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mostlysignssomeportents · 10 months ago

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My McLuhan lecture on enshittification

IT'S THE LAST DAY for the Kickstarter for the audiobook of The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

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Last night, I gave the annual Marshall McLuhan lecture at the Transmediale festival in Berlin. The event was sold out and while there's a video that'll be posted soon, they couldn't get a streaming setup installed in the Canadian embassy, where the talk was held:

https://transmediale.de/en/2024/event/mcluhan-2024

The talk went of fabulously, and was followed by commentary from Frederike Kaltheuner (Human Rights Watch) and a discussion moderated by Helen Starr. While you'll have to wait a bit for the video, I thought that I'd post my talk notes from last night for the impatient among you.

I want to thank the festival and the embassy staff for their hard work on an excellent event. And now, on to the talk!

Last year, I coined the term 'enshittification,' to describe the way that platforms decay. That obscene little word did big numbers, it really hit the zeitgeist. I mean, the American Dialect Society made it their Word of the Year for 2023 (which, I suppose, means that now I'm definitely getting a poop emoji on my tombstone).

So what's enshittification and why did it catch fire? It's my theory explaining how the internet was colonized by platforms, and why all those platforms are degrading so quickly and thoroughly, and why it matters – and what we can do about it.

We're all living through the enshittocene, a great enshittening, in which the services that matter to us, that we rely on, are turning into giant piles of shit.

It's frustrating. It's demoralizing. It's even terrifying.

I think that the enshittification framework goes a long way to explaining it, moving us out of the mysterious realm of the 'great forces of history,' and into the material world of specific decisions made by named people – decisions we can reverse and people whose addresses and pitchfork sizes we can learn.

Enshittification names the problem and proposes a solution. It's not just a way to say 'things are getting worse' (though of course, it's fine with me if you want to use it that way. It's an English word. We don't have der Rat für Englisch Rechtschreibung. English is a free for all. Go nuts, meine Kerle).

But in case you want to use enshittification in a more precise, technical way, let's examine how enshittification works.

It's a three stage process: First, platforms are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.

Let's do a case study. What could be better than Facebook?

Facebook is a company that was founded to nonconsensually rate the fuckability of Harvard undergrads, and it only got worse after that.

When Facebook started off, it was only open to US college and high-school kids with .edu and k-12.us addresses. But in 2006, it opened up to the general public. It told them: “Yes, I know you’re all using Myspace. But Myspace is owned by Rupert Murdoch, an evil, crapulent senescent Australian billionaire, who spies on you with every hour that God sends.

“Sign up with Facebook and we will never spy on you. Come and tell us who matters to you in this world, and we will compose a personal feed consisting solely of what those people post for consumption by those who choose to follow them.”

That was stage one. Facebook had a surplus — its investors’ cash — and it allocated that surplus to its end-users. Those end-users proceeded to lock themselves into FB. FB — like most tech businesses — has network effects on its side. A product or service enjoys network effects when it improves as more people sign up to use it. You joined FB because your friends were there, and then others signed up because you were there.

But FB didn’t just have high network effects, it had high switching costs. Switching costs are everything you have to give up when you leave a product or service. In Facebook’s case, it was all the friends there that you followed and who followed you. In theory, you could have all just left for somewhere else; in practice, you were hamstrung by the collective action problem.

It’s hard to get lots of people to do the same thing at the same time. You and your six friends here are going to struggle to agree on where to get drinks after tonight's lecture. How were you and your 200 Facebook friends ever gonna agree on when it was time to leave Facebook, and where to go?

So FB’s end-users engaged in a mutual hostage-taking that kept them glued to the platform. Then FB exploited that hostage situation, withdrawing the surplus from end-users and allocating it to two groups of business customers: advertisers, and publishers.

To the advertisers, FB said, 'Remember when we told those rubes we wouldn’t spy on them? We lied. We spy on them from asshole to appetite. We will sell you access to that surveillance data in the form of fine-grained ad-targeting, and we will devote substantial engineering resources to thwarting ad-fraud. Your ads are dirt cheap to serve, and we’ll spare no expense to make sure that when you pay for an ad, a real human sees it.'

To the publishers, FB said, 'Remember when we told those rubes we would only show them the things they asked to see? We lied!Upload short excerpts from your website, append a link, and we will nonconsensually cram it into the eyeballs of users who never asked to see it. We are offering you a free traffic funnel that will drive millions of users to your website to monetize as you please, and those users will become stuck to you when they subscribe to your feed.' And so advertisers and publishers became stuck to the platform, too, dependent on those users.

The users held each other hostage, and those hostages took the publishers and advertisers hostage, too, so that everyone was locked in.

Which meant it was time for the third stage of enshittification: withdrawing surplus from everyone and handing it to Facebook’s shareholders.

For the users, that meant dialing down the share of content from accounts you followed to a homeopathic dose, and filling the resulting void with ads and pay-to-boost content from publishers.

For advertisers, that meant jacking up prices and drawing down anti-fraud enforcement, so advertisers paid much more for ads that were far less likely to be seen by a person.

For publishers, this meant algorithmically suppressing the reach of their posts unless they included an ever-larger share of their articles in the excerpt, until anything less than fulltext was likely to be be disqualified from being sent to your subscribers, let alone included in algorithmic suggestion feeds.

And then FB started to punish publishers for including a link back to their own sites, so they were corralled into posting fulltext feeds with no links, meaning they became commodity suppliers to Facebook, entirely dependent on the company both for reach and for monetization, via the increasingly crooked advertising service.

When any of these groups squawked, FB just repeated the lesson that every tech executive learned in the Darth Vader MBA: 'I have altered the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.'

Facebook now enters the most dangerous phase of enshittification. It wants to withdraw all available surplus, and leave just enough residual value in the service to keep end users stuck to each other, and business customers stuck to end users, without leaving anything extra on the table, so that every extractable penny is drawn out and returned to its shareholders.

But that’s a very brittle equilibrium, because the difference between “I hate this service but I can’t bring myself to quit it,” and “Jesus Christ, why did I wait so long to quit? Get me the hell out of here!” is razor thin

All it takes is one Cambridge Analytica scandal, one whistleblower, one livestreamed mass-shooting, and users bolt for the exits, and then FB discovers that network effects are a double-edged sword.

If users can’t leave because everyone else is staying, when when everyone starts to leave, there’s no reason not to go, too.

That’s terminal enshittification, the phase when a platform becomes a pile of shit. This phase is usually accompanied by panic, which tech bros euphemistically call 'pivoting.'

Which is how we get pivots like, 'In the future, all internet users will be transformed into legless, sexless, low-polygon, heavily surveilled cartoon characters in a virtual world called "metaverse," that we ripped off from a 25-year-old satirical cyberpunk novel.'

That's the procession of enshittification. If enshittification were a disease, we'd call that enshittification's "natural history." But that doesn't tell you how the enshittification works, nor why everything is enshittifying right now, and without those details, we can't know what to do about it.

What led to the enshittocene? What is it about this moment that led to the Great Enshittening? Was it the end of the Zero Interest Rate Policy? Was it a change in leadership at the tech giants? Is Mercury in retrograde?

None of the above.

The period of free fed money certainly led to tech companies having a lot of surplus to toss around. But Facebook started enshittifying long before ZIRP ended, so did Amazon, Microsoft and Google.

Some of the tech giants got new leaders. But Google's enshittification got worse when the founders came back to oversee the company's AI panic (excuse me, 'AI pivot').

And it can't be Mercury in retrograde, because I'm a cancer, and as everyone knows, cancers don't believe in astrology.

When a whole bunch of independent entities all change in the same way at once, that's a sign that the environment has changed, and that's what happened to tech.

Tech companies, like all companies, have conflicting imperatives. On the one hand, they want to make money. On the other hand, making money involves hiring and motivating competent staff, and making products that customers want to buy. The more value a company permits its employees and customers to carve off, the less value it can give to its shareholders.

The equilibrium in which companies produce things we like in honorable ways at a fair price is one in which charging more, worsening quality, and harming workers costs more than the company would make by playing dirty.

There are four forces that discipline companies, serving as constraints on their enshittificatory impulses.

First: competition. Companies that fear you will take your business elsewhere are cautious about worsening quality or raising prices.

Second: regulation. Companies that fear a regulator will fine them more than they expect to make from cheating, will cheat less.

These two forces affect all industries, but the next two are far more tech-specific.

Third: self-help. Computers are extremely flexible, and so are the digital products and services we make from them. The only computer we know how to make is the Turing-complete Von Neumann machine, a computer that can run every valid program.

That means that users can always avail themselves of programs that undo the anti-features that shift value from them to a company's shareholders. Think of a board-room table where someone says, 'I've calculated that making our ads 20% more invasive will net us 2% more revenue per user.'

In a digital world, someone else might well say 'Yes, but if we do that, 20% of our users will install ad-blockers, and our revenue from those users will drop to zero, forever.'

This means that digital companies are constrained by the fear that some enshittificatory maneuver will prompt their users to google, 'How do I disenshittify this?'

Fourth and finally: workers. Tech workers have very low union density, but that doesn't mean that tech workers don't have labor power. The historical "talent shortage" of the tech sector meant that workers enjoyed a lot of leverage over their bosses. Workers who disagreed with their bosses could quit and walk across the street and get another job – a better job.

They knew it, and their bosses knew it. Ironically, this made tech workers highly exploitable. Tech workers overwhelmingly saw themselves as founders in waiting, entrepreneurs who were temporarily drawing a salary, heroic figures of the tech mission.

That's why mottoes like Google's 'don't be evil' and Facebook's 'make the world more open and connected' mattered: they instilled a sense of mission in workers. It's what Fobazi Ettarh calls 'vocational awe, 'or Elon Musk calls being 'extremely hardcore.'

Tech workers had lots of bargaining power, but they didn't flex it when their bosses demanded that they sacrifice their health, their families, their sleep to meet arbitrary deadlines.

So long as their bosses transformed their workplaces into whimsical 'campuses,' with gyms, gourmet cafeterias, laundry service, massages and egg-freezing, workers could tell themselves that they were being pampered – rather than being made to work like government mules.

But for bosses, there's a downside to motivating your workers with appeals to a sense of mission, namely: your workers will feel a sense of mission. So when you ask them to enshittify the products they ruined their health to ship, workers will experience a sense of profound moral injury, respond with outrage, and threaten to quit.

Thus tech workers themselves were the final bulwark against enshittification,

The pre-enshittification era wasn't a time of better leadership. The executives weren't better. They were constrained. Their worst impulses were checked by competition, regulation, self-help and worker power.

So what happened?

One by one, each of these constraints was eroded until it dissolved, leaving the enshittificatory impulse unchecked, ushering in the enshittoscene.

It started with competition. From the Gilded Age until the Reagan years, the purpose of competition law was to promote competition. US antitrust law treated corporate power as dangerous and sought to blunt it. European antitrust laws were modeled on US ones, imported by the architects of the Marshall Plan.

But starting in the neoliberal era, competition authorities all over the world adopted a doctrine called 'consumer welfare,' which held that monopolies were evidence of quality. If everyone was shopping at the same store and buying the same product, that meant it was the best store, selling the best product – not that anyone was cheating.

And so all over the world, governments stopped enforcing their competition laws. They just ignored them as companies flouted them. Those companies merged with their major competitors, absorbed small companies before they could grow to be big threats. They held an orgy of consolidation that produced the most inbred industries imaginable, whole sectors grown so incestuous they developed Habsburg jaws, from eyeglasses to sea freight, glass bottles to payment processing, vitamin C to beer.

Most of our global economy is dominated by five or fewer global companies. If smaller companies refuse to sell themselves to these cartels, the giants have free rein to flout competition law further, with 'predatory pricing' that keeps an independent rival from gaining a foothold.

When Diapers.com refused Amazon's acquisition offer, Amazon lit $100m on fire, selling diapers way below cost for months, until diapers.com went bust, and Amazon bought them for pennies on the dollar, and shut them down.

Competition is a distant memory. As Tom Eastman says, the web has devolved into 'five giant websites filled with screenshots of text from the other four,' so these giant companies no longer fear losing our business.

Lily Tomlin used to do a character on the TV show Laugh In, an AT&T telephone operator who'd do commercials for the Bell system. Each one would end with her saying 'We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company.'

Today's giants are not constrained by competition.

They don't care. They don't have to. They're Google.

That's the first constraint gone, and as it slipped away, the second constraint – regulation – was also doomed.

When an industry consists of hundreds of small- and medium-sized enterprises, it is a mob, a rabble. Hundreds of companies can't agree on what to tell Parliament or Congress or the Commission. They can't even agree on how to cater a meeting where they'd discuss the matter.

But when a sector dwindles to a bare handful of dominant firms, it ceases to be a rabble and it becomes a cartel.

Five companies, or four, or three, or two, or just one company finds it easy to converge on a single message for their regulators, and without "wasteful competition" eroding their profits, they have plenty of cash to spread around.

Like Facebook, handing former UK deputy PM Nick Clegg millions every year to sleaze around Europe, telling his former colleagues that Facebook is the only thing standing between 'European Cyberspace' and the Chinese Communist Party.

