#fuck it i’m gonna post about all my interests from now on

[ww2yaoi]

rewatched episode 1 of the pacific. instead of inundating you all with one bajillion posts I'm just gonna dump all my thoughts in one post per episode. here we go:

leckie’s letters to vera are a great narrative device even if they didn’t happen irl. establishes leckie as the thoughtful writer type and also provides a good excuse for voiceover narration that clarifies leckie’s thoughts and the headspace he’s in to the audience :D also really funny that irl vera was like we never met at church! I was protestant!

“when this is all over… let’s say a year from tonight” oh sweet summer child… but the way everyone in basilone’s family kind of knows shit is going to get fucked up and their faces fall but they can’t acknowledge it because they can’t scare each other. man

very interesting the different kinds of father figures that are shown in this show. the kindness and gentleness of men like eugene’s father and basilone’s father vs. the flippant and distant nature of leckie’s father… this show says a lot about family that the other shows don’t because they never focus on the homefront. makes the pacific very unique

eugene weeping in the very first scene he’s in… literally character of all time

I love the dynamic between eugene and his brother it’s soooooooo interesting

“thank you, gene, but I didn’t—” WHAT WAS HE GOING TO SAY!!!!! probably something about not needing a gift or a going away present… or not getting eugene anything in return

love the acting in the sid and eugene scene when sid says “you don’t have to worry about me” it’s so faaaaake his fake assssss the way the bravado is so put on and his smile falls and he looks worried for a moment like he is so scared. and eugene is just anime eyes so endeared with him for whatever reason that i don’t think he notices that sid is scared at all. they’re stupid boys and it’s all probably been exciting up to this point and eugene probably admires sid for what he’s doing but it’s all going to come crashing down and I think you can see the first hints of collapse in the acting

the way they ask leckie what does this all mean why are we here and he chooses a homer quote that’s basically like don’t ask questions you don’t need external reasons or justifications just do it because it’s your duty to your country and that’s right and just. literally the most vague answer he could’ve given. he’s such a little shit

the entire second half guadalcanal part is so very excellent… maybe it’s just because I have a lot more context after reading sid’s book but I enjoyed it immensely and I’m surprised not more people talk about how good this part of the episode is

leckie getting called a dummy for almost falling off the rope ladder lmao can y’all be nicer to him please

I love the subversion of expectations in the landing scene. I know it happened like this irl but it almost feels like metacommentary on war media about the eto like saving private ryan and band of brothers. like if that’s our frame of reference we think this is the pto’s version of d-day, but it’s so anticlimactic. it’s no day of days it’s no saving private ryan opening scene. just goes to show what a different kind of war the one against japan will be and how the show will be different too

the night scenes are definitely difficult to comprehend sometimes in this show LMAO but to be fair the characters would also be discombobulated so we’re probably getting a glimpse at how it would be for them… nonetheless… it does take some focus to 1. identify which character it is (4 different whites we will deliberate) and 2. what are they doing and where are they going and what are they saying it’s so loud — like I never really noticed until now that sid is the leader of his mortar squad, or whatever positon is the one that calls the mortars

maybe a reach but it’s interesting how sid is framed as a witness to the nervous breakdown of that very gung-ho sergeant who was going on those aggressive racist rants in the troop ship before the invasion. did seeing that as well as lt. stone’s reaction to it (“he’s lost it”) contribute to some of his more reppressive coping mechanisms postwar… not wanting to think about it and not wanting to be seen as weak for being affected by it. keeping up the facade?

there's this shot near the end of the episode

and I always thought they were just burning japanese pictures and letters they found on the japanese soldiers but it's actually this from sid's book I believe:

much darker...

okay I think that's all I have to say stay tuned for my thoughts on ep 2 :)

[p1utofairy]

★ your next glow up?

note — i wasn't gonna post this now but i figured fuck it why not?! enjoy, my loves! this is for entertainment purposes only <3 take what resonates and leave what doesn’t. p.s. come in my ask box and tell me what you think!

PILE ONE.

pile mf ONE, you are really stepping into a new era! when i tell you this new you is gonna turn HEADS. tuh, you’re gonna be looking like new money. nicki minaj’s ‘new body’ verse is coming to mind lol “you ain’t fuck me, you fucked the old body. you ain’t fuck nicki, you fucked nicole body! ain’t no miles on this here new body, off with they heads these bitches is nobody’s.” OH YEAH OKAYYY, PILE 1. maybe you’ll be hitting the gym more, switching up your diet or possibly getting some cosmetic work done?

whatever you’re doing differently, it’s gonna be noticeable. people are gonna feel like something changed with you overnight like “um when did pile 1 get so bad?” and this isn’t to say you aren’t already attractive…there’s just something about your energy and confidence that just amplified x1000 and people are really gonna feel and see this change in you. you might start experimenting with your outfits a little more, giving off a more seductive vibe. it’s like you're breaking out of your comfort zone especially if you usually opt for baggier clothes or a more conservative look. wait cause why am i thinking of ‘pretty little liars’ when emily is talking to aria about hanna and she’s like “haven’t you heard? she’s the it girl now.” PERIOD, PILE ONE. giving serena page vibes from love island.

there will be a lot of talk about you and even if you don’t hear it directly, trust me, people are gonna try to keep tabs on you. i’m seeing people re-watch your instagram stories tryna figure out who took you that place and who you’re doing it with — oh these people are spiralingggg. this could very well be potential suitors tryna scope out the scenery, but they’re not sure if you’ll be interested in them. they might fear rejection because you just look so damn good and it looks like you’re in such a better space in life and got your shit together; whereas they feel like they lack the resources/finances to be with you. these potential love interests see you as high value, pile 1. they’re intimidated by your beauty and aura. you’ll be more so focused on attracting a partner that can actually make shit happen.

you don’t have time for the cat and mouse games. you want the real deal and i do see you getting the person that you want. you manifested this person into your life and i sense them feeling like they won the lottery with you! i’m hearing that you are sooo mesmerizing on the outside and your heart & personality makes you so much more beautiful. there’s layers to you and i think this next glow up will allow you to really shine and be yourself unapologetically – you’re leaning into the different aspects of yourself that makes you unique. if there’s anything you’ve got your mind set on or something specific you want to do, go for it! whatever you do, you’ll stand out effortlessly and be successful. say yes by floetry is coming to mind. “see, i’ve been watching you for awhile…your smile and style. wanna know if i can be with you for the night, alright.” i meannnnn need i say more?!

how to tap into this energy?

listen closely to your intuition! work on your third eye because i’m hearing that you’re a powerful manifester and you don’t even truly know it. even if you do know this, you start doubting yourself and limiting your own thoughts. always think big and bigger because it’s in your reach. don’t get so caught up in the “how?” because your manifestations can appear in many different ways, not just one. you have a clear vision into the future – you just gotta adjust your lens and focus on what it is that YOU want. who cares if it doesn’t make sense to anyone else, as along as you see the vision then it’s a go! listen to ‘i want it all’ by sharpay evans lol you need to embody that song and its energy.

PILE TWO.

hey, pile 2! i’m hearing you’ve been putting up with the bullshit for wayyyy too long and this next glow up is gonna be a proper FUCK YOU to all your haters! i feel like people take your kindness for weakness and you feel like you don’t get the respect you deserve. you can deal with a lot of passive aggression in your relationships or friendships and people expect for you to suck it up and be okay with it. what i’m mainly picking up is that you like to keep the peace. you don’t want to ruffle anyone’s feather, but it just makes it worse for you because you’re not truly expressing yourself and your emotions. this keeps you up at night like “ugh! i should’ve said this or I should’ve stuck up for myself and finally cussed so and so tf out.” but you don’t because you know why, pile 2? you’re better than them, simple as that.

you wouldn’t treat anybody how some people treat you, and the reality is that it’s so much harder to be nice than it is to be mean. anybody can be mean and say hurtful shit if they really wanted to, but to always be graceful and kind in the face of adversity and ignorance? rare af. +10000 aura points! don’t let anybody make you feel less than or like you can’t speak up for yourself. this next glow up you’re going to use your voice and really make it known that you are not to be fucked with, okay?! you will be standing your ground and really popping your shit in the most calm and collected way possible & people are gonna be like “wait…did [y/n] really just clock me like that?!” and you’re gonna be standing 10 toes down on it as you should. they’ll have no choice but to respect you lol. you will start to realize what is worth your time & energy and what isn’t.

you might start cutting off people that don’t mean you any good and really start to focus on yourself and your energy. no more walking on egg shells and sparing peoples feelings, this is YOUR life and you have a voice just as much as they do – so use it! i think you’ll also be meeting new friends & a potential love interest during this next glow up. i’m hearing ‘how stella got her groove back’ lol so yeah some of you might be playing the field a little bit.

some of you might just want something casual and nothing more because you just want to focus on your own healing journey. you’ll start to understand why things had to happen the way that they did & why certain relationships didn’t work out the way that you thought they would. you’ll be able to decipher what you are and aren’t willing to put up with and honestly i just see you bossing tf up and advocating for yourself no matter who doesn’t like it. that tiktok “nobody loves you baby! you should only love yourself – ON MY SOUL!” just randomly came to me lmfaooo this is your ‘i’m focusing on what really matters aka me’ era and i think it’s exactly what you need pile 2.

how to tap into this energy?

i think you need to transmute the negative energy that people try to project on you into something positive. 12:12 on the clock, yeah. like look at this way, if people doubt you, don’t respect you or don’t feel like your capable of achieving great things then use that to your advantage. let them underestimate you all they want, and then BAM boss up on them and show them who tf you are. what they don’t know only makes you stronger. you have the power to make some powerful ass connections and make a name for yourself so be calculated & strategic with your moves. people will be eating their words when it comes to you, pile 2.

PILE THREE.

pile 3 your next glow up is gonna be a bit of an emotional rollercoaster ngl, but very rewarding nonetheless. i’m hearing that one tiktok sound “you gotta take the good with the bad, smile with the sad. love what you got and remember what you had.” so yeah i think you’re really gonna be figuring out how to transmute your energy and create something from it – whether that be a job opportunity, a love offer, a trip, etc. there’s something that you really want and you’re doing the work to make it happen. you have the plan, you just need the platform lol.

for some of you, i see a major relationship coming to an end. this could be a lover or a best friend, but this person will be exposed because they’re not who you thought they were. this person has very sneaky/deceptive energy and you’ve been in the dark about this for way too long. this person/connection means a lot to you, so you will feel like this is a tough situation to completely walk away from; but my sweet pile 3’s you will be more than okay! you will be spectacular! 10:10 was just on the clock.

allow yourself to sort through your emotions and learn from the situation, don’t let it weigh you down. sometimes we get too caught up in how long we’ve been with somebody and all of the good memories we made with them, that makes us hesitant to move on. sometimes things just run its course and you’re no longer in alignment with that person. you can’t force anything or anyone in your life that doesn’t align with your highest self and that can be very hard to process when emotions are involved but i’m happy to let you know there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

i see some of you traveling to a place you’ve always wanted to go and possibly meeting a potential love interest. in this next glow up, you’ll be doing things that you’ve always wanted to do cause there’s no one holding you back. you’re stepping out of your comfort zone and just taking a leap of faith – high risk, high reward. you’re gonna be making time for yourself and also prioritizing your hobbies/interests. this is beautiful, pile 3. i see you really getting in touch with who you are at the core. be kind and gentle with yourself, because you are a precious gem that a lot of people value and care about.

how to tap into this energy?

stop giving your power away. work on your throat chakra, my loves. your voice is your power and it’s one of the major keys to your success. a closed mouth doesn’t get fed, so you need to speak up and communicate what it is that YOU want and not just say what people want to hear. this next glow up will really have you standing in your power. release is needed especially verbally cause you know that tight feeling you get in your throat when you’re tryna stop yourself from crying? yeah no more of that. no more walking on egg shells, pile 3. say what you feel and stand on it & watch how the tides turn in your favor. mwah!

PILE FOUR.

alright, pile 4! for this next glow up i see you moving. some of you might actually be moving into a new home or apartment and it’s gonna grant you so much peace and comfort. for others of you, this could be you moving on emotionally from a toxic relationship and/or familial bond and finally getting the clarity and peace you need to cut all ties and move onto something better. whatever the situation may be, it was weighing heavy on you and making you feel very down.

you’re gonna feel so free when you leave this situation behind, it’s not even funny. i’m hearing that you were a gilded bird in a cage. some of you could’ve been moving from place to place, not feeling quite settled or financially stable. if you feel lost right now and like you don’t know what to do with your life/where it’s taking you, i just wanna say keep going – W.A.Y.S. by jhené aiko is coming to mind. “if there's one thing that i learned while in those county lines, is that everything takes time. you have gotta lose your pride, you have gotta lose your mind just to find your peace of mind.” awww yeah that’s your theme song for this next glow up. things might not make sense right now, but please trust me when i say that everything is going to work out in your favor & things will be better than you could ever imagine.

you will be blessed with the tools you need to get to this next phase of your life. you are the source, pile 4. whatever you put your mind to, you can surely achieve! don’t let 3D circumstances throw you off, you are so abundant and prosperous you will see in this next glow up just how much of a powerful manifester you really are. you’re still trying to find yourself and figure out where you fit in in the world, but you don’t have to put yourself in a box, pile 4. pave your own way and once you do others will want to follow suit. no one can see your future the way that you do, so keep doing your thing because i’m seeing that you will come across people/friends that share similar interests and niches as you. awww pile 4 you’re going to find your soul tribe.

you have this flighty energy about you (air sign energy/esp gemini) like you’re from one thing to the next and you can’t figure out what you truly want to do. some of you might be in college or almost about to graduate and when people ask you “do you know what you want to do?” you’re like uhhhh….]>|>]^>.]€]€]£ like you truly don’t know but like that’s okay cause actually you do know! on a soul level, you know. what’s understood doesn’t have to be explained pile 4 lol people might not get it now but when you pop out living the life you’ve always dreamed of, TUH. they’ll understand then.

how to tap into this energy?

get out of your head so much and just vibe, pile 4. you can plan plan plan all you want but the reality is: shit happens! it might annoy you or make you feel incredibly frustrated when another problem or inconvenience pops up in your life, but there’s nothing you can’t overcome. it’s life. you will be greatful for these experiences in the long run because it will be another bridge that you’ve already crossed and dealt with, so you won’t fold under pressure – you’ll just already know what to do. you got this, pile 4. shit is about to get really good for you.

[moltengoldveins]

OK SO MY INCOHERENT THOUGHTS-

in case you didn’t know, humans have this interesting mental capacity we call the Uncanny Valley. Basically, once something hits a certain threshold of Close To Looking Human, instead of going “oh! That’s a human!” Our brains instinctively panic. They classify that thing as So Evil. Ultimate Evil, Actually. You Should Kill It Or Run.

This is not the case in most animals! which is why I call it a capacity. Once something looks generally like an animal? Said animals tend to accept it as another animal and move on.

The theory, and I cannot find where I read this unfortunately so I can’t quote it, but the THEORY, is that the reason we developed this was to be able to recognize when something was Off about people because they had rabies. If something is aaaaaalmost human, but Wrong? It’s not human! It’s a human with rabies.

Another theory I read is that we developed this ability to distinguish between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. These are both really interesting theories, but they’re also not what I was talking about in the above post.

Now, I’m gonna tackle the parasite thing first because it’s shorter. It’s a well known and documented phenomenon that diseases, especially diseases classified as parasites, get worse during the full moon. This is why moon madness is a thing. This is why hospice centers have a sort of mini lockdown during full moons.

Completely unrelated: did you know the herb Wolfsbane is one of the most commonly used herbal treatments for parasites? Yeah. Wild.

ANYWAY NOW FOR PRION DISEASES -

According to Wikipedia (not the best source, no, but this is a tumblr post fuck off) “Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies(TSEs), also known as prion diseases,[1] are a group of progressive, incurable, and fatal conditions…According to the most widespread hypothesis, they are transmitted by prions, though some other data suggest an involvement of a Spiroplasma infection.[2]Mental and physical abilities deteriorate and many tiny holes appear in the cortex causing it to appear like a sponge when brain tissue obtained at autopsy is examined under a microscope. The disorders cause impairment of brain function which may result in memory loss, personality changes, and abnormal or impaired movement which worsen over time.[3]”

prions are misfolded proteins that enter into a cell and start causing other proteins to misfold, leading to a cascading effect where every protein in the body is gradually replaced by a nearly identical protein that is entirely unusable. It’s not completely jumbled, either! It’s just…. Not quite right. It’s almost usable, but not. Almost human, but not.

This is the cause of chronic wasting disease in deer! The human equivalent is called Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease and it’s basically always fatal. It’s largely localized in the nervous system - twitching, delusions, pain, spasming, all from the slowly forming web of tiny holes in your brain tissue and nerves as the cells die of starvation. Deer with CWD are…. Deeply wrong. Uncanny, you could say. They wander around in circles, they act aggressively or irrationally. It’s very similar to rabies.

Now, prion diseases and rabies aren’t necessarily related, except for the fact that they’re both transmitted from animal to animal and that they’re difficult or impossible to cure, but the sensation that accompanies seeing a rabies victim or seeing a deer infected with chronic wasting disease is the same. It’s the Uncanny Valley. It’s that sense deep in your subconscious that something is wrong. That is not a deer. That is not a dog.

That is not a person.

I thought about that, and I realized I think that’s what vampirism is. It’s when you look at something and you realize that - though it looks human - creeping through its blood, through its nerves, is a misfiring of code. There is something wrong. That is not a person, that is a walking transmission of Other, of Bad Data, a shambling glitch self-generating outward into infinity until the host is dead and the pattern spins itself out. It ties into the nature of vampirism as something that freezes you in place: humans are capable of growth, of change, of life. A vampire is just… a repeating pattern that’s Wrong.

I’m fascinated by the fact that a prion is simply a misfolded protein. It’s literally not even alive. It’s not hostile. It’s not broken or aggressive it’s… just a mistranslation. If said misfolded protein were somehow fold itself in such a way as to be not beneficial, but not fatal to the body either, the disease would no longer be an unfortunate tragedy. It would be transformative. It would rewrite. It would wiggle itself down to the very smallest bits of you, would change them from the bottom up, would infect others through a very similar manner as a classic a vampire or werewolf. Saliva. Blood.

How much does one’s DNA affect one’s personhood? You can’t attribute every human flaw and failing to genetics, but I just found out I have a genetic condition that prevents my body from metabolizing a vital amino acid. The code doesn’t match. The acid can’t transform properly. I have to take it artificially, and now that I am, I am a shockingly different person to be around, but I can’t tell. I literally cannot perceive that I am a different person now, except for the moments when I see other people’s reactions to me shift in real time, and I realize that I’ve been doing something deeply ‘out of character’ for unmedicated me.

If someone were to have every cell in their body replaced, one by one, with a cell whose DNA was translated into a completely different genetic ‘language,’ despite said cells fulfilling the same purpose and holding the same memories…. Would they be a person? Ship of Theseus this shit, is that the person they were or is it something Else? What if those cells CAN fulfill the same function, but they’re also stronger, faster, smarter, more capable of growth and development? Are they still a human? Are they still the same human?

As someone who believes that humans have souls, I want to say that that wouldn’t matter, that they would still be the same person. But I ALSO believe that the nature of the soul and the nature of the body are intertwined. If the body changes into something inhuman, do you still have a human soul? Or is it a different kind of soul? Has the soul left the now foreign environment, leaving only a facsimile to puppet itself around in its absence?

In ‘conclusion,’ um. I’m. I’m face blind. I cannot properly perceive human faces, and because of that, I am, when with others, at all times experiencing the sensation of uncanny valley. It’s unpleasant, sure, but the real kicker? When I look in the mirror and see Not Human Bad Evil Run Hide staring back at me for a split second. It never gets easier. It never becomes normal. There’s always this uneasy sense around mirrors, that they’re off, that what I’m seeing isn’t real. That, one day, I might walk into a bathroom… and my reflection won’t walk in with me.

me, minding my business at work: boy I love making UV scanner bodies!

my brain: both lycanthropy and vampirism are prion diseases.

me:……………… holy fuck wait-

[sharlsworld]

⋆⭒˚.⋆ i go lower - ʟɴ4 ☆

✿ lando norris x influencer reader + ex bf charles & ex best friend alexandra

✿ charles leclerc just keeps proving how much of a red flag he is

ᵃᵘᵗʰᵒʳˢ ⁿᵒᵗᵉ ୨୧ this is actually bad, i kept losing motivation so i just wanted to end it i’m so sorry

🝮

🝮

two days after the monaco gp

f1wags

liked by landonorris and 29,617 others

f1wags charles with a mystery girl in monaco last night! trouble in paradise?

lordperceval that ain’t no mystery girl 😭

sharls_lerklerk thats alexandra saint mleux she’s y/n’s ex best friend

⤷ lady.georgerussell why’d they stop being friends?

⤷ sharls_lerklerk she got with her ex boyfriend before charles 😭

⤷ lady.georgerussell63 SHUT UP 😭

estiebestie charles red flag leclerc back at it again

ethereal.yn bop

tripod.gasly bro invented homie hopping

all4lando why is no one gonna talk about lando liking this post?

sharls.eclair bro got p1 his home race and don’t know how to act anymore 💀

♥︎ by landonorris

dannyric.canlickle LANDO??!

