#who buys used cars for cash

[siobhanromee]

had the most miserable experience today.

[foldingfittedsheets]

Mattresses, unbeknownst to many, are a lot like cars. Every year new ones roll out, they’re always tweaking and innovating and you’ll never find the same one you loved decades ago when buying a new one.

Where I sold mattresses had a three month return or exchange program for this reason. New beds take a while to break in, and they’re a big expense. Your body is used to the old one. So we made sure people were loving it. If a bed got returned we’d take it back, sanitize and clean it, then sell it again on clearance.

To sell these we always had to disclose what clearance meant to customers, and they had to sign that they knew what they were getting. (FYI, not every company is as… forthright about the used bed situation)

In clearance we had beds that were floor models, we had returns, and more rarely we had old models whose line had been discontinued. These clearance beds were always final sale, so a bed could only be sold twice.

Now, the manager at the store I was working at had realized a vital fact. Clearance beds in the warehouse didn’t sell, especially old models that salespeople weren’t familiar with. And even more especially in odd sizes, like twin extra longs. So he set up a split king on the showroom floor to exhibit clearance beds, pulling all those forgotten twin extra longs out onto the showroom.

Almost all of these were brand new discontinued models. Beds I’d never learned in training were exhumed to be displayed. The manufacturers had moved on to new lines and they’d been left behind. Why would he take such in interest in selling old stock, you might wonder? Because we made double commission on the sales margin of clearance beds, and if we’d had a bed long enough they dropped the cost in the system so it was a fucking cash cow to sell these. Even with huge discounts the commissions were wonderful so it was a win win.

When I got started I was jazzed about this program, I was so on board to sell weird old brand new beds and make a ton of money. I had a wonderful older couple come in, looking for a split king adjustable set. This was a white whale sale.

The current clearance models on the floor were a latex mattress that was brand new despite being of an age to start first grade, and a tempurpedic floor model. The couple laid down and it was like magic. They each loved the bed they’d laid down on. They wanted to buy the whole shebang.

I. Was. Thrilled. I told them about the clearance program and what that meant, and they weren’t bothered in the least. I wrote up the sale then dashed into the back, fizzing with excitement to tell my manager what I’d done.

“You sold the death bed?!” He asked in delight.

I pulled up short, my smile freezing in place. “What…?”

“Didn’t you check the notes?”

I hesitated for a long beat then slowly shook my head. You see, dear reader, all beds had a personal history. Every clearance bed had logs written up by the person who took the return, as well as warehouse crew after sanitizing. It helped us know what to expect when selling them. “Wasn’t it just a floor model? You said it was a floor model…”

He slowly shook his head. I checked the notes.

It turned out, it had been sold as a floor model. The first time. But the company had made an exception and taken it back as a return two months later. Why? Because it’s owner had passed away.

I stared at the computer in horror and my manager shrugged. “They signed the clearance form. Technically it was a floor model.”

“We know for a fact that a man died in that bed!”

“What they don’t know can’t haunt them,” he said philosophically.

The man came back a week later for more sheets, utterly delighted to tell me how well they were sleeping. I clamped my teeth down around the secret of the deathbed, choosing to let them love their new bed without the stigma. Only one person would be haunted by that deathbed, and it was me.

[aurumacadicus]

In before I start seeing people bitching about rainbow capitalism MY favorite rainbow capitalism story is about Subaru. Yes the Japanese car company.

In the nineties, they were struggling. They were competing with a dozen other companies targeting the main demographic at the time: white men ages 18-35, especially after a failed luxury car launch with a new ad agency. “What we need is to focus on niche demographics,” they decided, and then focused on people who enjoyed the outdoors. The Subaru was excellent at driving on dirt roads that many other vehicles couldn’t at the time, so it was perfect for all those off-road campers; they started making all-wheel drive standard in all their cars to help with that. And the people who wanted cars to go do outdoor stuff? Lesbians.

Okay. Of course it wasn’t only lesbians buying Subarus. They’re on the list with educators, health-care professionals, and IT people. But the point is, this Japanese car company interviewed this strange demographic (single, female head of household) and realized one important factor: They were lesbians. They liked to be able to use the cars to go do outdoorsy stuff, and they liked that they could use the cars to haul stuff rather than a big truck or van. Subaru had a choice to make then. They had four other demographics they could market to, after all--the educators, the health-care professionals, IT professionals, and straight outdoorsy couples. Their company didn’t hinge on this one “problematic” demographic.

And they decided “fuck it,” and marketed to lesbians anyway. This included offering benefits to American gay and lesbian employees for their domestic partners, so it didn’t look like a cash grab. (This was not a problem. They already offered those in Canada.)

Yes, there was some backlash. They got letters from a grassroots group accusing them of promoting homosexuality, and every letter said they’d no longer be buying from Subaru. “You didn’t buy from us before, either,” Subaru realized, and ignored them. It helped that the team really cared about the plan, and that they had many straight allies to back them up. There was also some initial backlash when Subaru hired women to play a lesbian couple in the commercial, but they quickly found that lesbians preferred more subtlety; “XENA LVR” on a license plate, or bumper stickers with the names of popular LGBTQ+ destinations, or taglines of “Get out. Stay out.” that could be used for the outdoors--or the closet.

Subaru said “We see you. We support you.” They sponsored Pride parades and partnered with Rainbow Card and hired Martina Navratilova as spokeswoman. They put their money where their mouth is and went into it whole hog. In a time where companies did not want to take our money, Subaru said, “Why not? They’re people who drive.” And that was groundbreaking.

[genderkoolaid]

The young men in our study were between the ages of 14 and 17 from families with low incomes and lived in high-crime neighborhoods. They were split into three groups. The first group received money on reloadable gift cards every week. The second group was offered an after-school program and received money on a gift card as long as they attended the first few sessions. The third group served as a comparison or “control,” and participants were able to take advantage of the programming after the completion of the study. When asked about how they spent the money they had received, participants reported a variety of expenses. Some spent it on personal items and entertainment like clothes, video games, and activities such as amusement parks. Others reported using the money for necessities, such as helping out a parent with groceries or fixing a car. Some participants reported that they saved the money to reach goals such as purchasing a car or helping their family move out of their neighborhood and purchase a house. Receiving the cash transfer alone led to an increase in healthy behaviors. Participants who received the cash transfer were less likely than the control group to do things like drink alcohol, use marijuana, take prescription medication without a prescription, be in a physical fight, carry a weapon, or use a vapor product. Some participants said they felt the extra money helped them to perform better in school by allowing them to buy supplies, and others felt that the cash alone helped reduce crime. We also found that the cash transfer plus programming improved the financial health of participants, which may be because the after-school programming included financial education. Beyond the benefits of the cash, the young men who were offered and attended the after-school program noted that having a safe, neutral space to go after school helped them stay away from the violence in their neighborhoods.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Cars bricked by bankrupt EV company will stay bricked

On OCTOBER 23 at 7PM, I'll be in DECATUR, presenting my novel THE BEZZLE at EAGLE EYE BOOKS.

There are few phrases in the modern lexicon more accursed than "software-based car," and yet, this is how the failed EV maker Fisker billed its products, which retailed for $40-70k in the few short years before the company collapsed, shut down its servers, and degraded all those "software-based cars":

https://insideevs.com/news/723669/fisker-inc-bankruptcy-chapter-11-official/

Fisker billed itself as a "capital light" manufacturer, meaning that it didn't particularly make anything – rather, it "designed" cars that other companies built, allowing Fisker to focus on "experience," which is where the "software-based car" comes in. Virtually every subsystem in a Fisker car needs (or rather, needed) to periodically connect with its servers, either for regular operations or diagnostics and repair, creating frequent problems with brakes, airbags, shifting, battery management, locking and unlocking the doors:

https://www.businessinsider.com/fisker-owners-worry-about-vehicles-working-bankruptcy-2024-4

Since Fisker's bankruptcy, people with even minor problems with their Fisker EVs have found themselves owning expensive, inert lumps of conflict minerals and auto-loan debt; as one Fisker owner described it, "It's literally a lawn ornament right now":

https://www.businessinsider.com/fisker-owners-describe-chaos-to-keep-cars-running-after-bankruptcy-2024-7

This is, in many ways, typical Internet-of-Shit nonsense, but it's compounded by Fisker's capital light, all-outsource model, which led to extremely unreliable vehicles that have been plagued by recalls. The bankrupt company has proposed that vehicle owners should have to pay cash for these recalls, in order to reserve the company's capital for its creditors – a plan that is clearly illegal:

https://www.veritaglobal.net/fisker/document/2411390241007000000000005

This isn't even the first time Fisker has done this! Ten years ago, founder Henrik Fisker started another EV company called Fisker Automotive, which went bankrupt in 2014, leaving the company's "Karma" (no, really) long-range EVs (which were unreliable and prone to bursting into flames) in limbo:

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

Which raises the question: why did investors reward Fisker's initial incompetence by piling in for a second attempt? I think the answer lies in the very factor that has made Fisker's failure so hard on its customers: the "software-based car." Investors love the sound of a "software-based car" because they understand that a gadget that is connected to the cloud is ripe for rent-extraction, because with software comes a bundle of "IP rights" that let the company control its customers, critics and competitors:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

A "software-based car" gets to mobilize the state to enforce its "IP," which allows it to force its customers to use authorized mechanics (who can, in turn, be price-gouged for licensing and diagnostic tools). "IP" can be used to shut down manufacturers of third party parts. "IP" allows manufacturers to revoke features that came with your car and charge you a monthly subscription fee for them. All sorts of features can be sold as downloadable content, and clawed back when title to the car changes hands, so that the new owners have to buy them again. "Software based cars" are easier to repo, making them perfect for the subprime auto-lending industry. And of course, "software-based cars" can gather much more surveillance data on drivers, which can be sold to sleazy, unregulated data-brokers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

Unsurprisingly, there's a large number of Fisker cars that never sold, which the bankruptcy estate is seeking a buyer for. For a minute there, it looked like they'd found one: American Lease, which was looking to acquire the deadstock Fiskers for use as leased fleet cars. But now that deal seems dead, because no one can figure out how to restart Fisker's servers, and these vehicles are bricks without server access:

https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/08/fisker-bankruptcy-hits-major-speed-bump-as-fleet-sale-is-now-in-question/

It's hard to say why the company's servers are so intransigent, but there's a clue in the chaotic way that the company wound down its affairs. The company's final days sound like a scene from the last days of the German Democratic Republic, with apparats from the failing state charging about in chaos, without any plans for keeping things running:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/03/07/east-germany-stasi-surveillance-documents/

As it imploded, Fisker cycled through a string of Chief Financial officers, losing track of millions of dollars at a time:

https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/31/fisker-collapse-investigation-ev-ocean-suv-henrik-geeta/

When Fisker's landlord regained possession of its HQ, they found "complete disarray," including improperly stored drums of toxic waste:

https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/05/fiskers-hq-abandoned-in-complete-disarray-with-apparent-hazardous-waste-clay-models-left-behind/

And while Fisker's implosion is particularly messy, the fact that it landed in bankruptcy is entirely unexceptional. Most businesses fail (eventually) and most startups fail (quickly). Despite this, businesses – even those in heavily regulated sectors like automotive regulation – are allowed to design products and undertake operations that are not designed to outlast the (likely short-lived) company.

After the 2008 crisis and the collapse of financial institutions like Lehman Brothers, finance regulators acquired a renewed interest in succession planning. Lehman consisted of over 6,000 separate corporate entities, each one representing a bid to evade regulation and/or taxation. Unwinding that complex hairball took years, during which the entities that entrusted Lehman with their funds – pensions, charitable institutions, etc – were unable to access their money.

To avoid repeats of this catastrophe, regulators began to insist that banks produce "living wills" – plans for unwinding their affairs in the event of catastrophe. They had to undertake "stress tests" that simulated a wind-down as planned, both to make sure the plan worked and to estimate how long it would take to execute. Then banks were required to set aside sufficient capital to keep the lights on while the plan ran on.

This regulation has been indifferently enforced. Banks spent the intervening years insisting that they are capable of prudently self-regulating without all this interference, something they continue to insist upon even after the Silicon Valley Bank collapse:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/15/mon-dieu-les-guillotines/#ceci-nes-pas-une-bailout

The fact that the rules haven't been enforced tells us nothing about whether the rules would work if they were enforced. A string of high-profile bankruptcies of companies who had no succession plans and whose collapse stands to materially harm large numbers of people tells us that something has to be done about this.

Take 23andme, the creepy genomics company that enticed millions of people into sending them their genetic material (even if you aren't a 23andme customer, they probably have most of your genome, thanks to relatives who sent in cheek-swabs). 23andme is now bankrupt, and its bankruptcy estate is shopping for a buyer who'd like to commercially exploit all that juicy genetic data, even if that is to the detriment of the people it came from. What's more, the bankruptcy estate is refusing to destroy samples from people who want to opt out of this future sale:

https://bourniquelaw.com/2024/10/09/data-23-and-me/

On a smaller scale, there's Juicebox, a company that makes EV chargers, who are exiting the North American market and shutting down their servers, killing the advanced functionality that customers paid extra for when they chose a Juicebox product:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/2/24260316/juicebox-ev-chargers-enel-x-way-closing-discontinued-app

I actually owned a Juicebox, which ultimately caught fire and melted down, either due to a manufacturing defect or to the criminal ineptitude of Treeium, the worst solar installers in Southern California (or both):

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/27/here-comes-the-sun-king/#sign-here

Projects like Juice Rescue are trying to reverse-engineer the Juicebox server infrastructure and build an alternative:

https://juice-rescue.org/

This would be much simpler if Juicebox's manufacturer, Enel X Way, had been required to file a living will that explained how its customers would go on enjoying their property when and if the company discontinued support, exited the market, or went bankrupt.

