#they're both assholes your honor

[atsadi-shenanigans]

Feeding Alligators 58 - Behind Enemy Lines

You're in the goblin camp. Now what?

On AO3.

The temple is huge, falling apart, and absolutely infested with goblins. The sounds of slaughter outside don’t seem to have reached the inside; nobody’s up in arms. Y’all come in and hide up in the rafters a long while, just watching. Ain’t nobody sprints in or out, no shouts of alarm. Just bitching and belching.

Y’all find a quiet corner to descend—there’s a ladder, but Gale casts some falling spell on you and him for both your knees. Once on the ground level, nobody questions any of y’all. Apparently they’re recruiting “all sorts”, says one goblin too busy picking his ear to actually look at y’all. He examines his prize a second before popping his finger into his mouth.

The next goblin is sleeping on the job.

But the one after that mentions prisoners.

“Ah,” Astarion all but sighs. “Drink in the debauchery. It’s filthy, of course, but then they are goblins.”

You can’t help but squint at him.

So of course, the goblins got one of them prisoners on a torture rack. They’re getting ready to, as best you can tell, smash off his kneecaps with a club.

You panic. “Hey!”

The little shit looks at you, spouts something about watching (heavily implying something about masturbation). You think fast.

“Boss sent me,” you say. You don’t look away, you do not blink. You are a bored retail worker, you’re seven hours into your shift on a Thursday fucking night and your feet hurt. You’re done.

“Door Rags Lynn sent you?” Little Shit says. “Why?”

Bored employee. Somebody wants you to check the inventory in the back—you know for a fact the “inventory in the back” is jammed into four foot boxes stacked fifteen feet high and you sure as shit ain’t digging through that for this dude. You shrug. “Don’t know. Just following orders. Said something about a rotation, and I ain’t asking.”

He seems to chew on that a second. Then the other one snorts.

“If she wants to take a crack at him, I say let her. I wanna see that pain priest.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Little Shit says. Tosses his club at you and thank fuck you manage to catch it. “Have at him. We been trying to crack this feck shite all day.”

You watch them scurry off, apparently to watch whatever the fuck a “pain priest” is. Leaving you and the crying guy on the rack.

“It’s clear, right?” you say, because others got that magic hearing

Shadowheart nods as Astarion frowns.

“P-please, I already said,” Rack Guy sputters. “I-I don’t k-know nothing!”

You set down the club. Reach up to examine the restraints. “It’s alright, kid. I ain’t here to hurt you. If we can get you down, can you walk?”

“I…think so?” he says. Tries to blink the blood and tears outta his eyes.

You nod. They done went and shackled the guy in, both wrists connected by an iron bar with another lock on it.

A glance behind you. Astarion fiddles with his fingernails.

“Can you get these off?” you say.

He looks up. Cool gaze slides from you to the rack. His nose wrinkles. “You’re letting him go? I was hoping for a little entertainment.”

You got a dark sense of humor, sometimes. But it don’t extend to people being fucking tortured.

“It’s a yes or a no question,” you say. Your tone is sharper than you intend, and you see him shutter against it.

“I could, darling, but what’s in it for me?”

“Fuck’s sake, Fangs,” Karlach says.

“We’re here to find a druid that can remove our parasite problem. Not go gallivanting around rescuing all the idiots too stupid or too slow to avoid getting caught by goblins, of all creatures.”

That’s just…he said he was enslaved. Was a puppet to that fuckface for two hundred years. And he’s just gonna stand there and leave this guy?

…why did you think y’all could be friends?

It’s been a day on top of a week on top of a lifetime. And you’ve had it.

“Are you gonna pick this lock or not?” you say, shoving aside the twinge of guilt, the strands of hurt. He ain’t your friend; that much is clear. The sooner you get that through your thick skull, the better.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me. From where I’m standing, you got two things you contribute to the group: lock-picking, and murder. So which’ll it be? Help me with this guy, or go stand watch.”

He goes all rigid. Your stomach tightens and you want to open your mouth and take it all back. You’re sorry. You didn’t mean it. You’re just tired and could he please help?

But that’s an instinct you have. What your therapists have called a maladaptive coping mechanism. You make yourself small. Docile. Sweet and nonthreatening. But you ain’t small and docile, and you fucking deserve a place in the world.

So you stand there as Astarion slips on a smile as fake and sweet—it’s his eyes; them eyes are empty—as cotton candy. He gives you a bow and unsheathes his knives.

“I’ll be at the door, then,” he says.

You’re not actually surprised. Shouldn’t be disappointed. You been around the guy for a week, you don’t know nothing about him—favorite color, hobbies, does he like music? But you remember him leaning down to whisper information to you. The flash of surprise when you asked his opinion that first time, about Kahga. The way he lingered in your tent with his hands clasped around your wrist to stop the bleeding.

Oh no. No. You are not going to go sniveling like some pathetic fucking child.

“Can any of you get this open?” you say.

“I believe I may have a spell that’ll do the trick,” Gale says, more subdued than usual.

You back off and let him at it. Nobody says nothing about you sniffing and clearing your throat.

And it’s a good thing y’all do get Rack Guy free: turns out he was part of the group that got caught with the druid and he heard the goblins talking about a new war bear in the pens.

***

Y’all find the warg pens. Kill all the goblins.

Except for two, shitty kids. They’re assholes, no mistake. Each one deserves a solid ass-whooping. But you ain’t gonna kill no kids, even little bastard ones, because people gotta draw a line some damn where and that’s where you’re placing yours.

Wyll discovers a tunnel y’all can shimmy through all the way to the surface. But then the bear y’all rescued turns into a man. Or elf. A very, very large elf. Funny enough, he don’t do to you what Karlach does. Apparently you only like beefcakes when they got tits.

All of that flutters through your mind as the elf introduces himself. Goes quiet as he lays jesus hands on you. And crashes when his expression turns grave.

You make a point to avoid eye contact with Lae’zel. Y’all are gonna have to go after her creche, next.

The brainworms ain’t just brainworms. They’re magic fucking brainworms and they’re unfuck-with-able—Halsin don’t go into details, but it’s real easy for you to picture brains oozing outta your eye sockets like gray whipped cream and chunky jello.

“So all of this was for nothing?” Astarion says.

You don’t look at him, either.

But Halsin ain’t done. He has theories and information back at the grove, but he’s got a score to settle with the goblin cult. With their leaders. And he ain’t gonna get distracted by y’all’s problem until he deals with them leaders.

Or until you do.

Goddamn last thing you want is another fight.

Goddamn dead last thing you want is another fucking fight with a stranger in the mix. You kinda got a feel for how y’all move. Fucking trying to fit somebody else into that (who turns into a giant fucking bear, cause that’s subtle) would be a stressed out nightmare.

“You’ll try to help us after the grove is safe?” you say. And ignore the eyeroll you feel Astarion give the back of your skull. The quiet hissed swears from Lae’zel. Even Shadowheart looks miffed.

“I can,” Halsin says, all apologetic (and pissed), but weirdly, magnificently sombre. No wonder he’s head druid. Guy gives “wise grandpa” vibes in a brick shithouse body. “I do apologize for putting your needs aside—grave as they appear. But my people are in danger, and I cannot let this unnatural darkness take root.”

Fuck. You wince and rub your face.

“Don’t you dare,” Astarion says.

“We’ll do it.”

At least Wyll seems proud of you.

Previous - Index - Next Chapter

[heretherebedork]

In which I am easily amused.

[tiodolma]

The light that is not light is here To flush you out with your own fear You hide, you hide but will be found Release your grip without a sound Still life, immolation Still life, infamy Hallucination, heresy Still, you run, what's to come? What's to be?

Last night I had a dream You were in it, and I was in it with you And everyone that I know And everyone that you know was in my dream I saw a vampire, I saw a ghost And everybody scared me, you scared me the most In the dream I had last night The dream I had last night

Cause we hunt you down without mercy Hunt you down all nightmare long Feel us breathe upon your face Feel us shift, every move we trace Hunt you down without mercy Hunt you down all nightmare long, yeah Luck runs out You crawl back in, but your luck runs out

Look at you now that there's nowhere for you to run I cut you out and the pain is gone I had my doubts when it started to come undone You fucked around and you broke my trust I will erase the nightmare you became It comes in waves, you're everything I hate You try to drag me down I'll cut you out and now I will erase the nightmare you became Nightmare

.

All Nightmare Long by Metallica / Last Night I had A Dream by Randy Newman / Nightmare by From Ashes to New

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Private equity rips off its investors, too

I'm coming to DEFCON! TOMORROW (Aug 9), I'm emceeing the EFF POKER TOURNAMENT (noon at the Horseshoe Poker Room), and appearing on the BRICKED AND ABANDONED panel (5PM, LVCC - L1 - HW1–11–01). On SATURDAY (Aug 10), I'm giving a keynote called "DISENSHITTIFY OR DIE! How hackers can seize the means of computation and build a new, good internet that is hardened against our asshole bosses' insatiable horniness for enshittification" (noon, LVCC - L1 - HW1–11–01).

It's amazing how many of the scams that have devastated our economy and everyday people owe their success to the fact that we assume that rich people know what they're doing, so if they're doing something, it must be real.

Think of how many people lost everything by gambling on junk bonds, exotic mortgage derivatives, cryptocurrency and web3, because they saw that the largest financial institutions in the world were going all-in on these weird, incomprehensible bets.

Then there are the people who are convinced that online advertising is built around a mind-control ray, because tech companies claim that's what they have ("I am an evil dopamine-loop-hacking wizard and I can sell anything to anyone!"), and because huge, sober blue-chip companies hand billions to these soi dissant svengalis. Sure, online ads are a swamp of clickfraud and garbage, but would these super smart captains of industry spend so much on online advertising if it didn't work super-well?

http://pluralistic.net/HowToDestroySurveillanceCapitalism

From our worms'-eye-view here on the ground, it's easy to assume that rich people and the people who sell them stuff are all on the same side. "If you're not paying for the product, you're the product," right? If Facebook is tormenting you with surveillance advertising, it must be doing so on behalf of the surveillance advertisers, for whom Mark Zuckerberg has bottomless reservoirs of honest, forthright impulses.

The reality is simultaneously weirder, and obvious in hindsight. The reason Zuck is tormenting you is that he's a remorseless sociopath who doesn't care who he hurts. He rips off everyone he can rip off, and that includes advertisers, who have seen steady price-hikes and lower-fidelity targeting, even as ad-fraud has skyrocketed while Facebook draws down its anti-fraud spending:

https://www.404media.co/where-facebooks-ai-slop-comes-from/

This is not to say that Facebook advertisers have your best interests at heart, that they aren't engaged in active deception in order to better themselves at your expense. Rather, it's to say that there's no honor among thieves, and Zuck is an equal-opportunity predator. Moreover, both Zuck and his advertisers are credulous dolts, so the mere fact that they are pouring money into something (advertisers: FB ads; Zuck: metaverse) it doesn't follow that these are real or important or the coming thing.

