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clvmtines · 3 years ago

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welcome aboard, clementine martinez, student #2. we are excited to set sail with you ! has anyone told you that you look like alexa demie? according to our records, you hail from florida, usa, prefer she / her pronouns, are a cis woman, and are here to study creative writing. we also see you received a spot on the ss university because of your online lottery win — we won’t tell anyone. during your first few weeks here, other students said you were + charming, + free-spirited, but also - restive. it sounds like you spend most of your time at the billiards room. upon checking your luggage, we noticed you packed a casino chip carried around for luck from home. hopefully your roommates don’t steal it!

hi friends! i’m very excited to be here. i’m jay (est, she/her) n i used to play astrid nyland a few months ago if anyone remembers bt i had to leave for personal reasons. i’m so glad to be back now that i hve life sorted and some free time for summer break <3 read on for some details abt this new muse of mine, clementine.

01. biography !

so ! clementine was born in florida. & yes, her real name is clementine. her mom thot it was the cutest name idea ever. clementine mostly goes by clem. she comes from the town [redacted] in florida bcoz i am too lazy to look up a specific town <3 but alas ! it was swampy and humid and she lived in a trailer park.

her parents got knocked up at nineteen. clem was born nine months after a particularly wild 1999 fourth of july. her birthday is march 26th and she’s an aries.

(TW: addiction, child injury) clem’s dad was a gambling addict and petty criminal—he wld steal credit cards n whatnot. he wld gamble away diaper money n it would cause constant fighting until her dad finally left. her mom took this very hard n began drinking a bit too often, leaving clem to to make cereal for dinner n fend for herself. once clem tried to make hot dogs on the stove and spilled boiling water on herself. got a p bad burn on her arm/shoulder and still has a big scar.

the soundtrack of her childhood was cicadas buzzing and stray dogs barking. the sizzle and pop of natty light cans. turning up her ipod to max volume to drown out the sounds of her mother fighting with her new boyfriend.

throughout her upbringing, clem’s dad was always in and out of the picture. he’d blow into town when he hit it big. he’d take her on these little “adventures” like staying in a motel 6 n renting movies at block buster n ordering good pizza nt the dominos shit she ate with her mom lol. ofc he was charging it all to someone’s stolen credit card. he’d always promise to, like, take clem away. n clem was a daddy’s girl so she believed him. the last time it happened was her h.s. graduation. her mom didn’t show ( "overslept” after a bender ) but her dad did and surprised her n said everything wld be different. bt then he bailed on their plans for the next day n when she called his cell, the number was disconnected. tht was the defining “i’m done” moment. clem promised to never be disappointed by her father again.

(TW: racism) her mother has mexican ancestry and clem’s always been called her twin. but clem was raised in a predominately white area and honestly ?? it was really hard without her even realizing it. she’s still unpacking a lot of things today abt her youth that jst weren’t okay bt she thought were normal. like microaggressions, stereotypes, being fetishized by boys in high school. gross shit.

as a kid, clem was rumored to be really poor bc she wore tattered clothes n got free lunch at school. once she invited a friend to her house & the next day they told everyone it’s in a trailer park. that reputation—the “trailer park girl”—was really hard to shake. and clem got almost desperate to shake it. she was endlessly trying to set her old self on fire and emerge from the ashes like a phoenix.

eventually clem became more “popular”. in school she was, like, a straight b student. very average although super creative and quick-thinking. she always had street smarts. problem solving skills. independence. more of, like, practical intelligence as opposed to book smarts because academia bores her tbh. she was like why am i reading these overrated boring books by dead white men or learning abt polynomials when i know nothing abt how to pay a mortage or do taxes. like...she saw the american education system as bullshit and put in modest effort because she didn’t believe it deserved her sweat and tears.

however, she entered the online lottery for the seas program on a whim and got in. so she’s studying creative writing now.

02. personality !

first thing you shld know abt clem is that she’s a compulsive liar essentially��she tells various stories to make her life seem better than what it was. to one person, she’s an heiress to a real estate company and grew up wealthy. to the next she was raised by nomadic hippies. some of her lies are small fibs while others are grandiose tales. she rarely talks about her actual upbringing. she hates talking abt her family or the v real trauma of growing up in a household where both parents struggled w/ addiction; the uncertainty, the broken promises, the fact that she had to grow up so soon and deal w/ so much. it wasn’t fair, and if she thinks about it too much, she feels this anger. anger at the universe. anger at her circumstances. she doesn’t know where to put this anger. she doesn’t know how to shrink it. so she avoids it.

despite her rough upbringing, though, clem is actually really sweet and kind. she’s adventurous, fun-loving, free-spirited, and bold.

bt ! she can also be closed-off, competitive and restive.

she’s seemingly tight with everyone? like she’s jst that girl who can get along with anyone tbh.

in her spare time you can catch her tanning by the pool, hanging at the bar, playing pool ( which she learned from her dad ), and socializing. she’ll never say no to hanging out with people.

she learned a lot from her little “adventures” with her dad, who was very good at conning others and often involved her in his dumb little scams. clem is suuuper good at pulling the ‘im baby 🥺’ card to get what she wants.

she can be a little selfish, because she grew up looking out for herself.

stubborn and dogmatic as hell !!!

she doesn’t do too many relationships but when she does fall, i imagine she falls hard and fast. she refuses to be made a fool of, tho. when she gets vulnerable she flashes back to being a kid, waiting all day for her dad to show up only to have him bail on her. again. she hates that feeling. so if she, like, senses a shift in someone’s energy she’ll b like, “i’ll break up with u before u can do it to me” and the person wasn’t even tryna dump her lmao.

has a lot of sex. too much ?? sex?? mayb. but she’s v sex positive.

her personal style is v late 90s. hair clips, big scrunchies, neon, fur trim, crop and tube tops, hoop earrings, chokers, patterns, platform shoes, biodegradable glitter cuz it’s good fr the earth *winks*. clothes from o-mighty.......actually jst google o mighty, pull up the images and That is clem. she dresses like a bratz doll. she’s dedicated to the aesthetic.

03. headcanons !

her item brought from home is a hot pink poker chip from a casino. her dad gave it to her. he said it reminded him of her because of the color; he got it during one of his winning streaks and said it was lucky. she has a complicated relationship w/ her dad n doesn’t even speak to him anymore, bt she will never go anywhere without it.

she’s a smol bean—only 5′4

an astrology girl and she reads palms ! she absolutely makes astrology tik toks that people only watch because she’s hot. her flirting technique is to ask you to read your palm.

she doesn’t typically drink to get drunk. but she does love a good sugary cocktail. to her, a drink is like an accessory. a blue fishbowl by the pool, a jack and coke as she stands around a bar. usually she'll nurse the same beverage for a while. if you see her wasted it usually means she’s going thru it emotionally lol. the one thing she does do is drugs tho

pretty much listens to exclusively female artists.

a bit of an activist. environmentalism, feminism and the like, she’s v outspoken. vegan for ethical reasons (TW: drugs) bt still does cocaine. she wears shirts with ‘my pussy my choice’ bedazzled on the front.

loves to rollerblade ! back home she didn’t have a car so she’d bike or rollerblade. now she still has her blades and she’ll use them when the ship docks.

03. wanted connections !

Friends, bffs, ride or dies, friends who are like siblings to her, maybe a friend with an unrequited crush on either side ??

an ex she dumped/cheated on/otherwise self sabotaged their relationship because she was afraid of vulnerability.

an ex friend who realized she lies a lot abt herself n felt betrayed. OH ! ESP if they opened up to her on many occasions abt intimate, personal stuff. imagine the betrayal they felt when they found that everything they thought they knew abt clem is a lie.

someone who she actually opens up to. a confidant. or, maybe, like, a stranger she drunkenly spilled her soul to and now she avoids them like the plague.

a rival. clem can be competitive.

her drug dealer

someone she knows she shouldn’t hook up with and… does it anyways. like a friend’s ex or smthing. spicy <3

i welcome anything !

#seasintro #addiction tw #alcohol tw #drugs tw

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prorevenge · 4 years ago

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A stranger scammed me out of $300 online. I tracked him down, called his dad's work phone, and got my money back.

Long post, TL;DR below. Early last year I was deep in depression, spending the Spring in my room (I work in a seasonal industry which pays just enough to live on during the off months.)

All I did was play video games all day which led to me getting into game marketplace sites and planning on starting a side hustle selling in game items and accounts in MMos. I was brand new to the "industry" and didn't have contacts to learn from, so I just went for it and posted my first listing. I got a few hits back early and found an interested "buyer" (I'll refer to him later as C) who told me he was ready to purchase.

The way these transactions are supposed to go is this: A reputable middleman (There were several known MM in the community that I joined) takes in the product and the payment, verifies both, then distributes both ways after taking a cut for their services. This circumvents the "you first" prolem where you have to trust solely in the other guy to not scam you. -Well.. They impersonated a middleman well enough to fool me. I admit that it was 100% on me, I didn't know what I was doing. I just wanted to start selling so bad and I was glad to see quick hits on my first listing.

So, the "middleman" (To this day I don't know if there was a 3rd person acting as middleman or if it was C all along) takes the buyer's money, then the product which was a high ranked account in a popular competitve game. Suddenly, the MM says there was a problem with the payment and it needs to be redone.

At this point I know game's over and I just got scammed, but I went along with it as a sad parting gift to my first "sale." I message C and asked him how this was going to go. He told me he'll just direct paypal me the $300 now and apologized, which didn't make sense to me (you already scammed me, why haven't you blocked me yet?) I gave him my paypal email.

Conversation goes like this: C- "Sent." Me- "repeats my email same email correct?" C- "F%@& I sent it to the wrong email. I'll call paypal." Me- 3 minutes later "Are you going to send me $300 or no?" C- "I only had $450 in my paypal account, they should be able to refund me over the phone." Me- 5 minutes later "Okay. Progress?" C- "On the phone with them." Me 10 minutes of silence later- ":D" Then he goes offline. I call the MM several times but he's standoffish and won't pick up saying "something something privacy.. you arent giving me a reason to pick up the call." It's clear he's not being real with me.

I don't know what to do at this point as I've never encountered a sudden loss of hard work like that. I'm not a drinker at all but that night when faced with that emptiness while trying to get out of depression, I hit the bottle hard.

The next day I woke up naked on my bathroom floor in the pitch black and sheepishly checked my PC to see if it really happened. Without any hope at all I started googling this kid's two usernames that I knew of. I scanned the internet for every site that had an account with the same username that he used, but only found more scam reports (yep, I wasn't his first victim.) So I gave up.

A week later I came back and did it all over again, but this time I thought to check his discord profile to see if he had any other profiles linked to it (steam, twitch, etc.) and the genius did. I checked his steam profile and wrote down each of his past usernames that looked unique and wouldn't pull a million results.

After hours of scanning each one, I had his name, age (teenager,) city, email, skype, knew he went to chess tournaments as a kid, liked neopets, and found a youtube channel with his class project videos on it. It still wasn't enough though. All the information got me was another two contact methods, and I didn't want to start harassing him.

He ghosted me and emailing him wasn't going to change that. If I was going to get my money back, I needed to contact his parents and I knew this all along. In a last ditch effort I googled his emails again, found his google+ profile, and saw that he had a public photo library (which was discontinued by google very shortly after all this happened.) It had 1 picture. A perfect view of his house, from the street. Street number in view. After some searching without finding much I clicked "More info" on the picture and the the geo-tagged coordinates attatched to the picture appeared.

