with close eyes. Your gaze flits to his, his purple eyes staring not at your eyes but your lips.

“Make a wish,” your whisper fills the tension between your bodies. His bottom lip quivers. You gnaw at the inside of your cheek, feeling them heat up.

Caleb tilts his head down. He slowly slows at the eyelash on your finger, the hair disappearing, your eyes meeting once again.

My wish is you.

His breath is cool against your skin. It brings you no relief. Instead, your body inches closer to him, burning under his gaze of desire.

The two of you don’t even realize that the elevator is now empty. There is no bachelorette party cornering you. There is no reason for you two to be so close.

You hate to admit it but you don’t want to move. Caleb doesn’t either. He can’t get enough of your perfume, the way your touch was so light and careful against his face, almost as if you were scared to get even closer to him.

Do you feel it?

Do you feel the center of gravity that is pulling us together?

You clear your throat and dip under his arm. The further you get from him, the easier it is to breathe. You don’t even look at him from over your shoulder, scurrying out of the small enclosure.

Caleb hangs behind. His fingers curl against the elevator wall, eyes closed. He grimaces, harshly biting down on his lower lip. Your perfume lingers in the air. The warmth of your affection tickling his skin. He lets out a haggard breath, his back slowly straightening. He fixes his jacket, smoothing out the wrinkles of his shirt, and exits the elevator, finding you outside.

You stand alone and off to the side, just hidden enough for people not to notice you but visible enough for Caleb to immediately find you. Just as the purse strap slips off your shoulder, Caleb collects it in his hand. He slips the jacket from your arms as well and eases your hand through the first sleeve, helping aim your next arm through the second.

“Thank you,” you breathe out, your breath visible in the cold night air. He nods, clearing his throat. “I think you were interrupted before.”

“Was I?” Caleb’s eyes flutter, looking down at you. You chuckle and raise an eyebrow. “Oh, yeah, I was, wasn’t I?” You nod. “A colleague recommended the restaurant to me. I thought you may like it.”

“Oh?” His intention takes you by surprise.

He actually…thought of you? Wow. You didn’t know he could do that.

You don’t give it much thought, though. It’s probably due to her not being here.

“C’mon, let’s go.”

The outside of the restaurant takes you by surprise. The outside is made up of dark metal with grooves in it that imitates wood, which is a stark contrast to the rest of the Skyhaven’s white metallic look. A long window surrounds the perimeter. It’s a thin line and doesn’t take up much of the wall space. A faint, golden glow seeps into the glass.

Caleb’s long strides keep with your pace. He walks close to you, your purse acting as a boundary between your hips. You glance inside the restaurant’s window, seeing couples and semi-large parties inside the main dining room.

The Colonel opens up the business’ door, smiling down at you as you step inside, quietly thanking him.

The atmosphere is warm, the chilled air tingling away from your skin. You feel a pair of hands on your shoulders, shrugging your jacket off of your body. You watch him with an intense gaze.

His shoulders are so broad. You swear you can watch as his muscles tense then relax under the fabric as she hands over your jackets to an employee. Caleb turns to you, nodding as the hostess walks away. You swallow whatever spit you have in your mouth. You tell your feet to move, goosebumps forming across your skin when you feel his touch on the low of your back.

Caleb sticks close behind you, fingers grazing up and down your body. His eyes stare at the exposed skin of your neck, eyes drifting up to the side of your face. He smirks, watching as your lips part with a gasp, his fingers inching their way around your side. He’s unable to get a full grip of your side, though, when the hostess places menus on the table before you.

You step to your chair but Caleb is too quick for you, dragging it out. You roll your eyes at him and sit, the man pushing the chair in to meet your body. He sits at the spot in front of you, the table circular and on the smaller side, with a lit candle in the center of the table.

Taking a glance around the restaurant, you notice that you and Caleb are more towards the back. It’s like you’re hidden away so nobody can see you. Couples at other tables lean in, smiles adorned on their faces over the candle light, the dim lighting of the restaurant casting shadows over their faces.

The scenery and atmosphere is…strangely romantic.

“You look great in that dress,” Caleb’s voice brings your eyes back onto his. They drop to his arms, where his white sleeves are rolled up to his elbows. Your breath gets caught in your throat. You tear your gaze away and settle back onto his eyes.

“Thanks. I haven’t worn it for a year,” you respond with a shrug.

“Yeah?” He leans forward, his smile growing, “when was the last time you wore it?”

“Your funeral.”

Oh. Well. You know…I don’t know how to respond to that, Caleb thinks to himself. He purses his lips, brows knitted together, eyes narrowed from unease.

You stare at him with your arms crossed over your chest. You raise an eyebrow at his sour reaction. He was the one who died and magically came back to life with no explanation.

He sits up in his chair, resting his hands in his lap as his piercing violet eyes tear into yours. You shift in your seat, crossing one leg over the other as he comes up with the proper words to respond.

A waiter approaches the table, their face just barely illuminated from the light. He wears all black clothing and his smile is a little too friendly, his eyes dragging across your bare chest. You suck in a breath and glance at Caleb, who glares at the waiter.

“Good evening. May I start you two off with a bottle of wine or an appetizer?” The waiter asks, looking at you, not even a second to stare at Caleb. You simper at his gaze, only feeling slightly uncomfortable, as you take the wine list from his hands.

“He’s paying, so we’ll make it an expensive bottle,” you muse with a quiet chuckle. Caleb’s eyes break from the waiter and land on you. Goosebumps litter your skin as you pretend not to notice the intensity radiating from his body. “We’ll do this one,” you point out a name on the list to the waiter.

He dips down and his putrid cologne tinges your nostrils. You lean away, wincing from how his scent burns the inside of your nose. His lips curl into a toothy grin.

“Great choice. I’ll have it out for you in a few moments.” He walks away and you watch him. You relax into your seat when he vanishes from your eye line, turning back to Caleb. 

“Could you get even closer to him?” Caleb’s raspy voice cuts through the low lighting. You raise an eyebrow, confused by his sudden possessiveness towards you.

“Don’t tell me you’re jealous, Caleb,” you roll your eyes and lean forward, dress grazing against the table, “you’ve only been in my life for twenty four hours. You don’t get to have a say on who gets close to me.”

“Don’t I?” He matches your lean, his purple eyes glowing from the candlelight. “I was in your life for a good amount—”

“Emphasis on was,” you interrupt him. He swipes his tongue over his teeth, shaking his head ever so slightly at you.

You know you’re teetering on a very, very line and fragile line with Caleb. A small amount of payback won’t kill the man. He did lead you on for that good amount of time he was in your life for so if it’s any consolation for you, it’s deserved.

“Let’s have a nice dinner,” you sigh. His darkened expression softens, his eyebrows relaxing. Catching a glimpse of his fists, you see them relax as well, his knuckles no longer white. “However, I do think you owe me an explanation about your so-called ‘death.’” You pause, looking to the side, before rushing to get the words out, “and I don’t want to talk about her either. I…I don’t particularly have fond memories of the three of us since things ended badly. I hope you can understand that.”

Caleb’s eyes slightly widen. A part of him knew that this was coming. He had been distracted all day, sitting at his desk, ignoring all of his duties as Colonel. He went through every memory that he could remember, ones that weren’t influenced by the chip in his body, and came to realization that towards the end, you weren’t there.

In the memories that you were in, you were in the background while she took center stage. It made Caleb feel like a fool, truly. He agonized over it. Just to know that he could have caused you so much pain and emotional turmoil ripped his heart apart. He plans on repaying and making up for it until his final breath.

Even in death, Caleb will find ways to make you feel important, that you matter.

“I promise,” he breathes out, eyes never leaving yours, “to not bring her up. Consider her banished from our relationship.”

You lean into the back of the chair, putting your full weight into it. You stare at him, wondering if what he said can be trusted. You sigh and nod, forcing a small smile onto your face. He beams at you and nods, sighing from relief.

The side of your heel glides against his leg. He sucks in a breath and you bat your eyelashes at him. You take your bottom lip between your two teeth, knowing that it will drive him absolutely crazy. The Colonel shifts in his seat, his eyes taking all the liberties he wants.

His demeanor has shifted so many times within the last minute. He went from happy, to sorrowful, then his anger took over, and now the look on his face tells you that he’s feeling some form of lust. Adrenaline runs through your veins because you simply don’t know what Caleb you’re going to get next.

He licks his lips when you tuck a loose strand of hair behind your ear. You turn your attention to the dining room, looking upon the other couples and groups that mingle inside. A soft chuckle shakes your body.

The waiter comes back with a bottle of white wine and two glasses in hand. He sets the glasses in front of the two of you, but neither dare to break their gaze.

Caleb’s eyebrow slightly perks up and you tilt your head to the side, a sly smirk forming on your face.

The wine is poured, the pale yellow alcohol sitting pretty inside the glass. You make the first move. The glass is cool in your hand and you swirl the wine around, bringing the glass to your glossy lips.

The first sip of the Pinot Blanc has an exceptional fresh taste to it, complimenting the dryness to the wine. The aroma is fruity with hints of apple, Caleb’s favorite, and a side taste of citrus.

You glance at the waiter, who hovers at the small table. Caleb clears his throat, glaring at the man. The waiter doesn’t pay attention to Caleb, his eyes staying on you.

“The wine is delicious, thank you,” you set the glass down, fingers resting on the base of the glass. He nods but stays in his spot. Caleb’s fists ball on top of the white cloth. He opens his mouth to speak but you’re quick to tap his knee with the tip of your high heel. You roll your eyes and take a deep breath, leaning towards the waiter. “As you can see, I’m here with him and not you. So, if you could please give us some privacy, that would be nice.”

Caleb watches you in awe. Your dominance is refreshing and is something he hasn’t experienced with her in a long time. She typically gave up after five minutes but you? You are fiery. You know what you want and you also know how to tell people to fuck off in ways he never knew how.

Has he finally met his match? Can you be the one to meet his fiery passion and loyalty?

“You can leave this here,” you reach out to the waiter, tapping the label on the wine bottle.

The waiter obeys, scrambling away. Caleb watches it as if he’s at a magic show, completely enthralled with the display you’re putting on for him.

This is a completely different side of you, one that he’s never seen before but desperately wants to get to know. If Caleb didn’t know any better, he would think that you also want to indulge in the sweetness of your blossoming love.

“Try the wine,” you grab your glass, emptying the contents into your mouth before refilling it. Caleb watches with an amused smile, tasting the wine as you said to do, and pauses. It’s…it’s delectable. It hits all of the flavor notes he’s been dying to taste in a good wine.

And you were the one who managed to find it.

“Hey,” he leans forward, capturing your attention. “Can we…start over? You know…a fresh start for us?”

Your eyes read humor and your smile is divine. You think about his proposal for a moment, tearing your gaze away, opting to look at the menu.

You know that he’s eagerly waiting for a response. Knowing Caleb, he’s impatient to know the result of your calculations. He watches you, focused on the way your foot taps against his shin and how your eyes scan the menu as if there’s anything remotely interesting on there.

Caleb is right there and he knows that he is way more interesting than the variety of food options the restaurant has to offer.

“What do you say?” He pesters. Your eyes shoot to his. Chills run down his spine.

“New life, new you, right?” You muse. Caleb can’t help but laugh, turning his head away from you.

Have you always been this funny? Your humor knows no bounds, truly. While some people would have groaned at your words, Caleb couldn’t help but see the lightheartedness behind them.

He knows that his death must have taken a large, emotional toll on you. It’s never easy losing someone you were once close to. Perhaps your humor is your way of dealing with uncomfortable and awkward situations. He can’t fault you for it. He too has been known to make light of many uncomfortable scenarios, such as failing his psych evaluation at the DAA. 

“Thank you,” he releases a sigh he didn’t even know he was holding in. You shake your head, his interest piqued.

“Don’t thank me just yet,” you bring the glass to your lips, licking them, “consider this dinner as your trial run.”

“Noted,” Caleb responds, eyes trained on your lips, wondering when he’s get a chance to taste the flavor of your lip gloss.

The dinner runs smooth, smoother than you or him could have ever anticipated. Your glasses never went empty and after a bottle or two, you could feel your tipsy giggles taking over your body as Caleb watched you with the biggest smile on his face.

Whenever you covered your face from embarrassment, he always made sure to peel them off so he can look upon your gorgeous face. He loves the way your cheeks turn a light pink color, an effect the alcohol has on you, and how your entire demeanor changes. You become light, airy.

Caleb basks in your delightful chuckles and you can’t help but feel closer to him every time he told you one of his stories from inside the Deepspace Tunnel.

The best part of it is that whenever you shared stories from your translator job, he didn’t make you feel insignificant or insufficient compared to him. Sure, you weren’t in a direct line of danger like he is. You don’t fight Wanderers nor do you patrol the Deepspace Tunnel like it’s nothing.

Your average Tuesday consists of translating, and sometimes even decrypting, secret messages and speeches that the Farspace Fleet intercept. To you, it’s a boring old desk job. To Caleb, you are one of the most integral parts of his job. Without you, his job would be much more difficult and he would be in shambles.

He always knew you were smart but your skills as a translator and linguist are truly impressive. He may be able to able to fly some of the most difficult planes and spaceships, but he’ll never be able to fully understand how to comprehend a different language.

It feels like there were no walls between you two. No angst for you to cling to and a time for Caleb to finally, and quite regrettably, get to know who you are after all these years.

