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[gasonrepublic]

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[tgirlwithreverb]

I saw that post about what to do if you're homeless again (the one that starts by telling you to spend all of your money on motel rooms lmao) anyway, here's a few thoughts, specifically for trans girls, cuz I don't really care otherwise tbh:

1) plan ahead, most trans girls are in precarious housing situations, you will have a much easier time when it falls apart if you already have a pack with most of the gear you need in it. Also, if you find yourself in a situation where you cant make rent, dont pay part of it, spend that money on gear, pocket the rest and leave, youll have a much nicer time. Look up your local eviction laws, you have plenty of time. (Gear list at the end)

2) travel! If you're in Arizona in May, leave. it's about to be hot as hell. If you're in Michigan in October, leave. It's about to be cold as hell. If you're in a big city, leave. It's way easier to be homeless pretty much anywhere else. Amtrak is cheaper and more comfortable than greyhound, hitchhiking is free and easy, if you're alone it's not that much slower than the previous two, and it's more fun, and sometimes people buy you food or whatever or give you money. I promise it's not scary and you're entirely capable of doing it, no matter who you are. 95+% of people who will pick you up are very nice. All you have to do is take the bus out of town, as far down the highway you can, to an exit with a truck stop if possible, then just stand on the side of the road with your thumb out until someone picks you up. You can stand at the bottom of the ramp(on the highway) near where the merge lane ends or at the top of the ramp(where there's usually a traffic light), the former is more likely to lead to cop interactions but will maybe get you a ride faster, check on hitchwiki for how the cops are in the area. don't be afraid to take a commuter bus or Amtrak to get out of a shitty cop area

3) skip shelters if you can (they are very occasionally a decent place to get stuff from) and encampments, good places to sleep include the trees near railroad tracks or highways, wooded areas behind shopping centers, sections of parks without paths, overgrown empty lots. Hang a tarp above you if there's an appreciable chance of rain, there's tons of YouTube tutorials on how to do this, maybe I'll make a post about what I usually do some day. There are many habits more fun than motel rooms, save your money for them lmao.

4) get on food stamps. This is easier in some places than others, but it makes the whole thing a lot easier. Just tell them you're homeless, if they don't give you a card the same day, you can probably ask to pick it up from that office, alternatively some drop in centers/day shelters can receive mail for you, or you can have it sent to general delivery(USPS service, look it up)

7) libraries are great for charging your phone and using wifi, but also keep an eye out, plenty of random outlets on the outsides of buildings are also powered

5) dumpster. sidewalk trash cans, Aldi, Einstein's, trader Joe's, pizza places, etc. You need to develop a bit of a sense for it but it's an easy way to get cooked food or travelling food or expensive food without spending resources. Also it's fun.

6) water is free, go into the bathroom of any gas station or grocery store in America(offer not valid in most big cities or on the west coast, but in that case just go to the library) and fill up your water bottle

8) hygiene notes: truckers get free showers from chain truck stops(loves, pilot/flying j) go there and ask them. convenient if you're hitchhiking, also you don't need to shower 3 times a day, really, you'll survive. Ditto with deodorant. Take care of your teeth though. Take your socks off every. day. Change them consistently. Safety razors give a good shave, work well without adequate water pressure, and the replacement blades are very stealable, they're kind of heavy though. Walmart makes these electric razors for women that take AA batteries and are pretty light but give a worse shave, also they kinda go through batteries, pick whatever works for you(cartridge razors suck)

9) traveling food notes: peanut butter is great, tortillas and bagels travel pretty well, tuna packets are pretty good protein for traveling(the ones with rice and beans or whatever are nice since theyre often the same price as the regular), condiment packets are free, hot sauce makes everything better, and mayo goes well with tuna and has a bunch of calories in it, salad dressing packets are free from truck stops and work well turning the Walmart shredded vegetable packages (labeled for making into slaw, next to the bagged salads) into a salad with real vegetables(not iceberg lettuce) in it or mixing in with tuna packets for even more calories than mayo

Gear world:

Necessary items(in order of importance): a gallon of water carrying capacity(an Arizona jug or other twist top jug is conventional, but a bladder+arizona bottles also works), a tarp(larger than 6'x9', not brightly colored), a hank of parachord, a sleeping bag (20° rated, synthetic insulation), a backpack with a padded hip belt(at least 50L, no more than 75), rain gear(a rain poncho might cover your pack too, a rain jacket can help with wind when its cold, a trash bag inside or outside your pack can keep it dry, a plan to watch the weather and not get caught also works), a z-fold foam sleeping pad, three pairs of socks, two pairs of underwear (at least one pair of boxer breifs strongly recommended if you arent incredibly skinny), a decent pair of shoes with good arch support, a functional jacket(skip if you got a rain jacket before), a base layer(wool or poly, absolutely no cotton)

Convenient items: a sleeping bag liner(cotton free, keeps you warm in winter and cool in summer), gallon zip locks to pack your stuff in(helps keep it dry and organized), no more than one change of clothes(as light as possible), a multi-tool(can opener, pliers, wire cutter), lighter(burning rope ends etc), spoon, floss and needles for patching

[upsidedownwithsteve]

Simmer #1

CH1. Home Style | The Menu [3.7K] Eddie Munson x shy fem!reader: a line cook au.

Jim’s Midnight Grill wasn’t the magical place the name made it sound like.

In fact, it was worse at night. Hawkins' only diner sat on the outskirts of town, just before the road that took you out alongside the cornfields. In the height of a sunny day, the water tower cast a shadow over the old building and the gas station next door only had one working pump.

The leather booths were constantly sticky, the table tops grainy with spilled salt, but if you made your visit on a Thursday night after nine, milkshakes were two for one. The back alley was littered with cigarette butts, graffiti on the walls telling you who to call for a good time— and someone called King Steve used Farah Fawcett hairspray? The regulars were permanent fixtures on the bar stools, coffee stains on the counter in front of them, stolen sugar packets in their pockets, frowns on their faces.

The staff didn’t want to be there, the owner refused to replace the flickering lights and the cook had a bad attitude and liked to communicate with heavy sighs and eye rolls. But he made a mean grilled cheese. The walk in freezer was reserved for the pitiful weekly deliveries and breakdowns, a stolen kiss or two. Or three, or four. But no one liked to tackle the clogged sink and god forbid anyone change the TV channel— Mr Creel always had something to say about it.

—————

Honestly, Hawkins wasn’t your first choice when you decided to move to a smaller place. The idea of a big city was all fine and well until you lived a year in Chicago, the dream of a brownstone apartment quickly disappearing when you realised jobs were hard to come by and finding friends was even harder. Living alone wasn’t all that fun, especially when your landlord hinted at sexual favours to justify late payments and he didn’t care to fix the leaking radiator in your bedroom. The nights were never quiet and the city hardly slept, but instead of neon lights and late night bodega runs, you lay awake on the broken spring in your bed and flinched at the sound of backfiring cars and people arguing on the street below.

It was lonely, living somewhere so big and busy and always eating dinner by yourself. So you sold the old car you didn’t really use and cried enough that your landlord eventually gave in and ripped up your lease that still had four months to go. Packing your stuff was an easy enough job, hardly enough belongings to fill the duffel bag you’d dragged with you. You dug into the back of your freezer for the wad of cash your grandma gave you, threw it into the bag and grabbed your greyhound ticket and decided you’d get off the bus when the skyline turned a little more green. When the buildings shrunk, when the smog lifted and when wildflowers sprouted from between the cracks in the sidewalk.

So you rolled into Hawkins before the day broke, way before the sun crept up over the quarry, before the small town came alive. The apartment you’d found was the same tiny size as the one you’d had in Chicago but it was cleaner and the carpet was new. Nothing leaked. Nothing smelled weird. The parking lot was filled with cars and none of them had bullet holes in the side, your trash can wasn’t on fire and god, god, the first neighbour you saw - an elderly woman who was walking with a yorkie on a leash - smiled at you.

She smiled at you.

So despite the lack of twenty four hour stores and pizza parlours, Hawkins was already looking up. There wasn’t much on the Main Street, a library, a tiny bakery run by a couple who offered you a free croissant as a welcome to town gift. There was an outdoor pool with sun bleached bunting across its chain link fence, an arcade next to a video store, a high school that was derelict due to the summer months. The larger houses across from the park were lined with cherry trees, neat lawns with white mailboxes and flowers under the windows and suddenly Hawkins was a million miles away from Chicago and the buzz of traffic and car horns.

The librarian let you print out some resumes the day after you’d settled in, and you found your way around town by asking kind strangers, buying a coffee and a breakfast sandwich in exchange for directions out of your neighbourhood. It was easy to stroll along the sidewalk with an iced latte and your headphones around your neck, blue skies above you and the sound of sprinklers in their yards, breathing in air that didn’t smell like diesel. You found a man by a rundown garage, white haired and tired looking, mechanic scrubs tied around his waist as he smoked a cigarette.

You took a deep breath, and then another one, smiling politely - warily - as you approached. The man lifted a brow at you, a little suspicious, but he held the burning stub away from you, smoke billowing in the opposite direction.

“You lost, kid?”

You were. Just a little.

“I’m looking for Jim’s, uh,” you glanced down at the pink flyer that had been pinned on the library's notice board. “Jim’s Midnight Grill? I got told it was out this way, but—”

You looked around, noting that there wasn’t much out this way. The busiest part of Hawkins was behind you, tidy sidewalks giving way to long roads out of town, a lone bus stop by the garage, a farm in the distance across the street. You squinted against the sun and shrugged.

“You wanna keep going for ‘nother mile or so, it’s just before the town sign,” the man pointed further out where the cornfields were overgrown and the sun faded billboard told everyone ‘thanks for visiting Hawkins!’ You weren’t sure the bus ran that far out. “Jim should be there, but if he’s not, jus’ ask for Eddie, he’ll sort you out.”

“Eddie,” you nodded, peering into the distance. You couldn’t see another building, but this man didn’t seem like he was lying. “Right, okay. Just keep to the road?”

The man nodded and he cracked a smile, small but soft. He stubbed out the end of his cigarette and gestured to an old pick up that looked like it had seen better days. “You needin’ a ride?”

The urge to say yes was strong, especially after walking all the way from your apartment as the heat soared. It snuck up on you like a slow roll, going from pleasant to warm to too hot, far too quickly. Beads of sweat clung to your skin underneath your sundress but you shook your head, shyness crawling up the back of your neck. Accepting a ride from a stranger didn’t seem the wisest idea, no matter how kind he seemed.

“It’s okay,” you told him. “Thank you, though. I appreciate the help.”

The man smiled again, a little bigger this time, crows feet crinkling, the sunlight catching the white of his five o’clock shadow. “That’s alright, kid. Jus’ tell ‘em Wayne sent you, yeah? Follow the road, you’ll see Forest Hills - the trailer park - keep going a lil’ ways and it’s right across the road.”

It turned out Wayne was right.

You kept walking, the heat soaring, the fields on either side of you growing taller but you bit back a smile at the sight of the wildflowers that snuck through the cracks in the concrete. Eventually they gave way to a trailer park, just as Wayne side, a quaint place that hummed with generators and had lines of laundry between each mobile home. Across the road sat a sandy lot, a diner in the middle, a neon sign letting passer-bys know they’d arrived at Jim’s Midnight Grill. Except the ‘r’ was loose, hanging from its wire and buzzing blue and purple.

Cats patrolled along the roadside, going from trailer doorsteps to the back alley of the diner, hoping and waiting for a free meal that they all knew would eventually come. You stopped to pet an orange kitten, a little scruffy looking thing but cute all the same, your CV clutched in one hand as you peered suspiciously at the front of the restaurant. It looked too quiet, like it wasn’t open yet. But there was a black van parked along the side of the building and some steam leaked from a vent on the roof, so you opened the front door.

The bell jingled but the patrons at the dining bar who sat on their stools didn’t move, didn’t turn to look. The place was nearly empty, some people nursing a coffee, some staring blankly at the buzzing television screen that was mounted in the corner. No one stood at the host desk, the menus stacked messily, the phone off the hook. In fact, there wasn’t a server to be seen as you made your way to the counter. You grimaced as you leaned on the surface, elbows sticky, avoiding spilled coffee the best you could. You waited, resume still in your hand, patience on your features.

No one came.

