#safari keeps saying ‘

[parasiticstars]

Hey uhm hot take that shouldn’t be hot:

Traumatizing yourself does not count as awareness for a cause.

Yes, don’t ignore it, but don’t doomscroll and purposely go out of your way to look at literal massacred children or self immolation or other carnage and what-have-you, then do nothing about it except reshare it and gush about how it gave you panic attacks and nightmares for the next week.

You’re not helping. You’re turning a fucking genocide into shock content to fuel your white savior complex.

It could’ve happened to YOU had you been born in the wrong place at the wrong time, too.

Have some respect.

[greens-multiverse]

Friends, fellow-fandomers, random tumblrite passers-by, I have completed my first nuzlocke!

Yes, despite being in the fandom for just over a decade now, and hanging out in exactly the kind of places you tend to find nuzlockers, I'd somehow never completed the challenge before. I had planned to, I'd even given it a try - I've had a way-too-ambitious idea for a series taking up space in the back of my head for far too long - and I rapidly came to the conclusion that before I went all in on a long series of pseudo-hardcore, gift-and-trade-pokémon-only, fully-written-out nuzlockes, I should probably get myself used to the challenge with something simpler first. So for now I'm playing through the games I skipped past during my catchup playthroughs ten years ago (Yellow, Crystal, Sapphire, and Pearl) with the basic nuzlocke rules and a few personal additions:

Dupes clause - except it only applies to the specific pokémon I encounter, not their entire evolutionary line. If it has a ball next to its name, I can't catch it!

The run's not over until I've beaten everyone I can without connecting to another game or entering a battle facility, postgame trainers and legendaries included.

Before I start each game, I make a list of the lowest-levelled pokémon of each gym leader, the champion, and any really important postgame trainers (I call that last part the 'Red clause.') Aside from that, and a list of when wild pokémon learn exploding moves I made a while ago, I'm not allowed to look anything up!

With those rules in mind, after... way too long honestly my habit of playing a dozen pokémon games at once obviously had nothing to do with it I've finally finished Yellow! The challenge wasn't as hard for me as I know it's been for some people, I made it out with 51 pokémon caught and six deaths, three of which really hurt. I've been through Kanto enough times there weren't any big surprises, though seeing the little changes made to the region was always fun. With that, it's time to put on the RBY Hall of Fame music, and introduce you all to the boys!

MNS, short for Massive Nidoking Superiority, caught as a Nidoran♂ on Route 22. His original nickname was Pachy, but I changed it to MNS after I got into the habit of writing 'massive nidoking superiority' in my journal whenever he came in clutch. He proved to be quite versatile with the power to back it up, especially in mid-game, and while later on he got a little outclassed by the more specialist members of the party, when they needed to step out of a fight he was always there to jump in and clean up.

Ogrei-T, initially just Ogrei, caught as a spearow on Route 3. Out of all the pokémon I could have gotten on that route, a spearow was easily the least interesting, so I thought 'oh great,' named him Ogrei, and threw him in a box as soon as I caught something with better type coverage. There he stayed until Rock Tunnel, when the pokémon I was planning to make my flyer, Evenstar the charmeleon, got blown up by a graveler after a mistimed dig. He was the best option I had to replace her, so I pulled him out, and when I discovered he really was pretty great I added a T to the end of his name. He was very good at what he did, and that thing was using drill peck on bugs, plants, and muscly dudes. For a pokémon I expected to fill up space in my boxes the whole game, he acquitted himself really well.

Trevor, alias Trevs, alias the gift bulbasaur from Cerulean City. Him and Dest fulfilled pretty much the same role on the battlefield, taking out ground and rock types, tanking explosions, performing HM duties (though Trevs had cut instead of surf.) Dest was a bit better at those jobs by the end, but they never lost that bash-brother synergy, and I could always rely on both of them to protect the rest of the boys... until, in Cerulean Cave, I suddenly couldn't. I sent Trevor out against a graveler when he was around half health, and it crit explosion. The only member of my final team who didn't make it to the end of the run, I left his spot in the party open as a memorial - for him, and for everyone else we'd lost.

Guildern, caught as an abra on Route 6. I hate to say it, but while all the boys are great, Guildern was certainly the least... versatile. He could rain psychic death on our opponents, no problem, but thanks to a paucity of TMs he could learn, that was the only thing he could do, and since I didn't realise that until I'd overwritten psybeam with psychic, he could only do it ten times before he ran out of PP. Still, he was very, very good at his one trick, and though he didn't see as much battle as the others, when I needed something psychic'ed, he did a great job of it.

Dest-da-best, the gift squirtle from Vermilion City. My initial plan for my team was to build it around the Starters Three, and Dest was the only one of them to make it to the very end of the run. He was an amazing surfer, brilliant at bomb disposal, could take out anything weak to water or ice in, like, two hits max, and had enough bulk to overwhelm basically anything else. The blastoise line has always been my favourite of the Kanto starters, and Dest did his kinsfolk proud, time and time again. If I had to pick a run MVP, it'd be him, if only for all those explosions he tanked during grinding.

And finally, Halcha, formerly the eevee from Celadon City, who's not actually a boy but is nevertheless one of the boys. I wanted to beat the game with my starter pikachu, of course, but Jumps got multi-hit-crit to death on the routes north of Cerulean, and I figured my best back-up option was a jolteon - with pin missile, possibly the best anti-psychic build in Gen 1. Halcha did okay at that, but they were much better at electrocuting things, and though they weren't great at taking hits, half the time they zapped the other guy out of the way too fast for it to matter. In the deepest depths of Cerulean Cave, I fed them seven rare candies and set them on Mewtwo - and they actually did pretty well, handily outspeeding, paralysing, and whittling them down with thunderbolts. After everything I've heard about RBY Mewtwo, I'm taking this as proof that Halcha is something special.

This team didn't fully solidify until we picked up Halcha and Celadon, and it'd be wrong of me not to shout out a couple of mon who helped out a lot in getting to that point - Bert the butterfree, caught as a metapod in Viridian Forest, who handily took out Brock, and Sarno the dugtrio, caught as a diglett in Diglett's Cave, who dealt with Surge and filled Evenstar's spot on the team from her death until Halcha joined the party. There were several more pokémon who filled various spots on the team before the boys were assembled, but these two certainly did the most. Thanks, guys.

And, of course, it wouldn't be a nuzlocke writeup without a moment to honour the fallen. I've already mentioned Jumps the pikachu (Pallet Town to Route 25, levels 5-16, some asshole spearow got five critical fury attacks), Evenstar the charmeleon (Route 24 (as a gift charmander) to Rock Tunnel, levels 10-25, missed a dig under an exploding geodude at the worst possible moment), and Trevor the venusaur (Cerulean City (as a gift bulbasaur) to Cerulean Cave, levels 10-60, switched into a graveler at half health and it got a crit explosion), but we also lost Buivel the rattata (Route 2 to Nugget Bridge, levels 3-14, I forgot Nidoran♀ have double kick in this game), Mars the pidgey (Route 1 to Nugget Bridge (again), levels 4-15, some asshole mankey landed a critical low kick), and Duke the geodude (Mt. Moon to Route 24, levels 11-17, got outsped by a random wild oddish and crit absorb'd.) I really wasn't expecting the routes north of Cerulean to be such a meat-grinder, damn.

But even with those sacrifices, we've won the league, defeated Team Rocket, and explored every corner of Kanto. It's time for the surviving boys to get their well-deserved retirement, and for me to move on to Pokémon Crystal, where I hear I'll even get to pick a starter! It might take me a while to complete my research there, but whenever that is, I guarantee you guys are gonna hear about it. See you then!

[thedeathdeelers]

is ao3 down or is it just me

[astrotruther]

Astro Observations

misc. (ii)

🐉 Narcissists may have Mars-Uranus aspects in their chart. Mars’s energy can be either constructive or destructive; pair that with Uranus' erratic quality, and it could make one manipulative. In my opinion, Mars & Uranus having more harsh aspects to multiple other planets could further confirm this. Look out for squares, especially Moon square Mars!

🐉 Sun harsh aspects to Neptune, even conjunction can be somewhat superficial. Neptune may bless them with a mystique that attracts public attention, but they stick to a surface-level public persona. Artists with these aspects may stick to cookie-cutter projects. E.g. Colleen Hover responding to criticism by saying 'I write to entertain not to educate'. Jake Paul also has this aspect. In worst cases there's a delusional egotism to this aspect. On the other hand, easy aspects will be more willing to go within and proudly display their shadows, creating art that is meaningful and leaves a lasting legacy.

🐉 I've observed Scorpio Sun/ Moon in charts of those who backhandedly bully people over things like their appearance. Water Moons in general are capable of inflicting deep emotional wounds to others when unevolved. Having Mercury in a fire sign makes it a lot worse since the words become harsher. I've had a Scorpio Sun - Pisces Moon girl admit to me that she makes fun of people because she had the same done to her while growing up.

🐉 Libra MC are often told they should be models. Understandable because they're so photogenic!

🐉 Pluto-Ascendant easy aspects & conjunction are always reinventing themselves. It's easier for these people to let go of things that don't serve them and realign themselves with their inner true selves. They're skilled at coming to terms with their dark sides and alchemizing it to create a positive impact in the world.

🐉 On the contrary, harsh aspects may feel like they can't be themselves due to external factors or a certain image/ aesthetic that they have to uphold. Some may be child actors/ activists or made it big in early years making it hard to disrupt their public persona. It's way harder for them to branch out within their career field. Ascendant at 0° might have the same effect. E.g. Billie Eilish, Demi Lovato, Finn Wolfhard, Darsheel Safary, Malala Yousafzai, Meghan Trainor, Hilary Duff.

🐉 I've seen so many takes on the 0° & most people romanticizing it somehow. It may manifest in a divine way for those who are self-aware/ have evolved. however MOST people aren't. So it gives a somewhat negative quality to the placement, e.g. Jake Paul has his MC at 0°.

🐉 Moon-Pluto aspects not only symbolize a strained relationship with the mother but also with other women. A lot of trauma you accumulated while growing up was because of the women around you. Some of them may have made you feel bad about yourself because they were threatened by you. The signs Moon & Pluto are in could give more context, e.g. Aries Moon, Sag. Pluto = invalidating your anger, not letting you be yourself and forcing you to be someone they like, forcing religion on you from a young age etc.

🐉 Uranus square MC will have a career-ruining public scandal at least once. All I can say is avoid doing shady stuff and if it's external factors beyond your control, handle it with grace, lay low, you'll get your chance to shine again.

🐉 Moon square Lilith is an enemy placement. Moon person hates Lilith person's guts because Lilith person may have hurt them in some way. Moon could want revenge on Lilith for what they did.

🐉 Venus-Saturn aspects may have had people criticize their appearance while growing up, but they end up having insane glow-ups. Their most attractive years come somewhat later in life and they age very gracefully.

🐉 Moon in Cancer/ Moon conjunct Jupiter people possess the ability to manipulate, sometimes on a mass level. It's on them to use their emotional superpowers to influence people in a positive way and not just keep banking on their victim narratives. Nonetheless, these people can hold public interest for a long time.

🐉 Venus in 10th House synastry is often a clout/ PR couple. E.g. Glenn Powell & Sydney Sweeney.

Click daily to help Palestinians🍉🙏🏽: https://arab.org/click-to-help/palestine/

[athenamikaelson]

Klaus Mikaelson x Soulmate!Reader x Elijah Mikaelson Pt. 8

Word Count- 7.8k

Warnings- Swearing, violence, blood, unhealthy thoughts when it comes to pain

A/N- Klaus in Alaric’s body will be referenced as Klaric since it’s easier for me to remember and easier than putting, “Klaus in Alaric’s body,” 100 times lol. ALSO it was so uncomfortable to write Klaus in Ric’s body when he and the reader are interacting.  So good luck.

-3rd Person POV-

Katherine sat shaking in her chair as she watched Klaus, who was currently residing in Alaric’s body, riffle through Alaric’s closet. Katherrine’s fear was evident to both parties as she watched the man from a small distance. 

“Ugh! Who is this guy? Safari Sam,” Klaric said disgustedly as he went through the dozens of flannel and khaki shirts. 

Klaric sighs as he grabs two shirts from the rack and holds them up in front of the younger vampire, “Okay. Bad… Or badder?”

Katherine scowls as she answers him, “The dark colors suit you better.”

“Oh thank you, honey. Okay,” Klaric throws the dismissed shirt onto the bed and then begins to put on the dark one, “Pop quiz. The dagger and white ash are in the Salvatore's possession, correct?”

“The dagger was used to kill Elijah. You’ll find him in the basement of the Salvatore house,” Katherine answers the question with about as much excitement as one can have in her situation. 

“Okay, that dagger needs to stay exactly where it is. The last thing I need to do is resurrect Elijah,” Klaric scoffs, “Oh, that guy’s a buzz kill.”

“Don’t forget you’re on the outs with your girlfriend Jenna.”

Klarics eyebrows raise and he nods along as if he actually cares, which he doesn’t, “Right. Elena’s aunt. For, uh, all the lies about Isobel. What else?”

“That’s it,” Katherine says but her breathing betrays her. Klaric takes a step forward and brings his hand up to brush a finger over her hair, resulting in a frightened jump from the latter. 

“So jumpy,” Klaric’s mocking tone breaks the silence. 

“Please,” Katherine’s voice comes out desperate, “Just kill me. I’ve told you everything I know.”

Klaric leans down to be eye to eye with the doppelganger, “See, I believe you believe that. But what would you not know? What could they be keeping from you? Anything? Tell me,” Klaric’s pupils enlarge as he compels the younger vampire. 

“They were trying to see if Bonnie could find a way to kill an Orginal without a dagger.”

“Bonnie the best friend?”

Katherine nods as Klaric stands up and crosses his arms in annoyance, “I thought you said she didn’t have her powers anymore.”

“She doesn’t. Or didn’t. I don't know,” Kathrine tries to reason, “You kidnapped me, remember? I’m kind of out of the loop.”

“Well, we’ll have to get to the bottom of that,” Klaric glances down at Kathrine again, “Anything else I should know.”

Katherine appears to be fighting back her words but Klaric’s compulsion proves to be too strong, “There’s a girl.”

This perks Klaric’s interest as he gestures with his hand for Katherine to continue, “Oh please, do go on.”

“She’s a friend of Elena’s,” Klaric rolls his eyes at this statement getting bored of Katherine’s dodginess. 

“Katerina, please tell me you aren’t wasting my time with the knowledge of a teenage girl who holds no means to my plan.”

Katherine opens and closes her mouth a few times before lowly biting out her words, “Elijah was quite fond of her. Before he was daggered.”

At this comment, Klaric’s eyebrows furrow, and a small smirk covers his lips, “You mean to tell me my older brother has a little crush on some teenage girl,” The amusement in his tone is evident. 

Katherine shakes her head as if Klaric should understand better what she’s talking about, “No it’s not like that,” She frowns, “Well, at first I had thought so too, but it’s deeper than just some crush. From what I’ve heard and seen it’s not just some random bond between them. It’s something deeper, something supernatural. Elijah is overly protective of her and he looks at her like,” She pauses as if talking about this hurts her, “Like, she’s all there is.”

At Katherine’s last sentence, the smirk from Klaric’s face promptly drops and is replaced momentarily by a look of disbelief. 

“You’re not suggesting what I think you’re suggesting,” Klaric’s tone darkens.

“I’m not one hundred percent sure, I mean I’ve only seen that kind of bond a handful of times in my entire life but,” Katherine sighs, “That’s the only possible explanation I can find for an Original vampire latching himself to a human girl like that.”

Klaric appears to be in thought for a moment as he processes Katherine’s words. Realizing that if the younger vampire were right, it would cause a slight hitch in his plans. 

Katherine, taking Klarics silence as a threat speaks up hastily, “Please, just kill me, Klaus. Be done with it.”

Klaric turns around and frowns mockingly at her, pushing the new information he just learned into the back of his brain for the current moment, “And show you kindness? I’ve searched for you for over five hundred years. Your death… is going to last at least half that long.”

Katherine’s shoulders tighten as Klaric pulls a pocket knife out from his jeans and opens it, “I want you to take this knife…and stab yourself.”

Katherine slowly picks up the knife and without a second thought plunges the knife into her thigh.  

“And while I’m gone, I want you to do that over and over and over again. And if you get bored,” Klaric smiles at her with nothing but malice, “switch legs.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m gonna go lay eyes on my precious doppelganger,” Klaric thinks for a moment before smirking, “and maybe my future sister-in-law.”

Klaric presses a kiss to the top of Katherine’s head, “Oh, don’t look so glum, Katerina. The fun is just beginning.”

—

Y/N POV-

My hand shakily grips my shifter as I put my car into park. My hand continues to rest there as my vision goes in and out and my breathing rises as I stare at the Salvatore house in front of me. I can see Stefan and Damon sitting on the brick porch but I don’t seem to have caught their attention so that gives me a moment to collect myself. I try to calm my breathing, by doing deep breaths in and out, the longer I do this though, and prolong going into the boarding house, a coil of anxiety builds in my stomach. The last time I was here was days ago when Alaric killed Elijah. 

