#filed under — answered meme.

[sacrificedbelicfs]

❛ promise me? ❜ ( Abel )

𝟐𝟎𝟎 𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐎𝐌 𝐃𝐈𝐀𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐔𝐄 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐓𝐒 

She made the mistake of saying anything, but if she didn't, he'd have heard from someone else in the pack eventually. He had to hear it from her. She knew he'd be upset, but what she never expected is what he would ask.

"He'll be fine," she cried, volume raised to the steady one of a mind made up. "He's not triggered. He won't suffer the same." Please see reason, she begged silently, please. "You've done enough! More than enough. Can we stay here? Please, Abe, can we stay here?"

No. That answer was clear from the way his features fell when that name left her mouth. What about me? She wanted to ask, what happens to me when you go again? But that wasn't fair. One of the things she loved most about him was his loyalty to his friends, his pack, and to ask that to change was to ask him to be different.

❛ promise me? ❜

Drying her tears, Marni nodded slowly, "it'll be worth it all, I promise." She slid a folded paper into his hand and whispered, "today's date and the date of the lunar eclipse you'll need to get back out. The witches will know what to do with that." Falling into him, she wrapped her arms around his torso and held him for as long as she could. For him, it was all for him. It always had been. Since she was a little girl, he had been the brightest spot in her life. She was not the light, he was.

Gathering herself, she took a reluctant step back. "Close your eyes."

Gripping onto the Ascendant, her chin quivered as she forced the spell, "sanguinem filio, sanguinem effurgarex perpetuum..."

[fearhidden]

( noa + rowan ) [ 📲 sms: ]  i can't help but smile every time your name pops up on my screen.

FLIRTY TEXT MESSAGES.

noa santana teixeira + rowan st. claire.

[ text message — ] what if i told you i could do better than that?

[ text message — ] can you have a bag packed in an hour?

[ text message — ] i've got a business trip across the country and i was thinking if you wanted and had the time, you could join me?

[ text message — ] consider it an apology for all the late nights i've been having to pull.

@waywordhearts — noa santana teixeira.

[sundial-bee-scribbles]

ME ASK U THE 21TH QUESTIONS

21. Art styles nothing like your own but you like anyways

hard one to answer b/c 1) i don't even know what exactly what category my art style would fall in, so therefore i don't necessarily know what would be the opposite of it? 2) idk how to properly categorize art styles in general or like the names and stuff [aside from like generic umbrella categories]

its kinda basic[???] but i do def have admiration for the rubberhose cartoon style, and/or also like that sort of early western 2000s cartoon style?? really exaggerated expressions and fun dynamic poses that sort of break proper logic but LOOK really fun and expressive in general, i wish i could do smthn like that lolll

there's also just some art styles that i feel are more soft and "rounded" ig?? i have no idea if that makes sense but those are sometimes interesting to look at too, i feel personally my art style's very like pointy/sharp? so i feel like i struggle w/ trying to make smthn softer w/ rounded edges and cutesier? (like best example i'd be able to think of is making like chibis. i suck at those 😭)

i have mixed feelings on [photo?]realism, and idk if this necessarily correlates w/ that but for a really niche one: vintage woodcut/lithograph illustrations (basically the really scratchy sorta ones you'd see in like really old books or newspapers?) are so fascinating to me, especially more so considering the medium but i also just like how they look its very interesting... not sure how to describe it properly b/c there's also quite some variation but it just looks so coolll

weirdly specific artist asks

[ciarog-archive]

(For Knives) 😶 Do you regret what you did to Vash? Not just the arm. All of it.

Send 😶 + a really uncomfortable question and my muse has to answer it

"I don't know," Knives answers after a long silence. "Do I hate what I did to Vash? Always. There has never been a time where I enjoyed hurting him. I always gave him the opportunity to choose anything other than opposing me, but… That was like asking a fish to fly."

"It's hard to imagine a world where things could have ever gone any differently. Events were set into motion long before the village or The Fall. In the end, if I regret anything, it's that no one was able to stop me sooner."

[sccarlletwitch]

olá, abóbora ! você pode me chamar de allie. eu uso os pronomes ela/dela, tenho 24 anos e sou de gmt - 3 ! brasil, estou arrasada. atualmente, estou ME AVENTURANDO NA RPI, e se houver interesse, aqui alguns links que podem ser úteis:

regras. - muses & universos.  - memes ( respondidos ).  - wanted opposite. - wanted face-claim. - wanted ship.  - wanted plots.

[morsostium]

( misc. ) tag drop !

[legacywritten]

updated ( misc. ) tags !

[carriesthewind]

Good evening everyone! As I said in an answer to a previous ask, there wasn't a public call-in line to listen to the Show Cause Hearing in Mata v Avianca (the ChatGBT lawyer case) today.

However, while we are waiting for a transcript of the hearing (because there was a court reporter! yay!) and a written decision by the judge, we did get this absolutely anxiety-inducing live tweet of the hearing:

(Caveat: this thread was not an official transcript of the hearing and should not be taken as such. It is possible the actual events and statements made in the hearing differ significantly from this report - i.e., take this with a grain of salt and reserve final judgement for the actual transcript.)

I'll put the full thread with some (light) commentary below the cut.* But the overall impression I am left with is that the judge seems to feel this pair of attorneys are treating their duty of candor toward the tribunal with the same seriousness with which they are treating their duty of competence to their clients. (And in this case, that's a very bad thing.)

*The full thread except for a soon-to-follow part 2 because I ran out of space for images again.

(All of the following screenshots are from the above tweet thread by Inner City Press @ innercitypress on twitter, made on June 8, 2023.)

Normally I would overlook that "you, personally," but in this case, you really get the feeling that the judge is concerned that LoDuca might just start talking about what Schwartz did again.

Establishing LoDuca's base of knowledge - he should know how to look up cases and check if they are real; he should know what a real case looks like.

The March 1 submission was the plaintiff's opposition to the motion to dismiss, where they first cited the fake cases.

How bad this answer is depends, I think, on LoDuca's wording here. Best case scenario, his statement about Schwartz was a specific statement about what inquiry was reasonable for him to do under the circumstances (which - for that first filing - I think is actually a reasonable argument. You don't expect your colleague to just make up cases). Worst case, this reads like him trying to wiggle out of his obligations. I will withhold judgement until I see the official transcript.

Rule 11, by the way, refers to Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Rule 11(b) states:

(If you remember the Order to Show Cause, we are dealing with a Rule 11(b)(2) issue here. Rule 11(c) allows the court to impose sanctions for violations of Rule 11(b))

Oh no, bad answer. (If anyone reading this is good at photoshop, I cannot express how badly I want a version of the "this sign can't stop me because I can't read" meme with the sign being the quote from defendant's reply where they say, "The undersigned has not been able to locate this case by caption or citation, nor any case bearing any resemblance to it.")

Oh that is not a good way of characterizing those orders. (Those were the orders, remember, where the Court said, "By April 18, 2022, Peter LoDuca, counsel of record for plaintiff, shall file an affidavit annexing copies of the following cases cited in his submission to this Court: as set forth herein. Failure to comply will result in dismissal of the action pursuant to Rule 41 (b), Fed. R. Civ. P.")

I would simply perish on the spot.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention in my original attempted summary of "Varghese" - the first paragraph states that it is a wrongful death suit by the widow of the passenger. Then the second paragraph states that the passenger was denied boarding on a flight due to overbooking and thus missed his connecting flight and therefore incurred additional expenses. The case was such nonsense that I legitimately forgot about that inconsistency by the time I got to the end.

Your honor I plead "2 stupid 2 sanction."

(I believe the "different fonts" is in reference to the April 25 affidavit, in which the case names - and some of the surrounding text - are in a different font from most of the text in the affidavit. It seems like this is because they may have been copied straight from ChatGPT. See e.g., #3 below. It's hard to tell just based on this twitter thread, though.)

A short and simple answer! You did it!

"I have all the answers I need" is not a good sentence in this context.

Very genuinely: shorter is better here. At least I don't think he hurt himself with that statement.

Judge Castel: How do you conduct legal research?

Schwartz: I research cases.

Judge Castel: Do you read them?

Schwartz: Well, I may have once upon a time, but after hearing you ask that question in this context, I have decided to retire from the practice of law forever and also possibly sink into the ground and die. Also, by answering "yes," here, I just realized that I'm either admitting that I read the cases I submitted and therefore must have known they were fake, or else I just possibly committed perjury. Oh shit oh fuck.

Oh god I'm cringing myself into a pretzel just reading this.

Hey, by the way? You can actually use google (esp. google scholar) to do legal research. (It's not a good tool and you will miss things, but it will do in a pinch.) But. Um. If you know that...why didn't you double check your cases at very least on google when you were told they seemed to be made up?

So, once again, I am going to withhold judgement until I see the actual transcript. That said, if Schwartz did say this, I would like to compare it briefly to a part of the chat transcript he provided to the court. Here is the first question asked about the Montreal Convention in the provided transcript:

"analysis"

Oh god. I can't even provide commentary on this one. I hope this is worse than the actual transcript will prove to be. I'm reading through my fingers like I'm watching a horror movie.

"Misperception" (or "misconception") doesn't work once you have evidence that should cause you to doubt - like not being able to find a case that was supposedly published in the Federal fucking Reporter.

This is overshooting "2 stupid 2 sanction" into "too stupid to function."* You either looked for "Varghese" or you didn't. If you looked for "Varghese," it is not credible that you continued to have a good faith assumption that ChatGPT couldn't lie. If you didn't look up "Varghese," you just lied to the Court under oath.

*Just to be clear: for an ordinary person, this would be a very understandable lack of knowledge issue. A lawyer has no excuse not to know this.

Judge Castel: Mr. Schwartz, I think you have the fucking audacity to try to lie to me to my face in my fucking courtroom.

Honestly at this point I'm surprised he could still talk. I think screaming, "I'm melting, I'm melting!" as he vanished into steam, leaving his crumpled suit behind, would be an appropriate response.

NO.

Oh no, oh honey.

Ok. Two options here (again, assuming he actually fucking said "They said they couldn't find them," in response to the Court asking, "When Avianca said you cited non existent cases?"):

Schwartz is once again trying to purposefully downplay what the defendant's reply brief actually said and dodge responsibility.

Schwartz honestly, truly believes that when the defendant filed a reply containing the line, "The undersigned has not been able to locate this case by caption or citation, nor any case bearing any resemblance to it," they were just asking for assistance with their legal research?!??!