To him, you’ve changed so much. You’ve broken free from your shell, one that him and her put you in, and have grown into a woman who is utterly captivating, someone who can control the room with a simple look and a voice that he never wants to stop listening to.

“Wait, wait, wait,” you breathe between quiet chuckles. You lean forward, a genuine smile on your face. “You’re telling me that you and your squad were scared of a creaking noise?”

“Yes,” Caleb leans in, slowly reaching out for your hand. His large hand lays on top of your tiny one and he is surprised that you don’t immediately pull away from him. The tips of his fingers trace the top of your hand, leaving random swirls and letters into your soft skin. His sight lowered to your hands.

It feels domestic to him, something that he never thought or imagined he would have with you. But here you are, allowing it to happen as you breathlessly laugh at his moment of stupidity while on patrol.

He loves it. He loves—

“Caleb?! Where have you been?! I’ve been worried sick!”

His fingers stop, eyes shooting up to you. Your posture shifts. Your back is as straight as a board, eyes dissociated from the world.

You have become an entirely different person when her voice shrilled form behind you.

You can’t bring yourself to turn and look at her. You listen for her footsteps, hearing them approach before stopping behind you.

“You forgot your necklace at home! I was worried that something happened to you. Who are you with?” She circles the table settling the space to the side of the table. Your hand retracts from his and Caleb can’t help but stare at the tears that brim in your eyes. You look to the spot around his neck, one where the necklace that dangles from her hand should be hanging. 

“I left a note for you—” Caleb begins.

“Is that who I think it is?” She says in a hushed tone to him, staring you with a look that says back off. 

Your eyes stagger to meet his. His lips part, staring at you like he’s just been caught red handed.

Of course. It was so easy to see what this is.

You tilt your chin up, finally looking up at her. She’s all dolled up, makeup absolutely flawless, elevating her natural beauty. She wears a simple blue bow in her dark hair, which travels just below her shoulders. Her outfit is pretty too, nothing that you can pull off anyways, and she radiates I’m better than you energy.

Your stomach turns on itself. You stare at the wine glasses, ears ringing, wondering why the fuck you had to drink so much. It’s because you felt comfortable with him, yes, but you should have known something like this would happen.

You’re nine years old. She feels left out so you give her a present to open. You hate sharing your birthday.

You’re twelve and sitting alone while they get ice cream together. You’re filled with disappointment when they forgot to get you something.

You’re fifteen years old again. The sting of rejection and embarrassment cuts into your skin at the sight of her when he says he can’t go to the dance.

You’re sixteen years old and watching as they leave your game, hand in hand, not even bothering to say goodbye.

You feel your inner child die. Caleb the Knight has finally slain the monstrous and rotten dragon that has done nothing but ask for love.

“How have you been? It’s been forever since I’ve seen you!” She beams at you.

“I’ve been fine,” you fake a smile but are unable to keep a cheery charade as your smile immediately falters, the corner of your lip twitching. Your nostrils tingle. Your throat throbs from holding back tears.

“You should have waited for me back at the apartment,” Caleb’s face never turns away from yours. A quiet gasp falls from your lips.

At the apartment? Are you sleeping with her? Are you two dating? Have I been made a fool again?

Questions flood into your mind. You’re unable to stop them, not that you want to anyways, as the realization of what’s happening weighs down on your shoulders.

This is the unmistakable feeling of dread.

You stare at him, tears threatening to fall from your eyes, as your hands grip onto the skirt of your dress for dear life. Your nails dig into the palms of your hand through the fabric, stinging your skin.

“I’ve been waiting! I didn’t know you were meeting up with someone,” she turns to you and looks at the plate in front of you. “Is that salmon? I love salmon!”

Suddenly, you hate salmon.

Thinking rashly and acting off of pure instinct, you stand from your chair. The table clatters, silverware clanging into each other, when the top of your thighs hit the table.

“Shit,” you curse under your breath, glass of wine tipping over, splashing onto her. It shatters on impact when it falls to the ground. Embarrassment crashes through your body like a tsunami, ears turning a bright red color from the heat you feel in your head.

“Are you okay?” Caleb jumps to your side, grabbing your arm with kindness and sincerity. You rip your lib away from him, shaking your head.

“I’m fine,” your voice shakes. You look at her, who watches with a dropped jaw. “It was…so nice seeing you again.” You push the painful words out, your throat tightening around itself. Nausea sweeps your body and you grab your purse from the back of your chair, throwing the skinny strap over your shoulder. Without thinking, you turn away from the duo, who are so clearly made for each other, and rush through the restaurant.

You accidentally bump into a hostess who leads a couple to their table. You gasp and drop to the floor, helping her up, choking out apologies to her. You hear Caleb call your name from behind, trying to keep up with you, but refuse to turn around.

You simply can’t! You can’t see the look on his face, the one every man has when he realizes that he was caught being a two timing scumbag. 

This is just like high school. This is just like the failed homecoming dance when you cried yourself to sleep. This is just like the time Caleb ditched your game because she wanted to go home and watch a movie instead.

Hot tears streak down your face. You wipe your eyes, the fabric around your hands soon becoming soaked from the salty tears. You rush to the door, everyone’s eyes on you. The employee in the coat closet stares at you with bewildered eyes. You ignore him, leaving your jacket behind, as you burst into the ice cold night air.

There’s no rain but you really hoped there would be. You’d be able to escape into the night, going unnoticed as you ran to your apartment. It’s be cinematic, yes, but in all the worst ways possible. It would have been your punishment for being so fucking stupid.

How could you have thought that this would have gone well? Did you really think that Caleb, out of all people, could actually fucking care about you? He’s a man! He could care less about your feelings! As long as he ends the night in bed next to her, he’d be fine.

It wouldn’t matter if you cried yourself to sleep that night. It wouldn’t matter if you deleted and blocked his number. It wouldn’t matter if you ended up getting hit by a car, falling into a deep coma that you’d never wake from.

The only thing that matters is that Caleb is in love with her. Not you.

Your vision is blurred. Your mascara streaks down your cheeks. The street is busy, filled with cars from the night traffic. They whizz by at top notch speeds, your dress skirt getting caught in the air. You hold your hand out, trying to hail a taxi.

“Taxi!” You yell in a pained cry. Your legs wobble. Your arms ache. Your body feels as if it’s shutting down on itself from the grief you’ve just gone through.

Caleb breaks through the restaurant door. He scans the area, chest rapidly rising and falling, and his eyes land on you, who sways back and forth right next to the curb. His heart sinks into his stomach and he leaps towards you, hand outstretched.

You feel your body tense, going still. A tear stops halfway down your cheek. Your eyes dart around, looking for someone to help you. Your name shoots from Caleb’s mouth and you let out a cry, closing your eyes.

“Leave me alone!” You sob. His evol releases you but you’re immediately pulled into his chest. His arms trap you against him, body trembling from sadness and anger, his palms flattening against your hips. “Let me go, Caleb.”

“No. Let’s talk about this,” his chin rests on your shoulder, hunched over. He presses his nose into the side of your neck, his breath only making your body hotter than it needs to be. “Let me explain, please!”

“No! You don’t — Caleb!” You throw your shoulders backward. He stumbles back but takes you with him. His arms remain frigid. “Let me go.”

“No.”

“Caleb, I swear on my life that if you don’t let me go, you’ll never see me again.” Your words push through gritted teeth. Caleb stares at you, knowing that’s not true, that wherever you go, he’ll follow like a lost dog. He humors the sentiment, though, and slowly relaxes his grip.

You turn around and shove him away from you. Red eyes, ruined makeup, and a heart that has officially rotted, you stare at him. He tries to come close to you but you shove him away, using every bit of strength you can muster. He takes a step back, a sigh escaping his lips.

“I swear, it’s not what it—”

“What it what? Looks like?!” You yell at him.

People turn their heads and watch. They whisper amongst themselves, pointing and bringing their cameras out to record incase the encounter goes south. Cars honk and sirens blare in the distance.

“Please,” his voice cracks, a hand extending towards you, “this is all one big misunderstanding!”

“What could be misunderstood, Caleb? The fact that she came looking for you? Or the fact you brought me to a place that men take their mistresses to?” You turn away but he uses his evol to turn you back around. You let out a frustrated yell. He holds his hands up, shaking his head.

“Hey, hey, let’s try to calm down—”

“Calm down?!” Your screech interrupts him. You point to the restaurant behind you two. “Caleb! You made me your mistress! She literally showed up looking for you! She brought that stupid fucking necklace and asked why you weren’t home!”

“Please—”

“Shut up! Shut up!” You turn around, holding your face in your hands. Your breaths are deep, heavy, as your lungs burn from the inside, the lack of oxygen causing your body to ache. You hunch over, hand over your chest, fingers digging into your chest.

Maybe it’s the wine clouding your judgement, maybe it’s the walls you built from the constant years of betrayal and lackluster friendships, but you just want to disappear.

Anywhere but here would be better. Hell, even a date with George would have been better than this.

Caleb is quick to circle you. He drops to his knee in front of you, trying to get a look at your face, to try and have a conversation. He brushes hair away from your face, tucking it behind your ear.

“I’m so stupid,” your words are just above a whisper. Caleb shakes his head, fighting back tears of his own.

“No. No you aren’t. Don’t say that,” the words tumble from his mouth.

“Yes, I am. I thought I could trust you. I thought that things changed—”

“They did change! She’s just here on a mission and needed a place to stay, that’s all—”

“I don’t care. I don’t care,” you shake your head, lifting your head up. You take a deep breath.

You look at the chaotic street. Cars drive by and honk at each other. They don’t stop for anyone. All of the anger and sadness you once felt slips from your body. Your mind and body go numb.

“I don’t want to see you again.”

Your words shake Caleb to his core. He stands, looking down at you.

“No! No, please don’t do this to me—”

“I can’t trust you. You’ve made me look like an idiot.”

“Let me make it up top you!”

“I want nothing to do with you. Or her. I deserve better than this. Than you.”

“Please don’t say that.”

“You haven’t changed. She’s always going to come between us.”

“That’s not true! I have changed!”

“You’ve broken my heart, Caleb.”

Caleb grabs hold of your shoulders. He cranes his head down so he’s at eye level with you. You stare into nothing, unable to stop the tears that roll down your cheeks. He stares into your eyes, his devotion and his everything.

That’s you. But you can’t see it.

“Caleb?” Her voice carries to the two of you. “Where are you? Let’s go home!”

You can’t help but laugh. Hysteria takes over your body. You finally come out from your dissociation, looking into Caleb’s violent and bronze eyes.

“You better hurry up or she’ll leave you too.” You shrug his hands off of your shoulders, stepping around him. You whistle and a taxi immediately pulls to the curb. You get in, the last part of your beating heart turning into outright decay, your core nothing but rotten scraps of the girl you’ve left behind.

[comicaurora]

Hey, firstly I just wanted to say I’ve been consuming your content for years and thank you and Blue for being the only thing that kept my academic brain from turning to mush during online COVID middle school!

But I’m entering a new academic era, notably Junior year of my very rigorous collage prep program at my high school. I’ve always thought I would go to collage after high school but I’ve recently stumbled into some very interesting ways of making a living only perusing my creative passions (some very scary publishing opportunities). So I’ve been wondering if I actually want to go to collage or not, since going to collage just to be a published writer is an objective waste of money and I don’t want to spend the rest of high school breaking my neck earning collage credits I’m not going to use.

So I was wondering, if you had known you could make a living only perusing your creative passions, would you have spent the time, money and academic energy going to collage for something you didn’t end up doing professionally?

(I would ask my advisor but he’s too obviously pro collage and doesn’t have any experience making a living creatively).

(Sorry for the long ask)

No problem about the long ask! This is a very good question!

I'll start with the short answer, which is that nobody can make this decision but you, and if you decide not to go to college right now, that does not mean you are deciding to never go to college. Especially with Covid, plenty of people are taking gap years, and plenty of full-on adults go to college later in life, simply because the mood strikes them, or they now have income to burn, or they're interested in a career change, etc. This is not a coinflip that will decide the trajectory of the rest of your life.

For the longer answer, for me personally? Knowing I'd be able to earn a living doing art would have no bearing on my decision to go to college. Setting aside that a ton of the literary analysis my job is based on is skills I learned in college, I liked college because it gave me the opportunity to learn a wide swath of things, from anthropology courses to dinosaur science. I like learning new things! College was an opportunity to learn a ton of new things, and even if it was very challenging in places, I thrived in it. I didn't go to college with the goal of becoming qualified for a Real Job - because of who I am as a person I think I'd seriously struggle at most Real Jobs, and I knew that even back then. I was in college to learn, and to learn how to learn. I got my degree in mathematics, a thing I do not use in my Job, but the functionality of mathematics - to logically reason through problems, step by step, comparing it to known problems to map the way to solutions using operations that preserve truth - is an invaluable skill that I apply everywhere there are problems to solve, especially literary analysis. I learned a wide swath of tools with surprising applications, and I couldn't have known when I started how I might use them in the end.

However, there's a big caveat there. This was my personal experience of college as a playground where I could work towards a solid major and also branch out to take weird one-off electives and summer courses when anything struck my fancy. But I was in on a scholarship to cover a good chunk of my tuition, and one of my relatives very kindly paid for the rest. I got to do college without accruing any college debt, and that is an enormous factor. I can only share my personal take, but I'm not going to pretend that things would have been the same if I'd had to enter adulthood finding a way to quickly pay off a six-figure sum.