So now I have the address which I google along with the last name, which leads to me getting the first & last names of both parents. I pop that into trusty whitepages and have everything I need to spring my plan into action. While all this was going on I was updating my friend who lives in the same area as C. He asked if I wanted him to call since he had the same area code. It lined up perfectly so I agreed.

At this point I realize it's March 30th, just two days before April fools and C could probably play this off as some elaborate joke played by his friends so I call my friend off. It was so hard to wait, but we did and we waited long enough that it couldn't be looked at as a joke at all.

Two weeks later in a discord call I give my friend the green light and he calls phone #1. The cell. After a little ringing it cuts to voicemail and we decide to try phone #2, the work phone. This time the phone rang for significantly longer but also cut to voicemail and the message before the beep confirmed we had the right dad. My friend leaves a message saying "Hello Mr. ______, this is _ ______ with (marketplace name's) collection department. We currently have multiple fradulent activity cases open with your son C, totalling x thousands of dollars (I added up all the reports against him which were posted on the site and it totalled thousands, even talked to a couple people who he targeted.) At the moment we're reviewing the most recent case which involved a $300 transaction. If you could please, get back to us between 9am-10pm to resolve these cases. Thank you" All that was paraprased but that was his message.

He was very professional and seemed legit, and even though the dad might listen to it and ignore it we didn't think that was going to happen. It's worth noting that they live in a nice area of a nice state, so there was less of a chance that this would be a financial burden and the parents would likely just want to clear this up.

Two days later, while playing video games (yeah I had a problem.) I get a contact request notification. MY BOY C!

He tells me that he's a good person and he wants to give the account back. I check it and he played 10 games and lost each one which deranked and devalued the account (at this point I pretty much knew his parents were standing over his shoulder watching everything that was said. I could've even been speaking to them directly.) So I told him the account devalued, and I either want what he stole from me (the account at a higher rank) or I want $300. He told me he'll give me the account AND $300 (Parents coming through in the clutch!)

We went through a lot of hoops, trying paypal which he couldn't get to work, a few others and finally got google pay to work after troubleshooting stupid problems which I attriubted to him stalling. It was clear that they were scared of me since I got their info (and regularly called him by his first name throughout the convo as a power move lol) but I assured them I wasn't a bad person and told them to be extra safe of what you upload, especially if you're trying to scam people because when money is involved bad things can happen (playing into his parents who were surely reading it.) I explained the public Google+ upload of their clear to see geo-tagged house which I'm sure his they weren't happy about.

After he sent the money he asked for confirmation that I received it. I confirmed saying "YOU F** DID IT! SO PROUD OF YOU, C!" and he immediately went offline. I danced up and down the hallway and it was probably embarrasingly bad but I didn't care. I don't think the smile was gone from my face for an hour. It was a month long process and with the help of my friend the money was back. I haven't seen my friend in person since then, but when I do I owe him a top notch steak. He refused when I sent him $ online.

Instead of trying to resell the account and start back up in the marketplace I abandoned it all and went another way. I'm currently training for the military and in a much better place, but still have a long way to go.

A lot was left out of this story but it was a long one. I have screenshots of our conversations and I surely won't ever forget it.

TL;DR - I tried selling a video game account to see if I could make a new side hustle and got scammed since I was dumb, inexperienced and decided to trust the internet. I got scammed and took it hard but the scammer left too much of his info public and after a little bit of elbow grease I was able to obtain his & his parent's info and left his dad a voicemail. Two days later the scammer contacted me and gave me the money and the account back, apologizing. I learned from it.

(source) story by (/u/dstrezzd)

#prorevenge #by /u/dstrezzd #pro revenge #revenge stories #pro revenge stories #pro #revenge #last10

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lastsonlost · 4 years ago

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Oh my God Elon said something we don't agree with. God I hope Apple and Starbucks disagrees with you too.

Owning a Tesla, the luxurious electric car, is a major liberal status symbol. It signals nothing more than good taste — the perfect balance of wealth with care for fossil fuels. But the man behind the brand is crafting a very different persona online that may now prove to be a challenge for his fans.

Elon Musk, the bombastic head of Tesla and SpaceX, exhorted his 34 million Twitter followers on Sunday to “take the red pill.” The comment was quickly embraced by his followers, including Ivanka Trump, President Trump’s elder daughter, who announced that she had taken the pill already.

The exchange referred to a scene from “The Matrix,” the 1999 science fiction action film. But the meaning of “red pill,” and the idea of taking it, have since percolated in online forums and become a deeply political metaphor. And with Mr. Musk and Ms. Trump, the phrase is now lodged more fully into the mainstream.

So Tesla owners are having to grapple with a car that carries a few new connotations.

“Honestly, Musk is becoming a liability and the Tesla board needs to seriously consider ousting him,” wrote Markos Moulitsas, author of “The Resistance Handbook: 45 Ways to Fight Trump.” “And I say that as a proud owner of a Tesla and a SpaceX fanatic who truly appreciates what he’s built.”

So what is the red pill?

[ I hope your fuckings Tesla explodes. You don't have to be in its but you should be forced to walk everywhere.]

In “The Matrix,” the movie’s hero, Neo, played by Keanu Reeves, is given the option to take a pill that lets him see the truth.

The world he thinks is real turns out to be an entertaining lie; his body is actually trapped in a farm where people are being used as human batteries. Taking the blue pill would let him return to living in the ignorant but blissful lie, while taking the red pill would launch him into an arduous journey through a brutal but fulfilling reality.

The idea of taking the red pill later grew to mean waking up to society’s grand lies. It was embraced by the right, especially by members of its youngest cohort who organized and spent their time in online forums like Reddit and 4chan.

The truth to be woken up to varied, but it ended up usually being about gender. To be red-pilled meant you discovered that feminism was a scam that ruined the lives of boys and girls. In this view, for a male to refuse the red pill was to be weak.

Red Pill forums were often filled with deeply misogynistic and often racist diatribes. The more extreme elements splintered into groups like involuntary celibates (“incels”) or male separatists (Men Going Their Own Way, or MGTOWs). Conferences like the 21 Convention and its sister convention, Make Women Great Again, sprang up to gather red-pilled men. Being red-pilled became a sort of umbrella term for all of it.

As these conversations seeped into the mainstream, pulled along by a host of other internet language from message boards to establishment Republican conversations on sites like Breitbart, the meaning broadened and got watered down. To be red-pilled can now mean being broadly skeptical of experts, to be distrustful of the mainstream press or to see hypocrisy in social liberalism.

What’s going on with Elon Musk?

Mr. Musk has been pretty wild online for years now, which has made him a major internet celebrity with devoted fans who call themselves Musketeers. There are fan pages like Musk Memes with nearly 100,000 followers, and a Reddit page with 200,000 members in constant, extremely active conversation.

Most recently, Mr. Musk has been a prominent skeptic online of the coronavirus, calling the response to it a “panic” and “dumb” and wrongly predicting close to zero new cases by the end of April. As of Tuesday, there were more than 90,000 deaths from the virus and more than 1.5 million cases in the United States alone.

The night before Tesla’s earnings were released last month, Mr. Musk tweeted an anti-lockdown rallying cry: “FREE AMERICA NOW.” He had a showdown with local lawmakers, threatening to move Tesla headquarters out of California and deciding to reopen a Tesla factory in Fremont, Calif., despite the local county’s restrictions to prevent the virus from spreading.

When State Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez objected on May 9 with an obscene tweet, Mr. Musk responded, “Message received.”

Defending his reopening of the Tesla factory, Mr. Musk wrote on Twitter that he would be on the factory floor and offered himself up to authorities. “I will be on the line with everyone else,” he posted on May 11. “If anyone is arrested, I ask that it only be me.”

This month, he and his girlfriend, Claire Boucher, the musician known as Grimes, had a child and named him X Æ A-12. And Mr. Musk announced that Tesla shares were too high and that he was selling almost all his possessions to the point of owning no house.

“We have a phrase, it’s E.M.M. — Elon Moves Markets,” said Bill Selesky, an analyst at Argus Research who tracks how Mr. Musk’s messages impact Tesla’s stock price. “People want to listen to him no matter what he says. He tends to be thought of as a great visionary.”

Mr. Selesky said even Mr. Musk’s detractors parsed every tweet and utterance. “Plus, if you have a Tesla, nobody can ever complain about you because you’re good for society,” he added.

This leads back to Mr. Musk’s message on Sunday, telling his followers to take the red pill.

Do ‘The Matrix’ creators like this?

No. Lilly Wachowski, a “Matrix” co-creator, told Mr. Musk and Ms. Trump in colorful language on Twitter that they could take a hike.

Is ‘red pill’ a Silicon Valley thing?

To some extent.

There has long been a strain of men’s rights activism in Silicon Valley, exemplified by James Damore, a former Google engineer who was fired after writing a memo arguing that the reason there are fewer female engineers is biological differences rather than discrimination.

Mr. Damore became a folk hero for a simmering movement in the technology industry of people who thought the efforts toward 50/50 representation at tech companies were absurd. Cassie Jaye, who calls herself a former feminist, made a 2016 documentary about the Red Pill community and said it had flourished in the tech world.

But the more common phrase in Silicon Valley to signal contrarian thinking is “narrative violation,” which is often used to describe an event that cuts against the mainstream media’s consensus on a topic. The idea is that there is a story being told about the world and how it works, but that the story is too simplistic to be entirely true and an event occasionally pops up to remind people of that.

Why does any of this matter?

Few products today are as deeply entwined with a person’s brand as Tesla is with Mr. Musk, and so his comments can feel personal for Tesla drivers.

“As a Tesla owner, a 47-year-old male recovering from Covid-19, and someone very concerned simultaneously about the environment, the economy, my kids’ and my parents’ future, this ain’t great,” said Jeff Guilfoyle, a product manager at FireEye in San Diego. “This disease is no joke, and the long-term health impacts are unknown for survivors.”

Many have implored Mr. Musk online to stop.

Raja Sohail Abbas, the chief executive of an outpatient psychiatric clinic in Allentown, Pa., wrote: “I am a Tesla owner and love the company. You have to stop being an idiot about this.”

“Tesla owner and Fan here, but this was a disappointing tweet despite the frustrations of and holdups,” added Alex Goodchild, a D.J. in Brooklyn. “Words are weapons especially when used during situations like the one we’re currently experiencing. You sound just like Trump in this tweet.”

The debate has riven the Tesla community.

“The last two months, there’s been this polarization in the Elon Musk fan club,” said Paula Timothy-Mellon, a technology consultant who moderates that LinkedIn-based fan club, which has 22,000 members. “There are those who are believers in these California guidelines and there are those in favor of his push to re-open Tesla.”

Many have implored Mr. Musk online to stop.

Raja Sohail Abbas, the chief executive of an outpatient psychiatric clinic in Allentown, Pa., wrote: “I am a Tesla owner and love the company. You have to stop being an idiot about this.”

The debate has riven the Tesla community.

Driving a Tesla often carries great symbolism for the owner (and observers).

“If you own a Tesla, you feel you are directly connected to Elon Musk and people think that Tesla owners are directly connected to the politics of the C.E.O.,” said Sam Kelly, a Tesla owner and investor based in Spain who posts under the name SamTalksTesla.

He added that he did not think the red pill comment meant any big new political awakening from Mr. Musk.

Asked to explain his thinking, Mr. Musk pasted an image of the Urban Dictionary definition of red pill in an email. It read:

“‘Red pill’ has become a popular phrase among cyberculture and signifies a free-thinking attitude, and a waking up from a ‘normal’ life of sloth and ignorance. Red pills prefer the truth, no matter how gritty and painful it may be.”

