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celiababy · 2 months ago

Text

Ain't Right

Pairing: Joel Miller x f!reader

Summary: You have a major (borderline obsessive) crush on Joel, and you're on a mission to fuck him.

Warnings: 18+ SMUT MDNI, age gap (56/20), swearing, fingering (fem!receiving), p in v, unprotected sex, size kink, cum eating, name calling, kinda mean Joel, alcohol, vomiting, an extremely brief mention of suicide

Disclaimer: I lowkey don't know the logistics of the show so if some things are wrong please look over it I'm just trying to write smut about Joel Miller godbless.

Ain't Right part 2

Ever since that tortured old man showed up in Jackson, your life hasn't been the same.

Tommy's older brother, and your absolute undoing.

When Joel Miller rode into town, it was like everything suddenly made sense. The skies got clearer, the air smelled better, and the birds even chirped their love songs louder.

Everything about him drew you in; his cold demeanor, stoic face, tired eyes—but gentle around those he cared about, which was only a few select people.

And you certainly were not one of those select people.

Joel didn't know what to think about you.

To him, you were odd. Yes, you were undoubtedly the most beautiful girl in Jackson, but he felt distance between the two of you was essential.

He felt this way because he knew.

Joel wasn't oblivious to your stares; he might've been an old man, but he remembered the laws of attraction fairly well.

He didn't like the thought of you liking him.

You were young, attractive, and had plenty of age-appropriate prospects just begging for your attention. Every boy in Jackson wanted a piece of you—but you only had eyes for Joel.

He was getting old and tired, ain't no reason why you should be so fond over him.

He also didn't like that you made your attraction so obvious. It made people whisper, and Joel about had enough teasing from Tommy.

"You gonna let that young thing jump your bones or what, Joel?" Is an example of the few things his brother would chirp at him whenever you were around and had eyes on him like he was a target.

So, all things considered, it's no surprise when Joel is reluctant to make a supply run with you.

You had begged Tommy to let you go out and finally start pulling your weight, carefully adding that Joel would be a great teacher for a first timer like yourself.

You stand near the truck, squeezing the straps of your backpack while watching Joel and Tommy whisper to themselves a couple feet away.

"You can't find anyone else?" Joel growls lowly, narrowing his eyes at his insufferable brother who he’d really like to strangle right now.

"Are you seriously scared of a twenty year old girl, Joel?" Tommy asked exasperatedly, throwing his arm out in disbelief. "It'll take two hours tops, what the hell are you so scared of?" Joel is exhaling through his nose, dragging a hand down his jaw in complete disgruntlement.

"You know what the hell I'm scared of Tommy—goddammit," He gets in his brother’s face before realizing you’re still watching them.

He takes a moment to back up and calm down, breathing out through his nose.

"I do not need this town thinkin' I am encouraging this girls...feelin's." He murmurs lowly.

Tommy rolls his eyes before shoving Joel's backpack into his chest.

"Just don't fuck her, Joel. How hard could it be?"

Joel watches as Tommy turns his back and walks away, leaving just you and him.

Joel had spent a lot of time making sure he was never in a situation alone with you—now he was about to be your unsupervised mentor.

He feels a groan try and crawl its way out his throat, but he pushes it down.

He starts walking to the truck, not even looking at you as he passes and yanks the driver side door open with more force than necessary.

"Let's make this quick." He grunts out, climbing inside.

You do the same, only with a little bit more enthusiasm. ***

The trip is a complete bust.

Joel barely paid you any attention, no matter how many flirty gestures you made at him.

You'd say something remotely suggestive and he'd either glare at you, or just flat out ignore you.

But you were relentless. Giving up on him wasn't in the cards for you, no matter how many judgmental looks he casted your way.

You guys had been driving back to town for around five minutes; Joel has kept his eyes firmly on the road in fear of you sparking a conversation with him.

But you do anyways.

You turn your body to face him in the bench seat, your eyes cascading down his breath-taking side profile.

You zoned in on the gray patches of his beard, and how his face had the remnants of a long, unforgiving life weaved into his wrinkles and scars.

You're momentarily rendered speechless by his looks before he side-eyes you.

"What?" He huffs out, not being able to handle your intense stare any longer.

"Why not?"

A beat.

"What?" He asks again, his brows furrowing together, an annoyed and confused expression painting his features.

"Why won't you fuck me?"

Joel physically winces at your language, scoffing in what looks to be disgust as he starts shaking his head.

"We're not starting this." He snaps firmly, a tone in his voice that you haven't heard before.

Completely disregarding his words, you start.

"Is it because I'm not pretty enough?" Joel groans out, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration. "Is it because there's someone else?" He's close to snapping. "Is it because you can't get it up? I heard thats a problem with guys your age-"

Joel slams on the brakes, sending you lurching forward. He shoves the truck into park before turning to face you, a scary look on his face.

"I am not going to fuck you--Christ almighty," Joel raises his voice at you.

You're staring at him, wide eyes and lips parted in surprise. You weren't really expecting this.

"you're bustin' my fuckin' balls, Look kid," He starts up again, this time with a softer tone. "M'about 40 years too old for you-"

You cut him off with a murmur. "36, I did the math."

"Same damn thing," he snaps, shaking his head. "Point is—you don't needa be wastin' your time with me; there are plenty boys your age that will satisfy your...you."

You scoff in his face but try to disguise it by clearing your throat.

"I'm not asking you to marry me, Joel," You start, a sad smile spreading across your lips. "S'just sex." You say with a shrug, blush coating your cheeks because now your mind is imagining sex with him.

He stays silent and looks away from you, closing his eyes like he couldn’t believe this was happening.

That urges you to say more.

"I won't tell anyone," You're practically whispering, looking down at your fidgeting hands in your lap. "I'd let you do anything you wanted to me."

Joel's heart cinches in his chest at your words, mostly because he can tell you're being so genuine.

Why the hell did you like him so much? He just couldn’t understand it.

But he can't entertain this any longer because he knows if he did, he'd give into you.

"I don't wanna hear another goddamn word outta your mouth." Joel says in a strikingly even and calm tone, putting the truck into drive and continuing back.

He's eerily silent, and so is the rest of the trip because you're too dejected to speak.

Eventually, you both arrive home and you're fast to get out of the truck.

You slam the door and keep your head down as you walk away, snow crunching beneath your boots.

Joel takes his time, watching you storm off with tired eyes.

He feels bad for being so rough on you, but he figured it was the only way to get you to stop liking him.

Tommy walks up, a concerned look on his face as he looks back between you and Joel.

"Guessin' you didn't fuck her."

***

Nobody had seen you in days.

The pain of rejection had you in a mental place that you had never experienced before.

No one has ever denied you—ever.

The situation was 100x worse considering you actually liked Joel, and he wasn't just another toy to play with.

Joel figured his life would get easier with you not around, and it kinda did in some aspects.

But he couldn't stop the gnawing feeling of guilt slowly eating at him like a parasite.

He'd been cruel to you in the way he went about things, and he felt bad.

Had he really broken your heart? He didn't know you liked him that much.

He sits in his living room, contemplating how to go about this entirely fucked up situation.

He debates making amends with you, apologizing and rejecting you again but in a gentler way.

He deliberates on his plan of action while nursing a glass of whiskey before he's interrupted by three bangs on his front door, followed by a screeching: "JOEL"

He mutters a 'what the fuck' under his breath, walking to the door and picking his 9mil up on the way.

His eyes widen when he sees you-standing there in all your glory.

It's the middle of winter and snowing like hell, yet you're wearing shorts and a tank top with a beer bottle in your hand.

"Jesus, kid-what the fuck," Joel ushers you inside quickly, taking his big jacket off the coatrack and draping it over you.

He also tosses his gun to the side, obviously you were no threat.

"You tryin' to get frostbit? Christ," he's swearing and muttering profanities as he guides you over to the couch, now basically swaddling you in blankets.

You've never been inside his house before, only ever walked passed it a few times. It smells like him.

You, however, smell like alcohol and bad decisions.

Joel picked up on how drunk you were the minute you stumbled through the door. He takes the bottle from your hand and sets it aside somewhere, glaring at you like how a mad parent would.

"The hell are you doin' out in the snow like that? Fuckin' death wish or somethin'?"

His words are kinda fuzzy in your ears, you're so drunk that you barely even register them.

An unprompted giggle spills from your lips as you shake your head at him.

"It's not snowing silly," You chide, making him out to be an idiot when, in actuality, it's a damn blizzard outside.

He knows from that statement alone that you are way off your rocker tonight.

"How much have ya had to drink, kid?" Joel asks, raking a hand through his graying hair.

"Don't call me kid," You snap, a quick flash of anger in your expression. "M'not a kid."

Joel rolls his eyes so hard that he probably caused a tsunami on the other side of the world.

“Yeah yeah, whatever. What are you doin’ here?” He asks exasperatedly, dragging a hand down his jaw while looking at your trembling figure.

There’s a long pause before you answer. You just got distracted by his big brown eyes.

“Jus’ wanted to say hi.” You murmur, unable to tear your gaze away from his face.

“Say hi?” He reiterates, looking at you like you’ve actually lost your mind.

You probably have.

After a moment, Joel can’t help but chuckle in disbelief, letting his body lean back against the couch.

The absurdity of it all turned humorous to him.

Here you are, sitting in his living room, practically nude with only his coat and blankets protecting your modesty, having just trekked through the snow all for what? To say hey?

You’re still sitting there, motionless and trying to remember how to breathe because his laughing face has your heart lighting off fireworks.

“Fuckin’ hell—hi.” Is all he says, turning his head to the side to look at you as he crosses his arms over his chest.

You smile like a dope at him, so extremely happy to be there in his company.

But the alcohol in your system is fighting you, and you’re finding it hard to keep your eyes open.

“S’it cool if I say the nigh?” You slur, falling vertically on the couch, your head crashing onto Joel’s thigh.

You nuzzle your cheek against the fabric of his jeans and Joel is just about to gently push you off, but he stops himself.

You look so comfortable and so at peace that Joel can’t do anything except stare at you.

Your cheek is slightly smushed, your lips are parted, your eyes are shut and don’t plan on opening—it’s insane to him how at home you looked.

Like you belonged here, head rested on his lap.

Fuck.

He was fucked this time.

He doesn’t move you. Instead, he fixes the blankets on top of you so you’re fully covered, and sits there with you the entire night.

He’s really gone soft.

***

When morning comes, you’re first to wake up, accompanied by a splitting headache.

You don’t even notice how Joel’s hand had fallen onto your waist some time during the night because you’re too busy making a b-line for the bathroom.

You chuck your guts up into the toliet, clutching the porcelain and groaning out in pain.

Joel wakes up to the sound of your hurling, momentarily disoriented before he remembers last nights events.

He’s quick to come to your aid in the bathroom, wasting no time gathering your hair in his fist to get it out of your face.

"S'right, get it all out," He murmurs out encouragingly, seemingly unfazed by the disheveled sight of you.

You’re too sick to be embarrassed, that’ll come later surely.

He sits on the wall of the tub as he continues holding your hair back, yawning every now and then like this was just a regular Tuesday morning.

Eventually, by the mercy of God, you get it all out of your system and slump up against the wall.

“M’sorry,” You immediately apologize, figuring that is the only right move in this situation.

“Don’t be. Been through plenty'a that in my day.”

His words are uncharacteristically reassuring and you find yourself taken back by them.

You soon realize this is probably just the hazy morning Joel, the Joel where he isn't worried about anything except coffee and breakfast—like everything wrong in his life is put on the back burner for this short minute in time.

“I’ll get you some water and Advil, sit tight.” He grunts before standing up on his feet, knees popping as he walks out.

You watch as he leaves, wiping the corners of your mouth with the back of your hand.

Aside from the vomit part, you could get used to this.

You've never seen him so...domestic. His hair was all messy, his voice was raspy, he had that morning haze over his features that you felt so honored to witness.

You suddenly felt compelled to look at your own appearance, hopping to your feet and looking in the dirty mirror.

You resist the urge to audibly gasp at your reflection, opting for a disgusted look instead.

Your hair is a rats nest, your clothes are a mess, and your mascara has rubbed off in black smudge all over the skin around your eyes.

In a desperate attempt to look at least semi-presentable, you wash your face with water and comb through your hair with your fingers.

The idea that Joel had seen you looking like that was making your stomach churn again.

Before you can grovel about it any longer, he rounds the corner with a glass of water and little brown pills in his hand.

“Here,” He says softly, handing you the water and tilting the pills into your open palm. “Take these ‘n drink all that water and ya should get to feelin’ better.”

You do as he says, swallowing the Advil in one go before taking a big sip to wash it down.

His eyes drift down to your shoulder, where your tank top strap has fallen. No doubt from all that vigorous throwing up you were doing moments ago.

Without thinking, his fingers graze your forearm before bringing the strap back up to its correct position, clearing his throat in the process.

A beat of silence falls over the both of you.

You’re gobsmacked by the complete nonchalance of his touch, staring at him with your mouth slightly open in shock.

“What?” He asks defensively, his tone pointed.

You look between him and your shoulder strap, then slowly move to set your water down.

“Are you sure we can’t fuck?”

“Goddammit—” Joels cursing before you can even finish saying the last word in your sentence.

He turns away from you, probably the fastest you’ve seen anyone turn in their life, and walks towards his room with an accelerating pace.

He shakes his head in disbelief all the way down the hall, pivoting on his heel to duck into his bedroom.

You follow him, not really fazed by how he completely refused to answer your question, though you didn’t think he would anyway.

Before you can step foot into the threshold of his room, Joel walks out, causing you to back up.

He shoves a stack of clothes in your direction, looking down at you with a frustrated face. “Put these clothes on and go home.”

You look down, realizing he was letting you borrow a sweater and jeans of his so you didn’t die walking back to your house from the cold.

Your heart warms at this thoughtfulness.

Without wasting any time, you take the clothes from his hands, smiling happily. “Can I keep them?”

“Why the hell would you wanna keep my clothes?” He’s got that confused/angry look on his face as he asks, and you have to suppress a giggle at the sight of it.

You bring the pieces of fabric up to your nose and inhale, humming as you breathe out again. “They smell like you.”

“Christ,” Joel beings his hands up to rub at his eyes. “Fine, do whatever. Just hurry up and change, jesus,"

Ever the tease, you set down his clothes and begin to lift your tank top like you planned to change right in front of him.

Joel's hands shoot out to stop you, a 'don't try me,' look on his face.

"Put them on over your clothes," Joel says sternly, watching the way you sigh because you weren't fast enough in lifting your tank top off.

However, you sieze the opportunity in front of you.

Joel's hands are holding yours down, so you work to intertwine your fingers, invading his space by stepping forward.

"Or, you could take my clothes off," You purr, your chest now flush with his torso.

Joel exhales through his nose, his jaw clenching as he tried deciding how he was going to get out of this situation.

But then he paused.

Looking down at you now, so eager and wide eyed, made him wonder.

If he fucked you, and made you realize it wasn't what you were probably imagining in your head, maybe then you'd finally leave him alone.

He would just...pretend to be awful at sex.

(Even though it had been so long and he wasn't sure if he'd actually need to 'pretend' anymore.)

There's a long silence that drags out between the both of you.

Your stomach is doing flips because it's looking like he's finally going to agree.

His resolve cracks and Joel can't do anything but sigh in defeat.

Slowly, Joel pulls you back into his room, closing the door behind you both.

Time is moving in slow motion.

You can't believe it's finally happening.

He guides you back until the back of your knees hit his bed, prompting you to sit down on it.

"I'm only going to do this once," Joel's voice is uncharacteristically low and calm, and it has your core tightening.

You nod in acknowledgement, waiting to see what he's going to do next.

With care, he pushes your shoulder down so you're laying on your back. "Are you sure you want this?" He asks, brown eyes searching yours.

"Have I not made it obvious?" You quip, a giggle following shortly after.

Joel only shakes his head before his fingers latch around the fabric of your shorts, pulling them down and off your legs.

"S'pose you have." He murmurs, scratching the back of his neck.

You're vibrating with excitement and you repeat what you tried earlier, only this time succeeding with taking your top off.

