#especially if more companies do what google is doing

[maximwtf]

“Should have known better.”

Kinich x Reader

Words: 2500

Google Docs Pages: 4.1

Warnings: Kinich story quest spoilers, angst/hurt w comfort/good ending, saurian death?, platonic relationship

Opening: Kinich is not one for strong reactions, even when dealing with bigger issues. But does his composure falter when a pressure point from the past is pressed?

AN// G/N Reader. Tell me why I completely missed out on Kinich lore even after getting him the first day the banner came out :”D ANYWAY now that I’m in the loop, this just had to be done. Likely not going to write for him again, just felt like doing this one. Hehe, anyway I’ll now disappear to work on another Capitano fic ;; (Was excited about that so I'm sorry if the ending of this is ooc and/or rushed)

“Should have known better.”

Tagging along with Kinich while he was on the job wasn’t something you were used to doing often. But on the other hand, you knew he didn’t mind having you there. Company apart from Ajaw seemed to be something he craved every now and then, not that you blamed him for that. Plus, you never asked for any portion of the funds he was going to get for the commissions even after helping him complete it. Simply enjoying the time spent with him, which had been hard for him to understand in the beginning. Why would someone work on a commission for free, only taking his company as payment? But by now, he seemed to not mind whenever you tagged along. 

And it wasn’t like you were completely useless either. A rather seasoned warrior and a fighter as you were, allowed him to get through commissions faster which wasn’t something he’d turn down especially if it was for free. 

The area this time wasn’t anything you hadn’t seen before. Some high cliffs that surely would have frightened the less seasoned, but by this point standing on the edge of one didn’t stir those feelings within anymore. Not even while in the heat of battle, like now. 

Your eyes followed Kinich, hooked onto a saurian after having just gotten rid of one. The pack was rather large this time, having caused so much trouble for the people near the cliffs that they’d asked for help from Kinich. 

Your attention was brought back to the situation at hand soon after. Dodging the saurian’s hook, taking a little more speed into your steps before raising your weapon against it. Eyes keen to follow each step of the creature, making sure the hit would land. But while your attention was occupied, Kinich noticed another one  behind you. An easy target, really. It hadn’t even targeted you yet, so getting it to fall off of the cliff would have been easier than having to spend time on fighting it. Kinich loaded his shot, aiming with practised ease and watching to make sure it hit the creature. Though, as soon as it did the saurian managed to hook itself onto your ankle before the explosion ultimately made it lose its balance. Slipping off of the cliff and into the ravine. Affectively throwing you off of your feet with the heavy pull, quickly starting to drag your form along with it down the steep drop. 

There wasn’t any vegetation to take a hold of, grassy ground with dried bushes and a few flowers. Your hands grasped the ground, digging up dirt along the way. Attempting to kick the hook off of your ankle, but it held on tight. Especially when the saurian was basically dead weight in the ravine. Hanging off of you, making its hold ever stronger.

Your eyes quickly moved to Kinich, aware how little there was you could do anymore. A moment flashing by as pure desperate panic flooded your eyes, no words coming out in the moment. Focused solely on trying to get your body back up as it was actively being dragged into what seemed like the end. But your companion appeared frozen. 

Kinich had but a few moments to react, if even that. Having noticed the hook attached itself and soon after you were already hanging on the edge. Grasping at anything nearby to hold on. But even that feeble moment had been enough to make his mind run a course into a dark pit of memories. 

The young yet such a tough boy who’d been chased out by his father. And by a mere mistake, had watched his by then fragile father stumble. Taking a step back a little too close to the edge of the cliff, and with a heavy thud land on the bottom. 

How his body had frozen just as it had on this day. How his whole body had felt the tremble going through it, something he’d never felt before. A warm pressure at the back of his eyes as his body began to move towards the edge. How he’d seen what remained at the bottom of what seemed like an endless drop, having pulled himself back straight after. Chest tightening by the minute. The young yet such a tough man from then on clutching his small hands into fists. Fighting the tears back down, gritting his teeth as his mind raced. The situation was more of a mess than anything he’d seen before. Yet by some miracle he was able to numb his mind enough to push himself back onto his feet and find a grapple hook to bring his father to proper rest. 

But all that was then. Something he thought he wouldn’t have to ever think about again. Yet the lump in his throat as he approached the edge of the cliff proved him otherwise. But what was he so frightened of? And just then, he heard a thud. Something that echoed for but a mere moment. But a sound that felt like something in him had shattered. No rational thought of ‘I haven’t even seen what happened yet’ was able to ease his mind.  Yet his body felt almost as if it was moving on its own. It had been from the moment he’d watched your fingers slip off the edge. Hurrying there to see what could be salvaged. 

Even if his mind had seemingly decided the fate of the situation, his body hadn’t. He wouldn’t allow something like this to happen again. This was not a way to go, for anyone. Least of all you. 

You felt the ground under your hands slip, the last bit of the cliff giving in under the weight. Falling alongside you and the saurian. The speed of the fall was so frightening you could have sworn your heart stopped beating for a minute, before even the thought of doing your all to survive came to mind. 

The walls of the ravine in certain parts were tight enough for roots to connect from one side to another. Not all of them would support the weight of a human, but a few of the older ones were thick enough to be worthy enough to give it a try. To try and wedge yourself between a pair of them. 

And by a miracle, the Night Kingdom wasn’t going to have you on this day. Not now, at the very least. You’d managed to grip a pair of the roots. Gravel, dirt and smaller rocks trickling down the sides of the ravine at the sudden pull on the old roots. For a moment fearing they would give out like the edge of the cliff had. 

You held your breath, eyes widened. As if even the most subtle movement would restart the fall. Even the saurian had mostly stopped thrashing around, almost like even it understood the gravity of the situation. And if it did, that was a problem. The roots weren’t going to hold up the weight of you and the saurian. It had to go for a chance to get back up to even be possible. 

As soon as the air stilled, confirmed the roots were going to allow you a chance. To watch you fight for your life while hanging off of them by your arms. You started kicking the saurian, wiggling and moving the ankle it was attached to. The hook’s hold had slipped earlier when you’d lodged yourself between the roots, so it was no surprise that the already frightened saurian couldn’t hold on for longer. Its hold slipping, keeping you on the edge up until you heard the loud thud that echoed at the very bottom of the ravine. 

The air was so still, only the sound of your heavy breathing and soft trickle of the gravel that fell from the walls of the ravine. Following the fate of the saurian. Leaving you hanging before even thinking of trying to find a more stable spot between the roots. Kinich being still up on the cliff having slipped your mind completely. Focusing all your energy and instinct on finding the most suitable spot to get on before even attempting to come up with a plan to get back up. 

Kinich so desperately wanted to hesitate, not look down the ravine. Not after the thud that had echoed from the bottom of it. The sound that had stirred those memories to resurface, powerful enough to make him wonder if he even wanted to check and confirm the source of the sound. 

But then again, Kinich couldn't just leave and assume what had happened. Peeking over the edge, keen eyes scanning the bottom of the ravine. Only being able to spot the saurian, unmoving at the bottom. His brows furrowed, eyes moving across the walls of the ravine in confusion. A silent breath escaping him after spotting your form lodged between the roots, having heard the rustle of the dirt falling down from around the roots. Not even giving himself time to be relieved before his mind started ticking. Trying to figure out a way to fish you back up. 

“Hold on, I’ll reel you back up.” He called out, voice stoic as ever. And if you hadn’t been in such an attention requiring situation, you could have heard the slight waver in his voice. 

You peered up, merely seeing the man’s shadow before he disappeared off of the cliff edge. Way to leave someone hanging, you thought. A slight snarl appearing on your face before at last making it close enough to the wall of the ravine to calm down for a moment.

Soon a few rocks fell from the top, catching your attention. A grappling hook slowly lowered itself to your level before Kinich appeared at the top. “Wrap it around yourself.” He instructed, the same tone of voice still there. Doing his all to hold it together. Panicking now would only lead to worse losses, and that wasn’t a price he was willing to pay. 

Though, he would have been a fool to not admit the way he was feeling. Having noticed how his hands had shook while fetching the hook. How his breath had hitched at the thud, how tense he felt even now. 

The tug at the end of the rope caught his attention, peering back down to make sure you were securely attached to the grappling hook. 

Trying your best to help him, you used the wall closest to you. Placing the tip of your boot to each crevice you could spot, making the weight a little lighter for him. 

Soon a heavy breath escaped your lips when the familiar grass appeared back into view, crawling back on the top of the cliff. Kinich taking a hold of you, easily lifting your form back up. Dragging you rather far from the edge without even noticing before he let go. 

You allowed yourself to lay on your back, breathing heavily as the seriousness of the situation slowly started to sink in. Staring at the sky, following the few clouds that travelled across in that time. Turning to look at Kinich, watching as he hadn’t allowed himself to sit down. Leaned against his knees, hair hiding most of his face as he stared at the grass. Breaths heavy. A relieved yet tense silence between the two of you. 

Observing him a little longer, it wasn’t hard to tell that he’d clearly been shaken up by the events. And maybe it hadn’t hit you just as hard yet, but you felt almost worse for him than yourself. It wasn’t often that you nor anyone else saw him like this. 

With a silent groan you sat back up, thinking for a moment before deciding to speak up. “You couldn’t have known it would attach itself to me…It’s okay.” Knowing he wasn’t going to let this slip with you merely telling him that it wasn’t his fault, yet still trying. He wasn't the kind of person to not blame himself when he’d been involved in something like this. “No, I should have known. Waited for you to get out of its range. I knew better than that.” Kinich replied, voice surprisingly calm as he stood back up. Completely dismissing your earlier forgiveness. 

You couldn’t get a word in after, not that there was much you could say. He wouldn’t believe you if you kept telling him that he was not at fault here. Merely watching as he kneeled in front of you, eyes scanning your form before doing a more thorough check up for injuries. Lifting each of your limbs, moving them to make sure that nothing was out of place. Mumbling something about the adrenaline wearing off soon and having to check up on you after that again. Gaining him a slight eye roll from you. 

The chuckle you let out couldn’t hide the nervousness still deep in your system, still feeling the need to make him understand. To make him listen, it wasn’t his fault. That there was no reason to think of how it had happened, but to move on and be glad you’d both made it out in one piece. 

You took a hold of his hand, stopping it from wandering around your form. Obsessively checking that everything was okay. Giving him a look before pulling the man down to sit and calm down. Feeling his hand still tremble, clear that he was still on edge about this.

You may have not known everything of his past, and you didn’t have to. No matter what he may have encountered before you’d even met him didn’t matter now. He was allowed to be shocked and panicked, but what you firmly believed he shouldn’t do was to force himself to be so uptight. To make himself move on so quickly. Especially when that didn’t seem to be an unconscious choice, it was one he forced himself to make. 

