#stupid real estate listings

[hometoursandotherstuff]

What the Hell House. Hurry if you want this bargain 1925 fixer upper, b/c it's only been on the market for over 1,018 days. (It's the wavy house behind the SUV.) Located in South Ozone Park, New York, it has 3bds, 2ba, $235K.

Apparently, the listing shows better upside down.

And, then here's your side view.

What is this?

This is nice.

Terrible repair.

Nice upside down living room.

This looks like a sideways home office.

Upstairs landing.

Bath #1, both views.

Bedroom?

Hallway.

Second kitchen.

What even is this? Seriously, they could've turned these pictures around.

[juliasgoodusername]

Sometimes a girl has to go a little crazy. Sometimes a girl has to make a book-accurate floorplan for 300 Fox Way. These things just happen, sometimes.

Obsessive annotations under the cut ✨ but be warned, there's a LOT

Exterior

Okay first of all, I'm no architect, and my only knowledge comes from work experience in the real estate industry + a lot of Sims. The style is sort of neo-rural French colonial. I didn't set out to adhere to that standard so much as I made an amalgamation of homes in Blue Ridge Mountains-adjacent towns in Virginia. Specifically, my headcanon Henrietta template is Orange, VA (I'll save that explanation for another post) so I took inspiration from real estate listings from there.

Alright alright I know there is supposed to be one bathroom, but I simply can't tolerate that in a house with 6+ residents. I can't. There was a possible contradiction in the descriptions of "the single shared bathroom" that I used as an excuse to add a 3/4 bath, and I threw in a powder room for free. Because technically there is still only one full bathroom! But seriously with that many women over 30 most of them probably have IBS or chronic constipation and I'm not making them all share a toilet.

Officially we only have 4 bedrooms listed in text: Blue's, Persephone's, Maura's, and Calla and Jimi's shared one. Everyone else gets rooms that don't qualify as bedrooms via Virginia residential building codes (such as the attic, obviously, which falls below the combined ceiling height and square footage requirements). That really just leaves Orla unaccounted for but I'll get to that later. Other aunts and friends seem to visit during the day and live somewhere else, because in The Raven King only Jimi and Orla were described as needing to move out of the house during the demon stuff.

I designed the entire interior floorplan before I even touched the exterior, so there's a few issues, like how I'm totally missing shutters on the windows that functionally need them most. 🫶 I didn't feel like making the windows smaller to fit them, and I could have added faux-shutters but I think those are stupid. 😘

First floor

"This house is lovely. So many walls. So, so many walls," Malory said as Blue entered the living room a little later.

- Blue Lily, Lily Blue, Chapter 30

Right off the bat, we have an insane number of doors and walls. Old colonial houses are pretty much the opposite of open concept. Functionally I believe that's because it's easier to control heat with closed off rooms, but Virginia is not particularly cold so idk. As for the number of doors, I mean....😤😤😤 I prefer archways/doorless frames in small high-traffic spaces, but every time I thought I could get away with it Maggie would specifically describe doors opening and closing (For example BL,LB Ch 41 gives the reading room double doors, and even the living room gets one in Ch 11. What kind of living room needs a door???). I'm actually missing one of the doorways described in canon, but if you know which one I'm talking about I DARE you to find a place to put that thing!! But I digress.

“Mom," she said as she jumped down the crooked stairs.

- The Raven Boys, Chapter 3

I'm liberally using "crooked" to establish the corner turn stairs. Blue steadies herself on the stair railing when she identifies Gansey for the first time (TRB Ch 15), so I wanted the stairs to have good visual access to visitors. It also sort of has a feng shui-ish effect of separating the public and private energy zones in the house. If that statement made zero sense, I think one of us doesn't know enough about feng shui 👀 and it might be me.

I'm also using that quote to establish Maura's room downstairs, if Blue generally expects to find her mother there, but mostly because everything else was upstairs and it was getting hard to fit. Granted, at one point Blue leads the boys "up the stairs to Maura's bedroom" (TDT Epilogue) but since they were just arriving at 300 Fox Way those stairs could easily be the outdoor ones. There's a handful of little things to support me here, such as Adam grabbing a scrying bowl from Maura's room to use in the reading room (BL,LB Ch 41) implying that her room was the closest place to find one. And speaking of Maura's room-

Calla was overwhelmed by how much shit Maura had in her room at 300 Fox Way, and she told Blue this.

... The mess was taking years from her life. ... Maura liked chaos.

... The psychic hotline rang in the room next door. Calla's concentration fluttered away.

- Blue Lily, Lily Blue, Prologue

Maura is my favorite hypocrite. She claims to detest clutter (TRB Ch 34) and yet her room is literally described as chaos. She probably treats her room like a college student and moves the furniture every time she gets bored/stressed. Thus, I gave her the most insane furniture configuration I could think of while still matching all the contents described.

The phone ringing next door might imply that she neighbors the phone/sewing/cat room, but that area is pretty well described and Maura's room is never mentioned there in any other instance. That leaves us with the kitchen phone (TRB Ch 27) which I put in the hallway with kitchen access as a compromise so it would technically still be in a room next to Maura's.

In the reading room, the man looked around with clinical interest. His gaze passed over the candles, the potted plants, the incense burners, the elaborate dining room chandelier, the rustic table that dominated the room, the lace curtains, and finally landed on a framed photograph of Steve Martin.

- The Raven Boys, Chapter 13

There are so many quotes about the reading room that I just don't feel like citing them, but other details include the mismatched chairs, the shelves, doors etc. It's also described specifically as Maura's "front room" (TRB Prologue) so it's one of the cornerstones that I designed the rest of the layout around. Because of the plants, it makes sense that this room would be south-facing too. (Although idk how much light they get with the wraparound porch awning in the way. Oops lol!)

The outside suddenly seemed vivid in comparison to the dim kitchen. The April-bright trees pressed against the windows of the breakfast area, ...

- The Raven Boys, Chapter 3

Blue Stormed into 300 Fox Way's kitchen and began a one-sided interrogation with Artemus, who was still hidden behind the closed storage closet door.

- The Raven King, Chapter 9

Likewise, I'm using the particularly dim kitchen to place it on the north side, where we also know there's trees in the backyard.

I'll say the kitchen layout is weirder than it strictly needed to be because in the Virginia homes I referenced I adored all the strange kitchens, especially with old timey 'servants area' vibes where laundry kitchen and pantry are all connected. Instead of a kitchen island, they get one of those rolling kitchen carts which I doubled as a bar cart for the drinks they have in the living room.

The kitchen has a doorway to the hall (TRB Ch 13) and the living room is within view when Blue's on the kitchen phone (Ch 27).

Speaking of chapter 27, that's when we get the description "The morning light through the windows turned the drinks a brilliant, translucent yellow." So I put the living room on the east side of the house, where the rising sun would cast really strong light like that.

Second Floor

When she woke up, her normally morning-bright room had the breath-held dimness of afternoon. In the next room over, Orla was talking to either her boyfriend or to one of the psychic hotline callers.

- The Raven Boys, Chapter 3

Blue headed toward the red-painted door at the end of the hall. On her way, she had to pass the frenzy of activity in the Phone/Sewing/Cat Room and the furious battle for the bathroom. The room behind the red door belonged to Persephone, ...

- The Raven Boys, Chapter 11

Blue's room and the Phone/Sewing/Cat room are our cornerstones for this floor. In several examples we know that the Phone/Sewing/Cat room faces the street and has a window (TRB Ch 15, BL,LB Ch 4). While Blue's room is "morning-bright," we also get descriptions of guests at the front door "backlit by the evening sun," (TRB Ch 15) so once again we're probably talking about south windows if it's sunlit at both times of day.

Adam sat awkwardly on the edge of Blue's bed. It felt strange to have so easily gained access to a girl's bed- room. If you knew Blue at all, the room was unsurprising - canvas silhouettes of trees stuck to the walls, leaves hanging in chains from the ceiling fan, a bird with a talk bubble reading WORMS FOR ALL painted above a shelf cluttered with buttons and about nine different pairs of scissors. Against the wall, Blue self-consciously taped up the drooping branch on one of the trees.

- The Dream Thieves, Chapter 49

We get some great descriptions of Blue's room (especially TRB Ch 43), although the above one is my favorite (#wormsforall). Every piece of furniture is accounted for exactly as described except the desk which I added because it seemed practical, and Blue is nothing if not practical™.

Persephone's room is also very well-described, all the way down to the furniture and lighting placement (BL,LB Ch 4 and TRB Ch 11) and it's surprisingly similar to Blue's room, if not a bit smaller. Her room gets strong afternoon sunlight, so I put it on the south too (BL,LB Ch 43).

Calla and Jimi share a room that's also upstairs (TRK Ch 16). Because they are the only two who have to share a room, I have justified that it must be the "master bedroom" (sorry for using that term) and is far bigger than the other bedrooms. I managed to fit two queen beds in there, but some scholars [me] would argue that Jimi and Calla might also share a bed because they are in love. Can you prove me wrong? No, you can't.

As for the bathroom, remember when I mentioned a possible contradiction? Famously, Maura draws the ley line symbol in the steamed up shower door (TRB Ch 1). However, much later we get Maura, Orla, Calla and Jimi all sitting in the bathtub for some kind of ritual (TRK Ch 9). No matter how I picture it, I can't put 4 full grown women in a bathtub together without someone partially sitting on/spilling over the side. But that would be impossible in a combo bath/shower enclosed by glass doors!! Thus, I gave The Bathroom a nice tub and put a small shower in the en suite of Jimi and Calla's room. I know this is a stretch but I don't really care.

