#which is the only way I will ever pay money for it

[crimsonmochi]

Personal ― S. Gojo

Synopsis. Pornstar!Satoru is used to fucking for money's sake. It's something he does often and something he does really fucking well. When he is requested to guest you, however, it shocks everyone to see an immediate energy shift.

Pairing. Satoru Gojo x fem!reader

Content. MDNI, fem! pornstar! reader, chubby! reader implied, gender neutral pronouns used for reader, no use of "y/n", smut, p in v, cunnilingus, slight choking, some semblance of onlyfans, pussydrunk! gojo, gojo is left handed canon, a little bit pathetic, and a little nasty, probable breaches of work boundaries, no beta

Word Count. 3.9k

A/N. baby's first jjk fic, be gentle </3 please give me feedback and lmk if i forgot some tags :3 reposts encouraged!

Rain dribbled and splattered on the window, the tiny water beads reflecting and refracting the dim light from Satoru's phone. He sat upright on his bed, muscular back against the headboard, upper arms aching from his last session two days prior. He had reluctantly agreed to participate in a "professional"―which, to Satoru, was just a word for more work, smaller pay―shoot with some girl he could barely remember the name of.

The result? The director had barked at him to put himself in impossible positions for the camera's sake, which left his limbs sore and not in a good way. Satoru forced the scene to end, left with his money and a vow to himself to never ever work for studios again. He hated being told what to do, especially from guys who don't actually have what it takes.

While painkillers and a nice massage from the spa below his apartment complex did not eradicate the pain, it did make it much more tolerable.

Satoru's thumb swiped across the screen, scrolling through comments from his latest post, a message to his subscribers asking for content ideas. Sure, he did not like being told what to do, but being kindly suggested by his fans to fulfill their desires was different. In the end, he was still in control.

And it probably won't land him in a pharmacy either.

The request that Satoru found came up the most was for him to do ASMR; some fans wanted to hear those pretty praises, those filthy words he gives to his co-stars, spoken to them instead. Although the idea was alluring, Satoru would rather be on camera than behind a fancy microphone in a recording booth—primarily because he was too proud to opt out of showing his god-crafted body (that cocky bastard). But then again, he could find a way to do both...

He shelved that idea for later.

Other requests were suggestions of people to shoot with. Some popular names came up, women and men he had already filmed with and didn't find too interesting. He could fake it, of course; he was an actor, it was half of his job―but he would be unsatisfied with the end result.

Satoru was about to quit reading requests, bored and uninspired until his cerulean eyes stuck themselves to a particular comment. The space between his eyebrows creased as his eyebrows furrowed. It was a subscriber recommending another star, explaining how they weren't very well known, but they believed them and Satoru would make a great pair.

The wording was not what caught his attention, he had gotten plenty of requests with the same exact sentence before. No, it was the name, your page's name―which, to Satoru, felt familiar yet distant. He hadn't shot with you before, no, that wasn't it. Yet he was certain he knew you, knew of you at least.

His thumb reached for the search bar to type in your alias, his eyelids flickering when his gaze fell on your profile, your soft face on display. Satoru felt his length chub up in his boxers, soft lips parting to accommodate for a sudden need of oxygen.

Just as his subscriber said, you were less popular than him, with less than half the number of subscribers he had and an inarguably cheaper paywall in front of your content. Memories of happily searching for his new credit card numbers to pay for your videos came back rushing to him, memories only a few months old.

Satoru recalled seeing a preview and being immediately smitten by your pretty figure, your plush thighs and your tummy, that tiny thrill in your eyes. Fuck, how he had spent half of his revenue giving you tips on an anonymous account―just to obtain a personalized picture of just those pretty thighs, fisting his aching cock to that image for days.

Just looking at that profile again, oh my god.

His eyes laid on the subscription button. He did not even bother getting on an alt account this time to press it, watching the confirmation request pop up on his screen to gather his fingerprint in order to complete the purchase. When the paywall finally went away, Satoru let out a breath he wasn't even aware of holding, his hand travelling to his boxers, palming himself through his briefs as he scrolled.

And oh, he was gone again.

Satoru had never sent a message to his agent that frantically in his life, asking her―no, begging her to contact you to secure a shoot with you. Asked her to do whatever she could to get you in the studio.

The next few days went by without a reply from your part, and Satoru was going mad. He could not remember being this nervous for anyone, this needy. In between sessions of overthinking (maybe he should have asked you himself or maybe offered something more), he found himself replaying videos of yours he had already seen, notably the ones with other men. He knew them by heart.

Those guys didn't seem to appreciate you nearly as much as you needed, as much as you deserved. It pissed him off beyond what he thought was possible, yet made him so hard; He knew he could fuck you so much better than those amateurs you were with, pleasure you in ways they wouldn't even dare.

Unbeknownst to Satoru, you were just intimidated by his offer. Too much money from too big of a creator and an offer that seemed too good to be real to not hold a catch, which is why you did not answer right away, anxiously weighing the implications. It wasn't until he, in a moment of pure desperation and haze, shot you a private message confirming the offer that you replied, shyly agreeing.

From then on, Satoru could barely contain himself, daydreaming about everything he could do to you with his left hand eagerly moving up and down his cock, breathy exhales escaping his mouth and shaky fists gripping his bedsheets. Too often, he found himself checking the calendar on his phone, awaiting the shoot date, disappointed every time that it was still the 15th instead of the long-awaited 21st. Satoru Gojo did not exactly believe himself to be a patient man.

He sent you little messages throughout the week with ideas and reassuring messages. He wanted to know everything about you, your likes and dislikes, what you thought of him, how your body worked, and how he could get you to whine and moan for him.

On the day of the shoot, Satoru was almost unrecognizable to others involved―his agent and the friends he'd stopped to visit on his way to his studio. The man people had described as cocky, overly confident, and self-absorbed was reduced to a nervous, lost-in-thought mess. All because of you, the pretty little thing he would get to have his hands on later that evening.

He'd showered three times, spent too long in his room figuring out what clothes to wear, as if that would matter, and freaked out over his hair. His hair.

And when you finally arrived at the studio with your assistant, he nearly forgot how to breathe. That, or he was purposely holding back for fear of scaring you off, this cute little thing before him. You introduced yourself, pretty eyes gazing up at him, taking a second to admire each and every one of his features. As soon as he saw your smile, here in person, he told himself he could die happy.

Well, he could die happy after having a taste of you.

You were shy while introducing yourself to him. The interaction could easily have been misread as awkwardness, and that was what Satoru would have gone with, too, if he didn't know any better (if he didn't think so highly of himself). Your softer voice, your pretty eyes, god, those eyes. He could tell you might've had a tiny crush on him as well, and he would be lying if he said it didn't make his head reel.

Your assistant all but confirmed it when you excused yourself to the restroom, admitting that you hadn't stopped gushing about this opportunity since you got it.

And when you got back, he had the most annoying smirk and glint in his eyes, looking down at you.

After discussing what he wanted for the scene, making sure you were comfortable and willing to participate―a gentleman, truly, asked you so many times that you started chuckling your answers―he had his agent and your assistant leave the studio after you agreed to dismiss them. He did not mind an audience, but he wanted this to be personal.

"I film all my own shit anyways," he hummed, hopping behind the camera to adjust the angle.

In the film room of the studio was a bedroom set with a queen-sized bed with navy sheets and a wooden frame. A sliding-door closet with mirrors stood tall on the left side, and a bedside table on the right.

The scene you and Satoru agreed upon was vanilla, but he was pleased with the gist of it. Any way he could have you is a way he'd be pleased with, however. It didn't really matter how for the time being.

You sat in the middle of the bed, your back against the cold headboard and palms against the soft sheets, gazing at Satoru as he grumbled at the camera, shifting through the studio to find a new battery with his lips pursed in a pout. It amused you, seeing a different side of him.

It was only three minutes later that he climbed onto the bed, knees against the mattress as he moved towards you, those blue eyes staring at your frame through those pale lashes. He moved to straddle you, his back straight, his body looming over yours.

"Fuck, you're so pretty," mumbled Satoru, his hand firmly landing on the headboard to support himself, making a louder sound than he intended. "You tell me if I'm too much for you, alright, pretty?" he followed in a softer tone.

You nodded, the pad of your index landing on his shoulder and travelling down his torso, trailing close to the sweatpants he wore. Satoru reached his own unoccupied palm to your face, his fingers hooking themselves at the nape of your neck to pull you towards him. His nose brushed against yours before capturing your lips with his.

Satoru had never felt drunk on a kiss until you entered his studio.

As if a switch flipped in his head, he kept you closer to him, desperate and unwilling to pull away from your lips. He breathed shakily, his minty breath fanning over your mouth.

"Oh, you're good at this," he laughed, an arrogant laugh that made your pussy ache.

"Yeah?" you murmured.

"Yeah."

The hand on your cheek moved to your throat, squeezing at the sides―not enough to hurt, just to make oxygen sparse in your system. "I'll make you feel good, sweetheart, hm? I'll do better than those fucking losers on your page."

