#it's free to keep for now and got updated

[pinkaditty]

Who's Passing NNN? Tokyo Debunker Pt 5

hey man. the world keeps turning and i keep waking up. im grateful!

a/n: sorry i didn't update this series all weekend i mysteriously got sick with nausea and terrible headaches so i stayed away from my laptop most of the time. also please join me in prayer for an election recount. amen! anyways. enjoy haku and the others jacking it! quick disclaimer that i write these under the assumption the tokyo debunker boys are at least 18 years old. they appear to be present at a university considering there are professors and a chancellor. not to mention the boys drink, smoke, gamble, and refer to themselves as adults.

summary: pt 5 of the "Who's Passing NNN?" Tokyo Debunker series. i am genuinely surprised y'all like these but hey! i enjoy writing them which makes it so much better!

cw: men pulling their dicks out to rub them!!!!!! MINORS DNI AS PER USUAL!!!!!!!!!!!! again... not proofread.

Frostheim || Vagastrom || Jabberwock || Sinostra || Hotarubi || Obscuary || Mortkranken

(obscuary next... halfway through with them. enjoy!)

Hotarubi: 

Subaru Kagami: Pass

Honestly struggled with him a little bit because of how funny it would be if he failed and writing him in a situation where he had to hold it together, but then I realized I already did that (see “He Knows”). I love tormenting submissive men but I’m gonna give him a lil break. 

He’s hard as a rock. His cock harshly presses into his pants, seeking friction and begging to be set free. Subaru, however, remains the picture of elegance - if you ignore his flushed cheeks and trembling silhouette. He was sitting alone in the hidden Hotarubi cabin, waiting to meet Haku later. He held a hot cup of tea in front of him, trying not to spill it as he slowly lifts it to his lips. He manages to gently sip at it, his fingers slipping just slightly and spilling just a little over the edges. The tea slides from his lips, past his chin, and down his neck, lightly staining the collar of his shirt. He sighs in frustration and hooks a finger over his collar, pulling it away from the tea. He only just now realizes how warm he felt, the exposure of his heated skin to cooler air giving him goosebumps. He suppresses a gasp at the feeling and readjusts his collar, placing his tea down with his other hand. Now that he was aware of the heat, it wouldn’t leave him alone. It seemed to flood his body from head to toe - flushed cheeks and neck, his body tense with heat and arousal, his blood flowing to his shameful erection. 

He wondered if he should cancel on Haku, and nearly immediately regrets the thought. That would potentially make things inconvenient for him, and he didn’t want that… But he also knew he wouldn’t be much for conversation like this. Not to mention it would be absolutely mortifying if Haku saw right through him. Subaru sighs, though it sounds more like a pleasured groan. This was a terrible predicament.

He gets a notification on his phone. Something from Wickchat. With trembling hands, he opens the message. It’s from Haku. He’s running late. 

Subaru sighs. He wasn’t sure how he was going to get through the next half hour waiting for Haku like this. Technically, he could take care of it, here… There was no one around, the rain would muffle any noise, and it’s not like this cabin is clearly visible through the trees. He whips his head around the empty cabin, as though someone would be hiding in the corners. His flush grows deeper at the thought of doing this somewhere other than his dorm, but he can’t deny the way his cock jumps at the thought of getting away with it. With his lips pressed into a thin, trembling line - he reaches for his pants, squeezing himself through the fabric. He whines, the sound more needy than intended. He slaps a hand to his mouth, going silent for a moment, his eyes darting to the windows of the small space. When he decides he’s safe, he does it again -- squeezing himself gently, trying to relieve some pressure. It isn’t long before he’s gently rubbing his palm against his tip, teasing himself. He keeps his hand clasped tight to his mouth, muffled moans and whimpers slipping through. He gently teases the head, slowly dragging his fingers up and down his shaft. He rubs his thighs together and leans forward, realizing his peak is rapidly approaching. He rips his hand from his mouth and swiftly grabs a handkerchief, pointing his cock at that as he finally bursts, a strangled moan lifting from his throat and his cum spurting onto the thin fabric. He shivers, staring at the mess, wondering if brewing another cup of tea would get the scent of his arousal out of the air. 

Haku Kusanagi: Fail

Come on. Let’s be for real. He did not try. Caught wind of the bet between Romeo and Rui and just laughed. He is not passing this shit, and he knows it. As much as I would love to write Haku getting off… I’ll make him suffer one more time.

Haku shivers, the air just a tad bit chilly on the galaxy express. Usually, these rides were quick, but unfortunately, his mission had been quite a ways away. He could expect to be here for a while. He chews on his thumbnail, tapping his foot as though to speed up time. He drums his fingers on the plush seat next to him, doing anything to distract himself and pass the time. He was good at hiding his arousal, typically, and that hadn’t changed today. But, for whatever reason, every single sensation felt more potent today. The chill of the air on his face, the slide of his shirt and collar along his chest and neck, the rush of warmth following every twitch of his impatient length - it all felt the same. Stimulating. He found himself having to blink multiple times or gently shake his head to prevent himself from getting lost in sensation after sensation. 

He sighs and leans his head back, listening intently to the gentle thrum of the hearth of the train as it smoothly coasted through the unseen anomalous pockets of space. He was glad this train didn’t rumble or thump, because if it did, it would’ve caused him more than enough friction to lose himself far quicker. 

He shifts his gaze to his half-hard cock as it continues to rise insistently. He groans inwardly, his expression twisting into a displeased look. Heat flushes through him as his cock twitches, as though noticing his attention. He sighs miserably, pinching the bridge of his nose. He was not going to jack off on this train. He’d have to wait. He was supposed to be meeting Subaru when he got back, but he really didn’t feel like showing up with an obvious boner. He’d simply have to be late, not that this boner was giving him much choice. He couldn’t even shift his attention away from it. The flush creeping up his skin made the cool air of the train that much more potent. The sweat beading from his chest makes his shirt stick to him, brushing against him more directly. His unhurried, labored breaths only quickened with every twitch. He could feel his mind clouding, slowly succumbing to the pleasant sensations, and small, soft moans escaping his lips. He keens once, feeling his cock reach full mast and form a tent, desperate as he was for release. He shakes his head, gritting his teeth and curling his hands into fists. He was not going to jack off on this train. 

He sits back upright, panting, certain his bangs were sticking to his forehead. Finally, the train makes an announcement. “Now arriving at Darwick Academy…” Haku sighs with relief, beyond ready to march back to his dorm room. He’s on his feet before the train even stops, driven blind by a need for release. He squeezes his thighs together, waiting at the door for the train to stop, shakily texting Subaru that he’d be late. 

Zenji Kotodama: Pass (Unintentionally)

He didn’t even realize it was NNN, man. To him, it was purposely abstaining from it to fuel his inspiration. Like hunger and thirst, certain sensations do go away or are dulled when you die, but intense emotions remain… desire being one of them. 

It’s harder than you’d think for a ghost to find some alone time. He’d finally finished composing his newest tune to play on his biwa, and wanted nothing more than to retreat to his own world. His newest tune had been about desire, something he felt so frequently as a ghost. A desire to live, a desire to be, a desire to connect with those around him. He also felt himself longing for physical pleasures, too. He can touch anything he wants… so long as it isn’t a living person. He just passes right through them. Thankfully, his dormmates that could see him do opt to pretend he can, but he wants to feel. He wants to touch. He wants to connect. 

Unfortunately, until that day dawned, he’d have to settle for himself, his beloved doll, and everything else. 

He’d left both the doll and his biwa out on one of Hotarubi’s may balconies, to watch the rain and the koi fish swimming in the ponds. Since Subaru knew he was “here”, he’d graciously allowed Zenji to keep a room, which he hardly uses, but is grateful for anyway. It is here that he retreats, letting the desire to touch brew into a boil. He grunts, dissatisfied, as he stalks to his bed, plopping his back onto the pillowy sheets. He groans, sinking into the bed. Despite his complicated mix of emotions, he still feels his arousal stir, feeling himself swell with the desire to touch, or be touched. He presses his lips into a thin line, welcoming the warmth as it swallows him whole. His cheeks flush and soft moans escape his lips as he imagines how it must feel; hands gently caressing his body, starting with his cheeks, then moving to his neck, gently trailing their nails across his sensitive skin, splaying their fingers wide on his chest, pressing them down hard as they pass over his nipples, moving lower, and lower, and lower… Zenji finds himself arcing into the imaginary touch, his dick twitching as though it were real. He shivers, following the insistent demand of his lower body and letting his hands trail further down his own body, hooking his thumb over his pants and tugging them down.

It isn’t long before he’s stroking his length, his desire taking hold of him completely. He throws his head back on the bed as he gently strokes himself, imagining someone else is teasing his length, taking slower strokes until they are satisfied. Zenji groans and begins thrusting into his hand, curling it tighter around his shaft. He traces his body with his other hand, touching and teasing all the places he’d like to be touched. He moans in tandem with each touch and thrust into his hand, feeling his peak reach him rapidly. He curls his free hand into his shirt as he cums, spurting his mess onto his hand and thighs. He turns his gaze down to his hand as he gently squeezes the last few drops out of himself. He’d have to keep settling for this.

a/n: caught my ass genuinely drooling as i was writing haku's part man im cooked. like!!! haku!! come to the old chapel... i'll totally give u head brew u some tea!!!! (tbh either way works he's so cute i just wanna spend time with him)

siiiiighhh anyways note that i appreciate likes, comments, and reblogs!!!! please tell me how much you enjoyed this! it means a lot to know you guys like my writing!

[jofiah]

I can't believe we finally got Half-Life Free

[bi-badass-geek]

Hades 1 vs Hades 2 Designs

● Hermes besides Hypnos was first character that made me think when i saw him oh some time has passed since Zag's escapes indeed, makes you feel that time skip. In this particular debate between those i'm really digging both but if needed to say which i prefer would go with second. I feel it should be said he sure rolls nicely with longer hair i would say darker outfit too but that's probably because pallet that's used for levels.

Ps. I saw post that mentioned how his ring is the same as ones Charon is wearing in first game and if it's a hint at something i'm here for it!

● Zeus for this god specifically there is discourse about how his pose is less dynamic and oh boy if i don't agree with that so much. In first game you see him and his look makes you think yeah this is the king of gods while in second game man is just there with posture i take often because i'm useless gay that don't know what to do with my hands and feels like they took all this might and put it into chiseling his nipples & abs into his golden chestplate. Not to mention the detail of missing the iconic bolt! Don't think it needs to be said but 100% would pick Hades 1 design out of those options.

● Poseidon the King of the Sea another example in my humble opinion where they went with flattening that dynamic looks exchanging it for man that just standing there chilling which is good for him but where first screams cool uncle second one goes uncle that wants retirement. I really like how we can see the trident now tho and need to point out his outfit sure got more print on it. When it comes down to pointing out which one is the winner in my eyes it would be 2020 one.