Attic

Blue had never been a big fan of the attic, even before Neeve moved in. Numerous slanting roof lines provided dozens of opportunities to hit your head on a sloping ceiling. Unfinished wood floorboards and areas patched with prickly plywood were unfriendly to bare feet. Summer turned the attic into an inferno.

... In one of the narrow dormers, two full-length, footed mirrors faced each other, reflecting mirrored images back and forth at each other in perpetuum.

- The Raven Boys, Chapter 34

Trying to fit the attic access in after everything in the second floor was my biggest challenge, because stairs normally take up a lot of space and you have to be careful about head room. I'm the end, I decided it was one of those fold out attic doors that you have to reach from the ceiling of the hallway. We might get a lot of instances of the attic door being opened (😤 seriously, Maggie... 😤) but technically a trap door in the ceiling is still a door!

Dormers pretty much cemented the French colonial style for me. And you know the drill by now: a hot room probably means a lot of sun, which means I give it a south facing window!

Mud Room/Cellar/Basement

This cellar has absolutely zero mention in the text, but my justification is based in the architecture. So far we've got a funky old colonial house, built without a garage, lots of walls etc. Especially in a low-income/semi-rural area, it's not crazy to assume that 300 Fox Way was built before most residents had refrigerators (1930s-40s). Besides iceboxes, a major way to keep food fresh was root cellars. Modern renovations for old homes convert these to concrete basements, but that's why the basement is so small and connects to the kitchen.

My headcanon is that Orla originally shared a room. Pick whoever you want: Maura, Blue or Persephone, any of them would easily be such a chaotic roommate that Orla snapped and in a fit of teen girl rage moved herself down to the crummy dark basement. Over time, she made efforts to glamorize it, such as a vintage dressing screen to hide the flood drainage pump. The privacy also allows her to bring boyfriends over, even sneaking them through the mud room.

This is really just my artistic license, but I swear it makes a surprising amount of sense in context. There's cases of Orla sneaking into the kitchen (easier if she has a back entrance) and she's almost always using the phone upstairs or in the kitchen (because a basement would get bad reception) even though her calls get kinda ~intimate.

Aaaaaand I think that's everything. Sorry it doesn't look like the photo from the wiki at all, but I couldn't find a source for it and Victorian style wasn't super common in the areas I researched. Let me know if I missed anything major! I'll probably cry myself to sleep if so.

[demonzoro]

none of this is proofread but here's my ideal modern au for the goth fam. wall of text incoming, sky is blue, etc.

mihawk: World's Most Reluctant College Professor. history/archaeology. reluctantly employed because his place of residence (half-wrecked castle) is owned by the university and one of the terms for him to live there for free is to teach classes. initially hired as a publicity stunt that petered out. actual respected swordsman in the modern age but the reality is "swordsman" is... not very lucrative. really important to me that he is forcibly employed while having gigantic unemployed energy.

his ass is not showing up to a lecture hall unless under extreme duress (shanks showing up to his place unannounced again🙄). fully aware his papers are only taken as a credit filler (robin lectures the papers that are more practically applicable). almost exclusively "teaches" by emailing out reading lists and assignments. actively trying to get his students to drop his paper so he can do fuck-all for the rest of the year.

zoro: phys ed major. he's so serious about his main courses as well as mihawk's stupidly niche paper. probably the first person the "Dracule Mihawk Teaches Here!" publicity stunt has worked on in years. has trouble with the heavy focus of book-smarts this paper requires but powers through it best he can until mihawk sets some indecipherable tome as part of a reading list and zoro is like. okay. you leave me no choice.

he fully shows up on mihawk's doorstep at 9:44PM on a tuesday night brandishing this tome. mihawk answers the door because he is two bottles into his wine.

zoro, furious that this piece of shit tome has no audiobook alternative: this. YOU. explain. NOW. mihawk: a student. at my doorstep. did shanks blab to you. zoro: your address is publicly listed as a minor tourist attraction. mihawk (<- didn't know that): hm. come in.

zoro is treated to a full drunk history session and the supermarket gift wine mihawk has been avoiding but accidentally opened. he wakes up the next morning and zoro is still there in one of the guest rooms. he's like what are you doing here and zoro is like. i don't have a whole day to waste getting back to my dorm i need to do your assignment.

mihawk, fully aware the dorms should only be a max twenty minute walk away: interesting. get out.

safe to say, zoro thinks visiting mihawk's home is easier than emailing him. which is true in some ways since mihawk takes small joys in putting unread emails straight into trash.

perona: fashion major OBVIOUSLY. really interested finding vintage/archival sewing patterns/designs and modernising them. LOVES using essays as outlets for her rants. blase on everything else in life but takes her course so seriously. HATES zoro ever since he almost made her fail an assignment because he had checked out a book she needed and held it for fucking aaages.

similarly zoro hates perona bc she almost made him fail an assignment by hogging the only lightbox on this side of the campus that makes it possible to read some of the archival material mihawk puts on his impossible reading lists.

zoro gets lost in mihawk's castle and meets perona in-person for the first time outside of a name on a booking sheet and they have a huge stupid argument. zoro storms off and accidentally finds mihawk again this way and he's doubly mad because he can't believe mihawk has been chasing him away all this time while letting another student just live in the east wing.

mihawk (<- didn't know that): there's a what.

turns out perona just said "umm dorm fees? rent? in this economy? there's a wrecked castle 20mins away from campus it's free real estate". and she's right. she also finds out mihawk has staff access to archival materials not readily open to students and she immediately whips out a wishlist.

anyways i imagine perona graduates and becomes a fashion designer. zoro decides booksmarts is not for him and drops out to focus fully on a professional athlete career or make his way as a stuntman. models for perona on occasion. mihawk fully quits his job after those two leave bc they were the only ones in years that made it interesting. retires but robin recommends him as a consultant to the museum society and he does some work there. ALWAYS calls zoro or perona if he's restoring smthng cool he thinks they would love.

jfc are you still here. i kiss you on the lips

[awrkive]

r we getting tlp3 anytime soon 😖😖😖

anon asked: Could you please give us a little tiny spoiler about tlp pt.3?🥹🫶🏻

hi first anon! no i dont think i can give u guys a date yet. im actually currently joining an architectural competition at uni so thats keeping me a bit busier than usual, but i am writing tlp 3 during my breaks so ... thats that. ANYWHO. i will make sure to update u guys when its ready to be out!

anyways, to second anon. a tiny spoiler under the cut proceed if u wanna.. 🤓

You’re pretty much drained the moment you arrive at your place.

Sighing heavily, you punch in the passcode and almost feel your knees buckling at the sight of the interior of your apartment when the door opens.

It feels like it’s been so long since you’ve been here, and coupled with the discussion that you had with Doyeon two days ago, everything suddenly feels overstimulating and there’s a certain burn at the sides of your eyes that urges you to cry. 

Swallowing the lump in your throat, you breathe in and out as you enter the threshold, noting the fact that anybody is not home. Or Jungkook isn’t present anywhere in the living room. You’re a bit grateful for that if you have to be honest to yourself – after all, the last time that you talked to him, it did not exactly go as well as you’d like. 

He could be in his room, though. That’s what you assume as you go straight over to the kitchen in hopes to heat up the take-out that you bought at the driveway. But the to-go container from Chipotle at the island catches your attention, as well as the laptop that is left open beside it. 

So Jungkook is home. 

The question is, where could he possibly be, leaving out his stuff here in the kitchen? Might be in his bedroom to grab something real quick? 

You don’t mean to do the next thing that comes to your mind, but your feet – your stupid feet – track back from the microwave to the island, and your eyes betray you as they go look and read the words on Jungkook’s macbook. 

The tab that's left open shows an apartment listing website, and the following tabs beside it are some familiar real-estate names you’ve come to visit on the internet before when you were looking for a place yourself.

It makes you freeze in your spot, eyes glued to the daunting images of the apartment layout that Jungkook must’ve clicked on awhile ago, and you take note that he’s seemingly, specifically, looking for one-bedroom and studio apartments. 

Your mind goes into a sudden haywire at the sight. 

What does this mean? 

“Oh, hey,”

The embodied voice makes your head snap to its direction, and you see Jungkook standing in front of you in his sweats and shirt – his usual home clothes – with a charger in his hand. 

“Jungkook.” You say, or more like, breathe out. There's a heavy feeling that sits in your heart when you look at his face – but most of all, it beats a little above normal.

But Jungkook looks just as surprised as you. 

“I… I didn’t know you’re coming ho– back.” He says, and you feel a sudden twinge inside that you ignore when you caught him pointedly avoiding the word home when pertaining to your place. Somehow, it felt intentional.

But you give him a smile. Probably a weak one. Probably doesn’t really look like a smile at all and more like a grimace.

If Jungkook notices, he doesn’t say anything. Just goes straight to the direction of the high chairs on the island and plug in his charger on his laptop. 

Then, he turns to look at you. “Uh.. you just got off from your shift?” 

“Uhm, yeah. You too?” You say, nibbling your bottom lip with your teeth. A nervous habit. 

