#how to print a gif google
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Interview with the Vampire 01x02 Louis' best fang reveal i fear
#his unbroken focus and confident stride its such a good shot#a shame lestat couldn't see this </3#how to print a gif google#fangs in ur neck friday!!!#louis du point du lac#louis dpdl#louis iwtv#iwtv gifs#iwtv
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SDNKF,MDGHJDKHDFSJKHSKJFDHKJDSHFJK HELLO????? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
i saw this in the middle of my birthday party and 1. genuinely almost cried, and 2. went around showing it off to everyone and being as annoying as possible abt it dsfjhdsjkf,mhskjfhjkshfjhsfkj (no fr, my good very beloved friend ash ashrayus made that for me and they *will* appreciate it, ehehehe 🥹💕💕💕)
sdjfkhdkjsfh BESTIEEEE TY FOR THE BESTEST GIFT EVER, ILYSM!!! AND I LOVE HIMBB SO MUCH!!!! 🥹😭💕💕💕💕💕!!!!! i´m gonna try and make them real via embroidery as soon as i get free time, that´s a PROMISE!!!
@berryblu-soda hii bestie hiiiiii HAPPY BIRTHDAYYYY!!!!!! 🥳🥳💗💗💞💞💞 have whatever this is,, idk why im going with the space theme again and i couldnt help drawing a little axolotl as well 😭😭
wishing u the bestestttt dayy and lots of hugggsgss LYSMMMM 🫂🫂🫂🙂↕️🙂↕️ <33333
Also the non gif version XDD seriously would have posted earlier but had to compress it a lot 😭😭 <333
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#fdkjhjkslhfkjshjokjsfklhklfsjjk#i´m being very big feelings abt it aughhhhhh HOLDING HIMB SO GENTLY!!!#GOOGLE HOW DO I PRINT OUT A GIF??? GOOGLE-#i´ll deffo plan to print it as well; but it´s likely i´ll get to embroidery first ehehehe#AUGHHHH UEUEUEUE#ILYSM FRIEMDDD ToT!!!!! SENDING HUGE HUGS AND THANKS AND GENERAL FEELINGS OFF APPRECIATION FOR OUR FRIENDSHIP#ueueueueueue#friend art#ashrayus <3#ash <3#<- i still remember your real name actually but i feel like im doxing you if i use it in tags lmaoo#HUGGING YOU HUGGING YOU HUGGING YOU!!!!!#for cloudy days
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✨ Spooky Study Set ✨
My first-ever CC set, just in time for Halloween! 🦇✨
Includes 11 items: 4 frames, 6 mounted taxidermy heads, and a li'l bonus frame with spiderweb and butterfly prints.
Download under the cut!
All EA textures + Frankenmeshes (how appropriate!)
Many dark, moody swatches, as well as some fun ones for a more whimsical vibe
I cannot overstate how exciting this is. I haven't released CC since I posted a vampire dress on the Sims 2 site back in, like, 2007.
Item Info
Framed Nature Prints - 8 swatches (4 spiderweb, 4 butterflies) - 126 poly Mounted Fox Head - 1 swatch - 4,369 poly - I made the normal + spec maps myself, so they're a li'l wonky :) Mounted Goat Head - 11 swatches - 1,647 poly Mounted Goat Head (with horns) - 11 swatches - 1,851 poly Mounted Llama Head - 11 swatches - 3,961 poly Mounted Rabbit Head - 8 swatches - 1,081 poly Mounted Rabbit Head (with bowtie) - 24 swatches (red, green, + black bowties) - 1,293 poly Ornate Frame - Round (v. I) - 10 swatches - 806 poly Ornate Frame - Round (v. II) - 10 swatches - 302 poly Ornate Frame - Square (v. I) - 10 swatches - 368 poly Ornate Frame - Square (v. II) - 7 swatches - 400 poly
DOWNLOAD (Google Drive)
P.S. I realized the other day that nolan-sims had a similar idea with taxidermy heads in their simblreen 2021 set—check it out!
CC used in in-game screenshots:
ClutterCat
kiwisim4
myshunosun
Rusticsims
simspaces
SIXAMcc
Wondymoon
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hiii! i love your acc, it's so cute :3 i was wondering if you could do a post about self-love, it's something i've been struggling w/ lately. thank youuu
uncommon but life-changing self-love practices (that actually work) 🎀
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posted by: glowettee
hey angel! thank you for this question in my mailbox! and ahhhh thank you so much you're so sweet!! i'm sorry this post was a little late, self-care is soooo important, i want to give you some tips that you don't hear to often that i do in my self-love journey! i'll share some not-so-obvious self-love practices that literally changed my life! ♡
♡ redefining your space psychology because your environment shapes your self-perception:
bedroom makeover with intention:
rearrange furniture to face the sunrise (this literally changed my morning mindset!)
create a "victory wall" with tiny achievements (i put up a photo of my first B- grade that turned into an A-)
place mirrors strategically (not just for selfies, but for daily affirmations)
use color psychology (i painted one wall rose quartz pink in my room and it actually improved my mood)
create a dedicated self-love corner (mine has fairy lights, positive letters from friends, and little trinkets from my childhood, along with printed photos from pinterest with self-love affirmations/lists.
♡ morning practices instead of basic routines, try these instead:
the "main character energy" morning:
write how your day went (successfully) and about yourself in third person (like "mindy gracefully picked up her pen, to conquer calculus, she did all her chores, and even studied japanese for 2 hours.")
practice "mirror dating" (spend 5 mins having an actual conversation with yourself - it's weird but works!)
create a "today i choose" list (instead of a to-do list)
dance to one song before doing anything else (i do taylor swift, or newjeans obviously)
write a love letter to a body part you're struggling with (i wrote to my uncooperative hair and now we're besties <3)
♡ digital self-love (but make it intentional) because we live online but need boundaries:
phone transformation:
change your passwords to affirmations (mine is a variation of "mindyisworthy2025")
create a folder of your awkward photos (embrace the cringe! and laugh with your friends, its so fun)
record yourself modeling, or pretending your a celebrity or k-pop idol
take selfies without filters (document your real smile)
set random alarms with love notes to yourself
hide little sticky notes with cute reminders about yourself in your room, so when you stumble upon it a month later it'll make you smile!
social media rebellion:
post the photos you'd usually delete (even if it's made private)
share your real study space (messy notes and all)
document your growth journey (even the uncomfortable parts)
create a finsta for your completely unfiltered self
make reels about your self-love journey (even if they're private)
♡ physical self-love (the weird but effective version) not basic bubble baths:
unexpected body appreciation:
thank your body parts for specific things ("thank you hands for letting me write my study notes")
have a private dance party in weird places (i do this in elevators when i'm alone)
wear your prettiest clothes to study, or even to the grocery store (even if no one sees)
make up your own choreography to your favorite songs
make your own workout or stretching routine with different stretches/exercises you make up yourself
comfort zone expansion:
try eating alone in public (start small - i began with coffee shops)
wear that "special occasion" outfit to class
speak up in class even if your voice shakes
send yourself flowers to your dorm/apartment (I LOVE DOING THIS EVERY VALENTINES <33)
take yourself on cute dates (let a coin flip decide where you go! or ask google.)
♡ emotional archaeology dig deeper than surface-level feelings:
create an emotion museum:
keep a "weird thoughts" journal (mine has my 3am existential questions)
make a playlist for each mood (even the uncomfortable ones)
collect "emotional souvenirs" (me and my grandmother had a cafe date a few years ago, and i still keep the receipt today)
document your crying sessions (trust me, looking back at these helps)
write letters to your past and future self
validation exercises:
practice saying "my feelings about this are valid" in the mirror
create a "proof of worth" folder on your phone
collect screenshots of nice messages
record yourself giving pep talks
keep a "wins" journal (especially tiny ones)
♡ advanced self-love techniques for when you're ready to level up:
relationship building with yourself:
schedule weekly "self-dates" (i do wednesday coffee dates with myself)
create a personal manifesto (update it monthly)
develop inside jokes with yourself
celebrate monthly self-love anniversaries
create traditions just for you
growth documentation:
take progress polaroids (not just physical)
voice record your daily thoughts
measure growth in unconventional ways (like "times i chose myself")
create time capsules every season
write monthly letters to yourself
self-love isn't just face masks and bubble baths (though those are nice too!). it's about building a deep, weird, wonderful relationship with yourself. it's about becoming your own best friend, confidante, and biggest supporter.
some of these might seem strange at first, but that's okay! the best relationships often have their quirks. start with what feels right and slowly expand your comfort zone. it's not just about practicing self-love, it's also about creating your own unique love language with yourself!
you're doing amazing things just by being you, and i'm so proud of you for prioritizing this journey! remember, the relationship you have with yourself sets the tone for every other relationship in your life.
xoxo, mindy 🎀
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#selflove#selfcare#personalgrowth#maincharacterenergy#mentalheath#selfworth#loveyourself#dream girl#girlblogger#that girl#girl blogger#pink#self improvement#becoming that girl#it girl energy#study tips#glowettee#self love#self care#self confidence#self worth#self healing
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Reacher’s Cranky Girl (Jack Reacher Drabble)
Summary: Reacher finds out that his best girl was having a bad day.
Warnings/Notes: GIF is not mine, all mistakes are my own, reader is black, sneakylink!Reacher, sneakylink!reader, sexual themes (fingering, oral sex, over stimulation, bondage, slapping), MINORS DNI
**
You woke up on the wrong side of the bed today.
You couldn’t fall asleep until two in the morning so you only had five hours of sleep. You stepped in dog shit on the way to your car so you had to go back into your house to change your shoes.
Only for one of the heels to get stuck in a grate and tear off the back so you just settled for some flats.
You spilled your iced coffee on your silk shirt. At least it wasn’t hot because that would have sent you into a different kind of rampage.
When you finally get to work, your boss chewed your ass out because the printer froze in the middle of printing the investment proposal.
An investment proposal he needed for the board meeting this morning, which meant he either had to push the meeting to this afternoon or had to share the proposal digitally.
At this point, you were counting down the days so you can go home and spend the rest of the day rotting in your bed.
“Maybe I can call Reacher over here to help cheer you up,” your sister suggests, sitting in the chair in front of your desk.
“I’m not in the mood for teasing, Y/S/N.” “I’m not teasing you. I’m just saying that-“
“Not even Reacher can bring me out of this, okay? I just want to go home.”
“Y/N,” “I said leave it, Y/S/N.” You grumbled, shifting your attention back to computer.
“Okay, fine.” She says with full intention of calling Reacher anyway.
Your sister walks past the boss who was on the way to your office. He pops his head in the say, “Y/N, I need the updated spreadsheet ASAP.”
“On it,” “You’re still running point on the presentation, right?”
I thought you said I was incompetent.
“Sure thing. Did the board decide on a time tomorrow?” “Eight a.m.,”
“In that case, I’ll be in at seven thirty to prep.” He nods and gives a soft knock on the door before leaving.
Y/S/N closes the door of her office to call Reacher. He gave her his number when he found out the two of you were going to a concert in Philadelphia.
He knew you were the confrontational type and wouldn’t call anyone if you found yourself in trouble.
He wanted the er on the side of caution so he trusted your sister to let him know if anything happens.
Reacher was your sneaky link that wasn’t really that sneaky. He wasn’t easy to miss. He would walk into your place, fuck your face into the pillows, order the two of you some food, fuck your face into the pillows again then leave in the morning.
“Reacher,” he answers. “Hey, Reacher. It’s Y/S/N.”
“Is everything okay?” “Yeah, everything is fine. Um, when are you hanging out with Y/N next?”
“We didn’t really decide on a day this week,” Reacher states, unsure of where this conversation was going.
“Y/S/N, I’m sure you’re a great woman but I only have a thing for your sister and I’m a loyal man so..”
“Wow, that was not on my bingo card. I’m not trying to hit on you, Reacher. I’m asking if you can pick up Y/N from work today. She’s having a rough time.”
“Oh.. how rough are we talking?” “Like she’s about to bite the boss’ head off,”
“Okay, I’ll be there. What should I bring her?” “I trust your judgment, Reacher.”
With that, Y/S/N hung up and sat down at her desk leaving Reacher dumbfounded in Finlay’s living room while Neagley and David played video games.
“What’s with the face?” Finlay asks, handing him a beer. “What should I get a woman when she’s having a bad day?” Reacher asks everything in the room.
Neagley pauses the game and everyone slowly turning to Reacher who opened Google to find out the answer to his question.
He noticed the silence and looked up from his phone to meet their shocked expressions.
“What?” “You have a girlfriend*?” David questions.
“She’s not my girlfriend,” he grumbles. “Then why do you care if she’s upset?” David retorts.
“Because it’s a nice thing to do for someone,” “Right, says the guy who breaks peoples faces for a living.” He presses the resume button on game.
**
As soon as the clock hit 5 o’clock, you gathered your things and sped walked out of your office. You practically ran into the stairwell when you heard an office door open.
You didn’t have any more energy to give to that god forsaken company today. You rush down seven floors until you reached the front door, inhaling deeply when the fresh spring air filled your lungs.