I honestly don't know which is worse.

Oh no....

Oh man, I haven't gone over it here yet, but I think that "I looked up the judge" is a panicked attempt at bringing up a talking point the Professional Responsibility Lawyers raised in their memorandum of law. (Again, I'm giving this reading of his response with the caveat that it is based only on this thread, not the official transcript, which might read very differently and contain different/more info.) The Professional Responsibility attorneys noted in a footnote that two of the judges listed in the "opinion," including the "author," were actual 11th circuit judges, and the other is an actual 5th circuit judge. My read of this footnote was as an extra little detail tossed in by the Professional Responsibility attorneys to try to dress up their argument that the "opinions" had various "indicia of authenticity."

But here's the problem. If Schwartz is telling the truth - if he was reading carefully and critically enough that he bothered to look up the judge (why would you do that if you didn't think the case might be fake?!) there is no way he could have missed that the case was gibberish. Again, if this is really what he said at the hearing, he either lied in the hearing, or he must have know the "opinions" were bogus when he gave them to LoDuca to file.

"Did it cross your mind" - if the court actually said this, oh my god.

Hey, that's the point that I made in my original post(s)!

This whole thing about the "+h" to "th" with the notary date is from the recent affidavits filed on 6/6/23, you can read them about them if you want, I'll be honest, I don't really care as much about the notary stuff so I'm going to skip it for the moment.

....and I've run out of space for images again. Part II to follow shortly!

[nekrosmos]

questions about nikolai and price (originally from an ask meme about original characters but i wanna hear your thoughts):

what do they want to hear?

what do they need to hear?

what do they dread to hear?

Thank you for the ask !! I honestly struggled with the answers, I'm not the best at deep character introspection so this really had me scratching my head. I hope what I came up with makes sense !

What do they want to hear?

Nikolai: "I trust you."

Nik is intimidating, isn't he ? Intelligent, strong, well-connected Nikolai. People know that. It usually takes only a half a second glance to know that you do not want to be on this man's bad side. He's used to it, really. But how many times as he entered a room only to see people shift uncomfortably, suddenly very aware of his presence? He makes people uneasy, whether he wants it or not. It's fine when he's on an op and needs to be menacing, but it gets old quickly when he just wants to relax, sometimes.

He's trustworthy, despite his shady dealings, he's loyal. Thankfully, a handful of people know that.

Price: "You made a difference"

Yes, his hands got bloody, but it was all worth it in the end, right? He saved people by pulling the trigger when it needed to be done. No hesitation, it's what the world needs. So what if he can't sleep at night and his file is covered in black ? He made a difference, the rest, he can live with.

What do they need to hear?

Nikolai: "You need to think of yourself, too."

Nikolai puts others first, this has always been true. He likes to help out, likes to feel useful, ready to answer a call. Loyal to a fault, devoted to his friends. But when was the last time Nik put his needs as a top priority ? Has he ever done that ? He has no trouble flying to the other of the planet at a moment's notice if someone asks him to. How many nights of sleep has he missed because someone needed a hand? How much time has he spent fixing up his helo because it got banged up the last time a friend needed transport in hostile territory ? It's always others first, never himself, and he needs to be reminded of that.

Price: "You matter."

It's easy to forget that you're someone when you've been used as a weapon since you were 16. You forget that you have a purpose outside of your work, too. You forget you're a human first, with needs and wants and desires. You are Captain John Price, but you are also just John Price, and he matters too.

When he comes home for a break, what does he see outside of blank walls and a barely lived in house he never really took the time to make his ? It's temporary, he thinks, he doesn't really live here.

Maybe John needs to be reminded that he exists outside of his work.

What do they dread to hear?

Nikolai: "You don't belong here."

From either side. I think Nik feels strongly about his relationship with his home country, how he's been working against it and how his actions might be perceived by his countrymen. I think he's scared of losing this part of himself, and being rejected, even though all he's done was in the name of his country.

And then on the other side, Nik knows he stands out, knows people see him as a "could have so easily been the enemy" kind of guy. People like him, sure, but how many, aside from Kate, John and Gaz actually trust him ? Everyone else sees him as useful, but ultimately, they still look at him with a suspicious eye.

Where is home for Nikolai, really ?

Price: "You failed them"

Losing people, he's used to it. It never gets easier though, does it? Men and women under his command, people he's known for years, people who trusted him, friends. But, there is something entirely different between losing someone when you did everything you could have done and it was the way it was supposed to go, and losing someone because of your mistake. He failed them, he knows that, and it haunts him.

[elliereject]

ifhy .1

* in which ellie’s obsession relationship with you begins to sour as your romance with your new boyfriend seems to flourish. it seems she’ll stop at nothing to ensure your happiness, (which you’ll find with her, obviously) even if it means hurting you in the process.

* lowkey obsessive ellie, (I LIKE EM’ A LITTLE CRAZY!), angst + comfort (next chapter(s), infidelity, unrequited feelings yet also mutual pining (just read it like, idk idk I forgot how to do these),lmk if I missed anything!

* im back, ok not really this has been rotting in my drafts forever and I was reading it back and I was like damn I lowk cooked with this. It’s unfinished as of RN but this is only 1/3 of the fic im just splitting it up so u don’t have to wait months,,for it..like my other fics..DONT ASK ME ABT THOSE, cuz I don’t got an answer. IN THE MEAN TIME ENJOY THIS! <3

* mdni (but like if u do wtvr, nothing crazy happens in this chapter)

wc ~ 1.6k

pt. 2 here

Ellie Williams fucking hated you.

Surprisingly, she didn’t at first. In fact, she was in love with you, bordering infatuation.

She had seen you for the first time at the local bookstore before the semester started, you were flipping through a book about time and relativity with a concentrated look on your face. She smiled to herself when she saw you push up onto your toes to reach for another book but to no avail. She took this as an opportunity to walk up to you and reach over your head to grab it, making sure to flex her lean, tattooed arm before placing it in your hand.

Her jade eyes locked on yours and your face heated immediately, you mumbled a “Thank you.” Before scurrying past her to the checkout.

Imagine her surprise when on the first day of classes, she walks into her astrophysics course and sees you, doodling in your notebook with that same concentrated look on your face.

Of course, she sits next to you, flashing that charming smile that has sweat gathering at your hands. She tells you her name then asks for yours and learns about your major, favourite course, and how you’re staying in a little apartment just outside the campus before more students and your professor filed in. You didn’t know why but you just felt so comfortable telling her things, She laughed at your corny jokes and made even cornier ones, and she admired the doodles that covered your notebook and the little duck pen you used.

You didn’t want to speak too soon, but it was safe to say you were harbouring a tiny bit of a crush on her.

Ellie on the other hand, was completely ready to admit it. She felt her love for you grow each second she was around you. Your smile quite literally felt like the sun shining upon her, your laugh made her want to drop her studies of space to pick up stand-up comedy just so she could make it her job to make you laugh. In her eyes, everything you did was perfect. Her thoughts were completely consumed by you, you, you.

And for a few months, things were amazing! You had been introduced to Dina and Jesse and even spent Halloween hanging out with the trio watching horror movies and eating each other's weight in candy. When the holidays rolled around you and Ellie, along with the others, cozied up under some blankets and made fun of cheesy Hallmark movies while she tried her hardest not to interlock her hands with yours even after your pinky brushed against hers for the sixth time.

During finals, Ellie and you organized designated study days that usually ended in giggling at stupid memes on each other's phones or late-night food runs. Of course, there were lingering touches and flirtatious glances here and there but you were too shy to act on it and Ellie would rather die than make you uncomfortable so she kept you just at arm's length. Besides, she knew you were too timid to approach anyone else, so in a way she had you all to herself.

Then, you met him. Some motherfucker whose name she didn’t care to remember. However, she did remember the innate feeling of anger that surged through her body when you gushed to her about him and how he was a history major and the way his glasses framed his face perfectly and whatever the fuck else you found interesting about him.

She nodded and laughed and smiled along with you when you would drone on about him but would excuse herself to the bathroom to tend to the crescent-shaped wounds in her palms from digging her fingers into them so hard.

She tried her best to not show these negative emotions to you because she knew how much you didn’t like when she got mad but fuck was it hard. Especially that one night when you were out with him and you hadn’t replied to her texts in over 5 hours. Man did her drywall take some damage that night.

And when you finally did reply you had completely disregarded her message and went on to boast about the time you had and how gentlemanly he was. All she could do was reply with a dry “sounds like fun🙂” before she went back to throwing a tantrum around her room and tormenting that poor wall…she’d have to remember to buy some spackle before the end of the semester.

Then, there was the time she trekked over to your apartment with some pizza for a surprise movie night and saw the bouquet placed in front of your door. She set the box down to pick up the flowers and read who it was from, her body reacted before she could rethink. She tore the flowers from the beautifully wrapped packaging and stomped on them over and over and over until all that was left were broken stems and tattered petals.

Thankfully, you got home just a few minutes later and missed her outburst. You gasped when you saw the smashed flowers and asked her what had happened, she shrugged and lied easily, claiming it was like this when she got there. She let out a breath when you shook your head and sighed, saying it was probably your next-door neighbor who had always been a bit of a grouch.

She had genuinely thought she was doing a pretty good job of hiding her true feelings for both you and him but it was when you gleefully announced that he was officially your boyfriend she knew she was done for. You squealed and pulled her in for a hug but it felt like her heart had shriveled up into a clump of black coal and woosh like magic, her love for you had turned into something twisted, something possessive.

It was when you invited her over to your apartment to eat dinner with him that she had started considering the idea that you knew she had a crush on you and you were just fucking with her emotions for fun.

How could you start dating, let alone seeing some random ass motherfucker when she was right here! She knew she could treat you better than he could even dream of, she knew everything about you and she’d make it known to you how perfect she was for you, one way or another.

That night at dinner she sat uncomfortably as you fluttered around your tiny kitchen, adding last-minute touches to the spaghetti you made and despite the grumble in her tummy it felt like she had no appetite when she watched the hungry way he looked at you, as if you were a juicy steak and he was a starved wolf.

Once you were finished plating the food and placing it on the table you sat down eagerly and tried your best to mediate the obvious tension.

“Soo uh, Ellie, you’ve been really into watercolour recently right?” You beamed.

“Uh-huh.” She said dryly, twirling her spaghetti around her fork.