Tech's regulatory capture allows it to flout the rules that constrain less concentrated sectors. They can pretend that violating labor, consumer and privacy laws is fine, because they violate them with an app.

This is why competition matters: it's not just because competition makes companies work harder and share value with customers and workers, it's because competition keeps companies from becoming too big to fail, and too big to jail.

Now, there's plenty of things we don't want improved through competition, like privacy invasions. After the EU passed its landmark privacy law, the GDPR, there was a mass-extinction event for small EU ad-tech companies. These companies disappeared en masse, and that's fine.

They were even more invasive and reckless than US-based Big Tech companies. After all, they had less to lose. We don't want competition in commercial surveillance. We don't want to produce increasing efficiency in violating our human rights.

But: Google and Facebook – who pretend they are called Alphabet and Meta – have been unscathed by European privacy law. That's not because they don't violate the GDPR (they do!). It's because they pretend they are headquartered in Ireland, one of the EU's most notorious corporate crime-havens.

And Ireland competes with the EU other crime havens – Malta, Luxembourg, Cyprus and sometimes the Netherlands – to see which country can offer the most hospitable environment for all sorts of crimes. Because the kind of company that can fly an Irish flag of convenience is mobile enough to change to a Maltese flag if the Irish start enforcing EU laws.

Which is how you get an Irish Data Protection Commission that processes fewer than 20 major cases per year, while Germany's data commissioner handles more than 500 major cases, even though Ireland is nominal home to the most privacy-invasive companies on the continent.

So Google and Facebook get to act as though they are immune to privacy law, because they violate the law with an app; just like Uber can violate labor law and claim it doesn't count because they do it with an app.

Uber's labor-pricing algorithm offers different drivers different payments for the same job, something Veena Dubal calls 'algorithmic wage discrimination.' If you're more selective about which jobs you'll take, Uber will pay you more for every ride.

But if you take those higher payouts and ditch whatever side-hustle let you cover your bills which being picky about your Uber drives, Uber will incrementally reduce the payment, toggling up and down as you grow more or less selective, playing you like a fish on a line until you eventually – inevitably – lose to the tireless pricing robot, and end up stuck with low wages and all your side-hustles gone.

Then there's Amazon, which violates consumer protection laws, but says it doesn't matter, because they do it with an app. Amazon makes $38b/year from its 'advertising' system. 'Advertising' in quotes because they're not selling ads, they're selling placements in search results.

The companies that spend the most on 'ads' go to the top, even if they're offering worse products at higher prices. If you click the first link in an Amazon search result, on average you will pay a 29% premium over the best price on the service. Click one of the first four items and you'll pay a 25% premium. On average you have to go seventeen items down to find the best deal on Amazon.

Any merchant that did this to you in a physical storefront would be fined into oblivion. But Amazon has captured its regulators, so it can violate your rights, and say, "it doesn't count, we did it with an app"

This is where that third constraint, self-help, would sure come in handy. If you don't want your privacy violated, you don't need to wait for the Irish privacy regulator to act, you can just install an ad-blocker.

More than half of all web users are blocking ads. But the web is an open platform, developed in the age when tech was hundreds of companies at each others' throats, unable to capture their regulators.

Today, the web is being devoured by apps, and apps are ripe for enshittification. Regulatory capture isn't just the ability to flout regulation, it's also the ability to co-opt regulation, to wield regulation against your adversaries.

Today's tech giants got big by exploiting self-help measures. When Facebook was telling Myspace users they needed to escape Rupert Murdoch’s evil crapulent Australian social media panopticon, it didn’t just say to those Myspacers, 'Screw your friends, come to Facebook and just hang out looking at the cool privacy policy until they get here'

It gave them a bot. You fed the bot your Myspace username and password, and it would login to Myspace and pretend to be you, and scrape everything waiting in your inbox, copying it to your FB inbox, and you could reply to it and it would autopilot your replies back to Myspace.

When Microsoft was choking off Apple's market oxygen by refusing to ship a functional version of Microsoft Office for the Mac – so that offices were throwing away their designers' Macs and giving them PCs with upgraded graphics cards and Windows versions of Photoshop and Illustrator – Steve Jobs didn't beg Bill Gates to update Mac Office.

He got his technologists to reverse-engineer Microsoft Office, and make a compatible suite, the iWork Suite, whose apps, Pages, Numbers and Keynote could perfectly read and write Microsoft's Word, Excel and Powerpoint files.

When Google entered the market, it sent its crawler to every web server on Earth, where it presented itself as a web-user: 'Hi! Hello! Do you have any web pages? Thanks! How about some more? How about more?'

But every pirate wants to be an admiral. When Facebook, Apple and Google were doing this adversarial interoperability, that was progress. If you try to do it to them, that's piracy.

Try to make an alternative client for Facebook and they'll say you violated US laws like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and EU laws like Article 6 of the EUCD.

Try to make an Android program that can run iPhone apps and play back the data from Apple's media stores and they'd bomb you until the rubble bounced.

Try to scrape all of Google and they'll nuke you until you glowed.

Tech's regulatory capture is mind-boggling. Take that law I mentioned earlier, Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act or DMCA. Bill Clinton signed it in 1998, and the EU imported it as Article 6 of the EUCD in 2001

It is a blanket prohibition on removing any kind of encryption that restricts access to a copyrighted work – things like ripping DVDs or jailbreaking a phone – with penalties of a five-year prison sentence and a $500k fine for a first offense.

This law has been so broadened that it can be used to imprison creators for granting access to their own creations

Here's how that works: In 2008, Amazon bought Audible, an audiobook platform, in an anticompetitive acquisition. Today, Audible is a monopolist with more than 90% of the audiobook market. Audible requires that all creators on their platform sell with Amazon's "digital rights management," which locks it to Amazon's apps.

So say I write a book, then I read it into a mic, then I pay a director and an engineer thousands of dollars to turn that into an audiobook, and sell it to you on the monopoly platform, Audible, that controls more than 90% of the market.

If I later decide to leave Amazon and want to let you come with me to a rival platform, I am out of luck. If I supply you with a tool to remove Amazon's encryption from my audiobook, so you can play it in another app, I commit a felony, punishable by a 5-year sentence and a half-million-dollar fine, for a first offense.

That's a stiffer penalty than you would face if you simply pirated the audiobook from a torrent site. But it's also harsher than the punishment you'd get for shoplifting the audiobook on CD from a truck-stop. It's harsher than the sentence you'd get for hijacking the truck that delivered the CD.

So think of our ad-blockers again. 50% of web users are running ad-blockers. 0% of app users are running ad-blockers, because adding a blocker to an app requires that you first remove its encryption, and that's a felony (Jay Freeman calls this 'felony contempt of business-model').

So when someone in a board-room says, 'let's make our ads 20% more obnoxious and get a 2% revenue increase,' no one objects that this might prompt users to google, 'how do I block ads?' After all, the answer is, 'you can't.'

Indeed, it's more likely that someone in that board room will say, 'let's make our ads 100% more obnoxious and get a 10% revenue increase' (this is why every company wants you to install an app instead of using its website).

There's no reason that gig workers who are facing algorithmic wage discrimination couldn't install a counter-app that coordinated among all the Uber drivers to reject all jobs unless they reach a certain pay threshold.

No reason except felony contempt of business model, the threat that the toolsmiths who built that counter-app would go broke or land in prison, for violating DMCA 1201, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, trademark, copyright, patent, contract, trade secrecy, nondisclosure and noncompete, or in other words: 'IP law.'

'IP' is just a euphemism for 'a law that lets me reach beyond the walls of my company and control the conduct of my critics, competitors and customers.' And 'app' is just a euphemism for 'a web-page wrapped enough IP to make it a felony to mod it to protect the labor, consumer and privacy rights of its user.'

We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company.

But what about that fourth constraint: workers?

For decades, tech workers' high degrees of bargaining power and vocational awe put a ceiling on enshittification. Even after the tech sector shrank to a handful of giants. Even after they captured their regulators so they could violate our consumer, privacy and labor rights. Even after they created 'felony contempt of business model' and extinguished self-help for tech users. Tech was still constrained by their workers' sense of moral injury in the face of the imperative to enshittify.

Remember when tech workers dreamed of working for a big company for a few years, before striking out on their own to start their own company that would knock that tech giant over?

Then that dream shrank to: work for a giant for a few years, quit, do a fake startup, get acqui-hired by your old employer, as a complicated way of getting a bonus and a promotion.

Then the dream shrank further: work for a tech giant for your whole life, get free kombucha and massages on Wednesdays.

And now, the dream is over. All that’s left is: work for a tech giant until they fire your ass, like those 12,000 Googlers who got fired last year six months after a stock buyback that would have paid their salaries for the next 27 years.

Workers are no longer a check on their bosses' worst impulses

Today, the response to 'I refuse to make this product worse' is, 'turn in your badge and don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.'

I get that this is all a little depressing

OK, really depressing.

But hear me out! We've identified the disease. We've traced its natural history. We've identified its underlying mechanism. Now we can get to work on a cure.

There are four constraints that prevent enshittification: competition, regulation, self-help and labor.

To reverse enshittification and guard against its reemergence, we must restore and strengthen each of these.

On competition, it's actually looking pretty good. The EU, the UK, the US, Canada, Australia, Japan and China are all doing more on competition than they have in two generations. They're blocking mergers, unwinding existing ones, taking action on predatory pricing and other sleazy tactics.

Remember, in the US and Europe, we already have the laws to do this – we just stopped enforcing them in the Helmut Kohl era.

I've been fighting these fights with the Electronic Frontier Foundation for 22 years now, and I've never seen a more hopeful moment for sound, informed tech policy.

Now, the enshittifiers aren't taking this laying down. The business press can't stop talking about how stupid and old-fashioned all this stuff is. They call people like me 'hipster antitrust,' and they hate any regulator who actually does their job.

Take Lina Khan, the brilliant head of the US Federal Trade Commission, who has done more in three years on antitrust than the combined efforts of all her predecessors over the past 40 years. Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal has run more than 80 editorials trashing Khan, insisting that she's an ineffectual ideologue who can't get anything done.

Sure, Rupert, that's why you ran 80 editorials about her.

Because she can't get anything done.

Even Canada is stepping up on competition. Canada! Land of the evil billionaire! From Ted Rogers, who owns the country's telecoms; to Galen Weston, who owns the country's grocery stores; to the Irvings, who basically own the entire province of New Brunswick.

Even Canada is doing something about this. Last autumn, Trudeau's government promised to update Canada's creaking competition law to finally ban 'abuse of dominance.'

I mean, wow. I guess when Galen Weston decided to engage in a criminal conspiracy to fix the price of bread – the most Les Miz-ass crime imaginable – it finally got someone's attention, eh?

Competition has a long way to go, but all over the world, competition law is seeing a massive revitalization. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher put antitrust law in a coma in the 80s – but it's awake, it's back, and it's pissed.

What about regulation? How will we get tech companies to stop doing that one weird trick of adding 'with an app' to their crimes and escaping enforcement?

Well, here in the EU, they're starting to figure it out. This year, the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act went into effect, and they let people who get screwed by tech companies go straight to the federal European courts, bypassing the toothless watchdogs in Europe's notorious corporate crime havens like Ireland.

In America, they might finally get a digital privacy law. You people have no idea how backwards US privacy law is. The last time the US Congress enacted a broadly applicable privacy law was in 1988.

The Video Privacy Protection Act makes it a crime for video-store clerks to leak your video-rental history. It was passed after a right-wing judge who was up for the Supreme Court had his rentals published in a DC newspaper. The rentals weren't even all that embarrassing!

Sure, that judge, Robert Bork, wasn't confirmed for the Supreme Court, but that was because he was a virulently racist loudmouth and a crook who served as Nixon's Solicitor General.

But Congress got the idea that their video records might be next, freaked out, and passed the VPPA.

That was the last time Americans got a big, national privacy law. Nineteen. Eighty. Eight.

It's been a minute.

And the thing is, there's a lot of people who are angry about stuff that has some nexus with America's piss-poor privacy landscape. Worried that Facebook turned Grampy into a Qanon? That Insta made your teen anorexic? That TikTok is brainwashing millennials into quoting Osama Bin Laden?

Or that cops are rolling up the identities of everyone at a Black Lives Matter protest or the Jan 6 riots by getting location data from Google?

Or that Red State Attorneys General are tracking teen girls to out-of-state abortion clinics?

Or that Black people are being discriminated against by online lending or hiring platforms?

Or that someone is making AI deepfake porn of you?

Having a federal privacy law with a private right of action – which means that individuals can sue companies that violate their privacy – would go a long way to rectifying all of these problems. There's a big coalition for that kind of privacy law.

What about self-help? That's a lot farther away, alas.

The EU's DMA will force tech companies to open up their walled gardens for interoperation. You'll be able to use Whatsapp to message people on iMessage, or quit Facebook and move to Mastodon, but still send messages to the people left behind.

But if you want to reverse-engineer one of those Big Tech products and mod it to work for you, not them, the EU's got nothing for you.