Seriously get a refund, buy a prius and

GET THE FUCKS OVER IT!

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script-a-world · 5 years ago

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hello. i want to write a story set in a very religious place. like fanatic level of religious. in my mind, this place is ruled by what the church says but has a "cover" figure to "connect" with the people. the people of this place are devoted to their religion, meaning they know passages, go to mass, and shun those who don't support it. here is my question: how does one go about creating a religion that feels real? what do i need to take into consideration (i'm not religious myself).

Mod Miri Note: At the same time this came in we also received from the google form the question “How do I world build a religion?” I can’t confirm they’re the same anon, but we’re combining them for the answer.

Brainstormed: You seem to have a very… narrow perception of religion? If you aren’t religious yourself and you’re (presumably) from a Western culture, it makes sense that the Christian church and more specifically Catholicism are your go-to images of hyperreligion. Saying “mass” and “church” and “passages” kind of gives away the fact that you’re trying to base your religion off of at least your idea of an Abrahamic religion, but I’d ask you to reconsider. Right now it sounds like you’re trying to create a negative critique of these religions, and even if that is what you’re going for, you need to do a lot of research on their theology, history, and practices before you can do so with any competence.

I’d suggest doing some basic research on types of religions, like animism, pantheism, polytheism, general superstition, etc. There are plenty of spiritual worldviews that you might consider way over the top, but whose believers find it more bizarre when people don’t follow their teachings. Fanatics are never fanatics in their own mind, and especially among their own people, but also… fanatic might be a relative term. If you’re approaching this from a nonreligious background, then you might consider X-amount of religion in one’s lifestyle to be fanatic-level. Whereas a person who actively practices religion would consider X-amount to be perfectly normal, and only folks who take it to XX-amount plus some shadier practices are the true fanatics.

Remember, religions start because people want to make sense of the world. There is a deeper feeling of wonder and personhood and power, both within a human being and in the whole world around us, that drives spirituality and generates superstition. Religion, at least to start, is beneficial to people, otherwise no one but sadists would follow its teachings. Now, like anything else, religion can devolve into a means of power hoarding and control of a populace, but only because of the people in charge getting greedy. The vast majority of religions I’ve studied have had radical, freeing, empowering teachings applicable to everybody when they first sprang up, and only later did adherents twist those teachings into societal oppression. If there is no satisfaction or benefit in your religion, there won’t exactly be any incentive for people to follow it so closely, aside from whatever negative consequences occur for those who fall away. And negative consequences aren’t often enough to keep people in a religion. If following religion is more painful than the consequences of leaving it, plenty of people will jump ship.

Religion can also show up in every single part of life. According to Wikipedia:

A religious experience (sometimes known as a spiritual experience, sacred experience, or mystical experience) is a subjective experience which is interpreted within a religious framework. The concept originated in the 19th century, as a defense against the growing rationalism of Western society. William James popularised the concept.

You look up and see a cloud, a spiritual person sees a portent, or a spirit, or a castle where the gods live. You take a break from work for a minute, a spiritual person now has time to mutter a prayer, or observe the mood of the world, or dedicate their work to their god. A person doesn’t have to be anywhere near a fanatic to have their religion be in every part of their life. Especially if they adhere to a more lax spirituality or superstitious worldview instead of an organized religion, the central spiritual experience of religious belief alters the perception of self and surroundings. It isn’t only a set of rules to follow.

It can even help areas of society that modern Western society considers nonreligious! Historically, medicine has always come under religion. Witch doctors, medicine men, witchcraft, even the hygiene laws laid out in the Christian Bible. Physical health has often been considered a reflection of spiritual health, which, in a way, is true! The placebo effect means tending to one’s mental and emotional health with the reassurance of religion will improve one’s physical health as well. Not only that, but the power of a “spiritual experience”, regardless of if you believe the supernatural is real, can cause religious ecstacy, something you might perceive as a serious psychological problem but those who experience it consider to be a deep form of spiritual expression to be treasured and sought after. The spread and preservation of information is also often aided by religion, even though that can change should those in power want to change history or obscure truth for their own reasons. Just look at the history of the printing press and how that was driven by the need for Bibles. Many cultures, most famously Australian Aboriginal peoples, have oral histories thousands of years long that tie in closely to their spirituality.

You also might be confusing religion with cults. If you think all religion is predatory, playing on people’s weaknesses and fears in order to coerce them into a miserable lifestyle of following strict laws and living under control of those in power, you definitely have conflated “religion” and “cult”. If you’d like to worldbuild a cult, go ahead! It’s likely to be smaller and less acceptable than an established organized religion, not very transparent to the outside world nor its members, and have a spirituality that is in fact just a veneer over gaining power, instead of genuine belief and devotion, and may in fact require people to murder or commit suicide. Just look at Scientology, or these, or even Jared Leto, and a more in-depth look from this organization covering many different kinds of cults.

On a more worldbuildy note, are those who practice this religion correct? Does their god(s) exist? Is the supernatural real? If yes, then are they really fanatics if they’ve been right all along? Even if they’re incorrect, the dedication and deep-held beliefs of religious people shouldn’t be mocked wholesale, in my opinion. Make sure to keep some genuine three-dimensional development for characters who are part of this religion, or include other religions with different practices, or the only thing you’ll accomplish is “waaaa religion bad believers dumb”. And if that is the story you want to write, feel free, but I can’t help you there.

Feral: What makes a religion feel real? Sincere faith.

Specifically among the leaders. I mean, sure, those lemming-like peasants who actually believe that superstitious nonsense will have sincere faith, but honestly? There is going to be a higher percentage of people faking it among the masses than among the clergy. Clergy members are generally required to go through rigorous studies and often take vows that can cause great discomfort. I am sure there are those who did it for the power - there are in atheist organizations as well, humans can be crap - but if you actually read the writings of important Church leaders of the past, not to mention rabbis, imams & mullahs, and archakas, you’re going to find that they have sincere faith.

Something you should always keep in mind when developing pre-modern religion in a Western context is that before the advent of modern scholarship, which starts to become a thing in the West during the Renaissance, all the important scholars were clergy. And again, those learned people either had to be really, really dedicated to their power-hungry ambitions or had to have sincere faith.

That does not make religions perfect by any means nor does it mean that the god they have sincere faith in is omnibenevolent (though the qualities of an omnibenevolent god will be strongly dependent on the culture that worships it). And religious leaders are absolutely capable of doing terrible, terrible things even if they profess to worship an omnibenevolent god, and politicians can definitely twist things around to suit their needs (again, this is not exclusive to religiosity). But your ask has this weird given that a major religion (on par with Catholicism/Christianity) in your world is a scam, and while yes, that happens in cults and alternative religions and in splinter groups*, as Brainstormed pointed out that’s just not how, at least, the four major religions of our world got started.

Yes, it’s true that bureaucracies of a certain size and age will inevitably begin to change focus to protecting its own existence. And yes, it’s true that ambitious sociopaths will be drawn to places of authority even if they are difficult to achieve. And yes, it’s true that an individual entering a toxic environment is more likely to be changed by the environment than to change the environment. But guess what! That has nothing to do with whether the organization is religious or not.

Why does a religion exist in the first place? It explains the universe in a pre-modern world; it provides organization and structure for community focus - in other words, many social programs have historically been run through religious organizations and leadership. And it provides hope and comfort in a very scary world.

Some clergy might be able to fake all of that for a little while, but a large bureaucracy with many clerics who are all in on the fake? No. Allow me to rephrase: hell no. People are not dumb. Maybe you believe that of all religious people, but you are wrong and they are not. The people in your world, if they’re anything like the people in our world, are gonna sniff out the bullshit if none of their religious leaders believe what they’re selling. There is a reason Scientology has to keep blackmail files on all its adherents, and I promise you, the Catholic Church does not do that.

*A note on cults, alternative religions, and splinter groups: Cults and alternative religions (their PR friendly name) are “religions” that are scammy and/or actively dangerous to the participants or others: People’s Temple, Branch Davidian, etc. Splinter groups are congregations that start as normal members of a large religion or denomination but its insular culture creates a divide that just takes things a little too far even for the most fanatical of the main sect (think terrorist groups that link themselves to religions). These types of religions might be what you are actually asking about. Groups like these can be highly, highly influential but in a very contained area. What cults often do is the leader settles in an area and buys property and builds a church and maybe a school and then encourages the members to all move either onto the plot of land if it’s large enough or to buy up surrounding land and homes and push out all the non-believers. That area can then be fortified or just have a de facto boundary with the rest of the world. Sometimes a group like this can become large enough to constitute an entire town, but rarely a city - groups that large will more often have centralized compounds but with the members living scattered among non-believers, as Scientology does. Obviously a group concentrated like that will have an impact on local politics, if they are allowed to participate, but it’s not going to go farther than the county line, so to speak. As we all know from the news, splinter groups like ISIS can become very large and globe spanning, but those types of groups have within them splinter groups and factions, and I don’t think that’s what you’re asking about anyway, so I’m just going to leave it there.

But frankly, your ask reads to me as “how do I create a fantasy!Catholic that is secretly evil and will show the audience how evil religion is in the real world? Opiate of the masses!” And my advice is… don’t. Because it lacks compassionate understanding of people of faith (many faiths), it lacks a factual understanding of how world religions differ and function, it totally lacks nuance, and finally, because it is absolutely, monumentally, extremely, really, very cliche.

Maybe the way your ask is coming across to me is totally not how you intended it. Maybe you only used the jargon you used because you assumed we wouldn’t know any other terms and maybe your understanding of world religions is actually quite sophisticated. Maybe you really do have this insanely clever way to spin a tired cliche into some new and original. In these cases, we strongly encourage you to come right back with as jargon-full and specific an ask as you can write, use our submission google form to do it. Otherwise, give our responses some thought and if after you’ve developed your religion, you want to come back with a specific ask other than “how do I world build a religion?” (which is a little too broad), please feel free.

#pylons #religion #Anonymous

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zukofenty · 4 years ago

Text

just my luck

➜ Summary: The one where Katara whisks away her picture-perfect life the night she kisses a stranger with the worst luck in the world.

“I lost all my good luck!” Katara screams. “Everything I touch turns to shit!”

“I mean, have you considered fucking a leprechaun?”

➜ Genre: Modern!AU, Journalist!Katara, Girl group manager!Zuko, Music Producer!Zuko

AO3, @zutaraweek

“I am too pretty to be punched!” Katara yelps, ducking and clenching the holding cell’s bars until her knuckles turn white.

“And I thought I was too pretty to commit tax fraud, but here we are.” Ty Lee rolls her eyes. “That’s just how the pussy crumbles.”

“First, you need a gynecologist. Second, I think the saying goes ‘that’s how the cookie—’” Nothing in life could have prepared Katara for the tiny girl to deliver a resounding punch that has her head rattling against the jail cell.

“I lost all my good luck!” Katara screams. “Everything I touch turns to shit!”

“I mean, have you considered fucking a leprechaun?”

Katara sighs, still recovering from the intense nosebleed Ty Lee bestowed on her. “Where the fuck would I even find a leprechaun?” She promptly shoves wads of tissues up her nostrils. Of course, the next one she reaches for actually had a spider in it, and she thinks killing herself just might be easier on her soul at this point.

“Just say you like Megan Thee Stallion and all of a sudden all the men under 5’7” start giving you a 5’11” attitude. Easy peasy.”

