#this is a very USA post all others look away

[miraeism]

does anyone know anything about taxes on here 🤣🤣🤣

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Netflix wants to chop down your family tree

Netflix has unveiled the details of its new anti-password-sharing policy, detailing a suite of complex gymnastics that customers will be expected to undergo if their living arrangements trigger Netflix’s automated enforcement mechanisms:

https://thestreamable.com/news/confirmed-netflix-unveils-first-details-of-new-anti-password-sharing-measures

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/02/nonbinary-families/#red-envelopes

Netflix says that its new policy allows members of the same “household” to share an account. This policy comes with an assumption: that there is a commonly understood, universal meaning of “household,” and that software can determine who is and is not a member of your household.

This is a very old corporate delusion in the world of technology. In the early 2000s, I spent years trying to bring some balance to an effort at DVB, whose digital television standards are used in most of the world (but not the USA) when they rolled out CPCM, a DRM system that was supposed to limit video-sharing to a single household.

Their term of art for this was the “authorized domain”: a software-defined family unit whose borders were privately negotiated by corporate executives from media companies, broadcasters, tech and consumer electronics companies in closed-door sessions all around the world, with no public minutes or proceedings.

https://onezero.medium.com/the-internet-heist-part-iii-8561f6d5a4dc

These guys (they were nearly all guys) were proud of how much “flexibility” they’d built into their definition of “household.” For example, if you owned a houseboat, or a luxury car with seatback displays, or a summer villa in another country, the Authorized Domain would be able to figure out how to get the video onto all those screens.

But what about other kinds of families? I suggested that one of our test cases should be a family based in Manila: where the dad travels to remote provinces to do agricultural labor; the daughter is a nanny in California; and the son is doing construction work in the UAE. This suggestion was roundly rejected as an “edge case.”

Of course, this isn’t an edge case. There are orders of magnitude more people whose family looks like this than there are people whose family owns a villa in another country. Owning a houseboat or a luxury car makes you an outlier. Having an itinerant agricultural breadwinner in your family does not.

But everyone who is in the room when a cartel draws up a standard definition of what constitutes a household is almost certainly drawn from a pool that is more likely to have a summer villa than a child doing domestic work or construction labor half a world away. These weirdos, so dissimilar from the global majority, get to define the boxes that computers will shove the rest of the world into. If your family doesn’t look like their family, that’s tough: “Computer says no.”

One day at a CPCM meeting, we got to talking about the problem of “content laundering” and how the way to prevent it would be to put limits on how often someone could leave a household and join another one. No one, they argued, would ever have to change households every week.

I put my hand up and said, “What about a child whose divorced parents share custody of her? She’s absolutely going to change households every week.” They thought about it for a moment, then the rep from a giant IT company that had recently been convicted of criminal antitrust violations said, “Oh, we can solve that: we’ll give her a toll-free number to call when she gets locked out of her account.”

That was the solution they went with. If you are a child coping with the dissolution of your parents’ marriage, you will have the obligation to call up a media company every month — or more often — and explain that Mummy and Daddy don’t love each other any more, but can I please have my TV back?

I never forgot that day. I even wrote a science fiction story about it called (what else?) “Authorized Domain”:

https://craphound.com/news/2011/10/31/authorised-domain/

I think everyone understood that this was an absurd “solution,” but they had already decided that they were going to complete the seemingly straightforward business of defining a category like “household” using software, and once that train left the station, nothing was going to stop it.

This is a recurring form of techno-hubris: the idea that baseline concepts like “family” have crisp definitions and that any exceptions are outliers that would never swallow the rule. It’s such a common misstep that there’s a whole enre* called “Falsehoods Programmers Believe About ______”:

https://github.com/kdeldycke/awesome-falsehood

In that list: names, time, currency, birthdays, timezones, email addresses, national borders, nations, biometrics, gender, language, alphabets, phone numbers, addresses, systems of measurement, and, of course, families. These categories are touchstones in our everyday life, and we think we know what they mean — but then we try to define them, and the list of exceptions spirals out into a hairy, fractal infinity.

Historically, these fuzzy categorical edges didn’t matter so much, because they were usually interpreted by humans using common sense. My grandfather was born “Avrom Doctorovitch” (or at least, that’s one way to transliterate his name, which was spelled in a different alphabet, but which was also transliterating his first name from yet another alphabet). When he came to Canada as a refugee, his surname was anglicized to “Doctorow.” Other cousins are “Doctorov,” “Doctoroff,” and “Doktorovitch.”

Naturally, his first name could have been “Abraham” or “Abe,” but his first employer (a fellow Eastern European emigre) decided that was too ethnic and in sincere effort to help him fit in, he called my grandfather “Bill.” When my grandfather attained citizenship, his papers read “Abraham William Doctorow.” He went by “Abe,” “Billy,” “Bill,” “William,” “Abraham” and “Avrom.”

Practically, it didn’t matter that variations on all of these appeared on various forms of ID, contracts, and paperwork. His reparations check from the German government had a different variation from the name on the papers he used to open his bank account, but the bank still let him deposit it.

All of my relatives from his generation have more than one name. Another grandfather of mine was born “Aleksander,” and called “Sasha” by friends, but had his name changed to “Seymour” when he got to Canada. His ID was also a mismatched grab-bag of variations on that theme.

None of this mattered to him, either. Airlines would sell him tickets and border guards would stamp his passport and rental agencies would let him drive away in cars despite the minor variations on all his ID.

But after 9/11, all that changed, for everyone who had blithely trundled along with semi-matching names across their official papers and database entries. Suddenly, it was “computer says no” everywhere you turned, unless everything matched perfectly. There was a global rush for legal name-changes after 9/11 — not because people changed their names, but because people needed to perform the bureaucratic ritual necessary to have the name they’d used all along be recognized in these new, brittle, ambiguity-incinerating machines.

For important categories, ambiguity is a feature, not a bug. The fact that you can write anything on an envelope (including a direction to deliver the letter to the granny flat over the garage, not the front door) means that we don’t have to define “address” — we can leave it usefully hairy around the edges.

Once the database schema is formalized, then “address” gets defined too — the number of lines it can have, the number of characters each line can have, the kinds of characters and even words (woe betide anyone who lives in Scunthorpe).

If you have a “real” address, a “real” name, a “real” date of birth, all of this might seem distant to you. These “edge” cases — seasonal agricultural workers, refugees with randomly assigned “English” names — are very far from your experience.

That’s true — for now (but not forever). The “Shitty Technology Adoption Curve” describes the process by which abusive technologies work their way up the privilege gradient. Every bad technological idea is first rolled out on poor people, refugees, prisoners, kids, mental patients and other people who can’t push back.

Their bodies are used to sand the rough edges and sharp corners off the technology, to normalize it so that it can climb up through the social ranks, imposed on people with more and more power and influence. 20 years ago, if you ate your dinner under an always-on #CCTV, it was because you were in a supermax prison. Today, it’s because you bought a premium home surveillance system from Google, Amazon or Apple.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/29/impunity-corrodes/#arise-ye-prisoners

The Netflix anti-sharing tools are designed for rich people. If you travel for business and stay in the kind of hotel where the TV has its own Netflix client that you can plug your username and password into, Netflix will give you a seven-day temporary code to use.

But for the most hardcore road-warriors, Netflix has thin gruel. Unless you connect to your home wifi network every 31 days and stream a show, Netflix will lock out your devices. Once blocked, you have to “contact Netflix” (laughs in Big Tech customer service).

Why is Netflix putting the screws to its customers? It’s part of the enshittification cycle, where platform companies first allocate surpluses to their customers, luring them in and using them as bait for business customers. Once they turn up, the companies reallocate surpluses to businesses, lavishing them with low commissions and lots of revenue opportunities. And once they’re locked in, the company starts to claw back the surpluses for itself.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

Remember when Netflix was in the business of mailing red envelopes full of DVDs around the country? That was allocating surpluses to users. The movie companies hated this, viewed it as theft — a proposition that was at least as valid as Netflix’s complaints about password sharing, but every pirate wants to be an admiral, and when Netflix did it to the studios, that was “progress,” but when you do it to Netflix, that’s theft.

Then, once Netflix had users locked in and migrated to the web (and later, apps), it shifted surpluses to studios, paying fat licensing fees to stream their movies and connect them to a huge audience.

Finally, once the studios were locked in, Netflix started to harvest the surplus for its shareholders: raising prices, lowering streaming rates, knocking off other studios’ best performing shows with in-house clones, etc. Users’ surpluses are also on the menu: the password “sharing” that let you define a household according to your family’s own idiosyncratic contours is unilaterally abolished in a quest to punish feckless Gen Z kids for buying avocado toast instead of their own Netflix subscriptions.

Netflix was able to ignore the studios’ outraged howls when it built a business by nonconsenually distributing their products in red envelopes. But now that Netflix has come for your family, don’t even think about giving Netfix some of what it gave to the MPAA.

As a technical matter, it’s not really that hard to modify Netflix’s app so that every stream you pull seems to come from your house, no matter where you are. But doing so would require reverse-engineering Netflix’s app, and that would violate Section 1201 of the DMCA, the CFAA, and eleventy-seven other horrible laws. Netflix’s lawyers would nuke you until the rubble bounced.

When Netflix was getting started, it could freely interoperate with the DVDs that the studios had put on the market. It could repurpose those DVDs in ways that the studios strenuously objected to. In other words, Netfix used adversarial interoperability (AKA Competitive Compatibility or ComCom) to launch its business:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

Today, Netflix is on the vanguard of the war to abolish adversarial interop. They helped lead the charge to pervert W3C web-standards, creating a DRM video standard called EME that made it a crime to build a full-featured browser without getting permission from media companies and restricting its functionality to their specifications:

https://blog.samuelmaddock.com/posts/the-end-of-indie-web-browsers/

When they used adversarial interoperability to build a multi-billion-dollar global company using the movie studios’ products in ways the studios hated, that was progress. When you define “family” in ways that makes Netflix less money, that’s felony contempt of business model.

[Image ID: A Victorian family tree template populated by tintypes of old-timey people. In the foreground stands a menacing, chainsaw-wielding figure, his face obscured by a hoodie. The blade of the chainsaw is poised to chop down the family tree. A Netflix 'N' logo has been superimposed over the man's face.]

[star-sim]

"noo! she's taken!" ☆ enha hyungs

☆ non-idol! bf! enhypen hyungs x celebrity! fem! reader ☆summary: you are a very well-loved celebrity, and your relationship is finally revealed to the public. ☆genre: fluff, silly boys ☆warning(s)? ygs liked the maknae ver so here's the hyung ver! maknae ver

heeseung ☆

i think ur a musician here

one of those very personable and insightful ones

giving laufey or mitski yk?

anyways heeseung is THE stan

within your fandom

he's the guy that EVERYONE KNOWS

like ppl will argue who is the best [name] stan and the moment he's brought up they shut their mouths

heeseung does not play around when it comes to stanning you, his gf

somewhat like riki, heeseung runs multiple stan accounts for you

but he's most active and most well-known on 1) youtube and 2) tiktok

all his youtube videos are titled

"[name] concert 11/25/2023 nyc, usa (she looked at me!)"

"[name] concert 11/26/2023 miami, usa"

"[name] concert 11/27/2023 berlin, germany (i touched her hand!)"

"[name] concert 11/28/2023 jakarta, indonesia"

"[name] concert 11/29/2023 melbourne, australia (i met her!)"

like how the fuck is he going to all of these concerts when theyre literal hours apart and OCEANS AWAY

he likes to vlog his concert experiences

and theyre very entertaining because he's like genuinely enjoying himself

on his tiktok he also records his concert experiences

but i also think he posts your fancams and makes edits of you

too many times where an edit of you became known as "that one [name] edit"

he makes a lot of thirst edits of u

too many captions like "i want her so bad" or "she's so fine i need her biblically"

everyone knows who he is, even ppl outside of your fandom or the music scene

hes just that one guy that really likes you

one day ur on tour

its all fine and dandy, ur eating everything up, ur fans are loving it

and heeseung is documenting his concert experience

as he always does

and then it ends and heeseung posts it

however

this concert vlog

is

uh

receiving a lot of attention

TOO MUCH ATTENTION

THAT ITS

VERY

SUSPICIOUS

........

you and hee are just hanging out in your hotel when his phone starts blowing up

and yours too

all the comments on his video are normal, the ones that are expressing playful envy at heeseung's presence at ur concert

and like

it's not like heeseung doesn't get these types of comments

but one comment catches his eye

it has like 50k likes

and hes like oh shit

"at 3:05 heeseung why are you kissing [name]"

kissing.