That might be a big lift for every little tech startup (though it would be superior than trying to get justice after the company fails). But in regulated sectors like automotive manufacture or genomic analysis, a regulation that says, "Either design your products and services to fail safely, or escrow enough cash to keep the lights on for the duration of an orderly wind-down in the event that you shut down" would be perfectly reasonable. Companies could make "software based cars" but the more "software based" the car was, the more funds they'd have to escrow to transition their servers when they shut down (and the lest capital they'd have to build the car).

Such a rule should be in addition to more muscular rules simply banning the most abusive practices, like the Oregon state Right to Repair bill, which bans the "parts pairing" that makes repairing a Fisker car so onerous:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/27/24097042/right-to-repair-law-oregon-sb1596-parts-pairing-tina-kotek-signed

Or the Illinois state biometric privacy law, which strictly limits the use of the kind of genomic data that 23andme collected:

https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs3.asp?ActID=3004

Failing to take action on these abusive practices is dangerous – and not just to the people who get burned by them. Every time a genomics research project turns into a privacy nightmare, that salts the earth for future medical research, making it much harder to conduct population-scale research, which can be carried out in privacy-preserving ways, and which pays huge scientific dividends that we all benefit from:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/01/the-palantir-will-see-you-now/#public-private-partnership

Just as Fisker's outrageous ripoff will make life harder for good cleantech companies:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/26/unplanned-obsolescence/#better-micetraps

If people are convinced that new, climate-friendly tech is a cesspool of grift and extraction, it will punish those firms that are making routine, breathtaking, exciting (and extremely vital) breakthroughs:

https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/10/08/norways-national-football-stadium-has-the-worlds-largest-vertical-solar-roof-how-does-it-w

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, 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/2024/10/10/software-based-car/#based

[neolithicsheep]

Ok so you're looking at the aftermath of Helene and you're thinking "shit, how would I keep my phone charged? What about my neighbors?" and you have some outdoor space and some cash. Your friendly formerly off grid sheep farmer is here to help.

You need this set up right here:

To that you will need to add:

Y connectors:

The 100aH (amp Hour) deep cycle battery of your choice - lead acid AGM will be cheaper, lithium (LiFePo) is more expensive but lasts much longer.

Finally, you need a small pure sine wave inverter like this one: https://a.co/d/70vRd79

Plug the panels into the Y connectors then into the single wire to run to the charge controller. They are now connected in parallel. Take them outside to a sunny spot and face them south and prop them up at about a 45 degree angle. This isn't perfect but it will be good enough.

Connect your battery and charge controller. Connect the panels to the charge controller. All of the places to do this are labeled and all you need is a Phillips screwdriver. I recommend doing it once in a non-disaster situation so you know you can do it but you'll be fine. Boom, you are getting electricity from the sun!

The inverter draws power even when it's not running so don't leave it hooked up when you're not using it. When someone needs to charge their phone, put those alligator clips on the matching color battery posts, turn the inverter on, and plug in the phone/radio. Voilà! A single 100aH battery is not going to run a bunch of things but it will help keep cell phones charged without using up the gas in your car.

The panels are weatherproof but everything else needs to be protected by the way so you'll need to set this up in a shed or garage or in the house. Lead acid batteries can produce hydrogen gas when being charged but just having one isn't a big risk.

FAQ:

Yes, you can permanently mount the panels to your roof if you own your home etc. They're designed for that!

It is true that places sell "solar generators" - those are a charge controller, battery, and an inverter in one box at a very high price point. When a component goes bad you will be unable to replace the component and must replace the entire $1000 box. They are also not upgradeable or expandable, this is.

You do not have to buy Renogy, I recommend them because they kept me in electricity for the years I was off grid.

You do not have to buy the kit, you can buy the components of it as and when you can afford them!

Remember to keep your battery on a trickle charger.

[santaasi]

raison d'être

pairing: james potter x shy!reader

summary: james potter never thought that the most terrible day of his life could give him a new reason for existing

warnings: muggle au, fluff, no use of y/n, english isn’t my first language

word count: 2.3k

a/n: i’m alive!! but i feel like with all my uni and graduating stuff i just lost inspiration. but i promise that very soon there will be more fics! love u all. have a good time readings my new work <з

JAMES POTTER HAS NEVER BEEN A LOSER. On the contrary, his life has always been like an endless lottery win. Ideal and loving parents, who provided him with everything he needed and supported him at every step. Friends who were always there for him even in the worst. A perfect career in sports that was only going uphill every day and promised to take James to new heights. James Potter was a golden boy who always seemed to be surrounded by a halo of luck. In all his twenties, he didn't know what failure and lose were. Troubles avoided him and it was something familiar to him. That's why when everything went wrong on one of the most important days of his life, James was taken aback.

It was one of hundreds of other summer days when the weather in London was pleasing with its sunshine and warmth. And that was the day James Potter overslept for the first time in his life. And it would be fine if he was late for training or a regular meeting about plans for the week, but… James Potter overslept and was late for a meeting with their future sponsors, who would decide the fate of the team and its entry into a more perspective professional league.

But apparently this was not enough for fate (if it ever existed). The fate decided to mock James more by taking all his luck and replacing it with failure. Because as soon as he left the house and got into the car, it didn't start, although last night, when he returned from another get-together with Sirius and Remus at the bar, everything with his car was fine. He had to ride in a completely packed bus, breathing in sweat fumes and feeling someone's elbow dig into his lower ribs. By the time he got to the bus stop, the air in his lungs was starting to run out. And besides all that, James had to walk the long way to the sport base to protect his ass and buy coffee for everyone at the meeting, to pretend that this was what he had planned from the very beginning. It was Sirius's plan, which, to James' great surprise, sounded really good for the first time in what seemed like forever. But instead of going to the usual café on another street, James ran into a new coffee shop, which was right next to the sports base, which decently helped to shorten his time.

A bell rang over James's head as he entered a softly lit, bright space with a couple of tables and guests who were sitting here, working and drinking pleasantly smelling coffee. For a very recently opened place, the coffee shop probably really had a lot of popularity in the area. James covered the distance from the door to the cash desk in a couple of steps and opened a dialogue with Sirius, quickly rattling his order to the barista, whom he did not even deign to look up at.

"’m sorry, could you repeat the order more slowly? This is my first day and..." you whispered softly, biting your lip uncertainly, and James looked up. His gaze is full of anger, which made you swallow a lump in your throat.

You've never been good with people. Large crowds scared you, and even with your close friends you preferred to message rather than call. But when life shook you up and the deadlines for paying for college were already burning, you had to get over your fear and be interviewed at a new coffee shop near your house, where an employee was urgently needed. A week ago, you were over the moon when you were accepted. The job didn't seem difficult and learning the basics of barista work was even interesting, and most importantly, the customers were all friendly. And you even have a hope that working with people won't be so bad. But as soon as you were faced with James Potter's eyes full of irritation, all hope for something good immediately disappeared, replaced by fear and nervousness.

"Or... or I can call another more... experienced specialist..." you began softly, stumbling through the words.

When James Potter entered the café, he was really annoyed because of the plans that didn't go the way he wanted. But as soon as his gaze meet your frightened doe eyes, his face immediately softened and all the emotions that he had experienced before faded into nothing but pure adoration.

You were beautiful. No. You were lovely. You looked like a small frightened deer that has met a hunter in the forest. Innocent. Sweet. Elegant. James Potter didn't know that there were perfect people in this world, but looking at you, he was convinced of it. His world seemed to stop for a second, concentrating only on you and on awkward lowering of your stunning eyes and how you bit your lip and how your thin fingers was nervously fidgeting with the bottom of your apron.

You cleared your throat and said something. James didn't hear it. He was consumed by you. He wanted to get to know you. Beautiful pictures were already playing in James's head, like movie stills of how he would ask you for your phone number and how you would smile and hand him a crumpled tissue, which he would, of course, keep all day as the apple of his eye. He has already imagined your date. How he takes you to one of those silent film festivals that were taking place in London right now. How you will chat for days on end without thinking about anything. How at the end of the evening he will take you home and slightly bending down, the distance between you will be reduced, and then…

As soon as you turned around to leave, James immediately fell out of his fantasies, quickly trying not to let you leave. He reached across the counter and grabbed your wrist, forcing you to pay attention to him again. But as soon as he realized how uncultivated he was by violating your boundaries, he immediately took his hand away, stuffing them into the pockets of his jeans, guiltily lowering his eyes to the floor. It was not typical for James Potter to blush, but he could feel the heat rising up his neck, scorching his cheeks.

"Um... sorry... I-I can repeat the order," James said nervously, and you noticing his change of mood and awkwardness relaxed a little, listening attentively to his order once again.

You quickly handed him the check and asked him to wait next to the pick-up counter, smiling sweetly, which made James's heart skip a beat. He nodded wordlessly and swallowed, still feeling the tingling in his hand where your fingers touched his skin.

Waiting for his order, James couldn't take his eyes off you. Everything in him screamed that he should come up and ask you out or ask for your number, as he had done hundreds of times.… But he couldn't... something was stopping him. And so when his name came off your lips (he didn't think that his own name uttered by someone could make him almost faint) and you handed him a bag with his order, all he could do was whisper a quiet "thank you" and leave the coffee shop without even turning around.

He spent the rest of the day as if in a dream. James was sitting in a meeting trying to concentrate on the important things, but all he could think about was your smile, which made his heart skip a beat. At practice, James was also distracted, as if hearing your sonorous but soft voice everywhere, the memory of which made his body goosebumps.

James Potter spent the whole day in a daze until a bell rang above him and the door closed behind him with a thud. The cafe was empty, the chairs were raised on the tables and the one who completely confused his thoughts stood with her back to him, quietly humming some remotely familiar song playing on the radio. You slowly swayed your hips, moving backwards, mopping the white tile floor until your back hit James's hard chest. You suddenly screamed loudly and turned around, covering your mouth with hand in shock. James ran a nervous hand through his hair and frowned slightly.

"Sorry, I thought you were still working, I came in... to buy something to drink," James quickly rattled on one exhale, meeting your gaze.

You blinked quickly a couple of times, trying to move away from the shock that you experienced from an unexpected meeting with a visitor. In him, you immediately recognized the guy James, whom you first dubbed the last jerk that came to ruin your first working morning, and then you noticed how cute and sweet he was when a blu sh appeared on his cheeks and immediately melted away.

"No, no, we are still working... there were just no visitors and I decided to start cleaning early… But you can order... it's okay," you assured him, giving James a soft smile before turning around and standing behind the counter, putting the mop aside.

James looked at the menu carefully, and then at you. There was silence in the coffee shop for a couple of seconds, and you felt your cheeks start to burn from the piercing gaze of his coffee eyes. You slowly lowered your gaze, trying to hide a silly smile.

"What do you recommend?" clearing his throat, James asked without taking his eyes off you. He wanted to stay in your company as long as possible and get to know you better. At least for a little bit. "What's your favorite drink?"

"Hmm... I'm not a big fan of coffee," you thought, looking over your shoulder at the menu. "That's why I would recommend herbal tea with raspberries and mint..." you nodded, concentrating on the guy standing in front of you again and smiling. "Well, it's also my first day and I'm not sure I can make you a good coffee... so tea would be the safest option," you joked, biting the inside of your cheek.

James laughed hoarsely, throwing his head back and you shyly lowered your head, hiding the blush that became even brighter on your cheeks. James was the epitome of what the perfect man looked like in your fantasies. Slightly curly hair, warm brown eyes that when he smiled seemed to be able to warm the whole world and round glasses that brightened his face and gave him even more charm. Such a handsome guy must have had an equally beautiful girlfriend. You thought, but quickly pushed these thoughts away from you. He was just a client, you shouldn't have worried about these issues.

"Then I'll have tea... yeah... I'll have tea with raspberries and mint," James said, calming down a little, adjusting the rim of his glasses on the bridge of his nose, which had slipped off.

You nodded and turned away, brewing James your favorite tea, making yourself one cup along the way. He was lost in thought again, watching you do your job carefully and with concentration. Your finger was slowly sprinkled with herbs, mixing them with mint leaves and dried raspberries, along the way he noticed how you brought the herbs to your nose, inhaling their fragrance and gently smiled to yourself. You looked more relaxed and peaceful than you did this morning when James scared you with his impetuous words.

"Herbal tea with raspberries and mint for James," you announced the order as if there was someone beside the two of you, and James smiled brightly at you.

His hand lingered on yours for a couple of seconds longer than necessary, and you felt your heart begin to beat faster in your chest. There was not enough air in your lungs, and it was only when James took the cup of tea from your hands that you were able to take a ragged breath that did not pass James by. The guy grinned, sipping a drink from his mug.

