#entire other way around thanks elon | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

justinspoliticalcorner · 1 month ago

Text

Rachel Leingang at The Guardian:

In the last few months, Donald Trump has done interviews with rightwing Twitch streamer Adin Ross and a host of podcasters, including Dr Phil, comedian Theo Von, computer scientist Lex Fridman, and YouTuber Logan Paul – part of what the Atlantic has dubbed Trump’s “red-pill podcast tour”. He’s posted incessantly on his own social media platform, Truth Social. He did a live space on Twitter/X with the platform’s owner, Elon Musk. He talked with Fox’s Laura Ingraham and called into Fox & Friends and spoke to other Fox hosts and personalities. His media strategy aligns with the current state of the rightwing media landscape: Fox is still a dominant source, but for the most Maga-adherent, it’s not Trumpy enough, despite some of its hosts embracing election denialism around the 2020 US election. Instead, there’s increasing fragmentation thanks to influencers and lesser-known outlets built around Trumpism.

This is the first election since Tucker Carlson, once Fox’s loudest voice in a primetime spot, was reportedly fired by the network, and his solo ventures so far haven’t taken on the prominence he had on TV. It’s also the first election since longtime Republican heavyweight Rush Limbaugh died. These big changes have left holes in rightwing media, which were filled by an increasing cadre of influencers, content creators and smaller outlets. [...] Trump’s grip on rightwing media is ironclad, said Julie Millican, the vice-president of Media Matters, a progressive center that tracks conservative media. In the past, the Republican party and its candidates would follow what rightwing media did and align its policies that way – but now, the media follows Trump, she said.

“If you don’t capitulate to what Trump and his enablers and his supporters are looking for, then they’ll shut you out,” Millican said. Since his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, his influence has only increased, and “now he has a stronger control over the entire media ecosystem than he did previously”, she added. As rightwing outlets rise, the stories they cover differ more from what’s on mainstream news, furthering the bubbles a divided United States lives within. While in years past, you’d find different takes on the day’s news in left- and right-leaning outlets, you’ll now find stories that exist solely on rightwing media, Millican said.

[...]

TV news and rightwing websites

Traffic to news websites, including rightwing sites, is down compared with 2020. Howard Polskin, who tracks conservative media on his site The Righting, said a few factors play into the decrease. Facebook and other Meta social media de-emphasize news content now, sending less traffic to news outlets. And 2020 had several major news events colliding: a pandemic that kept people online more, nationwide protests over racial justice and a hotly contested election.

No single star has taken the place that Carlson or Limbaugh once held. Some conservatives told the Guardian they stopped watching Fox as often after Carlson left or because the network isn’t Maga enough. Fox agreed to pay $787m to settle a lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems over defamation claims for spreading lies about the voting machine company’s role the 2020 election. Carlson abruptly left the network shortly after the settlement, and he has claimed his firing came as a result of the settlement. Fox denies that his removal had anything to do with the Dominion case.

[...]

Another paper, Epoch Times, a far-right and anti-China outlet associated with the Falun Gong religion, continues to rank highly among conservative news outlets despite a justice department lawsuit that alleges it operates as a money laundering and cryptocurrency scam. Its stories are often shared by rightwing politicians or influencers. “Their cultural impact and political impact seems much smaller than the distribution,” Polskin said.

Carlene, a 58-year-old from the Upper East Side who attended the Trump rally in the Bronx, said she gets news from the Epoch Times, Daily Wire and X and sometimes tunes into CNN and MSNBC to get the other side. “I watch less Fox News now after they got rid of Tucker Carlson,” she said. “It made me think Fox was just like everyone else.” For the less online Republican, talk radio shows, especially those that run the airwaves in rural areas, play a strong role in setting the conservative message. As newspapers in rural areas have shuttered, creating a crisis in local news, these radio shows are “reaching voters that aren’t tapped into the same media spaces that we often see in these large metropolises on either coast”, Tripodi said. To fill Fox’s void on TV, some conservatives have turned to Newsmax or One American News Network, which are farther to the right than Fox. “One American News Network and Newsmax did a very good job at establishing themselves as a place that would verify whatever Trump was saying,” Tripodi said.

[...]

Podcasts and influencers

Beyond television and news sites, a rightwing news consumer will find a growing landscape of podcasts, YouTube channels, Substack newsletters, documentary film-makers and social media influencers all trying to build a following. “For every laid-off journalist, another Substack is born,” Polskin said. “And that just … fractionalizes the news audience even more.” The top of the podcast charts on Spotify and Apple shows a host of conservatives: Shawn Ryan, Candace Owens, Carlson, Megyn Kelly. Ben Shapiro, the conservative commentator, has his own podcast, and his network, the Daily Wire, hosts some of the biggest rightwing pundits. “In terms of just influence and power in the media landscape, to me, he would be someone that’s at the top of that space,” Millican said. Polskin called Shapiro the “800lb gorilla of rightwing podcasts”. Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, is also a major player. His organization is focused on turning college-age people conservative, and he’s been on a tour around the country to college campuses in recent months, in addition to his podcast and social media presence.

[...]

While he doesn’t grab a huge share of the podcast market and he’s currently in prison for defying a congressional subpoena related to the January 6 investigation, Steve Bannon has an outsize influence on the right with his War Room show. He gets big-name rightwing politicians as guests and still has Trump’s ear, but he’s never cracked the top 20 in Polskin’s ratings.

The Guardian has a solid report on the rise of the Trumpian grip on the right-wing media and the further divergence from normal America, where conspiracy theories and lies dominate on any given right-wing show.

3 notes · View notes

margridarnauds · 1 year ago

Note

distraction: tell me about your ideal CMMT adaptation. tv show? musical? play? film? film series? graphic novel?

Oh GOD. THANK YOU.

Something I've been tossing around my head is that...it's something we all know, working with medieval material -- the stuff we're working on is TOO BROAD to really do it justice in a 100% faithful way. Because in order to be satisfying for a modern audience, you have to fill in the gaps. (That isn't something I've alone noticed -- a certain author who I had the chance to have in the hotseat recently noted it, as have my undergrads when it comes to their assessments of CMT -- it's incredibly laconic, because it has to be in order to cover over 20 years and a massive cast of characters.)

So I have two options, if I had Elon Musk levels of wealth to do whatever I wanted:

Full television show, ideally one that covers the entire book of invasions, so we get to meet the Fir Bolg BEFORE the Tuatha Dé's invasion. Even if we are just covering the two battles, I want "classic BBC historical miniseries" length -- I, Claudius; the War and Peace with Anthony Hopkins as Pierre, 1995 Pride and Prejudice (okay, ONE of these things is not like the others...or is it...but you see my Vision.) I don't necessarily want 7+ years out of it, but I do want it to be able to cover 12+ episodes of about 45-50 minutes, so you can really capture everything in a way that fleshes out the characters and gets into their heads while also leaving the actual battle as the climax everything's been building up to. Show off how fucked up both the Tuatha Dé AND the Fomoire are, show off Eochaid mac Eirc's reign + Sreng's fucked up place in it, show Bres' fall from grace and Lugh's rise (and foreshadow his fall), show the Dagda's family off, Indech's family dramas, give Balor a full arc where we see that he ISN'T just a monster, so it's more tragic to see where he eventually lands up.

(Alternatively for TV shows, in keeping with my "Tochmarc Étaíne as a Xianxia fantasy show....look...all I'm saying is that CMT would do ROUNDS in the Chinese fantasy market and it kills me that thus far they've been deprived. I also trust the Chinese fandoms to toss in even more subtext.)

My ultimate dream adaptation...probably a Takarazuka musical. Since you only have two hours to get the nuances across, I'd elect to follow a single character. And I *should* say that it should follow Lugh, but this is my *dream CMT adaptation that I would be pouring millions of dollars into bribing Zuka for*, so no. We're covering Bres' life, starting with him as an idealistic young man who believes he can make something for himself despite not knowing who his father is, ending with either his defeat during the battle or his death at the hands of Lugh, who is the Token Homoerotic Zuka Rival. (And might have black hair to highlight this, which...ngl, I've seen enough black haired Breis that turnabout's fairplay there.) My ideal vibes would be something between "A Passage Through the Light" (which covered Robespierre's life), Don Juan, XCalibur, and the Kunze/Levay Mozart! (which I'm not really fond of but does have some bangers.) (It's like the idealized version of Kunze and Levay's work that exists in my head.) Still with the glamor you'd expect from Zuka, which is, imo, the only way to really highlight Bres' looks and the way he's described, as well as the beauty of the Tuatha Dé as a whole, but with this dark edge that gets darker as we approach the battle and the final face off between Lugh and Bres, as both sides come together at the end to mourn the lost potential. (And because it's my self-indulgent version of things...he and Sreng wouldn't be explicitly a couple on stage, but it would still be very clear, after the second act which starts with Bres in exile as his young rival, Lugh, comes into the picture, that he and Bres got together, with Sreng acting in some ways as both Bres' own personal morality chain and his own personal Calpurnia, watching Bres' decay and not being able to do anything.)

*And Frank Wildhorn would do the music for it*

6 notes · View notes

di-kot-o-me · 8 months ago

Text

YOUR WEEKLY INSPIRING AND BARNBURNING STUMP SPEECH FROM McSWEENEY’S INTERNET TENDENCY...... AS PRESIDENT, I WILL CHAMPION GEN X RIGHTS

by MARCO KAYE

Wassup, fellow slackers, poseurs, losers, stoners, and the dorks smart enough to make loot before the dot-com crash.

I said yo, wassup! Not clapping? Good. Thought so.“A key barometer of the literary climate.” —The New York Times

I get that it’s totally wack, but this year, I’m running for president of the USA, because I want to represent you, the voiceless and forgotten, my fellow Gen Xers.

That’s right, my entire platform revolves around Gen X values, like fixing everything that sucks about this country—which is a lot. Our time is now. The boomers had their chance and blew it. Do we expect millennials to fix anything? Not when they’re busy crying in the office bathroom they won’t. And Gen Z? Sure. Get lost and TikTok a new aesthetic or whatever.

With my Gen X cabinet full of bitchin’ advisors, we’re gonna do what we do best: point out society’s flaws, work hard to work less, fire up the glorified blog, a.k.a. Substack, roll up our sleeves for another tattoo, and tell our grown-ass children to make their own goddamned mac and cheese.

Look, I am Gen X to the core. My parents divorced the day I was born. I lived in malls, surviving off Orange Julius samples and Chia Pet grass. Right after the Challenger explosion, I smoked my first cigarette. I was such a latchkey kid that I opened doors for other latchkey children. We raised ourselves without a cell phone or parent in sight, and turned out just fine, in no need of therapy today. I started a band before bands existed—we could have signed to Electra but didn’t want to sell out. In college, I translated the Cocteau Twins into English. At work, I stuck it to the Man by showing up and complaining. To this day, I never take off my chain wallet, not even in the shower.Winner of the John Newbery Medal. "Here is a book that is truly for all ages, as only the best stories are." —Isaac Fitzgerald, The Today Show (author's pick)

On the campaign trail, I did something I don’t typically do: I listened. I toured important Gen X enclaves, such as Austin, Bennington, Palm Springs, Montclair, and both Portlands. I took your shit talk into account, and present this plan:

Reclaim X.com for us. Just because Elon is an Xer doesn’t mean our culture is his costume. X will go back to what it was: Imgur links, confusion about how the site works, and posts about what we’re eating.

Put a stop to new slang, for we invented slang, and ours was hardcore, while words like rizz, sus, and no cap need to chill out.

Build a healthcare system focused specifically on Gen X pain points, like the lower back area, special carpal tunnel treatment centers, and, at long last, a cure for that eeeeeeeeeee we hear 24-7.

Engender world peace by using the powerful motto we coined, “Silence the Violence.”

Never forget, Gen X, we are the party of Kennedy. MTV’s Kennedy. Who I’m proud to announce as my VP. Kennedy’s first task: reclaim the word “rock star” from the hands of the corporation. Kennedy will also serve as cultural ambassador. We will play more post-punk in public spaces like airports and drugstores. We will pioneer a bold new way to microdose cocaine. Last but not least, we will order Max and other streaming services to broadcast softcore porn late at night once again!

The challenges are many. But if we want to truly slack into retirement, we need to fix the system, even though we hate the system. Like you, I will be lazy and full of self-loathing. But I will be your voice, raspy since my parliament will smoke Parliaments. It’s time we rise. Even the eldest millennial had it so much easier than any single one of us. Together, we are badass.

Thank you, and may our Goddess Winona Ryder bless the US of Fuckin’ A.

#mcsweeney's #genx #election 2024 #campaigns

1 note · View note

cdevroe · 2 years ago

Text

Revisiting Simon Collison's Farewell to Twitter

A very dead bird, October 2010, Plymouth, Mass. iPhone 4

Last night I revisited Simon Collison's post from early December 2022 Farewell, Twitter. I had read it shortly after he published it and while I agreed with what he wrote, it didn't hit me as hard as it did last night.

Simon claims that "others have articulated the situation better", however, last night I realized how well he managed to capture my own thinking on "the Twitter situation".

I'll be quoting several portions of his post below, but I urge you to go over to his website and read the entire thing and then come back here to read my bits.

Simon calls what is happening at Twitter "unnecessary chaos and destruction". Exactly. Ironically, I think if I wrote down on paper what I would have done to correct the business side of Twitter I would have deployed many of the same strategies that Elon Musk did. I would have reduced staff, shrunk footprint, revisited every policy and contract, etc. I would have tried to make Twitter as lean as possible as quickly as I could.

On the face of it, that is what Musk did. Except he did it in the polar opposite way of how I would hope I would have done so. I would hope that I would have been able to right the ship without throwing the passengers (both employees and users) overboard directly into the mouth's of hungry sharks.

I deleted the Twitter app and removed all bookmarks and shortcuts. I no longer go there for trends or live reactions (a real test when, for example, I want to check the vibe around this bonkers World Cup, itself a problematic yet addictive drug). No, I’m out.

During my recent break at the end of the year I had deleted the Twitter app as well as all other social apps. I like to do that when I'm on vacation, traveling, etc. It really helps me to be present. Of course, I've since reinstalled the apps and I check them fairly regularly. I've only posted on Twitter a handful of times since October of last year, but I like to use Twitter to get NBA scores, see what is happening during a news event, etc. I'm going to try to find alternative ways to get this information or simply do without it. As of today, like Simon, I've deleted the Twitter app from my phone.

I may occasionally exploit Twitter’s reach with a promo tweet, like each time I release music or cast my net wide in the search for new work. But otherwise, I’ll be absent.

I so appreciate Simon's honesty here. I've seen many people write scathing remarks about Twitter about how we should all jump over to Mastodon or our blogs, only to see them still active on Twitter. I believe the dopamine hit from posting to Twitter's large audience is addictive and very difficult to put down. And for some people, like Simon, they consider their Twitter audience vital to their work.

Fortunately, I do not care about my audience size. I never have. My blog here has always been my primary way to promote what I'm working on. And it has served me extremely well. I have a relatively small audience but I'm very thankful that small audience has a rather large reach.

His last paragraph is a bullet aimed straight at the vital organs. No doubt cathartic. Similar to Craig Hockenberry's recent diatribe - sometimes you just need to let it out!

Other tidbits and notes related to this topic:

A short Twitter wish list - I wrote this post in April of 2022 describing what I would do on the product side of things at Twitter. I wish I had written a post about what I would have done on the business side of things.

I believe I stated somewhere publicly that I thought Elon Musk's idea to make an X app that has similar features to China's WeChat - chat, payments, video, etc. - was a good idea. I thought Twitter was so stagnant over the last few years that a bold vision like that would help breathe life back into the platform. I still think an app like that could exist, but I no longer think Twitter would be the right foundation for it. It is clear that millions of people enjoy simple microblogging just the way that it is.

Twitter isn't going anywhere - In 2019 I argued that no matter how terribly Twitter is run, it would survive. And somehow I still believe that. Although it is looking like Elon is going to have to sell everything he owns in order to keep it running for the next few years.

0 notes

mariacallous · 2 years ago

Text

The moon, which seemed so far away for so long, is rapidly becoming the new hotspot for space activities. Following the successful launch of the Artemis program in November, NASA is now looking ahead to moon landings and a lunar space station. China’s space agency aims to deploy lunar landers and rovers and to build a research station on the moon. Companies in the US and Japan have plans in the works for their own moon landers too.

But in the long term, all eyes are on Mars.

NASA chief Bill Nelson considers Artemis to be a stepping stone, part of the Moon to Mars program. The European Space Agency, a longtime NASA partner, has its own Terrae Novae 2030+ program, which is also aimed at eventually sending crewed missions. China’s space agency is at work on landers, rovers, and orbiters. And of course, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk can’t stop talking about how he wants to build Starships that, like “Noah’s arks,” will make humanity a “multiplanetary species,” including building sprawling civilizations on the Red Planet.

But the hellish conditions on Mars make it hard to imagine living there, let alone sending millions. The Red Planet lies on the edge of our solar system’s habitable—or “Goldilocks”—zone, where it’s not too hot or cold to have liquid water on the surface, which is probably necessary for life as we know it. More than 3 billion years ago, Mars was likely much more life-friendly, with some flowing rivers and lakes, a more temperate climate, and a more substantial atmosphere. But today, the thin air is almost entirely made up of carbon dioxide. The temperatures are as cold as Antarctica. It’s many times drier than the Atacama Desert in Chile, the driest place on Earth.

The first astronauts to travel to Mars, perhaps in the 2040s, will need to cope with a nine-month journey cooped up in a tiny spacecraft. Then they’ll need to survive the landing. If they get that far, life on Mars will be harsh. Frequent sandstorms can bury key equipment or solar panels. There’s no soil for growing food, so they’ll have to rely on whatever they brought with them. A hole in one’s spacesuit would mean certain death. Any significant problem on base—like a loss of power, oxygen, water, food or communication with Earth—would probably doom the whole crew. If something goes awry, they’ll be on their own. While the moon is nearly 1,000 times as far away from Earth as the International Space Station and the Tiangong space station, Mars is hundreds of times more distant than that.