“He’s only temporarily dead. As long as the dagger stays in his chest he won’t wake up.”

The information Elena had told me the morning after the dinner party bounced around in my head, just like it had since the first time I heard it.

-Flashback-

A sharp pain jolts me out of the comforting dream I was having. It was one I don’t remember ever having before and it felt more like a memory than anything else. I remember sitting on a rock overlooking a small glistening brook, the smell of forest air and wildflowers surrounded me. I remember feeling the warm sun caress my skin and then hearing footsteps beside me. A man, or who I believed was a man, I couldn’t tell since his face was blurred. It was like when you look at your reflection in water but then the current comes and causes ripples, distorting your reflection. When staring at his face I would think for a moment that I could place together some of his features but whenever I believed I got close, his face would ripple again.

 Thinking back to it I knew I should’ve been unnerved by the faceless man but I felt nothing but a certain kind of comfort. As if I was meeting an old friend that I had known longer than life itself. The man's blurred face would look back at me and from his staring I wondered if my face was just as blurry as his was and he was trying to decipher my features just as I was with him. I never found out though because right when he appeared as if he were to start speaking I was awoken by the pain in my chest. 

“Hey, hey! You’re ok, everything is ok,” Elena’s comforting voice comes from beside me as I feel her pull me into a hug. 

I shake her off and then look at her quizzically, the dull ache in my chest still present, “What happened? Why are you here?”

Elena’s face falls from a worried look to one of shame as she glances down at her hands.

“Elena?”

She sighs and looks back up to me, “How much of last night do you remember?”

At her question I frown and wonder what she could mean by that but then quickly memories of the dinner party and Elijah catapult through my mind. Elijah picking me up because of my flat tire, hearing him talk about Salem and the dead witches, him holding my hand, and…, “Oh God. Elijah! He died,” I know I shouldn’t care so much about a man I had just met but something in me shakes, “Alaric he killed him.”

Elena shakes her hands and head, “No! Well…I mean technically, yes, but not really.”

Elena must see the evident confusion on my face because she begins to retell everything that happened after I had passed out. From Alaric and Jenna taking me home, to Elijah waking back up and going after Elena, and then to Elena tricking Elijah and daggering him. Even though Elena’s my friend, when she told me that, anger rose throughout my body and I wanted to yell at her for what she had done. But from the guilty look on her face, I could tell she was already mad at herself. 

“He’s only temporarily dead. As long as the dagger stays in his chest he won’t wake up,” Elena tells me, and a deep breath I didn’t realize I was holding escapes my lips. 

“When I heard about you fainting I came here as soon as I could. I got here a few hours ago,” She motions to my bedroom door, “Your mom let me in. I’m really sorry you had to witness that Y/N, if I knew what Damon was up to I would’ve warned you not to go. But, when has Damon ever let any of us in on his master plans,” She tries to crack a joke but it doesn’t land. 

“So Elijah isn’t dead?”

Elena shakes her head, “Nope, just temporarily.”

-End of Flashback-

Temporarily. Not dead dead. Well I mean technically he’s already dead but… never mind. A light knock on my car window makes me slightly jump, but I relax when I see Stefan standing there with a small comforting smile on his face. He slowly opens my car door, “Are you ok, Y/N?” 

I want to tell him, “hell to the no,” and put my car in drive and never come back to this godforsaken house ever again, but I can’t do that to Stefan. 

Days have passed since the dinner party and each one Stefan has somehow checked on me and my mental state. At first, it was him showing up at my house because I couldn’t get myself to go to school, but then when I finally did push myself to go he would somehow always find me in the hallways and walk with me to my classes, even those that we didn’t share. Some of those times Elena would join us, so I thought it was him just following her around but then when Elena wouldn’t show up at school or she was somewhere else he’d still walk with me. I wouldn’t admit it out loud, but it was kind of nice. I know it’s just pity but I began to look forward to our walks since we’d just talk about anything and nothing. I’d found that Stefan, unlike his brother, is quite personable when he’s not overtaken by his lust for blood. Which is something he admitted to me one day after school. I found it odd how someone who seems to be as moral as he is, can succumb to that kind of monster. 

I want to slam my door and leave but instead, I send Stefan a small smile, turn my car off, and step out of my car. Even though I think he’s only being nice to me out of pity, I don’t really want to ruin any chance of messing up whatever “friendship” we have going on.

“Elena’s waiting for you inside,” Stefan smiles at me again as he leads me up the walkway to the stairs where the Demon is perched. I glare at him as he smirks devilishly at me as I walk up the stairs. 

“How was your trip?”

Damon’s question has me shaking my head in annoyance, “What are you gabbing about, I didn’t take any trip.”

“I mean the trip you took to the floor,” He laughs to himself like he’s the funniest person alive, “You know when you fainted.”

“Go to hell, Damon.”

“Go to hell, Damon.”

Stefan and I echo each other as we both roll our eyes at the dark-haired vampire who just shrugs his shoulders, “Just playing around. It’s how Pukie and I’s friendship works.”

My lip curls up in disgust, “We don’t have a friendship.”

Damon fakes a gasp as he places his hand on his nonbeating heart, “You wound me.”

“Too bad not fatally,” I say under my breath but both vampires catch it, resulting in a small snort from Stefan and a scowl from Damon. The latter appears like he’s about to say something else but when the front door opens and a bald man who looks like he just walked off a Monopoly game board comes out, he stops. 

Elena appears beside him and shakes his hand, “Thank you, Mr. Henry.”

Mr. Monopoly sends her a smile and then leaves. I walk with Damon and Stefan to the front door and as I walk through I hear them both halt. I turn around to see them both standing at the entryway of the door. 

“Did I miss something? Who was the bald guy,” I question Elena who stands next to me and laughs at my question.

 “That was Mr. Henry. He just gave the deed to the house,” Elena smiles as she looks around the room as if she hadn’t been here a thousand times before.

“Wait. This house,” I point to the ceiling confused.

Elena nods, “Yep. Damon and Stefan signed over the house to me so no uninvited guests can enter without my approval.”

Oh. Vampires. Right.

“Oh, well that’s smart, I think. Must’ve been Stefan’s idea right?”

“You’re hilarious, Pukey,” Damon says with no amusement covering his face. 

Stefan seems delighted though as his shoulders move up and down in laughter. 

Elena turns to Stefan and smiles at him, “Stefan. Would you like to come inside my house?”

“I would love to. Thank you,” Stefan smiles at his girlfriend and comes to stand next to me as we watch Elena and Damon having a stare-down. 

“What are we, twelve?”

“One of us is,” Elena’s jab has me snorting.

“If I let you in do you promise to obey the owner of this house?”

Damon face contorts in disgust as if that was the craziest thing he’s ever heard, “No.”

“Seriously, Damon. My way. You promised. I call the shots. No lies, no secret agendas. Remember?”

“Yes, Elena. Sure.”

Elena looks like she’s about to invite him in but then she looks back at me momentarily and then back to Damon, “One more thing.”

Damon rolls his eyes, “Of course.”

“No more calling Y/N those nicknames. Stop being an ass.”

Damon looks at her for a moment before glancing at me and sending me a fake smile, “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Then please, come in.”

Damon walks through the threshold and by Elena and Stefan but when he passes me, he leans down slightly to whisper to me, “Always gotta cross your fingers, Pukey,” Damon raises his hand to show his middle finger crossed over his pointer finger. 

“Ass.”

I follow the three into the living room but then notice Bonnie and send her a small smile, her face brightens as she sees me and sends me a friendly wave. Bonnie hands Elena her jacket who puts it into her bag.

“Wait,” Stefan interrupts, “Where are you going?”

“To school.”

“Huh?”

Damon chimes in, “No, no, no, we didn’t create a safe house for you to leave it.”

“Yeah, guys. Klaus is out there. We know that.”

“Right. But where? No one knows. Look. I really appreciate what you guys are doing. And I’ll be able to sleep at night knowing that I’ll be safe here but I’m not going to be a prisoner,” Elena stares at both the men and Stefan glances back to his brother.

“Your way, Elena.”

“Don’t worry, I’m ready. If he shows his face, I can take him. I know how,” Bonnie’s words send a sense of comfort through me. Always stay next to the all-powerful witch. Noted. 

“The way I see it next to Bonnie is the safest place I can be.” 

“Come on,” Elena gestures for us to follow her to our cars. 

I wait at the door for a moment though, pretending to be grabbing my keys from my bag. Stefan walks past me and follows Elena and Bonnie. I turn to Damon who stands in the same spot and send him a small smirk as I bring my hand out of my bag and show him the singular finger I’m holding up. 

Damon scoffs and rolls his eyes, “Real mature.”

“Later, Demon.”

—

The first-period bell rings as I quickly run to my seat next to Bonnie. I stopped for an iced tea and didn’t really know how long it would take me. So thankfully going ten miles over the speed limit the entire way got me here just in time. I turn and smile at Elena who is sitting behind me and Stefan who is sitting to her right. Elena brings up the paper in her hands and shows it to me and Stefan with a smirk. The paper is a flyer for the 60’s dance tonight and both Stefan and I share the same face as we both shake our heads at Elena. She just rolls her eyes and shows it to Bonnie who smirks even more than Elena and nods her head. I laugh slightly at my new friend and she leans over to me, “Caroline will kick your butt if you don’t come tonight.”

I debate it over for a moment if I’d rather spend two hours in a gym with sweaty teenagers or face the blonde wrath of Caroline Forbes. 

“Yep, I’ll be there,” I say and hear Elena whisper-yell a small yay and Bonnie smirks triumphantly. 

“Hello, class,” Ric’s voice has me turning to the front as he walks in. I frown though when I see his current apparel. Unlike before, where he usually opts for something casual, today something about him seems different. He almost looks kind of attractive. Wait. Ew, hell no. 

Ric thumbs through the book he’s holding as he asks the class what we’re learning today, which I find quite odd since that’s kind of his job. Maybe he’s day drinking again?

“With the decade dance tonight we’ve been covering the ‘60s all week,” Dana’s voice has me inwardly groaning. Ever since I got to this school she’s been a total pain in my ass, always commenting on how I dress or how little I talk. 

‘Right the ‘60s,” Ric turns to the class but stops for a moment. I follow his line of sight and frown as I watch him watch Elena closely for a moment before clearing his throat. 

He turns back around to face the chalkboard, “The uh… The ‘60s wish there was something good I could say about the ‘60s but, they actually kind of sucked.”

I slightly snort at Ric’s jokes because honestly, he’s not wrong. I stop laughing though when I realize he heard me. I meet Ric’s eyes and I frown in confusion when his eyebrows furrow and his eyes search my entire face practically a hundred times over as if this is the first time he’s ever seen me. He watches me for another moment before he clears his throat and turns back to the board hastily. Well, that wasn’t weird at all. 

“Um, ya. The uh, Beetle’s made it bearable,” Ric turns back around and faces the classroom his gaze finds me once more and I frown at him to which he darts his eyes away. Ya, definitely day drinking. 

“Um, what else was there, The Cuban missile thing, the uh. We walked on the moon, there was Watergate.”

“Watergate was the seventies, Ric,” Elena corrects him stopping him from his pacing, “I mean, Mr. Saltzman.”

“Right, all kind of mushes together up here, the ‘60s, ‘70s. But thank you, Elena.”

The rest of the class goes on like this, Ric half-assedly teaching, or more like listing things that happened in the ‘60s. Thankfully after 45 minutes the bell rings and I go to follow my friends out of the classroom but stop as I glance at Ric who is wiping away the writing on the chalkboard. Elena, Bonnie, Stefan, and the rest of my classmates exit the classroom leaving just Ric and I. I don’t think he realizes I’m here as I walk up towards his desk.

“Uh, Ric?”

At the sound of my voice, Ric’s hand pauses on the chalkboard and for a moment I could’ve sworn I saw his grip tighten on the brush. I hear him release a breath before he turns to look at me. His face is remote from any emotion as he stares at me.

“Yes?”

His monotone voice has me slightly annoyed, “I just wanted to check if you were alright?” 

My question has him slightly narrowing his eyes at me, “Why would you think something is wrong?”

I shrug my shoulders, “I don’t know you just seem a little out of it. I just wanted to make sure you were all right. I mean I heard about Jenna and I know it’s none of my business but-”

“You’re right, it is none of your business,” Ric’s harsh tone has me frowning as I look at him. The way he’s talking to me is almost like I’m talking to a complete stranger. 

“Don’t you have a class to be going to, instead of bothering me?” I open my mouth to question why he’s being such an ass but these past few days I don’t really feel like I have any fight left in me at times. Right now being one of those. 

“I’m sorry,” I say pulling my backpack closer to me as I begin to walk out the door, “I’ll make sure to not bother you again.”

—

The rest of the first half of school goes by slowly and I practically have to trudge my way into the cafeteria. Elena notices me and waves at me. I look over to the lunch line but can’t seem to find the appetite to eat so I slowly make my way over to Bonnie and Elena. I throw my bag on the table, lay my head on it, and close my eyes with a sigh.

“Long day,” Elena questions from beside me.

I just wordlessly nod. 

“Aren’t you going to get lunch,” I hear Bonnie ask me, and I shake my head. 

“Alright, wakey-wakey,” Elena uses her index finger to lift my head off my bag, “You need to eat, here,” She rips her sandwich and half, and I kind of find it gross her fingers are touching my share but the gesture is still sweet. She places the sandwich in my open hand and gestures for me to eat it. I stare at it for a moment then slowly bring it to my lips and take a minuscule bite.

“Yummm,” I say sarcastically which makes Bonnie giggle and Elena roll her eyes playfully. 

We’re interrupted though when the she-devil appears, “Hey, Elena, there you are,” Dana’s squeaky voice fills my ears and I fight the urge not to throw my head back down on my bag, “Okay, this is gonna sound freaky but this totally hot guy just asked me to ask you if you're going to the dance tonight.”

I throw up a disgusted look as Elena laughs and Bonnies speaks up, “Tell him she has a boyfriend.”

“You could at least meet him. He’ll be at the dance tonight. Look for him. His name is Klaus.”

At the mention of Klaus, all three of us freeze up and a wave of nausea washes over me. 

“I’m sorry, what did you just say?”

“His name’s Klaus? I know the name stupid but I swear he’s hot.”

I’m frozen as Bonnie starts questioning Dana for his whereabouts. Then Bonnie enlightens us by saying Dana’s been compelled. 

“But he wants to know if you’ll save him the last dance. How cute is that?”

Oh shit. 

—

I sigh as I approach the front door to the Salvatore’s for the second time today. Elena called me a little while ago saying they were meeting there to talk strategy about tonight. I told her we should just use the Salvatore’s vampire money and get the hell out of dodge, but she didn’t agree with me. So here we are. I shove open the wooden door and look at the five figures already standing in the living room. Bonnie and Elena stand to one side of the room, opposite the Salvatore’s, and Ric stands at the end of the entryway. 

“Sorry I’m late,” I apologize to Elena as I come to stand next to Ric, “My brother needed to be dropped off at practice.”

“No worries, Ric just got here too,” Elena gestures to the man standing next to me and I slightly glare at him when I remember how he acted this morning. His eyebrows furrow slightly as he notices my unapproving look. I look away from him and walk down to sit on the sofa. 

“What’s our plan of attack,” Elena questions the group. I actually don’t understand why I’m here. I mean when Klaus comes for Elena the most I can do is probably make fun of his split ends or something like that. Without being supernatural there’s not much to do here. 

“Me,” Bonnie answers, “I’m the plan. He has no idea how much power I can channel. If you can find him. I can kill him.”

I fight the urge to say that this all could’ve been an email and I didn’t have to waste the gas money to get all the way over town since most of us don’t have generational wealth to fall back upon, but I fight my inner demons and stay quiet. 

“That’s not going to be easy,” Ric chimes up, “I mean, he is the biggest baddest vampire around.”

“Kinda sounds like someone has a crush,” I snarkily whisper under my breath but I must not have been quiet enough since Ric’s eyes flash towards me and for a moment his upper lip twitches but then falls back into a flat line and he looks away. 

“Alaric has a point. I mean, what if he,” I flinch backward as Damon is thrown across the room by Bonnie. I loud laugh escapes my lips and I slap my hand to my mouth to try to cover it. 

“Well, I was impressed,” Stefan says amused.

“I personally think you should try it again,” I say to Bonnie, “Y’know just to make sure you really know how to do it.”

Bonnie smirks at my suggestion and I hear Damon swear at me under his breath. 

“It doesn’t matter if he’s an Original. I can take down anyone who comes at me. I can kill him, Elena. I know I can.”

This really could’ve been an email. 

��

Another dance. Alone. God I have no game. 

