#how to get paid to use facebook

[halloweendeity]

.

[cowardstiel]

i think it should be mandatory that everyone watch The Social Dilemma at least once every six months

[taviokapudding]

I'm testing tiktok's censorship (since calls to action are shifting comments a bit) after over a month of being in baby jail and help?!?!

Motherfuckers aren't allowed on tiktok apparently

[kyra45]

Keys guide to scam spotting v3

What kind of scams are on tumblr? Quite a lot, actually! As a result, this post will link to posts I’ve made (or by others) that explain what kind of scams are out there. Please be aware these posts are quite long but give as much detail as possible. I’ll add them here as I write them or add ones I have found.

Pet donation scams - Scams that use stolen pet pictures and impersonate the owner.

Donation scams - Scams that use medical emergencies/etc and steal fundraising posts from Facebook/etc.

Romance scams - Romance isn’t always from someone with good intentions they might just want your money.

Commission scams - The high price offered isn’t true, unfortunately, and you’ll not get paid.

Fake check scams - The check isn’t real when they offer to send you support with it.

Mutual aid scams - No you don’t pay someone to share your campaign.

Gift card scams - Not too common but blogs who promise you can win these from a link aren’t legitimate.

Scams where someone pretends to be Palestinian - Sometimes the blog asking you for funds is stealing their content off a legitimate fundraiser for someone in Palestine. (Not all Palestine accounts with GoFundMe links are scams.)

Diabetes and Insulin themed scams - Written by my friend @12percentspider , this post explains how diabetes works and why the person asking you for $300 (claiming they need insulin and are down to their last pen) is a scammer.

[subjectsix]

KIP'S BIG POST OF THINGS TO MAKE THE INTERNET & TECHNOLOGY SUCK A LITTLE LESS

Post last updated November 23, 2024. Will continue to update!

Here are my favorite things to use to navigate technology my own way:

A refurbished iPod loaded with Rockbox OS (Rockbox is free, iPods range in price. I linked the site I got mine from. Note that iPods get finicky about syncing and the kind of cord it has— it may still charge but might not recognize the device to sync. Getting an original Apple cord sometimes helps). Rockbox has ports for other MP3 players as well.

This Windows debloater program (there are viable alternatives out there, this one works for me). It has a powershell script that give you a little UI and buttons to press, which I appreciate, as I'm still a bit shy with tech.

Firefox with the following extensions: - Consent-O-Matic (set your responses to ALL privacy/cookie pop-ups in the extension, and it will answer all pop-ups for you. I can see reasons to not use it, but I appreciate it) - Facebook Container ("contains" Meta on Facebook and Instagram pages to keep it from tracking you or getting third party cookies, since Meta is fairly egregious about it) - Redirect Amp to HTML (AMP is designed for mobile phones, this forces pages to go to their HTML version) - A WebP/AVIF image converter - uBlock Origin and uBlacklist, with the AI blacklist loaded in to kill any generative AI results from appearing in search engines or anywhere.

Handbrake for ripping DVDs— I haven’t used this in awhile as I haven’t been making video edits. I used this back when I had a Mac OS

VLC Media Player (ol’ reliable)

Unsplash & Pexels for free-to-use images

A password manager (these often are paid. I use Dashlane. There are many options, feel free to search around and ask for recs!). There is a lot that goes into cybersecurity— find the option you feel is best for you.

Things I suggest:

Understanding Royalty Free and the Creative Commons licenses

Familiarity with boolean operators for searching

Investing in a backup drive and external drive

A few good USBs, including one that has a backup of your OS on it

Adapter cables

Avoiding Fandom “wikias” (as in the brand “Fandom”) and supporting other, fan-run or supported wikis. Consider contributing if its something you find yourself passionate or joyful about.

Finding Forums for the things you like, or creating your own*

Create an email specifically for ads/shopping— use it to receive all promotional emails to keep your inbox clean. Upkeep it.

Stop putting so much of your personal information online— be willing to separate your personal online identity from your “online identity”. You don’t owe people your name, location, pronouns, diagnoses, or any of that. It’s your choice, but be discerning in what you give and why. I recommend avoiding providing your phone number to sites as much as possible.

Be intentional

Ask questions

Talk to people

Remember that you can lurk all you want

Things that are fun to check out:

BBSes-- here's a portal to access them.

Neocities

*Forums-- find some to join, or maybe host your own? The system I was most familiar with was vbulletin.

MMM.page

Things that have worked well for me but might work for you, YMMV:

Limit your app usage time on your smartphone if you’re prone to going back to them— this is a tangible way to “practice mindfulness”, a term I find frustratingly vague ansjdbdj

Things I’m looking into:

The “Pi Hole”— a raspberry pi set up to block all ads on a specific internet connection

VPNs-- this is one that was recommended to me.

How to use computers (I mean it): Resources on how to understand your machine and what you’re doing, even if your skill and knowledge level is currently 0:

This section I'll come back an add to. I know that messing with computers can be intimidating, especially if you feel out of your depth. HTML and regedits and especially things like dualbooting or linux feel impossible. So I want to put things here that explain exactly how the internet and your computer functions, and how you can learn and work with that. Yippee!

[chronicallycouchbound]

I feel like people often don’t talk about the experiences of disabled people who have caretakers because so much of the conversation is about us—not including us.

I receive in home care for 30 hours a week (+ 4 hours/week for respite). This is paid for by Medicaid (state insurance). Outside of paid hours, my primary caretakers care for me unpaid and assist me most of the time. I’m very rarely left alone due to my high support needs. Often, when I am left alone, I am completely bedridden or at minimum housebound. I have frequent emergency life threatening health problems, falls, and serious injuries even with support in place, and these things significantly increase when I’m on my own.

I’m extremely lucky that my paid caretakers are my partner, my sister (the only family member I have regular contact with, I’m estranged from the rest of my immediate family and most of my extended family) and my best friend.

I used to have agency staffing which was horrible for me and borderline traumatic. At several points, before doing the self directed care option (which allows me to choose my own staff, hire and train them myself and dictate hours for them), I opted to not have any staffing. I was regularly in the emergency room. I can’t drive, so I was having to walk and if I was lucky enough to be able to take the bus on occasion or get a ride from a Facebook acquaintance, they were few and far in between. I don’t have family support, and even my sister who is supportive wasn’t living in the state at the time and doesn’t have a car most of the time.

And before I could even choose which staffing option, even though medically it had been deemed essential for me to have in home care, even though my insurance covered it, I had to wait several years (I was 18 when I was approved) until I was 21 to qualify to start. The reason why: I was legally an “adult disabled child” because of my high support needs (which is funny because I STILL don’t have SSI at age 24) and thus legally unable to consent to my own care plan. I needed a blood relative to consent, and that same blood relative (who had to have proof of such!) couldn’t care for me. At the time, my sister was the only person who could’ve been my caregiver and also she is the only verifiable blood relative I have contact with for safety reasons, and my only relative on this side of the USA.

The first business day after my 21st birthday I immediately got things set up to get in home care.

This is out of date, I get assistance with more than just these highlighted ADL (activities of daily living) tasks now.

In short: my day-to-day life is entirely dependent on others.

And there’s power imbalances that exist between me and my caregivers, even with my current caregivers being amazing and anti-ableist. They will always exist. We talk about the power dynamics of me being dependent on them for my survival, and how heavy that weight can be for each of us.

Having caregivers often means that accessibility is extra difficult— I’ve been told straight up multiple times that I can’t have assistance from my caregivers to help me change in a changing room when we’re out shopping. That they can’t go into the bathroom with me, that they can’t help me get un/dressed during appointments, that they can’t come into spaces with me.

I’ve been denied access to psychiatric care because I can’t do my daily living tasks (ADLs- the highlighted items) independently. And when I’m in a hospital or emergency room, I can’t have my in home workers be paid to care for me, there’s an expectation that the nursing staff at the hospital will do it. Even though my caregivers were specifically trained to learn my body and needs for weeks and have been working with me for years. I have severe cPTSD and showering in front of a stranger is something I cannot do. I would rather fall or faint or get injured or just not shower than deal with that. But I’m expected to just let anyone have access to my body just because I’m physically disabled and need support.

When I faint/fall/get injured/have life threatening health issues arise while I’m not clothed, or when I’m otherwise vulnerable, I’m supposed to let strangers just touch me however they want to. I have to show them my chest (for my cardiac care) and let them poke and examine me. I can’t object without losing access to vital care.

I have agency. I have rights. I have autonomy. I deserve to be able to exercise these things.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

When Facebook came for your battery, feudal security failed

When George Hayward was working as a Facebook data-scientist, his bosses ordered him to run a “negative test,” updating Facebook Messenger to deliberately drain users’ batteries, in order to determine how power-hungry various parts of the apps were. Hayward refused, and Facebook fired him, and he sued:

https://nypost.com/2023/01/28/facebook-fires-worker-who-refused-to-do-negative-testing-awsuit/

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/05/battery-vampire/#drained

Hayward balked because he knew that among the 1.3 billion people who use Messenger, some would be placed in harm’s way if Facebook deliberately drained their batteries — physically stranded, unable to communicate with loved ones experiencing emergencies, or locked out of their identification, payment method, and all the other functions filled by mobile phones.

As Hayward told Kathianne Boniello at the New York Post, “Any data scientist worth his or her salt will know, ‘Don’t hurt people…’ I refused to do this test. It turns out if you tell your boss, ‘No, that’s illegal,’ it doesn’t go over very well.”

Negative testing is standard practice at Facebook, and Hayward was given a document called “How to run thoughtful negative tests” regarding which he said, “I have never seen a more horrible document in my career.”

We don’t know much else, because Hayward’s employment contract included a non-negotiable binding arbitration waiver, which means that he surrendered his right to seek legal redress from his former employer. Instead, his claim will be heard by an arbitrator — that is, a fake corporate judge who is paid by Facebook to decide if Facebook was wrong. Even if he finds in Hayward’s favor — something that arbitrators do far less frequently than real judges do — the judgment, and all the information that led up to it, will be confidential, meaning we won’t get to find out more:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/12/hot-coffee/#mcgeico

One significant element of this story is that the malicious code was inserted into Facebook’s app. Apps, we’re told, are more secure than real software. Under the “curated computing” model, you forfeit your right to decide what programs run on your devices, and the manufacturer keeps you safe. But in practice, apps are just software, only worse:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/23/peek-a-boo/#attack-helicopter-parenting

Apps are part what Bruce Schneier calls “feudal security.” In this model, we defend ourselves against the bandits who roam the internet by moving into a warlord’s fortress. So long as we do what the warlord tells us to do, his hired mercenaries will keep us safe from the bandits:

https://locusmag.com/2021/01/cory-doctorow-neofeudalism-and-the-digital-manor/

But in practice, the mercenaries aren’t all that good at their jobs. They let all kinds of badware into the fortress, like the “pig butchering” apps that snuck into the two major mobile app stores:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/02/pig-butchering-scam-apps-sneak-into-apples-app-store-and-google-play/

It’s not merely that the app stores’ masters make mistakes — it’s that when they screw up, we have no recourse. You can’t switch to an app store that pays closer attention, or that lets you install low-level software that monitors and overrides the apps you download.

Indeed, Apple’s Developer Agreement bans apps that violate other services’ terms of service, and they’ve blocked apps like OG App that block Facebook’s surveillance and other enshittification measures, siding with Facebook against Apple device owners who assert the right to control how they interact with the company:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/10/e2e/#the-censors-pen

When a company insists that you must be rendered helpless as a condition of protecting you, it sets itself up for ghastly failures. Apple’s decision to prevent every one of its Chinese users from overriding its decisions led inevitably and foreseeably to the Chinese government ordering Apple to spy on those users:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/11/foreseeable-consequences/#airdropped

Apple isn’t shy about thwarting Facebook’s business plans, but Apple uses that power selectively — they blocked Facebook from spying on Iphone users (yay!) and Apple covertly spied on its customers in exactly the same way as Facebook, for exactly the same purpose, and lied about it:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

The ultimately, irresolvable problem of Feudal Security is that the warlord’s mercenaries will protect you against anyone — except the warlord who pays them. When Apple or Google or Facebook decides to attack its users, the company’s security experts will bend their efforts to preventing those users from defending themselves, turning the fortress into a prison:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/20/benevolent-dictators/#felony-contempt-of-business-model

Feudal security leaves us at the mercy of giant corporations — fallible and just as vulnerable to temptation as any of us. Both binding arbitration and feudal security assume that the benevolent dictator will always be benevolent, and never make a mistake. Time and again, these assumptions are proven to be nonsense.

Image: Anthony Quintano (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mark_Zuckerberg_F8_2018_Keynote_%2841118890174%29.jpg

CC BY 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[Image ID: A painting depicting the Roman sacking of Jerusalem. The Roman leader's head has been replaced with Mark Zuckerberg's head. The wall has Apple's 'Think Different' wordmark and an Ios 'low battery' icon.]

Next week (Feb 8-17), I'll be in Australia, touring my book *Chokepoint Capitalism* with my co-author, Rebecca Giblin. We'll be in Brisbane on Feb 8, and then we're doing a remote event for NZ on Feb 9. Next is Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra. I hope to see you!

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

[fallingfor-fics]

Business Ethics- Melissa Schemmenti x Reader

Pairing: Melissa Schemmenti x fem! IT employee

Word count: 4.3k

Warnings: none, drinking, angst, implied smut. flirting

Summary: Melissa finds out you're getting fired and doesnt know how to tell you but eventually word gets out.

You had worked at Abbott for about 3 years now in the IT department and loved your job with a passion. You had skills with computers and didn't mind using those to make some good money, not to mention you got to work with good people. They never gave a shitty attitude or were sexist pigs like other places you worked. Not to mention thanks to this job you met your girlfriend Melissa. Her being a teacher here worked out well, but you haven't got around to telling anyone yet because you don't want to worry about gossip, and of course the HR issues. You were currently on your way to the break room because someone had called about the wifi not working in there. It usually is just an issue on their end, but you don't mind since it's an easy fix and you get to stop and chat with some of the other staff for a bit. You are an angel in about half of the staff's eyes since you seem to magically fix all their tech issues with projectors and what not. The other half never paid mind to you but were always friendly. 

“Hey! Got a call about Wifi?” you say walking in and Barb sticks up her hand with a finger pointed to signal you over. 

“Yeah Facebook isn't loading and it's really ruining my relaxing lunch.” she scoffed and you smiled walking over.

“May I?” you ask, gesturing to her phone and she hands it to you. You peek above her phone to spot the empty seat beside her. She notices and stares at you intensely. 

“She’s not here yet, I think she ran off campus for food today.” Barb answers and you look at her with a faux confused face.

“Um..” you pause and clear your throat before sitting up straight and handing her phone back, “You were on the guest Wifi.” you said before turning to leave. 

You are met with Melissa's bright eyes and large smirk as she looks you up and down. “Hey Wall-E what brings you to these parts?” Melissa mocks at you as she moves past to sit down.

You roll your eyes at the name she chose today, usually she goes for Specs, Droid, or Short Circuit. You turn to face her and she smiles when your eyes meet, you can tell she enjoys teasing you like this in front of everyone and you hold back your own smile. Before you can answer you get a call from another teacher to help with their computer and so you bite your tongue and walk away. Once you are gone Barb lets out a large breath. 

“Oh my god I thought I was gonna go crazy.” Barb gasps

“What? How come?” Melissa asks, confused. Barbra leans in close to whisper. 

“Ok Ava told me this earlier and you can not tell anyone, especially Y/n,” she started and Melissa nodded for her to continue “according to Ava since they have to make some departmental cuts, the superintendent said they are going to have to let Y/n go” She sits back up and looks around to make sure no one heard. 

Melissa leans up slowly with shock over her face. She feels her stomach drop and she begins to already grow guilty for having this knowledge. 

“That's crazy.” Melissa mutters with a clear upset. 

“I know and who knows what this means for the other staff and oh I feel so bad for the girl but ya know last one in first one out..” Barbra keeps rambling on but Melissa tunes her out as she thinks about you. She gets up without a word and rushes to Avas office. She knew the superintendent, Jamie, was still on campus and likely to be talking with Ava so she took this as her opportunity.

