#and the irony is that a lot of sales calls I get are from people getting the same issue i do when they try to make their own account changes

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The (open) web is good, actually

I'll be at the Studio City branch of the LA Public Library tonight (Monday, November 13) at 1830hPT to launch my new novel, The Lost Cause. There'll be a reading, a talk, a surprise guest (!!) and a signing, with books on sale. Tell your friends! Come on down!

The great irony of the platformization of the internet is that platforms are intermediaries, and the original promise of the internet that got so many of us excited about it was disintermediation – getting rid of the middlemen that act as gatekeepers between community members, creators and audiences, buyers and sellers, etc.

The platformized internet is ripe for rent seeking: where the platform captures an ever-larger share of the value generated by its users, making the service worst for both, while lock-in stops people from looking elsewhere. Every sector of the modern economy is less competitive, thanks to monopolistic tactics like mergers and acquisitions and predatory pricing. But with tech, the options for making things worse are infinitely divisible, thanks to the flexibility of digital systems, which means that product managers can keep subdividing the Jenga blocks they pulling out of the services we rely on. Combine platforms with monopolies with digital flexibility and you get enshittification:

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

An enshittified, platformized internet is bad for lots of reasons – it concentrates decisions about who may speak and what may be said into just a few hands; it creates a rich-get-richer dynamic that creates a new oligarchy, with all the corruption and instability that comes with elite capture; it makes life materially worse for workers, users, and communities.

But there are many other ways in which the enshitternet is worse than the old good internet. Today, I want to talk about how the enshitternet affects openness and all that entails. An open internet is one whose workings are transparent (think of "open source"), but it's also an internet founded on access – the ability to know what has gone before, to recall what has been said, and to revisit the context in which it was said.

At last week's Museum Computer Network conference, Aaron Straup Cope gave a talk on museums and technology called "Wishful Thinking – A critical discussion of 'extended reality' technologies in the cultural heritage sector" that beautifully addressed these questions of recall and revisiting:

https://www.aaronland.info/weblog/2023/11/11/therapy/#wishful

Cope is a museums technologist who's worked on lots of critical digital projects over the years, and in this talk, he addresses himself to the difference between the excitement of the galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAM) sector over the possibilities of the web, and why he doesn't feel the same excitement over the metaverse, and its various guises – XR, VR, MR and AR.

The biggest reason to be excited about the web was – and is – the openness of disintermediation. The internet was inspired by the end-to-end principle, the idea that the network's first duty was to transmit data from willing senders to willing receivers, as efficiently and reliably as possible. That principle made it possible for whole swathes of people to connect with one another. As Cope writes, openness "was not, and has never been, a guarantee of a receptive audience or even any audience at all." But because it was "easy and cheap enough to put something on the web," you could "leave it there long enough for others to find it."

That dynamic nurtured an environment where people could have "time to warm up to ideas." This is in sharp contrast to the social media world, where "[anything] not immediately successful or viral … was a waste of time and effort… not worth doing." The social media bias towards a river of content that can't be easily reversed is one in which the only ideas that get to spread are those the algorithm boosts.

This is an important way to understand the role of algorithms in the context of the spread of ideas – that without recall or revisiting, we just don't see stuff, including stuff that might challenge our thinking and change our minds. This is a much more materialistic and grounded way to talk about algorithms and ideas than the idea that Big Data and AI make algorithms so persuasive that they can control our minds:

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

As bad as this is in the social media context, it's even worse in the context of apps, which can't be linked into, bookmarked, or archived. All of this made apps an ominous sign right from the beginning:

https://memex.craphound.com/2010/04/01/why-i-wont-buy-an-ipad-and-think-you-shouldnt-either/

Apps interact with law in precisely the way that web-pages don't. "An app is just a web-page wrapped in enough IP to make it a crime to defend yourself against corporate predation":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/27/an-audacious-plan-to-halt-the-internets-enshittification-and-throw-it-into-reverse/

Apps are "closed" in every sense. You can't see what's on an app without installing the app and "agreeing" to its terms of service. You can't reverse-engineer an app (to add a privacy blocker, or to change how it presents information) without risking criminal and civil liability. You can't bookmark anything the app won't let you bookmark, and you can't preserve anything the app won't let you preserve.

Despite being built on the same underlying open frameworks – HTTP, HTML, etc – as the web, apps have the opposite technological viewpoint to the web. Apps' technopolitics are at war with the web's technopolitics. The web is built around recall – the ability to see things, go back to things, save things. The web has the technopolitics of a museum:

https://www.aaronland.info/weblog/2014/09/11/brand/#dconstruct

By comparison, apps have the politics of a product, and most often, that product is a rent-seeking, lock-in-hunting product that wants to take you hostage by holding something you love hostage – your data, perhaps, or your friends:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

When Anil Dash described "The Web We Lost" in 2012, he was describing a web with the technopolitics of a museum:

where tagging was combined with permissive licenses to make it easy for people to find and reuse each others' stuff;

where it was easy to find out who linked to you in realtime even though most of us were posting to our own sites, which they controlled;

where a link from one site to another meant one person found another person's contribution worthy;

where privacy-invasive bids to capture the web were greeted with outright hostility;

where every service that helped you post things that mattered to you was expected to make it easy for you take that data back if you changed services;

where inlining or referencing material from someone else's site meant following a technical standard, not inking a business-development deal;

https://www.anildash.com/2012/12/13/the_web_we_lost/

Ten years later, Dash's "broken tech/content culture cycle" described the web we live on now:

https://www.anildash.com/2022/02/09/the-stupid-tech-content-culture-cycle/

found your platform by promising to facilitate your users' growth;

order your technologists and designers to prioritize growth above all other factors and fire anyone who doesn't deliver;

grow without regard to the norms of your platform's users;

plaster over the growth-driven influx of abusive and vile material by assigning it to your "most marginalized, least resourced team";

deliver a half-assed moderation scheme that drives good users off the service and leaves no one behind but griefers, edgelords and trolls;

steadfastly refuse to contemplate why the marginalized users who made your platform attractive before being chased away have all left;

flail about in a panic over illegal content, do deals with large media brands, seize control over your most popular users' output;

"surface great content" by algorithmically promoting things that look like whatever's successful, guaranteeing that nothing new will take hold;

overpay your top performers for exclusivity deals, utterly neglect any pipeline for nurturing new performers;

abuse your creators the same ways that big media companies have for decades, but insist that it's different because you're a tech company;

ignore workers who warn that your product is a danger to society, dismiss them as "millennials" (defined as "anyone born after 1970 or who has a student loan")

when your platform is (inevitably) implicated in a murder, have a "town hall" overseen by a crisis communications firm;

pay the creator who inspired the murder to go exclusive on your platform;

dismiss the murder and fascist rhetoric as "growing pains";

when truly ghastly stuff happens on your platform, give your Trust and Safety team a 5% budget increase;

chase growth based on "emotionally engaging content" without specifying whether the emotions should be positive;

respond to ex-employees' call-outs with transient feelings of guilt followed by dismissals of "cancel culture":

fund your platforms' most toxic users and call it "free speech";

whenever anyone disagrees with any of your decisions, dismiss them as being "anti-free speech";

start increasing how much your platform takes out of your creators' paychecks;

force out internal dissenters, dismiss external critics as being in conspiracy with your corporate rivals;

once regulation becomes inevitable, form a cartel with the other large firms in your sector and insist that the problem is a "bad algorithm";

"claim full victim status," and quit your job, complaining about the toll that running a big platform took on your mental wellbeing.

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/18/broken-records/#dashes

The web wasn't inevitable – indeed, it was wildly improbable. Tim Berners Lee's decision to make a new platform that was patent-free, open and transparent was a complete opposite approach to the strategy of the media companies of the day. They were building walled gardens and silos – the dialup equivalent to apps – organized as "branded communities." The way I experienced it, the web succeeded because it was so antithetical to the dominant vision for the future of the internet that the big companies couldn't even be bothered to try to kill it until it was too late.

Companies have been trying to correct that mistake ever since. After three or four attempts to replace the web with various garbage systems all called "MSN," Microsoft moved on to trying to lock the internet inside a proprietary browser. Years later, Facebook had far more success in an attempt to kill HTML with React. And of course, apps have gobbled up so much of the old, good internet.

Which brings us to Cope's views on museums and the metaverse. There's nothing intrinsically proprietary about virtual worlds and all their permutations. VRML is a quarter of a century old – just five years younger than Snow Crash:

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

But the current enthusiasm for virtual worlds isn't merely a function of the interesting, cool and fun experiences you can have in them. Rather, it's a bid to kill off whatever is left of the old, good web and put everything inside a walled garden. Facebook's metaverse "is more of the same but with a technical footprint so expensive and so demanding that it all but ensures it will only be within the means of a very few companies to operate."

Facebook's VR headsets have forward-facing cameras, turning every users into a walking surveillance camera. Facebook put those cameras there for "pass through" – so they can paint the screens inside the headset with the scene around you – but "who here believes that Facebook doesn't have other motives for enabling an always-on camera capturing the world around you?"

Apple's VisionPro VR headset is "a near-perfect surveillance device," and "the only thing to save this device is the trust that Apple has marketed its brand on over the last few years." Cope notes that "a brand promise is about as fleeting a guarantee as you can get." I'll go further: Apple is already a surveillance company:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

The technopolitics of the metaverse are the opposite of the technopolitics of the museum – even moreso than apps. Museums that shift their scarce technology budgets to virtual worlds stand a good chance of making something no one wants to use, and that's the best case scenario. The worst case is that museums make a successful project inside a walled garden, one where recall is subject to corporate whim, and help lure their patrons away from the recall-friendly internet to the captured, intermediated metaverse.

It's true that the early web benefited from a lot of hype, just as the metaverse is enjoying today. But the similarity ends there: the metaverse is designed for enclosure, the web for openness. Recall is a historical force for "the right to assembly… access to basic literacy… a public library." The web was "an unexpected gift with the ability to change the order of things; a gift that merits being protected, preserved and promoted both internally and externally." Museums were right to jump on the web bandwagon, because of its technopolitics. The metaverse, with its very different technopolitics, is hostile to the very idea of museums.

In joining forces with metaverse companies, museums strike a Faustian bargain, "because we believe that these places are where our audiences have gone."

The GLAM sector is devoted to access, to recall, and to revisiting. Unlike the self-style free speech warriors whom Dash calls out for self-serving neglect of their communities, the GLAM sector is about preservation and access, the true heart of free expression. When a handful of giant companies organize all our discourse, the ability to be heard is contingent on pleasing the ever-shifting tastes of the algorithm. This is the problem with the idea that "freedom of speech isn't freedom of reach" – if a platform won't let people who want to hear from you see what you have to say, they are indeed compromising freedom of speech:

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

Likewise, "censorship" is not limited to "things that governments do." As Ada Palmer so wonderfully describes it in her brilliant "Why We Censor: from the Inquisition to the Internet" speech, censorship is like arsenic, with trace elements of it all around us:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMMJb3AxA0s

A community's decision to ban certain offensive conduct or words on pain of expulsion or sanction is censorship – but not to the same degree that, say, a government ban on expressing certain points of view is. However, there are many kinds of private censorship that rise to the same level as state censorship in their impact on public discourse (think of Moms For Liberty and their book-bannings).

It's not a coincidence that Palmer – a historian – would have views on censorship and free speech that intersect with Cope, a museum worker. One of the most brilliant moments in Palmer's speech is where she describes how censorship under the Inquistion was not state censorship – the Inquisition was a multinational, nongovernmental body that was often in conflict with state power.

Not all intermediaries are bad for speech or access. The "disintermediation" that excited early web boosters was about escaping from otherwise inescapable middlemen – the people who figured out how to control and charge for the things we did with one another.

When I was a kid, I loved the writing of Crad Kilodney, a short story writer who sold his own self-published books on Toronto street-corners while wearing a sign that said "VERY FAMOUS CANADIAN AUTHOR, BUY MY BOOKS" (he also had a sign that read, simply, "MARGARET ATWOOD"). Kilodney was a force of nature, who wrote, edited, typeset, printed, bound, and sold his own books:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books/article-late-street-poet-and-publishing-scourge-crad-kilodney-left-behind-a/

But there are plenty of writers out there that I want to hear from who lack the skill or the will to do all of that. Editors, publishers, distributors, booksellers – all the intermediaries who sit between a writer and their readers – are not bad. They're good, actually. The problem isn't intermediation – it's capture.

For generations, hucksters have conned would-be writers by telling them that publishing won't buy their books because "the gatekeepers" lack the discernment to publish "quality" work. Friends of mine in publishing laughed at the idea that they would deliberately sideline a book they could figure out how to sell – that's just not how it worked.

But today, monopolized film studios are literally annihilating beloved, high-priced, commercially viable works because they are worth slightly more as tax writeoffs than they are as movies:

https://deadline.com/2023/11/coyote-vs-acme-shelved-warner-bros-discovery-writeoff-david-zaslav-1235598676/

There's four giant studios and five giant publishers. Maybe "five" is the magic number and publishing isn't concentrated enough to drop whole novels down the memory hole for a tax deduction, but even so, publishing is trying like hell to shrink to four:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/07/random-penguins/#if-you-wanted-to-get-there-i-wouldnt-start-from-here

Even as the entertainment sector is working to both literally and figuratively destroy our libraries, the cultural heritage sector is grappling with preserving these libraries, with shrinking budgets and increased legal threats:

https://blog.archive.org/2023/03/25/the-fight-continues/

I keep meeting artists of all description who have been conditioned to be suspicious of anything with the word "open" in its name. One colleague has repeatedly told me that fighting for the "open internet" is a self-defeating rhetorical move that will scare off artists who hear "open" and think "Big Tech ripoff."