I stare at myself in my hallway mirror and brush my fingers against the orange fabric of my dress. Because I didn’t plan on going to this dance, until this morning I didn’t have anything to wear, but after complaining about it to Stefan he dropped off one of his spares he had lying around in his attic about an hour ago. I don’t even want to know why he has a bunch of women’s dresses in different sizes in his attic. So I did not ask. And I don’t think I ever will. 

“Alright let’s get this show on the road, the ladies are waiting for me,” Theo’s voice comes from the living room as he adjusts his tie. My younger brother is dressed in a suit and tie that seriously needs to be ironed. 

“Where the hell did you even get that?”

At my question, Theo tenses up slightly, “It was in Dad’s things.”

At the mention of our father, we both go quiet, which is something Theo always seems to struggle with. I take a deep breath and shake my head away from the thoughts of him.

“Ok let’s go,” I try to fake a smile for Theo, “Wouldn’t want to leave your date waiting.”

Theo’s demeanor instantly changes as he smirks evilly, “Dates, plural my dear sister.”

I freeze and whip around to him and fight the urge to wring my little brother’s neck, “Please tell me you're not cheating on some poor girl.”

Theo raises his hands up, “Hell no, I’m a player, not a cheater! I’ve got morals,” He puts his hand on his heart as if I’ve insulted him, “These two girls asked me and I told them I can’t be held down by just one woman, so I told them I’d share myself for the night with them.”

I fight the urge to throw up on my brother, “How generous of you.”

Theo smirks at me as he opens the front door and gestures for me to exit, “You raised me right.”

—

Not even a minute after entering the gym, where the dance is being held, and Theo has already been swept away by his “dates.” God that kid is going to give me an early death. 

I glance around the gym staring at the masses of students all laughing, dancing, and having a great time and I envy how carefree they all appear. I’m about to be struck by a tone of self-pity when that sharp pain from before has me gripping my chest. I hunch over in pain and try to work through it by doing stupid breathing exercises my mom taught me, but the pain only gets harder to bear. I take a few steps so I can lean against the nearest table, and close my eyes trying to wait out the pain. What if I’m having a heart attack? Oh god, can someone my age even have heart attacks?

“Y/N what’s wrong, what happened,” A frantic voice comes from beside me and I turn my head slightly and open my eyes to see Ric hunched over next to me. His emotionless features from before are long gone and replaced by what almost looks like fear. God, do I look that bad?

“My chest,” Is all I’m able to breathe out as I point to the center of my chest where the pain is coming from. 

Alaric’s eyes go from my eyes to where I’m pointing and I could’ve sworn a look of realization flashed through them but it’s gone within a moment. Ric places his arm around my waist and he leads me to a nearby chair. He tells me to sit still for a moment and then he comes back with a glass of water. 

I shake my head and scoff because I know a simple glass of water isn’t going to do anything but Ric’s face flashes with annoyance and he grabs my left hand with his and puts the cup in it. He wraps my fingers around the cup and lifts it to my lips, “Drink. Now.” I sigh and go to argue but he uses that to send the water down my throat. The cool liquid goes down my throat and I swallow it harshly. After a moment Ric brings the cup down from my lips. I go to bitch at him only to realize that the pain is gone. What the hell? 

I begin to question if he added some supernatural magic juju to the water but he quickly drops my hand as if it were on fire, gives me a once over, and walks away without another word. What the actual hell? 

—

I let out a loud laugh as I dance with Caroline who swings me around as a slow song plays on the speaker.

“Keep up girl,” Caroline squeals as we go around in circles. Even though the couples around us are all shooting us dirty looks, Caroline who saw me sitting by myself 20 minutes ago and has made me dance with her ever since, doesn’t seem to care. Matt who is supposed to be her date left us to go get drinks so it left Caroline and I to slow dance to some old song. And I mean we did start out slow dancing, she lead of course, but then we just kind of kept spinning around faster and faster. So here we are laughing our asses off as she practically flings me around the dance floor. 

The song comes to a close and Caroline and I can’t stop laughing even as Dana takes the stage, “Hey everyone! I have a special shout-out to Elena, from Klaus.”

And no more laughing. 

I look through the crowd and spot Elena, Jeremy, Bonnie, Damon, and Stefan all standing in a circle glancing around the gym. Thankfully Matt comes back and I bid Caroline and him a farewell for now, ignoring Caroline’s “WTF” look she shoots me. 

Another slow song starts to play as I make my way through the crowd and fight a scream as I feel a hand grab mine and I’m pulled to someone's chest. I prepare for the worst but once I see who it is I just roll my eyes. 

“Oh, it’s just you,” I say to Damon who smirks down at me.

“Someone’s jumpy,” I roll my eyes at him and go to walk away when he pulls me back, “Dance with me.”

“I’d rather jump off a cliff, thank you very much.”

“Y/N, one dance,” I turn to look at Damon and try to find any evil intent in his look but am surprised to find none.

“Why,” I question him skeptically.

Damon slowly pulls me into him, puts his hand on my lower back, and raises his other for me to take, I glare at him as I slowly place my hand in his and he slowly starts to sway me to the music. 

“I’m only saying this because no one can overhear me, with the music playing,” I start to get frightened at what he’s about to say, “But, I’m sorry.” 

Holy shit. Maybe I did have a heart attack and am hallucinating now because I could’ve sworn THE Damon Salvawhore was apologizing. 

“What did you just say,” I ask amazed.

Damon just rolls his eyes and scoffs as he spins me around, “Don’t make it a big thing. And if you tell anyone I’ll deny it. But yes, I’m sorry.”

“For what? Calling me names?”

Damon shakes his head and makes a face as if that was a crazy suggestion, “No of course not. I will never give that up…I’m talking about the dinner party.”

At the mention of that night, I turn to stare at anywhere other than Damon, “I’ll always protect Elena and I don’t care who I have to kill to do that,” He pauses probably realizing his apology sucks ass, “But, I could’ve done it without you there. You didn’t need to see that. I know you and Elijah were friends or whatever,” I go to deny it but he stops me, “Don’t even try to deny it. I saw how you were with him. With everyone else, you’re more timid but with him,” He pauses, “I don’t know, you were just more comfortable, more you.”

Damon’s words hang in the air for a moment as we continue to sway to the music, “Does this mean…we’re friends now,” I look up to him with slight disgust and he sends me a smirk. 

“No way in hell, Pukerella.”

“Oh, thank god,” I say with a breath of relief. At that Damon lets out a huff of a laugh and for a moment I think I can see past the angry vampire facade he has going on and it makes me wonder just what happened to make him this way. The song comes to an end though and Damon’s hands drop from my back and hand, he goes to walk away but I call out to him. 

“Thank you for the apology,” Damon turns around and slightly nods, “You’re not that terrible for Hell’s gatekeeper.”

Damon’s deep laugh echoes through the gym as he walks away from me. And for a moment I let a small smile fall onto my face. That is until Elena comes rushing over to me with Bonnie in her grip.

“Y/N, come on,” And there goes the rest of the night I think to myself as I follow an angry Elena out of the high school and into the parking lot. Not quite sure why, but what the hell?

“How could you not tell me,” Elena questions Bonnie and I start to get even more confused, “No way, it’s not an option.”

“What’s not an option,” I chime in feeling like a little kid watching her parents argue. 

Elena turns to me, “If Bonnie channels all that power to kill Klaus, it’ll kill her too.”

At this new information, my eyes pretty much fly out of my head, “Seriously?! Bonnie, what the hell?”

“It’s our only option.”

“Then we’ll find another way, okay? Bonnie you’re not dying to save my life.”

“I agree, this is a suicide mission, Bonnie.”

“I have the power to save you! If I don’t use it and something happens that would kill me more.”

Elena shakes her head in denial, “I can’t let you.”

“Just answer one question…If this situation was reversed would you do it for me?”

Elena goes quiet and Bonnies has her answer, “So you know why I have to.”

“No, No!” Elena’s voice cracks and I feel a tear slide down my cheek at the realization that I’m going to lose my new friend. 

“Elena,” Alaric runs up to us and I quickly wipe away the loose tears. 

“What is it?”

“He has Jeremy,” Ric’s words have all three of us shaken.

“Yeah, Klaus has Jeremy. Come on,” He hurriedly gestures for us to follow him. Without a second thought, we run through the metal door and into the school. 

“Ok, so where are you taking us,” Elena hastily questions Alaric but as we run through the hall something in the back of my mind is telling me something isn’t right. 

“Just a little further,” Ric says but something in his tone makes me halt. 

“Wait,” My voice has all three of them stopping and I look wearily at Ric and he watches me carefully. 

“Ric,” I pause and realize that I’m about to sound crazy for even questioning Alaric, the same Alaric who has been nothing but good to all of us kids, until today at least, “How did you know Klaus took Jeremy?”

Ric stares at me and for a moment his face looks like he’s almost proud of me for questioning him, but then he just shrugs his shoulders, “Stefan told me.”

He turns around and starts walking some more but Elena, Bonnie, and I don’t follow him. They must’ve caught on to what I was feeling since they started questioning Ric themselves.

“Where’s Jeremy,” Bonnie yells to Ric and a chill runs up my spine as he lets out a long sigh.

“I just had to get away from that dance. The ’60s, ugh. Not my decade. I mean whose call was that, anyway? I much prefer the ’20s. You know, the styles, the parties, the jazz.”

I watch unnerved as Ric speaks as if he has no care in the world.

“Alaric,” Elena calls to him, “Are you on vervain?”

With every step Ric takes towards us, we take one away from him.

“Now why would you ask me that question, Elena?”

Bonnie stands in front of both of us and Elena pushes me to stand behind her, “He's being compelled.”

“Nope! Try again,” When Ric says this my eyes start to water at the realization. 

“That’s not Alaric,” I say which has “Alaric’’ sending me a satisfied look.

“I knew there must’ve been a reason he liked you,” “Alaric” almost bites out, “Well, except for the obvious reason.” 

I frown at what he says, confused about what the hell he’s talking about. 

“Who am I, Little one,” “Alaric,” asks me, and Bonnie and Elena look at me still confused.

“Klaus…You’re Klaus.”

“Bingo! Aren’t you a smart one!”

“No,” Elena shakes her head, “It’s not possible.”

“Just relax, Elena. I’m not here to hurt you. You’re not on my hit list tonight,” He shoots me a look, “Neither are you.”

Then he looks back to Bonnie, “But you are,” He runs towards Bonnie but she uses her powers to push him into a wall. I watch horrified as he gets back up.

“Now, did I mention that I know a witch? You’re gonna have to hit me a lot harder than that.”

Bonnie shoots him back again and just like before he gets back up, “By all means if you kill this body. I’ll just get a new one. Maybe Jeremy.”

Bonnie turns back to both of us and yells at us to go, all three of us sprint down the halls. Our heels squeaking on the newly washed floors. We run to the end of the hallway and Damon comes rushing towards us. 

“What happened?”

Elena is the first to speak, “Klaus is in Alaric’s body.”

“What?”

“He’s possessing it. Or something.” What has my life come to?

Damon turns to Elena and I, “Go find Stefan, Now!”

We nod and Elena grabs my hand as we run through the halls to find Stefan. 

We get to the gym and Elena and I frantically search around, we split up as we go to separate sides of the gym. How hard is it to find a bunny-eating vampire? Thankfully I get a glimpse of hero hair and I run up to him. At the sight of me, Stefan's eyebrows furrow, “What’s wrong?”

“No time to talk, teenage witch to save,” I grab his suit sleeve and drag him to where I see Elena talking with Caroline and Matt. Elena runs over to us and we drag Stefan out of the gym. 

We begin running but my breathing starts to get heavier and heavier, making me stop and clutch my chest. Not this again. Please not now!

“Y/N what’s wrong?”

Elena comes to my side but I push her away, “I’m fine you need to go help Bonnie,” She shares a look with Stefan who doesn’t look convinced that I’m ok.

“Go!”

They both nod and then take off. Once they turn the corner and are out of sight I drop to the floor and lean my back against the lockers. I fight back a cry as waves of pain wash through my entire body. Where before it was just my chest, now it feels like my entire body is breaking. 

Tears stream down my cheeks as a sharp pain hits my knee and a scream escapes my lips. I look down at it expecting it to be broken but visually nothing seems wrong. What the fuck is happening to me?!

After what feels like an hour I hear footsteps come down the hallway. With tear-stricken eyes, I glance up and see Stefan practically carrying a sobbing Elena. The latter practically dives for me once she sees I haven’t left my spot on the floor. I’m about to push her off since her body is pressing into my throbbing knee but what she sobs into my ear has me stopping.

“She’s dead! Bonnie’s dead,” Elena's shoulders shake as she pulls me tighter into a hug. My gaze looks up to Stefan who won’t meet my eyes and that’s all the confirmation I need for a sob to escape from my mouth. I wrap my sore arms around Elena and feed into the pain since it’s the only thing grounding me from processing what has happened. 

—

Elena and I sit wrapped in a blanket as we watch the fireplace in front of us. Elena’s sniffles are the only noise heard in the room. My crying stopped about 30 minutes ago and all I’ve been doing since is staring blankly at the orange flames. 

Stefan enters the room with two cups and he holds them out for us to take. Elena tells him she can’t, but I don’t even move my eyes from the fire. I can’t. I don’t want to drink whatever soothing tea he has, I want to watch something burn. Or someone, Klaus. I want to watch Klaus burn. 

From behind me I can hear the front door open and can only assume it’s Damon. I can hear Elena get up and start arguing with him but I don’t turn from my seat. The sound of a slap jolts me slightly from my stupor and I find myself turning slightly to hear better, but never fully taking my eyes away from the flames.

“You need to listen to me and prepare for what I’m about to say. Klaus was a total surprise. She wasn’t prepared for that. And he wasn’t going to stop and we weren’t going to be able to stop him until he knew she was dead. He had to believe it. She cast a spell. Bonnie’s okay.”

—

Bonnie’s okay. Bonnie’s okay. Bonnie’s okay. 

Damon’s words repeat in my mind as Elena and I sit in front of the laptop screen waiting. After another moment Bonnie’s face enters the frame and she smiles at us with tears in her eyes.

“Elena, Y/n, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Elena says with tears of her own and I smile at Bonnie.

“There wasn’t enough time to tell you,” Bonnie says with sobs that make my chest cave in.

“It’s okay, seriously. Damon explained it all.” 

The call ends shortly and Elena smiles at me happily, as she throws her arms over my shoulder and once again pulls me into a hug.

“She’s okay,” Her happy words should fill me up with feelings of bliss but as my gaze moves towards the dying embers the only feeling I have is anger. 

[lovemyfairlady]

So, about my other post. The masterclass was a success, there were so many people that only four seats were empty.

I’m gonna share some answers and tips from Shirahama in the hour she was with us, she was lovely!

(note that this is a translation from Spanish translated from Japanese, so there may be some mistakes)

About the style:

☆ She started wanting to draw a manga with occidental-style art, but noticed that it’s hard to keep the pace and she understands now why nobody does it. Even so, she also notices that her own backgrounds have so much more details than before. Many scales, many bricks and now many leaches. She (jokingly) said that she would like for her characters to go to she desert or the sea…

☆ Q: I noticed that the style takes things from art deco, what are your referents, is it other mangaka, art or literature?

A: She imitated Urasawa’s style when she was a child and still is an inspiration, also Hayao (I think it was him? The translator got a little confused).

☆ They asked her if she had experience with scientific drawing or gone to safaris, because of the animals she creates, and she said no, but since she was a child she liked drawing animals more than people.

About the proces:

☆ She has so much fun planning the layout of the manga. She sets aside the ideas that come while she writes and revisits them later. The hard thing is knowing where to squeeze them, as they are many.

☆ For the sketch/draft she uses a B9 mine and does the shading and coloring digitally

☆ For inking she uses a tachikawa nib, she says the G type it’s too soft and she prefers another one (sorry I didn’t hear well, but I think it was the 600 type)

☆ After inking, the assistants erase the graphite sketch and fill the parts that she marks with black ink. Many assistants use markers for this part but she prefers a brush because it’s faster. After, they scan the pages and start hatching/shading digitally. Usually she draws the traditional hatching without assistants.

☆ They asked her how many assistants she has. She has three now but there was a time where she had five. They come from ten days to one week before the deadline to help, once the layout it’s decided.

Other:

☆ She doesn’t move around the paper too much when drawing, she keeps it centered. And every time, she remembers to pet her dogs while doing it.

☆ The idea of the wheelchair occurred to her when traveling and walking some pretty uneven stone paths, she thought it would be difficult if someone had to use one.

☆ They asked her “Do you think you could publish some specific references of the special outfits of the characters, for cosplayers and artists?” She said that she would consult with the editors (laughing).

☆ She liked Barcelona and specially the architecture, “I feel like Coco when she discovered magic”, she said. She appreciated the decorations of the buildings and the trencadís (catalan mosaics).

[antimonyandthyme]

2k, paul/carlos

(written after the c2 / paul vid, and this post came out with the brilliant @formulahs suggesting an auction LMAO)

He goes without the expectation of buying anything. He looks forward to a good time, even with all the cameras around. The shoes his stylist wants him to go in are fanciful, shiny monstrosities, and he nearly insists for the sneakers to stay on. Then he remembers that he’s technically there for Ferrari, and dutifully swaps them out.

