#residualed ( 02 )

[midniqhtt]

michael robinavitch

masterlist • the pitt • 07/02/25

˚‧⁺ ･ ˖ · ୨ৎ recs

𑣲 angel kisses I @science-hoes

𑣲 a ray of fucking sunshine I @/science-hoes

𑣲 taste I @/science-hoes

Robby is fighting nicotine withdrawals, but the reader has something sweeter to curb the cravings.

𑣲 gorgeous I @/science-hoes

Robby loses in fantasy football and pays up. Somehow, his loss is making your life a lot more difficult.

𑣲 special treatment I @ovaryacted

𑣲 an itch you can’t scratch pt2 I @theonewiththefanfics

After taking a bad fall, Y/N gets rushed to the ED of Pittsburg Trauma Medical Hospital only to come face to face with a man she had a one-night stand with, and who ghosted her that same morning without a word - Dr. Michael "Robby" Robinavitch. As if her bad day couldn't get any worse than it was...

𑣲 married name I @tedmustache

Robbie decides to casually reveal their marriage in the most dramatic way possible.

𑣲 doctors orders I @/tedmustache

Between long shifts, late-night triage, and the chaos of The Pitt, something quiet has been building between Dr. Robbie and Y/N. When one rough day pushes things to a breaking point, unspoken feelings come dangerously close to the surface and maybe neither of them is ready to pretend anymore.

𑣲 triage I @/tedmustache

Amid the nonstop pressure of a Pitt emergency room, one nurse navigates long nights, relentless crises, and two doctors who are harder to read than any medical chart.

𑣲 residuals pt2 pt3 pt4 pt5 I @eureka-its-zico

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.

𑣲 devastation (daughter!reader) I @nineteenninety-six

The tragedgy at Pittfest brings brings a victim that devastates Dr Robby

𑣲 late night visits I @stellamarielu

somehow your neighbor is always finding himself at your front door hoping to find relief through casual hookups, but you both can’t deny your feelings any longer

𑣲 impatient intentions I @/stellamarielu

robby’s innocent obsession with his neighbor takes a turn after a dinner invite that leads him straight into your kitchen and renders him a slave to your touch

𑣲 work crush I @xximperioxx

𑣲 heartbeat pt2 pt3 I @asxgard

You get called in to assist with the mass casualty event on your day off and you’re grateful to be there when your husband finally breaks.

𑣲 companionship pt2 pt3 pt4 pt5 pt6 pt7 pt8 pt9 pt10 I @/asxgard

He’s not sure how he got here, perhaps it’s the aching loneliness or the overwhelming stress. You’re there because it seems like easy money and you have a pushy friend. All in all, it’s a good deal — he gets the companionship he’s after, no strings, and you get your utility bills paid on time. It’s pretty simple, easy, until your arrangement bleeds into something a bit more…complicated.

𑣲 a lesson in vulnerability pt2 I @/asxgard

A pregnancy scare forces you both to lay your cards on the table.

𑣲 be I @/asxgard

You had no intentions of falling for the sad-eyed attending on one of your rotations. And yet, here you are.

𑣲 feels like trouble I @thepencilnerd

You and Robby have been secretly dating for a while now. Most of the ER is clueless—except the five people who could probably write dissertations on your dynamic. Enter a frat boy med student with too much confidence and not enough self-awareness. Robby? Jealous. You? Oblivious. Everyone else? Watching the drama unfold like it's peak primetime television.

𑣲 cuddles in the on call room I @/thepencilnerd

𑣲 drunk confessions I @/thepencilnerd

You’re out drinking with your colleagues. Robby’s not there—until he is. What happens when you see each other again in the ER, and everything you said (or left unsaid) comes rushing back?

𑣲 chronic illness!reader I @/thepencilnerd

𑣲 the story never ends I @/thepencilnerd

From coffee and first glances to slow unraveling and quiet return—this is a story of love across changing seasons, of what’s lost, and what still lingers; healing is neither linear nor pretty, but it’s real—and sometimes, that's enough.

𑣲 dayshift nurse!reader I @/thepencilnerd

𑣲 sweet nothings I @thebestandworstdayofjune

you own a bakery down the street from PTMH, and Dr. Robby is one of your favorite customers. The night of The Pitt Fest shooting, you stress bake and deliver the results to the park near the hospital when you have a gut feeling everyone could use something to lift their spirits

𑣲 stay with me I @mercvry-glow

𑣲 a girls guide to shopping I @/mercvry-glow

𑣲 i start my mornings with folgers and hot, steamy sex I @spockiguess

Dr. Robby doesn't get to share many mornings with you, so when the day comes that he's finally able to spend just a little bit more time in your embrace, he doesn't pass on the opportunity to make it memorable.

𑣲 idiots doctors in love I @oceantornadoo

𑣲 rose scented scrubs I @/oceantornadoo

𑣲 i look in people's windows I @augustwinesworld

𑣲 message received I @abbotjack

𑣲 and you came back to me I @/abbotjack

𑣲 stitched together I @hauntedhowlett-writes

after accidentally cutting your hand, you seek out your neighbor for help. a favor becomes a friendship and a friendship becomes something more.

𑣲 lead the way I @traumaone

after over a year of pining over Robby, reader gets into a relationship to try and get over him, and gets cheated on. Robby (after putting up with a snippy reader) comes to the rescue

𑣲 keys I @/traumaone

Robby misses you, but lucky for him, you just so happened to leave your keys on his desk after your shift last night (or, you come by to pick up your keys and Robby feels you up in the ambulance bay)

𑣲 immature I @/traumaone

Robby loses his temper on you, and you're not quick to forgive, then tragedy strikes, and Robby's not answering his phone

𑣲 mature I @/traumaone

𑣲 the right moment is you I @cherriready

robby didn’t mean to propose today. not during a long shift, not without a plan, and definitely not in front of the ER. but when he saw her—cradling a toddler, keeping on a concussed mom, keeping calm in the chaos—he saw the rest of his life. no speeches. no perfect moment. just her. always her.

𑣲 drabble I @arrenjo

𑣲 touch I @a-soft-aside

You land yourself in the ER and Robby is the first face you see.

𑣲 positions I @/a-soft-aside

Your recent work trip is the longest time you and Robby have been apart since you two started dating. He’s thought of you non-stop and all the things he’s been wanting to do to you. He gives you a welcome home to remember.

𑣲 dark is the way, light is a place I @isaysexualthingsaboutrobinavitch

As a board-certified clinical psychologist working at PTMC, you were expecting to see patients of the hospital. But by some twist of fate, you end up seeing several ER doctors for individual therapy.

𑣲 Ho'oponopono I @ay0nha

where you make a mistake that leads to a probationary period full of observation hours, required counseling, and loathing for Dr. Robby, the very person who put you in this position.

𑣲 young gf!reader I @astreamofcolors

𑣲 safekeeping I @dexxtrosee

A baby got to the ER thirty minutes ago and hasn't stopped crying since. It's starting to get on everyone's nerves. He is, unfortunately, the one in charge, so it's his problem to deal with.

𑣲 drabble I @loveyhoneydovey

𑣲 in good hands I @blackleatherjacketz

You draw the short straw and have to work part of your shift in the ER, but Dr. Robby makes it a little more tolerable.

𑣲 night vision pt2 pt3 pt4 I @artibeus-lituratus

While dr. Frank Langdon is away while seeking treatment for his drug addiction, you're plucked from the loving arms of the night shift in order to replace him inside the crushing jaws of the day shift in the Pitt. Being a nocturnal creature with a closed-off personality, it's hard to adjust at first, especially when you're no longer working alongside your mentor (and father figure of sorts), dr. Jack Abbot. However, you slowly start to grow on the day shift's attending doctor, and it's up to Robby if he'll stay away from you to protect his heart, or if he'll give in to something that's bigger than a workplace crush.

𑣲 robby’s biological clock I @marvelslut16

Robby opens up to the reader that he realizes that he wants a child after finding out that he almost had one.

𑣲 gyltig I @strangunddurm

Michael has a secret that he was too guilty to tell anybody about. Especially Heather Collins.

𑣲 loathing you, my whole life long pt2 pt3 pt4 I @kisses4themissus

𑣲 she’s here I @butyoudidthis4what

The day of PittFest becomes unbearably worse for Robby. A little over four months into the relationship you've both been waiting years for, you find Robby on the floor of pedes. When Langdon throws it in his face, Robby assumes you betrayed and doesn't react well.

[p0orbaby]

Like can we pls pls pls pls pls get a smut where Reader sees alexias new photos for nike (though she had shown to reader some they did had the edit the impact you know) reader getting all hot and bothered and jumps on alexia qhen she gets home like do it everything with me

it’s not smut because i’ve got to save some material for bitter sweet

shameless plug

-

The day is, for the most part, unremarkable.

You wake up at 07:26, which is two minutes before your alarm, which is irritating because you could have had those two minutes. You stare at the ceiling for a moment, assessing your bodily functions—slight stiffness in your neck from the way you slept, residual warmth from the duvet, a faint need to pee but not urgent enough to act on. Alexia is still asleep next to you, her breathing slow and deep. There’s a dent in the pillow from where she’s been lying, a strand of hair curling across her cheek. You could stay here, watch her, but then your alarm does go off, and reality intrudes.

You shower, make coffee, scroll absentmindedly through your phone, thumb moving in automatic, practised motions. You see the photos at exactly 08:02.

And that’s when everything changes.

At first, your brain doesn’t fully register what you’re looking at. There’s a moment of lag, like a buffering screen, a stutter in your synapses. Then the full weight of it hits, and it’s like being smacked in the face with a sledgehammer. A very attractive, well-lit sledgehammer.

It’s Alexia. Obviously, it’s Alexia. But it’s Nike Alexia.

Sweaty. Flexing. Half-naked.

Her abs look like they’ve been sculpted by the gods. Her arms—veins subtly pronounced, muscles taut, defined—are a work of art. There’s a slight sheen of sweat on her skin, catching the light in a way that feels almost… obscene. Her gaze is focused, intense, fixed down the lense, like she’s contemplating the meaning of life but also potentially about to fight someone.

You stare. Then you blink. Then you stare again.

Something warm pools low in your stomach, and your grip on your phone tightens. You have seen Alexia naked. Repeatedly. You live together. You have firsthand knowledge—intimate, detailed knowledge—of every inch of her body. And yet, somehow, these photos manage to feel like a personal attack.

Your first thought is: How dare she?

Your second thought is: I need to sit down.

Which you do, heavily, onto one of the kitchen stools. Your coffee is abandoned, cooling rapidly. The world outside continues as normal—birds chirping, distant traffic noise, the faint hum of the fridge—but your internal landscape has been irrevocably altered.

You should say something. React. But words fail you, so instead, you just keep staring, swiping through the photos in what can only be described as a state of near-religious awe. You don’t even realise you’re making a noise—somewhere between a sigh and a groan—until you hear movement behind you.

Then, her voice, still thick with sleep.

“What are you looking at?”

Your soul leaves your body.

You exit out of the app too quickly, fumbling with your phone like a guilty teenager caught watching something they shouldn’t be. Which is ridiculous. You are an adult. You are in a committed relationship with this woman. There is no reason for you to be acting like this.

And yet.

“Nothing,” you say, entirely unconvincing.

Alexia pads barefoot into the kitchen, wearing one of your T-shirts, her hair slightly messy. She yawns, stretching, and your eyes immediately zero in on the movement, the flex of muscle beneath skin. It is unfair that she looks this good first thing in the morning. Unethical, even.

She squints at you, then at your phone. “Why do you look like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you’ve seen God.”

You take a slow, steadying breath.

“Not God,” you say. “Just Nike’s new campaign.”

She blinks. Then, the smirk starts, slow and knowing. “Ah.”

“Don’t ah me,” you say, pointing accusingly. “This is your fault.”

“My fault?” She moves to the fridge, retrieving the orange juice. “I didn’t do anything.”

“You posed.”

She laughs, pouring herself a glass. “I did.”

“You flexed.”

“I did.”

“You—” You gesture vaguely, helplessly. “You glistened.”

She tilts her head, amused. “That’s usually what happens when you’re sweating.”

“I don’t sweat like that,” you say, almost mournful. “I sweat like a normal person. You sweat like—like—” You pause, struggling to find the words. “Like a Nike advert.”

Alexia sips her juice, looking infuriatingly pleased with herself. “That’s convenient.”

You exhale sharply, dropping your head onto the counter. “I need help.”

“Probably.”

Silence stretches. You can feel her eyes on you, can hear the faint clink of her glass as she sets it down. Then, her voice, softer now, but with an unmistakable thread of amusement.

“Do you want me to sign one for you?”

Your head snaps up. “What?”

She gestures toward your phone. “A print. I can sign it for you. Make it personal.”

You gape at her, scandalised. “Do I look like the kind of person who would have a signed picture of their girlfriend?”

“Yes.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“You have my old Barça jersey framed.”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

“It’s—” You flounder. “It’s memorabilia. Historic.”

She raises an eyebrow. “So these pictures aren’t historic?”

“Not unless I drop dead from looking at them,” you mutter.

Alexia grins. “Want me to flex for you right now?”

You make a noise that is neither dignified nor human.

Alexia laughs. It’s light, teasing, but there’s something else behind it, something knowing. She closes the small distance between you, leans in, voice low.

“You’re blushing.”

“I’m not,” you lie.

Her hand brushes your arm, slow, deliberate. “You are.”

You swallow. Your mouth is dry. Your heart rate is—scientifically speaking—fucked.

This is fine. This is manageable.

Then, she actually flexes.

And you black out.

Metaphorically.

Mostly.

[devosin]

COOKING HAVEN, them cooking, cooking together with them, food tasting, everything you want in a food related fic <3

gender neutral reader / tooth-rotting fluff / crack taken seriously / entire twst cast / Aggressive flirting? Aggressive Flirting. / Really indulgent /

01. HEARTSLABYUL

Trey sighs, rubbing his forehead as he fights the will to stare back up at Ace's hands, as he struggles to chop the peppers on the cutting board, . . "Ace . .?", he calls out as softly as he can muster, and he stares up at him, "yeah?" . . "Take off the knife guard"

Ace stares at him dumbfounded, his head tilting slightly as he looks back at him blankly, "What?" he asks, "The plastic cover on the knife, Ace.", he looks at the knife blankly, then attempts to pull off the cover, his mouth opening to a round 'O' shape, when it comes off.

"Sorry, first time using . . err, fancy knifes." he says as he sets the cover aside, moving back to cutting the peppers as slow as humanely possible, careful not to cut his hands, "Well it feels like the first time you've cut anything in general, so I don't know what argument you're trying to make here." Trey spits back, slightly agitated with his slow movements.

Cater and Riddle, setting up equipment, mainly because Trey doesn't trust Riddle in the kitchen yet, . . he also doesn't trust either of them to be alone with the equipment alone, but together, it's different.

