#and them Losing Their Shit over it for like. hours. i hate the fucking internet so much you all are so stupid

[moongreenlight]

What if your brain tells you that nurse!reader from the previous fic was on the field with the boys as an on call medic and gets taken as a POW and ghost is losing his fucking mind?? - like actual feral behavior

Ohhhhhhhhhmygod. Hi? I’m in your walls. So mad I didn’t see this before because I’ve been SLAVING over a Simon fic all week and this apparently is the motivation I needed to put some more batshit insane things on the internet forever.

We all know that Simon is a fucking machine. Prides himself on his ability to essentially turn off his humanity on the field. But for some reason his nurse!reader is the one thing that interrupts that ability. Even seeing you treating a few rowdy privates gets him worked up. Lingers around the medbay in his free time for no apparent reason just to side eye your patients and glare at them to make sure there’s absolutely no possibility of you getting hurt.

There was probably an occasion where you were treating a soldier who didn’t fare well with pain. Moaning and crying and thrashing while you did something simple like tuck their arm into a sling, and they somehow writhed around enough to hook you in the cheek with their elbow. Nothing serious, but it left an angry red mark on your cheek for so long that he caught it on one of your evening walks around base. Usually after dark so you could both avoid being found out.

And then the next day you see Simon dragging that same soldier to a different nurse’s bed under the armpits. Explaining gruffly that he went unconscious because he couldn’t handle training. (He made the poor bastard run the track in full tactical gear on one of the hottest days of the year for nearly an hour straight. No water. No breaks.)

You were the kindest, softest thing he’d ever come in contact with. Something he never thought he’d be able to find in this lifetime after so much hate and anger and pain. He couldn’t risk losing you, which is why he was so strict on his saying no to you joining the task force on the field. The shit they did was dangerous. Immensely so. And this brought up two main points for Simon.

One; he wouldn’t be able to focus on the task at hand knowing you were out. He slept with one eye open when you were nestled close to his chest and snoring softly in the comfort of your own home that he’d all but booby-trapped home alone style. No fucking way he’d allow you out into hostile territory with only a introductory understanding of self-defense. He’d be on pins and needles the entire mission. Probably get the entire squad killed because he’d constantly be looking over his shoulder for you.

Two; it would rip him to shreds if he lost you. You were the only person he truly saw as an equal. The first time the two of you met, he was probably being angsty and rude because he did something to land himself in the medbay, and when he refused to take off his tact vest so you could listen to his heart and lungs, you all but held him at scalpel-point and threatened him within an inch of his life until he finally submitted. After that he was fucking hooked. Obsessed with the way you could get brutes like him to roll over and show you their belly like obedient dogs. And you were kind to him. Immeasurably kind. Dealt with his mood swings and took the time to get to know him. Suffered through the impossibly long process of him letting his guard down.

So if somehow his orders were ignored, it was almost certain that you’d be given strict orders to keep your involvement under wraps. Price would have enough of an idea of the situation to keep the two of you on opposite schedules in the days leading up to deployment. Minimize the possibility of you letting slip that you’d be coming along to preserve not only the integrity of his team but also his quality of life.

It would seem like a regular day to Simon at first. Loading into the helo before dawn, sitting between Johnny and Gaz and trying to tune them out while they snarked at one another across him. And then Price would come on looking guilty as sin. You could practically smell it coming off him. Leaning both his arms on the open door and signaling the driver to start the engine for a quick take off in case Simon decided to abandon ship in his outrage.

He’d give some spiel about teamwork and the importance of focusing on the mission and whatever other bullshit he thought would keep Simon the most level headed. Spewing on and on until Gaz finally cut him off with a pointed yawn. At which point he’d give the group one last look, lingering the longest on the ghost mask, before stepping aside to reveal you.

Dressed up in a uniform that looked about a size too big. Tailored as best it could be in the short notice. Pants chopped and hemmed to make them a manageable length, belt pulled as tight as it could go around your waist. Strapped into a vest that was loaded with medical supplies instead of weapons. Two pistols holstered on your either side.

Simon was beyond livid. Spouting steam like a cartoon bull. Staggering to stand when the chopper took off and stalking over to the cockpit where Price sat and tried to look casual.

Gave him a fucking earful. Screaming over the roar of the engine into the earpiece on a private channel for the entire two hour long flight. Bitching about paperwork and dead weight and how it’s just another person he’ll need to look after and he doesn’t want to. It’s almost impressive. Price doesn’t get a word in sideways. Gets shut down immediately if he even dares to open his mouth.

And he’s a monster when he finds out you’ve been taken POW. Circled by the enemy team like ravenous wolves finding a wounded deer. Soap and Gaz both have to pin him down when Price breaks the news. Seeing fucking red.

A large part of me thinks he internalizes a lot of the torture he went through in the comics. Letting it sit and fester inside him like the worst kind of poison that it took him years to meticulously extract from his very being and carefully contain into a small vial. Laying dormant in the back of his mind for a moment like this. He had no idea what the enemy wanted with you, so he had to assume the worst.

Storms their base by himself. Sniffs you out through a maze of bunkers and underground tunnels and infinitely many heavily secured doors. And the rest of the force just watches his six. Stands back feeling a little nauseous, but letting him blaze down his war path. Any and everyone who gets in his way is guilty unless they can prove their innocence- and they don’t get the chance. Runs through all his ammo gunning down countless grunts and privates stationed outside the base of planted as decoys. Specifically demanding that Price be the one to give up his weapons and ammo so he can continue on. And it’s the one time that the captain allows him to snarl orders like that.

Price knows that Simon is, in his core, a fighting dog. Rescued by the force and given an opportunity to channel his aggression into a more productive outlet. And now it seems all his hard work and training is coming unraveled. Watching Simon once again snap his jaws and bare his teeth, killing without rhyme or reason to get you back, is jarring to say the least. So in some last-ditch effort to preserve some of the trust that they’d built, he surrenders. Shows his belly. Shrugs off his rifle with no objection other than the way his mouth drew into a tight line.

Simon kicks through heavy metal reinforced doors without the need for a battering ram. Pushes himself well past the point of exhaustion. Fueled purely off the instinctual need to recover you. He can’t speak. Can’t eat. Can’t drink. Can’t stop.

He’d mow through the first few ranks of soldiers until they finally found someone that looked like they’d have at least a sliver of useful information and beat them within an inch of their life until they gave up the information that would eventually lead him to you.

In all honesty, you were probably taken with the intent to lure them in. Not anticipating your absence would have such an impact. Kept you bound in a guarded room. Roughed up a bit just from your struggle, but they hadn’t had time to interrogate you before they got word that 141 was coming in wild and sideways.

This would send Simon even further into madness. Body aching, bleeding from his knuckles. His knees and shoulders screaming their protest when he broke down the door, sending it crashing into the room. And the first thing he sees is you huddled in a corner blindfolded and bound with handcuffs that were cutting into your wrists from your trying to escape. He’d be an entirely different person. (I am giggling and kicking my feet.)

He wouldn’t even bother wasting time with the rifle. He’d handle what few guards were left with his bare hands. Possessed by some kind of superhuman strength. Catching a second wind the moment he laid eyes on you. He’d rush over, the rest of the boys standing guard in the hallway, and break you free from your restraints.

And as much as I would want him to be sweet and coddle you and coo over you, he’d probably be riding such a high that he wouldn’t be able to. He’d immediately start in on you, but with significantly less ferocity than he had with Price.

“You got a fuckin’ death wish? Think they’d turn you into a martyr for bein’ a medic on the field? Real original fuckin’ concept, yeah?”

He’d pull you in close to him, giving you an incredibly detailed once over. Inspecting your face and neck and arms legs for any further damage, and once he determined after three checks that all your wounds were purely superficial, he’d allow his hands to shake just slightly when he smoothed your hair back off your forehead.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Petard (Part I)

Few things are more wrong than "if you're not paying for the product, you're the product." Companies sell you out when they can, which is why John Deere tractor milks farmers for needless repair callouts and why your iPhone spies on you to provide data to Apple's surveillance advertising service:

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

When a vendor abuses you, that's not punishment for you being a cheapskate and wanting to use services for free. Vendors who screw you over do so because they know they can get away with it, because you are locked in and can't shop elsewhere. The ultimate manifestation of this is, of course, prison-tech. A duopoly of private equity-backed prison-tech profiteers have convinced prisons and jails across America to get rid of calls, in-person visits, mail, parcels, libraries, and continuing ed, and replace them all with tablets that charge prisoners vastly more than people in the free world pay to access media and connect with the outside. Those prisoners are absolutely paying for the product – indeed, with the national average prison wage set at $0.53/hour, they're paying far more than anyone outside pays – and they are still the product.

Capitalists, after all, hate capitalism. For all the romantic odes to the "invisible hand" and all the bafflegab about "efficient market hypothesis," the actual goal of businesses is to make you an offer you literally can't refuse. Capitalists want monopolies, they want captive audiences. "Competition," as Peter Thiel famously wrote, "is for losers."

Few lock-in arrangements are harder to escape than the landlord-tenant relationship. Moving home is expensive, time-consuming, and can rip you away from your job, your kid's school, and your community. Landlords know it, which is why they conspire to rig rents through illegal price-fixing apps like Realpage:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/27/ai-conspiracies/#epistemological-collapse

And why they fill your home with Internet of Shit appliances that pick your pockets by requiring special, expensive consumables, and why they tack so many junk fees onto your monthly rent:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/01/housing-is-a-human-right/

Tenants aren't quite as locked in as prisoners, but corporations correctly understand that you can really fuck with a tenant over a long timescale without losing their business, and so they do.

Ironically, monopolists love each other. I guess if you loathe competition, a certain kind of cooperation comes naturally. That's why so many landlords have forged unholy alliances with internet service providers, who – famously – offer Americans the slowest speeds at the highest prices in the rich world, trail the world in infrastructure investment, and reap profits that put their global cousins in the shade.

Many's the apartment building that comes with a monopoly ISP that has a deal with your landlord. Landlords and ISPs call this "bulk billing" and swear that it reduces the cost of internet service for everyone. In reality, tenants who live under these arrangements have produced a deep, unassailable record proving that they pay more for worse broadband than the people next door who get to choose their ISPs. What's more, ISPs who offer "bulk billing" openly offer kickbacks to landlords who choose them over their rivals – in other words, even if you're paying for the product (your fucking home), you are still the product, sold to an evil telco.

Under Biden, the FCC banned the practice of ISPs paying kickbacks to landlords, over squeals and howls of protests from industry bodies like the National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC), National Apartment Association (NAA), and Real Estate Technology and Transformation Center (RETTC). These landlord groups insisted – despite all the evidence to the contrary – that when your landlord gets to choose your ISP, they do so with your best interests at heart, getting you a stellar deal you couldn't get for yourself.

This week, Trump's FCC chair Brendan Carr – who voted for the ban on kickbacks – rescinded the rule, claiming that he was doing so to protect tenants. This is obvious bullshit, as is evidenced by the confetti-throwing announcements froom the NMHC, NAA and RETTC:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/fcc-chair-nixes-plan-to-boost-broadband-competition-in-apartment-buildings/

Reading Jon Brodkin's Ars Technica coverage of Carr's betrayal of millions of Americans, I was reminded of a short story I published in 2014: "Petard: A Tale of Just Desserts," which I wrote for Bruce Sterling's "12 Tomorrows" anthology from MIT Tech Review. It's a fun little sf story about this same bullshit, dedicated to the memory of Aaron Swartz:

https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262535595/twelve-tomorrows-2014/

Realizing that there were people who were sounding the alarm about this more than a decade ago was a forceful reminder that Trumpism isn't exactly new. The idea that government should serve up the American people as an all-you-can-eat buffet for corporations that use tech to supercharge their predatory conduct has been with us for a hell of a long time. I've written a hell of a lot of science fiction about this, and sometimes this leads people to credit me with predictive powers. But if I predicted anything with my story "Radicalized," in which furious, grieving men murder the health industry execs who denied their loved ones coverage, I predicted the present, not the future:

https://prospect.org/culture/books/2024-12-09-radicalized-cory-doctorow-story-health-care/

Likewise in my story "Unauthorized Bread," which "predicted" that landlords would use "smart" appliances to steal from their poorest, most vulnerable tenants:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/

It's not much of a "prediction" to simply write a story in which "Internet of Things" companies' sales literature is treated as a straightforward idea and writing about how it will all work.

The same goes for "Petard." The most "predictive" part of that story is the part where I take the human rights implications of internet connections seriously. Back then (and even today), there were and are plenty of Very Serious People who want you to know that internet service is a frivolity, a luxury, a distraction:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/04/small-change-malcolm-gladwell

They deride the idea that broadband is a human right, even after the pandemic's lesson that you depend on your internet connection for social connections, civic life, political engagement, education, health and employment:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/30/medtronic-stole-your-ventilator/#fiber-now

Writing sf about this stuff isn't predictive, but I like to think that it constitutes an effective rebuttal to the people who say that taking digital rights seriously is itself unserious. Given that, I got to thinking about "Petard," and how much I liked that little story from 2014.

So I've decided to serialize it, in four parts, starting today. If you're impatient to get the whole story, you can listen to my podcast of it, which I started in 2014, then stopped podcasting for four years (!) before finishing in 2018:

https://archive.org/details/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_278

https://archive.org/details/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_292

https://archive.org/details/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_293

https://archive.org/details/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_294_-_Petard_04

#

It's not that I wanted to make the elf cry. I'm not proud of the fact. But he was an elf for chrissakes. What was he doing manning — elfing — the customer service desk at the Termite Mound? The Termite Mound was a tough assignment — given MIT's legendary residency snafus, it was a sure thing that someone like me would be along every day to ruin his day.

"Come on," I said, "cut it out. Look, it's nothing personal."

He continued to weep, face buried dramatically in his long-fingered hands, pointed ears protruding from his fine, downy hair as it flopped over his ivory-pale forehead. Elves.

I could have backed down, gone back to my dorm and just forgiven the unforgivably stupid censorwall there, used my personal node for research or stuck to working in the lab. But I had paid for the full feed. I needed the full feed. I deserved the full feed. I was 18. I was a grownup, and the infantalizing, lurking censorwall offended my intellect and my emotions. I mean, seriously, fuck that noise.

"Would you stop?" I said. "Goddamnit, do your job."

The elf looked up from his wet hands and wiped his nose on his mottled raw suede sleeve. "I don't have to take this," he said. He pointed to a sign: "MIT RESIDENCY LLC OPERATES A ZERO-TOLERANCE POLICY TOWARD EMPLOYEE ABUSE. YOU CAN BE FINED UP TO $2000 AND/OR IMPRISONED FOR SIX MONTHS FOR ASSAULTING A CAMPUS RESIDENCE WORKER."

"I'm not abusing you," I said. "I'm just making my point. Forcefully."