“Hey, we’re both alive and well…mostly in one piece. Calm down, eh?” You tried to smile at him. Watching as his eyes stared into yours, careful as he eased out and more willingly sat down. A breath escaping him, giving in. If just a little. 

You placed his hand against your chest, breathing calmly. In a way an attempt to calm yourself at the same time, maybe tricking your brain by doing this for him. Watching as wind so high up in the cliffs blew against the both of you, sitting there in silence. Waiting until the initial shock wore off. 

And likely would have waited for longer. If it hadn’t been for the subtle grunt that escaped you when letting go of his hand. Likely having sprained something in your shoulder due to the fall. But it was enough to bring Kinich back on track, quick in his actions as he tugged you back onto your feet. Mumbling something about not wasting any more time and having to go find a medic. Gaining him another eye roll.

[calm-with-anxiety]

If I see or hear people defending their votes for Trump with “well I didn’t really know her policies and plans for her presidency” I will burst into flames. We live in a time where almost every piece of information is in your hand, you could’ve Googled her plans, it was on her fucking website for weeks, it was 80 pages of policy and how they planned to pay for it. Like you chose to be an uneducated voter that got information from commercials and short form video.

The economy line is bullshit because his plans will make everything more expensive, tariffs are payed for by you, you think the multibillion dollar company will take on the extra cost to buy and ship goods by lowering the CEO salary, no, they will make the item more expensive because they never promised you a $200 tv, but they did promise stockholders a dividend of $10/share. His mass deportation policy will cause the economy to collapse because immigrants, legal or illegal, do the jobs that others look down on. You never see a line of white guys in overalls hoping to be hired for below minimum wage to pick fruit for hours in the sun, you don’t see young white men showing up to construction jobs that the builder has subcontracted so it’s cheaper to build. The bedrock of the U.S. economy is cheap labor and a majority of that is immigrants who are looking for jobs that don’t require knowing perfect English and have employers that look the other way when you don’t have documents because they know you will work for anything.

Don’t even get me started on healthcare, outside of women’s healthcare which will get worse, if he finally gets rid of the affordable care act, aka Obamacare, they will replace it with nothing. The man was president before and after John McCain put his thumb down they never tried to make a new policy that wasn’t throwing the whole program into the trash. Also the affordable care act is more than just low cost healthcare, it put in place pre-existing conditions, for those too young to remember, the insurance companies could deny you coverage all because you might get cancer one day because your mother had it, you would have to pay out of pocket for an inhaler because asthma was a pre-existing condition, even if you were diagnosed with it later in life. Don’t forget what the vaccine situation will be, especially if he puts RFK jr. anywhere near it, like there is actual fear that Polio will come back because guess what? Most people under the age of 40 are not vaccinated for it because it was considered eradicated due to the mass vaccination of children in the 50s and 60s. When you complain about feeling like shit after getting the flu shot or a Covid booster, that is the vaccine working in your body, your body is doing an internal workout so if and when you come in contact with those viruses you won’t be getting extremely sick or die because someone doesn’t know how to cover their cough.

I think this election was proof that you can have all the information and still know nothing because you chose to know nothing. People vote with their eyes, not their mind. Gas where I live has been under $3.00 for months, it’s been under $2.50 at the warehouse stores for weeks, but because an ad on tv said prices are rising people believed the tv over their own experience. People saw grocery prices increase and blamed the administration when in reality corporations took advantage of Covid shortages, raised prices, recorded historic profits, and didn’t start bring prices down until this summer after people realized what was happening to some extent and even then they didn’t return to pre-2020 prices because the profit still needed to be high, they looked at the $2 increase in a bag of chips over 4 years and blamed democrats and not Lays.

This is going to be a painful 4 years, for many people here and abroad, Ukraine will have to depend on Europe which is starting to lean conservative as well and the war in Gaza will take an extreme shift that will make the last year look like a paper cut in terms of humanitarian assistance and a possible end. It’s already getting on my nerves as people tweet “we keep fighting” and “we need to be strong so they can’t do all they plan to do like the first time”, it’s not going to be like the first time, the adults in the room he had with him, many who came out and supported Harris, are gone and now it will be yes men that he was told to put there by the extreme right like the supporters of project 2025 and billionaires. And for those saying “well maybe he will die in office”, you think JD Vance is better? He allegedly picked him because DT jr. suggested him and if you have ever seen jr. and his takes you would know Vance can be worse.

This is gonna hurt for many people that will now be seen as lower than second class citizens and you won’t even have lower prices to show for it as that seemed to be the reason you voted for him, enjoy your expensive goods as people lost rights.

[amethystsnow]

you have no idea how much i fucking despise google i spent multiple fucking hours earlier getting out my old-ass pi and setting up pi-hole to have network-wide ad blocking only to just now realize that it hasnt done shit despite saying it has because apparently when i changed the dns settings on google fiber according to ipconfig the wifi goes through default dns even though i know i put the pis ip in and i cant fix it now because i already signed out of my moms account on the google home app and i cant get back in because its 1 in the fucking morning and she isnt awake to do 2fa on her phone and oh yeah did i mention its through a FUCKING APP google fiber forces you to use an APP to change settings and if you try to do anything on a website or go to the router ip its just "just download our app!!!! :3" which is so fucking stupid how am i supposed to do complex wifi shit on a fucking APP LET ME USE A WEBSITE LIKE EVERY OTHER ROUTER IN FUCKING EXISTENCE so now im stuck at 1:30AM wanting to fix the thing i spent hours on but i cant do shit because google fucking hates its users and wont let me just connect to the fucking ip with admin credentials to change settings i need a fucking google account on a fucking app and it doesnt let you connect one router to more than one account

[glass-clown]

[FIRST ID: A screenshot of a Facebook post by Jane Friedman that says, "As of today, there are about half a dozen books being sold on Amazon, with my name on them, that I did not write or publish. Some huckster generated them using AI, hoping to make a quick buck from people who don't realize I'm not the author. Unforuntately, these scam books were also added to my official Goodreads profile. I don't think the larger public understands that author don't directly control what books appear on their profile. They are automatically added via Amazon and/or submitted by users. To get them removed is not an easy process. [in all caps] A brief update [end caps]: After going back and forth a few times with Amazon on this issue, I was notified these junk books would not be removed based on the information I provided. Since I do not own copyright in these AI works and since my name is not trademarked, I'm not sure what can be done." Attached is an image of a rusty dumpster with fire and smoke coming out of it. Above the screenshot is a Tweet by Gabe Hudson @ gabehudson.bsky.social that says, "Dear god what fresh hell is this for writers?" /END OF FIRST ID]

[SECOND ID: A screenshot of a message conversation between @jenovacomplete and an Amazon customer service member whose name has been blocked out. The first message is by jenovacomplete, set at 10:49 pm, that says, "Ah, I haven't ordered from them. I just wanted to see if there was any way to report their fraudulent reproduction. If there isn't, that's fine! Thank you for your time!" At 10:54 pm the customer service member replies, "Okay. Thank you for been on online, The product from Amazon are genuine and correct . You can order from Amazon. No worries from shopping amazon." /END OF ALL IDS]

-

I found an interesting excerpt in an article about this case:

""All this time, public outcry over the case from other authors and observers mounted on Twitter. Finally, on Tuesday morning, Amazon reversed its decision and removed the titles from its platform. A company spokesperson sent Gizmodo a statement explaining its decision.

"We have clear content guidelines governing which books can be listed for sale and promptly investigate any book when a concern is raised," Amazon spokesperson Ashley Vanicek told Gizmodo. "We welcome author feedback and work directly with authors to address any issues they raise and where we have made an error, we correct it. We invest heavily to provide a trustworthy shopping experience and protect customers and authors from misuse of our service."

Amazon declined to comment further when asked to elaborate on what particular rule or policy was violated that led to the AI-generated content being removed. Friedman said she's confident the growing backlash on social media contributed to the ecommerce's reversal. That's good news for her, but will come as little solace to other, smaller writers who lack her same level of prominence.

"I do think it was the public outcry," the author said. "Obviously you shouldn’t have to raise a shitstorm in order to get them to do the right thing."" — "Amazon Removes AI-Generated Books That Spoofed an Author's Byline" by Mark DeGeurin on Gizmodo

[sonicboomseason3]

a brief recap of what has been going on with the sonic movieverse in the past several months:

paramount has come out in public support of israel

keanu reeves, a man who has publicly rubbed elbows with none other than benjamin netanyahu, reportedly gets cast as shadow for the upcoming third movie

james marsden, the guy who plays tom, got exposed as having written a letter of support for a convicted pedophile

there's fucking??? zionist propaganda in the knuckles series???

kind of connected to the last point but adam pally, the guy who plays wade, is evidently pro-israel too

this is a complete and utter joke.

EDIT AS OF 4/30/24: if people see this version of the post, i'd really appreciate it if you reblog it instead of the other versions, as it's the most updated one with all the information that i want included. thank you :]

you know, it's been a few days since i've made this post, and some of you (not most) are staying determined in defending/justifying/giving the benefit of the doubt to keanu for that photo with netanyahu, whether it's because "it was a decade ago," "him being civil to someone he ran into at a party one time doesn't mean anything," "he's probably just silent because his pr managers won't allow him to speak up," etc. i've made my thoughts on the matter quite clear by directly responding to these people, but at this point, i'm tired of both seeing them in my notes and repeating myself, so take this as my final word on the issue.

i can't help it if you don't think the photo with netanyahu is damning, and i'm done engaging with everyone going out of their way to tell me that. i obviously disagree, especially after finding out that 1. the host of the party, arnon milchan, is a former israeli spy who has a history of developing israel's nuclear program and promoting apartheid in south africa (information that had broken out a few months prior to the party and thus would've been fresh news around the time keanu chose to attend) and 2. keanu has been caught hanging around at least two other weirdos, but if you don't find any of that to be cause for reasonable concern, then there really is nothing else i can say afaik.

with all that said, i'm beginning to realize how strange it is that these people's first instinct when seeing this post is to start debating about keanu's political stances without ever acknowledging any of the other bullet points. you guys realize that this isn't just about him, right? i know tumblr reading comprehension is known for being piss-poor, but like… you realize that i was trying to make a point of how there are MULTIPLE terrible things that have broken out about the people and company involved in the sonic movies, right? and yet, a lot of the people leaping to speak on keanu's behalf in my notes are completely ignoring the parts where i bring up paramount, pally, etc. all in favor of zeroing in on the singular point about keanu and making bad faith assumptions about me for holding him accountable. really makes one wonder where your priorities lie if, in a post that talks about so many other things, me accusing an a-list celebrity with, according to google, a net worth of almost $400 million is where you draw the line and apparently the only thing worth your acknowledgment.

ultimately, what i'm trying to say is that the intention of this post was just to gather up everything that i had been hearing for the past several months and put it all together in one place. there were a bunch of people who didn't know about at least one of the bullet points before seeing this post, and i'm glad that i could help inform them, that was what i was hoping to do! but as for the keanu thing, i've said pretty much all i can say for now, and i don't want to derail the original post even more than i may have already. unless something new comes up, i'm done talking about him.