[name].

he clicks that timestamp

and oh my god

THERES LIKE A CLIP OF HEESEUNG KISSING YOU

you see

when heeseung records your concerts he's recording it both for his fanpage and for the memories

he'll take as many cute couple pictures and videos with you as possible

and he just so happened to accidentally add one of the clips of you and him

kissing.

in fact

he accidentally added A LOT OF CLIPS AND PICTURES of you and him being a couple

ones of you hugging him backstage, ones of you two holding hands, even one where viewers can faintly hear you calling heeseung "babe"

and the other comments

OH LORD THE OTHER COMMENTS

"THAT SHOULD BE ME"

"HEESEUNG MOVE ASIDE!!!!!!!!!"

"i hate seeing people live my dream"

"SHE'S MINE *growls*"

"[NAME] GET BEHIND ME"

obv theyre all half joking half confused, but i think ppl are able to joke w him bc he's such an obnoxious stan 😭

and heeseung is like

poor heeseung is sweating and panicking

bc shit HE JUST EXPOSED UR RELATIONSHIP

but when he tells u

you literally are just like

"okay"

OKAY????

"it's not a big deal"

heeseungs like WHATATATATA

at first he's kinda unsure

bc ur so chill abt it that he's almost afraid that ur actually mad at him 😭

but you legitimately do not care

and when he realizes this

he goes from

😱

to

😈

because

NOW HE CAN FLEX ON EVERYONE

he goes straight to twitter and drops more couple-y pictures of you and him

he probably posts a tiktok that pans over to you on his bed or something

caption like "it's exposed now, but yeah, [name] is actually my gf"

its goes so viral

hes so smug about it too

like whenever he gets into arguments abt who's a better fanpage hes like "I'M LITERALLY A HER BF???"

he becomes an inside joke in ur fandom

i think everyone jokingly flames his ass too

"why did she pick heeseung of all people...."

"pixelated fancam, ass editing, shitty camera, yet [name] still chose him... what did we do wrong"

"[name] wasn't lying in her song when she said she has bad taste in men"

"i can't believe heeseung literally stole my spot... i should be the one that she writes all her love songs about..."

free him 😭😭😭

jay ☆

ooh this one is kinda juicy

ur a musician slay

but sometimes you do modeling

for one of your shoots

you're showing off your midriff and ur just glowing sorry

all ur followers are like

"ughhh step on me [name]"

"i don't think ygs understand i need her"

"[NAME] ONE CHANCE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE"

"i want her."

very quickly goes viral

ur just so hot ughhhhh

but ppl notice something upon closer inspection

you have a tattoo on ur back

at first everyone is like

"okay sexy lady love the tat"

but then

when they look closer

they can't help but see that incorporated into the design

is two

very

specific

letters

J and P

almost like they're someone's initials

🤨🤨🤨

hmmmmm

interesting.....

who is JP?

HMMM???

and now that ppl look at it

you have so many songs and albums that refer to JP

like ur one album

called

"just playing, i love you" but it's commonly abbreviated as "jpily"

JP????? ILY?? JP I LOVE YOU???

WHO THE HELL IS JP

"whoever jp is, he needs to meet me in the parking lot so we can have a talk 😆"

"jp my opp"

"jp kys!!!"

"jp is living my dream"

hehe

you see this

and jay aka mr JP himself sees this

and ur like

yk what let's tease the fans

for the next few months ur just teasing jay's existence

using his intials

like one time you wear a heart necklace that has the letters jp engraved in them

or when you tweeted "i love jp" but followed it up with "Jurassic Park is a wonderful movie 😆"

oh god you make it so obvious

"jp is the reason i make my music" and then following it up with "Jimmy Page is my favoritie guitarist 😛"

like ur fans are tired

and theyre getting outright insane

"guys the winter is getting cold and dire... the voices in my headare telling me that [name] is dating this jp person and i don't know how much longer i can live in denial"

"fuck you jp that should be me!!!"

"i hope jp knows how lucky he is... if a hot woman like [name] tattooed my initials i think i'd die maybe"

"i'm fighting demons (and jp)"

until finally!!!

you go to an award show

you look great as always

ugh queen

and ur getting interviewed

the interviewer asks you a playful question like

"oh are you here with any date?"

AND YOU JUST SMILE

"of course, i'm here with my boyfriend, jay park."

oh man

when that gets posted

EVERYONE IS GOING CRAZY

JAY PARK

JP

AAAAAAAAA

and when the actual award shows gets posted

it keeps panning over to you and jay

and everyone is like

THAT'S HER BF????

all jay can say is that he's prideful duh

everyone wants u but he's the only one that can have you

you definitely take a lot of pictures on the red carpet at the award show

and jay is with u in a lot of them

he's holding ur waist so tightly

like you're not gonna run away cuh it's okay omg 😭😭😭

anyways i think it gets resolved pretty easily

ur fandom accepts jay

but they still joke abt him

and when jay makes a twt account it gets worse

he WILL respond to them

and he WILL flex u

every time he does it shuts down the argument right away.... if he wants to win he just needs to mention ur name

"jay meet me after the concert, we will fight to the death for [name]'s love"

and this mf responds "can i bring [name] to be the ref?"

"jay ur hair looks so fucked up in this picture"

and he responds "yet [name] still picked me and not you"

you have to tell him to stop fighting ur 16 yr old fans HELP

jake ☆

sorry ur a musician again

you have a new song that came out

yk how in some songs

there's almost like an interlude

where there's speaking parts

like in agora hills theres a small part where doja cat says "baby can you call me back, it's so lonely in my mansion" yk?

you have something like that in your newest song

cute!

except it's not just your voice

but a MAN'S voice too

JAKE'S VOICE

the speaking part is very flirty and suggestive

and when it comes out

ppl are like

WHO IS THAT MAN

and then when the music video comes out

theres a male actor that you have many scenes with

now.... the male actor's face is cut out...

but there are still many scenes with you touching him, holding him, kissing him, and vice versa

and when the speaking part comes on

that male actor is supposed to be the male part if that makes sense

that male actor is

drum roll plS

JAKE

when ppl read the credits of the song and music video

they can't help but notice "jake sim"

and when they search ur other songs and mv's

"jake sim" has never showed up...

until this song.....

interesting....

ur fans do a lil detective work

and this jake sim guy doesn't have any involvement in the music or acting industry....

so why is he in ur song AND music video....

hmmmm

they can't find any ig account linked to him

except one that's very obscure

it has a funny username like

"@laylasdad1115" so ppl are like "oh that's probably not even him" and you weren't even following that account so they just let it go

WRONG!!1

@LAYLASDAD1115 IS JAKE

and although you're not following that account on ig

when ppl scroll down to your very very old posts

they see something

very

very

very

miniscule

but

very

very

very

crucial

a post of you and a golden labrador.... and the caption says "i love you layla"

layla... laylasdad1115

and THEN BOOM

NEW SONG COMES OUT

AND AT THE BEGINNING

YOU SAY

"jakey, kiss me!"

OH MY GOD

WHO IS JAKE SIM!!!!!!

"@laylasdad1115 u better watch out...."

"who do you think u are jake sim..."

and then you have a concert

and its not a massive stadium, it's very casual

and there's a part of the concert where you just answer questions that ur fans have and just hang out w them

and someone asks as a joke

"who's jakey in ur song btw?"

and with the most straight face

ur just like

"oh he's my boyfriend!" and then you point to the front row and ur like "he's actually here tonight, say hi baby!"

and jake is so enthusiastic abt it, hes like "hi guys!"

while everyone else in the room is like

WHAT.

the way ygs are so casual abt it is so appalling

"[NAME] YOU CAN'T JUST CASUALLY DROP THAT U HAVE A BF I THOUGHT WE WERE GETTING MARRIED"

"she's taken..... i'm gonna die.... "

LMAAOAOAO

it's known in ur fandom now that ur bf is jake sim or wtv

i don't think anyone even calls him jake

out of pure disrespect (😭) they call him by his instagram username

"laylasdad1115 might be dating [name] but i'm legally bound to her so who's really winning"

when jake shows up to your concerts i do think your fans joke w him like

"ouuu jake ur so lucky [name] is here or i'd give you a black eye"

FREE HIMMMM

sunghoon ☆

three words: your personal bodyguard

you're an actress cutie

and it's award show season

at all of your award shows ppl notice there's this tall brooding figure looming over you

ITS SUNGHOON LMAO

he's like

GLARING AT EVERYONE

HE KEEPS SQUARING UP RANDOM PPL 😭😭😭

ik this might be a crazy crossover but the moment he spots ryan gosling he's so ready to throw fists

"okay barbie boy you look like you want a broken nose"

sunghoon is very protective of you

obv bc the film industry is lowk kinda sus and exploitative, he def watches out for u a lot

everyone kinda just assumes that he's ur scary bodyguard

but then paparazzi pictures come out

and hes with you

in every

single

one

"goddamn her bodyguard is passionate about his job 😭😭😭"

in fact when the annoying invasive paparazzi interviewers come to talk to you sunghoon is sending the the NASTIEST GLARES

but like it's valid bc ur literally walking to Walgreens at 9AM on a tuesday why do you need to be photographed

"hi [name] can we ask you a few questions-"

hoon literally answers for u

"No. 😐."

interviewers are so rude, theyre like "well i didn't ask you, did i... [name] can we ask you-"

sunghoon just blinks and says

"No. 😐😐😐😐😐😐😐." again

and then ygs leave

theres clips of you at the airport where sunghoon is scaring all ur fans, which makes way for you to have a cmfortable flight

i think ur fans appreciate him but theyre lowk scared

"oh god this guy does not play abt his job 😭😭"

until one day

you get playfully asked abt ur bodyguard on an ig live

and ur like "wait what that's not my bodyguard, that's my bf"

UR WHAT????

HUH????

😱😱😱

ur fans are in the trenches

"i cant hate him bc he protects [name].... but damn i wish that was me 😞😞😞"

and when they review some of the clips w you and sunghoon they see you smiling and giggling with him

"he makes her happy so ig i'll let him have her </3"

"this is the hardest sacrifice i have to make"

i lowk think sunghoon doesn't care

he FIGHTS EVERYONE

only for u ofc 😊😊😊

maknae ver

[lovelettersfromluna]

Here are a few Love Island!Ellie head canons because god…with how this season is going so far? I need it.

an: This is truly written from a place of fun! This isn’t to be taken seriously AT ALL! This is a funny little Drabble I whipped up in line twenty minutes because I thought it would be funny after my post I made a day or two ago. This isn’t for anyone and is 100% geared to a very specific audience 😭 also if any of you are watching this season of Love Island USA, can we please chat about it in the comments??? What are your thoughts???? Anyways, enjoy!! 🤍

• First of all…queer Love Island??

• I know there’s a queer Ultimatum but…the chaos of Love Island is just something I need to see with a house full of women instead

• Let’s start things off by talking about you

• Your intro is most definitely the one that catches everyone’s attention out of all the other girls. You have a personality that hasn’t exactly been seen in the seasons prior to yours and something about you just feels fresh you know?

• Your intro song is After Hours by Kehlani don’t fight me on this

• I really like how this season started with the girls arriving at night rather than in the middle of the day? Makes an easier transition I feel, so it’s the same for this too I’d say

• You aren’t the first to arrive, so you and the other girls (who you are losing your mind over they’re all so gorgeous and you’re already mentally taking note of who you want to pull for a chat later) when the last few singles arrive.

• They save the best for last of course

• Ellie’s intro 100% paints her out to be the bad girl of the season. Like come on, those tattoos? That fucking face?? The icing on the cake is that her intro song is Bandit by Don Toliver

• When she’s making her rounds of introducing herself to everyone, her eyes on yours immediately.

• Because she knew there would be hot girls in the villa, but Jesus fucking Christ???

• Now, contrary to what you might think, you and Ellie aren’t actually coupled up that night.

• Because you’re here to explore connections! And as much as Ellie literally takes your breath away with that fucking look in her eyes when she first spots you, there are other girls here that you like too.

• And you can also tell Ellie’s type from a mile away, and you’d rather steer clear of that before making any permanent reservations and making yourself look like an idiot for millions of people all over the world to see (we see what Leah is going through with Rob 🫠 let’s avoid that shall we?)

• Ellie though, is relentless.

• Because in her mind, she sees things completely differently.

• Why the hell would she waste her time talking to other random girls whenever you’re right here! Sleeping two or three beds across from her with some idiot instead of her.