● Aphrodite if she wasn't the one that got thrown into drama because people double standards and hypocrisy. Design from first game and the pose straight up makes you think of love, lust, seduction all the things that are associated with said goddess. As for Hades 2 version i have no clue why it feels like this considering it's actually the opposite because we can see armor on her legs now but she feels less covered for me, do i find it negative or in any way problematic? Not one bit let the woman show off all her assets all day long! Really love the adds of her weapon and shield makes you immerse in the store of oh fights are happening around these parts. From seduction to i stand here at the ready kinda vibe and i'm really digging it.

Ps. Another post i read was about fact that her war paint i will call it (not 100% sure if that is it or just line for the giggles) is reference to Ares and considering her myth i really like that touch!

● Hypnos was the first OG i saw and was like man not only catching up on his sleep but also got such glow up i absolutely adore the design. Not to say he looked bad in Hades 1 but there it was like okay nice to Hades 2 like Damnnn and his lil helpers that keeps him up! Love the fact that of all things they made him be tucked into his cape like burrito.

Ps. I really do hope by the end of the game we get to wake him up so he can try out that nectar that we all leave there waiting.

● Chaos so many things to say and at the same time silence says it all. Seen people focusing on fact some out there call them he or how it's a downgrade from previous but don't even elaborate why they think that because everyone has right to have their own preference but at least put it into words instead of going trash next..there was also notion how they resemble Meg and while i see where people get that idea from for sure before reading that my mind didn't went there at all. I think both designs really work with someone who is primordial originator and how time goes so can their form. I find it very fascinating that they put old skeleton with new one and adore galaxy under suit makes me think of Nyx right away and how they're connected. Can totally see how between those two gamers got major stance that left reminds them more of male and right of female beings but at the end of the it chaos is chaos. Gotta take chair routine from Meg while they at it! The face on the shoulder surely throws me in loop tho fits? Sure. Does it disturb me in micro scale? Yes. About frames and poses don't have much to say cause both caption the essence of i mind my business everything unrelevant until i say so.

Ps. I know it's about physical aspect but let me say Chaos roasting Mel about how her brother is amusing one out of two Hades spawns is living rent free in my brain.

[lornasaurusrex]

I miss you Lorna… this is such a mess

This is an old message and I had several other similar messages, but I miss you guys and hope you’re all doing well!! I’m sorry to see nothing has improved.

I saw I was kindly mentioned by @awesomefringey and some other commenters the other day, so just wanted to log in and say hello and log back out for a few more months. 💕

Sending so so much love to all of you. Take care of yourselves and each other, please.

The video is still on YT.

[musubiki]

i just wanna say that feixiao and moze from hsr reminds me so much coffy! they even have similar hairstyles (kind of)! i'm crazy about how feixiao is this shining beacon of light to moze in his splash art. 😭

I ALSO THOUGHT THAT FEIXIAO REMINDED ME OF COCO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i think its the gradient ponytail and cool lady attitude????? either way i didnt even notice her in mozes splash art at first thats a nice detail hehe

[flowered-mp3]

[meownotgood]

I wanted to make more progress today, but I spent most of my writing time completely rewriting some parts that I didn't like, and now I'm too eepy to continue......... oh well

[prepickles]

i most certainly didn't accidentally forget tumblr exists for months once again

[incorrectbatfam]

What does Tim say when people ask about his spleen?

Damian: I am updating my blackmail records. Tell me what happened to your spleen in its full hilarity.

Tim: I donated it to a sickly orphan.

Damian: You win this round.

———————

Tim: I have to be careful, I lost my spleen.

Carrie: How?

Tim: Aliens.

———————

Tim: I'm zero percent spleen and fifty-nine percent pizza sauce.

Helena: Zero percent spleen?

Tim: Yep. On the bright side, they named a disease after me.

———————

Luke: I've designed nanotech vitals trackers to be implanted on our spleens.

Tim: Oh, no thanks. I don't have one.

Luke: You don't have a spleen?

Tim: It wasn't paying rent so I evicted it. Lazy freeloader.

———————

Barbara: Why does your chart say you're missing a spleen?

Tim: I made a deal with the devil but I had a discount code so instead of my soul I just needed to sell a non-essential organ.

———————

Steph: What happened to your spleen? Are you okay?

Tim: I'm fine. It's taking an extended gap year.

———————

Harper: So... can I ask about your spleen?

Tim: Yeah, don't worry. I was part of a failed science experiment.

Cullen: What'd they do?

Tim: They injected me with a serum that was supposed to make me indestructible. But instead all I got were a spleen removal and chronic insomnia. And a free T-shirt.

Cullen:

Harper:

Cullen: Was it a nice shirt?

———————

Dick: What do you mean you don't have a spleen?!?

Tim: It was confiscated by airport security.

———————

Tim: Happy Pride! My spleen finally came out of the closet. And by closet I mean my body.

Kate: Diversity win.

———————

Tim and Jason: *arguing*

Jason: At least I still have my spleen!

Tim: It's genetic!

Jason: Sucks to be you.

Tim: We have the same dad. It could happen to you too.

Jason, scoffing: Whatever.

Jason, internally: Oh shit, he's right. I need to see Leslie.

———————

Tim and Bette: *sparring*

Bette: *hits Tim*

Tim: Ow. Time out. That was my spleenhole.

Bette: ...How?

Tim: It took a trip to the Titanic in a soup can with a Playstation controller.

———————

Duke: Since when did you have that scar?

Tim: Since losing my spleen last year.

Duke: How do you lose a spleen?

Tim: You forget to cherish it.

———————

Cass: ?

Tim: I digested it.

———————

Selina: You know I have to tell Bruce about this.

Tim: Okay, fine.

Tim: I had to get it removed as a kid after falling into a well of bats.

———————

Bruce: Tell me what happened to your spleen so Alfred and Leslie can give you the proper treatment.

Tim: What do you mean?

Bruce: Everyone's been telling me you don't have it.

Tim: Well, I do, so...

Bruce: Alright, I'll have a talk with them about bad taste pranks.

———————

Alfred: You can't keep the truth from me, Master Tim.

Tim: Assassins stole it.

Alfred: I wasn't born yesterday. Now what really happened?

Tim: ...

[possum-tooth]

uhm good morning :)

[the-fandom-crossroads]

Folks talking about Game Devs dropping Unity or how it won't hurt small indie devs with under 200,000. Are missing the point.

Some of these Unity games can't change to another engine because they have years of code piled on top of each other at this point. aka POKEMON GO. They'd basically have to rebuild the game from scratch.

Not to mention Unity is mostly used by phone app games or Indie's that are lucky enough to get picked up by console. Indie games on Mobile easily pass 200,000 downloads. Temple Run 1 and 2 are in Unity, Crossy Road, Angry birds 1 and 2, and Hearthstone. All of these past 200,000 downloads years ago but aren't bringing in money now except hearthstone.

The Developers will do what happened to the first Angry birds app. They'll take it down, build it in a new engine for "HD", and add a shit ton of micro transactions. We are about to lose countless original versions of the OG pre lootbox mobile games.

We are also about to lose some of the biggest Indie games of the last decade. Among Us, Plague Inc., 7 Days to die, the original Slenderman game and it's sequel, I am Bread, Ori and the Blind Forest, Dream Daddy, Overcooked 1 & 2, Pathfinder online, Cup Head, Bendy and the Ink Machine, Oxygen Not Included, Bloons Tower Defense 6, Beat Saber, Subnautica, The Stanley Parable, Untitled Goose Game, Power Washing Simulator, Fall Guys, Inscryption, Phasmophobia

And the big one FUCKING HOLLOW KNIGHT. Silk song has already been pushed back out of this year specifically because it's being made by a team of like 3 people. It is so close to being finished and now they are being told they have to start over from scratch basically. Hollow Knight got over 200,000 downloads from being on playstation and was eventually put on Playstations subscription service. Every cent they made from hollow knight has gone back into making silk song. Which might now be delayed by multiple years and oh they are going to have to use some of that funds to pay unity now. Or find a way to get out of a contract with playstation. Because folks will keep downloading Hollow Knight for free and Unity will send the Hollow Knight team the bill.

oh and there's one more teeny tiny game made in Unity that you guys might not want to suddenly disappear. One with almost 3 years of monthly code updates, one with 139 million downloads to date, and 4.8 million monthly users.

Genshin. Guys Genshin Impact is made completely in Unity and that's not a game that can have it's code just copy and pasted to another engine.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Tesla's Dieselgate

Elon Musk lies a lot. He lies about being a “utopian socialist.” He lies about being a “free speech absolutist.” He lies about which companies he founded:

https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-cofounder-martin-eberhard-interview-history-elon-musk-ev-market-2023-2 He lies about being the “chief engineer” of those companies:

https://www.quora.com/Was-Elon-Musk-the-actual-engineer-behind-SpaceX-and-Tesla

He lies about really stupid stuff, like claiming that comsats that share the same spectrum will deliver steady broadband speeds as they add more users who each get a narrower slice of that spectrum:

https://www.eff.org/wp/case-fiber-home-today-why-fiber-superior-medium-21st-century-broadband

The fundamental laws of physics don’t care about this bullshit, but people do. The comsat lie convinced a bunch of people that pulling fiber to all our homes is literally impossible — as though the electrical and phone lines that come to our homes now were installed by an ancient, lost civilization. Pulling new cabling isn’t a mysterious art, like embalming pharaohs. We do it all the time. One of the poorest places in America installed universal fiber with a mule named “Ole Bub”:

https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-one-traffic-light-town-with-some-of-the-fastest-internet-in-the-us

Previous tech barons had “reality distortion fields,” but Musk just blithely contradicts himself and pretends he isn’t doing so, like a budget Steve Jobs. There’s an entire site devoted to cataloging Musk’s public lies:

https://elonmusk.today/

But while Musk lacks the charm of earlier Silicon Valley grifters, he’s much better than they ever were at running a long con. For years, he’s been promising “full self driving…next year.”