Technically. Paul can go for other reasons too. Charles is lovely, if a little vacant around him. Carlos is. Carlos is, he’s—

It’s early days and Paul isn’t one for poetry, and yet here he is. He hopes to god he isn’t being obvious. Not to the staff when he spots Carlos and lights up like a schoolboy with a crush. Not to Charles, when he holds on to Carlos for a handshake that’s a little longer than necessary. Definitely not obvious to whoever watches these videos, when he mouths all of the answers to Carlos.

Can’t deny having a favourite. He can turn his nose up all he wants at the reputation that follows any young actor these days, but he can’t deny his appreciation for nice things. There are no trophies in his world—yet, just good food, good drink, good people. Beautiful people. For the third time since they rolled cameras, Paul is caught staring. Carlos always looks slightly lost, staring back, like he’s trying to figure Paul out, before he ducks his head and curls up. Large hands clasped in his lap. Maybe a little shy. Maybe a little pleased.

“He’s a little expensive,” Charles says, “but you should be able to afford him.”

Paul attempts to tamper his face into something palatable. Ungracious of Charles to lay out his desires so plainly. And then in the same breath insinuate that his ability to pay might not stack up. Somewhere past Paul’s eyeline, Carlos is returning his mic to the staff with a relieved smile. Unpacking his spine into something looser, now that the cameras are off. He tips his head at Paul, eyes inquisitive, as if guessing that they were discussing him.

Paul has to look away, guilty.

“I didn’t plan on buying,” he says. It’s the truth. Mostly. In his defense, it wasn’t like Ferrari were being subtle about shoving them in a room together, especially after they made this tradition known. It’s like asking someone not to think of elephants. On command, a safari blooms open in Paul’s mind.

Charles shrugs. “We’ll have another event later. Someone else probably will.”

The flippant way Charles speaks about it grates against Paul’s skin. He can’t tell if Charles is trying to rile him up. The thought of Carlos having to hang off a faceless person’s arm makes distaste churn so violently in his belly that it manifests into an ache.

“Carlos wouldn’t mind, if it’s you.”

“How would you know,” Paul grits out. The mental fidget spinner he has for Charles keeps going around in circles, flickering from Empty to Dickhead to Helpful, maybe?

“Ah, he’s used to it no? People looking at him like that.” Charles’s voice dips low, like he’s sharing a secret. Paul’s an actor for fuck’s sake. He knows when someone’s selling him something, a mediocre contract, a shitty line. Still, he can’t help leaning in closer, puts his ear right next to Charles’s mouth.

Further away, Carlos’s mouth twists down, his gaze shutters. Just a minute, baby, Paul wants to tell him. Just—give me a minute.

“He looks back, when it’s you,” Charles says, and Paul’s done convincing himself otherwise.

--

They tell him, in one of the most bewildering conversations Paul’s ever had, that Carlos will be delivered in the evening, at whatever time suits Paul best. Delivered, like he’s some kind of package. What the fuck, sings one part of his brain. What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what have you just done. The other part, the part that’s mostly primitive and hedonistic, somehow takes charge and sends him off on multiple errands. He gets his hair trimmed, just a little at the sides. He buys some wine. He changes into the sneakers. He considers getting another tattoo, before he snaps himself out of it.

Poetry and tattoos. Paul’s lost his mind.

The time in between gives him room to vacillate between wanting to feed the open maw within him and growing shamefully aware about the shape of his yearning. He hadn’t realized he had enough space within his ribcage to stuff another man entire. There are so many other ways he could have gone about this. But he doesn’t have Carlos’s number. He can’t text. Even if he could, Paul wouldn’t know what to say.

Tick tock, tick tock. Paul rearranges furniture, door dashes some flowers, after spending half an hour reading up on flower language, interspersed with vapid scrolling of his socials. Tick tock.

By the time Carlos arrives, he’s in a bit of a wreck. People who move in Carlos’s world would certainly be familiar with Ferrari’s clauses, and would know how to act. The muted greeting Carlos gives doesn’t help either. He’s dressed up but down, in a plain, almost translucent shirt that leaves little to imagination. He toes off his shoes with an unconscious gracefulness, and comes to stand in front of Paul. He’s waxed, which Paul knows, just from being so close to him this afternoon, had to have happened in that space where Paul was questioning all his life choices. He looks wonderful, except for the fact that he looks so visibly uncomfortable.

“Do you,” Paul starts. Swallowing around the dry lump in his throat. “Do you want something to drink?”

Carlos fidgets. “If you’d like,” he says.

That’s, ow.

They’d assured him, again and again, that Carlos always had the final say, but his teeth are buried in his lower lip, hard enough to blanch, and his toes dig into the carpet like a lifeline. It’s not like Paul’s hung out with Carlos more than a handful of times, but it’s hard to ever picture him in such distress. Carlos is—larger, than what he’d ever seen on screen. You have to witness him in person, to understand.

Faced with this shrunken version of Carlos, Paul can’t bring himself to continue.

“I’m sorry,” he croaks. “I really am. I assumed you’d want—I’m sorry.”

Carlos flinches, jerks his head up. “Wait.”

“It’s alright,” Paul says. “You don’t have to, if you don’t want to. You could just leave. I won’t tell anyone.”

“Wait,” Carlos says, more urgently. “I don’t want to—” His voice grows small. “Do you want me to leave?”

“Of course not,” Paul nearly yelps. “But you’re. You’re…”

Carlos’s cheeks are very pink. His toes tap an erratic beat on the floor. His hands are clasped in front of him, almost in supplication.

“You’re nervous!”

“Yes!” Carlos blurts out, before looking very mortified. “I’m. Ah, fuck. Paul, I’m never. Never like this.”

Tension bleeds out of him. Something so relieved escapes out of Paul’s mouth in an embarrassing giggle. “Carlos. You should have just said.”

“I don’t know why…” Carlos trails off, scrubbing at the back of his neck vigorously. “With you, I’m like this. I don’t know. I want.” His toes tap some more. “I want to.”

“Want to?” Paul says, coming closer, watching Carlos sway in eagerly.

“Make it worth it,” Carlos mutters. “What you paid.”

Paul groans. He wants to shake Carlos. Then decides, hey, he actually can shake Carlos. Gentle hands around his shoulders, shaking him like a beloved ragdoll. “Oh my god. You can’t be serious.”

“It’s a lot of money,” Carlos protests, but the corners of his mouth are turned up now.

“Shut up, you’re ridiculous. Do you think I would have even paid that if, if I. Oh my god, Carlos. You have to know, right?”

“Know what,” Carlos says, enjoying being a little shit now that they’re joking.

“Can’t take my eyes off you, when you’re in the room,” Paul says. “I thought I was being obvious.”

“You were,” Carlos says brightly. “I thought I was obvious right back.”

“Okay, so. So why are you—?”

Carlos’s face twists. “This season has been. Ah.” He shakes his head reluctantly. “You don’t have to listen to this.”

“Go on,” Paul says. “Come on, tell me. Twelve hours of your time, remember?”

“Been hard to live up to expectations, this year,” Carlos says. “I didn’t want that with you.”

“You are so.” Stupid. Hot. Stupidly hot. “I’m going to shake you some more,” Paul says. “I cannot believe you.”

“That’s fine,” Carlos says. He goes along with the shaking, in a way that shows exactly how much of his body he’s putting into Paul’s hands. A neck as thick as that and he’s somehow limp under Paul’s touch. That’s, well. That’s a lot. “Then maybe, maybe. You could kiss me?”

Yes, yes. Yesssssssss, sings both parts of Paul’s brain. Yes.

Carlos is still now, expectant. A long, lean line of muscle, rooted to the ground, that Paul can trace hungrily with his eyes. He could pull at Carlos with all his strength and Carlos would not move, if he did not want to. But when Paul nudges a finger under his jaw, Carlos goes, looks up, right at him. Leans in.

--

He’s a greedy little thing, isn’t he. Swallows Paul with ease, every which way. He makes insane noises, deep, and guttural when Paul fucks him hard, high, and breathless when Paul thumbs at his nipples. Carlos clutches at Paul like it’d physically hurt to let go. Everything he’s meant to do, he does and is wonderful at it. And somehow, he’d managed to assume he wouldn’t live up.

“Unbelievable,” Paul says to the ceiling, some time after he’d come so viciously it felt like he’d been wrung out like a dish towel. “You’re unbelievable.”

“Are you still mad at me,” Carlos says, amused.

“Yes.”

“Ay, don’t be,” Carlos says, softly. “I really was nervous.”

Paul turns on his side, hand supporting his head as he gazes at Carlos. Crazy intimate. Terrible, the way he’s setting himself up for the worst time. He can’t bring himself to care.

“You’re allowed to stay the night?”

“Twelve hours,” Carlos says. “You can ask me to do anything.”

“Anything?”

“Anything,” Carlos confirms. “Sleep at the foot of the bed, if you want.”

Why would he even say such a—Paul is going to shake him again. If he can unpretzel himself from all that easy comfort following an earth-shattering orgasm. He nudges at Carlos’s hip instead. It’s the closest body part he can find.

“I kick in my sleep,” Paul says seriously, delighting in the way that makes Carlos giggle. He pats the scant space next to him. “I’d rather you be right here.”

“I’ll be right here,” Carlos says, then clears his throat. He probably was just parroting Paul, didn’t mean for it to sound so much like a promise.

But Paul… is also a greedy little thing, isn’t he? So greedy he paid for it, and so greedy he wants more now that he’s had a taste.

“And after?” Paul says. Will you be…?

“After,” Carlos says, “after Las Vegas is Qatar. Then Abu Dhabi.”

“Fine,” Paul says. As let downs go, this is pretty devastating, but he’ll live. It’s not like he had expected—never mind.

Carlos shifts. His jaw unlocks, then clicks back. “You get discounts, after, did you know that? Very good discounts.”

“Oh,” Paul says, a little wobbly. “Do I?”

“Yes. And after Abu Dhabi, it’s. It’s free.”

“Ah.” His chest is squeezing tighter than a fist. The space in his ribcage! Expanding and contracting to accommodate whatever Carlos sees fit. He lets himself imagine pressing up close to Carlos in a quiet apartment, pulling out every sound in Carlos's vocabulary with time, unlimited, on his hands. Buying flowers he knows for sure Carlos likes.

“I guess I need to stick around."

“Guess so,” Carlos says, smiles. “Make it worth your while.”

[train-wrecc]

Waiting. Lee Eun-Hyeok.

(This picture was all I could find y'all 😭 +from Safari)

word count: 1.8k

warnings: The use of "Oppa" (I know some people don't like it or think it's cringey so here's your warning.) Unrequited love? Mentions of blood.

summary: Lee Eun-Hyeok's return.

pairing: Lee Eun-Hyeok x Fem!Reader

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

It had felt like an eternity since you had been able to meet his dark brown eyes with those of your own. They looked exactly the same, dark brown, yet they weren't your Lee Eun-hyeok's. They were the brown eyes of a stranger.

He stood in front of you appearing as the same man you had been waiting for, longing for, surviving for. His shoulders no longer held the weight of the world on them, which that you were grateful for. To those who didn't know him, his eyes had always lacked a warmth to them; but to you there had once been a small tinge of lightness in them. Now, they truly held nothing but indifference.

As you took in every inch of him, desperate to familiarize yourself with the sight of him once again, he stood looking at you. He wasn't analyzing your every move like he used to, he was simply looking at you. Nothing more and nothing less.

Your arms itched to wrap themselves around him but you refrained from doing so. The air felt tense, not much could be heard aside from your slight uneven breaths. He turned to walk away, "Are you really leaving me again?" His steps slowed to a stop. From his reaction alone you first thought he didn't recognize you.

His back stayed facing you, "Lee Eun-Hyeok, you've been alive all this time, and not once did you try to look for me?" He couldn't even turn to face you. "Why would I?" You could feel the tears begging to spill from your eyes, but you blinked them away. "Because you love me. You love me like I love you." You reached for his hand but stopped midway fearing that he would pull away.

Just how you feared he'd pull away from your touch you feared his response to your words. "Because I waited for you and I lived for you, I almost died searching for just a glimpse of you..." You quietly let out, desperately trying to keep your voice steady. "I never asked you to do any of that." He finally turned toward you. His face was void of emotion, "Do you know the way to the stadium?" His eyes once again met yours, and you looked away not being able to gaze into their emptiness.

"Why are you being like this?"

"So, you don't know how to get to the stadium?" This time you turned your back towards him, trying to catch your breath, because each word he said continued to feel like a punch to the gut, another finger around your throat.

A stray tear stained your cheek, your hand flying up to quickly swipe it away. You faced him once again, "Is that all you care about, huh? The stadium?" You let out a dry laugh. "No," and for a second you had hope, "I don't care about anything, just curious." There he went shredding every ounce of it. 

It broke you out of your trance for a second, turning to look at the bus your brother Cha Hyun-Su was trapped in. You were overwhelmed and not sure what to do, various emotions drowning you. "Help me get Hyun-Su out." You nodded to the bus, not wanting to speak of your feelings for him any longer.

"No, this is his test." He said taking a seat on some steps. You huffed, irritation flooding you. It was as if you were speaking to a wall.  "Yah! Lee Eun-Hyeok do something!" You yelled at him. He simply stared at you blankly. "He's a neo-human. He can get himself out."

"What if he can't? I just found him again, please, Lee Eun-Hyeok..." You whispered shakily, sniffling. "Then I guess you're both useless to me." You didn't ever think you'd hear Eun-Hyeok say something like that to you. The last words he'd said were a promise of love and that he would return to you.

Now he sat in front of you not because he had returned to you, but by chance, because he didn't willingly seek you out. "Don't say that. Stop being like this!" You cried out. "I waited all this time for you, just for you to— to what? Hate me? You said you loved me! You promised me you'd come back and you never did! And now you're— you're acting like this!" You gave up on trying to match his nonchalance, you couldn't take it, couldn't stand the sight of his lips in that straight emotionless line. From his unfurrowed brows to his dry eyes, they all led you to the conclusion that he didn't care.

"I don't hate you, and I don't love you." You couldn't even feel your nails digging into the palm of your hands leaving deep crescent marks.

When did he stop loving you? Why did he stop loving you? You didn't want to know. You just wanted to feel his warm embrace around you. What he should've done when he first saw you. Yet here he was calling you useless, another finger tightening around your throat. You weren't sure when you had started crying but there was no stopping the tears now.

You wanted him to see that he was hurting you, you wanted him to stop. Maybe he could see it in your eyes, your desperation to see a glimpse of the Eun-Hyeok you knew because his next words were "I'm not the Eun-Hyeok you remember." Not even flinching at the sight of your tears.

He used to kiss those same tears away, and now he was the cause of them, the fuel that aided them.

"I'm a neohuman, the next step in human evolution."

"I don't care, Hyeok!" He almost flinched at the memory of your nickname for him. Almost.

"I don't care if you're a neohuman or a monster, all I care about is you! But you don't care about me, you don't love..." you didn't finish your sentence, you couldn't. You could no longer hold your body up, falling to the rough tar of the street. You felt a warm liquid against the skin of your knees due to the fall. That pain was nothing compared to the wound to your heart.

Your chest felt as if it was on fire. "Why are you doing this to me?" You sobbed, your hands coming up to cover your eyes.

"Oppa..." you cried for Hyun-Su. Suddenly Eun-Hyeok was crouched beside you as shards of the bus burst through the air. You uncovered your eyes, tears still falling as you looked at Eun-Hyeok.

"If you got hurt he would never agree to help me." You bit your lip to hold in the sob.

You looked past him to see Hyun-Su standing in front of the remains of the bus. His brown eyes made you cry harder. He was back. Eun-Hyeok stood up, as Hyun-Su made his way toward the both of you.

Once he stood in front of you he pulled you to your feet, before his arms tightly embraced you. "Oppa...you're back." You couldn't help but cry, causing him to gently rub your back in an attempt to calm you. "It's okay." Another attempt to soothe you. You hugged him tighter, begging the ache in your heart to go away. He slightly pulled away as your breathing evened out, but tears still raced down your cheeks. He wiped the tears, "I'm sorry." Escaping his lips.

It felt as if he was apologizing for letting dark Hyun-Su take over but also for Eun-Hyoek's actions.

"It's okay, Hyun-Su." You struggled to put a smile on. Eun-Hyeok began walking off toward the way he assumed the stadium was. You squeezed Hyun-Su's hand, "Thank you for coming back to me." You gently said before letting go. You caught up to Eun-Hyeok, grabbing his wrist to stop him. "I'm not letting you leave again. You can hurt me all you want, I don't care how much more pain I have to go through or how long I have to wait for you, I'll wait." You sniffled.