She’d managed to limp her way back to Suki and Toph’s apartment from prison, after getting a call that her apartment had flooded, destroying everything in it. Only her apartment. She was barely holding on to her broken YSL pump in one hand and her pride in the other. Emphasis on limp , because while calling taxis to instantly stop for her was always her thing , now she was nothing but an ant (in head-to-toe Prada) on their radar. If they do stop, the taxi either gets snatched up by someone else, or the drivers tell her, not so kindly, to eat a dick.

Nevertheless, she’s still determined to have a positive day, walking and humming a Rihanna song to try and calm her nerves. But, because this day was sent by Satan himself (Jeff Bezos), she was drenched, face to booty to toes, in drain water by the seemingly hundreds of Uber Eats whizzing by, trying to get someone’s Buffalo Wild Wings order to them quickly.

“I can’t believe you guys actually think all that stuff’s real!” Suki scoffs, diligently painting her toenails a pretty pastel purple and not giving any mind to the conversation.

“Tell me, how would you explain this bitch’s life?” Toph points an accusatory finger in Katara’s way. “Katara has been living life as the main character. For fuck’s sake, you won prom queen five years in a row at Ba Sing Se High!”

“A lot of people win prom queen—”

“We went to Omashu High!” Toph adds with frustration. “You even won the year after you graduated!”

Toph and Suki could never quite wrap their heads around Katara’s life.

For as long as they knew her, she was always the luckiest girl in the world.

At seemingly every turn, the girl had all the luck in the world on her side. I mean, just the other day she was accidentally delivered Rihanna’s dry cleaning, because of course she lives in the same fucking building as Rihanna, the goddess herself. See, Katara was the type of person with the luck to manage to find an upscale apartment on their shitty salary in the city for nearly half of what Suki and Toph were paying to sleep next to inbred cockroaches.

“Bitch, you do not have the range for that.” Toph snatches the dress away before Suki or Katara could make a face and whimper a soft ‘gimmie gimmie’ that surprisingly always worked.

“I might not, but at least we could clone Rihanna now.”

Toph pauses. “Say what?”

“I’m getting the girls and gays that album, no matter what.”

Katara went to return the dress after getting in a helicopter with her date of the night, People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive, Haru (before the mustache). On top of all that madness, she said Rihanna, in the shimmery, Fenty Beauty Body Lava coated flesh, even complimented her makeup. Suki almost shit herself when Katara was added to the Fenty Savage PR list.

Katara would walk outside and the clouds seemed to part as if on her command. She could wear all-white in the city without a bird unloading one on her shoulder, or one of those guys on the street flicking feces in a pudding cup her way. Jammed streets or congested traffic never ceased her from being ten minutes early to every meeting, event, or even accidental movie set she walked on and got cast as an extra instantly. The lead actor, Academy Award winning Bolin, is still sending her detailed DMs about the various ways he would harvest her toenails because it reminded him of her.

And you know those Airpods or laptop scams that go around on social media you have to train your grandparents not to click on? Or those princes that email you promising to marry you after you send them your banking information? Guess which bitch manages to actually win over a prince’s heart and his inheritance?

Katara had the universe wrapped around her finger, and it didn’t seem to mind bending to her will.

Fresh out of college, after much clawing and fighting and miraculously switching coats with an editor at a restaurant, Katara managed to snag a job at Nyla magazine and secured spots for her best friends, too. They’d been reading the entertainment magazine before they could even process solid food. While they were all saddled with a mailroom job, Katara’s quote unquote irresistible charm had landed her as a scribe to record meetings when their original conveniently broke a nail.

Of fucking course, the day their entire team is stuck in a broken elevator is the day the CEO of White Lotus Records was coming into the office to discuss Nyla ’s next cover star.

Their next big thing, teen singer, Song was still hesitant to work with a magazine aimed at young adults with unhealthy coping mechanisms, compared to the J14s and Tiger Beats with the foldable poster at the back you could steal if you were quick enough at Walgreens.

“ Young lady.” Ugh, why do old men always sound so fucking condescending? You know how easy it is to push an old person? “You know how much dough I make so I can regularly spend it on drugs? Every minute of my time is worth $964.” While Piandao gets up for his assistants to put on his fur coat, Katara slams her hand on the table.

“I promise you this cover story will be worth every minute of your time. I’ll even pay you $965 at the end of my presentation if you hate it.”

And who could say no to that sweet (and scary) face?

When editor-in-chief June waddles back, glazed with sweat after someone farted their entire Del Taco Thursday three chicken soft tacos for $2.49 deal in her face , their cover story was booked. The carnival themed, masquerade party to celebrate Song’s new cover was already scheduled in Google Calendar. Soon enough, Katara was handed her own office, Tesla, and platinum corporate card to start planning the entire event.

Everything was going fine . There were acrobats doing flying yoga in the sky, a fortune teller she hired at the last minute that everyone loved. Music was playing, people were dancing without a care in the world, and everyone was having a good fucking time. She even snagged her bitchy boss a date with her hot neighbor, and her Painted Lady costume was designed by Vera Wang herself. By the end of the night, her brain was scrambled from the paperwork and yelling and pen marks all on her hand. Yet, with her luck, she still managed to kiss the cute guy who asked her to dance.

Well, at least she knew he felt and smelled like a cute guy, considering half his face was covered by a mask.

He was a bumbling thing, managing to stomp on her feet a few times even when she reassures him at the end of the day. Despite being all broad shoulders and muscles, he seemed to shrink in on himself at that moment. “I’m really, really bad at dancing.” She gave him a weird look and Zuko had to remember that he had stolen a backup dancer named Lee’s gig for the night to sneak into the event.

Katara rolls her eyes. Dancing, much like nearly everything else, always came easy to her. “So what if you gave a girl a black eye and another guy a concussion?” Her laugh is so pretty and her waist between his warm fingers just felt right.

He lets himself laugh, too. Wrapped up in the girl’s spell. Forgetting any thought of trying to win over the White Lotus CEO.

She leaned in first, and he was more than happy to reciprocate. Zuko didn’t have time for impulsive decisions, not when the universe was actively always trying to kill him. For some reason, he couldn’t help but be drawn in. Her soft lips against his felt like a plush dream, and all he didn’t want to wake up to reality. Not when in that moment, there were sparks and blood rushing to his head and soft skin peeking out of her expensive dress he wanted to discover more of.

One minute, Katara was throwing back a margarita in case she had dumb bitch breath that caused her mystery man ran off. The next, she was choking to death, only spitting out the olive on Suki’s face after Toph delivers a quick punch to her sternum, right between the titties.

“Eenie meenie miney mo, catch a stupid whore by her throat!”

“Stop choking me, June!”

“No!” June screeches. How was Katara supposed to know she accidentally set her boss up with the ‘ King Kuei ’? The FBI’s most wanted illegal animal trader by day, male prostitute by night? And who knew that would land her a night in jail?

“The universe is a stupid fucking whore!” Katara sniffs, still trying to detangle the chunk of hair embedded deep into Suki’s blow dryer. Katara managed to not only break a mirror with the blow dryer in her mere ten minutes in Suki and Toph’s place, but also rip out a section of her hair after throwing said blow dryer in their bathtub which promptly caught on fire. The icing on the dog shit cake of the day was when she managed to cause the building’s power to short circuit, shutting off everyone’s lights.

The universe, for the first time in his life, was finally on Zuko’s side.

For as long as Zuko could remember, rain clouds suddenly appeared when he walked outside, even despite what Alexa told him earlier that morning.

“Alexa, what’s the weather like today?”

“Completely sunny with a chance of naive bitch,” the smart speaker might as well have said.

Zuko was sure of four things in life.

Adderall and 7 up were never a good combination

Alexa was always watching for an opportunity to strike fear in his heart

He could never catch a fucking break

Having a waterpark poncho always on hand never hurt

He heard from his Uncle Iroh his family was perpetually cursed. Something about a fame-hungry witch with the last name Kardashian in the past life, and one of his relatives eating said witch’s ass that inflicted the present day curse on his family.

Everyone he knew was impossibly clumsy. Random flooding accidents, cars always running into you, bugs trying to get their fuck on in your ear. It was like the universe said yeet! On their good fortune.

What does he wish for every year on his birthday? For it to be easy just to be him . To be easily liked, like Adele, or Dippin Dots. He wished life could be easy enough for him to take a shit without the toilet bowl accidentally caving in, or a lightbulb somehow always falling on his good eye.

Zuko had always been relatively clumsy, worse than what Iroh’s seen before. After so many years of being shit-out-of-luck, and having literal shit on you at all times, he was used to being alone.

It stopped stinging a few years ago. Besides, he had his half-sister Kiyi to keep him company these days.

Nobody wanted to be around the guy who constantly smells like dog shit because he always manages to find a shit covered dollar bill flowing down the street. No one wanted to be associated with the guy who, without fail, splits his pants open every time he bends down. Saddling him with yet another public indecency charge.

Like clockwork, at least two times a week, he was getting his face shoved into the concrete and handcuffs slapped on him. He started investing in a mouth guard about five years ago.

It was like a safety hazard, just being him. There were so many times you could get struck by lightning before you were banned by the nation from buying umbrellas.

Predictably, he has been rejected from every job he applied to. His laptop has been hacked by so many Hentai porn bots he doesn’t even bother upgrading his Dell from 2013. He even started a conversation with the guy monitoring his keystrokes. Landlords chucked his application out the window before he could even give them his soul and a deposit, and while the doctors didn’t think he’d do it, he found out that yes you can survive being hit after someone throws a piano out their window while you leave the leasing office.

Sure, he came to the city with dreams of making it big, loving music since his mom taught him the difference between a treble and bass clef. But when he’s always accidentally setting his tsungi horn on fire? Breaking his nose open trying to put resin on his violin’s bow? Somehow getting a reed stuck in his throat and his sphincter (on the same day)? No chance in hell was anyone willing to risk their lives to let him play anything on stage.

So he stuck to writing and producing, watching YouTube tutorial after tutorial to learn mixing, because he thinks it’s safer for everyone involved.

“Zuko, someone tried shoving Nutella up their ass and shat it back over the bathroom.” He looks up from his laptop to see a plunger too close for comfort near his face.

“Why?”

“Some weird sex thing! I don’t fucking know.” Jet points to the elderly couple nearby. “You ask them why!”

Zuko takes a deep breath in. “No, I’m asking ‘why?’ because my shift doesn’t start for another two hours.”

He was a janitor at the bowling alley across the street (it was the only place that would hire him, but he thinks they felt bad for him after he ugly cried and ate out their supply of shitty, frozen curly fries).

“You know I love you, Zuko! But these!” Jet cups Zuko’s chest with two, oddly gentle, hands. “Make our alley’s world go round.” He even gives them a squeeze for emphasis.

“Let go of my man titties,” Zuko glares at Jet. “ Now .”

“You’re the breast.”

Zuko’s eye twitches.

It wasn’t all bad. After all, the alley does let him make music in his free time, and the girl group he was “managing” can perform their sets on Fridays.

“We’re firing you!” Mai pokes at his chest and has him readjusting his glasses from the force.

It was a Monday and his week was starting off better than most. He was scraping green colored poop from the walls and was already being threatened at 9 a.m. without any weapons in sight.

“You don’t pay me!” He points out, which only seems to get everyone in the room angrier. His sister and her friends formed Shooters 4 Rihanna when they were pre-teens. They wanted to be a group trying to make it big in the pop scene, and quickly signed to a record label together. The girls were promised all their years of childhood training would pay off when they would debut as young adults. That was, until their CEO was broadcast on TLC’s My Strange Addiction for his habit of collecting Mark Ruffalo’s nose hairs, and confessed to killing someone for it.