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ihateyn removed charles_leclerc and ynsbiggestfan as a follower

ihateyn unfollowed charles_leclerc and ynsbiggestfan

ihateyn

liked by lewishamilton and 92 others

ihateyn what the fuck i just woke up from my nap to my boyfriend out on a date with my ex best friend???

oscarpiastri I hate whores

francisca.cgomes i will cut his brakes

georgerussell63 Please dont cry queen I’ll run him off the track don’t worry

landonorris stand up

⤷ ihateyn i’m up

carlossainz55 Just say the word and I’ll make sure he’s never able to drive ever again I have nothing left to lose

lilymhe don’t be a little bitch

⤷ ihateyn you right you right

maxverstappen1 I’ll cut his dick off

sabrinacarpenter girl just tell me what to say and i’ll sing it for you dw

🝮

yn

liked by charlottesiine and 1,912,542 others

yn all in my lonesome

francisca.cgomes he who shall not be named better sleep with one eye open

lorenzotl Je t'aime petite soeur ❤️

⤷ yn i love you too enzo 🤍

⤷ sharlsworld “i love you little sister”

lilymhe once i get my hands on him it’s over for him

lewishamilton Chin up girl, You’ll be alright. sending all my love ♥️

⤷ roscoelovescoco yes’s we love’s you’s!

⤷ yn i love you two 🥹🥹♥️

arthur_leclerc i love you forever sista, my day 1 😇😇

⤷ yn my partner in crime always 🤞🏽

joris__trouche Been quiet since you left

⤷ yn come over whenever you want, you’re always welcome joris 🫶🏽

⤷ sharls_leclercussy gasping for air rn

chillinlikechili charlotte liked??

leclerc_pascale Ne sois pas triste, le soleil brillera à nouveau. Je t'aime pour toujours, viens bientôt tu me manques ♥️🥰

⤷ yn je serai bientôt fini maman je t'aime

⤷ sharlsworld pascale said “don’t be sad, the sun will shine again. i love you forever, come over soon i miss you” y/n said “i’ll be over soon mom i love you”

charleslovesyn ok but joris’ comment? my soul is weeping right now

🝮

yn

liked by danielricciardo and 3,082,561 others

yn 💌💐🎀🪩

landonorris who’s that handsome lad in the last slide? 😍

⤷ yn some bum i picked up on the side of the road

⤷ landonorris he looks absolutely yummy is he single 😈

⤷ yn get outta my comment section

leclerc_pascale Ma jolie fille! Tu me manques, douce fille 🤍🤍🤍

⤷ yn tu me manques aussi maman 💗

⤷ sharlsworld pascale said “my beautiful daughter! i miss you sweet girl” y/n said “i miss you too mom”

⤷ lovely_leclerc she’s literally the daughter she never had i’m sobbing 😭

alex_albon return him this instant

⤷ yn nahhhh

georgerussell63 Hmm interesting…

⤷ carmenmmundt Very interesting

landonorizz HELLLURRR WHY IS NO ONE TALKING ABOUT THE LAST SLIDE??

iactuallyhateyn moving on already?

⤷ yn can i not have guy friends?

lilymhe healing era rn revenge era coming soon trust guys 🥰

⤷ yn 😉

charlesismyman69 home hopping is crazy poor charles i hope he’s ok

⤷ landonorris yeah poor charles i wonder how he’s feeling after cheating on his girlfriend of 4 years with her ex best friend

⤷ oscarpiastri clocked him 🤣🤣

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charles_leclerc

liked by arthur_leclerc and 682,143 others

charles_leclerc Yawn

alexandrasaintmleux 😍😍😍

⤷ forzacharles GIRL

oscarpiastri get out my face bro 💀💀 this is so embarrassing and bad for your image how do you sleep at night

⤷ charles_leclerc very good beside the love of my life. now run along with your master you little lap dog

⤷ oscarpiastri cmon we all know you wish you were still her little lap dog 😂 and is she really the love of your life or the only girl around with no self respect??

⤷ mclaren Oscar please don’t make us take your social media away

landonorris oh that not-

maxverstappen1 Brotha eughh

lilymhe downfall era 💀🔥

⤷ hoeforsainzzz lily muni he & oscar piastri y/n defenders & charles haters: confirmed

♥︎ by lilymhe and oscarpiastri

estiebestie actually his downfall era though

lady.georgerussell erm what the sigma

carlando this should’ve stayed in the drafts

alex_albon this…not fye.

comments have been disabled

🝮

yn

liked by schecoperez and 5,592,781 others

yn life lately 🍉

leclerc_pascale My girl!! You’re like a breath of fresh air for my soul 🤍🤍

⤷ yn you always light up my day maman 🤍

♥︎ by leclerc_pascale

arthur_leclerc i totally won the diving contest idc what everyone else says

⤷ lorenzotl No I definitely did

⤷ yn you two basically belly flopped i won

scuderiaferrari We miss our girl! ❤️

♥︎ by author

charlottesiine cutie pie 😉😘🥰😍

⤷ yn your the reason why 🙂‍↔️

♥︎ by charlottesiine

landonorris fucked that pasta up

⤷ yn no sauce was detected on that plate after lunch

francisca.cgomes living for this

georgerussell63 I fear you won

⤷ yn 🥇🥇

forzacharles SCREAMING RIGHT NOW WHAT IS GOING ON

estiebestie pascale? arthur? lorenzo? charlotte? i’m deceased

carlossainzappendix she’s winning in life

🝮

yn

liked by danielricciardo and 11,017,535 others

yn worth the wait

landonorris i’d wait a million years for you

⤷ yn you’re to sweet to me

lilymhe this is the revenge era

maxverstappen1 That’s my favorite couple

francisca.cgomes WOOOOOO

leclerc_pascale My daughter deserves all the good in life 🥰 I love you my girl ❤️

⤷ yn i love you maman 💗

arthur_leclerc ❤️❤️

oscarpiastri Now I gotta deal with all the lovely dovey stuff

⤷ yn don’t act like your not happy about this

lewishamilton What did I say? Everything would be alright ❤️

⤷ yn so wise

lorenzotl My little star, you deserve all the love in the world 🌟💛

⤷ yn don’t make me cry enzo

joris__trouche 🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽

charlottesiine so happy for you pretty 💘

♥︎ by author

🝮

landonorris

liked by maxfewtrell and 8,719,932 others

landonorris i’ll find you in every lifetime

yn nothing can keep us apart

⤷ landonorris nothing at all

francisca.cgomes are we surprised? no

danielricciardo Tone down the pda in the paddock plz 🙏🏽

⤷ landonorris nah fam

carmenmmundt Awhh so happy for you two

⤷ yn marry me carmen

⤷ carmenmmundt I’ll meet you at the altar

⤷ landonorris i just got her and your already taking her away from me 💔

pierregasly Hittin the clubs tonight

lilymhe shoutout to those un loyal bitches!!

alex_albon george owes me 200 bucks

⤷ georgerussell63 Whatever

⤷ yn uh what

⤷ alex_albon i said his post would be more sappy then yours

⤷ landonorris i hate you both

[mostlysignssomeportents]

“Disenshittify or Die”

I'm coming to BURNING MAN! On TUESDAY (Aug 27) at 1PM, I'm giving a talk called "DISENSHITTIFY OR DIE!" at PALENQUE NORTE (7&E). On WEDNESDAY (Aug 28) at NOON, I'm doing a "Talking Caterpillar" Q&A at LIMINAL LABS (830&C).

Last weekend, I traveled to Las Vegas for Defcon 32, where I had the immense privilege of giving a solo talk on Track 1, entitled "Disenshittify or die! How hackers can seize the means of computation and build a new, good internet that is hardened against our asshole bosses' insatiable horniness for enshittification":

https://info.defcon.org/event/?id=54861

This was a followup to last year's talk, "An Audacious Plan to Halt the Internet's Enshittification," a talk that kicked off a lot of international interest in my analysis of platform decay ("enshittification"):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rimtaSgGz_4

The Defcon organizers have earned a restful week or two, and that means that the video of my talk hasn't yet been posted to Defcon's Youtube channel, so in the meantime, I thought I'd post a lightly edited version of my speech crib. If you're headed to Burning Man, you can hear me reprise this talk at Palenque Norte (7&E); I'm kicking off their lecture series on Tuesday, Aug 27 at 1PM.

==

What the fuck happened to the old, good internet?

I mean, sure, our bosses were a little surveillance-happy, and they were usually up for sharing their data with the NSA, and whenever there was a tossup between user security and growth, it was always YOLO time.

But Google Search used to work. Facebook used to show you posts from people you followed. Uber used to be cheaper than a taxi and pay the driver more than a cabbie made. Amazon used to sell products, not Shein-grade self-destructing dropshipped garbage from all-consonant brands. Apple used to defend your privacy, rather than spying on you with your no-modifications-allowed Iphone.

There was a time when you searching for an album on Spotify would get you that album – not a playlist of insipid AI-generated covers with the same name and art.

Microsoft used to sell you software – sure, it was buggy – but now they just let you access apps in the cloud, so they can watch how you use those apps and strip the features you use the most out of the basic tier and turn them into an upcharge.

What – and I cannot stress this enough – the fuck happened?!

I’m talking about enshittification.

Here’s what enshittification looks like from the outside: First, you see a company that’s being good to its end users. Google puts the best search results at the top; Facebook shows you a feed of posts from people and groups you followl; Uber charges small dollars for a cab; Amazon subsidizes goods and returns and shipping and puts the best match for your product search at the top of the page.

That’s stage one, being good to end users. But there’s another part of this stage, call it stage 1a). That’s figuring out how to lock in those users.

There’s so many ways to lock in users.

If you’re Facebook, the users do it for you. You joined Facebook because there were people there you wanted to hang out with, and other people joined Facebook to hang out with you.

That’s the old “network effects” in action, and with network effects come “the collective action problem." Because you love your friends, but goddamn are they a pain in the ass! You all agree that FB sucks, sure, but can you all agree on when it’s time to leave?

No way.

Can you agree on where to go next?

Hell no.

You’re there because that’s where the support group for your rare disease hangs out, and your bestie is there because that’s where they talk with the people in the country they moved away from, then there’s that friend who coordinates their kid’s little league car pools on FB, and the best dungeon master you know isn’t gonna leave FB because that’s where her customers are.

So you’re stuck, because even though FB use comes at a high cost – your privacy, your dignity and your sanity – that’s still less than the switching cost you’d have to bear if you left: namely, all those friends who have taken you hostage, and whom you are holding hostage

Now, sometimes companies lock you in with money, like Amazon getting you to prepay for a year’s shipping with Prime, or to buy your Audible books on a monthly subscription, which virtually guarantees that every shopping search will start on Amazon, after all, you’ve already paid for it.

Sometimes, they lock you in with DRM, like HP selling you a printer with four ink cartridges filled with fluid that retails for more than $10,000/gallon, and using DRM to stop you from refilling any of those ink carts or using a third-party cartridge. So when one cart runs dry, you have to refill it or throw away your investment in the remaining three cartridges and the printer itself.

Sometimes, it’s a grab bag:

You can’t run your Ios apps without Apple hardware;

you can’t run your Apple music, books and movies on anything except an Ios app;

your iPhone uses parts pairing – DRM handshakes between replacement parts and the main system – so you can’t use third-party parts to fix it; and

every OEM iPhone part has a microscopic Apple logo engraved on it, so Apple can demand that the US Customs and Border Service seize any shipment of refurb Iphone parts as trademark violations.

Think Different, amirite?

Getting you locked in completes phase one of the enshittification cycle and signals the start of phase two: making things worse for you to make things better for business customers.

For example, a platform might poison its search results, like Google selling more and more of its results pages to ads that are identified with lighter and lighter tinier and tinier type.

Or Amazon selling off search results and calling it an “ad” business. They make $38b/year on this scam. The first result for your search is, on average, 29% more expensive than the best match for your search. The first row is 25% more expensive than the best match. On average, the best match for your search is likely to be found seventeen places down on the results page.

Other platforms sell off your feed, like Facebook, which started off showing you the things you asked to see, but now the quantum of content from the people you follow has dwindled to a homeopathic residue, leaving a void that Facebook fills with things that people pay to show you: boosted posts from publishers you haven’t subscribed to, and, of course, ads.

Now at this point you might be thinking ‘sure, if you’re not paying for the product, you’re the product.'

Bullshit!

Bull.

Shit.

The people who buy those Google ads? They pay more every year for worse ad-targeting and more ad-fraud

Those publishers paying to nonconsensually cram their content into your Facebook feed? They have to do that because FB suppresses their ability to reach the people who actually subscribed to them

The Amazon sellers with the best match for your query have to outbid everyone else just to show up on the first page of results. It costs so much to sell on Amazon that between 45-51% of every dollar an independent seller brings in has to be kicked up to Don Bezos and the Amazon crime family. Those sellers don’t have the kind of margins that let them pay 51% They have to raise prices in order to avoid losing money on every sale.

"But wait!" I hear you say!

[Come on, say it!]

"But wait! Things on Amazon aren’t more expensive that things at Target, or Walmart, or at a mom and pop store, or direct from the manufacturer.

"How can sellers be raising prices on Amazon if the price at Amazon is the same as at is everywhere else?"

[Any guesses?!]

That’s right, they charge more everywhere. They have to. Amazon binds its sellers to a policy called “most favored nation status,” which says they can’t charge more on Amazon than they charge elsewhere, including direct from their own factory store.

So every seller that wants to sell on Amazon has to raise their prices everywhere else.

Now, these sellers are Amazon’s best customers. They’re paying for the product, and they’re still getting screwed.

Paying for the product doesn’t fill your vapid boss’s shriveled heart with so much joy that he decides to stop trying to think of ways to fuck you over.

Look at Apple. Remember when Apple offered every Ios user a one-click opt out for app-based surveillance? And 96% of users clicked that box?

(The other four percent were either drunk or Facebook employees or drunk Facebook employees.)

That cost Facebook at least ten billion dollars per year in lost surveillance revenue?

I mean, you love to see it.

But did you know that at the same time Apple started spying on Ios users in the same way that Facebook had been, for surveillance data to use to target users for its competing advertising product?

Your Iphone isn’t an ad-supported gimme. You paid a thousand fucking dollars for that distraction rectangle in your pocket, and you’re still the product. What’s more, Apple has rigged Ios so that you can’t mod the OS to block its spying.

If you’re not not paying for the product, you’re the product, and if you are paying for the product, you’re still the product.

Just ask the farmers who are expected to swap parts into their own busted half-million dollar, mission-critical tractors, but can’t actually use those parts until a technician charges them $200 to drive out to the farm and type a parts pairing unlock code into their console.

John Deere’s not giving away tractors. Give John Deere a half mil for a tractor and you will be the product.

Please, my brothers and sisters in Christ. Please! Stop saying ‘if you’re not paying for the product, you’re the product.’

OK, OK, so that’s phase two of enshittification.

Phase one: be good to users while locking them in.

Phase two: screw the users a little to you can good to business customers while locking them in.

Phase three: screw everybody and take all the value for yourself. Leave behind the absolute bare minimum of utility so that everyone stays locked into your pile of shit.

Enshittification: a tragedy in three acts.

That’s what enshittification looks like from the outside, but what’s going on inside the company? What is the pathological mechanism? What sci-fi entropy ray converts the excellent and useful service into a pile of shit?

That mechanism is called twiddling. Twiddling is when someone alters the back end of a service to change how its business operates, changing prices, costs, search ranking, recommendation criteria and other foundational aspects of the system.

Digital platforms are a twiddler’s utopia. A grocer would need an army of teenagers with pricing guns on rollerblades to reprice everything in the building when someone arrives who’s extra hungry.

Whereas the McDonald’s Investments portfolio company Plexure advertises that it can use surveillance data to predict when an app user has just gotten paid so the seller can tack an extra couple bucks onto the price of their breakfast sandwich.

And of course, as the prophet William Gibson warned us, ‘cyberspace is everting.' With digital shelf tags, grocers can change prices whenever they feel like, like the grocers in Norway, whose e-ink shelf tags change the prices 2,000 times per day.

Every Uber driver is offered a different wage for every job. If a driver has been picky lately, the job pays more. But if the driver has been desperate enough to grab every ride the app offers, the pay goes down, and down, and down.

The law professor Veena Dubal calls this ‘algorithmic wage discrimination.' It’s a prime example of twiddling.

Every youtuber knows what it’s like to be twiddled. You work for weeks or months, spend thousands of dollars to make a video, then the algorithm decides that no one – not your own subscribers, not searchers who type in the exact name of your video – will see it.

Why? Who knows? The algorithm’s rules are not public.

Because content moderation is the last redoubt of security through obscurit: they can’t tell you what the como algorithm is downranking because then you’d cheat.

Youtube is the kind of shitty boss who docks every paycheck for all the rules you’ve broken, but won’t tell you what those rules were, lest you figure out how to break those rules next time without your boss catching you.

Twiddling can also work in some users’ favor, of course. Sometimes platforms twiddle to make things better for end users or business customers.

For example, Emily Baker-White from Forbes revealed the existence of a back-end feature that Tiktok’s management can access they call the “heating tool.”

When a manager applies the heating toll to a performer’s account, that performer’s videos are thrust into the feeds of millions of users, without regard to whether the recommendation algorithm predicts they will enjoy that video.

Why would they do this? Well, here’s an analogy from my boyhood I used to go to this traveling fair that would come to Toronto at the end of every summer, the Canadian National Exhibition. If you’ve been to a fair like the Ex, you know that you can always spot some guy lugging around a comedically huge teddy bear.

Nominally, you win that teddy bear by throwing five balls in a peach-basket, but to a first approximation, no one has ever gotten five balls to stay in that peach-basket.

That guy “won” the teddy bear when a carny on the midway singled him out and said, "fella, I like your face. Tell you what I’m gonna do: You get just one ball in the basket and I’ll give you this keychain, and if you amass two keychains, I’ll let you trade them in for one of these galactic-scale teddy-bears."

That’s how the guy got his teddy bear, which he now has to drag up and down the midway for the rest of the day.

Why the hell did that carny give away the teddy bear? Because it turns the guy into a walking billboard for the midway games. If that dopey-looking Judas Goat can get five balls into a peach basket, then so can you.

Except you can’t.

Tiktok’s heating tool is a way to give away tactical giant teddy bears. When someone in the TikTok brain trust decides they need more sports bros on the platform, they pick one bro out at random and make him king for the day, heating the shit out of his account.

That guy gets a bazillion views and he starts running around on all the sports bro forums trumpeting his success: *I am the Louis Pasteur of sports bro influencers!"

The other sports bros pile in and start retooling to make content that conforms to the idiosyncratic Tiktok format. When they fail to get giant teddy bears of their own, they assume that it’s because they’re doing Tiktok wrong, because they don’t know about the heating tool.

But then comes the day when the TikTok Star Chamber decides they need to lure in more astrologers, so they take the heat off that one lucky sports bro, and start heating up some lucky astrologer.

Giant teddy bears are all over the place: those Uber drivers who were boasting to the NYT ten years ago about earning $50/hour? The Substackers who were rolling in dough? Joe Rogan and his hundred million dollar Spotify payout? Those people are all the proud owners of giant teddy bears, and they’re a steal.

Because every dollar they get from the platform turns into five dollars worth of free labor from suckers who think they just internetting wrong.

Giant teddy bears are just one way of twiddling. Platforms can play games with every part of their business logic, in highly automated ways, that allows them to quickly and efficiently siphon value from end users to business customers and back again, hiding the pea in a shell game conducted at machine speeds, until they’ve got everyone so turned around that they take all the value for themselves.

That’s the how: How the platforms do the trick where they are good to users, then lock users in, then maltreat users to be good to business customers, then lock in those business customers, then take all the value for themselves.

So now we know what is happening, and how it is happening, all that’s left is why it’s happening.

Now, on the one hand, the why is pretty obvious. The less value that end-users and business customers capture, the more value there is left to divide up among the shareholders and the executives.

That’s why, but it doesn’t tell you why now. Companies could have done this shit at any time in the past 20 years, but they didn’t. Or at least, the successful ones didn’t. The ones that turned themselves into piles of shit got treated like piles of shit. We avoided them and they died.

Remember Myspace? Yahoo Search? Livejournal? Sure, they’re still serving some kind of AI slop or programmatic ad junk if you hit those domains, but they’re gone.

And there’s the clue: It used to be that if you enshittified your product, bad things happened to your company. Now, there are no consequences for enshittification, so everyone’s doing it.

Let’s break that down: What stops a company from enshittifying?

There are four forces that discipline tech companies. The first one is, obviously, competition.

If your customers find it easy to leave, then you have to worry about them leaving

Many factors can contribute to how hard or easy it is to depart a platform, like the network effects that Facebook has going for it. But the most important factor is whether there is anywhere to go.

Back in 2012, Facebook bought Insta for a billion dollars. That may seem like chump-change in these days of eleven-digit Big Tech acquisitions, but that was a big sum in those innocent days, and it was an especially big sum to pay for Insta. The company only had 13 employees, and a mere 25 million registered users.

But what mattered to Zuckerberg wasn’t how many users Insta had, it was where those users came from.

[Does anyone know where those Insta users came from?]

That’s right, they left Facebook and joined Insta. They were sick of FB, even though they liked the people there, they hated creepy Zuck, they hated the platform, so they left and they didn’t come back.

