#that I can’t find it for sale anywhere at all

[cremsie]

I would do some unspeakable things for the chance to own a 1998 SimTunes harmonica

[littlexdeaths]

scotty doesn’t know - e.m. ii.

eddie munson x fem reader

18+ ONLY MDNI

warnings: all characters are 18+, some angst, no use of y/n, cheating, protective eddie, shitty boyfriend behavior, unwanted touches/advances, underage drinking/partying, grinding, fingering, light praise kink, biting, unprotected piv sex, cream pie

series masterlist

based on scotty doesn’t know by lustra

a/n: god i feel like this took me forever, so apologies for that. but i just need to thank both @undead-supernova and @xxbimbobunnyxx for helping me so much with getting this fic put back together. i love you both so so much. 🥹💕

word count: 8.3k

Out of all the places you wanted to be on a Friday night, Jason Carver’s house wasn’t one of them.

The party was in full swing, music blasting from the speakers in the living room. Red solo cups and beer cans littered every available surface, as your classmates drank without a care in the world. Between the loud, synthy pop music and the constant chattering, you felt incredibly overwhelmed.

Parties were never really your scene.

You wanted nothing more than to go home and put on a film for the night. But dating a popular basketball player brought you out of your comfort zone more often than not. While that could be seen as a good thing, it was the opposite in this case. You never got to do things that you wanted, the plans always revolving around Scott.

However, there was one good thing about the party tonight. Or rather— someone.

Eddie Munson.

He’d kept his distance of course, so as not to raise any alarm bells with anyone. Most likely using the excuse of a good sale to be there in the first place. If anyone bothered to ask him. He rested his shoulder against the living room wall, a bag of freshly rolled joints clutched in his hand.

Eddie had surrounded himself with Robin and Steve the entire night, looking like he wanted to be there even less than you did. You can’t help but steal glances at each other from across the room.

Eddie looks good—he always does. His long curls are tied back in a low bun, sporting his signature ripped jeans and a Metallica shirt that hugs his broad shoulders nicely. You’ve wanted nothing more than to jump his bones the moment you got a chance to be alone.

The idea of sneaking off with him to one of the many guest rooms became more tempting as the party raged on.

You’ve secluded yourself on the sofa in the living room, adjacent to the makeshift dance floor. Thankful that most people are having too much fun to notice you there. You’ve been slowly sipping on a now watered down mixed drink, finding yourself feeling less and less in the party mood. However, your boyfriend seems to have other plans.

Scott is plastered. Irritatingly so.

You spent most of the night hiding from him, knowing how handsy he liked to get when he was drunk.

And as much as you’ve tried to pretend that everything was fine with Scott, your ability to fake it has become much harder. Especially knowing what you could be having instead.

So for the past week you’d avoided being alone with the basketball star. Ever since that fateful phone call the weekend prior. While you had still gone to the party that night, Scott eventually noticed something was up with you. Mostly due to the fact that you hadn’t let him touch you in over a week.

That was the driving force behind his drinking rampage tonight. The male had done 3 keg stands (that you’d witnessed) since he’d been here, on top however many beers he’d consumed. You’re exactly sure, but it’s the worst you’ve ever seen him.

Part of you does feel guilty, but a bigger part of you is starting to care less and less.

Ironically, Take Me Home Tonight by Eddie Money starts playing the moment he finds you again. But going anywhere with him is by far the last thing you wanted to do. The male slurs along to the track as he plops down next to you, nearly spilling his entire drink in your lap.

You can’t hide the grimace on your face as he leans into you, his breath reeking of stale beer. You grab the cup out of his hand before it spills everywhere. Huffing in annoyance as you set it down on the side table.

You really aren’t in the mood to play babysitter.

Scott’s hands, now empty, immediately grab at your hips to pull you in closer. His lips easily find your neck, the feeling of his hot breath making your skin crawl. You gently shove him off, but he leans back into your space immediately.

Normally you’d let him wear himself out, but you really don’t feel like it tonight.

“Scott, come on stop,” you sigh, no longer able to hide the irritation in your voice.

But your boyfriend is clearly not listening, continuing to press sloppy kisses along the exposed skin of your collarbone. A muffled moan leaves him as he guides your hand onto his lap.

You’re no longer able to conceal the alarmed expression that appears on your face as you tug your hand away. “I mean it, Scott.” He just groans in annoyance, feeling his fingers hook into the loop of your jeans.

“You’re too drunk, I said knock it off,” your voice drips with malice, despite how panicked you feel.

The male would always listen if you ever told him off, but his current state of intoxication clearly overtakes any rational thought.

“Oh come on, babe. We haven’t fucked in over a week, I have needs,” he slurs.

Before you have the chance to respond, the weight of his body disappears. You quickly glance up, your eyes widening in shock. Eddie has pulled your boyfriend up by the collar of his polo shirt, and suddenly it’s like the air is sucked out of the room.

Scott is fuming, a slew of curses leaves his mouth as he attempts to shove him off. Eddie is stone faced as he releases him abruptly, causing Scott to stumble backwards. He recovers quicker than you expected, raising his fist to aim a punch at the metalhead. But Eddie’s reflexes are much faster, catching the closed fist and knocking it away.

Scott was good in a fight, but he’s too inebriated to do much damage at this point.

“She said to knock it off, Scotty. I know you’re stupid but are you deaf too?”

You quickly get up and squeeze yourself between the two males, a clear pissing contest about to ensue if you don’t intervene. Your back is pressed against your boyfriend's chest, as your eyes plead with your lover to calm down.

“She’s my girlfriend Munson, fuck off,” he sneers.

The music has suddenly been turned down to a more tolerable volume, the focus of the party now shifting onto you— much to your dismay.

You can feel Scott’s hot breath against your neck, as his hands wrap around your middle to pull you further against his chest. Eddie is furious, his jaw clenched so hard you can see the muscles straining underneath his pale skin.

If you weren’t in this current predicament, you might have found it sexy. But you’re far too anxious to focus on anything else right now.

“Doesn’t matter, she doesn’t want you to fucking touch her,” Eddie’s voice continues to raise, until he’s almost yelling over your head. “No means no, dickhead!”

You can see Jason beginning to push through the crowd, Steve hot on his heels. The last thing you wanted was for this whole situation to escalate further. But judging by the look on Jason's face, you don’t know if you can stop it.

The crowd is clearly itching for a fight to break out, the whole atmosphere of the party shifting.

“Hey, freak! Who even invited you here?”

Eddie doesn’t even flinch at Jason’s insult.

“I did, Carver,” Steve answers, inserting himself in the already strained situation.

The tension between the four males is so thick, it makes you wish the ground would open and swallow you whole. Steve glances down at you for a moment before continuing, “But it seems to me like you need to get McGuire here in line. She’s clearly uncomfortable.”

You feel multiple pairs of eyes flick back to you, your shoulders slouching in an attempt to make yourself appear smaller. You catch Jason’s gaze, knowing he can clearly see the distress flitting over your features. The blonde sighs deeply, resting a hand on Scott’s shoulder.

“Scott, come on, just let it go,” he says, beginning to tug the male away from you. “You’ve had too much to drink.”

Before your boyfriend can even begin to protest, Jason and a newly joined Patrick lead him away. While you’re quite shocked that he was willing to break this up, part of you is thankful. Normally, the pair would egg each other on to keep a fight going. But as big of a prick Jason Carver is, he knew Steve was right.

You can feel the tears welling in the corners of your eyes, the party seeming to return to normal. While Steve has also disappeared into the crowd, Eddie hasn’t moved an inch. His eyes follow the group of jocks as they filed out of the room, casually flipping them the bird.

But his focus quickly returns to you. You can see in his eyes how he so desperately wants to envelop you in his arms and kiss your tears away.

But he knows he can’t. Not here.

Those protective urges are getting harder and harder for him to fight.

He opens his mouth to speak, but before he can say anything else you’re rushing past him. Pushing through the sea of drunken teens and to the front door. Your fight or flight instincts are finally kicking in, and you know you have to leave.

Anywhere is better than here.

You’d hitched a ride to the party with Chrissy, but you’re not about to try and find her now. You need to be alone.

You run for almost three blocks before you have to stop, resting your hands on your knees as you try to catch your breath. You take a minute to let your heart rate slow to a more steady rhythm before you start walking in the direction of your house.

While Hawkins is a relatively small town, your house is still a couple miles from the party. Walking the entire way isn’t the most ideal plan, but you didn’t give yourself much of a choice. And there’s no way you were going back there now.

You can only imagine the rumors that will be floating around the school come Monday. As much as you try to put on a brave face, you care too much about what your peers thought of you. You can already hear the kind of insults that would be thrown your way.

Skank, prude, lying whore.

The possibilities of cruel words were endless. You let out a small hiccup as you continue down the dimly lit street, finally allowing the tears to roll freely down your cheeks. You don’t want to give them the satisfaction of seeing you cry too.

How did you even get to this point?

Two months ago you couldn’t have foreseen yourself in this position. Falling for another guy, whilst simultaneously falling out of love with another. If you ever loved Scott to begin with. You’re not entirely convinced of that fact.

It felt like the easiest option, being with someone like Scott McGuire. He’s well-liked, a person your parents approve of. But you weren’t really happy, just going through the motions instead of chasing what you really want.

Perhaps that was what Eddie had really witnessed that night he had stumbled across you and Scott. Someone who was desperately searching for a way out. And he’d given it to you in ways you never expected.

Eddie was kind, attentive— cared about your feelings and desires.

What started off as just sex quickly snowballed into something much deeper. You had never really given much thought to your own needs. Maybe that was why his offer was too good to pass up, it let you indulge in uncharted territory.

You’d been labeled as a good girl your entire life. You never rebelled and always do exactly as you’re told. To the extent that you never felt an ounce of control over the trajectory of your own relationship. Or many other facets within your life.

It was whatever Scott or your parents thought was best for you. They’ve never taken into consideration what you had actually wanted.

But being with Eddie was like a breath of fresh air. It filled your lungs, greedily inhaling everything he has to offer. After struggling beneath the current for so long, there was no way you would let it pull you back under.

A cool breeze suddenly whips across your face, stinging your wet cheeks. You wrap your arms tighter around yourself to stop a shiver. Thankfully, you had forgone the usual skirts or dresses you adored, in favor of a sweater and jeans. Grateful for the extra layers to combat against the sudden drop in temperature.

You keep your head down as you continue to walk further down the quiet street. Only the sounds of your sneakers padding against the concrete and your soft sniffles fill the night air. It’s almost peaceful.

You make it another block before that tranquility is interrupted. You hear the loud rumble of an engine as a vehicle approaches you from behind. While not many people would be out past midnight in this sleepy town, you don’t think anything of it. You figured they would continue driving down the empty street.

That is until that same vehicle begins to idle next to you.

You glance out of your peripheral and curse softly. You would recognize that van anywhere, having found yourself in the back of it more times than you could count.

The window is cranked down as you turn away, beginning to walk a little faster. But the van keeps pace with you regardless. Eddie calls your name, but you keep your eyes trained on the ground. Tears are steadily streaming down your cheeks now, smearing your mascara.

While the brunette has seen you cry before— it was under very different circumstances. This feels different, like he’s seeing you naked for the first time all over again. Only this time you don’t feel ready for it.

You feel vulnerable and exposed.

You hate it.

Eddie proceeds to plead your name, as you continue to ignore him. He let the upper half of his torso practically hang out of the driver’s side window. The theatrical nature of it is almost enough to make you crack a smile. But you know he wasn’t going to give up until you at least tried to talk to him. With how he had stood up for you, he at least deserves that.

Having made up your mind, you suddenly stop in your tracks. The van squeaks to a halt beside you, the male flinging the driver’s side door open. You see his scuffed Reebox’s first, letting your eyes linger there for a moment. But you immediately squeeze them shut as his fingers softly grasp your chin, tilting it up.

“Sweetheart, look at me, please.” His tone is gentle, but still laced with concern. “It’s just you and me, you’re safe.” The sincerity behind those words has your heart skipping a beat.

You let out a shaky breath as your eyes begin to flutter open. His face is blurred from the tears flooding your lash line. You slowly blink them away until he finally comes into focus.

“There she is…” he declares, the indent in his cheek deepening as he smiles.

The male cups your face between his palms, letting their warmth seep into your cheeks. His thumbs swipe away any lingering tears as he presses a kiss to your temple. Eddie envelops you in his arms, letting you bury your face into his chest. You breathe in the familiar scent of his cologne, letting him hold you like that for a while.

The glow of the street lights cascades down on both of you. The night air only seems to grow colder the longer you both stand there. A shiver runs through you despite the heat radiating from his chest, something he doesn’t miss.

“Alright, time to go, doll,” he mumbles softly, “Can I drive you home?”

You are silent for a moment, mulling over your options in your head. “No,” you finally say, untangling yourself from him.

He looks a little hurt as you turn to walk towards his van, that hurt morphing into confusion as you yank open the passenger door.

“I don’t want to go home,” you explain, seeming to snap him out of his frozen stature. Eddie quickly climbs back into the van, the door barely slamming shut behind him before he pulls back onto the road.

He keeps one hand on the steering wheel, the other tangled with yours on the seat. When you left the party, you had fully intended to go home alone.

But being tangled up with him sounds like a much better option.

You had never been to Eddie’s trailer.

Whether that was intentional or not, you’re not sure. But it’s the one place that he has never taken you to.

He seems nervous as he leads you through the living room. Your eyes wander curiously around the room, taking in the large collection of coffee mugs and hats that decorate the walls. Eddie sheepishly begins picking up some discarded food wrappers, junk mail— all in an effort to tidy up a little.

“Sorry about…” He pauses, hands full as he motions around the room. “All of this." You refrain from rolling your eyes. Tossing some items into the trash, he jokes, “Goddamn maid left us high and dry last week.”

“Let me guess…she ran off with some wannabe rockstar?” You smile, watching as he leans against the kitchen counter with a matching grin.

“Something like that.”

Despite what Eddie has implied about his humble abode, you liked it the moment you crossed the threshold. It has character, a clear representation of the two men who live there. But it also feels warm and incredibly inviting, something your own home hasn’t felt like in quite a long time.

His uncle already left for the night shift, which means the two of you have the place to yourselves. Eddie shows you to the bathroom, giving you a moment alone to collect yourself. But mostly to clean up the mess your mascara had made on your cheeks.

You emerge from the bathroom a few minutes later, Eddie nowhere in sight. He didn’t tell you which room was his, but it doesn’t take you long to figure it out. The door at the end of the hall was left slightly ajar, golden light spilling out onto the shag carpet. But it’s the strum of a guitar that ends up being your guide.

You push open the door to his bedroom, unable to help the small smile that graces your features as you take it all in. The room is a little messy and cluttered— something you expected.

You let your eyes roam over the many posters splayed across the walls, Metallica, Slayer… and one handmade one. Corroded Coffin. You knew Eddie was in a band—it was the one of the things apart from DnD that he seemed extremely passionate about.

Music.

Eddie’s quiet as he sits on the edge of his unmade bed, an acoustic guitar perched on his lap. This machine slays dragons, is painted in white on the side of the instrument. You find yourself suddenly mesmerized, watching as his fingers slowly brush over the strings.

He finally notices how you’ve planted yourself in the doorway, glancing up at you from underneath his lashes.

“Make yourself at home, sweetheart,” he smiles, gesturing around him. “What’s mine is yours.”

He focuses his attention back on the instrument in his lap, testing out a few chords as you shut the door behind you. You step further into the room, letting your fingers trail along the top of his desk.

Being alone with him like this suddenly feels more intimate than any other time before. It’s like he’s letting you peek inside his mind, showing pieces of himself that not many others get to see. Only those that he trusts. And you can’t deny how it warms your insides.

You’re a little too busy exploring the rest of his room that you don’t notice when his eyes have drifted back to you. The brunette gazes at you fondly when you spot a pair of handcuffs dangling next to his mirror. His soft chuckle fills the room as you reach out to run your fingers over the cool metal.

“We can definitely put those to use, doll.” Those words have you squirming, warmth spreading through your limbs. You shy away as you take a seat in the chair next to his desk. “If you want.”

Eddie grins at your flustered expression, glancing back down at his guitar. He’s playing freely now, the chords unfamiliar to you. But they’re beautiful nonetheless.

“You’re really good at… uh,” you trail off softly, gesturing to the instrument.

You notice how the tips of his ears flush pink from your admission, although he acts unfazed by your compliment.

“What, fingering?” he teases, purposefully pressing his fingers down onto the guitar strings in a dramatic manner which makes you giggle.

The song he was playing quickly morphs into something else, something quite familiar. But you can’t quite put your finger on it. You lean forward to rest your chin in your palm.

The moment he begins to hum the lyrics is the moment when the song becomes abundantly clear.

I, I will be king… and you, you will be queen.

“Heroes,” you murmur, the word almost becoming lodged in your throat.

You had mentioned to Eddie in passing a few weeks ago that it’s your favorite Bowie song.

You never expected him to do anything with that information, or even remember it. But he kept finding ways to surprise you. This small act alone proves that he truly cares about you, that he listens to you. It’s overwhelming in the best way possible.

Your body suddenly feels too warm under the thick layers of clothing. Rising to your feet, you grip the hem of your sweater and pull it over your head. You let the soft material fall to the floor, joining a heap of his own clothing. Standing before him in only your bra and jeans.

Eddie seems to fumble over the next few notes as he takes in your newly exposed skin, averting his gaze as he clears his throat. Now it’s your turn to make him flustered.

But he can’t help but glance at you out of the corner of his eye, as you begin unbuttoning your jeans. You shimmy the denim down your legs, kicking them off to the side. You felt emboldened as you strolled over to the brunette’s dresser. His eyes boring into your back as you rummage through his drawers.

You’re in search of a particular item, a smile stretching across your face once you locate it amongst the various band tees. Reaching behind your back you unclip your bra, you let the straps slide off of your shoulders. The item quickly joins the rest of your discarded clothes on his floor.

You don’t hear how his breath hitches in his throat over the strum of his guitar.

You pull Eddie’s faded hellfire shirt from the drawer and slip it over your head. The soft fabric glides over your skin, the hem falling just past the curve of your ass. It smells like an intoxicating mixture of his cologne and laundry detergent.

You hum softly as you breathe it in, turning to face him again. His dark eyes are blown wide, the guitar now almost forgotten in his hands. Just the sight of you in his clothes is making him feel things he’d be too afraid to admit out loud.

You saunter towards him, carefully grasping the neck of the guitar and leaning it against his dresser. He seems dumbfounded as you climb into his lap and wrap your arms around his neck. You tilt your head down towards his ear, lips grazing over it. Enjoying the way he almost shudders beneath you.

“I just want to thank you properly,” you whisper, nipping at his lobe.

Your lips continue to trail across his jaw until you reach his mouth, unable to hold back any longer as you press your lips to his. The feeling of your mouth molding against his own seems to snap Eddie out of whatever trance he was in. His large hands easily find the curve of your waist, gripping the fabric of the shirt in his fists.

Eddie kisses you slowly but deeply, trying to savor the taste of your mouth on his. Your fingers slip the elastic band out of his hair, letting his curls cascade wildly over his shoulders. But the longer he kisses you, the worse the ache between your thighs becomes.

In desperate need of some friction, you grind your hips down against his crotch. Whining as you feel his hardened cock through his jeans. He’d been struggling with it ever since you took that first piece of clothing off. Initially, he was going to ignore it, but then you climbed right into his lap and he lost all sense of logic.

But as much as he wants this to continue, he knows you’re not in the right kind of headspace for more. He groans into your mouth as you continue to rub yourself against him, but his firm grip on your hips stops any further movement. Your eyes flutter open, confusion filling them.

“Slow down, sweetheart,” he pants, one of his hands lifted to carefully cup your cheek. “We don’t have to do anything tonight.”

The look he’s giving you has your heart stuttering, but his words are throwing you for a loop. The whole basis of this… arrangement was sex. The fine line between a casual hookup and a relationship have been blurred for a while. But tonight has made it crystal clear that this has evolved into something much more than that.

Even if neither of you wanted to admit it.

“Do you not want…” you trail off, unable to hide the sliver of hurt in your tone.

He shakes his head, leaning his forehead against yours with a strained sigh.

“Trust me, doll. I definitely want to.” He chuckles, shifting his hips beneath you. “But tonight was… fuck, it was intense. And you can't expect me to believe you're okay after all that. I just want you to have a clear head, is all.”

You mull over his words for a moment as the weight of what happened earlier crashes back over you. And with it, squashing any urge to finish what you had just started.

"I'm not that asshole,” he continues, unable to make out your puzzled expression. “You don't have to fuck me just to make me happy. I'm happy just being with you, like this."

You’re willing yourself not to cry again as he gently presses a tender kiss to your forehead. Eddie basks in the scent of your strawberry shampoo, feeling you start to relax against his chest.

“Now, I don’t know about you.” He yawns, nuzzling your nose with his. “But I think we’ve had enough excitement for one night.”

You laugh quietly, nodding as you climb off his lap. Draping your body over the bed, keeping your eyes focused on him. The male stands to strip down to his boxers, in such a hurry to get back to you that he almost trips over his jeans.

“Down, boy, I’m not going anywhere.” You giggle as he slips under the covers with you.

A sheepish grin tugs at his lips as he clicks off the bedside lamp, bathing the room in darkness. You reach for him just as he does for you, your hands bumping together clumsily.

“Scoot closer.” You can almost hear the pout in his voice, eagerly moving forward until his bare chest is pressed against your clothed one.

“Much better,” he hums.

Eddie slots one of his legs between yours, snaking his arms around your waist. There’s no part of you that isn’t completely entangled in him. You can feel his clothed erection pressing into your hip, and that sense of guilt washes over you again.

Knowing you’d left not one, but two guys pent up tonight.

“I’m really sorry for everything tonight,” you whisper into the darkness, feeling his arms tighten around you.

“Hey, don’t do that. You have absolutely nothing to be sorry for.”

You nod, but those feelings welling up inside you don’t dissipate. Not completely.

Eddie begins to rub soothing circles over your hip, continuing up your side. Your body tenses as you try to stifle a laugh. The male doesn’t realize that his touch isn’t exactly… soothing. But the further his hand creeps up your side the more you start to squirm and a small gasp leaves your lips.

That sound alone is enough to tip him off, now well aware of what he’s done. You can vaguely make out his mischievous grin in the dark, calculating his next move. Before you have time to react both of his hands are trailing up your sides, tickling you.

“Eddie!” You squeal as your body thrashes in his embrace, rolling you underneath him in the process.

The chain of his necklace dangles in your face, his fingers unrelenting as he pulls giggle after giggle out of you. This is a sound he’d vowed to hear as often as he could, his own laugh mingling with yours.

“S’not f-fair!” you squeak out between fits of laughter before he finally lets up so you can breathe. You’re panting a little, your noses brush against each other.

“I like making you laugh,” he admits, almost shyly. “It’s cute.”

You reach out for his face in the darkness, leaning up to press a gentle kiss to his jaw. You can feel the warmth that’s radiating against your lips, allowing your lips to linger there for a moment.

Coming to the realization that you’d just made Eddie Munson blush brings a wide smile to your face.

“I just want to say thank you for earlier… and for letting me stay the night. I really appreciate it.”