For me, the Ur-example of "rich people are dumb, even when it comes to money" is the private equity sector. I've written a lot about PE, and how destructive it is to the real economy, from Toys R Us to pet grooming:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/05/rugged-individuals/#misleading-by-analogy

How they killed Red Lobster:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/23/spineless/#invertebrates

And how they actually created the death panels that Sarah Palin warned us about (it's OK, though: these death panels are run by the efficient private sector, not government bureaucrats):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/26/death-panels/#what-the-heck-is-going-on-with-CMS

The devastating effect of private equity on the real economy is increasingly well understood, and a curious side-effect of this is that people assume that if PE is destroying their lives, they must be doing so on behalf of their investors, who are making bank.

But – like Zuck – PE bosses are just as happy to steal from their investors as they are to to steal from the workers and customers of the businesses they acquire on those investors' behalf. They swaddle this theft in performative complexity and specialized jargon, but when you strip all that away, you find more fraud.

All the misery that PE inflicts on workers, communities and customers are just a convincer in a Big Store con, a bid to make the scam seem credible. For a certain kind of investor, any economic activity that destroys communities and workers' livelihoods must be a good bet. This is the dynamic at work in the pitch of AI image-generator companies, who spend tens of billions on technology that there is no substantial market for:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/25/accountability-sinks/#work-harder-not-smarter

AI image generators represent a high-profile, extremely visible example of "a job that AI can do." Nevermind that AI illustration went from a novelty to a tired cliche in less than a year. Even if you think that AI illustrations are a perfect substitute for commercial illustrations, that still won't come anywhere near making AI companies a profit. Add up the entire wage bill for every commercial illustrator in the world, hand it to Open AI, and you're not even gonna cover the kombucha budget for Open AI's staff kitchens.

Hell, all the wages of every commercial illustrator that ever lived won't pay back even a fraction of the money the AI companies spent on image generators. The pauperization of an entire class of creative workers is just a canned demo, a way to fool investors into thinking that there is a whole universe of similarly situated workers whose wages can be diverted to AI companies. This is the logic of small-time spammers, scaled up to the scale of the entire S&P 500. Smalltime spammers looked at AI and thought, "OK, I can generate as much botshit as I want on demand for free. Science fiction magazines pay $0.10/word. So if I generate a billion words, I'll get $100 million." But that's not how any of that works: sf magazines don't buy botshit, and even if they did, the entire market for short fiction adds up to what Sam Altman spends on a single designer t-shirt. The point of destroying these beloved, useful things isn't to make a lot of money by taking their markets – it's to convince dopey, panicked rich people to give you lots of money you can steal, because they think you can do this to every market and they don't want to miss out on the opportunity of a lifetime:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/15/passive-income-brainworms/#four-hour-work-week

Take "divi recaps": after a private equity firm acquires a company (by borrowing money against its assets), it typically declares a "special dividend," emptying out the company's cash reserves and pocketing them. A "divi recap" is when PE then takes out another massive loan against the company's (remaining) assets and pockets that:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/17/divi-recaps/#graebers-ghost

All of this happens under an opaque cloud, thanks to the light-to-nonexistent disclosure rules for PE. A public company has to open its books for the SEC, its investors, and the world. PE is private – and so are its finances. It is absolutely routine for PE bosses to put their spouses, kids, and pals on the payroll and hand them millions for doing little to nothing, all at the expense of their investors:

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2022/02/sec-set-to-lower-massive-boom-on-private-equity-industry.html

PE bosses charge huge fees to their investors – not merely the usual 2-and-20 (2% of the funds under management and 20% of any profits) – but also a wide variety of special one-off fees that pile to the sky. They also dip into their investors' funds to issue themselves massive loans that they use to make side-bets, without telling the investors about it:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/10/monopoly-begets-monopoly/#gary-gensler

PE investors are chickens ripe for the plucking: take "continuation funds," which allow PE bosses to soak the rich people and pension funds who supply them with billions:

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/mergers-and-acquisitions/matt-levines-money-stuff-buyout-funds-buy-from-themselves

Remember 2-and-20? 2% of all the money you manage, every year, and 20% of all the profits. You'd think that these would be somewhat zero sum, right? If you use some of your investors' cash to buy a company, and then sell off that company for a profit, you get the 20%, but now the pot of money you're managing has gone down by the amount you used to buy the company, and so your 2% carry goes down, too.

But what if you sell your portfolio companies to yourself, using your investors' own money? When you do that, you continue to hold the company on your PE firm's books, meaning you continue to get the 2% carry, and you can pocket 20% of the sale price as a "profit":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/20/continuation-fraud/#buyout-groups

This is straight-up fraud, wrapped up in so much jargon that it can successfully masquerade as "financial engineering" ("financial engineering" is really just a euphemism for "fraud"). PE bosses keep coming up with new, exotic ways to steal from their investors. The latest scam is "tax receivable agreements":

https://archive.ph/RczJ9

On its face, this is a tax scam. When a company goes public, early investors generally hold stock in the original partnership or LLC; this company ends up holding a ton of shares in the new, public company. When they sell those non-public shares in the LLC, this creates a (potentially gigantic) tax credit.

A TRA hustle involves tracking down these LLC shareholders and convincing them to sign off on dumping the LLC's shares, which generates a huge tax credit for the public company. The hustler offers to split these credits with the LLC holders.

All of this is especially attractive to PE bosses, who often take a company private, do a bunch of "financial engineering" and then take it public again, leaving the PE firm as the owner of those LLC shares that can be converted to a TRA and a huge windfall – which the PE bosses pocket, because they (not their investors) are holding those credits.

This scam is really doing big numbers. KKR – the monsters who killed Toys R Us – just diverted $650 million in TRA loot, prompting a lawsuit from Steamfitters union pension fund, which had handed these jerks millions of its members' money to gamble with:

https://archive.ph/kqQvI

This highlights another very weird aspect of the PE scam: they are absolutely dependent on pension funds. To add insult to injury, PE funds are notorious union-busters – they use union money to buy companies and destroy their unions:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/05/mr-gotcha/#no-ethical-consumption-under-capitalism

People who try to understand the PE business model often give up, because it seems to make no sense, leading many to assume that they're too unsophisticated to grasp the complex financials here. For example, PE is absolutely dependent on massive loans as a way of looting its businesses, but it also often defaults on those loans. Why do banks and investors keep making huge loans to PE deadbeats? Because – like the PE fund investors – they are credulous dolts.

The reason PE seems like a scam is that it is a scam. It is a fractal scam – every part of it is a scam. You might have heard about the "carried interest" tax loophole that allows PE bosses to avoid billions in taxes on the money they steal from their investors, creditors, workers and customers. Most people assume "carried interest" has something to do with "interest" on a loan. Nope: "carried interest" is a 16th century nautical tax rule designed for mercantalist sea-captains who had an "interest" in the cargo they "carried":

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/29/writers-must-be-paid/#carried-interest

But rich people and other "sophisticated investors" (like pension fund investment managers) are no smarter than the rest of us. They are herd animals. When they see other rich people piling into some scheme or asset class, they rush to join them, which makes the asset price go up, which makes them think they're smart (until the inevitable rug-pull). When one plute jumps off the Empire State Building, the rest of them jump, too.

Which is why there's more money flooding into PE than at any time in history, $2.62T in "dry powder," handed over to greedy, thieving PE bosses in a poker game where everyone is the sucker at the table:

https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/2di1vzgjcmzovkcea8f0g/portfolio/private-equitys-dry-powder-mountain-reaches-record-height

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/08/sucker-at-the-table/#clucks-definance

[rogueddie]

A Spot in My Life T | 953 words Prompt for @steddielovemonth: Love is keeping a spare sweater or blanket in the car because they always get cold

Steve Harrington is a bitch.

It's something that Eddie knew, all through high school, but he had thought that Steve had somehow became a new person- thanks to the Upside Down and constantly almost seeing the world end.

Steve isn't a bad guy, he can admit. He's still trying to keep an eye on everyone, make sure they're ok, even checking in with Eddie in his own way.

But he's very sly about it, hiding it being playful jabs, eye rolls and cocked hips.

It rubs him the wrong way. And it's only made worse by how much Eddie still likes him. It's as if the bitchiness only draws him in more, even as it makes his chest burn with irritation.

He tries to avoid Steve for as long as he can. He knows that finally befriending him like they both want will only end badly, but he knows he can't resist the temptation.

He enjoys the time before as much as he can, reveling in how often Steve will try to corner him so they can hang out, how much he whines and pleads and pushes. He enjoys the illusion that Steve could feel anything for him like he does for Steve.

And, when they finally do hang out, his fears are confirmed.

Steve is amazing. He's funnier than he comes across as at first too. He pays attention to what Eddie says and tries to get him anything he wants.

He's the type of friend that anyone would fight for, Eddie is sure. It explains how he ended up so popular in high school too.

If Eddie had known what Steve is truly like, he'd have been lining up for a scrap of his attention like everyone else.

"They're assholes," Steve explains, when Eddie finally asks about his old lackeys. "Tommy always took shit a step too far. I didn't need them. Probably shouldn't have befriended them in the first place."

"They were your friends," Eddie reminds him.

Steve sighs, leaning back. "Yeah, I guess. Just wish I'd realised sooner, how they were getting."

He never complains about the kids, not genuinely. In the quiet moments, when Steve is honest with an almost painful degree of vulnerability, he talks about how amazing the kids are. He talks about how honored he is to be friends with Dustin.

It only makes Eddies feelings inch ever closer to 'the L word'.

"You should talk to him," Robin suggests. "He really is amazing."

"I know, but... guys that are ok with lesbians still get weird about gay men, you know?"

"Yeah, but Steve isn't like that. Did he ever tell you the full story of how I came out to him?"

"It was after the Russian torture drugs, right?"

"We were in the bathroom, near the cinema. I thought we might have puked it all up, so we decided to test it, ask each other questions. So, I asked him if he was ever in love..."

"Oh... oh no."

"Oh yes. He liked me, told me so, and that's when I came out to him."

"Holy shit, Robin."

"But that's my point. He was a little surprised, sure, but he started making jokes, like, immediately. Didn't phase him at all. He got with it immediately. We're just friends, and that's not a problem for him."

Eddie groans, throwing his head back so it thumps into the wall behind him. "But that just makes him more hot!"

The story plagues his mind, to the point that it's the only thing he can think about when he picks Steve up for their next hang out.