The sweetest words said oh so cruelly.

Although it was increasingly hard for you to think, you were able to click the pieces together pretty quick, your eyes widening and your pupils dilating.

'Fourth wall break wasn't part of the plan.

Oh.

He watched.'

Satoru's gaze had changed. Deep, yet precise in conveying the exact energy desired. A short, almost inaudible gasp escaped your lips, and fuck, he fed on that, on your reactions to him, no matter how small or insignificant. It mattered to him.

Warm fingers slipped under your the black camisole hugging your body before you could even notice his hand had left your throat, caressing your skin until he his the jackpot, massaging the same breasts he had spent hours looking at only within the past week.

"Oh-ho— nothing, no bra for me?" Satoru chuckled. He captured your nipple between his index and his thumb, rolling and pinching at it until it pebbled, drawing out a whimper from your lungs.

Satoru was fascinated by what he had under his hand, taking a too-curious approach to exploring, as if he had never seen or felt another body before this point in his life. He took his time to gently remove the fabric off of your body, imagining all the ways he could bind and explore it, worship it, cum all over those pretty tits—

It wasn't until he felt your soft hands trying to discard his shirt that he snapped out of his haze, realizing he was fucking up the pacing.

Satoru latched his mouth to one of your breasts, biting and sucking gingerly while he focused on getting you out of those tight leggings you wore just for him, that truly left nothing to the imagination. He frantically worked to get those white laced panties out of the way with a tad more force than he should have, causing a tear to rip into the fabric.

"Satoru—" you gasped, only halfway acting.

"I'll get you another pair," he groaned against your chest, licking over one of the bite marks he had left before unlatching to look down.

Satoru's brain short-circuited.

Sure, he's seen your body time and time over, but that had only ever been through the careful separation of a screen, a paywall. It was different to have access to it, to be able to touch and feel.

He thanked his earlier self for asking if he could eat you out, for now, getting to have your supple thighs around his face and neck. Fuck, he could really die happy now.

Satoru caught sight of your dripping cunt, juices dripping and latching onto your skin. He felt hungry for what seemed to be the first time in his life, moving down your body to kiss right over your mound, your scent filling his senses.

"Oh, s-shit, look at that," said Satoru.

Had he just stuttered?

He nudged his nose in between your folds, brushing against your clit with a swiftness that made your figure jolt. He chuckled, moving his arms to trap your hips and pin them to the mattress, muscles flexing under his skin to intimidate.

"God, she wants me so bad."

Satoru languidly licked up and down your slit, careful to miss your sensitive bud in the meanest way. He whimpered at the taste of you on his tongue, sweet in a natural way, catching both you and himself off guard. If his face wasn't buried in your cunt, you could have seen the faint blush creep to the surface of his cheeks.

"You ever had someone do this, sweet'art?" he mumbled against your heat, lips finally latching on to your clit.

"N-No, not really," you sighed.

"Mh," Satoru hummed disapprovingly, toying with the bundle of nerves between his teeth, one of his arms sneaking away from your hips. He teased his ring finger at your entrance. "You're, fuck- fuck― you're so― taste so good..."

He pushed his finger past the ring of muscle until he was knuckles deep, groaning before he returned his mouth to your clit, sucking in small intervals as he pumped in and out of your velvety walls. Satoru whined when your hand flew to his hair.

And when you moaned for him, he was a goner. He noticed the usually loud and audibly altered sounds had turned saccharine and almost timid.

You had been faking your moans?

He snickered at his realization, breaching through the noise of your moans and the quiet slurps. "I think she loves me," said Satoru in between breaths.

"Wha-, who―"

"Wasn't talking to you, love." Satoru's words drastically contrasted with his soft tone.

He punctuated his sentence by curling his digits to find and abuse that spongey spot, earning a string of nonsense words and whines from you, only encouraging his endeavour. The soft squelch of your pussy around his fingers and his mouth was enough to drive him to buck his hips toward the mattress.

When Satoru felt your soft thighs tighten around his head, he forced himself to pull away, grunting as you desperately moved to grip your fingers in his hair, trying to keep him there. If he hadn't had such strong convictions, he might have stayed down there for the rest of his life, dying happy with his face buried in your pretty cunt.

Satoru straightened his form, his fingers pulling out to find your clit, rubbing it in soft circles. You protested, whining pathetically.

"I know, I know, sweet girl, I'm sorry. Wanna... wanna have you cum on my cock. Can y'do that love? Want you all over me.."

He was mumbling, staring into your eyes with his pupils blown wide. The blue of his irises was overtaken by those black orbs, capturing you in his sight. His chin was wet and dripping, and his lips were slightly swollen.

A gorgeous mess for you to gaze upon.

Satoru's eyes dropped down to the sweatpants he threw on earlier (and called Suguru about just to make sure it looked "casual but not fuckboy"―Suguru called him a dumbass and hung up), carefully bunching up the fabric as well as his boxers before pushing down. Hissing as his length perked up, angry and weeping pre, he breathed a little heavier than before, his shoulders rising and falling. Satoru hadn't felt this worked up in months, maybe years, all from this.

For you.

And you would not be lying saying that had to be the prettiest dick you'd ever seen.

"Shit― look at that, hah," Satoru softly chuckled. "Lift your legs up f'me, pretty, come on.."

He grinned down at you as he helped you push your knees up to your limit, delicately placing your ankles on his shoulders and leaning his torso forward. Satoru placed one of his palms behind your cranium, a small yet protective measure.

"This okay?" asked Satoru, nudging his tip against your folds, collecting your slick to drench his cock, gliding over your clit.

"Y-Yeah, this is fine..."

It was rare for you to be nervous, given that you were used to having sex, filming it, and posting it for hundreds to see. Intercourse was not something you had any insecurities about. Usually.

What caught you off guard was the look in Satoru's eyes, the way he carried himself with a gentleness foreign to anything you've seen from him.

Satoru leaned down to press kisses against your jawline, open-mouthed and delicate, exhaling as he guided his length past your entrance, satisfied at the small gasp he heard from your lips.

"Oh my god, it's even fucking better than I imagined," said Satoru, his voice strained.

He could feel the stretch, your walls fluttering to accommodate him, still so tight and fuck―the tiny high-pitched, almost inaudible whimpers that escaped your throat.

"Don't know if I'll be able to pull out, sweet girl, hah―shit―she's sucking me in, look."

"Then don't," you mumbled, turning your head to meet his lips.

"You can't say shit like that," Satoru scoffed.

"Why not? I want it."

If you were simply pretending for the camera, that was some damn good acting. Good enough to turn Satoru into putty in your hold, to shut his brain off and make him act on instinct alone, script be damned.

Satoru pushed in until his pelvis hit your flesh, his hold on you faltering in strength momentarily, a helpless expression on his face. He listened to your quiet whines, his free hand returning to your clit in hopes of easing the strain.

"Just fuckin' perfect, holy fuuuck―" he strained out.

He withdrew his fingers from your clit to taste you once more, addicted. He drew his hips back slowly, just enough to leave about an inch inside, before thrusting back in at a slightly faster pace, setting a rather slow, intimate rhythm for you to follow.

Satoru watched as your breath picked up, how the slow rock of his hips made your eyes unfocus, and your mouth hang open. He watched as your forehead started to sweat, how your hair moved along his movements.

More importantly, Satoru listened. He heard those moans, shakier and uncalculated. He knew he wasn't crazy earlier when he had the reflection that you had been faking them.

Actually pathetic, those "men" you had been with.

"You're so pretty, y'know that?" Satoru mumbled, out of his mind. Like he was a schoolboy talking to his second-period crush. "So pretty... s'not fair..."

"H-Huh―?"

"S'not fair how it's gonna be―mh, shit―over, how s'gonna be over."

Satoru angled his hips differently, aiming for that spongey spot he had found earlier. That said, he would have had to be able to think straight to get it on the first try; which he could not, not when he was buried deep inside your cunt.

"W-What―aah, fuck, Satoru~"

You couldn't recall any shoots you had done―or any sex you had had at all, actually―that felt as good as Satoru.

"Right there, right? S'that i-it?"

He drove his movements faster, his pelvis hitting the back of your thighs and your ass with a louder SMACK! than it did previously, his breaths becoming further shallow and desperate. His skin grew increasingly damp as his efforts increased, and what were previously grunts turned to shameless moans, whines and whimpers, wanton and needy.

The man was losing his mind, so unlike anything you had seen from him.

Satoru's thrusts soon became erratic and uncoordinated, his face buried in your neck, drinking all of the sounds you were making like he was getting drunk on them.

"Can't... won't last l-long, okay? M'sorry I can't..." Satoru wailed.

His hand found your breast, flicking at your nipple in hopes of making you cum faster, needing to feel you. You were teetering on the edge, and he could feel it, feel how your pussy drew him in.