The isolation of the Covid pandemic might give us a small taste of the psychological challenges of life on Mars. Those first visitors will be trapped in one or two small structures with the same few people for something like 2.5 years, counting travel each way and around a year on the ground. Just going for a walk outside would be a huge ordeal. They would never see a single tree in any direction, never dip their feet in a river, nor fill their lungs with fresh air in the morning. Everyone will have a good chance of getting cancer (thanks to a high dose of space radiation) or losing bone and muscle mass (thanks to the long flights and the planet’s weaker gravity).

So why would anyone even want to go?

Well, there aren’t that many other options for the intrepid space traveler. Despite its many challenges, after the moon, Mars seems like the obvious next stop for exploring the solar system. It’s more hospitable than greenhouse-smogged, excessively hot, high-pressure Venus. It’s much closer than asteroid belt inhabitants like��Ceres and Vesta. The moons of the gas giant planets, like Europa, Enceladus and Titan, look intriguing, but they’re so distant that Earthlings probably won’t be able to visit them until the 22nd century. Mars, to its credit, has ice that could be used by astronauts, and it’s close enough to the sun for a colony to generate solar power.

For years, space agencies have been exploring it with robots, like NASA’s Perseverance rover, the Maven orbiter, and the InSight lander. Even more are lined up, including China’s Zhurong rover and Tianwen-1 lander, Europe’s Rosalind Franklin rover, previously known as ExoMars, and NASA’s sample return mission that will pick up the rocks Perseverance collected. But there’s only so much the agencies can study from afar.

To really advance scientific discoveries, learn more about the Red Planet’s climatic and geological evolution, and unpack the history of our solar system, they think they’ll have to send small crews. The first human visitors might just orbit and map the surface, studying its ancient geology while looking for possible landing spots—the same function the astronauts aboard the 1968 Apollo 8 mission and the Artemis 2 mission planned for 2024 serve for moon exploration. Later on-the-ground crews might uncover crucial details about the origins of life, and maybe even evidence of never-before-seen life-forms.

That’s a powerful motivator: To learn about humanity’s role in the vast cosmos. Humans have always explored, and we want to know what’s out there—and who’s out there. “One of the best things about us as a species is our curiosity and our desire to know how we are part of the universe. I think that that larger perspective is very valuable,” says Sasha Sagan, daughter of science communicators Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan and author of the book For Small Creatures Such as We.

What vision of Mars exploration will humanity realize? Wernher von Braun, America’s first real celebrity space figure, envisioned launching spacecraft to the moon and Mars, a vision we’re still following today. But in his view, these would be military-led expeditions, establishing dominance on other worlds while looking for military applications for new resources and technologies. After leaving Nazi Germany in 1945, von Braun led NASA’s development of the powerful Saturn V rocket used in the space race with the Soviet Union.

Carl Sagan, the author of Cosmos and Contact, was arguably the US’s next major space leader—with his more hopeful, peaceful, and science-focused perspective. While he wasn’t against crewed spaceflights, he generally advocated for sending robotic probes to learn more about our cosmic neighborhood as a less risky and more efficient use of resources. Sagan contributed to the Pioneer and Voyager programs, and played a major role in the Voyager Golden Records.

Today, that celebrity role largely belongs to billionaires with more apocalyptic visions, who are raring to quickly send huge populations off-world, citing fears that Earth could be destroyed or become uninhabitable. “The new von Braun is of course Elon Musk,” says Jordan Bimm, a University of Chicago space historian. “He presents himself as a potential ruler of a Mars society.” The SpaceX CEO has referred to the sun’s eventual death, and to killer asteroids on collision courses, as motivators to build a civilization on Mars, even though such events happen on geological and cosmic timescales, not human ones.

He isn’t the only one. Billionaire Jared Isaacman, who bought seats on the Inspiration4 spaceflight last year, has made similar comments. So has Blue Origin CEO Jeff Bezos. And so have a few top aerospace executives, including SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell and Tory Bruno, CEO of the United Launch Alliance, a Boeing and Lockheed Martin joint venture. While Musk has proposed somehow sending a million people to Mars by the year 2050, Bruno proposed dispatching a few score for short visits, setting the stage for colonies in the next century, when self-sustaining technologies advance and trips become cheaper. Meanwhile, Bezos dreams of billions of people living in orbit around the Earth, while treating our world like an unpopulated national park.

But so far, none of these commercial space companies are anywhere close to realizing these audacious visions. SpaceX has flown taxi and cargo rides to the ISS for NASA and the private company Axiom Space, but otherwise it has only flown a single crewed spaceflight in low Earth orbit, Inspiration4. SpaceX has invested heavily in the Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy Rocket, which are currently undergoing fueling and rocket engine tests; they are planning an uncrewed orbital test launch in early 2023. NASA has tapped SpaceX to provide a modified Starship for the Artemis 3 and 4 moon-landing missions, but those won’t happen until later this decade.

Blue Origin, for its part, has only launched a handful of suborbital spaceflights that briefly flit along the edge of space. The first flight of the company’s massive, reusable New Glenn rocket, which could send crews and cargo into orbit, has been delayed for years, with its launch now planned for late 2023. Boeing’s Starliner, a potential SpaceX competitor for NASA’s commercial crew program to the ISS, has been delayed as well, with the first crewed flight scheduled for April 2023. While these companies have made significant accomplishments, they’re far behind the out-of-this world comments made by some CEOs.

Such off-world ventures can also seem hard to justify when we Earthlings are plagued by climate change, pandemics, risks of nuclear war, and rampant inequality. Setting up a research station and living quarters for a half dozen visitors—as space agencies might eventually do—would likely cost tens of billions of dollars. (If Musk really intends to send thousands of Starships to Mars, that’s more like a trillion.)

Some people would rather invest these resources in solving global problems, not launching astronauts to other worlds. People in the 1960s questioned the Apollo program for similar reasons—it was also a time of systemic inequality and fears of nuclear war. Today, in public opinion surveys of US adults, NASA’s climate-related efforts and monitoring of near-Earth asteroids are more popular than crewed missions to the moon and Mars.

“It would be easier to justify going to the moon and then Mars if people weren’t starving and dying. I don’t think there’s a scientific rational reason for it, and that’s OK,” says Natalie Treviño, a space theoretician at the Open University in the UK. Yet as she points out, the drive to explore isn’t always logical. “Why do we make art and make music? Living in contradiction is what the human experience is. It’s both amazing and tragic.”

Depending on the animating vision behind Mars exploration, the first astronauts could be scientists, poets, tourists, or military officers. They could be viewed as visitors, settlers, cowboys, or colonists. Treviño prefers the term “migrants”—partly to destigmatize migration on Earth—and she favors including an artist to make sense of the existential experience, and enormous culture shock, of living on this ruddy, barren world.

Let’s say it works: Humanity overcomes the cost and practical barriers of settling Mars, and the migrant Earthlings arrive. There’s one thing left to consider: Maybe Mars would be better off without us.

If our treatment of Earth’s atmosphere is any sign, we’ll corrupt the Martian one too. We’ll litter it with junk, as we have despoiled our own world. Maybe we’d geoengineer the atmosphere, or live out Musk’s desire to terraform the world by blowing up nukes to create a “nuclear winter”—something we’ve managed to avoid so far at home—to raise temperatures, initiate a helpful climate change, and melt some of its polar ice. As with geoengineering proposals meant to combat climate change on Earth, such schemes carry huge risks.

We’d also mine the surface, likely reproducing the economic inequalities and unsustainable practices already prevalent on Earth. For example, Treviño says, there’s a limited supply of Martian ice, but no binding rules exist saying who could use it, how much, and for what purpose. Plus, if any Martian life-form lies underground, terraforming and mining attempts may well destroy them and their ecosystem, and who are we to decide their fate? It’s the height of hubris for one species to decide what should be done with an entire planet that’s not their homeworld.

So as we venture toward Mars, let’s be ambitious and curious, but also thoughtful, ethical, and sustainable. Our travels many millions of miles away will likely serve to remind us how lucky we are to have our own world, says Sasha Sagan: “I suspect that the further we go, the more we’ll realize how precious and valuable this one planet is.”

1 note · View note

heyyyharry · 4 years ago

Text

Deep End - Chapter 2: Birthday Boy

…in which Harry gets the birthday surprise he didn’t ask for.

Word count: 4.7k

AU: famous!harry, siren!mc, adult modern retelling of the little mermaid? lol, fake dating, enemies to lovers.

WARNING: MATURE THEMES

All chapters / Synopsis / Moodboard / Playlist

Wattpad link

A/N: Thank you for all the love for Harry and Ezi after chapter 1. Please let me know what you think about each chapter so I can be motivated to write faster 😆

“Humans are so funny. You make up false stories about us and refuse to believe anything that isn’t the same as your imagination,” the siren said.

Harry tossed his head back and laughed. He held out a finger at her. “No, mermaids aren’t supposed to exist. You’re not supposed to exist.”

The siren narrowed her sharp gaze, and Harry quickly moved back a bit in fear of her grabbing his leg and pulling him into the water. To his surprise, she said, “And who are you to decide that? A useless human with a useless tail–”

“Okay, enough with the tail joke.”

“–can’t even survive the drowning deep. You don’t want to believe we exist, so you won’t have to carry the guilt of trashing our homes and murdering our kind.”

Baffled, Harry worked his jaw while silently cursing himself for never taking part in those debate classes back in school. Well, to be fair, he couldn’t have known that one day he would have to debate with a deadly siren in a cave on his goddamn birthday!

He shut his eyes and sucked in a breath. “Look, lady. I’m only one small human, with a bigger than average human tail, FYI.” The siren eyed at his crotch in disbelief, so he quickly crossed his legs. “But that’s beside the point! What I was trying to say was that, if you’re seeking revenge, I can’t satisfy you because I’m not responsible for trashing the ocean or shit like that. I’m a singer, alright? And I don’t even live here. I’m from London. A land far away. If you wanna murder a human, I suggest looking for Elon Musk.”

The siren stared at him like he was the mythical creature. “I’m not familiar with all the names you mentioned,” she said, folding her arms across her chest, which had been a big distraction for him. Good to know that he could still get horny while facing death.

“Don’t you guys have fish Wikipedia?” he asked, and she tilted her head, looking rather confused. Harry pinched the bridge of his nose. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed that you should know all the facts about humans. That sounded like discrimination against sirens.”

For the first time since Harry met this siren, she actually smiled at him. “You have a lot of funny words, you strange creature,” she said, her eyebrows knitted in fascination.

“You know what?” Harry exhaled sharply. “Since you’re my kidnapper, I’m gonna stop arguing with you in case you still wanna kill me. But today is my birthday, so I can’t be kidnapped. I haven’t posted a thank you message on Twitter yet, and I might get cancelled for that. Celebrities get cancelled for literally anything nowadays. It’s annoying.” The siren blinked at him, her pink lips slightly parted. “Right,” he breathed. “You don’t have a Twitter account.”

“You said you were a singer.”

“That’s all you got from my long speech?”

“What is it? Singer.”

Harry bit his dry lip and frustratedly combed his fingers through his damp hair. “I sing. Use my voice to entertain other people.”

“Oh, like sirens.”

“I guess.”

“Except that we use our voice to kill people.”

“What?”

“Sing for me,” said the siren despite Harry’s horrified look. She seemed excited as she rested her folded arms on a boulder and gazed up at him with a twinkle in her crystal clear blue eyes. “Let’s hear it. I didn’t know humans could sing. Let’s see if it’s good.”

“Fine.” Harry blew out his cheeks and cleared his throat.

He began to sing.

“Walk in your rainbow paradise–”

“What’s a rainbow paradise?” the siren asked, but he didn’t stop singing to answer her.

“–brown skin and lemon over ice.”

“Why are you singing nonsense words?”

Once again, he ignored her, this time, closing his eyes. “I get so lost inside your eyes. Don’t you believe it? You don’t have to say you love me.”

“Love,” the siren repeated the word as if she had never heard of it in her whole life.

Harry opened his eyes and found that she was looking at him as if she could see right through him. He went on, “You don’t have to say you’re mine. Oh honey, I-i-i-i walk through fire for you. Just let me adore you.”

“Why would you walk through fire for someone?” the siren wondered out loud as she stared off into the distance, her strong brows knitted. “That's stupid. Fire is hot. I saw the humans on the boats use it one night. I almost burned my fingers trying to touch it.”

“Yeah, don’t play with fire.”

“Then why would you walk through it?”

The siren pouted, and Harry caught himself smiling at her naivety. “It’s supposed to mean that you’d do anything for the person you love. Even risking your life.”

“That’s stupid,” the siren repeated her earlier remark. For a second, Harry saw a curious little girl and not a dangerous sea creature from earlier.

“Well, it’s just a song,” Harry told her. “I personally wouldn’t do that for anyone, either, but some people do love with all they have, and would sacrifice everything for the one they love.”

An angry frown had replaced the siren’s previous perplexed expression. “Some humans murder the ones they claim to love,” she said in a cold voice. Harry felt a chill running down his spine, but then the siren went on with a softened expression. “Sirens are not supposed to love. Love is a weakness for my kind.”

Harry nodded. “Bet you don’t even have a heart.”

The siren cocked her head; a corner of her mouth raised subtly. “Every living and breathing thing has a heart. Sometimes it’s valuable. Sometimes it's not.”

“Only valuable if it’s the heart that you want,” replied Harry.

For a long moment, the siren looked into his eyes as if she was trying to read his thoughts. Could she do that? Read his thoughts?

Beads of sweat were trickling down his back as his heart began to race; he could hear it in his ears. Suddenly, the siren was pulled beneath the water. Harry stiffened at once. The ocean was still for a moment, then two sparkling tails burst through the surface. Harry’s jaw fell slack with a soundless scream when he saw another siren sinking her fangs into the first one's neck.

The other siren had bright red hair and a silver tail. There were visible scars all across her pale, lanky arms, and he couldn’t see her face. Legs too stiff to run and hide, he stood on the edge and watched in absolute terror. The scene in front of him was madness as the sirens screeched, their tails flapping, creating violent waves as they sank their claws and teeth into each other’s flesh. Harry could see blood. The first siren was not as strong as the one that was attacking her. He must save her. Maybe a part of him knew that she wasn’t entirely evil. Maybe because she was the only hope for him to get home. Either way, he couldn’t just stand by and watch her die.

Before Harry could even think of a way, a bony hand wrapped around his ankle and dragged him into the sea.

Harry’s dreams were thick with blood and haunted by the siren’s face. He’d been in the dark water, drowning, and the last thing he’d seen was her sapphire eyes glowing with the sunlight above as she’d stretched out her arm to grab him before he sank deeper. He woke up gasping, still feeling the saltiness of the ocean on his tongue and the pressure of water on his lungs.

He found himself lying on his bed, fully naked under the covers. Had he been dreaming?

Kneading his temple to chase away the headache, Harry scanned his sore eyes around the room and screamed when he saw her sitting in the corner. Naked. He looked away as soon as he caught her ocean blue eyes staring back.

The siren was in his room. And she had legs!

“You’re alive!” she exclaimed.

He heard her standing up but couldn’t bring himself to look. She sat down on the edge of his bed, smelling like the ocean. Not the fishy kind of smell; one that was unique, and Harry liked it even though he shouldn’t.

“This is a dream. This is a dream. This is a dream,” he mumbled to himself while clutching the duvet to his chest.

The siren, now a human girl, let out a sigh. “It’s not. This is real. I’m real.”

“You’re not.”

“Look at me.”

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“You’re...naked.”

Even though Harry wasn’t looking, he could feel her questioning gaze pinning on him. He grabbed the covers and shoved them at her. “Cover yourself.”

“Oh...okay.” The siren did as she was told as Harry quickly placed a pillow on his private part. He finally looked at her, and she smiled while covering her upper body and the area between her legs with the duvet.

Harry let out a sigh of relief. “Better. Okay, why are you here?”

The siren’s eyes widened. “You don’t remember?”

Harry shook his head.

“We were talking when my sister attacked me, then dragged you into the water. You were lucky I saved you twice and brought you back to where I’d found you. This is the only palace on this beach, so I assumed it was yours.”

Harry sat and stared her face, trying to detect a lie but failed.

The siren rolled her eyes. She seemed disappointed as she swept her long black hair over her shoulder, exposing the huge bite mark on her long pale neck. The skin had healed, and the blood had dried, but the area was still bruised. Harry fought the urge to touch it. There was no way this was really happening.

The siren shot a glance at his ankle. And that was when Harry noticed the red claw mark around it. He shivered at the flashbacks of a siren with red hair and a silver tail charging straight at him with her mouth wide open, her sharp teeth ready to tear off his flesh.

“Sorry about my sister. She could be very...deadly,” the siren in front of him said, looking remorseful.

Harry eyed her up and down once again. Finally, he broke his silence, “What happened to your tail?”

The siren refused to look him in the eye as she said, “My mother found out that I saved you, a human, so she cursed me.”

“Cursed you?”

The siren said nothing; the corners of her mouth lowered as she stared down sadly at her legs.

What kind of The Little Mermaid plot is this? Harry thought to himself, yet didn’t say it because it shouldn’t be a joke. She’d lost her tail, which meant she couldn’t go back to the ocean. Ariel from The Little Mermaid had wished to become a human. This girl had been cursed with the life she never wanted just to save him twice.

Harry buried his face into his palms. “Shit. Fuck. I’m sorry. This is all my fault.”

“It is your fault.”

His head whipped up at her honest response. “You always say what you think, don’t you?”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

Harry sighed and ran his palm over his face. “Never mind. How...how do I get you back to your mermaid form?”

“Siren.”

“Sorry, siren. How do I help turn you back?”

“I don’t know,” she said sadly, clutching the duvet to her chest. “But I need a place to stay until I figure it out.”

Harry thought for a moment and nodded. “I’ll pay for your hotel room.”

“What’s a hotel?” the siren asked, her eyes round. “And why can’t I stay here in your palace? It’s big and you live alone.”

“This is a house, not a palace,” Harry said. “But I’m going back to London tomorrow, and I can’t take you with me.”