She doesn't bother knocking and just opens Ava’s door, standing in front of her desk with a tight lip and furrowed brow.

“What now Schemmenti? Did you really have to disturb my meeting?” Ava says annoyed.

“You're firing Y/n?” she says with attitude and Ava sighs, setting her magazine down.

“Um, Yes we are letting her go.” Jaime says calmly with a sympathetic smile, not allowing Ava to speak.

“But why? She has been here for three years and she has been helping us out so much she doesn't deserve this.” Melissa said with anger in her throat, she tried her best to stay calm and not yell, but she felt so much for you she couldn't not say anything.

“I don't want to Ms.Schemmenti but with where we are at it was either her or one of our Food Service Directors and that department is a complete mess so we couldn't afford to lose one of them.” Jaime says trying to reason with her by providing her excuses

“Bullshit.” Melissa scoffs

“Look I don't like this anymore than you do but at the end of the day it has nothing to do with you so just let it go Ms. Schemmenti. Understood?” Ava was now standing to level with Melissa and Melissa's arms were crossed as she shook her head and clenched her jaw. 

“And you can't tell her Melissa, it's not your place and if I find out that you even mentioned the possibility to her-” Ava began trying to sympathize before Jamie cuts her off

“We will have to ask you to resign.” Jaime finished and both Melissa and Ava’s  eyes went wide. 

“You can't fire me for telling her.” Melissa scoffed, Ava looked down. 

“We have a long list of new teachers that want to work here Ms. Schemmenti, so it wouldn't be an issue.” Jaime smirked and Melissa held back the words that were prying to pour from her mouth and just stormed out. 

--

Later that day you and Melissa were hanging out at her place and watching some random Judge show and after some comfortable silence, Melissa spoke softly and with a rather monotone voice. 

“If you had bad news about a coworker but you couldn't tell them or you may get fired, would you risk that or just ya know mind your own business?” She muttered and you scrunched your brows.

“Hmm, that's a good question. Normally I'd mind my own business, but..” You paused looking up at her from your place on her shoulder, “I think it also depends on how close you are with them you know?” you finish and then look back at the TV. 

“Yeah, good point.” she sighs as she chews on her cheek with furrowed brows.

--

You haven't seen Melissa all week and she was being super dry in text and it was beginning to worry you, she did this every now and then and it usually meant she was dealing with some personal or family stuff, but it hasn't happened in a while since she was getting really good at communicating these things to you. You finally decided to corner her during the lunch hour and see what was going on. 

You spotted her walking down the hall as you left another classroom and you walked faster to catch up. 

“Melissa, hey can I uh, talk to you?” you asked softly and she stopped to look at you. She fidgeted and looked at her watch as if she was in a hurry, but eventually nodded.

“Yeah sure.”

You looked around before grabbing her hand and leading her to one of the far stairwells you often met up in since it hardly got used. You waited for the door to shut before sitting on one of the steps.

“Mel, what's been going on? I haven't seen you all week.” you asked softly and she sighed her hands coming to cover her face in frustration before they ran through her hair and she started pacing slowly. 

“I know and I'm sorry.” she muttered, not looking at you. 

“Is it something between you and your family, or work, or.. Us?” you hesitated with the last topic and she shook her head. You stood up and grabbed her hips to get her to stop pacing and face you. You pushed her to lean against the wall behind her and she sighed. 

“I have to tell you something but if anyone finds out i'll get fired.” she said plainly.

You laughed, thinking she was joking. “Mel, come on, don't be dramatic.” 

“I wish I was Y/n but I'm serious, and it's been tearing me up all week long and I didnt think I could hold it in if I was around you.” she smiled and your own smile faded as you looked between her eyes. 

“Just tell me it's fine, I won't say anything!” you said sincerely and she nodded.

“Ok, um, I was told that due to lack of resources and financial issues, they are going to…fire some people.” she said with a worried tone and sympathetic but slightly awkward smile. Melissa did plan on telling you but she saw your worried gaze and panicked, skipping around the truth. 

“What? You’re kidding me! How do you know this? Do we know who yet?” you asked with furrowed brows.

“Um Barb told me and I got it confirmed by Ava and Jamie, but we don't know who or how many.” she stated plainly.

“Oh my gosh, I mean i'm sure we will be fine, it’ll be the last one in the first one out.” you said looking down as you shook your head. 

Melissa looked at you and felt her chest tighten, she felt panic wash over her again and pushed herself off the wall.

“Well I got to go back to class hon.” She chirped, walking over to stand in front of you. 

“Yeah I should head back too. Ill see you later tonight?” you asked and she moved her hands to your hips. 

“Umm it's maybe on tonight, I have papers to grade and stuff. Ill see you tomorrow night though, for drinks with the others yeah?” she said with a cheery tone as she lifted your chin to look at her. 

“Yeah.” 

“Great, and I’ll pick you up so you don't have to drive.” she smiled and leaned in for a kiss. You kissed her softly and slowly, you hands moving to slide into the back pockets of her jeans, her hands roamed down to your hips again to grasp them firmly and you pushed into the kiss harder. Finally you pulled away to get air and your cheeks flushed a deep red. 

“Fuck Schemmenti. Bring that energy tomorrow night.” You whispered out of breath, your eyes looking into her with heavy lids. She laughed and pulled away, kissing your cheek and leaving.

--

The group that was going to the bar consisted of Barbara, Melissa, Ava, Jacob, and Janine, and of course yourself. Gregory opted out so he could come pick the others up when we were all ready to leave. You were finishing your makeup as you waited for Melissa to get here, excitement to go out with everyone filled your chest, the only downside was having to act just friendly with Melissa after having some drinks. You were fine if you took it slow and paced yourself, but one too many cocktails and Melissa turns into a lone flame, dancing in the air before your eyes, illuminating your whole face and making it devilishly hot. She draws you in and you can't feel satisfaction or peace until you have her around you. Melissa loves this about you obviously, and nine times out of ten she gives you what you want. 

So tonight you were sticking to beer. Or at least that's what you told yourself.

You heard a car door and quickly headed downstairs, grabbing your purse and locking the door behind you. You were wearing casual yet flattering clothes, ones that accentuated your features and wouldn't make you overheat. 

“Hey baby.” Melissa smiled as she got out of the car and opened your door. 

“Hi love.” you said, giving her a peck before getting into the passenger seat. She shut the door and walked around to get back in. You changed the station as she did so and when she got back in she looked at you, your face gazing out the window. 

“Night just started and you’re already being a brat.” her tone was low and sarcastic and you couldn't help the grin that spread on your face.

“I don't know what you’re talking about.” you said slyly and she scoffed, pulling out of the driveway and heading to the bar. It wasn't far from her house thankfully, and you were able to get decent parking. The first hour went by fast, and Ava had made everyone do a shot when they got there, so you made sure to be careful. You all just talked and gossiped for most of the night, watching drunk people do karaoke at the front of the bar. You looked over and saw a pool table and got excited, you nudged Melissa and she looked over. 

“Maybe we can sneak away for a round or two?” you said looking at her, she turned to look at you, her face dangerously close to yours. 

“Damn already? I thought you were pacing yourself.” she smirked and you rolled your eyes.

“Of pool.” you remarked and she tilted her head with a teasing glance.

“Mhm. Lead the way.” she said and you got up, going to the bar to get you and Melissa another beer, and then heading to the table, Melissa took the cold bottle from your hand, her fingers brushing yours and you smiled at her. 

“Watch it.” She just shrugged in response and you grabbed a stick, handing her one after she finished setting it up. You moved aside and let her break and she looked at you with a spine chilling smirk. You watched as she bent over, your eyes tracing over her back and around the curve of her ass, her fingers delicately placed around the stick as she moved it back and forth. You took a sip to cool you down, and looked away. You looked over at the group and they were still in a deep gossip session. You looked back and Melissa was lining up for another shot and you laughed. 

“How many did you get in on the break?” you questioned and she looked up at you after hitting another and making it in.

“Two.” she moved to stand in front of you, lining up her next shot, she bent down slowly and you looked in  disbelief, looking around to see if anyone noticed, she pressed her ass into your center and right as she went to hit the ball you gripped her hips, your thumbs sliding up her shirt slightly so they could press into her skin with force, she tensed up and let out a small gasp and it caused her to miss the shot. She stood up quickly and looked at you. 

“So that's how we are going to play huh?” you smiled and walked to take a shot. You got two in before you were getting ready for your next and Melissa started to fidget with her heel, she stood across from you, her hand on the side of the table. She leaned down slightly, fixing the non existent issue and causing her cleavage to be directly in your eyeline. You looked into her eyes that were dark and secretive. You couldn't help your eyes dipping back down to her perfect breasts and you rolled your eyes, taking the shot and standing back up before the ball even made it halfway to the pocket. Of course to no one's surprise, you missed, and you went to sip your drink while Melissa took her next turn.

Eventually it was down to Melissa and you both one away from the 8 ball, you had both continued playing dirty and Melissa just happened to be better at doing that, and with assets like hers it's easier to do. Melissa paused to drink her beer as she prepared for her turn. You quickly went to the bartender and ordered two shots, heading back over to Melissa. She looked at you and raised a brow. 

“Thanks hon but I probably shouldn't drink anymore.” she said kindly and you downed one of the shots as you looked at her. Your eyes were determined and full of admiration and a hunger to win. 

“Wasn’t for you.” you said with a smile as you did the other one. She looked at you confused and you walked over to her. 

“Now, if you win, you will get to deal with future drunk me however you’d like.” you said smiling. Her jaw slacked and she looked over your face.

“And if you win?” she asked with a curious smile.

“I'm going to go home alone, and get myself off. And if you talk me through it you may get a few selfies.” you muttered softly and she felt her muscles tense up at the thought. As hot as that would be, she loves when you are drunk and needy, she doesn't want to miss out on this. 

“And we are playing clean from here on.” you added and she agreed, walking to line up her shot. You watched as you sipped your drink, the drinks finally catching up to you and your legs suddenly felt weak. You stayed standing and focused your vision on Melissa, your blood rising in temperature as your eyes looked over her. 

“That look is not playing clean.” she muttered, not looking away from the ball. You didn't say anything and she took her shot. The force of her strong arm caused a loud pop to be heard and it made your core twitch and your legs push together. She made the shot and you scoffed. Her hazey eyes met yours with a cocky smirk and you looked away, when you looked over Barbara was heading towards you and you straightened up. Melissa noticed and she smiled. 

“Hey Barb, what's up?” Melissa asked and she sat down at the high table next to us.

“Jacob and Ava are getting into it about some stupid show.” she sighed and you laughed 

“Wow you left Janine alone over there?” you looked over and she was sinking into the booth sitting between the other two.

“Mm. How's your game?” she asked and Melissa's smiled widened. 

“I'm winning of course.” she didn't hesitate to state and you rolled your eyes.

“Just go on already, Schemmenti.” She looked at you with a daring eye and you laughed. 

“I'm gonna go to the bathroom, Barb, take my shot for me.” she said, handing her stick to the woman before disappearing. You sat in shock and Barb looked at you. 

“I won't lie, Y/n, I had a lot of beverages tonight.” she smiled walking over to the table, you smiled in response hoping this would give you an advantage.

“That's okay, me too.” you laughed, the drinks were really hitting you now and time seemed to slow down as you waited. You could hear the people talking loudly over the music, and the colorful lights made everything glow.

“Yeah I don't blame you, I would in your situation. It really is just awful.” she said looking for the best place to shoot from. You furrowed your brows in confusion and looked over at her. 

“What do you mean?” you asked, your words slightly slurred.

“Well you know with the whole letting you go, situation.” she looked up at you and the loud noises along with drinks in your system caused you to have a harder time piecing it together. She noticed and pushed her own brows together.

“Wait, Melissa didn't tell you? Woah I was sure she would have.” she said shocked and you shook your head.

“Melissa?” you said at the mention of her name and Barbara nodded. 

“Yeah Ava said they had to let you go.” she said as she took the shot. You watched as she missed and you stepped back. “Damn I missed.” 

“When did you tell her?” you asked and she paused to think.

“Hmm like two weeks ago.” she said as she set the stick down. Behind her you saw Melissa walking over, she came into focus and you saw her face turn down, surely a reaction to your own stoic and melancholy expression. Your brows tight together and your eyes full of confusion. She walked closer and you sighed. 

“Two weeks you knew and you didn't tell me.” you muttered and Melissa immediately realized what happened. Barbara looked at you both, confused and unsure if her suspicions were correct. She muttered and apology to Melissa and walked back to the group. You didn't say anything else and just grabbed your purse and walked away, you paused at the others to let them know you were leaving cause you didn't feel well, and headed out the door. Melissa grabbed her own belongings and hurried to close out the tab, she told the others she was driving you home, and hurried out after you. You had already started your journey down the street, your feet hurt and your legs were slightly numb from the cold night air nipping at them. Your vision was slightly delayed, but overall you were conscious enough to make it home at a decent time. You finally realized why you were walking away and you sighed. You realized Melissa had not only not told you but had the chance and lied instead. You loved your job so hearing this information stung. Learning your girlfriend that you met here, knew before you though, that hurt worse. 

“Y/n, baby please let me drive you.” she shouted after you and you shook your head. 

“I need to clear my thoughts. I'll be fine.” you said and you heard her heels stop clicking. You figured she gave up with your stubborn attitude and went back. No more than a minute later, she was pulled up driving next to you as you walked. 

“Sweetie, I'm sorry, please get in the car and then we can talk about it.” she said, genuine sorrow and worry laced in her tone which led you to look up at her.

“I dont want to fucking talk Melissa.” you said with your voice raised, walking ahead once more. 

“Get in the car.” she demanded with a flat tone that intimidated you to your bones. You ignored her and she stopped the car, you stopped walking and looked over and she raised an eyebrow at you. “Just let me get you home safe and ill give you all the space you want.” she said softly and the amount of care that seeped out of her words made your heart flutter and you walked over and got in the car. After a few moments of silence you sighed. 

“Did you talk to anyone else?” you asked and she nodded.

“After I found out I went to Ava’s office and she was with Jamie and they told me there was nothing they could do. Trust me when I say I tried baby. Then they said I would get replaced if I told you. You nodded in shock and chewed on your lip before starting back up.

“God I mean did you tell them to cut someone else? To fire fucking Gary or something?” you asked and she nodded. 

“Yes baby I tried but they said they had no other choice.” her brows pushed together as she rubbed your thigh in comfort. 

“Fuck.” you muttered looking down and running a hand through your hair. “What the hell am I going to do, I mean finding a new job isn't hard but leaving my friends and you. Not to mention I'll have to go work at another bro-ey tech department.” you rolled your eyes and she sighed.

“I know hon, I'm sorry. I will help you find a new position and I'm sure we have time to find a good fit.” she tried her best to comfort you but you were so angry that Ava allowed this to happen and you knew you would either snap or start crying so you just turned and looked out the window.

“And you… why didn't you just tell me?” you muttered with judgment and her mouth turned down in guilt. 

“I don't know. I just panicked.” she said softly and you nodded, accepting her reasoning and deciding to just forget about it for tonight. You got to your house and insisted she didn't need to walk you to the door, so you grabbed your things and looked at her with an awkward smile. 

“I guess ill maybe, see you at work on Monday.” you joked and she just stared at you with sympathy, you kissed her cheek and she kissed yours before you got out and headed inside. 

After you got inside you immediately showered and got ready for bed, you finally checked your phone as you turned on your TV and sat on your plush comforter. There were messages from Melissa, one letting you know she made it home, and one apologizing again. As you read them she texted again asking if you were mad and you pondered for a moment. You sat up and flipped to your camera, sitting against the pillows, you held your arm out, your thighs up to your mouth in frame, wearing a sheer burgundy panty set. You looked at it before sending it along with ‘we are okay’ and then you put your phone on silent, and went to sleep. Leaving Melissa with nothing but the photo of you.