In the dead of winter, Steve feels the cold worse than anyone else that Eddie knows. He runs hot, and the sudden temperature drops brings out the worse in him.

He's shivering when he climbs into Eddie's car.

"Fuck, why isn't your heating on?" He whines.

"It's broke," Eddie reminds him. "It's fine, don't worry."

"Don't worry? I'm gonna get hypothermia, Eddie! I don't want to turn into an ice sc- what is that?"

He takes the blanket that Eddie had reached back to grab, staring at it.

"It's a blanket."

"No shit, I mean... it's yellow."

"Yeah? You like yellow."

"You got this for me?"

"You see anyone else shivering in my van?"

"No, it..." Steve pauses, glancing at Eddie before slowly wrapping the blanket around himself. "Sorry, uh... thank you. This is, um, nice."

"it's nothing."

"It's not. Just- take the thanks, Ed."

"Alright, alright."

They're silent for the rest of the drive. It's so unusual for them that it has Eddie nervous, glancing at Steve every other moment.

When they finally pull to a stop, Eddie turns to Steve, who stays where he is. He stares out the front window for a moment, before turning to face Eddie.

"Are you alright?" Eddie asks.

"Yeah, I am. Enjoying the warmth."

"That all?"

"... yeah."

Eddie rolls his eyes. "You're a terrible liar."

"Wh- hey, I'm a good liar!" He tries to glare, but quickly backs down with a huff. "Alright, fine, but it's really sappy! Don't say I didn't warn you!"

"Oh, no, the horror."

"Shut up. I was just thinking about how, like... there's so many little things in your life that are for me. My tapes in your room, spare clothes in your closet, this blanket... I really appreciate it, man. You've made space for me in your life. It means a lot to me."

"Oh, right. That's... yeah. Of course, Steve. You're always welcome. I love- uh... spending time with you."

"Good. I love spending time with you too."

"Good."

"Great."

Steve's smile is wide and goofy. He's sure that his own is just as cheesy.

[after-witch]

"YOURE the one that broke up with me, Gojo. What makes you think you have a say in who I can and can't date now?"

notes: yandere, abusive relationship, Gojo is a jerk

--

Gojo's arm slinks around your shoulder like it's never left.

"C'mon," he drawls, pulling down his glasses with his free hand to get a look at you. "You know I was just testing you." His eyes make goosebumps creep up your arm, like they always have. They're just too striking. Too beautiful.

They don't belong in the head of an asshole like Gojo.

You jerk your body away, but he decides to use his a fraction of his strength for once, and doesn't let you shrug him off.

"I'm serious," you say, voice rising in pitch, in tightness, in fury. "You broke up with me. You left. I'm done. I'm going out tonight and you can't stop me."

It would be better if Gojo would get visibly angry. If he would snarl and call you a bitch and tell you that you'll date someone else over his dead body. That would be how an ordinary person would respond.

Gojo does none of those things.

He only shakes his head and chuckles, the grin never leaving his lips, the mirth never leaving his eyes.

"I did, I came back, no you're not, and we both know I can stop you without lifting a finger."

He pulls you closer to him, and you're left no wiggle room at all, only the warmth and press of his body against yours. He presses a kiss to your cheek before whispering, lightly, against your skin.

"So, should I call them up to cancel the date, or will you do the honors?"

[undreaming-fanfiction]

Steve and Chrissy as two internet-famous chefs/bakers, Steve with a channel focusing on (not always) easy homemade and nutritious meals, Chrissy with a baking channel full of body positivity to spite her mom.

They both get invited to something like Phoning It In from the Try Guys - a baking/cooking competition where they have to guide the actual chefs only through a pay phone. As the TG's show says: "the mind of a chef paired with the hands of an idiot". And the idiots in question are their best friends - Robin and Eddie. Which shouldn't be that bad, but then...they actually have to swap them. And they can't tell them what they're making.

It's a holiday episode so the theme is gingerbread.

Steve is slumped in the phone booth, sometimes covering the receiver and asking Chrisy why, why would her best friend refuse to measure ingredients in anything more precise than "a bit", "a bit more", "kinda enough", "oooh might be a bit too much" and "a fuckton".

Chrissy tries very hard to explain to Robin that artistic expression is an amazing thing, but hot sauce and gingerbread might be too artistic for the judges. Robin disagrees. Chrissy pleads with her and eventually talks Robin into just including some chilli flakes in her batter and not the hot sauce as a topping.

Eddie spends half of the prep time complaining to Steve that a gingerbread house is lame, it should have been a gingerbread castle. Robin agrees.

Robin deciding to give her tiny gingerbread men flannel shirts and spending way too much on decorating them. She runs out of time very soon and just writes "THIS IS FLANEL" into a shirt-shaped blob.

Steve and Eddie shamelessly flirting despite having never met each other and then threatening violence in equal measure to get the other one do what they want. "I bet your eyes are more beautiful than the entire sky full of stars Stevie, also I might have dropped one extra spoon of spices into the gloopy thingy and I don't want to get my hands more dirty than they are so I'll just leave it in-" "Eds, you vile seductress, your voice could charm many a seaman but if you don't get that spicy glob out of the batter I swear I will shave your head."

Robin somehow going from following the instructions into a full rambling mode and before they know it, she's just cutting hipster-shaped gingerbread flanelmen and telling Chrissy nearly her full life story, basically turning the prep into a therapy session. Chrissy listens and nods and just sometimes interjects with "people can be such jerks just because you're different, can you just quickly check that the temperature is still the same? Thank you Robs, now back to that asshole in your uni class-"

In the end, they finally meet at the judging table and present their work, bullshitting their way through explanations of many choices that were made (because the two actual chefs are not permitted to speak, only the great minds).

Steve almost sobs when he sees piped (and very melted) bats on toothpicks around the gingerbread castle, because of course Eddie made a castle. "I meant for that to happen, for the shock value" he announces when one of the bats starts a domino effect and knocks down the rest.

Chrissy's smile gets a little bit stiff when she sees attempted man buns on the gingerbread men's heads - ones which have unfortunately melted and they now have flowing ponytails. Slightly burned.

Steve confidently claims that the reason why his gingerbread house is black and has spires is because his little brother adores Dungeons and Dragons and he wanted to give him a cool prop for the final encounter with the big evil. When the castle crumbles because Eddie didn't bake it long enough, Steve just dramatically stands up and announces that the evil warlock has been defeated. Eddie almost faints behind the screen and unceremoniously asks Robin if that gem of a man is taken.

Chrissy explains how the gingerbread men are wearing flanel in honor of her best friend's uncle who is the flanel overlord. When the judges bite into the figures and taste the chilli flakes, Chrissy earnestly tells them that Eddie's uncle is a man with hidden depths and spicy personality (Eddie chokes on his own tongue at that) and Robin was kind enough to reflect that.

In the end, it doesn't matter who won. Eddie asks Steve (after he tastes the gingerbread bat, gingerbat) if he's still about to shave his head and Steve says it would be a shame, but he can make it up to him by inviting him for coffee. Robin awkwardly thanks Chrissy for listening to her and Chrissy admits she loved her rambling, that she hates it when it's quiet.

It all ends well (except for the gingerbread).

[wxnheart]

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐤𝐰𝐢𝐜𝐡, '𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐎𝐮𝐭𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞, 𝐖𝐞 𝐉𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐖𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐚 𝐓𝐚𝐥𝐤' 𝐄𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

Okay, so maybe your lovers are protective and jealous. And maybe you're a little jealous and protective yourself but y'all can't help it. It's human nature, y'know? Of course, it can get a little out of hand. A little. Blame König for that.

But of course, Simon blames you for enabling him. And you blame Simon for enabling you both. Such is love. At least you're willing to admit out loud, GHOST, that you find your lovers' protectiveness sexy. Denial is not just a river in Egypt, GHOST.

Anywho, back to your observations. Ever since you three became an item, the steps Ghost and König took to keep you safe have always fascinated you.

Of course, you're more than capable of protecting yourself but it doesn't matter. The way they see it, they're just that extra layer you need.

For example, when you're on the sidewalk, you're in the middle. Always. No, Schatz, stay away from the road.

And sometimes, one is trailing behind you and the other is in front of you. Does you a world of good when there are a lot of people out and about. And they may or may not be watching the way your hips and ass move whenever you walk.

König got really worried once when you three got 'lost' doing some routine shopping. He practically bear-hugged you when you three met back up again (when you got back home that is).

Simon is admittedly not as high-strung as König and he does his best to keep the bastard calm. He tends to flip shit internally, though.

König has what he calls his 'Schatzi Sense' ("...What the fuck?" <- Simon) and so when his Schatzi Sense is tingling, he suspects something is amiss and, if he's away, will reach out. To date, they've been pretty accurate... when it comes to Ghost that is.

Speaking of jealousy and would-be suitors, well... Simon's got König beat. He can get a bit (read: a lot) asshole-ish when he gets jealous.

However, König's anxiety goes out the window and he becomes that really gigantic, intimidating motherfucker staring the poor bastard down from a distance, stone-faced as hell. You've witnessed this before. He didn't blink. Not once. What the fuck?

Ghost will usually stare in heavy death metal and make some asshole remark. If that doesn't work (why can't the idiot read the room and realize you're happily taken?!), he'll just get real close in their personal space. Real.Close. And will stare them down until they back off. Stupid bastard.

König has been known to carry your ass away, too, fireman's style. Simon is usually trailing behind in case the motherfucker needs a reminder that you belong to THEM. May or may not have done this to Simon a couple times, too, and Ghost.exe stopped working. His dick got hard as fuck, though.

You thought having a badass-looking dog would keep the suitors at bay but if anything, it's done the opposite. Little Lola can't help that she's so cute everybody wants to pet her. Goes doubly so because her ears aren't cropped.

They will fight for your honor outside, preferably in the alleyway (because fighting in a public bathroom would be nasty as fuck). If 'come outside, we just wanna talk' were people, they would be it.

There's a local bar you three like to chill at. One time, a patron sent a drink your way. Simon took it, downed it in one go, and afterward stared the patron down, daring him to do that shit again.