You heard someone to your right clearing their throat and immediately rolled your eyes. You were not in the mood to hear anyone’s cheesy pick up lines right now.
“Looks like someone’s cranky,” a familiar voice calls and you looked over to see Reacher leaning against his truck.
“Reacher?” You approached him with a confused expression. “Are you looking to invest something or..?” You trail off.
There was no way he was here for you, right?
“No. I’m not here to invest, peach.” He kicks off his car and closed the gap between you, towering over you in the process.
“Then why are you- I’m going to fucking kill her.” You seeth, turning to walk into the parking lot when Reacher stopped you.
“You want to know what sounds better than killing your sister?” he starts, slowly rubbing the sides of your arms.
Your eyes fluttered closed when his rough hands smoothed over your shoulders, humming in response.
“Some curry and sushi for dinner,”
That does sound really good.
“And my face between your thighs for dessert,”
God, that sounded even better.
“How does that sound, peach?” He questions as he continued rubbing your arms.
“Really good,”
“Good because Y/S/N already took your keys and drove your car home. Hop in.” Reacher suggests, opening the car door to hand you a Dunkin iced coffee.
**
“R-Reacher,” you groaned, twisting away from his eager tongue smoothing between your puffy folds.
He didn’t even wait until you were fully situated. Shutting the door, he took you in his arms and carried you into kitchen.
He set you on the counter and nudged you on your back. You gasped when he tore your pantyhose down your legs and lifted your skirt over your waist.
Pulling your panties to the side, he licks between your folds spearing your tight hole with the tip of his tongue.
“Oh my God,”
Shaking his head, he buries his face deeper in between your legs. He wraps his lips around your clit and sucked harshly on your sensitive nub.
He gathered your slick on his finger tips and sank two fingers into you, expertly thrusting upwards into your gspot causing your body to twitch.
He made it his mission to make you cum quick and hard.
“Mm, fuck.” You rolled your hips to match the thrusts of his fingers when he kitten licks your clit, sending you over the edge.
“I-I, fuck. I’m cumming, Reacher.” “Let it go, peach. Let me taste you.”
Your legs close around his head when your body trembles under the intensity of your orgasm.
A satisfied sigh left your lips when you came down from your high, your limp body was sprawled out on the counter.
He doesn’t slow his fingers and you could feel another orgasm building in your belly. He draws figure eights on your clit with his tongue, causing you to whine.
“Wait, I-“ you push his head away and tried to slide away from him but he pushed against your hand.
“Reacher,” you whimper, twisting your body away and covering your cunt so he would stop long enough for you to breathe.
“Move your hand. I’m not done yet.”
“I need a break,” you breathed out. “Move. Your. Hand. I’m not going to say it again.”
You don’t move fast enough for him and he threw you over your shoulder, smacking your ass hard as punishment. He didn’t care that you yelped out at the sharp sting.
Dropping you on the bed, he stripped down to his boxers.
“Strip,” he commands and you pulled off your clothes in record time.
You pressed your legs together when he approaches the bed when he pulls you closer by your ankles and flipped you on your stomach.
He placed a hand in between your shoulder blades to keep you in place. He straddled your legs and pulled your arms outstretched before tying your hands to the bed post with his belt.
Oh, you were in some deep shit now.
Moaning when you feel his hard cock against your ass cheek, he took your face into his hand and made you look straight back at him.
“You misunderstand, peach. The dinner was for you. The dessert was for me. I’m not going to stop until you’re crying and brainless.”
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~ Comfort ~
Logan didn't need comfort. He never had. He remembers all the time he spent living in forests when he just needed to isolate himself for a while. Anything worked for him, really.
Wolverines can sleep pretty much about everywhere. So, the first couple months after he moved in with Wade, he'd just crash on the couch. Sometimes, Wade would awake in the morning to see Logan sprawled on the floor and snoring after probably falling off the couch in his sleep.
He tried many times to convince Logan to sleep with him on his bed, but he always refused. Wade got that couch on a goddamn dumpster, and it couldn't possibly be comfortable to spend nights on.
So yeah, maybe he wanted to have a big gruff Wolverine laying next to him on his bed, but he also cared about him being comfortable.
He wanted it to be a home for Logan, even if it was a really small crack apartment.
Wade googled about Wolverines and how they nest, and he realized that Logan didn't really have much. He didn't have anything, really, since he dragged him here from a whole other universe.
So he would buy pillows, blankets, and plushies for Logan. And the grumpy idiot would pretend to hate the little hello kittys fluffy miniatures, but one day Wade's heart almost fully melted when he woke up in the middle of the night for a midnight snack, and catched Logan sleeping with all the gifts he gave him all around him, wrapped in a blanket with red and yellow heart patterns.
Sometimes Wade would awake hearing grunts and screams, rushing to the living room to see what was wrong only to find Logan trashing in his sleep, probably deep in a really bad nightmare, his body sweaty and brows furrowed. He looked in pain, and it broke Wade's heart. He imagined the terrors Logan was probably reliving in his mind.
When the sun hits Logan's eyes and he opens them, he feels slightly lighter. As if his body's relaxed for what felt like forever. He looks around and doesn't see the usual living room, and he realizes that he's in a bed. Wade's bed. Wade isn't here, but all the blankets, pillows, and plushies are still all around him.
"What the fuck..."
"Morning, peanut!" Wade announced with an excited tone as he entered the room wearing an "Kiss the cook" apron and toasts on a plate along with a mug.
Logan gives him a confused and annoyed look. "Did you- Did you carry me over here in my sleep?" He asks, incredulous. His bones are fucking made of adamantium. He weighs like 300 pounds. And how the fuck did he not wake up?
"Yes, princess. Bridal style and everything. Only the best for my baby girl."
"Wade-" Logan warns through gritted teeth.
"Alright, look, I just couldn't take you looking so uncomfortable anymore. Besides, you got so peaceful after I put you here. You can't really complain."
"I can, and I will. I told you not to bother. I don't give a fuck about comfort."
"Well, I do. Now get a break on being all grumpy, I made you breakfast." Wade offers Logan the plate with toasts and the mug with black coffee, the way he likes it.
He just grunts and accepts it.
The next nights, the lumpy couch remained empty. Logan would slip into the covers with Wade, the pillows and plushies all around them, and Mary Puppins layed on their feet. Wade was wearing a Spider-Man themed pajamas, and Logan was in his boxers and one of Wade's silly shirts with an unicorn printed on it.
"We look like such a happy family!" Wade says in a dreamy tone in the middle of the night, the room dark as he lays face to face with Logan.
"Shut up. Go to sleep." He groans gruffly, eyes closed.
"Sweet dreams, peanut. I know mine will be. You're always in them. God, I had one these days where you d-"
"Go. To. Sleep."
Some mornings, they would wake up tangled, arms over chests, legs over legs, so close they could feel each other breathing. Sometimes, Logan would wake up first, and when he opens his eyes to see them tangled like that as Wade was in deep slumber, he just smirks and closes them again, drifting back to sleep.
After that, he noticed that the frequency of his nightmares was getting lower. But whenever he'd have them, eventually, Wade would always be right there next to him to comfort him back to sleep.
#deadclaws#deadpool and wolverine#logan howlett#poolverine#wade wilson#wade x logan#fanfic#fluff#deadpool 3
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verity what would you think about writing another peter x reader in which peter becomes a photographer and has to take pictures of reader and he develops a thing for her and he thinks that reader just flirts with him for fun and he's totally okay with that because he's a fool for her but after teasing peter and messing with him for a good amount of time she asks him out ? maybe inspired by "suck it and see" by arctic monkeys? thank you !!
chemistry
tasm!peter x fem!reader
a/n: the science jokes are real with this one
*
peter needed to get over himself. that much was clear.
honestly, he had the ability to rip out his eyes and throw them down the garbage disposal, and it was becoming increasingly obvious that he might have to. just to get some sanity back.
it wasn’t really his fault he was staring at you. no, it wasn’t his fault at all.
he was getting paid to stare at you. you had hired him to do this. to take pictures of you when you looked like this—partially glowing from the light, wearing a devious smile like you might be trying to crack his lens—and not get called a pervert for it.
his movements were automatic now. he’d done this enough—admired strangers and tried to pull the best out of them—but it was never quite like this. with every click of a button, and the perfectly adjusted flash, peter felt himself getting a bit hazy.
it would be his luck to faint while taking pictures of a pretty girl.
a pretty girl who’s head was tilted at him, eyes questioning, because she’d just said something and he was too busy scolding himself to notice
get yourself together.
“hmm?” peter asked, moving a step closer to you. “sorry i missed it.”
you smile like he’s said something funny. “should i try something else?” you say, “i’m not used to posing.”
“you’re doing great. you’re a natural.”
maybe a little too great. you blink at him, eyes darting away and sigh. even then, if peter took a photo, he’s sure it would come out perfectly. he probably wouldn’t need to edit any of these, even.
but he also probably would. just to stare at you some more.
“well, you’re the expert.”
but peter frowns. “are you feeling uncomfortable?”
“just—“ you shake your head. “will you tell me a joke, or something? i feel… awkward. i have no idea what i’m doing.”
“tell you a joke?” peter repeats, slightly amused.
“or just talk to me. anything.”
“sure,” he says, easily, nodding his head a bit too much. maybe it’s because you sort of whispered it, and peter sort of felt it on every single on of his nerve endings. “i, um,” he raises his brows. “i think i just forgot every joke i’ve ever heard.”
you laugh with your head tilted back and he snaps a shot. “just tell me about you, then.”
“me?”
“yes, peter parker, the photographer… and? part time comedian? full time alcoholic? father of six?”
peter frowns. “how old do you think i am?“
“old enough to be a professional photographer.”
“i don’t know if i would call myself a professional…” he winces, smiling a bit and feeling embarrassed for himself. flushed and completely ashamed because he’s usually better at this.
he can calm a clients nerves in five minutes. he can make people laugh and get the candid shot that he knows they’re looking for. he can turn an awkward social interaction into getting drinks after a shoot.
but there’s something about you and your smile, and the easy way you talk, like the words just fall out of your mouth and into place.
“i saw your prints,” you correct, shaking your head at him, “why do you think i hired you?”
“free eye candy?”
and then you actually laugh, chest releasing, and peter watches as your eyes squint at him like you’ve finally realized who you’re talking to.
it’s second nature when he presses the button.
“oh, yeah. i just googled ‘hottest male photographer in queens’ and yours was the first that came up.”
“i knew that ad would pay off eventually.”
“really, though. i’ve only got you for another twenty minutes so you’ve gotta tell me something good.”
peter frowns and moves to your left, changing the zoom on his camera and dimming the light. “i didn’t know you were paying for a gossip session.”
“okay, so you don’t like to talk about yourself. what else?”
he catches you as you adjust your hair, the light shining on the side of your face, gleaming off of you like something out of a sci-fi film.
peter shakes his head—his head is feeling a bit off. “um… i want to get a cat.”
you smile, completely darling and enough to knock a breath out of his chest. “i’ll add caring to the list. why haven’t you?”
“well, my apartment doesn’t really allow it…” he pauses for a moment playing with some settings. the two of you are dancing in circles, like a pendulum, when you move, he moves. “and also i’m not sure that i’d remember to feed it.”
“most animals make sure you remember. when i was a kid my dog would jump on whoever was closest when it was time for dinner.”
peter almost winces, and then catches himself. “i also think i’d poison it with my energy. it’d forget how to move its tail.”
“well, i’ve been around you for almost an hour and a half now and i can safely say that i still have control over all of my limbs.”
“good to know…” peter mutters while frowning at his screen. there’s nothing wrong with his camera, or with you, just with his hands. and his heart.
“everything okay?”
he shakes his head, then nods, clearing his throat. “yeah—yeah. i’m just messing with the settings.”
“are you getting anything good? useable?”
“they’re all good,” he says—to himself and out loud like a complete idiot. and then he looks up, awkwardly laughing. “like i said, you’re a natural.”
“even if you’re lying,” you tease, undeterred by his awkwardness, “i’m sure you’ll fix it all before i see.”
“i’m not lying, but yeah.”
when you smile, he smiles back.
“okay,” you say, moving. “what else? got any friends or family? any plans after this?”
“which question am i supposed to answer?”
“all of them, peter.”
he chuckles. “it’s mostly just me and my aunt. and a couple of long lost cousins. as for friends, i’ve kept in touch with some people from college. oh, and me and the john down the street who makes me a sandwich everyday are close.”
you lift your head, revealing the skin of your neck and jaw to peter. and a fetish he didn’t know he had. “and after this?”
“i’ll probably just go home and edit these, actually.”
“it’s friday.”
he shrugs. squinting at you before the next shot. he’s not even really looking.
“nothing fun?” you ask him. “surely you’ll be sick of my face after this.”
“that’d be hard.”
he watches a sheepish smile reveal itself on your face before it’s gone. you look away. “you’re young, peter. you should be having fun.”