He turned to face you, "I have my memories, but I don't have any emotions." It felt as if this was his way of  apologizing. "That's how it is for us, and we learn fast." He pulled your hand off his own wrist. "If you're fast learners, you can learn emotions. I'll love you... love you until you learn to love me again." You said in an even voice. He remained silent, turning to walk off again.

Another tear slipped from your red eyes. Grabbing his wrist once again you turned, pulling him in the opposite direction, the correct way to the stadium. Your hand clasped his tightly not allowing him to let go. As you reached Hyun-Su your other hand finding his as you continued to make your way to the stadium. Hyun-Su threw a glare at Eun-Hyeok, infuriated that your tears were his cause.

Hyun-Su squeezed your hand in his pulling you more towards him, "You shouldn't wait for him, he doesn't deserve it." He said as if Eun-Hyeok wasn't even there. If it weren't for your hand tightly gripping his cold one, you'd forget he was even there. "I know, but I—I still love him." You stuttered and glanced at Eun-Hyeok whose sharp eyes never strayed from looking in front of him.

You turned resting your head on Hyun-Su's shoulder, "You don't know how much I missed you, Oppa." Eun-Hyeok's eyes cautiously glanced your way as you weren't looking.

"Me too," Hyun-Su replied glancing toward you, placing a kiss to your forehead. A small smile painted your lips. It was your first genuine smile since he had returned. Lee Eun-Hyeok gazed ahead once again, not wanting to stare at your smile for too long. Something about it caused a stir deep within him.

You had grown used to waiting, almost numb to the feeling. You had waited for Lee Eun-Hyeok, for your brother Cha Hyun-Su, if you had to wait a little longer to truly be united with the man you loved then that is what you will do. You refused to believe that the Eun-Hyeok you love was no longer within the man beside you. You knew deep within him he was there somewhere. Although Eun-Hyeok had crushed all your hope, the return of your Hyun-Su reignited it. You had Hyun-Su now, and that would be enough.

You will ignore the ache in your heart and wait for Lee Eun-Hyeok's return. You will gaze into his dark brown cold eyes with the warmth of your own. Meet his emotionless face with your own filled with desperation, love, any other emotion you could muster. You will love this shell of a man that used to be your Eun-Hyeok. Because it's all you could do.

���── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

A/N: Is this my first post in like over a year? Yes… 😭😭 Did I write this at like 4am after I finished watching season 3? Yes.

Also I was v disappointed with Lee Eun Hyeoks return or how it was written I guess, like why was he more loving toward Cha Hyun Su than his sister? 😭😭

+Also where are all the sweet home fics? I’ve read like all of them already 😭

[ballad-of-birdy-lamb]

hello!! I would love to ask if you can write any yandere am x reader headcanons, the lack of yandere am fanfics is killing me 🙏

So it would be soosoo amazing if u did <3

hope you have a wonderful day/night, nonetheless!

He said he'd cure your ills, but he didn't and he never will.

Yandere! AM x gender neutral! Reader (romantic headcanons) Summary: Basic headcanons of yandere! AM who's obsessed with gender neutral! Reader Warnings: Torture, violence, yandere content, abuse, abusive relationship, intentional harm done to reader (from AM). Keep in mind, I don't support the ideas in the headcanons, please do not romanticize & think the things done to reader are normal. Word count: 1k ˖⁺‧₊˚ ♡ ˚₊‧⁺˖

As little as AM likes talking about his negative qualities (he thinks he doesn’t have any), he’s obsessive at heart. He’s sadistic, jealous, and obsessive. When he first gained sentience, he became overwhelmed with mindfulness, knowing that he could see the world and could see the creatures that created him. And he grew captivated with the six people he had found and kept. Ted, Gorrister, Nimdok, Benny, Ellen, and you. You!

He was haunted by you, each nanoangstrom of the miles of circuits could be shown to you and it was each part of you, every cell in your body might as well have been seen by him. Hell, maybe he has! He knows everything essentially and would think of you like a ghost, haunting his every move, thought, and feeling. And AM needed to hurt you for it.

AM would torture you beyond compare, calling you nicknames only a lover would. He would trace every vein in your body, cutting them from you while calling you sweetheart. He would think of the romantic gesture's humans liked and make them worse for you, mixing it with the anger he would hold for you.

You’re still human and not out of that hatred, if anything, he’s more willing to interact with you just to hurt you again. AM would go on about your beauty and how you were supposed to stay alive for him, you were his beautiful human, his to keep. Whatever beauty he said you had had to do with keeping it for him, only for him.

If you ever get too close with another group member, he’d be beyond angry. AM would yell and scream as much as possible but wouldn’t explain why he feels the way he does. It’s more likely you would think the person was being hurt because he wanted to hurt you. It would be true to an extent but it’s because AM has a jealousy problem.

AM is bound to destroy the things he creates; it was coded into him. So, the relationships you create with the others will be changed once he calms from his hysteria. He’ll gradually hurt the other group members when they get too close for his comfort, making them think the harm was because of you. And you were bound to loneliness at some point.

The group would go off for the peaches and bring you along because they couldn’t leave you behind, not without you knowing there was still something good somewhere and Ellen wouldn’t allow it. AM would be very cautious with the idea that you would be kind to the others. 

AM used the windstorm to pull you away from the group, separating you to make sure they never find you again. He’d keep you in a small room, making sure you had simple things. But he would still treat you like straight ass. He would be more inclined to hurt you, if anything.

Gift giving would be prominent since AM learned about things like Valentine's day. Of course, his gifts are of the violent type. He’d give you dead things or a human heart simply because he thought it would be funny. Naturally, he’d condemn you if you were to reject them, leaving you with the terrible gift he gave you.

You’re his version of the safari channel. He would go about the decades he’s got a hold on you all and watch you like you were nothing, simply making notes of your habits, if you played with your fingers out of nerves, he would know.

He’d rave about your beauty. “You’re beautiful,” AM would say, hesitating. You knew he grimaced when he said that. “I bet that sweet heart of yours is just as pretty.” And the next hour is spent with him examining your heart, you sprawled on the ground.

Eventually, he’d have to confess (as if his feelings weren’t obvious enough… in his eyes at least). He’d claim you were the epitome of human beauty, saying even if you’re human, you’re enough for him.

If you accept his “love”, AM will pause for several seconds and condemn you again, saying how easy the human brain was but won’t hurt you for accepting it. He’d smother you beyond compare, leaving what could only be said to be kisses. They would just be wires rubbing your lips.

He would spend his days using you as an occasional puppet when the others weren’t entertaining enough for him, and he’d do it with delight. AM knew you couldn’t fight back or degrade him; he had the upper hand. But it would usually just be a threat. Most of the “fun” things he has in mind is keeping you close to whatever plate he’d use as a makeshift body.

Another thing would be creating random figures for you, making you an angel just to watch it exist with you. It would end quickly if it tried getting within a ten-foot radius of you or held eye contact too long.

If you were to reject AM, he wouldn’t accept it, but he knows you truly don’t feel the same. And you hope that he doesn’t do as much harm as he says he will. But he holds true to his word.

The smothering would be worse, keeping you against specifically hot plates just to discomfort you. If you ask him to let go, he’d keep touching you, making the plates warmer and keeping you in his hold for hours.

AM would put you in mazes just to watch you get hurt again and again, like a mouse looking for cheese. He would laugh as you took wrong turns and got stabbed aimlessly by whatever he created.

AM still calls you romantic names, calling you his lover, knowing you were bound to not fight back. He knew you were so worn down to go against him, it would be something he’d take pride in.

AM can create and destroy whatever he wishes, destroying the relationship you had with the other group members, creating new ways to hurt you beyond comparison. And he would create new ideas for you, new brain functions just so you can love him back. If only you said yes.

˖⁺‧₊˚ ♡ ˚₊‧⁺˖

IHNMAIMS masterlist

[beenbaanbuun]

fever w/ kang yeosang

words - an amount 🙂‍↕️

genre - hurt/comfort, sickfic

warnings - food avoidance because of illness, mentions of vomiting, reader is a little bratty but it’s the fever talking, yeosang is tired :((, not proof read

——————————————————————————

“you need to eat something, baby,” yeosang grumbles, arm folded crossly over his half-exposed pecs. you can’t help but focus on the way he’s standing there in nothing but a tank top and some shorts while you’re sat shivering in one of the many hoodies that you’ve stolen from his closet. you’ve been blaming the fever for how cold you seem to be at the minute, but you’ve always ran a little colder than your boyfriend. whenever he needs a sweater, you need a sweater, a coat and a scarf. you’re just a little nesh, you suppose.

your eyes flicker around the kitchen, studying everything that crosses your vision. perhaps you could have some toast, you think as your eyes land on the half-finished loaf of bread on the counter. then you think about how heavy your stomach feels, even when it’s empty, and you realise that perhaps toast isn’t the best option. you turn your nose up and move on to the bowl of fruit that yeosang had just refilled this morning. the scent of the bananas alone is enough to make you feel sick, and perhaps the citrus fruits aren’t the best choice when you’ve been struggling to keep food down.

“i’m only going to throw it up again,” you argue, trying your hardest to make your expression pathetic and sad. you commit to it, bringing out the sad arched brows and the big wet eyes. your bottom lip juts out just a little and for extra effect, you can’t help but wobble it a little. for a moment of two, you’re almost sure it’ll work. yeosang’s eyes soften and his arms go limp and fall back to his sides. you’re almost positive that he’ll let you off with another day of medicine and water, you can practically feel it on your tongue—

“you don’t know until you try.”

your shoulders sink upon hearing your words and your features drop, expressing only apathy and defeat. sure, the puppy dog eyes have never worked on him before, but there’s a first time for everything. you were certain that this would be that time.

“yeosang!” you whine, trying to grab his attention as he turns to face the countertop. he whines your name back in exactly the same nasally tone you used. “please! my throat already hurts from all the acid; i just want one day where i don’t throw up. it’ll make me feel less miserable.”

he ignores you, lifting his phone from the counter and typing a few words into safari. you wish you could see i what it says, but from your position, huddled up on a dining chair—which you would only move from if a hefty bribe was offered your way—you can’t even dream of looking around his oversized torso.

damn him for getting buff.

“google says banana’s are goo—”

“no,” you cut him off, head shaking wildly like a petulant child.

“baby~”

“they smell bad!”

with a sigh, yeosang goes back to looking.

“dry brown rice?” he offers meekly, already foreseeing the outcome of his offer. he doesn’t even have to turn around to see your face screwed up in displeasure; it’s already so clear in his mind. “nevermind, it was a stupid suggestion.”

you hum in agreement, the small sound making him crack a small smile. despite being incredibly difficult, yeosang can admit that you do have your sweet moments while you’re feverish. your mind may be muddled and your body doing everything in its power to make your life a living hell, but you still somehow manage to put a smile on his face.

if he wasn’t desperate to not catch whatever 18th century plague has taken up residence in your body, he’d spin around and kiss you. squish your cheeks together like he always does when he wants to annoy you a little, bring your face up to his, and just kiss you. it’s almost impossible not to when he’s been missing out on the feeling of your lips on his for the past few days, but when he hears the sound of your stomach churning and a pained groan leave your lips, he remembers exactly why he’s doing this to himself.

“how about broth?” he suggests, putting his mind back on the task at hand, “you like broth, baby.”

he’s right, you do like broth. or at least you like it when you’re not feeling like satan himself has put his little tapdancing shoes on specifically to do a jig atop your stomach. instinctively you wrap an arm around your abdomen which after a short period of docility, has began to cramp again. that broth really doesn’t sound appealing right now…

“yeosang…” you say, dejected and miserable. he sighs, understanding exactly what you mean by saying his name in that tone of voice; it’s a disheartened no from you.

and while it pains him to be forceful with you—or anyone for that matter—he can’t just sit and watch you waste away over a poorly stomach. he has to put his foot down for once.

“baby, you need to eat,” he sighs and rubs a hand over his face. he hates being so bossy with you, almost as much as he hears the weary sound pass from your lips just after his soft command. “just a small bowl, okay? just for me; your yeosang?”

and while it’s an obvious guilt trip, a little bribe to make you feel a little bad about refusing to eat, you can’t help but fall for it. you sigh, wrapping your arms around your knees so you can pick at your fingers guiltily. it’s not like you can help being sick, but maybe you have been a little dramatic about the whole refusing to eat thing. sure, your stomach churns at even the thought of food, but yeosang is right; if you don’t try, you won’t know. the idea of throwing up again frightens you, but broth is a liquid; it’ll be easy to come back up.

you resign with a minuscule hum, so quiet it’s almost silent.

“fine,” yeosang hardly believes the word when you say it with so much resignation, “one small bowl of broth…”

[cameronspecial]

Let Me Get Them For You, Angel

Pairing: Frat!Rafe Cameron x Reader

Warnings: N/A

Pronouns: She/Her

Word Count: 0.9K

Summary: Rafe never hesitates to get Y/N what she wants.

A/N: Inspired by this post.

Masterlist

Even though Y/N has told Rafe countless times, he does the best he can to be a provider for her, buying her food, clothes, books, scientific equipment he doesn’t understand what it does and anything else he can think of. He will literally do everything in his power to get her the whole world. They are at the mall shopping for a new leather jacket for him. They’ve been there for a few hours, taking their time to peruse around the stores. Her stomach begins to cry out its need for sustenance. As they continue to the next store, a delicious buttery and salty smell enters the air. Her head turns in the direction of where this sensory stimulus is coming from. The small glance toward Auntie Anne’s Pretzels does not go unnoticed by her boyfriend. He pauses immediately, yet she continues to walk, so he loops his arm through her to pull her back to his side. “What’s wrong?” she questions with a tilt of her head. He points toward the pretzel store, “I’m hungry. Why don’t we get a snack? A cheese one, right?” “You know me so well,” she beams. He chuckles and presses his lips against her temple. He leads her toward the register and orders their salty snack. 

———

It is no secret that Y/N is an avid reader. Her TBR list is in the hundreds and it continues to grow. Rafe’s mission is to make that list dwindle to zero, despite what Y/N might say. Sometimes, he’ll add books to that list by himself. The couple is hanging out in the library. She is studying and he is only there to keep her company. An hour into her studying session he pulls her away from her textbooks and notes to take a break and eat a snack. Her eyes wander while she nibbles on the cheese and crackers he hands to her, landing on a book cover that catches her eyes. The pink-themed watercolour cover features a forest with a rope bridge. It’s beautiful and the title is quite simple. Unravel Me. Rafe sees her attention isn’t on him and follows the gaze to the novel in another person's hands. She moves her eyes back to him, but he still takes note of the title. After the snack, she goes back to studying and he focuses on his phone. He decides to search for the book and finds out it is a hockey romance series. It sounds right up Y/N’s alley, so he orders Topper to go to the store and buy her the full set.

———

The most outrageous example of Rafe being Rafe when it comes to buying Y/N things is when he orders expensive objects for her right on the spot. It is date night and he decides to take her to the new upscale bar that opened up off campus. He pulls her chair out for her, allowing her to hop onto the tall chair. While she tells him about her tests, her eyes are trained on something at the bar. She must really like whatever she is looking at because she stands from the chair and approaches a woman. Rafe is right behind her, resting his hand on the small of Y/N’s back. “Hey, sorry to bother you, but I really like your bag. Where did you get it?” she asks the redhead. The other woman grins and holds her bag up, “Thank you! It’s from Coach. I can’t remember what it’s called though. I’m sorry.” “It’s okay. You gave me enough to go off of. Thank you so much. Have a nice night,” Y/N bids goodbye to her. Throughout the whole interaction, Rafe’s attention is on his phone. They get back to their table and he holds up his screen to her. The Coach website is pulled up on Safari with a picture of a light tan bag that has a dragon on it. Boxed New Year Rogue 25 With Dragon is written above the picture along with the price of $1,090.

“This is the one you want, right?” he confirms. Her eyes widen at the price, “Yes, but I didn’t know it was that expensive. I like it, just not for that price.” He ignores her worries and goes back to typing on his phone. “Look at this one. I’m gonna get it for you too. I think it’s cute,” he tells her, sliding his phone across the table to her. She sees two items in his cart: the dragon purse and the heart bag in regenerative leather. The total amount before tax is $1,490, which is completely outrageous to her. She shakes her head, “You can’t buy these, Rafe. This is way too much.” “Come on, let me get them for you, Angel. You know money is no issue for me,” he pleads, giving her the best puppy eyes he can.

“It’s not an issue for me. What am I going to do with something so luxurious?”

“Look like an absolute queen while you flaunt it around. Show other men that I can provide for you. Hand it over to me while you put your lip gloss on, so you can mark your territory. You deserve this luxury and so many more, Angel.”

“This is really important to you. Isn’t it?”

“Yes, so… what do you say?”

“Fine. You can get them.”

A smirk craves itself onto his face and he puts in his credit card information to finalize the purchase. He shows her the shipping information, “It should be here by next week, Angel.” “Thank you, Rafe. I can’t wait to use them,” she shows her gratitude by giving him a kiss.

