#but it doesn't seem possible on the computer

[gabbingwaves]

The Corroded Ruins

As long as the plants can grow, there is hope for our survival. I believe someone will come to rescue us. We won’t die here. We will be saved.

[databent]

why the fuck is it that some people cant seem to acknowledge that people can just... be disabled. not through any fault of their own, not because something "happened" to them, just because, you know, sometimes people have disabilities. like, come on

[vikasgarden]

𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐢𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐧𝐝?

Written for a science fiction book so your death could show off someone’s power

You are very good at being aware of your surroundings… just not when it mattered most. You have very little care for yourself and instead care more about others and what you deem to be “good”. This of course ends up with you being a sacrifice. Not only that but your death is simply overshadowed by showing off just how powerful this villain is.

tagged by: @ashbalfour tagging: @dragonul-de-aur , @ghula-herz , @verflcht , @shadowpunk & You!

[guinevereslancelot]

lazy girlies help me out: what is the easiest job you've ever had that one could get with an associate's or less

[river-taxbird]

AI hasn't improved in 18 months. It's likely that this is it. There is currently no evidence the capabilities of ChatGPT will ever improve. It's time for AI companies to put up or shut up.

I'm just re-iterating this excellent post from Ed Zitron, but it's not left my head since I read it and I want to share it. I'm also taking some talking points from Ed's other posts. So basically:

We keep hearing AI is going to get better and better, but these promises seem to be coming from a mix of companies engaging in wild speculation and lying.

Chatgpt, the industry leading large language model, has not materially improved in 18 months. For something that claims to be getting exponentially better, it sure is the same shit.

Hallucinations appear to be an inherent aspect of the technology. Since it's based on statistics and ai doesn't know anything, it can never know what is true. How could I possibly trust it to get any real work done if I can't rely on it's output? If I have to fact check everything it says I might as well do the work myself.

For "real" ai that does know what is true to exist, it would require us to discover new concepts in psychology, math, and computing, which open ai is not working on, and seemingly no other ai companies are either.

Open ai has already seemingly slurped up all the data from the open web already. Chatgpt 5 would take 5x more training data than chatgpt 4 to train. Where is this data coming from, exactly?

Since improvement appears to have ground to a halt, what if this is it? What if Chatgpt 4 is as good as LLMs can ever be? What use is it?

As Jim Covello, a leading semiconductor analyst at Goldman Sachs said (on page 10, and that's big finance so you know they only care about money): if tech companies are spending a trillion dollars to build up the infrastructure to support ai, what trillion dollar problem is it meant to solve? AI companies have a unique talent for burning venture capital and it's unclear if Open AI will be able to survive more than a few years unless everyone suddenly adopts it all at once. (Hey, didn't crypto and the metaverse also require spontaneous mass adoption to make sense?)

There is no problem that current ai is a solution to. Consumer tech is basically solved, normal people don't need more tech than a laptop and a smartphone. Big tech have run out of innovations, and they are desperately looking for the next thing to sell. It happened with the metaverse and it's happening again.

In summary:

Ai hasn't materially improved since the launch of Chatgpt4, which wasn't that big of an upgrade to 3.

There is currently no technological roadmap for ai to become better than it is. (As Jim Covello said on the Goldman Sachs report, the evolution of smartphones was openly planned years ahead of time.) The current problems are inherent to the current technology and nobody has indicated there is any way to solve them in the pipeline. We have likely reached the limits of what LLMs can do, and they still can't do much.

Don't believe AI companies when they say things are going to improve from where they are now before they provide evidence. It's time for the AI shills to put up, or shut up.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Amazon illegally interferes with an historic UK warehouse election

I'm in to TARTU, ESTONIA! Overcoming the Enshittocene (Monday, May 8, 6PM, Prima Vista Literary Festival keynote, University of Tartu Library, Struwe 1). AI, copyright and creative workers' labor rights (May 10, 8AM: Science Fiction Research Association talk, Institute of Foreign Languages and Cultures building, Lossi 3, lobby). A talk for hackers on seizing the means of computation (May 10, 3PM, University of Tartu Delta Centre, Narva 18, room 1037).

Amazon is very good at everything it does, including being very bad at the things it doesn't want to do. Take signing up for Prime: nothing could be simpler. The company has built a greased slide from Prime-curiosity to Prime-confirmed that is the envy of every UX designer.

But unsubscribing from Prime? That's a fucking nightmare. Somehow the company that can easily figure out how to sign up for a service is totally baffled when it comes to making it just as easy to leave. Now, there's two possibilities here: either Amazon's UX competence is a kind of erratic freak tide that sweeps in at unpredictable intervals and hits these unbelievable high-water marks, or the company just doesn't want to let you leave.

To investigate this question, let's consider a parallel: Black Flag's Roach Motel. This is an icon of American design, a little brown cardboard box that is saturated in irresistibly delicious (to cockroaches, at least) pheromones. These powerful scents make it admirably easy for all the roaches in your home to locate your Roach Motel and enter it.

But the interior of the Roach Motel is also coated in a sticky glue. Once roaches enter the motel, their legs and bodies brush up against this glue and become hopeless mired in it. A roach can't leave – not without tearing off its own legs.

It's possible that Black Flag made a mistake here. Maybe they wanted to make it just as easy for a roach to leave as it is to enter. If that seems improbable to you, well, you're right. We don't even have to speculate, we can just refer to Black Flag's slogan for Roach Motel: "Roaches check in, but they don't check out."

It's intentional, and we know that because they told us so.