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

He’s hasn’t delivered, but he keeps claiming he has, making Teslas some of the deadliest cars on the road:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/10/tesla-autopilot-crashes-elon-musk/

Tesla is a giant shell-game masquerading as a car company. The important thing about Tesla isn’t its cars, it’s Tesla’s business arrangement, the Tesla-Financial Complex:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/24/no-puedo-pagar-no-pagara/#Rat

Once you start unpacking Tesla’s balance sheets, you start to realize how much the company depends on government subsidies and tax-breaks, combined with selling carbon credits that make huge, planet-destroying SUVs possible, under the pretense that this is somehow good for the environment:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/14/for-sale-green-indulgences/#killer-analogy

But even with all those financial shenanigans, Tesla’s got an absurdly high valuation, soaring at times to 1600x its profitability:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/15/hoover-calling/#intangibles

That valuation represents a bet on Tesla’s ability to extract ever-higher rents from its customers. Take Tesla’s batteries: you pay for the battery when you buy your car, but you don’t own that battery. You have to rent the right to use its full capacity, with Tesla reserving the right to reduce how far you go on a charge based on your willingness to pay:

https://memex.craphound.com/2017/09/10/teslas-demon-haunted-cars-in-irmas-path-get-a-temporary-battery-life-boost/

That’s just one of the many rent-a-features that Tesla drivers have to shell out for. You don’t own your car at all: when you sell it as a used vehicle, Tesla strips out these features you paid for and makes the next driver pay again, reducing the value of your used car and transfering it to Tesla’s shareholders:

https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/6/21127243/tesla-model-s-autopilot-disabled-remotely-used-car-update

To maintain this rent-extraction racket, Tesla uses DRM that makes it a felony to alter your own car’s software without Tesla’s permission. This is the root of all autoenshittification:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

This is technofeudalism. Whereas capitalists seek profits (income from selling things), feudalists seek rents (income from owning the things other people use). If Telsa were a capitalist enterprise, then entrepreneurs could enter the market and sell mods that let you unlock the functionality in your own car:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/11/1-in-3/#boost-50

But because Tesla is a feudal enterprise, capitalists must first secure permission from the fief, Elon Musk, who decides which companies are allowed to compete with him, and how.

Once a company owns the right to decide which software you can run, there’s no limit to the ways it can extract rent from you. Blocking you from changing your device’s software lets a company run overt scams on you. For example, they can block you from getting your car independently repaired with third-party parts.

But they can also screw you in sneaky ways. Once a device has DRM on it, Section 1201 of the DMCA makes it a felony to bypass that DRM, even for legitimate purposes. That means that your DRM-locked device can spy on you, and because no one is allowed to explore how that surveillance works, the manufacturer can be incredibly sloppy with all the personal info they gather:

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/29/tesla-model-3-keeps-data-like-crash-videos-location-phone-contacts.html

All kinds of hidden anti-features can lurk in your DRM-locked car, protected from discovery, analysis and criticism by the illegality of bypassing the DRM. For example, Teslas have a hidden feature that lets them lock out their owners and summon a repo man to drive them away if you have a dispute about a late payment:

https://tiremeetsroad.com/2021/03/18/tesla-allegedly-remotely-unlocks-model-3-owners-car-uses-smart-summon-to-help-repo-agent/

DRM is a gun on the mantlepiece in Act I, and by Act III, it goes off, revealing some kind of ugly and often dangerous scam. Remember Dieselgate? Volkswagen created a line of demon-haunted cars: if they thought they were being scrutinized (by regulators measuring their emissions), they switched into a mode that traded performance for low emissions. But when they believed themselves to be unobserved, they reversed this, emitting deadly levels of NOX but delivering superior mileage.

The conversion of the VW diesel fleet into mobile gas-chambers wouldn’t have been possible without DRM. DRM adds a layer of serious criminal jeopardy to anyone attempting to reverse-engineer and study any device, from a phone to a car. DRM let Apple claim to be a champion of its users’ privacy even as it spied on them from asshole to appetite:

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

Now, Tesla is having its own Dieselgate scandal. A stunning investigation by Steve Stecklow and Norihiko Shirouzu for Reuters reveals how Tesla was able to create its own demon-haunted car, which systematically deceived drivers about its driving range, and the increasingly desperate measures the company turned to as customers discovered the ruse:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-batteries-range/

The root of the deception is very simple: Tesla mis-sells its cars by falsely claiming ranges that those cars can’t attain. Every person who ever bought a Tesla was defrauded.

But this fraud would be easy to detect. If you bought a Tesla rated for 353 miles on a charge, but the dashboard range predictor told you that your fully charged car could only go 150 miles, you’d immediately figure something was up. So your Telsa tells another lie: the range predictor tells you that you can go 353 miles.

But again, if the car continued to tell you it has 203 miles of range when it was about to run out of charge, you’d figure something was up pretty quick — like, the first time your car ran out of battery while the dashboard cheerily informed you that you had 203 miles of range left.

So Teslas tell a third lie: when the battery charge reached about 50%, the fake range is replaced with the real one. That way, drivers aren’t getting mass-stranded by the roadside, and the scam can continue.

But there’s a new problem: drivers whose cars are rated for 353 miles but can’t go anything like that far on a full charge naturally assume that something is wrong with their cars, so they start calling Tesla service and asking to have the car checked over.

This creates a problem for Tesla: those service calls can cost the company $1,000, and of course, there’s nothing wrong with the car. It’s performing exactly as designed. So Tesla created its boldest fraud yet: a boiler-room full of anti-salespeople charged with convincing people that their cars weren’t broken.

This new unit — the “diversion team” — was headquartered in a Nevada satellite office, which was equipped with a metal xylophone that would be rung in triumph every time a Tesla owner was successfully conned into thinking that their car wasn’t defrauding them.

When a Tesla owner called this boiler room, the diverter would run remote diagnostics on their car, then pronounce it fine, and chide the driver for having energy-hungry driving habits (shades of Steve Jobs’s “You’re holding it wrong”):

https://www.wired.com/2010/06/iphone-4-holding-it-wrong/

The drivers who called the Diversion Team weren’t just lied to, they were also punished. The Tesla app was silently altered so that anyone who filed a complaint about their car’s range was no longer able to book a service appointment for any reason. If their car malfunctioned, they’d have to request a callback, which could take several days.

Meanwhile, the diverters on the diversion team were instructed not to inform drivers if the remote diagnostics they performed detected any other defects in the cars.

The diversion team had a 750 complaint/week quota: to juke this stat, diverters would close the case for any driver who failed to answer the phone when they were eventually called back. The center received 2,000+ calls every week. Diverters were ordered to keep calls to five minutes or less.

Eventually, diverters were ordered to cease performing any remote diagnostics on drivers’ cars: a source told Reuters that “Thousands of customers were told there is nothing wrong with their car” without any diagnostics being performed.

Predicting EV range is an inexact science as many factors can affect battery life, notably whether a journey is uphill or downhill. Every EV automaker has to come up with a figure that represents some kind of best guess under a mix of conditions. But while other manufacturers err on the side of caution, Tesla has the most inaccurate mileage estimates in the industry, double the industry average.

Other countries’ regulators have taken note. In Korea, Tesla was fined millions and Elon Musk was personally required to state that he had deceived Tesla buyers. The Korean regulator found that the true range of Teslas under normal winter conditions was less than half of the claimed range.

Now, many companies have been run by malignant narcissists who lied compulsively — think of Thomas Edison, archnemesis of Nikola Tesla himself. The difference here isn’t merely that Musk is a deeply unfit monster of a human being — but rather, that DRM allows him to defraud his customers behind a state-enforced opaque veil. The digital computers at the heart of a Tesla aren’t just demons haunting the car, changing its performance based on whether it believes it is being observed — they also allow Musk to invoke the power of the US government to felonize anyone who tries to peer into the black box where he commits his frauds.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/edison-not-tesla/#demon-haunted-world

This Sunday (July 30) at 1530h, I’m appearing on a panel at Midsummer Scream in Long Beach, CA, to discuss the wonderful, award-winning “Ghost Post” Haunted Mansion project I worked on for Disney Imagineering.

Image ID [A scene out of an 11th century tome on demon-summoning called 'Compendium rarissimum totius Artis Magicae sistematisatae per celeberrimos Artis hujus Magistros. Anno 1057. Noli me tangere.' It depicts a demon tormenting two unlucky would-be demon-summoners who have dug up a grave in a graveyard. One summoner is held aloft by his hair, screaming; the other screams from inside the grave he is digging up. The scene has been altered to remove the demon's prominent, urinating penis, to add in a Tesla supercharger, and a red Tesla Model S nosing into the scene.]

Image: Steve Jurvetson (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tesla_Model_S_Indoors.jpg

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

[buttercuparry]

I am very worried that Siraj ( @siraj2024 ) may not be able to get to 30k CAD by the end of this week 

We have got only 2 days left now!!

Siraj, who is both a journalist and writer, never imagined a time in which he would be forced to plead for monetary help from strangers on the internet. This genocide, now in its 10th month, has devastated his life and forced him to turn to us, and to you. His house, which was a dream come true for his family, has been bombed by the IDF, forcing Siraj to bear witness to a decade of hard work crumbling to the ground. All this injustice comes at the hands of the illegal settler state of “Israel” and its Imperial sponsor, the USA.

Because of the manufactured famine and violence by the occupation , everyday has been a nightmare for Siraj. Food is hard to come by and what little there is- it is extremely costly. There is also no clean drinking water in Gaza Strip either and this is all the more alarming, since recently there has been discovery of  polio virus in the free flowing sewage water putting all unvaccinated children at risk of an epidemic, with gaza's medical infrastructure almost completely destroyed

The settler colony is not only bombing and administrating deadly ground invasions but, it has also created such conditions that children who by some luck  have escaped being in the line of fire,  now have every possibility of contracting deadly illnesses!

Siraj's little son is seriously ill !!

It is something Siraj has worried about for some time now, with all the illnesses the children of gaza are being exposed to today and none of the medical resources left to help. You cannot afford to get sick in gaza anymore, just as you cannot afford to get injured. This is his worst fear come to life. 

This places Siraj’s son in a deeply vulnerable situation.For the past two days Siraj has been unable to come online properly to campaign - he can’t spare time for the campaign because he must care for his child, and in these two days where Siraj has been stretched thin between obligations, and time was taken from his pleas for help, his campaign stagnated.

If you truly believe in the Palestinian cause, if you truly want them to have a life of dignity then please do not turn away the moment they stop to take a breath.  

Siraj wants to rebuild his home to escape the tent life which is proving difficult for his children! He wants to remain in Gaza. He cannot bear to think that his wife Halima has no privacy, that she has to endure even this amidst trying to survive a genocide. Does he really  have to travel 3 km everyday, no matter what to post his daily updates, for you to keep  caring? Does he have to showcase pictures of his sick children to the world to garner your sympathy? Does he have to expose his family to the racist dehumanization faced by Palestinians in real life and on this site, when he already bears the burnt of harassment from Zionists who hate him for daring to  expose the occupation in all its brutality? If it is not so then please boost and donate!

We only have 2 days to reach 30k !!

Currently at $26930 CAD. Only $40 CAD donated in the last hour. Do not fail Siraj now!

(Vetting at number 219 on Hussein and Nabulsi's list )

[syn0vial]

Astarion Voicelines: Healing/Helping/Buffing (Now updated for Patch 1.3)

A compilation of Astarion's voicelines when he's healing a character with a spell, using the "help" action to free them from an immobilized position, or casting a buffing spell.

Voice lines added between patches 1.1 and 1.3 have been marked with bold text.

Healing (Negative Approval)

Of course you need help.

Waste of a spell.

There's always something.

A poor investment.

Don't bleed on me.

If I must.

Just don't bleed on me.

I should let it fester.

