#getting absolutely trashed in reviews

[eurofox]

Seems my manager's ingenious plan of hiring almost no staff staff, having zero training and cutting hours on the weekends when we're busy as fuck to avoid paying the extra few dollars in labour might not be paying off

[bethlammen]

Tag rant

[eureka-its-zico]

Residuals

Ongoing Series

Synopsis: You and Robby spent seven long years together until the day it ended. You’ve done your best to create space; to become invisible. You can’t miss what you don’t see. Unfortunately, the universe (Gloria and the Board of Directors) seemed to have missed the memo.

Pairing: Michael ‘Robby’ Robinavitch x Reader

Genre: Established previous relationship, slight age gap (by about 15 years give or take), a little bit of tension mixed in with a little bit of hate yearning, cause she’s a saucy angsty fic ok

A/N: So, I kept telling myself I wasn’t going to do this, but honestly, I’m such a sl*t for Noah Wyle and older men. I also kept running into there being just hardly any fics in general for this amazing show and so…here I am. Attempting to create my version with an OC that does have a last name (it's for the doctor purposes but also I hate that whole y/n, y/l/n stuff, ok? It just throws my ass off and throws me out of a story) and follows along with the episodes of the show. Idk how this will go or be received but I’m here wrecking myself. Much Love

Shout out to @viridian-dagger for looking this over for me and hyping me up when I feel like my shit is trash. I Love you. Also, thanks to @strangergraphics for the cute little divider.

Word Count: 3259

Next I

7:00 AM

“No, absolutely not. Ask someone else.”

The break room was the perfect place for Gloria’s early morning ambush. You’d barely pushed in the numbers on the keypad, the door swinging open when your gaze homed in on her position leaning against the small kitchenette. The words blurted out from a place deeply seeded in not being ready for her or the administration's early morning bullshit. You hadn’t even got to enjoy your coffee yet. 

You’d turned on your heel and raced back out the door in what could’ve been record time. Your hand tried to steady the sloshing of your coffee as you could feel Gloria hot on your heels. 

“You don’t even know what I was going to ask, Dr. Fullerton.”

“You’re right - I don’t. However, seeing you this early, Gloria is not a good omen for starting my day.”

There was nowhere in the entire trauma center that you could go to get away from her and, knowing Gloria, she wasn’t going to make it easy for you. Realistically, you understood that Gloria was just another cog in the corporate machine. She rode your ass - and every other medical professional in the system from doctors during residency to technicians and CNAs - because it’s what the big bad CEOs demanded. The hospital functioned on efficiency facilitated by money and if too many bad Yelp reviews arrived it systematically hurt numbers. Bad numbers equaled a bad flow of funds. 

Gloria no doubt listened to her bosses during an early morning meeting where they rattled off complaint after complaint that dealt with a showcase of data and numbers. Both, of which, the board constantly claimed, showed the true efficiency of the hospital - not the life-saving measures taken to keep people alive. No doubt its main focus rested on the emergency department downstairs, because, once again, Yelp reviews of massive wait times and poor satisfaction scores outweighed the expertise of attending doctors. 

You didn’t envy Gloria’s position of being hated for being said cog in the corporate machine. Her job focused on relaying the demands from the top. Gloria was forever the bad guy to staff whenever they noticed her no-nonsense demeanor coming towards them. It was hard to be sympathetic to her plight when she followed you around like a bloodhound. The woman was relentless.

“The board would like to see if applying additional support down in the emergency department would help alleviate time issues that are keeping patient satisfaction at a tremendous low.” 

Absolutely not. 

You would rather chew your arm off than be sent down there. Your retreat came to a halt as you turned to face her. There weren't too many places inside the hospital you could go, and you were willing to bet Gloria was willing to follow you anywhere until you conceded. Plus, you came to a full stop in front of the elevator, and no matter how much you’d like to magically teleport yourself inside of it, unfortunately, you were mortal and would just have to wait.

Gloria’s hands were interlocked in front of her middle - eyes drilling miniature holes in you that not that long ago used to make you squirm. That was back when you were just starting your internship - eager back then to make a great first impression. Terrified of being reprimanded for making an unpopular decision or speaking your mind. 

“Gloria, I’m in family medicine.”

“Last time I checked you started in the emergency department and helped out in intensive care.”

“Yes, great memory, Gloria. If you also recall, I moved to family medicine where I’ve been for the last couple of years.”

The transfer to family medicine was a hard pill to swallow. You’d grown accustomed to the craziness of the ER. The constant adrenaline rush that required you to always bring your A game. Where the anxiety was at an all-time maxed-out high where a simple mistake cost lives but a quick deduction could save them. Once you’d moved upstairs to help out Dr. Nave’s family practice, it’d been a huge adjustment. Eventually, once your body got used to the monotony of the days, you found you were finally able to sleep. To be semi-normal. 

There was no denying, however, that you left something important behind in The Pitt. Something you hoped you could leave there inside its sterile rooms and the overwhelming storm of emotions.  

“I’m not asking you to go back down there to answer every trauma call. I’m asking you to take your family medicine knowledge downstairs to help assess triage for minor issues -“

“You mean people who come in for chest colds,” you interrupted. 

“ - and help the senior doctors clear out these cases so they can focus on more immediate health care concerns.”

Gloria’s words crushed your small outburst and bore down on your shoulders, keeping you from trying to move away. Her hands were now connected at her elbows, which was her silent way of informing you she didn’t appreciate you trying to talk over her. That no would never be an acceptable answer. 

You felt the drag of your teeth against your cheek. The temptation to bite down to relieve your growing irritation was overwhelming but futile. No matter what argument you came up with, you knew Gloria was here to make sure what the board requested was done. 

Instead of bloodshed, you eased your frustration out inch by inch through your nose. Your eyes scanned over the shitty egg wash walls while you debated all of your available options, which were a big fat none. 

“How long?”

Gloria didn’t need clarification on what you were asking. The way she practically preened like a peacock let you know she knew she’d won. 

“As long as the board requires it.”

“I’ll do it just for today,” you interjected, ignoring her raised brow. “Today you can see if pulling me from Nave’s floor makes your charts or numbers move or whatever data it is you all look at. If it does nothing, today is my first and last day going down.”

Gloria considered your counterargument. The sharpness in her eyes brightened; the terms of this new agreement were revised without you knowing the new verbiage. The only thing you were sure of was that you could count on this small verbal agreement being drawn out in document form for you to sign later.  

“Alright, Dr. Fullerton. You’ve got a deal. I’m sure the board will agree. Now come on. If we walk down fast enough maybe, you’ll make it in time for shift change.”

She didn’t wait to see if you were going to follow. Why would she when Gloria knew very well you weren’t going to fight it, especially when the main reason for your denial currently wouldn’t be working today. 

Anniversaries were never really Robby’s thing.

You would never admit it, but your anxiety was fifteen feet away from grabbing you in a chokehold. 

Get a fucking grip.

It had been two years since you left the ER. Two years since Robby and you had called time on seven years together. Seven years of memories filled with all the good and bad, co-parenting Jake, and keeping your relationship secret until it wasn’t. The early years of walking to work together with quick kisses goodbye before you split up just before you turned onto the final street to the hospital. The both of you choose different entrances each time to try and not raise suspicion. 

It took Dana four days to figure out the two of you were together.

Dana was perceptive like that. Hell, she’d been the angel on your shoulder whispering hints that Robby just might like you as much as you liked him. 

“I told him to ask you out to dinner. He thinks you’ll say no.” “If he did ask, I should say no,” you countered.  Your eyes struggle to stay trained on the chart in front of you.  “Yeah, but I know you’ll say yes.” “And what makes you so sure about that, Dana?” “Because if you don’t stop giving each other googly eyes from across my nursing station I’m going to throttle you both.”

Robby had only been divorced from his wife for less than a year. You’d overheard snippets of conversations between Robby and Abbot, Dana, or Adamson about custody battles and visitations. The last thing you wanted to do was be a possible added stress to an already stressful situation. At least, that was the bullshit you kept telling yourself to try and stay away.

But Dana was right (she usually was, but you’d never tell her that). 

You couldn’t pinpoint a specific time when things started to change between the two of you. The coffee breaks on the roof looking out over the top of Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center. The jokes that caused smiles to crest over his face, rivaled the glow from the sun's early morning rays. He told you later, in the med closet, how the sound of your laughter was something he looked forward to hearing; the warmth of it was enough to keep helping him make it through his shift. A sound he began to crave in the quiet corners of his home. You could still remember the phone calls and early texts. The caution and heavy breaths that harbored a desire that longed to reach out and consume the other. The two of you were equally afraid to be the one to take that first step over the bounds of professionalism. 

The two of you knew the dangers of playing with lingering touches and knowing glances. The way you both acted like you wouldn’t ultimately end up burned. You could still recall the way he’d traced his thumb across your lips. The possessive way his eyes followed the motion made the desire for him to close that space, to claim you, to take you, threatened to make you lose all self-control.

Eventually, you stopped listening to the warning signs of all the what ifs; of being the intern and worrying about how it would make you look. When Robby asked you out on that date you didn’t hesitate to say yes.

You didn’t think it was possible to fall in love with someone the way you did with Robby. He was so attentive; he was thoughtful in the most pragmatic ways - packing extra scrubs in your pack. Teaching you how to fish and the differences between the lures and bait. The way he took the time to explain the objects he carved from wood and how much pressure was necessary to create the grooves and pattern. The way his voice would sound as he read to you; the soothing vibrations of his baritone the safest place you could be with his fingers in your hair.

He carved out a life that made it possible for all three of you to co-exist. His son, Jake, becomes the deepest interwoven part of your life you never realized was missing. On days Robby had him, you planned camping trips up in the mountains to hike and fish. To go on museum trips into Jake’s latest hobbies with the two of you making sure to have his game day off to cheer embarrassingly loud for him in the stands. The shared looks of pain from beside each other on the couch while Jake practiced his clarinet upstairs when he thought he wanted to be in the school band. You got lost in furniture manuals, cooking dinners that ended a few times with questionable outcomes, and attempting to bake tarts and pies that led to a one-time usage of the fire extinguisher. The euphoria of loving someone and being loved so fiercely in return made the years feel weightless, and when Robby finally proposed it made so much sense to say yes. 

And COVID happened. 

The quarantine and the endless amounts of patients that just kept coming - that felt like, no matter what you did, they couldn’t be saved. Family and friends, you both knew were ravaged by the infection. There were no answers. No medical treatments that you knew for sure would be what would save them. It didn’t discriminate and took lives without mercy. You just came to work every day, exhausted, and fighting to do what you could to heal those you could. You showed up every day for your patients.

Then Adamson passed. 

There was no denying Robby blamed himself for what occurred with his mentor. It didn’t matter what you said. What Dana, Abbot, or anyone else said. The guilt weighed down on his conscience, pressed so violently, that eventually, Robby cracked under the strain. His grief was all-encompassing and the added loss that should’ve been experienced together, was left for only you to bear - widening the gap between you until it became a chasm. 