“Nah, got off a few hours ago.” 

“Oh. Okay.” 

“Yeah.” 

You nod your head. You stand there for a while, letting the silence that’s admittedly awkward hang in the air. 

It’s weird, really. Jungkook and you usually have a lot to say to each other – but right now, there doesn’t seem to be a single thing that you can bring up.

There's a certain kind of melancholy in the case. 

“Well, uhm. That’s Zillow.” You say, pointing to his laptop. The moment the words left your lips you swear you could have slapped yourself. 

How stupid to ask him about it. How incredibly stupid for that thing to be your choice of topic after weeks of no proper communication with him. 

Jungkook seems just as taken aback by this, though, turning his head immediately to look at his laptop. There’s a slight jerk in his movements when he glides his fingers across the trackpad that closes the entire window of the internet and shows his PC wallpaper instead. 

“Oh. Yeah. That was… Zillow.” 

Stupid, stupid you makes everything even more awkward when you say, “You’re looking for a place?” 

Jungkook stares at you for awhile. There’s a pregnant pause, and then he nods his head. A bit hesitant. But his voice is full when he speaks. 

“Yeah.” 

So he’s moving out. That’s what you think as you avoid looking at his face, letting your gaze fall back on his laptop.

You give him a small smile. 

“Ah. Good luck with the search, then.”

Your hope you hide the way your heart completely breaks when you say the words. 

[newtonsheffield]

Oh, Molly, they get a house together to raise the baby? This is so sweet! Can we see more of it? Also, just wanna say I am completely obsessed with florist kate and tattooist anthony!

Anthony does really want to buy a house for them to raise the baby in.

He has a one bedroom flat that Kate moved into when they moved in together and shortly after, they got Newton and it just really feels like Anthony’s outgrown this flat a little, that their relationship has outgrown this place.

Not only that, but Anthony wants to prove that he can provide for Kate and their child. He knows it sounds a little stupid, and old fashioned but he wants to prove to Kate and her family that he can provide for his family. That he was a good choice in partner. Even though their daughter’s pregnant after less than a year together, he’s a responsible guy. He makes a decent wage, and he’s from a family that’s… actually quite well off, and he wants to make a home for his family.

And he wants to do it before the baby arrives because he wants to give Kate, and himself, the opportunity to get ready for the baby in their home. Give them the opportunity to nest, and paint the nursery and get things organized. So he’s seriously house hunting! He has a list of things that he keeps bothering the real estate agent with. Driving poor Janine to distraction, actually. She’s not even sure the commission is worth it.

[pseudophan]

help the Twitter phannies are creating nonexistent problems again. literally why would they title an entire video “partial kitchen reveal” if they didn’t want to/knowing that people want to see their house to a certain extent 😭

i think some people struggle to separate them teasing us and them being actually upset by something we say/do. the way i see it, they're not gonna joke about things that Genuinely bother them, like enough for them to want us to not do it. there's a reason they haven't joked about the vday vid for example, cause that's one of the things they'd actually rather we stfu about. but things like zooming in on their pictures to see what their house looks like and freaking out over them touching is just not that deep lmao they're mocking us for it cause it IS stupid but they also know they're just adding fuel to the fire

also in regards to trying to figure out the layout of their house, whilst yeah a little creepy i suppose in the sense that it's their private space, isn't as big of a deal this time cause it's not something you can really use to find their address or whatever. as in, in the past people would compare their apartment layouts to old real estate listings and get their address, which is something that happens to a loooot of vloggers and others who share their house online, but this time they purchased it before it was done and decided the layout for themselves so there's not gonna be any floorplans online to compare them to. if that makes any sense at all. just thought i'd point that out in case anyone was worried about their address leaking because of this specifically

[angel-of-the-moons]

V .......

Vampire! Anselm x Reader thots™ up in this bitch

Some NSFW shit under the cut, enjoy the random brainrot I just got

Big mansion with heavily tinted windows, private jets with black out curtains, yachts they ride to see meteor showers together.

They have those big extravagant parties, nobody thinks anything of it. All they're doing is picking through their "associates" to see who is the one they need the least and pull them to a dark corner and drink their fill..... Or they bring in somebody who siphoned funds into their own accounts from their estate.... Makes a spectacle of draining him dry as a warning--

V!Anselm totally gets a hard on when he sees you covered in blood I don't make the rules

Even if y'all have been together for centuries or one year, the man is still a horny little shithead for you, and being alive for so long has definitely allowed his kink list to be exponentially longer than most since being exposed to the Internet.

Sometimes during those public feedings of the stupid little fuck-ups who steal from him, Anselm will ravage the shit outta you in the middle of the party (unless you're not into it, that is, you are his Queen of The Night and he would never disrespect you and make you uncomfortable, the man would rip out his own fangs, first)

Really likes it when you decide to seduce™ him. Pour a glass of wine/blood down your body and he will be on his knees to lap it all up.

Would also un-ironically dress as Dracula for Halloween-themed parties/balls.

"What? It's thanks to Bram Stoker so many people now only believe us to be pure fiction, giving us leeway to exist in the public eye. Why not honor his character? What? Yes, yes, I know he was based on Vlad Țepeș, I was there--"

"Believe it or not, I think I have a cousin who is descended from the real count... I should invite them to one of our parties."

"Why am I not surprised?"

Would totally shoot glares at you if you make him to the "Bleh bleh bleh" thing from Hotel Transylvania, but would do it just to make you laugh. Your voice is like the most addicting thing he could ever have as an immortal.

Despite being an immortal vampire, he has those scars from an assassination attempt; exposing him to the sun and permanently damaging him.

If anything, surviving the sun only served to empower his image more. A powerful man who survived the dreaded sunlight; came out scarred and killed his would-be assassins himself.

V!Anselm will occasionally hold his arm under a beam of sunlight to intimidate those in his business meetings.

He'd feel bad about it later, however, but only in private with you once you expressed your concern as you let him feed from you to replenish his strength. You always do that when he goes "overboard" as you put it; the closeness and intimacy of letting him feed from you instead of a blood bag or some useless employee helped soothe and reassure you that he was all right.

And speaking of feeding from you... It almost always winds up with him inside of you or vice versa in some way... Feeding from one another is one of the most intimate acts a loving couple could do; drinking each other's essence just reaffirms the bonds between you.

And if you guys have a little brood? Oh, the man is unstoppable.

If any children you have are half-vampire because you haven't been turned yet? If they're unharmed by the sun? A testament to the Vogelweide name; his lineage will live on no matter what.

However, if you're still human, Anselm will insist on turning you. Especially when he discovered that someone tried to wound him by attempting to slip something like poison into one of your meals. (Vampires have better senses, Anselm could smell the tainted food even if you couldn't. You never did find out exactly what happened to that guy...)

[thatbadadvice]

Help! The Ungrateful Youths of Today Don't Appreciate the Value of Anything, and by 'Anything' I Mean the Worthless Shit I Am Trying to Sell Them

Ask A Manager, 12 May 2023:

Several years ago I was frustrated with the way people went about looking for jobs. I’m a small business owner and even before running my own company, I always networked. Through networking I’ve managed to do so much. Today I run six networking groups. Again, several years ago I created a t-shirt designed to network for you. It lists various fields, each with a checkbox by it, and comes with a small sharpie so you can check off the type of job or career you desire. By wearing the t-shirt everywhere you go, it starts the job seeking conversation. I marketed them inexpensively to college grads. I went to colleges, job fairs, and even graduations. Not one t-shirt sold. I was so angry. I was on popular talk shows and in the paper and still nothing. Today I sit with every size t-shirt in my garage. Many ask why I don’t still pursue this idea. They are the ones who got the idea and believe in it. Perhaps I was ahead of my time. I marketed towards college grads who texted as a main form of communication. However, today communication is even worse. Young adults can barely look someone in the eye. Please tell me what your opinion is of my t-shirts. I hoped people would wear them daily and maybe while filling their gas tank this would start a conversation that would change their lives forever. Networking will always be the way to get what you need. Referrals, physicians, mechanics, plumbers, electricians, landscapers, housekeepers, financial advisors, accountants, babysitters, trainers, real estate agents, tutors, and whatever I have missed. Am I wrong? Would my product help those unable to network?

There is one reason and one reason only that your revolutionary clothing business has failed to see the success it so clearly deserves: young people today are appallingly poor communicators who, for reasons that likely include video games and participation trophies, are actively unwilling to appreciate the awesome one-on-one human connections that can only be made by going about life wearing a t-shirt and hoping someone reads it and decides to enter into a business relationship as a result. Yes indeed, it is specifically and only the modern youths who have refused to purchase your t-shirts who are very, very poor at understanding how to build valuable and meaningful relationships with other humans. There is definitely not anybody else here who is bad at communicating.

Every single person on planet earth who is under the age of, say, 25, lacks the foresight and vision to appreciate the radically lucrative possibilities of wearing the same t-shirt every day every single place they go. Every single person who didn't buy one of your shirts did so because they are young and stupid and don't know a life-changing idea when they see one. But you do! Because you are old and smart, which are the same thing.

After all, you are great at networking and have managed to do incredible things as a result of your great networking skills, such as running six networking groups. If that's not proof positive that networking works, what is?

The only way to know for sure whether your shirts will help poor communicators understand exactly how bad they are at connecting with others may be to try your product out for yourself.