Back to Amazon and Prime. Was it some oversight that cause the company make it so marvelously painless to sign up for Prime, but such a titanic pain in the ass to leave? Again, no speculation is required, because Amazon's executives exchanged a mountain of internal memos in which this is identified as a deliberate strategy, by which they deliberately chose to trick people into signing up for Prime and then hid the means of leaving Prime. Prime is a Roach Motel: users check in, but they don't check out:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/03/big-tech-cant-stop-telling-on-itself/

When it benefits Amazon, they are obsessive – "relentless" (Bezos's original for the company) – about user friendliness. They value ease of use so highly that they even patented "one click checkout" – the incredibly obvious idea that a company that stores your shipping address and credit card could let you buy something with a single click:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-Click#Patent

But when it benefits Amazon to place obstacles in our way, they are even more relentless in inventing new forms of fuckery, spiteful little landmines they strew in our path. Just look at how Amazon deals with unionization efforts in its warehouses.

Amazon's relentless union-busting spans a wide diversity of tactics. On the one hand, they cook up media narratives to smear organizers, invoking racist dog-whistles to discredit workers who want a better deal:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/apr/02/amazon-chris-smalls-smart-articulate-leaked-memo

On the other hand, they collude with federal agencies to make workers afraid that their secret ballots will be visible to their bosses, exposing them to retaliation:

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/amazon-violated-labor-law-alabama-union-election-labor-official-finds-rcna1582

They hold Cultural Revolution-style forced indoctrination meetings where they illegally threaten workers with punishment for voting in favor of their union:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/31/business/economy/amazon-union-staten-island-nlrb.html

And they fire Amazon tech workers who express solidarity with warehouse workers:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/amazon-fires-tech-employees-workers-criticism-warehouse-climate-policies/

But all this is high-touch, labor-intensive fuckery. Amazon, as we know, loves automation, and so it automates much of its union-busting: for example, it created an employee chat app that refused to deliver any message containing words like "fairness" or "grievance":

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/05/doubleplusrelentless/#quackspeak

Amazon also invents implausible corporate fictions that allow it to terminate entire sections of its workforce for trying to unionize, by maintaining the tormented pretense that these workers, who wear Amazon uniforms, drive Amazon trucks, deliver Amazon packages, and are tracked by Amazon down to the movements of their eyeballs, are, in fact, not Amazon employees:

https://www.wired.com/story/his-drivers-unionized-then-amazon-tried-to-terminate-his-contract/

These workers have plenty of cause to want to unionize. Amazon warehouses are sources of grueling torment. Take "megacycling," a ten-hour shift that runs from 1:20AM to 11:50AM that workers are plunged into without warning or the right to refuse. This isn't just a night shift – it's a night shift that makes it impossible to care for your children or maintain any kind of normal life.

Then there's Jeff Bezos's war on his workers' kidneys. Amazon warehouse workers and drivers notoriously have to pee in bottles, because they are monitored by algorithms that dock their pay for taking bathroom breaks. The road to Amazon's warehouse in Coventry, England is littered with sealed bottles of driver piss, defenestrated by drivers before they reach the depot inspection site.

There's so much piss on the side of the Coventry road that the prankster Oobah Butler was able to collect it, decant it into bottles, and market it on Amazon as an energy beverage called "Bitter Lemon Release Energy," where it briefly became Amazon's bestselling energy drink:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/20/release-energy/#the-bitterest-lemon

(Butler promises that he didn't actually ship any bottled piss to people who weren't in on the gag – but let's just pause here and note how weird it is that a guy who hates our kidneys as much as Jeff Bezos built and flies a penis-shaped rocket.)

Butler also secretly joined the surge of 1,000 workers that Amazon hired for the Coventry warehouse in advance of a union vote, with the hope of diluting the yes side of that vote and forestall the union. Amazon displayed more of its famously selective competence here, spotting Butler and firing him in short order, while totally failing to notice that he was marketing bottles of driver piss as a bitter lemon drink on Amazon's retail platform.

After a long fight, Amazon's Coventry workers are finally getting their union vote, thanks to the GMB union's hard fought battle at the Central Arbitration Committee:

https://www.foxglove.org.uk/2024/04/26/amazon-warehouse-workers-in-coventry-will-vote-on-trade-union-recognition/

And right on schedule, Amazon has once again discovered its incredible facility for ease-of-use. The company has blanketed its shop floor with radioactively illegal "one click to quit the union" QR codes. When a worker aims their phones at the code and clicks the link, the system auto-generates a letter resigning the worker from their union.

As noted, this is totally illegal. English law bans employers from "making an offer to an employee for the sole or main purpose of inducing workers not to be members of an independent trade union, take part in its activities, or make use of its services."

Now, legal or not, this may strike you as a benign intervention on Amazon's part. Why shouldn't it be easy for workers to choose how they are represented in their workplaces? But the one-click system is only half of Amazon's illegal union-busting: the other half is delivered by its managers, who have cornered workers on the shop floor and ordered them to quit their union, threatening them with workplace retaliation if they don't.

This is in addition to more forced "captive audience" meetings where workers are bombarded with lies about what life in an union shop is like.

Again, the contrast couldn't be more stark. If you want to quit a union, Amazon makes this as easy as joining Prime. But if you want to join a union, Amazon makes that even harder than quitting Prime. Amazon has the same attitude to its workers and its customers: they see us all as a resource to be extracted, and have no qualms about tricking or even intimidating us into doing what's best for Amazon, at the expense of our own interests.

