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themidnightcrimson · 3 months ago

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all hallow's eve ࿏ wm

summary: in which a bleeding woman shows up to your house asking for more than just help.

words: 8.0k

warnings: blood, dubcon/noncon, fingering, knifeplay, knifefucking, murder, death, horror, gore, top!wanda, fem!reader

this is a dark!fic for 18+ only. minors dni. read with discretion.

There were already chips in the paint of her fingernails which she had painted a thick coat of black only the night before. Wanda liked using her hands—it was a cathartic thing. It only meant she couldn’t keep nail polish on for very long.

In her quiet kitchen, the gentle tink of a spoon again her black porcelain mug could be heard as she gingerly stirred her coffee, watching the cloudy white swirls of creamer fade into the black of her dark roast and turn walnut. She only liked a little bit of creamer. She enjoyed coffee for its depth and dark. Bits of brown splashed around the inner rim of the black mug as she tapped the spoon clean of remnants before gently setting it down in the sink.

Wanda kept a clean house, but her kitchen she kept clean most of all. She was not trained, but she considered herself something of a chef. She enjoyed carnivorous recipes most of all, beefy red ribeyes and delicately roasted chickens. Her kitchen was her wizard lair where she worked to perfect the most complex of dishes, so she kept it meticulously tidy. The clean black marble counters covered lower cabinets filled with pots and pans stacked neatly and drawers shockingly organized with tools and utensils no matter their irregular shape. She made everything fit perfectly because she was a little neurotic about her tools.

Now the kitchen filled with the lusty dark scent of coffee that she sensually inhaled through her nostrils as her ringed fingers clinked against her porcelain mug. The expensive, shiny coffee machine still clicked and steamed from the fresh batch, and it glimmered almost as much as the array of large knives that were set out neatly on the counter beside it. Wanda had also invested in nice lights for her kitchen, because she liked to take pictures of her dishes when she made them. The studioesque lights glared off the silver blades, some freshly sharpened, some awaiting the fate of the honing rod laying discarded next to the line of knives. Sharp knives were also one of the most important tools of a chef.

Wanda maintained the dark minimalist aesthetic of black and white throughout her upscale apartment. Her annual endeavors usually left her with enough cash to get through the year with lavish, hence the nice apartment. Draining a few bank accounts always amounted to more than expected. If she was saving up for something big she would target a nicer area of town.

Through her French windows was the view of the city framed by the bright orange leaves of the autumn tree outside. She had bought a few small baby pumpkins of different colors and shapes and set them along the windowsill. This time of year was always bittersweet. There was always that simmering sensation rising within her that starts near the end of July, when the dead summer heat goes quiet and still with the promise of no new births of nature, only the aging and deadening that future autumn will bring.

Maybe it was the quiet, or maybe it was just her pituitary gland recognizing when it was time for her to awaken, but it always starts at the same time of each year. It was even earlier this year, though. She could feel the first little scritch when the fireworks went off above all the skyscrapers outside her window. It was like the giant booms and bangs shook the thing inside her awake. Now at this point, late in October, it had turned into a ravenous clawing inside her head. She imagined the innards of her skull like a wooden wall caging a wild animal—scarred with desperate scratches to be released. The clawing reminded her of a beast begging to be slaughtered as it is once a year, so that it may enjoy peace and quiet until it starts to conceive itself again like a rebirthing flower.

It gets so hard to manage this late in the season. Usually, she is the most calm and collected person she knows. People compliment her on her otherworldly levelheadedness which they don’t realize is just a lack of emotion. But in September she gets antsy, and in October she is wholly consumed with restlessness and need, constantly zoned out like a lion on the hunt, eyes laser focused for the bright stripes of a zebra amidst the tall African flora, jaw hung wide open, teeth buzzing with anticipation for the first tear of live flesh, ears constantly rounding its skull in search for the sound of food.

Even now, thinking about it as she stared out the window, she let her coffee go cold in her hand. Coming to, she cursed herself and put the mug in the microwave and turned it on. When warmed, she took the mug through her apartment and to her office, settling down in her chair. Her desk was probably the only thing about her apartment that could be considered messy, only because her planning was extensive and elaborate. It had to be for her to have gotten away with it for this many years. Her Octobers were spent stuck at her messy desk which, by the afternoon sun, becomes littered with empty coffee cups.

There were many papers scattered on her desks about many different things. Locations, demographics, news reports, police stations, everything there could be to know about a city. Underneath a stack of papers was another small stack stapled together. “Diagnosis Report.” She had thrown it on her desk carelessly when she took it home from the doctor, miffed that he was only telling her what she’d already known for a long time. “Controlled psychopathy.”

On the other corner of her desk was the most recent news report. “HALLOWEEN KILLER SET TO STRIKE AGAIN.” She’d been waiting for this for years now. She was surprised it didn’t happen sooner.

That was why her planning was deeper this year. Too many patterns in the same city. She needed to branch out, to change it up. She couldn’t complete her mission with cops stationed at every block. They’d even started tracking reports in the outer suburbs. She had to go farther this year.

She rolled out a wide roll of paper over the entire desk: a map of the entire city and its outer areas. Usually, the red circles were drawn on the yellowish vague blocks printed on the map to convey where urban areas were, more concrete and road. This year, her red marker circled farther to the side, almost to the very edge of the paper, where the paper turned green with curly printed lines to signify forested areas.

Wanda ran a shaky hand through her red hair, tugging harshly on the locks. She felt like a mad poet, a tortured artist. It was riskier this year. She wasn’t as familiar with woods as she was with the city.

Letting out a deep sigh, Wanda rolled out of the desk and went over to the little couch against the wall of her office, plopping down with another huff, chewing on all the thoughts in her head that were becoming harder to manage with all the fucking clawing. Lower population out in the woods could mean fewer fish brought home. But it also meant lower income levels than that in the richest parts of the city. Then again, she did pretty good last year and didn’t really need to worry about money this year. If money wasn’t a bias, then it usually would be beauty and females. That was why all the reports were either rich old men or beautiful young women, which made it hard for them to find a pattern. Of course, with women it would take more tactic to get everything she would want out of them besides the main point. The main point would be easy, but the seduction would take more artiste.

Turning her head over her shoulder, she eyed the brand new pair of expensive hiking boots that sat in the corner of the office, the laces recently untightened to let the new leather relax. They were industrial, tactical, ready to climb a mountain. It was the pair of shoes that even the most experienced hikers longed for.

She’d never been hiking a day in her life.

࿏

You’re alone this year.

Sticky green icing melted on your fingers as you picked up the bag of black icing again, piping out little pupils on the Frankenstein cookie you were decorating. Your Halloween playlist played at medium volume through your tiny kitchen as you piped Frankenstein’s black hair on top of his head. Once you had perfected him, even with his messy bangs and uneven mouth, you picked up the sugar cookie and placed it next to other decorated ones which included pumpkins, ghosts, bats, and even graphically disfigured vampires. A delicious aroma in the air emanated from the dish of tomatoes, garlic, onion, and spices roasting in the oven, and on the rack below that, a loaf of bread baking to completion.

“Jeez,” you murmured as you looked at the cookie in front of you that was supposed to be a black cat. One eye was twice the size of the other and its ears were more like Panda ears. You were going for cute, but horrific matched the theme anyways.

It was a cozy Halloween night in your little cabin. Orange pumpkin string lights were hanging from the ceiling, your little space cluttered with your accumulation of Halloween decorations that you just couldn’t stop buying each year. This was another great thing about living so far out in the woods—you could enjoy holidays by yourself without having to worry about catering to bratty little kids asking for candy, or your house getting egged for deciding not to. You had nothing against enjoying the festivities of your favorite holiday, but you were happy you could do it alone without interruption.

Wiping your stained hands free of icing because you had licked so much that you couldn’t take anymore, you slipped on your pumpkin-shaped oven mitts and took the dish out of the oven, feeling warmth on your face as the oil and tomato sizzled in the hot dish. Your kitchen was tiny, but it was cozy, and you could make all your favorite foods in it, so it was perfectly fine to you. And your cabin was small—so small that the kitchen and the living room were basically one room, and you could see the TV in front of the couch from where you stood at the oven. As you very carefully spooned all the tomatoes and garlic and onion out of the dish and into a large red pot that was older than you, you could hear the TV clearly.