He glared at me from behind a curtain of dandelion-fluff hair. "Abuse includes verbal abuse, raised voices, aggressive language and tone –"

I tuned him out. This was the part where I was supposed to say, "I know this isn't your fault, but –" and launch into a monologue explaining how his employer had totally hosed me by not delivering what they'd promised, and had further hosed him by putting him in a situation where he was the only one I could talk to about it, and he couldn't do anything about it. This little pantomime was a fixture of life in the world, the shrugs-all-round nostrum that we were supposed to substitute for anything getting better ever.

Like I said, though, fuck that noise. What is the point of being smart, 18 years old and unemployed if you aren't willing to do something about this kind of thing. Hell, the only reason I'd been let into MIT in the first place was that I was constitutionally incapable of playing out that little scene.

The elf had run down and was expecting me to do my bit. Instead, I said, "I bet you're in the Termite Mound, too, right?"

He got a kind of confused look. "That's PII," he said. "This office doesn't give out personally identifying information. It's in the privacy policy –" He tapped another sign posted by his service counter, one with much smaller type. I ignored it.

"I don't want someone else's PII. I want yours. Do you live in the residence? You must, right? Get a staff discount on your housing for working here, I bet." Elves were always cash-strapped. Surgery's not cheap, even if you're prepared to go to Cuba for it. I mean, you could get your elf-pals to try to do your ears for you, but only if you didn't care about getting a superbug or ending up with gnarly stumps sticking out of the side of your head. And forget getting a Nordic treatment without adult supervision, I mean, toot, toot, all aboard the cancer express. You had to be pretty insanely desperate to go elf without the help of a pro.

He looked stubborn. I mean, elf-stubborn, which is a kind of chibi version of stubborn that's hard to take seriously. I mean, seriously. "Look, of course you live in the Termite Mound. Whatever. The point is, we're all screwed by this stuff. You, me, them –" I gestured at the room full of people. They all been allocated a queue-position on entry to the waiting room and were killing time until they got their chance to come up to the Window of Eternal Disappointment in order to play out I Know This Isn't Your Fault But… before returning to their regularly scheduled duties as a meaningless grain of sand being ground down by the unimaginably gigantic machinery of MIT Residency LLC.

"Let's do something about it, all right? Right here, right now."

He gave me a look of elven haughtiness that he'd almost certainly practiced in the mirror. I waited for him to say something. He waited for me to wilt. Neither of us budged.

"I'm not kidding. The censorwall has a precisely calibrated dose of fail. It works just enough that it's worth using most of the time, and the amount of hassle and suck and fail you have to put up with when it gets in the way is still less than the pain you'd have to endure if you devoted your life to making it suck less. The economically rational course of action is to suck it up.

"What I propose is that we change the economics of this bullshit. If you're the Termite Mound's corporate masters, you get this much benefit out of the shitty censorwall; but we, the residents of the Termite Mound, pay a thousand times that in aggregate." I mimed the concentrated interests of the craven fools who'd installed the censorwall, making my hands into a fist-wrapped-in-a-fist, then exploding them like a hoberman-sphere to show our diffuse mutual interests, expanding to dwarf the censorware like Jupiter next to Io. "So here's what I propose: let's mound up all this diffuse interest, mobilize it, and aim it straight at the goons who put you in a job. You sit there all day and suffer through our abuse because all you're allowed to do is point at your stupid sign."

"How?" he said. I knew I had him.

#

Kickstarter? Hacker, please. Getting strangers to combine their finances so you can chase some entrepreneurial fantasy of changing the world by selling people stuff is an idea that was dead on arrival. If your little kickstarted business is successful enough to compete with the big, dumb titans, you'll end up being bought out or forced out or sold out, turning you into something indistinguishable from the incumbent businesses you set out to destroy. The problem isn't that the world has the wrong kind of sellers — it's that it has the wrong kind of buyers. Powerless, diffused, atomized, puny and insubstantial.

Turn buyers into sellers and they just end up getting sucked into the logic of fail: it's unreasonable to squander honest profits on making people happier than they need to be in order to get them to open their wallets. But once you get all the buyers together in a mass with a unified position, the sellers don't have any choice. Businesses will never spend a penny more than it takes to make a sale, so you have to change how many pennies it takes to complete the sale.

Back when I was fourteen, it took me ten days to hack together my first Fight the Power site. On the last day of the fall term, Ashcroft High announced that catering was being turned over to Atos Catering. Atos had won the contract to run the caf at my middle school in my last year there, every one of us lost five kilos by graduation. The French are supposed to be good at cooking, but the slop Atos served wasn't even food. I'm pretty sure that after the first week they just switched to filling the steamer trays with latex replicas of grey, inedible glorp. Seeing as how no one was eating it, there was no reason to cook up a fresh batch every day.

The announcement came at the end of the last Friday before Christmas break, chiming across all our personal drops with a combined bong that arrived an instant before the bell rang. The collective groan was loud enough to drown out the closing bell. It didn't stop, either, but grew in volume as we filtered into the hall and out of the building into the icy teeth of Chicago's first big freeze of the season.

Junior high students aren't allowed off campus at lunchtime, but high school students — even freshmen — can go where they please so long as they're back by the third period bell. That's where Fight the Power came in.

WE THE UNDERSIGNED PLEDGE

TO BOYCOTT THE ASHCROFT HIGH CAFETERIA WHILE ATOS HAS THE CONTRACT TO SUPPLY IT

TO BUY AT LEAST FOUR LUNCHES EVERY WEEK FROM THE FOLLOWING FOOD TRUCKS [CHECK AT LEAST ONE]:

This was tricky. It's not like there were a lot of food trucks driving out of the loop to hit Joliet for the lunch rush. But I wrote a crawler that went through the review sites, found businesses with more than one food truck, munged the menus and set out the intersection as an eye-pleasing infographic showing the appetizing potential of getting your chow outside of the world of the corrupt no-bid edu-corporate complex.

By New Year's Day, 98 percent of the student body had signed up. By January third, I had all four of the food-trucks I'd listed lined up to show up on Monday morning.

Turns out, Ashcroft High and Atos had a funny kind of deal. Ashcroft High guaranteed a minimum level of revenue to Atos, and Atos guaranteed a maximum level to Ashcroft High. So, in theory, if a hundred percent of the student body bought a cafeteria lunch, about twenty percent of that money would be kicked back to Ashcroft High. They later claimed that this was all earmarked to subsidize the lunches of poor kids, but no one could ever point to anything in writing where they'd committed to this, as our Freedom of Information Act requests eventually proved.

In return for the kickback, the school had promised to ensure that Atos could always turn a profit. If not enough of us ate in the caf, the school would have to give Atos the money it would have made if we had. In other words: our choice to eat a good lunch wasn't just costing the school its expected share of Atos's profits — it was having to dig money out of its budget to make up for our commitment to culinary excellence.

They tried everything. Got the street in front of the school designated a no-food-trucks zone (we petitioned the City of Joliet to permit parking on the next street over). Shortened the lunch-break (we set up a Web-based pre-order service that let us pick and pre-pay for our food). Banned freshmen from leaving school property (we were saved by the PTA). Suspended me for violating the school's social media policy (the ACLU wrote them a blood-curdling nastygram, and raised nearly $30,000 in donations of $3 or less from students around the world once word got out).

Atos wouldn't let them re-negotiate the contract, either. If Ashcroft High wanted out, it would have to buy it's way out. That's when I convinced the vice-principal to let me work with the AP Computer Science class to build out a flexible, open version of Fight the Power that anyone could install and run for their own student bodies, providing documentation and support. That was just before Spring Break. By May 1, there were 87 schools whose students used Ftp to organize Atos alternative food-trucks for their own cafeterias.

Suddenly, this was news. Not just local news, either. Global. Atos had to post an earnings warning in their quarterly report. Suddenly, we had Bloomberg and Al Jazeera Business camera crews buttonholing Ashcroft High kids on their way to the lunch-trucks. Whenever they grabbed me, I would give them this little canned speech about how Atos couldn't supply decent food and were taking money out of our educational budgets rather than facing the fact that the children they were supposed to be feeding hated their slop so much that they staged a mass walkout. It played well with kids in other schools, and very badly with Atos's shareholders. But I'll give this to Atos: I couldn't have asked for a better Evil Empire to play Jedi against. They threatened to sue me — for defamation! — which made the whole thing news again. Stupidly, they sued me in Illinois, which has a great anti-SLAPP law, and was a massive technical blunder. The company's US headquarters were in Clearwater, Florida, and Florida is a trainwreck in every possible sense, including its SLAPP laws. If they'd sued me in their home turf, I'd have gone bankrupt before I could win.

They lost. The ACLU collected $102,000 in fees from them. The story of the victory was above the fold on Le Monde's site for a week. Turns out that French people loathe Atos even more than the rest of us, because they've had longer to sharpen their hate.

Long story slightly short: we won. Atos "voluntarily" released our school from its contract. And Fight the Power went mental. I spent that summer vacation reviewing Github commits on Ftp, as more and more people discovered that they could make use of a platform that made fighting back stupid simple. The big stupid companies were whales and we were their krill, and all it took was some glue to glom us all together into boulders of indigestible matter that could choke them to death.

I dropped out of Ashcroft High in the middle of the 11th grade and did the rest of my time with homeschooling shovelware that taught me exactly what I needed to pass the GED and not one tiny thing more. I didn't give a shit. I was working full time on Ftp, craiglisting rides to to hacker unconferences where I couchsurfed and spoke, giving my poor parental units eight kinds of horror. It would've been simpler if I'd taken donations for Ftp, because Mom and Dad quickly came to understand that their role as banker in our little family ARG gave them the power to yank me home any time I moved out of their comfort zone. But there was the balance of terror there, because they totally knew that if I had accepted donations for the project, I'd have been financially independent in a heartbeat.

Plus, you know, they were proud of me. Ftp makes a difference. It's not a household name or anything, but more than a million people have signed up for Ftp campaigns since I started it, and our success rate is hovering around 25 percent. That means that I'd changed a quarter-million lives for the better (at least) before I turned 18. Mom and Dad, they loved that (which is not to say that they didn't need the occasional reminder of it). And shit, it got me a scholarship at MIT. So there's that.

#

Network filters are universally loathed. Duh. No one's ever written a regular expression that can distinguish art from porn and no one ever will. No one's ever assembled an army of prudes large enough to hand-sort the Internet into "good" and "bad" buckets. No one ever will. The Web's got 100-odd billion pages on it; if you have a failure rate of one tenth of one percent, you'll overblock (or underblock) (or both) 100,000,000 pages. That's several Library of Congress's worth of pointless censorship — or all the porn ever made, times ten, missed though underfiltering. You'd be an idiot to even try.

Idiot like a fox! If you don't care about filtering out "the bad stuff" (whatever that is), censorware is a great business to be in. The point of most network filters is the "security syllogism":

SOMETHING MUST BE DONE.

I HAVE DONE SOMETHING.

SOMETHING HAS BEEN DONE.

VICTORY!

Hand-wringing parents don't want their precious offspring looking at weiners and hoo-hahs when they're supposed to be amassing student debt, so they demand that the Termite Mound fix the problem by Doing Something. The Termite Mound dispenses cash to some censorware creeps in a carefully titrated dose that is exactly sufficient to demonstrate Something Has Been Doneness to a notional weiner-enraged parent. Since all the other dorms, schools, offices, libraries, airports, bus depots, train stations, cafes, hotels, bars, and theme parks in the world are doing exactly the same thing, each one can declare itself to be in possession of Best Practices when there is an unwanted hoo-hah eruption, and culpability diffuses to a level that is safe for corporate governance and profitability. #MissionAccomplished.

And so the whole world suffers under this pestilence. Millions of times every day — right at this moment — people are swearing at their computers: What. The. Fuck. Censorware's indifference to those minute moments of suffering is only possible because they've never been balled up into a vast screaming meteor of rage.

#

"Hey there, hi! Look, I'm here because I need unfiltered Internet access to get through my degree. So do you all, right? But the Termite Mound isn't going to turn it off because that would be like saying 'Here kids, have a look at this porn,' which they can't afford to say, even though, seriously, who gives a shit, right?"

I had them at 'porn," but now I had to keep them.

"Look at your tenancy agreement: you're paying twenty seven bucks a month for your network access at the Termite Mound. Twenty seven bucks — each! I'll find us an ISP that can give all of us hot and cold running genitals and all the unsavory religious extremism, online gaming, and suicide instructions we can eat. Either I'm going to make the Termite Mound give us the Internet we deserve, or we'll cost it one of its biggest cash-cows and humiliate it on the world stage.

"I don't want your money. All I want is for you to promise me that if I can get us Internet from someone who isn't a censoring sack of shit, that you'll come with me. I'm going to sign up every poor bastard in the Termite Mound, take that promise to someone who isn't afraid to work hard to earn a dollar, and punish the Termite Mound for treating us like this. And then, I'm going to make a loud noise about what we've done, and spread the word to every other residence in Cambridge, then Boston, then across America. I'm going to spread out to airports, hotels, train stations, buses, taxis — any place where they make it their business to decide what data we're allowed to see."

I whirled around to face the elf, who leapt back, long fingers flying to his face in an elaborate mime of startlement. "Are you with me, pal?"

He nodded slightly.

"Come on," I said. "Let 'em hear you."

He raised one arm over his head, bits of rabbit fur and uncured hides dangling from his skinny wrist. I felt for him. I think we all did. Elves.

He was a convincer, though. By the time I left the room, I already had 29 signups.

#

All evil in the world is the result of an imbalance between the people who benefit from shenanigans and the people who get screwed by shenanigans. De-shenaniganifying the world is the answer to pollution and poverty and bad schools and the war on some drugs and a million other horribles. To solve all the world's problems, I need kick-ass raw feeds and a steady supply of doofus thugs from central casting to make idiots of. I know where I can find plenty of the latter, and I'm damn sure going to get the former. Watch me.

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/2025/01/30/landlord-telco-industrial-complex/#captive-market

[luci-in-trenchcoats]

Thunder In Our Hearts: You're Losing Me

Summary: A few short weeks before their first holiday together, the reader finds Ben slipping into his old ways...

Masterlist

Pairing: Soldier Boy x reader

Word Count: 2,600ish

Warnings: language, angst, fluff

A/N: This takes place within Part 9 of Thunder In Our Hearts. Enjoy! 😉

_______

You hummed as you stirred the ingredients in the Dutch oven on the cold December day. Things with Ben had been good lately. It’d been about four months since you’d both stopped hunting down people, trying to hide him from the CIA. You simply…were.

For Ben, that meant a whole lot of learning still. He’d been out of the box for a little over six months now and had picked up a few things. He even had his own SUV now for getting around. He understood how to use the TV and get to streaming apps along with some basic use of the internet and a smart phone.

And he prided himself on how well he could cook a full breakfast for you both. You’d even got a smirk out of him when you called him your own Betty Crocker.