This is an area ripe for improvement, and I think the US might be the first ones to open this up.

It's certainly on-brand for the EU to be forcing tech companies to do things a certain way, while the US simply takes away tech companies' abilities to prevent others from changing how their stuff works.

My big hope here is that Stein's Law will take hold: 'Anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop'

Letting companies decide how their customers must use their products is simply too tempting an invitation to mischief. HP has a whole building full of engineers thinking of new ways to lock your printer to its official ink cartridges, forcing you to spend $10,000/gallon on ink to print your boarding passes and shopping lists.

It's offensive. The only people who don't agree are the people running the monopolies in all the other industries, like the med-tech monopolists who are locking their insulin pumps to their glucose monitors, turning people with diabetes into walking inkjet printers.

Finally, there's labor. Here in Europe, there's much higher union density than in the US, which American tech barons are learning the hard way. There is nothing more satisfying in the daily news than the latest salvo by Nordic unions against that Tesla guy (Musk is the most Edison-ass Tesla guy imaginable).

But even in the USA, there's a massive surge in tech unions. Tech workers are realizing that they aren't founders in waiting. The days of free massages and facial piercings and getting to wear black tee shirts that say things your boss doesn't understand are coming to an end.

In Seattle, Amazon's tech workers walked out in sympathy with Amazon's warehouse workers, because they're all workers.

The only reason the tech workers aren't monitored by AI that notifies their managers if they visit the toilet during working hours is their rapidly dwindling bargaining power. The way things are going, Amazon programmers are going to be pissing in bottles next to their workstations (for a guy who built a penis-shaped rocket, Jeff Bezos really hates our kidneys).

We're seeing bold, muscular, global action on competition, regulation and labor, with self-help bringing up the rear. It's not a moment too soon, because the bad news is, enshittification is coming to every industry.

If it's got a networked computer in it, the people who made it can run the Darth Vader MBA playbook on it, changing the rules from moment to moment, violating your rights and then saying 'It's OK, we did it with an app.'

From Mercedes renting you your accelerator pedal by the month to Internet of Things dishwashers that lock you into proprietary dishsoap, enshittification is metastasizing into every corner of our lives.

Software doesn't eat the world, it enshittifies it

But there's a bright side to all this: if everyone is threatened by enshittification, then everyone has a stake in disenshittification.

Just as with privacy law in the US, the potential anti-enshittification coalition is massive, it's unstoppable.

The cynics among you might be skeptical that this will make a difference. After all, isn't "enshittification" the same as "capitalism"?

Well, no.

Look, I'm not going to cape for capitalism here. I'm hardly a true believer in markets as the most efficient allocators of resources and arbiters of policy – if there was ever any doubt, capitalism's total failure to grapple with the climate emergency surely erases it.

But the capitalism of 20 years ago made space for a wild and wooly internet, a space where people with disfavored views could find each other, offer mutual aid, and organize.

The capitalism of today has produced a global, digital ghost mall, filled with botshit, crapgadgets from companies with consonant-heavy brand-names, and cryptocurrency scams.

The internet isn't more important than the climate emergency, nor gender justice, racial justice, genocide, or inequality.

But the internet is the terrain we'll fight those fights on. Without a free, fair and open internet, the fight is lost before it's joined.

We can reverse the enshittification of the internet. We can halt the creeping enshittification of every digital device.

We can build a better, enshittification-resistant digital nervous system, one that is fit to coordinate the mass movements we will need to fight fascism, end genocide, and save our planet and our species.

Martin Luther King said 'It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.'

And it may be true that the law can't force corporate sociopaths to conceive of you as a human being entitled to dignity and fair treatment, and not just an ambulatory wallet, a supply of gut-bacteria for the immortal colony organism that is a limited liability corporation.

But it can make that exec fear you enough to treat you fairly and afford you dignity, even if he doesn't think you deserve it.

And I think that's pretty important.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/30/go-nuts-meine-kerle#ich-bin-ein-bratapfel/a>

Back the Kickstarter for the audiobook of The Bezzle here!

Image: Drahtlos (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Motherboard_Intel_386.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

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#pluralistic #transmediale #lectures #enshittification #big tech #berlin #mcluhan lecture #Youtube

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x-ref · 6 months ago

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Uncanny X-Men Giant-Size Annual #9 by Chris Claremont and Art Adams.

Can you get a better title page than that? It's like you're about to read a book. What did you read this summer? I read one massively wordy X-Men annual, and it was awesome.

#uncanny xmen #chris claremont #art adams #marvel comics #1980s

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uzumaki-rebellion · 2 years ago

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“The Offering” Part 1 of 3 (A Namor of Talokan Fic)

My first Namor story! Masterlist HERE.

Summary:

A young Wakandan woman attends an annual Mama Wati celebration to honor the sea spirit and surf with friends. She encounters a strange man in the ocean who claims to be from a land as powerful as hers. A man who calls himself, Namor.

NSFW. Smut. 18+. (7,330 words) Namor x Black Female OC

youtube

"You're ruling the way that I move And I breathe your air You only can rescue me This is my prayer"

Sade – "Cherish The Day"

It was the day of offerings for Mama Wati.

No time of the year ever made Lebadi happier than the first days of summer in Wakanda when the Border Tribe region celebrated the deities of the deep waters. Bast, Sekmet, and other higher powers were recognized inland, but on the sea, Mama Wati ruled everything. From the fishermen and fisherwomen to the military patrols on the ocean by the military, and everyday citizens, the big water was respected and revered. Mama Wati held sway there, and the annual offerings and celebration excited Lebadi beyond belief. Birnin S'Yan faced the sea and thousands of Wakandans made the trek across the mountains to the shorelands to dance, pay homage, and leave offerings to the mother of the sea.

Lebadi loved the trip because she loved to surf with her friends.

Every year T'limiwati—Revering the Mother of Waters—started the journey of packing up her father's Stealthmaster van with surfboards, firewood, and food. Lebadi drove around to pick up her four friends before they stopped at a temple to pay for blessed offerings to put into the sea. Mama Wati liked sugary treats, blue flowers, and small puff pastries shaped like seashells.

The drive would only take two hours, so her friends, N'ku, Pule, Ausi, and Benya would sing songs with her, eat snacks, and hope to find decent parking.

"We should've taken the monorail," Benya complained, as Lebadi tried her best to find a parking situation large enough for her father's van, but not too far away for them to trudge along with all of their gear.

"Not with all this stuff," N'Ku huffed.

"How about I drop you all off to find a suitable camping spot, and I'll catch up later," Lebadi offered.

Her friends agreed, and she pulled up near a sea wall where they offloaded their things. She happily drove away, knowing she wouldn't have to lug anything, not even her own stuff once she parked. Mama Wati must've known they had a great offering for her because Lebadi was able to snag a parking spot that was only a twenty-minute walk back to the beach.

The pilgrimage that year ran deep. The splendid weather, warm water, and balmy temperature brought out a dense wave of Wakandans for the celebration. Lebadi ran her fingers through her shoulder-length goddess braids she decorated with shells and blue flowers. It was the perfect style for swimming and surfing in seawater. Her skin was already turning a darker red-brown hue from the sun as she tapped her kimoyo beads against her father's car, sending up a protective shield that kept sand, sun, and seawater from damaging the paint.

Tugging on her short shorts that her plump ass cheeks tried to swallow, she checked her bikini top to make sure her plum-sized breasts weren't popping out like they were in the car. The top was a size too small on purpose, but it gave her the desired effect she wanted on N'Ku. He checked her out in the car despite his insistence that they stay friends after a not-so-successful try at a relationship. She thought that being out of college would make her love life easier, but the men around her were pitiful.

The walk to the beach thrilled her by seeing all the elaborate altars and gifts being brought to the beach for Mama Wati. She wished her grandmother was still alive. Their family used to show off by building a giant altar, but once Umi became an ancestor, her family didn't go to the ocean anymore. A pity. Umi taught Lebadi how to surf and she was going to keep up the tradition of surfing for Mama Wati until she was an old woman, too.

"Kgopo molemo!" Lebadi cried out when she caught up to her friend's campsite.

Wicked Good indeed.

They found the perfect location up against a sea bluff that protected them against any wind and was also far enough away from dense crowds hunkered down on the sand. There was a lot of dried and rotten seaweed separating them from folks that attracted flies and a subtle stench that was bearable to them, but unpleasant to others. She didn't care. They had room and privacy for their tents and boards. Gazing across the shore, families erected altars and there was a large old-fashioned blue and white boat decorated with blue flowers and filled with gifts for the sea, waiting to launch beyond the waves.

Wiggling out of her shorts, Lebadi made a show of jiggling her backside. N'Ku ignored her, his eyes fixated on the waves. They were big enough. Over six feet high. She held a hand above her eyes, shading them from the sun to see how far out the swells were, and how fast they were rushing in. Her board rested on her beach blanket, already waxed and ready to go. Checking her kimoyo, they had about ninety minutes to surf before the official ceremony began. They all stretched and put on rashguards, except for N'Ku and Ausi. He had on a full black wetsuit, and Ausi wore a short dark blue wetsuit that hugged her heavy curves.

"Last one in!" Lebadi shouted, kicking up sand.

The others chased after her with their boards and they spent a cracking good time snagging waves left and right until her kimoyo lit up. It was time for the offering ceremony. Lebadi twirled her finger in the air to let the others know it was time to stop. She paddled toward the shore fast when a wave lifted her. She popped up on her board like a rocket shot, balanced her arms, and took a quick glide along the lip of the wave, doing a three-sixty spin before dropping down. Her fingers skimmed the wall of bluish-green water that almost curled over into a nice liquid tunnel, but she overcompensated her balance and fell headfirst, knocking into Pule, whose husky voice shouted her name before he plummeted into the water too.

Soaking wet and full of laughter, the five friends scurried to their campsite to change into ocean-blue cotton tunics. Carrying the small offering basket they purchased at the temple, they delivered it to the large ceremonial boat. Several elders watched over the boat and accepted the gifts people brought. Seven djembe and talking drum leaders beat out a loud drum call and an old woman draped in an eggshell white dress with aquamarine flowers in her hair sang an ancient song to Mama Wati that Lebadi knew by heart. Two men and a woman paddled the offerings away and all the spectators onshore watched it sail far out to sea. The elder continued to sing and in the distance, they humbly observed all the offerings dropped in the water by the small boat crew.

When ululations ripped out from the throats of the onlookers, the drummers kicked up their pounding and Lebadi danced around her friends. They took time to admire the altar displays by families who decorated their own praise for Mama Wati. There were so many dotting the seawall.

They shared a fancy lunch together, and Lebadi relaxed into the fun for the rest of the day. By early evening, families left the beach for the inner-city entertainment. Soon, it was time to spark up a campfire and roast seasoned chicken kebabs and yams after a good surf day.

Lebadi reached into her open tent-flap door for the small paper napkin filled with sugar and special spices for Mama Wati that her grandmother used to make. She pulled off her tunic, revealing her bikini again.

"Be right back," she said.

"Hey, Lebadi. You're not surfing again, are you?" N'Ku asked as she lifted her board from the bluff wall.

"Just putting something out in the water for my Umi. Won't be long," she said.

N'Ku nodded and watched her carry her board back to the ocean. She felt self-conscious about her booty because she knew he was checking it out. Glancing back, she waved at him. He shook his dark locs threaded with shells, and she admired the lean muscular physique he showed off with his delicious sable skin. Bright white teeth gleamed at her. Her heart skipped a little. Maybe something could jump off later.

The far side of the beach was cleared of people, and the dull sound of music and carnival festivities echoed far behind her. Sunlight glinted off of the water with a final showy display of magenta and a sliver of blue for the sunset. She dropped her board on the water and skimmed over small waves, her strong arms paddling toward the orange sun. Straddling her board, she checked her leash, loosening it before she pulled out Umi's offering. She sprinkled the mixture gently into the water. The sugar dissolved, but the spices floated before being washed further out to sea.

"Mama Wati, I know this is your day, but my Umi, she was special to me. She taught me about you… she taught me how to love the ocean and ride the waves. Forgive me for honoring her with you. I don't know when I will be out to the sea again. Bast be blessed in your holy waters. Yibambe."

Lebadi dipped her fingers in the cooling water, cleansing her hands of sugar and spices. Reaching into her hair, she unfastened a flower and dropped it for a small wave to catch. It floated around her surfboard and a peace came over her. She sprawled out flat on her board and let her eyes gaze at the languid water, feeling lazy and free. Drifting off to a mini-sleep from a long day, her board rocked and lifted, gently pacifying her mind.

Minutes later, she opened her eyes and nearly fell off of her board. Two piercing dark brown eyes stared back at her from the water. They were attached to a handsome young man's tawny brown face. His ears were pointed and his dark wavy hair sat plastered around his forehead. A jade septum piercing captured her attention, and then her eyes drifted down to look at the most kissable lips that were parted slightly. His gaze had her transfixed. She held her breath, and he reached for her hand.

Lebadi sat up quickly, and a fresh wave rocked her, throwing her off the board. She splashed around, looking for the man, and glimpsed his feet diving below the surface. Were those tiny wings on his ankles?