Investors weren’t too happy.

While all the girls could see was repressed childhood trauma, Zuko saw that and potential star power.

Every single member already had years of dancing and singing lessons under their belt. They could play their own instruments, write their own songs, and had the stage presence. A few Twitter DMs later (from his multiple accounts, because they thought his profile picture made him look like a fucking creep and blocked him years ago) they were dumb enough to trust him with their future. He’d been trying to get them signed for months to no avail. Somehow fucking up, or electrocuting himself in the process of showing an executive their new single.

“This was a mistake!” Jin shoveled the curly fries in her face.

While Yue was always one to stay positive, her sad ‘ I miss pickled fish ,’ had the rest of the girls wanting to leave, too. Going back home, just give up seemed sensible. Why waste your prime years on a pipe dream?

He stopped them, plunger in hand. Against all logic, and partially because they could smell the desperation, the girls gave him one week .

One masquerade party later, he managed to throw Piandao out of harm’s way, taking the brunt of the taxi running into him.

“ Are you fucking stupid !” The CEO screams. The boy had blood flowing from his scalp, but looked as alive as ever handing over Shooters 4 Rihanna’s demo CD.

“A little.” Zuko admits. He could feel his bones still intact, and judging by the blood it wasn’t anything serious. Piandao gives him a call the next day after listening to the tape.

By some miracle, or Kardashian curse lifting, the girl group and him were shuffled into the city’s upscale penthouses, and their debut single was slated to be released on the radio the next day.

While he headed for lunch at a nearby cafe (one he couldn’t afford to eat at just last week) he can’t help but notice her .

“Ma’am, I have already told you our restaurant’s motto! No eat, no shit!” The waiter glares down at her. “Either pay up or get out, broke bitch.”

Katara was caked head to toe in mud, tissues shoved yet again up her nose. Haru had invited her out to his dad’s art show the night before. After insulting the literal piece of shit art, she tripped over the clump of clay on display and landed face-first in his million dollar creation.

Of course, it would land her in prison, and of course Ty Lee would be there, too. “Move bitch, I’m gay! ” When Katara was too exhausted to budge, the girl, yet again, socked the shit out of her.

Katara just wanted a plate of steaming breakfast foods, but of course all her cards declined. And of course, she has a meltdown because she was fucking tired, hungry, and was about to throw hands.

She grabbed the salt shaker. “Look, I’m just going to try one thing before I go!”

“It’s the bath salts,” she hears one woman whisper. “Those fashion bitches are always on bath salts.”

“Just smile politely. We’re witnessing mental illness.”

She didn’t expect that throwing salt over her shoulder would land in the waiter’s eye, or cause him to collapse on the table of Mormons nearby. Or something to catch on fire, or someone to get stabbed with a fork with a pancake on it.

She certainly didn’t expect a (cute) stranger to be so gentle with her, helping her escape the madness and handing over his turkey on rye. Or him following her as she tried to save face and sit on a random bench away from any nearby birds’ tiny assholes.

“You look sad.” He’s not mocking in the slightest.

“What does that even mean?” She went from sad to affronted in just a second.

“What’s wrong?” Fuck this guy and those eyes that were so damn enchanting .

“I don’t look sad.” She says with the roll of her eyes. “I am fucking sad.” She was blackballed from every newspaper in the Four Nations, the prince she was talking to did indeed end up stealing her savings, and on top of all of that, her undereye concealer was creasing.

“You!” Katara points her finger in the fortuneteller’s face.

“Me?” Aunt Wu looks beyond irritated. “Look, I can’t predict when you’ll get a fat ass, just buy a resistance band and leave me—”

“You’re the one who told me whatever Wheel of Fortune would spin back on me! And Alex Tribek would take away my good luck or something!” Katara was crazed and running on two hours of sleep, but she had a bone to pick. “My perfect life is gone.”

“Wow, that was a lot to unpack.” Aunt Wu locks her shop’s door. “Look, can you think of anything strange that happened that night?”

“Besides someone telling me to make them toilet wine in prison, no I don’t think so!” Katara grunts out petulantly.

Aunt Wu smacks her with a stack of tarot cards. “No! Jesus! What else happened?”

“Can’t you just tell me? Childhood trauma has really fucked with my memory.”

“You kissed someone, didn’t you?” The fortuneteller scurries to her Kia Soul before Katara could retaliate. “Maybe he needed that luck more than you do!”

She tried kissing every single dancer that was working that stupid party, and came up with nothing but mono and the feeling of defeat.

“Did you know, I even fucking sharted myself today!” She smacks her forehead repeatedly. “At twenty-fucking-three! How fucking embarrassing . All I could do is run to the H&M with my cheeks out to buy a pair of sweatpants.”

“I know a job looking for someone,” he says and even when he’s staring at her with nothing but understanding, she’s still apprehensive.

“Don’t care, didn’t ask, plus you’re a colonizer.” If she had any energy she would’ve put more force into the shove. “Why are you even helping me?”

She looked like shit on a dick and he was just smiling at her. “Let’s say, I just know what it’s like to be SOL.”

“What’s the catch?” She stares at him down and pouts. He’s wearing an Armani shirt with an Off-White belt, which was already offending her senses, but on top of that he dared pair the atrocity with a pair of knock-off Converse. He couldn’t have sprung for a real pair, he just had to get the off-brand from Costco that made everyone’s ankles look like cankles.

New money . “I am not letting anyone suck my toes for money, again. Try a different girl.”

Zuko grows positively red, but at least it brings the ghost of a smile to her face. “No toe sucking. Only on Wednesdays.”

She delivers a well-aimed kick to his crotch. While she’d expect him heaving and puffing, he’s unphased. He’d put on his MMA fighter grade, groin protector out of habit, even though he’s getting kicked a lot less in the ball bags lately.

“So, you’re trying to convert me to Scientology?” Katara scoffs. “I’ll pass, Asian Tom Cruise.”

“Not that either.” He sees the defeated look in her eyes, the same one he’s seen in himself. There’s a spark there, though. A willingness to just keep going. Something he lost years ago. “Trust me.”

“No.”

“All good.” He shrugs. “Can I at least help you up?” Before she could bite back, she turned to the spot on the bench where he was pointing.

Wet paint.

He’s taking her mustard covered hands (the sandwich exploded in the foil) in his soft ones without question, and peeling her off the bench.

“Of fucking course,” she huffs.

She thinks he knows. He knows the fact that she wants him sticking around. Even with her adamant protests against it, he’s persistent.

Stopping by after long days at the studio to her shit job, handful of first aid supplies at the ready.

He’s just always there .

He’s there when she’s scraping gum from under the alley’s tables and almost swallows one that had “Live, Laugh, Love” carved into it. He quickly stops her from choking, practically an expert at the heimlich with how many times he’s almost died from drinking boba.

There when she electrocutes herself changing the alley’s light bulbs to catch her as she falls straight off the ladder. He’s not even phased, pushing a fried piece of hair sticking up the heavens and staring at her as though she squirted cupcake frosting from her nipples.

He’s there with his first-aid messenger bag, all duct taped and falling apart and it makes her want to say sorry to Alexander Wang for daring to wear it with his Spring 2019 boots after Zuko forces her to carry it around. But then he’s pulling out a tube of toothpaste from the bag while she’s cooling her burnt fingertips on a 10 year old Yerba Mate can, and she’s reminded why he’s so firm about it.

“Earth Nation trick to heal burnt skin.” He’s too concentrated on rubbing the paste into her flaming skin to notice her staring. She remembers that he included her favorite Fenty gloss in the bag after handing it off to her, and blushes.

“I don’t need your help, you know.” Katara was always the one fighting for her own dreams. She didn’t want to stick back living the life other people imagined for her. Even all the luck in the world couldn’t help her escape a sleepy town or an unsupportive family.

When they came to the city, she knew her friends let her take care of them on purpose. It was second nature, what she grew up on. She’d always been the one looking out for everyone, even if they didn’t ask, and they let her do it because they all needed a coping mechanism. Toph’s is cake cutting videos, Suki’s is practicing her crying face because she always wanted to be a pretty crier, and Katara’s is being overbearing.

She was confused. As many times as she tried drilling through his thick head that her grandma was a nurse, that she could easily wrap up every cut, bruise, and swollen toe, he never budged. For the first time in a while, someone was there, stubbornly making sure she was okay.

“I know?” He says it as though it was obvious. “I’ll make you a deal, though. Just let me help you out, just this one time?” He gently taps her fingers wrapped in Minion bandaids he got her just because he knew she hated them in public, loved them in private. “I won’t do it again.”

He’s teasing and it’s obvious he knows she’s putty in his hands. Though, his newfound look (she helped with) balancing boy-next-door with heartthrob is not working on her heart. Her pussy, sure. Not her heart, though. She swears.

“That’s what you said last time,” Katara protests, without any energy behind it.

He sends her a lopsided smile. “I know.”

Zuko wasn’t about to let any hair on her pretty head get hurt.

While Kiyi already had enough of a bad case of bad luck, considering all the Power Ranger figurines she had super glued to her face by fourth grade boys, Katara’s was just something else.

It reminded him of him . Whatever stroke of good luck he had, he knew the universe takes in ten-fold what it might give. So he’s taking advantage of every bit of luck he has for a girl without any.

While he’s been stabbed many a time walking back home at night, somehow he’s in the clear when he escorts Katara back to her apartment. Or the times he buys her Water Tribe take out because she’s still figuring out how that prince managed to spend $10,000 on Swampbender diet pills. Or when he sneaks in before her shift to do some of her tasks for the day (he still has the keys), so he doesn’t have to worry about her bruising her pubic bone with the vacuum, or breaking the ceiling with a slippery bowling ball.

He wasn’t all used to his new life. The designer shoes, the fancy parties, the attention . Girls in the past would look at him as though he wasn’t more than shit at the bottom of their Jimmy Choo, but his good luck brought this newfound female attention that was exhilarating and terrifying all at the same time. Especially when, all he wanted was to catch her eye.

She was his good luck charm and didn’t even know it.

Since he’s met her, everything just was going right . She brought Toph over with her guitar to string together a few verses the day they were in desperate need of new lyrics to go with the beat he’s spent the last few nights cranking out. The day after they released it on Apple Music, the song went #1 on Billboard. Piandao had even booked them to play the Hard Boulder Cafe for their first performance, and tickets were sold out.

Even when things just seemed to get better and better for him, the universe doubled down in its punishment for her.

He’s there when she’s walking back from work, drenched to the bone because she missed all trains for the day, a taxi said her face looked stupid, and she was just tired of it all and wanted to go home and eat processed frozen food and die.

Zuko’s there, though. Without fail.

He’s there with his fucking Tesla and personal driver and Chanel top and she couldn’t be any more embarassed.

“Get in!” He hesitates before approaching. “Also, maybe let’s put down the umbrella?” It was inverted anyways, and looked three seconds from whisking her away into the storm.

“No, I’m good!” Katara insists. She was afraid that falling for Zuko, going to bed and waking up thinking of him was messing with her brain and she didn’t know if she wanted it to stop.

“You could get hit by lightning.”

“That can’t—” She ponders it for a second. “You know what, fuck you.”

He throws his expensive jacket over her to quell the shivers, and when she protests, seeing as it was a Valentino Lacquered Nylon Jacket, he bundles her even deeper in the thing, buttoning it up until she’s complaining from the warmth.

“You’re laughing at me.” She pouts.

He’s covered completely in bubbles. Not her fault he decided to strip off his shirt to throw in the cycle with her wet clothes, and she got distracted by the abs and dumped the whole bottle of laundry detergent in the washing machine.

