#did not have to search what an oxymoron meant

[captainwaynerigby]

I have a question. About the phrase “GDF Intelligence Officer”. That seems a bit of an oxymoron. Just saying, y’know.

. . .

You said you had a question, Anonymous, but I don’t believe you actually asked me one.

If you were asking me whether the phrase GDF Intelligence Officer (which is actually my official job title, and is much more than a phrase, thank you very much) is, what you call, an oxymoron, then I’d have to reply in the negative.

I’m not sure what you were trying to imply but it is not an oxymoron. Definitely not.

— Cpt. Rigby

[rahuratna]

I finished watching JJK Season 2 Ep. 18, and it is literally not okay. I take foreverrrr when I watch a new series because I *have to* savor every moment of it. Anyways, I finished Ep. 17 on July 2, so I purposely prolonged the next episode until after Nanami’s birthday since I knew what was going to happen but ended up procrastinating longer than intended…

I’m in literal tears right now and won’t sleep well for the next three nights. This is like the hardest I’ve ever cried for a character in forever 😭 😭

Can we discuss everything Nanami talked about on that episode? I’m sorry if I’m not clear in explaining my thoughts, the enormity of the loss of a fictional man feels incredibly real. I need more closure, and I am going to be rereading your fics too after for some much needed comfort ❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹

Nanami expressed his exhaustion. He was so tired. He wanted to go to Malaysia and read the books he meant to read but never had the time for. Instead he chose to “[come] back over some vague reason like a job worth doing.” Here he was confiding to Haibara about his purpose, one of the biggest motifs in JJK. It feels so raw and human, how Nanami has such simple and peaceful desires but he chose to give them up without a clear reason. Did he regret it? Did Nanami have a fulfilling life? Did he sacrifice too much?

(Speaking of regrets, have you watched Attack on Titan? It’s such a big theme in that show and I can’t help but draw parallels.)

Even though he said that he did enough (more than enough I believe), he followed this up with wondering how Fushiguro and Maki and Naobito were doing. It’s like an oxymoron. The implications here… I’m actually not okay 🥹. I think this means he had fulfilled his role as a jujutsu sorcerer, but it wasn’t enough to save all of his friends. He’d always continue to look out for them. Nanami cares so much and wants to protect them, and I think this answers my first question: he didn’t regret it in the end because he did the best he could. I don’t want to come off as overlooking all of Nanami’s losses and setbacks… I just want to know if Nanami’s fulfillment, his search for his enough, outweighed all of his sacrifices. That’s the closure I’m looking for.

Rest in peace, Nanami. I wish I could tell him that he was more than enough and beyond everything we could ever ask for. I learned so much from his character, and without him, I wouldn’t have such wonderful discussions with wonderful people. 💙💙🕊️🏝️

Oh my God, that episode destroyed me. I also had to take some time to process what had happened to a character who I genuinely loved and admired so much.

I think what hurts the most is that Nanami had such simple desires. He wanted to live his simple life and enjoy little pleasures, but his desire to protect and serve others, the way his heart was all-encompassing of these few people he cared about, really led him down a different path. He cared about the world. He cared about the younger generation. He cared about his colleagues and friends and he was such a kind and genuine person. This is what makes his death all the harder to cope with.

I also wondered, for so long, why the reasons surrounding his return to being a sorcerer were so vague. The part where he expresses how 'exhausted' he was was very significant to me. The flashbacks to his time as a salaryman, and also the way he deals with Haibara's death, show a common theme. He was always tired. Tired of having to live in a world where selfishness and greed is rewarded, tired of having to run in a meaningless rat race to achieve the small peace he so desired, exhausted by all the burdens placed on the shoulders of jujutsu sorcerers, on HIS shoulders.

What you mentioned really is the answer. He was exhausted, but for a much longer time than just in the scene leading up to his death. In that scene, he asks 'haven't I done enough?' in a way that's heartbreakingly plaintive, and to me, almost childlike in its simplicity. Yes, he'd done more than enough. He knew it. And yet, his own conscience, his own body, would not let him run from duty, from the people who he felt needed him.

If the timing has been slightly different, maybe Yuuji arriving earlier, or Nanami missing Mahito, then we could speculate on what may have occurred. Maybe he would have survived, if badly injured. Maybe he would have retired and found the life he always wanted. But his duty to the world of sorcery, since his life was empty of true purpose, would probably always have sucked him back in.

On the question of regret, I know exactly what you mean. There's too much for me to put in one post, but I will say this. The only occasions when Nanami appeared truly at peace, or when he actually smiled, were occasions when he was in mortal danger (like being trapped in Mahito's domain in their second fight at the school). When he takes his glasses off and remains so cool, looks so peaceful even, he says that he has no regrets, because he chose to live a life where he could use his skills to help people. He says that their gratitude is all he needs, implying that he defines himself by how much he can help others.

I think, at the end, that Nanami's exhausted plea was the cry of a human being, as if to a parent or deity. Why me? Why do I have to suffer like this? Everyone asks that question at some point. In his case, he answers that immediately by wondering about the safety of the others. I do think that Nanami would have wanted, desperately, that peaceful life for himself. I think he would have, as an ordinary man, harbored resentment and questioned why he had to give up so much for a corrupt and greed-driven world. What he didn't regret was saving the people who he cared about, the people who inhabit that world, and that thought gives me some peace. 🧡🧡💛💛

I have watched AoT, so let me know your thoughts about sacrifice, too, and the parallels you draw. I'd love to hear them!

[hockeylvr59]

Here With Me, Part 2 || Taylor Makar

Author's Note: Kelsey and Taylor meet again after the Union series and decide to have a little bit of fun. FC: Marina Laswick (@marooshk on instagram).

Warnings: Smut // Word Count: 3,590

~~~~

One

Laidback chaos. It might seem like an oxymoron but it was Kelsey’s favorite thing about house parties. She loved the way that the pounding of the music made it hard to think. How even before having any alcohol it was just easier to let down your walls and exist in the moment knowing that everyone was here for the same reasons. 

It was a Saturday night and after spending all day doing homework, Kelsey had finally let her roommates pull her out to go have some fun. Dressed in black jeans, a shimmery silver bodysuit, and her favorite leather jacket, Kelsey felt sexy and ready to take on the world….or at the very least an Amherst basement. 

Pulled through to the kitchen where drinks were, Kelsey grabbed a passionfruit truly and then started to mingle even if it was hard to hear anyone over the bass. It wasn’t long before she walked past a group talking about the UMass hockey team and how they had dominated their weekend series. 

After dancing for a bit, she moved to get another drink, overhearing that Taylor Makar had scored “a sexy breakaway goal” on top of one he had “jammed in” last night. FIling it away in her mind under a ‘good for him,’ Kelsey grabbed two more drinks from the coolers and stepped outside for a few minutes of fresh air. From the corner of her eye she noticed a group of boisterous guys making their way from the side street to the front door. Finishing off one of the drinks and feeling a buzz slowly starting to take over her body, she slipped back inside, her body responding quickly to the difference in temperature. 

It didn’t take long for one of her roommates to drag her back to the makeshift dance floor and Kelsey just gave into the rhythm of the music. With her roommate being pulled away shortly after by a guy Kelsey knew had been a previous hookup, she slipped back down to the basement knowing that it was slightly quieter down there. 

She had just brushed off a guy who was too forward in all the wrong ways when a laugh she thought she recognized filled her ears. With her body immediately reacting to the sound, she turned her head to look for it and her eyes first landed on a semi-familiar face. She couldn’t tell you what his name was exactly but she knew that he played on her uncle’s team. And if one was here, then that meant the odds were good that that laugh did belong to who she thought it did. 

Looking in that direction for another moment but not spotting Taylor, Kelsey turned around to find a waste bin for her empty can because she wasn’t one of those people who would just leave things lying around for someone else to clean up. 

Checking her phone when it buzzed and laughing to herself as her roommate confirmed that she had left with the guy from earlier, Kelsey weaved her way through the crowds of people in search of a bathroom. As much as she loved bodysuits, they made going to the bathroom a pain and so by the time she finished, there was a line waiting for her. 

With a clearly overly drunk dude calling her out as she walked away, she flipped him off and called out for him to fuck off and take a piss instead of wasting his time complaining. 

Spotting someone from one of her classes last spring, Kelsey fell into conversation until a soft touch settled on her lower back a few minutes later and a hand reached in to hand her a sealed can of a half and half truly. 

Looking up, Kelsey spotted Taylor and immediately a warmth filled her body. 

“Don’t let me interrupt.” He whispered after bending to be close to her ear. She appreciated the gesture but at the same time it was hard to focus on the conversation with the heat flowing from his hand as he stood beside her. 

With her conversational partner reading the shift in Kelsey’s attention and declaring that they would catch up another time, Kelsey turned her full attention to Taylor. 

“Thanks for this.” She declared, popping the can open to take a sip. 

“No worries. Your hand looked a little empty with your claws in tonight and all.” He smirked and shrugged. 

“I can pull them out if need be.” Kelsey shot back, her tone teasing. “And I see you wore your good pants again today. Little short though.” She wasn’t ashamed to let him see her take him in, looking him up and down. 

The pants were a little short but given that Taylor appeared to be mostly leg, that wasn’t all that surprising. He was very obviously in good physical shape and the peek of chain around his neck admittedly intrigued her. And then there was the long hair tucked under a backwards baseball cap that caused a stray desire to run her fingers through it to wash over her. 

When her eyes met his grayish blue ones, Kelsey smiled and licked her lips slightly. Taylor was forced closer to her as someone pushed past him and he took the opportunity to lean in to whisper in her ear again. 

“Has anyone told you how gorgeous you look tonight?” 

“Not without being obscene about it. So thank you.” Kelsey admitted honestly. She could tell by the way he was looking at her that he felt the same chemistry that she did and so she took the chance to make her move. 

“Are you in the mood for some fun tonight?” She asked him, fingers drifting to brush against his torso. 

“Yeah.” Taylor agreed, his voice cracking slightly. 

“Then let’s get out of here.” 

Lacing her fingers through his, Kelsey guided Taylor through the crowded basement and upstairs, tossing her half finished drink before stepping out through the front door onto the Amherst street. 

“So my place is a little too far. Is yours good?” Stopping along the sidewalk to wait for some guidance, Kelsey had to giggle at the glazed over look on Taylor’s face. “Taylor…you with me bud?” 

With a gentle tug on her hand, Taylor pulled her to him before his hands dropped to her hips. There was no hesitation as he dipped into her personal space and murmured that he was going to kiss her before his lips made contact with her own. 

Kelsey couldn’t help but moan as she kissed him back because yeah this was what she wanted. Mindful of the fact that they were very much in public, Kelsey pulled away after a moment asking again if his place was good. This time Taylor nodded and after she motioned for him to lead the way he did just that. 

They’d barely made it a block before Taylor was pulling her back into a kiss. Another couple blocks later he pulled her into a full body hug while waiting for a pedestrian light to change and she could feel him already starting to get hard against her abdomen. When he stopped her again for another kiss, Kelsey couldn’t help but shake her head at him. 

“You know we’ll get there faster if you don’t keep stopping to kiss me…”  The little bit of a pout he gave her said it all and Kelsey kissed him this time. “Physical touch is kind of your thing isn’t it?” The question was rhetorical but the slight tinge of pink that she noticed being so close to him answered it anyway. 

Resuming their walk, Kelsey let him stop her now and then for kisses or hugs. When she shivered slightly as a breeze hit them, Taylor’s arm draped around her shoulders and he pulled her close to his side while picking up the pace a little. 

It wasn’t long after that before they reached the dorms at Northeast and Kelsey followed Taylor inside and up into his dorm. As he let her into the suite she immediately was reminded that yeah this was a college boys dorm and yeah they were athletes which was even worse. Once they were in his room though, she relaxed a little because arguably it was much cleaner than the main living space. 

There were a few items of clothing on the floor in the corner but nothing too crazy and a package on the bed that was clearly recently opened. Inside was a 100 pack of condoms and Kelsey raised an eyebrow before looking at him over her shoulder. 

When Taylor realized what she was looking at after closing and locking his door he groaned. 

“It’s a gag gift from my brother I swear.” He stated, cheeks even more pink. Reaching in, Kelsey tore the outer plastic off the box before opening it and retrieving three condoms and then tossing the rest of the box off onto Taylor’s desk. Seeing his eyes go wide as he counted the condoms, Kelsey bit her lip before patting the bed. 

“One is to serve as a dental dam if you want to go down on me, the second is for fellatio, and the third is for sex. It eliminates any risk of cross contamination. You might think it’s silly but I take protection seriously.” 

“As long as I can be inside you, it’s cool with me.” It was a little bit cute how excited he was and Kelsey tossed the condoms onto his bedside table before shifting to straddle his lap. 

“Now you can kiss me all you want.” She breathed, smiling as his hands moved to hold onto her hips, one sliding down onto her ass. Kissing him deeply, she ground against him, moaning softly at the feeling of his rapidly hardening length through his pants. Kelsey liked knowing that he wanted her as much as she wanted him. Throwing her hands around his neck she knocked the cap off of his head and started to play with the curls like she’d been wanting to all night long. 

They continued to kiss until Taylor slid his hands to try to take her jacket off. Helping him slide her arms out of the sleeves, she tossed the jacket toward his chair before pushing on his chest to force him back prone onto the bed. With him reclined back on his elbows, Kelsey undid his belt and then the button and zipper of his jeans. Shifting backward she worked to gently tug them off his body and smirked to herself at the way he was straining against his black boxer briefs. 

“Someone is excited.” She teased, pressing up onto her knees to close the gap and kiss him. The way Taylor kissed her made her head swim and she knew that those kisses could get her into big trouble.

Palming over his length, Kelsey worked to pull his shirt off of him, biting her lip as she admired the smooth planes of his chest and divots of his abs. Unable to wait any longer to get her mouth on him, Kelsey grabbed a condom from the nightstand and murmured for Taylor to lift his hips as her fingers slipped under the waistband of his boxer briefs. Tugging them down she groaned as his length popped free. 

Condom in place, Kelsey settled alongside Taylor’s hips and kissed over his tip before hollowing her cheeks and slowly sinking down on his length. The little grunts and groans that left him only pushed her forward and she felt herself getting even wetter and needier to feel him inside of her properly. 

The blowjob didn’t last long before Taylor’s mutter of “Kels. Stop” reached her ears. Pulling off of his length with a pop, she kissed his tip one more time before looking up to find him gripping the comforter tightly in the fingers of one hand while the other was thrown over his face while his chest heaved. 

 Giving him a moment to recover, Kelsey got up to kick her shoes off, noting that Taylor had done that presumably as soon as they’d entered the room. Once his breathing had steadied a bit, she gently pulled the used condom off and tossed it into the wastebasket before kneeling back onto the bed to make sure that he was actually good. 

With her hovering next to him, Taylor took the opportunity to flip them, maneuvering her gently until her head was resting on his pillow. Squealing softly, Kelsey giggled as he whispered in her ear that she’s too damn good with her mouth. Tangling her fingers back in his hair she kissed him again, kicking things up a notch with an open mouth and tongue. 

Taylor’s low “fuck” as he pulled away went straight to Kelsey’s core and the way his eyes were cloudy with lust made her shiver. 

“You’re wearing too much.” He mumbled as his fingers dipped down to the button on her jeans, hesitating as if seeking her permission. 

“Yeah Tay. Go ahead.” She whispered, arching her hips to help him remove the restricting piece of clothing. His fingers were nimble as he pulled at the jeans and she watched as a slightly confused expression settled over his face. Lips pursed, he looked at her until she giggled, guiding his hands to the straps on her shoulders to tug the whole thing down and off of her body. 

“Why are women’s clothes so confusing?” He grumbled softly before his jaw went a little slack seeing the black lace bra and panty set that she had on underneath her clothes. 

“Because it makes the reveal so much better.” Kelsey teased, enjoying the expression on his face as he took in her body. 

“So gorgeous.” He breathed, his voice cracking with desire and excitement. Though she appreciated his stare, Kelsey also needed him to do something. 

“Are you going to touch me or just stare?” She chirped softly. 

“Needy much?” He chirped back. Gently nudging his hand down between her thighs, Kelsey sighed happily. 

“You tell me.” 

She was lucky that the panties didn’t tear with the way Taylor yanked them off her body. Undoing her own bra, she slipped it off and let it go to the floor leaving both of them finally bare. 

Reaching for a condom and then settling at her hips, Taylor tore the package open before looking at her a bit blankly. 

“Stupid question but uh…how does this work?” 

Murmuring for him to grab her bag from his desk, Kelsey dug out the small pair of manicure scissors she kept for just this purpose. Passing them off to him she explained how to unroll it, cut off the tip and the base and then slide down along one side until it was a flat sheet. Once complete, she tossed the scissors back into the bag and then tossed it aside giving him a little shrug. 

Taylor settled the latex sheet over her core as directed and then made himself comfortable between her thighs, kissing along them softly. Kelsey was a little surprised at how slow and gentle he was being but it wasn’t unwelcome. When he finally got to work on her core it took a few minutes for him to settle into a rhythm and feel her body out but when he did, Kelsey couldn’t help but moan. The suction of his lips against her clit felt amazing and sent sparks through her body and the flat press of his tongue stimulating all her nerves made her toes curl. 

“Taylor…fuck..please.” Kelsey pleaded after a moment trying to draw him away from her core because she was more than ready for him now. Not getting a response, she tried to be clearer. “Tay…need you inside me.” Taylor still didn’t let up despite her tugs to his hair and after another minute or two she felt her muscles start to clench as an orgasm rolled over her. Only when he had worked her through it did Taylor finally pull away and slide up to kiss her temple after disposing of the latex barrier. 

Noting her look of mild exasperation, Taylor chuckled. 

“Excuse me for wanting to make sure you came.” He murmured, his lips brushing against her nose before dipping down to her lips. “Not sure how long I’ll last once inside you and I didn’t want to leave you high and dry.”  As much as it was frustrating, it was thoughtful and more considerate than probably half of the guys she’d slept with before. 

Rolling her eyes a little, Kelsey just kissed him while reaching to retrieve the third condom. Opening it, she reached between them to slide it over his length before shifting her hips to permit him to settle more easily between them. As much as she loved the feeling of him rock hard against her stomach, she needed to feel him buried inside of her. 

Brushing a stray strand of hair from her face, Taylor paused for a moment to check that this was indeed what she wanted and when she nodded she felt the head of his dick nudge against her opening before slowly and gradually pressing inside. He was slightly larger than average so there was a bit of a stretch but it was the best kind of stretch that only brought pleasure. 

The sound of his groan as he sunk deeper only sparked more desire and she gently scraped her nails over his shoulders until his pelvis bumped hers. For a moment, the only sound in the room was Taylor’s short hot breaths as he gave her body time to adjust. 

“Fuck Tay…you can move. Please move.” Kelsey murmured breathily, needing that friction. 

For being so big, Kelsey was a little surprised at just how gentle Taylor was as their bodies worked to bring each other pleasure. It was good but she knew that it could be so much better. 

“Harder Taylor. I’m not going to break.” Like that was the reassurance he’d been waiting for, Taylor tugged her leg around his waist and upped the speed and force of his thrusts. “Oh….” Kelsey couldn’t help but squeak as the sound rapidly morphed into a moan. 

With sweat developing on his brow and his hips stuttering more and more frequently, Kelsey knew that Taylor wasn’t going to last much longer. And really she couldn’t blame him knowing that he had played two hockey games in the past two days. So tossing her head back, she slipped her hand between them and rubbed at her clit as he continued to press her deep into the mattress. 

As his hips stuttered again and his head dropped to press against her shoulder, Kelsey felt him nudge against that spot that brought the most pleasure and she had to pull her hand from his hair to cover the scream threatening to spill from her lips as with three more shaky thrusts she clamped down around him as her orgasm hit hard. 

With the pleasure beginning to dissipate, Kelsey could feel Taylor twitch inside of her as he grunted into her shoulder and released into the condom. Rubbing a hand down his shoulder and back, she pressed a kiss into his sweaty hair and then let out a blissful giggle. 

After a moment Taylor groaned and slowly pulled out of her before rolling off to the small space beside her on the twin bed. Looking at him, Kelsey could tell that there was no way he was going to work up the stamina for another round and that he would likely be dead asleep in less than five minutes. So, after carefully removing the condom and tying it off, Kelsey started looking for Taylor’s boxer briefs and her clothes. 

Finding the former, she tossed them at him before picking up the rest of her clothing. 

“Give me a minute and I’ll take you home.” Taylor mumbled softly. 

“You’re about three minutes from passing out Tay.” Kelsey replied. “I can call an uber, it’s fine. You should sleep.” Knowing that he would likely protest, Kelsey shifted to kneel on the bed, dressed only in her undergarments and bent to kiss him. “Seriously, sleep. I’ll let myself out and be on my way. This was a lot of fun.” 

Giving up the fight, Taylor shifted on the bed after pulling on the boxer briefs and by the time Kelsey had finished getting dressed and grabbed her back, there were already soft snores escaping him. 

Pressing one more kiss to his cheek, Kelsey unlocked his door and slipped out of his room closing it behind her. Grateful that none of his roommates were in the common area, she let herself out of the suite and left the dorm, requesting an uber ride home. 

By the time she left herself into her mod, Kelsey was more than ready to fall into her own bed. Seeing one of her other roommates she blushed softly. 

“You look like you had a fun night…” 

“Yeah it was good.” She agreed, grabbing a bottle of water from their fridge. 

“Good enough to repeat?” 

Kelsey hadn’t left her number or anything but she certainly wouldn’t mind meeting up with Taylor again at some point. 

“Yeah. I wouldn’t mind repeating that.” With her roommates laughter following her, Kelsey made her way into her room and stripped before heading for a quick shower. Noting a few small bruises along her hips and thighs as she washed Kelsey knew that she definitely wouldn’t mind a repeat of tonight.

[ithinkthereforeidread]

the collected poems of todd anderson

christmas day of 1959.

ao3 link here

He knew this day would come. He’s been dreading it, sure, he’d never really enjoyed Christmas much beforehand, his multiple unopened desk sets epitomised such. At his house, fires weren’t warm, hugs were stiff and silence was punctured by the sounds of laughing children in the house next door. It’d always been this way for the Anderson family. Todd grew to accept it.

But this year was supposed to be different.

He was supposed to spend his Christmas at Welton, with all the Dead Poets.

 Usually, the boys would go home to their families for Christmas, but through the efforts of Neil he assembled a complex string of falsities about a gargantuan Latin group project that all the Dead Poets needed to finish.

“Serious business, I care about my education father, why else would have you sent me here?” said Neil over the phone, holding his index finger to his mouth to silence Todd from his chuckling, although all Todd really saw was the wide grin that hid behind it, and the way Neil’s eyes crinkled up all the way, a complete oxymoronic action when Neil was usually on the phone to his father. Todd stifles back laughter and Neil smacks him lightly, only causing him to laugh more.

“Well, that was quicker AND easier than I expected...” Neil states after placing the phone back on it’s cradle and ending the call. “But hey!” Neil squeaks, “We’re all spending Christmas together! The biggest concern was just getting my father to agree, everyone else’s parents seemed fine with it.”

Todd and Neil start to walk, side by side, Neil bumps him playfully. “I’m so glad you told me, Todd.” Neil turns his head and looks towards the shorter boy. “My Christmases at home aren’t that great either, I’ve always wanted to spend them here, but I could never work up the courage to ask my father, ask Charlie, in our first year he almost called up my father himself. It was hilarious, he had to look up at the phone, he was so short.”

“You and Charlie have been friends for ages then?” Todd queries “Oh yeah, we met in our last year of preparatory school, he was a pretty mischievous kid, obviously not much has changed.” Neil laughs, “he was just always so confident and sure of himself… I always wanted to be like that, nothing ever got to him.”

“Has that changed?” Todd’s questions were always short and straight to the point. Startling upfrontness in the most unexpected of moments. It was something Todd was known for.

“Not really… I mean, I try to get him to open up… he just isn’t an emotions type of person, I think?” Neil scratches the back of his head. “During our 9th year he went through something really big and not great, but he didn’t tell me a single word about it. To this day I have no idea wahat happened. I tried asking but it didn’t lead anywhere… all I know is some kid had been expelled but it didn’t look like him and Charlie fought or anything because they spent so much time together ....” Neil trails off.

“You know people stare at us sometimes.” Todd blankly states, an unconscious switch being flicked immediately. “When we’re walking to classes, when we go into our dorm, when we exchange smiles in classes… They bump their friends with their shoulders and snicker under their breaths… Have you noticed that Neil?”

Neil’s walking pace slows slightly, “Uh… no, I-uh I didn’t… Do they think we’re-“ “-Maybe.” Todd interrupts before Neil can say The Word. “Bu-but we aren’t, I mean, you were talking about that girl from-“ “-Yeah! Ginny, from the play, wow, I mean, she’s just great.” “Yeah, I’m sure she is.”

God.

This got awkward.

Nice one Todd.

Did it again.

~~

Ink splatters dried on the paper he cradled so delicately, he stares at the contents once more.

“what wouldn't i give to love myself as feverishly as I love you? what is the opposite of amnesia? that is what you are. sometimes i cant find my way around my memories. i have to take detours… i think you were the best one.

little fragments of joy pepper my vacancy i didn't know that i should want to be hopeful or that being hopeful meant giving up some intrinsic part of me.

last night i had a dream that we were breathing underwater flying high in the sky, arms outstretched, laughing, smiling, hugging, bodies pressed onto one another. it didn’t last long. piece by wretched, fragile piece i throw out every hated qualm of thee your impenetrable stare fixed onto me

i have hoped for love that is beyond you being caught by me or me trying to slip through the cracks. they read me, you, us, with their glacial eyes and think they know but they don't

and it seems neither do we.”

“Wow, Todd. This is so… different. But good! It’s just, I’ve never seen anything like this in our English class, in the poems we’ve studied… I just… wow.” Neil looks up at Todd, eyes so soft, Neil knows how big of a deal this is to Todd. He doesn’t just share his work with anyone.

“I-I’m glad you liked it.” Todd smiles, it’s almost as if he’s had to completely remove himself from himself in order to let Neil observe and compliment this part of him, he takes the page out of Neil’s hands and places it in his book. “What-er, who was it about?” Neil gingerly queries. “I- uh, well.” Todd’s heating up now, he should’ve expected Neil to ask him this question. Dammit. Why was he so stupid for letting him read it. “Well, I-I don’t think you necessarily have to go through something to write a-about it, it-it’s fiction for a reason.”

Neil’s lips downturn slightly, “I guess, but everything that we produce in art- whether that be acting, or poetry writing, painting- whatever… it… subconsciously shows something that you might not necessarily want to show or see, right? Like how Keating got us the other day to choose a poem we liked and recite it… It tells you so much about a person. When Charlie was reading his poem… wasn't all you could think about was how bleak it was?” Neil continues, “The academically and poetically rigorous selection made by Cameron or Knox’s complete devotion and enamoration with the simplest emotion of the human being, love? We hide these parts of ourselves, maybe we view them as flaws and faults of our cognitive machine, but art reveals them all.” Neil delivered a love poem to the class himself. He takes a big breath and lets the words he just spoke sit in the air of their dorm for a while.

“Into the meadows dawn..” Todd clicks his fingers, a vague ritual to jog his memory. “flashes my faun.” Todd recites “O Hunter, snare me his shadow… O Nightingale catch me his strain. Else moonstruck with music and madness, I track him in vain” all they’re doing is staring at each other.

“You- you remembered my poem?” Neil questions. “Yeah- I went to the library after you said it- wanted to see if there was more… Oscar Wilde…” “Yeah.” “I notice them staring now that you mentioned it.” Neil breaks the trajectory of the conversation, “God, they’re all so stupid, it’s as if Judy Garland and President Eisenhower just strutted into the school, arms interlocked!” Todd chuckles. Then more silence.

“Has anything changed, Neil?” “What do you mean?” “Between us. What this is. Our comradely bond, as Keating puts it.” Todd chuckles, “ Our co-dependence, attachment at the hip.”

More silence…

“I-I think…” Neil finally states, “that it was never anything it wasn’t already… perhaps we ignored it, suppressed the feeling… but… it was always there.”

“For me, at least.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