"Wow, this is really good! I like it," James said enthusiastically, looking right at you. His brown eyes seemed to look straight into your soul, and you swallowed nervously again, licking your lips, feeling how for a second his gaze dropped just below your eyes.

"Thank you..." James tilted his head slightly to the side, looking at you expectantly.

You said your full name softly, and James seemed to echo it, tasting it. You were quickly caught again, feeling your fluffy eyelashes tickle your cheeks. James shook and lowered his head, trying to hide his spreading grin. Apparently, he was not the only one in this cafe who was fascinated by his interlocutor.

"Well, thank you for the delicious tea. See you tomorrow, love," he winked at you before leaving the cafe.

The endearing name came out of James's mouth so easily that for a second you were taken aback, standing rooted to the spot behind the cash desk with your mouth open, like a fish jumping onto dry land. But at the last moment, a quick goodbye escaped your lips, more like the creak of a door, and the ringing of a bell announced James's departure.

Through the big window, you watched him walk slowly along the street lit by lanterns, smiling like a madman and slowly sipping his tea, and something jumped in your chest.

You put your hand to your chest, feeling your heart beating hard against your rib cage, and then wrapped both hands around your cheeks, which pleasantly cooled your heated skin. And the only thing you could think about, standing in an empty coffee shop, looking at the door through which James came out, was that the barista's job might not have been so bad. At least as long as James appears in front of you, it definitely won't be bad.

And in order to see him again tomorrow, maybe you'll switch shifts with Marlene.

But only 'maybe'.

thankx for reading <3

for the first time in month, I had so much fun writing these one shot. so I hope you enjoyed it too. you can always share your opinion in comments or my inbox :3

- your santi 🪐

masterlist

[willyoubemycherryy]

Hypervision.

Older!Logan Howlett x reader

Warnings: Cursing, sad traumatic backstory flashbacks, angst, cliffhangers, old man Logan, difficult unprocessed emotions, but he balls so fuck it, canon universe alterations

𝑩𝒍𝒖𝒆42 𝒕𝒂𝒈𝒔 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒚𝒐𝒖♡´ ◕ ᴗ ◕ ｡ `♡ : @th3mrskory @smutinlove @inthetub @multifandom-random

sneakpeek ｡ ❄︎ ｡

[1]_She’s both the princess & the popstar.

•

•

•

To say the last couple years of his life have been rough, would be the understatement of every unfortunate century he’s lived through.

First losing the others, then Charles, and even the new mutants. Everything had spiraled in a torrent from horrible to completely unsalvageable with him being the last one standing. The irony of that still leaves him with a bitter, lonely hurt that only alcohol soothes for him these days. Of course not even that comes without a price. The alcohol, amongst other things would be the death of him if he wasn’t already slowly dying of everything that was finally catching up to him. Old age, grief that haunted him daily, the crushing guilt, the adamantium poisoning, and a lifetime of being reckless…Logan doesn’t think he’s ever felt more out of his mind.

But after another particularly rough patch, he decided to move out to another state entirely alone, somewhere in the city to work as a whatever and use the bustling noise as a distraction from his demons. At current, he needed money. He’d been juggling odd jobs here and there but the pay wasn’t anything to write about so to keep living until he dies, he needs cash. And more pain meds with booze. Which costs money to buy.

For once it’s just his luck when he goes out one night to grab a few drinks and maybe look for a gig when Logan sees an ad for work taped on the table end of a shitty bar. There wasn’t much detail on it, just the name of a guy as well as his number for further info but says it’ll pay well.

Logan grabs the paper and leaves, driving back to his small place so he can call.

Squinting as he dials in the number, briefly wondering if he’ll even get an answer given how late it is but as he sits on one of the few pieces of furniture in the room, to his surprise, he does. From there he gets the rundown of what the job is, when he’ll be interviewed and screened, that a clean background check is a must. No more than misdemeanors, which won’t be a problem since he’s lived his life off the grid for as long as he can remember and so far the man on the line explains simply that the gig is just picking up the same young girl at some high end clubs, events, plus other appearances and dropping her ass back home. Said girl had to be rich because the man on the phone tells him that he doesn’t need his own car because one will be provided by his charge.

However, the one thing that was putting Logan on edge was the mystery of it all. Almost no details about the girl he was supposed to be toting around were given. He’s used to odd jobs so he brushes it off because it can’t be more trouble than everything he’s lived through and with all the turmoil he’s currently going through, owing about 50,000$ to a gang for past debts and running from that too, Logan will take any break he can get.

The rest of his break comes about 2 weeks later when he’s officially hired a few days after arranged interview, passing background check and paid his first check. To him, it’s strange to get paid before doing any actual work, but he was warned at the interview that the girl who’s to be his charge is “unconventional”. Shaking his head from all the possible meaning of that, Logan tries to refocus as he drives to the place pinned on the cars gps where he was to first get you. Arching a salt and pepper brow, Logan makes a sharp turn as he gets closer to the destination, ignoring the anxiousness welling up. He still knew nothing about you and for some reason it put him on edge.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that this would end up being more trouble than it could be worth.

Logan ends up being so lost in thought on the drive by all the secretiveness that by the time he checks the gps, it says he’s already there. The first thing he notices is how shiny everything is, even with his blurry vision the house looked opulent, modern. Multiple stories and big ornate windows. The driveway was also long as hell but whatever. Straightening out his pitch black suit (also provided by his employ) and smoothing his hair, Logan only just then remembers he forgot his glasses when he gets out to stand by the side doors where he was told to open for you. Again, strange.

He doesn’t scowl but he’ll always look unfriendly thanks to life and experience but he hopes it’s not something he’ll get shit about. Yet, less than 5 minutes later, his expression changes completely as confusion and understanding dawn on him as the doors open and his charge comes out. Two men stand by the door as you exit and the secrecy of it all finally makes some fucking sense while making his life harder.

It was you. Shugō. A singer.

The new artist that recently took the world by storm with your music. Despite his reclusive lifestyle, even Logans managed to hear about you but from what he’s heard, as big of a star you are- almost all of your past is shrouded in mystery. Your real name isn’t even known, just your stage name, Shugō. You were elusive and for some reason, that only added to your popularity.

His vision wasn’t what it used to be but as you strode towards him, he was almost grateful for it because seeing you in all your glory could potentially become a problem. Your hair was in an elaborate updo with some of it framing your heart-shaped face, soft shaped eyebrows, and plump lips that spread into a smile as you approached him. The click of your heels and the sway of your mini skirt in a v cut top that flared out at the wrists almost covering what he knew were perfectly painted nails.

He didn’t even know what to say to you but he didn’t even get the chance to before a bubbly giggle broke the silence, making Logan jump to open the door for you. The cool sugar in your was scent all in his face as you pat him on the shoulder, fluttering pretty lashes as you give him a once over, “You look like you’ll be much more fun than the last stiff”, is what you say while you pass him before sliding in. Logan blinks at that, closing the door behind you as he gets back in the driver’s side and wonders how for the quick few seconds your hand was on his shoulder, he could’ve sworn his vision was perfect again. Able to even see the fine glitter on the sides of your eyes.

Mentally, he’s already putting his barriers up. The usual- don’t get close, don’t get involved, it’s for your and his own good. It’s just a job and nothing else so it’s best he keep the distance regardless of who you are, he thinks as the chilled sweet smell of your perfume fills the space.

There’s a ping on the gps to about 45 minutes away where he’s dropping you off. He doesn’t mind the silence but you feel differently as you clear your throat, smiling. Logan glances at you through the mirror before looking back at the road, swallowing. You were young because of course you are. Even smiling, there wasn’t a fold or wrinkle in sight and he was willing to bet you were at least early 20’s but there was no way to confirm because even if he looked it up, nothing personal was known about you. Stifling a sigh, Logan grips the wheel a little tighter. Little things were always trouble, pretty young things were even more trouble which he was too old for but it could explain the still nagging feeling that something was off about this job..

“Hey driver…”

And about you.

Part 2…

[getosbigballsack]

sure lol, if you are ok with it

"imagine stoner bf geto being a total munch. obsessed OBSESSED with eating you out and god did is he good at it

if you wrote this, could i request theres no stepcest or blackmail tho?"

𝑮𝒆𝒕 𝒎𝒆 𝒔𝒐 𝒉𝒊𝒈𝒉

𝐷𝑟𝑢𝑔 𝐿𝑜𝑟𝑑! 𝐺𝑒𝑡𝑜 𝑆𝑢𝑔𝑢𝑟𝑢 𝑥 𝑆𝑡𝑜𝑛𝑒𝑟 𝑅𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑒𝑟

𝑆𝑦𝑛𝑜𝑝𝑠𝑖𝑠: 𝐴𝑓𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑎 𝑤𝑒𝑒𝑘 𝑜𝑓 𝑎𝑣𝑜𝑖𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 ℎ𝑖𝑚, 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑠𝑢𝑑𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑙𝑦 𝑓𝑒𝑙𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑛𝑒𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 ℎ𝑖𝑚 𝑏𝑒𝑡𝑤𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑙𝑒𝑔𝑠 𝑜𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑠 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒

𝑊𝑎𝑟𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔: 𝑀𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝐷𝑟𝑢𝑔𝑠, 𝑅𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑖𝑠 𝑎 𝑏𝑖𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑎 𝑑𝑟𝑢𝑔𝑔𝑖𝑒, 𝑜𝑟𝑎𝑙 𝑠𝑒𝑥, 𝑢𝑛𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑡𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑠𝑒𝑥, 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑔𝑒𝑡𝑠 𝑑𝑟𝑢𝑔𝑔𝑒𝑑 𝑑𝑢𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑠𝑒𝑥 𝑒𝑡𝑐

𝐴/𝑁: 𝑎𝑛𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑟𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑠𝑡 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑑. ٩(◕‿◕｡)۶ 𝑠𝑙𝑜𝑤𝑙𝑦 𝑔𝑒𝑡𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑔𝑢𝑦𝑠. 𝐼 ℎ𝑜𝑝𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑙𝑖���𝑖𝑛𝑔.

𝑊𝐶: 4.6𝑘

✯𝐺𝑒𝑡𝑜 𝑆𝑢𝑔𝑢𝑟𝑢'𝑠 𝐶ℎ𝑎𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑠

𝐸𝑛𝑗𝑜𝑦❤︎

There is something wrong with you. You knew that, just by the way you casually strolled out of bed, took a quick shower and once you were done, you dressed yourself in nothing but an oversized zipper coat before grabbing your wallet, keys and your phone and walking right out of your apartment. 

It is a Friday night tonight, hence the reason the streets looked so busy tonight. Women and prostitutes alike running after those rich old men cars in hopes to get their cunt fucked for a few dollars to night. Horny men hiding in the shadows just waiting to see a fresh new target for them to pounce on. “Fucking disgusting,” you spat and rolled your eyes at them before walking into the convenience store to buy a pack of cigars. 

“Smoking again Y/N?” the cashier or let us say your neighbour asked you. 

“Mhm…” you answered as you handed her the cash before grabbing your cigar and quickly walked out of the store to avoid her questioning you any further. You neighbour Akia, she is sweet, and she cares about you a lot but sometimes, she is all too up in your business. Besides, you had somewhere to be right now, and you did not want to waste any time explaining to her why you have been smoking again. 

With a cigar in hand, you quickly made your way towards a payphone that was close to the store. You had a habit of using this phone whenever you wanted to call someone who you had no interest in texting. And this guy that you are about to call is one of those guys who you clearly had no interest in giving your number to, despite the kind of relationship you both had. 

Once you were inside the phone booth, you pulled out a few coins to insert inside the coin thing before picking up the phone and calling his number, and after the second ring, he picked up. “I’m starting to think that you may never give me your number, princess.”

“Funny, at this point, knowing who you are, you probably already have my number stored,” you said to him. He chuckled. “How did you get my number?”

“I have my ways,” he replied vaguely, and you huffed. “What is it that you want?”

“I want to stop by,” you answered. “I want to see you.” 

“You want to see me after you called me a cunt and told me to jump off a cliff and burst my head open?” he questioned and you vividly remember yelling at him last week, cursing him out for being a cunt all because he denied you a bag of weed. 

“Well things have changed, and I am not mad anymore. Now are you gonna let me see you,” you asked yet again. 

You heard what sounded like a desk being pushed around and him standing up from what you presumed to be his seating position. “I don’t know princess; it all depends on your reasoning.”

You sighed heavily, you were in no mood to go back and forth with him currently. So, you told him the truth, well half-truth. “I just missed you.”

“Is that all?” he pressed on. 

You rolled your eyes before saying, “I miss you and I want you to eat my pussy.” 

He let out a loud laugh, loud enough for you to hear it rumbling in chest and echoing through the room he was in. “Of course, that is the only reason for you to see me. You just want my tongue in your pussy.”

“Well, that’s the only thing you’re good for currently,” you snapped at him. 

“Is that so?” he asked, and you hummed yes through the phone. “If that is the case then, go home. I am quite sure that the toy you have tucked away inside your panty draw would be kind enough to help you out.”

You huffed, your cheeks puffing out as you yelled, “Geto fucking Suguru.”