• She’s shameless with it honestly.

• She’s always pulling you to chat with her, long fingers lingering on the supple skin of your thigh as you two are sat in the big swing or on the bean bags.

• “why didn’t you wanna couple up with me out first night?” She hums out softly, her head resting on one of the brightly colored pillows as she pulls your legs into her lap (while the girl you’re couple with and the girl she’s coupled with are literally across the villa)

• You giggle softly because she’s wasting no time in trying to get you comfy enough with her to choose her for the next re-coupling and it’s making your head spin.

• In all honesty? You didn’t choose her because you knew the moment you coupled up with Ellie, you’d be spoiled for everyone else.

• And shit hits the fan basically overnight here in the villa, so you’d rather not put all your eggs in one basket on the first fucking night (you refuse to have your family watch you be an idiot at home)

• She groans when you explain that to her, pressing her forehead to your shoulder as her teeth nip at your skin, which makes you nudge her playfully because she is getting way too close and the girl you’re coupled up with is shooting daggers with her eyes at the both of you.

• It also is not helping that Ellie is wearing the cutest black triangle bikini top with a pair of shorts and it’s just…god…her body is fucking insane.

• Later that night it’s the same, you’re upstairs doing your makeup with some of the others girls, having a bit of a recap of everything while spilling a bit of tea and gossip on what you’ve all gathered throughout the day.

• The topic of you and Ellie is top of the list on what the girls ask you about the moment you settle down in your chair to start getting ready for the night, and it makes you smile shyly as you try to find the words to say.

• Especially since the girl thats coupled up with Ellie could walk in at any moment….

• “Yeah uh…I dunno….I really like her but I feel like I need to also explore connections, you know?” You explain, your words a bit muffled as you apply your lip liner onto your lips.

• “With the way she looks at you? Exploring connections won’t be that easy” one of the girls hums out, causing the others and yourself to erupt in a fit of laughter.

• Ellie is quick to snatch you away once again when you and the other girls come downstairs to meet with their couples, barely giving the girl you’re actually coupled up with the time to give you a proper hug and kiss after you’ve all cheered to your second night there.

• I’d like to think that Ellie really values her privacy in the villa, and even though it’s damn near impossible to actually get away from all eyes and ears, she tries her best any way.

• Her hands are interlocked with yours, your heels clanking against the wood of the stairs as she pulls you up to Soul Ties (YUUUPPPP IYKYK)

• She’s staring deeply into your eyes as she brings her cup to her lips, taking a sip of her wine before she settles back against the mountain of pillows behind you, her hands toying with the frilly fabric of your dress.

• “You know I wouldn’t wanna be with anyone else in here but you…right?” She hums out softly, fingers dancing along the exposed skin of your thighs.

• And you can’t help but bite back a laugh, because this seems soooo illogical to you! Like it’s only been two days at this point?

• Ellie groans when you try to explain this to her. “Yeah but it’s different…I’m with you all the time…it isn’t like things on the outside” she pouts out, clearly annoyed with the fact that you’re still keeping walls up with her.

• It makes you sigh softly, because at this point you know you’re only holding yourself back from possibly having the strongest connection in the entire villa, but you want to play the game right! You want to explore the connections that have been placed before you without any regrets.

• But then Ellie’s eyes are going low, and you can see her leaning in closer, her legs interlocking with yours as her hand comes up to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear, and you already know what’s coming.

• Her lips are so soft, and she’s probably the best kisser you’ve ever had. It’s slow and sensual and the champagne in your system already has you buzzing a bit, a soft moan leaving your mouth as your hands go down to tug on her shirt slightly, her tongue working against yours.

• it’s easy in that moment to forget that you and her aren’t mic-ed up and there aren’t about a hundred different hidden cameras pointing at the both of you catching every angle of your face, because it just feels that good.

• But you’re quick to break the kiss once you remember that everything is being recorded, and you’re still in a fucking couple

• And even though you’re honest with the girl you’ve coupled up with about the kiss, and you explain to her that you’re still opened to getting to know her, in true Love Island fashion, your time with Ellie doesn’t stop.

• It goes on that way until the next re-coupling, and obviously your choice is saved for last because the anticipation of it all has been growing and your storyline seems to be the one that the viewers at home have been the most eager to watch.

• Of course, you choose Ellie.

• Not only because you feel the best when you’re with her, but also because leading people on just feels icky, and you don’t want anyone to perceive you as that sort of person.

• Ellie is over the moon of course, her hands wrapping around your waist and pulling you in close the second she’s sat next to you around the fire pit.

• And even though you’re sharing a room with like twelve other people, you get the best sleep you’d gotten in months when you’re sleeping next to Ellie.

• not before a kiss or two is shared before you sleep though 😌

• And that’s how things go for a while! You and Ellie are viewed as the most solid couple for quite some time, the camera always catching you and her lounged out by the pool talking about your families, or her bringing you breakfast in the morning when you’re getting ready with the others girls.

• “Yeah…my dad would love you. I bet you he knew I’d go for you the second he saw you” she hums out as you two are cuddled up on the swing, which makes you giggle softly. (Joel 100% struggles watching his daughter make out with someone else’s daughter every night but he does see how much Ellie likes you)

• Ellie frowns deeply as her eyes scan the fridge and the pantry of the out door kitchen as she’s outside with some of the other girls. “All they have are fuckin’ avocados and eggs?” She huffs out in annoyance before she settles on whipping you up some avocado toast and filling up your water bottle.

• She’s awkward when she brings it up, shy smile on her face as she peeks into the makeup room, eyes scanning the space for you. Her expression instantly brightens when she spots you pulling your hair up into a pony tail, making her way to you to press a kiss to your head before setting your breakfast down in front of you.

• “Didn’t know if you were hungry…so…yeah…” she mumbles out softly, which makes you giggle softly before thanking her and pressing a kiss to her cheek.

• The viewers at home and your fellow islanders quickly mark you and Ellie as the “married couple” of the villa.

• HOWEVER

• What’s Love Island without a couple of bombshells?

• You can’t stay too comfortable in a place like Love Island, especially when you hear that familiar ping coming from someone’s phone.

• It’s yours, and it happens when you’re out by the pool with a few other girls, trying your best to give advice with the relationship issues that they’re having.

• “I’ve been keeping an eye on you from the outside…but now it’s my turn. Meet me out by the beach for a surprise. And wear something pretty…..

Xoxo Abby”

• The girls you’re sitting with erupt in squeals and giggles, grabbing you and shaking you as you sit there in awe, your mouth hanging open as you stare down at the phone, reading the message over and over again.

• Ellie is on the other side of the villa looking as if she’s ready to kill someone, because who the fuck is Abby?

• You obviously have no choice but to go, and while you’re upstairs getting dressed with the other girls you feel a bit excited? Nervous? It was your first time outside of the villa in almost two weeks and it was for a date with a fucking bombshell??

• Once you’re finished getting dressed, you make your way downstairs to talk to Ellie, because you know you have to.

• Wrapping your arms around her waist and pulling her close makes you feel bad, because it’s easy to forget that the producers are obviously trying to test your relationship with Ellie and see which one of you will break first.

• But that doesn’t make it feel any better.

• “I’ll miss you…I’m sure it’ll be fine…she probably just wants to shake things up here” you assure Ellie with a soft kiss to her cheek.

• She frowns softly as she nods, pulling you close to her chest before she sighs, her feelings clearly in shambles as she stares into your eyes.

• “Yeah…have fun…” she mumbles out softly before she presses a soft kiss to your lips, letting it linger for a moment before letting you go.

• You desperately hope that this girl is a raging asshole who you’ll hate the moment you see her.

• But would she even be a bombshell if she wasn’t perfect?

• Abby looks like a fucking goddess sitting on the beach waiting for you. You aren’t sure you’ve ever seen muscles like hers before, and something in you wants her to show you if they’re just for show or not.

• WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, YOU ARE SPOKEN FOR

• Abby hits all the marks. She makes you feel comfortable, she makes you laugh, and she manages to make your cheeks and ears warm up every time she sends another flirty compliment your way.

• “So…I see you’ve been coupled up with Ellie…how’s that been?” She asks you gently, the gentle ocean breeze blowing through her pretty blond hair, making your head fucking spin.

• You’re honest with her. You tell her that you and Ellie have been very solid since the moment you’ve coupled up. You explain to her that you didn’t choose her in the beginning for the sole purpose of knowing just how attached you’d get to her when you were actually coupled up with her.

• “Yeah um…I think I’m falling for her actually” you mumble out shyly as you stare down into the bottom of your glass, watching as the bubbles of the champagne rise to the surface only to fizzle out shortly after.

• Abby hums softly as she nods at your words, taking a sip of her drink before she speaks. “She seems cool…but it’s early days, yeah? Still exploring a bit?” Abby asks hopefully.

•When you look up and lock eyes with her, you feel the air leave your lungs, because god she is so fucking pretty. Her pink lips are tugged between her teeth, and it makes you have to swallow back a whimper.

• And like an idiot that is charmed by the beauty of this actual goddess, you fucking nod.

• She chuckles softly before she nods with you. “That’s good to hear baby…” she hums softly before she leans in and kisses you.

• Would she be a bombshell if she didn’t kiss you on the first date???

• Back at the villa, Ellie is losing her shit.

• Because everyone is asking her if she thinks you’ll fold, and if she thinks this is a test to your relationship that you’ll pass, and it’s making her want to fucking throw up.

• And now she’s starting to feel the heat of this fucking show, because none of this would’ve been a problem if she had met you on the outside.

• She’s in the middle of pacing when you and Abby come back to the villa later that night, the sound of the group of friends you’d made squealing once they spot you and Abby coming in through the balcony.

• Hand in hand.

• That’s right, Abby brings you back into the villa, with her fingers interlocked with yours.

• Ellie wants to throw herself into the fucking ocean at that point.

• Her confessionals are filled with her groaning and bitching about how she could never compete with Abby, and how her muscles are probably fake anyways, anything to discredit the girls goddess fucking physique.

• you obviously pull Ellie for a chat once the others pull Abby to get to know her, because even though she chose you for the date, the others want to get to know her the moment they see her.

• But even as you talk to Ellie and try to console her feelings, it really all boils down to you and which one you feel the most connected to.

• So? Who would you choose?

[pablitogavii]

Could you write one Gavi fic where he's talking to her through social media, just as friends, but he starts to develop feelings for her, his agent finds out and gets really worried about his career if he gets in a relationship, so he "makes" Gavi's mind to get away from the reader (she has abandonment and rejection issues) without a proper explanation, he excuses saying that the reader wants his money and whatever. But some months after the reader moves to Seville and gets really close to Aurora (she knows Aurora is Gavi's sister but Aurora doesn't know her), and one day Aurora takes her to a barca match, and Gavi tries to make up to her?

I guess I'm back y'all lol! I like this idea very much!

y.n.bebe

New York, USA

I think I like this little life...happy birthday to me hehe

liked by pablogavi and others

coments:

brimccormix: happy birthday bebsss

y.n.bebe: thank you gorgeous girl💗

stacymiggs: princesaaa

y.n.bebe: nooo youuu!🥺

brianfereda: happy birthday!

y.n.bebe: thank youu!

pablogavi: pretty girl

y.n.bebe: 😳

When you saw that THE Pablo Gavi called you "pretty girl" for the whole world to see, you couldn't stop staring at that comment for the next two weeks.

Your friends went crazy calling you lucky, and pushing you to send him a message but you were obviously too shy to do that. Besides, who knows how many "pretty girls" he's talking to on the internet.

Meanwhile, Gavi spent all of his free time and training brakes going through your posts and smiling like an idiot at your cute face on his phone screen.

When you first popped up on his screen, he just had to reach out and pray you don't find it cocky on his part. You were just so pretty...

"Sempre con esa nena, cabrón! Dale! Enviale un mensaje!"Pedri hit Gavi's head making him groan and finally get the balls to slide into your DMs. He said a simple "hey pretty girl" before leaving his phone in the locker room to join his teammates.

pablogavi: hey, pretty girl

y.n.bebe: hey😊

And ever since that night, you've started texting, face timing and chatting non stop. You haven't told anyone about it, not wanting to make a drama over something so new and also not wanting him to think fame is what you're after because it's not.

"I'm so tired, nena" Pablo groaned while laying in bed and face timing you as you did your math homework diligently.

"Then go to bed, tonto!" you giggle and he just stayed quiet staring at your face until you looked back at the phone screen and blushed at how intense his gaze was.