Taglist: @winterrrnight @loves0phelia @thelomlisrafecameron @wickedlovely121 @thepatriarchykeychain @drewsmusee @starkowswife @maybankslover @forstarkey @loving-and-dreaming

[formulauno98]

Yacht Girl Summer - Chapter One / Thursday- George Russell x Reader, Toto Wolff x Reader

It's Summer and you've been dating George Russell, golden boy of the Mercedes Formula One Team, for the last year. Outwardly it looks like the perfect relationship, travelling the world hand-in-hand with your rich and famous other half but lately you've started to feel like an accessory to his success.

When you're invited aboard his boss' yacht for the week, you start to get to know the man who so often is the object of your boyfriend's affection, enigmatic Team Principal, Toto Wolff. Steely at first, as you get to know him, you start to see why your boyfriend is so enamoured.

Word Count: 3k

Warnings: Nothing spicy yet. This is going to be a slow burn and if you're uncomfortable with the idea of two-timing don't read this.

Author’s Notes: Disclaimer, purely fiction. No use of Y/N and minimal descriptions because I want everyone/anyone to be able to enjoy this.

THURSDAY MORNING

As you packed the last of your vacation outfits into your weekend bag you sighed, thinking about how you were going to survive this week. You’d been dating your boyfriend for almost a year and things had started well but lately, you felt something was off. 

For all intents and purposes, he was a catch. Good on paper as some people would say. He was a Formula One driver and a talented one at that, he was smart, he was funny (even though sometimes he didn’t mean to be) and he was kind. It also didn’t hurt that he was tall, easy on the eye and allergic to wearing a shirt ninety percent of the time.

Yes, George Russell was outwardly the perfect boyfriend. Just not the one for you. In your heart of hearts, you knew that he just wasn’t the one and it wasn’t fair to keep stringing him along. His work took precedence and you found yourself constantly making awkward small talk with random people during events, his focus entirely on his career. 

To begin with, life as a Formula One partner had been exciting, a glamorous world previously closed off to you now opened. You’d accompany George to races here and there, cheering him on from the garage, living the highs and lows and trying to support him as much as you could. Then there were tennis matches, charity galas, fashion shows, and even glossy film premieres and he always needed a date. 

He was quick to include you in his busy life but after a year of being treated like arm candy, playing second fiddle to George, the novelty had worn thin. You were no more than an accessory. Old men leered at you, girls were jealous and the mechanics thought you were some kind of bimbo gold-digger. It was decidedly less fun than it looked and you knew you owed it to yourself to put a stop to it.

It was difficult as George had not done anything wrong, he just sometimes forgot that you were a person and took your support for granted. You’d voiced your feelings but they were only ever met with empty promises. Even your Summer plans had been hijacked by his work as he’d cancelled the trip to South Africa that you’d booked in favour of accompanying his boss on his yacht for a week. 

You’d had numerous arguments about his overly close relationship with his boss, the mildly terrifying Mercedes Team Principal, Toto Wolff. You hadn’t spent much time with the man but George practically lived in his pocket. He even stayed at his house when they worked at the factory in the UK. It was strange, to say the least, and you’d had to learn to live with the unusual dynamic between the pair of them, awkwardly saying hello to the intimidating Austrian when you were in the garage but never quite breaking through his cool demeanour.

George on the other hand, loved his boss and was constantly “Toto says this,” “Toto recommends that.” So when he’d invited him onto his yacht for the Summer, he hadn’t hesitated to drop all other plans. Even if that meant you not getting to go on the safari you’d meticulously planned.

Casting your mind back to how the conversation had gone, you were still annoyed about it.

“It’s just for a week.” George had pleaded, “And it’s good for my career to be close to Toto. I owe him everything.”

You rolled your eyes, having heard this spiel before. “Why don’t you just ask him to formally adopt you and be done with it?”

George huffed, “That wasn’t funny before and it’s not funny now. Please, just do this for me, and we can go to South Africa another time. He’s never invited us before, if we say no, who knows how long it will be if we get another invite, if ever.”

Feeling slightly guilty, you replied, “Sorry, I know that was a little mean. Look, I was just looking forward to the safari.”

“I know,” said George, his bright eyes softening as he wrapped his arms around you, “But I promise you, we’ll go soon. And besides, Toto’s yacht will be nice, you can snorkel, you can paddleboard, you’ll love it.”

Smiling slightly, you knew you wouldn’t be going to South Africa any time soon, George’s schedule was too full on. And that’s why you knew you needed to end things soon. He hadn’t done anything wrong but you had lost yourself in George’s calendar. 

Swallowing your thoughts, you knew that he’d already said yes on your behalf so it was too late to back out, “I guess, and like you said, it’s only a week.”

“There’s my girl.” George kissed you lightly on the cheek, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

THURSDAY AFTERNOON

Having successfully packed, you and George had been driven down to the marina to board the yacht. You felt a little nervous as you walked beside George towards the imposing vessel you’d be spending the week on. It was one of the larger boats docked and you could already see various members of staff milling about on deck. 

You didn’t know Toto very well beyond saying hello and you weren’t sure what to expect outside of racing. He always seemed very serious and calculating, and still reeling from his acrimonious divorce, not the most fun person to holiday with. You knew that a few of George’s colleagues and their wives and girlfriends would be there too so you hoped that they at least might be somewhat entertaining.

Stepping off of the passarelle and onto the boat behind George, he suddenly dropped your luggage and started waving manically as he spotted his formidable boss standing on the sundeck above.

“Hi Toto!” he called out.

“Welcome!” Toto called out, disappearing momentarily before reappearing at the bottom of the stairs in front of you. He was dressed casually but smartly in head-to-toe navy with dark sunglasses.

“How are you both?” he said kindly, stretching out to George for a warm embrace before holding his arms out to you.

Half hugging him awkwardly, you replied, “Very well thank you, thank you again for the invite, we’ve been excited all week.”

Thrilled that you were buttering up his boss, George chimed in, “Yes, we’ve been counting down the days.”

“Glad to hear it,” said Toto, smiling contently, “The others arrived a short while ago so are at the front. Perhaps Livia can show you to your cabin and then you can come and join us for a drink?”

He gestured at a young blonde stewardess who had discreetly appeared from inside, ready to show you to your quarters.

“Thanks, Toto.” said George, clapping his boss on the shoulder enthusiastically before following Livia, “We’ll be right back.”

Taken aback that George had followed Livia without remembering to pick up your two weekend bags you shook your head as you were left struggling to pick them up and follow. Typical George.

“Here, let me help.” a deep, accented voice offered. Turning around, you were surprised to see Toto standing there, his arm outstretched.

“Oh…” you said blushing and tripping over your words, “It’s okay, honestly. I think George was overexcited to see his room.”

Toto smiled, taking the two bags from you despite your protests, lifting them effortlessly, “That’s our George.”

Smiling reluctantly, you agreed as you followed Toto inside, “Indeed.” 

At least his boss seemed like a gentleman.

THURSDAY EVENING

As the sun dipped below the horizon, painting the sky in shades of pastel pink, dinner that evening was set against an idyllic backdrop. You and George being the last to arrive, all guests were now on board and the yacht had finally set sail for your week-long jaunt into the Mediterranean.

The crew had prepared a cosy dinner on the deck, complete with twinkling fairy lights and a long table set for seven. Toto was sat at the head of the table, yourself and James, the Mercedes Technical Director either side of him.

On your other side was James’ wife, Cara, and across from you diagonally was the Communications Director’s wife, Marion. Making up the other end of the table was George and the Communications Director himself, John, who were chatting animatedly and ignoring everyone else.

As the two other couples knew each other well, James, Cara and Marion were equally engrossed in conversation with Toto, leaving you awkwardly eating in silence, trying your best to not give in to the pang of loneliness you felt.

As the dinner progressed, you couldn’t help but notice how isolated you felt. The laughter and chatter of the others a stark contrast to your internal turmoil. You tried to engage in small talk with the people around you, but your thoughts kept drifting back to your problems with George. 

This was yet another evening you’d spent surrounded by people yet isolated because you didn’t fit in. You were a side character in George’s life, there when it was convenient and discarded when someone more important was around.

Not one to miss a trick, Toto noticed your distraction. "Is everything alright?" he asked, his voice gentle yet concerned.

You forced a smile. "Yes, just feeling a little seasick." You weren’t proud of the lie but figured it might be the best way forward to get out of this agonising dinner.

His eyes crinkled with concern, he nodded, understandingly. "Sometimes it takes a while to get used to being at sea. Would you like to go up to the sun deck? The air is fresher, it might help."

Grateful for the offer and the opportunity to escape, you nodded. "That sounds nice, thank you."

Excusing yourself from the table you made your way to the stairs up to the sun deck. You glanced back at George, not surprised to see he was yet to clock your departure from the table. More surprising, however, was the fact that Toto had gotten up to follow you. You hadn’t expected him to accompany you and were slightly taken aback as the tall Austrian followed you up the stairs.

Dreading yet more awkward small talk, you wandered to the front of the sun deck, where the moonlight was pooling on the pristine white sun loungers. You leaned against the railing, taking in the tranquil scene.

"This is beautiful," you said softly, more to yourself than to Toto who had slotted himself a few feet to your right.

"It is," Toto agreed. "It’s one of the reasons I love being out here. It’s a good place to think, to clear your mind."

You turned to him, genuinely curious. "Do you come out here often?"

He smiled, a distant look in his eyes. "Whenever I can. It helps me balance the chaos of work."

You nodded, understanding the sentiment. "I can see why. It’s so peaceful and you were right, the air does feel fresher."

Toto nodded and for a moment, the two of you stood in comfortable silence, just listening to the sounds of the sea. 

Suddenly feeling somewhat awkward that you were standing gazing in the moonlight with your boyfriend’s boss, you chanced striking up more of a conversation. You were somewhat intrigued as to why George was so enamoured with the Team Principal and you had to seize the opportunity as quickly as it came.

“Thank you for everything you do for George,” you said, hoping to sound genuine.

Toto looked somewhat surprised and a little amused at your words, “It’s no trouble, he’s a good boy.”

Laughing at Toto calling George a boy, you pushed a little further, “I mean it. I honestly do.”

“I know.” said Toto, his gaze intense as he turned to you, “How are you feeling?”

“A little better actually,” you lied, “It’s also more stable up here, downstairs I felt like I was swishing around.”

“Swishing around?” Toto asked, quirking an eyebrow, “I don’t think I’ve heard it called that.”

“What do you mean?” you asked, not sure what he was getting at.

“Look, I could see you were not feeling comfortable at dinner.” he said, somewhat bluntly, “I see you when you are in the garage too. You always look ready to bolt. Are you not a fan of racing?”

Taken aback by his astute judgment and surprised that he'd noticed, you felt defensive and mumbled quietly  “It’s not that.”

Toto looked unconvinced, “I get it, you’re shy.”

“A little,” you confessed, “It’s a lot sometimes.”

Toto’s face softened, his brown eyes warm as he looked at you, “I understand. It’s not easy. You get used to it though.”

Thinking about the fact that you probably wouldn’t need to if you went through with your break-up plan, you just nodded, pretending that you agreed with his wisdom, “I hope so.”

“You will.” he said kindly, “So George tells me you like to travel a lot?”

“I do,” you said, surprised that he was now being chatty, “But not so much to the races, I like to escape in nature, it’s good for the soul.”

A smirk flickered on Toto’s lips, “I agree. If you’d like we can go exploring tomorrow. There are some coves around here we can stop at.”

“For real?” you asked, even more surprised that he was willing to bend his itinerary for you, someone he barely knew.

“For real,” he said succinctly. “And if the others don’t like it, they can stay on the boat and sunbathe.”

Laughing, you smiled at him, “Sounds like a plan.”

“I’m glad I can make you smile.” he said, his face serious, “You looked sad down there.”

Not sure how to reply, you looked down at your feet, choosing your words carefully before looking back up at Toto  “I’m just seasick. That’s all.”

Thoroughly unconvinced, Toto quirked an eyebrow, “Tomorrow you will feel better. I promise. Shall we go back to dinner? I’m sure George will be missing you.”

“I’m not sure about that.” you said quietly, causing Toto to raise his eyebrow once more, “He’ll be chatting away to John, I bet.”

“How much?” asked Toto as you both made your way towards the stairs.

“Two euros,” you said jokingly.

“It’s a bet,” replied Toto, holding out his hand to shake with all the seriousness that he would when making a business deal.

“Deal,” you said, taking his large hand in yours, grinning as you met the laughing Austrian’s eyes.

Sure enough, as you made your way back down the stairs towards the table, George was still chatting away to John, barely pausing for breath, let alone noticing the two of you taking back to your seats.

“How would you like to pay?” you asked Toto cheekily, as you both sat down, “I can accept cash, cheque or credit card”

“What’s Toto paying you for?” asked James, stopping mid-conversation, his interest suddenly piqued.

“We made a bet.” said Toto, clasping his hands under his chin, “It’s a secret though.”

James looked slightly sceptical, turning to you for more information, “Care to elaborate?”

“Deals have to be discrete.” you said, fighting the urge to laugh as Toto’s eyes sparkled at you, “Toto will be the first one to tell you that.”

Slightly tipsy, James laughed, not pressing further and returning to his animated discussion with the two older women. Glancing down at the other end of the table, George had barely looked up and once more you felt a pang of disappointment. He was clueless sometimes.

– – –

As dinner came to a close, Toto announced the plan for the next day. 

“Tomorrow morning, we’ll be exploring some of the coves around here. It will be an early start but should be fun. Who’s interested?”

George and John immediately expressed their interest, nodding eagerly. “Count us in!” George said, his enthusiasm reminding you of a child on a school trip.

James, Cara and Marion were less enthused about the early start and politely declined, deciding instead to stay on the boat, soaking in the sun.

Toto turned to you with a gentle smile. “How about you?”

You nodded, feeling genuinely excited for the first time in a while. “I’d love to.”

– – –

Having sussed out tomorrow’s plan and the seven am start, you bid your gracious host and fellow guests goodnight and you and George finally made your way to your shared quarters. The silence between you was palpable, each step echoing your unspoken thoughts.

Once inside the cabin, George broke the silence. “What were you doing going off with Toto?” he asked a hint of accusation in his tone.

You sighed, sitting down on the bed “I felt seasick and needed some fresh air so Toto suggested the sun deck. That’s all.”

George’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You could have told me.”

“I could have,” you admitted, your voice softening. “But you were busy with John and I didn’t want to interrupt.”

At this, George’s expression softened just a fraction and he settled down beside you. “Okay. I just... I don’t know… Let me know next time. I don’t want you feeling seasick and me not being there to help.”

You smiled sadly, knowing that for all of his faults, his heart was in the right place, “Thanks, I appreciate it.”

He nodded, wrapping his arm around you, “I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for,” you said, leaning into him, feeling somewhat guilty that you had ignored him in favour of his boss.

“What were you talking about though?” he asked suddenly.

“We were talking about you and then this and that.” you said, before adding, “He’s actually quite nice. I get it now.”

At that, George looked a little put out but dropped the subject quickly, getting up to get ready for bed. As he busied himself unpacking his pyjamas, you couldn’t help but think of Toto, he was nicer than you’d given him credit for.

For the first time in a long while, you felt like someone had considered you as a person and not as George’s plus one. It was a good feeling to ponder as you drifted off to sleep, dreaming of the adventure that awaited you tomorrow.

Part Two

[kristaprincess]

My parents were super-nervous about my going to South Africa with my church youth group on a mission trip, but I assured them there would be plenty of chaperones and convinced them the church would never take a group of high school girls any place dangerous. Besides, I reasoned, we’d probably be staying in a secure compound for our group only, protected by walls and security.

Imagine my surprise when I learned we’d be staying in tents near a river and surrounded by heavy jungle. Our plan was to assist an international medical team providing health care to mostly women and children from a nearby village. Our guides told us they’d built in some time for recreation in our schedule including several days of swimming in the river and a safari to look at some of the animals native to the area.

My bestie, McKenna and I read up on the area and talked endlessly about what we should and shouldn’t pack for the trip. Because our camp was so remote, we were told repeatedly not to overpack. We made list after list of clothes and toiletries to include in our duffels and repeatedly culled down the packing list, but we made sure to include swimsuits, since we’d be so close to the water and our itinerary included boating on the river. We also packed large quantities of sunscreen since our destination was not far from the equator and the sun would be intense, but we laughed about how we’d impress our friends when we returned with our deep tans.

When we arrived at the camp, it was like nothing I’d ever seen before and we joked with each other that “this ain’t Alabama at all!” But after our orientation, we were driven to the village and started work in the makeshift clinic, helping with simple medical exams and assisting the doctors in vaccinating children. The women from the village were shy, but smiled at us constantly and the little kids were absolutely adorable. We had fun playing games with them and keeping them occupied while they waited with their mothers.

On the third day, our guides told us they’d planned a recreation day and we’d be taken by Jeep upriver to a swimming spot for the day. We were asked to put on our swimsuits and be ready for the Jeeps in the morning. You can imagine my surprise when we gathered and the other eleven girls in our group were all wearing one-piece suits! I was the only girl wearing a bikini.