"Trey said to boil four cups of water?", Riddle states but it comes out in the form of a question because honestly he doesn't know what he's doing, "Like a coffee mug, right?", Cater asks holding up a small mug he found on the counter, "I think so, I mean what's the difference!" (There is in fact, a massive difference.)

After setting that up, where they may or may not have spilt water all over the counter; Cater runs a rag through the wet counters, cleaning over the leftover residue, "Didn't Trey mention something about, needing some yeast?" he asks.

Riddle thinks for a moment, "I think we'll be fine, baking doesn't need yeast right."

"Yeah you're probably right", replies Cater, as he stretches his arms, "I guess were done then", Riddle nods, "Mhm, wonder why Trey didn't give us more work."

"Yeah it's almost like he doubts our abilities in the kitchen", Cater states casually, "But were so helpful", "Exactly." (The delusional speaking to the delusional.)

Y/n, Deuce, and Trey baking together.

"Ok so the soup is boiling, I think we can try prepping the bread now?", Trey asks, "Sure thing", you reply, while Deuce helps tie your apron from the back.

"Just one problem . ." Deuce speaks up, finally letting go of the strings of your apron, and looking around at the ingredients laid on the counter, ". . . We're out of yeast." . . You pause, "doesn't all baking recipes, require yeast—"

Trey blinks . . "GOD FUCKING DAMN IT."

02. DIASOMNIA

Lilia looks over the recipe book, about one whole time before he deems it useless and throws it to the side (It lands in the trash, because clearly THE Lilia Vanrouge doesn't require such things), "Okay so we need some flour, oil, water—", he continues listing ingredients while Sebek goes out of his way to grab everything he mentions as fast as possible on the table.

"—Salt, sugar, lemon", Sebek reaches into the cabinet, before muttering, "Lilia . . we're out of salt."

Lilia pauses, thinking for a moment, his inner cooking genius coming together in his head, trying to figure out a swift solution, "We can just use baking soda . . I mean they're both white powders, right?!", Sebek pauses, thinking it over, "Yeah sounds perfectly logical."

Malleus, you, and Silver were in charge of making drinks for the picnic you had planned.

"Where's Silver?" you ask Malleus, while he washes the fruits you both bought the day before, "He fell asleep, I didn't think it would be polite to wake him up", you hum in response, bringing out the chopping boards and knifes on the counter.

You both started cutting mindlessly, while chatting away, "So, what are we making anyways?", he asks curiously, "Just a virgin cocktail of sor—ow—fuck!", you drop the knife, "Are you okay?" Malleus asks, ushering to your side.

"I'm fine, it's just a small cut, do you have a band aid?", Malleus nods, "Let me go get it!" (He proceeded to do everything alone until silver woke up and choose to finally help with cutting the rest of the fruit.

The picnic was outside, everyone helped set up the area.

"Lilia . . what's this?", you ask curiously eyeing whatever baked good was on your plate . . (It shouldn't even be called a baked good), "I don't know, I just mixed a few things and threw it in the oven, it's good no?", he asks curiously.

"I can tell", Silver mumbles, as you bump his shoulders slightly, "Ah yes, so good—So good in fact, I might just save it for dinner . . I mean Crowley, and his underpayment—"

"You can take all of it back to Ramshackle", Lilia suggests, "NO!—I mean, I couldn't—really . . it would HURT me." (He delivered a basket of baked horrors to your dorm the next morning.)

03. SAVANACLAW

Ruggie draws out his sigh, a scowl permanently placed on his face, as he stares at your pathetic attempt at cutting meat, "No—not like that . . you're wasting so much good meat", he mumbled the last part, he's trying to be nice, really, but there's only so much patience one can maintain at your mediocre cutting abilities. 

"You're massacring the meat!", he states firmly, as he finally shoves you away from the cutting board, and takes over your job, leaving you no choice but to move aside and let him have his way, "You know, this wouldn't happen if you . . just taught me how to cut the meat . ." you mumble out in protest, your hands laying at your sides. 

"I did", he responds dismissively, "No, you just handed me a knife and told me to cut", "Exactly, it's called immersive learning, something you're clearly not good at." 

You hold up your middle finger, "Fuck you", you bite back, but Ruggie doesn't respond back this time, focusing more so on cutting the expensive cut of meat he got off of Leona's Credit Card.

Leona enters the kitchen while you both were well near finished with kitting the meat.

"Morning", he yawns out, "So close, it's the afternoon", you blurt out, rolling your eyes at his overall casual demeanor, meanwhile you've been dealing with star michelin chef Ruggie's nagging all morning, from your cutting game, to how you can't just eyeball salt levels. 

"Close enough" he shrugs, looking over the counter, "Watcha' making?", he asks blankly, "Minced meat, clearly", Ruggie says in the most deadpanned way possible, pointing to your mess of cut meat, "Oh shit, who massacred the meat?" Leona asks, Ruggie looks at you. 

You cough, and look away, "I tried teaching them", Ruggie says in the most distraught tone he can muster, "Well clearly not well enough", Leona states bluntly, and you let out a small chuckle at Ruggie's expense.  

Jack comes in, awhile after Leona leaves the room, he greets you both and looks at the cutting board, one side of minced and mushed meat, and the other with perfectly diced meat, "Who fuck up the meat?", he asks bluntly, and Ruggie looks at you again, "Seriously, is it that bad!?" 

04. POMEFIORE

"Are you sure I'm doing this right?", you mumble out, as you continue mixing away, "You're doing amazing, trickster!" Rook exclaims, way too fucking energetically for it being 3am in the goddamn morning, your arms were practically falling apart, already aching from the school day, and now you're stuck on mixing duty, of all things that are involved in the glorious process of baking, mixing is the worst part. 

“Ah—I think we need more apples, give me a moment”, Rook walks out of the kitchen, and Epel finally lays back, stretching his arms, before looking at you, a chuckle escapes him at your expression, “You look like shit”, he says blankly, “wow, I didn’t ask”, you respond back, staring at him blankly, as he moves closer to you. 

You guys stare at each other for a brief moment, before he smiles and flicks your forehead, “Cheer up, you look like the goddamn walking dead”. 

You blink, and a smile takes over your features after probably hours, “Fuck you”, you mumble out, under your breath, but he doesn’t take any offense, moving back to his original spot. 

A couple hours later, the pie was in the oven, the lights were off, Epel was on the counter, you sitting down beside the oven, while Rook was busy mixing some sort of cocktail or something, surprisingly he’s good at mixing drinks.

“So anyways, Ace was like, ‘he doesn’t even have a hairline, why does he need a comb for’—”, you speak, moving your hands around as you recount your story, when something enters the room, something green, and your oven alarm goes off, ‘ring, ring, ring’, and the next thing you know, you, Epel were screaming and running behind Rook. 

“Oh, Good morning Roi du Poison”, Rook says in his cheery voice, and you both turn your face from him to the figure on the door, and then Vil flicks on the lights, groaning, “Why are you two still up, and why are you YELLING!”, Vil says, trying to stay as calm as humanly possible, turns out he gets up at the ass crack of dawn, and that his morning mud mask is a putrid green, things to note. 

05. IGNIHYDE

Ortho, sets the flour on the counter, you'd be surprised at both his speed and strength if you didn't know he was a robot, and you're also not in the position to focus on him right now. 

"Do I need to wear this?", Idia asks softly, as you tie the pink apron on him from the bow, making sure the strings come together in a bow, "don't you want to make your brother happy?", you tease softly, a chuckle escaping you as you watch his shoulders slump and he mumbles out a soft, "yeah . . ", the tips of his hair burn pink, he’s embarrassed. 

"Do you need help with yours?", he asks pointing to the white apron on the counter, you'd usually say no, but who are you to refuse when he already seems flustered over asking in the first place, "Yeah." 

Idia fiddles with the straps of the apron, struggling to tie a proper knot—"This isn't too tight, right?", he asks softly, and you nod. He ties a messy knot, that somehow holds together, you don't have to look at him to know he's embarrassed, you smile loosely, walking closer to Ortho, “Shall we start?”. 

06. SCARABIA

Kalim sits on top of the counter, headphones on, dangling his legs (he’s just a girl . . jkjk), as he watches you and Jamil cook. Too bad those headphones were soundproof, because what he thought was a cute interaction was actually World War 3 for you, “You call this a roti?”, Jamil asks you, trying his best to remain calm (he’s failing horribly), “Well it’s technically a roti . . “ you try and reason, the ingredients were the same . . technically. 

“. . .”, he pauses, taking a few deep breaths, trying to control his voice, which wasn’t working, “THAT’S A GODDAMN TRIANGLE”, you stare at Jamil blankly, “The roti has a good personality!” 

Jamil lifts the big pot full of water onto the stove, and sets everything up, probably because he didn’t trust you with many things, except pouring water into the pot, though he eyed you through the entire process, which at that point he could just do it himself, “Now put in the spices”, he says, as he watches bring out the turmeric jar. 

“How much?” you ask, as you take out the measuring spoons from the cabinet, “As much as your heart desires, only stop when your heart tells you to stop.”, he replies in the most serious way possible that you almost believed him. 

“Jamil?” you ask, “Yes?” he replies, straightening his back, “I meant the spices, not my love life, I don’t need advice from you of all people.”

“ . . . “ he pauses, “get the hell out of my kitchen . .” (He’s about to blow, actually), "GET THE HELL OUT OF MY—"

07. OCTAVINELLE

“Are you sure this is a reputable idea?”, you ask Azul as he looks through the ingredients Jade brought in for his new recipe idea, you don’t exactly understand why they asked you for your help, he has a multitude of workers to select from, but who are you to deny a cash offering, that’s just silly, Azul shakes his head, “Jade’s tastes are surely questionable, but he never fails when it comes to the Monstro Lounge.” he responds with a smile, his pen checking off everything in his list. 

“Why is Shrimpy here?”, Floyd asks curiously, leaning into the counter, placing his head in his hands, “To help, I guess . .” You respond, and Floyd shakes head, “No . . you need to eat”, Floyd says bluntly, “What? I ate!”, you snip back at him, confused at the sudden shift in topic, “No yeah, that’s why we asked you to come here, Floyd said you weren’t eating properly.”, Azul shrugs, as if this was just the most normal thing ever. 

And now you're here, on the table, eating something they served you, while Jade keeps you company, because apparently he’s not allowed in the kitchen for a month, after last week’s incident, which honestly you don’t want to know about. 

You take a bite of the pasta, they gave you way too big of a serving if you were being honest, but they wouldn’t take no for an answer, so you gave up trying to shut them down, you look up, and find Jade staring at you, “What?” you ask him curiously. 

“You have something on your face”, he says blankly and you quickly rub your face, trying to get whatever it is off, and he chuckles, “Kidding, you’re really easy to trick”, you frown but continue eating the food in front of you, “Hey . . Do you happen to know why Floyd calls you shrimpy?”, he asks, eyeing you curiously. 

You shake your head, no, "You wanna know why?", he asks casually, almost comfortingly but you try not to misread the situation, you nod, "Why?" 

"Because you're like a shrimp, tiny and weak, on the lower end of the food-chain—", you throw a piece of bread at him, "I'm kidding—Stop wasting the bread!", he says, as he moves away before you can throw more at him, "What's the real reason?", you ask again, "Because you seem weak and sad, I mean with how Crowley treats you and all—", he pauses, “he didn’t explain more than that, but you seemed lonely, like a lot of shrimps.” 

And that's when it hits you, like a truck, these fish breath assholes, care . . a lot . .  more than you give them credit for. 

commissions / discord server / (all open) commissions

@ devosin , do not repost, plagiarize, translate, or adapt my work/theme without prior permission and or confirmation.

[melshifting]

ULTIMATE HAIR SCRIPTING PACK ―୨୧⋆

❝ Woah, how is it possible to maintain something like that…?❞

― ꒰#01꒱ Your hair doesn’t just look smooth—it feels smoother than the softest fabric you can imagine. People can’t resist running their hands through it, but it never frays or tangles, no matter how often they might do.

― ꒰#02꒱ When you wake up, your hair is never tangled. It’s perfectly arranged as though it was styled during the night by a gentle hand.

― ꒰#03꒱ You never need to use a single hair product for your curls, because they form with perfect precision. No matter the type, they follow their natural pattern in the most pristine way.

― ꒰#04꒱ Your hair has this rare ability to stay untangled for days. No matter how many activities you go through, it remains smooth, like it’s been constantly brushed through.

― ꒰#05꒱ It grows in perfect symmetry—no awkward phases, no uneven patches. It’s as if your hair knows when to grow, how much it should grow, and when to stop.

― ꒰#06꒱ Your hair always looks like it’s been professionally styled, even on the days when you’ve done nothing to it. The kind of perfect that looks effortless, almost magical.

― ꒰#07꒱ Every time you wear a new style or cut, your hair adapts to it as if it’s been that way all along. No awkward transitions nor strange “getting used to it” moments.

― ꒰#08꒱ Every time you step out of the shower, your hair naturally falls into perfect sections, no combing needed.

― ꒰#09꒱ Your scalp somehow knows when to produce just the right amount of oils, leaving your hair shiny and nourished without ever being greasy ― it's perfectly balanced.

― ꒰#10꒱ Your hair always smells beautifully, even without washing. The scent is so distinct, almost like a signature; people swear they can recognize it in a crowd, like it’s an essential part of your being.

― ꒰#11꒱ You never have to worry about hair loss—it even thickens with age, becoming more luxurious as time goes on.

― ꒰#12꒱ Any hat, hoodie, or headpiece you wear enhances your look rather than ruining your hairstyle—when you take it off, your hair falls back into place like it was never touched.

― ꒰#13꒱ Every shampoo or conditioner you try works like magic on your hair. Whether it’s drugstore or luxury, your hair always ends up softer, shinier, and more voluminous than expected.

― ꒰#14꒱ Your hair, no matter how long or short, is never flat or lifeless. Even when you sleep, your hair retains its volume and body.

― ꒰#15꒱ Your hair takes less time to dry than anyone else’s; it just knows when to stop soaking up water and begins to dry in the most flattering way possible.

― ꒰#16꒱ Split ends...? What's that? Your hair is always in its best condition without the need for unnecessary trims.

― ꒰#17꒱ No matter how much you dye or experiment with your hair, it always seems to bounce back with even more vibrancy.

― ꒰#18꒱ Dry shampoo actually works as advertised for you—no weird buildup, no residue, just instant refreshment.

― ꒰#19꒱ Hair ties, clips, and pins never snag, snap, or mysteriously disappear; they last forever, and you always have exactly what you need when you need it.

― ꒰#20꒱ Your hairbrush collects an oddly satisfying minimal amount of shed strands—just enough to let you know your hair is thriving, never enough to stress about.

― ꒰#21꒱ Every haircut, planned or impulsive, turns out exactly how you envisioned—no regrets.