“Where is London? I want to see London.”

Seeing her so excited made Harry laugh. “No, you don’t; trust me. It’s not sunny there. Always dark and gloomy and raining.”

“It’s not sunny underwater, either.”

Harry held up a finger and kept his mouth open for a moment as he pondered over what she’d said. “Good point. But I’m still not taking you to London. That’s not a good idea.”

The siren’s eyebrows drew together. “It was your fault I’m in this situation.”

Harry gasped. “You’re so manipulative!”

“I don’t know what it means.”

“It means you say things like that to get me to feel sorry for you, and so I have to help you.”

“Oh, then, yeah, I’m manipulative,” the siren said. “Take me to London with you, or I’ll find you in London and make your life hell.”

Harry tossed his head back and groaned. As if he hadn’t been traumatised enough by all the events that had happened today, now he had to take responsibility for the life of a mythical creature. If he had been a bad guy, he would have just let the government have her and keep her in a lab like that Oscar-winning movie about the dead girl and her fish lover. But Harry wasn’t a villain. Sure, he could be an asshole, but he couldn’t betray someone who’d risked her life to save his. Twice.

Maybe if he’d just say yes and then leave quickly in the morning, he wouldn’t have to deal with her. He’d ask someone to take care of her, pay for a place for her to stay and her food. Her mother would have to take her back eventually. He didn’t know about sirens, but even in the animal kingdom, mothers never abandoned their children.

“Fine, I’ll take you to London,” he said. Seeing the smile on her face, he was lowkey thankful that he was so good at lying. “First, you have to put some clothes on. Wait here.”

Carefully, he slipped out of bed, holding a pillow in front of his crotch and one behind him to cover his butt, then padded awkwardly to his closet to change and get her something to wear. When he returned, she was still sitting on his bed, humming a familiar song and kicking her feet as if testing out her new body parts. He found it endearing, but of course, he wouldn’t tell her.

He handed her a bathrobe. “Put this on. I’ll find some real clothes for you later.”

The siren accepted the bathrobe and stared at it as if she’d been told to put it in her mouth and chew. She glanced up at him. “I don’t understand the purpose of this.”

“To cover up your private parts.”

Suddenly, she seemed sad. “I think I’m broken.”

Harry blinked. “What?”

She looked at him again, pouting. “I don’t have a tail.”

“I can see that.”

“No, I mean, a tail like yours.”

When Harry realised what she meant, his face burned, and he cleared his throat into his fist. “You’re not supposed to,” he said awkwardly. “You’re...a female. I bet male sirens don’t look the same as you, right?”

“There’s no male sirens,” she told him.

Harry cocked his head to the side, squinting his eyes. “Huh? Then how do you guys...you know?”

She blinked innocently at him. She didn’t know.

“Mate.” The word made Harry cringe. “How do you mate?”

“Sirens mate with mermen. We only need them for children.”

“Okay, that’s...new…”

Harry would be glad to find out more, but this was definitely not the right time. He waved his hand, urging her to hurry up. Clumsily, the siren got to her feet. Harry didn’t intend to stay here while she changed, but since she could barely keep her balance, she had to hold onto his arms. He stood there, staring at the ceiling as the duvet dropped. She was completely naked in front of him now and so dangerously close. The voice inside his head was telling him not to peek. Fuck. Why did she have to be sexy?

“Do you...um...do you need help?” he asked as she seemed to be struggling with the bathrobe.

“No, thanks. I got it!” she said between ragged breaths, then, “Hey your tail is growing!”

Harry’s eyes dropped to the front of his boxers, his face heating at the sight of his erection. He gently pushed her back onto the bed and rushed to the bathroom.

“Where are you going?” she shouted after him. “I need to see it in its full form!”

“This is its full form!”

“It’s still small.”

“Shut up! It’s not!”

Ezili felt bad for lying to this human.

Well, lying was the whole point of her mission, but he had been so nice to her when he found out she couldn’t return to the ocean. She blamed her new human heart for these emotions. Siren Ezili would never feel sorry for this ugly creature. No, wait, this one wasn’t ugly. The mermen were ugly. As much as she despised humans, she must admit that most of them were beautiful.

When this human wasn’t looking, Ezili would regard him with as much curiosity as he had regarded her in secret. The way his brown curls swept back messily. His defined jawlines. The deep dimples in his cheeks. The look of wonder in his eyes. He looked about her age, but his eyes were innocent, greener than seaweed.

She looked away as he caught her gawking. They were sitting at a small table on the floor. The room was darkly lit by the light in the corner. On the table was a mushy pile with little fire sticks on top.

“What is this?” Ezili asked, inspecting the object.

The human smiled at her, the firelight dancing in his leaf-green eyes as he said, “It’s a cake. We’re celebrating my birthday.”

“You told me not to play with fire.”

“We’re gonna put it out anyway.” He winked at her. “A little fire won’t hurt.” Ezili watched the human take out a little black thing and flick his thumb. Fire flared out, making Ezili flinch. “Relax,” he chuckled and the fire vanished. “This is called a lighter. It makes fire. This is a cake. These are candles.”

“What do we do with the cake?”

“We eat it.”

“You eat fire?”

The human laughed at Ezili’s distressed look. “No, silly. We blow out the candles, then eat the cake.”

“Oh,” she said, making him laugh harder. She found it disrespectful and annoying. Was this creature making fun of her? “What’s so funny?” she asked through gritted teeth.

The human stopped laughing, yet his dimples were still visible. “I can’t believe I’m celebrating my twenty-fourth with a siren,” he said.

“Who do you usually celebrate with?” Ezili asked.

“My friends or family,” the human said. “My friends were supposed to be here but their flight got cancelled due to bad weather.” The sadness in his eyes disappeared as he gave a dismissive wave and laughed. “Oh well, it’s not bad being alone. In fact, I’ve been alone my whole life.”

“That’s sad,” Ezili murmured, mesmerized by the candles.

“It’s not,” replied the human. “Some people live their whole life surrounded by others, and yet, they’re still lonely.”

As he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, smiled, and blew out the candles, Ezili sat there and pondered over his last words.

They didn’t eat the cake right away, because the humans said they ought to eat it after dinner. Apparently, humans ate three main meals a day—breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Sirens ate when they were hungry, so this was very new to Ezili. She picked up the small shiny thing that shaped like her mother’s trident and pushed around the foods on her plate. “What is this?”

“Fish,” the human said with a smile.

“Dead?”

“You expect me to eat alive fish?”

Ezili scowled at him. “That’s what we eat.”

“You’re human now. Try cooked fish.”

When she didn’t do anything but stare at the plate, the human nudged her hand with his knuckles. “Come on. If you don’t like it, I’ll get you the raw fish in the fridge.”

Ezili doubted that this imbecile creature would poison her with these colourful foods to get away with his responsibility, but at the same time, nothing was impossible.

However, she would probably faint if she didn’t eat. This dinner actually smelled good, and her stomach was rumbling because she hadn’t eaten since yesterday. And so she stabbed the fish’s burned flesh with her little trident, closed her eyes and put it into her mouth. It was soft, salty and a bit spicy, and...surprisingly delicious. She quickly took another bite, and another, and another.

“Wow, you’re really hungry, huh?” The human chuckled. “You like it?”

Ezili nodded fast, unable to answer because her mouth was full.

The human seemed satisfied. “Good. Means I’m a great cook.”

Ezili chewed fast and swallowed as the human began to eat. She tried to copy the way he held the little trident and the knife, and felt like she’d changed. Her mother would hate her so much for enjoying this. And Koa would make sure everyone in their kingdom knew and turn her into a laughing stock.

“Do you have any questions for me?” she said, breaking the silence, mostly to distract herself from thinking about the mission and her family.

The human thought for a second. “Hmmm, I have a bunch so I don’t know where to start.” Then, after a pause, “Why did your mum do this to you? Doesn’t she love you?”

Ezili wished she could stab him for bringing up the topic she’d been trying to avoid. Instead, she sucked in a breath. “She does. It’s just...the way sirens show love is different from humans. We teach our children to be strong from the moment they are born. Sirens live dependent on one another to survive, and so we always have to look out for one another. I guess that’s love for us. My mother is the Sea Queen. She’s very powerful, and so she has high hopes for my sister and I. My sister is better than me, though. I’ve always envied her.”

“Your sister is scary as hell,” the human remarked. “But if your mum is the Queen, you must be a princess.”

“Yeah.”

“Wow, so does that make me Prince Eric?”

“Your name is Eric?”

“No,” the human chuckled. “It’s a reference from The Little Mermaid. You should watch that film. You’d probably hate it though. Anyway, it’s so weird that we don’t know each other’s name. I’m Harry.” The human, well, Harry, put his hand across the table. Ezili didn’t know what to do with it so she just stared.

“I’m Ezili.”

Harry smiled, picked up her right hand and shook it. His hand was bigger than her and warm. She liked it.

“Cool name. Can I call you Ezi?”

Ezili instantly pulled her hand back. “No, you filthy creature. That’s not my name!”

“Ezi is short for Ezili.”

“What?”

Harry ignored the look of confusion she was giving him. “Or I could call you Bubbles. That’s a cute nickname.”

“Why Bubbles?”

“Because…” He tossed his head back and groaned. “Damn, woman, you gotta read the story, too. I can’t make these jokes if you don’t get the references.”

Ezili had so many questions. Just as she was about to ask, the black thing on the table lit up and started playing a song that startled Ezili.

“Sorry. My mum’s calling,” Harry said as he picked up the thing and swiped his fingers across it. “Right on time.”

“Is your mother trapped in that thing?” Ezili asked, clutching the hem of the shirt Harry had told her to wear. It was too big on her but she loved that it was comfortable and kept her warm.

“No, this is a phone,” Harry said, shaking the magical device with light coming out of it. “So my mum’s in London, and when she calls me on the phone, her voice gets transferred through it, and I can hear what she says.” He pushed himself up and told Ezili, “I’ll be right back.”

Once Harry was gone, Ezili sat there and tried her best to process all the new information. It was only her first night on land and she was already going through it. This mission was harder than she thought. Still, she had no choice but to continue. She must have that heart, and her mother would be so proud.

When Harry woke up this time, he was on his private jet.

“Hey.”

He screamed, causing Ezi to fall back into her seat in front of him. He whipped his head around and saw that they were the only two people in this cabin. Before he could even come up with a question, Ezi got up, her hand resting on either side of his seat as she leaned forward, until her face was so close to his that he could smell the vanilla scent of the cake in her breath.

Her eyes sharpened at once. “I know you were trying to get rid of me.”

“No...I didn’t.”

“You did, Harry. You were going to leave me at your beach house. I heard you talking on the phone last night with someone else after talking to your mum. You mentioned a hotel room.”

Harry had booked a room for her on the phone last night. He should have done it on the website.

“But guess what?” A corner of her mouth lifted. “I might not have the ability to control tides anymore, but I still have my voice. And so I can control humans with it. I sang you to sleep last night. Then when your servants came to take you to this metal bird, I made him carry you to the magic black carriage and I came here with you. You think you’re one step ahead, you’re wrong. Try that again. I dare you.”

Harry swallowed hard. He could feel his palms sweating as he rubbed them against his thighs. “Okay, I’m sorry for that,” he said. “But you can’t control people like that. If someone found out what you’re capable of...what you are...you’d be in big trouble.”

Ezi arched an eyebrow as she slowly backed away and stood straight with her arms across her chest. Thank God, Harry’s mother called just in time. He immediately got up and excused himself to answer the phone. He left a pouty Ezili in the cabin and went to the exit to talk to his mother.

“My precious boy, are you on the plane right now?”

“Yes, Mum,” Harry sighed.

“Good. I just need the name of your date for the seat arrangement.”

Harry stiffened for a second then quickly glanced over his shoulder to check if Ezi was eavesdropping. Fortunately, she was distracted by a magazine.

“Like now?” he asked his mum.

“Yes. Last night you told me you found one.”

Yes, Harry remembered that part, but he’d only said that so his mum would stop pestering him.

He took a deep breath. “Yeah, I did.”

“Her name?”

He hesitated before saying, “Ezili Hans.”

Hans as in Hans Christian Andersen. The writer of The Little Mermaid. If he had the energy to be happy, he’d give himself a pat on the back for the creativity.

“Great,” his mother said, sounding as if he’d just told her he was getting married. “I’m so excited to meet this girl.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, dear?”

“I-I said ‘Well, of course’,” Harry said and covered it up with a nervous laugh.

When he got off the phone with his mum, he felt a light tap on the shoulder and turned around to see Ezi. Shit, had she listened to–

“I promise I won’t use my singing voice to control you again,” she said, to his surprise. "Please. I cannot survive on my own." She twisted the hem of his band-tee uneasily. Even though she looked super cute in his t-shirt and joggers, she was still too underdressed for someone that was travelling on a private jet.

“Fine. You can stay,” he heard himself say while trying to imagine her with actual clothes that fit her.

Ezi’s blue eyes lit up, and the smile that rarely showed up on her face caught Harry off guard. He almost forgot what was happening.

“Really?”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “But we need to set up some rules.”

#harry styles #harry styles fanfic #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles imagine #harry styles imagines #harry styles fluff #harry styles angst #harry styles smut #harry smut #harry styles wrting #harry styles writing #harry styles x oc #harry styles series #harry styles one shot #harry styles one shots

212 notes · View notes

samingtonwilson · 5 years ago

Text

A Bid on Bucky

Summary: You spend thousands of dollars at a bachelor auction for Bucky when you could’ve had him for free this entire time.

Pairing: bucky x reader

a/n: this fic is damning evidence that idiots in love is my favorite genre, your honor. i’ve more likely than not used this gif before but idc because im lov it

Tony Stark is a humanitarian— a fact you have neither forgotten, nor will he allow you to forget.

Oftentimes, he’ll remind you verbally and, other times, a visual reminder will be posted on the team’s social media accounts. The pictures of him at the elephant sanctuary he helped found in Thailand are your personal favorites.

If news of his latest cause is not filling the pages of The Times or showing up on CNN’s special segment of Billionaires Who Care with Christiane Amanpour, it’s being distributed via monthly text reminder of reasons to leave Tony’s special coffee alone— last month you were told, “His donations allowed the doors of Planned Parenthood to remain open in developing nations such as Burkina Faso, and all he asks for in return is that his teammates do not finish his goddamn coffee.”

Of course, because you all live for him sniffing out your mugs at morning meetings to discover the culprit, his reminders only lead to greater coffee theft as it, in turn, increases the redness in his face when he finds the morally corrupt heathenous criminal— who is usually Clint.

In true Tony Stark fashion, though, his favorite way to remind you all, and the rest of the world, is through a gala. A gala where champagne flows like water, money is no object, extravagance is to be expected, and, as a member of the team, attendance is mandatory.

At first, you hated the damn things. It’s not like you’ve ever cared about the private island one guest owns which another guest is so obviously jealous of, or if the deal to buy a chunk of land on the light side of the moon before that hippie Elon Musk usurps it all has successfully closed.

But now? Now that you’ve learned how to direct the money those snots brag ostentatiously about into causes you truly care for with a couple little sly techniques, you fucking love the things.

You and Natasha have a game, actually. Whose Shameless and Absolutely Disingenuous Flirting Will Lead to More Money Donated to (Insert Tony’s Latest Cause Here)?

Natasha is the current titleholder as Smelly Von Oil Tycoon’s wife shooed you away before you could close the million dollar deal and Cowboy Hat McFast Food Franchise would have given up his entire company if Natasha kept batting her eyelashes at him. But in the end, just as every other time the two of you have played, you both felt like winners because the almost obscene amount of money was helping fund housing for Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh. The competitive edge to it is just for entertainment.

This time, though, seeing as this event is an auction and you are in no mood to flirt with red-faced old men with paper-thin skin, you have taken to auctioneering with Sam.

Motioning to a projected photograph of a luxurious Paris hotel room with a view of the Eiffel Tower in your best Vanna White impression, you grin as brightly as you can. “And the last item Sam and I will be auctioning off together is a two-night stay at Plaza Athénée in Paris. First class airfare for two is included, as are two tickets to the Louvre. You’ve been to Paris, haven’t you, Sam?”

“Why, yes, baby girl, I have,” he replies with a grin as broad as yours, the spotlight and his natural charm causing his deep brown eyes to sparkle like diamonds. You think for a second that you can actually hear Bucky scoffing in the audience. “A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell, but I will say that it is called the City of Love for a reason.”

“Of course, our unlucky-in-love Sam shared those kisses only with every bit of bread and cheese he came across but you can share it all with someone special.” At that, Sam elbows you gently in the ribs with a fond roll of his eyes. “We’re going to start the bidding at twenty-thousand dollars.”

Immediately, paddles shoot up and Sam begins calling out higher bids and paddle numbers while you lean your hip against the podium and take a long sip of your champagne which has since, unfortunately, gone lukewarm and flat. Your face pinches and you scan the crowd for a wandering waiter.

Before you can, though, your head tilts just as you spot Bucky, a large button reading “BACHELOR #4” pinned to the lapel of his tux.

He’s laughing. Not openly and loudly like he usually does when the two of you are alone, but his shoulders are shaking and he’s grinning so the skin beside his eyes wrinkles. You think fleetingly that his cheeks might even be dusted in pink as he ducks his head.

The sight makes you smile, too, and you set your champagne aside. It’s secondary now.

“Congratulations to Mr. Baldwin and all the other winners of these wonderful vacations,” Sam says once the winner has been announced and ushered backstage. “Sadly, our time is up for the night.”

You nod and pick up your microphone again. “Yes, but you will be seeing Sam again tonight as a part of the Bachelor Auction. Give the crowd a spin, Sam, show them what they could be going on a date with.”

Sam unbuttons his wine-colored tuxedo and spins slowly, a slight swing in his hips. He’s met with several wolf-whistles, a rose thrown on stage, and a brief retching noise courtesy of Clint, to which Sam replies with a wink and a scoffed, “The glory is too much to handle for the insecure and faint of heart, ain’t it, Barton? We got a doctor on retainer in case you pass out.”

