#buy liquidation stock

[brandedsurplus]

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[brandedgarmentswholesalers]

Surplus Garments wholesale

[mirandahamilton]

ugh honestly i am so ready to simply renounce my friendships with all of my male coworkers. i am SO TIRED of being their MOTHER!!!!!!!!

[brightdigigold2023]

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[mostlysignssomeportents]

Everyday homeowners are human shields for Wall Street’s Internet of Shit slumlords

The American Dream, such as it is, used to be two dreams, one based on work and solidarity, the other on asset appreciation and disconnected individualism. We killed the first one.

As the New Deal gave way to the post-war social safety net, Americans discovered two paths to social mobility: they could join a union, and they could buy a home. Joining a union meant that your wages would rise with productivity, and that the democratic ideal that you were meant to approach once every two years at the ballot-box could follow you into the building you spent more waking hours in than any other: your jobsite.

Labor unions used their political power to win labor rights, so that even workers who weren't a union couldn't be arbitrarily fired, or maimed on the job with impunity, or harassed or abused. And while the labor movement was mired in the same racist legacy that every American institution brought forward out of genocide and slavery, where racialized people started unions of their own or demanded representation from the unions who nominally represented them, they thrived.

Then there were houses. On the one hand, owning your home insulated you from the petty tyranny of the landlord, the threat of eviction, rent hikes, indifferent or dangerous building maintenance, and all the other miseries that arise when you think of a building as your home and someone else thinks of it as an asset, and the board is tilted so that they win every argument.

But homeownership wasn't just sold as a way to get out from under scumbag landlords: it was primarily sold as a way to build intergenerational wealth. Your house wasn't just a place to live: it was an asset, and it appreciated.

And if the dividends of labor protection were unevenly distributed between white people and racial minorities, the dividends of home ownership were almost entirely hoarded by white families. Federal policies – redlining – combined with racist lending at the local level, meant that Black families and other racialized groups were stuck in tenancy, while white families build wealth thanks to federal subsidies:

https://web.archive.org/web/20170220005558/https://www.demos.org/sites/default/files/publications/Asset%20Value%20of%20Whiteness.pdf

Those were the two American dreams: a good job and your own home. We killed the first one, and the second one devoured us whole.

Without a strong labor movement, wages stagnated. Corporate power waxed, and with it, the power to pollute, to poison, to maim and to defraud. The labor movement wasn't strong enough to stop Reagan from killing free UC tuition when he was governor of California. It wasn't strong enough to hold back spiraling health care prices. It wasn't strong enough to block the business lobby from neutering antitrust and ushering in four decades of market concentration, market capture and corruption. Workers couldn't save their defined benefits pension and were railroaded into market-based 401(k)s, forcing them to play the stock casino against their bosses, ever the sucker at the poker table.

With stagnant wages and out of control medical, educational and end-of-life bills, homeownership – the thing you do as an individual, where your gain is someone else's loss – became the American secular religion. Your house wasn't just a place to sleep and keep your photo albums: if it appreciated enough, you might be able to liquidate it on your deathbed and pay off your eldercare, your healthcare, your kids' college debt, and leave enough left over for your kids' downpayments.

And so every American who had a home became the enemy of every American who didn't – including one another's children. Every home built threatened your own property values. The racist, batshit American school funding formula, which sees schools funded out of property taxes, meaning the richest kids get the best schools, turned out to be a great way to increase your property values.

Protections for tenants, meanwhile, threatened the entire American way of life – the American dream itself. Every protection a tenant got – protection from eviction or rent hikes, the legal right to a safe and well-maintained home – reduced the value of every home in town.

After all, the better a landlord has to treat their tenants, the less money a landlord can make from a rental property. The less money a landlord can make from a rental property, the less they'd bid on a house like yours if it went up for sale.

And since anyone planning to buy your house to live in it has to outbid a landlord who might want to rent it out, giving tenants any protection threatened everything – the one asset you owned, which was your plan a, b and c for paying off all that health, education, and assisted living debt:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/06/the-rents-too-damned-high/

Today, the house-as-asset scam is breathing its last. There are millions more people who need homes than there are homes available. Sure, homelessness is a fantastically complex problem, but you could address every aspect of it – addiction, mental illness, joblessness – and millions of people would still be homeless, because there aren't enough homes for them to live in:

https://headgum.com/factually-with-adam-conover/myths-about-homeless-people-with-dr-margot-kushel

70% of all inflation in 2024 came from the cost of housing; a quarter of that came from illegal collusive behavior by landlords to hike rents:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/up-to-a-quarter-of-rental-inflation

Wall Street landlords have raised gigantic war-chests and are buying up homes at a rate never before seen, converting every available single-family home in many cities from an owner-occupied home to a rental. Private equity and hedge fund landlords have elevated charging junk fees to an absurdist theater project: you pay a "convenience" charge for paying your rent in cash. But also for paying your rent by direct transfer. Oh, and also for paying in cash. When Wall Street is your landlord, your home is a slum, dangerously undermaintained, sometimes lethally so:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/08/wall-street-landlords/#the-new-slumlords

Capitalists hate capitalism. The best thing to sell is something your customer can't live without, and that no one else has for sale. That's why "the market" loves private prisons so much:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/02/captive-customers/#guillotine-watch

The vast sums Wall Street is putting into buying up all of America's available housing stock is a bet that they can establish regional monopolies over having a home, and charge all the market can bear.

That's the plan at Invitation Homes, a company that was just targeted by the FTC for a slate of eye-watering crimes against the tenants in the 80,000 single-family homes they've acquired:

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/09/ftc-takes-action-against-invitation-homes-deceiving-renters-charging-junk-fees-withholding-security

Invitation Homes purchases homes as they come on the market, and they're also a leading customer of the "build-to-rent" housing industry, a fast-growing segment of new housing starts.

Writing about the FTC's enforcement action against Invitation Homes, Matt Soller brings in Starwood Capital Group, who manage Invitation Homes properties, and own 14,000 more homes in the sunbelt. Invitation and Starwood hate the anti-monopoly movement, and Barry Sternlicht, Starwood's billionaire CEO, really hates FTC Chair Lina Khan:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-round-up-corporate-slumlords

The FTC complaint lays out a suite of just comically sleazy things ways that Invitation abuses its tenants, starting with false advertising. The company lists its houses at relatively low rents, then charges a large fee to apply to live there. When you pass the application process, you're told the rent is actually much higher, and if you walk away from the deal, you forfeit your application fee. That scam's netted Invitation $18m since 2019.

Stoller really hates junk fees, calling them "convenience fees without any convenience, service charges without any service performed." He lays out Invitation's long list of junk fees, which honestly sound like a list that Chatgpt would spit out if you prompted it for fifty junk fees that wouldn't pass the giggle-test: "utility management fees" "Lease Easy bundle fees," "air filter delivery fee," "smart home technology fees," etc etc.

"Smart home technology fee?" Yeah, Invitation's gone in hard for Internet of Shit smart home tech. The SVP who oversees Invitation's smart home fee program was ordered to "juice this hog" (you guys, juice doesn't come from hogs).

After decades of recruiting everyday American homeowners to demand anti-tenant policies that benefit giant corporations, American tenants have few rights on paper and even fewer in practice. That's left the door wide open for Invitation to abuse their tenants in a myriad of dismal and unimaginative ways: stealing their deposits, trashing their credit reports to retaliate against complaints, illegal evictions, busted appliances, mold, vermin, insects – the whole slumlord playbook.

As Stoller writes, there's a twist: "this landlord isn’t just a random slumlord, it’s one of the biggest Wall Street players in housing."

There are vast fortunes to be made in converting the human right to housing into an asset class, but those fortunes end up in the hands of a very small number of billionaires. On their own, they wouldn't have the political power to dismantle protections for tenants.

Realistically speaking, most kids who grew up in their parents' owner-occupied homes are going to end up tenants, thanks to undersupply and housing inflation. But those kids' parents have spent decades demanding policies to make their homes as valuable as possible – including mortgage tax breaks (but not rent tax breaks!), looser eviction laws, and less enforcement of what few protections tenants have.

Middle class homeowners are the useful idiots and human shields of the billionaires who are determined to force every American under 40 raise their kids in a rented slum full of spiders, ratshit and black mold, which will still cost 60% of their take-home salary.

That's why the FTC's action against Invitation Homes is such a big deal. And as Stoller points out, Chair Khan is really just implementing Kamala Harris's campaign promise to get Wall Street out of the landlord business.

Wall Street's raid on your bedroom and kitchen has inspired a generation of "finfluencer" copycats who buy and flip apartment buildings, sucking ever-larger amounts of cash out of them until they're unfit for human habitation, with mountains of rat-infested garbage ringing their crumbling walls:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/22/koteswar-jay-gajavelli/#if-you-ever-go-to-houston

Any future worth living in is going to get housing right. We need to stop thinking of housing as an asset and realize that it is, first and foremost, a human right. That's the premise of my 2023 solarpunk novel The Lost Cause, which just came out in paperback:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865946/thelostcause

You can't protect yourself from rising seas or rising healthcare bills through individual home-ownership. Solidarity – the kind of solidarity that once powered the union movement, and that is powering it again – is the only way to defeat the housing profiteers. The New Deal wasn't perfect, which is why whatever we do next has to be bigger, further reaching, and more inclusive than what FDR did almost a century ago.

The only minority that should be excluded from the next New Deal is billionaires.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

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/2024/10/01/housing-is-a-human-right/#rentier-tech

Image: Sam Valadi (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/132084522@N05/17086570218/

Carlos Delgado (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wall_Street_-_New_York_Stock_Exchange.jpg

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

[axxa-the-allikatt]

This turned out longer than expected, but I just can’t resist slutty boys 😩.

***

Imagine,

Slutty boys, who love love love wearing cunty outfits whenever the two of you go to a party.

Slutty boys, who adore the fact that you’re so comfortable with them wearing gorgeous, yet quite revealing outfits out in parties, because you’re confident that you’d win if you ever threw hands with someone who was looking at your boyfriend the wrong way.

Slutty boys, who need to go shopping at least once in two weeks, because that sexy red dress that they wore last Sunday? That was so yesterday’s style.

Slutty boys, who go straight to that one store that has the most sexy dresses and lingerie, which also costs you about a human kidney, but hey, who would you spoil if not your gorgeous boyfriend?

Slutty boys, who always, always, ask your opinion about any revealing clothes, because if you don’t like it, then there is no point whatsoever in them buying such an outfit.

Slutty boys, who excitedly pick out the most jaw dropping gorgeous outfits, ones that fit their body so beautifully, pressing so perfectly against their hips and thighs.

Slutty boys, who make a show of presenting their outfits to you, walking out of the trial rooms in a slow pace, giving a little twirl once they reach you, before pressing their body against yours, asking you whether you like this outfit.

Slutty boys, who purr against your neck, as you tell them they are the most stunning, sexy thing you’ve ever laid your eyes upon. (And not a word of this was untrue. Heck, you would find them sexy if they wore baggy jeans and a t-shirt, a dress like this was making you almost go feral.)

Slutty boys, who only giggle and look up at you with feigned innocence, when you push them into the trial room, and lock the door behind you. What do you mean they were turning you on? They were totally not rubbing their hips against yours in a very suggestive manner.

Slutty boys, who, soon enough, lose all their cockiness, when you almost rip the dress off them (almost. that thing coat a fortune in itself), before pressing them into the wall, their back facing you, as you pull down their pretty, now soaked panties, leaving their thigh high stockings on.

Slutty boys, who let out a sinful moan as you shove the panties into their mouth. You had established a long time ago that they were a screamer, and the last thing you needed right now was the store workers to hear what was going on inside the small room.

Slutty boys, who hold onto their dear life, trying to grip onto something, anything, as you get down on your knees behind them, spreading their soft ass cheeks, and give a tentative lick to the ring of muscles, which clench under your warm tongue.

Slutty boys, who can barely stand, their wails and moans muffled by the panties, as your tongue coaxes the pretty pink hole, just enough for you to slide it inside.

Slutty boys, who barely last a few minutes of your tongue exploring their insides, their walls clenching painfully around your tongue, as they cum with a frightful shudder, the thick white liquid coating the mirror as it drips down to the floor.