The campaigning law-firm Foxglove is representing five of Amazon's Coventry workers. They're doing the lord's work:

https://www.foxglove.org.uk/2024/05/02/legal-challenge-to-amazon-uks-new-one-click-to-quit-the-union-tool/

All this highlights the increasing divergence between the UK and the US when it comes to labor rights. Under the Biden Administration, @NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo has promulgated a rule that grants a union automatic recognition if the boss does anything to interfere with a union election:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/06/goons-ginks-and-company-finks/#if-blood-be-the-price-of-your-cursed-wealth

In other words, if Amazon tries these tactics in the USA now, their union will be immediately recognized. Abruzzo has installed an ultra-sensitive tilt-sensor in America's union elections, and if Bezos or his class allies so much as sneeze in the direction of their workers' democratic rights, they automatically lose.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/06/one-click-to-quit-the-union/#foxglove

Image: Isabela.Zanella (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ballot-box-2.jpg

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

[hencheri]

18+. mdni.

riding bf!mark because he doesn't give you enough attention :(

.

lately, mark seems to be always working, spending the majority of his time on his computer with his headphones covering his ears. he gets totally immersed in his work, and even though it’s a good thing, he also forgets about the world around him, including you. 

mark sure gives you a lot of attention on a daily basis — with a high sex drive like his, he needs you all the time — but he can easily go a day without thinking about anything else other than his current project. he’s someone who’s very passionate about what he does.

so you miss him a lot on those days.

but honestly, if you want attention, you simply have to ask for it. mark isn’t difficult to convince, especially if it involves fucking. 

“mark.”

upon hearing your voice calling him, he only answers a ‘yeah?’, not looking away from the screen in front of him. but feeling your hand laying down on his shoulders distracts him enough to glance your way and he’s surprised to see what you’re wearing, cock jumping in his shorts.

“what’s up?” he asks with raised eyebrows, trying to keep his cool, but his mind goes wild instantly. it really doesn’t take him a lot.

dressed in a satin robe, the long sleeves draping over your arms and the belt tied around your waist, you don’t answer him and instead pull his headphones off his head. you straddle his legs and sit on his lap.

“miss you,” you simply say.

“ah, i’m sorry. i- i’ve just been…” he pauses for a moment, watching your hands untying the knot of your robe. “caught up, with, um… work.”

“can you make some time for me, then?” you taunt, the knot now undone, nothing keeping your robe from opening and revealing your nude body underneath. 

“of course, baby,” mark breathes out, satisfied to see you pulling the sides of the bathrobe apart, tits and stomach uncovered, naked pussy sitting right on top of his clothed cock. shit.

he can’t help himself from grabbing the back of your neck and bringing your lips to his, kissing feverishly. you moan into his mouth, hands on his chest, fumbling the fabric of his graphic tee between your fists. 

he kisses you until you’re a disheveled mess, lips swollen and glossy from both of your saliva. you move your hips back and forth , basically humping his bulge, until you reach down to pull on his shorts, impatient to take his cock out. 

he lets go of your lips when your hand wraps around his length, slumping down against the chair’s back. his glasses slip down his nose a little while he has his mouth open, letting out heavy breaths. 

mark groans when you spit in the palm of your hand, smearing your saliva all over his cock, slowly pumping it to make it hard. 

“gonna ride me, baby?” mark looks into your eyes, his lenses reflecting the ceiling light, eyebrow lifted up. 

you grin, twisting your wrist, wanting his cock as hard as possible like you know it can be. rock hard, like he loves to tell you when he’s got a boner in the middle of the day for no apparent reason other than ‘was thinking about you’.

“yeah,” you confirm, “gonna make it wet and messy,” you tease, a small smile adorning your lips. 

“you’d like that, hm? little minx,” he lightly chuckles, wetting his lips with his tongue, laying his big hands on your hips as you lift them up. 

you bring his cock to your cunt, tapping his head against your clit and passing it through your wet pussy lips. with the curse he lets out, you know he’s pretty sensitive now. you can feel it; he’s heavy and hard, ready to be snuggled between your walls.

you slowly sink down on him, taking your time while he stretches you out deliciously. you both moan in unision, the feeling of him in you so familiar and addictive. 

when you’re fully seated down on him, you start grinding your hips, his hands guiding you over his strong lap. 

“fuck, yeah-” he frowns, clenching his jaw, “just like that, good job, baby…”

you only whine in response, rocking your hips back and forth, his cock covered in your slick, arousal dripping down his balls. your bodies moving make the leather of the chair creak underneath you, the skin of your knees sticking to it because of the heat and sweat.

his hands go further into your robe, grabbing your asscheeks firmly. he’ll probably leave the trace of his fingers on your flesh, but you really don’t care. you love wearing his marks. 

you roll your hips over his lap vigorously, already out of breath, your chest heaving up and down rapidly. you remember that your tits are completely out when mark dives down, taking a nipple in his mouth and sucking on it. the feeling makes you mewl, gripping the damp hair at the nape of his neck. 

he shifts to your other breast, giving your nipple the same treatment. he leaves plenty of kisses there, too, especially on the valley between your tits. when he pulls away, your skin shines in his spit. 

mark tries to suppress another groan from leaving his throat, but you hear it well and loud in your ear, letting you know he’s close. you clench around him, and he tightens his hold on your ass at that, nails digging into your soft, sweaty skin.

“mmm, baby,” he lets out an unbashful moan, throwing his head back before glancing at you, “you’re gonna be a good girl and take all of my cum, right?” 

you nod your head, excited to have him filling you up good like he always does.

“yeah,” he mimics the movement of your head, grinning. “you love it, don’t you? love being my little cumdump,” he purrs, and his words literally drive you crazy.