Out in the woods, you did not have very good service. The satellite sitting on your roof let you have very few channels, one of them being the local news channel. It was time for the evening news as you heard the familiar theme sound, trying to not let tomato splatter on your Halloween apron that was white donned with black spiderwebbing.

The news channel picked up news from the city, which was a good 30 miles away but the nearest civilization. You halfway listened as they spoke about local events like the highway construction that was branching the city out even farther into the woods, a special on the best places to go trick or treating which was just all the rich neighborhoods, and then they came to the recent crime segment, starting off with one that was the city’s primary worry that night.

“Year after year, our city is faced with crime on this Halloween night that makes celebrating harder each year. For nearly a decade now, the city has experienced killing sprees that happen every October 31st from what locals call the Halloween Killer.”

You opened up your cabinets and waded through the messy piles of pots and pans and tools until you found your old beat-up food processor. The loud clanging muffled the news report that you were listening to with distracted but piqued interest until you found the processor.

“…Police have been unable to find patterns in the killer’s targeted victims or locations, but this famed killer does strike seemingly randomized neighborhoods each year, though they have mostly only targeted areas with higher income levels. Thanks to local funding, police have been able to set up neighborhood watches all throughout the city, even setting up a police line around the border to keep watch of any suspicious activity. Any sightings of criminal or suspicious activity should be reported to your nearest station immediately. For those living outside city limits, please be on high alert, as police think that the killer may start seeking out further areas to evade the local watches. Your local news station sends a huge thanks to our police as they fight to keep our city safe and to track down this Halloween Killer. Please, everyone be safe out there tonight as you enjoy All Hallow’s Eve.” You glanced momentarily to the TV and saw the wide shiny grin of the blonde newscaster that did not match her grim tone as she swiftly moved on to a segment about Halloween party decorations.

At first, the segment about the Halloween Killer started to pass right through your brain, until your brain caught it, and a small seed of paranoia plummeted into the pit of your stomach. You fiddled with your food processor as you thought about the segment.

When you lived in the city, people always talked about the Halloween Killer. At some point, people started to make up their own ideas of what the killer looked like, creating different masks that seemed to change each year. Most of them just settled on a rip-off of Michael Meyers. You always ignored it, until one year the killer struck right near where you lived. That was only a small impetus of why you fled the city searching for a more peaceful life out in nature, but it certainly was a reason thrown in with all the other rising crime rates in the city. It was becoming like Gotham out there, and you wanted no part of it. Hence your cozy cabin life out in the forest.

Still, it made you nervous. You were a young girl all alone. You didn’t have neighbors. If you screamed, it would be to the mercy of squirrels and foxes. And to be fair, though you lived in a forested area and got lucky to live on a plot of land with no other houses, you didn’t live that far from the city. If you climbed the nearby hill all the way to the top, you could see the skyline good enough to track the movement of cars on the city highway. If the killer was trying to escape city limits, all they would have to do was choose East, and they’d be right in your lap.

A shiver ran through you, and you gave a breathy laugh. You’d been watching too many scary movies that Halloween season. It was making you paranoid. This was why each year you chose ParaNorman over Pet Sematary. You were too paranoid of a person.

Though you took your fretfulness with humor, it gnawed away at you. Wiping your hands on the towel on the oven door, you went over to your front door and opened it.

The air was cold that night. Fall had been teasing and tantalizing all month, but it seemed to rush in all at once that Halloween night. That was another thing you liked about living out here—it wasn’t a concrete jungle that trapped in all the heat like the city did. It was cooler out here and less humid. It was just easier to breathe.

You looked up at the dark, shadowy pines that rose so much higher than your squat little house. Their needles rustled in the gentle breeze. It was so dark, nothing like the ever-present source of light in the city. Beyond where your measly front porch light and the flickering glow of jack-o-lanterns on your porch steps touched, it was pitch black. You could hear the whistle of crickets, the belches of frogs all around.

Twigs snapping.

Fear roared up in you at once, but you quickly settled yourself. Twigs snap all the time out here in the forest given that there are twigs littering the whole ground. A pinecone falling, or a bird landing, or a squirrel sitting—it all could snap a twig. You were scaring yourself.

Nonetheless, you pulled yourself inside, closed the door, lock it, turned off the porch light, and closed all your blinds and curtains. Even though you didn’t believe yourself to be at risk, it would be silly to ruin your own night by making yourself scared at the possibility of seeing a face at the window.

You slapped a piece of the bread on the buttered hot pan, deeply enjoying the loud immediate sizzle it made. You followed up with a slice of cheese and another piece of bread, and then flipped the grilled cheese, salivating at the perfect shade of brown the bread turned into.

You ladeled your tomato bisque into a bowl and topped it with some shreds of cheese and one singular basil leaf just to be extra. Bringing your soup and grilled cheese into the living room, you finally settled down on the couch with a sigh, setting your food down on the coffee table before searching for the perfect cutesy Halloween movie to watch. You settled on ParaNorman since you’d been thinking about it.

All traces of the news report had left your mind as you burned your mouth on the soup and did the most immaculate cheese pull with your grilled cheese. You didn’t even think twice when you heard a creaking noise on the front porch.

When you heard it again, you surprised yourself by remaining calm. It was a breezy night. This was an old cabin, and that wooden porch was squeaky. A gush of wind is bound to move the wooden panels enough for it to squeak.

Squeak. It seemed closer now.

You still weren’t worried, but just out of habit, you turned your head and looked back at the front door in the kitchen.

You didn’t really see it at first. Or didn’t recognize what it looked like, at least.

A dark shadow through the sheer curtains over the window of the front door. The perfect shadow for a head and shoulders.

Fear broiled deep in your gut, but you warred with yourself yet again. It was definitely just the way that the moon filtered through all the shapes of the forest trees and landed across the window of your door. That was all it was. You were just being paranoid—the shadow wasn’t even moving.

You’d managed to fully convince yourself and was just about to turn your head back around when there was a knock at the door.

Adrenaline shot through your body so hard that your bowl of tomato soup slipped right out of your immediately sweaty palms, landing with a heartbreaking splash across your shirt.

“Fuck!” you yelled as the hot soup instantly soaked through your shirt and gently burned the skin of your stomach. What was worse about how hot it was, was how sad you were at losing your tomato soup.

The knock came again, much more hurried this time.

“Hello!?” a woman’s voice came from the other side of the door, and the sound of a person’s voice deepened your panic even more. No one had ever been out here except the few friends and family you had invited over a handful of times. No one lived near here. Your dirt road stretched on for three miles before it touched the highway. The dirt road only led to your house, nothing else. It was your own personal driveway. There was no reason for someone to be out here unless beckoned.

And you were all alone. There was no one to glance at with panicked eyes and telepathically ask who the fuck is at the front door. It was just you and your tomato soup-soaked shirt.

“Help!” the voice cried, pounding on the door harder this time, so hard that your windows shook in their panes. “Help me! Please!”

“What the fuck?” you whispered, your breathing picking up as you started to really freak out. Not only was there someone randomly at your door this late at night, but they were apparently in distress? Or at least pretending to be.

“Please! Somebody help me! Please!” the woman screamed outside, and she slammed so hard on the door that it sounded like she was throwing her whole body against it. You could even see the door bulge from the wall, almost like she was trying to break it down.

Rule number one of living out alone in a cabin deep in the forest was to never, ever open your door to strangers. You were way too vulnerable for that. You knew that, and so your instinct was to hide and possibly call the police if she didn’t give up. It could easily be a trick.

Then again, she was screaming for help. She herself was out here potentially alone in the woods, if this was real. What if you later learned that this girl needed help and couldn’t find it from the single house she managed to stumble across?