"Y'know you've been― y'been teasing me for two fuckin' weeks―aah... shitshitshit, so so g-good―two weeks." He paused to groan, pinching your flesh between his index and thumb to elicit a reaction from you. "Can't get enough of you, you're so―and you know it, you fuckin' know it too, I-I know y'do."

"Satoru! So close, please d-don't stop," you yelped, walls constricting around his length.

"Y-Yeah, pretty, I know, fuck―I know, sweet thing. I got you," Satoru panted and tightened his grip on the back of your head as if to brace for impact. "Y'do know how to drive me fuckin' crazy, with―mh, you're so soft and pretty, m-makes me want to quit the business, make you my own, God, make you my pretty wife."

Satoru's mind was running on overdrive, trying to keep up with what the fuck he was saying and making sure you felt good, as good as him. No easy task.

"Shit, gonna make you mine, I promise, fuck―"

His his stuttered as he spilled himself inside you, crying out like a wounded animal. It felt too good, it was too much.

Satoru kept going, although fucked out of his mind, determined to make you cum. He lapped up the sweat from your neck, not caring if it was nasty, while he reached down to your clit once more, slapping the sensitive bud a few times, stopping when he felt your cunt constrict and clench around him, a nice little ring of creamy mixed arousal forming at the base of his cock, gliding down your ass and spilling on the bedsheets.

"Such a mess, oh my God," Satoru whined.

He gathered some on two of his fingers, wiping it right off of your skin. "Taste it f'me, pretty," Satoru groaned.

He could have ascended to heaven right then as you wrapped your lips around his digits, glossy eyes peering up at him through your lashes.

"I gotta keep you."

pt. 2?

[dwarf-vader-of-middle-earth]

I worked at a drugstore in a city with tons of gangs. One woman came in with the teardrops tattooed below her eye and everything, but was trying so hard to help find her dying mother an oxygen tank, and my store didn't sell those. But the specialty pharmaceutical shop in the city did, and I got her an address.

The woman was broke. She had a dead phone that couldn't use GPS as a result. And she had no money for a charger, only for the oxygen tank which was life or death for her mother, nor did she know what type of charger she needed. She was terrified and didn't know what to do, and her mother could barely stand.

I knew tech well. I love tech and so I asked her to show me her car. I found she had the cigarette port type charger, and type C phone charging port. I said to gimme a second, ran inside, and used my scanner to damage out a port charger, plus the cord, which is like $25 right there.

That was against the code of the store. I didn't care. A strong woman who endured gang life was sobbing over hardly being able to care for her dying mother, and I brought the charging equipment out to her car, hooked it all up for her, and told her to go get that oxygen tank.

She was sobbing and hugging me as she loaded up and went off to the store.

And another time, there was a woman, a sex worker, who was in the area but her phone broke. She needed to call for a ride back home, and our store sold burner phones and the ones you could purchase a card for to add minutes to it.

The woman only had enough money for the phone itself but not for the minutes. She was so distraught and stressed, unable to get a hold of anyone otherwise.

I told her to pay what she could for the phone, then I took the minutes card from her. After she purchased the phone, I brought out my card and bought the minutes card for her, handed it over, and told her to be safe.

That woman was sobbing and grateful.

I did the same with a stranger who couldn't buy the last $10 for her kids' Christmas gifts one year.

I helped jump the cars of random folks who broke down in the lot during my shifts.

During my last month working at the store, my mother was preparing to go for open heart surgery. I was going to be on my own for weeks following this, needing to buy my own food and cook it and everything, and I was on a very limited budget at that point. I was terrified of going hungry.

A lady broke down in the lot just a few days before my mother was set to go in, and she was from 11 hours out of state. It was below freezing, she didn't know where she was, and seeing as it was almost midnight, no place was open for repair.

I went out and tried to jump her car. When it wouldn't work, I figured out the alternator was dead and told her to give me a second.

Then I physically pushed her car out of the way and to the side of the store. I was trained to do this in MMA as one of my exercises where I pushed my teacher's pickup around the giant dojo once each month at least for years.

The woman was SO grateful, she got her daughter from an hour north to come get her for the night, but that lady was so thankful she gave me $20.

And I cried. That covered my meals for the next 4 days. I knew I was going to be hungry and struggling to get my food for a while, and this stranger gave me enough to get meals for 4 days worth.

That meant the wold to me, and I meant the world to her.

My first job ever, I barely passed as a man. Living in this area is hard because judgment is rampant, and relentless, especially with such a bigoted populous. And one day I received so much hate and anger from customers that I literally almost walked out of the store and quit right there. I had unsolicited photos taken of me, people pointing and laughing, you name it.

But one lady walked to my register and smiled. "I was at Stonewall! I marched for YOU! I threw bricks FOR YOU!!" she said enthusiastically.

She was a dyke lesbian who was there during the Stonewall riots, and she gave me so much love and acceptance that I broke down sobbing as I walked out from behind the register and hugged her. The kindness of that woman saved me because I didn't think I wanted to make it home that night.

I drove home safely that night, and I'm now 7 years on testosterone with full support of my friends, and I'm planning my last surgery for late 2025. :)

Humanity is a broad experience of emotional connection and happenstance. An opportunity for kindness is an opportunity to change a life for the better in every way.

Be kind to one another. Help that stranger. Feel emotion to the fullest extent, and share that with others.

Be human.

“People are inherently terrible” no!!! Have you ever seen a child wait for their friend while they tie their shoelaces? Have you ever known someone who would bring hurt squirrels and rabbits and mice to the nearest vet just so it doesn’t suffer? Have you seen someone grieve? Have you ever read something that hit your heart like a freight train? Have you looked at the stars and felt an unexplainable joy? Have you ever baked bread? Have you shared a meal with a friend? Have you not seen it? All the love? All the good? I know it’s hard to see sometimes, I know there’s pain everywhere. But look, there’s a child helping another up after a hard fall. Look, there’s someone giving their umbrella to a stranger. Look, there’s someone admiring the spring flowers. Look, there’s good, there’s good, there’s good. Look!!!!

[madaqueue]

FOOL'S GOLD SINKS ALL THE SAME

aventurine never fails to cause a scene, in public or in private.

pairing: aventurine x gn!reader

themes/content: reader has a history of sexual trauma (it is not described in graphic detail but it is very clearly alluded to. it is not romanticized or sexualized). smut. mentions of aventurine's past, oral + fingering + penetration (reader receiving), lots of ocean metaphors bc i'm normal abt it. 18+ MDNI (wk: 4.7k)

a/n: letting this blond man ruin my life

“Bet on me.”

The words barely land in your ears as Aventurine snakes his way around the table. You can’t respond, can’t even look at him, without inviting catastrophe, and he knows: he makes it a challenge, of course, reflecting the glimmering lights almost more brightly than the gaudy disco ball twirling away overhead. In the corner of your vision, the black flash of armed guards weighs in your mind, and instead of straining your eyes to catch his, you let your attention fall aimlessly ahead.

Then, you do precisely as you were told: nothing (technically, the IPC’s orders were to “Observe and gather intel” which you know means “Don’t let Aventurine cause a scene.” Perhaps that’s why they’ve sent you on so many jobs together - they need him chained, and you’re an inexpensive stand-in leash. Being a collar doesn’t take much skill, after all).

The game continues, cards and chips moving hands, and Aventurine loses after a stupid play he’d never make, and pouts.

“What a shame,” he says to himself, resting his chin on a glove you know is more expensive than the ruby velvet lining the table. “Dye like this is hard to find,” he once told you. “It’s almost impossible to get anything this dark. Only fools pay for red, but that’s why gamblers love it: it’s cheap and flashy.”

When the next round begins, he taps his fingers along the table, a tell he’d never let slip, one subtle enough not to miss. With barely-controlled eyes darting from player to player, he feigns nervousness and shuffles his chips to the center.

“Guess I’m all in,” he chuckles, letting his smirk waver for half a second.

The fools around you think he’s bluffing; they think they’ve got him. People tend to let their guard down when they think they’ve won, when they can’t see that the finish line has been moved. More chips rattle onto the table - they’d be idiots to not get in on pulling one over on the well-loathed IPC.

Again, you hear ‘bet on me,’ and for some stupid reason, you follow, clearing the space in front of you with a hesitant push of your own wealth (well, the IPC’s, of course) into the ever-growing pile.

On the neighboring stool, a man leans over, letting his scruff tickle the shell of your ear. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, sweetheart. Let that man lose his money, and when I win it back, I’ll spoil you.” He smells like cheap whiskey and cigarettes and you want to claw his throat out.

Across the table, one of the other gamblers lets out a shrill complaint of, “No coaching during the plays!” and the man beside you innocently raises his arms, not before winking at you, and you wonder if you were to kill him on this table how much the velvet would cost to replace.

Instead, you bat your eyelashes and lay your cards down. “Oh well, maybe I’ll win the next one,” you giggle, sending your chips toppling onto the others with one final shove.

The next moves happen rather quickly: Aventurine reveals his hand, people shout, the money is claimed from the table, and somebody grabs your arm. It’s only when cool cloth softly rubs your skin that you recognize the man dragging you towards the exit and let your muscles be pulled behind.