“what are you doing after this?” peter asks, as a challenge.
your brows lift. “this seems like a line.”
he laughs. “not like that.”
you shrug and blink when the flash goes off. “i’ll figure out something. are there any good bars nearby?”
peter pauses, dropping his camera. “are we back to the alcoholic thing.”
“no,” you laugh, “we’re way past that. i just think that your flash is giving me a bit of an adrenaline rush. i could use a calm me down.”
“you okay?”
“i’m kidding, peter. keep going, you’re almost a free man.”
so he does.
you continue to prod him with personal questions, attacking him with your smile and your unsurprisingly sharp wit. you throw his words right back to him, and peter knows, in his deepest of thoughts, that he’s going to be hearing your voice later on.
that when he’s looking back on these pictures, he’s going to see a timeline of your allure, and of his own demise.
he’s already loving and dreading it.
he finishes up by making you laugh from your nose, loud and unprecedented, and so genuinely rewarding that peter has to refrain from clapping himself on the back.
you smile at him as you slip on your jacket, still talking to him, acting too smooth to be just polite.
peter also has to refrain himself from trying to shake your head as he walks you to the door. he tries not to stare any longer, knowing what kind of night he has in store.
“when should i be seeing the pictures?” you ask him, lingering when you finally get to the door.
“sometime next week. i’ll email you a preview with a few different editing styles that you can pick from and then i’ll finish the album.”
“email?”
he scoffs, opening the door for you. “i’ll have you know that not everyone is as young and hip as you. do you know how many grandparents want photos with their family?”
“it just doesn’t seem like you, peter. i’d thought you’d train a carrier pigeon.”
he shakes his head at you, trying to hide his smile.
“but, seriously, thank you so much,” you say to him, voice full and easy, and honest. he can feel your heart and smell your perfume. “i know i’m a lot. especially when i’m nervous.”
“i’m just glad you didn’t ask me about my social security number.”
you reflectively smack yourself on the forehead. “i knew i forgot something.”
peter laughs, letting you slip past him trying to avoid your touch. he doesn’t, and if benjamin franklin was there, he might’ve discovered a whole different type of electricity.
“i’ll talk to you soon,” peter says, and your close enough that it’s almost a whisper. “just let me know if there’s any issues with the pictures, or you have any questions. you’ve got my number.”
“i do.”
his body feels physically repelled from inside the studio, but he forces himself to take a step in anyway. “have a good weekend.”
“you too.”
and then you turn to go, and peter can’t help but stare. he hopes that the tint on the shop windows is enough to keep you from noticing.
but before he can close the door—and mind that it took him an outrageously stupid amount of time—you’re turning back around.
“wait, peter,” you say, voice breathless and jagged. like peters hands as they rush to push open the door again.
it’s embarrassing how quickly he manages to do it.
“yes?”
you smile, like you know exactly what he’s thinking. peter will have that smile branded into his brain.
“do you wanna come with me to get that drink?” you ask him, softly, and wide, with a smile that bursts blood vessels.
peter really needs to get over himself.
*
#ask#tasm peter x reader#andrew!spiderman#the amazing spider-man#peter parker#peter parker x reader#andrew garfield!peter parker x reader#tasm peter parker#spider-man#the amazing spider man#tasm 2#tasmania#tasm!peter x reader#tasm!peter x y/n#tasm!peter imagine#tasm#tasm spiderman#tasm!peter fanfiction#tasm!peter parker#tasm!peter x you#tasm!peter smut#tasm!spiderman x reader#tasm!peter one shot#tasm!peter fluff#andrew garfield peter parker#andrew!peter parker#andrew!peter x reader#andrew!peter smut#andrew!peter imagine
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Clean Shaven
Pairing: [Established] Price x GN! Reader Synopsis: Price shaves his beard after a mission goes haywire. Word Count: 2.7k Warnings: descriptions of razors A/N: I feel like I was MIA (´~`) it is finals season after all. - the reader's callsign is Bullseye (they're a sniper and I am unoriginal lol) and - we are definitely not going to talk about how I had to google whether a movie would be on a DVD or a CD... - Enjoy! Like and reblog if you did <3
“Fuckin’ HELL. Soap!”
“Price! Shite! I’m so sorry!!”
That is all that was heard over the comms. You and Gaz shot a mix of concerned and confused looks at each other on the rooftop they were currently located. Soap and Price were the ones to infiltrate the building to find the information they needed, then blow it all to hell. You were there to provide sniper assistance and Gaz was there to fly the helicopter (he got his license and no way in hell was he going to let anyone else do that. not with his track record).
“Price, Soap. How copy?” Gaz said through the comms. There was silence for a short while, but you could still see movement through the windows of the compound. They seemed like they were still alive and hopefully uninjured. you kept your eyes through the scope tracking both men through the building, waiting with bated breath to hear back from them.
“Guys, how copy?” You had asked over the comms after Gaz had already asked twice. It was frustrating silence, but you understood not having a safe opening to answer comms. Suddenly the comms crackle back to life from their end.
“Copy fine Bullseye, nice an’ crispy.” Price sounded angry and he hesitated at the last bit. Soap was going to get it this time. According to the mission, the team needed to get as much information as possible, and then blow the place to smithereens. Price knew what they were looking for, and Soap liked to make things go boom. The pairing made sense at the time.
You looked at Gaz in bewilderment 'What the hell is he talking about?' printed across their faces. Gaz could only shrug, he knew as much as you did. Soap and Price ended up splitting through the rooms. Price headed to the office where all of the files were stored and Soap to find the weak points of the buildings.
"Soap I've got as much as I can find. You ready to detonate those planted bombs, mate?" Price's gruff voice sounded in your ear. You smile to yourself, proud of the man as always. In and out with no injuries, as it should be. Soap chatters off an excited reply and the two exit the building.
You watch through the scope of your rifle as the two stealthily exit the building. You notice that something seems… off about Price. You can sense the scowl from where they are from a hundred meters away. He looked a little different, though you couldn’t quite place it.
You could finally place it once the two had gotten closer. Soap trailed behind a grouchy Price. Oh... Oh no... Oh no no no. You now understood why Price was so grouchy.
Half of his beard was burnt off. The left half of his face looked naked, the hair on his face was half burnt. The charred hair traveled from his nose all the way up his cheek and near his ear. Barely missing his precious hat.
“What the hell happened to you?” You were unabashedly shocked at what you had seen. You trodded up to the pair with Gaz at their side, Bullseye and Gaz stared at their captain in awe. The former had packed their things quickly to get out of there quickly. You had gotten in close to assess the damage to his beard, their hands ghosting over his cheek and above his lip.
“I’m fine darling, don't fuss ‘bout it.” He paused and shot a thumb back at a very remorseful Soap and said “This one was playin' with a lighter he found and lit my beard on fire.” His hands found yours and held them while you traced his cheekbone. He looked down at them with tender eyes, appreciating the fact you were worried about him, but hated the look on your face. He leaned down to their left ear, the intact half of his beard scratching their face slightly, and whispered to them,
“Jus’ a bit of cosmetic damage.” He kissed your cheek and neck quickly before moving to get in the helicopter. You sighed at the loss of contact, threw your stuff on the bed of the helicopter, and climbed in. Gaz at the wheel the group got into the air and flew over the enemy compound. With confirming word from Price, Soap excitedly detonated the bombs he had placed and the place erupted into flames and fell to rubble in a matter of seconds. You could almost feel the heat of the flames that engulfed where the building once stood.
You looked to Price to admire him, only to catch his eye. You smiled softly at the captain and looked down at what was left of his beard. He saw this and touched the charred hair, cringing at how different it felt. It had been a while since he could feel the wind on his upper lip, it made him shift his mouth awkwardly. He needed a reflection to judge just how bad it was, and to decide how he would deal with it.
Price knew that his lover liked his beard, you had often commented on how it tickled when they kissed (among other things *wink wink*), and would help him groom it on occasion. His beard was a staple of his look, aside from his hat, and having to part with it gave him a sense of anxiety he hadn’t ever felt before. He worried how his Bullseye would feel if he had to shave it all off, maybe he could keep a little of it just to hopefully keep them with him. He was snapped out of his thoughts when Bullseye bumped his shoulder.
“Hey, it’ll be alright love, it grows back.” You said with endearment. He huffed a response and scratched awkwardly at his face still. When the group arrived back to base Price was able to hide the accident behind his hand in the debrief, the darkness of the room aiding him. Once the four were dismissed he was the first to leave the room, bustling down the halls praying no one saw him.
You followed at a slower pace, allowing for the man much-needed space from everyone. When you arrived at the door of their shared room you knocked gently calling out for him. When you had heard a response you then asked if you could join him. The door suddenly opened and he looked down at them with a look in his eyes that you were not able to place.
“It’s your room too you know, of course you can come in,” he grumbled and made space for them to make their way into the room.
“I know, I just wanted to give you the option of having a moment to yourself, love.” Bullseye responded in a soft and caring tone. You knew how much he liked his facial hair, and he also knew how much you liked his facial hair. However, you wanted to check in on him first. you sat on the shared bed and patted the spot next to them, offering a seat to the Captain.
He sat down next to them with a soft sigh and leaned his head on their shoulder. you were trying to comfort him and he knew this. Accepting the gentle affection and support, he closed his eyes and took a deep, steadying breath. He wasn't the type to talk about his insecurities or when he was feeling anything but confident, but there was something inherently trustworthy about Bullseye. It had drawn him in the first time they had met so many years ago.
“Will you help me fix this?” he asked in a soft tone. you nodded and stroked his back. As he stood, you stood with him and followed him into his personal bathroom. you knew where everything was, so you pulled out the scissors, shears, and the razor and shaving cream. Taking a washcloth, you had run it under warm water and heated it to a very comforting temperature. Price was pushed to sit on a chair that was brought into the bathroom, right in front of the large mirror. Bullseye stood in front of him as you wrung out the washcloth of excess water. When you turned, Price was looking up at them, with so much love in his eyes one would think that he hadn’t been a hardened soldier for nearly two decades.
you smile softly at the man, gently take his hat off, and place the warm cloth on the bottom half of his face. After a few silent minutes, you took the washcloth off and wiped as much of the grime left on his face as you could. You took your time and were able to admire the man's face. The way his eyebrows furrowed when they got close to his eyes. The straight bridge of his nose and the crow's feet developing near the corners of his eyes. You suddenly broke the silence as gently as you could.
“Are we trying to salvage the chops or are we going for a clean shave?” you ran their hands through the right half of his face, scratching at the salvaged portion of the beard. He grumbled and his top lip twitched in thought. you waited patiently for the man to make up his mind and you ran your fingers through his hair, massaging his scalp.
“Do you think it can be saved?” he asked slightly hopeful, but honestly he knew there was no chance of saving it. He ran a gentle hand down the burnt hairs on his face and sighed; he looked up at them catching their eyes. you shook their head solemnly, just as he figured. “Clean-shaven it is then, love.”
you nodded in response and grabbed the army-issued shaving cream and his straight razor. you gather some of the shaving cream into the palm of their hand before gently lathering it over his cheeks, and chin.
“Ready?” you ask, looking at him waiting for an answer. He took a deep breath and nodded, his eyes still looking at you. They never left. Bullseye takes the handle of the razor and carefully glides it down his right cheek. The sharp blade takes all of the hair with it leaving the soft skin of his cheek exposed to the air.
Bullseye wipes the stolen hair onto a towel next to the sink. Readying for another stroke you look down at Price, his eyes closed in a relaxed state. You smile to yourself and continue their actions, curving with the shapes of his face, and being careful not to knick him.
After you had fully finished shaving his face (you even cleaned up his eyebrows a little), you put the washcloth back onto his face. It had been rewarmed by the water. Ensuring to get all the leftover hair off, you then put his aftershave on his cheeks.
Price had then opened his eyes when he felt the slight sting of the aftershave, but he didn't flinch. He hesitated before looking from their eyes to the mirror. When he did he was slightly shocked, he had forgotten how much older the beard had made him look. His beard definitely added about 5 years to his looks. After examining his face for a few moments, he looked back to the other person in the room.
“Well… how do I look, darling?” He looked up at you expectantly (and with so much rizz). You chucked at the goofy face he made and shook your head with a smile.
“You look as pretty as always.” You shoot back at him. You turn around and begin cleaning up the impromptu barber shop. He stood up from his seat and admired your work, his hand rubbing where his chops once were. Once you had finished cleaning up your station you had turned back around to face him. You wrapped your arms around his torso and smiled at him lovingly.
“Do ya wanna go watch a movie?” you ask him. The common room would be a good place for you to both unwind (in the most wholesome of ways). All you wanted to do was curl up with him and watch one of the movies on base. He hummed a confirming nod and squeezed you back. He led the way to the common room after you separated.
Price was thankful for the lack of people in the halls, he didn't want to have to deal with the odd looks and stares he would likely have gotten if there were anyone there. The two of you made your way through the halls, your pinkies intertwined, gently guiding each other.