So you rang the bell that was on the bar top for the very purpose of gaining attention, but the man beside you glared at the noise. Still, no one came. The fans overhead squeaked and whirred, the TV fizzed with bad signal and from somewhere behind the open serving hatch, you heard the clatter of pots and pans. You tried to crane your neck to see through the window, steam and smoke billowing from it, the slight shadow of maybe a person moving through it.

The person swore, dropped a skillet and swore again.

You leaned in further, elbows on spilled salt grains and drops of ketchup, trying to gain a better view into the kitchen from the bar top. “Hey, ‘scuse me? Can I— can someone—”

You huffed as the figure moved out of sight, falling back onto the stool that squeaked and the man next to you snorted into his coffee cup. You frowned and took further action, sundress falling back around your thighs as you hopped off the chair and made your way to the side of the counter that lifted up. No one paid you any mind, no one at all, but you still hesitated before ducking under the bar and hovering by the hatch. You could smell garlic and sage and something a little sweet now you were closer, the scents of the kitchen winning over the stale coffee, cigarette smoke and engine oil that clung to the patrons clothes behind you.

You peered into the kitchen, your paperwork still clutched to your chest. It wasn’t much cooler in here than it was outside, the AC unit broken and the fans working overtime to combat the heat. The kitchen seemed empty now, a stovetop still on despite no one to supervise it, flames licking high up the sides of a steel pot, big enough for you to fit both feet in. There was something inside bubbling, foam rising to the top and chopped courgette and red onions sat on the workbench beside it, abandoned. A radio played, staticky and fuzzy, an old sixties tune floating out to mix with the smoke.

“Come a little bit closer, you’re my kind of man. So big and so strong, come a little bit closer, I’m all alone.”

“H-hello?” You cleared your throat and braced yourself to speak a little louder. Stronger. Braver. “Hello?”

No one answered. In fact, it seemed like the entire diner was run by ghosts, no waiting staff, hosts or cooks to be seen. Maybe you’d imagined the silhouette in the smoke, maybe the heat was finally getting to you.

“No customers back here, what d’you think you’re doin’?”

You startled, jumping back a little only to knock an elbow into a half filled coffee pot, the brown liquid thankfully lukewarm but it still spilled across the countertop, soaking into stray packets of sugar and scattered napkins.

“Oh, fuck, uh—” you grabbed at whatever dry napkins were left, hurriedly mopping up the spill before it dripped to the floor. Old coffee dotted the red and cream tiles, into the gaps between your sandals. You grimaced and looked up, only half paying attention. “Shit, I’m really sorry, I just— there was no one there and—”

You stopped, swallowing hard, cheeks hot, eyes wide. The person in front of you was half hidden behind the serving hatch, but he was scowling through the window with a ladle in his hand. Big brown eyes, unnervingly expressive and dark hair to match, unruly looking curls that were pulled back with an elastic band in a bun that wouldn’t have passed a health inspection.

A boy, unfairly pretty, and annoyed looking with tattoos peeking out from his chef whites, a black paisley printed bandana knotted around his neck. There was a furrow between his brow, lines etched there so deep that it made you think they were a permanent fixture on his handsome face.

“—no customers behind the cash desk, sweetheart, you look bright enough to understand that.”

Your mouth fell open, a burn creeping across your cheeks. Annoyance settled in your chest but you realised you weren’t quite brave enough to do anything about it. So you lifted your resume and slapped it on the hot steel ledge that separated the kitchen from the coffee bar. “No one’s working,” you tried to explain, gesturing with one hand to the empty diner behind you. “I rang the bell—”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” The boy scoffed, raising a tattooed forearm to wipe away the sheer layer of sweat from his brow. “Havin’ a spa day? Shit, no one rings the damn bell, don’t you know that?”

You scrambled for a response, the burn on your face growing hotter, an awful clawing feeling coming across your chest. You swallowed, your throat tight, but you pointed at your CV once more. “I’m here for the job opening. I need to speak to Jim? About the kitchen porter role?”

The stranger laughed, a breathy thing that you didn’t think was supposed to come across as mean as it did, but it stung all the same. You shrunk a little, a hardly seen thing as the boy turned his head to check on whatever was bubbling in the big pot. “Look, sweetheart, I don’t wanna be a dick about it, but uh, I don’t think you’re cut out for the kitchen - sorry.” He turned back to you, a slightly more apologetic look on his face instead of the frown. “You understand, right?”

You were speechless, just for a second. Blinking away the confusion, you made noise of protest as the boy started to move away. Your hand touched his bicep and he swivelled back, scowling once more. You snatched your hand away, glancing at your fingertips as if the ink from his tattoos would have stained them black.

“Sorry— it’s just, I, I need a job.” You swallowed, hoping none of the customers could hear your desperate plea. “I just moved into town and honestly, I’ll take anything, like anything. I’m supposed to talk to Jim— or Eddie?”

The boy seemed to mull over your words for a second or two, a passing of sympathy or something just as kind coming over his features. He sighed and shrugged, turning away to stir the pot before it boiled over and he shouted at you through the smoke and steam. Not meanly, just enough for his voice to be heard over the music, the hissing of the stove, the hum of the freezer. “I dunno where Jim is, sorry.”

You deflated, sliding your stack of papers off of the ledge and back to your chest. You tried not to appear too frustrated as you asked, “what about Eddie? Someone - a guy, at the garage - he told me to ask for Eddie.”

The ladle clanged against the pot, some soup - or maybe stew - spilling out the sides. The boy frowned at the mess, dragging a rag over the spots before he glanced up at you. You tried to smile, tried to tamp down the watery doe eyes you knew you couldn’t help but have on show, but you felt desperate. Leaving Chicago with nothing more than the bag on your back and no plans was suddenly seeming like an awful idea.

“Sorry,” the stranger said again. “I dunno an Eddie.”

—————

Sitting in a sticky leather booth in the corner of Jim’s Midnight Grill for another hour turned out to be worth it.

Just before two o’clock, a man walked in, greeting the same customers who were still nursing their coffees with a muttered ‘hello,’ a familiar thing that everyone grunted back at. He was a tall man, broad shouldered with a moustache and a shaved head that was covered with a battered wide brimmed hat. He looked more cowboy than business owner, checked shirt dirt covered boots and all, but you heard someone call him Jim and you were up and running after him.

Your sneakers stuck to the linoleum tiles, the ‘shtick shtick shtick’ of your soles pattering between the aisles of empty tables until you caught up with the man just before he disappeared into the kitchen. He raised his brows at your sudden appearance at his elbow, wide eyed and hopeful as you clutched the same resume you’d tried to hand the cook, the pieces of paper stained with coffee now.

The man lifted his chin to a small table before you could speak, gesturing to two chairs by the window. You startled, wondering what was happening as he pulled out a seat and pointed at you to sit in the other one.

“You’re new, right?” The man - Jim - fumbled with a packet of cigarettes, most of them crushed and bent, but he found a good one to lift to his lips. He lit it and blew smoke upwards, staining the already yellowing ceiling. “Here, in town?”

You nodded, unsure how he knew that. You guessed that news travelled fast in a place as small as Hawkins, so you decided to elaborate for the sake of talking. “Uh, yeah. From Chicago. I’m inquiring about the, um, the porter job?”

“What’s your name?” Jim leaned forward in his chair and poked gently at your forearms. “You don’t got a lot of scars, you done soft jobs? No kitchen stuff before?”

The AC unit kicked in and rattled a vent above you as you stared at the man, trying to work out what he meant. Stammering, you told him your name and passed over a resume, pointing out your last few jobs, doing your best to try and make them sound more professional than they actually were.

Librarian's assistant.

Barista. For two weeks.

Cashier at a knock off Chuck E. Cheese.

“I guess they’re what you could call, uh,” you squinted Jim, floundering for the word he’d used, “soft jobs. But I’ve got a scar on my knee from pulling a kid out of the ball pit. He’d come straight from little league, he still had his spikes on and there was a considerable amount of blood even th—”

Jim stopped your spiel by jamming a thumb back towards the kitchen hatch. You could still see the boy there, pretty and scowling all the same, a dark curl falling from his hair band to fall over his cheek. You watched him blow it away and flip something in a skillet, the sizzle of it just heard over the music, the bad TV in the corner of the bar.

“You ever worked a kitchen?”

You shook your head, stomach sinking. ‘Fake it til’ you make it,’ failed you once before, and the owner of the coffee shop in Lincoln Park quickly realised you were wasting both your times when she discovered you didn’t know the difference between a mocha and a latte. “No, sir.”

“Our line cook is real particular ‘bout who we put in his kitchen with him,” Jim pointed to the boy, who’d now been joined by someone else. Another male, one with even longer hair, sleek and dark and they seemed to be arguing over blocks of cheese. “Now I don’t think it’s a good idea to throw you in there—”

Dread bubbled in your stomach. If you didn’t manage to land this job, you weren’t sure where else to look. A small town brought on few opportunities, and you’d already exhausted most of the businesses on Main Street. “Sir, please, I—”

“—but there is a waitressing gig available.” Jim frowned as he tried to remember the details. “Full time, forty odd hours if you don’t mind doing lates.”

“Yes!” You blurted out the answer too loud, loud enough for the customers to turn away from the TV screen for a second or two. The boys in the kitchen peered out the hatch, one curious, one annoyed. “Yes, sorry, yes. I’ll take it, thank you.”

Jim nodded and stubbed out the amber end of his cigarette in an ashtray beside the sauce bottles. “Easy enough job, minimum wage, you keep any tips you make.” He listed off each point on his fingers. “You start tomorrow.”

You could only nod back, eager and grateful. “Of course, yeah, sure. Uh— do I need—?”

Jim waved you off, already standing as he lit up another cigarette. “Just come by for eight, Eddie’ll sort you out with a uniform, locker, that kinda stuff.”

You frowned, confused. Looking around the quiet diner, you wondered if there was someone you hadn’t noticed before, but the number of visible staff members remained the same. The two boys in the kitchen, the pretty cool who you’d spoken to back at the stove, tasting its contents with a teaspoon.

“Uh,” you coughed awkwardly, feeling stupid. “I thought— I thought there wasn’t an Eddie who worked here?” You pointed warily to the boy with the messy curls, the black tattoos across his exposed forearms, he was staring at you, like he knew you were talking about him. He was scowling. “He said there wasn’t.”

The noise and heat of the diner and the summer outside didn’t do anything to diminish the embarrassment you felt at Jim’s next words. His gaze followed to where you were pointing and snorted. “Kid, that is Eddie.”

[yxngbxkkie]

little date at the shop (b.c)

y'know, depending on what happens, i might do little blurbs on mechanic!chris 🫢 i never thought i'd like it this much 🤭 i do hope you guys enjoy this cute fic! let me know what you think 🩷

feedback is greatly appreciated 🥰

“Do you think he'd like it if I brought him food?” You ask Hyunjin, pinning your phone against your shoulder.

Your friend on the line scoffs, and you can see him rolling his eyes. “I'm sure he would, yes,” Hyunjin answers. “He's always liked that kind of stuff.”

A smile graces your lips. “Okay, I'm going to bring him lunch then,” you giggle, putting the phone on speaker before looking at your delivery app.

“If I knew you are going to act like this, I never would've introduced you,” he says with a laugh, mumbling to himself about how Chris is all you talk about.

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry!” You dramatically apologize, halting your search for food to give him your attention.

Hyunjin sighs, taking a minute before he speaks again. “No, it's okay. I shouldn't be complaining. I haven't seen you this happy about someone since the last guy. I'm just really glad you found a good one,” he explains, causing your lips to pout.

“I appreciate you looking out for me, Hyune. I couldn't ask for a better friend,” you tell him, tracing random shapes on your table.

“I better be your best man at the wedding,” he jokes, bringing the mood back up.

You let out a cackle, and you tip your head back. “You'd have to take that up with Chris,” you remind him while shaking your head.

“Oh don't you worry, I'll be sure he knows!” He chuckles. “I have to go. If you see him, tell him I said hi.”

You agree to his request before you bid him goodbye. You hang up the phone and go back to your delivery app. You remember him mentioning that he loves sushi, so that's what you'll order.

After waiting for twenty minutes for the food to arrive, you quickly hop into your vehicle. You gently set the delivery bag onto your passenger seat, buckling up before backing out of your driveway.

During the drive towards Five-Star Auto, you couldn't help but begin to feel nervous. You and Chris have been on four dates since the day Hyuintro “introduced” you. In your perspective, everything's going well. You're just slightly confused as to why he hasn't made things official yet.