[adhd-coyote]

Alright, since you all seemed to like my Mando'a rambling so much, here's a list of curses, insults, and threats in Mando'a. This is a combination of official words/phrases (grabbed from Mandocreator and this lovely dictionary by @/peltigaan), stuff I've come up with myself, and things that some wonderful people on the Oya Biatch Discord server <3 (You can find our dictionary here) I highly recommend checking out both linked dictionaries for all your Mando'a needs, they're both great

Chakaar - Thief/petty criminal (lit. Corpse robber) Chakaaryc - Rotten/lowlife Dar’manda - No longer a Mandalorian, someone who has abandoned their creed Demagolka - Monster, child abuser, someone who commits atrocities, a war criminal Di’kut - Idiot (lit. Someone who forgets to put their pants on) Di’kutla - Useless, stupid, worthless Dini - Lunatic Dini’la - Insane Gar ven'mar'eyi gar kyr'am pare - You will find your death waiting Ge’hut’uun - Not even notable enough to be called a coward Haar’chak - Damn it Hut’uun - Coward Kaysh mirsh solus- They’re an idiot (lit. Their brain cell is lonely.) Kaysh ru'hokaani kaysh videk - They have cut their own throat (They've fucked themself over) Ke’shab garast ti [item] - Go fuck yourself with a(n) [item] Kih’osik - Little shit Mir’sheb - Smartass Mir’osik - Shit for brains Mirsh’kyramud - Boring person (lit. brain killer) Mirshepar’la - Boring (lit. brain devouring) Nar’sheb - Shove it up your ass Najaat - Someone with no honor Ne shab’rud’ni - Don’t fuck with me Ner kal ven’isiri gar tal - My blade will taste your blood Ni cetar’narir kay’shebs - I'm going to shove my boot up their ass Ori’buyce, kih’kovid - All helmet, no head (Insult for a big ego) Or’dini - Moron/fool Osik - Shit Osi’kyr - Oh shit Os’ika - Little shit (affectionate) Osik’la - Shitty Osik’uram - Rude person/someone with no filter (lit. Shit mouth) Jagyc’kovid - Dickhead Jar’sheb - Dumbass Shab - Fuck Shabiir - To fuck up Shabla - Fucked up Shab’rudur - To fuck with Shabuir - Motherfucker (Or, by another interpretation, a bad parent) Shebs - Ass Sheb’palon - Asshole Sheb’urcyin - Ass-kisser Sheb’urcyir - To suck up/“to kiss ass” Skanah - Much-hated thing/person (Bitch/Asshole) Ke’soora, shab - Suck it, fucker Ke’soora ner jagyc - Suck my dick Usen’ye - Go away/Fuck off Utreekov - Fool, idiot (lit. emptyhead) Vaar’ika - Pipsqueak/runt [Item] lo’shebs’ul narit - You can shove your [item] up your ass

[bucksangel]

okay i just need to get some stucky x reader thoughts out of my system

tw: soft!dom!steve, mean!dom!bucky, kinda sub!reader, unprotected p in v sex, oral, anal, double penetration

soft!dom!steve with mean!dom!bucky?? steve being all sweet and soft, praising you for taking them so well. but bucky is there right behind him telling you how slutty you look taking both of them, how good of a slut you are, how tight you are despite several rounds that each lasted upwards of almost an hour.

damn their super-soldier stamina.

they each take turns fucking your mouth while the other fucks your pussy, sometimes playing with your ass, giving you load after load in and on you. you can't even count the amount of orgasms you've had, you're on the verge of passing out from exhaustion and pleasure, crying loudly each time you're forced over the cliff of ecstasy, but you're fighting sleep with all your might because you'll be damned if you let this end.

Finally, when they decide they've ruined you enough, steve lays down in the middle of the bed - not caring about the amount of cum staining the sheets. they both have to help you straddle steve's waist, steve holding onto your hips as bucky guides your hands to brace on steve's chest.

you're struggling to stay upright as you sink onto steve's cock, and even through the haze of pleasure you know he's trying to hold back on his urges to fuck you until you do finally pass out.

but then bucky lines himself up with your asshole, pushing in oh so slowly because even though he's rough and mean he'll never ever hurt you. but once they're both buried so deep inside you that you can practically feel them in your throat they don't hold back. bucky fucks you like he hates you and steve fucks you like you're an angel - but you know both of them worship the ground you walk on.

and then, when you've finally blacked out from your umpteenth orgasm, they cum one final time, steve holding you tight to his chest while bucky covers your body with his, covering you in their warmth.

they're very careful when moving you from between their bodies, steve taking it upon himself to clean yourself of the sweat and cum coating every nearly inch of your skin while bucky goes to retrieve new sheets. steve holds you close to his chest so bucky can change the sheets.

once the clean up has finished, they both arrange your limp body in between them so they can cuddle you close and coo sweet nothings into your ear while you slowly come back to consciousness.

and when you do, they make sure to praise you over and over and tell you how much they love you, how good you are for them, how they trust you and honor how much you trust them.

ANYWAYYY

[thisapplepielife]

Written for @corrodedcoffinfest.

Scout's Honor

Day #1 - Prompt: Firsts | Word Count: 1000 | Rating: E | CW: Sex Acts, Language | POV: Goodie (Freak) | Pairing: Steddie | Tags: Newly Gotten Together Steddie, Semi-Public Sexual Acts, Touch Me While Your Bros Play Grand Theft Auto Super Nintendo, The Boys of Corroded Coffin Are Tired of Eddie's Horny Bullshit

This has a sister fic, Full Throttle, from Steve's POV. Either can be read standalone.

"It's my turn!" Gareth shouts, grabbing at the controller, and Goodie holds it up, as far as the cord will stretch, trying to keep it out of his grubby little hands. Laughing as he pushes and fights to get a hold of it.

It is his turn, but Goodie isn't about to cave to the little shit's demands that easily.

"Guys," Jeff warns, then adds, "just take mine," offering up his controller up to Gareth.

"But I want to be player one!" Gareth snaps, and Goodie just laughs. No fucking way. 

"Winner gets to be player one, and that's me," Goodie tells him, and Gareth whines about it, but he does take the second controller from Jeff's hands. 

Their first decent check came last week, and after divvying up and paying out all their debts, they had just enough left over to buy the brand new Super Nintendo. There was one left in the store, and if they pooled their money together, they could actually afford it.

So. The check is gone, long gone, they spent every damn dime, but it was fucking worth it, as they crowd around the TV in the cheap apartment they're all crammed into, playing Super Mario World. They've been taking turns, the four of them. Well, three now that Steve Harrington has shown up. Goodie thought it'd mean they had to give him a turn too, but instead Eddie gave up on playing with them, and is on the other couch, Steve all over Eddie, taking up all his attention.

Just because Eddie was the first of them to get into a relationship, doesn't mean the band should have to be subjected to this all the time. But they are, because Eddie and Steve are horny motherfuckers, the both of them.

It wasn't so bad before they all lived together, but now, torture. Pure and utter torture.

They've been trying to do the long-distance thing, and Goodie was sure it would fizzle. After the shine wore off fucking King Steve. Like, he gets it. High school Eddie could never, would never, and now he's reliving his adolescence, chasing after Steve Harrington like a little lap dog. Panting, and humping his goddamn leg.

It's so high school, it makes Goodie sick. 

Unfortunately, this has gone on long enough that now Goodie's sure they're about to be saddled with Harrington full-time. 

Goodie looks over, and no fucking way. Not on his couch. Their shared couch. Community property.

Steve's trying to look normal, but he's red-faced, eyes squeezed shut, his gym shorts pulled down in the back, Eddie's fingers disappearing down into them, into Steve, Goodie's pretty fucking sure. He doesn't know where else they could be. Especially not with the face Steve's making.

Goodie nudges Gareth, just to make sure he's not seeing things. Misconstruing. Maybe he just has a dirty mind, and is still traumatized from the blowjob incident last week.

And the tongue in the asshole fiasco from the week before that.

"Jesus Fucking Christ, not again," Gareth says under his breath, so no, no he's not imagining it. Eddie's got three fingers shoved up Steve's asshole right where they can all see. 

"Eddie!" Goodie yells, and Steve is the one that jumps, Eddie just fucking laughs, but he doesn't pull his hand out of Steve shorts, until Steve crawls off his lap, ears tinged red, heading straight for the bathroom.

"Seriously? With us in the room?" Goodie asks, as soon as Steve's gone, behind the closed door.

"I wasn't doing anything," Eddie bemoans, but he has a shit eating grin, as he puts up three fingers, in a mock salute, "Scout's honor."

And his fingers are fucking shiny, with what must be lube. 

Because they've been up Steve's ass. 

Goodie shakes his head, trying not to give Eddie the attention he's clearly craving. He's a pervert, and Goodie's not playing into his exhibionist streak. 

Steve finally resurfaces from the bathroom, and Eddie stands.

"Time for bed," Eddie says, and then they're gone, the door to Eddie and Gareth's bedroom shutting with a heavy snick.

Gareth looks over at Goodie, and gives him a withering stare, "Thanks. Now my room's gonna smell like spunk. Again."

Goodie just cackles. Sucker.

Steve's moaning, Eddie's grunting, headboard hitting the wall, and honestly, Goodie thinks maybe he should have just kept his goddamn mouth shut. This is worse.

"How're they still like this, it's been years," Goodie says, not really asking a question. 

"Years?" Jeff asks, "The dancing around each other, maybe, but the fucking? That's brand new."

"You're shitting me?" Goodie asks, in disbelief. There's no fucking way. "Gareth?"

Gareth will know.

"A couple months?" Gareth offers, and Goodie cannot believe that's true. Eddie's been lusting for, talking about, obsessing over Steve Harrington ever since that weird spring break that sent Eddie to the hospital for weeks, with Steve a constant at his side. Steve had taken up permanent residency, like he was Wayne Newton in Vegas. 

Eddie wrapped up in soft sweaters that definitely weren't his own. 

They were together. Right? Definitely. These two just weren't observant.

Eddie punctuates his thought with a long, disgusting groan, that can only mean he's just come. 

"We gotta make some changes," Goodie says, "we can't live like this."

"We're barely here, Goods, let him have this," Jeff says, the peacemaker, the voice of reason. The herder of cats. 

"No," Goodie argues, just to argue. 

"Yes," Jeff counters, "if you don't, I bet Steve's cozy little house on Wabash is gonna look pretty damn good."

"Eddie wouldn't dare," Goodie snaps, and then he hears Eddie and Steve both giggling, and well, Eddie might.

Goddammit. 

"Fine, we'll be assaulted by the sights and sounds, but I won't be happy."

"None of us are," Gareth says in solidarity, agreeing with Goodie, for once. Hell has officially frozen over.

Eddie comes out, holding a towel over his junk, bare ass in the wind, grinning like an asshole as he heads towards the bathroom.

If you want to write your own, or see more entries for this challenge, pop on over to @corrodedcoffinfest and follow along with the fun! 🦇

Notes: This is inspired by Taylor's Swift song So High School. Steve knows how to ball, Eddie knows Aristotle. I don't make the rules.

Read Steve's POV on this situation right here in, Full Throttle.