Slutty boys, who sit still and look pretty, as you make them sit on the dressing chair and pull out a fresh panty out of your bag, (you always carried a pair of them, because knowing how needy your boyfriend was, and how little self-control you had, you were bound to end up in this situation at least once or twice a day), and slide them back on, pressing feathery kisses against their inner thighs.

Slutty boys, who you end up fucking after every dress they try on, then end up buying every single one of them, because how could you resist.

Slutty boys, who smirk and wink at the staff near the cash counter, who undeniably have heard everything that went on in the dressing room, traumatised looks evident on their faces.

Which turns you on again. Who wouldn’t be, when their gorgeous, slutty boyfriend flaunts their hickeys and cum stained stockings so shamelessly?

***

- Shidou. I don’t know how, when, where, but Shidou. Also Chigiri (duh), Reo, Hiori, Kaiser (these days, I’m scared to mention this boy, honestly.), Mitsuya, Baji, Kazutora, Hanma (definitely), Ran, Kokonoi ( @raythebestboiever ), Sanzu, Hua Cheng, Mu Qing (*snorts in gay*), Aventurine, Boothill, Scar (I feel like this freaky dude would fit in any kind of fic) + your favs 💅✨

[xtcenh]

Loser gets it

Pairing: Sim Jake x Reader (I love this picture of him y’all)

Description: You shouldn’t have made a bet against Jake, less when you know how nasty he can be but in your defense you didn’t actually expect him to buy this for you to wear… some puppy ears, with the tiniest dress you have ever seen and the thing you expected the less a buttplug that has a tail attached to it.

Warnings: smut!, MDNI, Jake is a pervert here ngl, reader dress like a puppy but not really pet play, ass play, oral (male rec), unprotected sex (nah uh), master and sir kink lol, he makes reader crawl but nothing to much, spitting, begging, reader wear a collar, marking.

‘I got you what I want you to wear since you lost :p’

It’s the text that Jake sent you this afternoon, also telling you that he wants to meet up at his place once the two of you are free. A week ago the two of you were in your weekly; sometimes monthly depending on how free the two of you are; got together to do either everything or nothing but just hang out with each other.

Your relationship with him it’s… complicated to say the least, you guys have drunkenly make out, several times, you have walked in on him while he is masturbating and when he sees it’s just you, he continues, but you guys are just friends, friends that are with each other most of the time and friends that often have sexual tension going on but other than that you two are friends.

Today he got out of class earlier than you so that’s why you find yourself walking to his place alone, normally he would walk with you but he said something about needing to sign the package once it was delivered. Your mind wonders what kind of thing he ordered but knowing him it is something that he is going to like and you are going to be embarrassed to use. He didn’t give you more detail, just that it was something to wear.

Knocking on his door, it surprises you that he almost immediately opens it, “Hey, took you long enough”, rolling your eyes at his greeting you notice the big smile on his face though, “You seem excited about this, I’m getting scared now”.

He quickly hurried you to get inside while murmuring something between the lines ‘I am excited’ and ‘I hope you’re also excited’, he guides you to his bedroom and once inside he points to the bathroom “Uhm, it is inside, if you need help, I’m going to be right here”.

Oh you are so going to kill him, stepping inside his bathroom you notice a box that was already opened, upon inspection of what it’s inside you can’t help but feel your cheeks heat up with embarrassment, “this barely covers anything…!”, you whispered to yourself while taking a look at your; what you can barely call; outfit. The dress is low cut in your chest so if you were to bend over all of your tits would be in display and it’s no better behind, the skirt barely covering your buttcheeks if you were to bend over both your behind and front would be all exposed.

Already embarrassed but you know there is still stuff in the box, you continue. Now putting the puppy ears on top of your hair, and for your legs he also chose some mid-thigh stockings in color pink, you won’t deny it you look really sexy right now but there is one last thing in this box you can’t find yourself capable of putting on.

It is a buttplug but it has a tail attached to it, complementing your pup ears, at least he was considerate enough to put a bottle of lube for you but still this is too much!! Getting rid of your panties you grab the bottle mentioned before and squirt the liquid inside onto your fingers, shuddering a bit at the cold feeling of the liquid around your rim you proceed to push a finger first letting out a small moan at the intrusion since you are not used to it. Going slow with it, in and out of it you then add another finger almost stumbling forward, with urgency your other hand grabs the counter of the sink to stabilize yourself.

Huffing at the feeling you stop before it starts to feel too intense, you retract your fingers and now grabbing the tail you squirt some more liquid on top of it, with your hands you smear it all over so that its insertion wouldn’t hurt as much. You give yourself a minute to recover and get used to the feeling prior to standing up straight and looking at your reflection in the mirror, turned to the side you can see the tail peeking out underneath the dress and your cheeks heat up at the image.

“Are you done? You have been in there for some time now” jumping a little bit at the sound of his voice you freeze, “Jake… this is too much”, you hear the handle of the door trying to open but it is stopped since you had lock it before, “Come on Y/N let me see you, what do you mean it’s too much?”, he tries again unlocking the door but fails to do so, “Give me some time! It’s embarrassing!”.

“Fuck, that means you already put all of it on? Come ooon, let me see you!” Jake is so excited to see you in the outfit that he picked up for you, he can almost feel himself salivating imagining how you look and getting frustrated when you don’t come out, one last time he tries to turn the door knob but you beat him to it by opening the door.

The sight in front of him has him already feeling hard in his trousers, you look so much better than any of his fantasies, “Fuck…”, it’s the only thing he can manage to let out, “You look so fucking good baby”, blushing you lift your head up to look at his face and he is looking at you like you are his prey, giving you that look like he would eat you in any moment.

“D-Do you like it?” You give him a little swirl to show it all off and you catch him letting out a growl when he sees the back, “I fucking love it Y/N, you have no idea…there’s just one last thing I got for you”, you see him walk over to his gaming set, he proceeds to grab something he had laying on top of his table. You try to follow him but once you walk just a bit you feel the buttplug making it almost impossible for you to move forward.

“You don’t have to walk puppy, I’m coming over to you”, you can’t believe how wet the pet name he called you got you, stopping your tracks he approaches you with his hands behind his back. As soon as he is in front of you he wraps whatever he has on his hands around your neck making a ‘click’ sound, “w-what?” “It’s a collar baby, it says Jake’s puppy”, you look at him with wide eyes while pressing your thighs together, how he is treating you right now should make you be ashamed but your body feels hot and each thing he does you feel arousal coming from your pussy.

“I was a bit scared that you were not going to like this, but look at you puppy I bet you’re dripping” with that being said he leans forward to capture your lips with his, the kiss being hot and intense, the way Jake kisses makes you always feel dizzy, your hands finding their way to grab his shirt in fists, on the other hand Jake’s hands go to your waist pulling you closer to him.

He separates your legs with one of his, gasping into the kiss when you feel your clit being press against his jean, the friction making you subconsciously buckle your hips forward, he groans and whispers against your lips “fuck puppy I can feel how wet you are”, you whine at his demeanor, “please, p-please fuck me master”.

He is on cloud nine once he hears you, smiling to you he pushes away and goes to sit on the edge of the bed, “Come puppy”, you take a step forward but he stops you by saying, “Pups don’t walk, they crawl baby, now be good and crawl to me”, even for your surprise you find yourself dropping down on your knees and then leaning forward to be on all fours, crawling of the way to where he was located.

You positioned yourself in between his legs on the floor, pressing your cheek against his left thigh and looking up at him expecting his next command, “Take off my pants pup”, you quickly help him out of his trousers and your mouth waters at the sight of his bulge, he is big, gulping you lean with your hands to take his boxers off but he catches them both, “take my boxers off with your teeth puppy”, it was a bit difficult for you but you manage to do exactly what he tells you to do.

“You are going to suck me off but you can’t use your hands okay?”, you nod your head rapidly and he does think you look like an excited puppy, he pats your head with his hand and smiles at you, “You are so good to me”, his dick is hard and ready to explode so he proceeds to tap himself of your mouth indicating that you should open and you do, you swirl your tongue on his tip, moaning at the taste then you carry on with taking him more deep in your mouth, enjoying how he reacts you hollow your cheeks and take more of him.

Maintaining eye contact with him, you reach your limit, your nose it’s touching his lower abdomen, “Mhm, such a slut for cock aren’t you, o-oh yessss, so good baby, your mouth so warm”, now you are bobbing your head up and down like sucking his cock with your tongue, all of your work on him makes him thrust his hips upwards making you gag and bring your hands up to his thighs, digging your nails onto them.

It seems that he like the pain as much as you, once he feels your manicured nails dig into him, he lets out a loud moan and how he sounds make you whine around his cock, working up and down his dick it’s making you feel so wet you bring one of your hands down to in between your legs and you start making circles on top of your clitoris, moaning into his cock.

“Fuckkk, you like sucking dick that much baby? That it makes you touch yourself? But you know better than that, stop touching your pussy or I’ll punish you”, as turned on you are by this you stop and bring your hand upward again to grip his thigh. What he does next is leaving you breathless, he puts both his hands around your head, grabbing you by your hair and thrusting with force into your mouth.

“I’m c-close baby yeah, just like that, fuck I-I’m coming”, with that last warning you feel him spill his seed inside your mouth, with tears threatening to fall down your eyes you moan at how he just used your mouth. Pulling out he pushes his thumb into your mouth making you open it, and he gathers spit on his mouth before spitting it into your mouth, “Swallow”.

Obeying him, you do, opening it once again to show him you did as he wanted to, he cups your cheek with one of his hands and smiles at you, “Such a good girl for me”, he forces you to stand up before sitting you down on his lap with each of your legs in one side of him, bringing your face closer to make out some more with you, tasting himself on your mouth but still loving it.

Pulling down the hem of your dress he starts playing around with your nipples in between his fingers, twisting and pinching them, the stimulation making you arch your back into his touch moaning into the kiss. He trails down kissing your chin and downwards to your neck leaving wet kisses and biting down, “You look so good with this collar on but I need to mark you or I’m going to go crazy”, unclipping it he throws it somewhere in his room without a care.

His hands now go to circle around your waist pressing you down on him, directly on top of his cock, both of you whine at the direct feeling and you feel the rush and need of grinding up against him, that feeling plus his mouth and lips all over your neck makes you go dumb.

“Fuckk, Jak- master please!” “Do you even know what you are begging for?”, he detaches himself from your neck and brings a hand to wrap around your hair, tugging it forcing you to look at him directly into his eyes, “Beg for it puppy”.

Tossing any thoughts of shame in your body you whine out, “master please, I need you inside me” “More pup” “Please! Please just fuck me! I need you”, humming in satisfaction he throws your body in the bed, laying on your back, he hovers on top of you in between your legs.

“Such a good girl, perfect for me, I’m going to make you mine”, with one hand holding your thigh, the other one is lining up his tip right in your hole. Liking how you react he proceeds to tease you by dragging his tip up and down all over your pussy lips, “W-Why so much teasing? Sir! Please!”, he loves your reaction, loving how much you need him so he decides that he is going to tease you some other time but right now he needs you as much or probably even more than you need him.

Letting out a moan when he finally pushes inside, loving how tight you feel and he knows you feel this way because of the buttplug that sits perfectly inside of you. He starts a pace slow at first but his thrusts were deep and hard, by every minute on how you feel and the noises that you let out are making him get needier, now going faster and harder bringing one hand to press up on the tail in between your cheeks, letting out a squeal in surprise while simultaneously clenching at the feeling, Jake lovesss how you feel.

After teasing your behind a bit more he moves his hand to your front now teasing and pinching your clitoris, “You get even wetter when I play with you puppy, f-fuck”, you give him a fucked up smile before launching yourself to his neck taking your turn to now mark him, licking, kissing and biting all over his neck. Upon your movements his hips stuttered but never stopped, he let you continue after all he would proudly show everyone your marks on him, marking him as yours.

He notices that you are panting even more, you have stopped your work on his neck and he knows by your body language that you definitely are close, “Ja-jake, can I cum…?”, already deep down in subspace he lets you get away with calling him by his name, after all he feels himself twitching at the sound of his own name, you sound so pretty, so submissive, he loves it.