Eddie settles back down next to you on the mattress, your palms resting against his chest. His lips search for yours in the darkness, leaving kisses all over your face in his fumbling attempt to find your lips. Another round of giggles escapes you from the tender gesture.

His ability to make you feel so safe and secure is still so new to you. You don’t want this feeling to end— you never want any of this to end. However, you know this isn’t fair. Eddie doesn’t deserve to be someone’s secret.

But as time passed and this relationship continued to progress, the more you began to realize that you didn’t want to keep him a secret anymore.

“Anytime, sweetheart,” he mumbles, his voice thick with sleep.

You snuggle yourself further against him, limps tangling together. With your ear pressed to his chest, you can hear the steady beat of his heart. The way his breathing starts to slow and become more even.

“Goodnight, Eds,” you whisper, stifling another laugh as a soft snore answers you.

You allow your eyes to slip shut, exhaustion finally overtaking you as his heartbeat continues to lull you to sleep.

Sunlight streaming through the thin curtains is what awoke you that next morning.

A sigh falls from your lips as you attempt to stretch out your overly stiff limbs. Which is when you feel a stirring beneath you. Your eyes fly open as the events of last night trickle back in.

The party, Scott being a grade A asshole, Eddie taking care of you...

If your body wasn’t currently draped over him, you might have convinced yourself it was all a dream. That Eddie dropped you off at home, and you were snuggled beneath your floral bedspread. But to your relief, that clearly isn’t the case.

Your body stills in an attempt not to stir the sleeping metalhead beneath you. At some point during the night you must have gotten yourselves into this position. Laying on his chest, with his arms wrapped securely around your middle. But you don’t mind in the slightest.

In fact, you feel more rested than you have in quite some time. You just wish you could stay like this forever, wrapped up in him and only him. Lifting your head, you rest your chin on your hand and begin to study his sleeping features.

He looks completely at ease.

Faint freckles are scattered across his nose and cheeks, his long lashes fanning over them. His dark curls are wild from sleep, fanned out over his flannel pillowcase. Pouted lips slightly chapped, but kissable all the same. He really is beautiful.

You continue to watch him sleep for a while longer, the morning sun cascading over the tops of his cheekbones. But his breath remains even, small snores slipping out every so often. As you gaze at him, you can’t help but silently scold yourself.

You’re falling for Eddie Munson more and more each day, and you know you can’t keep this up.

You have to end things with Scott.

And as much as you want to stay snuggled up with Eddie, your body has other needs. You don’t exactly know how you’re going to get up without disturbing him, but your bladder is in desperate need of relief.

You sigh as you begin to shimmy further down his body, your legs falling on either side of his hips. A squeak of surprise leaves you as you feel his hard on pressing against your inner thigh through his boxer shorts. It shouldn’t have been that big of a shock to you—morning wood is normal, right?

But you didn’t have much experience with sleepovers of this nature. Despite dating Scott for well over a year, you’ve never spent the night with him like this. So it’s something quite new to you. While you silently ponder over this, Eddie begins to stir again.

A soft moan tumbles past his lips as you accidentally press yourself harder against his boner in an attempt to swing your leg back over the other side of his hip.

“Mm… where do you think you’re going, doll?” His voice is thick with sleep, an octave lower than normal. The gravelly nature of it makes heat shoot between your legs.

You curse softly as you glance up at him, those chocolate hues gazing back at you. Eddie’s fingers splayed across the tops of your thighs, sliding up to encircle your hips. You feel your body flush, his eyes darkening as he looks you over— straddling him, wearing nothing but his shirt.

When he lifts his hips to grind you against him, you can’t stop the whimper that escapes.

“Eds, hold on. I have to pee,” you mumble, feeling embarrassed as his hips still beneath you.

He just lets out a deep laugh as his hands release your hips. You climb over him, quick to scramble off the bed.

“Alright, I guess I’ll allow it,” he teases, the tips of fingers brushing against yours. “Just hurry back, sweetheart.”

Your heart warms at the sight of him, his brown eyes filling with adoration as they look up at you. Leaning over the bed, you press a small kiss to his mouth. A giggle leaves your own as he gives your ass a small pat before you book it to the bathroom.

You feel much better after finally relieving yourself, washing your hands as you glance into the mirror. Your eyes almost sparkle in the muted light, a dopey smile stretched across your face. Is this what it feels like to be in a healthy relationship?

You don’t dwell on it long, far too eager to return back to him. You slip out of the bathroom and tiptoe back to Eddie’s bedroom. Taking extra care to be quiet as you weren’t sure if Wayne has returned home from work yet. And frankly, you’d be mortified if you met him under these conditions—with you clad in only Eddie’s shirt and your panties.

What a great way to make a first impression.

You close his bedroom door behind you slowly, letting the lock click gently into place. You turn back around to face him and lean against the door. Eddie is in the same spot you had left him, only now he’s leaning halfway up on one elbow. That hunger hasn’t left his gaze as he beckons you over with his index finger.

Looking at his hands makes your thighs clench together, knowing all the wonderful things they were capable of. You take your bottom lip between your teeth as you approach him, stopping at the edge of the mattress. Eddie’s fingers ghost over the plush skin of your thighs, leaving goosebumps in his wake.

They continue up until they reach the elastic of your panties. He gives you a look, silently asking for permission. You guide his fingers beneath the fabric, aiding him in sliding them down your legs. As you step out of the material, your eyes glance back up to meet his.

“Come here.”

It’s spoken softly, but the command in his voice makes your breath hitch.

You move on instinct, your desire fueling your actions as you straddle his hips. There’s a fluidity in your movements as you rest your hands on his chest. Your manicured nails gently trail over his stomach, watching the lust continue to swirl behind his irises.

While this wasn’t a position you’d dabbled in up to this point, the way he’s regarding you has your confidence flourishing. He wants you, and he wants you badly.

At this point you’d give him the moon and the stars if he asked.

Once you’re settled on top of him, you can feel how his cock strains against the fabric of his boxers. Testing the waters, you glide yourself along his shaft, his hands reaching up to encircle your waist. He simply rests them there, allowing you to take the lead.

The worn cotton of his briefs provides some much needed friction against your clit. You bite down on your lip in an attempt to keep a moan from slipping out. But the male isn’t having any of that. He reaches his hand up to remove your lower lip from between your teeth.

His calloused thumb brushes over your mouth, slipping the digit past your lips.

“No need to be shy, sweetheart. I wanna hear you.”

You nod your head, humming as your tongue swirls around his thumb. You eagerly suck it deeper into your mouth, which pulls a low groan from him. But Eddie can only take so much of your teasing, removing his thumb to grip back onto your hips. Your lower lip juts out in a small pout, which causes him to chuckle.

“Now none of that, or I’ll give you something to pout about,” he quips, giving your ass a warning smack.

The hint of a threat in his tone has you whimpering, guiding your hips harder along his shaft.

You grip the hem of his shirt in between your fingers, beginning to lift it over your hips but he stops you. A brow raising as you look down at him.

“Fuck, keep it on,” he says with a groan. “Wanna see you riding me in it.”

His confession has you feeling timid, letting your hands settle back at your sides. Eddie’s fingers begin to trail over the top of your thigh, before dipping between them. His digits glide between your slick folds, brushing over your bundle of nerves. It causes your breath to hitch, eagerly grinding your hips back against his fingertips.

“Eddie, please,” you breathe.

“Use your words, pretty girl,” he hums. “Tell me what you want.”

Impatience gnawed at you as you lifted your hips, your fingers dipping past the waistband of his boxers. You tug them down to release his cock from their confines, your actions surprising you both. As much as you loved when he touched you, your body was already craving more.

Wrapping your palm around the base of his shaft, he groans. His jaw slackens as he watches you guide the tip through your drenched folds. Nudging it against your clit once…twice…a third time.

Before you finally line him up with your entrance, guiding your hips down.

“Shit, hold on doll, need a condom.”

Eddie holds you in place with one hand, as the other reaches over into his night side table. He’s blindly searching for one of the foil packets when you blurt out, “I don’t want it. Need you to fuck me raw, Ed.”

Your words stop him in his tracks, eyes widening in almost disbelief. You suddenly feel nervous, praying you didn’t just ruin everything with your admission.

“Are you sure? I-I wouldn’t want to risk…” he trails off, licking his lips as he regards you with a somewhat guarded expression.

You nod, leaning forward to whisper in his ear, “I’m on the pill. I just… I want you to be the first one to do it, Eddie.”

His groan rumbles through his chest, the implication behind your words only makes him want you more. Scott never got to do this.

This is something that would be his, and his alone.

His hand cradles the back of your neck, guiding your face towards his. Crashes his lips against yours, the desperation behind them telling you his resounding answer. But you want to hear him say it. Nipping at his lower lip, you pull away to sit back up and rest your palms on his chest.

The male is panting beneath you, his flustered expression only causes your confidence to grow. A smirk adorns your features as Eddie lifts his hips upward in an attempt to grind them into yours, but you push back against his hip to stop the movement.

“Nuh uh, handsome,” you purr, your fingertips gliding through the hair just below his navel. “Tell me what you want. Use your words.”

Eddie’s brain nearly short circuits as you use his former words against him. A slew of curses tumbles from his lips as you grasp his cock in your hand, rubbing it through your folds but not yet breaching the entrance. Awaiting his response as you continue to tease him, feeling his fingers grasping onto your ass.

“Fuck, I wanna come inside you so bad, sweetheart,” he whines.

You hum in approval, leaning back down to press a sloppy kiss to his mouth. Eddie instantly reciprocates, his tongue working its way past your lips. You teasingly suck the muscle into your mouth before pulling away. A string of saliva connects you as you sit up fully. Eddie curses again, his hands gripping onto your ass even harder.

“Fuck— come on, please.”

Hearing Eddie Munson beg is what finally breaks your resolve, slowly sinking down onto his cock.

It didn’t matter how many times you’ve had him, he always made you feel so full. This time feels…different, though. It’s as though you can feel every vein and ridge of his cock caressing your inner walls, the sensation has you gasping. Your body stills once he’s fully sheathed inside you, letting your palms splay across his chest.

“That’s it, takin’ me so good, doll,” he grunts as his head falls back against the pillow. His praise has you beaming.

You stay like that for a moment until you become familiar with the feeling of him inside you again. Beginning to lift your hips slowly, his cock nearly slipping out of you completely. As you begin to lower yourself onto him again, his face contorts in pleasure—now hiding those beautiful irises from you.

“Eddie… baby. Look at me,” you coo.

The pet name slips past your lips almost too easily, enjoying the way it sounds on your tongue. Eddie’s eyes snap back open to meet yours. His pupils are blown wide, the black nearly swallowing the brown of his irises whole. The male peers up at you in a mixture of lust and awe as you continue to take him deeper.

If he could watch you ride him all day, he would.

However, your leisurely pace is starting to drive him insane. The brunette begins to buck his hips up into yours, swift but deep thrusts that take you by surprise. A moan gets caught in your throat as he rams into your sweet spot, eyes rolling back into your head. Witnessing your visceral reaction, he continues to repeat the action as your chest starts to heave.

“Christ, you look so pretty with my cock inside you, baby,” he moans, his fingers digging harder into your hips.

Any thoughts of remaining quiet are thrown out the window the moment he speaks. A loud moan rips itself from your throat, filling the silence of his bedroom. His praise has your walls tightening around his shaft, your head falling forward as you open your eyes. A smug look adorns his features, eyes falling to where your bodies connect.

He looks so good like this— underneath you, eyes wide and his cheeks beautifully flushed.

“You like that don’t you? My pretty girl…”

The sound that leaves you is borderline pornographic, nails digging into his shoulders as you ride him faster. You can’t disguise the way your body reacts to being called his, your arousal making a slippery mess between your bodies.

You reach for him, coaxing him up until your chests are pressed together. Lips find each other instantly, tangling your fingers in his already wild locks. One of his hands travels between you, rubbing at your swollen bud.

“Fuck— Eddie,” you cry out as he massages your clit faster, simultaneously bucking his hips up into you.

You meet each of his thrusts by slamming your hips back down, thighs burning with the effort. One more brutal thrust into your cervix has you seeing stars, your head burying itself into the crook of his neck. You bite down onto the flesh of his shoulder to muffle a loud cry.

Your thighs tremble as your body slumps forward—unable to continue.

But Eddie keeps going, chasing his own end as he guides you further along his cock. He isn’t able to hold off much longer, as the constant fluttering of your walls becomes his undoing. He spills inside you with a deep grunt as you cling onto his biceps.

The male soon collapses into you, his chest heaving as he captures your lips together. You sigh into his mouth as he holds you tightly against him, breathing the air back into your lungs. You stay like that for a moment, locked together in the most intimate way possible.

Eddie carefully ushers your hips upward, coaxing you back onto the mattress. You whimper softly, already missing the feeling of him inside you. His cum has begun to drip onto the bed sheets as he kneels before you, spreading your legs so he can admire the mess he’s made.

Eddie’s eyes are still wide with lust as he takes in the sight of you, dipping his fingers between your thighs to gather some of his cum on the digits. He slowly eases them back inside your entrance in an attempt to keep anything else from spilling out. You whine his name, reaching out for him as he gently removes his fingers from your center.

The male presses multiple kisses to your shaky thighs before he crawls his way back up your body. Just as he goes to wipe his fingers on his sheets you grab onto his wrist, slipping the digits past your lips.

“Jesus Christ, sweetheart,” he mumbles, feigning hurt when you playfully nibble on his fingers. He starts to pull away, ignoring your pout as he gets off up off the bed. You’re about to protest but he hushes you with a kiss. “I’ll be right back.”

Eddie quickly fixes his boxers before he slips out of his bedroom, returning moments later with a damp washcloth. He’s back between your legs, gently cleaning up the dried arousal on your thighs. He takes his time, making sure every inch of your skin is clean before he tosses the dirty rag in his overflowing laundry basket.

Eddie helps you into a sitting position as he cups your cheek, thumb brushing over your lower lip. He smiles fondly at you, dimple indenting his cheek as a familiar look flashes through his eyes. The one you had noticed the week prior when you were draped across his chest in your bedroom. A look he seems to give you almost every time you’re together now.

You still aren’t sure what exactly it means. All you do know is that you want to see more of it.

Eddie tries to hide it as he presses a kiss to your nose, chuckling as you scrunch it beneath his lips. “You hungry? I’m not the best cook, but I can definitely whip you up a nice omelet?”

You beam at him, nodding your head as he gets up to rummage through his dresser drawers. He eventually finds a pair of shorts for you to wear, handing you the garment as he pulls on a pair of sweatpants. You glance down at the ground, attempting to look for your discarded panties, only to come up short.

“Eddie? Have you seen my panties?” You sigh, beginning to look through the clothes scattered across the floor. Hearing him chuckle you glance up, a small smirk stretching across his lips. It’s then that you notice the black lacy fabric clutched in his fist.

“These are mine now, sweetheart,” he winks, tucking them into his bedside table.

You feel a little flustered as you pull the shorts up over your legs, playfully swatting his chest as you stand. Eddie just laughs, pulling you into arms and kissing you again. He eagerly threads your fingers together, leading you out of the room.

However, once he begins to guide you through the trailer— there's only one thing on your mind.

Scotty has got to go.

— next chapter.

sdk taglist: @xxbimbobunnyxx @munsonhoneybaby @mugloversonly @lemme-slytherin-that-dick @transparentenemypenguin @calumfmu @vamp-bunny @eddiesxangel @nailbatanddungeon @deathst9r @comeonatmebruh

[kurishiri]

Mystery Bag 2025 ┊ Team 3: The adult nobles

William (bi-stander), Elbert (“Al pick me up I’m scared” Victorian child), Victor (bisexual mess #1), Darius (bisexual mess #2)

꒰ ִ ֺ ⊹ @ notice ⊹ ֺ ִ ꒱ this translation may not be 100% accurate or contain creative liberties due to narrative flow and characterization purposes. if you enjoy, please consider reblogging, but please don’t repost these or claim these as your own!

— the mystery bag 2025 sale is a story set sale where the guys are put into teams and participate in a relay event thing. this is one of three teams! you can read the prologue, translated by @.judesmoonbeauty, here.

— cw: maybe a near-death experience.

—— Sky ——

——Group 3’s round: William, Elbert, Victor, Darius.

—— City ——

Victor: Seeing this lineup, I take it we’re ‘Team Nobles’!

William: I find it intriguing how it has a pleasant and genuine ring when you are the one saying it.

Darius: I see you are magnanimous, fun, and wonderful today as well, William.

William: Thank you for your kind words. I think you’re quite wonderful yourself too, Darius.

Elbert: …What are you two to each other?

Darius: I’m just very, veeery interested in William here, that’s all.

City girls: Lord Victor, you’re wonderful today as well~~!

Victor: Oh dear, thank you for your vocal support.

City girls: Lord Elbert~! Please blow a kiss~~!

Elbert: ...Blow...a kiss? (O_O)

William: There seems to be more spectators than usual.

Victor: Since it’s the first time we’re holding this selection for the Happy Boy. It’s natural then for there to be many spectating eyes.

V: Besides, did you know? We four are the strongest contenders, I’d say.

V: First up, William!

V: Those sheer prowess in your legs, and your peerless beauty! And by far, I know very well in these great many years I have stood by your side, just how swift of a runner you are.

Darius: How about you stop putting William up on a pedestal? (*^‿^*)

Victor: And next up, Elbert. There’s not a soul that’s seen you running before, but I hold high expectations for you!

Darius: What a wishy-washy basis.

Victor: And then the leader of Vogel, Darius. Same as above.

Darius: ...What?

Victor: And finally, there’s me!

V: With long, flowing jet-black locks, and these elegant and beauteous eyes. And not to mention——

Darius: William, let’s pay no mind to all his nonsense and prepare ourselves. If you were to get hurt anywhere, that would for sure be a problem.

Victor: Now stooop right there. Darius, I’ve been thinking this for a while now, but...

V: Have you by any chance fallen in love with me!?

Darius: And why do you say that?

Victor: Why, because there are times when you just can’t help but tease the one you like, you know. I see, I see it now~~ I hadn’t realized at all!

Darius: This is exactly what I despise about you.

Victor: What the— despise!? (O_O)

William: Haha, I see you two are getting along quite well.

Elbert: ...They are?

Steering committee: To everyone in group 3, there is something we must inform you about.

Steering committee: We do apologize, but due to mechanical difficulties, there is a one hour delay.

Victor: Oh my, one hour, you say? That’s quite a hefty amount of time.

Young man in steering committee: Lord Victor, the Queen’s Aide, Lord Rex and Lord Elbert. And the personage over there...

Victor: That would be Lord Darius Vogel, the leader of Vogel.

Young man in steering committee: Oh— then it’s all the more reason we can’t afford to keep you waiting in such a place.

Young man in steering committee: Please wait over here until the start time. Well then, if you’ll follow me.

—— Café ——

William: A table just for us, and warm tea as well. Very considerate of them.

W: ...However, Elbert. I would refrain from putting your hands on your cup of tea.

W: That is, if you do not wish to collapse, just as Snow White had when she ate the poisoned apple, and get cozy with the bed.

Elbert: ...Ahh, so it was like that.

Victor: It was like what? (O_O)

Elbert: You two gave off an air of bloodlust. For a moment’s time.

Darius: Ohh, so I see.

D: Basically, there is a target that concealed himself in the shadows of this lively event... is that right?

D: But why did they choose to sneak in a dose of poison for Elbert then?

Victor: Our target this time is a criminal who has spoken out against the authority of Her Majesty the Queen.

V: And so, what if a corpse turned up during this event?

Elbert: It is highly possible Her Majesty, who has planned this event, will be faced with criticism.

Victor: And what’s important is who becomes the corpse then. It has to be someone whose corpse would cause a ruckus.

V: In other words, the perfect fit for such a role would be the one who snags the victory, and bonus points if they are of a high standing.

William: That said, Victor, while a perfect candidate to cause a ruckus among the people, would be too unabashed of a choice, as he is the Queen’s Aide.

W: And as I am written in a very positive light in newspapers, interestingly enough, there is a risk of facing retaliation.

W: As for Darius... targeting him would be an international problem in and of itself, so he is out of the question.

W: That would then leave Elbert. That would be why the possibility of your tea being poisoned is nothing to laugh at.

W: ——Or have we erred in our guess in any way, young man?

Young man in standing committee: Wha...

Young man in standing committee: I didn’t...

William: Your hands are trembling, and your lips resemble the sea in how blue they are.

Victor: And besides, we’ve already collected all the evidence, Christopher Olcott.

Young man in standing committee: ...How do you know my name...

Victor: You are a part of a revolution group that preaches against Her Majesty the Queen, and you were given the mission of assassinating Elbert here with poison.

V: I am also very much in the know of your personal history and family... care to lend an ear?

Young man in standing committee: ...gh.

Young man in steering committee: E-even if that’s the case! There’s something that doesn’t add up in what you’re saying!

William: Doesn’t add up, you say?

Young man in steering committee: If I really wanted to point criticizing eyes at Her Majesty the Queen, I wouldn’t kill any participant in the preliminary round.

Young man in steering committee: I would wait for the finals. I would kill on the most anticipated day.

Young man in steering committee: That would cause even more of a ruckus, wouldn’t it.

William: Yes, exactly. I did figure as much.

W: However——you could not.

W: After all, the birthday of your boss’ beloved daughter, whom he very much dotes on, falls on the same day as the finals, right?

W: And that was why you were ordered to carry it out by today, with no exceptions. Or am I wrong?

Young man in steering committee: ...!

Darius: Looks like that’s the end game for you.

Victor: You’re still young, so if it’s now, you can still turn over a new leaf. That is, if you are able to choose that path for yourself.

William: Indeed. All this happened before the tea could even cool, after all.

—— City ——

Darius: Based on today’s events, the group will be condemned at a later date for their repeated misdeeds...

D: What a magnificent way to plant fear of condemnation, William. I’d expect nothing less.

D: Oh, especially that ‘all this happened before the tea could even cool’ line.

D: Could you say that one more time, pretty please?

Victor: ‘ALL THIS HAPPENED BEFORE THE TEA COULD EVEN COOL’~~! (⌒▽⌒)☆

Darius: Not you. (눈_눈)

Elbert: ..There was something that made me curious.

Victor: Ask away, Elbert.

Elbert: Darius.

E: Since when were you aware William and Victor were going to carry out the condemnation?

Darius: ‘When’?

Elbert: When they revealed the target this time, you did not seem very surprised to me.

Darius: Hehe, look at you, so the Earl Greetia does have his wits about him after all. Color me surprised.

D: That said, it would be a stretch for me to know who the target was, you know? I just had a feeling there was something going on, I guess.

D: Victor, this is what you said.

—— Flashback ——

Victor: Besides, did you know? We four are the strongest contenders, I’d say.

—— End flashback ——

Darius: All the members of Crown and Vogel are participating.

D: And yet, there you were, touting about how we were the strongest contenders. That gave me a feeling.

D: You guys were tampering with information from the start. All to oust that young man.

Victor: ......... (･ᴗ･)

Darius: Indeed, I really do despise you. And how sharply cunning you are.

Victor: I take it that when you say ‘despise,’ it is a form of your love, but...

V: If you really do insist that you despise me, then all you need to do is win against me in the match that’s about to start in a few minutes.

V: That is, if you can win.

William: Look at you, Victor. I’ll have you know that I would hate to lose as well?

Elbert: ...I also have no intention of losing.