The last time you’d seen Robby he’d been leaving to go to work. The latest fight - the endless bitter silences that stretched on - tore at the fabric of your being. Fractured pieces you didn’t know how to pick up on your own no longer felt worth fighting for. So, you decided to remove yourself from the equation. 

When Robby came home from work that night you were already gone. Your engagement ring and house key sitting on a note that asked him not to contact you. He’d made it clear enough that there was no place for you in the new person that he was becoming - made it clear that your grief would be processed alone. 

And so that was how you ended up transferring to family medicine. How you made sure to steer clear of all the places Robby was known to frequent. You ignored, as politely as you could, texts from Dana. Refused to talk about him in a work capacity or to close friends. 

The truth was that you were still in love with Robby after all this time. The idea that someone else could ever make you feel as whole - as complete - didn’t exist. So, yes, you only agreed to come back down to the emergency department, where it all started, because you comfortably knew he wouldn’t be here. Dana, you could deal with her by using a little recon - you just needed to stay two steps ahead of her. Langdon was easier to deal with because his loyalty to Robby was absolute, which made you public enemy number one. For you, that meant he’d stay away from you on principle. 

You were in the middle of shoving down the growing dread that was threatening to spill out of you when you came around the north hall triage. It was morning rounds. It was the attending's job to give the early morning pep-talk, debrief about patients who came in last shift, and go over the board. What you found waiting for you was what looked very much like a fresh batch of interns and/or med students taking instructions from a doctor you knew painfully well. One that made you question if it was too late to back out and turn tail and run. 

“Oh, shit.” Dana huffed the words under her breath, but Robby caught them. The way each one dripped in a warning he should’ve heeded. “Gloria -” 

It didn’t surprise him to hear she was here. He’d been warned by Dana but what Robby hadn’t expected was to see you - you - standing beside her. 

You who he thought completely disappeared to the point you’d quit the hospital. You, who he thought of in the most inconvenient of times, who haunted him, and you who he wanted to fucking scream and curse at you but also ask how the fuck you’re doing because Jesus Christ…

He didn’t need this shit today.

At least you had the decency to look as uncomfortable as he felt.

“Good morning, Dr. Robby. I’m aware you and most of your emergency department know Dr. Fullerton. She used to work down here previously a few years back.”

“You could say that again,” Langdon muttered.

“I’m sorry why are you bringing a random fucking doctor down into The Pitt?”

The annoyance contrasted with the peaceful professionalism Gloria tried to hold together. But if she was going to bring random doctors down here, God, bring you fucking down here, he was damn sure going to make her work for it. Inch by irritating inch.

“We both know that Dr. Fullerton is not a hospital resident or an attending transfer. As previously stated, she worked down here in this very ED, with you no less. She also holds one of the highest Press Ganey scores in this hospital.”

“I’m sure she’s very proud,” his words ground out like he’d swallowed gravel.

Gloria shot him a warning look as she continued, “-Something I figure she could teach the new students and old physicians here. I’m bringing her down to assist Dr. McKay today in triage.”

“Let me guess - this either has to deal with the hospital's numbers or lack of working bodies down here. Am I right?”

“What a fantastic guess, Robby. It does indeed have to do with the hospitals' numbers and poor patient output. Based on those numbers alone today, if it shows Dr. Fullerton’s presence helps patient satisfaction go up and wait times decrease - even in the slightest - she’ll be staying here. Permanently.”

His jaw ticked violently. He wanted to bristle and tell her where to stick her metrics and numbers. To tell Gloria to get you the fuck out of his Pitt. Somewhere in his brain, his common sense slowly won out. It didn’t matter how much of a fit he threw; Gloria had every intention of making you stay. Down here. With him. 

Robby also knew, realistically, that the chances of you driving up productivity were high. You were a damn good doctor. One of the best. Adamson had made sure. Christ, Robby himself made sure. Fuck. The edges of his vision were beginning to tighten in glaring white; he needed to get away before he succumbed to a panic attack. 

He should’ve kept looking away, but he was fighting a losing battle trying to keep his eyes away from you. It’d been nearly two years since he came home to find you gone. Two years for him to think of the hundreds of thousands of questions that he would demand for you to answer if he ever saw you again. All those months of burying it all down, telling himself he got what he wanted, only for it to be dredged up, and on a day like today, he was already close to his breaking point.

You looked good. Great, even. Just as gorgeous as the first day he’d met you and begrudgingly, for a split second, he wondered how you saw him. If you were equally as fucked as he was.

“Make sure she stays with you up in triage, Dr. McKay. I don’t want to see her in my red zone.”

He didn’t wait to hear confirmation from Gloria or McKay. He didn’t bother to see if you understood he meant every word he said. You had no place down here. Robby needed to start his shift - to start the normalcy of seeing patients - before he completely forgot why he chose to come into work today. 

He needed to get away before all his resolve shattered. The easiest way to keep himself whole was to begin his day. To do his rounds and when he passed you, he did his best to pretend you didn’t even exist.

___________

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this and I hope you enjoyed it! Reblogs and comments are always appreciated! Much love.

[jeanjauthor]

They are going to try to push increasingly conservative ideology onto everyone through entertainment media. Stories in movies & shows are going to promote the "real man" and "submissive good woman" tropes.

Push back.

Refuse to see such things.

Post bad reviews fo such things.

Refuse to give advertisers revenue for pairing with all that.

We still control one thing in this world:

WE do all the work, so WE generate all the money.

Take control of what is getting watched. Take control of what is getting funded by us watching it. Absolutely tank the ratings on things that promote authoritarianism, neoconservatism, and obedience to the oppressors.

Understand that we can still control the narratives. Not just as producers, but as consumers.

Even if you only have a little bit of money, what you do with it matters to the oligarchs. The entertainment industry is pretty powerful, and they--above all other businesses--know to the bone that they have to please us, their customers.

Trash any and all media efforts to paint neoconservative authoritarianism and toxic patriarchy as "desirable."

[blues-valentine]

I’m not surprised a movie as terrible as Emilia Perez is being awarded by mostly white audiences and white film critics, it gives them exactly what they want on how they perceive Mexico. A French man had not business doing this movie. Particularly when it admitted not to feel the need to do research since he already knew “enough” hence why the movie is filled with so many harmful stereotypes. And heavy on how the casting director insinuated there wasn’t good Mexican actors to star in this movie outside of the half white/American ones it got for this film. The movie is absolutely trash from acting to script. Not wonder they released the movie in European countries first before going into Mexico - they knew the reception it was gonna get from Latin countries and didn’t want the bad reviews and opinions to affect their award buzz - and it worked. The award shows will never convince me it was a good movie with performances worthy of acclaim. The movie was at best another over-dramatic romanticization musical of cartel violence and we were supposed to think it was progressive because of the main character. Hopefully Fernanda Torres’ win allows I’m Still Here to get a bigger leap into that Best Foreign Film win at the Oscars. The rightful Latin representation.

[nocturnebite]

Clickbait [+..••]

(is this real) - gamer! Ni-ki x fem! reader

synopsis: He wasn’t supposed to swipe back. But now you’re trading late-night calls with a too-perfect gamer, and it feels real—until his past comes crashing in. Was he genuine… or just another kind of clickbait? fic notes: dating apps... ew || banter || mild trust issues || fluff :3 wc: 4.87k

ash's notes: this idea has been in my head for so long and i really wanted to write it and now i'm finally done! i've got so many drafts i need to post it's unreal. but i hope you enjoy this little story :3 !!

“Okay, spill. How was it?”

You blink at your friend, the flickering glow of the café’s fairy lights reflecting in her eyes as she leans forward, resting her chin on her palm like she’s about to hear the juiciest gossip of the year. The table between you smells of burnt caramel and overpriced matcha, and you’ve barely touched your drink. You draw a slow breath, the kind that tastes like disappointment, and offer a flat smile.

“Just more clickbait,” you say.

Your friend groans like it physically hurts her. “No way.”

You nod, slouching in your chair as if gravity itself has finally gotten too heavy to resist. “He said he was six feet. He was five-seven, max. His pictures were from, like, 2018. And he talked about crypto for an hour straight. I didn’t even know people still did that.”

She winces. “Oof.”

You sigh again, softer this time, letting the frustration settle in your chest. “I’m so tired of people pretending to be someone they’re not. I get it—it’s a dating app. Everyone's performing. But why does it feel like I’m the only one actually showing up as me?”

Your friend plays with her straw, thoughtful. “So... you’re giving up?”

You shrug. “I think I’ve officially retired. I’ll knit. Adopt a cat. Maybe start writing angry Yelp reviews.”

“Oh, come on.” She bumps your arm. “You can’t just quit. I had a good date last week, remember? It’s not all trash.”

“Yeah, and I’m thrilled for you,” you say honestly. “But you’re, like, the one-in-a-million success story they use in the ads. I’m the cautionary tale.”

“Stop it,” she says, dragging out the last word like a scolding mom. “You’re gorgeous, funny, smart. You deserve something good.”

You smile, a bit tired around the edges, and tilt your head. “Tell that to the last guy who said ‘no thoughts, just vibes’ on his profile.”

She groans and grabs your phone from the table. “Let’s just look, okay? You don’t have to marry anyone tonight.”

You eye her skeptically. “You’re relentless.”

“And you’re tragic. Come on.”

You sigh but relent, taking the phone back. The app lights up like a slot machine as you open it. Familiar profiles slide past your thumb: shirtless mirror selfies, vague bios with gym stats, a suspicious number of “entrepreneurs.”

Some match with you. You don’t swipe back. Some are clearly bots, or worse—people who look like they borrowed someone else’s face.

And then you see him.

Your thumb freezes.

Tall. Jet-black hair, slightly tousled like he just got up from a gaming chair but still looks model-ready. Hooded eyes. Full lips. That smirk—cocky, unreadable, like he knows something you don’t.

“Holy—” your friend leans over the screen. “Swipe. Now.”

“No,” you say immediately, locking the phone like it just burned you. “Absolutely not. He’s definitely fake.”

“Are you kidding me? That man looks like a Greek god and you’re not even curious?”

“He looks like trouble,” you mutter. “He’s hot. He knows it. Probably a Twitch streamer with a Discord full of girls who call him ‘daddy.’ I’m not signing up for that.”

Your friend laughs so hard she nearly spills her drink. “You don’t know that.”

“I do,” you insist, though your heart is pounding for reasons you can’t explain. “It’s written all over his face.”

“But what if it’s not? What if—plot twist—he’s the one that breaks the pattern?”

You hesitate.

“Just swipe,” she pleads. “Worst case, you don’t match and never see him again. Best case…”

You shake your head, but you can already feel yourself giving in. Still, before you can decide, your friend snatches the phone and swipes right with a dramatic flourish.

You gape at her. “Did you just—?!”

“No match,” she says, showing you the screen. “Happy?”

You exhale, weirdly deflated. “Honestly? Yeah. I mean, he’s probably got a million people trying to match with him.”

“Maybe. Or maybe it just wasn’t your moment.”