Do I have to touch them?

You're bleeding. Again.

Oh for Gods' sake.

I won't always save you.

Healing (Neutral Approval)

Stop bleeding - it's distracting.

We'll fix what we can.

Try not to die.

You're leaking.

Let's not die yet.

You owe me.

That's enough wasted blood.

There's life in you yet.

Let's fix what we can.

Healing. How novel.

Stop bleeding!

Fine, I'll save you.

Healing (Positive Approval)

A helping hand.

No more wasted blood.

We need you strong.

Let's play doctor.

We'll patch you up.

Let's not die yet.

You're wasting blood.

We need you strong.

It's not your time.

Let's fix that.

You're not dying.

Healing (Romantic Interest)

Let's fix you up.

Let's not waste any blood.

Let's lay on hands.

Let's play doctor.

No, no - that won't do.

The kiss of life.

Stay strong, darling.

You're not going down.

A little pick-me-up.

Healing touch.

Shhh, it's all right.

Helping (Negative Approval)

Of course you're stuck.

Of course they're trapped.

Let's get you loose.

Help the idiot.

Worse than useless.

Some don't deserve saving.

I should just leave you.

Oh no, is someone stuck?

You're a danger to yourself.

How have you survived this long?

I could just leave them...

I'll help. This time.

Can't they wriggle free?

So helpless...

Damned fool.

Give me patience.

Give me strength.

Oh no, they're stuck.

Helping (Neutral Approval)

Why am I not surprised?

Someone needs help.

What have you done now?

Yes yes, I'll save you.

Not that I'll get any thanks...

Must I?

Yes, fine.

Fine.

All right, I'm coming.

Yes, I'll free you.

Let's go already.

Your hero is here.

Do I have to do everything?

Yes, yes, I'm coming.

All right, I'm coming!

Fine, I'll free you.

Let's get you loose.

Oh for goodness' sake.

Because I've nothing better to do.

Get back in the fight.

I swear...

Helping (Positive Approval)

Ha! Oh I shouldn't laugh.

Help is here.

Relax, I've got you.

Come on, let's move.

I'll free you.

Your hero is coming.

All right, all right.

Let's get you up.

I'll get you loose.

Come on, move.

Easy, I'm here.

Hold on, I'm coming.

Helping (Romantic Interest)

A sticky situation.

Let's get you free.

I'm coming.

Really, darling?

Don't worry, I'm here.

Let's get you moving.

You look good helpless.

Maybe they like being restrained?

Don't worry, I'm here.

Let's get you moving.

You'll be free soon.

Oh I shouldn't laugh.

In a spot of bother, hmm?

Buffing (Negative Approval)

Try not to waste it.

Let's waste a spell - why not?

Do I have to do everything?

Useless.

Of course you need help.

Just try not to die.

What a waste.

Yes, fine.

Fine.

If I must.

Do I have to?

Buffing (Neutral Approval)

How did you last so long without me?

Do not waste this.

Don't worry, I'm here.

Someone needs help, I see.

Yes, all right.

A little help.

All right, here.

Don't waste this.

You clearly need some help.

Let's try to survive, hmm?

Stay strong!

Do not let me down.

Try not to die.

I swear, if you just die...

Fine, here!

Just try to survive, will you?

Buffing (Positive Approval)

Lucky I'm here.

Where would you be without me?

Here you go.

This should help.

Better safe than stiff.

A little boost.

A friend in need.

Someone needs a little help.

Just a moment.

Buffing (Romantic Interest)

I've got you.

Let's keep you safe.

Let's keep you cute.

Help is here.

Don't worry, I'm here.

For you, darling.

Just in case

Let's be safe.

Here, darling.

This should help.

No need to thank me.

[goldfades]

WHO DID THIS TO YOU?──RAFE CAMERON

free palestine carrd 🇵🇸 decolonize palestine site 🇵🇸 how you can help palestine it's crucial that we stand in solidarity with those who need our support. right now, the people of palestine are facing unimaginable hardship, and it's up to all of us to do what we can to help. whether it's raising awareness, donating to relief organizations, or supporting calls for justice and peace, every action counts. we can amplify their voices, shed light on their struggles, and work towards a future where every individual can live with dignity and freedom. your support can make a difference! FREE PALESTINE!

for this request, for my lovely jo! @wanderlusturous

─ summary | you and rafe are consumed by an obsessive love, where their madness is fueled by each other. you find exhilaration in pushing boundaries, testing each other’s limits, and the deeper you fall into your shared insanity, the tighter your bond becomes. when rafe finds you crying in your bedroom one day, he loses his shit and is thrown into a silent rage, seeking revenge. and you don't mind, not one bit.

─ pairing | rafe cameron x fem!reader

─ warnings | oh my god, where do i even begin?? obsessive rafe, like insane but reader reciprocates it. a few kisses but mostly just insane stuff. mention of drugging (not to reader), hacking (?), idk what else but this is lowkey insane...

─ ev's notes | im gonna be honest, i don't know if i like this... but lmk if yall enjoyed it. it's a little too dark-themed for me and i got into it until i reread it and realized that it was lowkey insane but hey!!! whatever!!! anyway, pls lmk if this was too dark.. or if you enjoyed it. also, sorry to any becca's out there, it was just the first name that popped up. any feedback is always very appreciated!

ok love u bye!!! pls send me requests!!!!!!

⇨ missing out on updates? check out my masterlist!

The night is suffocating, thick with tension that mirrors the pulse racing in your veins. Every sound, every breath, seems amplified, as if the world knows what’s coming. You stand by the dock, your eyes on the dark water ahead, but your thoughts are elsewhere—on him.

Rafe.

You can already feel him, even when he’s not here. The way your skin hums when you think of him, the way your pulse skips in sync with his name. No one gets you like Rafe does. No one makes you feel like the world is spinning off its axis just by looking at you. He’s chaos, destruction wrapped in a pretty face, and you... you crave it.

The roar of an engine breaks through the night. You don’t turn, but a slow smile curls on your lips. You feel the heat of his presence before you even hear his footsteps.

“Couldn’t stay away, could you?” Rafe’s voice is a low drawl, but there’s something manic beneath it, something that sparks against the madness in you.

You turn your head slightly, just enough to catch his eyes. There’s that look again. That wild, possessive look that sets your blood on fire. He’s close now, so close you can feel the heat radiating off him, feel the tension in the air tighten like a noose around your neck.

“Neither could you,” you reply, your voice low, daring.

He grins, a sharp, dangerous thing. “You’re right. I can’t.”

His fingers brush your arm, just a ghost of a touch, but it’s enough to ignite something violent between you. This—this is what you live for. The thrill. The madness. The way Rafe looks at you like you’re the only thing keeping him sane, and maybe that’s what scares you the most.

Because you’re not sane.

Not anymore.

You can’t even remember why you broke up with him a few months ago, but all you know is that it got overwhelming. There was something suffocating about it—about him. The way he always knew where you were, who you were with, what you were thinking before you even said it. At first, it was intoxicating, the way he could read you like no one else ever could, like you were the only two people on earth and no one else mattered. But then… it was too much. His intensity felt like drowning in quicksand, slow but relentless. And for a moment, just a moment, you thought maybe you needed air.

But standing here now, with the salt stinging your nostrils and the wind howling like some kind of omen, you can’t remember why you ever thought you could leave him.

Because there he is—Rafe Cameron, walking toward you like the world is his and you’re his prize, eyes locked on you in a way that makes your chest tighten, your stomach coil in knots. He’s dangerous in all the ways that matter. Not just because he’s reckless and violent (though God knows he is), but because of how he makes you feel. Alive, in a way that hurts. Like the rush you get standing on the edge of a cliff, knowing one wrong step and it’s all over, but you can’t stop yourself from leaning forward, just to feel the thrill of almost falling.

He doesn’t stop walking until he’s so close you can smell the gasoline and smoke on his clothes, the wild energy pouring off him in waves. He looks at you like you’re the only thing that matters, like you’re the oxygen he’s been deprived of for too long, and suddenly it all makes sense again. The madness. The break-up. The inevitable pull back to him.

“Why’d you leave me?” His voice is low, rough like gravel. His eyes burn with something fierce, and you can feel it sinking into you, clawing its way under your skin. He’s not asking because he doesn’t know. He’s asking because he wants to hear you say it.

You stare at him, heart pounding, pulse thrumming in your ears like a warning. But instead of stepping back, you step forward, closing the small gap between you two. Your breath mingles with his, the night air thick with unsaid things, and you feel like you’re standing on the edge of something irreversible. Like if you take one more step, there’s no going back.

But isn’t that what you’ve always wanted? The danger. The thrill. The sick, twisted excitement of being so intertwined with him that you forget where he ends and you begin.

“I don’t know,” you whisper, even though that’s not the full truth. You do know. You left because you were scared. Scared of how much you wanted him, needed him, even when it hurt. Scared of the fact that the line between love and obsession blurred so fast with him that you couldn’t tell the difference anymore.

His jaw tightens, and his hands, those rough, calloused hands that have touched you in ways no one else ever has, reach out. He grips your chin, forcing you to meet his gaze, and for a moment, you swear you can see the wild, unhinged thing lurking just behind his eyes. It’s the same thing you see in yourself when you look in the mirror. The madness that ties you to him, binds you like a curse.

“You do know,” he says, voice dark and demanding. His thumb brushes your bottom lip, slow, like he’s testing how far he can push you before you break. “You just won’t say it.”

A shiver runs down your spine, but it’s not fear. It’s something else, something deeper. Something that feels like surrender and power all at once. You lean into his touch, letting his hand curl around the side of your face, the heat of him soaking into your skin like a drug.

“I couldn’t handle it,” you admit, the words thick and heavy in your throat. “You. Us. It was too much.”

Rafe’s lips curl into a smirk, but it’s not a kind one. It’s dark, possessive. “Too much? You know you liked it. You loved it.” His hand tightens slightly on your jaw, just enough for you to feel the edge of his control, like he’s reminding you who he is. What he is. “You loved me because of how fucked up we are. Don’t pretend otherwise.”

You swallow hard, heart thundering in your chest, because deep down, you know he’s right. You’ve never felt more alive than when you were with him, caught up in the madness of it all. The fights, the passion, the way you both pushed each other to the edge and then pulled each other back, only to do it all over again. It was twisted, dangerous, and wrong in every way, but that’s what made it irresistible.

“I did,” you confess, and it’s like a weight lifts off your chest, even as you feel yourself falling back into him, back into the chaos. “I do.”

The smirk fades, replaced by something darker, hungrier. His eyes search yours, looking for any sign of hesitation, any crack in your resolve. But there’s nothing. You’re not the same person who left him. Maybe you never really left at all.

Rafe’s hand slides from your chin to the back of your neck, pulling you closer until his lips hover just inches from yours, his breath hot against your skin. “That’s what I thought,” he murmurs, and before you can respond, his mouth crashes into yours, hard and demanding.