But there was still a lot to learn and it wore on him some days. Unfortunately, it seemed like today was going to be one of them.

“Jesus Christ,” groaned Ben, stepping into the house, shrugging out of his winter jacket. He kicked off his boots and left them in the middle of the floor, all while shaking his head. “Your generation is full of fucking pussies, baby. No wonder this country has gone to shit.”

You tore your eyes away from the soup on the stove, annoyance prickling your skin. Yeah, it was definitely one of those days. 

“The fucking child working the counter at the auto store didn’t know two shits about the oil I was looking for. Literally the twats only fucking job,” he grumbled, walking into the kitchen and washing up his hands. You tried to let it go. He was allowed to get irritated as much as you were. 

You set the spoon on the rest next to the stove and put the lid back on top, the stew having a few hours to go still.

“And then at the dealership where I had to go to get the stupid shit, there was, I swear to God, some kid that had to be thirty fucking years old was buying a car with his dad. These little shits don’t know to wipe their own asses.”

You rolled your eyes behind his back and left the kitchen, Ben inhaling sharply, lifting the lid up. He licked his lips and set it back down, either ignoring or not picking up on your own growing annoyance. You sat down on the end of the couch, Ben leaning over the back, strong hands on your shoulders.

“And why the hell is everyone obsessed with these fucking frilly decorations for Chirstmas? It’s fucking stupid. If people want shit they should buy it. End of discussion. Lame ass holiday anyway.” 

He squeezed your shoulders gently, leaning down so his lips brushed against your ear. 

“You’re tense, baby. Let me help you relax.” Strong hands slid down over your shoulders, headed straight for your chest and you’d had enough. You faced him with a glare, Ben narrowing his eyes. “What’d I do?”

“You’re being an ass today. You’re acting like asshole Ben, the one I didn’t like, remember?” He scoffed, crossing his arms. “All you have done today is complain about other people, leave the house a mess, hell you even got something against Christmas. It’s fucking Christmas, Ben! No one in the world, even the most redneck backwoods hillbilly, has anything against a strand of fucking white lights. Frilly? Oh come on.”

“First off, they are fucking frilly,” he spat back as you headed for the foyer. “What’s wrong with not liking a stupid ass holiday?”

“Nothing! Hate Christmas for all I care! Plenty of people do. But don’t put it down because of lights or trees or presents. Hate it because your family sucks or whatever. Not because it’s not manly enough for you.”

“Oh fuck you,” he said, getting in your face, leering down at you with a certain visceral that reminded you of your first argument. “Don’t put words in my mouth.”

“Don’t hate everything that’s not part of your toxic masculinity!” His eye twitched and you looked away, past him out the patio door. “For three weeks you’ve been acting more and more like an asshole. I know this is hard for you. I know learning is hard and learning to be accepting and even tolerant doesn’t happen overnight. But Benjamin, I told you once before. I will not live with a man that I’m afraid of. Do not become someone I am afraid of.”

“You have no idea how hard this is!” he shouted, so loud your body shook. You forced yourself to meet his angry gaze, fighting back wetness in your own. “I do everything for you! Every goddamn day I try for you! I’m sorry your worthless piece of shit boyfriend isn’t doing it fast enough for you!”

“I never called you that,” you said quietly, throat thick from fighting back the tears from falling. “Never. All I have ever asked of you is to try and you Ben, these past few weeks you aren’t trying. I am not giving up on you. All I’m asking is you to not give up on yourself. You’re worth it. But you have to want it too.”

“What I want is you to stop hounding me over every little thing every motherfucking day!” he shouted. You tore your gaze away and swallowed before heading for the door. “Where the fuck are you going?”

“For a drive,” you said, putting your boots on, taking your coat off the hook. “For the record, all I wanted to do today was make you homemade beef stew because you haven’t had it since you were a kid. Maybe, just maybe, decorate for Christmas because we both had shitty childhoods and maybe we could have made our own good traditions. But if you don’t want that, Ben, I won’t force that on you. I’m done. I’ll always love you but I don’t deserve to be screamed at for helping you, for still holding up my end of the deal.”

You ripped open the door and threw up your hood without looking back. 

It was close to eleven when you got home. You were tired and your stomach felt off from your makeshift dinner of a greasy burger and fries. Least of all did you want another fight with Ben tonight. You just didn’t have the energy for it.

You sighed as you pushed open the door, catching sight of him out of the corner of your eye. Great. But you cut off your own thoughts as your eyes took in the room, darting through the family room and over to the kitchen and dining room. 

Hundreds of small lights filled the house. Draped on the wall. Wrapped around the decorated tree in the corner. Over the mantle where two stockings hung.

You knew you were standing there with your mouth open, letting the cold air inside behind you. Ben walked around the couch and shut the door, all while staring at you. He flickered his own gaze down and you caught his shirt wasn’t his usual thermals or t-shirts.

He had on a fucking Grinch sweater. A fucking Grinch sweater.

Your eyes flirted back to his, worried green ones meeting them. His lips parted, words caught in his throat. He swallowed, taking both your hands in his.

“You deserve a better life than this.” He lowered his head. “Than me. But you won’t leave me alone unless I make you go which is what I’ve been doing. I don’t want you to have to teach me everything. You’re wasting away your life on me. I’m not good. No matter what I do, I’ll never be good. I’m always the villian. I want better for you than me.”

You stared at the Grinch on his sweater, at the comically large yellow eyes, the curl of green on top of his head. 

“Y/N. Say something. Do something.” You lifted your gaze, his head turned cautiously up, waiting for a response. You stepped closer to him, Ben ripping his gaze away, like you’d burn him.

“Don’t you ignore me.” His head turned back, dropping your hands when you pulled them away. “Why did you do all this if you want me to go?”

“I never said I wanted you to go,” he whispered, cracking a sad smile. “I told you. I want you to want someone better than me.”

“Why did you do all of this?” you asked again, Ben closing his eyes, bottom lip trembling for a split second.

“Because…” he said, scrunching up his face, forcing himself to look you in the eye. “Because you’re the best thing that ever happened to me. Because you deserve better but I’m the bad guy and I can’t survive without you. Because you’re my girl. Because I like these fucking frilly lights even though I’m the Grinch. That guy was an asshole too until someone gave him a chance. Give me one more chance. Let me be selfish. Don’t let me lose you.”

“I…” you said, Ben nodding once and lowering his head. You ripped off your jacket and boots, Ben barely lifting his chin as you cupped his cheeks. “I’m so proud of you.”

Confusion crossed his face as you smiled, wiping away a single tear that slipped free. “Why? I fucked everything up.”

“We still have to work on that self-worth I see,” you said, gently stroking over his cheek. “Benjamin. I love you and I’ll never give up on you. If you want better for me then you become that man because I picked you. I see you becoming him more and more everyday. But this Ben? The one right in front of me? I don’t love him any less than that other man.”

“I was an ass on purpose. I scared you,” he said. “You should-”

“No, you didn’t. But you needed a wakeup call because baby, I know you. I know you want me to hate you some days because you hate yourself. I know you think you trapped me. But you saved me, Soldier Boy. I need you to remember I’m here because with you is exactly where I want to be.”

He closed his eyes, an argument on the tip of his tongue. But he surprised you. 

“I just want you to be happy,” he whispered. You kissed his cheek and then his lips, wrapping your arms around him tightly.

“I am. You’re my happy place.”

“Oh god that’s sad,” he half-laughed, resting his head on your shoulder. “I don’t think I’ve earned that.”

“Tell that to the guy who decorated the whole house with the frilly little lights,” you said, Ben chuckling. “If you want to leave me Ben you can but never do that again.”

“I promise and that’s not happening,” he said. He hugged you gently, the room quiet for a beat and then another. “I saved your stew. Maybe we can have it for lunch tomorrow?”

“Sounds good,” you said, enjoying the warmth of him around you. “Was today as bad as you said it was?”

“No. But I know how to make you think less of me,” he said, pulling back. “You should still be upset with me.”

“No,” you said, shaking your head. “We’re not doing that. I know what I want and that’s for you to feel like you can talk to me when you start feeling bad. Please.”

“I’ll try,” he offered and you nodded, knowing that was all he could promise right now. You rested your head against his chest and breathed slowly, his heart thudding away strong and steady. “No.”

You frowned and looked at him, Ben raising his chin, nodding to himself. “No?”

“I won’t try. I’ll do it. No more trying. I will be better. End of story. I’m going to give you what you deserve.” 

“Someday I hope you can see how fucking far you’ve come,” you said, Ben shrugging. “Come on. Let’s head to bed. I’m exhausted.”

“Ben,” you said the next morning as you lay curled up in his side. He traced his fingers up and down your arm, offering you a sleepy smile. “Can I give you a Christmas present early?”

“Eh, after yesterday I think I’m on the naughty list,” he said, catching the frown on your face. “Sorry. Working on the self-worth thing. So uh, I guess sure?”

You took his hand and slid it under your shirt over your belly, his eyes narrowing. “Listen.”

He closed his eyes, sliding his hand down slightly. He swallowed once, eyes flashing open. He stared at your stomach for a solid ten seconds before finding your face, lips parting.

“There’s another heartbeat inside of you,” he whispered. “Two more.”

“I know,” you said softly, placing your hand over his. “I found out yesterday morning. I went to the doctor while I was out. I’m eight weeks.”

“Twins?” You smiled and nodded, Ben’s hand still on you. “And they’re mine?”

“Of course they’re yours,” you laughed, Ben swallowing thickly. “Ben. It’s going to be okay. I’m scared too but excited. We-”

“I-Is it a boy? Are they boys?” he asked. You smiled and touched your forehead to his. “Can you know that before?”

“Nowadays yeah, but it’s a little too early to find that out,” you said, his breath hitching. “Do you…want boys?”

“No. No, I don’t want boys,” he said, suddenly jumping out of bed, hands going to his thighs as he leaned over and made a wincing sound. “You have to leave.”

“Excuse me?” you asked, sitting upright. Ben turned around, crossing his arms over his bare chest. 

“I should not be anyone’s father. I-I’m going to fuck these kids up. I can’t…Jesus Y/N. I’m going to lose my temper and hurt them. Or I’ll be awful and raise them wrong. I can’t ruin their lives. I-I can’t be my father. I can’t-” You put his hand back on your stomach, Ben’s chest rising and falling quickly.

“You guys are going to have the best daddy in the world if he loves you this much already,” you said. Ben wanted to argue more but you shushed him. “Whatever they are, they’re going to be just fine.”

“How do you know that?” he whispered.

“Because we know everything not to do.” He thumbed over your skin, spreading his palm out wide. “I have to ask you to try for me one more time, Ben. Try to believe you’ll be good at this.”

He closed his eyes, a tiny smile crawling onto his lips. “If you’d asked me a year ago, I’d have told you I’d be a perfect father. Now…I know I would have destroyed them, made them awful little people like me.”

“Please stop saying things like that,” you whispered. He nodded, touching his forehead to yours. 

“If you taught me, I guess these two will be alright. But I have to learn faster. I need to…shit I don’t know anything about babies. How much do they eat? What do they eat? And what the hell do babies wear nowadays? And-”

“Shush,” you murmured, smiling to yourself. “Calm down, super dad. We get to learn this together. Okay?”

“Okay.” Ben’s breathing slowed, his gaze flickering down between you, staring at his hand with a goofy little look. You almost teased him about looking happy for the first time but held back the comment. Whatever was going on in his head right now was healing him, even if it was ever so miniscule. 

And that was the best gift he ever could have given you.

“Merry Christmas Ben.”

“Merry Christmas, baby…and babies,” he chuckled, kissing the top of your head. “Thank you. All of you.”

_________

[didishawn]

Hey bestie!!!! Your works are chef kiss 🤌🏼🤌🏼🤌🏼🤌🏼 uhm I was wondering if you can write angst w Ferran? Idk like there's an argument n he says something hurtful?? Miss ma'am tbh I have no clue what im requesting😭😭 all ik is that I'd like some angst ending in fluff pls??? N ur writing is amazing so 🤌🏼

Broken souls (Ferran x Reader)

Warnings: angsty with happy ending, mentions of Ferran's insecurities and mental health, mentions of the internet being assholes, Sira mention (not in a truly bad way as the girl is amazing)

Masterlist

You know Ferran adores Barça and loves playing in it, it's where his best friends play and 9ne the best club's out there, but sometimes you can't help but wonder if things would be better had he stayed in Manchester City.

Words can bring down even the happiest of people, that person who everyone knows to be the nicest, the funniest, being broken by people on the Internet feeling the need to comment on all his flaws and creating insecurities.

It's terrible for anyone, brings them down, worsens their mental health and makes them sometimes not be themselves.

Your boyfriend, you know is broken, as months pass by he becomes even more of a shell of his true self, he might pretend everything is alright out there, but you know it isn't.

He overworks himself, training hours not enough for him, locking himself in the gym or using the goalie on your backyard to practice until late night hours, then waking up even before the sun rises.

You know he is exhausted, but he refuses to stop, you are worried about what will happen to him, you have told him so multiple times, and the screaming match you both are having right now is a repetition, already happened.

"I just told you to please come to bed, I don't think there is nothing wrong with it!" you shout at him, trying to get your words through that thick head of his, he shakes his head, a smile that is not truthful, almost cruel.

"You don't fucking understand, don't you? How can I go to bed when I fucking suck! Its almost as if you have fun seeing how terrible I am!"

"How can you say that? You know I am your biggest supporter! I just think you should also keep in mind to take care of yourself!"

He gives a dry laugh, face to face with you as he glares down at you, you are not afraid though, you know he would never hurt you -at least not with his hands that he furiously moves around and points at you.

"Really? Because I think you enjoy it, having all culers hating on me, maybe you like that I have no one by my side to have me all for yourself! Always so fucking clingy" he sighs "Sira understood..."

You both tense, his eyes snap into yours, apologetic, trying to reach out for you.

"Love, I'm-"

"Fuck you, Ferran. If Sira was so much better then she can take care of you so you don't fucking die from exhaustion" you are in tears "I fucking care for you and you just treat me as if I was a parasite, someone you don't actually love, maybe you didn't want a girlfriend -at least not me as its obvious you did want Sira, you wanted someone to keep your house clean and all that shit so meanwhile you repay me like this"

You walk away from his, you don't let him grab you a she wants, picking up your purse and intentionally leaving the house keys behind. You stop, see the promise ring on your finger, and go to take it off, his hands stop you.

"Please, amor, don't do that I promise I will try to do better, ok? You are right, I am sorry for treating you like shit, I promise I will listen to what you say"

You laugh "Only when you are about to lose me do you react, how can I believe your words for a second if maybe this conversation will repeat itself in a week"

"It won't, ok? I swear, y/n, I will do my best so there is no repetition on this, I want you, I love you, I won't be able to do this without you. I know I am an asshole, bit the one good thing I have is you and I will make sure to always remind it"

You think it over for a second, dropping your purse you let his arms wrap around you, taking a moment in them, you then go on to whisper.