“Oh that’s cool, you know watercolour as an art form has been around since Egyptian times! It’s funny to think that like—Cleopatra was painting with water and grapes or something!” He spoke and you giggled like it was the funniest joke in the world. She shot you a look that said really? because she knows she could make a joke that was way funnier, and would expel your real laugh.

“That’s cool. You know how to shut the fuck up?” She mumbled into her bite of spaghetti.

“Sorry?” He asked and you gave her a sideways glance.

She smiled tightly and swallowed before answering, “Just said that’s cool!”

Dinner dragged on as he droned about the history of the Renaissance or fucking Christopher Columbus, she didn’t actually know, she tuned him out. After you cleared the plates, you ushered them into your cozy living room for a movie and when you excused yourself to the bathroom she plopped down on the couch next to him, subtly pulling out her switchblade.

“So, Kevin—“

“Actually my name—“

“I don’t give a fuck what your name is, matter fact I don’t give a fuck about you in general. What are your intentions with ★?”

The man tensed up as Ellie expertly spun the blade around in her fingers.

“Uh—I mean, she seems cool and dating her has been pr—“

“Cool?” Ellie scoffed, “She’s fucking perfect, and I hope you know whatever you have going on with her right now? It won’t last. Soon she’s gonna see you for the limp-ass motherfucker you are.”

He was taken aback, “What?—I’m sorry, did I do something to offend you?”

“Your whole existence offends me.” She rasped, inching her blade closer to his neck. “She’s not meant to be with you.”

He furrowed his brows, “You like her, don’t you?”

Ellie rolled her eyes, “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

Before he could reply you were back from the bathroom and she slipped her blade back into her pocket and got up with a firm grip on his shoulder.

“What were you two talking about?” You asked as you grabbed a bag of chips from your small coffee table and tore into them.

“Oh you know, girl talk.” She smiled, digging her blunt nails into his shoulder. Translation: don’t say a fucking word.

You rolled your eyes playfully like you even had a clue of what was going on, “He’s not a girl, dumbass.”

She shrugged, stepping away from her previous seat to plop down on the other small sofa.

The rest of the night proceeded relatively smoothly, your boyfriend had been so shaken up by Ellie’s words that even with you sitting next to him he kept his distance with worried glances toward Ellie now and then. Ellie crunched on her popcorn happily and watched the movie with a satisfied smile and a chipper aura.

— ★

🤔 shall I put out the second part? only time (and interactivity! 💝 pls don’t let this flop) will tell!

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Comet Donati [Chapter 5: I Should Have Kissed You]

Series Summary: Sex, drugs, boy bands. You are a kinda-therapist recruited (via nepotism) to help Comet Donati through a recent crisis. Things are casual with Aegon, very not-casual with Aemond. Loosely inspired by One Direction.

Chapter Warnings: Language, sexual content (18+), drugs, alcohol, smoking, mental health struggles, bodily injury, sloths, public indecency, another important conversation on a balcony, angst!

Selected Chapter Quote: “I’m sorry about what happened tonight.”

Word count: 8k (+1 meme).

Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.

Taglist: ​@doingfondue​ @catalina-howard​ @randomdragonfires​ @myspotofcraziness​ @arcielee​ @fan-goddess​ @talesofoldandnew​ @marvelescvpe​ @tinykryptonitewerewolf​ @mariahossain​ @chainsawsangel​ @darkenchantress​ @not-a-glad-gladiator​ @gemini-mama​ @trifoliumviridi​ @herfantasyworldd​ @babyblue711​ @namelesslosers​ @thelittleswanao3​ @daenysx​ @moonlightfoxx​ @libroparaiso​ @burningcoffeetimetravel-fics​ @mizfortuna​ @florent1s​ @heimtathurs​ @bhanclegane​ @poohxlove​ @narwhal-swimmingintheocean​ @heavenly1927​ @mariahossain​ @echos-muses​ @padfooteyes​ @minttea07​ @queenofshinigamis​ @juliavilu1​ @amiraisgoingthruit​ @lauraneedstochill​ @wintrr13​ @r0segard3n​ ​

Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist! 💜

There’s turbulence over the Indian Ocean as the jet staggers towards Singapore, pitching and reeling, dark clouds churning beyond the windows like the malevolent brew of a caldron. Each time the plane plummets fifty or a hundred feet, you clutch reflexively at your armrests and try not to think of Cast Away. No one else seems bothered by it; that’s what years spent on international flights will do to people, you suppose. It dulls their instincts, tames them, sands down vestiges of primeval survivalism like a file taken to canine teeth. Cregan is ostensibly napping beneath his sunglasses, Daeron is propelling Mario through a maze of toxic fumes, Luke is watching The Crown on his laptop with Rhaena and Baela, Jace is applying shimmering, gelatinous, golden under-eye masks with great care, Criston is answering emails, Aegon is being forced by the label to click through online substance abuse education modules and sighs dramatically and often. And Aemond…

The jet loses a dozen meters of altitude and your stomach drops. You stifle a yelp with one hand as tears—unwanted and unforeseen—prickle into your eyes. You peek across the aisle to see Aemond watching you with his gaze of two blues: one like a clear cool river, the other an otherworldly maelstrom like the atmosphere on Neptune, beautiful yet barren. His expression is intense and searching, his brow low. You try to ignore him. You try to collect yourself.

“Honeybunch?” Shelby croons. Yes, she calls him honeybunch, freaking honeybunch, and occasionally Honey Bunches of Oats. It’s almost as nauseating as the turbulence. He turns to her after the briefest of hesitations. Shelby is crouched by a table, her project for the past hour: artfully arranged red roses, glass bowls of fruit that she spritzes with a spray bottle of water—like you’d use to discipline a cat—to keep it glistening, and bubbling flutes of pink champagne. When the careening of the jet sends anything sliding precariously towards the edge of the table, she casually pushes it back into place. Shelby is no stranger to flying either. She is an angel, born with wings.

“Yeah?” Aemond says distractedly.

“Can you come over here for a sec?”

The jet shutters; ripples quake through your ginger ale. You swallow down a pathetic mewing like a wounded animal’s, swiping a tear from your cheek. You nestle against the window so no one will notice. “Sure,” Aemond tells Shelby, casting you another glance as he stands. He goes to her—gripping the backs of chairs to keep his balance—and, after looking back at you one last time, swipes one gleaming strawberry from a bowl.

“Don’t!” Shelby whines, knowing that now she’ll have to rearrange things.

If Aemond heard her, he gives no indication. He chucks the strawberry as hard as he can at Aegon; it hits the side of his head with a wet thump. Tiny black seeds pop free. Juice like blood stains his blond hair.

Aegon rips out his earbuds and spins around in his seat. “Okay, what the fuck?”

“Whoops,” Aemond says dully.

“How does someone do that by accident?! How does that even happen?!” Rubbing his head with one hand, Aegon stretches and peers around the jet. His eyes—not a blue like clear water, but a deep murky cobalt, a difference you cannot help but notice again and again like the stinging of a papercut—catch on you. “Aww, Stargirl, what’s up?” He drags himself over, knocked to his knees once by the swerving of the jet, and plops down into the chair beside you. “You okay? Don’t worry. I’m a good swimmer. I’d drag you to shore.”

You laugh, pressing a napkin to your eyes. It comes away shriveled and damp. “I’m sorry. We get tornadoes back home sometimes, I can’t stop picturing wreckage.”

“You should have seen this flight we took last year over the Pacific. The jet was practically sideways. Jace threw up like ten times.”

“Three times,” Jace says, peeling off his under-eye masks like little gold jellyfish with his feet kicked up on an ottoman.

“Ten times?” Aegon replies innocently. “Ten, you said?”

“Three, you idiot.”

“Ten?”

“Three.”

“Ten!” Aegon confirms merrily.

Jace holds up an under-eye mask and jiggles it in the air, soft and wiggling and shapeless. “Hey guys! This is what Aegon looks like naked.”

“I don’t want him getting any of the money from my donut merch!” Aegon shouts. “Criston? You hear that? Criston? Hey Criston? Criston?!”

“Do your modules,” Criston replies without looking away from his emails.

“Fine,” Aegon huffs. The jet is gliding over the ocean more smoothly now. Still, he says to you after smacking a single sloppy kiss against your temple: “Follow me. You can help.”

You accompany Aegon back to his seat and laptop, a neon green MacBook Air. Shelby is snapping photos to post on Instagram, recording clips for TikTok: the meticulously arranged table, her long fingernails decorated with palm trees and Merlions and the flag of Singapore, selfies of her and Aemond…always taken to show his good side, of course. Your guts twist with hostility, mistrust, envy, wrath.

As you pass Jace, he holds out his discarded under-eye masks. “Wanna touch?” Jace invites you, leering. You peel one gluey under-eye mask from his open palm and examine it. As you massage the pool of viscous gold, Jace ogles, dangerously close to drooling.

“So soft,” you admire. “So smooth. Not a single wrinkle.” Then you fling it back at Jace. The adhesive side sticks to his forehead. “Just like your brain.”

Everyone howls, even Cregan—not asleep after all—and Criston; he tries to choke it down until his face floods red. Aemond is staring at the floor, but he is beaming. Shelby recaptures his attention and begins posing his hand around a glass of champagne, readjusting fingers like a physical therapist stretching and flexing half-healed limbs. She gets to touch him. She gets to speak to him.

“You’re always so mean,” Jace tells you as he pries the under-eye mask off his skin, unfazed, simpering, flirtatious. “You might have to make it up to me one day.”

“Unlikely.”

“We’ll see.”

“We certainly won’t.”

Aegon shows you the quiz that has popped up in his modules. “Okay, Stargirl. Time to prove yourself. Does coke make someone’s pupils bigger or smaller?”

All you can hear is Shelby’s high, sing-songy voice; all you can picture are her exquisite fingernails skimming their way down the ridge of Aemond’s spine. “I honestly can’t recall at the moment. Go snort some and we’ll find out.”

Aegon grins. “Don’t tempt me.”

Fifty minutes later and under blessedly clear skies, the jet touches down at Changi Airport: 88 degrees Fahrenheit, 80% humidity. Aegon groans as he trots down the airstair, slides on his aviator sunglasses, and wipes away sweat—already beading on his pink forehead and wetting the hair at the nape of his neck—with the back of one hand.

“Jesus Christ, I need a Double Chocolaty Chip Frappuccino.”