So Zuck spent a cool billion to recapture them, A fact he put in writing in a midnight email to CFO David Ebersman, explaining that he was paying over the odds for Insta because his users hated him, and loved Insta. So even if they quit Facebook (the platform), they would still be captured Facebook (the company).

Now, on paper, Zuck’s Instagram acquisition is illegal, but normally, that would be hard to stop, because you’d have to prove that he bought Insta with the intention of curtailing competition.

But in this case, Zuck tripped over his own dick: he put it in writing.

But Obama’s DoJ and FTC just let that one slide, following the pro-monopoly policies of Reagan, Bush I, Clinton and Bush II, and setting an example that Trump would follow, greenlighting gigamergers like the catastrophic, incestuous Warner-Discovery marriage.

Indeed, for 40 years, starting with Carter, and accelerating through Reagan, the US has encouraged monopoly formation, as an official policy, on the grounds that monopolies are “efficient.”

If everyone is using Google Search, that’s something we should celebrate. It means they’ve got the very best search and wouldn’t it be perverse to spend public funds to punish them for making the best product?

But as we all know, Google didn’t maintain search dominance by being best. They did it by paying bribes. More than 20 billion per year to Apple alone to be the default Ios search, plus billions more to Samsung, Mozilla, and anyone else making a product or service with a search-box on it, ensuring that you never stumble on a search engine that’s better than theirs.

Which, in turn, ensured that no one smart invested big in rival search engines, even if they were visibly, obviously superior. Why bother making something better if Google’s buying up all the market oxygen before it can kindle your product to life?

Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Amazon – they’re not “making things” companies, they’re “buying things” companies, taking advantage of official tolerance for anticompetitive acquisitions, predatory pricing, market distorting exclusivity deals and other acts specifically prohibited by existing antitrust law.

Their goal is to become too big to fail, because that makes them too big to jail, and that means they can be too big to care.

Which is why Google Search is a pile of shit and everything on Amazon is dropshipped garbage that instantly disintegrates in a cloud of offgassed volatile organic compounds when you open the box.

Once companies no longer fear losing your business to a competitor, it’s much easier for them to treat you badly, because what’re you gonna do?

Remember Lily Tomlin as Ernestine the AT&T operator in those old SNL sketches? “We don’t care. We don’t have to. We’re the phone company.”

Competition is the first force that serves to discipline companies and the enshittificatory impulses of their leadership, and we just stopped enforcing competition law.

It takes a special kind of smooth-brained asshole – that is, an establishment economist – to insist that the collapse of every industry from eyeglasses to vitamin C into a cartel of five or fewer companies has nothing to do with policies that officially encouraged monopolization.

It’s like we used to put down rat poison and we didn’t have a rat problem. Then these dickheads convinced us that rats were good for us and we stopped putting down rat poison, and now rats are gnawing our faces off and they’re all running around saying, "Who’s to say where all these rats came from? Maybe it was that we stopped putting down poison, but maybe it’s just the Time of the Rats. The Great Forces of History bearing down on this moment to multiply rats beyond all measure!"

Antitrust didn’t slip down that staircase and fall spine-first on that stiletto: they stabbed it in the back and then they pushed it.

And when they killed antitrust, they also killed regulation, the second force that disciplines companies. Regulation is possible, but only when the regulator is more powerful than the regulated entities. When a company is bigger than the government, it gets damned hard to credibly threaten to punish that company, no matter what its sins.

That’s what protected IBM for all those years when it had its boot on the throat of the American tech sector. Do you know, the DOJ fought to break up IBM in the courts from 1970-1982, and that every year, for 12 consecutive years, IBM spent more on lawyers to fight the USG than the DOJ Antitrust Division spent on all the lawyers fighting every antitrust case in the entire USA?

IBM outspent Uncle Sam for 12 years. People called it “Antitrust’s Vietnam.” All that money paid off, because by 1982, the president was Ronald Reagan, a man whose official policy was that monopolies were “efficient." So he dropped the case, and Big Blue wriggled off the hook.

It’s hard to regulate a monopolist, and it’s hard to regulate a cartel. When a sector is composed of hundreds of competing companies, they compete. They genuinely fight with one another, trying to poach each others’ customers and workers. They are at each others’ throats.

It’s hard enough for a couple hundred executives to agree on anything. But when they’re legitimately competing with one another, really obsessing about how to eat each others’ lunches, they can’t agree on anything.

The instant one of them goes to their regulator with some bullshit story, about how it’s impossible to have a decent search engine without fine-grained commercial surveillance; or how it’s impossible to have a secure and easy to use mobile device without a total veto over which software can run on it; or how it’s impossible to administer an ISP’s network unless you can slow down connections to servers whose owners aren’t paying bribes for “premium carriage"; there’s some *other company saying, “That’s bullshit”

“We’ve managed it! Here’s our server logs, our quarterly financials and our customer testimonials to prove it.”

100 companies are a rabble, they're a mob. They can’t agree on a lobbying position. They’re too busy eating each others’ lunch to agree on how to cater a meeting to discuss it.

But let those hundred companies merge to monopoly, absorb one another in an incestuous orgy, turn into five giant companies, so inbred they’ve got a corporate Habsburg jaw, and they become a cartel.

It’s easy for a cartel to agree on what bullshit they’re all going to feed their regulator, and to mobilize some of the excess billions they’ve reaped through consolidation, which freed them from “wasteful competition," sp they can capture their regulators completely.

You know, Congress used to pass federal consumer privacy laws? Not anymore.

The last time Congress managed to pass a federal consumer privacy law was in 1988: The Video Privacy Protection Act. That’s a law that bans video-store clerks from telling newspapers what VHS cassettes you take home. In other words, it regulates three things that have effectively ceased to exist.

The threat of having your video rental history out there in the public eye was not the last or most urgent threat the American public faced, and yet, Congress is deadlocked on passing a privacy law.

Tech companies’ regulatory capture involves a risible and transparent gambit, that is so stupid, it’s an insult to all the good hardworking risible transparent ruses out there.

Namely, they claim that when they violate your consumer, privacy or labor rights, It’s not a crime, because they do it with an app.

Algorithmic wage discrimination isn’t illegal wage theft: we do it with an app.

Spying on you from asshole to appetite isn’t a privacy violation: we do it with an app.

And Amazon’s scam search tool that tricks you into paying 29% more than the best match for your query? Not a ripoff. We do it with an app.

Once we killed competition – stopped putting down rat poison – we got cartels – the rats ate our faces. And the cartels captured their regulators – the rats bought out the poison factory and shut it down.

So companies aren’t constrained by competition or regulation.

But you know what? This is tech, and tech is different.IIt’s different because it’s flexible. Because our computers are Turing-complete universal von Neumann machines. That means that any enshittificatory alteration to a program can be disenshittified with another program.

Every time HP jacks up the price of ink , they invite a competitor to market a refill kit or a compatible cartridge.

When Tesla installs code that says you have to pay an extra monthly fee to use your whole battery, they invite a modder to start selling a kit to jailbreak that battery and charge it all the way up.

Lemme take you through a little example of how that works: Imagine this is a product design meeting for our company’s website, and the guy leading the meeting says “Dudes, you know how our KPI is topline ad-revenue? Well, I’ve calculated that if we make the ads just 20% more invasive and obnoxious, we’ll boost ad rev by 2%”

This is a good pitch. Hit that KPI and everyone gets a fat bonus. We can all take our families on a luxury ski vacation in Switzerland.

But here’s the thing: someone’s gonna stick their arm up – someone who doesn’t give a shit about user well-being, and that person is gonna say, “I love how you think, Elon. But has it occurred to you that if we make the ads 20% more obnoxious, then 40% of our users will go to a search engine and type 'How do I block ads?'"

I mean, what a nightmare! Because once a user does that, the revenue from that user doesn’t rise to 102%. It doesn’t stay at 100% It falls to zero, forever.

[Any guesses why?]

Because no user ever went back to the search engine and typed, 'How do I start seeing ads again?'

Once the user jailbreaks their phone or discovers third party ink, or develops a relationship with an independent Tesla mechanic who’ll unlock all the DLC in their car, that user is gone, forever.

Interoperability – that latent property bequeathed to us courtesy of Herrs Turing and Von Neumann and their infinitely flexible, universal machines – that is a serious check on enshittification.

The fact that Congress hasn’t passed a privacy law since 1988 Is countered, at least in part, by the fact that the majority of web users are now running ad-blockers, which are also tracker-blockers.

But no one’s ever installed a tracker-blocker for an app. Because reverse engineering an app puts in you jeopardy of criminal and civil prosecution under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, with penalties of a 5-year prison sentence and a $500k fine for a first offense.

And violating its terms of service puts you in jeopardy under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986, which is the law that Ronald Reagan signed in a panic after watching Wargames (seriously!).

Helping other users violate the terms of service can get you hit with a lawsuit for tortious interference with contract. And then there’s trademark, copyright and patent.

All that nonsense we call “IP,” but which Jay Freeman of Cydia calls “Felony Contempt of Business Model."

So if we’re still at that product planning meeting and now it’s time to talk about our app, the guy leading the meeting says, “OK, so we’ll make the ads in the app 20% more obnoxious to pull a 2% increase in topline ad rev?”

And that person who objected to making the website 20% worse? Their hand goes back up. Only this time they say “Why don’t we make the ads 100% more invasive and get a 10% increase in ad rev?"

Because it doesn't matter if a user goes to a search engine and types, “How do I block ads in an app." The answer is: you can't. So YOLO, enshittify away.

“IP” is just a euphemism for “any law that lets me reach outside my company’s walls to exert coercive control over my critics, competitors and customers,” and “app” is just a euphemism for “A web page skinned with the right IP so that protecting your privacy while you use it is a felony.”

Interop used to keep companies from enshittifying. If a company made its client suck, someone would roll out an alternative client, if they ripped a feature out and wanted to sell it back to you as a monthly subscription, someone would make a compatible plugin that restored it for a one-time fee, or for free.

To help people flee Myspace, FB gave them bots that you’d load with your login credentials. It would scrape your waiting Myspace messages and put ‘em in your FB inbox, and login to Myspace and paste your replies into your Myspace outbox. So you didn’t have to choose between the people you loved on Myspace, and Facebook, which launched with a promise never to spy on you. Remember that?!

Thanks to the metastasis of IP, all that is off the table today. Apple owes its very existence to iWork Suite, whose Pages, Numbers and Keynote are file-compatible with Microsoft’s Word, Excel and Powerpoint. But make an IOS runtime that’ll play back the files you bought from Apple’s stores on other platforms, and they’ll nuke you til you glow.

FB wouldn’t have had a hope of breaking Myspace’s grip on social media without that scrape, but scrape FB today in support of an alternative client and their lawyers will bomb you til the rubble bounces.

Google scraped every website in the world to create its search index. Try and scrape Google and they’ll have your head on a pike.

When they did it, it was progress. When you do it to them, that’s piracy. Every pirate wants to be an admiral.

Because this handful of companies has so thoroughly captured their regulators, they can wield the power of the state against you when you try to break their grip on power, even as their own flagrant violations of our rights go unpunished. Because they do them with an app.

Tech lost its fear of competitin it neutralized the threat from regulators, and then put them in harness to attack new startups that might do unto them as they did unto the companies that came before them.

But even so, there was a force that kept our bosses in check That force was us. Tech workers.

Tech workers have historically been in short supply, which gave us power, and our bosses knew it.

To get us to work crazy hours, they came up with a trick. They appealed to our love of technology, and told us that we were heroes of a digital revolution, who would “organize the world’s information and make it useful,” who would “bring the world closer together.”

They brought in expert set-dressers to turn our workplaces into whimsical campuses with free laundry, gourmet cafeterias, massages, and kombucha, and a surgeon on hand to freeze our eggs so that we could work through our fertile years.

They convinced us that we were being pampered, rather than being worked like government mules.

This trick has a name. Fobazi Ettarh, the librarian-theorist, calls it “vocational awe, and Elon Musk calls it being “extremely hardcore.”

This worked very well. Boy did we put in some long-ass hours!

But for our bosses, this trick failed badly. Because if you miss your mother’s funeral and to hit a deadline, and then your boss orders you to enshittify that product, you are gonna experience a profound moral injury, which you are absolutely gonna make your boss share.

Because what are they gonna do? Fire you? They can’t hire someone else to do your job, and you can get a job that’s even better at the shop across the street.

So workers held the line when competition, regulation and interop failed.

But eventually, supply caught up with demand. Tech laid off 260,000 of us last year, and another 100,000 in the first half of this year.

You can’t tell your bosses to go fuck themselves, because they’ll fire your ass and give your job to someone who’ll be only too happy to enshittify that product you built.

That’s why this is all happening right now. Our bosses aren’t different. They didn’t catch a mind-virus that turned them into greedy assholes who don’t care about our users’ wellbeing or the quality of our products.

As far as our bosses have always been concerned, the point of the business was to charge the most, and deliver the least, while sharing as little as possible with suppliers, workers, users and customers. They’re not running charities.

Since day one, our bosses have shown up for work and yanked as hard as they can on the big ENSHITTIFICATION lever behind their desks, only that lever didn’t move much. It was all gummed up by competition, regulation, interop and workers.

As those sources of friction melted away, the enshittification lever started moving very freely.

Which sucks, I know. But think about this for a sec: our bosses, despite being wildly imperfect vessels capable of rationalizing endless greed and cheating, nevertheless oversaw a series of actually great products and services.

Not because they used to be better people, but because they used to be subjected to discipline.

So it follows that if we want to end the enshittocene, dismantle the enshitternet, and build a new, good internet that our bosses can’t wreck, we need to make sure that these constraints are durably installed on that internet, wound around its very roots and nerves. And we have to stand guard over it so that it can’t be dismantled again.

A new, good internet is one that has the positive aspects of the old, good internet: an ethic of technological self-determination, where users of technology (and hackers, tinkerers, startups and others serving as their proxies) can reconfigure and mod the technology they use, so that it does what they need it to do, and so that it can’t be used against them.

But the new, good internet will fix the defects of the old, good internet, the part that made it hard to use for anyone who wasn’t us. And hell yeah we can do that. Tech bosses swear that it’s impossible, that you can’t have a conversation friend without sharing it with Zuck; or search the web without letting Google scrape you down to the viscera; or have a phone that works reliably without giving Apple a veto over the software you install.

They claim that it’s a nonsense to even ponder this kind of thing. It’s like making water that’s not wet. But that’s bullshit. We can have nice things. We can build for the people we love, and give them a place that’s worth of their time and attention.

To do that, we have to install constraints.

The first constraint, remember, is competition. We’re living through a epochal shift in competition policy. After 40 years with antitrust enforcement in an induced coma, a wave of antitrust vigor has swept through governments all over the world. Regulators are stepping in to ban monopolistic practices, open up walled gardens, block anticompetitive mergers, and even unwind corrupt mergers that were undertaken on false pretenses.

Normally this is the place in the speech where I’d list out all the amazing things that have happened over the past four years. The enforcement actions that blocked companies from becoming too big to care, and that scared companies away from even trying.

Like Wiz, which just noped out of the largest acquisition offer in history, turning down Google’s $23b cashout, and deciding to, you know, just be a fucking business that makes money by producing a product that people want and selling it at a competitive price.

Normally, I’d be listing out FTC rulemakings that banned noncompetes nationwid. Or the new merger guidelines the FTC and DOJ cooked up, which – among other things – establish that the agencies should be considering whether a merger will negatively impact privacy.

I had a whole section of this stuff in my notes, a real victory lap, but I deleted it all this week.

[Can anyone guess why?]

That’s right! This week, Judge Amit Mehta, ruling for the DC Circuit of these United States of America, In the docket 20-3010 a case known as United States v. Google LLC, found that “Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly," and ordered Google and the DOJ to propose a schedule for a remedy, like breaking the company up.

So yeah, that was pretty fucking epic.

Now, this antitrust stuff is pretty esoteric, and I won’t gatekeep you or shame you if you wanna keep a little distance on this subject. Nearly everyone is an antitrust normie, and that's OK. But if you’re a normie, you’re probably only catching little bits and pieces of the narrative, and let me tell you, the monopolists know it and they are flooding the zone.

The Wall Street Journal has published over 100 editorials condemning FTC Chair Lina Khan, saying she’s an ineffectual do-nothing, wasting public funds chasing doomed, quixotic adventures against poor, innocent businesses accomplishing nothing

[Does anyone out there know who owns the Wall Street Journal?]

That’s right, it’s Rupert Murdoch. Do you really think Rupert Murdoch pays his editorial board to write one hundred editorials about someone who’s not getting anything done?

The reality is that in the USA, in the UK, in the EU, in Australia, in Canada, in Japan, in South Korea, even in China, we are seeing more antitrust action over the past four years than over the preceding forty years.

Remember, competition law is actually pretty robust. The problem isn’t the law, It’s the enforcement priorities. Reagan put antitrust in mothballs 40 years ago, but that elegant weapon from a more civilized age is now back in the hands of people who know how to use it, and they’re swinging for the fences.

Next up: regulation.

As the seemingly inescapable power of the tech giants is revealed for the sham it always was, governments and regulators are finally gonna kill the “one weird trick” of violating the law, and saying “It doesn’t count, we did it with an app.”

Like in the EU, they’re rolling out the Digital Markets Act this year. That’s a law requiring dominant platforms to stand up APIs so that third parties can offer interoperable services.

So a co-op, a nonprofit, a hobbyist, a startup, or a local government agency wil eventuallyl be able to offer, say, a social media server that can interconnect with one of the dominant social media silos, and users who switch to that new platform will be able to continue to exchange messages with the users they follow and groups they belong to, so the switching costs will fall to damned near zero.

That’s a very cool rule, but what’s even cooler is how it’s gonna be enforced. Previous EU tech rules were “regulations” as in the GDPR – the General Data Privacy Regulation. EU regs need to be “transposed” into laws in each of the 27 EU member states, so they become national laws that get enforced by national courts.

For Big Tech, that means all previous tech regulations are enforced in Ireland, because Ireland is a tax haven, and all the tech companies fly Irish flags of convenience.

Here’s the thing: every tax haven is also a crime haven. After all, if Google can pretend it’s Irish this week, it can pretend to be Cypriot, or Maltese, or Luxembougeious next week. So Ireland has to keep these footloose criminal enterprises happy, or they’ll up sticks and go somewhere else.

This is why the GDPR is such a goddamned joke in practice. Big tech wipes its ass with the GDPR, and the only way to punish them starts with Ireland’s privacy commissioner, who barely bothers to get out of bed. This is an agency that spends most of its time watching cartoons on TV in its pajamas and eating breakfast cereal. So all of the big GDPR cases go to Ireland and they die there.

This is hardly a secret. The European Commission knows it’s going on. So with the DMA, the Commission has changed things up: The DMA is an “Act,” not a “Regulation.” Meaning it gets enforced in the EU’s federal courts, bypassing the national courts in crime-havens like Ireland.

In other words, the “we violate privacy law, but we do it with an app” gambit that worked on Ireland’s toothless privacy watchdog is now a dead letter, because EU federal judges have no reason to swallow that obvious bullshit.

Here in the US, the dam is breaking on federal consumer privacy law – at last!

Remember, our last privacy law was passed in 1988 to protect the sanctity of VHS rental history. It's been a minute.

And the thing is, there's a lot of people who are angry about stuff that has some nexus with America's piss-poor privacy landscape. Worried that Facebook turned grampy into a Qanon? That Insta made your teen anorexic? That TikTok is brainwashing millennials into quoting Osama Bin Laden? Or that cops are rolling up the identities of everyone at a Black Lives Matter protest or the Jan 6 riots by getting location data from Google? Or that Red State Attorneys General are tracking teen girls to out-of-state abortion clinics? Or that Black people are being discriminated against by online lending or hiring platforms? Or that someone is making AI deepfake porn of you?

A federal privacy law with a private right of action – which means that individuals can sue companies that violate their privacy – would go a long way to rectifying all of these problems

There's a pretty big coalition for that kind of privacy law! Which is why we have seen a procession of imperfect (but steadily improving) privacy laws working their way through Congress.

If you sign up for EFF’s mailing list at eff.org we’ll send you an email when these come up, so you can call your Congressjerk or Senator and talk to them about it. Or better yet, make an appointment to drop by their offices when they’re in their districts, and explain to them that you’re not just a registered voter from their district, you’re the kind of elite tech person who goes to Defcon, and then explain the bill to them. That stuff makes a difference.

What about self-help? How are we doing on making interoperability legal again, so hackers can just fix shit without waiting for Congress or a federal agency to act?

All the action here these day is in the state Right to Repair fight. We’re getting state R2R bills, like the one that passed this year in Oregon that bans parts pairing, where DRM is used to keep a device from using a new part until it gets an authorized technician’s unlock code.

These bills are pushed by a fantastic group of organizations called the Repair Coalition, at Repair.org, and they’ll email you when one of these laws is going through your statehouse, so you can meet with your state reps and explain to the JV squad the same thing you told your federal reps.

Repair.org’s prime mover is Ifixit, who are genuine heroes of the repair revolution, and Ifixit’s founder, Kyle Wiens, is here at the con. When you see him, you can shake his hand and tell him thanks, and that’ll be even better if you tell him that you’ve signed up to get alerts at repair.org!

Now, on to the final way that we reverse enhittification and build that new, good internet: you, the tech labor force.

For years, your bosses tricked you into thinking you were founders in waiting, temporarily embarrassed entrepreneurs who were only momentarily drawing a salary.