I've been extremely lucky to get to the point where I can navigate life in a way where money is very rarely something I need to worry about. It was certainly not always like that, and I do not miss those times, but it invariably shapes the way I see the world and the steps I took to get here. For me personally, I do not consider college in any way a waste of time; I think the opportunity to learn is one of the most exciting things out there. But my experience cannot be pretended to be universal.

This decision is yours, and it is also not final. Whatever choice you make, you can always choose again later. You have time.

[utilitycaster]

i am so curious what you think about fearne as a character, especially in the full context of this campaign, and how she ranks in terms of contributing good storytelling. she was consistently my least favorite (ie., lovely and entertaining to watch, but not personally interesting or dimensional in a way that made me care, and more often than not, frustratingly avoidant of plot or depth) and i'm wondering how much you'd relate to that. i'm interested in hearing an alternate perspective! this is an invitation for as much of your thoughts as you have them, because i love reading your posts and meta. have a great day <3

Hey anon, thank you!

I find myself in an awkward place here because I do like Fearne for a couple reasons, and I think a major one is because I think Ashley is one of the only people at the table who actually explored, in-character, that Fearne was an indecisive person who was terrified of making the wrong choices (notably during both the aftermath of the first Otohan fight, and during the whole course of Shardgate). Like, Fearne's disconnect at times from the world, and moments of self-centeredness, and indecision all felt very true to Ashley's original concept both in EXU Prime and the general concept of fey morality. I also think that in a campaign with a number of fraught familial relationships that were underserved, Fearne's was, while still not given the time I wish it had been, one of the strongest. Fearne deciding, after meeting her missing parents, that she wasn't sure if she liked them felt very earned and true, and it felt like she put in the work when she later spoke to them during the party's time resting in the Feywild.

I also give Fearne something of a pass because I think she was put in perhaps the least enviable spot of all this campaign, and that's saying something. While I think pretty much every character would have been much, much better had we focused more on their backstory and exploring and resolving that, Ashley's intended darker fairytale concept was just...abandoned. Like we got Ligament Manor and Morri, and they were great! But there was no plot for her in the feywild other than "your parents are caught up in this moon thing, and your birth father is also caught up in this moon thing". The first part came up very early and got quickly overshadowed by the rest of the whole Bassuras pile-up, and the second part came out right before the Ruidus scouting mission and was perhaps one of the worst victims of the late campaign breakneck pacing. Honestly, a lot of the feywild stuff felt oddly insubstantial - we know that breaking the fey key apparently did something, and that breaking up the meeting in Pravenier prevented Fey allies from attacking Vox Machina at the key in the end (though it's hard to say exactly what that would have entailed), but like...was the Seelie Court working in opposition? Were there any extraplanar allies in the Accord? Was the Feywild at risk here, as Ollie believed it to be? Because it never entered into Bells Hells' considerations! All the Feywild plot threads just went nowhere. Even their greatest fey ally, Ira, was far more motivated by his own dislike of Ludinus than any loyalty to Fearne; the party didn't really need to cultivate him as an ally, he just showed up.

And then, of course, there's the fact that Fearne was a Ruidusborn, but she wasn't THE Ruidusborn, she wasn't exaltant, that was Imogen - and the cool thing she did get, the spark of Rau'shan, was a great moment but was, like Ashton's titan abilities, mechanical and some cool scenes only but not relevant to Predathos in a meaningful way any more so than like, Chetney's ability to turn into a wolf was. I don't even think Ashley was being particularly indecisive, or rather, the Zathuda and Yu "should we kill them or no" scenes were excruciating in the lack of decision, but I feel that the problem was she was given absolutely nothing to fucking work with and that's not her fault. I think it's a testament to Ashley's ability as an actor that I do feel she had depth and even a little character development because she was essentially pushed into a thankless second fiddle role. When I think of the people who actually made an effort to do small solo scenes or seek other people out, Fearne praying to the Wildmother or Raven Queen and pickpocketing scenes stand out as bright spots.

So I think it's valid to be frustrated or not vibe, but I think it's entirely a DM-ing problem. This campaign was really not made to accommodate Fearne's concept.

[dare-writes]

Oh God Collection

For Valentine’s Day, Aaron surprises you with a treat.

Aaron Taylor Johnson x Female Reader

Slight Tangerine x Female Reader

genre: fluff, smut; 18+ MINORS DNI

wc: 4.8k

sexual content warnings: DUBCON, drunk sex, nearly cheating?, fingering, f!receiving oral, drunk-sex Aaron has an identity problem, couch sex, wall sex, stair sex, roleplay, degradation kink, mentions of a threesome, (technical selfcest?), unprotected p in v, creampie, cumplay, slight praise, hair pulling, wrist pulling, slut-shaming, dirty talk, overstimulation, i might have missed something, strength kink if you squint, implied breeding kink

content warnings: slight age gap (27/35), f!reader, tangerine dies and goes to another world, aaron taylor johnson x reader, established relationship, tangerine thinks your his girlfriend from his world, tangerine is lowkey just sad, and a russian lit major, tangerine misses lemon, tangerine gets a real name, aaron implies a threesome with reader and tangerine, lowkey slice of life for a little, unbetaed

the way there is so much more sexual content warnings, but there’s less porn than plot i’m pretty sure.

Happy late Valentine’s Day.

this went an entirely different direction than i planned it to go.

__

Honestly, you never got the chance to really watch Aaron’s projects except for the premieres he brought you to. You’d only begun dating before Bullet Train’s production, and for obvious reasons, he didn’t start taking you to carpet premieres until recently with Kraven and Nosferatu.

When you knew Aaron was returning, you’d relax in your shared apartment and put on any of his movies. Aaron lost count of how often he would come back when you were either sleeping through the credits or just at the end of a film. It was a pleasant surprise to see that when he saw the credits to one of his films. Aaron didn’t have a lot of films to watch with online streaming services, noticing you mostly do rewatches of his newer films like Bullet Train A Million Little Pieces, even kicking back into his 2010 films like Kick-Ass or (much to his surprise) Chatrooms.

His absence on Valentine’s Day was woeful, but he also said he deserved a little time with your partner despite his absence at the set of Fuze. It was fine enough that he would be out and about in London this time.

You managed to get out of university on Valentine’s Day. Most classes were on the four other days of the week, so you got to stay in and snooze this particular Friday. You knew having a partner in the film industry was going to be tough, so when Aaron told you he wasn’t free on Valentine's Day for some promotional stuff, you didn’t mind. He would find some grand way to make it up, and it was always more than perfect. It’s like he read your mind, knew when you wanted to stay in, and knew when you wanted to go out in town or just have a nice dinner.

For Valentine’s Day, you had your little dinner. An excellent pasta take-out meal and cue up any Aaron Johnson movie to exist across your various streaming platforms. (And the occasional pirating when you hooked your laptop to the TV.)

Aaron has seen your secret TikTok account, where you will mindlessly scroll between assignments or breaks from your university assignments. He’s also used it several times, even stalking through some of your reposts or saves. To your knowledge, he just went through your feed, not stalked your private Aaron Johnson edit collection called “Oh god.”

Throughout your lonely Valentine's Day, Aaron texted you randomly, sending a bouquet of your favorite flowers, sweet treats, and even a pretty dress with a card, saying, "We’ll make it up another day, my love." It was lovely and made you feel a little less alone. That and the plentiful edits saved in your Oh God collection you can always look back in if you miss Aaron extra.

Mindless scrolling was your third favorite hobby; number one was Aaron, and two was whatever activity your university friends wanted to do next.

By nine at night, you’d exhausted all your Aaron, Tangerine, Pietro, Count Vronsky, Sergei, Fredrich, Tom Ryder, and even Ford Brody edit sources.

A rattle came from downstairs, shocking you slightly as you crept around your bedroom. Light on your toes, you looked for the heaviest item you owned in the room.

“Dollface?” A voice called. It made your stomach twist. Was it Aaron? Why the hell was he putting on a different accent?

You crept downstairs. His facial scruff was gone. He was dressed in a navy suit with a waistcoat similar to the one Tangerine wore in the movie. The one thing that caught you off guard was the blood. It was ridiculous. Everything that was once white was now splattered red. Aaron looked great, you almost drooled at the sight of your boyfriend.

You just didn’t understand why he was dressed as Tangerine. Unless this was some sort of roleplay thing you once discussed ages ago.

“Aaron?”

“‘ Ou the hell is Aaron?'” not Aaron asked. That was undoubtedly Aaron’s face, though. His hair was no longer neat American military cut; it was longer, shaggier, and windswept.

“My boyfriend,” you answered as you raised your old laptop.

“The fuck you gonna do with an Apple laptop? Hit me?” He asked snidely. “Doll, whattrya on about? Last I checked, Doll, my name ain’t Aaron.”

He gestured his hands up and down his body like you should recognize him. You did recognize him, but there was no logical explanation as to why Tangerine was standing in your living room, blood dripping onto the hardwood floor. “No, this is fucking weird.”

Was this some weird roleplay thing? You and Aaron had talked about roleplaying and sex. If you had an actor boyfriend, you were doing roleplay without a doubt.

Before you could ask anything else to try to get a hint, Tangerine rolled his eyes and walked to the kitchen. His bloody hands opened his shirt to shrug off his equally bloody shirt and discard it to the sink to run cold water on it. After also washing his hands and checking his non-existent bullet wound, he was back up to you.

You let your defenses down; you had no clue what else to do. Common sense fell out the window when Aaron was around you. His slightly damp hands, gruff from seemingly his gun and all his fights, held your face. His gaudy gold rings were cold to the touch.

“Doll, I missed you… Lemon— where’s Lemon?” He asked as he realized his new location. He was back in London without his twin.

“I don’t know— you. Look, Aaron, is this what I think it is? We never even talked-” Tangerine didn’t even let you finish. His lips were on yours, kissing and biting down on your lower lip. Aaron was aggressive during sex usually, but never this much.

Something in you wanted to playback, be more than just the innocently confused girlfriend. You tried to pull away, but this was still Aaron, and you trusted him. You were no physical match for him. His hands reached and trailed down your body, racing to your pants. Even in his acting, Aaron was still the same when he was in a mood. It made you smile in the kiss.

His mustache tickled. You were used to it enough with Aaron. You finally pulled away, only for him to spin you and toss your torso over the back of the couch.

“Stop! No, I’m not your��� Fuck!” You shouted as you tried to sit back up. His hand shoved you down, his other hand yanking down your sleep shorts.

“Fuck, you’re not my what? Hmm? Ya, not my doll anymore?” Tangerine asked gruffly. His lips connected to one of your lower back and bit down. You yowled in pain, his teeth leaving marks down your backside.

“I’m not your girlfriend! Or whatever! I— I’ve got a boyfriend, A—Aaron!” You cried falsely, you were used to Aaron rushing in the beginning. It was also probably a long day for him, you excused it. Also cause you missed him so bad today.

A quick trail from your clit to your hole, Aaron shoved his fingers inside with no hesitation. It was already sopping wet, but Aaron let cold spit drip out his lips and landed where his fingers plunged inside.

“God, Doll, yer still so tight for me,” Aaron said as he pushed his fingers, curling them gently. It didn’t matter despite your (false) protests because the front door opened soon after. “Baby, I’m back!”

Your heart stilled. He’s back?

“Oi! What the hell, Baby? Doll you-“

Something clattered into the floor, and you returned from your room. Aaron… Tangerine… In the same room.

“Aaron! Fuck!” You cried out as he made eye contact.

Aaron and Tangerine still. The same man looked back at one another—Aaron looked back at his 2022 film Character in disbelief. “Aaron— I-“

“Love, what the fuck is this?” Aaron asked. You hadn’t even realized the flush of tears running down your face.

“I don’t know! I thought— I thought you came back early from filming… Then we were kissing, and I— I don’t even know what to— I’m so confused,” you said as you tried to escape Tangerine.

His hands dug into you. His hand reached for his back, then remembered he was gun-less. His gold knuckle dusters glinted against the warm lights of the walls. “The fuck are you?”

“Her fucking boyfriend!” Aaron shouted. He stormed forward and shoved Tangerine off. You bent up from the couch and down to grab your panties from the floor to put on.

“Aaron, honestly, babe, I don’t think you could take him—he’s a murder.”

“I played him!”

“And he’s murdered probably over a thousand people.”

“That’s nice of you, doll, but it’s more like 250? I’m not a serial killer or mass murderer—“Both you and Aaron just stared at him.

“Okay, then if you aren’t… my dollface, then who are you? Cause ya got the same face,” Tangerine asked. His fingers twitched around, his eyes eyeing the slick left on his fingers. He wanted to taste it out of habit but held himself back. Aaron rubbed his face and just looked between you two.

“This is a terrible Valentine’s Day,” Aaron mumbled.

“What do you remember last?” You asked as you grabbed Aaron’s hand with a glare at his comment.

Tangerine looked down at his bloodied pants. “Getting shot by that idiot American.”

“Well, got that right,” Aaron mumbled. He looked exhausted. A wrapped box of more gifts for you was still at the entrance. He just got off work.

“Well, uhm. Tough luck… Tangerine—Fuckin— Can I just get your real name? You’re very much not there anymore in that world.”

“Fuckin’ Thomas,” he mumbled. His eyes bleared at the idea of his brother, the girl he left behind. He scrunched his nose and pretended to weld the tears away.

“Ironic. Yeah, this isn’t a good one to tell you,” you mumbled as you took your lip between your thumb and forefinger.