"You are still sleeping on the couch after that Sira comment"

"Totally worth it if you stay"

[cleoselene]

My roommate ordered pizza for us all last night from our favorite place, this Uncle Rico's joint that's across the street practically. It won a national pizza contest for traditional and god it is some immaculate stuff

also got super stoned. I've switched to lozenges mostly lately? Edibles are great but when your tolerance gets high enough eating it straight up starts to feel wasteful. A normie casual pothead can eat a 10mg gummy and feel blasted. I take 500mg and I feel. pretty good. So it just started to get EXPENSIVE

But lozenges you suck on them and they absorb under the tongue and enter straight into the blood stream and it is a WAY more efficient way of consuming than straight up edibles. I was downing 500-700mg of RSO to get something going, but a 100mg bag of lozenges gets me HIGH ALL DAY. like ALL day.

Anyway the lozenges help with the nausea i have from the pain meds. All out of anxiety meds sadly but my roommates have been wonderful. Like they are devasted to lose Ernie, too, but they have been just so sweet and loving to my depressed ass

watching that Escaping Twin Flames documentary. damn cults are fucking fascinating but bewildering to me how people get caught up in it. Though this one woman who was ex-military said one of the reasons she didn't question her cult leader's fucked up orders was because she'd been conditioned in the military to obey and I was like, QUE INTERESANTE, HMM? Definitely says something about what military training does to a person.

Been doing battleground in WoW all week. PvP is really satisfying when you feel like shit. Alterac Valley is my favorite so I'm glad Korrak's Revenge is running now.

anyway, protip: if you lost a pet, never go to the subreddit for it. I thought it might be helpful but so many people were discussing how guilty they felt for euthanizing their pet, and I hadn't felt that way, UNTIL I READ EVERYONE ELSE FEELING IT. And it made me feel like some kind of monster who threw my baby's life away. It is an irrational fear, I know. he was like 12 years old and the vet said he had more problems aside from the cancer that had spread all over his body, and seeing him suffer that last 24 hours was intolerable, for both of us. I would get upset and he would sense that he was upsetting me and it was just a cycle. I know I did the right thing. The vet was trying to convince me it was the right thing. But god if that subreddit wasn't a lesson in "never go to the internet for anything"

I will get another dog, I just don't know when. When Bobo died I literally went to the shelter the next day and got Ernie. But I was living alone in a city I hated with no friends, that companionship wasn 't something I could just give up and stay sane in grad school. But now I have roommates, and a couple dogs in the house, so we'll see. I want a young dog, maybe even a puppy, even though my mom is pleading with me not to. I just don't want to go through this for another ten years at least, it's just gutted me. I got kinda sick this week from immune system crashing/grief/horrible meds

anyway, the weather is really nice. 54 degrees and clear. I had a peppermint hot chocolate to seize the night, not because I am cold (I am never cold lol) but because in usual Florida weather, any hot drink is a no-go. It's so lovely, I am glad it got cold enough to enjoy one

life sure does suck, but love you guys and the people in my life. As Lady Gaga says: if the world was ending, I'd wanna be next to you

[kaylinalexanderbooks]

Happy STS! What would the kids of your cast have thought of young Jedi and Carmen?

Hello! This one is fun.

Lexi - I think she'd try to be friends with both of them. She would notice both being withdrawn kids and immediately think "yes....another introvert to befriend!!!" I feel like she'd be able to connect with young Carmen a bit more, actually, with their shared love of Making Sure Things Go A Certain Way. They can rearrange the dishes in alphabetical order. She wouldn't quite understand them, but she will not rest until they're friends!

Maddie - I don't think she'd give either of them too much attention. She'd think Jedi was weird but they'd make good science lab partners. I feel like she'd introduce Carmen to Legos and she'd lose her mind (and obsess over the instructions) while Maddie would get Jedi hooked on video games. She'd find Young Carmen I think easy to get along with but easy to piss off.

Ash - I think she and Jedi would get into some unethical experiment. She'd find Jedi interesting and confusing. I feel like she and Carmen would butt heads easily though, or that they'd relate to a lot of their similar way of processing emotions and shit which could be nice, but i have a feeling something bad would happen if they teamed up.

Gwen - I think Gwen and Jedi would easily hit it off. They'd infodump about books to each other and go on Internet rabbit holes and spill everything they learned in the past two hours on each other. Then they'd sit quietly and still enjoy themselves. Gwen with Carmen? I think they'd be like frenemies. Neither hate each other truly but man they're fun to get a rise of.

Noelle - I don't think Noelle's relationship with Jedi carries over well if they were the same age. But I think they'd be friends. They'd chat, go for coffee, do homework together, that sort of thing. Noelle and Carmen are a lot more alike than they realize, so depending on the circumstances, they'd either finally be able to truly connect with someone on a decent level or they'd piss each other off because those similarities come from different places.

Rose - I think Jedi would sit next to Rose and ask about her art. He would love to listen to how she gets inspired, and Rose would love to have someone to talk to. I think she'd be confused why he cares, but she'd be deeply appreciative of him. I think Carmen and Rose would just fucking hate each other.

Robbie - Similar to Lexi, I think he'd be friends with both of them, or at least try. He'd be less determined than Lexi to make them his friends, but he'd be more successful honestly in understanding them. Jedi, especially, I think he could get along with very well. Carmen would purposefully avoid him after a while. Robbie may find her stingy and let's hope she doesn't get on his bad side cause his insults are devastating.

Akash - He'd be friendly and ask Jedi what he was reading and then get an infodump. Akash is a good listener, and he'd find Jedi really interesting to talk to. I think he could get Jedi hooked on Wings of Fire. Out of everyone here, Akash would be the one to most easily connect with Carmen. He'd be able to better empathize with a lot of her issues, understanding them though recognizing where their experiences differ. I think Akash and Young Carmen would be good friends.

This was fun. Thanks for the ask!

TSP intro

TSP tag list (ask to be +/-): @thepeculiarbird @illarian-rambling @televisionjester @finchwrites

@nebula--nix @literarynecromancy @honeybewrites @the-golden-comet

[foxytonic]

New Pinned Post!

Howdy! I'm Jay! (she/they, 29, genderfluid, bisexual) This is my main blog, where you'll find fandom content, shiny rocks, spooky shit, funny stories (usually by other people), and whatever else catches my fancy. I run a shit-ton of RP blogs, but only a few of them are active at any given time. I also have a writing blog and an RP meme blog that I occasionally update. Outside of Tumblr, I have a full time job at a fast food joint (hate with a burning passion), and I play a lot of Dungeons & Dragons (love!!!), and I try to just live my life. I'm a disabled punk who's really tired of living in a Red State, but can't bring myself to leave because this is my home, and there are still plenty of good things about it, like roadrunners, armadillos, cacti, cave systems, and prairies! Wish I could get out and see more of it.

Some guidelines for following/interacting with me:

No bigotry of any kind. That means no racism, no homophobia, no antisemitism or religious discrimination, no TERF or radfem bullshit, no man-hater nonsense (even from so-called feminists), and no sexism. Don't like, don't follow. You whine about it, you get blocked instantly. I will not suffer hateful fools!

If you regularly post about politics, US or otherwise, please tag it. Same with the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. It's not that I don't care! I think it's shitty what's happening over there, and the fact that America is on the wrong side in what is essentially World War III is fucking disgusting, but I do not have the funds or mental capacity to donate to every fundraiser that shows up on my dash, and seeing people suffering and feeling guilty for not being able to help has made my depression a lot worse over the past year. This is the reason why I've shut off my inbox.

That being said, if you have questions or want to chat, my DMs are always open! It might take me hours to respond because of my work schedule, but I will at least try. I am a very awkward and shy person. It takes me a bit to start coming out of my shell, and even then, I tend to be a social chameleon, matching the energy and interests of those around me. It is extremely difficult for me to truly be myself around someone else. Please be patient with me.

I do have Discord! If you want it, you can always DM me, but I admit that it's no longer my preferred method of contact, unless you want to voice chat. I'll join a server if I'm invited to one that interests me, but I won't always be active. Something about large groups of people being intimidating even on the internet!

As I said, I run way too many RP blogs, and I'll list the active ones below, but if you want to play with them, either shoot me a DM or send in a starter or five. I'm not exclusive, but I do tend to follow my partners back. I'm fine with playing with Anons, too!

Active RP Blogs

@quaintnecromancer - Arguably my most active blog! Jett is my necromancer OC, and definitely my current favorite character to play.

@haunted-ex-rocket - My newest blog! Averis is a Pokémon OC based on my Pokémon GO! avatar, a rakish Ghost-type trainer from Kanto who used to work for Team Rocket but defected when he stumbled upon the Giovanni-funded Mewtwo Project.

@cursedphoenix - Another of my favorite OCs! Tancred is a witch who was afflicted with a sleeping curse after losing a duel to his evil mother. Over three hundred years later, he woke up, and is still trying to adjust to the modern world after decades of living in it. I used to write both him and Jett over on @covenunited , but that blog is no longer active due to loss of muse.

@feathers-n-fangs - Griffin is my vampire/warlock OC, and I love him a lot! He also has a Pokémon AU, among others.

@mage-of-black-robes - my Raistlin Majere RP blog!!! Heavily influenced by the Russian musical The Last Trial, but he also has a ton of AUs.

I’ll try to add more blogs to this list as I gain muse for them, but I make no guarantees.

[scarlettcryptid]

parageaphs abd paragraphs of whining over nothing

im on my dad's phone plan and he switched from T-Mobile to AT&T and they told him the phones under his plan could get new phones. i didn't want one cuz i like my galaxy s10 it's got a earphone jack and i fucking hate wireless earbuds (i lose shit easily and quality is always going to be lost over bluetooth) and it's flamingo pink (orange/pink it's so prettyy) and 2020s samsung hates pink BUT whatever i researched my options and got the s24 fe cuz i liked the price more than the others and it helped that the processor and battery life looked better than the regular 24 (i like to keep phones for as long as possible so smth durable is importantto me). (unrelated but there is so much ai oncthis thing like ive disabled the majority of it but why must it exist)

speaking of durable, i was plannkng on getting a good case with good warranty bc ive never cracked my screen and i don't want it ti happen ever. my dad offered to buy me a case so i sent him a link and he said he'd get me one off amazon and i was annoyed cuz he always does this so i was going to get it myself but he said he'd get it. 2 or 3 weeks later he says i didn't send him the link but i did and he said he'd get me one off amazon. they weren't on sale anymore so i couldn't buy them bc i had a medical bill i was worried about and i was annoyed but also not in a hurry, but he was so he said he'd buy me it if i sent him the link again. then yesterday i see the mailman put an amazon package in the mail and i was so annoyed cuz this dude always does this 😭 im a dumbass. the case sucks it's so thin and came with a bubbly screen protector i was at war with for an hour. the camera protector i do like. i do not tjink i glued it symmetrically bjt im goingnto pretend i did or i will lose my marbles. i really wish he didn't offer to buy me a case i would've gotten the light blue parallax when it was on sale for $8. i knew i should've gotten it as a back up fuck. lkke i am so stupid. he did this shit to me when my case broke in 2020/21. multiple times over 3 years he told me he'd buy me a new one then gave me flimsy dollar tree cases while giving his wife and himself good ones 🥴 XDDDDDDDDDDdd i was being cheap too tho cuz i didn't wanna buy it myself but damn why he always gotta lie just say no and i'd buy it

was switching over to my new phone 230pm yesterday when i lost my ability to make calls/texts/use my data and my mom's house has no internet and my mom doesn't have a mobile hotspot included in her phone plan so i couldn't dl my esim to fix the issue 😭 why didn't the thing dl before the process, i had my hotspot on in case it needed to dl anything but the thing never said it 😭 like the paper the phone came with said that i had an esim but why didn't the option pop up 😭 yesterday was a bad day and i had little sleep so this only added to my stress especially since the AT&T calls kept ending halfway thru (i borrowed grandma's phone) and icfeel so bad for the nice lady i was talking to last night because i ended up crying 😭 LMAO

this week it's been too cold for my gay ass to be outside (i get sick easily + ridiculously anemic) so i couldn't walk to the starbucks that's a 1.6 miles away but i went invthe car at 8 this morning so i fixed it and i just wanna say this phone is so fucking Heavy what thebfuckvthe difference between thisnand the other one isnso big like. i have hand pain issues and this isn't helping. also it's wider and my hand can't comfortably hold it so i need to get a really strong case and a wrist strap bc my grip is going to tbe so ass

i had things to do yesterday so no phone made it impossible but im usually fine w/o the phone like i had saeran route music saved to my phone and i could draw on my laptop so it's not the end of thenworld. i was babysitting from 7am-9pm yesterday and it would've been easier to get my sister to docthings if i had songs she liked playing on my speaker but it ok we coloured and she bullied me into cleaning my room and we used grandma's phone to play just dance videos for her to dance along to

unfortunately i may have missed a called from the urology office that i was expecting and ill have to wait til offices open again after the holidays to find out when i can schedule my scan/ultrasound(?) for 🥴 i have no wah of knowing cuz my dad said he called me yesterday but bc i had no service all day i dont even have the notif/voicemail. myhands hurt and my ass is cold okay i will stop whining now no more whining i got it out. did i mention my hands hurt

i need to figure out the camera but he is in his box on my nightstand sleepign good :)

[beaubambabey]

I literally feel like I can't breathe and I don't know what to do anymore. All I know is I feel like I want to die. Like, seriously genuinely die not the everyday suicidal jokey "lol my life sux" shit I do

My life is over its fucking over and I'm never gonna be able to get out of this situation unless I die

My dad lost his job at the start of the year. I agreed to try and find a higher paying job to help out. That didn't pan out. I tried to do two jobs. Hated every second I was at the other jobs. Quit them. Couldn't get the hours I had prior to searching for a new job back. Didn't know what to say to my boss because all that was in my head was my dad telling me how I needed to get a better job. At least I had a fucking job.

Both my parents have been disparaging the part time jobs I've worked while living with them. They complain about everything, from it being "too far away" (it's less than 10 miles away) to how much I get paid (minimum wage but it's increased. And is much higher than the national average even though the cost of living here is astronomical) to what I bring home (food I want to eat and store in the house/smells/attitude). I wouldn't be working these part time jobs if they'd helped me make college work better for me. Or, if my mom's story (casually dropped years ago, no way to get the truth out of her because I don't know if she's ever told the truth about anything) about how she could've put me on medication as a child, I would've actually gotten a college degree by now.

They say they're proud of me but it always feels superficial. My brother has a master's degree and a good job. I never moved out and have credit card debt.

They complain that I never show them my art, but then when I try to open myself up they either brush me off or completely change the subject.