[cleolinda]

Phone scam gothic

So my mom sits down and starts telling me about two weird-ass phone calls she had today—she was returning a missed call, and the woman who answered just… sobbed for a minute. I’m sitting here asking, like, a whole minute? Nothing else, just sobbing? Who did you THINK you were calling back?

“United Healthcare, they have my Medicare plan. They’ve been calling me for weeks without leaving any voicemail.”

(Are you sure it was United Healthcare? “It was the same number that’s on my card, I checked, and that’s who the caller ID said it was.”)

Are you sure it was a whole minute? Did YOU say anything?

“Yes, like sixty seconds while I kept going ‘Hello? Hello?’ It sounded like she was having a nervous breakdown, I kept waiting to see if she’d tell me what was even wrong. Finally I just hung up.”

And then my mom turned right around and called back again, because she was gonna get to the bottom of this.

This time she got a different woman, perfectly calm, who wanted to set up “your in-home direct patient care home health visit.”

At this point (at this point?) I’m staring, because no one here currently has anyone coming to the house to help with any kind of medical care. My mom might honestly be the healthiest member of the household, but even I don’t use any home services, herniated discs and all. “Did they have you… confused with someone else?”

“No, she repeated my full name and phone number back to me.”

This lady then started ARGUING with my mother. Why don’t you want us to come to your house to manage your direct patient care? Don’t you need home health care to be managed? Why don’t you need home health care? Why would you not want home health care? “I JUST KIND OF HAVE HIGH CHOLESTEROL?” But don’t you want us to manage your home health care? “WHY DO YOU NEED TO COME TO MY HOUSE TO MANAGE HEALTH CARE I DON’T USE?”

My mom finally hung up on this lady as well, without giving her any real information.

The more we talked about it, the more things we started to notice:

I was incredibly creeped out by the unsolicited use of the word “manage,” for some reason. Very sinister “write me into your will” vibes for some reason—I don’t know what these people want, but they’re gonna get you to sign something over.

My mom got especially stuck on “WHY DO YOU NEED TO COME TO MY HOUSE?!”

My mom has used home health services before… years ago, before she was on Medicare. But this company wouldn’t know about that. However, if you’re on Medicare, you’re over 65. Having not ever dealt with my mother before, someone calling a Medicare user might be playing the odds that a person over 65 is 1) in frail health and 2) old enough to get easily confused.

Fair play to my mom, she’s the one who thought of number spoofing. I’m so busy not answering the phone ever and arranging all my medical communications to happen through passworded portals that I didn’t think of it.

Hey, are you guys, like… holding someone hostage…?

So at this point, I google “United Healthcare scam.”

The “health insurance counselor”

This fraudster will offer help navigating the health insurance marketplace for a fee, capitalizing on people’s confusion about the state-based health exchanges created through the Affordable Care Act.

What to know

This sort of assistance is indeed available and is legitimate, but the people who offer it – also known as “navigators” – aren’t allowed to charge for their services. Also, remember that people with Medicare coverage don’t need to use the state health exchanges. The exchanges are for people under the age of 65, who are looking to enroll in an individual health plan.

Change “navigate” to “manage,” and I think this is it, although the lady on the phone never mentioned any fees. Either my mom didn’t let her get that far, or this is the point of actually getting into someone’s house: persuading them face-to-face to pay something, and potentially refusing to leave until the scammer has worn their target down.

Medicare does not make unsolicited phone calls.

Okay, so it was a scam no matter what it was about. As far as I’m concerned, my mom should contact Actual United Healthcare about it, and I’m here to spread the good word of Never Believing Anyone on the Phone 2k24. I don’t know what to tell you about the lady having the nervous breakdown though.

[endzithefangirl]

"I'm gong to put 'being a WAG' on my CV"

Authors note: Here's a little Max Verstappen x TechCEO!Reader. Bet you didn't see that comng. Anyway, got the idea for this a few days ago, and I guess my love of Italian food made me finish this

Summary: Max's new relatioship causes a social media stir, but the new couple couldn't care less whilst in Italy.

Warnings: English isn't my first language, no use of Y/N, female reader, famous reader

Word count: 2k

You understood it, to a degree. Max had just broken off a three-year-long relationship right before summer break, and now suddenly he was spending the summer with you. Now you’re at the paddock... No wonder people thought there was some crossover.

The truth? You two met last New Year's at a party for some sporting event. You, being one of the sponsors for your country's national sports committee, were invited, and Max... well, Max was Max Verstappen. You hit it off, exchanged numbers, showed him around your company a few times, and took him to all of your favorite restaurants in NYC. But you knew he had a girlfriend; everyone knew. And he was taking care of her kid too.

That breakup was hard on him. He had stopped loving her, but he couldn't just kick a woman and her kid out of his house. Max waited for them to have a huge fight, and then they just... broke up. And to your surprise, he was in New York the next day, saying that he needed someone to talk to. Bullshit. You knew he liked you. Otherwise, he wouldn't have come all the way here 'just to talk.'

But here you were, in Italy, spending time with him before Monza. You were currently typing away on your phone, trying to make peace in the finance department. Max glanced up from his phone every so often, stealing peeks at you while grinning.

He had never quite been so into someone like you. You were smart, funny, talented, pretty, and on top of all that - you were also rich. But you were also the most challenging girl to flirt with Max had ever met.

"You look like you could use a break," he said, after watching you tap away at your work laptop for a few minutes.

"Probably. What's the point of having interns if they don't do anything?"

"Then you should consider hiring me; I'm pretty good at helping out," Max teased, looking up from his phone and sending you a cheeky smile. He loved a woman who was in power, who knew what she was doing, and he could tell you were used to being the boss. "Come on, take a break. You know you deserve it," Max encouraged, resting his hand on top of yours to stop you from working some more.

"I guess I could eat…" You say, closing your laptop. "I saw on Google Maps that there’s a nice pizza place down the road. We can go if you’re hungry.”

Max smiled and nodded. “Yes, I’m starving; let’s go,” he said, reaching for the car keys.

“No, it’s okay, let’s walk,” you stop him. He turned towards you, slightly confused. Usually, women would give anything to drive around with Max Verstappen. Maybe that’s just what makes you special.

The two of you walked out of the hotel, your bodyguard Lenny standing outside the door. The tall, muscular man just nodded as the two of you entered the elevator. Max found it funny that you preferred Lenny guard your stuff more than you. Especially the laptop. He sometimes wondered what you kept in there...

“Is Pierre gonna be at the race?” you asked as you exited the building, breaking the silence.

Max’s head snapped towards you, and he raised his brow. “Uh, yes, of course he is… Why?”

“Because I want to see Kika.”

“Oh, so she’s your secret F1 crush, eh?” Max said, relaxing.

You laughed. “Pierre is a solid seven with a better haircut. Kika is a twelve on a bad day.”

As you got to the bigger streets, you started to understand why Max drove everywhere. Unlike you, who were a chiller and niche celebrity, despite being incredibly rich, Max was a real superstar. Your short walk to the pizza shop became a fan meet and greet, with people coming up to you every three seconds and asking for photos.

“Is this your girlfriend?” one of the people asking for a picture asked. As you finished taking the photo, you noticed Max’s slightly flustered face as he heard the question. He stumbled, but you answered with a simple “Yeah.”

As you arrived at the restaurant, you noticed that Max was staring at you. He seemed… surprised. You laughed at his facial expression. The sound of your laugh calmed him instantly, his heartbeat beginning to return to normal. Max cursed himself in his head; he was better than this. He chuckled nervously, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Is it something I said?"

Max ran a hand through his hair, feeling his cheeks heating up slightly. "No, no... Not really," he reassured you, trying to sound casual. "I was just... thinking."

"Okay, well I'm thinking about the food. I think a Vesuvius sounds great right now."

Max chuckled and quickly glanced down at the menu to hide his embarrassment. "Vesuvius? What the hell is a Vesuvius?" he asked, though his eyes scanned down the menu, searching for it.

"It's a type of pizza," you teased. "It's been like three minutes; have you not even skimmed the menu?"

Max fidgeted under your gaze, feeling the heat rise in his cheeks again. "What?" he asked with a nervous chuckle. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"You tell me. Why are you staring?" Max shook his head, glancing up at you questioningly. He had no idea what you were thinking about. "No... What are you thinking about?" he asked, his curiosity getting the best of him.

"There are pots from 4000 years ago found in ancient Egypt that are made out of an incredibly difficult to manage material and are cut to such perfection that they balance on their round bottom."

Max's eyebrows shot up in surprise. He was expecting something totally different. Something that had at least a little bit to do with him. He chuckled, still somewhat surprised as he studied your face. "Where did that come from?" he asked incredulously.

"The Egyptians. They were like, cooking pots and stuff. Royal cooking pots probably, but still," you teased.

Max chuckled again, shaking his head in disbelief. "You're thinking about cooking pots, and here I am, just trying to figure out what I did to make you say that we're together so casually."

"What do you mean? Are we not together?"

"Well, of course we're together," Max said, his voice taking on a more serious tone now. He glanced around the restaurant briefly, making sure no one was listening in on their conversation. "I just... I didn't expect you to say it so casually," he said, his eyes meeting yours again.

"Oh, sorry. I didn't know we were keeping it a secret. I mean, I was at the paddock and all last time, and I took days off work to come to this race—"

Max shook his head, realizing you completely misunderstood what he was saying. "No, no, it's not that... I just..." he began, struggling to find the right words. He took a deep breath, his fingers fidgeting in his lap. "It's just... you're so casual about it... and I'm... a bit too flustered for my own good," he admitted, a tinge of embarrassment in his voice.

You softened up a bit. "Oh, okay, I get it. It was just a bit too shocking for you... Yeah, sorry."

Max felt his heartbeat a little faster when you softened, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "Yeah, it was a bit... unexpected for me," he chuckled, feeling somewhat silly for being so flustered. "But it's fine, honestly."

"Do you think my stomach is gonna have space for gelato later? There's a really good gelateria; I can see it from the window... They make the ones with the macarons..."

Max chuckled, loving how you were so excited about the gelato. "Well, based on the amount of pizza you usually eat," he teased, a smirk on his face. "I'd say you're probably fine."

"No, they put the macarons on the gelato."

"On the gelato?" Max repeated, his eyebrows shooting up in surprise.

"I've never heard of such a thing," he said, leaning forward to get a better look out the window at the gelateria you were talking about. "Well, in that case," he said with a grin, "we're definitely going there for dessert."