“Fuck fuck fuck,” you whispered, tugging at your hair as you ducked across the room, hiding behind your little kitchen island. If you made yourself seen, there was no way you could get out of it or even pretend to not be home. “Please open the door!” she screamed with such desperation that her voice croaked, and you heard little sobs follow. “Please just open it! I need help! Please!”

Something about the desperation in her voice panged you deeply in the gut, and for some reason you felt like it wasn’t a trick. Nonetheless, you knew it was bad, whatever it was. She could be running from someone or something and leading them right into your house. The best outcome of this whole thing would be a cruel Halloween prank.

“Please!” she screamed, slamming herself against your front door. You heard a horrible clicking noise that sounded an awful lot like your door coming undone from the hinges.

Internally groaning, you grabbed a knife from your knife drawer and held it as realistically as you could in your hand, slowly going towards the shadow at the front door window.

“Please!” she screamed again.

Gritting your teeth, you gathered all your bravery, expecting anything to happen as you touched the doorknob. With a big breath in, you unlocked it and swung it open.

A scream involuntarily escaped your throat at what stood on the other side of that door.

Seeing a person’s face at your door for the first time in basically months was already a shocking thing, but seeing it covered in blood was even more shocking. The woman stood only an inch or two taller than you, her dark red hair stretching down past her shoulders. She wore a long sleeve white shirt, which you could only tell it was white from the sleeves because the entire front of it was soaked with dark red blood. The blood even caked the thighs of her jeans, and it dripped in long, thick lines down her face, with splatters over her cheeks. The worst part was that the blood glistened against the light that came from inside your home. In fact, it dripped—in horrible black splatters on the old wood of your porch. You could see bloody footprints going up the steps.

For a moment, she looked shocked to see you standing there. Had she started to think no one really was home? The shocked look faded as she glanced over you, her lips seeming to struggle to form words.

“Hi—I need h-help,” she said quieter now, very breathlessly. She was trembling—her eyes looked at you with a crazed, weakened look, like she was about to fall on you at any moment. That was when you realized that she must be bleeding—bleeding a fatal amount.

“Oh my God,” you croaked, not knowing what to do. “What—I—Come in,” you hesitated, and then remembered that whatever cut her up this badly could be following her, so you goaded her. “Come on, come in!”

Quickly, she came inside, leading a trail of bloody prints on your precious wooden flooring as you closed the door and locked it shut. You turned around, pressing your back to the door and staring at her as your heart pounded hard in your chest. You noticed that her eyes were focused on your hand at your side—you looked down and remembered that you were holding a large knife in your hand. “Sorry—” you apologized at first, thinking that she was probably just harmed with the same thing you were holding and wasn’t too happy to see another person wielding it, but remembered to keep your guard up. She could be anyone, and anything could have happened to her. Anything could happen next.

“I need to sit down…” she said, clutching her stomach and bending over. Her eyes, you noticed, were a vivid green against the darkness of the drying blood on her face. “I…” The vivid green disappeared, and you realized she had closed her eyes and was starting to sway.

“Oh God, yes, sit down,” you rushed, absentmindedly dropping your knife on the kitchen counter so that you could help her. Trying your best to avoid touching any blood, you barely held her arm and led her to the couch. She sat down heavily, flickering her eyes to look at you, those green orbs landing at your waist.

“Your shirt…” she whispered croakily.

“Oh,” you blurted as you looked at your own shirt that had an orangeish red splash over the front. “Tomato soup,” you blushed, growing sick at the fact that the red splash on her shirt was, in fact, not tomato soup.

You looked around as this strange woman sat bleeding on your couch, her eyes opening and closing. She was probably losing a lot of blood. What were you supposed to do?

“The police,” you blurted, and her eyes opened wider with a flash. “I’ll call the police!”

You went to your landline phone—there was no cell service up here, so you depended on the weak telephone lines for any kind of communication. You typed in 9-1-1 and pressed the phone to your ear—silence. Confused, you dialed again, only to hear more silence. “What the hell?”

“Water.”

“Huh?” you asked, glancing at the woman on your couch.

“Can I please… have water?”

“Oh, yes,” you said, feeling stupid and rude that you hadn’t even tried to physically help the woman bleeding out on your couch. “I’m sorry—Are-are you okay?” you asked as you went to get a glass of water. It felt like an obviously stupid question to ask, but to be fair, you weren’t entirely sure of her injuries nor her situation except that she was bleeding what appeared to be a lot of blood to you.

“I think so,” she said, coughing to clear her throat as you handed her the glass of water.

You ignored the stains of tomato soup on the other seat of your couch as she sipped the water with a shaky, bloody hand.

“You wouldn’t happen to have a phone on you, do you?” you questioned. It was obvious there was something wrong with your phone, which wasn’t that unusual, and even though there was no cell service the last time you checked, you thought any effort might be worth it to get this girl some help.

She shook her head as she gulped the water down.

Sighing, you glanced toward the curtained window and thought of your car out front. You would need to drive her to help, you realized. You figured you could at least find out what the hell was going on first before you loaded her up in the car.

“What happened to you?”

She finished the glass of water and weakly handed it to you, her eyes flashing up at you. Something about it startled you. Maybe it was the visual connection that jarred you into realization of the situation, or maybe it was because you weren’t used to being around people anymore. Either way, you suddenly felt scared with her eyes on you.

“Someone attacked me,” she hoarsely spoke, wiping her mouth of water only to smear blood around her lips. She gritted her teeth, looking around your house for the first time. You suddenly thought of your knife on the counter.

“Attacked you?” you asked, trying to imagine the situation in your mind. “Do you know who?”

“No, just some guy in a mask,” she exclaimed, sounding like she was starting to calm down and gather her wits. You noticed she wasn’t breathless anymore—in fact her chest rose and fell very slowly and calmly. Maybe she was a good self-soother.

“Where?” you questioned.

“What?” she said, looking up at you with sewn brows.

You hesitated. “I mean, where were you attacked?” You looked towards the window again when she hesitated to answer. “It’s just… you must’ve ran at least like, three miles.”

The redheaded woman only stared at you with her vivid green eyes that you now noticed, with a slight chill in your spine, were oddly empty. Like doll eyes. Like a doll skeleton with human skin stretched over it.

You were starting to feel weird as you tried to explain. “The main road is three miles down that driveway out there.” You vaguely pointed. “Unless you came through the woods. So I was just asking where were you attacked?”

Finally, she blinked. “On the road,” she blurted out. “I was… walking to my friend’s house on the road when this car stopped. And he got out and just… attacked me.” She started to shake again as she looked down at the blood all over her.

But you were still and silent. “Your friend’s house?”

Her eyes met yours, and you could see that chilling emptiness again.

You swayed your weight from one foot to another, trying to think out the entire situation before you spoke. “The nearest house in ten miles is abandoned.”

Her red brows sewed together in confusion, and for a moment you saw, through the blood on her face, that she was pretty. You wouldn’t find it strange for someone to target her.

“I’m confused,” she suddenly sobbed, an illegible cry escaping her throat as she covered her face. “I don’t know what happened.”

A flash of guilt shot through you. This girl is here bleeding out, obviously having just been attacked, and you’re questioning her. Sure, her story didn’t make sense, but you knew if you’d been randomly stabbed in the middle of nowhere, you wouldn’t be making much sense either. It’s possible that she was drugged or kidnapped or all of the above. She certainly didn’t look like she was from around here.

“Hey, hey,” you gently said, starting to reach out a hand to touch her shoulder but deciding against it. She was fully crying now. “It’s gonna be okay. I…” You took a deep breath and tried to be a better savior for this poor woman. “Look, I’ll get you some help, okay? We can take my car and take you to the nearest—”

“He’s following me!”

You stopped in the middle of your sentence. “What?”

“We can’t leave. He was following me as I got away from him…” She slowly turned her face to the window. “He could be out there right now…”

That paranoia boiled within you again. On one hand, you thought it would be better to just risk it to get her the help she needs, but you knew that if someone were lurking out there, it would be just you versus him since this woman was in no condition to defend you.

“The Halloween Killer,” she murmured. “I think it was him.”