You nod, lips pressed together as you slide your phone into your bag. “Well, I’m done for the night. I’m going home, washing my face, and watching something stupid.”

She stands with you, grinning. “Good. You deserve to turn your brain off. But hey…” she pauses, her smile softening. “Don’t give up completely, okay? I’ve got a good feeling.”

You roll your eyes but give her a hug goodbye.

- - - - - - - - - - - - 

That night, you toss your keys onto your desk, the screen of your phone lighting up just as you’re about to plug it in.

1 New Message - [Tinder]

You frown, opening it automatically, expecting another “hey cutie” from someone who can’t spell your name right.

But the screen shows something else entirely.

You matched with Riki.

Your heart stops.

Your hands go cold.

You blink at the message, then again—just to make sure your eyes aren’t playing tricks.

The same face. The same smirk. The guy who was too good to be true…

Matched with you.

- - - - - - - - - - - - 

You don’t open the message right away.

You tell yourself it’s because you’re busy—brushing your teeth, feeding the dog, picking at dinner you don’t even taste—but deep down, you know it’s because you’re scared.

You already decided not to get your hopes up again. You’ve already been down this road before—the one where a hot guy matches, flirts, builds you up like you’re the only girl on earth, only to ghost you the second things feel real.

Still.

You tap the app. His message is waiting.

Riki: Thought I was imagining things for a sec. Didn’t expect the girl with the death-glare profile pic to swipe back 😅

Your nose scrunches. Death glare?

You flip to your own profile, stare at the photo your friend picked—half-smiling, eyes a little dead inside.

Okay, fair.

You: Yeah well. Didn’t expect the cocky gamer guy to swipe either. So I guess we’re both glitching tonight. Riki: I’m not cocky. I’m just... factually confident. And good with my thumbs.

You roll your eyes and try not to smile. You fail.

You: That’s exactly something a cocky guy would say. Riki: Damn. She’s clever too. I’m in trouble.

You don’t respond right away. Not because you don’t want to—but because something in your chest tightens at how easy it is. The flow. The banter. Like slipping into an old sweater you forgot still fit.

And somehow, it stays like that.

No “wyd” texts. No pressure. Just long, meandering conversations that start late and end later. You find out he streams sometimes, but only for fun. He has a little sister he’s protective over. He learned to cook because his mom works nights. His favorite genre is horror, but he’s a total baby when it comes to jump scares.

He doesn’t ask for selfies. Doesn’t hint at anything sketchy. In fact, half the time it feels like he genuinely just wants someone to talk to.

Which is kind of nice.

It turns into a rhythm: He messages. You reply. You laugh. You tease. You talk until your phone is warm in your hand and your eyes sting from lack of sleep.

Riki: You’re fun. You: You’re not what I expected. Riki: That’s either the best compliment or a red flag in disguise. You: I’ll let you know which later.

It’s two weeks in when he says it.

You’re half-asleep, curled in bed, squinting at his message through one heavy eyelid.

Riki: Random idea You should come visit sometime

You blink. Sit up a little.

You: …what? Riki: Like, no pressure. Just throwing it out there. I’ll even pay for the flight if it makes it easier.

You stare at your screen like it just called you by your middle name.

You: Uhh. Red flag alert. Guy offering to pay for your flight? That’s how true crime documentaries start. Riki: Rude. I don’t even own duct tape. You: That’s exactly what someone with duct tape would say. Riki: Touché.

You toss your phone onto the bed, pull the blanket over your face, and scream into it.

Then obviously you FaceTime your best friend.

- - - - - - - - - - - - 

“You’re being dramatic,” she says, chewing a mouthful of chips. “You two have been talking nonstop for, what, three weeks?”

“Two and a half.”

“Exactly. That’s like, seven months in internet time. Honestly, if you were dating IRL, people would be asking when the wedding is.”

You throw your head back with a groan. “It’s not like that. We’re just… friends. Kind of. With... light sarcasm and subtle tension.”

“So... dating.”

“NO!”

She levels you with a look. “You like him.”

“I like the version of him that lives in my phone. That doesn’t mean he’s real.”

“Then FaceTime him.”

You blink. “What?”

“If you’re nervous he’s not who he says he is, video chat. If he’s a catfish, boom—case closed. If he’s real... then you’ll know.”

You sit with that for a second.

Then you do it.

- - - - - - - - - - - - 

The first FaceTime is awkward in a cute way. He’s lounging in a hoodie with messy hair and a controller in his lap. You’re in your worst pajama shirt, already regretting not putting on concealer.

But he smiles when he sees you—no hesitation, no filters, no pause.

“Yo,” he says like it’s no big deal.

“You’re real,” you blurt before you can stop yourself.

He laughs. “That’s what I was gonna say.”

- - - - - - - - - - - - 

One call turns into two.

Two turns into three.

Three turns into four—until it’s a quiet comfort, this unspoken ritual of being online together, even when you’re not talking.

You study. He games. Sometimes he curses under his breath. Sometimes you hum without realizing it. Neither of you hangs up first.

The screen just stays on.

And somewhere between late-night calls and sleepy “goodnights,” it stops feeling like a maybe.

It starts to feel like something real.

One night, while adjusting his mic and opening some game you don’t recognize, he says it again:

“You should come visit.”

This time, it sounds less like a joke.

And more like a hope.

- - - - - - - - - - - - 

“You should come visit.”

It’s not the first time he’s said it. 

But this time… it’s different.

His voice is soft through your laptop speaker, his hoodie bunched up around his elbows as he clicks through some loading screen. You’re lying sideways on your bed, textbooks open, highlighter uncapped, but your focus vanished the second he said those four words.

You don’t answer right away. Just chew your lip and stare at the screen where he’s pretending not to look at you.

“That’s like the fifth time you’ve asked”

“I’m serious,” he says after a beat. “I mean… if you want to.”

There’s that voice again. Casual, light, no pressure. Like he’s talking about ordering takeout, not asking you to fly across the country and see if he’s actually the person you’ve been falling asleep on FaceTime with every night.

You close your textbook.

“Riki.”

He glances over. The game’s paused now. You can see the flicker of the screenlight reflected in his cheekbones. He looks tired. Warm. Real.

“Yeah?”

“You’re not like… secretly plotting to harvest my organs, right?”

He snorts. “I literally stream Minecraft, not organ trafficking.”

“Not a convincing alibi.”

He grins, then sobers. “I get it. It’s a big ask. But I meant it when I said I’d help. I’d book the flight. You’d stay at a hotel if you want, no pressure. I wouldn’t be weird.”

“That’s what all the weird ones say.”

“Okay,” he says, deadpan. “I’d be only a little weird. Like, manageable-weird. Charming-weird.”

You laugh, and that’s the problem.

Because you like him. More than you meant to.

You liked the idea of him at first. A distraction. A match your friend forced. But now… it’s not just the banter or the voice you’ve memorized or the ridiculous way he says “dude” when he’s excited.

It’s how he makes you feel like the only person in the room—even through a screen.

And that? That’s dangerous.

- - - - - - - - - - - - 

The next day, you bring it up to your best friend over lunch.

Her response is immediate: “You have to go.”

You blink. “Okay, but what if he’s not—”

“You FaceTime him literally every night.”

“What if he’s different in person?”

“He watches K-dramas and talks to your dog through the phone. You already know him better than half the guys you’ve actually dated.”

You stare at your untouched sandwich.

“I just…” You swallow. “What if I go and it ruins it?”

She’s quiet for once.

Then: “What if you don’t… and it ruins you?”

- - - - - - - - - - - - 

That night, you don’t say yes.

You say, “I’m thinking about it.”

You say, “It’s a maybe.”

And he doesn’t push.

Instead, he smiles at you—gentle and slow, like he knows you’re a scared thing on the edge of something, and he’s not going to rush you off it.

“I can wait,” he says simply.

You believe him.

- - - - - - - - - - - - 

The next week, something shifts.

Not in a dramatic way—no confessions, no intense moment of clarity—but in all the quiet ways that matter more.

You fall asleep on call, and he whispers, “Goodnight,” like a secret. You wake up to a message from him with a screenshot of a dumb meme he swears “just felt like you.” He starts calling you by your name more, not just your username.

One night, in the middle of a game, he glances at his screen and says, out of nowhere: “Do you always look at me like that?”

You blink. “Like what?”

“Like you’re trying not to.”

You don’t have an answer.

So you call again. And again.

By the time it’s the sixth night in a row, you’re not even nervous anymore. You’re just… used to it. Comfortable. You study, he plays. You breathe. He listens.

Sometimes you don’t talk for twenty minutes.

And it feels like home.

That night, he says it again—quieter this time.

“You should come visit.”

And this time… You don’t say no.

You just look at him—pixelated and beautiful—and whisper, “Maybe.”

And he smiles like maybe is everything.

- - - - - - - - - - - - 

It starts with a ticket in your inbox.

No subject line. No message. Just an email that reads:

“Your flight to Seoul has been confirmed.”

You blink.

Then your phone buzzes.

Riki: Don’t panic. You can still say no. I’ll cancel it in a second if you’re uncomfortable. Just… wanted to make it real. In case you say yes.

Your heart is doing weird things.

You stare at the screen, your thumb hovering over the keyboard, your thoughts a loud chorus of what ifs and you’re crazy and this boy could be everything or nothing or both.

You: Give me three days. If I don’t back out by then… I’ll go.

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

You don’t back out.

Your friend screams when you tell her. She helps you pack—overpacks, really—like you’re heading into battle instead of a long weekend. She even shoves a tiny pink can of pepper spray in your purse “just in case he’s secretly a weirdo.”

(You both know he’s not. But still. Pepper spray is ✨ aesthetic ✨.)

The night before the flight, you barely sleep. You FaceTime Riki and end up playing “21 questions” until 2am, your voices slow and sleepy.

“What if it’s weird?” you ask.

“What if it’s not?” he replies.

You hate that that makes you smile.

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

At the airport, your nerves riot inside you. The terminal smells like pretzels and nerves and new beginnings.

By the time the plane lands, your hands are cold and your thoughts are loud.

You look around baggage claim, eyes darting.

Then—you see him.

He’s leaning against a pillar, hoodie half-zipped, hair tucked under a black cap. There’s a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He’s scrolling his phone, one hand in his pocket.

He doesn’t see you yet.

And in that second, you think—he looks like trouble. But the good kind.

Then he looks up.

And smiles.

Not the polite kind. Not the awkward oh-hi-nice-to-meet-you kind.

The I know you already kind.

And just like that— You’re not nervous anymore.

The first five minutes are weird.

Of course they are.

You both talk too fast. Or not at all. He goes in for a hug, and you kind of flinch, so he backs off and jokes, “Guess I deserved that.” And you say, “No, I’m just—processing,” and then neither of you talk for five minutes straight in the car.

But then he says, “You hungry?” And you say, “Always.”

And suddenly… you’re fine again.

The first night is a blur of fast food eaten in his car, music playing low, and a midnight walk through a neighborhood you don’t know but don’t mind getting lost in.