Sam holds out his elbow to help you down the stairs and you gratefully loop your arm through his, your other hand hoisting the hem of your dress above your ankles.

You sigh after meeting one of the bid winners, smile falling from your lips the moment you turn away. “I should’ve bid on that Marrakech trip.”

Sam cocks an eyebrow. He doesn’t seem to mind one bit that you have yet to release him and simply follows you as you head to the bar. “Enjoy it last time?”

“You mean when I was there to locate stolen Chitauri weapons?” you let out a bark of sarcastic laughter. “Steve didn’t even let me glance in the relative direction of a souq when that was the only reason I volunteered.”

“So that’s a no?”

You take the fresh flute of champagne a waiter offers and nod your thanks. “That’s a hell fucking no.” A pathetic pout and, “I deserve to love Morocco.”

“Makin’ that face at me won’t help your cause. Makin’ that face at Pervert Santa Claus over there,” he points to a man, rosy-cheeked with a white beard and wandering eyes, who you recognize as the winner of the trip. “That’ll get you what you want.”

You make a face, tongue sticking out as you gag, and set your glass atop the bar. “First of all, even the prospect of sex with me will make his heart give out.”

Sam laughs into his tumbler of whiskey and rolls his eyes.

You grimace openly when the eyes of an elderly man— his arm around a woman who looks to be barely in her twenties— linger a bit too long and smile when he visibly shrinks. “And B., I only flirt with them to get donations. I’d sooner never leave this tower again than get with one of these ‘I only donate money to boost my public image’ types.”

He hums and a slow, lazy smile curves his lips. He nods his head in the direction of something behind you. “Barnes’ got a different ideology.”

As casually as you can, you turn your body to lean your elbows atop the bar and tilt your head ever so slightly to glance where Bucky is standing.

Standing and laughing. How is he still laughing?

Arching an eyebrow at the woman he speaks to, you lift your glass to your lips. “Doesn’t look like she fits the bill.”

“You’re joking,” Sam laughs, shaking his head as he sets his elbows on the bar as well. His shoulder brushes yours and, despite the itchy fabric of his tuxedo, you don’t mind. “That’s Maris Scheufele.”

Long, chestnut brown hair swept over one shoulder to keep her back bare, her gown is silky, liquid gold. Dripping in wealth.

You purse your lips and turn back to Sam. “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

“Chopard heiress.”

“Chopard like—” with wide eyes, you point at the sapphire and diamond earrings borrowed from Pepper on your ears and the matching ring on your left index finger. “Like Cannes Film Festival Chopard? Like that Chopard?”

“Yeah, that Chopard.” He has to stop from laughing at the look you offer him. He thinks he might see your skin turn green in a matter of minutes. “She’s more loaded than Cigarette-Breath Du Rideshare-App-CEO from the elephant benefit.”

You manage a small smile and a quick roll of your eyes, only to have them once again land on Bucky and the Chopard heiress. Maris.

You aren’t jealous— per se. Jealousy is an ugly emotion, after all. Childish, and inconsiderate, and rooted in insecurity.

Sure, she’s cuddled up next to someone you’re in the midst of denying feelings for out of fear and the prospect of being undeserving. And, sure, she’s covered in diamonds and you’re usually covered in dried blood, dust, and dirt from HYDRA facilities. But you aren’t jealous.

You know you’ve wasted your time, his efforts, and your emotions being anything but happy with Bucky. Chances lost never come around again, right? So you’ve made your peace with it. You’ve had to make your peace with it.

With how much you’ve messed up, how many chances you’ve lost. With how perfect she is and how perfect he looks laughing with her.

Perfect.

So perfect that your teeth grit and the grip you have on your champagne flute tightens.

“He’s gonna bring in the big bucks.”

You snort. “I thought he had different ideologies.”

“He does. But you know she ain’t gonna let him get auctioned off to anyone else.” A corner of Sam's lips turn up in disgust as he, too, stares at them with little stealth. Nick Fury would be ashamed in you both. “Lookin’ at him like he’s a piece of jerky.”

“Jerky?”

“Old, dried up beef.” He then hums in agreement with his own words. “Nasty, hundred-year old beef.”

With a laugh— a laugh that has the cadence of a sob— you drop your head into your hands.

You meet Bucky’s eyes when you pick your head up, his head tilted in silent question. Perhaps at your wet, ironic smile, perhaps at the pull of your eyebrows.

You shake your head in response and it’s when he almost immediately returns to laughing at whatever Maris Scheufele is saying that you straighten with a frown.

What the hell kind of name is that anyway? Maris.

“What the hell—” you pause to take the glass from Sam’s hands and polish off his whiskey. “What the hell is so funny?”

The glass is snatched back. “Not you finishing my drink, that’s for sure.”

Shrugging as you continue to stare at Bucky and Maris, you mumble, “Put the next one on my tab.”

Sam snorts as he asks for another drink, facing you as he adds, “S’an open bar, you cheap ass.”

Once you’ve been able to secure a fresh, much stronger drink for yourself, you loop your arm through Sam’s again and set your chin on his shoulder. Your noses nearly bump when he looks at you and you both laugh softly. “I fucked up, didn’t I?”

“You did.” He yelps and laughs when you pinch his side, lightly knocking his head against yours. Gentle eyes meet yours as he says, “Not tryna be harsh, but you had him and you let him go.”

“I know.”

“He spent weeks moping about it, you spent weeks moping about it.”

“I know.”

“It was miserable comforting both you idiots.”

“Yeah, you’re the real victim here.”

Despite your dry tone, he nods in agreement. “You could tell him right now. Get all this bullshit over with and out in the open.”

Just the idea makes your heart rate spike. “He might reject me. Exact revenge for what I did.”

“Barnes is a lotta things. Greasy, geriatric, testy, fuckin’ annoying as shit—” Sam hisses when you pinch him again, “— but vindictive ain’t one of ‘em.”

Before Sam can convince you to move even an inch from the part of the bar you’ve dubbed yours for the night, warm fingers wrap around your elbow and tap your arm five times in quick succession. A secret identification code.

A secret identification code that makes you smile despite yourself. You lift your head from Sam’s shoulder and hope you don’t look too eager as Bucky leans back against the bar, facing you entirely. “Look who it is.”

He waves vibranium fingers and grins, a bit of that thirties charm you’d heard so much about shining in his blue eyes as he looks at you. “Hi, sweetheart. Wilson,” he adds with a playfully curt nod, chuckling when Sam returns it. “You were great up there. Prettiest MC I’ve ever seen. Almost had me buyin’ the trip to Morocco to make up for the shit Steve put you through.”

You feel Sam shaking in silent laughter and sigh when you hear his whispered, “For fuck’s sake.”

“Only ‘almost’?” you ask with a pout Bucky grins at and wide eyes that have him swallowing over a dry throat. “What does a girl have to do for you to actually bid?”

He shakes his head after a moment of simply staring, chuckling. “These poor bastards don’t stand a chance against you, do they? They’d probably sign their entire companies over to you and not think twice about it.”

“Just doing my part to save the Amazon,” you shrug. “Like you’re doing with the Bachelor Auction.”

“‘Bout that,” he begins as he straightens his jacket and tie— all black. You trace his jaw, sharp and angular, when he glances away for just a second. “How long d’you think it’ll take Stark to put me out of my misery when nobody bids on me?”

“I wouldn’t be so negative. I know of one person who’ll definitely bid on you.”

His lips quirk up on one end, eyes dreamy as his head tilts in indulgence. “Yeah? Who’s that?”

“Your heiress.”

Bucky doesn’t seem to notice Sam jabbing his elbow into your ribs and cocks an eyebrow in confusion. “My what?”

Though you weren’t planning on replying, Tony’s voice over the speakers doesn’t allow Bucky to question you further and you heave a sigh of relief. He calls all the bachelors to the stage and Sam pulls his arm from yours, bumping your shoulders together before he departs just as Tony begins telling a story of his first bachelor auction and how much he went for.

Bucky remains still, however. Leant against the bar, eyes on you.

“Bachelor number 4,” you say, pointing at the button he wears. You smile softly. “You’re needed on stage.”

That seems to jolt him out of whatever stupor he was lost in and he stands straight. He takes a step forward and pauses, so close you can feel the heat radiating from him and smell his subtle cologne. “Bid on me if no one else does.”

“I won’t need to.”

Natasha finds you just as the bidding begins and orders herself a drink. She doesn’t say much, simply looking at you as you stare at Bucky standing next to Steve and Sam, and nods to herself. She remains a quiet, comfortable presence until Steve is brought to centerstage and nearly every paddle in the room shoots up. “You tell him yet?”

“Nope.”

“Thought so.” She nods her head to her left and you follow the movement to where Maris sits, back straight as she, too, looks at Bucky— but she’s grinning, paddle poised to be raised. “Scheufele being a cock block?”

You’re visibly surprised when you turn back to Natasha, her ginger hair falling in loose waves over her shoulders. “How did you— How the hell could you possibly know that?”

With the crooked curve of blood red lips, she smiles. “I’m just that good. And Sam texted me about it ten minutes ago.”

She continues to watch you as the excited winner of a date with Steve rises from his seat. “He’s next.”

“I know that.”

“You gonna bid on him?”

You snort, though unconvincingly, and shake your head. “And go against an heiress? I’ll save myself the embarrassment.”

“Stark pays us buckets,” she tells you with a frown, picking a stray piece of lint off her silver dress. “You could afford to go against an heiress.”

Bucky’s eyes are narrowed as he looks over the crowd of people seated at their tables. The light bounces off diamonds and sequins, gold and shiny leather shoes. It stings his eyes, it makes him scowl.

“And next, ladies and gentlemen, feast your eyes on Bachelor Number 4,” Tony announces, turning a bit to glance at Bucky as he trudges over, not bothering to look a bit more appealing. “James Buchanan Barnes, truly the human equivalent of a cat.”

Bucky openly glares at Tony now.

“James enjoys silence, brooding, eating like a fuckin’ horse, and telling the same story more than once,” Tony continues, ignoring the roll of Bucky’s eyes. “Cute, cuddly, and a little dangerous, we’ll start the bidding at one-thousand.”

Three paddles shoot up. One from Maris, and two toward the center of the room. Your shoulders tense, Bucky’s relax.

“Okay, do I see eleven hundred?”

Two paddles remain lifted until Maris shouts from her seat in a lilting voice, “Three thousand.”

Your jaw clenches, Bucky grins.

Tony set his hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “Alright, three thousand going once—”

“Thirty-one hundred!”

It feels as if the entire room turns in their seats to gape at you, but you try to pay them no mind. You, wearing your jealousy and determination like armor, stand at the bar with an empty glass in your hand, waiting for Tony to call your bid. But before he can—

“Thirty-two!”

Your eyebrows furrow as you look at Maris. “Thirty-three!”

“Four thousand!” She’s smiling. A perfectly manicured eyebrow is raised in challenge.

You see red. “Forty-three hundred.”

“Six thousand!”

“Sixty-five hundred!”

“Seventy-five hundred!”

When you look at the stage in a bit of a panic, Tony grins expectantly at you and Bucky— Well, you don’t think Bucky’s ever looked so shocked in all the time you’ve known him. But when his eyes go from Maris to meet yours, you find yourself yelling, “Ten thousand!”

The room goes silent, or maybe you’ve just tuned it all out, and Tony is shaking his head in amusement. “Ten thousand going once.”

You turn toward Maris as she sits and tosses her paddle onto the table. “Ten thousand going twice.”

You face the stage again. Bucky’s expression is unreadable. “Sold to our beautiful teammate in blue.”

A bright spotlight shines on you and you fight the urge to run from the room, from the Tower, from New York, and give your best smile.

—

It’s four in the morning, all the lights on the residential floors of the Tower have been turned off, and the world is peaceful. But your mind continues to race.

You sit at the kitchen counter, container of Sam’s leftover cheesecake from your lunch out with him open before you. You twirl a fork between your fingers and stare at nothing in particular, your soft breaths the only sound in the room.

You’d changed out of your dress hours ago, washed off your makeup and taken the pins out of your hair. You could barely meet the eyes of your reflection out of fear of judgement and you didn’t ask FRIDAY to dim the lights or lock your door just in case she laughed at you.

Tony had yet to talk to you about paying the ten grand you bid on Bucky and you left the ballroom before anyone could so much as snicker. You knew you couldn’t hide forever, you just needed the night to come to terms with your own stupidity.

Yet as you prop your chin upon your palm and sigh, you think you might need a day or two, too.

Quiet steps down the hall are made purposefully louder as they grow closer so as to not startle you, the lights dim as bulbs flicker on to about ten-percent of their full brightness. You fear your heartbeat might be audible to everyone in a ten mile radius at the sight of his blue eyes, messy brown hair, and wrinkled black t-shirt, and take a deep breath through parted lips in a futile attempt to calm it down.

He offers you a small smile and walks to the fridge. “You want some water?”

You shake your head— even though he can’t see you. “No, I’m fine.”

There’s a beat of silence and you take a breath to steady yourself. “Buck, I think we should talk.”

He takes out a glass bottle of water for himself and shuts the fridge, leaning against the sink. He’s still smiling. “I know.”

“I—”

“I’m not gonna hold you to this thing,” he interjects, rolling the bottle between his hands. He watches as you sit up straight and set your fork down. “I know you made the bid just to donate the money and save me from that married heiress—”

“Married?” you repeat to yourself.

“And you’ve made it clear you just want to be friends,” he continues, undeterred. “So it’s okay. Hell, I’ll pay for half of it so I’ll feel like I’ve actually done somethin’ to save the sea turtles.”

“The Amazon.”

“Right, the Amazon,” he amends with a quiet laugh. He takes a sip of the water and sets the botte aside. “So whaddya say, huh? We’ll go half and half, help this cause out a little, and you don’t have to go on a date with me.”

“Bucky, you don’t understand—”

“No, no, I get it,” he says, walking around the narrow strip of granite separating you to sit on the stool beside yours. Features soft but a little sad, he shrugs as warmth rolls off him in waves. “I told you to bid on me in case no one else did and you saw how much more Steve went for. You tried to raise the bids on me and got stuck since those billionaires didn’t want to shell out more than ten grand on the Winter Soldier. I get it!”

“That’s not why I did it, Bucky. Not at all.”

He lowers his eyes to his hands, staring at mismatched palms, and says nothing.

“Honestly, I—” You stop yourself when it feels as if your heart’s lodged itself in your throat and struggle to swallow over it. “When I saw that Chopard heiress talking to you and laughing with you, and when she bid on you and almost won that date, I— Something happened.”

He looks at you now, eyebrows pulled together. “What happened?”

“I— I don’t know. I guess I was a little jealous,” you say with a laugh only to shake your head. There’s a subtle sting behind your eyes, at the tip of your nose, and you pray to every deity you can think of to stop any tears. “No, I was very, very jealous. You two looked so happy and perfect and I wanted to scream, and cry, and— Fuck, all I could think about is how much time, and energy, and emotion I’ve wasted pushing you away so neither one of us ends up heartbroken when I already am.”

You sigh, unable to meet his gaze as he gapes at you, his mouth hanging open as you laugh mirthlessly. “It probably seems so stupid to you and I know you’ve moved on, but, holy hell, I wish you still had some kind of crush on me because I’m dying here, Buck. I mean I just spent ten thousand dollars to make you go on a date with me.”

“You did,” he agrees. He’s smiling when you manage to look at him, “You spent ten thousand dollars on me when you could’ve just had me for free this entire time.”

He grasps your chin between his flesh index finger and thumb and jostles you a little, gaze so adoring. “And what punk ass told you I moved on from you? Huh? That same goof who said it’s just a crush?”

He leans forward and pauses just before his lips meet yours, as if waiting for you to pull away only for you to close the distance first.

What starts off as just a light brush of your lips against his quickly turns into a deep, hungry kiss that quiets your mind and forces your heart into overdrive. The warmth of it reaches your toes and every hair follicle, especially as both his hands cup your face while your fingers tangle through his hair, the rasp of his stubbly beard against your soft, sensitive skin stealing your breath even more.

You pull away first and your voice is small, a bit hoarse as you ask, “So you still like me?”

He sets his forehead against yours and his lips pull into a smile. “I’d say it’s a li’l more than that, sweetheart.”

It’s hours later when the sun is up, the cheesecake slice is long forgotten, and Bucky’s pulled you onto his stool to straddle his lap, your lips swollen and a little painful, that you groan in embarrassment.

He immediately leans away from your neck and looks up at you in concern, lips full and cherry red. “What? What’s wrong?”

“I have to pay Tony ten thousand dollars.”

Chuckling, he rolls his eyes and presses a kiss to your chin. “I’ll pay it.”

“Then I’ll owe you ten thousand dollars.” You withhold a moan when he nips at a part of your neck that has your hips rolling into his, the hitching of his breath felt more than heard. “That— that just transfers the problem.”

You feel him smile, arm tightening around you. “I think I know of a way you can pay me back.”

“Sounds like you just discovered the world’s oldest profession.”

A punishing nip under your jaw and you gasp as he laughs. “I’m still all for going half and half to save the sea turtles.”

“The Amazon.”

He sighs and leans back. “Fuckin’ Christ. Someone needs to save the fuckin’ turtles already, then.”

#i wish i could show y'all the dress i imagine her wearing but alas #bucky #bucky barnes #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x you #bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes x reader fluff #bucky barnes x reader angst #well. mild angst #VERY mild

4K notes · View notes

alienisticxo · 3 years ago

Text

X Angel - Chapter Two

Elon Musk x Reader

{Authors Note} Thanks to some encouragement on AO3 I will be continuing this strange little story. So if you happen to come across it, I hope you enjoy!

Warnings: An uncomfortable instance.

Bright white camera bulbs flashed in every direction, the shrill ringing of screams filling my ears until I couldn’t hear myself think anymore. I was blinded by the light that flooded with every rapid click, snapping away at my every move as I exited the Cybertruck I’d been driven in. I was already fashionably late to a discreet -or maybe not so, now- meeting set up by the head representatives of my record label, Astra Records. My manager had decided to tip off the media, and my publicist decided to make it an event without it exactly being one.