As the two of you make it to the common room, you cross over the threshold of the doorway and are greeted by three other figures. Gaz, Soap, and Ghost have already claimed the common room as their choice of relaxation. The three men notice your presence at roughly the same time, and an awkwardly tense silence fills the space. The three of them, with their heads all locked onto the two of you still frozen in the doorway, shock visible in each of their faces.
Soap’s face configures from shock to that of what looked like genuine horror. Ghost’s eyes were wide and unmoving from Price’s face and Gaz’s mouth hung open, unable to comprehend the new look their Captain was given. You managed to stifle your laughter but a smile still tugged its way to your cheeks, you had never seen them so emotive before. Price sighed and tried to hide his face saying
“Take a bloody picture, it’ll last longer you muppets,” he grumbled aggravated at the attention.
“Did I do that?!” Soap yelled at a volume able to burst ear drums. He leapt from his seat on the couch and stood in front of Price with his head bowed downward.
“I am so sorry, Price!” he all but wept in the older man's arms at the apology. The silence from the other two men in the room was noticed when you and Price found yourselves looking at them, waiting for their input on the situation.
Ghost stayed still as ever, unmoving and steady.
“Put it back,” he muttered, barely audible. You make a noise of confusion, that Ghost reads as if you were not able to hear him.
“Put. It. Back.” he says with a more stern tone. You burst out a laugh unable to contain it. They all look at you in confusion and when you notice you stumble something about how stupid the three of them look right now. Gaz still mouth wide open finally shuts it and states very proudly
“Well, I think it looks great. You have a very handsome face.” His arms are crossed over his chest and he is nodding in confidence. Price deadpans at his statement and sighs for what feels like the millionth time that day. His beard was going to grow back totally gray at the rate of these idiots.
You put your hand on the top of Price’s back and tell the team that the two of you were going to wind down with a movie of Price’s choice. After the initial shock had worn off the two still on the couch, they agreed. Soap however still looked upset at himself, and every time he looked at Price he frowned a little more.
Price pulled the man aside and barely within earshot tells Soap he wasn’t that mad about it, but he would be on bathroom and dish duty for the next four months. You chuckle to yourself at his punishment and ready the movie on an old DVD player that Gaz had brought to the base. Classic Price chose a Clint Eastwood movie to watch.
The two of you curled onto the loveseat together while the other three sat on the couch. Price held your hand the entire movie and when you leaned to whisper into his ear he leaned down to hear you.
“How long will it take to grow back… Ghost wants to know." That last bit was definitely a lie. Price knew this, chuckled, and pushed your face away from him. You let out an undignified noise and kissed his hand looking at him. You smiled and mouthed the words that he would parrot back to you for the rest of your lives.
“I love you.”
#dudewrites#dudecreature#john price x reader#john price x male reader#john price x female reader#john price x gn reader#call of duty#cod x reader#fluff#john price fluff
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Made my account like 3 seconds ago, and I'm already Finnair rant. MY YANDRE SIMULATOR PHASE HAS BEEN COMING BACK
(I checked Google. Me no pedo. They're all 18!! Even if not, they're aged up to 18+! Don't cancel me please </3)
Sub! Budo/Taro/Yan-kun/Info-kun x Dom! AFAB!Reader
Cw: blood, knife play, smut/lime(?), sub & dom
OKOK SO LET ME SAY I LOVE BUDO SO FUCKUNG MUCH. HE IS SO 😍😍
The men I love so much are like. Taro, Budo, Yan-kun, Info-kun. LIKKEE 😍😍
I can imagine every single one of them on their knees while you hold their chin.
Taro
Taro has ples and begs coming from his mouth immediately. He pawing at your lap as he tried to kiss your lips again after you pulled away from his swollen lips. But he is always such a good boy for you. He is rock-hard in his pants. He's leaking precum by you, just pettung hid hair. you give him a reward. He loves it so much. And when he's a brat, he loves to tease you so you can punish him. Cause you bite at his neck, slap at his thigh, and pull on his hair. It just makes his dick so happy. He cries, but you and him both know he loves it. And when you start to actually show attention to his dick his eyes are rolling to the back of his head. Seeing stars. While you only just touched the tip slightly. But let's be real. He loves to please you. So doing what you want to makes him so fucking happy. He loves to eat you out. The first time he ate you out. He knew nothing. He was clueless. But when you showed him with you liked. He went full in eating you out like a starved man
Budo
Budo is such a brat. You have to have him crying for him to actually start begging for you. He has a big ego, so you have to try hard to get his bratty behavior down. You smile each time he yelps when you slap at his thigh. He has came multiple times by you just slapping his thigh. Or pull his hair because the next morning, he acts like he never did such things. (He secretly loves it when you have him on his knees. He just loved the ruff treatment and showing off his marks) but when he's surprisingly a good boy, he loves it when he can actually touch you when you're riding him. When he can actually explore your body when you're riding him <3
Yan-Kun
Yan-kun is already on his knees as soon as you say you want to have control. He doesn't hesitate for a second. Hearing you dom him makes his legs buck and hid legs go extremely weak. He hard as fuck in his pants already. And all you did was pat his head. He has puppy dog eyes. He likes it when you Dom and put him in his place. Just makes him feel so good. BUT LIKE TARO HE LOVES TO EAT YOU OUT. His face drenched in your juices while you grip his head to control him how to do it. He loves that you're shoeing him. He eats you as if he hasnt been fed since the dsy he was fucking born. He loves when you grip his head and stop him just when youre about to cum caude you want to cum in his cock as a reward. But when he's a brat, you go to the extreme. You have him tide down and use his own knife to cut his skin, making him bleed. Hid eyes roll to the back of his head each time as his jaw unhinged . And God, when he's a good boy, he loves it when you give him a reward. He doesn't even know when the reward is going to happen. Once, while at his house watching a movie. You gave him a passionate kiss, and you place your knee between his legs. And you give him a nice and slow blowjob while looking at him. He absolutely loves it. New photos added to his shrine <3
Info-Kun
I just know you have to break Info-kun to get him on his knees. You have to down talk him so much. By the time you actually start to touch him, he's rock hard and panting. He is such a brat that you have to constantly spanking him. But he loves it so much cause he loves the prints. And when you give him hickeys he squirms a lot. But God, he loves it. It's just that he can't help it. But he loves them cause he can only see them. He and only him. But when he's a good boy, he gets to choose what happens, and he almost always gets you to give him a hand job. He loves your warm hands around him. And he always chooses to put it on your face while you stick your tongue so he can take a photo. He has a whole file just about nasty pictures of you <3
#yandere sim x reader#yan sim x reader#yandere simulator x reader#taro x reader#budo x reader#yankun x reader#infokun x reader#i luv sub men#subby men for life#SUB MEN FOREVERRRR!!!!#smut
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Podcasting "Microincentives and Enshittification"
Tomorrow (Oct 25) at 10hPT/18hUK, I'm livestreaming an event called "Seizing the Means of Computation" for the Edinburgh Futures Institute.
This week on my podcast, I read my recent Medium column, "Microincentives and Enshittification," about the way that monopoly drives mediocrity, with Google's declining quality as Exhibit A:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/microincentives-and-enshittification/
It's not your imagination: Google used to be better – in every way. Search used to be better, sure, but Google used to be better as a company. It treated its workers better (for example, not laying off 12,000 workers months after a stock buyback that would have paid their salaries for the next 27 years). It had its users' backs in policy fights – standing up for Net Neutrality and the right to use encryption to keep your private data private. Even when the company made ghastly mistakes, it repented of them and reversed them, like the time it pulled out of China after it learned that Chinese state hackers had broken into Gmail in order to discover which dissidents to round up and imprison.
None of this is to say that Google used to be perfect, or even, most of the time, good. Just that things got worse. To understand why, we have to think about how decisions get made in large organizations, or, more to the point, how arguments get resolved in these organizations.
We give Google a lot of shit for its "Don't Be Evil" motto, but it's worth thinking through what that meant for the organization's outcomes over the years. Through most of Google's history, the tech labor market was incredibly tight, and skilled engineers and other technical people had a lot of choice as to where they worked. "Don't Be Evil" motivated some – many – of those workers to take a job at Google, rather than one of its rivals.
Within Google, that meant that decisions that could colorably be accused of being "evil" would face some internal pushback. Imagine a product design meeting where one faction proposes something that is bad for users, but good for the company's bottom line. Think of another faction that says, "But if we do that, we'll be 'evil.'"
I think it's safe to assume that in any high-stakes version of this argument, the profit side will prevail over the don't be evil side. Money talks and bullshit walks. But what if there were also monetary costs to being evil? Like, what if Google has to worry about users or business customers defecting to a rival? Or what if there's a credible reason to worry that a regulator will fine Google, or Congress will slap around some executives at a televised hearing?
That lets the no-evil side field a more robust counterargument: "Doing that would be evil, and we'll lose money, or face a whopping fine, or suffer reputational harms." Even if these downsides are potentially smaller than the upsides, they still help the no-evil side win the argument. That's doubly true if the downsides could depress the company's share-price, because Googlers themselves are disproportionately likely to hold Google stock, since tech companies are able to get a discount on their wage-bills by paying employees in abundant stock they print for free, rather than the scarce dollars that only come through hard graft.
When the share-price is on the line, the counterargument goes, "That would be evil, we will lose money, and you will personally be much poorer as a result." Again, this isn't dispositive – it won't win every argument – but it is influential. A counterargument that braids together ideology, institutional imperatives, and personal material consequences is pretty robust.
Which is where monopoly comes in. When companies grow to dominate their industries, they are less subject to all forms of discipline. Monopolists don't have to worry about losing disgusted employees, because they exert so much gravity on the labor market that they find it easy to replace them.
They don't have to worry about losing customers, because they have eliminated credible alternatives. They don't have to worry about losing users, because rivals steer clear of their core business out of fear of being bigfooted through exclusive distribution deals, predatory pricing, etc. Investors have a name for the parts of the industry dominated by Big Tech: they call it "the kill zone" and they won't back companies seeking to enter it.
When companies dominate their industries, they find it easier to capture their regulators and outspend public prosecutors who hope to hold them to account. When they lose regulatory fights, they can fund endless appeals. If they lose those appeals, they can still afford the fines, especially if they can use an army of lawyers to make sure that the fine is less than the profit realized through the bad conduct. A fine is a price.
In other words, the more dominant a company is, the harder it is for the good people within the company to win arguments about unethical and harmful proposals, and the worse the company gets. The internal culture of the company changes, and its products and services decline, but meaningful alternatives remain scarce or nonexistent.
Back to Google. Google owns more than 90% of the search market. Google can't grow by adding more Search users. The 10% of non-Google searchers are extremely familiar with Google's actions. To switch to a rival search engine, they have had to take many affirmative, technically complex steps to override the defaults in their devices and tools. It's not like an ad extolling the virtues of Google Search will bring in new customers.
Having saturated the search market, Google can only increase its Search revenues by shifting value from searchers or web publishers to itself – that is, the only path to Search growth is enshittification. They have to make things worse for end users or business customers in order to make things better for themselves:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys
This means that each executive in the Search division is forever seeking out ways to shift value to Google and away from searchers and/or publishers. When they propose a enshittificatory tactic, Google's market dominance makes it easy for them to win arguments with their teammates: "this may make you feel ashamed for making our product worse, but it will not make me poorer, it will not make the company poorer, and it won't chase off business customers or end users, therefore, we're gonna do it. Fuck your feelings."
After all, each microenshittification represents only a single Jenga block removed from the gigantic tower that is Google Search. No big deal. Some Google exec made the call to make it easier for merchants to buy space overtop searches for their rivals. That's not necessarily a bad thing: "Thinking of taking a vacation in Florida? Why not try Puerto Rico – it's a US-based Caribbean vacation without the transphobia and racism!"
But this kind of advertising also opens up lots of avenues for fraud. Scammers clone local restaurants' websites, jack up their prices by 15%, take your order, and transmit it to the real restaurant, pocketing the 15%. They get clicks by using some of that rake to buy an ad based on searches for the restaurant's name, so they show up overtop of it and rip off inattentive users:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/24/passive-income/#swiss-cheese-security
This is something Google could head off; they already verify local merchants by mailing them postcards with unique passwords that they key into a web-form. They could ban ads for websites that clone existing known merchants, but that would incur costs (engineer time) and reduce profits, both from scammers and from legit websites that trip a false positive.
The decision to sell this kind of ad, configured this way, is a direct shift of value from business customers (restaurants) and end-users (searchers) to Google. Not only that, but it's negative sum. The money Google gets from this tradeoff is less than the cost to both the restaurant (loss of goodwill from regulars who are affronted because of a sudden price rise) and searchers (who lose 15% on their dinner orders). This trade-off makes everyone except Google worse off, and it's only possible when Google is the only game in town.
It's also small potatoes. Last summer, scammers figured out how to switch out the toll-free numbers that Google displayed for every airline, redirecting people to boiler-rooms where con-artists collected their credit-card numbers and sensitive personal information (passports, etc):
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/phone-numbers-airlines-listed-google-directed-scammers-rcna94766
Here again, we see a series of small compromises that lead to a massive harm. Google decided to show users 800 numbers rather than links to the airlines' websites, but failed to fortify the process for assigning phone numbers to prevent this absolutely foreseeable type of fraud. It's not that Google wanted to enable fraud – it's that they created the conditions for the fraud to occur and failed to devote the resources necessary to defend against it.