Aaron took control of this, explaining it all. Bullet Train is a book and movie; Aaron is an actor and plays Tangerine in the 2022 film. Hesitantly, he told Tangerine about his demise, the gunshot likely hitting an artery and killing Tangerine permanently.

Tangerine stilled once again. It’s like his world ended—at least, it did end for him. Entirely. He had nothing left for him here, not a real place to live or an identity to fall back on. He may be a prick, but he did just try having sex with his real person’s girl. He never did that kind of shit (on purpose.) He wouldn’t ruin Aaron Johnson’s life to get himself back into a business he hated and stuck to only because of what else he had.

“Aaron, can we talk?”

Aaron nodded, but not before giving Tangerine water, and you took Aaron into your room. Aaron dropped off a few stuff for Tangerine to wear instead of the sticky yet stiff with blood clothing he just died in. Tangerine left for the guest bathroom and waited anxiously. He was never without Lemon. Thomas was never without Tyler ever. After an hour to Tangerine, you and Aaron emerged again. Tangerine felt certain when he saw Aaron’s hand holding your lower back, but he bared face.

“He and I talked. You can stay here until you can get on your feet. I’m sure you could find someone to create an identity for you or something… But Aaron and I think kicking you out is unfair when you have nothing else.”

__

Half a year later, Aaron proposed. On August 14th, 2025, Aaron got down on one knee and finally asked you to marry him. You cried joyfully, and he spun you around like his long-lost princess. Tangerine wasn’t bitter. He didn’t say much about it other than congratulations, and he’ll find a way to attend to support the two of you.

Tangerine was glad for the two of you, but he missed his girl. She was known as Nightshade in the Assassin world, but he didn’t even know her real name for safety reasons. (A very sensual and intimate relationship that teetered on romance, but he didn’t wanna go in-depth with his new roommates.) He regularly confided in both of you about missing her. You and Aaron were emotionally secure between one another, periodically letting Tangerine open up to you two.

Tangerine didn’t see Aaron as a brother, but he had no male figure to rely on except Tyler. Aaron was awkward initially, but living Tangerine’s life out was weird for those months during Covid quarantine. Tangerine could have spent his time in therapy, but instead, he decided to try getting a college education.

Tangerine was known as Thomas Henley, an orphan who lived in the countryside and had no documentation about himself. Honestly, you and Aaron did your best not to know much. Thomas didn’t talk about it either, wanting both of you to have complete deniability.

Thomas was still here. None of you had an issue with him sticking around; you found it lovely. Around nine months, he had secured an identity and dyed his hair a frosty blonde. He cut his hair and dolled himself up, but he kept his face clean-shaven except for his mustache, which he maintained, occasionally trimming it shorter and letting it grow out.

You and Aaron said nothing as the two of you giggled. He looked so much like Count Vronsky when he returned home from the hairdresser. Again, you and Aaron giggled when you saw Thomas reading Anna Karenina for his major—Literature with a focus on Russian Lit.

Aaron was away again, filming another movie. You and Thomas sat around, working on your dissertation for what felt like the hundredth time, and Thomas was preparing for his undergraduate exams.

“I fucking hate this,” Thomas groveled over his school-provided laptop. He refused your and Aaron’s attempts to buy him anything. He lived here for free, and his campus job gave him enough money to save.

“You picked Russian Lit—“

“Fuck off.”

“Wanna watch a movie?” You had been waiting for Aaron to be here for this, but you couldn’t resist.

“Break?”

“Yeah,” you nodded as you stood up from the dining table. Thomas agreed, and you picked an Aaron Johnson Classic.

“It’s Anna Karenina—I don’t want to hear about any discrepancies from the original if there are any,” you added hotly before you pressed play. You always admired the cinematic take on the play, with a very stage-theater visual look. For the entire beginning, Thomas was quiet, his eyes overseeing it all.

He even took the time to learn Russian while taking Russian Lit to read Tolstoy in the original text. Thomas was the kind to talk during movies. He mumbled and smiled at the actress for Anna, mentioning she was what he pictured Anna to look like when he imagined her.

When Levin was introduced, you got up from the couch. You set up your phone in the corner against the books in the bookcase behind the couch and press the record button. Then, you returned with a fresh bag of popcorn and passed it to Thomas. The two of you watched. Thomas even liked the stage-theater take on Anna Karenina.

Then Count Vronsky brushed his shoulder against Levin’s and turned to face the ginger man. Thomas burst into a tirade. He grabbed the remote and paused on Aaron’s face. His tirade continued, unbelieving that you took this long to show him Anna Karenina, how you and Aaron were the worst roommates for keeping this secret.

You were sending this to Aaron later. You snagged the remote back and resumed the movie. He kept going, even taking his phone out to spam Aaron, uncaring if he was filming. You managed to get him to shut up when Count Vronsky and Anna danced, which was your favorite part. Aaron had taught it to you on one of your early dates together for fun. You were swooning as he lifted you effortlessly that day.

You watched Aaron with such desire, and Thomas saw it. Nightshade also looked at him the same way while they worked together.

That same night, Thomas apologized to you. You brushed it off, saying that you knew he didn’t mean to do anything terrible to you, even admitting you thought he was Aaron for a Valentine's Day surprise. Thomas snorted at you and rolled his eyes.

“And you’re planning on marrying him; you didn’t even know I wasn’t him,” he said sarcastically. You slapped your hand into his shoulder.

“You have the same face, same body, same fuckin’ hands–even down to your sexual mannerisms! And you never progressed past fingering me,” you rolled your eyes back. The topic was rarely discussed between you, but you and Thomas were best friends. you and Thomas was strictly platonic.

Occasionally, you wondered if Thomas saw Nightshade in you like you saw Aaron in him (except visually). Deep down, his actions perfectly matched Aaron’s. Five years of dating an actor, and being able to meet his character from another world or universe or whatever was ridiculous so to speak. Your heart twisted at the thought of Thomas no longer having Nightshade. You and him talk for a lot longer that night, never grazing on the topic of his arrival or his previous life again.

__

Aaron and you had bought a house, yet you hadn’t moved out because you were still attending university nearby. Aaron was finally back, no longer filming, and done with Fuze. He was here to plan the wedding. You and Aaron wanted a small summer wedding, not needing anyone more than some friends. Neither of you talked to your family that much, finding the most solace between one another and the friends they had–actors and university friends alike. It took a lot of sifting friends to find out who were friends and who wanted to meet Aaron Johnson.

Of course, Aaron invited actor friends but was hesitant to invite Brian Tyree Henry for apparent reasons.

Thomas said to do it. He would stay away as much as he could, and he wouldn't drink any alcohol to avoid any emotional issues that may arise. In this entire year, you hadn’t rewatched Bullet Train once. You couldn’t, not with Thomas around the apartment. You could barely even watch Aaron–Tangerine edits without feeling some kind of way. Your gut twisted in unspeakable ways as you watched the silly bouncing and rhythmic edits of Aaron-Tangerine, trying to separate Thomas from Aaron as much as possible.

You stared deeply at Tangerine, you could see them both so clearly in Movie-Tangerine. Thomas’s poor smoking habit, and brotherly gentleness, while Aaron’s watchful stares, and facial expressions perfectly mirrored his real life expression.

Part of you swooned over the Movie-Tangerine, which can be considered Aaron-Tangerine too, right?

Back to the wedding, Thomas mostly stuck around the outskirts of the wedding as promised. Brian didn’t even glance his way, but he indeed stared Brian down. His American accent helped a little bit until Aaron and Brian were drinking together, giggling slightly drunk while they recalled their accents for the film. The wedding was lovely, small, and in the backyard of you and Aaron’s new home. It was floral, with a nice tent around the outdoor dining section. The house was overly large; Aaron, the sole provider, took the house payment upon himself. You owned their apartment, telling Thomas he could stay there when you graduated and visit the house whenever he wanted.

Thomas didn’t stay that night. He couldn’t. He knew you two were tipsy and would be consummating the marriage loudly the entire night.

He was right, too. Aaron didn’t even make it up the stairs with you in your sleek white wedding dress. He stripped you in the foyer, his hard-on pressed against his suit pants, and was eating you out while you sat on the top stair of the house.

Your skin was sticky with the summer sweat, and his shaved beard still scratched your thighs raw. After forcing your legs open, his drooly tongue lapped up the dampness between your thighs. He smiled up at you lazily as he slid in his fingers and hummed against your clit. His fingers stretched and pushed around, it was like his second home. Your arms were first. Aaron made himself plenty at home as he smiled up at you with a devilish smile, his lips still attached to your sensitive nerves.

All of Aaron's muscle prep for Kraven’s appearance in a Marvel film was overpowering no matter how much you tried to shove your legs shut. His large free hand shoved them back open without a moments break.

“Mhfm, taste delicious, don’t you, Pretty?” Aaron rhetorically asked.

With a sudden spin guided by Aaron, you then held yourself up on your knees. Your hands pressed against the cold hardwood floors as he pushed himself inside with a languid groan. The stretch was terribly achy. Aaron loved spending time on his knees for you, but the age gap made you giggle as you joked about his aging knees.

“Baby… god, you feel so good. Mhm,” he whispered into your ear. Drunk Aaron was a time, he was different each time. You loved each personality he fucked you in, slipping into different accents from time to time. After six years of being together, you’ve fucked each drunk personality he claimed to shed post-film production.

Allan "Ize" Isaac and his whiny tone while he thrusts into you needily while begging you to come around him was fun. Same with Dave Lizewski pretending to fuck his University history TA or Fredrich moaning in your ear lovingly as he asked to breed you with his children. Your personal favorite was when Aaron cockily fucked you with Pietro’s Sokovian accent teasing you as he overstimulated your clit. But there was one more who hadn’t appeared in the past year.

More often than not, Tangerine came out. Fuck, Aaron made you call him Tangerine multiple times before the appearance of Thomas one year ago.

Today was no different.

When the Cockney slid past Aaron’s tongue like it was his first initial accent, you knew you were done. He even called you Doll as he slid in and out. His cockhead crushed into your cervix more times than you could count. Not that you could count clearly while being impaled by Aaron. He groaned as he moved your hips to slide on and off his cock, “Fuck, so’wet for me huh, doll? Like this cock?”

You cried into the piled dress beneath you, his lips connected to your back. Your knees ache against wood panels, rocking back and forth. His wet lips sucked into your back as he grunted, “God, Doll, yer still so tight for me.”

It was like neuron activation, exactly what Tangerine had said to you a year ago while he fingered you against the couch. You didn’t think about it a lot, an awkward interaction you three claim. For you, it was intoxicating to hear Tangerine say doll, more or less Aaron say it.

You hummed a cry at his comment.

“Say my name, Doll, come on,” he said. Skin slapping echoed in the barely decorated home, your cries echoing off the cold, empty walls. “Fuck… Aaron, pl–”

His hands pulled up your wrists to your lower back, holding your front up as he used you.

“That’s not my name, Dollface.”

For just a moment, you swore this actually was the Thomas Henley you met on Valentine’s Day. You cried out again, “No, Aaron, no! I can’t–”

Morally, you can’t. Aaron (or Tangerine) at this moment had no morals. Never had, will.

“Say it!” He shouted as he released you to fall into your dress. His hands clamped on your hips with a bruising hold. His trimmed nails even dug at the plush of your thighs.

“Fuck, Tangerine!” You sobbed, you squeezed around him as he laughed. Your body was jolting as he did as he pleased, you always let him do as he pleased.

“Whore likes that, huh?” He asked as he snapped into your hole. The constant squeeze around him and the new twist around your stomach told Aaron you were nearing another finish.

You gasped out sobs as his hand dipped down and touched your clit hard; his fingers were rough against the sensitive nerves. Your thighs shook beneath Aaron’s thrusts, wet dripping down your thighs.

“Tan…Tange, I needa cum,” you softly mumbled as you felt him twitch in delight. The knot in your stomach tightened as he punched his cockhead against your g-spot. “Mhm, yeah? Gonna come already? Then you’re gonna make me fuck you again? Need my cock that bad? Need Tangerine that bad?” He asked condescendingly. You shook your head no pathetically, crying out in denial. Your stomach continued to quell, and you squeezed down to try not to cum before granted permission.

“Please let me cum,” you quietly begged.

“Slut wants to cum? Hm, with me and Tangerine? Do it, whore,” He groaned his permission, watching you limply twitch on him as you finished for the second time around him. Aaron smiled behind you before slowly sliding himself out and grabbed you by the wrist to pull you up with one arm.

His chest pressed against your back to help you towards his desired destination. Even while Aaron’s over-confident actions were harsh on your body, he kept and held you firmly with care. You hoped he would bring you to your bedroom, fuck for a bit longer then fall asleep in each others arms.

You neared the wall, your hand sliding along it to keep you up. Aaron stopped your movement, his hands firmly on your elbow now. To your left was the collection of pictures you and Aaron took together or treasured. Most importantly, the picture next to your face.

You, Thomas, and Aaron at your graduation just two months ago. The two boys held you on their shoulders, the black graduation gown billowing around their chests. Your various colored stoles and cords flew in the wind, your tassel was flicking around as well.

Before you were aware of anything else, Aaron hiked you up and slid himself back inside with a prideful moan. His hands still had a tight grip, moving from your elbow to your waist. Aaron spun you around to face him, his lips kissing and sucking down your neck. “Oh, fuck Doll, I’m gonna cum… But tell…me, you wanna fuck us both?”

Drunk, intrusive thoughts rolled back around.