Dizziness swirled in your head as your brain shot back to the news report. The Halloween Killer… the police guessed that he would be going out of city limits this year… You imagined the killer taking the nearest highway out of town which happened to be the one you lived by… Seeing a girl on the road… Maknig his first victim of the night… Except that he didn’t kill her. There was no way he would let a witness get away. Especially since she probably saw his face and his vehicle.

“Okay,” you breathed, rushing to the nearest lamp and turning it off. “We’ll wait for a while.” You turned off the kitchen light, the string lights, the range light. “We need to be quiet. If we don’t hear anything in… an hour… we can go.”

You walked back over to her, noticing that she was looking at her stomach.

“Can you wait that long?” you gently asked. “It looks like you bled a lot. Are you still bleeding?”

“I don’t know,” she weakly said. “I can’t tell.”

Biting your tongue, you thought for a moment. If you were going to make her wait an hour, the least you could do was clean her up a little. It was important to clean the wound, and if she was still bleeding, it looked like you needed to put pressure on it as soon as possible before she lost too much blood. You were already surprised she was still conscious with all that blood on her.

“I’ll be right back. Stay right here.”

You left for a moment to get the first aid kit, a rag, and a cup of water, and came back to find her in the same spot, her head leaned back on the couch cushion. Carefully, you sat down next to her with the rag in your hand, dipping it into the water. “We’ll clean you up a little so we know the damage,” you said, laughing at your attempt to sound professional and steady-headed.

“Thank you,” she croaked, turning to face you slowly on the couch. It was completely dark in your cabin now except for the little glare of moonlight that came through the curtains. It felt a little too close, sitting in the dark with her on your tiny couch, and it felt even more close when you started to wipe away the blood on her face with your rag.

“You’re welcome,” you said. “I’m sorry I’m not the best person to come running to for help,” you said with a little laugh.

Her lips curled into a smile, and you felt your heart murmur at how pretty she was. As you wiped away the blood on her face, wondering if she had a head injury to account for her confusion and the blood on her face, you saw that she was actually strikingly beautiful. It made you a little hot, sitting there so close to someone who looked like that.

“Okay…” you said when her face was all clean, now looking at the front of her blood-soaked shirt, hesitating. “Um—”

Without speaking, she rolled up the hem of her shirt to show the flat expanse of her abdomen that was blotted with dark blood. Worried that you would freak out at the sight of stab wound, you very carefully and tensely cleaned away the blood on her stomach, rewetting the rag in the bowl of water which was now murky red.

You always hated how ignorant you could be sometimes.

It wasn’t until you had wiped her entire abdomen clean that it dawned on you.

There were no stab wounds. Not a cut or a scratch.

Nothing felt real suddenly. Confused, you looked up at her.

The deeply malicious look on her face jarred you so suddenly you almost slipped off the couch, stumbling to your feet. Your ankle slammed against the coffee table as you backed away.

Her eyes were staring at you evilly, her lip set in a smirk. You suddenly felt small, tiny, helpless, stupid. So stupid!

“Is this the part where they say trick or treat?” the woman asked now in a gruff voice as she slowly stood up, looking suddenly a lot taller than she did at the door. You also noticed now a bulge in the sleeve of her shirt.

Wanda straightened her arm down at her side, letting the long, bloodied knife slide out of her sleeve, catching the long handle when it touched her palm. She held the knife up expertly, the moonlight glinting off of it.

This was one of her best tricks yet. There’d been times where she had to hide in the closet of the home of a victim, or in the backseat of their car, or she’d even had to follow them several blocks down before striking, but she’d never made herself so intimate with someone she was going to kill before, besides the ones that sparked out of intentional sexual encounters. Wanda had always been more of a grab and slash kind of serial killer, looting their belongings afterwards and moving right on to the next one. But this time, this girl… she was lingering.

You were just so pretty. Pretty girls were Wanda’s weakness, especially when they were vulnerable. And my, how you were vulnerable.

“All alone out in these woods,” Wanda whispered as you both just stood staring at each other, her at your face, you at her knife. “You never thought that one day the big bad wolf would come knocking?”

The fear in your eyes was delectable to her. You’d been so easy to trick. You almost caught her about the friend’s house—she’d been so distracted thinking of all the things she was going to do to you that she slipped up. She blanked.

“Please don’t hurt me,” you whispered, raising your hands up like someone who was just caught by the police for vandalism. “I won’t do anything—I—I won’t tell anyone.”

“I’d hope not,” Wanda interrupted you. “If my plans go accordingly, which they will, which they always do, you will be in no state to do anything or speak to anyone. Ever.” Wanda grinned, chuckling at the way your fingers shook in the moonlight.

The Halloween Killer. You cursed yourself. You also cursed your luck. What were the chances the killer would decide to find you that night?

You realized then that the blood on her shirt was not hers. It was whoever else she had just murdered before coming to you. You were just another life to tick off her quota.

You thought of your knife on the counter. The woman stared at you with a cold, dead look, coupled with the look of enjoyment. She was enjoying this.

You hesitated for a moment before deciding that taking your chances was better than having no chance at all. You jumped over to the kitchen, reached over the counter, and had your fingers on the handle when you felt her warm body slam you against the counter, her hand reaching easily over you and slapping the knife away.

“No!” you involuntarily cried out as you watched the knife slide off the counter and drop to the other side of the floor.

“Bad girl,” Wanda grunted, and you felt the woman’s hands grab your hips. She pressed you harder into the counter, her hips flush against your bottom, grabbing a fistful of your hair and slamming your face down on the hard, cold counter.

“Ah!” you cried as your head slammed into the rock-hard surface, dizzying you. She had you completely bent over the counter, pressing herself into you and holding your head down on the counter with blinding pressure.

“I won’t lie that I like the challenge of putting up a fight,” she whispered, resting her fist that held the knife against the small of your back. “But I’d rather you make it easy for both of us.”

“Get away from me!” you screamed, feeling your cheeks go red hot as your animalistic instincts to survive kicked in.

“Shhhh sh sh,” the woman shushed right into your ear, making you jump at how close she was now, her body laid over on top of yours, her lips pressing right into the soft skin of your ear. “Hush, baby,” she cooed, and the sound made the entire side of your face burn hot. “I’m not going to really hurt you. I’m not that much of a sadist.”

Suddenly, you could feel something really cold on the back of your thigh. The tip of her knife pressed softly into the tender flesh of the back of your thigh, dragging slowly upwards. It caught the hem of your skirt, dragging it upwards and exposing you.

You whined and squirmed, to which she pressed herself harder down on you. The edge of the counter was pressing into your tummy so hard you could barely breathe.

“Now, stop moving, you’ll hurt yourself,” she husked against the space behind your ear, and you shivered at the way your body reacted. You were trembling under her, helpless and confused as the tip of her knife pressed harder into your thigh.

You let out a long cry when she let the knife slice your soft skin, engraving a slash right below your butt cheek.

“Oopsie,” she murmured as she breathed heavily into your ear, her fingers dragging your blood around the back of your thigh. “Sorry about that, you’re just the prettiest one I’ve ever had.” You could feel her smirk against your ear. “I hated how I had to branch out this Halloween, but if I get you, it’s all worth it. I can go right on home—stop moving!”

She grabbed your hip tightly, and your body reacted in the worst way possible. You arched for her, exposing your rear end to her hips even more.

“That’s it,” she said with an air of shock that made you hate yourself. “See? I don’t mind you enjoying it—in fact I want you to.”

Her hand suddenly came down hard on your ass, making you squeak and jump. Your body was hot all over, throbbing against the coolness of the counter, your mind a complete mess.

“Let’s see you,” Wanda said, lifting your skirt fully over your ass to expose it in the moonlight. You felt her finger grab the back strap of your panties and tug them down. Your face grew hot in embarrassment as even you could feel how wet you were. This strange murderer had untapped something inside you that was making you spiral against that counter.

“I knew you were perfect,” she whispered as her fingers touched you, making you jump and whine, swimming in your soaking folds. She laughed against your upper back, her hand roaming over your ass and squeezing it before going back to your pussy, slowly pressing a finger in. You could feel both the blood from the cut and the wetness from your core dripping down your thighs.