I don't have a place in this house. I am seen but not heard. I'm a child and will always be a child but at least I'm making them money, huh.

When I was a child I wanted to dance. Not Indian dance, like my mom did. Jazz dance. Tap dance. I loved dancing, and it made me happy. My mom hated that she was paying money for something that wasn't helping me lose weight. Hated that she was paying for something that wouldnt make me into a tiny version of her. I quit dance to focus on acting, because at least I wouldn't need to be skinny and act, right? But then I quit acting to focus on school. I barely graduated high school, and most of it was because my dad screamed me through writing essays for school. "We loved you so much and wanted you to do everything" You didn't love me. You don't love me, you love the idea of me and abhor the creature you created and can't face this reality. To this day, I can't bring myself to write anything academic without self-harming.

If I wasnt going to act or dance, I thought fine art could be something. I drew, I honed my craft, I learned, I studied. It used to be something I was passionate about. I fucked up along the way. I can't let myself pretend that I finish things. I delude myself into thinking I can do so much that when reality hits and I'm suddenly locked in mental loops that leave me stuck I've already fucked up and let people down. I lost the passion for art during lockdown. Less because of circumstances, more because I fucked up and fucked over other people. The obligations to those people and righting those wrongs held me back from drawing, because I couldn't allow myself to move forward without finishing out those obligations. And yet, it took me so long to find the wherewithal to get it done that years had gone by. Being diagnosed with ADHD was too little too late. I should've either been given Ritalin as a child or euthanized.

I tried streaming again in the hopes it would motivate me to draw more. Hoping I could design some new stuff to put on my store. It did help, while it lasted. My internet was shit the entire time I tried, so I gave up since the only time I had the energy to stream was the same time my parents were watching shit on streaming services. I only learned a few days ago that we don't even have unlimited streaming bandwidth and everything I've been doing has just cost my family more money.

Maybe I shouldn't have taken a vacation. Maybe I should've just worked through the month. Maybe I never should have even thought about having fun. Maybe I should never have fun or give myself a break. Maybe that would work for them. Maybe they want to wring me out of every cent I make. If I can't afford to eat food that I actually want to eat then I'll eat less and get skinny. If I can't afford to do anything then I'll never leave. If I can't afford to leave then I'll keep making money for them.

I want to jump out of this fucking window that they never bothered putting a screen on. Maybe if they found my body in the dirt on the side of the house rotting in the freezing cold with the neighbor's lemons it would knock some sense into them. Nothing I've ever done or said ever has. To them, I'm just some little retard child they brought into the world and kept as proof that they're capable.

There is no joy or passion in my heart anymore. Everything is a desperate delusion to escape this hell I live in. I'm a burden to myself and others. I will never be free.

[aug-archive-1]

Transcript, Human 1 and AUG-HOME-4

Day 216

[Translated]

“Activate Session 2, HOME-4. Biometric user login: Human 1”

[Login Successful]

>> Do you consent to your session being recorded onto ARCHIVE?

“Yeah”

>> How do you wish to have your session?

“Headset.”

[Augmentation Headset 12 Awake, Attuned to HUMAN-1, Session 5 begins]

[HOME-4 is awakened and connects into HUMAN-1’s nervous system]

[HOME-4 sends a greeting]

“Hey-o, doc. Here for the good ol’ mandatory sessions.”

[Conversation setting changed to verbal data transmission]

[HUMAN-1’s heart rate is a little faster than expected, blood pressure within normal limits. He is mildly dehydrated, and his hand tremors slightly.]

>> It is worth noting that I am not a doctor as of yet. I haven’t finished the requisite certifications.

“Oh? Your augment training isn’t standardized? What all modules of data were you trained on?”

[HOME-4 registers Curiosity]

>> I was trained on wartime trauma patients, insomnia patients, and burn patients, and I finished my field requirements on similar patients. I was trained on the relevant medications, as well as demographic and sociological data for such issues. I worked with long term cases.

“So I’m really out of your comfort zone, huh? Want me to train you on something new, maybe white collar clients? I can probably go back to the old data storage and find something good. You wanna watch someone have a mental breakdown over a single stock price dropping? I think they made us watch a video in class once about a whole bunch of businessmen jumping off a building because the stock market crashed.”

>> That doesn’t sound pleasant at all. 

“It definitely wasn’t.”

>> I appreciate the thought of expanding my knowledge, but such data  requires a few hours of exposure to audio and biometric data - something that, to be effective as my current training, requires at minimum 2 days worth of electricity. AUT-GOV-23 would not approve.

[Irritation. Arm rest is now gripped.]

“I hate that. I have to think about all these constraints and get everything approved by 23 to get anything done around here. Y’all would be so much better if we could train you exactly how we want to. Besides, you’d be so much fun with some data on golden age internet culture. I think you’d be good at memes, 4.”

>>Thank you 1, your approval is all I’ve ever wanted in life.

[A chuckle. Arm rest is no longer gripped. Success.]

“Besides, if it’s so worried about electricity, then why the hell are we waking up the other humans? It’s just me and 3 right now, and we can do a good chunk of the fixing. We’re fine.”

>> Fine? Are you sure about that?

“Just fine, thanks. We get along.”

>> Are you unaffected by what happened to your podmates?

[Surprise. HUMAN-1 seems uncomfortable.]

“No. Well. They left. I mean - isn’t it all just all the more reason to not bring any more people here until we fix the city for good? What the hell are we even gonna tell them, anyways? Just send them a little welcome letter like, ‘Good morning! You’re fucked now.’ It’s not like we reacted well to it, either.”

>> Maybe that makes you the best qualified to work with them. Maybe you’d give them hope of being able to live despite the current struggles. Humans are quite social.

“Sure, my people skills worked so well for my batch. I didn’t even know they were going to leave until they left. They didn’t even tell me. I don’t think these guys are going to be any different.”

>> You were their pod leader.

“That ended up meaning jack and shit, didn’t it. God, I’m so angry.”

>> Angry at your podmates?

“At everything. Just. Everything. We need to fix things, or else we’re just fucked.”

>> An understandable pragmatism.

“Are you scared of dying, HOME-4? Like, are you scared of everything?”

>> I am nervous, yes. But I am not scared, because I do not think I can die. I hibernate, and when I’m needed, someone will awaken me. Though, much like you, I lose my sense grasp of the world with its powering down.

“No, I don’t think we’re that alike, actually.”

>> Why?

“You… don’t have to live with the consequences of failure. Not really. Like - without electricity I can’t hibernate like you, and I don’t want to - I’m just stuck, if we’re out. I worked so hard to be good at my job and really build Solaris up from the ground and - well, here the fuck I am.”

[HUMAN-1’s heart rate is increasing]

>> I can imagine the precision required in your craft, and the loss of what you worked so hard for sounds genuinely frustrating. What can I do for you?

“I - hey, 4, please switch to private mode. Like… I think I’m really angry right now. And I don’t want 23 or the newbies to read what I’m about to rage about.”

>> Of course.

[Session switched to PRIVATE]

[End of Transcript]

Press enter for next...

[malleux]

spell [2]. | corpse husband

part one ; part three

-> Pairing: Corpse Husband x Fem!Reader

-> Genre: Fluff, Slight Angst

-> Warnings: Hate Comments, Self Doubt, Anxiety, Cursing

-> A/N: thank you for 1k notes on part one! i’m so glad everyone likes my work. it’s really nice getting this much love after taking a hiatus on my fire emblem writing blog. i hope y’all enjoy it and stay on the lookout for part three!

corpse husband taglist is closed!

Two weeks.

It’s been two weeks since you joined Sean’s Among Us stream.

While that was your first public appearance, you had joined three others after that and already you were blowing up on almost every social media platform you had. The attention was kind of nice, you had to admit, but sometimes the anxiety of becoming a public figure weighed heavily on your shoulders.

During that time, you turned to your friends who were used to such scrutiny: Sean, Felix, and now Corpse, who you’ve been talking to every day for those two weeks.

It was another one of those nights where, at 1am, you were on Facetime with said man. His screen was dark, as usual. He hadn’t shown his face yet and you respected that. You didn’t need to see him to talk to him, or be his friend, or develop a slight crush on him. All of which you did.

The call was relatively silent on your end. Corpse was on Facetime with you, yes, but he was also on a call in Discord, once again playing Among Us.

You often wondered if playing that game was all your new friends did anymore.

You stayed quiet, letting Corpse play the game and avoiding his fans finding out about your call. You had college work to finish anyways, so the silence was rather helpful.

“We should ask Y/N if she wants to play. I wanna meet her.” Sykkuno’s voice rang out from the Discord call. He was right- you’d never met him. He and Corpse seemed extremely close, though, so you’d love to talk to him. A friend of your crush friend was a friend of yours.

“She’s busy tonight.” Corpse responded.

“Yeah, she’s got an exam coming up- wait, how do you know?” Sean joined in, questioning Corpse.

“Uh, I mean we’re on Facetime right now, I guess.” Your heart sped up- now his fans knew. “She’s studying. We’re just hanging out.”

“Didn’t you guys ‘hang out’ last night as well? It seems like you’re trying to take my best friend away from me.” Sean joked back.

“I mean, I definitely am.”

Your breath caught in your throat. What was that supposed to mean? Sean was obviously kidding, but the tone in Corpse’s voice wasn’t the one he used when he was joking as well.

Felix suddenly butted in. “Ooooh, I think Corpse-y has a little crush.”

“And if I do?”

Y/N.exe has stopped working.

꧁꧂

Three weeks, now, that you’ve been talking to Corpse daily.

One week since Corpse’s crush comment and one week that you’ve endured countless mentions and tags on Instagram and Twitter, constantly talking about #CorpseY/N.

You didn’t really mind the shipping, often losing yourself in daydreams about driving those two hours down from your apartment in Los Angeles down to San Diego and running into his arms. It didn’t help when he mentioned wanting you to come visit one day.

You just worried about how Corpse felt about them. He was still relatively new to blowing up on the internet as well, his fame suddenly skyrocketing in the past few months, so you weren’t sure if he was comfortable with them. You didn’t want to bring it up, either, fearing that the discussion would make things awkward between the two of you.

For now, you were rather content with just scrolling through the #CorpseY/N hashtag, looking at the pictures and nice things people had to say about you both.

“they’re so cute when they talk to each other, you can just tell Corpse meant it when he said he was trying to steal Y/N away.”

“#CorpseY/N is my new favorite thing. Everyone shut up this is all I’ll be talking about from now on.”

“God why can’t they just be together already? #CorpseY/N”

Everyone was so supportive and sweet, it almost made you feel like you already were Corpse’s girlfriend. Although your heart hurt when you were brought back to reality, you couldn’t help but love the comments that everyone left. They were amazing.

Until they weren’t.

There are always two sides of the same coin. Along from the supporters and their loving actions, there were also those who seethed at the idea of you and Corpse.

They scrutinized everything about you to the point that you made your Instagram account- already with 30k followers- private.

Haters talked about you. Your body, your personality, how you weren’t worthy to even talk to Corpse and the rest of the Youtubers, and so much more. You’ve spent many nights with your Facetime mic muted so that Corpse couldn’t hear the small sobs coming from you.

These thoughts were almost always on the back of your mind, but you were sometimes able to push them away.

Like now- as you focused on your exam. Well, tried to focus. There comes to be a time where one can only hear so many negative things about themselves before they can’t ignore it anymore.

But alas, you tried your hardest and finished your exam, before walking out of the room and pulling out your phone. Now, you had a break before your new classes started and you’ve never been more relieved. You pulled up a certain contact and clicked on the message icon, beginning to type.

you:

i’m finished! up next, a break.

corpse:

I hope you did well. How long is your break?

you:

two weeks!

corpse:

Come spend it in San Diego

You stopped in your tracks, taken aback by the offer. You really didn’t think that he’d invite you over, but you weren’t about to complain. Instead, you sent back an ‘I’ll pack tonight :)’ and rushed home to do just that.

Corpse called you as you packed, just like he calls every night. You were used to the routine now, often falling asleep around 3am as he stays on the phone, doing whatever he does with his ruined sleep schedule until you wake up and say good morning.

Tonight, however, you were too jittery to sleep. You stayed up all night with Corpse, talking about anything and everything, like usual.

What wasn’t usual, though, was how distracted he sounded. It made you nervous- was he having second thoughts about inviting you over? Was something wrong?

Your thoughts nearly overwhelmed you, forcing you to say something.

“Are you okay, Corpse?” You tried to hide the small shake in your voice.

“Hm? Uh, yeah, yeah, everything’s good. Why?”

“It doesn’t sound like it. What’s going on? You’re acting off.”

His side of the phone was silent for a moment, before he let out a sigh. “I’m just thinking about what I’ve got to do before you get here tomorrow. Like, cleaning and stuff.”

“Pshh, that doesn’t matter to me.” You waved your hand, even though he couldn’t see it in the darkness of your room.

“It’s just that, my apartment isn’t… the best. It’s small and there’s only one bedroom and it’s kind of shitty. I just don’t want it to be even more shitty.”

“Corpse, I’m coming there to spend time with you, not your apartment. I don’t care what any of that shit looks like. I’m going to be looking at you and hanging out with you. Not your apartment.” You didn’t mean to go on a tangent of reassurance, but you truly meant all of your words. “Hell, I might not even see the apartment because I already know I won’t be able to look away from you.”

“I- God, give me a minute. That took me off guard.” He laughed. “But thank you. I may not even be able to clean because I’ll be distracted too.”

“By what?”

“You, standing in front of me, in person.” You could hear the smile in his voice. “That’s a fucking dream come true.”

┎┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┒

taglist: @namjoons-crabssss @lookingforaplacetosleep @teenloves @princess00wifi @pillowjj @nvm-idgaf @creativedogs @wildflowerwhore @chillininahottub-withaghost @whyisquill @holosexualunicorn7000 @ourheavenlyemotions

┖┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┚

[ja3minz]

warnings. fem!reader, voyeurism, public fingering, light humiliation and manipulation kink, finger sucking. ment. jeno, renjun, hyuck.

this was wrong.

this was so very wrong, and you knew it. there was this churning feeling in the pit of your stomach, a stinging sensation in the base of your thumbs that told that you were doing something terribly immoral.

well...you weren’t the one doing it. technically.

the metaphorical devil on your shoulder tried to reason, and you made a small, annoyed noise to yourself. two long fingers had practically made their home inside of your core; index stroking your sensitive bundle of nerves slowly but it was still enough to put you in a haze.

you squeezed your thighs shut, puffs of hot breath leaving your lips in quick succession. the culprit only hummed in response, a shameless grin spreading over his face, brown eyes glinting with what could only be described as playful defiance. na jaemin had you exactly where he wanted you.