Of course, you're not wearing a bra.

Joel realizes in that moment that he bit off way more than he could chew.

He hasn't seen breast that weren't on a soggy piece of paper in at least a few years, and yours--well, his cock stood no chance.

You hear him swallow, watching as he can't seem to stop staring at your chest.

Realizing that he might need a little encouragement to start speeding things along, you smile up at him and whisper, "touch me Joel".

Yeah, screw this. His plan of pretending to be bad was now entirely forgotten—he was going to do what he wanted, so help him god.

He huffs out a curse before sliding a hand up your torso, stopping once he's fully cupped one of your breasts in one hand. He kneads it like dough while using his other hand to disappear under your panties.

A choked moan erupts from your lips once you feel his fingers brush along your clit, rubbing around and spreading your slick around all too slowly.

"haven't even done anythin' yet and you're already fuckin' soaked..." He murmurs really to just himself, his eyes casting down to watch as he rips your underwear off impatiently.

"M'always like this whenever you're around," you mewl to spur him on, spreading your legs wider.

"Oh you are, huh?" Joel repeats back, the tiniest bit of cruelty in his tone that makes you shiver.

You nod, bucking your hips into his hand desperately.

"don't get why you like an old man like me, s'gross." His tone is flat but it's clear he's teasing by the way he curls his fingers inside of you. He's not really expecting a response, but you feel compelled.

You lurch forward, gasping at the feeling. "I really like you," You rush out breathlessly. "I'd do anything you wanted me to." You say earnestly as you stare into his eyes, loving what you're seeing.

Joel remembers when you told him that the first time, his heart cinching the same way it did then.

Joel is at war with himself. One side of him is screaming that this whole situation is fucked up and he is better off without you.

Another part of him thinks that this is the most he’s ever felt in a long time. And he doesn't want to lose it.

You can see the gears turning in his head. His fingers have slipped from you and you wince at the loss.

Slowly, you sit up. Your arms wrap around his shoulders, your nipples pressing into his shirt.

He's confused and momentarily panicked when your faces get so close together, his hands seeking purchase on your hips.

In an unexpected move, you rake your hands through the side of his hair, looking lovingly at his face.

"I just wanna be someone for you," You murmur, your face breaking a little as Joel's resolve also cracks. "Doesn't matter what. I'm very versatile." You mumble the last part to try and lighten the mood.

Joel just stares at you—something swimming behind his eyes that you can't quite place.

Eventually, he crashes his forehead against yours, sighing out.

"You're makin' this fuckin' impossible." He rasps before kissing you with a passion you've never felt before.

You feel victorious.

He's finally given in to you.

Eagerly, you kiss back, wrapping your legs around his torso and grinding your bare cunt against the bulge in his jeans.

"Then stop trying so hard to get rid of me," You sigh out, chasing his lips even as you're trying to speak.

He groans and you catch it in your mouth, the pressure on his clothed cock making him dizzy.

“Fuck,” He’s quick to unbuckle his belt, sliding it out of the loops and tossing it somewhere on the floor. “Lay back.” He demands and you immediately follow suit.

He's never been that...assertive with you before. It makes you tingle all over.

He looks starved as he peers down at you, specifically your cunt.

He literally can’t tear his eyes off your sex—he only looks up to your gaze when you let out an impatient whine.

He rips down his pants, letting his cock spring free and slap against his stomach.

Now you can’t tear your eyes away from his sex.

You’ve only dreamt it so many times, but now that it’s finally in front of you—it all just feels surreal.

It’s better than you imagined, perfect.

“I don’t have a—”

You know what he’s about to say so you cut him off immediately. “S’okay, like it raw. Closer to you that way.” You murmur.

Joel looks physically pained that he’s not inside you right now. For some reason, you just know all the right things to say.

“Closer to me?” He huffs out, hooking his arms around your thighs and pulling you down to the edge of the bed where he stood.

Now your cunt is flush with the base of his member and the sensation drives you both insane. “You’re fuckin’ insane.”

Joel rasps, but the way he says it reveals just how far he’s fallen. He knows you’re crazy, and yet here he is, balancing you out.

He glides his member back and forth against your folds, gathering up your wetness with a clenched jaw and furrowed brows.

He looks so concentrated—meanwhile you’re writhing with pleasure and impatience. Your cunt is clenching around nothing, desperate for him.

“So fuckin’ pretty,” he murmurs to himself, eyes tracing all over you.

You freeze.

Joel had complimented you for the first time, and it was genuine.

He notices you stiffen and takes a moment to pause.

Your entire body erupts with goosebumps, your heart beating at exceptionally fast speeds.

He's worried for a second that something is horribly wrong.

“What?” He asks, confused at what’s got you so wound up.

Your face is flushed red as you bashfully giggle. “You called me pretty.”

Ah fuck.

Joel finds you so charming it hurts.

After he remembers how to breathe again, he rolls his eyes and clears his throat.

“I have my cock to your cunt, of course I find you pretty.”

You smile and shrug. “Still. Nice to hear.” You’re all smiles until his tip prods at your entrance, causing a gasp to leave your throat.

He continues to apply pressure with his tip and it’s driving you crazy.

“Fuck Joel—are you trying to kill me?” You whine, hips wiggling to get him in.

He scoffs and shakes his head. “Relax, m’almost there.”

Slowly, he begins pushing his way inside. His mushroom head breaches you entirely and it feels like you can hear the angels singing.

He continues forward, the stretch being mainly around the middle of his thick cock.

But you’re taking it like a champ.

Joel braces himself with hands on both sides of your torso as he bottoms out, a groan crawling its way out of his throat.

The sensation is absolutely delicious.

A little bit of pain from the stretch, but so much pleasure from the fullness.

“Joel, ohmygod you feel so good inside me.” You moan, throwing your head back.

Your hips start moving on their own, but he immediately stops you with two large hands.

“D-Don’t move—fuck.” Joel grumbles out, his face pinched together in what looked like pain.

You’re confused for a moment, thinking maybe that he might just be really into cockwarming.

But then it hits you.

“Were you gonna come?” The tone in your voice makes it seem like you’d be elated if that was the case—like the most flattering thing in the world.

Joel looks pissed that you caught on so quick.

In truth, the moment he put his tip in, he was holding back his orgasm.

Can you blame him? He’s only fucked his hand for the last couple years.

“S’been a while.” Is all he can say, his chest heaving up and down in concentration. You know he’s embarrassed, but you can’t help but smile like a dope at him.

“If you come, please do it inside, please,” you beg, reaching out for his arms that caged you in.

Joel's rational mind feels like it just touched down in looney town after hearing your begging.

He feels crazy because he liked the thought of the idea you proposed. You even see him hesitate. But then he scoffs and shakes his head.

Joel drops down closer to your face, slowly starting to rock his hips into you. "Tryin' to baby trap me, girl?" He grunts in your ear, making you moan out.

Your walls are clenching down on him, and it’s making it that much harder to hold back. “No-no, promise, just wanna be full of you." You manage to blubber out...unconvincingly.

You probably didn't really want a baby with Joel, but your lust-driven brain was working on fumes and you just wanted to do what felt good.

Joel's grunting in your ear was not helping things. His fingers were gripping your hip so hard, you figured it would probably bruise tomorrow

Good. You wanted whatever he would give you.

"Christ--m'not gonna last much longer," Joel groans, picking his head up a little to meet your gaze. He wanted to kick himself for not being able to last, but when he saw your face, all those feelings disappeared.

You looked so--perfect. Soaking up the moment in case it was the last, god you hoped it wasn't the last time. Now that you've finally had a tase of him, you weren't sure you could live without it.

Your legs tighten around his waist, keeping him firmly in your cunt. Joel notices this and also your pleading eyes, a growl leaving his throat.

"Please, please, please, please," you beg, never breaking eye contact with him as his thrusts pick up speed.

He ruins your long string with pleas with a needy kiss, shoving his tongue down your throat like a starving man.

You accept it happily, moaning out into the kiss while Joel manhandles your hips to take his cock.

The feeling is damn near euphoric for both you and him. It gets even better when Joel's hand comes down to rub at your clit again.

Your back arches off the bed as you gasp and moan out, wrapping your arms back around his shoulders. "F-Fuck!" You moan into his ear, probably drooling on his shoulder in the process. "thankyouthankyouthankyou-" you sputter out in choked sobs. He was really good at working on your clit, you couldn't do anything else but thank him for it.

Joel feels a surge of something when he hears you. He's never had a woman thank him in bed before.

It's enough to push him over the edge. And apparently you too.

"I'm gonna come Joel, please don't stop," There are pools of tears in your eyes that Joel is just now noticing. He's about to reply to you, but he finds himself speechless when he feels your cunt start constricting and fluttering around him like a vice.

"Fuck!" He groans out loudly, his hips starting to falter in their rhythm. But then he picks up speed again, and in no time he's like a madman jackhammering into you.

You're a mess of screams and cries and moans underneath him, happily taking everything he was giving you.

When Joel feels himself about to come, he notices how your legs are still tightly wrapped around him, keeping him inside, and he manages to scoff out.

"Gotta let me go baby," You've never heard that pet name from him before, and it makes you crumble. His hands move to grab at your thighs, kneading the flesh there.

You whine out but reluctantly release the grip your legs had on him. Joel doesn't waste time before hugging both your legs on his chest, keeping them firmly placed while your feet squirmed by his ear.

"Atta girl," he murmurs before picking up speed again, his cock head pressing into your cervix.

It's all too much for you. Joel looks so amazing pounding into you from above, his concentrated face, his sweat, the way his salt and pepper hair is all disheveled, you're losing your mind.

Your core is on fire and you can't stop yourself.

In a staggering turn of events, you come first.

Your walls come down like bricks on his dick, you cry out, throwing your head back in complete bliss and ecstasy.

Seeing and feeling this, Joel is quick to follow in your steps. He rips himself from that warm hole of yours and pumps himself dry onto your stomach.

You watch it all with wide eyes, you wouldn't have missed Joel's orgasm face for the world!

Of course, his eyes were squeezed shut, his mouth was open as he was breathing heavily, and his eyebrows turned down like he was mad.

God he was so beautiful.

His thick ropes of cum shoot all over your stomach and even your breasts as he jerks himself off to completion.

When he finishes, he takes a moment to catch his breath, finally opening his eyes to see you scoop up his cum from your breast with your finger and shove it in your mouth.

Your tongue swirls around his seed and you swallow eagerly, humming out in satisfaction at the taste of him.

Joel's watching in complete fascination, though his expression looks a little angry. When does it not?

"taste so good," you mumble with your finger still in your mouth, looking up at him with your big eyes.

He moves before he can think about it--ripping your hand away from your lips and caging you in a slow but deep kiss.

He soon falls down beside you and soon rolls over onto his back, his chest rising and falling from the excursion.

You curl into his side, watching his side profile so intently. You had just fucked Joel Miller.

And it was everything you had dreamed of. Extreme happiness doesn't even begin to describe your feelings right now.

There's a long stretch of silence that drapes over the both of you. Eventually, Joel breaks it with something extremely off topic.

"Last night...you didn't just come here to say 'hi', did you?"

You're momentarily speechless, not expecting that question from him at all. But you can't stop a giggle from coming through your lips.

"Actually, I came to confront you." Your voice is soft as you begin speaking, thinking back to last night's ordeal.

Joel doesn't expect this answer, his head turns to look at you while you speak. His arm comes down to drape over your shoulder.

"I was really upset cus you rejected me n'all. I just couldn't accept the whole, 'age gap' excuse. I wanted to know if you just really didn't like me or not." You're murmuring, drawing soft lines with your finger on the skin of Joel's chest.

He huffs out a breath at the explanation, shaking his head. "Guess you got your answer, huh." He grumbles out, somewhat ashamed of himself that he couldn't hold back.

You smile and lean up to kiss his cheek. "I did," you chirp happily, admiring his face again. "You know you're gonna have to fuck me, like, everyday now, right?"

You're kidding. But you're also not at all.

Joel scoffs and sits up, moving to pick up both his and your shirts. "Fat chance. Barely had enough stamina for one round." He grunts out, finding the neck hole in your tank top and putting it over your head for you.

You don't bother to pull it down over your breasts so Joel does it for you.

"It's okay, we can build up your tolerance over time." You quip with a teasing smile, loving the way Joel turned to glare a you.

He couldn't believe the youth these days.

#joel miller #joel tlou #joel miller smut #joel miller x reader #the last of us hbo #smut #one shot #drabble #tlou fanfiction

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chaosoftheages · 11 months ago

Text

Finally got into clothes that remind me of the trauma...according to my friend I'm healing.

FUCK YES WE ARE MAKING PROGRESS TAKE THAT PTSD-

#mental health #healing journey #trauma #trauma recovery #recovery #coping #perfect prime target is gonna be about five times harder to work with #mainly since I'm adding more snippets of Purple's captivity into the story #which means I'm writing more smut #and we're getting a little graphic #so uh #prepare yourselves #it's gonna be something #BUT because apparently I'm moving forward from the trauma it's gonna be a little bit easier to write it...hopefully #One can hope and pray

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ghost-proofbaby · 7 days ago

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the hat rule. (e.m. x fem!reader)

the hat rule (n.): you wear the hat, you ride the cowboy.

summary: when eddie dresses up as a cowboy to a night out with friends, you decide to steal his hat.

pairings: eddie munson x fem!reader

warnings: reader is described to be wearing a dress. reader is also dressed up as a black cat. premise is everyone is wearing 'slutty' costumes. overuse of pet names. public teasing, unprotected sex, choking kink, oral (f receiving), ass slapping. 18+.

wc: 13.3k+

happy early valentine's day, babes. shout out to @hellfire--cult for beta reading, as well as @andvys for giving me this idea to begin with.

If someone had told you last week that you’d be attending a slutty costume themed night at a club tonight, you would have laughed in their face.

And yet here you were, at Steve Harrington’s apartment, donned in a black cat costume that shows more skin than you have in years.

The elaborate plan had sparked on a random day after Steve encountered a flyer for the event. It was a nightclub your group had attended before, and one look at the line free drinks for participants had Steve running down your entire group to insist that you all needed to dress up, to participate in this, for the luxury of free Tito’s.

He’d never considered that the ad might not be targeted towards the male population. And now, you were all gathering at his apartment to pregame, ‘slutted out’ as Robin had so kindly put it – men included.

Nancy pulled out some sort of angel costume she claims she had bought but certainly not worn a few years back, Robin had conglomerated an alluring pirate attire from items you hadn’t even been aware were in her closet. Jonathan arrived in his erotic yet pensive writer’s costume (you’d hardly understood it, but he seemed confident, so you all went with it), Argyle in tow donning some sort of seductive surfer costume, in which you certainly recognized the unbuttoned shirt and cargo shorts that had had a pocket knife taken to them to disregard a few inches. Steve even stuck to his own demands, going all out – a sensual bunny costume.

And then, there was Eddie.

Eddie fuckin’ Munson.

“Pick your jaw up off the ground, sweetheart,” he teases as he shuffles around you in the kitchen to grab a drink, “Gonna start catching flies otherwise.”

“There’s a joke in there somewhere about how sweet I am, right?” you blandly reply, keeping your eyes on your room temp cocktail that Steve had so graciously mixed for you upon your arrival, “Something where you call me honey or sugar, yeah?”

Eddie pauses, bottle of vodka in hand, looking at you with big eyes lined in coal, “Oh, baby, you know me so well.”

“Cut the pet names, Munson.”

You try to scowl. You really do. But you don’t mean a damn word you say.

Sweetheart. Baby. Hell, even honey would have done it for you when he was wearing that costume.

Tight leather pants, flared at the ankle. Worn leather boots that certainly had to have been thrifted, clicking with each of his steps. A cow print vest, and just a vest, over what looked to be an oiled chest.

And that fucking hat smashing down his curls, adding a shadow across his face that only built into the illusion.

You hate him. You hate this stupid party. You hate Steve for ever suggesting this.

