#PUBLISHING FOR THOSE WHO ARE ALSO IN THE TANK LIKE ME | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

vaspider · 2 years ago

Note

youve got a lot of really great thoughts on a transphobia and homophobia, tbh more critical thinking than most people on here, and i was wondering how much you knew about the theory of rapid onset gender dysphoria/if youd be comfortable sharing your thoughts on the ridiculous idea

It was explicitly invented by transphobes as a means of delegitimizing trans identity, and that invention was backed up by a "study" in which the person running the study never spoke to any trans people or to any professionals providing care for trans people, only spoke to the parents of trans minors, and those parents were specifically recruited from forums for anti-trans parents.

The paper which supposedly coined ROGD was taken down for a while and corrected. Further studies have found no basis for ROGD.

What's really interesting is in the cache of emails which became public earlier this year from a former detransitioner there's a paper trail which pretty clearly indicates that the term was actually created on a very heinous website called 4th/wave/now (forgive my anti-search slashes, these people are awful) well prior to the study.

Hey, you want to guess where the parents for this study were recruited from? If you guessed "the one where the term was invented," you're right!

But wait, there's more!

It appears from the journalistic work done by Mother Jones, Jude Doyle, and Julia Serano, that this term was created by an anti-trans activist who works extensively with right-wing think tanks and who went to great lengths to hide that she invented the term.

Jude Doyle:

Finding anti-trans narratives that would “sell” to the general public was a constant concern for this crowd, and Shupe says it didn’t much matter if the narratives were based in fact or not. Marchiano, for instance, eagerly watched the spread of the ROGD theory — “[transfeminist writer and researcher Julia] Serano has already written a takedown,” she exulted in one August 2018 email. Shupe suspects Marchiano’s role is larger than the public knows: “Marchiano never explicitly said she is the inventor of ROGD, but the evidence points to her, and she’s listed as a contributor to the [Lisa Littman] study on PLOS One,” she writes to me. “My ‘opinion’ is that Marchiano and the 4thWaveNow folks are behind the ROGD study, and Littman merely fronted it for them to make it appear unbiased.”

Jude Doyle again:

On July 2, Shupe sent Marchiano a link to Jones’ blog post telling her “you’ve upset Zinnia again.” (Shupe had a tendency to send Marchiano news of ROGD, and to attribute the theory to “you” — that is, to Marchiano — whether Marchiano was explicitly named or not. In the communications I’ve reviewed, Marchiano does not reject the attribution.) Marchiano responded by saying that Jones had done something to “make her nervous” — namely, she’d dug up a blog post about ROGD that Marchiano had written under her own name.

Julia Serano:

If all of this is true — that Marchiano ran YCTP and invented ROGD — then it would follow that Marchiano was also likely skepticaltherapist, the supposed parent of a trans child who invented the idea of “transgender social contagion” in the first place.

Julia Serano again:

Also on March 15, 2016, at 6:07am (so very early in the day, likely before the aforementioned YTCP piece is published), skepticaltherapist posts her final comment on 4thwavenow before mysteriously disappearing. In a reply to someone named Starrymessenger, skepticaltherapist says: 'I wanted to mention that this month’s Psychotherapy Networker is focusing on trans youth issues, and the tone of each article is uncritically celebratory — lots of mentions of “courage,” and “bravery.” You may need a subscription or at least an account to comment, but I have so far.'

At the time of this comment, "Lisa" is the *only* person to have posted a comment on this particular Psychotherapy Networker article, as the 2nd comment doesn't appear until later that evening (7:30:15 PM on March 15th; both 4thwavenow & Psychotherapy Networker appear to be based in the U.S., so the should be only a few hours apart, if at all). Therefore, "Lisa" and skepticaltherapist must be the same person.

Did you catch all of that?

This is a fraudulent "diagnosis" explicitly invented by an anti-trans psychologist who at times has used sockpuppets to manipulate online conversations, claimed at times to be the mother of a trans child, or maybe it was her friend who had the trans child, or maybe she just knew somebody who just randomly decided he was a trans boy after going on tumblr. (Boy, does Lisa Marchiano hate Tumblr, lol.)

After inventing this diagnosis and pushing it on a forum for parents who don't like that they have trans kids, Marchiano then approaches a different researcher and uses this other researcher to launder this term, launching it into the verbal stratosphere, while explicitly working with right-wing groups who used this "evidence" to manufacture anti-trans bills. This list of right-wing groups and individuals includes the Alliance Defending Freedom, the "American College of Pediatricians," -- not to be confused with the American Academy of Pediatrics, the legitimate organization, ACPeds is a fringe right-wing group.

They literally made all of this up, this idea that transmasculine people specifically are being "infected" by online sources, and then they laundered it through a shitty study and tried to hide the laundering they did, so that shit like this can happen:

The president of the American Principles Project, a member of the coalition, recently told the New York Times that his group’s goal is to eliminate all transition care, starting with children because that’s “where the consensus is.”

This isn't about protecting children or any bullshit like that, and it's not about this fallacious "disorder" because it doesn't exist -- and they know it doesn't exist. They know it doesn't exist because they were the ones who made it up.

Like... what else is there to say? It's like if I made up Purple Big Toe Disease and claimed that all people taller than 5'10" and born on a Tuesday have Purple Big Toe Disease and should not be able to buy aspirin, because it's G-d's plan that people who have Purple Big Toe Disease should not prevent themselves from feeling the pain that G-d has planned for them, and then I asked someone to write a paper about PBTD and pretend I wasn't the one who made it up so I could point at the paper and be like le gasp, PBTD is the number one problem! We need to stop everyone over 5'10" and born on a Tuesday from being able to buy aspirin! And then some dude in South Dakota starts writing up bills in consultation with a bunch of Evangelical lawyers to deny basic health care to people over 5'10" and born on Tuesdays.

If it sounds fucking ridiculous, it's because it is.

#trans issues #the lie of ROGD

1K notes · View notes

am-i-the-asshole-official · 7 months ago

Note

WIBTA if I left a bad review on a book I haven’t purchased?

(📚📖 to find later)

I’m an audiobook narrator professionally. I do most of my work via independent contracting with a production company. NOTE: they are NOT a publishing house. They do not provide editors/betas/etc for the text, they focus on turning (usually self published) books into audiobooks and marketing those audiobooks.

Most of the books I record with them are great, and I have a lot of fun reading good books! But…some of the books I’ve read for them have been. REALLY. REALLY. bad. Like I personally would have stopped reading within the first few pages bad if it wasn’t literally my job to read the words out loud.

I’m currently reading a book for them that makes me want to tear my hair out. The writing is boring, badly paced, and repetitive. None of the characters are likeable, and the relationships are shallow, the combat is boring, there are no stakes, etc etc. To give you an idea, the main character is the type of kid who on the playground would insist he had a mega super invincibility shield so you couldn’t touch him, but he also had a mega super invincibility shield breaking sword if you decided you wanted a shield too. And the narrative REWARDS HIM for acting that way.

I’ve never left a review on any of the books I’ve narrated before, but this one…i am seriously considering writing a review to try and warn people away from this book.

A few things to consider, though:

1: i am not being paid royalty share from the book, i get a flat rate based on the number of hours in the final audiobook. But as far as I know, the author only starts making money from producing this audiobook once the production company makes back the money they paid me for making it.

2: i would review anonymously/under a fake name and only on the book product page, not the product page for the audiobook version.

3: if an audiobook does not sell, then it is most likely I will not be obligated to continue recording the rest of the series (and it IS a series. At least three books are out as of now. I am currently slated to record them all, provided the audiobook sells decently)

4: the book currently has ~250 reviews already, and a 4.7/5 rating (how???? get some fucking standards), so it’s not like I’m leaving a 1 star review on something that only has 6 reviews.

I don’t think that one bad review would tank the whole series, but I do feel like leaving bad reviews on a product I didn’t even buy might be a dick move, especially if the author’s pay for this book relies on it selling well. But on the other hand, his book sucks and people should know that.

I wouldn’t be leaving a “0 stars: this sucks” review, I’d want to make it comprehensive and detailed. But I’d also feel bad about that because I’m sure the author reads his reviews, and even though his book sucks shit, i don’t want to like…make someone lose their passion to write? But ALSO if you’re making people pay $16 for the book and/or $40 for the audiobook, maybe the book should be fucking good? Idk.

So, tumblr, WIBTA?

#aita #am i the asshole

204 notes · View notes

mostlysignssomeportents · 7 months ago

Text

Algorithmic feeds are a twiddler’s playground

Next TUESDAY (May 14), I'm on a livecast about AI AND ENSHITTIFICATION with TIM O'REILLY; on WEDNESDAY (May 15), I'm in NORTH HOLLYWOOD with HARRY SHEARER for a screening of STEPHANIE KELTON'S FINDING THE MONEY; FRIDAY (May 17), I'm at the INTERNET ARCHIVE in SAN FRANCISCO to keynote the 10th anniversary of the AUTHORS ALLIANCE.

Like Oscar Wilde, "I can resist anything except temptation," and my slow and halting journey to adulthood is really just me grappling with this fact, getting temptation out of my way before I can yield to it.

Behavioral economists have a name for the steps we take to guard against temptation: a "Ulysses pact." That's when you take some possibility off the table during a moment of strength in recognition of some coming moment of weakness:

https://archive.org/details/decentralizedwebsummit2016-corydoctorow

Famously, Ulysses did this before he sailed into the Sea of Sirens. Rather than stopping his ears with wax to prevent his hearing the sirens' song, which would lure him to his drowning, Ulysses has his sailors tie him to the mast, leaving his ears unplugged. Ulysses became the first person to hear the sirens' song and live to tell the tale.

Ulysses was strong enough to know that he would someday be weak. He expressed his strength by guarding against his weakness. Our modern lives are filled with less epic versions of the Ulysses pact: the day you go on a diet, it's a good idea to throw away all your Oreos. That way, when your blood sugar sings its siren song at 2AM, it will be drowned out by the rest of your body's unwillingness to get dressed, find your keys and drive half an hour to the all-night grocery store.

Note that this Ulysses pact isn't perfect. You might drive to the grocery store. It's rare that a Ulysses pact is unbreakable – we bind ourselves to the mast, but we don't chain ourselves to it and slap on a pair of handcuffs for good measure.

People who run institutions can �� and should – create Ulysses pacts, too. A company that holds the kind of sensitive data that might be subjected to "sneak-and-peek" warrants by cops or spies can set up a "warrant canary":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary

This isn't perfect. A company that stops publishing regular transparency reports might have been compromised by the NSA, but it's also possible that they've had a change in management and the new boss just doesn't give a shit about his users' privacy:

https://www.fastcompany.com/90853794/twitters-transparency-reporting-has-tanked-under-elon-musk

Likewise, a company making software it wants users to trust can release that code under an irrevocable free/open software license, thus guaranteeing that each release under that license will be free and open forever. This is good, but not perfect: the new boss can take that free/open code down a proprietary fork and try to orphan the free version:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39772562

A company can structure itself as a public benefit corporation and make a binding promise to elevate its stakeholders' interests over its shareholders' – but the CEO can still take a secret $100m bribe from cryptocurrency creeps and try to lure those stakeholders into a shitcoin Ponzi scheme:

https://fortune.com/crypto/2024/03/11/kickstarter-blockchain-a16z-crypto-secret-investment-chris-dixon/

A key resource can be entrusted to a nonprofit with a board of directors who are charged with stewarding it for the benefit of a broad community, but when a private equity fund dangles billions before that board, they can talk themselves into a belief that selling out is the right thing to do:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/12/how-we-saved-org-2020-review

Ulysses pacts aren't perfect, but they are very important. At the very least, creating a Ulysses pact starts with acknowledging that you are fallible. That you can be tempted, and rationalize your way into taking bad action, even when you know better. Becoming an adult is a process of learning that your strength comes from seeing your weaknesses and protecting yourself and the people who trust you from them.