After eating so much that your belts barely held, you came back to the hotel, Lenny greeting you at the door as usual. Max's stomach was stuffed to the brim, but he was in such a good mood from the good food and even better company, he didn't even care. He walked back into the hotel together with you, his hand still holding yours. Lenny greeted the two of you as usual, but Max couldn't help but notice the way Lenny looked at you, like he was analyzing you.

"All good, Len. You go to your room for the night," you said to Lenny. He nodded, smiled at the both of you, and then went off. Max watched as Lenny walked off, then turned to you, a small frown on his face.

"He was looking at you funny," he said, a protective edge to his voice.

"He thinks it's funny. That I'm dating a Formula 1 driver."

"What's so funny about that?" he protested, his grip on your hand tightening ever so slightly. "He just... I don't know, he's a big fan of yours I don't think he's processed it yet". Max's frown relaxed as you explained it, his ego immediately soothed a bit. Of course he was a big fan of his, who wasn't?

"Oh, so he's a big fan?" he teased, a hint of pride and cockiness in his voice.

You take your shoes off and lay on the bed, your stomach bloated from all the good food "Yeah. Talk to him a bit, I think it'll make him happy" You let out groan as you move "I hate you Italy. You has so much good food... I love it though"

Max chuckled, watching as you dramatically threw yourself onto the bed, your stomach protesting the amount of food you just had. "You're such a drama queen sometimes," he teased, grinning as he took off his shoes as well and joined you on the bed. He lays down beside you, running a hand over your bloated stomach. "You'll be fine," he said, though there was a hint of amusement in his voice.

"Oh, you know what I saw on TikTok?"

Max raised an eyebrow in curiosity, his hand now resting on your stomach. He didn't typically pay too much attention to TikTok, but he was more than happy to listen to you.

"What did you see?" he asked, turning his head to look at you.

"Well first of all, I'm a WAG now. Thank you for that, I will be putting that on my CV. But second, they liked that I was wearing Red Bull merch. I thought they wouldn't like it, but they did"

Max chuckled as you spoke, amused by how casually you mentioned being a WAG, and how seriously you were taking the fact that you were wearing Red Bull merchandise. "Well, of course they liked it," he said with a smirk. "You were wearing the merch of the best team out there."

He gave you a smug look, his hand moving up and tracing a lazy pattern on your stomach. "Not to mention the merch of the best driver out there."

[nostalgebraist]

In other uncanny-valley AI voice news...

Google has this new thing called "NotebookLM," which allows you to upload any document, click a button, and then a few minutes later receive an entire AI-generated podcast episode (!) about the document. The generation seems to occur somewhat faster than real-time.

(This is currently offered for free as a demo, all you need is a Google account.)

These podcast episodes are... they're not, uh, good. In fact, they're terrible – so cringe-y and inane that I find them painful to listen to.

But – unlike with the "AI-generated content" of even the very recent past – the problem with this stuff isn't that it's unrealistic. It's perfectly realistic. The podcasters sound like real people! Everything they say is perfectly coherent! It's just coherently ... bad.

It's a perfect imitation of superficial, formulaic, cringe-y media commentary podcasts. The content isn't good, but it's a type of bad content that exists, and the AI mimics it expertly.

The badness is authentic. The dumb shit they say is exactly the sort of dumb shit that humans would say on this sort of podcast, and they say it with the exact sorts of inflections that people would use when saying that dumb shit on that sort of podcast, and... and everything.

(Advanced Voice Mode feels a lot like this too. And – much as with Advanced Voice Mode – if Google can do this, then they can presumably do lots of things that are more interesting and artistically impressive.

But even if no one especially likes this kind of slop, it's highly inoffensive – palatable to everyone, not likely to confuse anyone or piss anyone off – and so it's what we get, for now, while these companies are still cautiously testing the waters.)

----

Anyway.

The first thing I tried was my novel Almost Nowhere, as a PDF file.

This seemed to throw the whole "NotebookLM" system for a loop, to some extent because it's a confusing book (even to humans), but also to some extent because it's very long.

I saw several different "NotebookLM" features spit out different attempts to summarize/describe it that seemed to be working off of different subsets of the text.

In the case of the generated podcast, the podcasters appear to have only "seen" the first 8 (?) chapters.

And their discussion of those early chapters is... like I said, pretty bad. They get some basic things wrong, and the commentary is painfully basic even when it's not actually inaccurate. But it's still uncanny that something like this is possible.

(Spoilers for the first ~8 chapters of Almost Nowhere)

The second thing I tried was my previous novel, The Northern Caves.

The Northern Caves is a much shorter book, and there were no length-related issues this time.

It's also a book that uses a found-media format and includes a fictitious podcast transcript.

And, possibly because of this, NotebookLM "decided" to generate a podcast that treated the story and characters as though they existed in the real world – effectively, creating fanfiction as opposed to commentary!

(Spoilers for The Northern Caves.)

----

Related links:

I tried OpenAI's Advanced Voice Mode ChatGPT feature and wrote a post about my experiences

I asked NotebookLM to make a podcast about my Advanced Voice Mode post, with surreal results

Tumblr user ralfmaximus takes this to the limit, creating NotebookLM podcast about the very post you're reading now

[physalian]

What No One Tells You About Writing Fantasy

Every author has their preferred genres. I love fantasy and sci-fi, but began with historical fiction. I hated all the research that historical fiction demands and thought, if I build my own world, no research required.

Boy, was I wrong.

So to anyone dipping their toe into fantasy/sci-fi, here’s seven things I wish I knew about the genres before I committed to writing for them.

1. You still have to research. Everything.

If you want any of your fantasy battle sequences, or your space ships, or your droids and robots, or your fictional government and fictional politics to read at all believable.

In sci-fi, you research astronomy, robotics, politics, political science, history, engineering, anthropology. In fantasy, you have to research historical battle tactics, geography, real-world mythology, folklore, and fairytales, and much of it overlaps with science fiction.

I say you *have to* assuming you want your work to be original and unique and stand out from the crowd. Fanfic writers put in the research for a 30k word smut fic, you can and will have to research for your original work.

2. Naming everything gets exhausting

I hate coming up with new names, especially when I write worlds and places divorced from Earthly customs and can’t rely on Earthly naming conventions. You have to name all your characters, all your towns, villages, cities, realms, kingdoms, planets, galaxies, star systems.

You have to name your rebel faction, your imperial government, significant battles. Your spaceships, your fantasy companies and organizations, your magic system, made-up MacGuffins, androids, computer programs. The list goes on and on and on.

And you have to do it all without it sounding and reading ridiculous and unpronounceable, or racist. Your fantasy realms have to have believable naming patterns. It. Gets. Exhausting.

3. It will never read like you’re watching a movie

Do you know how fast movies can cut between scenes? Movies can balance five plotlines at once all converging with rapid edits, without losing their audience. Sometimes single lines of dialogue, or single wordless shots are all a scene gets before it cuts. If you try to replicate that by head-hopping around, you will make a mess.

It’s perfectly fine to write like you’re watching a movie, but you can’t rely on visual tricks to get your point across when all you have is text on a page – like slow mo, lens flares, epically lit cinematic shots, or the aforementioned rapid edits.

It doesn’t have to, nor should it, look like a movie. Books existed long before film, so don’t let yourself get caught up in how ~cinematic~ it may or may not look.

4. Your space opera will be compared to Star Wars and Star Trek

And your fairy epic will be compared to Tinkerbell, your vampires to Twilight, your zombies to The Walking Dead, Shaun of the Dead, World War Z. Your wizards and witches and any whisper of a fantasy school for fantasy children will be compared to Harry Potter. Your high fantasy adventure will be compared to Lord of the Rings.

You can’t avoid it, but you can avoid doing it to yourself. When people ask about your book, let them say “oh, you mean like Star Wars” to which you then can say, kind of, except XYZ happens in my book. These IPs will never fade from the public consciousness, not while you exist to read this post, at least, but Harry Potter isn’t the only urban fantasy out there. Lord of the Rings isn’t the only high fantasy. Star Wars isn’t the only space opera.

Yours will be on the shelves right next to them, soon enough, and who knows? You might dethrone them.

5. Your world-building is an iceberg, and your book is the tip

I don’t pay for any of those programs that help you organize your book and mythos. I write exclusively on Apple Notes, MS Word, and Google Suite (and all are free to me). I have folders on Apple Notes with more words inside them than the books they’re written for.

If you try to cram an entire college textbook’s worth of content into your novel, you will have left zero room for actual story. The same goes for all the research you did, all the hours slaving away for just a few details and strings of dialogue.

There’s a balance, no matter how dense your story is. If you really want to include all those extra details, slap some appendices at the end. Commission some maps.

6. The gatekeeping for fantasy and sci-fi is still very real

Pen names and pseudonyms exist for a reason. A female author writing fantasy that isn’t just a backdrop for romance? You have a harder battle ahead of you than your male counterparts, at least in the US. And even then, your female protagonist will be scrutinized and torn apart.

She’ll either be too girly or not girly enough, too sexy, or not sexy enough. She’ll be called a Mary Sue, a radical feminist mouthpiece, some woke propaganda. Every action she takes will be criticized as unrealistic and if she has fans who are girls, they will be mocked, too.

If you have queer characters, characters of color, they won’t be good enough, they won’t please everyone, and someone will still call you a bigot. A lot of someones will still call you a bigot.

Do your due diligence and hire your army of sensitivity readers and listen to them, but you cannot please everyone, so might as well write to please yourself. You’re the one who will have to read it a thousand times until it’s published.

7. Your “original” idea has been done before, and that’s okay

Stories have been told since before language evolved. The sum of the parts of your novel may be original, but even then, it’s colored by the media you’ve consumed. And that’s okay!

How many Cinderella stories are there? How many high fantasies? How many books about werewolves and witches and vampires? Gods and goddesses and celestial beings? Fairies and dragons and trolls? Aliens, robots, alien robots? Romeo and Juliette? Superheroes and mutants?

Zombies may be the avenue through which you tell your story, but it’s not *just* about zombies, is it? It’s about the characters who battle them, the endurance of the human spirit, or the end of an era, the death of a nation. So don’t get discouraged, everyone before you and everyone after will have written someone on the backs of what came before and it still feels new.

[therealplaguedoctor]

Love at first bite

Max Verstappen x fem!reader

Summary- Y/n is a professional protection dog trainer, and an ex bodyguard. What happens when an old friend of hers calls in a favor: getting his friend some protection. The fans seem to love her, others not so much. Especially not her clients father. Her client enjoys her company maybe a little more then he thought after the first bite.

