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mostlysignssomeportents · 2 months ago

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When prophecy fails, election polling edition

In Canto 20 of Inferno, Dante confronts a pit where the sinners have had their heads twisted around backwards; they trudge, naked and weeping, through puddles of cooling tears. Virgil informs him that these are the fortunetellers, who tried to look forwards in life and now must look backwards forever.

In a completely unrelated subject, how about those election pollsters, huh?

Writing for The American Prospect, historian Rick Perlstein takes a hard look at characteristic failure modes of election polling and ponders their meaning:

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-09-25-polling-imperilment/

Apart from the pre-election polling chaos we're living through today, Perlstein's main inspiration is W Joseph Campbell 2024 University of California Press book, Lost in a Gallup: Polling Failure in US Presidential Elections:

https://www.ucpress.edu/books/lost-in-a-gallup/paper

In Campbell's telling, US election polling follows a century-old pattern: pollsters discover a new technique that works spookily well..for a while. While the new polling technique works, the pollster is hailed a supernaturally insightful fortune-teller.

In 1932, the Raleigh News and Observer was so impressed with polling by The Literary Digest that they proposed replacing elections with Digest's poll. The Digest's innovation was sending out 20,000,000 postcards advertising subscriptions and asking about presidential preferences. This worked perfectly for three elections – 1924, 1928, and 1932. But in 1936, the Digest blew it, calling the election for Alf Landon over FDR.

The Digest was dethroned, and new soothsayers were appointed: George Gallup, Elmo Roper and Archibald Crossler, who replaced the Digest's high-volume polling with a new kind of poll, one that sought out a representative slice of the population (as Perlstein says, this seems "so obvious in retrospect, you wonder how nobody thought of it before").

Representative polling worked so well that, three elections later, the pollsters declared that they could predict the election so well from early on that there was no reason to keep polling voters. They'd just declare the winner after the early polls were in and take the rest of the election off.

That was in 1948 – you know, 1948, the "Dewey Defeats Truman" election?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey_Defeats_Truman

If this sounds familiar, perhaps you – like Perlstein – are reminded of the 2016 election, where Fivethirtyeight and Nate Silver called the election for Hillary Clinton, and we took them at their word because they'd developed a new, incredibly accurate polling technique that had aced the previous two elections.

Silver's innovation? Aggregating state polls, weighting them by accuracy, and then producing a kind of meta-poll that combined their conclusions.

When Silver's prophecy failed in 2016, he offered the same excuse that Gallup gave in 1948: when voters are truly undecided, you can't predict how they'll vote, because they don't know how they'll vote.

Which, you know, okay, sure, that's right. But if you know that the election can't be called, if you know that undecided voters are feeding noise into the system whenever you poll them, then why report the polls at all? If all the polling fluctuation is undecided voters flopping around, not making up their mind, then the fact that candidate X is up 5 points with undecided means nothing.

As the finance industry disclaimer has it, "past performance is no guarantee of future results." But, as Perlstein says, "past performance is all a pollster has to go on." When Nate Silver weights his model in favor of a given poll, it's based on that poll's historical accuracy, not its future accuracy, because its future accuracy can't be determined until it's in the past. Like Dante's fortune-tellers, pollsters have to look backwards even as they march forwards.

Of course, it doesn't help that in some cases, Silver was just bad at assessing polls for accuracy, like when he put polls from the far-right "shock pollster" Trafalgar Group into the highly reliable bucket. Since 2016, Trafalgar has specialized in releasing garbage polls that announce that MAGA weirdos are way ahead, and because they always say that, they were far more accurate than the Clinton-predicting competition in 2016 when they proclaimed that Trump had it in the bag. For Silver, this warranted an "A-" on reliability, and that is partially to blame for how bad Silver's 2020 predictions were, when Republicans got pasted, but Trafalgar continued to predict a Democratic wipeout. Silver's methodology has a huge flaw: because Trafalgar's prediction history began in 2016, that single data-point made them look pretty darned reliable, even though their method was to just keep saying the same thing, over and over:

https://www.ettingermentum.news/p/the-art-of-losing-a-fivethirtyeight

Pollsters who get lucky with a temporarily reliable methodology inevitably get cocky and start cutting corners. After all, polling is expensive, so discontinuing the polls once you think you have an answer is a way to increase the enterprise's profitability. But, of course, pollsters can only make money so long as they're somewhat reliable, which leads to a whole subindustry of excuse-making when this cost-cutting bites them in the ass. In 1948, George Gallup blamed his failures on the audience, who failed to grasp the "difference between forecasting an election and picking the winner of a horse race." In 2016, Silver declared that he'd been right because he'd given Trump at 28.6% chance of winning.

This isn't an entirely worthless excuse. If you predict that Clinton's victory is 71.4% in the bag, you are saying that Trump might win. But pollsters want to eat their cake and have it, too: when they're right, they trumpet their predictive accuracy, without any of the caveats they are so insistent upon when they blow it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jDlo7YfUxc

There's always some excuse when it comes to the polls: in 1952, George Gallup called the election a tossup, but it went for Eisenhower in a landslide. He took out a full-page NYT ad, trumpeting that he was right, actually, because he wasn't accounting for undecided voters.

Polling is ultimately a form of empiricism-washing. The pollster may be counting up poll responses, but that doesn't make the prediction any less qualitative. Sure, the pollster counts responses, but who they ask, and what they do with those responses, is purely subjective. They're making guesses (or wishes) about which people are likely to vote, and what it means when someone tells you they're undecided. This is at least as much an ideological project as it is a scientific one:

https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2024-09-23-polling-whiplash/

But for all that polling is ideological, it's a very thin ideology. When it comes to serious political deliberation, questions like "who is likely to vote" and "what does 'undecided' mean" are a lot less important than, "what are the candidates promising to do?" and "what are the candidates likely to do?"

But – as Perlstein writes – the only kind of election journalism that is consistently, adequately funded is poll coverage. As a 1949 critic put it, this isn't the "pulse of democracy," it's "its baby talk."

Today, Tor Books publishes VIGILANT, a new, free LITTLE BROTHER story about creepy surveillance in distance education. It follows SPILL, another new, free LITTLE BROTHER novella about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/26/dewey-beats-truman/#past-performance-is-no-guarantee-of-future-results

#pluralistic #prognostication #polling #uspoli #elections #pollsters #fivethirtyeight #nate silver #george gallup #rick perlstein #history #past performance is no guarantee of future results #W Joseph Campbell #Lost in a Gallup

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hello-from-the-night-archives · 11 months ago

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hello from the hallowoods dashboard simulator

😈 valerie-meme-stone

I'm not ready for my spotify wrapped to just be stonemaiden. like i get it spotify i know i'm gay

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📝 the-poetry-panopticon Follow

Unfriendly reminder not to sign up for a Dreaming Box subscription! The Botulus Corporation is not to be trusted! Here's an article explaining the language in their contract and why it's concerning! In addtion, they use AI generated images in the Prime Dream, which we should all know by now is unethical.

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🥗 bisexualranchdressing Follow

dang this is crazy. i thought wildfire smoke was bad but what the fuck is this????

🌅 nerdy-tragedy-theorist Follow

well according to color theory

🌅 nerdy-tragedy-theorist Follow

never mind i've got nothing

739 notes

⚡ evil-electrician Follow

friendly reminder to stop spreading misinformation about the black water! people are saying that it brings people and animals back to life but that's not exactly true! although their body may be back, they're not the same person and they will likely become violent and dangerous. please stay inside and be really careful what you and your pets eat or drink.

🐈‍⬛ cats-not-capitalism Follow

fuck you op i'm keeping my undead cat

⚡ evil-electrician Follow

good luck keeping your fingers

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🐧 morally-grey-penguin Follow

1,383,248 notes

eccentricelina-deactivated04232030

i must not go to sleep in the lake today. afternoon nap is the mind killer

eccentricelina-deactivated04232030

mmmmmm cozy

eccentricelina-deactivated04232030

where is my skin

eccentricelina-deactivated04232030

going back to sleep honk shoooooo

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🌮 mysteriously-crafty-nacho Follow

reblog this post to go north with the person you reblogged this from

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🧊 botulus-corporation Follow

The Botulus Corporation is with you during this difficult time. Join our happy dreaming family where you and your loved ones will be safe from the rain. Tumblr users get 30% off on a Dreaming Box subscription!

🐨 chief-koala-typhoon Follow

73,932 notes

🌿 shiny-wolf-tragedy Follow

it fucken rainny

🐼 dreamland-panda Follow

love that they'll be a literal apocalyse and tumblr users will just make memes. never change tumblr

72,138 notes

👁️‍🗨️ the-magnus-brotocol

choosing between the irl amazing digital circus or probably fucking dying was not on my 2030 bingo card but okay

👁️‍🗨️ the-magnus-brotocol

at this point i just gotta expect that if the year is divisible by 10 then something terrible will happen

94 notes

🐺 werewolves-are-hot

hey do you think i can get a real werewolf boyfriend now that monsters are real

🐺 werewolves-are-hot

any cute werewolf boyfriends in this part of the woods

429 notes

🌷 pleasant-arcade-land

oh man it's been a couple months since I last updated this fanfic huh! so I just drank some black water by accident and now I have a few extra fingers, and honestly that took some getting used to, but it's actually pretty convenient now and is really helpign me get more words in lol im still here writing homestuck fanfic in 2030 hehehehehe anyway new chapter here

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🌑 the-void-whispers Follow

so, it looks like tumblr might be dying soon due to, well, *gestures wildly.* You'll have to kill me before I join Twitter now that the Botulus Corporation bought it (and no, I am not calling it B, that is just stupid) so if you want to hear from me you will simply need to look out for passenger pigeons. in the meantime, ill be here until tumblr straight up dies and i have a crying session about it

🦌 gamer-guy-bath-water Follow

we do not grieve ice when it melts, or celebrate the sapling when it rises from the soil. they just are. life and death and rebirth are one constant state. and without change, there would be nothing to watch

⚔️ sword-lesbian-enthusiast

add that to the list of banger quotes from tumblr memes

82,362 notes

#my post #hfth #hfthw #hello from the hallowoods #unreality #fake post #hfth spoilers

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icyg4l · 9 months ago

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Pick-An-Image: Messages from the Altar

To wrap up this Black History Month series, I will explore messages that the ancestors have to give for those with an altar. If you don't know what an altar is, it is basically a sacred space for you to connect with your ancestors. You should include the four elements (earth, water, fire and air) in this area. The altar is a place where you can lay your burdens, future plans and daily thoughts without human judgment. I will use the Hoodoo Tarot deck to conduct these pile readings as done before. So without further ado, let's get into it!

Left-to-Right (1-3):

Pile 1: You need to spend more time with your grandmother, whether she is alive or not. Connect with her by going shopping or lighting a candle and sitting a fresh cup of water on the altar. Your ancestors also want you to know that you should lay off on the coffee, it’s taking too much of your energy and your coins! You’re going to be someone special. Your ancestors are proud of the progress you’ve made. The people in this pile could struggle with some type of addiction or mental health issue. You may also struggle with some type of codependency but you’ve been working through that & your progress is being seen/admired. It is your responsibility to carry the torch! You were chosen to break generational curses and bring in new traditions. Don’t just say you’re going to do something without putting in the work. You’re going to have a breakthrough soon, just trust the process. And, if you have recently gotten into a relationship, your partner is ancestor-approved! The name Megan could be significant.

𝙲𝚊𝚛𝚍𝚜 𝚄𝚜𝚎𝚍: 𝙰𝚌𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝙱𝚊𝚜𝚔𝚎𝚝𝚜, 𝚃𝚎𝚗 𝚘𝚏 𝙱𝚊𝚜𝚔𝚎𝚝𝚜, 𝚃𝚑𝚛𝚎𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚂𝚝𝚒𝚌𝚔𝚜, 𝙰𝚌𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚂𝚝𝚒𝚌𝚔𝚜, 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙶𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚌𝚑𝚒𝚕𝚍𝚛𝚎𝚗 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚂𝚒𝚡 𝚘𝚏 𝙱𝚊𝚜𝚔𝚎𝚝𝚜.