Zuko shoves her face into a pile of the suds. “I am, yeah.” She looks upset and he stops the mirth growing on his face. Reaching out to her, instead. “Katara, I’m sorry did I—”

She might’ve leaned out to accept his embrace, but then she’s flipping them over, pinning him down to the floor. Her warm, still soaking wet body, pressed against him and her arms coming out to pin his hands to the ground.

He gulps.

“This would be more fun if you let me peg you afterwards.”

Her laugh vibrates her whole body and he couldn’t help joining in, too.

He let her have her pick of his dress shirts, and she looked so much at home. Little strands of her bangs framing her face and growing curly with the addition of water. Her brow furrows when she mentions her leave-in conditioner washing away with the suds, and he takes advantage of the momentary distraction. Flipping her and placing two hands at the sides of her head.

She knows he’s covered in the bubbles, just so she wouldn’t feel anymore of a stupid bitch than she already does. He never seems to mind it, even when Katara was frustrated and just couldn’t figure out why all this was happening to her and dragging him into every single accident.

“What would you say to the universe, right now?” She’s curled up on his couch and he’s massaging the balls of her feet she presses in his lap.

“Welcome to your tape.”

“Katara, no.”

“That bridge off of Fourth Street? Looking really easy to jump off of right about now, universe.”

He lets her take his bed that night after he cooked up his famous komodo chicken and both Kiyi and her complain about having a food-baby.

“Hey, Katara.” He whispers while her eyes could barely open. He tucked her in those blankets all ethnic people have, the super fluffy ones with a tiger on them that are always wrapped in a plastic bag. “You’re cute.”

“Yeah?” She breathes out, crinkling her nose and blinking those long lashes and making his heart skip beats. “Hey, Zuko.”

“Yeah?”

“I think I like you.”

He pinches her cheek. “I think I like you, too.”

He was right. As soon as life blessed him with everything he’s wanted and more, it whisked it away just as fast.

He’d mustered up the courage to invite her to a studio session after everyone in Shooters 4 Rihanna insisted on meeting her. Their songs were getting a little too emotional and they wanted to meet his muse. It was going well, too well. He even catches all the lamps she knocks down. When she rights herself, she manages to knock down the table with their food. Double bagging existed for a reason, just like he warned her! But, of course, the bags holding the takeout she was supposed to surprise him with broke from the bottom. He’d go hungry, that day. But, anything for her, though.

She looked so into the session, asking him if she could play with the buttons, leaning into his chest when he hesitantly surrounds her space. His two lean arms coming out to steady her waist when she trips on herself and sends him a sheepish smile that has him hypnotized.

Katara normally felt lightheaded around him, but she felt absolutely faint as soon as Piandao walked in to finalize the details of the performance, and Zuko started talking about some lucky masquerade ball.

She couldn’t hear much else, body getting up before she even registered it.

Before he could fully get into his chair at the mixing console because just one little note in their new song “Rihanna Impregnate Me” just sounded off, she’s tugging him up.

“Can I kiss you?”

“W—what?” She’s holding him up by the collar of his shirt.

Katara smirks. “I really want to kiss you.”

“I mean, uh, yes! Definitely a ye—”

It’s everything he’s imagined, hoped, prayed for the last few months and more. She’s sweet and soft and tasted like lip gloss and the toothpaste he had stowed away in her bag. When he’s leaning in for more, ready to do things like give her his heart or do her taxes for her because he couldn’t think straight and his heart was guiding him through the motions, she’s gone.

Katara’s gone when Ty Lee somehow gets into, yet another, tax fraud case and can’t make their performance.

She’s gone when he needs her by his side because even though he’s not performing he still manages to feel fucking sick. He wants her holding his unnaturally sweaty palms and telling him it’s going to be okay, just like what she does during his late night writing sessions where she stays up and refuses to sleep until he does.

She’s gone when the band has to answer to an angry crowd, an angry CEO who already sees the articles lambasting the girl group’s unprofessionalism and was ten seconds away from pulling the plug on his dreams.

“Zuko!”

He hates his heart rushes, even when it was about to break because of her, too.

She's gotten her perfect life. She’d gotten the job back, her apartment back, Rihanna even sent her a secret song for fuck’s sake.

She must really love this fucker, because she was giving up a chance to stalk Rihanna so he could be happy.

“Maybe he needed that luck more than you do!” Was running through her head the entire week she avoided him.

“I don’t know what to do, Suki!”

“Why don’t you both fuck leprechauns?” She says between bites of string cheese.

Katara sighs. “Why are yours and Toph’s minds built like that?”

“I heard my mom tried punching her stomach every day, hoping that I wasn’t going to be a result of St. Patrick’s Day sex. That’s why my head’s lopsided.”

He felt nauseous. Not only did 3 of the girls just spew their lunch into whatever container they could get their hands on, of course Azula has gone missing. “Katara not now I—”

She comes to him flushed, extensions stuck to her hand after running too fast and accidentally grabbing someone’s hair. Her feet hurt, her heart hurt, but in this moment she knew. She knew he needed this more than her. He was soft and kind and took people in and cherished the moments with his half-sister because he missed all the ones with Azula. He worked so hard now because he was afraid she hated him, and even when he was on the verge of giving up, he still pushed through. He gave people chances, even when the universe was never as kind to him.

After she presses her lips to his, suddenly Azula presses a button from the underground room she was trapped in, appearing on stage in front of their very eyes. They have the best show the Hard Boulder Cafe’s seen in decades . Their contract is extended, and he opens a bottle of champagne to celebrate without taking his eye out.

He was the luckiest man in the world.

Though, when he turns, he realizes.

His girl’s missing.

“Katara!” She tried shuffling away, but accidentally slips on a few drug needles someone threw carelessly on the ground.

She’s still nursing the sore spot on her forehead, where the champagne cork hit. “Zuko, please just...go.” She waves him off with a bandaged hand.

“I know you’re going to be stuck here for the next three hours. Because trains never come on time for you no matter what.”

Even in the middle of the nearly dead station, he was right. Every stop flashed to delayed .

“Then you’ll be robbed by someone on the train, and then you might even get spit on by the guy with the imaginary dog who’s afraid of whoever gets too close to it, and then you’ll get an eye infection.”

Katara wipes the snot at her nose. “So?”

“So?” He laughs, tucking his hands in his pockets. “I’ve lived a whole lifetime of bad luck, and I can’t let you do that for me.”

She lets him turn her to face him, lets him gather her up in his arms and hold her like she’s delicate and irreplaceable, and not just a girl with mascara running down her face and her heart stolen by someone she couldn’t love.

“Even in a lifetime of being shit out of luck, I still got the chance to meet you.”

“Zuko, stop.” Katara wipes at her tears. “Our luck will just get switched, and I always figure things out, I always do. But, I just want you to keep this. You put it to better use than I would’ve.”

Zuko shakes his head. “I don’t want it anymore.”

“I said that to my bladder infection, and that didn’t work. What makes you think that will work now?”

“I can live without it.” He smiles. “A few bumps and bruises are the price I’m willing to pay for you in my life.”

She’s blushing, hands coming up to bring his head closer to hers, to see every little detail of him.

“You’re so fucking stupid.” She whispers, millimeters away from his lips.

The grin splits on his face without his permission. “I am, yeah.”

#Zutara #Zuko #Katara #Zutara Week 2020 #Celestial #Day 4 #atla #avatar the last airbender #Zutara Week #Zutara fanfiction

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alleiradayne · 5 years ago

Text

An Update

It’s been a millennia since I wrote anything. I know I don’t owe anyone any writing (technically, I do, but that’s a different story, no pun intended). But I wanted to keep my followers in the know.

I have been up to my eyeballs in the dumbest fucking shit lately and I’m not even talking about COVID-19. My work sucks. The only good thing about it is that my team, the immediate people I work with on the regular, are awesome. But I need to get out soon. The actual work itself is fucking soul-sucking and I hate it. I get very little downtime, which is a major contributor to why I haven’t written much lately. Not because I don’t have the free time at work like I used to, but because I don’t have the mental, emotional, creative, or physical energy to commit to writing when I get home.

My daughter is 16 months old. That’s all I need to say about her (she’s wonderful, but a handful).

I’ve been reading way more lately in an effort to relieve stress.

God damn Minecraft.

I had sinus surgery in December and while the recovery was short, the surgery did not achieve the intended results. I still have major allergy symptoms without being allergic to anything. I was sick with sinus infections for the better part of two months and was only finally feeling sort of back to normal before right before I went to Vegas. Now I’m dealing with severe seasonal allergies after the snow melted here.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. What has really irritated me lately is this pile of bullshit:

Google as the monolith it is shouldn’t fucking exist. It’s too convenient to get embedded in all their services such that, when one of them breaks, you’re cut off from all of their services. This story is long and convoluted. I’ll do my best to keep it succinct (I’ve already failed, I know).

Back in January, my primary Google account was compromised. After piecing together the crazy puzzle of what happened, I determined that someone obtained my Google account password, logged into the Google Store with it, and made two fraudulent purchases using two different payment methods (PayPal and my credit card, both of which were saved to my Google Pay profile under this primary email account) equaling a very large sum of money (like $4k).

My credit card company, bless their corrupt little souls, texted me immediately about the VERY expensive charge for the second order and I freaked out. I didn’t get any emails confirming these orders because the fuckers that hacked my Google account (I suspect Google had a data breach because they skipped all two-factor authentication I had enabled and I never received any notification of my account being accessed like I normally do) put a filter on my Gmail inbox to mark all Google Store emails as Opened (or Read) and to immediately toss them into the trash. Do Not Pass Go. Do Not Collect $200.

I immediately resolved these fraudulent charges with disputes. They never even hit my credit card (which was canceled and I was issued a new one) or my bank account (PayPal). Google, however, sucks at this shit. The first purchase was made at 4:30 AM. I never saw it until later that night. Once an hour has passed after a purchase has been made from Google’s store, they cannot cancel it. How fucking ridiculous is that?

So Google Support said to just refuse the FedEx packages. I rerouted them to a FedEx drop location because I didn’t want anyone to steal them off my front step (because that’s what I suspected the scam was all along, why else have them delivered them to my fucking house?) The first package arrived, I went to the drop location which was a Walgreen's, and I told the cashier that I needed to refuse the package and have FedEx return it to the sender. I said this several times to the person helping me. But then she had me sign the FedEx scanner and when I went to leave, she pushed the box to me and said, “You don’t want it?”

It gets worse.

While I felt dumb for signing for the package, when the second package came in the next day, I also signed their scanner but it was to actually refuse the package. I don’t know why that’s how it worked, but it did.

Package 1: Accepted. Package 2: Refused.

This is important.

During this time, my Google Pay profile under my primary Google account was placed on a temporary freeze. But on February 10th, once everything had been returned (FedEx managed to get the first package returned, I have the tracking numbers, it made it), my Pay profile had been reactivated.

Which was really great because my Play Music and HBO subscriptions had lapsed. So I immediately renewed them.

Problem solved, right?

Wrong.

I tried buying a movie before I flew to Vegas and got a very similar error that I’d seen previously when my account had originally been frozen at the end of January due to the fraudulent charges.

Through several Support chats and getting the run around, I come to find that my Pay profile has been permanently closed because I violated the Google Pay Terms of Service. And that Google’s policy is to not discuss the details of the issue with anyone. And I cannot close that Pay profile and create a new one under that same Google account because it’ll just get flagged and closed again.