It’s not gentle. It’s never been gentle with Rafe. His kiss is all teeth and tongue, like he’s trying to devour you, claim you all over again. And you let him, because deep down, you crave it just as much as he does. The fire, the chaos, the way he makes you feel like you’re spinning out of control but somehow exactly where you’re supposed to be.

When he pulls back, you’re both breathing hard, your lips swollen, your pulse racing like you’ve just run a marathon. His hands grip your waist now, pulling you flush against him, and you can feel the heat of his body searing into yours.

“Tell me,” he says, voice low and dangerous, his eyes boring into yours. “Tell me you’re mine.”

Your heart hammers in your chest, but you don’t hesitate. “I’m yours.” And you are, completely, utterly, unashamedly his.

And just like that, you’re back where you started.

───MONTHS LATER . . .

“God fucking damn it, if you don't tell me right now, I'm gonna lose my shit!” Rafe shouts, his voice cracking like thunder in the small living room as he throws the beer bottle against the wall.

Glass shatters everywhere, scattering across the floor, but you don’t even flinch. You’ve seen this before. Hell, you’ve lived it. The rage, the temper, the chaos—it's like a script you’ve both memorized by heart.

You lean back against the kitchen counter, arms crossed, watching him like you would a caged animal—wild and unpredictable. He’s pacing now, his movements sharp and erratic, the muscles in his jaw clenched so tightly you wonder if they might snap. His eyes are wild, blue like ice but burning with something untamable, something dangerous. He’s teetering on the edge, that fine line between fury and desperation, and you know it won’t take much to push him over.

But you don’t care. Not right now.

“Rafe, calm the fuck down,” you say, your voice steady, almost bored. You know that’ll get to him. It always does. Nothing makes him crazier than when you don’t give him the reaction he’s fishing for.

His head snaps in your direction, eyes narrowing as he stalks toward you like a predator honing in on prey. He stops just inches away, towering over you, his chest heaving, breath coming in sharp, uneven bursts. He’s so close now that you can smell the alcohol on his breath, feel the heat radiating off his skin. But you don’t move. You stand your ground, looking up at him with a calm that borders on defiance.

“Don’t tell me to calm down!” he spits, voice laced with venom. His hands are balled into fists at his sides, knuckles white. “I’m sick of your bullshit! You think you can just stand there like you’re better than me, like you’re not a part of this, but guess what, baby? You are. You always have been.”

You tilt your head slightly, eyes narrowing as a slow smile creeps across your lips. “You’re being dramatic, Rafe,” you say, your voice dripping with sarcasm. “What, you gonna break something else? Or are you actually gonna say what’s bothering you for once?”

That does it.

He slams his hands down on the counter behind you, trapping you between his arms, his face just inches from yours. His eyes blaze with fury, but beneath it, you see something else—something raw, something that makes your stomach twist in knots.

“Don’t play games with me,” he growls, his voice low and dangerous. “I know what you’re doing. You think you can just push me around, mess with my head, and I’ll keep coming back like a fucking dog, huh?”

You meet his gaze, unblinking, heart racing in your chest but refusing to show it. You can feel the tension crackling between you like electricity, the air thick with it, suffocating. This is what it always comes down to with Rafe—this toxic push and pull, this need to break each other just to see what’s left after the pieces fall apart.

“You think I’m the one messing with your head?” you say, your voice low, challenging. “Maybe you should take a look in the mirror, Rafe. You’re not exactly innocent in this, are you?”

His jaw clenches, and for a moment, you think he’s going to explode. But instead, he just stares at you, eyes flickering with something dark, something primal. Then, slowly, he leans in closer, his breath hot against your skin.

“Innocent?” he whispers, his lips brushing your ear. “Baby, I’ve never claimed to be innocent. You knew exactly who I was when you got into this.”

You don’t flinch. You don’t pull back. Instead, you tilt your head slightly, your lips grazing the corner of his jaw as you whisper back, “Yeah, and that’s why I’m not scared of you.”

His breath hitches, just for a second, and you feel a surge of satisfaction. You’ve always known how to push his buttons, how to throw him off balance, even when he’s at his most dangerous. It’s a game you’ve played a thousand times before, and you both know how it ends—chaotic, messy, with both of you circling back to the same place.

But this time feels different.

There’s something darker in the way he’s looking at you, something that feels more like possession than anger. Like he’s not just mad because you’re fighting—he’s mad because he can’t stand the thought of you slipping away. Because he knows, deep down, that no matter how hard you push him, he’ll always want you. Need you.

“You don’t get to walk away from me,” Rafe says, his voice low, deadly. “Not this time.”

You feel his grip tighten on the counter behind you, his body pressing against yours as if he’s trying to fuse the two of you together, like if he holds on tight enough, you won’t be able to escape. But he doesn’t know, doesn’t understand that you’re already too far gone. That the very thing he’s holding on to is slipping through his fingers, and there’s nothing either of you can do about it.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” you say softly, a cold smile on your lips. “I can walk away whenever I want. I just choose not to.”

And with that, you duck under his arm, slipping out from between him and the counter. His eyes follow you, wide with disbelief, rage bubbling just beneath the surface. You know he’s about to lose it, to completely unravel. But you don’t turn back. Not yet.

Because this time, you want him to come after you.

And he always does.

Rafe’s eyes darken as you slip past him, and for a moment, the room goes deadly silent. The tension is thick, heavy like a storm cloud waiting to burst. You know exactly what’s coming, and it sends a thrill down your spine. You can almost feel it—the moment he snaps, the second his control shatters. It’s a twisted game, one you’ve played too many times before, and every time, you push him a little harder, a little further, just to see how far he’ll go for you.

You take slow, deliberate steps toward the door, your back turned to him, feeling the heat of his gaze sear into you. You don’t need to look back to know he’s watching, every muscle in his body tensed like a predator stalking its prey. The air feels electric, charged with a violence that’s always been just beneath the surface between you two.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” His voice cuts through the silence like a knife, sharp and biting. You stop, but you don’t turn around. Not yet.

“Does it matter?” you ask, voice calm, almost teasing. “I thought I could walk away whenever I wanted, remember?”

The silence that follows is deafening. You know you’ve hit a nerve. He hates when you challenge him, hates when you act like you have the upper hand. But that’s what makes it so addictive—pushing him to his limit, watching him unravel in front of you, knowing that no matter how hard he fights it, he’ll always come back to you.

Because he can’t help it. Neither of you can.

Suddenly, you hear his footsteps behind you, fast and heavy, and before you can react, his hand grips your arm, yanking you back toward him with a force that nearly knocks the breath out of you. He spins you around, his face inches from yours, eyes blazing with fury.

“You’re not fucking going anywhere,” he growls, his voice low and dangerous. His grip tightens on your arm, fingers digging into your skin, but the pain only makes your pulse quicken, your breath hitch in your throat. There’s something about the way he looks at you—like he’s on the verge of losing control, like he’s barely holding himself together—that sends a thrill through you.

“Let go of me, Rafe,” you say, your voice daring him, even though you know you don’t really want him to.

He doesn’t. Instead, he pulls you closer, his other hand gripping the back of your neck, forcing you to look up at him. His chest is heaving, his eyes wild, but there’s something else there, too—something desperate, like he’s terrified of losing you, like he’s clinging to you with everything he has left.

“You think you can just walk away?” he snarls, his breath hot against your face. “After everything? After all the shit we’ve been through? You really think I’m just gonna let you go?”

You meet his gaze, unblinking, your heart racing, but there’s no fear. Not with him. There never is. Instead, you feel the pull again—the twisted, sick need to see how far you can push him, how deep his obsession goes.

“I think you don’t have a choice,” you say, your voice steady, even though your pulse is hammering in your ears.

His grip tightens, his jaw clenched so hard you can see the muscles twitching beneath his skin. For a second, you think he’s going to snap—really snap—but then, just as quickly, something shifts in his expression. The anger doesn’t fade, but it’s joined by something darker, something raw and consuming.

“You’re wrong,” he whispers, his voice barely audible but laced with danger. “You don’t get to decide when this ends. I do.”

Before you can react, his lips crash against yours, rough and demanding, as if he’s trying to prove a point. It’s not a kiss; it’s a claim, a reminder that you belong to him, whether you want to admit it or not. His hands tighten on you, pulling you impossibly closer, and you can feel the tension in his body, the barely restrained violence simmering just beneath the surface.

But instead of pulling away, you kiss him back with just as much fire, matching his intensity. It’s always been like this between you two—this chaotic, messy whirlwind of emotion that neither of you can control. You push, he pulls, and somewhere in the middle of it all, you find something that feels like love, even though you both know it’s something darker, something more dangerous.

When he finally pulls back, both of you are breathing hard, your lips swollen and bruised. His hand stays on the back of your neck, his thumb brushing against your skin in a way that’s both possessive and tender, like he’s reminding himself that you’re still here, still his.

“You’re mine,” he says, his voice rough, eyes blazing as he stares down at you. “You’ve always been mine.”

You swallow hard, your heart pounding in your chest. There’s a part of you that wants to fight it, to push him away and run as far as you can. But there’s a bigger part of you, a darker part, that knows he’s right.

You’re his. You always have been.

“Yeah,” you breathe, your voice barely a whisper. “I’m yours.”

The words hang in the air between you, thick and heavy, and for a moment, everything else falls away. The anger, the tension, the broken glass on the floor—it’s all background noise now. All that matters is the two of you, standing here in this twisted, fucked-up mess of a relationship, knowing that no matter how many times you try to break free, you’ll always end up right back here.

With him.

Rafe’s grip on you softens, just slightly, and for the first time in what feels like hours, the intensity in his eyes eases. But it’s still there, simmering beneath the surface, waiting for the next time one of you decides to test the limits again. Because there will be a next time. There always is.

“You’re not leaving me again,” he says, his voice softer now, but no less serious. “Not ever.”

You nod, not trusting yourself to speak. Because deep down, you know that no matter how much you might want to, no matter how many times you tell yourself you can walk away, you won’t.

You never could.

And Rafe knows it, too.

───

You don’t usually cry. Not ever. Tears are something you’ve learned to bury deep down, hidden under layers of indifference and biting sarcasm. But tonight, they come, hot and angry, streaming down your face as you sit curled up on the edge of the bed, hands trembling in your lap. The weight of the evening presses down on you, your mind reeling from everything that happened.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Not tonight.

Your phone buzzes again on the nightstand, but you ignore it. You can’t deal with it right now. You don’t want to see the messages or hear the apologies. You don’t want to relive what just went down.

You wipe at your face roughly, trying to pull yourself together, but it’s no use. The shaky breath you let out only betrays you further, and you feel the tears well up again. You bite your lip to keep from making a sound, not wanting him to hear you.

But, of course, Rafe hears everything.