“Of course baby, cum all over my cock”

With those words, your mouth opens in a ‘o’ shape, you release cries of his name and thank you’s, your orgasm hits you hard, arching into the bed, digging your nails into his biceps and you even feel your legs trembling with pleasure.

“All on fours puppy I want to cum all over your pretty ass”, with his assistance you turn yourself around and position your figure in all fours but once he re-enters you your arms give up, finding your body now face down and ass up, all presented for him.

He doesn’t stop one second even after you falling down, he loves the sight in front him, you, his pretty best friend that he loves, all spread out for him, with all the humiliating stuff he bought for both of you to enjoy, as much as he enjoys the fake tail going up and down with each thrust, he grabs it and slowly takes it out, growling at the sight of your rim all stretched out, opening and closing after the long time with the toy inside.

Gathering; once more; spit in his mouth, he throws it in your hole and pushes his thumb inside, losing it at the feeling of you tightening even more. “Fuck puppy, I-I’m closeee, shit”, you can’t believe that you feel the knot on your tummy one more time, reaching down to your clit, you draw circles on it, feeling the knot close to snapping you cry out, “Lets cum together master!”, with some final pushes inside of you both of you cum undone.

Trying to calm yourself down, you hiss when you feel Jake pull out, moving your body to lay down comfortably on his sheets, he reaches next to his bed he takes some wet wipes to clean you up, poorly but enough, helping you on your feet and helping you out of the outfit you both walk towards his bathroom to take a quick shower.

After going out and drying up he lends you some shirt and a pair of boxers for you to wear while he changes the sheets in his bed and puts on a clean pair.

Now lying next to each other you cuddle with him all in peace after everything you hear him cough with intention on you paying attention to him he says, “So…when are we doing this again?”

[seat-safety-switch]

"Doctor, you have to help. My broth is so thin, and flavourless." cries another patient.

I have been working at Dr. Soup's Soup Hospital for the last couple of weeks. Normally, by now, I would have already been fired for stealing office supplies or general sloth. Something about the good doctor, however, motivates me to keep working. He came up one morning in the unemployment office's ads, and I figured I'd take it.

It's not hard to see why a soup hospital would be needed. People take their soups very seriously. Perhaps it's a recipe from great-grandma, and being able to consistently make it is the only link from the present day back to that idyllic past. Maybe they just want to have something good to eat on a cold day. We don't know, and importantly, we can't judge. If your goulash sucks ass, he's there to fix it.

Even though he drives a pickup truck (a Dodge Ram-en, get it?) I don't hold it against him. He genuinely uses it to pick up large amounts of soup that are in distress and carry them back to his hospital, where he applies strategic spices and sometimes even exotic homemade broths to bring the flavour back to the liquid-lunch-but-not-that-kind crowd. They deserve it, really, and are always grateful to the doc for saving their food.

If there is something I don't like about working for Dr. Soup, it's the casual racism. No, not against cultures. That would be too normal. No, what he hates is stew. Too thick, he tells me. Pick a side, we're at war, he complains whenever we're at the medical supply store, buying paprika. One day I'll ask about curries, but it will have to wait. My parole officer is going to drop by for an inspection sometime this week, and I'd really prefer for him not to go home with third-degree burns and a recommendation that I get sent back to prison. I can't go back there, now that I've tasted this beautiful life on the outside once more. They don't even use chives in their stock.

[plasticfreckles]

🪶 crusty first kiss rookanis enjoy 🪶

By the time they come out of the Diamond and into the marketplace, even the crystal peddler is closing up.

"Mierda."

"What?" Rook comes to a halt next to him. Little less than a week ago, he would have stepped away from just how close she stands to him.

"I meant to buy groceries. We're out of some spices."

Rook is quiet, like she's working up courage to speak her mind. Strange.

"I mean.. I've got groceries at home, if you still got time."

"How would you know the contents of the cooking rack?" Lucanis asks, despite motioning for her to lead the way. "I've not seen you use it once."

"Because someone always hogs the stove." She playfully knocks her shoulder into his arm. "No, I meant in my pad. It's just- well, up the roofs, but down the road. You get it."

She takes his hand and guides him down the road, up the trellis, over beams and through strategically broken windows.

"It's probably smelly in here," she says as she pulls out a keyring from under her cloak and opens a doorlock hidden behind an overgrown trellis. "Haven't been here in.. oh, over half a year."

"Hit the Antaam and hauled out of Treviso."

"For all the good that did, yeah. Oh, dear, sorry about that!"

Smells like stale air and rotten onions. Spite makes gagging sounds next to him as they both thread themselves through the open frame.

"Kitchenette's over there, you can just pick up whatever you like - let me open another window." She says over there as though her room wasn't so small it was already crowded with two short Crows and a demon.

A grunt, as she breaks open another of her windows. "Curse this forsaken rookery."

Sweet. Rook lives in a rookery.

"I'm sure her name hasn't been Rook her entire life, Spite. Or that she lived in a rookery all her life. How would a babe even get up here?"

If Lucanis had been told a year ago that he would comfortably talk to a demon inside him out loud while his dear is well within earshot, he would have fallen off a beam cackling.

Rook laughs. "It is a little funny, he's not wrong." Smart girl.

"Varric's chosen Rook for the chess piece, though. Says I think in straight lines. Can't imagine why."

"What's wrong with your own name?" Instead of going through her cabinets, he watches her light what seems like enough candles to burn down half of Treviso as she weaves a path through the clutter on the ground. Messy girl.

"He has this old friend of his, from where he comes from, who he'd given it as a nickname. Also an elf. Shorter than both of us, still, apparently. But she was Daisy first, I guess."

"I'm taller than you are."

"And I heard what Teia said to you about me. How you found the one Crow shorter than yourself." No bite or judgement, none at all. He's said worse to Davrin on a good day.

There's a spell of quiet, as he turns to actually take inventory of her reserves and she collects things she wants at the Lighthouse off the floor into an enormous backpack. Clothes, mostly, from the sound of it.

At least, quiet except for Spite logging every individual smell he registers. Every herb, every spice, the old must of damp fabric on wood planks, garlic so rotten the cloves have turned liquid inside. Lucanis' own cologne and Rook's strange mixture of cocoa and wet soil, though he dismisses those as Known and therefore uninteresting.

"Your kitchen is well-stocked, Rook." When she leans against the side of her tall cupboard, her plumed jacket hangs haphazardly over the doorknob behind her. By the door, her overstuffed backpack and a strapped milk crate filled with shoes.

"Don't sound so surprised. I remind you my shit-frys were at least edible, as opposed to whatever Harding does to the poor produce."

"That you call them shit-frys makes me all the more concerned." His sigh is playful, and she knows it. She hands off a basket to him, to collect the kitchenette's loot in.

She moves her hair over her bare shoulder, watches him collect containers of dried herbs, pink salt and ground garlic, syrups, jams. Some jerky, preserved damson.

"I don't actually put shit in it, you know." Through the sleeve of his shirt, she pinches at his arm.

"Do I know that?" She plays at offense when she catches his glance.

"Shit-fry's said faster than random assortment of fried vegetables. If I had grains, I'd call it Crow Feed."

It hits him like a blind bird hits a tall window, the domesticity of what they're doing here.

The achingly familiar weight of her skin on his. The unconditional trust as she lets him raid her kitchen. The fact that, when he'd asked to touch her back just that morning, to rub the visible tension from the muscles along her spine, she'd brushed her hair over her chest and turned away from him.You don't have to ask, Lucanis. You never have to ask.

The way that, even though he holds himself still as marble, his muscles still soften to accomodate for her touch.

Her forehead rests square against his triceps. Fingers curl in the fabric of his waistcoat, the other hand covering the edge of the countertop with the familiar ease of having suffered many injuries at its points.

Lucanis doesn't dare move. The spell of the moment would be broken faster than a splinter takes to skin. Spite runs across all four walls and the ceiling like a rabid cat.

"Never thought I'd see this place again," she admits, quietly. "Funny. I always hated it here. That I could never dream to live anywhere better. That this rancid, abandoned nest covered in birdshit was all my life would ever amount to."

The fingers in the fabric of his waistcoat pat gently against his small back as she collects herself with a deep, steadying breath.

"If you miss it that much," Lucanis starts, slowly. He holds himself so taut he can feel her brows pull together, even through his shirt. "You can always come back. A hideout from the hideout."

He moves to meet her gaze when he can feel her move to look up at him.

"Are you coming, too?"

"If you lead, I will follow."

Spite hurls curses at him in languages Lucanis never heard in his life, for reasons he isn't privy to, but it doesn't matter.

Not with the way Rook looks at him, right now.

"I really want to kiss you, Lucanis," she whispers. Her eyes flick up at his, down at his mouth.

"So do I." Spite chokes on the lump Lucanis tries to swallow out of his throat.

"Oh, good."

And then she leans up and does.

It's short, doesn't even last a heartbeat, and somehow it's both the smallest and the biggest thing that ever happened to him.

Her hand settles, surprisingly warm, on his low back. Even Spite is quiet, crouching in the sink with eyes wide as saucers. Rook's palm is still shielding him from the countertop corner.

People kiss like that all the time. Good-morning, good-night, I'm-still-too-sleepy-to-speak, I-just-felt-like-kissing.

It means nothing, and it means everything.

She comes back up for another.

YES. Again. More!

And another.

Her lips are parted now, wrap warm and soft around his.

Or his around hers.

Lucanis isn't sure.

The noise out of her throat, from balancing on her bad knee, rings loud as a chantry bell to him.

He's still holding on to the sweet potato.

Drops it to steady her, hand near her elbow. The sound turns curious, but she leans into the touch. There's renewed strength behind her lips now.

"Maker provide me," Rook huffs when she comes back down. She abandons the countertop corner, her nails slide onto his welt pocket.

When he looks at her lips, somehow there's more glitter on them than before.

"I could get lost in your puppy eyes for the rest of all time."

Lucanis has neither breath nor words.

So he ducks his face down to hers again.

🪶

this is spite

ALSO I PUT MY THESIS INTO THE HANDS OF MY COORDINATOR TODAY IM FINALLY FREE WHEEEEEEEEEE

also idk what first kisses w someone you actually care about are like dont come for me the reason I write like a wattpad preteen is bc when it comes to intimacy i AM the wattpad preteen

@lanafofana what we talked about is coming i promise <3

[~rina]

[brandedsurplus]

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[brandedgarmentswholesalers]

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[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

re-watched the video again this morning and oh. my. god. can i stop finding this man attractive?

he is the ceo of a stock market app and the big controversy that app had - turning off the buy button during the gamestop thing - wasnt even due to the presumed reason of him being in big finances pocket, it was because his stupid stock market app is stupidly designed.

whenever folding ideas/dan olson releases a new video, i always know im gonna learn about some insane new thing that makes me question reality for at least ten minutes.

and uh, the most recent one did too, like reddit financial apes are maybe the most chronically online people i have ever heard of in my life, but somehow that was easier to process than finding out the ceo of robinhood is kinda hot.

like i do not want to find vlad tenev attractive, hes the ceo of a stock market app. also his interior design is abysmal. but hes also kinda hot.

[yelena-bellova]

Heartfirst: A Ted Lasso Story - Chapter One

Chapter One: A Chance Meeting

Plot: Fresh off a sudden sacking, Y/n unexpectedly encounters salvation in the form of the kindness of two strangers. (Takes place between s2 and s3)

Word Count: 2k

Warnings: language

A/N: Hihellowelcome. I had no intention to write anything for Ted Lasso, but this idea came to me as a migraine-induced dream and I figured I’d give it a go. I’ll leave it up for a day or so to see if anyone’s remotely interested and if so, I’ll do a full series.

I’m tagging it under the characters who will play central parts in the series, so no one come for me if I’m “tagging it wrong.” If anybody wants to be added to the (potential) taglist, just drop a comment.

Seriously, I don’t know what this is. I’m just following the Writing Fairy where she takes me. Enjoy!

————

There was no better place to be sad than at a bar.

Y/n swirled her second glass of white wine, watching the liquid spin and bubble slightly. She was in that comfortable space of numbness where the alcohol was mixing with her sorrow and diluting it enough that she didn’t know one from the other. Though she suspected that she felt she could have three more glasses and it still wouldn’t fully take away the pain.