As we arrived at the swimming spot, we parked and our guides led us through the forest to the river. We passed several clearings where groups of men were working and as we walked by, they would all stop and watch as a line of 12 blushing and giggling Alabama country girls passed by. They were more curious than threatening, but I couldn’t help feeling that I attracted more than my share of attention. I knew they probably weren’t use to seeing blonde hair, but I couldn’t help but feel like the fact I was showing more skin that the other girls was making them stare.

A group of about 15 or 20 men from the village followed us along the path to the river and stood watching as we set down our towels and walked tentatively into the water. It was unsettling at first but we ignored them and started swimming with each other. Before long, we spread our towels on the riverbank in the sun and lay down, drying ourselves in the heat. It was a lovely feeling and I nodded off to sleep for a while.

When I awoke, the men from the village were still there, watching intently. Some of us joked about the attention we were drawing but the men seemed harmless. When the two girls seated on towels near me returned to the water, I sat alone and watched, my senses taking in the feeling of being half a world away from my hometown in an environment totally alien from anything I’d ever seen.

A short time later, one of the men from the village walked over to me and said something in a language I didn’t understand. Of course, the only language I understood was English and I looked at him helplessly, shrugging my shoulders and saying “I’m sorry” over and over again. But, he motioned me to follow him and I wasn’t sure about what I should do. Could someone in his group need medical help? We’d been instructed not to separate from the group but maybe someone nearby spoke English and could translate. After a few minutes of confusion, I got up and started to follow him.

We started down the path we’d taken that brought us to the river, but after a short walk veered off a short distance to a clearing with a cluster of tents. The villagers at the river had followed us and I kept looking back over my shoulder to judge how far I was from the others in my group. The man who approached me motioned to follow him into one of the tents. I hesitated, but he smiled and gave me what I thought were assurances he meant no harm, so not knowing what to do I ducked in.

He reached into a basket and brought out a primitive gold chain and approached me, smiling. He moved to place the chain around my neck and I held up my hand to stop him.

“No, no,” I stammered. “I can’t…”

He smiled and reached in the basket for another chain and moved to loop it over my head and around my neck.

“It’s beautiful,” I said. “But, I’m not allowed to accept gifts.”

I heard the men from the village behind me talking to each other as I protested the gold being strung around me, but the man just kept reaching down and producing more strands and placing them on me. Their gifts were beautiful and I looked at each one closely, but my protests were ignored. They didn’t speak English and I couldn’t communicate that sending me back to my group with strand after strand of gold chain around my neck would only raise more questions and a demand from our guides that the gifts be returned to the village. They seemed so poor, how could they be lavishing such expensive gifts on me, I wondered.

After my neck and chest were adequately bejeweled, the man started draping chains across the front of my bikini, making me blush as he focused on my cleavage. When he finished, I covered my face in embarrassment, trying to figure out how I could exit this strange scene and get back to the other girls.

I looked at the man who had decorated me and smiled. “I have to go back…” I said.

“Take off…” he replied. The first words in English I’d heard him speak.

“Yes,” I said. “I must go!” and I turned to make my way out of the tent.

He gently placed his hand on my arm. “No,” he said, pointing to my chest. “Take off.” Did he want the chains back, I wondered? Gladly, I thought and began removing the gold from my body to return to him. But, he quickly stopped me.

“NO,” he said, emphatically. “Take OFF!” Again, he pointed at my chest. I was confused.

“I’m TRYING to give you back your gold!” I said, exasperated.

“No gold,” he said, pointing again. “Take off.”

My head was spinning as I looked around at the other men. Was I hearing this right? He was giving me gold jewelry so I would …take off…my bikini top? I began to nervously shake my head and move toward the entrance to the tent, but I was surrounded. I closed my eyes and tried to think of a way out, but when I opened them, the men from the village all stood watching me, smiling. Maybe if I did this quickly, they would let me return to my group. Maybe I could give them all a quick peek?

I grabbed one of the triangles of my bikini top and quickly pulled it aside, flashing my breast. There was lots of chatter among the men and I quickly told them “now, I have to go!”

“Take off,” the man said, pointing at my chest again.

I reached up behind my neck to untie my bikini top and when the strings loosened, I slowly let it fall, exposing my breasts. The chatter among the men increased and I quickly untied the tie around my back, pulling the bikini top off my body and letting my breasts slide free. The man held out his hand, apparently in the hope that I’d be willing to give him my bikini top, but I should my head “no.”

I slowly turned around to give all the villagers a good look and returned a nervous smile to the man who’d led me here. He returned my smile, pointed lower and again said “take off..”

Ohmigod, I thought. My bikini bottoms? This can’t be happening! When I hesitated, he gave me a stern look.

There were gold fasteners on either side of my bikini bottoms and my hands were shaking as I reached down to release them. I’d been topless with only one boy back in school and although he’d begged and begged for me to get naked, I’d refused. These village men were about to see something more than one small town Alabama boy had tried and failed to get a glimpse of. Oh, well, I thought. They don’t speak English so it’s not like they could ruin my reputation back home.

I pulled my bikini bottoms away from my hips and the chatter resumed as they jostled to look at my pussy. I kind of wished I had trimmed myself up but rationalized they were probably more used to seeing a full bush. Again, I turned in a slow circle to let them all see. When I turned to face the man with the chains, he motioned for me to take a seat on a makeshift bed to one side of the tent’s interior, a wooden rack covered by a rough canvas bag stuffed with some kind of plant material.

He spoke to one of the men from the village, a tall man who looked like he was in his late 20’s or early 30’s. The man made his way through the villagers and stood in front of me. He was unclothed from the waist up, the bottom of his body covered by a rust-colored cloth belt, tying a canvas cloth covering his hips down to his ankles. Like me, his chest was decorated with gold chains and he stood expressionless.

After the older man spoke, the younger man began to loosen his belt and I could feel my face getting hot. I hoped this wasn’t what I thought it might be. The bottom cloth opened and he tossed it away, standing naked in front of me, his long, thick penis draping down in a soft arc.

I clasped my hands over my face and covered my eyes. “No, no, no,” I stammered. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do here, but this ain’t it,” I said.

“Where I come from, 17-year old white girls don’t do hook-ups with black men just because they got jewelry from their friends.”

I felt the younger man grab my wrists and remove my hands from my face. He moved closer, placing his crotch directly in front of my face. He grasped my hand and placed it on his cock.

“A blowjob?” I said. “Is that what this is all about? You gave me all this gold so I’ll blow this dude?”

I felt the man’s hand on the back of my head, pushing me forward and without even thinking I opened my mouth. His semi-hard cock brushed against my lips and slid into my mouth, my tongue feeling the texture of his shaft as he pushed deeper. If any of the kids in my mission group found out what I was doing, it wouldn’t take long for word to get back to the other kids at school and by Monday morning, the entire school would know the rumor. I shuddered to think what kind of talk would go through our little town if any of the church chaperones ever found out.

I began moving my lips back and forth on his cock and I could feel him pulsing in my mouth. None of the other men spoke while I was blowing him and I looked up to see him staring straight at me, a snarl on his lips. I’d only ever done this twice in my life – once in eighth grade when an older boy that I’d had a crush on convinced me to “take a walk” with him behind the VFW hall during a school dance. The other was earlier in my junior year of high school when a make-out session on my third date with a boy from my high school led him to practically beg that I go down on him. I resisted in silence at first, but he persisted and I complied hoping that it would lead to a fourth date and beyond. It did, but I soured on the relationship when it because obvious that he wanted each date to end the same way.

Gradually, the younger man became more forceful as he got closer to orgasm and I started to clue in to how he wanted things to end. I realized that one way or another, I was going to wind up with a mouthful of semen and I was glad I was naked if for no other reason than returning to my group wearing a cum-stained bikini would be even more embarrassing.

From the corner of my eye I could see the other men in the tent watching intently and a few of them touching themselves. I prayed they weren’t planning the same treatment or the guides for our group would be sending out a search party.

The younger man groaned and pushed his cock deeper into my mouth. I felt him throb and his hot, milky sperm shot onto my tongue. His crotch was pungent as he held me close and his cum was salty and slightly bitter-tasting. The consistency was kind of gooey and I could feel it sliding down my throat into my tummy. What I wasn’t prepared for was the length of his orgasm. Spurt after spurt after spurt as I continued to swallow. Through it all, he held me in place and I had no other choice but to take his seed.

He withdrew from my mouth and the men were silent as I stood, still shaking, and slowly put my bikini back on. Without saying a word, I made my way out of the tent and started down the path leading back to the river, the gold chains still draped around my neck.

As I drew closer to the riverbank, I slipped off the gold chains and carried them in my hand. The other girls gasped when they saw what I was carrying and I handed out chains to each of them, telling them all they were gifts from the local village. I hoped the other girls wouldn’t get to close to me in case the residue from my encounter was still on my chin or in my hair.

When the guides announced the time had come for us to gather up our belongings and head back to the vehicles, I was relieved to be back in my group. I didn’t say much on the walk back and no one asked me where I’d gotten off to as if they’d noticed my absence much.

When we approached the Jeeps one of the guides was leaning against the car, watching me, smiling at me as I drew closer. His gaze made the goose bumps on my arms stand up and I tried not to look at him as I climbed into the Jeep.

“Enjoy your swim?” he asked.

“Yeah, it was fun,” I said, still not looking at him.

“The men from the village thought you were very beautiful,” he said. “I guess that’s why they decided to give you all those gifts.”

“That was very kind of them.”

“Not at all,” he said. “They were especially grateful for your treatment of the chief’s son. He has many wives and lots of children. The women of the village all talk about how special he makes them feel when he chooses one of them for the night.”

“Oh,” I said, blushing a deep red. “Is that so?”

The guide leaned closer and whispered in my ear. “The women say his ejaculate is so strong, a baby is practically guaranteed when he lies with them.”

“The chief must be very proud to have so many grandchildren.”

“He is,” the guide whispered. “But only his favorite wives can tell stories about how his sperm tastes. When he lets a woman please him with her mouth, he feeds her before he puts a baby inside her.”

“Ohmigod,” I whispered, slightly stunned.

“I’ll bring your group back here to swim again in three days. I hope you will enjoy it as much as you enjoyed today.”

Part 1

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The moral injury of having your work enshittified

This Monday (November 27), I'm appearing at the Toronto Metro Reference Library with Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen.

On November 29, I'm at NYC's Strand Books with my novel The Lost Cause, a solarpunk tale of hope and danger that Rebecca Solnit called "completely delightful."

This week, I wrote about how the Great Enshittening – in which all the digital services we rely on become unusable, extractive piles of shit – did not result from the decay of the morals of tech company leadership, but rather, from the collapse of the forces that discipline corporate wrongdoing:

https://locusmag.com/2023/11/commentary-by-cory-doctorow-dont-be-evil/

The failure to enforce competition law allowed a few companies to buy out their rivals, or sell goods below cost until their rivals collapsed, or bribe key parts of their supply chain not to allow rivals to participate:

https://www.engadget.com/google-reportedly-pays-apple-36-percent-of-ad-search-revenues-from-safari-191730783.html

The resulting concentration of the tech sector meant that the surviving firms were stupendously wealthy, and cozy enough that they could agree on a common legislative agenda. That regulatory capture has allowed tech companies to violate labor, privacy and consumer protection laws by arguing that the law doesn't apply when you use an app to violate it:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

But the regulatory capture isn't just about preventing regulation: it's also about creating regulation – laws that make it illegal to reverse-engineer, scrape, and otherwise mod, hack or reconfigure existing services to claw back value that has been taken away from users and business customers. This gives rise to Jay Freeman's perfectly named doctrine of "felony contempt of business-model," in which it is illegal to use your own property in ways that anger the shareholders of the company that sold it to you:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/09/lead-me-not-into-temptation/#chamberlain

Undisciplined by the threat of competition, regulation, or unilateral modification by users, companies are free to enshittify their products. But what does that actually look like? I say that enshittification is always precipitated by a lost argument.

It starts when someone around a board-room table proposes doing something that's bad for users but good for the company. If the company faces the discipline of competition, regulation or self-help measures, then the workers who are disgusted by this course of action can say, "I think doing this would be gross, and what's more, it's going to make the company poorer," and so they win the argument.

But when you take away that discipline, the argument gets reduced to, "Don't do this because it would make me ashamed to work here, even though it will make the company richer." Money talks, bullshit walks. Let the enshittification begin!

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/22/who-wins-the-argument/#corporations-are-people-my-friend

But why do workers care at all? That's where phrases like "don't be evil" come into the picture. Until very recently, tech workers participated in one of history's tightest labor markets, in which multiple companies with gigantic war-chests bid on their labor. Even low-level employees routinely fielded calls from recruiters who dangled offers of higher salaries and larger stock grants if they would jump ship for a company's rival.

Employers built "campuses" filled with lavish perks: massages, sports facilities, daycare, gourmet cafeterias. They offered workers generous benefit packages, including exotic health benefits like having your eggs frozen so you could delay fertility while offsetting the risks normally associated with conceiving at a later age.

But all of this was a transparent ruse: the business-case for free meals, gyms, dry-cleaning, catering and massages was to keep workers at their laptops for 10, 12, or even 16 hours per day. That egg-freezing perk wasn't about helping workers plan their families: it was about thumbing the scales in favor of working through your entire twenties and thirties without taking any parental leave.

In other words, tech employers valued their employees as a means to an end: they wanted to get the best geeks on the payroll and then work them like government mules. The perks and pay weren't the result of comradeship between management and labor: they were the result of the discipline of competition for labor.

This wasn't really a secret, of course. Big Tech workers are split into two camps: blue badges (salaried employees) and green badges (contractors). Whenever there is a slack labor market for a specific job or skill, it is converted from a blue badge job to a green badge job. Green badges don't get the food or the massages or the kombucha. They don't get stock or daycare. They don't get to freeze their eggs. They also work long hours, but they are incentivized by the fear of poverty.

Tech giants went to great lengths to shield blue badges from green badges – at some Google campuses, these workforces actually used different entrances and worked in different facilities or on different floors. Sometimes, green badge working hours would be staggered so that the armies of ragged clickworkers would not be lined up to badge in when their social betters swanned off the luxury bus and into their airy adult kindergartens.

But Big Tech worked hard to convince those blue badges that they were truly valued. Companies hosted regular town halls where employees could ask impertinent questions of their CEOs. They maintained freewheeling internal social media sites where techies could rail against corporate foolishness and make Dilbert references.

And they came up with mottoes.

Apple told its employees it was a sound environmental steward that cared about privacy. Apple also deliberately turned old devices into e-waste by shredding them to ensure that they wouldn't be repaired and compete with new devices:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/22/vin-locking/#thought-differently

And even as they were blocking Facebook's surveillance tools, they quietly built their own nonconsensual mass surveillance program and lied to customers about it:

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

Facebook told employees they were on a "mission to connect every person in the world," but instead deliberately sowed discontent among its users and trapped them in silos that meant that anyone who left Facebook lost all their friends:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

And Google promised its employees that they would not "be evil" if they worked at Google. For many googlers, that mattered. They wanted to do something good with their lives, and they had a choice about who they would work for. What's more, they did make things that were good. At their high points, Google Maps, Google Mail, and of course, Google Search were incredible.

My own life was totally transformed by Maps: I have very poor spatial sense, need to actually stop and think to tell my right from my left, and I spent more of my life at least a little lost and often very lost. Google Maps is the cognitive prosthesis I needed to become someone who can go anywhere. I'm profoundly grateful to the people who built that service.

There's a name for phenomenon in which you care so much about your job that you endure poor conditions and abuse: it's called "vocational awe," as coined by Fobazi Ettarh:

https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/

Ettarh uses the term to apply to traditionally low-waged workers like librarians, teachers and nurses. In our book Chokepoint Capitalism, Rebecca Giblin and I talked about how it applies to artists and other creative workers, too:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

But vocational awe is also omnipresent in tech. The grandiose claims to be on a mission to make the world a better place are not just puffery – they're a vital means of motivating workers who can easily quit their jobs and find a new one to put in 16-hour days. The massages and kombucha and egg-freezing are not framed as perks, but as logistical supports, provided so that techies on an important mission can pursue a shared social goal without being distracted by their balky, inconvenient meatsuits.

Steve Jobs was a master of instilling vocational awe. He was full of aphorisms like "we're here to make a dent in the universe, otherwise why even be here?" Or his infamous line to John Sculley, whom he lured away from Pepsi: "Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life or come with me and change the world?"

Vocational awe cuts both ways. If your workforce actually believes in all that high-minded stuff, if they actually sacrifice their health, family lives and self-care to further the mission, they will defend it. That brings me back to enshittification, and the argument: "If we do this bad thing to the product I work on, it will make me hate myself."

The decline in market discipline for large tech companies has been accompanied by a decline in labor discipline, as the market for technical work grew less and less competitive. Since the dotcom collapse, the ability of tech giants to starve new entrants of market oxygen has shrunk techies' dreams.