“Do you really?” Jace jabs, and you don’t have to scold him this time. Baela gets there first, hissing something to him that is brief and fearsome. You’re only half paying attention. Once Comet Donati makes it through security, there may be paparazzi waiting for them inside the airport. Everyone knows this; it’s the same in every city and on every continent. And as Shelby strolls across the tarmac with one arm looped through Aemond’s, you cannot help but see—you cannot help but absorb like nicotine through the capillary beds of a lung—that she reaches out with those beautiful yet claw-like fingernails and taps the front pocket of his button-up shirt, black with white lilies, until he pulls out a pair of sunglasses and shields himself from the pitying eyes of the world with them.

And you think with puncturing clarity like a shard of glass through flesh: I hate her, I hate her, I hate her.

~~~~~~~~~~

The Pan Pacific Orchard Hotel is brand new. You can’t breathe without inhaling fresh paint, glass walls, the bakery, the greenery that climbs steel like a trellis, the roomy emptiness of starting over. You wake up tangled in a nest of white sheets that your body has heated into an inferno. You don’t remember your dream, only that Aemond was there. It was the opening of the door that woke you. Aegon stands in the slanting early-afternoon sunlight, vivid red swim trunks and matching Crocs, his sunglasses knotted in his hair.

You yawn and peer blearily at him. “Aegon? What are you doing?”

“Every day I wake up hoping you’re still here,” he says. And then: “We’re all headed down to the pool. You wanna join?”

You smile; you can smell him in the air, Axe body spray, Tiger Beer, sunscreen that he never seems to apply often enough to stop his skin from burning. You haven’t been with him—not in that way—since that day in Paris. But time never feels quite linear with Aegon. He swings wide and then comes in close again, and when he does it’s like he never left. He’s with you always, and never, and sometimes, and forever. “Yeah. Give me ten minutes.”

“Cool.” He turns and studies himself in the full-length mirror that hangs on your bedroom wall. His eyes wander down to his bare chest and belly. He frowns, pensive, far-away, critical. It is an expression that looks entirely unnatural on him.

“Hey.”

He spins back around, running a hand self-consciously down the front of his torso. “Hm?”

“I think you’re perfect exactly the way you are. I am wildly, helplessly, pathetically attracted to you. I would fight off twenty fangirls with my bare hands for you. I think you’re one of the most ludicrously gorgeous men I’ve ever met in my life. ”

He grins, radiant again. “One of them, huh?” And he winks at you as he clops towards the door in his Crocs. “Maybe it runs in the family.”

~~~~~~~~~~

“So. College applications season will be here in a few months.”

Baela looks at you, started. You’re in a whirlpool with her, Rhaena, Luke, and Aegon, sipping pina coladas and kicking feet idly beneath water misty with bubbles. “Okay?” Baela says. Her swimsuit is an elegant white one-piece that—unintentionally you think, unconsciously, and yet truthfully—closely resembles a ballet leotard.

“Elaborate?” Luke says, then slurps noisily on his pina colada.

Aegon already knows where you’re going. He chuckles into one closed fist; you can see yourself reflected in his sunglasses. In the massive main pool punctuated by an arcing bridge and a miniature island, Cregan is lounging on a float shaped like a pineapple and eating his way through a heaping plate of juicy slivers: papaya, mango, starfruit, banana, lychee, rose apple, dragon fruit. Criston is sitting under an umbrella and reading a New Yorker profile of shipping tycoon Viserys Targaryen—a Greek by birth and a Brit by choice—with narrowed, vexed eyes. Jace and Daeron are attempting to do a TikTok dance for Shelby to post on her account and repeatedly screwing up, laughing hysterically and pushing each other into the pool. She always wears eye-catching patterns, leopard prints and retro geometric shapes and plaids and Swarovski crystals and tassels. Currently, she is dressed in a scarlet bikini and a sheer coverup of tropical flowers. Her blond hair flows down her back and swings like a horse’s tail when she leans in to direct her cast, pointing and waving. You see her like this, not in whole but in pieces: long beachy waves, nimble ankles and wrists, lip gloss, veneers, sugary perfume, tall like Aemond. Shelby has no idea why you’re here. She made a few tentative inquiries—So who introduced you to the band? So how did you and Aegon meet?—before being discouraged by the ensuing stilted silence. Aemond rarely acknowledges you. Presently, he is wading in the pool up to his chest, occasionally talking to Cregan but otherwise content to be left to his own…reverie? Observations? Machinating? Brooding? With his sunglasses on, it’s difficult to tell.

Back in the whirlpool, you ask Baela: “What if you applied to a few ballet programs?”

“What?”

“Just to see what happens. Just to have options.”

“Oh no, I couldn’t do that.” She says this so quickly it’s clear that it’s a reflex: something she does not think about, something she’s trained herself not to.

“Sure you could. You click a few buttons and it’s done.”

“I’d have to send in video clips and stuff.”

“Okay. Rhaena and I will help record you.”

“Absolutely,” Rhaena agrees right away. She drinks her pina colada with large, skittish eyes, watching you like you’re poking a tiger, a viper, and dragon. She’s tried to have this conversation before. She knows how it usually goes.

“I’m really not in shape right now,” Baela protests.

“You still have time to work on that. It’s only July.”

“And who says I want to work on it?” Baela snaps. “Have I ever mentioned ballet school? Have I ever said that I want to go?”

“But you do,” you say simply.

She frowns as she casts her gaze across the pool. Beefy men dressed in black—security guards, some employed by the band, some by Shelby—mill around aimlessly like ants when you lift a rock.

“I think you should apply,” you tell Baela.

“I can’t,” she replies, pained.

“Why not?”

“Because.” She’s flustered, cross. Rhaena and Luke look between the two of you anxiously. Aegon just smiles and gnaws on the hunk of pineapple that came perched on the rim of his pina colada. “Am I supposed to send Rhaena off into the world without me? Nothing against you, Luke, I like you, I trust you, but when you’re on stage or in an interview you can’t watch out for her. What if something happens to Rhaena? Or what if I go back to school and I’m a failure? What if I humiliate myself? What if I’ve lost whatever talent I once had? What if I couldn’t keep up with my classmates? What if I get injured and have to drop out? What if I’m too old, or too out of practice, or what if I don’t even enjoy dancing anymore? What would I do about the band? What would I do about Jace?”

“Those are all valid concerns,” you say. “But they’re also concerns for after you’ve applied to schools. If you get acceptances, that doesn’t mean you have to go. But it does give you options. And options are always good.”

Baela shrugs. She catches handfuls of bubbles in one cupped palm, preoccupied. “It just seems like a waste of time.”

Aegon snickers as he tosses the pineapple rind over his shoulder. One of the security guys snatches it up off the concrete and throws it in a trashcan. “Baela, please babygirl, don’t give up on your dreams for freaking Jace.”

“And who the fuck solicited your life advice, blond Nikki Sixx? If I want to know what Narcan feels like, I’ll ask you.”

Aegon sighs, rubbing one eyebrow. “You are never going to let that go.”

“I bet you’d get in,” Luke tells Baela. “To at least one school. You’re too good not to, even with the time off. Rhaena’s shown me old recital clips. You were fantastic.”

“Were,” Baela mutters. “Past tense. Very distant past tense.”

“If you don’t get in, then you know it’s off the table,” you say. “And you’re in the exact same spot you are now. But if you do get in, you have time to figure out what to do with that information. You have nothing to lose except application fees, and I don’t think those are much of a barrier for you, oh great connoisseur of Gucci and Hermès.”

“I’ll think about it,” Baela replies, and her intent to end the conversation is clear. A few awkward moments creep by like afternoon shadows stretching across pavement. “So, what are we doing for dinner?”

“Something quick, right?” Luke says. “Takeout? We have a meet-and-greet in two hours.”

“Jollibee!” Rhaena exclaims, clapping her hands. “They have coconut pineapple pie!”

“Chicken Up,” Aegon says.

Luke laughs. “What the hell is a Chicken Up?”

“A chicken restaurant.”

“Groundbreaking” Baela quips.

“I’ve been to one in Seoul. Great wings.”

“But…but…Jollibee!” Rhaena pleads. “I need a coconut pineapple pie!”

“You’re literally drinking a coconut pineapple smoothie right now. When am I supposed to get my wings?!”

“Out of loyalty, I will have to vote for Jollibee,” Luke informs Aegon apologetically.

“I saw a Five Guys when we were driving here from the airport,” Baela suggests.

“Oh, I love Five Guys!” you say…and then you realize how it sounds. All of you giggle so loudly that Aemond looks over at the whirlpool, a little intrigued, a little miserable. He sinks down into the transparent blue water, Godzilla retreating from his wreckage.

Baela teases you: “Like, all at the same time, or…?”

“No, definitely one after the other. I don’t want an audience.”

Aegon chuckles, low and devious. He sets his empty pina colada glass on the rim of the whirlpool. Then, unprompted, he takes off his aviator sunglasses and puts them on you instead. Strange.

Rhaena is saying: “Okay, but seriously, I cannot overstate the merits of Jollibee…”

Beneath the water, obscured by riotous bubbles, Aegon settles a hand on your thigh. You glance over at him. He glances back, so subtly that the others don’t notice; they are deeply entrenched in their dinner debate. Now Baela is pitching MOS Burger.

Aegon arches an eyebrow. Okay? he’s asking. In reply—and after a moment’s hesitation—you open your thighs a little wider for him. His lips curl into a furtive smile. His palm skates excruciatingly slowly over your skin, taunting, electrifying, fingerprints dragging lightly. He’s still carrying on a conversation with the others, gesturing with his free hand. You sip your pina colada and try to act just as casual.

“Look,” Aegon is saying. “I’m not gonna eat someplace where they serve spaghetti with hotdogs in the meat sauce. It’s unnatural.”

His fingers slip beneath your swimsuit bottoms. You gasp before you can stop yourself.

“You okay?” Baela asks with concern.

You nod, blood rushing in your cheeks, blood rushing everywhere. “Oh, yeah, sorry. I saw a bug.”

Luke says: “Man, the insects here are insane, some giant buzzing black-and-gold thing flew into my face earlier today and I almost cried.”

“A cicada,” you murmur. You grip the rim of the whirlpool and try to keep still, fixing your gaze on the palm trees that surround the pool, waving lazily in a hot humid breeze. “We have them in Missouri too. But ours are green.”

Rhaena is saying: “Apparently Singapore is famous for some super-rare beetle that’s been around for like 50 million years…”

Aegon’s expert fingers are circling, applying pressure, experimenting with different rhythms. He knows he’s found the right one when you suck in a breath and almost drop your pina colada; his smile is filling up his face, he’s fighting a grin. That feeling—a heat, a glowing, an unfurling like an opened letter—builds until it hits a blissful yet constraining plateau. It’s a ceiling, it’s a landing with no more steps. You stare at the swaying palm trees and try to relax, grateful for Aegon’s aviator sunglasses to hide behind. He’s half-watching you as he chats nonchalantly, wondering what more you need from him.