You bite your lip, zoning out at the stoplight as you recall him saying he doesn't have time for relationships. Does he even want one? Is that why he hasn't kissed you again? A million questions run through your head, making you panic a little.

“Maybe he's being respectful,” you mumble to yourself, pressing down on the gas as soon as the light turns green.

You pull into the parking lot of the garage, noticing his vehicle being the only one. You park next to him and shut your vehicle off. A deep breath comes from your lips, trying to calm yourself down before heading inside.

“He'd tell me if he doesn't want to see me anymore,” you say to yourself, looking at your reflection in the mirror.

You grab the food beside you and exit the vehicle. After locking it, you shove your keys into your hoodie pocket. You peek through the open door of the garage, looking for Chris.

“Are you looking for me?” A voice whispers into your ear, causing you to jump. You almost drop the food, miraculously managing to catch it while turning around.

Chris chuckles, his hands resting behind his back. “I'm sorry! I didn't mean to scare you,” he apologizes, bringing a hand to your arm and gently strokes it.

“How are you so quiet?” You ask him in disbelief, pressing your free hand against your chest. “Every time I see you, you're sneaking up on me.”

“I wouldn't say I'm sneaky,” he mentions, leading you into the place. “I think you're just really bad at noticing your surroundings.”

You scoff, rolling your eyes playfully. “Okay, you got me there,” you groan, tapping your fingers against the bag you're holding. “It's your lunch time, right?”

“It is,” Chris beams, his eyes looking down at your full hands. “Did you bring me lunch?”

“I, I bought us lunch,” you clarify, feeling yourself heating up in embarrassment. “That is if you wanna have lunch with me.”

The grin on his lips widens, and you watch him shake his head. Your fingers grip the bag in your hands, thinking he's going to reject the idea. A gasp leaves your lips when you feel his lips kiss your forehead.

“Of course I want to have lunch with you,” he reassures you, grabbing your free hand before walking into his office.

You sit down in front of his desk, pulling the chair closer so you don't make a mess. You can feel his eyes on you as you untie the plastic bag. “I didn't know what you liked exactly, so I took a guess,” you tell him with flushed cheeks.

You pull the trays of sushi out, setting them in the middle of you both. “Oh, I actually love this one,” Chris points to your favorite, making your heart flutter.

He reaches into the bag, grabbing the two packets of chopsticks. He opens both of them as you uncover the sushi you bought. Chris holds out a pair to you with a smile.

“Thank yo–” you cut yourself off when Chris moves the utensils out of reach. Your eyes meet his, noticing the admiration in them.

“I'm really glad you stopped by,” he says softly, gently placing the chopsticks in your hand. “And thank you for the food.”

Your heart starts to pound against your chest, the tension between you two thickening. “Of course. I… You make me really happy,” you mention loud enough for him to hear, directing your gaze to the sushi.

Chris stands up from his chair before taking two steps towards you. His index finger hooks beneath your chin, lifting your head slowly. Your breath hitches in your throat as he leans forward.

“You make me happy too,” he whispers, a shiver running down your spine at the feeling of his fingers.

“Can I ask you something?” You ask quietly, your eyes roaming his entire face. Chris nods his head, crouching a bit so you're eye level. You set down the pair of chopsticks before laying your hand over his. “Are you planning to ask me to be yours?”

His eyes widen at your question, and you notice the tips of his ears start to turn red. “I–” Chris pauses, looking down for a few seconds before returning his gaze to you. “I planned on it, yeah. I was just trying to find the right time.”

“Now is fine,” you giggle shyly, removing his hand from your face so you can play with the tips of his fingers.

“It's not too fast?” He asks, furrowing his brow.

You shake your head, confused as to why he would think that. He laces his fingers with yours before kissing the back of your hand.

“I talked to Hyunjin about your ex. He mentioned that he liked to move fast with you and that it made you uncomfortable. So, I was taking things slow until you were ready,” he explains with a sigh.

Oh, I think I'm in love. You think to yourself, bringing your free hand to his cheek. “You are so sweet,” you whisper, closing the space between you.

Chris releases a breathy moan as your lips collide with his. He hasn't kissed you since the night you met, and the feeling he got then is still the same.

You pull away from him before he can deepen it, earning a whine from him. You smile and tap his cheek lovingly. “So, Christopher, can I be yours?” You ask him, planting a couple more kisses on his lips.

“You already are,” he breathes out, pursing his lips during one of your quick kisses.

~

tagging: @strawboorybunny @reddesert-healourblues @spacegirlstuff @moon0fthenight @foxinnie8 @like-a-diamondinthesky @prettymiye0n @turtledove824

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This is your brain on fraud apologetics

In 1998, two Stanford students published a paper in Computer Networks entitled “The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine,” in which they wrote, “Advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of consumers.”

https://research.google/pubs/pub334/

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/24/passive-income/#swiss-cheese-security

The co-authors were Lawrence Page and Sergey Brin, and the “large-scale hypertextual web search-engine” they were describing was their new project, which they called “Google.” They were 100% correct — prescient, even!

On Wednesday night, a friend came over to watch some TV with us. We ordered out. We got scammed. We searched for a great local Thai place we like called Kiin and clicked a sponsored link for a Wix site called “Kiinthaila.com.” We should have clicked the third link down (kiinthaiburbank.com).

We got scammed. The Wix site was a lookalike for Kiin Thai, which marked up their prices by 15% and relayed the order to our local, mom-and-pop, one-branch restaurant. The restaurant knew it, too — they called us and told us they were canceling the order, and said we could still come get our food, but we’d have to call Amex to reverse the charge.

As it turned out, the scammers double-billed us for our order. I called Amex, who advised us to call back in a couple days when the charge posted to cancel it — in other words, they were treating it as a regular customer dispute, and not a systemic, widespread fraud (there’s no way this scammer is just doing this for one restaurant).

In the grand scheme of things, this is a minor hassle, but boy, it’s haunting to watch the quarter-century old prophecy of Brin and Page coming true. Search Google for carpenters, plumbers, gas-stations, locksmiths, concert tickets, entry visas, jobs at the US Post Office or (not making this up) tech support for Google products, and the top result will be a paid ad for a scam. Sometimes it’s several of the top ads.

This kind of “intermediation” business is actually revered in business-schools. As Douglas Rushkoff has written, the modern business wisdom reveres “going meta” — not doing anything useful, but rather, creating a chokepoint between people who do useful things and people who want to pay for those things, and squatting there, collecting rent:

https://rushkoff.medium.com/going-meta-d42c6a09225e

It’s the ultimate passive income/rise and grind side-hustle: It wouldn’t surprise me in the least to discover a whole festering nest of creeps on Tiktok talking about how they pay Mechanical Turks to produce these lookalike sites at scale.

This mindset is so pervasive that people running companies with billions in revenue and massive hoards of venture capital run exactly the same scam. During lockdown, companies like Doordash, Grubhub and Uber Eats stood up predatory lookalike websites for local restaurants, without their consent, and played monster-in-the-middle, tricking diners into ordering through them:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/19/we-are-beautiful/#man-in-the-middle

These delivery app companies were playing a classic enshittification game: first they directed surpluses to customers to lock them in (heavily discounting food), then they directed surplus to restaurants (preferential search results, free delivery, low commissions) — then, having locked in both consumers and producers, they harvested the surplus for themselves.

Today, delivery apps charge massive premiums to both eaters and restaurants, load up every order with junk fees, and clone the most successful restaurants out of ghost kitchens — shipping containers in parking lots crammed with low-waged workers cranking out orders for 15 different fake “virtual restaurants”:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/01/autophagic-buckeyes/#subsidized-autophagia

Delivery apps speedran the enshittification cycle, but Google took a slower path to get there. The company has locked in billions of users (e.g. by paying billions to be the default search on Safari and Firefox and using legal bullying to block third party Android device-makers from pre-installing browsers other than Chrome). For years, it’s been leveraging our lock-in to prey on small businesses, getting them to set up Google Business Profiles.

These profiles are supposed to help Google distinguish between real sellers and scammers. But Kiin Thai has a Google Business Profile, and searching for “kiin thai burbank” brings up a “Knowledge Panel” with the correct website address — on a page that is headed with a link to a scam website for the same business. Google, in other words, has everything it needs to flag lookalike sites and confirm them with their registered owners. It would cost Google money to do this — engineer-time to build and maintain the system, content moderator time to manually check flagged listings, and lost ad-revenue from scammers — but letting the scams flourish makes Google money, at the expense of Google users and Google business customers.

Now, Google has an answer for this: they tell merchants who are being impersonated by ad-buying scammers that all they need to do is outbid them for the top ad-spot. This is a common approach — Amazon has a $31b/year “ad business” that’s mostly its own platform sellers bidding against each other to show you fake results for your query. The first five screens of Amazon search results are 50% ads:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/#relentless-payola

This is “going meta,” so naturally, Meta is doing it too: Facebook and Instagram have announced a $12/month “verification” badge that will let you report impersonation and tweak the algorithm to make it more likely that the posts you make are shown to the people who explicitly asked to see them:

https://www.vox.com/recode/2023/2/21/23609375/meta-verified-twitter-blue-checkmark-badge-instagram-facebook

The corollary of this, of course, is that if you don’t pay, they won’t police your impersonators, and they won’t show your posts to the people who asked to see them. This is pure enshittification — the surplus from users and business customers is harvested for the benefit of the platform owners:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

The idea that merchants should master the platforms as a means of keeping us safe from their impersonators is a hollow joke. For one thing, the rules change all the time, as the platforms endlessly twiddle the knobs that determine what gets shown to whom:

https://doctorow.medium.com/twiddler-1b5c9690cce6

And they refuse to tell anyone what the rules are, because if they told you what the rules were, you’d be able to bypass them. Content moderation is the only infosec domain where “security through obscurity” doesn’t get laughed out of the room:

https://doctorow.medium.com/como-is-infosec-307f87004563

Worse: the one thing the platforms do hunt down and exterminate with extreme prejudice is anything that users or business-customers use to twiddle back — add-ons and plugins and jailbreaks that override their poor choices with better ones:

https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/29/23378541/the-og-app-instagram-clone-pulled-from-app-store

As I was submitting complaints about the fake Kiin scam-site (and Amex’s handling of my fraud call) to the FTC, the California Attorney General, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau and Wix, I wrote a little Twitter thread about what a gross scam this is:

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1628948906657878016

The thread got more than two million reads and got picked up by Hacker News and other sites. While most of the responses evinced solidarity and frustration and recounted similar incidents in other domains, a significant plurality of the replies were scam apologetics — messages from people who wanted to explain why this wasn’t a problem after all.

The most common of these was victim-blaming: “you should have used an adblocker” or “never click the sponsored link.” Of course, I do use an ad-blocker — but this order was placed with a mobile browser, after an absentminded query into the Google search-box permanently placed on the home screen, which opens results in Chrome (where I don’t have an ad-blocker, so I can see material behind an ad-blocker-blocker), not Firefox (which does have an ad-blocker).

Now, I also have a PiHole on my home LAN, which blocks most ads even in a default browser — but earlier this day, I’d been on a public wifi network that was erroneously blocking a website (the always excellent superpunch.net) so I’d turned my wifi off, which meant the connection came over my phone’s 5G connection, bypassing the PiHole:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/28/shut-yer-pi-hole/

“Don’t click a sponsored link” — well, the irony here is that if you habitually use a browser with an ad-blocker, and you backstop it with a PiHole, you never see sponsored links, so it’s easy to miss the tiny “Sponsored” notification beside the search result. That goes double if you’re relaxing with a dinner guest on the sofa and ordering dinner while chatting.

There’s a name for this kind of security failure: the Swiss Cheese Model. We all have multiple defenses (in my case: foreknowledge of Google’s ad-scam problem, an ad-blocker in my browser, LAN-wide ad sinkholing). We also have multiple vulnerabilities (in my case: forgetting I was on 5G, being distracted by conversation, using a mobile device with a permanent insecure search bar on the homescreen, and being so accustomed to ad-blocked results that I got out of the habit of checking whether a result was an ad).