The door swings open, and Rafe steps inside, his broad frame filling the doorway. He looks at you, really looks at you, and in an instant, his expression darkens. His blue eyes narrow as they sweep over you, taking in the tear-streaked face, the hunched shoulders, the way your body is wound tight like a coiled spring, ready to snap. His jaw tightens, and you can practically feel the shift in the air around him.

“What happened?” His voice is low, dangerous, barely restrained. It’s not a question—it’s a demand.

You shake your head, trying to brush it off. “It’s nothing, Rafe. Just forget it.”

But you know better than to think he’ll let it go. The second you met him, you realized Rafe Cameron isn’t the kind of guy who “forgets” anything.

He moves closer, the tension in his body palpable. He’s not pacing like he usually does when he’s angry. This is different. Controlled. Focused. Like he’s honing in on the source of your pain, ready to eliminate it. He crouches down in front of you, one hand gripping your chin, forcing you to look at him. His touch is firm, possessive, but not rough—not yet.

“Tell me what happened,” he says again, his eyes boring into yours. “Who did this to you?”

You hesitate for a moment, unsure if you should even bring it up. You know how Rafe gets—how he reacts when someone hurts you. And this time, it wasn’t just anyone. It was someone close. Someone you thought was your friend.

“It’s—” You start, but your voice cracks, and you quickly bite down, trying to steady yourself. “It was…Becca.”

“Becca?” The name drops like a lead weight between you two, and you can see the recognition flare in his eyes. Becca, your friend for years, the one person outside of him you’ve always trusted. The one person he’s always been wary of.

Rafe’s grip tightens slightly, his thumb brushing over your jaw in a way that makes your pulse race. His voice drops to a low, dangerous whisper. “What did she do?”

You hesitate, but the words spill out before you can stop them. “She—she said some things. At the party tonight. She called me out in front of everyone, said I was using you, that I only stuck around for the money, the attention. She tried to turn everyone against me, Rafe. She made me look… weak.”

His face hardens instantly, and for a split second, you see something flash in his eyes—something dark and lethal. The kind of rage that makes your breath catch in your throat, even though you know it’s not directed at you.

“She said what?” His voice is so low now, it’s almost a growl.

You nod, swallowing hard, feeling the burn of humiliation all over again. “I don’t know why she did it. I thought she was my friend.”

Rafe lets out a slow breath, and the air around him feels like it’s vibrating with the intensity of his anger. He stands up abruptly, pacing the room, running a hand through his hair as if trying to keep himself from completely losing it. But you know it’s too late for that.

“I’ll fucking kill her,” he mutters under his breath, but you hear every word. “I’ll ruin her life.”

“Rafe—” You start to protest, but he cuts you off with a sharp look.

“No. No one talks to you like that. Not her, not anyone.” His voice is clipped, sharp, like he’s barely holding back the full force of what he’s feeling. “You don’t deserve this shit. Not from her, not from anyone.”

His protectiveness borders on obsession, but you can’t help but feel a strange comfort in it. It’s twisted, but there’s something about the way Rafe reacts to these things—like the whole world can burn as long as you’re safe—that makes you feel… seen. Important.

“I’m going to fix this,” he says, more to himself than to you, his hands curling into fists at his sides. “She thinks she can talk shit about you? In front of everyone? Humiliate you? Nah. She’s going to regret it. I’ll make sure of that.”

“Rafe,” you say softly, trying to reach for him, but he’s too far gone. You can see it in the way his eyes have glazed over, already plotting, already deciding exactly how he’s going to destroy Becca.

And part of you wants to stop him. Part of you knows that this isn’t the answer, that maybe you should handle it differently, like a normal person would.

But you’re not normal. Not anymore.

“I’m serious,” he says, turning to face you again, his expression deadly serious. “No one fucks with you. Ever.”

His intensity washes over you, and for a second, you feel like you can’t breathe. But at the same time, it fills you with a sense of power, knowing that he’s willing to go to these lengths for you. That he’ll protect you at all costs, no matter how destructive it gets.

You stand up slowly, crossing the room until you’re in front of him, your hand resting on his chest. “Just… don’t do anything stupid, okay?”

Rafe’s eyes flicker down to you, and for a brief moment, you see a softness there, a flicker of the boy beneath all the rage and chaos. “I won’t. But I’m not letting this go.”

You nod, knowing there’s no point in arguing with him. This is who he is—who you both are. Twisted, obsessive, reckless. But it works. Somehow, it works. And deep down, you don’t really want him to let it go.

A few months later, and somehow everything goes to shit for Becca.

It starts small—things that could almost pass as bad luck. First, her new car gets keyed, deep scratches across the side that no amount of buffing can fix. Then her social media accounts get hacked, posts disappearing, weird comments being left on other people’s pages, like someone is deliberately screwing with her life piece by piece. She brushes it off at first, because Becca’s tough. She’s the type of girl who bounces back quickly, who doesn’t let things get under her skin.

But then things escalate. Quickly.

She gets benched during a big volleyball game when her coach suddenly pulls her aside and questions her attitude. The team captain claims Becca’s been talking shit about the coach behind her back, stirring up drama with teammates. The problem is, Becca never said any of it. But now, she’s got a reputation, and people are starting to look at her differently.

Still, she fights through it, determined not to let it get to her. Becca’s always had her eye on the prize: her full ride to UC Berkeley, where she’s set to play volleyball at the college level. That’s her future. Her escape. Nothing can touch that.

Until it does.

The call comes one morning, out of nowhere. Becca’s shaking as she listens to the voice on the other end of the line, her heart plummeting as her coach tells her the news.

“We’ve received the results of your recent drug test, Becca,” the coach says, his voice stern but somehow apologetic. “I’m sorry, but you’ve tested positive for a banned substance.”

Becca’s head spins, her mouth going dry. “That’s impossible,” she blurts out, panic rising in her chest. “I don’t do drugs. I don’t—”

“I know this is hard to hear,” the coach cuts her off, his voice firm. “But the results are what they are. This disqualifies you from the scholarship and the team. UC Berkeley has revoked your offer.”

The words hit her like a sledgehammer. She feels the ground tilt beneath her, everything she’s worked for slipping through her fingers in an instant. She argues, pleads, tries to explain, but the decision is final. There’s nothing she can do.

And that’s when she starts to see it, to feel the weight of something much bigger pressing down on her. This isn’t just bad luck. It’s not a coincidence that her life is unraveling at the seams. No, this feels orchestrated, like someone’s been pulling the strings behind the scenes, watching her fall apart.

That someone is Rafe Cameron.

Rafe can be physical—he wouldn’t hesitate to swing on anyone he deems a threat. But Rafe isn’t a dumbass. He knows that not everything should be dealt with by violence. Some things are better handled with precision, with patience, with slow, deliberate destruction. He knew that punching Becca in the face wouldn’t satisfy him, wouldn’t give him the kind of control he wanted over the situation.

So instead, he used his connections, his money, his influence, all of the tools at his disposal to dismantle her life bit by bit. A hacked account here, a few whispers to the right people there. He didn’t need to lay a finger on her to destroy her. He just needed to plant the seeds of doubt, to set off a chain reaction, and then watch it all come crumbling down.

The drug test? Easy. A little slip of something into her drink at a party when she wasn’t paying attention, followed by a tip-off to the testing agency. The rumors about her trash-talking her coach? Carefully spread by a few well-placed texts to her teammates, pretending to be her. Her social media? That was just for fun, a way to throw her off balance and make her feel like her world was spiraling.

And it worked.

You know all of this, of course. Rafe never bothers to hide things from you. In fact, he’s proud of it, proud of the way he’s dismantled Becca’s life without so much as breaking a sweat. He tells you about it one night while you’re lying together, his arm draped lazily over your waist as he whispers in your ear.

“She thought she could fuck with you,” he murmurs, his voice dark, satisfied. “But now she knows. No one touches what’s mine.”

You should feel guilty. You should feel something for Becca, after all those years of friendship, of thinking she had your back. But all you can feel is a sick sense of satisfaction, like the universe has finally corrected itself. Becca messed with the wrong person, and now she’s paying the price. And as twisted as it is, you can’t help but feel a little thrill at how far Rafe was willing to go for you, how meticulously he destroyed her without you even asking him to.

“You really did all that?” you ask, your voice low, a smirk tugging at your lips.

Rafe shifts beside you, leaning in closer, his breath warm against your neck. “I told you, baby. No one fucks with you and gets away with it.”

You turn your head to meet his gaze, and there’s something dangerous in the way he looks at you, something possessive and wild. It should scare you, but it doesn’t. Not anymore.

Because the truth is, you like it. You like how far he’s willing to go for you, how far he’s willing to take it. There’s something intoxicating about the way he loves you—twisted, obsessive, and all-consuming. It’s not healthy, not normal, but it’s yours. And that’s enough.

You press your lips to his, kissing him fiercely, feeling the heat between you two ignite once again. Rafe kisses you back just as hard, his hands gripping you tightly, like he’s reminding you that you’re his and no one else’s.

As you pull back, your breath ragged, you glance at him, your voice barely above a whisper.

“She won’t come near me again.”

“No,” Rafe says, his eyes gleaming with a dark satisfaction. “She won’t.”

And in that moment, you both know it’s true. Becca’s done.

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[capquinn]

In Between | Q. Hughes

summary: your friendship with quinn is slowly transforming. there is an unspoken tension and feelings that simmer beneath the surface, keeping you on the edge of friendship and something more. the in-between is where you both linger, uncertain yet drawn to each other. based upon the song in between by gracie abrams [request] pairing: reader x quinn hughes content: friends to lovers, mutual pining, bit of fluff, easy reading word count: 4.9k ↪masterlist

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Quinn has felt it for a while, though he’s tried to push it aside. It’s subtle at first — small changes in the way he anticipates your messages, the way his heart skips when his phone buzzes, hoping it’s you. He finds himself checking his phone more than usual, almost unconsciously, just to see if you’ve sent something. And when you haven’t, there’s that quiet ache in his stomach, a flicker of disappointment that he tries to ignore. It’s ridiculous, he tells himself, we’re just friends. But the more he talks to you, the more he’s beginning to realise that, whatever it is, feels different.

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"I just can't come between 'em, they got their own thingI wish he'd stop pretendin', he won't let his phone ringFor more than a couple seconds, oh, I think maybe twoTwo hearts just fallin' in and out of love for somethin' new"

Quinn’s back home for the summer, a rare stretch of time when he’s free from the constant grind of the season. His brothers are sprawled out on the living room floor, teasing each other as they dive into a game of cards. It’s loud, it’s chaotic, and it feels like home. He loves it — this easy, familiar rhythm of being back with his family.

His phone buzzes on the coffee table, cutting through the noise. He glances at the screen and, without hesitation, picks it up. Your name flashes across the screen, and there’s no delay in his reaction — he’s quick to answer nowadays, barely letting it ring twice, his voice immediately softening as he presses the phone to his ear.