[loving-family-poll]

Ultimate Incest Tournament - Round 2

Homestuck fanart by Timsel-kun on deviantart

Propaganda under the cut:

Beverly/Elliot:

Hot lesbians both played by Rachel Weisz! And they're canon in the book it's based on, and like HEAVILY implied to be for realsies in love and fucking in the show. Great lesbianism, great incest

There's literally a scene where elliot is listening intently to beverly having sex in the next room, and she like moans listening to it ok

Beverly's gf breaks up with her cuz she's weirded out by the twins relationship

Beverly likes to attend a support group for ppl with dead siblings and pretend her sister is dead like the psychosexual issues here.....

beverly and elliot were literally trying to have a child together. Elliot (a gynecologist) artificially impregnated Beverly MULTIPLE TIMES

Dave/Rose:

Daverose blondetwin sweep because they were codependent without ever meeting from growing up seeing each other in their dreams

What does it mean to be an abused teenage boy growing up alone and seeing a girl in your dreams every night who is also your best friend. and when you finally meet her you go on a suicide mission together even though nobody was asking you to die with her. and then you are the only two human beings left in the recognizable universe on a cold meteor surrounded by aliens but you’re glad it’s with her. and when you finally touch the girl from your childhood dreams she looks exactly like you. because she’s your sister

I don't have words for how good these snarky assholes are together. DaveRose is brain chemistry changing. They both put up so many fronts, and engage in so much snarky wordplay, and are constantly trying to get under each other's facade. They play off each other so well, witty and sharp, I need them to be together always

We all die & we all die alone are the two cold truths of the universe but dave and rose broke both simultaneously by ascending to godhood together

Their twincest wins because it is just so confusingly tragic? profound? dave leaving rose behind in a doomed world, dave following her to the bomb. they are both so closed & cut off & curt its hard to imagine the depth of these things. but that is their love language: giving up their lives for each other over and over, in a confusing and fumbling and heartfelt love song. i can’t say i love you but i know we’ll die together anyway. because we’re made of the exact same stuff. i’ll find you again at the last moment. that’s love.

THEY DIED TOGETHER, YOUR HONOR

Confirmed canon by the author, (something happened) between them. Parallels of dying by each other's sides in EVERY timeline. They are THE womb-to-tomb. There is nothing platonic about winking at your brother while talking about crushes, that shit is incestuous. Seer/Knight archetype. They will die protecting each other.

do you realize love someone if you don’t follow them on a suicide mission into the gaping maw of a literal fucking sun after they knock you out and psychoanalyze you in your dreams? the blueprint of the “ethereal androgynous blonde boygirl twins” trope. witch/knight dynamics. they find each other to die together in every timeline no matter what (but they’re still emotionally constipated teenagers who bicker and make fun of each other in pesterchum). kids with grown-up powers. perfect little freaks of nature. what if we looked exactly like each other’s eyes

[gingerbearbaby]

Superstitious (Lockwood x Reader!AU)

I am absolutely obsessed with Lockwood and show choir and I was desperate for someone to write it. So this came out. It's my first (and likely only) work, so enjoy! Best read with F!reader (sorry!).

Basically, Lockwood and reader are co-dance captains in their show choir. Barnes is their director and Holly is their choreographer. Their girls group is called Elegance and their mixed group is Fusion. Also Kipps and reader used to date.

As for their ballad, it's called Maybe I Like It This Way from the musical The Wild Party. It's such a good song!

Tropes: enemies to lovers, fake dating, forced proximity

Word Count: 5.1k

Warnings: cussing, mentions of cheating, one line of slut shaming, kissing, a little bit of angst but plenty of fluff, they're idiots your honor, mentions of unrequited love (but it's really requited), regular mentions of superstitions

“Luce, I’m not so sure I can do this anymore.” You looked to the redhead next to you, shrugging your rehearsal bag further onto your shoulder.

“You said that last year.”

“Well last year I didn’t have to dance with him.”

Lucy opened the school door, a heavy sigh escaping her. “He’s not that bad once you get to know him.”

“Correction: he’s not that bad to you.” You swung open your locker door, wrestling your duffle bag into it. “You guys are friends we are…”

“Two people with intense sexual tension.” Lucy interrupted as you trailed off. A quick smack to her thigh was received.

“Not every rivalry has sexual tension.”

“No, but yours does.”

“Oh shut up!”

“Why is Lucy shutting up?” You looked up to see Norrie wrapping her arm around her girlfriend.

You stood up and began walking to the choir room. “She’s trying to convince me that I have sexual tension with that asshole.” You gestured to the lanky figure at the front of the room, fixing his hair in the mirrors whilst vehemently arguing with George.

Norrie gave you a look as if to say ‘Is she wrong?’ which left you shaking your head as you walked to the front of the room.

“Ah, my vice captain. Nice of you to join us.” Lockwood poked.

You raised your eyebrows. “Vice captain?”

He nodded. “Like a presidency? I’m the captain, you’re my vice captain.”

“You’re mistaken. I’m the captain and you’re my vice captain. I mean,” you crossed your arms in an effort to seem more nonchalant, “I have more experience as a captain, being the dance captain of Elegance too.”

“If I was a girl, there’s no doubt that I would be the dance captain of Elegance and you would be my vice captain there too.”

“There is no such thing as a vice captain. You’re co-captains. Sit down.” Barnes spoke, gesturing to an empty spot on the risers.

Lockwood leaned to whisper quickly in your ear, “He only said that to save you the embarrassment of losing that argument.”

You flicked his thigh, whispering back a, “Fuck you.”

He gave you a wolfish smile in return. “In your dreams.”

You simply rolled your eyes. You don’t truly remember when you really began hating Lockwood. You suppose it had always been that way. You never really spoke much except for talking about choir in history your freshman year, and even then it was brief comments about upcoming concerts. Then came your sophomore year with a shared English class, which began this weird competitiveness between the both of you. Though you have to admit, your rivalry was the primary reason you escaped that class with an A. But that didn’t make him any more bearable.

You turned to your right to see Lucy already looking back. She mouthed ‘tension’ before flashing an innocent smile and turning towards your director. 

“Your show this year will be a kind of romance-y theme. Think rom-com. Weird tension to soulmates.” Lucy nudged you. “To combat any… hormonal drama,” you cringed at his words, “we’re gonna pair you up for the show. You’ll each get a designated dance partner, bond with them throughout this season. Learn to trust them. There will be a lot of partner dancing.”

“Just make smart choices.” Holly smiled. Barnes gave her a quick thumbs up for her addition to his little spiel.

“Our first pair is our two dance captains.”

“Kill me now.” You muttered through gritted teeth.

“Kill me first.” He muttered back.

You were in for one hell of a season.

The first rehearsal was admittedly rough. Every chance you and Lockwood had, you were whispering insults underneath your breath or coughing while the other demonstrated a move.

By the fourth rehearsal, you and Lockwood began to trust each other in your dancing. And even began to bond a little. Sure you still traded little insults whenever he stepped on your toes (or vice versa), but for the most part you became friends.

By the tenth rehearsal, you realized you actually enjoyed your little dynamic. Your hatred turned to teasing and you even began talking to him after rehearsals. This of course earned you more teasing from Norrie and Lucy, but soon even George began to join in as your friend group developed.

Next thing you knew, it was the night before your first competition. You turned to Lockwood after your final runthrough of the night, hoping to give him a high-five, but was caught off guard as he ran his hand through his hair. Dancing and singing was no easy feat so you weren’t surprised that he was sweating, it was just the fact that you found his sweaty hair attractive. It was probably just the stage lights, but you quickly found yourself staring at him.

“You alright?”

You quickly nodded, shaking yourself out of your thoughts of, well, him. “Just thinking about our competition tomorrow.”

“Hey, we’ll be fine. It’s not our first time competing against Fittes. There’s nothing to be worried about.”He reassured as your face dissolved into one of horror.

“Shit.” Lockwood raised an eyebrow at your choice of words. “Kipps.” You answered. His brows furrowed.

“You worried your boyfriend isn’t gonna like our show or something?” You shook your head in dismissal, your face changing to one of disgust.

“He’s not my boyfriend anymore. Cheated on me with Kat Godwin about a month ago.”

“Oh, I didn’t know. I’m sorry.” You shrugged off his sympathy till his lips forged into a grin. “It’ll make our win even more rewarding. We’ll put that motherfucker in his place.”

“Yeah, except there’s one step of our little revenge plan missing.”

“Oh?”

You nodded. “In my heartbreak, I may or may not have made an ill-advised decision. And let's say that I told him that I already found a new boyfriend.”

“Oh.” You nodded, pursing your lips as the reality of your situation sunk in.

“So we need to find you a boyfriend.” You nodded. “They don’t sell those at the supermarket, how are we gonna find one overnight?”

“You don’t.” You sighed. “I’ll need to find someone to fake date me for the season.”

“One hiccup with that plan. Fake boyfriends aren’t sold at the store either.”

You nudged him with your shoulder as you began the walk to your car. “I know they don’t. But to get the ultimate revenge, I happen to know someone who he very much hates.”

Lockwood paused beside you, leaving you to turn to him, facing the consequences of your suggestion. “You want me to fake date you?” You gave him a sheepish smile.

“Maybe?”

You watched as he considered it in silence. “If I said yes, I would be doing this the whole season?”

“Preferably.” You watched as he fiddled a bit with his ring. A habit of his you began to notice more as you increasingly spent time together. “But only at competitions. The rest of the time you can go back to hating my guts.”

“I don’t hate your guts. I never have.” You felt heat begin to creep into your cheeks at his words. Maybe you won’t have to worry about finding a fake boyfriend overnight if you get sick before the first comp. “So we’ll just piss off Kipps?”

“Only at comps,” you assured. You sat in silence once more, the cold February air leaving you impatient at the length of his consideration. He was likely finding the best way to turn down your proposition.

You turned to walk away, reaching your car door as he called out, “Let’s do it, babe.” You looked to see him wink at you, feeling the heat flush once more. “Let’s get our revenge.”

You sent him a smile, climbing into your car, and hoped that the feeling in your stomach would subside before tomorrow morning.

The bus ride to the competition was spent huddled over your phone resting atop your shared mountain of garment bags, conversing the details of your fake relationship, and drinking a coffee that Lockwood gave you earlier that morning. He told you they gave him the wrong order and offered it to you, saying it was “too sweet” and that he only wanted an americano. Luckily for you, they mistakenly gave him your favorite latte.

By the time you arrived at the competition, you were a bundle of nerves just itching to finally perform. A quick glance at the clock (and your comp itinerary) left you and Lucy in a rush to find your dressing room to get ready for your performance with your girl’s group, Elegance.

You and Lucy stood backstage after your warmups, watching your stage crew and band load on. You fidgeted with your dress as you double checked your heels were on the right feet. You made that mistake once in a rehearsal your freshman year and vowed to always check before each performance. Just in case. It was a superstition you’d developed.