TLDR- a collection of series of events that ends with two people who didn't really know they were in love with each other until one confessed

Warnings- dogs and dog bites, mentions of aggressive fans, cursing, google translated dutch, Jos Verstappen, stupid warnings: author is a dumbass and pretends she knows shit(she doesnt), American spelling, I never spell check, also y/n is very badass and is kinds just built different, sorry I like writing badass characters/people, also this might be a bit ooc I'm sorry for that :/

A/n- AHHH okay so I kinda hate (hate as in thinking I could do better) and love this(?) I wish it was better written ngl but it is a oneshot so I wasn't able to go into more detail so I feel like the writing is a bit rushed sorry about that I promise I will get better in the future :,)

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BREAKING NEWS: Fomula one driver Mav Verstappen got injured after crazy drunk fan attacked him.

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BREAKING NEWS: Max Verstappen revealed that he is looking into more security in an interview

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"We're sure you've seen the questions around what happened immediately after qualifying. Can you add anything to that situation? Like with your current security?"

Max picked up the mic wanting to be anywhere but here "well I will be looking for personal security. As all the security that is normally seen around me is provided via the FIA." He said "But to speak on that manner any behavior like that should not be tolerated" he put down the mic as the interview turned to ask Lewis a question.

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After the interviews were over Max just wanted to relax and forget about the crazed fan. But before he could disappear into redbull hospitality he heard his name from a familiar voice.

"Max!" Lewis called stopping in front of him "Hey mate I think I know someone that I can call to help you with your security" he smiled

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"Stellen" (bite) you yelled at Goose, which sent him barreling towards the man with the bite sleeve. Goose launched himself up and bit down on the sleeve. The man, Tony, aggressive, shook his arm.

You felt you phone in your pocket buzz with your familiar ring tone. You pulled it out and looked at the caller ID: Sir Lewis Hamilton. You answered the call before yelling "Loslaten" (out) to Goose who immediately let go of his arm.

"Hey Lewis what's up?" You asked as you waved off Tony telling him he's good to leave.

"Hey Y/n" he said dragging out your name a little

"Lewis" you said in a warning tone "what did you do?"

"Okay one rude, I didn't do anything." He huffed "but I do need a favor?" He asked

"What's up?" You asked again "it's not like you to ask for favors"

"Well: my friend, another driver, he had a fan attack him and he needs protection cause he doesn't really have a security team"

"Lewis I can't get him a trained dog in a day" you sighed

"I know" he said "but you're still a certified body guard aren't you?" He asked hopefully

"Lewis." You said

"I know it's a big ask" he said "but I was talking with him earlier and he's willing to pay big bucks for you to be protection for him AND train him a dog." He said

You sighed knowing that he'll continue until you say yes "fine" you said "when can I set up a meeting with him?"

"Uhh I can say next week tuesday? We can do whatever time" He said "cause after this race we have a small break then it's actually race week in Miami"

"Okay Lewis, I'll find a dog for him before then, and start training" you said "if you say he's serious about this then I'll belive you"

"Thank you so much" Lewis said "I'll let him know"

"Yeah yeah, bye Lewis"

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You sat in your small office. You didn't use it much only for meeting with clients about protection dogs or getting their dogs trained, you wanted to have a atleast semi professional space due to your clientele.

A knock at the door cause you it sit up and stop spinning in your chair.

"Come in" you called.

The door slowly opened revealing a happy Lewis. Goose didn't move from his bed next to you instead looking up at the man.

"Hey Lewis" you smiled

"What's up?" He asked rhetorically as he sat in one of the chairs across from you.

Another man walked in behind him, he looked around the room as if taking it in, this must be Max the guy Lewis was telling you about.

"Hello its nice to meet you" you smiled as you stood up and extended you hand "my name is Y/n L/n"

He shook your hand "Max Verstappen" he said before sitting down

You did the same sitting in your chair "so I have been made aware that you're looking for a personal protection dog" you said "along with the fact in the mean time you're looking to hire my bodyguard services" you said as you pull up the contract you had drafted earlier on the computer.

"Uh yes that's right" the Dutch man said

"Okay" you said as you quickly checked over the document spinning your screen around so he can read it-

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After discussing the contract along with pay you both sign it. Solidifying the deal.

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"Okay so now that we have that settled" you said as you stood up "we should have you meet your new dog" you smiled "Hier" (come) Goose got up and followed you out if the room the two men behind him.

You took out the keys and unlocked the kennel for a German shepherd pup "he's still a bit young, just under a year actually" you said "but he has the basics down so it's now just bite training" you explained

Both men nodded as they watched the pup and your dog Goose interact.

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Media day, the day Max wished didn't exist. He finally got out of his car as you approached him with Goose to your immediate left.

"Good morning" you smiled "large crowd at the gates, mostly photographers only a few fans, I recommend staying on the right side as you walk into the paddock" I explained "it's mostly photographers on that side and no interviewers"

Max nodded as you talked he followed your instructions. You put on your sunglasses to block the flash of the cameras.

Max made it past the hectic paddock entrance with you right behind him Goose walking by your side.

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As Max walked through the paddock he wasn't approached by any interviewers. He could get used to that.

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Max sat down ready to record some content for the redbulls media team. You positioned yourself out of the way but with a good view of everything as well as all the entrances.

Daniel soon arrived and noticed you almost immediately sitting down he leaned over to Max and asked "who's that? With the dog?"

"Oh that's, Y/n" Max explained "She's my new bodyguard"

"She looks badass" Yuki comments scaring the shit out of both Daniel and Max "where the fuck did you come from?!" Max shouts

You quickly looked over and watched the interaction, Yuki had been up there the entire time.

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As the recording came to an end you stood from where you were leaning. Watching Checo leave, followed quickly by Daniel and Yuki who look like they needed to be somewhere. Max started towards the exit you quickly followed him.

Begrudgingly Max sat down in front of a mic that had a big 'sky sport' on it. You stood just off to the side of the camera, completely out of frame and able to watch to one side of Max as you had Goose watching behind yourself.

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As Max answered the repeat questions he finally heard the one he's been dreading:

"So Max this morning you walked in with a lady who had a dog. Care to comment about that relationship?" The interviewer asked.

"She's my bodyguard" he stated

"She's your bodyguard..?" The guy asked like he didn't just hear him

"Yes."

"If you don't mind me asking why her?"

"She was recommended by a friend." Max said nonchalantly

"Sorry let me clarify my question" the guy said. Oh no, you knew where this was going. "Why not a male body guard they're stronger no?" He asked

"Are you insinuating that just because she's a women she wouldn't be a good bodyguard?" Max asked

"Well no-"

"No it's exactly what you're doing" he said "you media people always ask the stupid questions" he hissed "that is so fu-"

He was cut off by you "Max de camera staat nog aan" Max the camera is still on.

Instead of continuing he just gets up and leaves, cutting the interview short. You follow quickly, commanding Goose to walk next to Max as you figured Max didn't want to be approached by anyone. Scary dog privileges are the best.

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He opens the door to his driver room.

"Hier, blijf" (come, stay) you quickly rattled off to Goose who quickly went to your side and stopped next to you

Max also stopped in his tracks.

"Sorry" you quickly apologized "he's trained in dutch"

Max shook his head "no need to apologize" he said and then motioned you inside "but I don't want him out in this heat please come inside" he said

You weren't gonna argue with your boss "Volg" (heel) you commanded Goose as you walked into his driver room. Max walked in right behind you.

You stood off to the side as Max sat on the couch. He quickly motioned for you to sit down. You did just that.

Goose sat at your feet between you and Max. Max was obviously still pissed at what the guy said, you could see it on his face.

"You know" Max started "I've never been a dog person" he said "I like cats more"

"Huh," you said "I've always been a dog person" you said "started with the herding dog on my family's farm"

Max nodded as you talked before asking "can I pet him?" motioning to Goose

"Oh yeah of course" you smiled "as long as we aren't in a camera shot give him all the love you want" you chuckled "gotta keep his image up of a cold blooded killer, until the media finds my insta" you chuckled.

Max smiled as he ruffled Gooses head earning a lick from the dog.

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BREAKING NEWS: Max's new bodyguard, Y/n L/n has a trained protection dog named 'Goose'. Click here to read more!

One image attached!

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You and Max finally left his driver room as he had another media appearance with another interviewer.

Max walked in front of you Goose to his left. You grabbed the door opened it for him. You followed him inside "volg" (heel left), you told Goose who then fell in step beside you to your left.

You followed Max till he sat on the couch opposite of the interviewer. Instead you stood against the wall out of view of the camera.

"Okay" the interviewer said giving the signal to start rolling "so before we start with the questions: would you want to have your bodyguard sit down?" She asked, she sounded genuine

Max then turned to you "wil je gaan zitten? ze kunnen je vragen stellen..." (do you want to sit down? they might ask you questions...)

You responded "Ik vind het niet erg om vragen te beantwoorden. Wil je dat ik ga zitten?" (I don't mind answering questions, do you want me to sit?)

"Ik vind het prima als jij dat ook bent" (I am okay with it if you are) Max said

You gave a quick nod before walking over and sitting on the couch, next to Max. Turning to Goose you said "Bewaken" (guard), causing him to lay down in front of Max.

Turning to the camera the interviewer started "Hello everyone it's Stella here!" She smiled "and I am joined today by Max Verstappen and his bodyguard..."

"Y/n" you said "and Goose" motioning to your dog.

She smiled "and today we are asking the new, the old, and the frequently asked questions." She turned to Max "okay to start off, Max we'll start with frequently asked questions: do you think you'll win the 2024 world championship?" She asked already knowing the answer.

"Of course I will" Max said "if I don't have that mindset then I have no chance"

"Moving onto the old news: China after quali" she said "most fans just do wanna know what happened and are you okay"

"Well obviously I'm okay," he said "but the fan was drunk and belligerent after I was able to take the win," he said "knowing that he was outside of the paddock I shouldn't have left but I'm lucky at the security near the entrance was able to quickly get him away" he said "he surprised me honestly" he shrugged

"Okay now onto the new: your bodyguard Y/n" she said "everyone wants to know more about her" so that's why she wanted to have you on the couch.

Max quickly turned to you "Vind je het goed om te antwoorden?" (You good to answer)

You nodded grabbing the mic he held out: "it's a bit of a story but: I was actually the dog trainer for Roscoe, Lewis Hamiltons dog," you said "I'm a well known dog trainer in Miami I have trained several dogs for a lot of celebrities. Some for protection others just to have a trained dog" you said "but anyways Lewis called me I think the day of the incident" you thought "and we talked for a second and he asked if I still had my bodyguard certification" you said "which is really just a formality but for my job before I started training dogs I was security for a large club in Miami and we needed it" you explained "so after a meeting with Max we signed a contract that is basically me being his bodyguard with Goose until I have trained a dog for him" you finished, handing the mic back to Max.