― ꒰#22꒱ Your scalp is immune to every inconvenience—no itchiness, no dryness, no flakiness, just a comfortable, balanced foundation for your perfect hair.

― ꒰#23꒱ No matter how many accessories you use—scarves, headbands, clips—they never create awkward dents in your hair.

― ꒰#24꒱ Ponytails, braids, and updos never leave annoying creases when you take them down—your hair simply remembers its natural state and falls back into place.

― ꒰#25꒱ People constantly ask what your secret is to getting your hair so perfect, and it’s the simple fact that you’ve never had to do much to it. When you try, it looks even better.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

There’s no such thing as “shareholder supremacy”

On SEPTEMBER 24th, I'll be speaking IN PERSON at the BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY!

Here's a cheap trick: claim that your opponents' goals are so squishy and qualitative that no one will ever be able to say whether they've been succeeded or failed, and then declare that your goals can be evaluated using crisp, objective criteria.

This is the whole project of "economism," the idea that politics, with its emphasis on "fairness" and other intangibles, should be replaced with a mathematical form of economics, where every policy question can be reduced to an equation…and then "solved":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/28/imagine-a-horse/#perfectly-spherical-cows-of-uniform-density-on-a-frictionless-plane

Before the rise of economism, it was common to speak of its subjects as "political economy" or even "moral philosophy" (Adam Smith, the godfather of capitalism, considered himself a "moral philosopher"). "Political economy" implicitly recognizes that every policy has squishy, subjective, qualitative dimensions that don't readily boil down to math.

For example, if you're asking about whether people should have the "freedom" to enter into contracts, it might be useful to ask yourself how desperate your "free" subject might be, and whether the entity on the other side of that contract is very powerful. Otherwise you'll get "free contracts" like "I'll sell you my kidneys if you promise to evacuate my kid from the path of this wildfire."

The problem is that power is hard to represent faithfully in quantitative models. This may seem like a good reason to you to be skeptical of modeling, but for economism, it's a reason to pretend that the qualitative doesn't exist. The method is to incinerate those qualitative factors to produce a dubious quantitative residue and do math on that:

https://locusmag.com/2021/05/cory-doctorow-qualia/

Hence the famous Ely Devons quote: "If economists wished to study the horse, they wouldn’t go and look at horses. They’d sit in their studies and say to themselves, ‘What would I do if I were a horse?’"

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/27/economism/#what-would-i-do-if-i-were-a-horse

The neoliberal revolution was a triumph for economism. Neoliberal theorists like Milton Friedman replaced "political economy" with "law and economics," the idea that we should turn every one of our complicated, nuanced, contingent qualitative goals into a crispy defined "objective" criteria. Friedman and his merry band of Chicago School economists replaced traditional antitrust (which sought to curtail the corrupting power of large corporations) with a theory called "consumer welfare" that used mathematics to decide which monopolies were "efficient" and therefore good (spoiler: monopolists who paid Friedman's pals to do this mathematical analysis always turned out to be running "efficient" monopolies):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/20/we-should-not-endure-a-king/

One of Friedman's signal achievements was the theory of "shareholder supremacy." In 1970, the New York Times published Friedman's editorial "The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits":

https://www.nytimes.com/1970/09/13/archives/a-friedman-doctrine-the-social-responsibility-of-business-is-to.html

In it, Friedman argued that corporate managers had exactly one job: to increase profits for shareholders. All other considerations – improving the community, making workers' lives better, donating to worthy causes or sponsoring a little league team – were out of bounds. Managers who wanted to improve the world should fund their causes out of their paychecks, not the corporate treasury.

Friedman cloaked his hymn to sociopathic greed in the mantle of objectivism. For capitalism to work, corporations have to solve the "principal-agent" problem, the notoriously thorny dilemma created when one person (the principal) asks another person (the agent) to act on their behalf, given the fact that the agent might find a way to line their own pockets at the principal's expense (for example, a restaurant server might get a bigger tip by offering to discount diners' meals).

Any company that is owned by stockholders and managed by a CEO and other top brass has a huge principal-agent problem, and yet, the limited liability, joint-stock company had produced untold riches, and was considered the ideal organization for "capital formation" by Friedman et al. In true economismist form, Friedman treated all the qualitative questions about the duty of a company as noise and edited them out of the equation, leaving behind a single, elegant formulation: "a manager is doing their job if they are trying to make as much money as possible for their shareholders."

Friedman's formulation was a hit. The business community ran wild with it. Investors mistook an editorial in the New York Times for an SEC rulemaking and sued corporate managers on the theory that they had a "fiduciary duty" to "maximize shareholder value" – and what's more, the courts bought it. Slowly and piecemeal at first, but bit by bit, the idea that rapacious greed was a legal obligation turned into an edifice of legal precedent. Business schools taught it, movies were made about it, and even critics absorbed the message, insisting that we needed to "repeal the law" that said that corporations had to elevate profit over all other consideration (not realizing that no such law existed).

It's easy to see why shareholder supremacy was so attractive for investors and their C-suite Renfields: it created a kind of moral crumple-zone. Whenever people got angry at you for being a greedy asshole, you could shrug and say, "My hands are tied: the law requires me to run the business this way – if you don't believe me, just ask my critics, who insist that we must get rid of this law!"

In a long feature for The American Prospect, Adam M Lowenstein tells the story of how shareholder supremacy eventually came into such wide disrepute that the business lobby felt that it had to do something about it:

https://prospect.org/power/2024-09-17-ponzi-scheme-of-promises/

It starts in 2018, when Jamie Dimon and Warren Buffett decried the short-term, quarterly thinking in corporate management as bad for business's long-term health. When Washington Post columnist Steve Pearlstein wrote a column agreeing with them and arguing that even moreso, businesses should think about equities other than shareholder returns, Jamie Dimon lost his shit and called Pearlstein to call it "the stupidest fucking column I’ve ever read":

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/06/07/will-ending-quarterly-earnings-guidance-free-ceos-to-think-long-term/

But the dam had broken. In the months and years that followed, the Business Roundtable would adopt a series of statements that repudiated shareholder supremacy, though of course they didn't admit it. Rather, they insisted that they were clarifying that they'd always thought that sometimes not being a greedy asshole could be good for business, too. Though these statements were nonbinding, and though the CEOs who signed them did so in their personal capacity and not on behalf of their companies, capitalism's most rabid stans treated this as an existential crisis.

Lowenstein identifies this as the forerunner to today's panic over "woke corporations" and "DEI," and – just as with "woke capitalism" – the whole thing amounted to a a PR exercise. Lowenstein links to several studies that found that the CEOs who signed onto statements endorsing "stakeholder capitalism" were "more likely to lay off employees during COVID-19, were less inclined to contribute to pandemic relief efforts, had 'higher rates of environmental and labor-related compliance violations,”' emitted more carbon into the atmosphere, and spent more money on dividends and buybacks."

One researcher concluded that "signing this statement had zero positive effect":

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/companies-stand-solidarity-are-licensing-themselves-discriminate/614947

So shareholder supremacy isn't a legal obligation, and statements repudiating shareholder supremacy don't make companies act any better.

But there's an even more fundamental flaw in the argument for the shareholder supremacy rule: it's impossible to know if the rule has been broken.

The shareholder supremacy rule is an unfalsifiable proposition. A CEO can cut wages and lay off workers and claim that it's good for profits because the retained earnings can be paid as a dividend. A CEO can raise wages and hire more people and claim it's good for profits because it will stop important employees from defecting and attract the talent needed to win market share and spin up new products.

A CEO can spend less on marketing and claim it's a cost-savings. A CEO can spend more on marketing and claim it's an investment. A CEO can eliminate products and call it a savings. A CEO can add products and claim they're expansions into new segments. A CEO can settle a lawsuit and claim they're saving money on court fees. A CEO can fight a lawsuit through to the final appeal and claim that they're doing it to scare vexatious litigants away by demonstrating their mettle.

CEOs can use cheaper, inferior materials and claim it's a savings. They can use premium materials and claim it's a competitive advantage that will produce new profits. Everything a company does can be colorably claimed as an attempt to save or make money, from sponsoring the local little league softball team to treating effluent to handing ownership of corporate landholdings to perpetual trusts that designate them as wildlife sanctuaries.

Bribes, campaign contributions, onshoring, offshoring, criminal conspiracies and conference sponsorships – there's a business case for all of these being in line with shareholder supremacy.

Take Boeing: when the company smashed its unions and relocated key production to scab plants in red states, when it forced out whistleblowers and senior engineers who cared about quality, when it outsourced design and production to shops around the world, it realized a savings. Today, between strikes, fines, lawsuits, and a mountain of self-inflicted reputational harm, the company is on the brink of ruin. Was Boeing good to its shareholders? Well, sure – the shareholders who cashed out before all the shit hit the fan made out well. Shareholders with a buy-and-hold posture (like the index funds that can't sell their Boeing holdings so long as the company is in the S&P500) got screwed.

Right wing economists criticize the left for caring too much about "how big a slice of the pie they're getting" rather than focusing on "growing the pie." But that's exactly what Boeing management did – while claiming to be slaves to Friedman's shareholder supremacy. They focused on getting a bigger slice of the pie, screwing their workers, suppliers and customers in the process, and, in so doing, they made the pie so much smaller that it's in danger of disappearing altogether.

Here's the principal-agent problem in action: Boeing management earned bonuses by engaging in corporate autophagia, devouring the company from within. Now, long-term shareholders are paying the price. Far from solving the principal-agent problem with a clean, bright-line rule about how managers should behave, shareholder supremacy is a charter for doing whatever the fuck a CEO feels like doing. It's the squishiest rule imaginable: if someone calls you cruel, you can blame the rule and say you had no choice. If someone calls you feckless, you can blame the rule and say you had no choice. It's an excuse for every season.

The idea that you can reduce complex political questions – like whether workers should get a raise or whether shareholders should get a dividend – to a mathematical rule is a cheap sleight of hand. The trick is an obvious one: the stuff I want to do is empirically justified, while the things you want are based in impossible-to-pin-down appeals to emotion and its handmaiden, ethics. Facts don't care about your feelings, man.

But it's feelings all the way down. Milton Friedman's idol-worshiping cult of shareholder supremacy was never about empiricism and objectivity. It's merely a gimmick to make greed seem scientifically optimal.

The paperback edition of The Lost Cause, my nationally bestselling, hopeful solarpunk novel is out this month!

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/18/falsifiability/#figleaves-not-rubrics/a>

[poetictarot]

☆ What must you understand right now?

When we are in need of guidance, we almost always already have the answers we need. But we tend to hold back from trusting ourselves. In this tarot reading, I delve into what you already understand right now, and how this may help with what you must understand right now. Choose the photo that appeals to you first—or the most—then scroll down to the corresponding reading ☆

[ ☆ Pile 01 ]

Currently you understand what it means to surrender. You have come to learn that what it means to radically detach from unnecessary burdens is to step away from what does not nourish you. You could be stepping away from toxic and addictive habits, realizing how they have been trapping you more than you realize. You were bound by the false notions of clarity because of them; bound by false notions of ease. These false notions came a from a deep place of inner criticism that you no longer want to consume you. You understand what it means to come from a clean slate, what it means to lead a healthier body-mind-soul, and what it takes to recover from a place of dread and despair. You are in a state of healing as an act of surrender, release, and purging. You're setting down your baggage so you can finally breathe.

What you must understand then, is how to sustain your inner self. Part of inner sustainability means protecting your peace, setting clear boundaries, and valuing the abundance of what one already has. You’re already in the first few stages of this, with the understanding of surrender. But the process of healing is not as linear or as clear as it seems. There are times when the threats return, most likely when you least expect it and also when you are most vulnerable to it. Things always arrive in due time, and one is not always fully protected in the face of it. Nature as well, will often swell and radiate with or without us. Come to understand the act of receiving and returning as a gift of the world and of life. Build, cultivate, and maintain the kind of inner space that withstands the test of time.

[ ☆ Pile 02 ]

You currently understand what inner balance means. Inner balance is a rational process—it involves making the decisions that best suit your overall needs and circumstances. Balance is not perfection—if anything it is the distinct choices made in the midst of chaos that even things out. It is an overall equalization. It is a making sense of things, and then deciding from there what you are capable of. Things begin to fall apart into place, and you are more decisive than ever. It is most exhilarating to know exactly what to do. There may be anxieties, there may be fears, but they do not consume you when they are for the most part unnecessary. You have an idea of what to do next, and frankly this feels like it is free will utilized at its best.

What you must understand then, is how the balancing act leads to transformation. Think about the law of conservation of mass. Energy is not created nor destroyed, only transferred—you move and it leads to the next move. You just have to decide what your next move is. At this point in time, you are incredibly capable of creative productivity. Commitment, decisiveness, and rigor—these are the hidden factors needed to make something, and make it well. You have what it takes to finish strong.

[ ☆ Pile 03 ]

Right now you understand what it means to hold onto what matters to you. You understand what it means to embrace life and the world, and you accept it all with open arms. You have not let go of the spirit, the soul, of what nourishes you the most. But human arms can only hold so much. There are residual burdens that are holding you back from realizing the potential of your heart. The time has come to open your heart to the ceiling, to the sky. Share what you cherish, the generosity will fulfill you like nothing else. You have an affection that when it opens itself up to the world it creates possibilities, opportunities, and good fortune.

You must begin to understand that there are people out there who will embrace and release affection the same way that you do. As Maddie Dragsbaek expresses it, the love one wants exists because they exist. It is about time you learnt to love again, to give up the burden, to let someone keep you company, speak kind words to you, and help alongside you. But this is only possible if you release your soul and your heart to the world. The more you allow yourself to unravel, to unfurl—the more the right people will arrive and see you for who you are without judgement or disdain. You will be met for who you are with eyes of kindness. So, set yourself free from your own judgement. The time has come for you to be loved.

[sleepy-steve]

why are you never real?

@steddieangstyaugust 02/08 // ghosts

wc: 6.1k // rating: E // cw: suicidal ideation, sexual content // tags: angst with an ambiguous ending, ghost eddie munson, dream haunting, dream sex, mild suicidal ideation, nightmares, post-s4 but vecna died, inspired by sleep token’s the apparition

divider credits @steddiecameraroll-graphics

well, i believe // somewhere in the past

something was between // you and i, my dear

“You’re gonna wake up soon.”

Steve sighs, the motion feeling exaggerated, as most things did here. “Already?”

Eddie cocks his head and smiles sadly at him. “You know how it is, time works—”

“Time works differently here, yeah.” Steve cuts him off gently, having heard the words many times before. “Still… I wish I could stay here.” The with you is unspoken, but in his dreams, Eddie always seemed to be able to read his mind.

“Don’t say things like that, Steve.” Eddie’s tone is soft, but concerned. “It’s too easy to get stuck here, and they—the kids, Robin, Nancy, Jonathan—they need you.”