--

this was a quick little one I hope yall like these angsty fics sorry about no smut

please send int requests yall!! and feel free to ask for other characters and ill lyk if I write for em.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Gyan Abhishek is standing in front of a giant touch screen, like Jim Cramer on Mad Money or an ESPN talking head analyzing a football play. He’s flicking through a Facebook feed of viral, AI-generated images. “The post you are seeing now is of a poor man that is being used to generate revenue,” he says in Hindi, pointing with his pen to an image of a skeletal elderly man hunched over being eaten by hundreds of bugs. “The Indian audience is very emotional. After seeing photos like this, they Like, Comment and share them. So you too should create a page like this, upload photos and make money through Performance bonus.”  He scrolls through the page, titled “Anita Kumari,” which has 112,000 followers and almost exclusively posts images of emaciated, AI-generated people, natural disasters, and starving children. He pauses on another image of a man being eaten by bugs. “They are getting so many likes,” he says. “They got 700 likes within 2-4 hours. They must have earned $100 from just this one photo. Facebook now pays you $100 for 1,000 likes … you must be wondering where you can get these images from. Don’t worry. I’ll show you how to create images with the help of AI.”

[...]

Abhishek has 115,000 YouTube subscribers, dozens of instructional videos, and is part of a community of influencers selling classes and making YouTube content about how to go viral on Facebook with AI-generated images and other types of spam. These influencers act much like financial influencers in the United States, teaching other people how to supposedly spin up a side hustle in order to make money by going viral on Facebook and other platforms. Part of the business model for these influencers is, of course, the fact that they are themselves making money by collecting ad revenue from YouTube and by selling courses and AI prompts on YouTube, WhatsApp and Telegram. Many of these influencers go on each others’ podcasts to discuss strategies, algorithm changes, and loopholes. I have found hundreds of videos about this, many of which have hundreds of thousands or millions of views.   But the videos make clear that Facebook’s AI spam problem is one that is powered and funded primarily by Facebook itself, and that most of the bizarre images we have seen over the last year are coming from Microsoft’s AI Image Creator, which is called “Bing Image Creator” in instructional videos.

[...]

The most popular way to make money spamming Facebook is by being paid directly by Facebook to do so via its Creator Bonus Program, which pays people who post viral content. This means that the viral “shrimp Jesus” AI and many of the bizarre things that have become a hallmark of Zombie Facebook have become popular because Meta is directly incentivizing people to post this content.

6 August 2024

[bratbarzal]

On Your Side (NH13) / Prologue

Pairing: Nico Hischier x Fem!OC Poppy Jensen

WC: 13k

Chapter Warnings: angst, miscommunication, ghosting? maybe, some cursing, mentions of OC having nephews (gross), being broken up with over a text, allusions to anxiety, my oc being argumentative and avoidant (she's me), and nico also being avoidant and a poor communicator (he's a man) (he's also a capricorn) (sorry capricorns)

Summary: Poppy Jensen’s job with the New Jersey Devils was supposed to be her first big step into adulthood - a way to prove to herself and her overbearing parents that she could make her own way in life. She was never supposed to become involved with any of the players. Becoming best friends with their captain was stupid. Getting her heart broken by him was tragic. Getting knocked up with his child was just plain messy.

Series Masterlist

A/N: is a 13k prologue excessive? probably. is the mixture of tenses in this part going to grind your gears? most definitely. am I going to do anything about it? no.

I've never actually published any writing before so go easy on the girl. if I need to tag any warnings just let me know. if you like the fic let me know. if you don't like the fic I beg you I'm having a bad month spare meeeeee.

TW for british english spellings because shock horror I am unfortunately british, get used to u's and s's where you least expect them, I will change my spell check settings for no one!! nico's facebook aunt shenanigans have lit a fire within me today and I was writing a later chapter for this fic and thinking if I don't actually put this out into the world I never will so here we are hi my name is maggie I hope you enjoy

Poppy

New Years has always been Poppy Jensen’s favourite holiday. The dwindling aftermath of Christmas - lights and decorations still hung throughout the city, everyone decked in the hats, scarves and ugly sweaters gifted by distant relatives over the Christmas period, and the six days of limbo usually spent drinking and eating copious amounts of leftovers before the new year, new me resolutions kick in - and experiencing it all in her hometown surrounded by the people she loves the most, there is no other time like it.

This year, she feels like the festive period has been one, long, strung-out horror show. 

Self-inflicted, of course, like all the other tragedies of her life, she does know she only has herself to blame for how pathetic it has turned out.

She had prepared herself for Christmas to be a dud. The one time of the year that she and her family put aside their differences, and this year she had opted out - or, so her mother had dramatically concluded; she actually just had work commitments. But, this would be her first spent alone due to the fact her parents had decided to go and visit her older brother, Oliver, and his family in San Francisco.

They didn’t have to fly across the country - Oliver has more than enough money to book his clan on a flight back to his home state, but obviously as the golden child, the Jensen’s must bend to his every whim. Of course, Poppy had been invited. Her relationship with her brother wasn’t mutually acrimonious, but the aforementioned work commitments got her out of that bore-fest. 

She does love her brother. Sometimes. Christmas, especially - he’s a great and expensive gift-giver. And she loves his wife, Kimberley, and their two sons - her nephews, James and Lucas - but spending the holidays with them would have been a lot. Her family is hard work on the best of days, and the only reason Christmas is ever bearable is because her mother hires help, and it’s impossible for the stress train to leave the station if Priscilla Jensen is given enough wine early enough in the day to dull her usual wicked demeanour. 

Kimberley, God bless her soul, maintains a sober house, and Poppy, as much as she respects this, would not go anywhere near that train wreck if you paid her a million dollars.

There’s also the fact that the holidays were invented to unwind, and Poppy somehow always gets lumped on nephew duty. She had long grown out of her boys are gross phase, but lord, do those two try everything in their power to bring it back. She has lost count of the amount of their bodily fluids she has had wiped all over her best clothes over the years. If she had agreed to fly out, she no doubt would have ended up being the one to watch the kids while everyone else had their version of a good time, and so she’d successfully managed to avoid all that with a half-assed promise of visiting at Easter, instead.

Her brother hadn’t been too upset - one less place setting at the table for him to worry about - but her mother had been livid, and there was no chance Poppy would live it down without owing her.

God forbid she, as an adult, actually got to choose how to spend her time.

She hadn’t actually been completely alone on Christmas, not all day, at least. Her best friend Nia had invited her to eat with her and her dad, but they were hardly putting her in the festive spirit with their constant snipes at each other, and so she’d given herself stomach ache stuffing herself full of corn bread and roasted carrots and dipped out to make it home for the Giants game - because there’s no better tradition than watching your team lose on Christmas Day. At least she wasn’t there to watch her dad and brother yell at the TV and get all grumpy for hours after the fact. 

She’d watched Love Actually with mulled wine in hand and fallen asleep on the couch - waking up in the middle of the night to the muffled sound of her neighbours screaming at each other through the walls. 

Poppy had the 26th off, and spent the day preparing her apartment for New Years, knowing she wouldn’t have any other opportunity to get her big clean done. She’d cleared out half her wardrobe - done several loads of laundry so that she could donate clean clothes to the women’s shelter a few blocks over - rid her kitchen of all the outdated tinned foods in the backs of her cupboards, dusted every surface, vacuumed every floor, colour-coded her bookshelf to look more aesthetically pleasing and then within an hour put it back in alphabetical order - all in a day’s work. 

By the time the 27th rolled around, and she had to return to work, she had tired herself out completely. She had been drained, and the worst part of it all, she didn’t even actually need to be there.

Sure, December was a crazy time to work in the NHL, their schedule unrelenting when the season got into full-swing, and the holiday events that Poppy’s team had to organise seemed never ending, but she had technically been given limbo-week off. Not that her mother had to know.

The Youth Foundation team had all wrapped up work for the year on the 23rd, and if Poppy was a truly good daughter/sibling/aunt, she would have booked herself on a red-eye after the home win that evening, but the second the opportunity to accept an actual real excuse not to change her plans arose, she took it with open arms. Her guilt of lying to her family diminished, along with her will to live at the fact she had - self-inflicted, as always - put herself down to work her favourite time of the year.

Her career with the New Jersey Devils had started with an internship in her final year of college. She had worked with the digital content department for her first year, quickly being sniped by the Foundation in the middle of her second year and working her way past content creation to helping co-ordinate and run some of the community events.

When her friend Jessica had approached Poppy and begged for her to cover her spot in the department they had started out together in for limbo-week, spending it with the team at their games, she had jumped at the bit. She knew no one else would agree to work last minute after having their time off approved, and was pleased to relay to her mom that she had to prove herself as a team player if she wanted more responsibility at work. It was all in the name of bumping up her performance and getting her name out there, and definitely not avoiding her family and that whole shit-show.

Poppy loves her job, and is more than happy with her career, but she could sing about it until the cows come home and her parents could not care less. They rarely ever acknowledged her successes because her life didn’t fit the mould they had set out for her - another reason she hadn’t wanted to spend this Christmas hounded with questions of why don’t you come work for your dad? Or why didn’t you accept the interview Ollie so kindly got for you? She doesn’t want a non-sensical, nothing job made up to keep her under her family’s influence. She has forged her own path, one that many dream of in one of the biggest industries in the country, and no matter how much she disappointed her parents in comparison to her lackey brother, she is content with where she is.

She had completely forgotten, however, that the devils played away on the 29th and 30th, and if she was going to be tagging along with the bare-bones limbo week media crew, there was no way in hell she was getting out of joining the team’s New Years celebrations. 

She had done her fair share of dodging team events already this year, and despite the fact she could appease most of her friends within the organisation, there was one person who would not let her off so easy.

This year is Jack Hughes’ first year hosting the big Devils New Years party - he’d, in her opinion, stupidly volunteered pretty much last minute after the venue the team had booked flooded in November and cancelled their reservation - and he would not let Poppy get out of coming, even if that meant scuppering her own annual tradition of getting shit-faced with her girls in their perfectly planned New Jersey bar crawl.

She’d done her best work to convince him - had almost sold him on the dream - she and her best friend, Nia, always start at the bar below Nia’s apartment in Hoboken, and then dot to the bars closest to their other friends apartments until they end up by Poppy’s, which has the perfect little rooftop set up where they get to watch all the fireworks across the Hudson. It’s how she’s spent the holiday every year since she and all her girls turned 21, and it was her favourite day, her favourite way to ring in a new year with her best friends in her favourite place in the world. 

Jack’s argument was that he also had a great view across the Hudson from his Jersey City apartment, and that she was less likely to catch hypothermia this year because his view came through floor to ceiling windows and the luxury of central heating.

She’d tried to argue that she had all intentions of meeting her future husband on her adventures through New Jersey, and he gave the quick rebuttal that he had plenty of single friends she was yet to meet. 

There was no excuse she could give that he couldn’t counteract, and so she’d eventually given up with the resolution that when he is 3 drinks deep, Jack Hughes can barely remember his own name, let alone keep tabs on where Poppy is, or if she ever showed up in the first place. She can always just say she’s running late until he stops asking.

And then she’d somehow gotten roped into helping him set up. 

Jack had cornered her on their flight home from Boston, where they had just lost to the Bruins and, all of a sudden, no one was in any kind of mood to party.

“I swear,” he had said, throwing himself down into the vacant seat beside her as she attempted to clear her inbox on the short journey, swiping away messages and storing others to review when work started back up in the next week, “If I mess up this party, and my name goes down in Devils history tied to the biggest depression session this team have ever seen, I’m holding you personally responsible.”

“How the hell would that be my fault?” She had scoffed, kicking at his feet when he had tried to man-spread next to her and they had quite abruptly knocked knees. The staff seats toward the front of the plane weren’t quite as spacious as the player seats further back.

“You brought some serious negative energy with you on this trip,” he shrugged, reaching for the bag of skittles she had stashed in the pocket on the seat in front of her and stealing a handful, “And I can’t blame you for us losing, so I’m gonna blame you for constantly trying to abandon my event and making me feel so insecure about it that it turned into a complete bore-fest because I didn’t have my literal professional event planner friend to help me set it all up.”

Jack Hughes had joined the New Jersey Devils at the same time Poppy had started her internship. There had been some corny ice breaker session for everyone new to the organisation that season, and they’d bonded over their shared love for country music. He’d become dependent on her as a local to the area for recommendations for everything - food, sports bars, coffee, grocery shopping, running routes - and they’d quickly developed a friendship that had lasted them thus far. No fallouts, no drama, no issues. Being friends with Jack is easy. 

Poppy is older by near enough 18 months, and considers him as close to a little brother as she will ever find - annoying, teasing, loud and somewhat of a know-it-all, but he cares deeply, and he’s loyal, honest and open with her, and she loves him for it.

“I’ve done my part even helping you plan the thing,” she had to snatch the bag back from him before he finished the skittles off, needing the sugar to keep her awake for the quick drive home when they landed. Jack had been on her back about this party since he had first put his name in the hat to host, and she had been gracious, helping him arrange food, drinks, decorations and DJ equipment in the hopes it would lessen the blow that she didn’t want to attend. “I didn’t bring negative energy.”

“Do I have to kidnap you when we deplane or are you gonna come around tomorrow morning and help me?”

“Kidnap me?” she couldn’t help but laugh, casting a quick measured glance over his figure. “Real cute, Jack, you’re nothing without your stick.”

“I could take you.” He attempted to throw a skittle up into the air and catch it in his mouth, not accounting for the fact they were on a moving, somewhat turbulent plane, and he barely had enough finesse to pull that off on the ground. The candy landed and bounced off his cheekbone, and he watched it fall to the floor with a child-like pout. 

“It’s fighting talk like that that would lose you another tooth, Hughesy,” she had threatened in jest. 

“I’m a middle child, I don’t start fights I can’t finish, Popcorn.” He also has a track record of giving Poppy the worst nicknames she has ever heard in her entire 24 years on this Earth. “Luke’s already said he’ll help me on the kidnapping front, we have a plan.”

“Your plan is nothing without incentive, Jack. You come at me with weak threats when you could just offer me something in return.”

“Like what?” His eyes narrowed toward her, shuffling in the seat until he was facing her fully. 

“I want to bring Nia.” If she was going to be subjected to this, she was bringing back up - and she had thought this would be a good trade, knowing how protective the boys were of their private events, especially those thrown in their own homes.

Poppy hadn’t liked the way his lips curved up immediately, like she had fallen straight into his trap. “Done.” She should have known better. He stood up, edging back into the aisle and sending her a wink. “I’ll text you details on when and where I need you. Your hot friend is more than welcome to offer a hand, too.”

And that is how Poppy has ended up spending the day of New Years Eve, her favourite day of the year, rushing to set up Jack Hughes’ apartment. 

Her first task had been to go round to Jack’s and accept the deliveries that came while he and Luke were out picking up the decks for the DJ. Drinks arrived by the crateful, the boxes of paper plates, cups and other table wears took her several trips up and down from Jack’s apartment to the building lobby until she broke out in a sweat, and she had done her best to hang all the decorations, her last call being to pick up the bigger decoration delivery from downstairs.  

Poppy, with the help of Lionel, the building’s concierge, loads the elevator full of decor, ranging from golden helium balloons that spell out ‘Happy New Year’ and ‘2024’, a large roll that should hopefully unravel to reveal a backdrop for a makeshift photo-booth, as well as a deconstructed balloon arch that gave her PTSD from the amount of events at the Rock she’d had to put them together.

Lionel offers to come up with her to help unload everything upstairs, but the thought of cramming another person in there with all the stuff makes her feel claustrophobic, so she politely declines - though, when the elevator doors open and she bumps face first into a firm chest, her nose smushing against a khaki t-shirt she wishes she had someone else with her to buffer the tension that stiffens her spine. 

A large, calloused hand wraps around her upper arm to steady her, and another reaches out to keep the doors of the elevator from closing in on where she stands. She looks up into eyes swirled with the colour of warm, melted chocolate, and her throat feels just the slightest bit drier than it had 5 seconds ago.

“Hey,” Nico Hischier’s voice is deep, scratchy like he’s just woken up - he probably has given how late the team got in last night - and trickles down in static currents from her ears to the base of Poppy’s back. 

She takes a short, startled step back, and gulps down the dryness in her throat before she gives a quick, “Hey,” in response. “Sorry, I’ll just take a second to unload all of this then the elevator is yours.”