The conversation that whirls around you has revolved back to dinner: Shake Shack, Yoshinoya, Nene Chicken, Marrybrown, Wingstop.

“We should go somewhere that has vegan options,” you say shakily.

“What? Why?” Rhaena asks; she has forgotten, but you never do.

“For Aemond.”

You steal a glimpse of Aemond over in the main pool and see him taking a piece of starfruit off Cregan’s plate. Aemond bites into it—those pristine, glistening, golden angles—and wipes juice from his lips with the back of one hand. Then he looks over at you: two people pretending they don’t see the other, two pairs of sunglasses meant to render certain things invisible. And immediately, without planning to, you are thinking about Aemond touching you. You are thinking about his lips and his fingers, his shoulders, his throat, his eye devouring parts of you he’s never seen. You are thinking about where you would both be now if Reykjavik had never happened. And as Aegon’s hand works beneath the veil of bubbles, you are close, so close, agonizingly close. You are incapable of following the conversation. It takes everything in you not to moan and reach down into the roiling water to press him even more forcefully against you. His fingers glide through folds that are slick and achingly ravenous. Your pina colada is melting.

Someone makes a restaurant suggestion; you can’t register it. Aegon holds up the index finger on his free hand. “One moment. Allow me to consult my associate.” He leans into you, his hair brushing against your face, smelling like beer and sunscreen and pina coladas and Axe body spray. And he whispers as he pushes two fingers inside you and strokes you insistently with them: “Come for me, pretty girl. Right now.”

And while these words are in Aegon’s voice, for a split second you image them as Aemond’s; and then your climax shudders through you, silent by necessity but mind-numbing, a reset button, a deleted message, an echo chamber of nothing, nothing, nothing. For a moment, there’s no past and no future, no Kansas City, no Rome, no Reykjavik, no Singapore, no shame and no guilt and no desire for anything. And then slowly, like drops of rain, the world begins to fill back in again.

Aegon turns your face towards him so your lips are to his ear. You have to say something. “You’re unbelievable,” you exhale, so softly no one else will hear. “You can’t be real.”

He tells the others: “She says she votes for Chicken Up.”

When Aegon leaves the whirlpool, you follow after him a few minutes later, just long enough of a gap not to arouse any suspicions. You find him alone in the band’s private cabana and talking to someone on his iPhone. You kneel down beside his lounge chair and bend over his neon red swim trunks, palming him through the fabric—almost immediately, he is hard—and untangling the knot of the drawstring.

“Okay. Sounds good. I gotta go. Emma? Hey, Emma? I gotta go now. Yeah. See you soon. Uh huh. Bye.” Aegon hangs up and sets his phone down. Then he hooks a finger beneath your chin and lifts it. “What are you doing?” he asks, amused yet kind.

“Taking care of you.”

“You don’t need to do that.”

Your hands go still; your face is lined with wounded bewilderment. “You don’t want me to?”

“Well obviously I want you to,” Aegon says. “But only if you’re really into it. Not just because you see it as a debt to be paid. This isn’t about reimbursement. This isn’t an ATM transaction. And, you know…” He shrugs, rueful. “I can tell you’re kinda going through it. And you’re the one who needs to be taken care of right now. That’s cool. That’s not a problem.”

You sit back on your ankles, feeling guilty but undeniably relieved. “It seems unfair to you.”

“Stargirl, I don’t mean this in a braggy way, but at all times I have a line out the door of women begging to take care of me. I think I’ll survive.”

“Okay.” You smile up at him. “Okay, Aegon. I get it. Thank you.”