Pile 2: You need to cancel that subscription that you forgot about. You also should stop paying for self development courses because the work that you need to do can be found within you! You don’t need a life coach to tell you that you’re a mess. We all are! You like to carry a reputation of pride and virtuousness; you’re a real stand up-guy. It’s a shame everybody ain’t like that, huh? You could have recently gone through some type of betrayal. But don’t let this stop you from accomplishing your set goals. Keep your head held high. You need to let loose though. Shake your shoulders. Dance. Let the energy in your body flow. Minor setbacks aren’t meant to last forever, you know? This level up is about to go crazy. And congratulations in advance ;)

𝙲𝚊𝚛𝚍𝚜 𝚄𝚜𝚎𝚍: 𝙼𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚘𝚏 𝙲𝚘𝚒𝚗𝚜, 𝙵𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚘𝚏 𝙲𝚘𝚒𝚗𝚜, 𝚃𝚎𝚗 𝚘𝚏 𝙲𝚘𝚒𝚗𝚜, 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙱𝚒𝚐 𝙷𝚘𝚞𝚜𝚎, 𝚃𝚑𝚛𝚎𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝙺𝚗𝚒𝚟𝚎𝚜 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝙼𝚒𝚜𝚜 𝚁𝚘𝚋𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚘𝚗.

Pile 3: You got that monkey on your back, chile. You know what attachment you need to get rid of. It’s messing with your ability to see clearly. Prioritize your self-esteem so that the words of other people won’t get to you so easily. For those of you that recently had a baby, she (female friend/older cousin that passed on) wants you to know that postpartum depression shall pass. The name Samantha could be significant. It will not break you, my love. She will make sure of it. Clean up the conflict or else your money problems will worsen, especially if you have beef with a coworker. You need to set boundaries with your father, especially since you’re grown now. Dealing with your physical ailment is terrible, I know. I wish I could be there to lessen the pain. It hurts to see you suffer this way.

𝙲𝚊𝚛𝚍𝚜 𝚄𝚜𝚎𝚍: 𝙰𝚌𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝙲𝚘𝚒𝚗𝚜, 𝙼𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚘𝚏 𝚂𝚝𝚒𝚌𝚔𝚜 (𝚁𝚇), 𝚃𝚑𝚛𝚎𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝙲𝚘𝚒𝚗𝚜, 𝚃𝚠𝚘 𝚘𝚏 𝙺𝚗𝚒𝚟𝚎𝚜, 𝙼𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚘𝚏 𝙺𝚗𝚒𝚟𝚎𝚜, 𝚂𝚒𝚡 𝚘𝚏 𝙱𝚊𝚜𝚔𝚎𝚝𝚜, 𝙵𝚒𝚟𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝙱𝚊𝚜𝚔𝚎𝚝𝚜 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝙽𝚒𝚗𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝙺𝚗𝚒𝚟𝚎𝚜.

#law of assumption #manifesting #neville goddard #hoodoo #tarot #tarotreading #astro notes #pick a card #pick a pile #divination #pick an image #tarot deck #tarotcommunity #spirituality #daily tarot #channeled message #pick a reading

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pablitogavii · 1 year ago

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i adore your blog and your writing!! if you’re feeling inspired could u please write a fic where the reader’s parents fight a lot and one night it gets really bad so the reader goes to gavi or he picks her up? and he comforts her and everything is sweet. i need him to do this irl rn but anyway… have a good day / night!! love u🤍

I'm so sorry you're going through this baby. If you need to talk my chat is always open <33 This one is special for you <33

There for you

I was crying in my room hearing the sounds of their argument echoing down the hallway. I should be used to it by now after all the years of dealing with it, but every time it gets harder to listen to it knowing there is nothing i can do to stop it.

Growing up with parents that had anything but love for each other made it hard to believe in possibility to have a real family one day, but thankfully I found someone who showed me it was possible.

Since we started dating, I've told Pablo about the hardship of my family and he was so understanding promising to never make my parents mistakes in our relationship.

I was laying in bed scrolling through my camera roll smiling at our photos together trying to tune out the screams and insults coming from outside.

I could ignore anything unless when my dad gets physical like he did tonight. I heard him push my mom as she fell in front of my door with a loud bang.

I clumped on my bed holding onto my knees with one hand and dialing Pablo's number in another. I couldn't stay here anymore, I was starting to feel my panic attach creeping in.

"Hello? Amor?" he said while my tears were flooding my face smiling when I heard his voice that was enough to make me feel safer.

"Um..I need you to pick me up cariño..please?" I said my voice shaky and he knew something was definitely wrong if I was calling in the middle of the night sounding like this.

"I will be there in five minutes. Can you wait for me outside amorcito?" he said and I said that was fine as I packed some clothes into my backpack quietly sneaking out of my bedroom window. Luckily I was on the lower level so I could utilize the window when I needed it.

He was there even quicker rushing outside not even closing his door and hugging me to his chest tightly while holding my head against his chest as I cried.

"Shh..estas bien amor..estas bien..I am right here now..your Pablito is right here..and we are going to go somewhere quiet and safe okay?" he spoke and I nodded still unable to stop my tears from falling down my cheeks but at least I wasn't hyperventilating anymore when I got into the car and we drove off.

I took my shoes off pulling my knees to my chest while looking through the window wondering why do I need to have a family like this? How did I deserve to deal with this?

"Wanna hold my hand amorcito? We are almost home" he said giving you his arm and you held it against your chest playing with his fingers to distract yourself and he smiled continuing to drive slowly towards his house.

When we arrived, he helped me out walking slowly while holding my trembling body against himself kissing the top of my head when he got into his apartment.

"Let's wear some pajamas huh?" he said and I realized that I didn't pack any only bringing clothes to wear tomorrow. I told him that but he only smiled pulling me close and kissing my forehead.

"As long as I have my shirts, you will have your pajamas princesita" he said and I smiled as we walked to his bedroom looking through his closet for me to choose the shirt I wanted to wear.

"Those are all expensive Pablo.." I said not wanting to sleep in something that costed like my monthly subscription to Netflix and he chuckled shaking his head while pulling out one his Boss shirts I always complimented when he wore.

"Arms up princesita" he said and I blushed doing as he asked as he put the shirt over my body making it fall all the way below my knees like a perfect length dress.

"Looks better on you anyways..so how about we make some hot coco? I have mini marshmallows from last time too?" he said and I suddenly smiled wide that being my favorite drink which he knew really well. His eyes teared up and I was confused what happened.

"You have such a beautiful smile..you deserve to always smile preciosa...always" he said kissing the top of my head and I told him that it was alright and that I was used to dealing with this.

"Da igual.." you sigh shaking your head.

"No da igual..I promise to give you the life in which you will always smile.." he said and that made you smile more moving closer and kissing his lips lovingly. We might be young, but I trusted Pablo comeptlely and I knew he knows more about love than my adult parents ever will.

"No more tears! We are going to go make ourselves some coco and then we can cuddle if you want?" he said and I nodded quickly saying there is nothing better I could think of.

"Okay careful, preciosa. It's hot when I pour it and you can put in the marshmallows" he said and you smiled that he was always so careful not to hurt you and you waited for him to pour before putting in the squishy marshmallows in with a smile.

We sat down with our mugs and he pulled me into his arms. While I sipped on my coco, he was searching the channels smiling when he looked down at saw the little moustache I had on my face.

"Que?" I said when I saw him giggling and he used his fingers to clean me up putting it into my mouth afterwards making me blush.

"Tu eres tan preciosa" he said kissing my lips sweetly while I giggled telling him that I like Friends and that we can watch it which he quickly agreed.

We watched almost five episodes when i felt sleepy moving closer and resting my head on his shoulder while he held me tightly against himself which is exactly what I needed in this moment.

"Muchas gracias Pablo..for picking me up..and for taking care of me..Te amo mucho" I said and he smiled nodding his head and kissing the top of my head.

"Yo tambien te amo muchisimo princesita mia. No need to thank me..it's my job to take care of mi novia whenever she needs me..and I love whenever you can sleep over" he said and I smiled nodding my head and slowly dozing off to sleep.

I was already fast sleep on his chest when my phone rang and Pablo took it seeing it was my dad on the other line. His jaw clenched as he answered the call making sure to be quiet not to disturb your sleep.

"She's fine, sir. She's with me and I will take care of her..you have no idea how special your daughter is..and she doesn't deserve any of this" he said to the man before hanging up and kissing the top of your head promising himself to always be there to protect you and to give you the life you deserve in the future.

I hope you like it and I hope it helps in any way amor <3 Again, if you need to talk I'm always here! Stay strong!

#pablo gavi #pablo gavi icons #pablo gavi x reader #pablo gavi x y/n #fc barca #pablo gavi x you #fc barcelona #fc barça #gavi #gavigif #gavira #pablo gavira #pablo martín páez gavira #pablogavixreadersmut #gavi x reader #gavi x you #gavi x yn #gavi x vini

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gamebird · 3 months ago

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Several years ago, I was in a fandom that featured a hot pair of guys in a canonical romance, so of course there were a lot of shipping fics with them in it. Fics covered all manner of tropes - many types of historical, different AUs, first kisses, foe-yay, time traveler/lost in time, etc. There was one story where one of them was sold into sexual slavery to the other, set in a fantasy vaguely European historical setting. I read the first chapter, it looked good, I put a bookmark or a subscription on it (it was a WIP) and moved on.

Some members of the fandom posted about the disgusting racism that was coming to light in our fandom, how our fandom of all fandoms should not allow such things, and how the existence of certain fics should ashame all of us. I, curious like anyone would be, asked what they were talking about. Where was this disgusting racism so I could go pick a fight.

Well. It came out that it was that fic. The one I'd read. That had 5-6 chapters now. I went and read the new chapters, wondering what the hell had happened with the plot. Turned out, nothing at all had happened. Character A had bought character B, B was slowly falling in love with his new master, secret longing he couldn't admit to, an escape attempt, re-capture, "punishment", a lot of hurt/comfort and twisted up emotions in recovery from the punishment, you know the drill. This is very standard fare. Also, there was nothing racial in the entire thing.

I went back to the outraged posts and asked, 'Did you read the fic you're talking about?' (the one single fic they were using to say the entire fandom had a racism problem that needed to be rooted out). I was told no, they had not, and they would not read it, because it was a disgusting, perverted story that shouldn't exist in the first place, it degraded the fans of color who enjoyed our fandom, and it made the fandom hostile to them.

Huh.

I think of that when I see someone say, 'I looked at AO3 and saw something that indicates terrible disrespect for the characters.'

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leafyaa · 2 years ago

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Chapter 4.

You groggily wake up with a heavy headache.

Your head was pounding so hard you almost collapsed on the floor as soon as you tried to get out of bed.

'What even happened last night?' Was what you would question yourself. But you didn't remember anything.

Anything but a stranger helping you home.

"Did he ever say his name to me..?" You try to remember but sadly fail.

"Wait a minute.." You quickly searched for your phone and found it in your purse on the kitchen counter.

It was fucking 9 am. And your shift starts at 8:30 am...

You frantically unlock your phone to send a message to your manager but to your surprise he already texted you first.

After you reply back, you put your phone down on the counter and sigh. For the split second when you panicked your headache was gone but now it slowly started to come back again. You slump onto the chair and lay your head on the counter. Expecting to feel the wooden counter, but you instead feel a piece of paper.

You sit up straight again and look confused down at your counter and realize there was a sticky note pasted on it.

'Hey, we need to talk. Text me when you're awake. -06xxxxxxxx'

You were still dazed from your hangover but somehow thought it was Gorou's number because he said you could talk to him.. Right? And then he was probably the one who carried you home?

Whatever the case was, you were going to text the number.

And then the person left you on read.

"So it's.. Gorou..?" You say with a confused expression.