E: Kate is cheering, after all.

Steering committee: Thank you for waiting. Group 3, we will begin the round.

William: Now then, how about we enjoy this match to the absolute fullest?

Fin.

team 1 team 2 team 3

ko-fi ☕️ ┊ comms 🤍

[somesecretpie]

Fans and Creators of Webtoons!

I want to talk about Line Webtoon’s new “Super Like” program and why it sucks for literally everyone.

What is a “Super Like?”

According to their website, super likes are a new way for webtoon creators to monetize their work. Readers can pay real money to buy a super like for their favorite webtoon, and the creator gets a fraction of that money.

Wait, a fraction? Not all of it?

Yep! Webtoon skims quite a chunk off the top.

30% goes to Webtoon, and then another 30% of that amount goes to the payment processor.

So what do creators get? 49 cents for every dollar their fans try to give them. Literally half.

That’s pretty ludicrous, right?

Interestingly enough, they announced that they had a “tipping system” in the works in the same email they ended the CANVAS creator rewards program (and many comic creators livelihoods)

They said tipping system in their social media posts too

Obviously this tipping system is referring to super likes right? They say they’re going to do a tipping system, and then this rolls out.

But “tips” are not something that buisinesses can just take a cut of, at least not in the United States. According to the Department of Labor, it is illegal for any amount of tips from customers to go to an employer.

Webtoon is trying to walk back this language, of course. You won’t find the word “tip” anywhere on their website page explaining how it works. But those old social media posts are still up.

This is all pretty scummy

But wait, it gets worse!

They removed the Patreon button at the end of episodes and replaced it with this:

Yep! That’s right. Webtoon really said “what if we replace the tipping system that already existed with a shittier one where you only get half of it 🥺”

Unsurprisingly, they faced a ton of backlash.

Webtoon was quick to point out that the Patreon button was only removed from the end of episodes and there was still a button on the creator’s homepage. But of course, the end of episodes is where that button matters the most.

Creators know this. Webtoon knows this.

Eventually, after days of continued complaints from creators on social media, Webtoon went on damage control mode and announced that they would be putting the Patreon button back at the end of episodes—

As of right now (May 11th, 2024) the Patreon button is still not back.

***

So…Super likes are “super totally not a tip.”

But if they aren’t tips…what are they?

Well there’s a bit more to the story of what a super like actually is. After announceing the program, the app updated to reveal a new ranking category on the front page

When you click on this ranking tab, you can see that there is now both a daily and weekly ranking

If you’re a CANVAS creator, you know how difficult and seemingly random it can be to get your comic on the front page of the app—so my immediate worry was that comic creators were going to buy superlikes on their own series to get in this ranking and…

Yep, that’s already happening.

But why would webtoon even allow creators to buy superlikes for themselves? How does that make sense?

Surely goading desperate creators into buying superlikes can’t be that lucrative, can it?

No. I think there’s another, possibly even worse reason.

Fandom wars

If you’re into music, you probably are aware of how common it is for super fans to make concerted efforts to get their favorite musician to the top of the billboard charts. They coordinate over social media, stream music on loop as soon as an album drops to inflate the numbers, buy albums in bulk to increase sales, all so that they can say their fav is number one. It’s especially common among K-pop fans and swifties

This phenomena is well documented

Fans of Webtoons can be just as ravenous as K-pop, so I think Webtoon is trying to capitalize on this. They want to encourage fandom war and make money. That’s why they have this ranking. Not only can super fans brag about their favorite series topping the charts but they can wear their super like proudly on their reader profile that webtoon will be rolling out soon.

They’re just testing this super like stuff out on CANVAS right now, but once this starts up with originals? Oh. It will be a very profitable, very terrible mess.

(Oh and I mean profitable for webtoon, not creators, in case that wasn’t clear.)

***

Anyway, if you’re a creator, do yourself a favor and don’t enable super likes.

If you’re a fan of a webcomic, just donate to that creators patreon or Ko-Fi to show your support. Don’t give a red cent to webtoon because they did not do any of the work to make the series you love, alright?

Also check out my webtoon haha.

[spicycinnabun]

pt. 1 2 3 4 6 7 💐

Eddie turned around, finding none other than the flower nazi. His nametag actually said Steve. 

He had a leaf stuck in his hair, and his nose was abnormally rosy. Going by that and his nasal tone, he clearly had a cold. He sneezed, then looked annoyed at himself for doing so. “Ugh, sorry,” he apologized. 

He was fucking adorable. It made Eddie smile. “Don’t be. I don’t really need help.” Not with flowers, anyway, just with everything else about his life. “I’m only browsing.” 

It was a weird response, he realized. A guy like him, who looked like he belonged anywhere else, loitering in a shop like this. Just browsing. Right. Steve probably thought he was a creep. 

Steve was surprised to hear that the man wasn’t looking for anything. Last time, he had bought something, so Steve had assumed he was a returning customer. He had been staring at the wedding arrangement, so maybe he was trying to figure out if Harrington Floral was the best place to get them from.

“That’s some talent you’ve got,” Eddie added, pointing to the display.

Steve felt himself flush. “Thanks,” he said softly, ducking his head bashfully. It wasn’t usually guys who were doling out compliments on the displays. Typically, they just asked for his advice on what they should buy for their significant others.

The redness that bloomed on Steve’s cheeks was just plain delightful. It could have been due to his illness, but Eddie was pretty sure it was a reaction to his compliment. His smile widened. “You made it, right?”

“Yes, I did. I make all the displays.” Steve ran a hand through his hair, missing the leaf by a mere centimeter. “I think I saw you last month when I was building one in the window over there. Are you sure you’re not interested in anything?”

Instead of answering, Eddie reached out and plucked the leaf out of Steve’s hair. “Sorry, you had a little bud-dy trying to catch a ride there. Was distracting the hell out of me.” Eddie showed him the small, curvy leaf. 

Steve laughed, which made him cough a little. After clearing his throat, he got back to business. Steve was all about closing a sale, so he pushed a little. “Are you or someone you know getting married? I can, uh…” he thought quickly, “give you a free bouquet as a testimony to how well our flowers will hold up. I was just pruning the roses before you came in. What do you think about a bouquet of them?”

Steve remembered Eddie. And he’d laughed at Eddie’s horrible pun. But Eddie was caught off guard by the questions and the offering. Steve was observant. “I can’t let you do that,” he said. “My uncle is getting married. Hopefully. He hasn’t popped the question yet.”

It would be kind of terrible of him to accept free flowers if it didn’t work out and they never ordered any.

“That’s exciting,” Steve responded.

Genuinely, he felt like it was. Steve loved love. Working in a flower shop would be hard if he was bitter about being single. Also, the fact that someone else around his age wasn’t getting married made him feel a bit better about his own love life. Lately, it seemed like all his friends were getting hitched.

Eddie twirled a piece of hair around his finger, contemplating. He pocketed the little leaf. “I’m meeting the bride-to-be tonight. I suppose making a nice first impression wouldn’t be a bad idea.” He could give the flowers to Wayne to present to Kathleen when she came over. “How much for half a dozen?”

That was probably all he could afford, but he would be paying.

Eddie wasn’t selling as much anymore. Just weed, no powders or pills. Not since he’d discovered that one of his regulars had recently overdosed on Molly. He was at least partially responsible for that. He should have questioned the steadily increasing amount the guy was buying, but he had only been thinking about the money.

“Wouldn’t be a bad idea at all.” Steve had no intention of taking any money for the bouquet. 

He walked around the store and started building it. Steve picked out four roses in red and pink, then added two pastel-dyed Asiatic lilies and sprinkled in a few strands of baby’s breath.

When he was finished, he went to the counter to put them down. He grabbed the twine and unrolled some tissue paper. “I’m sure there won’t be any more customers tonight. I’m kind of in charge, so I can totally give you these for free. Because I want to.”

Eddie pressed his lips together briefly, walking over and planting his forearms on the counter. He wasn’t some charity case. He didn’t like having debts, either. Maybe Steve had seen the type of clothes he wore and automatically assumed Eddie was trailer park trash who couldn’t afford it.

But Steve was smiling at him, looking sweet as a goddamn sugar cookie, and Eddie relaxed, rejecting the thought. That just didn’t seem right.

(Though why Steve wanted to give anyone, let alone Eddie, free flowers was a mystery.)

“You’re the boss, huh?” Eddie said. Steve looked young to own the shop, but maybe he was one of the Harringtons.

The name rang a bell. Steve Harrington. Dustin used to talk about a Steve during D&D. Gushed more than talked, really. Was he the same one?

“Technically, it’s my mom’s shop, but I’ve been running it for a while now,” Steve said. He couldn’t take all the credit.

Eddie gently drummed the counter, rings click-clacking as he watched those nimble fingers cut, tie, and wrap. His mom’s store. Well, wasn’t that precious.

Steve gave the bouquet one last critical look and a fluff with his fingers before handing it over. “With these, I think you’ll make the best impression. Maybe your uncle will even pop the question tonight!” Steve was excited for the groom to be even though he didn’t know him.

Eddie accepted the bouquet and looked down at it. “Thank you. It’s stunning.” Kind of like you.

He didn’t say that last part out loud, though he thought it hard enough that he’d probably projected it into Steve’s head.

Steve felt his face heat again. He didn’t know why he was reacting this way to the compliments. When women complimented his arrangements, he barely blinked.

Eddie brought the bouquet to his nose to smell its perfume. It brought another smile to his face before he lowered it. If Kathleen didn’t end up liking them, she was crazy.

Steve watched Eddie, grinning. “I’m Steve, by the way.”

Eddie’s gaze flickered up. He lowered the bouquet. Why were they both smiling like fucking idiots? “Eddie.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Eddie. Let me get you a card—you know, in case your uncle does propose and will need flowers from somewhere.” Steve grabbed one of the embellished business cards from the stack beside the register.  

Eddie reached out to take it, and Steve sneezed again just as their fingers brushed. It was a big sneeze that made his face screw up and nearly blew him backward. Luckily, he managed to cover his nose before he bombed Eddie. Eddie tried not to laugh at his irritated expression and soft whine as he sniffled.

Eddie pocketed the card and tugged his handkerchief out at the same time. “Here,” he offered kindly, holding it out to Steve.

It was his favorite hanky, his pirate one with the skull and bones, but it was the least he could do. 

Without thinking much about it, Steve took it and blew his nose. He let out a soft sigh, feeling a little better. Then he realized what he’d done. “Sorry…this is kinda gross now. Do you want it back?” 

“Oh no—no, that’s yours now,” Eddie said hastily. “I insist. Consider it a token of my gratitude.” He lowered himself in a teasing bow. “Farewell, Steve, fine sir.”

So, so fine. Even with all the snot.

Eddie backed out of the store, still bent over for extra theatricality. When he straightened up, Steve looked confused but was red in the cheeks again. Score.

On the ride home, Eddie almost missed a turn because he kept glancing at the bouquet.

🌷🪻🌻🌹

co-writing this with @batty4steddie 💕

[cozy-writes-things]

Electric Love: Pt. 1

Edgar [Electric Dreams 1984] x Gn!Reader

All of my fics so far have followed the same universe, so I thought it's only logical that I post an introduction to that universe.

The old man peering at you through puffy eyes and age seemed to have an air shrouded in mystery. His thin, white wisps of hair seemed to stagnate in place as he adjusted his button down.

“This old thing has been around for years now,” he gruffed—an unreadable tone—as his hand encased the yellowed plastic, “I don’t remember what happened to it; must have dropped it, or let some animal chip away at it.”

The dingy, vintage computer before your eyes surely had not been dropped, nor torn into by some animal. It sat upon his countertop completely destroyed; as if it had burst and shattered from the inside out, ripping the glass into jagged shards. You swallowed this thought; this was no time to debate the old man. He seemed to be quite senile as it was and pushing any further seemed like a fruitless effort. Instead, you stretched a thin smile his way, pursing your lips in thought.

“You actually think you can get this thing to work again?” he queried, raising a salt and pepper brow at your expression.

“Well, I’m not sure, but… I’d like to try,” what you hadn’t told him, however, was your infatuation with electronics. Ever since completing your bachelor’s in computer science, you have been tinkering away at many different projects in between jobs, building custom PCs, fixing old Game Boys, and many others. This little computer was an addition to your ever growing collection.

It came from a company you had never heard of before, only to learn it had become defunct in the 80s due to some inexplicable software issues in their products. This certainly intrigued you, as prodding into its code could provide some useful insight to real, vintage tech that just doesn’t exist anymore. But, that’s only if you manage to fix the heap of destruction limply hung before you.

The old man stiffened at your words, ever so slightly, before rattling out, “Well, if you do, don’t bring it anywhere near me. I can’t stand all this tech, and gadgets, and whatnot. Pisses me off.”

“Right,” you interjected, knowing people like him tend to go on long, anti-future, anti-technology rants, trying desperately to beat him to the punch, “well, how much do you want for it?”

He stilled, contemplating for a moment, “twenty-five should be fine.”

“Perfect,” you chirped, padding against your pockets and bag searching for some cash. Pulling out your wallet, you waded around the folds, only to find a crumpled up and faded ten dollar bill and a debit card.

“Ah, I’ve only got a ten…”

He rolled his eyes, “of course you do, you got PayPal, then?” Your cheeks flushed a burning red hot from embarrassment, “ah, yes, I do-”

“Great, just pay me that way,” he bent down and scribbled something messily onto a note, “here’s my information. I made sure to set this up for people like you, you know. Nobody carries cash anymore, or so my grandson tells me.”

You force out a nervous chuckle.

“That’s certainly true… these days, ah…” you unlocked your phone and began inputting his information into PayPal before pressing send on the digital payment, “okay, it went through.”

“Perfect. You need help getting this hunk of junk to your car?”

“No, I should be fine, thank you, sir,” you croak as you heave the broken computer into your arms, heading towards his door.

“Well, come back if you want to buy anything else. Nobody goes to yard sales anymore, it seems.”

You can only turn your head and chuckle at his quip, before awkwardly dashing out of his apartment and towards your car. The dampened asphalt from the rain squelched under your toes as you lugged the large piece of tech to the passenger side.

“There,” you whispered, to nobody in particular, as you awkwardly buckled the computer in place, “hopefully you won’t fall that way.”

And just like that, you were off, headed towards home to begin the massive project that was repairing this obsolete device.

“What to do with you?”

You groaned as you thumped the solid mass of plastic and metal against your desk, “you’re incredibly broken.”

First and foremost, it needs a screen replacement. Which is easier said than done. Especially considering the company who manufactured these things hasn’t existed in 40 years. Unfortunately, a close replica will have to do. Maybe you could even upgrade its screen with something with a bit more prowess.

Poking inside of its components seemed to tell a different story. Miraculously, none of the motherboards were damaged with the same ferocity the screen had been. There seemed to be some sort of dried, caked on water damage of some sort, that left a sticky residue, but otherwise, everything seemed to be relatively intact. The yellowed casing could use a wipe down from the thick layer of starchy dust, but it seemed to hold its original shape with surprising ease.

Following a closer inspection, it seemed as though the glass screen, and the components in charge of illuminating it, were the only things in need of replacing. A quick browse on Amazon, some tech forums, and a post on Reddit should be a good start in finding a usable replacement for this sad, broken gadget.

For now, however, you get some isopropyl alcohol and a soft bristled toothbrush to chip away at the water damage on the motherboards in hopes of restoring the electrical connections. You were quite hopeful that you’d get this little guy up and running just as soon as you could find the right parts. It’s only a matter of time.

[scramratz]

Rant abt your Cds I'm curious

OK HERE GOES SCRAMS 2024 CD COLLECTION TIER LIST

(Disclaimer: these are just my personal opinions and if yours differ from mine, fine. It’s not a sin to be wrong)

S TIER-

Goo-Sonic Youth: Straight bangers all the way through. Girls love it when you show them your Sonic Youth cd. Extra points cuz the pamphlet unfolds into a sick poster

Midnight Vultures-Beck: Good album to clean the house to. Every song a banger. Beck as a person sets off alarms, though 🤔

Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot-Sparklehorse: Genuinely my favorite artist and album of all time. Fall asleep to Homecoming Queen often.

Siamese Dream-Smashing Pumpkins: Fire straight though. Good when you’re in a depressed 20-something mood. Better than Mellon Collie in my humble opinion.

Gorillaz-Gorillaz: The start of one of my favorite bands and objectively one of the best bands in the world don’t fight me on it I’ll kill you.

A TIER-

Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots-The Flaming Lips: Solid album. Iconic cover art. “Do You Realize??” always got me feeling feelings

Violent Femmes-Violent Femmes: Top 3 favorite band. Every song went platinum in my household. Would have been higher but reminds me of my mom too much.

Dig Me Out- Sleater-Kinney: Got it because the name sounded familiar. Ended up loving them! Doesn’t sound right if it’s not played loud, though, and considering I live in an apartment, I don’t play it often.

Fear Yourself-Daniel Johnston: Got it because I love “Hi, How Are You” but haven’t been able to find it anywhere. Was pleasantly surprised! Hits the same melancholy spot but slightly more upbeat.

Figure 8-Elliot Smith: My favorite sad boy that definitely DIDN’T kill himself. Not my favorite Elliot album but every one of his albums is A tier personally.

The Diary of Alicia Keys-Alicia Keys: WENT QUADRUPLE PLATINUM IN OUR HOUSEHOLD. Prime cleaning the house on Sunday music. Dragon Days is seriously underrated.

Garbage-Garbage: Don’t know how to say this without sounding insane but this album sounds like the color #DC007F and I like that color a lot

2-Mac Demarco: The CHOKEHOLD Mac Demarco had on us artschool bitches in 2016 OMG. Was gonna change my name to Viceroy

B TIER-

Money for Nothing- Dire Straits: Top tier dad music.

Lumine fever- The Adrenals: Got it cuz the cover looked cool. Was pleasantly surprised! They rock the adequate amount

Rocket to Russia- Ramones: They’re good but I don’t get the hype honestly. They’re the Flavor-Aid of Punk

Starfish- The Church: Only love one song on it, the only song anyone likes tbh. The rest are your standard 80s deal

Crooked Rain-Pavement: I really love Pavement but there is a thing as too much Pavement and I think I’ve reached it

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot-Wilco: Honestly should have been in A tier but all the pretentious music dudes I’ve met has soured this album for me so it goes in B outta spite. Jesus Etc my fave song tho

An Evening with Silk Sonic- Silk Sonic: Nice, short, gets me in a happy mood. Does what it needs to do!

Prolonging the Magic- Cake: John McCrea don’t really be singing, do he? He just fancy talkin

C TIER-

Gigantic, Fuel, and The Nixons: I got all 3 on sale and they all sound the same and that sound is…ok? Like it’s alright background music

Blind Melon-Blind Melon: What was with 90’s bands putting random kids as their album covers? Decent listen, though.

Summerteeth-Wilco: Good background music. I can’t remember any songs off it.

Los Angeles/Wild Gift-X: I like X but I hate that fucking album art omg it’s so hard to look at. I like their songs individually but as a cohesive album, eh.

D TIER-

Throwing Copper-Live: bought it on sale with the above 3 but liked this one substantially less. Only redeeming quality to me is the album art.

Ben Folds Five-Ben Folds Five: Misleading considering there’s only 3 of them. He sounds like my ex boyfriend from highschool before I realized I liked girls

F Tier-

The Ragetones/Fall Apart-The Ragetones: Saw them play at a shitting basement show. Everything sounds better when you can barely hear yourself think.

F Punk-Big Audio Dynamite: Found it at the thrift and rehomed it outta pity. Sounds like the 80s in a bad way.

[rhaenzokla]

Meet-Cute

Yuuji and Megumi x Reader (separately)

Summary: How you first meet them!

CW: yuuji is nervous so Nobara helps!, Gojo makes reader a bit uncomfortable in Megumi’s! (Can do a pt2 if anyone wants)

Yuuji Itadori

Yuuji had been pulled into the mall, along side Megumi by Nobara.

“This place is so big! I sure you two can find something to buy. You two losers don’t know the benefits of retail therapy and it shows!” She jabs them in their sides as she makes a b-line for Pink.

Megumi grumbles under his breath as he starts making his way downstairs, most likely trying to find anywhere they wouldn’t end up. Hoping for some peace and quiet.

Yuuji follows Nobara in, not paying attention to the other side of the store, Victoria Secret.

His eyes go wide and his face heats up as he walks behind Nobara, trying to find anywhere to look that he wouldn’t feel like a perv anymore.

“Kugisaki! Why did you drag me in here with all of this stuff?” He whisper yells, to which she chuckles.

“I dragged you in the mall, but I did not make you come in here.” She hold up a blue lacy set and a red satin set. “Which do you think would look better?” She asked Yuuji, very much teasing the blushing boy.

Their conversation gets interrupted when a worker makes her way into the conversation. “With your complexion, I’d go with the blue if you’re set on one of those two. If not, I’d recommend one of our purple sets.” You say with a smile, just wanting to help.

Kugisaki listens and takes your advice, looking over the purple collection while Yuuji stands in place, staring without meaning to.

“Is your boyfriend okay? He looks like he saw a ghost.” You ask the kind girl and she scoffs. “Him? Me? You’re kidding, right? Not in a million years! Haha!” You’re taken slightly aback by her statement.

Okay, if they’re not together, but why the immediate disgust? You couldn’t lie, he was cute. With his bubblegum hair and his rosy cheeks that seemed to be accentuated with symmetrical scars under his eyes.

“Oh, sorry for the confusion! I just assumed since most of the time it’s the boyfriends coming in with girlfriends. Especially since you asked for his advice.” You chuckle and blush yourself this time, rubbing the back of your neck.

“We’re just friends. He’s a bit overwhelmed so I was just teasing him to get him to calm down. I think I’ll grab this one! Thank you for your help.” She smiles.

“That’s no problem. If you’ll follow me, I can get you ringed up myself!” You start towards the register but pause as you realise the two stopped following you and started talking.

You can’t hear what they’re saying but you can tell that she’s trying to convince her friend of something and he’s not so sure. A few moment later and they’re both at your register.

“That’ll be $47.98.” You say with a smile. She pulls out her wallet with a small piece of paper and writes something down. Handing you her card and the paper.

You ring her up as you’ll see what else you’ve been handed when you have free time. “He was too embarrassed to give it to you himself. Have a good day!”

You chuckle and look over at the young man next to her. “That’s my line, but you too! Hope to see you again!” They walk out and only then do you sneak a peak at the paper.

The not-so-boyfriend’s number

XXX-XXX-XXXX

Oh, you’re definitely texting him when you get off.

Megumi Fushiguro

Gojo had busted into Megumi’s room that morning to ask (beg) for him to go with him to go shopping for the other teachers at JJT.

Megumi declined his offer but decided it would be easier to just go with him than to listen to him whine about it all day, or worse, all week.

So here they are, pulling into the parking lot of the closest Bath and Body Works. “They have a massive sale right now! We can knock out all the women now!”

Megumi rolls his eyes at his mentor as he makes his way in. A warm “welcome in” travels to his ears as he enters. Combinations of the smells is a bit overwhelming for Megumi at first.

He starts looking around for his mentor as he realised he no longer behind him like he anticipated. Megumi finds him speaking with a young woman wearing an apron.

“What would you recommend for adult women?” Gojo asks the employee as Megumi walks up behind him. He reads your name tags before looking up at your face.