~~~

The wind pierced Todd’s skin in tiny microscopic ways, embedding itself under the protection of his coat and completely evading the rest of his physical form, though perhaps the wind wasn’t the cause of the spine-curdling ache he felt, but simply an additional symptom.

Bells rang, green and red Christmas themed paraphernalia adorned the streets he’d previously been driving through, staring out the window at lights and snow that trickled onto an already naturally bleached layer of the ground. His footprints leave indents and obtain a slippery consistency to the outer sole and toe cap. He treads more carefully.

His hands clutch the leather cover of the journal he is hiding underneath his jacket, minimising any further damage that may soon come its way, finally, through minutes of soul-searching and carefully treading through stones and flowers, he makes his way to Neil.

He looks at him with a certain sense of fragility, his stone head protruding from the ground and covered in snow. Todd wipes some away to see the carvings made into him. His full name. Aged 17. Dutiful son of Tom and Susan Perry.

The newness of it all sends a pang to Todd’s stomach as he looks at the other stones weathered with age and the constant bombardment of the elements. That’ll be Neil one day. Flowers not fresh and carvings unreadable. Forgotten to the world and all its inhabitants, rotting in satin lining and cherry oak wood. Todd stifles back a sob and covers his mouth, forcing himself to get it together for just this moment.

“Merry Christmas Neil.” Todd whispers, the words can barely come out. “You-you’re not here physically but you’re here with me, and Charlie, and-and all the other Dead Poets.” he continues, “though- though Charlie isn’t here technically either. He left. Had to. He’s not graduating, at least he’s not at Welton” Todd looks down, brushes his emerging tears away with his shoulder

“I just wanted to come here and give you your gift, I’ve had it in the making for a while now, you’ve seen some of it already. I wish I could’ve given it to you earlier… if I had known this would happen.” he pulls out the journal, and opens it up.

“Here, I’ll read you some.” Todd, though already cold and miserable, situates himself next to Neil’s cold headstone and leans his head on it, opening the journal's contents to its first page.

“Dear Neil,” Todd’s starts, but adds an offside, “It’s dated on the 7th of a while back, my-my birthday.”

“I hope this book finds you well,” Todd’s breath hitches, “especially considering that I’m probably too anxious to deliver it to you. What you’ll see here is what we spoke about the night we first kissed. About freeing ourselves from any subconscious fear or dichotomous dread of both working with and against the grain or being liked or disliked. The people I look up to the most are inspirationally unpopular. So, here’s a suite of poems by yours truly. Hopefully you’ll find your own meaning and reverence in the words my brain has conjured up, words mostly pertaining to you. Every inch of your being alive has me transfixed and enamoured, and I’m truly gobsmacked on the good deed I must’ve committed to have deserved having you in my life.” Todd’s face is red and stuffy from the cold and his breathing is short and punctured.

“You’re sleeping right near me at this moment, and as a sweaty toothed madman once said. We were together. I forgot the rest. Consider this journal a detachable limb of my own self, something you can always carry around and know that I am with you, always. You can suck the life force, the bone marrow out of the words I have written in here and I would applaud and encourage you to do so. Without you, I have no idea where I’d be right now. I owe you so much Neil, you’ve taught me that sometimes the world can be good. That a person’s smile can brighten an entire room. A performance perfectly acted can be a person’s ultimate achievement and their triumph. You are the word phenomenal incarnate Neil, I hope my words do you some sort of justice.

You deserve the world, Neil. I’m brainstorming ways to give it to you.

With love, Todd.”

——————————————————————————

i hope you guys enjoyed!! its fucking brutal honestly but needed some angst and tragedy in my fictional life to reflect my own.

just a preface that some of the poem todd read's is borrowed from pete wentz old emo livejournal posts because i need to somehow tie my two big interests together and MAN does that man write some gay ass shit. hope your heart doesnt hurt too much <3

creds to @neilscrown on tiktok for posting the headcanon "Todd definitely bought Neil a Christmas present and he never got the chance to give it to him so he would sit in his once shared room and stare at it" it tore my HEART OUT and inspired this rambling

[bre-meister]

9 &/or 10 (Dialogue Prompts) for cleon !! TY FOR FEEDING US

9. “I just wish things could have turned out differently between us, you know?” 

Mall trips were always...interesting. Perhaps it stems from the insanity that was his everyday life, but Leon always felt that doing things so mundane like going to the mall was kind of weird? But, weird in a good way. He wasn’t sure exactly how to describe it. D.S.O Agent Leon Kennedy wasn’t sure exactly how to feel about it as he stood surrounded by little tiny onesies and itty bitty tutus and headbands; cribs, strollers, changing tables, and more displayed on top of the shelves reaching up towards the high ceilings of the store. Well, that’s a lie, Leon did know how he felt - awkward, out of place even.

He wasn’t exactly sure why that was the case, especially considering this wasn’t his first rodeo so to speak. Though, last time Claire had done most of the shopping for the smaller things. His preparatory skills were mostly limited to ordering the bigger things online once Claire had picked them out and then assembling them after they had arrived. 

When his wife had asked him to come along this time - mainly to help wrangle little Izzy who had insisted on helping pick out clothes for her new little sister - Leon couldn’t say no. He had nothing else to do on an unnaturally normal Saturday and spending the day with his family sounded like heaven after spending the week doing paperwork. He just hadn’t anticipated the sheer amount of things they actually needed to get. Technically speaking, they should have all of the said items at home from when Isabelle had been little - and they did have some. Some of her baby things had been lost in a move a while back - a two-bedroom apartment in the heart of D.C was great for him and Claire but not necessarily for a little girl. The couple had also given away some things to one of Claire’s co-workers who had needed some baby clothes and such. They truly had not expected to have another child, what with their hectic lifestyle but Leon would be lying if he said he wasn’t extremely excited for the new baby.

So, things having been lost one way or another, they had to replace almost everything; which was fine considering Leon’s paycheck alone was enough for them to live fairly comfortably. Chris was always making snide comments about his “government money”, he might as well put it to good use. Which is how the small family found themselves in the non-descript baby store on an even less notable Saturday afternoon. But, despite coming in with two girls, Leon now found himself alone hence the unnecessarily awkward feelings. Claire and Isabell had stepped out for a short moment to find a bathroom, his pregnant wife needing to go nearly just as bad as their four-year-old. 

“Leon?” a voice called from the doorway of the store that leads out to the mall.

Leon looked up confused, that was the direction that his wife and daughter had disappeared to but that voice sounded nothing like Claire’s. Upon laying eyes on the source of the noise Leon felt his confusion shift to something else.

He hadn’t thought he could feel more awkward but somehow, he managed. Calling his name was a living ghost. Leon didn’t have much time to consider that oxymoron before the blast from his past in the form of an objectively beautiful woman entered the store and made her way towards him.

“Oh my gosh! It is you - Leon Kennedy. What’s it been, like five, six years?”

“Yeah,” Leon swallowed awkwardly, “something like that.” If he remembered correctly, it had been much longer than that.

As if coming to his senses, Leon suddenly realized how rude he was being - a former fling or not, Claire would have scolded him if she saw the way he was behaving now. He chuckled awkwardly to cover up how...awkward he was feeling. Quietly, Leon wished he could think of a word or a feeling that was not “awkward”.

“How have you been, Cindy?” He hoped she didn’t catch the upward lit of his greeting when he got to her name - he wasn’t exactly sure he’d remembered correctly.

“Oh ya know, working, shopping,” she gestured to the bags in her hands, “this and that. I’m good though, how about you?” If she noticed his hesitance at her name she didn’t let it outwardly bother her.

Leon looked around before answering, trying to see if he could spot Claire anywhere - no luck. Apparently, at this moment, Leon was two things: awkward and incredibly unlucky.

“Ya know, work, family, shopping,” he mirrored Cindy both in his statement and bodily actions. Motioning to the pack of baby bottles in his hands that he had been mulling over he hoped that Cindy would take the hint - Leon purposefully having emphasized the word family.

Yet again, if Cindy noticed she didn’t let it deter her. She placed a well-manicured hand on Leon’s bicep, gently squeezing all the while batting her eyes in what he assumed was supposed to be a sultry manner. Not many things could be taken as sultry when surrounded by pacifiers and burping cloths. 

“I was genuinely surprised when I saw you, and in a baby store of all places. Never would have thought of you as the settling down kinda man. Then, I thought that you were probably just shopping for a friend or a family member, ya know like a shower gift or something. I also thought you’d might want some help, ya know, a woman’s touch. So, here I am” 

At that the hand on his arm began to move up and down, those red-colored nails causing involuntary goosebumps to rise on his skin. Apparently, Cindy had been doing a lot of thinking in the last few minutes. Doing some thinking on his own, Leon came to the realization that he’d used to think he loved the color red on a woman. Now, he realizes that he loves the color red on one particular woman. 

Before he could get a word in to stop whatever was happening in its tracks, Cindy started up again. Her attention had shifted to the things on the self in front of him, finally removing her hand from his arm. That didn’t mean that she wasn’t done with her not so subtle come on though.

“Sometimes I just wish things could have turned out differently between us ya know? Maybe this could have been us together, shopping for our own baby,” Cindy let out a small laugh at her own imagined scenario. 

“I don’t.” He said confidently, happy that the awkward had finally made his way out of his system.

Apparently so had the unluckiness because as Cindy looked up at him, a confused frown on her face, any response she was about to formulate was cut short by a tiny body barreling into Leon’s legs.

“Daddy, Mommy and I saw the coolest candy store and she said that if I’m a good girl then we can go after we're done here! Are we done yet?” Isabelle let out, seemingly in one breath.

Leon laughed, both at his daughter's enthusiasm to curb her sweet tooth and at the look on Cindy’s face. He knew it was rude but the genuine shock was just too good to let slip and she was too wrapped up in said shock to notice.

“No baby girl, we are not done yet. Although trust me, I would much rather be in the candy store,” She looked to Leon as she approached, her next words directed towards him, “their chocolate display was pretty impressive.” 

Leon wanted to laugh at his two girls. Instead, he coughed a little, nodding his head discreetly towards Cindy - an action he knew only his wife would notice.

“Oh! I’m so sorry. How rude of me, I'm Claire and you are?”

Cindy had managed to pick up her jaw from where it had fallen on the floor but still seemed to be too stunned to speak.

“Claire, this is Cindy, an old friend of mine. We haven’t seen each other in a while so when she spotted me from the window outside she came in to say hi. Cindy, this is my wife, Claire, and my daughter, Isabelle.”

Isabelle waved shyly from where she had retreated behind her daddy’s leg. Leon felt that was a little odd considering usually Izzy was a boisterous little girl who loved to talk - even to strangers. Perhaps she was tired, or maybe Cindy just rubbed her the wrong way - he’d heard kids were perceptive like that. It certainly didn’t help that Cindy’s face had been akin to a fish what with all the open-mouthed gaping when both girls had returned. 

“It's wonderful to meet you, Claire.” the tone of her voice said that this meeting was anything but wonderful. 

Still, Cindy held out her hand and the two politely shook. Leon couldn’t help but notice Cindy’s gaze falling on Claire’s hand returning to her noticeable bump as they pulled away. What was left of the color in her face drained and at that moment, Leon could tell that the woman made a tactical decision to save whatever was left of her dignity. 

“Well, I just came in to say hi. Leon looked a little lost on his own but now that I see he is not alone I suppose I should continue on my way. I still have a few stores to hit before I can go home. Congrats, by the way.” Cindy motioned towards Claire’s midsection at her baby bump.

“Thanks,” Leon said, in unison with his wife. 

Cindy turned to leave, giving one more awkward smile before she left - funny how the tables had turned in that way. Leon almost felt bad for her. It was obvious by her comment that she was still searching for the peaceful family life that he was forever grateful he’d found with Claire.

 I just wish things could have turned out differently between us ya know?

That one statement carried so much weight. Leon knew that eventually, Cindy would find the one who was right for her, and together they could shop baby necessities until her heart's content. But, as for him, looking at his two girls fawn over pink and purple onesies meant for his soon-to-be girl number three, he couldn’t say he agreed. This is where he was meant to be - with them. 

He knew he’d do anything for them, follow them anywhere. Even, he thought, overpriced, extravagant, mall candy stores. Although he had to admit, Claire wasn’t wrong about the chocolate display, it was pretty impressive.

[royallyprincesslilly]

Title: Convince Me To Go {9}*

AU Chris Evans x Reader

Warning: Mild Cursing, Mild Smut, NSFW

Words: 2.4k

Summary: When we run away, we’re usually running from something. This time you may have run toward it instead.

Note: Welp. 🤷🏾‍♀️  I hope you enjoy this.

***Loosely Edited/Proofread***

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

“And I win again!” You stood on the bed and danced around as he sat there with the Uno cards showing his defeat.

 “You know, they say a winner should always be graceful.”

 “Fuck that. I won, I won, I won. You lost, you lost, you lost. I’m a winner. You’re a loser!” He smiled and shook his head then grabbed your ankles and pulled you back to the bed. You shrieked and giggled when he climbed on top of you.

 “I’m a loser? Oh yeah?” he tickled you making you laugh loudly as you wiggled around trying to escape him.

 “Aaah, stop. Stop.”

 “No, not a chance.” He continued and you shrieked.

“Come on, prince charming isn’t supposed to do this.” You pouted and he stopped and smiled looking at the childish expression.

 “You’re right. Just take it back.”

 “Fine, I take it back. You’re not a loser.” He nodded in appeasement.

 “I’m glad you think so, because I think I’m a winner. You’re here right.” You smiled slowly and nodded.

 “I am.” Sadness washed over you. You were here right now, and you wanted to stay here.

 “What’s wrong?”

 “I want to stay,” you whispered.

 For the first time, he thought about reality.

 “Convince me to go.”

 “Why would I do that?

 “Because, I have a life to get back to,” you informed.

 “Ah right, your fancy life.” He rolled to the side and propped his head onto his arm as he watched you. “The same life you ran away from.”

 Rolling your eyes, you looked into the ceiling. “All right. I can do that.” He cleared his throat loudly and slide back to perch on the grey concrete block that was his headboard. “You can’t stay, you have to get back to that wonderful life with parents who want you to be someone you’re not. A career you’re good at and enjoy but feels stifling. You have to get back to a confining life in a confining place so you can be practical.”

 A feeling of dread filled you. When he put it like that who the hell would want to go back to that? The look on your face must have said it all because he snorted out. “You look like you’re going to be sick.”

 “I mean you suck at convincing me to go.”

 He shrugged and sighed. “Did you know you moan in your sleep. It sounds soft and innocent.”

 You looked at him and studied him, he was staring down at the sheets as if he were thinking about something of great importance.

 “I didn’t know that.”

 “You do, I like it.” Your eyes met again, and you nibbled your bottom lip as your heart skipped a beat.

 “You snore, I don’t like it.” His laugh was loud again, and it filled the room, it made you laugh along with him. slowly your laughter died down and the silence in the room returned.

 “Why did you leave?”

 “It was time. I came to the realization that who I was there was never the person I wanted to be; I wasn’t happy. I was happiest here and I was who I wanted to be,” he explained.

 “And who was that?”

 “The guy who drinks beer over wine, and Gin over fruity drinks, the guy with a truck rather than a Mercedes, someone who put family above all else and who looked in the mirror and felt good enough and happy to be who he is. The guy who prefers whole in the wall bars over sky top restaurants and bars that have more drinks on the menu that sound like they’re foreign countries as opposed to drinks. I’m the down to earth man who still had a drawer full of butterscotch, who loves fresh snow and eats more than his weight. The man who--.”

 “Would barge into a dark alley to save the rich princess at the drop of a hat, the guy who laughs with everything in him and whose smiles come all the way up to his eyes, the guy who sucks at Uno and can say every word to Ice Cube’s Do It. the man who has a carved out spot for him in a bookcase at the library right next to books about the meaning of life and other deep philosophical topics, the man who would fight off two muggers without a care of getting severely injured just to keep a woman safe. The guy who would open his home to a complete stranger, one he didn’t like and ridiculed not even eight hours ago. The man who is a pretty damn good architect, but an even better contractor, the man who never needs to prove himself to anyone about his worth. The kind, chivalrous, valiant, fun, giving, hilarious, patient, adventurous, sweet, guy?”

 His smile was soft as he stared at you. Every word you spoke his chest felt tighter and tighter. You saw him, really saw him. saw him better than anyone. Six hours and you’d just made the last six years of his life seem like a complete waste of time.

 “I never said I didn’t like you.”

 “Oh no? So you’re an asshole to everyone you like?” His jaw dropped.

 “Asshole? Really?” You nodded.

 “Wow.”

 “Calm down, you’re the nicest asshole anyone could ever meet.” He laughed again and smiled at you.

 “I see you too fancy face.”

 “What do you see?”

 “The woman who wants to belong and is trying to force it where she doesn’t. A woman who doesn’t realizes she has a voice and that voice is incredibly strong and powerful. A woman who while boring by her definition actually can be the life of the party if she only allowed herself. A woman who is so damn smart she could do anything she set her mind to. A woman who though sheltered is not naive, though guarded is able to trust, though completely blind can see. A woman who is so brave but can’t see it, who is such a badass she can mace one perp then tazer another unconscious and in the same breath remember to apply pressure to a wound. A woman who has such a big heart that she is willing to worry and care about a complete stranger. A woman who lingers close to practicality more times than not because she is afraid of taking a chance. The woman who I’ve found after careful research is good at everything we’ve done. Dancing, eating, drinking, being a hero, a nurse, you name it. The funny, perplexing, sweet, fun, adventurous, giving, compassionate, gorgeous, oxymoron of a woman.”