[illicitlimerence-writes]

guiding lights | m. verstappen

pairing: max verstappen x singer!actress!reader word count: 1.7k words request: nope, at least i don’t think so. prompt: putting up decorations ⎯ “wow… that’s… a lot of lights.” from this prompt list. not my prompts, credits to the person who created it! warnings: allusions to sex, language, idk what else a/n: am i ready to jump back into a month-long challenge? nope, but i will try my best. i have tomorrow’s fic ready but i’m not too sure i’ll be able to complete this lol. friendly reminder that my requests are closed!

my masterlist / this is part of the 'superheroes and flat caps' series. find all the parts here! / 25 days of christmas masterlist

she sighed, dropping her luggage once she opened the door, leaning her weight against it to close it as she entered her home. the house was cold, and dark. not even the light in the kitchen was on, which dropped her spirits a little.

it was officially the start of her winter holidays, max’s had started a week prior, -technically two, but he’d had other events that first week - which meant he’d been all alone in their house for a week, bored out of his mind with no company or distractions other than his simulator, netflix, or their daily videochats. 

during those last ones, she’d insisted he visited some of his friends, or invited them into their new home, but he refused, said she was supposed to be there to welcome guests, too. it was their first official home, and max couldn’t take all the credit for scoring such a great place like that. their new house was big, spacious, without being too much. she’d drawn a line when the real estate agent showed them a house with not one but two jaccuzis, in the backyard, besides a really large pool. she could see max was really, actually contemplating it, but she shook her head and muttered ‘uh-uh,’ her eyes open in a way that said ‘don’t even think about it.’ 

so, max was really taking the word ‘vacation’ literally. doing absolutely nothing but sit on the couch and watch movies - a few big releases he’d missed during the year-, and yell at the tv whenever a character did something stupid. he was living his best life.

meanwhile, she was working hard, finishing her new album, planning release dates and other marketing strategies ahead of the new year. and once everything was planned, she was more than eager, ready, to go home.

although this welcome wasn’t what she’d had in mind when she thought of finally coming home to max. it seemed that he’d finally listened to her advice and had gone out of the house, for once. she couldn’t be upset about it, max wasn’t someone that took solitude easily, he enjoyed being around people, although he didn’t express it verbally most of the time. 

she turned on the lights as she made her way in, grabbing her suitcase and walking to the washing room, making a mental note to wash all of her stuff the following day. after that, she walked further into the house, and couldn’t help but smile, a soft, content sigh leaving her lips as she took in the fact that this was theirs. not just hers, or max’s, but theirs. they’d jumped into this adventure together, and it still didn’t feel real.

a thud coming from upstairs caught her attention, she frowned as she heard another sound, like something had fallen. she rushed to a closet, where max kept his golf clubs, and grabbed one, soundlessly walking up the steps. there was an open door, the third room to the right, what they’d decided would be max’s space. she got closer, trying to peek her head in, and just at that second, max came out of the room.

she yelled, both in shock and surprise, which caused max to do the same.

“why are you holding a club?!” he yelled/asked, making her drop the object to the floor.

“i thought you were a burglar!” she ran her hand through her hair, feeling her heartbeat quickening, “i saw all the lights out and thought you were out somewhere,” she closed her eyes and placed a hand on her chest, catching her breath.

“jesus,” max’s chest was heaving, and they both stood there for a few seconds, recovering from the scare, and once that had passed, she jumped straight in his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist, he turned, placing her back against the wall for support, and looked her in the eyes, saying the words he’d been waiting for since he got to monaco, “welcome home.”

she smiled, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and pulling him close, she buried her face in his neck, breathing in his scent and relaxing under his touch. one of his hands found its way to her hair, he tilted his head and placed a kiss to her neck as he curled his fingers around her hair.

“did you finish the song?” he asked, there was one song left in the album that was not ready yet. and she was okay with it not being in the album, she wanted to perfect it, no matter how long it took. ‘you are in love’ was being a pain in her ass, but this song felt too special, too important for them, for their relationship. 

“not yet.” she sighed, “i guess you’ll just have to do more romantic things for me.” she chuckled.

max stilled for a second, before laughing as well, kissing her again as he led her to their room.

-

after catching up (and making up for lost time), a forgotten thought ran through her mind.

“hey, what were you doing in your office earlier? when i came in?” she asked, looking up at him, her chin resting on his chest, fingers playing with the gold chain hanging from his neck.

“oh!, i was getting something i needed,”

“for what?”

“something.”

“and what’s that something?” she raised an eyebrow.

“a surprise, for you. but it’s not ready yet. actually, i should go finish,” he said, gently cupping her chin and lifting her from his chest, he got up from the bed, putting on clean boxers and sweatpants, and throwing a hoodie on. 

“maxwell?” she called for him, max chuckled, it always humored him how she’d find different names to call him when she was annoyed at him, “you’re not seriously leaving me like this, right now,” she held the sheets up to her chest, watching him look back with a smile on his face. 

“i’ll be right back.” he declared.

“max!”

“you’ll like it, i swear!”

“payback’s a bitch!” she reminded him, falling down on the bed, staring at the ceiling.

“i’ll be waiting for it, then. i’ll come back for you when it’s ready!” she heard his voice getting lower as he walked down the stairs, getting farther away from her.

-

she took her time alone to take a warm shower, doing her extended skincare routine, noticing how some of her products were less ful than what she remembered from the last time she was home. she chuckled at the thought of max experimenting with her products, applying the creams and serums to his face as his thought process told him to. 

“it’s done!” max said as he walked in the room, his head whipping around as he looked for her. “baby?” he asked.

“bathroom!” she said, and turned her head to look at him as she finished washing her hands. 

“you stole my hoodie,” he noticed.

“what happened to ‘what’s mine is yours’?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“there’s not a ring on my finger yet,” he said, making her laugh.

“there’s not one on mine either. better treat me right if you want me to stay,” she teased, “you’ve got points off for leaving me like that.”

“oh, but this will make up for it, i swear.”

“hm, that’s up to me to decide.”

he grabbed her hand, bringing her close to him, his free hand found her cheek, pressing his lips against hers, she responded softly, sliding an arm on his waist, curling her fingers on the fabric of his sweatshirt. her other hand reached inside his hoodie, grabbing the chain and seeing the small charm again, a smile on her face as she remembered the moment she saw it for the first time.

“no persuading me,” she tapped his nose, “now show me.”

he grabbed her hands, leading her out of the room and down the stairs, meanwhile he spoke.

“so i know this is our second christmas together, but it’s our first in our new home, and we have to make it special, right?” he asked, waiting for her to agree.

“right,” she said warily, not knowing where this was headed.

“we’ll need to get a lot more decorations compared to what we had last year, we have so much space here. anything you want. and i know you looove sparkles, so-” he said, leaving her through the sliding door, out into the garden, where everything she could see was warm glowing light.

little lights everywhere. and i mean, everywhere. 

around the trunks of the trees, all along the edge of the pool, the chairs and the roof of the house. even a few christmas trees made completely out of lights.

“wow, that’s… a lot of lights,” she whispered, overwhelmed by the amount of lights everywhere she looked.

“yeah, they’re to guide you home,” he said cheesily, a sly smile on his face. it was meant to be a joke, but she grinned at him, loving how open max had become to express his love for her, to her.

she hugged him, wrapping her arms around him so tight that max huffed out a little, before placing his arms around her shoulders and placing a kiss to the top of her head. 

“you know… when i said about doing more romantic things… i didn’t mean like right now. not that i’m complaining but-”

“i know. i just… i don’t know, i feel like since this is out first christmas and other holidays here, i think we should go all out.”

“that’s alright, we can do that.” she nodded, turning her head around, her eye catching a different kind of glimmer. the chain hanging from his neck, the charm with her initial on it, seemed to sparkle, reflecting the lights all around them as he moved. he grabbed her hands, taking a step back and twirled her around. she chuckled, not expecting the movement. she came back to him, placing a hand on his chest as he pulled her close. he started swaying, his free hand meeting her waist. and they slow danced under the moonlight, and all the christmas lights. “thank you. i love it.”

“you’re very welcome,” he smiled, kissing the side of her temple. 

“you’re paying the electric bill this month and next, though,” she made it clear.

“yup, i figured.” he laughed.

“we can start decorating tomorrow,” she declared.

[mythserene]

I got a message I figured I would try to answer out here because updating my less-informed, earlier Lewisohn musings has been on my To Do list for a while.

From anonymous:

I am enjoying your Lewisohn analysis. Do you think he has taken a bribe from the Lennon estate to play down J&Y’s heroin addiction? I can think of no other reason he would lie about this. He is obviously aware how stupid it makes him look.

Thank you for the question, anonymous. Back in October when I first started publicly posting about Mark Lewisohn I knew a lot less about him and hadn't been able to form any sort of picture about what happened between him and Paul/Apple. Or the ongoing and seemingly increasing enmity between he and Paul (+ the Beatles' families), or the anger that seems to be almost boiling over in Lewisohn these past few years.

And for what it's worth—as far as I can understand—even Yoko has locked Lewisohn out. Apple is a unified front on this one.