“You don’t mean that,” he sing-songs as he pours his own drink into a red solo cup. The vodka mixes with cranberry juice, you think, before he’s dropping a few ice cubes out of the freezer. “Or maybe you do, and I should try saying them with a southern drawl,” Fuck, he does a good southern accent. Slow and syrupy sweet, molasses down the throat as he flutters his lashes at you, “That better, darlin’?”

You pluck the thin black straw that had been added to your cup for flare, probably stolen from a hotel at some point by Steve and positively meant for drinks of the coffee variety, and flick it in his direction without hesitation.

“Terrible,” you flatly lie, “Cowboys aren’t even from the south, idiot. They’re from the West.”

You have no desire to hear Eddie’s Western accent. No desire to hear Texan twang on those lips, putting on his best John Wayne impression. In fact, the faster you can get away from him, the quicker you can get yourself under control.

It had always been this way between you and Eddie. Push and pull. Will they, won’t they. A game of cosmic shores as the two of you toed at each other’s orbits and bantered effortlessly. Flirtatious threats, inappropriate compliments, lewd innuendos – you had done it all, specifically with Eddie.

That’s just how the friendship worked.

The friendship.

Friend. Nothing more, nothing less.

Eddie won’t leave you alone, though, choosing to lean up against the counter beside you, forcing his way into your peripherals, “Damn. You’re right. Wayne would kill me if he knew I mixed that up.”

“Oh, I think he has plenty of reasons to knock some sense into you.”

“Yeah?” he leans forward, tauntingly, a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth, “Why don’t you do it for him? I think I’d like a slap more coming from you, honestly.”

He’s acting like he always does. This is normal. The fact that his entire torso is on show and you can’t stop staring at the way his tattoo on his peck is shimmering doesn’t change that.

You play the role, knowing your part well as you lean in as well, forcing a smile right back at him, “Wanna kiss my knuckles before I do it, or am I gonna have to do all the hard work here?”

“Oh, trust me, you’d never have to do all the work with me, ba-”

“Can you two get a fucking room?” Robin interrupts as she enters the room, clearly coming in for a refill but getting more than she bargained for.

You’re aflame with the shame and embarrassment, feeling it lick from your ankles up to your throat, as Eddie only chuckles lowly.

“Sorry, Robs,” Eddie chirps, not sounding apologetic at all, “I promise I’ll behave myself the rest of the night.”

And yet, despite the words you’re hearing him say out loud, he does the exact opposite.

There’s no real need for him to do it. There’s plenty of space amongst the kitchen for him to maneuver his way out without laying a single hand on you – and yet he still fucking does.

His palm is shockingly warm when it curls around your hip, his other hand occupied with a drink, encouraging you to move a step forward so that he can brush behind you far too close for comfort. You nearly stumble over himself as he does it. The feeling of his barren chest barely bumping your bare shoulder blades sends your mind reeling, and his staple rings that have incorporated into his costume press right through the thin fabric of your dress.

Your breathing stops entirely as he pauses, the slightest bit of skin still brushing against yours, and leans in with a boyish grin, “We’ll both be on our best behavior tonight – right, kitty?”

Something clicks in your mind. The way the nickname rolls off his tongue as he’s looking at you with eyes flaming with mischief, hand lingering on your hip for far too long.

Your eyes flicker up to the hat on his head, and you smile slowly, meeting his toying gaze, “Right, cowboy.”

Best behavior, your ass. Tonight, you have decided, ends the will they, won’t they of it all.

It’s about to either be the best night of your life, or the worst.

—

Another shot with Nancy. Another smoke with Argyle. Another adjusting of Steve’s corset when he complains he can’t breathe (he certainly can, but you’re starting to think he just likes the attention). The pregaming continues on as more of Steve’s friends from work show up, the apartment slowly beginning to buzz with the chatter of more strangers than you can count on one hand.

You’re not even at the club yet and you’re already regretting your revealing attire.

Eddie stays mostly preoccupied with his own devices, and only gets scolded a handful of times by Nancy. You can hear every lewd joke he makes, of course. At some point, you make a private drinking game out of it; a sip for every time he makes the stereotypical joke of ‘save a horse, ride a cowboy’.

Well, it was a sip the first time. A slightly larger gulp the second time. A chugging of half your drink the third time.

��There’s no fucking way,” Steve laments at the table the boys as well as a few guests you don’t recognize have taken over for a game of strip poker, “Jonathan is cheating. Or counting cards.”

“I concur,” Eddie mutters around his cigarette, scowling at his losing hand.

“You’re also cheating, asshole. This is the first round you’ve lost the entire game.”

“Or maybe I’m just really good at cards, Harrington.”

“Oh, yeah? Well, maybe I’m really good at-”

“He’s not cheating,” Nancy interrupts with a sigh from the couch, lounging as she’s served as a referee of sorts for the group. Her entire body weight is draped against Robin, and you’re certainly not going to comment on Robin’s hands toying with her permed locks, “Stop being a sore loser and just strip.”

You get why Steve was the most upset. He was down to his underwear and socks, corset tossed somewhere far behind him and bunny ears placed on Robin’s head in place of her pirate hat that she had claimed became too warm.

“I think Steve should trade both socks and put back on the bunny ears,” she quips as she reaches up for the headband, flicking at one of the floppy ears, “He’d look cuter that way.”

“Fuck off,” he snaps, throwing up a middle finger as Argyle finally loses his shirt.

When your attention has drifted, you know he did exactly that, though.

The game had been boring you half to death, honestly. Watching Steve strip without fail every round, hearing the loud cheers from Argyle when he managed to win a few rounds in a row and exclaimed it was a turkey (it had taken a ten minute intermission to explain to him that was bowling, not poker), watching a few of the girls that Steve had invited fawn over him as they carefully removed boots and gloves when they lost – none of it sparked your interest. The only saving grace had been every smug look Eddie offered as he’d win, time and time again. So far, he’d only lost his boots.

He was hot when he was cocky. There was no way around it.

And now, as he carefully pondered as to which part of his precious costume to part with, you were on the edge of your seat. He was lovely and enticing when he was excited, when he was jubilant with victory, but as a sore loser?

Dear God, Eddie Munson was a gorgeous specimen with a pout on his lips.

“Trying to decide what to take off, Munson?” Jonathan notices the way Eddie is hesitating, even through the offset of conversations that had sparked up in the brief pause amongst the growing group.

You lean forward on the couch, almost subconsciously.

You don’t care what Stacy from Steve’s job thinks of their manager or the latest drama ongoing there, and Steve would probably agree with you if it weren’t for Stacy’s all-red, latex Devil costume.

Eddie scoffs, waving a hand over his attire, “Obviously. You know, it’s not easy to choose when you have a costume as damn good as mine.”

“What? Don’t think you’ll be as pretty without your hat?” you decide to contribute to the teasing, shocking yourself in the process.

The last thing you should do when you’re staring him down in this way, is bring attention to yourself. And yet you were, like some fucking idiot with a death wish.

“You think I’m pretty?”

It’s the fluttering of his lashes as he says it that gives you the courage. They match all that fluttering in your stomach, all that buzzing across your nerves. Because – yeah, you thought he was real fucking pretty. You’d spent the last half hour imagining how pretty he’d look in all sorts of places, too, especially between your sheets and between your thighs.

You’re up off the couch, taking confident steps towards where he’s seated at the ground on the other side of the coffee table. It’s a little inconvenient now, but it had been a blessing in disguise for most of the game as you’d had a front row seat to the sight of him.

“Oh, don’t get ahead of yourself,” you tease, entirely ignoring that lightheaded feeling you get anytime Eddie looks up at you this way. Half-lidded eyes, crooked grin. He’s dangerous and he doesn’t even know it, “I only meant you were pretty with the hat.”

“You wound me,” he gasps, dropping back on his hands dramatically, his pout now for dramatics rather than genuine, “Gonna stand there and tell me I’m not pretty when I dressed up just for you?”

You have to take a deep breath to compose yourself, cross your arms to steady your guard, “Just for me?”

He was playing that same old, tired game of yours. The same dance the two of you had memorized the steps to – and something inside of you has grown restless of it. You don’t want to keep skirting around each other with double-meaning jokes, you don’t want to keep painting humor over your flirtatious remarks. You want a damn answer to the age old question of will they, won’t they?

And you want that answer to be will they – terribly, terribly so.

His eyes trail along the room slowly, not avoiding you but trying to draw out the anticipation in you as he sucks in a breath, “Okay, and maybe for Steve. And Nancy. And Argyle. And Jonathan. And- Well, I’d say Robin, but I don’t think she’s looked twice in my direction all night.”

“I haven’t,” the brunette chirps happily from the couch, still letting the weight of Nancy comfortably dig into her.

You have no idea how she’s tuned into the conversation, given the way most of everyone else around the room was entirely ignoring the two of you.

“So,” you all but purr, leaning down to be more level with Eddie. You already know where his focus wanders when his eyes don’t meet yours, “Not just for me, cowboy.”

He’s distracted, staring at your chest as you notice him slip up in his brave facade for a second. Almost as though you’ve gone too far, pushed the limits a bit too hard. Good. You want to break this. You want to shatter whatever cage the two of you have built.

In one smooth movement, your hand reaches out and snatches the hat right off his head.

He lets out a yelp and tries to grab it away from you, but you have the advantage as you stand up straight once more. Your free hand reaches up and tears off the cat ears you had donned, and in their place, the hat is deposited.

It fits you a little big, and you nearly make a joke about the size of Eddie’s head.

“Hey!” he argues, moving as though he might stand up and put up more of a fight, “I didn’t say the hat is what I wanted to take off.”

“Took too long,” you shrug innocently.

“Yeah, well, just carefully add it to the pile,” he jabs his thumb over his shoulder, towards his boots, as he relaxes back into his recline.

You should probably behave yourself.

“No.”

But this is more fun.

Eddie’s eyebrows shoot up in shot, disappearing behind the bangs that are flattened far more than usual. The entire crown of his head is absolutely crushed. No sign of his usual frizzy roots and unruly volume, “No?”

“No,” you confirm a second time.

And you’re done with this game of back and forth.

The hat’s staying on your head. It smells ever so faintly of his shampoo, the slightest whiff of his cologne even, and it’s staying on your head for the exact reason he believes is about to be a gotcha! moment.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he’s just tipsy enough that he’s not putting on any specific accent. Instead, his natural Appalachian accent inherited from his uncle begins to break the surface, “Surely you know about the hat rule.”

Damn right, you know about the hat rule.

You cross your arms, huff a little, tilt the hat for effect, “The hat rule? Please, enlighten me.”

“You wear the hat, you ride the cowboy.”

Perfect.

You don’t even attempt any sort of surprised act. No exaggerated gasps, no fumbling to remove the hat. You knew all about this rule, and it had been one of the first things to come to mind when you’d seen him enter this damn party with the hat on.

“Yeah?” you question, mocking raising your eyebrows at best, “Hm. What a shame.”

And then you turn on your heel, not awaiting a single response from Eddie as you escape to the kitchen.

You almost wish you would have stayed an extra second to properly witness his reaction. There’s no doubt in your mind that he’s gone pretty and pink, a flustered mess for at least a second as low laughter sounds from the rest of your friends. A tell-tale snort from Robin, and a silent cackle from Nancy. You swear you even pick up on one of the extra guests muttering a confused what just happened? that goes entirely unanswered.

Strip poker doesn’t continue on for long after that.

You refill your drink, this time sans the alcohol, and return to find Steve has officially begun to call for cabs to the club. He busies away on his phone as everyone debates who’s riding with who, the entire party slowly coming to life as everyone stands to prepare to leave for the main attraction.

When you meet Eddie’s gaze from across the room, the shadow of the brim of his hat cutting into your vision a little, his cheeks match the cranberry juice in your cup.

Good.

—

The ride to the club is a blur, and all that really stands out to you is that Eddie makes sure he does not ride in the same cab as you.

Which is fine. Really. It doesn’t cause a single spark of panic in your chest. Not one.

You’re definitely not working yourself up over the thought that your plan is crumbling right before your eyes, that you’ve gone too far and entirely misinterpreted everything Eddie has ever done during your entire friendship. You’re not mulling over every dirty joke, not dissecting every single line that felt like he was flirting with you and attempting to look at it with fresh eyes. No, the entire ride to the club, you are definitely not beating a dead horse dead.

Maybe you should have set off to ride the dead horse and not the cowboy. Maybe, then, Eddie would have gotten into the fucking cab with you.

Your anxieties only worsen once you get inside the club. Pulsing beneath your skin, right in rhythm with the music. Your entire group had each been handed a drink ticket on your way in, and you had noted the fact that the girls of the group were slipped extra tickets.

Nancy had given all her tickets to Robin, and Steve had given his singular ticket to Stacy.

“So,” Robin runs up to your side, Nancy not far behind, “Do we waste our drink tickets on shots or real drinks?”

“Real drinks,” you immediately reply, eyes scanning the bouncing crowd for a certain head of curly hair, “Shots are… well, they can be cheap. We can just avoid the top-shelf shit.”

Was Eddie really going to ignore you the entire night?

He needed his hat. He couldn’t ignore you the entire night.

“You’re right,” Robin shuffles the drink tickets in her hands, turning to Nancy, “On a scale of one to ten, how bad would it be me to ask you to flirt with men to get me-”

“Give me ten minutes and I’ll have us a round.”

Nancy’s smile is sweet, courteous, as she gives Robin’s shoulder a squeeze on her way past her.

Where the fuck is Eddie?

“Did you see where the guys ran off to?” you blurt out. Most of the guys, aside from Steve, took the same cab.

Robin also joins you in a quick survey of the club, lifting onto her tippy toes to squint over the current light show, “Honestly? I have no idea.”

Fuck.

As she drops back down onto her heels, Robin looks at you knowingly, eyes flicking up between your twisted expression and the hat on your head.

“Trying to find a certain cowboy?”

“What?” you look at her, already defensive, even if it was stupid at this point. Who cares if everyone knows you have a crush on Eddie? Who cares if everyone finds out the very foundations of your friendship with him were built upon quite a bit of truth? “I mean- yeah, he kind of needs his hat to complete his outfit.”

“Should have just given him your ears for an even trade,” Robin shrugs, clinging to your elbow to avoid getting separated as a few bodies push past the two of you, “I’m sure he’ll pop up soon enough, though. Besides, I don’t think anyone’s too focused on what everyone’s costumes are as long as they’re… well…”

“Slutted out,” you finish for her flatly, trying to not get jealous as your eyes look across the sweaty crowd, stomach churning as you wonder how many other sexy black cats in the crowd would be approaching your cowboy.

You fucked up. You shouldn’t have taken his hat.

“Exactly!” she’s excited, unaware of your crisis, already moving along from the topic as she spots Nancy somewhere near the bar top, “Look, free shots!”

The free shots don’t do much to quell your unease, but free alcohol is always nice.

You take the liquid down, burn and all, more than willingly. And then again, not even five minutes later when Nancy has caught the attention of another random man at the end of the bar. You almost partake in a third, but you finally hear a familiar voice saying a far too familiar joke.

“You know what they say,” he’s flirting – he’s using a tone of voice that he has never used with you, and it’s clear he’s fucking flirting, “Save a horse, ride a cowboy.”

Instead of continuing your drinking game from Steve’s apartment, you slam the shot back down and mutter some sorry excuse of being right back to Robin and Nancy before taking off in the direction of Eddie.

He’s stood a few stools down at the bar, hands leaning against the worn wood as his arms bracket a pretty blonde. It almost looks as if the line might be working on her.

“If you’re a cowboy,” she giggles, and you almost stop dead in your tracks, “Then where’s your hat?”

Well, that’s as good of a queue for your arrival if any.

“Good question,” you pipe up as you take a few brave steps towards him, “Where is your hat, cowboy?”

You’d expected him to be angry, or startled, or possibly even immediately take off running in the opposite direction of you. He doesn’t.

He slowly turns, and his flirtatious smile has turned into more of a salacious grin as he faces you, “Well, well, well. Nice of you to join us, Kitty.”

The blonde looks between you two a few times before shimmying down off her stool, “I think…. I’m gonna go. Nice to meet you, cowboy.”