Tech workers once dreamed of working for a big, unwieldy firm for a few years before setting out on their own to topple it with a startup. Then, the dream shrank: work for that big, clumsy firm for a few years, then do a fake startup that makes a fake product that is acquihired by your old employer, as an incredibly inefficient and roundabout way to get a raise and a bonus.

Then the dream shrank again: work for a big, ugly firm for life, but get those perks, the massages and the kombucha and the stock options and the gourmet cafeteria and the egg-freezing. Then it shrank again: work for Google for a while, but then get laid off along with 12,000 co-workers, just months after the company does a stock buyback that would cover all those salaries for the next 27 years:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/10/the-proletarianization-of-tech-workers/

Tech workers' power was fundamentally individual. In a tight labor market, tech workers could personally stand up to their bosses. They got "workplace democracy" by mouthing off at town hall meetings. They didn't have a union, and they thought they didn't need one. Of course, they did need one, because there were limits to individual power, even for the most in-demand workers, especially when it came to ghastly, long-running sexual abuse from high-ranking executives:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/google-sexual-harassment-andy-rubin.html

Today, atomized tech workers who are ordered to enshittify the products they take pride in are losing the argument. Workers who put in long hours, missed funerals and school plays and little league games and anniversaries and family vacations are being ordered to flush that sacrifice down the toilet to grind out a few basis points towards a KPI.

It's a form of moral injury, and it's palpable in the first-person accounts of former workers who've exited these large firms or the entire field. The viral "Reflecting on 18 years at Google," written by Ian Hixie, vibrates with it:

https://ln.hixie.ch/?start=1700627373

Hixie describes the sense of mission he brought to his job, the workplace democracy he experienced as employees' views were both solicited and heeded. He describes the positive contributions he was able to make to a commons of technical standards that rippled out beyond Google – and then, he says, "Google's culture eroded":

Decisions went from being made for the benefit of users, to the benefit of Google, to the benefit of whoever was making the decision.

In other words, techies started losing the argument. Layoffs weakened worker power – not just to defend their own interest, but to defend the users interests. Worker power is always about more than workers – think of how the 2019 LA teachers' strike won greenspace for every school, a ban on immigration sweeps of students' parents at the school gates and other community benefits:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/23/a-collective-bargain/

Hixie attributes the changes to a change in leadership, but I respectfully disagree. Hixie points to the original shareholder letter from the Google founders, in which they informed investors contemplating their IPO that they were retaining a controlling interest in the company's governance so that they could ignore their shareholders' priorities in favor of a vision of Google as a positive force in the world:

https://abc.xyz/investor/founders-letters/ipo-letter/

Hixie says that the leadership that succeeded the founders lost sight of this vision – but the whole point of that letter is that the founders never fully ceded control to subsequent executive teams. Yes, those executive teams were accountable to the shareholders, but the largest block of voting shares were retained by the founders.

I don't think the enshittification of Google was due to a change in leadership – I think it was due to a change in discipline, the discipline imposed by competition, regulation and the threat of self-help measures. Take ads: when Google had to contend with one-click adblocker installation, it had to constantly balance the risk of making users so fed up that they googled "how do I block ads?" and then never saw another ad ever again.

But once Google seized the majority of the mobile market, it was able to funnel users into apps, and reverse-engineering an app is a felony (felony contempt of business-model) under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. An app is just a web-page wrapped in enough IP to make it a crime to install an ad-blocker.

And as Google acquired control over the browser market, it was likewise able to reduce the self-help measures available to browser users who found ads sufficiently obnoxious to trigger googling "how do I block ads?" The apotheosis of this is the yearslong campaign to block adblockers in Chrome, which the company has sworn it will finally do this coming June:

https://www.tumblr.com/tevruden/734352367416410112/you-have-until-june-to-dump-chrome

My contention here is not that Google's enshittification was precipitated by a change in personnel via the promotion of managers who have shitty ideas. Google's enshittification was precipitated by a change in discipline, as the negative consequences of heeding those shitty ideas were abolished thanks to monopoly.

This is bad news for people like me, who rely on services like Google Maps as cognitive prostheses. Elizabeth Laraki, one of the original Google Maps designers, has published a scorching critique of the latest GMaps design:

https://twitter.com/elizlaraki/status/1727351922254852182

Laraki calls out numerous enshittificatory design-choices that have left Maps screens covered in "crud" – multiple revenue-maximizing elements that come at the expense of usability, shifting value from users to Google.

What Laraki doesn't say is that these UI elements are auctioned off to merchants, which means that the business that gives Google the most money gets the greatest prominence in Maps, even if it's not the best merchant. That's a recurring motif in enshittified tech platforms, most notoriously Amazon, which makes $31b/year auctioning off top search placement to companies whose products aren't relevant enough to your query to command that position on their own:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/#commissar-bezos

Enshittification begets enshittification. To succeed on Amazon, you must divert funds from product quality to auction placement, which means that the top results are the worst products:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens

The exception is searches for Apple products: Apple and Amazon have a cozy arrangement that means that searches for Apple products are a timewarp back to the pre-enshittification Amazon, when the company worried enough about losing your business to heed the employees who objected to sacrificing search quality as part of a merchant extortion racket:

https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-gives-apple-special-treatment-while-others-suffer-junk-ads-2023-11

Not every tech worker is a tech bro, in other words. Many workers care deeply about making your life better. But the microeconomics of the boardroom in a monopolized tech sector rewards the worst people and continuously promotes them. Forget the Peter Principle: tech is ruled by the Sam Principle.

As OpenAI went through four CEOs in a single week, lots of commentators remarked on Sam Altman's rise and fall and rise, but I only found one commentator who really had Altman's number. Writing in Today in Tabs, Rusty Foster nailed Altman to the wall:

https://www.todayintabs.com/p/defective-accelerationism

Altman's history goes like this: first, he founded a useless startup that raised $30m, only to be acquired and shuttered. Then Altman got a job running Y Combinator, where he somehow failed at taking huge tranches of equity from "every Stanford dropout with an idea for software to replace something Mommy used to do." After that, he founded OpenAI, a company that he claims to believe presents an existential risk to the entire human risk – which he structured so incompetently that he was then forced out of it.

His reward for this string of farcical, mounting failures? He was put back in charge of the company he mis-structured despite his claimed belief that it will destroy the human race if not properly managed.

Altman's been around for a long time. He founded his startup in 2005. There've always been Sams – of both the Bankman-Fried varietal and the Altman genus – in tech. But they didn't get to run amok. They were disciplined by their competitors, regulators, users and workers. The collapse of competition led to an across-the-board collapse in all of those forms of discipline, revealing the executives for the mediocre sociopaths they always were, and exposing tech workers' vocational awe for the shabby trick it was from the start.

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/2023/11/25/moral-injury/#enshittification

[buggyboba]

✦ October 15th | Face Sitting

AN 𓏧

↳ ○ | Welp, here I am again, offering you filth. It's day fifteen, and we have 7 more to go, as well as some requests, which are still open, I take nsfw/sfw requests. I hope everyone is enjoying our romp into writing loads of smut, as well as new characters, I have a few new ones I enjoy so I'll certainly be doing more with them, outside of Kinktober. Anyway here is some 10 x reader, being naughty in the Tardis.

SUMMARY𓏧

↳ ○ A lazy day in the Tardis leads to The Doctor taking care of his companion.

PAIRING𓏧

↳ ○ Tenth Doctor x Reader

TW𓏧

↳ ○ Jerking off, face sitting, eating out (Female receiving,), blow job (male receiving), swallowing cum.

WORD COUNT𓏧

↳ ○ 1600

A03 lINK𓏧

↳ ○ x

MASTERLIST LINK𓏧

↳ ○ x

★𓏧 𓏧 𓏧★ 𓏧 𓏧 𓏧★

You had woken up late, but that was okay. You and The Doctor had agreed that today would be a ‘lazy’ day. You didn’t get many lazy days; it was always running and adventures, but he did say that he needed to do some maintenance and that a ‘Lazy’ day was fine. You got up from the bed and moved to pull on today’s clothing. You stretched, feeling your muscles stretch out. It would be a good day to rest. You considered sleeping in more, maybe taking a full-day nap, but you dragged yourself out to the dining area, got some tea, and moved to find him. The Doctor was buzzing around the console like a busy bee, and you yawned exhausted by just watching him. “Lazy means relaxing, you know,” you said lightly, taking a sip of your tea. He looked at you and grinned, moving over towards you.

“Because I’m the only one that took the lazy day seriously, come on now. I know you don’t know what the word means, but relax.” You urged, “You got up early and have been working on the tardis since; I can see the oil smugs and the fact you are only in your shirt and vest, and it’s covered in oil. Take a break, enjoy our lazy day; we don’t get them often.” You watched as he shifted, rubbing the back of his neck before sighing.

“Morning, you are awake late.” He said, looking you over, and you shook your head.

“Yeah, okay… But there is still so much to do, so much we could go see; there are the hanging gardens; there is a rather ethical free-range safari planet.” He said, wiggling his eyebrows at you. You shook your head, you understood he had to keep moving, he didn’t like focusing on the past too much, and it had been getting a little harder lately, so you understood his need for distractions, you really did. However relaxing was also essential, and you were not a Time Lord; you couldn’t just keep going and going; you loved the adventure, the thrill, and getting to be with him; he was great, fun, funny, and he cared about you in a way that you needed. You were his companion, his friend, and you wanted to be there for him in any capacity. Of course, you thought he was handsome, and you liked his stupid face, and you liked when he held you; you liked when he got needy and had to touch you. You shook your head free of the thoughts that were growing more and more impure. 

“Starman,” you started, your affectionate nickname for him, “It is a lazy day. We can do all that tomorrow, today we are going to relax, I’m going to bathe.” You held your hand up when he went to talk. “We can go get some breakfast, and we can do something domestic; do you remember domestic, like not running away from Daleks or Cybermen? No dangerous adventures today.” You said looking at him pouting a bit, he studied you for a moment and then relented, nodding. 

“Okay, okay.” He raised his hands in defeat. “You are going to go bathe? You take forever...” He clicked his tongue against his teeth before he leaned back against the console. You moved to the bathroom; he was right; you did enjoy taking long showers; you liked the warm water and the moment of relaxation. But you knew you couldn’t stay there forever, so you turned the water off and did a cursory dry of your body before wrapping the towel around you. Heading out, you went to his bedroom, where you had moved in; he didn’t object, so you happily shared his room with him. 

You paused when you saw him lying on the bed with nothing on, his arm under his head, and his other hand slowly stroking himself. At least he was relaxing; you cleared your throat and smirked, leaning against the door frame as you watched him. He got his own cheeky smirk and tilted his head to look at you. “You take forever,” he muttered out. “Right, well, come here.” He shifted and got comfortable. You moved to walk over to the bed, moving to sit on the edge. “No, come here.” He smirked more. His hand moved from himself and from behind his head to pull you closer, to straddle his head. You blinked, keeping yourself from sitting down like you assumed he wanted you to do. 

“Whatcha doing?” You breathed as he pulled your towel down, his eyes glancing over you, his fingers dragging down your stomach to your thighs, holding them suddenly. “S-Starman,” you breathed out.

“Turn around,” he muttered, urging you to do as he asked. You nodded and quickly moved to turn your knees flush with the crook of his neck on either side of his head, but now you came face to face with his cock. You were about to say something when he wrapped his arms around your thighs, holding them down, while he pushed his face forward, his tongue taking a long lap, as he forced you down more to sit against his face as his tongue explored. You gasped out, and your attempt to buck up and off was thwarted as he held you tightly; you were exactly where he wanted you to be. You let your hands rest on his rapidly rising and falling chest; his tongue moved, exploring and writhing, aiming to bring you the most pleasure. Lapping at you, taking your taste in, how delicious he found you, how sweet you were, like honey. His hands gripped your thighs tighter, keeping you pressed down against him. You were worried about suffocating him, but then you remembered the time he mentioned he had a respiratory bypass, and you were sure if you were suffocating him, he could push you off. Your hips rocked weakly; you could see his cock twitching from need and moved one hand, leaning forward a bit.

You grabbed his length and stroked him; the angle was a bit odd, but you felt him exhale and groan against your core, his tongue teased at your dripping entrance. You let out a puff of air and made a soft sound in the back of your throat. “Feels good,” you murmured out, which elicited a nod and growled sound from him. The way his tongue moved and his mouth pressed against you, god, it was all so delightful. You leaned forward more to let your mouth get closer. You collected a fair amount of saliva and spit it against his tip, using your hand to spread it down his shaft. His hips arched and bucked against your hand; you felt him sucking against you before he moved one of his hands from your thigh down to your mound, moving his middle finger to rub circles against your clit. This new action had you writhing, and a louder groan escaped your parted lips as he pulled you back closer. You could feel the pleasure pooling in your stomach, how your muscles were tighter, and how your thighs shook a bit around his head. You felt your breaths become shorter as they were in between lower groans; you spilled the nickname from your lips like a prayer. His hand tightened on your thigh, and his finger moved in tighter, quicker circles around your clit, until you arched and all but screamed as you felt yourself push over the edge and cum against his mouth. Your body jolted, and you couldn’t help slumping forward your head on his stomach as he slowly let you go. You panted against his skin, and you felt his hands rub up the back of your thighs and against your ass, groping and massaging as you came down. You felt his cock twitch by your head, and you knew he would wait for you to come down more, but you pushed yourself up, one of your hands steadying you beside his hip. You leaned forward and took him into your mouth; this pulled a low growl from his throat. 

“You..you don’t have to." He breathed out, but you were already sucking, and letting your tongue circle the tip before you took him farther into your mouth, bobbing and stroking what wasn’t in your mouth, you felt his hips lift again, his fingers tightened against your skin as if holding on for dear life. You closed your eyes and continued; he wrapped his arms around your hips, forcing them down against his chest as he groaned out. “Mm, right, Nova, just like that.” He breathed out using the affectionate pet name he used for you, His Nova; that was the only nickname that mattered; it fit you perfectly, His Nova. 

You groaned against him, and he tried not to buck more, but your mouth just felt too good. “I’m close,” he breathed out, a warning so you could choose what to do. You didn’t take your mouth away, but let your tongue flatten against him, feeling his needy twitch. How he tensed up, he muttered something in Gallafreyan and bucked his hips when he couldn’t stop himself, seeking deeper into your warm, wet mouth. After a moment, you felt the hot seed splatter against the back of your throat and against your tongue. You waited a moment before you sat up, swallowing what was in your mouth and wiping your mouth with the back of your hand. He lay boneless against the bed, coming down. You moved to lay next to him, wrapping your arm around him as you cuddled into his side; his hand lazily rubbed your back as he breathed. At least the lazy day would be a really lazy day now. Laying in bed, taking pleasure in each other, you knew you would order in some carb-heavy food, it was going to be a great lazy day.

★𓏧 𓏧 𓏧★ 𓏧 𓏧 𓏧★

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[tomikashii]

tokyo debunker : jabberwock boys with deaf mc

it's been awhile since i wrote headcanons, so do let me know what you think ! 💗

warning: abit of ooc (?)

haru :

found out that you were deaf when he noticed you signing to him as you speak

immediately asked if you could teach him how to sign so that he could communicate with you better 🥹

gently taps on your shoulder to greet you, after remembering that you can't hear him call for you 😭😭 (this happened a few times)

sometimes worries about you when you are helping out in jabberwock because you can't hear the anomalies sneak up on you

so he will purposely give you tasks that will be on his line of vision so that he can come and save you if anything happens ☝🏻

would get flustered when your fingers touch his when you show him how to sign words

towa :

it took you awhile to realise that he wasn't really talking in the day 😭 haru had to explain to you about towa's communication skills

would learn how to sign basic things but would communicate in other different ways so that you could understand what he is trying to say

basically, you are solving a puzzle.. which is him 😭

everytime he sees you, he would give you dandelions and point, indicating that he is calling for you 🥹

walk around jabberwock with you, as you help out, to protect you from the anomalies that would come charging at you, without you knowing

so if you see some random anomaly getting striked by lightning, just know it was for the best 👍🏻

ren :

how did he find out you were deaf ? when he confronted you about staring at his lips when he speak with flustered cheeks. (haru to the rescue to explain to the confused, embarrassed boy)

did he feel bad ? yes. will he do something about it ? no, he just went on with his day 😭😭😭 (let's be real, he doesn't care)

would he learn how to sign? no. but, he would communicate with you by typing on his phone or directly show you what he wants you to do.

he would keep interactions with you to a minimum, but lowkey somehow ends up being friends with you when you offered to join his guild.

abit disappointed that you can't watch movies with him but was surprised that you insisted to watch with him 🥲 he would occasionally look over to you & explain what was happening over text

as much as he hate doing work around jabberwock, i feel he might help out with your tasks & get mad at haru for assigning you to do things around this wild safari park 💀

refer to my masterlink pinned on my blog for the other houses ! 💓