While pissed, I resolved to fix it after Vegas because I didn’t have the capacity to handle it while prepping for that trip.

I get back and the problem still exists. A part of me hoped it would just go away. So over the last week I went back and forth with Google Pay support on what the fuck is going on with my pay account. Several times they repeated the same thing to me: account is closed due to violation of ToS, can’t discuss it with you per our policy. Great.

During that time, I noticed that I had like, $200 worth of Google Store credit on my account because of the packages I had unintentionally accepted (I had previously signed up for Google One so I could offload some storage to their cloud, and as a part of that Google One sub, they offer a percent of Google Store purchases as Google Store credit). So I wanted to see if I could actually use it. I kinda figured they’d take the $200 back seeing as that the charge never processed. When I tried to buy something, I finally got an error that said my Pay profile had been closed for violating the ToS.

The Narrator: Can you put that in a folder and label it “Shit I Already Know”?

I filed a complaint with the Attorney General of Minnesota because Google was not allowing me to do anything to resolve the issue. Every email response I sent was met with a similar response of “we’ve reviewed your account and we’ve determined it must remain closed”. I went Full Karen™ on Google Pay support and threatened them with legal action if they did not tell me what the fuck I did to violate their ToS. That was last Thursday.

After a few more emails over the weekend (only like, two), I suddenly received a response at 6am today stating that my Google Pay profile had been reactivated.

I resubscribed to HBO and Play Music without issue. (I did, however, create another mess with Google Family sharing, but that’s a different story, although very much related to and caused by this one, and I won’t get into it here).

When I checked my Pay profile, the $200 in Google Store credit had been removed. I think they finally checked the tracking numbers on those two orders that I sent back and realized I had actually sent them back instead of defrauding them by making a purchasing, rejecting the charge, keeping the package, and pocketing the $200 in-store credit like they probably assumed.

I also think Google might have a big data breach mess on their hands right now. Change your passwords regularly folks!

TLDR: I’m tired. :)

#personal #ranting

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8osbabe · 5 years ago

Note

okay so this will sound dumb, but like the reader is dating two-bit and she is super badass, like she fought 5 socs at once and beat them all but she has an identical twin sister who acts the same, and the gang calls them the terror twins.

a/n : okay here’s the thing. i need to stop.

these genuinely take me long because i

go into my google doc, thinking, “oh

this will be a short drabble, then i’ll

move onto the next one!” and then i

lose all self control and write a

2000+ word fic. also your idea isn’t dumb,

I was actually really inspired and writing

this just kind of flowed out of me.

____________

it’s one of those unbearably hot days in tulsa, and the windows of your bedroom are cracked open to let in a draft, though it doesn’t help much.

standing in front of your closet, trying to decide what to wear, you already know it’s going to be a god-awful day.

why? well, to begin with, summer days like these call for more breathable, or skimpier, clothing.

thing is, the hot weather seems to aggravate every dirty, skeevy greaser in this neighborhood. fights happened more often, and their advances were far more aggressive

so it didn’t help that you were stuck with wearing less clothing for the next month or so.

finally, you pull out one of your looser, linen blouses, opting for an old skirt that was a little small on you, but at least didn’t heat up much.

you’re halfway slipping it on as your sister pushes the door of your shared room open, falling onto her bed with an exhausted sigh.

“you know, i really didn’t think i could get any hotter.”

you roll your eyes, turning to face her and smoothing down your hair.

“—hey, i have that blouse, too! we should match,” she says sitting up.

“we aren’t five anymore. we don’t have to dress the same just ‘cause we’re twins.”

“well, whatever we’re wearing, dad’s making us run down to the market. ‘says he’s out of smokes, we’re out of bleach, and we need more eggs.”

your expression turns sour as you survey your looks in the mirror. “what, he’s too drunk to do it himself?”

he did that a lot lately. the simple fact that you had to buy bleach on a consistent basis to clean up the aftermath of his drunk spells, was nauseating.

you can see your sister from her reflection in the mirror, biting her lip and staring at the ground, her somber expression almost making you feel bad. yeah, she was the nice one.

“alright, let’s go, grease,” you smile at her and reach out a hand to help her off the bed as a sort of apology for snapping.

taking it, she jumps off the bed and you head outside.

the walk to get groceries wasn’t particularly long, but your house was tucked in the very deep end of the neighborhood, forcing you to walk past every other house on your way.

the actual market was conveniently close to your house, mostly because this was the one with the clerk who didn’t really care about selling smokes to minors, and would even sell you a six pack or two if he was in a good mood.

you manage to make it through unscathed, though, and you suppose it’s because it’s early, and most greasers are hungover or sleeping.

you walk out of the store with your purchases tucked into a paper bag that you’re holding across your chest with your arms.

your sister’s going on about some soc she scammed, overcharging them for grass, which was a good business to be in, considering the drug was blowing up with socs who could afford it by the minute.

your sister didn’t smoke at all, in fact, she’s pretty sickly, so she avoids almost everything that could get her sick. when you’re a greaser, you can’t afford much antibiotics, which means that sitting out the flu, sucks.

but, money doesn’t grow on trees, at least not these trees, so you did what you had to, to keep moving. it was a risk, but your sister was willing to take it. you wouldn’t stop her.

you’re laughing with her when she reminds you of the time she got beaten to a pulp by a soc when she first started selling, though it hadn’t been funny at the time.

at first, the idea of being a real pusher, made her feel guilty. instead, she raided the old spice cabinet in your kitchen, where bottles full of seasoning were gathering dust.

so she put them to use, stuffing the tiny bags and making a quick buck off of dumb socs.

then, word got around about the scam, and they hand come to find her outside the drive-in, slapping her around and demanding the real thing.

you’re so lost in your thoughts that you only become aware of your surroundings when you near two boys, greasers, leaning on the fence outside of an old-looking house.

your expression turns stone cold, but it doesn’t stop them from calling out to you as you close in on them.

“will you look at that, two-bit. one for me and one for you,” one of them snickers. he’s smoking, wearing a leather jacket, nearly the same color as his dark hair.

he looks like the hood type. the other, a blonde in a mickey mouse muscle shirt, not so much.

the hood had called him two-bit.

you’re just starting to walk past them, both of you ignoring them.

“— aw girls, don’t be mean.”

you inhale sharply, trying so hard to keep your cool.

then, the hood sticks a foot out abruptly in front of you, and he’s too quick for you to react. he sends you, and the bag of groceries, flying to the ground.

your sister stops short, and jerks the hood forward by his jacket.

“piss off, dallas.” oh, she knows him. cool.

“stop,” you call out to her, slowly moving to your feet. “lets just take the stuff home before dad freaks. we’ll see to this later.

your twin gives dallas one last menacing glare, before releasing him and grabbing the paper bag from the floor.

you grab the small bottle of bleach from where it rolled out of the bag.

“what’s that for, ‘you use it to keep the boys away?” two-bit laughs. eye roll.

“actually, it’s just my favorite summer beverage.” you offer him an excruciatingly fake smile, and take off after your sister.

you’re already far and don’t hear them when they speak again.

“those girls were weird, man.” dallas smirks and takes a drag from his cigarette.

two-bit smiles. “i don’t know. i liked the mouthy one.”

you’re crossing the street when a silver camaro nearly runs you down, screeching to a stop beside your sister.

“you. you’re the chick who sold my little brother some spice,” he snarls from out the window of his car.

“i am?” she answers smugly.

“you know, he didn’t stop coughing for an hour. ‘drank two gallons of water that day.”

“really?” she’s trying to contain her laughter, but isn’t doing a very good job of it.

this doesn’t appease the socs, who turns off his car just as fast as he, and four of his friends, jump out of the car.

now, as far as the odds go, they were pretty screwed up.

you look at the bottle of bleach you’re armed with, though, and decide this will be fun.

best case scenario, they leave ashamed and with mild chemical burns. the worst, well, at least you stain their madras permanently.

the driver, who had some score to settle with you sister, pounced her first, but sweeps his legs, sending him to the ground.

it was a good strategy. they were easier to fight when you could pin them.

one takes after your sister, trying to help out his buddy, but the other three rush you.

you unscrew that cap of the bleach and launch some of the liquid onto the exposed skin of the assailant’s chest.

he hisses, and falls back, and two of his friends take off. it was the wise thing to do.

with the remaining one down for the count while he nurses his chest, you look toward you sister, who’s digging her thumbs into the driver’s eyes.

not enough to blind him, because that was surely a lawsuit, but enough to keep him down.

another tries to pry her off of him, his back turned to you. it gives you the perfect opportunity to kick him where you know it hurts best, and punch his nose when he turns to face you.

“let’s go,” you call to your sister. you feel winded.

you walk quickly in the opposite of your original direction, opting to walk a different way home, and leaving the remaining socs to climb back into their car.

the new route takes you back to the house with the greasers, only this time they’ve moved from their spot on the fence to look towards you as you walked closer, confusion and smugness radiating off of them.

“we, uh, thought we’d help, but-,” two-bit starts.

“but we didn’t need it.” it was your turn to be smug. you loved the look of bewilderment when people saw how resourceful you could be in a fight. girls who could hold their own were hot.

“your girls want to come in for a beer?”

you hate to give in, but dallas’ offer of free beer on a hot day after you just spent all your energy fighting, was too tempting not to take.

you close in on two-bit, cupping his cheek.

“my hero,” you say sarcastically, with the faux smile to match.

then you slap him.

“don’t touch my ass.” he laughs, and you suppress a smile as you walk past them toward the house.

—

you’re sprawled out on the curtis couch, lying across two-bit as he sits up, attentively watching the mickey cartoon that was playing on tv.

you were spaced out, thinking about how you met him, how you got here, apart of this gang of sorts.

it was easy to lose interest in the mickey mouse cartoon, because you didn’t really care for it, though you would never tell keith because you knew it’d be a deal breaker.

you do like to tease him, though, by pretending not to understand it and ask a lot of questions.

“—but they’re both dogs? but only that one talks?”

“you’re looking at it wrong, babe—,”

you tune out his long speech about the history of canine domestication in the mickey mouse universe.

you watch your sister mediate an arm wrestle between soda and steve across the room, when ponyboy, the youngest curtis, walks into the house smirking.

“pony, where you been?” soda asks, still managing not to lose focus on the arm wrestling match.

“i ran into a couple of socs outside the movies, i almost had to fight ‘em, until one of them recognized me as a member of the gang with the terror twins,” he smiled. “i didn’t know it was that easy.”

you smile at him. “it’s got a ring to it, huh?”

“i’m or sure if they left me alone ‘cause they were scared,” he looks at you. “— or maybe they just didn’t want to lose their dealer,” he says, now glaring at your sister, who laughs vibrantly.

“you? terrifying?” two-bit laughs.

“what’d you mean? i am scary.”

you stare at him, daring him to prove you otherwise. he takes you up in that offer, and pins you against the couch, catching you off guard.

“who’s scared now?” he almost whispers into your ear, and you know what’s coming.

“two, stop!” you squeal, but you really don’t want him to. he’s kissing wildly at your neck, his hands roaming your sides and hitting all your sensitive spots, the tickling feels causing you to laugh loudly.

“get a room, you two,” steve growls from where he’s almost winning the arm wrestle.

you snicker. “steve, your neck is a little red. i could almost swear that it’s every shade of evie’s lipstick!” you snicker, and you can see his cheeks burn.

“i win!” soda calls, your comment having caused steve to lose focus and throw the win to soda.

you settle back into a comfortable position on the couch, watching as soda and steve break into an argument about why that wasn’t fair, thinking about yourself, your sister, and your relentless reign of terror.