"Me gusta cuando hablas Español conmigo, bebé" he smirked making you blush bright red and roll your eyes pretending to be annoyed.

"When do you have training in the morning?" you ask while he yawns.

"Five am" he answers and you open your eyes wide really looking up to him being so diligent about his career.

"Then you really should get some sleep, and we can talk tomorrow again hm?" you ask not really wanting to end the call but also wanting him to get his rest. He always loved how selfless you are and how much you took care of him. It really warmed his hearts.

"I hate it that you're so far! I swear I'm gonna travel to New York and kidnap you and bring you back to Barcelona with me ... and never let you go ..." he said sleepily and you felt your heart jumping thinking about the possibility.

"Hm and if you get bored of me?" you smile and he shakes his head still staring intently at you in the eyes.

"Impossible, my pretty girl..." he said and you smile remembering the very first time you read those words on the screen.

Pablo Gavi was a man of his words, and since that conversation he promised himself that he will surprise you with a travel to Barcelona really soon. He planed everything and mailed you a ticket during his two week vacation.

He still remembers the nerves while standing at the airport waiting at your gate to see your pretty face finally in person. The moment you walked out he recognized you...he couldn't forget the pretty face he stared at through the screen for past four months just now it was real.

"Hi, pretty girl..." he said again and you jumped into his eyes smiling wide and holding onto him tightly. You couldn't believe this was real yet. It just felt like a dream.

"Ready to explore Barcelona conmigo huh?" he said and you smiled and taking his hand nodding and walking to him car with your baggage.

Days passed so quickly and everything was PERFECT. Ice cream dates, walks on the beach, coffee shops and all the infamous tourist attractions...you were falling in love with this city...and you were also falling in love with this boy.

Day before your flight home, Pablo took you to a football game for the Juvenil and you were excited to watch it with him knowing it was his passion.

"So what do you think?" you show him your Barça jersey and he so badly wanted to ask you to wear one with his name on the back but how could he? He still didn't have the balls to ask you to be his official girlfriend!

y.n.bebe

Barcelona, Spain

it's so pretty here 🥺😊

liked by pablogavi, pedri, joaofelix and others

comments:

pablogavi: pretty girl in barcelona 😍

y.n.bebe: hehe😊

brimccormix: girl!!?? spill the TEA!

y.n.bebe: what tea???

lucasmith: looks like someone stole my crush!

y.n.bebe: 😂

"Next time I come, I want to watch you play..." you said while the two of you sat sadly on the airport waiting for your boarding.

"Y/n..." he said looking down as you looked up

"Hm?" you say feeling your heart beating fast from how close your lips were to each other.

"Don't go..."he said and you swore your heart broke when you saw his pleading eyes. Neither of you wanted this distance...it was so unfair but there was nothing you could do about it now.

"Pablo we're friends now and you can visit me in New York..." you said but before you could finish his lips were smashed onto yours to shut you up and you closed your eyes enjoying the sweet sensation of his cold minty lips on your.

"Do you want to be my girlfriend, pretty girl?" he said and in that moment all your past insecurities and abandonment issues returned yelling inside your head. What if you get attached and he disappears like other did? You were so scared but looking at him it was impossible not to agree!

"Yes! I do Pablo..." you say and he kissed you again until they called for your flight to start boarding in five minutes.

[headspace-hotel]

so, in regards to your recent posts on kane-tucky and usa food industry, do you / how do you keep active hope and not slip in into apathy and "looking out for my own" get out of dodge mentality? im having a hard time articulating this, but what makes you not curl up into a shaking mess in anger resentment and a deep desire for change that likely, if ever, wont happen in our lifetime.... any advice is appreciated

The short answer is "getting out and doing stuff in the real world, educating, volunteering, whatever is within your ability"

I will add that "looking out for your own" is not...bad. Like I don't know precisely what you mean by this phrase, but it's actually very important to come to terms with the fact that your impact is strongest where your feet touch the ground, and you have a responsibility and relationship to the people immediately around you, the place immediately around you.

This has not been a popular opinion of mine in the past, but...you can't and shouldn't care about literally everything on the planet. There is of course huge global disparity with access to resources and aid networks, and the largest communities we belong to are: all of Earth and the whole human species.

However: your level of agency is so low with issues that are happening on the other side of the world from you, compared with issues that are happening in your home town. And we're seeing people just get completely burned out from compassion fatigue without ever doing shit because the global responsibility is pushed on us and the local responsibility is not.

I hated my hometown for a decade. In high school I wanted so badly to leave. It's one of those desolate-feeling towns that's developed enough for a shopping center and big chain retailers but not enough to have a sense of community or a single bookstore. I've never been able to place myself precisely along the urban-rural spectrum because I feel isolated from even isolation: there's nowhere to go that doesn't feel razed by human development, where you can't hear the noise of traffic on roads, but it's all cattle pastures, sprawling storage facilities, auto parts stores, big, empty churches. One wrong turn will put you in a dark valley where there are rotting, derelict trailers on cinder blocks hidden back in the woods, and this place has that same feeling of "nowhere to go."

And I felt paralyzed by everything bad happening around the world and the fact that I was just one person, and I had gotten the horrible impression that the only thing I could do about anything was vote and donate money to links I saw online. The worst lie the internet taught me was that in saving the world, nothing matters except Power, Money, and an unclear third category that involves throwing bricks at cops.

But I touched grass. And the weeds taught me something. Do you see the parking lots, the harsh pavement and gravel and brick? I saw. I was surrounded by this landscape of brutal, totalitarian surfaces, impermeable concrete locking the soil away. But in the cracks in the surfaces, dandelions, purslane, and spurge were thriving.

I observed that the spurge stretched out like a shaggy rug and padded the concrete surfaces. The old leaves of the dandelions, as they withered, caught bits of dirt as it flowed into drainage ditches after rains. Soil was forming, and the sprawling structure of the early weeds seemed specially adapted for the task. In older cracks, more plants moved in; I found a wild ruellia blooming in a paved road, an evening primrose. And in some places, seedling trees.

Have you seen what happens when a sidewalk is left unmaintained for years? It disappears. The roots slowly buckle and break it into pieces, and it vanishes beneath lush leaves and moss. A tree growing in a crack in concrete will slowly pry the slab apart.

This is how my IRL rewilding project got started—just pulling plants from the pavement cracks, raising them in pots. I was surprised and awed at the resilience of the plants. I found little trees in concrete with at least two years' growth on them, that had survived being mowed down multiple times.

The weeds changed my viewpoint on the world forever. Up until that point, certain facts about power and politics and money had seemed like law, but I'd suddenly seen that there was a deeper magic.

The dandelions' survival made it possible for others to survive, which in turn made even more life flourish. They could not demolish and remove the concrete and pavement, but they could overcome it by refusing to be destroyed, because the power to take care of each other is in their nature.

People have made fun of me for telling others to go plant a tree. I think culturally we have this ingrained dismissal of things like that due to the twee, cutesy associations of "tree hugging" environmentalists, except in this instance it's because planting a tree is pointless in light of something something systemic issues, not because climate change isn't real, or...whatever reason people have for finding environmentalists cringe. (That is kinda sus now that I think about it.)

And I'm not saying planting a tree will fix climate change. I'm saying that something in my brain had broken and planting a tree unbroke it.

Go outside. Touch grass. Do the work in the immediate community you belong to, in the place you are in, where you have the best and most impact. We have the power to take care of each other, and that power grows stronger the more we are cared for.

The internet is a good place to share information, but that's fucking it. The real stuff, the stuff you can touch with your hands, the stuff that will heal despair, is out there in the real, touchable world. You need to see and feel what you are doing. Don't just give help—accept it. The power to take care of each other is in our nature, and by nature we can give more when we thrive as a result of others' care.

I hope this helps.

[ryeriy]

party in the usa || charles leclerc

-> summary: after charles gets p2 in the Las Vegas GP (obvi 2023), they go and celebrate

-> pairings: charles leclerc x fem!reader

-> a/n: for those who don't know, chéri in French means darling, and ma beauté means my beauty

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As the end of the race was nearing, y/n was in the ferrari garage watching her boyfriend, Charles Leclerc, about to finish. He was just behind Max Verstappen in second place with Sergio Pérez trailing behind him. She was crossing her fingers hoping he'd still land second place. Her eyes were glued to the multiple screens that displayed the race on television. Max crossed the finish line, then the sound of loud cheers filled the room. Charles had finished second followed by Sergio.

She could hear the screams and cheers over the muffy headphones I was wearing. Her face lit up with a large smile and clapped her hands together seeing him finish. Immediately she rushed over to greet Charles at the podium before all of the front-row spots were taken.

Y/n got pushed and shoved through the crowd of people but still made it against the barricade standing in the front row. Few minutes passed by and Charles's car pulled up in the 2nd place spot.

He got out of the car and stood on top of it looking at the people, hearing them cheer for him. Charles got out of the car and took off his helmet and balaclava searching the crowd for one person, y/n. Everyone could tell he spotted her once his eyes connected with hers, his mouth formed a wide smile.

Charles rushed over to y/n and immediately put his arms around her as she did the same. He kissed her on her forehead and then on her lips. They share a soft kiss before they pull apart from each other.

"I'm so proud of you chéri," she whispered in his ear and kissed his cheek.

"Thank you, ma beauté," he whispered back to her, "after this is all over, we're going to find somewhere and we're going to celebrate this moment!"

Charles gave her another soft kiss before heading off to the podium. He mouthed to her 'I'll see you soon' as he walked away from y/n and blew her a soft kiss.

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After the big celebration, y/n was waiting for Charles in his driver's room. When we walked in he was covered in champagne and confetti. She walked up to him and gave him another big hug.

"I love you so much," she wrapped her arms around his neck.

"I love you too, ma beauté," he wrapped an arm around her waist and held his trophy in the other.

They shared a wholesome moment before Charles pulled away. "We're going to drink and celebrate this," Charles spoke to her.

He checked the time on his watch. It was either very late at night or early in the morning. "What time is it?" She asked him.

"1 am," he replied, "perfect timing for drinks." Both y/n and Charles smiled at each other.

"I'm going to go get changed. You stay here and when I come back we're going to party because you know what those Americans say, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas." He chucked softly and she let out a giggle.

"What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas." She repeated and smiled at him.

Charles walked off to get changed. Y/n sat in the driver's room looking around and scrolling through her Instagram feed waiting for Charles to come back. He came back after fifteen minutes and she looked up from her phone and saw him smiling at her. "Ready, ma beauté"

She nodded got up from her chair and walked beside him. Charles wrapped his arm around her waist and held y/n close to him as they walked to his car. They got to the car and he drove off to the nearest bar that was open. Which was nearby, considering it was Las Vegas.

Once he pulled into the parking they both got out and walked inside. To Charles's surprise, he saw a fellow teammate and some other drivers. Carlos, George, Lewis, and a few other drivers.

"Ah! Look who showed up to the party, mate!" George said.

Charles smiled and let out a soft chuckle hearing the Brits comment. Still walking hand in hand with y/n.

"There's no better place to celebrate one of the last races of the season than in Las Vegas!" The Brit exclaimed wrapping his arm around his girl. The group laughed at his comment.

"He's right, chéri," y/n spoke to Charles softly, "let's celebrate tonight."

Charles and Y/n both smiled at each other as everyone was having fun drinking, dancing, and some even flirting.

The time was about 3 almost 4 am and they were all still partying. Everyone had at least two drinks in them. Charles was holding y/n from behind with his hands around her waist. His head was resting against her shoulder.

Everyone heard the guitar riff and everyone was going nuts at 4 am. It didn't matter if they were British, Spanish, or even Monegasque. This song was something they all could relate to right now. Party in The USA.

Y/n turned around to face Charles and looked up at him. She heard the music and people singing in the background but she blurred it out looking into his eyes. Charles looked down at her smirking slightly and leaned down to kiss her.

They shared a long, soft, and passionate kiss. In the background, they could hear everyone singing until they kissed, and they all started cheering looking at Charles and y/n kiss.

All you could hear was "yeah, It's a party in the usa!" And it truly was a party in the usa.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for not picking my brothers side against our mother?