Each of these compromises indicates a belief among Google decision-makers that the consequences for making their product worse will be outweighed by the value the company will generate by exposing us to harm. One reason for this belief is on display in the DOJ's antitrust case against Google:
https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1328941/download
The case accuses Google of spending tens of billions of dollars to buy out the default search position on every platform where an internet user might conceivably perform a search. The company is lighting multiple Twitters worth of dollars on fire to keep you from ever trying another search engine.
Spraying all those dollars around doesn't just keep you from discovering a better search engine – it also prevents investors from funding that search engine in the first place. Why fund a startup in the kill-zone if no one will ever discover that it exists?
https://www.theverge.com/23802382/search-engine-google-neeva-android
Of course, Google doesn't have to grow Search to grow its revenue. Hypothetically, Google could pursue new lines of business and grow that way. This is a tried-and-true strategy for tech giants: Apple figured out how to outsource its manufacturing to the Pacific Rim; Amazon created a cloud service, Microsoft figured out how to transform itself into a cloud business.
Look hard at these success stories and you discover another reason that Google – and other large companies – struggle to grow by moving into adjacent lines of business. In each case – Apple, Microsoft, Amazon – the exec who led the charge into the new line of business became the company's next CEO.
In other words: if you are an exec at a large firm and one of your rivals successfully expands the business into a new line, they become the CEO – and you don't. That ripples out within the whole org-chart: every VP who becomes an SVP, every SVP who becomes an EVP, and every EVP who becomes a president occupies a scarce spot that it worth millions of dollars to the people who lost it.
The one thing that execs reliably collaborate on is knifing their ambitious rivals in the back. They may not agree on much, but they all agree that that guy shouldn't be in charge of this lucrative new line of business.
This "curse of bigness" is why major shifts in big companies are often attended by the return of the founder – think of Gates going back to Microsoft or Brin returning to Google to oversee their AI projects. They are the only execs that other execs can't knife in the back.
This is the real "innovator's dilemma." The internal politics of large companies make Machiavelli look like an optimist.
When your company attains a certain scale, any exec's most important rival isn't the company's competitor – it's other execs at the same company. Their success is your failure, and vice-versa.
This makes the business of removing Jenga blocks from products like Search even more fraught. These quality-degrading, profit-goosing tactics aren't coordinated among the business's princelings. When you're eating your seed-corn, you do so in private. This secrecy means that it's hard for different product-degradation strategists to realize that they are removing safeguards that someone else is relying on, or that they're adding stress to a safety measure that someone else just doubled the load on.
It's not just Google, either. All of tech is undergoing a Great Enshittening, and that's due to how intertwined all these tech companies. Think of how Google shifts value from app makers to itself, with a 30% rake on every dollar spent in an app. Google is half of the mobile duopoly, with the other half owned by Apple. But they're not competitors – they're co-managers of a cartel. The single largest deal that Google or Apple does every year is the bribe Google pays Apple to be the default search for iOS and Safari – $15-20b, every year.
If Apple and Google were mobile competitors, you'd expect them to differentiate their products, but instead, they've converged – both Apple and Google charge sky-high 30% payment processing fees to app makers.
Same goes for Google/Facebook, the adtech duopoly: not only do both companies charge advertisers and publishers sky-high commissions, clawing 51 cents out of every ad dollar, but they also illegally colluded to rig the market and pay themselves more, at advertisers' and publishers' expense:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi_Blue
It's not just tech, either – every sector from athletic shoes to international sea-freight is concentrated into anti-competitive, value-annihilating cartels and monopolies:
https://www.openmarketsinstitute.org/learn/monopoly-by-the-numbers
As our friends on the right are forever reminding us: "incentives matter." When a company runs out of lands to conquer, the incentives all run one direction: downhill, into a pit of enshittification. Google got worse, not because the people in it are worse (or better) than they were before – but because the constraints that discipline the company and contain its worst impulses got weaker as the company got bigger.
Here's the podcast episode:
https://craphound.com/news/2023/10/23/microincentives-and-enshittification/
And here's a direct link to the MP3 (hosting courtesy of the Internet Archive; they'll host your stuff for free, forever):
https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_452/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_452_-_Microincentives_and_Enshittification.mp3
And here's my podcast's RSS feed:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/doctorow_podcast
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/2023/07/28/microincentives-and-enshittification/
#pluralistic#podcasts#enshittification#google#microincentives#monopoly#incentives matter#trustbusting#the curse of bigness
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Mother’s Day
Natasha Romanoff x Female Reader
You celebrate Mother’s Day with Natasha
Note: Soft mama Nat! Wishing a Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there this weekend. Enjoy!
Natasha Romanoff Masterlist 1, Natasha Romanoff Masterlist 2, Main Masterlist
You know that Natasha feels a certain way about cliche, card-selling holidays but you’re still determined to always make Mother’s Day a special day for her.
Nat never thought she’d be able to have this. A wife, a family. But you and your kids have fulfilled her like nothing else ever has.
So now you have the youngest kids making cards for her while the oldest are out shopping.
“Great job, Belle. Add some more glitter,” you tell her, helping her with the jar.
Your phone rings and you grab it off the table.
“Hey sweetie,” you answer.
“Hey Mom. We’re trying to decide between a few things and Ivan said we needed input,” your daughter, Ali, says over the phone.
“Yeah because she knows Mama best! You know I’m right,” Ivan says. Clearly they’ve been arguing about this.
“Okay, okay be nice to each other please.” A couple of reluctant yes ma’am’s come over the phone. “Alright what are y’all between?”
They tell you about the gifts they can’t decide on and you have to admit they’re doing a great job of picking out the gifts. Finally, you settle on one and they can be heading home for dinner.
“I’m finished!” Belle says, hopping off her seat with the card in her hands.
“Hold on!” You chase after her and the glitter trail she’s leaving. “It has to dry, baby.”
She reluctantly lets you take the card and put it on the table where Taylor is finishing up her card. It’s decent for a two year old.
Belle washes her hands of the extra glitter and you clean Taylor up too.
You check to see where Natasha is and she’s still about fifteen minutes from home.
“Let’s write Mama a message,” you say. Belle and Taylor hop into your lap.
“I can do it!” Belle says, she’s in an independent stage.
“Alright, sign your name and if you want to say something else I can help you.”
“I wanna tell her I love her like the moon,” Belle says with full confidence.
“To the moon?” You ask with a chuckle.
“That’s what I said, Mommy,” she says.
Belle writes her name and she pauses. She leans her head back and looks at you.
“Yes, dear?”
“Can I write it in Russian?”
“Oh, yes but I don’t know how. Maybe we can ask your siblings when they get home,” you answer her. You probably should’ve learned how to write it by now.
“Use your phone,” Belle says.
“Okay, baby. We gotta do it fast because Mama will be home soon.”
You use google translate and help Belle write the message to Nat. You write a much simpler message to Nat from Taylor and the littlest girl is satisfied.
Your older kids get home in time to wrap the gifts they bought Nat, and she comes through the door with dinner in hand.
“Sorry for the delay. The highway was closed,” Natasha says.
“It’s all good, babe.” You help her with the bags she has. “Hi there.”
“Hi detka,” she says with a smile. She kisses your lips before you go into the kitchen together.
“Did you use glitter again?” She asks you.
“Maybe,” you say, catching the glimmer she sees on the counter. “Kids! Dinner!” You yell upstairs.
They trudge down one by one with Ivan coming up the rear.
“Hey Mama,” Belle is the first to greet Nat. She’s rewarded with a kiss to the cheek. The others follow and everyone settles around the table for dinner.
The food is delicious and you share conversation with the family.
“So, we got this for you,” Nat hands you an envelope. “Happy Mother’s Day.”
“You didn’t have to, but thank you.”
You open the envelope to find a sweet card and a printed picture of Disney World. You glance up at Nat and she’s smirking at you.
“Is this- are we?”
“We’re going to Disney World,” Nat confirms.
“Yay!” Belle cheers and the table fills with chatter.
“Did you know?” You ask them.
“Us three did,” Ali answers, pointing to herself, Ivan, and Jack.
“Thank you, thank you! I love you!” You kiss Natasha long enough for the kids to make disgusted sounds.
When you pull away, you stand up from the table and the kids follow you.
“What’s happening?” Nat asks.
“Stay there, babe!” You call back to her.
She sits patiently and waits for you to come back into the room.
When you do, each kid has a card in their hands and they place them in front of Nat one by one. Ali also puts the wrapped gift in front of her.
“This is too much,” Nat says, her cheeks are pink with nerves.
“Open mine first!” Belle says. She stands next to Nat, so she pulls her into her lap.
“Alright, krasivaya. Let’s see.”
Nat admires the drawings on the front of the card and opens it. There’s seven stick figures with one that has red hair.
“That’s you!” Belle points to it.
“Wow! That’s so good, Belle!”
“And this says I love you like the moon,” Belle says the phrase wrong again, but no one corrects her.
“Oh, does it? That’s so sweet. Thank you, Belle,” Nat says, dropping a kiss to her head. “Did Mommy use google translate?”
You nod and she chuckles.
“What does it say?”
“It may or may not say I love you to the month,” Nat says. The whole table bursts into a laughter fit.
“Mom, why didn’t you just ask us?” Ali asks, not being able to hold back a laugh.
“I was trying to let her be independent,” you say.
“That’s alright, babe. I do love you to the month,” Natasha says. She relents her teasing after that. “Let’s see what else we have here.”
She opens the cards from each kid and thanks them properly. When she gets to the gift from the older kids, she takes care to open it slowly for the dramatics.
“Hey, this is exactly what I needed,” Nat says when she sees the brand new pair of shoes.
“They’re some of the best on the market,” Ivan says. “Guaranteed to make you run super fast.”
“Oh I’m sure,” Nat says. “Thank you guys.”
Nat hugs and kisses the kids and after a yummy dessert you all settle on the couch for a movie night.
When it comes to an end, each of the kids are tucked in and you come into your room to find Nat putting her cards away.
You stand behind her and wrap your arms around her waist. “You still need your gift from me,” you say, a hint of mischief in your tone.
“Oh yeah?” She asks. “We can arrange that.”
“Did you keep all of those?” You ask her. You’re referencing her cards.
“Every single one,” Nat says. She opens the drawer further to reveal all of the cards you and the kids have given her over the years. “Remember this one?”
You move next to her and she hands you a card. Happy first Mother’s Day is transcribed on the front.
You do remember it. Ali had been born just a few weeks before that day and you were exhausted. Still, you knew you had to make her a card. You signed it from you and Ali and added a picture of your happy little family. Nat cried and held the photo close to her heart.
“I still carry that photo with me on every mission,” Nat brings you back to the moment. “Thank you for taking a chance on me and being the best mother to our kids.”
“That’s you, baby. But thank you,” you say.
Nat puts the card back into the drawer and shuts it. She moves in front of you to push you softly back onto the bed.
“I love you,” you say as she falls into your arms.
“I love you too, detka.”
Natasha has the perfect family that she has always deserved and she wouldn’t trade it for the world.
#natasha romanoff x reader#natasha romanoff#soft natasha romanoff#natasha romanoff fluff#natasha romanoff comfort
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New in Town - Ch. 7: First Double Date
You and Joel go out with Tommy and Maria. A continuation of New in Town chapters 1-6 found on Tumblr here.
Pairing: Best Friend's Dad!Joel Miller x Female Reader
CW: Smut. No use of Y/N. Age gap (reader is 35 Joel is 47, not a focus of the fic). Minors DNI, 18+ only
Length: 5.5k
AO3 | First Chapter | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter
“I swear to God Joel, if you make fun of me…”
“I’m not gonna make fun of you, Beautiful.”
“Oh you say that now.”
“I’m really not,” he laughed a little.
“I did like… research and shit,” you said from the other side of your bathroom door. “I Googled, OK?”
“I’m sure you look incredible,” you could hear the smile in his voice. “Just come out here.”
You sighed.
“Fine.”
You knew you shouldn’t be nervous with Joel and, usually, you weren’t. But this felt a little different. You opened the bathroom door and came into your bedroom, doing a little spin as you did to show him both sides of the outfit. His face shifted from a smile to something almost hungry as he looked you up and down from his spot on the edge of your bed. He checked his watch.
“What?” You frowned.
“Just seein’ how much time we have until Tommy and Maria get here,” he said, looking back at you. “Think if we’re quick and leave that little skirt on…”
You laughed and all but jumped on his lap, kissing him.
You were going on your first double date with Joel, with his brother and sister-in-law of all people. You’d met Tommy and Maria at Sarah’s cookout a few weeks earlier but hadn’t seen them since. You had, however, heard plenty about them since then. Especially after Joel told you that his brother knew about the two of you.
Your eyes had gone wide when he’d told you that.