 Tears filled your eyes on the verge of spilling over. He didn’t want you to go. He wanted you to stay with him, consequences be damned. He watched them fall and you looked away and sniffled.

 “Goddamn it. You’re supposed to be convincing me to go.”

 “I know.”

 “You suck at this.” You wiped at the tears. He slid down to where you were in the bed and pulled you close.

 “I do. I don’t want to convince you to go. I want you to stay, right here.” You searched his eyes trying to understand what he meant.

 “You don’t mean that.”

 “I do. I really mean it. I mean it more than I’ve meant anything I’ve said in the last few years,” he admitted.

 “This is—no, you know nothing about me. We’ve known each other six hours.”

 “Technically, we can call it two days. This has been the best two days I’ve had in a long time. Tell me you don’t agree.”

 “I—I--, of course, I agree. It’s been great,” you agreed.

 “See, so funny people say you can fall in love at first sight. My grandparents met, fell in love and got married in the span of a month. Their story was always a fairytale to me and my siblings. It was a different time then, of course it was possibly possible. Not likely in these times but I stand corrected. I’ve felt things for you in the last two days, let along those six hours that I have never felt for anyone else ever. That scares the shit out of because it’s insane. It’s insane to think your life is fine then bam you meet someone, and they show you that your life was never fine it just was and they now make your life better. It’s insane but it doesn’t make it any less true. That is how I felt when I looked into your eyes in that alley and every hour since I’ve just--,” he paused. He knew he was rambling, he did it all the time when he was nervous or scared.

 “I—when I walked into that bar I was convinced that love was bullshit, it was some tragic thing there to make a fool of us and trick us into seeing what isn’t there. I was sure I’d never known it, and that I’d never be able to feel it. Now, here with you, I’m sure that I’ve never known it because—I’ve never felt this way before.”

 You crashed your lips to his and took charge of the kiss. As you kissed him you rolled onto him and quickly pushed off the pants he wore along with the shirt you wore and began the dance of lovers. The two of you rolled around the bed panting and moaning the names you’d used for each other the entire time. Once the bed became boring you came together on the floor perched against the mattress. Then again against the window with the backdrop of the winter wonderland of Boston behind you.

 By the time the two of you came up for air, it was once again night. Seeing him sleeping beside you made you smile. As you softly trailed your finger across his lip and down his chest pressing every curve and muscle to memory you got out the bed and quietly made your way to the living room where your purse was. You took it with you to the kitchen island, got a bottle of beer out the fridge and stared at your turned off phone. It had been almost three days. You knew the shit was hitting the fan and they were probably worried sick.

 At this very moment, you had no doubt there was a plan in place to either find you or carry on as scheduled. Your mother being the perfect socialite she was always kept the showing moving even when the wheels fell off. You were the wheels in this particular show. You being AWOL was a nuisance for her no doubt but in no way was it an impasse. After taking a heavy gulp of the beer you turned your phone back on and drank some more as it powered up.

 As soon as it got to your home screen it started going off with notification after notification. Quickly you grabbed it and turned the sound off and watched as message after message came in. You set the phone down and continued drinking. Five minutes later alerts were still coming in. After ten minutes all was still so you picked it up and saw over seventy messages, the same amount of texts and several emails. You groaned and finished the beer in one breath. Randomly you picked one of the voicemails to listen to. The sound of your father’s voice came on.

 “Princess, it’s dad. I’ve always played devil’s advocate with you, or should I say mother’s advocate. Right now, I don’t want to do that. Right now, I want to play dad. I know that the last few months have been a lot. I know it’s been hectic with work, the business, this impending merger and all that entails, and I know we haven’t had a lot of time to sit and talk and maybe that’s why you just picked up and ran. You probably felt alone. For that, I’m sorry, princess. I never want you to feel that way but running away is not the answer. You know that deep down. So, come on home. We all miss you and love you.”

 You sighed and closed your eyes and picked another message. This time your mother’s voice shrilled over the line.

 “Y/N, is this how you treat your mother? I carried you for nine months, spent twenty hours in labor, sacrificed so much for you, not including my breasts that will never be the same again. I have given you everything. This is how you repay me? Good lord, Y/N, you are behaving like a child. An impudent child. You cannot afford to behave this way. You have obligations, responsibilities. Things are expected of you, things have been laid out for you, planned and those things have to be upheld. Think of me, think of your father, think of the business and your standing in society. Get back here before this silly little rebellion costs you and everyone else a great deal. Do not embarrass me!”

 Dropping your head to the counter you groaned. While your head was down you tried to think about everything, the last two days included. It was a lot. You were quickly running out of time.

 “Hey fancy face.” you jumped and slammed your phone down onto the face in time to feel his arms wrap around you and his lips kiss your shoulder.

 “Hi.”

 “You okay?”

 “Yeah just, came for a beer,” you informed. His eyes landed on your phone.

 “And for a dose of reality.” You shrugged.

 “What can I say, I’m a sucker for torture.”

 “If that’s’ your thing I have some ideas on kink.” You smiled and turned to him and kissed him hoping to distract you both from the fancy android on the counter. He kissed you back and moaned on you, a moan you echoed.

 “Mmm, you’re naked.” His smile was wide.

 “So I am. Plan on taking advantage of it?” you smiled and kissed him once more.

 “Maybe, I’m gonna use the bathroom, but meet me in the bedroom in two minutes we should definitely talk about those kinky ideas you have.” He smiled again and you slinked around him hurrying to the bathroom.

 He smiled and walked to the fridge for a beer of his own. As he stood there and drank from it he rested his hand on the counter but knocked over your purse onto the floor. The contents spilled out before him. He bent down and retrieved each item he saw and marveled that you could hold so many things in one bag. Perfume, four different shades of lipstick, a mirror, mascara, hand sanitizer, tampons, painkillers, birth control, and a slender wallet. When his eyes saw the glint of a jewel to the left he peered around the island and underneath one of the stools his heart stopped at what he saw.

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[bullyfemme]

“Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria” and Bad Transphobic Pop Science

Many people engaged in discourse on this website, especially with truscum, have probably encountered their concept of “Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria”. Those who have the fantastic shinigami eyes extension enabled and search for the topic will often find a litteny of red sites when you look for anything involving the term from sites that often spout anti-trans rhetoric and are constantly looking for pseudoscience to back up their beliefs. 

“Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria” as defined by the official website for it (yes, really. Don’t click here if you’re triggered by transphobia) run by the transphobic parents of young trans teens, goes as follows: “A type of adolescent-onset or late-onset gender dysphoria where the development of gender dysphoria is observed to begin suddenly during or after puberty in an adolescent or young adult who would not have met criteria for gender dysphoria in childhood.” 

There are obviously flaws with this, even on the surface level of just this definition, without looking at the actual study conducted itself (though we will get there, trust me). 

First of all, you have to assume that you require gender dysphoria to be trans. There’s evidence quite to the contrary in that professionals and groups dedicated to assisting trans people agree that dysphoria is not a requirement for identifying as trans, and actual (read: not pop science) that has found that the brain is not sexually dymorphic and that there arent “male brains” and female brains”, that very few people actually regret transitioning (roughly .6% of trans women and .3% of trans men, please note the decimal and that both of these, when accounting for the fact that both groups only account for roughly half of all binary trans people, equal less than half of 1% of all trans people).

Pretending that evidence doesn’t exist, let’s pretend that the assumption that gender dysphoria is needed for being trans is correct. Even in that world view, this definition is poor and tenuous. When you describe “not having met criteria for gender dysphoria in childhood”, you are going with the assumption that the child didn’t experience and hide it very well out of shame. Or that they did express it and their parents dismissed it and continued to dismiss it throughout childhood. Or that the child did not force themselves to perform hyperfemininity or hypermasculinity in order to try and “make it go away” in the same vein of a gay person forcing themselves into relationships and situations with straight people. Or that the child is not gay and gnc. Or that didn’t experience adolescent or adult dysphoria which the dsm-5 does define as legitimate experiences, as do MANY ACTUAL TRANS PEOPLE IF YOU TALK TO THEM, SOMETHING THE AUTHOR OF THE STUDY HAS FAILED TO DO. 

Many trans people who experience dysphoria don’t experience it until they hit puberty and their body undergoes changes associated with the wrong kind of puberty for them. Which, for the trans children of the parents surveyed (yeah, we’re getting there, they didn’t actually survey trans kids), allows them to say “well you weren’t like this before!”

There is one, single study conducted with regards to “Rapid onset gender dysphoria.” Lisa Littman, the woman who conducted the study, isn’t even a professional in gender studies. She’s a fucking gynecologist and obstetrician (pregnancy doctor). This is not her field of study. Much of her research is focused on detransition and her coined “Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria” despite, again, no experience in those fields of study. She’s a cis woman obsessed with making trans people identify as cis again, or as “normal” by her standards. If she would have done actual research, she would have found just how few trans people want to detransition after transitioning in the first place, or how many people who do detransition are trans people, often trans women, forced to detransition in order to survive every day. 

Beyond this, the study itself: where do I even begin. 

I have defined Ms. Littman as coining ROGD, and that’s not quite fair. The actual people who coined it are well-known terf website 4wavenow.com, conservative website Transgendertrend.com, and YouthTransCriticalProfessionals.org which is an organization of conservative scientists (theres an oxymoron if I’ve ever heard one) who hide behind degrees while they churn out anti-trans propaganda. In fact, that’s what all three of those groups do. 

Now, finally, with all that out of the way. Let’s talk about this study, posted in the non-peer reviewed journal of academic health.

First of all, as alluded to previously, it was conducted by talking to the parents of these kids, not the kids themselves. This opens up a whole host of things to talk about, and trust me - we will. It was a 90 question quiz posted on the three websites mentioned previously: 4thwavenow, transgendertrend.com, and youthtranscrticialproffessionals.org. So, the survey is already poisoned, placed on websites with deliberate anti-trans agendas, with no way of verifying who the fuck was taking that survey. So if Tammy Terfbangs, mother of absolutely no one, gets on 4thwavenow and sees that a ~super scientific survey~ about those evil 14 year old trans kids, there is quite literally nothing stopping her from filling it out. I cannot even begin to describe how shoddy the foundation for all of this is. Or if, per say, a popular terf blog linked to this, there’s quite literally nothing stopping dozens or hundreds of terfs from filling this survey out. 

As a scientist, the methods in which she procured the “””evidence””” on anti-trans websites run by the parents of trans children makes me fucking furious. Imagine running a study about, per say, autism, and how sensory overload feels, instead of asking the autistic person, they asked the parents of the autistic person, and posting it on “TheCureForAutism.org” and “DontVaccinateEducate.Com” and then posting it in a shitty non-peer reviewed journal. Essentially, thats exactly what this is.   

This idea isn’t even new. The WPATH standards of Care, published in 2011, hosted a section called “Phenomenology in Adolescents”. This section had the following to say. 

“Yet many adolescents and adults presenting with gender dysphoria do not report a history of childhood gender-nonconforming behaviors (Docter, 1988; Landén, Wålinder, & Lundström, 1998). Therefore, it may come as a surprise to others (parents, other family members, friends, and community members) when a youth’s gender dysphoria first becomes evident in adolescence.”

The idea that the internet made your kid trans, the backbone of all of this, is just so ridiculous that the fact that I have to even talk about it is stupid. Many kids who understood they were trans when they were young but didn’t know what that meant and couldn’t put their identity into words. Fun fact, if you explain to someone a concept that they didn’t understand but felt before, they might in fact realize that it applies to them. The fact that resources are now available to them to give them information about their identity, and that trans people are more visible now than a decade ago when this generation of trans and nb people were growing up, is a good thing. 

Besides, considering just the quantity of shit like “transgender people DISPROVED by ben shapiro” and “NONBINARY CRINGE COMP #400000000000000000″ available on youtube being fed directly to toddlers with ipads, it’s not like all exposure to trans people has been framed positively, nurturing, or encouraging, and it would be beneficial to talk about the ways in which this is going to affect the trans and nb people who will be around a decade from now. 

There’s so much more I could talk about here, but I don’t think I need to. Instead, I will link to this amazing article that was the backbone of much of what I wrote. The author is a bisexual trans women with a degree in biochemistry, she knows what the fuck shes talking about. 

[the1idontshowppleatwork]

I literally pick the best moments to write :D Okay, this is ‘part 2′ of timeline break for Said and Done (Jack’s family is a wee bit more overbearing on the subject of his mental health so he finishes his MSN and misses out on SEP). Also, a test run for Jack’s POV which is not featured in Said and Done itself outside of one or two brief instances. (Would be nice if someone would drop a comment about wanting to read more of Jack’s POV or not). Part 1 with Gabriel’s POV below.

*

For Jack Morrison, on the other hand, the whole day (nearing his twenty-sixth hour since the last time he managed to sneak an hour-long nap in transit) was going to hell in a handbasket. In his own humble opinion, the command and the military intelligence (an oxymoron, as he heard it referred to colloquially quite often) have collectively shat their own bed but who was he to judge? The whole situation was fubar. Fucktangular. Fucktastic without the 'tastic' part. Evacuating the force this size under active enemy fire was an impossible feat. Well, at least until Strike Force arrived to try and slow the growing tide of Omnics which gave them time and opportunity to get to more of the wounded that otherwise would have been left behind as 'acceptable losses'.

And it seemed that it had worked - for some time - until one of them managed to blow himself up on a mine, or something. Figures.

Jack sent the last stretcher back and hunkered down next to them. The woman was already putting down the biotic field when he shouted over the noise.

"Have you checked for shrapnel and bullets?"

"We don't have time!"

"There's time on evac!"

And that's how Jack ended with his nose broken while almost up to his elbow in someone's intestines because the motherfucker just woke up and swung. Really, he should get a medal for not ripping anything more than it already was, and another one for extracting the metal junk when almost choking on the blood that went down his throat. Maybe, even a third medal was deserved for finishing the sutures.

"Okay, you can run the field now," Jack muttered stuffing a torn off part of his own undershirt into his nasal cavities, "and I'm going to lie down and sleep. Wake me when we get there," he added looking at his watch. "I'll need to run some checks on site."

Luck would have it that was one of the fancy crafts and Jack only got half an hour in, definitely too little, but his life was always this shifty mean little fucker that threw curveballs every chance it got.

The base was a small temporary unit running on a skeleton crew with no real medical facilities, with evac orders standing for the next ten hours. Jack spent the first hour calmly screaming at a changing gallery of different bureaucrats through his comms until he got to Colonel Ramiz. At least the rest of Strike Team had fun listening in judging by the comments and the occasional sniggering.

"Sir, with all due respect," by which Jack meant no respect whatsoever, "I want you to know that I have a so-called supersoldier with shrapnel in his stomach, and I need very precise information on how to treat him if he's to be of any use in a day or two. Yeah, sir, I can see how you're just going to fly someone with enough clearance here within the closest two hours," the sarcasm was palatable. "Yes, sir, I know this obviously is a strictly need-to-know basis, so I'm asking you to patch me to Achan Nguyen on the secure channel. Oh, just tell her it's her brother calling, John Francis Morrison."

There it was, the incredulous 'Francis' in the background, and Jack turned to glare.

"Yes, Colonel, sir, 'that' John Francis Morri... Motherfucker!" The line clicked off but then connected again after few seconds. "Hey, sis. Yeah, I'm good. Clusterfuck. Mhm. No, no, sis, I'm good. I got one Gabriel Reyes, shrapnel in the abdominal cavity, removed, stitched as well as I could, but they got those new gen biotics, and the first scan showed abnormal growths on internal... Yeah. No, I can do it, but he goes through anesthesia like candy, and I'd prefer he doesn't break anything more than my nose. No, that all good... Okay, give me a sec," Jack frantically searched for a pen and paper to take notes. "Wow. This would kill an elephant. Thank, sis. Give love to the rest. Yeah, I'm taking care. Yeah, I'm taking my pills diligently. Could you stop embarrassing me in front of the whole Strike Team? Bye. Yes, bye, I'm disconnecting."

Scavenging the needed drugs took about half an hour, another half hour he spent mixing everything together, just in time for the sleeping princess to start coming to. After it became obvious his patient was really out of it, Jack decided to have some fun because, really, who could blame him after a day like this? The guy broke his nose while he just wanted to help, and anyway, he was up and standing only thanks to the copious amounts of caffeine and sheer spite.

"...and, with all due respect, sir, if you try to move your arse from the bed, I'm authorized to jab you with this very big and very blunt syringe full of very complex chemicals with very long names, of which at least two are classified as regular poison, and I'm told they will put you under for around five hours," Jack let his mouth run on autopilot at the man staring at him with something akin to awestruck expression on his face.

"Marry me...?" 

"Did you just proposition me, sir?" Jack blinked. He had his previous patients tell him some strange things under the influence but this was a first.

"Yeah, I did...?" There was a genuine wonder to be heard in the hoarse voice.

"I think trying to bribe a medical officer with sexual favors does classify as a syringe-worthy offense," Jack snickered and stabbed him in the arm with the aforementioned syringe. The cocktail worked wonders.

"So, how's the patient doing?" The woman stood leaning on the doorframe. "Ana Amari."

"Good. And the name's Jack," he muttered while focusing on the image on the scanner.

"Not 'John Francis'?"

"John's my father, and Francis was my grandpa," Jack cut away another fold of new tissue. "Before you ask, you use prototype biotics, they're good, very good, but they're only machines and do what they're programmed to, and do it good, but they get confused when it's more complicated than just rebuilding, like, you know, they go batshit crazy on complicated injuries like here, and coupled with abnormal healing factor, there's going to be additional growths and things stick together, that shouldn't be. Get stuck together, I mean."

"You seem to know a lot about this, Jack," Ana nodded.

"Yeah, you get to use this shit, they teach us about this shit, and sorry, I'm really tired right now, can't really focus on two things at once. Can you hand me the blue laser-pointer looking thingy?" Jack extended his bloodied and towards her. "Yeah, that one. Topical biotics. And my sister was, is, involved in the program, and I really shouldn't be talking about that but screw that, I'll probably get court martial about the whole clusterfuck anyway."

"I'm sure we can put in a good word, or two, on your behalf," Ana smirked.

"Oh, yeah, would be nice, but first let me sleep for a day or two in the brig, can you?" Jack stitched the incision and then applied the nanomachines over it. "He should be waking up in around an hour, and probably be at ninety, ninety-five percent on evac, regardless, you should have him go through a full physical at the closest possible time because there might be still things that slipped past me. Definitely, there are. But," Jack fell into the chair next to the bed with a feeling he would not be getting out of it again, "probably nothing of the kind that's life-threatening or very inconvenient. More than usual. What's his usual anyway?"

"Dorky grumpy," Jack had to admit Ana had very pleasant laughter. "You are going with us, by the way, I'll make him apologize."

"It was nice even if he was tripping balls."

"What, breaking your nose?"

"Oh, that. Sorry," Jack slurred feeling consciousness leaving him. "Need to sleep..."

And then, there was only sweet darkness.

[eclectia]

Silent Hill 2: As A Disabled Woman

Please be warned this piece discusses ableism and abuse, including murder, and contains a minor mention [just a passing plot-point, not elaborated upon] of childhood sexual abuse.

The Ancient Land is in its final stages- I'm finishing up the coding and there'll be a demo very very soon; so in my downtime I've been working out other concepts and brainstorming a lot of various things for what may or may not become my next project. There'll be more on those in the coming weeks, but I wanted to post something slightly different in the meantime to make up for the fact that I can't really keep posting “yep, still coding, still bad at it”.

One of the ideas I had revolves around a horror game, and in working out concepts for it I've been revisiting some of my favourite horror franchises – films, video games, and novels, to try and work out what makes me tick, what makes horror tick, and how I can make my game tick. In doing so, I replayed one of my perennial favourites in Silent Hill 2. As well as being one of my favourite games, it is widely held as one of the best horror video games to date, held up alongside Resident Evil, Clocktower and Alone in the Dark as a foundation of Survival Horror.

It had been some time since I last played it, and when I was a newly-diagnosed diabetic it resonated with me because of its portrayal of chronic illness, more specifically, that a character within the game had one. There weren't any games that dealt with that subject matter in such a visceral manner. At a young age, 11, I was processing my diagnosis and trying to understand how it would effect my whole life, a process which I am still trying to come to terms with and this was isolating to say the least. I was traversing my own fog.

Silent Hill 2 is not my favourite Silent Hill, that honour goes to 3 – teenage girls in horror!-, but it holds a special place in my heart, important during a time of my life where I was processing the lifelong grief of my new diagnoses. And, as I grew and co-morbidity –the tendency for multiple conditions to cluster around a primary condition - meant I had a great many other diagnoses, I found myself revisiting those claustrophobic streets as a source of comfort. It seems oxymoronic to play a horror game for comfort, but horror as a whole is a genre I have often retreated to during my darkest periods. There's safety in monsters too fantastical to exist. Yet, the real horror of Silent Hill 2 for me isn't in its psychological monsters but in the real fears of ableism and sickness.

I realised as I grew that Silent Hill's handling of and representation of illness was the reason for my constant revisits. It comforted, repulsed, terrified and saddened me and helped me process the guilt of being sick. As my relationship with myself and my disabilities [they're multiplying!] has evolved so has my reading and relationship with Silent Hill 2. There will be spoilers if you've not played it, so if you don't want it spoiled don't read any further.

I am in two minds about it on many fronts, mostly for how it handles and represents disability conceptually and literally. On the one hand, stories about how disabled people are burdensome and which usually end with their dying are a constant staple. We are a tragic love story, and in many ways Silent Hill 2 reinforces this- indeed, this is the crux of the story. The narrative of Silent Hill 2 is driven by its unreliable protagonist James Sunderland; his actions are frequently cast into doubt and Mary's right to live is what drives the main conflict within James' psyche, manifesting as the horrors of the game. Her slow death, James' desire to prolong and shorten her life, and how this conflicts with both of their wishes all form important narrative milestones. James and Mary both are cast in sympathetic lights, and many players come to understand through the naturally presented narrative that James was in the wrong. At least I hope so.

This journey of guilt mirrors the traumas of the cast of supporting characters, all of whom are dealing with guilt stemming from murder – Angela kills her sexually abusive father [which frankly I cannot criticise]; Eddie, bullied, snaps and kills a dog and perhaps a person although this is left ambiguous. Between Angela's self defence, Eddie's snapping and James' sympathy-killing of his wife, there are many facets and stages of guilt portrayed within this game. And in this world, moral greyness, like fog, presides. Yet I don't think I can agree with how yet again a disabled character is killed off to forward the plot of an abled protagonist and often we feel sorry and empathise with him by vice of his being the player character. We view the game through his perspective, and in controlling him the default perspective and empathy lies with him. This could be a problem if twinned with a player who's view and experience of disability is informed solely through media or second-hand experience. Being asked to sympathise with a character, especially one who killed a disabled woman, might lead to your average abled person simply thinking he is in the right because, concerningly, it is something they would consider. Within the context of real life this sad story -of a carer or lover who kills a sick partner, thinking it's the best thing for them- happens all too often. A very real horror for me.