“Told you,” Aventurine whispers, his breath lighter than feathers.

He cashes out silently and guides you towards the elevators, this time with one palm placed on your lower back rather than wrapped around your wrist. Less possessive, you think - less likely to cause a scene.

The moment the elevator doors close, you turn to him.

“What the hell was that?”

“What?” He cocks his head to the side and lets that impish grin spread across his face, the one that’s nearly landed him with knuckles on his jaw in an attempt to wipe it off.

“You know that wasn’t what we were sent here to do.” You cross your arms, and he basks in the heat of your body, his wrists now fully snaked around your waist.

“Details, details,” he murmurs with a wave of his hand. “We got the information we needed. It’s not a crime to have a little fun afterwards.”

“It is a crime to disobey orders-”

Just as your annoyance begins to bubble over, the elevator chimes and opens directly into his suite. To break free from his grasp, your feet step forward and graciously carry you inside.

It takes a moment for your eyes to adjust, light bouncing off the white marble that lines every surface.

Of course Aventurine gets a penthouse for these missions. The IPC certainly has to keep up appearances, and with a man like him, anything else might as well fully blow his cover.

He lets you enter on your own, at least, as he waltzes behind you, with the saccharine smell of pride blooming from his skin.

“It’s nice, isn’t it,” he hums, and you want to smack that smug smile off his face.

Before you can, he tosses a cloth sack your way, the coins inside clanking with a sound you nearly don’t recognize.

“For you,” he says easily, leaning against the ever-opulent stone counter.

Something in the sound makes your head feel heavy, under pressure like you’re drowning. It’s familiar in a way you hate, in a way that you remember from the mattresses of shitty hotel rooms and men who smell like cigarettes and the way your tears look under the fluorescent lights of an unfamiliar bathroom.

You know what money like this means for them. And worse, you know what it means for you.

It’s just work, you told yourself the first time someone propositioned you to their room. A way to clear the debt, to push you a little closer to an ever-moving goal. It’s just a body, just a hole, just a few minutes. But it’s different when it’s Aventurine’s body, standing three feet away from yours, when the velvet smells like him and is still warm from his palm.

You don’t open it, you don’t want to. You can feel the metal sitting in your stomach, all too heavy. The act isn’t new, you suppose, but you never thought Aventurine would-

It doesn’t matter.

Now you see the point of his plan - involving you in it was sick, but the IPC must keep up appearances. It’s only fitting for them, you suppose.

So, you slowly make your way across the kitchen, sliding the pouch into your coat pocket. You don’t look at him, you can’t, not anymore. Standing mere inches before him, you lower yourself to your knees - they love the ceremony of it, they always do - and rest your hands along his waist. Practiced fingers begin unworking his belt - normally, at this point, you’d turn your gaze to the man above you, but you can’t.

It’s just work. It’s just work. It’s just work.

But something about this, something about it being him, makes your stomach turn, makes you want to vomit up the metal taste that sits in the back of your throat.

Too busy in your mind, you don’t notice the way Aventurine tenses, nor the panic in his hands as he wraps them around your wrists.

“What the fuck are you doing?” The words come out fast, blended into a single breath.

“I’m – I’m doing what you paid me for.”

Finally, you look at him, and see the sheer horror raging behind his eyes. The smooth mask of a practiced liar doesn’t chip easily, but if you listen close enough, you could hear its pieces falling to the cold tiles beneath your knees.

“No. No.” Pulling you from the ground, he doesn’t let go of your shoulders as you rise. “That’s – that’s not what I’m paying you for.”

“Oh.”

Desperately he searches for something in your face, some hint of the rage that burns beneath his skin, but he finds nothing, just glossed-over eyes and a practiced smile. It’s just work, after all - he of all people should know best.

For a moment, he nearly lets his questions get the better of him - What sick fuck is paying you? Is this a part of your contract? Who do I have to kill for making you think you’re nothing more than a body to be used like this? - but easily, he slips the silk mask back on (he wouldn’t want to frighten you with anger; he wouldn’t forgive himself).

“That money is for you. Just you.” Gloved hands smooth the wrinkles along your collar. “It’s the first installment for the debt you owe - in three months, you’ll be rid of the IPC,” (and me, he nearly says), “forever.”

“Aventurine,” you rasp - you aren’t sure why the words get stuck in your throat, now, after all this time. You aren’t sure why they taste so hot - maybe it’s the burning that lingers in your knees. “You can’t.”

“I can. And I did.” The flash of his smile nearly blinds you again. “You can thank me later, but for now, let’s celebrate-”

“No.”

Your eyes sting, and that pit in your chest is back, heavier, threatening to swallow you whole. It aches and makes your head spin and you want to spit it out, let it claw its way from your insides and take your blood and bones and viscera with it.

“The debt was mine to pay off.”

“Well, no offense, but you were doing a pretty terrible job of it,” he laughs, hesitantly. In all his calculated planning, in the hours and days and weeks and months he spent dreaming of this moment, he had a vision of how you’d react, how you’d smile and sigh and wrap your arms around him and kiss his cheek and how he’d get to hold you, pick you up like you weighed less than air, free from the chains that kept you down, beneath him.

“It doesn’t matter. It was mine.”

Boiling tears stream down your cheeks, leaving trails of steam in their wake, and you want to collapse into yourself, you want to let the pressure build up until you explode and take out this entire building, this entire planet for all you care.

“You can’t – you can’t just buy people, Aventurine,” you choke, the words landing in the room like smoke.

For the first time, his smile falters. “I wasn’t-”

The coin purse finds its way back into your hand, and then to the ground below his feet. He doesn’t reach out to grab you as you turn away.

You’re grateful that the bar is rather empty, aside from a lone stranger on one end with his head down and an empty bottle beside him, and a couple trying to consume one another in the corner. Most other patrons seem too engrossed in the thrill of throwing their lives away, you suppose; that’s the nature of a casino, the price of feeding its hunger. Empty chairs have become quite a comfort over the years, separating you from those who would grab too tightly, or beg for a kiss, just a kiss, or slide a pile of coins your way and wait for you by the elevators.

And yet, when he approaches from behind you, you don’t flinch (you’d know his steps anywhere, you think - they’re too evenly timed to belong to anyone else).

“Is this seat taken?” he grins, but makes no move to sit until you gesture him forward with a wave of your glass.

The two of you let the silence settle, even though Aventurine feels he may choke on it, even though he wants to speak and speak and speak until you forgive him and tell him it’s alright and tell him he’s not evil, he didn’t hurt you, he didn’t mean to. Instead, he silently orders two drinks and lets you sip yours slowly.

“I’m sorry,” you finally say. “I know you were trying to do something good.”

There are words sitting on the tip of his tongue begging to be let free, but he swallows and lets them burn his throat.

“I didn’t plan to work for the IPC this long. I didn’t plan for any of this, really.” You chuckle, a dry sound, and wash it down with the liquid in your cup. “But my debt just kept growing, and they kept saying they needed me - ‘just one more job,’ - but it’s never really just one more, is it?”

“No, it’s not,” and he lets himself laugh.

The casino’s sounds settle atop you, those of victory and highs and pride left to sit out for too long, until it starts to rot.

“The IPC bought my debt,” he says to the empty bottles behind the bar. “It was a long time ago, longer than you’ve been here, I’m sure. It was selfish of me to try and do the same to you.” (Nobody should be owned like that, he almost says. The mark on his neck aches and itches and pricks at his skin like hot iron. He ignores it.)

His empty glass sits on the table, its wet ring bleeding into the wood. A wiser man would have used a coaster, or perhaps, a poorer man, one who couldn’t afford to erase the marks he leaves behind.

“The money is still yours, of course. You don’t have to take it, but I have no use for it.” My debt is too grand to be counted and held in velvet, he thinks.

When your gaze meets his, his pupils dilate - one of the few tells he can’t control.

“Well then,” you hum, the ice clinking against the glass as it swirls in your hold, “I suppose I should use my new-found wealth.” Setting your cup upon the table, the condensation makes it slide towards his, and you grin, an unpracticed one, unpolished. Your cheeks pull back unevenly and you let the cracks in your lips show. “Can I buy you a drink?”

He laughs and you wonder if this is the same sound that plays from the slot machines lining the walls, if this is the bell that rings for victory, the one that makes people willing to throw their savings away for the chance to hear it just one more time.

“Well, I’d be a fool to say no.”

He’s lighter now that your forgiveness has settled on him, kissing his cheeks like a butterfly’s wings, in a way that tickles and doesn’t make him brush it off, a way that reminds him of spring and flowers, of his home and of you.

“Do you remember that job we worked on Belobog?”

“The one where I had to pretend to be married to you?” you laugh, nearly falling off the back of the barstool before Aventurine’s hand catches you in the dip of your back.

“It wasn’t that bad,” he whines, letting his lips turn upwards.