Which brings me to enshittification. Enshittification is the process by which platforms betray their users and their customers by siphoning value away from each until the platform is a pile of shit:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification

Enshittification is a spectrum that can be applied to many companies' decay, but in its purest form, enshittification requires:

a) A platform: a two-sided market with business customers and end users who can be played off against each other; b) A digital back-end: a market that can be easily, rapidly and undetectably manipulated by its owners, who can alter search-rankings, prices and costs on a per-user, per-query basis; and c) A lack of constraint: the platform's owners must not fear a consequence for this cheating, be it from competitors, regulators, workforce resignations or rival technologists who use mods, alternative clients, blockers or other "adversarial interoperability" tools to disenshittify your product and sever your relationship with your users.

he founders of tech platforms don't generally set out to enshittify them. Rather, they are constantly seeking some equilibrium between delivering value to their shareholders and turning value over to end users, business customers, and their own workers. Founders are consummate rationalizers; like parenting, founding a company requires continuous, low-grade self-deception about the amount of work involved and the chances of success. A founder, confronted with the likelihood of failure, is absolutely capable of talking themselves into believing that nearly any compromise is superior to shuttering the business: "I'm one of the good guys, so the most important thing is for me to live to fight another day. Thus I can do any number of immoral things to my users, business customers or workers, because I can make it up to them when we survive this crisis. It's for their own good, even if they don't know it. Indeed, I'm doubly moral here, because I'm volunteering to look like the bad guy, just so I can save this business, which will make the world over for the better":

https://locusmag.com/2024/05/cory-doctorow-no-one-is-the-enshittifier-of-their-own-story/

(En)shit(tification) flows downhill, so tech workers grapple with their own version of this dilemma. Faced with constant pressure to increase the value flowing from their division to the company, they have to balance different, conflicting tactics, like "increasing the number of users or business customers, possibly by shifting value from the company to these stakeholders in the hopes of making it up in volume"; or "locking in my existing stakeholders and squeezing them harder, safe in the knowledge that they can't easily leave the service provided the abuse is subtle enough." The bigger a company gets, the harder it is for it to grow, so the biggest companies realize their gains by locking in and squeezing their users, not by improving their service::

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/microincentives-and-enshittification/

That's where "twiddling" comes in. Digital platforms are extremely flexible, which comes with the territory: computers are the most flexible tools we have. This means that companies can automate high-speed, deceptive changes to the "business logic" of their platforms – what end users pay, how much of that goes to business customers, and how offers are presented to both:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/

This kind of fraud isn't particularly sophisticated, but it doesn't have to be – it just has to be fast. In any shell-game, the quickness of the hand deceives the eye:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/26/glitchbread/#electronic-shelf-tags

Under normal circumstances, this twiddling would be constrained by counterforces in society. Changing the business rules like this is fraud, so you'd hope that a regulator would step in and extinguish the conduct, fining the company that engaged in it so hard that they saw a net loss from the conduct. But when a sector gets very concentrated, its mega-firms capture their regulators, becoming "too big to jail":

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/05/regulatory-capture/

Thus the tendency among the giant tech companies to practice the one lesson of the Darth Vader MBA: dismissing your stakeholders' outrage by saying, "I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/26/hit-with-a-brick/#graceful-failure

Where regulators fail, technology can step in. The flexibility of digital platforms cuts both ways: when the company enshittifies its products, you can disenshittify it with your own countertwiddling: third-party ink-cartridges, alternative app stores and clients, scrapers, browser automation and other forms of high-tech guerrilla warfare:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

But tech giants' regulatory capture have allowed them to expand "IP rights" to prevent this self-help. By carefully layering overlapping IP rights around their products, they can criminalize the technology that lets you wrestle back the value they've claimed for themselves, creating a new offense of "felony contempt of business model":

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

A world where users must defer to platforms' moment-to-moment decisions about how the service operates, without the protection of rival technology or regulatory oversight is a world where companies face a powerful temptation to enshittify.

That's why we've seen so much enshittification in platforms that algorithmically rank their feeds, from Google and Amazon search to Facebook and Twitter feeds. A search engine is always going to be making a judgment call about what the best result for your search should be. If a search engine is generally good at predicting which results will please you best, you'll return to it, automatically clicking the first result ("I'm feeling lucky").

This means that if a search engine slips in the odd paid result at the top of the results, they can exploit your trusting habits to shift value from you to their investors. The congifurability of a digital service means that they can sprinkle these frauds into their services on a random schedule, making them hard to detect and easy to dismiss as lapses. Gradually, this acquires its own momentum, and the platform becomes addicted to lowering its own quality to raise its profits, and you get modern Google, which cynically lowered search quality to increase search volume:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/24/naming-names/#prabhakar-raghavan

And you get Amazon, which makes $38 billion every year, accepting bribes to replace its best search results with paid results for products that cost more and are of lower quality:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens

Social media's enshittification followed a different path. In the beginning, social media presented a deterministic feed: after you told the platform who you wanted to follow, the platform simply gathered up the posts those users made and presented them to you, in reverse-chronological order.

This presented few opportunities for enshittification, but it wasn't perfect. For users who were well-established on a platform, a reverse-chrono feed was an ungovernable torrent, where high-frequency trivialities drowned out the important posts from people whose missives were buried ten screens down in the updates since your last login.

For new users who didn't yet follow many people, this presented the opposite problem: an empty feed, and the sense that you were all alone while everyone else was having a rollicking conversation down the hall, in a room you could never find.

The answer was the algorithmic feed: a feed of recommendations drawn from both the accounts you followed and strangers alike. Theoretically, this could solve both problems, by surfacing the most important materials from your friends while keeping you abreast of the most important and interesting activity beyond your filter bubble. For many of us, this promise was realized, and algorithmic feeds became a source of novelty and relevance.

But these feeds are a profoundly tempting enshittification target. The critique of these algorithms has largely focused on "addictiveness" and the idea that platforms would twiddle the knobs to increase the relevance of material in your feed to "hack your engagement":

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/04/has-dopamine-got-us-hooked-on-tech-facebook-apps-addiction

Less noticed – and more important – was how platforms did the opposite: twiddling the knobs to remove things from your feed that you'd asked to see or that the algorithm predicted you'd enjoy, to make room for "boosted" content and advertisements:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Instagram/comments/z9j7uy/what_happened_to_instagram_only_ads_and_accounts/

Users were helpless before this kind of twiddling. On the one hand, they were locked into the platform – not because their dopamine had been hacked by evil tech-bro wizards – but because they loved the friends they had there more than they hated the way the service was run:

https://locusmag.com/2023/01/commentary-cory-doctorow-social-quitting/

On the other hand, the platforms had such an iron grip on their technology, and had deployed IP so cleverly, that any countertwiddling technology was instantaneously incinerated by legal death-rays:

https://techcrunch.com/2022/10/10/google-removes-the-og-app-from-the-play-store-as-founders-think-about-next-steps/

Newer social media platforms, notably Tiktok, dispensed entirely with deterministic feeds, defaulting every user into a feed that consisted entirely of algorithmic picks; the people you follow on these platforms are treated as mere suggestions by their algorithms. This is a perfect breeding-ground for enshittification: different parts of the business can twiddle the knobs to override the algorithm for their own parochial purposes, shifting the quality:shit ratio by unnoticeable increments, temporarily toggling the quality knob when your engagement drops off:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilybaker-white/2023/01/20/tiktoks-secret-heating-button-can-make-anyone-go-viral/

All social platforms want to be Tiktok: nominally, that's because Tiktok's algorithmic feed is so good at hooking new users and keeping established users hooked. But tech bosses also understand that a purely algorithmic feed is the kind of black box that can be plausibly and subtly enshittified without sparking user revolts:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

Back in 2004, when Mark Zuckerberg was coming to grips with Facebook's success, he boasted to a friend that he was sitting on a trove of emails, pictures and Social Security numbers for his fellow Harvard students, offering this up for his friend's idle snooping. The friend, surprised, asked "What? How'd you manage that one?"

Infamously, Zuck replied, "People just submitted it. I don't know why. They 'trust me.' Dumb fucks."

https://www.esquire.com/uk/latest-news/a19490586/mark-zuckerberg-called-people-who-handed-over-their-data-dumb-f/

This was a remarkable (and uncharacteristic) self-aware moment from the then-nineteen-year-old Zuck. Of course Zuck couldn't be trusted with that data. Whatever Jiminy Cricket voice told him to safeguard that trust was drowned out by his need to boast to pals, or participate in the creepy nonconsensual rating of the fuckability of their female classmates. Over and over again, Zuckerberg would promise to use his power wisely, then break that promise as soon as he could do so without consequence:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3247362

Zuckerberg is a cautionary tale. Aware from the earliest moments that he was amassing power that he couldn't be trusted with, he nevertheless operated with only the weakest of Ulysses pacts, like a nonbinding promise never to spy on his users:

https://web.archive.org/web/20050107221705/http://www.thefacebook.com/policy.php

But the platforms have learned the wrong lesson from Zuckerberg. Rather than treating Facebook's enshittification as a cautionary tale, they've turned it into a roadmap. The Darth Vader MBA rules high-tech boardrooms.

Algorithmic feeds and other forms of "paternalistic" content presentation are necessary and even desirable in an information-rich environment. In many instances, decisions about what you see must be largely controlled by a third party whom you trust. The audience in a comedy club doesn't get to insist on knowing the punchline before the joke is told, just as RPG players don't get to order the Dungeon Master to present their preferred challenges during a campaign.

But this power is balanced against the ease of the players replacing the Dungeon Master or the audience walking out on the comic. When you've got more than a hundred dollars sunk into a video game and an online-only friend-group you raid with, the games company can do a lot of enshittification without losing your business, and they know it:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/10/24153809/ea-in-game-ads-redux

Even if they sometimes overreach and have to retreat:

https://www.eurogamer.net/sony-overturns-helldivers-2-psn-requirement-following-backlash

A tech company that seeks your trust for an algorithmic feed needs Ulysses pacts, or it will inevitably yield to the temptation to enshittify. From strongest to weakest, these are:

Not showing you an algorithmic feed at all;

https://joinmastodon.org/

"Composable moderation" that lets multiple parties provide feeds:

https://bsky.social/about/blog/4-13-2023-moderation

Offering an algorithmic "For You" feed alongside of a reverse-chrono "Friends" feed, defaulting to friends;

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/10/e2e/#the-censors-pen

As above, but defaulting to "For You"

Maturity lies in being strong enough to know your weaknesses. Never trust someone who tells you that they will never yield to temptation! Instead, seek out people – and service providers – with the maturity and honesty to know how tempting temptation is, and who act before temptation strikes to make it easier to resist.

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/2024/05/11/for-you/#the-algorithm-tm

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

djhughman https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Modular_synthesizer_-_%22Control_Voltage%22_electronic_music_shop_in_Portland_OR_-_School_Photos_PCC_%282015-05-23_12.43.01_by_djhughman%29.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

#pluralistic #twiddling #for you #enshittification #intermediation #the algorithm tm #moral hazard #end to end

113 notes · View notes

matan4il · 10 months ago

Text

Daily update post:

Another independent Palestinian terrorist attack happened today, wounding two Palestinians who happened to drive by the terrorists, who intended to shoot at Israeli soldiers. The IDF neutralized them, while one soldier's life was saved thanks to his gear (I found the report on the shooting terrorist attack in both Hebrew and English, I only found the info on the two wounded Palestinians in Hebrew).

During the International Court of Justice's decision regarding provisional measures against Israel, only the majority opinion was read out loud. The minority opinion was published separately. The short of it is that the judge from Uganda found that South Africa didn't have a right to make this case at all, and therefore decided against every single provisional measure SA asked for, while the Israeli judge had the same conclusion, and a few words to add, as a child survivor of the Holocaust. He wrote, among other things, "Genocide is not just a word to me" (a sentiment that should be shared by everyone, not just survivors of genocide, IMO) and that essentially, the ICJ became a stage to put Able on trial for having been murdered by Cain, or in Barak's words, by focusing on Israel instead of on Hamas, South Africa "wrongly sought to impute the crime of Cain to Abel."

This footage aired a few days ago, but since I couldn't find it anywhere in English, I ended up editing it out of an article in Hebrew. What you can see here are two things... First, you'll see the Israeli Air Force following a Hamas squad, where the terrorists are carrying RPGs and going into a building. The IAF then strikes from the air that building, and what really stands out is the secondary explosions after the initial hit, indicating that the building was full of explosives. Second, you'll see Gazans evacuating to safety. As they do, they chant against Hamas. But what really got to me is how they're moving slowly next to Israeli tanks. If they were scared that the Israeli army would shoot at them indiscrimintaely as part of some attempted genocide, they would be rushing it out of there, and likely they wouldn't have even stepped anywhere near the tanks. They can walk slowly next to the IDF, because they're sure that the Israeli soldiers are NOT going to fire at them.

In the last couple of days, we've had repeated reports of Israelis being injured by Hezbollah fire into northern Israel (after civilian communities were continuously targeted, and people got killed by this Iran-funded terrorist group), and that IDF units which have concluded their fighting in Gaza, are now starting to train for a possible war in the north. Let's hope it won't come to that, but the only thing that might stop that option is a diplomatic agreement leading to Hezbollah leaving Israel's border, and there are no signs of those efforts succeeding for the time being.

The final warning before a subponea that the House committee investigating antisemitism had to issue Harvard, because the university hasn't produced the documents it was asked to, sure does make it sound like Haravard has nothing to hide...

Today, 4 months and a day after the Hamas massacre, they started removing the ruins of houses in kibbutz Be'eri, where over 100 members of the small, agricultural community had been slaughtered on Oct 7. This is a first step in re-building the kibbutz.

And this is one of the kibbutz members, Meni Goddard.