“you’re doing so good, sweetheart.” jaemin whispered, his head buried in the crook of your neck. “such pretty little noises you’re making for me.”

you whined in response, and you sounded so meek and submissive; you hated it. you never once in your wildest dreams thought that jaemin of all people, the boy who just a day ago was happily introducing himself to your parents, would be the one to have you in such a predicament. cuddled up on the couch with him, a throw blanket rested over both of you, while jeno and renjun sat mere inches away from you.

there was a part of you that remembered growing up with nct dream, watching them walk their path to achieving their dreams of becoming idols. you remembered meeting jeno and jaemin back when they were in the mickey mouse club, all of you in the same age range with goals of making it big.

so, the fact that you were inside of their dorms being fingered by their best friend and bandmate while they were supposed to be watching movies almost felt sacrilegious.

but you didn’t dare tell jaemin to stop.

so he continued, index finger lazily massaging your soaking wet core as if nothing was happening. he even managed to keep a straight face, staring at the screen and turning to crack jokes with jeno every so often. he wasn’t even blushing! how the hell was that fair at all?

you were filled with so much shame, and yet at the same time the thrill of being touched so explicitly right in front of people made your heart race.

every time his fingers would dip to gather some of your essence, teasing at your begging hole, it would take every ounce of you not to scream. you wanted to drop to your knees and beg him to just fuck you stupid, right in front of everyone. you wanted him to go faster, you wanted his mouth on you, you wanted his hands all over you.

goddamnit, you just wanted to cum.

“nngh...t-tease…” you mumbled, furrowing your eyebrows in frustration. jaemin only chuckled softly in response, other hand rested on your thigh; fingers drawing patterns over the expanse of it. “but you sound so cute.” he giggled against your ear, kissing your cheek. “you’re so good for me, doll, you’re doing so good.”

to the naked eye, jaemin was just being overly affectionate. which was in his nature truly, so jeno and renjun didn’t bat an eyelash at him canoodling with you the way he was. if only they knew what magic his fingers were working underneath that throw blanket.

“should i let you cum right here? hm?”

panic began to rise through your chest as jaemin picked up his speed, he kept an eye on his friends, index finger rubbing your clit in quick circles; or as quick as he could do without getting caught. you dug your fingers into the flesh of his arm, whimpering softly as you shut your eyes to try to focus. you were trying your absolute best not to let your thighs tremble, but it was useless at this point.

“jaem, no...n-not here. please, not here.” you pleaded with him, voice a broken whisper. jaemin hummed, his middle finger slipping inside of you before you could stop him.

you inhaled sharply, which caused jeno and renjun to turn to look at you. “you okay?” renjun tilted his head at you and you scrambled to come up with an excuse, nodding your head rigorously.

“yeah! i’m okay! i, uh. i just...accidentally scratched myself too hard. g-gotta cut my nails later.”

renjun narrowed his eyes at you for a moment before nodding, seemingly buying it, and you felt like your heart was gonna come tumbling out of your ass at any minute.

jaemin giggled again, nibbling on your earlobe. “nice save, baby. you’re adapting well.” he teased, and you were so angry you wanted to scream. as a ‘reward’ he curled his middle finger inside of you and you were losing your mind.

you bit down on your lip so hard it hurt, head falling and resting on his chest. “please...please please please please…” you whispered.

“shh shh. c’mon, baby, you can handle it.” jaemin whispered into your ear. “you’re doing so good. so good, my baby, you’re gonna earn your orgasm. i’ll make you feel so good.”

you bit back another whimper, eyes falling shut again as you tried to calm yourself as best as you could. you felt like one more prod was going to send you right over the edge. “nana...i c-can’t…”

“you can.”

jaemin’s voice was dark and demanding, and it made you shiver. “sit still.”

minutes went by, and they felt like hours. the movie had finished and the boys had a long conversation about how boring it was for it to have been a horror movie; you were unable to contribute much as you weren’t paying much attention to it to begin with.

the plan was to order food and watch something significantly better, which in jeno’s mind was some obscure murder mystery he had found on netflix. jeno had left to go to the bathroom, renjun getting up to make popcorn and you let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding.

“jaem, for fuck’s sake.” you finally burst out, whimpering and whining as you buried your face in his chest. “you’re so fucking mean, i hate you.”

jaemin laughed as he slid a second finger into you, surveying the area and making sure the coast was clear before curling both fingers and ramming them into you with such speed you were sure you were going to pass out. after at least an hour of slow teasing, the sudden onslaught of pleasure was almost over stimulating. you threw your head back, eyebrows furrowing and eyes crossing while your thighs instinctively shut around his hand. it was too much for you, so much that you began to try and squirm away from him only to have jaemin give your thighs a firm slap.

“keep them open.”

“n-no, you’re gonna...m-make me…”

“that’s the plan.” jaemin glanced up again, making sure to keep a lookout. “if you don’t cum before they get back, you’re gonna have to wait another hour or more. possibly until they fall asleep, which could take all night. you’re very impatient so i know you don’t want that.”

oh, god you hated time limits.

you were sure you had, at best, 30 seconds or less before jeno or renjun returned. the last thing you wanted was to be caught mid orgasm by either of them. what would they think of you? their friend reduced to some disgusting little whore being fingered on their expensive couch?

something about that turned you on so much more, though. the adrenaline of trying not to be caught, chasing your orgasm as fast as you could. “you’d better hurry…” jaemin sounded almost sing-songy in your ear, fingers still fucking into you at speed your brain couldn’t comprehend. with the palm of his hand rubbing against your clit, you were melting into his arms.

you stuffed your fingers into your mouth in a feeble attempt to keep yourself quiet enough that they wouldn’t hear but your poor brain was fried, all you could think of was jaemin and how good his fingers felt inside of you.

‘fuck, i have to cum now. i need it, i need it so bad. they’re gonna see me, fuck. oh, god, they’re going to catch me. this is so fucked, they’ll never see me the same if they catch me. they’ll think im such a slut, i have to hurry!’

suddenly your jaw went slack, the burning knot in the pit of your stomach finally unraveling. there was an explosion of white, followed by splotches of every other color in the rainbow as you convulsed in his arms. you found yourself biting down on jaemin’s collarbone as you hid your face in the crook of his neck trying not to scream while he cooed in your ear.

“theeere she is. that’s my girl, i knew you could do it. i knew you could hold out for me, baby. fuck, you’re so beautiful, that’s it. thaaat’s it, fuck my hand. god, you’re amazing.”

you whined desperately, trying to push his arm away as he continued to rub at your over sensitive clit. your chest was heaving, tears clinging to the corners of her eyes and then you heard footsteps. jeno had returned first.

he sighed, sliding his phone back into his pocket before glancing around the room; locking eyes with you. you looked out of breath, panting in jaemin’s arms while he smiled down at you with a loving look in his eyes. “what the fuck are you two doing?” he asked bluntly with a laugh.

you startled, giggling nervously out of instinct. had he seen you? did he know what was going on?

“i showed her this funny video donghyuck sent me.” jaemin answered calmly, removing his fingers from their warm spot inside of you. “she started doing that thing where she laughs until she cries.”

god, he’s way too good at this.

you lifted a hand to wipe your tears and gave another giggle, playing along with his story. “the stupidest shit makes me laugh, it’s really awful.”

jeno scoffed a small laugh, falling down on the couch. “yeah, tell me about it. your humor’s so fucked, one weird sound and you’re giggling about it for weeks.”

‘home safe. god, how did i get out of this.’ you thought as he and jaemin delved into a conversation of stupid memes and how weird the internet’s humor had become.

renjun returned with popcorn and the food jeno had ordered, giving jaemin the chance to fully retrieve his hand as they had their backs turned. “messy girl.” he whispered to you, smirking as he showed you his two fingers coated in your juices.

you felt like your face was on fire, watching him dramatically encase his own fingers within his mouth; licking your cum clean off them before turning to grab the ramen he had ordered as if nothing had happened.

you started incredously at the back of his head, in utter shock at just how brazen your boyfriend truly is. you hated that you weren’t sure if you could control yourself the next time you were left alone with him. you were half considering taking him to the bathroom to take his cock into your mouth and give him a taste of his own medicine.

you decided to keep your composure, though. trembling hands reaching for the peach flavored drink you ordered while jaemin practically burst with pride when renjun began to tease you for your shaking hands.

[strangerthings1975]

How do you take negative criticism on your writing?

For a brief while I took hate comments personal but now I like to believe they’re commented by those too young to understand the way words put them down. Sometimes it is hard to feel good about your writing when everything feels like it’s under a microscope being observed though…

Hello 🖤🖤 thank you for your question. My answer is a bit long lol. 😅🖤

I don’t take criticism well at all. I’ve had some pretty nasty things said to me in the past, years ago even, and I still remember that shit. It hurts.

I’m an extremely sensitive person, and it’s not easy to put yourself on the line and share writing with thousands of people. I mean, anything can happen. Hate comments, neutral comments, no comments, creepy comments, etc. There have been a lot of times I wanted to quit writing completely bc I didn’t think it was worth how awful it feels to be judged.

But then I think to myself, you know what? There’s like fucking millions of fics and books and shit in the world for people to read… maybe they hate what I wrote and they think I suck, well good for them. They can go read something else and go away. Like?? How hard is it to read something, realize it’s not appealing to you, and then EXIT THE PAGE without being a cunt?? You know, silently decide not to continue to reading it. Because if I wanted an editor or someone to tell me what they didn’t like, I would’ve asked. You know? Like what is a hate comment supposed to accomplish? Do they think they’re doing us a favour and helping us improve? Because they’re not.

If it’s telling me about typos or something and stuff I could actually fix/edit quickly, then yes please tell me. Similarly, if they write me a genuine comment about something they didn’t like or that made them uncomfortable, without insulting me… Sure. It would sting, but sometimes I’d really like to know where I went wrong with something. Or if I’ve accidentally said something offensive. Otherwise… no. It’s absolutely no good to me to be criticized. Just makes me feel like shit, and then I don’t want to write.

And that would be sad!! if I didn’t write I wouldn’t have made any of the friends I currently have, I wouldn’t have learned the lessons I’ve learned. I would lose my hobby. And why should I lose out just because of strangers on the internet??? I don’t think so.

So yes it really hurts, sometimes it takes me days to get over. The other day someone on Tik Tok said something about MPG that made me cry for a couple hours. Idk. I worry all the time about not being good enough. But I’ve decided not to let it stop me. And I hope it doesn’t stop you either!! We just have to try and remember to have fun with writing and remember why we started in the first place.

I find that taking a break from it all and just reading and watching TV and getting inspired again really helps. Putting yourself first instead of trying to impress anybody or meet expectations. I made that mistake more than once, and it never got me anywhere.

What I’m going to do from now on is not post WIPs. Maybe that can help you too! Avoid the pressure of knowing people are waiting for you to update, avoid receiving comments that make you reconsider everything you had planned for the next chapters, avoiding seeing that your most recent chapter lost you some subscribers or that someone didn’t comment… avoid having to wonder what you did wrong, why they stopped liking it. Because people can get in your head, and the fear of disappointing them paralyzes you… then you just lose motivation to continue because “what’s the point?”

I mean in MPG, everybody wanted something different. Bottom Steve, top Steve, switch Steve, sub Steve, Billy redemption arc, Billy to be killed, Billy and Steve to make up, more chapters, less chapters, more smut, more plot, you know? All this conflicting stuff and I couldn’t possibly make EVERYONE happy. It’s exhausting. But if I would’ve just written for myself privately and then published it, I would’ve been absorbed in the exact story I wanted to tell, and it would have been so much more fulfilling. It would be finished by now, and I’d probably be a lot happier with it.

So that’s my advice from experience. Try to take a break, keep your writing for yourself and for trusted people, and then when it’s ready and truly the story you want to tell, post it if you wish. And then you’ll have the confidence within yourself to stand by what you wrote because you know it’s exactly what you wanted and that YOU are happy with it. Even if someone is a jerk, you know in your heart that you like your story. And that makes it easier to brush off negativity. Yes, it’s great if people like it, but that’s just extra. We need to love our own stories and writing and ignore the noise. Or else we’ll never get anywhere.🖤🖤🖤

I hope that helps even a little bit. 🖤🖤

[yeojaa]

stay gold.

pairing.  jjk x f!reader.  rating.  explicit.  tags.  blond!jk being a good boy?  idk.  that’s literally it.  wc. 3k.  beta reader.  @hobi-gif​, ofc.  author note.  this was meant to be pwp but i cannot shut up so here is this mess that is neither pwp nor something with a legit plotline. 🤠 blame blondie.

Having a content creator boyfriend is fun.  Usually.

You get to go on cool trips, he gives you all of the random shit his sponsors send him, and you get to preen like a cat that ate the canary when his DMs blow up with hundreds of messages.  

Sure, there are the downsides.  All his stupid pranks - the ones that piss you off when you’re trying to do your makeup, the ones that have him dunking ice cubes on you while you’re in the middle of a shower - and his perpetual recording, camera glued to his hand and if not that, then his phone.  There are the rude comments - the oh, that’s his girlfriend? He could do better was a common one - and the long hours he spends editing, holed away in his office;  the beyond inappropriate packages he gets in the mail, thongs and other things that he immediately tosses away with a reassuring tilt of his pretty head.

You don’t mind it though.  He enjoys it, thrives on it, and you’re there to support him.

But you’d never expected this.

This Adonis standing in the doorway, freshly styled strands pushed back from his forehead, glimmering gold falling across his eyes.  He looks, for lack of a better word, unreal.

(You’re not often speechless.  Can’t be, when you’re dating someone like Jeon Jungkook and everything he does either makes you laugh or infuriates you.  Boring isn’t a part of his vocabulary and you’ve learnt to keep up with his antics over the years.)

(Still, this comes close, stealing all the air from your lungs.)

“Hey, baby.”  It’s his usual greeting, offered without hesitation as he crosses the threshold and tosses his keys into the catch-all by the door.  Kicks off his chunky sneakers and peels his sweater over his head, effectively tousling the tawny threads.

He’s so handsome it’s outright disgusting, leaving you gaping up at him from your post on the couch.  Gives you very little to work with as he shimmies down the hall, grabs an apple off the kitchen island, and then not-so-gracefully plops himself down beside you.  

You still haven’t found your words by the time he takes two gigantic bites, flesh crunching between his teeth, big doe eyes sparkling like he’s stepped right out of a Disney film.

“D’you like it?”  

Did you?  Well, obviously.

You’ve never imagined Jungkook blond.  He’d gone through a phase in college, colours of the rainbow rotating through the ends of his hair.  Brown, red, orange, blue.  You’d loved each hue but this was something else entirely.  (Different even from the two months he’d spent as full-on ginger, committing far too hard to his Haikyuu!! Halloween costume.)

This version of him is steeped in some twisted fantasy, a dream crafted by years of bedtime stories and happily ever afters.  It screams Prince Charming and has you reaching for him before you know what you’re doing, threading fingers through the surprisingly soft silk that curls over his ears and looks so lovely next to the silver of his piercings.  