She gagged on seawater because her mouth sat agape, and the shock of being spied on subsided. The man wasn't Wakandan. He didn't look like a citizen of their border country neighbors of Canaan or Azania. The man clearly wasn't African of any kind. He didn't look like the colonizers she learned about either, their pale flesh naked and strange like food without seasoning.

Something moved under her.

Lebadi scrambled onto her board and tried to catch the next wave back to shore, berating herself for not hitting her kimoyo quickly enough to film the man on a holo pic. She tapped it before she popped up on her board. A small wave rose and Lebadi rushed to snag it, but her leash stretched behind her and it dragged her off her board. She smacked hard into the water. A dorsal fin popped up, and terror hardened like cement in her stomach.

A great white shark.

Normally, they were confined to Southern Africa, but the shark circling her missed the memo. She struck the water to scare it away, and amazed herself by not screaming. Panic would overtake her if she did. She lunged for her board again and pulled herself out of the water, lying flat and still. The fin came around again and she could only guess at how big it was under the dark water.

"Mama Wati, help me," she whispered to the sea.

A thrashing in the water scared her shitless. She wanted to paddle away, but her arms would look like a tasty snack. Teeth chattering, Lebadi took a chance, sank her arms in, and stroked. A wave lifted her, and she jumped up quickly, focusing on getting to shore. She did no tricks or special moves, just rode the wave straight. Her board fins struck something, but she kept her balance, twisting her body to maintain control until she arrived on the wet sand that snaked between her toes.

"Holy Bast!" she shouted.

Running with her board back to her campsite, she kicked up a fuss. Her friends were tipsy from sharing a bottle of liquor.

"A great white attacked me!"

Her friends stared at her from around the fire. Benya held out the liquor to her.

"Well, shit!" N'Ku said.

Lebadi took a swig of plum liquor, and her friends followed her back to the water. They used lights from their kimoyos to illuminate the waves, but there was nothing out there.

"There was a strange man out there, too. I wonder if he was injured," Lebadi said.

"I don't see anything. Maybe it swam away," N'Ku said.

"I hope so. I'd hate to come all this way and can't surf because Jaws is swimming around," Ausi teased.

They searched the water with her for ten minutes until they grew bored.

"Maybe it was a dolphin, yeah?" N'Ku said.

"No. I know a dolphin fin when I see it. That was a shark out there," Lebadi said.

"And a little merman," Benya snickered.

Lebadi threw up her hands, and they returned to the fire.

More drinking commenced, with Lebadi partaking heavily, and after midnight, they were inside their tents asleep. Everyone turned in except for Lebadi. She let the fire burn down to the hot, glowing red coals before she took a walk along the shore away from their tents. Moonlight turned the peaks of the water into glowing white slashes of silvery light. Checking her kimoyo beads, they didn't do a great job of capturing anything because she didn't change the setting to get a wide 3D view of her surroundings.

Wait… there!

She froze the image. It floated in front of her, and she took her index finger and thumb to enlarge a section and cleared it up.

His eyes!

The static image seemed so strange. Water surrounded his face, with his hair swirling around. His body sat hunched forward like he was riding something…

She covered her mouth with her hand. The great white shark was underneath him. He straddled it like she did her own surfboard. There were no more images better than that one. Perplexed, Lebadi glanced at the water. Moonlight bathed her in tranquil blush-white light, and the soft sound of foamy water tickled her ears. He couldn't be human. Not with those ears. She could swear that she saw non-human feet, too.

She gasped.

He was there.

In the water.

Lebadi stepped forward until her toes were coated with foam and surging water, but she remembered the shark and kept the water at knee level.

"Hey!" she shouted, waving at him.

She didn't expect him to come to her, but he did, striding out of the sea in small tight trunks dripping wet. His hair was slicked back from his face, and it allowed her to observe him in the moonlight and the glow from her kimoyo beads. He was just under six feet, maybe three inches taller than her in comparison. His eyes made him seem larger than life, and their darkness penetrated every inch of her. His shorts hid nothing of the dick print bulge. He studied her too, taking peeks at her body and the lack of clothing she had on with her tiny bikini set. An elaborate choker necklace draped around his neck and she could make out gold cowrie shells, small beads, and strings of—

"Is that vibranium?" she said.

The shock of her tone startled him, and he looked at his jewelry.

Wakanda was the only nation that had vibranium.

"You're bleeding," she said, pointing to his side.

He turned around, and she saw the deep gash in his back.

"How did that happen?" she asked.

He pointed at her and his lips quirked up. Was he smirking?

"Me? How?" she asked.

He moved his hands to tell a story, and she made out that her surfboard had crossed over him and her board fins underneath cut him up.

"Can you understand me, or am I just thinking you can?" she said.

"Tene Tin na’atik … I understand," he said.

His voice scared her. It was forceful and slightly seductive. There was an accent, but she gawked at his ability to know her language. She eased back from him slowly.

"We are isolated from other places. How can you know Wakandan? Where did you get that vibranium? Did you steal that from us?"

Lebadi's voice grew haughty and protective of her country's secret resource.

"My people have our own."

"Rhino shit! It's native to our country. You stole—"

His hand went around her throat, preventing her from talking or yelling for help.

"My people don't have to steal," he said through gritted teeth.

"Take your hand off of me."

His head tilted and she swallowed as best she could.

"Watch what you say to me," he said.

The growl in his throat made her stomach jump. He released his hold on her and she rubbed her neck.

"The shark didn't attack you," she said.

"It knows better than to bite me. I raised it."

"Like a pet? Serious?"

He looked over her shoulder, and she glanced behind herself. N'Ku was up and about, kicking sand on the coals. Lebadi turned back to the man, and he was gone.

"Wait! Don't go!" she called out.

She ran toward the water. There was no splash. She would've heard that. Looking around, there was only the high bluff he couldn't climb up. He didn't run down the opposite side of the beach either.

"What are you doing way over there?" N'Ku cried out.

She ambled over to him on the cool sand.

"Walking around. Couldn't sleep."

"Stay close, yeah?" he said.

He rubbed her hair, flicked one of her decorative hair shells, and crawled back into his tent. She walked back to where she last saw the stranger.

"Where did you go? Am I drunk?"

The plum liquor had been strong. Maybe she had too much. She turned toward the bluff and—

"Fuck!" she shouted.

The man stood there, a sly smile on his face.

"How did you… do you have a camouflage shield or something…?"

"Bix a k’ a’aba’? What is your name?" he asked.

"Tell me yours first."

He stepped closer to Lebadi until his nose was an inch from her face.

"Eeen kaah-bah eh … K'uk'ulkan by my people. My enemies know me as Namor."

"So what am I to you?" Lebadi asked.

"I don't know yet. Who are you?"

"Lebadi."

He circled her, and the skin on her arms pricked with goosebumps. Not because it was cold, but because she found his behavior unnerving. He sniffed her hair, then stood in front of her again.

"Where are you from?" she asked.

He held a hand up to stop her from talking.

"I am looking for someone. A man was out in the water earlier. He dropped offerings into the sea with other people. I need to find him."

"I don't know anyone from earlier. I'm here with my friends to celebrate Mama Wati."

"Your God?"

"The mother of the waters," she said.

"Ixchel."

Lebadi shrugged, not understanding the new language he spoke.

"You are not afraid of me," he said.

"You rode a great white shark. If you wanted me dead, I would've been dead out there."

The intensity of his gaze became too much.

"I can't help you," she said.

She turned away.

"Would you like to ride him?"

Lebadi laughed in her mind at the nasty thought that ran through her brain about him when he said that. He had a solid body that would tempt any woman to climb on it. Fuck that shark.

"Me ride a shark?" she said.

Lebadi sucked her teeth.

"I'd rather know why you're here. What do you want from that man you're looking for? Are you a spy for the Americans?" she said.

King T'Chaka had begun a series of visits to the United States and the Wakandans worried about the west encroaching on their secrets. Lebadi pulled her hands in toward her chest. This was a national security situation. Liquor had her slipping up big time. She tapped her kimoyo to summon the authorities. Namor pulled on her beads and they fell apart, dropping onto the sand with soft plops. She dropped to her knees and gathered them back up onto her wrist. He held one away from her.

Lebadi ran back toward her camp, her hair shells jangling across her neck as she fled, and Namor's right arm encircled her waist. His left arm pointed above his head and they both lifted off the ground, racing upward fast, flying past the high bluff until they reached the top. Air breezed past her body and she closed her eyes from her fear of falling out of his grip. He dropped her on the soft tufts of grass at the edge. Too frightened to move, she stared at Namor's body floating in the air near the ledge. The small wings on his ankles fluttered like a hummingbird's wings. He glared down at her, daring Lebadi to move. She stayed on her rump.

"I must find this man soon. His name is Owiti Kiprono—"

"That is not a Wakandan name. I think you came to the wrong country," she said.

His eyes narrowed, and his lips became a tight line.

"I'm not lying. That name sounds Kenyan. You made a mistake coming here," she said.

She scooted backward slowly, and he crouched down to meet her eyes again.

"I cannot stay here long," he said.

"I don't know what to tell you."

He closed his eyes and sighed. Plopping down next to her, he plucked at the grass and threw it over the side of the bluff. That action alone made him seem so young. He looked her age, perhaps early to mid-twenties. There was peach-fuzz soft facial hair, and despite the maturity in his dark eyes, Namor acted as if he had a curfew, like he had to do something before his parents found out. How would an elder punish a flying fishman?

"You live out there?" she asked, her chin lifted toward the sea.

"I must leave," he said, raising up.

Lebadi grabbed his arm and held him. His skin felt cool and smooth, the muscle in his arm hard. He looked down at her hand gripping his flesh and jerked it away.

"Sorry," she said.

They sat together in silence, the crash of waves growing more frequent as a high tide rolled in. Far out in the sea, giant swells teased her eyes.

"You want to be on that?" he asked, nodding toward the large swells.

"Too far. I have a flying glider board that can take me out there, but it broke. We aren't allowed to go beyond five miles with our tech in the open."

"Because you hide yourselves?"

"Yes. If people outside knew about what we have…"

"My people are the same. It is forbidden… forbidden to be so far away… here."

"What do you call your home?" she asked.

"Talokan."

"Talokan… K'uk'ulkan… Ixchel …" she said, sounding out his language.

She looked at his ears and then gazed down at the wings on his feet.

"Do all your people—?"

"No. I am different."

She left the word mutant alone, not wanting to offend him. He flexed his fingers, stood up, and his body rose above her, those wings whirring fast.

"Wait, you can't leave me up here!"

Lebadi jumped up, and he flew past the ledge with a sly smile on his face.

"It'll take me forever to walk all the way down and back to my camp!" she whined.

"I need time to disappear before you tell the others."

"You haven't really done anything for me to tell them about."

He moved his hands in a wide arc while flying, and she put a hand on her hip.

"Okay, yeah… the flying thing is gossip-worthy. But you didn't hurt me, and nothing major happened… wait!"

He floated back six feet, and she stomped her feet.

"Come on!" she said.

"I like when you pout," he teased.

A smile lit up his face, and the moonlight gave his skin an eerie glow. She didn't want to grovel, but she also didn't want to make a long ass trek either.

"I'm scared," she said in a hushed tone.

"You faced a shark and didn't scream."

"I was in shock."

Namor held his hands palms up.

"Take my hands," he said.

Lebadi shook her head, but her feet had a mind of their own walking toward the ledge. Her hands ignored her brain signals too and reached for him. Clasping his hands, she curled her fingers in his and let out a nervous breath. Stepping out into the air with her right foot, she made the mistake of looking down.

"Namor!" she yelped.

Namor held her up and flew backward fast before tossing her in the air, her arms and legs flailing about before he caught her by the waist. He guided her down, not toward her camp, but across the dark waters dappled with moonlight and holding secrets of the deep.

"Easy, breathe easy, Lebadi," he cooed in her ear.

They dipped low and her stomach seemed to fall behind her as he whipped them across a giant wave that she saw minutes ago from so far away. He slid his hand from her waist up along her arms until she dangled below him, her legs swinging against wind and ocean spray. She whooped it up as he lowered her so that her feet skimmed across the top of a giant wave, cooling her feet and making her laugh hysterically. He swung her in another direction gently and her heels surfed the crest of another wave like she was water skiing. Dropping her into the ocean from twenty feet high, she splashed around frantically, terrified that his shark buddy would leap out and swallow her. Namor landed above the water, standing on top of it with his hands on his hips, looking down at her. He sank down into the water as her panic escalated and she threw her arms over his shoulders when the shark's fin appeared behind him.

"Take me out! Please, take me out!"

"He won't hurt you. See?"

The shark nestled close to Namor, and the man stroked the slippery cold skin.

Lebadi pressed her face into his neck and shivered in fear.

"Nothing will happen to you."

He stroked her hair and lifted her chin up.

"I promise," he said.