In continuation of yesterday's info on the number of Israelis already murdered by Hamas, and their bodies held hostage, today it was confirmed that Meni was murdered on Oct 7, and his body was kidnapped to Gaza. It was already known that his wife Ayelet was also murdered during the massacre. Kibbutz Be'eri currently has 11 members who are known to have been kidnapped to Gaza, of which 6 are bodies held hostage, depriving the dead of their right for decent burial, and their families and community of closure. May his memory be a blessing.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

#israel #antisemitism #israeli #israel news #israel under attack #israel under fire #terrorism #anti terrorism #hamas #antisemitic #antisemites #jews #jew #judaism #jumblr #frumblr #jewish #israelunderattack

123 notes · View notes

see-arcane · 7 months ago

Text

I figured I should interrupt everyone's dash for some notes on current real life things.

This is a hefty one, so I'm tucking everything below:

A little good news. As of this writing, I’ve sold 74 copies of The Vampyres, in eBook and paperback! That’s 74 more than I thought I would ever sell! Thank you to everyone who picked up a copy or asked your library to grab some. Especially when I know I haven’t been the most stellar self-marketer. I can’t remember the last time I opened the septic tank formerly known as Twitter, so it’s all been down to this little corner here and a skinny appearance in Goodreads. Which means I owe any attention this short and sinister tale has received to you all and plain old word-of-mouth.

That said, thank you x100000 to you and any new readers yet to take a look. (And doubly so for those of you who go out of their way to leave comments and reviews around for me to reread ad infinitum.)

For those not in the know, all the info on The Vampyres can be found here, and all my author odds and ends can be found on my website here.

On a less heartening note…

As I’d already expected, the market for career writers is…rough. Copywriting—and writing in general—is technically a big open field (full of caveat descriptions about having to work with/teach AI programs to eventually swallow your job)! Tons of open positions! Most of which either pay you in pocket change while you’re working full time or expect you to singlehandedly run the entire marketing of a business for slightly more pocket change. Everything else is bloated with contract and/or freelance work*.

*Read: Gig economy schlock trying to pass for an actual job position with payment being a coin toss. I’ve also seen one too many listings on the job boards that are volunteer positions. Plenty of exposure to rake in though, right? Ha. Ha ha.

I’ve still been applying like clockwork, same as the rest of my fellow creators trying to get by in a field that seems to actively punish trying to be a professional in said field, and still no bites further than an interview. I have years of experience and a degree, but everyone’s chasing the same crumbs, so. Yeah. I’ve got to start padding things out.

Reminder that I do have a (barely peddled) Ko-Fi. It’s there for art commissions and chucking a few spare bucks at. Which is an increasingly big ask these days, I know. You can’t scroll two posts down without hitting someone else’s Ko-Fi, Patreon, GoFundMe, Kickstarter, et cetera. We’re drowning in arting starvists here. And although I have been asked before whether I would consider going full Freelance Storywriter on top of selling art, I’m still a little hesitant on it. I do occasionally send out story submissions and have even gotten published a few times, but I get nauseous thinking about:

1) Putting up a paywall on the scribbles that assail me like a baseball bat wielded by an unmerciful Muse. 2) Putting up a ‘Stories for Sale!’ sign only to wind up disappointing prospective buyers because I didn’t do their blorbos justice even after researching X background for the piece. 3) Getting duped into being a nonconsenting ghostwriter and discovering someone else has published my work under their own name.

So, still a bit iffy on that. I’ll chew on it. But what else is left?

Before you click the button!

Stop!

NOT YET!

Before you click, please know that I am being serious about this as something to potentially make 1) something of good quality and 2) earn more money than it loses. Looking around at the merch-making/selling options, there are fees involved with making an account just about anywhere in the online store game, give or take the price tweaking needed for shipping and manufacturing blah blah blah.

With that in mind, please do not automatically hit ‘yes’ because you want to be nice. I appreciate it, but this isn’t the same thing as the Ko-Fi where there’s no real loss in just leaving it up and drawing something once every few months. This will take new designs, another subscription to pay for, more logistics to untangle for quality and pricing and all the rest of the mess. Only hit ‘yes’ if you, personally, genuinely, would like to purchase some nefarious See Arcane wares beyond a book or a digital drawing.

#heaviest sigh #rolling back into my coffin #the vampyres #my art #my writing #ko-fi #merchandise #(in potentia)#dracula #polls

62 notes · View notes

obsessive-dumpling · 4 months ago

Text

I have been waiting with bated breath but the end is nigh so it's time to get our final predictions in folks.

And I don't know.... I've had SO many predictions throughout this entire series and here we are, at end game, and I have no clue. Because Horikoshi is so talented at turning things where I least expect. Don't believe me?

Did you see "Kacchan of the Bakugos" live on world wide television happening?

Did you see "cutest girl in the world" happening?

Did you see "spend the rest of our lives together" happening?

(Spoiler Alert: There are so. many. more!)

Like we anticipated a lot of things as a fandom but then he would also smack us in the face with scenes straight out of our favorite fanfics. And why? Why did he do that? Why did he REUSE the line from School Briefs about Katsuki's relationship with girls in the final chapters of the manga? He didn't have to do that. He didn't have to do any of this!

Those were choices. Choices he actively made. Choices Shonen Jump let be published. Choices Bones is now animating. And it's because of those choices and that follow through that I'm so unsure now.

This all feels too pointed... Too intentional for there to not be a final bkdk scene/ending. So why the hesitation in predicting a bkdk ending?

Because. This ending isn't about the fandom. This ending isn't about "who's ship wins". And if you think that's all that's on the line here, then I'm sorry. I'm truly sorry, cause you missed it. You missed the point of this series and what bkdk as a canon couple would actually mean in the real world 2024.

MHA is one of the top animes in the world. Check the numbers. Not Japan. Not American. The world! Do you understand what it would mean to have a canon gay couple as leads in a mainstream Shonen anime? How many people that would reach?

Representation in media matters. Representation in MAINSTREAM media MATTERS. God, I could do a whole seminar on this topic but the point HERE being: a canon gay superhero couple in a top Shonen anime would have a massive effect on a global scale. And how many need to see that? How many people could that help? How many people could it change?

And though Horikoshi has shown a heavy leaning towards a bkdk end game, that doesn't mean he has to, or even can, follow through on it. Unfortunately, it's not up to JUST him. Shonen Jump could tank it. Bones could tank it! Do you get it yet? It's going to take A LOT for this to happen. And frankly my heart is having a hard time with it...

Because we've seen creators fight this fight before. The Legend of Korra. SheRa. Both always intended to have queer leads. But had to fight TOOTH AND NAIL with everything they had just to get a final closing scene.

We've also seen queer baiters. So many have pointed out the similarities to how Naruto felt. And because of the nature of the series' mangaka, we will never know what the truth is on that matter.

We've felt shunted by the system. We've felt laughed at for having hope to see a love like ours up on that screen.

But now we have hope again. And there /is/ a chance. There is a really real chance right now- that we could actually get it...

And that makes my chest tight.

51 notes · View notes

prettyboysdontlookatexplosions · 3 months ago

Text

medialog july 2k24

watched

the seven samurai - classic that holds up IMO!! like lawrence of arabia, one where you can see why basically every person to make a movie since cites it as a formative influence. lots of really beautiful shots but what really stood out to me was how human it felt - small scale but not in a way that means "minor," in a way that emphasizes that even the smallest of scales is everything to the people living it. every character feels so real and carries such a sense of a life lived, thanks to both the writing and the absolutely wonderful performances. it feels so empathetic and compassionate and warm even though it's ultimately a war movie - one of those movies where you get the sense a fundamental love for humanity is one of the animating creative impulses. also toshiro mifune, one of the hottest people ever to live, spends the back half of this movie, to quote nick, dressed like hercules with his ass hanging out and it's incredible.

tank girl - every single Look and Aesthetic in this movie is an absolute 100/10 and lori petty is a foul-mouthed delight, but wow was I not prepared for how much of this movie is about the discovery of a secret underground society of kangaroo people

read

megan whalen turner, the thief - a pair of friends of mine basically shoved this into my hands when i was at their apartment with the promise of great craft & an ending that goes crazy. the first in the series of six, this one is more or less a sturdy and fairly straightforward middle-grade adventure story, and while it was at times a little heavy on descriptions of the characters making their way across various types of terrain, overall my interest was sustained by a few things: a clean, deliberate writing style that washed me in nostalgia for the middle-grade classics of my own youth (which this could have been - it came out in 1996 - but somehow i never came across it); a setting deliberately out of any real historical time but clearly influenced in Vibes by (among other places) ancient greece, which contributed to the nostalgia; glimpses of a convincingly rendered mythology (and the fascinating choice, which continues throughout the series, to render the characters' occasional glimpses of the actual divine as more unsettling than anything else); and a wonderfully compelling set of characters, above all gen, the book's narrator and the series' central character (although not most of the books'), who as i said a while ago is a classic blend of clever, brave, and incredibly annoying to everyone he meets.

monique wittig, the straight mind - collection of essays by a french lesbian feminist/theorist i first heard of, to be very honest, because adele haenel was one of the panelists at an event at the local french bookstore and i wanted to see her in person, lmao. the first essay in the collection opens with a call to abolish the concept of sex, which is one of those claims i'm not sure i actually endorse or even fully understand but find really invigorating to read, all of which more or less applies to my experience of the collection as a whole (including the part where i was not sure i was always following it). i did particularly appreciate her interest as a writer (she was a novelist as well as a theorist) in language and the role it plays in upholding gender/the work of imagining a way to play a role in dismantling it. and i found her general rejection of "the myth of woman" quite bracing.

rick emerson, unmask alice: LSD, satanic panic, and the imposter behind the world's most notorious diaries - i heard about this book on an episode of you're wrong about before i stopped listening and it was in fact an incredibly entertaining and fascinating bit of light nonfiction about a truly bonkers episode in american publishing history. go ask alice is the obvious draw here, but a large chunk of the book is devoted to "editor" and professional liar beatrice sparks's follow-up, jay's journal, which emerson reveals to have, in fact, started as the actual diary of a suicidal teenager whose family entrusted it to her in the hopes that their dead son's pain might somehow be able to help other families prevent similarly tragic outcomes... only to have sparks expand his few dozen entries into a story of the absolute most insane satanic panic ground zero nonsense (this book predates michelle remembers!), but somehow leave in enough identifying details that everyone in the family's small mormon town knew exactly who it was about. truly truly monstrous and if emerson sometimes veers a little close painting sparks as a cartoon villain, it's honestly hard to blame him given how much time he spent contemplating this unbelievably heinous act.

courtney summers, i'm the girl - the simplest way to describe this book is to paraphrase the author in some interview i can't remember as a story about a girl who confuses beauty for power because that's what the world has told her is true; it's emotionally rough but highly readable, and as always i just so admire summers' lack of interest in morality tales or lessons learned, her keen understanding that having a sixteen-year-old being groomed come suddenly and fully into a perfect feminist analysis of what's happened to her would make the book more palatable to some but ultimately be a betrayal of the character she'd created. summers has alluded in her newsletter to this book, loosely based on research about the epstein/maxwell case & the testimony of their victims, closing the chapter on the first arc of her career as a writer - eight thorny, painful novels about interior lives of teenage girls struggling with themselves and the world they live in - and it feels like a fitting capstone, one that both calls on the skills she's developed over the years and feels like it digs even more deeply than the project into an area of interest that feels fitting for an author who started writing YA in her early 20s and is now in her late 30s, namely, how to write a book that makes space for real empathy with a young person naive enough - some might say, and indeed some have said, stupid enough - to be well and truly taken in? (and i think one of the smartest things the book does is foreground early on how badly its protagonist doesn't want to be thought of as stupid, which is part of what makes her vulnerable and part of what makes processing the reality of what's happening to her so difficult.) also, despite the fact that romance has never been a huge or simple part of summers's novels, she's always had a knack for crafting a YA dreamboat love interest, and as someone who it turns out was figuring out her sexuality in her 30s around the same time summers was - it was great to see her do it again but this time with a girl :)

ted chiang, exhalation - my friend recommended me this because i was looking to read more sci-fi short stories but running into my perennial problem with sci-fi which is that frequently the writing is bad. ted chiang is pretty good! i liked how much he clearly conceives of or intuits that form & story are one and the same - almost all the stories in this collection take the form of a document that has some in-world reason to exist, which keeps the style feeling fresh and which he often uses to merge character work & sci-fi concepts in a cool way (as in a story with the fascinating premise that creationism is real but earth is not god's favored planet). it was unfortunate that the longest story in the collection was by far my least favorite, being both the most subject to sci-fi bland prose disease and focused on a concept it is impossible for me to muster interest in (the ethics of digital sentience... they're pictures on a screen...). the last story, the only other one written in the third person, suffered a little stylistically as well, but made up for it with an INSANELY good premise, which is that it's a multiverse story focused on a variety of psychological challenges people might have in response to learning for sure parallel universes are real - there's a support group for people addicted to checking in on their parallel selves! that's the most awesome multiverse concept i have ever come across.