At one point, he bumps his shoulder into yours and says, “You’re taller than I expected.”

You deadpan, “You’re not.”

He laughs so hard he nearly drops his drink.

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

The next day, you hang out at his place.

He’s more nervous than you’ve ever seen him—rambling about his cable setup, offering snacks every five seconds, adjusting his monitor like he’s auditioning for HGTV.

But you sit on his bed, cross-legged, and just watch.

And after a while, he calms down.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he mumbles.

You shrug. “You’re real.”

He gives you a look. “Still convinced I was a catfish?”

“No,” you say. “But this part still doesn’t feel real.”

He sits beside you. Not touching. Just close.

“Same.”

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

At night, you fall asleep on his couch watching him game—your legs draped over his lap, your heart refusing to chill out. You pretend to be tired just to stay where you are.

He doesn’t move.

Just shifts the blanket higher over your knees, one hand resting lightly on your shin. You catch him glance at you once. Twice.

But he never says what you both know.

Not yet.

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

And then—on the last night—you’re both lying side by side, watching some movie neither of you are really paying attention to. His fingers are brushing against yours on the bedspread. Barely. But enough.

He turns his head. “Hey.”

You look at him.

He looks nervous.

“Do you ever think… if we’d met in person first, it wouldn’t have worked?”

You blink. “Why?”

“I think I needed to know you before I liked you. Like, for real. The real you.”

You smile. “I was a mess when we met.”

He laughs. “You still are.”

You kick his leg. “Hey.”

He looks at you then—really looks.

“Still the best kind of mess I’ve ever met.”

Your breath catches.

But before either of you can say anything else—your phone buzzes. Loud. Jarring.

You frown and reach for it, expecting your friend checking in.

It’s not.

It’s a direct message request.

From someone you don’t recognize.

And it says:

“You think you’re the only one he’s talking to?”

Your blood goes cold.

You look up.

And Riki—still smiling, still relaxed—doesn’t notice the shift in your face.

Yet.

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

You read the message again.

“You think you’re the only one he’s talking to?”

The screen blurs. Your chest tightens. The room—warm and dim and full of the scent of Riki’s hoodie you’ve been curled in—suddenly feels foreign. Hollow.

Riki says something beside you. A dumb joke. You don’t hear it.

“Hey.” His voice cuts through. “You okay?”

You lock your phone and force a smile. “Yeah. Just my friend checking in.”

A lie.

You’ve never lied to him before.

It feels worse than the message.

You try to ignore it. Brush it off. A troll. A bot. A jealous girl with no life. Whatever.

But the message festers.

The next day, you wake up to another.

“I hope he told you about me. Or about our FaceTimes.”

You don’t reply. You can’t.

You don’t know what to believe.

So instead, you test him.

“Hey,” you say casually, the next time you’re lying on the couch with him.

“Hmm?” he says, eyes on his screen.

“You ever… talk to other girls on here? Like, before me?”

He pauses. Glances at you. “You mean on Tinder?”

You shrug. “Or in general.”

He leans back. “I mean, yeah. Before you. But nothing like this. Nothing real.”

You nod. Try to smile. But the words loop in your head.

Before you. Before you. Before you.

But what if before never ended?

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

By the third message, it’s not subtle anymore.

“He sent me the same flight email. I still have it.” [Attached: a screenshot]

Same subject line. Same dates. Different name.

You feel sick.

You don’t want to accuse him. You don’t want to need to.

So you ask.

“Riki… have you ever done this before?”

He blinks. “Done what?”

“This. Flying someone out. Meeting people from the app.”

There’s a beat.

Then: “Why are you asking?”

He doesn’t deny it.

And that hurts more than any answer.

You go silent.

The car ride back to the hotel is heavy.

He notices. Of course he does.

“Okay,” he says, pulling into the parking lot. “What’s going on?”

You don’t look at him. “Just tired.”

“You’re lying.”

You snap. “So are you.”

He goes quiet.

The kind of quiet that confirms everything.

You swallow. “Someone messaged me. Said you were FaceTiming them. Said you flew them out. Same message. Same dates.”

His jaw tightens. “It’s not what you think.”

You laugh, sharp. “That’s funny, because it looks exactly like what I think.”

Then—softer: “I didn’t expect this to be perfect, Riki. I just didn’t want to be stupid for trusting you.”

He doesn’t say anything.

And that silence? It feels like betrayal.

You go inside the hotel alone.

The second the door closes behind you, you slide to the floor.

You don’t cry. Not yet. You’re not sure you’re allowed to. Not for someone who was never yours.

But your phone buzzes again.

Riki: I didn’t lie. Not about you. Can we talk?

And you don’t know if you’re ready.

But your heart?

It already misses him.

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

You don’t answer his messages.

Not at first.

Not because you want to punish him—but because you’re scared that if you open the door, you’ll let him talk you back into something that maybe wasn’t even real.

You need space. He gives it to you. For about twelve hours.

Then your phone rings.

It’s your friend.

“You need to check Twitter,” she says.

Your stomach drops. “What?”

“Just… look.”

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

It’s a clip.

From one of Riki’s streams.

He’s laughing in it, leaned back in his chair, wearing a hoodie you recognize because you wore it two nights ago.

One of his friends says something off-screen:

“So you’re just gonna disappear for four days and not explain why?”

Riki shrugs. “I’m flying someone out.”

“A girl?”

He grins. “The girl.”

The chat explodes. Emojis. Screaming.

His friend hoots. “You’re in love.”

Riki doesn’t deny it.

Just goes quiet for a second. Then says, low and sure,

“She’s different. You’ll see.”

You stare at the screen.

Your breath stutters.

You scroll down. The comments are a storm. Most of them are pure chaos and ship names and thirsty fans screaming “SOFT LAUNCH???”

But some…

Some are ugly.

And one account keeps showing up.

One you recognize from the message requests.

@ KikiLuvsRiki: don’t fall for his act. i used to be “different” too. he just wants content. @ KikiLuvsRiki: bet he sent her the same flight confirmation template he used last year LMFAO.

Your hands shake.

Then a post from her, timestamped four hours ago:

“Imagine thinking you’re special to someone who rehearsed the same lines with me. He just swapped the name.”

There’s a screenshot attached.

Of a flight confirmation email.

But it’s dated last year.

Same airline. Different destination. Different name.

But the same tone.

You click the profile.

Scroll.

And what you find?

It’s not a random hater.

It’s his ex.

That night, your phone rings again.

Riki.

You don’t want to answer.

You do anyway.

“I should’ve told you,” he says, voice low, rough. “I just didn’t think she’d find out. I didn’t think it would matter.”

You sit on the edge of the hotel bed, silent.

“I mentioned you on stream. I never do that. You know I don’t. And I didn’t even say your name—I was just… talking. I couldn’t help it. I was excited. I’m always careful, but this time I wasn’t.”

“Because of me?”

“Yeah,” he says, barely a whisper. “Because of you.”

Your heart twists.

“She saw the stream,” he adds. “And I guess she still had old screenshots or whatever. She’s not wrong—I flew her out once. A long time ago. We weren’t even a thing for more than a couple weeks, but she stuck around online. And when I stopped responding, she got weird.”

You exhale. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“I was scared you’d think I was doing the same thing again. That I was collecting girls off the internet and making them fall for me or something.”

“And aren’t you?” you ask, voice quiet.

Silence.

Then:

“No.” “I wasn’t trying with anyone else.” “I didn’t even plan to swipe on your profile. I saw you, and it just—hit me. Harder than I expected. You weren’t just pretty. You looked real. Like someone I could ruin myself for if I wasn’t careful.”

You bite your lip.

He continues. “I didn’t swipe right first. But when we matched… I knew. I’ve never been like this with anyone else. Not even her.”

Your chest aches.

“But I should’ve told you,” he says. “That’s on me. I’ll make it up to you. Or I won’t. If this ruins it, I’ll live with that. But you deserved the truth.”

You let the silence sit.

It’s not that you don’t believe him.

It’s that you want to.

And maybe that scares you most of all.

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

The airport feels colder than it should.

Maybe it’s the early flight. Maybe it’s the sleep you didn’t get. Maybe it’s because you thought he’d fight harder.

You roll your suitcase forward.

Every step feels heavier than it should. Like maybe your heart stayed back at the hotel. Or in that voicemail you haven’t listened to yet.

“I get it if you’re done. But I’m not.” “Not with you.”

You clench your jaw. Shake your head. Keep walking.

You did what you were supposed to.

You gave him a chance to explain. You didn’t scream. Didn’t cry. Didn’t make a scene when your feelings got kicked around like some bonus level prize in his online world.

You let him talk.

You just didn’t stay.

Not this time.

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

Your gate is five minutes away.

You wrap your arms around yourself and try not to think.

The check-in lady takes your ID.

“Round trip?” she asks, typing.

You hesitate. Then shake your head.

“Just one way.”

She nods, unfazed. Prints your ticket.

You turn around—

And nearly crash into him.

Riki. Standing there. Breathless. Hoodie crooked. Hair messy. Like he ran.

And didn’t stop.

You freeze. “What—how did you—?”

“I tracked your flight.” His voice is hoarse. “Don’t be mad.”

You blink. “Are you serious right now?”

He swallows hard. “I wasn’t gonna let you leave thinking I didn’t mean it. That you were just some... random screen name.”

“Riki—”

“No,” he says, stepping closer. “Let me talk. Please.”

Your heart races. Your throat tightens.

He exhales. “I don’t care who’s watching. I don’t care if this is pathetic. I’ve never wanted something like this before. Not like this. I didn’t know how to handle it.”

You don’t say anything.

He runs a hand through his hair.

“I messed up,” he says. “I should’ve told you. I should’ve known she'd try something the second I opened up. That’s on me. But don’t let her be the reason we don’t happen.”

You feel the tears sting before they fall.

He sees it.

Softens.

Steps forward like he’s trying not to scare you off.

“I’ve never had what we have,” he whispers. “The FaceTimes. The quiet. The way I don’t need to perform when I’m with you. You didn’t fall for the persona. You fell for me. And I—I need you to know I fell right back.”

You sniff. Wipe your eyes.

“And if that means I have to fly to every city you run to just to say it again, I will.”

You meet his eyes.

“I wanted to believe you,” you say. “I still do.”

“Then do,” he whispers. “Let me prove it.”

You pause.

Search his face.

And for the first time in days, the panic starts to melt. The ache eases.

Not completely. But enough.

You step closer.

And his shoulders drop—like he was holding his breath for too long.

“I hate you,” you whisper.

He smiles.

“No you don’t.”

You shake your head. “I don’t.”

Then, softer: “You’re lucky I like dramatic airport gestures.”

And when you wrap your arms around him, burying your face into the hoodie you never gave back—he just holds you.

Not like he won.

Like he’s grateful you stayed.

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

BONUS :)

Later, after the flight you didn’t take…

You’re on his stream.

Just your voice.

He reads a question from chat:

“Are you guys together now?”

He looks at you off-camera.

Smiles.

Then to the chat: “She’s sitting right here, isn’t she?”