It had to be him right? He was the one who wanted to talk to you after all..

'Whatever.. I should just eat some breakfast..' You think and put your phone on the counter. You make a simple egg and toast for breakfast and carry on with your day. Just cleaning up and doing some chores.

Evening rolls around and it's almost 5 pm. You look at the text message again and start to wonder: what should you wear?

Because you've looked up Uyuu restaurant and it was a pretty expensive place.. It kinda made you wonder what police even make as a salary.

So because of your indecisiveness you decide to text your friends for what to wear!

After choosing your dress and contemplating on wearing the same jacket from last night (you decided to wear it) you leave your house and wait at the bus stop. The ride from Konda village to Inazuma city was pretty far, 30 minutes, but you have taken the bus for the past 5 years so it wasn't much of an issue.

Since summer was approaching that meant that the sun stayed up longer too, so no sign of darkness yet.

The bus itself was pretty quiet. Just you and a few other passengers, presumably to the same destination.

You take out your earphones and phone from your purse and start listening to music, enjoying the calm atmosphere around you.

In an instant, time seems to be passing by quickly and it was already the last bus stop. You and a few others step out the bus, each going separate ways.

You went on your phone to navigate where the restaurant was- which was only a 10 minute walk away.

As you walk into the restaurant you're met with the scent of Inazuman dishes being freshly prepared as well as people loudly chatting.

Everyone was dressed well, even the kids who may or may not unwillingly went. But like really really well dressed while you walk in with a casual dress.

"Miss L/n?" A waiter approaches you with a kind smile.

"A-ah yes, that's me."

"Please follow me to the vip room."

"vip room??" You exclaim in a shock.

"Yes, your husband booked it. Didn't you know?" The waiter chuckles.

"Huh.. No.." You mumble, completely unnoticing the fact that he called Gorou your husband.

"Oh and by the way, next time you come here just enter the other entrance. It's less crowded and only for the VIP guests." The waiter explains, showing you the quiet waiting room with the entrance leading to the other side of the restaurant.

"May I also inform you that he signed for a subscription under your name with his bank account linked to it? It's a yearly subscription for having access to the VIP rooms as well as other extra things we don't offer to normal guests.." He added.

"What??" So many things being explained in 5 minutes- you feel so confused.

"Yeah, he paid it for the next 10 years and everything that you order in those years will be charged under his bank account. Isn't he sweet?"

"Wait what-"

"Anyway, this is the room where you'll be dining. He requested for the room which was the most soundproof one which I wonder what he's planning for you~ It's officially under your and his name for the next 10 years so please enjoy it. If you need anything you can just order it from the tablet, however it seems like he already ordered some of your favorite dishes in advance. Isn't that just heartwarming?" The waiter sighs and looks proudly.

"Is there anything you want to order now? A drink? I can bring it right away then."

The waiter stares at you with a friendly smile while you are in shock, trying to process everything.

"Uhm.. A glass of water please." You mutter and take off your shoes, placing it on the wooden floor before carefully walking on the tatami floor where a large table with two seats were placed.

"Coming right up!" The waiter says, before giving you a chance to ask any questions.

Honestly now that you weren't hungover anymore you feel pretty weirded out by how Gorou arranged everything?

Like you just met him yesterday and he's already treating you like some goddess???

No way that that was logical?

Except... If he has a crush on you??? Wait. A. Fucking. Second.

Sure he was one of the sweetest person you met but what?? This is too much for you- You feel overwhelmed.

In a panic you pull out your phone, about to text Heizou and Sara. Though you immediately stop when the waiter comes with a beautiful glass filled with water.

He had put the glass on a plate with some fruit accompanying it.

"Please enjoy your water, miss."

He said and gently closes the door of the room.

You stare at the expensive looking water. Being intimidated just by thinking of how expensive it could be.

It looked even fancier than the f/f that was placed on the table like what the heck??

You take a sip and somehow are surprised at how clean it tastes. How did it taste different from the water at home??

Honestly you feel kind of weird just sitting here. You feel like you don't belong in this fancy restaurant.

You wait for 15 minutes, feeling kind of annoyed at the fact Gorou still hasn't arrived.

Then another 15 minutes pass by and still no sign. Not even a text.

In frustration you start to call Gorou, feeling super annoyed at this point.

"Hey Y/n! How can I-"

"Where are you??" You interrupt his cheery voice with your very irritated voice.

"Uhh at the station? Why? Do you need something?" Gorou asks, sounding concerned.

"Didn't you tell me to meet you at Uyuu restaurant? You even booked a vip room for us-?? Like what the fuck?" You kind of whisper yell.

"Y/n? What are you talking about? Are you drunk perhaps?"

Now you were even more confused. Was it not Gorou that texted you?

But you named the contact Gorou, right?

"I'll call you back..." You mutter and quickly hang up, looking through your contacts.

And there you find two contacts named Gorou.

You look at the previous conversations and it turns out the number you thought gorou texted you from was just another number.

Basically meaning you were meeting up with a fucking stranger??

You quickly get up and run to grab your shoes, sliding open the Shoji door with a hurry.

The waiter was talking with another waiter and noticed you and waves.

"Hey! Do you need anything?"

"Please tell me the name of the bank account this is registered on!" You request in a frantic state.

"Well, let me check.." The waiter pulls out his phone and scans the qr code on the wall.

"It's Raiden Kunikuzushi."

⇠ previous ⭒ masterlist ⭒next ⇢

Notes:

Finally we found out that the person who brought you home wasn't Gorou, but it was Kunikuzushi!!

Summary:

You've dated Scaramouche in your high school and college years but just as you wanted to announce your pregnancy to him he broke up with you without any reason. He left you to be a single mom for 7 years. But now that your daughter has been missing and abducted for a year and you've not been doing well and out of a sudden he showed up into your life again trying to apologize for his past mistakes..?

Taglist:

@swivy123 @kichiyoshi @wwwrizchan @k1t0 @killumeo @pinkdreamerbailifflawyer-blog @samarill @xiaotopia @aqualesha @eattingshits @omoriaddict @mave-in @sketcheeee @xiaossocksniffer @elernity @ohmyfinggod @izukusshuu @divinechicha @arrowximpack @kariuu

#genshin #genshin impact #genshin au #genshin impact au #genshin smau #genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #genshin x y/n #kunikuzushi x reader #modern au #scaramouche fluff #scaramouche angst #scaramouche x reader #wanderer x reader #genshin impact modern au #ITIFILWYA

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joelwindows7 · 1 year ago

Text

Top betrayal of websites & where people migrated to

That I know of right now.

YouTube. Community Guideline Strikes & DMCAs, & moar bad things. Go to Odysee now.

[tumblr] (formerly). Deleted & purged 69420. Go to idk, 888blr, and Twitter, and Newgrounds, and any Mastodon instances out there. Unbetrayed!! 69420 is back!!! But the damage has been done.

Twitter. Wait, what again? No, I forgot what Elon Musk did? Uh.... I still... idk... well let's say... did not make things better for all part (just few make betters are not considered enough), damn.. what is it?!. Go to idk any Fediverse like Mastodon or whatever it is. Also bot account or whatever API was that I forgor,... paid, coz spammers.

What was this Minecraft Launcher?. Lead dev gone rogue and deleted contributors, could possible lead to malware commit. Go to Prism Launcher.

Ubuntu. Uhhh... proprietary blobs increasing and more ironic proprietarisms (Snap is proprietary), and one example sauce here this. Go to different Ubuntu forks or maybe jump to another diffferent Linux Distro like Arch, btw.

VRChat. Implemented Easy Anti-Cheat instead of officializing community fixes like Anti-crash, anti-exploits, etc. etc. Go to different VR social media, like ChilloutVR. This is also Unity based VR social media, with mods allowed and many community patch and fixes (yes, mods) turned official. Heck, 69420 is even allowed, with a free DLC provided!!! No kidding!!! If you want to add me, same, JOELwindows7 & I was wearing BZ Protogen right now. Oh, one more thing. The Premium account is buy once, unlock forever!!! In VRChat, there is only subscription (temporary buy). There is also NEOS VR, which is Unreal Engine, I think.. idk... huh, no Godot VR social media?! Aw man..

Reddit. API is now paid because API does not serve them money through those intrusive ads in the original interface (effectively making maintenance way too expensive as lots of users use them, & it no longer worth it). Go to [tumblr], Lemmy (& maybe any Mastodon instances). See r/Save3rdPartyApps. Many subreddits gone privated in protest. Some come back, others forever. Some again restricted like mine. Basically private but still can be accessed, just no comment, no post, or neither. Fun fact, because of this, Reddit admin ironically active eradicating this protest by force removing mods and handing it over to somebody else who will, especially to basically force them public again. I mean, yeah, it's egregious, peck neck 💀, privated no access anymore. Your fault, spez. Why has Private in 1st place? Just restricted & public that's enough. And you yeeted their hard work away because of this? There is a better way bruh! Don't yeet mods and replace them, they'll further damage the subreddits, no idea what to do with them! Instead, if you want, just set them Restricted, keep mods, wtf man?!?!?!?!?!? Ugh, very awry.

Okay that's all I know, thancc for attention

By JOELwindows7

Perkedel Technologies

CC4.0-BY-SA

#betrayal #reddit boycott #reddit #reddit blackout #r/196 #196 #betrayed #reddit refugee #reddit api #reddit migration #rogue #reddit migrants #reddit mod #vrchat #reddit apocalypse

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infinitelystrangemachinex · 3 months ago

Text

streaming tv is like the fantasy/fiction need for a mid list. big money thrown at projects expecting that big money can make anything too big to fail, when the reality is that there’s only so much profit to make in an oversaturated market and only so many properties that can be the number one most popular thing at a time, but no matter how many projects fail or how variable the quality of the art is, it’s never going to be acceptable again to shore up most of your projects with only SOME money and letting that “mid list” find longlasting audiences that provide your baseline business

i wish both streaming tv and the publishing industry would spend less money on more projects that cultivate good writing. i want good writing and long projects to get invested in so bad that i'm caring less and less for production

my thesis statement is that tv shows are being canceled because they cost too much money. a mid list would have saved most canceled shows. higher production costs don't mean better writing, and lower production costs don't mean worse writing

the publishing industry is asking for shorter fantasy books and is canceling series and leaving authors behind because it is throwing all its money at shiny new things that are not actually new and don't stick

all of this without investment in a "mid list" to keep baseline profits coming or to keep a foundation of writers paid and busy

if companies spent less money on shows, would they last longer? would they hone writers' skills more? does this extend to animation where the budgets are so much smaller? or is there no world where i could get multiple 25-episode seasons of arcane and i'm just deluding myself

fantasy books especially have had an oversaturation problem for years, but the biggest problem is an over-reliance on debuts without investment in originality or in authors’ futures. what this looks like is big money thrown at marketing shiny debuts or at a subset of the old familiar faces in fantasy that established themselves before the shift in industry mindset. everyone else either gets scraps or can’t find their footing after their debut. you either go viral somehow or you go home. to make money, the only acceptable projects are generic or are recognizable rehashes of previously popular but specific ideas. fantasy is considered a popular genre now, but in my opinion, fantasy has never stopped being niche, but the need to find bigger audiences and bigger investment has resulted in pushing fantasy series that don't do anything new or interesting and actively spurn good prose, but can appeal to as many people as possible (instead of weird fantasy freaks, aka me, i'm freaks, now most of the freaky fantasy i can find is in video games and a single tear is rolling down my face)

now tv. buffy the vampire slayer cost about 1-2 million per episode. star trek tng cost 1 million per episode

look where we’re at with streaming services. tv shows that cost millions and tens of millions of dollars per episode. the sopranos redefined what prestige tv meant and it cost 2-6 million per episode. chasing the new prestige mindset, game of thrones started out at 6 million per episode. today, early game of thrones’ budget from about 2011-2013 is joked about like it’s chump change, especially for game of thrones or hbo. but prestige tv reeled in that subscriber money. the streaming model today is the continuation of the prestige tv model, except that every show needs to be prestige, no matter the audience or genre or story structure. because prestige tv made money