Between them, Aaron and Thomas kissing you up and down your body, two sets of hands holding or even pleasuring you, the thought of absolute overstimulation flooded your cunt. A loud squelch followed as you thought about the possibility of Aaron and Thomas at once. Aaron pushed further inside, kissing your limit. Fuck it sounded wonderful.

While you imagined the chance, Aaron whispered into your ear. “Taking us both… you just want attention, don’t you? ‘m’I not enough?”

“Oh, ffuck. No, just… fuck!” You shouted as he rolled his hips into you. He had you pinned up against the wall, his hips endlessly torturing you in the best way you could dream of.

“No… just you,” you denied with a lazy shake of your head against the painted walls. Aaron, in response, pulled you down into his cock. Slamming you up and down on him while you choked up on air, “Doll, y’know I don't like when you lie,” a strangled moan left Aaron before continuing. “My cum not enough for you, want both of ours?”

“No! Aaron, I don’t want to,” You tried again. He rolled his eyes and sunk his teeth into your neck. His lips hummed with skin between his teeth. Aaron shot his load inside, groaning as he continued to thrust in and out. “Admit it, doll, you want him and me together.”

Even after he filled you up, he kept going.

His fingers took place, but not before taking any fallen liquid and scooping it back inside to fuck his cum inside of you. Shoving three fingers inside of you at once released a throaty “Oh god,” as Aaron’s other hand took your waist and thrusted your hips into his hand.

The wall rattled, and the picture of you, Aaron, and Thomas shook as Aaron shoved his fingers in and out again. A rush flooded down your thighs. Aaron smiled as he felt another fluttering squeeze around him.

Your throat was raw from begging, “Aaa...Aaron, let me cum; please, need’ta cum so bad.”

“Mhm, s’ not Aaron, princess,” the Cockney accent asked as he ground his fingers into the gummiest spot. The sudden pulse around him as he whispered, Princess, into your ear. His nose pressed against your hair with a deep inhale.

“Fuck, Tangerine,” you shouted out as you squeezed against him again. The third knot of the night was getting tighter as you panted the former code name of your closest friend out helplessly. Over and over again, Ta..Tange. Please Tangerine, been good.

Aaron smiled and kissed the back of your head. “Go on, doll. You can do it,” he whispered into your hair. His other hand slid to your front to push you over the edge. A pornographic cry passed your lips as your chest tried to hug the wall to cool yourself down. Aaron groaned quietly again, down to his wrist dripping with you. After leaving your hole empty, Aaron picked you up bridal style to finally lie you two to sleep.

He cleaned you as best as a hazy-drunk-man could. A warm cloth ran up and down your body before getting to the sticky mess between your thighs. It had cooled off by the time he reached your vagina, but he still treated you like porcelain. His lips trailed around as he cleaned.

He vanished again and returned with a bottle of water and he dipped beneath sheets with you.

“I love you Aaron,” you mumbled quietly. You faced his chest and held his waist gently, he set his hand onto your head and quietly kissed you. “I love you too, Princess.”

__

[guzhufuren]

if you follow me, or simply see this and have 1 free minute, could you read this post please? i'm in desperate need of as many and as varied ideas as possible from different perspectives and people

i cannot bear to stay where i am much longer, living here is killing me from inside, i'm clawing at the walls. i want to move countries, cut ties with almost everyone, have the freedom of marrying anyone i want, adopt, change gender marker, work in a region where my preferred job field is much more progressive and valued, and stop holding myself back from living. i know what country i will move to and which work program i will go through for it. but in order to do that i need savings and money to get shit done like documents and gender affirming stuff. to do that faster i need a job with as high of a pay as i can get. i really want to get the fuck out of here in 6 or 8 months

i want to kindly ask, please if you have an idea of a job that would be a possible fit for my needs, no matter what it is, leave it in replies here or in anons. might be something innovative and unusual, or might be something obvious that i haven't thought of before

further info under the cut

- note, i live in Kazakhstan so almost any eu/us/nz/au jobs are considered high paying to me because of our enormous difference in the currency value. in case of a possibility of remote job done from faraway i can figure out the taxes issue

my skills and characteristics that can be helpful to think of something, but also not limited to those: - fluent in 2 languages (russian and english) - adaptable, very fast learner, good at finding things and doing varied tasks, analytical - fast to make people open up to me, charm them - good at promoting stuff, but it's fully self-learned from experience - good with computer shit, passable in photoshop - conventionally attractive (it has been helpful in all customer service jobs) - almost completed a childcare degree, have all skills that come with handling kids - though i do not have a degree yet. i quit astrophysics major a decade ago and will only finish my bachelors in early childhood education this summer

jobs that i have done before:

- the most successful and longest one: store chain manager where my position combined responsibilities of offline store manager, sales manager and internet store manager. promotion of top-price brands and their growth in popularity, training personnel, working with vip clients, working with suppliers, choosing and purchasing all products, social media advertising, fully taking care of online store too - various sales - real estate agent

jobs i do not consider: - jobs that will require me to go to another country and exchange stuff. i specifically need money so i can do that in the future, and the whole problem is i cannot do that right now without a security blanket to to fall on. or rent funds - childcare jobs (the field is in the ditches here, the aim is to earn money, not put myself into debt) - teaching jobs, same problem - persuading people to buy anything - translating text. i am horrible with written speech, very very poor writer's skills - the kind of customer service where you have to prostrate yourself to customers. i don't have patience to take shit anymore - please don't suggest sugar dating. done that. trauma

i can easily find a job on my own but i wanted to be smarter about it this time and consider everything, use all resources including this blog. if you thought of anything, please tell me

[rekino2114]

Genderbent Rin Itoshi with a male reader who was cheated on by Sae Itoshi

Fem!rin itoshi with a reader who was cheated on by fem!sae

A/n:this request was so good and I got into this so much, so thanks for requesting

You were always friends with the itoshi sisters, you spent the majority of your evenings playing football with them and getting ice cream together. You practically lived in their house and always used any moment you could to spend time with them, They were your best friends but little did you know that both of them had started to develop more feelings than just friendship for you.

In the meantime, you started thinking about the same thing. Did you have feelings for the two sisters? you loved their presence, and they were both undoubtedly beautiful, not to mention that just being near them made your heart flutter in a way it never had before. You quickly realized you did indeed have a crush but the problem was that you also realized that you had said crush on both rin and sae.

You had no idea what to do so to try and not ruin your great friendship and maybe even their sisterly bond you tried your best to repress your feelings for both of them.

That was until on one Valentine's Day in high school sae confessed to you, in that moment you felt it again, that love that made your heart flutter and immediately accepted the pink haired girl's confession. Your acceptance was met with a wide smile and a hug from sae. Your relationship was a happy but short one

Because a few months later she left for Spain to go play for re-al, leaving you and rin to keep your dream of becoming the best trio of strikers in the world alive. You still remember when she kissed you before leaving, saying that she would be going to become the best striker in the world, that moment feels like an impossible dream now.

During sae's leave you and rin became way closer, playing together and basically only passing to each other during games, you both told yourselves that you needed to become better for sae that when she would come back you would need to be near her level, just playing with you made rin feel something, that love she had worked so long to suppress, she couldn't do it, you were sae's boyfriend and no matter how much her heart yearned for you she loved her sister too much to do something so horrible like stealing you from her, so she just did what she was already used to and buried her love for you even deeper in her heart.

But everything changed when sae came back from Spain. She called you and said she had an important thing she needed to discuss with you so you waited for her at your house and when you opened the door you saw her but you immediately knew something was different.

Her gaze was almost colder than the snow outside, and her face wasn't even trying to make the faintest of smiles. you offered her a chair, but she refused, telling you that what she was going to be quick

"Our relationship is over, I met another man in Spain and I've been dating him for a while, goodbye"

Before you had the time to process what she said, she just left, the same coldness on her face. You just started crying and thinking about everything. What did you do wrong? Why did sae seem so cold? What happened to her? Or was she just sick of you?

You had nothing else to do so you decided to call the person that had never abandoned you and that you always felt something for: rin.

Rin was not ready to deal with anything after what sae said to her in the football field, but she had promised to herself that she'd do anything for you and hearing your crying voice on the phone broke her heart, she quickly rushed to your house with her heart in her throat, she knew her sister had something to do with this.

Seeing you so sad and miserable with tears flowing down your eyes awoke something in rin, she wanted to destroy whoever did this to you and when she heard the word sae spill from your mouth at her question a really small part of her was happy only because she had even more of a reason to destroy her.

When you fully explained what happened you could have sworn you saw her eyes turn black and her pupils becoming buzzsaw like, but your thoughts were interrupted by the younger itoshi hugging you incredibly tightly and letting you cry on her chest while she talked

"Listen y/n you did nothing wrong, it's sae who's........she's not my sister anymore, I don't know what happened to her but I don't care, she was horrible to me too but what she did to you was just unforgivable, she threw away the best boyfriend she could have had like it's nothing, you're amazing y/n please just know that there is someone who loves you and will never leave you"

Before you could figure out who she was talking about, rin instinctively crashed her lips into yours, her kiss felt amazing. It was like she reanimated the heart sae had stepped on, right in that moment all of the love you ever felt for rin resurfaced and you saw her as what she actually was, the true love of your life, someone who would never abandon you and would always love you

You two continued kissing for a while and then started cuddling, your head still on her chest and your body wrapped in her arms, sweet whispers that promised to keep you safe and to love you forever filled your ears as you closed your eyes, promises that rin was 100% sure she was going to maintain.

Looking at your adorable sleeping face made rin even more angry, not only did that bitch reject their dream and stepped on it like it was nothing she also did the same with you, with the most perfect and adorable guy in the world, she was going to show her how wrong she was. That dream was no longer sae's now just like you were longer hers, rin and you were going to become the best strikers in the world and reject her like she did to the both of you, walking hand in hand in front of her defeat.

The next day, you two talked it over, and your relationship with rin officially started, a much longer and happier one. You couldn't be happier when the letter to join blue lock arrived, that was the place you were going to hone your skills in to defeat sae.

You always stayed together in the facility. During lunch, sleep, training, and especially matches, it looked like you two were the only ones on the field with your perfect chemistry and skills. All of your teammates joked about how rin's coldness melted instantly whenever she talked to you, but they were quickly shut up by a glare from the turquoise eyed girl, as if she was going to treat you coldly after what you went through.

When the u-20 match was announced, the fire in your souls burned even brighter. That was the occasion in which you were going to destroy sae. You had to stop each other from training yourselves to death on multiple occasions, but you both knew that the reason was worth the effort, you needed to show sae how wrong she was.

The night before the match, you couldn't sleep, and your girlfriend who, as always, had her arms wrapped around you comforted you like only the girl of your dreams could.

"Y/n......I understand why you're nervous, but don't be, we will win tomorrow, we'll show that shitty excuse for a sister who the strongests really are, we're going to destroy her and become the best strikers in the world......together, like we always do everything, I'll personally kiss you in front of her to show her what she missed on, you're perfect my love, don't let that bitch get to you, I'm here now.....and always"

She kissed you one more time and tightened her hold around you, starting to play with your hair and lull you to sleep with her sweet words, just like she did on the day you became a couple, on the day you both started your true life, a life together that sae was never going to ruin, rin loved you too much to let that happen, she was going to protect you from everything, especially from that girl who dared tell you she lived you once

"I love you y/n.......good night, and tomorrow, we're going to get our revenge"

As she said those words rin started to fall asleep too, looking at your beautiful face one last time and smiling, because she had you, she had healed your heart and she was never going to let anyone hurt it again.

[evelynvipah]

If Vi being pregnant in art or fics is such a big problem because “butch” then I’d hate to see y’alls reactions to irl butch lesbians…who don’t conform to heteronormative constructs (because that’s what a lot of these “takes” are perpetuating). Vi being pregnant takes NOTHING away from her masculinity or supposed “butchness.”

I truly believe this fandom forgets that there are no gender identity issues or pressures in this universe. They do not strictly label these characters as anything because of how they want to subvert popular tropes and ideas especially in regard to gender and sexuality.

There’s a difference between having an opinion on whether or not you believe she’d carry, versus acting as if you speak for an entire community on the subject. You are not Vi, therefore you are only able to make assumptions about her as a fictional character.

Acting as if these characters deal with the same societal expectations and issues that we deal with in reality is deliberately ignoring what Riot set out to do in many ways. Look at the Kiramman house and its legacy, its long line of Matriarchs. Look at Ambessa, a strong and capable warlord (a leader of an entire nation), who is portrayed as very feminine and maternal. And think about Vi herself, a girl who has always been put into a maternal position taking care of her family. She was more than an older sister to her siblings and community, but she took the place of their mother as well. It is something she is deeply comfortable with and not entirely by choice.

Ultimately, what I mean to say with this post is that Vi being pregnant is not an attack on anyone regardless of identity or opinion. It is not unbelievable or impossible, and to be quite frank is understandable with her character and the way she’s lived for majority of her childhood into adulthood. Once again, you can have personal headcanons (no one is denying you that right), but that’s what it is. A headcanon. For all we know Vi may jump for joy at the opportunity to have her own children, and it’s okay if she doesn’t. But stop this senseless attack on people who just see differently than you. Who have different opinions, headcanons, ideas, and concepts. Stay in your lane and enjoy what you want while others do the same!