“I’ll help,” Nico doesn’t phrase it as a question, as if knowing she would immediately decline. Not, let me help, or do you need help? He’ll just do it. “You get everything out and I’ll take it inside?”

She nods, despite the voice in the back of her head telling her that he’s only helping to get the job done quicker, and be able to get downstairs. She makes a conscious mental effort to drown it out while the two of them work in a silent tandem, her lifting the decorations into the hallway and him towing them down and into Jack’s apartment. 

She makes another conscious effort not to watch when he lifts things, the flex of his arms, the rippling muscles of his shoulders.

“Is that the last of it?” He asks, gesturing to the rolled up backdrop leaning on the side of the elevator and propping it open. 

“Yeah, but I got it,” Poppy gives a tight smile, lifting the roll but staying in place so the doors don’t close behind her and she doesn’t get stuck any longer in Nico’s presence on her own. “Thanks for helping.”

There used to be a time she couldn’t get enough of being around Nico, but those days are long gone.There is a permanent frigidity between them now - it’s been there since the summer just gone - and she’s overstimulated enough having spent her morning being Jack’s lackey while he no doubt slacks off with his brother grabbing brunch out. Her patience is beyond wearing thin, and so the last thing she needs is prolonged contact with the Devils captain where she will no doubt end up blowing up and making everything worse.

No one wants to ring in the new year with an almighty fallout.

She can’t help the frown that befalls her features when he makes no effort to occupy the elevator. He makes no effort to do anything, only looking at Poppy with a pensive pout. “Jack said I should come help you out.”

Of course he did, she thinks.

For the past four months, Jack Hughes has been acting like it’s his greater purpose in life to bring Nico and Poppy back together - like the demise of their friendship was the greatest personal inconvenience he has ever faced in his life. 

He has orchestrated one too many ‘accidental’ run-ins just like this one, and Poppy isn’t going to entertain his childish games any longer.

Nico doesn’t want to be her friend - she knows this for a fact - so Jack’s schemes are becoming a waste of everyone’s time.

“I’m alright, Nia’s on her way, you don’t have to hang around.”

Nia was due at Jack’s apartment two hours ago, but is no doubt still asleep after she was out last night for her pre-New Years celebrations. She’ll come over soon enough, though, and so Poppy doesn’t feel entirely deflated to turn down help she actually might currently need.

“I don’t mind waiting until she gets here.” Nico shrugs, again not giving her a natural opportunity to say no. He nods towards the apartment, gesturing for Poppy to start making her way over. “We both know she won’t take the stairs.”

Something about the way he so casually recalls information about her best friend plucks at her nerves, just a little, reflective of the part of their lives they had once shared with each other like it was nothing, but she shrugs it off, beginning to head towards the apartment with the roll tucked under her arm.

“I thought New Years was your favourite holiday?” He asks once they’re both inside, the sound of the door clicking shut behind him and somewhat trapping her in his presence echoing throughout the room. He doesn’t allow for any kind of prolonged silence between the two of them. If Nico Hischier is good at anything, it’s getting people to talk to him.

It’s not entirely that she doesn’t want to talk to him.

She does.

She’s wanted to talk to him every day for the past 4 months that they hadn’t talked - has been craving even mundane, casual conversation about the weather or traffic on the way into work, but now, as he yet again indifferently recollects such personal details about her as if they have remained close, she begins to feel uneasy.

“It is,” she gives a half-hearted, dismissive response. 

“Then why are you all grumpy?”

“I’m not.” She frowns, eyebrows furrowing and arms crossing as she turns to face him, the lie tasting bitter on her tongue.  

She’s not trying to be difficult. Or maybe she is. She is in a particularly bad mood, but she had thought she’d done a good job at masking it. He’d been around her all of 2 minutes and saw right through her. 

“Jack said you’ve been off all morning.”

Like he cares, she thinks, her mood souring further at the fact he doesn’t see through her or even care at all, he’s here at the request of someone else. Following up on his duties as a captain and fulfilling a favour for one of his actual friends.

Embarrassment floods the pit of her stomach, and rears its ugly head in the form of her biting tone when she replies, “Jack’s been out all morning, how would he know?”

“He left you to do all this on your own?” Nico frowns, gesturing around to the half-way set up apartment. All that’s left to do aside from put up the decorations she’s just lugged up is set up the food and drinks, and Poppy figured she could leave that task to Jack so that it all remained fresher for longer. 

“I do this kind of thing for a living, remember?”

She cringes inwardly at the venom in her voice, turning away from him with a huff and missing the way his posture deflates. 

“You run events, Poppy, you’re not an assistant.” She can hear his heavy footsteps follow as she moves to set up the photo-booth area. “If I’d known he had you running after him all morning, I’d have-,”

“Called someone else to come help me so you could carry on avoiding me?”

She really is wound up now. Jack bailing on her to do God-knows what while she sets up his party had been one thing - there was a rational part of her brain that would tell her there would no doubt be hiccups in trying to source a bunch of DJ equipment in New Jersey on New Years Eve and he hadn’t actually bailed - and she could write off Nia’s disappearance due to the fact Poppy had sprung the plans on her last minute when she got home and called her last night, and she was bound to show up at some point. But Nico implying she is letting Jack walk all over her and needs anyone’s help to get through setting up a basic party is downright offensive. At least, in her stressed out state, it is - and so she can’t find it within herself to bite her tongue about their situation any longer.

If it drives him away and brings back her solitude to finish setting up without him occupying any precious mind space, so be it.

She almost forgets a key fact about the man before her. He doesn’t give up so easily.

“I’m not avoiding you.” He bites back, stepping into her space and helping her lift the backdrop roll to fit into the brackets she had set up earlier when the structure for the booth had arrived. “I would have come to help you, myself, Poppy.”

She wishes he would stop saying her name. 

4 months of radio silence and he’s thrown it at her like a dagger twice in the span of 30 seconds, the way his it rolls of his tongue in a low, smooth rasp scratching an itch she didn’t know she had, and now she can’t shake it. 

“I’m fine,” she huffs, reaching as far as she can and pressing until she hears the brackets click into place. At the brief noise, Nico catches on to what he needs to do at his side and manages to click it into place, barely lifting his arms. She moves into the middle of the structure, pulling at the velcro tab holding the roll together until it cascades to the floor and unveils the backdrop in its entirety. 

“What else needs doing?” He asks, his tone gentler this time.

“Nothing,” she mutters, winding the velcro in between her fingers to occupy them, before moving to pass him and make her way to the next task on her list. It’s only small things now. Arranging the balloons, setting up the arch, clearing table space for the equipment when Jack finally arrives home. “You can go, I’ve got it.”

“Mohn,” Nico sighs lowly, warm hand clasping around her forearm as she attempts to pass, holding her in place beside him. 

She really wishes he wouldn’t call her that.

If Jack is the prince of childish monikers that make her insides curl, Nico is the king of making her melt.

The nickname takes her straight back to the days before the waves of the summer break washed their friendship away. The times where he’d give her a ride home from the Prudential Center after work, whispering a, “Goodnight, Mohn,” in her ear as they hugged goodbye over the centre console in the front of his car. The times she’d meet up with the team to celebrate a win at their favourite bar, and he’d throw a never-casual, “Looking good, Mohn,” her way with an appreciative once-over. 

And it takes her even further back to when they had met, and she’d first offered her name.

“I’ll be interning with the content team, my name is Poppy,” she had offered a bright smile, reaching her hand out for him to shake, and making sure to keep a firm grip, just like her father had taught her, when he places his hand in hers. As she had done since she was a child, it was instinctual to follow up with, “Like the flower.”

“Mohnblume,” he had uttered, a smile so deep his cheeks dimpled into deep valleys.

“Huh?” She had been only a little bit caught out by the way his eyes shone, forgetting her manners as her head tilted to the side in confusion.

“Poppy flower, that’s what it is in my language.”

“Oh,” she had exclaimed, furrowed brows raising, a soft flush warming her cheeks, “Pretty!”

“Very.”

She had convinced herself for a long time that it was just his way of remembering - an aid in blurring the lines between the two languages that, especially back then, he often found himself mixed up in. And then, after a while, using it seemed to bring a protected familiarity between them - like an inside joke - and he’d use it less in front of others and more in the times it was just the two of them.

Years down the line from hearing it for the first time, and months down the line from hearing it for the last, her heart still thumps the same erratic beat at the sound.

Nico’s eyes still shine the same way when he looks down at her, and she fights every fibre of her being not to think too much about it. Or not to think about the touch of his hand on her arm, still holding her in place, the two of them closer than they have been in a long time, now.

It’s painfully easy to forget the months of distance after only seconds in his immediate company - to wipe from her memory the reason for her reticence and to push down the stubborn desire to push him away.

Her lips part to speak, and she doesn’t know if she’s about to turn him down or take him in, because another voice fills the apartment before any words get the chance to spill out.

“I come bearing gifts!” A sing-song lull breaks the silence as her best friend makes her presence known, entering the apartment with a drinks carrier in one hand, and a to-go back over the other wrist. 

Poppy steps away, shaking Nico’s grip from her arm, and turns to give Nia her full attention, hoping that she is either too hungover or too focused on herself to see or care about the obvious tension between her and the captain. She manages to bite her tongue from letting a Thank God slip out, and makes her way over to retrieve a much needed drink.

“They were out of chai so I got you an iced tea,” Nia holds out the drink to Poppy, and then the to go bag, “And half a cinnamon roll.”

“Half?”

“What? I was hungry too.” Nia scoffs, turning her attention to the brooding presence on the other side of the room. “Sorry, Nico, I didn’t know you’d be here.”

“Would you have only eaten a third if you did?” He trials a joke, and when Poppy sneaks a peak back toward him, he looks apprehensive - scratching at the nape of his neck as if anticipating a bad reaction to his attempt at lighthearted humour.

“I’m sure Poppy doesn’t mind sharing if you’re starving,” Nia makes her way to the bar set up by the kitchen, placing her own cup down and shrugging off her purse beside it. 

“I wouldn’t dream of depriving her of half a cinnamon roll.” While his words are directed to her best friend, Nico looks at Poppy with a wistful smile, and she can practically see the memory of an old shared routine wash over his eyes. 

A weekly ritual of meeting by the PATH station close to both of their apartments on a free morning for a run, and then catching breakfast to go and grab a juice or a smoothie for the walk home - abandoned just like all the other little traditions they once had together.

Nico and Poppy had been close, before. Closer than she is to Jack, now - closer than she’s been to anyone else on the team, ever. So close that Nico knows her best friend enough to joke around with a familiar ease; so close that they’d even hung out as a three before, back when the girls shared an apartment in Poppy’s first year with the Devils, and he had been the only person that Nia had ever been happy to share her childhood friend with. 

And now, Poppy stands between them in a silence so uncomfortable she feels like the room is shaking.

She hasn’t talked to Nico in months, and hasn’t talked about him in just as long, but she knows Nia can read her like a book. 

The girls had grown up together - been through everything side by side, pinky fingers intertwined with an eternal promise of friendship and understanding. The demise of relationships, friendship group implosions, familial hardships, Nia’s goth phase, the time Poppy wrecked her hair dying it a vibrant cherry-red because her high school crush said Ariana Grande was hot - she still shudders thinking of how her hair glowed red in any direct light for years in the aftermath. Through middle school, high school, college, and all the way up until now, the pair know each other inside out.

So Poppy knows that Nia knows something happened.

Nia knows that Poppy hadn’t been able to go a day without bringing up the Swiss Captain before the summer, and then all of a sudden, she didn’t mention him at all. But she also knows her friend well enough and loves her too much not to have pressed on an open wound.

“It looks insane in here, Pop,” Nia gawks at the set up around her, every corner of the open plan layout of Jack’s large apartment decked out with decor and party amenities. “Do you guys go this hard every year?”

“Depends who’s hosting,” Nico shrugs, knowing when it had been his turn the year before, his event had been much more lowkey. Poppy had seen the pictures, had been sent an abundance of wish you were here snapchats around midnight from the Captain himself. Jack has a thing about his reputation that won’t let him even consider doing anything lowkey. “I forgot this would be your first year coming.”

“Oh, we’re not coming.” Poppy covers her mouth as she speaks around a bite of her food, unable to wait until she’d finished her mouthful due to the immediate urge to shut him down once again.

“You’re not?” He almost sounds disappointed. She doesn’t dare check for the furrow of his thick eyebrows or the pout of his lips. “Jack said he’d convinced you.”

A flash of anxiety shoots across her chest at the thought of him considering her attendance. Had he asked Jack? Had he mentioned her specifically - pushed him to convince her? Or had Jack just brought it up in an offhanded comment?

“I just agreed to get him off my back about it.” Her choice of words is only slightly intended to hurt. She and Nico were no longer friends - she hadn’t been the one to make that decision. Despite that fact, she tries to suppress the guilt clawing at the base of her throat at the wash of understanding that passes over his features. A solemn nod, gaze bouncing to the floor, lips pressed together. “We have plans with our friends.”

“Actually,” Nia’s voice captures both their attention swiftly - Poppy’s head whipping around in subtle alarm and Nico’s in anticipation. “Blake’s flight back from Arizona got cancelled, and Kelsey bailed on me last night because she got Covid of all things over Christmas.”

“What about Emma?” Poppy asks, hoping and praying their hermit friend has all of a sudden grown some stellar social skills and agreed to carry on their tradition for the sake of Poppy’s sanity.

“She double booked with her boyfriend, and he’s a huge drip I don’t really wanna hang out with those two all night.” God damn Emma and her tool of a boyfriend, Poppy thinks. “At least if we come here, we’re still close enough to your place we can make it back for fireworks on the roof.”

“We get a great view of them from this building,” Nico makes his presence known again, attempting to offer a solution. “If you didn’t want to walk back home so late.”

“See, Pop,” Nia claps her hands together with a grin, “We get to come to a cool party, don’t have to worry about creeps following us around all night, and still get to hold on to tradition. Win, win, win if you ask me!”

“Right,” Poppy sighs, knowing now that Nia has her heart set on the plan, there’s nothing she can do about it. Any persistence on her part would be too obvious. “Fine.”

“Awesome! What’s left to do?”

Poppy eyes Nico, knowing she’d told him only a few minutes ago that there was nothing left. “Just need to clear a table for the equipment Jack’s getting,”

“Which one?” Nia asks, making her way over with her iced tea in hand once Poppy points toward the table in the corner by the wall-to-wall window. “Are you helping or just standing around looking pretty?” 

Nico’s cheeks flush, a subtle warmth arising to his skin, and he gives a bashful chuckle.

Poppy feels a little nauseous, and it’s not from the sickly sweet half of a pastry she’s just forced down.

Nia’s eyes flicker between the two of them like she’s at a grand slam, and her lips twist to hide a smile.

“I actually need to head out,” he says, gaze darting quickly to Poppy before turning to her best friend, “I have some things I need to do before tonight. It was good to see you, though, Nia.”

Nia hums around the straw of her drink, giving a dismissive wave. “You too, see you later!”

Nico begins towards the door to the apartment, and just before he passes Poppy, he stops. He doesn’t reach for her this time, doesn’t step too close, but she can feel his presence regardless. And every hair on her body stands to attention like she’s been shocked by static when he says, lowly, “I’ll see you tonight, Mohn.”

She can only nod in response, not trusting her voice to speak, not trusting her eyes to look into his and be able to look away. 

After he departs, there are a few minutes of an ear-piercing silence. Poppy can hear every movement Nia makes, from the slurp of her drink, to the manner in which she throws things around with little care for where they end up. And louder than anything, she hears the violent thud of her heartbeat in her own ears.

“So,” Nia drags out when Poppy joins her at the almost empty table. “What the fuck was that?”

“What was what?” Poppy and Nia have known each other fifteen years, she doesn’t know why she hopelessly thought that would work.

“Don’t play dumb,” Nia scoffs, “You and Captain Sexy,”

“There is no me and Nico,”

“But you know who I’m asking about,” she scoffs like she’s caught her best friend out, and then adds, with a suggestive wiggle of her brows, “So you do think he’s sexy?”

“What are you, twelve?” Poppy rolls her eyes, “He’s the only captain we’ve been in a room with, pretty obvious who you were referring to.”