If you think you aren’t vulnerable to scams, you’re wrong — and your confidence in your invulnerability actually increases your risk. This isn’t the first time I’ve been scammed, and it won’t be the last — and every time, it’s been a Swiss Cheese failure, where all the holes in all my defenses lined up for a brief instant and left me vulnerable:

https://locusmag.com/2010/05/cory-doctorow-persistence-pays-parasites/

Other apologetics: “just call the restaurant rather than using its website.” Look, I know the people who say this don’t think I have a time-machine I can use to travel back to the 1980s and retrieve a Yellow Pages, but it’s hard not to snark at them, just the same. Scammers don’t just set up fake websites for your local businesses — they staff them with fake call-centers, too. The same search that takes you to a fake website will also take you to a fake phone number.

Finally, there’s “What do you expect Google to do? They can’t possibly detect this kind of scam.” But they can. Indeed, they are better situated to discover these scams than anyone else, because they have their business profiles, with verified contact information for the merchants being impersonated. When they get an ad that seems to be for the same business but to a different website, they could interrupt the ad process to confirm it with their verified contact info.

Instead, they choose to avoid the expense, and pocket the ad revenue. If a company promises to “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” I think we have the right to demand these kinds of basic countermeasures:

https://www.google.com/search/howsearchworks/our-approach/

The same goes for Amex: when a merchant is scamming customers, they shouldn’t treat complaints as “chargebacks” — they should treat them as reports of a crime in progress. Amex has the bird’s eye view of their transaction flow and when a customer reports a scam, they can backtrack it to see if the same scammer is doing this with other merchants — but the credit card companies make money by not chasing down fraud:

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rosalindadams/mastercard-visa-fraud

Wix also has platform-scale analytics that they could use to detect and interdict this kind of fraud — when a scammer creates a hundred lookalike websites for restaurants and uses Wix’s merchant services to process payments for them, that could trigger human review — but it didn’t.

Where do all of these apologetics come from? Why are people so eager to leap to the defense of scammers and their adtech and fintech enablers? Why is there such an impulse to victim-blame?

I think it’s fear: in their hearts, people — especially techies — know that they, too, are vulnerable to these ripoffs, but they don’t want to admit it. They want to convince themselves that the person who got scammed made an easily avoidable mistake, and that they themselves will never make a similar mistake.

This is doubly true for readerships on tech-heavy forums like Twitter or (especially) Hacker News. These readers know just how many vulnerabilities there are — how many holes are in their Swiss cheese — and they are also overexposed to rise-and-grind/passive income rhetoric.

This produces a powerful cognitive dissonance: “If all the ‘entrepreneurs’ I worship are just laying traps for the unwary, and if I am sometimes unwary, then I’m cheering on the authors of my future enduring misery.” The only way to resolve this dissonance — short of re-evaluating your view of platform capitalism or questioning your own immunity to scams — is to blame the victim.

The median Hacker News reader has to somehow resolve the tension between “just install an adblocker” and “Chrome’s extension sandbox is a dumpster fire and it’s basically impossible to know whether any add-on you install can steal every keystroke and all your other data”:

https://mattfrisbie.substack.com/p/spy-chrome-extension

In my Twitter thread, I called this “the worst of all possible timelines.” Everything we do is mediated by gigantic, surveillant monopolists that spy on us comprehensively from asshole to appetite — but none of them, not a 20th century payment giant nor a 21st century search giant — can bestir itself to use that data to keep us safe from scams.

Next Thu (Mar 2) I'll be in Brussels for Antitrust, Regulation and the Political Economy, along with a who's-who of European and US trustbusters. It's livestreamed, and both in-person and virtual attendance are free:

https://www.brusselsconference.com/registration

On Fri (Mar 3), I'll be in Graz for the Elevate Festival:

https://elevate.at/diskurs/programm/event/e23doctorow/

[Image ID: A modified version of Hieronymus Bosch's painting 'The Conjurer,' which depicts a scam artist playing a shell-game for a group of gawking rubes. The image has been modified so that the scam artist's table has a Google logo and the pea he is triumphantly holding aloft bears the 'Sponsored' wordmark that appears alongside Google search results.]

[seat-safety-switch]

My house is on the migratory route for ducks. Every fall, and every spring, there's a bunch of noisy ducks flapping over my home, quacking their nightmare noises. There's poop, sure, but the bigger problem is all the lost sleep. Quack, quack, quack, all night long.

At first, I figured I would be a good global citizen about it. We're all part of the same ecosystem, and ducks have just as much of a right to be here as anyone else. As you have been trained to do with so many other things in today's world, I put up with it. I bought noise-cancelling headphones, I set up a noise-cancelling fan, and I hired a guy to play the cymbals all night in my backyard to scare them away. Nothing doing: it turns out the sound of cymbals crashing makes ducks extremely horny, and I had to find a new cymbal player, plus also settle with the old one in court for his (valid, but disgusting) workman's injury claims.

The next tactic was simple redirection. I put a kiddie pool in the dog park down the hill, filled it with water, and left a few loaves of dumpster-dove bread out to attract the fowl. This seemed like it would work great, until I remembered that the ducks are generally bright enough not to fall for a trap that involves getting eaten by dozens of hungry Schnauzers. Two-nothing, then.

Ultimately, I hit upon the right solution while doing something else entirely. There's a very expensive lake community a few minutes away from my house, and while I was there raiding their dumpsters, I noticed that there was a perfectly good pedal-driven swan boat in the trash. Some kids had set off some fireworks in it, so it was a little singed in places and melted in others, and surely no longer watertight. What it did have, though, was duckness.

With help from a gas-powered go-kart frame, a GPS unit from one of the self-driving delivery robots that I "accidentally" struck with my car to receive free burritos from, and about four nights of banging on it with a wrench, I soon had a duck decoy of a whole new kind. It worked better than I ever could have imagined, luring the ducks away from their prescribed flight path and directly onto the highway.

There's just one flaw: the go-kart ran out of gas about an hour into the trip. I went to go get it back, because I'll need it for the fall, but a protective swarm of vicious waterfowl surround their wounded-but-huge brethren at all times. It just goes to show you that electric cars are the future. If I had solar-powered this sucker instead, I bet I could have run it on the interstate for like a day or two before the accumulated poop blocked out the light.

[engeorged]

The Influencer II: Will

For part one: The Influencer : Milo

Words by @engeorged

Artwork by @badoobers

Find the rest of my stories here

The previous 6 months had totally changed Milo’s life and his body. After his Mukbang video went viral, and following on from the success of his first TikTok live, his followers began to rack up. Soon he had successfully established accounts on TikTok, instagram and Twitter where he would upload daily content, doing lives twice a week on different social platforms. It wasn’t quite as glamorous as he thought it would be. There was a lot of research he needed to do, to learn eating tricks about how and when to eat. Methods to stretch his already considerable stomach capacity. He would force himself to drink gallons of isotonic drinks as quick as he could to get his belly to hold more and more. At first he could just about manage a gallon in less than half an hour. In no time at all he was able to do two gallons in less than fifteen minutes. The flat stomach rapidly becoming curved and bloated as he chugged. He’d never really had a gag reflex either which helped in more ways that one. He was taking to the rhythm quickly.

Pushing through the pain barrier if bloating with liquids was one thing, but the eating challenges were even less glamorous afterwards. At least with the liquids he would only have to go to the toilet every ten minutes for a few hours. But with the stuffing sessions, it was a lot more for his system to take and the side effects where pretty extreme. Firstly, digesting vast quantities of food made him very sleepy which meant he would often crash straight after, bloated and sticky. For another thing, eating a lot made him very very gassy. The added issue was the weight gain. He’d always been toned and buff and the sheer volume of calories he was consuming were making his weight skyrocket. He’d managed to gain 20lbs in just the first month, all of which stuck to his expanding middle as a firm curve to his toned stomach. By the third month it had slowed a little bit he was still up another 20lbs in total making him 255lbs. His height and muscle mass meant his body could easily take it but he was looking a lot thicker that normal. This wasn’t entirely a bad thing, as it actually seemed to go down pretty well with a number of his new fans, but Milo wasn’t so sure. So he started hitting the gym on a more regular basis to work on the muscle groups that wouldn’t interfere with his stomachs ability to expand. This felt like a happy medium.

The main perk was that now he’d worked how to monetise these social media ventures, he was finally able to quit the delivery job and the dog walking. He decided to keep the house sitting gig though, as the setting was part of his media presence and the non stop supply free food was also massively helpful.

After the first few months of being a social media influencer he was starting to be recognised in the street. Not many people but he was definitely starting to be somebody. His main accounts were all centered around Mukbang and eating challenges, This wasn’t his only online presence though as he also set up a few side accounts. One all around his workout regime where he would flaunt his muscles. There was also a very niche OnlyFans, where the crazy amount of gas he was getting was paying off. People would pay to watch him belch and fart whilst watching sports matches on the sofa in his boxer briefs. There was even a side hustle selling his underwear that featured in the videos. Who knew guys would pay for boxers he’d farted in?

Whilst he hadn’t quite shifted the extra few pounds, he’d managed to at least get more bulked elsewhere. His arms, pecs and thighs were the biggest they had ever been and whilst his stomach was no longer a flat six pack, he had managed to get the definition back on the curve of his belly.

Then one evening, Milo was just finishing off a live, having done a popular gravy chug challenge that was doing the rounds on socials. Most people were doing a few litres or even a gallon of gravy, but Milo knew he could do better than that. He had set himself up in the massive downstairs shower and had used a bier stick to push the gravy down his throat. At the end he proudly declared he had done a gallon and a half, having done eight sticks full. Everyone watching, gleefully pointed out that as the stick was a 40 oz stick, he had actually done 2 gallons! Laughing and belching he admitted defeat, maths had never been his strong point after all.

Turning the live off, he was now seriously regretting chugging fucking gravy! He didn’t even really like gravy and the belches coming up were heinous. He quickly turned on the shower to wash off the gravy that had spilt on himself. Rubbing his distended stomach as he cleaned himself had become a part of his routine he loved the most. Whilst he loved getting the attention from doing the streams, it was surprisingly nice to take a moment for himself. As his large hands glided over the firm curve of his bloated belly, he felt the ridges of his protruding muscle definition. Washing the underside of the curve and feeling his Adonis belt framing the bulge of liquid inside himself. Gently pushing on the taut surface and feeling the pressure of his full abdomen. Not for the first time, he began to feel his dick harden as he took time exploring his swollen middle. Closing his eyes he allowed his mind to drift as he began to pleasure himself, rubbing his firm gut with one hand and stroking his thick shaft with the other. Just as he was ready to climax, his phone rang, making him jump out of his skin. Scrabbling around fora towel he began to as he involuntarily jizz all over the walls of the shower.

Turning the water off, he quickly dried his hands and answered the phone. Trying to suppress the waves of pleasure he was experiencing he tried to give a happy ‘Hello!’ On the other end of the phone was Will, his old school friend asking if he was still interested in taking that job he’d offered him a few months back. He didn’t want to admit to Will but he’d totally forgotten about the job. He gently declined the job offer but asked Will how he was doing, he’d heard on the grapevine that Will had recently divorced so he asked how he was after that. Milo was just about to invite him out for a beer when Will reminded him that the school reunion was coming up that weekend and asked if he was going. Milo had stopped going to events like that. Everyone seemed to just be there to brag about their happy lives and their fancy cars and beautiful children and that just made him feel like a loser. But now, he wasn’t a loser, he was a success! Maybe he would go? After all he wasn’t doing anything else, and it would be good to see Will at least. They had been pretty tight when they were younger. Their friendship only really fading because Will had gotten his girlfriend pregnant and 19 and had gotten married. Kids ruined everything!

Milo agreed to go to the reunion and returned to the shower to clean up, finding himself hard yet again as he cleaned off his belly.

A Week Later . . .

After spending the whole morning getting ready Milo was ready to go. Pulling into the parking lot of the hotel in his brand new Tesla, Milo started feeling a little nervous. He was well liked in school, but so much had happened in the last ten years. In some ways, he was a different person and there were so many of his old friends who wouldn’t know him any more. As he got out of the car he straightened himself up and rearranged his very tight shirt. It used to be a good shirt to show off his muscles, it’s just that now it also accentuated his more curved meaty stomach. The buttons a lot tighter than they used to be.

Ignoring the uncomfortable sensation and walking up to the counter, Milo coughed to why the receptionists attention. Without looking up the guy responded disinterestedly with a quick’You here for the reunion?’ Milo replied to say yes when suddenly he hears a familiar voice behind him shout a nickname he’s not heard in years.

‘How’s it hanging Pipe?’