His sunburned brow crinkles. He is confused. “For what?”

~~~~~~~~~~

Comet Donati is scheduled to play three nights at the National Stadium. On the afternoon of the second show, Luke and Rhaena go to Fort Canning Park to explore the archaeological excavation site, Jace and Baela depart to procure his tattoo to commemorate Singapore (a Merlion on his left pec), and you, Aegon, Cregan, Criston, Daeron, Aemond, and Shelby receive a private tour of the Mandai Wildlife Reserve to promote the conservation of endangered Southeast Asian species. There are conversations with the staff and generous gift baskets and photo ops—which each time you quietly step out of the frame for, while Shelby steps in—but what snags in your mind, what you will remember forever about this day is Aemond. Because when he holds the animals, he lights up like you haven’t seen since those YouTube videos of Comet performances before the accident in Tokyo; he becomes at peace, he becomes whole again. He lets a blue tarantula creep across his palm and forearm, he feeds pumpkin slices to Asian elephants rescued from circuses, he walks around with Bunny the sloth draped over his chest like a napping toddler. And he smiles wistfully the whole ride back to the hotel…even when Aegon makes Criston stop the Escalade at Starbucks so he can get a venti-sized Double Chocolaty Chip Frappuccino.

Shelby likes to be in the front row with you, Baela, and Rhaena, but she spends less time dancing and cheering than she does taking selfies and recording video clips. During your now least-favorite song, A Girl Named After A Car, you spend a few minutes covertly scrolling through Shelby’s latest Instagram posts. She’s been sharing Stories relentlessly, but her last photo is from the private jet: her beaming smile, Aemond’s more reticent one (and only his good side, his smooth cheek and clear river-blue eye), a meticulously-arranged bouquet of flowers clutched to her chest like a gift. The comments are a waterfall of praise worthy of a saint. I was praying you two would get back together! You have such a kind and selfless heart, Shelby! You are so good for him! You are so brave! Thank you for showing the world that beauty is only skin-deep! Like she’s goddamn Mother Teresa. Like she deserves an Olympic medal for finding the strength to love him.

And you think once again, not for the first time and not the last: I hate her, I hate her, I hate her.

After the concert is a ritual, like drawing a pentagram or burning sage. People converge in Jace’s suite to mingle and drink and smoke and find someone to fuck if that vacancy isn’t already filled. You loiter by the bar even after you are handed your Bramble, a drink that should be poisoned by the fact that Aemond introduced it to you; but you can’t stop craving it. Criston is pacing and trying to make a call out on the balcony; from the look of his expression, the person isn’t answering. Cregan is in a velvet lounge chair with three models on his lap; they are taking turns feeding him the dripping cherries that bob in their cocktails. The rest of the band is sitting nearby and discussing their plans for next year once the tour has ended. You overhear Rhaena saying that she wants to visit the Mammoth Site in South Dakota. Luke wants to finish writing a new album. Aemond is conspicuously quiet.

Security guys float through the room between currents of musicians, label executives, friends, acquaintances, assistants. Shelby has her own detail that follows her everywhere; approximately every eight hours they switch out and new faces show up. Sometimes you recognize them from a prior shift, sometimes not. They look through you like you don’t exist at all.

A seat is waiting for you between Aegon and Baela, but you are in no hurry to sit opposite of Shelby and be forced to bask in the radiance of her flowing zebra-print dress, red-lipped, California-sun perfection. As you procrastinate with your Bramble, you listen to Daeron ask her about the Met Gala next May.

“Yeah, I finally made it onto the planning committee!” she gushes.

“Yay!” Baela trills, palpably sarcastic.

“Make it donut themed,” Aegon slurs. He has had a lot of Tiger Beers.

“I was thinking a masquerade ball, actually,” Shelby says, then looks at Aemond and settles a hand on his thigh. “We can go together, honeybunch! The timing never worked out before, but I’ve always wanted to attend with you.”

Luke asks: “And what’s the inspiration for the masquerade ball…?”

“Well, you know.” Shelby gestures vaguely. “Aemond won’t have to feel bad.”

Because everyone will be wearing masks. There is a long lull as people piece together what she means. Jaws drop open. Eyes grow large and then blink at her, incredulous, appalled.

Finally, Jace chuckles awkwardly. “Oh fuck, did you really just say that?” He looks around at everyone else. “Did she really just say that?! I mean, I wouldn’t even have said that!”

“It’s fine,” Aemond says, getting up off the couch.

Shelby reaches for him. “Honeybunch, wait, you know I didn’t mean—”

“It’s fine,” he repeats roughly. He takes his Bramble with him as he escapes to the balcony. Criston returns inside just as Aemond goes out.

“What’s his problem?” Criston inquires. Nobody answers.

Shelby sighs and—as furious blood swirls hot in your veins—approaches the bar. “Can I get a gin and tonic?” She takes out her phone, scrolls for a while, sighs again. You are glaring murderously at her. Shelby doesn’t even notice. The bartender slides her a tall glass full of clear carbonated liquid, ice, cucumber slices. She takes a picture of it before she plucks out the straw, lays it on the counter, and swallows a single, ladylike sip straight from the glass. She says to the bartender: “Drinking out of straws gives you wrinkles, you know.”

You say to her suddenly: “What is wrong with you?”

Shelby turns to you, startled. “Excuse me?”

You take a step closer, your pinkish Bramble still clasped in your hand. “I’ll ask again: what the fuck is wrong with you?”

She’s backing away, jumpy, clicking in her black heels. “What are you talking about?!”

“How dare you say something like that about him. In front of him.”

“Oh, so now I’m a bitch?” Shelby snaps. “Because I want him to have a good time at the Met Gala? Because I don’t want him to be humiliated?”

“No, because you think there’s anything humiliating about him at all, that’s what makes you a bitch—”

She shoves you backwards, only a few steps. You throw your Bramble in her face. She screams like you’ve stabbed her; it’s a scream that says I don’t know what it’s like to be hurt. And instantaneously, one of her security guards has his monstrous hand around your wrist.

You hear the pop before you feel it: bubbles bursting, tethers snapping. Then the pain explodes into your consciousness like a flashbang grenade. You’re shrieking, and suddenly there are voices all around you and people tugging in every direction. The security guy still has a grip on your wrist; each time he moves, he yanks you along with him, igniting fresh flairs of agony, impossibly red Morse code.

“No no no no no!” Aegon is shouting, pawing at the security guy. “She’s with us, she’s with us—!”

“Let her go!” Criston booms. Rhaena is crying. Baela is punching the security guy in the kidneys. Comet’s security guards clash with Shelby’s security guards, a miniature civil war. Within seconds the misunderstanding is resolved and you are freed. You are engulfed by Aegon and Criston, who try to examine your wrist; you are holding it gingerly to your chest, not even aware that you are sobbing. Baela is berating the rogue security guard. Rhaena, Luke, Jace, Daeron, Cregan, and Cregan’s soon-to-be one night stands are gaping at the scene. Shelby is being comforted by several fellow influencers; they coo sympathetically and give her napkins to mop the Bramble from her face.

Aegon, drunk but not far-gone, coaxes your wounded arm from your chest. “Shh, shh, you’re okay, let me see it…”

“Broken,” Criston pronounces. “Or dislocated. Time to go.”

“I can’t go home,” you say, petrified. Your thoughts are muddled by shock and pain.

Criston shakes his head. “No, not home. To the hospital.”

“I can take her,” Aegon volunteers, lurching as he grabs a barstool to keep his balance.

“No!” you, Baela, Rhaena, Luke, Jace, Daeron, and Cregan burst out simultaneously.

“I’ll take her,” Criston says. “But you can come along, if you behave yourself and don’t try to steal morphine or anything. Bartender, I need ice…”

There is a commotion as Aemond bolts in from the balcony, moments too late. He looks at your swelling wrist, Shelby dripping with a Bramble, Baela taking a cloth full of ice cubes from the bartender and passing it to Criston. “What happened?!”

Aegon seethes as he pushes him aside: “Ask your fucking girlfriend.”

And Aemond watches, thunderstruck and horrified, as Criston escorts you out of the suite with Aegon and Baela following like shadows. When you glance back at him, he is growing smaller and smaller, like an object fading away in the reflection of a rearview mirror.

Under bright white lights, a gentle and mild-mannered Singaporean doctor maneuvers your bones back into place. It feels like you’re dying; Aegon tries to distract you with stories of shenanigans from tours long past, Baela finally begins to talk about ballet schools, which programs she likes and which she doesn’t and what exactly she’ll have to show in her audition tapes. The doctor informs you that you have a mild dislocation, no surgery needed, no cast, only a splint. He tells you to rest it and try to keep it elevated. He gives you pain medication that doesn’t do enough.

“That is an interesting saying,” the doctor says when he glimpses your tattoo, black ink between the straps of your pale pink dress, like the color of a healthy lung or brain: I’ll come back for you if it kills me, Comets clip by again after eons and so can I. You try not to think about these words. You don’t know what to make of them anymore. “Is it from a poem? Or a movie?”

“From a song,” you reply, studying the tiles of the floor. “One I used to love.”

Criston goes to pay the bill. Baela goes to get you a soda from the vending machine. “I’m sorry,” Aegon says miserably when the two of you are alone in the hospital room. Beer and remorse sweats out of his pores. “I’m sorry I fucked everything up in Reykjavik.”

“I know, Aegon. I’m not mad at you.”

“I shouldn’t have said it. I had way too much Icelandic beer, that was my bad. But it was supposed to be a compliment.”

“It was kinda sweet. In an unhinged, debaucherous sort of way. An Aegon way.”

And he burrows his head against your chest, and you comb your fingers through his messy blond hair with your uninjured hand, and you wish you understood why the coincidences of the world had brought you together if it was only a blip, an error, a momentary crossing of orbits before you returned to your designated places on opposite ends of the universe.

In the elevator, as the four of you zoom up to the top floor where the band’s suites are, you check your phone to discover that in addition to well-wishes from Luke, Rhaena, Daeron, and Cregan, Jace has sent you a WhatsApp message: A meme to make you feel better…

“Ugh,” you groan, and toss your phone back into your purse. You try to ignore the fact that there is nothing from Aemond, not a single word, not a missed call, nothing.

“You good?” Aegon asks.

“Yeah. The drugs the hospital gave me aren’t quite cutting it.” That’s very true, although that’s not the whole problem.

“You want some Vicodin?”

“No thank you, Aegon.”

“Oxy? Percocet? Klonopin? Codeine? Demerol? Coke? Speedball? Valium? Weed gummies?”

You blink at him as Criston and Baela stare at the elevator walls, trying not to listen in. “I think I’ll just go to sleep now.”

“Okay, Stargirl. Sure. Whatever you want.” He grabs your face, lands a kiss on your forehead, staggers off to his suite when the elevator doors ding and open. You walk in the opposite direction to yours after thanking Criston and Baela. As you pass Aemond’s suite, you can hear people arguing inside, heavy footsteps and sharp words.

“You need to get better control over your people,” Aemond is saying.

“Who even is she?! I know she’s not Aegon’s girlfriend. Aegon doesn’t have girlfriends.”

There is a gap of silence, and you wonder what Aemond will tell Shelby. She’s a fan, she’s an employee, she’s a groupie, she’s a slut. At last he says, drained: “She’s a therapist.”

“Oh, for you?”

And you can hear Aemond sigh through the door, perpetually a broken thing now, forever someone in need of being stitched back together; they got the flesh back in December, but the soul is still unmended.

You go to your suite, wash the night off of you, and pull on your Cookie Monster pajama pants and an oversized One Direction t-shirt. You can’t sleep yet; the pain in your wrist is too bad, the chaos in your mind is too loud. You take another pill from the bottle the doctor gave you and go out onto your balcony and sit in the sounds of Singapore past midnight: sparce traffic, buzzing cicadas, the ocean, the wind rocking the palm trees. When you hear the sliding glass door open, you aren’t sure who to expect: Aegon, Baela, Criston, Cregan, Jace. It is none of these people. It is Aemond. He stands there rigidly, like he hadn’t planned to get this far. He is in black—as usual—but he wears no sunglasses.

“Criston really needs to start keeping a closer eye on those extra room keys,” you say.

“I’m sorry about what happened tonight.”

“You don’t need to pretend to be worried about me. It’s fine, just leave.”

“I feel responsible.”

“I’m not someone you consider worthy of concern,” you say. “You want me to be honest with you? You want to keep a running list of my sins in your little black-paged notebook? Alright, sure. I’ve been hooking up with Aegon. Only after Reykjavik, and not…like…all the time or exclusively or anything. But occasionally. And I know exactly what you think of me and how I’ve chosen to live my life. So don’t come out here acting like you care when you clearly don’t.”

“I know what you told Shelby. I don’t…” He stares at you, a little mystified, a little grateful. “I don’t understand why you keep defending me after what I said.”

Because I believe you deserve better. And I care about you. And I can’t stop. And honestly it fucking sucks and so if you could just leave, that would be great. “That’s just what I do.”

You expect Aemond to go. Instead, he sits down in the other chair, lights one of his Benson & Hedges cigarettes, takes a drag and exhales smoke in a long, slow breath like a hushed confession. “I once asked what made you want to be a therapist.”

“And I didn’t tell you.”

“No.”