But "openness" is a necessary precondition for preservation and access, which are the necessary preconditions for recall and revisiting. Here on the last, melting fragment of the open internet, as tech- and entertainment-barons are seizing control over our attention and charging rent on our ability to talk and think together, openness is our best hope of a new, good internet. T

he cultural heritage sector wants to save our creative works. The entertainment and tech industry want to delete them and take a tax writeoff.

As a working artist, I know which side I'm on.

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/2023/11/13/this-is-for-everyone/#revisiting

Image: Diego Delso (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Museo_Mimara,_Zagreb,_Croacia,_2014-04-20,_DD_01.JPG

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

[homestuckreplay]

Webcomic 'Homestuck' Canceled For Promoting Bad Password Security

(page 456-459)

8/10/2009 Wheel Spin: Parent Bad :( Verdict: INCORRECT

8/11/2009 Wheel Spin: being silly :3c Verdict: CORRECT, but behind at least 10 layers of irony

In the far future, somebody might call this update a time capsule of the 2000s. If computers change significantly, or something. page 456 comments on Dave's bro's computer being password protected, suggesting that this isn't a cultural norm - the newly-released Windows 7 still doesn't require user accounts to have a password. In Homestuck, the password is used to protect 'incredible top secret shit,' so password protecting a personal home computer might be associated with shadier online behavior.

Bro's password is six characters, and is 'the most awesome thing it can be' according to Dave and his bro, so it's probably lilcal. (It could also be puppet, but personally my passwords are always specific characters, song titles etc, not general concepts. I don't know if other people are different. for what it's worth lilcal is also a slightly more secure password than puppet which is A SINGULAR DICTIONARY WORD). Bro also trusts Dave with his password - either because he doesn't think Dave will do anything to mess up his computer, or because he's daring Dave to use it, similar to leaving the Xbox switched on mid-game.

On page 457 we see Bro's desktop, which we can compare to Dave's desktop on page 323. They both have wallpapers from And It Don't Stop, showing us a chain of game recommendations from Bro -> Dave -> John. Dave, like Rose and John, has some character in the names of his desktop folders, while his bro has seven identically named New Folders scattered around the screen. This adds to the sense that Bro is paranoid about people looking at his computer - he's purposefully making it impossible to navigate. The hidden-identity hat and dark glasses iconography on the password entry screen has the same effect.

Bro also has a program called Delirious Biznasty, which has a rad skater dude for its icon. This could be a web browser, but I think it's more likely some kind of torrenting application, I think that'd fit his vibe. The web browsers we know are Typheus, Cetus and Hephaestus, which are all Greek mythological references with cartoon-styled icons, and Delirious Biznasty doesn't fit the pattern. Based on Dave's relationship to his bro, Bro probably uses Hephaestus too and just doesn't have a desktop shortcut.

Dave and his bro both use the Complete Bullshit content aggregator, which we are forced to witness on pages 458 and 459. Content aggregators are pretty common customizable feeds that people use to keep up with a lot of websites at once, when checking 20+ separate sites a day gets too time consuming. RSS readers are a common form of this that can host a lot of different types of content, but there are also aggregators specifically for webcomics. These are controversial - they're generally well intentioned projects made for free by webcomic fans who want to check for updates easily and keep up with a lot of stories, and want to help other fans do the same. However, they can redirect traffic away from actual sites that host webcomics, meaning that independent webcomic artists might miss out on ad revenue or merch sales, or are less likely to sell ads because their sites don't look as well-trafficked as they are. I don't know if Andrew Hussie has a strong opinion on comics aggregators, but it's possible this terrible to use, unstable and unreadable version is a criticism of the concept.

Complete Bullshit also feels like Dave's bro's equivalent of Serious Business, as they're both digital programs with adjective-noun titles. I wonder if Rose's mom will get her own software.

It's sweet that Bro keeps up with Dave's projects, including Sweet Bro & Hella Jeff and his GameBro review blog. It shows that their relationship isn't 100% one sided, Bro cares for Dave and/or thinks he's cool at least a little bit. It's also fun that Dave is checking to see if his own webcomic has updated, which could be bad memory due to having a lot of projects on the go, or could be Dave checking to make sure his update has gone through and posted successfully. Very reasonable, as it must be a challenge to upload such high quality images.

I will probably make a post digging into Sweet Bro & Hella Jeff at some point, but I'm still peeling the onion of its irony right now so I'll just say: when exactly did Dave find the time to make these comics?

[caffeine-n-words]

Enjoying Queer Content Is Not Fetishizing Queer People

So, lately on Twitter there's been a lot of drama surrounding a VA who has made a lot of inflammatory comments in an effort to promote his own book.

"How A Cookie Tried to Sell a Book" sums it up pretty well. The article mentions that his best-known voice acting role is as Cream Unicorn Cookie in Cookie Run, and the only other known role (as per behindthevoiceactors.com) is in Given, a BL game. I've seen people here claim he also had a role in Genshin Impact, but that's not listed; however, JD Riley's article mentions that a Genshin Impact VA did come to King's defense.

(Also, yes, we're all reeling from the irony that one of his roles was in a BL game, and he's trying to tear down BL to promote himself. Gross.)

I'm sure this is all well known, but I wanted to provide context for this next statement: People who enjoy queer content, including fujoshi and women who do not identify as fujoshi, are not fetishizing queer people. They literally cannot be, because the people they're reading about aren't real.

Why is that important? Let's look at the definition of fetishize:

make (something) the object of a sexual fetish (women's bodies are so intensely fetishized) and

have an excessive and irrational commitment to or obsession with (something) (an author who fetishizes privacy)

Typically when people talk about cishet women fetishizing gay men by reading BL or MlM, they're talking about the first definition.

Fetishizing would be objectifying real gay men. Reading about fictional gay men in a relationship isn't objectifying real gay men. Reading about fictional gay men having sex isn't objectifying real gay men. Enjoying a fictional relationship between fictional gay men is not objectifying real gay men.

This also applies to other queer content.

In fact, continuing to insist that cishet people, women in particular, aren't allowed to read/view/enjoy queer content encourages the idea that somehow our content is dirty or needs to be hidden away from "the straights." This actively discourages having our communities accepted and normalized.

For example, queer romance should be just as available on bookshelves as cishet romance. If we put say, ten mlm romance books and ten cishet romance books on a table, people are going to see and buy them, including people who aren't in the target audience. If we keep insisting that people who aren't the target audience (in this case, fujoshi and other cishet women) aren't allowed to read the mlm romance books, fewer will be sold. If fewer sell, the store won't buy as many to put out, or just stop stocking it altogether. This encourages the idea that that content is gross, unsuitable for sale or view (even though that's not why it was pulled), and feeds into existing homophobic propaganda.

If someone actually fetishizes a real queer person, by all means, call out their behavior. It's harmful; it actually negatively affects a real person.

But let's stop it with "cishet women aren't allowed to read/watch this fictional content because it's fetishizing real gay people!" It's a false statement and getting tiresome.

[resurrection-of-soul]

Flashback | BIOHAZARD 7

Writer: Akira (日日日)

Characters: Kaoru, Koga, Keito

Kaoru: (There we go. You look like a dummy with no thoughts in that head of yours, but you catch on quick, don't you?) Koga: (Yeah, cause I'm always hangin' around with a certain someone who makes no fuckin' sense. My brain's gotten a bit a' trainin'.)

[ For the best viewing experience, please read directly on my blog! ♪ ]

Time: One hour later.

Location: At the underground live house located in the downtown area near Yumenosaki.

Kaoru: Welcome~♪

Koga: ......

Kaoru: Oh? You're like, totally one of our regulars. You came back again, huh? I know I probably shouldn't be saying this since I'm the one in charge of sales and all, but if you keep coming to shady places like this, your parents are gonna worry about you, y'know~? Well, I don't really care one way or the other. I mean, your actions are your own responsibility, so don't sue the store if anything goes wrong, 'kay?

Koga: Shut up, quit talkin' to me like we're friends. You're just some guy who works here.

Keito: Are you acquainted with Hakaze, Oogami?

Koga: Hakaze? Nope, I didn't even know his name. You friends with him or somethin', Hasumi-senpai?

Keito: We aren't friends, but we are in the same class. This guy's infamous for skipping school, so every time I see him, I end up preaching at him to come to school.

Kaoru: Ack, Glasses-kun is here too!

Keito: You ought to at least know my name by now.

Kaoru: Sorry~ I'm not interested in men's names, so I don't bother remembering them~♪ More importantly, I totally get it now… I was like, this is a really weird pair to be hanging out together, but you two were part of that group that performed the other day, right? Which means you're Sakuma-san's friends. So, he must be the one who called you two out here today.

Keito: …We aren't really friends or anything like that.

Koga: Ehh~? We're friends on paper at least, aren't we? Cause we're DEADMANZ~♪

Koga: (GAAAAAAAH! THIS IS SO ANNOYING~! I wanna retort so bad, but I can't open my mouth of my own volition! This is so damn stressful!)

Kaoru: (H-Heeey~! Koga-kun? Guess you can't hear me after all, huh?)

Koga: (Woah? Is that you, Hakaze-senpai? Where are ya?)

Kaoru: (What do you mean, where? I'm like, right here y'know… Wait, that was you just now, right, Koga-kun?)

Koga: (Duh, who else?)

Kaoru: Haha. There's a lot of people here, so why don't we go talk in the back? The client this time around is me, or rather, this underground live house I run. I've got a liiittle problem that I need you, DEADMANZ, to solve for me—

Koga: (Hey! Can ya not hear me after all? Why the hell are ya ignorin' me to go on about that shit?!)

Kaoru: (...Ohhh~ So that's how it is.) (Koga-kun, Koga-kun, calm down. I think I've more or less figured out what's going on.)

Koga: (Hah?)

Kaoru: (We're like, totally ghosts right now.)

Koga: (Ghosts? I don't remember dyin,' but— Oh wait, I get it.)

Kaoru: (There we go. You look like a dummy with no thoughts in that head of yours, but you catch on quick, don't you?)

Koga: (Yeah, cause I'm always hangin' around with a certain someone who makes no fuckin' sense. My brain's gotten a bit a' trainin'.)

Kaoru: (I see, that makes sense ♪)

Koga: (Long story short, we're all dreamin' cause a' that somethin'-or-other experiment, yeah?) (And inside that dream, we're relivin' the past. But for some reason, we're still conscious.)

Kaoru: (It's like lucid dreaming, I guess. And for some reason, we can communicate with each other too.) (It seems like we can't interfere with the dream — or rather, our memories — but we can still chat while watching from the sidelines.) (That's why I described us as "ghosts.")

Koga: (Hmph, I s'pose it's a good way to put it.) (Ghosts— the dead can't interfere with reality, after all.) (We've really become dead men. What kinda shitty irony is that?)

Kaoru: (Well, I'm actually starting to enjoy myself a bit now that I'm thinking of it as a rare opportunity to experience something unusual.)

Koga: (Just how positive can ya get, ya happy-go-lucky asshole.)

Kaoru: (You only live once, so it'd be a waste not to enjoy it, right? ♪) (Though, well, who knows whether this'll be enjoyable or not...) (Hey hey, Koga-kun, am I misremembering how this happened?) (At the time, I wasn't really all that interested in the stuff happening around me, so I kinda took a back seat to everything. Is that why my memory of these events is off?)

Koga: (Hah? Whaddya mean?)

Kaoru: (Well, we're supposed to be reminiscing about the past… But I don't remember experiencing anything like this. I mean like, the general outline is more or less correct, but some of the details don't match up.)

Koga: (Hm? But I really did go to the underground live house with Hasumi-senpai and—) (Wait, yeah, I don't think we met up with ya directly when we came here. It wasn't until later that I found out you were the one runnin' the place.)

Kaoru: (Yup. It's a bunch of small stuff like that, but when you add it all up, it changes a lot, y'know.) (So like, just what is it that we're being shown right now…?)

[ ☆ ]

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[sol-consort]

God that vibration in a Turians voice is what made me realize that “oh Garrus IS hot” in Mass Effect 2 because I liked him in 1 but didn’t think he was hot yet. I must’ve been too focused on trying not to romance someone in 1 which I almost failed at. Also I know that people have already said this out of the blue but I do hope you’re okay, you’re a cool dude who makes dope stuff even if I don’t comment which I should and pretty much the reason I’m still somewhat active on tumblr now

I feel out of the loop because I am desperately trying to find ME2 Garrus hot but something about how dismissive and distant he is puts me off. No like I tottally get it you've been through a lot BUT I WAS DEAD.

I LITERALLY WAS DEAD FOR 2 YEARS AND ALL HE HAS TO SAY "oh Shepard it's you." FUCK YOU MAN I WAS GOING IN FOR A HUG.

I haven't done his loyalty mission yet so maybe he will warm up on me eventually. Idk no strong opinions on romance so far except for the theif girl but she already has someone so I am fucked.

I was fully planning on cheating on Kaidan here.

I imported my ME1 save and the game currently has me flagged in Kaidan's romance because his picture is in my bedroom. It's supposed to turn down when I cheat on him and he will confront me about it in ME3

But now. I can't find anyone fuckable. Even Garrus who I was down bad for because of the stars in his eyes literally became batman 2.0 and is blasting my chemical romance from the back of the ship but no one wants to confront him about it and instead hope the phase ends soon.

Jacob is. Jacob lacks rizz. Jacob makes me feel like I'm sexually harrassing him because of how uncomfortable he seems whenever I pick a romance option. I actually had to google if he was romance-able just to make sure I wasn't doing anything wrong.