You expect Eddie to react, but he hardly does. A quick glance in her direction, a pathetic wave.

You’ve just trampled over one of his chances of getting properly lucky tonight, and he isn’t even phased.

“Been lookin’ for you,” you mumble, looking over him. His hair seems to have been unstuck from his scalp a little, at least. As though he may have been running his hands through it repeatedly, “Thought you might have gone home without your hat.”

“Not a chance. I haven’t forgotten about the rule, you know.”

Something twists in you, deep in your gut, between your hips.

“No?” you hold your breath as he leans in a bit closer to you to be able to hear over the music, “Good thing I haven’t either.”

He tilts his head, eyes glittering in the multi-colored lights, “You haven’t? Then that means you’ll be giving it back, right?”

Over my dead body.

You’re on a mission tonight. You’ll either be ending this night in sore disappointment, drinking away your sorrows of rejection, or you’ll be ending up in a bed with Eddie. It’s up to him.

You lift a hand to the worn rim, tugging it a bit more securely onto your head, “Not a chance, Munson. You know where to find me once you’re done playing around.”

As soon as your fingers leave the rim, holding tense eye contact with him, his own hand is coming up. You tense, worried he’s about to steal the hat back now, but he doesn’t. Instead, his fingers pinch the same spot yours just had, slow tracing over the rim as his tongue darts out to carefully wet his bottom lip.

From the front point, around to the side. When he reaches the bit above your ear, his touch drops to your cheek and tucks back some of the baby hairs sticking to your skin with sweat.

“I do, don’t I?” he hums, voice dropping a bit lower, focused entirely on you. “I don’t think I’m the one playing around right now, though, Kitty.”

Does he think you’re joking? Does he actually, genuinely think this is all a game to you?

You nearly make the decision to grab him right there, right at this moment, and shatter all the tension. Get his lips on yours and drag him into the darkest corner just to prove to him how serious you truly were.

Suddenly, his hand drops away from you entirely, and you almost want to whine. You miss that warmth, that feathery caress, until it aches. “It’s okay, though. Always knew cats were playful things.”

Is there a dark corner somewhere near you two? Is there a dark hallway to drag him into? Just enough shadow to cover all the sins you’re desperate to commit, just enough light to see that blush rise across his cheeks again.

“I’m not playing,” you whisper, eyes drifting down to his hand cradling a glass. Something deep and russet, just like his eyes. Likely whiskey. You wonder if you’d be able to taste it all over his tongue before you had him putting it to work where you need him most right now. “Whenever you get that through your big head, come find me.”

“Big head?” he throws his head back in a laugh, and the tension mists away in seconds. “Who says I have a big head?”

“I do, as the one wearing your hat,” you readjust it for emphasis.

You thought the tension had misted away until he’s smirking, tsking a little, “Oh, thought you meant the other one.”

It’s a replay of the scene in Steve’s apartment, but this time, the roles are reversed. You’re the one left in shock, mouth agape, as Eddie spins around and walks away, leaving you to sit with what he’s just said.

“Bastard,” you breathe out as you watch him disappear in the crowd, eyes locked on his broad shoulders until one too many bodies separate the two of you.

A bastard you want awfully, terribly, bad.

—

You wish you could say you threw back drink, after drink, after drink. You wish you could say you danced with a hundred different beautiful strangers, and each one strayed your mind farther from Eddie.

You wish you could say you did anything but what the reality of your night had been.

A few men had approached you, only to be turned down repeatedly. Most of your night was spent all but moping at the bar, eyes diligently scanning the bouncing crowd for a certain curly haired figure that seemed to escape you. One moment, you’d catch him pressed against a flirty stranger, hands holding onto whatever bare skin was available to him. And then, his eyes would find yours, and there would be a spark; a wink, a smile, a whisper across a bustling room daring you to come out and play with him.

You never did. You’d look away, take a sip of your plain coke, and wait a few seconds until it was safe to look back and find him seemingly vanished.

That in itself had started to become a game. Just like the hat, weighing heavy on your head.

You’re starting to accept that maybe you had just been a bit too brave. You’d jumped the gun, flown feet first into cold and ragged waters you weren’t prepared to navigate. You knew you wanted a change with Eddie, but were you ready? If you had been, you would have accepted one of his various invites. Would have strode across the room, shoved away whatever man or woman he was dancing with, and slotted yourself into their place. You would have been swaying your hips in rhythm with his rather than allowing him to cycle through strangers, and you’d be reminding him that you wore his hat.

You’d be the one bringing up the hat rule to him consistently, not him to you.

When the night begins to wane, you’ve already talked yourself out of it all.

“I’m heading out,” you announce to Robin when she finally returns back to where you’ve sat at the bar to babysit their drinks, hopping down from the stool before she could argue, “I’m getting way too tired.”

“What?” your friend gasps, face pink from the heat of being in the crowd, a shimmering sheen of sweat across her forehead, “No! Stay! We can take turns watching the drinks, or just-”

“Robs,” you smile as sweetly as possible, patting yourself down to make sure you have all your belongings. A whistle sounds from a group down the way at the bar, and you ignore them, “It’s seriously okay. You’re having fun! I’m just a senior citizen who needs some sleep. My bedtime was like…. An hour ago.”

You highly doubt you’ll be getting any rest when you return to your apartment. Maybe some confidence can be built out of fantasies, letting your hands wander and sheets catch fire with all that could have been if you hadn’t talked yourself out of your perfect plan.

Maybe, imagining Eddie’s hot hands on you rather than getting to properly feel them will light a damn fire under your ass for the next opportunity that arises.

“I…” she sighs, glancing over her shoulder in the general direction of Nancy, “Okay, fine. But do we want to do brunch or something tomorrow?”

Not a chance, you think rather quickly, eyes scanning once more for the metal-head-turned-cowboy. Not if Eddie’s going to be there.

“Sure,” you lie, already knowing he will be there, “Just text me.”

With that, you make your grand escape.

Borrowed hat on head, phone in hand, you push your way out of the club with a newfound determination. You want to get home and take off this uncomfortable dress, finally do away with the thigh highs that have been rolling down at the most inconvenient of times, driving you insane the entire night. Trade the sexy attire for something comfy – stay true to the cat essence as you curl up beneath your blankets for the night. Hang that damn cowboy hat on your door as a cursed reminder-

“Where do you think you’re going, Kitty?”

You stop a few feet short of the curb, a cab ordered as you turn to find that bastard leaning against the wall. Cigarette smoke is still clinging to the air around him as he looks at you curiously.

“Home,” you shrug, trying to ignore your pounding heart. You’d figured you wouldn’t see him again tonight, that your fate had been sealed. “What are you doing out here?”

“Smoke break,” he lifts his hand with the cigarette pinched between two fingers casually, pushing off the wall to come closer, “It’s hard work, keeping you entertained all night.”

You scoff, falling back into what’s almost a normal rhythm for you two, “You were not the one keeping me entertained all night.”

“I hardly saw you dance with anyone at all.”

“I did!” you try to defend yourself, deciding this could be fine. Some casual conversation as you wait for your ride, a way to pass the time. This is fine. “Robin dragged me out into the crowd at least twice.”

“I watched you swat a guy’s hands away not once, but three times.”

“Unsolicited touching isn’t a compliment. He should have taken the hint the first time.”

Eddie nods in eager agreement, taking another drag of his cigarette, “Damn right. If he had gone in for a fourth try, I was considering dragging him out here for an early smoke break.”

“Why do I highly doubt it would just be a smoke break?” you question, glancing at him with a smile. Scandalous plans aside for the night, embarrassment swallowed down whole, it’s nice to remember that Eddie is a friend. Albeit a bit flirty, and capable of driving you fucking insane, but he’s a friend.

And maybe that isn’t the worst thing in the world.

“Oh, no, yeah. You’d be posting my bail.”

“Why me?”

“Because you’ve got my hat, ” he reaches out and flicks the brim with his free hand, and you freeze up a little. You had hoped he wouldn’t mention it again, “Kind of makes me your problem until the end of the night. Speaking of….”

You already know what he’s about to request as he trails off. This is it. You either give up the bit, hand the hat back over, and go home for the night – or you make one final attempt to get what you had wanted.

Eddie. You wanted Eddie, as more than a friend.

“I’m gonna need that back, sweetheart.”

At least he’s asking politely, you consider, before it hits you why he’s asking rather than taking.

The looks across the room. The way he’d been unbothered by the girl he’d been flirting with running off at your appearance. The way he never just took back that fucking hat when he’d been provided ample opportunity.

He thinks it’s a game for you, and keeps bringing it up, because it isn’t for him. He’s giving you one last chance to back out, or to stand your ground. To say you really want this.

And fuck, you really want this.

“Nope,” you lean into his space, pressing closer, fully committed. Your phone dings with the notification of your ride approaching, and you fully ignore it. “My hat now, cowboy.”

He quirks an eyebrow, and you hear the crunch of gravel behind you. Your ride. “Is that so?”

“Yep.”

Another ding, another buzz of your phone.

Go ahead. Bring up the hat rule.

“That your ride?” he asks, tilting his chin in the direction of the car.

You glance over your shoulder, “Pretty sure it is, yeah.”

“And you remember the hat rule?”

Your stomach twists with excitement. Your previous pity party is long forgotten – you’re still hoping to get out of this dress, but you highly doubt you’ll be slipping anything on after it. “I do.”

“Great,” those hot hands you’d been fantasizing about the entire night suddenly reach out to you, gripping your hips tightly as he tugs you into his body. You collide with his chest as he leans down and whispers in your ear, “In that case, that’s my pussy now.”

His lips linger against the shell of your ear an extra second, warm breath sending chills up your spine before he’s keeping an arm around your shoulders as he guides you to the car. His cologne and the scent of tobacco is suffocating, and you crave to drown in it. You want him to consume you; you want him to take over every breath you breathe, every move you make, to finally get those hot hands and lips everywhere you’ve only dreamt of.

You barely hear him confirm with the driver that it is in fact your ride – you can only focus on that hand on your lower back, palm heavy on you as his thumb traces arcs that nearly spend you spiraling.

“After you, kitty,” he murmurs, motioning for you to slide into the backseat first.

In that case, that’s my pussy now.

You hope he ruins you.

In the backseat of the ride, it’s all polite distance and hands to yourself. You can’t even make eye contact with the driver, terrified he might be able to mindread and see all the filthy thoughts racing through your head.

Eddie between your thighs, mouthing at your hips.

Eddie hovering over you, pulling your knees to your chest as he stretches you out.

Eddie, proving that your pussy is in fact his for the night. That it was made for him, sculpted out to fit the curvature and every single vein of him.

Eddie simply fucking your brains out.

Some polite conversation is exchanged, mostly between Eddie and the driver. The classic questioning of how the night has gone, small talk that buzzes in your ears mindlessly.

The entire time, you can see Eddie’s hand in the space between you two, fingers tapping away at dark leather incessantly. His rings shimmer like a siren calling to you.

It’s a small movement, when your own hand drops near his. You keep your eyes trained forward once you begin your mission, inching your pinky closer and closer until it finally collides with his. You swear, you feel him fully jump out of his seat.

Slowly warming the water, you start off simple – playing with his fingers. Gentle caresses over his knuckles, little pricks to the pads of his fingers. He tries to capture your hand in his, but you have bigger plans at play here.

You’ve spent the entire fucking night waiting for this. You’re going to have fun with it.

He huffs after you deter his second attempt at properly holding hands, his knees falling apart a little further. You twist at the ring on his middle finger, a clunky skull you’ve always admired. It has minimal signs of wear, probably pure silver if you had to guess, and you can only imagine how cold it’s going to feel against your skin.

You can only imagine the imprints it’ll leave if he grabs your hips just right.

“You know,” the driver hums mindlessly over the low volume of the radio, “You guys are my first ride of the night, surprisingly. Thought it might be busier with all the parties and clubs, but I think it’s just barely picking up now.”

“Yeah?” Eddie asks politely, nodding as he looks out his window. Perfect, “I think you’re right. It is getting pretty late-”

He’s entirely distracted, your hand out of his line of sight as it moves in on its target.

His thigh.

Just a few inches above his knee, your hand grips at what is clearly sensitive flesh. You watch his entire body turn to stone when you do it, and he moves his head quickly to look in your direction.

You’re looking straight ahead.

There had been a time, a few weeks ago, where you’d learned Eddie had… sensitive knees. You’d been joking around about one thing or another, and when your palms had gripped at them through the torn fabric of ripped jeans, he’d nearly launched himself across the room. He just kept insisting they were ticklish, that that skin was just delicate.

You’d seen the tent in his jeans then. You’d just been a bit more polite, a bit better behaved that day.

“What are you doing?” he hisses in a whisper, reaching for your hand, but you’re quick to slide it even higher.

His hips jump a little, and the driver is none the wiser.

“Nothing,” you innocently say, still looking ahead, watching the passing streetlights with intense interest. “Absolutely nothing at all.”

The entire ride, at every red light, your hand inches higher.

And every time, you relish the way he squirms in your peripherals.

By the time you’re five minutes out from your place, you’ve riled him up to impossible heights. Every little noise has him on edge, constant twitching and shifting in his seat as he tries to get you to just look at him. You know he’s catching every sly smile that attempts to creep up on your lips – you’re pathetically failing at every turn to cover them up.

You think you have him like putty in your palms as you give yet another squeeze to his thigh, fingers starting to dance up even higher. When your eyes flicker to his crotch for just a second, you see him straining against that tight leather.

And then he flips the script.

You’re so focused on your own goals, you never see that ringed hand creep to your own thigh. It’s not until cool metal nips at you, briefly, before you feel the warmth of his hand overtake, that you realize the predicament you’ve gotten into.

Just as your hand was beginning to skim over his crotch, Eddie’s hand found solace between the meat of your thighs. Even as you try to clench them together, deny him the access he was seeking out, he finds his way in. Scandalous fingers dipping under the hem of your dress, fighting fire with fire when he lets his middle finger brush across the fabric of your underwear.

Your touch from him nearly retracts entirely.

“What?” he leans in closer to you, the driver still focused on the road, “Don’t like a taste of your own medicine?”

As he says it, his fingers dip lower. Hovering right over your protected clit, making your entire abdomen clench.

You swallow hard, a bit of your jagged pride somewhere amongst the spit as you turn your head to look at him, “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Still playing games I see.”

In sync, the two of you lock eyes as you continue to test waters. You apply pressure with your palm and note the way his breathing hitches, and he draws a feather-light circle around the wet patch forming in your underwear. You can feel your bottom lip quiver as you try to refuse to give him any satisfaction, but when he’s this close, it’s a hopeless battle.

When had he gotten so near you? What happened to all that static distance from when you’d first crawled into the backseat?

You’re trying to only focus on your own hand. Eyes darting to guarantee the driver is still oblivious as you roll the heel of your hand harder against the seam of his pants, and biting your lip to hold back a successful grin when he has to cover a gasp with a cough. It’s all fun and games until the action is rewarded with his payback; his knuckle curling up against your cunt through your panties, pressing in hard before slowly sliding his way up, up, up.

He deliberately stops when he catches on your clit, and you’re the one coughing now.

“Had enough?” he mutters under his breath, looking at you with half-lidded eyes. He looks good in this lighting, flashes of the streetlights bathing him in soft yellow, headlights of other cars fluttering in through the windshield as they hit his brown eyes just right to bronze them.

“Never.”

You almost think you’ve won when his knuckle pulls back.

But suddenly, his entire hand is cupping your cunt, two fingers pressing against your fluttering hole as another drags up your slit slowly once more. This time, when he reaches your clit, he continues moving in small circles.

You have to bite your lip to hold back any noises, eyes closing for just a second as you hear him huff out a laugh.

The final damnation is when he brings his lips to your bare shoulder, merely grazing your skin with them as he mumbles, “You sure about that, Kitty?”

You clench around nothing, and you know when he feels it from where his fingers remain pressed against you. His own hand twitches as the finger circling your clit stutters for a moment.