You certainly weren’t workers. Your power came from your intrinsic virtue, not like those lazy slobs in unions who have to get their power through that kumbaya solidarity nonsense.

It was a trick. You were scammed. The power you had came from scarcity, and so when the scarcity ended, when the industry started ringing up six-figure annual layoffs, your power went away with it.

The only durable source of power for tech workers is as workers, in a union.

Think about Amazon. Warehouse workers have to piss in bottles and have the highest rate of on-the-job maimings of any competing business. Whereas Amazon coders get to show up for work with facial piercings, green mohawks, and black t-shirts that say things their bosses don’t understand. They can piss whenever they want!

That’s not because Jeff Bezos or Andy Jassy loves you guys. It’s because they’re scared you’ll quit and they don’t know how to replace you.

Time for the second obligatory William Gibson quote: “The future is here, it’s just not evenly distributed.” You know who’s living in the future?. Those Amazon blue-collar workers. They are the bleeding edge.

Drivers whose eyeballs are monitored by AI cameras that do digital phrenology on their faces to figure out whether to dock their pay, warehouse workers whose bodies are ruined in just months.

As tech bosses beef up that reserve army of unemployed, skilled tech workers, then those tech workers – you all – will arrive at the same future as them.

Look, I know that you’ve spent your careers explaining in words so small your boss could understand them that you refuse to enshittify the company’s products, and I thank you for your service.

But if you want to go on fighting for the user, you need power that’s more durable than scarcity. You need a union. Wanna learn how? Check out the Tech Workers Coalition and Tech Solidarity, and get organized.

Enshittification didn’t arise because our bosses changed. They were always that guy.

They were always yankin’ on that enshittification lever in the C-suite.

What changed was the environment, everything that kept that switch from moving.

And that’s good news, in a bankshot way, because it means we can make good services out of imperfect people. As a wildly imperfect person myself, I find this heartening.

The new good internet is in our grasp: an internet that has the technological self-determination of the old, good internet, and the greased-skids simplicity of Web 2.0 that let all our normie friends get in on the fun.

Tech bosses want you to think that good UX and enshittification can’t ever be separated. That’s such a self-serving proposition you can spot it from orbit. We know it, 'cause we built the old good internet, and we’ve been fighting a rear-guard action to preserve it for the past two decades.

It’s time to stop playing defense. It's time to go on the offensive. To restore competition, regulation, interop and tech worker power so that we can create the new, good internet we’ll need to fight fascism, the climate emergency, and genocide.

To build a digital nervous system for a 21st century in which our children can thrive and prosper.

Community voting for SXSW is live! If you wanna hear RIDA QADRI and me talk about how GIG WORKERS can DISENSHITTIFY their jobs with INTEROPERABILITY, VOTE FOR THIS ONE!

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/2024/08/17/hack-the-planet/#how-about-a-nice-game-of-chess

Image: https://twitter.com/igama/status/1822347578094043435/ (cropped)

@fak3r@mastodon.social (cropped)

https://mamot.fr/@fak3r@mastodon.social/112963252835869648

CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.pt

[cranberrydietcoke]

euphoria - r.c

ex bf ! rafe cameron x kook princess ! reader

content: 18+, drinking & drug use, drunk/high sex, degrading names (slut, whore, bitch), on camera type shit, kinda public party sex, my y/ns are always cream team soz, kinda dubcon ig, he makes her say ily, creampie. def giving s1 fratboy rafe. non-descriptive except for tanned skin n u curl ur hair!

a/n: first rafe fic eeeep! many more to come tho i deadass have feelings for him it’s a problem. & thx u for the luv on my last two fics !! preesh u bad bitches

wc: 3k

your fingers intertwined with sutton’s as she pulled you along, splitting the tight crowd of snapbacks and miniskirts. smoke hung over the purple atmosphere as some future song boomed from the speakers. you greeted each spinning face you slid by with a slurred sorry baby! or scuse’ me!

“bitch nooo, come the fuck onnnnn,” she pleaded, jerking you away from the random man you were offering your vape to.

“later okay! come smoke w’me!” you yelled back at him, trying to communicate with charades as sutton pulled you deeper into the heart of the party. he was cute, but you knew you wouldn’t see him later, considering rafe was about twenty feet away slicing lines on the kitchen counter. the baby pink polo hugged his bicep as he bent over, rolled dollar bill tight between his fingers.

fuck. i miss that platinum card.

a few months ago, you and rafe  were the it couple of kildare, without question. luxury vacations, designer swimwear, a mercedes for christmas, days in the yacht. it was like kim and fucking kanye. even more so now. a breakup had never lasted more than a few hours, usually ending with you both getting high and rafe fucking an ‘im sorry’ out of you. but this time, you were actually done with his shit, done having a screaming match every day, done apologizing all the time just so he wouldn’t blow up. sure, it was sad at first. but when it was posted on figure8insider, you had finally reached the last stage of grief: acceptance.

“like why do they even fucking care?” you barked, scrunching a warm, fresh curl in your hand. “how do they even know? shit’s like tmz.” spinning in your satin vanity chair, you turned to face your friend before sashaying to your closet.

“they act like we’re soooo a-list. i’m with your ass every day, you are NOT that interesting,” sutton chuckled, adjusting the strap of her top and checking herself out in the mirror. with topper’s parents away in the virgin islands, his annual end-of-summer banger was everybody’s move for the night, and you were certain rafe was gonna be there.  

“right?” you blew clouds of strawberry pound cake as you rummaged through hangers, “like, i’m not an influencer.”

it came out like a lie, and in a way, it was. you were the sweetheart of the island’s restless and entitled youth, their very own people’s princess. your strapless black dress could only be worn after sundown, barely covering the lower curve of your ass, delicate pink ribbons holding together the cutout of your cleavage. a stack of expensive gold bangles chimed together as you stuffed all your shit into your purse, slammed another shooter, and dialed reagan for a ride.

“you know rafe’s gonna be there, right?” she asked, turning the music down and casting a glance at you from the driver’s seat. you suck your teeth behind your glittery lips.

“duh, bitch! why do you think she got that on?” sutton screamed from the back, making all three of you die in laughter as you hid your face. just like, one more time wouldn’t hurt.

even under the kaleidoscope of neon lights, you could tell the whole room’s attention turned toward you as you danced your way in. sneaking a seltzer from the cooler, you settled at the beer pong table where a group of wannabe finance bros crushed solo cups of natty light, shooting each other starstruck glances and sharing whispers as you glided through, greeting everyone with an indifferent wave and an insincere heyyyyyyy.

“yo, rafe, your girl’s over there,” kelce leaned in, motioning over to the enveloping swarm of people growing around you.

“bro, top,” rafe fell back, slapping topper in the chest, “why the fuck did you even invite her?” he spat out, eyes pulsing.

“dude…why wouldn’t i invite her…” topper stated plainly, as if rafe had asked if the sky was fucking blue. if you weren’t there, that shit was a flop.

“that bitch,” he started, shaky hands sliding in to search his pockets, “that bitch is fucking crazy, okay?” he pulled out a dime bag and his wallet, eyeing his friends who knew better than to speak. he tapped some out on the granite countertop, lining it up nice and clean with his american express, hinging at the waist to align a rolled 20 with the powder, making it disappear in one snort.

before it could register, sutton was dragging you through the sea of people and closer and closer to rafe, forcing you to abandon the crowd of drooling fans. gripping your shoulders, she planted you right in front of him. you looked up, caught between a flash of fear and drunken amusement, an absent smile playing on your face.

“be good okay?” she chided, lightly slapping your back with beaming pride, “text me if you need anything!”

he wiped the excess powder off his nostril with a laugh of disbelief as he stood over you, studying your face. all you can manage is a squeaky and breathless hi as your tipsy blush deepens.

“hey, kid. miss me or somethin’?” he mocked, bringing the tips of his fingers to brush against your arm. 

“oh my god rafe, be serious,” you scoff, batting away his large, lingering hands.

“aw, what? don’t wanna share a blunt with me like we used to?” he drew out, words dripping in honeyed hatred. almost made you forget all the shit he’d put you through. the familiar teal of his eyes roamed over every square inch of your freckled and exposed skin.

“fuck no,” you laughed, watching as his tongue swiped against his bottom lip, “no tellin’ where your mouth has been.”

“right, “ his eyes narrowed as he crouched down, inches from your face, “like you’re some fuckin’ angel.”

breath hot on your lips, encapsulating you with the smell of stout liquor and le labo santal. “won’t smoke with me, but you’ll smoke with ole boy?” he spoke, low and calm through heaving breaths as he motioned with a sharp hand towards the brunette you’d ran into.

fuck. he heard you.

 “i see how it is…bein’ an attention whore since you left, huh?” he backed up, wiping the wetness off his lower lip with the same hand.

“don’t piss me off,” you rolled your eyes, “come on.”  taking his wrist into your hand and leading him towards the balcony door. he had an uncanny talent for manipulating the situation, planting the illusion you had the upper hand, although you never did. you were unknowingly right where he wanted you. digging into your purse, you pull out an m&m mini’s tube, popping it open and flipping it vertically. a blunt slid out and into your fingers, perfectly rolled.

the coastal air was thick with humidity, only lit by the light poles on the beach. rafe’s chest hovered over your back as you stepped out into the salty breeze, brushing strands of hair out of your eyes and positioning the blunt between your lips. just as you fished for your lighter, he moved faster, sparking a flame under his calloused thumb and bringing it closer. he watched you as the fire cast a glow on your half-lidded gaze, crackling lightly as you inhaled. as mean and vile and ungrateful as he was, he truthfully couldn’t imagine himself with another girl. you were bitchy, high maintenance, never satisfied, spoiled, whiny, just so unknowingly powerful. but god, you were fucking perfect. who else on this island would be able to handle you?

“you know,” you hissed, drawing the smoke sharply between your teeth before releasing it in a hazy stream that slipped through the perfect, glossy ‘o’ formed by the soft contour of your lips. “it wasn’t as devastating as i thought it was gonna be.” you sputter, nudging it towards his towering frame which stood outlined by the glow of the orange lanterns. he hit it, tiny little consecutive pecks that made the tip flash on and off.

“really?” he choked between inhales. “cause you look pretty devastated to me.” he smirked, stepping closer, blowing the potent smoke into your parted lips as you instinctively breathe it in. “you miss me?”

“maybe just a little,” you tease, watching the satisfied smirk grow on his face. his free hand traced the curve of your collarbone, fingers lightly brushing the tousled strands of your hair off your shoulder. he leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to the tanned skin.

“i miss your carrdddd, that nice big boattt, the presents.” you sing with a smug smile, hands snaking around his neck, his fingers finding the cushion of your hips, moving and swaying together.

“oh, shut the fuck up,” he looked down at you, dilated pupils scanning your face, “nobody’s fucking you like me, bet that,” a dry laugh left his throat.

“ugh,” you crash into his chest, pressing your cheek into the dry cleaned ralph lauren. whining  ihateyouihateyouihateyou’s.

steady and smooth, he discarded the blunt, wrapping his hands around your back, groping and pawing at your half-revealed ass. without thinking, you lift onto your tippy toes, breath coming in shallow gasps, lips lingering over his open mouth. without warning, his tongue fought its way in, swirling with yours in a hot, desperate hail mary. your lips met in sloppy smacks, stumbling over each other until he eventually had your hips pressed against the side railing.

pulling away, he spoke, low and from his chest. “you hate me? yeah? or do you just miss my dick in you,” his face lingered over yours, “n’ it’s got you all fuckin’ bothered.” you felt the puff of breath with each word. “say it,” he coaxed, hiking up the front of your dress to thumb at the hem of your panties, “say you want me to take that pussy.” his long fingers ran over your clothed clit, making your hips roll against the opulent stone that hung over the thornton estate. he chuckled, shaking his head as his gaze fixed between your legs. “it’s fuckin’ mine anyways.”  

your lips chased after his as he stepped back, tsking at you, still holding you steady by the waist. “nah, baby. gotta say it,”

you closed the distance, pressing your soft, heavy tits into the muscle of his abdomen and the pads of your fingertips into his bicep. face so close to yours, a smirk practically tangible in the air.

“pleaseeeee rafe, i need it,” you panted out, desperate and erratic. “just one more time.” your eyes traced him up and down, sinking into cross-faded euphoria. a single, needy tear fell from the corner of your glittery and bloodshot eye, streaking down your flushed cheek. brushing his lips against you, he flicked his tongue, tracing the path of the teardrop. you moan at the warmth against your cool skin, reaching down to guide his hand between your legs.

“fuck, such a slut.” he breathes out, cupping your dripping cunt and meeting your lips in a deep, perverse kiss. the kind that you just can't help but pull back a little bit. “missed you, missed this pussy.” he spoke in a low guttural rasp, almost inaudible. his wide build shielded you from the large glass doors that led into the party, hooking his fingers in the fabric of your panties and yanking them down, dipping his middle finger into the wetness pooling at your entrance.

“god, need this shit,” he groaned, swiping his finger gently up and down, circling your bundle of nerves. “turn around.”

he gave the command yet didn’t wait for a response, his firm grip on your waist flipping you the other way, leaving no room for a fight. bent over the balcony balustrade, your head hung in the air, looking down at the pool that sat twenty feet below. one of rafe’s hands pinned you over the railing by the back of the neck while the other played and prodded at your hole, getting you ready for him. discreetly, he worked his cock loose, rubbing the tip through your slick folds.

“rafeeee,” you muffle out, face smushed against the stone and immobile from the strength of his grasp. “not here, please, ca-can we just go inside?”

“nahh, i don’t think so, baby. this is what you wanted, right?” his hand slid down, wrapping a fist into the bunched fabric of your dress, pressing into you. your walls fluttered against him, a feeling so familiar yet so distant. lasers from the party strobed through the window, flashing by you. knees buckling, you couldn’t help but wiggle your ass back against him.

“god – fuck!” you squeal out, feeling him balls deep in you, guiding you down his length and filling you to the hilt. reaching into the pocket of his khakis, which still hung low on his hips, he fishes his phone out. with a quick flick, snapchat is open and the flash is washing over you. even with your head hung over the railing, you could still see the spotlight focused on your tight, twitching hole. he slides in and out, using your dress to manipulate the rhythm of your body. capturing everyyyy moment.

“this s’my shit, huh?” he panted out, your ass recoiling against each harsh thrust. “you’re my bitch, y’know that? been my bitch.” voice low and slow, almost cocky, like he wanted everyone to know -  like they didn’t already. the sound of damp, saturated clapping mixed with the crash of waves onto the shore.

“p-please, they’re gonna see,” you whimper, body jerking as he slams into you over and over. imagine the uproar if everyone saw you, little miss untouchable, taking your ex-boyfriend’s cock on the terrace outside topper’s party. grabbing a handful of hair, he yanks your head back, glare of the light fixed on your face. 

“they’re gonna see anyway, baby, don’t be shy. jus’ cum f’me,” your face screwed with his words, brows furrowing as you looked up at the camera with hopeless, empty eyes. just so fucked out. the curve of his dick poked and kissed that sweet spot deep inside you, bringing you closer and closer.

“you love me, huh?” he grunted, still forcing a deep arch in your back. “tell the camera you love me, princess.” you could feel yourself coming loose, guilt and lust boiling over in your tummy. you explode in a squealing moan, gripping on his cock and covering it with cream.

 “i love you rafe, fuck! - love you so so much!” crying through hiccups and flickering eyes, still trained on the flash. such a smart girl getting fucked dumb on camera. such a powerful person yet completely powerless in his hands.

“gonna let me nut in you?” his filming hand went flimsy as he quickened his pace, groaning and letting out short little bursts of air. “y’gonna take it all, be good for me like you used to?” he rasped, met with limp nods and a braindead mhmmm. that’s all it took for him to pound every inch into you, sending you deeper into your daze. fuckin’ dickmatized.

the video on his screen shook violently with each stroke, hot spurts of cum filling you up. “fuuuuckk,” he groaned, hips stuttering to a stop and loosening the grip on your hair, leaving you to catch your breath hung over the railing. he pointed the camera down, pulling himself out and spreading one cheek open with his hand to expose the stickiness dripping out of you. the flash finally goes off, and he saves it to his memories. bringing his fingers up to your leaky hole, he fucks his seed in deeper, eliciting a choked sob from your lips. pulling you upright and flipping you to face him, he squats down to pull your panties up from around your ankles, shimmying your hips into them and pulling your dress down. it was just like y'all used to.

the party was still in full swing as you both slipped back in, parting ways as you went to check in with sutton and reagan, completely disregarding the knotted mess of hair on your head and the streaked makeup down your face. was that fucking real? your legs were tight as you stagger and shuffle through groups of drunk teenagers all bouncing with the music, trying to regain your composure. as soon as reagan spots you from the couch, her jaw is on the floor, ushering you closer with her hand.

“y/n, no fucking way! you slut!” she shrieks with wide eyes and a light slap to your arm. “does sutton know?”

“girl, she set the shit up!” you try to explain, motioning with your hands. “i was like, if you insistttttt.” you lie, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear, hitting her with a debby ryan radio rebel type smirk.

“you’re lying,” she goes on, picking her jaw up and taking a swig of her drink. “speak of the devil!” she exclaims, motioning behind you with her drink. a sharp smack landed on your ass, making you jump. sutton’s hand gripped yours, turning you around.

“did you fuck him?” she smiled, obviously drunk as shit and wayyy too loud.

“yeahh, what do you mean…” you roll your eyes, snapping your head to the side with a wide smile. it was evident how excited sutton was, prideful about it. lifting her solo cup in the air and grabbing to lift yours with the other, she let out a deafening woo!

“personally…” she went on, clutching her imaginary pearls, “i think that’s worth drinking to,” she proposed, side-eyeing and nudging you not so subtly. “come on bitch! shots for ken and barbie!”

to be honest, that was the last thing you remember.

the next morning, you woke up nuzzled in plaid grey sheets, your phone buzzing incessantly with notifications. the sound of the groundskeepers filtered through the windows. tannyhill.

fumbling with your phone, the words flashed across the screen.

figure8insider – ‘kildare’s power couple reunited? rafe cameron and y/n y/ln spotted together at party!’

oh.my.god.

[softmaki]

c/w; gn reader, he calls you doll once, choking but not really, manhandling, fwb dynamic, pent up leon, dry humping, a bit ooc so I’m sorry for that, some dirty talk, if I missed any lmk!

thinking about roommate!leon, who you’ve somehow found yourself in a fwb situation with. you’re still unsure how this situation came to be. but you don’t find yourself complaining about that when you have your roommate come home from work, all frustrated and annoyed, and knowing you’re in for an interesting ride.

his hands find purchase tightly on your hips as soon as the door slams shut behind him and he manages to find you in your shared kitchen, lazily reading the back of a box from which your snacking on. your eyes widen in surprise at his urgency, pushing the box further away from yourself and swallowing thickly.

you don’t say anything. his hips push you into the counter as his own come behind you, a huff escaping his nose as his hands knead the flesh of your hips in his hands. the edge of the countertop digs into your skin, the coolness of the granite top biting in a soothing way. your palms flatten out against the countertop, pushing yourself straight up to feel his chest against your back. your head turns to the side, and your eyes lock with his own blue ones.

you know the cloudy look in those eyes. fuck, you know what’s gonna happen.

“is this okay?” his voice is rough. he’s impatient despite being so close, and even despite his frustration he wants to be sure you’re okay with him doing this. his hands grab harshly at your hips as he rolls his hips into you involuntarily, lips rosy and bruised from how hard he’s biting at them.

“yes.” breathless. it’s always been okay if it’s him.

he doesn’t wait for anything further. his lips crash onto yours, the angle awkward as your neck strains to the side enough to make the messy kiss feel relieving. it’s urgent, animalistic, and sloppy. one of his hands disconnects from its rightful place, a meek escaping your throat shortly before he grabs your neck with the stray hand and gently squeezes. it’s not enough to cut off the flow of blood, instead he rests his hand on you as if you’d disappear if he’s not holding you tight enough.

groaning against you, his lips detach from your own. that earns a disappointment whine from you, though your caught off guard as the hand on your throat moves to rest on the back of your neck. his hand pushes your neck down to bend you over the counter. his other hand leaves your hips and finds itself grabbing your arms and pinning them behind your back.

“y’don’t even know how long I’ve waited for this, doll.”

his breath is hot on the shell of your ear, and his words earn nothing less than a wanton moan out of you as his hips roll into your ass. the friction you both finally feel is what you assume heaven to be.

he’s rough and demanding. the pace of his hips only picks up the longer your held in this position. from the corner of your eye you can see his rugged face as his teeth leave marks on his lips, jaw falling open every few moments to release a quiet pant that makes you envious of the air that drinks in his sounds instead of your ears. the hand from your neck snakes down to the hem of your shirt, lifting it up enough to grab at the soft skin below it instead, a guttural moan escaping his throat as his hips roll against you harsher.