“I just never took you for someone so…comfortable in public.” There’s a glimmer of something sparkling behind your eyes, more than just the neon lights flashing overhead.

Leaning forward, he’s so close you can nearly smell him, wood and liquor, smoke and velvet. Rich in all the ways he ought to be, in all the ways he pretends he is.

“I was just selling our cover,” he purrs, and a part of you wonders if this is dangerous, to be letting him in like this, to tilt your head until the heat radiating from his skin gets trapped in the space between you.

“Yeah? I didn’t know you had orders to pull me onto your lap and kiss my neck every second we were around someone else. It was a bit much, don’t you think?”

“A little overkill never hurt anyone,” his eyes narrow and he wants to open his mouth and swallow you. “Besides, you certainly didn’t seem to mind.”

Your face grows warm, but you don’t back down, don’t turn away, not when you hold the winning hand. “I guess I just took you for someone more private, Aventurine.”

“Oh, you have no idea how I am in private.”

“No?” your glass lands heavily along the bar, and he straightens his back as you stand. “Then why don’t you come back to my room and show me?”

And he’s on his feet in the time it takes to blink.

Your room is smaller than his, of course; the two of you nearly fill the hallway, swelling until every inch of it is consumed by your bodies, leaving imprints of your flesh along the walls. It’s not opulent, it's not marble or pillars or gold, but it’s yours, and now, his.

He ushers you inside first, and the moment the door closes, you press into him.

You don’t speak, and neither does he; you don’t have to, not anymore. When your hands trail up his sides, the breath in his throat catches, a beginner’s tell, one he should have outgrown by now, one he knows better than to let slip. The lilting chuckle he lets out, too, tells you all too much.

When your lips meet his, it’s soft at first, all feathers and butterflies. Hesitant and nervous, but yearning.

In a moment, he lets the silk mask slip.

Then, he’s starving. Hands reach around you and grab and beg and hold, trying to tear off pieces of you so he’ll never have to leave this behind. Your teeth sink into his lower lip and he groans into your mouth and you’re grateful for the wood door as you lean every ounce of your weight against him.

“You have no idea how bad I wanted you,” he sighs, and his breath melds with yours until you’re exhaling one another, until the only thing you can feel and hear and taste is him.

“I do.” Blown pupils meet yours, decorated with stars and constellations. “You’re easier to read than you think, Aventurine.”

“You just know me too well,” he smiles, and his lips are back on yours, hungry and gnawing.

With needy hands you drag him from the entryway and towards the bed, the only real piece of furniture inside, luckily.

There’s a practiced ease as you fall to your knees once again, and a gentleness to his hands as he lifts you where you stand.

“Allow me,” he hums.

Softly, he kneels before you, and he can’t bring himself to look away from the warmth radiating from your face. He’s a flower planted beneath you, watered with your smile and grown by your fingertips; you can step on him, if you’d like, or leave him here until his petals kiss your ankles and pluck him so he may stay in your heart.

He undoes your belt and he tugs your waistband down, too impatient to let gravity do the work. Your shirt’s buttons prove a similarly fluid task, despite the way your hands shake as you rush to undo his. Jewelry and accessories drop to the floor before they’re kicked away, lost to the depths of cloth and fur. Finally, he removes his gloves, tugging off each finger with polished teeth.

“Lay down for me, would you?” he asks in that sweet, silky voice, the one that tastes like wood and liquor, that you want to pour down your throat and swallow with heaving gulps.

The bedding is cotton and scratchy and you don’t even mind, not when he leans over you and you feel his skin on yours, soft and bare. It’s the first time he touches you, truly touches you, with his hands, no expensive velvet or obligation or orders in the way, just his flesh and desire.

You know how much his time is worth, the mental tally of credits summing in your mind with each passing second, and yet, his fingers trail patiently downward, resting at your ribs, your hips, your thighs; his lips follow, marking a path along your body, a map he can return to when he inevitably gets lost and must be found.

Settling between your legs, he inhales and fills his lungs with you, with the salt and sage that blooms from your pulse points. Expensive, but not gaudy - the IPC certainly knows how to maintain an appearance.

His tongue is quick and deft, and he nearly misses the way you tense. When he searches your face, he finds furrowed eyebrows and a frown that a more foolish man would pass off as pleasure.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” you say. How do you respond to a question you’ve never been asked, one you’d never prepared for? “I think so, yes.”

“Do you want me to stop?”

“No!” The sound makes you flinch. “No, just…”

What more is there? It’s just work, you’d say; Use me, he’d say.

“Here.” Intertwining his fingers with yours, he lets his palm sink into the crater of your own. “Squeeze my hand if you want me to stop.”

You nod and smile, crooked and sweet, and he sends one back in return. Slowly, the haven of your thighs welcomes him once again.

He’s softer, now, as he savors you, the way your skin lands on his tongue, the way your hips shift into the mattress. When he presses a finger to your entrance, you gasp and nearly grip his hand, but he pauses, he lets you breathe and relax your knees and stomach. When he pushes further in, a moan falls from your lips and he thinks he’d bet his life savings, go in debt a thousand times over just to hear it again. He knows his luck is true when he adds a second finger and he’s graced with it once more.

“Aventurine,” you breathe, your muscles tensing as the heat in your core builds. You worry what your body will do when it finally overtakes you, when the flames kiss your skin half as kindly as him, so you dig your palms into his hair instead. It’s soft, impossibly so, as you knot it around your knuckles; he groans when your nails scratch along his scalp.

He lets you pull him in, swallowing every sound and touch you’ll grant him with an eager throat. You cry his name when you come undone, and he wonders what fate he owes a debt to for the chance to taste you, hear you, feel you like this.

When he finally leans away, the depths of his pupils have drowned the vibrant cyan and violet that normally kiss their shore, and his chest heaves like a man just saved from the sea. He’s damp like one, too, sweat-slicked hair clinging to his neck.

Light catches on his shoulders and he glows, rising above you as though gravity wouldn’t dare touch him. He kisses you again, and he passes along the ocean and salt and stone, a secret message a fool would miss, but one you can read: I crave you.

There’s no nervousness left as you guide his tip to your entrance, no fear or duty or chains, just his hips and devotion.

“Are you sure?”

Your palm interlinks with his once more, and you grin. “Of course.” The soft, warm skin of his neck finds its way between your teeth, letting it rest behind your canines, and he chuckles eagerly.

“You’re going to be the death of me, you know,” he sighs into you.

“What a wonderful way to die.”

Wrapping your legs around his waist, you pull him forward. Cool air blesses your spine as your back arches from the bed, more gentle than feathers or a butterfly’s wings, and you welcome him with ease.

He shudders when he bottoms out, cold in spite of the heat emanating from your skin, trapped in the single layer of atoms between your bodies.

A moment passes, then two. And you realize, in the still seconds, that he’s waiting, restraining. A hand held out, an invitation.

Tentatively, your hips circle his, and a golden whine flows from his lips. It drips from the corners and you lap at the fountain of his wealth.

He lets you guide him, then, lets you move and lead and make a show of what you want, what you like. There’s a rhythm he settles into, an angle, a single spot that makes you claw at his back and drink the air from his lungs. And he, an ever-grateful actor, is more than happy to perform.

There’s a control to it, though. A mask.

“Let go,” you whisper into his open mouth.

He chews the words but barely swallows. “What do you mean?”

Your eyelashes flutter open to find him staring down, blinded by the spotlight of your presence; he blinks to clear the flashing. “You’re holding back; let go.”

It’s a miracle you’ve never noticed until this moment, until you’re this close to him, but his grin is a bit uneven, too, the right side of his smile curving ever-so-slightly higher than the left. You wonder how hard he’s had to work to hide it; you wonder what it would take to see it again.

“If you insist.”

His lips crash into yours and you wonder if this is what drowning feels like, to have something in your lungs and your stomach and on your skin and dragging you into it; you wonder if the sea has ever felt this greedy.

Each swell of his pelvis is another wave, crests with no rhythm, an unpredictable high and low. Boats have been lost to less; perhaps they would have been saved if only they’d had his hands waiting to catch them. His, meanwhile, dig into your waist, holding you just under the surface.

Moans blend into each other, and he hits so deep inside you that a cough to dispel the water lodged inside would surely have his name in it, not that you’d ever want to; you want him in every part of you, seeping into the cracks and living there, forever. You inhale and inhale and inhale, until you can’t tell the difference between him and air, until he’s the thing keeping you alive.

The bed shakes, its cheap wood headboard bouncing against the chipping paint of your shitty hotel room, leaving behind damage that you’ll surely have to pay. But how lucky you are to be with a man who can afford to erase the marks he leaves behind.

“I-” he starts, but you already know what he’s about to say (he’s not that hard to read, after all - not when his entire body begins to shake, when his whines strain higher, when he lets his smile fall crooked).

“Don’t stop,” is all you have to say; not that he could, with the way your legs wrap around him; not that he would, with the way you bloom and writhe and swell beneath him.