“I-”

“We’re here!” the driver says, not having looked into the backseat yet as he finds a safe place to pull the car into. In an instant, you and Eddie remove your hands from each other. You’re both visibly flustered – you can feel how warm your cheeks have gotten, and you can see clouds of pink splattering over Eddie’s chest and neck.

“Thanks,” Eddie is the one to speak up as the car comes to a halt, not even waiting for the driver to put the vehicle in park as he throws the door open.

A bit rushed, but still polite as ever before he’s grabbing you by your bicep to pull you out of the cramped space right along with him.

You can hardly muster a weak wave to the man as Eddie is dragging you towards your apartment building, knees still a bit weak and mind still blank after getting a taste of your own medicine, as Eddie had put it.

He doesn’t let go of you until you’re at your front door, those cursed shaking hands of yours fumbling with your key ring.

“Here, let me-” he starts to offer, reaching for the keys that continue to clank together, just as you find the one you’re looking for.

“I’ve got it-” you try to cut him off, just as you drop the fucking keys in your haste. “Shit.”

You quickly drop to the ground to grab them, pausing once you have the metal digging into your palms once more. There’s no real reason for you to do it, but you do – you take a second to look up at Eddie from this position, and nearly drool at the sight of it.

Him, standing over you, still a bit flushed and still visibly uncomfortable in his pants. Pretty curls a mess and lips darkening from how much he’s been biting them.

You want him to ruin you. You want him to absolutely, entirely and utterly destroy you.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he laughs, chest heaving a bit as he watches you carefully, pupils slowly growing in the dim light of your building’s hallway.

You can see his bare torso clenching, the twitch of his hands at his sides – the same fingers that had just been caressing you over your underwear in the backseat of a stranger’s car.

“Like what?” you’re dragging out the moment, taking time to appreciate the sight of him.

“Like you want me to just press you up against the wall and fuck you out here, for everyone to see.”

That’s a new one. That’s a vision that hadn’t come to you in all your dirtiest dreams of the night.

It sends your clit throbbing.

You rise slowly, pushing the hat back a bit to see him better, keeping your voice quiet so your neighbors won’t hear as you ask, “Would you? If I asked nicely?”

He doesn’t let out a laugh, but a breath of air, like you’ve just sucked all of the oxygen out of his lungs.

No need to say it – you know he would. You probably wouldn’t even have to ask nicely.

You’re staring at him when he finally moves, one hand snatching your keys out of your hand and the other gripping you around the waist. Back to pulling you, man-handling you to get you right where he wants you – where he needs you.

One second, you’re pressed against his body in the hallway. The next, he’s managed to unlock your front door and throw you both into the safety of your apartment.

Hidden from the world, and you’re still reeling as you wonder what it’d be like for the entire building to witness you calling out his name. Or him calling out your name.

Here within these four walls, Eddie has put some space between the two of you, staring with blown out eyes and a shaking chest as he breathes out, “Sweetheart.”

A few seconds pass, the two of you just standing there, the click of the front door’s lock being the only thing echoing in the silence. If you focused over the roar of the blood pounding in your ears, you might catch every single gasp of his as he stares in awe – but your focus is elsewhere. Far away and out of grasp for the time being. You can only think of one thing, and one thing only.

Your body isn’t your own as you move to get exactly what you want; you drop to your knees hard enough that you should cringe at the thought of the pain that will linger, possibly for days, but it doesn’t even cross your mind as your hands begin to fumble with Eddie’s pants. The oversized, gaudy belt buckle is in your way, glinting at you as if mocking the way your shaking hands can’t undo it fast enough. You’re about to give up and just start unzipping the leather pants, desperate to get your hands, and your mouth, and your eyes on him properly, when he stops you.

“Hey,” he sounds breathless - he is breathless - as his own hands quiver a bit and grab onto yours, “Hey, hey, hey. Slow down.”

Those hands let go of your wrists and reach for the hat, and you’re quick to try and swat them away only for him to grab at you, surprisingly gentle, as he drags you back up to your feet.

“Wear the hat, ride the cowboy – right?” you insist, chin held high, your gaze refusing to waver from his.

His slow and buttery grin makes you lightheaded, his low chuckle sends shakes through every nerve and bone. “That’s right, but maybe the cowboy wants to take his time. Ever think of that, hm?”

Were you moving too fast? Were you going to scare him off?

Small, baby steps are taken by Eddie, the click of his heels shattering against your wooden floors until his hips are flush with yours.

And - oh.

Oh.

That surely didn’t feel like you were scaring him off.

You could feel the outline of his cock, hard against your hip, as he gives a little roll. He catches his bottom lip between his teeth, nostrils flaring with a hard breath, and the fear leaves as quickly as it had arrived.

He wants this. You want him.

“I’m not a very patient person,” you murmur, eyes glued to his lips now as his head leans in closer, and his hands begin to explore your body. Taking their time as they travel down your arms from where he’d held onto your biceps, slowing as they reach your wrists. Even the press of his thumb against the sensitive inner skin there sends jolts up your spine, little gasps attempting to escape your mouth.

His fingers tangle loosely with your own for a few moments before his palms find your hips, and he continues his journey.

“That’s okay,” he whispers back, close enough now that his lips have begun to brush against your own. His nose bumps yours as his hands skate up over your ribcage, thumb sweeping out over the hill of your breast and intentionally avoiding your nipple, “I can teach you, baby.”

Your mouth finally collides with him at the words, nearly going limp in his arms at the words.

You’ve thought about kissing Eddie for a while now. Every time a snarky remark fell from his lips, you’d wonder how his tongue might taste afterwards. Every time he’d pout his lips at one of your comebacks, or blow a kiss teasingly in your direction from across a room, you’d wonder how hard you might have to bite down to make him bleed. Every drag of a cigarette you’d witnessed, every hard gasp in faux offense, every breathless chuckle at a joke he didn’t want to find funny but did – you had spent a lot of time wondering what it might be like to steal all the air from his lungs, to kiss him until the two of you were both blue in the face.

“Can’t the lesson wait until tomorrow?” you mumble against him as his mouth, your own fists now gripping onto the lapels of his vest. His hands have reached your shoulders, memorizing the outlines of the curve of your neck where it meets your collarbones, the slope of your chest as you take hot and heavy breaths.

“Nope,” he insists, pulling back from the kiss, a little bit of spit on his pink lips, “But it’s nice to know you’re thinking about tomorrow.”

A hand finally finds your chin and pinches it carefully between his thumb and fingers, a careful grip on you to angle you just right so he can all but devour you. Lips, tongues, teeth – it’s a messy ordeal, and you almost make a smart-ass remark that this kiss doesn’t feel very patient.

But you can’t. Eddie’s taken away all your breaths, all your words, as he starts to guide you backwards.

Your knees hit the cushions of your sofa, making you jump back from him with a gasp, palms going flat against his chest.

He feels good. Tender skin soft to the touch beneath your hand, tattoos tempting to trace the outline of. Later.

“Figured you might want a more comfortable ride,” he laughs against you, breath smelling ever so faintly of mint and whiskey washing over you, before he dips to mouth away at your neck.

You drop back onto the sofa, bite your tongue on a comment about how this cheap piece of furniture most definitely wasn’t the most comfortable option, simply eager at the fact he was letting this move along.

You want him, you need him, and you have no time for patience.

His exploration of touches have lit you aflame, and you’re growing a bit desperate at this point. It might be pathetic, it should be embarrassing, but you really don’t care.

“By all means,” you break out of his hold entirely, catching the way his hand holding your chin lingers a few extra seconds, reluctant to let you go, “Take your seat, Cowboy.”

He joins you on the couch, eyes never leaving yours even as he throws himself down. Knees spread wide, inviting lap on show, cock still straining against his pants.

The best seat in the house, as far as you’re concerned.

“You just gonna keep starin’,” he mocks lightly, looking you over slowly. Taking his time, you suppose, “Or you gonna get over here?”

His words are all you need. You’re quick to climb onto his lap, swinging your legs so that each thigh brackets his hips, your cunt pressing down on crotch carelessly. You love the way it feels – the outline of him hard against you, the cooling effect of the leather, the sharp edges of the zipper catching just right.

“There,” he huffs out, grabbing onto you when you give the slightest roll of your hips, “Now we’re both in our seats.”

When you go to press down harder, guiding yourself over his lap, hands steadying you by gripping his shoulders, he surprises you by his hips jumping up to meet your slow rhythm.

“What happened to being patient?” you try to tease him right back as your forehead meets his, hat comically struggling to stay on between the two of you, “Thought you were gonna take your time with me-”

“Between you and me, I’m not gonna last,” he pants out, hands finding your hips. Those rings you’d been fantasizing of leaving an imprint on you are doing just that as he guides you, “Been dreaming of you too long, sweetheart. Wanted this for so long.”

Your heart nearly stops. Your hips stutter, pausing as his words rush over you.

“What?”

Your head lifts away from his completely, grip on his shoulders tightening.

He’s wanted this, too? This entire time?

Eddie takes your pause as a bad thing, a terrible omen as his face pales, “I mean- I just-”

“Munson,” you say lowly, narrowing your eyes at him, “You’re telling me, this entire time, you’ve been flirting with me?”

Had that tone he used with the girl at the bar been flirting as you’d thought, or simple for show? You’d so cluelessly assumed he’d never used that tone with you because he’d never genuinely flirted with you – and yet, it seems, he’d never used that tone because he’d been genuinely flirting with you.

“I-” his cheeks are brilliant red, and the wide eyes are from something different than lust now, “Maybe?”

“Maybe?” you almost laugh, throwing your head back. The hat falls off, but Eddie is quick to retrieve it, “My God, we’re fucking idiots.”

“Hey, I’m not the one who stole my hat-”

“I like you, dumb ass,” you state plainly, “I wanted this for a while, too.”

He pauses, one arm outstretched as his hand grips onto the hat, “What?”

“Been thinking about this, too,” your voice drops a little, almost a whisper, even though you two are the only ones in the room. For all you know, you two might be the only two people left in the world with the way he’s looking at you, “Thinking about you and your lips. Thinking ‘bout your hands and the places they’d go,” as you point out every detail, his body seemingly reacts. A lick of his lips, a squeeze of his hand still on your hip, “Thought about your fingers and tongue a lot, too. How good they’d feel inside me.”

His hips thrust up at that, and suddenly, he’s placing his hat back atop your head.

That, it seems, was all the encouragement Eddie needed.

He deals with that belt buckle that had given you hell, bouncing you a bit on his lap as he fumbles with yanking the entire belt off and tossing it to the side. One hand busies with undoing the button and zipper of his jeans, as the other starts to bunch your dress.

“Nice and slow,” he insists, looking up at you, absolutely vibrant. Somewhere between the tightness between your hips, all the throbbing between your thighs and in your chest, you feel a sort of bubbly delight creeping up along your spine. “Got it, kitty?”

You nod once. Twice. On the third nod, he cuts you off with a kiss.

Your dress is up to your waist, and you don’t know how, but he manages to shimmy off his pants without throwing you off his lap entirely. It’s impressive, really. Probably a symptom of him having thought about this, dreamt about this. He’d probably thought up every scenario possible, and was prepared.

“Oh, and these?” his fingers find the waistband of your panties, tsking a little as he pulls at the elastic and lets it slap back against your skin, “Those definitely have to come off.”

“Whatever you say, cowboy.”

You take your time sliding off his lap, making sure to grind against him before you properly lift away. He throws his head back in a groan, Adam’s apple bobbing as you stand up straight. You take that moment to just admire him, capturing the clench of his jaw to memory, the way his eyes screw shut in pleasure at your influence.

He’s fucking perfect. You’re sure there’s others who disagree, but you’d pay them no mind. He’s perfect, and he’s all yours.

You make a show of taking off your panties only once he’s properly looking at you once more, craving his eyes on you as you keep all your movements fluid and steady. No rush, exuding all that patience he’d prattled on about.

You want to see his face when you gently toss the black lacey piece in his direction, watch him fumble with his own desperation to catch them.

“Seems a bit unfair that I’m the only one undressing,” you hum as you go a step further and begin to shimmy out of the dress.

“Yeah, well,” he grins cheekily at you, fisting your panties, a hand trailing down to the waistband of his boxers as he eyes you, “One of us was showing a bit more skin than the other.”

“Take off the vest, Eddie.”

Your command is velvet, and he’s quick to obey. His hand stubbornly refuses to let go of your panties as he rushes to shrug out of the thin fabric over his shoulders, tossing the vest to join his pants and your dress on the floor.

“And the boxers.”

You stand there, in nothing but his cowboy hat, as you wait pretty and patient for him to listen. And listen he does.

The moment his boxers are discarded, his cock is standing at attention, leaking from the tip and deep shade of pink that matches his kiss-bitten lips. You think it might be the prettiest color you’ve ever laid eyes on as you watch a drop of precum slip down his shaft.

He’s pretty, even in the fucking pants.

Girthy, thick enough you almost arch your back before you’ve even sunk down on him. All veins and soft skin, a sensitive tip that you’d trace your tongue over for hours if he let you.

“Gonna just stand there, or are you going to ride your cowboy?”

He surely meant to sound more cocky, but the words come out as more of a whine as you watch him twitch under your stare.

He’s right though, and you’d rather get him inside you than spend another second gawking. There will be time to pay more attention to him and his pretty cock tomorrow. Right now, you need to finish this god-forsaken mission.

Your thighs find his hips just as his hands find yours, choosing to grip the couch rather than his shoulders as you steady yourself.

Nice and slow, his words echo in your mind.

You could have prepared yourself more, but you’d already made it clear to Eddie that you are not a patient person. The fact that you even take your time as you sink down on him, going as far as to grab him by his base and guide his tip to smear precum across your clit, is impressive.

The stretch is a bit painful. A bit much. A bit dizzying. But you refuse to stop as your jaw drops, eyes fluttering shut in ecstasy.

“Fuck,” you breathe out softly as you feel him fill you, “Fuck, Eddie.”

“Feel good, baby?” he questions, reaching up to grab your chin just as he had before. Forcing you closer to him, forcing you to look him in the eyes just as he bottoms out.

You don’t answer him as you both moan out.

You stay there for a second, unmoving as you swim in the feeling. Feeling him press into the depths of you, the overwhelming warmth and the coil in your abdomen tightening ever so slightly.

It’s better than you had imagined it. No daydreams could compare to the feeling of Eddie’s cock finally, finally filling you. Stretching you out, making you his.

“Go ahead,” he grits out, entire body tense, clearly holding out on you, “Ride your cowboy, kitty. Don’t make me ask twice.”

Nice. And. Slow.

Three little words that ricochet through your mind as you start to slowly bounce on him. Lifting ever so slightly, dropping back down, aching to feel him even deeper inside of you. Feeling the quiver of his thighs to match yours as you repeat the action, gasps and whimpers falling from both your lips. You’re about to try and kiss him, try and swallow all those delicate noises from him, when he stops you.

“No, no, no,” he’s chuckling, giving your hips a few squeezes before his palms rub down your thighs, the friction sending you on edge, “C’mon, now. We both know that’s not how you ride.”

His hands rake over your skin, down to your knees, lighting scratching and squeezing along their entire pathway until they make their way back up to your waist and hips.

“Do it like this, sweetheart.”

He guides you, no longer allowing you to lift up. You sink all the way down on his cock, whining out at the fullness, before he starts the pattern.

Back and forth. Gentle circles amidst the rocking. Your clit grazes his pubes, and the coil in between your hips has never tightened more quickly.

The motion feels familiar - like riding a bull.

This feels right. You still press down, still clench down on him hard enough to make you both slip out obscenities, but it’s getting you there.

At some point, Eddie’s grip on your hips slips, but it’s fine – you’ve got the rhythm down perfectly. Slow, intermittent figure eights between the rolls of your hips, his occasionally slamming upward to reward you with that deepness you need. You can feel him in your stomach, in your chest, in your throat.

You get a bit daring, and take one hand to his shoulders, as the other reaches up for the top of the hat on your head.

Just like a cowboy.

“Like this?” you pant out between harsher rolls, eliciting curses that continue to grow louder from Eddie.