“I thought we agreed that you’d call me daddy,” he said, cutting you off in the middle of your sentence. He could hear you huffing and puffing through the payphone. His mind rushing back to the many conversations you had with him that ended in you huffing and puffing and he honestly thought it was cute of you to do so.

“Stop playing with me Suguru and just come let me see you.”

He wanted to tease you a bit longer over the phone, but he was not going to be bothering with that, so instead he replied, “I’m at the office.”

“Which one?” 

“You know which one,” and with that said you hung up the phone and set off to find his office that was located on one of the most dangerous streets in your area. 

Geto Suguru, a thirty-four-year-old man you just happened to meet about a year ago at a club your friends dragged you off too. At first you thought that he was just some rich politician's son, especially after witnessing him hanging around the now famous gifted politician to have ever walked this earth, Gojo Satoru. That was just the kind of vibe he was giving off.

You had no interest in mixing with people from his class, but a drink and a bag of cocaine and molly had you glued to him for the rest of the night. You do not remember much of what happened that night, but you did remember walking up the following morning in a hotel room still dressed in the clothes you had on the night and Geto sitting across from you on a chair casually reading a book.

“Uhm…” you began stuttering in a frightened tone, having just become aware of the circumstances you are in. You were fully dressed still, but who is to say that he did not touch you with your clothes on.

“Morning! Do not look so frightened. We did not do anything. I have no interest in sleeping with girls who are completely intoxicated. Hence the reason I brought you home to sober up.” 

“You should've just left me at the club,” you said. He scoffed and waved you off with a flick of his wrist. 

“I guess I should have, but I didn't,” is all you could remember from the very brief conversation you had with him that escalates into you arguing with then stranger before he grabbed you by the throat, flung you on the bed and fucked your brains out (consensual of course). 

That day marks the beginning of this awkward relationship you had with Geto. It was obvious that he was very much interested in you, but due to his life and the type of work that he did, you had to be very much careful how you approach having a committed relationship with him.

Geto Suguru is what most people would refer to as a king ping, drug lord and most commonly a stoner. You found out about it the very same day he fucked you inside of the hotel. He was just casually having a conversation with the then running candidate for Prime Minister Gojo Satoru about an illegal shipment that was made to the country, and he was getting sick and tired of tidying up Geto's mess. And on that very same day, you saw no less than fifty pounds of tightly wrapped cocaine powder being brought in by a few men that work for him.

Do you remember the part where I mentioned that there was something seriously wrong with you? Yes, that day also proved that fact. Any normal person would freak out if they found out that they wind up in bed with a drug lord, they will even risk their own lives to get away from them, but you oh no not you. 

You were intrigued, too excited to see how much cocaine he managed to snuggle into the country and to think that you had access to such luxury, you just knew that you had to hold onto him. 

But that came with a price. 

When he realised how surprisingly calm you were with the situation you were suddenly placed in, you both struck up a deal. It is simple, you are to be his whore (girlfriend) and in exchange he provides you with all the drugs and money that you need to get on with your daily life.

It is weird, but there is nothing else to it. 

It is a complicated relationship, it is not exactly easy to explain the dynamics of your relationship with him, but it wasn't too hard for anyone to see that you both cared for each other and neither of you had any intentions of letting the other one go. 

Back to the story. It took you half of an hour to get to that part of town on foot. It would have been a bit quicker if you had taken a taxi, but you did not want to seem all the bit desperate, even though you were. 

It has been a week since you last had your cunt fucked and eaten. You became so addicted to his tongue and lips working the walls of your pussy and your sensitive nub. Nothing beats the euphoric feeling of cocaine seeping through your system than Geto's head between your thighs stretching your poor little cunny out with his fingers and tongue. 

He is obsessed with eating you out, he even went as far as to say that he thinks he is obsessed with eating you to the point where it almost feels like an addiction. You would even take it a step further to say that he is the reason you are so hell bent on getting your pussy eaten right at this very moment, and just maybe fuck you stupid on top or over his office desk. 

Slowly but surely with your hands tucked away in the pockets of your coat, you briskly walked inside the building that was before you. It was not particularly attractive on the outside, but inside told a different story.

The hallway leading towards the main lobby looked like the outside, but once you burst open those double doors, you are met with something entirely different. You had a chandelier hanging from the ceiling, white marble floor. Furniture that cost more than your rent and let us not forget the expensive plants and paintings that helped bring this lobby to life. 

You would never imagine a drug lord’s office to look this good. 

Enough with ogling the building. There was a man sitting at the front desk when you walked in. Messy dark hair, a jagged scar on his top lip, green frosty eyes and he was flashing you the most disgusting smile you almost vomited in your mouth. You recognized him, his name was Toji… yes Toji Zenin. You have met him a couple times at the clubs you would frequently visit with Geto. 

“Here to see the boss, little lady?” He asked. 

“Hm where is he?” 

He grinned, “Upstairs in his office as usual.” 

“Thanks,” you said to him as you turned on your heels and made your way towards the elevator. 

“Make sure to keep your voice down,” he yelled in your direction. 

You flipped him off with a middle finger and followed it up with a loud, “Fuck you,” before stepping inside the elevator and quickly rode it up to Geto's office. 

You hated that man, he always had to find something irrelevant to say to you. He knew he irritated you so much, to the point of not wanting to even be in the same room as him. 

You might ought to tell Geto to get rid of him, well maybe after he gives you heads that is. The sound of the elevator coming to a stop brought you back to reality. 

“Well, here we go!” You said to yourself before taking a deep breath then walked out of the elevator and down the narrow hall towards his office. “Sugu!” You yelled before knocking at the office door. “I'm horny let me in.” 

You could hear him laughing and the sound of his shoes clanking against the marbled floor, and he got closer to you, and just seconds later he opened the door and there he stood face to face with you and a big grin plastering his face. 

“It's nice to see you too,” he said before stepping aside and letting you walk into his office. “I am busy you see, but no worries, I'm kind enough to spare you a bit of my time.” 

You hissed your teeth and rolled your eyes at his statement. “Huh! I think I should be the one saying that.” 

“Is that so?” He asked and you shook your yes. He only chuckled and shook his head at you. It is not worth getting into petty arguments with sometimes, even though he found it to be the most enjoyable. “Sit on the desk and spread your legs.”

And that is all you needed to hear before sprinting towards his desk, but soon stopped when you saw a few stacks of cash next to what looked like the white stuff and weed. “Oh Sugu! Are we about to get high?” You turned around to ask him, only to receive a slap on your clothed booty cheek before being pulled towards the desk. 

“Not yet!” 

“Why?” You asked him as you folded your arms across your chest. 

“I thought we had this conversation before. I do not wanna be responsible for your drug addiction,” he said as he rested both hands on your hips, lifted you up and sat you down on the desk. He took a seat in his chair on the table in front of you and then accepted another stack of cash and began counting. 

“But you are a drug lord though. Isn't that one of your responsibilities?” You asked. 

He rolled his eyes at you. He really had no time to go back and forth with you today. “Did you come here to get your pussy eaten or did you come here to bicker with me. Pick one.” 

“No fun!” you grumbled beneath your breath as you hopped off the table to take off your coat and reveal your naked body underneath.

“No clothes?” He asked, having just realised that you had nothing underneath that huge coat of yours. 

“I thought you liked easy access,” you teased as you tossed your coat at him, the cigar packet falling from the coat and into his lap. “Shit!” 

“Really!” he said while shaking his head. “You really wanna get high and have your pussy eaten huh?” he asked, and you shook your head yes. “Get on the desk. I will give you what you want, after I am done counting these stacks though.”

And with that said, you giggled and hopped on his desk and patiently waited for him to count his stack.

…

You gasped at the feeling of Geto's rough hands on your thighs, pulling your legs apart and resting them both on the desk leaving you bare and open for him to ravish you with his eyes. You are used to this, the way he would eat your pussy up with his eyes, thinking of ways he could have you clawing, curling, and screaming against his tongue. 

A shiver ran through your spine the moment you felt his fingers slowly parted your lower lips, his thumb making quick work to gently massage your clit as he leaned his head down a bit from his seated position and licked a stripe through your folds with had you jolting a bit from the intensity. 

“Sugu!” You gasped, feeling his rough hands grabbing onto your hips to keep you perfectly still while he feasts upon your nectar. His breath felt hot against your cunt, wet lips gently clasping your clit, sucking the sensitive bud so deliciously it had you tossing your head back, releasing yet another sweet sultry moan from your lips.

Slowly, you lifted your head to take in the sight of such a beautiful man between your legs. “Such a sweet little pussy princess,” he moaned into your pussy as he continued to suck on your clit. 

“Ugh!” You moaned, moving your hand from the desk to grip at his soft black hair that formed a curtain around his face, blocking your view entirely. “Ah… Sugu!” 

“Daddy,” he said just before releasing your clit to press his tongue into your pussy, swirling and licking the gummy walls. Your dainty hand gripped tightly onto his hair, hips thrusting desperately, riding your cunt into his mouth to get his tongue to thrust deeper. “Be still princess,” he mumbled, sending waves of vibration through your body. 

You shook your head no and muttered “no,” fingers grabbing at his hair to keep his mouth pressed onto your cunt. He chuckled against your cunt and used little strength to pull his head away from your dripping pussy. “Sugu… ah!” you screamed; eyes widened in fear as you stared down at your pussy to see two of his thick, calloused fingers tapping at your clit. 

“Tsk… Dare to defy me? I said keep still or else you will not get to cum,” he warned before smacking his whole hand on your cunt, your body twitched, and your toes curled from the sudden impact. “Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes…” SMACK! “Yes Sugu! I will be still,” you cried out. He hummed a bit, a satisfied smirk riding his beautiful face as he lowered his head yet again to continue to feast on your pussy. Your hand found purchase in his hair yet again, slowly combing your fingers through his hair and that earned you a moan. You glanced down at him, the top button on his shirt opened exposing that dragon tattoo on his left pecs. His eyes tightly closed and that tongue of his lapping up your sweet arousal that he enjoys very much. 

“Fuck… Mhm hm,” he moaned into your pussy. He loves eating you out, and that was very much obvious to you. He loved being between your plush cute thighs, rubbing his head against the soft heated skin before lingering enduring kisses on each side of your thighs as he stared at your cute, pussy. He especially loves the smell emanating from your creamy pussy that sends his mind into sensory overload. 

You are moaning out. Your back arching, legs trembling as Geto brought you closer to your long awaiting orgasm. “Sugu, I’m close,” you cried out. He smiled, eyes finally opening to take in the sight of your beautiful face and must say this is a face he could never get tired of seeing. “I am cumming… I’m cumming,” you cried with a sense of urgency in your voice. 

Your hips bucked when he switched up; you could feel his mouth clamping around your clit, sucking the swollen, sensitive bud into his mouth. “You gonna cum in daddy’s mouth princess?” he groaned against your trembling cunt, and you shook your head. You're dripping into his mouth, clit swollen, pussy pulsing desperately for a release. 

He’s so messy, all your pussy juices dripping down his chin, and God it’s so hot how filthy he sounded with his tongue and his mouth greedily sucking up your sweet, creamy pussy. “Fuck… Fuck,” you screamed, legs trembling on the desk. His hand squeezed at your thighs, pulling you closer to bury his face against your cunt. He didn’t want a single drop of your cum go to waste. Your chest rapidly moved as you desperately grasped for air. His lips kept moving, and your hips kept bucking violently against his mouth. You were feeling so overwhelmed with pleasure; it had you cumming into his mouth without even realising it. 

“Sugu!” you cried, and he moaned as he drank up every bit of your cum. He allowed you to continue to ride out your orgasm against his face until you couldn’t feel your legs anymore. “Suguru… Suguru I wanna kiss you,” you said as you pulled his head away from your cunt and tried to pull him up by the head. He laughed and stood up, your hand falling from his hair to cup his cheek and pulled him in for a hot kiss. “I want you… I want more.” you begged. 

Your hand hastily moved from his cheek to make quick work of his belt. You wanted him, his tongue wasn’t enough. You need to feel him, and he knew that too. You slide the belt from the tight loops, drop it on the floor before popping open his pant button, pulling down the zipper and quickly yanking his cock from his briefs. 

“Slow down princess,” he whispered against your lips, chuckling at how needy you were for him. “Thought you only wanted me to eat your pussy.”

“Change my mind,” you gasped, still messily thrusting, and wrapping your tongue around his as you gently stroked his erect cock. “I want something bigger.”

“That so?”

“Yes… I want it. Please fuck me,” you begged yet again as you pulled your lips away from his, slide your body against the wooden desk until your managed to wrap both your legs around his slim waist, pulling him closer until you could feel his throbbing cock poking at your entrance. “Sugu! Please… fuck me.”

“Hm…” he chuckled against your lips. “I’ll give it to you if you call me daddy.” 

“Not in a million fucking years,” you mumbled as you continued to stroke his cock while rubbing his cock up against your cunt. 

“I’ll take my dick and go then. You don’t need it,” he said as he tried to pull away from you, but you quickly let his cock go and wrapped both legs around his waist and grabbed his shirt to pull him even closer to you. 

“Suguru.”

“Daddy…” he whispered. 

“Sugu…” 

“That's Daddy to you princess.”

You pouted cutely at him because you knew that there's no winning with him sometimes. You swallowed what little pride you had before whispering, “Daddy, can you please fuck me.”