Some background information:

My brother (let’s call him Collin) is trans (20m) We come from a relatively Catholic (we aren’t religious but the influence is deffo there) conservative country and have been living in the USA for most of our lives. My mother definitely can’t be considered LGBTQ allies, although they are much more understanding than some of the people here, especially in the south— which is impressive considering where we come from. She is TERRIBLE with using the correct pronouns for Collin, so much so that he doesn’t contact her much anymore. I’ve never tried to get him to do otherwise— it’s his choice, and I still respect him. I can understand it. Shortly before he moved away, he’d rant to me about her. I was pretty good with listening and giving advice/support for the first few years, but towards the end of high school (when the school work stress was piling up, along with other external family issues), it started to weigh on me. I wanted (and still want) to be someone Collin can confide in, but I still love my mother. She has made improvements with her close-mindedness, even if they aren’t huge steps. Whenever I try to give reasons for her behavior or just try to get them to get along, he accused me of siding with her. A lot of his perceptions of her seem warped these days, too. Like a while ago he was talking with me via text about one of his friends/coworkers (who is gay). He told me not to mention to our mother that this friend is gay— this friend, by the way, is fully out and married. A few months later I slipped and mentioned it to my mother (she had suggested that this friend probably likes this woman we know and I said “no mom he’s gay!”). And she didn’t really react? She just bluescreened for a moment (the trademark “confused boomer pause”) and went on with the conversation. I’ve had a lot of talks with her about LGBTQ issues, and I’ve actually managed to get her to consider the fact that homophobia may stem from religion (she is a very science>religion kind of person). She wholeheartedly believes that LGBTQ issues should not be politicized. (Not an ally, not an enemy.)

anyway, all this to say that Collin has a very 2D impression of her. Last year I went to pick him up at the airport, and mom called while we were in the car to remind us to stop by [store] and pick something up. When the call ended, Collin snorted and said something like “the bitch couldn’t have just sent a text?”

I told him, a bit snappishly, to shut up. He looked surprised and I felt bad, but I told him that I didn’t want any in part in the conflict and that he should stop bringing me into it.

I was also kind of pissed at him at the time for posting the story of an argument between our mother and I (my period was a month late, she thought I was pregnant*— not even an argument she was just annoyingly suspicious for a week or two) online. He changed names for privacy, but there were people who knew who he was so it wasn’t that hard to figure out who his “sister” was. Since I never gave him permission to share it with anyone, I asked him to take it down. He did eventually. but I guess that could be for another AITA post.

*I have never dated or shown interest in dating anyone.

Overall, I feel that he has the right to argue/have a bad relationship with our mother. But I also have a right to let it affect me without being labeled as a bad or traitorous sister.

What are these acronyms?

[itwasnotahamster]

- Letters from the Dead - (Part 1)

Langhus, 21 March 1990 | © The Old Nick | Source: Letters from the Dead

The brackets will indicate possible context or corrections (sometimes commentary). - 💜

"Only Black is true, only Death is real!!! Gore is trend! Hello Nick! It's Dead here again. Hey- you're really good at drawing, I use to do some drawing stuff myself. I enclose something of it in this letter. Maybe we together can work something out, maybe even in Metal Destruction…? You asked of releases, if we need some artworks for that... Well we rarely give out much and as for the next release we'll probably have some photograph instead. But if we would need something that you might feel for help us out with I'll tell of it. So what we can use drawings for is for stuff like flyers, ads and letter­pages. So far I have done the drawings for that... well the main reason of that is that we have a (old!) xerox mashine and I'm the one in the band that 'can' draw. It's not so often that I have time left to spend hours or sometimes days by making drawings and too many don't like that kind of drawings I make (but fuck them wimps!). But onto the Deathlike Silence Prod. now. The 2nd edition of the 1st release on DSP. - Merciless is out now, the one you get here as promo. We're looking for distributors everywhere and everybody who can sell 10 (or more) records will receive a copy for free + that 10 records will be cheaper. As soon as this the 2nd ed. has paid, Imperator will go in studio.

Imperators LP will contain 8-10 songs (depending on how many "old demo songs" they'll use - but it'll be new trax as well) and it'll be entitled "The time before time". After that it'll probably be the colombian Masacre as the next release. Masacre will be very soon release a 7- inches with 3 demo songs on the greek label Scene of Love. That's a new started label and I hope they can give out enough copies, not limited ed. of it. Of course we give the bands free hands and they're not bounded to use at all, but I'm thinking of the fact that Masacre is selling so much... Only in Colombia their 1st, and only demo sold 1000 copies ( which is more than our Deathcrush demo has sold worldwide...). We can only press up 1000 copies each time of every edition of DSP, and the first ed. Of Merciless sold out as fast as we could pack and post it. This second ed. we recieved [received] for not a so long time ago will depend on how much stamps we can get, of how soon it'll sell out. In Norway it's very hard to sell records - it's far away from USA or South America and I don't think any real scene exists here. Do you think you can take care of some distribution/selling of DSP releases, or you maybe know someone else who's interested? [True dedication]. I think Merciless will be very easy to sell in Italy. Many zines exists there and we recieve many letters from there also. We also sell other records (given out by various underground labels) but it can be so different of what records of others releases we sell 'cos we usually don't get so many of them, so they sell out so soon. But anyway - I can tell of what we presently have got (except of Merciless)

LP's (£10000 + postage)

Agressor/Loudblast (split LP, France) "Licenced to thrash"

Arakain (Czechoslovakia, speed metal - I do not like this one!) "Thrash the Trash"

Nomed (France)... very boring mainstream... "Like..."

Abomination (USA)

Disharmonic Orchestra/Pungent Stench (Austria, split LP)

Malicious Intent (Canada) "Shades of black"

7's (£5000 + postage)

Asphyx (Holland, Limited ed. 1000 copies) "Mutilating Process"

Atrocity (Germany) "Blue Blood"

Pungent Stench (Austria) "Extreme Deformity"

Disharmonic Orchestra (Austria) "Successive Substitution"

Do not print this in Metal Destruction, I will explain it to you, ok. If you want any of these records above, please tell of how many and of what records so I can see how much the postage will be. Now over to Mayhem. For the first time we've been in studio and recorded 2 songs (first time with this line-up I mean). It'll be released on Chicken Brain Records, a swedish kind of underground label some time in this autumn. It'll be 8-19 other (swedish) bands on it, among them Merciless. I don't know the title of this compilation LP/CD. Our songs that'll be on it are "The Freezing Moon" and "Carnage". The Freezing Moon is a new one and pretty different from our other songs, as example it's a long guitar solo on a very long Doom part on it and that's because we wanted to have a solo at only one track (of our new ones). Carnage was made in '85 (!) so it's really old. It was on the 1st demo/reh - Pure Fucking Armageddon (released in only 100 copies and not available) but with the thought of the very bad sound on it we feeled for playing it again and try to keep the original sound of it. I'll tape these trax for ya but I'm not so sure of if it'll be enclosed in this letter or if I'll put this letter togeather [together] with the Merciless record but anyhow you'll get this tape. You can record it to others if you like to but please don't trade it, and I'll record some else bands too for filling out the rest of the tape. Have you heard of the INCREADIBLY KILLING GREAT band Tormentor from Hungary? Their demo is about 4 years old but it sounds like the Death/Black metal bands of today. We try to find out if they want a deal on DSP. But unfortunately they hardly speak any English at all so it seems like neither them or us understood it... We think of releasing a full-lengtht LP of Mayhem but it seems to take a fucking longtime before we got material enough for it... The only we know about it is a title that MUST be used - De Mysteriis Dom. Sathanas. That was about all future plans I can tell of I guess. I look forward to see Metal Destruction. There's a possibility that we can sell it also, but I can't say if for sure.

About Satanism... well, I'd like to join a very underground and Illful, Evil and Grim Coven. I think you know of the hassles by finding any or getting any contact with a such. I do NOT like what's created by Anton LaVey like 1st Church of Satan. I came in contact with a dude who's a degree in the American Satans Sons - Church of Satan and he explained of it has nothing to do with LaVey at all. I asked of if it does exist in Europe also and of what it is exactly... well he didn't reply. But I heard later thet Satans Sons shall exist in Europe but I still don't know in which countries it is. In Norway it's not much of this, but in Sweden (-I am swedish) that 1st Church shall be in Stockholm (the capital there) and it shall be about 5 churches built by satanic sects, used only by satanists, mostly it's under christian churches - like the one under "Mariakyrkan" (Mary's Church) in the South of Stockholm where the 1st Church of Satan use to hang around at. I know it exists really Dark covens that use human sacrifices and are eating human flesh - them are those I try to find. I do not know much about magic and I can't say I'm a practicer of it 'cos I havn't succed. What is depending on what one can do in magic (all of its kind) is of what books one can get...those are hidden in libraries and so hard to even see... 'cos of course they don't let anyone even see them. You must be a scientist or something like if you would see the microfilms of that kind of books. A great library of many various kinds of magical arts and the Blackest of Black Arts too is the British Museum in London. But it's so damned difficult to get ones claws on those books. One book I really wanna get is De Mysteriis Dom. Sathanas, unfortunately it exists only in one copy... are you practicing any magic and do you know of any covens? Have you seen/heard/felt anything supernatural? I have but I didn't understand much of what that was and I think the most of it was only so-called echoes from the past or the future [I am curious about this]. Do you know anything about astral planes and out-of body travelling? You seem to be into it and I agree about stupid trendmakers so it is something that I feel I can tell you of. I had a weird experience once, I had inner bleedings and it couldn't be found at x-rays so when it continued to bleed and bleed I finally fainted and dropped down the floor 'cos I run out of blood. The heart had no blood left to beat and my veins/artairs were almost emptied of blood. "Tecnically" I was dead. At that moment I fell down (into a door I heard of later) I saw a strange blue colour everywhere, it was transparent so I could, for a short moment, see everything in blue, till something shining white and "hot" surrounded me. What happened later is out of interest, I woke up when some ambulance men came and drove me to a hospital and there the bastards of surgery started to cut me up at the wrong side so I got a huge scar for that. However, it's someone I know who's had many out of body experiences and is using magic of various kinds and knows much more than I do of "supernatural" experiences, that I asked of this 'cos it was so strange about those colours. She told me that the first 'plane' in the astral world has the colour blue. The "earthly" plane has the colour black, then comes a grey one that is very near the earthly one and is easy to come to. The next one further is blue, and then it gets brighter and brighter till it "stops" at a white-shining one that can't be entered by mortals. IF any mortal succee enter it, that one is no longer a mortal and can not come back to the other planes nor back to this earth. After the white plane or level or whatever it goes further with other colour I don't know of, there only spirits and great sorcerers can travel. I was told that the white plane I then entered, without I knew it, was the dead world and I died. But I also got thrown back after a short time which very rarely happens. So of what I've heard of I have some kind of purpose to achieve here."

Reached the limit for this one, I will add on!

[exxhaustedhope]

Didn’t you put that you didn’t like politics on your old blog? Did that change?

It is true that I wrote on the pinned post on my old blog that I don’t do politics. I still won’t engage in Democrat vs Republican/Liberal vs Conservative/etc. discourse, but I’ve found that it is impossible to have a discussion about people who are hurting without acknowledging them and those who hurt them, many of whom are politicians.

According to Matthew 7:24-27, Jesus states that we need to follow Him and use His words as a foundation. Like the foolish man who build his house on the sand, from what I’ve seen throughout my life, people who are strongly invested in politics end up basing their identities on a political party. It is important to base our identities on Jesus’s teachings and I don’t want to be influenced into identifying as something other than a Christian first and foremost. (Also every political party is awful.)

If you want my opinion on this year’s election in USA, I can’t give you one. If you want my opinion on the government of any country, including my own, I can only say that every single one is corrupt and full of evil people.

If you want me to discuss American politicians, this is what I have to say. (Or maybe you don’t want my thoughts and I’m just going on a long tangent. Either way, here they are.)

It is interesting that Trump sexually assaulted over a dozen women and bragged about it, violently raped women, was convicted of one of the rapes in court, and instead of going to prison or suffering any consequence whatsoever, he’s running for president.

Interesting that Biden sexually harassed young girls and violently raped a woman, and even though she spoke out about it multiple times, he never suffered any consequences and has been president for years.

Interesting that Ronald Reagan, hailed by conservatives and Christians as the family man who saved the country from despair, violently raped a woman and no one ever cares to mention it.

Interesting that William Clinton violently raped at least five women and his wife, Hillary Clinton, helped helped him get away with it, going so far as to thank one of his victims for saving him from embarrassment.

Interesting that several other presidents going all the way back to Thomas Jefferson of the founding fathers violently raped women (and likely children) and never faced any consequences while they were alive.

Interesting how, since I was a child, Christians have told me to my face, unprompted, that every woman who accused a Republican politician of sexual harassment and/or assault was a liar that liberals hired to make them look bad. Interesting how the same people are quick to condemn Democrat politicians if they hear about them committing sexual crimes. Interesting how there is reason to believe Trump was chums with Epstein and visited his island of sexually enslaved children and not one Christian is willing to consider it a possibility, let alone care about his victims.