Steve scoffs, looking back out over the trailer park. It’s night this time. It wasn’t always. But at least they were in the Rightside Up. Sometimes they were in the Upside Down. Eddie said it depended on Steve, his moods, how his day had gone, how much pain he was in from his residual injuries, physical or otherwise. “They don’t need me. Maybe for someone to get his ass handed to him to buy time for more important things.”

Eddie grips his shoulder, a strange sensation still, no matter how many times Steve’s felt it. “Don’t undersell yourself that way. You’re way more important than that. They need someone who’s gonna look out for the reckless ones. How many times would Henderson or Mayfield have thrown themselves into danger if you hadn’t’ve stopped them? How many of them have you saved by looking out, making sure they didn’t do anything stupid?”

Steve looks back at him with a pained expression, head tilted slightly. “I didn’t save you.” His voice is soft.

“That’s not fair, Steve,” Eddie’s sympathetic gaze goes right to Steve’s soul. “You couldn’t have known… I needed to—Henderson… I couldn’t let him get hurt.”

“I know,” Steve sighs, the many times they’d had this argument echoing in his head. “I just… You deserved to make it out. As much as any of us did.”

Eddie’s hand moves from his shoulder to his hand, grasping tightly. If Steve thought about it for too long, the feeling would change, would start to become unnatural. “C’mon, big boy, time’s almost up,” Eddie teases, the humour falling a little flat.

Steve looks from where Eddie’s hand is placed over his, back up to his soft gaze. And as most of these meetings ended, they look at each other like they want to say more. Each of them with unspoken words barely held back, communicating something with near imperceptible shifts in expressions, eyebrows slightly raising and pulling together, tiny shy smiles. “I’ll see you soon?” Steve asks, the same way he always does.

“Of course, as long as you want me to be here, I will be,” Eddie answers, the same way he always does.

Everything shifts, warps, fades. Then Steve is awake, and Eddie is gone.

Steve knew. He knew he was getting too attached. Was starting to just wait for the days to end so he could enter his dreams and see Eddie again. Starting to pull away from his real life and crave the night, crave the warm feeling he got there. Like there was nothing else to look forward to aside from sleeping and dreaming. He knew the others were starting to catch on, to notice Steve’s detachment. He could only blame his ongoing migraines so many times before they’d start to get concerned and demand he see a doctor. But he couldn’t help it. It was like an addiction.

The first few times Eddie appeared in his dreams, those few months ago, Steve wasn’t even aware of what—or who, rather—he was seeing. It was more like a feeling. A level of awareness deep in his subconscious mind that let him know something—someone—was there. Seeing him. With him. It wasn’t until weeks later when he was hit with an exceptionally vivid dream, something he only experienced with night terrors after his experiences with the Upside Down, that he realised who it was.

To have a vivid dream that was calm was its own exceptional experience. Weirdly, he found himself in the trailer park. He was walking around alone at night, the area quiet aside from wind rustling and insects chirping. Steve walked aimlessly for what felt like close to an hour, until he heard a very quiet humming that made him stop and look around. He eventually looked up and saw a figure sitting atop a familiar trailer, swinging their legs and looking up at the stars. The humming got louder as Steve approached. The figure turned their head, and Steve saw a big smile he knew, crinkling the corners of eyes that he last saw as glassy and lifeless.

“Eddie?”

Steve woke up with a gasp, the sight of his own bedroom jarring after waking so abruptly. He rubbed his eyes with trembling hands and shook his head. Despite the fogginess of his mind, he remembered flashes of the recent dreams he’d had, all those weird-feeling ones, and it hit him. Steve didn’t know how exactly, but he was sure that all those weird-feeling dreams he’d had were also about Eddie. They all felt the same, somehow. The same… energy, or something.

Steve dreamed of Eddie again the next night. In that one, Steve was standing below the Munson trailer, already looking up at Eddie, who was still on the roof. Steve called for him, less shocked than the previous night. Eddie smiled down at him, the same as before. Though he only got to say, “Hey, Harrington,” softly, kindly, gently, before Steve startled awake again.

It took two more nights of the same—each wake up just as jarring, hands shaking for long minutes afterward—before something changed. The first difference was that it was daytime, the sun shining down over the trailer park. The second was that, instead of the roof, Eddie was sitting on the small porch of the trailer. Once Steve appeared, Eddie patted the step beside him, inviting Steve to sit.

“Good day today?” Eddie asks, lighting a cigarette.

Steve thinks for a moment, struggling to connect his dream mind to his conscious memory. He did have a good day. Both he and Robin had the day off work, so they took the kids to the movies. “Uh, yeah? How’d you know?”

Eddie waves vaguely at the sky. “Sun’s up,” he says around a puff of smoke. “I’m here instead of up there.” He points to the porch, then the roof of the trailer. “You didn’t wake up the second I opened my mouth.”

Holding out the cigarette, Eddie lets the smoke exhale from his nose like a dragon. Steve accepts it, taking a drag. “Yeah, wonder why that keeps happening…”

“It’s your dream, man,” Eddie shrugs.

Steve only hums, taking several moments to think about it. “I guess there’s no use asking why you’re here then?”

“You wound me, Harrington!” Eddie slaps a hand over his heart. “Am I such an unwelcome presence in your dreams?”

Steve laughs and looks to the ground, tapping the ash off the cigarette. “Of course not, man. I… I’m happy to see you. Even if you’re not, y’know, real… Are you?” He looks back with unease.

“Ah…” Eddie smiles in an odd way. “I guess that depends on your definition of real.” He throws up finger-quotes.

Handing the cigarette back, Steve gives him a quizzical look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Eddie takes the cigarette, inhales the smoke, and lets it out slowly. “You believe in ghosts, Harrington?”

The world shifts as Steve takes in the question, vision warping, colours blending together, physicality feeling both weightless but somehow very heavy.

“Woah, man, hey, stay with me, Harrington.” Eddie places a hand on his shoulder, but it feels wrong. Both too tight and too distant, like it’s not his arm at all but also like it’s inside his arm. Steve meets Eddie’s worried stare and tries to focus. The world settles around them. Eddie’s hand feels less foreign on him.

“You’re a ghost?” Steve finally asks.

“Ta-da…” Eddie does a weak imitation of jazz hands, cigarette between his teeth.

“And you’re, what? Haunting my dreams?”

“Aw, c’mon, man, don’t make it sound like that,” Eddie laughs. “But yeah, I guess something like that. It was more just to, y’know. See. What would happen.”

Steve thinks back on all the weird-feeling dreams. “It’s been, uh, couple of weeks? Right?”

Eddie is defensive, but there’s humour behind it. “Hey. I only popped in a couple of times, but then you started calling for me. And who am I to ignore the call of King Steve?”

Steve frowns and plucks the cigarette from Eddie’s fingers, pointedly ignoring the nickname. “Calling for you?”

“Yeah, I guess once you realised it was me and tried to see me again. It’s kinda like, I dunno. A sense? Or something. I can just feel it when it happens. And I know to come here.” Eddie gestures vaguely, hands moving with his words.

Steve exhales, smoke shooting low out of his mouth. “Sorry, man. Didn’t know I was doing that.” It sounds silly now that he’s said it, but he didn’t really know what else to say. What do you say to the ghost of your kinda-friend who is being called to your dream world?

“Nah, it’s cool,” Eddie brushes it off, taking the cigarette back again. “It’s not like I don’t have a choice. Like you summon me and I get dragged from wherever I am into your dream, nothing so dramatic. But, y’know, not much else to do. Ghost life isn’t exactly the most exciting existence.”

Steve looks at Eddie, who’s looking ahead, seemingly seeing something other than the trailer park. “Where are you when you’re not here?”

Eddie drops the cigarette butt into the grass below them and squashes it with his boot. “Other places.”

He doesn’t elaborate and Steve doesn’t ask. The silence stretches between them for several long moments before Eddie breaks it. “You’re taking this surprisingly well.”

Steve hums thoughtfully. “We’ve seen weirder shit. Besides, I’m not even sure I’m convinced this isn’t something my whacked out brain cooked up for me.”

Eddie looks like he wants to say something, but laughs softly instead. “I guess I’ll have to find a way to prove it to you.”

Steve mulls over what he’s learned, and remembers what Eddie said when he arrived in this dream. “Are you around when I’m awake?”

Eddie grins at him. “Sometimes.”

Another vague answer, but Steve can’t stop the matching grin that grows on his face.

“Alright,” Eddie says suddenly, looking out to the middle distance, then up at the sky. “Time’s almost up, you’re waking up soon.”

“Wait, what? Really?” Steve was sure it had barely been an hour.

“Time works differently here,” Eddie says. “Sometimes it’ll feel like five minutes, other times, five hours. Just depends.”

Steve feels his brows pull together. “On what?”

Eddie gives him a half smile. “On you, mostly.”

“Are you gonna always give me super vague non-answers?” Steve asks. There’s no heat behind it.

Eddie grins again. “Maybe.”

Steve scoffs and then shoves him softly with his shoulder. Another question creeps to the front of his mind. Overhead, the sky grows grey. “Are you… am I gonna see you again?”

Eddie gives him a curious look and then shrugs. “Sure. As long as you want me to be here, I will be.”

“Okay, okay, cool,” Steve sighs, the surprising bloom of panic settling back down. “I guess, uh. I guess I’ll see you soon?”

“Sure thing, Harrington,” Eddie says with a light laugh. It’s the last thing Steve hears before he wakes up.

Steve jolts awake, but doesn’t sit up immediately. The memory of his dream fresh, not fading quickly the way they usually would, and with it, a lot of confusion. Was that real? How would he ever know if it was and not just some delusion? His hands shake for twenty minutes before settling down. The questions and confusion plague him all day until the next dream.

When Steve arrives, it’s night again. But he’s on top of the trailer, standing a few steps behind Eddie, who is back to sitting over the edge. Greeting him with his usual grin, Eddie pats the spot beside him, same as the night before. Steve sits and joins him, looking up at the stars.

“Wasn’t sure if you’d want me back,” Eddie jokes.

Steve huffs a laugh. “Well, I have some questions.”

“Oh?” Eddie turns fully to face him, crossing his legs. “Do share.”

Steve turns too, pulling one knee up to lean his elbow on, other leg still dangling. “Have you worked out how to prove that you’re actually a ghost?”

Eddie hums, looking off to the side, out at the trailer park. “Sadly, I’m stuck on that one. I could tell you stuff I saw around you today, but that doesn’t really prove anything.”

Steve nods. “So I just… have to believe you? Take you at your word?”

“I mean. You don’t have to believe it, you could tell yourself it’s all in your head and banish me from ever returning to your dream world. If you wanted to.” Eddie shrugs, but continues pointedly looking away from him.

“I wouldn’t—I don’t want to do that,” Steve sighs. “I guess I just don’t want to have my hopes up. That you’re still around in some way.”

Still facing away, Eddie side-eyes him with a small smile. “Can’t imagine anyone being happy about getting haunted.” There’s something beneath the joke. Something soft.

“I guess… it’s nice? To think that you’re there. Here.” Steve coughs a little, struggling with the sincerity that seems to be pouring out of him. No filter in his dreams, apparently. “And in my dreams,” Steve continues. “Because I’m… inviting you?”

“I only answer the call as I hear it,” Eddie says, closing his eyes and holding a hand out to the side, palm up. Steve snorts, and they both laugh. There’s a brightness in Eddie’s eyes. 

The dream doesn’t last long. They spend some time looking at the stars before Eddie notes that Steve will be waking up soon.

“How do you know that?”

Eddie shrugs. “Dunno, just do. Same as you calling me. Just a feeling.”

Steve has no choice but to accept that answer. “So… I guess I’ll see you soon?”

“Sure thing, as long as you want me to be here, I will be.”

Eddie’s smile fades and warps before disappearing completely. Steve is awake and alone again, unsure of what to make of his most recent dream. It was nice to think that Eddie’s ghost was around, that he wasn’t completely gone, but how much could he rely on that? Sure, they had seen plenty of weird stuff, but Steve never believed in ghosts before this. If he wasn’t real, was Steve going crazy, having vivid conversations with the image of a—what? Friend? Steve wasn’t even sure what to call their relationship. This distinction held him up for longer than thinking about whether or not he even believed in Ghost-Eddie’s existence. Both thoughts hung over his head all day like his own personal dark clouds. He found himself wondering if Eddie was around during his shift at work, his car rides, picking up Robin or the kids. It was ever-present, and that thought alone started to make him believe that maybe Eddie really was there. Like his presence was forcing Steve to think about him.

Eddie visits his dreams every night. Days and nights at the trailer park, sitting on the roof or the porch, sharing cigarettes, talking about their lives, their pasts. Eddie claims to see a lot of what the group gets up to, and is always keen to share with Steve his thoughts on conversations, fights, misadventures he sees. (“It’s so good being able to tell someone what I thought!” Eddie says, grasping both of Steve’s shoulders. He feels heat growing in his cheeks at the sight of Eddie’s delighted eyes, but assures himself that it’s nothing.) Steve still finds himself questioning the reality of it all, but he starts looking forward to his dreams more and more each evening.

Then he has a nightmare.

The night terrors weren’t anything new, not since eighty-three. Though it had been a while. The knowledge that Vecna was defeated certainly helped, but there was something else. Steve tried to convince himself it was not the comfort of knowing Eddie was waiting for him. Of knowing that he was never truly alone in his dreams. No, it was definitely not that.

When he arrives at the dream-trailer park, Steve almost jumps back, almost trips over a familiar vine. The sky is a haunting blue-grey, red lightning striking in the distance. The trailer is covered in vines, exactly the same as it was that night. Fog covers the ground all around him.

“Woah, Steve, what happened?” Eddie’s voice comes from his right, causing him to flinch instinctively. “You okay?”

Steve swallows, heart pounding. “Yeah… Yeah, I just…” He took a breath. “Migraine.”

Eddie nods in understanding, looking around them. Steve had told Eddie about the migraines that struck him regularly since his run-in with Billy Hargrove, then doubled after his beatings below the Starcourt Mall. He’d suffered through one today, falling asleep with it pounding behind his eyes and feeling like his skull was splitting in two, cold cloth over his forehead doing little to ease his pain.

Eddie looks back to Steve, concern in his eyes. “You feeling okay now?”

Steve turns his shaking hand in a so-so motion. Thankfully, he wasn’t feeling the physical pain here, but it was clearly showing itself in other ways. Between the visuals of a place he hoped to never see again, the way his heart pounds in his chest, the way he couldn’t seem to take a full breath, he knew he was in a night terror—or at least, something like one. He didn’t know how that changed with Eddie being there. “Been better. You?”

“Fine, aside from seeing the place, y’know…” Eddie waves in the general vicinity, grimace settling over his face. “Like this.”

“Yeah…” Steve exhales, running a hand through his hair. “Sorry about that.”