And that's all it took for him to hoist your legs back onto the desk, strip himself from his shirt and quickly lining up his cock with your leaking entrance. “That’s right, you should always call me daddy,” he whispered before thrusting his cock inside your wet warm pussy, pushing against your spongy walls until the tip brushed against your g-spot.

Your breath hitched in the back of your throat, hand gripping onto his shoulders for support as he pulled out of you and slammed back into your hole.

“I'm so full,” you cried out. 

“Full of daddy’s cock princess,” he whispered, kissing the side of your neck while thrusting in and out of you at a rough and fast pace, his cock stretching your pussy deliciously past its limit. 

You gripped his shoulders tightly, nails scratching the surface of his pale skin as his thick cock penetrated you deeply, his angry red thick mushroom tip pounding repeatedly at your g-spot. It's not even been a full minute and you feel like you were already about to cum.

“Feeling good princess,” he whispered, and you shook your head yes. “Wanna feel even better?” 

“Yes… yes please,” you begged and cried.

He smirked and slowed his thrusting a bit to quickly open his desk drawer and pull a bag filled with pills. Your eyes glimmered with excitement, finally you thought, Geto was about to drug you out and you had no problem with that. You wanted it, you wanted to be high off in ecstasy, experiencing every bit of orgasm he was bound to give you. 

You watched him carefully, opened the bag, took a pill, and popped it in his mouth, “C'mere,” he said as he dropped the bag back into the drawer, grabbed both of your hands and wrapped it around his neck. 

The next thing you know, his lips were pressed tightly against and his tongue forcefully pushing past your lips to transfer the pill inside your mouth and once that pill was resting comfortably inside your mouth, he began his relentless thrusting. 

His cock mercilessly pounding your pussy against the wooden desk. “Oh God… yes,” you cried out, your legs lifting and twitching with each harsh thrust. 

You swallowed the pill hoping that it'll take effect soon because with the way you are feeling right now, you knew that deep down the pill would make this experience ten times better.

“Look at you, so desperate for my cock and a few pills,” Geto whispered, slightly pulling away from you to wrap his hand around your throat before smiling. He loved watching as you face twisted with pleasure, that gleaming adorable look in your eyes, pleading and begging him to fuel your arousal even more with drugs only he can give to you. 

And he was tempted to put another pill in your mouth but wasn't going to do that to you. He cared too much for you to do so. “Oh God, my fucking pussy is about to cum,” you choked out, your head tilting slightly downwards to get a view of Geto destroying your pussy with his massive cock. “Sugu, rub it please… ugh… my clit… please touch it.”

“Ohh, the pretty princess wanna cum?” He choked as his grip around your neck tightened, which caused you to gasp desperately for air. Through all that you managed to nod your head yes at him, spreading your legs a bit wider and bucking your hips to meet his every thrust. “Mhm… well if you wanna cum, then you'll just have to cum from my cock only.”

You threw your head back and let out a loud cry. Geto can be mean at times, always teasing you when you need pleasure from him the most. 

“Sugu please!” You begged but he only chuckled before pulling your head closer to his by your neck and kissed your lips. His tongue thrusts past your wet swollen lips, licking every nook and crannies. 

“If you wanna cum…, do it with just… my cock,” he whispered. He was pounding you so hard, hard enough to feel your clit rubbing against his pelvic area. Hard enough to make the desk rock violently beneath you. “Cum on you know you want to let it out.” 

You could feel it, the blood rushing to your head, the tightening in your core and that heat rising in the bit of your tummy, slowly travelling down to your aching cunt, you were so close to cum. “Ha… ha… ha God Sugu,” you shouted, tossing your head back as you feel muscle tensed, cunt twitching as you cum all over his cock. 

“Hm! There it is,” Geto chuckled, watching as your legs twitched and a ring of cum formed around his cock as he continued to fuck you through your orgasm. “That’s a good princess.” 

“More! More!” you cried out, pussy sensitive but still with the way his cock was stretching you out, you wanted more, and the pill still hasn’t settled in yet. 

“I’ll give you more,” Geto responded, and just as he was about to pull out of you and flipped you over; the door burst open and in came senator Gojo Satoru, eyes widened as he took in the scene before him. 

“Oh fuck!” you said knowing that nothing good comes when Gojo’s in the room and by that we mean, Geto's gonna leave you waiting and dripping all over his desk while he has a conversation with Gojo. 

And with you not knowing that the pill he gave you was an aphrodisiac, ah shit you were in for one hell of a torture.

𝑇ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑘 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔. 𝐼'𝑙𝑙 𝑠𝑒𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑛𝑒𝑥𝑡 𝑟𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑠𝑡. 𝑌𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑟𝑒𝑏𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑠 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦 𝑚𝑢𝑐ℎ 𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑖𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑. 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑚𝑒 𝑠𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑒. 𝑇ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑘 𝑎𝑙𝑠𝑜 𝑓𝑜𝑟 4.5𝑘 𝑓𝑜𝑙𝑙𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑖𝑡𝑠 𝑚𝑒𝑎𝑛𝑠 𝑎 𝑙𝑜𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑚𝑒❤︎

٩(◕‿◕｡)۶

@getosbigballsack 2024

[xxyarsiaxx]

Imagine Elizabeth,Annie and ruby find out y/n has been sleeping with Rio

Beth,ruby, Annie and y/n were at a bar waiting with a duffel bag of full of cash. Annie began to notice something about y/n. She seems different.

"What?" Y/n asks as she notices Annie look at her with such a weird face. "What's up with your hair?" Annie says folding her arms in curiousness. Beth then looked at y/n and started to notice as well.

Y/n touched her hair defensively. "Nothing" she answered as she kept touching her hair. "Somethings going on" Beth said eyeing y/n. "Yeah it looks....fluffy" ruby trails off as she picks up her drink. "Bouncy even" Annie added as she picks up her drink.

"Uh I used shampoo. People use that ya know" y/n said with a sarcastic voice. "Okay" Annie said chuckling. "Shampoo" Ruby said looking at her friend amused. The girls then exchange a look as rio walks up to them.

"Yo" he greeted as they all looked up to see him pulling up a chair next to y/n. The girls look at the pair amused as y/n hands rio the duffel bag full of money. As it's happening they touch hands for a second longer than they would have to. The girls  suddenly watch nervously as rio starts going through the bag.

Y/n looks at the girls as they make eye contact with one another. Y/n sighed before talking again. "So what are you gonna do?" Y/n asked rio looking at him.

"Uh take care of it" rio says counting the money still before zipping up the duffel bag. "Buy off a cop or judge or something—" Ruby says but is cut off by rio. "You don't need to sweat the details".

"But how will we know if it worked?" Beth asked nervously. "If you don't get arrested, guess what it probably worked" he responded back making y/n roll her eyes.

"That's not a plan" y/n said making rio look at her. Rio then stood up, hoist the duffel bag on his shoulder and looks back at only y/n. There is a pregnant pause before rio speaks again.

"You trust me?" He asks making y/n look at him like he's crazy. "God no" y/n says while smiling. He grins at this and nods. "Good" he responded back. Suddenly they started staring at each-other for what felt like forever and suddenly y/n looked away. He gave the girls one last look and he left shocking the other girls.

Once he left the girls stares at y/n who is now drinking her wine. Y/n feels eyes on her so she looks up to find the the siblings still staring in shock.

"What?" Y/n asks. "Oh. My. God." Annie and Beth said in unison as ruby just looked confused. "What??" Y/n asks again looking at them confused.  "Uh I think you know" Annie says as y/n starts getting her stuff to leave.

Y/n starts rushing out while the siblings follow leaving ruby who is still confused. Going into the parking lot a curious Annie chases down a embarrassed y/n as she tries to run to her car. "Riddle me this y/n" Annie says as y/n is trying to get away from her.

"I don't know what your talking about" y/n says not even looking at the girls. "Picture if it was me. You would be so far up my ass right now about the responsible choice and keeping it in my pants—" Annie says but y/n cut her off. "Actually I would've told you to be careful. We all know the only person who would do that it your sister."

"She's your sister too y/n" Annie says making y/n stop infront of her car. "Look I'm not saying you don't deserve some but he's not just some dude. Why would you crap where you eat?!" Annie asks worried.

Ruby appears behind the siblings next to Beth. "What has gotten into you guys?"Ruby looks at the confused. "Oh I can tell you what's gotten into her" Beth says as she points at y/n. "Gang friend" Annie finishes making y/n roll her eyes for the hundredth time today.

Ruby's head explodes with this information. She just stared at y/n in shock. "Stop looking at me like that" y/n says opening her car door. "You know it actually makes perfect sense now" Beth says folding her arms. "Whaaat?" Ruby says still shocked.

"It's why he gave YOU the money" Annie said emphasizing the 'you'. "That was before" y/n said but Beth cut her off. "Why you have been big timing us for weeks—"

"That's not why. I just didn't want to deal with you and you." Y/n points at her sisters. "Why is that?" Beth asks clearly taking offense. "Are you serious?? You guys have problems of your own. Drama that I don't need. But I didn't ask for anymore jobs. That was Beth." Y/n says turning back to her car as she puts her stuff inside.

"You think you're the big boss now because your vagina got woke" Annie says making y/n look at her annoyed. "Excuse me? Who's idea was to rob a bank? Who's idea was it to take more jobs? Not me! I always supported you on what you wanted and finally thought about myself for once. FOR ONCE in my life I got to do something I wanted to do. Who are you to say I can't sleep with him. It's not like your situation is better so get off of my back". Y/n says as Annie gets quiet.

Ruby is still processing all of this. "I mean...how was it?" Ruby asks still in shock but Y/n didn't bother to look at ruby. Usually when y/n was in the talking stage with someone her and ruby would always talk about it. Ruby was like her sister to her "And now that I think about it. Did you screw someone who had a pregnant wife?" Y/n asked making Annie glare at her. "I ended that."

Y/n scoffed at this. "When, yesterday?" She says folding her arms. Annie looks at her hurt. "Bone whoever you want. But it's gonna end bad" Annie says as she shakes her head and walks to her car. Y/n shakes her head and starts chuckling. "I'm finally do something I wanna do and it's a problem. That's nice" she says as she gets in her car as the others sat in silence.

Before anybody can say anything y/n drove off upset.

[deliciousangelfestival]

Nothing Has Changed - 14

Summary: Returning home for peace, you're faced with your tormentor, Bucky Barnes, who is now involved in your family's business.

Character: Bucky Barnes

Warning: Angst, Tragedy.

Author Note: So... I wrote the story outline until the ending. I didn't expect the story to turn dark. Prepare yourself.

Nothing Has Changed - Series Masterlist

Main Masterlist || support: Ko-fi

Thank you to anyone who gave a like, reblog, and left a comment. It motivated me to write more. 💖💖💖

You knew that Steve and Bucky weren't as close as they used to be, but seeing it up close felt even more awkward. Bucky, on the other hand, didn't seem stressed despite his mother being sent to jail.

As you watched Bucky load your groceries into your car, you asked, “I don't feel any bromance between you and Steve anymore.”

Bucky shrugged, not missing a beat as he placed another bag in the trunk. “Well… I won’t deny it. Ever since we all went our separate ways, while Steve stayed, everything just became different.”

“I did offer him a job at the resorts, but he declined.” His voice held a note of regret. “It’s sad that we’re not close anymore.”

You watched him for a moment, feeling a pang of something you couldn't quite identify. You never had someone who used to be close to you turn into a stranger. The closest person you had was Ransom. He betrayed you once but still kept in contact. Then there was Harlan, the only older person who was like a grandfather figure to you. But he's gone now.

“You're a good friend,” you said softly.

Bucky’s eyes widened in surprise. “Did… Did you just give me a compliment?”

“No.” You quickly got into your car, hoping to hide the faint smile on your face.

He chuckled and hummed, “Yes, you did.”

As you closed the car door, he knocked on the window. You rolled it down a little. “What?”

“I know I'm asking a lot, but could you help out at the resort again?” Bucky’s voice was earnest, almost pleading.

You raised an eyebrow. The idea of going back to the place that kicked you out felt just as wrong as when you got fired from Drysdale. Memories of the humiliation and hurt still stung.

Bucky seemed to sense your hesitation. “I will make sure the environment is different this time.”

That got your attention. “How?”

“You'll see it tomorrow.” He smirked a hint of mischief in his eyes, and then turned to leave. You watched him walk away, a mix of curiosity and skepticism swirling in your mind.

🏨🏨🏨🏨🏨

The next morning, you woke up with uncertain feelings. Should you go back? But you decided to give it a try.

When you parked your car, you saw someone walking out the door carrying a box. It was Natasha.

You got out of the car and walked past her. Natasha glared at you, spitting out, “Bitch. Are you happy?”

You stopped and turned to face her, feeling a newfound confidence. “What did I do that made Bucky fire you? Tell me. All the evidence points to Lydia.”

Natasha flinched, taken aback by your directness. The old you would have been too afraid to talk back to her.

In truth, only Bucky knew the real reason she was fired. She had been receiving hush money from Lydia. The first time she caught Lydia red-handed, stealing money from the vault and stuffing it into her designer bag, she was paid off to keep quiet.