“Fuck, baby, yes,” he groans out, head thrown back, mouth open in gratification, “Just like that. Keep- keep going just,” he thrusts up, “Like,” another thrust, “That.”

You nearly lose balance, falling forward a bit, too stubborn to let go of the hat. There’s a grin glimmering at the corners of your mouth, and it fully blooms when Eddie throws up a hand to catch you .

A hand on your throat.

He doesn’t squeeze, doesn’t cut off blood flow or breathing. He keeps that warm palm there at the base of your neck, cradling you, holding you. A reminder that he could squeeze if he wanted, that he held you in the palm of his hands currently, but he won’t.

“You like that?” his eyes shine as he looks up at you, the sight of his rings decorating your neck.

You nod.

“Tell me with your words,” he commands.

“I like it,” you whimper, looking up further, stretching more of your neck to be vulnerable to Eddie. “I like it so much, baby.”

When the pet name falls from your lips, you can feel him twitch inside of you. The sudden jut of his hips, the sharp intake of breath.

“You like that,” you laugh breathlessly, your hand atop the hat the only thing keeping it from falling as you lean your head fully back, eyes beginning to roll back into your head. “Wanna be my baby, Munson?”

“Always have,” he grunts, the hand on your throat slipping up to cup your face to drag you towards him, “Since the fucking moment I met you, sweetheart.”

When he kisses you, it tastes like the closest to Heaven you might ever get. Soft, plump lips, and an eager tongue. All the wasted time hiding behind jokes and teasing, playing pretend like the flirting was never serious.

It was serious. And if you’d just come clean sooner, you would have had this long ago.

Your hips are still rolling as your hands begin to roam. You’ve found your balance again, lips pressed to Eddie, and it’s your turn to explore all he has to give you. Your nails graze his stomach when your clit catches once more on that rough thatch of hair against the base of his cock. Your fingers dig into flesh wherever they can find it – his chest, his arms, his hips. At some point, you throw a hand out behind you, grasping for his knee. Learning every curve and every point of his body as he had done for you.

You wanna memorize the roadmap of him. Take a snapshot in your mind so that next time, none of it is unfamiliar territory.

Your touch is driving him insane; it doesn’t take a genius to pick up on the way his hips falter to meet your movements, or how he keeps breaking the kiss to gasp, letting his jaw fall slack when he hits a particular deep spot within you.

It’s when your lips finally trail down the stubble sprouting across his jawline, mouth sucking on the soft skin below his ear, that he’s finally a goner.

“‘M close,” he gasps out, almost sounding drunk as he slurs through his pants, “Ah, fuck, I’m gonna-”

“Cum for me, Eddie.”

Maybe it’s the way you had been touching him, or the way your cunt had been fluttering around him, or the persistent rolling of your hips that had become so focused on his pleasure. Maybe it was the sight of you in his hat, looking at him like that. Maybe it was the way his name sounded on your tongue.

Either way, when Eddie Munson comes undone, he’s beautiful.

Your own movements slow involuntarily as you gaze starry eyed, watching the way his face scrunches and feeling his grip on you tighten impossibly. Leaving their mark, making you his in yet another way. Warmth fills your cunt and every curse word under the summer sun is falling from his lips.

Your name, curses, prayers, gratitude – a jumbled mess, and it sounds fucking fantastic when it’s said in Eddie’s desperate tone.

“Shit,” he gasps out, finally coming back down to Earth, “Shit.”

You sit still on his lap, skin sticky with sweat, lips spread thin in a cheeky grin, “Sounds like I get to keep your hat, cowboy.”

His eyes shoot open, and for a second, you’re terrified.

Those aren’t the eyes of someone satisfied.

“You didn’t cum.”

“What?”

“You,” he says, stressing the word as he shifts you off his lap. You don’t miss the way he winces, clearly a bit sensitive, “Did not cum.”

You hadn’t really noticed, too wrapped up in him to notice your high slipping away from you. You’d been too focused on Eddie: on feeling him cum inside you, on watching him break apart, on tracing the outline of the blood rushing to his cheeks with your eyes and that fresh burst of violet on his neck in the shape of your lips.

“It’s fine,” you start to argue, feeling the warmth of him leaking down your thighs. You should be a lot more worried about making a mess all over your sofa. You should be, but you aren’t. “I can-”

“You’re not keeping that fucking hat until you cum for me, sweetheart.”

And, oh, maybe your own orgasm wasn’t racing as far away from you as you’d believed, because those words nearly push you over the edge for him.

“Get on all fours for me, baby.”

Yeah. You definitely could still be close. For him.

When you don’t move to follow his command immediately, he’s using those gentle hands to guide you. Encouraging a twist of your hips from how you’re reclining back across the couch, letting you press your cheek down against the cushion.

You open your mouth to argue, to insist it was fine, to say anything, but you’re cut silent when a sudden slap lands on your ass.

A silent command this time, and you’re finally listening.

You lift your ass up for him on shaky knees, elbows digging into the cushion now instead of your face. The hat on your head is lopsided, and you almost reach up to fix it when-

“I’ll be taking that,” For the first time since you’d stolen his hat, Eddie takes it back. Right off your head, too fast for you to protest. When you dig your chin into your shoulder to look back at him, he’s smiling, hat back in its rightful place atop his curls, “You can have it back after you cum for me, at least once.”

“At least once?” you mean to laugh, to sound cocky, but it comes out as more of a squeak.

He shrugs, leaning forward, his bare chest pressing against the skin of your bare ass – right where an imprint of his hand still sings, “At least. By all means, if you feel the need, don’t hesitate to give me a few. God knows you’ve earned it.”

You don’t have time to banter back; he retracts before bring his mouth down to your cunt, and your elbows quickly give out at the first long stride of his tongue.

“Gotta get you cleaned up,” he murmurs, a bit muffled, against your cunt.

Another stride, and this time, his tongue spends an extra second at your clit, circling it salaciously.

“Oh, God,” you moan out into a mouthful of couch cushion, tempted to bite down to hide all the noises creeping up your throat when his tongue draws yet another circle, tip of his nose pressed to your sensitive hole.

He brings his tongue back to that space, that hole that feels gaping without him filling you now, and you try to bury your cheek only to earn another slap on the ass.

“Don’t be shy now, kitty. Let me hear you.”

And let him hear you, you do.

Each lick, short and timid or long and confident, is dredging up obscene mewls from you. When he enters you with it, curling it and pressing as deep as he can, truly cleaning you up as he had said, you’re chanting his name.

“Fuck, Eddie,” you cry softly, rocking your body back against his mouth, “Your fingers. P-Please, use your fingers.”

Your wish is his command as he brings his hand up between your legs, breaking from having his tongue buried inside of you and using a calloused pad of his finger to trace over your clit before he begs, “Say my name again.”

You do. Over, and over, and over as his mouth and his fingers begin to work against you. Careful focus is placed on your clit, and his mouth runs amok between your cunt and thighs. You feel what will no doubt be hickies along the curve of your ass, nips of teeth against the sensitive skin of your inner thigh as he presses two fingers into you. With every thrust of his hand, your hips are rocking back to match his rhythm, wanting more.

More, more, more.

There’s nothing nice and slow about this. You’re chasing after a high, and Eddie is listening to you every step of the way.

Your thighs begin to shake terribly right around the time your vision blurs, unable to contain the whines that have grown to echoing volumes. Surely, your neighbors can hear. Probably confused as to who Eddie is, probably considering how embarrassing it would be to knock down your door and complain about the noises.

You really, really don’t give a fuck when white speckles flood your vision, even with your eyes screwed shut, and that tension between your hips threatens to snap.

Right before your knees give out, your entire body trembling, Eddie pulls back and grabs your hips. You cry out, so close yet so far, until he’s flipping you back over.

You get one glimpse of him before he goes to work to bring you over that edge – lips and chin slick with you, hair frizzing beneath his hat, a determined glint in his eyes that have your thighs clenching around his ears.

You were right. Eddie Munson looks damn good between your thighs.

He quickly returns to his mitigations, and this time, it’s all a bit more strategic. Lips suctioned around your clit and three fingers curling deep within you, a beckoning motion as he urges you to let go for him.

The white returns behind your eyelids. Your back arches up off the sofa. Your ankles lock as they cross behind Eddie’s back, almost effectively trapping him in place.

You cum hard for him.

You’re entirely unaware if you scream his name in the process, but you hope you do. As that relief, that ecstasy, floods your system, you hope you make sure everyone within a five mile radius knows who’s responsible. Your entire body continues to shake for far longer than you believe it ever has before. Your hips had lifted, begging for Eddie to keep going even as it all grew painful.

He does. He keeps going, sucking you dry for every drop you have to give him, until you’re physically having to shove him away.

Your hands are weak as you sink down into the cushion, eyes still closed as you hear him chuckle before you feel him crawl his way back up your body.

“There,” you don’t even need to see his face to see that smug satisfaction – his voice is dripping in it. “Now you can keep the hat.”

One of your hands blindly throws itself through the air to smack him, missing entirely as you drift through the afterglow of it all.

“I’m not sure I’ve earned it,” you mumble as he catches your wrist, limp in the air, “Pretty sure I didn’t break you when I made you cum.”

“Oh, you did,” he notes, hand curling around your wrist. You watch as he slowly brings it to his lips, peppering a few chaste kisses on the soft skin, “Just in a different way.”

You raise your eyebrows, smiling at the tingling feeling left behind on your skin in the wake of his mouth, “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He tugs you to sit up despite your groan of protest, somehow smoothly maneuvering the two of you so that he’s now the one beneath you, letting the full weight of you bear down on his chest as you lay on top of him. The hand wrapped around your wrist brings it back up for more kisses, more repetitive gentle pecks of affection, as his other arm is quick to wrap around you. Holding you in place, as though he’s scared you might disappear.

“Well,” you whisper against the bare skin of his chest, nearly shivering when his free hand starts to trail slowly up and down your spine, “Good.”

Your cheek feels the vibrations of his chuckle, “That’s all you have to say?”

“Give me a few minutes to recover,” you insist, all but nuzzling into him, “I’m sure I’ll have a smartass comeback for you once I’m…” you trail off, heavy eyes looking up at him, the words lost on your tongue and in the air.

The gentle curve of his cupid’s bow. The roundness at the end of his nose, still a fading hue of pink. The freckle beneath his right eye. The way the phantom of the dimple of his left cheek never quite leaves his face.

All the things you’ve dreamt of seeing so up close, never knowing it could have been a reality.

He lets go of your wrist, smiling softly with a shake of his head, “Can’t believe you’re gonna fall asleep on me.”

“Am not,” you nearly say under your breath, sighing in content.

“Am too,” he mocks, a certain docility to all his teasing before he sighs as well, “It’s okay. You can. I’ll still be here when you wake up.”

You hum, eyes fluttering shut as you hear some rustling, “Promise, cowboy?”

“Absolutely, kitty. You said something about tomorrow, remember?”

You both laugh in sync as your couch suddenly becomes the most comfortable place in the world.

Just before losing consciousness, right as you feel Eddie’s breathing even out along with your own, you decide to open your eyes one last time to catch sight of the cowboy hat perched carefully on your coffee table.

Tomorrow. You hope for a thousand tomorrows as you decide that that hat is definitely yours now.

#ghost's stories #eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson smut #eddie munson x you #stranger things #emphasis on the smut. this is. just. a lot of smut.

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prokopetz · 8 months ago

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I'm not gonna claim that most Tumblr polls are anything like rigorously structured, but I've seen a lot of folks rather smugly asserting that having a "not applicable" option that ends up dominating all other responses is evidence that the person who created the poll is incompetent, and y'all: under the specific circumstances in which these polls are constructed and distributed, that outcome is evidence of good poll design, not bad poll design. Yes, even when the "not applicable" responses outnumber all other responses ten to one. There are several reasons for that:

At the time of this posting, Tumblr polls have no "see response" button. The only ways to see a poll's distribution of responses are to wait for the poll to conclude, or to respond yourself – and not only are people on social media typically curious and impatient, many of them also know that there's no way they'll remember to check back later once the poll has concluded, so in practice, their opportunity to see the results is now or never. Adding a little note to the poll insisting that people who aren't part of the targeted demographic should refrain from voting isn't necessarily going to restrain that impulse. Indeed, it may end up encouraging folks who otherwise wouldn't have picked a random result-revealing response to do so, because fuck you, don't tell me what to do.

Many respondents genuinely won't realise they're not part of the targeted demographic until after they've voted. It doesn't matter how much text you add to contextualise the poll, because they'll read the poll first, and if they read the accompanying text at all, it's only after they've responded. Heck, a lot of folks don't even bother to read the question before responding to a poll; they just start going down the options and reflexively click the first one that seems like it might apply to them, then go back and read what was actually being asked (and complain in the notes if it turns out that they misunderstood). Even a well-meaning person can only comply with instructions they've actually read; for those folks, clicking the "not applicable" option is what compliance looks like.

Even folks who do fit your poll's targeted demographic can fall prey to the imp of the perverse. Giving the most accurate response rather than the most entertaining one can be a real struggle for a lot of folks; in scientific analysis of polling data, this is known as the "mischievous responder bias". In an informal setting like Tumblr, it's reasonable to suppose that the mischievous responder effect might be exaggerated compared to polls conducted in more formal contexts, and a well-designed poll is going to take that into account. A humorous "not applicable" option provides an escape by affording folks the freedom to screw around with the knowledge that they're not polluting useful data by doing so; in practice, the "I am a toaster" option is a mischievous response filter.

What this adds up to is that a poll where 90% of the responses hit the "not applicable" button is more likely to have yielded useful data than a poll with a narrow target audience where some unknown percentage of the responses represent folks not reading the instructions, clicking random options to see the results, and/or taking the piss.

#tumblr #blogging #social media #polls #statistics #swearing

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racefortheironthrone · 2 years ago

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Hi- er, this is my first-ever writer's strike, how does one not cross a picket line in this context? I know how not to do it with things like Amazon and IRL strikes, but how does it apply to media/streaming?

Hi, this is a great question, because it allows me to write about the difference between honoring a picket line and a boycott. (This is reminding me of the labor history podcast project that's lain fallow in my drafts folder for some time now...) In its simplest formulation, the difference between a picket line and a boycott is that a picket line targets an employer at the point of production (which involves us as workers), whereas a boycott targets an employer at the point of consumption (which involves us as consumers).

So in the case of the WGA strike, this means that at any company that is being struck by the WGA - I've seen Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Disney, Warner Brothers Discovery, NBC, Paramount, and Sony mentioned, but there may be more (check the WGA website and social media for a comprehensive list) - you do not cross a picket line, whether physical or virtual. This means you do not take a meeting with them, even if its a pre-existing project, you do not take phone calls or texts or emails or Slacks from their executives, you do not pitch them on a spec script you've written, and most of all you do not answer any job application.

Because if this strike is like any strike since the dawn of time, you will see the employers put out ads for short-term contracts that will be very lucrative, generally above union scale - because what they're paying for in addition to your labor is you breaking the picket line and damaging the strike - to anyone willing to scab against their fellow workers. GIven that one of the main issues of the WGA are the proliferation of short-term "mini rooms" whereby employers are hiring teams of writers to work overtime for a very short period, to the point where they can only really do the basics (a series outline, some "broken stories," and some scripts) and then have the showrunner redo everything on their lonesome, while not paying writers long-term pay and benefits, I would imagine we're going to see a lot of scab contracts being offered for these mini rooms.

But for most of us, unless we're actively working as writers in Hollywood, most of that isn't going to be particularly relevant to our day-to-day working lives. If you're not a professional or aspiring Hollywood writer, the important thing to remember honoring the picket line doesn't mean the same thing as a boycott. WGA West hasn't called on anyone to stop going to the movies or watching tv/streaming or to cancel their streaming subscriptions or anything like that. If and when that happens, WGA will go to some lengths to publicize that ask - and you should absolutely honor it if you can - so there will be little in the way of ambiguity as to what's going on.