Wanda grunted, feeling lost in you. In your fear, your body under hers, the control. This was the best kill she had, and she hadn’t even killed you yet.

“Such a tight little thing, I almost want to keep you.” She pulled out her finger, and you hated yourself for feeling empty because of it. Then you felt something foreign and hard against your entrance, panicking as it pushed into you. She harshly grabbed your hair and slammed your head down again, and that was enough to weaken you.

Your insides throbbed and tingled as she pushed the handle of her knife slowly inside you, grunting at the way you stretched around it. It was a nice knife, thick blade. “You’re taking it so well.”

You squirmed helplessly on the counter, starting to sweat as the woman pushed the knife handle deeper inside you. You could feel it pushing against your cervix, and your legs trembled.

“It’s okay to feel good, you dirty little thing,” Wanda whispered, both a praise and a degradation that made you whimper. You were wordless, mindless, under this killer’s hands and body, and the last part of you that remained subconscious wondered what would’ve happened if you never opened the door.

She pulled the handle almost all the way out before slamming it inside you again. You feared feeling the blade, but you didn’t. She pumped the handle inside you over and over again, soft at first before that clawing inside of her head got the better of her.

“Good girl,” she breathed against the back of your neck, biting into it as she slammed her knife inside you. “That’s it. Stay still.”

You heard a zipper unzip, and the sound of denim shifting, before you felt the warmth of her core pressing into your left cheek. Grabbing the back of your neck with one hand, the other ramming the handle of her knife into your pussy repeatedly, Wanda grinded her clit against your ass, shoving you against the counter over and over again. She was so helpless, so overwhelmed with both intensifying hunger and relief that she just needed to get off. Her cum smeared over the hill of your ass as she rutted herself against it, listening to the wonderful squeaks and whines you made.

“Fuck,” Wanda whispered as she got close, watching the cum-soaked handle of her knife fuck harder into you as she got closer. “Mmmm,” she grunted animalistically as she felt the edge near her.

You clawed helplessly at the counter, your walls spasming around the ribbed handle until finally you couldn’t take it anymore, your hot face pressing hard into the cold, sweaty counter as you came around the handle of her knife. She rutted harder into you as you heard her vague sounds of orgasm, the tip of her knife accidentally making shallow stabs in your inner thighs as she lost control of how she angled the knife.

“Oh fuck,” Wanda breathed as she slowed down, and you were lost under her, your brain far gone and body farther, trembling, thighs bloodied. Wanda hadn’t even noticed that she ripped so hard into the back of your neck that it was bleeding.

Controlled psychopathy. Load of shit.

Pulling out of you, Wanda pulled away and turned your limp body over, looking at your reddened, tear-streaked face. You were such a pretty little thing. A diamond hidden out in the forest. It was a shame she’d stumbled across you that night. If it had been any other night, she would’ve kept you—courted you, even. She could tell you’d make such a good girlfriend to her.

“Well,” Wanda whispered, gently stroking your sweat-soaked hair out of your face. “That was great. I really enjoyed that,” she said softly, almost like a person with real emotions, and for a moment she had almost felt like one.

Controlled psychopathy.

“But I’m afraid I’m going to enjoy this even more.”

The last thing you saw was the flash of her blade as it came down on you.

#wanda maximoff x reader #wanda maximoff #scarlet witch #scarlet witch x reader #serial killer #halloween #crimsonween #kinktober #marvel #lgbt #lesbian #dark!fic

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tossawary · 9 months ago

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"Fullmetal Alchemist"'s use of fantasy elements is interesting to me because of the way it... reduces... certain horrors to these unflinchingly direct basics. (Warning for spoilers and unorganized overview discussion of canon-typical violence.)

Like, the violence and pain is depicted in hideous, nightmarish detail, and/but the pursuit of power at the expense of other people's lives is simplified at the climax into an equation so straightforward that it hurts. All previous prizes of land and resources, which are forms of power, have been stolen by the Amestris military by way of terrible, hateful bloodshed. Father's Promised Day array then throws all that aside, throws it onto the fire, and takes a step further to directly exchange human lives for godlike power.

Another example is that Roy Mustang is not permitted the false distance of a bomb, but has the effect of one using his own two hands. The result is the same, but State Alchemists are not permitted separation from their tools: they ARE the weapons of war. A gun is nothing without someone to hold it. It really underlined to me that if Roy HAD used bombs instead of alchemy, it still would have been his hands that killed an unimaginable number of people.

I don't think FMA is above criticism, but this specific aspect felt to me an incredibly effective narrative tool, especially because things like "our military was created from the beginning to do evil" are accompanied by / backed up by normal humans knowingly going along with Father's plans out of greed and fear, as well as normal humans supporting the country's crimes out of idealism and fear and hatred and selfishness and confusion. It's not just "oh, it was inhuman monsters secretly manipulating everything from the shadows all along"; it's "oh, it was inhuman monsters secretly manipulating everything, representative of humanity's most deadly sins, appealing to our most selfish desires and basic fears, and we all WENT ALONG with it".

From the very first chapters, all of the friendly adult characters were directly saying things like, "Edward, you shouldn't be a part of the military. It's corrupt. I have killed innocent people for nothing and it haunts me." In the final battle, inside the command building, the Armstrong siblings and their allies are straight-up fighting against mindless, starving, created soldiers that kill everything they come up against and stop for nothing. The fascist Amestris military, after years of violent, fabricated conquest and violent, inhumane research, is EATING ITSELF FROM THE INSIDE.

And, of course, the characters cannot use their magic system to escape reality: the Elric siblings cannot undo their mother's death. Life is so incredibly precious because some things cannot be undone. And grief and arrogance allowed to run rampant takes heavy tolls on Edward, Alphonse, and Izumi's bodies.

The only way to miss the messaging in FMA, to have the point go over your head, is to intentionally duck it, because the author is throwing it at your face like a brick. Repeatedly. There are so many bricks. It's not subtle. And I enjoyed it.

#tossawary fma #character death #violence #roy mustang #spoilers

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arijsblog · 2 months ago

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https://gofund.me/92cc9c56

Verified by @90-ghost

My name is Areej Salem, I am twenty-eight years old, I fell in love two years ago, then we planned to get married until the path we always dreamed of was completed.

Muhammad and I got married on November 3, 2023, and after five months, God surprised me with the most beautiful gifts..

I had learned that I was pregnant, I would give birth to my first child and I will have a happy family,

During the journey of weakness and fatigue within pregnancy, Muhammad and I began preparing the baby’s things, buying clothes for him, and searching for suitable furniture until the seventh of October came to destroy everything we dreamed of for our child and our future.

The war began and fire broke out from every direction, and the Zionist indiscriminate bombing of civilians and defenseless people began, I was then in the eighth month of pregnancy, and I was suffering from strong panic attacks that I experienced with every strong bombing close to our house, I clutched my body and held myself tight, I was thought that i lose my baby many times just because of fear! After that, I suffer from uterine contractions that stay with me for days.

Within a few days, Israel decided to displace us from our homes in the north of the Gaza Strip to its south, During the air, land and sea bombardment, we got our car, heading towards the south, until naval boats attacked us with a shell that hit our car from the roof, So I put my hand on my womb to protect my fetus and prayed to God a lot to grant me sight for my child, safe and sound.

Thank God, we miraculously survived, and on the second of December, that is, within two months of the war, I gave birth to my little boy, “Adam,” in a small room containing three beds, without the minimum sanitary necessities, and in which there were many displaced people fleeing their homes to health centers to take refuge in them, with a lack of food ,Sanitation, hygiene, and a lack of equipment and tools needed for childbirth, These were the most difficult hours of my life, until I felt like my soul had left my body. After three days I spent in labor pain, Adam came to enlighten my heart and my life and give our future meaning and existence.

Now... the war is still going on, but our lives are also going on, but! Without a home, it was destroyed by the Israeli occupation, also without food, medicine, or even milk to feed my little baby.