She wiped her eyes of water and nodded her head to him. Glancing to her side, Lebadi regarded the shark with trepidation, but she took a chance and stretched out her trembling arm toward the sea creature. Like dolphin skin, it was slippery, like wet rubber, and pliant when she pushed on it. She stroked the dorsal fin and nearly passed out when its head splashed toward her and she saw one of the cold black eyes staring back at her. Shoving her face back into his neck, Lebadi was done with the marine life show and tell.

Namor patted the shark near its gills, and the beastly animal went under the water and away from them. He lifted Lebadi in his arms, cradling her against him like a baby as he floated above the surface, flying them back to shore. She held onto his neck, watching the sand and bluff grow closer until they were back on land.

Face to face, they stared at one another.

"Good luck with your search," she said.

He touched her cheek, and the heat of her wet skin swallowed his damp coolness up. Those dark flashing eyes caused her insides to tumble and quake, making her feel a thick anticipation. Their attraction to one another was unquestionable. He slid the pad of his thumb across her top lip, following along its full shape before he leaned in and kissed her. The soft hairs of his light goatee tickled, and she smiled, opening her lips, allowing him to slip his tongue into her mouth where he explored every part. She gave back in return, sucking on his lower lip, fusing them together with slow succulent kissing. Her arousal triggered something in him as he pressed into her body. Firm muscles molded against her breasts, and the thin material of her bikini top revealed taut nipples. His right hand moved across her chest until it fondled a left breast, plucking at her nipple with gentle pinches. He slid the bikini bra cup aside, lowering his head to suckle. His tongue was incredibly warm dancing around her areola and her knees buckled when he lifted to kiss her again, his tongue snaking in and out of her mouth to taste every molecule, making her mouth water.

Her pussy already felt engorged, and every time he thrust his tongue between her lips, it throbbed with wanton need. His carnal desire for her curled her toes as his tongue and lips created a wet trail of gentle kisses along her neck. He moaned in her ear and her stomach became a swarm of butterflies trapped inside of her.

Their necks twisted from side to side, trying to find the best way to kiss more passionately, and she loved the failure of it. It seemed to irritate him, and he pulled back to stare at her with brooding arousal. She glanced down at his trunks and the thick erection protruding out toward her made her frantic to kiss him more. His dick pressed into her and Namor wanted Lebadi to feel it. He rubbed against her and she ground her vulva on it. When she looked down at his trunks again, he had his hand down there, tugging on the length. The tip peeked out and a heavy mushroom cap dripped pre-cum.

Lebadi moved his hand to her mound, and he took the invitation to heart by sliding his fingers down her scant bikini bottom. He stroked her clit first, his index and middle finger working tight gentle circles before touching her slippery wet folds. She was a frothy ocean down there and Namor pulled out his fingers to lick up all of her essence, making eye contact as he did it to show her how good she tasted to him. He smacked his lips and went back for more, tracing odd shapes along her folds and clit, teasing her with so much pleasure that she squealed out loud. He clamped a hand over her mouth and looked toward her campsite. No one was awake or searching for her. Moving his hand, he crashed his lips over her mouth, kissing the living breath out of her. Namor fondled her clit with expertise, and she thanked Mama Wati for the gift of her offering to the sea.

"Oh, my Bast!" she cried out.

Namor dropped to his knees and slid her bikini bottom to the side and feasted on her swollen clit, kissing and sucking to his heart's delight. His hands reached up to cup her ass cheeks to keep her in place. Lebadi stood and watched the ocean waves crash to shore as an orgasm surged. She grabbed for his hair and held his head against the clipped hairs of her vulva, panting and saying his name under her breath, willing herself not to scream. When his plush lips held her clit, and his tongue slurped all over it with warm saliva, Lebadi threw her head back and jammed her fingers in her throat to stifle the scream that she let out. She fell apart all over his mouth, the deep throbbing of her release reaching all the way to the back of her pussy. His seductive, penetrating eyes watched her cum all over his lips and tongue, extending her release, the orgasm rolling across her flesh in heated waves that made her scalp tingle and her eyes roll back.

His lips moved away from her pussy with a wet smacking sound, and they glistened with her sticky juices. He grinned and slid his tongue across his slips to swallow up every drop of her. Lebadi staggered back from him and Namor jumped up quickly to keep her from falling flat on her ass. Her entire body trembled with aftershocks, and the throbbing between her thighs wouldn't stop. She craved him.

Slamming her lips over his, she sucked her own taste from his mouth while he lowered his trunks and fisted himself. He coated his dick with all the pre-cum that dripped down from a deep slit and lifted Lebadi up by her hips, positioning her over the head of his erection. Sanity and thoughts of protection left her brain as she slid down his thick, brown dick. She wanted to be fucked good and proper by a man who laid her pussy out.

Namor's thrusts into her hot, gushy pussy had her mewling into his neck. He held her up easily, like she was a feather floating on the wind. His balls slapped against her ass cheeks, and she thanked all the Gods on land and sea for letting him stretch her pussy out on the beach. He grunted, the pleasure enveloping him too. He spoke to her in his own language, and she could only guess that he was telling her how good she felt on his heavy erection. His plundering of her pussy only made her more vocal, her yelps and wailing in his ear encouraging him to thrust with more conviction.

"Oh, Bast… Namor!" she shouted.

Weightlessness.

She clung to his shoulders as she gazed down at the sand he was not standing on anymore. Namor flew up along the bluff, still fucking her as he flew, and pressed her back against the hard wall of rock halfway from the top.

"You are too loud," he grunted, twisting his sinewy hips and pumping her full of Talokan dick.

Her pussy made squelching noises, and he slowed his strokes to tease her before flying them up again. He landed back on the soft tufts of grass at the top, but kept her on his dick. His breath was hot against her skin, and Lebadi's pussy clenched, making him shout her name from the pleasure of the tight grip. Laying her down on the grass, he pushed her thighs back and wiggled out of his trunks, giving her time to untie her bikini from top to bottom. She cast caution to the wind. Dick that good wouldn't come around that often.

He smiled at her as if he had read her thoughts. His beauty in smiling had her all soft and gooey on the inside, like she wanted to run home and tell her Mama that she finally met the one man to change her entire life forever. Lowering his face to hers again, Namor kissed her cheek and then her forehead. He turned his head as if he heard something.

"What is it?" she asked.

He shook his head, "Nothing."

He peppered tiny kisses across her clavicle and dragged his lips to her belly button, where he tongued it playfully, tickling her and making her giggle. Lebadi rubbed his head, letting her fingers caress his hair, and he looked at her again. She touched his nose piercing and the fire in his eyes reflected moonlight and a yearning for something beyond his grasp. Moving lower on her body, he kissed her thighs and the fold of skin near her vulva.

"I like the taste of saltwater on your skin," he said, licking her more.

He positioned himself between her legs and lined up his dick with her opening. Penetrating her gently, the bulbous tip parted her folds and her legs shot up straight to the moon.

"Ooohhhhh," she groaned.

He held her thighs with reverence, pumping in and out with delicate strokes. There was no fast fucking this time. He wanted to etch their lovemaking on the stars above them. It was so slow that it brought tears to her eyes. She whimpered his name, and he closed his eyes, his lower lip housed between his teeth, seawater dripping from his hair. He hunched over Lebadi and rocked into her body a little faster, the quicker pace forcing moans to fall from his lips.

She wrapped her legs around his waist and he repositioned them so that she was on top, riding him with feverish intent. He palmed her breasts and stroked her nipples, watching her pussy slide up and down his length with vigor. She was so close to cumming again. Namor played with her clit, rubbing it softly and edging her closer to paradise.

"Fuck!" she yelled.

Flipping her over, Namor planted himself deep, stroking her at an angle that had her squeezing her eyes shut, thrashing under him. The beads from his choker dangled and scraped across her skin. He tossed her legs over his shoulders and tongued her down between giving her praises in his language. The man talked her pussy into letting go again and her walls clenched all around him, his strength and weight the only thing keeping her from shooting over the cliff.

"Namor… fuck me good… fuck me… oh, right there… stay right there… please… that's my spot!"

His name became a holy mantra on her lips. She felt his dick swell inside of her and he cried out her name, his cum warm and thick inside of her. He collapsed on her, and she stroked his back, feeling sweat pooling on his lower back. His mouth found hers again and his kisses were sweet all over her face and neck, bringing forth calming energy to her body and mind.

"That was incredible," she whispered into his ear.

His smile lit up his face again, and those sexy eyes drank in her naked charms under him. The smile faded when his eyes looked out toward the sea. His body grew stiff above her.

"What is it?"

He crawled off of her and pulled on his trunks. She rolled over and looked out to sea. The large leviathan body of a humpback whale floated in the distance; its long wide body visible from so far away in the moonlight. Fear shined in Namor's eyes.

"K’a’ak’ate," he said, stroking her cheek.

Lebadi scrambled to put on her bikini and Namor was already flying away from her, heading toward the sea and the whale waiting for him.

"Come back! You have to take me down!" she yelled.

He spun around to face her.

"I won't say anything. No one will see you," she pleaded, tying her top.

"Ma’taali’teeni’," he said, sounding regretful.

Namor shot away so fast that Lebadi took several seconds to blink. He vanished.

"Dammit! You bastard!" she said.

Storming away in the opposite direction, she made the long trek down the tricky bluff, cursing the man out, while also enjoying the tingles that ran up and down her body from their lovemaking. She took a long restroom break behind some bushes to urinate. By the time she made it to the bottom and found the trail that led back to the beach, her cheeks were warm and tight from smiling so much. No matter what she said, no one would believe her. She glanced at her kimoyo beads.

"Ah, shit!"

Namor still had one of her beads. The main one she needed to turn the kimoyo on. Oh, well.

Lebadi searched the water for signs of the whale or glimpses of her otherworldly lover. There were only waves and foamy water lapping on the shore. She trudged over the sand back to her tent. Unzipping it, she crawled inside and fell fast asleep.

The week in Birnin S'Yan went by so fast to Lebadi that she thought they had been there only three days instead of seven. She surfed so much that her skin flaked with sunburn and pruned feet. She felt gorgeous with her darkened, sun-kissed skin. But it was time to get home, remove shells, and unbraid her hair for a thorough washing and conditioning. She would rest her normal curls inside a satin bonnet.

Lebadi spent her last day on the beach surfing and scanning the water for signs of a great white shark, whales, or a set of pointy ears rising from the sea. She found nothing.

Her board skimmed across the warm waters, and she practiced neat footwork on it to impress her friends. A miscalculation sent her sailing over her board into a whitewash of liquid heaven. She laughed and shook her braids when she broke the surface. Another high wave towered over her and she duck-dived underneath, clutching her board with her hands as she held her breath. For a split second under the wave, she thought she saw Namor floating before her, and she broke the surface, startled and gasping for air. Releasing her board and letting her leash tether her close to it, Lebadi dove under again, searching for her lover. The sunlight that struck the water gave her enough light to see an expanse of the blue-green ocean and nothing else.

The next morning, she set about packing up her belongings before breaking down her tent. Her friends wanted to stop at a restaurant in town to eat a meal before the drive back to Birnin Zana. Rolling her sleeping bag, she found her missing kimoyo bead and a gold cowrie shell from Namor's necklace. There was no way for him to place it there while her friends were up, so he must've brought it to her in the middle of the night when she was fast asleep. Slipping the loose bead onto its rightful place on her wrist, Lebadi held up the cowrie shell. The craftsmanship rivaled her own people's artisan skills. Palming it, she stepped out of her tent to gaze at the horizon.

"All good?" N'Ku asked, staring at her as he buried their old coals.

"Yeah."

"We'll be ready soon. I can drive to give you a break," Benya offered, tying up her wet hair.

"Cool," Lebadi said, holding the cowrie shell close to her heart.

She later passed Benya a kimoyo bead to start up the van. Sitting on the sand with her legs pulled into her chest, Lebadi bid a silent farewell to the beach.

"Next year, I'm coming back, and you better show up again," she huffed, reminiscing over his touch all over her skin.

Just thinking about him aroused her, and she stood up, tugging on her shorts, trying to keep her bikini from sticking to her folds.

"What's that?" Ausi asked, looking at the gold cowrie shell she fingered in her hand.

"I found it in the water," Lebadi lied.

She pocketed the shell in her cut-offs and lifted her board and tent, following her crew to the seawall so they could wait for Benya to pull around. Lebadi glanced over her shoulder, and a shiver went through her.

"Mama Wati, when I give you a bigger offering next year, please send that man back to me," she whispered.

The sound of the waves crashing down loudly on the shore made her believe Mama Wati heard her request. No matter what, Lebadi was going to come back.

And she would ride the shark, Namor, and anything else he shared with her.

Part 2 HERE.

Author’s Note: If you liked the story, please share by reblogging, commenting and all that good stuff. Follow me for new updates and more content. I would love to see the Black Panther fandom come alive again. I haven’t seen the “Wakanda Forever” movie yet, so this story takes place twenty years before that. Just so you know, I make my own canon, lol!

Also, I switched up the spelling of the actual Mami Wata to Mama Wati to give myself space to reshape my ancestor’s actual African/African Diaspora spiritual water being into a fictional Wakandan one.

The Masterlist for more of my content is HERE. Be on the look out for part 3 soon!