“Are you sure it was a good idea to tell him quite yet?” You asked. “We haven’t told Sarah and they’re pretty close…”
“Yeah, I didn’t… uh…” Joel awkwardly cupped the back of his neck. “Didn’t exactly… tell him.”
You frowned.
“What do you…”
“Maria… might have heard us in the bathroom at the cookout.”
“What!” You yelped, eyes wide. “Oh my GOD, Joel!”
“It’s fine…”
You groaned and collapsed all the way down onto his couch, burying your face in the arm of it.
“They must think I’m some kind of ridiculous slut!” Your voice was muffled by the cushion. “This is mortifying…”
“It’s really not that bad,” he rubbed your thigh soothingly. “Really. They like you! A lot! And they kept sayin’ they’d never seen me this happy. Honestly, Tommy was just happy to see me with someone I wanted to fuck in a bathroom.”
“Jesus Christ,” you groaned. “Well, it’s been great, Joel, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to change my name and move to Antarctica…”
He laughed and tugged you over until your head was on his shoulder instead of the couch.
“Sounds cold,” he said, kissing the crown of your head. “I’ll have to find a coat.”
If you’d been falling for Joel before, you’d fully fallen for him over the past two weeks, ever since he’d found out everything about your childhood and your dad.
You’d almost expected him to look for an out once it all settled in. That, when all the baggage had been sitting there for long enough for him to take inventory of it all, he’d run.
But he hadn’t. He’d done the opposite. He spent that weekend holed up with you. Making you dinner, holding you close while watching Sharknado, changing the locks on your front door and installing a doorbell camera so you could see if he stopped by. He dropped you off at work Monday morning and picked you up that afternoon, heading straight to a car dealership after handing you a small pile of print outs. You frowned, looking at them.
“What…”
“So I took what I was asking you about cars over the weekend and found some good options for you,” he said. “Four of ‘em are at one dealership so I figured we could start there unless these are really not what you’re lookin’ for…”
You flipped through the pages, all cars that were makes and models you were already thinking about wanting to look at, just tracked down at places around you instead of an abstract thought in your head.
You teared up, a hand covering your mouth.
Joel frowned.
“We don’t have to do this today,” he said. “I don’t mind drivin’ you for a bit, happy to do it if you need a little more time or just aren’t up for it or…”
“No one’s ever done something like this for me,” you dabbed at the corners of your eyes, trying to keep the tears from actually falling and ruining your mascara.
“Told you I’ve got you, Beautiful,” Joel said. “Meant it.”
You ended up buying a car Tuesday, Joel not a fan of how the salesman you talked to at the first dealership seemed incapable of talking directly to you and instead looked at Joel when answering all your questions.
“That’s just how it is,” you shrugged as you headed back to his truck.
“Don’t matter,” Joel said, opening your door for you. “It’s bullshit. We can always come back if we come up empty but you shouldn’t give your money to that jackass.”
The second dealership had a saleswoman who would actually talk to you and not your boyfriend - boyfriend? - and ended up getting you a car with even nicer features than the one your dad had totaled for about the same price. You dropped Joel’s truck at your place and you drove the two of you to a restaurant you’d found on a local food blog, running your hand over the dashboard when at red lights.
“Happy with the car?” Joel asked, smiling almost proudly. It was one of the cars he’d found and printed the information on.
“It’s perfect,” you beamed at him. “Thank you so much for just… everything the past few days. This is the best I’ve ever felt after a visit from my dad.”
You were feeling pretty good on Wednesday when you got a Nest alert on your phone. Your dad was standing at your front door, trying the key he still had. You took a screenshot and texted Joel.
“Guess who,” you wrote. “Glad you changed the locks.”
He replied almost immediately.
“I’m staying over,” he said. “Got his parole officer’s number?”
When your dad came by that night and actually rang the bell, you stayed just out of sight, watching the reflection of what happened in a mirror on your entry way wall as Joel answered the door.
“Oh,” he said when he saw Joel. “I’m sorry, I must have misremembered the apartment…”
“You didn’t,” Joel said, his voice cold. “Know exactly who you are. You’re not welcome here. Come by again and I’m calling the cops and you’d better hope they get their hands on you before I do. She’s blocked your number.” He handed your dad a business card. “If it’s an emergency, you can call me but you’re stayin’ the fuck away from her. You had your chance, you blew it. Now go, before I make you go.”
“I don’t know who the hell you think you are or what my daughter’s told you…”
“I’m her boyfriend,” he snapped. “And she’s told me plenty. Was probably nicer than you deserved about it, too, knowing her. Last chance to leave on your own.”
Your dad was silent for a moment.
“Take care of her?” He said quietly.
“I will,” Joel said, tone softer. “Do a better job of it than you did.”
“Good,” he said. “Tell her bye for me.”
Joel closed the door and the second you could reach him you threw your arms around his neck, pressing your whole body against him. You kissed him, hard and frantic, tugging him back toward your bedroom as you did. You all but ripped his clothes off of him as you stripped down yourself, racing to get him inside you, not really able to calm down until he was.
“Fuck, Beautiful,” he groaned, his hands on your thighs as you straddled his hips, his cock deep inside. “What’s this for?”
“Needed you,” you said, dropping your forehead to his as you panted for breath.
You were sure you loved him then. You weren’t sure how to say it yet but you were sure you felt it.
Which is part of why you were really trying for this double date. You were in love with Joel, you wanted to impress his brother and sister-in-law. The two of you hadn’t really talked about it but, ever since he called himself your boyfriend to your father, that’s what he was. And you liked it that way. You wanted him to want to bring you places.
Including University of Texas football games.
Even though you knew fuck all about college football. You’d basically spent your entire college career studying or working, going to sporting events hadn’t been too high on your to do list.
So you’d done some research, looked up what people wore to things like college football games. You decided to go all out and settled on a denim mini-skirt, a v-neck University of Texas shirt, cowboy boots and little orange longhorn temporary tattoos on your cheeks.
“Wonderin’ if we should just cancel on them,” Joel kissed down your neck to your cleavage. “Look too good, don’t want to share you.”
“Yeah, we’re not canceling on your brother so you can get me naked,” you laughed a little. “But you can get me naked later.”
“Good luck stoppin’ me,” he nipped at your chin.
Your doorbell rang and Joel groaned, dropping his head to your chest.
“Tommy has always had terrible timing,” he sighed.
You laughed and got off his lap.
“C’mon you horn dog,” you teased. “Let’s go watch the sportsball.”
“One thing first,” he reached under your bed and pulled out a straw cowboy hat. “Thought you might need one of these to complete the look.”
You squealed and grabbed the hat, popping it on your head.
“How long has this been under my bed?” You gaped at him.
He smiled a little.
“Snuck it in the other day,” he said. “You’re a Texan now so you gotta have at least one.”
“I love it!” You looked in the mirror and adjusted it a little. “Thank you!”
You tipped it at him.
“How’s it look?”
He smiled.
“Beautiful. Just… Beautiful.”
Tommy’s truck was loaded down with coolers and a grill, your eyes going a little wide at it all.
“How many people are going to be there?” You asked Joel as you got in the back seat of the truck.
“It’s a tailgate,” he shrugged. “Can never tell.”
“Give Tommy an excuse to drink while grilling for a crowd and he’ll take it,” Maria smiled, twisting around in the front seat to actually face you. “Good to see you again!”
“You too!” You smiled, trying to resist the urge to jump out of the car when you thought about the fact that she heard you going down on Joel.
“I’m excited to have another woman around for this whole thing,” she smiled as Tommy started the truck. “They do this once a year and I swear it’s like they pack a whole season’s worth of football stuff into one day.”
“I keep tellin’ ya, get me season tickets and we’ll spread it out,” Tommy teased.
“You think I want to do this every weekend?” Maria asked, incredulous.
Tommy scoffed.
“Who wouldn’t?”
Maria gave you a look as if to say “See what I deal with?” And you smiled as Joel took your hand, lacing his fingers with yours.
You helped get the tailgate set up before settling into a folding camp chair with a beer next to Maria, the two of you watching as Joel and Tommy put meat on the grill, serious looks on their faces as they worked.
“So,” Maria smiled, taking a sip of beer. “You and Joel, huh?”
“Me and Joel,” you nodded, smiling a little back. “Not too insane, is it?”
“I mean, the circumstances might be a little odd but otherwise,” she shrugged. “He likes you.”
“I sure hope so,” you laughed, taking a drink of beer yourself and looking out at the crowd that was gathering to tailgate. The truck across from you was setting up a game of cornhole. Someone a few trucks down had started playing country music at top volume. “I’m a little fucked if he doesn’t at this point.”
She laughed, too.
“Look, I’ll be honest,” she said. “I know Joel better than most sisters-in-law probably care to know their brother-in-law. Him and Tommy… You marry one and you get the other, too. Package deal and all that.”
You nodded slowly, watching the two of them work while talking conspiratorially themselves.
“I’ve never, not once, seen him show this kind of interest in anyone,” she continued. “Honestly, Tommy and I figured he’d be single forever. Maybe a date here and there but… It never really seemed like a priority for him. He’s never even mentioned a woman before let alone brought her around.
“You seem to make him happy. Really happy. And I want to support him. But… I need to know that you’re in this for the long haul. That man doesn’t get attached lightly but he’s attached to you. Hell, he had me trying to interpret your texts a few weeks back, trying to make sure he didn’t fuck up…”
You winced.
“I was dealing with some family stuff,” you said. “I should have just talked to him about it from the get go and…”
“Hey, I get it,” she cut you off. “Not like you’d been seeing each other long, I wouldn’t have told some guy I’d just met anything all that personal, either. I just want to make sure you care, that you know he’s not just screwing around with you. Not that he’s said that but I know the guy. Tommy knows the guy. This is a first and I’d rather not watch his heart get stomped on.”
You looked at Joel. He was laughing at something Tommy said, his smile wide and beautiful. You couldn’t help but smile, too. Just looking at the guy made you happy.
“I’m in it,” you said, still watching him. “Trust me, I’m very in it.”
“Good,” Maria said. You thought you could hear the smile on her voice. “Because I really do need another girl around these two, they’re insufferable.”
Once the grill was going, Joel put his arms around your shoulders and led you around the tailgate. Tommy’s set up, you soon realized, was relatively modest. A few people had come with campers and had big TVs set up outside, chairs on rugs out front watching other games from around the country. The two of you stopped and played ladder ball with someone who worked with Joel, him smiling proudly as he introduced you as “his girlfriend,” making your heart soar. You even ran into one of your copywriters as he chugged a beer shirtless with an orange X painted on his chest.
“Oh shit, hey Boss!” He laughed. “Good to see you! Who’s your friend?”
“This is my boyfriend, Joel,” you smiled. It was the first time you’d gotten to say that. Joel beamed and the two shook hands. “Joel, this is Steve, one of the copywriters at work.”
“Want a beer?” Steve asked. “I’ll give you two if you promise to forget you saw me like this.”
You laughed back.
“Don’t worry, Steve,” you said. “I’ll be doing my best to forget that, anyway.”
“So not all these people are going to the game?” You asked as you walked slowly back toward Tommy’s truck. Joel’s arm was draped over your shoulders again.
“Nope,” Joel said. “People just come out to party. There’ll be a lot of people around the TVs later.”
“Football is weird,” you scrunched your nose and Joel laughed. “But I’ll still watch it with you.”
“Oh really?” He teased.
“Yup,” you smiled up at him. “But only because you’re hot.”
He laughed.
“Better get in the game time while I can, then.”
When you made it back to the truck, food was ready (“Still got a lot to learn about grilling a great burger, Tommy,” Joel teased his brother, who just rolled his eyes) and you and Joel lost at cornhole to Tommy and Maria.
“Do people really play stuff like that all the time?” You gaped at Tommy after he sent another bag directly into the hole on the opposite board. Yours were scattered on the ground around it.
“We’ve got a set in our backyard,” Tommy said after he punched the air in victory. “You and Joel will just have to practice, don’t know if he can handle me kicking his ass.”
By the time the game started, you’d almost forgotten that you’d come there to watch a football game, having so much fun in the parking lot outside that it seemed like the main attraction.
You tried to mimic how other people reacted to the events on the field, not really understanding any of it but having fun watching Joel have fun. It was about half way through the first quarter when Joel leaned down to whisper in your ear.
“You don’t understand any of this, do you?” He asked.
You winced. You’d tried to watch some informational videos on YouTube and read some basic explainers of the game over the past week but it was like it was in a different language, you hadn’t been able to absorb any of it.
“Never had anyone to explain it to me as a kid and never hung out with anyone who was into it as an adult,” you replied. “So no, not a damn thing. But it’s still fun!”
“Here,” he put his hand on your waist and pointed toward the lineup of men on the field. “We’re on offense right now, that means we’re trying to score and we’ve got the ball. It’s second and eight…”
Joel kindly, patiently, walked you through the basics, going back over things when he could tell you were confused or had forgotten something when it happened on the field.