Turning round Milo sees his friend Will lumbering towards him with a huge grin on his face. Milo wasn’t quite expecting what happened next. Will was average height at 5’10, but he was always slim. He was known for it when they were younger. He would eat junk food constantly but would never gain a pound. That had definitely changed. Will had developed a huge round beer belly which was sticking out perpendicular to his body. The round mass of solid gut was at least a foot in front of him and almost a perfect sphere. His dense stubble and moustache was giving him strong daddy bear vibes.

‘Holy fuck it’s you!’ Milo blurred out as Will characteristically bundled over and pulled him in for a hug. Will’s belly was indeed as solid as it looked and nearly winded him as it was pushed hard into his own stomach.

‘It’s good to see you man!’ Will exclaimed as he pulled out of the hug. ‘You’ve hardly changed!’ He added looking Milo up and down.

Not really knowing what to say Milo eventually managed; ‘You neither?’ He couldn’t help but go up at the end of his sentence, making it more of a question than a statement.

Laughing, Will grabbed his solid belly with both hands. ‘Liar! I’m a blimp!’ He admitted! ‘It’s fine! We all knew it would catch up with me. Besides it’s been a rough few years. Me and Bex divorced last year as you know and I guess I’ve been eating a few too many take aways!’

‘Sorry to hear that man.’ Milo responded trying not to look at his mammoth belly.

‘It’s cool man. We’re still friends, we should never have married so young. We were good friends really, not husband and wife. Three kids later and there was nothing left. That, and she cheated on me with pretty much every single dad in the school run!’

‘Fuck her then man I guess!’ Milo offered

Laughing, Will slapped Milo on his thick arm ‘let’s get some food man! I’m starving!’

Walking through the hotel lobby, they found the party at the gardens in the back. The smell of cooking meat luring the two men through. Looking round, Milo saw a heap of faces he vaguely remembered. He always had his own group of friends but on the whole he never joined a clique so he was known by most people. He was the kind of guy who wanted to be everyone’s friend. He was quite the player when he was younger and looking around he realised he had slept with about 15 people that he could see. Mainly women back then, but there were a few guys who suddenly put an arm round their wives and girlfriends as he walked past.

The two old friends positioned themselves near the bbq and started catching up. Will explained that he was a fairly successful business man, owning a company that specialised in international shipping. From the sounds of things Will seemed to be doing pretty well for himself work wise. He was lonely though, marrying early and churning out three kids had isolated him from their old friends and he, like Will, hadn’t really seen anyone since they graduated.

As they stood catching up the two men were grazing heavily on ribs and burgers and sausages, absent-mindedly eating whilst they chatted. Milo realised half way, how much he’d missed his friend, and the resentment he felt over their falling apart was beginning to subside. Eventually they were joined by two more guys they used to hang out with, Ralphy and Jordan. These two had clearly stayed in touch with one another and were super happy to see Milo and Will.

Ralphy, used to be the runt of the group, being wiry and lithe with little to no facial hair. However, it appeared that he had exited the ugly duckling phase. Being tall, had had now bulked out and was now bordering on stocky. His once ginger hair and pasty complexion had developed into some deep auburn hair with a full lumberjack beard. ‘Finally hit puberty then?’ Will commented cheekily. Ralphy took it with good humour, and asked back ‘When are you due?’ Patting Will’s pregnant looking belly. Jordan was as good looking as ever, his dark brown skin, chiselled cheek bones and deep chocolate coloured eyes unchanged by the passage of time. Milo embarrassingly remembered the brief crush he had on his friend when they were younger. He never acted on it or even told Jordan at the time but it was pretty intense.

As the four old friends caught up, Will and Milo continued to attack the buffet almost continuously. Knocking beers back with casual abandon the lads got rowdier and rowdier. Half way through the evening, Will began to rub his belly, now tightening as he continues to fill it up. Letting out several loud belches, and to the surprise of no one he starts complaining about his belt being too tight and how his clothes have shrunk. Looking across at Milo he notices Milo has also begun to bloat out.

‘Hey, how have you eaten as much as me?’ Will blurted out

Milo blushes and rubs his front. ‘I guess I have!’ Weirdly, he is actually is beginning to enjoy people noticing his belly.

‘What are you doing with yourself at the moment anyway Pipe? You never did settle on a job if I hear correctly?’ Ralphy asked.

‘Funny you should say that man! I’ve started a new career recently!’

Milo smiled and produces his phone. Pulling up one of his most successful videos where he speed eats four large watermelons he turns it and shows his friends.

Jordan whistles ‘You’re getting paid to pig out? That should be Will’s job!’

Will belly barges Jordan who nearly spills his beer. Laughing they carry on their conversation. Milo explains all about how he was trying to make it a social media influencer and how a random video he had made had gone viral. He talked through his training routine and how he worked out key muscle groups in order to maximise room for expansion. The guys nodding along as he speaks.

‘So you mean to tell me, a skinny thing like you, thinks he could fit more in his tank than me?’ Will scoffed slapping his already stuffed tank of a belly.

Smiling Milo says ‘Yeah that’s pretty much right! Follow me for the proof if you want!

Will dramatically begins sniffing the air. ‘Can you guys smell that?’

Jordan, naively begins sniffing along with him. ‘What is it?’

‘It’s quite rich? Smells to me like BULLSHIT!’ Will laughs loudly at his own joke. Jordan and Ralphy join in. Milo stays straight faced.

‘Right here then?’ Milo says defiantly. ‘Eat-off. Loser takes the winner out for dinner next week at a restaurant of their choosing.’

Will still laughing, thrusts out his hand. ‘Let’s make it more interesting! If you win, I’ll take you Dubai on my next business trip. All expenses paid.’

Milo grabs his hand and shakes it. ‘Deal!’ A thought enters Milos mind about whether or not to live stream it? He’s not due for a live stream till tomorrow but an unscheduled post might go down well. He’s confident he can win. Doing his research into the world of competitive eating and other social media stars who do this kind of thing, he’s spotted a trend. Guys who are on the larger side tend to not do as well as the more toned ones. In fact, his biggest online role model has been an Indian guy called Jai who goes round the world doing food challenges on cam. He can pack away a ton of food and his flat stomach goes from toned to fully round. If he’s honest, Jai has been the biggest inspiration for most of his wanks over the past month as well. Not only is Jai insanely hot, the sight of his swollen belly keeps sending Milo over the edge.

He grabs a standing table and runs to the buffet with Ralphy where they pile two plates high with identical hauls. Trying to grab one of each of the delicious items on display. Balancing their heavy plates they place them on the table. ‘It’s better to do this standing!’ Milo tells Will confidently. He hands his phone to Jordan and asks him to hit record. ‘I’m gonna live stream this man. Hope that ok!’ He adds quickly.

‘Well I’m sure your followers want to see you lose just as much as I do!’ Will boasts

‘I got that!’ Jordan shouts laughing as he sees the screen begin to light up as watchers begin to pour in. Milo turns to the camera and welcomes everyone, explaining the bet and how he’s gonna kick Will’s ass. The two of them line up. Both already full of beer and meat from nearly an hour and a half of grazing and chatting. Will’s stomach hardly looks any different, only the discerning eye would have noticed that it has lost some of its jiggle. Milo on the other hand is clearly already stuffed. His already tight shirt stretched tightly over his swelling out stomach.

‘Ready?’ Milo asks

‘Born ready!’ Will replies.

‘Then go!’ Milo yells.

As the two tear into their plates of food, both picking up a huge double burger, dripping in bbq sauce and cheese, they begin their task. A few people begin to notice the commotion and a few start to amble over. Ralphy is keen to explain what’s happening and people begin to pick a side and cheer them on. As per his brand, Milo seems to be eating with a strong constant rhythm, taking a large bite and chewing well before swallowing. Whereas Will is just gorging himself. Massive dripping burger in one hand and a chicken leg in the other. By the time Milo has finished his burger Will has eaten three things. Unphased, Milo picks up a thick German sausage in a bun, glazed with honey and mustard and starts to eat. He did a video a few weeks back where he tried to match the world record of hot dog eating so he was used to hot dogs, and this one was much tastier than the shitty ones he’d bought for the challenge. These were prime cuts of pork, the ones he had were just ‘arseholes, hooves and lips’ as his brother would say.

Milo was starting to feel the now familiar sensation of getting to the point where his stomach was feeling the strain. He was only two items into the feast and already he could feel his belly tightening. There was a lot of food and beer in his stomach already. The shirt had definitely been a mistake. As he finished the sausage, he reached for a thick chicken kebab and with the other hand undid his belt and untucked his shirt. That helped as he kept going, his belly expanding into the space created.

Will’s mad dash strategy on the other hand was beginning to backfire. He was feeling totally stuffed. The comfortably full feeling he’d had at the start was starting to be replaced with a dull ache of gluttony. He was struggling to breathe a little bit with the pressure building up under his ribs. Looking across at Milo who was calmly chewing and swallowing down the food he began to regret the bravado. He gave his tight belly rub and ploughed on.

The crowd was beginning to build, both online and in person. Around twenty of their old school friends all watching with delight as the two played out a scene that wouldn’t have been unfamiliar in the school canteen ten years previously. Will was pouring with sweat, large circles appearing round his neck and arm pits, with half circles under his meaty pecs. Milo on the other hand was taking it in his stride. Mouthful after large mouthful was being chewed and swallowed down into his clearly expanding belly. The burger and sausage, now joined by a decent slab of belly pork, a lamb shank as well as chicken kebab, a pork one and a lamb one. Just a rack of ribs, the chicken leg and a thick juicy steak to go.

Milo was loving the attention, it made the pressure in his belly fade away as he heard people cheering and the distant ping of people tipping him on the online video. He began to play to the crowd a little, getting people to cheer him on whilst he made banter jabs at wills expense. ‘I heard Dubai is lovely this time of year!’ He quipped.

By the time Milo was down to one steak, Will was a mess. His belly was clearly maxed out, tight and rounded out straight from under his ribs. He was breathing heavily and in front of him was nearly half the food he’d bragged about finishing off so easily. Milo picked up the steak and showed it off to the crowd. Taking a big bite he began the final hurdle. He felt uncomfortably full, more so than he had before. He’d decided he would try and count up exactly how much food was packed into his belly when he got home. Maybe as a little bonus for his OnlyFans premium account. He might even do a little strip tease reveal of his belly and the consequences of the stuffing for them. There were a few heavy tippers who would really enjoy that.

Showing off, he managed to devour the heavy steak in 10 bites. Chewing and swallowing the last one, to the rapturous applause of the crowd. Will shook his head, looking a little green and belched, quickly putting his hand to his mouth just in case he threw up. ‘You win!’ He admitted. ‘I’m seriously impressed!’

Laughing, Milo picked up the sausage and a kebab from Will’s plate and ate them as well as the gathered school colleagues whooped and cheered. It was actually a little painful but it was worth it to see the genuine admiration on Will’s face. Turning to the camera he gave his usual belly reveal to his followers. Peeling up his shirt over the top of his engorged midsection, he revealed his packed furry gut. Ralphy ran in and gave his belly a big slap to celebrate. Milo laughed it off but it nearly made him chuck the whole lot back up. Swallowing it down he turned to Will and shook his hand. ‘Let me know when we leave and I’ll try and find my passport!’ He said with glee. Belching heavily, Will just nodded and smiled.

After the crowd began to disperse, Milo took his phone back from Jordan and gave a little shoutout to his watchers. At the bottom of the screen, just before he shut it down, he saw a brief flash of a username exiting the chat. ‘Jai-Eats’ was the name, which was the handle of his role model. Could that have actually been him? Milo thought to himself? Shaking away the thought quickly. As Will excused himself to get home, Milo tried to pull down his shirt over his belly to cover himself up but couldn’t really do it. Leaving it unbuttoned, framing his bloated stomach. Laughing he stayed a little while chatting to his old friends and knocking back a few more beers to numb the pain of his bloat. The familiar feeling of being uncomfortably full settling in to a dull ache as his system set about digesting the huge amount of food he had just consumed.

Later that evening both engorged gents reflected on their experiences that day at home. Will had been reticent to go to the reunion, not really wanting to see anyone now he was so fat. He pretended to be confident about his belly but really he was ashamed. He hadn’t lied, the belly was sort of accidental, and was really the result of a few too many take aways from his bachelor pad. But it was more than that. He loved food. Greasy take-aways were a guilty pleasure but he actually loved the whole process of cooking something from scratch. Experimenting with herbs and spices and new gadgets. Working out on how to slow roast a shoulder of pork perfectly using his brand new bbq and wireless thermometer was his happy place. And not only did he love cooking the food, he loved eating it. He loved the feeling of laying in the sofa at the end of a huge meal and feeling the weight of the food he had cooked himself and then consumed. Seeing Milo today had made him realised how much he enjoyed that full feeling but also how much he had to learn. It would be good to reconnect with him and maybe eat together. As he lay there rubbing his distended and rock hard belly he began to fall asleep. Dreaming of all the foods he would cook for Milo and how big Milo’s belly would get as he pushed in more and more and more.