Tag List:

@thickemadame

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fishenjoyer1 · 5 months ago

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Fish of the Day

today's fish of the day is the giant pacific octopus!

The giant pacific octopus, also called the North Pacific Octopus, scientific name Enteroctopus dofleini, is known for being the largest species of octopus! Living exclusively in temperate waters, their range stretches from Southern California up to Alaska, and from the West coast of Northern America, to the Aleutian Islands, and East coast of Japan. Giant pacific octopi live along coral ranges, rocky outcroppings, and intertidal zones where catching prey is easier. The bite of the giant pacific octopus contains a venom that breaks down proteins in animals, softening muscle tissues and organs over the course of a few hours. Their diet consists of almost anything they can fit in their beak: fish, crabs, lobster, shrimp, some smaller sharks and dogfish, clams, snails, and seagulls. They can tear apart animals with far tougher skin than their own due to a beak structure that can be found on all octopi, made of chitin. This diet can support them getting sizes as large as 29 feet! Their arm span alone can reach 19 feet across, and the heaviest recorded specimen was almost 200 pounds!

Many scavengers predate on octopi, and the great pacific octopus is no different, even drawing in larger predators due to their size. Many marine mammals, such as harbor seals, sea otters, various dolphins, and sperm whales have been found hunting great pacific octopi, along with large sharks. Humans also hunt great pacific octopi with commercial fishing for consumption across the world, taking 3.3 million tons annually. However, great pacific octopi are especially known for their high intelligence, which is used to avoid many of these predators. Octopi are known for being able to survey their surroundings and camouflage at will in many different ways. These animals have 9 brains, one in each of their 8 arms and a central brain, which does more than the others, each of the arms controlling over 200 suckers, which they have the control over like we do of our individual fingers, giving them high control over their movements. Along with the ability to create havoc in research environments, dissasemling expensive equipment, and escaping.

Like many other cephalopods, the giant pacific octopus can change colors, using this to blend into the rocks around their hiding caves. This color changing ability is quite interesting for study however, when the octopus is resting they turn a milky white color, and when the octopus is occupied by other worries, they turn a deep red color. However, it is found that throughout an octopus's rest they will change into molted patterns that are also found in alert octopi: leading to the theory that octopi too, can dream. In other situations, these octopi have been known to create molted patterns to seduce partners, and to confuse prey. Other than their color changing abilities, they also have been known to surround themselves in shells and other remains of previous meals, to disguise their body when venturing for food. These animals also possess the well known ability to squirt ink out of their siphon, used to confuse predators. They also have been known for changing the texture of their skin, to blend in better with their surroundings. Their intelligence is so high that it is thought the octopi are some of the only invertebrates that engage in play activities.

Giant pacific octopi spent around 90% of their time inside of dens, venturing out only to find prey, and bringing them back into the den to consume. This creates an 'octopus garden' on the outside of the den, where there are piles of bones and shells piling up. However, depending on population, throughout the year these octopi will migrate, in accordance to seasonal changes. Eastern populations tend to locate new dens when the water experiences temperature changes in summer and winter, whereas western populations will move dens to shallower waters in early summer and winter, and then move to deeper waters in the later summer and winter. Northern populations, both the Alaskan and Northeastern, do not seem to have migration patterns.

Their lifespan is relatively long compared to other octopi. Sexual maturity is achieved at 1-2 years of age, but the giant pacific octopus, with a lifespan of 3-5 years, will wait until it reaches a sufficient body mass. This is because a giant pacific octopus will only ever go through one sexual event in a lifetime. After laying eggs within their den, males will fertilize. The female octopi will then brood over these eggs for 6 months, refusing to leave the den for any purpose, eventually dying of starvation, just as the eggs hatch. Eggs are cared for, by having the mother keep them well aerated with cool water from her siphon, and she'll clean them to ensure algae or parasites wont prey on the eggs. Males will also die after reproduction, although they will do this in their own dens. After hatching, the eggs grow quickly, reaching adult sizes within a year. Thus, continuing the cycle.

Have a wonderful day, everyone!

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suraemoon · 8 months ago

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MOTA: Post-war

~ Easter Sunday Headcanons ~

🐣: Easter Sunday lends itself so easily to daydreaming about post-war suburban life. Here are some ideas I thought up yesterday of how some of the boys and their families celebrate Easter. I hope you like some fluff. (Bunnies, eggs, and happiness galore)

��: @precious-little-scoundrel gave me the idea to post these after I was yelling them to her yesterday. I hope you all aren’t Eastered out just yet.

Being some of the earliest birds to the nationwide baby boom due to a four-week New York getaway, the Crosby’s quickly become professionals at the Easter Sunday routine

After an hour of hiding yawns and dozing off while standing in their pews at Easter Sunday Service, all the neighborhood kids show up at the Crosby house for their famous annual Easter Egg Hunt.

As soon as their car rolls into the driveway, Jean and Harry watch in wonder as their crew of excited kiddos doubles, triples, and soon quadruples in a matter of minutes

Hiding spots are determined days in advance and as the years go on, the amount of eggs that Jean has to buy grows exponentially to account for the adopted little bunnies that come strolling by with baskets the size of their whole torsos

Mrs. Jean Crosby puts out chairs and a group of adoring parents get to gradually watch their children grow up before their loving eyes every April

The same toddlers who first waddled around on the newly mowed grass trying to find their footing all those years ago soon become elementary school kids with minds enthralled by the competition

Soon these toothy grinned kids become teenagers who keep the magic alive for the newest toddlers while also taking the time to show the next-gen elementary kids who are the professional easter egg hunters

The Crosby’s haven’t always had the holiday nailed though

One year after much convincing from his wife throughout the whole month of March, Harry agreed to dress up as the easter bunny

When he suddenly stuck his costumed head out from the top of their white picket fence, a church choir of crying and screaming ensued

Instead of being faced with the excited wonder-filled faces that he expected, Harry was met with wide eyes full of terror and dropped jaws full of shock

Children flailed to the protection of their mamas instead of going to hug the famous mascot of the season

He spent an hour going around to every child with his furry head off and shamefully cradled in his hands

apologizing and ensuring that yes, it was just Mr. Crosby, not a giant rabbit who hopped out of nowhere and scared the communion wafers out of them

In his adult life, John Bucky Egan never really cared for Easter festivities up until his eldest daughter was born

When sunny April came around the year that Little Miss Egan turned two, Bucky was excited to take her to the Easter egg hunt ran by the local Church

While the older kids go haywire in their now dirtied church suits and fancy dresses trying to pick up as many eggs as people they counted in church pews just a half hour before, Baby Egan waddles around gently.

Every egg she picks up is taken slowly and carefully from the soft grass beneath her Mary Jane’s, looked at with soft eyes as if being examined and if found fit, is put into her pink basket

Bucky, being impatient and full of excitement for this newly unlocked family activity, sneaks a few extra eggs into her basket to make it look like she has more

His little princess shouldn’t have to hunt for all her own eggs and risk getting her white lace dress dirty anyways

Egan is the only adult collecting eggs with a bunch of random kids. His excuse is that he and his little one share a basket of course. She needs her daddy to teach her how egg hunts are done in order to be better prepped for next year.

The Egan’s aren’t the only ones with a knack for egg hunts.

The Rosenthal children do not celebrate Easter but it does not stop them from showing up to the park’s “Eggstravaganza Hunt” every year

Being the determined little Rosies that they are, they dominate the competition. These kids will have their baskets full to the brim with eggs in a matter of minutes.

You notice a child with a head full of bouncy brown curls, pink cheeks, and grass stained knees run by you? You better hope that your little Bobby can keep up.

Rosie watches on like a focused parent at their child’s soccer game

His children with their chocolate and sugar covered faces furrow their eyebrows and tilt their heads when a random woman with a crying child tells them “Do y’all really need all that candy? Jesus would want you to share, don’t you think?”

The Mini Rosenthals come back home with sugar rushes that can power the whole neighborhood for a week straight

An upside for Rosie and his wife who have to deal with these energized little roadrunners is that the kids crash an hour earlier than usual

leaving room for extra alone time on a cool Sunday night

One easter, Benny Demarco randomly walks through the foyer of his home with a white floppy eared bunny wearing a perfect little bow tie

Is that the one you wore to our date last weekend? His wife can’t help but shake her head at her husband’s audacity as the children gather around their newest sibling with eyes full of happiness

The kids are excited but Mrs. Demarco has to try to put on a smile because “Who the hell is going to take care of that thing?”

Soon enough, a hutch is built in the backyard and more bunnies are added to the family

Mrs. Demarco falls in love and calls them her “bunny babes”

She’s met with a “I knew it was a good idea” from her husband every time she is seen cradling and baby-talking to one of their beloved pets

I mean…they are both major pet lovers. It’s one of the reasons they work so well together. But is one more responsible of the two? Definitely.

The excited squeals of children and adorable nose twitches of cute little bunnies makes it all worth it

The Demarcos aren’t the only 100th household with their own personal Easter Bunny

When John Egan jokingly told his four year old that leaving a baby carrot under her pillow would lead to a special gift from Mr. Easter Bunny himself, he did not expect her to take it seriously.

At midnight, Bucky wakes up with eyes hardly open and gets out of bed with a mission

This annual mission is to tiptoe into his daughter’s bedroom and carefully exchange the aluminum foil wrapped baby carrot tucked carefully under her soft pillow for a few cents from his wallet

As more children are born, the tradition continues

Even future generations of Egans continue to buy bags of baby carrots as Easter Sunday approaches

Not only to snack on them all of Spring Break but also to place one in a sandwich bag or wrap one in saran wrap to hide underneath each child’s pillow

Not necessarily knowing why they’re the only house that participates in this unusual tradition

Not knowing that it started from the unbreaking belief of a wide-eyed four year old and her father who stopped laughing when he realized that he was stuck playing off-brand Tooth Fairy for the rest of his life

Gale Cleven’s household has a more relaxed Easter Sunday compared to the rest

After Church, some Easter themed activities, and a well-needed nap upon arriving home, the Cleven’s go to their garden to plant new flowers

Fresh tulips, chrysanthemums, and pansies are all beautiful, refreshing signs that spring is here

Why do the Cleven’s have such green thumbs you ask? Maybe their blonde hair resembles the comforting sun, the plants can’t help but feel warmth. Maybe their caring blue eyes are as nurturing as water, the plants can’t help but thrive.

They started growing flowers and vegetables in their garden when the first after they bought their house

It was the Clevens’ first step towards making it a home

The flowers represented new beginnings, fresh starts, and growth. Essentials after everything they have been through.

————————————————————————

Hope you enjoyed! Wishing everyone a happy, happy Spring🌸 My first time writing something and posting it in 4 months…ahhhh. There’s more where this came from, my mind just does not stop.

#masters of the air #mota #masters of the air fanfiction #gale cleven #john egan #masters of the air fanfic #headcanons #buck cleven #bucky egan #harry crosby #rosie rosenthal #robert rosenthal #benny demarco #easter

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vandaliatraveler · 3 months ago

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Sunday morning hike at Friendship Hill National Historic Site, after two days of drenching rain that provided some relief from the terrible drought gripping Central Appalachia. I never thought I would be so happy to hear rain droplets smattering on moist leaves again. When the clouds broke above the Monongahela River, it was as if some great spirit had gifted me an impressionists' painting of the earth. Then the oppressive heat returned, and I realized the drought would hang on.

If nothing else, I was enchanted by the gorgeous rose mallow (Hibiscus moscheutos) and whimsical Allegheny monkeyflower (Mimulus ringens) now in bloom along the river's marshy edges. In the deeper woods, the blue cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides) is succumbing to summer's heat, but not before leaving behind a gift of iridescent blue berries, shiny like blue porcelain. And the summer boletes have pushed up from the leafy humus of the forest floor with that certain heady perfume only mushroom hunters can love. On a more macabre note, I was mesmerized by a cicada killer (Sphecius speciosus) tackling an unfortunate dog-day cicada (Neotibicen canicularis), which is an annual rather than a periodical cicada. The cicada continued to buzz dutifully as the giant wasp prepared to paralyze it and fly it off to her nest to be eaten alive by her larvae. The wasp literally has to drag that cicada, which is twice her size, up a tree to gain sufficient altitude to take flight. Fortitude and dedication.

As an aside, I was amused by a recent story about some residents of the Pacific Northwest losing their shit over sightings of giant Asian "murder" hornets, only to be informed the presumed felons are native cicada killers, which are unaggressive and harmless to human beings. Rather not live in a constant state of fear and paranoia from murder hornets and other villainous wildlife? Download a free field guide instead. :-)

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entomolog-t · 8 months ago

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G/t idea:

What if G/t aliens. Like the aliens are either tiny or giant sized

YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH I WANNA DO THIS

I'm not sure if anyone has noticed but there's a 5th series on my master post called "Men are from Mars" and I am SO excited to write it. It's likely not going to be near as long as anything else I've been writing (maybe 10-30 chapters max). It was originally going to be just a short, but the idea felt so fun and goofy that I'm absolutely dying to write it.