This was the third job - the third job - she’d been fired from in the last two years. Where one might start to question if they were the problem, Y/n didn’t have to venture there. Either the companies had faced budget cuts and her position had been deemed unnecessary or they’d gone under. This time it was the latter. She hadn’t felt particularly passionate about the work, but that had never bothered her. Work wasn’t supposed to do anything more than keep the lights on and the fridge stocked.

And yet, at 5:02, as she packed up her bag and readied herself to head home, her boss had called her into his office and told her that her position was being eliminated. The world that had seemingly just settled back down was spinning once again.

Y/n sighed, pressing the rim of her glass to her forehead. She’d been walking London in a haze since 5:03 until she found her way into some posh restaurant. She’d managed to order her drink and not much else, too wrapped up in shame and confusion. Why was seemingly nothing working out? Why did she keep getting placed in these inevitably temporary positions? Was a business degree some cruel joke the universe had led her to and the punchline was repeatedly playing out?

Throwing back the last of the white, she figured it was worth a go to see if her answers lay at the bottom of another glass.

“Can I get one more?” Y/n asked the bartender, shaking the stemware a little to signal them.

A few feet and a world away, sat at a table were two blonde women, engrossed in their own conversation. During one of their natural pauses, both their eyes caught on the hunched figure sitting alone at the bar.

“That’s a picture worth a thousand words,” Rebecca mused.

“Right?” Keeley replied, “She’s been here since before you got here. Hasn’t moved.”

Rebecca hummed in agreement, there was some part of the woman’s sadness that was palpable. Her arms were crossed over the bar as if the shield herself. She was in no rush to finish her drink indicating that she had nowhere to be. This was shame and heartbreak and all other emotions that, while men were entirely capable of feeling, typically landed only on the heads of women.

Rebecca and Keeley turned to one another at the same time with the same idea.

Keeley slid out of the booth, the more extroverted of the two, and carried her drink with her to the bar. She approached the woman carefully, coming into her peripheral vision slowly as not to startle her. Though Keeley suspected the restaurant could spontaneously burst into flames and the girl would have barely moved an inch.

“Hi,” Keeley said softly, her voice’s cheery pitch raising slightly, “Can I buy your next glass?”

Y/n turned her head to the petite blonde woman smiling at her. It had easily been an hour since she’d had to say anything to anyone other than the bartender. She had to try and remember how to speak.

“Oh,” she started, slightly confused, “Um…I, uh-“

Keeley quickly held up a hand, “Oh, I’m not, like, hitting on you or trying to recruit you for a cult. Me and my friend, Rebecca,” she pointed back towards her and Rebecca’s table, “Saw that you’d been here a while and you looked sad and we just wanted to see if we could lift your spirits is all.”

Y/n looked over her shoulder towards where the woman was pointing, her finger aimed towards a taller and older blonde who gave a polite wave.

“Oh,” Y/n said again, unable to tell if the depression or the wine was making her feel so tired, “That’s very kind of you.”

Keeley raised an expectant eyebrow, “So can we?”

Y/n gestured to her glass that had yet to be refilled, “I suppose so.”

With ease, Keeley slid onto the barstool beside Y/n. When the bartender came around with the bottle, she patted the counter. “This round’s on our bill,” she informed the employee, pointing out their booth.

“Thank you,” Y/n said in as warm a tone as she could manage.

“We’ve gotta look out for each other, yeah?” Keeley replied with a smile, “Can I ask why you’re drinking alone?”

The whole point of not calling any of her friends or now former co-workers was to not have to talk about being let go. And yet there was something about the woman that Y/n trusted, that she felt drawn to even. Like she could tell her all her secrets and she wouldn’t bat an eye, but rather make her feel better about them.

“It wasn’t a guy, was it?” Keeley asked, “‘Cause if it was, you need something way more expensive that’ll get you drunk way faster.”

Y/n unexpectedly chuckled, “No, I got sacked today.”

“Oh, shit,” Keeley adjusted her tone to match the disappointment, “I’m sorry.”

“I wish I could say it was my fault,” Y/n continued, the wine stripping away a layer of self-consciousness, “Then there’d be a good reason at least, something I can fix. But this,” she tapped her pointer finger against the counter, “Is the third job in two years I’ve been let go from.”

Keeley’s eyebrows furrowed in shock, “Who the fuck are you working for?”

Another laugh escaped Y/n’s chest, “No one extraordinary,” she caught herself, “No one at all, at the moment. It’s not even exciting or anything, just boring business shit. They all go under or they all just implode,” Y/n lowered her voice, “And, for some God only knows reason, I’m always caught in the crossfire.”

“Hang on,” Keeley grabbed her drink and hopped off the stool, “You’re going to come and join us.”

“What?” Y/n looked to the woman, “No, I’m not interrupting your night with my bad luck. At this point, it might be contagious.”

“Absolutely not,” Keeley pushed back, wrapping her hand around Y/n’s wrist and practically pulling her off her stool, “You’re going to come and drink with us and you can bitch and moan as much as you’d like.”

The absurdity of it was tripping Y/n up and also drawing her further in. Strangers were never this kind and yet, the woman and her friend were both gesturing her towards their table and into their evening.

Relenting, Y/n grabbed her purse, her fresh white wine and followed the small blonde back to the booth.

“Success,” the older woman cheered as Keeley and Y/n arrived, “Rebecca.”

“Oh shit, yeah, I bought you a drink and didn’t even tell you my name,” Keeley laughed, sliding into the booth seat, “I’m Keeley.”

“Rebecca, Keeley,” Y/n repeated the names as she sat down, trying to put a polite amount of space between them, “I’m Y/n.”

“Y/n here’s been sacked today,” Keeley hit the highlights before Rebecca got the chance to ask, “Third time in two years.”

Rebecca’s brows furrowed in shock, “Bloody hell. What does a person do to get fired three times in two years?”

Though it was phrased accusingly, Y/n could tell there was no actual malice behind it. “Hitch your wagon to the wrong fucking horse.”

Keeley and Rebecca stared back in silence.

“Sorry,” Y/n apologized, remembering what continent she was on, “American expression.”

“That was my next question,” Rebecca replied, picking up her glass of merlot.

“I went to school here on scholarship,” Y/n explained the cultural difference, “After I graduated, I was so settled that I didn’t feel like leaving. Though I’m starting to question if that was the right choice…”

“I suppose you would,” Keeley agreed, “What is it that you do? What’d you get your degree in?”

Y/n took a sip of her chard before answering, “Business with a minor in public relations. I’m the person people pay to handle all the fine print shit they don’t want to deal with, but sometimes I’ve handled press for my companies.”

Y/n was unsure why Rebecca was nudging Keeley with her elbow, but there was clear meaning to it.

“You do PR?” Keeley asked, leaning on the table with her elbows.

“I can, yeah,” Y/n answered, feeling like what she said was under a spotlight, “I’ve been in more of a managerial capacity as of late, but yeah.”

Rebecca smiled into her own glass as she drank, as if all the magical pieces of a puzzle she hadn’t meant to solve were suddenly coming together.

“Well, shit,” Keeley exclaimed, “I think the universe brought us together tonight.”

Y/n squinted a little, “I’m sorry?”

Keeley excitedly scooted closer to the table, “I’ve just started my own PR firm. You should come and work for me.”

Now she was entirely convinced she was more buzzed than she thought. “What?” Y/n asked.

“It’s just a small start-up,” Keeley explained further, “We’re not that big yet, but it’s good work. We’ve already got some pretty big clients.”

“I-I’m sorry,” Y/n set down her wine, fully invested now in the conversation, “You just met me and you’re offering me a job?”

Keeley shrugged as if she was simply offering to buy lunch, “Yeah, why not? You seem lovely and you’re in need of work and it cannot be a coincidence that we met.”

Suddenly, it all clicked in Y/n’s mind.

“Holy fuck,” she half cried, half whispered, “You’re Keeley Jones, aren’t you? I saw you in Vanity Fair!”

Keeley’s admission was her toothy grin.

“And,” Y/n’s raised finger drifted to Rebecca, who seemed to already guess what was coming, “Shit, you own th-th-the football club!”

“AFC Richmond,” Rebecca filled in the missing title with a smile.

“Holy shit,” Y/n whispered, letting her back hit the booth. The night was taking an entirely different turn than she’d expected.

“My firm exclusively handles PR for Richmond,” Keeley explained, “Are you a football fan?”

Still in shock, Y/n managed to answer. “I mean, sort of? I don’t root for anyone, really. I dated an Arsenal fan for a while, but I don’t really watch it all that much, to be honest.”

“Oh, well,” Rebecca adjusted herself in her seat, “We’re going to have to change that.”

“But-“ Y/n brought herself back to the original topic, “How can you offer me a job? You don’t know me. I could be a terrible employee for all you know.”

“You said that the firings weren’t your fault,” Keeley stated.

Y/n shrugged, “How do you know I’m not lying?”

“Oh, please,” Rebecca mumbled over a bite of her appetizer, “You’re far too smart to be fired for a valid reason. I’ve known you ten seconds and I can already tell that.”

Y/n chuckled, this was the most she’d laughed in a long time and it was with strangers that were feeling less and less like strangers.

“Look,” Keeley spoke up, laying her hands out on the table, “You don’t have to say yes. You can forget this night ever happened…but I really don’t think you should.”

Y/n’s eyes darted back and forth between Keeley and Rebecca, weighing her options and the insanity of the proposition. These were women higher up in business than she’d ever aspired to. These were women who knew exactly what they wanted and what they were doing, and they were reaching down to offer her a helping hand.

All her life, Y/n had been adrift. Floating on a little raft that somehow managed to weather every storm. Nothing had yet to find her that felt like magic, nor had she ever sought it out. Attending school in England had been the most shocking decision she’d ever made, and thousands of people chose the same path every day. She had never taken a step fully into the unknown, and sitting across the table from Keeley Jones and Rebecca Welton was the first time she’d ever considered it.

It was that or the unemployment office.

“Y’know,” Y/n sighed and smirked, “If we were men, you’d be making me this offer over the urinals.”

The three women burst into snorts and laughter.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The reason you can’t buy a car is the same reason that your health insurer let hackers dox you

On July 14, I'm giving the closing keynote for the fifteenth HACKERS ON PLANET EARTH, in QUEENS, NY. Happy Bastille Day! On July 20, I'm appearing in CHICAGO at Exile in Bookville.

In 2017, Equifax suffered the worst data-breach in world history, leaking the deep, nonconsensual dossiers it had compiled on 148m Americans and 15m Britons, (and 19k Canadians) into the world, to form an immortal, undeletable reservoir of kompromat and premade identity-theft kits:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Equifax_data_breach

Equifax knew the breach was coming. It wasn't just that their top execs liquidated their stock in Equifax before the announcement of the breach – it was also that they ignored years of increasingly urgent warnings from IT staff about the problems with their server security.

Things didn't improve after the breach. Indeed, the 2017 Equifax breach was the starting gun for a string of more breaches, because Equifax's servers didn't just have one fubared system – it was composed of pure, refined fubar. After one group of hackers breached the main Equifax system, other groups breached other Equifax systems, over and over, and over:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/equifax-password-username-admin-lawsuit-201118316.html

Doesn't this remind you of Boeing? It reminds me of Boeing. The spectacular 737 Max failures in 2018 weren't the end of the scandal. They weren't even the scandal's start – they were the tipping point, the moment in which a long history of lethally defective planes "breached" from the world of aviation wonks and into the wider public consciousness:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incidents_involving_the_Boeing_737

Just like with Equifax, the 737 Max disasters tipped Boeing into a string of increasingly grim catastrophes. Each fresh disaster landed with the grim inevitability of your general contractor texting you that he's just opened up your ceiling and discovered that all your joists had rotted out – and that he won't be able to deal with that until he deals with the termites he found last week, and that they'll have to wait until he gets to the cracks in the foundation slab from the week before, and that those will have to wait until he gets to the asbestos he just discovered in the walls.

Drip, drip, drip, as you realize that the most expensive thing you own – which is also the thing you had hoped to shelter for the rest of your life – isn't even a teardown, it's just a pure liability. Even if you razed the structure, you couldn't start over, because the soil is full of PCBs. It's not a toxic asset, because it's not an asset. It's just toxic.