“It’s really OK,” you said after a few minutes. “I don’t want you to spend all the time you’re supposed to be having fun talking to me…”
“Talking to you is fun,” he replied. “I’d rather talk to you all the time than watch any game. And I want you to have fun, too. Which I know you won’t if you don’t understand what’s going on because you feel better when you know things.”
You looked up at him, at his warm smile and soft eyes and the one curl that had broken away from the rest to start curving over his forehead, and you couldn’t help it. For a moment, the feeling overwhelmed you and it just spilled out of you before you could stop it.
“I love you,” you said before you realized you said it.
Then your eyes went wide and your face fell and you scrambled to take it back. It was too soon to be saying this to him, you’d only known the man a few weeks and things were still insanely complicated, you’d barely figured out that you were in a full blown relationship let alone ready to bring something like love into the mix. It didn’t matter that you felt it and that you wanted to say it, it wasn’t the right time yet.
“Shit. Ignore that, please ignore that, pretend I didn’t say anything, I don’t want…”
“I love you, too,” he cut you off, smiling so big his whole face lit up with it.
You just blinked at him for a moment.
“Really?”
“Yeah,” he laughed. “Yeah, I do. I really, really do.”
He tipped your hat up and kissed you, his arm sliding around you to pull you flush against his front. You wrapped your arms around his neck, holding tight to him, never wanting to stop feeling just like this.
“Look!” Maria patted your shoulder urgently. “You’re on the kiss cam!”
You pulled away from Joel just in time to see yourselves on the giant screen and you laughed, going back to kiss him again.
***
“I’m glad you two seem to have figured your shit out,” Tommy had told him while they set up the grill. “She really does seem great.”
“She is,” Joel said, watching you talk with Maria, looking so damn pretty in your little skirt and boots. “Fuck, she’s incredible.”
“Anyone who can actually get you to feel something is a winner in my book,” Tommy replied, hooking up the propane tank. “Not sure what’s thicker, your skull or the space around your heart.”
Joel laughed but he knew his brother had a point. He hadn’t been in a relationship - a real one - in a very long time. It had been even longer since he’d felt anything close to this for anyone. He’d gone from falling in love with you to just being in love with you and it had happened so quickly it was hard for him to even see it at first.
He’d just known it when your father had shown up at your door that day. Joel knew what he was after - some other way to manipulate you, he was sure - and it made his blood boil. He had to consciously stop himself from hitting the man. The only reason he didn’t was because he knew it would hurt you if he did. But he knew he had to protect you, had to be the one standing in between you and the man who’d done nothing but neglect and harm you your entire life.
His whole body burned with it. He wished he could have gone back in time somehow and protected you then, too. Made it so you didn’t have to go through any of it and stand between you and anyone who had ever so much as looked at you wrong. None of them deserved you. Neither did he, for that matter, but he could at least protect you from the worst of them.
He knew he loved you then. He couldn’t conceive of how anyone could look at you and do anything that would willfully hurt you, how anyone could look at you and see anything but one of the greatest things the world had ever let happen.
But he didn’t want to scare you off, so he kept it to himself, instead just doing everything he could to take care of you, get you to spend some time with him.
It turned out, he didn’t need to try that hard. It seemed like you were just as eager to see him as he was to see you.
You texted him over lunch on a day you were working from home, a picture of all the makings for mac and cheese and a BluRay of Jupiter Ascending, a movie Joel had heard was laughably bad and he’d been meaning to watch at some point.
“Your place or mine?” You asked.
Joel smiled.
“Wherever you are, Beautiful, I’ll be there.”
You asked to come to his place so you could actually get out of your house for a bit and you showed up not long after Joel had gotten out of the shower, a pan of macaroni and cheese ready to go in the oven and a grocery bag over your arm with all the fixings for Bloody Marys.
“I. Found. Bacon. Vodka,” your eyes were wide and excited. “It’s going to be amazing!”
You were right, it was amazing. Everything with you was amazing.
Because he loved you.
“You told her yet?” Tommy asked as they say next to each other on the gate of his truck during lunch.
“Told who what?” Joel asked, looking down at his phone for the umpteenth time since his lunch break started. You’d texted him a picture of a rather pathetic looking sandwich.
“This food truck’s a bust,” you said. “Feeling very let down. I require real food. Dinner?”
Joel was about to type out a response when you sent a selfie from what had to be a bathroom stall at your office, your shirt unbuttoned an extra button from what it had been when you’d gone your separate ways that morning.
“In case you needed motivation,” you wrote.
“Tell your girlfriend that you’re in love with her,” Tommy said.
Joel frowned and actually looked up from his phone.
“I didn’t…”
“Don’t need to say it,” Tommy clapped him on the shoulder. “I’m not blind and I might not be a genius but I ain’t that dumb. You’ve got it bad.”
Joel glared at him for a second.
“S’too early,” he muttered. “Don’t wanna scare her off.”
“You’re practically living with this woman,” he said. “She brought steak to your house the other night. Besides the blip, what’s the longest you’ve gone without seeing her since you started dating?”
Joel was happy that, after the mall incident, Tommy was understanding without Joel needing to be too specific about what happened with your father. He’d just told Tommy “It was a tough family thing, makes our shit look like child’s play.” Tommy just said “Damn, poor girl, shit’s rough” and had only ever called it “the blip” from then on.
“Just a work day, really,” Joel said.
“Don’t think it’s too early for shit, man,” Tommy said. “Just don’t fuck it up. And figure out how to tell your kid because I’m shit at keeping secrets.”
Joel sighed and nodded to his brother before texting you back.
“Never need much motivation with you,” he said. “Can’t let you starve on me. Come over, I’ll grill you a burger.”
When you fell asleep naked in his bed that night, he just watched you breathe, wondering how to tell you how he felt and how to tell his daughter that he was head over heels for her best friend.
So when you’d all but blurted it out at him at the game, it was a relief. He’d been terrified it would slip out of him for almost two weeks now. That he’d hand you something, you’d say “thank you” and, instead of “you’re welcome” he’d say “I love you.” That he’d kiss you on the way out the door in the morning and instead of “goodbye” it would be “I love you.” That he’d be looking at your perfect face as you rode him and he’d gasp “I love you” as he came deep inside.
It was a relief to know you felt it, too. It was a relief to say it out loud. It was a relief to feel the sense of security that settled into him at those words, the sense that this wasn’t something that would be easily undone. That this was something he could be safe in feeling, that he could rely on the connection he had with you that had gone from tenuous to vital so fast it made his head spin.
The rest of the game, he couldn’t keep his hands off of you. You were either perched on his leg or standing right in front of him for the rest of the game, his hands on your waist, pressing his lips into your neck and cheek, each kiss just another “I love you” in his mind. He couldn’t even tell you the score by the end of the game, only knowing that UT won because everyone else around them seemed almost as happy as he was.
Joel was eager to say his goodbyes to Tommy and Maria when they dropped the two of you off at your apartment. It’s not like he didn’t always want you - he always wanted you - but it was urgent now, a driving need more than a want.
You, it seemed, were on the same wavelength. The front door was barely closed when you took fistfuls of his shirt and pulled him against you, kissing him deeply as you walked backwards deeper into your home.
He pulled your hat off first, tossing it on your loveseat on the way back to your bedroom. You went from using his shirt to hold him close to tugging it up and over his head as he did the same with yours.
In the bedroom, you turned so he was against the bed as you deftly opened his pants and pushed them and his boxer briefs down and off. You nudged him down onto the bed and looked him in the eyes as you slipped your panties down your legs, leaving on the little miniskirt that Joel had so wanted to fuck you in before the game.
You straddled him, your arms resting on his shoulders, his hands on your back, fingers spread wide to touch as much of you as he could. He slowly, almost reverently, removed your bra, cupping your breasts for a moment before holding onto you again. You aligned your entrance with his cock, the head of him just inside of you.
He held your gaze, his nose brushing yours, breathing the same air you were. He looked deep in your eyes as you started sinking onto him, your breath hitching as you did.
“I love you,” he breathed, mouth so close to yours his lips brushed your own when he spoke.
“Joel,” you managed, your body soft and warm against him as you took him into yourself. “I love you, I…”
You gasped as he bottomed out within you and he clutched onto you, needing to be as close to you as he could possibly be.
The two of you just looked at each other for a moment, your skin on his, his cock buried deep within you.
He realized then that he’d never been inside someone he was in love with before you. He’d tried with Sarah’s mother but her resentment kept any real affection from becoming too deep. Everything before her has been for fun, he hadn’t been looking for anything permanent. No relationship had lasted long enough to actually fall for anyone since.
It was an intense thing, knowing you loved him back while being a part of you. You always felt incredible, better than anything or anyone else he’d ever felt, but it was different now and he never wanted to be anywhere but with you.
You took a deep, shaky breath before rising slowly over him. He could feel every inch of you, the tight grip of every ridge, the wet heat of you holding him perfectly inside. He kissed you as you started to ride him, moaning into your mouth, sinking his fingers into your soft skin.
Your skirt bunched around your hips and you ground your clit against him and he relished it, loving the feeling of you finding your pleasure with his body.
He met you stroke for stroke until you came over him with a whimper, kissing him deeper, pussy gushing over his cock.
Joel moved you below him, settling between your thighs, his body still tight to yours for a moment before he separated from you.
“Joel,” you whimpered, breasts heaving. He slid a hand up your stomach, drinking you in, eyes lingering on the place disappeared into you, your sex swollen and slick.
“Want to see you,” he panted, moving his hands to the inside of your knees, slipping them over your thighs until one thumb found your clit and the other slipped around your hip to your lower back, your sexy little skirt pushed up around your waist now. “Want to see you come for me.”
He started driving into you, pulling back almost reluctantly to thrust back as deep as he could reach, watching it move through your body, the ripple of your skin, the bounce of your breasts, the desperate look on your face as he worked your clit, your channel tightening around him.
“That’s it,” he panted as you ground your hips back against him when he thrust deep. “Are you close, Beautiful? That perfect little pussy about to come for me?”
You nodded and moaned, one of your hands flying to the bed and tangling in the blanket.
“Good,” he said, all but breathless. “Need you to come all over me, need to feel you come, need to watch you come. Just let go baby, just come for me.”
He watched your orgasm take hold half a second before he felt it, your face lost in pleasure, your clit throbbing as he felt you come apart around his cock.
Joel fought to hold his own orgasm off for at least moment, wanting to enjoy your pleasure for as long as he could. But he didn’t last long, thrusting deep and all but collapsing on top of you as the peak of your climax triggered his own.
Once he’d come down from his high enough to be able to think, he rolled onto his side and took you with him, still buried deep in you, kissing you gently as he held your face in his hand.
“I love you, Joel,” you said softly. “I’ve never really said that to anybody but I love you.”
“I love you,” he said, letting the feeling wash over him as he was so impossibly close to you. “I love you so much.”
As he fell asleep in your bed with you in his arms, he wasn’t sure he’d ever meant anything more.
Next Chapter
A/N: AHHHH THEY SAID IT!
I just love these two, they're so cute working through their relationship shit. They're getting there, they really are!
Thank you for being here and for following their story. It's been so fun to share with you! Love you!!
#fanfic#joel miller x female reader#joel miller x reader#joel miller x you#joel miller x oc#smut fic#joel miller smut#new in town
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Boycott!
You know what sucks? That AI on YouTube gets a million views, and many great creators get almost nothing… And the fact that YouTube belongs to Google, which supports fucking Israel
Now that I have your attention:
#gravity falls#palestina#gaza#free gaza#israel#cartoon#cartoonist#palestine#israel is a terrorist state#free palestine#bisexual#toh#the owl house#billford#the book of bill#luz noceda#save the children#save family#gofoundme#youtube#dipper pines#dipper gravity falls#harry potter#the sims 4#sims 4#ts4#simblr#kamala harris#google#fuck corporations
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141 with a famous reader? Actress like a reader who’s a iconic ( known to be the queen of action movies) marvel,dc,desperate housewives etc SHE HAS A BIG SUPERHERO ROLE (wonder woman,scarlet witch,catwoman)
❤️❤️❤️
꧁༺𝙷𝚎𝚢 𝚊𝚗𝚘𝚗𝚢𝚖𝚘𝚞𝚜! 𝙾𝚘𝚑, 𝙸 𝚖𝚊𝚢 𝚎𝚡𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚊 𝚋𝚒𝚝 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚘𝚗𝚎, 𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕 𝚖𝚎 𝚒𝚏 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚠𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚍𝚒𝚏𝚏𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜. ༻꧂
꧁༺𝚆𝚊𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜: 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎 𝙽𝚜𝚏𝚠! ༻꧂
1. Simon “Ghost” Riley.
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Simon hardly ever watches any movies, but the ones he watches are definitely some sort of fighting genre. He loves action movies, but he’ll never admit it.
He also never admits that he has a favourite actor, he’ll always say something like: “that’s stupid. It’s not like it’s realistic or real, why would I obsess over someone who’s just playing a role?”
Little does anyone know that you are his favourite actor.
He purposefully picks the action movies you’re in, and when he’s alone he’ll appreciate your skill in acting.