You groan. “You’re so annoying.”

He grins wider. “But you like me.”

And you don’t deny it.

Not this time.

tl: (read rules before asking to be added to any list ᥫ᭡. )

[goooofy-goooober1121]

HII I love your work!! I was asking if u could do a Viktor x reader where they’re just enjoying their time together as academy students. I don’t mind it being gender neutral but female is preferred as well. I hope you’re having a great summer 💕💕💕🙌🏾🙌🏾💝💝🌺🌺‼️‼️👅👅👅

HEHEHE HI ANON MY SUMMER IS GREAT I HOPE YOURS IS TOO <3

Requests Are Open!

Reblogs Always Appreciated!

'•.¸♡ ♡¸.•'

Tags: Fem!Reader, STEM major reader, Chemistry trash talk, Viktor's european ass does not tan he burns, sort of academic rivals for a sec? Reader wears a skirt and lip gloss. No other specified features for Reader she's all yours for projecting <3 also she talks about ingesting poison to get out of chem work (same girl) Oh and lowkey corny, down HORRENDOUS Viktor. uhhh yeah overall just fluffy and such :3

Two Types of Chemistry

Viktor always thought the Academy would offer him more to life than Zaun could. 

Opportunity, he reasoned. Maths and sciences, languages and histories from around the world. It would teach him everything he needed to know, and more; the best coffee combinations for late nights, the best shortcuts for when his body ached and hissed like a feral feline at physical strain…

And, as you so confidently asserted, the best companion for studying the absolutely horrid material that your general chemistry professor assigned you both.  

Appropriately challenging material, Viktor had reasoned. 

Torture from a professor who hates her students, you answered. 

You had insisted on reviewing the material for your upcoming final exam outside on the campus green. The weather was nice; the sky was clear, the temperature was the perfect balance between warm and cool, the sun’s rays kissed your cheeks, and the grass cradled your bodies like a mother would her infant. 

Fresh air, you told him, would counteract the toxins forcibly shoved down your throats as you recited thermodynamic laws, solubility rules, and acid-base chemistry values. 

“I’m going to burn,” Viktor huffed, shuffling himself beneath the shade of the green’s long-standing oak tree. “I will emerge roasted and red and it will be all your fault.”

“Red like litmus paper when it’s used in an acid,” you answered, nodding solemnly as you scribbled it down into your notebook.

Viktor rolled his eyes, scoffing with no real annoyance. He turned to his own notebook, tapping his pen in his left hand as he scrutinized his own notes. “If you doubled the concentration of a reactant,” he began, “and determined the order of the reaction to be third order, how many times must the rate have increased?”

“Eight,” you answered, not looking up from your notes. “The Ostwald process converts ammonia to nitric oxide by reaction with oxygen in the presence of a catalyst at high temperatures. A vessel is initially charged with 4.80 moles of gaseous ammonia and 5.80 moles of oxygen gas is sealed and heated at a fixed high temperature. When equilibrium is established the reaction mixture is analyzed and found to contain 3.80 moles gaseous nitric oxide. What is the quantity of ammonia gas in the equilibrium reaction mixture?”

Viktor scribbled for a moment in his book before replying. “One mole. A thirty-five liter vessel at 700 Kelvin initially contains hydrogen iodide gas at a pressure of 5.80 atmospheres; at equilibrium, it is found that the partial pressure of hydrogen gas is 0.56 atmospheres. What is the partial pressure of hydrogen iodide at equilibrium?”

“4.68.”

“4.68…?” 

You tossed an eraser at him. “Quit pestering me for units.” 

He flinched away from the piece of rubber, laughing lightly. “What? You will need them or our professor will count your answer as incorrect.”

“Fine. 4.68 atmospheres.”

“There you go.”

It went on like that for a good while, bouncing chemical complexities off of each other like you were playing a game of twenty questions. That’s one of the things that had encapsulated Viktor about you since the day you met (once he got over the chagrin of you answering a question before he could in your shared physics lecture). You were undoubtedly brilliant, and once you two got over the sparks of competition, you both discovered you made quite the pair. 

That was, until the immovable object called ‘your need for a break’ clashed with the unstoppable force of Viktor’s work ethic. 

You tapped out after the fifth round of questioning— Le Chatelier’s principle followed by a set of buffer equations— flopping comfortably onto the grass. Your skirt fluttered around your knees as you did, landing softly back onto your thighs like leaves from an abscising tree. 

“I’ve had enough,” you groaned. “I can’t do it anymore. Someone needs to feed me carbon triple bonded to nitrogen.”

“Chemistry is not so severely hellish that you need to ingest cyanide,” Viktor huffed, noting something down in his notebook. 

“Maybe for you.”

He spared a glance down at you and found his eyes never left. 

Looking at you, laying in the sun like that— the way your lashes brushed your cheeks, the way the warm light made your skin glow incandescently, the way your lip gloss shimmered like sweet fruit juice on your lips, and the way your hair sprouted like flowers, his favorite flowers, from the holy halo of your head— it made him stop and simply stare. 

You were picturesque, a work of art that none of the most brilliant artists in the Academy could ever hope to recreate. He wished, for those silent seconds, that this moment could remain a perfect photograph in his mind; that he could file it away in the deepest recesses of his memory, manufacturing a mental place of worship where your image could be sanctified for as long as he could manage cognition. 

And when the day comes when he is old and gray and forgetting, and the inner machinations of his brilliance begin rusting and creaking at their joints, he knows that you— unforgettable, radiant, exuberant you— will remain forever untouched in that mystical, sacred hideaway of his memory; a girl shining like gold, held dear to his heart until the day he meets his end. 

It struck him, then, heart turning in his chest like the sun does in the sky. 

The Academy could teach him plenty of things: maths, sciences, languages, histories; study strategies, resilience, how to run on three hours of sleep and a prayer. 

It couldn’t teach how it felt to feel the warmth of care. Of gentleness. Of embrace and compassion and laughter. 

So Viktor moved, groaning softly as his hip clicked and his leg stiffly protested, to move from his shady spot and lay beside you in the sunshine and grass. If you were the teacher, he decided, he’d learn those things a million times over. 

You turned your face to his, but he was already looking. 

“You’re going to burn,” you reminded him softly.

“Sunlight is good for the mind,” he answered, eyes flitting, just for a moment, to your lips. “Serotonin. Vitamin D. Circadian rhythm and such. I could stand a few minutes.”

You smiled. How he loved that smile. “Yeah? You’ll risk getting all crusty and achey and peely?”

“Yes.” 

His reply came quickly, breathlessly.

“So long as it is with you.”

'•.¸♡ ♡¸.•'

A/N: can you tell I hate gen chem.

[stellar-collective]

I'm asking real niceys for you to talk about beebo!! 🙋‍♂️

holy CRAB this took a long time to get to, so sorry about that, my thoughts on the game were so disorganized i kept putting it off lol!! when u see how much i have written down u will understand. u will understand.

this is gonna be my ~spoiler review~ where i ramble incoherently about character and plot beats i liked! this will assume that you have played the game and remember it well. if u want the spoiler free version, that one can be found here! you have been warned!

ok so a lot of this are taken straight from the notes i jotted down whilst replaying the game! very stream of consciousness style lol

alrighty! right off the bat, this game just has SO much quality of life stuff that you’d think would get overlooked bc it’s such a small project but no! like seriously this game is way better than some Big Company games i’ve played that have cost, y’know, money. like for example, i touched on this in my spoiler free review but the way the dialogue changes throughout the loops? first loop, all of Oliver’s observations are brief and impersonal, leaving plenty of room for them to develop as the loops progress

i said in my first ramble post that Mari made me laugh out loud towards the beginning; this was incorrect, it was actually VIVI who made me laugh with her “i arrive.”

speaking of Vivi, she’s just peak. in general. i love her so much she’s such a vibe and i don’t think there was a single scene she was in that she didn’t make me laugh or smile like what an icon

the introduction to the time loop was KILLER ooh it had so much intrigue behind it already. also the IMMEDIATE implication of the memories carrying over with Oliver quoting Ángel’s “this isn’t the best place to get trashed” (they’re down so bad already AUGH)

haunted houses. oh my gosh. put those things up there with taming robots from Oneshot for “game concepts that make me BONKERS” like. i gained so much appreciation for that lore when i got all the endings. it’s delicious.

also the relationship between haunted houses and the concept of ghosts and how both relate to Oliver…

also love how every loop there’s a way for Oliver to learn the code without the player just knowing it! the fourth wall remains intact (we ain’t playing deltarune…)

I HEART DOOMED/TOXIC SIBLING RELATIONSHIPSSSS and oh how i love how much the characters in this game act like deeply irrational people with layers of relationships and trauma and love that muddles things up and affects their actions it’s so nice <333

Nina’s “mad at me island” joke was a one hit KO for me

after the explosion when Ángel is reaching THROUGH the panel borders and the clock echoes slow and loud AHHHH (also “i never got his name. he looks like an Angel�� KILL ME KILL ME NOW)

i LOVEEE how the loops echo and echo and echo with the memory loss being imperfect and how that makes you the player never doubt that it can be cracked and sets up the endings

CAN WE TALK ABOUT THE COLORS i knowwww it’s simple but SHH i’m having fun. absolutely ADORE how everything is Eugene’s purple until they break the house and his hold over them and then everyone gets their own colors back. also love how you don’t even realize that they HAVE their own colors until the flashbacks (maybe) or the end when you’re like “ohhhh that’s NOT normal.” the house changes u. filters u. ur only halfway urself. AND THEN IN THAT ONE ENDING WHERE OLIVER DOESN’T GET OUT AND THEN HE’S PURPLE. HE LOST HIS COLOR AGGGHHHH

the fact that Oliver made one joke calling Ángel a seraphim years ago and he named his company that. soulmates fr

their banter drives me crazy i have so many notes in this document that are just quoting them bc it’s all so good. like Oliver showing Ángel his guitar callouses and Ángel wanting to make puzzles for him and just ADHLSJSK

also hugeeee shout out to autistic Beebo once again the grounded writing shines thru in how he takes all the jesting comments one step too literally. and like the whole bedroom misunderstanding? autism moment fr

“you have the look of a man who would be hunted for sport” Vivi is the funniest character ever written end of sentence.

the thief instincts showing up with Ángel yoinking Oliver’s hat. it’s so cute

OK I NEED TO TALK ABOUT HOW GOOD THE ART GALLERY SECTION IS. this is a puzzle game. you’ve spent the last two or three hours of gameplay making things fit neatly together. that’s Oliver’s favorite thing; solving puzzles! and then the art gallery… it’s tantalizing. it feels that there’s rhyme and reason to it. like there’s a pattern you just can’t quite see. but… there isn’t. but there has to be. the game doesn’t end here, does it? and just like Beebo, you start to wonder if you’re doing something wrong. if you’re missing something. when you get trapped between those two rooms— oh man, i was panicking just as much as Oliver

and then!! the solution is to CHANGE THE GENRE!! this ain’t a puzzle game anymore, this is a doom style fighting game. and you’re gonna kill that house. i LOVE it when games pull stuff like that