“fuuuck, baby. need my cock in you now. fuckin missed this hole. can’t take it anymore, need’ya now.”

you’re tugged out of the hazy state the pleasurable friction left you in, finding yourself flipped onto your back on the counter with leon slotting himself between your legs. he doesn’t struggle with the belt in his fingers and the metal clanking of the buckle against the tiled floors reverberates in the kitchen.

your mouth salivates, hands rushing down to remove your own trousers.

a/n; long time no see! i’m so sorry for the year long hiatus. if it was a crime to be erratic in posting i’d be in for life. this is super rushed and not checked, so if there’s any spelling errors lmk! i’ve been super starved of fic ideas or anything of the sort and feel like my writings not up to par. feel free to suggest anything I could work with, and if I disappear for another year or so please don’t hold it against me 😭🙏

[msbigredmachine]

Kitty Kat (Roman Reigns)

After a lifetime of searching, the Tribal Chief may have finally found the woman of his dreams. Post Summerslam 2024.

Warnings: SMUT (yes i know its excessive im sorry 😭)

Word Count: 5.3k

A/N: This got way too long bc I talk too much. I tried to shorten it I promise but I just couldn't. I do hope you like it either way...

Song inspiration: Again - Lenny Kravitz

Credit to the owners of the pics and gifs

-------------------

He could get used to this.

As he stepped off the plane, Joe discreetly adjusted the bulge in his pants and exhaled deeply, allowing himself a giddy smile in anticipation for what was to come. 

He couldn’t wait to see her again. His Kitty Kat. The interesting part was that this time, she’d flown him out to come spend the week with her, in First Class, no less. “It’s a five-hour flight from Cleveland to L.A., so I want you to be as comfortable as possible, Daddy,” she’d told him. Never in his wildest dreams did he envision being ‘flewed out’. He’d been the one flying her out in his private jet, chartering luxury vehicles to bring her to him. The reverse felt strange and would take some getting used to, but it did feel nice to be pampered and taken care of for once.

Seated comfortably in the back of the Cadillac Escalade driving him through the City of Angels, he reminisced about last night in Cleveland. It was fun to hear the crowd again, the adrenaline rush of his entrance music blaring all around the Browns Stadium. It was a long absence from wrestling for him, darkened by the passing of his father, followed by the whirlwind preparation and execution of his funeral, grand, exhausting and emotional. Kat being by his side for all of it was a precious elixir he could never repay her for, but perhaps he could start tonight.

His thoughts were interrupted by his phone ringing. It was an unknown number, but against his better judgment, he answered and hoped it wasn’t some weirdo fan. “Hello?”

“You left town without telling me? I saw you all over Summerslam last night!” the shrill, familiar voice responded.

Scratch that. Now he wished it was a fan. “I know I blocked your ass. This is stalking,” was his cold greeting. 

“I just want us to talk, Joe! We can’t just end things the way we did!”

“Ain’t nothin’ to talk about, Ebony. I got the DNA test I wanted. Go find your baby daddy and leave me the fuck alone.”

“Are you ever gonna forgive me? I made a mistake!” Ebony pleaded. “You didn’t even invite me to Sika’s funeral. That hurt my feelings, Joe.”

“Bitch, don’t piss me off!” Joe countered angrily. “Blurting out that I’m not Josiah’s daddy was not a mistake! I also found the messages in your phone, remember? You and your little group chat laughed at me, laughed about me raising a kid that ain't mine!”

“That’s a female ass trait, y’know, lookin’ through my phone and invading my privacy!” Ebony complained.

“You can invade these nuts,” Joe dismissed, “You cheated on me and lied about the paternity of your son! That’s enough for me to wash my hands off of you and that’s exactly what I’m doing.”

For a second, Ebony was quiet. Then, “Let me guess. You’re with that uppity rich bitch. She was at your dad’s funeral, both of y'all looked so cozy in the videos. She's the reason you don’t wanna work things out, right? Weren’t you seeing her before we broke up? Who’s the cheater now, huh?”

Joe scoffed in disbelief. After all she’d done to make his life a living hell, she was still gaslighting him. “We were over long before I started seeing her. I only hung around cuz I thought the kid you were carrying was mine. Don’t act like your whorish toxic ways didn’t drive me into her arms in the first place! You broke us up, so I’ve moved on from your evil ass. Simple.”

Ebony kissed her teeth. “You are so disrespectful to me, always have been. You never cared about me. It was all about your fucking wrestling. You were always gone! I was lonely! I needed you and you didn't give a shit!”

“So that’s why you opened your legs for some bum, got knocked up, and lied that I was the father? You disrespected yourself!” He felt himself getting riled up and had to compose himself. He would not let his ex ruin his day. “Imma make this clear so even you can understand. We. Are. Done. Call me again and it’s my attorney you’ll be talking to.” Cutting off the call, he then blocked the number and deleted it for added measure.

Fuck that ho.

Anyway, back to his girl, Kat. It had been an amazing few months so far with her. Of course, he’d googled her in the beginning, asked Heyman to run a background check to make sure she was legit and not a psychopath like his ex. Katrina Sullivan was one of the most famous music producers in the world and the top executive at her renowned publishing label. She was a big time player in her industry just like he was, a star in her own right, and it was a match made in Heaven.

Not only was she incredibly beautiful, but sex with her was a wild ride. She gave him a run for his money whenever they fucked. She was all about new experiences and wasn’t too prissy to fuck inside a car or suck him off outside a dive bar. He blushed every time he remembered the freaky shit they got up to after his loss at Wrestlemania. Long story short, she made him feel much better about dropping the belt. He loved that she loved sex as much as he did, and if he wasn’t hooked on her before, he was completely addicted after that night. 

And it wasn’t all about the physical. There was an emotional bond they shared, a connection that he’d never felt with anyone else before her. Talking with her felt like talking with a friend. He would unload his good days and bad days on her and she would listen to all of it without passing judgment. He did the same for her and was proud to be the one she learned to trust after her own past heartbreaks. Joe wished he’d had the courage to leave Ebony earlier. Perhaps he would have found the woman who had become his peace, his safe haven, and closed the hole in his heart much, much sooner.

A Google Map search helped him find the best florist in town. The ladies in the shop ooh'ed and ahh'ed over the beautiful bouquet of roses he bought and how lucky his lady was. But he thought he was the lucky one. As he took a deep breath and inhaled the flowers, he felt his stomach flutter at the thought of her beautiful face, her smile, her warm embrace. Joe knew he was in love, but he didn’t quite know how to tell her yet. It was weird enough that he lowkey felt like a thot being flown out. He really didn’t mind, though. All he wanted was to be with her and just be in her presence, in her aura. He would tell her when he was ready.

-----------------

Kat’s mansion was the stuff of dreams. Isolated on the hills of the Pacific Palisades overlooking lush Californian greenery, it was one of her rewards as the most in-demand producer in music today. The living room segued into the kitchen, which welcomed him with the smell of freshly cooked food. Pasted to her stainless steel refrigerator by a small circular ‘Acknowledge Me’ magnet, was a note from her saying that she’d just headed out for a last-minute meeting and directed him to the oven where a warm skillet of sirloin steak and seasoned roasted potatoes waited for him. She had also stocked her fridge with his Megafit meals along with C4 Energy drinks and a few bottles of her own branded tequila. His baby was spoiling him rotten and he was digging it.

He first put the fresh flowers in a vase he filled with water before settling down to eat. He wished she was here with him, but he understood more than anyone how busy things could be when you were at the top of your game. He was proud of her and wanted her to get all the coins she deserved. Halfway through his meal, he pulled out his phone and checked on her.

After dinner, he embarked on a little tour around her breathtaking abode which ended up taking several minutes to complete. Joe had some nice homes of his own around the globe, but this floored them all. The edifice dripped with luxury and was crafted to perfection, just like his Kitty Kat was. He enjoyed the gorgeous city view from her balcony as he sipped on some tequila. Her bathroom was spacious and had a waterfall shower that he luxuriated in when he stepped inside. One side of her walk-in wardrobe was lined with an assortment of brand new t-shirts, pants and dress shirts all for him. Of course she knew his size; she’d ripped his clothing off of him on many occasions. His stomach was doing flips as the time continued to tick by. It was hilarious that the big bad Tribal Chief was acting all giddy at the mere thought of a woman, but here he was, entangled in her expensive satin sheets, counting down the minutes until she was back in his arms.

----------------

The sound of running water jerked him awake. The plane ride must have worn him out more than he thought; he didn’t even realize when he fell asleep. The sky outside was now pitch black but the bathroom lights were switched on. As he sat upright in the bed, something rolled down his bare chest and onto his lap. He looked down and his breath hitched. A sheer, baby pink-colored thong, just removed. Unable to resist, he held it up to his nose and shivered as her sensual aroma filled his nostrils and sent all his blood rushing south. With newfound enthusiasm, he climbed out of the bed and padded over to the bathroom. 

Katrina’s back was turned to him, standing over the tub as she drained the bath. Draped in a fluffy lilac bathrobe that barely covered her backside as she bent over, Joe chose to stand there and admire her, letting his eyes follow the rivulets of water that trickled down her long shapely legs. He trailed his gaze along the backs of her knees and her oh-so-sexy thighs, stopping at her luscious derrière where he found her pussy lips, slick and glistening, winking at him. He groaned out loud at the sight, feeling his bulge stir in his drawstring shorts.

Alerted by the noise he made, Kat spun around and sighed. "Oh, damn," she frowned and bounced her fist against her thigh.

Joe raised an eyebrow at her reaction. “Did I frighten you?”

“Not really. I wanted to wake you up by sucking your dick.” 

Chuckling heartily, he stepped closer. "You still can, baby. Don’t let me stop you,” he said, sealing their lips together in a kiss he’d been thinking about for weeks. He held her tight, molding their bodies together as time seemed to stop all around them. The anticipation had been building all day and just this moment alone was worth the long wait.  

Joe sighed happily against her lips, his fingers massaging the back of her neck. “Mmm, I can tell you missed me. Did you miss me, baby?”

“You know I did, Daddy,” she whispered back. It had been months in the making, but Kat was thrilled that he was finally here in her humble abode. She pulled back to regard him, marveling at the sheer height and width of him, his bare, broad chest showcasing that beautiful tattoo and all those muscles. Fuck, he was so hot. “I saw the roses in the kitchen, they’re beautiful,” she said.

“Not as beautiful as you are, baby,” Joe answered, brushing his thumb along her bottom lip. “How was your meeting?”

Kat huffed and rolled her eyes. “Waste of my time. Don’t really wanna talk about it,�� she added, changing the topic to a more exciting one. “You looked so good last night, babe. I could see how happy you were to be back.”

“I was,” he admitted, his light brown eyes lighting up. “Bro, hearing the fans go bananas when my music hit was insane. And all those fingers in the air, too. Four years of bustin' my ass finally paying off.”

“Huh. I had one finger out too, but it wasn’t in the air, and I was layin’ in bed. Naked,” Kat teased, fluttering her long eyelashes at him.

The thought of her writhing around in bed aroused by his show of violence caused another tightening in his shorts. With a growl in his voice, he responded, "Show me." 

“Wait.” She put up one hand before he could grab her. “Before we get started…I never got to ask you because we were so busy with the funeral…But did you take the DNA test?” she asked, watching with dismay as his face fell. He looked away with a heavy sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose, something she learned he did when he was reeling in his emotions. 

“Yeah. Josiah’s not mine,” he replied sadly.

Two distinct emotions of her own rushed through Kat at this news. Relief, that he was no longer tied to Ebony and he could now, finally, move on with his life. Move on with her. Disappointment, on his behalf, knowing that he had enjoyed getting to know the baby boy he’d thought was his child. “I’m so sorry,” was all she could muster.

“Don’t be. At least I know the truth now. I care about the kid, but he’s not my responsibility any more,” he choked out, the sting of losing that sweet little boy still raw and painful.

“Oh, baby.” Kat rubbed her hands up and down his broad back to soothe him. She regretted downing the mood and sought to fix it. “What can I do?” 

Joe shook his head and sank into her embrace. “Just be with me, like this. I wanna be with you. Thank you for bringing me out here, it’s exactly what I needed.”

“Of course. You know I gotchu,” she assured him, butterflies sprouting inside her belly as he dropped feather-light kisses on her neck, trailing along her shoulder which was soon bare as he slipped off her robe and dropped it to the floor. She tugged down his shorts and her hungry gaze zeroed in on that other part of him that she missed. All those FaceTime calls and selfies did very little justice to the real thing. This was his first time on her turf, and she was determined to use this week wisely, especially as this extended period didn’t quite exist before. 

In the beginning, their meetings were brief and eventful, a couple of hours’ escape from the madness going on in their individual lives. Meet up, scorch the sheets, and wake to the sound of the rustle of clothes pulled from the floor, the sharp zipping of bags, quick kisses goodbye followed by the front door quietly clicking open and shut. At each other’s mercy at sunset then disappearing before dawn to resume reality. It was a thrill at first but as time passed, Kat realized she wanted more with him. She wanted to begin and end her days in his sturdy arms. Wanted them to shower together, to eat together and spend much more time together. Simply put, she wanted to be a real couple, and she was ecstatic when he confessed that he wanted the same. Coming to L.A. was a great start and it excited Kat to no end.

Hand in hand, they walked together, naked, out of the bathroom. She giggled as he followed closely behind her, kissing her neck and touching her body along the way. As they reached the bed, Joe noticed the bottle of champagne sitting in a bucket full of ice on the nightstand. Kat read his mind. “Just a lil’ sumn to celebrate your arrival,” she clarified, as he sat on the edge of the bed and pulled her to stand between his legs. His gaze was soft, yet beautifully intense as he ran his hands up her thighs and her hips, cupping her backside and bringing her even closer to him. He pressed his lips to her stomach, adorning her belly with gentle, open-mouthed kisses that felt so good she moaned pleasurably in approval.

“I’m in love with you,” he whispered against her brown skin, his voice clear yet filled with a vulnerability he’d never felt before.

Kat smiled down at him. “Took you long enough. I’ve been waiting for you.”

“For real?” His heart pounding so hard in his chest he was sure she could hear it.

Her smile widened as she loosened his ponytail, letting the long dark locks fall and frame his breathtaking features like the angel he was. Her angel. “Yeah. I mean…After everything we’ve shared, after getting to know the beautiful person that you are, of course I’m in love with you too.”

They were words he’d been hoping to hear from her for a while now, and now that he had, he was robbed of every sensation other than joy and peace and the burning need to make love to her nonstop for the rest of his stay in the West Coast. “You’re beautiful too, baby girl,” he rasped, drawing her back in, “So fuckin’ beautiful…”

They clung to each other, making out with increasing passion, both of them extremely aroused and more desperate than ever in the wake of this wonderful revelation. As they kissed, he slipped one hand over her breast, kneading gently, eliciting from her those purring sounds that earned her sexy little nickname. He missed his Kitty Kat so much. The last time they were together was at his father’s funeral, and he couldn't be with her the way he wanted to be. Now that they were all alone there was nothing stopping him from having his way with her.

But apparently, she had other plans. 

She pushed him hard in the chest, smirking at his surprised grunt as he hit the mattress rather unceremoniously. “Get in,” she instructed him.

He frowned petulantly at her, but did as he was told, dragging himself backwards up the bed with his eyes on her at all times. He felt his mouth go dry as she crawled towards him on all fours like the sexy ass kitten she was. As she reached the space between his open legs, she surprised him by picking up her thong and winding it around his wrists, securing it tight before pushing his arms over his head. 

“Baby…” he pouted.

“Shhhh,” Kat shushed him quietly, thrilled by the submission in his eyes, the surrender in his soft moan, his dick hard and erect in anticipation. Having control over a man like him felt so empowering. Though sexually submissive to him, Kat always enjoyed it when the roles were switched. It never lasted long though, so she planned to make the most of it.

Climbing back down his body, she rubbed her hands on the expanse of his thighs, his caramel skin warm beneath her fingers. She moved higher, coming dangerously close to the pleasure between his legs but avoiding it, for now. She wanted to touch it but the wait was more exciting. Her hands disappeared to squeeze his ass cheeks, and then reappeared over his hips, traveling along the sharpened ridges of his six-pack abs and up to his broad chest. Her body followed suit, sliding up until her thighs bracketed his sides. The little hiss that escaped him as she sat on his torso thrilled her; she knew right away that he could feel her warm moistness against his skin. Her fingers found his nipples next, toying with them before leaning in to lick them, and giggled with amusement when his dick sprang high enough to smack against her backside.

“Fuck, baby, feel what you do to me?” Joe hissed, his cock jumping again as her mouth warmed his neck, nibbling on the shell of his ear as she whispered to him in the softest, deadliest timbre: 

"I’m just getting started, big guy."

Sitting upright on top of him, she reached for the ice bucket, scooping out an ice cube in the shape of an exquisite diamond. The ravenous look in Joe’s eyes matched hers as she sipped on the cube, letting the cold melt on her tongue and travel down her throat. Then, she bent down and kissed him, her cold tongue quickly warming up from the heat of his mouth. The wet muscles moved together in a sweet dance, delightedly intertwining, obsessed with the taste of each other. Kat pressed the ice cube to his chest, giggling when he jerked from the cold, and drew figure eights with it, watching rivulets of water trickle down the sides of his body. She put the ice cube on his right nipple and watched it harden. Then she replaced the ice with her warm mouth on his cold nipple.

“Shit, baby you killin’ me,” he moaned, looking on with hooded eyelids as she kissed down his body. She stopped between his legs, bowing her body in front of his erection, long and thick and hard, precum glistening on his slit. Her tongue darted out to taste it, licking her lips with pleasure. Giving him a sly wink, she took the tip of his dick in her mouth and sucked, winding her tongue around the head like a hungry snake. The moan that escaped his lips was needy and borderline painful, causing her eyes to light up in triumph. 

“When I get my hands on you…” he growled, his expression almost pissed, but Kat knew better. His frustration mingled with his lack of control, control she’d taken from him all day by calling the shots from his travel to the food he ate. The sensual power play continued as she massaged his dick, the thick velvety flesh twitching in her hands as his hands twitched in his makeshift binds. Using the flat of her tongue, she licked up and down his shaft, making slurping sounds that were drowned out by his groans as she spread her saliva all over his dick. She was addicted. He tasted so good and she craved to have her fill.

Putting a smaller ice cube in her mouth, she chewed it, crushing the ice with her teeth. From there, she hugged his dick with her lips, dousing the heat of his flesh with the coldness of her throat. Tiny bits of ice melted against his shaft as she sucked and tongued every inch of him. She could feel his chest heaving and his abs crunching, could hear his strangled moans as he got warmer and got harder in her mouth. He was right where she wanted him. Resting her weight on his burly thighs, she moaned to him to let go, and smiled when seconds later a shout burst from him, his hips arching off the bed as he unloaded down her throat. She drank her fill of him, glancing up to watch the pleasure ravage his huge body, giving a little smile as he floated down back to earth. 

“Oh my god…” he breathed, his body jerking when she pulled away, letting his dick, slick with her spit and his cum, plop down on his thigh. With one more long, soft kiss to his length, she slithered back up his body, pressing her lips to his for a sweet, delicate kiss which heavily contrasted with the heaviness of his dick brushing along her now-wet opening. Pleasing him turned her on in a way her notoriously composed self could never comprehend.

“You came so hard for me, baby. The look on your face was everything,” Kat gifted him a teasing lash of her tongue against his as she ran her hands up his arms to toy with the sheer material holding him hostage. Lifting her body up, she slowly sank down on his dick, a gasp slipping from her when the smooth tip pierced through her soft, slick folds, enabling her to wind her hips to take him all the way in. They both moaned as the thickness of him nudged her sweet spot, coaxing a whine out of her as she wrapped her arms around his neck, wanting him close, making out with him while slowly rocking her body back and forth, grinding her clit on him. It stunned her to this day, how she was able to take him all, his length and girth filling her and hitting her most sensitive spot right away. The power that coursed through her at making him succumb to her will, no different from any pinning combination or submission move, was intoxicating. Her moans and his groans reverberated through the bedroom, the air thick with the scent of sex as she loved on him.

“Untie me. Now,” Joe commanded out of nowhere, the roughness of his tone surprising Kat. One look at the power and pleasure on his beautiful face told her he was not taking no for an answer. Obediently, she  reached up and unraveled the underwear from around his wrists, and she had barely tossed it aside when his hands came around her, finding her backside and thrusting deeper into her. Finally, he could touch her the way he wanted. He loved her ass, enjoyed the feel of it gyrating against his palms. He landed a heavy-handed slap on it, making her burrow her face in his neck with a soft cry, the sound growing more desperate as his fingers caressed the supple flesh of her ass while grinding up into her, making her feel so good.

“Such a badass bitch, yet so weak for me. Weak for this dick,” he purred to her with a kiss to her shoulder. The wicked gleam in his eyes had Kat both frustrated and aroused, but the unmistakable glimpse of lust clouding those eyes showed he was just as weak for her. With every downward motion of her hips, she could see him become more mesmerized, his breaths huskier, his face contorting with unbridled bliss as her pussy squeezed his length in deep, throbbing pulls. Sensing him trying to regain control, she beat him to it, pushing up and steadying herself on top of him. With both hands planted on his strong chest, she adjusted her legs in a squat and began bouncing on his dick, up and down, fucking him, taking from him what she wanted, giving him what he needed. 

“Fuck, that’s it, kitten, ride the shit outta my dick,” Joe groaned, his huge hands now clamped around her waist. “I’m here now, baby. I gotchu. Take it out on me, take all that stress out on me.” It was a wonder to watch her, her knees up and wide apart, treating him to the sight of her moist flesh gliding all the way down his turgid flesh and back up, leaving the base of his dick a wet, slippery mess. It looked incredible and felt even better. “You so wet for me, baby girl,” he rasped, reaching up to massage her bouncing breasts. “I love it when you use me. You love using Daddy’s big dick, huh?”