Who's left huh????? Who's dick I supposed to suck in order to get my shepard a malewife??

There is Liara. Liara is always fucking there standing in the corner. Ruining my Kaidan romance and tricking me into her romance like some kind of fae.

I hope the Garrus fever infects me soon too because it looks like I will end up staying loyal to Kaidan against my will. That man probably spent the two years after Shepard's death to make sure all men in the galaxy are unfuckable and all hot women are straight, just on the off chance Shepard comes back to life and tries to get some.

I mean he isn't wrong, Shepard flirted with him while on the job and while being his captain, he knows his commander will flirt with their co-works without any shame so why even take the risk?

God I miss Ashley.

On other news, I keep meeting Turians I want to fuck. Who are not an option to fuck. It's a twisted irony of fate because I keep refusing Garrus.

Also I'm starting to regret the fact I made Anderson the council. He seems really sad, but man it felt great watching Udina get told to fuck off.

Is he happier if he doesn't become the council? What choice did you make? Does he become something else then or do we even get to meet him?

And it is funny how all of this is your fault. I wouldn't have installed Mass effect or gave it a chance wasn't it for you ask a long while back. I would've let it rot in my library for a year then finally gave it a chance.

You stole my bg3 obsession and replaced it with mass effect! How dare you! I am very thankful you introduced me to this because I never realised how fun fps can be. I even bought another fps on sale today, called hellsinger.

But it is really freaky how much such a small thing like sending an ask detoured my life so much and changed my interests. It's a whole new side I wasn't even aware of its existence.

Thank you, genuinely. But I have learned my lesson and won't fall to your tricks twice. I'm not even gonna search up that other game you recommend until after I finish mass effect. Just in case it turns out to be jaw dropping too.

But the director ME2 took in gameplay isn't my favourite. I'm too squishy and the enemies are too squishy now. I can't be a cool sniper jumping from place to place and headshoting enemies. Now I have to hide behind fucked up barriers and wait for the enemy to reload or use my invisibility then I go in for the snipe.

The weapon feels more limited too, I get that they made them more unique but I prefer having the stats menu more. I only have two snipers so far and I hate both of them but I'm forced to use one because there are so little options.

It feels more resident evil-ish? Or maybe because I'm on veteran difficulty? I tried lowering it but it doesn't fix the issue.

My problem isn't that the enemies are dying too fast my problem is that I am dying too fast. I hate the new points system and level up too, I miss the more detailed one in ME1. I also loath the hacking minigames in here.

The dialogue and animations improved a lot tho, the missions diversity too! The heist one was such a blast I felt like I was in a movie. It was so cheesy and cliche in a very endearing way oh my god.

I like my Shepard but I miss their face scar. Why did they remove that option? I had it in like a cool reminder of the blitz or something.

Also if you pick earthborn you get these two wholesome newsrports

And this one for War hero

They made me smile. But also wtf people are having WEDDINGS on MY memorial??? GET OFF MY STATUE.

I also wished that people would've had a bigger reaction to us showing up alive, yk? Not even a hug so far. Even Anderson :(

But yeah that's all for now.

And I appreciate it dude, checking up on me. You're cool too. And about the comments, I can't exactly force you to do it, I can't force anyone, it's just a choice they make everyday.

But I am curious because I never thought you were one of my readers. You don't leave likes on my writing posts, and you have only sent one or two requests so long ago. You do like my writing advice and opinions sometimes. Is that why you follow me? Because I'm funny ofc.

But nah don't tell me. I don't wanna know, it will ruin the mystery. I pay attention to the posts each person who frequents here likes, and I get a general idea of their preference. Sometimes, I can predict which posts will be liked by who and which will be ignored by others. It's a fun minigame. Humans love patterns.

But yeah. I don't want random comments on stories or fics you haven't read or finished. I want them from the people who read and liked the story. I want to hear their opinion I want to know what they thought. But if you are dinning and dashing then...again I can't force to do anything. It just makes me sad really.

I like talking, but not about myself or feelings. I am the way I am, flaws and all and I don't have to explain it. This cycle will repeat, I might give up tomorrow, I might not, I can't predict the future. One day my thread will eventually snap.

But not today, I'm still working on fics, I am still posting. I'm not giving up yet.

And I hope this inspires you in any way since you're back to writing, I hope that you don't give up too no matter how scary quiet it gets. I hope you're more resilient than me. I hope you love what you write because it is very deserving of love.

[denimbex1986]

'As a fan of cinema, it’s very easy to get disillusioned with the current state of the industry.

Between — well, take your pick of threats to film as we know it — it’s been an exhausting past several years. Fantastic films are still regularly being made, but the idea of the classic trip to the movies feels like it’s being erased in real-time.

There have, of course, been exceptions. “Spider-Man: No Way Home” became the first film post-pandemic to cross the $1 billion mark toward the end of 2021, and last year had the double-whammy of “Top Gun: Maverick” in the summer and “Avatar: The Way of Water” in the winter, glimmers of brightness in an otherwise bleak series of box office returns.

Then, this year, came “Barbenheimer.”

The timeline is hard to pin down, but at some point audiences collectively realized that Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” and Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” would release together on July 21. What followed was what can only be described as a phenomenon.

Custom posters and t-shirts, plenty of memes and a good heaping of irony built up this date as a true event. And the best part was that it felt entirely organic; neither Warner Bros. (distributing “Barbie") or Universal (distributing “Oppenheimer”) really acknowledged it, leading to a campaign that was driven by word-of-mouth through social media. The fever of anticipation confounded even box office predictions, which only climbed higher and higher for both films as the crowds gathered that July weekend.

Crowds that included me and my friends.

On Saturday, July 22, we arrived bright and early at 10 a.m. to the AMC West Chester 18 for our 10:30 a.m. showing of “Oppenheimer” in IMAX, a showing that was almost entirely sold out. Sporting our brand new “I am become Ken, destroyer of worlds” shirts (courtesy of our Managing Editor Luke Macy), we settled into the three-hour drama with an excitement shared by the entire theater around us.

I was worried going in that the crowd would be too rowdy, taking away from the serious nature of “Oppenheimer’s” tone and subject, but they were largely respectful the whole time. Some periodic chuckles at the film’s few comedic moments (and every time Einstein showed up) and some gasps of awe during the Trinity test only occasionally permeated, leaving us to sink into the film’s excellence.

That said, due to both how early we saw it and the film’s somewhat depressing ending, we left the theater already pretty drained. We trudged over to the nearby Barnes & Noble to kill some time before our 6:00 p.m. showing of “Barbie,” which is where it really sunk in how big “Barbenheimer” was.

On the walk over we passed several other groups with their own unique shirts and outfits. The parking lot was close to capacity with people coming and going. Even Barnes & Noble got in on the action, with custom displays for historical novels about the atom bomb and various pieces of Barbie media as well as an impromptu sale at the store’s Starbucks for people wearing Barbenheimer clothing.

Even if you weren’t participating, you couldn’t escape it.

By the time we regrouped at the AMC Classic Hamilton 8 for “Barbie,” our spirits had mostly lifted and we were ready for the bright and campy fun of Gerwig’s interpretation on the colossal brand.

This time the crowd was much more vocal throughout the film, but due to its nature as a comedy that didn’t bother me as much, and in fact added to some parts thanks to a couple of on-point reactions. We all came out grinning and abuzz about our favorite moments, calling each other Barbie and referring to each other’s Kenergy.

And even at 8:30 p.m. as we were leaving, there was still an overabundance of traffic to catch the theater’s latest showings.

Thinking about that day in retrospect, there are two major takeaways I have. The first is practical: “Barbenheimer” proves that people haven’t completely abandoned theaters.

The box office returns of both films show this abundantly, but more impressive to me are the clear cultural imprints. Discussions surrounding the films didn’t vanish after they came out, continuing even past their second weekend in theaters which normally would have other new releases swoop in and steal that thunder (as happened to “Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1,” which came out just a week before “Barbenheimer”).

My second takeaway is more personal: “Barbenheimer” is a reminder of how powerful film can be as a communal experience.

I’m not one to shy away from going to see movies by myself, but one of the best things about art is being able to share your experience with it; to come out of a movie and endlessly ramble on about it with someone else, to dissect and analyze the themes, to joke about your favorite moments. There’s just something about having people next to you while watching something that elevates it beyond just entertainment.

For one weekend — and if the box office holds, multiple weekends after — millions of people rediscovered the joy of the movie theater together.

This holds true for my own group. By the time I headed home after spending the entire day with my friends, I felt closer to them than ever. Sure, general togetherness helps, but I like to think the movies helped by giving us a platform to spend that time and share in each other’s excitement.

It turns out that we needed “Barbenheimer” just as much as “Barbenheimer” needed us.'

[clothedarchive]

Why I like Yohji's clothes: Franca Sozzani

February 1999 High Fashion No.265 Report and text by Miyuki Yajima Photography by Shin Shin and Ernest Leve

Clothes Rich in Irony.

"I have been looking at Yohji Yamamoto's collection continuously from 1981 to the present. I don't think there were any exhibitions in Paris at that time. The sale was taking place in a room on the top floor of a building on Boulevard de Sébastopol. I went to see it at the recommendation of a boutique owner. At that time, I bought a raincoat and other things.

I still remember the impression I had when I first put my sleeves through Yohji's clothes. It was a 'different feeling'. The structure of the clothes was completely different from others, so the feeling I had when I put my hands through them was completely different from anything I had experienced before. I still remember the strange surprise I felt at that time.

The following year, in 1982, I was editor-in-chief of Conde Nast's 'Lei,' and did a feature on Japanese designers. Do you remember it? The issue had the Hinomaru on the cover.

Genius designers can come from any country, regardless of whether there is a tradition of clothing or not. Yohji's conception of clothing making is probably not the Japanese way. He has a kimono series, but for the most part, he is closer to Western haute couture. However, what is different from Western designers is the cutting. Textile research is also different.

Yohji, along with Ray Kawakubo and Issey Miyake, has completely changed the way clothes are made. In every element: the show, the cut, the look, the textiles. It is arguably the most important revolution in the history of Western clothing to date.

Yohji's clothes are especially rich in irony. It is evident that Yohji enjoys making clothes from the bottom of his heart. This is the reason why I like Yohji. We call it rich in irony when one has a sense of enjoyment.

He will be able to make all types of clothes. He could also create clothes as a piece of haute couture. However, he puts great irony into it. Suddenly, the clothes become extremely modern. People may not put too much emphasis on 'irony', but 'irony' is the key to making everything modern.

If Yohji approached his collection head-on and seriously, without irony, his show would instantly turn into stage costumes. The power of 'irony' cannot be avoided. 'Ironical' is an expression of intelligence.

This collection (Spring/Summer 1999) was also amazing. It was like I was dreaming. It was completely unexpected.

No single designer has ever presented clothing the way Yohji did this time around. There was everything: art, theatrics, music, poetry, passion, history, technology, etc.

People often say, 'It's beautiful, but not wearable.' But what's extraordinary about Yohji this time is that each piece of clothing, taken off one by one, can be worn individually. It's a product that sells, but at the same time it's unconventional and eccentric, like something out of a dream world. It was truly a luxurious and extravagant collection.

Clothes tend to accumulate if left alone, so I get rid of them from time to time. However, I keep all of Yohji's clothes, along with Comme des Garçons, Alaïa, Gaultier, and Saint-Laurent clothes, without throwing away any of them. That's why I have a lot of Yohji's clothes. Are you taking pictures? Now, let's wear the most vivid color, black."

[itoshikinozomu]

My supervisors: you should make an effort to increase your sales. We know that we shouldn't pressure anybody in making sales but it's important and you earn a comission on that.

My sales tool whenever I try to make a sale or a priceplan change:

[roguerambles]

Trouble

Blood of Zeus - Heron x Hera’s Daughter!Reader

Warnings - Nothing too heavy, but mentions of Adult Situations. 18+Only.

Image from google.

I read @icy-spicy​ Hera Headcannon with her having a daughter on her own and this idea was born because the irony was too delicious for me to resist :D so thank you for the inspiration once again haha!

-

The Fates had a sense of humour.

Mother had always warned you to not set foot in the moral world – mortals were foolish, brutish creatures that Zeus had commanded the Gods stay away from, and leave the Fates to manage their affairs. But Hyacinth used to be mortal, and Lady Ariadne, and Apollo and Dionysus had loved them both long before they joined you all on Olympus. So mortals must have some good qualities.

The polis was small, but crowded – you’d never seen so many mortals in one place before. You lurked on the outside of what seemed to be a marketplace, partially hidden behind a wall. It was strange – you’d been so bold when you’d snuck away from Olympus to explore, but now the time was here and you were seized by nerves.

That was the first time you’d met Heron.

He had appeared out of the woods, a string of dead hares in his grasp and a bow on his back. He eyed you strangely as he moved towards the entrance, with his expression only growing more dubious when you called out to him. You told him you were the daughter of travelling merchants (obviously a lie) and that you were lost (closer to the truth, but not quite) and could you please follow him into the marketplace? (Perhaps walking in with someone would make things less daunting?) He had stared at you as though you had just sprouted a second head in front of him, but agreed with some visible reluctance, as though expecting to be the punchline of some joke.

…Your time in the market didn’t leave you with fond memories of the place (why would a merchant refuse a perfectly good sale from someone born out of wedlock, that was a ludicrous method of conducting trade and you told the pig-headed fool of a man who ran the stall exactly that-) but somewhere along the way you think Heron became your friend.

You began to sneak from Olympus more and more, but kept returning to the little polis, because it was where Heron lived. You eventually convinced him to let you accompany him into the woods, and you maybe influenced a few more animals to fall willingly to his arrows, to help him and his mother.