“love being yours,” you reply back, riding his cock when he suddenly stops you from moving.

he raises his hips from the chair, thrusting up in you. he takes control over you, slapping his hips upward until his cock twitches, spurts of cum flooding your pussy. at the same time, you hide your face in the crook of his neck, waves of pleasure shooting through you as you cum around him. 

his hips fall back down, now completely exhausted. his glasses fog up as he breathes out heavily, chasing the air back into his lungs. 

you eventually lift up your hips and mark’s cock slips out of your sore pussy. he looks down, a little chuckle escaping his mouth.

“weren’t lying when you said you’d make it messy, hm?”

[coraniaid]

I don't think I believe that people in Sunnydale High School think of the Scooby Gang as "Buffy Summers and her weird friends".

I mean, yes, they know Buffy is (more than) a bit weird and has a history of violence, and they know that she's often at the center of lots of strange things that happen in the school. But if you forget what you know about vampires and the Slayer and look at the dynamics and personal histories of that group from the outside, there's exactly one person who connects them all together. And it's not the (ex?) arsonist and (ex?) gang member who recently transferred to Sunnydale from LA.

Everyone in Sunnydale High seems to know Willow Rosenberg, and everyone knows she's a huge nerd who (A) love libraries and (B) has something of a history of either tutoring (e.g. Rodney Muson) or otherwise hanging out with (e.g. Shelia Martini) some of the school's more violent and dangerous elements.

There's Xander Harris, Willow's best friend since kindergarten (and who, unlike Willow, doesn't really seem to have many other friends at all after Jesse mysteriously vanishes)

There's the (weirdly religious?) ex-aronist from LA who Willow seems to be tutoring in the library a lot (see B above) or who she's possibly recruited as muscle. Sheila and Rodney both mysteriously went missing one day too, so people aren't that surprised when Buffy does herself at the end of junior year.

There's the English librarian (see A above) that anyone who has seen Willow's locker knows Willow has a crush on

There's the computer science teacher that anyone who has been in class with knows Willow also has a crush on, who sometimes has Willow come in to class to help her run sessions for remedial students on the weekends and whose job Willow (somehow) takes over when she dies

There's Cordelia Chase, who Willow has a whole historical Thing with, probably going back to when they were little kids themselves. People say Willow hates her but they're always hanging out together (there's a persistent rumor that they once spent a whole night together in a closet, if you know what I mean) and Willow helped run her campaign for Homecoming Queen. Cordelia was secretly dating Willow's friend for a bit and some people say Willow was really, really upset when she found out; read into that what you will.

There's the mysterious older guy in a band who doesn't talk much and that Willow is apparently actually dating. (This isn't the same older guy in a band Cordelia was dating, but oddly enough it is the same band.) A few kids swear they've seen him naked and locked up in the library at night.

There are (again, from the outside) people like Willow's childhood friend Amy and Amy's friend Michael, who people might remember were once being investigated by the police for ritual murder before Amy mysteriously vanished

To the outside eye, the Scooby Gang are Willow Rosenberg and her weird friends.

(A lot of kids swear that one time they saw her hold the whole Bronze hostage and rip a girl's throat out with her teeth, but of course Principal Snyder hushed it all up and she was back at school the next day. He really doesn't want to have to hire a new computer science teacher this year.)

[asterlizard]

Practice pic with a different setup

[providencehq]

Powehouse AU: aka Danny Fenton tries to be a normal college student in the midwest yet is forced to continue to be a hero in secret as ghosts won't leave him alone and soon, neither will the Justice League when he pops up as a new hero.

Additional info and art under readmore:

ANYWAYS, here is some powerhouse au information.

Danny as he grows up manages to keep the ghost situation under control to a point he isn't overly active as Phantom. He finishes highschool no problem and goes to uni over in Central City for Maths and Engineering (not an overtly big fan of the space motif and instead, I'm shoving my boy into something cooler: PLANES! He's studying specifically mechanical engineering and has plans to go to a trade school after his B.S. for A&P mechanics.)

Sam goes to Gotham State University for Ethnobotany and works in one of the unis library part time. Tucker is going to Star City College for Computer Science and a minor in archeology, he tutors part time.

Danny's main design is inspired by a combo of military and blue collar uniforms (you can also see exactly what I reference). I also couldn't decide a face mask so you get all three options.

So as Danny moves to Central City and attends uni, his rouges do sadly follow him and wreck havoc. Danny is stressed from school so he doesn't do quips as much, in fact, he's trying to get this under control as fast as possible so he can go back and study. Here's the thing, no one outside of Amityville has seen Phantom so all of the sudden what seems to be a meta? an alien? something not human? coming out and taking down rouges that, due to being ghosts, other heros struggle to contain and handle.

Speculation rises about Phantom and who he is. Danny is smart and thought this through, kinda. His costume is a modified look what he wore as a kid but he pulls in more military/uniform aspects to make it seem like he belongs to someone or some organization. That maybe somewhere in the US, an organization managed to make a hero of sorts that mimics Green Lanterns. It's just a big red herring, Danny wants them to look for someone older, probably more experienced, and a different background. Not some tired college student struggling with his studies.

Things do start to get dicey when heroes actively try to interact with him, mostly the Flash (because Central City), Superman, and the Green Lantern. Most interactions end up with Phantom not wanting to fight and fleeing or when cornered to fight, he's messy and inexperienced compared to the other heroes. He doesn't stay around and rarely even talks. It's concerning more so because the heroes aren't sure with who they're dealing with and after a few interactions, they aren't sure Phantom is on their side. Just too many questions around him.