Milo on the other hand was at home nursing his also swollen stomach. The food had begun to go south inside him, rounding his belly out even further. Being on the more muscular side meant that his stomach went through stages of digestion you could almost watch. Rubbing his belly in the mirror and seeing how the bottom half of his gut had rounded out a little more. He could hear the digestion sounds gurgle and churn. He watched as another part of his anatomy became swollen. As he massaged and stroked his stomach his thoughts moved to Will. His belly was incredible, round and hard and firm. And even though Milo out-ate him in the competition, he wasn’t sure if Will had actually eaten more food than him overall. He definitely ate faster, and maybe at the rate he was eating, more food ended up in there. Thinking about the new bloated and rounded out Will was new. He hadn’t seen Will in a while but he had never seen him in a sexual way? Now just thinking about that round tank of a belly and how full it was, was doing something for him. Milo took himself off for a shower to work out those emotions. As he left, peeling off his clothes rapidly, he didn’t notice his phone buzz. It was a dm from Jai-eats which was simply a number and the message ‘Call me’.

[valwrites-stuff]

Hi, you write so beautifully for current James and I was wondering if I could request one, if that’s alright please? They both meet by chance and feel some connection towards each other. Reader isn’t very confident, but decides to give in and experience some loving even if it’s temporary and maybe not real. They spend an intense night full of passion, lots of emotions, different poses, etc. James is very sweet and worships all of her. They also talk to each other about everything and their bond only gets stronger. Day comes and he wakes up alone in bed as she left knowing that there never could be something between them. Feel free to add either a happy or sad ending. Thank you!! ❤️

So sorry this took me so long, I hope this is what you had in mind ❤️

Sweet connection

James Hetfield x Reader ☆ Fluff and Smut 

Beneath the fluorescent lights on the inside of the gas station, the day unfolds like a cracked vinyl record, the same monotonous tune repeating itself with every passing hour. You stand behind the counter, absentmindedly sorting through a delivery of tobacco products. It was just another boring day where customers came and went, each interaction as forgettable as the last.

“Hey, can I get one of these, please?” a voice calls out, breaking through your dull concentration.

You turn, expecting to see a tired regular or a bleary-eyed traveler seeking a caffeine fix. Instead, your heart leaps into your throat as you process the sight before you, the unmistakable silhouette of James Hetfield, standing in front of you with casual confidence.

You blink as the world suddenly dims, the buzzing lights and distant sounds fading into the background. “Oh, um... sure!" You manage, scolding yourself for how utterly starstruck you feel. You can practically feel your cheeks turning crimson.

James raises an eyebrow, a hint of a smirk curling at the corner of his mouth. “Is that a yes?” His voice was rich and deep, like the heavy thrum of a guitar riff, sending a delightful shiver down your spine.

“Y-yes! Right away!” you stammer, focusing your attention back to the display of cigars as if the neatly arranged packages would provide you with the composure you desperately need. Your fingers tremble as you fish one out, nearly dropping it twice before you turn around to the register and the Metallica frontman.

As you scan the item, you risk a glance at him. James was studying you with an amused expression, those piercing blue eyes strangely warm, as if they saw more than just a stranger. “You a fan?” he asks with a chuckle, seemingly being able to see right through you, leaning against the counter, his presence both intimidating and thrilling.

“Uh, yeah! I mean, I am, but—” you interrupt yourself, unsure how to express your admiration without sounding like a babbling fangirl. “I just didn’t expect to see you here. Like, in this... gas station,” she replied awkwardly.

He chuckles again, that rich sound echoing in your ears, and you can't ignore how his soft laughter makes you feel all fluttery inside. “Yeah, I tend to haunt the unlikeliest of places."

“I can see that,” you say with a shy smile, thankful that your voice seems to be regaining some of its earlier confidence. You hand him the sealed package and your fingers brush slightly, sending a jolt of electricity through you. His gaze lingers on yours, and time feels like it has hit the brakes.

He glances around, as if noticing for the first time how small and mundane the place is. “You know, it’s nice to get away from the limelight sometimes. Just bought a house around here. That's if you're wondering what I'm doing in a small town like this." 

His words take you by surprise. You had never expected to hear something so personal from a rockstar. It was as if he felt a strange sense of trust in you, despite knowing you are a fan.

"I can understand that, Mr. Hetfield," you reply, your voice trembling slightly. "It must be hard to live a life in the spotlight."

He nods, a hint of weariness in his eyes. "Yeah. Sometimes, it's nice to just be... normal, you know? To have a quiet place to retreat to."

"It's nice here, would you like me to show you around sometime?" You ask, the question spilling from your lips before you can stop it.

He looks at you, surprised, then a slow smile spreads across his face. "I wouldn't mind that," he says, his eyes twinkling.

"Well I...you know where you can find me." You smile and watch his curious features before he pays for his cigars and gas.

You talk for a few more minutes, your conversation flowing effortlessly despite your nervous demeanor.

As he turns to leave, you can't help but feel a strange sense of connection with him. Despite your vastly different lives, you share a common desire for peace and simplicity.

"Thank you." he says, a genuine smile gracing his lips. "It's nice to talk to someone who understands. Oh and call me James."

With that, he strides out of the gas station, leaving behind a lingering sense of wonder and an unexpected memory. As you watch his car disappear into the distance, you can't shake the feeling that you just had an encounter with a man who, beneath the rockstar persona, was simply a human being longing for simple connection.

You feel your gaze drawn towards the window, the cars passing by, a welcoming distraction from your rambling thoughts. Lost in your reverie, you barely notice the incessant buzzing of a phone.

Glancing down at your own, you realize with a start that it was not the source of the noise. Your eyes fall on the foreign device resting on the counter—James' phone. A sigh escapes your lips as you realize the predicament.

Tossing up your options, you decide to return the phone after work. You know you could inquire in town about his new abode or simply search for his distinctive car.

Curiosity mingles with a sense of anticipation as you plot your evening adventure. You'll find a way to make his forgotten phone a bridge, a chance to cross the space that separates you, a chance to maybe find your way into his life.

You clock out of work at the end of your shift and get into your car, ready to face your mission. As you drive your heart beats a little faster and after a few wrong turns, you finally navigate your way to a lakeside neighborhood, where the air carries the scent of pine and tranquility.

There you spot it, a sleek black luxury SUV parked in the driveway of a very modern style country house. You park your own car and step out, your pulse racing. As you approach the house, each step is a mixture of excitement and trepidation. What if he’s not home? What if he is? Would he even remember you?

You walk up to the front door, the air thick with anticipation and ring the doorbell. Moments later, the door swings open, revealing that familiar face. He blinks in surprise, and his eyes widen in recognition. "It's you!" he exclaims, and suddenly, the world fades away.

“Your phone,” you manage to say, holding it out like a peace offering. His soft laugh dances through the evening air.

"Oh wow, there it is, I had no clue where I left my phone, I was searching the whole house. Can't believe you went through all this trouble to bring it back to me despite not knowing where to find me...," he says, his voice filled with gratitude.

"It was no trouble at all...it's a small town you know..." you reply, trying to keep your cool despite the fact that you were standing in front of one of your biggest idols. "I just wanted to make sure you got it back."

"Well thank you, I appreciate it," James says, a small smile playing on his lips. "Would you like to come in for a drink? I feel like I owe you one."

You can't believe your luck. Not only are you standing at James Hetfield's front door, but now he is inviting you into his home. "Oh I...I would love to," you say, trying to keep the excitement out of your voice.

As you walk into his house, you can't help but take in every detail. A very rustic farmhouse style but at the same time very modern and the air was filled with the faint scent of incense. James leads you to the living room and offers some coffee which you gladly accept.

"So, I didn't get your name did I?" James asks from the kitchen, before taking a seat on the couch next to you after placing two cups of coffee on the wooden table in front of you.

"I'm Y/N," you reply, feeling a rush of nerves at the thought of actually having a conversation with him.

"Well, Y/N, I have to say, I'm impressed by your honesty and determination, I haven't even realized I lost my phone for the longest time, and that anyone who found it would respect my privacy is quite a rare thing I guess...," James says, his eyes meeting yours.

You feel your cheeks flush at his words. "Oh I promise I haven't touched it since finding it on the counter...I just couldn't let your phone go missing," you say, trying to sound casual.

James chuckles, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "Well, I'm glad you did. And who knows, maybe it was fate that brought us together. It's nice to get to know someone from around the area you know." 

You can't believe what you are hearing. Is James Hetfield actually flirting with you? You take a sip of your coffee, trying to calm your racing heart.

As the evening goes on, you talk and laugh, sharing stories and getting to know each other. And as the hours pass, you realize that maybe, just maybe, this chance encounter at work could turn into something more for real.

"You know I'm having quite a hard time these days, after my recent divorce..." James says as he's staring ahead as if to avoid your gaze despite deciding to tell you about his personal problems.

"Oh I'm sorry to hear that. I can only imagine how difficult it must be for you," you reply sympathetically, reaching out to touch his hand in a gesture of comfort.

"Yeah, it's been tough. I never thought I would be going through something like this. I thought she was the one, you know?" James says, his voice filled with a hint of sadness.

"I understand. It's never easy when a relationship comes to an end, especially when you thought it would last forever," you say, trying to offer some words of encouragement.

"I just feel a little lost, like I put so much of myself into that relationship, and now it's gone," James tells you.

"It's okay to feel that way, James. It's all a part of the healing process. Just remember that you are not alone, and there are people who care about you and want to help you through a difficult time," you say, squeezing his hand gently.

"I appreciate that, I really do. It's just hard, you know." James says.

"Take it one day at a time. Allow yourself to process your feelings. And remember, there is always hope for a brighter future, even in the darkest of times," you say, offering him a small smile of reassurance.

"Thank you for listening, and for being here for me. It means more than you know," James says, finally meeting your gaze with a look of gratitude in his eyes.

"Of course, James. I want to see you happy. You deserve nothing less," you say, giving his hand one final squeeze before letting go.

As you sit in silence, the weight of James' words hanging in the air, you realize that sometimes the greatest act of kindness is simply being there for someone in their time of need. And in that moment, you know that you will do whatever it takes to help James find his way back to happiness. As much as you can do that is.

"Thank you, really. I'll be fine, I just had to get away for a bit, so I came here and bought this house. You know a place I can come back to whenever I need to clear my head for a while."

"You sure made the right decision like you'll love it here and this view? Look at that, it's fantastic." Admires the sight out of the large windows, giving you an amazing overview of the lake outside. 

As you stare out into the scenery, James nods but keeps his eyes on you, having a much better view, admiring the person in front of him, yearning for something that makes him feel desired and something that reminds him of his once felt love towards someone. 

The sun dips below the horizon, painting the sky in hues of orange and pink, reflected in the still surface of the lake. "I know it's beautiful," James says, his voice calm and soft, "but not quite as beautiful as you..."

You turn your head, catching the warmth in his gaze. He had moved closer, his arm resting against the back of the sofa, his hand gently resting on your thigh. A shiver runs down your spine, not from the cool air, but from the intensity of his eyes.

"James..." you breathe, your heart hammering against your ribs. He doesn't speak, simply leans in, his lips coming to brush yours in a feather-light touch. His kiss was slow, a gentle exploration, tasting of the unspoken desires.

You feel a rush of emotions flood through you as you melt into his touch. The world around you seems to fade away as you lose yourself in the moment. His hand moves from your thigh to cup your cheek, his thumb gently caressing your skin.

You can feel the heat between you, the electricity crackling in the air. It seems to be a moment of pure connection, a moment where everything else ceases to exist. You can feel his heartbeat against your chest, matching the rhythm of your own.

You kiss him back eagerly as he pulls you closer. And then, suddenly, he grabs your leg and pulls you into his lap, holding onto your thighs to keep you seated.

His touch is electric, sending a jolt of desire through you as you look into his eyes, dark with desire. "Do you want this?" he whispers against your lips, his breath hot against your skin.