Thinking of superstitions, you grabbed Lucy’s wrist, giving it a quick tap as you watched Barnes motion you all on stage. Taking your places, the show began.

It was an utter blur, the adrenaline melding the whole show together into what felt like seconds, until your solo began. As you grabbed the mic, you looked to the audience and finally acknowledged the brunet boy sitting front and center. You met his eyes from the stage as he smiled brightly at you. With a quick wink in his direction, you returned the mic to the stand as the rest of Elegance returned from their costume change.

The bows began too soon. You could’ve spent all day on that stage just to know that Lockwood was watching you. He was smiling at you. And not one of his teasing smiles, a real smile.

Still in your costume, you met him in the hallway, running to give him a hug.

“You were incredible. That was incredible!” He was muttering in your ears, as he placed your feet back on the ground.

You simply smiled up at him, caught up in your proximity to him. It wasn’t uncommon to hug people in the midst of a post show reverie. It’s just that you’ve only ever been so close to him when choreographed. It felt different to feel his hands on your waist when it was a choice of your own volition. Your attention shifted as you felt a tap on your back.

Lucy, who you lost earlier in the hallway as she ran to find Norrie, was now pulling you back towards your homeroom to get changed.

“What the hell was that?”

You looked at her. “What the hell was what?”

“Your sexual tension turned romantic.”

“It did not.”

“It did.”

You jumped. “Jesus, George! Where did you come from?”

“I was right next to Lockwood. You were just so caught up in your little rom-com moment that you didn’t notice me.” You frowned.

“Not true, it was not a rom-com moment.”

“You literally just reenacted running through the airport to stop him from flying to Amsterdam to start a new life without you.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I’m surprised you didn’t kiss him,” Lucy added.

You simply groaned in response. “Lockwood and I are just friends who are fake dating.”

The two raised their eyebrows. “That’s new.”

“That’s really new.” George agreed.

“Kipps is here. We’re trying to piss him off.”

The two nodded. “You’re going for a Proposal kind of thing.”

“Luce, what does that even mean?”

“We have to get you caught up on your rom-coms.” Lucy nodded at George’s comment.

You rolled your eyes. “Whatever. Just, if Kipps asks, Lockwood and I have been dating for a couple of weeks since the breakup.”

And with that, you entered your homeroom to change back into your normal clothes.

“They’re hopeless, Luce. Hopeless.”

“They’ll figure it out sometime soon. Just give them till the end of comp season.”

Once changed, you met Lockwood in the cafeteria, the two of you looking for a seat in the expanses of the cafeteria.

“Well, what do we have here?” You steeled yourself at the sound of your ex’s voice and looked to Lockwood who had already spun around.

“Kipps. What a surprise.”

“Tony! Always a misfortune to see you here.” He turned to you. “I see you’ve become the rebound for our little princess over here.”

“She’s not your princess.” Lockwood stepped forward as you reached for his wrist. “Why don’t you find someone else to bother? I’m sure some of Tendy’s kids are getting bored without someone to insult.”

Kipps simply ignored Lockwood and looked at you. “Tony? Really?”

You let out a dry chuckle. “I could say the same thing about Kat.” Kipps’s face twitched with anger as you continued. “And at least I found someone who actually cares about me, something you could never manage.” You laced your fingers with Lockwood’s. “And his name is Anthony, not Tony.” And with that you pulled Lockwood away.

When it was finally time to perform, you found yourself fidgeting backstage again. Lucy quickly tapped your wrist, leaving to go back by George, her own dance partner. Still toying with a sequin on your dress, you glanced at Lockwood whose hair was in spikes as he continuously ran his hand through it.

“You look like a mess.” You whispered. “Are you always like this before a performance?”

He only nodded. As stage crew was almost done loading on, you quickly grabbed his wrist to stop him. “There’s no way I’m letting you go onstage like this. You look like you’ve been electrocuted. Can I fix your hair for you?” He simply nodded once more as you went on your tippy toes to fix it, wobbling a bit in the process. Lockwood’s hands flew to your waist to steady you, giving you a rush of that same nauseous feeling in your stomach. You brushed off the thought, rationalizing it as nerves, and quickly admired your work with his hair. Adjusting his tie, you flashed him a smile. He responded with a simple squeeze to your hips before he turned to see Barnes gesturing the choir onstage.

The performance was a whirlwind, and before you knew it, Lockwood was dipping you in his arms, his hands supporting your waist. He gave you a little squeeze, identical to the one before you began performing. A large smile had engulfed his features, as he pulled you out of the dip, twirling you as you both exited the stage to the sound of a thundering applause.

“Holy shit.” You exhaled a laugh and turned to Lockwood.

His hands had found their way back to his hair, spiking them up yet again. You found yourself thinking back to yesterday’s rehearsal when he had done the same thing. Without the stage lights, he somehow looked even more beautiful, with his leather jacket pulled taught around his arms. He smiled at you before leaning in to whisper, “We put that bitch in his place.”

You simply laughed along with him, walking back to the homeroom to meet up with Lucy, George, and Norrie.

Later that evening, your choirs were huddled together in a corner of the vast auditorium awaiting the emcee to announce the finalists. In a swarm of the students, one Lockwood was missing, leaving you frantically searching for him. Swatting a sophomore from the seat beside you, you felt Lucy lean over to whisper, “You’re whipped.”

Her words were quickly forgotten by the arrival of the boy holding a pretzel. He tore a piece, squeezing through the row to settle beside you. “Want some?”

Wordlessly, you took it, and turned your attention back towards the stage as the emcee, one Mr. Fairfax, entered. Reaching to Lucy, you linked pinkies with her.

“Going first in your large mixed finals is Tendy High School Swing Sensations!” Squeezing Lucy’s pinky harder, you felt Lockwood’s knee knock into yours, his hand opened beside him, inviting yours.

Lacing your fingers, you heard Fairfax continue. “Second in the large mixed finals is Bunchurch High School Encores!” You felt your body tense. Only two more finalists.

A thumb brushed over the back of your hand, softly. Like a whisper of comfort that one was unsure to offer. You squeezed his hand again. He squeezed right back.

“Your third finalist tonight is Fittes Academy Vocal Excellence!”

You dropped your head, holding your breath to better hear the announcer. “And last but certainly not least, Portland Row High School’s Fusion!”

You exhaled, leaning over to Lockwood and linked your arms with his. “One step closer to revenge.” And with a smile you turned back to Lucy to discuss the possible results of the competition.

On the way to your warm-ups, you felt Lockwood reach over to lace your fingers together. Looking up at him, you saw the pure anxiety on his face. Squeezing his hand, he turned to you, his brow unfurling ever so slightly.

As the Fittes crew exited their warm-ups, Kipps shoulder bumped Lockwood, knocking him into you. His once anxious features dissolved into one of anger, his jaw clenching.

“He’s only doing that because he knows he can’t win.” Lockwood turned back to you, taking a deep breath before the warm-up began.

Once again huddled backstage, you checked down at your shoes while Lucy tapped your wrist again.

“Can you fix my hair again maybe?” Lockwood whispered.

Back on your tippy toes, you checked his hair and straightened his tie. “Are you superstitious, Lockwood?”

Without words, he squeezed your hip before turning to wait for Barnes’ directions.

On the stage, you only got to see Lockwood performing. With his big smile and irresistible charm, it was impossible to think of the boy you saw backstage. The one who holds your hand and squeezes your waist. You’re not sure which Lockwood you liked more: the dazzling performer or the one who needs you to fix his hair. Once your second number was finished, you hit your pose, one Holly was quite proud of. It’s not necessarily even a pose, it’s just a hug. In your quick embrace, you heard Lockwood exhale into your ear, quiet enough to not be picked up by any of the mics, but loud enough for you to hear his words.

“I like when you call me Anthony.” As Norrie began her solo, your mind kept repeating his words. It was as though he was stuck in your head; a broken record on repeat. You found yourself suddenly relating even further to the ballad as you began to sing once more.

Once the bows commenced, you met Lockwood’s eyes as he dipped you for your final pose. It was then you decided that the Lockwood you liked most was Anthony. And as he twirled you offstage, you felt that same nauseous feeling settle into your stomach.

Smiling at him, you rushed to find Lucy and Norrie. “You were right,” you whispered. “Our tension has gone romantic.” Lucy grabbed your elbow, pulling you closer to the wall. “He told me he likes when I call him Anthony.”

“What, during our show?”

“Yes!”

“When is there time to do that?” Norrie asked, huddling around the two of you. “We’re singing the whole time.”

“He whispered it during the hug. Before the ballad.”

“Oh shit.” The two whispered. “Well is it so bad that he maybe has a crush on you?” Lucy continued on. “We’re all waiting for it to happen.”

You ran your hand through your hair, squeezing your eyes shut. “No! No. He doesn’t have a crush on me. I have a crush on him.” The two shared a look before turning back to you. “Telling your friend to call you by your first name is normal. It’s the fact that I can’t stop thinking about it that’s throwing me off.” 

“Well it happened only 10 minutes ago, I’d say it’s fine to think about it after such a short duration.” You groaned.

“It’s not that it’s recent. I don’t get thrown off by things like that. Especially not onstage. He’s gotten into my head.”

“What he’s gotten into is your heart. Is that so bad?”

“Yes! Because it’s Anthony fucking Lockwood! We’ve hated each other for years, he’s only being like this because of forced proximity. Or a bet or something.”

“Keep telling yourself that. But the longer you deny it, the worse it’ll get.”

You sighed, beginning down the hallway. “I just need space from him. It’s just like a showmance, right? None of this is real.” You began nodding slowly. “I don’t like Lockwood.”

“No, you don’t. You like Anthony.” You smacked Norrie’s arm and entered the auditorium, finding Lockwood’s leather jacket over a chair. As soon as he noticed you, he began waving his arms, leaving you no choice but to shimmy your way down the rows and into the seat beside him.

“Thanks, for saving me a seat.”

“Anytime. What kind of fake boyfriend would I be if I didn’t save a seat for you?”

“A pretty crappy one.”

“Well many sources have said I’m the best fake boyfriend on the market.” You wrinkled your nose.

“What are they grading you on?”

“Charm, chivalry, and chemistry.” You rolled your eyes.

“I don’t think the person who judged you had their proper credentials.”

“Rude.” He whispered, as Fairfax entered the stage.

Reaching for his hand, Lockwood laced your fingers together and gave you a quick squeeze.

“Your third runner up, from Bunchurch High School, it’s the Bunchurch Encores!” Snapping with your free hand, you felt Lockwood’s grip tighten. “Your second runner up is the Swing Sensations from Tendy High School!”