That being said, one of the things that has happened in the past in other strikes is that well-intentioned people get it into their heads to essentially declare wildcat (i.e, unofficial and unsanctioned) boycotts. This kind of stuff comes from a good place, someone wanting to do more to support the cause and wanting to avoid morally contaminating themselves by associating with a struck company, but it can have negative effects on the workers and their unions. Wildcat boycotts can harm workers by reducing back-end pay and benefits they get from shows if that stuff is tied to the show's performance, and wildcat boycotts can hurt unions by damaging negotiations with employers that may or may not be going on.

The important thing to remember with all of this is that the strike is about them, not us. Part of being a good ally is remembering to let the workers' voices be heard first and prioritizing being a good listener and following their lead, rather than prioritizing our feelings.

#labor #unions #wga strike #labor history #labor 101 #boycotts

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nasa · 11 months ago

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What We Learned from Flying a Helicopter on Mars

The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter made history – not only as the first aircraft to perform powered, controlled flight on another world – but also for exceeding expectations, pushing the limits, and setting the stage for future NASA aerial exploration of other worlds.

Built as a technology demonstration designed to perform up to five experimental test flights over 30 days, Ingenuity performed flight operations from the Martian surface for almost three years. The helicopter ended its mission on Jan. 25, 2024, after sustaining damage to its rotor blades during its 72nd flight.

So, what did we learn from this small but mighty helicopter?

We can fly rotorcraft in the thin atmosphere of other planets.

Ingenuity proved that powered, controlled flight is possible on other worlds when it took to the Martian skies for the first time on April 19, 2021.

Flying on planets like Mars is no easy feat: The Red Planet has a significantly lower gravity – one-third that of Earth’s – and an extremely thin atmosphere, with only 1% the pressure at the surface compared to our planet. This means there are relatively few air molecules with which Ingenuity’s two 4-foot-wide (1.2-meter-wide) rotor blades can interact to achieve flight.

Ingenuity performed several flights dedicated to understanding key aerodynamic effects and how they interact with the structure and control system of the helicopter, providing us with a treasure-trove of data on how aircraft fly in the Martian atmosphere.

Now, we can use this knowledge to directly improve performance and reduce risk on future planetary aerial vehicles.

Creative solutions and “ingenuity” kept the helicopter flying longer than expected.

Over an extended mission that lasted for almost 1,000 Martian days (more than 33 times longer than originally planned), Ingenuity was upgraded with the ability to autonomously choose landing sites in treacherous terrain, dealt with a dead sensor, dusted itself off after dust storms, operated from 48 different airfields, performed three emergency landings, and survived a frigid Martian winter.

Fun fact: To keep costs low, the helicopter contained many off-the-shelf-commercial parts from the smartphone industry - parts that had never been tested in deep space. Those parts also surpassed expectations, proving durable throughout Ingenuity’s extended mission, and can inform future budget-conscious hardware solutions.

There is value in adding an aerial dimension to interplanetary surface missions.

Ingenuity traveled to Mars on the belly of the Perseverance rover, which served as the communications relay for Ingenuity and, therefore, was its constant companion. The helicopter also proved itself a helpful scout to the rover.

After its initial five flights in 2021, Ingenuity transitioned to an “operations demonstration,” serving as Perseverance’s eyes in the sky as it scouted science targets, potential rover routes, and inaccessible features, while also capturing stereo images for digital elevation maps.

Airborne assets like Ingenuity unlock a new dimension of exploration on Mars that we did not yet have – providing more pixels per meter of resolution for imaging than an orbiter and exploring locations a rover cannot reach.

Tech demos can pay off big time.

Ingenuity was flown as a technology demonstration payload on the Mars 2020 mission, and was a high risk, high reward, low-cost endeavor that paid off big. The data collected by the helicopter will be analyzed for years to come and will benefit future Mars and other planetary missions.

Just as the Sojourner rover led to the MER-class (Spirit and Opportunity) rovers, and the MSL-class (Curiosity and Perseverance) rovers, the team believes Ingenuity’s success will lead to future fleets of aircraft at Mars.

In general, NASA’s Technology Demonstration Missions test and advance new technologies, and then transition those capabilities to NASA missions, industry, and other government agencies. Chosen technologies are thoroughly ground- and flight-tested in relevant operating environments — reducing risks to future flight missions, gaining operational heritage and continuing NASA’s long history as a technological leader.

youtube

You can fall in love with robots on another planet.

Following in the tracks of beloved Martian rovers, the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter built up a worldwide fanbase. The Ingenuity team and public awaited every single flight with anticipation, awe, humor, and hope.

Check out #ThanksIngenuity on social media to see what’s been said about the helicopter’s accomplishments.

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Learn more about Ingenuity’s accomplishments here. And make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

#tech #technology #futurism #space #robotics #inspiration #science #planets #NASA #aviation #Youtube

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german-enthusiast · 1 year ago

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In my L1-acquisition class two weeks ago, our professor talked about how only 9% of the speech a baby hears is single words. Everything else is phrases and sentences, onslaughts of words and meaning!

Thus, a baby not only has to learn words and their meanings but also learn to segment lots of sounds INTO words. Doyouwantalittlemoresoupyesyoudoyoucutie. Damn.

When she talked about HOW babies learn to segment words our professor said, and I love it, "babies are little statisticians" because when listening to all the sounds, they start understanding what sound is likely to come after another vs which is not.

After discussing lots of experiments done with babies, our professor added something that I already knew somewhere in my brain but didn't know I know: All this knowledge is helpful when learning an L2 as well:

Listen to natives speaking their language. Original speed. Whatever speaker. Whatever topic.

It is NOT about understanding meaning. It is about learning the rhythm of the language, getting a feeling for its sound, the combination of sounds, the melody and the pronunciation.

Just how babies have to learn to identify single words within waves of sounds, so do adults learning a language. It will help immensely with later (more intentional) listening because you're already used to the sound, can already get into the groove of the languge.

Be as brave as a baby.

You don't even have to pay special attention. Just bathe in the sound of your target language. You'll soak it up without even noticing.

#this is not “learn a language while you sleep”#but it is similarly easy #german #langblr #deutsch #learning german #language learning #deutsch lernen #german language #german learning #german vocabulary #language

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lifeinked · 3 months ago

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Why I Love Caitlyn, and Why You Hate Her

⚠️ READER DISCRETION: I am not condoning Caitlyn’s actions and behavior, I am simply exploring the depth of her character and explaining what motivated her pursuit of revenge.

There’s no denying the gravity of Caitlyn’s actions as they are unquestionably wrong. However, her character cannot be reduced to these actions alone. This sudden, devastating behavior of hers is shaped by a thread of complex motivations and circumstances, but many choose not to acknowledge this simply because of her elite background.

Like many others, I initially overlooked the point of the gassing in Zaun, which I think is a crucial thing everyone must first understand before diving into the discourse over Caitlyn's character.

The Grey, often misunderstood as being used indiscriminately, was strategically deployed against the Chem-Barons to limit collateral damage. Caitlyn chose precision over chaos, targeting those directly responsible for Zaun’s turmoil. Furthermore, Caitlyn didn’t kill the Chem-Barons; she captured them, with net-deploying bullets. While her methods are controversial, they reflect a calculated approach; mischaracterizing her raid as a reckless attack ignores these details.

This isn’t to deny or excuse the fact that Caitlyn did, indeed, gas Zaun. Who’s to say that gas didn’t seep into the streets where innocent Zaunites roamed, harming them in the process? It’s entirely possible that innocents were affected and devastated. However, my brief explanation is only added to gain better perspective over the objectives of the gassing itself.

Now moving on, despite her privileged upbringing, Caitlyn shows a genuine effort to understand and connect with Zaunites. She places her trust in Vi, a Zaunite she’s never met before, to guide her in her search for Silco. Her journey through the undercity opens her eyes to the struggles of its people, challenging her perspective.

In S1E4, when investigating the airship attack, she encounters an undercity resident and reassures him, “I can protect you.” Later in the season, when Vi gets stabbed, Caitlyn encounters someone formerly connected to Vi. He’s grown a distaste over himself due to his appearance, and yet Caitlyn embraces him with compassion and tenderness, as a silent sign of gratitude. Then, she surrenders her cherished firearm—her only means of protection—in return for a healing potion to save Vi. In S1E7, Caitlyn’s heartfelt monologue in her conversation with Ekko perfectly captures her hope and determination: “This city needs healing. More than I ever realized. Please, let me help you.”

When Caitlyn and Vi stand in front of the Council, Caitlyn declares: “Councilors, this is Vi. She was born in the undercity. Even though we failed her in countless ways, she risked everything to show me what life is really like down there. People are starving, sick, ravaged by Shimmer. They live in constant fear of the coordinated efforts of violent crime lords.” This monologue alone shows how Caitlyn embodies optimism, believing in the inherent goodness of people, even Zaunites. It also shows that she is very willing to fight for them; she sees helping Zaunites as an act of bringing justice and equality into this world.

Many overlook the depth of Cassandra and Caitlyn’s relationship, reducing it to a simple narrative of a daughter mourning her mother. However, Caitlyn’s mourning is more layered than that. Throughout her life, she has been rebellious, driven by a desire to uncover the reality her mother tried to shield her from. In S1E4, Caitlyn reflects on this by saying, “She’d do anything to keep me from seeing the real world.” Caitlyn’s defiance wasn’t just rebellion for its own sake—it was a stand for her ideals. She sought enlightenment and understanding, even if it meant stepping outside the privileged bubble her mother built for her. By venturing into the undercity and aligning herself with Vi, Caitlyn rejected her mother's own ideals.

Here's another scene in S1E8 that emphasizes this:

Cassandra: You're a Councilor's daughter. Your actions reflect on the entire body. Caitlyn: My actions? You know what else reflects on the Council? Its citizens living on the streets. Being poisoned. Having to chose between a kingpin who wants to exploit them and a government who doesn't give a shit!

In a way, her actions mirror Vi’s: just as Vi betrayed her people by working with the enforcers, Caitlyn betrayed her own mother by involving herself with Zaunites. Remember: The last time we see Caitlyn and Cassandra interact on-screen is during Caitlyn’s plea before the Council. And in that moment, Caitlyn was fighting to protect the very kind that would soon kill her own mother.

You say that Caitlyn’s drastic shift is unjustified, as she’s only experienced a fraction of the suffering Zaunites have been enduring. But that’s precisely the point! Her transformation shows how personal loss can drive the change of one’s entire character; she’s never experienced loss before which is why it feels so heavy for her. And unlike Zaunites, Caitlyn actually has the power to act on her grief. Zaunites have only known misery their whole lives. When their loved one dies, they know there is nothing more they can do but grieve. They don’t have an inch of the privilege and military support Caitlyn has. If you had given them the same resources as Caitlyn, they wouldn’t hesitate to bring ruin to Piltover. Simply put, they don’t fight Piltovans because they don’t want to, but because they can’t.

When Jinx takes her mother away, her compassionate ideals completely shatter. Having always sought justice and understanding for Zaun, Caitlyn feels deeply betrayed, as her faith in the good within every Zaunite is overturned. Her mother’s death becomes a turning point—driving her to abandon her ideals and adopt Piltover’s disdain for the undercity, finally understanding the resentment many Piltovans harbor.

We also tend to forget that, aside from losing her mother, Caitlyn has directly suffered under the hands of Jinx. Caitlyn was held captive by Jinx in Season 1—and God knows what was done to her during that period. In the tea party scene, we see Caitlyn break down in tears, visibly flinching when Jinx moves toward her. It’s clear that Jinx has traumatized Caitlyn not just once, but twice. These experiences deeply shape Caitlyn’s actions moving forward. The pain and fear she’s endured push her to a place where she’s willing to sacrifice almost anything, even if it means putting a child’s life at risk (Isha's) or severing ties with Vi.

While they share their differences, Caitlyn and Jinx are the perfect example of foil characters. Here’s an instance which proves this: Both allow themselves to be influenced by manipulative, powerful figures all while being in a vulnerable state of mind.

Jinx is haunted by guilt; her attempt to save her family only ended up killing them, leaving her with the crushing weight of self-blame. She clings to Silco, not because he was the father she needed, but because he was the father she wanted. Silco indulged her destructive tendencies, keeping her at an all-time high on the edges of chaos. Fragile and broken, Powder crossed paths with Silco at the right moment; he saw the perfect chance to mold her into someone bewildered, unrestrained, and astray.

Caitlyn has her own Silco: Ambessa, the ruthless Noxian leader with a brutal philosophy of war. Ambessa enters Caitlyn’s life at a pivotal moment, stepping in just as Caitlyn is grappling with the devastating loss of her mother. In a spiral of self-identity, Caitlyn struggles with the weight of Piltover’s expectations and her unresolved guilt over her strained relationship with her mother (as explained in previous paragraphs). Just as young Powder mourns her family, Caitlyn blames herself for the death of her mother. Caitlyn got herself involved with the Zaunites even when she was warned not to, and at the expense of her defiance came the death of her mother. Driven by guilt and a thirst for vengeance, Caitlyn steps fully into her role, declaring in S2E1: “I am a decorated officer. Leader of House Kiramman.”

Jinx and Caitlyn share a tragic parallel: they both lose everyone they hold dear. Jinx loses Vi, Vander, Claggor, and Mylo. Caitlyn is left without Cassandra, Vi, Jayce, Mel, and Tobias. Stripped of their support systems, they are left isolated, with no one to confide in or rely on. They become vulnerable, used as pawns in the larger schemes of Silco and Ambessa’s strategic games.

Caitlyn's inner turmoil is exactly why Ambessa’s manipulation is so effective. Caitlyn is compelled to take revenge, but she doesn’t know how to. And without anyone else to guide her, she places her complete trust in Ambessa's expertise. Ambessa doesn’t just give Caitlyn the authority and power to avenge her mother; she teaches her how to use them to their full potential. She toys with Caitlyn's vulnerability, making her adopt the Noxian values of wrath, bloodshed, and ruthlessness.

It’s easy to downplay Caitlyn’s grief since she comes from an elite upbringing. While Cassandra Kiramman is laid to rest in a golden casket with a proper burial, countless innocents in Zaun become victims of merciless violence, being left to die on the streets. After the timeskip however, Caitlyn is shown to recognize the moral cost of her actions. Though the series portrays this realization subtly, it becomes evident that Caitlyn is grappling with the inhumanity and immorality of her pursuit of revenge. In S2E4, this internal conflict comes to light during her conversation with Ambessa. When Ambessa attempts to stoke her fury again, Caitlyn disarms her with a piercing question: “Why is peace always the justification for violence?”

Here's another scene that subtly depicts her realization and remorse:

Caitlyn: You're a monster. Why? Why do all this? Singed: Why does anyone commit acts others deem unspeakable? ... For love.

When Caitlyn steps further and sees Orianna, she realizes that Singed's revenge is a reflection of her own: a person grieving the death of their family member. Here, there's a saddened glint in her eyes. She finally understands now, that love and grief made her do things that once seemed so foreign to her. In this case, going against her own principles just to succeed in her revenge.

Caitlyn is now forever haunted by the outcome of her mistakes, but she knows her past cannot be erased. During her confrontation with Jinx in the prison, she admits, “No amount of good deeds can undo our crimes.” While this statement is directed at Jinx, it feels like Caitlyn also holds this against herself for her own wrongdoings.

Caitlyn’s acts of atonement are done quietly. She’s not good with words; she’s bad at articulating how she feels. Ironically, Vi is much better than Caitlyn when it comes to confronting and vocalizing internal conflict. So instead, Caitlyn’s actions speak for herself. By removing the guards at the prison, she tacitly allows Vi the opportunity to rescue Jinx. She knows Vi will come to save her sister, and yet she lets her. She finally lets go of Jinx and the grudge she held against her, as a silent act of her love for Vi.

And in S2E9, Sevika is shown to be sitting among the Councilors. But thanks to a fan's keen eyes, we find out that she is sat particularly on Cassandra Kiramman's chair (which not many notice). By allowing a Zaunite to occupy her mother's seat, Caitlyn gives them a chance to be rightfully represented, a chance for their voices and suffering to finally be heard. It’s a quiet display of Caitlyn’s evolution and willingness to bridge the divide between Piltover and Zaun.