#the bleach drinking part was inspired by an actual exchange i had with the grocery store clerk today !#the outsiders #two bit x reader #two bit mathews x reader #two bit mathews #dallas winston #steve randle x evie #steve randle #request

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robertdowneyjjr · 6 years ago

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Stony prompt, all throughout SHIELD Steve is known as a horrible computer person, think like single finger typing, clicking all the links you shouldn't, doing scams etc. Tony's super confused though cause some of his dad's and Peggy's stories talk about how good he was at the early computer Howard made. So Tony trusts his gut and gives Steve a top of the line computer, and when Steve brings it back with virus, Tony says you got it on there, you can get it off, Steve grins

HAH.

The thing is, Steve didn’t set out to be such a troll when he first woke up. He had 70 years’ worth of history and scientific and technological advancements to catch up on so he wasn’t about to waste any more time than he had to.

So when Maria Hill puts a laptop down in front of Steve and tells him to take it to the IT department to get it set up, he’s so excited about getting his hands on new tech he almost trips on the way to the computer labs.

Except he gets to SHIELD IT and it’s run by a bunch of assholes. They treat him like he’s an idiot, deliberately speaking slowly and dragging certain words out as if they’re speaking a foreign language that Steve wouldn’t understand. They patronize him and set up the laptop so that it’s “idiot-proof”, easy enough to work on that even a 90 year old could use its basic functions. They basically turn what would have been a beautifully functioning computer into a brick that barely does anything. Steve’s seething by the time he leaves the room.

Because he’s secretly petty af, he decides then and there to make life very difficult for the IT Pricks. He pretends to be as dumb as they think he is and goes back every other day with a new “issue” on his phone or computer. When they fix his stuff he insists that they should just give him instructions on how to do things instead of directly fixing it themselves. So he spends hours in the computer labs single finger typing the code that the IT Pricks tells him to, clicks links he knows are wrong, and turns off the computer “by accident” whenever it looks like they’re close to solving the issue. The IT Pricks hate him just as much as he hates them, and they tell everyone how terrible Captain America is at new technology.

Tony’s super confused though because he’s heard the stories from Howard and Peggy. He’s read the history books. Everyone who knows Cap talks about how quickly he was able to figure out how a HYDRA weapon works. Dude was never trained on how to fly a plane but he did just that when he saved the world (yeah he plunged into the water, but he did that deliberately). So Tony knows Steve can’t possibly be as dumb as everyone says he is unless being frozen for close to a century killed all his brain cells.

He gives Steve the latest of SI’s line of products which includes a laptop, tablet, and phone, and tells him to just let JARVIS or himself know if he ever runs into any issues with the tech. Steve, who’s used to dealing with the IT Pricks, initially thinks that Tony, as the face of technology, would be just as terrible as those assholes if not worse. So the first thing he does when he gets to his room and boots up his laptop is slow it down by downloading three of the most useless anti-virus softwares he knows, a torrent program, and a knockoff version of Microsoft Office. Then he opens a few porn sites on Internet Explorer and lets the pop up ads just fill up the entire screen of the computer.

Then he takes the laptop to Tony and asks him to fix it. “I don’t know what happened,” he says. “I was just on the Google searching for food in the area and all of this popped up.”

Tony squints at him a little bit. He literally gave the laptop to Steve thirty minutes ago. No true tech-stupid person could get all of that to happen that quickly. So he looks at Steve dead in his eyes and tells him, “Listen, Steve. You’re a smart guy and I’m not an idiot. I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but you got that crap on your computer. You can get it off yourself. Come to me when there’s a real problem.”

Steve’s shocked. He’s never been treated this way by anyone before. Every person always just looked at him like he was an idiot. They scoffed whenever he spoke and rolled their eyes when they thought he wasn’t looking. They always thought he was an idiot and he was happy to play along just to wind them up.

But Tony? He didn’t believe any of it for a second. He straight up told Steve that he knows he’s smart and doesn’t treat him like he’s a child or a senile old man.

Steve grins and plops himself down right next to Tony on the workshop couch, and proceeds to fix the computer himself. Then he logs on to Yelp to check out new restaurants while he quietly figures out how to ask Tony on a date.

#stevetony #stony #steve rogers #tony stark #steve isn't an idiot! he can figure shit out in two seconds!!#kay writes things #ask #Anonymous

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bitcofun · 2 years ago

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This is a transcribed excerpt of the "Bitcoin Magazine Podcast," hosted by P and Q. In this episode, they are signed up with by Dylan LeClair and Sam Rule to discuss the current Tornado Cash sanctions by the U.S. Treasury. Watch This Episode On YouTube Or Rumble Listen To The Episode Here: Apple Spotify Google Libsyn Dylan LeClair: Tornado money is an open-source, Ethereum blending wallet, like Samourai Wallet or Wasabi (which has actually currently begun to end up being OFAC certified and blacklisting specific addresses). These are simply eventually a collective bitcoin deal. Individuals call it a coin-mixing service or whatever they attempt to call it to attempt to criminalize it. It's simply a bitcoin deal; it's simply a collective invest. That's simply details. You might make an argument that it's versus complimentary speech in a manner, however the State's not gon na actually accept that. It's simply not an excellent precedent. The creator, who is simply a home builder of software application is getting possibly canceled since he developed something that the U.S federal government didn't like and they blamed Korea. It was quite ludicrous, however simply a quite essential day, in basic, and not fantastic for the personal privacy motion, in basic, however we've understood it's been coming. We've understood that it was simply a matter of time. Q: I wan na play devil's supporter. I'm not asking this concern since I believe any action is warranted, I am simply a car to share a various concept. Let's neglect the Tornado Cash, however let's state this in fact occurred to Do Kwon or Mashinsky. Would your sensations be various? LeClair: Let's identify a scams, Alex Masinsky, and believe what you desire about whether Do Kwon was developing something in earnest or understood it was all a Ponzi the whole time. I'm not gon na make that call here. In terms of what Alex Masinsky and Celsius did, it was deceptive, so it's various than somebody who's structure software application. It's non-custodial, like Tornado Cash is a non-custodial Ethereum mixer. You send out in a deal-- I do not even understand the specific technicals along with I finish with bitcoin and blending-- however you send out in eth and it's a clever agreement that performs and blends it up and you can't inform what's the input and what's the output is the base of it. Sorry if I bundled the action a little. The creator or the developer of this software application, Roman Semenov, does not really touch the eth. There's this truly minor eth versus bitcoin flame war going on, where all this buzz around the combine and possibly the.eth Twitter cult will break the Bitcoin Maximalist Twitter cult. It's all quite dumb and I believe it's missing out on the larger point that a clamp down is coming. Whether Ethereum has its benefits or is riding on the backs of Bitcoin is anyone's judge. I line up most likely more with the Bitcoin Maximalist perspective. Shrieking that whatever's a fraud over the previous years hasn't truly served anybody well or secured anyone. Individuals still opt for the frauds therefore possibly we Bitcoiners must tweak our message a bit. Although I'm quite bearish on all the other altcoins versus Bitcoin over the next year, 5 years, 10 years. I believe Ethereum is significantly misestimated at 50% of bitcoin's market cap, however I believe that requiring more policy into the labeling of Ethereum as a security is simply most likely the incorrect method to tackle it. To keep bringing it back here. Sam Rule: To return to your concern, is it warranted if it was some deceptive activity or Mashinsky or something like that they're closing down. I think it does not truly matter. If you do it for one, you're gon na continuously discover the gray location to do it a growing number of. It simply returns to the point that it's simply 2 various systems totally and are constantly gon na be since stablecoin are gon na be bigger central companies, no matter what chain, whether it's Tron or Ethereum that they're on, they're gon na encounter those problems.

They still run. Stablecoins by meaning are a blockchain, dollar variation of the monetary system that we have today. I do not believe it actually matters in regards to penalty, whether it's unlawful activity or not. Now, when you believe in Bitcoin terms and the development, what it's suggested to be is that, that you're gon na have a lot of discussions. If Bitcoin achieves success throughout the years and has many problems with attempting to close down rails for all sorts of factors from the system that the United States has actually had or where the Western world actually has actually had really strong monetary control over that. They're gon na be losing that power, basically. They're not gon na be wishing to consider that up in any such method. Again, it's much like one, most likely really little example, whether I believe it was North Korean cash laundering, that's gon na turn up and most likely lots of are gon na combat and state, that's really understandable to shut that down. It simply returns to the censorship-resistant abilities of all this and what's genuinely censorship resistant and when Bitcoin grows and it scales in these circumstances, is it gon na show that it's actually genuinely censorship resistant? To me, that's most likely the biggest danger: How much impact over federal governments and services in between blacklisting addresses and attempting to close down some sort of circular economy, just how much are they gon na have the ability to do? Just how much are the tools on Bitcoin gon na have the ability to endure that? LeClair: I believe on this note, it's quite fascinating. All of the macro insaneness we've seen over the in 2015, I'm not simply speaking about like economically, however the geopolitical stress that's progressively being constructed with the United States and China and all of the approving of Treasury reserves. We're a long method far from bitcoin being anything from a shortage possession, a 24/ 7/365 inverted VIX. S&P ticks down or up, bitcoin is beta on that and it's simply this reflection of the liquidity connected and all that additional speculation sloshing around. If we do reach this point of bitcoin at $500,000 and it's comparable to gold, even larger than that, bitcoin ends up being liquid enough. It ends up being the opponent of cash, however not at a level of drug dealerships and little speculators, like it remained in 2011 and it is now in 2022, however in state nevertheless long it takes, it's gon na be liquid enough for adversarial countries to hold it in their reserves as a treasury [possession] Bitcoin mining and the truth of the video game theory of digital cash and "not your secrets, not your coins" at nation-state levels. It's like, it's not your system. And eventually, I believe the video game theory of bitcoin long term is that individuals, organizations and ultimately sovereigns are gon na decide into something where they have the guidelines in their favor. Whether it's outright deficiency, increasing production expense and you get to choose that there's no more than 21 million coins by running your own software application. The bet on bitcoin is the bet that individuals assemble upon that due to the fact that there's no other option. You can't utilize USDC and you can't utilize USTs (U.S. Treasuries) if you're Russia or China. So what if China gets into Taiwan, and I'm not gon na pretend and larp here, like I'm some geopolitical professional and understand what Xi Jinping's gon na make with Taiwan. I do not understand, however I do understand that the pattern of increasing hostility in between the most significant organizations and sovereigns in the world is going to increase and the rely on this global financial order that has actually been developed for the last 80 years because Bretton woods ... and post-1971, that purchase ended up being free-float fiat currencies. It's this experiment; we're truly just 51 years into it. What occurs when all of this boils to head

and huge competitive basement and fraying of this global financial order, which we perhaps began to see over the last 2 years at increasing rate and most likely in the next 3 to 5? Bitcoin most likely exists. I'm quite short-term bearish. I believe equities have a leg down which we still have not seen the greatest volatility occasion in this monetary crisis, however on the subject of censorship resistance, I believe among the most significant bull cases is thinking of that geopolitical video game theory, taking a look at why gold itself stopped working as worldwide cash and international cash in between sovereigns at the greatest level. Why that stopped working and why that trust, that connect, that relationship stopped working and after that check out Bitcoin or check out Ethereum, check out USDC and assess every possession in the world in regards to what's gon na fill this sort of requirement: this worldwide requirement for a neutral reserve possession. My bet, my conclusion is Bitcoin, however that's me personally. I think everybody needs to make that choice on their own, however that's my thesis here. Read More

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