Equifax isn't just a company: it's infrastructure. It started out as an engine for racial, political and sexual discrimination, paying snoops to collect gossip from nosy neighbors, which was assembled into vast warehouses full of binders that told bank officers which loan applicants should be denied for being queer, or leftists, or, you know, Black:

https://jacobin.com/2017/09/equifax-retail-credit-company-discrimination-loans

This witch-hunts-as-a-service morphed into an official part of the economy, the backbone of the credit industry, with a license to secretly destroy your life with haphazardly assembled "facts" about your life that you had the most minimal, grudging right to appeal (or even see). Turns out there are a lot of customers for this kind of service, and the capital markets showered Equifax with the cash needed to buy almost all of its rivals, in mergers that were waved through by a generation of Reaganomics-sedated antitrust regulators.

There's a direct line from that acquisition spree to the Equifax breach(es). First of all, companies like Equifax were early adopters of technology. They're a database company, so they were the crash-test dummies for ever generation of database. These bug-riddled, heavily patched systems were overlaid with subsequent layers of new tech, with new defects to be patched and then overlaid with the next generation.

These systems are intrinsically fragile, because things fall apart at the seams, and these systems are all seams. They are tech-debt personified. Now, every kind of enterprise will eventually reach this state if it keeps going long enough, but the early digitizers are the bow-wave of that coming infopocalypse, both because they got there first and because the bottom tiers of their systems are composed of layers of punchcards and COBOL, crumbling under the geological stresses of seventy years of subsequent technology.

The single best account of this phenomenon is the British Library's postmortem of their ransomware attack, which is also in the running for "best hard-eyed assessment of how fucked things are":

https://www.bl.uk/home/british-library-cyber-incident-review-8-march-2024.pdf

There's a reason libraries, cities, insurance companies, and other giant institutions keep getting breached: they started accumulating tech debt before anyone else, so they've got more asbestos in the walls, more sagging joists, more foundation cracks and more termites.

That was the starting point for Equifax – a company with a massive tech debt that it would struggle to pay down under the most ideal circumstances.

Then, Equifax deliberately made this situation infinitely worse through a series of mergers in which it bought dozens of other companies that all had their own version of this problem, and duct-taped their failing, fucked up IT systems to its own. The more seams an IT system has, the more brittle and insecure it is. Equifax deliberately added so many seams that you need to be able to visualized additional spatial dimensions to grasp them – they had fractal seams.

But wait, there's more! The reason to merge with your competitors is to create a monopoly position, and the value of a monopoly position is that it makes a company too big to fail, which makes it too big to jail, which makes it too big to care. Each Equifax acquisition took a piece off the game board, making it that much harder to replace Equifax if it fucked up. That, in turn, made it harder to punish Equifax if it fucked up. And that meant that Equifax didn't have to care if it fucked up.

Which is why the increasingly desperate pleas for more resources to shore up Equifax's crumbling IT and security infrastructure went unheeded. Top management could see that they were steaming directly into an iceberg, but they also knew that they had a guaranteed spot on the lifeboats, and that someone else would be responsible for fishing the dead passengers out of the sea. Why turn the wheel?

That's what happened to Boeing, too: the company acquired new layers of technical complexity by merging with rivals (principally McDonnell-Douglas), and then starved the departments that would have to deal with that complexity because it was being managed by execs whose driving passion was to run a company that was too big to care. Those execs then added more complexity by chasing lower costs by firing unionized, competent, senior staff and replacing them with untrained scabs in jurisdictions chosen for their lax labor and environmental enforcement regimes.

(The biggest difference was that Boeing once had a useful, high-quality product, whereas Equifax started off as an irredeemably terrible, if efficient, discrimination machine, and grew to become an equally terrible, but also ferociously incompetent, enterprise.)

This is the American story of the past four decades: accumulate tech debt, merge to monopoly, exponentially compound your tech debt by combining barely functional IT systems. Every corporate behemoth is locked in a race between the eventual discovery of its irreparable structural defects and its ability to become so enmeshed in our lives that we have to assume the costs of fixing those defects. It's a contest between "too rotten to stand" and "too big to care."

Remember last February, when we all discovered that there was a company called Change Healthcare, and that they were key to processing virtually every prescription filled in America? Remember how we discovered this? Change was hacked, went down, ransomed, and no one could fill a scrip in America for more than a week, until they paid the hackers $22m in Bitcoin?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Change_Healthcare_ransomware_attack

How did we end up with Change Healthcare as the linchpin of the entire American prescription system? Well, first Unitedhealthcare became the largest health insurer in America by buying all its competitors in a series of mergers that comatose antitrust regulators failed to block. Then it combined all those other companies' IT systems into a cosmic-scale dog's breakfast that barely ran. Then it bought Change and used its monopoly power to ensure that every Rx ran through Change's servers, which were part of that asbestos-filled, termite-infested, crack-foundationed, sag-joisted teardown. Then, it got hacked.

United's execs are the kind of execs on a relentless quest to be too big to care, and so they don't care. Which is why their they had to subsequently announce that they had suffered a breach that turned the complete medical histories of one third of Americans into immortal Darknet kompromat that is – even now – being combined with breach data from Equifax and force-fed to the slaves in Cambodia and Laos's pig-butchering factories:

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/01/politics/data-stolen-healthcare-hack/index.html

Those slaves are beaten, tortured, and punitively raped in compounds to force them to drain the life's savings of everyone in Canada, Australia, Singapore, the UK and Europe. Remember that they are downstream of the forseeable, inevitable IT failures of companies that set out to be too big to care that this was going to happen.

Failures like Ticketmaster's, which flushed 500 million users' personal information into the identity-theft mills just last month. Ticketmaster, you'll recall, grew to its current scale through (you guessed it), a series of mergers en route to "too big to care" status, that resulted in its IT systems being combined with those of Ticketron, Live Nation, and dozens of others:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/31/business/ticketmaster-hack-data-breach.html

But enough about that. Let's go car-shopping!

Good luck with that. There's a company you've never heard. It's called CDK Global. They provide "dealer management software." They are a monopolist. They got that way after being bought by a private equity fund called Brookfield. You can't complete a car purchase without their systems, and their systems have been hacked. No one can buy a car:

https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/27/business/cdk-global-cyber-attack-update/index.html

Writing for his BIG newsletter, Matt Stoller tells the all-too-familiar story of how CDK Global filled the walls of the nation's auto-dealers with the IT equivalent of termites and asbestos, and lays the blame where it belongs: with a legal and economics establishment that wanted it this way:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/a-supreme-court-justice-is-why-you

The CDK story follows the Equifax/Boeing/Change Healthcare/Ticketmaster pattern, but with an important difference. As CDK was amassing its monopoly power, one of its execs, Dan McCray, told a competitor, Authenticom founder Steve Cottrell that if he didn't sell to CDK that he would "fucking destroy" Authenticom by illegally colluding with the number two dealer management company Reynolds.

Rather than selling out, Cottrell blew the whistle, using Cottrell's own words to convince a district court that CDK had violated antitrust law. The court agreed, and ordered CDK and Reynolds – who controlled 90% of the market – to continue to allow Authenticom to participate in the DMS market.

Dealers cheered this on: CDK/Reynolds had been steadily hiking prices, while ingesting dealer data and using it to gouge the dealers on additional services, while denying dealers access to their own data. The services that Authenticom provided for $35/month cost $735/month from CDK/Reynolds (they justified this price hike by saying they needed the additional funds to cover the costs of increased information security!).

CDK/Reynolds appealed the judgment to the 7th Circuit, where a panel of economists weighed in. As Stoller writes, this panel included monopoly's most notorious (and well-compensated) cheerleader, Frank Easterbrook, and the "legendary" Democrat Diane Wood. They argued for CDK/Reynolds, demanding that the court release them from their obligations to share the market with Authenticom:

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-7th-circuit/1879150.html

The 7th Circuit bought the argument, overturning the lower court and paving the way for the CDK/Reynolds monopoly, which is how we ended up with one company's objectively shitty IT systems interwoven into the sale of every car, which meant that when Russian hackers looked at that crosseyed, it split wide open, allowing them to halt auto sales nationwide. What happens next is a near-certainty: CDK will pay a multimillion dollar ransom, and the hackers will reward them by breaching the personal details of everyone who's ever bought a car, and the slaves in Cambodian pig-butchering compounds will get a fresh supply of kompromat.

But on the plus side, the need to pay these huge ransoms is key to ensuring liquidity in the cryptocurrency markets, because ransoms are now the only nondiscretionary liability that can only be settled in crypto:

https://locusmag.com/2022/09/cory-doctorow-moneylike/

When the 7th Circuit set up every American car owner to be pig-butchered, they cited one of the most important cases in antitrust history: the 2004 unanimous Supreme Court decision in Verizon v Trinko:

https://www.oyez.org/cases/2003/02-682

Trinko was a case about whether antitrust law could force Verizon, a telcoms monopolist, to share its lines with competitors, something it had been ordered to do and then cheated on. The decision was written by Antonin Scalia, and without it, Big Tech would never have been able to form. Scalia and Trinko gave us the modern, too-big-to-care versions of Google, Meta, Apple, Microsoft and the other tech baronies.

In his Trinko opinion, Scalia said that "possessing monopoly power" and "charging monopoly prices" was "not unlawful" – rather, it was "an important element of the free-market system." Scalia – writing on behalf of a unanimous court! – said that fighting monopolists "may lessen the incentive for the monopolist…to invest in those economically beneficial facilities."

In other words, in order to prevent monopolists from being too big to care, we have to let them have monopolies. No wonder Trinko is the Zelig of shitty antitrust rulings, from the decision to dismiss the antitrust case against Facebook and Apple's defense in its own ongoing case:

https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/cases/073_2021.06.28_mtd_order_memo.pdf

Trinko is the origin node of too big to care. It's the reason that our whole economy is now composed of "infrastructure" that is made of splitting seams, asbestos, termites and dry rot. It's the reason that the entire automotive sector became dependent on companies like Reynolds, whose billionaire owner intentionally and illegally destroyed evidence of his company's crimes, before going on to commit the largest tax fraud in American history:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/billionaire-robert-brockman-accused-of-biggest-tax-fraud-in-u-s-history-dies-at-81-11660226505

Trinko begs companies to become too big to care. It ensures that they will exponentially increase their IT debt while becoming structurally important to whole swathes of the US economy. It guarantees that they will underinvest in IT security. It is the soil in which pig butchering grew.

It's why you can't buy a car.

Now, I am fond of quoting Stein's Law at moments like this: "anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop." As Stoller writes, after two decades of unchallenged rule, Trinko is looking awfully shaky. It was substantially narrowed in 2023 by the 10th Circuit, which had been briefed by Biden's antitrust division:

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca10/22-1164/22-1164-2023-08-21.html

And the cases of 2024 have something going for them that Trinko lacked in 2004: evidence of what a fucking disaster Trinko is. The wrongness of Trinko is so increasingly undeniable that there's a chance it will be overturned.

But it won't go down easy. As Stoller writes, Trinko didn't emerge from a vacuum: the economic theories that underpinned it come from some of the heroes of orthodox economics, like Joseph Schumpeter, who is positively worshipped. Schumpeter was antitrust's OG hater, who wrote extensively that antitrust law didn't need to exist because any harmful monopoly would be overturned by an inevitable market process dictated by iron laws of economics.

Schumpeter wrote that monopolies could only be sustained by "alertness and energy" – that there would never be a monopoly so secure that its owner became too big to care. But he went further, insisting that the promise of attaining a monopoly was key to investment in great new things, because monopolists had the economic power that let them plan and execute great feats of innovation.

The idea that monopolies are benevolent dictators has pervaded our economic tale for decades. Even today, critics who deplore Facebook and Google do so on the basis that they do not wield their power wisely (say, to stamp out harassment or disinformation). When confronted with the possibility of breaking up these companies or replacing them with smaller platforms, those critics recoil, insisting that without Big Tech's scale, no one will ever have the power to accomplish their goals:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/18/urban-wildlife-interface/#combustible-walled-gardens

But they misunderstand the relationship between corporate power and corporate conduct. The reason corporations accumulate power is so that they can be insulated from the consequences of the harms they wreak upon the rest of us. They don't inflict those harms out of sadism: rather, they do so in order to externalize the costs of running a good system, reaping the profits of scale while we pay its costs.