He’ll always start getting defensive if soap points out the fact that you’re in every movie he picks, so the TaskForce just stay quiet and grin in amusement that he may have a fond liking towards your characters.
He’ll for sure save the movies you’re in to jerk off to later, he doesn’t realise the extent to which you turn him on. He’s never felt like this about any other celebrity before, but he finds you so attractive it’s hard not to get a bulge when he’s watching you.
He’s the type to settle down after a long day, turn the Tv on and lazily touch himself to your action scenes. He has a huge thing for how vicious you look.
If you two were to ever bump into each other, he will be fan-girling so hard.
He won’t show it, but his heart will be pounding as he casually strolls up to you and asks for a picture.
He’ll clear his throat to get your attention and ask you in a very manly tone to get a picture.
If the two of you were together, he’d be the protective type - he’d hate the fame you’re getting. He’s not jealous, just annoyed that many men will also be drooling over you too.
He likes to keep you, not share you, and in public he’ll often show that.
If anyone’s asking for a picture he won’t let go, he’ll keep a hand around your waist and force the fan to get him in the photo too.
Hell purposely start kissing you/ your neck when paparazzi are around. He likes people to know you’re taken.
After a long day of shooting or a fan-signing event, he’ll fuck you for hours on end just to prove you’re his.
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2. Konig.
Is he in the TaskForce or am I being stupid? I searched it up cause I was confused and it said he was a TaskForce 141 operator…so someone correct me if I’m wrong haha.
This man has no shame. He’ll have posters/collectibles of your characters and keep them around his room.
He’s the type to print out pictures of you from google and make his own posters out of them.
He does get a little embarrassed when someone brings up the fact he’s practically in love with you, and he doesn’t necessarily talk to his peers about it.
He finds it more of a quiet hobby. So whenever one of his colleagues steps into his room, he gets very flustered about his obsession.
Is a hard-core movie nerd, so he pleasures himself a lot to your pictures, characters, movie scenes, anything that includes you. His dick looks beat up and down right swollen from how long he spends jerking off to you.
If he was to ever see you in public, he would go feral. He’d be so nervous at first, not knowing how to approach you and visibly beating himself up to man up and go speak to you.
He’ll eventually do it and approach you, he’s very flustered but gets things done.
He’ll chat for ages once he’s comfortable, sometimes over-shares and is down right creepy about how obsessed he is with you.
Konig has a massive ego, so he’ll start to brag about how big of a fan he is, starts to really get into the conversation.
If you two were a couple, he’d have a love-hate relationship.
On one hand, Konig loves the fact you two are together and can show the whole world, but then again, he likes keeping things private between the two of you.
He really hates big crowds and talking to people, so whenever it comes to interviews he’s the most awkward person ever.
Paparazzi wise, you’re actually pretty lucky since he’s a huge guy and nobody really dares to cross a line with him.
He has the most intimidating stare without realising, but to you he’s just a big teddy bear.
He’ll swear at paparazzi in German.
Absolutely loves watching a movie with you in and fucking you raw on the couch as you’re watching said movie.
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3. Captain John price.
He’s not sly or ashamed, he’ll be open about his liking towards you as an actress and a character.
He’s not the type to have any posters, figurines, etc, but this man will have a borderline obsession and has watched every movie you’re in.
He’ll scroll through your social media, sometimes sitting alone at his desk, busy with plans and work when he finds himself working his hand over his twitching cock under the table.
Price would definitely pull a picture of you up on his phone and cum all over the screen.
He likes badass characters, and you being in a lot of actions just does something to him - especially the outfits you wear.
If he caught you out in public, he would be so friendly that anyone would think the two of you are friends.
He’d approach you with no shame, his camera already out like a desperate puppy.
He doesn’t mean to, but invades your personal space a lot, will just hug you for a picture, wrap his arm around your waist, etc without knowing how touchy he’s being.
Tried to get your number ‘jokingly.’
If the two of you were a couple, he’d be devoted. He’d come to your sets, the biggest smile on his face as he watches you work.
On the red carpet etc, he will always have a hand wrapped around your waist - just a simple gesture to show everyone the two of you are a couple.
He doesn’t mind the fame you get, mostly because he’s with you all the time - so he keeps an eye on you.
This is just random - but if you smoke too he’ll blow the smoke into your mouth before kissing you (in public) in front of the cameras.
He’ll appreciate every inch of your body in the bedroom, especially after seeing you on set on the same day. He’ll beg you to take any outfit from the set back home to see you wear it.
This man will go on for hours, he has the most energy during sex.
sometimes when he gets jealous, he’ll take a picture of your nude body and save it just so he can act smug knowing he has it.
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There will be a part 2, for some reason my tumblr isn’t letting me type anymore. >:(.
#call of duty#cod#konig cod#konig headcanons#konig modern warfare#simon riley smut#cod mw ghost#cod mw2#cod x reader#cod x y/n#john soap mactavish#price cod#john price#cod x oc#cod x you#simon riley#simon riley x you#simon riley x reader#konig x y/n#konig x oc#konig x reader#simon ghost x you#soap x y/n#soap x you#soap x reader#soap mw2#price x reader#john price x reader#john price x y/n#price x oc
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Pomodoro tracker!
Need help staying focused? My pomodoro tracker printable helps you tackle tasks in short, focused bursts -- perfect for keeping track of study sessions or work projects.
-> available in red, green, AND in black and white for those that have limited printing capabilities
-> perfect for letter-sized printing with 2 per page for maximum convenience.
-> grab yours now in both PNG and PDF formats on my google drive!
-> new to the pomodoro method? check out these posts:
the pomodoro technique on todoist
the pomodoro technique: mastering productivity one tomato at a time by @pinkishpink
my latest "getting housework done" adhd hack by @jabbage
ideas for 5-minute study breaks at the library by @audiocultures
-> remember: there's no hard rules on how to do pomodoro. if 25:5:30 doesn't work for you, change it up! it's not cheating. its personalizing! personally i do 10:5:20 :)
(if this looks familiar, i think i accidentally deleted the original post T_T)
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Let's call it Fate | Part 7
(A/N) Another reasonable long post. I am proud of myself and I'll get myself a cookie now. Good day.
Pairing: Cardinal Copia x Reader (no Y/N)
Warning: google translate translations, abusive parents (especially mother), arranged marriage, age gap, bullying, talk of grandparents and death of a grandparent, mistreatment of Ghouls
Prologue | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13
You woke up exhausted and confused, questions running through your mind. How did you get to bed last night, you surely couldn’t remember walking back to your room. So if you hadn’t brought yourself here, then who did?
The answer came to you immediately. There was only one person that could have after all. Copia. And you needed to thank him.
One glance at your phone told you that you had missed breakfast. Might as well take your time in that case. So, you got up and took a long, hot shower to get rid of the sore muscles. You even decided to sit down for a few minutes and let the water rain on you as you thought back on the last few days. And no matter where you tried to direct your thoughts, they always came back to the kind Cardinal as a smile spread on your face.
You quickly finished washing up before you shut off the water. Once you and your hair were dry, you went back to your room and put on the habit before grabbing your Latin books. You contemplated leaving them there but at the same time, you wanted to study whenever you got a chance. You also grabbed the book Copia had borrowed from the library for you, in case you grew tired of studying. And then you were on your way.
Your first stop was the greenhouse. Papa Primo had allowed you to grab fruits from there whenever you felt hungry, and since you missed breakfast, you just wanted to have a little something to eat while you waited for lunch.
“Ah, buongiorno. Sleep well?”
You smiled at the Papa as you sat your bag down on the chair you usually occupied, before grabbing a basket and heading to the back.
“I did. A little too well, if I’m honest. Although, I’m still sore from yesterday.”
Papa Primo chuckled, watching you plug some berries.
“I told you to leave the heavy lifting to the Ghouls. There’s a reason they are forte.”
You shrugged with your back still turned toward the old man.
“It was quicker that way. Plus it was fun, so I didn’t mind.”
“But now you do.”
You returned with a full basket and smiled at him.
“Yeah, now I do.”
Papa Primo chuckled and watched as you put half of the fruits you just harvested into a second basket, before placing the basket in front of him.
“Ah, for me, tesoro? Grazie.”
You nodded and pressed a quick kiss to the man’s forehead, before walking to the door.
“Eat them, and stay hydrated, yeah? I’ll bring you some lunch later.”
Papa Primo nodded and waved as you left the greenhouse and made your way back to the main building. There you walked straight to the library and to your little nook. As you were about to throw your stuff onto the table, you noticed a small stack of papers with a little note on top. You picked it up, smiling as you read it.
“Buongiorno cara, under this note you will find some maps of the Ministry, I hope they can help you find your way around here. If you want some company while you study, find me in my office, I marked it on the map. Con amore, Copia.”
You gently put the note down, before picking up the papers and looking at the map. You expected something printed out but you quickly realized that it was hand-drawn. With a grin, you picked the note back up, before studying the maps to figure out how to get to Copia’s office. Once you were somewhat sure that you knew the way, you walked out of the library and toward your goal.
Even with the map it took you quite a while to reach the office. By then, it was almost time for lunch. Still, you knocked on the door and waited for permission to enter. As soon as you heard the faint voice of Copia, you gently opened the door and stepped inside.
“Ah, cara. I see you found my note.”
You smiled and nodded, before closing the door and stepping further into the room. It looked more like an office than what Papa Terzo had, but it still felt cozy. Copia quickly finished writing something, before shuffling the papers on the desk around, until one half was free.
“Please, make yourself comfortable.”
He got to his feet and grabbed an extra chair, placing it beside his own. You quickly rushed forward, waving your hands.
“Please, I don’t want to impose, you surely need your space to work.”
“Nonsense, it’s perfectly fine. Come.”
As he insisted, you made your way over to the desk and put your back down, before pulling your books out. You also placed the basket of fruits on the table and smiled at the Cardinal, saying that you could share those. He nodded and sat back down with a smile. After a few moments of grabbing everything you needed, you put your back onto the ground and sat down as well.
The two of you worked in silence for a while, occasionally snacking on the fruits. As you were writing index cards with vocabulary, you absentmindedly reached out towards the basket, jumping slightly as your hand bumped into Copia’s. You looked up at him and he smiled as he took hold of your hand, squeezing it before gently placing it back down. But as soon as he started releasing it, you reached back for his, intertwining your fingers, before resting your hand on the desk.
His eyes widened before the skin around them crinkled as he smiled at you.
You stayed that way until a soft bell chimed through the Ministry, signaling that it was time for lunch. With a heavy sigh, Copia put his pen down and leaned back in his chair, pulling your intertwined hands into his lap.
“Can I ask you something?”
Copia looked at you, smiling through his obvious exhaustion.
“Naturalmente.”
“Why are you working on a Saturday?”
A deep chuckle sounded from his chest as he closed his eyes for a few moments, leaning his head back. He squeezed your hand tightly before looking back at you.
“It’s things that didn’t get done during the week. And since my fratello is busy enjoying his weekend, and I don’t have anything better to do, I thought I might as well.”
“Hm…let’s make a deal.”
He looked at you, curiosity sparking in his eyes.
“What kind of deal?”
“I'll help you with the paperwork after lunch and if we get it done today, you will join me tomorrow. I’m having a picnic with the Ghouls and want to explore the Ministry a bit more. Sounds like more fun if I’m not alone.”
Copia chuckled and nodded, squeezing your hand before answering.
“Okay, deal.”
You grin up at him and get to your feet, pulling him alone.
“Come on, I have a lunch date.”
With your hand still in his, you walked to the door, gently dragging Copia along with you. But he stopped once you mentioned a date.
“Wait, with whom?”
You turned around, still grinning, knowing that you could rile him up like that.
“Your brother. Papa Primo.”
He visibly relaxed, the frown softening once his eyes met yours.
“Well, we better get you down there then. Mind if I join you two?”
“Hm… I think I can allow it this once.”
You giggled but as soon as you stepped out of the office, reality came crashing down and you slowly let go of Copia’s hand. The bright grin faded as you were reminded of why you were here and what would happen in just a few weeks. A shiver ran through you at the thought and everything inside you screamed to run back into the office and forget about everything, at least for a few more hours. But instead, you forced your feet to take one step after the other.
“Cara, are you alright?”
You turned to look at Copia, his hand was still hanging in mid-air, where you had let it go and his face was pulled into a frown. He looked concerned as he watched you.
“Ye-yeah…just…forgot all my problems for a bit and they came rushing back.”
Within a second, Copia was right in front of you, quickly wrapping you up in his arms and pulling you against him. Without hesitation, you returned the hug, hiding your face in his cassock as he gently stroked you back.
“It will be alright, cara.”
You nodded and after a few more moments gently pushed away from him.
“Let’s get lunch.”
Copia nodded, a sad smile on his face as he placed his hand on the small of your back, leading you to the mess hall.
Translations: buongiorno...good morning forte...strong tesoro...little treasure/darling Garzie...thank you Buongiorno cara...Good morning my dear Con amore...with love cara...dear Naturalmente...of course
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Ghost Masterlist
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