“Hey,” he says, and the easy grin that spreads across his face doesn’t go unnoticed by his brothers.

Jack and Luke exchange a knowing glance. It’s subtle, but it’s enough. They’ve seen this look before. The way Quinn’s whole demeanour shifts when he’s talking to you, how his voice drops to that soft, relaxed tone that only seems to happen when you call and a beaming smile that reaches his eyes. 

“Everything okay?” Quinn asks, his attention fully on you, completely oblivious to the smirks forming on his brothers' faces.

“Yeah, just wanted to check in,” you reply on the other end, your voice a little muffled, but he hears the warmth in it. “You doing anything important?”

Quinn leans back in his chair, ignoring Jack’s playful elbow jab as Luke mutters something under his breath that he chooses to ignore. “Nothing important. Just hanging out.”

Since Quinn has been away, you’ve been in more contact than usual; trying to stay connected despite the distance. Calls that stretch late into the night and texts exchanged throughout the day. What were once quick updates are now filled with small, meaningful details and random moments from your day, like you’re inviting him into your world. At first, it felt casual, like old friends catching up but somewhere along the way, it all started to feel different — more intimate and filled with silences that seem to say more than words.

The conversation flows easily, the kind of back-and-forth that’s always existed between you two. You talk about the little things in your day, sharing stories, inside jokes, and quick laughs that come effortlessly, just like always. Quinn’s responses are natural, his voice relaxed, his words flowing without hesitation. It feels familiar, comfortable — like home. But there’s something more beneath the surface now. 

Quinn has felt it for a while, though he’s tried to push it aside. It’s subtle at first — small changes in the way he anticipates your messages, the way his heart skips when his phone buzzes, hoping it’s you. He finds himself checking his phone more than usual, almost unconsciously, just to see if you’ve sent something. And when you haven’t, there’s that quiet ache in his stomach, a flicker of disappointment that he tries to ignore. It’s ridiculous, he tells himself, we’re just friends. But the more he talks to you, the more he’s beginning to realise that, whatever it is, feels different.

He’s trying to pretend it’s just the distance. It’s easier that way, less complicated. You haven’t seen each other in a while — of course he misses you. That’s normal, right? It’s been months since he’s been in the city, and he hasn’t had the chance to hang out with you like he used to. That’s all it is, he tells himself. He’s just missing his friend. But deep down, he knows it’s more than that. This longing he feels isn’t just about the physical distance between you; it’s about the emotional closeness that’s been growing steadily with every call, every shared laugh, every moment that feels more intimate than the last.

The truth is, it’s not just in his head. The way you talk to each other now — the pauses, the laughs, the silences that stretch a little too long — it all feels different. There’s a tension building beneath the surface, and no matter how much Quinn tries to downplay it, it’s there. He knows it, and he’s pretty sure you do too.

“Alright, I’ll let you get back to it,” you say after a few minutes, your voice carrying that familiar warmth that always makes Quinn smile. “Talk soon?”

“Yeah,” he says, his voice softening even more, trying to sound indifferent that the phone call is ending sooner than he’d like. “Talk soon.”

As soon as he hangs up, he’s met with the inevitable barrage of playful nudges from his brothers. Jack leans over, raising an eyebrow in Quinn’s direction. “You could’ve pretended not to be so eager, you know.”

Luke snickers from his spot on the floor, tossing a card into the pile. “She calls, and it’s like everything else just disappears.”

Quinn rolls his eyes, but he can’t hide the slight blush creeping up his neck. “Shut up.”

But Jack isn’t done. He leans forward, elbows on his knees, grinning widely. “Come on, man. We all see it.”

“There’s nothing to see,” Quinn insists, leaning back, trying to brush it off like he always does. But he knows it’s a weak deflection. He’s never been able to hide much from his brothers, and when it comes to you, they’ve seen right through him for a while now.

"Their past is cold and empty, they know it's been enoughOf waitin' on somebody, someone who doesn't careBut he knows her name, she knows he'll always be there"

The bar is buzzing with life — the hum of music, the clinking of glasses, the laughter of people drifting through the air — but it feels distant, like a backdrop to the moment unfolding between you and Quinn. Tucked away in a quiet corner booth, it’s just the two of you, like the rest of the world has blurred out. Ever since Quinn got back to town, it’s been different. The usual rhythm of your friendship has shifted, and you both feel it — the weight of something unsaid, the way every glance and touch feels like it carries a thousand unspoken words.

You’ve been trying to ignore it, trying to convince yourself that maybe you’re imagining things, but the way Quinn’s knee has been brushing against yours under the table, staying there a little too long, makes you question it. It feels deliberate, intentional, as if he’s just waiting for you to acknowledge it. His eyes keep flicking to yours as he talks about training, about the grind of the upcoming season, but you can sense his focus isn’t on hockey. He’s distracted — and so are you.

You take a deep breath, your fingers tracing the rim of your glass as you try to steady yourself. “I ended things with that guy.” You watch Quinn as the words leave your mouth, a little too quickly, a little too nervously.

His reaction is subtle — just a slight pause in his movements. His fingers tighten briefly around the glass in his hand, a flicker of surprise crossing his face before he quickly schools his expression back into something more neutral. But you’ve known Quinn long enough to catch the shift. The easy smile he wore just a second ago falters, and his eyes flicker away from yours, just for a moment. He’s listening, but something has shifted in him now, and you feel it settle in the air between you.

You should feel relieved, like you’ve gotten it off your chest, but instead, your pulse quickens, and the warmth in the room seems to move with it.

Quinn leans back in his seat, taking a long sip of his drink, his jaw tight. “Yeah? You weren’t happy?” His voice is calm, but there’s an edge there, something quiet and careful, as if he’s trying not to show too much. His eyes meet yours again, and though he’s trying to keep his usual steady demeanour, you can see the tension in his shoulders, the way his body has gone just a little bit rigid.

You hesitate, unsure how to answer. It wasn’t about being happy or unhappy with the guy, not really. It was more about how that relationship never stood a chance, not with the way your thoughts have been tangled up in Quinn. But you can’t say that — not here, not now. The tension between you both is palpable, and you’re not sure how much more you can handle.

You shrug, trying to play it off casually. “I guess it just didn’t feel right, you know?”

His gaze sharpens, and you swear you see something flicker behind his eyes, something that makes your breath catch in your throat. “Yeah,” he says, a little too quickly, his voice low and almost distant. “Sometimes it’s like that.”

There’s a beat of silence, and in that moment, everything feels heavy. His leg, which has been brushing against yours under the table, remains there. He doesn’t move away, doesn’t shift, and it sends a wave of awareness through you. You don’t move either. The tension is thick now, humming between you, filling the space that once felt comfortable, but now feels charged with everything you’re both avoiding.

Quinn’s fingers tap against the glass, a telltale sign of his discomfort, but his eyes are locked on yours. The casual ease of your conversation is gone, replaced by something deeper, something unspoken that neither of you can quite name. His usual calm demeanour is cracking, but he’s still trying to hold it together, just like you are.

“You good with it?” he asks, his voice softer now, but there’s a heaviness behind his words, like he’s asking about more than just the breakup. Like he’s asking if you’re okay with the way things are between you and him — the way they haven’t been acknowledged, the way you’ve both been skirting around the inevitable.

You feel your heart skip as you nod. “Yeah. I think it’s for the best.”

He looks down at the table, lips pressing into a thin line, and you wonder if he’s disappointed or if he’s relieved that you’ve dodged the real issue again. The tension between you feels almost unbearable now, like it’s right there, ready to spill over if either of you says the wrong thing. You can see it in the way his posture has shifted, more closed off than usual, and you know he’s doing the same thing you are — keeping it all locked up inside.

The longer the silence stretches, the more aware you become of the weight of his gaze, the subtle shift in his demeanour. His leg remains pressed against yours, and now it feels more deliberate, like he’s testing your boundaries without crossing the line. It sends a shiver through you, but still, you don’t pull away.

You clear your throat, trying to break the tension that’s winding tighter between you both. “So... hockey. You’re ready for the season?” It’s a weak attempt to redirect, but you can’t handle the intensity in his eyes any longer.

Quinn lets out a quiet breath, almost like a sigh of resignation, and his lips curve into a small, humourless smile. “Yeah,” he says, though it’s clear his mind is elsewhere. “Always ready.”

But he’s not talking about hockey anymore. You know it. He knows it. The tension between you is almost suffocating now. You’ve both sidestepped it once again, pretending everything is fine when you both know it’s not.

Still, the silence stretches, and his eyes drift back to yours, holding your gaze for just a moment longer than before. His leg stays where it is, pressed against yours, warm and steady, like an unspoken promise.

You don’t move. Neither does he.

And the tension, the thing you’ve both been avoiding for so long, continues to simmer beneath the surface, waiting for the moment when one of you finally decides to break.

"She toes the line between 'em, he says he's new at this There's holy ground beneath them, and sparks fly when they kiss"

It’s an unusually free Friday night for Quinn — no games, no media commitments, just a rare quiet slot of time that you had both been looking forward to. You’re both on his sofa, a bottle of red wine shared between you, glasses resting on the coffee table as the conversation ebbs and flows. The city is muted through the window, the distant hum of the nightlife outside contrasting with the stillness in his apartment.

The warmth of the wine is settling in, buzzing just beneath your skin, making everything feel a little softer, a little easier. You’re both relaxed, more than you’ve been in a while, and the absence of his usual responsibilities means there is nothing pulling him away. It’s just you and him, and this moment that feels long overdue. 

The conversation has slowed into something quieter now, the playful banter from earlier fading as the night deepens. You’re sitting closer than usual, your legs brushing his, your bodies naturally leaning toward each other in the comfortable warmth of the room, and while you’d like to blame it entirely on the wine, you both know that isn’t true. The drinks are just an excuse, a convenient explanation for the shift that’s been happening between you for weeks — the simmering tension that neither of you have acknowledged yet.

The wineglass in your hand feels warm, the liquid swirling as you take another sip, and you glance over at Quinn. He’s leaning back against the couch, his arm draped along the top, not quite touching you, but close enough that the proximity feels charged. 

You laugh at something Quinn says, the sound filling the quiet space between you, and without thinking, you scoot closer, resting your head on his shoulder. It feels natural, effortless, and you can feel his body relax slightly next to yours. 

“This is nice… being here with you,” you sigh softly, your words lingering in the air, more meaningful than they might seem.

Quinn shifts beside you, turning slightly as if to make more room for you to settle in even closer. His hand, now just brushing against your knee, lingers longer than before. His arm draped along the back of the couch still isn’t quite around your shoulders, but it’s close enough that anyone watching would assume the two of you were already past the point of casual.

There’s a silence between you, the kind that speaks louder than anything either of you could say. The tension, the closeness, the feeling that everything has led up to this moment — it’s undeniable.

Then, softly, Quinn breaks the silence, his voice low and a little hesitant, as if he needs confirmation of what’s already clear. “You feel it too, right?”