The only reason to accumulate corporate power is to grow too big to care. Any corporation that amasses enough power that it need not care about us will not care about it. You can't fix Facebook by replacing Zuck with a good unelected social media czar with total power over billions of peoples' lives. We need to abolish Zuck, not fix Zuck.

Zuck is not exceptional: there were a million sociopaths whom investors would have funded to monopolistic dominance if he had balked. A monopoly like Facebook has a Zuck-shaped hole at the top of its org chart, and only someone Zuck-shaped will ever fit through that hole.

Our whole economy is now composed of companies with sociopath-shaped holes at the tops of their org chart. The reason these companies can only be run by sociopaths is the same reason that they have become infrastructure that is crumbling due to sociopathic neglect. The reckless disregard for the risk of combining companies is the source of the market power these companies accumulated, and the market power let them neglect their systems to the point of collapse.

This is the system that Schumpeter, and Easterbrook, and Wood, and Scalia – and the entire Supreme Court of 2004 – set out to make. The fact that you can't buy a car is a feature, not a bug. The pig-butcherers, wallowing in an ocean of breach data, are a feature, not a bug. The point of the system was what it did: create unimaginable wealth for a tiny cohort of the worst people on Earth without regard to the collapse this would provoke, or the plight of those of us trapped and suffocating in the rubble.

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

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/2024/06/28/dealer-management-software/#antonin-scalia-stole-your-car

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

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

[a-dauntless-daffodil]

it's very bad no good cupcake baking time for the hotel crew (save them) (charlie did you think this throu-) (NO)

Charlie: “I have! The most brilliant plan for a group bonding activity!”

Angel Dust: “Oooh~ Bondin’ or bond-”

Vaggie: “You live here for free.”

Angel Dust: “Buy my silence, Vaggity Fair, cause’ it sure ain’t free.”

Vaggie: (groans) (slips him a twenty) “Go on babe, what’s the mission statement?”

Charlie: “We should all bake CUPCAKES together!!”

Hotel Crew: "......"

Husk: “…Why.”

Charlie: “Beeeecaaaause it’d be so SWEET!”

Vaggie: “And you also live here for free.”

Husk: “Not of my own free will I don’t.”

Charlie: “Aw c’mon Husk, please? Baking is probably KINDA like drink mixing, right?”

Husk: “It’s not.”

Vaggie: (SIGHS) (slips him a twenty)

Husk: “I’ve got cooking sherry around here somewhere, I think.”

Alastor: “How thrilling! Extreme heat sources, flammable liquids, and so many little bottles and vials that couldn’t possibly get mix up with anything in the pest control cabinet!”

Niffty: “Hee hee hee…. Rat poison~”

Vaggie: “Twenty bucks and you LOCK that cabinet, okay?”

Niffty: “Thirty and a new knife set!”

Vaggie: (has given up) “Fine.”

Niffty: “OKAY!”

Charlie: “We need to go shopping anyway. We’ll need flour and sugar and uhhhh flavory things of some kind probably and um, those little paper thingies- the cup cake… skirts?”

Alastor: “Glad to see how prepared our intrepid leader is for this marvelous expedition!”

Charlie: “Cup cake… dollies…?”

Vaggie: “I’ll handle it. You remember how to pre-heat the oven?”

Charlie: “NOT with actual fire!”

Alastor: “Aww.”

Angel Dust: (handing back the twenty) “I want a new pair of fuzzy pink handcuffs. Mine broke~”

Vaggie: “I don’t want to know.”

Husk: (handing his twenty back too) “Beer.”

Vaggie: “Beer? You run the hotel BAR.”

Husk: “What, you think I nip stuff under the table at work?”

Alastor: “Oh there isn’t much thought needed when it comes to you, I’m afraid.”

Husk: “You think I LIKE that I do that? That’s the stupid hotel’s shit, can’t relax sneaking shots that aren’t mine, racking up a tab like that. This beer is gonna be only for me.”

Charlie: “Husk…”

Vaggie: “Great whatever, guilt free beer for the alcoholic.”

Alastor: “How touching. And I require-”

Vaggie: “What YOU need is a-”

Charlie: “Happy place!”

Vaggie: “-which I’m not picking up for you. I’ll get more cleaning supplies too while I’m at it.”

Charlie: “More? Vaggie, have some faith! We’re all adults here! It’s not gonna be THAT messy. We just need to measure things, maybe chop some stuff up first-”

Niffty: “KNIVES.”

Charlie: “-put all in a- blender-? A blender would work for mixing, right? Then pour the batter in the things and into the oven! Which I WILL remember to preheat this time. Without fire.”

Vaggie: “Good point.”

Charlie: “See!”

Vaggie: “We should stock up on first aid stuff too.”

Charlie: (pouting) “We’ll talk about it on the way.”

Vaggie: “Sweetie, thanks for wanting to help carry groceries, but I really think we need to divide and conquer here.”

Charlie: “Huh?”

Vaggie: “Husk is already halfway to the wine cellar.”

Charlie: “He wh- Husk wait! You can’t help make friendship cupcakes if you’re blackout drunk!”

Angel Dust: “Toots that’s the whole idea.”

Vaggie: “Fifty bucks if he’s still conscious when I get back. I’ll need him in the kitchen later if we’re gonna get through this alive.”

Angel Dust: “Spend it on getting’ him a really NICE beer and you’ve gotta deal.”

Vaggie: (eye twitch) “Why is all my money turning into drugs and sex toys?”

Niffty: “And KNIVES!”

Vaggie: “The one silver lining…”

Alastor: “You know, if you won’t extend simple shopping list courtesies to me, then I suppose I shall have to go shopping myself as well.”

Vaggie: “Keep your shopping on the other side of town from me or I’m coming home with a flat screen tv.”

Alastor: (annoyed channel switch sound) “….Noted!”

– LATER –

Hotel Crew: “………….”

Oven: (DING)

Vaggie: “…”

Vaggie: “….cupcakes are done.”

Charlie: “Oh yay. Whoo. Hoo.”

Hotel Crew: “…….”

Vaggie: “If no one takes them out they’re gonna burn.”

Angel Dust: “Let ‘em.”

Husk: “Little fuckers deserve to fry.”

Charlie: (exhausted) “No one deserves to burn for all eternity.”

Niffty: “Yeah! I wanna RIP THEM APART and STAB THE CRUMBS.”

Alastor: “Well that’s two votes for burning and two for rescuing, to a certain extent. I myself would like to try out these DARLING cupcake toppers that I found while out doing my shopping completely alone.”

Vaggie: “Oh my girlfriend’s dad shut up. You won’t die just because no one was listening to you for ten minutes.”

Alastor: “In any case, that makes three for rescue and two for burn, with you as the undecided vote, Vaggie. Choose wisely~!”

Vaggie: (sighing) “Someone hand me the oven mitts.”

Husk: “They’re in the fucking blender.”

Angel Dust: “What’s left of ‘em.”

Vaggie: “Fine. Someone move the pile of dirty dishes off Charlie so SHE can be our oven mitts.”

Charlie: “It’s so peaceful under here…”

Vaggie: “The friendship cupcakes are dying, babe.”

Charlie: “UggghHHHHHH ‘kay. Coming.”

Angel Dust “That’s what she sa-”

Vaggie: “KNIVES.”

Angel Dust “-cough cough cough! I didn’t say nothin’, I got a piece of walnut shell stuck in my throat!”

Alastor: “Usual night for you then, hmm?”

Husk: “Who the fuck put in walnuts?”

Vaggie: “Who cares. If they shelled them then it’s at least better than the coconut thing.”

Charlie: “Did we add anything that wasn’t nut related?”

Vaggie: “Uhhh.”

Angel Dust “Nope!”

Husk: “Is that the only thing you were keeping track of.”

Angel Dust “Hey I know my strengths and I’m stickn’ to ‘em!”

Charlie: “Speaking of strength and sticking… um…”

Hotel Crew: “……….”

Charlie: “They’re bubbling.”

Vaggie: “Yeah.”

Charlie: “Or, breathing?”

Vaggie: “Yeah…”

Charlie: “Is that normal? It feels kinda… not normal.”

Vaggie: “It’s. Impressive.”

Niftty: “They’re ALIVE!” (knife) “For now.”

Charlie: “Well I guess we shouldn’t REALLY judge them until we’ve actually seen what they taste like-”

Angel Dust “Not it!”

Husk: “Fuck no.”

Alastor: “I’m terribly afraid that I am on a diet.”

Vaggie: “You eat rotting deer carcasses.”

Alastor: “And THEY aren’t still moving when I chow in, ha ha!”

Charlie: “Okay well, I guess I’ll just…”

Vaggie: “Wait. You’re probably immune to half the stuff that’d kill us.”

Charlie: “Right, so I should-”

Vaggie: “You’re not a good example of what happens when a non-demon princess person eats these, sweetie. If wanna test for uh, quality control, it shouldn’t be with you.”

Hotel Crew: “…..”

Vaggie: “….hand me a cupcake.”

Husk: (edges out of the splash zone)

Charlie: “You don’t have to do this.”

Angel Dust: “But you totally should! After I get my phone out though, hold on a sec-”

Vaggie: “I’m standing right in front of Radio Head over here so don’t even THINK about recording this.”

Alastor: “Aww my dear little angel-”

Charlie: “Alastor.” (calm smile) (horns out) “Her name is Vaggie.”

Alastor: “-Vaggie, yes, I would almost be willing to make an exception to my own morals for you.” (grins at angel dust) “Almost.”

Angel Dust: (lowering his phone) “I was jus’ takin’ a selfie. You know. Since I’m covered in sticky white shit anyway.”

Husk: “This fucking sucks.” (shakes his paws)

Vaggie: “No. THIS does.”

Vaggie: (bites cupcake)

Hotel Crew: “……………..”

Vaggie: “….hm.”

Hotel Crew: (STEPS BACK)

Vaggie: “It’s… well it’s kinda…”

Charlie: (cringing) “Break up worthy??”

Niffty: “PAINFUL?”

Vaggie: “It’s.. Fruity..?”

Hotel Crew: (stares at still moving cupcakes)

Angel Dust: “No. Fuckin’. Way.”

Husk: “Since the fuck WHEN did they have fruit in them?”

Angel Dust: “They didn’t! I swear I checked!”

Charlie: “Are they, um, edible?”

Vaggie: “Well I wouldn’t sign them up for a baking competition but I’m not dying either, so.”

Charlie: (excited) “So we did it? We all made actual cupcakes together?”

Vaggie: (smiling) “We did it. Mission cupcake completed.”

Charlie: “HAHA YUS!” (fist pump) “FRIENDSHIP POWERRRRRRR!!!!”

Alastor: “Now now now, no cupcake is fully complete without a lovely floral topper!”

Angel Dust: “Ain’t THAT the truth~”

Alastor: “Which I bought. Alone. Without any second opinion to rely on.”

Vaggie: (rolls eye)

Charlie: “And they’re so cute! Thank you Alastor- you picked wonderfully. Everyone, get decorating!”

Niffty: (drooping) “No stabbing?”

Vaggie: “You can poke ‘em each with a knife to check that they’re done.”

Niffty: “HEHEHEH.”

Vaggie: “Poke them with the knife ONCE Niffty- hey- NO- don’t leave it inside-”

Angel Dust: “That’s what-”

Husk: “Will be on your gravestone if she fucking hears you.”

Charlie: “Awww~ Now they’re adorable AND delicious!”

Husk: “Don’t.”

Angel Dust: “I didn’t say nothin’!”

Vaggie: “I actually kinda wish you’d go back to sex jokes instead of whatever you’re doing to that cupcake”

Angel Dust: “There’s more than one kind of oral performance in the world~”

Vaggie: “Say that and then look at what Niffty’s doing to her cupcake.”

Husk: “Unholy fucking shit!!”

Niffty: (GLEEFUL CACKLING)

Charlie: “Okay well, we clearly each have our own… unique ways of enjoying these cupcakes. Some more uh, graphic and concerning than others-”

Angel Dust: “Why the fuck are the insides RED like that?! Who put in red dye???”

Charlie: “-but the point is we all came together to make these sweets! Which. Taste like strawberries?”