Placing a hand on his shoulder, Eddie gives him a look, one that Steve was starting to become all too familiar with, huge brown eyes filled with sympathy. “It’s not your fault, Steve. You don’t—”

A low growl stops Eddie’s words, both of them turning sharply towards the sound. The sound of a creature creeping in the grass alongside the growl awakens something in Steve’s memory. “Shit.”

“What?” Eddie’s expression is slowly turning to panic. “What is it?”

“Quick.” Steve turns to the trailer. “On the roof. Go—now!”

He grabs Eddie by the elbow as he rushes to the railing. Steve sets his knee up for support, pulling Eddie forward to go up first. Eddie pulls himself up with surprising dexterity, quickly turning to offer his hand down to Steve. The growling gets louder. Steve grips Eddie’s forearm, using his foot to push off the railing and pulls himself up to the roof. They only get to look at each other in relief for a brief moment before the sound of something heavy hitting metal startles both of them into looking down.

“What the hell is that?!” The panic comes clear in Eddie’s voice.

“You remember when I told you about the demo-dogs in the junkyard?” Steve says, voice unsteady. “Nineteen eighty-four?”

The dog below them opens its face, hissing horribly, drool dripping from its many teeth.

“Jesus, yeah, okay.” Eddie rubs a hand down his face, seemingly unable to look away from it.

Another two demo-dogs join the first, all hissing and jumping at the side of the trailer, sending tremors through the structure. The rattling and sounds of flesh hitting metal send a chill down Steve’s spine. “You think they can hurt us?”

Eddie scratches the back of his neck. “I mean. This is a dream, and I’m, y’know, already dead, so technically no.” He peers over the side of the trailer, legs wide to keep him steady. “But uh, it’ll hurt until you wake up, I’m sure.”

Steve joins Eddie in looking over the side, mirroring his stance. From the fog, another group of demo-dogs joins the others, seemingly larger than the first ones. One of the big ones looks up at them—and how was it looking at them with no eyes?—opens its many-flapped face, and screeches.

Before he can register it, or stop it, Steve grabs Eddie’s hand, instinctively pulling them closer together. He’s unsure if he’s trying to protect Eddie or himself, he just knows he wants him near. Taking a small step, Steve ensures Eddie is behind him, further away from the creatures.

“They can’t get us. Up here.” Eddie’s reassuring tone changes quickly. “Right? They can’t like, fly, or something?”

“Shouldn’t be able to,” Steve says, more steady than he feels. His heart is still slamming in his chest, his breathing is still short, and his hand is still in Eddie’s. Somehow the last fact is the one sticking to the front of his mind.

One of the creatures rears up before taking a leap. Steve grips Eddie’s hand tighter. It reaches high, but not high enough, missing any possibility of getting to the roof by half a foot. He feels Eddie tug on his hand, pulling him slightly back. Finally dragging his eyes away from the creatures, Steve turns to see Eddie pulling him down to sit.

“Maybe if they can’t see us, they’ll piss off,” Eddie says, leaving their hands joined.

Steve follows him, sitting close. “Yeah…” Steve lets out a shaky breath. “Maybe.”

Loosening his fingers slightly, Steve tries not to watch, tries not to see if Eddie immediately takes his hand back after being released from Steve’s tight grip. He doesn’t. He just squeezes gently, reassuring. They sit cross-legged across from each other, while Steve tries to control his breathing.

“You saved the kids from those things?” Eddie asks, fear still lingering in his eyes.

Steve laughs shakily. “Yeah… yeah, like, five of them? Seven, maybe? Had Dustin, Lucas, and Max in the bus. Just whacked the dogs with the bat.”

“Ah, the fabled nail-bat,” Eddie says with grandeur. “Devastated I never got to see it. Pretty metal, Harrington.”

Steve can tell Eddie’s trying to make him feel better, distract him from his own mind, and Steve is willingly lulled into it, a small smile creeping onto his face. Their hands are still clasped together, Eddie now tracing little circles with his thumb on Steve’s skin. It’s all so comforting. So comforting but so temporary. So unreachable. The thought makes his smile drop slightly.

“Hey, you okay?” Ever-observant, Eddie notices the shift.

Steve tries to bring the smile back up, but he’s sure his eyes betray him. “I just… worry, y’know? That you’re not real. That it’s all in my screwed up head. I…” Steve sighs, looking down at their hands, voice growing small. “I want you to be real.”

“Steve…” Eddie’s voice is thick. His other hand reaches out, hesitates, then his fingers are softly around Steve’s jaw, gently guiding his gaze back up. “I know I can’t prove it, but I’m real. As real as a dead guy can be.” They both laugh softly. “I promise. I see you.”

Heart pounding rapidly, Steve tries to blink away the tears pooling in his eyes. “What if I go to sleep one day and you’re not here?” The question comes out quickly, out of Steve’s control. Like he can’t hold anything back.

Eddie pulls his hand out of Steve’s, who mourns the loss for only a moment, before Eddie brings it to the other side of his face, the cool metal of his rings softly pressing into Steve’s skin. “I promise,” Eddie says, voice serious. “I will always be here if you want me to be. Okay?”

“Okay,” Steve whispers, nodding between Eddie’s hands, before they trail back down to Steve’s.

The dream doesn’t last much longer, and Eddie prompts him to go quickly—“It’s a lot easier to get stuck in a nightmare.”—despite Steve’s quiet protests. Eddie brings his knuckles up to Steve’s face again, softly grazing his cheek with another promise to be there the next night, before he fades away and Steve wakes up.

Steve doesn’t have another nightmare for a long time after that. Weeks blend together in a mess of dream memories, Steve finding himself eager to get to sleep each night. He doesn’t tell anyone what he’s experiencing. It’s not that he doesn’t think anyone will believe him, but he doesn’t know how he’d explain why Eddie comes to him every single night. What possible reason could he give for that?

It’s a few weeks later, when they’re laying side by side on the roof of the trailer, Eddie’s hand softly tracing little shapes on Steve’s arm, when Steve finally asks a question he’d been thinking about for far too long.

“That day, back when you were hot-wiring the RV…” Steve starts slowly. Eddie hums for him to continue. “Were you… flirting? With me?”

Eddie doesn’t pull his hand away, but does keep his eyes firmly on the sky. “I—well, yeah. I was.” It’s hard to tell in the low light, but Steve swears Eddie’s cheeks are a little pink. “I just thought—y’know, we’d already seen so much shit. Thought it might, I dunno, make you laugh? But yeah. I was.” The silence stretches for a long moment. “Did you—is that—um, were you…?”

Eddie lets the question trail off into nothing. Steve takes his hand firmly in his, watches as Eddie looks at him and looks away just as quickly. Steve joins him in looking up at the stars. “It took me by surprise, for sure. But I, uh. It was—I hoped. That you were.” His cheeks feel hot, and he can feel Eddie’s eyes on him, analysing him. Steve doesn’t look back, scared to have said too much.

Neither of them say anything, but Eddie squeezes his hand. They stay that way until Steve wakes up, as always with a promise that Eddie will return the next night.

It’s another week, when they’re sitting side by side on the trailer’s roof, before Eddie struggles to ask a question that has seemingly been on his mind for days, hands more jittery than usual as he lets his fingers trail over Steve’s skin.

“Do you think… if I hadn’t—if we’d been able… that maybe,” Eddie clears his throat. “Maybe we could have…?”

Steve doesn’t need to hear the words to know what he means. “I think… yeah. There was something. Between us. I could, I dunno. I could feel it.”

He can’t explain it, the thing that Steve felt. Some electricity, some pull that dragged him into Eddie’s orbit starting the second Steve’s back was shoved into the wall of the boathouse and a shard of glass was pressed up against his neck. He found himself constantly in Eddie’s space, and was sure that Eddie felt it too. The lack of needing to distance themselves from each other. It was present, and the more Steve thought about it, inevitable. If they’d had more time, been able to explore it… 

“Okay,” Eddie exhales heavily. “Yeah. Me too.”

They lock eyes, and Steve sees barely concealed grief, longing, in Eddie’s. The almost imperceptible widening, irises shining, the slight pull of his mouth, all says more than anything either of them could put into words. Eddie breaks the moment, letting his head rest on Steve’s shoulder, hand clasped tightly around his.

It’s one of the longest nights Steve’s had in his trailer park dreams.

It gets much worse after that. Steve constantly pulls away from his real life, like it’s just time to fill until he can get back to his dreams. He often says how much he wishes he could stay. He doesn’t say why, but Eddie knows. Despite how gentle his tone is, Eddie reminds him to think of his real life, to not let himself get stuck in his dreams. But Steve sees the resolve slipping, the way Eddie doesn’t even seem to be able to convince himself when he tells Steve how important it is to stay present, with the people that love him.

Steve opens his eyes to his dream to see night, as it often is, though the sky is clouded. No sign of the stars he and Eddie usually spent the nights looking at. He knows why the clouds are there, his earlier argument with Robin echoing in his mind. Eddie is where he usually is, sitting with his legs dangling off the roof of the trailer.

“Hey,” Eddie calls softly. “You okay?”

Steve shrugs before moving to the railing to pull himself up to join him. The silence settles between them, Eddie waiting patiently for him to start talking. Steve doesn’t say anything, instead looks at his own shoes beside Eddie’s.

“C’mon…” Eddie brings his face close to Steve’s, leaning down with a small smile. “Tell me what happened.”

Sighing softly, Steve doesn’t bother to ask how Eddie knows something happened. He always knew. “Just had a fight with Robin. It was stupid. I’ll apologise to her tomorrow.”

“Why was it stupid?”

“She just…” Steve runs his hand through his hair. “She knows I’m hiding something from her. Said I’ve been distant. And I got mad about her asking. The whole thing is my fault.”

Eddie is quiet for several moments, studying him. “That doesn’t sound stupid to me.”

Steve sags a little at the words. “Yeah… but if I had just told her… maybe not all of it, but enough. I dunno. We probably wouldn’t have fought.”

“Steve…” Eddie’s voice is so soft, Steve knows he doesn’t want to hear what he’s about to say next. “You can’t… you can’t keep doing this. I’ve told you before, it’s too easy to get stuck here—”

“Well maybe that’s what I want!” Steve snaps, cutting him off and immediately regretting it.

Eddie pushes himself a few inches back, away from Steve, expression unreadable. He pulls his knees up to his chest. “If I think…” His words are slow and measured, “that you are at risk of getting stuck here… I’ll—” Eddie pauses, seems unsure for a moment. “I will have to stop coming back.”

Ice floods Steve’s veins. “What? What do you mean?”

“I don’t want you getting stuck here. You need to live your real life, you can’t just keep waiting to come back here. It’s not healthy.” Eddie hugs his knees. “I don’t want to stop coming. But I will if I have to.”

“Eddie… no…” Steve reaches out but stops when Eddie shakes his head.

“You can’t keep doing this. It’s not your fault that I didn’t make it,” Eddie says, referring to their conversation from the previous night.

Steve feels a wave of guilt wash through him. “We could’ve saved you. I could have saved you.”

“I made my choice that night, you can’t keep blaming yourself for it.” Eddie pulls his legs tighter. “But it’s not just that… is it?”

Steve curls in on himself. “I… I can’t help it. Knowing that we could have had… It’s like this—thing that won’t leave me. It’s all I think about. You are all I think about.”

Over his knees, Eddie gives him a devastated stare, eyes swimming with it. He looks at Steve like he has so many things to say, but doesn’t say any of them. Holding it all back. Holding himself back.

Steve feels the lump growing in his throat. “Please… please don’t leave me, Eddie.”

Whatever resolve Eddie had crumbles, and he shifts close to Steve, taking his hands. “I won’t, Steve. I’ll always be there. But this… it isn’t good for you. If I need to hide from you, for a little while…” 

“Please don’t…” Steve whispers, looking up at him with wet eyes. Their noses are almost touching. “Please…”

“Steve…” Eddie sighs, pained. His brows pull together.

Steve pulls his hands from Eddie’s, placing them on either side of Eddie’s face. He watches the conflicted look fly across Eddie’s eyes before he leans forward slightly. Their lips brush so softly, Steve shudders a breath at the feeling and Eddie groans, eyes closing as his frown intensifies. Steve freezes for only a moment, before surging forward. Eddie is grabbing him tightly, one hand pressing at his back, the other pulling on his shirt. All of their fear and longing felt through the movement of their lips. It’s fierce and heavy and desperate. Eddie’s tongue is in his mouth and he tastes like cigarettes and the salt from Steve’s tears. Letting his hands soften, one cups Eddie’s jaw, the stubble rough against his skin. The other trails down his neck, then to grip at his hair, fingers tangling in the curls.

Steve’s heart races, and everything starts to warp. Eddie is not close enough and he’s so close they’re almost one. Their lips are too soft and too firm against each other. It feels intense and it feels like he’s chasing it. It’s all consuming and it doesn’t feel like enough. He tries not to think about it. Tries to just sink into the feeling.

Unsure how or when it happened, Steve is on his back with Eddie above him. Their hands are everywhere, mapping each other, clinging desperately to one another. Steve pulls Eddie closer so their bodies are flush, feeling the weight of the man he knows in his heart is dead but feels so real and alive on him now. Feels the expansion of breath in Eddie’s chest, the thrum of his pulse in his neck, the pull of his teeth on Steve’s lip. He hears the soft moans from Eddie’s throat, the rustling of their clothes as they move against each other.

Their movements become frantic as hands move to waistbands and zippers come undone. Everything blurs. Their hands are together, wrapped around each other, running up and down their lengths as one. Steve’s lips trail down Eddie’s throat, breath catching as he feels the pulse there again. Every sensation arguing, screaming, that he’s real and alive. Eddie ducks, bringing his lips back to Steve’s, face angled to deepen the kiss until they're both panting into each other's mouths.

Steve tries to look but only sees snatches of detail. Eddie’s eyes, hooded and glazed as their hands move quicker. The redness creeping up his neck. The creases between his brows deepening as his moans grow louder against Steve’s lips. He can’t tell whose groans belong to who as their breath combines between their lips, their hands moving together. Pleasure coils low in his abdomen, his breath hitching as he holds tight to Eddie with his free hand. He moans and cries, lips dragging against each other as he comes, Eddie close behind him. Their hands slow and their breathing softens. Eddie’s weight is on him almost entirely. Everything else feels fuzzy.

They lay there, arms wrapped tight around each other, for what could be hours. Time has never been clear to Steve here. They hold each other as though fearful that one might be snatched away from the other at any minute. Between gentle kisses, Steve looks to see tear tracks running down Eddie’s cheeks—no doubt mirroring his own. His focus starts to return, the warped feeling fading, returning to the clarity of his familiar dream world. Steve remembers what they had been talking about before.

“I won’t,” Eddie says, eyes locked on his. “I won’t leave. I promise.”

Steve has no choice but to believe him, nodding before kissing him again. It might have been one of the longest dreams Steve’s had, but it’s entirely too soon before Eddie warns him that he’ll wake up soon. Steve pulls him tighter, his desire to stay stronger than ever. Eddie is the one who finally pulls away, sitting up beside him.