It is all very interesting.

[thevindicativevordan]

Hi, hope you are doing well. I am the anon who asked this question about the Maker (post/730144525324009472/im-conflicted-about-the-maker-as-a-character-on) and I wanted to know what are your thoughts on the Marvel Universe as remade by the Maker? I understand that most of it is a comentary/analogy to real life events, with technocompanies rulling the USA, the USA doing experiments in the Pacific with radiation, basically everything Midas stand for, etc. But, looking from the Maker point of view, how do you think it fits with what he wants? And what do you think he wants, in the end?

Perfect time to ask me this because after I got temp banned from the CBR Forums recently, I decided to read all of Ultimate Fantastic Four. I need to amend my earlier post regarding the Maker - he does actually feel like a believable evolution on the flaws that were always present in 1610 Reed:

Even before he became a homicidal maniac, 1610 Reed Richards was a dick. There was a mean streak and petulancy that I had forgotten about. A willingness to walk riiiiiiiight up to the moral divide that was present from the very beginning. Millar, Bendis, and Ellis all established Maker as having a darker side. Using torture against Doom was on the table, he flat out rejected the possibility that he had made a mistake, he did messed up science experiments for fun. The pieces were all there! Alas the execution sucked. I still stand by what I posted here regarding the Ultimate Doom trilogy:

Bendis' depiction of his "fall" was awful and incoherent. Under Bendis, Reed instantly becomes the type of guy willing to commit cold blooded murder against both his family and other heroes for no real reason. If Reed is pissed about the military controlling everything, why is he trying to kill Peter Parker? Shouldn't he be trying to kill Nick Fury and destroy SHIELD? That at least would make sense, Ultimate Nick Fury is a fucking awful person. Instead he murders his entire family instead of just his asshole dad because... I don't know, he's just evil now. A writer can't write someone smarter than them, and Bendis is just not the guy for tackling the world's smartest heroic mind descending into villainy. Reed's plan is dumb and paper thin.

Coldly murdering his mother and sister Enid - his sister whom he went through all the effort to save from Psycho-Man in one of the final UFF arcs! - reads even more egregiously out of character. Why did he kill those two and not just his asshole dad? No clue, Bendis never bothered to give us an explanation. Trying to kill all of SHIELD after the UFF fall apart makes perfect sense to me after reading Ultimate Power for the first time. 1610 Nick Fury is evil. Fury is a monster whom even Dick Cheney would have to kneel in awe before. Asshole deserves to die and SHIELD should be destroyed. Sending suicide bombers to murder Spider-Man and his other heroic peers on the other hand?

No Bendis, you need to actually explain WTF Maker was thinking there because that makes no sense AND it doesn't line up with his previous characterization! Maker didn't want to kill the zombie F4 despite them 1. Being undead and 2. Planning to infect and eat everyone on his Earth. He wasn't willing to kill Doom even after Ultimatum. Then suddenly off-screen he becomes the kind of guy who murders his sister who only ever looked up to and worshiped him, and his mother who tried to support him and showed him nothing but love? Terrible writing, and it makes me so mad because everything else is brilliant setup unintentional though it was.

Pages like this one floored me. You read this knowing they were not setting up Maker yet somehow it perfectly does just that. The other Baxter Building kids breaking off to form their own perfect society in a secret city tucked away from private eyes? Being sick of how they were forced to serve the military? Commitment to the idea to the point they're willing to kill the F4 and any military personnel sent after them? In-universe this, and other events like Psycho-Man's utopia, likely served as the foundation for where Maker came up with the idea of the City. Everything fits! It's a natural result of Maker having an enormous ego, having seen others make their own attempts at building utopias, tossing morality aside, and going "they failed but I'll succeed. I don't make mistakes like they do."

Begs the question OP asked: why did he make Earth 6160 into the way it is? Fantastic question especially considering that both as a hero, and during his initial fall to villainy, Maker hated the "corruption" of science into a force that only served the elite.

Yet the world of 6160 is exactly what he claimed to hate! America collapsed into a realm ruled by technocrats who abused science to enrich themselves. Freaking Midas is in the White House using cosmic energy as a power source for his war suit and the electric grid. What gives? Is it just Maker being a hypocrite? Maker offers two justifications in Ultimate Invasion. First, that he ran civilization models in the City and humanity cannot accept perfect peace. If you've ever watched the Matrix you know how that argument goes. We aren't built to live in paradise. Our human natures are too fallible, when offered the option we reject it. Given Maker's god complex it does suit him that he invokes the Biblical explanation for why evil exists - human nature demands it.

However, there's a second justification. Maker treats Earth 6160 as his playground, his laboratory. He's the Emperor of the World, and with that comes those who would covet his throne. Keeping the world full of conflicts and evils keeps people divided. They're so busy fighting each other that they can't unite against him. Hitler, Genghis Khan, Bismarck, Stalin, Mao, history is full of dictators who employed similar logic to maintain power. Yes it makes him a hypocrite but Maker is beyond caring about the "small minded" dreams he had back before he jumped off the slippery slope.

Regarding what he wants power for, there are two likely motives to parallel his two justifications. I believe he is trying to create the "Ultimate Earth", an Earth that lives up to what he wanted 1610 to be. Time travelling to the future indicates that he is at the very least invested in this Earth's well-being. He saved it from Galactus, he kept the Council from spiraling out of control as they now threaten to do in his absence. He supported scientific and technological advancements that did improve life for everyone. Howard mentions curing cancer. Maker's Ultimate Earth appears to be a technologically advanced society where the peoples lives are improved at the cost of their freedom. In a single word: Latveria. Fitting for a Reed who has gone the way of Doom.

Unsurprisingly Maker's other motive is much more selfish and narcissistic: he wants to screw with Earth 6160 Reed.

Mentioned this before somewhat in my previous post:

My theory is that it's because Maker is trying to take a Reed who is similar to 616 Reed and transform the guy into a monster like him. It's his middle finger to 616 Reed. Maker wants to prove that 616 Reed isn't better than him, if Mr. Fantastic had lost his family and been put through hell like Maker had, he would break too. That 6160 Reed is, so far, not a monster like Maker pisses Maker off. It's not logical to keep 6160 Reed around, and doing so leads to Maker's fall.

Additionally there's some clear self-hatred going on.

Note the callback to UFF with the "I don't make mistakes" line. People talk about Sue rejecting the marriage offer as being the big divergence point between the 616 and 1610 Reeds. I think it goes back even further. 616 Reed was the one who messed up his friends lives. 1610 Reed however was blameless. 1610 Doom, not Reed, was the one who caused the accident that gave the Four their powers. In Ultimate Power it was Doom's meddling which was revealed to have killed millions of people despite Maker initially being blamed. Maker never had to feel the guilt that Mr. Fantastic has to live with. Always when it seemed like he had screwed up, a reveal came to absolve him of any responsibility. Arguably his two greatest pre-Maker screw-ups were teleporting to the zombie Earth and creating the Cosmic Cube and guess what? Both of those were because of external agents in the forms of zombie Reed and Thanos meddling with his head.

So having done nothing wrong his whole life, never having screwed up with nobody to blame but himself, when Sue dumped him and his whole life fell apart because he put saving the world over his personal desires in Ultimatum? Knowing, thanks to zombie Reed, that there were Reeds out there who got married and had families and kept the Four together despite making mistakes? My headcanon is that's what broke him. Also that's why he made Doom's life hell. 6160 Reed was supposed to live the life 616 Reed got, the kind of life Maker wanted. Instead he lost everything. Why? Because from Maker's point of view, Doom doesn't deserve that kind of happiness. Why should Maker, a Reed who never made mistakes, be the one Reed denied that joy while all the Reeds who are responsible for transforming their friends get to have that?

So Maker took 6160 Reed and gave him the life he thinks Mr. Fantastic should've gotten. 6160 Reed made the mistake of not double checking his notes and lost everything. He ended up with the burnt face and Doom moniker because from Maker's point of view, that is what should have happened to 616 Reed. Maker should be the beloved hero with the fantastic family as befitting a Reed who never made mistakes, not the unworthy Reeds who are fallible. In Maker's mind, 616 Reed should be the one whose Sue rejected him and became a villain. His words in Ultimate Invasion about having thought about what he and 616 Reed would be like if they swapped lives support this.

There's a beautiful symmetry going on here between Maker and Doom. Dooms usually blame Reeds for ruining their lives by sabotaging Doom's experiments. Here is a Doom for whom that belief is valid, and his obsession with Maker completely justified. Except it's himself that he's obsessed with, just as Maker is clearly obsessed with Mr. Fantastic. A grand ouroboros of Reeds chasing after one another. Fitting, for Reeds have always been their own worse enemies.

[hiwelcometothemonstersancturary]

Kickin and the Worldwide Communication Errors

This takes place in the "Angel saves everyone" AU, around a year post-game! Kickin and Hoppy have an argument over who knows brazilian portuguese more, and things get funky when he has the chance to prove himself to the others. No warnings necessary except for some swear words here and there. This work has been requested/commissioned by @jmr0303 as a way of supporting me. Thank you so much!

“EU SOU O MELHOR FALADOR DE PORTUGUÊS DESSA CASA!”

Kickin’s yell echoed through the house. There, standing straight on the sofa and pointing directly at everyone else below him, he felt like he might as well have worn the argument just by dramatics alone. He was the king of the living room, an unstoppable force in the art of speaking their parent’s native language, the…

“É ‘falante’, não ‘falador’”.

Kickin blinked, staring down at Hoppy. She crossed her arms, lying against the armchair, while Boxy Boo sat next to her on the floor, drawing something with his crayons. To add insult to injury, Hoppy was smirking.

“Face it, Kicks”, she pointed at him. “I’m the best”.

“Não é, não!”, he groaned, trying to pronounce each and every word as best as he physically could. “If we don’t count dad, I’m the best. I started learning way before you!”

“You could have started learning three decades ago, and it still wouldn’t matter. You gotta use your brain to do this sort of thing. Not like you would know that!”

“Says the girl who doesn’t know how to write the right porquê!”

“Says the chicken who has to ask dad to speak slowly so he can understand how to say hi in Portuguese”.

“… Says the giant bunny who still has to clean the play room for me”.

“Dad!”

Kickin jumped out of the sofa in instinct, already fearing trouble. Angel popped up from the entrance that led to the kitchen, their talent for scaring everyone getting the best of him yet again. Kickin had a theory that the reason why Angel of all people always scared him was because they had some sort of “parental power” or something like that. It was embarrassing. He had dealt with worse things than them! But, hey, at least Hoppy also got scared, and now she was looking away from their dad, which meant one thing:

Kickin won the argument. Hah. HAH!

“Go on, girl, you can do it”, their parent continued, scratching the girl’s head. “Can you help ya sister for me, Boo-Boo? I’ll put your drawings away for ya”.

Boxy purred in affirmation, happily spinning in place.

“Great. Kicks, could you turn on the lights outside? It’s getting kinda foggy, and I don’t want Theo to get lost on his way back home again. You know how he is…”

Kickin nodded: “Yes, sir!”, he smirked. “On my way! Good luck with cleaning your mess, Hoppsy”.

Angel was too confused to ask him what that was about, but Hoppy blew a raspberry at him, marching out of the living room. Heh, that was the price she deserved to pay for interrupting him and Bubba’s weekly walk through the woods that one time…

Speaking of woods. Kickin didn’t know it at that moment, but his knowledge of Portuguese would be challenged very, very quickly, as the world’s most lost man had just appeared in the family farm’s vicinity.

The man’s name was Francisco, also nicknamed Fran by his friends. He was just a tourist on vacation for a few weeks, wanting to experience the beauty of nature while hiking, and maybe even bring a souvenir or two back to his family, all the way back in Portugal. He was in the USA with a few friends, hikers just like him.

He, however, wasn’t at the farm with a few friends, hikers just like him.

Fran had taken a pause, a very quick pause, mind you, just to take a break from hiking. It was a pretty safe trail, so the group decided to go ahead and meet him in another spot. Which was a thing that he could do, mind you, and a thing that he had done before, mind you (!), if it wasn’t for the fact the world’s thickest and densest fog to ever exist on planet Earth had just settled in all around him.