──⭒─⭑─⭒────⭒─⭑─⭒──

──⭒─⭑─⭒────⭒─⭑─⭒──

The drive to his hotel was relatively quiet besides the soft hum of the radio.

"When we arrive at the hotel do not get out" you said "keep the door locked till I have my hand on the handle" you explained "people are crazy here especially where your hotel is located"

Max nodded as you pulled the car up

You quickly got out shutting the door opening the door for Goose then opening the door for Max. People were everywhere, people shouting, some where drunk others just crazy. You quickly led Max to the entrance of the hotel and bid him a goodbye.

──⭒─⭑─⭒────⭒─⭑─⭒──

Friday and Saturday were uneventful. But Sunday was race day, the day the MOST amount of people all week.

Walking next to Max, "rechts" (heel right), Goose moved to the right side of Max you walked on his left side. You were able to easily enter the paddock.

Finally its race time you placed the dog ear muffs over Goose to protect his ears. The had just finished the formation lap. The lights turn red one by one, then all go out hearing the infamous "lights out and away we go"

──⭒─⭑─⭒────⭒─⭑─⭒──

Lando Norris had won the Miami grand prix. His first win. Max was really happy for him. Wanting to go out to celebrate but not wanting to get attacked he turned to you:

"Y/n do you mind coming out tonight?" He asked "I don't want to miss Landos first win celebration, but I you know need protection" he joked

"Sure I'll baby sit you" you joked back. Little did you know that was basically what you ended up doing.

──⭒─⭑─⭒────⭒─⭑─⭒──

As it was Landos first win they were going hard. You stood off to the side watching them all carefully making sure nothing happened to Max specifically. They decided to leave this bar going to the next. You follow them out walking just behind the group.

"Verstappen!" A drunken voice called, "why the fuck did you let that fuck boy win" the man slurred

Stepping between the two quickly "step back" you said firmly to the drunken man.

"What are you gonna do about it?" The man slurred

"Blaffen" (speak) you called, causing Goose to start barking aggressively grabbing his collar as he started going manic as he barked.

The man quickly backed away before almost bolting down the street you shook your head "foei" (no), Goose immediately stopped "Bewaken" (guard) he stood next to Max ready to start walking again

"We're good" you said to him and the group

─⭒─⭑─⭒────⭒─⭑─⭒──

Luckily nothing else happens that night. But not as lucky Max was beyond wasted. You were able to get him into the car and buckled him up shutting the door. You open the back door for Goose having him jump in. You got in and started driving realizing that you only knew where his hotel is and not his room you decide to drive to your house.

──⭒─⭑─⭒────⭒─⭑─⭒──

Getting him into your house was an adventure. He was basically a dead weight, after an insane amount of effort you got him onto the couch in your living room and threw a blanket on top of him. Placing some advil and water on the coffee table next to him.

──⭒─⭑─⭒────⭒─⭑─⭒──

As the job progressed and Max's new dog got trained many races were uneventful. The media attention on both of you had died down to what it was before Max got attacked. You are featured in some clips and interviews just answering the odd question or pulling Max away to get him out of range of anything dangerous. That is your job anyways.

The only big changes was social media: you stopped posting after getting a substantial amount of followers. People still comment on your old posts asking when your next post is. And the edits.. People are making edits of you and Goose being badass and it honestly makes you happy seeing all those cool edits. You'd take it to your grave but you love watching them in you bed late at night when you can't sleep.

──⭒─⭑─⭒────⭒─⭑─⭒──

It was the Austrian grad prix. Lando and Max had gotten into it on the track causing Lando to get a dnf, and Max to drop to 5th place. He stormed off disappearing before you could catch up to him.

You eventually find him sitting in one of the chairs looking at the ground, with his helmet still on. As a man you don't recognize yells at him.

"Hey!" You shout storming over "back away from him"

The man with anger in his eyes glanced at you but went back to yelling at Max. Ypu quickly said "Blaffen" (speak) to Goose, he started barking at the man

"Get back" you commanded again

Finally he looked at you "Do you know who I am?" He asked all proud

"I don't fucking care who you are" you snapped "step away from my client" you said firmly

He turned back to Max and began yelling in Dutch to fast and angry for you to make it out. You were about to intervene again until the man raised his hand as if to strike Max

"Stellen, stellen" (bite, bite) you quickly commanded Goose letting go of his collar. The dog jumped up and bit the raised arm the force sending the man to the ground.

As this is happening Max watched it, he looked up just as you called for Goose to bite his father.

You followed your dog holding the man to the ground before commanding "Loslaten" (let go) Goose dropped the now bleeding arm. "Bewaken" (Guard), Goose stood in front of Max now defensively.

──⭒─⭑─⭒────⭒─⭑─⭒──

Security arrived with medical and as they treated the dog bite you explained to them what happened pointing the the cameras around as well as a fan that recorded the entire interaction on his phone.

After a bit of talking and reviewing security bid you a goodbye and left. Citing that you were doing you job.

You then sat down next to Max who still hadn't taken off his helmet. "Who was that anyways?" You asked him as you quickly cleaned the blood off of Goose.

"My dad" he said muffled from the helmet

"Oh" you responded

"Yeah" Max said

The air filled with awkward silence before you said "let's get you back to the drivers room to cool down you still have interviews" Max just nodded making his way to his drivers room. You follow him inside Goose quickly settled by the door as you went to Max who sat on the couch with his helmet still on.

Reaching over you unclipped it and took it off, placing it on the table. Max took off his balaclava throwing it next to the mask.

"Sorry" you said "about your dad"

"I- no- uh" he groaned frustrated "You're fine you were just doing your job" he said a little snippy. He didn't want it to come out like that but it did.

You just nodded as he talked listening before saying "okay we gotta have you head to the media pen before someone yells at us and you get a fine" you said standing up

Max just nodded and followed you out if the drivers room.

──⭒─⭑─⭒────⭒─⭑─⭒──

──⭒─⭑─⭒────⭒─⭑─⭒──

Media was done and all Max wanted to do was go back to the hotel. You don't blame him you'd want that too.

After the media pen Max was almost a shell of himself. So just to make sure he's okay you walked inside the hotel and got him to his room, you also needed to talk about earlier. When he opened the door to his hotel room and motioned you inside you were quick to oblige.

The room was nice it was similar to one of those one bedroom apartments just minus a kitchen.

Max settled down on the small couch letting out a sigh.

You just stood a bit awkwardly as Goose sat down next to Max's feet earning a few pets from the Dutch man.

"We gotta talk about today" you said breaking the silence

Max groaned "Do we have to...?" He asked

"I mean yeah" you said "Goose bit your father" you said "I'm sorry I didn't-" before you could continue he interrupted you

"You were doing your job" he said "you had no clue what he could have done or actually what he was going to do" Mac explained "you did what you thought was best to protect me. Which is your job" he leaned back on the couch and then muttered to Goose "thank you"

You ran through the situation in your head again. Jos, which you learned was the man's name, was actually going to hit Max.

"He was actually going to hit you wasn't he?" You asked him

Max stayed silent that's all the answer you needed

"Well now I wish I didn't tell Goose to let go"

Max cracked a smile, "thank you" he said this time looking up at you.

──⭒─⭑─⭒────⭒─⭑─⭒──

Both you and Max were in his driver room. It was media day for the British Grand Prix, but Max had been waiting to hear back about his next interview as the time.kept changing. You thought that they just wanted to keep him here as long as possible.

Max was watching the small TV as he sat next to you on the couch. You were on your phone just scrolling through some random social media apps. Goose was laying down by the door.

While both of yall were waiting Max fell asleep next to you. Because of the way he was sitting when he fell asleep he was leaning against your shoulder. Eventually you fell asleep too.

──⭒─⭑─⭒────⭒─⭑─⭒──

Later you slowly wake up but are held in place by some strong arms. You blink awake adjusting to the light. You laid on your side on the couch and where held in place by a sleeping Max. You tried to move to get up but were just pulled right back down. Giving up rather quickly you went back to sleep.

Max gently shook you awake. "Hey Y/n" he said softly, "we should head back to the hotel" he was blushing but it was kinda hard to tell in the lighting

You just nodded as I slowly got up and stretched quickly gathered you items.

──⭒─⭑─⭒────⭒─⭑─⭒──

BREAKING NEWS: Max and Y/n seen leaving the drivers room late at night. What does this say about their relationship: Professional? Friendly? Or is there more?

──⭒─⭑─⭒────⭒─⭑─⭒──

"Mate you're all over the news" Lewis said to you on the phone as you got ready

"What do you mean?" You asked as you got ready

"You and Max were spotted leaving his drivers room late last night, together." Lewis explained

"Fuck."

"Yeah" he said "I'm at the track already and people are asking me about it"

"What have you been saying?" You asked leaving the hotel room Goose at your side

"I've been saying: I don't know the relationship, and that uh you're his bodyguard so whatever he was doing in the room you have to be there cause when he leaves you have to make sure nothing happens and shit"

You sighed "thank you Lewis" you said as you opened the car door for Goose and shut it before getting in yourself, and starting the car.

"It's no problem" the brit said "but are you two...you know..?"

"God Lewis!" You said "no we're no fuck buddies"

He just laughed "come on you knew I had to ask"

"I'm hanging up now" you said ending the call.

──⭒─⭑─⭒────⭒─⭑─⭒──

After collecting Max from his hotel and you started driving.

"You seen the news?" You asked

"I have yes" an uncomfortable silence filled the car before you spoke

"Lewis said that he's been telling media that cause I'm your bodyguard I have to be with you basically 24/7 so we can just stick with that" you said "I mean it is the truth"

"Yeah" he nodded quickly, he didn't know that you knew he was cozying up to you on that small uncomfortable couch.

──⭒─⭑─⭒────⭒─⭑─⭒──

Media was lovely that day and respected both of you- said no one ever.

Several times you had to yell at people to back up or even push a few people away. And media was eating it up:

BREAKING NEW: Y/n L/n 'defends' Max Verstappen from media is it more than just bodyguarding?

BREAKING NEWS: Y/n L/n pushes away journalists, bodyguard or overprotective girlfriend?

BREAKING NEWS: Y/n L/n thought to be more than just a bodyguard, is Max taking the 'body' out of bodyguard?

──⭒─⭑─⭒────⭒─⭑─⭒──

The last title made you gag how does that get approved? It doesn't actually bother you to much but it's gross.

You sat on that uncomfortable couch reading the news, almost every single station had something about you two leaving the drivers room late, or about you pushing away journalists.

You let out an annoyed huff tossing your phone on the small coffee table. Max leaned over a bit to look at it.

"Why are you looking at that shit?" He asked

You just shrugged

The last articles name caught his eye he double checked "what the actual fuck" he hissed "this is bullshit, why the fuck would the title an article this" he was pissed. You don't know entirely why they weren't saying anything about him.