OK THE KISS. it was actually SUCH a smart plan dude and also the fact that they GOT THEIR COLORS BACK because the house CAN’T wash out or dilute that kind of emotion? mm. genius. showstopping.

also like. there’s something there about the angel vs ghost iconography. the divine versus the natural. the house is breathing. the house is watching. the house has a purpose that breaks the natural world. fear not. you should be scared. i’m not making any sense but Man

ok the decision to make Ángel not know what cells or dna is so the player can hear a differently flavored explanation this game is really just a masterclass on how to repeat information without getting stale (there are many games that could do with this lesson)

the love this game shows for a mundane life is SO sweet and important to me like here’s this villain that’s so so so sosososo scared of death that he misses out on his life and like. that IS the story that timeloops have to tell. that you have to live the imperfect life because that’s all that matters!! immortality don’t mean nothing if you’re a hermit!! existing in a coffin, aging without living, that’s what a ghost freaking is!! and you don’t wanna be one of those!! you wanna be alive!! like a lot of games n movies n books n stuff make you want to go out and have a wild adventure but i rlly appreciate this game for gently taking ur hand and saying “the REAL adventure is the friends u make along the way and the best part of the story is the holiday parties and the sleepy mornings and the board game nights and the pottery classes and the vinyl records and the sunrises and the love” bc it’s RIGHT.

anyway. thank u for coming to my ramble. i should become a youtube video essayist or smth i’m so good at yapping to an audience of No One. i’m not normal about anything ever and that’s never gonna change sorry

[spicyschemmenti]

SOMEHOW, SHE'S IN CHARGE ➫ casey novak

pairing: casey novak x bumbling idiot!fem!reader

synopsis: casey is prepared for a lot of things in her career. grueling cases, tough defense attorneys, and long nights buried in paperwork. what she isn’t prepared for is discovering that the new district attorney is the same woman she just watched pour orange juice into her coffee

warnings: reader puts herself in awkward and embarassing situations, reader is clumsy and chaotic

word count: 1.2k

MASTERLIST

Casey’s day had been going fine. Court had gone smoothly, she only had one more case review before lunch, and she’d managed to avoid running into that adorably chaotic woman who seemed to exist in a constant state of mild distress.

Until now.

She stands in the break room, staring in absolute disbelief as you, the aforementioned human disaster, stir orange juice into your coffee like it’s completely normal. You’re not even paying attention, humming to yourself, wearing an oversized blazer that looks two seconds away from slipping off your shoulder, your hair slightly messy like you forgot to brush it in your rush to work. The lid to the orange juice carton is on the floor, and Casey is pretty sure you didn’t even realize you dropped it.

"You, uh… you meant to do that?" she asks, tilting her head.

You blink like you just remembered she was there. "Huh?"

Casey gestures vaguely to the abomination in your hands. "The coffee. The orange juice. You just—" She waves her hand, unable to even finish the sentence.

"Oh! Yeah." You take a sip, and your face immediately contorts in regret. "Oh, wow, that is so bad."

"Yeah," Casey deadpans. "Shocking."

You make a small, suffering noise and set the mug down, like you don’t even trust yourself to hold it anymore. Then, as if the universe needs to hammer home just how much of a mess you are, you spin to throw something in the trash and promptly knock over an entire stack of case files that were sitting on the counter.

Papers scatter across the floor. You freeze. Casey closes her eyes for a brief moment, inhaling like she’s gathering strength.

"Cool," you mutter to yourself, hands on your hips as you stare at the chaos you’ve just created. "Super cool."

Casey sighs and kneels down, helping you gather the papers. "You always like this?" she asks, handing you a file.

"Oh, yeah. Whole life," you say with an exasperated smile. "I mean, it’s mostly fine! Just little things. Like, this morning I tripped getting out of bed, and my coffee maker kind of exploded, and then I dropped my phone in a puddle, but—" you hold up a finger, like you’re about to make an excellent point—"I got here on time! Which is more than I can say for yesterday."

Casey just stares at you. Who lets you operate heavy machinery?

She’s already mentally filing you away as someone she’s going to have to keep an eye on—not in a bad way, just, you know, to make sure you don’t accidentally set the office on fire—when a voice interrupts.

"Ms. Novak?"

She turns to see one of the junior attorneys standing in the doorway. "Are you ready for your meeting with the DA?"

"Yeah, just—" she stands, brushing dust off her skirt. "Where are they?"

The attorney gestures toward you. You.

Casey looks at you. You give her a sheepish little wave, still clutching a file upside down.

"You're the DA?" Casey blurts out before she can stop herself.

"Uhh… yeah?" You say it like even you can’t believe it. "Newly appointed! Just started last week. You know, whole ‘shiny new District Attorney’ thing. Trying my best. Not setting things on fire, so, y’know… that’s a win."

Casey squints at you. You are holding a coffee cup full of orange juice. There is a very real possibility that you misplaced your own office keys at some point today. This person is running the DA’s office.

"Uh-huh," Casey mutters, rubbing her temples. "Right. Okay. Cool."

"Anyway!" you say brightly, rocking on your heels. "We should totally get to that meeting before they send a search party."

And then you walk directly into the doorframe.

Casey groans. "I need a stronger coffee."

Casey follows you to the meeting room in a state of mild shock, clutching her coffee like it’s the only thing tethering her to reality. You, this complete and utter disaster of a human, are the District Attorney. The head of the office. The person she technically answers to.

She sneaks a glance at you as you walk, still a little dazed from the revelation. Your oversized blazer keeps slipping off your shoulder, and you keep pushing it up only for it to slide right back down. You’re flipping through a file as you walk, mumbling something under your breath, completely oblivious to the way the hallway full of other attorneys keeps subtly moving out of your way, as if they’ve all learned to give you a wide berth for their own safety.

Casey is starting to suspect that you might be a legal genius trapped in the body of a chaotic mess. That’s the only explanation, right? Otherwise, there’s no way you’d have this job.

You finally reach the conference room and push the door open, except it doesn’t move because you’re pulling instead of pushing. You blink at it for a second, clearly confused, before switching tactics and shoving it open with an awkward laugh. Casey, standing right behind you, just closes her eyes and exhales slowly.

Inside, the room is already full of attorneys and detectives, papers spread out across the table. Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler sit on one side, their expressions unreadable, while some of the ADAs murmur amongst themselves. Casey takes a seat, watching as you drop your files onto the table with an unceremonious thump.

"Alright, folks," you say, clapping your hands together. "Let’s talk case strategy."

You don’t even notice that your coffee cup, which you set down a little too close to the edge, is teetering dangerously. Casey notices. And now, apparently, it’s her job to keep you from causing minor disasters, because she smoothly reaches over and slides the cup to safety before you can knock it onto a detective’s lap. You don’t even register it.

The meeting begins, and Casey is bracing for impact. But then something wild happens.

You start talking about the case, and it’s like flipping a switch.

Your previously scattered energy sharpens into focus as you flip through documents and analyze evidence with an alarming level of precision. You start throwing out legal strategies, breaking down arguments, and countering objections before anyone can even make them. Every time someone raises a concern, you have an answer ready—a good answer.

It’s terrifying.

Casey watches, stunned, as you pick apart a potential defense strategy like it’s nothing, completely in your element. You lean forward, tapping a document with your pen, your once-awkward movements now deliberate and confident. Even Stabler, who usually looks unimpressed by everything, is giving you an appraising nod.

This… this makes no sense.

Not even ten minutes ago, you were drinking orange juice coffee. You almost took yourself out by walking into a doorframe. And now you’re making legal arguments that even Casey wouldn’t have thought of?

Who are you?

Then, in the middle of a brilliant breakdown of jury strategy, you gesture a little too enthusiastically and send your pen flying across the table.

It lands in front of Olivia with a soft clink.

The room goes silent for a second.

You blink at it.

Then, with absolutely zero shame, you just point at Olivia and say, "That’s yours now."

Olivia snorts. The tension in the room breaks, and a few people chuckle. You just keep going like nothing happened, diving back into your strategy like the absolute menace you are.

Casey drops her head into her hand, suppressing a groan.

She has no idea how you exist, but she’s starting to suspect she’s never going to be bored again.

[rottenpumpkin13]

You're a new Shinra employee who gets lost in the building while looking for a microwave to heat up your lunch. You encounter AGSZC/Turks/execs during your search. Describe their various levels of helpfulness. 😀

Cloud: Tries to be helpful but also accidentally makes it worse. "You're looking for a microwave? I can help! Follow me." He confidently leads you down three different hallways, up a flight of stairs, and past several doors he shouldn't have access to but somehow does. After about fifteen minutes, you realize he's lost. He won't admit it. Frowning at the directory map like it's a philosophical riddle. "Strange. I could've sworn it was near the gym..." Eventually, he just sighs, tells you "sometimes we have to accept our circumstances" and walks away. You never get to heat up your lunch and now you've suffered -20 confidence.

Sephiroth: Useless, but in an elegant way. He stares at you like you've just asked him to explain quantum physics, then his gaze drifts into the distance as if contemplating the meaning of existence itself. "A… microwave?" You repeat the question. He considers it deeply, like he's never once in his life had to think about the existence of a microwave. Which, to be fair, he probably hasn't. "That is beyond my expertise. Try the cafeteria." You check the cafeteria. There is no microwave. The lunch lady cackles at you. You return to the hallway, and Sephiroth is gone. Vanished. Never to be seen again.

Reeve: Extremely helpful, but there are consequences. "Oh! A microwave? Okay, follow me!" He personally walks you to the break room, making small talk, and waits while you heat your food. You are grateful. Finally, someone normal. Then you turn around. Cait Sith is standing there. Staring at you. Grinning. "Yer wee lunch smells like somethin' a chocobo dragged in!" You nearly drop your food. You wonder if you were drugged. "Hope ye enjoy it, pal! Wouldnae be me first choice, but hey, some folks got no taste!" You leave in terror.

Reno & Rude: Different approaches, same chaos. Reno goes "Oh yeah, there's one in the Turk lounge. Follow us." They do lead you to a microwave. However, it is very clearly stolen from another department, has a questionable stain inside, and occasionally sparks when it runs. Reno tells you "It's got personality." Rude tells you "Don't worry about the weird noise." Your lunch explodes one minute later.

Tseng: Too busy for this nonsense but actually helps. You approach Tseng while he's reviewing documents. He listens patiently as you ask where the microwave is. Then, without breaking stride, he calls someone on his PHS. "Elena, please escort an employee to the nearest kitchen facility." He hangs up. Elena appears out of nowhere. She walks you to the break room, smiling the entire time, and leaves before you can even thank her.

Rufus: Too rich to care. Rufus blinks at you like you've just asked him where to find peasant food. "A microwave? I've never used such appliance in my life." You confirm. He sighs, rubs his temples, and just gestures vaguely toward the hallway. "Ask the help." You do not find the microwave. You do not find the help. You do, however, find Darkstar, who follows you for the next hour and politely begs for some of your lunch.