Her front desk salary couldn't buy her designer bags and shoes with cash. The money from Lydia was the reason she could afford them. But no matter what she had, it was nothing compared to what you possessed.

“Tsk.” She clicked her tongue and walked away.

You sighed. She hadn't changed. She always lashed out at you.

“Did she bother you?” Bucky's voice broke through your thoughts.

“No. She just blamed me,” you replied, shaking your head.

“I'm sorry,” he said, looking genuinely apologetic.

“I'm used to it. She hasn't changed at all,” then turned and walked into the building.

You started working again. You felt more relaxed, perhaps because Lydia and Natasha were no longer there to cast their shadows.

‘Knock, knock.’

You lifted your head and saw Jake standing at the door.

“You're back,” he said, stepping inside.

“Yeah,” you replied, continuing your work.

He took a seat in front of you. “Me and the other employees are grateful to you.”

“Why?” you asked, looking up.

“Because those women are gone,” Jake said.

Your pen stopped moving. “Was it that bad?”

Jake shrugged his shoulders. “Well, we kinda knew. But we couldn't do anything. Especially me. This place was the only one that gave me a job after what happened.”

You leaned forward, curious. “Can I ask what happened to you? Someone as smart as you making a mistake like that doesn’t seem right.”

He sighed, leaning back in his chair. “People won’t believe me when I tell them, but I guess you could understand it.”

“Me?” You raised an eyebrow.

He nodded. “Just like you, I was framed for something I didn’t do.”

Before Jake came back, he had a good job at an IT security company. But he was blinded by money when he got an offer to make a gambling website.

“Wait… what about the rumor you hacked the Department of Defense’s security?” you asked, intrigued.

Jake leaned in, lowering his voice. “That’s… well, off the record. I can’t tell you about that. But it wasn’t the reason I got arrested.”

The reason he got arrested was someone tipped off the authorities that he was the person who made the illegal gambling website. Jake did, but he was also accused of receiving $30 million from money laundering that was used on the site.

“Wow,” you said, shaking your head. “Do you know who asked you?”

He shrugged his shoulders, scratching his head. “It's my own fault too. I got the request from the dark web. It was difficult to prove to the judge, and I didn’t have the money to pay for a good lawyer.”

“How did you get released?” you asked, still in disbelief.

“I got a plea deal. I knew some secrets. Do you want to know?” Jake winked at you.

You scoffed, “No thank you,” and went back to work.

Jake chuckled, leaning back in his chair. “But seriously, thanks for what you did here. It means a lot to all of us.”

You nodded, acknowledging his gratitude, but focused on your work.

🏠🏠🏠🏠🏠

You went back home, only to see the last person you wanted to see walking out of your house—the mayor.

You stayed in your car until he left, then got out and headed inside.

When you entered the house, you saw Tom sitting on a chair with his head resting on his hand. He looked stressed and pale.

You rushed to him and touched his shoulder. “Father?”

Tom flinched, then looked up at your face. He patted your arm. “Y/N.”

“Yes?” you asked, your voice filled with concern.

“Could you stop whatever you're doing right now?” he said, his voice trembling.

Seeing how stressed and scared your father was, you knew it could only mean one thing—the mayor had given him a warning.

“Did he threaten you?” you asked, your eyes searching his face.

Tom shook his head. “No, he just gave me some advice. Lydia has all the connections. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Bullshit. It wasn’t advice. It was clear that Lydia and the mayor were partners in crime.

“I'll listen to you,” you said, patting his shoulder reassuringly.

Tom sighed in relief and nodded, glad you didn’t object. “I'm going to make some tea. Do you want some?”

Before you could answer, your phone vibrated. It was Steve. “I’m going to take this,” you said, stepping away.

You moved to another room. “Hey.”

Steve’s voice came through the line. “Are you busy right now?”

“No. What’s up?”

“I just wanted to tell you that I’ve arrived at the art gallery,” Steve said.

“That’s great!” you replied, a smile spreading across your face.

“Y/N?” he continued, sounding a bit uncertain.

“Hmm?” you prompted.

“I feel so small surrounded by these skyscrapers,” he admitted.

You remembered feeling the same way when you first arrived in the city.

“But it gives big opportunities,” Steve added, a note of hope in his voice.

You smiled, feeling a bit lighter. At least there was some good news. “Stay optimistic like that, and you’ll get it, Steve.”

🏠🏠🏠🏠🏠

In a big house, a woman lay on the couch, casually flipping through a magazine. An ankle bracelet adorned her right ankle—it was Lydia.

Bucky came home and walked into the living room, his footsteps echoing in the spacious room.

The moment she saw him, her expression twisted with anger. She hurled the magazine toward him, but he caught it effortlessly.

“You're just like him,” she spat, her voice dripping with bitterness.

@starsofcloud

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Author Note: Hey friends,

If you've been enjoying the content, I've set up a Ko-fi account.

Your support through tips would mean the world and help me keep creating.

Only if you feel like it!

Here's the link: Ko-fi

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[s3thwrit3sstuff]

I love your writing am and i always seem to go back to your sally face fic and i would love something similar to that but with sally and i would love to see if you could incorporate substance use (ex. weed) not to a dangerous extent but almost seen as inviting. with ftm reader again! ofcs you can take this request and do what you like with it!! i just love your writing sm and i want to see more sally face content:)

❝ If you think I’m pretty put your hands on me, know I can’t stop thinkin’ ‘bout it ❞

Sal Fisher x ftm!reader | fluffy, NSFW, slight angst | reader has had top-surgery & bottom growth | vers. bttm. reader | NOT PROOFREAD + written on phone | wc: 4K

warnings: recreational use of marijuana, some guilt from Sal because he vowed not to smoke as a child but r! reassures him, Sal mentions painkiller addictions, mentions of hospitals and wounds, mentions of scarring, shotgun kisses, handjobs, fingering, AFAB terminology (clit referred to as dick/cock)

masterlist ; "I was the boy who was on your side"

authors note: I FORGOT TO FILL THIS UHM UHHH IM BACK?

*song on repeat: Romeo by Until The Ribbon Breaks

He's been drumming his fingers across his knees for a full 20 minutes now. A never-ending symphony of thumps occasionally disturbed by pauses of silence as he picked at the ripped edges of his jeans. You suppose you understand the anxiety that was racking through him, despite the reassurances you'd given him, he was bound to have some second thoughts. "Hey, baby," you tap the steering wheel, an elbow propped onto your window sill panel. Despite your eyes being glued on the road, you're acutely aware of his gaze on yours.

"Ya' didn't have to come along if you didn't want to," at your words he shakes his head. "No — Sorry, I didn't mean to come off that way, baby." Sal reaches out and places a hand on your knee, squeezing it just enough to have you decompressing your nerves.

"No, no. I didn't mean to make you feel bad," you clasp his hand and squeeze him back, the road will be fairly emptier now that you've driven past the bridge. "You just look a little nervous is all, I was jokin' 'bout you needing to follow along. I was just teasing you, Sal." "I know. I wanted to spend time with you, (Y/N). Which is why I followed along even though I knew you were just fucking with me," he sighs, allowing the song playing on the radio to filter in the silence for a few seconds. "It's just, buying drugs, makes me a liiittle nervous."

A chuckle escapes you and you risk staring at Sal for a bit. "You've dealt with poltergeists and the like, the baloney incident, and buying a little ganja is making you sweat?"

“Shut up,” he groans as he slips his hand up and lands a muted smack on your thighs. “Poltergeists can land me in a psychiatrist's office, this could land us in jail.”

“At least we’ll be together in a small cell,” you coo and Sal rolls his eye with a scoff. “We’re not gonna get caught, ya’ big baby. I’ve done this a thousand times with Larry, Todd, and Ashley — we’ll be fine. Promise.”

It went more than fine. Underwhelming actually. He had expected a more intense, whispered, exchanges with some weirdly firm handshake while the other dude slipped you the weed. He had even lifted the hood of his hoodie up to make the both of you less identifiable. It was adorable.

Your dealer had come down from their apartment. Sal seeing her brightly coloured pink tie-dye sweatpants from the slat of the stairs, and the cheerful wave she gave you once she took notice of your car.

“Was wondering when you’d text. I got your favourite.”

She’s leaned on your rolled-down windows, discretely holding the pink paper bag of weed in front of her chest and bouncing it around. She extends her other hand first, and Sal is silent as you reach for the cash from the cup holder.

In that pause of conversation, she takes notice of him and recognition is crystal clear.

“O-M-G, is that Sal, the boyfriend?” You chuckle while Sal stutters in surprise. Handing her the cash, she graciously exchanges it with the bag.

“Yeah, he’s following along with me running errands.” “Cute,” she coos. After a few pleasantries, she leans away. That small pink paper bag between your legs barely able to distract your boyfriend from her excited wave of goodbye — that you return obviously.

“You talk about me with her?” you glance at him for a second then laugh. “Dude, most of us get our weed from her. She eventually gets to know the side characters in our lives the longer she interacts with us.”

He scoffs, crossing his arm as he leans back in the seat.

“Side characters? Seriously?” “Duh,” you pick the bag up and shake it in his face teasingly. “Everyone knows the main characters participate in drug culture and the side characters don’t.”

“This is the peer pressure my father warned me about.”

You giggled at his joke as you place the bag between your thighs again. This time, Sal’s eyes follows it.

He’s seen you and Larry smoke before. Hell, most of his friends smoke on the back porch while he’ll be mindlessly cleaning up as he waits for all of you to herd back inside. He’s never felt left out, you guys were simply respecting his wishes is all. He wasn’t much of a fan of drinking or smoking. But he wouldn't stop anyone from doing it, as long as no one got too inebriated.

Though, for some reason, he just can’t take his eyes away from that pink bag.

“Mhm, next thing you know, you’ll look like those anti-bullying posters. All the stoners will point and laugh while you have big ole’ sad cat eyes.”

The imagery makes him laugh softly and he glances at your face as the scenery zooms past beside you.

When you reach home, the house is empty. A note was left on the kitchen fridge by Todd, something about him and his boyfriend going on a date.

Just you, Sal and Gizmo.

It makes his palms clammy and his nerves turning up his sensitivity a few notches.

You greeted Gizmo with a few chin scratches. Settling on the living room couch with crossed legs, you open the bag one handedly while you lean over to the catch-all bowl on the coffee table for the lighter and your MP3 player.

All the while, he stands in the kitchen threshold. Like a kid who knows they’ve done something they’re definitely shouldn’t have done — the guilt was just radiating from him. It made you toss your head to the side when you took notice of him, a joint hung loosely between your lips.

“You good, baby?”

He nods, your words setting him into motion as he sits on the couch.

“I’m not gonna smoke inside,” you reassure with a smile. Why else would he stare at you like that, right?

He nods again. Oddly quiet. Gizmo yawns and sinks further down onto the couch, watching the TV show with an almost human-like concentration. Nobody says anything about it anymore. He’s just a little guy, really.

You lean over, joint plucked out and resting between the second knuckle of your pointer and middle finger this time, and give his cheek a kiss.

“See you in a bit.”

He watches like he always does. There’s nothing to clean. It’d be weirder if he attempted to look busy. So he glances at the TV, then at Gizmo and then at your back as you sit down on the porch. He can hear the muffled sounds of you flicking the lighter, and shortly after he sees the white smoke that slithers upwards into the air along with the sounds of your favourite band quietly playing.

You thought you hadn’t closed the sliding doors properly when you hear the approaching footsteps. Turning your head to check, you’re surprised to spot Sal walk through the doors to move and settle next to you.

You cough out some smoke. Attempting to fan it away with your hand while you reach to put out the joint in the ash tray that Ashley had made. But Sal stops you as he knocks your knees together, his thigh pressing against yours as he peers at you.

“Sal?”

“...Say hypothethically, a side character wants to dip his toes in some drug culture." Your eyes widen considerably at his confession.

“Huh?” you squeak out. Sal sighs, regret creeping up on him as he scratches the back of his head. The smell of the weed doesn’t exactly help either — it was so distinct.

“Wait, no, sorry. I’m just, this isn’t because of peer pressure is it?” You did mini-hops, getting close enough to him for your thighs to press together. Yet you still held the clay ash tray an arms length away, especially as you note the sharp inhale and exhale he'd made.

Sal’s deadpanned expression makes your eyebrows jump.

“This was dumb,” He admits. “No — no, it isn’t. I was just caught off-guard. Are you...curious?”

Sal nods sheepishly. You lean back on the heel of your hand, the other still holding onto the tray, your finger mindlessly keeping the still-lit joint perched between your digit and the rim of the tray. You think for a moment, then huff in amusement.

“Damn, you still manage to surprise me even after all these years.”

“You’re making it sound like we’ve been married for 50 years,” he retorts. “We will be, I’m just practicing these phrases out loud so you don’t get heart failure in the future.”

This time, Sal’s shoulders shake as he laughs. It dies down as he sees you take a drag, and breathe out the plumes of smoke. Not directly at him, but in his general direction. The smell isn’t something he’s used to. Not this close anyways. Usually, it’s just stuck on your clothes but you reach for the bottle of Febreze strategically placed near the sliding doors anyway so it's more muted.

It. . .doesn’t completely suck. The earthiness of it making his shoulders less tense. You watch his reaction closely, the corners of your lips in a gentle curve as he leans back onto his hands.