It was a complex task, staring into those brazen flashes without so much as a flinch, but that was what was required of me. That was my job and life’s mission for as long as I held the position I did. The ‘drugged out’ smile I was known for never faltered as the flawless chrome of my body reflected every photographer's shining glamor shot right back into their lenses. Despite being surrounded by personnel, security and otherwise, people still clawed and clamored their way forward in an attempt to invade my space as I walked toward the large building before me.

“{Y/N}, over here!” one yelled.

“Give us a wink, will ya?” yelled another.

“I’d fucking die for you!” a shriek made itself heard over everyone else in the roaring crowd.

I just smiled and continued to trek, my {H/C} hair drifting around my face and behind me. I concentrated on my gait, my posture, the way my expression felt as I stepped past my adoring audience.

One misstep and it’s all over, of course.

Occasionally I thought about what a strange thing fame was. People would die or kill for you, just to see you or speak to you. We were all the same, deep down. No matter the wiring or blood that ran under our skin, or chrome. The only ones who seemed to place others on pedestals for no true reason other than a little talent that thousands of others had and would never get the chance to share, were other lifeforms. What really made someone want to know me more than another being who can do the same things, maybe even better? The only difference between myself and someone who possessed the same talents was that no one except the other party’s close circle of friends and family knew of their capabilities. We did it to ourselves, really. If only everyone were looked at the same way.

My security guards pushed against me then, catching me off guard in a crucial moment that could’ve been dangerous for me in more ways than one. They were blocking a rogue fan who’d been dying to ‘feel me.’

I tensed up in the absolute slightest manner as I followed Jett, my manager, into the tall metallic building that was made up of glass, but reflected the entire city skyline on its exterior, catching the neon glow, Saturn and the twinkling stars above with it. Privacy was a must, of course. Being able to see out but not being able to see in was imminent for any corporation’s design. The large double doors that disappeared with a glitch as we approached, reappeared behind us as we stepped further into the lobby of Astra Records. The noise of the rowdy crowd just beyond the front steps of the building sounded as though it was sucked back outside and muffled, like someone had put a lid over the heaps of people screaming my name.

“You’d think they wouldn’t need those old school cameras anymore,” I commented, the exasperation in my voice clear as I relaxed a bit more from escaping the masses, disappearing deeper into the lobby until the sound was no longer audible at all.

“{Y/N}, how else are they going to send the pictures back to Earth?” Jett asked me, a hint of condescension in his tone before pausing.

“People sure are different here aren’t they? They worship you celebrities like gods, worse than little fangirls back on Earth.”

I stared ahead, continuing my trek to the teleportation pad without entertaining his thoughts.

“Fuck, I’m in the wrong business,” he continued in slight disbelief to himself. “Maybe I’ll figure out how to go chrome and become a star instead of managing all you shitheads,” he joked snidely, a nasty grin on his metal-grilled teeth as he turned his head over his shoulder to look at me.

Jett had come to X from Earth after having no luck finding any clients to manage once the great exodus of the rich and famous began. Places like Los Angeles, New York City, London and Tokyo had already been cut throat with the industry players. Once everything fell out, no one trusted a soul to handle their affairs anymore.

It wasn’t hard to see that Jett wasn’t exactly a clean cut looking person to begin with, either.

It was my luck I’d be stuck with him at Astra, but I knew in all aspects I was just that— lucky. I didn’t complain. How could I?

However, as he put it, he hitched a ride on the next flight out and got to work right away with the record label. It was just that easy, and he was just that good.

Sure.

“It doesn’t work like that,” I finally responded in a flat tone to his statement, my eyes scanning the confines of the space as we stood a few feet from the pad. Jett pulled the oversized and black-reflective shades from his eyes then, turning his body to look at me. He lecherously stepped closer before running his -what I assumed to be- warm fingers down the side of my cold cheek slowly, his eyes raking up and down my frame. My jaw clenched unbeknownst to him, and I kept my gaze straight ahead.

“You are a sweet design, I’ll give them that… If it weren’t for security on your ass all the time…”

His eyes moved to the front doors in the near distance behind me as my security team approached us from their previous position handling the crowd, and with that, he let out an abrupt howl, snapping his fingers against the palm of his hand and turning back to lead me upstairs with a cocky gait.

It was moments like that that made my stomach churn. I had to deal with the disgusting remarks and actions, to take them like a champ without even indicating that I acknowledged them at all.

If I did, it was my life on the line.

I was just glad that was the extent of it from him. Even more grateful that that was the extent of it from anyone.

With a silent exhale, and no outward show of disapproval, I swiftly followed behind him onto the teleportation device, ignoring everything he’d said like it simply never happened. With one quick scan of our bodies, as fast as I blinked my {E/C} eyes, we were standing outside of the boardroom I’d only seen twice before. Once to meet the representatives, and the last time to sign myself away to them. As my security team entered next, I searched my surroundings again. The whole floor, who’s exterior wall overlooked another angle of Drax City and a beautiful moon above it, felt familiar as I caught sight of the usual decor. It was dark save for the neon buzzed along the walls, palm trees that were coated in a glittery powder that grew on the leaves as per a new gardening experiment sat in pots in corners next to chrome coated lounge couches and translucent coffee tables. A muted holographic television screen played Astra’s channel on it against a wall, and I saw myself there, giving the last corrupt public service announcement that the Planet X Space Association worked with the label for so long and so hard to have me release to the masses. PXSA was our form of government and space flight. An odd combination, but one nonetheless. I didn’t necessarily believe in the things they forced me to read aloud; fill the heads of the unwise and naive with. But the check was nice, and I was in no position to decline their wishes.

The large area was cast in purple, blue and pink light as nostalgic pinball machines blinked from a short distance away, offering a “glimpse into the past.” Another client, brand new, sat on a couch and played a video game through the latest virtual reality headset, the images they saw being cast across another holographic screen while they waited. It was all very pretty, really, very modern and yet fantastical as I had remembered it from before. But despite the ethereal atmosphere, I still felt uneasy.

I had no idea who I was meeting and what I was meeting them for this time. No one ever seemed to feel the need to tell me much of anything when it came to business affairs. I was told where to go, I showed up on schedule or a little late, and I did what I had to do as I learned what that was upon arrival. The rest was simply code and programming to the people who ran my life; there was no room for error, and I had to learn fast and according to the individual's expectations of me-- or better. I followed Jett down the long purple hued hallway just off of the lounge area, his sleazy demeanor seeping from his pores as he stalked his way to another pair of double doors and stopped as it scanned his body. He looked back over his shoulder at me once more with a smirk before turning and walking through them dramatically, announcing my presence as though I were some prized show pony come to a town where nothing ever happened.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the one, the only, Drax City’s own, {Y/F/N}... {Y/L/N}!”

That was my cue.

He stepped aside, his hands reaching out and over to exhibit my presence once I made my way through the doors behind him and stopped in my tracks, my heels still seeming to echo through the large room. Holding my head up high -chin slightly in the air like the small, but statuesque figure I was- was expected from me. And as I held my position, I immediately noticed eleven pairs of eyes sitting around an iridescent boardroom table that were set on nothing other than me as they quickly and quietly gasped and gawked.

“Her figure, the quality,” one drew out.

“I didn’t expect her to be so… so lifelike, in person,” said another.

“Oh yeah, she’s a real beauty,” said Jett, stepping around me then, his hand tightening around the metallic surface of my waist before raking through my hair as though I were a child’s doll. “X hasn’t seen a model like this… Ever. She’s the most famous pop star on our planet— They can’t get enough, eat her up like candy. That’s why she doesn’t come cheap, boys.”

He patted my side then, making me feel like a used car being sold by a greaseball salesman.

That caught my attention, though. My head turned just a hair, but I caught myself before anyone could realize my reaction. I ground my teeth, trying to compose myself through the abrupt shock I was facing. Quickly fixating my line of sight on a neon lamp in the shape of a star that burned in the corner, I desperately attempted to hold my composure. My ears seemed to have failed me however, my thoughts taking front and center as the men briefly discussed things amongst themselves.

Are they going to sell me? To who? Why?

“Oh, we know all about her on Earth. That’s why we want her. We can imagine she’s a planetary treasure here on X, but she’s interplanetary. Labels, execs, people, would just kill to get their hands on her,” one man said, looking at me with a fever in his eye. I guessed he might’ve been the catalyst for my… purchase. The word tasted bitter on my tongue even as a mere thought.

“They’d listen to anything she tells them to do.”

Jett smirked, lifting a shoulder and asserting dominance in his own way.

“She goes to the highest bidder,” he responded blatantly. “And none of this ‘cash’ bullshit. She’s obviously makin’ us a lotta crypto. No one else can afford her. That’s why she’s still with us here at Astra.”

I allowed myself to slowly absorb the situation, then. Astra was trying to deal me away to Earth, the very place I’d almost died trying to escape, all for monetary gain. It wasn’t unheard of, stars being sent to Earth and even back again, but I was X’s golden girl. Or maybe chrome…

They needed me. More than they thought, I now realized. They couldn’t replace me.

Or maybe I was the one mistaken, maybe they could.

As my eyes scanned the area, I also noticed the nature of the collective individuals that sat before me. All in black and gray pressed suits, all male. They’d come here solely to make a deal, an offer Astra couldn’t refuse, and they weren’t leaving without a signed contract, empty pockets, and my life. Fight or flight kicked in, hitting me like a brick, but I couldn’t react. Everything was in slow motion, and it was killing me from the inside out, not being able to protest. It wasn’t in my nature, but I had to play ball now, and well.

One of the suited men stood up from a chair that floated behind the iridescent glazed table, which I now noticed held the reflection of the cityscape that could be seen through the windowed exterior wall as well. He walked over to me with a drilling stare, his stride confident and assertive.

“And this is 100% cybernetic?” He asked Jett, as though I weren’t even in the room.

“Yes,” he spat incredulously.

“What model is she? From who?”

The man stood before me, eyeing me from top to bottom. I wanted to scream.

“That’s the thing,” Jett began again, moving to lean against the table. “We don’t know. She was left at our doors with a letter to the CEO, like some orphaned child. Said she had no recollection of anything other than her programming. We’re lucky her programming was to be a singer,” he finished with a snide grin.

The man snorted then. The tale was unbelievable, sure, but they had no choice but to believe it. There was simply no other excuse for me. A.I. was common, but I was as human as they were going to get, at least for the foreseeable future. That alone made me quite the commodity, something to be revered by other corporations, enterprises and record labels who needed a workhorse without the demands of humans. People saw themselves in me, they felt they could relate, or become just like me someday. This kept them eating out of the palm of whoever’s hand I spoke for and persuaded them to.

Still, the way my mind worked was not the same way as other A.I. beings. I had real demands in order to work, not lifting a finger otherwise, and I made sure they learned this once it was too late— once they couldn’t let me go anymore.

Unless you had enough crypto, apparently.

The older man examined what he could of my body with no regard for my own thoughts on the matter, looking everywhere for any indication of a branding or a code. His brow furrowed when he found none.

“Who are you?” he asked me then, seeming quite perplexed.

“{Y/N},” I smiled. “Drax City’s very own.”

“Where are you from?”

“Planet X, sir. Made and programmed. It’d be an honor to work with you and your people,” I lied. “This city gets kind of boring when you’ve done it all,” I finished exasperatedly.

“Very realistic,” he commented to Jett, his eyes still studying my face. “A.I. just keeps getting better and better. This is incredible. She’s so… human.”

“Did you think we were fuckin’ lying to you? I’m sure you’ve seen her all over TV, she might as well be a person. She thinks, she feels. Hell, I think I’ve seen her cry before,” he said, taking an apple that sat untouched and forever ripe from a bowl on the table. “And she doesn’t even rust.”

They conversed between each other then, deciding my fate with nothing more than cryptocurrency hanging between us. I wasn’t listening anymore, maybe it was a coping mechanism. I just couldn’t wrap my mind around the notion that they would just sell me away to Earth. Maybe I just didn’t want to think they would. They used me for everything they did, advertisements, sold out shows, records— even virtual reality experiences. They made crypto over crypto, dollars upon dollars, thanks to cutting government deals as long as I told everyone to listen. I showed up to every event, knew everyone who was anyone, and then a few more people. If they needed something, I’d do it. If I needed something, they’d do it. That’s just how this worked.

Until now.

I was snapped out of my thoughts when a man standing near the corner closest to the window that I hadn’t noticed before, finally spoke up.

The lights from the city beyond cast a glow over his features, mixing with the neon that lit up the room itself. I knew exactly who he was the moment my attention turned to him, not only by his face, but by his deep voice as well.

Attractive, tall, dark haired and with a presence that could command a room despite the quirkiness that he was often known for, it took everything in me to keep from going slackjawed and wide-eyed. His eccentricities were a staple of his personality, and enigmatic wasn't a word enough to describe him and the aura that surrounded him. Anyone would’ve recognized the man, no matter where they hailed from, and yet, his presence certainly caught me off guard. He was even better than the photos.

He was Elon Musk.

Elon was one of Earth’s most influential people, if not the most influential person. But on X, there was a mixed opinion of him that wasn’t exactly warranted. Though he had helped humans become an interplanetary species, among so many other things, as artificial intelligence became more prevalent, it began to turn on its creators. This caused quite a rift between the cyber world and the human world, lending more firepower behind the crime that had already begun to lace the streets due to the advancement that kept average people struggling to make ends meet and survive in the new world.

Elon was blamed for the downfall despite the warnings he’d cautioned the public with for years. It wasn’t until Neuralink was released to the public for use that humanity began to appreciate him again on a grander scale. He seemed to single handedly salvage humanity, curing medical issues that otherwise had no solution, allowing humans to live for much longer with far better quality of life. Of course, until Earth fell apart again.

Planet X, though, was built on technology; on futuristic ways of existing that he himself had paved the way for, thus causing its inhabitants to maintain far less respect for him. To Xians, futurism was par for the course. Elon wasn’t special there anymore. They ate advanced technology and cybernetics for breakfast, and spat it out into something better for lunch.

But to me, he was still a hero. Though we’d never so much as come close to each other, he had never let me down before. From electric vehicles to space travel, to underground tunnels and mock flamethrowers, his creative and profound mind was something I’d always admired from the moment I learned of his existence.

He had his share of blunders like much everyone else, but overall, I knew he was a decent man. No one had ever made it their life’s mission to help humanity on such a large scale with the capability he had, especially in some of the worst times of what we knew to be Earth’s existence. He valued helping humanity, and he was always honest about doing so. Elon Musk’s intelligence was beyond comprehension, in a way that made anyone want to sit down and pick his brain. And, well, he had a sense of humor on top of it all that made him feel more real than the idea of him even seemed.

I wasn’t sure what to think of him on a personal level, most people had good things to say, others horror stories. I never thought about it too much or imagined him to be any kind of way, not wanting to tarnish any of the admiration I already had for him. I never expected to meet the man himself despite my position in the galaxy. I was a star, but he was far beyond me. Deep down though, I just hoped he was kind, nice; even if they say to never meet your heroes, because they’re usually quite the opposite.

It took every ounce of control to remain the composed little package they all expected me to be in the moment.

“I’d like to see her on my own,” he stated, every head in the room turning to face him as he did so.

#elon musk #elon musk x reader #elon musk fanfiction #fanfiction #elon musk fanfic #spacex #cyberpunk #fanfic #darklydreaming #x angel #writers #slow burn #fanfic writer

15 notes · View notes

amythecinnabunny · 4 years ago

Note

Space AU and Time Travel for Juke 👀 <33

Holy shit holy shit holy shit ok ok ok ok first of all AKDBJSJSJJEJE YES

Okay okay so let me try to iron out the mess in my head skxbjsjjd I hereby apologize if things get out of order or whatever but I am literally vibrating with excitement someone please write this I'll love you forever

Ok so I'm thinking also an aged up au for ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* reasons *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ sjsnnsn

Also, I've done this before and I'm gonna do it again, but Bobby and Trevor are two different people for the sake of the timeline here.

Time frame for this would be WAY into the future. Humanity has gone galactic. We also had our asses handed to us by several alien planets but we probably deserved it. Anyway, after we got rid of Elon Musk, we eventually made peace with the aliens and now roam the galaxy freely. 20-30yo generally try to get into a different fleet, just to learn about other races. Think all those alien ships adopts a human posts.

Julie, Carrie and Flynn are my three girl geniuses. They're like,,, the smartest people in every room. They've been like this since freshman year of college. Julie, Carrie and Flynn also all want to get into the student exchange program, which is exactly what you think it is. Alien races (and this now includes humanity) swaps out older students with each other so they get a feel of what the other race is like. It's fun, educational, and! You get to make super long distance pen pals!

I'd also have so much fun making up new memes???? It would be so fucking stupid tho but I love it.

Anyway, so after a few years of jumping through the exchange programme, hoping from planet to planet, unfortunately, without their bestfriends :<, the three of them qualify to board research ships!!!

So at like 23-25, my girls come back together on the same ship!! Its a massive thing and so they've hired so many interns from so many different races. It's like a landing hub for several smaller ships. They have like 10 interns per species and that's only because there are laws against having too many of one kind after they put 50 humans on a space station and the humans tried to take over. Also, humans multiply faster than the others. This terrifies some races.

Anyway, the ship's really just a bunch of college kids from different planets trying to avoid exam season by submitting research papers from their ship. They all bond over deadlines, breakups and coffee (or the alien equivalent thereof)

Flynn dated an alien girl for a while. They were cute. Flynn: as a lesbian, it's my duty to date all the women in space

This is also where they run into Willie!!! Yay, Willie!!!

Nick Danforth-Evans and Kayla Evans-McKessie are around ... somewhere ... in bunk beds like the little toddlers they wish they were, crying about the 15 page essay on why Xjsbsjdjd is a very intelligent race that we could learn a lot from (yes, that is a keysmash I'm too buzzed to be creating alien species names sjdjjdjd)

Carrie and Nick do date for a while but then Carrie hooked up with Kayla. Bisexual queen who?