Basic premise : Group of Aliens on a "Boys trip" get stranded on earth, intercepted by a group of women out on their own annual "girls trip"

It's gonna be very silly, pretty campy, and all around fun. It's basically to both poke fun at but also appreciate the ridiculousness of the scifi alien romance genre- so expect some silliness.

It's a back burner plot for right now, but given it should be fairly quick to complete I'm thinking of aiming to drop it sometime in the summer

#NON HUMAN GT CREATURE DESIGNS LETS GOOOO

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nightmareinfloral · 7 months ago

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Eye-Boy: Where to Read?

Trevor Hawkins, also known as Eye-Boy, is a mutant whose entire body is covered in a total of 57 eyes. These eyes give him enhanced visual abilities such as telescopic, microscopic, night, and x-ray vision, as well as allow him to very accurately read micro-expressions, body language, and nonverbal cues. He can also emit blasts of solar energy. Below the cut is a complete list of Trevor’s appearances updated as of April 2024.

Wolverine and the X-men (2011) 19, 21-23, 25, 27-29, 31

A+X (2012) 4, 9

Wolverine and the X-men (2011) 32, 38-39, Annual 1, 40-42

Young Avengers (2013) 14

Wolverine and the X-men (2014) 1-2

Nightcrawler (2014) 1

Wolverine (2014) 4

Wolverine and the X-men (2014) 3-6

Nightcrawler (2014) 5

Wolverine and the X-men (2014) 10

Nightcrawler (2014) 8

Spider-man and the X-men (2014) 1-6

Storm (2014) 10-11

All-New X-men (2015) 9

Star-lord (2016) 1

X-men: Gold (2017) 1

Generation X (2017) 1-3

X-men: Gold (2017) 7

Generation X (2017) 4-6

X-men: Gold (2017) 14

Generation X (2017) 8-9, 85

Iceman (2017) 9

X-men: Gold (2017) Annual 1

Generation X (2017) 86

Iceman (2017) 10

Generation X (2017) 87

Venomized (2018) 1, 4

Old Man Logan (2016) 39-40

Iceman (2018) 1

Domino (2018) Annual 1

X-men: Black- Mojo (2018) 1

The Merry X-men Holiday Special (2018) 1

Uncanny X-men (2018) 9, 10

Age of X-man: Apocalypse and the X-Tracts (2019) 1-5

Age of X-man: Omega (2019) 1

New Mutants (2019) 7

Giant-Size X-men: Nightcrawler (2020) 1

X-Factor (2020) 1-3

X of Swords: Destruction (2020) 1

X-Factor (2020) 5

Excalibur (2019) 16

X-Factor (2020) 6

New Mutants (2019) 15

X-Factor (2020) 7

New Mutants (2019) 16

X-Factor (2020) 8

Women of Marvel (2021) 1

Hellfire Gala Guide (2021) 1

X-Factor (2020) 9

New Mutants (2019) 18

Excalibur (2019) 21

X-Factor (2020) 10

Children of the Atom (2021) 6

X-men: The Trial of Magneto (2021) 1

Marauders (2019) 23

X-men: The Trial of Magneto (2021) 2

X-men Unlimited Infinity Comic (2021) 6

X-men: The Trial of Magneto (2021) 3-5

X-men Unlimited Infinity Comic (2021) 20, 42

X-men (2021) 20

Love Unlimited Infinity Comic (2022) 44

X-men Unlimited Infinity Comic (2021) 86-87

Marvel’s Voices: X-men (2023) 1

#trevor hawkins #eye boy #x men #marvel comics #marvel #reading guide #comic recommendations

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johannestevans · 11 months ago

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My Top Stories for 2023!

In case you missed ’em: these were my most popular works of fiction and non-fiction of the year!

It’s very nearly 2024, and it’s been a big year for me!

I’ve published so many short stories and new essays, I had a great time at EasterCon and BristolCon, and have published pieces with several new (for me!) publications on top of moving into my new apartment. I’m now based in Yorkshire instead of Ireland, and that means I’ll be attending a bunch more conventions and other events across Wales, Scotland, and England as well as still going back to Ireland from time to time.

Firstly, as a big thank you to all my supporters and to ring in the new year, I’m currently doing an end-of-2023 giveaway! Sign up here!

On 01/01/2024, I’ll be drawing a winner of the giveaway, and they’ll receive by post / mail signed copies of my paperbacks, Heart of Stone and Gerald Poole and the Pirates, vouchers for my eBooks, some badges, and some other goodies that will be contained in the parcel.

Secondly, I wanted to remind people who’ve had a little bonus or gifted money and want to treat themselves that as well as being able to subscribe for access to all reader-locked works on Medium, by any authors, for $5 USD, I have a Patreon where I publish almost all my works (barring those that might be against Patreon guidelines, of which there currently aren’t many), there is an option to pay annually on Patreon!

You can subscribe to me monthly on Patreon for access to my works at £3 / £6 / £10.50 / £17 per month — there’s no difference in the benefits of these tiers, just that you can choose to support me with a subscription for what you can afford.

If you subscribe annually on Patreon, you get a 16% discount on what you would ordinarily pay monthly, and you get full access to everything for the duration of the year’s subscription!

With that intro done, let’s get to my top 24!

My Top 12 Fiction Pieces of 2023

January 2023 — Erotic Short: Running the Table

A trans man is the favourite pocket on the pool table.

Rated E. Cis M/trans M/cis M. 4k. Featuring consent play with a prenegotiated rape roleplay, object insertion (not sanitary, not safe, just sexy), double penetration, begging, tears, size difference, age difference, lots of anal play, belly bulging.

Jock and Phineas first appeared in Centre Pocket, where Jock initially makes the threat of the pool balls.

Read on Medium / / Read on Patreon / / Read on Ao3

February 2023 — Erotic Short: Fresh Bounty

A bounty hunter takes a young wizard to the king’s court.

1.7k, rated E, cis M/trans M! Power play with a lack of negotiation, but fully consensual enthusiasm for it, cockwarming, threatened overstimulation, D/s, implications of public use, and sex on horseback!

CW for a mention of it in dirty talk, but no animals are actually abused, harmed, or looked on sexually.

Read on Medium / / Read on Patreon

March 2023 — Erotic Short: Purpose-Built Toy

A stretchy supervillain goes up against five huge superheroes.

3.2k, rated E. Trans M/5 alien Ms with alien cocks. There is absolutely no redeeming plot features in this, it’s just horrible unrealistic porn with lots of come inflation, objectification, humiliation, and belly kink.

There are several consent issues in this fic, where the trans guy is basically being turned into a fucktoy for these aliens without anyone asking how he feels about it — with that said, he’s really into the whole thing, and absolutely does not want to opt out.

Read on Medium / / Read on Patreon / / Read on Ao3

April 2023 — Erotic Short: Slime Breeder

An elf is used as a distraction as his party fight a gigantic slime.

3.5k. A trans masc elf getting fucked from all ends by a giant slime creature, used as a seedbed by it, then played with by his variously gendered friends in the aftermath.

Mildly to very dubious consent here, but Sam is absolutely enjoying himself by the end of it — featuring a giant slime monster, aphrodisiacs, tentacle sex, encasement, choking, oviposition and egg-laying, cumflation, overstimulation, anal, oral, and vaginal penetration, objectification, lactation, milking. All that fun and beastly stuff!

Read on Medium / / Read on Patreon / / Read on Ao3

May 2023 — Erotic Short: The Mermaid and the Fisherman

A wanderer meets a mermaid, and the two of them work to understand each other.

This short is also available for purchase on Smashwords as an eBook, and is originally from September 2020.

7.3k, rated E, M/M. A young man fleeing home has taken up residence in an old fishing cabin on the west coast of Scotland. He is observed, very closely, by a mermaid from beyond the maerl beds nearby.

Featuring cultural differences, humour, oviposition, cervix penetration, mild chem sex from the mermaid’s aphrodisiac, some rough sex, some mildly dubious consent, stuffing, belly bulge.

Read on Medium / / Read on Patreon

June 2023 — Erotic Short: Agony and Ecstasy

An abbot takes a stranded sailor on for… personal duties.

6k, M/M, rated E! Age difference, virginity kink, some naivety, some oral and anal, first time enthusiasm.

Read on Medium / / Read on Patreon

July 2023 — Erotic Short: The Stasis Box

A prisoner is frozen in time with his holes still accessible for the crew of a mining vessel to use.

5k, rated E, trans M/cis M but hundreds of other people. A trans twink agrees to be involved in an experiment in lieu of his year-long prison sentence — he’s placed in a stasis box, frozen in time, with his holes still accessible for the crew of a mining vessel to make use of.

This is honestly one of the most fucked-up things I’ve ever written, it goes big on the sci-fi body horror fucky horniness.

Full consent is given throughout, the twink knows what he’s in for. Featuring medical kink, fingering, anal and vaginal fingering and sex, sensitivity, time stop, big overstimulation, mind-break and ahegao, objectification, huge come inflation, gaping, come vomiting, general degradation.

Read on Medium / / Read on Patreon

August 2023 — Erotic Short: The Interview

A workplace roleplay with age difference and some hearty degradation.

Rated E, 4k, cis M/trans M. Younger boss/older prospective employee, pre-negotiated roleplay, degradation and humiliation, daddy kink, nipple play, PIV, riding, sex in the office, casual sex, bareback. The older man is fat, but none of the degrading language is about his body or his size except for commenting on the size of his chest — the degradation primarily is about his age and assumed loneliness.

Words used for the trans man’s body are tits and chest, one comparison to a cow’s udder; cock, cunt, hole.

Read on Medium / / Read on Patreon

September 2023 — Erotic Short: Training Toy

A cheerleader loans out his favourite toy to the football players.

3k, rated E, trans M/many cis M. Continuing on from Stuck.

A cheerleader trains up another student to be a good fucktoy, and shares him out to local football players — featuring D/s, multiple orgasms, mild bimboification vibes, training, multiple penetration, degradation, objectification, anal, vaginal, and oral, big penetrations.

Read on Medium / / Read on Patreon / / Read on Ao3

October 2023 — Erotic Short: A Gift For the Wolfmen

A young man in a brothel is invited to join a quartet of hulking wolf-like warriors.

6.4k, rated E. Two trans men, both being gangbanged by four cis wolfmen with huge cocks.

Fantasy universe with adventurers and so forth. Featuring stuck-through-wall and grope boxes, body writing, vaginal, oral, and anal play, huge come inflation, size difference, knotting, power dynamics, virginity kink, objectification and dehumanisation, degradation, humiliation, breeding kink, body modification, mentions of lactation and pregnancy, and enthusiastic consent throughout.

Read on Medium / / Read on Patreon

November 2023 — Erotic Short: Confession and Penance

A priest takes a hands-on approach to addressing a worshiper’s poor working habits.

11k, cis M/M, rated E! Tiernan, a manipulative workaholic who only ever relaxes during Mass services, is taken aside by Father Mullen when it all gets to be a bit too much. D/s, BDSM-approach to enforcing self-care, spanking, painplay, bit of a priest kink but it doesn’t go into that aspect too much, faith. Also some anal.

Note that by definition consent’s an issue here because this is the very definition of religious abuse, especially because Tiernan is a CSA survivor and references past CSA by another priest. Content warnings for the religious abuse and references to the CSA throughout, as well as dubious consent in other sexual situations. For all that, though, the tone is generally light-hearted and is more dark humour than dark drama.

Read on Medium / / Read on Patreon

December 2023 — Erotic Short: Knight Tactics

An elf serves as a distraction and an exhaustion tactic for a bandit camp. By letting them fuck him.

3k, trans M/loads of cocks, assumed as cis M. Amaethon gets himself stuck in a wall so that the bandits will work out their stamina fucking him rather than fighting off the king’s guard.

Stuck in wall, free use, fully (and gleefully) consensual whilst pretending he isn’t, mild belly bulging and come inflation, gaping, exhaustion, messy and come-spattered, etc. All the fun stuff.

Read on Medium / / Read on Patreon / / Read on Ao3

My Top 12 Non-Fiction Pieces of 2023

January 2023 — Fast “Who am I?”: A Fun Game to Play with Friends

A silly fun game to play rapidly with your friends and loved ones in 2023.

Read on Medium / / Read on Patreon

February 2023 — Our Flag Means Death S01 E01: Close Textual Analysis

Examining OFMD E1: Pilot in close detail and liveblogging/analysing the text.

Read on Medium / / Read on Patreon / / Read on Ao3

March 2023 — Ringing The Devil’s Doorbell: A Light-Hearted, Practical Guide

Let’s talk sex! Vulvar and vaginal stimulation for fun, pleasure, and profit.

Contents:

Preface

The Anatomy of the Vulva and Vagina: the actual anatomy of the vulva, it and the vagina’s attendant parts, and how everything fits together

On Testosterone: the effects of testosterone as a HRT treatment on the vulva and vagina in the context of sexual pleasure

(I don’t have any specific advice in regards to different intersex configurations or further genital and hormonal diversity, but that section might nonetheless be semi-relevant; there’s also some notes on vaginal atrophy that might be relevant if you’re menopausal or similar)

Stimulating the Vulva and Vagina: ringing the Devil’s doorbell, dancing about in his vestibule, and then running into (then out of) (then into) (then out o — ) his house

Additional Reading: more resources and links

Read on Medium

April 2023 — The Precarity of Subscription-Based Income

We’re basically busking online. No wonder we have anxiety about it.