“Your parents don’t mind you being out here?” He asked you one day, while sharpening an arrow in the little garden outside his mother’s little home.

…You felt a little guilty for continuing to lie, but it wasn’t as though you could tell him the truth either. Your fictional parents thus had to be as stern or lenient as you needed – Heron had begun asking more about them recently, and you were beginning to worry he knew you weren’t being honest – why else hadn’t he ever seen them?

“As long as I’m back by nightfall.” You played with a stick in your hands, trying to sound as convincing as possible. “It’s not like I’m doing anything wrong.”

Heron snorted slightly, raising an eyebrow at you. “You do realise plenty of the people in the polis would say talking to us at all is wrong, don’t you?”

“Well, it’s a good thing I don’t care what they think, isn’t it?” You answered primly. Heron smiled at that, one of those slightly shy ones that made your heart flutter and oh yeah, that was happening a lot recently too.

“Still…” He turned his attention back to his arrows. “…not many around here would be fine with their daughter hanging around with some poor bastard hunter.”

…unfortunately, he wasn’t wrong, and you suspected that was why he was beginning to get suspicious of you. You played with the stick some more, before reaching for the bundle on the little table between you. “Are you really going to use all of these-“

Maybe it was your haste to change the subject that had made you clumsy, but you knocked over the little flower pot the sticks were poking out of, sending them tumbling over the table, knocking soil through the air. Heron coughed and jumped as the soil hit him and you clamped your hands over your mouth.

“Fates.” You blinked rapidly before darting over, hurriedly brushing bits of soil from Heron’s chest and shoulders. “I’m so sorry!”

Heron gave you a dry look. “That’s one way to change the subject…”

You flushed. “That wasn’t on purpose!”

He rolled his eyes at you, but a smile was forcing its way onto his lips. “Of course not.”

“It wasn’t!”

“I believe you.”

“No, you don’t!”

Heron laughed then as you pouted up at him. After a few moments you realised you were still standing there, hand on his chest. His heart thumped rhythmically beneath your fingers, and without really thinking you let your hand drift slightly, noting the smooth, toned muscle of Heron’s torso. You’d seen it, obviously, but you’d never really felt him before. He was…strong, you couldn’t help but notice. You wondered how many daughters and sons in the polis had been scolded for looking at the pretty, bastard hunter outside the walls. Heron was a hard not to notice. 

“Ah….” Heron cleared his throat, a nervous chuckle slipping from him. “You…we…I think you got most of it.”

“Yes.” You agreed, you found your hand drifting upwards, fingers grazing Heron’s handsome jaw. His pretty blue eyes widened, his lips parting in surprise. You stared at them – not for the first time lately wondering what they’d taste like on yours.

“Wait…” He shook his head slightly, but didn’t pull away. “We…we shouldn’t-“

“Heron…” You leaned up slightly. His throat bobbed as closed the gap, your lips just inches from his. “Heron, can I-?”

The sound of wood toppling against each other cut through the silence and you both sprang apart as though you’d been struck by lightning.

“Oh!” You recognised the Old Man – you’d seen him around Heron and his mother’s home, but he always made himself scarce when you were near. “Apologies, I dropped the firewood….” His eyes grew wide when he spotted you, his jaw hanging briefly. You flushed as Heron stammered beside you.

Then the Old Man began to laugh.

Deep, booming laugher as he practically doubled over, hanging on to the side of the house for support. You and Heron stared at him in shock, but the sound was infectious, and before you knew what was happening all of you were laughing like fools until poor Electra found you, likely worried all three of you had gone mad.

Much, much, much later, long after you realised who the Old Man actually was, and more importantly, who Heron was, you would begrudgingly admit that from a certain point of view, there was something mildly funny about the scene.

 -

You knew something was wrong from the moment you arrived back at Olympus.

Mother was waiting in your room, which you hadn’t expected. Her expression was dark as you walked in, but for the moment it didn’t seem like it was directed at you. “Where have you been?”

You didn’t have an answer prepared – Mother had never really questioned your whereabouts before – that was how you’d been sneaking away so easily – and you stumbled to find one. “I…was with…Artemis.” You didn’t sound remotely convincing, but from the sharp frown Mother shot at you it seemed the mention of one of Zeus’s illegitimate children had shifted the focus of her ire somewhat.

“…you know how I feel about you spending time with her.” Mother scowled out of your bedroom window, at what you weren’t quite sure. “And her brother, and the other one, and the other-“

She cut herself off with a hiss, her nails digging into her arms. She inhaled sharply, and you caught a hint of redness in her eyes. You approached cautiously. “Mother, have you been crying?”

“Of course not.” She said, but she held out a hand as you approached, which you took. Crying was useless, she’d told you once. Perhaps that was why she became so angry when she cried. You wondered if she and Zeus had fought again. She shook her head, taking a harsh breath. “Don’t speak with any of them. Any of Zeus’s bastards.” She spat the word, looking as though she may cry again. “I need you to do this for me. You will, won’t you, darling?”

You were startled. Hera had never exactly been fond of any of Zeus’s illegitimate children, but she’d never outright forbade you from speaking with them. It was impractical, for one thing. You wanted to ask more, but you could feel the anger radiating off of her in waves as she glared out of the window and decided to simply go along with it. “…yes, mother.”

She nodded at your agreement, her hand coming to gently brush a stray hair from your face. “…thank you.” She said, before stepping away. “I must go. There is something I must take care of.” Then she was gone.

You sat on the kline in your room, confused. What had happened? You closed your eyes, forcing yourself to take calming breaths. Everything would be fine. It always was in the end. Mother was just upset. You took a few more breaths, slowing down, your head beginning to clear….

Warm hands touched your thighs and you sprang upwards, coming face to face with a small, playful smile and vibrant blue eyes.

“Heron?!” You gawked at him, momentarily stunned. He was perched at the end of the kline, looking perfectly at ease. “You…how…why are you here?!” You glanced around the room wildly. Mother would kill him-

“I wanted to see you.” His chest was bare, giving you a completely uninterrupted view of smooth, warm skin and toned muscles, his broad shoulders tapering down to his slender hips, and your mouth went dry. Had he gotten taller or had you shrunk?

He moved slowly, his hands on either side of you, coming between your thighs as his blue gaze studied you so intently that your felt heat rush to your head. “H-Heron-“ You stumbled out his name, coherent speech suddenly a struggle. “I…you can’t be here. If Mother- if anyone-“

His lips brushed against the corner of your mouth and words failed you completely. Your heart pounded in your chest so loudly that you were certain someone outside the room was bound to hear and come investigate and see you here with Heron between your thighs-

“I can’t stop thinking about you…” Heron murmured, lips trailing softly down your jaw. You breath hitched. “…I had to see you again…”

“I…ah….r-really?” You wanted to slap yourself, Fates you sounded ridiculous but Heron’s warm mouth brushed over your collarbone and you practically moaned. “B-but…how did you…ah, Heron-“

His lips moved between the valley of your breasts, his tongue flickering teasingly against your skin and Fates you felt as though you were going to burst into flames. You forced yourself to tear your gaze away from him, looking at your bedroom door. “W-we…we shouldn’t…someone might-“

“Do you want me to stop…?” Heron asked. His nimble fingers danced along the skin of your sides, making you shiver and squirm. You swallowed thickly as his eyes met yours, and any sense you had about this situation melted away.

“…no.” You breathed, and he gave you that small, shy smile that made your heart flutter, just as it had done earlier.

He slowly moved your dress out of the way and over your head, gasping softly as you lay under him, breathless and blushing furiously. “Gods…” His lips were on you again, hungry and hot, trailing over your chest and down your stomach as he moved lower and lower. “…you’re so beautiful…”

“Heron…” You whined as his breath tickled the skin of your thigh, his mouth brushing over you and making your hips jump. Your fingers tangled in his hair, thick and soft just like you’d imagined. “Heron, don’t stop, please, don’t stop-“

His tongue reached you and you gasped, thighs clenching around his shoulders as he began slowly teasing you, murmuring sweetly as his rough, gentle hands stroked your hips. “Heron…!” You writhed under his mouth, fingers gripping his hair, body arching as his movements intensified. “Heron….! Ah….! Heron…!”

A hand grabbed your shoulder and shook.

With a rather undignified shriek, you leapt from the kline, head nearly colliding directly with Ares’s own.

He jumped back as you whirled around – the blanket you’d been laying under rumbled around your ankles, but nobody was there except you and Ares – by the Fates, it was a dream. You couldn’t decide if you want to laugh or weep.

“What are you doing?” He demanded sharply, looking as though he’d caught you doing something you shouldn’t have.

“Nothing!” You said back, voice much louder than you’d intended. You tried again, desperately willing your heart to slow down. “I….I fell asleep…!”

Ares’s eyes narrowed as he took in your flushed expression in silence. After what felt like an eternity of him staring at you, he finally spoke. “Zeus has another bastard.”

“…oh.” You weren’t sure how to respond. “Oh….is that why Mother was so upset…?”

“Guess.” He said, voice dripping with sarcasm. You might have taken issue with his tone, but his next words knocked the wind out of you. “His name is Heron.”

You stared at Ares, your mind blank. He stared back, expression flat and you knew immediately he knew everything. You didn’t know how he knew but he knew-

“…don’t go back down there, sister.” He said finally, before turning on his heel and marching out of the room. You slid back onto the kline, feeling faintly dizzy. Heron is Zeus’s son….?

…by the Fates, you were in trouble.

[aurumacadicus]

I’ve brought up True Lies before but man it’s one of my favorite movies so:

Steve as Harry. He pretends he’s a computer salesman who often has to go on sales trips, which fools his trusting husband Tony (who used to own his own company but he took a step back to raise their children), rebellious son Harley, and precocious daughter Morgan. But really, he is a spy for SHIELD and he hunts down Hydra (and other terrorist organizations, but Hydra is his nemesis).

Unfortunately, while investigating a supposed art dealer with ties to a new upstart domestic terrorist group called AIM, he misses the small birthday party his family planned for him. He is able to explain it away with a “I got caught up in the traffic downtown, did you see the news?” and Tony is distracted fussing over him being near psycho shooters his poor husband oh no, but Harley still huffs and storms to his room and takes Morgan with him because she’s not old enough to be mad yet.

Still, Steve can tell that as worried as Tony was retroactively, it doesn’t stop the hurt, because he’s been missing on a lot of family time lately, and Harley and Morgan are super protective of him, so. He should do something sweet for Tony, remind him why he fell for Steve in the first place. After all, he loves Tony deeply and he feels guilty for lying all the time, especially when Tony had immediately started fussing over him in response to another lie.

So Steve is absolutely stunned when he goes to take Tony out to lunch the next day only to overhear him making plans to meet someone else, sounding furtive and nervous. It almost sounds like… but no. Tony would never—he wouldn’t cheat! And yet here he is, listening to his husband whisper back an address and look around to make sure no one was listening.

“Who the fuck is Justin Hammer?” Steve grinds out, slamming back into Bucky’s car angrily.

“What?” Bucky asks, bewildered, then leans his face toward his phone without taking his eyes off Steve and adds, “I guess lunch is off. I’ll call you back.”

Steve takes seven seconds to feel sorry for ruining Bucky’s date before he forgets all about it to word vomit everything he saw, ending with a desperate, “Is it my fault? Am I just not home enough?”

He and Bucky get a text before he can answer, and they both look at their phones to find a text from Natasha with a quick dossier on Justin Hammer.

“…Was that Natasha on the phone with you?” Steve asks, eyes narrowing, because they’re supposed to be treating her as if she’s dangerous still.

“Your husband made a date with a car salesman,” Bucky replies, derailing him.

Come to find out, this is something Justin Hammer does a lot, lure unsuspecting people into his bed by pretending to be a spy. Steve allows himself five minutes to ache at the irony before he forces Bucky (and Natasha?) to help him spy on his husband.

This idea literally just came to me because I imagined the scene where one of the guys in the helicopter following Justin’s car says, “Looks like the passenger has put their head in the driver’s lap, yeehaw,” and Bucky nervously telling Steve, “Maybe Tony is just sleepy,” and Steve gives him the most confused, offended glare Bucky has ever seen.

[a-fritterer]

One thing I love about tumblr is, here bloggers try their best to spread news about all the shits that keep happening around the globe (BLM, Yemen crisis, Phillippines Anti Terrorist Bill, Polish LGBT education ban just to name a few).

These encouraged me to draw attention to news that have been circulating on Instagram but surprisingly found no one to talk about it here in tumblr. The matter itself is alarming and I feel we should be more vocal about it. For your reference I attached some Instagram links which contain the details, go ahead and check them out.

To give you the picture of this whole shenanigans of global fashion brands that are threatened by this campaign and collective rage of angry hashtags, western brands such as Kohl's, ASOS have canceled product orders from their Asian (Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Cambodia, Vietnam etc) suppliers. Not only that, these brands (Gap, Arcadia, Primark, Walmart, Fashion Nova, Kendall + Kylie etc, you can find the whole list in venetialamanna's instagram post) are refusing to pay for the in-process goods which is resulting in forced shut down of factories. A major portion of these unemployed workers are women often having no government protection, are even forced to work at rates below living standards (see giving fashion for more details). It's just an irony how Kylie Jenner posted her support for BLM on her social media but her companies are refusing to pay the workers in Bangladesh (where most of the workers are brown women). Not only that, she even went on her way to delete those comments where people used the #PayUp hastag and called her and her sister out. Like bitch, what matters most to you is being a billionaire where you don't give a fuck about the workers whom you're depriving of their rights?

FUCK YOU Kendall + Kylie!

FUCK YOU Cardie B, Diddy, celebrities, fast fashion brands who've bloods on your clothing lines.