When he comes undone, it’s accompanied by the most beautiful sound, the most beautiful flush of his cheeks and arch of his back.

And yet, all he hears is you as you hold him, as you follow him under and kiss him through the brine, as you clench around his length and let him twitch and shake and tremble.

It takes a moment for him to still inside you (the sea is never quiet right after a storm). When he does, his eyes search for yours immediately. When they don’t find a smile, he begins to panic - Did he hurt you? Are you scared? Will you hate him? - but in an instant, they crinkle at the corners.

“Well,” you say, breathless.

“Well?” he mirrors, trying to hide the water that still rests in his chest.

“I have to be honest with you,” you hum pensively, letting the practiced control slip back into your voice, letting him worry for half a moment before you continue, “I can now say with confidence, you are exactly the same in private.”

His face stalls for a moment, and then he laughs, and you’ve found a new currency, one you’d happily be indebted in for the rest of your life. “So I take it you’d want to do this again sometime? In spite of the overkill?”

Your grin widens at the corners, uneven and shining. “I’d be a fool not to.”

[thequeenofsastiel]

I'll say this about UHC's weird ass system. As long time or at least semi long time followers know, I got very sick a few months ago. Admittedly it was because of choices I made, but, in my defense, I didn't realize that the choices I made would have the effect they did.

I was hospitalized for five days and then spent six days in a physical rehab center so I could regain the ability to walk. Not the finest experience of my life, but I'm lucky enough to say that I had good nurses looking after me, and one really good nurse who stood up for me to the dismissive doctor who wanted to send me home when I couldn't get out of bed because none of the tests they ran were able to find anything(which I think is because there is so little known about what was wrong with me and thus they don't even have tests yet to discern my illness(Cannabinoid Hyperemesis Syndrome for anyone who wants to know; look for that tag on my blog if you want the longer story, I recommend it because it's very good information to have if you or someone you know regularly or even sometimes consumes cannabis in some way)). He was amazing. I also had really awesome physical and occupational therapists. My only complaint is that they were understaffed, but I blame that on the fact that we treat nurses so poorly that not nearly enough people want to become them.

The point is, I got home, and received letters from UHC. They were willing to cover my physical rehab, because they determined it to be medically necessary, but not the hospital stay, because they thought that wasn't medically necessary. Which is honestly the most absurd thing I've ever heard. Why would I need the rehab but not the hospitalization prior to the rehab?

I fought. They didn't care. So I owe the hospital about $56,000 for a five day stay, which I'll likely never be able to pay off unless I somehow stumble onto a high paying job that doesn't make me miserable, which seems unlikely.

So yeah. Thanks, UHC. You can go ahead and buy some sympathy for Brian Thompson with that money you're saving from your bullshit policies. I'm never using UHC again. Fuck that company. And, more importantly, fuck the US government for being swayed by healthcare lobbyists and not giving us the universal health care we deserve as citizens. Nay, as human beings. Stop letting the rich control the country. I don't want a class war, the vulnerable will suffer first, but if you keep letting this happen, the people are going to revolt. Stop pearl clutching about the response to the killing, and take a good long look in the mirror about why we feel this way. Because honestly, I think it's the only chance we have to avoid a revolution.

[chaos-has-theories]

You know - the Revolution moral of "sometimes the adults won't do what's necessary, so sometimes you have to be the one to step in. Maybe you're the adult now" gets a bit... muddled... by the fact that it's also about "haha imagine Chloé as mayor even though she's 14? Oh look finally her father stepped in and put his foot down".

[auroraapple22]

Medicaid varies by state, but in my state, Medicaid's buy in program didn't exist before the affordable care act and also, to be covered under Medicaid, you had to make less than $1,200 a month before taxes. That wasn't even enough money for me to live on. That was ten years ago but I worked a part time job at minimum wage and made slightly more than that, but it was part time so they also wouldn't give me health insurance. I certainly couldn't afford my medical costs because I need to see a psychiatrist and I need to take daily medications to be a functional person. I also was a drug addict for years and I needed treatment and help to get off drugs and become a productive contributing member of society.

Now I work full time but because I have a disability, I'm still covered by Medicaid. This is important because the only insurance I can really manage my mental illness with is Medicaid. If I ever make too much to not qualify for Medicaid, I do qualify for Medicaid's buy in program which is where you pay a very small cost every month and retain your Medicaid. It's available for people with a disability that make too much for Medicaid but not enough to manage a disability with insurance. This did not exist before the affordable care act.

If I had to be on my employer's insurance plan, I wouldn't be able to afford to continue my treatment to manage my mental illness and addiction recovery. Which means I would be sick and lose my job, become homeless again, qualify for Medicaid again, start the whole process over again and again. Do you see what a vicious cycle that is? To finally get stable and build your life back up, just to lose Medicaid and not be able to afford the premiums under your employers healthcare plan, just to get sick and lose your job and become homeless again and by becoming homeless and losing your job, qualifying for the insurance you need yet again.

Conservatives always want to talk about how homeless people and drug addicts are a cancer on society but they want to make it literally impossible to become not homeless or to stay that way once you get there.

Conservatives want to see you sick and starving and dying in the streets because you're stupid enough to be poor. Don't ever let them tell you they believe otherwise because no matter what fancy words they use to frame it, nothing would give them more joy than to see that.

[tleeaves]

There are two wolves inside me. One wants to embrace a new hobby in dance so I can be active and feel elegant and graceful and strong. This wolf wants to try something new and exciting, finally indulging in something I've always had an interest in.

The other experiences such frustrating emotions on a near daily basis that I want to go back to boxing, which is arguably easier to break into since I've already done it before. This wolf doesn't think of elegance, she just wants to fuck shit up until her body's so overworked and warm it fogs up car windows without having to do anything but sit inside.

Which one do I fucking feed??

[frogeyedape]

I am so unbelievably pissed off. FUCK HOAs

Oh, my trash/recycling bin can't be visible except on pickup day? Ok whatever fine I hate you but I can deal with this

Weekly inspections?????? FU FU FU FU FU

SECOND NOTICE ALSO WE'RE CHARGING YOU MONEY TO SEND YOU CERTIFIED MAIL OF THIS TOTALLY LEGIT TOTALLY SECOND NOTICE OF WHAT IS ACTUALLY A VIOLATION cue me: checks notes. Hmm. My recycling bin was. on the curb. on recycling pickup day. You know. The day it has to be out. The day it is motherfucking ALLOWED TO BE FUCKING OUT AND VISIBLE.

so. 1) not a violation

I have sent them the trash AND recycling pickup schedules, which are DIFFERENT, btw

I have disputed the fact of the violation

I have disputed the linking of this "violation" to a previous violation MONTHS AGO--their "first notice" in this case was a "Courtesy Notice" LITERALLY 5 MONTHS AGO and they've done so many inspections since then and my bin CLEARLY WASN'T OUT IN THOSE INTERVENING MONTHS so WTMFH

So I am posting like a crazy person here instead of sending the absolutely deranged email I almost sent (I did send a slightly less deranged version with the disputes, and requesting a hearing)

OMG. It has been. Less than one hour since I learned this fun fun news. My bin was out YESTERDAY, y'all. YESTERDAY. I am going to blow a gasket

[lilietsblog]

Ok so first of all there's always going to be BAD ART. Of any art form. Movies feel special because they take so much work, so shouldn't they all come out good because of that? No. That's not how making art and storytelling works.

Well, movies ARE a little bit special. For most/all other forms of art, there's a filter between actually /making/ the thing and /publishing/ the thing. You can draw a picture that doesn't come out right, and you can just put it away in a folder and draw another. You can write a book that you then look at and realize is not up to your standards, and you just don't send it to a publisher or self-publish and nobody needs to know.

Movies? Are way too expensive for that. There's way too much investment from way too many people to just put a movie away without anyone ever knowing it was made. Losses need to be recouped at least partially. It does not, at that point, matter if the movie is good or bad, SOMEONE will hopefully pay to see it.

(Then there's the serially published works that don't have this luxury, and there TV shows have incredibly greater reach and universality than any other serial media. Most works on RoyalRoad, most webcomics etc only get /known/ if they pass the filter of minimal audience engagement. Fanfiction has 0 reach outside of the fandom, short of getting rewritten to have original characters, which puts it into the traditionally published novel category. TV shows are on TV, which means everyone who watches TV has a chance to just stumble on them)

Now I don't know much about filmmaking, maybe I'm off-base with some of this. But I don't think this is a capitalist vs communist problem.

For one, communism as central planning - as you said, committees and government-approved budgets - is an incredibly bad economic system. Like, not morally bad, like bad at being an economy. I can elaborate on that if anyone wants, but tl;dr Do Not Do This. It will not improve art either, for all the reasons noted.