Your life continues, but in order for us to live like you, you must help us, so that I can provide a healthy environment for Adam, and for me and my husband, Muhammad, to live a decent life. Every amount, even a small one, will make a difference!

‏Donations will be spent on living expenses and the money will be transferred to us through Western Union and to have money for get out from gaza also

Fear fills our hearts, as death is very close to us, so we ask for your support and attention to find a safe way.

Your donations will make a difference in our lives, and we are incredibly grateful for your support.

Verified by @nabulsi

Follow my instagram account for full story https://www.instagram.com/arij.raji?igsh=YzAwZjE1ZTI0Zg%3D%3D&utm_source=qr

#free palestine #free gaza #free lebanon #stop the genocide #gofundme #please help #gazaunderattack #save gaza #help gaza #gaza genocide #gaza fundraiser #gaza gfm

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mostlysignssomeportents · 2 months ago

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Canada’s ground-breaking, hamstrung repair and interop laws

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/15/radical-extremists/#sex-pest

When the GOP trifecta assumes power in just a few months, they will pass laws, and those laws will be terrible, and they will cast long, long shadows.

This is the story of how another far-right conservative government used its bulletproof majority to pass a wildly unpopular law that continues to stymie progress to this day. It's the story of Canada's Harper Conservative government, and two of its key ministers: Tony Clement and James Moore.

Starting in 1998, the US Trade Rep embarked on a long campaign to force every country in the world to enact a new kind of IP law: an "anticircumvention" law that would criminalize the production and use of tools that allowed people to use their own property in ways that the manufacturer disliked.

This first entered the US statute books with the 1998 passage of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), whose Section 1201 established a new felony for circumventing an "access control." Crucially, DMCA 1201's prohibition on circumvention did not confine itself to protecting copyright.

Circumventing an access control is a felony, even if you never violate copyright law. For example, if you circumvent the access control on your own printer to disable the processes that check to make sure you're using an official HP cartridge, HP can come after you.

You haven't violated any copyright, but the ink-checking code is a copyrighted work, and you had to circumvent a block in order to reach it. Thus, if I provide you a tool to escape HP's ink racket, I commit a felony with penalties of five years in prison and a $500k fine, for a first offense. So it is that HP ink costs more per ounce than the semen of a Kentucky Derby-winning stallion.

This was clearly a bad idea in 1998, though it wasn't clear how bad an idea it was at the time. In 1998, chips were expensive and underpowered. By 2010, a chip that cost less than a dollar could easily implement a DMCA-triggering access control, and manufacturers of all kinds were adding superfluous chips to everything from engine parts to smart lightbulbs whose sole purpose was to transform modification into felonies. This is what Jay Freeman calls "felony contempt of business-model."

So when the Harper government set out to import US-style anticircumvention law to Canada, Canadians were furious. A consultation on the proposal received 6,138 responses opposing the law, and 54 in support:

https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2010/04/copycon-final-numbers/

And yet, James Moore and Tony Clement pressed on. When asked how they could advance such an unpopular bill, opposed by experts and the general public alike, Moore told the International Chamber of Commerce that every objector who responded to his consultation was a "radical extremist" with a "babyish" approach to copyright:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/copyright-debate-turns-ugly-1.898216

As is so often the case, history vindicated the babyish radical extremists. The DMCA actually has an official way to keep score on this one. Every three years, the US Copyright Office invites public submissions for exemptions to DMCA 1201, creating a detailed, evidence-backed record of all the legitimate activities that anticircumvention law interferes with.

Unfortunately, "a record" is all we get out of this proceeding. Even though the Copyright Office is allowed to grant "exemptions," these don't mean what you think they mean. The statute is very clear on this: the US Copyright Office is required to grant exemptions for the act of circumvention, but is forbidden from granting exemptions for tools needed to carry out these acts.

This is headspinningly and deliberately obscure, but there's one anecdote from my long crusade against this stupid law that lays it bare. As I mentioned, the US Trade Rep has made the passage of DMCA-like laws in other countries a top priority since the Clinton years. In 2001, the EU adopted the EU Copyright Directive, whose Article 6 copy-pastes the provisions of DMCA 1201.

In 2003, I found myself in Oslo, debating the minister who'd just completed Norway's EUCD implementation. The minister was very proud of his law, boasting that he'd researched the flaws in other countries' anticircumvention laws and addressed them in Norway's law. For example, Norway's law explicitly allowed blind people to bypass access controls on ebooks in order to feed them into text-to-speech engines, Braille printers and other accessibility tools.

I knew where this was going. I asked the minister how this would work in practice. Could someone sell a blind person a tool to break the DRM on their ebooks? Of course not, that's totally illegal. Could a nonprofit blind rights group make such a tool and give it away to blind people? No, that's illegal too. What about hobbyists, could they make the tool for their blind friends? No, not that either.

OK, so how do blind people exercise their right to bypass access controls on ebooks they own so they can actually read them?

Here's how. Each blind person, all by themself, is expected to decompile and reverse-engineer Adobe Reader, locate a vulnerability in the code and write a new program that exploits that vulnerability to extract their ebooks. While blind people are individually empowered to undertake this otherwise prohibited activity, they must do so on their own: they can't share notes with one another on the process. They certainly can't give each other the circumvention program they write in this way:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/28/mcbroken/#my-milkshake-brings-all-the-lawyers-to-the-yard

That's what a use-only exemption is: the right to individually put a locked down device up on your own workbench, and, laboring in perfect secrecy, figure out how it works and then defeat the locks that stop you from changing those workings so they benefit you instead of the manufacturer. Without a "tools" exemption, a use exemption is basically a decorative ornament.

So the many use exemptions that the US Copyright Office has granted since 1998 really amount to nothing more than a list of defects in the DMCA that the Copyright Office has painstaking verified but is powerless to fix. We could probably save everyone a lot of time by scrapping the triennial exemptions process and replacing it with an permanent sign over the doors of the Library of Congress reading "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here."

All of this was well understood by 2010, when Moore and Clement were working on the Canadian version of the DMCA. All of this was explained in eye-watering detail to Moore and Clement, but was roundly ignored. I even had a go at it, publicly picking a fight with Moore on Twitter:

https://web.archive.org/web/20130407101911if_/http://eaves.ca/wp-content/uploads/2010/Conversations%20between%20@doctorow%20and%[email protected]

Moore and Clement rammed their proposal through in the next session of Parliament, passing it as Bill C-11 in 2012:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Modernization_Act

This was something of a grand finale for the pair. Today, Moore is a faceless corporate lawyer, while Clement was last seen grifting covid PPE (Clement's political career ended abruptly when he sent dick pics to a young woman who turned out to be a pair of sextortionists from Cote D'Ivoire, and was revealed as a serial sex-pest in the ensuing scandal:)

https://globalnews.ca/news/4646287/tony-clement-instagram-women/

Even though Moore and Clement are long gone from public life, their signature achievement remains a Canadian disgrace, an anchor chain tied around the Canadian economy's throat, and an impediment to Canadian progress.

This week, two excellent new Canadian laws received royal assent: Bill C-244 is a broad, national Right to Repair law; and Bill C-294 is a broad, national interoperability law. Both laws establish the right to circumvent access controls for the purpose of fixing and improving things, something Canadians deserve and need.

But neither law contains a tools exemption. Like the blind people of Norway, a Canadian farmer who wants to attach a made-in-Canada Honeybee tool to their John Deere tractor is required to personally, individually reverse-engineer the John Deere tractor and modify it to talk to the Honeybee accessory, laboring in total secrecy:

https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/12/canada_right_to_repair/

Likewise the Canadian repair tech who fixes a smart speaker or a busted smartphone – they are legally permitted to circumvent in order to torture the device's repair codes out of it or force it to recognize a replacement part, but each technician must personally figure out how to get the device firmware to do this, without discussing it with anyone else.

Thus do Moore and Clement stand athwart Canadian self-reliance and economic development, shouting "STOP!" though both men have been out of politics for years.

There has never been a better time to hit Clement and Moore's political legacy over the head with a shovel and bury it in a shallow grave. Canadian technologists could be making a fortune creating circumvention devices that repair and improve devices marketed by foreign companies.