Just a few years ago, in Japan nonetheless, an able bodied man slaughtered 16 disabled people because he felt they were better off dead. I am not inherently against assisted suicide, but this is not that. It is important to note there is a form of ableist abuse wherein abled people coerce disabled people that they're not worth anything, and would be better off dead. I want to make it clear that these two things are entirely different. This is not, explicitly, the situation in Silent Hill 2. There is an ending where Mary thanks and forgives James but it is also shown Mary does struggle with feelings of self-loathing during the course of her illness; not brought on by James in any way, at least not actively, and definitely something I as a disabled woman have dealt with, but worth considering. And, I think, abled people want to feel justified in their views on the worth of disabled lives, so perhaps the apology is there as a form of catharsis for abled people more than it is anything else. It is OK to sympathise with James, we'd all do the same in his situation, disabled people all secretly want to be put out of their misery. This is the unpleasant streak that runs through the game, the crux of where our sympathies stem from.

Having mentioned this, his actions are never actively condoned by the game. It is simply a harsh reality of ableism that often, abled people think they are putting us out of our misery or that our existence is inherently twinned with suffering. I don't think the writers of the game were aware of this when they wrote this in, they simply wanted a psychological angle to take so this accidental aesop is perhaps, a fluke. Many aspects of the game were planned and researched meticulously, but as far as I know none of the development team had any personal experience with illness, so the game comes from their wholly abled perspective.

As I have grown as a person, I have come into my own internal conflict with the themes and presentation therein of the game. When I was newly diagnosed with a condition that, at the time I was told would carve years off my life and which needed lifelong medication simply to function, I found solace in Silent Hill. James' struggle to understand and cope with the death of his wife was similar to how I was struggling to cope and fathom the life-changing diagnosis I had had. I think, perhaps, that when I ran through the streets again and again I was searching within the game, for some ways of processing the diagnoses I found myself saddled with. James mourned his wife of 3 years [3 days] dead, I mourned for a life drastically changed in a matter of days. James, struggling to understand his wifes' illness, was just like me struggling with mine. I was lost in my own fog, in the streets of my own head trying to come to terms with myself.

Bearing this in mind, as I have grown up and come to terms with my conditions my attitudes towards the narrative of Silent Hill 2 have changed. In it, illness is this fearful beast – it could be you! You could be sick!-, except I was; and I didn't want scares, nor did I find the implicit implications of illness scary in the same way an abled person might. What might be horrifying to an abled person was just a daily experience for me. I knew how scary illness could be. I wanted to feel normal.

Looking for normality in a horror game might feel extraneous except for when we take into consideration that many monsters in horror are stand-ins for minorities within society; the queers in the vampire, the proverbial “other”, the rejection of Frankenstein's Monster. Like them, the monsters in Silent Hill 2 all represent something, illness and the multiple perspectives of illness that James has, and I found it less comforting and more... melodramatic. Illness is a daily fact of life for me, and using my existence as a threat to abled people – you could be sick and burdensome just like Mary- just felt insulting. In Silent Hill, illness and sick people are as much the monster as James. Mary looms like Orlok's shadow.

As a character Mary is shown to be multi-faceted; James' manifestations of his guilt and feelings about Mary show her to be venomous, angry bitter, a monster spitting acid but her final letter to him reveals that she admits to this, but more than that: she is a guilt-ridden wife who knows her illness is effecting her spouse. It is heart-wrenching, and beautifully written, and as an ending monologue is poignant and reflected many of the feelings I have felt as a disabled woman. There have been times I have lashed out to people I love because of a particularly bad month of illness, and then the guilt comes because I am only human. Anger, pain and this endless cycle is an intrinsic part of Mary's character throughout the game, and despite it all, Mary is shown to be all that James wants. This is not a narrative fault, but a character flaw within James that he readily recognises and criticises repeatedly, and again, desire and the nature of it is wholly human.

Mary's portrayal within the game is both progressive and sympathetic, and concerningly backward. Mary is humanised in a way that very little media about sickness has ever done, and shown as a multifaceted and complex character just as James' own motivations and desires are shown to be both good, and bad. My readings of Silent Hill are in no way the only way to read it, and in no way lessen the story Silent Hill 2 is telling; it is an amazing, visceral game with a humanising and terrifying portrayal of how illness can take over lives.  

Silent Hill 2 holds a special place in my heart. At a time in my life where I was processing the first of many illnesses to grip me it allowed me to process and deconstruct my own feelings towards my mortality, dwindling health and illnesses. Experiencing and living with illnesses is isolating and lonely to say the least, not least because of how abled people treat us and I think Silent Hill almost nails that on the head accidentally.

This is not to say that people living with spouses who deal with illness should feel wrong, or guilty, for feeling bad about illness and I am not silly enough to suggest that illness does not have an effect on those around me; it does, but the way Silent Hill missteps is in showing illness as a singularly burdensome, corrupting thing, and offering justification for James' actions. It is left up to the player, ultimately, but I do worry for how abled gamers might perceive and justify James within the wider context of society.

There isn't much point to this post. Its just a ramble, and an internal struggle, I've dealt with for a little while and decided to finally try and hash out.

[mimik-u]

Flower Child (Chapter 4)

Title: Connie

Summary:

Garnet, Pearl, Amethyst, Greg, Yellow, and Blue—they've all lost someone. Lovers and daughters and friends and family, and that's not a wound you easily come back from.

If at all.

But this isn't an 'if at all' kind of story.

It's a story about a sickly, little kid named Steven and his ever-growing surrogate family.

It's a story about the kind of boy who'd extend a flower and a smile to a sad stranger he meets at a cemetery. Human AU.

AO3 Link

It was precisely five in the morning when the Maheswarans’ tan sedan eased out of the driveway and onto the blacktop road. The sun wasn’t set to rise for a couple of hours still, and the fading moon cast an eery, ghoulish glow on the still slumbering world. Everything was stained blue, from her mother’s white lab coat to Connie’s own hands, which she rubbed over her bleary eyes in an attempt to spark some life into them.

She didn’t usually go with her mom to work—being an avid lover of sleep and all—but her dad was on an out-of-state operation for a couple of days, and so she really didn’t have a choice in the matter.

Which she had absolutely hated at first.

Being an avid lover of sleep and all.

But something… no, someone… changed her mind.

Yesterday, she had met Steven Universe, and ever since they had parted, she hadn’t been able to get his goofy smile out of her head.

His loud, round laugh.

And the curious way he drew out her name.

As though it was full of exclamation points.

“Steven’ll be there, right?”

Mom offered a slight grunt in response, which Connie supposed meant yes. (Mom wasn’t really a morning person… or, well, much of a person at all until she’d at least gotten three cups of coffee into her system. She was only on number one as of yet, and the creamy smell of hazelnut wreathed her travel tumbler like perfume.)

“What time?”

“Twelve.” The one word answer was terse and forbidding.

But Connie ducked under the lurid yellow tape and pressed on anyway.

“I didn’t get to ask, but who was that woman with him? The one who had her feet propped up on the bed?”

“Amethyst, one of Steven’s many guardians,” she growled impatiently. “Connie, this isn’t twenty questions.”

The sharp rebuke stung the air between them.

A chill that the car’s heater could not touch.

“Sorry, Mom.” She looked out of the window in a vain attempt to stifle the heat rising in her cheeks, where it settled somewhere behind her eyes. The sickly tinged suburbs were beginning to give way to the long stretch of ancient forest that wound its way from her home to the city. The trees tall and everlasting. Friends and guardians in the daylight. Sinister, grasping things in the darkness. “I’m just excited to have a new friend… that’s all.”

It was a lie, and they both knew it.

She was excited to have a friend at all.

The kids at school didn’t like that Connie’s hand seemed to be permanently stuck in the air during class.

Or the way she lugged thick books around the playground.

Or how her glasses seemed to make her appear all the more erudite.

Which was, like, not her fault, but kids were cruel, and she just happened to fall on the easy end of their predatory food chain.

Priyanka Maheswaran let out a sigh that seemed to deflate all of her prickly, caffeine deprived edges; her grip on the wheel relaxed a fraction of an inch.

“And you have the right to be, sweetheart,” she relented wearily, a billion years old and yet only forty-two at the same time. “Go on. Ask your questions. I know you’re curious.”

The corner of her lined mouth quirked upwards. “I won’t bite anymore.”

Coming from this woman, whose whole manner of being was like the scalpel she used during surgery—sharp, methodical, ruthless—an invitation to talk more was about as rare as an I love you. Connie blinked once before she smiled.

“Thanks, Mom!”

“Ask your questions, Connie” came the short reply, which Connie translated to be a solid you’re welcome.

“I… I have tons of little questions,” she began uncertainly, chewing on her lip, “but I think they’d all be answered if I just asked you one big question.” And she expanded her fingers in her lap as if to realize the breadth of the thoughts swarming through her head like bees. She’d gone to bed thinking about Steven, and she’d woken up excited for the opportunity to see him again.

Eyes still searching the empty road for obstacles that hadn’t yet materialized, Mom jerked her head as if to say, Go ahead and ask it then.

So Connie took a deep breath and did just that: “How did he… how did he get like this?”

Even as the words left her mouth, she knew that they didn’t cover half the sentiment she was trying to convey in them. She was asking how he had ended up in the dialysis center, yes, and yet, she wasn’t asking just that. What she was really trying to get at—in so many words—was how this kid, this specific kid, found himself on the other end of a diagnosis that no decent person would wish on his worst enemy.

Steven Universe was the type of kid you’d meet on a playground after you’d fallen down from the monkey bars and needed a hand to get back up again.

Not the type of kid you’d expect to find in a hospital swarming with tubes and wires.

He was loud and he was playful and he was good, and those weren’t things that were supposed to be shackled to a machine three times a week.

So maybe what Connie was trying to do was piece together the correlation in it all.

Him.

The disease.

His unwavering smile.

The machine.

He was a contradiction, an oxymoron, a particularly hard equation she wished to solve.

If only her mother would give her the unknown variables.

Mom sighed, and the shadows underscoring her eyes seemed to solidify into harsh lines.

“Loaded question,” she said heavily, “but I can work with it.”

But before she began to work with it, per say, Priyanka raised her tumbler to her lips and took a long, reverent drag of coffee. Connie could see the cords in her throat pulling the sweet substance down, down, down.

She had been reading Homer lately—the Iliad this time, rife with glorious, bloodstained battles that were only palliated by the quieter intimacies of a fireside, a prayer, an embrace—so maybe it was no wonder that the image of a libation bearer came to mind.

A devout hero—an Odysseus, an Achilles, an Ajax—drinking the second sip of wine after he had poured the first to the gods in an invocation for strength.

For the courage to press on.

Priyanka set her cup down.

Squared her eyes on the road that unspooled through the dark like a ribbon—silky, its ends disappearing into the deep blue.

And began.

“It all started with Rose Quartz, Steven’s late mother, and she was the most infuriating woman I’ve ever had the privilege to know…”

◆

“I was just a resident at the time, shadowing Dr. Howard—you know, that old geezer colleague of mine who thinks your name is Cindy.”

Connie chuckled at the wry reminder. “Yeah, I just stopped correcting him after awhile.”

“Prudent choice.” Priyanka briefly returned the smile. “But anyways, I was just a resident, and I’d been helping Howard with some of his cases when Rose Quartz showed up for her monthly checkup and—in spite of everything that was wrong with her body—told us she was pregnant. I can remember it like it was just yesterday, Connie, how her hand tenderly tucked itself against the natural curve of her belly, as though she could already see a baby bump forming.”

Mom’s steady gaze on the road finally broke.

Drifted to the roof of the car for an infinitesimal second.

Distracted by a long passed memory.

“I’d been familiar, if not intimate with her case for a long time by then… and I was disgusted.”

“Alright, Steven—you know the drill. Hop up onto the scale,” Mom instructed without looking at him, scribbling something on her clipboard. Connie, standing just next to her mother, leaned up on her tiptoes to see if she could glean something from the chicken scratch symbols, and she thought she could make out the word pale.

Which—Connie glanced at Steven now, who had dutifully stepped onto the gray block—was an observable feature in him she concluded with no little unease. Even against the ultra white of the hospital gown, his complexion seemed to be ashy in comparison, and every bruise he had was inclined to look darker because of it.

The monitor flickered and produced a number.

118.4 pounds.

Mom wrote something on her clipboard again, and the little frown that hung itself on her lower lip told Connie everything she needed to know, and yet, precisely nothing at the same time.

“Aww,” Steven said, tsking playfully. “It’s an even number.”

“Do you have something against even numbers?” Connie asked as he reengaged the floor once more with a totally unnecessary but very cute hop.

He had to think about it for a moment, dark eyes tilted towards the ceiling, head cocked to the side.

“Nah,” he finally shrugged. “I guess I just find odd numbers a little more… exciting, you know?”

She giggled into her hand. She’d never heard it put like that before.

But out of the corner of her eye, she watched as an unspoken conversation passed between Amethyst and her mother.

When Amethyst frowned, her plump lower lip poked out.

“You were… disgusted?”

It was a strong word to describe a pregnancy.

The miracle of life and all that jazz.

“Very much so,” Mom nodded. In the now graying dusk, her face had gained a pinched quality to it, as though she had swallowed something particularly nasty. “Because she knew damn well that pregnancy was dangerous for her, dangerous for any baby she ever wanted to have, and yet, there she was anyway. Glowing. Steven’s father—Greg—was sitting next to her, and he looked like he was about to throw up or pass out one.”

“I don’t… I don’t think I understand.”

“No,” Mom shook her head. “I don’t imagine you do. She had Type 1 diabetes—had had it ever since she was a teenager—and it wasn't even just normal diabetes! Even though she did x, y, and z to take care of her body, and even though she visited Dr. Howard so often they could call each other by their first names, it was still abnormally stressful on her body. Howard diagnosed her with diabetic kidney disease when she was only twenty-three.”

Mom dragged a frustrated hand through her graying hair.

“I was so mad at her,” she said, her voice strained, tight, fervent. “I thought… I thought she was throwing her life away.”

With Steven, her mother was strangely gentle.

Her words were still sharp, but her actions belied their sting in a way that Connie hadn’t taken the time to notice yesterday as absorbed by Steven as she’d been. She took his temperature and clamped a firm hand on his shoulder, smiling a parenthetical smile when he smiled up at her. She checked his blood pressure and was noticeably conscientious as she slid the inflatable cuff up and down his arm.

She and Amethyst bantered back and forth like two sailors home from sea.

“So how’s old Greg doing? Still washing the same five cars of the fifteen people you guys have in Beach City?” Done with recording his temperature and blood pressure on the chart, Mom was now fiddling with the dialysis machine, bringing it to life with some mighty expert button pressing and knob turning. It began to beep steadily.

“You know it, homegirl,” Amethyst grinned. She was already sprawled in the chair next to Steven’s bed, arms behind her head, legs tucked up on the bed. “I think his rotation’s next, so ya should be seeing him soon.”

“Nope,” Steven corrected her. “It’s Garnet’s.”

“Oh, yeah. It’s me and then it’s Garnet and then—“

“My Dad and Pearl,” he finished with a slight flourish of the hand.

Mom shook her head at the mention of Pearl—whom Connie did not know from Eve along with all these other people—a wry smile crooked at the corner of her mouth. “If it was up to Pearl, she’d have all four rotations.

“And then, like, she’d make up a fifth one just to make sure she had every potential shift,” Amethyst said, not without some mischievousness tucked away in the subtleties of her scratchy voice.

The three conspirators shared a knowing laugh, and Connie made a brave attempt at a smile that faltered the more she tried to hold on to it. Water slipping through her fingers.

“She must have known how I felt because she pulled me aside once we were alone. Dr. Howard had gone to check on another patient, Greg had gone to the restroom, so she took me by the hand and made me sit next to her on the examination table.”

And it wasn’t that she was jealous of her mother.

Far from it.

That would be absurd.

No, the something that was gnawing at her chest felt a little more nuanced than that.

There was an intimacy that her mother shared with Amethyst and Steven.

She had long been a part of their strange, little world.

And Connie was on the outside looking in, her fingers pressed against the glass.

Observing the microcosm they had created between them.

Wondering what it took to be let in.

(Okay, maybe she was a little jealous.)

“You hate me, she had said. And I think I may have just glared at her, or if I did say something, it wasn’t very kind. I remember that I couldn’t look at her. I stared at my lap, at those godawful green scrubs that residents had to wear, and my fists were clenched on top of my knees. Maybe I’d been prepared to punch her.” She chuckled lifelessly. “Who knows?”

“What did she look like?” Connie asked as her mother took a deep, steadying breath.

A not quite smile turned the corner of Mom’s mouth.

“She was a very beautiful woman. Tall and big. Gorgeous pink curls—she liked to dye her hair—spilling over her shoulders.”

A not quite frown upended the not quite smile.

“Steven looks a lot like her.”

It was a fitting conception , Connie thought.

Steven as beautiful.

Steven was sharp, intuitive, more so than she had ever realized in the twenty or so hours she had known him. With an embarrassed jolt, she caught him staring at her from the top of the bed, his brown eyes softened in sympathy, in what was surely understanding.

The intensity of his gaze intimidated her, and she looked away, looked down at the pristine hospital floor where the scuff marks caused by beds and shoes and machines were the only scars that marred all the white.

She was being seen.

It was a foreign sensation.

“Hold up a sec, guys!” Steven said, interrupting the laugh session. “We gotta fill Connie in on who all these names are!”

“Heck yeah,” Amethyst consented with an almost serious nod. She grinned at Connie from the other side of the bed. “If you’re gonna hang around, Connie-Con, you’ve gotta know the whole cast!”

Connie-Con, huh?

That was a new one.

She couldn't help but offer a shy smile in return.

“Well, while you exposit, do me a quick favor and pull on your masks,” Mom said, adjusting hers to her lower face in an instant and throwing them each one. “I suppose we’d better get this ball rolling.”

Connie caught hers by the tips of her fingers and wrapped it around her ears in a few delicate motions.

Steven was still staring at her—she flushed to notice—and even though his mouth was now hidden, his wide smile could never be as equally as concealed.

“And then—I’m mortified to admit this now, Connie—I let it rip. I read her the Riot Act and enumerated every single reason she had to be ashamed of herself. Her body couldn’t handle the stress. She had put herself at a statistically liable risk for all sorts of complications. Hypertension. Cardiac arrhythmia. Severe anemia. Death by multi-organ failure. Not to mention what her condition might inflict on the baby!”

“You never did have the best bedside manners, did you, Mom?”

Mom couldn’t do anything but accept the criticism with a bitter smile.

“No,” she agreed grudgingly,“but for all the pansy hand holders in the field, I feel strongly obliged to contend that there should be at least one person who’ll tell you to it straight, no honey nonsense, no sugar. And Rose, despite all I said, despite every hurtful word I leveraged her way, did nothing to stop me. She just sat there and took it, a small, sad smile on her face—which made me even more angry, mind you.”

Mom took a hand off the wheel to indignantly stab it into the air, stiff fingers splaying towards the road.

“What business did this woman have smiling when I was confronting her with the fact that she was probably going to die? I wanted to shake her. I wanted to interrogate her. I wanted to know why .”

“So basically, I’ve got one cool dad and three great moms,” Steven said before jerking a thumb at Amethyst. “This is Amethyst, and she’s, like, the fun mom. We goof around a lot.”

Amethyst nodded approvingly at the description, her long, rather messy bangs shifting from behind her ear to cover one of her eyes.

“Yup, that’s me.”

“Steven,” Mom interjected, very much in doctor mode now, “prepare yourself. I’m going to flush your lines.”

“Roger that, doc,” Steven replied and leaned back on the pillow as she gently peeled back one of the shoulders of his paisley studded gown to reveal what Mom had yesterday explained to be a central venous catheter, or CVC for short. It was a thin tube that had been surgically grafted into a vein just below Steven’s collarbone. On the surface of his skin, it extended into two, short tubes called lumens that would be used to connect to the dialysis machine. Connie watched mesmerized as her mother quickly and skillfully relieved the lumens of their clamps, squinting at them with a searching gaze as though looking for any flaws in them, and huffing in satisfaction when she seemingly didn’t find any.

She was so distracted by this process that she didn’t realize that Steven had continued on with his introductions until what had been a vague buzzing in her ears materialized into his cheery voice once more. “—one we were talking about earlier was Pearl, who is the strict but very loving mom. And then there’s Garnet, who is just, like, cool; there’s really no other word to describe her, and like, finally, my dad, Greg, who is kind of the best. And that’s the family!

Connie recovered her wits quickly enough to laugh. (Was Pearl the cool one, or was she the strict one? She hoped she’d never be tested on the specifics.) “That’s a pretty cool setup you’ve got there. Stick it to the nuclear family unit!”

“We’re a nuclear family unit,” Mom inserted dryly as she flicked the tall syringe she was holding. It was filled with some kind of clear liquid—some sort of solution, Connie supposed.

“I dunno what that means exactly,” Steven smiled, all sheepishness, “but yeah, it is pretty cool. I mean, most kids only get to have one mom in their lifetime, and I’ve gotten three. They’re the best.” He slid his hand downwards and poked the tip of Amethyst’s boot. “I don’t know where I’d be without any of these guys.”

Amethyst made a big show of pushing him away, but her brown eyes were bright with something other than the grin haphazardly slapped across her round features.

“Ugh, shut up, little dude. You’re making me emo.”

“Oh, no!” His eyes widened in mock disapproval. “We can’t have that, now can we? That’s Lapis’s thing!”

Amethyst and Steven’s belly laughs shook the bed.

“And you know what she said to me?”

“What?” Connie asked when her mother wasn’t immediately forthcoming, seemingly lost in thought.

“She squeezed my hand just like this”—Mom reached over and enveloped her entire hand, their fingers intertwining, warmth passing between them like a third touch—“and told me that she didn’t expect for me to understand, but she’d long made peace with the fact that she wasn’t set to have a long life and that before she died, she wanted to bring someone in the world who could enjoy all the things that she could not.”

“That life was supposed to be an experience, not a curse.”

“That if she passed away tomorrow, Greg and all of her friends would be left with nothing but memories, and memories were like petals. They were pretty until the crumbled to dust. She wanted to leave them with roots. She wanted them to have a chance to grow.”

Roots and petals and the potential for growth.

Connie immediately thought of the sunflower fields near their townhouse, how the tall stalks bloomed in the sun.

How all the yellow looked like spun gold.