This leads to heroes actively trying to capture and bring in Phantom. The more failed attempts that happen, the more flightly Phantom acts when they end up interrupting him capturing his rouges. They do eventually capture Phantom (thank you Superman) and that's kinda where I end on information on this AU. It's just me having fun with interactions and also designing costumes :)

ALSO DANNY IS ROMA/DIDICOY I NEED TO MENTION THAT!!! (Dick Grayson 🤝 Danny Fenton being didicoy)

[heich0e]

tomura tries to sneak out of your apartment one morning before you wake up, because he has to get all the way back to his apartment before his dad shows up to take him to a 9AM yoga class.

god forbid he be forced to explain:

a) why he slept over at an apartment that was not his own to his father (toshinori would be calling wedding venues and asking his assistant to look into your ring size before they'd even made it to the yoga studio)

nor b) the fact that he was going to a fucking yoga class at 9 o'clock in god damn the morning with his dad, to you.

he slips out of your bed soundlessly, moving as carefully as possible not to wake you. it pains him to do it. really, it does. your sheets are warm, and soft, and smell like you. and you're still there resting so peacefully, tucked under them, breathing soundly with your face burrowed into the collar of his hoodie that you'd worn to bed the night before. you look so pretty like this, tomura had spent at least half an hour just staring at you while he was laying next to you in your treacherously comfortable bed, and would have happily spent another hour more doing it.

there are very few forces on earth that could tear tomura out of bed like this, but the mortifying prospect of having to explain to his over-enthusiastic father that he has a girlfriend is certainly one of them.

he creeps out of your room and into the bathroom, splashing some cool water on his face and using the lotion that you keep next to the sink that makes his skin feel so nice. you started buying a bigger bottle lately, now that the two of you are both using it, and you never mentioned it but tomura still noticed when the little tube was replaced by a larger version of the same product. next he reaches for the toothbrush that he's started keeping next to yours, double checking the hour on his phone to make sure he wasn't running out of time.

he contemplates stealing one last peek at you in bed before he leaves, but he knows that if he doesn't leave now he won't have time to change his clothes before his dad shows up outside his place, so he heads straight to your front door once he's done in the washroom.

you're standing in his path before he can get to it.

you've got a blanket wrapped around your shoulders, but he can still see the soft skin of your thighs where the hem of his hoodie hangs peeking out from underneath the edges of it. there's a little frown tugging the corners of your mouth down.

tomura freezes in his tracks.

"going somewhere?" you ask him, your voice quiet and a little bit hoarse from sleep.

oh, fuck.

"morning," he mumbles, a bit nervously, as you pin him in your stare.

"it is," you reply, as though agreeing with him. "early, even. so why are you sneaking out of my apartment like a burglar?"

tomura rakes a hand through his sleep-mussed hair. "i, uh, gotta be somewhere."

"you have to be somewhere?" you repeat, a bit incredulously—like the words don't quite compute. you don't seem mad at all, just thoroughly bewildered by the whole strange situation. "tomu, we went three rounds last night and you're awake before two PM on a weekend. are you okay?"

"'course i'm okay," he rushes to get out, tripping over his words.

"did I like... do something? or is there someone el—"

"are you kidding?" tomura's voice cracks and he wishes the ground would open up and swallow him whole. he reaches out and grabs the edge of the blanket you have wrapped around you, his fingers twisting into it desperately. he knows you can't possibly—can't reasonably—think that he's seeing anybody else when the fact that he even landed someone like you is an honest to god miracle. the kind of underdog success story they make multi-part docuseries on.

tomura groans, shuffling forward and resting his forehead against your shoulder as he snakes his arms underneath the blanket around your frame to hold you close.

"you're being weird, tomu," you say quietly, brushing your fingers through his hair and letting your nails drag lightly against his scalp in that way that makes him want to shiver.

"fuck, I know, I know,"—he buries his face further into the crook of your neck, breathing in shakily—"'m not being sketchy or anything."

"you are," you remark lightly. "it's not that I don't trust you, I'm just confused."

tomura mumbles something, but the words are lost to the skin of your throat.

"what was that?" you ask.

tomura steels his nerve and takes one last long breath buried against your warmth. he pulls away and faces you.

"I have to go to a yoga class with my dad."

he loses his nerve about halfway through his admission, his eyes flickering away from yours to a point on the wall just above your front door, as a violent heat surges through his cheeks.

"a yoga class?"

he knows it sounds ridiculous. it is ridiculous. it may have been more believable to tell you he was going to hook up with someone el—

"why didn't you just say that?" your laughter cuts through his spiralling thoughts like a morning alarm.

his gaze snaps back to you, only to find you smiling softly.

"you... you're not...?" tomura isn't even sure what he's going to say. mad? surprised? convinced he's lying?

"i mean, i've noticed you've been looking kind of toned lately, but honestly i thought it's because we've been fucking so much," you scrunch your nose up a little. "yoga makes sense on both counts, though."

you turn and look across your apartment to the clock hanging on the wall.

"what time's your class?" you ask him, suddenly worried that this impromptu interrogation may have made him late. "i didn't mean to—"

tomura grabs either side of the blanket wrapped around your shoulders and tugs you forward, pressing his mouth to yours while your lips are still parted in speech.

(he doesn't make it to class that morning after all.)

[osaemu]

IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH: L LAWLIET

✩ ‧ ˚. synopsis: he has a high fever, but he won't let you take care of him.

contents: gn!reader. fluff. mentions of mild sickness. first time writing for L (my new hyperfixation!)

“ryu, you can’t seriously work like this,” you insist, tugging at the sleeve of L’s shirt. he doesn’t respond until you snatch the half-eaten pastry out of his hand. “i’m serious!”

L turns and looks at you disbelievingly. “i’m fine,” he responds indifferently, not seeming to notice the red blush spreading throughout his face. “it’s not bad enough to keep me from the investigation,” he adds, making an attempt to retrieve his snack from your outstretched hand.