You closed your eyes, bending your head as you awaited for the caption awards to be announced. “Best vocals go to Fittes Academy Vocal Excellence.” Holding your breath, you heard Fairfax continue. “Best visuals awarded to Portland Row High School Fusion!” You let out a sigh of relief. There was still a chance.

“And now, for our first runner up. From Portland Row High School, it’s Fusion! Which means that Fittes Academy Vocal Excellence is our Grand Champion. Congrats!” Jumping up and down with the rest of the choir, you turned back to Anthony.

“Sorry we didn’t win.” You bumped your shoulder into his, breaking him from zoning out.

“Why are you sorry? I’m sorry I talked it up so much.” You shrugged. “We’ll get our revenge at the DEPRAC comp, right?” You smiled at him.

“Until then, you’re off duty as my boyfriend.”

“You know? I was really starting to like it.” You watched him wander over to George before Lucy tackled you from behind.

“First runner up for our first competition means we can only go up.”

“Let’s hope so.”

Three weeks later, you found yourself smashed in the bus seat with Anthony for three hours. Holding an empty latte cup— they messed up his order again— you had dozed off on his shoulder halfway into the ride. Feeling a shove, you woke up to see the high school in front of you. The DEPRAC Invitational was an exclusive competition filled with dozens of the best show choirs from your area. You were lucky to even walk the halls.

Placing your garment bags in the homeroom, you heard your name being called.

“You’ve got the solo today.” You looked at Barnes quizzically.

“What solo? Elegance isn’t performing today.”

“Norrie’s out sick. You need to cover the solo.” You nodded. You had auditioned for the 

song earlier in the season so you knew the part. But covering for Norrie left some huge shoes for you to fill. “Can I trust you?”

“Yeah, I’ve got this.”

Meeting Lockwood in the cafeteria, you told him about the switch before being interrupted.

“Come to lose to the big dogs again?” This time it was you turning around first.

“Fuck off, Kipps!”

“Woah, calm down, sunshine. It was just a question!” Lockwood scowled. “And remind your little guard dog here that you were mine first. We both know you’ll come crawling back in the end.”

“That’s enough, Kipps. Leave my girlfriend alone.”

“Sure thing, Tony. No one wants a slut like her anyway.” And with that, Kipps turned sharply, leaving the two of you fuming.

“If it didn’t mean getting us disqualified, I would have kicked his ass for you.”

“That’s not your job to do. I can handle myself!” 

“I know that but I’m your boyfriend I wanna-”

“You’re not my boyfriend!” You seethed. Not sure where this anger with him was coming from, you stormed off to avoid any further arguments.

You avoided him for the rest of the day, only going near him to fix his hair and tie or to dance. You didn’t squeeze his hand or hug him after performing, despite his attempts to compliment your solo.

As finals rolled around, you found yourself more anxious than ever before. As Lockwood squeezed your waist one last time, you finally met his eyes before snapping out of his trance. You refuse to get blindsided by his pretty brown eyes, but distancing yourself from him was impossible as the whole group was packed like sardines in the wings. With a small smile, Lockwood turned around and entered the stage.

As the second song ended, you realized the breath you were holding as Lockwood posed in your hug again. His breath warm against your ear he whispered again. “I want to be your real boyfriend.” Masked by the applause, you allowed your breath to stutter before the music to the ballad began.

Departing his embrace, you grabbed the mic with shaking hands. This love song, this twisted and toxic depiction of love you were singing about found a resolve deep in your bones, the chills of the rest of the choir singing behind you settling across your skin. The fear of a boy who found a chink in your armor resounded in your heart and the anger of a confession you were too blinded to accept. It felt like hours when Lockwood finally squeezed your hip one last time as you twirled off stage.

Gripping his leather jacket, you pulled him into a hidden vestibule, the adrenaline of your performance still coursing your veins.

“What the hell was that?” You seethed.

“The truth.”

“Couldn’t the truth have waited?”

“You’ve been avoiding me all day! When else was I supposed to tell you?”

“Never! You were never supposed to tell me!”

He groaned, running his hands through his sweaty hair. “I had to tell you! It was killing me! I’ve wanted to be your boyfriend since freshman year. And the second I finally thought I had a chance with you, you came to school with that stupid Kipps as your lock screen. How do you think that felt?

“To be second place to an asshole like that for so long! I hated how I still liked you, so I pretended to hate you. To drive you away. And it finally worked! But the instant you asked me to fake date you was like a dream come true. I couldn’t deny it anymore that I still wanted to be yours. To even pretend you actually reciprocated any feelings was as good as any other. But it wasn’t enough for me! I need you.”

“You’re making this up. You got caught in the whirlwind! It’s just a showmance!”

“You don’t know that!”

“I do! You don’t mean any of this and you’ll regret it all by next week. Trust me I’ve-”

He pulled your waist, capturing your lips in a heated kiss. Grabbing his lapels, you quickly found yourself kissing him back. Wrapping his arms tighter around you, he further pulled you into him till your bodies were fully flesh against each other. Pulling away, you tried to lean back in but he further pulled back. “Since you’re so sure it was fake, there’s your proof. I’m done waiting for you.” And he turned down the hallway.

The second you snapped from your daze, you ran to find him, but he was already lost in the crowd. Finding Lucy, she pulled you aside, taking you to Barnes. “Found her!”

“Perfect, where’s Lockwood?”

“Behind you,” you turned to look at him but his attention was fully on your director.

“You two are our reps for awards tonight. Got it? Head backstage.” You both looked at him. “Now!” Turning back towards backstage, the two of you departed, a heavy silence falling over you.

“Can we talk about this?”

“What is there to talk about?” Crossing his arms, Lockwood turned from you.

“Anthony, please?”

“Some lovers quarrel.” You look up to see Kipps and Kat. “This is just your first heartbreak of the day. Can’t wait to watch you lose.” And with that, you were beckoned on the stage for the presenting of awards.

“Your second runner up, from Rotwell High School, the Rhythm Makers!”

You brushed your pinky against Lockwood’s, smiling when he relented and linked them together.

“Your vocal caption award goes to… Portland Row High School Fusion!” Your smile spread further as Lockwood squeezed your pinky. “And our visual caption award goes to… Fusion again!” Turning to smile at Lockwood, you found him already looking at you.

“And now, for your first runner up.” You began holding your breath, squeezing Lockwood’s pinky even tighter. “Fittes Academy!” Your jaw dropped as you began smiling in realization. “Congratulations to our Grand Champions from Portland Row High School!” 

Holding the caption awards and trophy, you and Lockwood watched as the rest of your choir joined you on the stage. Each given a medal, tears and hugs were shared. Exiting the stage, you grabbed Lockwood by his medal, pulling him back to that same vestibule.

Pulling his lips to yours, you felt his hands find your waist, squeezing it gently. “Revenge is only fun if it’s real.” You muttered, lips still brushing gently over his. “This is real for me, Anthony.” Looking into your eyes, he pushed your hair back before capturing you in another kiss.

You felt him begin to smile into it, brushing his thumb over your cheeks. Reaching to play with his hair, you deepened the kiss until finally pulling apart for air.

“I think we should kiss after each performance.”

“Yeah?” He looked at you, the teasing smile you were so familiar with painting his face.

“Maybe I’m a little superstitious.”

[rainofaugustsith]

July is disability pride month! In honor of this, as a proud disabled person, the top 10 things I've heard/read about disability that just need to be addressed.

"Disability payments" = SSI.

Nope. There are a number of programs which are "disability payments." There are programs that look at your income in addition to disability status, such as SSI and VA pensions. There are programs that look at your disability status and work credits, like SSDI. There are also programs that look at disability and if it's service connected to your military status, like VA disability. There are people who have disability through their former employer. All of these provide a monthly payment to people who are disabled and cannot work. 2. Disabled people can't get married.

Okay, this one is complicated. There is to my knowledge no law on the books anywhere in the United States that prohibits a consenting disabled adult from marrying another consenting adult, disabled or not. If you are on disability with a program like SSDI they could care less if you get married or divorced.

The trick here is that if you are receiving disability under a program that considers income, like SSI, if you get married it's more than likely that you will go above the maximum income threshold and lose your benefits entirely. They somehow assume that you both can survive on your spouse's income alone. This also means the disabled person essentially loses all their financial independence. The maximum income threshold for SSI is to my knowledge far lower than almost any other program, so there's very little wiggle room here.

So a disabled person on SSI has to choose between getting married and losing all their income, or maintaining some financial independence with their own income - and that's really not a fair choice at all 3. I saw that wheelchair user stand up! Scammer.

Nope. A lot of people who use wheelchairs and other mobility devices are ambulatory. They may have pain or orthopedic issues, they may have a condition causing extreme fatigue or dizziness that makes them a fall risk, they may have a heart issue, they may be able to do some walking and standing but not a lot. Some people need mobility devices only when they are doing something particularly strenuous that would involve a lot of walking and standing - for example going through an airport or visiting a museum or theme park.

Bottom line, if you see someone using a wheelchair, a scooter, a walker, a cane, whatever, don't be an asshole to them, and don't ask them to explain their medical history to you. 4. That person has a placard and is using the parking space close to the building, but they can walk!! Scammer.

Nope. Again, you have no idea what that person's condition might be. They could have a cardiac or respiratory condition, they could have rheumatoid arthritis or an issue with their feet or knees, you have no bloody idea, so mind your business. 5. That person wouldn't be disabled if they'd meditate/take this supplement/pray/think positive! Why were they offended when I told them so?

Because their treatment is not your concern? Because although you did a lot of studying on Tik Tok University, maybe they're trusting the trained medical professionals who are treating them? Maybe because what you are saying has no actual basis in mainstream peer reviewed science? It's gross to try to give a disabled or chronically ill person unsolicited treatment or religious advice. 6. I asked that disabled person what was wrong with them and they got mad! Why?

Random strangers you meet are not required to give you detailed descriptions of their medical conditions. Also, asking anyone what is WRONG with them is so damned rude. 7. Ugh, the pandemic is over but that person is still wearing a mask! ROFL.

Yeah, there are a lot of people out there who are either immunocompromised or have another condition that makes them high risk for the numerous airborne viral illnesses still circulating, or they live with/care for someone who is, or they have another reason they're wearing a mask and they don't want to get sick. And? Mind your business. 8. Heh, that person said they were allergic to soy and I put soy milk in their coffee! They'll never know.

Congrats, you just might have killed someone or sent them to the hospital. If someone's telling you they have an allergy, please for God's sake take them seriously. If they consume or in some cases even smell or have contact with that allergen, it could absolutely kill or hospitalize them. There are also a lot of other medical reasons someone might tell you they can't have a particular food or drink - for example, some very common medications have a serious interaction with some very common fruits that could potentially cause them a tremendous amount of harm. Or they have a condition like celiac disease where eating certain things will result in pain and illness flares and serious complications for them. None of that is a joke. 9. Eyeroll this disabled person needs to get to the bathroom/another area that is only accessible by stairs and now they need me to unlock the elevator or door for them. Damned PITA.