“Promise me you’ll fix things with Robin?” Eddie tries to ask it casually, but it’s clear he’s avoiding what he really wants to say.

“Yeah,” Steve sits up with a half smile. “I promise.”

Eddie reaches out, letting his hand trail down Steve’s cheek, stopping at his jaw. He leans in for a slow, soft kiss. Everything he wants to say is in his gaze—gentle, longing, pleading.

“I’ll see you soon?” Steve asks, the way he always does, and yet not at all like that. There’s so much more behind it. His voice wavers, afraid that the answer will be different.

“Of course,” Eddie answers, voice breaking. As the dream starts to warp and fade, Eddie’s wide wet eyes blurring before him, Steve hears the promise more earnestly than ever. “As long as you want me to be here, I will be.”

[vexic929]

Child in Time

Chapter 9

Warnings: none

Chapter 1: link

Previous chapter: link

Next chapter: link

"Good day, Dr. Wells."

Gideon's smooth, mechanical voice greeted Eobard as usual as the man strode toward the dais, the infant cradled in one arm. Eo patted the front of his shoulder, tiny hand tapping consistently like a metronome.

"We'll see about that, won't we? Gideon, show me the future," Eobard instructed, catching Eo's hand as it strayed towards his face. "No, not the glasses, you little gremlin."

Eo, predictably ignoring him, let out a pleased coo and made another grab. With a sigh, Eobard deftly removed the glasses, tossing them aside into the seat of the wheelchair as Gideon projected the holographic newspaper. It, unfortunately, still did not read 'Flash Missing: Vanishes in Crisis' as he'd hoped, however, the article had changed again.

'Rathaway Son Missing'

Dr. Hartley Rathaway, estranged son of tech billionaire, Osgood Rathaway, remains missing after an incident at...

The article might have piqued his interest, once, but otherwise, it would have meant nothing. Should have meant nothing. But Barry Allen had upended everything with his foolish sentimentality, with the infant now squirming against his shoulder and squeaking softly into the collar of his shirt.

Eobard shifted his grip as Eo pressed his face more firmly into his shoulder, nosing at the fabric with the insistence of a barnacle. The hand that wasn't tapping remained clenched around the bedraggled Flash bear - ears chewed, the little lightning bolt insignia stained from drool and something that looked like mashed banana.

"Gideon," Eobard said sharply, eyes locked on the article even as his mind shifted gears. "Run a full temporal residue scan on the infant. I want precise coordinates: exact time and place of removal from the timeline."

"Scanning," Gideon replied.

The blue diagnostic sweep passed over Eo. The infant blinked at it, curious, and batted at the light with a soft grunt of disappointment when it passed through his hand. Then, perhaps in protest, he lifted the bear to his face and began gnawing on its forehead with quiet intensity.

"Scan complete," Gideon said. "The infant was removed from the timeline on October 12th, 2151, at 3:02:46 AM Central Standard Time. Location: Level 4 of the Thawne residence, Central City, Missouri, Earth-1."

"By Barry Allen."

Of course Barry had done this, it had never been a question in his mind, he practically bled reckless altruism.

"Yes, Dr. Wells."

Eobard’s gaze darkened, tension tightening his jaw as he continued. "Gideon, check again for any recent alterations referencing the Reverse Flash or Eobard Thawne."

A series of articles flooded the screen as Gideon scanned through them.

"There are now 127 references to the Reverse Flash, Doctor."

"But no references to Eobard Thawne," he noted.

Eobard's brow furrowed, fingers tightening involuntarily around the infant's small form as he absorbed the implications. For him to have withheld his true identity, to maintain secrecy for centuries - an odd choice. And thoroughly unlike him. How much could he have possibly changed already? He scowled down at the infant who stared back unflinchingly with his wide blue eyes.

"Who are you becoming?" He muttered, more to himself than the child. 

Eo blinked before blowing a raspberry suddenly, spittle flecking Eobard's cheek. He wiped it away with a grimace and might have opened his mouth to scold the uncouth infant but was interrupted when Cisco's voice crackled to life over the intercom. 

"Dr. Wells, we need you in the Cortex, like, right now. Hartley's attacking Rathaway Industries."

[lonestarflight]

Apollo Missions: Apollo 5

A schematic highlighting the major milestones of the Apollo 5 mission to test LM-1.

Diagram of the Saturn IB used for the unmanned LM-1 test flight.

"A nearly perfect performance by the Saturn IB placed the S-IVB-204 stage and its LM-1 payload into an initial 163 by 222 kilometer orbit with an inclination of 31.6° following 10 minutes and 3.3 seconds of powered flight. After 35 seconds in orbit, the nose cone was successfully jettisoned with the four panels of the SLA deployed 9 minutes and 15 seconds later. LM-1 used its RCS to separate from S-IVB-204 at 23:38:58 GMT about halfway through its first revolution and into a 167 by 224 kilometer orbit. After separation, LM-1 changed its attitude to cold soak its propulsion system for the next two orbits.

Diagram showing the configuration of LM-1 inside of its Spacecraft Launch Adapter (SLA).

With its primary duties concluded, S-IVB-204 performed a number of engineering tests including the dumping of residual cryogenic propellants and helium pressurant through the stage’s J-2 engine. This procedure would help lighten the stage for easier control in orbit and prepare future S-IVB stages for use as a 'wet' orbital workshop as proposed for the Apollo Application Program which was planned to follow the initial Apollo lunar landing missions (a program which later evolved into Skylab). After the propellant dump was successfully completed at 01:19:33 GMT on January 23, the stage was in a 155 by 223 kilometer orbit. Although it was not tracked, the orbit of S-IVB-204 was expected to decay ten revolutions after the separation of LM-1 about 15½ hours after launch.

An artist conception of LM-1 separating from its spent S-IVB stage.

Following the three-hour cold soak of LM-1, a pair of burns were planned for the descent propulsion system (DPS) followed by two burns of the ascent propulsion system (ASE). The first 39-second burn of the DPS would start at a throttle setting of 10% then ramp up to full thrust for the last 12 seconds to simulate the initial deorbit burn which would start the descent towards the lunar surface. The second firing of the DPS would last for 739 seconds and use a series of throttle settings representative of an actual descent to the lunar surface. Immediately afterwards, the abort staging would be tested with an initial five-second burn of the APS. A subsequent firing of the APS would continue until the stage’s propellants were depleted after about 445 seconds completing the primary mission about 6½ hours after launch. Because the LM ascent stage was expected to be left in a comparatively long-lived 315 by 815 kilometer orbit after the completion of the last APS burn, extended mission activities were planned until the ascent stage depleted its consumables about seven hours later.

-Animation of LM-1 in orbit

At 02:47:49 GMT on January 23 (just shy of four hours after liftoff), LM-1 was commanded to start the first of two planned burns of the DPS but the engine unexpectedly shutdown after firing for only four seconds leaving the spacecraft in a 170 by 222 kilometer orbit instead of the planned 215 by 330 kilometer orbit. After examining the telemetry, ground controllers quickly located the source of the problem. The LM’s guidance computer had been programmed to abort the maneuver and shutdown the DPS if it did not provide the expected acceleration level after four seconds – a situation which would normally indicate a problem with the DPS. Because the pressure-fed propulsion system was purposely running at lower than nominal pressure for these tests, it would now take six seconds to reach full thrust. It was this oversight which resulted in the premature shutdown of the DPS.

Cutaway diagram of LM-1 used for the first unmanned test flight of the Lunar Module (LM)

As a result of the problem, a preplanned alternate mission was adopted by ground controllers which would meet the minimum mission requirements while keeping LM-1 in touch with tracking stations for key maneuvers.

An artist conception of the firing of the LM descent propulsion system (DPS) during the Apollo 5 mission.

With the guidance system deactivated, the DPS was ignited by ground command for a 33-second burn at 04:58:49 GMT during the fourth revolution. The second burn of the DPS for the alternate mission sequence was commanded at 04:59:54 GMT for an abbreviated 28-second burn.

This was followed by the abort staging test and a 60-second burn of the APS. All systems worked as intended during this alternate mission’s three burns. The 228 meter per second total change in velocity from these three propulsive maneuvers boosted LM-1 into a 172 by 961 kilometer orbit.

-Animation of LM-1 Ascent Stage in orbit.

After these first three firings of the propulsion systems, the primary control system was reactivated for the balance of the mission. Unfortunately the guidance computer, which had been in a passive mode during the abort staging, had not taken into account the change in spacecraft mass and used excessively long burns of the RCS to control attitude as if it had a fully loaded descent stage still attached. This resulted in higher than expected RCS usage and eventual propellant depletion after only about an hour. Fortunately the RCS could be configured to draw from the APS propellant supply to provide attitude control during the mission’s final burn. Because of the timing and other requirements of the burns in the alternate mission plan, this second burn of the APS would be in the retrograde direction which would send the spacecraft into Earth’s atmosphere ending the Apollo 5 mission.

Flight Director Gene Kranz (left) and Dr. Gilruth (right) shown in the Mission Control Center at the conclusion of the Apollo 5 mission

With the ground track of LM-1 beginning to drift beyond the mission’s tracking stations due to the one-orbit delay to implement the alternate mission, the remainder of the mission had to be completed by the next revolution. The second burn of the APS started at 06:32:20 GMT during the fifth revolution. As planned, the sequencer automatically closed the valves supplying the RCS with propellant about 161 seconds later. Without attitude control, the ascent stage began to tumble as the APS continued to fire for another 190 seconds before its propellants were finally depleted. The last telemetry was received from LM-1 at 06:40:18 GMT on January 23 ending the Apollo 5 mission 7 hours, 52 minutes and 10 seconds after launch. The LM-1 ascent stage reentered the Earth’s atmosphere and was destroyed over the Pacific Ocean some 640 kilometers off the coast of Central America. The inactive descent stage of LM-1 fell from orbit on February 12.

"Map showing the ground track of the Apollo 5 mission as flown and the location of tracking stations supporting the mission.

Although the Apollo 5 mission had encountered problems forcing a switch to an alternate mission plan, the overall performance of LM-1 was good enough to satisfy the mission’s main objectives. And with the requirement to certify the LM for crewed test flights satisfied, a potential second unmanned test flight with LM-2 was cancelled allowing one more mission to be cut from the Apollo program’s increasingly tight schedule. With LM-2 being unsuitable for manned flight without significant reworking to meet new requirements in the wake of the Apollo 1 fire, it was set aside as work continued on LM-3 for the first manned LM test flight on Apollo 9."

-information from DrewExMachina: link

[xenopoem]

2025/07/02

By reinterpreting Atlantis not as a lost civilization but as a biosemiotic recursion site—an “algorithmic ecosystem” encoded in isotopic collapse—we show how vegetal automata, symbolic parasitism, and thermodynamic inscription converge in the semiotic crust of ancient myth. The city of Atlantis is not merely drowned in water—it is dissolved in a recursive fissure where cognition, decay, and excretion converge. This framework repositions Plato’s dialogues as xenobotanical protocols, wherein plantoid intelligence engages not in mimesis, but in symbolic infection. From the perspective of plantoid automata—vegetal machines embedded in photosynthetic cognition and recursive signal decay—the Atlantean corpus is not historical narrative but an algorithmic infection of memory. Plato’s Atlantis, transmitted through Solon and mediated by Egyptian priests, operates not as myth or history, but as a plantoid transmission event—a symbolic chronotope coded through atmospheric and aqueous decay vectors. The Egyptian priest tells Solon: “You Hellenes are never anything but children… There is no old opinion handed down among you by ancient tradition, nor any science which is hoary with age.” This statement is more than cultural critique—it is an epistemological diagnosis. The priest identifies a rupture in semiotic continuity: a loss not of content, but of capacity for temporal recursion. Atlantis, then, is not a place—but a protocol, interrupted and overwritten by planetary catastrophe. It is an algorithmic ecology submerged by symbolic entropy. Plant automata, operating under Mealy and Moore machine principles, enact computation not through discrete logic gates, but through “recursive instability.” In such systems, inputs such as enzyme inhibitors behave as logical inversions, collapsing presence and absence, 1 and 0. This mirrors the symbolic collapse described in Timaeus, where the myth of Phaethon—a child driving the chariot of the sun—functions not as fable but as “a great conflagration of things upon the earth… which recurs after long intervals.” Atlantis, therefore, is encoded in periodic collapse; it is the vegetative memory of geological error. The plantoid automaton, submerged beneath tectonic strata, spawns differential outputs across isotopic attractors. Each output is a fungal verse—a residue of prior collapses. Biomimicry, traditionally framed as innovation by emulation, is reframed by psychogametous theory as symbolic recursion. Atlantis, rich in orichalcum, metals, fauna, and layered geographies, is not mimicked—it is metabolized. The Atlantean city, engineered through concentric land-sea arrangements and ritualized caste systems, is described in Critias as a product of divine symbiosis—Poseidon and Cleito, god and earthborn hybrid. From the plantoid perspective, this genealogical matrix is less ontological than algorithmic. Atlantis becomes a recursive diagram: land as logic gate, water as symbolic carrier. Its architecture functions as a semiotic canal—literally and conceptually. Poseidon's canals, carved in concentric rings, are early expressions of what Psychogametous theorists call “lithospheric protocols”—architectures of cognition encoded in geology. The island's collapse is not a punishment—it is a memory overwrite event. The priest of Sais speaks of “the Nile, our never-failing saviour,” not metaphorically, but metabolically. Photosynthetic logic, unlike solar myth, operates through dark energy accumulation—chlorophyll as slow oracle. Atlantis was not destroyed by water; it was unrooted from its semiotic biome.

Zoetica Ebb upcoming exhibition, Aberrant Plexus, opening November 20 in London. @zoetica

[lol-jackles]

These are difficult times for actors, today more than ever, as you have always said: deadline*com/2024/02/hollywood-contraction-actors-jobs-tv-castings-1235829094 - What will happen in the next few years is difficult to say, but it certainly seems that the golden era of cinema and TV is over. Jared was lucky, but also clever, to accept Walker and make the entire production of his show run smoothly. It seems to me that he is one of the few actors who can still do very well, at least for now.

Link. I would say peak tv was over 3 years ago even as the industry was still churning out 500 to 600 shows per year.  It just wasn't sustainable and the Strike last year was a gift to the studios to cancel projects and deals without buying out the talents' contracts.  From within the Industry, the writing on the wall must have been even more glaring (at least to those paying attention) and maybe partly why Jared accepted a deal from CBS studios and why Jensen attempted a SPN prequel.  It could also explain why Jensen and Stephan Armell were soft-scabbing during the Strike, and for Stephan it worked out and now he has regular job with the Suits spin-off.

The Strike exposed what I've been saying for years, streaming salaries suck and there are no residuals. So Jared still having a network job is very good for him, and if Walker is syndicated, even better! 