evelline adams, astrology for everyone - astrology got less fun when the ratio started shifting of people viewing it as A Fun Pretend Thing to people taking it very seriously, but i do retain the same aesthetic appreciation for the particular kitsch of vintage astrology writing that i did when i borrowed this from my friend several years ago.

patrick radden keefe, rogues: true stories of grifters, killers, rebels and crooks - a collection of 12 of keefe's new yorker #longreads that i read because (a) i liked empire of pain, his book on the sackler family, a lot (b) i'm trying to get back into my library ebook habit to keep me away from Scrolling and hopefully learn some things and substantive-but-still-easy-to-read journalistic nonfiction is my favorite genre for this purpose because i don't feel i lose anything by reading it in 5 minute snatches while waiting for the train, and (c) his other books had all the licenses checked out. anyway this gave me what i wanted! i think my favorite was the one about wine fraud just because i think wine fraud is funny because anyone shelling out crazy money on wine deserves to be scammed so it's basically a victimless crime. the book closes with his profile of anthony bourdain, which is a really lovely read although incredibly sad in retrospect because bourdain comes across as so full of life and would die the year after it was published.

megan whalen turner, the queen of attolia - book two in the series, and everything is growing up a bit, as we shift from an adventure story to a war story, from gen's narration to an expertly deployed omniscient/shifting third, and from an irrepressible protagonist to one Truly Going Through It. this book kicks off strong by opening with a set of circumstances that permanently and painfully changes gen's circumstances, and the question of how he's going to process this and move forward drives a lot of the emotional suspense of the book. it also upends our understanding of a character introduced in the first book en route to an absolutely insane romance that shouldn't work but in its quasi-mythical context absolutely does. i tend to prefer hard copies for fiction, but starting here and for every book after i got to the end and went straight to the library app so i could keep going.

megan whalen turner, the king of attolia - THIS BOOK SLAPS SO HARD IT'S UNBELIEVABLE!!!! at first you're like, WHY is the narration primarily focused on some random no-name member of the royal guard we have never met before? but then you realize it's so that the entire book can be propelled by the dramatic irony wherein we, readers of the series, know gen well at this point and also know exactly how and why things went down the way they did at the end of the last book, but almost no one else does and (partly because of the ways he is annoying) many assumptions are being made... so a lot of the "suspense" in this book comes from, like, when is this new guy's understanding of gen going to start aligning with ours? it's soooo cool and something i don't remember reading in a series before (although i don't read a ton of series), and this book is, like, relentlessly entertaining on its way to its insanely satisfying conclusion, and also contains two of the most romantic paragraphs i have read in my LIFE despite the fact that the couple they center on barely appears together in the book.

megan whalen turner, conspiracy of kings - we catch up with a character from the first book who's been having a rough go of it and now needs to toughen up a bit in response to his circumstances. i think as a novel this is maybe the weakest of the set but as a character i love my sweet baby sophos so much i would have read 500 more pages. also contains one of the DUDES ROCK scenes of all time.

megan whalen turner, thick as thieves - this one picks up with a minor character from book two that i was happy to see again, because he really punched above his weight in terms of interest. it kind of combines the adventure-story of the first book with the dramatic irony as suspense of the third, and both the narrator and the central dynamic between the two main characters are delightful. this book has the least gen of all the books and i did miss him but it was funny how intensely his whole Deal hung over the circumstances regardless, and also despite the fact that the ending of literally all of these books so far has involved the reveal of some five-dimensional chess magic trick, so to speak, and thus i knew logically it was coming, i once again found myself so swept up that i was fully :O when it all went down.

megan whalen turner, return of the thief - an incredibly satisfying ending to the series, even if it left me sad that it was over! as was often the case with these books, it was, like, so satisfying that part of me almost felt like it should feel like cheating... but it didn't and i was just so happy to be there rooting for all my close personal friends. also the narrator of this one is a new character who is both physically disabled and nonverbal, and a) i thought that was generally pretty cool and the way the text engaged with people underestimating him was interesting and b) the descriptions of him as a kid being fascinated by triangles & numerical patterns was THEE most endearing thing i have read in my life.

listened

willow, empathogen - i don't know why willow decided to put out the best tori amos record since scarlet's walk? but i'm glad she did, because this album rocks! (and, like, seriously, if you're a tori person, you owe it to yourself to check this out - the influence is strong and undeniable, IMO, and on its own merits the album sounds gorgeous and takes you on a rich and textured sonic journey, even if you do maybe get the sense that being the very rich daughter of two incredibly famous millionaires in the entertainment industry is an impediment towards having all that much to say as a lyricist.)

other

anna di resburgo - my friend had an extra ticket to a short-lived production of this, the only surviving bel canto opera by a woman (recently assembled for performance from its discovery in some archive). it was only her second aria and as per the program notes kind of flopped, possibly partly due to its thematic similarity with another opera first produced around the same time by donizetti, by then an acknowledged master of the form while di resburgo was a novice (she had previously composed one opera, which has since been lost, and none after, although iirc she did some other composition) (also disclaimer that i know very little about opera, like just barely enough for all that to kind of make sense to me lol). anyway the work is uneven and (as my friend pointed out) oftentimes the music, while pretty and sometimes interesting, is at odds tonally with the plot - the plot is in theory quite dramatic with life-or-death stakes but for much of the runtime the music feels more suited to a farce - and the libretto is... not a piece of well constructed drama overall or scene to scene or line by line (there are some, like, accidentally comical exposition dumps along the lines of "father, do you remember that mysterious orphan that showed up on our doorstep all those years ago?"). but it was not without its highlights, and we agreed that as a second outing it showed promise we wish the composer had received support for the way men with similarly Just Alright second operas did.

inwood shorts - we went with some friends (actually the same friend as above) to see some shorts by local filmmakers at a place in inwood with an incredible view of the river featuring on that day an unbelievably gorgeous sunset and while nothing really wowed me a nice time was had by all & there was a big laugh in the crowd when the guy in a short giving a little "tour of my neighborhood" schtick said "for a while i lived in this place upstate called yonkers." :)

#media 2k24 #isabel 2k24

30 notes · View notes

cazzyf1 · 12 days ago

Text

Wolfgang von Trips teenage opinion on WW2

When I read over his diaries a few months ago one entry that stuck out to me was one where he went to see a war film in the cinema and then wrote down his feelings on what had happened in the war, his feelings about Germany, and his feelings about the army. I found it interesting because I had never read a German's perspective on it before and it was a unique read. So when rereading his diary I decided when I came to this entry I'd write it up and publish it for anyone else curious about what his teenage opinions were.

Reminder that this was written when Wolfgang von Trips was in prime teenage angst and still struggled to understand and cope with the effects of growing up in the war and almost dying a few times. As he got older he was determined to try and restore Germany's good reputation, especially with cars and was good friends with very patriotic Brits.

(Translated from German to English via a translator)

October 14, 1947, Tuesday

I haven't been OK for days. I had a very bad cold, it's better now, but I still have a lot of pressure above my left eye. I'm worried about inflammation in my sinus. I want to do some serious inhalation. Maybe it will clear up after all.

I was just at the cinema. English film, typically English. They showed the victory celebration. It makes you feel awfully different when you see how our defeat is celebrated. How we fought and yet we were ruined. The film and everything else took me back to a time a few years ago when we were (at least from my point of view) a people who stuck together, were honest and fought, when as a boy I was enthusiastic about everything and proud when our planes came, saw nothing bad in anything. During the war I didn't see anything bad about the war itself either. (Today I have a different opinion.) But I was still capable of enthusiasm and when one day, after a long time spent at the school camp, I saw German tanks and planes in the newsreel for the first time, I cried with excitement or pride. It was an indefinable feeling. And now it's all over. Forever. Never, never again will we carry weapons, soldiers.

Everything is bad, mean and vile, what was previously an ideal and a model. Never again will I be able to freely and truly choose. I know today, and I fully understand, that one can what used to be my highest ideal was actually not quite right. But I still mourn all of it because it will never come back and there is no replacement for it. And when I compare my thoughts from back then with those of today, ideals, goals, plans, I can't describe it like that.

I still remember exactly how, during the Jabo era, I once thought to myself: I can still picture the moment - what do you do when no more bombs are falling, no more Jabos are coming, and no more anti-aircraft guns are firing?

I thought that I must be missing something that was almost vital to my life, so it had all become my world. Today I realise that this is really something that can be rejected with normal common sense, not wrongly influenced by time, and knows it too. But the fact that I have directed all my childish and youthful - certainly not small - enthusiasm towards something that is now over forever makes me very sad. How well could something else have taken its place? something of lasting value, art, music, or for that matter, something technical. Then I wouldn't feel like I'm in such a topsy-turvy world today. I see it in other boys. For them, it doesn't mean as much as it does for me. They just didn't rely on it like I did and it was just a side issue, annoying side effect for them. Unfortunately, I'm a bit stuck now, I keep looking from one thing to the other, I just can't settle down anywhere. The contradictions in which I live and those around me are too great. I don't really know where I belong, I'm also missing the right friend, I'm missing Rudolf von Marsewsky.

It's all rubbish, damn it! The time is over, all the ideals destroyed, but if I'm honest with myself, my pure reason tells me that everything was just right, war, violence and power and so on.

I see it very differently today, but deep down I say it was beautiful and powerful and definitely better than this filth today. It's a shame that I can't really express my thoughts so that I can record them for later. Because I'm sure I'll change somehow and it'll be interesting to see what it would be like now if I still had something like that from the war or before. But I have it a little different in my head than I can express it here.

Sometimes, like now, I remember the past. Then the whole time comes back to me and I start to compare and a train of thought arises like this one. (Usually it is a conversation, a film or something else that triggers it.) And when I think about freedom, about my real life as a boy, with shooting, riding, hunting, also Hitler Youth service and military training in the mountains, our conversations and thoughts at the time and the feeling I had when I thought about the Air Force and my future, and now I think about the fact that this kind of feeling of happiness can never arise in me again because there simply can't be any reason for it anymore, then I could cry.

I haven't been aware of all this for a long time. Simply because I haven't thought about it that much. Writing it all down is partly a mental aid. It helps me get deeper into something than if I just think about it.

I was just counting the pages and had to laugh at myself. I could spend hours pondering about some of the things that usually bother me. But I want to stop for today, maybe tomorrow or soon if I get into a strange mood again (it's just the film's fault).

#classic f1 #f1 #formula one #formula 1 #vintage f1 #wolfgang von trips

19 notes · View notes

girlwiththeobsessions · 11 months ago

Text

love sick c.f.

this book has also been published on wattpad. same username as the one on here. i update faster on there.

you and conrad had a secret relationship two summers ago, when you were 15 and he was 16. you broke up with him because your younger sister, belly had liked him, and you were afraid of hurting her. now, flash forward, you were 17, and you thought you had gotten over him, but maybe you haven’t

iv. deb shopping

part 1 part 2 part 3

i had no clue what was going on with conrad, why he was acting so different this summer, making me wonder what happened to the same conrad who would go on and on about infinity.

i slept in that morning, because of the fact that i stayed up way too late at that bonfire, but i eventually got up since i had work today.

when i went downstairs, dressed in a white lifeguard tank top, and red shorts, laurel, steven, and jeremiah were downstairs.

conrad was on the couch, and jere was making a 'hangover smoothie' for him, while steven was standing behind him, looking over his shoulder.

"do we really have to physically sit for our portraits?" jeremiah complained to laurel. "can't she just- look at a picture on her phone or something?"

"right?" i agreed with him.

jeremiah backed up a little from steven, having enough of him hovering over him. "okay, get out." jeremiah pointed at the door.

steven laughed. "what. why?"

"she needs to see you in the flash to capture you essence." laurel said, fixated on her laptop. "while you're still young, and full of hope."

"so poetic, mom." i joked, while steven and jeremiah laughed.

"her words." laurel rolled her eyes at us with a smile.

"well, conrad does not have hope, actually. he's hopeless." jeremiah insulted, causing me to laugh a little. "but! my hangover smoothie, it cures all."

"can you please just hurry up." conrad rushed him from the couch.

"just go back to bed. alright?" jeremiah shot back to him, and steven started looking over his shoulder again.

jeremiah put a hand on steven's chest. "alright, seriously, steven. get out. this is a delicate science."

"she hasn't painted you since you were little. i think it would be nice to have these portraits for when you're older." laurel added in.

"oh, no." steven joked. "when i'm older, they'd have like, holograms i can watch of myself, you know."

"or, this is why we have technology." i say. "where we have pictures? on our phones?"

jeremiah started the blender, causing conrad to jolt awake.

"just sit for your portraits." laurel told me and steven. "you don't see conrad complaining.