“Admit it, Poppy, I saw the two of you when I came in, you totally wanna jump his bones, you have for as long as you’ve known him.”

“We’re not having this conversation, Ni.”

“The hell we aren’t!” Nia grabs her best friend by the shoulders, “I’ve bitten my tongue for months, Pop, watching you mope around and get all glum whenever work is brought up. I couldn’t get you to shut up about the guy before, what the hell happened between you two?”

“Nothing happened!”

“It totally did!” Nia can spy the aversion Poppy is attempting from miles off. “Don’t tell me you two finally hooked up and you didn’t fill me in,”

“He has a girlfriend, Nia.”

The way Poppy says it is like a period to a sentence. End of conversation. End of speculation. It doesn’t matter what they had been before, or what they are now. It doesn’t matter what she feels. There is no her and Nico because he is someone else’s. That’s the crux of it.

“Since when?” Nia frowns. 

“Since the summer just gone.”

And there it is. Understanding washes over the face of her best friend, and Poppy has to force herself to look away. 

He’d maybe been with her before that, too, but Poppy doesn’t actually know the entire timeline of it.

All she does know is that he’d come back from Switzerland with a drop dead gorgeous model hanging off of his arm, and he no longer had a use for Poppy in his life.

She knows other little bits, that she’d sourced from parts of conversations with others, or potential social media sleuthing that she will never admit to even with a gun to her head.

Talia, a model from somewhere close to home back in Europe, and Nico had hit it off at some festival when he’d gone back to Switzerland for his break. He’d very quickly and very clearly become smitten with her. Poppy had seen as much with her plastered all over his private stories and even posted on his private instagram feed.

By the time he came back to New Jersey for pre-season training camp, she was tagging along to team gatherings, he’d take her on his morning runs, grabbing breakfast together, he’d pick her up every day after work so he could no longer drive Poppy home, not that he’d ever attempted to explain any of that to her. She was at every home game, was his plus one to every event, and Poppy and Nico’s friendship had fizzled out so much that she sometimes feels like the whole thing had been a fantasy, or a figment of her imagination. Something she’d misunderstood, miscalculating every interaction they had ever shared and assuming they meant the same to him as they did to her.

They didn’t.

She doesn’t think any of it would have hurt her so much if he’d have let her down easy. A sorry for bailing on you the first time she’d text him if he wanted to meet up for their weekly run and he’d left her on read would have lessened the blow. He could have been straight up with an I just want to focus on my relationship right now. That would have been the decent thing to do, but he’d just dropped her, instead. Didn’t come around her office for lunch, didn’t text her after training when one of the guys said something stupid and he thought it might make her laugh. He’d cut her off from the intimate parts of his life - ghosted her, even - and all she could find it in herself to do anymore was miss him.

She’d made attempts to bring him around, at first. Tried speaking to him at work, tried texting, but after a few weeks of staring at the delivered sign at the bottom of their message thread, she had given up. It still taunts her every time she opens it up to delete the entire thing and move on like he clearly has - erasing all the inside jokes and times they had confided in one another like they meant ever meant anything in the first place.

She can count on her hand the amount of times they had spoken since the summer. Work related, entirely. A good game here and a have you seen whoever? there. Today is the first indication in months that they had ever been anything more than two people who worked in the same organisation. Friends of friends, co-workers, barely acquaintances.

Not people who know each other’s favourite holidays and are chummy with each other’s friends.

“I’m sorry, Poppy,” Nia frowns, “I didn’t know.”

“Doesn’t matter,” she shrugs, attempting nonchalance despite the stinging in the back of her throat. “Let’s finish here so we can go get ready.”

Nico

Nico Hischier isn’t the biggest fan of New Years Eve. He isn’t really a fan of the festive period, at all. He isn’t a scrooge by any means. He can appreciate the coming together of people and the celebration of the year just gone, and the one starting fresh - but ever since he moved from Switzerland and started his career in the NHL, the holiday period has felt unnecessarily long.

His schedule is jam packed - games up until the 23rd, starting again after Christmas on the 27th, and again after New Years on the 3rd - and there aren’t enough consecutive days together to celebrate in the way others get to do this time of year. 

He knows he has to make do with the fact - a small price to pay for living his dream - and his teammates help, all sharing in their sacrifices and trying to make the best out of a bad deal. But he can’t help but feel a lack. A lack of tradition, a lack of family being around, a lack of normalcy.

He remembers the holidays as a child, spending time at home with his parents and his siblings, having two weeks at home for his winter break and getting to spend his days doing whatever he pleased. As someone who moved overseas at such a young age, he looks back on those times fondly. 

But now, living at least 8 hours away from the rest of his family, this time of year only serves to remind him of the isolation that creeps up on him like a bad cold.

It starts at the beginning of the month, the sniffly nose period of the bug, when chatter starts around who’s doing what for Christmas. Decorations go up, parties are planned, names are passed around in a hat for Secret Santa, and discussions begin around who is managing to go where. 

Next comes the tickle in his throat - the last game before Christmas, where the team all depart and separate with temporary goodbyes as those who have family nearby all get to go home - their parents arranging home cooked extravaganza meals, reuniting with their siblings, exchanging gifts - and Nico, for the 5th year running, feels like a bit part in someone else’s festivities as he and a few of the other European guys all bustle into the dining room of whoever is willing to accommodate them for the day. 

Then comes the rest, the sneezing, the coughing, the lethargy, in the period between Christmas and New Years, when everyone is reeling off the back of their celebrations and looking forward to ringing in the next year with a big party. 

Nico had thought this year might have been better. He had been in a relationship, there were parts of the holidays he could tweak and adopt into his circumstances - exchanging gifts with a loved one, bringing her along to Christmas dinner at Jesper and Nicole’s place, and not having to feel like a third wheel or like he had to shrink to fit at the kiddie’s table. 

He’d even tried to start his own holiday traditions with Talia, his girlfriend. He’d booked an overnight stay at a fancy hotel on the Upper East Side in the middle in the month on one of the rare occasions he’d had two consecutive days with no game or other commitments - despite how hectic his schedule had been. He’d taken her Christmas shopping down Fifth Avenue like she’d talked so much about how she’d wanted to do ever since she came out to New Jersey with him after the summer. He’d taken her ice skating, away from the Rock so that it didn’t feel like work, they had bought and decorated the tree in his apartment together, he’d brought her along to every team holiday event.

And on the day of their home game against Anaheim on the 17th, just a few days after their trip into Manhattan, in the middle of the third period, she had unceremoniously dumped him with an I’m just not feeling this anymore. Over text. As she was already at the airport preparing to fly back to Munich to spend the holidays with her family. He had slumped into his locker after their brutal 5-1 defeat and couldn’t believe what he was reading.

Nico wanted to be angry. As he read the text, he could picture any other person throwing and smashing things. Calling her up and demanding an explanation - because it was clear she hadn’t been feeling it for longer than she let on, considering she was about to board a no doubt fully booked flight across the Atlantic in the eleventh hour. 

But there was too large of a part of him that just felt relieved.

Talia was great.

He had met her properly in the summer when he had gone home to Switzerland, but they’d had mutual friends long before. He’d liked a couple of her instagram pictures here, she had responded to a few of his stories there, and then they had been formally introduced at a friend’s party.

Things with her were easy, at first. Nico wasn’t looking for anything serious, and she had ticked all of the right boxes. She was good company, always down to do whatever he was doing with whoever he wanted to do it with. She recognised that summer was the only time of the year he truly had to himself, and she let him take the reins on how he wanted to spend it.

She would go on hikes with him, would lounge around in the sun if wanted, go to parties, go to festivals, join him on little weekend trips to Ibiza or Mallorca. And she was a great release when his training had picked up. She would work around his schedule. He’d invite her round to his apartment and he had enjoyed spending time doing nothing with her after a long day at the gym or at the rink.

She had slotted so perfectly into that version of his life that he gave very little thought into inviting her into the rest of it. 

She was beautiful, sociable, charismatic - and then she became hard work.

When summer was over, and he invited her to spend some time back in New Jersey, she didn’t quite grasp how much things would need to change. She constantly wanted to have plans. Wanted to go to parties, wanted to go out, be around other people, take little trips - and he had tried to accommodate her the best he could, but he didn’t have the time for himself, let alone for another person, to be doing things all the time. He had tried to tell her as much, and she said she was okay with it, said as long as he was present with her, she could settle for not doing the things they had in the summer, but she expected too much from him. 

She wanted Nico’s attention at all hours of the day, weaving herself into every aspect of his routine. He wanted to run? She would go with him, could really use the fresh air. He wanted to do some solo training at the gym? She had been meaning to work on her lifting. He couldn’t go to the grocery store - could barely even go to work without her wanting to be there. His phone would blow up whenever they were apart, and if he didn’t text her back straight away, she’d become cold - making him feel guilty and grovel for her forgiveness.

Talia was fun, until she wasn’t. Until she was exhausting, and Nico couldn’t keep up with her any longer. 

She didn’t give him the grace to have an off day. He was tired, he was struggling, and when the season kicked into full swing, and the team’s schedule was packed, he became unable to juggle it all.

His work was suffering, his star was dimming, his body ached and his performance dipped - both in his professional and personal life. 

And so, after the detonation of their relationship, a break up text felt a little like a wake up call.

Talia had contributed so much to the deterioration of normalcy in his life, that Nico was still trying to piece back together his routine 2 weeks later. 

His holiday period this year had been spent in a haze - and it wasn’t for the reason everyone thought. He had caught the pitiful glances sent his way over the dinner table at Christmas, had seen the way the couples in the room tried to spare him of their PDA whenever he was around, and he could have told them it was okay. He was okay. But there was a large part of him that was trying to figure that out, still.

He had known he wasn’t heartbroken. He wasn’t shooting off texts to Talia and begging for her to come back. He’d already boxed up what little belongings she had left behind and was going to ship them internationally after the New Year had passed. He had deleted, not archived, all their photos on his private socials, and had even deleted most of them from his phone. He wasn’t in pieces over the fact she had ended things.

But he knew something still wasn’t right.

At first, he had thought it was work related. Their worst week of the season had happened just before Christmas - 3 losses at home in the span of 5 days - and he thought that could be the reason for his slump. Then, they won against Detroit and he still felt off.

Then, he thought he had been anxious about Christmas - about showing up on his own, having to explain his breakup to everyone not quite caught up on the news yet, and he would have to wallow in that same old feeling of watching everyone else enjoy the holidays. But Jesper and Nicole had thrown together a pretty nice day for the guys. The food was great, the company was great, and he’d gone back to his apartment that night with a feeling of relief - like he’d been dreading something for so long only for him to have genuinely enjoyed himself.

And finally, as if being thrust into a freezing cold ice bath, realisation had washed over him on the morning of the team’s final home game of the year against Columbus. 

He had been walking through the back offices of the Prudential Centre when he had stumbled upon a conversation, and had heard Poppy Jensen’s voice for the first time in what felt like forever.

“I’m just kinda beat, to be honest, J,” she had said in response to a question Nico hadn’t caught. He had thought no one would be around, most of the Foundation staff having the week off, and hadn’t expected to come across anyone on his venture to the best vending machine in the building. The Foundation offices were often frequented by kids, and had an assortment of candies throughout their machines instead of the protein bars or rice cakes elsewhere in the staff areas. At the sound of her voice, he had come to an immediate halt, peaking around the corner where he could see into her office. She was moving some things into a box on her desk and Jack Hughes was reclining in the chair in front of it that once had been claimed by Nico as his own. “I’m all social interaction-ed out, the holidays have kinda beat me to a pulp, I don’t think I could keep up with you guys, I’m sorry.”

Nico watches as she swats at his feet when he tries to kick them up onto her desk, and can’t quite see the crease between her brows as she frowns at their mutual friend, but can remember how it used to form all the same. “You’re such a bullshitter,” Jack had scoffed, clearly pre-empting the stapler Poppy would throw at him, managing to catch it with ease. 

“You can’t call me a bullshitter in my own office,” she gawked, “You don’t see me marching out onto the ice and calling you an attention whore.”

Jack had thrown the stapler straight back. She caught it all the same, and dropped it into the box.

“You haven’t hung out with us in forever!”

“We hung out at the Toy Drive like 2 weeks ago!” There had been two toy drive events organised by the Foundation in different parts of town, and, as he had long become accustomed to, Nico had been put on the one separate to the event Poppy was working. It had been fun, but when he’d checked the social posts the next day and seen the pictures posted of the other team - all smiles between them, a slightly blurry Poppy in the near background of all of Jack’s pictures to indicate how close they had been throughout the event - he had felt like he’d missed out on something.

“That was work, it doesn’t count, Popsicle.” Nico could hear the roll of Jack’s eyes.

“Yeah, well some of us don’t consider helping underprivileged children and spreading Christmas spirit ‘work’, Jack.” Poppy had used air quotes to emphasise her sarcasm, and a fond warmth had spread throughout Nico’s chest at hearing her hold her own against someone as brazenly wise as Jack Hughes. “I thought we were hanging out, having fun, improving our community together. You should really check your ego!”

“I sh-,” Jack had managed to cut himself off, no doubt realising how loud he had gotten. “You’re the one who’s been avoiding the whole team all year, ‘cause you’re hung up on-,”

The door to Poppy’s office had slammed closed before Nico had a chance to hear the end of his teammate’s sentence. Their voices had been muffled after that, and shame had started to creep up on Nico at the fact he’d been eavesdropping on a private conversation.

He’d foregone the snacks he originally snuck off in search of, and returned back to the locker room to get ready for his practice skate. 

For the first time in a long time, when Jack arrived and threw himself down on the bench beside him, Nico had wanted him to bring her up.

In the months prior, he would freeze up at the mention of Poppy Jensen, not wanting to face the reality of his dwindling connection to someone who had once been such a huge part of his life. He had other focuses - namely, Talia - and reflecting on what had once been between the two of them did not serve any kind of good purpose. It opened him up to uncomfortable conversations that he wasn’t willing to have, uncomfortable realisations he couldn’t quite come to terms with, and he had been too comfortable avoiding any kind of confrontation around it.

But in the short time between witnessing the conversation between Jack and Poppy, and getting ready for the team’s morning practice, too many questions had been swirling around his mind, and he needed answers.

Why was Poppy packing up her desk?

Why was she avoiding hanging out with the team?

What was she so hung up on? Had something happened?

He’d spent so long avoiding even thinking about her, that he all of a sudden felt like he’d missed everything.

Luckily for him, Jack Hughes needed little to no prompting for his blabbermouth nature to prevail.

“You know, for someone who’s literal job it is to lead us as a Captain, you’ve done terribly at warning me just how stressful this whole New Years thing is,” Jack had huffed as he began changing into his practice gear.

“I did nothing but warn you,” Nico responded, “You called me Mr Grumpy Pants and told me I was just afraid your party was gonna be better than mine.”

“Yeah, well, you should have insisted, it’s stressing me out.”

“You’ll be fine,” Nico scoffed, running a hand through the mess of his hair and leaning back into his locker. He watched Jack’s jittery movements as he shrugged on his pads, and felt the need to reassure his friend. “Everyone’s looking forward to it. As long as there’s plenty to drink and decent music, people will have a good time.”

“Not everyone,” Jack grumbled, “I can’t even get Poppy to come and she loves parties.”

So that’s what they had been talking about. 

Poppy did love parties, but Nico couldn’t remember the last time he had seen her at one. 

“Poppy has a New Years ritual, she didn’t come to mine, either, I wouldn’t beat yourself up about it.” Nico shrugged, despite the wave of a memory that washed over him of him doing exactly that when she hadn’t showed up last year. He’d had to restrain himself from leaving his own party - spent the night texting her updates on what everyone had been doing, snap-chatting her pictures in the hopes it would entice her the few blocks over from her apartment building. He’d only been consoled by the text he’d received just after the clock had struck midnight, settling for the pride in knowing he had been one of the first to get a Happy New Years message from her - knowing it wasn’t just a mass text she would have copy-and-pasted to everyone else, and had been personalised to him with a bunch of perfectly curated emojis and exclamation marks after his name.

Nico didn’t see Jack’s stiffened posture at the way he had so nonchalantly mentioned her for the first time in forever. Didn’t see the side eye, or the pensive twist of his mouth as he carefully considered his next words like he was about to step through a minefield.