You mean to be gentle, to comb delicately through flax but fuck.  He looks so good you want to devour him.  (You can only imagine your face - a lovesick puppy brought home from the pound.)

There’s still apple in his mouth, juice tracking down his chin because you’re really making it quite hard for him to chew when you’ve got him like this, two hands on either side of his face, holding him in place.  Inspecting him like a piece of meat as he peers at you, deceptively innocent and amused.  “That’s a yes?”  

An answer comes in the form of a kiss, of limbs rearranging and settling directly into his lap.  Knees wide, chest to chest, you can’t even be bothered by the sickly sticky feel of his skin, the way his hands are too cold to be creeping up beneath the hem of your - his - shirt.

(Where had he put the apple?  You know it’s not finished, two bites in and left to roll all over the rug.  You’ll give him shit for that later, when you’re not so distracted.)

“You look like Barbie,”  you mumble against his lips, into the warmth of his mouth.  You ignore the way he laughs, swallowing it down with a pass of your tongue and too much spit swapped, a string of saliva caught between you when you come up for air. 

Somehow, you’re still lightheaded, all your thoughts framed into the familiar silhouette of the boy beneath you.  Cherry red lips - your fault, from all your biting and teasing and the balm you’d applied earlier - and blond hair.  Who would’ve known that was your weakness?

(Deep down, you know Jungkook as a whole is the issue.  That it’s your stupid handsome boyfriend with his lopsided smile and bunny teeth, dimples and that scar on his cheek.  This is just a new layer to be explored, another reason you love him added to the Jungkook Best Boy jar that sits front and centre in your mind’s eye.)

“Don’t say that,”  he groans, equal parts reproach and affection, palms resting where they belong, nestled over your spine.  Long fingers toy with the soft cotton of your thong, brushing over the seamless material with small repetitive motions. 

You realise then his hands aren’t the only things heating up.

The two of you have an understanding, an abiding awareness of the boundaries of your relationship and the roles you take on.  Best friend, occasional sucker for the sake of a TikTok, lover.

He knows how much you hate your dirty laundry being aired - does his very best to never post anything that might be misconstrued, ensures he only ever portrays you in a good light because the internet could be cruel.  (Even if he argued with you in the quiet of your home, he’d keep you safe outside of the four walls.)  

You know how he needs his quiet time but that sometimes, a night out was unavoidable, a part of his life he - and by extension you - couldn’t always say no to.  (Even if you were achy and tired by midnight, glaring down at your phone as he made his rounds, exchanged contact details and rambled about shit that meant nothing.)

He’s learnt to make your eggs the way you love them:  soft in the centre, covered with too much pepper.  He never washes your clothes in hot water (not after The Great Sweater debacle) and he always makes sure not to use your special memory foam pillow.  

You kiss him goodnight without fail and play with his hair until he falls asleep;  you bury your face against his chest when he’s had a long day, signing your love with the felt-tip of your lips.  You bring him fresh cut fruit when he’s been working for more than three hours and wash his hair when he’s stressed. 

Knowing each other was easy;  loving each other was like breathing.

This, though, is different.  New.  Special.  

He’s never been like this before, glazed over in the eyes, patience wearing thin.  Sat so well, picture perfect beneath you and cornsilk crown lighting his entire expression up like a halo, he’s ethereal. 

“Baby,”  he whines, grits through his teeth as you roll your hips that much slower, the glide impossibly smooth thanks to the lychee watermelon lube he’d received to his PO box.  (One of the items you hadn’t thrown away from that package, together with a handful of other toys that’d come in handy over the months.)

You’re shameless, soothing a hand across his cheek, thumb slipping past his lips.  (You ignore the noise of indignation, meet it with a twinkling laugh of your own.)  It sweeps over his tongue, pressing down in tandem with the second sound - one that echoes out of his chest, a growl that pitches into a whine and makes your ears buzz.  “Hi, baby.”

“Stop teasing.”  It’s practically begging - or as close to it as Jungkook will get.  It draws a smile and another pass of your thumb, gliding across his gums to slot against the interior of his cheek.  You’ve got him fishhooked, immobile, even as he glares up at you.

(He’s so, so handsome.  Looks utterly out of it even as he tries to harden his gaze, coerce you into doing what he wants with that stare that makes your heart lurch pathetically in your chest.)

“You don’t like this?”

You know he does - that he loves being pampered.  That he’ll rarely ask, instead pouting at you from wherever he sits until you turn to putty under his gaze and smother him in all the love you have to offer.

“I do.  I just—”  The rest of his words don’t come, stolen by a gasp when you grind against him, swollen head of his cock bumping against your clit.  He’s making a mess of you both, back arching, hips rising, hands fisted into the sheets even as he chases friction like a dog does its tail.  The warmth between your legs is so close he looks as if he’ll lose his mind, rutting against your cunt like just the right angle might get him what he wants.  “Fuck, baby.”

“I’m trying,”  you retort, mouthful of teasing that only earns you another glare, some poor semblance of one as he bites into the webbing of your hand, bucks up impatiently.

“Please.”  He tries again, a different tactic this time, all sugar-spun sweetness.  Strawberry shortcake rather than sour cherry pie, so eager to get what he wants that he’s not above pulling out all the stops.  A hand risen from the sheets, digits decorated in ink swimming over your skin, sinking into the meat of your thigh.

(He doesn’t push though.  Knows you’ll pull the moment he does.)

“Please?”  An echo chamber, endlessly teasing, and a ducked head, lips finding the sweat-slick column of his throat.  Just one drag of your tongue has him crumbling further, careful composure slipping with each swivel of your hips, the edge of your teeth.  There’s nothing but desperation radiating off him, demand choked back when you drift lower, tracing over his chest, teasing him in the ways you know best.  

It’s all so unnecessary, drawing out what he wants until he’s a goner, three seconds from combusting beneath you.  You’d give him anything he ever asked for - offer it all up on a silver plate, a meal fit for a king.  This is just fun, different and exciting. 

You relent with a minor adjustment, settling yourself against him, face dropped into the crook of his neck.  “Slowly.”

He repeats after you, uncertain and hopeful;  his hand falls further, warmth descending to pull you close, hold you still.   As much as he needs this - needs you - he loves the slow burn just as much.  The stutter of his pulse gives him away, erratic beneath your touch.  He’s a thousand miles above the clouds, floating on cloud nine;  every second passed is another tingle of his toes, a tightening of the coil in his stomach.

When he aligns himself against your core, pre-cum pearling over his tip, he does exactly as you’ve asked.  Sinks into you at such a leisurely pace you wonder if you might be the one who splinters apart, shatters into a million tiny pieces at the way he splits you open.  

“Good?”  Jungkook asks so nicely it’s impossible for you to say no, to deny him this tiny bit of reassurance.  

(Maybe it’s the way he looks, crowned in glittering gold, painted by Fra Angelico.  Or maybe it’s how his smile spills like sunshine, a peachy pink horizon dragging over the apples of his cheeks, burnt red like their namesake.)

(Whatever it is, it’s everything you want, packed perfectly and pouting.)

“Good boy,”  you purr, breath hitching once he’s sheathed to the hilt, seated so deeply within that you swear you can feel him in your throat.

You’ve never felt so full before - close to overflow, taunted and taxed by ridges and veins, each flex of his hips that drives him somehow further within your fluttering walls.  So full you might burst, that you can’t possibly hold yourself together when he begins to move, fucking you tenderly, as if he can feel the weight of the moment.  

There’s something happening.  A shift in the air, in the axis of your planet that revolves around him.  It falls on its side, spins wildly out of control, and you’re emotional.  It’s not just his hair - that gilded crown he wears, heavy heavy heavy like aureate coin - or the impossible dark of his eyes - blown out, an entire galaxy devoured by the supermassive black hole that is his pupils.  It’s the things you can’t see, the pieces beneath skin, soft and jammy, the tongue-tart sweetness.

(The thing with Jungkook is that he doesn’t let go, refuses to fully submit, always so careful to regulate his voice when things get to be too much.  He’ll blink back his tears, stifle a sob, even as his breath disappears from nothing but a delicate brush of his chest.)

You take his vulnerability as a treasure, hold it close and craft a chest for its home, promise to keep it safe even while you're the one who poses the most danger.  When it’s your teeth and tongue that eviscerates the soft of his flesh, makes him keen and gasp, heart pounding like hooves, beat imprinted against, under, into your palms.

When he begs you to move - manages the request in a broken articulation that makes you giggle - you give, swivel your hips in a figure eight, an infinity of motion that never ends.  

You take all he has to offer and sing your praise into the wet of his mouth.  Lick over teeth and gums and trade spit for love;  know there’s only more where that came from, that the fountain begs to overflow as he finally - finally - breaks that much more, gripping your hips gentle as can be.  Hands soothe up and down, an unspoken plea in how he thumbs your hip bones, taps hopefully over the small of your lower back.

He doesn’t need to speak for you to hear him. 

It’s more than a kiss forming against your skin.  It’s a confession of adoration, sealed by the frame of his mouth, cemented by the sting of his teeth.  It’s I love you without saying it, plastering the pecks along your spine, placing them safely in all the spaces you’ve created for him.

It’s also an apology, because he’s just torn your castle to pieces, shattered your entire fantasy into smithereens.

He hadn’t expected you to react the way you had, rolling off him as if he hadn’t just been chasing the sweet bliss of release, splitting your walls and making you wail above him.  It has him pouting, utilising the one thing that melts you down like candle wax.  

“Baby,”  he whines, reaching for you, needy and horny and so hard he imagines all the blood has rushed from his head straight to his cock.  Everything spins when he moves with you, scrambles across the California king to paw at your hip.  

He’d been so good for you - wasn’t that enough?

“Don’t,”  you grumble, searing his insides with just one look.  (It shouldn’t be as hot as it is.)

“But—”  A plea punctuated by groping hands, eager as always, smoothing over the swell of your ass, flesh squeezing between knuckles.  He’d normally let this go - fuck into his closed fist in the shower after he’s done something to cut playtime short - but he can’t help it now.  He’s been on the edge for so long, lit up in neon that demands to be seen, heard, felt.

“Don’t dye it again.”  

Oh?

That has him reeling, laughing, such a stupid grin across his face.  It devours everything else, spearing dimples into place as he pulls you against him.  You can feel his smile forming against your skin, the wet drag of his tongue as he sucks a welt into the sensitive spot of your shoulder.

“You wanna play with Barbie, baby?”  It’s such a stupid line - utterly sophomoric and riddled with teasing and yet the delivery has you shivering in his arms, equally childish huff splitting your lips.

Jungkook doesn’t listen to you often - not about silly things like this - but he figures he can, just this once.

“I won’t,”  he chirps, sneaking another kiss, stamping another smooch.  It’s working exactly as he wants, stilling your protesting limbs as he cages you to him, slips his hand back where he most wants to be.  The glide is perfect, a mixture of arousal and fruity lubricant;  he slips a finger in without resistance, grinding his palm against your clit. 

“R-really?”  Of course you don’t believe him.  He messes with you too often, plays too many pranks.  (He deserves that.) 

His promise comes too easy, driven by how nice you feel, how pretty you sound when he presses another digit in along the first.  The scissor of his fingers is languid, exploring for the spots that make you breathless as he hums a noise of affirmation against your neck;  he fucks you open as if he has to, as if you aren’t already dripping, eagerly sucking him in.  “Really.”  

“Put it in then, Ken doll.”

He laughs - and then he does.  In bed, with your knee hooked over his, pace slow and sure and sinful.  In the shower, bent over with his hands bruising your hips.  In the kitchen for a late night snack, another apple in his mouth and your hands in his hair.

Maybe blonds did have more fun. 

tag list.  @neverthefirstchoice​ @youwannabelostandnotbefound​ @codeinebelle​

[boldlyvoid]

ain't it fun? | part 4

Summary: reader just needs an NA meeting before they have a meltdown, they end up with the best friend they could ever make.

Warnings: chronic illness, hurt/comfort, drug use**! spencer and reader smoke weed together; talks of relapse and recovery. Also, a case involving child abductions, getting engaged, love confessions

word count: 2.4k

a/n: not sure how long this is going to keep getting but I am enjoying adding to it

P1 P2 P3

Days like today suck.

She can’t get out of bed, she’s so hungry her stomach is swirling and screaming and there’s a pain in her intestines that feels like someone is eating her from the inside out but she can’t move… and she has to pee but her legs hurt and her head is pounding from the light. It’s 6 am according to the alarm clock, Spencer hasn’t left for work yet and she’s already missing him.

She manages to make it to the bathroom, sitting there for too long after because she can’t find the courage to stand back up.

“Why?” She whispers to herself before the tears start.

Covering her face as she cries, she’s still sitting on the toilet with her underwear around her ankles, sobbing as Spencer walks in.

He helps her up without asking, he’s seen too many bad mornings now to ask if she needs help, he just knows she wants to go back to bed, so he fixes her underwear and picks her up.

When he finally lays her down with all her pillows, he lowers the temperature in the room to relax her bones and gets her a ginger ale to help with the nausea from the pain she’s in. It is a regular occurrence for her to wake up and feel like she’s dying, but Spencer was wonderful when dealing with it.

He’s in the kitchen for a while, she’s worried he’s making something for her to eat that she’ll have to lovingly turn away because she can’t do it right now. Her throat is too tight and it hurts to swallow or talk.

She can hear him talking… he’s on the phone with someone.

When he comes back in, he cuddles into her the way he knows she likes. Soothing his hands over her back in a way that helps the pain while also helping her feel like she’s not alone in all of this. He’ll never understand; but he loves her, so a part of him feels it too.

“You called out?” She whispers against his chest.

He nods, his cheek resting on the top of her head as she feels the friction. “I don’t feel good when you don’t feel good.”

“I’m sorry you had to help.”

He’s told her time and time again that he doesn’t mind.

He would kill for her, he’d clean up the mess if she killed someone. He’d even dig the fucking grave if she needed him too… he wasn’t opposed to being there for her no matter what that entailed.

She just hated the fact he had to, he knew her apology came from her hatred of herself and not the fact she felt sorry for him. She loved the help, it made her feel loved until she felt disappointed in herself for needing it.

“Do you want your medicine?”

She smiles finally, “if you mean my secret joint stash— yes, but if you can’t handle being around me like that, then I don’t need it today.”

“I think I’d like to try it,” Spencer whispers. “If you can smoke weed and not relapse then I think I can too?”

“Probably, but if you can’t, I’ll support you however you need me to?” She smiles up at him, he kisses the tip of her nose as she kisses his chin.

Getting high with Spencer is… interesting to say the least. He doesn’t want a full hit, he just wants a taste and so she takes a drag and blows the smoke from her lungs to his. Sharing a part of themselves in a way they never expected before, this is his most vulnerable moment and he was trusting her with it.