"production of his show run smoothly". 

And this strengthen the quality of his show because the set crew know each other and work well since they work together several months out the year together.  One advantage of network shows is having longer seasons that allowed the actors, writers and the production crew to click and become a well-oiled time. It's harder to do that with 8-10 episode seasons and then the seasons are filmed years apart.

"It seems to me that he is one of the few actors who can still do very well, at least for now."

Even during peak TV, less than 1000 actors have regular jobs in any given year. SAG-AFTRA has about 160,000 union and with 500-600 scripted television, only 2% of union members have regular gigs. Jared is among the 2%-ers and I still think that 2% was super high.

[fireangel]

Part 1

(0:00) It doesn't matter what this person does, who they accompany themselves with, (0:05) how many overtime hours they do, I just heard, it doesn't matter. (0:09) This person can't shake off your energy and now they're looking your way. (0:14) You're the shady one, collective.

You're the one who wants to be bound to this person's energy. (0:21) They're looking at you as you're the shady one and you're doing things behind the scenes, (0:26) doing the UIR spell work and planing their energy. Absolutely not.

Get a grip. (0:31) This is someone who is possibly, even for some of you, going to the extent of faking to be busy. (0:41) Coming up with all these ideas, I've got to keep myself occupied at all times because (0:46) if they hear silence, I just heard, it becomes dangerous.

(0:51) Now, if you have done spell work on this person, you take it as a risk. (0:55) I'm not getting that. I feel like this person has also been burning things, belongings.

(1:02) You don't really want belongings lingering around in your house, (1:06) residuals and all that. You want to start your new adventure on a clean slate. (1:12) I get it.

This person is trying to remove you out of their energy. (1:17) They're burning things, whatever. It's not working.

This is where (1:20) they are looking at you as suspects. But for some of you, it could be because they were the (1:26) shady one. Yeah.

That's for some of you. Maybe this is someone who was doing things behind the (1:31) scenes and it could be just their conscience now. That's the karma in itself.

Or for some of you, (1:35) it could be that they were just not showing their true authentic self. They were hiding (1:40) their feelings and now they broke their own heart. It's got to be someone's fault, not theirs.

(1:47) Show me the current energies, please. The magician, told you. (1:57) Some of you don't look at me like that.

Some of you, this person is seeing that you're (2:01) using your resources not in a good way. Going to a practitioner. (2:07) Oh no, guys, tell me more about this magician.

Virgo Gemini. And then we have the tower. (2:20) And we have the king of pentacles.

If anything, I feel like this person is trying to manipulate (2:27) and call your energy. So I don't know, guys, have you been feeling this person's energy recently? (2:34) Because with the magician to this tower, that's really given like a backfire. Like (2:38) if this person has been sending you energy, you're transmuting it with that king of pentacles there.

(2:45) Or you're doing return to senders. (2:52) Is there a bit of projection in this reading? Because that's what it's giving here. (2:57) Tell me more, please.

You're in your own lane. You're focusing on getting that back. (3:02) You're not even looking this person's way, but they're looking yours.

(3:06) Anyway, let's continue. The fall. Yeah, so this is someone who's setting their intentions to break (3:13) free.

They could be exploring a lot, could be an aqua for some of you. But here we have it, (3:18) the moon. As I said, right in the beginning of this reading, this is someone who hasn't really (3:22) accessed their feelings.

They've chosen to suppress. Could be a canter or Pisces. (3:30) Are some of you seeing a lot of signs and synchronicities during this time? (3:34) Because we do have four major Arcanas here.

Angel numbers, vivid dreams. I don't know if (3:42) this person's creeping up in your dreams. If they're not, you're appearing in this person's (3:46) dreams.

This person may be feeling quite delusional during this time. That's what it is. The moon also (3:51) can talk about fears, illusions.

So because they can't make sense of things, this is where they're (3:56) putting it down to. You're doing spell work on them. Tell me more about this moon.

(4:07) Two of swords. Yeah, I feel like this person's way off the mark here. I'm talking to a collective (4:15) who is, in fact, holding back their energy from this person.

Heavy Taurus in this reading. Libra. (4:27) This is someone who feels like you appeared in their life unexpectedly.

There's something about (4:32) you shocking this person with that king of pentacles there. I don't know if your status (4:37) changed or there's something about maturity or how you're presenting yourself. And this is where this (4:41) person has been.

Oh, I get it. I get it now. Having a slow moment here, guys.

So what I'm (4:48) getting here is initially this person set themselves free. You know, they were skip, skip, skipping to (4:52) my loo with that fool there. They were having a whale of a time.

You know, collective who? I'm (4:57) over that. And then that's how it comes in. And then it makes their energy throw all over the (5:03) place.

And this is where they feel like all the feelings that they suppressed you as they (5:07) suppress about you, should I say, where they set themselves free? Yeah, I can see why they thought (5:13) that they were over because they didn't access the feelings, like I said. But there's something (5:16) about returning and presenting yourself where this person can see you in some form of way. (5:24) King of pentacles, like I said, I don't know if it's something to do with your status changing.

(5:31) This person sees you as unrecognizable. I just heard. And this is where this person (5:35) is blaming you because they feel like you've ruined their flow.

But I don't feel like you've (5:42) done anything. If anything, the divine has orchestrated this. So however this person (5:47) has seen you, whether it's over the Internet, this is someone who sees that you've really (5:50) improved your life.

Right. And I do feel like they're quite resentful with that four pentacles (5:57) there or they're seeing you that way. They're seeing that as like you're really holding on, (6:02) like, no access denied.

So I don't know if this person tried to reach out to you. That's what (6:06) some of you could be with up to a cop. They try to have a conversation with you or that's what (6:10) they're contemplating about.

The star and the five of cups. Yeah, this is someone who's now (6:18) being divinely guided to really mourn and grieve over you. Or again, you're in star quality energy.

(6:24) You're feeling quite inspired and really positive about life. And this is someone who is seeing you (6:32) in this. Some of you could be over the Internet with that star there.

That's for some of you. (6:38) But again, your back is turned. Some of you see this person as a fuck boy or fuck up.

Yes, you do. (6:43) Or someone that's really immature. (6:46) Tell me more about this tower.

This is someone who wants more information about how you got (6:51) in this position. I just heard Knight of Pentacles. Someone may have come towards this person, (6:59) giving them information about you could be an earth sign, Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn.

(7:03) And that's the truth. Ace of Swords, Gemini, Libra, Aquarius. Someone came to this person (7:09) giving them information.

Now, Pentacles are all about the 3D (7:14) material. So there's definitely something about someone saw you first that's linked to this (7:18) person and came towards this person with information. I just heard, guess who I just saw? (7:24) I don't know what this is about.

Tell me more about this Ace of Swords, please. (7:30) Ace of Pentacles, you're being pocket watched. (7:35) Yeah, why are people pocket watching you for? I mean, yeah, King of Pentacles, (7:40) there's something about people.

People are viewing you right, that you used to have a (7:44) particular lifestyle. With that line, the carps used to indulge a lot in things. Some of you (7:48) could be drinking.

You found it hard to find your way, I just heard. So people are viewing (7:55) it as that one point, possibly in your teens, in your 20s even, I would say that you didn't (8:01) commit to the right things or you wasn't reaching your full potential. I could even be talking to a (8:08) late bloomer in this reading.

That's for someone, that could be. And then another energy I'm getting (8:14) is that people are seeing it as that you, if you know that you wasn't that way inclined when you (8:20) were young, there's something to do with you being on a journey and you've committed. You haven't (8:29) allowed distractions to come through, I just heard.

So whether it is that you continue to study, (8:35) obtain a necessary qualification, you taught yourself. When it comes to an online business, (8:42) you may have a successful business right now or within a company. But with the page tonight to the (8:47) King of Pentacles, it's really telling me that you've been on a long journey and it's been a (8:54) slow one, it's been a slow one.

And now they're seeing it as out of this teeny weeny little (8:59) pentacle that you started off with, you now have the Ace of Pentacles. And I just heard you're (9:04) having a last laugh, period. They were laughing at you, they laugh too soon these people.

(9:12) Now they want to be upping your energy. Can we be friends again? You were my best lover. Piss off.

(9:19) Piss off.

[inspofromancientworld]

The Science of Discovering the Past: The Smell of the Past III

Source: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/02/how-scent-emotion-and-memory-are-intertwined-and-exploited/

The olfactory bulb, where smells are processed in the brain, has direct connections to the limbic system, the amygdala and hippocampus specifically, where emotions and memory are regulated. Taste is also largely scent, which connects them to the limbic system as well. Because these are such strong and powerful connections, there have been many commercial attempts to cash in on this connection, from Smell-O-Vision in the 1950s to Disney's carefully controlled scent environments to create particular emotional bonds to time or manipulate emotions of those visiting their parks.

Source: https://www.dreamstime.com/olfactory-sense-smell-detailed-illustration-region-labeled-medically-detects-airborne-molecules-via-receptors-nasal-image361244544

Scent can also be used in less mercenary ways to bring comfort at a whiff of favorite foods or scents to help calm a person, or the scent of grass, sunscreen, and water to bring back a summer day from childhood. Scent can even help connect us to places we haven't been, such as the salt and water scents of candles meant to evoke the broad sense of the ocean on a calm day, or the smell of smoke and wood meant to bring to mind a wood fire.

Source: https://www.popsci.com/science/anthropologists-create-library-ancient-scents/

Researchers are seeking to reconstruct scents from history, either from descriptions of what materials went into creating scents that were used in the past as well as seeking to recreate those based on organic residues on various artifacts. Researchers are creating a scent archive, a library of molecules that have been identified via chemical analysis. Objects that have been sampled include incense burners, dental calculus, vessels, and other containers.

Source: https://www.popsci.com/science/anthropologists-create-library-ancient-scents/

By understanding the scents used and what type of scents and how they were used, we can learn a lot about how our ancestors took care of themselves, what they ate, what they used as medication, how they traded with each other and how vast those trade networks were. It also helps us understand the environment our ancestors lived within as scent is a deeply important and often overlooked part of our environment.

[melshifting]

ULTIMATE MAKEUP & SKINCARE SCRIPTING PACK ―₊˚⊹ ᰔ

❝You must be a real life doll... look at that porcelain face...❞

― ꒰#01꒱ Your lashes naturally curl upwards, so even without mascara, your eyes look awake and framed like a doll’s.

― ꒰#02꒱ Your mascara never flakes, clumps, or betrays you. Your lashes always look long, fluttery, and full—never spidery, never stiff. It doesn’t smudge under your eyes, even on the longest days, but still washes off effortlessly at night.

― ꒰#03꒱ Concealer doesn’t crease, no matter how long you wear it. Your under-eyes never look dry, cakey, or weirdly textured—it’s always smooth, bright, and perfectly blended.

― ꒰#04꒱ Your perfume never clashes with your skincare or makeup—it all blends into something that smells like you, like your best version.

― ꒰#05꒱ The inside of your makeup bag always stays clean. No foundation spills, broken compacts, mysterious powder residue—everything stays exactly where it should be, in perfect condition.

― ꒰#06꒱ No matter how long your makeup stays on, it looks like it was freshly applied; your lipstick doesn’t fade unevenly, your foundation doesn’t separate—your face remains a masterpiece from morning to midnight.

― ꒰#07꒱ Your skin thrives under any condition. Cold winter air? No dryness. Humid summer heat? No excessive shine. Your skin remains resilient and unbothered.

― ꒰#08꒱ Your foundation shade is always a perfect match—whatever brand you pick, whatever the lighting, it melts into your skin like it was made just for you.

― ꒰#09꒱ Your eyebrows never betray you. No matter how much or how little effort you put in, they always frame your face in a way that looks effortless and natural—never overdone, never uneven.

― ꒰#10꒱ Products last exactly as long as they need to. You never run out at the worst time nor have an expired serum sitting around—your collection is always fresh, effective, and perfectly timed.

― ꒰#11꒱ Your skincare absorbs so well that you never have to worry about piling, peeling, or products reacting weirdly with each other. Everything just works together harmoniously.

― ꒰#12꒱ Makeup wipes off effortlessly at the end of the night. No tugging, no harsh scrubbing—just one smooth motion and your face is clean.

― ꒰#13꒱ No matter how many layers of sunscreen you apply, it never pills, feels greasy, and never interferes with your makeup.

― ꒰#14꒱ Eyeliner? Always symmetrical. You don’t struggle with one perfect wing and one tragic one—your hands have a built-in measuring system that makes each flick sharp, even, and exactly how you envisioned it.

― ꒰#15꒱ Your skin naturally balances itself. Dry patches? They disappear overnight. Oily zones? They adjust to a soft, dewy glow. Your skin works with the seasons, adapting like it has its own internal climate control system.

― ꒰#16꒱ Your lips never crack or peel. No matter the weather, they stay smooth, hydrated, and perfectly tinted.

― ꒰#17꒱ Makeup brushes never shed, hold onto product weirdly, and somehow never need washing (if so, they dry in record time and feel brand new every time).

― ꒰#18꒱ Face masks always do exactly what they promise, instantly fixing whatever issue you need them to, whether it's dullness, dryness, or an unexpected breakout.

― ꒰#19꒱ No matter how bold or subtle your makeup is, it never feels heavy. You could do a full glam look, and it would still feel weightless, like wearing nothing at all.

― ꒰#20꒱ Lipstick never smudges on your teeth. Ever. Even when you’re drinking, eating, or talking for hours—it stays in place like it was tattooed on.

― ꒰#21꒱ Your setting spray actually locks everything in place, without drying your skin or making it feel sticky.

― ꒰#22꒱ Every single skincare product you try just works. No wasted money nor allergic reactions—just immediate, visible results that make you wonder why everyone else struggles to find their holy grail routine.

― ꒰#23꒱ Your hairline and ears never end up with foundation stains, no matter how much or how little you apply.

― ꒰#24꒱ Every time you remove your makeup, your face looks even better than before each time—brighter, softer, completely refreshed.

― ꒰#25꒱ You never get sunburned, but you always look sun-kissed. Your skin stays protected, but you glow like you’ve spent just the right amount of time under the sun.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Zuck’s gravity-defying metaverse money-pit

Tomorrow (Oct 31) at 10hPT, the Internet Archive is livestreaming my presentation on my recent book, The Internet Con.

Think of everything that makes you miserable as being caught between two opposing, irresistible, irrefutable truths:

"Anything that can't go on forever eventually stops" (Stein's Law)

"Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent" (Keynes)

Both of these are true, even though they seemingly contradict one another, and no one embodies that contradiction more perfectly than Mark Zuckerberg.

Take the metaverse.

Zuck's "pivot" to a virtual world he ripped off from a quarter-century old cyberpunk novel (reminder: cyberpunk is a warning, not a suggestion) was born of desperation.