[heygirltimeformorning]

can i go where you go

This is inspired by this text post from @buckdiazlafd - thank you thank you thank you - and is posted with their permission.

enjoy~*

*

The last 24-hours have been a real shit-show. Buck is pretty sure Eddie being crushed by a mudslide less than 48 hours after announcing he was looking at houses in El Paso is a sign from the universe that Eddie should not move to El Paso, but Buck’s learned not to bring the universe up with Eddie, because Eddie doesn’t believe in the universe, not like that, and, well, Buck had major mine flashbacks when Eddie had shot him one wild, helpless look, and then disappeared under, like, ten feet of mud.

Maybe that’s dramatic. Buck hadn’t whipped out his ruler (he doesn’t carry a ruler -- quit looking at him like that, Chim) to measure how many feet of mud it had been, but it had been enough that something icy and cold and really fucking terrible had grabbed ahold of Buck’s heart and squeezed, and Buck had thought: not again, you bitch at the universe, because Eddie might not believe in the universe, but Buck does, and Buck has learned to have a healthy respect for the universe and all its screaming.

The point is: Eddie had been crushed by mud and debris, and Buck (because he’s Buck) had dug through the mud until his fingers were bleeding (stop looking at him like that, Bobby) to get to him, hauling him out of the ground like one of those Harry Potter plants, only Eddie hadn’t been screaming, he’d been silent, and Buck’s chest felt like it was caving in.

It turns out that getting crushed by 10 feet of mud (or however much mud and debris Eddie had been crushed by -- again, Buck hadn’t had his ruler stop looking at him like that, Chim -- is not exactly compatible with life. Eddie hadn’t been dead -- Buck’s heart plummets to his toes and starts screaming like one of the Harry Potter plants at the thought of that -- but he’d been hurt badly enough to need surgery and Buck had sat in the waiting room next to Bobby, hair wet and plastered to his forehead, looking pitiful enough that Hen had wrapped one of the emergency blankets around his shoulders, which really completed the look, and thought if Eddie dies, I have to move to El Paso for Christopher which, look.

It’s not like Buck hadn’t thought about moving to El Paso when Eddie had dropped that particular bomb in his life a day or so ago (Eddie had said he was looking at houses in El Paso, and Buck had thought please stay please stay please stay - I’ll come with you before he said Eddie needed help finding houses) but it hadn’t been moving to El Paso to take care of Chris because Eddie had been killed by ten feet (or whatever, fuck off, Chim) of mud. That wasn’t the plan.

Buck isn’t sure what the plan was, but El Paso wasn’t involved, not beyond getting Chris’ punk ass back to LA, and the mudslide killing Eddie also wasn’t part of the plan -- but Eddie wasn’t dead (not-dead, not-dead, not-dead, his heart echoes) and El Paso was put on hold and Chris -- fuck. He hadn’t thought about Chris. Well, he had -- Chris is always just kind of in the back of his mind -- but he hadn’t thought about the mudslide and Eddie and Chris as like, a unit, and, well. Fuck.

That isn’t a problem he has to solve right now, he thinks. That isn’t something he has to do right now. Eventually? Yes. He needs to tell Chris that Eddie was crushed by a mudslide, and that he had surgery and that -- that -- what? That he needs to get his punk ass back to LA? Ideally, yes. Point being: that isn’t something Buck has to solve right now.

What he does have to solve right now is the fact that Hen has brought him a tshirt and a pair of sweats from the firehouse and is giving him one of her mom looks (Buck feels bad for Denny and Mara), pointing to the bathroom with a look that said that if Buck didn’t go of his own volition, he’d be taken there by force, and Buck did have one very confusing sex dream about Hen once (when he first started at the firehouse), but he doesn’t want to get on her bad side (her worse side), so he takes the clothes and goes.

Hen makes him drink a coffee, a bottle of water, and a sandwich, because she’s a bossy lesbian, and then Buck sits and waits, and thinks about the universe and Eddie and screaming. And Chris. He thinks about Chris, too, and when the surgeon comes out and says Diaz, Buck stands up so fast he knocks his half-empty cup of coffee over because he’s never been great at coordinating his limbs, but Hen takes care of it for him and Bobby has a hand on his shoulder, and the surgeon says everything went well, he’s still pretty out of it, but he’ll be okay and something finally loosens in Buck’s chest.

And then the nurse shows him back to Eddie’s room, and Buck has kind of gotten used to this - he thinks he knows what to expect - but then  he gets to the door of the room and Eddie’s face splits into an easy grin -- he’s so much lighter like this (yes, Chim, without the 10 feet of mud, but also metaphorically) -- and Buck’s breath catches in his chest and, look.

Buck has known he’s in love with Eddie since Eddie opened the door in a pink oxford and tighty-whiteys, mustache-less and flushed with joy, so beautiful it’s like a physical ache Buck can press his thumb into, make it hurt when he’s alone, when he’s alone in his loft and it’s night and he’s hard and just once, he’ll just think about him once, nobody has to know -- Buck has known, is the point. Buck is a little slow on the uptake, but he isn’t stupid, and he’s known he’s in love with Eddie Diaz. It’s just. Well, what do people do when they’re in love with their straight best friends? Google says get over it -- so Buck’s trying. Only when he steps into Eddie’s hospital room and Eddie beams at him like Buck is the best thing he’s ever seen, well, fuck. Google didn’t have any advice about that.

“There he is,” Eddie half-slurs, and he’s smiling like -- like -- well, Buck doesn’t have a metaphor for this, because Eddie makes his brain feel like it’s on fire, like the Inside Out people in his brain are trying to process and come up with an emotion and the only thing they have to offer is: yes. Him. That one. Want. which is not exactly helpful. 

“H-Hey, bud,” Buck manages, unsticking his tongue from the roof of his mouth, sitting down next to Eddie’s bed. Eddie’s hospital gown is slipping off his shoulders, and he’s still got the nasal cannula on, and he’s blinking slowly, and his pupils are huge, but he’s smiling and Buck’s heart keeps malfunctioning. “How’re you feeling?”

“Better now you’re here,” Eddie says, and he’s so light like this, and Buck freezes. One of the Inside Out people in his brain is shredding everything Buck knows to make room for this moment, for Eddie’s joy, unbridled and bright, spilling out across them. “Fuck, you’re handsome,” he says, shaking his head, turning to the nurse when she, smirking, goes to check his lines. “Isn’t he handsome? I told you, didn’t I? I told -- I told you.”

Buck is pretty sure his brain is offline. There’s been a gas leak or something, and all the Inside Out people are dead, because he hadn’t considered this -- hadn’t considered any of this. What was supposed to happen was Buck was supposed to come back here, curls fluffy and air-dried, in his borrowed sweats, with coffee breath, and Eddie would be still and quiet in the bed, and Buck would sit down and shove down every single feeling he’s ever had about Eddie because Eddie is straight and he’d try to convince himself that the feelings he has for Eddie are purely platonic (knowing they aren’t) and Eddie would wake up and ask about Chris and - and -- look, Buck knows how this goes, and Eddie being higher than a kite and spilling joy like he hadn’t been pulled like a half-dead mandrake from the mud six hours ago by Buck isn’t how it goes.

Maybe he’s dreaming, he thinks. Maybe this is some fucked up dream his brain has created to help deal with the inevitable moving of Eddie to El Paso. Maybe he’s finally lost it, and now he won’t be able to look Eddie in the eye for, like, a day, because all he’ll be able to think about is in the dream you loved me enough to stay and Buck doesn’t want to be that selfish and he’s ashamed that his subconscious is.

But then the nurse laughs and says: “You did tell me,” in the tone of voice people use with little kids and patients high on pain medications. “I half-expected Brad Pitt to walk in here, the way you were carrying on,” she adds, and Buck’s cheeks flush. 

“Psh,” Eddie says, and his eyes are slow to track, but they drift back across the room, from the nurse to Buck, and Buck feels something squeeze in his chest. “Buck’s so much better than Brad Pitt,” he says, and Buck’s hand is on the side of the bed, because that’s what you do when someone’s in the hospital, you rest a hand on the side of their bed, and they look over at you, and you say I was so worried and they say something fucked up like I’m not worth worrying about and -- but Buck’s brain short-circuits then, because Eddie laces their fingers together, and Buck can’t even blink because what the fuck kind of hallucination is this?

The nurse shoots Buck a fond little look, and finishes whatever she’s doing with the medications. “Alright, Mr. Diaz,” she says and Eddie rolls his head to the side to look up at her. “That pain medication should hold you for awhile - but you just have your partner--” Buck’s heart leaps into his throat, and he can’t say anything, he can’t even blink -- “grab me if you need something else, alright?”

Eddie turns back to Buck. “Hear that?” he asks, like the nurse isn’t still standing right there. “She thinks we’re partners. Like, actual partners.” He waggles his eyebrows, and forget blinking, Buck can’t breathe. “Like I’d be so lucky.”

“We’ll -- we’ll let you know if we need anything,” Buck says, and his voice is high-pitched and unnatural sounding, but it’s literally the best he can do under the circumstances, because what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck Eddie is holding his hand and calling him handsome and hot and seems -- well, whatever this is -- about them being partners in the sense that gay people and woke straight people use. The nurse is gone with a rasp of the curtain and a flick of the lights, and then Buck and Eddie are alone -- well, in a manner of speaking -- and Eddie’s looking at Buck like - like - like that.

“You should rest,” Buck says finally, when he manages to peel the Inside Out people in his brain off the ceiling. “You need to rest, you were -- I pulled you out of the mud. Like a mandrake.”

Eddie frowns at the reference, a confused little divot between his brows, but then he grins, shrugging a shoulder. The hospital gown slips off his shoulder a little bit more. Slut, Buck’s brain supplies when Buck thinks about biting that shoulder, which is so inappropriate in at least five ways Buck can think of off the top of his head. “You’re always saving me,” he says, and his words are tripping together in a way that says he probably won’t be awake much longer.

“Yeah, well, that’s my job, right?” Buck says, picking over the words carefully, like he’s disarming a bomb. Eddie’s still holding his hand. Buck isn’t exactly doing anything to discourage the hand holding, and then he feels dirty and wrong and like a pervert. “Gotta keep you alive,” he adds quietly, and pulls his hand back very carefully.

Eddie tightens his fingers around Buck’s. “Gotta -- look like a hot badass doing it,” he says with a little grin. “Shame I’m usually unconscious. I bet it’s really sexy, all the -- mangrove pulling.”

Buck’s still focused on the fact that he’d tried to pull his hand away and Eddie had, essentially, said no, so it takes him a minute to catch up -- tripping first over hot badass and then sexy and by the time he gets to the missed reference of mandrake, he barely manages to say: “uh-huh” in response.

“Is that right? Mangrove?” Eddie asks with a frown. “That doesn’t sound right. What did you call me? A man- a man --”

“Mandrake,” Buck says -- croaks, and Eddie nods. 

“Right,” Eddie says, “Mandrake. Whatever that is. Is it cute, at least?” he asks, grinning at Buck again, and Buck’s heart is malfunctioning again.

“Uh,” Buck says, very eloquently, and then he’s saved from having to say anything else by the arrival of Hen and Chim and Bobby, all of whom seem to notice the hand-holding, and chalk it up to either something they don’t need to address right now, or something that is just so uniquely buckandeddie that it doesn’t phase them, and Buck is so thankful that the universe decided to give him half a break, because Chimney giving Eddie a shovel talk about his baby brother in law while Eddie’s high on pain medication is not something Buck is capable of coping with right now. Only then, as Bobby, Hen, and Chimney file in, Eddie’s face breaks into one of those heartbreakingly beautiful smiles and Buck thinks: shit because high-on-pain-medication Eddie is either incredibly gay, incredible horny, incredibly unfiltered, or all of the above.

“Hey guys,” Eddie says, lifting the hand that doesn’t have a grip on Buck’s. “Hey, does Buck look -- like, really sexy when he’s pulling me like a mangrove?” and Buck is pretty sure they could use his face to power a small compound because what the fuck, Eddie. 

“Pulling a what?” Chimney asks, and thank every single god there is for Bobby because he clears his throat and steps in.

“Sounds like you’re in good hands, Eddie,” Bobby says in that calm, measured way of his. “We just wanted to check on you. We’ll see you tomorrow. Get some rest,” he says, and then he gives Chimney and Hen one of his dad looks -- which trumps Hen’s bossy lesbian looks -- and marches them out, but not before Eddie smirks and says: oh, I’m in great hands.

(24 hours later, when the pain medication has worn off and Eddie has come down a bit, when Buck realizes this hasn’t just been some strange stress dream as a reaction to Eddie moving to El Paso, when Chimney has text Buck approximately 74 times, Eddie says I meant it and something in Buck’s chest splits open, spills out between them, and Eddie is blushing, and Buck is blushing, but they kiss anyway, and Buck says go get Chris’ punk ass -- but stay and Eddie says only if you keep saving me and Buck says only because you saved me first and he thinks: take that, universe.)