If you want more good movies, proportionally, what you want is a filter that allows bad movies to be made and then /not published/. What would allow this?

a cultural shift towards lower-budget movies. If everyone is more interested in stuff that has theatrical type production with visibly painted cardboard props and dance routines from like ten people as large scale battle choreography, that'll relieve a lot of the financial/organizational pressure, I think;

technological advances! We've already got a whole new short-form video genre on tiktok, including with people who are amazing actors playing multiple roles switching around clothing and angles. Yes, most tiktoks are bad, see again: any and all art, but like my tumblr dash only has the good ones filter to it and I'm quite happy for that;

An economic system where the average person has A LOT more free time and money on their hands. I will refrain from going on a UBI tangent here, but tl;dr the only way to avoid movies needing to recoup losses and therefore going to publication even when they didn't come out good, is to have these losses be genuinely write-off-able. Filmmaking needs to become a plausible hobby, like writing or drawing, something you do without expectation of necessarily making money off it. Communally, meaning a lot of people in the same hobbyist community need to have this ability at the same time in the same place.

(No, the USSR was not this. Everyone involved was a professional that the state was paying to make movies. The state could afford to discard some movies that were being made, yes, but you don't want "the state" to be the decider any more than you want "the corporation" to be the decider. The creatives involved need to be in charge, and that means doing something about budget concerns, as said above)

Yes, you will always need someone to organize production and such. There are people, I know for a fact, who would gladly do that as a hobby /if/ that were logistically possible in their lives. See amateur theatre, a very real thing that is not particularly far from filmmaking.

The key is not "making better movies". The key is "making movies in a way where you can afford to then discard them if you don't like them".

I've been trying to get a good overview of communist art, and it's difficult, partly because of the language barrier, but also partly because I think what I want isn't the art itself, it's a comparison of how the landscape of art-making shifts.

Movie-making, in particular, is a massive undertaking that requires a fair amount of time and money if you want to do it right. You need someone to write it, someone to direct it, someone to act in it, a cinematographer, some lighting, sound and music ... under a communist model, none of this would actually change. You would still need to acquire the personnel and make sure they were housed and fed. You would still need sets to be built and artists to devote their time and energy.

So one of the common criticisms of capitalism is that it produces Bad Art, that everyone is just trying to make a buck and they don't care about the product unless it finds consumers who will pay out cash. Everything is geared for the lowest common denominator. This gets worse as you involve more and more capital.

But I've always wondered: is this not also true under communism?

I don't mean in practice, that question is simple, all you have to do is read up on the film production processes from a number of different communist and formerly communist countries, whose source materials are often not accessible in English, mired in propaganda and disputes, and cover many decades. Easy peasy. I did what I think is a surface skim, but the common threads were that film studios were state-owned, scripts were approved by party officials, there were regular reviews during production, and a final review before release. You usually have to promote socialist values, or at least not criticize the current regime, and you have reviews for "ideological content". In spite of all this, some good movies got made, some bad movies got made, and some movies were banned for lack of ideological conformity or "frivolity". There are different eras to filmmaking in every country, times when the industry was thriving and times that it crashed to the ground in spectacular fashion as the government involved itself. A lot depended on who was in power and what the then-current ideology was. I think it's tempting to say that the widely agreed upon "great films" got made in spite of having ideological overview, but it's hard for me to evaluate that claim, and if someone said "the great American films were made in spite of capitalism" I think that also would be a difficult claim to evaluate, even though I've actually seen a pretty substantial amount of the canon and speak the language most often used in analysis of production processes.

No, what I mean is that in theory there's someone that has to be running the numbers. The film studio is state-run, sure, everyone is in state housing or whatever, they're getting food somehow ... but someone, somewhere, is authorizing all this. You don't make a film without a plan, so those plans have to be submitted to someone, or a committee, and that committee has to decide which films will get made and which will remain a dream. And if they're doing that, then they're either trying to make the film that they think benefits the country the most, or they're applying their own taste and judgment, but probably both.

And if you're under some kind of model where no one runs the numbers, where film-making is entirely volunteer work, then you still have problems, because you need this large volunteer organization, and you need to bring them in on your vision, and if they can just walk away, you need to maintain that energy and vision through the whole process.

I guess what I'm saying is that yes, capitalism presents problems when it comes to this specific artform, but I feel like as soon as you're out from under the yoke of the dollar, you're immediately under some other yoke. And I do wish that when people saw a bad film and said "the problem is capitalism" they would take a moment to consider that maybe there is always necessarily going to be oversight and compromise, just because of the nature of the enterprise.

This does not apply nearly so much to other forms of art, like those that can be done by a single person sitting in a room all alone.

[aeolianblues]

I'm not an extrovert. At all. In everyday life, I'm a yapper, sure, but I need someone to first assure me I am okay to yap, so I don't start conversations, even when I really want to join in sometimes! It's just the social anxiety acting up. God knows where from and why I lose a lot of my inhibitions when it comes to talking to people about music. I don't know where the confidence has suddenly sprung from. I've made a crazy amount of friends in musical circles, either just talking to people about common music or (since it is after all in music circles) talking to bands about their own music. I let out a sigh of relief any time an interaction goes well, because in truth it's going against my every instinct. I wish I could do that in everyday life

[imthatwannabeauthor]

.

[castielsprostate]

scammers trying to swindle artists and creatives deserve to get their head smashed in with a rock

[protect-namine]

I agree that the timeline is weird, and I'd like to add something to this, but I'll be coming from a different angle. this ended up being a long reply, so bear with me!!

but first: I could be wrong or may have missed this, but I don't remember it being explicitly mentioned that they met in high school? cmiiw though. I just thought they always met in university. or at least, they started being close friends during university. though I agree that the uniform could imply they met in highschool, but tbh I just thought that's just usual lu guang fashion and not necessarily a high school uniform lol.

about when they met: from how I understood it... it looks like cheng xiaoshi and lu guang didn't really start getting closer beyond being "basketball buddies" until the scene where lu guang walked upon qiao ling and cheng xiaoshi renovating the photo studio for business. lu guang helps out, and then just... stays in their lives permanently ever since. the way this was shown in S1, they didn't seem close enough yet since cheng xiaoshi was content to let lu guang just walk away without annoying him to stay. if they were close friends, I have no doubt either lu guang would have already made the decision to stay, or cheng xiaoshi would have endeared himself to him to stay. but in actuality, it's qiao ling that grabbed lu guang's attention and asked him to help around. if she hadn't said anything, lu guang really would have just walked past them.

if we are to believe that anime con really did happen after this scene, then that's just another point to them not being close friends yet until after the shop renovation. lu guang loves to read books. if he was a video game character, that would be one of his default idle animations. and I think if cheng xiaoshi was good friends with him, he would have already known that lu guang doesn't just read classic literature. he would have seen him reading his webnovels or manhua.

the reason I think they renovated the shop during university years (aside from what yingdu shows us): cheng xiaoshi's parents have been gone since at least 2008 (since he was worried they got caught in the earthquake). in S1E10, qiao ling's dad paid 10 years worth of rent for the time photo studio; after those 10 years are up, cheng xiaoshi was expected to "grow up" and then pay back the money, implying that he'll open the business by then. in YE1, qiao ling mentions this again about how cheng xiaoshi himself boasted to her dad that he would be self-reliant once he grows up. which means cheng xiaoshi opens the studio for business around 2018, 10 years after 2008, when he's 18, when he's in university (since he's 21 in 2021 during S1). his parents could have left earlier than 2008, which means cheng xiaoshi would open the studio earlier, but to me that seems unlikely. qiao ling's dad probably would rather that qiao ling and cheng xiaoshi start their business during university rather than high school, and 18 is a good age/milestone for someone to say they have "grown up" enough to start being self-reliant.

this is how I imagined the timeline. cheng xiaoshi after his parents left him (~2008 or before):

cheng xiaoshi in high school (his only friend is still just qiao ling; possibly he may have met lu guang, but they're not close yet for some reason). notably, his clothes here are different from his "child" clothes, but it's also not his "university" clothes.

cheng xiaoshi at 18, in university (renovating the photo studio with qiao ling. lu guang appears 5 minutes later and helps out). this should be around the beginning of summer, 2018:

but actually, I've got another time discrepancy for you. in S1, xu shanshan already graduated after two years of post-grad studies, which means our trio graduated from university two years ago (relative to S1 timeline). the photo that cheng xiaoshi dives into is xu shanshan's post-grad graduation dinner/karaoke, taken "the day before yesterday" or two days ago relative to the current time in S1E8. (there's something odd about this, but I'll come back to it later).

in any case, we see all three of them saying goodbye to xu shanshan and dong yi together, implying that they all graduated at the same time. S1 happened in 2021, so they should've graduated around... june-ish of 2019?

but in yingdu, they're still university students in 2019. lu guang just transferred and is even called a newbie at the anime club. but in S1, he was friends with cheng xiaoshi, qiao ling, xu shanshan, and dong yi throughout their university years, before graduation. they played games together in the lecture hall!

based on S1, I feel like the proper timeline should have been:

before may 2008: cheng xiaoshi's parents disappear

~2017 or early 2018: lu guang transfers to guidu university. assuming they're doing a three-year course, they should be second-year students at this time.