Wanna hear a joke? A lot of these brands are even giving sales on their clothes where behind the scene they've millions of dollars yet to pay up and for them people are starving.

This is a small blog but I will request you to spread the words. Please try-

Use the hastag #PayUp on your socials, email the brands, flood them with hashtags

Sign the petition

if you're on instagram follow Who Made Your Cloth, ReMake, Clean Clothes Campaign to stay updated.

Support Remake, CleanClothesCampaign, Labor behind the labels, Asia Floor Wage Alliance, Garments Worker Center, One Billion Rising, Pull Up for Change.

Donate to garments workers and their unions

DO NOT SUPPORT the companies that are sucking the labor force and not treating the employees fairly.

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A post shared by @whomade.yourclothes on Jun 22, 2020 at 10:59am PDT

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by 𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲 (@remakeourworld) on Jun 23, 2020 at 9:25pm PDT

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Chicks For Climate (@chicksforclimate) on May 4, 2020 at 11:24am PDT

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Venetia La Manna (@venetialamanna) on Jun 23, 2020 at 11:55am PDT

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Clean Clothes Campaign (@cleanclothescampaign) on Jun 21, 2020 at 3:49am PDT

Spread the words, reblog, attack them with #PayUp hashtags everywhere. Kylie, Kendall and these global brands cannot get away without paying up.

Thank you for your attention!

[spuffybot]

Walk Me to the Graveyard

Summary: Buffy walks through the graveyard alone at night, contemplating the past few months following the fall of Sunnydale. She reflects on her relationship with Spike, her friendships, and her future before receiving a shocking phone call.

Characters: Buffy, Willow, Dawn, Spike (mentions of Giles, Xander, Andrew, Kennedy, Faith, Wood, Angel, and Fred)

Warnings: Some adult language

Word Count: 4515

Author’s notes: If you read this, thank you. I’ve been chipping away at it for the past few weeks and I’m just glad I was able to finish something I started. “Ghostface” is a reference to the Scream movies, which Sarah Michelle Gellar had a cameo in. The high tea spot with the egg shaped bathrooms is Sketch, a place I didn’t get to visit this year due to the pandemic. I hope you all have a safe holiday season and new year. Hopefully I’ll finish the second part of this story in 2021.

Walk Me to the Graveyard (part 1)

Buffy’s joints creaked as she stood up from her crouched position. She’d been staking out this grave (no pun intended) for hours and dawn was slowly approaching. In the last few minutes the air had started to change, and she could hear the telltale rustling of birds in the trees. If this vampire was going to rise, it wouldn’t be tonight.

Stretching her arms up over her head, she rolled out her stiff shoulders, feeling strangely relieved by the lack of action.

Buffy had been coming to this cemetery every couple of nights for weeks, sniffing out even the barest hint of vampire activity. Technically she could have assigned graveyard duty to any of the Potentials, but she craved the silence and the normalcy of the activity.

She chuckled to herself. How far she’d come that she could relish a few hours of graveyard haunting and call it normal. If only her sixteen-year-old self could see her now.

The truth was she was tired. After the fall of Sunnydale, she’d been fueled by an insatiable need to just keep moving. Giles had suggested they hole up in LA and take refuge with Angel Investigations, but Buffy refused. She wanted to get started on rebuilding as soon as possible. They couldn’t afford to waste time in LA, on Angel’s turf, killing time as his sidekicks while thousands of girls woke up with powers they couldn’t explain. So instead the Scoobies had moved to London, taking on the role of de-facto Watchers Council. They’d rounded up the few surviving members of the former Council and had started reaching out to as many activated Potentials as possible.

They recruited the ones they could and provided support (emotional and financial) to the ones they couldn’t. It was rewarding and it kept her mind off things.

Things like telling a man she loved him only to have him choose death over a future with her.

Buffy kicked a crumbling headstone, cursing when she stubbed her toe.

She knew that wasn’t fair. Spike died saving the world. It was a sacrifice she’d made more than once, and she knew how much she resented the people she left behind for not understanding the weight of that choice. She didn’t want to sully the memory of his heroics with her bitterness. She just couldn’t help it. Besides, focusing on missing Spike was easier than accepting she didn’t know how to function now that she wasn’t the “one girl in all the world.” The irony of having an identity crisis over getting the one thing she’d always thought she wanted was not lost on her. She should be grateful that she wasn’t the only Slayer. Grateful that her future was finally hers to shape. Instead she just felt lost.

It didn’t help that everyone around her was adjusting to this new life and mission like they were born to it. Dawn was training to be a Watcher, and frankly, they needed as many as they could get. The Slayer to Watcher ratio had been drastically tipped and it was only a matter of time before things got out of control.

Faith and Wood had stayed behind in America, taking up shop at the Hellmouth in Cleveland. It was weird to think of Faith as the reigning defender of the Hellmouth, but it felt right. With Wood by her side she would stay grounded and on track. He understood the mission better than most.

Giles was in his glory. He’d vetted the surviving Watchers, firing some gleefully and taking others under his wing. Between them they’d established a kind of Watchers Hogwarts, training Watchers by day and guiding Potential Slayers on field missions by night. He was happy, which was something she’d never really seen him be before. Their relationship had taken a hit in the last few years and while she wasn’t ready to forgive him for everything, she didn’t begrudge him his success. Her Watcher had floundered ever since he was fired, unable to find purpose while she and her friends had grown up around him. Seeing as she suddenly found herself in a similar position it was hard not to understand how he’d gone off track. Besides, she’d lost enough people to know she wasn’t going to lose anymore. She’d fix things with Giles, eventually. For now, she’d just settle for on the same continent and on polite speaking terms. 

Xander and Andrew led the Potential Identification and Retrieval Taskforce. They came up with the name. Obviously. They spent their days traveling the world, chasing down leads and giving their best “join team save the world” sales pitch to scared and angry girls.

Buffy smiled thinking about them. The last time they’d video chatted, Xander had looked better than she’d seen him in years. He’d lost the chip on his shoulder that he’d been carrying since they graduated high school. For the first time in his life he was the best person for the job, and he knew it. Trustworthiness and warmth radiated from him and his knowledge of tactics and the cost of the fight lent him an authenticity the girls were drawn to. He never bullshitted or misled them, but he did inspire them. Like he’d inspired all of the Scoobies over the years to keep on fighting.

The sun was starting to peak over the horizon, and a misty fog enveloped the graveyard. She knew she was dawdling but she couldn’t bring herself to rush home. The alarms would be ringing any second now, Potentials and Watchers scrambling to the mess hall for breakfast before a day of study and training.

Technically she didn’t have any classes to teach until the afternoon, but Giles liked the staff to be present in the morning. He said it communicated solidarity and responsibility. Personally, she thought Dawn had just made him watch the Harry Potter movies one too many times.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket, but she let it go to voicemail. It was either Willow calling to say she had another hit on the Potential alert locator spell or Giles calling to ask where she was.

Either way it could wait.

She just wanted to be in the quiet for a little bit longer.

That’s what she missed the most about Spike. Having someone she could be in the quiet with. He had always seemed to know what she needed, anticipating her every mood and desire.

She’d never met anyone she could just be alone with before him. He never expected anything of her other than to just be. In this chaotic mess of a life she now led she craved his company and his silence. Since she couldn’t have that she came to the cemetery. The dead kept her company in a way the living never could. The occasional scuffle with a vampire didn’t hurt either. The familiar comfort of a stake in her pocket, grave dust on her shoes, her breath quickening for the thrill of the kill, reminding her that even though everything had changed, some things never would.

Her phone buzzed again.

She frowned, wondering why she couldn’t even get a few hours of peace before the sun was fully risen.

Flipping it open she saw two missed calls from a number she didn’t recognize. No voicemail.

It was probably someone trying to sell her something.

Technically her phone was spelled against telemarketers, but magic was fickle. If someone really needed to reach her, they would call the office and leave a message with her secretary.

God. How had she ended up here?

When they’d first arrived in London she’d panicked. Back in California it had seemed so clear. Get to London, find the Watchers, find the Potentials, save the world. Simple.

Except once they arrived there had been bureaucracy and red tape to get through. The surviving Watchers had needed convincing and playing nice with morons wasn’t Buffy’s strong suit. After one particularly eventful meeting that ended with some snide British dude’s head slamming into a wall Giles and Willow had pushed her to take a back seat on the negotiations. Much to everyone’s shock, she listened.

As soon as she stopped leading she felt a huge weight lift off her shoulders. Without meetings and planning sessions to fill her days she’d found herself wandering the streets of London with Dawn, playing tourist.

They were having high tea at this ridiculous spot with baby pink furniture and weird egg-shaped toilets when it hit her. She could walk away. The Hellmouth was gone, and there were more than enough Slayers to pick up the slack. Her friends would be disappointed but eventually they would understand. As she sat there watching Dawn sample pastries, no fear of imminent death getting in the way of her fun, Buffy couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like. This could be their every day.

They could finish out the summer backpacking through Europe then head home to America to finish school and settle down. She was pretty sure she’d heard somewhere that there were hardly any vampires in New Jersey.

She was so wrapped up in the fantasy that she almost missed what Dawn said as they were walking home to their flat.

“Sorry, what with the what now?”

Dawn rolled her eyes. “I said, it’s crazy how there’s this whole world out here and no one was helping keep it safe before.”

“Ummm excuse me, Slayer here, has saved the world, a lot. Even got a nice shiny headstone for my troubles.”

“Obviously but...you were always in Sunnydale. And sure, most of the big bad world endy guys ended up there too but...what about all the other regular level baddies hurting everyday people? I mean, look at them all.”

Dawn stopped and looked around, forcing Buffy to take it all in. The couples strolling along, groups of friends, kids in strollers. The street was flooded with people going about their day. As soon as that sun went down, they’d be joined by all the things that went bump in the night.

“I just think it’s kind of amazing what we’re about to do. For the first time we’ll be able to protect people all over the world. These people will have a chance like they’ve never had before. Like everyone in Sunnydale got because you were around. We can give that to them. I’m just...glad.”

Buffy’s heart warmed even as dreams of running away slipped from her grasp. Dawn was right. This was her calling. She’d find a way to live with it. Normalcy would never be available to her and the sooner she embraced that, the sooner she could start working towards happiness.

At least that’s what Willow was always saying.

Willow who saw a therapist three times a week and a substance abuse counselor twice a week.

After the battle she and Kennedy had parted ways. Their relationship had run its course and Kennedy wasn’t interested in staying on Team Scooby. Instead she took her slaying act on the road, traveling town to town looking for monsters to hunt and people to save. Occasionally she’d run into a Potential and send a heads up their way. She seemed happy. Everyone seemed happy. Buffy just couldn’t seem to find her groove.

Ironically, Willow was the only one to notice how out of sorts Buffy was. Maybe it was all the therapy or maybe it was just that she was more herself than she’d been in a long time, but Willow had become Buffy’s sole confidant these past few months. If she thought about it too much she knew she’d cry. It hadn’t occurred to her how much she’d missed her best friend until she got her back.

At first when Willow tried to reach out, Buffy had been cold and distant. Willow understood, even writing Buffy a letter to explain that she respected her need for distance after the way she had torched their friendship and Buffy’s trust. The letter had melted something in Buffy’s heart. It was the first time Willow had really acknowledged the fact that their sisterhood had been a casualty of Willow’s addiction.

The first time they sat down for coffee together felt like coming home. Willow seemed lighter, more like the girl Buffy had met her sophomore year of high school than the all-powerful Wicca she had come to know lately. She seemed shy, hesitant to take too much from Buffy, a reticence that allowed her to give more than she had intended to when she agreed to meet.

By their third coffee date it was clear that they were going to push through this. When a third turned into a fourth and fifth they decided to just make it a standing girl’s night. Every Tuesday for the rest of their lives.

Last Tuesday they’d finally broached the subject of Spike. Buffy had been dreading this, afraid to pick at the scab only to be met with judgment and condemnation. She wasn’t sure their renewed friendship could handle it. As much as she loved having Will back, Spike was a sensitive spot and she was afraid of how she’d react if Willow said something she didn’t like.

“Buffy, I tried to end the world. What’s a little bumpin of the uglies between former enemies compared to that? I am judgement free Willow of the no judgies zone.”

Willows face scrunched up like it did sometimes when she was trying to find the right words, her nose crinkling and her eyes rolling skyward.

“I just want you to be ok. And if that means loads of tasty mochas and squishy details about Spike sex, I am all ears. I’ve even got marshmallows.”

Buffy saw the sincerity on her friends face and felt something crack deep inside her. She’d been prepared for judgment at worst and stoic acceptance at best. Being met with such openness and warmth took her by surprise and she found she couldn’t hold back anymore. Her eyes welled up and before she could reign it in and full body sobs shook her.

As she cried, Willow rubbed her back and let her get it all out, careful to avoid pushing her to talk. It was exactly what she’d needed to be able to open up.

And open up she did. It was like the levies broke and all the confusion and hurt came pouring out. She told Willow about what happened in the Hellmouth. About her last days with Spike, how he supported her and strengthened her when no one else could, or would. This last part she said without any venom, all her anger and resentment at Willow long gone.

She even spoke about their last night together. How they’d made love in the basement, on that shitty cot. The first and only time they’d ever been truly intimate, Buffy’s walls fully down, her heart totally exposed.

“I know having sex with someone isn’t like, a big deal or anything. Especially when you’ve had sex as many times as we did.”

Buffy cringed as the words left her mouth. The familiar guilt over her physical affair with Spike flaring up.

“No!” Willow exclaimed.

“Buffy no. It is a big deal. It’s like, the biggest of deals. You and sex haven’t exactly had the most copacetic relationship, no offense.”