Hojo: Dear god, why did you ask him? You were desperate. You made a mistake. "Hmph. You require heat? Intriguing. Perhaps you should consider alternative methods of molecular excitation. There is a reactor chamber on the lower levels that could perform the task at a much more efficient—" You run. You don't stop running. You eat your food cold.

Genesis: Turns this into a critique of your food choices. He gasps when he sees what you're holding. "You're going to eat that?" You explain that yes, you were planning to. He looks disgusted. "Absolutely not. Do you want to die before Act V is discovered?" Then he picks up your lunch and throws it directly into the trash. "Come. We're going to the cafeteria. I will not let you disgrace yourself with that excuse for a meal." You have no choice but to follow him. You do, however, end up with a very fancy lunch.

Zack: Has zero patience for this and decides to improvise. "A microwave? Pfft, who has time for that?" Before you can stop him, he grins, holds up a hand, and casts Fire. Directly at your lunch. Your lunch ignites. "—oh!" He frantically pats it down, nearly burning his hands in the process. The entire hallway now smells like charred failure. "Okay, okay, so that didn't work—but it was a cool idea, right?" He ends up buying you something from the vending machine as an apology.

Angeal: Has made it his life mission to find you a microwave. The moment you ask, Angeal gives you a serious nod. "A hot meal is important. No one should have to eat cold food." Then he dedicates himself entirely to the task. You have never seen a man take a quest this seriously. He interrogates security guards. He questions other SOLDIERs. He even asks Lazard about the corporate policies on employee kitchen access. "Shinra should be providing more break room amenities." Lazard disagrees and points out the several microwave incidents that have happened at SOLDIER alone. Angeal and Lazars start going at it, arguing. You stand there awkwardly. You require help.

[plasmara]

currently on vacation and thinking about how unhinged the team would be in a hotel. the beach is cool or whatever but imagining this is doing way more for me so u all have to know about it now too

i think jay absolutely reverts to being a kid in hotels. like coz he didn’t get to do this kind of thing growing upso now he’s throwing himself into the whole experience. insists on being the first one into the room and immediately claims “his” bed . And it’s always somehow the worst one and everyone’s like ? we weren’t gonna fight u for that one buddy. he uses all the tiny soaps. he loves those weird little plastic desserts from the buffet that look like edible art and taste like nothing. he inhales four at a time (someone stop him!!!!!!) he also orders room service just to say he did. fully living his best life. he also befriends the cleaning staff within 24 hours and leaves them origami animals and thank u notes. he gets especially close to one older woman who reminds him of his mom and hugs her like he’s known her his whole life when they check out. they’re definitely facebook friends now

nya and kai also didn’t grow up doing hotel stuff, but they go about it in very different ways:

nya acts like she’s been dropped into an unfamiliar battlefield with no map. unpacks the second she walks in. scans the room like she’s inspecting a mission site. sits on the edge of the bed and Absolutely does not know how to relax. jay has to stage a 3-step intervention just to get her horizontal and watching trash TV. she complains at first—“this is brain rot, jay”—and then ten minutes later she’s yelling at the screen like, “OH my god she’s lying, that’s not even his baby!” (it’s an episode of “Are You the Father?” and she is INVESTED). jay looks so smug it’s disgusting. once she finally gives in to the hotel experience, jay assumes she’s gonna, like, chill out—maybe nap, but instead she fully loses her mind over the little activities hotels set up. darts, ping pong, weird lobby trivia nights—she’s there early, stretching, asking what the first place prize is. darts with her is a full-contact sport. she talks trash, she throws bullseyes, she intimidates other guests. the staff are weirdly scared of her but too impressed to stop her. jay just sits there holding her mimosa like “sorry not sorry this is my wife and i support her no matter what.” AND YES she’s absolutely obsessed with the breakfast mimosas. swears she’s “just taste-testing” but she’s tipsy by 9am and calling it research. jay’s her self-appointed assistant and takes it very seriously

and kai….. oh kai’s on his ross from friends arc. absolutely determined to get his money’s worth. he takes five showers a day. uses every single towel. drinks all the in-room coffee pods “just to test them.” takes the bathroom robe. takes the hanger the robe was on. takes the complimentary flip-flops and the laundry bag too. then stashes the sewing kit in his luggage like it’s a souvenir. he’s also fully dressed, zipped up, and sitting on the edge of the bed by 10:58am but refuses to leave a minute before checkout. silliest part is he’s not even the one who paid for the room

zane makes a whole itinerary the second they arrive. no one follows it. he pretends not to be disappointed. still gently asks if anyone wants to accompany him to the fitness center. no one does. eventually lloyd goes because he feels bad. zane considers this a win. also tries every single hotel amenity out of respect. leaves a review when they check out—not just a rating, noooooo he’s committed so its a fully formatted document. paragraphs. bullet points. hyperlinks. includes detailed notes on the water pressure and the “emotional tone of the lobby lighting.” gets the names of all the staff so he can thank them properly. two weeks later they send him a thank-you email and a gift card

lloyd’s obviously right there with jay, riding the high of free breakfast and hallway chaos. they’re up at 5:50am for the continental breakfast like it’s a red carpet premiere. standing in front of the buffet watching the staff set up, whispering like “okay i’ll hit the waffles first, you go for the muffins.” tag-team energy. he also spends half the day in the pool. makes friends with a group of kids and helps them build a pool noodle obstacle course. gives out nicknames. teaches one of them how to do a front flip. gets invited to dinner by their mom and yes he goes he feels Bad turning it down

cole ALSO loves the pool, but in a completely different way. he alternates between going absolutely feral doing competitive laps (he and kai have an ongoing bet about who can swim the most without dying and they’re both taking it Extremely seriously even tho there’s nothing actually on the line? no prize no consequences and the idiots didn’t even shake on it) and switching to full relaxation mode. like shirt half-off, sunglasses on, sprawled out on a sun-bed with three snacks and some hotel drink with a tiny umbrella. no in-between. he burns through 800 calories in the water and then eats double that in chips ten minutes later. calls it balance. and goes without saying that he treats the hotel buffet like a blood sport. says stuff like “i’m not leaving ‘til i break even” and they all laugh but he’s being dead Serious. stacks his plates like a construction site. takes food back to the room in napkins. 100% the one who suggests bringing tupperware “just in case.” gets caught trying to stuff pastries into a travel mug and just goes “uh. i thought this was a self-serve situation?” no one buys it. doesn’t matter. he’s already out the door

[whatbigotspost]

Our 2 party system is corrupt and upsetting. I get that the democrat party stays trash AND I’m fucking thrilled and shocked they’re actually shaking things up like never before.

I know Biden has done horrific things AND he actually is commendable for EVENTUALLY listening and making this choice (at the last minute.) Who has ever done similar (hint: no one.)

I understand Kamala is a cop AND I’m still voting for her, no question. Not even flinching.

I understand she is too like Genocide Joe on many many issues that I deeply disagree with AND I’m fucking delighted the republicans entire 2024 election playbook (“our guy is LESS demented and decrepit!!!!”) is now embarrassing irrelevant and easily weaponizable back at them.

I wasn’t gonna watch any fucking debates or really any election anythings, bc what would I possibly learn that would be of any value?

But now I’m absolutely giddy to watch someone who is (no matter what you think of her politics) CLEARLY at the top of her “talking off the cuff” game and she will run verbal circles around the lumbering fool the Christo fascists are propping up as their meat puppet Trojan horse for Project 2025.

I was always going to vote blue nose-hold bc I understand that is one of the very very few levers that is clearly, obviously in front of me that I have within my personal power to pull against fascism.

I’d like elections to still exist. And our elections aren’t perfect, our systems are fucked, I hate parties, I hate the electoral college, I hate SCOTUS and honestly I hate 99% of politicians writ large AND the demoralizing experience that is voting as a leftist in Texas sure just got a lot less deflating and empty feeling.

The republicans really were gonna ride the boost off of a fucking an assassination attempt to the White House and the dems looked like they were really gonna let them…

AND THEN THEY DIDN’T.

It doesn’t change everything but it changes SOMETHING. Everyone else has already said all the great analogies about voting in the US…it’s choosing a bus ticket, not marrying the candidate, yadda yadda yadda. My bigger point here is that things at least are more interesting and less “over before it’s over.”

Abandon all or nothing thinking in your politics. It will serve you very little.

If you’re curious about a very good review of what has happened (as of Sunday), how it’s possible in US electoral structures that the dem nominee can switch like this, this is a helpful, fact-based non-partisan overview.

[ms-demeanor]

sex work is work, no problem with that, but spamming sex work absolutely everywhere now is not okay. bot or not, it is not okay to shove your probably fake/stolen tits or ass into everyone's face even where kids are. it is absolutely the lowest, cheapest trash doing that. are these people showing their barely covered up pussy to school kids on the street to maybe get a customer? because they are doing exactly that on the internet. if you cant find customers and need to lower yourself to std ridden junkey trash standards who missed the way and entitled themselves to begging for money outside trash town, zero support from me!

Yeah you really sound like someone who supports sex workers. That's what I always think when I hear people using words like "disease-ridden" and "junkie" - 'wow, that person must be SUCH an ally. braver than any US marine, thank you for your service, person who believes sex work is work but thinks STIs or drug addiction are 'trash'.'

So, point by point:

It's not absolutely everywhere. You don't see people trying to link their onlyfans on facebook most of the time (i've actually never seen it but i could believe it is happening, though it's not common because FB has real-name policies that are unfriendly to sex workers). You're unlikely to see fansly links as sidebar ads on cspan. People aren't linking their pages in the amazon reviews. You're seeing it "everywhere" because you're not going anywhere. Tell me you spend all your time on two to three platforms without telling me you spend all your time on two to three platforms. Instagram, tiktok, twitter, and tumblr are full of people who are promoting all kinds of brands and one of those kinds of brands is sex work.

Those are also all platforms that have age restrictions and behavior standards, and of all of them tumblr is the one that has the history of being the most openly sexual and the least connected to legal identities. People are linking to their diy porn because of the culture of these websites both currently and historically. I once posted a video on this website of me bringing myself to orgasm in a public bathroom stall then inserting a dildo into my vagina before I went on stage and performed a set with my band. I did it for free and for fun five years ago, the week before the porn ban hit.

What I'm saying here is that the culture of this website has a much longer history of openness about sex and sexuality and the visual presentation of sex than it does of being full of people who think teens shouldn't see nipples. This is an *extremely* reasonable place to post information linking to porn that you make and to use cute pictures of yourself to do so.

It's also really easy to tell that these people aren't bots or using stolen images because the whole point of the live platform is that you can click through and go talk to them. Strange Aeons did just that and you can see what happened. (click on that video for a fun cameo at 6:04) Turns out live users are just a bunch of people (not networks stealing images the way that actual porn *bots* on tumblr do) and the ones who are trying to do sex work on the live platform itself get banned.