*

you can also read this on the ao3 :)

[beyondsyntax]

This is such a lie, Biden and Harris sent a trillion us dollars overseas to the other countries and they arent our friends theyve hijacked our country and im not even talking about the good people of Asia e-Europe Africa or anywhere else for that matter. Im talking not about their government officials. Im talking about the dark side that has taken over government positions and has weaseled their way to keep the good people under their evil thumb. Because theyre afraid of us. And its so hard to pick those people out because sometimes expression can be twisted based on symbolism and just because you dont understand the symbols in a video or way people are symbolically using imagery can either be enlightening or fear based. Its so hard to tell. The fact of the matter is that why put your faith in Kamala, or any politician. The one thing you should take away from this is stop relying on the government to fix your problems like some soap aprah "we lost time to throw in the towel". No. Get active and not in a way that makes people look like fools. But in a way that serves the truth for what it is, you dont have to be rude to do that. Just because you dont know something or are trying to protect the truth, I dont have to claw you down. Stand up straight, the only thing ill tell you is, no... thats not straight enough. Stand up taller. They sent not the Governments tax dollars overseas but ours. They raised inflation by printing out so much money groceries have more than doubled. Gas prices are extremely high and as soon as trump comes into office those people who didnt respect us actually are shaking hands with trump and are now under our level. Meaning we are reasoning with them and we arent threatening them but doing business with them. Sometimes when the business isnt being reciprocated and its serving everyone else but you you have to simply do business and if thats a threat to you maybe get yours under control so we dont have to send a trillion of our own dollars while our country is on the edge of the abyss because Joe Biden took us there and Kamala almost pushed us over. Because she sees no problem in joe biden taking our freedom. She sees no problem with forcing a vax from the government that you people have entirely too much faith in and now you see that what they were saying about it being terrible are true. They wouldnt even let you have your own freedom to speak up on it they silenced you. Do you think thats a little bit unfair? I dont, id take it further and say its treason against the people. Theres a war going on if you havent been aware of it, we had an open boarder with random people from all around the war come in and killing thousands of people and you really are so brainwashed from the false narrative that you cant even put all these little coincidences together. Its not a matter of being an idiot because anyone can be brainwashed, I know I am, probably to a major degree because we are so lied to. But all within reason. Its unreasonable to see these things, and let them go by as mere coincidences. And if you havent put together why all the states with it illegal to vote without a license was where trump won and the only state where he lost was where you didnt need an id, and he had a total victory with the popular vote and electoral college, dude, why do you even waste your time at all on this if you havent even looked into that at all? If you care, that doesnt mean youre wrong. No. I encourage you to continue caring and giving your concern to what matters. The world needs more caring people. But just be mindful that caring and just going off your emotions is more dangerous than trump will ever be because everyone follows your lead and does what they want based off of your own actions, so grow up because youre capable of that and be the bigger person you were meant to. No more being a kid, kids. The world needs all of us more than you could ever know.

[catgirltoofies]

i think saints row 4 did something extremely good but in the wrong genre.

so, basically, saints row is a non-linear gangster open world game, similar to grand theft auto, mafia, and red dead redemption. it takes itself a lot less seriously, being full of jokes and gags, the quality of which are up to interpretation. more importantly, though, it was still mostly pretty sane with its broad theme - it was silly, sure, but it was still taking place in believable, grounded cities with gun stores and lots of cars and what have you.

in saints row 4, however, most of the game takes place in a simulation of the city saints row 3 takes place in, and one of the major abilities is just straight-up superpowers. you get to run super fast, jump across blocks at a time, and even fly, along with the myriad combat abilities. for the purposes of this argument, though, i want to hone in on one single ability: super-speed.

saints row, for all its silliness, is still a game based on driving stolen cars and making them look pretty. this is not the case for saints row 4, because while those systems are still in place, there's no reason to ever drive when you can just super-run and fly wherever you want, for free. this is why i think it's in the wrong genre; because of the super-speed, you're discouraged from using the major system of "steal cars and pimp them out".

which brings me to where i think it WOULD work. and that's the open-world rpg genre. of particular note, I'll call out the elder scrolls and assassin's creed.

first, elder scrolls: fast traveling is a good option to have, of course, but it almost completely negates exploring on foot. when's the last time you used a horse in skyrim? have you ever done mounted combat? both of them SUCK. horses are slow and clunky and mounted combat is finicky at best. enter super-speed. naturally, this would be disabled during combat, to avoid totally trivializing any encounter with just super-speed and a bow, as well as while overencumbered, but with super-speed, you no longer have to slowly trudge everywhere that doesn't have a fast travel marker. you get a shortcut to travel that doesn't disincentivize exploration, and it's not like this idea doesn't have precedent. look at morrowind, where you can down a dozen skooma and more than double your movement speed. this was how people got around! just bring back a method to boost speed, perhaps arbitrarily capping it to avoid clipping through walls.

next, assassin's creed. there's no kind of super-speed in any assassins creed game that I'm aware of, but it would WORK. horses, of course, give you the means to travel around with speed, and they're at least faster and easier to use than the horses in the elder scrolls, but once you get into combat you have to dismount, use overpowered horse archery, or use the godawful mounted melee combat. if there's a location only 300m away, summoning my horse is a chore just for a short jaunt, but running that distance on foot is agonizingly slow. simple solution: replace the mount with an Animus hyper-speed mode that makes time speed up until you disable it or get into combat.

please tell me any problems with this idea because i know my truth

[hils79]

Hils Watches Matz Travel Vlog - Part 1

It's been a very weird weekend.

I went to Manchester to visit my sister and it's the first time I've been back since I saw Ateez there a couple of weeks ago. Post-concert bues is definitely a thing, but I wasn't prepared for how hard being back would hit me emotionally. As soon as I got off the train the arena was right there. But there were no Atinys giving away freebies and no general buzz of anticipation and excitement.

I hopped on a tram and saw that the lunar new year lanterns that Wooyoung posed with were still up. Then I went past a bunch of the shops and restaurants we visited while we were there and I legit started tearing up.

I'm sure at least part of it was because shark week and general tiredness but I wasn't expecting to get so emotional over the whole experience.

And then while I was away, going back to the topic of this post, the Matz travel vlog dropped but I couldn't watch it because it's over an hour long and I was visiting family.

But I'm home now and ready to watch it. And because I need somewhere to scream about all my feelings I've decided to make this your problem and liveblog it.

I haven't been fussed about avoiding spoilers so I've seen a few screenshots and gifs but nothing major.

So lets accompany Hongjoong and Seonghwa on a trip to the Star Wars wedding location in Italy. I'm sure this won't be romantic and ridiculous at all.

FFS even the opening credits look like an old married couple's honeymoon home video

Hongjoong making sure we all know Seonghwa isn't late for their date

This is just reminding me of when @storkmuffin was doing commentary on the lego live and said Hongjoong kept praising himself. Yes, baby, you are very good at toast.

Seonghwa hasn't even sat down yet and Hongjoong is making sure he gets his coffee

Sweetie, you look like you were carved out of marble by Michaelangelo himself

You can tell from Hongjoong's amused smile that he is used to this nonsense

Orders coffee for Seonghwa without prompting. I'm fine.

I'm not going to dwell too much on their relationship with food because it honestly just makes me sad.

Aww Hongjoong saying he prefers to be around other people and he gets sad when he has to work in his studio alone. I remember him saying something similar on Fromm a few months back. I think they were flying somewhere as a group after some time off during which Hongjoong had done a bunch of solo projects. He was saying it was nice to be at the airport with the others instead of just by himself.

Oh, good. I thought Seonghwa was going to skip breakfast after saying he ate a lot the night before.

Haha! Seonghwa accidentally put sugar on his eggs.

Hongjoong admitting he did some research on where they could go for the day. We all knew!

This is the opposite of the Lego live where Hongjoong was like 'I didn't wear my glasses because I thought you'd wear yours'

Hongjoong really isn't a morning person. And it's not even that early. He said they'd arranged to meet at 10am

Oh we have noticed!

Hongjoong be like 'I'm happy to just watch you do your thing'

JFC Seonghwa

Apparently you're not allowed to say YouTube on a YouTube video

God, are they like this all the time? Just kidding I know they are.

Poor Hongjoong is stressed already and they haven't even got to the train station yet

This is honestly so fascinating. I imagine most of the time their staff arranges everything they want to do for them so they don't have to worry about things like standing on a train for an hour because there's no seats.

Just like me when I'm travelling, especially in a country where English isn't the main language.

It's funny because when we did our Ateez trip we had one extrovert who was always 'I'll just ask someone' and two introverts who were like 'we can look it up on our phones/figure it out without speaking to someone'

And yet you still look great

Aww! Seonghwa being able to relax because Hongjoong has planned everything. I can relate. Usually I'm the one doing the planning and organising so when I don't have to it's great.

Oops apparently I'm at the image limit already and I've only watched 20 mins of this. Oh well, see you in a bit for part 2!

Part 2

[lesser-vissir]

On the AFAB Transfem and the Nature of Transfeminization

While the title of this post is a little arrogant, admittedly, I do think that it is something that many transfeminists theorists have attempted to tackle, but one that just as many shy away from actually addressing.

This essay is largely inspired by @/oxymoronictransfem's writing regarding A/V Transfems. There is also some influence from Thalia Bhatt's writings, as well as The Sizhen System's essay on the gender ternary.

Before I get into the specifics of what I wanted to talk about, I did want to start by saying that, while I do not fully agree with Mera's A/V Transfem theory, it has convinced me to look deeper into what role birth assignment plays in transfeminization, and come to the conclusion that while her theory has some holes in it, ultimately the existence of A/V Transfems is undeniable. Rest of the essay under the cut. I expect it to be a long one.

I lied. Essay isn't starting yet. First, you gotta go read the other essays I linked if you want to understand what I'm talking about. If you don't read them its gonna make this confusing. Go read them then come back. Now we can start the essay.

Note: I am going to use the terms AFAB and AMAB during this essay, as unfortunately they are the best existing terminology to discuss these subjects. However, please note that when I use these terms I am not making a judgement on anything other than an individual having been assigned a social role as either a "Woman" or a "Man".

The biggest problem in creating a disambiguating definition of the transfeminized subject, is that there exists right now no good definition for the difference between transfeminization and gender non-comformity amongst women. It's what creates the arguments about how trans men, women of color, and other AFAB gender deviants as being transfeminized subjects.

Unfortunately, on the terms used to discuss these topics, those in favor of AFAB gender deviants being transfeminized subjects have legitimate reasons for believing that to be true. Based on the current commonly used definitions of transmisogyny, AFAB gender deviants are in fact victims of transmisogyny. In fact, I am willing to break from convention among transfeminists here in saying that the definition of transmisogyny as an intersection between transphobia and misogyny was a mistake from the beginning and has led to the vast majority of the problems we see on this site regarding things such as the TME/TMA dichotomy, the AFAB transfem question, and the transandrophobia debate.

The alternative however, the definition of the transfeminized subject used prior to Whipping Girl, is the resignation of trans women to being a third sex, which has its own problems in regards to each of those topics, as well as being inaccurate as to trans women's definitive social status as women. However, in the same way, transmisogyny can hardly be considered a separate axis of oppression from either misogyny or transphobia.

To correct this terminology problem, we need to correct a mistake that dates all the way back to second wave feminism. In The Second Sex, Simone De Beauvior made the groundbreaking assertion of sex and gender being social constructs. A part of this was to divorce Womanhood from its status as being the Other to Manhood, as well as to recognize that the oppression of women was not based in biology but in their disavowment and exclusion from active participation in society.

However, Simone De Beauvior made the mistake of idealism and did not properly analyze the dialectic between both Manhood and Womanhood, or the dialectic between Womanhood as a disenfranchisement from society and from women's reproductive functions and economic roles.

Let's start by tackling the first dialectic to understand first the relationship between Manhood and Womanhood. As Talia Bhatt mentioned in the essay I linked, women can be divided into two groups, Type I woman and Type II woman. I would argue, that the definition is somewhat incomplete as it does not define mechanisms for how a Type I woman become a Type II woman, and includes an assumption that certain types of women (ie. upperclass women) are Type I by default.

Instead, we must recognize that all women, by default, are Type II women. Then, upon further evaluation of what makes a woman a Type I woman, we see that the defining factor is that a man has chosen them, elevated them from Type II status. We can see this most clearly in the part of the essay describing Type I trans women. Type I womanhood is not a permanent marker, it is a transient experience based on the whims of the man who has elevated her.

Since we have established that Type II women are the default and Type I women are made, we can recontextualize femininity and the performance of womanhood under that lens. Women that perform femininity well, perform womanhood well, are most likely to be picked for elevation to Type I by various men. Women that fail that in various ways, by being ugly, by being fat, by being infertile, by being non-white, are more likely to stay as Type II women, or quickly lose Type I status when they fail in performing womanhood.

This brings us to an interesting insight regarding womanhood and its relation to manhood. To do that, we must first recognize the castes that exist within manhood. It is quite obvious that for men, there are distinct heirarchies created along the lines of non-gender based axis of oppression. Black men are less valuable than white men, disabled men less valuable than abled men, ect. However, they are all still men. As such, all of them have the power to elevate a Type II woman to a Type I woman. However, the status of a Type I woman is tied to the status of a the man that has elevated them to that status. As such, a woman who is more capable of performing womanhood is less likely to settle for a lower caste man. And conversely, lower caste men will always aspire to be able to be with a woman that men of a higher caste are willing to elevate.

This explains many of the phenomena we see surrounding gendered heirarchies, and heirarchies among men. For example, this explains why marginalized men are so reluctant to date women who share their marginalization (ie. fat men being distainful of fat women, and black men being distainful of black women), because they see them as the women they are "allowed" to elevate, but want to be able to obtain a higher status woman. It also explains phenomena we see such as men dating women that are underperforming womanhood, with the goal of "fixing" her into a higher performing woman as a way of getting around the problem of women that are high performing not wanting to date them.