That said, Arcane’s ending left much to be desired regarding Caitlyn’s arc. The heavy focus on Hextech overshadowed the sociopolitical dynamics of Piltover and Zaun. This is the main reason a lot of hate is thrown toward Caitlyn—there is an act of accountability, but there a lack of consequence. While Caitlyn acknowledges her mistakes, her privileged status keeps her from real repercussions, unlike the tragedy other characters had to face. This is frustrating, even to me, as someone whose favorite character is Caitlyn. Yet, in a way, it realistically portrays the inequalities in our own world—where the elite are often shielded from justice, and repentance is the closest they ever come to redemption.

#arcane #caitlyn kiramman #character analysis #league of legends #caitlyn #essay #in this essay i will #food for thought #i guess we really are a league of legends #caitvi #violyn #arcane vi #season 2 spoilers

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leikeliscomet · 2 months ago

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Asexual theory 101

Right I keep getting asked on most of my asexual posts 'What does this mean OP? Where's the sources?' so imma make a quick ace theory 101 post so if anyone says they don't get it I can say I tried. Let's go:

'What does being ace have to do with race/racism?/There's racism in the ace community???'

Pretty much everything as people of colour experience various forms of sexualisation and desexualisation at the same time, which is why POC are rarely included in asexual representation:

Asexuals of Color Still Seek to Validate Their Asexuality by Ebony Purks

Stereotypes & media about Black masculinity made it harder to come out as asexual by Tyger Songbird

Your Assumptions About Black Queer Masculinity Are Erasing My Asexual Identity by Timinepre Cole

It's Time To Start Celebrating Black Asexuality in Media By Tyger Songbird

Yasmin Benoit: ‘People had a hard time believing that I could be Black and asexual and at Pride’ by Alastair James

Brown and Gray: An Asexual People of Color Zine

'What do TERFS/transphobia have to do with asexuality?'

There's a growing TERF conspiracy theory that asexuality is the side-effect of transitioning. The LGB movement believes the community is exclusively for 'same-sex attracted persons' and so identities that don't involve attraction e.g. the TQIA should be removed. Most backlash towards Yasmin Benoit, aroace activist, is from white TERFs and conservatives:

Acephobic conspiracy theories have transphobic and fascist roots by Sherronda J Brown

'But how can conservatives hate asexuality if they hate sex?'

Because they don't and never did. If the term 'puritan' was used correctly in modern internet discourse, it would be known Christian puritans believe heterosexual sex for reproduction is a gift from god and mandatory so being asexual doesn't exactly fit with that worldview. Their beef is with any form of sex and sexuality that falls outside of cis heterosexual marriage, including asexuality. They're not anti sex but anti sexual autonomy:

"Anti-Sex" and the Real Sexual Politics of the Right by Lee Cicuta (ButchAnarchy)

The religious right is now targeting sexless marriages as “selfishness.” They Want to Ban Those Too by Tyger Songbird

Asexual people targetted by right-wing pundits following landmark report by Harriet Brewis

'What does being ace have to do with gender?'

It's commonly assumed that because patriarchy shames women's sexualities and considers all men's sexuality as biological and unavoidable, that ace women only and exclusively experience dsexualisation whilst ace men only and exclusively are pressured into being sexual beings. This can true as a broad overview but it can vary based on race, disability, class etc. This also becomes complex for asexuals that exist outside the gender binary. This is known as 'gender detachment'.

Impossible for Men, Unremarkable for Women by Canton Winer

My Work on Gender Detachment and Asexuality Strikes a Nerve by Canton Winer

'There's asexual studies now?'

Yup. On the general experiences of asexual people in the UK, including discrimination in education, the workplace and healthcare:

The National LGBT Survey (2018)

Ace in the UK Report (2023)

Specific names:

Asexual theorists: Ianna Hawkins, Michael Paramo, Julia Sondra Decker, Canton Winer (non-ace), Sherronda J Brown, Angela Chen

Asexual activists: Yasmin Benoit, Tyger Songbird, Marshall Blount (TheGentleAce), Kimberly Butler (TheAsexualGoddess)

And I'm gonna update this with more if they're worth adding. I don't wanna hear any excuses anymore or blame towards aces of colour, gay aces or trans aces for not being specific enough anymore. Read!

#i won't be surpised if this post gets aired #asexual #ace #asexuality #asexual community #compulsory sexuality #ace tings #queer theory #aroace #alloace #ace theory #asexual theory #black asexuals #black asexual #trans asexual #lgbtqia #lgbtq #lgbt

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mostlysignssomeportents · 6 months ago

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The Google antitrust remedy should extinguish surveillance, not democratize it

I'm coming to DEFCON! On FRIDAY (Aug 9), I'm emceeing the EFF POKER TOURNAMENT (noon at the Horseshoe Poker Room), and appearing on the BRICKED AND ABANDONED panel (5PM, LVCC - L1 - HW1–11–01). On SATURDAY (Aug 10), I'm giving a keynote called "DISENSHITTIFY OR DIE! How hackers can seize the means of computation and build a new, good internet that is hardened against our asshole bosses' insatiable horniness for enshittification" (noon, LVCC - L1 - HW1–11–01).

If you are even slightly plugged into the doings and goings on in this tired old world of ours, then you have heard that Google has lost its antitrust case against the DOJ Antitrust Division, and is now an official, no-foolin', convicted monopolist.

This is huge. Epochal. The DOJ, under the leadership of the fire-breathing trustbuster Jonathan Kanter, has done something that was inconceivable four years ago when he was appointed. On Kanter's first day on the job as head of the Antitrust Division, he addressed his gathered prosecutors and asked them to raise their hands if they'd never lost a case.

It was a canny trap. As the proud, victorious DOJ lawyers thrust their arms into the air, Kanter quoted James Comey, who did the same thing on his first day on the job as DA for the Southern District of New York: "You people are the chickenshit club." A federal prosecutor who never loses a case is a prosecutor who only goes after easy targets, and leave the worst offenders (who can mount a serious defense) unscathed.

Under Kanter, the Antitrust Division has been anything but a Chickenshit Club. They've gone after the biggest game, the hardest targets, and with Google, they bagged the hardest target of all.

Again: this is huge:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/boom-judge-rules-google-is-a-monopolist

But also: this is just the start.

Now that Google is convicted, the court needs to decide what to do about it. Courts have lots of leeway when it comes to addressing a finding of lawbreaking. They can impose "conduct remedies" ("don't do that anymore"). These are generally considered weaksauce, because they're hard to administer. When you tell a company like Google to stop doing something, you need to expend a lot of energy to make sure they're following orders. Conduct remedies are as much a punishment for the government (which has to spend millions closely observing the company to ensure compliance) as they are for the firms involved.

But the court could also order Google to stop doing certain things. For example, since the ruling finds that Google illegally maintained its monopoly by paying other entities – Apple, Mozilla, Samsung, AT&T, etc – to be the default search, the court could order them to stop doing that. At the very least, that's a lot easier to monitor.

The big guns, though are the structural remedies. The court could order Google to sell off parts of its business, like its ad-tech stack, through which it represents both buyers and sellers in a marketplace it owns, and with whom it competes as a buyer and a seller. There's already proposed, bipartisan legislation to do this (how bipartisan? Its two main co-sponsors are Ted Cruz and Elizabeth Warren!):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/25/structural-separation/#america-act

All of these things, and more, are on the table:

https://www.wired.com/story/google-search-monopoly-judge-amit-mehta-options/

We'll get a better sense of what the judge is likely to order in the fall, but the case could drag out for quite some time, as Google appeals the verdict, then tries for the Supreme Court, then appeals the remedy, and so on and so on. Dragging things out in the hopes of running out the clock is a time-honored tradition in tech antitrust. IBM dragged out its antitrust appeals for 12 years, from 1970 to 1982 (they called it "Antitrust's Vietnam"). This is an expensive gambit: IBM outspent the entire DOJ Antitrust Division for 12 consecutive years, hiring more lawyers to fight the DOJ than the DOJ employed to run all of its antitrust enforcement, nationwide. But it worked. IBM hung in there until Reagan got elected and ordered his AG to drop the case.

This is the same trick Microsoft pulled in the nineties. The case went to trial in 1998, and Microsoft lost in 1999. They appealed, and dragged out the proceedings until GW Bush stole the presidency in 2000 and dropped the case in 2001.

I am 100% certain that there are lawyers at Google thinking about this: "OK, say we put a few hundred million behind Trump-affiliated PACs, wait until he's president, have a little meeting with Attorney General Andrew Tate, and convince him to drop the case. Worked for IBM, worked for Microsoft, it'll work for us. And it'll be a bargain."

That's one way things could go wrong, but it's hardly the only way. In his ruling, Judge Mehta rejected the DOJ's argument that in illegally creating and maintaining its monopoly, Google harmed its users' privacy by foreclosing on the possibility of a rival that didn't rely on commercial surveillance.

The judge repeats some of the most cherished and absurd canards of the marketing industry, like the idea that people actually like advertisements, provided that they're relevant, so spying on people is actually doing them a favor by making it easier to target the right ads to them.

First of all, this is just obvious self-serving rubbish that the advertising industry has been repeating since the days when it was waging a massive campaign against the TV remote on the grounds that people would "steal" TV by changing the channel when the ads came on. If "relevant" advertising was so great, then no one would reach for the remote – or better still, they'd change the channel when the show came back on, looking for more ads. People don't like advertising. And they hate "relevant" advertising that targets their private behaviors and views. They find it creepy.

Remember when Apple offered users a one-click opt-out from Facebook spying, the most sophisticated commercial surveillance system in human history, whose entire purpose was to deliver "relevant" advertising? More than 96% of Apple's customers opted out of surveillance. Even the most Hayek-pilled economist has to admit that this is a a hell of a "revealed preference." People don't want "relevant" advertising. Period.

The judge's credulous repetition of this obvious nonsense is doubly disturbing in light of the nature of the monopoly charge against Google – that the company had monopolized the advertising market.

Don't get me wrong: Google has monopolized the advertising market. They operate a "full stack" ad-tech shop. By controlling the tools that sellers and buyers use, and the marketplace where they use them, Google steals billions from advertisers and publishers. And that's before you factor in Jedi Blue, the illegal collusive arrangement the company has with Facebook, by which they carved up the market to increase their profits, gouge advertisers, starve publishers, and keep out smaller rivals:

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

One effect of Google's monopoly power is a global privacy crisis. In regions with strong privacy laws (like the EU), Google uses flags of convenience (looking at you, Ireland) to break the law with impunity:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/15/finnegans-snooze/#dirty-old-town

In the rest of the world, Google works with other members of the surveillance cartel to prevent the passage of privacy laws. That's why the USA hasn't had a new federal privacy law since 1988, when Congress acted to ban video-store clerks from telling newspaper reporters about the VHS cassettes you took home:

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

The lack of privacy law and privacy enforcement means that Google can inflict untold privacy harms on billions of people around the world. Everything we do, everywhere we go online and offline, every relationship we have, everything we buy and say and do – it's all collected and stored and mined and used against us. The immediate harm here is the haunting sense that you are always under observation, a violation of your fundamental human rights that prevents you from ever being your authentic self:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2013/jun/14/nsa-prism

The harms of surveillance aren't merely spiritual and psychological – they're material and immediate. The commercial surveillance industry provides the raw feedstock for a parade of horribles, from stalkers and bounty hunters turning up on their targets' front doors to cops rounding up demonstrators with location data from their phones to identity thieves tricking their marks by using leaked or purchased private information as convincers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/06/privacy-first/#but-not-just-privacy

The problem with Google's monopolization of the surveillance business model is that they're spying on us. But for a certain kind of competition wonk, the problem is that Google is monopolizing the violation of our human rights, and we need to use competition law to "democratize" commercial surveillance.

This is deeply perverse, but it represents a central split in competition theory. Some trustbusters fetishize competition for its own sake, on the theory that it makes companies better and more efficient. But there are some things we don't want companies to be better at, like violating our human rights. We want to ban human rights violations, not improve them.

For other trustbusters – like me – the point of competition enforcement isn't merely to make companies offer better products, it's to make companies small enough to hold account through the enforcement of democratic laws. I want to break – and break up – Google because I want to end its ability to bigfoot privacy law so that we can finally root out the cancer of commercial surveillance. I don't want to make Google smaller so that other surveillance companies can get in on the game.

There is a real danger that this could emerge from this decision, and that's a danger we need to guard against. Last month, Google shocked the technical world by announcing that it would not follow through on its years-long promise to kill third-party cookies, one of the most pernicious and dangerous tools of commercial surveillance. The reason for this volte-face appears to be concern that the EU would view killing third-party cookies as anticompetitive, since Google intended to maintain commercial surveillance using its Orwellian "Privacy Sandbox" technology in Chrome, with the effect that everyone except Google would find it harder to spy on us as we used the internet:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/googles-trail-of-crumbs

It's true! This is anticompetitive. But the answer isn't to preserve the universal power of tech companies large and small to violate our human rights – it's to ban everyone, especially Google, from spying on us!

This current in competition law is still on the fringe, but the Google case – which finds the company illegally dominating surveillance advertising, but rejects the idea that surveillance is itself a harm – offers an opportunity for this bad idea to go from the fringe to the center.

If that happens, look out.

Take "attribution," an obscure bit of ad-tech jargon disguising a jaw-droppingly terrible practice. "Attribution" is when an ad-tech company shows you an ad, and then follows you everywhere you go, monitoring everything you do, to determine whether the ad convinced you to buy something. I mean that literally: they're combining location data generated by your phone and captured by Bluetooth and wifi receivers with data from your credit card to follow you everywhere and log everything, so that they can prove to a merchant that you bought something.

This is unspeakably grotesque. It should be illegal. In many parts of the world, it is illegal, but it is so lucrative that monopolists like Google can buy off the enforcers and get away with it. What's more, only the very largest corporations have the resources to surveil you so closely and invasively that they can perform this "service."

But again, some competition wonks look at this situation and say, "Well, that's not right, we need to make sure that everyone can do attribution." This was a (completely mad) premise in the (otherwise very good) 2020 Competition and Markets Authority market-study on "Online platforms and digital advertising":

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5fa557668fa8f5788db46efc/Final_report_Digital_ALT_TEXT.pdf

This (again, otherwise sensible) document veers completely off the rails whenever the subject of attribution comes up. At one point, the authors propose that the law should allow corporations to spy on people who opt out of commercial surveillance, provided that this spying is undertaken for the sole purpose of attribution.

But it gets even worse: by the end of the document, the authors propose a "user ID intervention" to give every Briton a permanent, government-issued advertising identifier to make it easier for smaller companies to do attribution.

Look, I understand why advertisers like attribution and are willing to preferentially take their business to companies that can perform it. But the fact that merchants want to be able to peer into every corner of our lives to figure out how well their ads are performing is no basis for permitting them to do so – much less intervening in the market to make it even easier so more commercial snoops can get their noses in our business!

This is an idea that keeps popping up, like in this editorial by a UK lawyer, where he proposes fixing "Google's dominance of online advertising" by making it possible for everyone to track us using the commercial surveillance identifiers created and monopolized by the ad-tech duopoly and the mobile tech duopoly:

https://www.thesling.org/what-to-do-about-googles-dominance-of-online-advertising/

Those companies are doing something rotten. In dominating ads, they have stolen billions from publishers and advertisers. Then they used those billions to capture our democratic process and ensure that our human rights weren't being defended as they plundered our private data and put us in harm's way.

Advertising will adapt. The marketing bros know this is coming. They're already discussing how to live in a world where you can't measure clicks and you can't attribute actions (e.g. the world from the first advertisements up until the early 2000s):

https://sparktoro.com/blog/attribution-is-dying-clicks-are-dying-marketing-is-going-back-to-the-20th-century/

An equitable solution to Google's monopoly will not run though our right to privacy. We don't solve the Google monopoly by creating competition in surveillance. The reason to get rid of Google's monopoly is to make it easier to end surveillance.

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/2024/08/07/revealed-preferences/#extinguish-v-improve

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

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

#pluralistic #google #antitrust #monopolies #remedies #ad-tech #competition #power #doj v google #attribution

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