He looks at you, his eyes searching yours for clarity, for reassurance. His question isn’t just about tonight — it’s about everything that’s been building between you. The tension, the unspoken connection that’s simmered for a while now. His question hangs in the air, waiting.

You nod, the answer already written across your face before the words even come. “Yeah,” you say, your voice sure. “I do.”

The relief on his face is immediate, and for a moment, everything else fades away. The space between you closes, the weight of the unspoken words dissolves, and suddenly, you’re no longer just two friends dancing around something more.

Quinn’s eyes remain locked on yours, and there’s a vulnerability in his expression that wasn’t there before. He shifts again, his hand moving fully to rest against your thigh now, his touch warm and steady. The question had been lingering between you both for so long, and now, with the truth out in the open, it feels like something is shifting beneath your feet, like you’re standing on the edge of something new, something sacred.

He lets out a small, almost nervous laugh, and his lips curve into a soft smile. 

“I’m new at this,” he admits, his voice barely above a whisper. It’s not just about admitting he’s new to this kind of intimacy. It’s more than that. It’s about navigating uncharted territory, stepping into something that feels both familiar and foreign all at once. Moving this friendship into something more, and for the love of all things holy, not messing it up. His eyes flicker down for a moment, as if he’s trying to gather himself before looking back at you. “I don’t really know how to...”

The words trail off, but they don’t need to be completed. You can feel the weight of what he’s saying.

There’s a silence, but it isn’t uncomfortable. The ground beneath you feels as is its trembling with anticipation, and the moment stretches as Quinn inches closer, his breath warm against your skin. There’s a pause — like he’s giving you one last chance to pull back, to stay in the safety of what you were before — but you don’t.

Quinn's lips meet yours, and the world seems to tilt on its axis. The kiss is soft at first, almost hesitant, as if he's still unsure, but that uncertainty dissolves almost immediately. The tension that’s been coiling between you for weeks��� months… finally snaps, unraveling with each second that passes. His hand tightens on your leg, fingers pressing into your skin like he’s grounding himself in this moment, tethering himself to the reality of what’s happening between you.

The kiss deepens, slow but intense, and it feels like every suppressed emotion, every lingering glance, every accidental touch is being released all at once. There’s a heat between you that wasn’t there before. It’s something that goes beyond the warmth of the room or the haze of the drinks. This is raw, electric, and it pulses through you with every breath you take.

His other hand, the one draped over the back of the couch, finally moves, slipping down to gently rest on your shoulder before sliding around to your back. His fingers trace a slow, deliberate path along your spine, and it sends shivers racing down your body. The contact is firm but tender, pulling you in closer, until there’s barely any space left between you.

You respond instinctively, your hands moving to his chest, feeling the steady rise and fall of his breathing beneath your palms. His heart is pounding just as hard as yours, and the realisation of that shared vulnerability only intensifies the moment. The air between you buzzes, charged with every unspoken word, every unsaid feeling. Your hands slide upward, fingers finding their way to the back of his neck, tangling in his hair, pulling him even closer.

There’s no hesitation now. The pent-up tension that’s been simmering for so long unravels in waves, and it’s not just the kiss. It’s the way your bodies move together, how every touch feels deliberate, meaningful, like you’re both making up for all the moments you held back.

Quinn shifts slightly, pulling you with him, deepening the kiss, and you feel the weight of him, the heat of him, pressing against you. His hands roam more freely now, one slipping from your back to rest on your waist, fingers curling into the fabric of your shirt, tugging you closer, needing you closer. Your legs brush against his, and it’s as though every point of contact is sparking something more urgent.

The world outside fades, and all you can feel is him. His warmth. His breath. His heart beating against yours. The tension between you isn’t just releasing — it’s transforming.

There’s no need for words. Everything is being said in the way his hands move over your body, the way your fingers press into his skin, the way the kiss deepens and slows, and deepens again. The tension that’s been keeping you apart for so long has unraveled, and now all that’s left is this — this raw, electric pull that neither of you are resisting anymore.

"She loves how he talks late at night, when there's no one else to say How she's beautiful and funny and smart like nothin' he's ever seen He's good to her and she wants it more than everything in between"

The phone buzzes softly on your nightstand, and you don’t hesitate to grab it, your heart skipping a beat when you see Quinn’s name lighting up the screen. You’ve been in bed for a while now, trying to lose yourself in a book, but the pages blurred as your thoughts drifted to him — away on a road trip for a series of games, alone in some unknown hotel room, hundreds of miles between you. Though it’s not the first time he’s been gone for a stretch, this is the first time you’ve been apart for so long since everything changed between you. The distance feels like more than just time zones. It’s a physical ache, an emptiness that lingers.

You answer on the second ring, eager to hear his voice. “Hey,” you murmur, the late hour making your voice rough.

“Hey,” Quinn’s voice comes through, low and familiar, and just hearing it feels like a balm to the loneliness that’s been creeping in. You can hear the soft rustle of sheets, maybe the distant murmur of a TV on low, and you imagine him in some anonymous hotel room, far from you but somehow closer with every word.

“How’s the trip?” you ask, trying to keep the conversation light even though your chest tightens just hearing his voice.

“Same as usual,” Quinn responds, a hint of exhaustion creeping into his tone. “Long flights, long days. But…” There’s a pause, and you know what he’s going to say before he even says it. “I miss you.”

There’s something so vulnerable in those three words, something that makes your heart clench, and you find yourself smiling into the phone. “I miss you too.”

You can picture him there, lying back in bed, maybe one arm draped over his forehead like he does when he’s trying to hide how tired he is. 

“I love this,” you murmur into the phone, your voice soft, barely cutting through the quiet. Your fingers absentmindedly trace the pattern of the blanket draped across your lap.

“What’s that?” Quinn’s voice, low and a little rough from the day, comes through the line, and even though you can’t see him, you can hear the curiosity in his tone.

“This,” you say with a quiet smile. “Just you. Talking like that.”

On the other end of the line, you hear Quinn chuckle softly, the sound rumbling through the phone in a way that makes you wish he was here, with his laughter vibrating against your skin. “You love hearing me talk, huh?” There’s a teasing lilt to his words.

You press the phone closer to your ear, as if somehow it could make him feel closer. “Yeah, I do,” you admit, feeling the warmth of your confession. “Especially when you get all sweet on me.”

There’s a pause, a beat of quiet between you, and you can practically see Quinn shifting, running a hand through his hair the way he does when he’s caught off guard. “I don’t get sweet,” he protests, but there’s no conviction in his voice. You both know better.

“Mhm, sure you don’t,” you tease gently, heart fluttering. “You don’t tell me I’m beautiful, funny, smart — none of that?”

He sighs, but you can hear the smile in his voice. “Alright, maybe I’ve said that once or twice.”

The air feels lighter between you now, but it’s not enough to shake the ache in your chest, the emptiness of the space beside you. Even through the phone, you can feel the weight of his absence like a shadow, clinging to every moment. This is the part of loving him you didn’t expect — the way missing him would feel so physical, like something tangible pressing against you in the quiet.

Time feels fluid, stretching and slipping away as you talk with Quinn. His voice, low and familiar, wraps around you like a blanket, and the distance between you feels inconsequential, almost forgotten. The conversation is effortless, a mix of soft teasing and the easy exchange of stories from your day — his tales from the road, your small updates, and the shared laughter that punctuates each moment. It's the kind of talk that feels more intimate than the miles would suggest, as if his voice alone closes the gap between you.

Every now and then, the conversation drifts into comfortable silence. You can hear the soft rustle of sheets on his end, the quiet rhythm of his breathing, steady and even.

For a fleeting second, you wonder if he’s fallen asleep — the stillness of his breathing so steady it lulls you, too, into a softer state. But just when you think he’s drifted off, his voice breaks through again, raspy and warm. The sound of it tugs at your heart, a gentle reminder that he’s just as reluctant to let go of this moment as you are.

“You should be sleeping,” you murmur gently, the words laced with both affection and concern.

Quinn chuckles softly, and the sound is so familiar that it tugs at your heart. “Yeah, I probably should,” he admits, though neither of you move to end the conversation. You hear the faint rustle of sheets as he shifts, settling deeper into bed, but there’s still no rush to say goodnight.

Eventually, you give in, your voice thick with exhaustion, still playful. “Goodnight, Quinn,” you say, the words rolling off your tongue in a sing-song tone.

“Don’t go,” he whines softly, and you can hear the smile in his voice, even though he’s clearly just as tired.

“It’s late,” you remind him, knowing he’s been dreading the blare of his alarm in just a few hours.

“Don’t care,” he half lies, and you know he’d stay on the line as long as you let him.

You let out a small laugh. “I’m going to hang up now, but I’m doing it for your own good, so you can’t be mad at me.” 

Quinn sighs on the other end of the line, a sound that’s both exasperated and warm, like he’s really not ready to say goodnight. But before he can protest again, the words slip out — “goodnight. Love you.” 

And for a split second, the air goes still, and your heart skips, freezing in this fragile moment where everything feels suspended. You realise what you’ve said, what’s just hung in the silence between you. Panic flares in your chest, sharp and hot, and before Quinn can respond, you fumble to end the call, your finger hitting the button too fast. 

You toss your phone under your pillow, rolling over as if you can outrun the wave of mortification crashing over you. Your mind spins, replaying the words, each syllable sharper than the last. How could you say it like that? Blurt it out so casually, without thought? What if it was too soon, too forward? What if you’ve pushed him away, scared him off when everything was finally right between you?

The thoughts whirl through your mind, gaining speed as you lie there, squeezing your eyes shut like it’ll stop the embarrassment creeping up your spine. But just as the spiral begins to tighten, your phone buzzes from beneath the pillow. You freeze, your breath catching in your throat. 

With trembling hands, you pull the phone out, dread settling like a heavy weight in your stomach. The screen lights up, and for a second, you hesitate, afraid of what you might see. But then your eyes land on the message, and your breath hitches.

Quinny: Love you too

Relief floods you so quickly it makes you dizzy, your heart swelling with a mixture of disbelief and happiness. You let out a breath you didn’t realise you were holding, a quiet laugh escaping your lips as the tension in your body melts away. The words linger in front of you, simple and sure, and you feel the warmth of them settle into your chest, softening everything.

Quinn’s message glows softly in the dim light, and though your relationship has been official for months, it still feels like a quiet, pivotal moment. The in-between — the space you both danced around for so long — has long since disappeared, but the echoes of it remain. It wasn’t just a transition from friends to something more; it was the space where your connection deepened, where the foundation of everything you have now was laid. The friendship that came first is woven into every moment of this relationship, grounding you both in something real, something steady.

You think about that, about how the laughter, trust, and late-night conversations that once kept you in the comfort of friendship are now the very things that make this love feel solid. The in-between was where you found your footing, but it’s the friendship that carried you here, to this place where being with Quinn, loving him, feels as natural as breathing.