But also kids too young to see the occasional boob shouldn't be on tumblr! (like, seriously, define kids. what age is too young to see the kinds of images allowed by the tumblr live tos? how about the ones banned by the tumblr live tos? How old should you have to be before someone shows you an ahegao face on a hoodie in public? What should the punishment be for the ahegao fashionistas for exposing six year olds to anime tongues? What should the minimum age be to go on the beach and see men in speedos? Fifteen, or is that still abusive to children? Maybe we should make it twenty to be safe, or better yet why don't we make it twenty AND ban speedos? this is what you sound like, you fucking asshole). Tumblr has age limits and people under that age limit shouldn't be looking at most things on this website. A smiling woman in a bikini top or a dude with his abs out are fucking nothing compared to the kind of damage you personally and specifically are trying to inflict with your shitty ideas.

Posting t&a on tumblr is not at all comparable to doing street level work and soliciting children for a number of reasons, but I'd just like to really take the time to point out that you just compared the profile pics on tumblr live to sexually soliciting a child. You literally did the "x group i hate are pedophiles" thing, which is exactly why it's such a huge problem that any and all types of nudity have been stigmatized online. We have created an entirely new paradigm of "pedophile" that means "existed around a child while wearing tight pants." You are such a fucking clueless, sanctimonious pile of shit that you can't even see that that's what you're doing. This is literally, exactly kink at pride discourse.

And that's even if I grant you that these people are posting t&a! Go look at the live leaderboards, you don't have to accept the ToS to see the leaderboards! We are talking about *at most* saucy pin-up levels of eroticism. I have seen fucking holiday cards with more visible cleavage than any of the top 200 tumblr live streamers right now.

The only thing in your final sentence that makes any sense is that you are positioning tumblr as trash town.

Yeah. I'm actually not at all impressed by tumblr recently and that has a lot more to do with the influx or resurgence of nuance-allergic, anti-sex, whiny shits like you than it does with a banner that i can scroll past in a quarter of a second.

I want people reading this to really, really sit down and think about what they're calling assault or hypersexualiztion or whatever. We are talking about profile pictures. You are so offended by a bar of 4 profile pictures at the top of your dash that you're comparing regular ass humans (some of whom are sex workers and some of whom are just streamers who took thirst trap selfies) to the real life solicitation and abuse of children.

TOUCHING GRASS IS NOT ENOUGH FOR YOU PLEASE GO INTERACT WITH ACTUAL REAL HUMANS WHO DON'T KNOW WHAT DASHCON OR MILKSHAKE DUCK ARE. YOU ARE CRITICALLY INTERNET POISONED AND IF YOU TALKED TO SOMEONE AT THE DMV AND DESCRIBED IT AS ASSAULTING CHILDREN TO HAVE SOMEONE IN A BIKINI ON A BILLBOARD THEY WOULD IMMEDIATELY BEGIN TRYING TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO GET AWAY FROM YOU. THINK OF THIS POST AS THE CARBON MONOXIDE DETECTOR TELLING YOU THAT THE SHADOWS YOU'RE SEEING AREN'T ACTUALLY DEMONS BUT THAT YOU ARE GOING TO REALLY REGRET IT IF YOU DON'T GO OUTSIDE.

[etherealily]

do you have any headcanons for your birds of a feather part 2? like just a snippet or smth bc u said u were wrking on it for the other anon

Yes, I do! I can safely say that it's as canon-compliant as possible in terms of the Quarter Quell. Finnick survives, District 13, etc, etc.

However, happy ending incoming. I've done this guy way too dirty recently.

Snippet about my characterization of Finnick? Sure. I need some reviews anyway. If it's trash, please tell me.

My other Finnick fics, if you have the time.

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You pick up the phone and he swears the universe paused. "Hey." Discomfort. Not because of him, thank god, but discomfort was present in your voice nevertheless. "How are you?" It's Reaping Day, you absolute fuckass, she's losing her mind. "Okay. I mean, it's Reaping Day, so I guess as good as can be." He smiles. He can work with that. "You receive any more blobcakes?" He's pretty sure he'd added them in, special request, to your monthly Victor-loot since he'd met you. He'd made it a priority. "No. Why, you wanted some?" What the fuck? You hadn't? Oh, a couple ex-District 1 Avoxes were going to get a talking-to. He shrugs. "Yeah." Whoo, there he was, Finnick Odair, king of nonchalance. He's glad Finnick, normal old District 4 Finnick isn't showing up. He's the kind that would have an aneurysm if he'd known a pretty girl like you had picked up voluntarily. Finnick Odair, Capitol Darling, his suaver persona, was active when the two of you were in the Capitol, and he's pretty sure that's the only reason you tolerated him. "Well, y'know. Surviving Reaping Day was kinda higher on my bucket list." "Right, right. Well, relax, you'll be fine. The odds are, like, astronomical." "Weren't they astronomical for you, too?" Fuck. "Yeah, but I'm me." "Meaning? I can't win?" WHOA. Whoa, Finnick Odair, king of nonchalance needed to be a bit more 'chalant'. "No, I mean, like, bad luck kinda follows me around. So." "Oh. But, um, on- on the off chance that I..." "Whoa, no. You won't get picked." You can't. Finnick would genuinely pass out.

"Okay, but if I do, you- uh, honestly, as a mentor. Do I have a chance?" Finnick was at a loss here and so was Finnick Odair, Capitol Darling. He genuinely had no clue. "I haven't seen you figh—" "No, like, I mean, do I have the ability to be a favourite?" Oh. "Yeah. You do. You have a good personality, you look good, so I don't think you'll have trouble with sponsors so long as your physical prowess is alright." "I hate the Capitol.", he hears you say. "Shh. These lines are tapped." "Right, like Snow doesn't know that we hate the Capitol." Valid point. "You're fine. Can I just... I just feel like you..." "I'm overreacting? Is that what you're going to say, Finnick?" He was about to say 'I feel like you're the only reason I'm not hanging from the fucking ceiling right about now', but that might have just been a tad too dramatic.

XOXO, Vega!

[hellyeahscarleteen]

"Why are so many romance novel leads sexist a%*holes — and am I weird for not finding that sexy?"

Jane asks: "Also, why are there so many huge guy/tiny girl couples and barely any the other way around? I really liked how Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan books portrayed non-toxic masculinity (involved fathers! no petite-fetish crap! men giving oral!), but finding something similarly respectful (I guess that’s the right word) is like finding a needle in a haystack."

s.e. smith answers: "Nothing more frustrating than getting into the groove of a good book only to get smacked in the head by misogyny, stereotypes, and general weirdness—and no, Jane, you’re not weird for not being into sexist assholes, and for knowing what you DO like! BUT, I have some great news for you: Romance is an amazingly diverse and fun genre, and it sounds like you’ve just scratched the surface.

And I’ll let you in on a little secret: You can find sexist trash in all literary genres. There’s fancy literary fiction that is absolute garbage, with horrible gross sexist characters being terrible human beings, for example. The fact that only romance gets called out⁠ for and associated with this should set off your bullshit detector. Interesting that a genre associated with women writers and readers gets put down all the time, isn’t it?..

From the sound of your letter, you’re probably not going to be super into alpha hero and other romance centering around power imbalances, for example, unless that romance is upending those tropes (and they will tell you in cover copy and reviews). But if you’re looking for romance where people are on more equal footing, or playing with gender⁠ dynamics, something like partners in crime or different worlds could be fun.

I’m personally a huge fan of period⁠ romances, especially those set in the Regency Era. Beverly Jenkins is a very famous author in that genre, with a focus on Black characters in contemporary and historical fiction, and if you want more Black characters, check out Alyssa Cole. Georgette Heyer is a classic. I just finished Confounding Oaths, by Alexis Hall, which is a super fun and very gay⁠ fantasy set in (sort of) the Regency era. Zen Cho, a Malaysian fantasy and romance author, is also delightful. Wanting to go Victorian? India Holton’s books are spicy, charming, and fun. Something more fantasy and very queer⁠? TJ Klune isn’t exactly a romance author, but writes very cozy, sweet, gay love stories."

Want more leads? Read the rest of s.e. smith's tips on how to find romance that doesn't revolve around boring overused tropes steeped in misogyny and sexist main characters below!

[thefandomsarespooky]

I may or may not write an Agathario barista AU. Everyone who has ever had the displeasure of working customer service, tell me your most unhinged interactions….. for research purposes. These are my thoughts so far:

Agatha would be the most obnoxious customer on this planet

She’d “Um I got this hot,” her way into another drink and somehow end up leaving with a carrier-full

After years there, Rio knew there was nothing wrong with her drinks

She doesn’t believe Billy when he points out that this is Agatha’s twisted way of flirting

Rio can’t ban her, so she is as much of a menace to Agatha as Agatha is to her team

Agatha is like “well Toby did this for me last time” and Rio counters, “Well I’m here and it’s this time. :)”

Agatha asks for something literally impossible to make so Rio is like “here’s the non-existent thing you asked for” and it’s an empty cup

A barista makes her a drink and Agatha tells them it’s so bad she’s going to call the health department

Leaves wild reviews

Asks for a single ice cube in her iced coffee then gets upset when the barista did exactly that. No matter how many ice cubes end up in the drink, she has them remake it

Absolutely ransacks the sugar/cream station, Rio has to move it behind the counter

Sucks on her stir stick just to watch Rio start sweating

Rio starts wearing muscle tees in hopes of flustering Agatha

Agatha calls to ensure the barista used the right milk even though she watched them make the drink (she just wanted to hear Rio’s voice again)

She uses every trick in the book to get free coffee, going so far as to incorporate accents and costumes to confuse the new hires

She has made baristas and customers cry

Only put “🚗” for her curbside order so Billy has to walk up to four cars before he gets to Agatha, who is pissed about having to wait

Billy makes up a ship name for them and places bets on who is going to make the first real move

Billy tries teaching Agatha slang

Agatha actually pushes Billy to get better at his job, and encourages him to explore his passions, all “you don’t want to end up like this guy” as she points a thumb over her shoulder at Rio

Rio is only a manager at the coffee shop until she gets through mortuary school

To her surprise, Agatha isn’t disgusted, she’s impressed

Billy films a TikTok of them, arguing, nearly nose-to-nose over the bar, and it goes viral

Billy is making a TikTok one shift and when Agatha sees he’s casually got her in the frame she tosses his phone in the trash

Agatha leans on the bar to give Rio a full view down her obscenely undone blouse, then laughs when Rio distractedly scalds herself under the hot water spout

Agatha coos, “Aw, need me to kiss it better?” When she notices Rio is actually hurt she drops the act and apologizes

The next day she brings in some burn cream and a toy dinosaur, a gift from her son, who swore to Agatha that it has healing properties

Rio keeps it on her bar from there on out

Rio works for Lilia, who hired Billy with no experience because the cards “told her to”

Rio has allowed Agatha enough free coffees to get her entire team fired, has broken so many rules because she’s so smitten, and she finally snaps, and Agatha has to be like “You do know that it was never about the coffee, right?”

Rio tugs her across the bar by her apron into a searing kiss

Billy starts shrieking and collapses onto the floor