They could make circumvention tools to allow owners of consoles to play games by Canadian studios that are directly sold to Canadian gamers, bypassing the stores operated by Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo and the 30% commissions they charge. Canadian technologists could be making diagnostic tools that allow every auto-mechanic in Canada to fix any car manufactured anywhere in the world.

Canadian cloud servers could power devices long after their US-based manufacturers discontinue support for them, providing income to Canadian cloud companies and continued enjoyment for Canadian owners of these otherwise bricked gadgets.

Canada's gigantic auto-parts sector could clone the security chips that foreign auto manufacturers use to block the use of third party parts, and every Canadian could enjoy a steep discount every time they fix their cars. Every farmer could avail themselves of third party parts for their tractors, which they could install themselves, bypassing the $200 service call from a John Deere technician who does nothing more than look over the farmer's own repair and then types an unlock code into the tractor's console.

Every Canadian who prints out a shopping list or their kid's homework could use third party ink that sells for pennies per liter, rather than HP's official colored water that cost more than vintage Veuve Cliquot.

A Canadian e-waste dump generates five low-paid jobs per ton of waste, and that waste itself will poison the land and water for centuries to come. A circumvention-enabled Canadian repair sector could generate 150 skilled, high-paid community jobs that saves gadgets and the Earth, all while saving Canadians millions.

Canadians could enjoy the resliency that comes of having a domestic tech and repair sector, and could count on it through pandemics and Trumpian trade-war.

All of that and more could be ours, except for the cowardice and greed of Tony Clement and James Moore and the Harper Tories who voted C-11 into law in 2012.

Everything the "radical extremists" warned them of has come true. It's long past time Canadians tore up anticircumvention law and put the interests of the Canadian public and Canadian tech businesses ahead of the rent-seeking enshittification of American Big Tech.

Until we do that, we can keep on passing all the repair and interop laws we want, but each one will be hamstrung by Moore and Clement's "felony contempt of business model" law, and the contempt it showed for the Canadian people.

Image: JeffJ (modified) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tony_Clement_-_2007-06-30_in_Kearney,_Ontario.JPG

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Jorge Franganillo (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Duga_radar_system-_wreckage_of_electronic_devices_(37885984654).jpg

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

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ms-demeanor · 6 months ago

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The thing about LLMs is that they're like cars that have a touchscreen on the console; it's more expensive and worse than what came before in almost all circumstances.

And like car touchscreens it's something that I suspect that the vast majority of consumers dislike and would prefer not to use.

But that doesn't mean that touchscreens are bad it just means they don't belong in cars.

It *IS* a massive problem that "AI" is being shoved at us by a bunch of people who invested WAY too much into AI and are trying to make a return on their investment. It is *ALSO* a problem that "AI" is a terrible name for the pattern interpretation tools that tech companies have dumped billions of dollars into so people are being told that a lot of things that are just pretty basic algorithmic tools are "AI," which makes the whole thing feel overhyped, oversold, and useless (which it is for a tremendous number of people!)

But I get really frustrated with claims that AI slop is what ruined google search (google search has been ruined for a long time; when their goal became "people need to do more searches so we can serve them more ads" instead of "we need to return the best results for our users" it was destroyed and that had nothing to do with AI and everything to do with a profit motive) or that AI is why we're being inundated by spammers (spammers have been a problem for a VERY long time) or that it's impossible to find good info these days because the internet is full of garbage AI articles to generate clicks (that has been the BANE OF MY EXISTENCE in terms of research for MUCH LONGER than GPT4 has been around it is called search engine optimization and if you haven't had your results full of poorly written non-information listicles for the last seven years I suspect you haven't been doing quite the same volume of searching as I have been).

These are known problems that are being exacerbated by this particular kind of tool, but the problem with phishing isn't that the emails are extremely tailored to particular users, it's that the world is chock full of scammers who are incentivized to treat people like shit for money.

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kyseya · 4 months ago

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Backstory - farm brothers

So it’s fairly clear that Weston and Lucas are not normal people. Surprise, surprise they’re killers. I wanted to have a little Texas chainsaw massacre slasher vibe but don’t know if that worked very well.

Basically they lure(or people just end up there by themselves) folk to their farm and kill them. Though there are instances where they let some walk away without a scratch, but that’s only if they’re needed, will definitely be missed and could potentially be traced back there, and haven’t the slightest clue what’s truly going on at the farm. The Callaghan brothers can’t have anyone running their mouth, you know.

Their parents were pieces of shit and only had kids to lessen the work load. The farm belonged to their fathers side of the family. their mother had never planned to marry their father but an unexpected pregnancy and pressure from others made them stay together. The two of them were miserable with each other, always fighting and blaming the other partner. The mother was mostly mad about having to spend the rest of her days on a ‘dirty farm’ and work. The father hated being married to a vile, selfish woman who barely helped with anything. His own parents were old and his siblings had quickly moved far away to prevent having anything to do with the farm, which meant everything landed on him.

It was the mother who began using her son as a helping tool. Tasks like sweeping, feeding the animals, collecting the eggs and cooking simple meals were passed to him. At first, when Weston’s dad found out he was furious. But not because it came at Weston’s expense, no, it was because he saw it as a sign of ultimate laziness.

The earliest memories Weston has is of his parents fighting over him. He remembers when his father would reprimand his mother about using him to do her labour(he wanted her to suffer the same tiring days he does) while she screamed back. But then it stopped and his father would no longer complain. Nearly a year after that his little brother was born, and of course he became the one taking care of him after he didn’t have to nurse anymore.

Lucas followed his older brother everywhere. He was his second shadow when he went around and did his chores. It was fine with weston, he wouldn’t admit it but it became a comfort knowing he was a hero to someone. It made life easier. Unfortunately their parents wanted to put Lucas to work too, the moment they considered him old enough. That wasn’t the worst part though. Their mood soured significantly over the years and they verbally abused them on a daily basis, a couple shoves and blows were hard to avoid. You’d think they’d be happier with the easier load.

Weston would have been able to take it ifd only been him, but seeing his younger sibling being treated as dirt too, that wouldn’t fly. The hatred grew stronger each day. When it had boiled over the edge, the older one had decided on a plan. They would kill their parents. Sadly, they were too young at the moment, there was no way they’d be able to overpower two adults as they currently were. They would have to wait until they were older. And so they did. Years they waited for the right opportunity. The abuse and work never stopped, in fact, the older they got the more take they had to preform. Eventually everything was done by them and nothing was done by their parents. They finally got what they wanted, total freedom from the harsh farm life.

The day Weston told Lucas the plan to kill their parents, he had expected a little pushback from him, but he was surprised when Lucas was totally in on it. One might say he was even excited.

It was really easy to murder them. You just had to corner each one when they were alone and then slice their neck. The kids had far outgrown the adults, they were no match for them anymore.

After their mother and fathers death the brothers took over the farm. Despite all the bad memories they still liked it there. It was rather peaceful(especially when no one criticised you on how to feed the pigs), plus, they didn’t have much of an education beyond reading and writing. Where would they even go? At least on the farm they had food and shelter.

The killing didn’t stop though. It appeared the first murder had awakened something in the both of them. They both had found out they enjoyed it. The power and pleasure in seeing their parents fear stricken faces was too good of a high not to experience again.

Although, they might make one exception to the killing if you’re cute enough~

#yandere imagines #kyseya oc #yandere male #yandere oc #yandere oc x reader #yandere x reader #kyseya’s dungeon #yandere #possesive #weston callaghan oc #Lucas Callaghan #the Callaghan brothers #yandere farmer #farmer yandere #yandere farmer brothers #Yandere brothers #yandere farmers #country yanderes

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jesswritesthat · 1 month ago

Text

Bakugō Katsuki: Engineer

Fandom: BNHA // MHA — [ Masterlist ]

Summary: ~1.5k, fluff, a little violence.

• Being a talented inventor meant your skills were sought by many (both good and bad), but then you catch the attention of Dynamight.

Warnings: Cursing, violence, mention of weapons, post time skip.