Read on Medium

May 2023 — The Straight Male Gaze on Pretty Male Gays

How does it feel when straight men want to fuck us?

A quick little intro — I went ham on this one. I watched A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge and it just gave me a lot of feelings.

Warnings throughout this piece for discussion of the film’s gore and violence, the homophobia both in- and out- of universe, sexual violence, homophobia in general. I use a lot of slurs in this one because I self-identify with a lot of them, and a lot of this piece is about the ways in which queer identity is weaponised and not weaponised against us.

Bon appetit.

Read on Medium / / Read on Patreon

June 2023 — Passing Privilege: Through My Eyes, as a Trans Man Who Passes

Second puberty and the waves we send through the spaces around us.

On Medium / / On Patreon / / On Tumblr.

July 2023 — Yentl: A Trans Man Studying Talmud is Distracted by Gay Thoughts

Yentl (1983, dir. Barbra Streisand) and Yentl the Yeshiva Boy by Isaac Bashevis Singer.

On Medium / / On Patreon.

August 2023 — Barbie Isn’t Anti-Men — It’s Anti-Toxicity

Patriarchy does damage to us all, and Barbie (2023, dir. Greta Gerwig) clearly depicts that.

Read on Medium / / Read on Patreon

September 2023 — Close Reading: A Deep Dive into the Process

An in-depth guide into applying analysis to a piece of text and extrapolating meaning.

A close reading is what we call an in-depth analysis of a piece of text, which might be in the case of fiction a short story, or for novels and novellas might be a portion or an extract from the text.

On Medium / / On Patreon.

October 2023 — Looking For 🍑🍆💦: A Beginner’s Guide to Grindr for Trans Men

Approaching Grindr (and cruising culture) as a trans man.

Read on Medium

November 2023 — As a Trans Man, Why Do Doctors Always Want to Get Me Pregnant?

I’m so tired of fielding questions about my “lost” fertility.

Read on Medium / / Read on Patreon

December 2023 — Uncling Duties

A selection of conversations with my friends’ cats, Kira and Bercow.

On Medium / / On Patreon.

#musings #original fiction #nonfiction #writers on tumblr

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perpetualexistence · 8 months ago

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Coils and Toils

Alenoah Week Day 3: Role Swap / TDWT Ending Rewrite

I decided to use woah-i-am-here's roleswap Alenoah for my funky little AU for today. The personalities are based mostly on their AU, and most of Alejandro's backstory is as well. Noah's I took more creative liberties with. It was a bit hard to translate that one over with this being a naga AU.

Because this is me, I couldn't help but make this a tiny bit dark at the end. So I'm just going to put a content warning for murder here to be safe.

Alejandro and Noah are fine! ...Someone else, not so much.

Alejandro is forced to go on his family's annual hunting trip. It's a week-long 'bonding' activity. He really doesn't care for it. He knows it's just an excuse for his parents to brag about traveling the world and conquering nature. José always turns it into this big competition that no one asked for, gets their parents praise, and rubs it into Alejandro's face. It's predictable, it's annoying, and it's bound to drive Alejandro up a wall.

The instant they split up, Alejandro focuses on putting as much distance between himself and the rest of his family. He's not going to hunt a damn thing. He'l just have 'bad luck'. It's an excuse he's used before, but it's not like they can truly make him do anything. He turns off his walkie talkie, the only thing that works in these godforsaken woods, because otherwise he'll have to hear his brother incessantly praising himself for each kill he bags. He has a bag of supplies, GPS included, and a gun. He'll be fine.

As he walks through the woods, he starts to notice strange markings on the ground. He'd mistake them for signs of animals having passed by. Except this looks wider than something like a bear having pushed through some brush. He climbs up a tree to get a better vantage point. From here, he can notice that it looks more like something large was dragged through the woods. The concerning part is it was dragged continuously. As if whatever was doing the dragging was having no issue in doing so. Despite the thing being as wide as train tracks.

That's when he heard the rustling. He couldn't tell where it was coming from, but it was getting louder.

Climbing down would attract too much attention. He could only cling against the tree as tightly as he could, and hope whatever it was didn't look up.

"Oh. You're new." said the voice that came from his right.

He dared to turn his head. He met the gaze of two slitted pupils.

Alejandro was over 12 meters off the ground and he was directly meeting the gaze of another.

He looked down to see the torso of the giant he was now looking at connected not to legs, but to a snake's tail.

He's grateful his instinct was to cling tighter to the tree, and not to loosen his grip.

After Alejandro successfully doesn't faint, the two get into proper greetings. Noah's incredibly polite, and is clearly doing everything in his power to make himself come off as careful about the height difference as possible. He's controlled in every action he takes.

...Too controlled for someone currently claiming that he's lived by himself in the woods his entire life. If he had, then he probably wouldn't know to control his volume or have anything resembling manners.

Alejandro calls him out on this, which shocks Noah for a bit. Not only that Alejandro found him out, but also that he'd have the courage despite Noah's size advantage. Alejandro realizes he might have screwed up hard, except Noah laughs and lets some of his mask slip.

He tells something closer to the truth this time. He's from the fae realm, and got cursed to look like this. He's trapped in these woods, serving as its guardian. Meaning he does need to know why Alejandro's trespassing.

Now it's Alejandro's turn to start lying his ass off. He knows about the fae thanks to reading, but he has no idea how much is true and how much isn't. He doesn't know what answer is acceptable, what answer will get him killed, and he doesn't know if Noah can read people.

He admits to being on a hunting trip, but he hadn't killed anything yet as his priority was finding somewhere to make camp. He didn't know he was trespassing, and wants to ask proper permission to stay in the woods for a week. He says nothing about the rest of his family because he knows that they've certainly killed animals by now.

Noah chooses to believe him. And because Alejandro did ask nicely (though with a bit of sarcasm since he couldn't help himself), Noah will let him stay. But he's only allowed to hunt what he needs to in order to survive. In return, Noah will promise not to hurt him. He'll even make a fae bargain, so both are bound to keep to their deal.

Alejandro doesn't really have much choice but to accept. Not that he planned to do any hunting anyways, but he has to go with this now or risk Noah catching wise. Noah lets him know that if Alejandro needs anything, Noah'll stay around here to make himself easier to find.

So Alejandro is allowed to leave to 'go find a place to make camp'. Which means returning to his family's camp and checking that Noah isn't following him. At least he's too loud to get away with sneaking up on the human.

Still, now Alejandro is going to have to convince his family not to go near the area Noah is in. He can't tell them Noah exists. They'll think he's finally lost it. Instead, he settles for committing to heading in that direction when his family splits apart to hunt each morning.

He doesn't have to actually go anywhere near Noah's slithering grounds. He just needs everyone else to think he's going there.

...Yet, Noah has been the most interesting thing that's happened to him in quite a while. The only other person who has proven to be an intellectual match to Alejandro is Jose. And he's insufferable. Noah is dangerous, certainly, but he isn't hard to be around. So long as Alejandro is careful about what he says. Besides, if he can keep Noah occupied, then he'll know that the rest of his family is safe.

This has absolutely nothing to do with how attractive Noah is or how his laugh made Alejandro melt like butter.

So he goes back to Noah the next day and says he wants to know more about Noah.

"Sure, I'm an open book." Noah replied. "You're as open as a mouse trap." Alejandro retorted.

This gets another laugh out of Noah, and the two begin to bond.

Over time Noah reveals that he hates the outdoors. He misses being small enough to read in peace. Not that he even has any reading material on him. But Alejandro does since his original plan had been to find a spot in the forest to read the entire time. So he pulls out one of his books and offers to read it aloud to Noah.

"Is that the only one you have?"

"I thought you were desperate enough to read anything."

"I just want to know what my options are. I don't want to read anything trashy if you're holding out on me."

This would be enough to make Alejandro snicker at how spoiled Noah was acting. He might have been imagining things, but he swore he saw the tip of Noah's tail flicker in delight at the sound.

Alejandro found himself going from keeping a respectable distance from Noah to leaning against the naga's coils.

Alejandro would begin to open up about his family. How he tires of playing second fiddle to Jose, and how his parents do everything in their power to encourage him. They put on a show for the world to see that Alejandro is 'lucky' enough to be a part of. He tried to show Jose up, once upon a time. But loss after loss whittled away at him. Until there was nothing left but a bitter, snarky teenager who would rather stay in his room than deal with anybody. Still with the knowledge of how to charm and fight, but none of the motivation.

It would lead to Noah opening up about his own family. He came from a line of powerful fae. Having eight siblings in the fae realm meant they were constantly fighting for everything. He was last in line to inherit anything by birthright. If he wanted anything, he'd have to fight for it. As the youngest, Noah could never hope to win in a battle of strength. He adapted to winning battles of wit instead.

He didn't care that he had to fight dirty. He never got a fair chance in a fight with his siblings. Why should he return the favor? The only way he'd beat his siblings is if he performed just a minor coup, so he did. Or well, he tried. He underestimated his parents' ability to catch on to his tricks.

So they cursed him. "You'll live as you truly are in the wild until you learn the sanctity of a life." Rather shitty of them to exile their own child instead of acknowledging the environment they created in the first place. But, oh well. Noah's here now. ...and it feels surprisingly refreshing to let his guard down and tell someone else this.

Alejandro is reminded that he should in no way shape or form trust someone who tried 'a minor coup' on his own parents. ...But it is nice to have Noah agree that Alejandro's parents and brother are in fact terrible. He'd been around so many sycophants to the Burromuerto name, he thought he must be the mad one for thinking ill of them.

Sadly though, the week is up before they know it. Alejandro is going to have to go back home, and miss his new boyfriend. Alejandro finishes reading the last book he brought over so Noah can have a proper ending. At this point, he's grown so comfortable with Noah that he's nestled in between Noah's loose coils. Noah could kill him easily anyways, so why deny himself something so warm and cozy?

By the end, Noah gifts him the largest moose he can find. It'll be rations for the road, plus the antlers will make for a good hunting trophy. He knows it's gauche but his options for giving gifts as a giant snake thing are limited.

Alejandro suspects something's up by the look in Noah's eyes, but doesn't say anything. Rejecting Noah's gift would be a terrible idea if fae work how he thinks they work. He could just bury the gift when he's far enough away from Noah. He can't imagine anything good would come from bringing this to his family.

...Yet he's so tired of them. He feels more comfortable with a stranger he's only known for a week than with his own family sitting down for dinner. That stranger could squeeze him to death without a second thought and he'd still trust Noah more than he would trust Jose not to find an excuse to shoot him in the head when he's in a mood. So you know what? Whatever happens to his family will just have to happen to them.

He takes the gift back to his family so he can actually win at something for once. Jose tries to play it off, but it is the biggest thing hunted, so that's what the Burromuertos decide to eat as their final meal here before heading out.

Alejandro, not trusting Noah, wisely waits for everyone else to eat the food first. He gets away with it because the second they take a bite, they're hooked. They're scarfing the food down like animals. He pushes his portion into the fireplace. He's grateful he did when his mother starts coughing, then gasping, then choking for air and foaming at the mouth. Soon followed by his brother, then his father.

Noah said his new body reflected his true self. Alejandro isn't surprised that means he's a venomous snake.

Noah slithers quietly behind him. He's genuinely happy that Alejandro did survive this. Because if he didn't, Alejandro wasn't the type of person Noah thought he was.

"If you hadn't found a way around it, then you weren't worth all the time and effort I put into you. And that would have been such a pity, truly."

Noah knew Alejandro was lying about being by himself the whole time, and that it was probably because his family had been hunting without his permission. Fae rules said he had to do something about it, and from how Alejandro described them, there was absolutely no reason to let them live. Alejandro getting caught in the crossfire was a calculated risk. 'Noah' couldn't harm Alejandro, but that isn't to say one of his gifts couldn't.

However, he genuinely thought he had done a great job of gaining Alejandro's trust. He believed Alejandro had no idea the gift was a trap, or at least didn't realize it until later. To find that Alejandro actually did know that the gift was tainted from the beginning, and that he still chose to give it to his family? He's delighted. Especially when Alejandro admits he's not that worked up about their deaths as he feels he should be. And when Alejandro pulls one last contigency:

Noah never gave an end condition to when he could harm Alejandro. So as long as Alejandro only hunts for food and not for sport, Noah can't cause any direct harm to him, ever.

Noah could of course try to find another work around to get rid of a final loose end. But he's much happier to offer him a place in the woods for as long as Alejandro wants. And he wants to start dating Alejandro properly. Alejandro has nowhere else to go, and he's much happier here than he's ever been. So he agrees to the home, and to being Noah's boyfriend.

Noah takes care of Alejandro, and Alejandro works on a way to break Noah free from his curse. 'A life' could just mean one person specifically after all. So if Alejandro just makes sure that person is him, he'd be set for life.

Everyone else?

Not their problem.

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