I do not think that anyone has gotten to Lewisohn to make him say these things, or even that he is aware that he looks stupid. I think that Beatles' fans are extremely straight-laced in the best way, and that the habit of trusting someone like Lewisohn dies hard. Until AKOM's Fine Tuning series I'm not aware of anyone ever putting forward a concerted challenge to even his most extreme narratives. The voluminous word count of the book and the simple fact of all those citations lulled most people into complacency. Until Fine Tuning no one had looked further, or if they did they were shy about stating it. People in the Beatles' community are afraid of criticizing Lewisohn, and I've heard that again and again these past few months. But AKOM went for it, made a persuasive case, and opened the floodgates. (And gave me an opportunity and an outlet for the problems I had been finding, and supported me. Phoebe and Daphne are the only reason you're reading this.)

Back to the question.

First of all, I think that Lewisohn genuinely idolizes John, and I think he is fanatically committed to the narrative of John-as-demigod. And I tend to think that he is now perhaps more committed to his telling of the Beatles' story than even to the beliefs that undergird his narrative. But the other half of the equation that the Solomon-like part of my mind failed to accept for a long time is just how much Mark Lewisohn seems to hate Paul McCartney. And I do not use that word lightly.

When AKOM started their Fine Tuning series I was half-excited and half-nervous. I am a citations freak. I like original sources and I basically mine books and podcasts to find sources and hunt them down. I also came into the Beatles without the background that most fans have. I didn't understand the John vs Paul fight in Beatles historiography. I loved John and Paul both, for different reasons, but mostly I loved them together. What initially caught me about Tune In were all the claims that were completely unsourced, and before long I began discovering more troubling issues, but after a while I forced myself to set it aside because I was just frustrating myself and it seemed like a waste of time to argue with Mark Lewisohn on my computer.

It was Shells and Barriers that made a new thought intrude and begin to become inescapable: Mark Lewisohn must genuinely detest Paul McCartney. This was the episode I most dreaded because, well, because I was ignorant of a lot. I expected it to be the most subjective, and I have a lot of empathy for John as I am an only child who lost both parents a month apart. It makes you feel like you have no tether at all. Like you're floating in space and that any breeze might carry you off. There's no cushion and you feel exposed.

But that episode did something that I was unable to do on my own—that I didn't have the breadth of knowledge to comprehend on my own—it filled in a lot of gaps that I was unaware of. And I simply could not fathom any reason for most of how Lewisohn framed Paul's childhood besides pure loathing. Daphne's word counts are pretty incredible, too. John is jealous twice, both times of Cynthia. (+a "Jealous Guy" mention.) The numbers that stood out to me right away and have stuck in my memory were Paul being "jealous" eight times and "envious" five times = thirteen. And even beyond Lewisohn making Paul out to be completely unmoved by his mother's death and painting the aftermath as safe and comforting, it's notable that Paul is only said to be "loved" four times in the entire book, and he is only said to be loved by John. (Stu is said to be loved nine times.) I realized when I listened to that episode that my picture of Paul's relationship with Mike had been refrigerated and flattened out by Tune In, all without me noticing it. Because Lewisohn doesn't hit you over the head with things, instead he subtly and slyly frames things in a careful and deceitful way, and that framing shapes the reader's opinions.

The case of bias in his writing about John and Paul's childhoods is not easy to make, especially in the ways I like to make a case—finding discreet objective evidence that can be straightforwardly disproved—but AKOM's overall case in that episode was devastating, and there were several details that stood out to me and have stuck with me. Jim hitting Paul until Paul basically threatened to hit back as a teenager and the unnoted redaction of that in a John quote Lewisohn uses is fairly indefensible, and the choice to leave out that Jim was suicidal after Mary's death and to instead paint a picture of a loving and nurturing extended family swooping in that almost sounds better than what the boys had had before losing their mum impressed me as almost malicious when patiently laid out. And then there were a lot of smaller details that struck me. Lewisohn describes Mike as "shattered irrevocably" by Mary's death, which is contrasted with Paul's callousness. (And the way the "shattered" sentence is written it also leaves the impression that Paul wasn't that close to his mum, although Lewisohn is careful not to say that in so many words.)

Jim broke the news to the boys. Mike, who was especially close to his mother, burst into tears, a core part of him shattered irrevocably. Paul's response was less expected and not at all what Jim or anyone else wanted to hear. ... Eight years later, Mike looked back with candor on these first few days ... "Paul made some flippant remark which sounded pretty callous at the time" ...

(Emphasis mine)

Then in a Frankenquote that is half author interview, Paul is quoted as saying about both he and John losing their mothers:

“We had a bond there that we never talked about—but each of us knew that had happened to the other ... I know he was shattered, but at that age you're not allowed to be devastated, and particularly as young boys, teenage boys, you just shrug it off.”

And Dusty Durband, Paul's English Master, was quoted in Chris Salewicz's 1986 biography of Paul describing him as “shattered.”

“Paul had a bad break, his mother had died. He did go through a bit of a rough patch then. I think it shattered him a lot. Maybe it made him turn to other things like practicing his guitar...”

It's like Lewisohn is screwing with Paul by keeping that adjective away from him and even teasing him by handing it to his brother, just out of Paul's reach. I hesitate to write that because it probably sounds as extreme as some of Lewisohn's conclusions, but my Lewisohn immersion has made it seem completely logical, and in fact, almost undeniable. It's a small detail that doesn't seem that important in isolation, but even with just the context of the rest of that AKOM episode it was a piece of evidence that my mind caught and held onto. Lewisohn, by his own testimony, is a Paul watcher. He obsessively listens to, watches, and reads McCartney interviews and is forever bringing them up on podcasts, waxing on about how he understands Paul McCartney like no one else. (This is invariably followed by an example that is freakishly twisted inside Lewisohn's mind to reveal some negative aspect of Paul's character.)

I don't think that Paul and Mark Lewisohn had some great falling out. Instead what I think occurred added up to a thousand paper cuts in Lewisohn's very thin skin. He felt humiliated by Paul one too many times, and he pushed every humiliation down into his gut, coated them in bile, and remembered them.

Last November there was a Lewisohn interview in a Spanish language magazine, Jot Down, where Lewisohn tells one of these little anecdotes. They're always couched in neutral language, and he usually says how whatever happened was understandable, but the theme is the same: some perceived slight by Paul that he had to swallow in silence. (The translation is 98% Google translate. I corrected three or four pronouns that it had mistranslated, but nothing else.)

“He didn't say goodbye to me, he didn't give me a hint of grace.”

Q. I remember a television program in which Paul was asked for a detail of his own life, and he answered "ask Mark Lewisohn." LEWISOHN: Yes. It was a little weird, sometimes. On one occasion, for example, I worked with George Martin on a television documentary about Sgt. Pepper. But he also kept working with Paul. So there we were, on Abbey Road interviewing McCartney with all the equipment, the television cameras and everything else. Then the director of the documentary tells me to let him know if Paul makes a mess with any information, so that I can ask him to repeat his answer with the correct information. I sat there, hoping that I didn't have to intervene. But Paul said he had the idea of making the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band flying back from the United States. And I knew that hadn't happened like that. Let's see, I wasn't there, but I know he had the idea coming back from Nairobi. In fact, he didn't fly to the United States until Sgt. Pepper was finished. And, on the return trip, he was already thinking about the Magical Mystery Tour. I usually let these details go, they're really not that important. Except if they are recording him for a documentary about the 25 years of Sgt. Pepper that was going to be broadcast on television. So, while the cameraman was changing the movie roll, I approached the director and said "Paul was coming back from Nairobi and not from the United States when he had the idea for the album, I don't know what you want to do about it." And the director goes and releases him, "Paul, Mark says you didn't understand it well. That you didn't have the idea when you were flying back from the United States." To which Paul stared at me and replied "Yes, I did." It was a very uncomfortable, difficult and embarrassing moment when I wanted the floor to swallow me. He didn't say goodbye to me, he didn't give me a hint of grace. And I had to learn when to say something and when not to. But, in that place, my job was to say something. I was paid to say something. So I said something, and he didn't like it. Nobody likes to be corrected.

Sorry, anonymous. I wrote far more than an answer because I used your question as an excuse to get on the record an addendum and some corrections to my earlier musings, but I do not think Lewisohn has any idea of how ridiculous he sounds. He is insulated from almost all criticism and is constantly praised as a sort of Beatles' god. He worships John and wants to shape the Beatles' story to redeem him, but I also think he believes in the story that he has shaped. I think he is lost and frustrated at being locked out by Apple—and actively thwarted by them—and that has made his criticisms of Paul much more public. It's as if his new job is just going on podcasts and taking pot shots at Paul McCartney. And for Mark Lewisohn it's clear that the Holy Grail is the breakup. He is intent on recasting Allen Klein as much more of a positive force than history has given him credit for, and Lewisohn has foreshadowed a parallel between Klein and Epstein by manipulating all the evidence about Paul and Brian. He is going to cast Paul as the bad guy and John as the hero. As always. And if John and Yoko are addicted to heroin that throws his whole rewrite into chaos. He simply cannot concede that there was a real issue. John cannot be fully human. He robs John of what makes John so magnificent.

So everyone else has to be wrong.