"I don't know" you just shrugged

"You aren't mad at this?" He asked before continuing "It doesnt matter, I'm going to go punch the fucker who wrote the article" not wanting him in any legal trouble, mostly cause you knew he would punch the guy, you stood up and quickly blocked the door.

"Nope" you said simply "the article title is just that: an article title. I know it's not true you know it's not true so why does it matter" you asked

"It's disgusting" he said "they shouldn't talk about you-"

You cut him off "exactly! Me they are only talking about me in a bad light so why do you car so much?" You asked a little ticked that he was still trying to get passed you

"Because I care about you okay!" He confessed "I know it's dumb, you're my bodyguard and I-" he was cut off by a kiss.

You didn't know how but you ended up kissing him. He quickly reciprocated grabbing your chin pulling you closer.

As you both broke the kiss catching your breath you rested your foreheads against eachother looking into his eyes you smiled.

"When did you fall for me?" He asked

"When we cuddled on that uncomfortable couch" you smiled he blushed

"I didn't know you were awake for that" he said softly

You chuckled softly "when did you fall for me?" You asked

"It was love at first bite" He said "when you were protecting me from my father."

Then they fu-

Fin.

──⭒─⭑─⭒────⭒─⭑─⭒──

[errorid-mt7lt7k7unfr9ttfua5]

me when companies try to force you to use their proprietary software

anyway

Layperson resources:

firefox is an open source browser by Mozilla that makes privacy and software independence much easier. it is very easy to transfer all your chrome data to Firefox

ublock origin is The highest quality adblock atm. it is a free browser extension, and though last i checked it is available on Chrome google is trying very hard to crack down on its use

Thunderbird mail is an open source email client also by mozilla and shares many of the same advantages as firefox (it has some other cool features as well)

libreOffice is an open source office suite similar to microsoft office or Google Suite, simple enough

Risky:

VPNs (virtual private networks) essentially do a number of things, but most commonly they are used to prevent people from tracking your IP address. i would suggest doing more research. i use proton vpn, as it has a decent free version, and the paid version is powerful

note: some applications, websites, and other entities do not tolerate the use of VPNs. you may not be able to access certain secure sites while using a VPN, and logging into your personal account with some services while using a vpn *may* get you PERMANENTLY BLACKLISTED from the service on that account, ymmv

IF YOU HAVE A DECENT VPN, ANTIVIRUS, AND ADBLOCK, you can start learning about piracy, though i will not be providing any resources, as Loose Lips Sink Ships. if you want to be very safe, start with streaming sites and never download any files, though you Can learn how to discern between safe, unsafe, and risky content.

note: DO NOT SHARE LINKS TO OR NAMES OF PIRACY SITES IN PUBLIC PLACES, ESPECIALLY SOCAL MEDIA

the only time you should share these things are either in person or in (preferably peer-to-peer encrypted) PRIVATE messages

when pirated media becomes well-known and circulated on the wider, public internet, it gets taken down, because it is illegal to distribute pirated media and software

if you need an antivirus i like bitdefender. it has a free version, and is very good, though if youre using windows, windows defender is also very good and it comes with the OS

Advanced:

linux is great if you REALLY know what you're doing. you have to know a decent amount of computer science and be comfortable using the Terminal/Command Prompt to get/use linux. "Linux" refers to a large array of related open source Operating Systems. do research and pick one that suits your needs. im still experimenting with various dispos, but im leaning towards either Ubuntu Cinnamon or Debian.

[kiefbowl]

I was reading an opinion piece on Kate Middleton's cancer diagnosis on CNN by Jamal Baig about the increasing rates of cancer in patients under 50. As far as 5 minutes of googling and JSTORing can lend me to believe, there's nothing illegitimate about Dr. Baig. However, I found this bit in his opinion interesting:

Now, I'm always dubious when reading anything that attributes a very broad generalized idea that changes in diets have caused an increased in cancer, because more often than not it's not pointing to an exploration of, say, increased pesticide use, but the author's personal bias against the quote unquote "unhealthy", especially those who are deemed "fat" by the medical industry.

That being said, I was curious what source he linked, half expecting it to lead to just another op-ed from some other doctor from who knows when, but I was pleasantly surprised! Written by a man named Michael Donaldson, it was an evidentiary review published in a scientific journal called "Nutrition and cancer: A review of the evidence for an anti-cancer diet."

Now I wasn't going to give the whole thing a read, but I stopped in each section, gave a quick skim to get a general vibe, moved on to the next section, etc. I was immediately suspicious that the very first line in the abstract was "It has been estimated that 30–40 percent of all cancers can be prevented by lifestyle and dietary measures alone" as that seems to be a bananas statistic to just posit, but it still had the air of scientific integrity, so I did my skim.

The first handful of sections had things that gave me some moments of pause, that this article was in fact another doctor simply cherry picking data to confirm his own biases, but nothing so egregious as to do a spit take. That comes in a few minutes. The first section that made really go hold the phone was when we got to his Flax Seed section.

Compare how he writes about Red Meat...:

(that's all he wrote, btw)

...with how he starts writing about Flax Seed:

Did I just enter a Flax Seed commercial? Does this guy work for BIG FLAX SEED? on and on he writes about Flax Seed, and I start getting a sense that perhaps this man has a Flax Seed Agenda. In any case, he eventually moves on and I quickly skim to get to the end (because it's boring among other things).

So, who exactly is Michael Donaldson?

Girl are you kidding me

The Hallelujah Acres Foundation is a FOR PROFIT company that sells a """biblical""" based diet program called the hallelujah diet and also sells supplements on said site.

Now, in case you forgot where I started with this, this was the link provided as a "source" to a legitimate doctor's claim in an op-ed about cancer that "at least part of the answer" of why cancer is increasing in under 50 patients are the "changes to nutrition and lifestyle that took hold in middle of the last century." Dr. Baig did not read this article, or if he did was not concerned that it was written by the employee of a company that profits from unscientific research it uses to sell supplements and diets. Which is worse, I don't know.

The point I'm making is that you absolutely need to be vigilant all the time. You need to understand that doctors can not only have biases, but agendas. Researchers can have biases and agendas. Scientists can have biases and agendas. And that magical thinking about real health issues that can affect your future can permeate the scientific community because weirdos write convincing enough evidence that support their already determined world view.

This kind of shit is the reason why women go into doctor offices complaining about pain in their abdomen and get told to go lose weight and come back in 6 months. This is why ideas like moralizing eating have huge effects on women's health and influence medical misogyny, and why it's a feminist issue.

[togenabi]

all my ghosts

megumi fushiguro x reader

♡—haunted by ghosts all your life, you find peace and quiet in megumi’s arms

word count♡— 1.5k

genre♡— fluff

content notes♡— reader sees ghosts, meet-cute, first date, ghosts are nosy and annoying, but megumi makes it ok, inspired by 'all my ghosts' by lizzy mcalpine

also on♡— ao3

author's note♡— this has been in my drafts for a while, and I decided to polish it up in time for halloween! not that this is anything spoopy, just standard fluff brought to you by yours truly. please enjoy!

‘That kid's looking at you!’

‘No he isn’t!’

‘Yes he is! Look, look!’

Closing your eyes in frustration, you exhale through your nose. Could these damn ghosts ever give you a break?

All you wanted was a midnight snack. That's what brought you to this convenience store (at this ungodly hour) in the first place.

You ignore the wispy forms of the ghosts that follow you around everywhere, picking up your favorite snacks and sweets. One in particular was blocking your way, so you swat at the air where they hovered.

‘Oh!’ The ghost exclaims in offense. ‘Why, I'd never!’

Now you've done it. All the spirits floating around suddenly get unbearably loud, complaining about how rude you are. Apparently, you're dreadful company. But that's hardly fair when you never asked for them to hang around.

You've always been able to see ghosts. It's been something you could do for as long as you could remember.

Your mother, having had the same ability, taught you how to ignore them and act like you can't notice them at all. It usually works, but everyone has their limits. Yours was when some ghosts insisted on changing the show on your TV every time they didn't like what you were watching.

You had burst out, yelling and complaining and making the fatal mistake of letting them know you were aware of their existence. How much you regret that day cannot be put to words.

Ever since then, you've always had two or three ghosts hovering around. Asking you to play a song they miss. Or google something. Or call their grandkids for them.

They eventually leave once they realize they won't be able to get anything out of you, but a ghost who left will let others know about a girl who can see them, and the cycle just keeps on repeating itself.

‘Look! It's true, that boy is looking at you!’ A persistent ghost blocks your view of the beverage shelves, wildly pointing and gesturing to your left. You tsk, but turn to look anyway.

He has dark hair and dark eyes, wearing a hoodie that looks incredibly comfortable. He's quite handsome, and the ghosts were right. He's looking at you.

When he realizes you're looking back at him, he averts his gaze. He covers his mouth with one hand and turns away, but you see the tips of his ears burn red.

Your heart feels like it skipped a beat. Flustered, you pretend to be curious about the drinks on display.

But it's too late. You can't focus.

The ghosts around you are eating it up, cheering and encouraging you to talk to him. Some even hover over to the boy to persuade him to approach you. This could not get any more embarrassing.

You risk another look at him. He's not looking at you anymore, but his expression surprises you yet again.

He's looking at where a ghost is floating beside him. Your heart stutters again when he squints at what should be nothing for him.

But it's not nothing. Can he see them too?

You've never met anyone else who could. Not outside your family, anyway. Maybe you should talk to him.

You take a step closer, and the ghosts disappear.

Alarmed, you turn this way and that, trying to make sense if they're pulling some orchestrated prank on you.

But they're all gone. Or at least, you can't hear them anymore. Especially not when the cute stranger is looking at you again.

“...Hi.” You greet him, still at a loss for words.

The boy nods, clearing his throat before he speaks, “Hey.”

You notice that the ghost he was staring at is gone too. Just what is going on here? 

“Sorry if that was weird of me.” You try to laugh off your nerves. “I thought I heard something.”

He blinks. “Yeah, I think I know what you mean. Must've been the wind.”

Ah, maybe he didn't see your ghosts after all. You're not sure if you're relieved or disappointed. “Yeah. Wind.”

With a hand rubbing the back of his neck, he introduces himself, “I’m Megumi.”

He repeats your name softly after you give it, and you hope he can't see how flustered you got. As you look down at your basket full of snacks, Megumi holds out a hand and offers to carry it for you.

Shyly, you walk together to the cashier. You let yourself smile and take in the peaceful silence, now that the ghosts aren't around. Something sweet is in the air, something sweeter than the smell of candy and soda.

You linger by the entrance once you've both paid. Megumi opens his mouth to speak, but stops when someone suddenly barges in.