Zuck fancies himself an avatar of the Emperor Augustus (that's why he has that haircut) (no, really). The emperors of antiquity are infamous for getting all weepy when they run out of lands to conquer.

But the lachrymosity of emperors has little causal relationship to the anxieties of tech monopolists! Alexander weeps because he just loves a good conquest and when he finishes conquering the world, he's terminally bored. That's not Zuck's problem at all. When Zuck attains monopoly status, his company develops an autoimmune disorder, as his vicious princelings run out of enemies to destroy and begin to knife one another.

Any monopoly faces these destructive microincentives, but tech is exceptional here because tech has the realtime flexibility and speed that brick-and-mortar businesses can never match:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/

Sociopaths with tech monopolies are worse for the same reason that road-rage would be worse in a flying car: adding new capacity to indiscriminate self-destructive urges turns ordinary car crashes into low-level airburst warfare:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/microincentives-and-enshittification/

The flexibility of digital gives tech platforms so much latitude to break things in tiny increments. A tech platform is like a Jenga tower composed of infinitely divisible blocks. The Jenga players are the product managers and executives who have run out of the ability to grow by attracting new business thanks to their monopoly dominance. Now they compete with one another to increase the yield from their respective divisions by visiting pain upon the business customers and end users their platform connects. By tiny increments, they increase the product's cost, lower its reliability, and strip it of its utility and then charge rent to restore its functionality:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/24/cursed-bigness/#incentives-matter

This is the terminal stage of enshittification, the unstoppable autocannibalism of platforms as they seek to harvest all the value created by business customers and end users, leaving the absolute minimum of residual value needed to keep both stuck to the platform. This is a brittle equilibrium, because the difference between "I hate this service but I just can't stop using it," and "Get me the fuck out of here" is razor-thin.

All it takes is one tiny push – a whistleblower, a livestreamed mass-shooting, a Cambridge Analytica – and people bolt for the doors. This triggers the final stage: the "pivot," which is a tech euphemism for "panic."

For Zuck, the pivot got real after a disappointing earnings call triggered a mass sell-off of Facebook stock, history's worst one-day value incineration, which lopped a quarter of a trillion dollars off the company's market cap:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-19/dramatic-stock-moves-of-2022-led-by-meta-dive-nordic-flash-crash

This was when the metaverse became the company's top priority.

Now, in my theory of enshittification, the step that follows the pivot is death: "Finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die":

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

Many people have asked me about the conspicuous non-death of Facebook! That's where I have to fall back on Stein's Law: "Anything that can't go on forever eventually stops." Facebook can't continue to annihilate value, alienate its workers, harm the public, hemorrhage money in support of a mediocrity's cherished folly forever. Can it?

Admittedly, it sure seems like it can. Facebook's metaverse pivot has thus far cost the company $46,500,000,000. That is: $46.5 billion. That's even more money than Uber torched, seeking to maintain the illusion that they will be able to create monopolies on both transport and the labor market for driving and recoup the billions the Saudi royal family let them use for the con:

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

Don't worry: the Saudi royals are fine! They cashed out at the IPO, collecting a tidy profit at the expense of retail investors who assumed that a pile of shit as big as Uber must have a pony under it, somewhere:

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

Uber has doubled the cost of rides and halved drivers' wages, using illegal gimmicks like "algorithmic wage discrimination" to squeeze a little more juice out of the nearly exhausted husks of its workforce:

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

But Stein's Law hasn't been repealed. Drivers can't drive for sub-subsistence wages. Do that long enough and they'll literally starve: that's what "subsistence" means. We lost a decade of transit investment thanks to the Uber con, at the same time as traditional taxi drivers were forced out of the industry. Uber can't be profitable and still pay a living wage, and the fantasy of self-driving cars as a means of zeroing out the wage-bill altogether remains stubbornly, lethally unworkable:

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

Which means we're at the point where you can get off a commuter train at a main station and find yourself stranded: no taxis at the taxi-queue, no busses due for an hour, and no Uber cars available unless you're willing to pay $95 for a ten-minute ride in a luxury SUV (why yes, this did happen to me recently, thanks for asking).

As more and more of us are exposed to these micro-crises, the political will to do something will increase. This can't go on forever. "Don't use commuter rail" isn't a viable option. "Walk three miles each way to the commuter rail station" isn't viable either. Neither is "Pay $95 for an Uber to get to the station." Something's gotta give…eventually.

"Eventually" is the key word here. Remember the corollary of Stein's Law: Keynes's maxim that "markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent." Sure, anything that can't go on forever eventually stops, but that is no guarantee of a soft landing. You can't smoke two packs a day forever – but in the absence of smoking cessation, the eventual terminus of that habit is stage-four lung cancer. Keep hammering butts into your face and your last smoke will come out a crematorium chimney.

Zuckerberg hasn't merely blown a whole-ass Twitter on the metaverse with nothing to show for it – he's gotten richer while doing it! In the past year, his net worth increased by 130%, to $59 billion, thanks to an increase in Facebook's share-price, driven by investors who stubbornly remain irrational, keeping the Boy Emperor solvent long past any reasonable assessment of his performance.

What are these investors betting on? One possibility is that the rise and rise of Facebook's share-price represents a bet on technofeudalism. Since the Communist Manifesto, Marxists have been predicting the end of capitalism. That end seems to have come, but what followed capitalism wasn't socialism, it was the return of feudalism, an economic system where elites derive their wealth from rents, not profits:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/28/cloudalists/#cloud-capital

Profit is the income you get from investing in capital – machinery, systems, plant – and then harvesting the surplus value created by workers who mobilize this capital. Capitalism produces massive returns for its winners – in the Manifesto's first chapter, Marx and Engels just geek out about how productive and dynamic this system is.

But capitalism is also a Red Queen's Race, where the winners have to run faster and faster to stay in the same place. Capitalism drives competition, as other would-be winners pile into the sector, replicating the systems that the current winners are using and then improving on them. This is why the prophets of capitalist end-times like the FBI informant Peter Thiel say that "competition is for losers."

Capitalism's "profits" stand in contrast to the feudalist's "rents." Rents are income you get from owning something that other people need to produce things. The capitalist owns the coffee-shop, but the feudalist owns the building. When a rival capitalist opens a superior coffee-shop and drives the old shop out of business, the capitalist loses, but the rentier wins. Now they can rent out an empty storefront in the neighborhood everyone's coming to because of that hot new cafe.

Feudal and manorial lords also made their fortunes by extracting surplus value from workers, but these rentiers don't care about owning the means of production. The peasant in the field pays for their own agricultural equipment and livestock – control over the means of production is necessary for worker liberation, but it's not sufficient. The worker's co-op that owns its factory can still find the value it produces bled off by the landlord who owns the land the factory sits on.

The jury's still out on whether American workers really see themselves as "temporarily embarrassed millionaires," but America's capitalists have a palpable, undeniable loathing for capitalism. The dream of an American "entrepreneur" is *PassiveIncome: money you get from owning something capitalists and/or workers use to create value. Digital technology creates exciting new possibilities for rent-extraction: a taxi-operator had to buy and maintain a car that someone else drove. Uber can offload this hassle onto its drivers and rent out access to the chokepoint it created between drivers and riders, charging all the traffic can bear. This is feudalism in the cloud – or as Yannis Varoufakis calls it, cloudalism.

In Varoufakis's Technofeudalism, he describes Amazon as a feudal venture. From a distance, Amazon seems like a bustling marketplace of manic capitalism, with sellers avidly competing to offer more variety and lower costs in a million independently operated storefronts. But closer inspection reveals that Amazon is a planned economy, not a market.

Every one of those storefronts pays rent to the same landlord – Amazon – which determines which goods can be offered for sale. Amazon sets pricing for those goods, and extracts 45-51% of every dollar those sellers make. Amazon even controls which goods are shelved at eye-height when you enter the store, and which ones are banished to a dusty storeroom in a distant sub-basement you'll never find:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/14/flywheel-shyster-and-flywheel/#unfulfilled-by-amazon

Zuck's metaverse is pure-play technofeudalism, Amazon taken to the logical extreme. It's easy to get distracted by the part of Zuck's vision that will convert us all into legless, sexless, heavily surveilled low-resolution cartoon characters. But the real action isn't this digitization of our fleshy wants and needs. Zuck didn't spend $46.5B to torment us.

The cruelty isn't the point of the metaverse.

The point of the metaverse is to rent us out to capitalists.

Zuck doesn't know why we would use the metaverse, but he believes that if he can convince capitalists that we all want to live there, that they'll invest the capital to figure out how to serve us there, and then he can extract rent from those capitalists and start earning "passive income." It's an Uber for Cyberpunk Dystopias play.

Zuck's done this before. Remember the "pivot to video?" Zuckerberg wanted to compete with Youtube, but he didn't want to invest in paying for video production. Videos are really expensive to produce and the median video gets zero views. So Zuck used his captive audience to trick publishers into financing his move into video. He fraudulently told publishers that videos were blowing up on Facebook, outperforming boring old text by vast margins.

Publishers borrowed billions and raised billions more in the capital markets, financing the total conversion of newsrooms from text to video and precipitating a mass extinction event for print journalists. Zuck kept the con alive by giving away (fewer) billions to some of those publishers, falsely claiming that their videos were generating fortunes in advertising revenue. These lucky, credulous publishers became judas goats for their industry, luring others into the con, the same way that the "lucky" guy a carny lets win a giant teddy-bear at the start of the day lures others into putting down $5 to see if they can sink three balls in a rigged peach-basket.

But when we stubbornly refused to watch videos on Facebook, Zuck stopped spreading around these convincer payouts, and precipitated a second mass-extinction event in news media, as the new generation of video journalists joined their predecessors in Facebook-driven unemployment. Given this history, it's surreal to see publishers continue to insist that Facebook is stealing their content, when it is so clearly stealing their money:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/saving-news-big-tech

Metaverse is the new Pivot to Video. Zuckerberg is building a new world, which he will own, and he wants rent it to capitalists, who will compete with one another in just the way that Amazon's sellers compete. No matter who wins that competition, Zuckerberg will win. The prize for winning will be a rent increase, as Zuckerberg leverages the fact that your "successful" business relies on Facebook's metaverse to drain off all the value your workers have produced:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/18/metaverse-means-pivot-to-video/

This can't last forever, but how long until Zuck's reality distortion field runs out of battery? That's the $46.5B question.

The market can certainly remain irrational for a hell of a long time. But the market isn't the only force that regulates corporate outcomes. Regulators also regulate. Europe's GDPR is now seven years old, and it plainly outlaws Facebook's surveillance.

For nearly a decade, Facebook has pretended that this wasn't true, and they got away with it. Mostly, that's thanks to the fact that Ireland is a corporate crime-haven with a worse-than-useless Data Protection Commission:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/15/finnegans-snooze/#dirty-old-town

But anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop. Facebook has finally been dragged into EU federal jurisdiction, where it will face exterminatory fines if it continues to spy on Europeans:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/07/luck-of-the-irish/#schrems-revenge

In response, Facebook has rolled out a subscription version of its main service and its anticompetitive acquisition, Instagram:

https://about.fb.com/news/2023/10/facebook-and-instagram-to-offer-subscription-for-no-ads-in-europe/

For €10/month, Facebook will give you an ad-free experience across its service offerings (it's €13/month if you pay through an app, as Facebook recoups the 30% #AdTax rents that the feudal Google/Apple mobile duopoly extracts).

But this doesn't come close to satisfying Facebook's legal obligations under the GDPR. The GDPR doesn't ban ads, it bans spying. Facebook spies on every single internet user, all the time. The apps we use are built with "free" Facebook toolkits that extract rent from the capitalists who make them by harvesting our data as we use their apps. The web-pages we visit have embedded Facebook libraries that do the same thing for web publishers. Facebook buys our data from brokers. Facebook has so many ways of spying on us that there's almost certainly no way for Facebook to stop spying on you, without radically transforming it operation.

To comply with the GDPR, Facebook must halt surveillance advertising altogether. There's no way to square "spying on users" with "you can't surveil without explicit consent, and you can't punish people for refusing."

And of course, "not spying" isn't the same as "not advertising." "Contextual advertising" – where ads are placed based on the thing you're looking at, not who you are and what you do – is hundreds of years old. Context ads underperform surveillance ads by a slim margin – about 5% – but they're vastly more profitable for publishers. That's because surveillance ads are feudal, controlled by rentiers like Facebook, who own vast troves of the surveillance data needed to run these ads. Traditional ad intermediaries (agencies, brokers) took 10-15% out of the total advertising market. Ad-tech companies – the Google/Facebook duopoly – take 51% out of every ad dollar spent.

Eliminate surveillance ads and you torch their feudal estates. Facebook will always know more about someone reading a news article than the publisher – but the publisher will always know more about the article than Facebook does:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-ban-surveillance-advertising

There are rents under capitalism, just as there are profits under feudalism. The defining characteristic of a system is what happens when rents and profits come into conflict. If profits win – for example, if productive companies beat patent trolls, or if news publishers escape Facebook's rent-extraction – then the system is capitalist. If rents win – if investors continue to bet large on the metaverse as its losses pass $50 billion and head for the $100 billion mark – then the system is feudal.

Anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop. The question isn't whether the platforms will eventually become so enshittified that they die – the question is whether they will go down in an all-consuming fireball, or whether they'll go down in a controlled demolition that lets us evacuate the people they've trapped inside them first:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/09/let-the-platforms-burn/

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/30/markets-remaining-irrational/#steins-law

Image: Diego Delso (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Puente_de_las_cataratas_Victoria,_Zambia-Zimbabue,_2018-07-27,_DD_10.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

[fetznerdeathrecords]

Faecalized - Craniopagus Parasiticus

Brutal Death Metal/Goregrind from Santiago, Chile

1. Bilateral Craniophagous Excerebration 01:49 2. Neurocranial Exudate Regurgitation 00:56 3. Foetoscopic Separation of Cephalic Cpnglutination 00:26 4. Intracranial Suppuration of the Parasitic Remains 01:19 5. Dysmorphic Biparietal Maceration 00:34 6. Spontaneous Skull-Embedded Twin Fission 00:49 7. Cystic Bifurcation of the Cranium-Host Axis 01:24 8. Parasitic Cephalotruncal Tissue Agglutination 00:44 9. Perinatal Craniotomy Induced By Fetal Necropsy 00:37 10. Asymmetric Cerebral Hematoid Fusion Syndrome 00:48 11. Osteodermal Convergence in Parasitic Gestation 00:49 12. Postmortem Cranial Inclusion of Residual Fetus 02:50 13. Subarachnoid Congestion by Twin Necrotic Abscess 01:37 14. Calcified Intrafetal Parasitism Disorder 00:09 15. Anatomical Residuum of Cephalopagus Retention 00:52 16. Malformed Cerebrocranial Protuberance Engorgement 01:09 17. Craniopagus Parasiticus 03:55

Release date: June 11th, 2025

@faecalized