Moving on from that, we need to address the second dialectic. We can see from the above, that Manhood is defined relative to Womanhood by their ability to elevate women from Type II to Type I status, however, it does not address why these categories exist in the first place. Which brings us back to the initial idealist mistake of the second wave feminists. We should never have wholly rejected that the social construct of womanhood is based in the material reality of reproductive labor.

The conception of gender as a social construct was rooted in a need to regulate reproductive labor. Certain humans, at certain times, are capable of reproductive labor. Gender was invented as a way to easily identify those individuals, and regulate ownership of that capability by the individuals who are not capable of that. Although the social roles and expectations of gender are divorced from biological determinism, the material reality of reproductive labor produced those social roles and expectations which then reinforced the material reality.

In that regard, its time to bring up genitalia. Although many transfeminists and queer feminists avoid talking about genitalia due to the dysphoria it can cause among participants, it would be remiss to dismiss genitalia as being a non-factor in the social construction of gender or in its role in defining the transfeminized subject. The very basis of gender is fundamentally tied to genitalia as a shorthand for whether an individual will grow up to have the capacity for reproductive labor. Ignoring that because it is uncomfortable does us no favors. For all intents and purposes, at its core, society views Men as walking penises and Women as walking vaginas. However, these are merely symbols reflecting an underlying reality of reproductive labor.

In that line, ignoring the social roles and expectations of Womanhood and Manhood, let us set the definitions of Woman and Man to be the following. A Woman is an individual capable of reproductive labor, and a Man is an individual capable of harnessing reproductive labor. These definitions are simplistic, but fundamentally, they serve as the basis for Womanhood and Manhood as a set of social roles and expectations. Womanhood is an idealization of the reproductive vessel while Manhood is the idealization of exploiting said vessel. As such, although the definitions of Man and Woman leave no room for the infertile, the social constructs of Manhood and Womanhood are able to accomodate that. It is here that we can finally start defining transphobia, transmisogy, the transfeminized subject, and even the transmasculinzed subject.

Let us start by understanding transphobia and the differences it lays out when targeting Men and Women. Before we dive in, let me say that I do believe that cis people are affected by transphobia, but that they are not transfeminized/transmasculinzed subjects. For Women, there is a lot of wiggle room for gender deviance, that is to say, deviance from Womanhood, as it merely reduces their chances of becoming a Type I woman. As such, when a Woman is experiencing transphobia it is usually in the form of increased violence that a Type II woman receives. For Men, there is less direct violence from society in the same way as Type II women, but deviance from Manhood results in demotion among the caste heirarchy of men. Thus, reducing the quality of the women available to them. Other men enforce this as a way to decrease competitors for high performing women.

What then, separates the transfeminized and transmasculinzed subjects from mere transphobia? To answer that, we must look back to our definitions of Man and Woman, and, unfortunately be a little crude for a moment. Put in simple terms, a transfeminized subject is a woman with a penis, and a transmasculinzed subject is a man with a vagina. We can see this through every social lens of these topics, and while it is a transphobic stereotype that is not wholly true, it is the way most of cis society view the topic. We however, will dig a little deeper, because as mentioned, the penis and vagina are merely shorthand symbols for other things. Taking the definitions a step further, a transfeminized subject is a woman who is capable of harnessing reproductive labor, and a transmasculinzed subject is a man capable of reproductive labor.

The definitions for the transfeminized and transmasculinzed subjects is on a layer higher than that of Man or Woman, playing off of the social construct of Womanhood and Manhood as the basis for their existence. Crucial to these definitions is that it is someone with the wrong "biology" who performs the social roles and expectations of the "wrong" gender. However, as with Man and Woman being the material basis for the social roles and expectations of Manhood and Womanhood, so too are the definitions for the transfeminized and transmasculinzed subjects a material basis for the social roles and expectations of Transfeminity and Transmasculinity.

We can now reject the notion that transfemininity is based in a rejection of Manhood and a failure to attain Womanhood as is commonly argued, because we can recognize that the transfeminized subject is a distinct subcategory of Womanhood despite being a subcategory of Men. As such, we are now able to begin divorcing the definition of the transfeminized subject from AGAB and the perceived necessity of the transfeminized subject to be a subcategory of Men. We can thus see that Transfemininity is a set of social roles and expectations that heavily mirror and draw on those from Womanhood, but built into all of these assumptions are both that the transfeminized subject is not capable of reproductive labor, and that they are instead capable of harnessing reproductive labor.

Under this framework, we can see why Transfemininity is so reviled. To men, the transfeminized subject is both an aberration of Womanhood, and a threat to their monopoly on harnessing reproductive labor, a threat to the very material basis of gender and as a whole, that threatens to remove the very constraints of reproductive labor that gender was invented for. It is part of why the autogynophile was so feared compared to the homosexual transexual. Part of why even now on Tumblr trans lesbians are the focus of most of the transmisogynistic vitriol on this site. We can therefore define transmisogyny as the revilement of Transfemininity.

Now is a good time to begin to construct a definition for what constitutes someone who is TME vs TMA. To begin, Transfemininity is a subset of Womanhood, and as such, one must participate in Womanhood to be TMA. This is the first requirement. Secondly, based on the definition of the transfeminized subject, and the penis being the symbol for being able to harness reproductive labor, having a penis while performing Womanhood makes one TMA, however, the reverse is not true. Despite being the symbol for being capable of reproductive labor being a vagina, having one does not make one TME automatically. The determiner there, is whether the individual with a vagina in question is capable of reproductive labor. If they are, and can readily prove that using something such as birth assignment, they are TME. If the individual claims to have previously had a penis and can prove it using birth assignment, they are TMA. This leaves one last question, is someone that participates in womanhood, has a vagina, and does not claim to have previously had a penis but is infertile TMA?

To answer this question, lets first look into the transmasculinzed subject. Transmasculinity is far less reviled than Transfemininity, largely because it does not pose the same inherent threat to the material basis of gender. For men, being infertile does not reduce their status as men, nor remove their power to elevate a Type I woman to a Type II woman, and the transmasculinzed subject is also granted this power, though, following the usual heirarchy, the type of women they are granted access to are largely transfeminized subjects. That said, there is still revilement of Transmasculinity as it attacks the institute of Womanhood by giving Type II women an option other than performance of womanhood to escape their status. We can call this transandrophobia since it is the running term. Lets now construct definitions of TME and TMA for transandrophobia, referred to as TME* and TMA*.

As with the transmisogyny version, the first requirment for being TMA* is to participate in Manhood. The second requirement is to be capable of reproductive labor, often shorthanded by the symbol of the vagina. We do not however, have the same dilemma in defining TME* as with TME. If you have a penis, regardless of fertility status, you are TME* unless you claim to have previously had a vagina and can prove it with something like birth assignment. This leaves open the very obvious conclusion that if a transmasculinzed subject obtains a penis and does not reveal that he previously had a vagina, his status as TMA* is revoked. I believe this to be a reasonable analysis of the dynamic and accurately describes the concept of going stealth.

Circling back to the definitions of TME and TMA, can a transfeminized subject that has gotten a vagina also revoke her status of being TMA despite being incapable of reproductive labor, like a transmasculinzed subject can of being TMA*? I believe the answer to be yes. As such, the complete definition for someone TMA is: someone that performs womanhood, is incapable of reproductive labor, and either has a penis, or advertises the fact that she has had one at some point.

This lets us finally return to the question of whether someone AFAB can be TMA. Based on our definition, so long as the individual is capable of reproductive labor (ie. getting pregnant) they are not TMA. Further, if they have a vagina and advertise that they have always had a vagina, they are not TMA. However, if they claim to have previously had a penis, or currently have a penis, then they are in fact TMA.

While this definition may seem crude and reductive, I think it is far more distinctive and disambiguating than other definitions, I believe it is important not to use vague definitions for transfeminized subjects such as failure to engage in Womanhood, or even more reductive things like "being too masculine while being a woman", and does not rely solely on birth assignment like with the traditional current definition most transfeminists use.

Crude tl;dr - If you can get pregnant you are TME, if you are a woman who has or has had a penis you are TMA.

[cute-little-fly]

This is what I don’t understand about that criticism. All the show happened because of the first Stolitz night stand. They are the core from which all the rest of the narratives stem.

Without that the imp gang would be like just a normal pack of murder goons in wrath. Or maybe in pride but not in this way. Or well, eventually they could find a way to go to earth legally and with less issues, and no major problems would arise. Or, alternatively, Stolas would have to be eliminated, and the social class component of the series highly diminished if there is no main character coming from a privileged background.

Also, I think that this season devoted more to Stolitz because they need space for introducing a lot of things in season 3, so they needed to have them in a more solidified position to be able to focus on other characters. Of course, the couple will always be a central part of it, but I am excited to see the Goetia and other things of the world.

Which are the best rated and usually preferred episodes? The Fizz, and the more Stolitz focused ones. This show is at its best when it is Yaoi. Sorry, but is true.

I don't think the "Stolitz has taken over the whole show" crowd realizes that if you take away Blitzø and Stolas' relationship, what exactly would Helluva Boss be left with?

The I.M.P. company? The whole reason it exists is because Blitzø seduced Stolas and slept with him to steal the grimoire, which he needed to do his job until he got an asmodean crystal, and those aren't exactly easy to obtain, since they're kept by one of the deadly sins and he doesn't give them to just anyone.

Side characters like Fizz, Ozzie, Striker or Verosika? All good characters, but I don't think any of them would be able to carry their own show. Maybe a few episodes and a short or two, but that's all.

One-off/recurring gag characters like Wally Wackford and Emberlynn? Puh-lease. They're more entertaining when used sparingly. Two full seasons about them would just get old and stop being funny by the fifth episode.

Helluva Boss just wouldn't be Helluva Boss without Stolitz.

[utilitycaster]

I really appreciate your thorough breakdowns of this campaign's end, because I fell off of watching live back in summer 2023 (personal reasons), and though I kept myself pretty up-to-date with subsequent events I eventually started thinking "I'll come back when interesting things start happening" and I just never seemed to find that point. Good to know I'm far from the only one pretty displeased with how things apparently left off.

To throw in my two cents, I think you're spot-on with your impression of what kind of people those who think this was a narratively satisfying ending are. Specifically, I think it's coming from the type of people who find certain characters (I'm sure you can guess who) extremely relatable—difficult childhood, and/or early adulthood trauma, and/or were taken advantage of in grief—but refuse to acknowledge the fact that recovering from these things requires choosing to personally put in effort to do so. They want these characters to be handed a perfect happy ending, no work required, no matter what, and so when those of us who find that unsatisfactory dare to voice that opinion it's a personal attack on them saying that they don't deserve to be handed joy without working for it, because if their favorite characters can have it, so should they. (Because fiction is reflective of reality, so clearly that's what that means, I guess.) It's frustrating because I'd had high hopes for Imogen and Laudna's story in the beginning of the campaign, but there was a point where I just couldn't put up with their deliberate stagnation anymore. Definitely could have been psychologically interesting, though.

(And, just to be perfectly clear, this isn't a dig at anyone in the cast or anything—I suspect this was a case of too much ambition from previous success leading to less careful planning all around. I'm admittedly not super clear on exactly what the deal was with all the gods in the finale, though, so it's entirely possible I'm missing something major.)

Thanks! And yeah that does really feel like it in the end. Like, it is a campaign that seems to mainly be enjoyed by excuse-makers who want there to be a reason why it's right and proper to enjoy it and that criticizing it is inherently bad and wrong. Like, sorry man, if you see a post in the wild from someone you've never seen before indicating a character you relate to is stagnant and childish and your response isn't to say "well, I believe that's untrue, I'll make my own post about this" or "I don't like this so I'll block them" or "hmmmm maybe they are stagnant and childish, but they are relatable for other reasons, which are:" but instead to complain to them about how they are judging you, a random person they've never spoken to, you are the problem! You are the one feeling judged by a stranger who doesn't know you exist and who has no power to do anything beyond say something mean to you, and instead of going "wait this doesn't fucking matter" you are demanding the world bend around you to your will, and playing the victim when the world says "lmao no."

Like, again, no one is actually defending the campaign meaningfully. They're coming up with excuses why they can't or they're coming up with incorrect reasons why critique is impermissible (that fortunately no one is listening to) - that it's improv, that it's happy, that people aren't couching their posts sufficiently in This Is Only My Opinion (this is not how reviews/crit works, eg this AV Club article on the Severance premiere does not have Saloni Gajjar say "this is only my opinion" at the top because anyone who is smart enough to engage with media criticism in the first place doesn't need to be told this; there is a reason we are treating people with disdain and that's because the very act of being bothered by people phrasing criticism without This Is Only My Opinion is an immediate sign you are, in fact, not smart enough to get on this ride). It's the same with the characters. They want something to have suffered enough to be beyond criticism, and the rest of the fandom has (correctly) rejected that paradigm entirely, and they have no way to counter anything head on.

And as for Imogen and Laudna...while I think many things in the campaign were flaws that went beyond them, they certainly were at the heart of several, and I think had their relationship been a genuine slowburn - had Laudna rejected Imogen and remained mad in episode 65, as Laura outright expected - it might have been something worth our while.

I do think the bulk of...not even blame, simply responsibility, rests on Matt, and I do think it's mostly stretched thin/burnout/not realizing how this concept required much more work than past campaigns did, and again, I don't hold it against the cast (their live show in Philly this December was great, the CRF one-shot was fun, the Assassin's Creed one-shot was fun, and EXU Divergence has been stellar) but yeah it didn't work very well.