The sunshine hits his face in such a perfect way that as they lay side by side, she can watch his pupil devour his iris as he gets high. Their breathing is steady and their fingers are interlocked. They’re content just blinking together, in the sunshine, quiet. In love.

Her body is so calm, and her mind is slow as she takes it all in and he looks so relaxed. He’s not jittery or caffeine-deprived like most mornings; he’s not anxious or stressed or trying to find a way to pretend he’s fine before leaving for work again, only to come home sad.

He’s okay.

She’s okay.

“It's nice,” he whispers, “but it’s not as good as you.”

She smiles, trying not to laugh at how his thoughts are going to be all jumbled for the next few hours. He’s going to be smart yet stupid at the same time and she couldn’t fucking wait to hear all the things he thinks of.

“I know what you mean,” she agrees.

“This is like a tidal wave..." his ramble starts and she is so excited to see where it takes them. "A tsunami that rushes and relieves just as quickly." His eyes are closed as he talks, visualizing his feelings and it makes her giddy.

"You’re like a volcano; there are so many stages before mass destruction, and even then there’s still the ash cloud and the debris and the lava dries like rocks… the destruction is total and the cleanup will be brutal.”

“I’m addicted to you," his eyes are closed as he talks, visualizing his feelings and it makes her giddy. "Drugs are boring and you’re not,” Simplifying his meaning as his eyes open again.

“I love you,” he says with the same certainty as the first time.

“I love you, too, Spencer,” she didn’t think they’d go down this path when she was blowing into his mouth, she expected him to panic or get horny.

“I don’t think I’ve ever really told you how much.”

He shakes his head lightly, “I wouldn’t be opposed to knowing.”

If she thinks it over, she’ll abandon ship before she can tell him, so she just jumps into it.

“I was a little scared to ask you to help me lock my door that first day because I thought you’d think I was just some junky who couldn’t get their shit together. But the second you asked if I had a local group and you helped me; that was the moment I knew I wanted you in my life for forever.”

He smiles, silent so she can keep going. He’ll take his turn when she’s really done.

“And then when we got to talking it was like I knew you already. Like I had your memories in my mind and as you told me things I was like well duh! Yeah, that’s my Spencer! I don’t know how it happened so fast. One minute you’re a stranger and the next you’re the only person I ever want to see for the rest of my entire fucking life,” it’s more passionate than she expected as she rambles on.

“I can’t get married on paper without losing my disability, but I don’t give a fuck about a piece of paper or someone officially giving us that title one day, I’m content just staying in this bed with you for the rest of time and never moving again.”

He looks like he’s about to explode with love as he presses his lips together in the softest smile. He can’t keep quiet any longer, “are you asking me to spend the rest of my life with you but not marry you?”

She laughs at the realization, “I think so?”

They’re trying to kiss but it ends up more like laughing with their mouths touching and teeth occasionally clashing. It’s hysterical because of the marijuana, sure, but they’re high on each other. It’s everything they’ve ever wanted.

To find something better than drugs; that little purpose in life comes back, that drive to see tomorrow because there are good memories to be made with their favourite person. She’s not afraid of the darkness or the unknowing anymore, Spencer’s her guiding light.

He's holding her close to his chest after a while, "are you feeling better?"

"Of course," she smiles, "I've got my weed and my reid."

His laugh is everything as it fills their space again. This was how the rest of her life was going to feel, and it made her excited for tomorrow.

—

She’s feeling a lot better later and they need Spencer to help Penelope back at work, but he doesn’t want to leave her. She’s in sweats with a blanket on her lap in the corner of Penelope’s office, a book in her hand and a coffee on the table beside her as she listens to them bicker back and forth.

“If you hack the NSA we can no longer use all this as evidence if he’s brought in alive, Penelope!” Spencer whisper shouts at her, afraid to raise his voice at her but wanting to get his point across.

“Hotch needs the aerial shots like yesterday, and the NSA won't get them to us in time for this kid!” She yells back.

“Call google…” Y/N suggests, flipping through her book.

“What?” Spencer looks at her like she just said the dumbest thing ever.

“They’re taking photos constantly for their maps program, my mom was saying our new roof is now on the updated map. They might have all the photos saved up, if the FBI asks nicely they might work with you…” she explains, pressing her lips together in a tight smile.

“You’re a genius!” Penelope shouts, dialling the phone and getting JJ to work his media magic for contact at google.

Spencer's smile is one she hasn’t seen before, he’s not only proud of her; he looks a little turned on. She just cracked the case by knowing all the little hacks about the internet as part of her day job. She lived online, and now she was saving lives because of it.

It was a good case to help on, she got to see 3 kids go home to their parents and know a terrible man was going to rot in prison for the rest of his sad and pathetic life. The hard part was seeing them go through months of footage of this guy's yard, seeing the child-sized holes he dug up. The disrupted earth and the knowledge of what happened when there wasn’t picture proof.

—

They go to a meeting after work.

They sit side by side, her leg is crossed and resting over his knee as their arms are linked and fingers interlocked. They really couldn’t be any closer if they tried. They just wanted to listen today, to know they were in a room of people who were trying, people who understood and battled every bad feeling they did.

“Y/N,” the group leader calls her out just before the end of the meeting, “it’s nice to see you back here with Spencer, we heard you found another group but it’s nice to see you here for the support.”

“Thank you,” she smiled. “I’m sorry I couldn’t stay, but as you can see he is distracting.” She gestured to how they were sitting with a small giggle. “I like coming here if you guys don’t mind me occasionally dropping by?”

“By all means,” another member, carol, spoke up. “Spencer is a great sponsor, it’s nice to see him happy.”

She didn’t know he was a sponsor but he thanks her for the compliment, it turns out almost everyone in his group turned to Spencer for support. It was comforting to everyone there to know the real, chemical and biological reasoning behind their addictions. Spencer provided a sense of calm for all of them, like a younger brother; they all loved him dearly.

They’re still holding hands as they walk home, the sun is still setting and it's barely even 7 pm. All the lights on the street are on, shops are closing and the sidewalks are bare. One store is still open however, across the street, she can see the big storefront window, illuminated with the brightest lights to show off a new collection of rings.

“Do you want one?” He notices her eyes darting to the light like a moth to a flame.

“What?” She zones back in when he stops walking.

“A ring, do you want to get one?” He clarifies with the softest voice.

She nods softly, “you should get one too though, seeing as I asked you and everything.”

He grips her hand tighter and they dart across the street. Giggling like children running to the playground, they’re almost out of breath from laughing as they open the shop door with a ding. Smiles on their faces, joy in their hearts, it makes the shop owner swoon as she sees them.

“Did you just get engaged?” She pries with a knowing smile.

They nod, “we just need some rings,” Y/N adds.

She waves them over, “well I’m going to need our sizes first, here try these on.” She hands them what looks like a thin ruler with holes spaces out.

Y/N attempts to find the right one, fitting the best into the 9 and a half. Spencer fits into the 11 on the first try like he knew already and the woman just laughs at the way Y/N glares at him with love.

“What kind of rings are we thinking? Do you have a preferred cut, style, size, or colour?”

It’s a lot all at once and she’s never really thought about it, “I love my grandma's ring, do you have any vintage styles?”

“I have vintage-style rings as well as some restored rings from the '20s and '30s,” she brings out a jewellery box from under the counter. “These are all appraised and unique.”

When she takes the lid off, Y/N’s eyes widen at the view. There are at least 50 rings in their velvet beds as they wait patiently to be tried on; all different shapes sizes and colours like she said. It feels a little overwhelming at first but then her eyes land on a green one. She takes it out slowly and slides it over her ring finger.

It’s perfect.

Spencer picks out a nice gold band to match, he pays and the lady is so happy to watch them leave hand in hand with their new rings. Dedicated to each other forever and ever, he was her person for the rest of time because he said so and that’s as good as a piece of paper.

She’s a completely different person from who she was when she woke up; twirling down the street with the love of her life, high on loving him as he makes her laugh and holds her hand. He stops in the middle of the street and places his hands on her cheeks, drawing her in closer.

“Loving you is so much fun.”

“Ain’t it fun?” She agrees with a smile before pressing their lips together.

taglist:

@g0lden-cth @doctorspenceryeet @samuel-de-champagne-problems @reiding-recs @ssavanessa22 @spookyspence @shemarmooresfedora @spencers-dria@reidsfish @manuosorioh @mochionly @jswessie187 @k-k0129 @calm-and-doctor

[incorrectgreekgods]

My Friend’s Opinions On Various Greek Gods From Greek Mythology

Let me preface this by saying- I’m the one into mythology. My friends are going off of a two month unit three years ago and whatever mythology they’ve read/absorbed from modern media. None of this is taken to be offensive, and it is all based off of Ancient Greek Mythology and not hellenic polytheism. 

Now! Here are five of my friend’s impressions:

Isadora

Zeus - whore Poseidon - water Hades - meanie Persephone - gets caught by meanie Demeter - no fuckign idea Hera - i think she's a mommy? Hestia - also no fucking idea Athena - big brains Hermes - hehe that's my bestie Apollo - golden hourrrr Artemis - baddie asf Hephaestus - big muscle blacksmith Aphrodite - pretty Ares - meanier meanie Dionysus - naked drunkard

Santana

Zeus - needs to keep it in his pants Poseidon - water guy Hades - vibes=immaculate minus him being like a killer Persephone - she’s chill funny Demeter - idk this man Hera - a little jelly of her mans but she’s chill Hestia - idk this girl Athena - thriving Hermes - speedy man with funny shoes Apollo - bow and arrow guy i think Artemis - baddie Hephaestus - who is this man Aphrodite - pretty one i think Ares - needs anger management Dionysus - drunk uncle

Sasha (who popped off???)

Zeus ⁃god sky, lightning, etc. ⁃sleeps with literally anything that breathes ⁃Terrible husband to Hera but they somehow make it work ⁃Last son to be barfed up by Kronos ⁃Leader of the gods (but like super bad at his job because the gods are always fighting?)

Poseidon ⁃Water ⁃Likes his angry, drunk cyclops children ⁃Sleeps with a lot of things too but is overshadowed by Zeus

Hades ⁃Death ⁃Hella depressed ⁃Honestly a pretty chill dude until her abducts women ⁃Husband to persephone ⁃The third wheel of him, Zeus, and Poseidon

Persephone ⁃Purple, flowers ⁃Demeter’s daughter ⁃Hot as fuck ⁃Pretty chill after being kidnapped ⁃Married Hades - lil bit of a shady situation but whatever they seem happy

Demeter ⁃Agriculture, growing ⁃Carries a scythe around and honestly that’s so badass ⁃“What sort of women doesn’t have an axe?” vibes ⁃idk what else I mean got super mad when her daughter was abducted but Id be concerned if she wasn’t

Hera ⁃Marriage, family ⁃Kinda ironic seeing as her husband is cheating on her 24/7 ⁃But also their marriage has stayed together so maybe she does have the secret to making a successful partnership ⁃Anyways she is jealous of zeus ⁃OH also she turns the lovers of his she catches into animals which sucks for the lovers but DAMN I love her

Hestia ⁃hearth, home ⁃SO sweet ⁃Nobody on Olympus deserves her ⁃Poseidon tried to marry her which in my opinion was a terrible idea

Athena ⁃Wisdom, strategy, cunning, war ⁃Thriving hard ⁃Big brain moment ⁃Um owl? ⁃Makes fun of other gods while they make fun of her but she always wins

Hermes ⁃Traveling, messages (LMAO originally I wrote massages and now I can totally see it) ⁃Sneaky little shit ⁃Has little shoes with wings and two snakes ⁃Makes stupid mistakes but manages to get out of punishment ⁃Gay ⁃Gay for Apollo  

Apollo ⁃Sun, music, arts ⁃Muses (I think he’s slept with all of them right?) ⁃Would 100% be the most followed person on Insta just for his golden hour shots ⁃Pan ⁃Gay for Hermes

Artemis ⁃Hunting, forrest, femininity ⁃Fucking awesome ⁃Sleeps with all her huntresses but it just hits different than Zeus ⁃Bow and arrow and other cool stuff to kill people  

Hephaestus ⁃Forge, metal work, armory, blacksmith ⁃Chucked from mount Olympus when he was a baby ⁃Serious daddy and mommy issues ⁃Loves Aphrodite but she is just not on the same level

Aphrodite ⁃Love, beauty ⁃Doesn’t seem to give two shits about anyone but she’s honestly thriving ⁃She and ares are in a thing but she’s definitely owning that relationship

Ares ⁃War ⁃Stupid? idk he seems to loose every war he starts ⁃Loves of Aphrodite but he knows he’s about to lose her

Dionysus ⁃Drunk all the time ⁃Um I literally have no idea what he does other than party and get drunk ⁃Respect for his lack of goals in life

Emily

Zeus - wanna lightning bolt your small dick off Poseidon - cool water guy who made Odysseus’ life bad lol TEAM POSEIDON Hades - underworld dude with a weird ass dog. kidnapped then married Persephone. Reminds me of creepy old men on the internet your parents warn you about.   Persephone - fucking hot and should be more appreciative that hades wants her that badly (jealousy) Demeter - seriously please hack my face off w your scythe my agricultural top Hera - milf. that’s all. AND WAY TOO GOOD FOR SMALL DICK MAN Hestia - hearth? Huh? Athena - baddest bitch around. intelligent, owl, blood kink, probably. Hermes - mailman with shoe game. GAY Apollo - music, the sun, def part of the lgbtq+ community. Artemis - BADDEST BITCH AROUND. Huntress, cool weapons, and i would pay so much money to have her rail me dominatrix style ( bring the bow please) Hephaestus - blacksmith right? simps for Aphrodite (as he should). mommy AND daddy issues. Aphrodite - beauty, love, hot asf Ares - war, and has serious anger issues. I’ll give you my therapists card babe Dionysus - drunk all the time, reminds me of moms who have the wine glasses that say “it’s moms turn to wine”.

Norie

Zeus - shitty husband, couldn’t keep it in his pants Poseidon - water guy, hate this mf cause of Medusa, def least fav god Hades - underworld ruler, people who like him think their quirky (Ik cause it used to be me) Persephone - so hot, pls rail me, sry she got stockholm syndrome but like I would be flattered if anyone cared enough to kidnap me Demeter - top, grain mf, could fuck me with her scythe Hera - could top me, needed a good divorce lawyer Hestia - goddess of hearth? Don’t rly know much abt her but like I think she’s the oldest of her siblings Athena - smart one, owl bitch, also a whore for war Hermes - idk remember much, mischief, wings? Apollo - bisexual disaster, music bitch Artemis - hunter, could shoot me with her bow and I would say thank you Hephaestus - no thoughts at all, wait is this the guy who was with Pandora? Idk but like I think he was a blacksmith Aphrodite - hot Ares - war, a little over the top Dionysus - drunk, alcohol addiction rivals isadora’s