>>>>——————————>

"You can't be serious Bakugō-san."

The pro snapped to his trusty assistant, raising an expectant brow when replying like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"You said they're the best. That's who I want for my agency."

"Yes but—"

"But nothing! Do you know where I can find them?"

"Everyone who has tried has been refused. Their infamous talent has been sought by heroes, big companies, and even villainous characters... All of whom failed to hire them."

"’Cause I haven't asked yet."

"Bakugō-san, I know there's no convincing you otherwise but, I'd recommend having other options available at least."

True to his assistants' warnings, you were no easy recruit, all his efforts at communication were futile. Emails? Calls? Letters? You hadn't replied to any of his professional outreach methods and he suspected this was a common occurrence for you.

Fine then, he'd turn up the heat. Your workshop address wasn't a secret to those with connections and Bakugō wasn't one to give up without a fight. Literally, if need be.

———

It was a perplexing thing in the middle of nowhere, your workshop. A metal-like building heavily lined with obscure defensive weaponry as well as having access to your own personal scrapyard it seemed. But it was yours. A rumoured mechanical talent for crafting hero gear and inventions, one that drew attention from far and wide. However you were content in your independence, it was less hassle this way you'd hoped.

Alas, the confident banging on the metal entrance doors with conviction was far from unusual.

"I told ya, I don't—" You paused once sliding open the door and taking a look at your visitor, lifting your goggles and shifting to a smile. "Haven't seen you at my door before."

"Since ya didn't answer my calls or mail, I don't have a choice." The man seethed through gritted teeth, trying to be more 'accommodating' like advised.

"Oh? Which one are you again?" Your gaze flicked to a pile of (some charred) letters in a nearby bin, smile growing more smug by the second.

"Bakugō Katsuki. You might know me as Dynamight though."

"Yeah you're fun. I like you." You smirked proudly, honesty and bemusement present. "The way you yell at people resonates with me."

The man rolled his eyes with scoffing sound, choosing not to say anything rambunctious enough to have you slam the door in his face - still, he was surprised when you welcomed him in.

"Tch. S'pose you know why I'm here then."

"You, and many others. Had Lemillion here last month, least he bought me a welcome basket with cake and such." You joked, easing the caution the blonde seemed to be upholding around you with his natural personality showing.

"Tch, ain't gonna get you none of that crap unless you start working with me. I did bring something useful though because I'm better than the other extras you've dealt with." He held out a bag, one you quizzically explored to find a peculiar item to win one over with.

"A spanner...?"

It wasn't just a spanner, it was one of the newest, top of the grade, multi tool sets crafted by one of the big brands. Thoughtful. Very thoughtful actually...

"I appreciate it, but I can't accept something this expensive. Especially when I'm going to decline your offer."

"S'fine. It's a gift, but if you feel that guilty about it then you can fix my gauntlets." Bakugō justified rather abruptly, shoving the bag into your arms to ensure you took it.

"Alright. That sounds fair."

"I'll grab 'em from my car, get your shit ready."

That afternoon, you sat beside Katsuki as he talked you through the technicalities of his weaponry whilst you worked on them together. All the while diverting onto conversation tangents and making drinks mid way, he demonstrated his quirk - tiny sparkles of explosive lighting up his hand.

"They're pretty, your explosions."

"They’re deadly— I don't— shut up nerd!" He dismissed you briskly, turning away with an irritated growl.

———

Fixing his gear would be the first and last time you'd see Bakugō in person you assumed, considering you declined his job proposition and all.

So when you received another bout of rapid banging on metal the following week, you were surprised to find a smirking Dynamight rather than another recruiter.

"Shocked to see me or something?"

"Well I— yeah. Figured you'd take my refusal and go."

"Nah you did a good job with my gauntlets, wanted to see what else you're up to." Dynamight flexed his wrist for example, openly pleased with his gauntlets but seemed more so by your genuine reaction.

"Oh really?" You sounded truly perplexed, but also excited to share your work with someone. "Sure, I'll show you my latest ideas!"

Bakugō stayed a while, a couple of hours discussing applications for your inventions and inquiring as to whether there were any materials you were unable to obtain recently. Then it moved on to his occupation, his agency, and then to trivial matters such as popular restaurants around town.

“So, wanna join my agency yet?” The blonde threw over his shoulder on his way out of the door.

“No Dynamight, but thank you for asking and visiting.”

“Fine nerd. I’ll be back then.”

Now you didn’t believe that for a second when he slammed the door behind him, and you felt like he’d only asked for the sake of it - fully expecting you to say no. However, if he did decide to visit again, you wouldn’t be mad about it you concluded.

———

Unfortunately, your next set of individuals weren’t so welcomed. You’d seen them multiple times previously, each visit coming with its increase of pressure to work exclusively for them. A dealer who specialised in exporting weaponry to villains on the black market, they had both the money and power to pose either a threat or a reward. Except, your constant refusals had only fuelled their growing impatience which led them crashing down your door tonight with violence in their wake.

"C'mon (L/n), I came here personally just to hire you. We'll certainly pay you well enough~" The dealer slammed you into the wall, digits digging so deeply into your neck you barely managed a disgruntled wretch.

"I'll neve— ever work— for you assholes!"

"Too bad, the consequence for that is death y’know." You were slung across the floor, a gasp for breath futile when he aimed his pistol at your heart. "Want to reconsider yet?"

"Fuck you."

The gun safety clicked off, one of the henchman's quirks keeping you painfully immobile. If these were your final moments you were furious you hadn't completed your latest invention, maybe a little irritated you hadn't hit the code red before you were taken over by a damn quirk. You avoided pledging alliances to avoid this bullshit! You didn't work for any competitors, you weren't in the line of fire for sharing information, but now you can't even refuse work without getting caught in a crime web?! Society and talent is a sh—

Then an ear splitting bang echoed in the facility, dust clouds and debris forcing through the room like a tidal wave, leaving two intruders knocked out and the remainder covering their faces and yelling confused curses. That's when you saw sparks of light, a familiar explosion you had the privilege of seeing in person only once before.

He came back.

"That's why they call me Great Explosion Murder God!" He grinned menacingly, teeth bared like a predator with a dangerous glint in those crimson eyes. Sparks and smoke danced around him, the hero lowering both his stance and voice when he spoke what sounded like a protective threat.

"Now get away from my agency's' new engineer."

Oddly you felt butterflies in your stomach, but you'd narrowed that down to the whole situation being an absolute bombshell. You watched as Dynamight immobilised them effortlessly, the quirk being lifted allowing you to utilise your inventions - mechanised laser snipers pointed at the foreheads of your unwanted company, all programmed to fire with a snap of your fingers.

"Couldn't have done that sooner nerd?" The hero shot back to you tauntingly, but you didn’t miss how his gaze flared up at the sight of bruising on your neck when he’d scanned you for injury.

"Then you'd be out of a job, hero."

It took no longer than ten minutes for the authorities to arrive, during that time Dynamight had retrieved any information he’d wanted. As well as issuing basic first aid to you contrastingly softly in comparison to the deathly interrogation the dealer experienced.

You’d be taken to hospital for a check of course, (Bakugō personally walking you to your escort since he couldn’t drive you himself right now) but before you bid farewell you had a burning question.

"When can I start?"

"Hah?" Came his classic recall, snapping to you with a look of angry curiosity.

"You called me your engineer, I was wondering when that begins." Your voice was quieter now, but upon realising Katsuki seemed a little embarrassed with hand rubbing his neck and honest answer spilled.

"It's your choice, but I figured saying that would get others off your back when word gets around. You'd be left in peace for a while to continue your work."

"And if I want to work with you, when would you want me at the agency?

"All the time." Just as quickly as he spoke, he realised his lack of hesitance, awkwardly huffing and rephrasing all in one. "I'll send over a contract, you can move stuff into the lab if you like the terms."

"Then I look forward to working with you, boss." Gladly, you held out your hand to him, pleased smirk plastered on your features.

"Call me Katsuki." He shook your hand, victorious grin in play. "And the pleasure’s all mine."

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[ Masterlist ]

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