"he'll complain when he's actually conscious." i shot back at laurel.

jeremiah went to the couch and tapped conrad. "hey. here."

"come on, man. hurry your ass up, i can't be late to my first day of work." steven rushed jeremiah. "those little country club boomers are gonna tip me so hard they won't know what hit 'em!"

i made a disgusted look at steven. "ew. steven, i swear."

"come on, y/n." jeremiah laughed. "my boys gotta get that bread."

"stop." i shook my head at him.

i look over to see belly walking in the kitchen, and i give her a small smile.

"good morning." jeremiah says to her in an enthusiastic tone.

"belly, where have you been?" laurel asks her in a serious tone. "is that a bruise."

belly stands next to me and i run my fingers over the bruise. "mom, relax, she tripped when we were at the bonfire and landed on her face." i lied, i knew belly wouldn't wanna tell the actual story

"doesn't look that bad." conrad said from the couch, i look over at him, and made eye contact with him for a few seconds before returning my focus back to belly.

"uh, cereal?" jeremiah asked belly.

"yeah, hit me." belly softly responded.

"oh, my god!" susannah ran into the kitchen. "belly and y/n are going to be debutantes!" she hugged both of us.

belly laughed. "it's really not that big of a deal."

i'd forgotten all about the whole deb thing. it'd be hard trying to balance a summer job and being a deb, on top of that, i'd have to find a date.

"i'm sorry, like those two? my sisters, right there?" steven teased us.

"shut up, cretin!" i shot back.

"okay, this is going to be so much fun!" susannah fantasized. "just you wait. there's the tea, the auction, the- ball, of course.. i gotta write this down. we need to go shopping!"

"this sounds expensive." laurel said.

"oh, don't worry, laur, it's on me." susannah smiled. "it was my idea after all."

"y/n, are you sure you wanna do this?" laurel asked me. "it doesn't seem very you."

in truth, not really. but if it made susannah happy, it made me happy. i had to do it for her.

"it's not." conrad, once again, added his two cents from the couch.

i don't know how he went from how he used to act towards me to.. this.

"conrad, could you please be a little more supportive?" susannah told him. "now, which one of you are gonna be belly or y/n's escort to the ball."

"not me." conrad immediately responded.

"shocker." i say, in a sarcastic tone.

"i went last year." conrad finished his sentence.

"me neither. i swore off balls." jeremiah told us, causing steven to laugh. "the dances dude!" jeremiah said, laughing.

"wow, guys!" i say, sarcastically. "stop fighting over us."

"i'm not going with either of you." belly finally spoke up. "i am going to find my own date.

"it says debutantes require instruction, morals, and social etiquette." laurel read off her laptop.

"i'm going for a swim." conrad leaves through the back door, as i watched him go.

"yeah, y/n could use some etiquette." steven laughed.

"and you wonder why you don't have a girlfriend." i rolled my eyes.

all the sound drowned out as i watched conrad from the window, in his shorts, and no shirt on. i missed how things used to be.

i felt a hand on my shoulder. "you alright, y/n?" jeremiah asked me.

"yeah." i tried push aside anything feelings. "we should probably go soon."

"wait." susannah spoke up. "before you go, we have shopping to do!"

"seriously?" i asked. "i have work. i'm not going shopping."

but that wasn't true. susannah is a really convincing person, so before i knew it, i was shopping around stores with susannah, laurel, and belly, for the debutante thing.

i tried on different dresses, all colors, and different accessory's, hats, sunglasses, and bow, bags over my hands and arms.

then, i had to try on a debutante dress, i found a beautiful white long dress, i loved it, but maybe conrad and laurel were right. this whole thing was not my scene.

what have i done?

ੈ✩‧₊˚ ੈ✩‧₊˚ ੈ✩‧₊˚ੈ✩‧₊˚ ੈ✩‧₊˚ ੈ✩‧₊˚

END OF CHAPTER

#conrad fisher #conrad fisher x reader #conradfisher #conradfisherxreader

69 notes · View notes

videogamelover99 · 3 months ago

Text

[Gravity Falls] Waking Days Ch. 1: Waddles

Summary: Bill Cipher is reborn, but not in the way he would have wanted. Stuck as a mortal and relying on those who brought his downfall, he realizes that maybe he didn't lie as hard as he should have. [AO3 Link] Characters: Bill Cipher, Mabel Pines, Dipper Pines, Stanford Pines, Stanley Pines, Jheselbraum the Unswerving, The Axolotl Pairings: None (past BillFord) Rating: T

A/N: Welcome to my self-indulgent, Bill Cipher-centric character exploration that is this fic! First off, thank you all so much for voicing your support over this story. There's so much planned that I want to share.

The format for this story will have an episodic feel. I originally planned these chapters to be 7k-8k words long, with one "episode" per chapter, but dividing them into smaller chunks might be the way to go.

ALSO! I'm currently looking for a beta reader! Preferably someone with a few published fics, but I'm really open to anyone who can read finalized versions of chapters and give me some notes. Send me an ask if you're interested!

Thank you for going on this journey with me. Enjoy!

---

Deep in the redwood forests of central Oregon lay a small little town called Gravity Falls. With a population of a few thousand, low on tourism, and high on mosquito bites, the town was hard to find on any of the maps, and some might have claimed that the town hadn’t even existed.

Fewer still knew of the oddities that made the town their home, passerbys had nothing to say outside of an “eerie feeling” and a glimpse of tiny men in pointed caps in the corner of their vision.

But the town was real, and the oddities were more real still.

In the outskirts of that town, down a dilapidated forest path, in a clearing sat The Mystery Shack, an old scientist’s lab turned tourist attraction. It was in this house, on a stiff, plushy couch, framed by the light of a seemingly empty water tank, that Bill Cipher, the monster with one eye, harbinger of chaos and trillion-year-old mind demon awoke, in a body that was not his and whose irritating human instincts he deeply resented.

“Gah!”

“Screee!”

"Ow!"

Instincts like rapid breathing, sweatiness, and overall shakiness usually meant one of these dozen organs wasn’t working properly. Unfortunately, after waking up for the dozenth time in this manner, Bill had to admit that the organs weren’t the problem.

Not that he could remember what the problem was. Whatever dream or nightmare had caused this current inconvenient bout of terror, whatever remnants of it were blank, fuzzy static on a rotting television screen.

It was more annoying than anything.

Bill started his nightly routine of picking himself off the floor. The blanket he had was tangled around his legs, which were somehow still on the sofa. After a moment or two of clumsily getting the appendages to move, Bill managed to heave himself upright.

Bill rubbed his eyes, he had two now. So weird.

"Oik!"

Mabel's pig sat on the rug next to his head, staring blankly.

"What're you looking at, huh?"

"Oik!"

"None of your business."

"Oik oik!"

"No, what do I look like, a snack machine?"

"O-oik!"

"Ha! So's your mother!"

Waddles chose that moment to get up and trot away, done with the conversation. Well, good, Bill was done with him, too.

He stole a glance at the water tank. Still empty. Figures old Frilly wouldn't be there when Bill had a bone to pick with him. Maybe he should put some mercury in the water. As a surprise.

What was the point of stuffing him in this body, anyway? Did the ol’ salamander really think it would do anything? Was it to scare him? To torture him? To tell him how awful and evil he was and all those other meaningless statements that Bill had found hilarious in his time?

Crimes against the second dimension? It was a crime that the place had existed the way it did. A rotten, broken building called for a demolition. He’d just had the detonator.

Why would you do this?

Ugh, not again.

I-I wish I was dead! I wish I wouldn’t have to see what a monster you’ve-

Bill pulled himself up onto the couch and raised the blanket over his head. As if that could block out the incessant voice that only showed up at the worst of times.

He would not sleep again.

—

Dipper walked into the kitchen and came face to face with his Great Uncle Stan trying to rinse a semi-cooked egg out of his hair under the kitchen sink.

“Wow, Grunkle Stan, are you okay?”

“Huh?!” Stan turned around, anger barely concealing his twitch of embarrassment. “Oh, it’s just you. Gimmie a hand, kid.”

“What happened?” Dipper asked, angling the faucet to better rinse out Stan’s scalp. He’s done worse things for his Grunkle. Barely.

“That triangle freak happened, that’s what. When I get my hands on him I’m gonna-”

Ah, Dipper should’ve guessed. Bill had developed a bad habit of pranking Grunkle Stan wherever he felt like it and then conveniently disappearing in the aftermath. There was that incident with the freezer a few days ago. And the stick of butter last Sunday. Not to mention the spider incident. Ugh.

It had only been a few weeks since Bill had become the Mystery Shack’s unwilling resident, but even in that short time, he had managed to establish himself as Stan’s worst nightmare. Dipper had a feeling it wasn’t the pranks that got to Stan as much as it was that the demon had managed to one-up him in the trick department so many times.

“Look, just- gimmie word if you see the little devil. We’re gonna have a talk.” Stan clenched his fist in emphasis.

—

Mabel came out of the elevator and was confronted by her Grunkle Ford in a futuristic super suit, pointing a sci-fi gun in her direction.

“Mabel!” He quickly lowered it. “I’m so sorry! It’s the reflexes.”

“What’s that?” Not at all fazed by the near-death experience, she pointed at the gun in question. It didn’t look like the one that shot lasers, and it didn’t look like the one that was basically a giant magnet, so it must’ve been new.

“Oh, this? I was just testing this when you walked in.” Ford trained the gun on an apple sitting on his desk. “Would you like to see how it works? It’s quite fascinating.”

She saw the familiar hazard sign on the side. “Ooh, does it fire radiation, like in that one movie with the green guy? Dipper and I have got to sit you down for one of our movie nights! Culture has come a long way since you fell through that portal.” She added sagely.

Grunkle Ford winced. “Maybe later.”

She hesitated for only a moment, looking down at her shoes. “It’s because of Bill, isn’t it?” she said quietly.

“That’s not something you should worry about.”

“I don’t want you to not spend time with us just because he’s there,” she insisted. “We can tell him to beat it if you need us to.”

“It’s not a discussion I should be having with you. It’s just…never mind. Would you still like to see how this works?” He lifted the gun.

“Sure!” She could brag to Dipper about it later.

Ford once again pointed the gun at the apple and fired. A bright blue flash lit up the room, and a small blue box formed around the apple, trapping it inside. Mabel walked up to it and poked it lightly. The box fizzed but stayed where it was. “Cool! A box gun.”

“My newest invention,” Ford said, picking up the box. “A weapon that locks its target in a perpetual state of quantum uncertainty. I call it ‘Schrodinger’s Pistol’.”

“Wow. So the apple is like, dead and alive in there.”

“I’m surprised you know it.”

“We got taught it in school once. It was about cats! I didn’t think it would be dead cats, though.”

“I see. However, a more accurate description would be that the apple both does and does not exist in this box. To affirm one or the other, we would need to remove the box and check, but until then it would remain in flux.”

“So if we open this box, can I eat it?”

“Well, I suppose if you time it right…” Grunkle Ford hit a switch on the gun and pointed it again. A little meter on the side went up and down up and down up and- he fired. The box disintegrated, leaving behind the apple, the same as it was before. “There we go. Perfectly safe to eat. Probably not full of radiation.”

As Mabel chomped down on the apple, Ford tucked the gun into his belt. “So what did you come to me for?”

“Oh, yeah,” Mabel tried to chew. Bits of apple few in different directions. “Have you seen Waddles? He likes to wander down here sometimes. I’m sending an audition for our school band, and I need a backup dancer. The makeup takes a long time.”

“I’m afraid I haven’t seen him. Why do you need Waddles for you to do your makeup?”

“Not my makeup, silly. His!”

At that, Ford looked slightly concerned.

—

“There! That should do it.”

Jeselbraum the Unswerving, now in the brand-new human form Ford was still getting used to, backed away from the rift, and watched as the clock-like device buried itself in the bark of the tree the rift had originated from. Lines of metal filaments shot out from the device, embedding themselves in the tree and the ground beneath it. They glowed faintly. The clock chimed.

She gestured for Ford to back away, and he did so, staring at the device in wonder.

String-like tendrils hot out from the filaments, weaving together like a transparent tapestry until they formed a bubble around the clock. As more and more strings shot out, the bubble grew until it contained the tree in its entirety, including the tear in reality that had been causing Ford so many sleepless nights. The strings vanished, and the bubble settled, rippling a little in the wind.

“It’s a time bubble,” Ford said, a hint of wonder escaping him. “But it’s…artificially made?”

“Yes.”

“And it was made by that friend you mentioned?”

“No. He had suggested it as the best course of action,” Jess’s smile turned a little bit smug. “But it was made by me.”

“Ah,” Ford turned back to the time bubble. The tree and everything surrounding it had frozen, time moving at a microscopic degree not perceptible by the human eye. “What a simple solution, delaying the decay as much as possible. I don’t know why I haven’t thought of it.”