Julie met Willie that time she didn't sleep for over 48 hours because she had a research paper due within a week and she hadn't started yet and it was 10 000 words on her experiences with the Psjxjjdkeiwj race. Luckily for her, the kid she bumped into and spilled an energy drink all over had the same paper and helped her finish it. Willie sometimes goes by the nickname Lifesaver, thanks to Julie. This confuses the metaphor-less people because Willie's never saved anyone's life?? So why is he a lifesaver??

ANYWAY ON TO THE TIME TRAVEL BIT

On their own, Julie, Carrie and Flynn are professional smart people who know what they're saying and are clever enough not to do things with too many risks. In the same room, however, they turn into dumb geniuses who can and possibly may blow up the entire ship. It's a good thing they have Willie, Nick and Kayla to babysit them, right? WRONG. Willie Kayla and Nick egg them on.

They decide there going to gather all the information there is on time travel and they're going to decipher it and make it work! Yay!

When they find stuff in alien languages they start calling up their alien pen pals "hello what's this word mean in this context? What, haha oh no, it's a research paper on why time travel projects were abandoned before completion. Okay, thank you!"

Before long, they have a working time machine. I mean,, they hope so. And so they enter a random date from the past and prepare to pop their heads through just to see what the world looked like approximately 200ish years ago

2020s, post covid because that exists for joke reasons later, Sunset Curve is performing live for one of their biggest audiences yet when mid-song, the floor just opens them up and swallows them whole before vanishing. The crowd things it's a stunt but Sunset Curve's managers are flipping their shit

Back on the ship, the machine starts sparking and with a soft boom and a hiss, the power in that quadrant goes out -- not before Willie's is pelted in the face with a pair of drumsticks and then a whole person.

It's a miracle the drums survived the trip, pet alone everything else.

So now these sleep deprived geniuses and co. have to hide three people and several musical artifacts, plus the smoking remains of a time machine, from their Supervising Officer, who is regrettably, a human too.

And none of them are very good at lying.

Luke and Bobby are though, and after piecing together bits and pieces from the frenzied rambling around them, Luke and Bobby save the group.

Shenanigans ensue as they try to rebuild the time machine under the watchful eye of the SO, while trying to mantainbfake credentials for the boys and trying to explain their very dated clothing. (Yes, Sunset Curve STILL rocks the 90s vibe. In the 2020s. It's their thing.)

Willex happens in the background -- and I mean that very literally. (Jukebox having a tension moment, Willex making out in the background.)

Honestly I'm not sure yet how theyd solve the problems, whether they'd send the boys back or not or what, but I do know that they will all cause a BUNCH of problems in between.

Sometimes they play music just because they still can. Sunset Curve becomes a house band for the ship. They get broadcasted to neighbouring or passing ships like "hey, losers, we have live music, SUCK IT!"

Focusing on the jukebox aspect of this whole fic, that's gonna be a fucking hilarious slow burn.

It will definitely contain the lines "Oh my god, I have a crush on Julie." "Congratulations, you're officially the last to know." "What? Even [SO's Name] knows??" "Dude. The ship's navigation crew knows." "Does ... Julie know?" "No, you're both morons."

Julie is having the exact same conversation four hallways away.

They'd talk a lot about sending the boys back home and it'd be really quiet conversations when everyone else is asleep.

Julie and Luke write music together and after a while, Julie performs a few of them too. Thanks to the concerts, they meet the other human interns that were on the other end of the ship and Carrie and Kayla form Dirty Candy.

The ship becomes known as the party bus.

A thing that will happen: Luke helps Julie write one of her history papers that she gets an A+ for and a comment about how dedicated she was to have delved so far back in the history records to get authentic insight.

Julie and Luke speak in memes but they don't speak the same memes and it drives them both up the wall.

Luke says yeet one day and Julie's soul leaves her body because she hasn't heard anyone say yeet since she was a toddler back on Earth.

Julie: odd display, but acceptable.

Luke, physically experiencing a record scratch: what the fuck did you just say

That is all I have to offer because I'm afraid of plotting further and causing angst somehow.

oh one more thing, someone gets to bang an alien and it's probably Flynn.

Oh oh oh another one more thing. Reggie says "this is just like in Star Wars" for literally anything. The band goes along with it for shits and giggles. The rest of them are very interested in this ancient tale called Star Wars. Reggie sees a picture of Flynn and her green gf and says "hey, you dated photoshopped Yoda" and Bobby just loses his shit.

#julie and the phantoms #jatp #julie and the himbos #julie and the fat ones #jatp fic idea #ask #ask meme #thanks for the ask!#trope mashup ask #long post

27 notes · View notes

elonscult · 3 years ago

Text

The Awakening - Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Sabrina woke up with the feeling of a freight train running through her head followed by a burning sensation coming in waves from her left cheekbone. The memories of the night before started flooding her mind making her headache intensify even more, a frown now on her face.

She stayed still for a couple of minutes, hearing the quiet breathing of Elon sleeping next to her. He had placed one of his legs between her thighs and was hugging her from the waist with one arm.

The sensation of his body close to her made her feel a little bit better but not quite.

Sabrina moved slowly out of bed trying to not wake him up, she looked up to his face and appreciated the sight of him sleeping so peacefully, he had a calm expression that almost looked childish. Aware of her surroundings, she felt thankful for being in his house. She didn’t allow herself to think about what happened, the whole thing felt foreign to her, almost like a blur or a scene in a movie that leaves you with a bad feeling after you watch it.

Without wanting to pay attention to the way she was feeling, Sabrina walked towards the bathroom in Elon’s room where she found a bag with some of her clothes. She took a quick shower and once she was done, she walked into the bedroom again finding Elon still sleeping.

Sabrina tried her hardest to keep him out of her mind, but it was impossible. She loved him, and that was the truth. Although, she hated that he had that kind of power over her life, it made her feel vulnerable and exposed. She thought about the wedding, the way he had made her feel so humiliated and the way he didn’t answer the phone when she needed him most.

A muffled buzz coming from the bathroom interrupted her subconscious thoughts, she followed the sound later discovering that it came from the bag of clothes she saw earlier. She rummaged through the contents until she found her phone.

She frowned as soon as she saw the endless missed calls from her father. Not exactly sure of what she should do next, she hurried downstairs and grabbed the keys of one of Elon’s cars.

The familiar house now standing in front of Sabrina made a whirlwind of emotions form in her chest. Unsure if she felt safer than threatened, she stepped down of the car and walked towards the entrance. She had walked this same path probably a million times and somehow it still felt foreign.

“Dad?” she called as she opened the door. The immense mansion now showing itself in all its splendor.

“Sabrina?” a strong voice responded from the kitchen. “Is that you?”

The usual assurance and confidence with which she walked did not seem to be present as she moved towards the known voice.

“Well, I don’t think you have any other children” she said now walking into the kitchen catching her father sitting in front of a glass table next to a large window that expanded almost all the way from the ceiling to the floor. His presence always seemed to fill the entire room, making it hard for the both of them to be there at the same time. He was a well-founded man, old school. Tenacious and firm, those were the qualities that had made him reach an overflowing number of goals. Yet, it wasn’t the nature you would exactly want from a parent.

He looked away from the book he held in his hands to look at Sabrina with a stern look that quickly turned into concern.

“Look at that, almost half of your face is bruised!” he said, looking at the hurt face of his daughter.

A warm set of arms surrounded Sabrina; she hugged his father back inhaling the scent of the tall man.

“Don’t worry” she said breaking away the hug.

He grabbed her chin to hold her face in place while he looked at the dark wound on her left cheekbone.

“Dad” she said pushing away his hand and sitting down next to his place at the table.

He sighed looking irritated, then he sat next to her.

“I called you a million times last night and today, can’t you at least pick up the phone” he said.

“Yeah sorry”

“You almost gave your mother a heart attack, she is worried sick” he said displeased “And you weren’t even home when we came by”

Sabrina felt for her father, she understood where his concern was coming from and she hesitated to bring up the fact that she was at Elon’s house.

“I wasn’t there” she limited to say.

“Clearly you have other priorities” he said, his tone with no particular difference.

“What is that supposed to mean?” she asked annoyed. “Elon was there and I didn’t want to stay home by myself”

“Well, if you had called us, we would have been there too! I can’t believe you wouldn’t even call us during an emergency” he almost yelled.

“Fair” she said. “I just didn’t want you to get involved, the press was there and it was a whole thing”

“I don’t like this, you know?” he moved in his seat uncomfortable. “This guy, he puts you on the spotlight and it opens the door to this kind of things happening”

“This guy has a name, and he didn’t put me in the spotlight any more than you did”

“It’s not his fault” she continued.

“Don’t talk back to me” he said firmly looking at the black-haired woman sitting next to him.

He thought of all the sacrifices he had made for his daughter and about the life he had planned for her. She was perfect, engineered, as so many rich parents had arranged in this weird future, to be perfect. And he hated the idea of some guy, such as Elon, just coming in and ruining it.

“At least he had the decency to call me, that I give to him” he said.

Sabrina raised her hand to massage the bridge of her nose, clearly annoyed at the information his father had just told her.

“Stupid” she thought to herself.

“Whatever, dad” she finally said.

“My legal team is already working on never letting that creep get out of jail” he said naturally, almost as if it was the most obvious thing.

“Thanks” she said moving to give her father a kiss on the cheek. “I do appreciate it”

“Right” he shook his head smiling.

“I’d love to wait for mom but I have to go” Sabrina said. “Don’t be so angry all the time, you’re old and you’ll get a heart attack, then I’ll have no father.” She smiled.

“Funny. I want you home tomorrow for dinner” he said.

“Maybe” she answered.

“Sabrina” he said with a stern look.

“Relax, we’ll be here”

“Just you” he said.

“Both” she said now walking towards the door.

Sabrina thought of a million things to say to Elon while she drove through the city, her heart was beating fast, her hands were white from gripping the wheel so hard and she felt angry, an anger that she had trouble controlling, she had that bad habit of being explosive and Elon had always told her that she acted like a little child throwing tantrums. But this wasn’t a tantrum, she didn’t want him to involve himself with her parents.

When she finally arrived at his house she tried to calm down, she wasn’t really in the mood to have another fight cause then she would have to go back to her place. She thought about staying with Alec and then she remembered him being angry at her the night before.

“What a fucking mess” she thought.

She found Elon in his office; her mood shifted as soon as she looked at his face. His blue-ish eyes going rapidly through some file on his computer, the dim light of the monitor highlighted the soft freckles on his face and she wished to count every single one of them. She wished to kiss him in that exact moment.

Sabrina leaned against the door frame crossing her arms, not really sure of what to say.

“There you are” Elon said, smiling. “I’ve been wondering where you were” his steady gaze now all over her.

“I, uh” she hesitated. “I was at my parent’s place”

He frowned unconsciously, sensing the tension building between them.

She simply looked at him.

“I’m not gonna apologize for calling your dad” he finally said. He sighed and leaned back in his chair.

She nodded with a blank expression.

“Are you going to say something?” Elon asked.

“You already know how I feel about it” she said.

“I know, but they’re your parents” he answered.

“Yeah exactly, that’s the thing” Sabrina said, now starting to get annoyed.

“Don’t start something” he said.

“I’m not starting anything. You just don’t understand” Sabrina said, looking hurt.

“The only thing I know is that if my kids were in that situation, I would’ve wanted to know about it” Elon said softly. “They care about you, your parents, I know that”

Sabrina thought about his kids, the way they were almost the exact copy of him. The way he acted when he was around them, it warmed her heart. She wondered if she would ever be a mother, thought about her own strange relationship with her parents, she had always thought she wasn’t good enough for that kind of life.

“Don’t be angry” he said standing up and walking her way. “Please”

“Please” he repeated.

He came close to her and cupped her face with his hands. Sabrina couldn’t move. She limited herself to let him guide her head until she could look into his penetrating eyes, those eyes that surely could read her soul. They hypnotized her like the ones from a predator calming his prey.

Sabrina shivered underneath his embrace.

And then, his hot and exigent lips covered hers. She moaned in response. She had heard all her life abut kisses that made knees weaken and Elon was the only one that had that effect on her.

She thought that man smelled stupendously, that it was a pleasure to touch him and, also, that he tasted so much better.

On her own initiative, her arms surrounded his broad strong shoulders. The heath from his chest introduced into her body, inciting her with the erotic promise of their bodies collapsing together. Every inch of his magnificent body was intimately close to her, caressing her with the intention of waking up all of her feminine instincts. His presence stimulated her like no other man had ever done before. She slid her hands through his back muscles and sighed when she felt them move beneath her hand.

Elon felt like his head was spinning with the warm touch of Sabrina, with the sensation of her arms surrounding him while his own hands traveled her soft precious skin. Oh, how much he liked the mumbling sounds with which she responded.

“Alright” she finally said, giving him a faint smile. Their bodies still close.

The day continued normally, Elon decided to work from home, not wanting to leave Sabrina alone after what happened. He knew her, he knew how affected she was by it, no matter how hard she tried to hide it. He walked from his office to the living room where she was laying down watching TV. Her soft hands placing an ice pack on her face. Elon felt a weird sting cross his chest thinking about how much it probably hurt. The thought of someone punching her made him feel sick.

“Hey love” he said softly, sitting next to her. He placed his hand right over hers and pushed away the ice pack, somehow the bruise on her cheekbone looked worse than before, now a combination of purple, green and black that made her hazel eyes look more yellow. He frowned.

“We should probably get this checked out” he continued.

“No, I’m okay” she said reassuring him. How much he wished she really were.

“Are you done with work?” she asked.

“Yeah, sort of” he smiled. “Are you hungry?”

“Uhm yeah, I actually wanted to go pick some stuff up from my house” she placed the ice pack on the coffee table in front of them and incorporated to be sitting instead of laying on the couch. “Would you please go with me?” she said.

“Of course, honey” he said, unsure if it was a good idea. “I could also send someone”

“No, I wanna go” Sabrina added.

As they arrived at her house, memories of the night before started to come to Sabrina. She moved uncomfortable in her seat, letting go of Elon’s reassuring hand.

With growing anxiety, she stepped into her house and climbed up the stairs towards her room. Elon followed her and watched as she stood rigid and distant. Her face was pale. He could kill the guy that had done this to her. No one should go through that much fear, especially in their own home.

When they reached her room, she stood still for a minute looking back at him. Her stomach revolving. The mattress was down of the bed frame, the sheets were torn apart, every single drawer open and their contents scattered. Elon placed his hands on her shoulders to comfort her. Sabrina felt violated as she walked into her closet and found everything on the floor. Tears started to form on her eyes.

Elon held her close to him, wrapping her in a hug and she didn’t let go, she was holding onto him so strongly that he was having trouble breathing, and she was crying like as if her heart was breaking to pieces. She hated that her home no longer felt safe.

“You don’t ever have to come back here” he said stroking her hair. “Move in with me”

“No, it’s not that easy” she said still sobbing.

“Yeah, it is that easy” he answered.

She separated to look at him.

“No, it’s not” she repeated. “God, are we even together?” she said whipping the tears from her face and taking a few steps back.

Elon ran his hands through his hair in exasperation.

“Sabrina” he began to say.

“This is my home, I can’t just leave” she said. “Specially if I’m not sure of where we’re at”

He sighed. He loved her, and he wished that was enough. But he knew things weren’t that simple, he wanted them to be, but they weren’t.

“We’re here, together, what are you not sure about?” he said.

She shook her head, distressed.

“Sabrina, do you not love me?” he asked, almost too scared.

She hesitated, breaking eye contact with him and looking anywhere else.

“It’s not about that” she finally said.

“Well, do you?” he asked again.

“You know I do”

He let out a deep breath, as if a huge weight had been lifted off of him.

“Then let’s love each other” Elon said. “Let’s start there”

Sabrina’s mind was spinning, she loved this house, it was her own little world, she wasn’t ready to let it go, possibly cause it meant letting go of her independency.

“I’ll take you to dinner, somewhere nice, just the two of us” he said, holding both of her hands and rubbing them with his thumbs.

“I’m not really in the mood to go out right now” she said truthfully.

“I know, baby. Trust me, it will help clear your head”

She looked at him almost with a frown on her face, he hated seeing her sad. It made him feel powerless.

Sabrina hopped into the black Roadster, flashing an adorable grin that made the corners of her eyes scrunch up. Elon nearly took her right back up to his house when he saw her cute little outfit. She wore a strapless, 10 inches above the knee, black, brown, gold and white turtle shell-pattern-like dress. Her long tanned legs embellished with a pair of black tie-up heels that reached the middle of her calves. The long locks of black hair fell in waves on her back all the way down to her waist.

“Are you trying to kill me?” his tone was playful.

Her smile lessened for a minute, head titled, worried she had done something wrong, maybe wore the wrong thing.

“I have half a mind to take you right back upstairs” he leaned into her neck, his nose sliding up underneath her ear, his warm breath sending shivers up her spine.

“And fuck you into oblivion.” He whispered.

She smiled. He reached over her shoulder and gripped the seatbelt, wrapping it over her, buckling her safely to the seat.

When they arrived at the restaurant, they were seated rapidly even thought they didn’t have a previous reservation, Elon’s status would let him in without hesitation. He placed a hand on her lower back guiding her as they followed the attendant and then he pulled the chair to let her sit before sitting himself in front of Sabrina.

Elon quickly ordered for the two of them, not giving Sabrina even a chance to look at the menu.

“I hope you don’t mind, honey. I know what’s good here.” He spoke.

She smiled back at him and shifted in her seat, peeking around the expensive room, feeling overwhelmed. He reached across the table to grab her hand, reassuring her.

“Thank you” she said looking at him before frowning for a short second, almost unnoticeably, looking for the next words she wanted to say. “I appreciate that you’re trying to make me feel better” she continued.

He looked at the hand he was grabbing, her fingers cautiously resting on his own. He rubbed them in a loving way, then, he looked at her.

“I’m sorry, for everything that happened that day. I really am” Elon said.

She gave him a comforting smile. The bruise on her face now covered with makeup, barely visible.