Your eyes list to him like a ship in a storm, groggy, clawing for purchase. “Do you still want to know?”

“I do.”

The night sounds like wind in clattering wet leaves, car horns and rolling tires, ocean waves, indistinct echoes of laughter like a memory. Aemond waits for you, patient, eternal, or at least so long-lived it’s practically the same thing. You wonder what he sees when he looks at you like this. You wonder why you can’t outrun what you feel for him, a curse or a spell or both tangled up together like veins beneath skin. “I had a boyfriend when I was in high school,” you say. “And I took pictures for him. Because he asked me to, yes, but also because I wanted to, because it made me feel desirable, and powerful, and like I was choosing to share something special with him. No one talked me into it, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. And when we broke up, he sent those pictures to his friends. And they sent them to their friends, and they sent them to their friends, and I’m sure you can do the math from there.”

Aemond doesn’t look disgusted or horrified or pitying. He looks furious, and not at you. “That’s illegal, right?”

“In some places, sure. In Missouri? Ten years ago?” You smirk cynically, shaking your head. “The only person anyone was condemning was me. And it wasn’t just the students. They said things, obviously. They wrote notes and they whispered. But it was the teachers too, and the parents, and the administrators. It was everyone. Staring at me. Talking about me like they understood who I was.” You meet Aemond’s eye. “And you called me a slut.”

He voice is hoarse. “I didn’t know.”

“But you still said it.”

“What I said…” he sighs shakily, rubbing his face with one hand. He crushes the end of his cigarette beneath his Adidas sneakers and then lights another. “What I said wasn’t a reflection on you or what you did with Aegon. That’s not what it was about. It was about me, it was about how I interpreted things, and…I mean, you get that, right? You know that. You’re a professional. I took what Aegon told everyone and I bounced it off a few mirrors and ran it through my filter of how I’ve been taught to believe the world operates, and that’s why I said what I did in Reykjavik. It wasn’t about you. It wasn’t true. And I could never express to you how sorry I am.”

Tell me the whole story, you think, you plead, watching him like parched earth looks for rain. That you were afraid my feelings for you weren’t real. That you wanted me then and you still want me now. That you’ve never wanted anything the way you want me. But that’s not what Aemond says.

“What happened next?” he asks gently.

“What do you think? I had to be homeschooled. I lost every friend I’d ever had. I was terrified to leave the farm and go anywhere…to Walmart, to McDonald’s, to 7-Eleven, anywhere. And my parents…they’re Southern Baptists, okay? They tried to be supportive. They really did. They didn’t shame me, and that alone was a huge leap for them, and I’m very grateful. But they had no idea how to talk to me about what had happened. What they did do was find someone else for me to talk to. She was a therapist, and she saved my life. And when I got into UChicago, I decided that the only thing I wanted to do was help people in the same way.”

“Why didn’t you stay in Chicago?” Aemond says, bewildered. “I mean, why would you go back to Kansas City after the way people treated you there? So fucking closed-minded and hypocritical and…and…and evil? You were a kid. You were a goddamn kid and they tried to destroy you. Why would you go back there? You could have gone anywhere else. You still can.”

“I considered it,” you admit. “But my family has lived in Missouri for almost 200 years. It was once a place of opportunity, somewhere for people who had nothing to carve out a piece of the world and make it their own. Why should I let anyone banish me without my permission? And besides, I think Missouri could use more people like me. I can make a difference there. Someone like me in Chicago or London or Los Angeles or New York or Miami? I’m a dime a dozen. In Missouri, I’m part of the change. In Missouri, I can save people like I was once saved.”

“Hmm,” Aemond says. And then he smiles at you, kind and tender. “Pretentious.”

“Oh shut up,” you laugh, shoving him with your uninjured hand: his deep, warm, rolling chuckle, his broad shoulders that barely give beneath your palm.

His eye flicks down to your One Direction t-shirt. “And a traitor.”

Want me to take it off? you almost say. Instead: “As if you don’t idolize them. As if you wouldn’t deign to have a favorite One Direction song.”

“I couldn’t divulge information as sensitive as that.”

“Aegon tells me you spend a lot of time brooding to The Script.”

Aemond groans, but good-naturedly. You got me, his face says, surrendering. “True.”

“What’s your go-to crying on the floor song? Breakeven? Nothing?”

“The Man Who Can’t Be Moved. But now you have to give me one in return.”

“If You Ever Come Back. A certified tragic bop.”

He nods, thoughtful. He slides his phone out of his pocket to check it.

“Sexts from Shelby?” you ask with undisguisable vitriol.

“No. Favorite Coldplay song?”

You remember that night with him in Rome: the concert, the motorcycle, the lingering in the hotel room doorway as you waited for him to ask to stay. “Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall. What’s yours? You strike me as a The Scientist stan.”

“Viva La Vida,” he counters.

Of course. “I used to rule the world,” you quote.

“Now the old king is dead, long live the king.” He looks out into the city, streetlights and ocean and wind, sounds of the planet you call home. Again, you think of Rome. “I should have kissed you,” he says softly.

Your heart stops like a car against a brick wall, glorious euphoric shattering. “What?”

“My favorite One Direction song. I Should Have Kissed You.”

“Oh, right. Yeah. Yeah, that’s great.”

“Yours?”

You have to think about this. At last you decide: “Through The Dark.”

“Ah. A deep cut.” Aemond checks his phone again. “Look up,” he tells you.

“Why…?”

“Right now. At the sky. Look up.”

You go to the balcony railing and peer up into the sea of darkness and moon and stars. And at first you don’t see anything extraordinary…but then you do. There’s a thin flash like white ink on black paper, tracing its way along the arc of the Earth. There’s a visitor, there’s a time traveler. “What is it?” you ask Aemond, entranced.

He gets up to stand alongside you. “The Perseids. A meteor shower that happens every summer. They’re difficult to spot from a city. Too bright, too much light pollution. There are hundreds, but here we’re lucky to glimpse one or two.”

“But they’re always there,” you muse, remembering what he told you in Rome about the comet that gave the band its name. “Whether we see them or not.”

Aemond points up at the faint silvery glimmer in the indigo night. “The Perseids are from a comet too. They’re debris left by Swift-Tuttle.”

“Doesn’t quite roll off the tongue like Donati, does it? And no potential for cute donut merch.”

Aemond smiles. “Comet Swift-Tuttle is the largest object to cross Earth’s orbit so closely. Very, very closely. Luckly, it only swings by us every 133 years. It’s been called the single most dangerous object known to humanity.”

“I thought that was Jace.”

He bursts out laughing, gazing over at you with a face that in this moment he is unashamed of. “I’ve never met anyone like you.”

“I’m a universe away from Shelby, that’s for sure.”

Aemond’s smile dies. He clears his throat and puts out his cigarette. “I guess I should get going.”

“Yeah, I need to go to sleep.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

He hesitates, he acts like he’s going to say more, he leaves you on the balcony as he retreats back to his own suite, his own life, his own past and future and secrets.

And before you crawl into your empty bed, you look up at the Perseids one last time as they hurtle through space and time and gravity, through a landscape of constellations that Aemond could tell you the names of, through the dark.

[fearhidden]

( lucía + shepley ) [ 📲 sms: ]  what would you do if i were with you right now?

FLIRTY TEXT MESSAGES.

lucía socarras + shepley atwood.

[ text message — ] trick question, isn't it?

[ text message — ] you ask as if i'd have in any say in what we were doing.

[ text message — ] wouldn't you much rather me show you?

@waywordhearts — lucía socarras.

[i-study-anons]

Hello, Tumblr users and Anons! I am Dr. Oren Sulien, and welcome to my SCP RP blog that is definitely just an RP blog because the SCP Foundation totally isn't real!

I'm here for the very first research project that I personally have been put in charge of: Studying SCP-8947, commonly referred to as "Anon(s)". So please, Anons, by all means, send in as many asks as you would like! Every single ask sent to this blog WILL be answered.

Oh, and I suppose it is also important that I introduce my current assistant, D-9983, who will be answering any asks that may be harmful to the answerer.

Blog Rules and such under the cut!

((OOC for this blog will be in double parentheses like this. Also, hi! You can call me Rii, and my pronouns are they/he. I'll introduce myself more properly at the end of the post. Oh, also everything below the cut on this post is OOC despite the lack of parentheses.))

RULES:

- No outright NSFW. Suggestive is fine, but nothing explicit.

- I don't do chain asks. They're exhausting and come off as pretty meaningless to me.

- Asks that sign off with an @ will not count as anon asks. This is because asks cannot be sent from sideblogs. Any asks sent as Oren or the assistant will be on anon and signed of with "- @i-study-anons"

- Don't be homophobic or racist or transphobic or any of that nasty stuff. I don't want that here

- I WILL RP with non-gimmicks

- I am RPing as a character running a Tumblr blog, hence the lack of actions or anything else that isn't dialogue. However, there are exceptions*

- If you have a question for ME and NOT Oren or the current Assistant, PLEASE SPECIFY that the ask is meant to be answered OOC!

- Be nice and polite when interacting with me OOC

*If another blog that has been deemed anomalous does an action that affects Oren or the current D-Class (ex. punching one of them in the face), the affected character will also end up having actions for the rest of that interaction as a result.

TAGS:

#Posted by Researcher - posts made by Oren

#Posted by Assistant - posts made by the current assistant

#Posted by OOC - OOC posts

#OOC reblog - mostly stuff to ask from RP/Writing meme blogs, self explanatory

#in character reblog - posts that Oren would decide to reblog (and did decide to reblog)

#someone to study! - anons, both from asks here and looking at anon asks on other blogs

#ordinary ask - non-anonymous asks

#other anomalies - post pertaining to anomalies other than the Anons

DIRECTORY TO OTHER IMPORTANT POSTS:

-List of anomalies (and staff!) involved with this blog

-Character Info

-Current File on Anons/SCP-8947 (coming soon)

OOC INFO:

You can call me Riiviir or Rii. I'm transmasc, almost 18, and my pronouns are they/he. I'm also autistic and have ADHD, both of which might be accidentally self projected onto any character I write. (I am not comfortable sharing my actual birthday, so if you want to wish me happy birthday, do it on September 15th, since that's the middle of my birth month.)

My current hyperfixations are Animal Crossing and Cult Of The Lamb, and my special interest is sound and audio. This is my first serious RP blog here, but I have been RPing outside of Tumblr for about 7 or 8 years. (I don't know when exactly when I started, but it's something around that. This has been a hobby of mine for awhile.)

Aside from RP, I also like drawing, songwriting, and probably any other sort of creative art. I'm also working on learning RPG Maker so I can make my own game!

[artificial-transmutations]

Two sides of the same coin - Freedom of the road

It was a really lovely day in May. Joe almost didn't mind waiting for his colleague in the warm sunshine of the parking lot with birds singing and flowers blooming in fields of green grass in the nearby park. The only trouble was, that he would have preferred spending his Sunday another way, perhaps walking a bit in the park or sitting in his garden. Instead, it was the culmination of a most stressful week at the accounting company Joe worked at. There were several large statements due for Monday, and Joe and his colleague Terry didn't see any other way of getting it done but working an extra shift on Sunday.

Finally, Terry arrived in his small car.

"Sorry", he said. "Traffic was really bad. The moment the sun comes out, all the streets are full of bikers."

The way Terry said that left no doubt on what his thoughts about the aforementioned group of traffic participants was.

Terry was a short man with some extra pounds while Joe was long and thin. Both wore glasses and looked like the stereotypical accounts they were.

"No worries, we have the whole day", Joe said sarcastically and sighed. "Let's get started."

Joe and Terry entered the office building and made their way to the elevator. As Joe was about to exit the elevator behind Terry, he saw something glittering on the floor. As he reached down to pick it up, he saw a small coin. Neat. He would have to clean it properly at home, perhaps it was valuable. Joe put it carefully in his wallet and didn't notice it disappeared once he closed the wallet again.

"Are you coming?" he heard Terry calling and hurried up to the door to their office Terry was holding open.

The first few hours, the work was rather uneventful with files piling up on both desks. However, as the morning progressed, Joe was feeling more and more unrest.

"Do you mind if I put on some music?", he asked his coworker.

"No problem", answered Terry who was looking at his computer screen.

It took Joe some time to find something he liked. Normally, he was a big fan of classical music, but today, it seemed too boring. Finally, he settled on some 90s and 80s rock music. Not his usual taste, but a good fit for the day, he decided.

It made things somewhat better, but he couldn't concentrate on his work well. He found himself browsing the web instead, visiting some meme sites, reading news, and so on. Besides boredom, there was another problem he had. Ever since they started working, he was feeling increasingly horny today. That was rather unusual, as he usually had his needs well under control, but today it was especially bad.