now that the baseline model for helping your subscription/channel make money is to throw 6 million+ per episode, it's no longer a mystery why seasons are getting shorter and shorter. and the demand for higher and higher production will only mean that shows take longer and longer to make

netflix shelled out 6 million per episode - what an oddly familiar number, huh? - for stranger things season 1. season 4 cost 30 million per episode

wheel of time season 1: 10 million per episode. rings of power season 1: 58 million per episode. these are adaptations btw, not original IPs, but this is SEASON ONE money you’re looking at. i liked both rings of power and wheel of time decently, but my hot take is that both of these shows are under-written and over-produced. why so much money thrown at projects with writers at the helm who are inexperienced in the fantasy genre? rings of power in particular is bank-breaking and it was originally planned to run for several seasons

the mandalorian season 1: 15 million per episode. andor season 1: 20 million per episode. the acolyte season 1: 22 million per episode

remember that the subscription model requires subscribers to make money and requires NEW subscribers to satisfy the hunger for growth, and star wars is a single IP with established fans. the mandalorian, andor, and the acolyte all took major risks in different ways. the mandalorian actually fell back on star wars fundamentals (rather than being something net new in my opinion) and its risk was in being a show, not a movie, and the first of its kind on streaming for star wars

andor could be the riskiest fantasy/sci-fi show to hit streaming, ever. 12 episodes for season 1 that cost 250 million overall, not 6-8, explores marxist themes, and did not pull in new subscribers. what popularity it does have is purely due to word-of-mouth and plain old good writing, rather than marketing or by simply being part of star wars. it was originally going to be 5 seasons but is now going to be 2 because... 250 million dollars is a lot to spend on one season of television that didn't make you a lot of money. simple as that, even if andor is the best live-action thing disney has produced in decades in my opinion

the acolyte season 1 was 8 episodes and cost 22 million per episode, which armchair critics on social media are stating is the reason why the show has been canceled. haters will just say it was canceled because of bad writing, and fans are saying it was because of review-bombing and the diversity of the cast and crew

i disagree on some level that the acolyte is the first star wars show to be canceled, because again, andor was going to be 5 seasons and is now going to be 2, losing over 50% of the original story. even fans of the acolyte will agree that its writing wasn't the best. most fans who have seen andor will agree that it is the best-written star wars media ever on par with the best episodes of clone wars. both shows brought me over to disney plus when no other show or movie did

but in effect, both shows have been canceled

my take is that if a mid list existed, both shows should have been on it. they are part of an established IP with established fans who were going to watch the shows no matter what. most people with star wars fatigue would not have heard about the uniqueness of these shows until later and would have probably picked them up by their finales or by their season 2s

if they were not star wars properties and were original stories instead, both of these shows were still fairly unique doing things that appeal to "weird" subsets of sci-fi/fantasy fans. the mid list would have been perfect either way

i firmly believe that a mid list would have saved both of these shows. 6 million per episode MAXIMUM. ideally less. not because i dislike either show, but because i care about writing above all else. pay 1 writers room a fair wage and let them go fucking nuts for a few seasons. as long as everyone else in the production is being paid a fair and living wage, i don't care how little is spent on the show

stranger things should have been a mid-list anthology series that ran forever, wheel of time should have been a mid-list tv fantasy with at least 12 episodes per season to do any justice to those massive books but also to pay homage to the book series' roots as high fantasy that goes on and on without much of a plan and with often mid and sometimes junky writing but with appeal in that it was long-running, made readers familiar with the same characters every book for many hundreds of pages each, and is something of a comfort read now for many fans

i think that reality is catching up to streaming services and things are going to get worse before they get better

but i also think that the next "evolution" of tv should be the return of the mid list

#it’s 4 AM and I have a stomach bug and I wanna watch a show that’s longer than 8 eps per season but noooo #anime still understands this and comedy shows still understand this #their budgets are bigger than they used to be but don’t cost a small country's gdp to produce lol #i would actually be more willing to invest in a show if it was ADVERTISED as being on the mid list #like - we are literally going to spend less per episode on this show but it will have 12-25 episodes per season #writers are gonna write no matter what - some writers are good and some are bad #but spending more on your show does not guarantee that your writers are going to be magically better #spend what's appropriate for the show's content and your risk tolerance and then hire a mix of writers - experience and cultivation #as for the publishing industry just bring back the mid list in general and stop fucking canceling book series #and stop fucking firing editors and working the ones you don't fire to the bone as if being an editor also magically makes you #a marketer and a publicist somehow #the acolyte #andor #publishing #books #tv shows

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bitchsister · 7 months ago

Note

soooo I need luckycharms!AU Bucky and Curt on vacation somewhere.. slutty. your choice. john wants to show his boy from the bronx the world. maybe rome? like in EYY but this time they get to truly experience and enjoy it without the fear of doom & war & death ?!!? ya kno

Ohhhh you know I love a good Italy trip lmaooo. Cattonquick in Liguria was my favorite thing to write. Now I get to write Bucky and Curt being sluts? I’m so lucky. Ripping the nude beach idea right out of my Cattonquick fic and putting a Curtbucky twist on it.

Andiamo!

This request got pregnant with this other one ⬆️ it felt right so we went with it!!

HONORABLE MENTION;

Don’t read if you aren’t down with these: More vibrating butt plug, nude beach filth, ‘daddy’ is used twice, spanking, very very very very light dom/sub vibes if you squint but hardly, Curt is a cunt, abundant use of pet names

All it took was a few planted magazines on the coffee table for Bucky to quickly realize where Curt had wanted to visit, and the places he absolutely did not.

“Paris would be so fun, don’tcha think?” His legs were stretched over Bucky’s thighs who had been intently eyeing the score of the Brewers versus the Reds, dramatically huffing and puffing as the score continued not to work out in his home teams favor.

“Yeah, baby.” Bucky nodded, acting as though he was hardly listening but he was instead taking permanent mental notes. Paris is added to the possible itinerary, as is Aspen, Madeira, Lagos and Porto.

Then came ramblings of Barcelona, ripe springtime strawberries held between Curt’s lips as he flipped through pages filled with beautiful images of Casa Batlló, La Sagrada Famila, and the Picasso museum. “Look.” He turned the magazine around, pointing to the water. “Look how blue the water is, Ducky. We ain’t ever gonna see that here, huh? Closest we got is Coney Island.” He chuckled, again oblivious to Bucky’s mental note taking, the itinerary growing longer and longer with each new travel magazine Bucky hid around the house.

“Why do you got all these, anyway?” Curt grabbed the latest addition, a travel guide of Italy. “You got like thirty of the things.”

“I get ‘em for free at the office.” Bucky lied, and felt bad about it. “Guess Harding never cancelled the subscription when he was cruise shopping. I snag ‘em before he can realize they were even delivered.”

Curt hummed and nodded his head, puffing at the joint between his lips, all sprawled out over the cushioned window bench like a sunbathing feline. “I’d do anything to go to Italy.” He whispered, and alarms went off in Bucky’s head.

Bingo, bing, bingo.

Ding, ding, ding!

“My Nonna tells me stories about growin’ up in Bologna.” He hung upside down, the magazine held over his face as he multitasked like never before. A couple puffs, a flick of the page, ashing his joint, running his gorgeous mouth. “Oh, look!” He scrambled to his knees and sat upright again to turn the magazine around like it was his turn for show and tell. “Pompeii!” He flipped the page, his excitement growing. “Look! Tits! Dicks! Ass!” He pointed to all of it, the page covering the top rated nude beach in the country, Guvano.

And so, when Curt went back to his campus dorm room for a few days to hunker down and study for finals before summer break, Bucky did his own studying on hotels, which quickly had been switched to villas, vineyards, tours, beaches, restaurants, you fucking name it.

He had eventually enlisted the help of a concierge, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying. He didn’t speak Italian and he wanted to know what was really worth seeing, according to the locals.

Come Friday evening, Curt looked and felt like he’d been beaten with two cinder blocks, trudging into Bucky’s stretch of hallway once he stepped inside.

He barely had any energy left to announce his arrival, quiet footsteps wandering into the kitchen where Bucky stood with his hip jutted, his phone an inch away from his face and a wine glass in the other as he read closely each step of the recipe he’d chosen to make for dinner.

Cacio e Pepe and scottadito. Earlier, he prepped for the perfect Caesar salad, ready to eat since he knew Curt would be starved to death after his finals.

“Hey.” A voice squeaked after the source had snapped an incognito photo on his phone of that version of Bucky — quiet, contemplative, focused.

“Jesus.” Bucky dropped his phone onto the counter. “Baby, you gotta make some noise or somethin’. I’ll have a heart attack.”

Curt huffed a laugh through his nostrils and shuffled the floors toward him to wrap himself around Bucky, his eyes closed as he rested his head against the mans chest. “Oh,” Bucky cooed, rubbing circles into Curt’s back once he’d sat down the glass of wine he’d become rather familiar with in the last hour or so. “How’d it go?”

“My brain.” Curt groaned, pressing his face into Bucky’s chest. “It hurts.”

Curt, as Bucky had quickly realized, was a goddamn genius and he knew just how to work it. Never to speak out of turn, always raw and honest and never pretending to be something he isn’t, that thick New York accent poking through even the most intelligent sentences Bucky had ever heard in his life.

Listen to this, listen to this. Alright. Here we go.

Curt stood in front of Bucky, reading part of his final presentation project as practice with one of Bucky’s sweaters hanging to his mid thigh and another joint rolled with pink papers between his teeth.

The potential of shape memory alloys in morphin’ wing technology with adaptive geometries that adjust in real-time could greatly optimize performance across various flight conditions.

Curt took another puff, his eyes locked on Bucky instead of the paper in his hand. He’d memorized it all and knew it by heart. After all, it was a touchy subject he felt passionate about.

Furthermore, research shows that this could increase fuel efficiency, reduce emissions, and could have a hand in improvin’ maneuverability.

Bucky was speechless, his jaw slack, hearts spilling out of his eyes and onto the floor. He was no help really, because every goddamn thing Curtis did was absolute perfection.

“Feed it.” Bucky held Curt to his chest with one hand while the other grabbed a plate, built an excellent Caesar, and offered it in front of a barstool at the island in the middle of the kitchen where half of it was still occupied by Bucky’s iPad, his knives, his cutting board and all of his oils and seasonings.

“You’re a real homemaker, you know, Egan.” Curt reluctantly detached himself from Bucky and plopped into the stool, stabbing forkfuls of lettuce and shoving it in his mouth while Bucky poured him a glass of some orange-ish hipster rosé, because the red shit gave him headaches and made him feel sleepy.

Good taste, Bucky would say.

You’re a natural at spending money.

“Yeah?” Bucky leaned against the island, pressing sweet kisses to Curt’s face despite the way he was feverishly shoving salad into it. “You gonna have me all kept at home while you make the dough, hm?” he was teasing, but knew once Curt got his foot in the door at a job after graduation, he’d be making his own natural hipster wine budget.

Big time.

“You think I will?” Curt murmured through a full mouth, booping noses with Bucky who nodded.

“Obviously, baby. No other choice, I fear.” Bucky watched intently as Curt sipped his wine, giggled, blushed, rolled his eyes. “How you feelin’ about the final?”

“Dunno.” Curt shrugged, watching Bucky continue on his prep for dinner and dessert. “I did good on the presentation part. It’s the fuckin’ multiple choice that I get so fucked up on. I’m indecisive! The shit’s outdated — how long they been makin’ us poor brain dead fucks fill in some bubbles, ya know?” He gulped more wine from his glass, “Like, since the dawn of time, I bet. And ain’t that shitty? You’d think they would—“

A red envelope was plopped in front of him, sealed with wax.

“What’s this?”