"Yes, Daddy I love it...Shiiit, oh my goddd!" Kat threw her head back, her moans shaky, her body trembling on top of him as waves of ecstasy washed over her thanks to the orgasm wracking her from head to toe.  

“Unnhh yeah, come for Daddy, come on my dick,” he moaned back to her, his full lips parted and panting, his eyes boring into hers as he watched her come undone. Overcome with passion, he sat upright and tugged her flush against him, his breath hitching as the action sank him even deeper into her. He needed to hold her to him, needed to make her all his. “I ain’t pullin’ out,” he announced, moving her on him again, “I'ma come all up inside you, baby.”

His words sank in, but any coherent answer she had disappeared with another rake of his dick against her g-spot. Wordlessly, Kat snuggled into his warm embrace, locking her arms and legs around him as she continued to grind on him in a deliciously erotic rhythm. Wrapping his arms around her waist, Joe planted a big kiss upon her throat, her jaw, then her lips, enjoying the taste of her moans as his hips rolled along with hers like a choreographed dance. Emotions were high as they joined as one, surrounded by the sounds of the newfound love they were finally expressing to each other. The mattress bounced beneath them, the legless bed rocking in tune with their heated bodies rocking on top of it. Every worry they had was gone and replaced with a hunger and need for the other that they both knew they would never be able to satiate.

"I love you," Joe whispered, pushing her hair out of her eyes to gaze into them.

“I love you too, baby...oh fuck,” Kat panted, burying her face in his shoulder, her hands sliding down to grip his ass as she bucked her hips like a mad woman. Joe moved with her, not missing a single beat. His own release was building fast within him, too fast. The blood was pounding in his head and tightening his balls as her pussy squeezed his cock so tight he was having a hard time catching his breath. They soon realized they were climaxing together, both shaking from the intense, throbbing waves of pleasure. Kat’s toes curled into the sheets as she felt his warm fluid gushing into her pussy just like he wanted, felt his body pulse as hard as his dick pulsing deep inside of her. No piece of music, no music video she created could ever compare to the magic she made with this incredible man, ever be as beautiful as the sight of his face scrunching up helplessly as his orgasm consumed him. So she kept her eyes on him for as long as she could, watching all the emotions sweep his gorgeous visage like an unforgettable movie. 

An eternity later, their movements slowed, their breathing calmed, their hearts racing as one as the world returned to normal. Joe felt light as air as he fell back onto the bed, Kat melting into him with her head on his chest, where his heart beat for her. He was still inside her and she kept him there, wanted to be filled with all his love in the very best way.

“Welcome home, my love,” she giggled, soothed by his own throaty chuckle vibrating against her skin. Her eyes fluttered shut as his lips pressed her forehead. She wished she could bottle the sound of his laugh, the feeling of his soft lips, bottle this very moment forever.

“Glad to be home, my love,” he answered, his fingers caressing her back as he kissed her mouth. “I can tell my time in L.A. is gonna be fun.”

"Mm-hmm. We got all week, Daddy," Kat eyed him with a sly smile, tracing her manicured index finger along his tattooed pectoral, "Like I said, we're just getting started."

THE END.

--------------

A/N: This is the only story I've had the energy to complete. I'd love to know your thoughts!

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[mscherub]

Hello! This was, and is originally posted on my Ao3, but I’m gonna bring it over here for other ppl to read, cause why not?

Courting with Floyd (Floyd Leech x Reader)

Gender neutral reader, referred to as prefect, Y/N, or shrimpy~

(Possible?) Warnings:

swearing(I have a sailors mouth and it makes its way into my writing)

Mention of a tooth

Uneducated reader on merfolk courting rituals

Probs grammatical errors and or spelling, or both, knowing me—

Word count: approximately 2.4K

How long has it been since Floyd has been acting weird? Well, I mean he always was weird to begin with, but now? Yea, totally different! He seemed more calm around you which—shockingly—is not like him. Was he ok? Where’d the sinister maniacal eel boy go? Figuring Jade would know better about his own brother, you went to him first just to ask, but, as expected, Jade was no help, simply smirking at you and basically telling you “tough luck.” I mean, Floyd, Floyd, was starting to be nice to you. Always finding a reason to be with you, always finding a reason to annoy hang out with you. Granted he did that before, but not as much. You weren’t thattt interesting. You were basic looking at best in his opinion(rude…), you caused a lot of trouble(ok, that’s fun…), and you did make everything twice as exciting when around so…ehhhh, maybe you were more interesting than he gave you credit for. But now? He’s going all out just to be closer it seems, and it’s unnerving.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

“Shrimpyyyyyyyyyyyyyy…ne ne, heyyyyyyy. Lookie lookie! Loooook!!! Shrimpy?” Floyd pouted and poked your cheek.

You were in the library, minding your business studying. Grim was off with Ace and Deuce so you got a moment alone, even just for a few minutes, but of course it was ruined already…

“Huh? I’m trying to study here…” you reply. Honestly why did trouble always find you? And more importantly why did the cause of it get blamed on you and—

“Booooringgg…hey hey, shrimpy~” he flashes you that signature toothy grin, pulling you out of your inner monologue. “I have something more fun in mind, yea? Come with me~” he doesn’t give you any time to even respond and yanks you up from your seat. You begrudgingly follow along behind him, trying to pull your arm away from his grip, but to no luck. The fuck did this guy eat to be so damn strong?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

After going about campus for who knows how long, precious study time replaced by scaring and robbing people on Azul’s special blacklist…Floyd drags you under a tree in the botanical gardens. He hums a tune softly as he kicks at rocks in the grass…he’s out of toys to play with now and I guess you’re the only option, right?

“Heyyyyyy, Shrimpy! Tell me a story from your world.” you’re pulled from your thoughts again and look over at him as he leans against the tree and slumps down to the ground. He looks up at you expectantly. You sigh and sit down next to him, backs against the trees.

“What do you wanna hear?” You hum as your eyes find their way to a group of butterflies fluttering around a small patch of flowers.

“Something cool. Hmmmm…oh! How ‘bout something about the oceans in your world? You have em, yea?” He sighs, gently bumping the back of his head against the tree

“Yea, my world has oceans, but I dunno. We have like maybe 5% explored? A lot of fish I guess…not much different from yours in a sense besides that merfolk don’t exist.” you murmur. What else was there really to say? You exactly weren’t a marine biologist before ending up here.

Floyd goes quiet and lets out a scoff of disbelief, his eyes widening

“Huh…your world sounds boring shrimpy…no other eel merfolk then?” He waits for your reply. Why did he care about that

“Uh…no. Not any merfolk at all…and I guess it is kinda boring. But hey, it’s home.” you retort. Floyd simply grins and moves his face closer to yours. You glare at him confused. You could be studying right now, you could be reading up on whatever topic Trein assigned, but no! You were bullshitting around with probably one of the top most deadliest students in the entire school, and that’s without the use of magic. But Floyd doesn’t do anything sinister, instead he pulls something from his blazer pocket and drops it in your lap…what the—a pearl?

“Uh—“

“Pretty, huh? Just like your eyes, or whatever. Anyways…I’m bored, and ‘Zul’s probably got some spiel for me when I get back…gotta beat him to the lounge.” Floyd hoists himself up and looks down at you, waving his hand. “Later, shrimpy-Chan~” he grins again. His eyes have a weird glint to them today.

He whistles as he walks off, leaving you alone to ponder, again…ok…what the fuck just happened?

Things didn’t exactly add up. Was he trying to trick you…did he just give you a gift, for free!? Uh, hello? Not Floyd like, not Octivanelle student like at all! Something was fishy, and no pun intended, but what the actual fuck? Ok, thinking logically, maybe you did something that benefited him and he payed you back for it? But what did you do? And also that’s not like Floyd, either? You’re completely and utterly stumped.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Floyd’s behavior only got weirder over the days, and he even uncharacteristically started to give more gifts to you…one being the tooth of who knows who’s. You’ve asked him about it and it’s the same reply each time:

“Just felt like it. Bye now!” —or something like that…gave you something pretty, which was always usually shiny, and then left, leaving you to look at the gift(if you even wanna consider a tooth that then sure) confused.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

One evening you’re sitting in Ramshackle dorm, doom scrolling on MagiCam, Grim curled up and passed out beside you on the couch…

Ding!

“The hell?”

A message from Azul pops up and you instinctively click on it.

Azul: “for the love of the seven, please say yes to Floyd already. It’s driving me and my business into turmoil…”

Huh…

Ok, what the hell did he mean by “say yes to Floyd?” What am I saying yes to?

You: “…uh…what?”

Azul: “…”

Azul: “come to the lounge.”

And that’s it. Azul ends the conversation. Weird.

You hoist yourself up and you pat grim on the head to wake him up.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

When you and Grim get to the lounge, it’s empty, besides for the disaster playing out…Floyd slumped directly on the floor in the middle of the lounge in his eel form, his tail flicking angrily and smacking against the floor, a pout plastered onto his face. Apparently Azul caught him trying to sneak out again to go to the sea for “presents,” and Azul got fed up. Floyd grumbles and glares over at the door, his eyes soften just a bit when he sees it’s you, but he’s in one of his moods.

“Shrimpy…come’ere…” he mutters. “Tell ‘Zul how dickish he’s being by not letting me go get you another trinket from the sea.”

“Floyd, you’ve been skipping out on working hours—“

Jade chimes in, “To be fair, when doesn’t he?”

Floyd keeps bickering with Azul, leaving you and Grim to just witness the scene unfold before you.

“Henchhuman, we could run right about…now!” Grim murmurs.

“No…” you sigh as you grab his tail before he books it. You could totally take advantage of this, maybe get Azul to make a fair deal with you if you solve whatever is wrong with Floyd…

Jade walks up next to you silently and smiles as he watches.

“You know…my brother has taken quite a liking to you I fear…he would be fairly upset if you were to keep ignoring his advances.” He hums. “Though it is enjoyable to watch him try so hard.”

“What? Jade, no offense but what the hell do you mean?” You side eye him, but Azul calls Jade over to drag Floyd to the pool until he can get him a potion to change him back…Azul is stressed and it’s evident as he takes off his glasses to rub his face. But soon his exasperated expression is replaced by a glare as he makes eye contact with you.

“Prefect, I truly thought you were smart, but in this type of situation, you’re so dense!” Azul huffs.

“Ok, ok, before accusing me of anything else, you mind telling me what’s going on?” You say as you cross your arms.

“You know exactly what’s going on…right?” He mutters.

Azul looks at you, his glare never changing until you can see something click for him. His eyes go a little wide and he looks at you surprised.

Shit…you didn’t know the courting rituals of merfolk, did you? I mean it would only make sense, you were a human, and you weren’t exactly from this world…

“Ah…Prefect. How to explain this— “

“How to explain what?” You sigh.

Azul takes a breath in and puts his glasses back on before continuing.

“I suppose there’s differences in each culture varying from land to sea, and in truth that is what makes them all unique in their own ways…uh—“ he pauses again, rubbing his temples.

“in merfolk culture, those who may be interested in another tend to give gifts as a means of courting. Do you understand that? Need I say more?”

You stare at him blankly, blink a few times, then take a breath in.

“Courting?”

“Courting.” Azul confirms.

“By that you mean Floyd is trying to…trying to get with me? Date me?” You murmur, your eyes widening.

“Precisely.” Azul sighs. “And while I have no problem with that in a sense, you ignoring his advances have caused him to be more—more in a sour mood, lately, more than he usually is, anyways. It’s truly putting a stunt into the business of the lounge due to him working less…it’s cumbersome.” Azul sighs again, longer this time.

You look at Azul, then to Grim who seems even more surprised than you. He looks over at you and looks about ready to cry.

“NOOOOO. HENCHHUMAN NO! NO, NO! YOU WILL NOT NOOOOOOO!” Grim whines, grabbing your arm and shaking you.

“Tell Floyd off, Azul! Ain’t no way my Henchhuman is gonna fall in the grips of that slimy eel!” Grim complains

Azul puts up his hand, shushing Grim.

“That’s not my decision, and you both practically know Floyd as well as I do…and to be fair I don’t exactly know why he’s courting since neither him nor Jade have ever tried in their life, not even back in the coral sea…but, Perfect,” Azul narrows his eyes at you, “don’t make a decision that will ruin my business…” and with that, he leaves you and Grim, slamming the door to the VIP lounge.

“Henchhuman you can’t be considerin’ this! There’s a lot of better guys out there…like Kalim, rich too!”

“Floyd and Jade are pretty rich, too, Grim—“

“And he lives above land, and he has Jamil who makes great food! I think if you’re going for someone go for him.” He interrupts.

“Grimmy, it ain’t just about the money for one…” you sigh.

“YOU’RE CONSIDERING THIS?!” He yells, he looks ready to faint.

Truth was, that as much as you acted like you didn’t like Floyd, you honestly kind of did. For what, though? Hard to tell. Maybe it was his laid back attitude, or maybe it was his looks, though he kinda looked like a gremlin, or maybe you just liked him for, well, him…

Grim is already walking(floating) away, but you let him this time…you’ll find him later, guarantee, probably caught up with some mess he always manages to make. Instead, you take a breath in and walk to where the pools are located.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

You push through the double doors to the pool room and you find Floyd swimming in circles, bored mumbling obscenities to himself. You get closer, your footsteps echoing on the tiled floor.

“If it’s you ‘zul, I don’t wanna hear what you have ta say, ain’t gonna change anything, and—“ he looks up and sees you. He stops talking then stops swimming. Slowly, his pout forms into a smirk and he swims over to the edge of the pool.

“Shrimpy~ I knew you’d come…” he gives you a closed eye grin. He hoists himself up out of the pool and sits on the edge, the rest of his tail in the water.

You walk over to him and sit next to him, keeping at least a few feet between you in hopes you don’t get wet.

“Sorry I didn’t notice earlier…I guess?” you murmur. You look at him. His smile doesn’t fade, he moves his face closer to yours. “About the courting or whatever, I mean. Actually, it’s more your fault cause how were you gonna do that to me when I didn’t even know what it meant? Ah, whatever. Guess it’s just good I know now, right?” you tease. Floyd giggles and boops your nose.

“Thought you knew. You seemed smart, but maybe I gave ya too much credit for that, huh?” He teases back.

You nudge him gently with your shoulder, your uniform blazer sticking slightly to his viscous skin…

He smiles and holds out a closed fist to you. You look up at him and furrow your brows, looking at his gesture confused.

He turns his fist and opens it, revealing a pearl necklaces with shiny scales that obviously didn’t belong to him. Now that you understood the implications somewhat of the gifts, you hesitate to take it, but he plops it into the palm or your hand. You clip it around your neck and let out a soft hum as the light glints of the scales.

“It’s pretty,..uh, I guess just like you, thank you?” You murmur. Floyd grins even more and practically pounces on you.

“You’re too cute shrimpy…” he hums, rubbing his cheek against yours. “You get it now, yea? Good…now you gotta do it back…I only like expensive things so—“

“Floyd, let’s just skip that, ok?” You chuckle. “I like you, too…without the gifts you’ve given me, though, they are nice…”

“Hmmm…guess I can see past it just this once…” he sighs. He pulls back a little and grins at you. You look back at him and can’t help but smile.

“Do you know how we seal a courtship?” His smiling never faltering.

“Let me guess, a ki—“

Floyd crashes his lips against yours and shuts you up. A small sound of surprise leaves you. He pulls away and giggles, watching as your face turns bright red.

“Hmmm…now I’m bored, Shrimpy…oh, I know let’s go for swim!”

Oh no.

That’s it for now my lovelies! Also this was my first work on Ao3 and ofc transferring it over here may have messed it up a lot more, so if it’s bad that’s why 💀 (I also can write rlly well some days and others I can’t, weird thing…)

Master list

Please don’t steal or copy any of my work! You may, however, reblog if you’d want to!

Pictures belong to Disney Twisted Wonderland but are edited by me :)

[dollwhite]

BRAT

chapter two 🎀 part one is on my account

made by Dollwhite

As you’re walking towards the black BMW that is sitting in-front of Gotham Academy. The dreadful feeling started to sat in, it felt bitter. You known what you did was wrong, but you couldn’t help it. They asked you for help, Winnie and Theodore took you in. They took you into their friend group, when they didn’t have to.

They saw you didn’t have any real friends. so they became you real friends.And you’ve all been friends for about 5 months

You didn’t care what background they came from , you just wanted

FRIENDS. real friends not fake, not the ones that wanted to make connections with the Wayna family.

you know you wear in for it when you got in that car. You know the minute you close that car door, he was going to rip into you. But…you don’t care. He could take away you allowance, he could take away your phone, he could take away anything. But it would be ok.

because you would still have your real friends with you. And because you all were inseparable.

“..I’m not mad, just disappointed. [Reader] you are 15, you should know better than to let people copy off your tests. No matter if they’re your friends or not.”

“I’M NOT MAD JUST DISAPPOINTED.”

Was a phrase you heard a lot while growing up. It’s not like you were bad, sometimes THEY said it for the most simple reasons. Like once you dropped a glass plate, they made you clean it up with only your hands.

You were five.

“I don’t want you hanging out with those kids, they are bad influences.”

HATE

That’s all you could feel in that moment. You finally get real friends

And HE just wants you to throw it all away? When HE hasn’t been in your life. He wasn’t there when you got your first Period, does he even know how scared you were. He’s never been to a parent teacher conference.

But he made sure to never miss one of Damian’s, or Tim’s, or Cass. Hall he even went to Jason’s. But never to one of yours.

“Why because they gave me a belly piercing?” You ask the words just flying out of your lips. “No because you helped them cheat- THEY GAVE YOU WHAT”!? He yelled, stopping the car in front of the Wayne Manor.

“NOTHING THEY GAVE ME NOTHING”

shit you fucked up.

YOU. FUCKED.UP

your fucked, he was talking about the fucking test but you just had to go and make it about you. How were you gonna play this off?..

“Get. In. The. House. Now.” He started his hands wrapping around the car steering wheel.

“ Dad” you hesitated. You haven’t called him dad since you noticed how… you both just won’t that close. You looked at him and all the other kids and they’re just different, they all have at least one of the same interests. But you? You’re not a vigilante, you were never Robin. The closest thing you got is Alfred teaching you hand to hand combat, for when you out with your friends and something happens.

Hiii guys, it’s short ikkkkkk 😓 but um I finally got some dividers!!!!! um and I said I would draw Winnie but um all of the drawings I did just didn’t feel like Winnie so I don’t think ima post them 😭. Hope you had a wonderful day or night. 💗 readers: Dolly u said the batboys were going to be in this chapter?

Me: ohhhh..that’s what i was forgetting 😟..

readers: …

[oonajaeadira]

Patricio Keeps a Journal, Pt. 1: Winter

Good. Things. Take. Time. is a series that grew out of prompts–the whisper of a character, the asks of readers. And now, to get myself back into PATS’s head, the prompts are coming from @fanfticionoverload’s Seasons of Life challenge.

What you’re about to read are some excerpts from Patricio’s journal. Heads up they probably won't make much sense if you haven't read the ongoing series.

Each excerpt is just that–snippets that pertain to the story, taken from his presumed wider journal, each notated where it lands in the series and follows the chronology of the series.

The rules of the challenge ask for 250 words per prompt. I thought it would be a little less forced if I didn’t worry so much about that, so some may fall short of that number. And I’ll say that these aren’t heavily edited nor are they anything other than basic reactions, precisely because I wanted them to feel like the unfiltered thoughts one writes in a journal.

Let’s say that it was Shell’s orders for him to keep a journal in the first place. If his practice is his way of dealing with his demons, if he’s not going to go to traditional therapy, then “the least you can do is just offload before bed, and not the kind of offloading you do with your dick. I’m not gonna read it, but I’ll want to see words on those pages. Write a fucking play for all I care, write a manifesto about your love of pasta, I don’t give a shit what. Just write.”

I don’t have anything to write. I’m not a fucking poet. Shell says use the pen, get the words out of your head, just write anything. Anything. Anything. Tables have turned. Now I’m the one practicing letting it all out. Trying not to think too hard.  Anything.

EXCERPT 1: SNOW

TIMELINE: a few days before Good. Things. Take. Time.

…

#39 gifted me four tickets to the game at her last session. It’s Neils’ birthday. I’ll surprise him and Dan with a guy’s night out.

Got a new client coming in on Thursday. #48. I wasn’t going to approve her. Nothing in her application hints at any lingering trauma that she can’t just get treated at a legit clinic. But Shell was pushy about this one. She's got a knack for these things and hasn’t been wrong yet. Official referral diagnosis: pain is psychological tension from a recent(?) divorce. I guess it’s worth a shot. If nothing else, divorcees are usually just in need of a good fuck so it’s an easy fix. Good photo. I like her style. She’s going to make pretty faces.

Thinking about taking some time off after that. Rare confluence of three clients ending their run at the same time, it’s slow season at the office and the guys can handle a week without me, I should get out of town. Someplace quiet. Or fuck, I don’t know, someplace distracting where I can get out of my head. Maybe I should book a massage. Look at me, I’m hilarious. Who massages the masseuse? I’ll have Shell find me something. Keep it interesting. Place yer bets: seedy and cheap or golden toilets and happy endings? As long as it’s somewhere warm.