“I told her she was stupid. I told her that she could have had a relatively long life even with her condition. She could have lived to forty, maybe even fifty!”

Priyanka laughed. It was a harsh sound, like metal clanging against metal.

“And she told me that once I got the giant stuck up my butt seen about, I’d see what she meant one day.”

“Did you?” Connie prodded after a long moment of silence. “Did you ever see what she was talking about?”

Mom’s syringe hovered over one of the lumen for the briefest second before she injected the solution into its exposed opening. 

She had been watching Amethyst and Steven.

The way they looked at each other.

As though they had everything to lose if they lost each other.

“I did,” she paused, reconsidering. “I do. Greg and all the rest? They’d be lost without Steven, unanchored.” 

“That’s how they were for a long time after Rose died. I was there when it happened. I saw all their faces. I hope I never have to see it again.”

“How did she die?” Connie wished she could have taken back the question the moment it left her mouth. Her mother’s grip immediately tightened on the wheel, and the resulting paleness clamored up from her hands all the way to her face in the very way poison ivy slowly overtakes white walls.

“We had to do a c-section, and her blood pressure was rising too rapidly for any machine or doctor alike to keep up with it. We delivered Steven, let her see him, and then started to work on her… but it was no use. She went into a diabetic coma and never woke up.”

They were approaching traffic and the city now. 

The sedan rolled to a stop behind a line of other early risers.

It wasn’t a nuisance for her mom this morning so as much as it was a reprieve.

Priyanka dipped her head and inhaled sharply, her black hair dripping, framing the sides of her face. Connie could no longer see her expression.

She didn’t know if she even wanted to.

“We pulled the plug two weeks later.

“I wish they could make a more flavorful saline solution,” Steven grimaced as her mom injected the replenished solution into the other lumen. “It tastes like salt.”

“Hence the word saline,” Mom remarked drolly.

“You got me there, Dr. M.”

With that tedious necessity out of the way, the process went far more quickly. She connected two tubes from the machine—or Steven’s robokidney as Steven slyly called it to the groans of everyone involved—to the now flushed lumens. The red tube accepted unclean blood into the machine, and the blue tube distributed filtered blood back into the body. It was a precise system and a slow one.

Since the lumens weren’t exposed anymore, they took their masks off and found themselves free to do whatever they wanted to for the next three hours, so long as Steven remained relatively still  that was.

But he was a pro at this, had been for months now, and after Mom went away to tend to another patient and Amethyst wandered off to the cafeteria, Connie pulled The Unfamiliar Familiar out of her backpack to pick up where she’d left off yesterday.

“With or without voices?” She asked, thumbing through the pages until she found her bookmark (a crumpled straw wrapper).

“What kind of question is that?” He snorted. When he did, the tubes nestled against his chest gave a little jump of indignation. “Voices, of course!”

“Sorry, sorry!” She deferred with playfully raised hands. “I was just being thorough.”

“You remind me of Pearl when you say that,” he said. “I’d love for you to meet her someday.”

She tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear and adjusted her glasses.

“I’d like that, too.”

She wanted to meet everyone who made Steven… well, Steven.

The early sun was just beginning to creep towards and above the horizon, bringing with it the varicolored shades of dawn. A muted pink. A slowly simmering orange. Gold shot through all of it. 

The line of cars leading into Empire City was moving forward at a sluggish crawl.

“So where does Steven fit into all this?” Connie could have made an educated stab at it by this point, but she didn’t see the need to when her mom was being so generous with her details. 

Priyanka took the opportunity to take another sip of her coffee as she composed her thoughts, exhaling softly, with subtle weariness, when she set the tumbler down.

“When Steven was born, we immediately found that he had what was more or less a minor birth defect—unilateral renal dysplasia.” And since those weren’t necessarily easily accessible words to a twelve-year old, even a precocious one, Mom took care to elaborate. “That’s when one of the kidneys is somehow malformed during the developmental stages.”

“And that… developed into kidney failure?”

She could see the pieces coming together now.

The contradiction not so contradictory anymore.

The oxymoron resolved.

The equation having a logical, rational end.

Rose Quartz, despite her best intentions, passed on her bodily demons to Steven.

Case closed.

“Not exactly,” Mom frowned, and Connie’s hypothesis crumbled into her lap.

“Through rain, through sleet, through heat, through hell, Archimedes guarded Lisa’s vulnerable body as the fever ran its course through her small body in alternating chills and sweat. Even when night drew itself around them in curtains made of sky velvet and stars, the falcon retained his faithful watch. He was her familiar, her friend, and he would never leave her… not even if she left him.” She closed the book with a resounding thud. “And that, my friend, was Chapter Four.”

Steven’s chin suddenly lifted from where it had been resting on M.C. Bear Bear’s crumpled head.

“What?! You can’t just stop there!”

“No, Steven—you don’t understand,” she laughed warmly. “I have to. Chapter Five leaves me incredibly tender, and I have to emotionally prepare myself for it.”

“You’re just taunting me now,” he accused, a pout beginning to form on his lips.

“Smart boy! I so totally am."

“Kids with dysplasia in one kidney typically grow up without any noticeable decreases in health or kidney function, so Dr. Howard and I didn’t particularly worry about it too much. Hell, we were just relieved that nothing worse had manifested in his little body.”

“Un-fair,” Steven whined, drawing the word out into the two needling syllables. “I wouldn’t do this to you.”

Connie had gleaned enough about Steven’s personality in the short time they had known to each other to agree with him.

“No, you wouldn’t,” she replied thoughtfully, placing her index finger on her lower lip. “You’re too kind, but more importantly still, you have very little impulse control!”

“Hey!” He laughed indignantly.

“Not that that’s a bad thing per say,” she continued pointedly, arching an eyebrow at him, “but it’ll do you some good to wait until the next time. To feel the suspense build up in you until it reaches a breaking point! To stew and simmer in these characters until I relieve you of the heat.”

She leaned forward out of her chair and booped him lightly on the nose.

She’d make a fine reader out of him yet.

“So…” Steven began tentatively once Connie withdrew. She was leaning over now, replacing the thick book in her bag. Her slender fingers paused on the clasp, and she pricked her ears, equal parts curious and hesitant to hear what he was obviously struggling to say. “So there’s definitely going to be…. there’s definitely going to be a next time?”

“But Steven… Steven defied those favorable odds—every statistic and report that said he was going to make it through life without any kidney related complications. When he started to undergo puberty about a year ago, the natural changes in his body caused him to develop a severe urinary tract infection that injured his functional kidney.”

“I did everything I could to try and clear the infection up, but the damage was irreversible. Eight months ago, I diagnosed him with chronic kidney disease and put him on the transplant waiting list.”

“So it was random,” Connie whispered to herself, staring at the hands she had splayed on her lap. She clenched and unclenched them. “It was just chance.”

“What was that?” Mom asked, having heard but not understood her.

“So we’re waiting,” she amended herself quickly.

“Or, well, I’m waiting,” Priyanka said pointedly. “While we’re on the subject, there is something I wanted to talk to you about, Connie.”

She did not hesitate.

“Definitely!” she assured him. Concise. Clear. Genuine. “It’d be cruel to leave you on a cliffhanger, wouldn’t it?”

But he wasn’t entirely convinced because he clutched M.C. Bear tightly to his chest and asked, “I mean, are you sure? Not that I don’t doubt you or anything, but you don’t have to spend your summer in a hospital, you know.”

He looked away, his dark eyes clouding, impenetrable.

“I wouldn’t want that.”

“Steven is a special case to me, but that doesn’t mean that he has to be a special case for you, honey.” She was being uncharacteristically gentle, vulnerable, and Connie nearly recoiled against her seatbelt.

“What do you mean, Mom?”

“I mean that just as his mother was, Steven is liable to be plagued with numerous complications before all of this is, uh, over,” Mom paused, her voice stumbling over itself for the first time since the conversation had begun. “…one way or the other.”

It was life or death, she was saying.

And Steven was teetering on the edge between the two extremes.

“I know you two get along well, and I’m glad for it,” she said softly, “but, Connie, I don’t want you to get hurt. 

They were in the heart of Empire City now, slinking past skyscrapers and pedestrians and street vendors who were setting out their daily wares in preparation for the long day.

There was a drawn out silence in the car as Connie pieced her words together, thought by determined thought.

Outside the window, she caught a glimpse of the towering D.E. building, which was famous for its jagged geometry and how its glass windows were tinted gold.

“I appreciate that, Mom—I do, but I’m afraid that I admittedly look at it a little differently than you do.”

A sharply raised eyebrow. “Oh?” 

“Steven’s not beholden to statistics, I guess—to probability. You said as much when you told me that he developed a disease that not many kids his age ever get in their lifetimes. So sure, probability’s telling me that I may get hurt, or that Steven might be hurt a thousand times over before he gets a kidney… but I don’t want to think of him in terms of numbers, Mom, not when those numbers just may be wrong.”

Connie smiled sadly.

“I want to be his friend.”

Connie shook her head fervently and grabbed Steven’s closest hand. He was cold and soft.

A contradiction.

A puzzle.

An unsolved equation.

Mom’s stories helped, but there was so much more she had left to discover about this boy.

So much more to learn.

From him.

Maybe even for him.

“I want to be part of your world, Steven.” Her grip tightened on his hand, perhaps to emphasize the sincerity of her claim. “I want to be part of your universe.”

The edges of Steven’s pale mouth wobbled into a smile.

They pulled into the staff parking lot of the hospital and before Connie could unlatch her seatbelt, her mother leaned over the console and pulled her into a hug that was fierce and exacting and warm all at the same time.

After the initial surprise wore off, she leaned into the moment, leaned into the crook of her mother’s shoulder and closed her eyes against the dawning sun.

“I love you, Connie.”

Connie dug her fingers into her mother’s lab coat in response.

[adore-holland]

Apparently Not

I was looking at paint colours, and I couldn’t resist. Dedicated to: @bellamyblakebby​ & @thelittlefanpire​ for giving me the courage to post this.

Summary: Bellamy Blake loses himself in thoughts of the past

Word count: 2150

Also on ao3

Blue used to be Bellamy’s favorite color. Not the navy that reminded him of oceans at night, troubled waters or eerie lakes. Not the Oxford blue of starry nights, or the blue of handsewn suits. Not the yale blue of businessmen hard at work. Not the kind of blue that reminded him of restless nights or jagged malachite.

But rather the blue that’s icy cold. The kind that freezes you to your bones, but melts your heart. The celeste blue of slow warm rivers. The baby blue of bubbling laughter, sweet-smelling cornflowers, and freshwater swims. Electric blue of bright summer skies. All the blues that, blended together, reminded him of all of his favorite moments. The color that, blended together, was the color of will-power, strength, and integrity. The color of fierceness, bravery and unconditional love.

The color of Clarke’s eyes.

Not anymore though. The memory of the girl too painful.

He closed his eyes, letting a single tear drift down his cheek, down his chin and onto the metal ledge of the window sill. His dark eyes glanced back into the room behind him. It was empty, void of noise and disturbances. But the atmosphere itself was pressing down on him. Keeping him seated as he carried the weight of the world in his chest. Bellamy opened his mouth to draw in a shaky breath, feeling his lungs jumping at the sudden expansion. The taste of cold metal and recycled air settled on his tongue and he felt the need to cough it out.

The memory of meat rushed through his mind. Saltiness and the occasional sweetness. And he remembered enjoying the heat of the fire, glancing around at his people. Most of them laughing, mouths open exposing the meat. Silently watching Clarke, through the smoke that built up around them, as she smiled to herself. Watching her eyes flitter over everyone, making sure they were all okay, before finally taking a bite for herself. He remembered the way he could see her sigh in content. The way she would let her shoulders relax, and slowly throw her head back with closed eyes.

In those moments, fading as they were, she was the image of peace.

Bellamy would give his life to see her in one of those moments again. To watch her lose herself in the magic of the earth. Her hair blowing into her face with the breeze, and the way her fingers grazed the side of her head to pull it behind her ear again. Distinctly, he remembered his fingers twitching. Almost aching to reach out and do it for her. And the way he resisted by curling his hand into a fist and pressing it almost painfully into the log beneath him.

With a huff he let out the breath again, standing up abruptly. The peace around him shattered. His legs shook alarmingly under him as he tried to stand freely. He couldn’t. Turning around and facing the wall again, he leaned his forehead against it. The coolness of the metal pulled him back into reality. His fist collided with the space beside his head, and he sobbed at the hollow sound. For a moment he just stood there. Hand and head connected to the wall. Stuck in his own mind he turned around slowly, and felt his shirt ride up his back as he sank against the wall to the floor.

His legs bent up under him, and he pressed his knees to the sides of his head. Desperately trying to suppress the sudden nausea. The tears came in a steady stream, landing on the cold floor in an almost comforting rhythm. His ragged sobs echoed through the quiet space, and he found himself needing someone to be there. Anyone really. He could never have her there again.

The last time he touched her he had tucked a piece of blonde hair behind her ear. They had talked about oxymorons. Out of everything in the world, their last conversation would be about something so meaningless. Bellamy closed his eyes and let himself remember the somber look on her face. She had known, but he hadn’t wanted to accept it.

Even with the withering look passing through her eyes, she had somehow still managed to look pure. Which was ironic. He knew Clarke, had seen what she had done. She was far from pure, but it only made her that much more endearing. His fingertips started tingling, coming alive with the memory of touching her skin. Evening out his breathing he replayed the memory again and again. The feeling of smooth hair sliding over the roughness of his skin. The heat of her against his cold fingers. The electricity from merely touching her.

It felt real. In that moment he was back in Becca’s bunker. The tips of his fingers lingering over her temple, feeling the steady pulse beneath the thin skin. Even the small amount of sweat that had come off of her couldn’t push him away. She was there, within arms reach, breathing, watching him with deep pools of unspoken emotions in her eyes, silent promises that she couldn’t bring herself to say out loud.

Alive.

He could have done one of two things then.

He could’ve taken a step closer. Wrapped his arms around her, and drawn her into him. He could’ve buried his face in her neck. Held her close, memorizing her because they never knew what was to come. She would’ve pressed herself into his shoulder, and the weight would have reminded him that she was real. Not some cruel figment of his own imagination. He could’ve settled his hand around her braid, for some reason wanting to hold onto every piece of her.

Or he could have searched her eyes for uncertainty. For some kind of tell that she was uncomfortable with the silence or the proximity. Perhaps she would’ve taken a step back. But maybe, just maybe, she could’ve taken a step forward. Maybe she would even close her eyes, allowing her breath to fan out over his lips, drawing him closer. Bellamy prided himself in doing whatever felt right; in that moment he would without a doubt have cupped her jaw with his hand. Rubbing the pad of his thumb over her cheekbone. He could almost imagine the feeling of her pressing herself into his hand, eyes fluttering open for a short moment before shutting again. And he could have kissed her. Right there, at the end of the world.

It wouldn’t have felt like the end. He was sure it would have felt like a beginning. Perhaps it would be like opening a book that you fell in love with just from the description. Maybe it would’ve been like tasting your favorite meal for the first time, or feeling the sun on your skin.

Maybe it wouldn’t have been like a beginning or something new at all. Maybe it was the feeling of finally finishing a puzzle. Or the soaring happiness of figuring out the missing link in a mystery.

But he hadn’t. He hadn’t interrupted the silence, and Clarke being Clarke, had told him goodbye instead.

Bellamy almost wanted to laugh at the memory. It came out as a scoff instead. Slowly he lifted his head, and carefully let it rest on the wall. Running a hand through his hair, he let it drift over his face on the way down. The tears had dried. He was left feeling oddly numb. A sensation as strange to him as the thought of earth without Clarke. His chest heaved as he let out a sigh. He could almost hear Clarke’s voice chastising him for sitting around sulking over her.

Almost.

He tried, he really did. But he could only remember snippets of her voice. He could remember her saying: “For my people.” Or: “I never meant to hurt you.” But he couldn’t remember the way her lips formed as she smiled. Or the way she told him: “May we meet again.” He remembered the way that her voice broke, but not the sound of it. The tearing in his heart was still clear as day, but not her tone that caused it. He remembered her short but heavy puff of air that she let out when someone said something funny. But he couldn’t remember the sound of her laugh. Not the sound that sent jitters through his stomach, or made his breath catch in his throat. The one sound on the planet, in the universe, that both calmed and excited him at the same time.

And no matter how long he laid awake at night, trying to remember; he couldn’t remember the sound of her saying his name. If he closed his eyes he could see her lips forming softly around it, saying it with a grace he never thought possible. But he couldn’t hear it.

With a clang, he slammed his head back against the wall. White hot pain shot through the back of his head spreading to his temples. Instead of reaching up and placing a hand there for comfort, he welcomed the pain. Willing it to distract him.

“Bellamy?” Raven’s voice broke the tension around him, and his shoulders slumped allowing him to calm down.

“In here.” Bellamy’s voice was so quiet that he doubted she even heard him, but loud footsteps proved him wrong. He peeled his eyes open, quickly spotting her in the doorway. As she laid her eyes on him, her face fell. Pity. Brown eyes captured his, and his gaze quickly flickered away. She didn’t need to see what was going on in his mind. “Do you wanna talk about it?” She sounded sincere, worried. He hated it.

“I don’t know.” He watched her feet drag across the floor as she crossed the room. She came to a stop beside him, before taking a step to the side and sitting down; thankfully leaving space enough for another person between them.

“I miss her too.” A lump formed in his throat. It had always been strikingly clear that he wasn’t the only one who missed her. Even Murphy had quieted down whenever Clarke came up in conversation. Raven wrapped her arms around her knees, mirroring Bellamy’s position.

The silence swallowed them up. Both of them either watching the floor or the dark, empty room in front of them. Only heavy breathing and the occasional click of metal breaking the silence. It was a loaded silence, in some way it was filled with memories, good and bad. In others, it was full of understanding and support. But not enough. It was never gonna be enough.

Bellamy knew Raven hadn’t necessarily been the fondest of Clarke in the beginning. But even she had grown attached to the crazy blonde. Glancing over at the brunette he saw the shine of tears on her cheeks. He wanted to reach out to her, to comfort her, but he was in no place to do that. He felt the same way. If not worse.

“She was it for me.” His voice was clouded with regret, and he rolled his eyes up. Staring at the ceiling. Counting the bolts. Anything to prevent the tears from falling again. Ravens jacket ruffled as she turned her head towards him. He could feel her studying him. She didn’t say anything, just nodded, digging her chin into her upper arm. Her eyes shut, and even more, tears escaped her. “I should have told her.” He fumbled with a loose thread on his sleeve, careful not to pull it too hard.

“She knew.” Even Raven’s voice was an octave lower, more careful than her useful preppiness. “If she didn’t, she wasn’t as smart as I thought.” Bellamy shook his head slowly, desperately clinging to the hope that she did. “She loved you too.”

He let out a small laugh. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew. But it was almost impossible to believe. Clarke, the one person who sacrificed everything for her people. Clarke, the girl with fire for a soul, and ice in her eyes. Clarke, a mere mortal who could measure up to whatever god you believed in. She couldn’t have been in love with him. He didn’t deserve that.

But maybe no one ever really deserved to be loved. Perhaps two imperfect people could choose to love each other, despite whatever the world felt it owed them.

Raven scooted closer to him, carefully resting her head on his shoulder. Both of them breathing deeply into the darkness. Sharing the knowledge that they would never really get over the loss of Clarke.

“You two were destined for each other.” Her voice was softer than it had ever been before. Almost as if she was scared of breaking something. But even with the quiet surrounding them, and the careful hesitation in her voice, the sound broke his heart.

“Apparently not.”

[its-a-writer-thing]

How to Make Your Villain Domestic but Still Evil

It’s the oxymoron that attracts us. Billowing black cape, terrifying worldviews, a willingness to make the streets run red with blood – and you know what would be hilarious? Them trying and failing to make morning pancakes. You know what would really hit us in the feels? Watching them show tenderness around a special someone.

Having a villain with a domestic side is lassoing a black hole, and it’s a tantalizing thing to watch. However, anyone who’s indulged in these daydreams with their own villains has probably encountered one very specific issue: it makes them less evil. They lose their edge.

For example, look at Crowley from CW’s Supernatural. This was a guy to be feared at one point; arriving out of nowhere at unexpected times, always playing both sides of the conflict, and you could be certain he would skin anyone necessary to get what he wanted – usually without getting a single drop of blood on his impeccable suit.

Flash forward to recent seasons, and we’ve seen Crowley cry and whimper more times than Dean has died –which is saying something. At first, it was fascinating to discover this powerful character actually had a tender side; and now, when Crowley makes a threat, we’re about as afraid as when any low-level demon makes one. This is because his evil was too compromised. He let himself go.

How can we avoid this mistake with our villains? The answer isn’t making them crush puppies and hate butterflies at every turn; it’s in balancing their core scariness with their softer side – giving them complexity, giving us a bit of “aww,” and making their eventual whiplash back into ‘terrifying’ all the more wonderful.

For this, we’re going to use Epic of Lilith by Ivars Ozols as an example. This book centers on arguably the original female villain – Lilith, the first woman of the Garden of Eden, who got on the “good guys’” bad side by refusing to submit to someone who was clearly her equal. There won’t be any spoilers below, but if you give the book a read (it’s an easy page turner), the points will be driven home stronger.

Plus it’s a book with a great female villain who isn’t objectified (don’t let the cover fool you, seriously) and prose that isn’t full of sexual over- or undertones. Talk about a win, eh?

Here we go.    

They Don’t Sacrifice

Pairing the villain with a more paragon character is certainly an enticing match, with an ‘opposites attract’ vibe that will breed plenty of dramatic conflict. However, sacrificing is seen as a very moral thing to do – and villains, as a general principle, have a strong degree of selfishness. They may suffer for their cause, they may accept loses to achieve their goals, but putting their mission at risk for their romantic partner is giving away power. That’s not selfish – that’s sacrifice.

It’s important to understand what your villain’s goal is – be it creating better monsters, as it is with Lilith, taking over the world, or crushing a certain someone. Now this goal must be unshakable under any circumstances.  

For example, Lilith is determined to create better and more powerful creatures – something even the Guardian Angels couldn’t fathom or defeat. When she found a special someone, her goal didn’t change. She didn’t give up her experiments or her wanderlust search for advancing her cause. Instead, she convinced her love interest of her worldview, making them crave it like she did – albeit for different reasons. She let them carry out their domestic dreams, and joined them only when she had finished advancing her goals for the day. When faced with choosing between domesticity and her ultimate mission – she didn’t sacrifice.

Making morning pancakes in a cute apron is fine – but if morning pancakes meant giving up their plans, they’d ditch the apron first and unquestioningly.  

They Have Equals, but Always a Backup Plan

Being a powerful villain doesn’t mean being all-powerful. Crowley still relied on the Winchesters at times to see his plans come to fruition, and Lilith still valued her monsters as children in need of protection – especially the final edition, which were unexpectedly crafted from the failings of the ‘good guys.’ Lilith also valued her love interest, enough to teach them how to be a powerful reckoning in their own right (and a seriously kickass partner for her).