Bucky shrugged, sipping his glass of wine nonchalantly. “Dunno. Found it. Think it might be yours.”

Curt gave him a look of confusion, shaded with hints of brattiness and sass.

Bucky could eat him up.

His fingers deftly peeled the envelope open, his eyes taking in the words that he could hardly comprehend. “Italy?” He whispered, his heart sinking to his gut. “You’re kiddin’, Bucky..”

“I was going to wait until we got your score back from the final. But I know you’ll pass and I just couldn’t wait.” Bucky braced himself for Curt’s suddenly energized squealing and jumping and screaming and hooting and kissing and licking and all of it.

So. There they were, beach Guvano, the very same one in the magazine Curt had brought with him to compare and contrast magazines versus real life — so far, not a single thing had disappointed him.

“How’s it look?” Bucky asked from beside Curt, sprawled out on their beach blanket as he shoved sweet grapes into his cheeks.

“Less people here than in the pictures.” Curt had stripped down, of course, as he typically found any reason at all not to wear clothes at any time, no matter the location. “But I like that. ‘Cause some of these people in here shouldn’t be seen with clothes on.”

Bucky swatted his thigh, a dumb grin tugging his lips. “Bad boy. Be nice.”

Curt smirked and rolled onto his belly and closer to Bucky who still wore his skimpy little black speedo that he purchased simply to fit in with the rest of the Europeans.

American swim trunks didn’t feel authentic.

“You gonna lemme see the rest of ya?” Curt pressed a kiss to Bucky’s unbelievably tan, warm, sweaty neck. “Or you gonna be a perv?”

Bucky shrugged, scrolling on his phone in his left hand, his right buried deep in Curtis’ loose brown sea-salty waves and occasionally grabbing more grapes to chomp on. “Do pervs keep their swimsuits on at nude beaches?”

“Yes, actually.” Curt nodded, wagging his little ass once a warm breeze had tickled over it, his favorite plug between his sunburnt cheeks — the one that he’d worn to dinner with Bucky and Gale not long ago.

And Bucky had already started playing with him.

“I think the real pervs have vibrating plugs in their asses. In public.” Bucky gave Curt a look of mock-surprise once he’d flicked the level up to two, meeting Curt’s look of real shock with one of pure theatrics.

His mouth agape, his brows furrowed, his chin quivering as he moaned.

“Goddamn it.”Curtis cursed.

“Feel good?” Bucky whispered, the shade from their umbrella almost hiding them from the rest of the beach where the closest visitor seemed about thirty yards down the shoreline, minding their own business with their tits out. “S’your favorite one, isn’t it?”

Curt nodded quickly, his gaze softening into little horny feline slits, thick black lashes practically fluttering over his own pink cheeks, the freckles over the bridge of his nose accentuated by hours spent outdoors sipping wine or cappuccinos and eating all the finest culinary in the city. “Mhm.. M’favorite. Yeah.” He spluttered, practically drooling already.

Bucky laid his phone on his chest, reaching forward to caress his sweet boys soft cheeks instead, gathering the moisture from Curt’s wet lips onto his thumb and licking it clean. “God, you’re so fucking sweet.” He fawned, admiring again a practically frozen Curtis who whimpered softly in response.

“C’mere, my baby.” He hooked a hand around Curt’s waist and pulled him closer, the top half of his body resting over Bucky’s chest while the bottom involuntarily rut against every warm gust of wind with his ass or the blanket atop the soft sand with his cock.

Curt’s lips had found Bucky’s fingers, sucking them like he would his cock, or Gale’s, whenever their schedules aligned these days. “I passed my exam.” He breathed, pulling away from the hand he held with both of his own, half the size of Bucky’s. “Gotta ninety.”

Although he was expecting a one hundred or more including the bonus questions that saved his ass, he was nowhere near unhappy with where his GPA stood going into his second year.

Bucky lit up, of course, kissing him like it could be their last. “I fucking knew it.” He whispered between kisses. “My fucking genius boy. God, you’re so fucking smart. It’s so sexy.”

Bucky would eat him if he could.

Carry him around just like that, wherever he went, there Curt would be.

“What can I say?” Curt grinned, lips drenched in shared saliva. “Somebody besides J.Lo has to make a name for the Bronx.”

Bucky snarled a laugh. “Christ,” he chased the moan that escaped Curtis into his own mouth to devour it. “Better graduate early, then.” He teased, his hand grabbed again and the fingers enveloped once more in the soft hallows of Curt’s cheeks that grew pinker by the minute.

He wiggled his ass again against the plug that was stuffing him, eventually moving to sit on his folded legs and rut against his own heel, Bucky’s gaze watching all the while beneath a pair of sunglasses with rather transparent brown lenses.

Curt loved to be watched.

He loved, so very much, to be the center of Bucky’s world.

He’d put on little shows for him, all sweaty and panting and begging for it. He’d become a mess, held together by prayer alone at the altar he worshipped so reverently - theirs — their love, their passion, their unbridled blazing hearts that had morphed together somewhere along the way, or perhaps in lifetimes before this one.

This love, the one that gushed so unabashedly, was the reason Bucky was able to stomach the sight of Gale between his baby’s legs, or the way Curt sucked on his fingers while Gale fucked all of his courtroom rage out of him, his pretty blue eyes in the back of his head.

Whatever they did with Gale was an extension of their love, yes, but it would never get between it.

Could never harm it.

Bucky caressed his parted thighs but didn’t dare to touch Curt’s cock that leaked sweet little milky white droplets down his smooth shaft, a sight to behold since so much was typically impossible without a belly full of Bucky’s cum. “You’re so fuckin’ wet. Getting yourself all messy.” He whispered.

Curt was aroused beyond reason — every one of his milder kinks (amongst many others that wouldn’t be appropriate beneath the blue sky) were being fulfilled. Bucky’s eyes on him, sweet little words muttered in praise and adoration.

The sun on his shoulders, the sea breeze sending shivers down his spine.

His bent legs spread wider until he was sat between them, his ass plopped onto the beach blanket which he ground himself into. “Look’it what you done to me, daddy.” His voice was low and rasped through breathy gasps and moans, “I want your big cock in me so bad.” He chomped his teeth at Bucky, proving to be all bark and no bite.

Bucky hummed, ignoring the rumble of thunder that hung above their heads, and his cock that stiffened so much his Speedo struggled to conceal it. “Not here, honey.” He adjusted his sunglasses to sit perfectly nestled in his brown curls, his usually loose waves tightened and accentuated from the saltwater still in it from that morning. “Laws still exist in Italy, you know. I looked it up.” He had no reason to study European law, but for this, he did a little research.

“But —“ Curt whined, his palms flat against his thighs as he rode the plug like he would Bucky, feeling the intensity of the vibrations kick up a notch when Bucky flicked a little green bug off his phone screen, the notch set to its maximum which they’d never done before. Especially not after sitting on a three for so long.

Curt hardly knew what to do with himself, the fire in his loins growing and growing, just like the storm cloud that hung above their heads. “Too much — I can’t —“ he panted, scrambling to reach between his legs and get rid of it but Bucky abruptly stopped him.

“Ah, ah.” Bucky tsked, “Don’t you dare.” He pressed gentle kisses over Curt’s knuckles that held onto him like a lifeline, tight white and shaking.

“Please,” Curt whined, looking between his legs and down at his own cock that had yet to reach its climax but continued to trickle with a steady stream of excitement and arousal, toes curling as he squealed.

“You gonna come?” Bucky sat up, then. He thought maybe he was going to witness history — Curtis Biddick making himself come without being pumped full of it first. “Oh, honey. You’re so close. I can see it. Fucking look at you.” Scrunched nose, back arched, nails digging into his own thighs. “Make a mess, baby. I’ll clean you up.”

Curt huffed and puffed, their umbrella swaying in the wind and a drizzle of rain peppering his warm shoulders. “I’m g’na come.” He said through rapid huffs of breath.

“Give it to daddy, baby. C’mon.” Bucky was doing that sexy little thing he’d do. He’d pout his lips and mutter filthy encouragement through a clenched jaw. He grabbed Curt’s cheeks and severed their gaze, instead redirecting his attention down to his own cock. “Watch with me.”

Curt was wailing, watching his body react instinctively to everything happening to it but the closer he crept, the lighter he felt the vibrations becoming until they were gone completely.

And then came the torrential downpour.

“What happened?” Bucky asked once Curt began cursing, pulling his hands away from their restrictions in Bucky’s grasp to pump himself but there was hardly any hope in it.

“It fucking died!” Curt was angry.

He pulled the thing out of him and tossed it harshly into their beach bag, pulling on his so very American swim trunks and his Blink-182 tshirt. “Fucking bullshit goddamn technology, Bucky! I could make a better fucking goddamn fucking thing than that — fuck!” Curt was still panting but every other sensation he felt only a moment ago had been so abruptly ripped away from him.

“Well do it, then.” Bucky grumbled, sitting up and gathering their things as the storm raged on and Curtis stood with his arms folded, clearly pouting and being no help at all. “If you’re so fucking disappointed. It’s your job to charge it, Curt. It’s going in your ass, after all.”

Bucky rummaged for the keys to their rental car, soaked by the rain but still looking so rideable despite Curt’s suddenly horrendous attitude. “But you’re the one that fucks the battery!” He waved his arms, “With your fucking bullshit!”

Curt was left there, standing in the rain while Bucky made a beeline for their big Audi SUV that was similar in size to Bucky’s Range Rover, but he’d made several comments about maybe thinking about switching to something a bit more like this back home. “If you’re going to drain the battery, I’m just fuckin’ sayin’ you should also be held accountable for chargin’ it, too.” His voice followed behind, catching up eventually.

Bucky had opened the passenger door for Curt to get in before he even made it back over to the car, hoping he’d curl up for a nap and fall asleep before Bucky was done loading up the car again.

He couldn’t be so lucky.

“You still runnin’ your mouth?” Bucky furrowed his brows, shaking sand out of their beach blanket before folding it neatly.

“Yes!” Curt whined, wanting to fucking cry. Bucky wasn’t hearing him — he wasn’t understanding. He was so, so fucking close. He felt the butterflies wake up in his belly, his heart hammered in his chest, his legs felt like they’d turned to goo.

And then nothing.

“You aren’t listenin’ to me!”

Bucky closed the trunk before he sauntered to Curt, his neck craned downward to look at him. “Bend over.” He pointed to the passenger seat, voice stern but steady.

Sharp, but buttery smooth around the edges.

Curt stuttered for a moment, “I — Bucky,” but suddenly realized it would be his pleasure to do just that.

A silence settled between them as they stood in the rain, their narrowed gazes in a standoff until Curt backed down and draped himself over the leather interior, his trunks pulled roughly below the plump curve of his ass that fucking jiggled when he spread his legs a little, perking his ass out for Bucky to spank.

“Make it a good one.” Curt quipped, his tone almost bordering mockery. “Or it’d be a shame you bent me over at all.”

Bucky had been a little pissed off by that one, but knew whole heartedly that had been the exact point — Curt knew what he was doing.

The buttons to push.

The buttons he licked with his tongue and bit with his canines until he drew blood.

The buttons he knew all too well.

A loud and heavy handed crack left a vivid and splotchy pink handprint over the delicious and a little bit sunburnt strawberry milky white skin of Curt’s right cheek, his knuckles bitten as he whined.

“I want an apology, Curtis.” Bucky bent over his body, nipping at his ear. “Not fair to take your frustration out on me, is it?”

Curt rolled his eyes, grinning into the leather of the seat beneath him as they replaced the new car smell with their own. “Fuck you.” He mumbled, going to sit up again until a hand forced him back down.

“What was that?” Bucky shoved Curt’s stance wider with his knee, feeling a hand back again to spank Curt’s left cheek that time. He hardly tensed up at it, seeming to melt under each crack against his skin.

What am I gonna do with you, Biddick?

“Hm?”