Vaggie: “I didn’t buy strawberries.”

Charlie: “A-at least it and the redness go with the rose themed toppers!”

Angel Dust: “Yeah, I mean, is it weird that out of this whole maybe-living cupcake thing, the professional spun sugar parts are the ones with the funkiest taste to ‘em?”

Vaggie: “….”

Vaggie: “Alastor. Where the fuck did you buy the rose themed cupcake toppers.”

Alastor: “Hmm? Does my private, SOLITARY shopping FINALLY interest you?”

Vaggie: “Where you literally on the other side of Pentagram City from me.”

Alastor: “I do believe that is what you requested, and I, being a proper gentleman even to someone who might be considered a less than proper lady, was only too happy to oblige!”

Charlie: “Vaggie are you okay? You’re looking kinda pale.”

Vaggie: “I’m.”

Vaggie: “Alastor did you get these rose themed toppers-"

Vaggie: "-in Cannibal Town?”

Angel Dust: “WHAT THE FUCK!?”

Alastor: “I did.”

Angel Dust: “FUCK!!!”

Husk: (hairball noise)

Charlie: “Oh no.”

Alastor: “Dear Rosie gave me quite the discount. Wasn’t that sweet of her?”

Charlie: “Oh. Nooooooooo-”

Alastor: “I think it utterly darling of her~”

Niffty: “Alastor, hey hey!”

Alastor: “Yes, murder of my eye?”

Niffty: “I stabbed my cupcake topper heheheh WHO did I just stab????”

Charlie: “NOOOOOO-”

Alastor: “I believe it was an unsatisfactory husband by the name of Bill.”

Niffty: (grinning) “A BAD boy?”

Alastor: “Not bad enough to escape Rosie’s Emporium intact but yes, in a manner of speaking.”

Niffty: “Oooh.”

Niffty: (snatches up another cupcake and hugs it) “For my collection.”

Charlie: “GAAAHM NOT HEARING THIS! I DIDN’T HEAR IT!”

Angel Dust: “GREAT CAN YA MAKE IT SO’S I DIDN’T EAT ANY OF IT EITHER!??!”

Alastor: “Not to your tastes, Angel Dust? And here I though you enjoyed have strange men in your mouth.”

Charlie: “DO WE KNOW HIS ADDRESS SO I CAN SEND AN APOLOGY LETTER???”

Alastor: “I suppose his business card might still be in the hand Rose tore off him-”

Charlie: “AAAAAGH!”

Vaggie: “Hostia. You really can’t not be the center of attention for five minutes can you.”

Alastor: “I can, truly I can and very happily! It seems however that YOU cannot withstand the consequences of your own, short-sighted actions.”

Charlie: “Um guys-”

Vaggie: “Oh yeah? You’re not the only monster here, dumbass.”

Charlie: “We’re getting a little off topic-”

Alastor: "But as I am the only one not mired in glorious self-pity, certainly I am the most impressive specimen here.”

Charlie: “Okay this is going a bit-”

Vaggie: “Impressive HA! Fuck your empty grin and your stupid suits. You’re not even the one with the highest body count.”

Angel Dust: “Are we talkin’ sex stuff orrr-?”

Vaggie: (takes topper off her cupcake and pops it in her mouth)

Hotel Crew: “………”

Vaggie: “What?”

Charlie: “Vaggie, um. Person.” (points) “Person food.”

Vaggie: “Sweetie, you know how murder crazy exorcist are. You really never thought we didn’t lick a little blood off our weapons now and then, to feel extra badass about slaughtering people sometimes?”

Charlie: (dazed) “I’m thinking about it now.” (covers cheeks)

Niffty: “BLOOD!”

Angel Dust: “Oh ew. Oh you're getting off on that- Oh that’s just-”

Charlie: “Part of her past, a thing EVERYONE has.”

Angel Dust: “BLEH.”

Husk: “Also step one to seeing her shitfaced.”

Charlie: “Ha haaa…” (claps hands) “Okay everyone- that’s a wrap on today’s bonding activities! I uh, I think we can save the clean up until we’ve all recovered from the actual cupcakes a bit, right Vaggie?”

Vaggie: (shrug) “Whatever.”

Husk: “About damn time.” (sighs) (walks out) “I’ll get the fucking vodka.”

Niffty: "HEE HEE." (carrying cupcake over her head) "TO THE COLLECTION!"

Angel Dust: “Hold up baby! I wanna get shitfaced too after this!”

Charlie: “Well I think it’s all very interesting! Angel stuff is interesting, isn’t it Alastor?”

Alastor: “Yes. Quite.”

Vaggie: “Uh-huh.” (slumps and drops cupcake) “Bill tastes boring as hell, by the way, maybe let Rosie know before she sells anymore of these.”

Charlie: “Oh? Maybe THAT’S why she gave such a steep discount?”

Alastor: “Perhaps.”

Charlie: “Awww cheer up Alastor. You can bring her some of our cupcakes as a thank you, now that we uh, we’ve um, had our fill of them already.”

Alastor: “Hmph.”

Vaggie: “Think I’ll head up now.”

Alastor: “While grabbing a drink along way, hmm?”

Vaggie: “Yeah. Why not.”

Charlie: “Vaggie-” (catches her hand) (squeezes) “-grab one for me, too? I’ll be right behind you.”

Vaggie: “…wine from the cellar then, huh?”

Charlie: “I’m having whatever you’re having.”

Vaggie: “Sweetie, you hate the shit I drink.” (small smile) “I’ll get us something from the cellar. Meet you up there.”

Charlie: “In a heartbeat.”

Charlie: “….”

Charlie: “Alastor.”

Alastor: “Oh don’t scold me for her baggage, dear, I don’t make her carry it.”

Charlie: “I’m not scolding. I just- I get that you have this whole-” (air quotes) “-annoying big brother who hates being ignored thing going on with Vaggie, and while it IS kinda sweet-”

Alastor: (microphone feedback) “Excuse me?”

Charlie: “Could you turn it down a tiny bit when it comes the exorcist stuff?”

Alastor: “I do not-”

Charlie: “I know I know you don’t mean to make her all droopy like this, it’s boring for you, totally a killjoy-”

Alastor: “There is NOTHING enjoyable about that woman!”

Charlie: “-So maaaaaaybe back off a little when things get too serious?”

Alastor: “NO!”

Charlie: “Think about it okay?” (pats his shoulder) “Anyway, thanks for sticking around for the friendship cupcakes, see you at the next hotel bonding session, Dadastor!”

Alastor: “At the next-”

Alastor: “………”

Alastor: (hissing) “DADastor!?”

[yeyinde]

hoooooo boy. m!mc anon here - your response was extremely interesting and i am a little obsessed with your brain (i’d like to study it, you truly come up with the most delicious ideas)

but i also have to say that out of all of tf 141, that idea for soap was actually so delicious that i had to physically put my phone down for a while. respectfully, that is the hottest thing i’ve probably ever read. even more feral soap?? forcefem?? phew. amen.

thank you for giving me more material to zone out to in the middle of the day (praying hands emoji)

ahhh thanks!!! i started to drag on more about m!Reader and Johnny, but. this happened lmao. so here is some nasty Johnny picking up m!Reader in a bar.

forced!fem. switch Johnny. m!reader is described as being very masculine presenting. but in the flavour of Will Graham's whole aesthetic

All things considered, it's a little clichè.

Older man (—ish, you amend mentally, remembering the birth year on his driver's license when you chanced a peek over his forearm as he rifled through his wallet: 1982—millenial) hits on a younger man in a crowded sports bar. Opens the conversation with haven't seen you around here before, and let's the defined chisel in his jawline do the heavy lifting in place of a personality. Adds a wink to that line, too.

Thighs pressed tight against each other on the stool. Arms brushing. Speaks purposefully when it gets rowdy so he has to lean in close, stubbled jaw grazing your cheek as he mock whispers his lacklustre response to a question you didn't ask. Buys you beer. The expensive kind, too. Laughs when you ask what he's drinking and orders something that makes him seem like he's more of a man than you are.

For a brief period between intermissions—when it gets quieter and he conveniently sneaks off to the washroom—you debate picking up the heavy innuendos he's trying to put down. It could be worse, you think, staring at the only other potential lay you've been entertaining over the last two weeks.

You could be getting mediocre sex from a guy who keeps sending you unasked for pictures of his cock and hole. One you keep dodging by adding an appropriately enthused wow, all this and it's only 10am on a Tuesday to every "yep, that's a dick" image he sends in place of a real conversation.

The sarcasm gifting you yet another unasked for picture of his hand around his cock. Sure is, baby. But—

"be better if ye were 'ere wit' me."

You startle, phone cracking off the edge of the counter. "Shit—"

The person over your shoulder peels away for a moment. "Ah, sorry. Ack—is yer phone alright?"

"Yeah, yeah," you breathe, tapping on the screen. It flicks on. You're graced with another picture of his ballsack. The caption—

"need yer cock s'fuckin' bad—"

You cut him a sharp glance over your shoulder. It's rude. You're a little annoyed at having your travesty of a sex life aired out for every obnoxious wannabe cowboy to overhear, but the irritation is stemmed by the fill of liquid hazel—and flecks of blue, you think; a pretty blue ring around oxidizing copper.

Larimar. Marbled with umber. Framed around glossy white streaked with small rivers of red. Tinged slightly yellow—undoubtedly from the pack of cigarettes you find stuffed into the breast pocket of his red, gingham button down when you tear your eyes away from him. The look too intense. Too much.

Taking stock of everything else about him is just as flustering. The gingham draped loosely over him. Wrinkled sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Collar opened until the last few buttons around his navel. He's wearing a black shirt beneath that glues to his skin, pulling taut around his sternum and collarbones. A gold chain with a thick, heavy cross sits in the valley between, swinging when he rocks back on his heels.

Thick thighs stuffed into jeans that stretch to fit. The bottoms tucked half-heartedly into a pir of black, leather boots.

The shirt shifts when he moves, pulling tight around his broad shoulders as he lifts the last swig of a beer bottle to his lips. Beneath the coarse, black hair that dusts over the pale, peachy skin of his forearms, the back of his hands, his knuckles (Jesus Christ), his muscles flex. Bunching tight under veined flesh.

It makes sense to follow the trail to those sucking lips, but you catch a flash of pale pink, the sweep of a blood-red tongue through the hazy brown of the translucent rim of the bottle and feel your heart lurch in your chest.

You try to swallow but your throat is dry.

He makes a noise as he drinks. A sucking slurp, the plop of his lips unglueing from of the mouth of the bottle. A quiet, groaning ahh whispered under his breath.

It pulls your eyes up, forcing you to fill in the rest of this puzzle, and you know, even before the same dense cropping of hair that covers his arms (hands, fingers) starts to show at the black hem of his Henley that you made a mistake. A grievous one. He's handsome.

Defined jaw. Implish lips. An angular nose. Thick, full brows. The same pale, peachy skin sloping up his neck, chin, cheeks, and forehead before disappear into dark brown, almost black, hair. An untrimmed mohawk. A scar on the side of his head, cutting clean along his temple and stretching back to his ear. The hair around it is sparse. Shaved. The gorge of his scar a dark pink inside. Healed, but—

Raw.

A little like the rest of him. Rougish, in a way. Fractured.

His hair is matted down on top. Toussed along the unblemished, overgrown side, but flat on his crown.

The mystery, however, is solved when he flicks a ballcap onto the table beside you with a crooked quirk of his mouth. All teeth. White, sharp.

The man slips into the stool your date was occupying with a sniff, the smooth ridge of his nose bunching up. Displeasure drapes itself over his expression, a little rumple in his brow. "Screamin' Jesus. Dunno wha's thicker. His cologne or his come-ons."

The barb is unexpected. You try to hide your snort behind a grimace, rubbing the tip of your nose with a rough finger. He catches it, though. The pinch in his brow smoothing out as he grins wide, vicious.

Your heart lunches. Stutters uncomfortably in your chest. "You watchin' me or something?"

He turns in the seat, knee bumping into your thigh. Crowding you easily as he folds over the tabletop, elbow dropping to the table with a muted thud. His cheek slides into his palm, head tilting as he considers your words. The implication.

And then he grins wider. "Or somethin'."

Cocky. You scoff, but it just makes him look more amused.