You nod, unable to form words as you lean in to kiss him again. The connection between you is intense, a fire burning between you that threatens to consume you both.

Breaking the kiss for a moment, you look into his eyes and whisper, "Yes, I need this..."

And with that, you surrender yourself to the passion that had been building between you, letting go of all inhibitions as you give yourself over.

You can feel James' hands grabbing onto your hips, pulling you closer to him, body pressed against his. The contact is making you shiver and your heart pound in your chest. 

His lips find your neck, placing hot kisses on your skin and you moan softly, hands moving to the hem of his shirt, fingers finding their way underneath the fabric, feeling his warm skin. 

Your touch makes goosebumps rise on James' skin, his lips moving to your ear, breath hot against your flesh.

"You're so fucking sexy," he whispers, his hands moving to your thighs, fingers digging into them. You bite your bottom lip, hands wandering to the front of his pants, your fingers nervously fumbling with his belt. You can already feel the hardness through James' jeans, your body influenced by the action.

You let out a soft breath as your digits finally manage to undo his belt, hand slipping inside his pants, your fingers wrapping around his hard cock.

"Fuck, Y/N," James gasps, his hips bucking into your hand. You start to stroke him, hand moving up and down his length, your thumb brushing over the head of his cock, spreading the precum that had leaked out. You can feel him getting harder in your palm and you lean forward once more, lips finding his, your tongues dancing together as you continue to stroke him.

"I want you, James," You whisper against his mouth and James lets out a soft groan, his large hands moving to your ass, pulling you closer to him.

"I want to feel you inside of me." You murmur into the kiss. "Fuck, if you continue doing this, I'm gonna cum," James moans as you can feel him getting closer. 

He lets out a soft sigh, his hands moving to your shirt, undoing the buttons. You squeal internally as he removes it from your shoulders, hands going to your bra, undoing the clasp. As the bra falls away, James's hands replace it, cupping your petite breasts, thumbs gently brushing over peaked nipples. He kneads the soft flesh, his touch both possessive and adoring. "You're so beautiful," he whispers, his lips finding yours again, his kiss tender and deep.

You moan into the kiss, body trembling with need. James's expert touch drives you wild, and you can feel your pussy getting wetter by the second. You pull away slightly, eyes dark with desire. "James, please."

In response, James moves to gently push you down onto your back, bare skin touching the texture of the sofa and your legs wrapping themselves around his waist. 

He kicks off his shoes before pulling the shirt over his head, your eyes locked on his delicious appearance, body well maintained, tattooed arms strong and ready to keep you in place.  

James's hands move to the waist of your pants, quickly undoing the button and pulling the zipper down. With a swift motion, he peels the pants off, leaving you in only a pair of skimpy lace panties.

James gazes at your naked body, a look of appreciation on his face. "You're gorgeous," he breathes, his eyes raking over your form. "I can't wait any longer."

With that, James is on his feet and quickly sheds the rest of his own clothes, his cock erect and proud, throbbing with need. "I want you inside of me," you murmur.

Groaning, James climbs back onto the sofa, hovering over your body, hooking his inked fingers into the waistband of your panties before pulling them down your legs. Left bare, he situates himself between your spread legs. He rubs his tip teasingly against your wet entrance, causing your hips to buck instinctively. "You want it, baby?" he asks, his voice thick with desire. "Tell me how much you want this." 

"I want it so bad." You pant, eyes fixed on where both of your bodies join. "Please, fill me up. I need to feel you, take me hard."

James doesn't need to be told twice. With a savage growl, he plunges deep into your tight and welcoming heat. You cry out, your back arching off the sofa as you feel every inch of James's thick cock filling you up.

He starts to move, his hips snapping as he establishes a steady rhythm. Your hands grasp his ass, pulling him closer, urging him to go deeper. "Fuck me, James," you moan, voice breathy. "Harder, please."

James complies, slamming into you needily with each powerful thrust. Your eyes roll back in your head as you cling to James, nails digging into his flesh. "That's it, baby," James growls, his hands holding onto your thighs, spreading them wider to allow even deeper penetration. "Take it all. You're doing so good."

The sound of your flesh slapping together fills the room, accompanied by your whines of pleasure. James leans down, capturing a swollen nipple with his mouth, sucking and biting gently as he continues to thrust. "You gonna cum for me?" he urges, his voice rough. "Let me feel you come around my cock."

Your soon to be happening orgasm hits you like a freight train. You cry out, body shaking uncontrollably as waves of pleasure washes over you. James feels your pussy clenching rhythmically around his cock, milking him, and it's all he can take. With a few more powerful thrusts, he spills himself deep inside of you, moaning freely as his release coats your gummy walls.

Collapsing onto your sweaty body, James tries to catch his breath, his own body slick with sweat. Your arms wrap around him, a satisfied smile on your face. "That was incredible," you whispered, stroking James's silver hair.

James chuckles, pressing a soft kiss to your shoulder. "We're not done yet," he promises, already feeling his cock stirring again. "I have a feeling this night is going to be very long and very satisfying."

And it was. James and you explore each other's bodies with relentless passion, discovering new ways to pleasure each other with each passing hour. It was a night of uninhibited desire, one that both would remember with intense satisfaction for a very long time.

The sheets were a tangled mess, and your bodies were spent, but the smile on your faces said it all. It was a night of pure, unadulterated, erotic bliss but it all seemed to end too soon when James awoke in his bed by early morning, left with nothing but a cold and empty mattress next to him, your presence still lingering in every cell of his body, making him let out a sigh as he stares at the ceiling wondering when he deserves to feel that certain kind of happiness again, not just for one simple night but for a brighter future.

But little did he know that you would come back with a warm smile and a fresh breakfast waiting for him, driving all the way to the best bakery in town by early morning, hoping he would still be asleep and not sad about your disappearance. And after the sun rises he would be one happy man with wonderful hopes for the future. 

[fuck-customers]

If you don't want to tip your delivery drivers then don't order delivery. You are screwing us over, we lose money bringing food to you for free because we get paid less than minimum wage on the road. Yeah I know the delivery fee sucks but don't punish your driver for it.

And remember that delivery is a PRIVILEGE if you can't afford it or don't want to pay for it then you need to use your own car and gas money to drive to the store and pick your own shit up. I also have bills to pay. Thanks!

Posted by admin Rodney

[kittyoverlord]

Behold my cat!

Also, I'm really struggling financially - I thought I would be reimbursed for some thing by now and am still waiting on that payment.

I know a lot of people are struggling right now, but I'm hoping I can get like, 20 bucks for gas, maybe a bit more for some groceries and the disability tax of needing to do delivery. Anything would help.

I'm working on getting a commission post together, but that's gonna take a bit, so I wanted to get this out. I do crochet/knitting and can make plushies, earrings, etc. Feel free to message me.

V nmo - @ oliver-rose-1

PPal - kittyoverlord @ gmail

Thanks in advance for reading. <3

[gasonrepublic]

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Reliability: Unlike electricity, which may be prone to disruptions during storms or grid failures, LPG can be stored on-site, ensuring a continuous and uninterrupted energy supply, even in adverse conditions.

Portability: LPG is highly portable, making it ideal for off-grid applications or locations where access to traditional energy sources may be limited. From camping trips to remote construction sites, its portability enables users to enjoy the benefits of energy wherever they go.

Affordability: In comparison to other energy sources, LPG often proves to be a cost-effective option. Its competitive pricing, coupled with its energy efficiency, translates to significant savings for consumers over time. Additionally, the availability of LPG in both bulk and cylinder form provides flexibility in purchasing options.

Low Maintenance: Its equipment typically requires minimal maintenance compared to alternative energy systems. Propane appliances are known for their durability and longevity, reducing the need for frequent repairs or replacements. This translates to additional cost savings and peace of mind for users.

Safety: Propane has built-in safety features, such as odorants that make gas leaks easy to detect. Moreover, modern LP gas equipment is equipped with advanced safety mechanisms to prevent accidents and ensure user protection.

Independence: Unlike centralized energy systems, which are subject to external factors and potential disruptions, LP gas users have greater control over their energy supply. This autonomy fosters resilience and self-sufficiency, particularly in rural or off-grid settings.

Renewable Potential: While LPG is traditionally derived from fossil fuels, advancements in technology have paved the way for renewable propane. Renewable propane, produced from sustainable sources such as biomass or hydrogen, offers a greener alternative without compromising performance or reliability. Embracing renewable propane underscores a commitment to environmental stewardship and a transition towards a more sustainable energy future.

In conclusion, the myriad advantages of LP gas position it as the ultimate energy choice for consumers and businesses alike. Whether for residential, commercial, or industrial purposes, embracing LP gas promises to deliver optimal energy solutions for the challenges of today and tomorrow.

[gabessquishytum]

Hob runs a Lamaze class and he sees a cute and heavily pregnant man who's with a lady who he knew as Death (he got scared when he found out her name, but it turns out she's a hospice nurse and she helps people to passed away peacefully) and she introduced him to her brother Dream (who is a sleep consultant that helps people who have dreams and have trouble sleeping). Just Hob helping the pregnant man deal with being a single parent.

Such a cute concept!!! I really love the idea of fitness instructor Hob. But he's not like one of those toxic gym bros. He's all about helping people, which is why he got trained in lamaze techniques and now runs the classes. He always encourages the prospective parents to do whatever birth strategy works for them in the moment - he just wants to give them to tools to make labour and delivery a good experience.

Dream appears very confident, on the surface. Hob is super impressed by how much Dream already knows and how prepared he seems to be. He manages to learn throughout the weeks that Dream is a trans guy, that the baby was unplanned, and that the other parent won't be in the picture. Dream insists that he'll have a drug free birth and that he'll raise his child single-handed. All offer of help are dismissed. Although he does grudgingly take Hob’s phone number, just in case.

Hob gets a call at a little before 4am. It's Dream; he's in labour and he can't reach Death, maybe her phone died? Dream is panicking a little. Hob soothes him as much as he can, hurriedly gets dressed, and rushes over to reach Dream. He's hoping there should be time to go to the hospital, but... when he arrives, Dream is waaaay further along than Hob had expected. Hob calmly explains that it's okay - Dream can have the baby here, they'll call an ambulance, everything will be ok.

Dream doesn't take the news well. He's suddenly decided that he wants an epidural, gas and air, the whole works - Hob doesn't bother explaining that that is now impossible. He gets Dream on all fours and makes him channel all his righteous anger into pushing. It honestly doesn't take much at all - Dream’s baby arrives right into Hob’s waiting arms. Soon, they're all scooped up into the ambulance, and Dream is finally reunited with Death at the hospital.

Hob is delighted to see the little family doing so well. He's totally in love with Dream and the baby, and although he tries to sneak away and give them some peace, he is imperiously summoned back to Dream’s side. "I think I might need you." Is all Dream says. But Hob couldn't be more thrilled - it's all he's ever wanted.

[cchickki]

Wounds

summary: After another successful (and bloody) convoy delivery, Furiosa and Jack retire to a quiet place to patch up their wounds

themes: hurt/comfort, intimacy, affection

pairing: furiosa x praetorian jack

rating: T - for descriptions of injuries and blood

word count: 1.8k

author's note: Here I am after declaring I would be taking an indefinite (possibly permanent break from writing fanfiction, but these two got me to come back and write again. I've seen this movie twice already, and plan on seeing it again in a few days, just for THEM.

part two - seed

part three - poison

oneshot under the cut, can also be read on ao3

Furiosa kept her eyes trained on the sky, as much of it as she could see from her current angle. Some rocks above her and Jack's little nestled hideaway within the Citadel had obscured her full field of view. She sat above an escarpment, watching as nightfall swept across the Wasteland; the moon illuminated the darkness, as shadows danced across the miles and miles of outstretched sand in the horizon. The dropping temperature made Furiosa want to huddle closer to the dimly lit campfire. 

"I'm almost done." Jack's rasped voice cut into her wandering thoughts, as if reading her mind of wanting to move closer to the fire.

Furiosa winced slightly as Jack dabbed the liquor-soaked rag onto her skin, smothering her fresh cuts as she fought to hold complete composure, clasping her shirt closer to her chest. She avoided Jack's steely gaze as he inspected her exposed skin underneath her collarbone, and the exposed shoulder blades of her back. Gashes that needed to be stitched were etched across her upper body, but underneath her collarbone the wound still remained split open and deep enough to need stitching.