His cheeks run hot for a moment, heart beating just a bit quicker.

What is this?

“That depends on if you’re looking for something more floral, sugary, or fresh! My personal favourite, that I’m wearing now is Rose. It was discontinued a few months back but it’s now part of our limited time spring collection!” You give the white haired man a warm smile before looking behind him. “Do you need some help too, sir?”

He steamers for a moment. “N-no. Just looking with him.” He hums and rubs the back of his neck.

You nod and start leading them to the scents you’d recommend for each scent type.

“So uh… you have a boyfriend?” The white haired man asked, taking you aback.

“Uhm… no. No I don’t. Why do you ask?” You look to him cautiously.

“Oh c’mon, can’t you see that made her uncomfortable, Gojo? Leave her be. Why do you need to know her love life anyways?” Megumi asked, defending you when he saw the uncomfortableness in your eyes.

“It’s okay. Thank you,” you leave the end open for him to give you his name.

“Fushiguro” he curls his lips slightly and looks down to the floor.

“Fush-“ you’re cut off by the man named Gojo.

“Megumi here is also single, and I was just thinking maybe you could exchange number or something. He could use some more friends.”

Megumis face turns beat red and he starts to say something when you chuckle loudly.

“Sorry! It’s just that I don’t have many friends either. I’d love to exchange numbers if you’re up for it. I work a lot so we might not be able to meet up a lot, but I’m the friend you share your life story with anyway-“ you chuckle as you print a blank receipt, writing your number down.

“I get off at 7 tonight, by the way.” You smile and send them on their way to check out, smiling once again as they go to leave, giving him one final “have a good evening” as they leave.

©️RhaenZokla

Hope you enjoyed!

Thank you for reading!

[shotoyami]

Could do gambit x f reader basically f reader is a normal person working and is saved one day by gambit in a fight and offers to take her home and basically gets to know her and take her out on a date’s <33

prenotes: Gambit beloved <33 !!! The silly little Cajun man, he has my heart… I loved writing this sm, super cute, might make a part two if anyone would like to see that!!!

Thank you so much for the request, anon<3

pairing: Remy LeBeau/Gambit + female reader

warnings: none, yet again!

genre: fluff, that’s all to be seen here

notes: so please ignore the jokes I make in here if anyone doesn’t like them, I had to make them as a retail worker and the usual daily struggles of retail. but if anyone laughs, I’m glad! (please respect your retail workers, they don’t get paid enough or appreciated enough)

word count: 900+

Sir, this is a Walmart…

Work. Mediocre, stressful, annoying. At least, that’s a normal day on the job. Another day at some high end grocery store that cannot be named here, just dealing with the same customers to expect every day. The entitled old people, the crass young people that shouldn't be without adult supervision, crying babies that the mother literally is not even a foot away from and doesn’t care about, and so much more stupidity. 

“You young kids and not respecting their elders. I swear, it’s like I always talk to the same person no matter where I go unless it’s a machine!” Like now, where an older woman is harassing me.

I force a civil smile onto my face, knowing everything is both on video and on audio, and that anything against store policy could get me fired. “I’m sorry to hear that, ma’am. Unfortunately, I can’t bend the rules for anyone. If I change the price for you, I’d have to change the price for everyone in the store- which can’t happen, of course.” I try to explain to the woman– which is stupid, because when do entitled people ever listen to reason? She starts shouting, which is to be expected, and of course a supervisor comes over, trying to gauge what’s happening, and now she’s screaming at them too. The supervisor gives me a glance and I just put my hands up defensively and turn and walk away– because I don’t get paid anywhere near enough to deal with this crap.

I fall into the breakroom’s couch with a long sigh, making one of my coworkers giggle. “Gosh (y/n), tell us all how you really feel girl.” I groan, but let out a small laugh, finding humor in my coworker’s words. “Was it Sharon again? Or Beth?”

I sat up as I respond, “Neither, it was Martha.” My coworker grimaces at the name, before she sighs.

“Yikes. I’m sorry girl, she’s a pain.” I snicker, nodding in agreement. “But have you seen that new looker that’s been coming in recently?” That sparks my attention, and I sit fully toward her, attentively. “No? Okay, so there’s this guy that’s been coming in, right? And he’s got weird eyes and a southern accent, and he flirts with everyone.” I nod along as she speaks, humming afterward in thought.

“No, I haven’t seen or met him yet. He sounds interesting?” She nods in agreement, but we’re interrupted as our supervisor comes in, rolling his eyes.

“Martha.” Is all he says, making both of us giggle. “You’re good to go back on the floor, (y/n).” I nod and hop up, making my way back out onto the sales floor.

Of course, my luck willing, there’s some weird looking people (hey, we’re not trying to judge here, but just imagine this the same kinda way as describing your neighborhood crackhead) getting into a fight on the sales floor. I stand there, awkwardly, because I’m not trying to get into the middle of all of that. 

As I go to shuffle on by, because I don’t get paid enough to care, some kind of metal comes flying at me. My survival instincts aren’t survivaling because I just stare at my impending doom for a moment, accepting my fate and all, until a card with a purple looking hue just flies in front of me and blows up the metal??????

Whilst pondering my existence and how I didn’t just die, I get grabbed and my snatcher???? savior???? just kind of runs, cursing in some other language – french? Once again accepting my fate, I don’t exactly struggle or anything because this is all on camera and surely  someone will clock me out for this or just give me extended pay time for dealing with this crap.

The person finally stops and sets me down in the back of the parking lot, and I find that it’s my coworker’s deemed ‘new looker’. “Ya’ alri’, cher?” I slowly nod, probably looking like a big eyed fish or a barn owl or something. He chuckles, offering a hand, “The name’s Remy LeBeau, ya’ welcome fa’ the save. How’s ‘bout yous make it up ta’ me by lettin’ me walk ya’ on home? Ya’ off the clock?” Again, I just nod stupidly – my coworkers can clock me out, it should be fine. Fortunately, I use public transportation anyway, so it all works out.

Of course, everyone’s staring at the man next to me. Not so much for his “good looks,” but moreso for his odd appearing eyes – red on black. The entire subway is…rather quiet for once. It’s a nice change, a welcome change. He’s the one that breaks the silence as we get off of the subway, “Ya’ from ‘round these parts?” He sort of leans over me, smirking but still being quite respectful. He’s probably fishing for something in common, given his thick southern accent.

“No, I’m from the next state over.” He slowly nods, humming and keeping the conversation going similarly until we arrive at my front door. “So, I be seein’ ya’ again? Here, le’mme give ya’ my fone number.” He quickly comes up with a way to scribble down his digits, handing the paper to me. “An’ maybe we can go on a nice little date or somethin’ soon, cher?”

A goofy smile comes onto my face at this words, a bit shocked that all it took was a bit of small took to charade this man, but I nod in agreement nonetheless. “I’d appreciate if it involved me not being in immediate danger next time?” He chuckles and nods.

“See ya’ then, darlin’.”

[fickleminder]

seven supervillains and one (1) normie

You move in with seven normal, law-abiding housemates.

Here’s my piece for @obeymezine! Leftover sales are live till Dec 15th, so do consider supporting us since all proceeds will be going to charity :)

Lucifer looks even more handsome in person.

You find yourself paying more attention to him and the deep timbre of his voice than the tour of Serenity Manor and its rules. Only a firm call of your name snaps you back to the present.

“This will be your room,” he says, opening one last door for you to step through. It’s decently furnished with all the basic necessities and has an en suite to boot. How generous. “Is this to your satisfaction?”

“Oh absolutely, everything looks great!” You wheel your luggage into a corner and set your backpack down on the large study table. “I still can’t believe I got matched with you guys for the boarding program. Thank you so much for having me!”

“The pleasure is ours.” Lucifer gives you a polite nod. “Make yourself at home, and I will introduce you to my brothers tomorrow. We hope you’ll enjoy your stay here with us.”

.

.

.

“Surveillance systems are online,” Levi reports as all eyes watch you unpack on the screen. “Ugh, bugging rooms is so old school. It’s only the first day, I doubt there’ll be any suspicious activity.”

“And it better stay that way.” Satan’s already profiling you from your posters on the walls, your stuffed sheep on the bed, your clothes in the closet. No red flags yet, as far as he can discern.

“Pfft, what can one exchange student do to us?” Mammon scoffs. Your background check was clean, your documents checked out. In every practical sense, you were an ordinary postgraduate taking courses at the local university for a year. “Loosen up guys!”

Lucifer shoots him a glare indicating he has no intention of doing so. “No funny business. It’s unfortunate that we have to go undercover in our own home, but Elysium’s agents are on to us. We need to mask our activities and blend in, and we have no choice but to wait for them to leave. Until then, continue to follow Prince’s orders, but keep things low-key. Do I make myself clear?”

.

.

.

“—massive destruction of property at Settler’s factory premises. Witnesses say it was Gluttony in another one of his rampages, and this marks the fourth attack in…”

You glance towards a face-palming Lucifer at the breakfast table. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes, perfectly fine.” He smiles through gritted teeth and switches off the TV, silencing the news.

.

.

.

You have a few days before classes officially start, so you decide to take some time familiarizing yourself with the town. Lucifer has graciously agreed to escort you, along with one of his brothers.

“And that’s about it, really. Is there anywhere else you wanna go?” Belphie asks after they’ve given you a cursory tour. You mention wanting to return to the confectionery shop you passed by a while back, and he smirks. “Sure, but if you’re looking for Settler products, they might not have much stock.”

“That’s alright! They used to be one of my favorite brands you know, but then I found out they engaged in a lot of questionable business practices. It’s a shame really, I liked their stuff.”

Lucifer feels his work phone vibrating in his pocket all of a sudden and curses mentally. What could Barbatos possibly want at this moment? “Apologies, I… have to use the washroom,” he excuses himself in a hurry, discreetly signaling Belphie to cover for him before running off.

Almost half an hour passes with no Lucifer in sight.

“He’s been gone for a while. Should we go and check up on him?” You ask worriedly.

“Nah, it’s fine.” Belphie sniggers. “He usually takes really long shits anyway. Let’s just go. He’ll catch up eventually.”

Lucifer meets you back in the manor at the end of the day, and you miss the dirty look he sends Belphie behind your back after you recommend some home remedies for treating diarrhea.

.

.

.

“Satan, I need some advice!” The blond follows your voice to the kitchen and freezes when he sees you holding his collection of hunting knives. For gutting people, not cutting meat. “I’m making lunch. Which of these are for fruits and vegetables?”

This is why Lucifer always nags us about picking up our toys, Satan realizes belatedly. Fuck, he probably left them out on the couch or something. At least he’d remembered to clean off the blood first. “Those aren’t for cooking. They’re for, uh, self-defense.” Idiot, is that the best you could come up with? There’s no way it’ll—

“Oh, I’m so sorry! I shouldn’t have assumed.” You gasp and quickly return the knives to him. “One of my old roommates used to sleep with a dagger under their pillow, though I personally prefer to keep a baseball bat next to my bed. Besides, didn’t some rich politician get murdered in his own house just recently? The manor seems secure and you guys have Cerberus, but better safe than sorry I guess.”

Satan is still reeling from your sheer obliviousness, but he knows better than to look a gift horse in the mouth. “I completely agree,” he says with a poker face.

.

.

.

Mammon’s Lexura is a sight to behold, but you’re more interested in how fast she can go.

“Oi, I know you’re worried about your friend but keep your oily fingers to yourself, you hear?” He grumbles, opening the garage door for you and Beel to enter. “Which mall was it again?”

“The one with Bullseye,” you reply distractedly, furiously tapping away on your phone. “I can’t believe she and her girlfriend got harassed in public. You only read stories about this happening to other people online. What kind of fucked up organization calls themselves a charity and— Shit!”

You trip on something and drop your phone. It bounces and skids under Mammon’s car, but Beel instinctively steps forward before you can even react. With one arm, he tilts the vehicle just enough for you to duck under and retrieve it.

“Wow, thanks so much Beel!” You dust your phone off and check for cracks on the screen while Mammon sweats buckets behind you. “You gotta share your workout routine with me sometime. Hey, do you mind coming along and being our muscle for the day?”

“Okay.” Beel agrees easily, and you pump your fists.

.

.

.

“—worth millions. The curator declined to comment…”

“This is crazy, I was there just last week!” You exclaim while chewing on your dinner. “The museum had lots of cool stuff on display. Mostly illegally imported, if you catch my drift, but not anymore huh?”

Asmo winks at you. “What a shame. You could have seen Lust in action first-hand.”

“Aren’t heists supposed to be discreet? He is pretty good-looking though, I’ll give him that.”

“Is he prettier than me?” The entire table goes deathly silent as you squint between Asmo’s fluttering eyelashes and the masked supervillain on the TV screen. “Don’t you think he’d look better with a boob window?”

“…Nah, he doesn’t have the tiddies to pull it off.” Your gaze unconsciously flickers to Beel’s chest. “Plus the butts don’t match. Yours is flatter.”

Asmo’s jaw drops in mock outrage. “Honey, have you been checking me out? How very scandalous of you~”

“Enough, please.” Lucifer sighs amidst your spluttering.

.

.

.

“That’s it. We’re screwed, our cover is blown. I knew this was a bad idea…”

“Let’s just resort to good ol’ fashioned murder and then frame it as a runaway case. No one will ever know!”

“This manor is a fortress located in the safest part of town. What the fuck do you think people will presume there is to run from?”

“There were a couple of close calls, but I think we’re still in the clear.” Beel recalls you quoting your statistics professor after an extended period of time where one of them would come home late the night before a major news event: correlation does not imply causation.

“Need I remind all of you, it was our proposal to join the boarding program as a front. Prince approved it himself, and I won’t allow us to back out now.”

“Shut up, Lucifer. Don’t you have any politicians to assassinate?” Belphie sneers.

“We will see this through.” Lucifer refuses to budge, ever the prideful bastard. “We’re still safe, but keep your guards up. Understood?”

.

.

.

The kitchen is pitch black this time of night, but Levi’s had years to figure out a way around without alerting anyone he’s back.

“I hate on-site jobs,” he grumbles to himself. “What kind of company doesn’t have remote access to their servers nowadays? Let’s see how they like it when people steal and sell their private data instead, muahahaha— Eek!”

“Hmm? Levi?” You stifle a yawn and shuffle towards the rack of cups. “Why’re you up at this hour?”

Levi is still blinking away the spots in his vision from the sudden onslaught of light when you flipped the switch. He pales as you stare at his costume and equipment on the counter. “Wait, it’s not what it looks like—”

“Late con, huh? Must have been fun. You were still in character there. Heheh.” You pour yourself a glass of water. “Nice cosplay by the way. G’night.”

“G-goodnight!” Levi waits to hear the sound of your door closing before wheezing hysterically in relief.

.

.

.

You sigh blissfully under the weight of four cats lounging on various parts of your body. “I’ll admit I had my doubts at first, but this is exactly what I needed. Thank you.”

“My pleasure.” Satan takes a long sip of his tea while petting the snoozing tabby on his lap. He looks like one of those criminal masterminds in the movies. “Visiting cat shelters is the best way to unwind after a long week. And don’t worry, I have it on good authority that this one actually takes proper care of our furry friends.”

“That’s reassuring to hear! I’ll never understand why anyone would want to hurt these precious babies.” A little calico wanders near your face and boops your nose with its toe beans. “If only all shelters could be as noble as this one. Remind me to stop by the donation box before we leave!”

“Gladly. Speaking of donations, remember that charity group that messed with your friends? I heard someone stole every last penny from their funds and now they’re on the verge of insolvency. Truly, this is karma at work.”

“Schadenfreude!” You cheer before the two of you clink cups and drink.

.

.

.

“Hey, you’ve been in there for a while now. Do you need— Oh.”

“Belphie!” You grin at him sheepishly and fidget with your rubber gloves. “I’m sorry, I’m really bad at this. My old dorm had a janitor, so I’ve never been assigned toilet duty before…”

“No wonder. You’d be dead in minutes if you kept this up,” Belphie snaps, quickly moving the unopened bottle of bleach away from you. “Mixing cleaning products is a sure-fire way to poison yourself.”

You wince at his harsh tone, and Belphie’s expression softens in sympathy.

“Here, I’ll teach you.” And then he proceeds to detail exactly what chemicals are in each product, which combinations produce different kinds of fumes with varying levels of toxicity, how to make odorless gasses that can kill a man in seconds—

“Why’d you stop?” You protest when Belphie abruptly cuts himself off. He’s probably feeling embarrassed about oversharing. “This is super informational. I’d be dead without you!”

“…Right.” He blinks, nonplussed. “You’re welcome, or whatever. Just stay away from the bleach, okay?”

.

.

.

Mammon shuffles the deck with deft hands and explains the rules. “You play as an Elysium agent of your choice, and your goal is to defeat the mob boss terrorizing the city: Jesús Iglesias Ken. The game can be competitive or cooperative depending on which rules we follow, but I say we do competitive mode and bet on the winner!”

“Ugh, shaddup Mammon!” Levi groans while you set up the board and pieces.

“Now, for the characters! We have Kid, a tiny chihuahua of an agent who has lots of good buffs from the sweets he eats. Director, who can move other players during his turn; but don’t get fooled by his smile. He can be super scary sometimes! Spear, man that guy packs a punch. He’s a damage dealer with shitty taste buds.”

Too busy paying attention to Mammon, you don’t see the way Levi makes throat-slitting gestures and mouths SHUT UP SHUT UP STUPIDMAMMON—

“There are also NPCs like Sorcerer, who can help or hinder you depending on your actions, shady bastard. And Aristocrat, who’s on the villain’s side and a total bootlicker, but he gives valuable intel for the right price.”

“How do you know all of this? I don’t see it in the rule book.” You scan the character description section intently. “Don’t tell me… You’re secretly a fan!”

Mammon chokes, finally catching on to Levi’s signals. Both of them exchange wide-eyed looks before forcibly grinning at you. “Yeah, totally, I’m a fan! Hahaha…”

“What a nerd, right?” Levi laughs nervously. “Anyway, this game is more fun with more players, so let’s just play something else for now, okay? Okay.”

.

.

.

“I’ve got reports that Elysium’s agents are finally moving out. We should be cleared to resume normal operations soon.”

“Our plan worked like a charm! Ooh, we’re so close~”

“Good job, everyone.” Lucifer nods with a satisfied smile. “This will all be over shortly. And just in time too. A year’s almost up.”

Everyone falls silent as their thoughts drift to you. It’ll be quiet without you around; you may not have been the sharpest tool in the shed, but you were always kind and genuine with all of them. It goes without saying that they’ll definitely miss you once you’re gone.

“We should stay in touch,” Mammon proposes suddenly, looking none of his brothers in the eye. “Y’know, to keep tabs and make sure we weren’t compromised or anything. See things through to the end and all that.”

For once, nobody objects to Mammon’s idea. “Indeed,” Lucifer murmurs in approval.

.

.

.

“I’ll be on campus studying for my ethics finals. See you all at dinner!”

You set up camp at your favorite corner: a little nook in the section of the library that’s perpetually empty. Just as you make yourself comfortable and open your laptop, someone pings you with an encrypted message.

Grinning to yourself, you easily bypass Levi’s embedded spyware and open up a private channel to take the call. “Barb, it’s so good to hear from you!”

“Good afternoon.” A polished voice greets you from the speakers, and you quickly plug in your headphones to prevent eavesdropping. “Apologies for the disturbance, but I have the data you requested.”

“Thanks Barbatos. You really are the best AI I’ve ever created!”

“I am the only AI you’ve ever created, but the sentiment is acknowledged. Did your side project go well?”

“Always so humble, haha! And yes, it went wonderfully! It’s so good to finally meet the brothers face-to-face. They’re such a lively bunch!”

“I concur. Back to business: the up-and-coming cosmetics company you asked me to look into? It turns out your hunch was right; I’ve found evidence that they rely heavily on animal testing for their products.”

“A job for Belphie then. He’ll know how to put those chemicals to better use.”

“Of course. On a separate note, another political party has been pushing for…”

[tuliptired]

more of egon x ta!reader 👉👈

Hello? You're My Very Special One

Pairing: Egon Spengler/Gn!Ta!Reader

Warnings: Very familial and child-centric, though stuff like reader anatomy isn't specified

Askbox is little backed up (my bad) but that's ok because now I have more time to write for you all :)

Strayed from the ask a littleeeeee bit

Better formatting on Ao3!

Egon sighed to himself as he pushed the campus door open, setting out into the warm air of the afternoon. Ray was on his tail, while Peter stood up straight and off of a wall after waiting for them for so long. They’d come out of a meeting with a professor, after getting a sufficient scolding from the Dean. One accidentally too loud experiment late at night, and the pair couldn’t hear the fire alarms going off. The chemistry lab’s lights were the only ones still on, and Egon suspects that everyone outside assumed they were burning alive- thus the door was torn down. Thankfully, their professor was able to get them out of sufficient trouble as he was the one who suggested the experiment. They were off scot free, as the scholar let them know that the least he could do was give them community service.

“What’d he tell you?” Peter walked with them down the front steps.

“Just some service,” Ray didn’t seem all that upset, which wasn’t surprising after the rapsheet the trio had managed to build over their years in academia. Egon could handle an hour or two of giving back to his city, it just felt like a big inconvenience in his plans.

Peter clicked his tongue. “You won’t find any luck at the bulletins. All filled up.”

Ray’s pace didn’t falter as he put his hands in his pockets, unbothered. “No problem, we can go to the library.” Egon was lagging behind then, almost coming to a full stop before catching back up to his friends. Anywhere but the library. He’s had enough of a backwards day. The soup kitchen had to have a few spots left.

He walked behind Ray’s shoulder. “No need. We can get vests and pick trash off the road,” he tried to hide the desperation in his voice. Ray only laughed at such a suggestion.

“I could rob you with a cigarette box. Let’s just go and check, and I’ll renew my book while I’m there,” Ray spoke casually, tapping a hard spot on the inside pocket of his jacket. Egon swallowed, unable to convince his oblivious friend. Peter leaned into Ray, voice at a stage whisper.

“Spengs is just embarrassed to ask the librarian for forms,” he confessed, making the man in between them snicker. Egon could feel his face burn, adjusting the wrists of his dress shirt.

As they reached the library, Ray reassured Egon that it’d be fine, hand on the door. “Don’t be like that! Whoever it is, I’m sure they’ll understand.”

“The hell did you do?” Your fingers stopped flipping around your binder as the reality of what he requested hit you. “Mr. Spengler? Doing community service?” He had a blank expression, eyebrows down as he tuned out the bustle of the main library floor. You kept on teasing him, baffled at the idea that he could be in trouble warranting civil service.

He resisted rolling his eyes. “Is it that surprising?” You smiled, continuing to go through the binder anyway. He noted the way you decorated your little corner, obviously not an official desk but a secluded spot for you to work.

You stopped at a certain page, pulling a piece of paper out of the plastic divider. “Always in such a bad mood. And no, it isn’t,” you remarked, placing the paper in front of him. “You’re the reason we can’t smoke in our dorms anymore.”

He took a look at the paper, scanning for an open square. He could hear you ask “what’s with you and fires?” as he surveyed the document, but he was more preoccupied with the lack of openings. You pointed your pen towards two free spaces at the bottom, though there was no assignment corresponding with any of the columns or rows.