“you have a fever,” you say pointedly, taking a bite of the sugary sweet. L makes an unimpressed face and sighs, posture worsening even more—is that even possible?—before he turns back to his computer. 

“i can’t even feel it,” L insists, sticking out his bottom lip. you reach out and brush some of his hair out of his eyes, resting the back of your hand on his forehead. either your boyfriend has an otherworldly resistance to sickness or he’s lying, because he’s burning up.

you sigh and let your hand fall from L’s forehead to his cheek, fingers tracing his jawline as you watch him scroll through some sort of legal document. obviously, he’s not going to stop working without a reason, so you try a different approach. “L, if you’re sick, does that affect your deductive skills?”

L’s fingers still around the computer mouse, ceasing his scrolling as he looks back up at you. “i guess.”

“so you shouldn’t be working on a really important case while you have a high fever, right? or you could miss something.” 

he scrunches up his nose in response and thinks for a long second. “why are you trying so hard to get me to stop working?” L asks, narrowing his eyes. he tilts his head in genuine curiosity—which is funny, because you think it should be obvious.

you shrug in response, a small smile growing on your lips. “shouldn’t you know already?” you tease, poking his cheek playfully. L looks at you blankly, giving no discernable reaction—like always. “you’re impossible,” you huff, crossing your arms childishly.

“answer the question.”

“because i care about my boyfriend. sue me.”

L blinks, a flicker of surprise shining in his dark eyes. he doesn’t respond, but he does stand up and take your hand, cold fingers tangling with yours as he lets you lead him away. “thank you,” he murmurs, and his voice is almost quiet enough for you to miss his words entirely. you squeeze his hand in response—no need for words.

he rests his head on your shoulder as you exit the dark, shaded investigation room. "can i have the last bite?" he asks tentatively, pointing at the remainder of his pastry that's left in your other hand. you laugh a little and nod, pausing in front of a flight of stairs to feed L the last sugar-filled bite.

L's lips close around the flaky pastry and brush against your fingers, and even with the added blush from his fever, his face noticeably goes a shade pinker.

"you're so cute, ryu," you mumble, brushing away the crumbs that linger around his lips with your thumb. he hums in reply, shadowed eyes closing as he rests his cheek in your palm.

"i'm tired."

"then let me take care of you for a little," you insist, watching as he reopens his eyes and looks back at the ajar door of the investigation room. "please?"

"fine. a couple hours, then i have to get back to the case."

"m'kay, m'kay."

(he ends up falling asleep in your arms and doesn't wake up for seventeen hours straight—but when he does, his fever's gone!)

[chrisbesitos]

i have a request! could you possibly do a fic of matt who's trying to look after his gf who's sick, but she keeps trying to push him away as she doesn't want him getting sick too? <33

KING OF EVERYTHING.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀matt sturniolo × fem!reader.

warnings: sickness, fluff, cursing.

synopsis: Y/N is sick and Matt wants to take care of her, but she keep trying to push him away.

Matt has been missing his girlfriend the whole day.

It's only been two hours since their last message, Y/N have said that she was going to have a nap, but Matt was already thinking that she was hibernate. But he's kinda worried, Y/N was sniffing and sneezing, Matt ask if she was feeling okay, but Y/N just pushed him away and tell him she was going to sleep on her own house.

So she barely texted him today and when they talk, Y/N said she was going to have a nap. This was two hours ago, now Matt is driving to Y/N's after bought some things for his girlfriend on CVS. He knows she is sick, but Y/N pushes him away like she always does. She is stubborn, but this is not gonna stop him from taking care of her.

After parking the car, Matt gets in the house using his keys. The house is silent, not even her cat came to receive him at the door like he always does. Matt leaves the bags on the kitchen balcony, he walks into her room and finds his girl in her bed, laying under the blankets with her cat. He approached, sitting in the corner of the bed, Matt removed Y/N's hair off her face, admiring her peaceful and pretty face.

He let a kiss on her cheek, this was enough to wake her. Y/N slowly open her eyes, blinking some times and stretch her arms.

"Hey, pretty." Matt said softly.

"Matt?" She replied with her voice raspy and deep. "What are you doing here?"

"You weren't okay yesterday and then you weren't answering me, so I came here." He smiles, patting her hair. Y/N shook her head, trying to sit on the bed, but Matt stopped her. He grabbed her shoulders and gently pushed her back to the bed. "You need to rest."

"You need to get back home, you're gonna get sick."

"I don't care and I'm not going anywhere." Matt said, rolling his eyes of her stubbornness. Y/N sights and crossed her arms, Matt let a kiss on her temple. "I'm gonna–"

"Matt! You can't kiss me, damn." Y/N pushed him away, Matt take a deep breath and sight.

"Fine, fine." He gave her a small smile. "But I'm not going anywhere."

"So don't kiss me." Matt giggled, but accepted.

Matt said to Y/N stay in the bed, he made her lunch and gave meds for her fever and pains. Even when Y/N was pushing him and don't letting him huge and kiss her, she was feeling sensitive from her sore body.

An hour later, Matt was sitting in her computer chair rolling his timeline on his phone, since Y/N didn't let he lay in the bed. Y/N was staring the TV, but she wasn't paying any attention. She had a pout on her lips and her eyes were watering, she look at her boyfriend and cries out.

"Matt."

"Yeah? You need something?" He looked at her, putting his phone aside. He knows what she wants, but wanted to hear from her.

"Cuddles. I need cuddles." She whimpered.

"I thought you didn't want to get me sick." Matt teased.

"Fuck that, I need you right now." Y/N opened her arms for Matt hug her, he giggled and smiled. "Please, my whole body aches."