The man couldn’t even distinguish what was right in front of him. It was a miracle that he could barely see his own feet! How was he supposed to go back now? He sung to himself in an attempt to calm down his own mind, but after the first few minutes of trying to find out where was he, Francisco found out that maybe he was outside the trail. And then he retraced his steps, and the minutes that would have taken him to go back turned into a whole hour, and he still had no idea where he was. Him singing Nevoeiro certainly wasn’t helping his case. Francisco was thinking about just accepting defeat and wait for the fog to go away when a miracle happened.

There, in the distance, a series of lights popped up. Lights! In the middle of a forest! It didn’t take him much to decide to approach them, and, next thing he knew (after almost falling down quite a few times), he was on what seemed to be the backyard of a… Farmhouse? So close to the trail? Well, it looked like one, so it must be one, right? It’s not like he had many options, regardless.

Oh. Speaking of options…

He was running out of them. Sure, Francisco knew the basic basics of English, he knew how to say “hi” and “how are you” and “the books are on the table”, but asides from that, only God himself could help him. Or, well, his phrasebook could, if he hadn’t left it with one of his friends. What was he thinking?! Okay, he wasn’t planning to get lost, which is fair, but now he is lost, and he barely knows his English, how was he even supposed to explain his situation, and oh God, what was that sound?!

And now, we circle all the way back to Kickin, who believed, until five seconds ago, that he was completely alone in the backyard, until he heard someone singing in the distance.

He very quickly noticed a mysterious figure in the fog. Kickin’s vision was pretty good, but he had no idea who that was. Too tall to be Ollie or one of the minis, too small to be anyone else. That was a complete stranger right then, right there! His dad wasn’t expecting a visit, so who…

“Hi! Uh… Help…!”

Kickin squinted at the voice. Just what…

“Help!”

“Who are you?”, he asked, very suspiciously, and not daring to approach.

“Hi!”, oh, wait, he could see that guy better now. “No English. Português? Uh, Portuguese?”

Kickin blinked. That accent… WHAT. A Portuguese speaker popping up in the middle of nowhere just when he just had an argument over his own understanding of the language? Was God or someone blessing him with an opportunity to rub his knowledge on Hoppy’s face? Dang, he was feeling lucky.

Kickin cleared his throat. “Eu falo um pouco!”, he announced to the stranger, hoping that his own accent wasn’t too heavy.

“Meu Deus, que milagre!”

A miracle? Yeah, Kickin could believe that. He gave the stranger a smirk, now finally able to see him: Just a normal-looking guy with a beard, short curly hair and equipped with a big backpack. A hiker, he assumed.

“Meu Deus, nem acredito que também falas português!”, the man approached him, very, very happy. Kickin felt himself squirm, only understanding the “you also speak portuguese!” part. “Ando há horas por aqui! Não faço ideia onde está o meu grupo. Estávamos a caminhar, tive de fazer uma pausa e depois perdi-me. De onde és?”

Uh.

Kickin forced his smile to stay on his face.

What the heck did that guy just say. He spoke way too fast for what the critter was used to! The stranger was… Hiking? And then got lost? Urgh, sounds bad. And that question? Where was he from? Uh…

“… Brasil”, he managed to reply, about saying Brazil instead. “De onde… Você… É?”

NAILED IT.

“Lisboa! O que um brasileiro está aqui a fazer? Perdeu-se? Hah, hah!”

Kickin laughed.

He had no idea what the guy is talking about, but it’s okay, he could CERTAINLY figure it out. Eventually

“Onde estamos? Não é um trilho…”

“... Uh...”

“Uh?”

Okay. What. Kickin rubbed his neck, already irritated at himself. He just understood a bunch of gibberish. Angel did tell him about different accents, but dang, this was hard.

“Que lugar é este?”

AH, YES, YES, YES, HE UNDERSTOOD IT NOW, HAHAHAHAHAHA. Now, all he had to do was answer. Ahem:

“Tamo na fazenda da minha mãe!”

“Fazenda?”, the man tilted his head. “Ah, a quina!”

… What. Kickin swore he had just said “we’re at my mother’s farm”, fazenda means farm, so why is this stranger saying quina? What does quina even mean? Oh, he must have said something wrong. More embarrassed than before, Kickin decided to repeat himself:

“Não, uma fazenda!”

Maybe this was one of those situations where people used a different word for the same thing? A regional stuff? Kickin didn’t know where the heck Lisboa was located at. Brazil was way too big and he didn’t know enough. Argh! Now this felt humiliating! Better redirect the guy to Angel, then:

“A fazenda da minha mãe. Ela pode ajudar você. Ela fala brasi– português melhor do que eu”.

“Ah, que bom, que ótimo, que maravilhoso!”, the stranger nodded, more than happy to know there was someone out there who knew Portuguese better than Kickin did. Hopefully, he could still gloat to Hoppy how good he was getting! “Estou tão feliz que haja uma rapariga que me possa ajudar!”

[something something] happy that there’s a rapariga that can help me?, Kickin thought to himself. What does rapariga mean…?!

He went through his mental dictionary. Rapariga… Reminds me of rapaz. Guy? No, it’s not “guy”.

Rapariga…

Rapariga…

Rapar…

His eyes went wide.

“UMA O QUÊ–”

WHO THE FUCK CALLS SOMEONE’S MOTHER A RAPARIGA?! W-WHAT WAS THIS GUY THINKING?! WHAT?! Kickin grunted, now more angry than ever before. What was he supposed to say? He knew his swear words, but which one should he say?! ARGH, if only he could just punch that guy without causing even more problems–

“Kickin! You okay, kid? What’s taking you so long to… Uh?”

“Mom!”

Kickin approached Angel. Ah, he was so, SO freaking lucky! The human tilted their head in confusion, obviously noticing the guy standing right in front of the critter, but unable to see who was it.

“A hiker got lost”, he explained. “I think, I don’t really care, he just called you a fucking rapariga–”

“A what?”

“A rapariga!”

“… Where is he from?”

“Lis… Lis-boa. Lisboa. What state is it at?”

Kickin’s parent expression changed, going from confusion, to amused. He crossed his arms, feeling even more offended, before Angel opened their mouth:

“Kickin, Lisbon is in Portugal, not Brazil. Let me talk to that g…”

“Oi? Você é a mãe deste rapaz?”

“Sou, sim!”, they nodded at the stranger, just as Kickin was crossing his arms in annoyance and anger. They exchanged a few words that the critter for sure did NOT get, and then. And! THEN!

Angel laughed.

Loudly laughed.

“What’s up?!”, Kickin demanded, annoyed. “Dad!”

“Oh my God–”, Angel wheezed, finally finding the stranger. The man seemed confused, of course he was, HE BETTER BE, but Angel gave him a pat in the back, wiping their tears off: “Desculpa, ainda não ensinei meu filho como que o teu português funciona. Ele achou que você fosse brasileiro”.

“Achou?”, the stranger chuckled. “Ah, me desculpa! Eu não achei que–”

“Ah, não esquenta a cabeça não, fica tranquilo. Só fala mais devagar pra ele entender melhor”.

“Mãe!”, Kickin called again. “O que foi?!”, he demanded right after.

“He was speaking Portugal’s version of Portuguese, Kicks. Rapariga is just ‘lady’ to them. He wasn’t calling me a slut”, Angel shrugged, still giggling.

Kickin could feel his face turning red, despite that not being exactly possible, giving all of his feathers. He felt like an ostrich wanting to burrow their head SOMEWHERE. Damnit, his only opportunity at proving himself, and it was with someone who didn’t even SPEAK Brazilian Portuguese?! Just like that?! Oh, Hoppy was going to be so annoying about this…

And then Kickin noticed that his dad was inviting the stranger to come inside, away from the cold, and now he wanted to die, just imagining Hoppy annoying him. Urgh!

Well! Whatever! He wasn’t a COWARD, he could still show off his skills, now that he knew what the heck was going on. Kickin marched his way inside, more determined than ever, almost not noticing how the hiker seemed surprise at seeing him. The critter guessed the guy didn’t notice he was talking to a giant chicken, somehow. Either the man had poor eyesight, or that fog was really that bad. Regardless, Angel explained that the kids around the house are the ones from the PlayCo. situation, then offered the visitor – Francisco – some coffee.

“Quer pão?”, Kickin offered. Bread always goes along coffee, Angel had taught him, and it would be rude to not offer food.

“Só um cacetinho, por favor”.

Kickin blinked “Um cacete?”

“Pão, Kicks”, Angel corrected him. “That’s how they say it”.

“Cacetinho?’”

“Don’t even try using that word to escape the swear ban around the little ones”.

“Yes, sir”, he nodded,.

Imagine calling something a cacete, Kickin thought to himself. Cacetinho… It’s like calling bread “little fuck”. The fuck..., and then he shook his head, noticing that the younger toys had noticed a stranger in the house. Angel asked the critter to keep an eye out for them, and he accepted the challenge, of course, despite being very annoyed by it. Kickin didn’t want to be just a babysitter! He wanted to learn! Which was extremely weird coming from him, but anyways, he wanted to learn and hear and show EVERYONE what he was REALLY capable of! And maybe make Angel proud in the process or something…?

But, soon enough, everyone noted that the fog had cleared. Not by a lot, but enough for them to see what was up ahead. Francisco left the house and rub the back of his neck, clearly embarrassed. Kickin stared at him, trying not to look too curious (he was too cool for that), while Angel talked something to the hike.

“Parece que o trilho esteve mesmo na minha frente o tempo todo…”, Francisco muttered, thankfully slow enough for Kickin to understand that...

Ah, now that’s embarrassing.

Kickin could see a small pathway close to the woods, a place he had ignored up until that moment. So that was the trail that guy was talking about! It was right there all along! Francisco apparently had wondered around in circles for a whole hour before finding out there was a house right in front of him.

“Consegue voltar desse jeito, Francisco?”, Angel asked the man.

“Consigo, sim. Obrigado pela ajuda, Raphael”.

Angel then gave Kickin a look, and he sighed.

“Desculpa pelo mal-entendido”, Kickin apologised. Francisco shrugged and told him it was no big deal, and, after that, the critter watched as the hiker slowly went back to the trail, safe and sound.

Coincidentally, a small group of three other people popped up in the distance. They gave Francisco headpats and hugs, and Kickin realized that they must be his hiking group, likely going back to rescue their friend. Well, too late for a rescue, but at least they were all reunited. Fran waved back one last time, and then he and the others disappeared back to the trail.

Well, that sure must have been a crazy adventure for Francisco… Kickin hoped he had made a good impression, and wasn’t just a weird overgrown son that couldn’t even say tudo bem without sounding incomprehensible.

“That sure was something!”, Poppy muttered on the window. Kickin hoped no one had seen him jump from her sudden apparition. Was she learning that from Angel?! Really?! Argh! “I had no idea there was a hiking trail right next to us!”

“Me neither, Pops”, Angel went back in, Kickin following behind. “I didn’t know there was even a trail to begin with…”

“I’m worried about it, dad”, the doll continued, still on the window seat. “I don’t think leaving that over there will be a good idea”.

“Yeah, speaking about that. We should make some signs pointing away from the farm. Don’t want people using the ‘sorry, got lost on the trail conveniently close to your house’ excuse to bother you kids. That guy over there got really unlucky…”

Kickin gave Angel a smug smile before pointing at his own chest: “Thankfully, yours truly was there to help!”

His dad playfully shook their head, punching one of his arms in what the critter knew was a very good sign of approval: “Sure did, Kicks. Sure did”.

“Excuse me”.

Kickin never felt unhappier to hear Hoppy’s smug, smug voice. He didn’t even react when she, too, gave him a (playful) punch, this time to the back, and wrapped her arm around his shoulders:

“You call THAT being better at Portuguese than ME? Pffft, a kid would be better than you!”

He rolled his eyes: “At least that guy found ME instead of, I don’t know, CATNAP! I was able to help! What about you, who had your ass stuck on the play room cleaning your own mess?”

“Well, I–”

A loud, loud series of screams echoed in the background. Kickin didn’t recognize it from anyone in the house, and it was far too distant to be coming from WITHIN said house. He felt a momentarily shiver until he and Hoppy exchanged a stare, and, at the same time, realized something very important:

“Oh my God, Catnap found the guy”.

Silence.

They heard even more screams, all very different from the first.

“… And his friends, too”.

Then Hoppy wheezed as a response, and Kickin laughed out loud. Angel sighed (of course), rubbing their temples and quietly praying for a miracle before giving the duo a look, to which they laughed even harder, and now Angel was giggling as well.

Another series of incoherent screaming echoed. It sounded pitiful, to say the least, and that roar? Yeah, Francisco and his friends were in for one hell of a time.