“The art department’s book sale,” you sat a bit forward, seemingly trying to contain your excitement. “Every year, downtown. It's always a lot of fun.” He raised a quick eyebrow before you passed the utensil over to him. “You’re lucky these were left. That first one’s helping with the science fiction section.” If he had looked up, he’d seen you gazing at him, expectantly. Without thinking, he knew Ray would prefer this over something else. He could always take it for himself, though, and tell his friend that he didn’t get to pick, but that’d be a little too selfish. Ray could enjoy some time here, Egon thought to himself as he wrote “Raymond Stantz”' in the rectangle.

As he finished the z, he nearly drove the pen off the page as you let out a noise of delight. When he looked up again, he was met with your smiling face. “That means you’re gonna be with me! And a bunch of little kids! For a whole evening!” You took the paper back before Egon could contest, scrawling his name down in the last available place. He watched your wicked expression as you slid him another paper, one with the date and address. “You can help me while I look for something old and out of print. Hope you’re a good babysitter.”

Community service was more than an inconvenience, he thought, folding the sheet and stuffing it in his pocket while Ray happily finished up renewing what he had out.

Ray was, undoubtedly, bouncing off of the metaphorical walls as they made their way down to the closed off block the fair took place. Egon was happy for him, he really was, as his friend talked his ears off about the volumes and editions that aren’t available anywhere else anymore he’d be able to talk about with patrons. So excited, that he had yet to give Egon a chance to mention what his responsibility for the evening would be. Maybe it was for the best, as Egon adjusted the collar of his shirt for the seventh time since they left. It would be a warm night, so he figured just a dress shirt and a light coat would suffice. Would a sweater scare the kids? How old were they? He let his eyes close, somewhat dreading the few hours ahead of him.

Ray stopped them at a crosswalk, checking the light. “I just realized- I never asked what you’re doing there.” Egon bit his tongue as they were clear to cross.

“Babysitting,” he confessed, a little exasperated after keeping it in for so long. Ray looked at him with a wide expression, a bit disbelieving as he brought his eyes back to the sidewalk ahead of them.

Ray couldn’t resist the need to look at his friend again. “You’re good with kids?”

“I wouldn’t know,” he answered honestly.

Ray looked sympathetic as they reached the entryway, more and more people joining them on the reserved street. “We could switch! If that’s not your thing,” he offered. Egon shook his head, remembering the “volunteer” pins Ray picked up from the library office leading up to the event, passing one to the man.

“Don’t worry. Have fun,” he pinned it to the pocket of his shirt. Ray protested some, eventually settling on apologizing profusely as they waited in line to get in. When they did, it was almost like its own ecosystem. The area was nearly separated from the rest of the city with the amount of tents and booths lining the far edges of the worn grass and pavement, warm colors giving the space a mystifying effect. Egon took a breath in, taking a moment to get to the comforting part of the experience as there were just so many people there. Lots of cheer, lots of noise as Ray eventually had to depart, reaching his assigned tent while he radiated joy in the presence of fellow enthusiasts.

While he made his way through the path, he passed a man sleeping peacefully on a blanket underneath a tent, a girl reclining on his back as she read to herself. There was an elderly woman with an infant tied to her back as she bought picture books, and he caught sight of two young men holding hands under a table while they sold novels. There was a strange energy going around, he thought to himself. He tried hard to name it, but he could only fall flat in his nomenclature. As he walked, a voice called out to him from the edge of a booth.

It was you, waving him over. Only, you weren’t alone; you had at least 4 little children leading you around. The tallest was still fairly young looking, if not for her awkward height, long brown hair in two loose ponytails while she stood in a shirt that was too big on her. There was a boy next to her, clearly a handful of years younger, standing in a hockey jersey as his fingers threatened to enter his nose, shadowed by a girl around the same age in a decadent pink dress, all frills and bows up to the ribbons holding up her short blonde hair. All of them were connected by a brightly colored walking rope with a ring for each, save for a little baby sitting content in a wagon you pushed as the contraption was tied to the front to make an easy train.

“Okay guys, this is Mr. Spengler. He’s a friend.” You address the children, all watching him with wide and curious eyes. “This is Rebecca, Ryan, Amelie, and Nico,” you went down the line in age order. Rebecca gave him a small wave, and he returned it, stiffly. Ryan spoke up, pointing high up at the tall man’s head.

“My daddy says guys with long hair are draft-dodgers.” Egon could hear you sigh.

“Educational deferment,” he couldn’t help but correct the child, who looked at him as if he was speaking a foreign language. Before he could say anything else, you cut both boys off.

“That’s not a nice thing to say, Ry. Now-” You instructed them over to the grass, where many people were sitting under the shade created by the proximity of the tents and overhangs. “I’ll be two seconds, just over there. Stay with Mr. Spengler. Can you help me, Becca?”

Said girl nodded, and she followed you. It was just Egon and the 3 kids now, Ryan electing to sit on the grass while Amelie leaned over into the wagon, playing with Nico. They were wary of Egon at first- and he didn’t even know where to start. Meeting children was different from adults, they just did whatever, whenever. He realized how odd he must’ve looked, a grown man awkwardly standing over a few toddlers entertaining each other, and he silently wished you’d be back quickly. As they got a little bored with themselves, all 3 of them took to staring at him with round, large eyes as they huddled around the wagon. He kept his eyes on where you disappeared, wishing even harder.

Wishes must work fast, because you reemerged with Rebecca, holding small cups of something, as well as spoons. You had all the kids sit, and, as Egon stayed standing so as to not have to sit on the ground, you silently took off your jacket and laid it out across the grass, and he thanked you quietly. Rebecca did the same for Amelie, with a blanket from the wagon instead. The cups were distributed, and even Egon got one- vanilla ice cream upon further inspection.

“Didn’t know what you liked,” you apologized, pulling Nico into your lap. “Sorry for leaving like that. This is the only way I can get them to listen to me later,” you glanced over at Amelie and Ryan stretched out across the grass, enjoying themselves.

“It’s alright,” Egon looked on as Rebecca leaned against you as she ate, watching a group of kids on the path. He spoke low, still disoriented by the quickness of the situation he was put in. “And their parents..?”

You brought a bit of the dessert to the baby’s mouth, miniature hands trying to do it for himself. From what Egon could tell, he was on the tail end a year old. “I’ve known them since they were born.” Ryan got distracted, ice cream pouring off his spoon and onto the side of his hand. “Their parents were my professors- they put this whole thing together. But it gets so busy,” you wiped Nico’s chin, “that they can’t really run an event with a toddler on their hip.”

Egon nodded, and in turn you spoke low, leaning towards him slightly. “They really want them to get into books. But nothing’s really worked. Ryan’s gonna be five, and he’s still pretty behind.” He watched on as the little boy gnawed on his plastic spoon, staring at Amelie as she kept eating. “Typical reading trouble for a kindergartner, but he noticed how ahead his classmates were. Now he’s too embarrassed to give it another shot.” It almost reminded him of himself, accustomed to experimentation and documentation, rather than retention and comprehension. But, a certain college course really turned him on his head, didn’t it?

“Embarrassment is a normal milestone in development,” Egon challenged you.

“Yeah? Even when he’s crying and screaming at the library?” Ryan toddled over to you then, holding out sticky hands.

You helped him clean up, white napkins over small white fingers. “What book are you gonna look for, Ry?” You asked, still holding his hands. Ryan squirmed a bit, frowning.

He broke free, hands to his shoulders as he avoided your question, twisting around. “None,” Ryan mumbled with a shy smile as he looked up and away from you. You shook your head, holding his tiny hands again.

“I promised your dad I’d get you something you liked.” Ryan shuffled his feet, eyes now on the grass. “C’mon, tell Mr. Spengler what we read about bears the other day,” you coaxed him, before Ryan gave up, leaning his weight onto you as Nico babbled into the fabric of the shirt draping over his face. You gave up, letting him recline on your shoulders.

Egon collected Ryans discarded pot of dessert, putting it inside his own quietly. “Bears are a keystone species,” he uttered off-handedly. Ryan looked at him once with wondering eyes, then hiding his face in your hair when Egon raised his head.

“He doesn’t know what that means,” you comforted Nico as he babbled. Amelie appeared at your feet, warily handing Egon her empty cup. As she clumsily placed it in the stack, arm outstretched like he was alien, you got her attention. “What book are you gonna get?” She pouted at the question, whining a bit.

“I don’t want one,” she announced, heading back to her blanket and pulling a doll out the wagon. Egon could hear your disappointment as the little girl took to playing with the princess rather than look for something to read.

You leaned into him, again, and he leaned in your direction as he curiously watched her brush her toy’s hair. “Turning five in a few months. Her mom’s a music professor. But her stepmom doesn’t think girls should be learning anything important. Hence,” you pointed up and down at the cloying decoration of her ensemble, Egon’s eyes widening slightly as he just noticed the bows on her socks, the large ribbon across her waist and tied at her back.

He nodded slowly, eyebrows furrowed. “Ostentatious.”

“O-s-t-e-n-t-a-t-i-o-u-s,” a voice sounded from your other side. Rebecca absentmindedly braided the ends of her hair, before letting them loose again.

Egon was fairly impressed as you brought her closer to you. “Eleven as of last week. She’s a great speller, and would be even better if she stopped caring about what other girls in her grade did and picked up a book.”

Rebecca groaned as you scrutinized her, combing her hands through her long, frizzing hair. “Cindy Mulfield is dropping out when we get to highschool. She’s gonna run away and become a singer.” Nico reached over, toying with the older girl’s sleeve. He was very tactile, Egon thought.

“That’s great for Cindy. But you’re on the honor roll.” Rebecca rolled her eyes, before you handed Nico over to a confused Egon, rising with Ryan hanging off your back. “I bought your love with ice cream- now it’s time to learn stuff. Let’s look for your book, Ryan.” You resolved, herding them back to the wagon as they reluctantly obeyed. Egon stiffly held the toddler in his arms, who kicked his legs back and forth as he was suspended in the air. He gingerly lowered him into the wagon as the other children unenthusiastically took their section of the tether.

You were all a parade, Rebecca leading the caravan through a winding path of vivid canopies, each advertising a different service or genre of literature. Egon walked by your side as you pushed the wagon, Nico hanging off the edge. He couldn’t help but wonder how you got so comfortable with such little children. Not to mention- juggling all of your other academic responsibilities. He had to admit, your ability to multitask was admirable, when it wasn’t irking him.

All was relatively fine, until Ryan started to bother Amelie. He kept on teasing her, poking and prodding the girl and ignoring your warnings- until she let out a shrill cry, Egon’s eyes widening at a thick hunk of dirt smeared into the back of her doll’s thick hair. Amelie stopped in her tracks, cheeks red and damp from her bawling as she brought her hands to her face . Children were loud, Egon’s under eye twitched. He felt dumb at your side, but not in the way he did when you were in lectures together. Should he say something? Your face was unreadable, at least from his perspective. Ryan looked apologetic when she burst into tears, feebly attempting to clean up his fault, failing as Amelie leaned over the wagon, Nico grabbing at the ornate detailing of her dress.

“I don’t want him here anymore!” She pointed to the boy, sniffling. You were surprisingly calm while the last of tears fell from Amelie’s eyes and onto Nico’s head.

“He can’t go anywhere,” you tried to reason with her. Rebecca fidgeted with her split ends.

Amelie looked conflicted, palms drying her cheeks. She didn’t say anything, instead making her way over to Egon and dragging him between her and Ryan. His head swung between the little girl and you, her tiny hand dwarfed in his large one while she dragged him along. Egon was not one to be dragged, especially not by children. He looked to you for release- maybe a little say in the matter, but you simply shrugged, smiling smugly. Damn you.

And so the procession kept on, Egon just short of doubled over to accommodate the 4 feet little lady steering him along, disregarding the tether that kept all the children together. Soon enough she was at his side instead, nearly white blonde hair bouncing as they silently walked, hand in hand. He had to admit, when she calmed down, she was an awfully endearing little girl- regardless of her dress, fit for a porcelain statue. As she stood close to his leg, miniature fingers curled over his own, he felt some sort of pang near his heart. The strange energy was back, loud as a buzz yet soft as a whisper.

Inside a mellowly lit tent labeled “nature”, Amelie still hasn’t let go. Egon hums, looking at all the titles and thinking back to his brother. Elon’s one of the few biologists Egon knew personally, every manuscript or picture book about the natural world reminding him of his twin. While you held Ryan up to properly talk to the seller, he had his head hidden in your shoulder. This boy really was shy, refusing to open his mouth.

“C’mon, Ry,” you tried coaxing him, “he’s here to help.” The child wouldn’t budge, eyes watering as he went languid in your arms. You let him down, smiling apologetically to the vendor. Rebecca must’ve taken note of his disquietude, perspective as she’s proven, gently guiding Amelie to help her look in his place, Nico in tow. You were at Egon’s side now, arms crossed as you watched over Ryan- painting an almost filmesque scene

He could feel your frustration. “He hasn’t cried, yet,” Egon offered.

“Lucky me.” The little boy ran his fingers over the edge of the green tablecloth. “He’s a smart kid. I know he is. He loves this stuff, really. He’s just too scared of ‘getting it wrong’.” Egon hummed lowly. He couldn’t help but think of Elon for the second time in a few minutes. His carbon copy was confident, witty, and incredibly passionate about his preferred science. He was also, evidently, extremely persistent, prospering as an incredible academic but a fairly poor mathematician. Their parents bluntly told him to pick a different niche if he couldn’t handle the arithmetic demanded of him. But- he worked hard, and didn’t let his natural setbacks stop him from doing what he liked the most. Ryan was Elon, if he listened to the voice saying that he “couldn’t”.

Egon silently stood next to him, flipping through a few children’s books about the forest. Ryan’s eyes had dried, discreetly peering at the covers Egon flipped through. “Do you have any siblings, Ryan?”

The boy was quiet for a moment. “A brother. But he’s old.” Egon found something that looked pretty suitable.

“I have a brother as well. He lives in California, studying brown bears.”

Egon can practically hear the glow coming off Ryan, smiling internally to himself. “Really?”

“Yes. It’s his job. He follows them around and learns how humans affect their homes- in the woods.” Ryan stood on the edge of his toes, trying to read the book in Egon’s hand. The Child’s Guide to North American Bears”. Age appropriate word count, educational pictures- this would do fine.

Ryan chewed his nail, obviously interested beyond his shy nature. “How’d he do it?”

“Reading as much as he could to know as much as he could.” Egon tilted the open text to the boy, eyes bright as he took in the pictures and words speaking to him on the page. He looked conflicted, brought down at the realization that books held the door open for his future dreams. “He read to get into school, he read to get a job- he never stopped.” Ryan frowned.

“I’m not good.” Ryan mumbles, barely audible, but holding so much weight. Egon dropped his normally hygienic inhibitions, now on one knee and eye level with the anxious child in front of him.

“It’s not a matter of being good. It’s trying, and knowing you’ll get better. You can be a biologist, too. But you have to start now.” Ryan only nodded, eventually smiling.

Egon held an open page out, pointing to a small passage. “Here, try this. Only a sentence.”

He hesitated, glancing up and back down at the words. As soon as he did, his face started to shine again. “Brown bears are one of America’s smartest animals.” Ryan took the book from Egon’s hands without a second thought, quickly scanning every note, fact, and passage.

Egon was satisfied. That’s one child down, he thought, corralling the boy to the register as he spouted off more facts enthusiastically. He found you settled at his side, eyes full of something he couldn’t place.

“What?”

You shook your head. “Nothing, Mister Rogers.” After happily handing the vendor a bill, you hoisted Ryan into the wagon with Nico as he kept on reading, nose buried in the pages.

Egon back at Amelie’s side, you march on, trying to find a general kids section for her in hopes of finding a suitable princess story. Any princess story, you stressed. Ryan was even reading to Nico, who lazily took to laying on the fabric floor of the chariot he was being pushed around in, disinterested.

Rebecca started to tease the younger girl, not once looking over her shoulder. “Are you gonna get put in a dungeon?” Amelie crossed her arms.

“No,” she announced defensively.

“Are you gonna get a suit of armor and fight for New York like Joan of Arc?” Amelie was turning a bit red.

The toddler spoke before you could calm her down. “No! Princesses get saved by princes and they get married!” To Egon, this seemed like it must’ve been a pretty common spiel, as Rebecca tried to provoke her again before you put your foot down.

“See?” You whispered to him while she hugged her doll tighter. She was, again, a cute kid, but this was turning out to be a nasty phase. Simple psychology- a budding complex brought up during development manifested by the teachings of her mother and the women around her. It didn’t seem very fair- the poor girl wasn’t given a chance to see what kind of person she wanted to be yet, and now she could barely recognize her own name in writing.

Rebecca slowed, looking around. “I think we went too far.” She pointed to a few signs displaying sheet music and liberatos rather than works of fiction. Egon could hear you click your tongue, ready to reroute your little group until Rebecca strayed, eyes fixed on something wooden and on display. Naturally, the other children followed, crowding around the stand.

You let Nico teethe on you as you both peered over the kids. It was an antique viola, still in working condition. Egon was impressed by its craftsmanship, noting the delicate carvings that blossomed across the bout.

“Cool,” your charges seem to say in unison.

Rebecca haphazardly lifts it by the fingerboard, making Egon cringe. “Play it,” she holds it out to you.

You lift your free hand in defense, looking at her incredulously. “Who said I know how?”

The near-teenager shrugs, ready to put it back. Amelie reaches up, flexing and unflexing her fingers, cheering “Give me! Give me!” She obliges, passing over the bow as well. Amelie slugs it back and forth, producing a sound that would make the dead cover their ears. As you get her to stop, Egon worries for the integrity of the strings. They could’ve snapped and hit her, poor thing.

“Any chance you play violin?” Egon takes the instrument from you carefully.

“Viola.” How old was this? He plucked a string or two- it was relatively in tune, if his ears were up to speed. He thought back to any pieces he knew by heart. Senfter was always a nice time. Finding his bearings, messing around with a few bow positions, he found his way back to one of her sonata’s- very smooth, very German. He can almost see his mother behind his eyelids, in front of him with a cane for when he forgot his key signature.

Egon wasn’t expecting to play the whole thing- no kid can sit through nine minutes of classical music. When he let his eyes open in the middle of a decrescendo, you and all the children were watching him in awe, waiting to applaud. He felt himself sport a rare blush, ready to stop then and there until you spoke up.

“Keep going. Didn’t know you had an artistic bone in your body, Mr. Spengler.” He let himself continue, bow gliding across the strings as he (impressively) managed to multitask.

“Funny. I was raised with cello, viola, harp…my brother took the fun stuff- piano, flute, clarinet. I would’ve opted for the gurdy, or even the theremin.” He let out a vibrato note. “But mother said no.”

“Well, you play very beautifully. I wasn’t expecting this from Mr. Facts-and-Truths.”

“You’d be surprised. I’ve been praised for my dancing, too.”

“No way.”

Amelie ran up to him, clinging to his leg, large eyes kept on the instrument against his shoulder. “You made that yourself? The song?” That was as far as her vocabulary was willing to take her as she watched him change positions.

“It was written a long time ago by a lady named Johanna. She wasn’t much older than you when she started learning to read music.” Egon could picture the gears turning in her developing mind as she looked between him and a piece of sheet music on display.

“A girl made it?” Egon did his best to nod while the bow graced the corner of his face. Amelie smiled the widest she had all evening, running up to you a few feet away. “A girl made it! Did you hear?” For the first time tonight, she let her feet really hit the dirt, leaving dark brown all over her satin flats.

“I heard,” you laugh, as she bounces a bit, racing over to the vendor of music and song books, vividly exclaiming that she wants to be like her mom and “joe hannah” and learn to read the dots on the page to make pretty sounds. As the older man, just as enthusiastically, shows her to the children’s books, Egon finishes the sonata.

“It…kinda counts as reading, right?” You ask, watching as she sorts through thin volumes. Egon rubs where the chin rest was absentmindedly.

“Small victories. There are studies confirming the cognitive benefits of learning an instrument at a young age.” As he said this, she came running back, a large book with music for an even larger instrument. The tuba.

You shrugged- a win was a win, and paid the small fare. Egon gently placed the viola back on its stand, there was no way he had enough cash for it, before the older woman tending the tent smiled at him kindly.

She helped him set it back, speaking softly as she did. “You look a little young to have such a big family.” Egon blinked.

"They're not-" He stammered, not sure of what to say until she apologetically waved her hands around.

Amelie called out for him, holding up a graphic in the book of a young lady with the instrument in her lap. He watched you smile down at her, and then up at him. "I didn´t mean to assume. It's just- sturdy husband, young spouse, happy kids. It's very picturesque." Egon racked his brain for a response, but you appeared at his side, then.

"Ready?" He never noticed the color of your eyes until then, catching the light. Picturesque.

There was a buzzing around him. “Almost,” he murmured.

“You both look happy,” she commented as soon as you joined the children by their wagon. He was too stumped for words, the woman called over by her own husband for something.

Before you could tackle another section, Nico started to whine and cry. You shushed him, letting him sniffle into your shirt. “He’s tired. And we are, too,” Ryan rubbed his eyes, trying to keep awake for his newfound treasure but failing, Rebecca leaning against the handle of the wagon. “The song put us to sleep”. Maybe Egon did play for too long.

Rebecca, somehow, ended up in the wagon with the remainder of the younger kids, knees to her chest as she dozed off. You lamented, trudging along and pushing the trio. Nico still couldn’t sleep- he was tired, as you explained to a confused Egon, but now too tired to actually go down. He didn’t feel like crying, rather staring at the man with owlish yet sleepily round eyes.

“I don’t suppose he’s looking for Hemmingway anytime soon?” He speaks low, a rare attempt at humor, which successfully makes you laugh, full and clear. That odd feeling was back as the festivities around you wound down, the warm glow that you seemed to bathe in getting impossibly warmer. “Shakesphere? Austen?” Your giggling grew.

“No, not for him. He’s a muppet kind of guy.” You rub a hand over his back.

“Really?”

You nod. “That’s his passion. Puppets.”

"Understandable."

There was a light breeze, blowing past the hair around his ears. "Sorry you haven't seen him do much but cry and sleep. He's pretty talkative, I guess he just wants to be pampered today." The toddler whimpered a bit at the sudden chill.

"I know, I know," you soothed him. It all felt oddly paternal, a sudden urge inside of him to run out and get medicine or a warm coat. Nico pressed his cheek against your chest, Amelie and Ryan laying against each other. "Little angels, when they’re not kicking and yelling,” you cooed.

Egon hummed. "They'll be up all night."

"That's a problem for their parents."

Right. They had parents. Who weren't you- or Egon. "I'm sure."

He takes note of the plays and novels you passed as you went on the path. Colorful and adorned covers he’d know you’d like, works and authors you’d praised endlessly in class. “You never found what you were looking for?” Egon put his hands in his pockets.

“Hm? Oh. My old and out of print book- Turn of the Screw. It’s okay, I can look some other time,” you shrugged.

The Turn of the Screw. He knew that one. “You don’t mind?”

He frowned, slightly, as you shook your head. “I’m happy as long as these guys got what they needed.”

You ended up in a large, blanketed area, where other families, or just families, rested with their young children. Books were scattered around, as mothers and fathers held their kids close to them and got well deserved downtime, a couple or two huddled around an open novel. You lay on your side as Egon took the liberty of reading to the exhausted Nico who sat back in his lap. Admittedly, he really didn’t know how to care for a child who was barely forming sentences, but it was fairly easy when they latched on to the rhythm and timbre of his voice as he read the words to Peter and Wendy.