Just for fun before I go, another narrative Lewisohn was working on putting forward in this “John was actually right” case, was rehabilitating Magic Alex. “Get Back” seemingly thwarted this line of nonsense, but after bingeing the Nagras Lewisohn was seriously pushing the idea that Magic Alex had been slandered by history and that John's judgment about him had been vindicated. It takes listening to a lot of these interviews—something that I can only do in small doses—to begin to see the fuller picture that Lewisohn was wedded to, and Magic Alex is as much a part of that as the heroin comments are. They are all of a piece.

“And they just had to get mobile gear in. So, big deal.”

In the end, I think what Mark Lewisohn means by “right” is different than what “right” means to everyone else. “Right” to Mr. Lewisohn means warped quotes that tell a fabricated story of Paul McCartney not wanting Brian Epstein as his manager. “Right” means Magic Alex being a wizard, unfairly tarnished by the lesser Beatles. “Right” means Yoko being John's artistic savior, and of a heroin addiction dreamed up by bad actors who don't understand things the way he does. A myth perpetrated by those who cannot grasp the truth. And I genuinely believe that Mark Lewisohn revels in the power of being able to take Paul McCartney's own story away from him and use it to hurt him and to hurt his legacy. To use his power over the Beatles' story to wound Paul, the way he feels that Paul wounded him. In so many interviews when Lewisohn talks about Paul he seethes. (It's quite impressive.)

And I think the thought of Lewisohn's retelling slipping away or being supplanted is a very threatening idea in his mind. I think it scares him. I think he is holding onto a delusion of his own making, and he fears that he will not be able to finish his life's work of solidifying that warped tale into historical fact.

Nothing is Real - Lewisohn seethe quick mix

[captainkirkk]

✩ WEEKLY FIC ROUND-UP ✩

All the fics I’ve read and really enjoyed in the past week-ish. Reminder: This list features any and all ratings and themes. Please read the tags and warnings before reading.

BNHA

you could have knocked me out with a feather by sahwen

"Your X-rays don’t indicate any fissures or other breaking in the skull,” his handler said as she looked over his file. She always spoke like that, as did his other handlers; the skull. Not his. Because it wasn’t his, when you got right down to it. He was a public figure. He was property. He was real estate.

And he knew what she meant when she said your x-rays don’t indicate any fissures. It meant, you’ve wasted our time. It made him sweat.

Or: Hawks gets bonked. The HPSC is not a hospital.

Stranger Things

Adopt a Jock by @sp0o0kylights

Hellfire adopts Steve during his final year of high school. Pre-Steddie. (Ongoing tumblr fic)

DC (Batfamily)

This Dark Ceiling Without a Star by Miss_Lazy_Tuesday

"For fuck’s sake, your chatter is going to drive me crazy faster than this stupid spell.”

“Then you talk!”

“There’s no point!” Jason snaps. “I can feel it, okay. It’s—there’s no emotion behind it, it’s not using my thoughts. It’s just a bunch of weird Greek echoing in my brain and a compulsion to act. And it’s getting stronger. Talking isn’t going to slow it down.”

“Then what will slow it down?”

After five long seconds of silence, Tim gives into the urge and viciously jabs his fist into Jason’s leg for the second time.

“Goddammit, why?” Jason snaps, green briefly sparking in his eyes before disappearing just as quickly.

“You are not seriously going to just sit there and wait to die.”

“The hell do you care anyway?”

“Because I don’t want you to die! Obviously!”

“You fucking should."

Marvel

status quo by jilliancares

"So, you’re investigating this not-so-bad-bad-guy, and you’re coming out of his apartment at—" Wade tilts his head to the side, just enough to check his watch “—almost exactly the time you usually start your patrol.”

Peter chews on the inside of his cheek. “Yep,” he decides on.

“And — just to be clear — I definitely shouldn’t unalive this guy instead of the douchebag across the street.”

“Definitely not,” Peter agrees. “No one would like that.”

Wade bangs his head against the fire escape again. “Okay, Webs. This one’s just to gauge if you’re smarter than a fifth grader: how much of that do you think I actually believe?"

Or: Somehow, the components of Peter’s secret identity keep crumbling all around him.

Also: He’s running out of excuses not to tell Wade that he’s in love with him.

9-1-1

Don't You (Forget About Me) by Princessfbi

"Bill, can you tell me your location? I want to send some people to make sure you’re okay. You don’t sound okay.”

“I’m not. But he’s worse off than I am. Shouldn’t you want to help him instead? Wouldn’t you want to know where he is?”

“Who is he?”

“That firefighter I buried underground.”

The long awaited buried alive fic

ATLA

All the Little Things by CSHfic, VSfic

Sokka receives an offer of an arranged marriage from the Northern Water Tribe. On the one hand, accepting would strengthen ties between their tribes. On the other hand, Chief Arnook has suggested Hahn as a potential match, and Hahn sucks. But with the future of the Southern Water Tribe Reconstruction project relying heavily on the good will of the North, Sokka doesn’t know how to say no.

(Katara doesn’t have to deal with this. Katara is dating the Avatar.)

Zuko has a solution. Sokka just wishes he’d realized he was in love with the Fire Lord before he agreed to pretend to date him.

Classroom Lessons by Thisisentertaining

Sokka never would have thought he'd be pretending to be a Fire Nation Colonial Citizen, going to a parent conference about his fake!son who was an airbender, but here he was.

At least life wasn't boring.

Sokka turned on Aang, fake mustache and beard bristling. "Young man, as soon as we get home, you're gonna get the punishment of a lifetime."

The headmaster smirked, smugly, evil-y, Fire Nation-y. "That's what I like to hear. Really Zuko him."

the snakes, and the people that they bite by Serie11

Rai is just a normal guy, really. One of the many guards that patrol the Fire Lord's palace.

Why did it have to be him who got caught up in this assassination attempt?

Finishing Each Other's Sentences by mindbending

fire lilies are red your melancholy mood’s blue still I prefer you 

After the war, Sokka starts writing poetry.

She broke your throne by Serie11

Zuko is kidnapped from his afternoon of paperwork by a well intentioned friend. There just so happens to be a festival on in town for them to attend instead of working...

[dr-spencer-reids-queen]

Pleasure Is My Business: Part One

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female!Reader

Word Count: ~2.1k

Summary: You’re brought back to your high school days with this case. You put that behind you when you graduated, but life has a funny way of bringing you closer to the person who made your life miserable back then.

Warnings: canon violence, canon language, canon talk of death, methods of kill

Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Criminal Minds. All credit goes to their respective owners. If there are any warnings that exceed the normal death/kills from the show, I will list them. If you’ve seen the show, then it’s the same level of angst unless otherwise stated

x

"The prostitute is not, as feminists claim, the victim of men, but rather their conqueror, an outlaw, who controls the sexual channels between nature and culture." - Camille Paglia

Before you leave for work, you grab the coffee you premade as soon as you wake up. The coffee is right next to your high school reunion invitation. The opened card stares at you whenever you pass by it, begging you to acknowledge it. High school was one of the worst years of your life because not only did kids bully you, but you felt their own pain as your own.

It wasn't fun.

This reunion is in a few days but you're still in Quantico. Looks like you won't get to go, and honestly, you're kind of relieved. Spencer wants you to go and prove to everyone you're this hotshot FBI agent (which you are), but you don't feel like proving to a bunch of people who never gave a fuck about you in the first place.

"Are you gonna go?" Spencer says from behind you.

"We'll, seeing how it's in a few days and we're not in Dallas, I don't think so. It's so stupid because instead of a night, they made it a whole weekend getaway. As if I want to spend more time with them than I have to."

"Maybe you can go to the other one."

All you can do is shrug. You really don't want to get into this right now, plus, you have to get ready for a case Hothc pulled together. Hotch got called to Dallas early in the morning to do a briefing on a case sent by Patrick Jackson, the attorney general.

Hoyt Ashford, a hedge fund manager for a major bank, has turned up dead in a hotel room. Hoyt didn't do too well in the public eye after going on talk shows and talking about how the real estate crisis wasn't a real thing. He posted an apology video about the issue, but once word got out that he died, his lawyers classified it as a suicide.

If you know any better, then that's not true.

According to Hotch, there was Viagra near Hoyt's body. Considering that his wife was at home with the kids, it's safe to assume the prostitute he was with killed him. Something that's confidential and not to be mentioned in any reports is that Hoyt took $10,000 out of a fund in cash. No one saw the prostitute he was with, which isn't surprising since they know how to be discreet. According to Patrick, this is the second murder in Dallas.

You might be able to attend your reunion after all.

"Female serial killers are a fascinating field," Spencer says once everyone is in the air. "We don't have much information on them, but what we do know involves throwing the rules completely out the window. Take the signature, for instance. They don't torture or take trophies because there is no sexual gratification when a woman kills. Murder is the goal. They don't have to do anything extra."

"So, basically, women are more efficient at killing," you half-joke.

"Historically, they have had body counts in the hundreds."

"Assuming that the job is the stressor, what are some of the reasons prostitutes kill their customers?" Hotch asks over the phone.

"Money, drugs, and PTSD. At some point, every call girl, no matter how well paid, gets coerced into an activity she didn't consent to. Aileen Wuornos used to purposefully stage paid sexual encounters as an excuse to murder men she thought would rape her," you explain.

"Wuornos was psychotic and disorganized. I think this girl is poisoning them before she has sex with them."

"She's using Tetramethylenedisulfotetramine. It's a popular rat poison in China which can be easily soluble in alcohol," Spencer explains after reading the files Hotch sent over.