But most importantly, when push comes to shove, if these equals ever decided to turn the inch they were given into a mile – the villains wouldn’t be subjugated. Crowley always had a backup plan in place which would take the overconfident heroes off guard if they tried to turn the tables. And Lilith, while certainly rocked by betrayal, didn’t hesitate to use the weaknesses she’d learned about her allies during the time of peace to put herself back in the power seat when war came.

They Don’t Lose Their Good Sense

Being insensibly twitterpated is half the fun of love, and creating strong friendships requires making yourself a little uncharacteristically vulnerable. Unless you’re a villain. What makes terrifying villains terrifying is often their ability to stay ahead of the curve – to always have an ace up their sleeve. They didn’t reach their level of power by not keeping their wits about them, and while they may relax this prowess around someone special, they shouldn’t abandoned it as much as, say – a hero would.

For example, there was a point where Lilith softened around the edges and wasn’t met with treachery as a result. Yet when a similar opportunity for her and her own came knocking, a hero might have assumed it would work out in the same way as before. As a villain, Lilith knew better. Anticipating ‘the worst’ and slowly reaping the benefits of ‘the best’ with a healthy dose of caution – and from the safety of her power seat – is what brought her to where she is.

So when betrayal came knocking, the wits that had earned her power were already fired up. In fact, they’d never been powered down.

They Still Do Evil Things

Having your evil-incarnate character stop to buy Girl Scout cookies is the kind of “aww” and “haha” trope we’re all here for. However, it’s important that they never lose their true nature. It’s easy to let them delve into the paragon side of morality a little too far – and forget that they may set the entire stand ablaze if the cookies are overpriced.

A character that starts with disemboweling a friend who outright ticks them off is the same kind of character who should glance at a knife, then their love interest, then the knife when they get into a heated argument. That’s their nature. It may seem like a step too far – and you may hear your imaginary future readers starting a riot – but it is true to their character. They always bring a bit of that ‘villainness’ to their domesticity.

Such as with Lilith. She has a rather strong habit of seeding derision among her enemies, often as subtle and underhandedly as possible. When an ally starts showing behavior that she doesn’t approve of, it’s not the ‘fair’ and ‘nice’ high ground she takes; it’s an insidious angle, attempting to convince them they can’t trust anyone but her. It doesn’t matter how much they mean to her; it’s her nature to undo the foundations of those who square off against her.

They Break From Their Nature, But Not for Long

Villains can and should be sympathetic in some regards – depending on the style of villain you’re crafting. So this is where you can bend the above guidelines a little, so long as a saving grace is included. Your villain temporarily sacrifices a strategic position that way they can protect their love interest. Your villain puts themselves in a vulnerable place because they don’t want to harm their allies. Your villain goes ahead and pays the highway-robbery price for Girl Scout cookies.

But this break from their nature doesn’t last long – and they come back even more terrifying. This provides the reader with a tenderhearted moment of “aww” but then firmly reminds them who they – and all the characters – are dealing with. Lilith, when encountering one particular instance of betrayal, had the option of annihilating the one who had turned on her. However, she didn’t. She let them go. Against her nature, she showed mercy to someone who outright did not deserve it.

But it was only a chapter or two before she crafted and then executed a plan that would place everyone in incredible danger. Her betrayers were not the intended victims, but they would certainly be affected. Undoubtedly, it’s worse for everyone than if she exacted her precise vengeance.

So have your villains help the good guys save their grandma from a bad nursing home. Then have them burn the entire place down, everyone still inside – because, hey, it’s better than making all those remaining deal with poor care.

Domesticating a villain is exciting, gives them complexity, and if you play it right, certainly delivers a few laughs. But it’s a dangerously fine line – with a strong risk of making them into a boring sap. The key is to make them a villain first and domestic second – since, after all, it was the original we came for to begin with.

To see it done well in action (or just to enjoy a good read), check out Ivar Ozols’ debut self-published novel, Epic of Lilith. Featuring a strong female character, a strong female villain, and an interesting Sci-Fi/time travel take on biblical mythos, it’s a book worth reading. Plus, it’s great to support your self-published comrades!

Happy writing.

[caratdreams]

guileless

aka  “i was sent to kill you but i may have developed feelings for you instead”

Member: Jun

Word Count: 3.9k

Prince Wen Junhui was famed for his good looks, but loved by all for an endearingly innocent personality. They called him The Sky Prince, his head was so far in the clouds, some worried he would never come back down.

Prince Wen Junhui was the treasure of a nation, a gem heralded as one of a kind.

Prince Wen Junhui was your next target.

november.

You weren’t who you used to be.

It didn’t feel like it was that long ago you had fainted at the sight of your best friend’s scraped, bloodied knee. The streaks of blood running down her leg had scarred you for God knows how long. You don’t remember when the fear disappeared, when you began viewing blood as nothing more than part of the territory. It wasn’t after your first kill – you had thrown up at least twice after. It wasn’t after your second, either. The nausea seemed to follow you throughout your first year of being an assassin.

Now, though, there wasn’t much that got a rise out of you. Matters of death, which before would have sent you into existential panic, simply earned a shrug, if even that. You missed feeling. There was more to life than simply taking it from others, you knew that.

“I’m done.”

“Y/N.” Your boss sat opposite you, his fingers clasped together as his hands rested on the desk. You stared him dead in the eye, despite all the times he had told you not to, waiting to see what he had to say. “What, pray tell, do you mean by that?”

“It means I quit.” He didn’t react – no raise of the eyebrow, no change in breathing pattern, nothing. “I want my life back, I can’t do this anymore.”

“You can’t, or you simply don’t want to?”

“Do you really care to know the difference?” His silence told you that you had won that one. At times like this you were sure your boss had regretted teaching you so well. He stood up, your eyes following him as he walked over to his cabinet. You rolled your eyes, knowing he couldn’t see you. It was like he hadn’t heard a word you had just said. He returned to his seat, dropping a file on the desk as he scooted inwards, just as he had done a million times before.

“One more. That’s all I’m asking for. Then,” he shrugged, “I’ll let you go.” That’s not what you asked for, you never gave any indication that what you said was up for negotiation. But you knew how things worked around here, so you opened the file.

Staring back at you was a picture of Prince Wen Junhui, the heir to the throne. On the side, as always with these files, were his details – date of birth, home address, amongst other information you could easily find on the internet.

Something wasn’t right.

You only ever went after people who deserved it. Awful people who had used their status and power to evade the criminal justice system, whose victims were forced to watch them be championed by those who knew them. Of what you knew about Wen Junhui, there wasn’t a malicious bone in his body.

“The Prince?”

“The Royal Family need a wake-up call.” You didn’t know what he meant by that, nor did you want to. If this was to be your last kill, you didn’t want to be attached to the story in any way. “You have until Christmas Day.”

The invitation to the Royal Christmas Ball, held at the end of November, arrived as soon as your boss said it would. Whoever wrote it had addressed it to you as if you were a Lady, the fake title you had been given to put the plan in motion. Your fake name had been written at the top of the invite in perfect penmanship, as if you belonged to this world. You snorted, letting the invite fall through the air, eventually landing on your table. You were far from a Lady.

Before putting on your dress, you made sure your knife was safely strapped in your garter belt. You had no intention of killing the prince tonight, but you always made sure you were armed – it was the first thing you were taught. Once you had finally gotten yourself to look the part (which was much more trouble than it was worth, in your opinion), you made your way to the event. 

It was obvious, as soon as you stepped a high-heeled foot into the palace, that you weren’t cut out for this. Everyone carried themselves with such grace and poise, they spoke using words you had only seen in thesauruses but never actually heard in real life. Attempting to socialise with these people who wouldn’t spare you a second glance on any other occasion was torture.

There was only one person equally uncomfortable as you, and that was the Sky Prince himself. Even if you didn’t know what he looked like, it was obvious which person in the room was him. It was the way people reacted to him, with awe and interest, that told you he was the heir to the throne. You watched as Junhui held a smile on his face, one which began to falter every few seconds, as he very clearly pretended to take in what was being said to him.

There were a million and one other things Junhui would have preferred to be doing in that moment. He could have been reading, he could have been playing games, he could have been deep in conversation with his trusted knight Minghao. Yet here he was, spending another year at the Royal Christmas Ball. The health of the King had deteriorated rapidly within the past few months, so it was more important than ever that he showed his face at these events as he was prepared for the role.

Junhui had noticed you were looking at him, and the fake smile on his face had widened into a genuine grin. You smiled back. It wasn’t until later though, when the conversation had finally ended, that he approached you.

“Good evening.” He spoke, the words sounding less pretentious coming from him. His voice was soft, and you realised that for all you knew about him, you had never actually heard him speak. “I don’t believe I’ve seen you around before?” You introduced yourself, remembering the details of the fake identity you had been given.

“I tend to avoid big social events, but I’ve been in the Christmas spirit lately, so I decided to join you all tonight.” It was only a half-lie, really. You did tend to avoid big social events, and you had been getting in the Christmas spirit lately. For the first time in years, you had bought yourself a small Christmas tree for your apartment.

“I like that answer.” The smile he gave you showed off dimples you never knew he had. “Christmas is my favourite holiday, I guess it makes this whole event a little more,” his hand twirled as he searched for the right word, “bearable.” You nodded in agreement, but Junhui had been whisked away to meet some more people before you could say much more. He threw his head back to look at you, and made a face to signify that he was just as bored as you thought he was. You laughed.

You had been instructed to not leave until everybody else had gone home. It was coming up to 11pm, and there were still some people sat around talking. There couldn’t have been anyone in that room under the age of 65 – surely they should have been in bed by now. Junhui, on the other hand, was nowhere to be found.

You excused yourself, telling the others that you were going to the toilet, though you were sure they didn’t really care. Your feet ached, but you powered through the pain as you searched the palace. Naturally, you started on the ground floor, and you hoped you weren’t going to have to climb those grand staircases. You walked around aimlessly, certain that you were lost, until you heard soft music in the distance.

You followed the sound, as if you were a child following the Pied Piper. You realised it had been coming from a door that was creaked slightly open, and you peered inside. Junhui was playing the piano, his fingers moving at lightspeed, creating an aural wonderland. He was lost in this wonderland, you could tell – his eyes were half-shut, his face an oxymoronic combination of pure concentration and relaxation as he allowed the music to overtake.

You remembered the knife attached to your thigh. He was vulnerable right now. If you wanted to, you could take the knife out now and end his life. You would escape from the palace and finally be free from your job, free to live your life to the fullest.

But you weren’t going to.

There was something stopping you. Simply watching the prince play the piano had you looking at him in the same awestruck way everyone else did. How beautiful it was, to watch someone overcome with such passion. What was the last thing you were passionate about?

Junhui jumped when he noticed you, which made you feel bad. He genuinely hadn’t noticed or heard you, which was obviously due to the music, but even if it were silent he probably wouldn’t have heard you – you were now a pro at getting around without anyone noticing.

“You’re incredible.” And you meant it. Junhui looked down, slight colour arriving on the surface of his cheeks.

“Thank you.” He nodded. “I didn’t realise you were still here. I don’t blame you for trying to escape from all the boring old people.”

“My brain would’ve started melting if I sat there any longer.” Junhui giggled at your words, resting his head in his palm. “I’m not ready to go home yet, though.”

“Would you like a tour of the palace?” That, oddly enough, would be perfect for you. You got Junhui alone, and you got to learn about the layout of the palace. This would no doubt be useful when the time came for you to do your job.

The final stop on the tour was the single room on the top floor, which Junhui had labelled ‘The Hideaway’. The staircase leading up to it wasn’t as grand as the others, it looked like the staircase to any old attic. You followed Junhui into it, and you were hit with the smell of old books. You bet if you were to open them up, the pages would have been worse for wear, with the corners folded over and slight tears from when Junhui got a bit too excited reading them. 

“I haven’t spent much time up here lately. Not as much as I’d like to, anyway. With everything going on…” he stopped himself, instead choosing to pick up an old book and flick through it. When he spoke to you, his eyes dancing with an excitement you had missed, it hit you that unless he was an incredibly actor, the media were right for once and he really was surprisingly sweet.

Realising your thoughts were getting more and more clouded, fogging your focus, you decided it was time to leave.

“It’s probably time for me to go.”

“So soon?”

“It’s almost midnight.”

“Oh.” Junhui pouted. “I didn’t even realise.” He shook his head at himself. “I do this all the time, sorry. I’ll walk you out.” You wanted to say no, to avoid spending even more time with him, but without his guidance you probably would have gotten lost. You thanked him, wishing him a good night.

december.

With the arrival of a new month, Junhui’s calendar only became more jam-packed. First up was the official opening of the city’s Christmas Fair, which was comparatively, not too bad. He was only required to cut the ribbon, and he was free to leave afterwards.

You forced your way through the crowd, calling Junhui’s name as he turned to leave. When you approached him, a man dressed in all-black stopped you. His face was even more youthful than Junhui’s, despite his stern expression, and you wondered what his role was.

“Excuse me?” he asked, sizing you up. You knew he wanted to know who you were, and why you were approaching the prince.

“Don’t worry Minghao, this is the one I was telling you about.” Junhui put a hand on Minghao’s shoulder, stepping towards you. It had been less than a week since the Royal Christmas Ball, and he hadn’t heard from you since. He was beginning to wonder if he’d ever see you again. There weren’t many people he had come across that he cared to meet more than once. “It’s nice to finally see you again.”

“It is, I was hoping to find you here.”

“Do you want to look around for a bit?” he asked, eyes casting over all the stalls and people. “We could get some food.”

“Yeah, that sounds good!” There was nothing false about your enthusiasm, and you began to follow Junhui through the crowd. His fingers searched for yours and lightly intertwined them, not wanting to lose you amongst all those people.

“Ugh,” Minghao whined, trailing behind the two of you. “I hate being the third-wheel.”

After what turned into an hour of walking around, admiring the goods and gifts available, the three of you ended up at a picnic bench, drinking hot chocolate. You had learned that Junhui was a sucker for anything cute, and that Minghao was his polar opposite in almost every way. You liked Minghao, his intentions were good, but you knew he would be an obstacle in completing your job.

The godforsaken job.

You avoided asking yourself why you had even shown up to the fair, because you feared the answer. After the night at the ball, you told yourself you wouldn’t use the method of getting close to him, because you knew you would like what you ended up discovering. Any sort of fondness for him would be unfavourable – how were you meant to kill him? Yet here you were, unable to walk away. The comfy, golden hue of the lights illuminated his face, you were warm inside. 

“Is everything okay?” he asked, noticing that you were staring. You nodded, gripping your mug even tighter. Junhui regretted not dressing up appropriately for the weather when he saw how cosy you looked in your hat, scarf, and gloves. “You look pretty.” He complimented, the words falling out of his mouth as soon as he thought them.

You both had come to the same realisation, completely unbeknownst to the other - you had begun to feel again.

Your presence at these events quickly became a constant in Junhui’s life. Over the next two weeks you found yourself, dare you say it, looking forward to seeing him. The routine you had fallen into was a fun one – you would arrive at the event, pretend to care for half an hour before the two of you would escape. The possibilities were endless, because doing anything else was infinitely more exciting than these events.

When you weren’t around, he missed you, and the same was true for you. In the back of your mind, you knew you had lost sight of what you were meant to do.

The clock was ticking.

The next event was held in the palace, the layout of which you had tried to recreate in your brain ever since Junhui gave you the tour. You envisioned the scene. You would take him up to The Hideaway, away from everyone else. After luring him into a false sense of security, you would take out your knife, and you would slit his throat. In an ideal world, no one would be around as you made your way out of the palace, and you wouldn’t once look back.

You told yourself that this would be the night. 

You checked that your knife was in place three times before leaving. Your limbs shook as you made your way up the palace steps, your knees almost buckling several times. When you entered, your eyes didn’t land on Junhui immediately like they normally did. It wasn’t hard to spot him in a crowd, if not due to his looks, then due to the fact he stood a head above everyone else. You noticed Minghao, engaged in conversation with a few other men who you recognised as more bodyguards.

“Where’s Junhui?” you asked, pulling Minghao aside.

“He’s sick, so he’s resting right now.” You should have been relieved at the fact your job just became that much easier.

“Can I see him?” Minghao hesitated.

“I don’t know if I can let you, I’m under strict orders. Only the nurses can see him.”

“Oh, right. I get it. Well, I guess I’ll see you later.” With that, you slipped away, Minghao assuming that you had left the building.

You knew exactly where Junhui would be. Once again, your legs almost failed you as you made your way up to the empty top floor. Sweat had formed on your hairline, and heat pricked the back of your neck. You took a second to compose yourself before placing a hand on the doorknob.

As soon as you saw him, wrapped up in the covers, your resolve shattered. Everything you had planned went out of the window. He sat up when you walked in, a smile on his face.

“You need to take better care of yourself, Junhui.” You scolded. The bed dipped with your weight as you sat next to him.

“You can call me Jun, you know. Only the pompous call me Junhui.” He laughed at himself, and you could only muster up a weak smile. You wondered what liars called him. You placed the back of your hand on his forehead, frowning when you felt how warm it was. He wrapped his fingers around your wrist, lowering your hand. “You’re shaking.”

“Yeah, that-it happens sometimes.” You muttered, slipping your hand out of his grip placing it firmly in your lap. The knife was still strapped to your thigh, not far out of reach. “I told you that coat wasn’t enough for this weather.”

“At least I have an excuse to stay up here all day. You should come visit me, though. It gets boring without you.”

“Apparently, only the nurses are allowed to see you when you’re sick.” He rolled his eyes, making a face at yet another rule the palace had imposed onto him. They probably only made that up a few days ago. “Yeah, I know.”

“Can I tell you something? I think- no, you deserve to know.” His wording destroyed you, you didn’t deserve a damn thing from him, but you motioned for him to continue. He began to tap his fingers against the covers, lips pressed together as he thought about how best to say what he needed to. “I’m not as clueless as everyone thinks I am, you know? I notice things, I just don’t say anything.” He took in a deep breath, his fingers now still. “The way everyone’s been acting recently … I think someone is trying to kill me.”

You almost stopped breathing.

“W-what?” 

“I don’t know why, but it’s the only thing that makes sense. It used to just be me and Minghao, and now all of a sudden I have all these new bodyguards. And now I’m sick and they won’t let anyone see me?” he sighed. “Murder plots are nothing new, I know what the palace acts like when it’s on the defence.”

“I wish I knew what to say.” Tears stung your eyes and you desperately tried to blink them away.

“You don’t need to say anything.” Jun shook his head, a regretful smile on his face. “I shouldn’t have said anything, I probably worried you for no reason.” You looked up at him, the tears that you had tried so hard to blink away made your eyes glassy, they sparkled under the light of the room. Of all the times he had been tempted to kiss you, now was the most difficult to control.

“What are you thinking? Say it.”

“If…if I kissed you right now, would you get sick?” That brought a smile to your face.

You knew better, but you responded by kissing him. His lips were soft, simply pecking at yours a few times until you allowed him further access and he gained the confidence to deepen the kiss. Your heart was pounding, its beating steadied only by the comforting presence of Junhui’s hands. You kissed him as passionately as you did because you knew it was the first and last time.

It took everything you had to pull away.

“I-I should leave before someone realises I’m up here.”

It was Christmas Eve, and Prince Wen Junhui was still alive.

It had been a week since the night you kissed, and you hadn’t seen him since. You hadn’t seen anyone, in fact, you were locked up in your apartment. If you didn’t leave your apartment, you didn’t have to kill him, right? That would have meant nothing, your boss would end up sending someone else to finish the job. Not having to kill him yourself wasn’t the problem; you didn’t want Junhui to die, period.

You had less than 24 hours.

Your index finger traced your knife as you weighed up your options. As far as you were concerned, there were two – either you killed Junhui tonight, or you ran away.

You told Junhui you would meet him outside the palace in the evening.

Junhui was excited to hear from you again, he was worried that the kiss had ruined your friendship, and he couldn’t afford to lose a friend in this climate. He checked the time, and was about to leave the palace when one of his guards entered his room.

“That friend of yours left this for you.” He spoke, handing an envelope to him. Junhui thanked him as he left, though he was confused. The guard could only have been referring to you – but did you not tell him to meet you outside of the palace? Were you not outside waiting for him this very moment?

He read the letter.

Then he re-read it.

Then he read it one more time, just in case he missed the part where you said you were joking.

To Jun,

I hope you understand why I couldn’t tell you any of this in person. You were right, the other day, when you said that someone out there is trying to kill you. I was sent to that very thing, but as we spent more time together I realised that there was no way I could do it. It might be hard to believe now, but everything was real to me.

By the time you’ve read this I‘ll be on my way out of the city, probably out of the country, too. You need to stay alert, because they might not rest until you’re dead.

I want to thank you for everything this past month. It’s been a long time since I met someone I had any type of feelings for other than apathy or disgust. At this point, you probably don’t care.

I hope you never stop being the positive person you are. Don’t let them change you.

Merry Christmas.

Then, and only then, did he let a tear fall. 