Nico took to running his hands over the pages after a while. “Thank you. For helping me out today.” You looked into his eyes, sincerely. There wasn’t a fire behind them, like usual. He nodded.

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing. You probably changed their lives.” Amelie twitched in her sleep. “I didn’t know you were so good with kids.”

Egon felt warm under your spotlight. “Neither did I.”

You lifted your gaze to the night sky, peeking through the faraway corner of the tent. “Well, thank you for doing my job better than I could,” you admonished him.

Egon sat up straighter. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean-”

“So you agree?” You sat up in turn.

“I’m-”

“I’m joking, Mr. Spengler.” There it was. The smile that reached your eyes. He smiled- uncertain if it was voluntary or not. He was dreading this night; the crying, the germs, the sticky hands. But it was nice. The children, the tents, the books. You.

He could admire your dedication to offspring that weren’t your own, managing to treat them as such. They even looked at you, clung to you, like they were of you. It was selfless.

“Do you enjoy it?” He looked on as you brushed hair away from Ryan’s face.

You gathered what he meant, eyes still on the little boy. “Of course I do. I just hope they are, too.”

“I wouldn’t worry.” You locked eyes. You looked wonderful in this lighting.

“Very fun. I think it’s time we get back to my mom.” Rebecca was awake now, making a daisy chain in the grass. Egon could practically hear your brain making the connection before you crossed your arms.

“Very fun, Becca. Now, let’s get you your book.” You spoke to her as if she was a handful of years younger than she actually was, carefully placing a sleeping Amelie and Ryan back into the Wagon. The older girl complained, rolling over onto her back and reluctantly rising.

She rubbed her eyes and stretched her back, Egon lagging behind the two of you as Nico was now in his own arms. He was peaceful, but heavy. “I don’t need a book. I need to go home. I’m gonna miss Maude.”

“Cindy watches Maude?”

“No, but it’s on before Mary Tyler Moore.”

She trudged along ahead of you, no clear direction in mind. Egon walked on wordlessly, feeling the animosity bouncing back and forth as neither of you said anything. Even Nico seemed to have felt it, burying his head into Egon’s coat. He opened his mouth to speak, before you cut him off.

“Don’t even try. I’ve done everything, and it doesn’t work.”

Rebecca turned her head to you, almost shouting as she was a fair distance away. “Can’t I get an encyclopedia and call it a day?”

You were just short of shouting back. “No. Tell Mr. Spengler what you like to read.”

She turned to Egon this time, smiling sweetly, but facetiously. “I don’t like anything, thank you.”

He could tell she was a handful, even at 11. He didn’t risk handing you Nico, placing him in the wagon instead. “May I…?”

“Do my job? Please.”

Egon walked ahead with her, wordlessly while his hands found refuge in his pockets again. Before he could speak, Rebecca did first.

“It’s not gonna work on me.”

“I know. Because you’re not a baby.”

“Exactly.”

Silence. “Do you even know what you like to read?”

She looked at him incredulously. Ouch, lots of attitude from someone who’s only had a two-digit age for about a year. “Of course. But you’re not gonna know, because I’m not gonna tell you.”

“I know. Why not?”

Egon caught her rolling her eyes. “Because, it’s so weird and gross you’ll freak out.”

“I’m a scientist. I got my degree in weird and gross.”

Rebecca shook her head, the shadow of a smile on her face. “Not like this.”

He challenged her. “Try me.”

She stopped in her tracks, facing him. “Molds and fungus.”

He didn’t really know how it happened, but very very quickly he was leading her around the nearest tent marked with some mixture of molecular biology and ecology, adding books to her ever growing stack. “Avery is a very accomplished author. This journal’s a favorite- its about incorporating fungi into the human diet.” He added the heavy book into Rebecca’s arms. She swayed under the weight a bit, eyes wide, but this was the price to pay if she wanted to be a mycologist. It was a demanding field. Not for nothing, but he made it his bitch.

“You do this for fun?” She asked, eyes peeking over the spine of a book about moldborne sickness.

He stilled. Not an uncommon question, when he got deep into his passions. “It’s my hobby, and I enjoy it.”

“People pay you for it?”

“More or less.”

Silence, again, until he could hear her stacking more books into her arms. “Cool! I’ve been just,” she nearly dropped them, “collecting mushrooms and moldy cheese. Cindy said it's gross.”

He felt himself smiling knowingly, taking a few volumes away so he could see her face. “Cindy doesn’t know what she’s talking about. When livestock runs out, we’ll be eating chicken of the woods.”

All the children were returned to their rightful owners not long after that, slowly waking up from their naps and excitedly showing off their new books to their eternally grateful parents. You couldn’t stick around very long, having to leave Egon alone after bidding everyone a goodnight. He swung by Ray’s stand with his little cash in hand, tempted by the titles silently calling his name, painfully ignoring them as he was on a sacred mission. There was a copy of The Turn of the Screw on your desk a few mornings later, a red faced Egon too shy to hand it to you personally.

[ladyeyrewrites]

Bun in the Oven

Rated M

Chapter 1/4

2160 words

chapter One of the trans!Tommy mpreg episode 8X07 rewrite I posted a snippet of on Wednesday.

Read on Ao3 or below the cut

There was a knock on the door.

Buck frowned. It was a bit early for it to be Maddie and Chimney but maybe they’d lucked out with the traffic situation. He wiped his hands on his apron, stepped away from the stand mixer, and answered the door.

It wasn’t Maddie and Chimney.

Instead, Tommy’s broad frame filled his doorway.

Buck’s breath caught in his throat. “Tommy, hi,” he said. “I was just thinking about you.” It was true. Buck hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Tommy since he’d overcorrected after the whole Abby reveal and asked Tommy to move in only for Tommy to break up with him because of some bullshit about Buck breaking Tommy’s heart in the future. So, Buck had done the only logical thing: purchased a stand mixer and filled his fridge with baked goods.

Honestly, Buck wasn’t sure if he was more angry or sad about the whole situation, but he did know that his stomach still swooped at the sight of Tommy standing in his door and it took every bit of self-control not to lean in to give Tommy a kiss hello. Not to wrap his arms around Tommy and pull him inside and never let him go.

“Sorry, I should’ve called before just showing up,” said Tommy. “But I think I left one of my chargers here and I can’t find my other one. So, dead phone.” Tommy sounded on the verge of tears which seemed strange when he could’ve just gone out and bought a new charger rather than checking to see if he’d left one at Buck’s. But maybe it wasn’t about the charger, maybe Tommy just wanted an excuse to see Buck.

Or was Buck letting himself get his hopes up for no reason?

“I uh, haven’t seen it. But are you okay? You look like you’re about to cry.” He wanted to reach out and touch Tommy, to offer some sort of comfort, but that wasn’t his place anymore. Tommy had taken that away.

Tommy shook his head. “Mood swings,” he says.

“Yeah, well break ups will do that I guess,” said Buck.

“That and I think I’m still adjusting to my new birth control,” said Tommy. About a month before the break-up Tommy’s primary care physician had suddenly retired and Buck had helped Tommy scramble to find another in-network provider who understood the healthcare needs of trans men. It had been such a headache and then once they’d found a doctor he’d wanted to adjust Tommy’s dosages and change Tommy’s birth control method from an oral contraceptive to an implant in the hopes that it would lessen the daily dose of dysphoria Tommy got when taking the pill.

“Listen, Buck—” Tommy started.

Buck flinched. God, it sounded so wrong hearing his nickname coming out of Tommy’s lips. It made him want to scream. But he was trying to be mature about this. Trying to be civil. Trying not to cling since that was clearly what Tommy wanted, and Buck could respect that even if he hated it. “I found some of your shirts in the laundry,” Buck said before Tommy could say anything else that was probably going to break Buck’s heart again. “I was going to text you.” Which was maybe a lie, because sure Buck had thought about texting Tommy, but never about the shirts.

He'd composed texts with everything he’d wished he’d said to Tommy instead of letting him walk out the door that night.

Texts that devolved into spiteful rants.

<em>Miss you</em> texts.

<em>u up?</em> texts.

All deleted and transmuted into baked goods: cakes, cookies, scones, loafs, Baked Alaska.

It seemed Tommy wanted to look anywhere but directly at Buck, which was just another thing Buck had lost. Buck blinked against threatening tears as Tommy glanced around Buck’s loft, eyes taking in the subtle changes that had taken place since they’d broken up, until his gaze settled on the mess that was Buck’s kitchen island. “You’ve been baking.”

Sure, Buck had baked with Chris before to help out with a school bake sale since Eddie was so culinarily clueless, but he hadn’t really done it in his own time until he’d found out about Tommy’s sweet tooth. He’d been practicing to make something for Tommy’s birthday but then Tommy had to go and dump him. Bitterness spiked through him. “Yeah. Anytime I get the urge to call you, I just I channel the impulse into something positive, like Baked Alaska.”

Tommy’s face twisted with regret, eyes growing glassy. Buck wasn’t sure if that had been his intention or not, but maybe it would be good for Tommy to really see how much Buck had been thinking about him. So, Buck walked over to the fridge and pulled out three loaves, making sure the fridge door was opened wide enough for Tommy to see the extent of Buck’s foray into baking and how often he’d been thinking about reaching out. “Here, you should take some.” He plopped three loaves into Tommy’s unprotesting arms. “Here’s a lemon loaf, and a walnut loaf, and a pumpkin loaf.”

“That’s a lotta loaf,” Tommy managed to say. “Buck, I—”

“Hang on, let me go grab those shirts,” said Buck because hearing Tommy call him by his nickname rather than his name made him want to scream and he didn’t want to do that, not when Tommy looked like anything could cue the waterworks at any moment. So, Buck might have fled his kitchen, jogging upstairs to grab the reusable tote bag of Tommy’s tee shirts and flannels he’d accumulated over their six months together. That bag had been haunting him every night as he lay in bed – alone – trying to fall asleep, wondering if Tommy was also alone or if he’d already managed to find a rebound.

Buck hefted the bag and his heart panged. Once he gave this stuff back, Tommy would well and truly be gone from his life. There’d be no excuse for Buck to reach out. No trace that Tommy had ever been in his life save for the indelible mark he’d left on Buck’s heart. So, Buck did something maybe a little impulsive and indulgent; he snagged one of Tommy’s flannels out of the bag and shoved it under his pillow.

He was absolutely not going to bury his face in it and cry himself to sleep later.

As he was engaging in some of the most pathetic breakup behaviour ever, his kitchen timer went off downstairs.

“Buck, do you need me to do something?” Tommy shouted up the stairs, voice carrying over the shrill timer beep.

“Yeah, could you just grab the baked brie out of the oven?” he asked. He snagged his favourite Tommy t-shirt out of the bag and stashed it with the stolen flannel too. If Tommy was allowed to unceremoniously dump Buck, then Buck was allowed to steal his clothes and not return them.

Buck gave a satisfied nod and started down the stairs to join Tommy. He was halfway down when he heard Tommy gag. Buck looked up from his feet in time to see Tommy turn literally green before unceremoniously dumping Buck’s baked brie on the counter, bee-lining for the sink and vomiting down the drain.

Buck raced down the stairs, rushing to Tommy’s side and rubbing smoothing circles on his back before he even realised what he was doing. “Are you okay?”

“Are you sure that cheese is okay?” Tommy asked catching his breath. “It reeks.”

Buck frowned as he got down a glass and filled it with tap water for Tommy to rinse out his mouth. “Uh yeah,” he said. “And brie’s not a stinky cheese.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Tommy sagged, leaning against Buck’s counter. “But my sense of smell’s been really weird the last few weeks.”

A sinking feeling filled Buck’s stomach. This all sounded very familiar.

They’d always been so good about using protection and between birth control and testosterone Tommy hadn’t had a period in well over a decade. But there’d been that little lapse before Tommy had found his new doctor and oh, God they’d definitely had unprotected sex that one time when they were both a little tipsy after getting back from babysitting Eddie. “You’re pregnant,” Buck blurted before his brain could send his tongue anything more tactful to say.

Tommy turned white as a sheet, eyes going wide. “I can’t be,” he said. “We were always so careful—” he trailed off and from the way his eyebrows shot up into his hairline Buck bet that Tommy had just connected the same dots he had. “Shit. You might be right.” His hand went to the back of his neck in a self-comforting gesture and Buck recognised all the signs of Tommy starting to spiral that he’d steamrolled over the night Tommy had ended things.

The last thing he wanted was for Tommy to leave right now. And that was probably the last thing Tommy needed right now. “Okay,” said Buck. He put his hands on Tommy’s upper arms and gently guided him to one of the bar stools. “Sit. Breathe. I need to make a phone call and then we’re going to talk. Okay?”

Tommy nodded, gulping down an unsteady breath.

Buck fished his phone out of his apron pocket and dialled Maddie. “Hey Mads, you and Chimney haven’t left yet, have you?”

“No, the sitter’s running late,” said Maddie. “Why?”

“I’m gonna need to take a rain check,” he said. “Tommy’s here.”

“Oh!” said Maddie. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“I don’t know yet,” said Buck.

“Well, let me know when you do,” said Maddie. “And take care of yourself.”

“Thanks, Mads,” Buck hung up and turned back to Tommy.

As soon as Buck’s eyes landed on his ex-boyfriend Tommy bolted up off the stool. “I should go,” he said. “You had plans and I should go.”

Buck took advantage of the fact that his legs were longer than Tommy’s and intercepted him before he reached the door.

“Buck move,” said Tommy. “I need to leave.”

“Nope,” said Buck. “I’m not going to let you walk away from me again. Not until I’ve said what I need to say, and we make a plan to move forward.”

“There is no moving forward,” said Tommy. “There is no “we” anymore. We broke up.”

“No, <em>you</em> broke up with me and left,” said Buck. “You didn’t let me say anything. You just decided on your own that there was no way I’d want you around in the future and then you left. Also, if you’re pregnant, I want to be there for you no matter what you decide to do, even if it’s just as a friend.” Because even though Buck so desperately wanted more, now wasn’t the time to say as much.

“It’s probably just a stomach bug,” said Tommy.

“If you really believed that you wouldn’t be running away,” said Buck.

Tommy flinched and Buck hated himself a little, but he needed to say everything that had been circling through his head in the time since Tommy had broken things off. “I don’t know what happened that made you think you could never be my last,” said Buck, speaking carefully so he wouldn’t say something he’d regret. “I know nothing I say right now is gonna convince you of the truth because now there’s maybe a baby involved and that complicates things, but I really wanted you to be my last Tommy. I still do. And this isn’t me asking you to change your mind about breaking up, but maybe it’s me asking you to trust that I actually know what I want. And what I want is to be there for you no matter what’s going on, in whatever way you’ll let me. Please let me.”

Tommy sighed and he looked at Buck so tenderly, despite the dark circles under his eyes that Buck had to dig his fingernails into his palms to keep himself from reaching out and cupping Tommy’s face in his hands to try to rub some of that fear and exhaustion away. “Okay,” said Tommy. He backed away from the door, returning to the bar stool at Buck’s kitchen island.

“I guess we should probably see if you really are pregnant,” said Buck, relief flooding through him.

“Probably,” said Tommy.

“I can run to the drug store and grab a few tests,” said Buck. “But you have to promise not to go anywhere.” He fixed Tommy with a meaningful look until Tommy met his gaze and nodded. Buck took his apron off and grabbed his wallet and keys.

“You promise?” Buck asked.

“Yeah, Evan, I promise,” Tommy snapped.

Buck grinned.

“What?” Tommy asked.

“You called me Evan,” said Buck and Tommy probably hadn’t meant anything by it. It was clearly a slip up, but it soothed something within Buck to hear Tommy call him that.

Tagging those who asked and those who seemed interested:

@silversky9 @unhingedangstaddict @ironspiderdad12 @beanarie @sporadicmakerwerewolf @azaharinflames @aisatsana441 @bugboybuck

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Tiktok's enshittification

Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.

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/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

I call this enshittification, and it is a seemingly inevitable consequence arising from the combination of the ease of changing how a platform allocates value, combined with the nature of a “two sided market,” where a platform sits between buyers and sellers, hold each hostage to the other, raking off an ever-larger share of the value that passes between them.

When a platform starts, it needs users, so it makes itself valuable to users. Think of Amazon: for many years, it operated at a loss, using its access to the capital markets to subsidize everything you bought. It sold goods below cost and shipped them below cost. It operated a clean and useful search. If you searched for a product, Amazon tried its damndest to put it at the top of the search results.

This was a hell of a good deal for Amazon’s customers. Lots of us piled in, and lots of brick-and-mortar retailers withered and died, making it hard to go elsewhere. Amazon sold us ebooks and audiobooks that were permanently locked to its platform with DRM, so that every dollar we spent on media was a dollar we’d have to give up if we deleted Amazon and its apps. And Amazon sold us Prime, getting us to pre-pay for a year’s worth of shipping. Prime customers start their shopping on Amazon, and 90% of the time, they don’t search anywhere else.

That tempted in lots of business customers — Marketplace sellers who turned Amazon into the “everything store” it had promised from the beginning. As these sellers piled in, Amazon shifted to subsidizing suppliers. Kindle and Audible creators got generous packages. Marketplace sellers reached huge audiences and Amazon took low commissions from them.

This strategy meant that it became progressively harder for shoppers to find things anywhere except Amazon, which meant that they only searched on Amazon, which meant that sellers had to sell on Amazon.

That’s when Amazon started to harvest the surplus from its business customers and send it to Amazon’s shareholders. Today, Marketplace sellers are handing 45%+ of the sale price to Amazon in junk fees. The company’s $31b “advertising” program is really a payola scheme that pits sellers against each other, forcing them to bid on the chance to be at the top of your search.

Searching Amazon doesn’t produce a list of the products that most closely match your search, it brings up a list of products whose sellers have paid the most to be at the top of that search. Those fees are built into the cost you pay for the product, and Amazon’s “Most Favored Nation” requirement sellers means that they can’t sell more cheaply elsewhere, so Amazon has driven prices at every retailer.

Search Amazon for “cat beds” and the entire first screen is ads, including ads for products Amazon cloned from its own sellers, putting them out of business (third parties have to pay 45% in junk fees to Amazon, but Amazon doesn’t charge itself these fees). All told, the first five screens of results for “cat bed” are 50% ads.

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/#relentless-payola

This is enshittification: surpluses are first directed to users; then, once they’re locked in, surpluses go to suppliers; then once they’re locked in, the surplus is handed to shareholders and the platform becomes a useless pile of shit. From mobile app stores to Steam, from Facebook to Twitter, this is the enshittification lifecycle.

This is why — as Cat Valente wrote in her magesterial pre-Christmas essay — platforms like Prodigy transformed themselves overnight, from a place where you went for social connection to a place where you were expected to “stop talking to each other and start buying things”:

https://catvalente.substack.com/p/stop-talking-to-each-other-and-start

This shell-game with surpluses is what happened to Facebook. First, Facebook was good to you: it showed you the things the people you loved and cared about had to say. This created a kind of mutual hostage-taking: once a critical mass of people you cared about were on Facebook, it became effectively impossible to leave, because you’d have to convince all of them to leave too, and agree on where to go. You may love your friends, but half the time you can’t agree on what movie to see and where to go for dinner. Forget it.

Then, it started to cram your feed full of posts from accounts you didn’t follow. At first, it was media companies, who Facebook preferentially crammed down its users’ throats so that they would click on articles and send traffic to newspapers, magazines and blogs.

Then, once those publications were dependent on Facebook for their traffic, it dialed down their traffic. First, it choked off traffic to publications that used Facebook to run excerpts with links to their own sites, as a way of driving publications into supplying fulltext feeds inside Facebook’s walled garden.

This made publications truly dependent on Facebook — their readers no longer visited the publications’ websites, they just tuned into them on Facebook. The publications were hostage to those readers, who were hostage to each other. Facebook stopped showing readers the articles publications ran, tuning The Algorithm to suppress posts from publications unless they paid to “boost” their articles to the readers who had explicitly subscribed to them and asked Facebook to put them in their feeds.

Now, Facebook started to cram more ads into the feed, mixing payola from people you wanted to hear from with payola from strangers who wanted to commandeer your eyeballs. It gave those advertisers a great deal, charging a pittance to target their ads based on the dossiers of nonconsensually harvested personal data they’d stolen from you.

Sellers became dependent on Facebook, too, unable to carry on business without access to those targeted pitches. That was Facebook’s cue to jack up ad prices, stop worrying so much about ad fraud, and to collude with Google to rig the ad market through an illegal program called Jedi Blue:

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

Today, Facebook is terminally enshittified, a terrible place to be whether you’re a user, a media company, or an advertiser. It’s a company that deliberately demolished a huge fraction of the publishers it relied on, defrauding them into a “pivot to video” based on false claims of the popularity of video among Facebook users. Companies threw billions into the pivot, but the viewers never materialized, and media outlets folded in droves:

https://slate.com/technology/2018/10/facebook-online-video-pivot-metrics-false.html

But Facebook has a new pitch. It claims to be called Meta, and it has demanded that we live out the rest of our days as legless, sexless, heavily surveilled low-poly cartoon characters.

It has promised companies that make apps for this metaverse that it won’t rug them the way it did the publishers on the old Facebook. It remains to be seen whether they’ll get any takers. As Mark Zuckerberg once candidly confessed to a peer, marvelling at all of his fellow Harvard students who sent their personal information to his new website “TheFacebook”:

> I don’t know why.

> They “trust me”

> Dumb fucks.

https://doctorow.medium.com/metaverse-means-pivot-to-video-adbe09319038

Once you understand the enshittification pattern, a lot of the platform mysteries solve themselves. Think of the SEO market, or the whole energetic world of online creators who spend endless hours engaged in useless platform Kremlinology, hoping to locate the algorithmic tripwires, which, if crossed, doom the creative works they pour their money, time and energy into:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/11/coercion-v-cooperation/#the-machine-is-listening

Working for the platform can be like working for a boss who takes money out of every paycheck for all the rules you broke, but who won’t tell you what those rules are because if he told you that, then you’d figure out how to break those rules without him noticing and docking your pay. Content moderation is the only domain where security through obscurity is considered a best practice:

https://doctorow.medium.com/como-is-infosec-307f87004563

The situation is so dire that organizations like Tracking Exposed have enlisted an human army of volunteers and a robot army of headless browsers to try to unwind the logic behind the arbitrary machine judgments of The Algorithm, both to give users the option to tune the recommendations they receive, and to help creators avoid the wage theft that comes from being shadow banned:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/05/tracking-exposed-demanding-gods-explain-themselves

But what if there is no underlying logic? Or, more to the point, what if the logic shifts based on the platform’s priorities? If you go down to the midway at your county fair, you’ll spot some poor sucker walking around all day with a giant teddy bear that they won by throwing three balls in a peach basket.

The peach-basket is a rigged game. The carny can use a hidden switch to force the balls to bounce out of the basket. No one wins a giant teddy bear unless the carny wants them to win it. Why did the carny let the sucker win the giant teddy bear? So that he’d carry it around all day, convincing other suckers to put down five bucks for their chance to win one:

https://boingboing.net/2006/08/27/rigged-carny-game.html

The carny allocated a giant teddy bear to that poor sucker the way that platforms allocate surpluses to key performers — as a convincer in a “Big Store” con, a way to rope in other suckers who’ll make content for the platform, anchoring themselves and their audiences to it.