“Look on the bright side, dad!”, Kickin pointed out. “Now the rumors of a giant monster will keep the hikers away from us!”

“Or the rumors of a chicken who can’t even say fazenda will–”

The yellow critter gave Hoppy a well-placed punch in the back, enough for her to feel it, but not strong enough for her to be able to complain. She blew him a raspberry, he returned the gesture, and now, Angel was leaving the house.

“Poppy, you take care of these two, I’m going to take care of Catnap”.

“HEY!”

“Wish me luuuck~!”

And off they went!

[selkies-world]

Me, in the UK, preparing to watch the USA get turned into a fully fledged Christian ethnostate thanks to the fact they willingly voted a Christian Nationalist into power:

Meanwhile, USAmericans:

Here's what's going to happen, now that the orange bastard is on America's throne.

First, it'll be trans people & immigrants that will get the brunt of it. They'll be treated worse than they have this century.

Then it'll be BIPOC and disabled people. It'll be the women & girls who get it the worst, out of these groups.

Then it'll be the gays, and marriage will be returned to the state, Roe & Wade style.

Then it'll be women.

Along the way, they'll also be taking money and funding out of education and the workforce, and putting it into the military, weapons, tech for the pet elongated muskrat, and the church. Funding for climate and science and medicine will be taken away and relocated.

Your weather reports will be privatised, and if you pay to be able to view them, they will give you false information, and will intentionally fail to mention climate change. You will not know when a wildfire is predicted, or a flood, or a hurricane. Likewise, you will not know when those events happen in other states. You will not know what the weather is like in the rest of the world because the news will be heavily censored and filtered.

You will also lose porn. All LGBTQIA+ content, including shows and resources and books, will be classified as pornography, and banned. You will lose the general Internet, and anonymity, and privacy. Spyware will be mandatory on your devices. Anyone caught looking at banned material will be prosecuted, and labeled as a monster - someone looking at gay porn, or reading gay fanfic, or reading up on safe gay sex, will be branded as a pedophile or a sexual deviant.

You will also find that sex ed is removed from schools. Even anatomy & biology classes will be different. You can't miss something if you're never taught it in the first place, surely. Teen pregnancies will increase, as birth control becomes illegal, and pregnancy complications, child deaths, miscarriages and teen parents will be very commonplace. Sexual diseases will also become more prevalent as the medication for them will become scarce; PReP will be next to impossible to access, so a small AIDS epidemic will resurface. Antibiotics and vaccines will become rarer and rarer.

All porn will be deigned as a threat to children, and kink safespaces for adults will be hunted and shut down as being a threat to society. Gay clubs, too. Pride will be canceled, as will pride clubs in schools and colleges. Funding for therapy & mental health resources will dry up.

Families will be torn up, children will be tortured and abused, and adults will be forced to go along with it, face the same treatment, enact the abuse, or go to jail for child abuse because they tried to help their child. Gay adoptions will stop, as will family support for families with gay children.

Meanwhile, the UK will be in a political war with the USA. Palestinians will be bombed more, and so will most countries in the middle East. Egypt will become a target, and a few other parts of Africa. Russia and Ukraine will continue to attack each other, but Russia will be watching the USA and UK. So will North Korea and China.

None of you will be told if there's another pandemic. None of you will be told if there are millions or hundreds of millions of deaths. None of you will be told about loved ones in danger in other countries or states. None of you will be told the truth about anything.

Congratulations, America. You've built your walls high, and fortified your country. But you haven't just shut the rest of the world out; you've shut yourselves in.

If you don't believe me, save this post and come back to it 1 year from now. 2 years. 3 years. 4. Take a screenshot of it. And let's see which of us is right.

[cipheramnesia]

Hi Cipher ive been following for a while.

Im really astounded to seeing you reblog holocaust inersion. I think your are conflating war with genocide, and fueling the rising antismitism in the world that way.

IDK. Like, obviously you havent known of my existance up until now. But i have appearently formed some kind of parasocial relationship.

Ive really been looking up to you and miss-demeanor for some time now. So it does come as a surprise.

Id like to invite you to the following thought experiment:

Imagine, you can decide on the actions Israel takes. Your neigbor has sworn to kill all jews, broken every ceasefire, just masscred 1200 of your population (during a ceasefire), has sworn to do it again and still holds some of your inhabitants hostage. Whats your plan to guarantee the life and wellfare of your citizins, including all hostages?

I so i guess, i am sincerily asking: In your eyes, can jews do anything correctly, besides die?

I think you are correct about the parasocial relationship, and this is a very strange ask to send to someone Jewish reblogging one donation post for Palestinians (which is not something I would comb through given the size of it) and what amounts to a tiny handful of news reports from people who do reliable research into their news sources. This is something like 10 posts about Palestine per month out of thousands, which also seems unusual to take issue over.

I assume all good faith was intended but I will leave you with the idea that "wishing that one group of people was not getting killed" is not something which ever automatically translates into "believing another group of people has to die."

It is my, perhaps foolish, hope that we as humans can stop massacring one another at an alarming rate and I can stop living through whole people getting wiped out in real time globally, including in the USA (currently still chipping away at the first nations). That's really it. I just want people to live, and I'm so exhausted by so much death. Here's a link to donate to Doctor's Without Borders, one of the best known worldwide relief agencies that exists, and which is possibly the most apolitical place to send any money you have to spare for the overall cause of "less people killed."

Trusting people not to act like dicks on reblogs. I don't think I'm going to entertain other questions on this topic.

[whoiwanttoday]

Guys, it is not quite the official start of Halloween yet (don't worry, I plan to keep you well informed as to when it is. It's coming up. Just weeks away) but we are in the prelude to Halloween officially this weekend. First, my friends and I have started organizing our planned Halloween season watch lists, it's an online event called Hooptober which is basically a movie scavenger hunt where we have to watch a bunch of movies to fit various criteria. We won't start watching until Halloween is upon us. Tonight though, Joe Bob Briggs is doing a 12 hour movie marathon that feels like a good prelude to the Halloween season. We are looking forward to it and seeing if old people can stay up all night (spoiler, we won't. We suck. We're old) and Rhonda Sheer will be there, which is a throw back to USA's Up All Night, a show that was on Fridays and Saturday from 11 PM to 5 AM when I was a kid. She was one of the hosts and we all thought she was kind of hot and kind of funny. So it's exciting she'll be on tonight.

All of that is some lead in to me posting Edwige Fenech who I promise you is related to all that. She was the queen of Giallo in the 70's. Giallo is an Italian genre that means yellow because old Italian pulp fiction used to be printed on yellow pages, so much like we called Pulp Fiction that because of the type of paper used, they called it Giallo because of the type of paper used. Giallo is a distinctly Italian genre in so many ways. It is half murder mystery and police procedural and half slasher movie. Some skew more horror than others but it's an important horror subgenre that gave us the slashers of the 80's. What makes it so Italian though is that the plot often makes no sense, they often don't seem to care about the plot at all. What they care about is all the people are extremely sexy and sophisticated in a way only Europeans can pull off in the 60's and 70's. America might have had the money but we'd never have that subtle class they all had. Which is wild for such trashy movies. They are always beautiful to look at, it's kind of the whole point. Pretty and vacant in many ways. This is why the genre drives me nuts, sometimes it forgets to even solve the mystery. This is why others love it, pure vibes and beauty. Fans of cinematography and set design tend to love Giallo. It also is famous for, as all Italian films are at the time since they were the kings of European film, having the most beautiful women you have ever seen. Like even in bit parts. All of this means that I have always thought my friend @kat-eleven might like some Giallo if given a chance. I have recommended Suspiria every year for a decade at Halloween. She always refuses because she said, "While I like the sound of those brutal killings, Italian 70's style backhanded sexism, and pretty colors, I just don't think there are any attractive women in all of Europe so I am not interested". That brings us to Edwige Fenech, who I watched one of her many Gialli the other night and was like, "I feel like Kat is wrong. I think she is actually very beautiful". So I sent Kat some posts on tumblr to prove it and you know what? This once that contradictory Canadian agreed I was right. As a matter of fact she said she might watch an Edwige Fenech movie. Which brings us full circle. For my big Hooptober list have thrown in a few Edwige Fenech movies that I haven't seen but are supposed to be among the best she is in, so I can tell @kat-eleven which is the best one. So this is all a prelude to Halloween season when I will be knee deep in Edwige Fenech because I am such a good and giving friend. Maybe she'll get a second post then. Today I want to fuck Edwige Fenech.

[iovemoonyy]

Diego lainez bf - wearing his jesery to his game and him dedicating a goal to you making you go crazy and love him even more pls

— ☆ 𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐉𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐄𝐘 !!

diego lainez x fem!reader

sypnosis; you wear diego's jersey to his game and he dedicates a goal to you making you fall in love with him once again.

warnings; none, just pure fluff, short

authors note; so sorry for taking so long to post this, I've been having horrible writers block but I decided to work through it. hope you enjoy it !!

navigation. soccer player masterlists.

you had been choosing an outfit to wear to you boyfriend's soccer game against usa. you had ultimately decided on wearing his jersey. you could already imagine the huge smile on his face at the sight of you wearing his jersey when he looks at you sitting in the bleachers.

you paired the jersey with some jeans and pinned your hair up with a clip. you grabbed everything you needed before leaving the house and driving to the stadium, diego was already there due to him having to be their early. you had finally got to the stadium and you were sitting on the bleachers next to Karla, Memo's wife.

ever since you'd known her, you admired her and Memo's relationship. the way they were with each other was so precious and wholesome. It was as if no matter how much time passed, they're love only got stronger by the day.

of course, you knew what that type of love felt like but you were still young but you only hoped that you and Diego would make that far in your relationship and even more. you loved him so much and losing him was never something you could imagine. you couldn't even imagine your life before he came in it.

three years ago when you met him through mutual friends, immediately hitting it off well. for months after that night, all you could do was text each other. you started hanging out then going on dates and soon enough he had worked up the courage to ask you to be his girlfriend.

you, of course, said yes to him. how could you not, he was an amazing guy. he had every quality that only someone so perfect could have. he was sweet, caring, a gentleman, respectful, attractive. he was quite literally perfect in your eyes.

it was almost the end of the game, diego had looked your way multiple times but none of his reactions gave you a hint that he noticed the jersey yet. he had been very concentrated on the game and he had been doing amazing. the game was tied with with both teams having two points.

a player from usa had the ball with diego hot on his heels. one of diego's teammates went to get steal the ball but instead just bumped into the usa player. that ended up with diego getting the ball since the usa player had been pushed away from it.

diego ran with ball, with only 1 minute left of the game. he ran as fast a possible to the goal, 45 seconds. a player tried to stealing the ball only for diego to pass it to his teammate, 30 seconds. he continued running towards the goal and his teammate passed the ball towards him again seeing he had a clear shot, 15 seconds.

diego caught the ball and before he kicked it towards the goal he looked over at you and winked, making you smile and blush like crazy. he then kicked the ball hoping that it made it in before the time ran out. right as the clock hit one, the ball made it into the net, securing mexico's win. you and Karla stood up cheering as loud as possible.

diego looked up and scanned the crowd until his eyes landed on you. he smiled so brightly at you, you could've sworn his cheeks probably hurt. he finally took in your appearance and realized that you had his jersey on. his heart almost burst but his stare was cut short when his teammates all ran towards him.

they all congratulated him on the goal and then they headed towards the lockers to get ready to leave with their families. you and karla waited for most people to leave then headed towards the lockers to wait for your lovers.

the both of you watched as players slowly started headed out, biding you goodbye after you congratulated them. memo and diego soon enough came out as well. after you and diego said your goodbyes to the couple, they headed out as well.

you could feel diego staring at you so you look at him with furrowed eyebrows, "what?" he smiled at you, his eyes filled with you so much love at he took in your appearance once again, "you look so beautiful with my jersey on."

you smiled at him, "I knew you'd love it." he grabbed your hand, intertwining your fingers together as you both started walking out the stadium. "I very much do love it, amor," a slight blush covered your cheeks at the pet name he loved to call you so much. "you did so good today, you know. I'm really proud of you."

he smiled softly at your words, "well there was this really gorgeous girl out in bleachers so I had to impress her." you raised your eyes brows in a teasing manner, "oh yeah, do you think you impressed her enough to get her attention?"

he smirked, "oh yeah. she told me she was really proud of me." this moment was so simple but yet to the both of you it felt so special. you were both so young and in love. this was one special moment from many to come in the many years you two would spend together.