The pink-haired boy urges him to hurry up. “Hey! Let's go! Everyone’s already there for movie night.”

Megumi is pulled along, though he stutters as he looks back at you. “W-Well...” He gives a small wave. “I hope I'll see you around.”

And the moment he steps out of the store, it's chaos again.

The ghosts reappear once more, chatting your ear off about how you didn't get his number. And for once in your life, you agree with them.

It should be impossible, but Megumi somehow cancels out your ability. You think you’re falling. You could kiss him. Maybe you should have gotten on one knee and proposed right there and then.

Before you can properly think about it, you’re running after them and pulling at Megumi’s sleeve. The spirits fade once you’re close to him again.

The last thing you heard from the ghosts was them cheering you on. It makes you smile as you ask, “Could I have your number?”

“For the last time,” You warn the wispy figures floating about your bedroom, “If you spied on Megumi prior to our date, I do not want to hear about it.”

‘But sweetheart,’ An elderly lady ghost pats your shoulder, unfazed that her fingers only pass through you. ‘You should have seen him, he was so nervous! He—’

“No, nope!” One hand holding your outfit, you use the other to point at the door. It’s more of a symbolic gesture, since they don't really need to use it to get out. “Please let me change alone. Thank you.”

The ghost of a young man hovers around you, scrutinizing your outfit choice. ‘If you really want to leave an impression, you should w—’

Thankfully, you're not the only one who finds him insufferable. The other spirits groan and drag him outside—sending you heart signs and thumbs ups as they leave.

Unfortunately, the restaurant Megumi wanted to take you to was closed. He was crestfallen, but you assured him that you were fine anywhere, as long as you were with him. You only realized how cheesy that sounded when he blushed and turned away.

You ended up buying food at the convenience store where you met, and walking a short distance to the park for an impromptu picnic.

Sprawled on the grass together, you take turns asking each other questions. You learn that his birthday is in December. He asks about your taste in music.

You could get used to this. To not hearing a dozen ghosts at your ear. Indeed, the sounds of the trees rustling, birds chirping, and Megumi laughing are a lot more preferable.

“My first impression of you?” Megumi hums, pouting in thought. “I don't know... It's a little embarrassing.”

“I won't judge you for it, I promise!” You insist, “Besides, I told you that I thought you were cute.”

He takes a deep breath, not meeting your eyes as he answers cautiously, “You know that broken light in the convenience store?”

You make a confused face and tilt your head. “...Yes?” Where is he going with this?

“I’ve always hated it. The uneven lighting makes my head hurt...” Megumi leans close to brush your hair away from your eyes. “But I swear, those poorly maintained fluorescent lights weren’t that awful when I first saw you… Because you were glowing, and you were so beautiful.”

Not expecting that kind of answer, you hide your face by leaning into his shoulder. Megumi lets out a breathy laugh, and you think you might hear his heartbeat. You immediately add it to the list of your favorite sounds. The trees. The birds. His laugh. His heartbeat.

When you get home later that evening, your ghosts rush to you, excited and giddy to hear about your date.

‘Did he not give you flowers?’ One ghost asks.

‘No one gives flowers on dates anymore.’

An older spirit gasps, ‘Oh dear. Back in my day—’

‘We don't want to hear about how your dates went a century ago.’ 

‘Yeah! We want to hear about our dearie and Megumi!’

‘How was it?! How was it?!’

Taking a deep breath, you practically melt into the couch.

“It was perfect.” You smile, and the ghosts swoon with you.

Funny how Megumi said the lights didn't seem so bad when you were there. You feel the same about all your ghosts; he makes it all so much better.

© togenabi 2023 | see here to be added to my taglist ♡

tags: @songsofadelaide @flowerjun @sweetexistentialism @mellozhi @ihaveanexistentialcrisis @msmisasoup @appalost @starszns @onebatch--twobatch @luccaaedd @hellyyy06 @isentsworld @justsomerandomwe31rdo @gunslxtz @lownna @akakaze

[gatheredfates]

Hi! My name is Sea, and I like to collect things. 🌿

Specifically, as of February this year, I have made it my mission to collect as many resources for the Final Fantasy community as I can; including, but not limited to: Communities, Events, Free Companies, How-To Guides, Lore, Tools and more! I have compiled them into Sea's Community Compendium for FFXIV Creatives, a venture I hope will service as a directory for new and old FFXIV players alike to find places and things they might not otherwise know about, and I'm proud to say that the Compendium has over a hundred individual entries!

...But I want more.

Specifically, as much as this is a call to introduce new people to the Compendium, it is a call for anyone who might know of specific resources/communities that not in the document to take a moment's time out of their day to let me know about them. You can submit specific resources via:

My tumblr dm's.

This handy google form.

Or SEAFLOOR, my support and social community for the Compendium and adjacent projects.

You do not need to be a resource/server owner to submit; there just needs to be a publicly accessible link. ✨

Projects like mine equally cannot survive without the support of the community. If you like what I do, please reblog this post or share it with your friends; post it in your community servers or link it on your social media(s). The more visibility I get, the larger the Compendium becomes and the more likely you are to find a resource or community to suit your needs.

Okay, but really, Is my space suitable for the Compendium? Most of the time, yes! Below the read more is some more information/stipulations. This is all publicly available on the document.

Below are the following things I do not accept on the Compendium:

Personal/Single-Character LFC ads. (Though these get posted to the SEAFLOOR Tumblr Community when I find them!)

Content intended for or can be used for bullying, harassment and OOC gossip. E.g. ‘Secrets’ blogs, receipts, callout posts, etc. This does not include IC tabloid blogs or other ventures used to generate roleplay.

Communities that do not have an RP/writing element (large-scale exempt).

Anything I find personally distasteful or goes against the spirit of this project.

Common-sense rule applies.

I want to put my community on the Compendium but we have an application process. Is this okay?

Yes! Just note somewhere in your application that's a requirement. The only thing that is mandatory for the Compendium is that you must be open to new members or have a public-facing/accessible facet. There's no point advertising a community if no one can join it in some way!

I want to put my Community on the compendium but I only have x number of members —

Also totally okay! People don't start with large communities. Activity is a must but, whether your server has two or two thousand members, if you're looking for new people to join, I'd love to help you find people.

I want to put my community/resource on the Compendium but I worry its too niche?

Okay, and? If your Eorzean Fishing Alliance has four members but you roleplay every second weekend, I still want to know about it. The same goes for resources; if it's relevant to the game, it'll be useful to someone.

How active does a community need to be?

If you find a community has not been active in about two/three months, send me a message and I'll take a look at it. Communities have ebbs and flows, especially event spaces that may take hiatuses depending on member interest/life events. I'm not strict in my implementation provided a space isn't dead. If a link or anything is broken, contact me asap!

I have [insert a question not stated here]?

No drama! Send me an ask or use the #Compendium channel in my Discord!

[madamlaydebug]

CRITICAL WARNING!!!! Radio talk show hostess, Kim Komando, did some digging about TEMU and this is what she found!

Seemingly overnight, everyone’s talking about Temu (pronounced “tee-moo”), an online shopping app that boasts deals that seem too good to be true, like $17 wireless earbuds, $1 “gold” necklaces and $23 wedding dresses.

Over 50 million Americans have downloaded Temu since it launched state-side in September 2022, after it gained traction with expensive Super Bowl ads promising to let you “shop like a billionaire.”

Today, Temu is the most popular shopping app in the U.S. behind Amazon. But most of us don’t know much about the app’s true origins. Reader Daniel Mayer asked an important question, “Is [Temu] something we should be concerned about?”

So, I did some digging. And as it turns out, yes, you absolutely should be. Here’s what I found:

Where did Temu come from?

This isn’t some fly-by-night operation. Temu is based in Boston, Massachusetts, by PDD Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq: PDD). PDD is headquartered in Shanghai, China.

PDD also owns the e-commerce platform Pinduoduo headquartered in — you guessed it — China. So, Temu is a Communist China-based app and site.

What you need to know before using Temu

First, you’re buying goods directly from manufacturers in China and other parts of the world. That’s why shipping times are often 12 days or longer. The prices are low because the goods are cheap. The pictures of what you see advertised may not be what you actually get.

Temu’s BBB rating is 2.21/5. Reviews at TrustPilot are interesting, with 38% 5-star reviews and 41% 1-star reviews.

But that’s not the worst of it.

Temu is downright dangerous.

The app is a clever, pervasive digital stalker. As you shop, Temu monitors your activity on other apps, tracks your notifications and location and changes settings.

🛑 It gets worse. Temu gains full access to all your contacts, calendars and photo albums, plus all your social media accounts, chats and texts. In other words, literally everything on your phone. This is scary

No shopping app needs this much control, especially one tied to Communist China. If you’re using Temu, delete the app from your phone ASAP.

On iPhone, Long-press an app, then tap Remove App > Delete App. Tap Delete to confirm.

On Android, touch and hold an app, then tap Remove App > Delete App > Delete.

Pro tip: If you downloaded Temu, to be safe from Chinese spies, you really need to do a full factory reset.

But wait, there’s more! Temu’s sister app was removed from Google Play because of malware.

Do not buy from this company, or use their app!

COPY AND PASTE PLEASE

[bluebellowl]

@meltedmilkteeth

Thank you!! They better! I've worked so hard for like two months now? Idk why but 3D art just sucks me in so hard, every time I open blender I'm in there till like 4 am

at anon Why. Why would you do that? It's just hurting their feelings and your foot. nobody wins.

at anon Really? Um.. thank you? It might be a skill issue there. I'm still learning how to do smooth 3D animation. But yeah Ingo also is animated using irl robots making him extra stiff. He was even more janky in the process.

@golden-buddle They respect and trust her and their platonic love goes deep! She's the one they come to when they have problems, mechanical or soul wise or just for maintanance.

Vincent and Aiden are newer additions so while they each specialise on one of the twins, making them close too, Elesa has been there from the start so their bond is the deepest with her.

@bananacreamphi Thanks! I did have fun making them noodles! Mmm blueberry noodles....

@lil-ms-dipst I've never played Lethal Company and I had to google it. So it's a survival horror game? Judging by their pokemon they both don't scare easily. Ingo has a ghost pokemon that haunts people and then eats their souls while Emmet has a gigantic spider!

I'm not sure how much of this game is skill and luck but at the skill part they'd ace this! Especially together. Nothing beats these perfectly synced nerves of steel!

at anon perhaps? I did have a similar journey so welcome aboard!! These two just fit together so well! Especially SB where you get to be buddies with a giant animatronic?? What submas fan wouldn't wanna be buddies with a giant subway boss animatronic?? ----------------------------------------------------------------- Oh dear looks like I lost one. I remember someone asking if I could show some funky animation mistakes bc they heard they tend to be hilarous. The absolutely are!! and I should certainly make a compilation post of some of them.