She smiled apologetically, eliciting a soft laugh from Buffy despite the anxiety that was clenching her gut.

“If you let yourself feel something good with Spike, even just that one time, it’s important. Special. You shouldn’t downplay that. He loved you and you let him show it to you. It’s romantic.”

At that Buffy really laughed.

“God Will. Spike. Romantic.”

Willow laughed too.

“You know...it’s not that weird. Remember when he kidnapped me and Xander? He wanted me to do a love spell for Drusilla. I think he’s always had a romantic streak. In a weird, murdery, vampire kinda way”

Buffy shook her head in amusement.

“Did I ever tell you Spike was a poet when he was human?”

Willows eye widened, and her hands flew to cover her cackling laugh.

“A poet? Oh my gosh. That’s...that’s too good.”

Buffy took a sip of her mocha, relishing the warm caffeinated goodness before adding, “he would kill me for telling you this but, the best part is the whole “William the Bloody” thing? That’s because he had a reputation for being such a terrible poet.”

At that Willow dissolved into full on giggles, hands clutching her stomach

“Ugggggh ok ok, I’m done laughing. Promise. Also why is that so cute? That’s so cute. Little Spike the poet.”

Buffy sighed. “The thing is Spike has this immense capacity for love. Even as a violent serial killer he was still driven by love. It scared me. That he was so willing to throw himself headfirst into love without a shadow of doubt. I’ve never...I’ve never been like that.”

She looked up at Willow, trying to read her reaction. The witch just nodded encouragingly for her to go on.

“I just...I told Giles once that I didn’t know if I could love. I was worried I was broken, like all the slaying made me cold and loveless or something.”

“Buffy, no,” Willow cut in, but Buffy held up a hand to stop her.

“I know it’s not true. I died to save Dawn, to save all of you, weeks after I said that.” Buffy’s eyes filled up again but this time she swallowed it down and wiped them clean.

“He really loved me Will. And I don’t know that I was in love with him but that last night we spent together...I kind of thought that I could be, someday. You know? I wanted him to know that. To know that there was a chance for us. I figured we’d have all the time in the world after...”

Buffy trailed off, suddenly tired. She didn’t need to explain the rest. How Spike had died, believing she’d never love him. How all the time she thought she’d have to figure out if she could evaporated in a burst of fire and ash.

—————————

She’d reached the cemetery gates just as the sun broke through the horizon. Her car was covered in dew, glistening in the hazy morning light.

She still couldn’t believe she had learned how to drive. And on the wrong side of the road! Her mom would die of shock if she were still around.

The thought of Joyce made her wistful. If only her mom could see her now. In her heart Buffy new her mom would be proud of the choices she’d made. She’d encourage her to let go of the past and focus on the future. She’d be overjoyed to know that Buffy had a future now. Sure, it still involved a massive amount of slayage but for the first time in a long time, the fate of the world didn’t rest solely on her shoulders. Her mom would tell her to embrace that and to live this new life to the fullest.

I’m trying mom.

Her phone buzzed again, and this time Buffy yanked it out in annoyance and flipped it open.

“What do you want?”

The silence on the other end only ticked her off more. If it was so important for someone to call her three times before she’d even had a cup of tea they could freaking respond when she finally picked up.

“Hello? I’m hanging up in three seconds if you don’t get all un-ghostface on me and just tell me what you want.”

She heard a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line. Her annoyance bled to curiosity and she willed herself to be patient.

Infusing her voice with a level of calm she didn’t feel, she asked “Do you need help or something? I don’t know how you got this line if you’re not part of Scooby Central but…you got me.”

The silence eked on for seconds that felt like minutes before the caller sighed. Buffy’s pulse shot up, anticipation making her antsy. She shuffled from foot to foot, fighting her instinct to hang up. If this was a Potential calling for help she needed to wait it out.

Finally, a voice broke through the silence.

“Slayer?”

Buffy dropped the phone on the ground, her fingers losing the ability to function along with her brain, which had gone fuzzy and staticky at the sound of the all too familiar voice on the other end of the line.

She stared down at her phone, the call still connected, wondering if she had fallen asleep somehow.

A muffled “bloody hell” came out of the fallen phone, causing Buffy to gasp and jump back. She crouched down low, getting as close to the phone as she could without actually picking it back up.

“Shit. SHIT. Spike?”

The muttering and cursing stopped.

“Slayer…yea. It’s a long story. But yea.”

Buffy felt her limbs turn to jelly and she sat down on the cold gravel, her head falling into her hands. A sob bubbled up from her chest, turning into a laugh that she couldn’t control. She giggled for a solid minute before gingerly picking her phone up and pressing it to her ear.

“How? You better explain yourself right now.” Her voice was edged with steel, anxiety and adrenaline giving way to nervous anger. If this was someone’s idea of a sick joke she was going to get murdery.

She could almost hear Spike roll his eyes.

“Good god woman, can’t I come back to life without brassing you off?”

She bit her lip to stop a smile, not willing to let hope overrule a protective layer of skepticism.

Rocking back on her heels Buffy gulped down the crisp morning air, willing her body to calm down so she could take stock of the situation. Her dead ex sort of boyfriend was calling her…she looked at the phone number quickly…from LA. Ok. She could handle this. She was the Slayer, queen of things that go bump in the night and let’s face it, this wasn’t her first ex to come back from the great beyond. If Angel could do it…Angel.

“Spike, why are you calling me from LA?”

He sighed again and she could picture him rubbing the back of his neck, a grimace on his face as he debated the best way to tell her what was going on.

Despite the rush of anger, her heart warmed at the thought.

“Eh look, I said it was complicated. I just thought it was right. Telling you I was alive. Thought you should know is all.”

Whatever ice had melted in her heart immediately froze back up. No way was Spike going to call her from beyond the grave and then immediately get shady and secretive.

“So, is that your weird dodgy British way of saying you’re not going to tell me why you’re calling me from LA? Where Angel lives? Are you with Angel?”

She heard Spike mutter something to himself that sounded an awful lot like “bloody bint”. She rolled her eyes and stood up, pacing the lot in an attempt to keep her temper in check.

“Yea. Alright yea.”

His voice had changed, his accent becoming sharper, and she knew he was starting to get worked up.

“I’m in LA and I’m with Angel. If you want to talk to him you can damn well call him yourself. I don’t know what I was thinking. Bloke comes back as a sodding ghost, gets himself corporealized by a nice scientist bird and calls his girl up and she wants to know about Angel. Figures.”

Buffy rolled her eyes, not even bothering to interrupt his tirade. She knew he’d run out of steam eventually.

“Are you finished?”

Spike sighed again and Buffy felt the fight go out of her. She sat down on the hood of her car, overwhelmed by the emotions swirling within.

“Yea Slayer. I’m finished.”

Buffy’s shoulders slumped and she laid back, gazing up at the sky. It was going to be a cloudy day.

“How?”

“That’s the million-dollar question love. Seems no one can answer it.”

“Wait.” Buffy sat up; brow furrowed in concentration as she started to put together the various odd things Spike had said so far.

“You were a ghost?”

She tried to picture that. Spike all floaty and haunty. The image made her chuckle, which she quickly tried to suppress.

“Yea, yea, yea, laugh it up. I don’t know if I was a ghost. I was a something. Couldn’t touch, couldn’t feel. Just trapped at bloody Wolfram & Hart with your beloved Prince of Brooding.”

“Wolf ram and what now?”

“It doesn’t matter. Done what I set to do. You know. Guess I’ll let you get back to it then.”

Buffy felt white hot anger burning in her chest. Did he really think he was going to call her up, say hey, and then leave? Maybe forever? Who did he think he was?

“Fine,” she spat out.

“Fine,” came Spike’s huffy reply.

They’d reached a stalemate and Buffy did the only thing she could think of doing.

She hung up.

She stuffed the phone in her pocket, unlocking the car door and sliding into the front seat. She stared out the frosted windshield for a moment before screaming at the top of her lungs. When that didn’t calm the storm she felt brewing inside she slammed her hands repeatedly into the steering wheel. The metal and leather began to crunch and warp under the weight of her blows but she didn’t care. She felt like someone had set her insides on fire. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t cry, couldn’t do anything but scream and rage into the void.

Eventually she ran out of steam. She wasn’t sure how much time had passed but her throat was raw. Rubbing her face she switched into Slayer mode. Something was up and she was going to get to the bottom of it. Cagey Spike and his caginess be damned.

She forwarded the number he’d called her from to Willow and Andrew. Between the two of them they’d be able to trace it and dig up some dirt on where Spike was. As for how he got there, she was going to need boots on the ground. Luckily Kennedy had last checked in from Arizona a couple of days ago. She couldn’t be far from there and she owed Buffy more than one favor. She might not be Spike’s biggest fan, but she would do some recon and get Buffy the answers she needed. Once she knew what was going on, she could show up in LA and punch Spike and Angel in the face herself.

Buffy felt calmer. She had a plan. It wasn’t perfect but it was a start.

She’d let Spike get away once before. This time would be different. She didn’t know why or how but it seemed the Powers That Be had given her a second chance.

She wouldn’t waste it.

—end—

[sockablock]

(start) - (previous) - (next)

Chapter 4: Just a Parlor Trick

“—and this is your room! Or it will be, soon, once we get your stuff moved in.”

A blur of curls flew past Nott and dove headfirst onto the bare mattress. Two-feet-two of little halfling boy sprung up, danced around in a circle, and surveyed his new kingdom by bouncing on the bed.

It was—as Nott would be the first to admit—pretty bare at the moment. Caleb had already taken all of his belongings, but there hadn’t been that much to begin with. Aside from the bed-now-turned-trampoline, there was just an oak wardrobe, and a rug. The only other fixture of note was the window, framed by thin blue drapes, currently open and letting in the sea breeze.

“What do you think, Luc?” Yeza grinned from the doorframe. “How do you like it?”

“The ocean is so cool!” Luc’s hair flew around in a storm as he jumped. “And the people—there’s so many people, Dad! That big turtle at the restaurant—his back had a pipe in it!”

Nott felt the ghost of a touch on her arm. When she caught Yeza’s tentative expression, she forced herself to relax into it.

The illusion had held so far, hadn’t it? And besides, her husband already knew the truth.

“It’s okay,” she said quietly. “It’s okay. I’m okay.” Then she gave her son a smile. “And what do you think about the house, sweetie? Do you like your room?”

Luc, mid-air, gave this some thought.

“It’s smaller than my old room,” he said. “The window is bigger. Can I put my pictures up?”

There was a box of posters somewhere in the moving van. Apparently, some time in the last three years, Luc had gotten incredibly invested in a semi-popular cartoon series featuring a team of adventurers who solved mysteries in the Marrow Valley. Yeza had told her during one of their rare reunions that the clerk at the store was all but giving them away; something about increasing promotional awareness.

“Of course you can put your pictures up, Luc.”

He beamed a freckled, toothy smile.

“I like it, Mom! Can I put them up now?”

— — —

Jester hummed cheerfully to herself as she made her way through the streets of Nicodranas.

The novelty of such an act was not lost on her, and not just because she’d spent most of her life indoors—the last time she’d hurried down a road like this, it’d been under much less enjoyable circumstances.

But Jester had more tricks up her sleeves these days, and skipping between street merchants and bustling crowds, weaving through the Opal Archways in the middle of rush hour, she was certain she could hide from any watching eyes.

She squeezed the picnic basket in her arms, packed tight with the best pastries money could buy. She’d keep an eye out, too, for that little sidewalk café that did the strawberry-mango drinks Momma liked, though Jester suspected that her mother was just feigning enthusiasm to get her to eat more fruit.

The stoplight above flickered twice, then turned green. She looked both ways, then skipped across the street.

Maybe she should make a stop for sandwiches. And flowers, while she was at it—and over there, a book sale! Now that Jester was finally back home, with the Chateau such an easy walk from her apartment, every weekend she did her best to bring the whole city to her mother’s boudoir.  

Not that—and here she giggled at the thought—Momma needed any help there.

The Ruby of the Sea was busy, after all. Just not too busy for her little sapphire.

— — —

The thing was, Essek’s mother was busy.

She was always busy, and with good reason at that; for longer than Essek had even been alive—and how much longer before that, gods knew—Deirta Thelyss had been the Umavi of Den Thelyss, and therefore a permanent and immovable fixture in the intricate political dance of the Kryn Dynasty.

In another life, perhaps, Essek might have followed in her footsteps and joined her in running the country—though, if she got her way, there was a good chance that he ultimately would. But, as the Dynasty and Empire so far had managed to maintain a tenuous hold on peace, currently there was little need for a person of Essek’s particular talents.

The irony of that statement occasionally made him want to laugh, though he didn’t much feel like laughing now. It had taken a considerable amount of willpower to even drag him over to his desk, and there he sat with his forehead to the surface, lamenting that going back to bed hadn’t solved his problems.

Why was Mother bothering to attend the upcoming Clovis Concord Gala? Not a single one of these coastal cities was closely allied with the Dynasty, and the sheer geographical distance between them made the two nations vaguely aware of each other at best. In fact, Essek had chosen Nicodranas specifically because of how little the Bright Queen cared about it.

Which meant the unavoidable fact of the matter was that Mother was coming just for him.

The wood of his desk was cold on his head. If she were here now, she’d tell him to sit up.  

Actually, she’d probably say much more than that. If Verin was telling the truth—and his brother had always been on his side when it came to Mother— fending off another round of her attempts to force him home would only be half the struggle.

He kicked his chair back and listened to the way his wheels slid across the floor. Distantly, he could just make out some muted shuffling coming from the kitchen, and he had to remind himself that it was probably not a burglar, but Caleb.