“I’m gonna keep trying,” he had sat back down on the bench beside Nico to put on his skates, “I’m definitely her favourite, she’s been helping me organise the whole thing, I don’t think it will take much to convince her.”

Nico tried not to show any kind of reaction to Jack being Poppy’s favourite, or at the thought of how much time they must be spending together to organise such an event. A part of him knew he was only saying it to rattle him. “Cutting it a little fine, aren’t you? New Years is in a couple days, and the guys from the Foundation aren’t even around this week, are they?”

“She’s covering someone on content until January, I said I’d drive her home after the game and me and Lukey can double down on it. And if we can’t get it done tonight, she’s coming on the road with us at the end of the week. I’ve got plenty of time.”

“Oh,” Nico was thankful for how Jack had leaned over to tie his skates up, because he wasn’t entirely sure he’d been able to mask whatever had flooded over him at the revelation that his teammate would be driving Poppy home.

That was his thing. He was pretty sure his passenger seat was still positioned to her liking despite how long it had been since she’d sat in it. He was still working his way through the stash of smiley face air fresheners she had stashed in his glove compartment. He still felt like he was forgetting something every time he left the parking lot and she wasn’t sat beside him, chatting his ear off about some of the kids she had worked with in the day.

“Maybe you should ask her?”

Nico’s eyes shot over to meet Jack’s in alarm. “Me?”

“Yeah, the more people that ask, the more she might feel like she’s missing out. Flash her those cute dimples, how could she possibly say no?”

“I think I’m the last person that’s gonna convince Poppy to come, Jack.” Nico had tried to be nonchalant about it, but he had come across so painfully uncomfortable that he could feel the hair on his arms stand, not liking the ache that spread through his chest at the statement. 

There was once upon a time that cheering Poppy Jensen up had been a large part of his routine. Even small acts, like bringing her a coffee on a busy day, where he knew she wouldn’t take a break to go get one herself, and knew how much she disliked the stuff from the pot in her office. Sending her texts from across the room when there were big organisation meetings and he could see her chewing at her fingernails at the vast amounts of information being spewed about. Tagging her in cute animal videos he’d come across on TikTok when he was across the country on a roadie and on a different timezone - she’d wake up to them sometimes, and he’d wake up to her response.

“Right, I forgot you two aren’t friends anymore.”

“Is that what she said?” Nico had swallowed down the hurt at the thought of her coming to that conclusion - vocalising it to someone and finalising the decision before he had any chance to do anything about it.

He couldn’t really blame her, though - he’d had plenty of chances.

Nico could feel himself beginning to spiral, words swirling around his head like a tornado of realisation and guilt. 

Aren’t friends anymore.

Avoiding the whole team all year.

Jack is driving her home.

He’s her favourite.

Aren’t friends anymore.

Shit.

He didn’t even take in Jack’s response to his question. As much as he wanted to know the answer, he couldn’t bear to hear it. 

Nico couldn’t face up to what he had truly lost.

It wasn’t his girlfriend of five months, who had dumped him over text during the most wonderful time of the year. It wasn’t a few games, that, sure, it had sucked that they had been beat, but in retrospect, the team had had a pretty decent start to the season, and shouldn’t have had his back up that much. 

Nico had lost someone who had, at one point, been the most important person in his life. 

The person he would usually have gone to to help him through the other stuff - the breakups, the losses, the stress, the anxiety - the crushing weight that had been pressing down on his chest since he had left for Switzerland at the beginning of summer. 

Nico and Poppy used to work around each other like a beautifully choreographed, well-rehearsed dance. She always knew when he was overwhelmed or exhausted, he always knew when she was stressed or upset, and they both knew how to pick the other back up. 

They hadn’t even fallen out of sync when they’d stopped talking to each other, only this time, they were moving around each other. If Nico entered a room, Poppy would leave. If she knew he was going to be at a team party, she’d make up an excuse not to go. If someone mentioned Poppy in casual conversation, Nico would quickly change the subject. All of it had been subconscious, on his part, at least.

It had been so easy after such a prolonged distance between the two of them to move when she pushed, to watch when she ran, like he had grown into his part in their relationship akin to repelling magnets, always moving away from one another.

It had been so easy that he hadn’t even really realised what was happening - lost and handicapped by a thick fog clouding his thoughts and his judgement. He’d let their once blooming friendship wither and die, and for what?

As he had watched Jack waddle out of the locker room for their practice session, muttering a dismissive, “Whatever, I’ll figure it out,” to his Captain, it was like he had been awakened into full consciousness. 

Nico had thought that his turmoil had started with the holiday period. Had thought the ache of homesickness had swirled in with the grief that came with the loss of his relationship, and the shame his poor performances on the ice had thrown upon him. But it had started long before that. He hadn’t been himself since he’d returned from his summer break. Before that, even.

Without realising that he had lost her, Nico had spent the last few months subconsciously mourning his friendship with Poppy - the crushing weight of that grief consuming him to a point that he felt lost with no way out, and had expressed it in a bunch of misguided ways.

He reached into his bag to retrieve where he had stashed his cellphone, scrolling through his Messages app until he stumbled across Poppy’s name. The last text had been sent in September, by her, and he had never responded - had never even opened it, the blue dot to the left of their message thread taunting him with chirps of how awful he had been to ignore it.

Poppy: Hey, can we talk? I miss you.

How late is too late to reply to a text like that? He could only hope she still felt the same way.

Turns out, 4 months might be too late.

Nico has drafted an embarrassing amount of messages to Poppy over the days since that conversation in the locker room.

His notes app has a whole folder dedicated to her. Bullet pointed lists, random memories that made him think of her, structured essays that laid out a timeline of their friendship, and all the mistakes he would need to beg for her forgiveness for. 

He’d tried sending a message when he had got back to his apartment after the game against Columbus, feeling a rush of confidence from the adrenaline of their OT win, his high had soon dwindled when he was alone. He sat staring at all the different iterations of an apology he could offer, and had even chickened out of the final draft of a very simple but hopefully effective, ‘Hey.’

He knew he was overthinking it. A conversation starter would at the very least open the door for the apology, and all he needed to do was talk to her in some way - but that turned out to be easier said than done.

She wasn’t in her office when he’d gone to seek her out at work the next day, and when he realised she was probably in the content and media offices, he felt like he would be cornering her if he sought her out in front of anyone else. When the weight of how far removed they now were from each other’s lives dawned on him, a text felt too informal, and so the paragraphs sat untouched in his notes. The weather hadn’t been too great, so he couldn’t try and intercept her on the running route he knew all too well, and even attempting to orchestrate a seemingly random encounter outside of work seemed too creepy so stopping by the cafe around the corner from her apartment in the hopes she’d be there grabbing a latte was off the cards. 

He’d seen her on the plane to Ottawa, having to pass her seat to get to the team section at the back, but he had a few people boarding behind him, and she had her eyes cast toward her cell, headphones on and typing intently to somebody, he couldn’t even offer her a friendly smile to try and warm her up to the possibility of a conversation.

Between their win against the Senators, and their loss against the Bruins the next day, there wasn’t much time, or energy, really, to seek her out, and so he’d had to press the breaks, but as they flew back to New Jersey from Boston, a panic had started to swirl within his chest.

Nico knew he couldn’t enter a new year without clearing the air, and so time was well and truly running out. He again had seen her on the plane, and when he had plucked up the courage to get up and go sit with her, Jack had beaten him to it. When the plane had landed, and the team bus had driven them all back to the Rock, the Hughes brothers had both walked her to her car to see her off for the evening. 

For someone who had been not-so-subtly trying to initiate a reunion between Nico and Poppy for so long, Jack Hughes sure knew how to get in the way. But, he was easy to forgive - especially when Nico had woken up to his texts late this morning.

Jack: need ur help

Jack: urgently

Jack: wake up dude

Nico: I’m not driving anywhere for you

Jack: not asking u to

Jack: u will like this I promise 😌

Nico: what do you want?

Jack: need u to keep Poppy company

Jack: she’s in my apartment and she seemed off when she got here

Jack: been on her own for a few hours

Jack: so she’s grumpy 👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻 👹👹

Nico: doubt I can change the grumpy part

Nico: especially if you’ve left her alone for hours

Jack: don’t need to

Jack: ur a grump too

Jack: will cancel each other out 👍🏻👍🏻😇😇

Jack: u going down or no?

Nico: fine

Jack: I’ll be back in 1 hr :)

Jack: love u cap 😚

Nico: 🙄

And that was how Nico had found himself trudging down to Jack’s apartment, hopeful at the dream of a bridged gap between him and Poppy, and quickly disappointed by the reality.

She had been cold, rightfully so, and had made it clear as day she didn’t want anything to do with him. She had shrunk into herself, backing away from him any time he got too close,  defecting to a state of avoidance - gaze dropping to the floor, declining his offers to help her, making assumptions she was in his way, as if the thought of him seeking her out had become an entirely alien concept.

He couldn’t blame her for how she was being with him. It had been his fault things had collapsed between them - he’d come to that conclusion with the vast amounts of evidence piled up in his phone storage the past couple of days, but it didn’t make it hurt any less to see her like this - or to feel an actual, tangible resistance when he had tried to insist on being around. She didn’t want him around, that much was obvious, and it was starting to feel like it was to late to fix what he had so royally screwed up between the two of them. 

The once well-oiled machine that was their friendship was now clunky, clattering, dying a slow death with parts that were now obsolete.

But that didn’t change how much he wanted it to work. His parents had once told him when he was growing up that nothing was beyond repair, and if he wanted something fixed enough, he would figure out a way.

They had been talking about a model train he, his father and his brother had made when he was very young. The company that made the sets had gone bust, and they no longer sold the individual parts anymore - so when his sister had stumbled over something in the garage back home, knocked a box, and the once pristine collectable train had tumbled out and ended up cracked and chipped, he had been heartbroken. He and Nina had filled in the chips with wood filler, and touched it up with her nail polish, and it wasn’t the same but in a way it was better - a new sentiment attached with a memory of bonding with his sibling. 

The same thing could apply to his friendship with Poppy. Maybe they couldn’t go back to what they were - maybe they could be better.

And, when Poppy had made one too many attempts to push him away - when he had taken a hold of her after she had tried to move past him, dismissing him and his desire to help her, once again - a fire reignited within him. A spark of hope flickered at the familiarity that had flashed across her face as he referred to her in an endearment he hadn’t let himself use in so long.

In that moment - hand wrapped around her arm, just above her elbow, the skin soft and warm, close enough to smell the all too familiar cloud of vanilla-coconut scent that followed her, and her eyes locked on his - he had seen a crack in her armour.

He had seen an element of want - wanting to reconcile, wanting to fix things, wanting him in her life in the way he had been those months ago - and in a mirror of his own emotions, he had seen trepidation.

They wanted the same things, had the same fears, had the same end goal.

And when the unforeseen interruption of her best friend arriving startled her back into her withdrawn persona, he had realised something else.

Nia’s contrasting attitude toward Nico - open, friendly, familiar - had opened his eyes to the fact that Poppy hadn’t told her best friend about the demise of her friendship with Nico. 

And that, as much as it needed unpacking entirely, was Nico’s backdoor entry into the high security vault of Poppy’s good graces. 

Thankfully for him, Nia’s obliviousness to their tension had worked entirely in his favour. He tried not to look too much into Poppy’s attempted avoidance of spending the evening in his presence, despite her other plans falling apart. Tried to shoulder the blows of her sly digs at them not being friends anymore. Tried to ignore the pang in his heart at Poppy’s best friend being the one to throw flirty jibes his way, and not her. 

A determination had begun to brew within him - swirling, bubbling, steaming - and it was going to push him to finally bridge the gap he had forced between them.

His first success was her agreeing to come to the party, and he could easily build on that momentum.

Nico and Poppy were going to be friends again by midnight, he would figure out a way.

> Chapter One

[igotanidea]

Mysterious box: Jason Todd x reader

Warning: a little innuendo, but generally it's supposed to be funny, cause it's hot outside and I'm suffocating.

***

She was sitting in her work, praying for the hours to pass quicker.

Honestly the day was closer to hell than anything else.

Chair was uncomfortable pressing into her back.

Hair was sticky due to the excessive heat and lack of air conditioning.

Y/N could almost feel the beads of sweat running down her back, sinking into the crack.

Disgusting!

And yet, the boss didn't seem to care, sitting in his state-of-art office equipped with all the technology to keep him untouched by the weather and separated from the hoi polloi that his employees were.

Prick!

As if she (and the whole office to put it bluntly) didn't know that what the boss was doing behind those tightly closed doors had little if anything to do with working.

Rather making personal calls and chatting on facebook while his peons worked their asses off.

Y/n's annoyance started increasing in direct proportion to the heat outside (and inside). Finally, losing the last remnants of self-control and dignity and missing the fact that she needed this job, the girl raised from her chair, ready to march into her supervisor bubble and shove some things up his face even if that meant getting sacked or-

"Miss Y/N Y/L/N?"

She spun around at the sound of her name, reacting instinctively.

"Yeah, that's me."

"I got a package for you." the man that suddenly became much more real to Y/N's haze brain and slowly turned into a deliveryman put an acknowledgement of receipt under her nose. "Can you sign this?"

"But - I didn't order anything-'' she frowned, over analyzing whether this was some sort of scam.

"It's already paid for."

"By who?" the frown grew more stern at those words.

"I don't know, maybe you have a secret admirer?"

"I'm taken-"

"Look. Miss. honestly. I don;t care." the guy finally started to get irritated. "This has your name on it. And the price is settled. So could you please try to not make my job harder and sign it? Please?"

"Oh." She blushed a little, realising that she was behaving like a proverbial Karen. "Yeah, sure, of course, I'm sorry." With quick motion her signature ended on the paper.

"Thank you." He seemed to be relieved at her change of attitude and quickly rushed out the door, muttering something about whiny girls.

And now she was stuck in the middle of the office open space, with the biggest package ever, wrapped in red paper with an elegant leather ribbon adorning it.

Having all her colleagues' eyes on it.

Right. Cause nothing livens up a shitty day like putting the attention onto someone else.

"What is it?"

"Who is it from?"

"Can we see what's inside?"

"Come on Y/N, unwrap it here!"

The voices started attacking her from every direction, but she knew better than to react or - god forbid - subdue.

Using the moment of commotion as her coworkers began to close in on her like zombies starved for entertainment, she quickly grabbed the box. Diving between the stretched arms and the thicket of legs, Y/N miraculously managed to reach the bathroom, locking the door behind her, finally getting a moment of peace to inspect the gift.

***

Jason sent her the set of 10 Dior body care products...

Which must have cost a fortune. And as she started to unwrap all those little vials and boxes, her eyes bore into a note.

Princess,

Last night, when we were "busy" I noticed your skin being a little dry. Hopefully, this little set of things will remedy that problem. Use it tonight. I'll be sure to drop by your place around midnight.

Shit.

She felt her hands shake a little at the innuendo, but that was not everything.

And don't you worry about the price, sunshine. No money in the world can compare with the way you feel wrapped around me and the way you're skin brush against mine. Want you all soft and wet tonight... I got so many ideas of how to make sure those products won't go to waste...

Oh...

She was so right to get inside that bathroom.

Because the stain on her panties had absolutely nothing to do with the weather and temperature. 

[invisibleicewands]

Michael Sheen’s extraordinary gesture as he pays off debts of hundreds of people

He plays an angel on screen and he has proven he is an angel in real life by undertaking an extraordinary gesture. In an unprecedented move the actor has used his own money to write off personal debts of hundreds of people in South Wales

It’s been confirmed that Michael, who famously plays angel Aziraphale in Good Omens, has brought light and relief to many families struggling with debt with this wonderful act of benevolence.

The move was not publicly announced by the Port Talbot star, but was uncovered by fans who spotted posts on Facebook in local community groups from a television production company called Full Fat TV.

The posts read: ‘Actor Michael Sheen has been campaigning for a fairer credit system for years and in an extraordinary gesture, he has used his own money to write off personal debts for hundreds of people in South Wales. If you have received a letter from a company called Ten Acquisitions the good news is that Michael has paid off some of your debt and he’d love to hear from you. The details of how to get in touch with him are in the letter.’