“It won’t hold forever,” Jeselbraum’s smile faded. “And it’s only a matter of time before more cracks start forming on this side of the dimensional break. Bill Cipher’s realm cannot be contained, and sooner or later it will implode on itself. He knew that very well, which is why he was so desperate to get out.”

“But if crossing into our dimension would only bring the decay along with him, what was the point?”

She shrugged. “Hindsight is 20/20.”

Ford couldn’t help but laugh. But soon the anxiety returned. “I need to ask you something.”

“Hm?”

“Do you think it’s possible for something to pass through that rift? Into our dimension?”

Jeselbraum pondered the question for a moment. “I suppose it is. And if such a thing happens it will only widen the crack. Think of it like a piece of fabric: if you have one with a tear in it, when you wear the garment that tear can only grow. The only way to repair it is to find the right thread, which…”

“Is currently impossible.”

“Yes.” Jeselbraum scowled. “And if the rip in this dimension continues, it will not just be your dimension at stake.”

—

Bill peered past his distorted reflection into the tank. The Axolotl peered up at him, its beady little eyes blinking once, twice.

It looked just like an ordinary axolotl, but Bill knew better.

“Laugh it up, Frilly,” he muttered. “I know what you’re trying to do, and it’s not gonna work.”

And what do you think I am trying to do?

“You know what!”

Clarification would be helpful.

Chiding. It was chiding him. Like he was a child.

“You’re the one who should be-!”

“Uh, who are you talking to?”

Bill turned around. Dipper was growing up at him, one arm clutching that blue book he always carried. His own little journal. I knew the kid was obsessed but this is embarrassing.

“Someone your limited human mind wouldn’t even comprehend the existence of.”

“So…yourself? Didn’t pin you as that kind of crazy.” Dipper leaned to the side to look behind Bill. Of course, it was useless, because Dipper saw nothing but an empty tank filled with rocks and fake seaweed. The Axolotl only showed itself to those he wanted to, and right now, what he wanted to do was torment Bill.

“Kid, I’m every kind of crazy.”

“Lucky us.”

“Yeup. So, figure it out yet?”

Dipper frowned. “That code. You weren’t just messing with me, were you?”

“Maybe I was, maybe I wasn’t. Who knows!”

“You do.”

“Ha! Got me there.”

Dipper scrutinized him for a moment. Bill just grinned. Finally, the boy stomped his foot in frustration. “Ugh, I hate you!” Bill laughed.

“Hey guys,” Mabel walked in, in a brand new sweater that sported a small white goose holding a knife, covered in pink glitter. She held a chocolate bar in her hand. “I heard evil laughter. Nothing’s on fire, right? Have you guys seen Waddles?”

“Nothing’s on fire. And no, I haven’t,” said Dipper, “Bill?”

“Sure I did.”

The two twins waited for him to elaborate.

“He’s a pig. Pink, round, the works.”

“I meant today!” Mabel cried. “Have you seen him today?”

Bill flopped onto the couch and searched for the TV remote. “Nope!”

His view of the screen was quickly taken up by Mabel, her hands on her hips. “I’ve got a word with you, mister.”

Bill made a face. “I told you, I haven’t seen your codependent pig. Ain’t transparent, Shooting Star, get out of the way.”

Mabel did not get out of the way. Instead, she became more in the way, stomping her way closer. “Grunkle Stan looked pretty egged up today. Literally.”

Bill grinned at that. He was pretty proud of that trick in particular. “Oh yeah? Sounds like a case of bad luck. Maybe it’s raining eggs, like that one time in 1376! Ask the gnomes. Or the flesh-eating termites that live in your walls.”

Dipper gave the walls a wary look. Gullible.

“We know it was you,” said Mabel. “Grunkle Stan was pretty angry.” She snatched the remote away from Bill, triumphant in the face of his protest. “You need to say sorry.”

It took a bit for Bill to process what she was saying. Then he laughed. Longer than usual. “Good one, Shooting Star!” He wiped a fake tear from his eye.

“I’m serious,” said Mabel, “if you’re gonna keep living with us-”

“Here’s something I’m letting you in on, kid. A great big secret you’re now privy to. Ready? I don’t apologize. That’s not what I do. What I do is cause unimaginable torment and unending nightmares to the people I don’t like. You know, fun times all around! Saying ‘my bad!’ kinda defeats the point, doesn’t it?”

Mabel stomped her foot. “I want you to say sorry!”

“And I want that remote,” Bill shrugged. “Hey! I know, let’s make a deal. You give me the remote and I tell you where your little pig went.”

Mabel blinked. “You will?”

“Sure! Just shake my hand-”

“Do not shake his hand,” said Dipper.

“Fine,” Bill held his hand out. “Your end first, Star.”

Mabel eyed him with suspicion, but after a beat of silence handed him the remote.

“Well?” Demanded Mabel.

“He went out,” said Bill.

“Out where?”

“Out,” Bill pointed at the door.

“Oh no,” Mabel’s face fell “You let him go outside?!”

“Hey, he’s a free pig, he can do what he wants! Although…” Bill trailed off. “Gotta hand it to ya, kid, you sure know how to keep your pets on a tight leash if you know what I mean. Word of advice, if you’re gonna force your minion to do all your bidding, don’t let him run around all willy-nilly on the off times. Makes them start questioning things.”

“I don’t force him to do anything,” Mabel snapped, suddenly defensive.

“Sure, yeah. Bet he loves being shoved into a princess outfit and paraded out on the street. Or forced to lie on his back for hours as you make a macaroni replica of him. Or made to learn the polka. Don’t need the animal rights brigade showing up at your doorstep!”

“But he loves doing that stuff…” Mabel’s voice took on a strange, thick quality. Suddenly, Bill the conversation a lot less funny than how it started. The dream he had that night had taken the joy out of pretty much everything.

Maybe he’d make her go away. “You sure about that?” He looked pointedly at the door. Mabel seemed to get the message, heading toward it.

“Waddles! Waadles!” Mabel raised the chocolate bar again, a waver in her voice. “I’ve got your favorite snack!” She ran out the door.

Dipper kicked Bill in the shin.

“Ow! Hey!”

“Don’t say stuff like that to Mabel!” said Dipper. “She’s gonna take you seriously!” The boy ran after his sister. “Mabel! Mabel, come back!”

Bill flipped to the reality TV channel. Nothing like watching dumb idiots getting at each other’s throats to make him take his mind off…this entire day.

Where was that pig, anyway?

—

Stan settled the new welcome signs next to the porch and checked his shoes for traps before putting them on. No laces not tied together? Check. No superglue on the soles? Check.

It wasn’t like he asked for this.

I did, damn it. I knew it was a terrible idea to keep him here.

They could’ve…well, not killed him. Dumped him in the nearest asylum maybe. One with tight security. Hey, got another one of those psychopathic crazies, no need to thank us, don’t ask questions, just take him!

Stan picked up the poster boards with gaudy Mystery Shark advertisements and slammed the door harder than necessary. Of course, no one listened to him, the guy with any common sense.

It was late afternoon when he was down to his last poster, tired from all the walking. Dipper had, for once, offered to do this for him, but Stan had already given up the Shack to Soos, and this was…nostalgic, in a way. He looked down at the sign, tracing the old, hand-painted groves he’d hastily carved out the first few years he’d gotten this place. Years of hard work had paid off, after all.

Stan shook himself from the memory, remembered that Ford was here, the portal was dismantled, and the Stan of War 2 existed, and felt ridiculous at how emotional this sign made him all of a sudden. Well, time to leave these feelings in the woods, where they belonged!

He raised his hammer when he heard it, the tell-tale growl of some kind of animal.

His grip on the hammer tightened. The sign and the nail dropped, forgotten.

“Darn coyotes, scram, you hear me!”

The growl did not falter. It got louder as if the thing that made it was getting closer.

It was a strange growl. Instead of a continuous roar, it was like multiple shorter sounds, layered on top of each other in a disjoined, continuous harmony. These sounds felt familiar.

Stan did what any sensible man would do in this situation, and hightailed out of there.

He didn’t get very far, tripping over a large tree root and falling face-first into a large pile of wet leaves.

“Oh, come on!”

He tried to stand up, but his shoe was stuck, wedged between two of the roots. He tried to rip his foot out of the shoe, but not dice. It was like his foot was stuck to the sole.

Like someone had glued it in.

“Are you kidding me? That little-!”

The bush next to him shivered, the growl was louder, and he could finally make out what it was. It was…

OInK.

oinkOinkOINKoiNKoinKoinkOINKoinK!

“Aaaagh!”

The forest was silent once more.

—

“Mabel, what are you doing?”

“Shh.”

Mabel sprinkled some more chocolate in the corner of the back porch. Dipper watched, as in front of his very eyes, a small group of ants emerged from the crack in the floor and carried one of the pieces away.

“Mabel, that’s not gonna help! You’re just attracting more bugs.”

Mabel made a frustrated noise and crumpled up the remaining bar, stuffing it in her pocket. “But he loves chocolate, Dipper! Waddles can’t live without chocolate! Why isn’t he coming back? Do you think something happened to him? Do you think…do you think I’m the one who made him leave?”

“Hey, come on,” Dipper put an arm around his sister. “Don’t listen to Bill. About anything. But especially this. You’re a great owner, and Waddles loves you. We’ll find him!”

Mabel sniffed and wiped her eyes with a chocolate-stained hand. “Promise?”

“Of course, Dum Dum.”

Mabel looked out into the moonlit trees beyond their house, the dark forest surrounding the Shack seemed quiet, today. “Grunkle Stan’s been out for a while, too. Do you think maybe he found Waddles?”

They listened as the wind settled between the trees, rustling the leaves and bending the tall redwoods at their tops.

And another noise. It sounded like a growl.

“Did you hear that?” Mabel asked.

“Yeah,” Dipper looked out into the treeline. “Could be a coyote. Or a mountain lion.”

The growl was louder. Whatever it was, it was coming closer.

“Waddles is out there!” Mabel bolted toward the trees, only for Dipper to grab her by the elbow.

“Mabel, hold on! We don’t know what it is!”

“What if it has Waddles?”

“Waddles is a smart pig, a coyote wouldn’t get him.” Dipper let go of her sleeve once he was sure she wouldn’t run away.

The growl came again, and the hair on Dipper’s arms stood on end. Whatever it was, it wasn’t a wild animal. That growl just sounded wrong. “M-Maybe we should get inside.”

The brush underneath the tree line shook menacingly.

“Like, now.”

Together, they bolted inside and locked the doors.

“But what about the Grunkles?” Mabel asked.

“They have the key,” Dipper assured her. “And survival skills, they’ll be-”

The growl was closer, whatever it was, it was prowling outside.

“We should turn off all the lights,” Dipper said. “Maybe then it’ll leave.”

The twins ran through all the first-floor rooms, turning off each light. It was following them, the growl carrying from the front porch to the kitchen and through the corridor into the living room, where they came face-to-face with their previous enemy, watching TV while hanging upside down from the couch.

Dipper shut off the light and pulled the plug on the TV.

“Hey!”

Dipper tossed the plug aside. “Did you not hear the monster outside?”

“The only monster you’re gonna worry about is the one who’ll rearrange your liver if you don’t plug that thing back- Wait. You hear that?”

The three of them went quiet. The growl came, closer than ever, behind the door to the front porch.

“If we keep very quiet,” Dipper muttered, “It won’t know we’re here.”

“Great plan, kid, file that under-”

“Bill! Shut up!” Dipper whispered harshly.

There was a noise behind the back door. It sounded like-

SNIFF, SNIFF.

For a moment, there was only silence.

“Huh,” Dipper said, “maybe it left.”

SCREEEE!

“Aaaaah!”

Dipper and Mabel grabbed onto each other as something slammed against the door, old hinges creaking under the pressure.

Dipper and Mabel scrambled behind the couch next to Bill. “Can’t you do something?!”

“Oh, yeah, lemme just turn your little problem into a nice party hat and- oh wait, I can’t! Gee, I wonder if it’s because someone killed me and made me lose my powers!”

The monster slammed harder into the door. DIpper flinched and grabbed Mabel’s hand.

“So what’s the plan?” Mabel asked.

“I, uh,” Dipper’s voice got stuck in his throat as the unknown creature let out a distorted, hungry roar.

“Set it on fire,” said Bill.

“We’re not doing that,” Dipper said.

“Fine, you got any venomous snakes lying around?”

“We’re definitely not doing…whatever that is.”

The growl faded into an eerie silence.

“Do you think it’s gone?” Mabel whispered.

Dipper strained to hear anything outside of the house. Nothing but the wind and the trees creaking outside.

Carefully, Dipper climbed from behind the couch, Mabel following suit. He walked over to the door and pressed his ear on its surface. He then peaked through the blinds. The porch was empty, and so was the surrounding clearing.

“Haha, it’s gone!” Dipper breathed a sigh of relief.