Today was his second day in the apartment, and the man would probably need a few days to settle in. Though, Essek noted with a hint of satisfaction, Caleb seemed like a very efficient person. He’d actually…quite enjoyed their negotiation last night, despite how long it ended up being. For just a few hours his fear of an impending maternal maelstrom had been staved off by the way Widogast sometimes quirked his eyebrow while he was reading, or by the way he’d gently tap the clip of his borrowed pen with his thumb…

Essek had let him keep it, afterwards. He hadn’t even considered doing otherwise.

And as that thought crossed his mind, his restful silence was shattered by a crash.

— — —

“Knock-knock, Momma!”

“Ah, Jester! Come in! Close the door behind—oh, bother.”

This was immediately followed with the sound of air snapping to fill a void, then another minor explosion accented by four scrabbling paws.

“Nugget! Oh, Nuggy, I’ve missed you so much—”

Marion Lavore hiked up her skirts and gently side-stepped the slobber on the floor. She made her way back to her chaise lounge just a moment after Jester peeled herself from the dog.

“He’s getting quite big,” her mother said, artfully removing the exhaustion from her tone. But two decades of living under Momma’s roof gave Jester all the hint that she needed.

“Oh, I want to take him back, I really do, but the apartment doesn’t let us have dogs.” Jester sank into a plush sofa with Nugget wagging his tail at her heels. He put his head in her lap and drooled.

“And…your luck with finding a…a new apartment?”

“We’ve all been busy, Momma,” Jester sighed. “Beau is working all day long to set up a new library by the Quay, and Yasha disappears all the time even though she’s…feeling better now. I think it’ll be a while until everything’s calmed down and we can look.”

Marion pointedly did not think about the many curtains that Nugget had already eaten in three months.

“Ah, well. I understand. And how are you doing, my sweet?”

Jester giggled. “I’m doing good! I’ve been drawing and painting a lot by the sea, and keeping busy with other arts and crafts. Did you know people on the Internet will buy dozens of tiny clay dick statues? The Traveler thought it was very funny.”

Her mother’s expression was an ocean of calm. “Oh, is that…is that so? Well, I’m glad to hear you’re finding ways to…spend your day.”

“I brought some to show you!”

“Oh, how...lovely…”

“Some paintings, Momma.” Jester set aside the picnic basket and fished around in her knapsack. The bag was a horrifically pink mess of burlap and loud, jangly pins. Jester had to shove aside quite a few rolls of brushes and capped paints as she searched.

Marion watched her work with interest. “Well, even if you had brought a…the statue, I would—oh, Jester. It’s beautiful!”

Jester beamed as her mother took the canvas, gingerly like it was—and it was—fine art.

In her hands, a stunning landscape of the sea beside Nicodranas at dawn, pale pink light glancing off the tide and a thin breath of sun just above the water.

“It’s for you, Momma!”

“Oh, Jester, I couldn’t possibly—”

“Take it.” She laughed. “I have lots more at home, but this one’s my favorite so you should have it.”

Decades of living with a burgeoning artist had taught Marion not to hug the piece to her chest, though she quite wanted to.

“I’ll hang it up, then. In a place of honor,” she said seriously. “Maybe heading up the stairs? The light there is lovely, and that way I know the most important people will get to see it.”

Jester’s smile could have swallowed up the world. “Thanks, Momma.”

“No, thank you, my sweet. Now, come. What else have you been doing? What’s new and exciting with your…what did you call yourselves? The Mighty Nein?”

Jester helped her mother lay out a feast’s worth of pastries across the coffee table. Nugget eyed the bounty like a lit fuse until Jester also produced a chewing bone, which he gleefully snapped up and began to gnaw.

“I wanted to make sure we didn’t have a repeat of last time, so I stopped by a pet store,” she explained, munching on a strawberry tart. “And we’re all doing good! Caleb’s move went well, and Nott’s family just landed.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful,” her mother said. “You know, it would not have been a problem for them to stay with me. At least while they got settled.”

“I know, I know, but I think since she already had a place, she wanted them there, you know? And anyway, she said she didn’t want to impose.”

“Of course,” Marion nodded. “And perhaps the Chateau is…it would be a bit unconventional for a family to stay here, hm?”

“We did it!”

“We did, but we are an unconventional family.”

Jester laughed, then brushed a few crumbs off her skirt. “What have you been doing lately, Momma? Any news? Any interesting clients?” She waggled her eyebrows for emphasis.

“Well,” her mother smiled faintly, “actually, I…might have something interesting to tell you. I was, ah…well, I was invited to a party. To sing, but also as a guest.”

“What?!” Jester threw her hands in the air. “Oh, Momma, that’s amazing!”

“I, ah…might decline.”

Jester’s elation vanished instantly. “Oh, Momma. Is it…the outside…?”

Marion shrugged. It was a decidedly unrefined gesture, and left a little crinkle in her robe. “I’m just…well, you know I’ve made a little progress since you got back, but…I don’t know. I’m not sure I’d feel so comfortable being in a place like that alone.”

Jester reached across the table to pat her mother on the hand. “I understand. It’s probably just a dumb party anyway, I’m sure you won’t be missing much!”

“It’s…well, it’s the 400th Anniversary Gala of the Clovis Concord.”

“Oh, man.”

“Tell me about it, dear,” Marion sighed.

There was a moment’s pause, filled with the sound of thoughtful chewing.

And then:

“What if we went with you?”

Marion blinked twice.

“I beg your pardon?”

— — —

They left Luc in his new bedroom happily slapping tape to the wall. Yeza had been worried that this would damage the paint when they’d eventually have to take down his posters, but Nott reassured him that getting back the safety deposit for this apartment was already a lost cause.

“There was a…small incident,” she said, as he poured her tea, “involving electricity. And…a mild fire.”

“Oh, man. Did you guys blow the fuse box or something?”

Nott debated whether or not exploding a microwave with voltaic bolts fell under that category.

“Mm, yeah, it was something like that.” She watched him sink into the chair across the table, paying special attention to the way his glasses bounced on his nose.

He hadn’t needed glasses three years ago. He hadn’t been quite so pale, either.

“So, how is your friend Caleb?” Yeza asked, tilting his head slightly at her silence. “Is he alright? Settled in and everything?”

Nott quickly scrounged up her smile. “He is! Actually, his place is really nice. Cheap, too, from what I’ve heard.”

“Oh, that’s great,” Yeza sipped his tea, leaving a little half-crescent above his lip. “I was worried about him. You told him for me, right? How much I appreciate this?”

“Of course I did. And I told him plenty that he didn’t have to, but he really insisted, and…well. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t happy that he did.”

Yeza put a biscuit in her hands. “We’ll send him a fruit basket, then. With pineapples! Heck, I should send one to all of your friends, for pitching in for the plane tickets. They’re really kind.”

“They are pretty great, aren’t they?” Nott took a bite, coating her tongue with chalky crumbs. “They’ll probably be around at some point—they want to see you and the boy again.”

“Is the tall one still around? With the pink hair? I liked him.”

Nott gave a laugh. “I’ll tell him you said that. It’s been quiet these last few days, you know, so it’ll really be great to have the company back. Not that—oh, gods, not that you and Luc aren’t—”

“I get it, I get it,” Yeza shook his head. “Don’t worry. Like we said over the phone, right? It’ll take…there’ll be an adjustment period.”

Nott set her mug down on the table. Her smile was a little less firm now.

“You and Luc are here,” she said again, quietly. “You’re here, but I…I’m talking about my friends, I shouldn’t be saying those things, should I? I…should focus on you two—”

“Hey, no, Veth. Not at all.”

“But it is unfair,” she sighed. “I…sweetie, I’m so happy to see you, and the boy, but now that…Caleb’s gone, and the two of you have moved in, a…a part of me, an awful part of me, already misses—”

“Veth, it’s okay—"

“It’s not, I mean we’re married—gods, wait, I’d never betray—”

“Veth.”

A hand touched her shoulder. Yeza’s voice was low and soft. “Honey, it’s okay. It really is okay, and I…I know. It’s complicated. I know. We haven’t been a family for a while—and none of that is your fault, it just isn’t. It’s just…been a tough few years, for us, but also especially for you. I doubt I could’ve survived what you’ve been through, after all. And things have changed—I’ve changed, I mean—I snore again, and I’ve gotten used to Edith helping around our house, and…I guess what I’m trying to say, is that it’s only natural…it’s only fair, that you’re allowed to change too. It’s okay. We talked about this, right?”

“Right,” Nott murmured.

“So it’ll be okay. We’ll make it work. And it’s still you, right? You still love me, right?”

She felt herself nod. Then, gently, “I didn’t stop loving you.”

“Well, that’s good. Neither did I.”

This time, she risked a glance up, and saw his smile. Yeza’s smiles were always a little lop-sided, smushing his freckles, and crinkling one eye. She’d made fun of that when they were younger, and let go of a breath when she saw that hadn’t changed.

As she exhaled, she gave a nod. Then a chuckle.

“Right. Right. Of course we will. We’re…probably going to have to enroll Luc in school. It—it’s summer now, but when autumn swings around…what is he? In first grade? In second?”

Yeza laughed. “This fall will be his first year of school.” Then his eyes widened. “Oh, gods, it’s his first year of school. He…I don’t even know if he’s ready, if he’s…wait, is it different in Nicodranas? Are there tests? Is this a good school district, I—I didn’t even check—”

This time, it was Veth who stopped him. “Relax,” she said, and poked Yeza’s nose. “His dad is the most brilliant chemist in the world. We can look up all that other stuff.”

She brushed his cheek with her other thumb. “Like you said. We’ve got this. We’ll make it work.”

— — —

It had started with a recipe for blueberry muffins.

It had ended, more or less, somewhere around the time that Caleb realized neither he nor Essek owned measuring cups—and anyway, the blueberries were looking a little mushy so maybe he should wait until next week to surprise the Brenattos, that way he’d have a chance to get better ones, even though their move-in day was technically today—

And at that point, Frumpkin had jumped into the cabinet, dislodging what sounded like years’ worth of unused pots, knocking down an avalanche of dusty pans.

The last skillet clanged like thunder as it spun to a stop on the floor.

“Mist. Frumpkin—”

Ever the cat, Frumpkin deftly wove out of Caleb’s grasp and darted for the counter. He perched himself unblinking at the edge of the sink and licked his paw, as if for emphasis.

Caleb sighed. He crouched down to reach for the nearest displaced kitchen implement, a stock pot.

“You know,” he began, exasperated, “you could at least help me out with this mess.”

“Is that so?”

He whipped around so quickly that his head hit the handle of a drawer. One hand flew up, he startled, “Miste—Essek?”

His landlord raised a curved eyebrow. With the mid-afternoon light streaming in through the windows, the purplish tint to Essek’s complexion was something akin to a dusting of twilight. His hair was half-tousled, like it’d been mussed by something, and his hand lingered on the doorknob.

“I…my cat,” Caleb managed. “That is, er. I apologize. Deeply. For the commotion.”

Essek looked him over. “I thought we had agreed on silence last night, no?”

Caleb hung his head, and he could feel disappointment coming, undoubtedly with despair on its coattails.

“I have broken the terms,” he said mutely. “I…I am sorry. I understand what that means.”

His gaze clung to the polished floor. Which was why he missed it when the heavy stock pot took on a faint, shimmering, blueish glow. And then the saucepan began to shine. And then a wok, a spatula, a bowl—

All of the fallen cookware slowly began to rise through the air. As they moved, a parade past Caleb’s amazed expression, slipping by Frumpkin’s outstretched paw, each individual pot righted itself, formed into lines, then were quickly and neatly whisked away into the cabinet above.

The doors clicked as they shut.

“I…but that—what spell was that?”

Mentally, Caleb kicked himself. He should’ve apologized.

But Essek only chuckled. “Oh, that was just a parlor trick. An idle curiosity about the…shall we say, limits of gravity. Particularly regarding how easy they are to break.”

Caleb scrambled up to his feet. “But I have never seen control like that on such a grand scale before. Your spell, it—Telekinesis only controls one object at once.”

“Well,” Essek allowed himself a smirk. “Telekinesis is a watered-down version of what true dunamancy can accomplish. I will say, even getting that far was impressive. I have seen your documentation.”

“Gods,” though, Caleb noticed, there was not a trace of resentment in his tone. “Here I thought our transmutative literature was the most advanced there was.”

Essek shrugged. “Please, do not misunderstand me. It is good, for Empire wizards, especially. Until then, I had been under the impression that your lot only excelled at evocation.”

“We are a dab hand at necromancy too,” Caleb said dryly, “if the stories from twenty years ago are believed.”

This actually won a laugh. “Maybe I am the one being too cruel. It was your people who pioneered the earliest manipulations of air elemental magic, no? It is truly an interesting method for conquering gravity.”

“Yours is better,” Caleb said, before he could stop himself. “If you think that a parlor trick, my friend, I hesitate to ask else you could accomplish.”

“Why hesitate?”

And then, Caleb blinked. Somewhere in the distance, Frumpkin nudged his shoulder, but in that moment, all he could focus on was Essek.

“I…excuse me?”

And with that, the spell was broken. Essek slid into a kitchen chair.

“Nevermind, nevermind,” he waved his hand. “And please. Do not worry about that mess. I am not so unreasonable to think that accidents can never happen. Just, ah…you have been a wonderful roommate so far. In the future…?”

“You have my word,” Caleb said. He slipped the carton of slightly-mushy blueberries behind him.

“Excellent,” Essek nodded. “Well. If that is settled, I might sit here and, ah…get some work done?”