[staringblanklyataplant]

start

it has been a long time since i last journalled, mainly because life hasn’t been the most interesting ever since i graduated from eighteen years of formal education straight into the most mundane job in the world. also whenever i journal online i get this feeling of anxiety because it feels like i have an obligation to reflect myself as a happy go lucky person with the most positive attitude and mindset. today (and through a certain amount of anonymity) i will finally get down to jotting my emotions down again, before it gets the better of me.

i remember clearly how whenever there were those choose-one-word-to-describe-yourself questions i would always pick “positive” or “happy-go-lucky”, but those days are long gone. i think things started going downhill the day i realised that i was going to do accountancy in uni - and move on to an accountancy related career thereafter. eighteen years of young me anticipating what the future potentially had to offer was honestly a flop, sort of like a misleading movie trailer with the fanciest buildup. everything i said or did in my whole lifetime led up to the disappointing moment when i chose to enroll in accountancy at nus. school was a chore - getting into a straight As course without straight As meant that i was automatically in the bottom quartile of the cohort, let alone it being a course that i despised. there was so much stigma against accountancy that media portrayed, how it is the most boring job in the world but it pays well (which i now learnt that the latter is completely bullshit). when i was younger i didn’t know what i wanted to do when i grew up, but i definitely knew that i did not want to be an office worker with a 9 to 5 job. i mean at least i got half of it right - it is most definitely NOT a 9 to 5 job. 

i remember the first half of uni being my most depressing days, even though i often portrayed myself as a motivated and positive minded individual in school and in hall. my junior college friends were ganging up against me, i wasn’t enjoying what i was learning and in turn, this led to getting poor results in school. i recall one particular night, probably during the peak of my depressed state (that oxymoron) i broke down so hard in front of my mom. i was talking to my parents about how i was forced to do accountancy by them, mainly my father. being the stubborn self-righteous asian dad he was (and still is), he said, no full-on scolded me with something along the lines of “hey, we gave you the choices, you were the one who applied for them in the end, don’t go blaming on us when things don’t go your way”. what i wanted to do was something in the field of design or life sciences, which might or might not be in Singapore’s big three unis. design? oh the job market is saturated. life sciences? oh you’ll be stuck with research (which now that i think about it isn’t half bad at all, well, if you compare it to accountancy). things that i wanted to do slowly got struck off the list. what was i left with? dentistry, pharmacy, architecture - all of which are straight As courses and the closest things there were to arts or life sciences. and then we have accountancy and business - literally the only courses left after striking out sciences, (and the two that i actually strongly chose not to do)  computing and engineering. i KNOW if i did end up applying for courses that my dad struck out, i would have to face years and years of “why didn’t you do what i told you to” or “you will regret this, i told you so”. i was a naive kid, one that did not dare to stand up to her parents or even have her own opinions at home because any opinion that did not match my father’s would just lead to scolding and a bitter look of disdain from my mother. but what good does being an abiding child bring when all i did was cry myself to sleep almost every night knowing that the remaining of my youth has been ruined by the very people whom i thought only wanted the best for me?

being around motivated people has made me reflect upon myself and realise how little i have achieved in my life. while i have to give myself credit for pushing through 4 years of doing a bachelors in something that wasnt my first, second, third but fourth choice, i should probably stop giving the excuse of being forced to do something i didnt want to as a reason not to excel in a field. everyone started off the same. we are of the same age now yet look how different we are. definitely the environment people grow up in plays a part in defining their character. but what i do is i take the environment to blame. but blaming literally does not do anything. still leaves me as a person who has much i want to achieve yet not taking steps to achieve them. i am constantly in search of a catalyst, but the catalyst is myself after all. i have been pushing back everything and i am already 24. thinking back (as i always do), i think about how i should have done this and should have done that. and think of all the regrets i have for not starting on something while i was younger. but who says i am not still young? being around motivated people really makes me want to be as motivated as them. what do they have that i do not have? literally nothing. there are people out there who start off worse than me but are doing so much better now. i have said it many times but maybe this time i mean it for once - it is time for a change in attitude. sure i am not enjoying what i am doing now. but who says i cant excel in it? otherwise, who says i cant make a switch? i am always so worried of stability that i end up being so stable. what do i get in the end of it all? retirement? will i be happy then, knowing of all the other things i could have done in my lifetime but didnt? like how i look back now and think of all i could have done while i was still in school and had no responsibilities? what i have now is time and health. 

[sassqueenblake]

are you still wanting prompts? If you are, could you please write a bellarke reunion fic where they stumble into each other in the woods with a twist. the twist being that after primfya clarke lost her memory and does not remember anything from before the death wave

What the Wave Washed Away

The hearty smell of dirt,foliage, and running water was a scent that Bellamy Blake was sure he hadforgotten. However, as his heavy footfalls resounded through the thick forest,his sense were assailed with everything Earth. The old yet familiar sounds oftrickling streams, breeze through tall pines, and the crunch of dense leavesbeneath his boots all echoed in his ears as he reacquainted himself with hisformer home.

They had landed on the edge ofEden four days ago, nearly missing the four percent of Earth that hadn’t beenaffected by the Death Wave. Slowly, the group was making their way towardsPolis to survey the damage from the past five years, but there was a vastportion of land between the nutrients and comfort that Eden held and the rubbleof the Grounder city.

The ground beneath Bellamy’s feetbegan to incline, and he shortened his quick strides. He had missed the varyingterrain of Earth over the past five years, and his lungs were protestingagainst the strenuous exercise. But Bellamy didn’t care.

Earth was the last place thatheld any kind of fond memories for him. Earth was the last place he had seenClarke Griffin. Being back here felt good in that he felt closer to her, but italso hurt beyond belief because…she wasn’t here.

She would never roll her eyes athim calling her Princess. She would never talk to him about oxymoron’s. Shewould never be there to remind him why the world needed him.

He would never get to tell herwhat she meant to him. He would never get to see her crystal blue eyes shiningin the sunlight. He would never see her bright smile, utterly and completelycarefree.

As Bellamy reached the pinnacleof the rise, he paused to take in the view before him. Tall trees, dense flora,and streaming sunlight were sprawled before him, glowing emerald against thebright blue sky. Bellamy took a deep breath, his dark eyes focusing on nothingas they began to cloud with unshed tears.

He wished with all of his beingthat Clarke was beside him on that ridge, overlooking the newborn beauty ofEarth. Bellamy closed his eyes, and the tears rolled down his face before hewiped them roughly away with his thumb. He sniffed loudly and began descendingdown the face of the rise when movement to his left caught his attention.

He froze, unsure if the rustlingin the bushes was an animal or not, and if so, how friendly it might be.

He felt himself blink one, two,three times when he saw a head of short, blonde curls rise from the thickgreenery. He felt the air rush from his lungs as the figure turned to face him,her face distracted as she scanned the forest floor.

“Clarke.” Bellamy breathed, hisfeet frozen in place as his heart pounded in his ears. He felt a familiar heat thathe had known when she was around him, spread through his chest as it filled thehole her loss had left in his heart. Bellamy forced his feet to move quietly,so as not to scare her. As he closed, he saw that there was a red hue at theends of her blonde curls; he liked it.

Bellamy stopped a few pacesbefore her. Clarke lifted her eyes and froze as their gazes collided. Shelooked startled rather than relieved or surprised, which puzzled Bellamy.

Bellamy swallowed, his throat dryand his tongue thick in his mouth. Suddenly, Bellamy smirked, cocking his headto the side as he did when they were kids.

“Hey, Princess. You taking a walkin the woods?” Bellamy’s smile widened as he spoke.

Bellamy watched as Clarke’s faceshowed no sign of change but simply stared at him, as if deciphering hisperson. Her eyes scanned over his body, her brows furrowing in concentrationbefore she spoke.

“I’m not your Princess. Who areyou?” Clarke demanded, the furrow in her brow deepening.

Bellamy’s brows quirked inquestion, his footing faltering on the uneven floor of the forest.

“Clarke?” Bellamy questioned,disbelieving what he was hearing and seeing.

“How do you know my name?” Sheground out, her hand tensing around a knife Bellamy hadn’t seen.

“Clarke, it’s me. It’s Bellamy,”He didn’t know how to make her understand. Hedidn’t even understand. “Do you not… remember me?”

Clarke blinked at the sadness inthe man’s voice, but shook her head.

She saw him visibly deflate, hisface crumpling in confusion. He ran a hand down his face, and Clarke kept afirm hold on the knife at her side, unsure of the man’s intentions.

“Your name is Bellamy? Bellamywhat?” Clarke asked quietly, caution still flowing through her veins.

Bellamy sniffed as his eyesfocused back on Clarke. “Bellamy Blake. That’s my name.”

“Where did I meet you, BellamyBlake?” Clarke questioned, her eyes narrowing.

“We met five years ago. We weresent down from the Ark. Do you remember the Ark?” Bellamy asked gently.

Clarke’s brow furrowed as shedebated whether to trust the stranger. Finally, she gave in.

“I remember my parents. Theirnames were Jake and…”

“Abby Griffin,” Bellamy finished.“Your mom is Abby Griffin.”

“How did you know that?” Clarke’seyes narrowed in suspicion.

“I’ve known you and your mom forfive years. She came down a few weeks after we did.” Bellamy explained.

“Why don’t I remember meetingyou? Why don’t I remember anything you’re telling me?” Clarke asked,frustration etched in her features.

“I think the Death Wave had someeffect on your memory. We were so worried about surviving the radiation levels,we weren’t really concerned with any side effects.”

“The Death Wave… That’s why thetrees are scorched and the rivers are dry, right?”

“Outside of Eden, yeah. Only fourpercent of the Earth was going to be untouched by the radiation wave, andthat’s where we are now.” Bellamy gestured to the trees surrounding them.

Clarke shook her head as tearsclouded her eyes.

“I don’t understand.” Shewhispered as she rubbed her forehead, pain written in her eyes as she attemptedto remember anything from the past after her time in the Sky Box. She tooksmall steps towards a small boulder before seating herself on it.

“We have to go back to camp,Clarke. The others, they’re going to be so excited to see you after all thistime,” Bellamy huffed a laugh. “I’m still not sure I’m not dreaming this upright now.”

“I don’t remember the otherseither.” Clarke admitted quietly from her seat on the boulder.

“Don’t worry about that rightnow. They remember you, and I know they’ll kill themselves before they give upon you remembering them someday.” Bellamy smirked softly.

Clarke’s gaze fell to the groundas she processed. Bellamy’s next words shocked her.

“I thought you were dead,Clarke.” He whispered brokenly. Clarke’s gaze flew to his face, and she saw theface of a man tortured.

“Let me guess…” Clarke began. “Wewere supposed to leave because of the Death Wave, but something came up… We gotseparated somehow, and I was left behind?” Clarke asked slowly. Bellamy noddedin confirmation, his mouth a firm line.

Clarke nodded slowly.

“Did you remember that?” Bellamyasked softly.

“No,” Clarke shook her head andsighed. “But if what you’re saying is true, and we really are friends, youdon’t seem like the kind of person to simply leave someone you consider afriend behind without a good reason. Impending death being one.” She finishedwryly, a small smirk toying at the corner of her mouth.

Bellamy chuckled at that. “Thatsounds like the girl I remember.”

Clarke gave him a small smile.She was still hesitant, but there was something about this man that felt right. She couldn’t identify why or whatit was exactly, but Clarke knew that something about this Bellamy Blake wasgood.

“How do I know if I can trustthese others you’ve mentioned?” Clarke asked suddenly, her walls erecting onceagain.

“You don’t have to,” Bellamyshrugged, leaving his reply open.

Clarke looked up at the freckledman before her, and Bellamy say a glimmer of recognition in those infuriatinglyblue eyes. Before he could say anything, she smiled, a sigh of relief escapingher lips.

“I trust you.” Clarke breathed quietly.

Bellamy’s eyes widened slightlyat her words. He felt his mouth widening into a grin before nodding slightly.Clarke stood, a feeling of familiarity, a memory of the wood in the dark, theweight of having longer hair, Bellamy with scars littering his face as hesearched hers earnestly.

Clarke offered her hand to him,and Bellamy took it gladly as he laced their fingers together, the couplemaking their way back towards camp, back to their roots.

Available on AO3 and FF.net. I hope this fic met expectations, anon! Thank you for the prompt!

[sheminecrafts]

Facebook’s latest ‘transparency’ tool doesn’t offer much — so we went digging

Just under a month ago Facebook switched on global availability of a tool which affords users a glimpse into the murky world of tracking that its business relies upon to profile users of the wider web for ad targeting purposes.

Facebook is not going boldly into transparent daylight — but rather offering what privacy rights advocacy group Privacy International has dubbed “a tiny sticking plaster on a much wider problem”.

The problem it’s referring to is the lack of active and informed consent for mass surveillance of Internet users via background tracking technologies embedded into apps and websites, including as people browse outside Facebook’s own content garden.

The dominant social platform is also only offering this feature in the wake of the 2018 Cambridge Analytica data misuse scandal, when Mark Zuckerberg faced awkward questions in Congress about the extent of Facebook’s general web tracking. Since then policymakers around the world have dialled up scrutiny of how its business operates — and realized there’s a troubling lack of transparency in and around adtech generally and Facebook specifically. 

Facebook’s tracking pixels and social plugins — aka the share/like buttons that pepper the mainstream web — have created a vast tracking infrastructure which silently informs the tech giant of Internet users’ activity, even when a person hasn’t interacted with any Facebook-branded buttons.

Facebook claims this is just ‘how the web works’. And other tech giants are similarly engaged in tracking Internet users (notably Google). But as a platform with 2.2BN+ users Facebook has got a march on the lion’s share of rivals when it comes to harvesting people’s data and building out a global database of person profiles.

It’s also positioned as a dominant player in an adtech ecosystem which means it’s the one being fed with intel by data brokers and publishers who deploy tracking tech to try to survive in such a skewed system.

Meanwhile the opacity of online tracking means the average Internet user is none the wiser that Facebook can be following what they’re browsing all over the Internet. Questions of consent loom very large indeed.

Facebook is also able to track people’s usage of third party apps if a person chooses a Facebook login option which the company encourages developers to implement in their apps — again the carrot being to be able to offer a lower friction choice vs requiring users create yet another login credential.

The price for this ‘convenience’ is data and user privacy as the Facebook login gives the tech giant a window into third part app usage.

The company has also used a VPN app it bought and badged as a security tool to glean data on third party app usage — though it’s recently stepped back from the Onavo app after a public backlash (though that did not stop it running a similar tracking program targeted at teens).

Background tracking is how Facebook’s creepy ads function (it prefers to call such behaviorally targeted ads ‘relevant’) — and how they have functioned for years

Yet it’s only in recent months that it’s offered users a glimpse into this network of online informers — by providing limited information about the entities that are passing tracking data to Facebook, as well as some limited controls.

From ‘Clear History’ to “Off-Facebook Activity”

Originally briefed in May 2018, at the crux of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, as a ‘Clear History’ option this has since been renamed ‘Off-Facebook Activity’ — a label so bloodless and devoid of ‘call to action’ that the average Facebook user, should they stumble upon it buried deep in unlovely settings menus, would more likely move along than feel moved to carry out a privacy purge.

(For the record you can access the setting here — but you do need to be logged into Facebook to do so.)

The other problem is that Facebook’s tool doesn’t actually let you purge your browsing history, it just delinks it from being associated with your Facebook ID. There is no option to actually clear your browsing history via its button. Another reason for the name switch. So, no, Facebook hasn’t built a clear history ‘button’.

“While we welcome the effort to offer more transparency to users by showing the companies from which Facebook is receiving personal data, the tool offers little way for users to take any action,” said Privacy International this week, criticizing Facebook for “not telling you everything”.

As the saying goes, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. So a little transparency implies — well — anything but clarity. And Privacy International sums up the Off-Facebook Activity tool with an apt oxymoron — describing it as “a new window to the opacity”.

“This tool illustrates just how impossible it is for users to prevent external data from being shared with Facebook,” it writes, warning with emphasis: “Without meaningful information about what data is collected and shared, and what are the ways for the user to opt-out from such collection, Off-Facebook activity is just another incomplete glimpse into Facebook’s opaque practices when it comes to tracking users and consolidating their profiles.”

It points out, for instance, that the information provided here is limited to a “simple name” — thereby preventing the user from “exercising their right to seek more information about how this data was collected”, which EU users at least are entitled to.

“As users we are entitled to know the name/contact details of companies that claim to have interacted with us. If the only thing we see, for example, is the random name of an artist we’ve never heard before (true story), how are we supposed to know whether it is their record label, agent, marketing company or even them personally targeting us with ads?” it adds.

Another criticism is Facebook is only providing limited information about each data transfer — with Privacy International noting some events are marked “under a cryptic CUSTOM” label; and that Facebook provides “no information regarding how the data was collected by the advertiser (Facebook SDK, tracking pixel, like button…) and on what device, leaving users in the dark regarding the circumstances under which this data collection took place”.

“Does Facebook really display everything they process/store about those events in the log/export?” queries privacy researcher Wolfie Christl, who tracks the adtech industry’s tracking techniques. “They have to, because otherwise they don’t fulfil their SAR [Subject Access Request] obligations [under EU law].”

Christl notes Facebook makes users jump through an additional “download” hoop in order to view data on tracked events — and even then, as Privacy International points out, it gives up only a limited view of what has actually been tracked…

And it's just ridiculous.

FB doesn't show me the list of visits they recorded from a certain website in their web interface, no! I have to 'download my information', which takes a long time.

And then, I'm sure this is not all data they record when tracking a VIEW_CONTENT event: pic.twitter.com/qBO87Zp5YH

— Wolfie Christl (@WolfieChristl) January 29, 2020

“For example, why doesn’t Facebook list the specific sites/URLs visited? Do they infer data from the domains e.g. categories? If yes, why is this not in the logs?” Christl asks.

We reached out to Facebook with a number of questions, including why it doesn’t provide more detail by default. It responded with this statement attributed to spokesperson:

We offer a variety of tools to help people access their Facebook information, and we’ve designed these tools to comply with relevant laws, including GDPR. We disagree with this [Privacy International] article’s claims and would welcome the chance to discuss them with Privacy International.

Facebook also said it’s continuing to develop which information it surfaces through the Off-Facebook Activity tool — and said it welcomes feedback on this.

We also asked it about the legal bases it uses to process people’s information that’s been obtained via its tracking pixels and social plug-ins. It did not provide a response to those questions.

Six names, many questions…

When the company launched the Off-Facebook Activity tool a snap poll of available TechCrunch colleagues showed very diverse results for our respective tallies (which also may not show the most recent activity, per other Facebook caveats) — ranging from one colleague who had an eye-watering 1,117 entities (likely down to doing a lot of app testing); to several with several/a few hundred apiece; to a couple in the middle tens.

In my case I had just six. But from my point of view — as an EU citizen with a suite of rights related to privacy and data protection; and as someone who aims to practice good online privacy hygiene, including having a very locked down approach to using Facebook (never using its mobile app for instance) — it was still six too many. I wanted to find out how these entities had circumvented my attempts not to be tracked.

And in the case of the first one in the list who on earth it was…

Turns out cloudfront is an Amazon Web Services Content Delivery Network subdomain. But I had to go searching online myself to figure out that the owner of that particular domain is (now) a company called Nativo.

Facebook’s list provided only very bare bones information. I also clicked to delink the first entity, since it immediately looked so weird, and found that by doing that Facebook wiped all the entries — which meant I was unable to retain access to what little additional info it had provided about the respective data transfers.

Undeterred I set out to contact each of the six companies directly with questions — asking what data of mine they had transferred to Facebook and what legal basis they thought they had for processing my information.

(On a practical level six names looked like a sample size I could at least try to follow up manually — but remember I was the TechCrunch exception; imagine trying to request data from 1,117 companies, or 450 or even 57, which were the lengths of lists of some of my colleagues.)

This process took about a month and a lot of back and forth/chasing up. It likely only yielded as much info as it did because I was asking as a journalist; an average Internet user may have had a tougher time getting attention on their questions — though, under EU law, citizens have a right to request a copy of personal data held on them.

Eventually, I was able to obtain confirmation that tracking pixels and Facebook share buttons had been involved in my data being passed to Facebook in certain instances. Even so I remain in the dark on many things. Such as exactly what personal data Facebook received.

In one case I was told by a listed company that it doesn’t know itself what data was shared — only Facebook knows because it’s implemented the company’s “proprietary code”. (Insert your own ‘WTAF’ there.)

The legal side of these transfers also remains highly opaque. From my point of view I would not intentionally consent to any of this tracking — but in some instances the entities involved claim that (my) consent was (somehow) obtained (or implied).

In other cases they said they are relying on a legal basis in EU law that’s referred to as ‘legitimate interests’. However this requires a balancing test to be carried out to ensure a business use does not have a disproportionate impact on individual rights.

I wasn’t able to ascertain whether such tests had ever been carried out.

Meanwhile, since Facebook is also making use of the tracking information from its pixels and social plug ins (and seemingly more granular use, since some entities claimed they only get aggregate not individual data), Christl suggests it’s unlikely such a balancing test would be easy to pass for that tiny little ‘platform giant’ reason.

Notably he points out Facebook’s Business Tool terms state that it makes use of so called “event data” to “personalize features and content and to improve and secure the Facebook products” — including for “ads and recommendations”; for R&D purposes; and “to maintain the integrity of and to improve the Facebook Company Products”.

In a section of its legal terms covering the use of its pixels and SDKs Facebook also puts the onus on the entities implementing its tracking technologies to gain consent from users prior to doing so in relevant jurisdictions that “require informed consent” for tracking cookies and similar — giving the example of the EU.

“You must ensure, in a verifiable manner, that an end user provides the necessary consent before you use Facebook Business Tools to enable us to store and access cookies or other information on the end user’s device,” Facebook writes, pointing users of its tools to its Cookie Consent Guide for Sites and Apps for “suggestions on implementing consent mechanisms”.

Christl flags the contradiction between Facebook claiming users of its tracking tech needing to gain prior consent vs claims I was given by some of these entities that they don’t because they’re relying on ‘legitimate interests’.

“Using LI as a legal basis is even controversial if you use a data analytics company that reliably processes personal data strictly on behalf of you,” he argues. “I guess, industry lawyers try to argue for a broader applicability of LI, but in the case of FB business tools I don’t believe that the balancing test (a businesses legitimate interests vs. the impact on the rights and freedoms of data subjects) will work in favor of LI.”

Those entities relying on legitimate interests as a legal base for tracking would still need to offer a mechanism where users can object to the processing — and I couldn’t immediately see such a mechanism in the cases in question.

One thing is crystal clear: Facebook itself does not provide a mechanism for users to object to its processing of tracking data nor opt out of targeted ads. That remains a long-standing complaint against its business in the EU which data protection regulators are still investigating.

One more thing: Non-Facebook users continue to have no way of learning what data of theirs is being tracked and transferred to Facebook. Only Facebook users have access to the Off-Facebook Activity tool, for example. Non-users can’t even access a list.

Facebook has defended its practice of tracking non-users around the Internet as necessary for unspecified ‘security purposes’. It’s an inherently disproportionate argument of course. The practice also remains under legal challenge in the EU.

Tracking the trackers

SimpleReach (aka d8rk54i4mohrb.cloudfront.net)

What is it? A California-based analytics platform (now owned by Nativo) used by publishers and content marketers to measure how well their content/native ads performs on social media. The product began life in the early noughties as a simple tool for publishers to recommend similar content at the bottom of articles before the startup pivoted — aiming to become ‘the PageRank of social’ — offering analytics tools for publishers to track engagement around content in real-time across the social web (plugging into platform APIs). It also built statistical models to predict which pieces of content will be the most social and where, generating a proprietary per article score. SimpleReach was acquired by Nativo last year to complement analytics tools the latter already offered for tracking content on the publisher/brand’s own site.

Why did it appear in your Off-Facebook Activity list? Given it’s a b2b product it does not have a visible consumer brand of its own. And, to my knowledge, I have never visited its own website prior to investigating why it appeared in my Off-Facebook Activity list. Clearly, though, I must have visited a site (or sites) that are using its tracking/analytics tools. Of course an Internet user has no obvious way to know this — unless they’re actively using tools to monitor which trackers are tracking them.

In a further quirk, neither the SimpleReach (nor Nativo) brand names appeared in my Off-Facebook Activity list. Rather a domain name was listed — d8rk54i4mohrb.cloudfront.net — which looked at first glance weird/alarming.