Matt lay down on Y/N's side, he hugged her waist and pulled her to be next him, but she wants more. Y/N practically climbed his body, she lay her head on his chest and smiled. Matt kissed her temple, massaging her waist and whispering lovely words to her.

"I love you, pretty boy. I'm sorry for being stubborn the whole day."

"That's okay, I love you either way." He laughed, Y/N chuckled.

Soon, Y/N's aches seems to disappear, so she could sleep peacefully on Matt's arms without worrying about her sickness.

A couple days before, Matt texted Y/N saying they couldn't go out, because he got a flu.

Y/N: i told you so!!!!!!

sorry, this is very short :////

Tags: @lizzymacdonald06 @deliciousluminaryanchor @lushjunkie @sweetreliever @watercolorskyy

join my taglist!

[exhaled-spirals]

« To mention the global loss of biodiversity, that is to say, the disappearance of life on our planet, as one of our problems, along with air pollution or ocean acidification, is absurd—like a doctor listing the death of his patient as one symptom among others.

The ecological catastrophe cannot be reduced to the climate crisis. We must think about the disappearance of life in a global way. About two-thirds of insects, wild mammals and trees disappeared in a few years, a few decades and a few millennia, respectively. This mass extinction is not mainly caused by rising temperatures, but by the devastation of natural habitats.

Suppose we managed to invent clean and unlimited energy. This technological feat would be feted by the vast majority of scientists, synonymous in their eyes with a drastic reduction in CO2 emissions. In my opinion, it would lead to an even worse disaster. I am deeply convinced that, given the current state of our appetites and values, this energy would be used to intensify our gigantic project of systemic destruction of planetary life. Isn't that what we've set out to do—replace forests with supermarket parking lots, turn the planet into a landfill? What if, to cap it all, energy was free?

[...C]limate change has emerged as our most important ecological battle [...] because it is one that can perpetuate the delusional idea that we are faced with an engineering problem, in need of technological solutions. At the heart of current political and economic thought lies the idea that an ideal world would be a world in which we could continue to live in the same way, with fewer negative externalities. This is insane on several levels. Firstly because it is impossible. We can't have infinite growth in a finite world. We won't. But also, and more importantly, it is not desirable. Even if it were sustainable, the reality we construct is hell. [...]

It is often said that our Western world is desacralised. In reality, our civilisation treats the technosphere with almost devout reverence. And that's worse. We perceive the totality of reality through the prism of a hegemonic science, convinced that it “says” the only truth.

The problem is that technology is based on a very strange principle, so deeply ingrained in us that it remains unexpressed: no brakes are acceptable, what can be done must be done. We don't even bother to seriously and collectively debate the advisability of such "advances". We are under a spell. And we are avoiding the essential question: is this world in the making, standardised and computed, overbuilt and predictable, stripped of stars and birds, desirable?

To confine science to the search for "solutions" so we can continue down the same path is to lack both imagination and ambition. Because the “problem” we face doesn't seem to me, at this point, to be understood. No hope is possible if we don't start by questioning our assumptions, our values, our appetites, our symbols... [...] Let's stop pretending that the numerous and diverse human societies that have populated this planet did not exist. Certainly, some of them have taken the wrong route. But ours is the first to forge ahead towards guaranteed failure. »

— Aurélien Barrau, particle physicist and philosopher, in an interview in Télérama about his book L'Hypothèse K

[tiny-space-platypus]

Hehe thanks for the idea!! Part 2

Tim is going insane. He put a tracker on that guy that really, really looked like his brother and the tracker didn't make sense. He's been watching it all morning, for a while it would move normally then suddenly he was across Gotham or in metropolis or in Illinois??? How did he keep jumping back and fourth from Jersey to Illinois in seconds.

The worst when the tracker would just stop for like an hour and be entirely undetectable then pop back up again. Tim was growing grays thinking about it. He couldn't focus on that now though he had to be a CEO right now. He'll have Babs look into him.

Babs was also going insane. She had figured Tim was just being dramatic about this guy just disappearing and reappearing randomly but that's exactly what he did and he really did look like a much friendlier Jason. There was another problem whenever the cameras focused on him they'd suddenly glitch out which was Infuriating. That shouldn't be possible this computer and those cameras were the best you could and couldn't buy. They were better than the most high tech government devices so why are they freaking out now?? What is wrong with this guy. She sent Tim a text.

Babs: (video of computer glitching out as soon as she zooms in on Danny) I don't know what this guy is. I can't even get a good enough read on his face that won't crash my computer. Which should not be possible.

Tim: meta maybe?? He doesn't seem dangerous just odd.

Babs: possibly keep an eye on him though.

Tim: was the plan.

Part 3

Part 1

[luveline]

𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐠𝐚𝐦𝐞 | 𝐦𝐢𝐠𝐮𝐞𝐥 𝐨’𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚

the tension between you and miguel rises to an all-time high —a ficlet featuring a grumpy miguel and a flirty, distracted spider-girl. pre across the spider-verse but contains spoilers. fem!reader, 1k

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

Miguel has asked you multiple times to leave him alone while he's working. The strike force can't run itself (or so he claims —Margo and Lyla seem plenty capable, in your eyes) and he needs time and solitude to organise the protection of canon events, and—

"Blah, blah, blah," you say, dropping your voice to a soft, teasing melody as you skirt around his frankly audaciously jacked chest. 

"Don't blah, blah, blah me," Miguel says. You'd be intimidated if you weren't so happy to mess with him. "I'm not kidding around." 

Okay, maybe you are intimidated. That just makes messing with him more fun. 

The room he operates from, as you've so fondly monikered The Office, is in organised chaos, and much too dark. You drag a lone chair toward his control panel and set yourself down in front of all his screens and computers. 