Caleb, dense as he was, got the message. “I just—of course, I will be gone in a moment, I’ll just put these things away—”

“No rush at all. I am not in any hurry.”

And indeed, whether or not Essek was just being polite, it did seem like the man was…a bit distracted. Caleb had no right to poke into his business, which was a violation of Section II, Subsection IV anyway, but he couldn’t help but ask Frumpkin to take the tiniest peek at Essek’s face.

Something was bothering his landlord. And for once, still basking in the afterglow of powerful magic, Caleb was almost sure it wasn’t him.

He found out just as he was heading to his room.

“Might I, ah, ask you a question?”

Caleb had enough composure to turn around at a normal person’s pace.

“Yes?”

Essek ran a hand through his hair. “Actually, it…it is more of a favor.”

“Oh,” said Caleb. And when more was required, “Yes?”

“Yes already?” He blinked. “But I did not say what it was.”

“I meant,” Caleb amended, leaning against his doorframe, “please describe this favor to me.”

“Ah,” said Essek. “Right. I, er…”

How in the gods’ names was he supposed to phrase something ridiculous as this?

“I wonder…” he tried, “that is…if you might…would it be…are you perhaps…are you busy this weekend?”

Whatever he was expecting, this absolutely was not it.

“I—no?” Caleb said, out of pure shock. Then he shook his head and added, “I do not think so, no.”

“Ah,” said Essek. Somehow he seemed even more uncomfortable now. “That is…excellent.” It did not sound excellent. “If…well, if that is the case, then…do you think you could…help me with something?”

Caleb waited patiently. “With something?”

“A date.”

“A what?”

“No—not—oh, gods, I am doing this wrong.” Essek actually put his head in his hands, and Caleb once again had to throttle his own surprise.

Then, in a move made by a part of him so bold he didn’t even know he still had it, Caleb re-entered the kitchen and down in the seat across from Essek.

“I think, perhaps you should start from the beginning.”

Essek nodded miserably. He breathed in.

“You are right, Caleb.”

He breathed out.

“So. It’s like this…”

— — —

✨ Ko-Fi Link in Bio! ✨ | Requests are OPEN

[flyingcookierambles]

welp ok bro lol

so a high school friend who is a cis dude invited me to his d&d campaign and so far its been interesting and nice and all except. i. havent actually came out to him about my idenity and such so he misgenders me. honestly thats kinda on me i guess? idk.

anyways my character in this one is a half elf rogue named albert for irony purposes. despite this, he doesnt really get into character or anything and calls me and all the other guys by our regular names lol. but also i feel like maybe he should partly because i. literally. dont know who im playing with lmao???? like. pretty much everyone is all former high school classmates except some guy named tim??? and like??? he changed our names on the discord server to our character names, but also the mic echo so when we’re in vc multiple people’s icons light up even tho only one person is talking. and like. i. dont know who is playing who at this point lmao.

anyways as the only “girl” (?????? ew gross lol) in the group i feel like. maybe he forgets that im playing as a dude or something? lololololol. tonight at an item shop with a dwarf shopkeeper, i had albert inquire about a spell scroll on a wall for sale and he was like “sure darling” and i like, surprisingly, wasnt even grossed at this like i normally would be when it comes to my weird gender shit, i was like trying to hold in laughter lmao. like. did my friend forget that i am a Dude (tm) trying to imitate garrett thief/corvo dishonored (im sorry im bad at roleplaying guys lmao), or is the dwarven shop keeper gay? did i/my friend the dm accidentally turn the shop keeper gay/bi/pan? lmaooooooihgruaehgorehaufehwajorehf helpnragohergoianeg lmao

also some highlights from tonight

one guy who i literally dont know who bc again i cant tell who anyone is, rolled a -1 on a wisdom check. A NEGATIVE ONE

AND THEN. NEAR THE END OF THE SESSION. I ALSO BECAME BOO BOO THE FOOL AND GOT A 0 ON A WISDOM CHECK THANKS TO GETTING A NAT 1 AND THEN ALBERT’S WISDOM MOD IS -1 LMAO

WE WENT INTO A BASEMENT WINE CELLER AND ONE GUY PUNCHED A WALL SO HARD ON A 20 THAT HE ACCIDENTALLY PUNCHED ANOTHER GUY ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WALL LOL

during a battle against some monster that was in the bedroom of an abandoned mansion, i, as a rogue with not a lot of offensive skills, decided wisely to hang out in the doorway of the bedroom instead of going into the bedroom because basically everyone else got psychic attacks and fell into madness and i/albert was just like. you know what, i think i’ll hang out here in the hallway with the cleric. loll

[lunafaeris-archive]

👫 luna and satsuki !!!

send a 👫and I’ll write four headcanons I have about our muse’s relationship | selectively accepting.

Needless to say that at this point, Luna and Satsuki get along like a house on fire (even if they’re not entirely willing to admit that to themselves just yet). Of course, Satsuki may still have her reservations about Luna (as she should; just because she’s a demon who swears by the truth doesn’t mean she’s to be trusted), but overall Luna doesn’t bear any ill will towards Satsuki or has any desire to disrupt her goals while in Amestris. Because they don’t outwardly seek to use each other for any self-serving purposes, they’re able to find some common ground and together have a closer bond than either of them would with practically anyone else. Luna has her mountain of trust issues, fears of being trapped or simply being used and discarded (which ironically is what she does to dozens upon dozens of her clients to avoid ever going through the same thing herself, so that she remains the one on top and in control of her fate) and has an icy inner wall of defense built around her heart to keep feeble, weak-minded people from getting in and getting to know her completely. But to both their credit, Satsuki took the right approach with her as she did with Satsuki in showing each other mutual respect, even if things were a little bit tense and rocky at the start.

With all that said, outside of Anton now Satsuki is one of the few humans privileged to know about Luna’s true identity as a demon. Specifically one who deals in soul contracts and is a denizen of the crossroads. Luna admittedly does have her regrets about not hooking Satsuki on the line with a contract much sooner, as she has no doubts that her soul would have been delicious as it would have been powerful. But they only met when Satsuki was nearing the end of her campaign, and frankly she both respects Satsuki and knows what her general response would be to even consider giving her the regular sales pitch. That, and she sees a lot of her younger, human self in Satsuki. The only difference is that Luna knows what it’s like to die and to fall. Again, the twisted irony of her story is that her descent into Hell actually humbled her somewhat. It gave her a clear perspective that nothing was permanent and that everything could be stripped away at a moment’s notice, so it was best to not get too attached. While still keeping her head above water and playing the field to her advantage, using cold, calculating logic above all without ever bringing her emotions into the equation. Even though she still seems to fall prey to it with exceptional and extraordinary people, what she would call ‘diamonds in the rough’, human or otherwise. Case and point with Lady Satsuki.

On a much, much lighter note, perhaps shortly before or even after her public exile from Honnouji (maybe post-Promised Day?), Satsuki might stay a while in Amestris and become a guest of Anton and Luna. Not only would she have Luna’s support for however long she saw fit, but would inevitably also have Anton rallying by her side. He would be able to bring light and warmth into a room while still having the maturity to handle whatever Satsuki may be going through or processing at the time. He’s much more in tune with his surroundings than most people give him credit for, especially adults since he often presents himself with this bubbly and energetically bombastic personality that drives even Luna up a wall. He consciously chooses to have a cheerful and positive outlook on most things, but that doesn’t make him completely oblivious to the world around him, a fact that he often takes advantage of and gleans valuable information when most people think he’s either not listening or doesn’t pose a viable threat. A trait he definitely picked up after being raised by a cutthroat demoness for the better part of a decade, to be sure. A cinnamon roll that looks like a cinnamon roll, but could also play part to your political downfall if you just so happen to misjudge him.

As part of her rehabilitation, both Luna and Anton might suggest learning and even teaching Satsuki some new skills. Luna does know that Satsuki has at least some background in both sharpshooting and dancing, but as mentioned before she believes that there’s always room for improvement. Also it would give her a convenient excuse to sidle up either in front of or behind Satsuki to show her the proper firing stance or the correct heel turn, etc... Anton would be willing to show her some of the basics of how to play piano, some simple chord progressions and how to read musical notation. On the other hand, Satsuki could easily teach Anton more than a few things on mastering royal swordplay. And Satsuki can be as mean and or drag him through the mud as much as she wants: after a decade spent with Luna as his guardian and mentor, he can endure almost anything and doesn’t give up when the going gets rough. If anything, it makes him even more determined to succeed.

@kiryuiegerin

[teeentyonepilots]

wait... i am confusion.... whats going on? somehow ive avoided clique drama for 6 years (no idea how tbh) and so this is the first ive heard of this "pyramid scheme"??? may i ask what thats about?

Tyler’s sister Maddy has been involved in multiple MLM (multilevel marketing) scams to make money. Her most recent one is called BeachBody which sells workout routines and supplements and shakes and shit. She promotes her scams to her Instagram followers, many of whom she has because of her famous brother and many of them impressionable people and children who may get involved just because someone connected to Tyler is promoting it.

MLMs are predatory schemes which drain the wallets of people who sign up for them because you’re always having to recruit more people to buy from you and then sell under your line to move you up the pyramid. 90% of people who get involved with MLMs fail and lose money rather than receive any of the success that is falsely promised. They manipulate and prey upon people’s insecurities— body image, finances, supporting one’s family, especially women/mothers. They steal empowerment slogans like “boss babe” and use CULT LIKE MIND CONTROL TACTICS to convince people it’s not just sales... it’s a whole lifestyle movement that will BETTER YOU. They make it appear like you own your own company when really you’re just a fool making high levels rich.

So you sign up to work for them, investing your own money to start selling the product and you go through training of “winning sales strategies” and if you follow everything they tell you, you’ll be ROLLING IN CASH. Then they tell you exactly what to say to your friends, family, and every single person on your social media to guilt them and deceive them into buying whatever you’re selling. There’s an MLM for everything and most of the products are GARBAGE. Some actually cause damage like Monat hair products (chemical burns). They act like these are the best products ever but are unregulated, not clinically tested, and dangerous... some claiming to cure illnesses and coronavirus and cancer (that’s more of the nutritional supplement and essential oils worlds but yeah they make massive claims).

But the products don’t even matter sometimes... the real scheme is recruiting more people to join. Someone got you to join and they make money off what you sell and who you recruit (your up line). You want to recruit more people so you can become an upline too. These schemes have levels you can “achieve” and they promise you more money, more rewards, cars, vacations, etc. it’s always about selling selling selling and recruiting. They have ridiculous scripting, formulaic social media posts, and people will cold message others to try and recruit them (I’ve seen posts where people message people going through a major loss and being like X product will HELP YOU SO MUCH). Predatory and disgusting. They bombard everyone with their company and often ruins relationships because all they want is YOUR MONEY and are completely disingenuine. I could go on forever about patterns of strategies they us and they’re always changing what they’re doing because people catch on— nowadays they tell the salespeople to not even name the company.

Anyway, I could go on and on forever. There’s lots of anti-MLM videos on YouTube, there’s a website that tells you if a company is an MLM (some may surprise you because they’re established brands and even have physical shops— Pampered Chef, Body Shop, Avon, etc. I learned a lot from the fb group “sounds like mlm but ok” which shares real posts sent in by members, and some members even were formerly involved in MLMs and answer questions about them. They keep a massive list of known MLMs and update frequently. There’s literally an MLM for everything.

So Maddy’s in this MLM which is all about fitness and weight loss (which is scary to be promoting this to young, impressionable fans/children especially while she’s pregnant). She’s been posting NOT SOCIALLY DISTANCED PHOTOS AND VIDEOS with Jenna while working out. She’s trying to recruit people to her team and she frequently posts on her IG story/page about it. Most recently she is trying to get 10 new sign ups and she posted a list of who’s signed up so far and “Jenna J” is on the list. Most people assume it’s Jenna and some are trying to defend her that it may be a strategy of Maddy to trick people into signing up.

Several things could be going on:

Jenna could think she’s just helping out her sister in law with her business. She’s ignorant and ill-informed and misusing her platform of even more followers, many of whom may sign up because she appears to be the ideal standard of beauty and body type— people want to look like her even though that’s extremely toxic. She may or may not even participate in this, but regardless her name is there and makes it seem like she is endorsing a dangerous pyramid scheme to over a million people.

Someone online is claiming Maddy made up her name because Jenna isn’t part of the private Facebook group that Maddy has for people that signed up... 1. Do y’all really think Jenna would have a Facebook or be in a setting where people could find her secret account? No... and IF maddy is using her name and making it up and implying she’s involved... they all need to be more aware of Maddy’s rogue posts manipulating the audience she primarily only has because of her famous brother. Because tying Jenna’s name to this is dangerous.

In conclusion, there’s a reddit post getting a lot of attention and making people aware of what’s happening and what’s the risk. I’ve seen a lot of people on twitter warning people. Some Instagram comments are calling Maddy directly out (though there’s many who are in support.... and the negative comments can be deleted. Be careful what you see people promoting online and do your research. MLMs are insidious and I’ve personally seen people get involved in them.

The irony that Tyler literally posted a few days ago about companies asking him to promote their “garbage products”. He’s extremely anti ads and endorsing specific brands or doing celebrity ads (Josh on the other hand... he sure does love Nike and there was a lot of Nike product placement recently...). I really appreciate that about Tyler and I think it’s awesome he knows the power his support wields because of the very invested fan base. I just wished he’d notice that two of his siblings often use and manipulate the attention they get because of him to try and get rich quick. I get that he’s very supportive of his family, but there’s got to be some line where he protects his fans.

I hope he finds out about this from either reddit or twitter lurking (which he does a lot) and puts a stop to it because it’s dangerous and manipulative and not at all what he is about as a person.