"Tha' yer type?"

"Hmm?"

He motions to the nearly untouched glass of whiskey in front of him. Then to your phone.

"All talk," he enunciates each word, letting his accent pull taut around the syllables. "An' no action."

"No action? You don't think buying me beer and sending dick pics, begging for a fuck, is no action?"

"Aye—" he reaches for the beer he placed down beside his cap, and takes a generous swallow as you pretend the shift in his throat isn't making you a little light headed. He peels away with a grunt. "Ah do."

"Yeah?" You scoff, bringing the nozzle to your mouth to quench the ache in your throat. The soft preen coiling in your chest. Stupid words like, so what about it, pretty boy? wanna take me home. "What would you do instead?"

"I'd split yer pussy open on my cock in the loo. Let everyone in this bar hear ye moanin' fer me—"

You choke, barely have time to put the bottle down before you're haccking into your fist. He has the decency to pat your back as you wheeze.

"Ain't got a pussy," is what you settle for after a beat, voice hoarse. Wrecked. The way he shudders at the sound is unmistakable. Your neck feels hot. Itchy.

"Oh, sure ye do," he leans in close, warm breath fanning over your cheek. "A nice, tight little pussy fer me to fuck—"

"I'm a man." You feel a little stupid saying it. As if any part of you could be mistaken for slight. For soft. Feminine. You work with your hands. Grew up in the backcountry. Fishing before you could talk. Chewing tobacco before you hit puberty. Your old man made sure to pound that notion into your head before you even know what it meant to be a child. "I don't know what kinda games you're playing, but—"

"ahm no' playin' games," he shrugs, leaning back. It gives the idea of space. Distance. But his hand finds its way your denim-clad thigh, nails skimming the inside seam of your jeans wear the material is softer, worn down from friction. Too high to be appropriate.

You should move. Snap at him to take it off. Growl the words out if you have to do.

(Punch him, maybe. But he looks like the sort who would like that too much, you think. Rough. Dirty. Not afraid to fight back with his teeth if he needs to.

come on, baby, hit me harder—)

Your knee jerks. His grip tightens. "I got a cock. Not a pussy."

He makes a face at that. His full bottom lip juts out, angling to the side in confusion. "Ah ken? Ahm plannin' on ridin' that cock tonight, aye. The one yer little date is so desperate fer—"

"Jesus—" you wheeze, cock thickening in your jeans. Men aren't—

They're not usually so forward with you. It's nudging innuendos. Beer. A whispered wanna get outta here when the bar is about close and no one else is around to see it. You know what you look like. And it's not—

Soft.

"Easy," he taunts, grinning. "Don't choke so soon. 'aven't even go' ma cock out—"

You're not entertaining this. Absolutely not. He's—

Well. You're not sure what he is, but he's not normal. Not right. And you're not that desperate.

(maybe)

But the words die in your throat when his bright eyes glance down at your empty bottle, a frown forming over his pretty, pink lips like you not having anything to drink right away was somehow the most inconvenient thing to him.

"Get ye a drink?"

"Sure," you say, nodding. Then: "thanks."

It's softer. Gritty. The word scrapes over your throat in a way that almost hurts.

You blame it on the beer you drank before. Sloshing around your empty stomach and making you feel wildly off-kilter. Tipsy, maybe. Too drunk. Vulnerable to kindness (however threadbare it might be) when you usually get lewd pictures and beer you didn't ask for.

He flags the bartender down with a flick of his wrist. Keeps his eyes listed toward you as he leans over the counter, whispering something in his ear that you can't hear. Unease knots in your stomach. Cold fingers linking together, pressing frigid knuckles to your soft lining.

You look away when he drops back into his seat, hand finding its way back to your thigh. Gripping tight. Possessive. It curls around you. His warmth, his touch. The smell of him—sweet wheat, lemongrass; something earthy, like the damp, wet scent of mid-autumn; maple leaves stuck to the pavement after a late night rain shower—and you breathe slowly through your nose, both eager for the smell and sick of it. Sweet maple. Tart pumpkin. Your fingers twitch. You fold them into fists, glancing down at the spread of his hand on you.

His knuckles are red. Blotchy. Raw. The skin on his middle finger is cut across the wrinkled folds of his joint. The knick is deep. Almost a circle if not for the way it tears on the side, streaking outward. The outer edges of the crater are white. The inside pink before it turns to a deep red in the middle. Clotting already.

Your tongue feels like lead in your mouth. Unhinging your jaw takes more effort than you can expend, and you pant, a little, when your mouth finally pries apart. The words thicken on your tongue.

What happened—

The bartender comes back, his shadow falling over the counter. You jerk your head up, blinking at him as he places something down in front of you.

Something pink.

You swallow again. "Uh, what's this?"

"Sex on the Beach," the man answers, waving the bartender off. "Pretty drink fer pretty little thing."

"You wanna get punched? Because this is how you get your teeth knocked out—"

"Oh, baby," he purrs, accent rolling over the words in a way that goes straight to your cock. "If that's what yer intae, ah don't mind gettin' a little bloody fer ye. Might make suckin' yer pretty little cock easier."

Little. Your throat aches. Your mouth is dry. The beer is gone, cleaned empty bottles cleaned up by the bartender. Trying to swallow only makes the sting in your throat more prominent and does little to relieve the burn.

In front of you, the pink drink sits mockingly. Beads of condensation drip down the glass.

It's not even the stupid implication of a man drinking a cocktail that keeps you from reaching for it, but the fact that he ordered it for you with that in mind. Pretty drink fer a pretty—

Your throat clicks. Flesh glueing together when you swallow. Peeling away painful when you breathe.

Fuck it, you think. It doesn't mean anything. Not to you. Not at all.

When you reach for it, his head jerks over to you. Staring, unabashedly, as you bring it your lips and take a sip.

He groans. The hand on your thigh tightens. "Good girl."

It heats you up. Buzzes in the back of your head. You should get out of here. Leave. Go home and sink your head into your pillow, squeeze your eyes shut until all these terrifying feelings are snuffed out. Smothered. Tucked back into a box you didn't realise you had—

"Wanna come home wit' me? Let me fuck yer pretty pussy until I cum?"

The swell of anticipation in your chest makes you flinch. "I told you—"

"Ye want it, don't ye?" His hand moves higher up your leg, bleeding warmth through the denim. "Want me to make fuck ye. Make ye cum around ma cock. Bet ye have th' sweetest little cunt—"

"Fuck—" you shiver. His word wrap around your hindbrain, a soft touch that makes you feel hot. Itchy. Your heart pounds. You wonder if he can hear it. "I don't—"

"Gonnae let me taste it. Sit tha' pretty arse on ma face, aren't ye? Ride me until ye cum."

"I can't—" you force the words out of your throat, feeling the scrape against the soft tissue inside until it hurts. "I don't know what you're trying to do, but—"

"ahm tryin' tae take a pretty girl home—" girl. Girl. You shudder, feeling sick. Nauseous. "'ave her spread her pretty legs fer me..." he leans in, lips brushing your warm cheeks. "Let me ride that pretty cock until she cums—"

"Stop it—"

His hand finds your cock, thick in your jeans. Pressing tight against the zipper. "Gonnae fuck me so good, aren't ye? Not gonnae let ye cum unless it's inside me—"

"You're—ah, fuck—" his hand rubs over your bulge, eyes hooded, heavy, as you twitch. A wet spot grows, dark and unmistakable against the cool blue denim. "A—anyone ever tell you that you're kind of a freak?"

"an' yer a messy girl—" another pulse. The patch grows. It shouldn't turn you on. This sort of talk—it's not something you've ever been interested in before. Ever tried. Outside of porn—big, barrel chested men crushing another in their arms, growling about how they're gonna knock them up—it never surfaced. Never reared. "Gonnae let me clean ye up?"

You should say no.

It's on the tip of your tongue. No, leave me alone. Get the fuck off of me. Say that shit to me every again, and I'll—

His hand slides up, fingers curling over your clothed cock in a way that knocks the thoughts from your head, leaving nothing behind but an empty space. An ache. An itch. Something that needs to be filled.

Your phone chimes. Another text. You don't have to look down to know what it is, but his hand slides over, fingers dropping to the sleek, black surface. He pulls it to him with the pads of his index and middle finger. You should stop him. Grab it back. Leave—

"Need yer thick cock inside o'me," he narrates, mouth ticking up in a terrifying smirk. All teeth. A dogtoothed grin. "Now, there's a thought."

He dips his chin, tongue poking out from between his lips as he types something back in response. You can't see what it is from this angle, but the pinch in his brow, the glimmer in his eyes—you're sure this guy, potential candidate; looming mediocre lay, will have you blocked in five minutes. When he glances back, a tendril of something darkly satisfied brimming in the amber of his eyes, you amend it to right now.

You huff. "Shouldn't take things that don't belong to you."

The man stares at you for a moment, the corners of his eyes creasing in that same soot-stained amusement he had when he ruined your chances with the too-pink tip of his tongue hanging out. Satisfied dog. It's unnerving.

You think it scares you.

Or—

It should.

Whatever he finds as he fossicks through the fragments of your shattering composure, it seems to make him purr. His pupils expand. His nostrils flare. He leans in again, and you taste ash on your tongue. "M'ready tae leave."

It's not a question. The with you rings out like a gunshot in the back of your head.

You should say no. It's been on the tip of your tongue this whole time. No. No. Leave me alone. Go away—

But each time you try to pry apart your clenched jaws to say it, the look in his eyes make you think dogs and their bones.

You swallow this rancid thing in the back of your throat down. Make a jerking movement with your shoulder—a shrug, maybe. The twitch of your aching cock gives you away.

"C'mon, wannae fuck tha' little pussy o'yers," he rasps, words a tangled growl in the thick of his throat. Accent eliding. Slurring together. "Or ah'll have tae drag ye back tae the bathroom. Fuck ye in the shall. Make yer pussy cum on ma cock—"

You shiver. It's disgust. It's anger. It's—

His hand peels away from your thigh, reaches for your phone. He leans toward, and shoves it into the back of his pocket.

"what ahm I gonnae do tae ye?"

You know what he asking for. Feel the heat smoulder inside of your veins, burning up your neck. Be a man, you think. Be a man. Tell him to fuck off. Punch him. There's nothing soft about you. Nothing delicate. He's crazy. You're not—

His stare is paralyzing. You feel dread thicken in your stomach.

(dread, you think; your cock jerks. The front of your jeans are damp. The sticky drag of them on your groin calls you a liar.)

"Ahm no' askin' again, hen."

Your jaw unlocks easy this time. Opening with a quivering sigh that makes him groan low under his voice, eyes fixed on you. Drilling holes into your head. Needling his warped desire into your mind.

"You're gonna," your voice shakes. Heat sears your skin. It feels you're going to melt. "You're gonna fuck my—my pussy—"

The noise he makes is sinful. Liquid. Rich. A groan that breaks into a thrilling moan. Your stomach knots. Churns. You'd be sick if you had more to drink.

"C'mon—" he jerks his head toward the door, eyes blazing. "Gonnae ye exactly what ye need."

You go. Stand when he does, chin dropping to your chest in humiliation when your cock jerks at the idea. Sliding your jacket off your shoulders, holding it in your trembling fists as it covers your pelvis. The unmistakable need there for everyone to see.

Fuck yer pussy so good, he growls, ripping his wallet open and shoving a fistful of neat, straight notes on the counter. "Ain't gonnae need anythin' else when ahm done wit' ye. Gonnae be beggin' fer my cock inside ye—"

You should run. And when he steps back, motioning for you to move first, it feels like he's giving you the perfect opportunity to escape. To flee. You want to. You should.

But you don't. Something holds you back. Makes your teeth sink into your tongue. Jaw hinging shut. Snuffing out the words rotting in the back of your throat with a swallow.

You follow him quietly as he paws at you, rutting his cock against your thigh, whispering in your ear about all the terrible things he's doing to do. A better, more sensible man would've run, something holds you back.

The same thing that makes you ignore the reason why you haven't asked about his bloodied knuckles or wondered where your date is.

You know the answer already, don't you?

"Ahm gonnae fuck ye so good, hen. Won't be thinkin' about anyone else when ahm done wit' ye—"

It's what you've been looking for since the beginning.