“Whadaya think it was?” Mabel asked.

“No idea. Some mutated wild animal? A creature we haven’t seen yet?”

“I’m surprised you didn’t run after it,” Mabel joked.

“Didn’t need to!” Dipper grinned. “The security system, remember? Soos updated it recently, it covers even more ground now. Whatever it is, it was caught on tape, we just have to play it back.”

“Then let's do it!”

The office didn’t look that different than it had a year ago. The room was filled with Stan’s old knickknacks, but there was a Soos touch to things in the corners, evidence of the new Mr. Mystery’s influence. The gaming system in the corner, for one, and the little anime figurines on the desk. There was a photo of Melody on the wall, standing on a Portland beach and smiling at the camera. Another photo was of Soos, Dipper, and Wendy in front of that jacked-up go-cart Soos made for his web show.

“Okay, here we go,” Dipper found the remote and wound back the tape playing on the monitor. “Huh, that’s…weird.”

Dipper went frame by frame through the tape. Just a few seconds after Mabel and Dipper locked the door, a strange distortion came over the TV, making the porch appear fuzzy and pixelated. Like the tape itself was corrupted.

The fuzzy spot in the tape moved off-screen, seemingly circling the Shack, before coming back around and lingering on the porch.

“It’s censored!” Mabel said. “Like-”

“Looks like your little Mystery Monster’s got a knack for practical illusions!”

The twins both jumped and Bill’s sudden, grating voice. He was standing near the door, staring at the monitor with a curiosity Dipper didn’t like.

“What do you want?” Mabel snapped. Dipper was surprised by how harsh it sounded. Out of all the Pines, Mabel by far had the most patience with Bill. A worrying amount of patience.

Bill seemed surprised too, but only for a moment. He shrugged, pointing a thumb back a the entrance. “Unfortunately, your WEIRD HUMAN FLESH is also stupidly tasty. And now I’m stuck as one of you! Getting eaten by your guest of the week would just be embarrassing.”

“Do you know what it is?” Dipper asked.

Bill came closer and squinted at the screen. “Fella’s got a knack for bending light, something only 51 species on your planet are capable of.” Bill tried counting on his fingers, then gave up. “Could be a badger.”

“Badgers are capable of bending light?”

“You’ve never met enough badgers!”

“Well, it doesn’t matter, it’s gone now,” Dipper sighed, “I should’ve gotten a glimpse while I had the chance.”

“Eager to be badger food?”

“It’s not a badger!”

“Guys,” Mabel said, “I think Dipper’s getting his wish.”

Something was creaking out in the hall.

“It’s just the floor, the wood is old,” Dipper said.

“Yeah, and bendy.”

“Yeah, and…” Dipper trailed off to see what his sister was pointing at. There, on the floor, two of the planks bent up, as if something underneath was trying to get out. That strange growl came, quieter and more distinct. It almost sounded like-

A nail from one of the planks came away and bounced off the wall.

“It can burrow,” Dipper whispered in awe.

“Less gawking more running, Bro-bro!” Mabel yanked him by the hand and they ran out of the office, Bill not far behind.

Dipper found his footing. “Gift shop! If we get into the basement, maybe-”

The planks came away, and wood splinters rained on the three of them. Dipper turned to see what this new monster they’d encountered was, and froze in his tracks.

Mabel beat him to it. “Waddles?!”

#gravity falls #bill cipher #flat dreams #pengychan #fanfiction #the book of bill #human bill au #waking days reboot #a different form a different time #vee's writing #doodledrawsthings

19 notes · View notes

heissobabygirl · 2 years ago

Text

Graves X Male!Top!Shadow!Reader

A/N: hey guys, noticed a lack of male reader Graves fanfiction so I'm here to (hopefully) kinda fill that void! Hope you all like it. This took me like a week but I love the song it's based around, I def recommend listening to it during the read if you haven't already! This was only read by my sister and she told me I HAD to publish it, so I am. Sorry if there are mistakes. Feel free to request if you like my writing. I'm only writing COD at the moment and I only write male reader (sorry ladies ;-;). Enjoy!!

The following contains ANGST and HORNY

DO NOT READ IF YOU DONT LIKE THOSE THINGS

Okay byyyye :)

Song to play while reading: Granite by Sleep Token

-------

Sulfur on your breath

Granite in my chest

You will never have to talk about it

You never want to talk about it

You tried justifying your actions in your head as you heaved the scolding hot tank lid up.

"Graves!" You called, smoke immediately filling your senses due to the proximity of the fire. It burned your nose and esophagus, causing your throat to constrict. "Phillip!" You can't help but go into a coughing fit. The cackles of embers ignited by the explosion seemingly mocking you. Taunting you for saving the man who created this mess for himself. Why were you bailing him out again?

Squinting your eyes and taking a deep breath of oxygen you dive into the opening. You fumble blindly through the ocean of smoke, trying to feel any material other than the metal interior of the tank.

Your hand brushes against what feels like the nylon threads of a tactical vest. Looping your fingers through the straps you pull with every muscle your body can spare.

Your body aches, the lack of oxygen dizzying your mind. You step to the top of the tank, heaving the body up with the force of everything you had left: adrenaline and spite. You pick the man up, hoping down, feet once again finding cement. You drag him a good distance away from the burning war machine, slumping him gently on the ground.

"Commander." Your voice is hoarse from coughing, "Commander don't you fucking give up on me." You straddle him, his blonde hair dark from soot and ash. It's smeared across his face, bonding with beads of sweat against his skin.

Your fingers tread down the path of his vest, finding the velcro belt to rip it off of him. Throwing it to the side, his neck is also covered in the black soot, almost like it was a growing infection. Drops of midnight sweat dripping down the dips of his muscles. Ripping off a glove with your teeth, you check his pulse. It's fading fast, the thrum of his heart dying as his chest fills less and less with each inhale. You know what you have to do.

You place his hands on his chest, locking them in place. Returning to his side you tilt his head up, pinching his nose to close it off. You place your hands over his, the sweat hanging to your skin as the warmth of his radiates through your palms.

–

Fury too damn late

Reason dislocated

Soon you'll never have to talk about it

You never want to talk about it

Your voices ring with animosity throughout Grave's home office.

"Don't tell me how to do my Goddamn job, Soldier!" His voice was stern, his gaze going from a soft expression to the deadly and stormy as he grew more agitated.

"Soldier? Really? Were not on the fucking field, Phillip!" You snark back, shooting him a vehement glare of your own. He just stares you down, his gaze burning into your own as you two clash.

"Oh, right! How could I be so stupid. You, Phillip Graves, could NEVER be in a meaningful relationship! All you can do is keep people at arm's length with some fake authority you hold over them! Get real Phillip! If you don't cut this shit out you're gonna die alone!" You couldn't gauge his reaction, it looked the same as before.

"And you don't care…do you?" Your voice is softer this time. The words float through the air tantalizingly, striking him in the chest. The walls he built were coming down in moments, but he'd never let you know. Your brows furrowed, knitting up at the inside corners. "You don't care about me, you care about this stupid fucking job. You care about getting the mission done, pleasing people that don't even matter-" your words shrivel up and die on your tongue, just like your spirit.

You can feel tears stinging at your lash line. Rage brews in the pits of your guts, teeth grinding together to curb your urge to deck your Commander in the face. You do the only things you can, you turn to leave.

"Hey-" steps thud throughout the room, starting slowly and growing closer together the closer your hand gets to the door knob. A hand grabs your shoulder, spinning you around to look the blonde in the face. "You can say whatever the hell you want about me. But don't you dare say I don't care about you."

–

I was more than just a body in your passenger seat

You were more than just somebody I was destined to meet

I see you go half blind when you're looking at me

But I am

The music played softly through the car, drifting through the space that was nearly extinct between the both of you. Your hands on his hips, squeezing and rubbing your thumb in circles over the fabric.

The stubble of his facial hair rubs against your face, the scratch a ticklish but good feeling. His hands are around your neck, running his greedy hands wherever you may allow him.

You reach around to grip his ass, the flesh soft as he groans into your lip lock. Your hands snake back around, unbuckling his belt, running it through the loops and discarding it on the floor of your car. Your fingers make quick work of his jeans, unbuttoning them and pooling them at his thighs.

Your lips move to his neck, biting the soft skin as he jerks against you. You hold his hips still with your strong grip, kneading the flesh of hips. He mewls, the Phillip Graves mewls. "Fuuuuck." He drolls, his tone raspy.

"Can't believe you're this worked up already, Phil." He screws his eyes shut, tipping his head back.

"Shut up-" He stumbles over the words he's searching for. "You should just be happy you're getting this chance, Lutentiant." His hands grip your shoulder for stability, giving you a tight squeeze.

You hum, bringing your lips close to his ear speaking low, "Oh I'm so lucky. Fucking my Commander in my car because he couldn't wait to get home to whore himself out." You watch his throat Bob, Adam's apple moving with the action. The words coarse through him, straight to his dick. It throbs at your voice, seemingly knowing who it belongs to.

–

Between the second hand smoke and the glass on the street

You gave me nothing whatsoever but a reason to leave

You say you want me but you know

I'm not what you need

But I am

“You can say whatever the hell you want about me, but don’t you dare say I don’t care about you.” His eyes bore into your’s, creating a moment of silence that’s quickly shattered by you.

“Then maybe you should fucking act like it, Phillip.” The use of his first name makes him cringe. He hasn’t heard it from your lips in so long he forgot it was his. He spent so long, more time than you knew, clinging to every word you said. Committing your features to memory so if you ever left him he would have the lines of your skin mapped out so you could crawl inside his skull and be safe there.

Graves was no fool, he knew his line of work was dangerous, he knew he was walking on cracking ice everytime he stepped outside. With one wrong move, one missed sign, he would fall in and drown. A part of him always hoped you would save him, put an end to his reckless ways. That you pull him up, back onto a more sturdy section of the ice and he could steal the oxygen from your lungs that you would always so happily and eagerly give. You loved him after all.

But now, he could see the adoration you always swirling in your eyes when he was within your vicinity was dead and gone. Replaced by a dull and dreary cacophony of resentment and pain. He was smothering you, he had taken too much. There was nothing he could do to save you.

Even if he poured everything he had into you, filling you up with everything he had so greedily taken you were too broken to store it anywhere. Not your eyes, not your hands, not your heart.

–

When you sit there acting like you know me

Acting like you only brought me here to get below me

Nevermind the death threats parting at the door

We’d rather be six feet under than be lonely

The words coarse through him, straight to his dick. It throbs at your voice, seemingly knowing who it belongs to. He closes his eyes, screwing them shut. Hips rutting and stuttering against you to get any kind of friction.

“Stop teasing.” His tone waivers, brinking on the edge of neediness and desperation still. Your hands trace his figure, snaking their way up to his hair. You can feel it between your fingers, the strands dancing across your skin as you give a harsh yank. He grunts, his head tipping back with the pull of his hair. Your lips clash with his neck again, being gentle with your mouth work as you trail to his collar bones.

Your fingers undo the buttons of his shirt, the fabric lying dead as you discard it. His upper half is vulnerable for your eyes to devour; and devour your eyes do. Your gaze rakes over him, sending chills throughout his veins, his heart skipping for just a moment enough to be noticed.

“Thought you loved my teasing though. I mean, obviously you do. Look at this.” You palm his erection, the friction sending waves of heat through his nerves. It crashes through him with the force of the sun, clouding his headspace. The only visage he can conceive is of you. “Look at you.” Your voice is hushed, soft even.

“All worked up over a single touch? Remember to breathe, baby.” You chuckle.

–

If you had a problem, then you should’ve told me

Before you started getting all aggressive and controlling

You only drink the water

When you think it’s holy

Even if he poured everything he had into you, filling you up with everything he had so greedily taken; you were too broken to store it anywhere. Not your eyes, not your hands, not your heart. They had no room for him anymore.

“I’m leaving.” You break his thoughts, shattering them into a million pieces and scattering them across your shared living space.

“You never talk to me anymore, Phillip.” That wasn’t what you were supposed to call him.

“You hull yourself up here in your office, create these walls, create a mess-” you take a breath. He takes the opportunity to speak.

“Well, hey- Let’s talk this out, okay? Nobody has to leave anywhere-” he’s negotiating. Trying to gather the shards of his thoughts, collecting them and their jagged edges that cut and pierce his skin. In all honesty, they probably pierce your’s too. They dig into your epidermis, like a parasite, embedding themselves right out of your grasp. Only able to access them if you want to rip yourself apart, and you couldn’t bear to see crimson anymore.

“No Phillip.” You shut him down. “I’m tired of talking it out. It never works with you. Your words mean nothing to yourself and to me. You know this, I know you do.” Your voice sounds defeated and drained. The last ropes tethering you to him snapped and shredded to bits. But he would be damned if he didn't try to knot them back together, even with the fraying edges.