Which brings me to Tiktok. Tiktok is many different things, including “a free Adobe Premiere for teenagers that live on their phones.”

https://www.garbageday.email/p/the-fragments-of-media-you-consume

But what made it such a success early on was the power of its recommendation system. From the start, Tiktok was really, really good at recommending things to its users. Eerily good:

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1093882880

By making good-faith recommendations of things it thought its users would like, Tiktok built a mass audience, larger than many thought possible, given the death grip of its competitors, like Youtube and Instagram. Now that Tiktok has the audience, it is consolidating its gains and seeking to lure away the media companies and creators who are still stubbornly attached to Youtube and Insta.

Yesterday, Forbes’s Emily Baker-White broke a fantastic story about how that actually works inside of Bytedance, Tiktok’s parent company, citing multiple internal sources, revealing the existence of a “heating tool” that Tiktok employees use push videos from select accounts into millions of viewers’ feeds:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilybaker-white/2023/01/20/tiktoks-secret-heating-button-can-make-anyone-go-viral/

These videos go into Tiktok users’ ForYou feeds, which Tiktok misleadingly describes as being populated by videos “ranked by an algorithm that predicts your interests based on your behavior in the app.” In reality, For You is only sometimes composed of videos that Tiktok thinks will add value to your experience — the rest of the time, it’s full of videos that Tiktok has inserted in order to make creators think that Tiktok is a great place to reach an audience.

“Sources told Forbes that TikTok has often used heating to court influencers and brands, enticing them into partnerships by inflating their videos’ view count. This suggests that heating has potentially benefitted some influencers and brands — those with whom TikTok has sought business relationships — at the expense of others with whom it has not.”

In other words, Tiktok is handing out giant teddy bears.

But Tiktok is not in the business of giving away giant teddy bears. Tiktok, for all that its origins are in the quasi-capitalist Chinese economy, is just another paperclip-maximizing artificial colony organism that treats human beings as inconvenient gut flora. Tiktok is only going to funnel free attention to the people it wants to entrap until they are entrapped, then it will withdraw that attention and begin to monetize it.

“Monetize” is a terrible word that tacitly admits that there is no such thing as an “Attention Economy.” You can’t use attention as a medium of exchange. You can’t use it as a store of value. You can’t use it as a unit of account. Attention is like cryptocurrency: a worthless token that is only valuable to the extent that you can trick or coerce someone into parting with “fiat” currency in exchange for it. You have to “monetize” it — that is, you have to exchange the fake money for real money.

In the case of cryptos, the main monetization strategy was deception-based. Exchanges and “projects” handed out a bunch of giant teddy-bears, creating an army of true-believer Judas goats who convinced their peers to hand the carny their money and try to get some balls into the peach-basket themselves.

But deception only produces so much “liquidity provision.” Eventually, you run out of suckers. To get lots of people to try the ball-toss, you need coercion, not persuasion. Think of how US companies ended the defined benefits pension that guaranteed you a dignified retirement, replacing it with market-based 401(k) pensions that forced you to gamble your savings in a rigged casino, making you the sucker at the table, ripe for the picking:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/25/derechos-humanos/#are-there-no-poorhouses

Early crypto liquidity came from ransomware. The existence of a pool of desperate, panicked companies and individuals whose data had been stolen by criminals created a baseline of crypto liquidity because they could only get their data back by trading real money for fake crypto money.

The next phase of crypto coercion was Web3: converting the web into a series of tollbooths that you could only pass through by trading real money for fake crypto money. The internet is a must-have, not a nice-to-have, a prerequisite for full participation in employment, education, family life, health, politics, civics, even romance. By holding all those things to ransom behind crypto tollbooths, the hodlers hoped to convert their tokens to real money:

https://locusmag.com/2022/09/cory-doctorow-moneylike/

For Tiktok, handing out free teddy-bears by “heating” the videos posted by skeptical performers and media companies is a way to convert them to true believers, getting them to push all their chips into the middle of the table, abandoning their efforts to build audiences on other platforms (it helps that Tiktok’s format is distinctive, making it hard to repurpose videos for Tiktok to circulate on rival platforms).

Once those performers and media companies are hooked, the next phase will begin: Tiktok will withdraw the “heating” that sticks their videos in front of people who never heard of them and haven’t asked to see their videos. Tiktok is performing a delicate dance here: there’s only so much enshittification they can visit upon their users’ feeds, and Tiktok has lots of other performers they want to give giant teddy-bears to.

Tiktok won’t just starve performers of the “free” attention by depreferencing them in the algorithm, it will actively punish them by failing to deliver their videos to the users who subscribed to them. After all, every time Tiktok shows you a video you asked to see, it loses a chance to show you a video it wants you to see, because your attention is a giant teddy-bear it can give away to a performer it is wooing.

This is just what Twitter has done as part of its march to enshittification: thanks to its “monetization” changes, the majority of people who follow you will never see the things you post. I have ~500k followers on Twitter and my threads used to routinely get hundreds of thousands or even millions of reads. Today, it’s hundreds, perhaps thousands.

I just handed Twitter $8 for Twitter Blue, because the company has strongly implied that it will only show the things I post to the people who asked to see them if I pay ransom money. This is the latest battle in one of the internet’s longest-simmering wars: the fight over end-to-end:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/10/e2e/#the-censors-pen

In the beginning, there were Bellheads and Netheads. The Bellheads worked for big telcos, and they believed that all the value of the network rightly belonged to the carrier. If someone invented a new feature — say, Caller ID — it should only be rolled out in a way that allows the carrier to charge you every month for its use. This is Software-As-a-Service, Ma Bell style.

The Netheads, by contrast, believed that value should move to the edges of the network — spread out, pluralized. In theory, Compuserve could have “monetized” its own version of Caller ID by making you pay $2.99 extra to see the “From:” line on email before you opened the message — charging you to know who was speaking before you started listening — but they didn’t.

The Netheads wanted to build diverse networks with lots of offers, lots of competition, and easy, low-cost switching between competitors (thanks to interoperability). Some wanted this because they believed that the net would someday be woven into the world, and they didn’t want to live in a world of rent-seeking landlords. Others were true believers in market competition as a source of innovation. Some believed both things. Either way, they saw the risk of network capture, the drive to monetization through trickery and coercion, and they wanted to head it off.

They conceived of the end-to-end principle: the idea that networks should be designed so that willing speakers’ messages would be delivered to willing listeners’ end-points as quickly and reliably as they could be. That is, irrespective of whether a network operator could make money by sending you the data it wanted to receive, its duty would be to provide you with the data you wanted to see.

The end-to-end principle is dead at the service level today. Useful idiots on the right were tricked into thinking that the risk of Twitter mismanagement was “woke shadowbanning,” whereby the things you said wouldn’t reach the people who asked to hear them because Twitter’s deep state didn’t like your opinions. The real risk, of course, is that the things you say won’t reach the people who asked to hear them because Twitter can make more money by enshittifying their feeds and charging you ransom for the privilege to be included in them.

As I said at the start of this essay, enshittification exerts a nearly irresistible gravity on platform capitalism. It’s just too easy to turn the enshittification dial up to eleven. Twitter was able to fire the majority of its skilled staff and still crank the dial all the way over, even with a skeleton crew of desperate, demoralized H1B workers who are shackled to Twitter’s sinking ship by the threat of deportation.

The temptation to enshittify is magnified by the blocks on interoperability: when Twitter bans interoperable clients, nerfs its APIs, and periodically terrorizes its users by suspending them for including their Mastodon handles in their bios, it makes it harder to leave Twitter, and thus increases the amount of enshittification users can be force-fed without risking their departure.

Twitter is not going to be a “protocol.” I’ll bet you a testicle¹ that projects like Bluesky will find no meaningful purchase on the platform, because if Bluesky were implemented and Twitter users could order their feeds for minimal enshittification and leave the service without sacrificing their social networks, it would kill the majority of Twitter’s “monetization” strategies.

¹Not one of mine.

An enshittification strategy only succeeds if it is pursued in measured amounts. Even the most locked-in user eventually reaches a breaking-point and walks away, or gets pushed. The villagers of Anatevka in Fiddler on the Roof tolerated the cossacks' violent raids and pogroms for years, until they were finally forced to flee to Krakow, New York and Chicago:

https://doctorow.medium.com/how-to-leave-dying-social-media-platforms-9fc550fe5abf

For enshittification-addled companies, that balance is hard to strike. Individual product managers, executives, and activist shareholders all give preference to quick returns at the cost of sustainability, and are in a race to see who can eat their seed-corn first. Enshittification has only lasted for as long as it has because the internet has devolved into “five giant websites, each filled with screenshots of the other four”:

https://twitter.com/tveastman/status/1069674780826071040

With the market sewn up by a group of cozy monopolists, better alternatives don’t pop up and lure us away, and if they do, the monopolists just buy them out and integrate them into your enshittification strategies, like when Mark Zuckerberg noticed a mass exodus of Facebook users who were switching to Instagram, and so he bought Instagram. As Zuck says, “It is better to buy than to compete.”

This is the hidden dynamic behind the rise and fall of Amazon Smile, the program whereby Amazon gave a small amount of money to charities of your choice when you shopped there, but only if you used Amazon’s own search tool to locate the products you purchased. This provided an incentive for Amazon customers to use its own increasingly enshittified search, which it could cram full of products from sellers who coughed up payola, as well as its own lookalike products. The alternative was to use Google, whose search tool would send you directly to the product you were looking for, and then charge Amazon a commission for sending you to it:

https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/10ft5iv/comment/j4znb8y/

The demise of Amazon Smile coincides with the increasing enshittification of Google Search, the only successful product the company managed to build in-house. All its other successes were bought from other companies: video, docs, cloud, ads, mobile; while its own products are either flops like Google Video, clones (Gmail is a Hotmail clone), or adapted from other companies’ products, like Chrome.

Google Search was based on principles set out in founder Larry Page and Sergey Brin’s landmark 1998 paper, “Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine,” in which they wrote, “Advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of consumers.”

http://ilpubs.stanford.edu:8090/361/

Even with that foundational understanding of enshittification, Google has been unable to resist its siren song. Today’s Google results are an increasingly useless morass of self-preferencing links to its own products, ads for products that aren’t good enough to float to the top of the list on its own, and parasitic SEO junk piggybacking on the former.

Enshittification kills. Google just laid off 12,000 employees, and the company is in a full-blown “panic” over the rise of “AI” chatbots, and is making a full-court press for an AI-driven search tool — that is, a tool that won’t show you what you ask for, but rather, what it thinks you should see:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/20/23563851/google-search-ai-chatbot-demo-chatgpt

Now, it’s possible to imagine that such a tool will produce good recommendations, like Tiktok’s pre-enshittified algorithm did. But it’s hard to see how Google will be able to design a non-enshittified chatbot front-end to search, given the strong incentives for product managers, executives, and shareholders to enshittify results to the precise threshold at which users are nearly pissed off enough to leave, but not quite.

Even if it manages the trick, this-almost-but-not-quite-unusuable equilibrium is fragile. Any exogenous shock — a new competitor like Tiktok that penetrates the anticompetitive “moats and walls” of Big Tech, a privacy scandal, a worker uprising — can send it into wild oscillations:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/08/watch-the-surpluses/#exogenous-shocks

Enshittification truly is how platforms die. That’s fine, actually. We don’t need eternal rulers of the internet. It’s okay for new ideas and new ways of working to emerge. The emphasis of lawmakers and policymakers shouldn’t be preserving the crepuscular senescence of dying platforms. Rather, our policy focus should be on minimizing the cost to users when these firms reach their expiry date: enshrining rights like end-to-end would mean that no matter how autocannibalistic a zombie platform became, willing speakers and willing listeners would still connect with each other:

https://doctorow.medium.com/end-to-end-d6046dca366f

And policymakers should focus on freedom of exit — the right to leave a sinking platform while continuing to stay connected to the communities that you left behind, enjoying the media and apps you bought, and preserving the data you created:

https://www.eff.org/interoperablefacebook

The Netheads were right: technological self-determination is at odds with the natural imperatives of tech businesses. They make more money when they take away our freedom — our freedom to speak, to leave, to connect.

For many years, even Tiktok’s critics grudgingly admitted that no matter how surveillant and creepy it was, it was really good at guessing what you wanted to see. But Tiktok couldn’t resist the temptation to show you the things it wants you to see, rather than what you want to see. The enshittification has begun, and now it is unlikely to stop.

It's too late to save Tiktok. Now that it has been infected by enshittifcation, the only thing left is to kill it with fire.

[Image ID: Hansel and Gretel in front of the witch's candy house. Hansel and Gretel have been replaced with line-drawings of influencers, taking selfies of themselves with the candy house. In front of the candy house stands a portly man in a business suit; his head is a sack of money with a dollar-sign on it. He wears a crooked witch's hat. The cottage has the Tiktok logo on it.]

[sanjisboyfie]

๑ keep safe : his hand on his ankle (12)

one piece x male reader

i think we're like fire and water. 

i think we're like the wind and sea.

you're burnin' up

and i'm coolin' down 

『 prev 』

“oi, pervy cook, stop harassing women!” [name] shouted from across the market stalls, “look this guy has a good deal, give me the bag of beri nami gave you!!”

sanji’s eyebrow quirked up in annoyance, new angry tick marks spawning all over his forehead as well. due to [name]’s shouts, the two beautiful women in front of him ran off.

he didn’t pick up on the fact they just ran away from sanji as a person, not because of [name].

grumbling under his breath about skewering [name] alive, he walked over to the stall and looked at their selection of ingredients. pretty quickly, sanji got over his anger and began bargaining with the sales rep.

[name] looked around as sanji took care of collecting all the ingredients, sighing as he felt himself grow immensely hot at the island’s weather. he had already stripped off his shirt, now donning a pair of knee length shorts while his torso was exposed.

he should get some more breathable clothing soon because the looks the townspeople were giving him were obviously laced with disapproval.

“i really can’t take you anywhere, your manners are nonexistent,” sanji said, backtracking to how [name] yelled earlier.

“they weren’t gonna get with you anyway,” [name] teased, throwing an arm around sanji’s shoulder. sanji easily shrugged the heavy limb off, scowling as [name] got too up close and personal.

the two continued on shopping and as soon as things began piling up, [name] looked around in wonder, “where’s chopper?” he asked, mentally hoping that the chef kept an eye on their newest crewmate.

“ah, i thought he was with you?” sanji said mindlessly, browsing through more selections of clothing for nami and vivi.

“hm, he probably is fine- hey! sanji, don’t buy those clothes, that’s not appropriate attire for the desert, idiot,” [name] said, slapping sanji in the head to rid him of his sudden heart eyes.

the blonde was looking at a beautiful piece of clothing that was definitely not actually made for the desert heat. “get them something more…not flashy,”

“flashy is the best!” sanji cried out, making [name] slap him on the head once more.

“idiot!”

[name] took care of buying actual clothing for the women, and the men — since sanji definitely wouldn’t care about them enough to spend beri on them, and made sure he snagged the whole bag of beri away from sanji. he didn’t need the chef wasting any more money on useless things.

after what felt like hours of shopping, the two rejoined with their group that was in hiding.

“huh? where’s chopper?” nami asked, noticing their missing reindeer.

“well, we don’t know, but!!! before you hit me, he’ll be able to find us with that strong nose of his, if anything we just lost him in the crowd,” [name] said, not really putting nami at ease, but it did stop her from hitting him on the head.

sanji quickly threw food at zoro and usopp, who jumped at it to ravenously eat it since they were starving. then he politely handed the share to vivi and nami. lastly, he didn’t even think twice in throwing a skewer at [name] — who easily swallowed it in one second.

“at least savor it, [name],” vivi said, worried as she saw [name] spit out the wooden stick that went through the meat skewer without a care in the world.

“i did savor it, your country’s food is yummy, vivi,” [name] approved, a thumbs up given to the princess who could only hum in delight.

“and, nami-san and vivi-chan, please put on the gowns i bought you!” sanji said, once again love struck as he spun his way over to nami and vivi. at that cue, [name] rummaged through their newly bought goods and brought the actual clothes out.

he laid them out to zoro and usopp first, the two nodding quickly in thanks before going back to devouring their share of meat. and then he walked over to nami and vivi, giving them an apologetic smile.

“here's some more clothes if you want to change into this instead,” vivi didn’t seem to hesitate in grabbing the cloths. she saved him a thankful look, patting him on the head as well. nami kept sanji’s choice of clothing, telling [name] to put the other robes into the bag for safe keeping in case.

everyone changed into their new outfits, [name] gagging as he felt it become even more suffocating with the layers he put on. the moment he emerged from behind the wall where he was changing, they all stopped and stared at him.

“does it really look that bad? because i feel like shit right now,” he said, not thinking much of their stares.

and there was nothing to make of it anyway as they all erupted with their own comments.

“yeah, you fit the part of a bandit,” sanji insulted, taking a drag of his cigarette.

”don’t have such a pathetic look on your face, [name], it makes you seriously look miserable,” nami advised, sweatdropping as [name] dropped in front of them in exhaustion from the heat.

“you’re gonna eat shit in the desert, aren’t you?! haha!!” zoro laughed at [name]’s personal hell.

“come on, [name], get serious! you need to be in tip-top shape in order to protect us, this isn’t a joke!!!” usopp cried, shaking [name] back and forth by his collar.

meanwhile, [name] was slumped over right next to chopper as they were both suffering immensely from the heat.

“[name], are you going to be alright? you look really, really…” vivi trailed off, seeing the sweat that was practically soaking into [name]’s headpiece. “hot.”

“i’m terrible with hot weather! first we go to drum island, as fucking cold as it was, then we end up in the middle of the desert! i might as well jump into a boiling tub of hot water!” [name] shouted, kicking into the sand in frustration, “i can’t deal with this!”

“you’re awfully affected by the weather, just make sure you pack some water,” nami huffed, shrugging her shoulders, “or take off a couple of layers.”

[name] easily did as told, eager to get the suffocating clothes off of his person. he kept the headpiece on, tying the arms of the robe around his waist to leave his torso bare. he threw the sword over his person to rest on his back, breathing a sigh of relief.

with his muscular back and torso exposed, nami eyed him in interest. something had caught her eye on [name]’s back and she stopped him from moving around when she finally made out what it was.

”you have a tattoo, [name]?”

[name] turned around to look at his back, grinning when he saw the ink that permanently was etched into his skin.

“yeah, you like?”

it was a big tattoo, honestly. the crew was surprised they’d never seen it before. a pair of wings were running the expanse of [name]’s wide shoulders, going on until the ending tips of the wings were a little bit exposed to his deltoids.

“what’s it mean?” nami asked, gently trailing a finger over [name]’s inked skin, flinching back when she felt that the skin was slightly raised as well, “wait…what’s this?”

her hand flattened against [name]’s back, making sanji seethe where he stood, to get a better feel. [name] sighed in content feeling her cool palm cool him down, but then perked up at her actual question.

“what?”

“it’s like, you’ve got a map…of scars,” she breathed out, eyes widening in realization. just as she said, there were linear scars that were trailing over [name]’s back. she looked down and realized that they continued on until his hip, which was as far as her eye could see.

she abruptly turned him around, shock gracing her features as she saw that [name] was thoroughly scarred all over. the lines of his raised marks were very, very thin, and small. very precise work, it looked like.

but no doubt, it was there.

“how have we never seen?”

“well, they’re small, so it only really noticeable when you’re up close,”

in intrigue, usopp leaned in closer and was shocked to see that there really were marks all over [name]’s torso, “woah, they kind of look badass, how far do they go?”

“from my face, all the way down to my feet,” [name] said, shooting a look to chopper, as if a warning to not say anything. the reindeer dropped his head and obediently stayed quiet.

before nami could ask any more questions regarding the scarring, vivi abruptly asked about the tattoo on his back.

“so what is the significance of the tattoo?” she asked, feeling a sense of pressure put on [name] to explain the scarring that even made her uncomfortable. the marks themselves weren’t making her uncomfortable, but rather the incessant questions that [name] may not have wanted to answer.

nami and usopp probably didn’t mean for it to come off as invasive, but either way that was what it felt like, to vivi at least.

“to make me fly!” [name] childishly grinned. his smile was purely innocent, as if he truly believed he could. it was a smile that could easily mirror that of their captain. he looked so carefree as he referenced the large tattoo. and it was easy to miss the longing look in his eyes as he smiled, but a certain few picked up on it.

vivi smiled sadly at [name], sensing there was a deeper meaning to it than just that, but she left it alone. as did everyone else on the crew.

“sounds stupid, humans can’t fly idiot,” everyone besides zoro, as he was always eager to rile up [name]. and it worked as he knocked the swordsman on the head.

“but are you sure you want to walk around like that, [name]? the sun might get to you even more with your skin exposed,” vivi said worriedly, but [name] shot them down instantly.

“i’ll be fine,” [name] said, waving off the worries. “if anything, i’ll put the clothes back on if its really getting too much,”

“put them back on now, no one wants to see it,” sanji and zoro said in a monotonous voice, making another fight between the three of them break out. nami and usopp could only sigh at their antics, chopper watched on in admiration, and vivi couldn’t help but feel secure.

she had such strong people on her side.

well, she still had to ask them to assist her…she swallowed the lump in her throat, looking up with a fierce glint in her eyes.

“everyone, please, i want to save this country. and the journey is going to be treacherous, especially across the desert, there’s no saying what will happen. but, please!! if you could lend me your help, please!”

it was silent for a couple of seconds. nami was the one to break it with her mischievous giggle, “you finally said it! we were waiting for you, of course we’ll help you!”

[name] grinned along with her, throwing an arm around vivi’s shoulder, “you remember my promise, don’t you?” he asked, mindlessly leaning into her. she felt flustered at the close contact with the half naked [name] that her ears and cheeks started burning almost instantly.

sanji took care of her “problem” by kicking [name] down on the head. and with his foot still resting on top of [name]’s head, he grinned at vivi, trying to look charming, “of course, we will help you, vivi-chan! anything to help you my beautiful princess.”

“pervy cook,” [name] said in a strained voice in unison with zoro’s bored one.

“we gotta go through yuba first, right?” usopp checked, earning a hum of confirmation from [name] and nami.

chopper, despite feeling the heat most sensitively, was more than excited to see the vast desert.

everyone raised their marked arms into the air, ready to set themselves out for adventure. but then they all faltered as they realized they were missing someone…their captain.

“where the fuck is that idiot?!”

the only resolution they had to their missing captain issue was searching in the nearest town.

“i’m gonna go check the restaurant,” [name] said, his head held down. just as he was about to walk off, nami grabbed ahold of his ear.

“only to look for luffy!!! do not, i repeat do not!!!, go in there to eat for your own appetite. we have a whole country to save, [name]! don’t even think about getting distracted now!”

“i won’t, now let me go!” [name] whined, running in his spot as nami had a hold on his ear. when she finally let go, he mimicked a rocket taking off with how fast he made a beeline to the restaurant up ahead.

‘coffee!! meat!!! sorry, nami!!!’ he thought in his head as he ran into the restaurant. not waiting a second, he took a seat at the bar’s counter and got ready to be served.

“cup of coffee and three plates of meat, please!” [name] said, grinning from ear to ear at eating a proper meal. he had only eaten that one skewer sanji had secured for him, that piss blonde didn’t pity [name]’s endless stomach one bit!