Curt wasn’t so tough eventually. All it took was three more good whips of skin against skin before he was back to begging for it. “Just let me sit on it while you drive.” He begged, clearly unaware how unrealistic and — even moreso— unsafe that sounded.

They had a schedule that day that allowed little wiggle room and Bucky had warned Curtis of this plenty before they made the reservations that they did.

We’ll have no time to play in between, Curtie. You realize that, right?

Curt nodded his head, encouraging Bucky to confirm their reservations.

I’m not an animal, Bucky. I can control myself. Jesus.

Lie.

“C’mon. We can make it work. Please.”

Bucky checked his watch and shook his head. “We have the tour you wanted to do in an hour, Curtis.” He pulled Curt’s trunks up and manhandled him into his seat despite his resistance. “And we’re not going to be fucking late because of your bullshit.”

He closed Curt’s door and made way around the vehicle to his own where he hopped in and turned over the engine, blasting the AC against their warm skin as O Mio Bambino Care droned through the speakers.

“I’m sorry.” Curt whispered, leaning over the middle console and pressing kisses to Bucky’s bicep and shoulder. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean what I said — I — I was havin’ an outburst.”

Those happened often.

Curt was simply a hothead, too used to acting out on his first instinct, which was always anger.

Gale was helping him work through this, but wasn’t always around to be the mediator.

Bucky wasn’t going to let him hide behind that excuse forever, though. “No, you weren’t.” He mumbled. “You were being shitty just to be shitty.” He rolled a window down and lit a cigarette. “I didn’t come either, you know.” He looked toward Curtis again. “You don’t hear me crying about it.”

Curt scrambled in his seat, crawling into Bucky’s and subsequently falling into his lap, his back smashing against the horn but he didn’t give a fuck. At the very least, it made Bucky smile. “You’re right. I’m shitty. I was bein’ shitty just to be fuckin’ shitty. And I’m sorry.” He inhaled the smoke Bucky shared with him, their lips slotting together perfectly.

Bucky could never deny Curtis the satisfaction of an accepted apology — this wasn’t a real fight. It was nothing of the sort.

It was a squabble, yes, but in the end, it wouldn’t make or break anything.

Except a few of Bucky’s fragile nerves.

“Still doesn’t mean I’m gonna fuck you, honey.” Bucky smirked, cigarette between his teeth. “C’mon, back in your spot. We gotta get goin’.”

#💌#yoyo writes #I love these two #curtbucky #this one is so long #masters of the air #lcau

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danosrosegarden · 1 year ago

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Angel (Part Two) - Edward Nashton x GN!Reader

Contains: smoking (please don't), a very minor mention of drinking, mentions/descriptions of sex work (reader is a sex worker and is bisexual), descriptions of negative self-image, and descriptions of a past toxic relationship.

Note: I have an idea of where this story will go...a few details are already planned out. But is there something you'd like to see specifically (don't worry about smut, smut will come eventually)? Shoot me a message about your idea, and I'll see if I can work it in!

Your nose scrunched as soon as you climbed into Edward's car. The air inside wrapped its talons around the smooth skin of your throat and squeezed hard. It was stiflingly hot and reeked of the cloudy, stale stench of cigarettes. It reminded you of the thin, worn warmth of Marshall's flannels you used to cuddle into. No matter the grisly fights you'd get into, at the end of each night, you could always count on his touch to find you somehow. He was gentle when he wanted to be. The crumbles of ash on his shirt used to look like home.

You supposed there was no such thing as "home" anymore. There was no such thing as liquor-flavored kisses in the glimmering heat of the afternoon sun leaking through the open window of his apartment. There was no such thing as makeup sex in the dead quiet of midnight, your bodies bathed in glistening swaths of moonlight as his hands gripped your hips. There was just no such thing as home.

"What time is it?" you asked, suddenly feeling aching bags of drowsiness tug at the skin underneath your eyes. Edward pulled back his jacket sleeve and checked his watch.

"Four forty seven."

"Jesus." Time had been lost on you the moment Marshall threw you out.

Bits and parts of your heart and mind were still locked in survival mode from when work was at its most intense. It was mostly about money. It didn't matter if the men's hands around your throat felt like blistering fire. Who cared if the girls' tongues slithering around in your mouth tasted like blood clots and mucus? It didn't matter how lowly you were treated, as long as they paid up when it was all over. Yes, it was mostly about money. But part of it was about finding yourself. Maybe you could spot a glimmer of salvation in the eyes of the next man you'd sleep with. Perhaps there was a sparkle of hope for a better life hidden in the pads of the fingers of the next woman who'd touch you. You thought you found liberation in the lingering cloud of Marshall's leathery cologne. Through his touch, all was healed. Where were you supposed to go from here?

"Have you ever paid for certain services, Edward?" A popping pink dusted across your cheeks. You didn't mean to blurt it, but you couldn't help but wonder if he had any...experience with people like you.

"Huh?" He raised his brows and continued to stare straight ahead, burning a hole into the rain-dribbled windows of Josephine's.

"Sex work, Edward. Have you ever paid for a prostitute?"

Edward's mouth dropped open, and instantly his round face was lit crimson. "N-no."

"Not even online? No OnlyFans subscriptions? Nothing?"

"O-of course not."

"Do you think there's something wrong with sex work?"

"N-no. I don't. It's just...even if I had the money, I wouldn't do it."

Now you were curious. "Why not?"

Edward sighed. "You got comfortable fast."

Your cheeks burned a harsh, screaming pink. "Sorry. I'll shut up."

You had only known Edward for a miniscule smear of time, but there was an odd feeling brewing inside of you. The feeling that you'd be letting something special go by scaring him off. Maybe it was for the best to just keep your mouth closed. Still, you couldn't help but wonder what he thought of you. Your line of work. The most soiled and ruined pieces of yourself that Marshall had seen and stomped all over. What was lurking deep down.

"I'm sorry," Edward mumbled. "But I should probably be heading back home."

A knot tied itself tight in your throat, and you felt red hot tears prick the corners of your eyes. The rain had let up a bit, but you still couldn't imagine what you'd do with yourself after Edward would kick you out of his car and you were left to wander the streets again. You felt your loneliness' claws creep up around your heart and pop it, letting the beating meat deflate like an old, miserable balloon.

"I understand."

You went to open the door and get out before Edward stopped you.

"Wait."

"Hmm?"

He still refused to look you in the eyes. "What time does Josephine's open, do you know?"

"5:00, I'm pretty sure."

Edward tore at his left index finger's nail and chewed on his lip for a moment before speaking. "Would you like to get a coffee when they open? I can pay."

Josephine's coffee, though you hadn't tasted it in years, was always perfectly roasted. It coated your throat and swept down into your stomach with just the right amount of scalding, black bliss. You couldn't imagine anything you wanted more in that moment than a cup of it. The concept of seeing Josephine herself made your stomach curlicue into knots, but you'd be willing to take that risk for a little bit of coffee.

"Thanks, Edward."

He turned to you, finally meeting your eyes. His smile was small and crooked. "Don't mention it."

#Eli's writing #Danonation #Paul Dano #Edward Nashton #The Riddler #The Batman #Edward Nashton x reader #The Riddler x reader #Edward Nashton x you #The Riddler x you #Edward Nashton x Y/N #The Riddler x Y/N

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girlfriend-boyfriend-neither · 7 months ago

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So that Watcher situation, huh.

I’m gonna talk about this not from a fan perspective but just from observation because god knows everyone has already said their sorrows and frustrations over the move.

To put it simply, the money isn’t coming in at the speed they are spending it. As a company, you definitely want to have revenue to add on to what you already have in best case scenarios, so adding a place for consumers (in the business sense, not social media) to give a set amount of money is beneficial.

However, a streaming service of only your own content that has been available for years for free, as well as putting all new content (except for episode one of a season) behind a paywall feels like a jump above what a company of their size and age should do.

Yes, they have a P*treon. Yes, they have merch. Hell, they even have a tour. But that’s not enough for the type and amount of works they create. There are better moves that other YouTubers of similar caliber and interests have made that have helped their success continue online.

I don’t mean this to sound like they should cut corners or settle for less in what they create because as an artist I understand not wanting to compromise on your work, however being online for long enough and living in an area like LA does things to the way you think, where “we sell merch and even have a tour” becomes “we are THE competition to big name entertainment and we can get all the money we’re missing if we do what they’ve done” isn’t as ridiculous in your head as it is.

I was a fan at the start of the channel and happily watched as may videos as I could, eventually filtering out to only the ones that caught my attention. Eventually I didn’t get the same enjoyment from watching Watcher because the shows they make felt like the ones I purposely turned away from TV for and stopped watching. I don’t hate the content they make, I am simply not their audience anymore so this decision doesn’t affect me anymore. However, I see where everyone comes from — old, new, and ex-fans — when they say this is the stupidest decision they could have made. And from the outside, it’s not the smartest business decision.

They created an audience with their content yet appealed to a different one with this and ultimately cut a large portion of possible profits out of their works. It sucks, yeah, but it’s what they thought would be the right move. Now, with the reactions they’ve received and continue to receive they might think differently.

I am not against streaming services, or paying for content that was previously free, or just giving money to a creator for the sake of paying something. It’s not until now that I’ve been able to even consider paying a subscription for more content without it hurting my way of life. I’m planning on subscribing to two P*treons at the beginning of next moth even, but not having a reliable and established hosting site for paid streaming like P*treon or Nebula sure isn’t making me want to give my credit card information if I was still a fan.

Whatever they decide to do will end up causing their audience to go either way, so I just hope whatever they do keeps them with a job that pays the bills.

#aand this one goes in the side blog #watcher #watcher tv

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eightyonekilograms · 2 years ago

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Cringe as anti-vigilante social technology

(this a beta edition thought and may contain many bugs)

So @tanadrin made that poll a couple days ago about "which emotion would you choose to erase? fear/shame/anger", and like the plurality of voters I immediately picked shame. It's obvious, right? In my circles there's widespread acceptance of ideas like "kill the cringe that exists within you", "cringe only exists for normies to enforce conformity", etc.

But the speed with which I picked that option made me suspicious, and made me think I need to try and at least steelman the case for shame as useful. If I tried as hard as I could, what is the best defense of shame as a social technology I can mount? I mean, I know what its purpose is as far as enforcing social norms, that doesn't need any explanation, and I'm not on principle opposed to having social norms that people enforce. But as a general believer in modern atomized social liberalism, I'm generally in favor of replacing vague, unaccountable social forces with laws or market mechanisms in most cases, unless this isn't possible. What, in that view, is the cause for shame, or rather, what does shame do that is difficult or impossible to accomplish any other way?

There may be multiple answers here, possibly better than the one I've come up with, and if you know of one please share. But the answer that came to my mind is that this: people have an innate urge to dispense vigilante justice, and that shame (and more specifically, cringe) is the only successful weapon I have seen against this tendency. The others don't work, because vigilantism exists in the first place because people think society is failing to enforce some necessary rule, and so most attempts to rein in this tendency that are dispensed by society only harden the vigilantist resolve instead.

Consider this post I made a while back, about how most attempts to satirize or deconstruct the Badass Vigilante archetype fail, because they still portray the vigilante as cool and sexy, so no matter what an obvious psychopath they are, the audience goes either "whoa, awesome!", or "they may be bad, but they are Doing What is Necessary and their exclusion from society only demonstrates how corrupt and far gone that society is". So far as I can tell, the only way to successfully convey a message that Badass Vigilantism is not something we should encourage or aspire to, is to do what e.g. Lego Batman does, that is, portray the vigilante as a cringey loser whose Dark and Serious Brooding is something to be laughed at.