You take another drag and Sal’s enraptured at the way the end of your joint glows bright orange. He feels almost envious of the way you swallow the smoke, how you harbour it within your mouth before it slips past your lips. You’re looking at him, just basking in the moment for a little longer before you ask him to play your favourite songs.

It was just beginning to get dark, the sky was setting up for its finale of the day and he was enraptured as you explain what shotgun kisses were.

"I have smoked a cigarette before," he says, brows furrowed as he unbuckles his prosthetic. "Yeah, and nearly coughed up both of your lungs. This will be smoother for you, trust me."

"So I just inhale what you exhale?" "Mhm, easy as pie, right?"

His placed his prosthetic next to him, turning his head and immediately seeing your face invading his vision. "Hi," he smiled at your attempt to keep your smile at bay by chewing on your lower lip.

"Hi," he replies, his anxiety lessening at the sight of your confidence and giddiness. You bring the joint to your lips. He can hear the paper burning and sees tendrils of smoke escaping through your lips. Your words echoed in his brain as you lean in further.

“Just breathe it in slowly, baby."

He feels the smoke across his face, your lips pouted as you blow it his way. Sal breathes it in, sucking the smoke in just like you’d demonstrated earlier. He coughs like you said he would. His eye-watering as he moves to sit and you carefully pat his back as he does.

“Shit,” your eyes squish at his flustered expression. His first time trying a cigarette playing briefly through your head. Though this time it wasn’t even half-bad.

“You did great. Didn't burn on the way down if you smoked it yourself, right?” he got what you meant. He was coughing but he didn't feel like the back of his throat got thwacked by a whip of burning paper and tobacco. The ride was smoother, way smoother with your help. “It feels like the smell is stuck onto my teeth." Sal only complains to see you look at him with that fond gaze. You took another drag as he smacks his lips a few times. Your eyes flutter close, sighing in relief, and tossing your head to the side as you feel yourself loosening up.

“Why do you think I always brush my teeth before I kiss you?”

Sal protests softly as you take another hit and you laugh as he leans in.

“Isn’t that too much — “

You breathe out and Sal seems stunned for a moment, so you apologize but he simply leans in further.

“If this'll be my first time getting high, I want it to be with you.”

"Slow down, baby," you bumped your foreheads together, cupping his jaw in your hand. "What's the rush, hm?"

Curiousity was a valid enough reason to start smoking, but your Sal wasn't the kind of guy to jump into these things head first. It wasn't anything special to him, all of your friends smoked and drunk. He wasn't some pre-teen being excited to finally "grow up" and get in with the cool kids.

Hell, even during his 21st birthday, he'd taken his first drink and smoked his cigarette and decided that he didn't enjoy any of them.

Sal sighs, dropping his weight on you. His head balanced between the curve of your neck and shoulder. You simply thread your fingers through his hair, combing out the indents of his buckles and straps from his hair.

"You think I can't take it?"

"Oh, I definitely know you can't."

He protests with an indignant but whiny 'hey' but settles. His arms wrap around your waist and despite the uncomfortable angle of your torso facing him while your legs faced ahead as they rested on the stairs, you stay like that for a bit.

He eventually pulls away and leans back onto his arms again, reaching for his prosthetic though only to fidget with it on his lap.

"...Is it bad I feel bad? Not physically, just...morally?"

Your silence urges him on. So he continues; “Drinking fucking sucks, and cigarettes don’t make sense to me. But weed as a concept always seemed...appealing to me.”

He feels your chin on his shoulder and he subtly breathes in the smoke that teases him as you exhale.

“But?”

“Argh, it’s stupid. But as a kid, in the hospital there weren’t a lot of people that got as messed up as I did. But the ones that were? Christ, babe, they were in so much pain. Even when the wounds were already scars.”

Your brows pinch. You squeeze his hand and he stops toying with feeling the shape of the bolts to instead gently press the pads of his thumb over your nails.

“The doctors scared me with the whole speech. Painkillers being addictive and all that, it made me scared to ask for ‘em even when the skin grafts felt like they were on fucking fire.”

He shuts his eyes and brings your hand to his face, the pressure and warmth across his jaw and cheek making the phantom pains ebb to nothing.

“I made a promise to my younger me that I would never end up like the adults I saw. I just, don’t want to be in constant pain.”

“You aren’t, Sal. And you won’t be.”

You put out the joint, turning his face to you and planting a kiss on his lips. He breathes out a sigh of relief through his nose and you tilt your head to deepen it. When you pull away, you both linger in the afterglow of it for a second.

“I’m here for you, Sal. If you ever stray from the path, I’m here to guide you back, right? You’ve got me and Larry, Lisa and your dad, Ashley, Todd, Gizmo —” his smile widens as you go on about the precious people in his life.

“Thanks,” he kisses you again and you happily reciprocate.

“By the way, you’re right, you should always brush your teeth before you kiss me when you’re done smoking up.”

Sal laughs as you shove him back, watching admiringly while you light the joint up again.

“...Can I have another hit?”

“You just said my breath smells like ass —”

“You’re overreacting!”

By the time the two of you walk back inside, Gizmo’s nose is twitching. You hadn’t taken too much too be completely useless, just to start feeling that buzz and take the edge off. Sal had expected more of a droopy, drowsy, feeling when he entered the house.

He still feels like himself. A little light on his feet, but still himself. You had paced him from his little smoke-sucking sessions — teasing that he just wanted to kiss you which wasn’t entirely untrue. But you always pulled away just as his eyes would flutter. Most likely you getting back at home for saying your breath smelled like weed. Little tease.

You spray your clothes down, then ask Sal if he’d like to chill on the couch. Something in his brain perks up hard enough to make his penis do the same. He feels a bit shameful of it, but then again, everything you do could make him hard.

The other day you’d been wolfing down some cheesy fries with Ashley and somehow it made Sal have to think of baloney to shut his penis down.

Gizmo’s tail flicks knowingly as Sal sits at the end of the couch, which was his cue to set off to the basement instead. When Sal hears the TV turns on from there, he simply decides to never question how dexterous Gizmo's thumbs were.

You're laid out on the couch with your tummy showing and your eyes just a bit hazy. He knows weed affects people differently; why does it make his lust for you feel so thick? Like cloying, thick, honey dripping down from the back of his throat. Fuelling him in an unfamiliar, alien, way. He climbs over you and the half-lidded gaze you look up at him with makes his mouth feel drier than it is.

This lust is new. It’s more languid in it’s desire — akin to a beast stretching its back only to flop down to its side and show its belly. Still undeniably dangerous, yet so inviting with its soft underbelly and demure paws.

You seem to recognize this beast, lips stretching into a toothy grin.

“Need something handsome?”

He narrows his eyes at you. Then, he places a hand on your chest, fingers brushing along your collarbones before it slowy slips downwards.

“...I really wanna finger you.”

He seems to catch himself. Through that haze that makes him caught between wanting to curl up next to you for a nap or fucking you nice and slow, he finds the part of him that remembers embarrassment.

But before it could throw away his new lazy bravado, you surge up to kiss him, moaning the second your lips made contact.

Stoned Sal decides pants are way too annoying very quickly on. He huffs and puffs at the obstacles that are called buttons and zippers. When he finally undoes them, he pulls your jeans below the swell of your ass and brings the heel of his hand to your clothed cock.

The pressure has your teeth brushing over your lips.

“I love your dick,” he murmurs, “it’s just s’fuckin’ pretty.”

You moan airily, wishing he’d pull your pants all the way down but he is just too entraced at the sight of the wet spots he’s seeing. He traces the fold of your cunt and your breath hitches as he presses a finger through. Not enough to be inside of you, but enough to have your dick twitch.

He brings his thumb to rub against it and you groan.

“Let me take my jeans off, Christ, Sal.”

He chuckles, suddenly abandoning your pussy to pin your hips down. “Barely touched you and you already wanna spread your legs f’me?”

You glare at him, feeling your cheeks heat up as you hitch yourself up onto the couch and stubbornly shimmying out of your pants. He simply watches, uncaring of the less-than-delicate display. You toss your jean away and your underwear follows along, piling onto the floor somewhere.

“The weed is making you so chatty, hm?” you don’t get much out of you after that as Sal immediately claims your lips again. He doesn’t even wait for you to lay back down as he brings his hand between your legs.

Not exactly hasty but not taking his time either. He pulls away enough that the spit between your lips break, but you can still feel him groan when he feels the dewdrops of moisture on your cunt; the slick that coats his finger makes him whisper your name.

“So wet,” he marvels. Your legs twitch at his movements. Sliding up and down, pressing in just to make your breath hitch but never fully slipping inside.

Oh fuck.

Stoned Sal likes to tease.

Your dread is shortlived as he descends his kisses to your neck. You groan, clutching onto the back of his shirt as he mottles your neck with unapologetically languid kisses.

You’re whimpering underneath him as he hums and groans. Using his teeth and making hickey after hickey, dark and tender — he’d even brush his teeth along them just to hear you gasp.

Meanwhile, he continues to torture your poor cunt. Bringing his thumb into the fray again as he rubs circles on the tip of your cock. The tip of his fingers spreading your slick around your lips, making it messier and messier.

“Sal, please just fuckin’ finger me already,” you whine out. Turning your head away and arching your back as he sets his eyes on your nipples.

“I’m already — Shit, Sal. I’m already so hard.”

He knows. You don’t have to remind him.

“Don’t make me beg, baby, please.”

Sal bites down on your nipple just as he pushes his finger inside of you. He groans at the feeling of your boypussy clamping down. Fuck, you felt good.

So soft and warm and wet and tight.

He slips another finger in and neither of you are surprised at how eagerly your cunt lets it in.

Sal’s lips pause in their conquest as he looks down between your legs. Fuck, what a sight it was. The happy trail you have that always makes his cock jump in his pants — there it goes again — and that beautiful dick that he always loves choking on to that boypussy that he’s convinced is made for him.

He starts pumping his fingers. In and out in a steady rhythm. Adoring every noise that comes out of you. You take them well, all the way down to the base and when he angles his palm just right your hips buck to grind your cock against his hand.

Fuck, you were perfect.

He kisses you. Breathing through his nose as he bites down on your already swollen lower lip — relishing in this. In you.

He adds another finger and you mewl. It makes him laugh.

You were usually much more headstrong. When he teases, you tease back. The weed is working in his favour, you were so pliant. Melting under him and already close to your first orgasm.

When he curls his fingers, you toss your head back, mouth opening in a silent scream. Your hand dives between your legs to rub your cock and Sal watches your face as you jeek yourself off.

“Just like that, just like that — Oh, oh—ah! Fuck!”

He doesn’t falter his pace, moaning out curses as you clamp down around his fingers.

“Come on, baby. Cum for me, cum for me.”

His voice undoes you.

You buck your hips as wetness covers his hand. He groans, praising you as he continues to pump in and out. You let him, simply curling your toes and panting as you just kept on cumming and cumming.

When he kisses you this time, he doesn’t even let you breathe. Just swallowing your noises as he finger-fucks you through your orgasm and makes you barrel to your second with no breaks.

You clutch at his shirt, feeling lightheaded but unwilling to ask him to stop.

“Keep going, Sal. Please, please.”

How could he say no?

[sturnsreader]

condoms

} warnings : hinted sex

__________________________________________

౨ৎ

“hurry up, babe.” i let out a groan, impatiently looking around us in the store.

whenever we have to buy condoms, i always get very embarrassed or worried that someone will notice us. nate finds it amusing.

i bounced my leg up and down as he took his time scanning the boxes, letting out a frustrated sigh while he only chuckled at me as his lips curled into a smirk.

“relax, y/n. nobody is here.” he said, bending down to look at more boxes of protection.

i rolled my eyes, “yeah, but they could.” i peered down the aisles, making sure no one around would see us. “oh my god, just pick a box! here, this one will work,” i grabbed the first box i saw and handed it to nate.

“nope.” he chuckled, putting the box back on the shelf. i furrowed my eyebrows.

“what's wrong with them?” i asked. he turned to me.

“too small.”

my cheeks flushed pink as i nervously shushed him, but all he did was laugh. it was fairly quiet in the store, but nate was being rather loud as if he wanted to get caught and embarrass me.

“hey, do you want me to pleasure you, baby?” he shrugged, earning himself another eye roll out of me.

“as of right now, i don't care, so will you please just pick a box?” i impatiently complained.

“okay, okay, fine.” nate rolled his eyes and finally picked a box a few more seconds later.

“i should've stayed in the car,” i muttered, following nate out the aisle.

“you're so whiny, baby." he said, chuckling to himself for a little. it's hard doing normal people things when you have a platform. you have eyes on you all the time, and it feels like you can't do normal people things because people will judge you. besides, nate and i haven't become official yet. people are onto us, but we haven't fed them anything. if they caught us buying condoms together, that would be a dead giveaway.

we're making our way to the cash register, when the worst thing that could happen, happens.

“excuse me, are you guys youtubers?” a girl says, who belongs to a group of a good number of her friends. my cheeks heat up and i can feel my face turning red. nate frantically hides the box behind his back, almost making an even bigger scene.

we take a picture with them, and after a couple of minutes of conversation, they finally leave. as soon as they do, nate bursts out laughing, i just roll my eyes.