Blame your employer or whoever owns the building for not making it accessible. Don't blame the disabled person who is asking for the same access to the facility as anyone else. Do you really think it's the highlight of anyone's day to find a locked elevator and have to search for whomever has the key, simply to go pee? 10. Eh, that person told me they can't walk up the stairs! But it's not that steep!

If a person tells you they can't walk up or down stairs, they can't walk up or down stairs. Period. Case closed. This isn't something negotiable.

[isawken]

disco elysium and transmasculinity:

i don't want to be this kind of animal anymore

there is no such thing as an inherently masculine trait, only those which we have culturally prescribed to be masculine. muscular, tall, strong, stoic. self-destructive. repressive. angry. unhinged. violent. addictive.

Disco Elysium markets itself with the tagline “what kind of cop are you?”. to put it bluntly: you get to choose what man you want to be. the actual gameplay mechanic is the game keeps track of your dialogue choices and, among other RPG things, neatly divvies them up into 4 main Cop Categories: Sorry Cop, Apocalypse Cop, Superstar Cop, Boring Cop. after some time establishing your identity you can branch off into 3 other copotypes: honor cop, art cop, and hobocop. These are all exactly what you think they would be.

a supremacist stands tall, immovable, shirtless, tattooed, in the way of one of your objectives, and if you let him he will tell you all the ways your body betrays your degeneracy. all the indulgences you make, with drugs and alcohol and sex, are allegedly clear as day written across your reddened swollen face. you are not a man. you are pathetic. a pair of women reassure his divine masculinity even when he admits his impotence. there’s no denying it: that’s one man of a man right there.

your former detective partner is an eternally scowling pockmark faced asshole. he approaches every interaction with you with a nice solid baseline of aggression. if you choose to put your points into something called “espirit de corps”, you get small vignettes of his previous actions. in one of them, it’s joked that you two are near-marital in your relationship. in some of them, he worries about you. muttering under his breath, mostly to himself, not unkindly. but he certainly never shows that to you face to face. 

two old men play pétanque outside every day by the sea. they have done this for years. they have known each other since they were kids. one is a fascist, the other a democratic socialst. if you’re nosy, you can go to the watchman’s post and find a picture of him, his socialist buddy, and a young woman whose attentions they supposedly both vied for. if you decide to become a fascist, the game gives you something more. your abilities Pain Threshold, Composure, Endurance, Volition, Conceptualization, and Inland Empire take turns showing you tiny slices of a truth viciously stamped beneath the heel of his brilliant boot. a love for his dear hated socialist. and when he dies, that socialist tells you the same. but they never told each other. never even came close. because how could you?

harry dubois wakes up face down ass up covered in piss and vomit and full of foggy confusion after drinking himself into amnesia. he's tall, he's got giant arms, a proud beer gut, and he's self-destructed himself into literal oblivion. this pitiful bastard doesn't even remember his own name. the first person he encounters outside of the hotel room in which he fucked himself up beyond his limbic system’s reach tells him at some point during his bingeful weekend she heard him scream, "i dont want to be this kind of animal anymore". you don’t know why you said this. but after a while you have some pretty good guesses.

i could talk forever about the unique circumstances of growing up as a girl in modern western society. but i have nothing interesting to say that hasn't already been said much more eloquently. learning to hate my body, learning to be afraid, learning that you need to want to be consumed. the eternal unpacking of all the issues a patriarchal society burdens you with. it never ends. but i've at least reached a point where i've done my base legwork. i know the oppression i've fought. it is nameable. i have labeled each and every patriarchal burden like a so many papers in a filing cabinet. few are going in the shredder, but at least they're known. next to that filing cabinet, i have a big pile of loose papers slowly sliding off a desk with the word "masculinity" in neon lights flickering above them. i want to dive into those papers. but the thought of it fills me with such apprehension. i've always wanted masculinity. i've purposefully adopted affectations to make myself more stereotypically masculine. most are hilariously shallow, and not exactly innovative. i smoked camels for 8 years. i drink my coffee black. i picked up a nice little alcohol habit. i've shoved down more feelings than i would ever willingly admit in the hopes to appear unbothered. I’ve told myself to “man the fuck up” my fair share of times. none of it got rid of my hips or my tits or my anxiety or my painfully high pitched voice. i’ve quit smoking. i sometimes think i should start again for many reasons, but one is in the hope that my voice will drop. just one octave. at least. it’s silly, i know. believe me. i know.

when harry drags his sorry ass out of that hotel room, he isn't free of his past. he has shadows in his mind reminding him of the things he's forgotten. shadows that still influence his views of masculinity. there is no way to truly escape the bitter leaden paint stuck to the inside of your mind so violently applied by our beloved patriarchal society. there is a hilarious dialogue option where, if you so choose, you can proclaim that you would never let anyone androgynous touch your hair. because the “others” (unnamed) would laugh at you. here we have a man who cant remember his own name, but he is certain that he absolutely cannot under any circumstances have a non-manly haircut for fear of mockery and rejection by his peers. how many coats of that leadened paint must have adhered to his poor, poor limbic system that even when he’s forgotten the concept of money, he still knows about the boundaries of masculinity.

 as harry tries to be a good person (or a fascist or a doom prophet or a disco superstar) he cannot really shake the pieces of himself that make him him. and he meets another bastion of masculinity, kim kitsuragi immeasurably measured, willful, and kind (for a cop), he helps you rediscover the world around you as you try to rewrite your tabula rasa'd self. he is firm, but nice. he lets you make your choices and mistakes. and he only stops supporting you when you start fucking up like, literally everything, and indulging in racism. naturally, there is a lot of fanart of them kissing, and yearning. both are beacons of masculinity, different sides of the same coin. where harry is physically imposing, kim is slight. where kim is calm cool and collected, harry will break down crying after a brief conversation with his necktie. but both are undeniably masculine. i mean, they’re cops after all. what more masculine profession is there?

as kind as kim is to you in your lowest possible state, it can be easy to overlook the ways in which he is not kind. when you tell him you think you really, seriously, need to go to the hospital, seriously kim i can't even remember my name i think i could have brain damage, kim responds with the equivalent of "walk it off" by encouraging you to start working on the case and see if that makes you feel better instead. it is in this light that you recognize which affectations of his are conscious posturing. his fitted jacket and trousers, matching the uniforms worn by air brigades in a past war. his careful collection of tools he keeps in his beloved kineema. his vast knowledge and care for the car itself. looked at in a certain different light- you know the one- you could see these traits being the result of a very careful construction. he found pieces of overt masculinity and decided to subsume them as a defense. a bolstering, a reinforcement of chosen masculinity.

there are so many different flavors of masculinity that the game offers you to experience and explore yourself. you decide whether to value them. you can follow in mister phenology’s footsteps and try to build yourself into a supremacist ideal. maybe that will make you happy. you can also chase after a barely-coded homosexual man, who makes you stutter in most available dialogue options. even if that may make you happy, you don’t get to pursue it. you can think for 20 hours about the "homosexual underground", but you can't join it yourself. you can however join fascism. interesting how harry is more susceptible to fascism than homosexuality. interesting to prod and poke at his masculine limits.

“what kind of cop are you” is a loaded question. harry is rebuilding himself from the ground up as a man. and how funny is it to learn that is inextricable from his profession.

what do you find inextricable from your gender? what of those traits make you happy? what of those traits make you want to throw your fucking shoe through a god damn window and punch the bathroom mirror and scream and scream and scream and scream?

i want to emerge from a hotel room, at my lowest point, and have the power to rebuild myself from scratch. i want a cool man who i maybe want to kiss guide me with a gentle yet firm hand. i want to have large arms, and a proud beer gut, and a stupid beard, and i want to destroy a hotel room and drink myself into a beautifully tragic state. i want to have non-political body hair. i want to get stared at for my gaudy tie and green snakeskin shoes instead of my tits. i want become a different kind of animal.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

was i the asshole for refusing to pay a private contractor what they claimed i owed?

preface: i rent a townhouse that has both a front and a back yard, and the lawn mower broke (landlord refuses to fix it), so i was forced to find a landscaping company locally who could mow the grass in spring and summertime. i hate mowing so no real loss, plus i get to support local small businesses! score!

everyone around here sucks at communication (as in they just don't show up or respond to any texts, calls, or emails even when Maureen From The HOA is breathing down your neck) except for one company i've been using religiously ever since i found them. love these guys. quality work, excellent communication, affordable, flexible, these guys are the best and i have referred my neighbors to them as well.

at the beginning of spring 2023, money was kinda tight so i asked if they could only mow every three weeks. they told me no dice, only in two-week increments because they have a rolling scheduling of which neighborhoods get hit up on certain weeks. fair enough. i ask for a mow every four weeks. sure, the grass will get a little tall, but the HOA can shut up.

they come every two weeks instead and text AFTER they've already done the work, so i have to pay for it. i pay them promptly, but ask if they can please honor my wishes for it to be every four weeks, as we discussed. they honor that... once. and then go back to every two weeks. by this time, the grass is shooting up faster than expected and i still hate the HOA, so i sigh and let it go. every two weeks it is.

fast forward to late autumn as winter's rolling in and i'm writing the check for the last mow of the season when the guy calls and says "oh btw you owe hundreds of dollars we never told you about until just now".

somehow, they got it in their heads that they mowed my lawn every single week, and should be paid for that. not once did that happen. not only was there no communication about them having been there OR needing payment (remember how i said they were so good about communication? i have texts going back the entire season where they message me "hey we mowed your lawn today" every two weeks exactly, and what sense does it make for them to forget to say anything every other week on the nose?), but i think i would have noticed grass getting shorter for no reason. also remember how i specifically told them i wanted a mow every four weeks and never actually rescinded that request? it's in writing. it's in the text log. at no point did i ever approve this "weekly" work, even if they'd actually done it (which they didn't).

thing is, these guys are prompt and reliable. they're the best option i've got around these parts. they really don't strike me as the types to pull a fast one on me or scam me. i think it was a genuine, honest mistake and they got my house mixed up with someone else's in the ledger, and now they're out the money for work they legitimately performed... just not for me. i recommended them to my neighbors, remember? not impossible they got the house numbers for my street mixed up. a 6 can look like an 8, or a 7 like a 1 if your handwriting smudges.

i got so caught up in my kneejerk response of "hey what the fuck do you mean i owe money for work i told you i didn't want and you didn't actually do" that i didn't work with them to try to figure out what actually happened here, and now a local business got screwed over. WITAH?

What are these acronyms?