Another example: there is a general sense that we are in the middle of a Vibe Shift (1, 2 - subscription only, full text here, password is zn9XzYFMYu) that the kind of Culture War progressive anti-liberalist bombthrowing we associate with e.g. mid-2010's Jezebel (or for that matter, mid-2010's Tumblr) has peaked, and while it is not going to disappear entirely anytime soon, we are now on the downswing. And while I would like to believe that this is happening because everyone involved had a long session of introspection where they went "huh, this was its own form of vigilante justice that accomplished very little of substance re: dismantling systems of oppression, while causing extensive misery to people who in no way deserved it", the reality is most people don't think like that. The internal sensation of the people involved is probably a sense of "wow, I can't believe I was ever into that" embarrassment, and indeed, society's memetic immune response supports this theory: we have created pejoratives like "terminally online" to label this behavior as cringe, and that has probably done way more than all the well-meaning essays in the world with appeals to our better natures and the high ideals of liberalism. I wish it wasn't the case! But it probably is.

And again, it's hard to see how it could have been anything else: all the arguments I've seen since like 2012 as to why it was a bad thing to form SJ mobs were just easily handwaved away with "I don't have to listen to you because you're part of the Patriarchy/System/whatever, and so my vigilantism is justified and correct", cringe appears to be only weapon (apart from maybe just exhaustion) that successfully penetrated this defense.

To me this is the strongest case for cringe: I don't see what else can deflate the sense of righteous anger that fuels vigilantism and mob justice. So if we want to continue to discourage those things, for the time being it will have to stay.

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flydotnet · 3 months ago

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Bad Things Happen Bingo! The event where I give myself stupidly niche requests according to this marvelous card… or something. It’s been three years dawg. (Red cross is the completed prompt, character headshots are prompts I’ve already filled).

Besides, if I didn't mess up in the first place, this wouldn't have happened.

This fic is quite a long time in the making. I started working on it last year, before I even had the idea for Rice Vinegar, a previous entry in this bingo card series. I was reading/catching up to the absolute banging series that is Brimstone in my Garden, Roses set on Fire by @inkblackorchid. I was on my yearly YGO kick, this time mostly 5D's-related (it's either 5D's or Arc-V, I've come to notice) and reading Snapping Jaws and Piercing Horns (which you absolutely should read, btw, but I have a sneaking suspicion that, if you're reading this, then you've at least heard of SJPH), when the idea for this fic came to me. I really like the friendship between Aki and Crow that the series sets up during the WRGP arc, because it's got my two favourite 5D's characters involved and also it's got canonical whump material linked to it and I'm a sucker for that stuff. Everything was here for success; I was unemployed at the time so I had a bunch of free time on my hands, the inspiration was crisp and I could fuck around and find out with writing new characters I hadn't before. Issue: I hated what I was actually writing.

Since I was reading InkBlackOrchid's works, I was like "God, I need it to be as good as hers". Problem is, I don't have her writing style at all, all the while I was somehow attempting to pastiche how she writes Aki's POV. The result was a very spiteful narration that doesn't even fit Aki at this point of her character development or even the story I was trying to tell in the first place, and a lot of clumsy descriptions. It was bad, y'all. Now, that was the first draft. I had abandonned it at first, thinking I'd just never do anything with it nor with the idea I had, but I just happened to look at my AO3 subscriptions, remembered the banger 5D's fic series, and finally went on InkBlackOrchid's Tumblr. Reading her Autopsy of Crow series of posts reminded me of my WIP and made me want to finish it so I could throw my two cents in the 5D's fight.

I mention Brimstone in my Garden, Roses set on Fire this much because my love for this series is a genuine explanation for some elements of this fic. I like its version of canon so much I wrote established Faithship into this fic as if they were actually dating by this time of the series, forgetting that actually didn't happen in 5D's proper. Sorry not sorry on that front, btw, I've always shipped them and I don't think I'll stop anytime soon. The very first version of this idea wasn't even going to delve into Aki losing her powers after her crash pre-Team Catastrophe (my very own guilty pleasure of a duel, I actually really like it lol), but since I was so inspired by something that did, I figured I had to tackle the question as well. I hope it doesn't fall flat on its face. Be Careful what you Wish for had me by the gametes.

Wow, I had a lot of things to say for something that's kind of just whump I decided to write on a whim like a year ago, huh. I don't even know if my characters sound right (as in, I think my Aki is OOC, she's too open if that makes sense?), it's my first rodeo and it's scary but hey, getting out of your comfort zone is how you improve, ain't it? I don't know if this story is good, I didn't really rewatch 5D's before writing it, just pantsed it out based on memory and what I rewatched earlier this year (I think it was this year? I remember writing a post for my side Tumblr back then mentioning Max Verstappen out of all people and I wasn't into F1 until late 2023. Anyway).

-------------------------------

Outside the Comfort Zone

Summary: Aki passes by Yusei and Co.'s living quarters to retrieve a copybook. Crow makes it way harder than it has any right to be. (or: a recently-ish powerless Aki finds herself having to care for a very stubborn, unwell Crow, and it goes as well as you'd expect.)

Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's (set during the WRGP arc)

Word Count: 4K words

AO3 version available here.

Event run by @badthingshappenbingo

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There’s something off with the garage of Poppo’s Time, today.

Oh, of course, most of it is obvious: the air’s still, there’s a distinct lack of mechanical clicking and Yusei isn’t here. It’s a minutia of various little details that, added together, make the entire place tilt forty-five degrees to the left.

It’s, unfortunately, not just these which make her feel this way. Frankly, if it was, Aki would’ve already gone out the door and back home. She’s just here to recover a copybook and it should’ve only taken her mere minutes to do that; yet there she is, ten minutes after stepping on the other side of the door, still without her biology copybook, still in a home that isn’t hers, and unsure of where to take the situation next.

The reason might just be the odd-looking Crow that’s standing in the way between her copybook and her.

Is she friends with said Crow? Yes? Maybe? “Friends” sounds a bit strong for their relationship, she’d say; there are no strangers to each other, and she likes sharing a room with him enough to consider them on friendly terms, but they don’t share enough emotional intimacy for them to be friends. At least, that’s how she sees it – maybe he sees it another way.

(Or maybe they’re already friends, and she’s just too afraid of rejection to admit it to herself – better be safe than sorry, even around the most transparent person she knows).

Whatever their relationship is, what Aki knows without much doubt is that Crow isn’t looking like himself. His stance is slouched and unsteady, his hand is holding the doorway just a little too tight for comfort and his eyes look mussed. It’s like his gaze, while explicitly trying to focus on her, is instead looking at something right behind her – as if seeing through her, which is a thought Aki truly has no time to unpack.

“Oh, hi Aki,” he tells her with an indignant wave, head bobbing along with the sway of his hand.

“Goo – good afternoon.”

His smile turns into a puzzled expression, which doesn’t help the impression she’s gotten so far. He looks around, his left eye twitching and his brow furrowed, then looks back at her when it seems like he hasn’t found what he wanted.

“You not hangin’ out with Yusei?”

Aki almost freezes.

“What do you mean?” She asks back, a shiver going down her spine.

Crow’s brow furrows even further, finally pointing her in the direction of the dark rings under his eyes.

“What do you mean, what do you mean? You come here to hang with Yusei, right?”

“He’s… He’s not here, Crow,” her voice staggers against her will. “He’s in Peru with Jack. I just came her to get a copybook I forgot here.”

The reminder, as useless as it should’ve been, seems to have confused him even further.

“Why the fuck would they go to Peru?” Crow asks, anger sipping in his tone. “That’s on the other side of the damn planet!”

He then hacks a lung out, prompting Aki to jump out. It’s harsh, not unlike the coughs she’d get when she was ill as a child and it seemed like the world was melting around her, psychic powers mixing in with the fever – the powers who, like so many people before, have abandoned her.

The silence is too heavy. She can’t let herself falter now. She may be in danger – scratch that, she’s fine, Crow is the one who needs help as far as she’s concerned. They’re friends, or as close as it gets, and she needs to step up now that his foster brothers aren’t here.

“They’re there to follow on a lead Bommer gave them.”

Her heart sinks a little further when all she sees is confusion. In fact, anything she says seems to result in confusion.

“How? That guy’s dead, y’know,” he gulps with a wince. “I know. I watched it happen. And, like, the dead don’t send emails.”

It’s an understandably difficult thing to swallow, she’ll give it to him. To this day, and despite her (former) psychic powers and links to the extrasensory through her Signer’s Mark, she still has little idea how Carly or Misty have managed to rise from the dead. It’s beyond either of their comprehension.

What shouldn’t be for Crow, however, is the whole travel thing. He was there when Yusei and Jack announced they were going. He must’ve been there to fret over them and their budget like Jack likes to complain about. So how come he cannot remember any of this? Why is he so—

“What time is it already?” Crow asks out of the blue.

It takes her aback, but she looks over her phone screen anyway.

“It’s fifteen to six in the evening.”

His face gets splattered in surprise.

“Shit! I’ve got a shift to attend to!”

“What shi—”

His hand lets go of the doorway.

“Sorry to leave this quick, Aki, I’m in a hurry—”

He walks past her, but before he can make it past her, he folds in half into another coughing fit. Fearing the worst, Aki runs to catch him with her arms, the click of her heels almost hiding the harsh sound of his cough. Heat sips through his clothes and through her gloves, ringing the final alarm that finally allows her to deduce what it was that bothered her so much about his appearance.

Despite the audible pain in his breath and the grimace on his face when he moves his arms, Crow still tries rising to his feet on his own. He weakly bats her away with his hands, but he has to lean against the nearest wall to stay upright. It’s an unreal sight, knowing how stubborn and enduring he truly is. Where is the man who was driving with an injured shoulder mere weeks ago?

“Is this shift really that urgent?” She makes no attempt at hiding her ever-growing concern. “You don’t seem like in any state to go to work…”

“What day of the week are we on?” is all he says back to her.

“It’s… Wednesday? Why?”

Crow’s face finally lights up.

“Oh! I’ve got some time ahead of me then.” He chuckles, but it dissolves into a cough, and she can’t keep her grimace to herself. “I thought we were Monday, for some reason?”

“You honestly seem very out of it,” she ends up bluntly stating instead of going along. “I really don’t think you should go work today.” Or tomorrow.

“Can’t afford not to,” he croaks back, but it lacks any sort of sting.

What looks to her like a dizzy spell ends up taking his resolution out, his whole body pitching forward. Once more, almost in rhythm, her body moves on its own as a result, her arms catching him in his fall.

Heat lingers on her hands even after she has finished bringing him to his room.

Unlike most of Team 5Ds, Aki has never had to care for someone else. She has none of Yusei’s instinct for help nor Crow’s experience with dealing with children. Usually, when faced with this sort of situations, she’d entrust the person in need of care to someone with a lot more ease in this domain – as it turns out, most of the time, it’s asking Jack’s childhood friends to handle his problems, much to his protests. As such, she’s never had to play nursemaid before, and nobody has trusted her with such a role until Yusei came along, and for once, she hadn’t wanted that to change (except for Yusei, but this is a situation that’s unrelated to her current predicament).

Whatever she’s used to, unfortunately, is now out of the realm of possibility. The two people she could ask about it on any other occasion where the need could rise up are respectively currently in Peru with terrible reception and too busy refusing to stay in bed for much longer than a minute to give her a precious hand.

And, you know, you don’t usually ask someone who’s sick to take care of themselves, let alone help you in the process.

Very much to her misfortune, this is all without taking into account that Crow is as stubborn as a patient as he is in every other thing. It was to be expected, of course, and Crow is nothing if not stubborn; but it hasn’t made anything easier. If anything, she should’ve seen it coming as soon as he was too beyond himself to know where his housemates were and why.

Still, it doesn’t mean she shouldn’t try her best in this situation. What friend would she be if she left a comrade in need on his own, harmful to himself? (And she craves for empathy, a part of her whispers, the part of her who misses her powers for the bond she enjoyed having with Black Rose).

Despite a losing battle against his own voice and the way his limbs tremble whenever he tries holding himself out of bed, Crow is insisting that, no, he’s fine to go work, and she has no reason to worry, because it’s not his first rodeo… or something along those lines. Admittedly, it’s difficult to understand everything when he’s struggling to push the sentence out of his throat to begin with, let alone articulate his thoughts.