"Poison is the perfect MO. It's quiet, quick, and the victims never see it coming because they think they're getting lucky." Hotch makes an uncertain noise. "Does that mean something to you?"

"These men are paying $10,000 a night for discretion as well as sex. She has a history with them. She didn't decide to kill them at the moment. She walks in with the intent to kill them, and she's doing it before she sleeps with them. She's not just organized, she's also methodical. She decides early which one of her clients is worth killing," Hotch says.

"Maybe the victims all share the same fetish. Both victims were in their fifties, highly visible, and careful of their image. If they were kinky in the same way, they'd go to great lengths to hide it."

"We're facing a corporate culture that'll do everything it can to keep us out."

"Actually, I had some luck there. Hoyt's wife isn't too happy with how he died. She agreed to talk to us but because every silver lining has a dark cloud, the hedge fund released a statement." JJ pulls out her phone to read the statement that was sent to her. "Ashford died peacefully in his home, according to lawyer David Madison.' They're already trying to close ranks."

"Does that language sound familiar to anyone else?" Spencer asks.

"What do you mean?"

"It's the same thing as the murder of the first victim. 'According to the company lawyer, Stanton died peacefully in his home'."

"Y/N and Morgan, start with the wife and see if you can get her to open up. JJ, call the lawyers and tell them I want to meet with both of them."

"You want to play them off each other?"

"I think one of them wrote both press releases. Let's see which one calls us back."

Once you land, you and Derek head over to the Ashford home where Yvonne Ashford is eagerly waiting for you.

"Mrs. Ashford, we're very sorry about your husband," you say.

"I've been getting nothing but condolences all day. I feel like a hypocrite for accepting them, knowing how he died."

"We think your husband might have been targeted because of something sexual he did with this call girl. I know this is hard, but is there anything you can tell us about what he liked?"

"In bed? I can sum it up in one word. Younger."

"How much younger?"

"Twenty-five. That was when I first met him."

"So, your age difference was part of the attraction?"

"Are you kidding? It was the whole relationship."

"Mrs. Ashford, no offense, but your husband spent a lot of money on this woman. Was there anything else at all that he liked from a younger woman besides the ego boost?" Derek asks.

"There's a certain kind of man, Agent, for whom the only kind of sex that matters is the ego boost. In a marriage like ours, you have to work at it or in my husband's case, pay for it."

Your phone rings and you step off to the side when you see Hotch is calling.

"Yeah, Hotch?"

"We got a meeting with a madame that sets meetings up like the one Ashford was in. Spencer is heading over to meet with her. I want you to go with him."

"Sure." You hang up and walk over to Derek. "I got to go. See what else you can find out about Hoyt."

"Yeah."

The madame, Lauren, is hosting an open house where she is able to meet clients discreetly. It's actually pretty smart since people might think they're there for the open house instead of something else entirely.

"This is actually pretty smart," you say when you meet up with Spencer. "Properties like this are safe and an inspection-free investment for large sums of cash."

An older woman walks out of the house with a big smile on her face.

"Well, hello, you two!"

"Are you the--"

"Isn't this neighborhood just fabulous? You're gonna love this house," she cuts your boyfriend off. She escorts you two inside the house for more privacy. "You two need lessons in faking it. I teach a class."

"So, you arrange dates for escorts?" you ask.

"All I arrange are meetings. What happens between two consenting adults when that meeting is over is something I'm not liable for. Now, who wants a scone?" she offers from a platter.

"Listen, we're looking for someone who is a high-end prostitute who takes fees up to ten thousand dollars. She has the intent of killing her clients before having sex with them."

"Oh, yes. We all know about this woman. She's terrible for business."

"I guess there's only so many men that can afford the service you provide, right?"

"Yes, but with the way she's behaving, she's only hurting herself. An escort's client list is the most important investment she has. It's her daily income and her retirement package when she sells the list."

"She's not working with a service then. No madam would allow an escort to kill off the clientele."

"What about the type of work your employees do?" Spencer asks nervously. "We're sort of operating under the assumption that this escort is killing men who make her perform a specific sexual act."

"What did you have in mind, sweetie?" she smirks.

"I... I don't even... I don't know."

"Don't mind him," you giggle. "It's his first time."

"If I may, I think you're looking at this all wrong. Start with this question: why would a man pay a woman five figures?"

"It's not just for sex, is it?"

"Of course, you've got to be good in bed to be successful, but that's the easy part. What men want more than the no strings attached sex is a therapist. Someone who will absorb the worst parts of their personalities."

"They're looking for someone to tell their fears and insecurities to. Everything they can't take home to their wife."

"That's what I groom my girls to do--how to talk to these men and how to listen. Don't get me wrong, deviancy comes with the territory. I can't tell you how many men need to be submissive as an outlet from their extremely stressful jobs. I can tell you that if the sex was the reason she was killing these men, she would have broken long before she charged $10,000."

"It isn't how these men act in bed, it's how they act out of it," Spencer says.

This unsub isn't killing at a specific time because it's whenever her client wants to meet with her. While you've been talking to Lauren, another murder has taken place. You and Spencer leave the open house and immediately head over to an office firm.

Joseph Fielding is found dead inside the elevator, tied to an office chair with X's marked in lipstick on his eyes, and clear tape wrapped around all over his mouth.

"The victim is Joseph Fielding. He was the CFO here," Rossi says when you two get there.

"Was he poisoned?"

"Yes, and staged. She killed him in his office and then rolled him out here to be found."

You walk over to the victim but pause when you see the energy left behind by the unsub. It's blue because the unsub is a female, but you recognize this energy. There are eight billion people in this world with eight billion different base energies. Every single person you've met has their own energy signatures, and you're familiar with this one. Not only have you seen this energy before, you know the person attached to it.

You've met and gotten to know this person before.

"I know this unsub," you say.

"You do?" Hotch asks.

"Yeah, but I can't put a name to it yet. I've definitely seen it sometime in my life."

Hotch gives you time to put a name to the unsub, but for right now, he focuses on what he can see physically.

"The lipstick is new."

"It was done postmortem. Reid said female serial killers don't leave a signature. I think she did that just for us. She's already exposed him at his most vulnerable. Now she wants to be noticed."

There is commotion by the barrier formed by local police by a man trying to get through, which he does eventually.

"Which one of you is Aaron Hotchner?"

"Me."

"I'm Larry Bartlett. I represent Mr. Fielding in Webster Industries."

"This is a closed crime scene, Mr. Bartlett."

"I know. I spoke to Ellen Daniels, and she said you're a very reasonable man."

"Escort him out, please," Hotch says to one of the officers.

"No, wait. Please." The officer tries to grab him, but he doesn't leave right away. "The press is outside and they can smell blood. Is there any way we can handle this discreetly?"

"We're not about to lie for you," Derek says.

"You don't have to lie. Just don't comment."

"Excuse us."

Hotch takes the team off to the side to talk about the benefits of not commenting on the murder. "Is there any reason to go public yet?"

"Validating her is exactly what she wants. If we hold back, she's more likely to make a mistake," you say quietly.

"He doesn't need to know that. We need everything you have on Fielding like bank accounts, tax records, and emails."

"Everything?" Larry asks in uncertainty.

"Everything."

"I'll gather everything and send it in the morning."

x

Follow my library blog @aqueenslibrary​​​​​​​​​​​ where I reblog all my stories, so you can put notifications on there without the extra stuff :)

[magnetictapedatastorage]

i genuinely hate it when people act like you have to be either stupid or elderly to fall for scams. anyone, anywhere, can be taken advantage of, especially people who think they're too smart or not a big enough target to be vulnerable.

it really makes me angry that we're just used to being bombarded with spam emails and robocalls designed to steal money from you. but that's not the end of it, there's fake job interviews, fake real estate listings, those try to steal your money too. it's fucked up!

yeah yeah be vigilant of course but when did a very reasonable amount of trust in other people become worthy of losing your life's savings? and who decides what a reasonable amount of trust is? because nowadays it seems to be zero!

[mordenheim]

Just say what you want

She sighed as she relaxed on her couch with a nice cup of warm chamomile tea.  Her husband was at work and wouldn’t be home for hours and most of the chores she set for herself were finished for the day.  She had just picked up the remote control to turn on the television when the doorbell rang.

Sighing, she pushed herself up to her feet and padded towards the door.  Her husband had wanted one of those doorbell cameras, but she had been adamantly against it.  Now she wondered if she should have let him get one after all.

She hadn’t even gotten to the door yet when she made out the shape of someone with their face pressed against the window beside the front door, their hands cupped around their eyes as they tried to peer through the curtain.

Sighing, she put her eye up to the peephole in the door and was greeted by the sight of a woman who looked to be in her sixties.  She was dressed in a short sleeved blouse and yoga pants that looked at least one size too small for her.  She had large, dark sunglasses on and a pair of massive, sparkling earrings.  Her short hair was swept to one side and an annoyed expression just seemed to rest on her face.  She rang the doorbell again before also knocking impatiently.

She pulled the door open and looked at the woman through the storm door.  She let out a gasp and stepped quickly away from the door, almost falling backwards off of the porch before she pulled herself together and put a familiar saccharine sweet smile on her face.

She lifted her hand, looking annoyed at the older woman and blurted out, “Just say what you want.”