“[name], we gotta stop meeting like this, it’s feeling a little bizarre,” a voice said from next to him.

[name] turned his head to the side, tears coming into his eyes as he recognized that grin from anywhere, “ace!!!”

he jumped out of his seat, completely tackling ace out from his seat. this landed them both on the floor. he peppered kisses all over ace’s face, whose cheeks dusted pink very quickly at the action, “my ace!!!”

“alright, alright, i get it,” ace said, holding onto [name]’s shoulders to push him back a little from his suffocating attitude. “i missed you too,”

[name] broke free from ace’s grip on his shoulder, leaning back down to press his forehead against ace’s, nudging the freckled nose with his own. even if he was already burning up from the climate outside, he couldn’t help but press himself further into ace’s warm chest.

“we saw each other a couple months ago, [name], get ahold of yourself!” ace said, tired of fighting against [name]’s need to be pressed against him. [name] was stubborn and didn’t let up his pushing at all.

“come on, ace, i never knew when i’d see you again!” [name] said, nuzzling into ace’s neck, a devious grin on his face, “i can be selfish on the affections,”

“i think you were plenty selfish last time we saw each other,” ace mumbled with red dusting his face.

the two got up, or rather, ace sat up and since [name] had all of his limbs wrapped around ace, he too came up with him. ace sat back down on the barstool, [name] sitting on his lap.

it was definitely a sight to see for everyone in the restaurant. [name] wasn’t some small guy, he was tall and imposing with his strong build. to see him so childishly (trying to) fit himself onto ace’s lap, who was significantly smaller than him, made the customers blink a couple of times to make sure they were seeing right.

”i can’t eat with you on me like this!”

“hm, i’ll just feed you,”

ace looked at him in annoyance, “that’s not my point, idiot,”

rolling his eyes, [name] propped himself up on the bar counter, off the side of ace so that the man could eat his food perfectly fine. [name] kept his legs resting in between ace’s, squeezing every now and then around ace’s thigh to keep the skinship.

“you’re oddly clingy,” ace grumbled, not flinching backwards when [name] pressed their faces close to one another again, “you act too young, man up a little,”

“i think we both know you wouldn’t prefer the cold shoulder, though,” [name] smirked, referencing the last time the duo had seen each other, “weren’t you the one who almost started crying when-”

ace shoved a spoonful of rice into [name]’s mouth, “shut up.”

[name] happily ate the food and grinned in utmost pleasure, “say, ace, join luffy’s crew!”

“no.”

“you always were so heartless,” [name] sighed.

“i think it’s obvious why i can’t join,” ace said, scarfing down more food. one of his hands wrapped around [name]’s ankle, the one that wasn’t in between his legs, and he squeezed it gently.

[name] looked up at the action, ace’s firm and warm grip around his foot knocking him out of his daydream. he was greeted by a smirk from the freckled man, “why don’t you join the whitebeard pirates? they’re more in your league anyway,”

“nope,” [name] grinned, putting his fingers in front of his face to form an ‘x’ shape.

“see, that’s what i thought,” ace said, rubbing his thumb up and down [name]’s ankle as he spoke. neither of them paid the action no mind. ace did it to reassure himself [name] was really in front of him and [name] always welcomed skinship with ace, so he definitely didn’t mind.

“well-”

then ace’s grip on his ankle became loose and a loud slamming onto the table made everyone in the restaurant look their way.

“he died mid-chew!?” they cried out, looking at the ravenette who collapsed.

[name] sighed, taking ace’s hat off and placing it on his own head. he buried his hand in ace’s hair, happily taking more food off of his plate and eating to his heart’s content.

“he doesn’t even care!!!”

“eh? he’s not dead,” [name] simply said, looking at the crowd as if they were crazy, “how’d you guys come up with that conclusion?”

“he obviously looks dead, don’t play dumb!” the crowd shouted in unison once more.

suddenly, ace shot up again, looking dazed. wordlessly, he snatched his plate back up from [name] and continued eating.

“he didn’t die?!”

“i told you he didn’t!”

“ah, [name], my hat looks good on you,” ace said cheerfully, a stunning smile on his face.

“ew, ace, you’ve got food in your mouth still,” [name] grimaced, “also around your entire face, hold on,”

[name] grabbed a stray napkin and wiped ace’s face clean, the man presenting himself prettily to [name]. that made him laugh, gently tap his cheek at his obvious posing, and ruffle his hair.

“all clean.”

“you’re so reliable [name], that’s why you should join old man’s crew,” ace said, once again slipping an invitation into the conversation.

“nope!”

ace’s warm hand went back to resting on [name]’s ankle, continuing to finish plate after plate.

”you two are bold to be eating out in the open like that,” a voice said behind ace, making [name] look up in interest.

he saw a man with two thick cigars resting on the corner of his mouth, eye twitching at the sight. the man continued on, “second division commander of the whitebeard pirates, portgas d. ace.” his eyes then trailed onto [name], looking even more angered, “and you, cursed orphan [name]. are you aware that your bounty had shot up?”

[name] sweatdropped, “but i didn’t even do anything,” he said in exasperation, nudging ace, “these guys hate me for no reason, i swear,” this made the freckled man burst out laughing.

“you’re a wanted man, a bounty of 250,000,000 million,” the man announced, making [name] pout, “that’s not even much higher,” and that was enough to send the entire place into an uproar.

“whitebeard pirates?! over 200 million bounty?!” they all shouted in fear and realization. these two men that were casually cuddling up with each other in the middle of the restaurant were fearless, deadly, and intimidating pirates.

“what are you two low lives doing in this country in the first place?”

as ace turned around, [name] leaned his entire body against ace’s, resting his chin on his shoulder. the two grinned devilishly, and the occupants in the restaurant genuinely did fear for their lives. the two answered easily, “i’m looking for my little brother / i’m here to kick some warlord’s ass,”

the marine, [name] assumed, flinched at their confessions, averting his eyes to [name], “you, what did you just say?”

[name] grinned proudly, twirling the ends of ace’s hair with his finger, “i’m gonna beat up some asshole,” he grinned, enjoying the confused look on the marine’s face and laughing in delight.

tension in the room seemed to only fill, almost at its brim.

“so? what do you want from me?” ace asked, biting back laughter as he felt [name] attach to his back as if he were a backpack. if [name] wasn’t sitting on the bar counter, ace would have had to uphold all the weight of him on his back. his legs were wrapped around his torso and his arms were lazily thrown over ace’s front.

[name]’s chin was resting on ace’s head, the orange hat still on top of his h/c hair.

the two looked so casual and comfortable, not to mention smug, for smoker’s liking.

“to capture the both of you quietly,”

“nope, i think i’ll pass. how about you, [name]?”

“i just said i have important business, marine man, i got places to be so no can do!”

“well, i figured,” he sighed, a puff of smoke trailing out of his mouth, “i’m busy trying to find another pirate at the moment. to be honest i have no interest in taking either of you in,”

[name] gave a thumbs up, “great, so leave us alone!”

”can’t,” the marine said in a strained voice, “so long as you’re a pirate and i’m a marine, i can’t let either of you out of my sights,” smoke began to erupt at a much faster pace, this time coming from his fist and [name] already knew that the man in front of him had some sort of devil fruit power.

“that sounded too much like a confession,” [name] hummed in disinterest, leaning into ace’s back even further.

“that’s a pretty bland reason,” ace said, hands turning into clenched fists, “don’t go threatening us, either. you should know - i like showing off in front of [name], so i won’t go easy on you,” ace leaned back a little, raising an eyebrow as he felt nothing but completely relaxed, “so let’s have some fun!”

[name] squinted, seeing past smoker and sensing something very, very, very rapidly approaching. unfortunately, his innate abilities weren’t even fast enough to dodge, so he only took a tight hold on ace, acting as the man’s human shield and braced for impact.

in a second, the front door of the restaurant welcomed a crashing figure — who was shouting about food. ace and smoker were knocked off of their feet, [name] as ace’s backpack, as the mystery person crashed into both of them.

[name] felt several walls break down behind him from the impact, making him grit his teeth in annoyance. he’d kill luffy for sure! moving the rubble surrounding them aside, [name] sat upright with a frown on his face.

“you alright, ace?”

“yeah, just pissed off, who the hell is causing all that trouble?”

”i think we both know the answer…” [name]’s voice trailed off as he stood up and began walking through the many holes his captain caused inside people’s homes and establishments.

as he walked ahead, he could only think of so many ways to make luffy understand he was dead meat.

as [name] and ace came to the restaurant, ace’s eyes widening as he realized who it was, they were about to rush forward, but were slapped down to the ground by the marine that was pestering them earlier.

“you’re fucking with me right now,” [name] cursed into the bricks he got a face full of, feeling nothing but annoyance seep into his bones. “i’ll kill the both of you bastards!”

“straw hat!!!” the marine called out, rushing forward and chasing luffy out of the restaurant.

in a second, luffy was running out of the place, followed by smoker, who was then followed by [name] and ace.

“wait, luffy! it’s me!!! wait up, luffy!!!” ace desperately shouted, running after luffy’s fast figure.

”luffy, come back here so i can kill your dumbass! i’ll send you flying!”

the chase happened for much longer than it needed, but eventually [name] caught up to his captain. and the first thing he did was sucker punch him. ace disconnected from him to stop smoker, who was very close to actually catching luffy.

when luffy finally got up from being punched, he looked up at the scene in wonder.

“ace?!”

“that’s what we’ve been trying to tell you, idiot, idiot, idiot!!” [name] said, knocking some more sense into his captain, “we’ve been running after you like mad men, don’t you have ears to listen!?”

“[name], i was running from that guy there, give me a break!” luffy whined, holding onto his head in fear of getting hit once more.

“luffy, you really never change, do you?” ace asked, smirking at the sight of his little brother and the crew he acquired.

“ace, did you eat a devil fruit?! you have powers now?!” luffy asked in astonishment.

“yep, the mera-mera no mi,” ace easily answered, the smirk on his face not going away for even a second as he stared at the marines ahead, “anyways, we can’t chat like this! i’ll catch up! you guys run!”

that was enough for [name], as he still wanted to knock some sense into luffy, who dragged their captain by his ear and ran off.

”aren’t you a bit too ready to run away from a fight?!” usopp shouted, never seeing [name] so eager to get away.

“come on, don’t fall behind now!!” [name] shouted, smirking at the still crew, “ace’s got it all handled, let’s run now!!!”

“is he an acquaintance of yours, luffy?! [name]?!”

luffy laughed happily, looking back at his crew with that notoriously troublesome smile, “yeah!! he’s my brother!”

the crew would’ve stopped running in shock, but seeing as the marines were hot on their tail they had no other option but to continue rushing forward. the looks on their faces said it all though.

they thought that learning [name] and luffy grew up on the same island was shocking, it still was, honestly but just now finding out luffy had a brother? and the fact luffy and [name] were so casual on the fact, made their faces freeze in shock.

what else was their captain hiding?

[ miniature : BONUS ]

“why are you protecting those two, fire fist?” smoker snarled, watching as the entire strawhat crew got away from him.

“it’s normal for an older brother to worry about his bungling little brother,” ace smirked, the heat that was dancing on his skin becoming flames.

”your brother-? then you mean to say…” smoker’s voice trailed off, but before he could delve too deep into the new information, he demanded ace move once more.

“i’m afraid that’s a no can do,” ace said, the flames growing stronger with each passing second, “i did warn you though, i said i like to show off in front of [name]. so you understand where i’m coming from even more, right?”

“hardly,” smoker grunted, still not understanding how ace was related to both [name] and luffy.

“come on, you wouldn’t wanna put in some extra effort in impressing your lover?”

『 prev 』 ˗ˏˋ꒰ 🌊 ꒱ 『 next 』

-

taglist (lmk if u want to be tagged ! <3 :

@skullr0se , @strawberrii-tea

[maddogofshimano]

The Value of Lies: Majima Boss Rush

Mild spoilers for Y0

A new Majima event! They added a few new cards alongside it

I had a moment of “huh, why’s Shimano from 1985 and not 1988? that’s too late for the YK2 flashback--oh NO............ during Majima’s torture in the Hole????” 

anyways, Shimano is not in the event. sorry to the Shimano stans

Summary: 6 months into Majima’s stint as manager of the Grand, he’s still chasing after as much profit as he can and has scouted a new batch of hostesses. One of them seems lackluster, but there’s more to her than meets the eye...

[Half a year after Majima Goro had began working as the manager of the Cabaret Grand.] [The Grand's revenue had been steadily rising, but was still nowhere near the desired amount-- For the sake of further profits, Majima was aggressively scouting other clubs to refine his own business...]

<door opens, Majima walks in> Majima: ...Sawabe. How'd the new girls do today? (tl note: The name is 沢辺 which is pretty much just Sawabe or Sawanabe)

Grand Employee Sawabe: ...They seem to be doing reasonably well, the customers who like inexperienced girls have been asking for them. Majima: I see. Any gals seem like a standout?

Sawabe: I don't know about a standout, all of them have something special... except for one. Majima: ...Except one? What's goin' on with that?

Sawabe: ...There was one who just didn't seem very motivated. Her name is Arisa. Sawabe: But it's my job to make girls like that useful, so I've been trying to provide lessons. Majima: That's true. I appreciate the help. With how the number of customers keep goin' up, I'll take all the help I can get. Majima: Unfortunately I still gotta be out of the club, so you're my only hope for trainin' the girls here. Sawabe: Please leave it to me. Sawabe: I know that people are the same as water, if left alone they'll settle in low places.

Sawabe: I'll manage the new girls diligently, and make sure they're trained well. Majima: Please see that you do. Majima: ...And just to be sure, ya ain't gonna fall for some of the girls you're teaching and get handsy, right? Sawabe: ...Absolutely not. I could never allow my family to be on the street because I broke one of the club's rules.

[two weeks later...]

<the door opens, Majima enters> Majima: ...I'm back. How'd thing's go, and how were today's sales... huh? (tl note: TWO WEEKS DUDE???)

Sawabe: Ah, welcome back, manager. (tl note: oh okay Majima didn't walk in on hanky panky. my bad. sorry for doubting you Sawabe) New Girl Arisa: ...Well, I'm going back to the floor. Majima: ...Was that Arisa you were just talking to? Sawabe: Yes sir. She just lost her parents. But she still comes to work and does her training because she didn't want to miss any days... Sawabe: So I hear her out when she has difficult feelings that she can't express to the customers. Majima: .........I see. Sawabe: At first I thought she just wasn't motivated at all... I even scolded her a few times before realizing this was the case--she just couldn't get into the right headspace with all that sadness. Majima: ...And ya believe that? Sawabe: Huh? O-Of course. There was nothing to indicate she was lying. Majima: Gotcha. Majima: Seein' as she's havin' such a hard time, I ought to talk with her. <out on the floor> Majima: ...Arisa-chan. Ya got a minute?

Arisa: Yes? Can I help you with something? Majima: If you're makin' a play at Sawabe, it'd be best if ya stopped. Arisa: Huh? What are you talking about? I'm not making a play... Majima: ...Heh, I'm just sayin'. Majima: If ya have any troubles I'm also someone ya can come talk to. Arisa: Umm... Th-Thank you. If you'll excuse me. <she leaves> Majima: ............

[another 2 weeks later]

Sawabe: I'm sorry, Arisa. We can only meet up after everyone has already left. (tl note: I RETRACT MY PREVIOUS APOLOGY. SAWABE YOUR FAMILY!!!!!!!!)

Arisa: No, don't apologize. I'm the one asking unreasonable things... I know we can't let anyone find out about this. Arisa: Besides, I would be happy being anywhere with you, Sawabe-san. Sawabe: Arisa... Arisa: ...Still... The manager isn't going to be back today, right? Sawabe: Yep, he said he was heading straight home. Arisa: So then... it's really just the two of us. Sawabe: Yeah, just us two. .....But, is it alright if I do a bit of work first? Sawabe: It's the last day of the month, so I need to get our sales money so it can be transferred to the bank tomorrow. (tl note: Sawabe if you flake to go fuck a hostess and Majima gets the shit beaten out of him I'm going to throttle you on his behalf) Arisa: Okay, I can wait 🎵 Sawabe: I'm sorry. I'll get it done quick. <she leaves> Sawabe: Now then just gotta get the money out of the safe... <he opens it> Sawabe: ...Hmm? Oh, Arisa must have needed to use the restroom. Now then... huh!!?? <a bunch of goons rush in> Arisa: Sawabe-san. Thanks so much for opening the safe 🎵  ....Now I'll be taking allll the money in it.

Sawabe: Wh-... What the hell's going on? <a goon punches him> Sawabe: Guh... <he drops> Brawny Thug: That dumbass was a good mark for this... Have a nice nap. Arisa: Soooo cool 🎵 Thug's Pal: Hehe... Now we just stuff all this cash into the bag.

???: ...I went to all the trouble of warning you. Arisa: !? Majima: I already told ya, "If you're makin' a play at Sawabe, it'd be best if ya stopped".

Arisa: Wh-Why's the manager... Majima: I noticed ya gettin' awful cozy with Sawabe a little while ago. Majima: So I started doin' a little diggin' and figured out your plan. Had to be gettin' some thugs to rob the safe with ya--your parents aren't dead, your little brother doesn't exist, all ya've been doin' since ya got here is lying and cheatin' people outta money. Arisa: .......... Majima: And on top of trickin' Sawabe, here ya are tryin' to clean us out, which is a much bigger issue. Thug: Well... Even if all of that is true, how do you expect to get yourself out of this situation now? Thug: I don't see any cops around... Don't tell me you plan on handling this all by yourself? Majima: ...Of course I plan to. Thug: The hell? Are you mocking me! <goons rush in> Thug: That's just fine!! If you can do it, go ahead!!!!

<EVENT HAPPENS>

Brawny Thug: N-... No way...

<he collapses> Arisa: ...! <Majima walks over> Majima: ...We're done here.

<he kneels down> Majima: Hey, can you stand? Sawabe: Ugh... S-Sorry... <they're both back to standing> Majima: Don't worry. I'll let ya off easy this time, since I knew what was happenin'. Think ya'll get tricked again? Sawabe: Th-Thank you so much...! Nothing like this will ever happen again...! Sawabe: But... I really didn't think Arisa would do something like this... Arisa: I'm sorry Sawabe-san, Majima-san... That thug was threatening me... that's why I... Sawabe: Eh...!? Majima: ...Are ya that stupid. Now I know ya ain't the kinda guy for this. On the other hand, you were the one that was trickin' that man, ain't ya? Sawabe: Eh... Wh-What do you mean? Arisa: ...Haa, I messed up. That guy said he was a former pro boxer, but he was way too weak.

Sawabe: A-Arisa... you... Arisa: I guess I can't fool you. Are you going to hand me over to the police? Majima: Heh, that's surprisingly upstandin' of ya. Majima: However, I ain't handin' ya over to the cops. Arisa: ...Huh? Majima: There's no profit to be made in that. Majima: I'd rather have ya work at the Grand again. Arisa: Work at the Grand...? Majima: Exactly. Of course, if ya run off or play hooky then I'll throw ya to the cops without mercy.

Majima: And you'll have to make yourself a diligent hostess and work hard--I'll forget about this whole thing if ya become a girl that earns more than ya were gonna steal from this safe. Arisa: ....... Majima: ...What d'ya say? Arisa: I will... return to working at the Grand. Majima: Heh, that settles it. Arisa: Sawabe-san... I'm sorry for deceiving you. I'll do my best from here on out. Sawabe: H-Hold on a minute, boss! I-Is that really okay? Even after all this... Majima: Mhm. Sawabe: I know I was the one who got scammed, so it might not mean much from me, but still... Arisa-chan has the worst sales out of the whole club.

Sawabe: And then she tried to rob us, so, is it really okay to hire that girl...? Majima: It's true that her sales were bad, but that's cause she was half-assin' it. Majima: You experienced first hand just how good she is at this, didn't you? Sawabe: ........... Majima: To keep up a deception like that, ya need all sorts of skills. Majima: You're much warier than most, but she still got her fingers on your purse strings-- Majima: Seein' that you're a very doubting person, she used a lie about her parents' death to get ya sympathetic-- Majima: Two weeks or so of keepin' up that lie, playin' the part of the girl ya'd want, all with the goal of slowly foolin' ya-- Majima: Even with the risk of "If I lose my job my family will be out on the street" ya still caved. Majima: Gettin' someone ya just met's guard down, gettin' them to open their wallet, lying to find out more about them-- Majima: And of course, keepin' up the lie so the person you're talkin' with doesn't catch on... Majima: To me, those are the ideal skills for a hostess. Majima: If she approached our guests with the same diligence that she went after you, I have no doubt that Arisa would be our number one. Majima: In order to make 100 million yen in sales, even though there's a risk, I'm not going to let a profitable woman like her go. Sawabe: ...You may be right, boss. Majima: Whew... Well, I'll see ya tomorrow, but... try not to get scammed again, okay? Sawabe: ...Y-Yes sir.

[Afterwards, when Arisa resumed working at the Grand, things went exactly as Majima predicted. With her ability to see through her customers and her skillful lies, she had one man after another captivated by her. Seeking to become the Grand's number one hostess, she has risen to the very top.]

<EVENT END>

Bonus stuff:

unrelated to this event they released a White Day Kiryu where he awkwardly gives you a return gift. I’m not even making fun of him that’s literally what the title of his card is

Ichiban got one too where he bashfully gives you a senbei

and then not a White Day card but still a guy giving a gift, we got a new KSR 1995 Nishiki

something I didn’t notice until looking through Nishiki’s cards is that they give a date on Nishiki’s new hairdo

ONE YEAR??? NISHIKI YOU ONLY HELD OUT A YEAR??????? it was Christmas in 1995 too so depending on when in 1996 this is it could be even less time. it does make it a kind of cartoonishly awful year for him to have experienced though, if you condense all of the flashbacks into that span. that’s rough buddy

enjoy him looking so sad and dejected (he failed to beat up Haruka)

[vivievienne]

Thrift clothes — Flufftober Day 19

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: In which you and Mizuki love shopping!

𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞: I. Feel. Better. That's all. So finally a good fic for one time! (Mizu5 is not real and can't hurt me.)

𝐓𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: might be ooc, nightcord!reader

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 213

You and Mizuki were called: “The Shopping Legends”. I’m not even kidding! Ena says that when she can’t find you anywhere, you are probably in shops looking at some “clothes jewels” in these. 

But what could you both help, when you are the LOVERS of fashion!

New collections? Already have it. Sales? You’re the first in the queue. Black Friday? You wait in front of the doors two days before! 

But your tradition is going every Saturday to the secondhand shop together.

You love it!

You can find some comfy and incredibly cute clothes or make each other outfits.

Thrift shops are like your second home!

During these meetings you take a lot of funny photos. Mizuki in big heart-shaped glasses. You with a too big suit, pretending to be a spy. Mizuki in the long, red dress with yellow jacket on and round clips on her ears. And a lot more… Maybe a bit too much…

But it’s cool and you love it!

You often harass yourselves with these pictures in a joking way or send it on Nightcord.

NIGHTCORD

AMIA: Look at them! They look so stupid here!

YOU: Oh, shut it, you just took this from a bad angle!

ENANAN: Damn. Can yall shut the fuck up and go on dm?