All that ends up doing as a result is annoying her, because this is oh so similar to Yusei but in all the wrong ways, but that’s once more beside the point. She isn’t here to lash out her annoyance at Crow being an idiot, she’s here to make sure he doesn’t die an idiot.

“I’m tellin’ you, I’m fine,” he whines, a hand already back at gripping the edge of the blanket.

“Why are you so insistent on pretending you are?”

(She doubts it’s because of a martyr syndrome like Yusei’s).

“I’m not pretendin’ anythin’. I’m actually fine.”

His voice is feeble, his words tremble out of his mouth.

“Crow, I know you’re not. Please stop making this harder than it has to be.”

He deflates with a single, wheezing sigh.

“It’s Satellite nature, I guess,” he shrugs with a slight smile. “Both Yusei and Jack got it too, y’know.”

“Speaking of Yusei, right now you’re just like him in that regard.” She lets herself sigh. “Pretending like you’re fine when all signs point to the contrary.”

“Yeah, it’s… Y’know, when you were sick in Satellite, unless you had someone to shelter you and cover your back, ‘t was like signin’ your death certificate.” He coughs again, and it keeps dragging on, worsening, and it pangs at her heart every single time. “Guess that never went away, even now.”

“Even for something like a work shift?”

“Especially for a work shift. Do y’know how tight our finances are? Jack sure don’t seem to, that asshole!” A barking cough interrupts him. “Fuck this shit, I could be literally anywhere else but here. Plus…” He turns to her, and despite the evident weariness on his face and in his eyes, his gaze is sharp. “You should be doin’ better things with your time than watching over me, though.”

Aki rises an eyebrow.

“Such as?”

He shrugs again as a response.

“I dunno. Studyin’. Playin’ cards. Drivin’ a D-Wheel. Tryin’ to… sort through what mess that must’ve been for you, these past few weeks.”

The last bit hits her a lot harder than the previous ones. Having to replace Crow in haste due to a mysterious crash, the conflicting sentiment of her first race as a member of Team 5Ds, her own crash, and now, having to grapple with the sudden and unexplained disappearance of her powers… It’s been a lot of turmoil. Too much, in fact.

Despite all of the pain, it’s somewhat heartwarming to have someone genuinely worry for her, even if it tugs at an uncomfortable heartstring. It means she has the company she so desperately looked for and thought to have found in Divine, now truthful and actually what she needed. Yet, she feels uneasy when she has to show vulnerability in front of them, afraid of what they could take advantage of, of hidden intentions that may be hiding beneath a smile. Letting go of her masks has been terrifying, even if it’s the right thing to do.

For the longest time, she could protect herself with her powers. They were her curse, they were her blessing. They made her unlike the others but allowed her to connect with Black Rose and all of her deck. She misses them even now as she’s within the warmth of Team 5Ds; who don’t judge her for them like the others. Who care for her, like Yusei has ever since meeting her, like Crow is at the moment. Even in pain, they care.

The least she can do is pay them back now that gets the chance to. Now that her powers have left her more vulnerable than ever and created a void she can’t seem to fill on her own.

“I’ll be fine not brooding about it for a while,” is all she tells him in response.

Because it’s the truth. Sometimes, letting the dark clouds consume you is worse. It’ll always be worse, no matter how easy it looks.

“You sure? Because watching over an ill guy gets boring real fast.” He gives her a small smile. “I’d know, I’m usually the one doing the watching.”

She replies with a smile of her own.

“A bit of calm would do the both of us some good, I believe, after all that happened.”

He closes his eyes with a deep sigh.

“Can’t go against that, I guess.”

“Take some rest. I’ll be here by the time you wake up.”

It’s not intended to be a lie to make him feel better about sleeping.

“If you’re lookin’ for it, the medicine is in the cabinet in the bathroom. Pretty sure we got the right stuff at least.”

“I’ll go get it.”

That, and a basin of water, and everything she can remember from hazy memories of childhood illnesses.

Yusei once told her to write down thoughts that were confusing to her, as a way to at least alleviate the black clouds in her mind. He helped her pick a cute-looking notebook for it too, just the size of her uniform pockets, red with an embroidered rose on top of it. It seemed too fitting not to pick it, and Yusei seemed even happier about it than she was. She isn’t sure if what she’s writing in it right now makes sense, but it feels nice to have a place where to dump all of the thoughts that’d usually fester and poison her mind nonetheless.

The loss of her powers continues to leave her at a loss. The best way she can describe the feeling is a bittersweet void it’s left behind: she’s finally normal, like she wished for so long when pretending to be a witch, yet now that she is, it’s like this life wasn’t for her. She misses the bond she had with her Monsters, now that she can’t caress Black Rose Dragon like she could for so long. It makes her feel lonelier in a way that’s wrong to her. It’s like she never knew what she actually wanted out of life, out of the world.

Writing down this loss, this void and this coldness is what’s helping her process some of it. It onsets the way the melancholy would’ve taken ahead of her before she met Yusei and the others. It allows her some lookback and to keep her head out of the water until she can find a solution or get used to a new situation. It feels… soothing, at times, despite it just being scribbles on paper.

A hand strangles her arm, her hands lets go of her pen, her notebook falls to the ground.

“What—”

“Who the hell are you?!”

Shaken, she stares back at her assailant – a frazzled-looking Crow, his eyes glazed over and his pupils dilated. His breathing is erratic, coming out in little wheezes, his teeth gritting.

“I…”

Aki has no idea what to do. A stranger attacking her is no surprise, but a friend? Clearly, something is very wrong with Crow, and she has trouble connecting the dots as to why he’s in such a state. Did she not look after him hard enough? Is she just as neglectful as she was when she was isolated and lost, manipulated, used as a weapon? Is this retribution for that, to be forgotten by those she cherishes?

He lets go of her arm, seemingly against his will – it seems like he doesn’t have enough strength left to actually fight her. She can hardly breathe normally, every gasp of air coming quicker than the last, but she has to compose herself back anyway. She’s the one who’s supposed to fix things here, and now, she doesn’t want to destroy anyone further. Perhaps she can still find redemption.

“What’re you doin’ here?!”

Crow’s voice is unsteady, made all the worse by the cough that’s dried it into being hoarse, and his words slur together, making him very difficult to understand. Aki wishes she knew what do say back, but…

“I’m – I’m looking after you,” she explains back, because calming him down seems like a good idea.

He cocks an eyebrow at her, doubt just barely readable in his half-closed eyes.

“Who’re you?”

“I’m Aki. I’m Yusei’s girl… I’m his friend. I’m your friend.”

His hands grab at her shoulders.

“What’s tellin’ me you are, huh?!”

She looks around the room, trying to ignore how uncomfortable the pressure from his knuckles on his shoulders are, and the heat sipping from them almost right into her skin, before finding a sign of reassurance.

“See this basin of water?” She points it with her finger, he follows it to the bottom of the chair where she sits. “It’s mine. I was trying to keep your fever in check.” That sounded like a good idea, at the time. “I’m admittedly… not great at it, unlike you are, but I’m trying.”

His gaze slightly clears up – and then his eyes flutter close and don’t open up, leaving him in her arms once more.

It’s sort of a wake-up call for Aki, as she puts him back to bed. She should’ve kept a keener eye, but instead got lost in thoughts. She was so sure she had done all of the right things already, yet there she is, only realizing after the fact she wasn’t careful by being attacked by a delirious guy who mistook her for the enemy. Talk about failing at the mission you assigned yourself.

She takes off her gloves and puts a hand on his forehead – his fever has gone back up when she wasn’t looking. It makes sense, miserably so. But this is no time to mop for herself, she must be more like Yusei. She must help out her friend even if she has her own issues. She can’t do anything about her powers, but she can do something so Crow doesn’t have to see things that aren’t there.

So she picks up the washcloth that fell onto his lap and twists it cold again, determined to correct her mistakes.

Aki is staring at Crow when he finally opens his eyes again. They’re clear, able to follow the way her hair sways when she backs up from the bed and back into the chair. Her back is trying to make her pay for the unnatural positions she made it endure, but it’ll have to bear through it for a bit. She’s not letting him down now.

“Hey,” he tells her, stifling a cough.

“Glad to see you awake again,” she confesses. “How are you?”

“Erh… Sore. Sick. You know the deal.” He sits up with the help of the headboard of the bed. “How long was I asleep for?”

“I’d say… an hour or so.”

“And you’re still here?” He chuckles, even if it dissolves yet again into a coughing fit. “Gah, forgot how much that sucked.”

“I… I didn’t want to leave you alone like this.”

“Don’t worry, I went through worse. I’m a big bird, I can deal with it on my own.”

The way she’s staring back at him must’ve looked suspicious, because he looks concerned, now, and it’s like cold water seeping through her socks.

“Hey… Did something happen?”

“No, nothing. It’s… it’s not important.”

“Tch, you’re like Yusei. ‘Not important’ my ass.”

“I don’t think I should tell you about it.”

“You’re not makin’ your case any easier. Shoot ahead anyway.”

Aki looks at her hands on her lap, her knuckles almost white. Her skin looks slightly red, especially without her gloves.

“You weren’t yourself earlier,” she manages to get out, “and you thought I was some sort of enemy.”

She can’t bring herself to look up and see what his reaction to that is. Her head’s weighing heavily on her neck.

“Shit, did… I did something to you, right?”

“You… You tried to attack me, yes,” and she realizes how bad that sounds, “but it’s nothing. You weren’t yourself and it wasn’t a big deal. I’m fine.”

“You don’t sound like you are, though… Shit, I’m so sorry, Aki…”

She rises a careful eye, only to see pain distort Crow’s pallid face.

“It shouldn’t have happened,” she replies. “I should’ve done a better job.”

“Hey. Look at me, Aki.”

Hesitantly, she does – and finds no anger, no disappointment in Crow’s eyes, only compassion.

“You didn’t have to put up with my shit, and I was trying to push you away, but you did it anyway. Attacking you was wrong no matter what. You’ve got a lot to deal with at the moment and none of this is me. Don’t beat yourself up for not handlin’ everythin’ perfectly.” He smiles. “So, thanks, Aki. Don’t worry about good ol’ me, I’ll handle myself from now on.”

Silence follows.

“Though I get why you’d doubt that. We don’t really have a good track record when it comes to that stuff, do we.”

“Not really, no,” she manages to chuckle. “But friends need to trust each other.”

“You catch on quick!” He coughs into his elbow. “I’m sure it’s starting to get late, your parents may be worried. You should head home.”

“Can I… Can I stay here for a little longer? At least until Bruno comes back from whatever errand he may be running. I’d… feel better if I knew someone could watch you over.” Like she’d like it if she was as vulnerable as Crow is right now. “It keeps me occupied too.”

He gives her a sympathetic look from which she wants to recoil, but stops herself from doing.

“Make yourself a home, then. Yusei’s bedroom should be available.”

He winks, right in time for her face to warm up.

“Thank you, Crow.”

“If you need an ear to talk to and I ain’t sleepin’, don’t hesitate, okay? I promise I won’t bite your head off this time.”

“I’ll keep it in mind, thanks.”

She doubts she’ll bother him with this when all she’s tried to make him do today was resting, but she very much appreciates the reminder. It’s always nice to know she’s not only accepted, but also cared for by people whose honest intentions she can be sure of.

It’s making her feel welcome, and just for that, she’s more thankful – her and her missing powers, her and her conflicting feelings it, her and her past that she’s just now feeling comfortable with disclosing anything about. Her and the ghost that may continue pursuing her in the future, but which are leaving her mostly unscathed for now.

Perhaps that’s what home is – and it may just take the shape of a friend’s bedroom, or of a garage.

#bad things happen bingo #struggling against the caretaker #yu-gi-oh 5ds #izayoi aki #crow hogan #implied faithshipping because it's my one 5ds ship dammit #bthb #who knows what this fic's actual worth is wooops

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