Renee posted the pictures from her honeymoon. Skiing in the Alps. She always used to hate the snow. Guess people change. Change can be a good thing. 

She’s better off. 

___

EXCERPT 2: SCARF

TIMELINE: The night of Good. Things. Take. Time.

…

Shell hit the jackpot on this one. Perfect plaything. She’s like I custom ordered a client. Recurring cluster knots all down her starboard teres major, needs a hand getting in under the port shoulder blade…can’t do it alone. Needs my hands. She needs me. Follows directions, trusts completely. Has a good imagination. That will open up more in time. I expect a challenge out of this one. Surprised the shit out of me with the beautiful thing though. Maybe shouldn’t have let her have that. Maybe shouldn’t have gone down on her. It’s fine. She’s clean. Tastes good smells good ass for days. I can get a good handful. Everywhere.

And perfect inside. Tight but not too tight, good control with the right assistance, takes direction like a dream. I’ll be able to get her to sing if she keeps listening. Mierda, her skin. My hands want to eat it. Oil it up and map it out and scarf it down. Her muscle structure is    -just-    amazing. I haven’t been this amped in months. This one hits the spot.

Giving her Thursday across the board might have come off too eager. Well, if that didn’t, offering up extra days on call probably did. Jackass.

Not gonna worry about that tonight. Bowling with the guys tomorrow night. Hope they’re ready to eat their damn balls. I’m fucking invincible.

She called me beautiful. She’s [sentence scratched out] 

Forgot to note in her file–she said she hasn’t had anyone make her come in over a year even though info says she’s only been divorced a few months. What kind of an asshole just walks away from that her? How could anyone share a bed or a house or anything with that and resist for a year? She deserves to get fucked every day. Why wouldn’t you want someone that just falls into you so willingly and fucks so pretty? Great. Now I’m angry. Not my concern. Just my gain.

___

EXCERPT 3: COZY 

TIMELINE: weekend evening, after installment #2, relieving period cramps

…

Keep thinking about Thursday. It’s not about the blood. It is and it isn’t. It’s obviously that she needed relief. It’s good to see her trusting. That can be tricky for some women. Beaten into them that they have to hide what their body does. It’s a body. It’s a unique mechanism. It has shit and blood and needs a good release now and then. Or every day for some people...another truth for some of us that the world wants hidden away.

The blood’s messy. It’s primal. It’s brutal and nobody blinks an eye if it comes from a punch to the face or a slice of the thumb. But the minute it comes from the minute it shows you what  a woman’s body is capable of… But it’s also the harshness of the color, a signal that if there’s pain then it’s real. It’s a helpful focus.

She just LETS me. There's beauty in that pliability. She trusts, she follows, she heals. The way her face just relaxes when the knots are gone. It’s almost as good as the orgasm itself. Beautiful.

Got her all warmed up in the bath, all cozy in bed. Fell asleep like a worn-out kitten and I had an urge to kiss her forehead. Poor thing just needed it today. Successful session.

___

EXCERPT 4: FIREPLACE 

TIMELINE: a couple of weeks later, evening, after installment #3, the treatment for migraine and anxiety AND includes this six sentence ficlet

…

Well shit. There’s a coincidence. She wouldn’t believe me if I told her.

Thursday came in tonight tight as a screw, migraine a good 7 or 8. I had to take it slow. Asked her to focus on some bright spots in her life, like her favorite things. I might have guessed the animals and reading, but the fanfiction was a surprise. Cute. It was best not to talk about what was causing the stress because

Her family coming to stay.

Fuck if I don’t sympathize. 

Mama got here two days ago and all she can do is complain about her hotel and American food and how everyone speaks too fast for her to keep up. It’s cold here. The hotel should have a fireplace. Why don’t you take time off Patricio? You have an extra bedroom, why can’t your mama sleep there?

I love her. But I get it. There are just some boundaries that are hard. I get you, Thursday.

Preciosa.

Fucked her five ways til Sunday. She fucked ME five ways till Sunday.. She drew blood. Didn’t even care. Mark me up, girl. Glad I could help, but damn that might have been more mutually beneficial than I’d originally planned.

___

EXCERPT 5: HOT CHOCOLATE 

TIMELINE: night of installment #4, with the undergarment ripping and the thigh-highs

…

I didn’t expect to get to play this much. I’m usually so focused on the pain and making sure the client can come in their condition that there’s not a lot of room for fun and surprises. I got to take Shell out last weekend and might have bought her too many beers and pull-tabs. It took her about three bottles to get profound. She wants to know who "therapies the therapist" and told me I should remember that it’s okay to put my own priorities first sometime. She said that people in the industry of care need to be taken care of too. She said it’s okay to have a client that gives as good as she gets. Then she went home and threw up and texted me the next day that she’s drinking nothing but hot chocolate from now on. Haha

Shit. Thursday feels good when she walks out of here. She looks like a million bucks. I did that. I DO that. THAT’s what I need. So yeah. Why shouldn’t I enjoy that? Cute tonight. She wanted me to rip her panties. All she had to do was ask, but I think she was embarrassed to?

So the new diagnosis is lack of confidence and the treatment is for her to speak up for what she wants. We’re going to get her to a place where she can ask–or demand what she needs. We’ll work on her trusting that I’ll give her anything she wants–anything. 

She’ll be able to walk out of here and conquer the world when I’m done with her.

___

EXCERPT 6: FREEZING 

TIMELINE: a couple of weeks after the previous entry

...

[….] and Niels can go to hell though because I don’t care how low key it is or how good the whiskey is, I’m not giving up my Thursdays to fill in the hole in his poker night. His basement is freezing and I have warmer places to be.

Although speaking of, Thursday canceled again. It’s been a couple of weeks. Crunch time at work for her I guess. Her portal messages seem pretty stressed. She’s apologetic about missing sessions. I can tell her she doesn’t need to apologize, I’m getting paid whether she shows or not. And honestly, it just means we’re going to have to work that much harder to get her malleable again and I can hardly complain about that. A build up’s a hell of a thing. As long as she doesn’t mess up her rhombs again. We were just making headway on that. I should ask her about her desk chair.

But I’d be lying if I said that I gave a shit about the pay. I’m allowed to enjoy my clients and be disappointed when I don’t get to see them.

At least Jean’s back on Friday. It will be nice to see her again. Now that her latest surgery’s all healed up, we can find her some good positions for her to take home. I know her partner’s skittish about the discovery phase. But she’s almost done and when the reconstruction’s over, he’ll thank me for it. He SHOULD thank me for it, she’s got a good laugh and good tits.

Jean’s a perfect example of learning to speak up for herself. I can do the same for Preciosa. Lucky for her she doesn’t have Jean’s level of pain to work through. But she’s gotta show. up. for. it. Come on, girl. I got you.

___

EXCERPT 7: MARSHMALLOW

TIMELINE: directly after installment #5, all pent up and feral

…

Now THAT. Was a successful fuck. We’re making headway here. Little slapping, little biting, she got a good few hair yanks in there. She’s learning that not only am I not a marshmallow…neither is she. Good girl. Pretty high praise response, but she’s also got a little fight in her. She’s a switch and doesn’t even know it. She will. 

There were some real emotions tonight, real anger, real tears. But when she let go I nearly wept myself. It was beautiful. She’s working too hard and she knows it. But she also knows I’ve got her when she does. Hopefully that will preempt some of the stress next time. Not even upset about that shoulder blade. We’ll just start from the beginning on that.

[....]

Just reminded me of Renee nagging about working too hard. I just remembered that I had a dream about her a few nights ago. Not really about her. She was in the background somewhere and not even angry that I didn’t stop to say hello. Then she picked up her purse and left. The light kind of shifted like, I don’t know. Felt like it was the last time I’d see her. Not in a bad way. 

It’s good. Like a door really closing.

Maybe I do work too hard. But I like it. It’s who I am. It’s my choice.

____

PATS in winter by @d4rm4nd4

SERIES MASTERLIST

[dystopyx-blog]

Bro I think so hard about being in TWST without meds but specifically with Floyd. The way he just, doesn't care. You're tired? Awww how sad, he wants to play with his favorite shrimpy. You think he doesn't care at all until you hurt yourself and suddenly he's shackled to your side.

I just got like brain blasted by the SH post due to my own spiraling and like tjis idea alone has given me so much comfort

bro Floyd comfort…. I mean he is literally a comfort character for me, if it isn’t obvious lol. I’m really really glad I could give you some comfort! Genuinely, that gives ME comfort. Especially since my yandere twst posts are also meant to give me comfort, so the fact they do the same for others warms my heart.

It’s so surprising the first time Floyd comforts you. He approaches you, going “hey hey hey, what’s the matter with shrimpy? :(“ and you try to tell him it’s nothing. “Ain’t nothin’ if it got shrimpy sad. Tell me what’s wrong.” And to your surprise he sits and listens. And he’s a good listener, at least for you in that specific moment. He doesn’t interrupt, he doesn’t make fun of you, he sits there and hums to let you know he’s listening. You find yourself spilling everything to him, it’s surprisingly easy to. Maybe you shouldn’t have, maybe he’ll just use it all against you in the future, who fucking cares, this is what you need right now. For a second you wonder if this is actually Jade using Shock the Heart on you somehow. But no, it’s Floyd. A seemingly very out of character Floyd? After pouring your heart out to him, he hits you with a sympathetic stare. “Damn, shrimpy,” he says, “that really sucks…”

Then he gets up and you assume, that’s it, he’s gonna leave me here now. But he offers you a hand and a grin. “C’mon Shrimpy, I’m gonna cheer you up.” ‘And he will try his damndest to do just that, taking you all over campus to find something to lift your spirits. But really, the very process of hanging out with him and watching him try to find something to do with you is enough to have you smiling. You end up in the Mostro Lounge, Floyd promising to get ya whatever you want. Unfortunately, Jade is the one to take your order, which means, of course, you’re subject to his needling. But then Floyd shoos him away. And later, when Azul himself appears at your table, hoping to get his suckers on useful information, Floyd glares at him and tells him to leave you alone. “Great Seven, why can’t anyone just leave us alone? Cant they see I’m tryna spend time with my shrimpy?” And maybe you don’t realize it at the time, still so caught off guard from what seemed to be a total flip in personality, but he meant it when he called you his shrimpy. If you were anyone else, he wouldn’t have given a fuck, it’s only because you were you that Floyd was at all invested in your feelings. Cuz everything about his shrimpy is interesting and entertaining. That’s why they’re his. You notice Floyd hangs out with you a lot more after that, stuck to your side like glue. He’s awful for ADD considering his sudden swings in mood. You get distracted, but it’s even worse with him because once he’s in the mood to do something he just does it. So you’ll be trying to focus on work, and he’ll be there because he’s basically always with you at this point, and he suddenly decides you two have to go do this random thing right now. It’s the same when you’re in depressions, too, he’ll drag you along. It’s surprisingly helpful, though. It’s hard to be bored with Floyd, which makes sense considering how much he hates being bored. So even without your antidepressants… well, at least you have Floyd Leech??

[ramp-it-up]

That Face

Summary: You get drunk and tell Bucky exactly what you want to do to that face.

Pairing: Beefy Bucky Barnes x Reader

Word count: 1.9 K

A/N: You can read this as a companion piece to Red Wings.

Warnings: 18+ Only, Minors DNI. SMUT! Read at your own risk; curate your own experience. More angst on the part of the reader. Sweet Bucky fluff. Jealousy, excessive drinking, intoxication, drunken confessions, face riding, fingering, extreme oral sex (f receiving) anal play, praise kink, allusion to anal sex. Not Beta’d. All errors my own. 

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I Do NOT Consent to my work being reposted, translated or presented on any other blog or site other than by myself.

Bucky was holding you close to him, and it should have been romantic, but it wasn’t.

You were shit faced, and practically falling down with every step.

“Careful Doll, I’m gonna have to carry you home.”

After just six months of dating, you’d moved in with him, your relationship barreling along with breakneck speed, but who wouldn’t fall in love with Bucky?

Who wasn’t still in love with Bucky?

You stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, half a block from your brownstone.

“That sounds hot, Bucky, but I’m pissed…”

“Yeah, I know…”

“No, I’m mad.”

You stomped your foot and wobbled, until Bucky’s hands steadied you again. Bucky bent down and looked you in the eyes.

“You good, Doll?”

His sky blue eyes looked sincere, but jealousy and alcohol wouldn’t let you accept that.

“No! This was supposed to be our night to fuck and have a romantic dinner. You’ve been gone for three weeks. Three weeks, James!”

Bucky looked contrite, but then again there were four of him weaving in front of you right now, so you couldn’t be sure.

“Sorry, Baby. Didn’t know the guys would be in town. It’s my crew.”

“I can take your army buddies, but her. She’s a bitch!”

“Wow. Whoa whoa whoa. You know I don’t like anyone calling women bitches. Even you.”

Bucky straightened up and the stern look he gave you sent a thrill through you, but you weren’t done.

“She still wants you, Bucky. Sharon is a slut. And you always say you love when I’m a slut for your cock.”

Bucky looked around as you started crying and people walking by avoided the scene.

“I don’t want Sharon, Doll. I want you.”

Bucky looked down at you, eyes sparkling with amusement at your jealousy. Even his voice was smiling. It made you madder and you stumbled as you advanced on him, bucking up to the man who was a foot taller than you.

“Look at that fucking face.”

You reached up and took his chin between your fingers.

“No one gets to ride this dimple but me!”

This time Bucky didn’t care about who heard, you’d peaked his interest. His eyebrow shot up.

Even though drunk, you read his expression.

“Yep!”

You nodded and it threw you off balance, but luckily Bucky was there.

“Betcha didn’t know that I touch myself to the memories of the feeling of that chin between my legs. Did it the entire time you were gone. That cock is something else Bucky, but that face. I just want to ride it into the sunset….”

This was new information to Bucky. You seemed to love when he ate you out, but you were always hesitant to ride his face. He licked his lips as he thought of you pleasuring yourself to the thought of his face.

Then he grinned.

You read him again.

“Oh no! No no no. You think you got me. But you said you were mine…”

Bucky leaned down to kiss your forehead.

“I am yours, Doll.”

“So she can’t ride your face?”

Bucky slowly shook his head.

“No, only you.”

You sighed and sagged into his arm.

“Good, because I-“

And that was the last thing you remembered from that night.

You woke up the next morning, head pounding. You looked around, grateful to be in your bed. And grateful for your boyfriend, who’d left a bottle of water and some aspirin on the bedside table.

You could hear Bucky puttering around in the kitchen but you weren’t quite ready to eat.

You eagerly took the pills and drank the bottle down. Then, you turned on the shower as you brushed your teeth.

You reflected on the gathering at The Howling Commando, the neighborhood bar so familiar to you as you met Bucky’s friends. Which included Sharon Carter.

Bucky’s ex.

“Bucky’s just being nice, y’know?”

Steve tried to reassure you as she and Bucky caught up in the corner. You nodded back at Steve, but when Bucky smiled at Sharon was when you ordered your first shot of Jameson’s.

You showered as you tried to remember the rest of the night. But all you could remember was Bucky’s sweet face. You wrapped up in a towel and sat on the bed as you thought of how sweet Bucky was. He was so cute. That face.

That face.

“Shit!”

Your head fell into your hands as you remembered what happened the night before.

“What’s wrong, Doll?”

You looked up and your heart dropped.

Bucky was clad in only sleep pants and you could tell that there was nothing underneath.

You licked your lips, not bothering to hide your stare. Bucky came and sat down on the bed.

“See something you like, Doll?”

“Morning.”

“G’morning Sunshine..”

Bucky leaned down and kissed you on the cheek, chaste, despite the look in his eye. Your eyes fell to his lips. And lower.

Bucky licked his lips and rubbed his chin.

“You didn’t answer my question, Doll.”

Bucky’s mouth was an inch from yours. He reached for your towel and hooked his finger at the makeshift knot, causing his fingernail to brush your nipple.

“Don’t tease me Bucky…”

“I should say the same to you, Doll. You told me all the things you wanted to do to my face and then passed out.”

“James! I was drunk!”

“They say we are the most honest when we’re drunk.”

Bucky kissed you and then looked into your eyes.

“D’you believe that I don’t care about Sharon?”

You liked into his true blue eyes and you knew he wasn’t lying.

“I believe you. I love you, Bucky.”

“I love you too, Doll.”

You reached up and caressed his lips and chin.

“Gotta admit. This face is pretty irresistible.”

Bucky grinned and you leaned in for a kiss and climbed on his lap, grinding as he took your towel off.

“Been so long, Bucky.”

Bucky’s hands caressed you as he leaned back and let you have your way.

You made your way down his body, reacquainting yourself with his form with your lips, tongue, and fingers. He lifted his hips as you pulled down his pajama pants, lightly scratching his thighs on the way down.

“God I missed you so much, Doll. Spent all last night just waiting until we could get home. Wanted to lose myself in you.”

You had Bucky in your hand, sitting on his legs as you stroked his half-hard cock to full life.

“M’sorry Babe. How can I make it up to you?”

You looked up at him, ready to suck his soul out.

“Come up here and ride this irresistible face.”

You gasped as Bucky pulled you up his body until you were kneeling over him.

“There she is.”

Bucky’s fingers helped to separate your lips as he breathed hot breath into your cunt.

“So fucking wet for me.”

And then he went to work on licking into your tangy goodness.

“So good. Such a good girl for me. Such a good pussy.”

Bucky sat you down and suckled your clit, pulling on it like it was gum, stretching it and your soul out for the world (inside your bedroom) to see. He was kneading your breasts and pulling your nipples, serving to make you wetter and him messier.

But it was only just beginning as you started gyrating on his chin.

Bucky smacked your ass and pushed you over on your hands and knees again.

“That’s a girl. Bounce on my tongue.”

You did as you were told, feeling Bucky’s chin in your vagina each time you bounced on his tongue.

“Smear that shit all over my fuckin face Doll. You know you want to.”

Bucky took your ass in his hands and then started moving you back and forth on his face. You were overwhelmed with numerous sensations as his lips, tongue and chin, covered with short facial hair, destroyed your soul.

“Now sit up and fuck this face, Doll. Please. ”

You peered down at his bright blue eyes as his fingertips grazed your stomach. You obeyed him as you pulled his hair and took your throne, his thick, wide tongue spearing into you as you fucked his face.

His chin was now grazing your puckered hole, and you moaned as the scruffy dimpled part of him made you tremble.

“J-James…”

Bucky spread your cheeks and moved his tongue so that it could invade your inmost parts. He licked you from ass to clit and your legs started trembling.

You leaned back over and bounced in his tongue again, holding your breasts with one hand as you braced against the wall with the other.

Bucky’s hand snaked around to flick your clit as you gasped and fully sat on his face as his tongue speared into you, twisting and curling, not as all consuming as his cock, but reaching that special spot inside you nonetheless.

You gasped and sat back, hand on his sternum as you rolled your hips into his face.

“Oh. Ohhhh, oh Jamesssss.”

You whimpered, and your crying-like noises as you moved told him how it felt.

“So… fuck it feels so good…

You were grabbing his hair as he craned his neck upward to look at you.

Bucky growled into your cunt then lifted you upright again, his thumb slipping into your ass. This caused a gush of your fluids into his mouth and he started moaning.

“Mmmmmm. Mmhmmmm!”

“Oahhhh oh ahhh.”

Bucky was still breaching your ass as his tongue sped up impossibly and his lips suckled your clit intermittently.

“More… please!”

You were seeing stars as you reached back and pushed Bucky’s thumb in to the hilt.

Bucky moaned as you started bouncing again. His hand was fucking your ass as you rode his face.

“Please please please…”

“Hmmph… yesssss.”

Bucky spoke into your cunt as you started to reach your crescendo. He could taste your orgasm coming before it happened. Everything sped up.

“Oh! Oh! Oh!”

“Ummmmmm!”

Bucky was in heaven as you continued to gush into his mouth.

You came with a scream as Bucky lapped you all up.

“Unnnnh!”

Bucky pulsed precum on his stomach as you came on his face.

“Unh ahhhh.

“So pretty, Doll. Stay right here.”

Bucky kissed your lips as you quivered in front of him.

“Want this ass. Gonna give it to me?”

“Bucky…”

“She’s ready for me now.”

Bucky’s finger found that hole again.

“Gonna make you feel real good.”

You whimpered as Bucky spit on his fingers and manipulated two of them inside you.

He gave your clit a peck with his lips and you jumped.

“Nice and loose for me.”

You looked down on him adoringly and carded your fingers through his hair, scratching his scalp. He moaned.

“Please Doll. But only if you want that too. I need you. You’re my best girl. My good girl.”

You looked back, his cock jumping on his abs, sticky with his pre cum. You shuddered at his praise and at the thought of him inside that hole. But as Bucky probed and kissed you further, you knew you wanted it.

You didn’t need to look back down to know that Bucky was buried in your cunt again, bringing you to another peak. Instead, your head lolled back on your shoulders as you rode Bucky’s mouth again.

“Anything! Anything you want, Bucky…I want it too! Ah…”

You just couldn’t resist that face.

[remxedmoon]

You should tell us about color psychology that sounds cool as hell

YES… HA HA HA… YES!