“i told you!” i laugh, shoving his arm, almost falling over because of how hard he's laughing. i start laughing too though.

“yeah, but your face was so red,” he laughs, and i just chuckle in embarrassment.

“it's not funny!” i say though i’m laughing too. he calms down finally, wrapping an arm around me as we walk to the register.

“you're right, you're right, i’m sorry.” he smiles, while planting a kiss on my forehead.

౨ৎ

__________________________________________

this is obviously a quickly written fanfic sorry 🫤🫤

again NATE SMUUUUUTTTTTT (nate is fs a sub) and pt 3 of the chris thingys COMING SOON

hope u enjoy 😊😊😊

[mostlysignssomeportents]

No, Uber's (still) not profitable

Going to Defcon this weekend? I'm giving a keynote, "An Audacious Plan to Halt the Internet's Enshittification and Throw it Into Reverse," on Saturday at 12:30pm, followed by a book signing at the No Starch Press booth at 2:30pm!

https://info.defcon.org/event/?id=50826

Bezzle (n): 1. "the magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it" (JK Gabraith) 2. Uber.

Uber was, is, and always will be a bezzle. There are just intrinsic limitations to the profits available to operating a taxi fleet, even if you can misclassify your employees as contractors and steal their wages, even as you force them to bear the cost of buying and maintaining your taxis.

The magic of early Uber – when taxi rides were incredibly cheap, and there were always cars available, and drivers made generous livings behind the wheel – wasn't magic at all. It was just predatory pricing.

Uber lost $0.41 on every dollar they brought in, lighting $33b of its investors' cash on fire. Most of that money came from the Saudi royals, funneled through Softbank, who brought you such bezzles as WeWork – a boring real-estate company masquerading as a high-growth tech company, just as Uber was a boring taxi company masquerading as a tech company.

Predatory pricing used to be illegal, but Chicago School economists convinced judges to stop enforcing the law on the grounds that predatory pricing was impossible because no rational actor would choose to lose money. They (willfully) ignored the obvious possibility that a VC fund could invest in a money-losing business and use predatory pricing to convince retail investors that a pile of shit of sufficient size must have a pony under it somewhere.

This venture predation let investors – like Prince Bone Saw – cash out to suckers, leaving behind a money-losing business that had to invent ever-sweatier accounting tricks and implausible narratives to keep the suckers on the line while they blew town. A bezzle, in other words:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/19/fake-it-till-you-make-it/#millennial-lifestyle-subsidy

Uber is a true bezzle innovator, coming up with all kinds of fairy tales and sci-fi gimmicks to explain how they would convert their money-loser into a profitable business. They spent $2.5b on self-driving cars, producing a vehicle whose mean distance between fatal crashes was half a mile. Then they paid another company $400 million to take this self-licking ice-cream cone off their hands:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

Amazingly, self-driving cars were among the more plausible of Uber's plans. They pissed away hundreds of millions on California's Proposition 22 to institutionalize worker misclassification, only to have the rule struck down because they couldn't be bothered to draft it properly. Then they did it again in Massachusetts:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/15/simple-as-abc/#a-big-ask

Remember when Uber was going to plug the holes in its balance sheet with flying cars? Flying cars! Maybe they were just trying to soften us up for their IPO, where they advised investors that the only way they'd ever be profitable is if they could replace every train, bus and tram ride in the world:

https://48hills.org/2019/05/ubers-plans-include-attacking-public-transit/

Honestly, the only way that seems remotely plausible is when it's put next to flying cars for comparison. I guess we can be grateful that they never promised us jetpacks, or, you know, teleportation. Just imagine the market opportunity they could have ascribed to astral projection!

Narrative capitalism has its limits. Once Uber went public, it had to produce financial disclosures that showed the line going up, lest the bezzle come to an end. These balance-sheet tricks were as varied as they were transparent, but the financial press kept falling for them, serving as dutiful stenographers for a string of triumphant press-releases announcing Uber's long-delayed entry into the league of companies that don't lose more money every single day.

One person Uber has never fooled is Hubert Horan, a transportation analyst with decades of experience who's had Uber's number since the very start, and who has done yeoman service puncturing every one of these financial "disclosures," methodically sifting through the pile of shit to prove that there is no pony hiding in it.

In 2021, Horan showed how Uber had burned through nearly all of its cash reserves, signaling an end to its subsidy for drivers and rides, which would also inevitably end the bezzle:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/10/unter/#bezzle-no-more

In mid, 2022, Horan showed how the "profit" Uber trumpeted came from selling off failed companies it had acquired to other dying rideshare companies, which paid in their own grossly inflated stock:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/05/a-lousy-taxi/#a-giant-asterisk

At the end of 2022, Horan showed how Uber invented a made-up, nonstandard metric, called "EBITDA profitability," which allowed them to lose billions and still declare themselves to be profitable, a lie that would have been obvious if they'd reported their earnings using Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/11/bezzlers-gonna-bezzle/#gryft

Like clockwork, Uber has just announced – once again – that it is profitable, and once again, the press has credulously repeated the claim. So once again, Horan has published one of his magisterial debunkings on Naked Capitalism:

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/08/hubert-horan-can-uber-ever-deliver-part-thirty-three-uber-isnt-really-profitable-yet-but-is-getting-closer-the-antitrust-case-against-uber.html

Uber's $394m gains this quarter come from paper gains to untradable shares in its loss-making rivals – Didi, Grab, Aurora – who swapped stock with Uber in exchange for Uber's own loss-making overseas divisions. Yes, it's that stupid: Uber holds shares in dying companies that no one wants to buy. It declared those shares to have gained value, and on that basis, reported a profit.

Truly, any big number multiplied by an imaginary number can be turned into an even bigger number.

Now, Uber also reported "margin improvements" – that is, it says that it loses less on every journey. But it didn't explain how it made those improvements. But we know how the company did it: they made rides more expensive and cut the pay to their drivers. A 2.9m ride in Manhattan is now $50 – if you get a bargain! The base price is more like $70:

https://www.wired.com/story/uber-ceo-will-always-say-his-company-sucks/

The number of Uber drivers on the road has a direct relationship to the pay Uber offers those drivers. But that pay has been steeply declining, and with it, the availability of Ubers. A couple weeks ago, I found myself at the Burbank train station unable to get an Uber at all, with the app timing out repeatedly and announcing "no drivers available."

Normally, you can get a yellow taxi at the station, but years of Uber's predatory pricing has caused a drawdown of the local taxi-fleet, so there were no taxis available at the cab-rank or by dispatch. It took me an hour to get a cab home. Uber's bezzle destroyed local taxis and local transit – and replaced them with worse taxis that cost more.

Uber won't say why its margins are improving, but it can't be coming from scale. Before the pandemic, Uber had far more rides, and worse margins. Uber has diseconomies of scale: when you lose money on every ride, adding more rides increases your losses, not your profits.

Meanwhile, Lyft – Uber's also-ran competitor – saw its margins worsen over the same period. Lyft has always been worse at lying about it finances than Uber, but it is in essentially the exact same business (right down to the drivers and cars – many drivers have both apps on their phones). So Lyft's financials offer a good peek at Uber's true earnings picture.

Lyft is actually slightly better off than Uber overall. It spent less money on expensive props for its long con – flying cars, robotaxis, scooters, overseas clones – and abandoned them before Uber did. Lyft also fired 24% of its staff at the end of 2022, which should have improved its margins by cutting its costs.

Uber pays its drivers less. Like Lyft, Uber practices algorithmic wage discrimination, Veena Dubal's term describing the illegal practice of offering workers different payouts for the same work. Uber's algorithm seeks out "pickers" who are choosy about which rides they take, and converts them to "ants" (who take every ride offered) by paying them more for the same job, until they drop all their other gigs, whereupon the algorithm cuts their pay back to the rates paid to ants:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

All told, wage theft and wage cuts by Uber transferred $1b/quarter from labor to Uber's shareholders. Historically, Uber linked fares to driver pay – think of surge pricing, where Uber charged riders more for peak times and passed some of that premium onto drivers. But now Uber trumpets a custom pricing algorithm that is the inverse of its driver payment system, calculating riders' willingness to pay and repricing every ride based on how desperate they think you are.

This pricing is a per se antitrust violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act, America's original antitrust law. That's important because Sherman 2 is one of the few antitrust laws that we never stopped enforcing, unlike the laws banning predator pricing:

https://ilr.law.uiowa.edu/sites/ilr.law.uiowa.edu/files/2023-02/Woodcock.pdf

Uber claims an 11% margin improvement. 6-7% of that comes from algorithmic price discrimination and service cutbacks, letting it take 29% of every dollar the driver earns (up from 22%). Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi himself says that this is as high as the take can get – over 30%, and drivers will delete the app.

Uber's food delivery service – a baling wire-and-spit Frankenstein's monster of several food apps it bought and glued together – is a loser even by the standards of the sector, which is unprofitable as a whole and experiencing an unbroken slide of declining demand.

Put it all together and you get a picture of the kind of taxi company Uber really is: one that charges more than traditional cabs, pays drivers less, and has fewer cars on the road at times of peak demand, especially in the neighborhoods that traditional taxis had always underserved. In other words, Uber has broken every one of its promises.

We replaced the "evil taxi cartel" with an "evil taxi monopolist." And it's still losing money.

Even if Lyft goes under – as seems inevitable – Uber can't attain real profitability by scooping up its passengers and drivers. When you're losing money on every ride, you just can't make it up in volume.

Image: JERRYE AND ROY KLOTZ MD (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LA_BREA_TAR_PITS,_LOS_ANGELES.jpg

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

I’m kickstarting the audiobook for “The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation,” a Big Tech disassembly manual to disenshittify the web and bring back the old, good internet. It’s a DRM-free book, which means Audible won’t carry it, so this crowdfunder is essential. Back now to get the audio, Verso hardcover and ebook:

http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/09/accounting-gimmicks/#unter

Image: JERRYE AND ROY KLOTZ MD (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LA_BREA_TAR_PITS,_LOS_ANGELES.jpg

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

[24kmar]

𝐁𝐄𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐄𝐑! 𝐂𝐇𝐑𝐈𝐒' 𝐁𝐔𝐍𝐍𝐘 𝐇𝐂𝐒

🎀18+ MDNI🎀

☆Def shotguns with you when smoking. The buzz of the weed and anticipation of your lips not quite touching as he blows smoke into your mouth, it makes his brain go brrr.

☆only rolls for you using cherry rolling papers, he cant have his pretty girl using anything but the best

☆Hates taking you on deals. Hates it when the guys gawk at you. I mean how could they not with you looking like the prettiest pinup doll

☆Loves dressing you up and picking out your clothes

☆also loves tying bows in your hair

☆taking you shopping is a MUSTT

☆loves buying you stuff, knowing he can always take care of you and give his favorite girl what she needs

☆def smokes while fucking you, hence the shotgunning. The way you feel and the high the weed gives him is unmatched

☆got hard as a rock when you asked if you could tie a bow on it

☆bows on everthing, wad of cash? Bow on it, his bicep? Bow on it, his dic-

☆takes you EVERYWHERE, he deals with some bad people so he doesnt like leaving you by yourself

☆gets jealous sooo bad, like let a guy look at you a second too long and its going down

☆saves up money to eventually buy a place for the both of you

☆late night drives when he needs a stress reliever (road head + fucking in the car while its raining)

☆always sitting in his lap (like a bunny)

☆plans to spend the rest of his life with you

☆LOVE LOVE LOVES when you give him hickey or leave scratch marks. Making it known his yours and vice versa. Like people to know whos making you feel good.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk 🩷🤭

[johnpricelover2011]

OBF!Price

IM BACK FROM THE DEAD (My spelling isn't, I misspelled back 7 times) so here's more obf!Price but a bit nsfw <3

CW: NSFW, MDNI, age gap, older Price, Price being lowkey a sugar daddy.

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☆ Price who's a veteran at this point and you who's probably in your third year of university.

☆ Imagine meeting him at a bar while you're drowning your sorrows because you can't pay your tuition anymore, and Price uses this as an excuse to get closer to you over a few months.

☆ You're a few thousand short on cash for your tuition? That's okay! That's what friends are for :)

☆ You just went through a break up? Don't worry! He's here to fuck comfort you back into your happy state!

☆ Man's SET on eventually putting a pretty diamond on your pretty fingers. Maybe even giving you a kid or two... Okay, maybe four or five.. Or six.. Maybe seven.. Listen, he just wants you to have his babies okay?

☆ After you start dating, he's buying you pretty lingerie sets only for him to see (and to rip off within a few hours), paying for your whole tuition at this point, even buying you your dream wardrobe..! And a car.. And maybe a penthouse for you to share.. And he's already picked out a pretty diamond ring for you, he's just waiting <3

☆ After a long day of him tending to things around the house while you use your pretty little head, he's so pent up :( Sit still and let him cum in your mouth a few times, okay?

☆ Eventually when he proposes after you graduate, he's already working hard to knock you up. But he's a little older, and he swears he's fertile! Just hold still with your legs up to your ears, and he swears he'll give you a baby!

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I need him so bad it's not funny anymore.

Tags: @koolforthesummer