The smile fading quickly from her face, her lips pursed into what is often referred to as a “catt-butt face”.  “Well, no need to be so rude.  I saw online that this house was for sale and I came by to take a look at it.”

Now it was the younger woman’s turn to look confused.  “For sale?  This house isn’t for sale.  We just moved in here a little over a year ago.”

“Are you sure that your husband didn’t put it on the market without you knowing?”

She opened her mouth to say just how stupid that idea was, when she had a thought.  “Hang on one moment.  I’ll be right back.”

Closing the door behind her, she walked over to her laptop sitting on a desk off to one side.  She logged into the real estate website that they had bought their home from, only to see that it was still listed as for sale.  She gave a grin and nodded to herself.  She would have to fix that with the agency soon, but in the meantime.

Heading back to the front door, she was now all smiles as she opened the storm door wide.  “It turns out you were right.  He wanted it to be a surprise.  Please, come in, let me show you around.”

“Hmph, it’s about time.”  Her eyes darted around, searching for anything and everything she could complain about, obviously aiming to drop the value of the house.  She just rolled her eyes and took the woman’s abuse with a smile for a few moments before she finally chimed in.

“You know, this house is a bit of a rarity.  It’s one of the only homes in this entire area with a fully finished basement!”

The older woman’s eyes lit up with greed at that. “Oh really?  Well, that’s not really so unusual, I doubt it adds any real value to the home,” she lied.

“Well, why don’t you come down and take a look for yourself.  See what you think?”

Opening the door onto the darkened staircase heading down, she reached in and flicked on the basement lights before leading the way down.

A few hours later, she let herself into the garage, sipping at a fresh cup of her tea.  Setting the mug down on the workbench in the gloom, she crouched down and pulled a battered cardboard box from its hiding spot in the darkness.  Reaching into that box, she pulled out a small lock box and set it on the bench before producing the key and opening it wide.

There inside of the smaller box were dozens and dozens of identification bracelets from a few different hospitals across the country.  She ran her fingers lovingly over them, shivering a little as she let herself remember each and every one of them.  Finally, she reached down into her pocket and pulled out a pair of huge, gaudy earrings, small droplets of blood marred the fake diamonds that crusted the pinchbeck that was already threatening to turn her fingers green.  She tossed them into the box with a soft chuckle and locked it back up, stowing it away safely.

She needed to get in touch with the real estate agency about getting the false listing corrected, but maybe she could wait a few more weeks.

[nekonanamii]

All for the best pt. 3 - Toji x Fem! Reader

Toji’s pov 🫣

Your company was hosting afternoon drinks at the yacht club, and Suguru being your boyfriend- was your plus one.

There you were casually chatting with your colleagues wearing a beautiful sundress with the sunset in the background.

“Honey~ come here! Let me introduce you to my coworkers” you say to your boyfriend.

Suguru introduces himself politely to your co-workers and they’re all charmed by how poised this man was and even more shocked to find out he was the CFO of Gojo Enterprises. The very company yours was about to have a merger with.

He’s running circles around the small of your back, and slowly he takes a sneaky squeeze of your ass. He whispers into your ear and you’re blushing hard.

Toji watched the entire thing happen from a distance. The glass in his hand nearly cracking.

Your boss is well aware of the fact that you’ve been with your partner for 6 years now, it’s 2023 after all and he follows your Instagram account. He sees just how sweet and perfect you are to your boyfriend yet he wonders why he hasn’t put a ring on it yet.

~

It’s 10:14 am at Gojo Enterprises, Toji’s meeting had just wrapped up. He makes his way to the elevator and just as the doors were about to close, Suguru walks in with a woman who’s blouse had one too many buttons open giving a clear view of how plump her tits were. This peaks Toji’s interest.

It was obvious the woman was very interested in your boyfriend, and your boyfriend didn’t seem to mind.

Interesting indeed.

Your boss overheard that you were in the market for a new apartment, so him being a thoughtful boss made sure to recommend a good real estate agent.

“Naoya, do you still have the number of that real estate agent?”

“The one with the huge tits? Fuck yeah! Planning to get a new penthouse?”

Toji knew he had to lure your boyfriend into this trap. This man wanted you to himself and honestly, he wanted to know just how loyal your boyfriend was.

Your boss made sure that on the days you were supposed to be out apartment viewing, you’d be busy at work.

“Sir, I’m not sure if I’m the best candidate to be here with you? I’m not too well acquainted with fine dining”

Toji asked you to come with him on the pretext of making sure the merger was to be a success, but here you were on your 6th dish of the night in this extremely fancy restaurant with your boss

“Y/n I had to know the opinion of my employees about the menu, it also helps if it’s from a female perspective”

It wasn’t a total lie.

On other days your boss sent you out on stupid little errands that he knew would take up all your time.

“Sir, I’m terribly sorry but the shop said they didn’t have any of what you asked for and neither did any other of the shops you had on the list”

Of course they didn’t. Hell he just made up what he asked you to look for, clearly intending for you to spend as little time as possible to being with your boyfriend who was busy being seduced by none other than the real estate agent he highly recommended 🤭

But why you?

He had his reasons, many honestly. But ever since the day you accidentally spilled some of your iced coffee on his leather shoes and you bent down to wipe it for him, he knew he liked the sight of you on your knees.

Now, Toji simply dangled a treat for Suguru to take, it’s not his fault that your boyfriend took it right?

Your thoughtful boss was doing you a favor. If your boyfriend truly loved you, he wouldn’t have taken the bait.

~

It was at your wedding that Suguru was forced to attend, and it was during dinner when he hears Naoya talking about that hot real estate agent with the big tits, saying he thought for sure Toji was gonna fuck her but instead he’s a married man now. And that’s when it clicks. Your ex boyfriend realizes it was a set up.

Fucking hell. He lost you but he couldn’t do anything about it now, not with the fact that you were now married and he was all too guilty for fucking the real estate agent.

He comes home and she’s already getting ready to undo his belt, “did Toji Fushiguro send you?”

“Huh?” She says with a puzzled expression, “oh Naoya’s cousin? Yeah they told me you were in the market for a new apartment” she says as she takes his balls in her mouth

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck. Suguru thinks to himself. Toji set him up.

~

You wake up to big strong muscular arms holding you as your dear husband sleeps soundly. You give him a few kisses and cuddle up more into his chest. Toji loves waking up like this. It was well worth destroying your 6 year relationship. After all, it’s all for the best <3

Honestly, Toji is so manipulative in this whole story, he’s lowkey a home-wrecker but he justifies it by saying he’s treating you better than your ex could ever

If it wasn’t obvious yet, in this au, Suguru is a boobs > ass guy (I’m planning to write Satoru as a boobs < ass guy) :p

[flowerflamestars]

Effloresce Mor thoughts again. She rocks up, expecting to smile and play nice with Feyre's sisters, instead she ends up winnowing right into the middle of... this. Whatever 'this' is. She finally finds Rhysand is is like "Rhys, Rhys why didn't you WARN me? Cassian's whole personal legion is on the front lawn Rhys! Why is this human estate overrun with Ilirians? Why didn't you warn me that Cassian's losing his shit, Rhys? Why didn't you warn me that Feyre's sisters like THAT?! They called me your heir, Rhys! Nobody does that! Why are they talking about an evacuation? Who the fuck are we evacuating and why? This was supposed to be a diplomatic mission Rhys. I just bounced off blood wards Rhys! Blood wards! Why are there--"

Lucien fucking Vanserra waltzes in wearing his best courier's smile. "Oh hello new unexpected we weren't informed about :) :) Shall I have another guest room prepared? :) :)"

"RHYSAND!!!"

(And of course, being a snobby personification of the "not to be a lesbian on main" meme at Nesta)

So, Morrigan has a pet theory as to what the hell is up with Feyre's sisters (specifically Nesta). It's a)wrong, b)revealed at the worst possible time, and c)the DEFINITION of wow you want to fuck that girl so bad you've lost your mind. Struck stupid. Seething derangement. Mor is living out a whole rivals to lovers au in her head that sharply turns into a princess in a tower fantasy. Baby girl would like to be sweeping Nesta Archeron off her mortal feet, please and thank you.

(If Nesta fucks Cassian first well, Mor was really there first, wasn't she? It'll just bring her closer.)

Mor is, you're correct, pissed as hell. However, crucially, she's also...feeling a lot of feelings about the matter.

Something I've never seen addressed, probably because the books turn her into a cardboard cutout of a character is that, I can't imagine she doesn't feel some way just about Feyre? They end up friends but ALSO, does Mor have no feelings about Feyre coming and being senior to her immediately? Babes, I think yes. Yes, many.

It's murky. And now she's like- did Feyre lie? Did Rhys not tell me the whole story? Of course he didn't, he's Rhys. Isn't Lucien Vanserra supposed to be fucking dead? Not throwing in the future of Autumn with some dimpled human? If she loses Cassian, she loses Az and she's alone. Rhys has Feyre and Mor has ... Pink wine, an empty palace and having to go back beneath the dark.

(In the back of her mind: I AM the heir. What has it ever gotten me?)

So I don't think she picks a fight with Rhys.

They throw some passive aggressive comments at each other, carefully don't scare Feyre, never actually talk about their real feelings.

Everything goes to hell.

Mor pulls out her trump card only to alienate everyone she knows, just in time to make it onto Elain's experimental poison list.