GGGOD I WISH I WASN’T OUT OF THE HOUSE RIGHT NOW. but i’ve been thinking about colors literally all day so you all get to be subject to my madness! sorry this is long and rambly wauaua. nightmarishly long post under the cut.

okay. first things first, a few basics. color theory and color psychology tend to get confused a lot in discussions, but they usually refer to different things. color theory is more about we physically perceive colors (color wheels and color schemes the like), while color psychology focuses on our emotional response to colors. if you’re familiar with the children’s hospital color theory post, that poster wasn’t actually talking about color theory, but color psychology (and also it’s incredibly surface level and heavily misunderstands the subject because in what fucking universe does the quantity of positive associations with a color matter more than the context it’s used in and sorry i have personal beef with this tumblr post).

color theory is also a special interest of mine but i’m not gonna touch on it too much here because it’s not entirely important. mmmaybe another time…

essentially, certain colors (and color combinations) have associations in our brains and that affect our behavior and emotions. these associations are also very much affected by the context a color is used in. colors don’t exist in a vacuum! so while red can symbolize passion and love when used in something like a dress or a bouquet of flowers, it has a very different connotation when it’s, say, splattered on the walls or smeared on the ground in a snail trail.

or for a less Children’s Hospital Themed example, i’ll put my euphrasie and king designs here!

(of course the saturation and brightness of these blues play a massive part in how they’re perceived but this is not a post about color theory this is n)

and, of course, combining colors in a piece can also change their meanings!! i’m about to get real fucking normal.

i’m gonna be focusing on the color combo of red and yellow here because it’s the one that’s most relevant to my art (and also it’s really interesting.) basically, seeing these two colors together activates the part of our brain that controls our appetite, making us actually feel hungry. this is why so many food companies use red and yellow in their branding! it’s neat stuff!!

also, if you’re familiar with it, this is why the mv for butcher vanity uses this color palette!! along with red’s general associations with danger and blood, the color combo also physically induces hunger. pretty fitting for a song about cannibalism!

(there is also red’s association with lust and passion and how that intersects with the double meaning in the lyrics but i cannot derail this post into being an analysis of butcher vanity i’m sorry. we’d be here all week. maybe another day... wipes a tear from my eye)

and i think this might be the reason why some people feel hungry when they see my art, even when i’m not drawing food. while i don’t tend to use red outright, most of my art has very warm undertones (red-oranges and yellows especially), which could be activating that hunger response??

(ah fuck color theory managed to weasel its way into this post again)

admittedly this part is just speculation on my end. i think my rendering style and Shapes also play a role in it, but it’s interesting for me to think about!!

this is only scratching the surface of how complicated colors can get. i was going to go on an entire tangent about color grading and how green lighting can make a scene feel unnerving but this post is already Too Fucking Long. aaaa super sorry if this is Rambly or hard to understand!! i’m not Entirely sure how much the average person knows about color theory and psychology so if there’s any confusing terms here i’m fine with adding stuff for clarity!

wauauuaa thank you so much for asking!!!! i love talking about colors.

tl;dr colors have a bunch of different emotions and meanings tied to them, but you’ve gotta pay attention to the context in which it’s being used. so maybe take a step back before you put that thick red trail on the floor of your children’s hospital.

[fishfooddude]

The Aftermath

Carmy left- he just left? Where the heck was he? Was he even alive? Your anxiety almost gets the best of you.

The Bear MasterList

Directory

Part 2

MDNI 18+

You groaned as you stretched, trying to crack your back. You’d been cleaning all afternoon, Carmy was still MIA, and this was the one thing you knew would distract you enough not to storm into The Bear demanding to know where your husband had been last night. You hopped up on the counter and grabbed your phone from the charger. A knot formed in the back of your throat when you saw a text from Carmy displayed on your lock screen.

Sorry about last night, baby.

On my way home.

“Okay. Fuck you, Carmy. At least you’re alive.” you mumbled to yourself before hopping down from the counter and going down the hallway to your bedroom. You knew the two of you would have a screaming match when he got home; you rolled your eyes at the thought. He was usually predictable; this running away from home debacle threw you for a loop. Since the fighting was inevitable, you opted to take care of yourself a little bit at least, and an everything-shower seemed like the move.

Pregnancy was hard; you were in a constant state of nausea, you were exhausted, you had almost daily migraines toward the end, and, oh boy… hormones were interesting. You gained a decent amount of weight, but loved how you looked. Carrying Mia made every body insecurity you had vanish. You felt powerful as she grew in your womb, and the feelings were only amplified by the way Carmy would caress your stomach at night when he’d get home from work. He’d pepper kisses across your stomach and talk to Mia as he helped you rub shea butter in an attempt to prevent stretch marks. You laughed about it now as you stood in front of the bathroom mirror. Cellulite, stretch marks, loose skin, and a c-section scar decorated your body. All those insecurities you’d thought vanished returned as soon as you showered for the first time post-partum. You didn’t want anyone to see you, especially Carmy. 

You’d always been so secure in your relationship with Carmy. Something ignited within you when you saw him sitting at the bar by himself the night the two of you met. He was sexy and aloof. You had turned to your friend and told her, ‘I’m gonna marry that guy,’ and cocked your head in Carmy’s direction. She gave you a nod of approval, and you were off. He was shy and confused about why the prettiest girl in the bar would want to talk to some loner drinking a ginger ale instead of one of the guys coming up to her throughout the night. After months of casual hookups or late-night lounging around his apartment, Carmy found the courage to take you out on an actual date. After that, you declared he was your boyfriend. He admitted to being in love with you and was overjoyed when you returned the sentiment. Carmy was your knight in shining armor. You knew he was in your corner if you ever had a problem or needed to talk about something. It was you and him against the world, and it only amplified when he proposed to you. The two of you had a small wedding on the beach and decided to travel for a few months. When the two of you started dating, Carmy recounted tales from his time in culinary school- you were shocked that the man had lived in Frances for years but hadn’t explored the city beyond his campus or the restaurants he worked at. Exploring Europe together felt like a dream; it was everything you’d wanted to do with him. The two of you hadn’t planned on having kids, but after a couple of years of living as a married couple and buying your home, it felt like a natural progression to just ‘see what would happen’ if you got off of your birth control.

Now you stood in the shower while your mother took care of your baby and your bitch of a husband hid at work. You sighed and exited the shower, wrapping your hair in a towel and tying your bathrobe at the waist. You checked your phone to see no new messages from Carmy and that Natalie had left you on read.

As you blow-dried your hair, you couldn’t shake the thoughts of Carmy doing something dumb last night. You knew he’d never cheat on you, but the curiosity about where he’d gone was killing you. You took your time blowing out your hair and doing your skincare routine. As you brushed your teeth, you heard the front door open. “Hey… I’m home.” Carmy’s voice called through the house. Your stomach twisted at the sound. You took a deep breath and quickly put on deodorant before walking out of the bathroom in a pair of fresh pajamas. After contemplating jumping out the window to avoid this conversation from happening, you cautiously exited the bedroom. You went down the hallway to see Carmy washing his hands in the kitchen.

“Hey.” you grinned, rubbing your arm nervously. Carmy inhaled sharply before closing the distance between the two of you. He wrapped his arms around you tightly, feeling the stress of the day melt away as he took in the scent of your conditioner. “I’m sorry, baby. I shouldn’t have left like that,” he spoke into your hair. You sighed and hesitantly hugged him; he rubbed circles into your back and wished to go back in time and change what had happened. 

“Where were you? You’ve never done something like that before- I thought you were dead or something Carmy.” Carmy tucked your head under his chin and contemplated what he should say. He knew he’d have to come clean eventually but wanted to relish in this moment.

“I just drove around and went to work early.” he lied, hoping you’d not push it further. Natalie had ripped him a new one when he’d confessed the details of his indiscretion. She ranted about how she’d feel if Pete had treated her like that; she’d kick his ass to the curb. “You realize she’s gonna leave your ass, right? You absolutely can not sleep at my house- Carmen Anthony Berzatto, you’re no better than Dad.” before he could respond, Natalie threatened to kick his ass if he didn’t come clean to you about what happened. Carmy wanted to tell you, but being compared to his father was something he hadn’t expected Natalie to say. He didn’t know the guy that well, but he knew a little about the cheating. He didn’t have a second family or kids outside his marriage with Donna, but he saw the hurt it put her through and vowed never to be like the man. Now he stood in his kitchen holding his wife- the love of his fucking life, lying about his whereabouts from the night before. Yeah, he didn’t get past third base, but would he have gone all the way if he had gotten hard? Would you constitute this as cheating? Would you leave him and keep Mia from him? He pushed the thoughts back and pressed his nose into your hair. He took in the scent of your conditioner, just in case this was the last time.

You pulled away from the hug and nodded, “Okay. I trust you, but never do something like that again. You scared the crap out of me.” 

Carmy and you sat at the dining room table that night and talked about your insecurities postpartum and that while you were medically cleared to have sex, you were nervous about the actual act. He nodded, and you felt vindicated. You kissed his cheek and headed into the kitchen to order dinner. Carmy grinned and fished his phone out of his pocket. He deleted his text chain with Selena and quickly blocked her number before you came back to ask if he had any preferences for dinner. Carmy shook his head, “Whatever you want, baby.”

The two of you ate dinner in the living room and watched the newest cheesy romcom on Netflix. Carmy sat back and took in the moment. It was like when the two of you had started dating. You’d always had some kind of freelance video editing job or some other creative endeavor that gave you a good amount of flexibility in your schedule. No matter how late he’d get off, you were always down to come over, watch a movie, eat takeout, or whatever new recipe he was trying to perfect. You explained that quality time was your main language, so as long as you were together, you were happy doing whatever with him. 

As the movie continued, you’d put your head on Carmy’s chest and held onto his waist. He had an arm around your shoulder- he stunk of his usual kitchen smells and smoke, but there was another scent you couldn’t quite place. “I should probably shower if you wanna cuddle, baby.” he laughed as you pushed a hand under the hem of his T-shirt. Carmy had long forgotten about the hickey that decorated his collarbone. You hummed in disagreement, “Your BO is comforting Carm…” 

Carmy laughed and kissed the top of your head. Carmy tapped your shoulder as the movie ended, signaling he wanted to get off the couch: “I need a shower, baby.” He shifted in his seat, and you looked up at him. “Kiss me?” you asked, looking up at him through your lashes. Carmy swallowed and hurriedly nodded as he gently placed his lips on yours. You smiled into the kiss as the taste of tobacco and spearmint flooded your tastebuds. You removed your hand from under Carmy’s shirt and put it on his cheek. Carmy wasn’t sure where to put his hands. This felt like a 180 from the previous day, confusing and excited him.

You threw a leg over Carmy’s hips to straddle him as the kiss turned more passionate. Carmy’s hands found your hips; his touch felt like electricity shooting through your body in the best way. You pulled away from the kiss, gently pulling Carmy’s bottom lip between your teeth, eliciting a deep throaty moan from him. You ran your hands down Carmy’s chest. He closed his eyes, focusing on the sensation of your nails tickling his skin through the material of his shirt. “Still need me, baby?” you asked, leaning in to kiss Carmy’s jaw. “Still need to be inside of me?” you said as you trailed kisses up his jaw toward his earlobe. You felt his cock harden beneath you as you rolled your hips against him. Carmy’s grip on your hips tightened at the sensation, “Please, baby.” he whined. You giggled at his response and slowly swirled your tongue around Carmy’s earlobe before leaning back on his thighs. Carmy leaned back into the couch. His eyes were dark with lust as you reached for the hem of your shirt, quickly discarding it. 

Carmy’s eyes widened at the sight of your bare breasts, “Fuckin’ hell, baby.” he muttered. You bit your lip as Carmy stared at you, “Can-can I-” Carmy began to stutter before you cut him off by bringing one of his hands to your chest. “Fuck.” Carmy laughed as he snaked an arm around your waist to bring you closer. You giggled as Carmy massaged your breast in his large, calloused hand, “Baby- fuck, you’re so sexy.” 

You moaned softly as Carmy gently pushed you back onto the couch before trailing delicate kisses down your stomach to the top of your pajama shorts. As eager as he was to remove them, he still felt like he was dreaming. Your eyes met and you nodded, Carmy bit his lip holding back a groan. He swiftly yanked the soft cotton material down your legs to reveal your lack of panties. He smirked as he spread your legs wider and stared down at your core like a starved animal. 

“Carmy?” you asked softly, “Do you want me to stop?” he responded, hoping you would say ‘no.’ You shook your head, “Be gentle?” you whispered. Carmy nodded, “Of course, baby. Say, stop, and I will…” 

Carmy put your legs over his shoulders and nuzzled his face between your thighs, placing delicate kisses against your folds. Your legs shook as he ran his tongue up to your clit, “Mmm,” you hummed as he took your clit between his lips. “Oooh,” you moaned as Carmy slowly pushed his index finger into your entrance. Your reaction only fueled Carmy’s desire to please you. As your juices flooded his tastebuds, you bucked your hips up against his mouth, making him moan against your clit.

“I need you,” you whined, pulling at Carmy’s hair. Reluctantly, he pulled his mouth away from your heat. “What do you need me to do, baby?” Carmy teased. You giggled as he moved to hover above your body. You pulled at the hem of his T-shirt, wanting to feel his skin against yours. 

Carmy’s body tensed. You noticed the color drain from his face, the weight of his actions from the night prior finally hitting him. “Are you okay, Carmen?” you asked as you stopped pulling at his shirt. He nodded, “Yeah-h.” 

You didn’t believe him. “You’re being weird. I don’t care that you’re gross from work. I want you.” You looked into his eyes and could sense he was hiding something from you. “I’m not being weird,” he said defensively. You shook your head, pushed up at his chest, and sat up against the arm of the couch. “You literally left last night because I didn’t want to have sex- now I want you and you’re being fuckin’ weird. Take your clothees off and fuck me.” you demanded, Carmy swallowed and sat up on the couch. He shouldn’t have let it go this far, you rolled your eyes and yanked his shirt off. 

“What the fuck is that!” you screamed when you saw the dark purple hickey decorating his collar bone, Carmy stared at you nervously. “YOU FUCKIN’ LIAR!” you screamed louder pushing yourself off the couch picking up your T-shirt from the floor. 

“Baby, I swear—I didn’t—" Carmy explained as he scrambled to his feet as you walked down the hallway toward your bedroom. Your blood boiled at the thought of Carmy fucking another woman last night while he was ‘getting air,’ “YOU’RE A FUCKING LIAR GET THE FUCK OUT OF THIS HOUSE, I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD CARMEN!” you screamed at the top of your lungs as you glared at him as tears started to fall from your eyes. Carmy’s face regained color and softened in reaction to your screams. 

“Y/N, it was a mistake! We didn't have sex because I couldn’t get hard-” Carmy attempted to explain the situation, and you shook your head in response. “That’s fuckin’ bullshit! Get out!” you screamed through your tears.

Carmy dropped to his knees and reached out for your hand. You slapped it away and ignored his begs to hear him out and let him explain what had happened. “No. No. I don’t want to- that’s why you wanted to fuckin’ shower so bad, right?! Didn’t want to fuck your wife with your dirty fuckin’ cock you fucking liar!” you screamed as you attempted to pull your wedding ring off of your finger. When it wouldn’t budge, you screamed in frustration and slammed the bedroom door. 

Carmy fell back and brought his knees to his chest, the weight of his actions truly hitting him when you had tried to take off your wedding ring. He really had ruined his marriage. Carmy heard your sobs through the door as he got up, “Y/N- it was a mistake. I love you. I love you so fuckin’ much-” 

“GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE CARMEN! I FUCKING HATE YOU!”

~

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Part 4

[novacorpsrecruit]

Care to Dance?

Inspired by @imfinereallyy’s post

Robin, Steve and Eddie planned this night for weeks. They drove up to Indianapolis to spend the evening at the gay bar. A place where they could be themselves and not worry.

Steve took a shot of vodka before turning around at the bar, facing the dance floor. He could see Robin speed talking to a girl about Nancy’s height, the girl gently playing with the edge of Robin’s jacket.

Eddie … well, he looked hot as ever. He was playing billiards in the corner of the bar with another guy, showing him how to angle the cue just right for the perfect hit. Steve could feel jealousy in the pit of his stomach, but he knew he wasn’t Eddie’s type.

Steve’s been harmlessly flirting with Eddie, putting himself out there on the ledge, only for Eddie to talk about some other guy he met in Indy. Steve wondered if this was the guy. If Eddie had planned this night so he could see his guy. It wasn’t wrong if he did. Steve just wished he knew so he could prepare himself for the heartbreak.

He knew Eddie wasn’t his, so it really shouldn’t be a problem, right?

“Hey, baby,” a deep voice said hotly against the shell for his ear. “How come a pretty thing like you is all alone tonight?”

“I’m not alone,” Steve said, turning to face the man — to face the dark, brown eyes, the devilish grin. “Not anymore. You want a drink?”

“I’d much rather see you on the dance floor,” the man said, lifting his chin. His grin still plastered across His face. “Or are you more interested in staring at that metalhead?”

“No, I’d like to. Dance, I mean,” Steve said, feeling his cheeks heat up. He didn’t realize he was that obvious for Eddie. The man put his hand on the small of Steve’s back as he lead him out to the dance floor. It started out innocent at first, arms raised, slowly wrapping around each other’s body as they danced to Depeche Mode. Eventually, Steve had his back pressed up against the man’s front. The man pressed a hot kiss against Steve’s skin. Suddenly, Steve realized he didn’t know the man’s name.

“I’m Steve,” he said, a little loud to be heard over the music.

“Dan — Hey!”

Steve felt Dan’s body yanked away from him. Steve turned to see Eddie standing in between him and Dan, now on the ground. He felt someone grab his arm, he yanked it — before realizing it was Robin holding onto him.

“What the fuck is your problem?” Dan spat.

“You,” Eddie snarled back, venom on his tongue. “You’re dancing on my friend.”

“Eddie —“

“Steve, I got it,” Eddie said over his shoulder, before turning his attention to Dan. “What gives you the right to dance on him like that?”

“I did,” Steve snapped, pulling himself out of Robin’s grip and stepping in front of Eddie. “He asked me to dance and I said yes. What gives, Eddie? What are you doing?”

“Protecting you,” Eddie wrinkled his brow, like it was obvious. “We know he isn’t your type, Steve.”

“What the fuck do you mean by that?” Steve snapped.

“You know exactly what I mean,” Eddie said.

“I don’t know what you have going on,” Dan interrupted, leaning against Steve. His lips were hot near his ear. “But Pretty Boy, you dump the metalhead, you know where to find me.”

“That’s it —“ Eddie nearly lunged forward to chase after Dan, stopped by Robin and Steve.

“Eddie, what the fuck is up with you?” Steve snapped. “We came out to have a good time and you’re ruining it.”

“I’m ruining it?” Eddie scoffed. “He was the one dancing against you! Does that not bother you?”

“No?” Steve wrinkled his nose. “I liked him.”

“Steve,” Robin said, stepping between the two, trying to calm the tension. “You can’t be leading him on like that.”

“Like what?” Steve asked, feeling his gut twist. He knew he was obvious with his crush on Eddie, but he would get over him. He could. If he just found the right person.

“Steve, you’re straight,” Robin said. “He’s probably thinking he was gonna take you home.”

“I’m … straight?” Steve repeated. “What planet are you from?”

“What?!” Eddie and Robin snapped at the same time. Steve looked between the two of them, his expression dropping.

“You guys thought I was straight?” Steve gaped. “I’m grinding on some guy and you think I’m straight?! We’re at a gay club, and you thought I was straight?”

“You’ve always just talked about girls,” Robin said. “We just —“ she looked at Eddie for help, but he provided none. He stood there, shocked, processing.

“Because the guy I want, doesn’t like me that way,” Steve groaned, rubbing his hands over his face. “I’m going for fresh air.”

He pushed past Robin and Eddie to the front of the bar and onto the street. He turned down the alleyway, leaning against the building. He took a deep breath, letting it out.

“Hey.”

Steve looked up at Eddie, offering a cigarette from the box.

“I’m sorry about ruining things with Dan,” Eddie said. “You wanna talk?”

“I just — thought you both knew,” Steve said, taking a cigarette. Eddie flicked his lighter, lighting Steve’s cigarette. “I thought I was obvious. And you even said that ‘Us, queers find each other.’”

“I did say that,” Eddie nodded. “I just thought you were safe, and not …”

“Bisexual,” Steve said, officially coming out. “I’m bisexual.”

“Proud of you,” Eddie said. “Now tell me about this guy you like. And why you don’t think he likes you.”

“He’s super cool. Bad ass,” Steve said, taking a drag of his cigarette. “I know I’m not his type.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’ve been flirting with him for weeks,” Steve said, putting his heart out on the line. If this failed, maybe Dan won’t mind letting him cry on his shoulder. “And he’s ignored all my advances.”

“Maybe he didn’t realize you were flirting with him,” Eddie said. “You know, maybe he thought you were straight?”

Steve’s eyes snapped to Eddie, attempting to read him. Eddie took a drag off his own cigarette.

“Maybe you could try again?” Eddie offered. Steve felt his heart beat rapidly against his chest.

“Eddie —“

“Yes,” Eddie breathed. “Whatever you want. Yes.”

“You,” Steve said. “I want you.”

Eddie crashed his lips against Steve’s in a hot, messy kiss. A little teethy, as they couldn’t help but smile and laugh. They broke away breathless.

“Come on, big boy,” Eddie said, pulling at Steve’s arm. “Let’s go dance.”

•••••