You couldn’t leave him, he would do anything for you to stay. He knew that, but he never revealed that to you. So how were you supposed to see his hurt, his anger, his desperation to make you stay. He would cement your feet in place if he needed to.

–

So keep an eye on the road or we will both be here forever

“All worked up over a single touch? Remember to breathe, baby.” You chuckle. Your pants had been discarded long ago, your arousal just as prevalent as his. Tucking your fingers under the hem of his boxers, you pull them down. His chest heaves as the cool night’s air hits his hard cock. Your hands find purchase on his hips once more, he throws his head back.

“Please.” He whines. “Please, I don’t care anymore, just fuck me please.” His voice breaks, the shift of his personality making you even harder.

“Of course my love. I’m so proud of you for begging for it like the good boy I know you are.” He nods, burying his face in your neck as you slowly split him open with your cock. His breathing hitches, the pace becoming erratic as you shush him. “Just breathe, baby. Tell me if it hurts.”

“Just-” His back arches as he reaches the end of your length. “Just move please.” His throat constricts as you snap your hips up, a choked moan coming from deep within him. He jolts when you hit the spot he loves the most, your name tumbling from his mouth like a mantra. It was the only thing he could remember at this point, the only thing he cared to remember.

“Fuck, you’re so pretty like this.” You pant, watching him as intently as the moment would allow. Your hand wraps around his dick, palm stimulating the tip as you move down the rest of his shaft stroking as well as you could using the precum as lube.

His hands grip tightly on your shoulders, bouncing himself with the rhythm of your thrusts. Skin making contact with skin resounding through the car’s space. His grip tightens, his nails sure to leave crescent shaped marks.

His moans are needy, guttural. “So, so good for me, love.” Red dusts his cheeks as you speak, keening at the parise you’re giving him. You can tell he’s about to come undone. The way his bounces stutter and his body jolts at the contact, he’s close.

“Look at me, baby. Look at me.” You grab his face, turning his head to look at you. The blue of his eyes meet yours, his pupils blown wide as he looks dazed. God you loved when he looked like this. “I wanna see your face when you cum, I wanna see that pretty fuckin’ face.” He nods the best he can, whining at words coming from your mouth. God he can feel you reaching so deep inside of him, scratching the itch that burns within like nobody else could. The way you snapped your hips hypnotized him, the only thing he could focus on was your voice.

He felt himself teetering on the edge, pushed to climax by a powerful thrust of your own. White spurted all over his toned stomach and you. His body shakes and convulses, your hands never leaving his hips as he slumps forward onto you. His face finds your neck again as you chase your own high, unintentionally over stimulating his senses. His legs shake something fierce as you cum inside him, the warmth spreading through his entire being.

Your arms wrap around him, bringing him as close as humanly possible. Smoothing your hands down his back as he twitches and pants.

"You did so well baby. So well."

–

I was more than just a body in your passenger seat

You were more than just somebody I was destined to meet

I see you go half blind when you're looking at me

But I am

You place your hands over his, the sweat hanging to your skin as the warmth of his radiates through your palms. You steady your breathing, leaning down and connecting your lips. You've done this so many times before, moments that felt like life or death but this was different. This was life or death. You breathe into his mouth, his chest rising with oxygen from your own lungs.

Your hands move to his chest, using your weight to press down intermittently but harshly. Afterall, good CPR cracks the ribs. That's just what you did, the sickening crunch fills your ears as you keep administering CPR. After thirty compressions, you move back down to his level. You're getting ready to fill his lungs again when he sputters a breath.

"Baby? Baby, can you hear me?" You cup his face, steading his head and neck. He groans, hand reaching up and attaching itself to your arm.

"Hey, you're okay. You're okay, we're gonna get you out of here." You smack your radio, static fizzing on the other side.

"This is L.T. (L/N). Does anyone copy?" You wait for a response. "I'm in need of immediate medical aid, I have Commander Graves. I repeat, I have Commander Graves."

A moment of silence passes, and just when you're about to give up a voice answers you.

"We copy, L.T. We are inbound to your position right now. ETA 3 minutes out." You breathe a sigh of relief, the adrenaline in your body starting to disappear. Graves look at you, his hand never leaving your arm. You sit next to him, finally turning your attention to the wound on your side. The giant gash now causing a noticeable gnawing pain that radiates from the sight through your whole body.

"Fuck." You mutter, shifting your weight painfully

"You're hurt." Graves' voice rings through your head. His voice hoarse from misuse.

"Yeah, that fucker Ghost got me." You say, sucking in a breath as you apply pressure to the wound. "Atleast I think it was him based on the height. Managed to nail my side with a Shotgun blast." The wound was bigger than your hand. In the little time you've touched it blood has stained the skin, the crimson you're so familiar with the last sight you may see.

Graves is silent, studying your face as you lie next to him, your hands interlocking. You bring his knuckles up to your lips, kissing them softly. These three minutes seem to drag on for eternity. Your vision fading around the edges, you close your eyes trying to focus on your pained breathing.

"Hey," Graves finally speaks.

"Yeah?"

"I love you."

Between the second hand smoke and the glass on the streets

You gave me nothing whatsoever but a reason to leave

You say you want me but you know I'm not what you need

But I am

"I love you too, Graves."

#graves x male reader #graves x male #Phillip Graves #COD x male reader #Shadow!Reader #Graves x male reader angst #Graves X Male reader smut

372 notes · View notes

voidedbattery · 25 days ago

Text

Iron and Smoke II

@rvbrarepairweekdos

@joltning (i was encouraged after you reblogged that thing i posted today) (i also saw that you posted something for like 5 seconds so i'm going to check that out soon)

For other readers: Iron and Smoke I

welcome to my one hour of drawing experience

it's giving me motivation to draw a comic despite the fact that i never actually complete projects beyond the halfway mark 😂

MORE HEADCANONS:

Sometimes Dax gets curious and buys random flavo- I mean scents from hygiene stores

Mainly because he can't help but find out that one smell when some teenage girl gets on the bus and cracks open their wonderful hand sanitizer

Marcus can't unlock the social media limit on his phone, which is set to 30 minutes a week

On a vacation in Singapore, Dax walked by Marcus exactly two years before they met

Dax had to figure this out only after 6 years

Partly after he tried the same street food that he had on vacation

Dax had to learn the hard way (yet again) that he can only eat naturally-grown peppers if he wants spicy food.

Dax had to go to court for filling up the gas tank with hand sanitizer at 4 AM

He was actually fined $50 because a plane disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle at the exact same time the hand sanitizer was dispensed into the gas tank

The car doesn't work anymore, and the remaining money needed to fix it was the $50 that Dax was fined. He uses this as an excuse to get Marcus to walk with him to work (they live close to that big Charon building) each morning.

People follow Dax and Marcus during these mornings just because Marcus' pocket is so broken that a dime falls out of it every morning

Dax somehow published a three-page book. It is not stated where the copies are, nor if the book is a novel or anything else. Dax published it and talks about it occasionally.

He is more likely to do this after complaining at a restaurant.

The robot arm that replaces Dax's organic arm emits a noise even if it moves in the slightest

Don't sleep next to Dax after Charon's big building thing goes down.

I should mention that the big building was a hotel built by someone who spent their lottery money

Marcus met The Rookie exactly three times. He thinks that they were completely separate encounters with different ODSTs.

In fact, those three times were the only three conversations that Marcus had with an ODST outside of his platoon before forming Team Crimson with his two friends.

For a mission, Dax had to spend 5 days on a station orbiting Venus. Because he was so close to the sun, he had a time limit on how much time he could spend doing spacewalks. He forgot this time limit, assumed that he can spend 24 hours in space, then came home with a rare mutation that makes him allergic to EXACTLY 27.4134 mg of fructose when you add a singular crystal of salt. Anything else doesn't have a major effect.

When Dax was still in his truck-driving career before Charon Industries, you could tell Dax just drove your shared truck if you see exactly three sheets of graph paper on the passenger seat.

I read this in a fanfiction; Dax likes a meat-lovers' pizza.

Marcus is 6'3"

#rvb #red vs blue #rvb rarepair #rvb rarepair week dos #rvb rarepair week 2024 #rvb innies #charon industries #sleeveless my beloved #rvb sleeves #rvb insurrectionists

13 notes · View notes

blueberry2123 · 1 year ago

Note

Hi!!! If you don’t feel up to it you can ignore this (your writing is so good but you need to take care of yourself first and foremost! )

Would you be willing to write headcannon or about the rise boys with a s/o who likes dressing girly? Like sun dresses and lipgloss and enjoys doing their hair. And when they start dating they’d buy a dress in the boys color and is really excited to show them.

Of course!! I meant to publish a request yesterday!! But forgot due to college life!! So, this is an I'm back post!! By the way, I will be publishing one request a week! This is kind of how I dress, love wearing dresses, wearing makeup, and doing my hair! Come ride the fluff choo choo train!! Also thank you so much for your compliment on my writing!! And don't worry, I do take care of myself!!

LEONARDO

Leonardo knew you loved dressing up, wearing makeup, and doing your hair, unlike April who was more of a tomboy, and had more of a sporty aesthetic, you had more of a cottage core mixed with a vintage aesthetic, wearing dresses rather than pants as it gets hot rather quickly.

You typically bought a dress once a week, so he often tagged along for the adventure, due to him wanting to tag along so often, you went shopping in the hidden city to look for either new accessories, clothing, or makeup that is friendly towards human skin.

So, when you found the perfect dress to wear to your date that was happening tomorrow, Leonardo was not there, and it was perfect since you wanted it to be a surprise, it was white with blue flowers and birds (I actually have a dress exactly like it), it was gorgeous. So, you bought it.

Leonardo stared, as you showed off your new dress, it complimented the curves you had, and despite wearing a tank top underneath it (since you don't like showing your boobs, believe me, I don't either lmao), he kept staring during the entirety of the date.

DONATELLO

Unlike Leonardo, Donnie hated shopping, it was exhausting, and quite overstimulating sometimes with the loud noises, so he often stayed home, and you would text pictures of what you got; he did shop with you every now and then when you were shopping during the quieter hours of the day.

He also knew how much effort you took into getting ready for the day, you would spend a good two hours just getting ready, which included doing your hair, makeup, and getting dressed. It gave you time to wake up and get used to the business of the family day, you visited every Friday and often spent the night.

It was also that day when you wanted to find a dress for your one-year anniversary with Donnie that thankfully he couldn't shop with you, it was a lavender dress that didn't show too much and didn't have that elastic waistband that you detested, it was a sensory thing.

Donnie had heard from you that you felt like you were being squeezed with that waistband. You were so stoked to find the dress, Donnie would be impressed finding that lovely lavender dress. He started to stim happily when he saw you in that dress, he knew that dress needed to be worn every anniversary date, so it hung ever so happily in your closet.

MICHELANGELO

Mikey, like Leonardo, loved shopping with you, he was sort of your personal stylist, and little bodyguard when men would start flirting with you, so it's like a package deal when it came to those sorts of things.

He knew how much you took getting ready seriously, you would always get dressed and would always do your hair and makeup after eating, cooking, or baking with Mikey, these dresses were often gifts from your grandmother and mother that were passed down each generation. So thankfully you were pretty girly.

So, the day that it was pizza night, Mikey didn't come with you, you wanted the dress to be a surprise for him, because you nearly had every color in your wardrobe, except for orange, which not only frustrated you but also him.

So you were pretty excited to find the dress that was sunset orange, every other dress was colored like that bright fluorescent, highlighter orange dress, you nearly ran Donnie over, racing over to Mikey, yanking out that sunset colored dress, "Hey Mikey!! I finally found it!!" You had said, both pumping your fists in the air.

RAPHAEL

Raphael was... the rough houser, ambushing his siblings basically everywhere, but made sure not to hurt you or his younger brothers, especially when you were all dressed up, he didn't want to face that smite again when he got mud all over you and your dress, it took you and Donnie nearly four hours to get all the mud out. That's almost as long as you take getting ready for the day. You wake up at like 5 am so you're all dolled up!

He never came with you to shop for new clothes, makeup, or accessories for your hair or jewelry, so he was surprised to see them tried on when you got home. He was always nervous about breaking something, which I don't blame him, the first attempt at shopping with you, he was like a bull in a China shop.

So you shopped with April, who liked shopping with you, she got a dress every now and then but preferred wearing jeans and a T-shirt, but today was pretty special, it was your birthday date with him, so you needed to find a red dress, but every single one looked like that red homecoming dress from freshman year.

So when you found that gorgeous wine-red dress, you showed off your prize so proudly, Raph was often the quiet cheerer, but on the inside, he was stoked that you finally found a red dress that you can wear every now and then for special days.

#rise raph x reader #rottmnt mikey x reader #rottmnt x reader #rise leo x reader #rise donnie x reader #rise mikey x reader #rottmnt

97 notes · View notes