I found this is owned by SimpleReach by using a tracker analytics service.

Once I knew the name I was able to connect the entry to Nativo — via news reports of the acquisition — which led me to an entity I could direct questions to.  

What happened when you asked them about this? There was a bit of back and forth and then they sent a detailed response to my questions in which they claim they do not share any data with Facebook — “or perform ‘off site activity’ as described on Facebook’s activity tool”.

They also suggested that their domain had appeared as a result of their tracking code being implemented on a website I had visited which had also implemented Facebook’s own trackers.

“Our technology allows our Data Controllers to insert other tracking pixels or tags, using us as a tag manager that delivers code to the page. It is possible that one of our customers added a Facebook pixel to an article you visited using our technology. This could lead Facebook to attribute this pixel to our domain, though our domain was merely a ‘carrier’ of the code,” they told me.

In terms of the data they collect, they said this: “The only Personal Data that is collected by the SimpleReach Analytics tag is your IP Address and a randomly generated id.  Both of these values are processed, anonymized, and aggregated in the SimpleReach platform and not made available to anyone other than our sub-processors that are bound to process such data only on our behalf. Such values are permanently deleted from our system after 3 months. These values are used to give our customers a general idea of the number of users that visited the articles tracked.”

So, again, they suggested the reason why their domain appeared in my Off-Facebook Activity list is a combination of Nativo/SimpleReach’s tracking technologies being implemented on a site where Facebook’s retargeting pixel is also embedded — which then resulted in data about my online activity being shared with Facebook (which Facebook then attributes as coming from SimpleReach’s domain).

Commenting on this, Christl agreed it sounds as if publishers “somehow attach Facebook pixel events to SimpleReach’s cloudfront domain”.

“SimpleReach probably doesn’t get data from this. But the question is 1) is SimpleReach perhaps actually responsible (if it happens in the context of their domain); 2) The Off-Facebook activity is a mess (if it contains events related to domains whose owners are not web or app publishers).”

Nativo offered to determine whether they hold any personal information associated with the unique identifier they have assigned to my browser if I could send them this ID. However I was unable to locate such an ID (see below).

In terms of legal base to process my information the company told me: “We have the right to process data in accordance with provisions set forth in the various Data Processor agreements we have in place with Data Controllers.”

Nativo also suggested that the Offsite Activity in question might have predated its purchase of the SimpleReach technology — which occurred on March 20, 2019 — saying any activity prior to this would mean my query would need to be addressed directly with SimpleReach, Inc. which Nativo did not acquire. (However in this case the activity registered on the list was dated later than that.)

Here’s what they said on all that in full:

Thank you for submitting your data access request.  We understand that you are a resident of the European Union and are submitting this request pursuant to Article 15(1) of the GDPR.  Article 15(1) requires “data controllers” to respond to individuals’ requests for information about the processing of their personal data.  Although Article 15(1) does not apply to Nativo because we are not a data controller with respect to your data, we have provided information below that will help us in determining the appropriate Data Controllers, which you can contact directly.

First, for details about our role in processing personal data in connection with our SimpleReach product, please see the SimpleReach Privacy Policy.  As the policy explains in more detail, we provide marketing analytics services to other businesses – our customers.  To take advantage of our services, our customers install our technology on their websites, which enables us to collect certain information regarding individuals’ visits to our customers’ websites. We analyze the personal information that we obtain only at the direction of our customer, and only on that customer’s behalf.

SimpleReach is an analytics tracker tool (Similar to Google Analytics) implemented by our customers to inform them of the performance of their content published around the web.  “d8rk54i4mohrb.cloudfront.net” is the domain name of the servers that collect these metrics.  We do not share data with Facebook or perform “off site activity” as described on Facebook’s activity tool.  Our technology allows our Data Controllers to insert other tracking pixels or tags, using us as a tag manager that delivers code to the page.  It is possible that one of our customers added a Facebook pixel to an article you visited using our technology.  This could lead Facebook to attribute this pixel to our domain, though our domain was merely a “carrier” of the code.

The SimpleReach tool is implemented on articles posted by our customers and partners of our customers.  It is possible you visited a URL that has contained our tracking code.  It is also possible that the Offsite Activity you are referencing is activity by SimpleReach, Inc. before Nativo purchased the SimpleReach technology. Nativo, Inc. purchased certain technology from SimpleReach, Inc. on March 20, 2019, but we did not purchase the SimpleReach, Inc. entity itself, which remains a separate entity unaffiliated with Nativo, Inc. Accordingly, any activity that occurred before March 20, 2019 pre-dates Nativo’s use of the SimpleReach technology and should be addressed directly with SimpleReach, Inc. If, for example, TechCrunch was a publisher partner of SimpleReach, Inc. and had SimpleReach tracking code implemented on TechCrunch articles or across the TechCrunch website prior to March 20, 2019, any resulting data collection would have been conducted by SimpleReach, Inc., not by Nativo, Inc.

As mentioned above, our tracking script collects and sends information to our servers based on the articles it is implemented on. The only Personal Data that is collected by the SimpleReach Analytics tag is your IP Address and a randomly generated id.  Both of these values are processed, anonymized, and aggregated in the SimpleReach platform and not made available to anyone other than our sub-processors that are bound to process such data only on our behalf. Such values are permanently deleted from our system after 3 months.  These values are used to give our customers a general idea of the number of users that visited the articles tracked.

We do not, nor have we ever, shared ANY information with Facebook with regards to the information we collect from the SimpleReach Analytics tag, be it Personal Data or otherwise. However, as mentioned above, it is possible that one of our customers added a Facebook retargeting pixel to an article you visited using our technology. If that is the case, we would not have received any information collected from such pixel or have knowledge of whether, and to what extent, the customer shared information with Facebook. Without more information, we are unable to determine the specific customer (if any) on behalf of which we may have processed your personal information. However, if you send us the unique identifier we have assigned to your browser… we can determine whether we have any personal information associated with such browser on behalf of a customer controller, and, if we have, we can forward your request on to the controller to respond directly to your request.

As a Data Processor we have the right to process data in accordance with provisions set forth in the various Data Processor agreements we have in place with Data Controllers.  This type of agreement is designed to protect Data Subjects and ensure that Data Processors are held to the same standards that both the GDPR and the Data Controller have put forth.  This is the same type of agreement used by all other analytics tracking tools (as well as many other types of tools) such as Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, Chartbeat, and many others.

I also asked Nativo to confirm whether Insider.com (see below) is a customer of Nativo/SimpleReach.

The company told me it could not disclose this “due to confidentiality restrictions” and would only reveal the identity of customers if “required by applicable law”.

Again, it said that if I provided the “unique identifier” assigned to my browser it would be “happy to pull a list of personal information the SimpleReach/Nativo systems currently have stored for your unique identifier (if any), including the appropriate Data Controllers”. (“If we have any personal data collected from you on behalf of Insider.com, it would come up in the list of DataControllers,” it suggested.)

I checked multiple browsers that I use on multiple devices but was unable to locate an ID attached to a SimpleReach cookie. So I also asked whether this might appear attached to any other cookie.

Their response:

Because our data is either pseudonymized or anonymized, and we do not record of any other pieces of Personal Data about you, it will not be possible for us to locate this data without the cookie value.  The SimpleReach user cookie is, and has always been, in the “__srui” cookie under the “.simplereach.com” domain or any of its sub-domains. If you are unable to locate a SimpleReach user cookie by this name on your browser, it may be because you are using a different device or because you have cleared your cookies (in which case we would no longer have the ability to map any personal data we have previously collected from you to your browser or device). We do have other cookies (under the domains postrelease.com, admin.nativo.com, and cloud.nativo.com) but those cookies would not be related to the appearance of SimpleReach in the list of Off Site Activity on your Facebook account, per your original inquiry.

What did you learn from their inclusion in the Off-Facebook Activity list? There appeared to be a correlation between this domain and a publisher, Insider.com, which also appeared in my Off-Facebook Activity list — as both logged events bear the same date; plus Insider.com is a publisher so would fall into the right customer category for using Nativo’s tool.

Given those correlations I was able to guess Insider.com is a customer of Nativo. (I confirmed this when I spoke to Insider.com) — so Facebook’s tool is able to leak relational inferences related to the tracking industry by surfacing/mapping business connections that might not have been otherwise evident.

Insider.com

What is it? A New York based business media company which owns brands such as Business Insider and Markets Insider

Why did it appear in your Off-Facebook Activity list? I imagine I clicked on a technology article that appeared in my Facebook News Feed or elsewhere but when I was logged into Facebook

What happened when you asked them about this? After about a week of radio silence an employee in Insider’com’s legal department got in touch to say they could discuss the issue on background.

This person told me the information in the Off-Facebook Activity tool came from the Facebook share button which is embedded on all articles it runs on its media websites. They confirmed that the share button can share data with Facebook regardless of whether the site visitor interacts with the button or not.

In my case I certainly would not have interacted with the Facebook share button. Nonetheless data was passed, simply by merit of loading the article page itself.

Insider.com said the Facebook share button widget is integrated into its sites using a standard set-up that Facebook intends publishers to use. If the share button is clicked information related to that action would be shared with Facebook and would also be received by Insider.com (though, in this scenario, it said it doesn’t get any personalized information — but rather gets aggregate data).

Facebook can also automatically collect other information when a user visits a webpage which incorporates its social plug-ins.

Asked whether Insider.com knows what information Facebook receives via this passive route the company told me it does not — noting the plug-in runs proprietary Facebook code. 

Asked how it’s collecting consent from users for their data to be shared passively with Facebook, Insider.com said its Privacy Policy stipulates users consent to sharing their information with Facebook and other social media sites. It also said it uses the legal ground known as legitimate interests to provide functionality and derive analytics on articles.

In the active case (of a user clicking to share an article) Insider.com said it interprets the user’s action as consent.

Insider.com confirmed it uses SimpleReach/Nativo analytics tools, meaning site visitor data is also being passed to Nativo when a user lands on an article. It said consent for this data-sharing is included within its consent management platform (it uses a CMP made by Forcepoint) which asks site visitors to specify their cookie choices.

Here site visitors can choose for their data not to be shared for analytics purposes (which Insider.com said would prevent data being passed).

I usually apply all cookie consent opt outs, where available, so I’m a little surprised Nativo/SimpleReach was passed my data from an Insider.com webpage. Either I failed to click the opt out one time or failed to respond to the cookie notice and data was passed by default.

It’s also possible I did opt out but data was passed anyway — as there has been research which has found a proportion of cookie notifications ignore choices and pass data anyway (unintentionally or otherwise).

Follow up questions I sent to Insider.com after we talked:

1) Can you confirm whether Insider has performed a legitimate interests assessment? 2) Does Insider have a site mechanism where users can object to the passive data transfer to Facebook from the share buttons?

Insider.com did not respond to my additional questions.

What did you learn from their inclusion in the Off-Facebook Activity list? That Insider.com is a customer of Nativo/SimpleReach.

Rei.com

What is it? A California-based ecommerce website selling outdoor gear

Why did it appear in your Off-Facebook Activity list? I don’t recall ever visiting their site prior to looking into why it appeared in the list so I’m really not sure

What happened when you asked them about this? After saying it would investigate it followed up with a statement, rather than detailed responses to my questions, in which it claims it does not hold any personal data associated with — presumably — my TechCrunch email, since it did not ask me what data to check against.

It also appeared to be claiming that it uses Facebook tracking pixels/tags on its website, without explicitly saying as much, writing that: “Facebook may collect information about your interactions with our websites and mobile apps and reflect that information to you through their Off-Facebook Activity tool.”

It claims it has no access to this information — which it says is “pseudonymous to us” but suggested that if I have a Facebook account Facebook could link any browsing on Rei’s site to my Facebook’s identity and therefore track my activity.

The company also pointed me to a Facebook Help Center post where the company names some of the activities that might have resulted in Rei’s website sending activity data on me to Facebook (which it could then link to my Facebook ID) — although Facebook’s list is not exhaustive (included are: “viewing content”, “searching for an item”, “adding an item to a shopping cart” and “making a donation” among other activities the company tracks by having its code embedded on third parties’ sites).

Here’s Rei’s statement in full:

Thank you for your patience as we looked into your questions.  We have checked our systems and determined that REI does not maintain any personal data associated with you based on the information you provided.  Note, however, that Facebook may collect information about your interactions with our websites and mobile apps and reflect that information to you through their Off-Facebook Activity tool. The information that Facebook collects in this manner is pseudonymous to us — meaning we cannot identify you using the information and we do not maintain the information in a manner that is linked to your name or other identifying information. However, if you have a Facebook account, Facebook may be able to match this activity to your Facebook account via a unique identifier unavailable to REI. (Funnily enough, while researching this I found TechCrunch in MY list of Off-Facebook activity!)

For a complete list of activities that could have resulted in REI sharing pseudonymous information about you with Facebook, this Facebook Help Center article may be useful.  For a detailed description of the ways in which we may collect and share customer information, the purposes for which we may process your data, and rights available to EEA residents, please refer to our Privacy Policy.  For information about how REI uses cookies, please refer to our Cookie Policy.

As a follow up question I asked Rei to tell me which Facebook tools it uses, pointing out that: “Given that, just because you aren’t (as I understand it) directly using my data yourself that does not mean you are not responsible for my data being transferred to Facebook.”

The company did not respond to that point.

I also previously asked Rei.com to confirm whether it has any data sharing arrangements with the publisher of Rock & Ice magazine (see below). And, if so, to confirm the processes involved in data being shared. Again, I got no response to that.

What did you learn from their inclusion in the Off-Facebook Activity list? Given that Rei.com appeared alongside Rock & Ice on the list — both displaying the same date and just one activity apiece — I surmised they have some kind of data-sharing arrangement. They are also both outdoors brands so there would be obvious commercial ‘synergies’ to underpin such an arrangement.

That said, neither would confirm a business relationship to me. But Facebook’s list heavily implies there is some background data-sharing going on

Rock & Ice magazine 

What is it? A climbing magazine produced by a California-based publisher, Big Stone Publishing

Why did it appear in your Off-Facebook Activity list? I imagine I clicked on a link to a climbing-related article in my Facebook feed or else visited Rock & Ice’s website while I was logged into Facebook in the same browser session

What happened when you asked them about this? After ignoring my initial email query I subsequently received a brief response from the publisher after I followed up — which read:

The Rock and Ice website is opt in, where you have to agree to terms of use to access the website. I don’t know what private data you are saying Rock and Ice shared, so I can’t speak to that. The site terms are here. As stated in the terms you can opt out.

Following up, I asked about the provision in the Rock & Ice website’s cookie notice which states: “By continuing to use our site, you agree to our cookies” — asking whether it’s passing data without waiting for the user to signal their consent.

(Relevant: In October Europe’s top court issued a ruling that active consent is necessary for tracking cookies, so you can’t drop cookies prior to a user giving consent for you to do so.)

The publisher responded:

You have to opt in and agree to the terms to use the website. You may opt out of cookies, which is covered in the terms. If you do not want the benefits of these advertising cookies, you may be able to opt-out by visiting: https://ift.tt/1QBAo4U.

If you don’t want any cookies, you can find extensions such as Ghostery or the browser itself to stop and refuse cookies. By doing so though some websites might not work properly.

I followed up again to point out that I’m not asking about the options to opt in or opt out but, rather, the behavior of the website if the visitor does not provide a consent response yet continues browsing — asking for confirmation Rock & Ice’s site interprets this state as consent and therefore sends data.

The publisher stopped responding at that point.

Earlier I had asked it to confirm whether its website shares visitor data with Rei.com? (As noted above, the two appeared with the same date on the list which suggests data may be being passed between them.) I did not get a respond to that question either.

What did you learn from their inclusion in the Off-Facebook Activity list? That the magazine appears to have a data-sharing arrangement with outdoor retailer Rei.com, given how the pair appeared at the same point in my list. However neither would confirm this when I asked

MatterHackers

What is it? A California-based retailer focused on 3D printing and digital manufacturing

Why did it appear in your Off-Facebook Activity list? I honestly have no idea. I have never to my knowledge visited their site prior to investigating why they should appear on my Off Site Activity list.

I remain pretty interested to know how/why they managed to track me. I can only surmise I clicked on some technology-related content in my Facebook feed, either intentionally or by accident.

What happened when you asked them about this? They first asked me for confirmation that they were on my list. After I had sent a screenshot, they followed up to say they would investigate. I pushed again after hearing nothing for several weeks. At this point they asked for additional information from the Off-Facebook Activity tool — namely more granular metrics, such as a time and date per event and some label information — to help with tracking down this particular data-exchange.

I had previously provided them with the date (as it appears in the screenshot) but it’s possible to download additional an additional level of information about data transfers which includes per event time/date-stamps and labels/tags, such as “VIEW_CONTENT” .

However, as noted above, I had previously selected and deleted one item off of my Off-Facebook Activity list, after which Facebook’s platform had immediately erased all entries and associated metrics. There was no obvious way I could recover access to that information.

“Without this information I would speculate that you viewed an article or product on our site — we publish a lot of ‘How To’ content related to 3D printing and other digital manufacturing technologies — this information could have then been captured by Facebook via Adroll for ad retargeting purposes,” a MatterHackers spokesman told me. “Operationally, we have no other data sharing mechanism with Facebook.”

Subsequently, the company confirmed it implements Facebook’s tracking pixel on every page of its website.

Of the pixel Facebook writes that it enables website owners to track “conversions” (i.e. website actions); create custom audiences which segment site visitors by criteria that Facebook can identify and match across its user-base, allowing for the site owner to target ads via Facebook’s platform at non-customers with a similar profile/criteria to existing customers that are browsing its site; and for creating dynamic ads where a template ad gets populated with product content based on tracking data for that particular visitor.

Regarding the legal base for the data sharing, MatterHackers had this to say: “MatterHackers is not an EU entity, nor do we conduct business in the EU and so have not undertaken GDPR compliance measures. CCPA [California’s Consumer Privacy Act] will likely apply to our business as of 2021 and we have begun the process of ensuring that our website will be in compliance with those regulations as of January 1st.”

I pointed out that GDPR is extraterritorial in scope — and can apply to non-EU based entities, such as if they’re monitoring individuals in the EU (as in this case).

Also likely relevant: A ruling last year by Europe’s top court found sites that embed third party plug-ins such as Facebook’s like button are jointly responsible for the initial data processing — and must either obtain informed consent from site visitors prior to data being transferred to Facebook, or be able to demonstrate a legitimate interest legal basis for processing this data.

Nonetheless it’s still not clear what legal base the company is relying on for implementing the tracking pixel and passing data on EU Facebook users.

When asked about this MatterHacker COO, Kevin Pope, told me:

While we appreciate the sentiment of GDPR, in this case the EU lacks the legal standing to pursue an enforcement action. I’m sure you can appreciate the potential negative consequences if any arbitrary country (or jurisdiction) were able to enforce legal penalties against any website simply for having visitors from that country. Techcrunch would have been fined to oblivion many times over by China or even Thailand (for covering the King in a negative light). In this way, the attempted overreach of the GDPR’s language sets a dangerous precedent.

To provide a little more detail – MatterHackers, at the time of your visit, wouldn’t have known that you were from the EU until we cross-referenced your session with  Facebook, who does know. At that point you would have been filtered from any advertising by us. MatterHackers makes money when our (U.S.) customers buy 3D printers or materials and then succeed at using them (hence the how-to articles), we don’t make any money selling advertising or data.

Given that Facebook does legally exist in the EU and does have direct revenues from EU advertisers, it’s entirely appropriate that Facebook should comply with EU regulations. As a global solution, I believe more privacy settings options should be available to its users. However, given Facebook’s business model, I wouldn’t expect anything other than continued deflection (note the careful wording on their tool) and avoidance from them on this issue.

What did you learn from their inclusion in the Off-Facebook Activity List? I found out that an ecommerce company I had never heard of had been tracking me

Wallapop

What is it? A Barcelona-based peer-to-peer marketplace app that lets people list secondhand stuff for sale and/or to search for things to buy in their proximity. Users can meet in person to carry out a transaction paying in cash or there can be an option to pay via the platform and have an item posted

Why did it appear in your Off-Facebook Activity list? This was the only digital activity that appeared in the list that was something I could explain — figuring out I must have used a Facebook sign-in option when using the Wallapop app to buy/sell. I wouldn’t normally use Facebook sign-in but for trust-based marketplaces there may be user benefits to leveraging network effects.

What happened when you asked them about this? After my query was booted around a bit a PR company that works with Wallapop responded asking to talk through what information I was trying to ascertain.

After we chatted they sent this response — attributed to sources from Wallapop:

Same as it happens with other apps, wallapop can appear on our users’ Facebook Off Site Activity page if they have interacted in any way with the platform while they were logged in their Facebook accounts. Some interaction examples include logging in via Facebook, visiting our website or having both apps opened and logged.

As other apps do, wallapop only shares activity events with Facebook to optimize users’ ad experience. This includes if a user is registered in wallapop, if they have uploaded an item or if they have started a conversation. Under no circumstance wallapop shares with Facebook our users’ personal data (including sex, name, email address or telephone number).

At wallapop, we are thoroughly committed with the security of our community and we do a safe treatment of the data they choose to share with us, in compliance with EU’s General Data Protection Regulation. Under no circumstance these data are shared with third parties without explicit authorization.

I followed up to ask for further details about these “activity events” — asking whether, for instance, Wallapop shares messaging content with Facebook as well as letting the social network know which items a user is chatting about.

“Under no circumstance the content of our users’ messages is shared with Facebook,” the spokesperson told me. “What is shared is limited to the fact that a conversation has been initiated with another user in relation to a specific item, this is, activity events. Under no circumstance we would share our users’ personal information either.”

Of course the point is Facebook is able to link all app activity with the user ID it already has — so every piece of activity data being shared is personal data.

I also asked what legal base Wallapop relies on to share activity data with Facebook. They said the legal basis is “explicit consent given by users” at the point of signing up to use the app.

“Wallapop collects explicit consent from our users and at any time they can exercise their rights to their data, which include the modification of consent given in the first place,” they said.

“Users give their explicit consent by clicking in the corresponding box when they register in the app, where they also get the chance to opt out and not do it. If later on they want to change the consent they gave in first instance, they also have that option through the app. All the information is clearly available on our Privacy Policy, which is GDPR compliant.”

“At wallapop we take our community’s privacy and security very seriously and we follow recommendations from the Spanish Data Protection Agency,” it added

What did you learn from their inclusion in the Off-Facebook Activity list? Not much more than I would have already guessed — i.e. that using a Facebook sign-in option in a third party app grants the social media giant a high degree of visibility into your activity within another service.

In this case the Wallapop app registered the most activity events of all six of the listed apps, displaying 13 vs only one apiece for the others — so it gave a bit of a suggestive glimpse into the volume of third party app data that can be passed if you opt to open a Facebook login wormhole into a separate service.

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