Elon felt so guilty. He shouldn’t have let her go, they could have arrived home together and everything could have been avoided. Or at least he could’ve protected her. He wished he had protected her.

“Just an unfortunate series of events, it’s not your fault” she said, reading the regretful look on his face. “Don’t blame yourself for this” she leaned forward, emphasizing her words, he still holding her hand. He sighed.

“I want to be with you, only you. There’s no one else for me” Elon said.

Sabrina looked away for a second.

“I want to be with you too” she said. “I just-.”

Ivory porcelain dishes were placed down on the dark stained wood table, interrupting their conversation. The food -that looked more like an art piece than food- was plated so creatively. Sabrina almost felt guilty that she was about to eat it. She wasted no time and took a bite of the alluring decorated dish, a wave of flavor swiftly traveling through her mouth.

“You were right. This is incredible” she said, grinning from ear to ear.

“I know” he said smiling and later taking a bite of his plate too. Then looking at her encouraging her to continue the previous conversation.

“I need to be sure you’re done with Camille, I don’t like feeling unsure of us. We have already done that, remember? That’s why we broke up back then.” Sabrina said, her melodic voice echoing through his ears.

“I don’t want you to feel that way, to be unsure of my love” he sincerely said. “Things with her are complicated. I so- wish that they weren’t.” He ran a hand through his scruffy dark hair.

“She doesn’t want to sign the divorce papers. She wants to go to court. More money. Mess with me. At this point, I’m not sure” he let out.

She looked at him, a strange sentiment growing in her chest. She tried to imagine how much it must hurt to be treated like this by someone you once loved. She hated the idea of him being still legally married to that woman.

“I’m sorry you’re going through this” Sabrina said, looking at him lovingly. Wanting to take away all of his worries.

He took a hard look at the woman sitting in front of him, his love. Wondering if she could ever be capable of doing the horrible things Camille had done to him. Sabrina was everything his ex-wife wasn’t, intelligent, capable, caring. And she so rarely made him feel unsure of her love.

“I love you, E.” she said, desiring to find stronger words to express the adoration she had for Elon.

She stood up and leaned forward to place a quick kiss on his lips. Her familiar taste made Elon’s heart skip a beat.

“I love you too” he said. As he had so many times before.

She sat back down and they enjoyed the rest of their dinner. After, Elon took her for a walk in the area. The busy Los Angeles Street unusually empty. Their arms laced together as they moved forward.

Elon kept a tight grip on her as he walked them inside a store. The room smelled like luxury. White walls led up to the high ceiling. Marble tiled floors spread wide, holding bright displays.

“What are we doing here?” Sabrina whispered.

“I told you I wanted to make you feel better” he whispered leaning into her ear.

Although she desperately wanted to argue him on it, she stayed quiet. He smiled, pleased at her obedience.

Fabric clothing covered the walls, expensive jewelry sparkled under the lights.

“Like anything you see, baby?” he said.

She bit her lip, not really sure.

“You don’t need to spoil me like this” she said. Growing up in a well-off family had made Sabrina quickly associate love and affection with expensive things, being as her parents would often show it to her that way. Now that she was older, she longed for genuine connections.

“I feel bad about this kind of stuff. I don’t want you to think this is why I like you” she continued.

He laughed at the irony of her statement. He knew she was capable of affording anything she wanted herself.

“I don’t care if you feel bad. I want you to be dripping in my wealth. Let me.” He spoke slow. Making her heart beat faster.

She smiled almost excited.

“Fine” she said.

The assistant set up a dressing room for them, adding a few pieces in along with the ones she and Elon had picked out. The dressing room was wide, mirrors covering the entirety of the walls, a bone-colored sofa attached to one of them.

They spent the next half hour in there, Sabrina would change into each piece and show it off to Elon. He sat on the couch, filling the room with his masculine presence. He unfortunately was on a work phone call, despite his efforts to get rid of them earlier in the day. Each time she would parade around, he felt his pants growing tighter.

“Babe” she said. Elon’s eyes looking up to hers, still talking into the phone. “Can I have some help with this zipper?” she asked.

“I’ll call you in a moment” he hung up, shoving his phone into his pocket.

Sabrina was wearing a satin red dress, she stood facing the mirror, lifting up her long curls to expose her bare back and zipper. He couldn’t take his eyes off her body. His hands reached down and pulled the zipper up slowly, encasing her body in the expensive fabric.

“Thank you.” She said brushing down the sides of the dress, placing it correctly. “What do you think?” she asked looking at Elon through the reflection.

His long hands slid up over her ass, up her sides, resting on her breasts to rest on them, slightly grasping them. “I’m about to rip this to shreds and have my way with you.” He said.

Sabrina let out a big laugh. “Shut up. Seriously, what do you think?”

A smile spread across his face as his hands fell on her hips. He slowly pushed up the dress, exposing her black underwear. He then shoved his hand into the front of them, his thick fingers finding the center of her body. He stroked over it in slow circles, watching her face in the reflection of the mirror. His other hand finding its way back up to her chest, grabbing a handful.

Feeling her breathing slow down and her body pressing closer to him, he dug deeper between her legs, shoving two fingers inside of her. She moaned at the feeling.

“You have to be quiet, doll.” He whispered in a deep voice.

His fingers pushed further into her, finding their place pressed against her most sensitive spot. She leaned back into him. He felt her contract around his fingers.

Pulling his fingers from her, he turned her around to face him. Grabbing the neckline of the thin fabric, he ripped the dress in half.

“Elon” she said surprised. He quickly silenced her and turned her around again.

“Be good and cum for me” he said.

“Mhm” she whined, breathing out. She felt his hardness through his pants, hard as possible, pressed against her. She rubbed back onto it, drawing out a growl from him.

“I said be good” Elon said pushing his fingers deeply, making her reach that magnificent release.

He kept his grip tight over her to held her up while she wiggled up against him. She stared at him through the mirror, the sight of him helping her along and intensifying her climax.

He slowly released his tight hold on her, leaning her on the wall. He lifted his hand to his mouth and licked each finger and his palm, enjoying the taste he was getting. Her taste.

“Did that answer the question about the dress?” he asked.

She laughed, pulling the shreds of fabric off her shoulders.

They grabbed everything and took it to the front of the store to the register. The cashier gladly ringing everything up, pleased by the amount of money they were spending. At the end of the transaction Elon dropped the remaining of the dress into the counter, staring at the woman behind it. Sabrina’s face turned red.

Without saying a word, she rang up the shreds of the dress. Swiping the black card. Elon smiled back at his lover.

————————---------------

It’s been literally so long lmao but anyways hope you like it, I will try to upload the next one on Monday, thank youuuu sooooo much for your sweet messages🤍

I don’t know if you still want to be tagged, let me know:) 🤍 @ourloveisforthelovely

#elon musk #the awakening #elon musk fanfic #elonscult

9 notes · View notes

bangtan-madi · 5 years ago

Note

Hi dear! Could a request some fluff with Jumin Han? Existence is being overwhelming right now (Anxiety and sensory overload) and I really would love to retreat from the world. Jumin's side feels like a great place to hide from everything.

I love this prompt!! Sorry for taking so long to get it written, and thank you everyone for your patience! Work has been super busy lately, and I’ve been sick. Barely had time to write, but never fear, I am slowly working through my Askbox! Hope you enjoy, my loves!

_______________________________________________

It’s past four in the morning, and you’re lying awake, insomnia taking hold once again. No matter how much you toss and turn, you just can’t seem to fall asleep. You’re not sure why. Maybe it’s the stress of your job. Maybe it’s the fact that your boyfriend Jumin is several thousand miles away on another long business trip.

You pick up your phone and dial his number, praying and hoping that he hasn’t gone to sleep yet. He picks up after a few rings. “MC? Why are you up at this hour?”

You smile, glad to hear his soothingly deep voice in your ear. “Can’t sleep.”

You hear a door close on the other line, then Jumin speaks again. “You’re in luck, my darling, I just finished for the day.”

“I hope I didn’t interrupt anything in America.”

He chuckles, “Not at all. Please, don’t make me socialize with Elon after hours. That man is a handful.”

You give a soft chuckle, pulling the blankets tightly around you to keep warm. “Tell me about your day?”

Jumin lets out a soft sigh, almost as if he collapsed on his bed. “Well, the Americans were very happy to tell me I’ve been overdressing the entire trip.”

You try to hold in a laugh. “What on earth does that mean?”

“Evidently, It is not too common to constantly wear a three-piece suit here, even amongst professionals. I assumed that my attire would be appropriate for what they title ‘business casual.’ Most of them showed up without jackets or ties. Seems no one thought to point it out until today. America is strange, MC.”

You laugh at his unusually playful tone, and for the first time, you start to feel your eyes start to close. “Well, I like the suits you wear.”

“Really? You don’t think I over-dress?”

“Absolutely not,” you scoff at the idea. “They make you look…dashing.”

“Does anyone even use that word anymore?”

A small yawn slips out as you retort, “You can’t say anything, you always use old words like 'dashing.’”

It doesn’t take long for him to catch you yawning again. “You should get some sleep, my love. Get some rest. Jaehee has told me our departure time is early in the morning, so we should be back in Korea by midnight, local time.”

“I’ve tried,” you breathe, picking at the spot on the bed where he normally sleeps. “It’s just not the same without you. My anxiety…not great today.”

Jumin sighs heavily, his frustration showing through his tone. “I wish I could be there, darling. I really do. It pains me to be away. But I will be home soon, very soon, and I will not leave for a long time.”

“You promise?”

“I do.”

A sleepy smile makes its way onto your face. “Okay, twist my arm. I’ll be waiting for you at the airport, okay?”

“Good night, MC. Sweet dreams.”

_______________________________________________________

While it’s only been two weeks since Jumin and Jaehee left for America, you swear it’s been longer than that. You’ve counted every day since he left. Somehow, fourteen seems too conservative a number.

Now he’s on C&R’s private jet, heading home to you. You’ve been waiting at the front gate, on the other side of security, for over an hour, unable to do anything except for pace in place. You knew his flight would be landing at an ungodly hour past midnight, but you didn’t care. It didn’t matter that you had already pulled a fourteen-hour shift at your job, or that you’d been up for almost twenty-four hours at this point. You didn’t care that you were makeup-less and an exhausted mess.

Nothing was going to keep you away from him.

A text lights up your phone. You quickly glance down at it, a grin spreading across your face when you see it’s from the RFA chat room contact labeled “Crazy Cat Man

“Look up, my love.”

Your wide eyes fly from the screen to the empty exit hallway ahead of you. Jumin turns the corner and pushes through the glass door separating the runways from the airport interior. As soon as he’s through, coming out of the darkness of night, you run at him at full-speed. Jumin drops his luggage to the floor and catches you as you crash into him, nearly knocking him over. The dark-haired man lets out a laugh as you wrap your arms around his neck and your legs around his waist.

“I never thought you’d land!” you exclaim, holding him tightly to you.

Jumin tightens his arms around you, burying his face into your shoulder. “Neither did I,” he chuckles.

After holding onto each other a little longer, you put your feet back on the ground and look up at him. He’s just as tired and messy as you are, his jacket traded for a more comfortable coat over his pin-striped shirt. There are dark circles under his eyes, and his black hair is unruly, but he’s never smiled wider. Facetime, RFA chat rooms, and texting can only make up so much for lost time. From his eyes and his smile and the way he grips your waist, you know for certain that he’s just as glad to be home with you again.

Jumin pulls you back in and kisses you, both of you sighing in relief to be able to do it once again. “I missed you,” he breathes.

You wrap him in a hug once again. “I missed you, too. No more international business trips anytime soon, okay?”

Jumin cups your face in his hands and presses a kiss to your forehead with a soft chuckle. “Deal.”

_______________________________________________

“I’m going to sleep for a week,” Jumin groans.

“Tell me about it,” you yawn, crawling up the steps to the front door of your apartment. “I’ve been up for almost twenty-four hours already.”

The brunet gives you a sympathetic glance as you unlock the door and push into the dark. “You didn’t have to meet me at the airport,” he sighs, feeling a little guilty. “You could have just slept.”

You shake your head, take his bags from his hands, and lean up to kiss him. “I couldn’t sleep knowing you’d be home again.

Jumin grins and kisses you again. "I need a shower. I smell like the airport and recycled air. Care to join me?”

You roll your eyes and turn towards the bedroom, duffel bags in tow. “Too tired, Jumin. Nice try, though.”

Your boyfriend looks mildly amused at your response and heads for the bathroom.

You throw the bags onto the chair in the bedroom, sighing heavily as you change into a tank top and pajama shorts. You let the air move out of your lungs as you fall face-first onto the mattress, closing your eyes as you snuggle into the fluffy, white duvet.

A few minutes later, you hear the bathroom door creak open. Jumin tip-toes over to the bed in the darkness, slipping under the covers behind you. He carefully slides his arms around your middle and pulls you back into his chest. You feel his slow breathing on the back of your neck and in your hair.

“I really, really love you,” he mumbles softly, so softly you almost don’t hear it. “And I know you’re probably asleep right now, but I just wanted to say that again. That, and your hair smells really good.”

The last part of his confession causes you to suppress a giggle, and Jumin tightens his grip around you. “I knew you were awake, you little mouse.”

You turn around in his grasp, tangling your legs with his as you press a kiss to his lips. “I tried,” you chuckle, burying your face into his shoulder. “I really tried. For what it’s worth, I really love you, too. And your hair always smells nice.”

Jumin runs a hand through his dark, wet hair, moving it out of his face as he grins at you. Then he tightens his grip and pulls you into his chest, using another hand to pull the covers over you both.

“Get some sleep, MC,” he whispers, kissing your forehead. “I’m home.”

1K notes · View notes

ourimpavidheroine · 4 years ago

Note

You've given us your favorite records, so how about your favorite movies?

Okay, sure! Under a cut though, because it’s long.

In no particular order!

Strictly Ballroom (1992)

Oh my god, one of the funniest movies ever made. Every single thing about this movie makes me laugh out loud - in fact, I laughed so loud in the theater when I saw it the first time I’m surprised they didn’t kick my ass out. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched and re-watched it. My late wife and I used to quote this film back and forth to each other all the time.

“Arms, Clary!”

“That was unexpected.”

“I’ve got my happy face on today!”

There’s a lovely little romance going on and a quote that I live by:

A life lived in fear is a life half lived.

Thank you, Baz Luhrmann.

Bringing Up Baby (1938)

Screwball comedy romance with Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn. Still funny, over 80 years later. Mistaken identities, a harrassed archeologist and a clueless rich girl, so on and so forth. If you watch it, you will see shades of Wu and Sayuri in Susan, for sure. (And some Zu in David.) The comedic timing of this movie is sheer and utter perfection. Not a single beat wasted. Brilliant, the entire thing.

Moonstruck (1987)

God, what isn’t there to love about this movie? CHER. A woman coming up on middle age who has settled into widowhood without a whimper decides to marry a man she’s fond of for no other reason than she thinks she should meets the fiance’s younger brother and her entire life goes, as her Italian Catholic mother says in the middle of church, “...down the toilet.” This movie was handled with so much love and care, it deserved its Oscars. If you’ve never seen it, you should.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)

I saw this movie the one and only time I visited the States after I moved to Finland. I had left my wife here in Finland but had my 20 month old autistic twins along and my mother was being beyond horrible to me and I was exhausted and just wanted to go home. There was one afternoon where my favorite uncle came to me, gave me his car, and told me he was going to watch the kids and for me to go out and have a breather. I decided to see a movie - I can’t remember which one - but the paper had gotten the time wrong and it had already started by the time I got there. I asked the woman selling tickets what she recommended that was coming up and she very fervently told me to go and see this one.

Still one of the best movies I have ever seen. The acting is so subtle, so beautiful, and the scenery! The ending broke me, just shattered me into a million pieces. Years later, when my wife died, I knew exactly that feeling of desperately wanting to go back in time and somehow do it all right and all I can say is, both Michelle Yeoh and Zhang Ziyi get all of my love forever for doing it the way they did.

I bought it when it finally came out on DVD with English subtitles and I made my late wife watch it with me and she sobbed at the end and told me I was cruel for making her watch it. (Guess what, babe? You were crueler for making me live it.)

The Handmaiden (2016)

Normally I am not all that keen on books being made into movies. I fucking loved Sarah Waters’ Fingersmith and wasn’t sure about it being taken out of its Victorian England setting into 1930′s Korea but oh my god I have never been happier to have been proved wrong in my life. THIS FILM. Listen, it is one of those rare times when a book and an adaptation can stand next to each other, equally as good, equally as strong, despite the differences. There is so much to unpack about women’s experiences with sex and how that compares to how men dictate those experiences to them and the movie never drops the ball with this. Frankly, I had seen Oldboy and Snowpiercer (among others) and I really did not think Park Chan-wook had it in him and shame on me for that.

Warning: this movie is HOT.

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

This is a damn good movie. Charlize Theron elevates anything she is in, and as Furiosa - dirty, grim, disabled, clinging on to tattered hope with desperation - she just takes this film to another level. Plenty of other good performances - including Tom Hardy, who’s never afraid to drop himself into a role - and some frankly astonishing editing work by Margaret Sixel as well as a male director who understands, deeply, how to film women without subjecting them to the male gaze. This is not a schlock film, despite the franchise it belongs in. It’s good.

I saw this film the night before my wife died; the last time I spoke to her on the phone I told her that I’d take her with me to see it again, I knew she’d like it. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to separate this film from that loss, but that’s how it goes sometimes. Still wish you could have seen it, babe. You would have loved it.

The Great Race (1965)

Is this a great movie? Not critically speaking, although Jack Lemmon is brilliant, as he almost always is. Rather, it was a movie my father and I loved together, and I have so many good memories of watching it with him whenever it would play on TV (these were the years before VHS even, never mind Netflix) and eating popcorn and laughing together.

We loved the huge pie fight scene so much that on my 16th birthday my father bought 3 dozen store bought pies, defrosted them and/or baked them (with the help of our neighbor, who was in on the secret) and he woke me up that morning, told me to get dressed and come outside, and he got me with a pie to the face right as I walked out the door and the two of us chased each other, throwing and dodging pies, making an unholy mess, slipping and sliding all over our deck and driveway, stumbling and laughing hysterically.