Intrigued by the posts which appealed to those who had received letters from a company called Ten Acquisitions confirming that Michael had paid off debts, one fan took to X to ask him directly if the posts were true.

Fans wondered if it was somebody using his name as a scam, but the actor in replies on his X account confirmed the posts were neither clickbait nor a scam.

He wrote: ‘It’s not clickbait. I want to clarify, because we want people to get in touch.’

The campaigning Welshman, a long time advocate for a fairer credit system, has teamed up with the production company to film a documentary about the plight of those struggling due to unfair financing.

On Monday, Michael appeared in Parliament where he joined calls for a fair banking act to tackle the credit crisis affecting people and businesses.

In 2022-2023, more than 9 million were declined for credit, with millions relying on pay-day-lenders and buy-now-pay-later schemes with high interest rates. At its worst, lack of access to affordable credit means hundreds of thousands of people find themselves turning to loan sharks, while viable businesses remain stuck, unable to develop and create jobs. Campaigners are calling for a Fair Banking Act to help ensure that everyone can access essential financial services and support.

Speaking at the event in Parliament on Monday, Michael said: “Anyone can find themselves in a place where they need credit to make ends meet or to get through a difficult time. The lack of affordable credit for people on lower incomes is harming individuals and families, but also businesses and communities. Whole regions are seeing their growth held back. We can’t keep waiting and hoping that things will get better. We need something to change now. The Fair Banking Act could be the thing which really makes the difference”.

"We can’t keep waiting and hoping that things will get better. We need something to change now."@michaelsheen has joined calls for a #FairBankingAct to tackle credit crisis affecting people and businesses.

[mithliya]

i’m getting spammed with anon hate and i honestly don’t think this place is redeemable so im probs not going to be posting for idk how long. radblr has given me less than nothing. since joining radblr, people have overwhelmingly been unbelievably cruel to me.

my first year on radblr, women 1-2 decades older than me viciously harassed me for asking questions as someone not familiar with certain beliefs held here. these women harassed me for months non-stop, posted my full legal name, posted homes neighbouring where i lived in bahrain, and essentially released my private information. i had to threaten them back just in hopes they would leave me alone, which they didn’t really do. they simply stopped posting my name bc they wanted to make me look like im bad for finding one of their names simply by googling her url (her full name was her twitter username). one of the people in that circle was radicaldumbass, who then came back as macroclit, and again came back as radicalstoner. i moved on but i haven’t forgotten.

then, black-diaspora repeated the same thing. she posted pictures of my mother and led people to finding my mom's facebook. to this day, i still get anons with my mother’s name and my sister’s name. my sister was about 13 when anons first started sending me her name in threatening anons. somehow, black-diaspora was rewritten as a victim of mine despite her being repeatedly racist & lesbophobic to me & posting my mom’s info.

i was being abused by my ex-gf and women on here literally picked my abuse apart and enabled TRAs like lostelvenqueen to make up lies that i was the one abusing my abuser. that vicious lie was reiterated for 4 years. while being abused, women on radblr were mocking me for needing money when my ex-girlfriend was actively stealing from me at the time. to this day people use against me the fact that i needed help in that time bc some mutuals helped finance 2 dinners & my medication, all of which i either paid them back for or drew art as payment.

then, again, another woman dug through an old blog i ran as a teenager and found some posts here and there to make it seem like i, as a 15 and 16 year old, definitely loved being totally controlled by someone and physically abused whenever i didn’t follow his exact commands. i spoke openly about this trauma years prior to this person “exposing” me & arguing that i actually wanted that abuse by pointing to random innocuous posts and forming a story out of it. i think every abuse victim can imagine how difficult it is to still face trauma from something and instead of being allowed to heal, having it brought up to you several days a week to taunt you and having “feminists” tell you that you actually wanted it and are lying when you say otherwise. to this day, i get daily anons mentioning my name because this woman also put my legal name out there.

women here have put me in physical danger, they have made up the vilest lies about me, they’ve called me racial slurs, they’ve been outright racist to me, they’ve speculated about my rape & abuse, they’ve joked about lynching me, they’ve questioned things as minuscule as what i had for dinner. and despite that, i haven’t returned that same treatment. i remained relatively consistent, i simply criticised what i thought was wrong and provided evidence to my statements.

i made some nice friends on here & i’ll keep talking to them. but i’m going to be reevaluating why i’m wasting my time in a space that has overwhelmingly caused me stress, a space where countless unbelievable lies have been spun about me and a place where people have said & done the vilest things and in the end, i was always framed as a bad person based on half-truths or outright lies. now, people falsely claim that women who unfollow me or block me risk having their private information exposed, when i have met at least a dozen women from radblr and run a server with hundreds of women from radblr, have seen hundreds of faces, and have never exposed such information even if we end up disliking each other. i could tolerate many ridiculous lies, but why should i? i’m pretty fed up of tolerating this.

enjoy spinning this however you want and lying about me further. idk when i’ll be back or if i’ll want to be back. it’s pretty clear to me that this space prioritises lesbophobes & racists (& sometimes even downright misogynists) over people who calmly criticise it. i joined this space initially bc i thought it was somewhere where i could freely be a lesbian without being hassled for it, but radblr doesn’t even offer that anymore.

[distort-opia]

What kind of non lethal crimes do you think Joker would pivot to in a relationship with Bruce? I'm thinking about your REMS characterization. Also thinking about a line from Joker in the last chapter, about not throwing his career down the shitter and killing to defend himself. What would a career look like for him being with Bruce? Surely he would still be incredibly silly about them, with varying levels of violence that *just* teeters the edge. Love your work!

Glad you like my work, thank you! Hmm, what I had in mind when writing that in REMS (or for a sequel) was Joker's penchant for... well, breaking people and exposing hypocrisy, but minus the murder. With his love of drama and performance sprinkled on top, of course; as you say, he'd never stop being silly.

He usually kills indiscriminately, yes, because he considers himself as just playing into the cruel meaninglessness of the world. But the reason why Joker fixated on Batman, and why his M.O. includes using a gas that basically forces people to see the world like he does right before they die, is Joker's need to prove a point. He wants people to admit that there's no order to life and that tragedy can strike at any time; he wants Gotham to realize how arbitrary rules are, and Batman happens to be the perfect embodiment of that.

So I think that a Joker who won't murder anymore would basically create situations in which people's darkest sides are exposed, to various degrees of seriousness and violence. And not only that-- he would do things that would expose the ridiculousness and heinousness of the world people live in. Capitalism and its self-cannibalizing focus on profit, the skewed interests of the government, the suffering of the poor... Joker's already done this sort of thing, it's not much of a stretch. For example, seeing how many people we're being hurt as a result of superhero fights, one time Joker promised to pay the medical bills of each Gothamite that posted a video on the DC equivalent of Facebook... but only if they shouted the word "Balyushka" and then did something ridiculous to make him laugh:

Batman: Gotham Nights #6 ("Balyushka!")

And he keeps his word! But of course, this creates utter chaos, because people are doing fucking crazy shit to get that money. And the thing is, he doesn't do this just for funsies. He has a point, and Bruce can't help but admit it:

Batman: Gotham Nights #6 ("Balyushka!")

Joker exposed the problems that Batman could not tackle with fists, and then Bruce listened. He actually used his money and influence to help.

Ironically, again, it's not the first time Joker did something that made Bruce go "Hmm, maybe I should look into the systemic corruption":

Batman: Gotham Nights #4 ("The Dragnet")

I won't go into too much detail, but Joker paid Harleen Quinzell's tuition without much prompting, he went and helped (in his own way) a child who wrote to him and was clearly being abused... it's about the cases he can empathize with. And they're all connected to his own life-ruining trauma. Red Hood fell into the vat most of all because of poverty. Because he had no choice except to turn to crime-- otherwise him and his family would not have had food to put on the table. So of course he hates the society he lives in, one that had no safety nets or mercy for people like him who were drowning.

This is a very long-winded way to say that I imagine a non-lethal Joker being a mix of this and... stupid ass pranks on a massive scale, because let's be honest, he wouldn't give them up. He just wouldn't kill people at the end (because it'd make his boyfriend sad).

fanfic writer ask game - director's commentary

[icallhimjoey]

Explain Us

♥ ♥  Joseph Quinn x Fem!Reader

Summary: So, more than flatmates... but, what exactly? Would be fantastic if you would just, you know, talk about it. But communicating is not your strong suit and you're extremely certain that it's fine. Confusing and vague, but, fine.

CW / disclaimer: rpf, fem!reader, a continuation of define close, no need to read it to enjoy this, though it will help!, language

Author’s note: yea joe fucked up. not talking is fixing exactly nothing between the two of you. but we can be adults about this, can't we? (we can't)

Wordcount: 4.1K

part one - part two - part three - part four - part five

You’d held on extra tight all night.

Squeezed with your fingers, your arms all tense, because what if Joe wasn’t joking and this was the last time you’d get him all to yourself like this? There was this shared invisible way of being that you’d created together which you had always pretended was just normal flatmate behaviour.

It wasn’t.

Of course it fucking wasn’t. And now that Joe had casually said he was moving, your brain seemed to have shut down.

Just touch. Keep touching.

What would you even be to each other if not flatmates? If forced proximity wasn’t working in your favour anymore?

Just friends?

You had to swallow down bile at the mere suggestion of being just friends with Joe.

Flatmates was such a safe way to describe each other.

It just meant, yea, we live in the same space. We share our comfort zone. We see each other a lot and are kind of like family a little, just because of that.

People never asked questions.

There was no need to explain how well you knew each other. How much time you spent together. People would hear 'flatmate' and would assume.

They would assume wrong, because there definitely was more there. But it wasn’t weird when they witnessed you laughing at inside jokes together. Or if they heard you ripping each other to shit until you ended up in a weird wrestle that didn’t stop until someone knocked an elbow to a table top too hard. Or if they heard you casually talk to Joe through a door whilst he was sat on the toilet without acknowledging that he was, you know, actively sat on the toilet.

The term flatmate was safe.

But it was also scary.

Because how many of the other flatmates you’d ever had did you still speak to?

Precisely none.

Not that you’d had many previous flatmates. But still. You didn’t speak with any of those people anymore. They were now merely vague acquaintances that held a spot on your Facebook friend list, which was utterly meaningless, because who even still used Facebook these days?

They’d been chapters in your life that you’d so easily moved on from.

People who, if you’d see them down an isle in a shop, you’d avoid them at all costs and pretend you hadn’t seen them.

You’d never even fully considered that Joe would also one day turn into a chapter of your life that you’d have to avoid in a supermarket and wasn’t that just the most fucked up stupid thing you’d ever even heard?

You knew you were avoidant.

Didn’t really dabble in foolish shit like confrontation.

So it made sense that you weren’t exactly doing so great now that you were being confronted with how avoidant you actually were.

Joe said he was going to move out.

The pile of clothes outside of his wardrobe suddenly made sense.

Had he not said anything before? Had you just not paid attention? Not registered what you didn’t feel like registering? Was your brain working against you with that much conviction?

Felt wild.

But it took you maybe five seconds to decide that you were not going to freak out.

You could be totally cool about this.

Have a night of cuddled up sleep like Joe hadn’t just said he was going to leave you after you’d properly fucked for the first time and, if you wanted to freak out later, you could do that by yourself in a locked bathroom with the shower running after he’d moved out.

So you tried to sleep.

Couldn’t. Because your mind kept going.

But you tried.

Tried relaxing every time you noticed that your fingers were digging into his flesh.

Couldn’t.

But you tried.

And Joe’d just fallen asleep like he hadn’t just dropped a huge bomb into his bed. Like everything wasn’t suddenly shattering all around you. Wasn’t all falling apart. Wasn’t forcing you to slip on your armor, your mask, your disguise. The one you’d wear when you and Joe were around others. Where you pretended to be normal and helpful and friendly and not touching and kissing and essentially licking each other all over.

You’d have to wear the disguise for Joe.

What a disgusting turn of events.

Could you blame him? Yes.

Were you going to? No.

You could be the cool girl. Keep Joe around. Not scare him off with questions like, “How long have you known about this?” and, “Is this legally even allowed?” and, “What the fuck do you even think you’re doing?”. Questions that definitely all needed answers, but you weren’t going to ask them.

You’d learn the answers along the way, you were sure.

Cool girl.

Come dawn, you had managed to stuff your own emotions down somewhere deep. Hoped they’d stay down there until you decided they could bubble back up.

You also hoped that where your cheekbone pressed into his hair would somehow leave a bruise there. On both of you. So he could feel and see how fucked up this was.

Joe’s alarm went, and you swallowed all feelings even further down.

Closed your eyes and felt Joe stir.

Felt him remove the arm that had stayed in place around your waist to turn the alarm off.

Heard him groan and move back to snuggle up close again, and for a minute, you decided to fully just enjoy it for what it was. Closeness with the guy you liked.

Fuck.

The guy you liked.

You let a hand snake into his hair as you felt him burrow back into your neck. Classic five-more-minutes move. When you softly scratched at his scalp, Joe moaned.

All drawn out.

All sleepy.

“Gon’ make me drool,” he croaked, voice hoarse and low. “Fall back asleep.”

You could burst at the seams with how much you wanted that.

Tightening up a leg around his, you used your other hand to lightly stroke fingers up and down his back and felt how Joe sank deeper.

Was this not the nicest thing ever?

Was Joe not going to fucking miss this?

Why the fuck was he going to move?

Joe allowed himself your touches for a few more minutes before a forced deep inhale pulled him from your grasp on him. It was still dark outside, and when Joe disappeared for a morning shower, you contemplated your next move.

Go to your own bed, fall back asleep, and then hopefully sleep through the whole day?

Or go wash your face, do your make-up, and get ready for the day?

Or have breakfast now, and disappear into your bathroom when Joe would have his?

Yea.

That seemed smart.

Breakfast now and then get ready for the day when Joe would come in to have his.

You got out of Joe’s bed, let your eye fall on the big pile of clothes and decided that, in some weird sort of passive-aggressive-possessive way of feeling, that you deserved one of his hoodies.

That you could wear that today.

Make him see something.

You didn’t fully know what, exactly, but it felt right.

You fished one out, not even one that sort of looked like one of yours, and took it.

Get fucked, Joe.

You only just finished a bowl of granola when Joe stepped into the kitchen, his phone and a balled up pair of socks in hand.

“Movers should be here soon,” he checked the time on his phone, tried to make conversation maybe, but you didn’t know what to say. Didn’t want to talk about it.

You watched him hike one knee up to put a sock on, balancing unsteadily on one leg, and then as you walked past him to leave the room, you couldn’t help but let a hand slide across his back.

Last time you got to do that? Maybe.

Shit.

About 10 minutes later the doorbell went and you checked out the window to see a large moving van waiting outside.

When you moved house, you did that by forcing your friends and family to come haul cardboard boxes for you, and you’d thank them by having cheap beers in your new place that didn’t have any unpacked furniture yet.

Not Joe.

Joe got a company to come do all the work for him.

Three men brought in stacked up big industrial strength plastic moving bins and big rolls of plastic sheeting and... it was actually real.

Joe was moving out.

You didn’t even know where to. You could guess. But you didn’t know anything.

You hid in your bedroom for most of it. Made tea with your back turned to all the chaos at one point, but truly didn’t involve yourself in any of the chaos.

From your bedroom you heard Joe pointing out what needed packing. What didn’t need packing. What needed extra care.

It didn’t take all that long. Just as well. Joe was paying these people.

You listened to Joe tell one of them that someone was at the other address, so they were good to head over. Said he’d meet them there later.

The front door shut, and you stared at your bedroom door for a moment. Tried to imagine what Joe’s bedroom looked like now, all empty. And the living room, now without the big cabinet Joe kept old DVDs in that he never watched but didn’t want to get rid of, because teenage-him had begun a collection, and these were the best films.

You kind of didn’t want to see it. The new emptiness.

But then a soft knock on your door pulled you from your thoughts.

“Yea?” So casual. So laid-back.

Slowly, your door opened, and Joe got to see how you sat on the edge of your bed, heels on the frame, knees to your chest, wearing his hoodie.