"I'm going to need to stitch this one, too." Jack informed her, his voice low and gentle.

Furiosa recalled how she had gotten the gash across her chest, sourly. She had gotten sloppy with today's delivery.

A group of raiders had ambushed the war rig returning from Gas Town, riding up at their heels and leaping aboard the war rig swiftly. It wasn't a large group, but they were skilled and had easily killed the war boys that were traveling on the rig with them. Furiosa had climbed toward the back of the rig to assist, seeing from the rearview mirror that they were quickly advancing toward her and Jack. One of the raiders had a large spear, ready to pierce through the driver's seat and into Jack's body, as Jack kept his attention mainly on steering the rig. Furiosa had grabbed the spear, jerking it away from Jack's direction, but the raider had speedily grabbed a sheathed dagger from their body, and slashed Furiosa with it in a quick, turning motion. The force was enough for her to stumble back, yanking the spear from the raider's hands as her free hand clasped her now bleeding wound. She gained her bearings again as the raider lunged at her with the dagger, side-stepping him and using his momentum to push him forward and into the railing. She removed her revolver and shot him in the back of the head before he could whirl around and attack again.

It had been foolish. Furiosa had cursed herself, knowing she was usually more efficient in a fight, but seeing that spear aimed at Jack had made her heart leap fearfully in her throat. She didn't understand why he had this effect on her, she had never felt like this, she couldn't explain it. All she knew is she had to prevent him from being injured, and in turn it caused her to not be cut once, but twice.

But she would gladly take more cuts if that meant Jack was safe. They were a team.

Jack wasn't like most of the men she had met in her life: they had been crazed, power-hungry, bloodthirsty, and dangerous. They threatened not only her life, but the lives of those around them who, whether intentional or not, stood in the way of what they wanted. But Jack was different. He was calm, determined, and caring in his own way. He had promised some weeks before that he would help her with finding her way home, even though she had remained tight-lipped about The Green Place. No one could know, it was too risky to expose her home to anyone, even Jack. He hadn't pushed her further, much to her surprise. She was grateful in ways she couldn't form into words. Her trust and admiration for him had only grown, and she suspected he felt the same but didn't dare ask.

Furiosa's drifting thoughts had returned to reality as Jack began to stitch the wound above her chest. It stung, but she kept herself still as she slowed her breathing as he pierced the needle through her skin, looping the suture thread to pull her skin together. His eyes glanced up to meet hers for a moment before she dropped her gaze again.

She noticed a tear in Jack's clothing on his arm revealing a deep, bleeding cut. Her hands reached, gingerly pulling back the fabric of his clothing to get a better look. 

"You're bleeding." She murmured allowed.

His attention from stitching her wound didn't waver, his eyes remained on his work. Without moving her upper body too much, she reached for the liquor-soaked rag that had been placed beside her. He pulled his focus away then, gripping her wrist before she could raise it.

"Later, let me finish this first." He remarked.

She didn't protest, releasing the rag. It took him a few more minutes for him to finish, dabbing some leftover whiskey onto a long piece of gauze, then placing it over her newly-stitched wound. She closed her eyes, once again forcing composure as she felt it burning the surface of her skin. He removed the gauze, discarding it beside them. Furiosa reached for his arm again, her fingers gently prodding around his exposed cut. Jack removed his jacket and shirt underneath, she watched him slow his movements and wince as he lifted his shirt over his head. His body was covered in bruises, and some superficial cuts on his arms, although the one gash on his arm was deep and needed to be mended. She grasped his wrist and forearm, inspecting the gash closely as she prepared to stitch it for him. She dabbed the gash with the rag, then prepared the sutures.

He watched her, his eyes softening as he drank in her appearance. Her hair was pulled back well above the nape of her neck, some strands coming down in wavy cascades. Some black grease from around her eyes and forehead remained that she had missed when she washed her face earlier. Her intense eyes focused on her fingers as she meticulously laced his skin back together. Her shirt pulled down past her collarbone, displaying the smooth slenderness of her neck.

Such beauty was a rarity in the Wasteland; the first moment he laid eyes on her true self he swore the wind had been knocked out of him for a moment.

She was captivating.

Jack's free hand reached for her absentmindedly, caressing her exposed bicep. His calloused fingers felt rough against her smooth skin. She didn't pull away from the sensation of his touch, enjoying the contrast and warmth for a brief moment as she continued to work with the sutures. Furiosa took a deep breath, stilling her mind and slowing her heartbeat as his hand inched its way up to her shoulder. He grasped her shoulder, his thumb rubbing her skin back and forth in slow, comforting motions. Curiosity had taken hold of him, but she welcomed it. Furiosa leaned forward, wanting her proximity to be closer to him. His hand slipped to her upper back, pulling her closer into an embrace. She had no choice but to release the sutures, his half-completed stitches hanging loosely from his skin, but he didn't seem to pay it any mind. She leaned her head against his chest by his shoulder, her head tucked into the crook of his neck. His good arm held her, stroking her back as he rested his chin on her shoulder, closing his eyes and relishing the moment between them. She could feel his strong and steady heartbeat and his chest rise and fall under his chest as she buried her face further into him, breathing in his earthy scent.

They remained like this for some time before she finally pulled away, feeling him shift slowly in reluctance. Her eyes peered into his as her hand gripped the back of his head as she pulled their foreheads together. His hands cupped her face, cradling her so delicately that it made warmth bloom in the pit of her stomach. Her hand combed through the strands of his hair as she raised her head slightly, their faces inches from each others. Her breath hitched as she allowed herself to be vulnerable, the walls she built for herself coming down.

Their lips met, soft but chaste as the two of them pulled away for a second in disbelief. Furiosa and Jack both gazed at each other, unsure of what to do next. It didn't take more than a few moments for them to reunite, this time they kissed more hastily, their affection growing hungrier. Jack held her face again as his kisses deepened, her lips parting as she gasped for breath. His hands dropped from her face to explore her body, ignoring the stitching pulling on his arm as he wrapped his arms around her. Her hands found his face, running her fingers against the stubble on his face, along the scar that ran across his right cheek, uncaring about the black grease from his face smudging on her hands. Something ignited within her, her heart fluttered with a ferocity she hadn't experienced in years. A moan escaped her lips, meek and low, but enough to motivate Jack's kisses into a more passionate display of desperation. She felt like she could melt into him; mold a part of herself into his skin as their bodies clung to each other, their hands gathering each other greedily, their breathing becoming more labored.

The feeling of something hot and warm gave her pause as Furiosa gripped Jack's forearm. She broke apart from him to glance down, seeing blood seeping freely from where his incomplete stitching was. The movement had caused some of his stitches to tear. Jack followed her eyes down to his arm; she saw a small smile pull at the corner of his lips before his expression relaxed.

"I didn't even notice," he mused.

A ghost of a smile crossed Furiosa's lips as repositioned herself so she could finish her work. The two praetorians sat in silence as she cleaned his bleeding wound with the rags, finishing with the sutures and checking it over to ensure it wouldn't tear again. She dabbed the rag with more whisky, the overpowering stench of liquor flooding her nose as she gently dabbed his arm with it. He didn't stir from the discomfort, his eyes remained on her in admiration. 

Jack's hand brushed the side of her cheek, drawing her attention back toward him. 

"Thank you." He breathed.

Furiosa only nodded, taking his hand he had on her face, keeping it pressed to her. She leaned into him again, embracing him as the camp fire started to die down, nestling into his body for warmth. He returned the hug, pressing a soft kiss to her forehead.

The two of them remained in that position until they grew tired, laying their backs against the ground, still holding each other as sleep began to drift over them, lulling them into a peaceful night's rest.

For the first night in years Furiosa wasn't plagued by nightmares. She hadn't felt this safe and alive in ages.

[the-seelie-court-official]

let me give you a tip that works to make you nicer to be around even if you're usually a mean ashhole on purpose. treating customer service employees like fellow people sometimes gets u free shit

examples:

cashier at the grocery store rang up my trail mix for like half of what it was worth because it wouldn't scan. idk if my using good-manner-words helped but it certainly didnt hurt

lady giving me hot food at the gas station gave me all the chicken they had left and extra jalapeno poppers simply because i took the time to make small talk about the weather and driving in it and listened to her talk about her family

when i was a delivery driver there were dozens of fast food workers that would let me have free soda simply because they could, but if i hadn't taken the time to actually talk to them instead of just saying 'grubhub' they might never have thought to offer me a cup

[eyeofnewtblog]

Things that happen at work:

So. The trucking company that I work for does deliveries for a national grocery chain. That chain has very specific food requirements, and they will reject a delivery for very minor reasons (one corner of one box is damaged, entire pallet of food gets rejected kind of thing) and the company always gives employees first crack at taking home whatever it is.

After that, it honestly depends on what the item is and what the actual expiration date is, as well as how much of it there is.

But here’s the thing…the company leaves it to the discretion of the employee WHICH organizations get the food donations. Meaning that the company would be happy to write off donations but ultimately everything is going in the trash anyway, so why bother dedicating a person to handle it…So, if, per say, I were to let a buddy of mine at a food bank know that we have x amount of y product that was rejected by the major chain, I would have to wait 3 full business days before I could call him and have him haul away everything he can carry.

Some of my coworkers just want one or two things for themselves; some of them rely on not buying certain things because the get them in bulk from the rejected orders... But the ultimate idea is to get the warehouse cleaned by the expiration date, and the company itself doesn’t actually care if they get to write the waste off or not; we as a company need to actually free up space, so the sooner perishable goods are gone, the better.

So about nine years ago I was very much homeless, and even after I got back on my feet, I was still relying on predominately Christian food banks and snap to feed myself; I’m not proud of it, but it was also a period of my life where an older gentleman who barely knew me outside of work called me “the Queen of Making Do” just based on casual interactions where I criticized HIM for spending too much money on frivolous things. (We both ate ‘gas station breakfast’ and were arguing about what was the lowest calorie vs highest protein, with the understanding that neither of us had an actual fridge to store food in)

All of this to say, I’ve just reached out to the three organizations that I used to eat/get groceries from to let them know that I have access to resources for people still reliant on them.

I don’t know what will happen yet, but I’m honestly so thankful to be giving back in a minor way. I’m thankful to the people that loved me when I was worth less, even though they barely knew me.

Even if they don’t get back to me, there are so many organizations that will be willing to come get the perishable items…fuck, I don’t have money but this is such a great way to give back.

For every organization that I find, I just have to get a receipt off of them and give it to HR Lady and she can work out the taxes.

My corporate boss gets to have the write off, but I’m finding that write off on the clock, and it’s all going in the trash anyway, might as well find a mouth to feed no matter what.

[seat-safety-switch]

Ever since Joey Tomassino got put into reconstructive surgery by an errant pepperoni chub, I've been nothing but deeply respectful of the power of pizza. While the incident happened in childhood, it's those formative memories that have a way of sticking with you forever, etched into your very being. For years, my wife would ask why my hair stood on end every time we drove past a Pizza Hut.

In a time long past, pizza delivery was a common teenage job. You'd have a cheap car, cheap gas, cheap insurance, and copious free time to spend shipping baked dough around your suburban neighbourhood. If the occasional accident happened, that's okay, they don't have that much experience driving and they have to make that 30-minutes-or-it's-free guarantee.

Sadly, the era of the cheap car, cheap gas, and cheap insurance has faded, and pizza delivery is now done by a faceless series of automatons that summon a precariously-employed worker from a white-goods industrial kitchen wedged between two Amazon drone-delivery warehouses. Give them five stars, they earned it. They're taking a risk with their own lives, and let me explain why.

When I go pick up my own pizza from the local joint, I always take precautions. Nobody is getting mad at me if I take too long, except for perhaps the hungry folks waiting for it (I can always blame the teenager working the counter.) You might think it's silly to be as careful as I am, buckling up the pizza with its own little seatbelt and wedging a bunch of crap against it.

Have you ever had anything slide off your seat or fly into your windshield from aggressive braking? What if that were dinner? You can't take any chances with it. I must make sure that any hard cornering or sharp acceleration won't redistribute the toppings unfairly. It feels like I still could have done more, like I am taking a gamble on the survival of my family dinner every time I rip the handbrake in the middle of a playground zone.

I am just one person, though, and even the President has been thus incapable of dealing with the spate of third-degree hot cheese burns littering hospitals across this once-great nation-state. Write your representative. Get some action started on making sure that every car has a little thing to put pizza into. For the Joeys of the world.