It is one of the best memories in my life. How many other girls can say their fathers gave them a pie fight for their sweet sixteen? This movie makes me laugh and, more importantly, remember my father with so much love.

The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

I did love all three of these films. Were they perfect? No. (I am still salty about Faramir’s entire movie arc and the fact that Merry was just Pippin 2.0 instead of the distinct character he was in the books.) But they were made with so much love and heart by people who loved and cared deeply for the source material. And they were astonishing in scope as well. Just glorious to see in the theater.

I first read those books when my father lent me his copies when I was eight and they were a vital part of my growing up; to see Peter Jackson and his entire cast and crew love them as much as I did was genuinely special for me.

The other two films are just as good with some astonishing moments (Billy Boy’s last minute song in The Return of the King still gives me goosebumps) but this was the first one, and just remembering holding my wife’s hand as we both gasped together over the scope of it was a memory I will keep with me always.

When my wife and I went to see this one here in Finland I was pregnant with my twins and I was like, oh my god, please die already Boromir because were twins on my bladder and I knew if I didn’t get to a toilet soon it was going to be all over. (It was a long movie without a pee break for a pregnant person, let me just say.) I was never happier for a tragic end to a movie in my life, LOL.

The Matrix (1999)

Dude. Dude. Just the concept of this movie. The Wachowski sisters have never limited themselves and that’s what makes them so different and so exciting. One of the greats of Sci Fi and, as far as I am concerned, one of the greats bar none. Yeah sure, I know it isn’t a critical darling but lord, I am not a film critic, just someone who loves movies. And I love this one.

(And excuse you, Elon and the rest of you alt-right men’s groups, you dicks, for appropriating the whole blue/red pill thing: it’s a concept from two trans sisters, so fuck right off with that.)

My best friend, who saw it with me the first time (I took my late wife to see it later in the year when she arrived in the States) laughed at the whole little kid with spoon scene. That’s like listening to you, she said. I never know what is going to come out of your mouth or whether I’ll understand it in the moment but it will eventually make sense to me. Which pretty well sums me up, I think. And this movie as well.

The Piano (1993)

There is a moment, in this gorgeous, deeply beautiful, aching film, where Harvey Keitel fingers a small hole in Holly Hunter’s stocking and it is the most erotic heterosexual thing I have ever seen. Trust a woman director to understand why women would love this. There’s Harvey Keitel’s character: older, soft around the middle, barely literate, covered with traditional facial tattoos. He’s nobody’s idea of hot. But he understands what this woman in particular needs, understands what she is telling him without words, and that’s what he gives her and it is erotic beyond measure. It’s not about what he looks like; it’s about how he understands her.

Holly Hunter does this movie without speaking a single word or getting any subtitles and short of a few brief translations by Anna Paquin playing her young daughter still manages to express herself. It’s brilliant acting. (And look, I know - today we’d look for an actress who was mute to play the role, and rightfully so. It still doesn’t take away from Hunter’s performance.)

Ada drowned in the original script but Jane Campion changed it at the last minute when filming and it was the right choice. The absolute right choice. Ada deserves her freedom and her chance to pursue her own happiness.

#my favorite movies #personal #Anonymous

7 notes · View notes

eightysixed · 3 years ago

Text

the widow

May

All it took was one bad joke.

Emma envied guys. She wished she was a guy. She didn’t know how her life could’ve diverged differently to what it is now, from what it could have been, but she wished it. They had the world at their feet and they didn’t know it. Pangs of inexplicable jealousy rushed through her, along with helplessness. It was just one guy from the next that she relied on, first Ben, then Tyson, now Gerry. When would she ever learn how to rely on herself? Just to feel safe by herself? It was fucked. All of it was fucked.

Uncharacteristic to her usual spirals though, she took up residence back on the couch, flopping squished between everyone else who had closed the gap since she had gotten up and left. “Can someone roll me a joint?�� she said, eyes on all the weed paraphernalia scattered about the table. The reactions of surprise rolled through them like a wave, famously aware Emma doesn’t smoke, but somehow, she revelled in that, felt powerful. She wasn’t going to get paranoid, she was going to smoke and have a good time like everybody else here was. She was safe. With her friends.

Mikey took up her offer, busied himself rolling up her joint. “Thanks,” she said, smiling his way. He smiled back. They talked about Elon Musk’s latest insane idea.

She didn’t want the whole thing to herself of course, so she put the joint in rotation. But even two, three hits were enough for her to feel something registering. Something in the pit of her gut. That was the good stuff, she told herself. It was working, in the good kind of way. She was good. It was all good.

And then by god something changed in the room. The air smelled different.

Tyson made a joke, harmless, dumb. Everybody laughed. Herself included.

She wasn’t sure how Boulder got mixed into it all, but suddenly it did. Suddenly she wasn’t here, but there. And that was enough.

Enough to have her stomach twisting into knots.

The room was spinning. The room had a name and that name was chaos. She didn’t want to be here. Couldn’t be here.

She excused herself in a manner she hoped was calm and casual enough to warrant a mere trip to the bathroom and nothing more, even though she heard someone’s “You okay?” call after her even as she left. Made her way upstairs. Threw up in the porcelain.

The music from downstairs was loud, but she ran a tap just in case, right before she hurled the Hot Cheeto contents of her stomach in case anybody might hear. Wouldn’t wanna alarm them too much.

Still couldn’t handle her weed. That was disappointing. Annoying. Irritating. Now she felt like adding to her high, enhancing it. But she didn’t have any pills. She was sure if she asked around a room full of these guys, someone would have something. But would they give it to her? Then they would know. Then her jig would be up.

There was a bang on the bathroom door. Somebody had come to get her? A touching thought. Maybe more than she even deserved.

“Yo, somebody in here?” Dom’s voice called, a little too loud.

She waited a moment. Maybe he’d go away. He’d hear the change in her voice if she spoke. “Yeah Dom, it’s me! Just a minute!”

“Oh, aight.” His footsteps went back down.

Maybe not.

The anxiety that had hit her like an Amtrak now gave way to anger. So much anger, at herself. Fuck this shitty brain and this shitty body and everything they’d made her become. She wanted to take a Jack Nicholson sized axe to the stupid notion of what she had become, angry because she wasn’t a guy. Would all of this have happened to her had she been a guy? Probably not. But she was a girl, always weaker, less than, incapable, incompetent. All those teen years spent feeling so tough amounting to absolutely nothing in the face of her adult self that had crumbled to a whittled, hollowed out shell.

Elizabeth Wurtzel, eat your depressed heart out.

Maybe if she wrote a memoir, that’d free up all her demons. Maybe, maybe.

She laughed, out loud. That was a laughable notion right there. The girl who held all her demons so close to her chest, the last shit she wanted was anybody reading them, in eBook format on some Kindle Fire.

No, fuck a memoir. She’d code a virus to infect the world, WsOD everyone’s systems. No more shiny gadgets for you, sorry. No more online distractions. You’re left with yourselves, everyone. To suffer like I suffer.

She stared into the toilet bowl. It stared back. She hurled some more from the nasty smell drifting up. She flushed. She ran the tap and tried to make her mascara not look so fucked.

On any other evening, this would be just any other evening. Especially with him. But he wasn’t here and this wasn’t any other evening.

He wasn’t here and she was sad and having some kind of reaction to this weed, clearly. Or maybe it was just the trigger. Or both. She’d never know.

///////////

Hoops and Everything

September

She was fucked. Fucked in the head. She knew that much.

There was a guy. His name was … Mark? Yeah, his name was Mark.

Mark was violent, but not to her. That was a good sign, right?

Mark shoved a guy who got too close to her at the Combichrist show, and she decided on him then.

Maybe she couldn’t have him, but she could have the next best thing, right?

Tomo or no Tomo, she was going to be a whole person again. Yeah, this was great. Everything was great.

Mark loved her and fucked her and she fucked him right back and everything was grand and wonderful because they had each other.

Okay maybe he gave her a little too much grief on her gender confused best friend one week out of the blue. But that just meant he cared, right? It was kind of hot to see him angry.

“Babe, he’s barely into girls. I think, I don’t know. We’ve been friends for six years. It’s nothing. He’s like my brother.”

It took a lot of convincing but she did it. And then they fucked again.

That was love, right?

Ben called one morning. She hadn’t spoken to him on the phone in so long she’d almost forgotten what his voice sounded like. And then she heard it and remembered that warm feeling of Santa Rosa summers together that put a smile on the rest of her day.

It would probably be bad news if Mark found out about Ben. Or Ben about Mark. She couldn’t sum up in ten quick words or less who Ben was to her. What he meant to her. And vice versa, she wasn’t sure Ben would take to Mark very well. She’d barely just told him about Gerry. Ben seemed to have liked Gerry, said something about meeting him one of these days.

Emma still loved Gerry. But not like that. Not like she loved Mark. She loved Mark, right? She did. She was sure of it.

Except Mark wasn’t him, and would never be him, and fuck this stupid world for putting people in your path at the wrong time and the wrong place.

Didn’t matter that Mark wasn’t as funny, as smart, as skilled at something in this world and with a glint in his eye that spoke of world domination.

Would she ever feel how she felt on top of that ferris wheel when Tomo told her that she was the whole entire world?

Probably not. Probably never.

But hey, here was Mark coming through to pick her up as they were closing shift, and they were gonna go see a movie and maybe he’d bitch about it being dumb, but then they’d go home and fuck and he’d tell her she was hot and everything was fine with the world. Yeah, Mark was good. Mark would do.

#emma #self para #self para: emma #vomit tw #this is a dumpster fire but i've had it in the backburner for so long again now here it is

1 note · View note

starryseo · 5 years ago

Text

mess. [1/3] | seo changbin

pairing ↠ changbin x gn!reader genre ↠ typical chaotic roommates behaviour (humour + fluff) wc ↠ 1678 summary ↠ cleaning is the bane of changbin’s existence. luckily, you know just how to fix that. warnings ↠ a lot of swearing. a/n ↠ when will elon musk create a thing that automatically writes my stories when i half-ass a plot

read: MESS | mayhem (part two) | purify (part three)

series masterlist

Changbin is, by all accounts, an absolute dumbass.

He could revise for an exam two hours before it started and ace it; he could bullshit his way through a 5k essay in thirty minutes with enough coffee, he could even rap to three Eminem songs, back-to-back, without breaking a sweat.

But God forbid he pick up his clothes from the floor, or wash a couple of the dishes.

No, Seo Changbin was above cleaning.

But he was an even worse chef, so, after hiding his phone, laptop, playstation controller and even a goddamn ipod, you picked up a plushie that had fallen to the floor - not Gyu, of course, because Changbin would throttle you if you touched his best friend - and whacked him with it until he woke up.

His futile attempts to push you away made you come down on him harder until he gave up, exclaiming, “I’m up, I’m up! What the hell, y/n?”

His eyes were barely open, his hair sticking up this way and that, and drool was drying on his chin - because he was no sleeping beauty. But at least he was sitting up - groaning into his hands, cursing the day you were born and every day since then, but more awake than he was two minutes ago.

“Get up, princess, you’ve got shit to do.”

“It’s too early to be alive right now,” he whined, “five more minutes?”

And, in true desperate-Changbin fashion, he pouted and gave you puppy dog eyes. One look at his face right now could bring the monarchy to their knees, and had you been some amateur you would’ve fallen for his anguish and caved in. Thankfully, you had roomed with him for two years and known him for three more, so you were more than prepared.

As soon as the words left his mouth, you lifted the plush still in your hand; his arms raised in defence, wait wait wait barely leaving his lips before you knocked the pout off his face.

“I hate you,” he grumbled, pulling back one corner of his spaceship duvet - because who the hell does astronomy if they don’t have cool starry shit in their room and they were cheap, “so, so much. I hope you know that.”

“Ditto, but it’s two in the afternoon, so get your fat ass up.” You dropped the plush on his lap before spinning around to leave his room.

He met you in the living room, pyjamas creased from sleeping for over ten hours, but right now that was the least of his concerns. Because you had prepared the cutest outfit for him.

A frilly purple apron hung from your hand and, with one glance at the smirk on your face, Changbin knew who it was for. “You’re gonna look super cute in that, y/n.”

“If only it was for me,” you grinned, tossing the clothing over him.

“Yeah,” he caught it, before throwing it back, “it ain’t for me either.”

“If you want your phone back, you’ve gotta wear it.”

His eyes narrowed at you, trying to call your bluff, but the easy smirk you wore had him groaning exasperatedly, snatching the apron from your outstretched hand.

“Hate you so much,” he muttered again, crossing his arms grumpily.

“C’mon, you look adorable!” He rolled his eyes and looked away from you, acting annoyed, but you took the opportunity to snap a picture of him. As soon as he realised what you had done, he jumped into action, trying to grab your phone but you locked it and slipped it back into your pocket. “If you do everything I say, I won’t send it to the others.”

He grit his teeth, battling between wrestling you for the phone or listening to you.

“I feel the need to remind you I still have your phone.”

He huffed out his anger, giving you the tensest smile ever before acquiescing. “Fine. Let’s do this shit.”

First order of business was clearing out his floor.

You dragged the hamper from the bathroom into his room and watched as he: picked up an article of clothing from the floor, sniffed it, pulled a what-the-hell-died-in-this face, threw it in the hamper, moved half a step forward and repeated the process. Sure, his floor would be clothesless if you helped him - or if he realised that he was disgusting and all of his clothes were dirty - but it was amusing to watch him get increasingly worried as the hamper started overflowing.

“Holy shit,” he sighed, finally done with job number one, “I didn’t even think I owned that many clothes.”

Task two was changing his bed.

You went to find him fresh sheets as he took the hamper back to the bathroom (because you didn’t trust him with running the washing machine unsupervised - he probably didn’t trust himself either).

When you returned, he was lying on his bed, playing on a goddamn Tamagotchi and the shriek you let out had him jumping off his bed.

“Where the fuck do you hide this shit?” You exclaimed, throwing the clean sheets at his face to wrench the device from his hands.

“Leave me alone,” he all but whined, pushing the bedding off his face to glare at you, “I’m tired of cleaning.”

“You’ve done shit all, Bin!”

“I’m baby.”

“Ugly baby,” you grumbled, stepping away from him, “Sheets. Now.”

He groaned, complying with your command, then cursing you further when he saw you playing on the Tamagotchi.

You were pretty startled he even knew how to change his sheets properly. You’d seen him eat an entire carton of ice cream without getting a brain freeze and yet he struggled to change his pillow case? Seo Changbin truly was an enigma.

Once his bed was set, wrinkles smoothed and duvet tucked in, Changbin turned to you with the most pleading look you think he’s ever conjured up. His eyes were practically begging for a break, hands clasped beneath his chin, but he crumbled when you grinned and said, “Vacuum time!”

He could actually see his floor now.

No more dust lingered between strewn textbooks and gone were the cobwebs hanging from the ceiling lights. His room was tidy - cleaner than the day he moved in - and, damn, was he proud of that. He had successfully cleaned his desk, his shelves, even his windowsill, and he left the window open because holy shit was he nose blind. How did you ever let him get to that state?

He was thankful you hauled his lazy ass out of bed so early, but he’d rather clean Jisung and Felix’s shared room - and he’d bet your life (never his own, of course) that their room was a dumpyard compared to his - than ever admit that to you.

You could tell he was grateful when he offered to order in take-away though.

Once dinner was over and done with, you slumped against the sofa, knackered.

“Why the hell are you so tired, huh?” He scoffed, swinging his legs over yours and leaning against the arm rest. “I did all the hard work.”

“You think it’s easy supervising your ass?”

He spluttered, shoving you as best as he could with his legs, “I’m a delight.”

“We’ll see about that tomorrow.” You replied and he raised a brow in question. “Tomorrow you’re cleaning the kitchen.”

“Bullshit,” he groaned, throwing his head back, “Tomorrow, I rest. Feel free to clean that shit up though.”

“Nope! But because you’ve been so good today, I’ll give you back your phone.” You moved his legs off of yours, stretching as you stood before making your way to your room. You tensed when he followed you, making you stop and turn back, “I think I’m capable of getting your phone without supervision, y'know?”

He scoffed, “I wouldn’t trust you with my life, and my phone is much more important.”

“Wow, okay. Just for that, I’m not getting it now.”

You thought that would work and make him argue with you but he simply shrugged, walking on, “I’ll find it myself then.”

“No!” You grabbed onto his wrist, pulling him back, “You can’t go into my room.”

“Why not? You got a shrine of me or something in there?”

“Ew, no. I just have, like, underwear out, y'know? Don’t be a pervert, Bin.”

He teasingly raised his eyebrows as soon as you said that and in the split second it took for you to roll your eyes, he dashed towards your door. Curse Chan for dragging Changbin to the gym because the muscle pig slipped out of your grip like butter.

“Holy. Fucking. Shit.”

You stuttered when you got to the door, trying to pull it closed, but he easily pushed through. “In my defence, I’ve been cramming revision for my exams and I haven’t-”

“I don’t give a damn,” he said, turning to you with a smirk so taunting the devil would quake in fear, “you fuckin’ hypocrite. Give me your phone.”

“I’ll give you your laptop too if you-”

His laugh cut you off and his steps forward forced you to move back. How was this the same man that woke up in robot pj’s with drool on his face?

“You’re waking up at 7am to clean that shithole and I’m gonna supervise your ass so hard you’re gonna-”

“Please, for the sake of all things holy, don’t finish that sentence off.”

“Fine. But get a good night’s sleep, sweetheart,” he grinned, patting your shoulder before taking a step back, “because tomorrow your ass is mine.”

Changbin had never slept more comfortably in his life, and that alone had you tossing and turning until your alarm buzzed at the dreaded time of 7am.

You thought of running to Hyunjin or Seungmin or even Jisung and Felix for safety, but after knowing Changbin for five years, you knew the man to be determined and ruthless when it came to revenge.

Changbin is, by all accounts, an absolute dumbass. But he’s also a man of his word.

205 notes · View notes