Joe leant in the doorframe, head tilted to the side, hands in his pockets, and he looked at you like he felt sorry a little. Apologetic in the worst way. You kind of hated it, but you didn’t want to let him see.

Cool girl.

“Wanna come see the new place?” he asked it like he really hoped you’d say yes but fully expected you to say no.

Which was exactly why you were not going to say no.

“Sure.” you shrugged.

“Yea?”

You got up and grabbed your phone, took it off its charger and pretended to check something, mostly to avoid eye-contact and seem all casual as you said, “Yea, why not. I can help you unpack. Don’t have anything better to do.”

Joe didn’t move aside when you stepped closer, and when you looked up, you were met by his little smile, tongue pushed into his cheek whilst his eyes scanned you up and down a second.

Be cool.

You didn’t know if you wanted Joe to say anything about the hoodie you were wearing.

“Or not, if you don’t want my help?” you shrugged again, face blank, and Joe fucking saw right through you.

He chuckled to himself as he removed his hands from his pockets to grab hold of you by the fabric draped over your shoulders, and he pulled you in for a hug.

One that you didn’t return.

“Don’t have to help,” Joe muttered as he squeezed you tight and, yea okay. So, you didn’t get your arms involved, but you could definitely rub your face into his chest a second.

Feel his strong embrace and close your eyes a second.

Smell him a second.

“Won’t put you to work, just want you to come see.”

Cool girl.

Just friends now.

Future acquaintances.

Strangers, eventually.

Joe hugged you even tighter until it became so tight it was funny.

“Fine.” you sarcastically complained, voice all constricted because Joe wasn’t letting up. “Won’t lift a finger.”

You avoided looking at the empty spaces in your flat that used to hold Joe’s things and then left the flat together.

On your way to Joe’s new place you walked side by side and you kept your eyes on the pavement for most of it. Kept your arms crossed over your front. Made sure you were extra spatially aware, because Joe had said that you always bumped into him when you walked together, and you were ready to prove him wrong, prove that you were actually an excellent walking-partner.

Like that was something that was on Joe’s mind right now.

Like he wasn’t in the middle of moving house.

And then, Joe talked.

And you just listened. Nodded along. Went, “Oh, all right.” and, “That’s cool.” and, “Mhmm.” a bunch.

There were several months left on the lease, and Joe offhandedly said it was taken care off, that you didn’t need to worry, like it wasn’t a huge sum of money he was talking about.

Said it would give you some time and space to find someone else, a new flatmate, no rush.

Said his new flat was really nice, and Joe said that like your flat wasn’t.

Said his new flat was in a really nice area. Like your flat wasn’t.

It was.

But, you understood that this one was likely nicer.

You didn’t comment or ask any questions. It just was what it was and you were going to have to deal with the reality of the situation whether you wanted to or not.

No point in pushing anything.

Best to just go with the flow.

You weren’t enjoying the flow, but you were definitely letting it float you downstream.

Joe’s dad was over at his new place now, and halfway there, Joe got a call from him. The movers had arrived, and was there a way to prop the front door open, did Joe know?

Joe didn’t know, but he said he’d be there soon.

Said he was bringing an extra pair of hands and looked at you as he said it. You raised your eyebrows in surprise, and Joe quickly said, eyes.

He was bringing an extra pair of eyes.

However, you were absolutely going to be helping, you knew. Roll up your sleeves and do some heavy lifting, if only to keep yourself busy. And you’d be silly about it, rolling eyes and sighing loudly, all heavy with pretend annoyance, sarcastically exclaim “I thought I was meant to just come over and get a tour?” and then his dad would make fun of Joe for being less of a help than you, and Joe would scoff loudly and stumble through excuses, and then you would flex an unimpressive bicep, and you’d all laugh.

Nothing was going to be a problem unless you made it one.

And then it sort of went like you had predicted.

You walked past the moving van, ended up helping getting furniture into the lift, and the first thing his dad saw of you was your back as he held a door open so you and Joe could carry a cabinet inside.

Then, quickly, before his dad could launch a million questions at him, Joe invited you on a grand tour of the place. Made his dad smile as he listened to his son saying stupid things like, “This is the living room that won’t have a sofa for at least six more weeks because apparently delivering sofas takes for fucking ever...” and, “Here we have a lovely view of, just... other flats, no, don’t actually look, it’s not a nice view, but it’s fine, I didn’t buy the place for the view, looking outside is overrated...” and, “Instead, be impressed with the size of the kitchen, and ignore the mystery drawer that we’ve not been able to open yet.”

Idiot.

Fuck.

Joe was really moving into his own flat. One roughly the same size as yours. Not even that much nicer, you thought, as he showed you ‘round.

But it was all his, and he seemed proud and embarrassed about it, which was devastatingly cute.

You were obviously going to kind about it. Be all impressed. Be a good friend. Postpone the supermarket-avoiding by actually being friendly.

“This is so nice!” you said after you’d gotten to see all rooms. His bed had been taken apart and movers had just placed the pieces of it in a stack alongside one of his bedroom walls, mattress wrapped in plastic stood upright next to it.

Felt stupid, because that wasn’t your bed, but... that was kind of your bed.

“Yea, you think? Not too flashy?”

It wasn’t flashy at all. The bathrooms didn’t look like they’d been redone since 2004, maybe.

“Just that you were able to buy it,” you joked, but weren’t wrong. Buying property in this area of London was absolutely the most ostentatious thing Joe’d ever done. “Everything else? Shockingly normal. There’s Ikea flatpacks in the hallway for fuck’s sake!”

Joe laughed, which in turn made you laugh, and fuck off, you were sort of killing this cool girl thing.

Made Joe laugh when in all honesty you didn’t think he was allowed to feel all joyful right now.

Well, he did.

This was a big deal.

And it wasn’t like you were going to be flatmates forever, were you?

People moved on. People found new phases of life. Next steps. Onto bigger and better things.

In Joe’s laughter, he bent. Leant back with his eyes squeezed shut, reached a hand out to balance himself and it was fine when he just grabbed your arm. You had your arms crossed over your chest, protective and closed off, so a hand gripping a bicep just to keep a body from falling over was fine. You were laughing too, it was fine.

But then Joe used his grip to pull you closer and slung his other arm over your shoulder, and with your arms still folded, Joe pulled you right into him as he hugged you.

You accepted it, but you didn’t.

Wanted to unfold your arms and make your fronts touch, but you didn’t.

Wanted to violently push him away and scream and cry because why hadn’t he fucking said anything.

But you didn’t.

Instead of all those things, you just tensed up in Joe’s hold. Locked your shoulders and bit at the inside of your lip and prayed Joe wouldn’t notice.

Joe immediately noticed.

Without letting go, Joe moved his head back just far enough to get a look at your face. He could easily detect the upset. Could easily see how exhausted you were. Joe saw the anger, the frustration, the sadness all covered in a light sheen of fatigue. And Joe also witnessed from up close how you were working really hard to hide all of that.

Like you could ever hide shit from him.

Like Joe wasn’t fucking trained to snuff it out on you.

Like he hadn’t felt you grasp onto him for dear life all night. Like he hadn’t seen the hunched up shoulders. Like your arms hadn’t been protectively crossed, literally hugging yourself, since you’d left your flat.

And he’d been waiting.

Always waited.

You always took the lead on everything. Steered this ship over dark seas with waves so high, Joe couldn’t see past them until whatever new thing you’d introduced into your friendship became normal and routine. It was safer that way. Have you call the shots.

But he understood waiting had been the wrong move here, and it was already too late when he realised he should’ve said something so much sooner. He just hadn’t wanted to have that awkward conversation. You never talked. But he should have. He knew he should have.

And now seemed as good a time as any to still try his hand at it.

“Hey,” Joe soft said, and gave you a little shake.

You took it as a way of Joe trying to cheer you up and get you to smile.

So you did.

Just smiled.

“No, don’t– you can be honest,” Joe pulled away a little more, getting a better look at you. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

An invitation to yell at him.

But your smile only grew, and for a moment, Joe almost believed it was real.

“Well, I’m thinking...” you said it in a humorous way, and stopped the moment before it could even become sincere.

Joe gave it one more try, though.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know how I–...”

“I think that wall needs a splash of colour. Bit of paint.”

You didn’t want to talk about it.

You and Joe never talked.

Not talking felt important now.

You needed the not-talking now more than ever and Joe couldn’t taint what you barely even had right now with talking. You were trying so hard, and having him try to suddenly talk seemed so unfair.

So you looked past him, looked at one of his bedroom walls and changed the course of conversation to safer waters.

You felt how Joe’s eyes scanned your face a second. Saw him give in. Felt like he owed it to you to let you call the shots, because he’d made the mistake of not saying anything.

Joe turned around and looked at the same wall for a second before he turned his head to squint at you, countering lightly, “Do I really need to?”

You squinted right back, “I don’t think you really want my honest opinion.”

You knew Joe was going to keep all his walls white. Keep it safe. Keep it boring.

“But you know what would look really nice? Big palm in that corner.”

You tried to keep the mood fun and playful and hoped you could make him laugh again. Which, he did. Joe did laugh. But only for a second, because, “Oh! That reminds me!” and without explaining what reminded him of what, he walked out.

You hesitated to follow, unsure if you wanted to continue this weird interaction with other people present. The hesitation was only short, because it only took a few seconds for Joe to jog back down the hallway and–

Your stomach dropped.

No.

The small crispy wave plant.

What?

Joe proudly raised the little pot he was holding in his hand and walked it over to place it in the window. Then he stepped back and admired it and–

No.

That was– no but, that was yours now. That had gotten moved into your bedroom and, yea, all right, you kept calling it Joe’s plant, but he was the one that kept correcting that it was in your bedroom.

When had he even taken that?

Had he just gone in and grabbed it in those three minutes you’d gone to make tea?

What the actual fuck?

Then Joe turned to look at you, smiled and said, “It's a start?” as he shrugged one shoulder and, no. It fucking wasn’t. That couldn’t be a start. That plant didn’t belong in here.

And neither did his bed, all taken apart.

Neither did he.

All of this was yours, everything inside of this room belonged to you, and if you had arms big enough you’d grab everything and haul it right back, what the fuck was he even thinking?

But then, “Joe?” his dad called him to the living room. Movers had questions. With a final squeeze of a shoulder, you were left in Joe’s new bedroom by yourself.

With his disassembled bed.

Wrapped up mattress.

And that stupid plant.

Which, not yours, apparently.

But you know what?

If not yours, then also not his.

You stepped closer. Touched a leaf with a careful hand. It really was a nice little plant. So vibrantly green. You knew Joe was so pleased with the pot he’d chosen. It was nothing special, but he’d mentioned it a little too often to know he wasn’t being normal about it.

But if not yours, then also not his.

Like a cat, you pressed a finger to the side and slowly pushed it. Made it slide across. Watched as the sun danced over the wavy leaves until it just... slipped off.

Just like that.

Crashed to the floor.

Potting soil spilled.

Plant pot cracked right down the center.

Good.

If not yours, then also not his.

You left right after that. Walked straight out. Ignored Joe as he called after you and took the stairs instead of the lift. Were quick, moved your legs as fast as they could go without turning it into a run.

A deep frown stayed etched into your forehead until you got home, where you angrily shook your coat off like your coat was the one that told you it was moving less than eight hours before the movers showed up.

Where you then also angrily pulled off Joe’s hoodie because fuck him.

Where you rushed into your bedroom and let yourself drop down onto the bed face first.

Where you let yourself cry in heaving sobs.

Where you heard your phone ring and pushed it off the bed when you saw it was Joe trying to reach you.

Where you finally looked up to look at your window.

And saw Joe’s stupid little plant there.

Unmoved.

Uncracked pot. Soil still inside. Leaves soaking up the sunlight.

And–

Fuck.

So much for being a cool girl.

---

The Taglisted

@ali-in-w0nderland, @alwayslindie, @babybluebex, @bylermaxmayfield, @capricornrisingsstuff, @chaoticgood-munson, @choke-me-eddie, @demonsanddemogorgons, @did-it-work, @dirtyeddietini, @djoseph-quinn, @dolcevit4, @eddies-puppet, @emma77645, @emotionaldreamer, @everythinghasafacee, @figmentofquinn, @ghost-proofbaby, @ghostinthebackofyourhead, @hanahkatexo, @harringtonfan4, @hazelenys, @jewellethief, @joesquinns, @keikoraven, @kennedy-brooke, @lovelyblueness, @manda-panda-monium, @mandyjo8719, @mexicanfolklore, @miserybeans, @munson-mjstan, @nadixq, @nglharry, @notverywise, @pepperstories, @phyllosilicate-s, @royale1803, @sherrylyn628, @sidthedollface2, @songforeddiemunson, @sweetberry47, @take-everything-you-can, @thebellenouvelle, @tlclick73, @werepartnersnow, @winterwakesthewolf, @witchwolflea, @yelyahcardella, @yunirgo

taglist currently full, sorry

[paraphwrites]

inspired by that one answer from mr zack, i give you- season 11 of dbda, a baby is left on the gang's doors.

edwin is, immediately, team hire a ghost nanny. "we are not the dead boy orphanage." he storms off to re-shelve books. however while he is reshelving he stumbles across some parenting books and decides to read it to simply educate himself, as they may be stuck with the lifeform for an entire day. anyway three hours later edwin's at the local magic book shop, hair horribly tousled, demanding all of their books on child-rearing, parenting, and how not to permanently traumatize your child. he also questions modern medicine and what the current amount of cocaine is best to be used to counter colds.

charles, on the one hand, is totally trying to collect baby toys and make sure this kid has the brillsest childhood ever. but also charles is terrified to come within a meter of the baby, because what if he manages to traumatize him? what if he really is like his father? he decides to distract himself by assembling some ikea baby furniture. it... does not go well. jenny finds him, distraught, hiding in the bag of tricks, and tries to calm him down. in the end it is decided that abuse is likely not contagious, charles probably will not traumatize the infant by being in the same room as it, and charles is no longer allowed to go to ikea.

crystal immediately decides to track down the shitface who left their baby in the hands of four teenagers, a millennial, and an interdimensional scottswoman. crystal is actually moderately successful at solving this case, via a combination of a tracking spell, facebook, and taking on the identity of three different instagram influencers. when crystal does find the parents, she gives them a proper tongue-lashing --she's really using all of her daddy and mommy issues here-- and she's properly going at it for at least seven minutes until she realizes the parents are fucking dead and that's why they can't care for their baby. a horribly emotional conversation is had, as the parents basically apologize for crystal's shitty parents, and how this family could never move on until they knew their kid is safe and well-adjusted and happy.

niko is trying very hard to set up a nursery but she keeps getting derailed by various side-quests, because there are some interesting people vibing about a babyshop. in the end niko is roped into solving 2 cheating scandals, setting up the cashier and the stockwoman, resolving 1 money laundering scheme within a fabric store, befriend 3 separate pet birds, set up 1 pet bird owner group chat, officiate a wedding between two adorable 5 year olds, resolve a generational long feud between these two very wealthy families, and adopt 4 cats. she does not, however, find the fabric for the quilt she was going to make. or instructions on how to make said quilt. but someone who knows how to make a quilt now owes her a favor, so maybe-

jenny is actually not paid enough. she's literally not. she sees the baby, asks if they should call CPS (resounding "NO") and then fucking walks away to hang with her harem. however she does make sure the baby is securely with the night nurse, and makes sure the night nurse knows that if they need absolutely anything to call her immediately. while jenny is out, her harem and her do buy all the non-essential but fun baby items (clothing, accessories), and jenny is coerced into getting matching items.

god look the night nurse is trying her damned best, but everyone else is so fucking busy that the raising of the child falls onto her. it's a damned good thing the principal had made everyone learn about the species they were gathering (one to eighteen year old humans). so the night nurse just kind of girlbosses parenting. and, where credit is due, the baby is relatively non-problematic. they end up keeping the baby so the night nurse just walks around with a babycarrier on her chest. charles carries the baby's diapar bag -- he fully could put it in his bag of tricks, but the two backpacks makes him feel very adult and parent-y. everyone lives happily ever after & the baby is raised excellently & becomes someone in the lost & found department.