His browsing changed to looking at pictures of girls online. That helped for a while, but over time, the pictures did less and less for him. He switched to scantily clad ones and finally to full front NSFW porn, but it was no use. It was like he was looking for something these girls just couldn't give him. His gaze wandered to the window, and he looked to the sun-kissed world outside.

"You know, I'm going to take a break. Get outside for a bit and see the sun." Joe finally said.

"Sure thing", replied Terry without taking his eyes off the screen.

Joe got up and walked towards the door. He felt strangely empty inside when he stepped out into the sunlight. It was like this place was sucking away all his energy.

He was surprised when Terry joined him on his way out.

"Are you coming with me? I thought you didn't believe in taking walks." Joe said.

"I don't, but I do need some fresh air occasionally", Terry answered with a smirk.

Joe shrugged and followed his colleague out of the building. They crossed the road together and went through a small park where they sat down on one of the benches to enjoy the weather. Joe was very self-conscious because of his boner that just wouldn't go away on his own.

As he looked over to Terry however, he noticed that the other man seemed to have a very similar problem. His pants were tented, and he tried to casually readjust himself without Joe noticing. For some reason that excited Joe more than the pictures of girls he looked at for the last hour. It might be the spring fever, but he really wanted to see what was under these pants of Terrys.

"What's wrong?", Joe asked suddenly.

Terry froze for a moment before answering: "Nothing, why?"

"You seem nervous or something. Is everything okay?" Joe pressed.

"Yeah... Yeah it is", Terry answered hesitantly. "I'm just a little tired from yesterday's work."

"That's not what I meant...", Joe continued, but stopped when he saw Terry pull down his zipper. The sight of his coworker's cock caused his own dick to twitch painfully in his pants. "Oh my god!", Joe exclaimed.

"I'm sorry, but I'm just so horny today!" Terry exclaimed. A drop of pre was forming on the tip of his cock.

"It's just that you're so hot today!" Terry continued. "I've been watching you all morning and I can't stop thinking about your body."

Joe wasn't gay - at least that's what he thought - but he felt really excited by the sight. He looked around and finally saw some dense bushes at the edge of the neighboring parking lot and pointed at them. "Let's go over there", he suggested, rubbing over his own bulge.

Terry agreed and followed him to the bushes, pulling down his zipper as he walked. Once they reached the shrubs, Joe pushed him against one of them and kissed him passionately. He could feel Terry's hardening cock pressing into his belly as they made out.

"Oh God, Joe.", Terry panted. "Do you think you could... you know...", he was interrupted by a needy moan escaping his lips.

Joe smiled and pulled away from Terry's mouth, looking him straight in the eyes. "Do you want to fuck me?"

"Yes!" Terry almost shouted and grabbed Joe's waistband.

Joe let him get a hold of his belt buckle and unbuttoned his trousers. As soon as they were open, Terry took both sides of the material in hand and tugged them down to Joe's ankles, freeing his member. It was already fully erect and dripping with precum.

Joe barely noticed that his cock was way larger than he was used to. He roughly spun Terry around and pulled down the other man’s pants as well, exposing his asshole. Then he pushed his cock head against it, teasingly rubbing it along Terrys hole.

"Oh please! Please fuck me!", Terry begged, pushing back onto Joe's cock.

Joe pushed harder until finally he felt his cockhead pop inside Terrys ass. Terry moaned and leaned forward. His back seemed to stretch as he did, getting just a bit larger.

Joe started thrusting slowly at first, enjoying the feeling of being deep inside another man for the first time. With each thrust, some detail about the both of them changed: Joe slowly developed muscles all over his body. Where his body had been a beanpole before, definition and mass began to grow in.

While this was certainly impressive, Terry's changes were even more drastic. His skin darkened with each thrust, until it became black. Not black as in a dark-skinned person black, but really midnight-black. His body hardened, some regions more so than others. It felt amazing for Terry, as he watched his torso expanding and hardening to cold metal. Tubes and pipes formed through his entire body, as he leaned forward even more, now touching the ground with his outstretched hands.

Meanwhile, Joe increased the pace. He was completely enthralled by the sensation of his cock going in and out the leathery black ass of the other man that be barely noticed chest hair growing in on his muscular chest. His shoulders widened and he felt powerful and manly. A dense but short beard grew in, and his face became squarer and masculine.

Terry felt his arms and legs become fixated to each other and saw tires growing in between them. He felt energetic and powerful, too, but in an entirely different kind. It was clear that he was nothing more than a tool, a thing to serve a real men. But he was a powerful tool, freedom incarnate. He could go as fast as the wind and still made his owner look manly and sexy.

Joe let out a loud groan as his last powerful strokes sent him over the edge and he came all over his bike, just as a rough chain necklace formed around his neck. Of course, he immediately wiped the black leather clean again. After all, his bike was his most prized possession, no stains or dirt allowed. Sometimes it just overcame him, and he got so turned on by his own body and bike that he just needed release. And when there was no willing twink nearby, he just needed to stop at some parking lot and rub one out.

He looked over to the office building nearby and grinned. He really couldn't imagine working in one of those blocks as an office drone. He was enjoying the freedom of the road way too much, even though he barely had any money.

He got on his bike again and started up the engine which roared to life. Perhaps he should give his bike a name at some point. But then again, even if he loved it to no end, it was, after all, just a thing, and things had no name.

What a great pair! If you want to read more stories in the same format, be sure to have a look at my other ones!

[irisintheafterglow]

INCOMING TRANSMISSION: hi, welcome to my blog! take a look around, hopefully you find something you like :) feel free to send me a message if you have a request or just to say hi. thank you!

PERUSE THESE PUBLICATIONS:

the joker and the queen (series in progress) - in a season where you're determined to fly under the radar, newly-returned crown prince!touya todoroki has other ideas.

VIGILANTE SHIT: FILE 01 - you're a co-investigator into the city's most notorious vigilante group, the curse syndicate. who do you trust when identities are currency and secrets are your greatest treasure, and what is your investigation partner so hesitant to tell you? (suguru x reader, series in progress)

just too soft for all of it - you only call pro!bakugo when you need his body. what happens when you need him for a different reason? (mdni, fwb to lovers)

FICS FOR GAZA MASTERPOST

STATION ARCHIVE

requests are currently: TEMPORARILY CLOSED

what i write: my hero academia, haikyu, demon slayer (primarily pillars only), marvel comics + mcu, jujutsu kaisen, one piece live action, blue lock, windbreaker

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what i don't write: smut, noncon/dubcon, suggestive stuff for minor (< 18) characters, poly relationships, heavy angst (character/reader death, suic!dal thoughts, addiction, etc), fics with specific details about reader

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keep it positive, this blog is just for fun

i post my own thoughts or memes on this blog every so often, so keep in mind it won't always be fics

if you have a question or a suggestion please let me know

this blog is NOT spoiler free!

i write most of my fics to be "____ x gn!reader" but sometimes there will be implied fem!reader

unless it is time sensitive, my blog runs on a perpetual queue! so it may not seem like i answer your ask/see a notif immediately but rest assured i do!

i reserve the right to block or delete asks that i feel uncomfortable with

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[annellspethraven]

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A post shared by Sloan Spencer (@sloan_spencer_author)

It all started here. I woke up and looked at 'my' Discord server for the bloated tic of a fanfic (hey that rhymes, neurospicy two seconds!) I write with my partner SonaBeanSidhe, Aran Thranduil's Dining Hall. There hadn't been enough tea yet so the natural response was 'wth is this?' Well, THIS was going to Hoover my next two days and counting. Just visit the post, dear friends of the writing persuasion and you would see (I'll save you time because I'm nice this way) that there are many screenshots supporting just what the meme says: This Instagram OP knows a writer who found herself in a steaming pile of mess with the Google Docs TOS (which is really also the Google Drive TOS, making it somewhat difficult to locate said TOS. I'll save you more time. Here:

This information comes from https://support.google.com/docs/answer/148505#zippy=%2Csexually-explicit-material So, it was the act of sharing the files, not having created or stored them that triggered what had happened. Okay, still not reassuring. In the meantime, I was concerned enough to post what had happened to r/FanFiction. Within minutes, my post had been frozen by the mods there. I can see their concern. I believe they had only seen the meme-like first screen of the Instagram post, and it does come off like a bad Snopes Fail. They asked me for more proof. The first thing I did was a search for previous instances of Google having frozen Drive accounts previously. They are limited, but they exist. The concern here had to do with the current lack of information as to why the action happened, and whether we who collectively authored and had shared Docs with explicit content were about to have our Drive accounts fall before the scythe of an overzealous AI rollout on the part of Google. Which led to the second part of this. My first response to the mods was as follows:

A little while after I sent this, an update appeared on the Instagram OP's account (easy to find) so I added this:

The salient point of the update was that the author had received restored access to her Drive, but NOT the Doc that had started the entire difficulty. I waited for a response. And waited, and waited. In the meantime, I had no means to add to, respond to, anything to my original post or defend myself against some fairly sharp initial criticisms leveled against me by individuals who clearly hadn't read anything beyond the initial meme. Special. While I understand a sub this large likely has a lot of messages to field, I also felt that given they managed to freeze my post in a matter of minutes, they were really taking their time responding. So I weighed in on Instagram with a message of support. If nothing else is taken away, please take this: Back up your files. It's easy to create an alt Google account; this other account will have its own Drive storage. Share your folders and files with yourself. If you don't already realize, in Docs under the File dropdown menu the third option is Make A Copy. If you have shared the original document 75 times, you won't have shared that copy at all. Consider backing up your works to Indie platforms like Get Hermit, Ellipsus and The Quill. There may be others. Your own external hard drive is also a very good idea. But wait, you ask. What about just using MS Word, or having copies as a PDF file in the Adobe cloud? Not so fast, my friend. Look at Microsoft and Adobe's TOS regarding sexually explicit content...you'll get an unpleasant surprise. I did. In the meantime, a third update came from the OP on Instagram shedding far more light as to what had likely gone wrong. She had shared the Doc with she guessed 18-20 people as beta readers. The belief is now that one of these persons actually turned her in to Google via their abuse form. To quote one of the commenters on that update: "I heard from an agent that Google will only do this to your account if someone reports it. Google isn’t scanning docs for explicit content (except maybe images), but yeah, for this to happen, someone had to report her document to Google." This felt like a relief...and yet is still packaged inside a cautionary tale. How many of us have shared by 'whoever has this link'? I have, or rather, I had. I revoked all such permissions to all large stories and folders in favor of my few trusted long-time friends and beta readers. The works are on AO3. I don't need those Docs links to be free floating all over the place, not after seeing what can happen. I was on vacation in England some years prior when I realized I had lost the ability to send out all outgoing Gmail. It took me several days to figure out what had gone wrong and nearly lost me my ability to receive Covid test results at a time when that was a travel necessity...almost disastrous. Fortunately I had multiple email accounts and could work around the problem. Which brings me to the last of this.

While including the subreddit mod's responses here may seem retaliatory/petulant on my part...I'm at best miffed at their shortsightedness, maybe mildly insulted, mostly shaking my head at the fact that there is something to have been learned here that could have affected any one of us. No one was spreading misinformation. Something had indeed happened. The source of it had been unknown at the time of posting. Had they left my post alone I would have gladly redacted as it unfolded; the reason for placing it on that sub was not to create a giant stir but to let others know of the risk of this happening at all and to encourage backing up that which most writers invest a considerable amount of their emotional well-being; the safety of their written works. Yes, I'm neurodivergent. No, I don't always see the world as others do. No, I still don't think this difference allows the response to be interpreted as much other than a slight and working against the interests of authors (I'm on their side and last I checked, readers need the authors to have the things that are written in order to have the things to read. Just saying). Whatever, what really matters is, if you feel this is worth sharing, share, take away the important bits, and if someone out there just wants to write it up in 3 sentences so it isn't a tl;dr, do that too.

Have a Googly day, to all near and far, in these times in which we live...>.>