2018, april: basketball meet-cute at the tail end of the academic calendar. it's also possible the meet-cute happened in high school and they went to university together later, but that means either the shop was renovated during high school, or they weren't close friends in high school (they only seem to get closer after lu guang helps with the renovation), which to me seems unlikely. so for this timeline, we'll go with a university meet-cute.

2018, summer: cheng xiaoshi and qiao ling renovate the photo studio. lu guang walks by and helps out. anime con. vivian case. lu guang moves in with cheng xiaoshi at the photo studio. yingdu trip + doudou kidnapping case happen simultaneously. qiao ling sees 2021!cxs during a dive, which makes xu shanshan call lu guang while they're in their yingdu trip

2018, september: third year of university starts

2019, ~june: graduation from university. xu shanshan and dong yi pursue their masters degree.

2020: they continue doing their photo studio business, and gain enough of a reputation that they're talked about online and in their neighborhood (qiao ling is rumored to be an old witch). some of the chibi shorts probably happen during this year. life is good for shiguangling

2021: season one timeline. on april 8-12 someone profiles the trio in secret. emma dies on april 17. doudou case, xu shanshan case, and all of season 2 happen in october (except for the additional two months shiguang spent in the hospital recovering from their injuries afterwards, so S2 should end in around december-january).

hm, yeah, so something weird is going on. so what's actually happening in 2019? should they be graduating or should they be meeting for the first time? does doudou's kidnapping and their overseas trip happen? these all can't be happening in the same year... right?

the 2018 vs 2019 thing feels like one of those things that could be a continuity error or a retcon... but it's way too weird to retcon dates in a time traveling show. especially when certain dates are given important plot significance -- like lu guang's phone password in S2. link click has so many weird dates and times that don't make sense that it almost seems careless. is it deliberate, is it a mistake, or is time just broken in this show?

there are also some weird... timeline issues? in S1 itself. for example, the xu shanshan case happened in october. cheng xiaoshi dives into a two-day old photo from their graduation dinner/karaoke. but she should've graduated approximately around june. was it just a very late dinner...? (it looks like everyone in that room recently graduated, so this isn't a case of xu shanshan graduating late or anything). similarly, the emma case happened in april. but the mission qiao ling said was to get the data before the third quarter reports are released. fiscal years don't always align with the calendar year, but it looks like it does in china, so Q3 should be around july-september.

my initial theory was that maybe lu guang's watch is not as reliable as we think, especially since they like to blur out the dates sometimes in certain scenes. however, it does seem reliable enough. the date on his watched is synced with the surveillance monitor in the doudou case in S1, and also on the anime con board in YE1. here, it says june 10, 2019:

although... actually, there is one curious thing about that. in YE1, like you said, the year is hidden from us... at first. but they do start showing us the year after lu guang suggested doing a "divination" to find shen miaomiao.

it's blurred out the day before, when cheng xiaoshi visited the anime club. the date is june 09, unknown year.

it's also not shown at the beginning of the con, both from the con date board and lu guang's watch.

then, right after lu guang suggested doing a divination, they start showing the year on the con board. but... it's in a different style for some reason?

it could just be an animation error, but they show this style twice. and also, this episode has a lot of small differences as others have pointed out in other posts. for example: the blood pattern on the floor of the photo studio when cheng xiaoshi died, the photo frame where the glass is cracked vs completely broken, differences in lu guang's appearance in YE1 and S2 finale. individually, all of these could just be animation errors, especially since yingdu arc is made by a different studio iirc (same director though). but all of these continuity errors happening in one episode, in a time travel show? hmmm, don't know about that one

anyway, I feel like I strayed away from the original point lmao, but yeah. time is weird in link click. idk when anything is happening. I don't trust that we're actually in 2019. or rather, I don't trust that these events are supposed to be happening in 2019. something is very wrong here.

When the fuck is everything happening??? In 2018 (S1) or 2019 (Yingdu)?

Picking up from the discussion in the replies under @kuschelkissen’s post...

The year Doudou was kidnapped, Lu Guang and Cheng Xiaoshi spent their summer* break abroad—we now know this trip was to Yingdu.

*Summer months in China are June-August

The kidnapping and the Yingdu trip happened 3 years before the events in season 1, which took place in 2021:

(Date and time on Lu Guang’s watch right before they first dived into the Doudou case: 2021-10-13, 14:30.)

Three years ago would be 2018—which means ShiGuang should’ve already met by then and grown close enough to be on a trip together. But as we’ve seen in YE1, Lu Guang hasn’t moved in with CXS yet by the end of the Anime Con, which was on June 10, 2019:

(Throughout YE1, this is the only frame of Lu Guang’s watch where the year, 2019, is not blurred out)

The Vivian case started right after…which means that ShiGuang establishing their partnership also happened later since that took place afterwarde. Notably, throughout the Vivian case, the date was never once shown. But it’s safe to assume that it started on the same day/the day after Anime Con.

So, summing it up so far, ShiGuang has not yet met/formed a partnership in 2018, which they should’ve already done to be able to go to Yingdu together, as implied in S1.

I tried to look for frames showing the actual year Doudou was kidnapped, but guess what I found instead:

Translation of relevant part:

He went missing at around 3 pm on 201X, X month, X day.

If the entire date was in Xs, I could’ve just brushed this off as a design choice to show that the actual date doesn’t matter. However, they purposely revealed 3 digits for the year, leaving only the rightmost digit hidden: 201X

The year being 2021 is prominent throughout season 1:

(see date on monitors)

The kidnapping case taking place three years ago was also mentioned several times. Doing the math is easy, so why still hide the 8 in 2018? Why not just have the entire year in Xs to make it uniform with the month and day?

Did the kidnapping and Yingdu trip actually happen in 2018? If yes, then ShiGuang meeting and partnership should’ve happened much earlier. It doesn’t align with what we’ve been shown in YE1 (partnership established some time after June 10, 2019).

There’s still room for the first meeting date actually taking place in 2018, since the year it happened was never shown. We can only infer that it took place on an April 11 from the date on Cheng Xiaoshi’s phone (April 12) and the text he sent (which uses the word ‘tomorrow’):

However, I’m gonna trust the directors’ scene order choices here. Let’s just assume Yingdu Chapter has ShiGuang first meeting on April 11, 2019.

---

I’d like to think the confusion here over 2018 vs 2019 is simply due to an error in the anime. Maybe it’s actually just 2018. Or maybe they decided to change the kidnapping/yingdu trip to two years ago instead of three… But such discrepancy on a deliberate detail seems unlikely, especially for Link Click.

Did something happen that the events (first meeting and partnership establishment) are happening a year later than they’re supposed to be? Could Lu Guang be trying to prevent the Yingdu trip?

(Also, wasn’t it mentioned before that ShiGuang met in high school? Why is Lu Guang already a university freshman in the basketball match in Yingdu??? Why are he and CXS still wearing high school uniforms???)

I don’t know what the fuck is going on anymore

[medicinemane]

Saw a poll asking which fast food I'd give up for a week for a million dollars, and it's like I'd give up fucking food for a week for that price, there's literally nothing that wouldn't be on the chopping block when it's giving it up for a week

Not to mention I already barely have fast food once a month, and that's only if you count the costco pizza or burgers from the general store (which are more like backyard bbq style... like... the not great but not bad kind from a grill, you know?)

So... money please, I already won, pay me

[itsalwaysdark]

its so embarassing likee. going to talk abt a feeling you have but you already know ppl will be like Oh that sounds like depression lol and its like. well yes . i know . trust me i am so aware i am depressed . but its still like a thing ive been thinking abt and wanting to talk abt but ik itll just be like Ok hun 👍. idk idk what response i would want tho ig FNFNFNF

[anotherpapercut]

How would one find work at a library when they just...aren't qualified or don't have the relevant experience? I'd love to work at one but I don't have a relevant degree or experience in the field (mostly because they keep rejecting my applications and then ghosting me). I know if given the opportunity I could learn how to do the various jobs at a library, I just have trouble getting into the field without a degree.

people ask me this quite a bit and I really don't know what to say because I don't have an MLIS and neither do most of my coworkers. only like 1/10th of our employees have it honestly. I only have an associates degree in mathematics. and honestly, I'm really sorry to say, the only other way to get your foot in the door really is to volunteer. I volunteered at the library that I now work for A LOT as a teenager so I was able to use the librarians I got to know as references when I started applying to library jobs, and I was able to speak to my experiences working within the library

basically the only other thing is starting at the absolute bottom of the totem poll, which I also did even with my volunteer experience. this is usually going to be a library page position. pages are generally the lowest paid, most manual labor job because they reshelve returned books. so it's a lot of lifting and pushing tens or hundreds of pounds of books around all day

unfortunately there's nothing else I can really tell you, there's not really a magic key to working here. volunteering and having a clean record (like, don't apply if you have a bunch of fines on your account) are really the only ways to get ahead at all. even having an MLIS isn't gonna help you much these days without having any experience like that