"Ooh," you hum, reaching for an unlabelled switch with a purposeful slowness. 

Predictably, Miguel slams his hand over yours, yanking your chair back with an annoyed, "No." 

"Come on, Miguel. What harm could I possibly do?"

"You could–" 

"Topple the multiverse?" you suggest. "I've heard." 

"You could turn off every member of the Society's DMW. That's what that does. Potentially endangering each of their lives by stranding them in unfamiliar dimensions, and preventing them from correcting canon events." 

You feel bad for teasing him when you see the look on his face, anger and exhaustion and the slimmest allowance of defeat. It must be tough to lead the Spider-Society. Tougher to micromanage more than half of its members. 

Pulling your hand from under his, you cross your arms over your stomach and give him an apologetic frown. "Sorry, Miguel."

Evidence of his sweet spot for you lines his expression, softening his sharp jaw and the stoic set of his brow. It's gone as quick as it came, and his mask falls back into place. He turns away from you as though pretending you aren't there and scans one of his holographic screens, his face glowing with a yellow-orange haze. 

Miguel has to tolerate you, because you're a Spider-Girl. Though you've never called yourself that aloud, and you're not sure anyone else has, either, it's an undeniable truth. You were bitten by a radioactive spider that gave you super mutant abilities, though yours aren't as potent as others. You're not especially strong, you probably couldn't stop a bus with your bare hands, but you're smart. You haven't saved the world or anything, but you lost your Uncle Ben. You paid the toll. 

Every spider person has lost someone. Miguel seems to have lost more than that. 

"You know," you mumble, kicking the ground lightly to make your chair spin on its axle, "I've been thinking…" 

"That's never good." 

"Why do we wear our suits here?" you ask, spinning for a second time, the room moving past your eyes in flashes. "It seems performative." 

"Ah, I can answer that. Some of us work when we're here." 

You wrinkle your nose at his deadpan and kick the floor again, spinning so fast it makes you laugh. "What did you say? I can't hear you from your high horse– woah!" 

Miguel grabs the back of your chair, bringing you to a sudden and firm stop. You blink hoping it'll assuage the dizziness between your eyes, and when it doesn't work you keel forward, muttering, "Woah, I'm gonna die." 

"You won't die." 

"How do you know?" you ask. 

"You're under my watch, aren't you?" 

"I knew you liked me," you say. "Oh, I don't feel well." 

"You brought it on yourself." 

You catch your breath. When you feel okay enough to stand you almost trip, and Miguel doesn't bother pretending that he had any intention of stopping you from landing flat on your face. The you before the spider bite would've wiped out. This you giggles and holds Miguel's elbow for a second while you plant your feet. 

"Okay, boss-man," you ask, looking up at the unnaturally high screen he's investigating. "What are we doing today?" 

"I'm supervising a task force operation on Earth-31913. You're going home." 

"Miguel," you say, not sure if you want to flirt with him or piss him off. He looks incredibly pissed off already, so you choose flirtation. "Have I told you how handsome you look this evening?" 

He doesn't react. His hands don't so much as shift where they're akimbo on his hips. 

"You really have the most handsome eyes," you continue, weaving around his arm to stand in front of him. You have to crane your neck to see them. "Sulky. Do I really have to go home? I'd rather stay here with you." 

He looks down his nose at you. "Yeah?" he asks quietly, his voice rough as hewn stone.

"Yeah," you say, taking a small step back. 

"And do what?" 

You mirror his stance, hands on your hips. Your suit isn't form fitting like his, doesn't showcase nearly so much lean muscle, but you like it. You'd chosen a simple black ensemble to match the spider who bit you with a pinky purple heart over your stomach. Miguel had asked about it once, just once, when you'd first met and he had no idea how much of a problem for him you were going to become. 

Why there? 

Why do you think? you'd asked, giving him a sticky-sweet smile. 

Forget I asked. 

He lifts a hand to your chin, pinching it between two deft fingers. You're lucky he isn't wearing his gloves; his claws would pierce your jaw. 

"What do you want to do?" he asks, again so quietly. "If you stay?" 

"I could help with the task force." 

"That's what you want to do?" 

You flush with heat but refuse to let him know how you're feeling. Your heart bumps against your ribs, breath caught in your throat as he tilts your head up, as he leans down. 

"No," he says near your lips, "that's not it." 

"I could help you?" you offer. 

Something flashes in his eyes. You hesitate to call it lust. It reminds you of a cat with a mouse in it’s clutches, only his pupils are blown, black and inky and wide as dimes. 

"You want to help me?" he asks, his lips an inch, half of that from yours. 

You nod minutely. "Yes," you say under your breath. 

His hand moves to your cheek. He leans in closer and closer, until there's a hair's width of air between his mouth and yours, the tips of your noses bent together. His breath fans over your bottom lip and it's hot. You swear you can feel his heart as his chest presses to yours. He lingers there for an endless handful of seconds, silently egging you on.

You call his bluff and refuse to close the distance. 

Miguel pushes you away from him, far from cruel but certainly not sweet. "I have a tower of paperwork you can file," he says. 

"Here I thought you were finally going to bite my head off," you hum. "You're a sore loser, Miguel." 

"And you're my pest," he says, holding your gaze for a half-second too long. He turns away. "Lyla? Arrange the recounts from the last canon event for Spider-Girl's perusal, please." 

"So you've remembered I'm here?" Lyla asks wryly.

You don't mind the paperwork. You sign each one with a winky face and a pink gel pen heart, knowing Miguel will go over them all again, and knowing he'll grow angrier and angrier with each heart.

He'll kiss you and mean it one day. You just have to play the waiting game.

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

thanks so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed!