#Get My Ex Back Pdf

[akreviews]

How to Get Over A Breakup When You Still Love Them?

We all want to get over a breakup—but most of us do not know how to do it. Here are some steps that will help to Get Over A Breakup When You Still Love Them. Why Are Breakups so Painful? Breakups are so painful because they signify the end of a significant part of our lives. We have grown to be dependent on the other person, allowing them to become a major part of our day-to-day life. When that…

[geezmarty]

My Shortbox Fair comic Crossing Wires is officially live!! 💙🧡

👉Link here!!👈

Tala is a bounty hunter with the counciousness of her ex - Sheda - stuck in her head after a job gone wrong. All Tala wants is to help Sheda get her body back so she can get rid of her once and for all. What could possibly go wrong? (scifi/action/romance, 54 pages.)

The fair will run until Oct 31, so grab it before then! Please make sure you read the CW + download your pdf within 24hours of recieving your email as the link will expire after then.

I hope you enjoy!! <3

[wttcsms]

if you feel like falling (catch me on the way down) | TWO

ᝰ.ᐟ after getting your heart broken by professional soccer player, rin itoshi, all because he loved the game more than you, you officially swear off all men — especially athletes. your publicist doesn’t get that memo, though, and you find yourself roped into a fake relationship with yoichi isagi, who isn’t just a pro soccer player, but also your ex’s rival. things could get messy. ( fem!reader )

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pairing yoichi isagi x reader (endgame), past! rin itoshi x reader word count 5.9k chapter synopsis the busier your schedule, the less time you can spend thinking about rin. the only problem is, you see something you can't unsee. nothing a bottle of tequila can't fix, right? (spoiler: tequila isn't fixing a broken heart) chapter contains partying and drinking to cope, diet culture author’s notes i have nothing to insightful to add rn, but send me any asks discussing this fic and i will have a lot to say LOL

From: fumiko.gima@apextalentgroup.com To: [USER EMAIL HIDDEN] Cc: wfitch@everlanefitch.com, mai.sasaki@apextalentgroup.com, hideakitakeda@titansecuritysolutions.com, benji1968@gmail.com + 3 others Subject: 6/19 — [NAME] [SURNAME] AGENDA Attachments: 📎 [6.19 AGENDA.pdf]

All — 

Attached is the PDF copy of [Name]’s itinerary for today. Reminder that these times are STRICT. Stay on schedule. 

Fumiko Gima

Get Outlook for IOS 

Your first alarm goes off at 4:50 AM to what you assume is the noise they play on repeat in hell (By the Seaside, an Apple classic). After waking up, you roll over in your king size bed (the problem with always choosing to go big instead of just going home is the fact that when you’re all alone, the luxury of extra space just becomes empty space) to promptly hit the snooze button. You’ll allow yourself five more minutes of sleep (as a treat). When the second alarm you set up goes off at 4:53 AM (By the Seaside, once again), you scream into your pillow, and shut it off for real this time. You knew you weren’t going to give yourself the full five minutes, but it felt really good to trick yourself into believing that you would. You always start the day with this tiny disappointment; that way, no one has the privilege of being the first person to piss you off. 

At 4:54 AM, you slide your feet into your Ugg slippers, readjust the loose straps of your silk camisole, and shuffle into your marble-floored bathroom. You rub the sleep from your eyes, brush your teeth with your pink electric toothbrush, and wash your face. By the time you’re done with your morning skincare, it’s 5:06 AM. You honestly can’t remember the last time you did your own makeup, but you bring your makeup bag with you anyway. If there’s downtime between shoots, you’ll post a faux-GRWM TikTok where you apply three miniscule dots of concealer on your seemingly already flawless skin and add a fresh layer of the brand new, limited edition Rhode peptide lip treatment that Hailey Bieber’s team gifted you. They also gave you twenty grand to do so, with a personal “hey girlie, would love to catch up with you one of these days!! life has been so hectic, sorry for not keeping in touch x btw, i just came out with a new shade of my…” text from Hailey herself. (You replied back with a “yessss, we need to meet up soon!! Also, LOVE LOVE LOVE the new shade omg 😍” — neither of you have any intention for planning a meet-up, and you don’t “LOVE LOVE LOVE” the new shade as much as you “LOVE LOVE LOVE” to deposit a fat check.) 

You’re sliding into the backseat of the glossy black SUV parked in front of your driveway at 5:14 AM. Your chauffeur, Benji, holds open the door for you. 

“Good morning, Ms. [Surname],” Benji never drops the formalities with you, except for when he’s lecturing you. Thank God he doesn’t own a smartphone; if he saw half the things Daily Mail wrote about you, his voice would be gone from scolding you so much. Even if he’s technically on your parents’ payroll and is paid to make sure you get to and from places safely, it still feels nice to have someone who cares about you enough to call you out on your shit. 

The first stop is an exclusive, members-only pilates studio. If you’re home, you have to work out in the morning, no matter what. You like your routine. Out of all the things online magazines put out about you, it’s kind of embarrassing how the most accurate one is revealing how you stay “fit ‘n flawless even after going out every night.” Most people didn’t believe it. Rin got it, though. Rin would actually work out with you, when the two of your schedules aligned, and— Time to start your workout early! Nothing takes your mind off of matters more than focusing on the burn of your core and arms. 

By the time you finish your private session, you’re walking out the studio with your puffy tote bag slung over your shoulders. Your body is still a bit damp from taking a quick shower but not drying off properly, and Benji drops you off at your first business stop of the day — ELLE Japan.

You smile brightly as the team of makeup artists surrounding you shower you with compliments. One of the girls brushing on your foundation tells you that you have really nice skin. When she goes in for a second layer, you almost consider rescinding the thanks you gave her.

The set is hectic, as expected. No matter how long these people have been in the industry, no matter how big the host is, something always seems to be going wrong. Apparently, there’s been a mishap over in wardrobe, and ELLE’s people are not very happy with how this is going to delay everything. With your hair and makeup done, there’s nothing for you to do besides sit down, be quiet, and look pretty. 

Downtime is the last thing you want. You’re used to a busy schedule, but you convinced Fumiko to accept as many projects as possible. If you have to rank at the top of the list for celebrities who emit the most CO2, then so be it. You’ll pollute the whole damn planet if it means you won’t have a single second to be alone with your thoughts. 

At 9:00 AM sharp, you go on your phone to inform your manager that the agenda is fucked. ELLE Japan is definitely going to push back this session with you for at least a good hour, which means Fumiko is going to have to explain to Your Style (the YouTube channel name for a famous fashion commentator who’s amassed nearly twenty million subscribers) why you’re going to be late for the Zoom debrief on what you two are going to talk about in an upcoming video. At 9:02 AM, you receive a text.

juli ᡣ𐭩: u know i love u 

It’s two in the morning in Paris. When Juliette said she was going to visit her father, she said it was going to be a much-needed vacation — just something chill and lowkey, like going to all the designer stores and eating croissants on a balcony. Those were her exact words. 

juli ᡣ𐭩: [photo attachment] 

Somehow, from the neon strobe lights, bodies pressed against one another’s, and the way the image is blurry because she couldn’t get her phone to focus, it feels like Juliette’s “something chill and lowkey” morphed into club-hopping all over France. You roll your eyes with affection. You should’ve known her vacation was going to turn into this; as if Juliette would eat bread for pleasure — she’s been quoted for claiming that carbs are a necessary evil. She probably hasn’t even touched a croissant for the past week she’s been there.

juli ᡣ𐭩: showing u before TMZ posts it juli ᡣ𐭩: [video attachment] juli ᡣ𐭩: do not freak out. not worth it. juli ᡣ𐭩: ugh i knew this club sucked ass for a reason 

You wait for the video to load. It’s almost as blurry and unfocused as the original image she sent, but you can tell she had to zoom in pretty hard to capture what she wanted. It’s two figures with a minimal amount of space between them. One of them is definitely a girl; she has the build of the usual French models. A thin, leggy brunette who has mastered the intricate art of Just Had Sex hair. Perfectly messy, but could never be considered sloppy. She’s wearing a sparkly, tight minidress. The fabric shimmers when the strobe lights pass by her body. The person she’s practically pressed up against is a man. Tall, lean. He’s leaning down, presumably so he can hear her better. When the video clip ends abruptly (someone bumped into Juliette, and the video ends with shaky footage and a loud “putain!”), you replay it. And replay it. And then you play it again, just for good measure.

Each time you watch the stupid video, you find something new to notice. Her red lips brushing against his ear. The way his hand hovers near her hip. The way you’re certain she’s smiling when she speaks, like the smirk of a victor. The exact same self-satisfied, smug grin you sport whenever you get a guy right where you want him. Upon every rewatch, though, one thing remains the same: you’re constantly fixated on him.

Right now, it’s two in the morning in Paris. You know that when you weren’t in this fucked up headspace you’re in right now, you’d be in bed, snuggled underneath your blankets, by 11:30 PM. You know that when you felt your best, you could be in bed, whispering in the dark to the person you felt safest with, at 10:00 PM (at the latest, because you both would have a busy day ahead and needed the rest). He likes sleeping early because he likes being well-rested. 

So why the hell is Rin Itoshi at a club right now?

At 9:39 AM, ELLE Japan gets right back on track. Before your editorial shoot for a special anniversary edition of the magazine, they get you to sit down to do a video interview that they plan on posting all over their social media. 

“This is a very special edition that will be coming out, and you are not only having the biggest spread dedicated to you, but you’re also going to be on the cover. Knowing this, how are you feeling right now, [Name]? This might be the most high-profile photoshoot you’ve done so far in your career, and that’s saying something. You have quite the impressive resume.” 

The ring lights are shining directly in your eye. The stool they have you sitting on for this interview is uncomfortable, and you have to focus on remaining balanced. Your back is perfectly straight, and your hands are folded in your lap. You blink, and you see the video playing in your mind. You have God knows how much makeup caked on right now, and you still have a long day ahead of you. Rin is at a club right now. Rin is at a club right now, with a girl. Rin is at a club right now, with a girl, and they’re basically grinding against each other, and he might just have forgotten all about you.

You smile brightly. At 9:40 AM in Japan, you let everyone know, 

“I honestly think I’m the happiest I’ve ever been before in my life! This is a great way to establish a sort of, I guess, new era of my life and my career.” 

You turn to face the camera directly, giving them a dazzling view of your pearly whites. “Not trying to rush the process or anything, but I am definitely looking forward to seeing how this will all play out in the future.” 

You’re operating on autopilot for the rest of the day. The ELLE shoot wraps up close to noon. You forgo lunch, but knowing you and your tendency to skip meals, Benji refuses to start the car until you eat the lunch his wife packed for you. It’s light and refreshing — they want you to eat well, but they’re not cruel. Even if they want to bring you a feast of a nice, hot, home cooked meal, you’ll eat it out of obligation and then suffer the consequences on set when everyone asks why you’re so bloated. You don’t even taste what you’re consuming. 

At 12:30 PM, you hop on the Zoom call and pretend to care about discussing matters such as the lack of personal style affecting the younger generations. Every topic is a trivial topic to you. The only thing worth dissecting is that damn video. You should’ve asked those twenty million subscribers to help you analyze that, instead of nodding along when the YouTuber starts going on a rant about how Shein and other fast fashion brands are ruining everything. 

Late in the afternoon, you get another text. 

kenyu: So the team wants to host a belated birthday party for me lmao. Team’s planning on having it at 10 tonight kenyu: Sending you the address right now

A party is exactly what you need right now. Endless drinks, no need for rational thinking, and you’ll be (mostly) surrounded by people who think models are all vain and vapid. No one there is going to expect a decent conversation from you, and with the state you’re in, it’s a wonder how all your sentences are even making sense. 

You give Kenyu’s next message a like in response. You were expecting a club, but when you click on the address, Maps reveals that it’s residential. Rin is gallivanting around European nightclubs, and meanwhile, the best you can do are house parties. This is how the future is playing out? 

At least even at your worst, people still think you’re on top of the world. 

Maybe life without a man dragging you down and invading your space is for the best. After all, once you got done with all your professional obligations, it’s only eight at night. You’re used to going out with whatever makeup they did for you on set at your last shoot of the day, which is a shame. You have shelves full of makeup that’s been sent to you by different brands, and one of these nights, you plan on just messing around at your vanity. 

You like living alone, you decide. You can leave all the lights on if you want, and no one complains about it hurting their eyes. You have full control of the thermostat. You don’t have to fight for counter space in the bathroom. Plus, no one can see how you’re living. 

At 9:13 PM, you’re sprawled on the cool marble floor of your bathroom (squeaky clean thanks to the housekeeper you have come once a week), and instead of rewatching that dreadful video and subsequently crying, you had a quick retail therapy session. Your new Prada heels should be coming within the next two days. 

You don’t get Benji to drive you. Nobody bats an eye at a rich girl having a driver, but it does seem kind of weird to have him drop you off at a party as if you're a tween girl getting taken to the mall. If the house is owned by one of Yukimiya’s teammates, surely it won’t be too awkward if you had to leave it there because you got too drunk to drive yourself back home? 

Because — no offense to Yuki, you’re happy he’s getting another birthday celebration — the whole point of even going to this party is to get fucked up. You already know that Juliette had a point — if not TMZ, then at least Daily Mail will be all over Rin and that girl in the club. If that gets leaked, then you might as well have your own headline to combat his. Sure, lately you’ve been out partying, but that was with other models so it doesn’t raise too many eyebrows. Rin being caught at a club is basically him hard launching the breakup. You need to raise some speculation on your side of things, too. 

you: can you get someone to pick up my car from this address tomorrow morning? you: please :) 

When you see three dots appear, you smile for real. You can practically hear her sigh and see the shake of her head.

Fumiko Gima: Yes. Fumiko Gima: Be safe.

Aw, maybe your manager does have a heart. Right before you can send her a heart, she adds:

Fumiko Gima: Don’t stay out too late. You have your first shoot at 8 AM. 

This is the message you give a heart reaction to. Maybe everything really is just business with her. 

You suppose you can’t fault Fumiko for always seeming cold. She’s your manager, not your best friend. 

In this industry, her honesty is refreshing. You normally find this to be the case, but you really feel it now when you step into the mansion and hear a cacophony of laughter swarming you from all sides. At every turn, there’s a celebrity with a drink in hand. Everyone’s leaning towards each other, as if they’re so captivated with the other’s words. 

You see an actor leading a stumbling model up the spiral staircase. To your side, you see a baseball player chatting up the daughter of one of the baseball league’s board members. Upstairs, someone’s probably snorting a line off Yukimiya’s teammate’s bathroom counter. There are only three reasons why people in your social circle attend these parties: to get fucked, to get fucked up, or to make business deals. Considering the fact that you’ve been here for nearly five minutes and have yet to see a birthday cake — or the belated birthday boy himself — you’re pretty sure everyone here has lot the damn plot for the original celebration.

When you venture some more, you end up in the massive backyard. Some people are drunkenly making out in the pool, some people are watching them, and in a table in the corner, you spot a group of girls giggling and cheering as they all do shots. Perfect. This is exactly where you need to be. 

One’s a model; you’ve seen her on a couple pages you flipped through in Harper’s Bazaar. You go up to the table and give her a bright smile.

“Hey, girl! Or should I say Miss Bazaar?” You greet her like how you think people would tease a friend. She’s not your friend; you don’t even know her name. You know she knows your name — everyone here does. And it’s because of the fact that everyone knows you that she lights up when she realizes you’re speaking to her. 

A photo op with you guarantees that even if the headline coming out tomorrow is centered on you, she’ll still be in the frame. Daily Mail will add a caption naming everybody from left to right, and she’s planning on being the one captured right next to you. 

“[Name]!” She squeals, giving you a quick side hug. “How have you been?”

All your friends, the grand total of exactly two people, know how you’ve been. You grin, pointing to the bottle of tequila they have on their table. 

“After how this day has been, I honestly just need a shot.” You play it off like a joke, and as someone pours you one, you add, “Or maybe like five.” They all giggle before throwing back the tequila straight. They might think you’re joking, but this table full of strangers are the first people you’ve been honest with all day. 

At 12:15 AM, they aren’t strangers anymore. In fact, you think they might be your best friends in the whole world. You don’t know the lyrics to the rap song blaring through the bass boosted speakers, but you’re laughing as you take another shot. The Harper’s Bazaar girl is doing another shot with you, but she has her phone in her other hand. She makes sure that the both of you are in the frame together, and a second later, she’s tagging you in an Instagram story you don’t bother to view. You’re not even following her. 

“Okay, so out of all the guys here, who looks the most fuckable?” One of the girls leans on the table for support as she asks this question. You can’t help but notice how glittery her lipgloss is. Wow, even after all the shots she’s taken, there’s no transfer. Impressive. “I say Theo Sachs.” 

“Who the fuck is Theo Sachs?” Harper’s Bazaar asks, and the whole entire table giggles. Honestly, at parties like these, laughing comes easy. In fact, you’re giggling right with them, even though you also have no fucking clue who Theo is. There’s just something so freeing in tequila-induced joy. 

“Um, the host of this party?” Glittery Lipgloss says. “Oh my God, girl, he’s like, one of the players for Bastard.” 

“The fuck is Bastard?” Another girl asks, adjusting her blue minidress. 

“The soccer team!” Glittery Lipgloss is too drunk to be fed up, but you’re sure she would be rolling her eyes if she could. 

“I didn’t know we had soccer players here. I only saw baseball players.” Blue Minidress frowns, before adding, “I would totally fuck one of the baseball boys, though. No preference whatsoever. Matter of fact, I could take the whole team.” 

Harper’s Bazaar laughs. “What about you, [Name]? Who are you taking home tonight?” 

Before you can think of something to say, Glittery Lipgloss groans. “Oh my God, she has a boyfriend.” She looks at you for confirmation. You don’t give her any, but thankfully Blue Minidress has her own insight to add to this conversation. 

“So what the fuck does that have to do with her question? [Name], who are you taking home tonight?” 

Nobody. Out of every party you’ve gone to this past month, you went back home, completely and utterly alone each and every time. It’s not even because nobody offered — they have — but because no matter how lonely you may get or feel, you don’t like strangers in your space. It took you three months of dating Rin to let him into the penthouse you were originally staying in, and that was with you being in love with him. 

Once again, you’re saved from answering when someone behind you goes, “[Name]?” 

You turn around, only to come face to face with Yoichi Isagi. On second thought, maybe this isn’t the rescue you thought it was. Drunk You can’t hold back your frown when you see him. He’s wearing a dark blue polo shirt and chinos. He looks perfectly business casual and could pass off as an off-the-clock investment banker instead of the world class athlete you’ve heard he is. Then you let out a little snort of laughter, which only makes him look more confused. You don’t want to tell him that it’s kind of funny how normal he looks. 

Not in a bad way. You’re surrounded by models for practically the whole day. Looking unattainably hot or having ethereal beauty is the one non-negotiable job requirement. Even Rin, with his stupidly long lower lashes and impossibly high cheekbones and his pretty boy resting sulking face, is serving standards some male models can’t achieve. Isagi looks like the type of guy you would have a crush on if the two of you were completely normal and attended regular high school together. 

But that’s not the reality you’re living in. Right now, you’re getting drunk with girls you don’t know, and every night, you’re making headlines. He’s a professional athlete that everyone at this table would gladly fuck just for a chance to be declared social media’s favorite WAG of the Week. The both of you could have your pick of anyone at this party, but you refuse to let anyone in, and you think Isagi might be one of those intense athletes who only care about their sport.

If that’s the case, he’s doing every girl a favor by not pretending he can commit to anything but soccer. You know someone who could use a few pointers. 

“Hi,” you mumble, and then you want to slap yourself because why the fuck are you acting like you’re nervous? But for some reason, you feel like you're a kid caught with their grimy hand in the cookie jar, like you’re doing something wrong.

“I didn’t know you’d be here.” 

“Well, it’s Kenny’s birthday party. Of course, I’d be here.” You cross your arms against your chest, feeling like you have something to prove. Before Yukimiya became his teammate, Kenyu was your friend first. Like, real friend, not just someone you leave supportive comments on their Instagram post type of friend. 

Isagi actually smiles when he hears that. “Funny. I think everyone but Yukimiya actually wants to be here.” 

You sober up a bit when you hear that. “Yeah, I couldn’t find him anywhere.” Not that you looked very hard. The minute you found this table of girls, you didn’t bother exploring the rest of the mansion. 

“He was upstairs with some of the guys. You know that he, uh, doesn’t really like these types of parties.” He rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. 

“You don’t seem like the type to like these parties either.” If he was anyone else, you’d be saying this to flirt. You’re honestly not sure what your intention behind this comment was, either. You’re too drunk to decide if you wanted it to be an insult (some way to defend Yukimiya’s behavior?) or just you trying to make conversation for once (you’re not normally one for small talk). 

“Caught me.” Isagi smiles easily. From now and thinking back to Yukimiya’s birthday lunch, Isagi is rarely not smiling. You wonder if he means it. Surrounded by people who only let you drink with them because being seen with you elevates their own status, you decide that the answer to that is a probably not. “I was about to head out before I thought I saw you, and I wanted to come by and…” For a second, he pauses to choose the right words to say. “Just wanted to see if it really was you.”

“Well, you saw me. Guess your business is done here.” Then you swiftly turn your back to him, as if to abruptly end the conversation. Instead, you’re drunker than you realize, and your heel ends up being wedged deeper into the grass than you expected, and you lose your balance. You think you might fall, which would be so embarrassing, but maybe not as embarrassing as what actually ends up happening.

What actually ends up happening is that Isagi is quick to wrap his arm around your abdomen, pulling you close to him as he attempts to keep you steady and upright. The girls looked shocked, but then they burst into another round of giggles, and since you’re not joining in the laughter, all you can think about is how annoying they are. You squirm around in his grasp, ignoring the whiff of fresh laundry you get from being all up in his personal space (not by choice!!!; he’s the one that pulled you in, after all!), and he releases you. 

“Are you feeling okay?” He asks you. It’s hard to glare at him when he looks so genuinely concerned. 

“Never better.” 

“Do you have a ride home?” 

What does it matter to you? Is what you want to say. 

“I’ll call an Uber.” You lie, hoping that this will end the conversation once and for all. Seriously, Isagi just killed the whole vibe of the party for you. You want to go back to drinking. 

“But I thought you didn’t do Ubers.” When Isagi calls you out on your bullshit, you soften momentarily. You almost forgot that he heard about your weird thing of having strangers know your home address. Then, you go back to giving him the cold shoulder. Sometimes, it’s a warm and gooey feeling to be known. Right now, you want to drown your sorrows in tequila and be showered with fake affection by girls who probably don’t even like you sober. You didn’t come to this party to be known. You came here for revenge. 

(You’re not going to acknowledge how drinking your sadness away isn’t necessarily showing up Rin, but for nearly an hour straight, you hadn’t thought about him, and that’s good enough.) 

When you have no response to that (wit doesn’t come easy when you’re in the condition you’re in right now), Isagi looks at you imploringly. 

“Let me take you home.” 

You shake your head childishly, almost saying nuh-uh. “Just because you don’t like this party doesn’t mean I don’t like it. I’m staying right here.” 

He finally frowns. “Fine. I’ll wait for you to finish up here, then I’ll take you home.”

“I’m with my friends right now. Leave me alone.” 

He raises an eyebrow. “Really? Which friend is going to make sure you get home safely? Yukimiya already left early.” Despite the two of you not knowing what the other is thinking, you both give wry smiles about that statement for the same reason. The party is still going on strong, despite the guest of honor not wanting to show his face and leaving early. 

“These are my best friends.” You gesture to the trio of girls you know nothing about, besides the fact that they can keep up with your drinking habits. They all smile at Isagi, who waves back before turning his attention back to you.

“Really?” He asks. “What’re their names again?”

No one has anything to say to that, especially you. When the silence gets too awkward, Isagi clears his throat and also puts his foot down.

“I’m taking you home, [Name].” 

You look at the trio of strangers you just spent hours with. Harper’s Bazaar shrugs, and the other two look away. The sting of not knowing who they are, despite them obviously having enough notoriety to be invited, makes your “best friends” not your friends anymore. Whatever. 

“Fine.” You grumble, following Isagi to his car. 

“Did you have fun tonight?” Is what he asks you as he signals to make a turn. The clicking of the turn signal is the only thing that fills the silence in the car. 

No. 

Sometimes, it’s fun in the moment, but that’s only when you’re drunk enough to trick yourself into thinking you’re having a good time. You’re more like Yukimiya (and — gross — Isagi) than they know; the whole “It Girl dominates the party scene” vibe you’ve got going on… It’s just bullshit that your PR team mixes together to get people talking. The high of being adored by everyone in a room vanishes almost immediately the minute you go home and wash off your makeup. In the bright lights of your bathroom, you stare at the sad, lonely girl in the mirror. It’s too dark outside for you to see anything out the window, but you lean your head against the cool glass, and before you know it, you’re waking up…

To Isagi groping you?

You’re groggy and confused and trying to blink the sleepiness out of your eyes, but Yoichi Isagi is definitely all up on you. You’re shocked, honestly. He looks like such a sweet guy! No wonder he was so pushy in getting you home.

He’s holding you in some awkward side hug, and he’s patting down your waist, trying to slip his fingers through the fabric of your dress, and finally, because he must be a novice-level pervert who doesn’t know the first thing about female anatomy, you speak up. 

“Gross! You can’t even feel up a girl properly! No wonder you take advantage of drunk, vulnerable girls!” 

“Ah!” He jerks back, shocked that you’re awake. Serves the pervert right. He should be backing up. You took a month of kickboxing classes (your modeling agency thought it would be the next big thing, since all the Victoria Secret models kickbox — they were wrong). “I-I wasn’t feeling you up!” 

“Then why were your hands all over me?” 

“I was looking for your key! You were asleep, and you looked like you needed it, so I just carried you to your door, but it’s locked.”

Oh. Likely story. You’re not letting him off the hook just yet. 

“Obviously my front door would be locked, dumbass. Who doesn’t lock their house?” You point to the perfectly trimmed hedges by your door. “Key’s in the bushes.”

Since you’re making no moves to get down on your knees and rifle through the bushes, Isagi sighs and does it himself. When he holds up the key, you nod in thanks, take it, and then proceed to unlock the door using your fingerprint. 

He blinks. “What?” 

“What?” You repeat back, innocently. 

“You didn’t even need the key to unlock the door!”

“Yes, Isagi. Modern technology is something, isn’t it?” And because you feel kind of bad, you offer him the chance to wash up before driving back. 

“You’re really something, you know that?” Isagi says from the kitchen sink. You’re sitting on a stool by the counter.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s nothing bad.” He clarifies. “It’s just… Rin’s a pretty private person. We always wondered what his girlfriend must be like. Sorry.” He shuts off the faucet, dries his hands. “Ex-girlfriend, I guess.”

“How do you know that?” You’ve been racking your brain, wondering if Yuki spilled your secret accidentally. Or — even worse — Rin himself confirmed it. Rin never even told anyone explicitly that the two of you were dating, so it’s not plausible that he would go blab about the breakup. 

“Well, I didn’t really know for sure until I drove you home that first time.” He admits. “I just thought you made a weird face when I mentioned Rin during lunch, and then you started acting funny afterwards. Just had a hunch, that’s all.” 

Great. So, Isagi, who’s basically a stranger to you, could read you to filth. Is there anyone else that you haven’t been fooling? How embarrassing. Being perceived sucks. 

You don’t say anything else. You can hear Isagi mumbling about something, and you make a half-hearted noise in reply, but you’re sleepy and drunk and coming to the realization that you can’t keep fooling everyone around for long. There’s no point in dancing around the topic of your breakup. It’s getting tiring, anyway. 

It is pretty exhausting to be pining after someone who’s not coming back. 

Because that’s why you’re trying so hard to keep the breakup a secret. Partly for pride, but mostly because… You’re hoping that after learning everything there is to know about you, Rin Itoshi wouldn’t go so far to cut you so deeply by leaving you. Right? He understood your level of loneliness like no one else, and he related to it. For the first time in both of your lives, the two of you suddenly found the right person to fill in all the empty spaces. 

And then he left, and the emptiness just continues to grow in infinite amounts.

You groan as you move around, only to find that you’re moving on top of your bed. You’re tucked into your sheets, and your hair is splayed across your pillow. You turn your head and see a shadowy figure exiting out your bedroom door.

“You’re leaving, too?” 

Your throat is dry, and the words come out small. You hate this feeling of hopelessness and vulnerability, and the figure pauses in his steps. 

He hushes you gently. “You should go to sleep. You’ve had a long night.” 

“Fine. Don’t stay. I don’t care.” You burrow yourself further into your blankets. 

“Do you really want me to stay?” 

At one in the morning, covered in the darkness of your bedroom, you turn every shadow into Rin Itoshi. You don’t know what you mumble in response, but you know that whatever you said, it’s directed towards him.

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Overtime 1

Warnings: this fic will include elements, some dark, such noncon/dubcon, and other untagged triggers. Please take this into account before proceeding. It is up to curate your online consumption safely.

Summary: your boss, Mr. Hansen, runs you ragged but you find solace in an unexpected friend.

Characters: Lloyd Hansen, Jake Jensen.

Author’s Note: This one is dedicated to my dearest @thezombieprostitute

Please feel free to leave some feedback, reblog, and jump into my asks. I’m always happy to discuss with you and riff on idea. As always, you are cherished and adored! Stay safe, be kind, and treat yourself💜

The sudden gust and subsequent chaos across your desk has you reeling. You wheel back as you raise your hands defenslessly and watch everything scatter. Mr. Hansen’s jacket knocks over your fresh cup of coffee and your favourite ornament of a little ballerina kitten. 

“My office now, critter.” 

You wince again, this time because of the cruel name. You hate when he calls you that. You stand and pick up your boss’ jacket before it can get wet in the spilled coffee. You hang it on the rack in the corner beside your own and go back to sop up the mess with a wad of kleenex. 

You have more down your tights and on your chair but it doesn’t matter. At least time, it wasn’t scalding tea. You gather up the rest of your things but leave them in an unsorted cluster. You know better than to keep him waiting. 

As you flit around the desk, you notice a pair of watching eyes. You almost forgot about Jensen. He was so quiet messing with the printer that you didn’t even notice him. He frowns as he sits up and shuts the drawer. 

“You alright?” He asks. 

“Ahem, yea, thanks,” you try to smile but these days, it just isn’t easy. 

He gives you a look. Sympathetic and something more. You’re too embarrassed to worry about that. More so, you’re too afraid to make Mr. Hansen even angrier. Clearly something is wrong and the days only just begun. 

You approach his open office door. That’s a clear signal that he’s been waiting. You enter as one of your flats slips off your heel and claps loudly. You cringe as he stands at the window, glowering at the courtyard below. You like the green square. You go there to eat your lunches. When you get one.

“Tell me why my ex-wife insists on making me miserable?” He snarls. 

He doesn’t want an answer. When he asks you things, he never does. It’s rhetorical. He often only speaks to hear himself and anyone else joining the conversation only gives him a target. 

“I will get you your brown sugar espresso and croissant at once--” 

“Fuck off!” He chops his hand in the air and faces you. “I didn’t just call you in here for you to feed my like some pet. Come here.” 

He snaps his fingers and points to the chair across from his. You always hate the setup. The one behind his desk is tall and cushy and makes him look like a tyrannical king, whereas the one facing him is too low and made of the most uncomfortable acrylic. It doesn’t even have armrests. 

“Take notes.” 

You open up the notes app on your phone without hesitation. The smell of coffee wafter up from your stockings. You shift and focus on him. 

“Melora, you ice cold cunt, it’s been two years since I left your dry ass. If you send your attorney to my house again, I will show up to yours with a crowbar. My dick feels good without frost bite, thank you very much. Your regretful ex-husband, Lloyd ‘Fuck You’ Hansen.” He snorts and shakes his head. “Fucking bitch.” You keep typing and he shakes his index at you, “not that part. Fuck. Oh, can you add the sick face emoji before you format that? Thanks, critter.” 

You hit save and stand up, “would you like your coffee now?” 

“Uh, sure, whatever. Make sure it’s hot. Oh, and you know what, I want that as a PDF before you forward it over to the former Mrs. Hansen. With letterhead.” 

He shoos you and you gladly take the dismissal. You never were one for arguing and never dared to say a single spare word to your boss. You assume that’s why he keeps you around. You’re no extraordinary assistant, just obedient. 

The tasks he gives you might not all be professional but as long as you get them done, you don’t get any trouble. You stride back out to your desk and stop short. Your things are all back where they belong and dry. Your cup is clean and rinsed out. 

Who did that? 

“Hey, uh, what kinda coffee do you take?” Jensen surprises you as he appears from around the corner. 

“Jake, uh I mean, Mr. Jensen, did you do all this?” 

“Ha, no one calls me mister but you,” he chuckles. “Don’t worry about it. Took like six seconds. I was just thinking, I’m going to make a run down to The Grind and maybe I could get you something fresh.” 

“Oh, that’s so sweet. I... no, please don’t waste your time,” you wring your hands, your chewed up nails aching from your nervous habit. “I gotta go get Mr. Hansen’s breakfast.” 

“Right,” he looks down and fixes his glasses, “well, I fixed that thing.” He nods to the printer, “shouldn’t eat anymore paper. I hope. You know, every tech bootcamp I’ve gone through and they never teach you about printers. I swear, they defy the laws of the universe.” 

You show your teeth in a half-smile. That’s silly. He grins proudly. 

“I didn’t mention, I... like that bow in your hair. It’s cute. Matches your little kitty.” 

You peek down at the figurine of the calico doing a pirouette. You blush. You only wish you were that dainty. You feel gawkish with the way you seem to loom over everyone else, yet somehow feel tiny at the same time. 

“Thanks. That’s... please don’t feel sorry for me. He’s not that bad and it’s my job,” you shrug. 

“Feel sorry? No, I’m just... being nice. Well, maybe another time. For the coffee,” he says. “Unless, I could go with you on your run?” 

“Uh, that’s-- you’re busy. Mr. Hansen only like Esther’s.” 

“Esther’s?” He exclaims as his eyes bulge behind his frameless lenses, “that’s all the way across town.” 

“I know some shortcuts,” you assure him as you bend to retrieve your purse from under your desk and drop your phone in. “Anyway, thanks for fixing the printer. I gotta go before he catches me dawdling.” 

“Right. Guess I should get to accounting. Guess they had a server crash and some stuff got lost. See ya round.” 

“Sure,” you agree. You don’t see too many people around. They avoid Hansen and more often, you’re running around at his beck and call. 

[maritiiny]

Minsung fanfic recommendation part 2

I'm back with my monthly minsung recs > <

again, please always read tags and every story here has mature content!

Hoodie Season by Teasweet - every time jisung wears minhos thing (hoodie) minho goes crazy and jisung as the biggest brat he is uses this for his own good. (the author has locked profile for those who isn't registered in ao3 so if you don't have account txt me on Twitter @.maritiiny and I'll give you pdf)

One too many drinks by ReadingCandle - oh, oh! This one was my absolute favourite. I love it when two dummies in love instead of talking about their feelings they hook up with others to make them jealous. and minho let's jisung to be that kind of dummie until he isn't and read to find out what happens next!

Ruining the Frat Boy: A Guide by Lee Minho by hanahneedssleep - I never mentioned it but (i did millionth times) i LOVE when top seems softie and comes out as absolute maniace lol. frat boy jisung thinks he can top minho but ends up under the absolute mercy of lino (mind you author said it was their first fic and it's one of the best fics i ever read)

Super Bowl by foxiyeny - read it at your own risk T^T misnug public sex in front chan and binnie hehe (running away)

Let your love walk in by adisadastra - you know that jealous jisung is as hottie as jealous minho. from platonic blowjob to non-platonic sex.

Amongst the flock by Mntsnflrs - oh this one is angsty and it was little too angsty for me since i'm too sensitive erm... but yeee happy ending! at was really well written.

Would you make a wish on my love? by brittleheart - oh seems like i read some angsts (I usually don't) but if i did it was worth it! misunderstands and once again not talking about their feelings :( but again happy ending guys!!

The cat('s) boy by inariwife - ok forget angst do yall like hybrid fics? if you don't let me tell you something LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING! some maybe be cringe but this one and other I'll recommend later is good. did i ever lied? no! so read my lovely cat hybrid possessive minho and confused sungie fic!

Marking my territory by teorema - i never liked ex to lovers again but with minsung it starts to get my favourite trope. sungies jealous ex marking his territory that's it, that's the fic!

No more secrets by minsungstreet2514 - promised second hybrid fic where minho who hates to think he is owned by someone is in an open relationship with jisung and it takes one look on sungie's ex sex buddy, model like hyunjin to realize maybe it's not that bad to own and be owned.

happy reading! ><

see yall soon ( i hope)

[bomberqueen17]

deep in the obsession

ok so IDK how much I've talked about my Special Interest in the Bronze Age on here. At one point (like nanowrimo of 2003 or so) I was trying to write a novel set in the British Isles Bronze Age and I researched as much as I could and there just wasn't much information and I wrote some stuff anyway but it petered out. And ever since then I've kept checking back on various avenues of research and every time there's a new find I'd read as much as I could find about it. And then they discovered the remains of a pile-dwelling settlement in the Fens in England and they've finally just now published the results of that? Well of course I've been obsessively reading about it. (I had actually emailed the Cambridge Archaeology Unit a couple of months ago to ask where I could find the publications, so the timing was good.)

I mean the long and short of it is, they've got a site exposed by modern quarrying activity, which consists of five remaining buildings, which burned down and collapsed into the river channel with all their contents in the 9th century BC; the inhabitants escaped with very few of their possessions, and the rest of the assembly of the items they used in their daily lives are largely present, very well-preserved; whole sets of pots and woodworking tools, as well as textiles and textile-processing materials, foodstuffs, wooden tools, and enough building materials to almost entirely reconstruct their dwellings; a enormous wealth of information about their diets, their ways of living, even some feel for their aesthetic sensibilities. The circumstances of the buildings' collapse even means we know how they laid out their living spaces.

So I am going to infodump about what I've pulled out of these rather dense and dry reports (I have zero complaints, they're perfectly appropriately-written), so buckle up.

Firstly, if you want to read these yourself, the publications are open access PDFs hosted on the Cambridge Archaeology Unit's website here.

There are also a fantastic series of blog posts both from during the excavation and from during the initial analytical "post-ex" phase on the site's website, which I devoured while waiting for the final reports.

I admit I was first drawn to the whole thing, when I first saw stories about it, because of the mystery. It seems to have been a whole settlement, a village maybe, and it all burned down at once, and no humans seem to have died in it, but everyone left everything behind, even leaving a dog in one of the buildings, and some penned little lambs in a couple of them-- what caused this? Were they attacked? Were they forced out of it? It had a palisade around it as if for defense, did they build it because they were afraid, and rightfully so?? Why did they not come back to try to salvage anything? The water would have been shallow, surely they could at least get their axe-heads and things back.

But the thing that has sustained my interest now is that it appears to have been an unexceptional village after all. There's no evidence that these were elite people living here. There weren't any unambiguous weapons found-- part of a broken sword, in what was obviously a recycle bin (a wooden bucket), waiting along with some broken chisels and a bent axe and part of a broken bronze bucket for a trip back to the nearest metalworker. Some spears, but likely used for hunting, stored outside the houses all together leaned up against the palisade under an overhanging roof eave. Axes, but the sheer quantity of woodworking in the site means they were very obviously woodworking tools, and weapons only by technicality.

Other contemporaneous sites are preserved so incompletely that there are always "was this a place people dwelled or was it a ceremonial gathering place" kinds of questions. Artifacts are found either discarded in middens, broken, or deposited in hoards, "ceremonially?". But all this stuff is in-context, in the house, which burned down and collapsed straight down. This was the kitchen area, obviously; all the houses had most of their pots in the same approximate spot, caches of grain in the same area. This corner is where we find stuff they were working on-- one house has probably a loom, and tons of textile-related stuff scattered around it. (There's only evidence for a loom in one or maybe two of the buildings, but there are spindle whorls and bobbins of thread in three; several spinners providing one weaver, as is common throughout history.)

Some of the pots had been broken before the fire, and some of them had been partially discarded and partially kept, like for example a well-shaped broken bit of rim was being used as a scoop or something, while the little unusable shards had gotten chucked into the river where they threw their trash; the archaeologists could reunite fragments to prove this, and could derive the information that these shards would all be associated with the same house; they weren't shared, they were using the broken pot in the same house where they'd used it before it was broken; they seem to have cooked their meals separately, and kept separate inventory of basic household necessities. But the extra stuff seems to have been stored in the communal storage shed, so they could all get to it.

There's a large but incomplete sheet of bark that in places has a second sheet adhered to it with moss in between, which was likely bedding.

There are textiles, not just woven ones but also weft-twined ones made from lime bast cord-- mats, or hats, or capes. There's a knotted fishing net that was rolled up and in a pile with other things in an area that seems to have been a storage shed of sorts. (Near the "recycle bin" full of broken metal.) There's a collection of prepared fiber, ready to be made into cordage or spun into thread, and it's all prepared the same way in standard-sized bundles-- tantalizingly, regular enough as if for trade, stored in that storage shed next to a nested set of new pots-- like somebody had bought or made them and they weren't put to use yet, OR someone had made extra they intended to trade offsite for stuff they couldn't make themselves.

The whole sets of pots are broadly the same among households-- similar numbers of large vs. small, coarse vs. fine. They all resemble one another, though some are better-made than others-- as if several people made them, but under the guidance of one experienced worker.

Several pots and wooden containers have food residues. Hauntingly, there's a ceramic pot that was still half-full of porridge, with a wooden spatula/spoon still stuck in it. The porridge was made of ground wheat cooked in a liquid containing animal fats from a ruminant-- either sheep/goat or red deer-- possibly an early example of frumenty.

Enough of the structural timbers remain from the buildings, many with markings on them from where other structural elements were touching them and alternately exposed/protected them from fire so it is possible to reconstruct shapes and connections in more detail than if they were unburnt ruins, that the buildings can be nearly completely reconstructed, which is novel because most buildings of this era are known only from footprints/post holes. Almost no material survived from the walls, but because of these ghost "protection marks" it's possible to know that the walls existed, how wide they were, that they were attached in a particular spot, that they were made of a series of small uprights-- and to then surmise that some of the fragments of "wattle", woven panels, must have come from the walls in some cases. And it's possible to reconstruct the innovative, never-elsewhere-seen sprung floor system of bowed joists that kept the floors securely above the water below.

Anyway, I've devoured Vol I and am most of the way through scouring Vol II for interesting tidbits.

Yes of course I want to write a novel with this as the setting but I also am just completely fascinated.

[sexisdisgusting]

Hello I'm Lenka Stojanovic, welcome to my blog

i'm a balkan ex-muslim lesbian woman in my 20s and a big scary radfem. if that threatens you, block me. my blog is crypto safe (if you're crypto, follow only if you want—your safety is my priority).

this is mainly a radfem blog, but i also post funnies and things i find pretty/cool. if you're wondering why i followed you and you're not a radfem blog, that's why.

i LOVE being spammed with reblogs and likes, so please don't feel afraid to do so!!

i identified as "trans/nonbinary" for years before reclaiming my womanhood, and i'm so happy i did (it's never too late). there's no "right" or "wrong" way to be a woman. i was a huge trans activist for years before realizing it doesn't and will never benefit me despite their lies. i don't argue with tras—go kick rocks and debate with the mirror, loser.

i post free pdfs, resources, graphics, and everything else of the sort on this blog. feel free to explore and read—it's not illegal despite what you've been made to think (#useful).

any designs i create and post on this blog are entirely free for personal and commercial use. i don't want or require credit—do whatever your heart desires with them (create pins, t-shirts, print them out, sell them, anything!! idc!) (#my designs).

though i do have some hashtags i regularly use to keep things somewhat organized, in general, i don't use tags a lot, if ever.

my blog is open to any and all women, even the trans-identified ones. you are all welcome here and i love you (in other terms, my blog is open to all "afabs," even "transmen" and those who are "nonbinary"). if you're on the fence or reconsidering things, you're safe here, i promise.

also, i don't live in america, so my perspective might be different from what you're used to.

it sometimes takes me a while to reply (i.e. days, weeks...) to my messages because my life can get busy at times, but rest assured i will get back to you, and love chatting!! (i sometimes also just come on here to feverishly reblog but don't have the energy to converse, i hope you understand). i don't always reply to every reply on my posts because sometimes there's nothing else left to say! you've summed it up perfectly! but i LOVE reading all replies!!!

my messages are only on for mutuals, and asks are completely off. sometimes i'll turn on asks for an hour or two before turning them back off. on that note, any of my beloved regular anonitas i had, i implore thee to make side accounts so we can chat because i really miss you all, though my asks aren't coming back full time any time soon.

there are more trans activists/trans people turned radfems than there are radfems turned trans activists/trans people—think about why that is.

you're not the only one who thinks these thoughts, i promise you there are SO many women who think the same as you. you just haven't found them yet, or they're in hiding.

i love you! mua!! xx

i also have a sideblog in case things go awry (i get banned for being too wild) and that side blog is: sexisforeverdisgusting

[queer-ragnelle]

Hi! I really want to read the vulgate cycle but I have a hard time staying focused when reading it. Are there any sections of the vulgate that are not as important to the understanding or able to skip? Thank you so much for making all these stories accessible and thanks for your reply :))

Hello my friend! This is a great question and one I get a lot. The Vulgate Cycle is long and daunting, but I can help you navigate it!

Firstly, here is the full Vulgate Cycle PDF collection for everyone to read. Secondly, I'll summarize what you can do, and elaborate below a cut.

TL;DR

If reading a PDF, use CTRL+F to find your favorite character's name/stories.

If reading a physical copy, utilize the index (located at the very end of the Post Vulgate) to find them.

Discover chapters of interest from the summary page (also located at the very end of the Post Vulgate).

Skip The History of the Holy Grail and begin with The Story of Merlin or Lancelot I.

Now, let's break down the ways you can navigate the Vulgate Cycle step by step.

CTRL+F

This option will certainly be less effective if your favorite character is a prominent one such as Lancelot or Gawain as they appear a million times. However, if you want to learn more about someone else, say, the Lady of the Lake, you can search her up and find every instance of her appearance. Like so.

Index

In the very back of the final book of the Post Vulgate, there's an Index listing every named character [Ex: Gawain], location [Ex: Orkney Isles], entity [Ex: Holy Spirit], animal [Ex: Gringalet the horse], and language [Ex: Hebrew] mentioned in the entirety of the Vulgate Cycle. There you'll find a list of which book/chapter/page they appear in. Here are all the mentions of Gawain's horse in The Book of Merlin.

Chapter Summaries

Each book of the Vulgate Cycle has a Table of Contents with the chapter numbers and long, descriptive titles. That alone may give you an indication of what you want to read. However, at the back of the Post Vulgate, right before the Index, there's a list of every chapter in the Vulgate Cycle with a summary of events. That will give you more detail and may help you decide if you want to read in full.

Skip

If it sucks, hit da bricks. The beauty of the Vulgate Cycle is that you don't need The History of the Grail or The Book of Merlin to understand what comes later. I enjoy them because History gives a ton of background to the religious themes the Grail Quest will eventually explore and sets up all the motifs way in advance and Merlin has the Orkney Bros as well as Yvain and Sagramore as kids which is fun. But the fact is you can begin with Lancelot I and you won't be lost. Lancelot I was written first, Merlin is a prequel, so it's optional, and the motifs of the Grail Quest are going to be heavy handed when you get there anyway without the added stuff from History. That's hundreds of pages you can skip if you want to! Norris J. Lacy, the head editor, and his translation team did a phenomenal job with footnotes throughout, so if a character off-handedly refers back to something, you can rely on them to leave a little note at the bottom for you to refresh your memory with. It'll even give you a chapter/page number if you want to refer back yourself. Here's a footnote referring to Agravaine's unnamed amie [his ladylove] who helped wing woman her sister to romance Gawain. That was 4 chapters prior to this moment.

So there are plenty of ways to navigate the Vulgate Cycle and make it more digestible. That being said, it's translated so beautifully by Lacy and his team, that it reads like a modern novel. I have no doubt that once you get started, you'll become invested, and find it much easier to work through than you first thought. It's long-winded and character dense but it's fun. I do hope you're able to read it and understand why I love it so much! Thanks for this ask and I hope this helps. Have a great day!

[works-of-fanfiction]

Empty Spaces || Lando Norris x ex!Reader

Summary: Lando and Y/N broke up a few months ago but can’t seem to stay away from each other. 

Song: affection - BETWEEN FRIENDS 

Warnings: Implied smut and mentions of sex. Swearing and a lil’ bit of angst. 

Word Count: 3.2k

a/n: I told y’all I’m in my Lando era! please listen to the above song if you have a minute; it really describes how I imagined the characters to feel during this oneshot. enjoy! 

"I love you." 

“No, you don’t.”  

Those three fateful words rolled off of Lando's tongue too easily. The flick of the L, the rounding of the O, teeth meeting at the V, it was like muscle memory for him. It was easy to say he loved her when she was lying naked in his bed, her chest rising and falling slowly, hair splayed across the pillow. It was like Groundhog Day for them. They’d fuck, followed by an awkward silence, followed by Y/N rushing to the bathroom then returning with her eyes glued to the floor. She’d lie on the very edge of the bed as far away from him as possible and try to catch her breath whilst she thought about every reason why she shouldn’t have let it happen again. 

The thing about sleeping with an ex is that it’s just too easy. It’s not simple, but so. damn. easy. You eliminate the trouble of meeting someone new and pretending to care about their family dog, or their little niece who just took her first steps. Instead, you’re able to climb on top of, or lie beneath probably one of the only people in the world who know exactly what you want and exactly how you want it. And in those few moments when it’s just two bodies messily colliding, the people within those bodies don’t need to think about the terrible decision they’re making. Lando had certainly never regretted a thing with Y/N’s legs wrapped around his waist. 

She liked to call their little liaisons ‘accidents’. In her mind, showing up to his door with a bottle of wine in less than acceptable clothing was nothing more than a mishap. The temporary fun and the need for familiarity completely clouded her judgement, at least until the deed was done. Being beneath Lando delayed the agonising process of getting over him. Regrettable sex was somehow less painful than facing their reality and accepting that they were no longer meant for each other. How were the two supposed to let go of the person they’d once considered to be their soulmate? 

“You’re hogging the bottle again.” Y/N groaned, reaching over to snatch the wine from Lando’s grasp. 

“That just proves I need it more.” 

Drinking had become a great distraction for them. The sex was a distraction from the breakup, and the booze was a distraction from the sex, and they couldn’t have one without the other. 

Y/N laid on the floor whilst Lando sat propped against the wardrobe with one elbow resting on his knee. He plucked at the carpet absentmindedly, the friction reddening the tips of his fingers. His eyes wandered around the room and Y/N watched on, wondering what was going through his head. Was he overthinking everything just as much as she was? 

After four months of back and forth fighting, they’d fallen out of sync. No amount of love or history shared could protect them from the inevitable. They made each other miserable, and as much as they tried to fix and talk through it, it wasn’t enough. It was when Y/N failed to show up for the Spanish Grand Prix that Lando realised it was really over. Every time their schedules aligned, he’d bought her a plane ticket and tracked her flight until the very second she landed. Spain was no different, despite the condition their relationship was in. She’d gotten the email as usual, the PDF attached and a little ‘can’t wait to see you’ message from Lando. It was the first time the message had felt like a lie. He couldn’t possibly be excited to see her, and she knew seeing him would crush her completely. She had to change her phone wallpaper to one of the default landscapes to avoid staring at his face every time she got a text. 

Y/N grimaced as she sipped the wine, pulling the bottle back to read the label. After polishing off the petrol station’s finest Malbec, the best Lando could offer was a bottle of Pinot Grigio he found in the back of the cabinet, which was evidently not her favourite. Despite her distaste, she went back for another swig, swallowing hard so the liquid would barely graze her tongue. 

Silence fell between them, not awkward but filled with uncertainty. Lando’s head was littered with questions, but he found it almost impossible to focus with her sprawled out on his floor, legs bare and his t-shirt hardly covering her. He wanted to climb on top of her, crawl all over her and devour every inch until she was crying and begging him to take her back and love her all over again. Realistically, he knew it wouldn’t work and they’d never go back to how they used to be, but he didn’t know how to let go. A selfish part of him wanted to hold on and keep her around, despite just how much it was hurting them both. Every time he let those words slip out, they left a sour taste in his mouth, and a bruise on Y/N’s heart. She couldn’t stand hearing those words uttered when they had no weight behind them, but she’d much rather take those over no words at all.

The first time she’d showed up to his apartment after hours, it felt like he’d somehow wished her into existence. It had been a particularly hard weekend following tons of media appearances and unwelcome questions. Sometimes it felt like he couldn’t do anything right by the media; even an improved performance in Austria wasn’t enough to get them off his back. Having a thousand people congratulate him felt great, but there were always people whispering in the background - it was a one-off. It was a fluke! McLaren can’t keep giving this kid so many chances. 

Arriving back in the UK ready for Silverstone was bittersweet, as his excitement was clouded by the pressure and prying eyes of fans, reporters, and everyone in between. He didn’t know who he could turn to as his feelings felt so trivial, and it crossed his mind just how easy it once was to talk to Y/N and offload everything that had been weighing him down. It was strange for her not to be there, so when the notification pinged on his phone that there had been movement detected by the Ring camera, he was surprised to see her standing on his doorstep. The image was blurry but it was unmistakably Y/N, as she rocked back and forth on her heels, one hand clutching a bottle, the other tucked into the pocket of her - Lando’s - hoodie. 

“…Hi.” 

“Hi.” 

“I uh, saw the result from Austria.” 

“Oh yeah?” 

“You did great. Really uh… Fuck, I don’t know what I’m doing here.” 

“Neither do I.” 

Unsure what to say, she thrust the bottle into Lando’s chest and he felt forced to take it. “Thank you… I guess.” 

“Yeah.” She hesitated for a second, hands coming up as if she was ready to speak, but instead she turned and started to walk away. 

“Y/N.” 

“Yeah?” She spun quickly, looking back at the doors that once led into her home; looking back at the man she’d once considered to be her home. 

“What are you doing here?” 

He wasn’t sure he wanted the answer. She wasn’t sure she really had one. Something in her told her that she needed to see him, and before she could think it through, she was already halfway down the motorway with the bottle of Rosé she’d been given on her last birthday rolling across the backseats. 

That night, he made the mistake of inviting her inside and popping open the bottle to pour them both a larger than average glass. He made the mistake of confiding in her, telling her everything about the Austrian Grand Prix and how it still welcomed unpleasant press despite his P4 result. He made the mistake of hugging her, sinking into her chest and inhaling the scent that once grounded him and reminded him he was safe. He didn’t mean to kiss her, and she didn’t mean to run her hands through his curls as she kissed him back. She wasn’t supposed to push his shorts down and climb on top of him on the sofa, and he never should have whispered how much he’d missed her as he came inside her.  

After his podium at Silverstone, Y/N had frequented his apartment a lot in the two weeks before he left for Hungary. The first time was to ‘congratulate’ him and he was more than happy to celebrate with her on her knees before him. They couldn’t stay away from each other after that. As long as they had alcohol in their systems, they couldn’t seem to control their urges. It was when the effects wore off that the regret started to seep in. 

They didn’t miss each other outside of the intimacy and affection. There was nothing left to mourn about their tumultuous relationship; the constant fights and distance keeping them apart. Y/N tried to attend as many races as possible, but a race weekend wasn’t exactly ideal for spending time with her boyfriend. He was far too busy on the track, and she was often left to mingle with strangers or keep herself occupied at the hospitality unit. The most quality time she got with him was being there when he passed out in their hotel room, leaving her to order room service and eat it quietly in the corner alone. 

“Lando.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Can you come here?” 

“Okay.” 

Gently taking the bottle from her hand, Lando placed it on the drawers before lying down beside her on the ground. The carpet rubbed harshly against his back as he wriggled to get comfortable. The two laid flat, staring up at the ceiling where a light bulb had recently gone out that Lando had meant to change. Y/N had joked about it creating mood lighting a couple weeks ago, and that one little remark had stopped him from taking the new bulb out of its box. 

Hesitantly, she walked her fingers along the carpet until they met his. The slight touch made heat rush through Lando’s hand and up his arm, and his chest tightened as she linked her little finger with his. She didn’t have it in her to hold his hand properly. She thought if she did, all the hurt and sadness would flood to the surface and she’d be a sobbing mess on the floor. As much as they craved each other’s touch, joining hands felt too intimate compared to having sex. The smaller, softer touches terrified them.  

“I think we should stop this.” Y/N thought out loud. 

“You think we should?”

“I think we need to.” She turned her head, Lando turning his at the same time. He tightened his grip on her finger, dreading the feeling of her letting go. This wasn’t the first time they’d tried to have this conversation, but the very same sick feeling still swirled around in his stomach. If they stopped this, they’d have to promise never to see one another again, and neither were sure they could do that.

“Okay.” 

“Okay? Is that all you’re going to say? Okay?” She propped herself up on her elbows and he followed, mirroring her. 

“What else do you want me to say? I can’t beg you to keep doing this.” 

But that was exactly what she wanted. She hated how disassociated they’d become, and how having sex had moulded into some fucked up routine they couldn’t get out of. She wanted to feel something, for it all to mean something but it didn’t. It really was just sex. Just seriously messed up sex between two exes that couldn’t face the facts and let the breakup be final. All the times he’d accidentally said he missed her or loved her had been exactly that - accidents. 

“I just… I don’t know what this is, what it means.” Her voice got stuck in her throat as if something was telling her to keep her feelings to herself. 

“I thought we agreed it meant nothing.” 

“Did we? Or did we just say that to make ourselves feel better?” 

She sat up, scooting to sit against the bed frame. Bringing her knees to her chest, she hugged herself tightly, begging herself not to get upset in front of Lando. He shuffled over, sitting opposite with his feet almost overlapping hers. “I can’t pretend this doesn’t hurt, because it does.”

“…I know.” He agreed quietly, looking down to fidget with his fingers. She stared at the top of his head, the mound of curls unruly from her touch.

It made her sad just to look at him. The memories would come flooding back like a tidal wave, and she didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or scream at the top of her lungs. She wanted to hit him, scream at him for breaking her heart and ruining what they had. She wished she could turn back time and never meet him or develop some kind of magic power to erase her own memory and make him disappear. At the same time, she longed to hold him, to tangle her body with his and never let go. Imagining her life without him in it made no sense. He had been a constant for two years, so how could she completely cut him off and forget about him?

“Nothing good can come of this.” She spoke, mostly to convince herself.

“I know.”

Y/N sighed in frustration, throwing her arms down to the ground. “You know? That’s all you can say?”

Lando didn’t know how to respond. Did she expect him to offer her advice? How could he comfort her when he was in the exact same position?

“Tell me what to do Lando, just tell me.” Tears began to well in her eyes, threatening to fall as she bit the inside of her cheeks. “I… I don’t think I can keep doing this, but I can’t… Fuck.” The first tear slid down her cheek, and she pawed at her face to wipe it away before he saw.

“Y/N…” He reached out to touch her, but she pulled her arm away. “Y/N, come on.”

“Don’t do that. Please don’t.” She closed her eyes, concentrating on her breathing to try and stop the tears from flowing. “You broke my heart, Lando.” She whispered, saying the words aloud for the first time.

“And you broke mine.”

She looked up, meeting his gaze. Her eyes stung as she looked at him, studying the anguish in his brow and the tightening of his lips. “I… I’m sorry.”

“Are you? Are you? Because you’re the one who showed up at my door and didn’t give me the chance to get over you.” Lando hissed, his tone far more aggressive than he intended. He saw how this upset her and immediately rose to his knees to inch closer to her. “Y/N, I didn’t – “

“No, you’re right. I should never have showed up and practically begged you to fuck me. This is all my fault, that’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?” She seethed, anger mixing with her sadness to create a truly messed up cocktail of emotions.

“That’s not what I said.”

“But it’s what you meant, right? If I’d never shown up here after Austria, none of this would’ve happened, we wouldn’t be in this mess, and you would have moved on.”

“How do you know that?” He asked, sinking back down to sit cross-legged. “Go on, tell me. How could you possibly know that? Do you really think I could move on that easily?”

“But you just - “ 

“Yes, I know what I said.” He sighed, holding his head in his hands and running his fingers through his hair. “I’m not blaming you. This is just as much my doing as yours.” 

Silence fell between them again, Y/N’s tears drying and Lando’s pounding heart slowing to its regular pace. How many times were they going to have the same conversation? What two people spent more time discussing their breakup than actually going through it? 

He moved towards her, seeking consent in her eyes before sitting down. She nodded, tucking her elbows in so he could comfortably sit next to her. Laying her hand on the ground, Lando placed his on top and slotted his fingers between hers. 

“This is shit.” She declared.

“This is shit.” He agreed. 

Once again, they turned their heads to look at each other simultaneously. The redness in her water line and the tears trapped in her eyelashes made Lando’s chest ache. He wished there was something he could do to take the pain away and make this easier for the both of them. He was yet to cry over the breakup as he mostly felt numb inside, but he knew it would come eventually. He feared it. He didn’t want to cry, especially not over something he could’ve prevented if he’d tried hard enough. 

Y/N analysed Lando’s blank expression, the dark bags beneath his eyes making his entire face appear duller. She hated seeing him like this, as he’d always been so unbelievably full of life and constantly smiling. She wondered how much sleep he’d been getting. Was he cradling his pillow to fill the empty space in his arms at night? Or was she the only one who needed the comfort of something to hold in order to drift off? 

With their faces so close, they could feel each other breathing. Instinctively, Y/N’s eyes fluttered closed, her breaths becoming more shallow as Lando tilted his face closer. Curling his finger under her chin, he guided her towards him. “If we do this, it has to be the last time.” He whispered, his bottom lip grazing hers, eliciting a gasp from deep within her chest. 

“The last time.” She breathed, desperate for him to kiss her. He closed the gap between them, softly pressing his lips against hers. Quietly, she moaned into his mouth as he opened it just enough for her to slide her tongue past his lips. Tasting traces of the white wine on each other’s tongues, they laid back down on the carpet, Lando keeping a hand beneath her head for support.

She hooked her legs around his hips to pull him closer as she sucked his bottom lip into her mouth. He groaned, reaching down to push his shorts past his knees. Y/N balanced on her back, lifting her ass in the air so he could undress her with ease.

Their night ended how it always did. They held each other close as Lando fucked her slowly, trying to delay the moment for as long as possible. Over and over they told each other it would be the last time, knowing that they were lying to themselves.

It wouldn’t be the last time. 

[g-xix]

Have you seen this?

HEY GIRL!

Sooo YES icl a few hours ago i got a tweet which referenced this - found this OG tweet you've sent + the evidence that Alice linked in that folder, used to prove that imallexx was abusive within their relationship

Ill be honest, I sorta read the first 10 or so pages of the 80 word explanation document, and the tldr i found on Twitter is worth sharing for those who don't want to read it all:

😬 From those accusations, i gotta say, that does sound very abusive indeed.

Making threats, physical violence, belittling... It's all very very poor behaviour, and somewhat of a let down, honestly. As a commentary YouTuber who calls out deplorable people online for their own crimes or mishaps (also often in relationships - cough cough calling out pdf files cough cough -) it does indeed feel sort of ironic and a bit saddening seeing someone who appeared as "self-aware" about the rights and wrongs of how to treat a partner...

Be abusive.

Because from that tldr which im assuming the proof supports, Imallexx was abusive.

Not only abusive, but also im willing to bet that making those threats are a crime, and domestic abuse is undoubtably a crime.

Will he get punished or face charges for domestic abuse though?

I don't really know, I'll be honest. Because with Wilbur, he commit a crime in terms of physically harming and abusing Shubble Shelby - with biting and alleged assault on his ex, Alice also.

Did he face charges though?

NO! Instead he's happily touring and creating music looking like fucken where's wally on crack.

No, really.

A where's wally on crack:

I am tangenting, back to the point.

It's horrid behaviour from Alex. Undeniably.

And I haven't read the whole doc so i cant say i know everything... But i wanna know what sort of person Alice is, too, before forming too many judgements on Imallexx.

Sure, I currently think Alex is abusive and has abused Alice. However also, I accept that this is all what I've seen and heard from Alice's POV. If Alex has clips of Alice doing the same stuff she's alleged, yk, physically assaulting him and making equally as violent threats, that'd undeniably change my view of the situation quite a bit.

So i think before i form too harsh or strong judgements, i wanna hear what or see what Alex has to say ab this situation, too

However as of now?

I think best idea is to believe or support the victim as best possible, until reason is given not to. Hence, the support for Alice.

I gotta say, it really is disappointing from Alex. I've watched a lot of his old vids, or rly liked his occasional cameos in a WillNE old vid, or whilst rewatching eboys vids... Ts is very glum just from a fan and viewer pov, all morality and other thoughts out the window.

Also a note, that a lot of my philosophy when it comes to this sort of "Influencer alleged of assault" does come from ArthurTV + This msg on Discord:

(referencing Lewis being an alleged groomer + ATV's response being to support victims but take everything with a pinch of salt)

So, Chaos Crew enjoyers and Imallexx fans around the Tumblrsphere...

What are your Thoughts???

[homestuckreplay]

A Hole in the ACE: Anderson, Caveney, Egbert

[This is a deep dive into the pages of Harry Anderson: Wise Guy by Mike Caveney, seen on Homestuck pages 629-630, and its role in the story. About 2.5k words, somehow. A transcript of these pages can be found here.]

=> Read book. Be the wise guy.

Harry Anderson, born in 1952, was a real magician and comedian who achieved mainstream television success in the 1980s and 90s with starring roles in sitcoms and appearances on Saturday Night Live. A street magician since his youth, he continued to tour and perform magic shows well into the 2000s, and opened both a magic shop and a nightclub in New Orleans with his second wife. Wise Guy is the name of a one-man show he presented in his own nightclub beginning in 2005, although he may have used the phrase earlier.

Mike Caveney, born in 1950, has similarly been a magic enthusiast since childhood. As well as performing, he has written over 50 books about magic and its history, including Magic, 1400s-1950s (2009) and of course Harry Anderson: Wise Guy (1993). This is a real book documenting the secrets behind Anderson’s most famous tricks, interspersed with personal anecdotes. John Egbert is lucky to own this – it’s currently out of print, and secondhand editions sell for over $100.

In my attempts to find an online copy of Wise Guy, I found a PDF that billed itself as the book’s introduction, but quickly devolved into a plot summary of Stephen King’s IT. While clearly not the actual introduction, I later learned that Anderson played Richie Tozier in the 1990 television adaptation of IT, which at least explains the connection.

Unfortunately, very little of Wise Guy’s text is available online. One excerpt survives, and accompanies several online publishers’ listings for the book – for example, here. This excerpt describes Harry’s trick ‘The Finger Chopper,’ with his early-career assistant who happened to be missing half a finger. I am almost certain that Andrew Hussie doesn’t own a copy of this book, but that they found this real excerpt, and used it to write their own entirely fake pages for Homestuck.

Some specific phrases appear in both the real excerpt and the Homestuck pages: ‘Here is a perfect example of how Harry could…’ ‘the close up room at the Magic Castle’ and even the full paragraph ‘[he] had one of those little wooden finger choppers that Micky Hades used to sell. The kind where the blade could be removed and clearly shown. It was a very convincing little guillotine that did not look like a novelty store toy. Harry would get a guy to examine the chopper and then cut a cigarette in half. Then he held the guy’s hand up and told this silly story.’

The Magic Castle is a famous performance venue that Anderson really performed at, however it's located in Los Angeles, not New Orleans as the Homestuck version suggests.. Micky Hades is another magician 25 years Anderson and Caveney’s senior, best known for writing and publishing books and magazines on magic. An unverified primary source says that he invented the Finger Chopper while working deep underground in the freezing cold Yellowknife gold mines, which is definitely cool if true.

The rest of what's in Homestuck is invented. In Caveney’s book, Anderson’s trick is successful, no audience members are harmed, and Anderson is presented as a charismatic entertainer in control of the crowd. In Hussie’s version, Anderson’s trick goes horribly wrong, and is presented as overconfident, unpleasant, and ridiculous. There’s a flip back and forth from praising and criticizing Anderson, painting he and Caveney as jilted former business partners who maintain professional respect, or toxic ex-lovers who can’t let each other go.

Hussie also refers to a ‘two foot, six inch height differential’ between Anderson and Caveney, with Anderson implied as the shorter party. Anderson was 6’4”, and while I can’t find a source for Caveney’s height, I think it would have been well documented if Caveney was almost nine feet tall.

Hussie’s version states that once Anderson’s finger chopper trick was successful, he achieved ‘fame, fortune and the crowning position in the television judiciary.’ This refers to his starring role on the sitcom Night Court as Judge Harold T. ‘Harry’ Stone, a 34-year-old night court judge appointed to the bench when none of the other applicants were available to answer their phones. Harry’s methods in the show are unorthodox, including flipping a (secretly double-headed) coin to decide if a woman should go to jail, suggesting in 1984 that the three members of a love triangle try polyamory, and giving a man dressed as Santa information from two teenagers’ government records so that ‘Santa’ could trick the teens into believing in him.

I’d never heard of this show before reading Homestuck, and neither has Rose Lalonde, but John mentions it on p.636. The show appears fairly well received during its original run, winning eight Primetime Emmys, including four consecutive Best Supporting Actor wins for John Larroquette (who withdrew his name from the ballot for future years). I watched a few episodes before making this post and thought the pilot was really great, with subsequent episodes either not living up to its promises, or already feeling stale. It’s over-acted in a way that makes it feel older than its airdate, and definitely tracks as a cheesy thing for John Egbert to enjoy.

The other name mentioned in Hussie’s edition – Blind Willie ‘Buttermilk’ Stubbs – is not a real person, but a legendary jazz musician from Problem Sleuth. This is most likely a reference to the real 1900s blues musician Blind Willie McTell, or the Bob Dylan song of the same name. However, there’s an outside chance it could be another Stephen King connection, as he has a 1994 novella named Blind Willie.

The second trick described in Homestuck, ‘A Hole in the Ace,’ doesn’t appear to be a real Anderson trick. It’s not on this list of the book’s chapter titles, and while I have found evidence of Anderson tearing up cards as part of tricks, I couldn’t find anything about him punching holes. In general this second page is more artistic license and less connected to Anderson’s real life than the first. It seems like this hole-punch trick was invented by Hussie purely to give John the inspiration to advance his alchemy. Narratively this works really well, because John’s not somebody who would come to these ideas by careful thought, but it’s also not satisfying to have Rose always give him the answers.

We’ve seen another Harry Anderson property in John’s room – the fictional video game Call My Bluff, seen on the CD rack (p.31). Although Anderson never had a show named Call My Bluff, in 2000 he hosted an unsold pilot episode of What’s My Line? for Mark Goodson and Bill Todman. Goodson & Todman were famous for creating a variety of TV game shows, including 1965’s Call My Bluff. Is this a coincidence? I genuinely couldn’t tell you.

I really love what Hussie has done with this book. I’d say this qualifies as a transformative work – taking the real text and premise of Wise Guy and mixing it with established MSPA lore, mimicking Caveney’s original writing style while using it to paint a far more absurd picture of Anderson, using it to advance the plot while still feeling like this book could really exist, at least in the Homestuck universe. It shows how much work gets put into Homestuck, even while some plot elements (possibly even John’s decision to read the book) are decided by readers.

=> Read Colonel Sassacre’s text.

Wise Guy is only one of John’s two favorite books. The other of course is Colonel Sassacre’s Daunting Text of Magical Frivolity and Practical Japery, and we’ve now seen inside both. They’re fairly different overall. Sassacre’s is a lot more overwrought and soaked in Southern stereotypes, written like it’s trying to squeeze in as many old-timey Southern words as possible, while Wise Guy focuses on telling a story and creating a character. Both texts lean into some grosser imagery than Homestuck usually goes for, with Sassacre’s describing ‘wriggling regency of rubber bugs, plastic parasites, squirming serpents, pliable pests…’ and Wise Guy mentioning ‘a bloody sausage sized piece of a guy’.

The most direct link between the texts is the uncommon phrase ‘listless octoroon,’ which appears in both. Used in the mid to late 1800s, an octoroon was a social and sometimes legal word for somebody who was one-eighth Black. It’s an offensive term that definitely should not be used to describe a real person, and I don’t think it’s funny in fiction either. It reads like another example of ‘post-racial humor’ where Hussie, a white author, uses Blackness as a joke due to a mistaken belief that racism is a thing of the past. This isn’t the first time this specific brand of humor has appeared in Homestuck, and it’s worrying that it’s becoming a pattern.

Sassacre’s, the ‘family tome of humor’ passed down through Egbert generations, focuses on pranking friends and family members, taking those around you by surprise. Wise Guy, which appears to be John’s own interest, is about performing tricks for an audience – both descriptions of the trick and of the mannerisms surrounding the trick that make it successful, leaning into the draw of the professional magician and the cautionary tale of their failures.

Colonel Sassacre’s relevance to Homestuck has so far been as a physical object. It’s what killed Nanna in her human life, it’s been a heavy item in John’s sylladex that he’s used to set off smoke pellets and slay an imp, it was teased as a Tier 2 sprite prototype, and it was found hidden inside Dad’s safe. In contrast, Wise Guy’s relevance has been about the text inside the book, and John’s interpretation of that text.

Which of course makes me wonder about other books we’ve seen in the story. Data Structures for Assholes, the second book of John’s that’s about A-holes, is clearly written to be so over-the-top it becomes funny (like Sassacre’s) but is used for the same purpose as Wise Guy, teaching John a new game mechanic that helps him advance his own story. Other books we’ve seen but haven’t opened are The Fatherly Gent’s Shaving Almanac, found in Dad’s safe, and the writing journals Rose keeps under her bed. Finally, we’ve seen inside Rose’s Grimoire for Summoning the Zoologically Dubious, however as this book is written in the eldritch tongue, it’s hard to offer meaningful insights.

All of these books have been highlighted when they appear, and are more than just a spine among a bookshelf collection. My guess is that all of these will become relevant to the story at some point, whether as objects or as texts.

=> John: Punch card.

Wise Guy first appeared on p.8 of Homestuck, as part of the contents of John’s MAGIC CHEST (now and forever on the roof), which also contains a picture of Anderson stuck to the inside of the lid. John being an ‘aspiring AMATEUR MAGICIAN’ came up even earlier, on p.4. John claims to love this book, which is ‘one of [his] favorite books of all time’ (p.123), but in truth he only likes specific aspects of the book. In real life, Caveney had great respect for Anderson and wrote his book as a tribute, but this isn’t true in Homestuck – Caveney’s ‘ambivalent attitude toward your favorite magician in these anecdotes always struck [John] as a little weird,’ suggesting that John doesn’t enjoy criticism of his heroes and doesn’t want to engage with the more complex and emotional parts of the text.

John ‘mostly like[s] to look at the diagrams for all the cool tricks.’ Given his aspirations, it makes sense that he’d use it as a manual similar to Sassacre’s instead of a biography – but he’s not reading the book as the author intended. If he did, he’d like it less. In most webcomics, any text is contained within the panels themselves, and any blocks of text below are commentary that isn’t necessary to enjoy the joke or story. MSPA is fairly unique in having narrative text that’s story critical, and I wonder if there are some Homestuck readers who just look at the pictures and think the text is ‘weird’ or extraneous. John’s method of reading Wise Guy fits with the fact that he flits from one thing to another, giving up quickly when something is too much effort, whether that’s hole punching through several cards at once or reading stories that are critical of his hero and hard to understand – but it could also be meta-commentary on readers of Homestuck.

John’s relationship to magic, both past and present, is something I’d really like to see explored in more depth. Now that he has unlimited captchalogue cards and engages with them as physical objects, the possibilities for card tricks are off the charts – and the reasons John likes magic aren't yet known. A magician is a showman, somebody who surprises and delights an audience, but can only do this by concealing much of what they’re doing. A magician has to be a master of their craft and in control of the situation both socially and technically. Magic is believed to be among the oldest performing arts, and while magicians are often thought to be secretive about their tricks, Wise Guy is just one of a huge number of books containing detailed instructions for magic.

John's not usually the character we'd expect to want an air of mystery around himself, but he often tries to hide his emotions, with various degrees of success. He also likes the idea of coding, which is a type of magic - producing an effect (a website) while concealing the methods (lines of code) that went into it. There's not much he's good at yet, but he has the manual dexterity to play piano well, which could translate into sleight of hand tricks. I can see why, as someone who struggles with basically everything, John likes the idea of having a high degree of mastery over something and of making it look effortless. I also see how someone who feels like they're always performing their role in the world, instead of actually embodying it, would gravitate towards being another kind of performer. However, that's just some initial instincts, and as I keep reading and re-reading I'll be on the lookout for more connections between John and stage magic.

Additionally, John now has access to real and powerful magic via alchemy. This is magic that can’t fully be explained by sleight of hand and diagrams in a book, and it’s magic that can provide a shortcut to achieving goals, conjuration instead of illusion. Now that John has this power, will he become disillusioned with the artifice of practical magic, or will he lean into it even harder? Will there continue to be connections between alchemy and the tricks John already knows? Instead of always putting that bunny back in the box, will he start pulling that bunny out of the hat?

Finally, it is surprising that John’s never talked to Rose about Harry Anderson before. Given the depths of his interest, I’d expect it to have come up, but Rose is clueless. When explaining who he is, John says ‘EB: he's awesome EB: that's really all there is to say on the matter!’ which directly calls back to what Dave has said about puppets on p.537. In Dave’s case, he’s trying to convince himself he thinks this, but it’s clear he actually doesn’t. Is it possible that deep down, John actually doesn’t like Harry Anderson? Is magic too close to Egbert family traditions of clowning for John to really feel good exploring it? Is John’s greatest trick of all convincing us that he loves magic?

[mostlysignssomeportents]

A link-clump demands a linkdump

Cometh the weekend, cometh the linkdump. My daily-ish newsletter includes a section called "Hey look at this," with three short links per day, but sometimes those links get backed up and I need to clean house. Here's the eight previous installments:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

The country code top level domain (ccTLD) for the Caribbean island nation of Anguilla is .ai, and that's turned into millions of dollars worth of royalties as "entrepreneurs" scramble to sprinkle some buzzword-compliant AI stuff on their businesses in the most superficial way possible:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/08/ai-fever-turns-anguillas-ai-domain-into-a-digital-gold-mine/

All told, .ai domain royalties will account for about ten percent of the country's GDP.

It's actually kind of nice to see Anguilla finding some internet money at long last. Back in the 1990s, when I was a freelance web developer, I got hired to work on the investor website for a publicly traded internet casino based in Anguilla that was a scammy disaster in every conceivable way. The company had been conceived of by people who inherited a modestly successful chain of print-shops and decided to diversify by buying a dormant penny mining stock and relaunching it as an online casino.

But of course, online casinos were illegal nearly everywhere. Not in Anguilla – or at least, that's what the founders told us – which is why they located their servers there, despite the lack of broadband or, indeed, reliable electricity at their data-center. At a certain point, the whole thing started to whiff of a stock swindle, a pump-and-dump where they'd sell off shares in that ex-mining stock to people who knew even less about the internet than they did and skedaddle. I got out, and lost track of them, and a search for their names and business today turns up nothing so I assume that it flamed out before it could ruin any retail investors' lives.

Anguilla is a British Overseas Territory, one of those former British colonies that was drained and then given "independence" by paternalistic imperial administrators half a world away. The country's main industries are tourism and "finance" – which is to say, it's a pearl in the globe-spanning necklace of tax- and corporate-crime-havens the UK established around the world so its most vicious criminals – the hereditary aristocracy – can continue to use Britain's roads and exploit its educated workforce without paying any taxes.

This is the "finance curse," and there are tiny, struggling nations all around the world that live under it. Nick Shaxson dubbed them "Treasure Islands" in his outstanding book of the same name:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780230341722/treasureislands

I can't imagine that the AI bubble will last forever – anything that can't go on forever eventually stops – and when it does, those .ai domain royalties will dry up. But until then, I salute Anguilla, which has at last found the internet riches that I played a small part in bringing to it in the previous century.

The AI bubble is indeed overdue for a popping, but while the market remains gripped by irrational exuberance, there's lots of weird stuff happening around the edges. Take Inject My PDF, which embeds repeating blocks of invisible text into your resume:

https://kai-greshake.de/posts/inject-my-pdf/

The text is tuned to make resume-sorting Large Language Models identify you as the ideal candidate for the job. It'll even trick the summarizer function into spitting out text that does not appear in any human-readable form on your CV.

Embedding weird stuff into resumes is a hacker tradition. I first encountered it at the Chaos Communications Congress in 2012, when Ang Cui used it as an example in his stellar "Print Me If You Dare" talk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njVv7J2azY8

Cui figured out that one way to update the software of a printer was to embed an invisible Postscript instruction in a document that basically said, "everything after this is a firmware update." Then he came up with 100 lines of perl that he hid in documents with names like cv.pdf that would flash the printer when they ran, causing it to probe your LAN for vulnerable PCs and take them over, opening a reverse-shell to his command-and-control server in the cloud. Compromised printers would then refuse to apply future updates from their owners, but would pretend to install them and even update their version numbers to give verisimilitude to the ruse. The only way to exorcise these haunted printers was to send 'em to the landfill. Good times!

Printers are still a dumpster fire, and it's not solely about the intrinsic difficulty of computer security. After all, printer manufacturers have devoted enormous resources to hardening their products against their owners, making it progressively harder to use third-party ink. They're super perverse about it, too – they send "security updates" to your printer that update the printer's security against you – run these updates and your printer downgrades itself by refusing to use the ink you chose for it:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/ink-stained-wretches-battle-soul-digital-freedom-taking-place-inside-your-printer

It's a reminder that what a monopolist thinks of as "security" isn't what you think of as security. Oftentimes, their security is antithetical to your security. That was the case with Web Environment Integrity, a plan by Google to make your phone rat you out to advertisers' servers, revealing any adblocking modifications you might have installed so that ad-serving companies could refuse to talk to you:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/02/self-incrimination/#wei-bai-bai

WEI is now dead, thanks to a lot of hueing and crying by people like us:

https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/02/google_abandons_web_environment_integrity/

But the dream of securing Google against its own users lives on. Youtube has embarked on an aggressive campaign of refusing to show videos to people running ad-blockers, triggering an arms-race of ad-blocker-blockers and ad-blocker-blocker-blockers:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/where-will-the-ad-versus-ad-blocker-arms-race-end/

The folks behind Ublock Origin are racing to keep up with Google's engineers' countermeasures, and there's a single-serving website called "Is uBlock Origin updated to the last Anti-Adblocker YouTube script?" that will give you a realtime, one-word status update:

https://drhyperion451.github.io/does-uBO-bypass-yt/

One in four web users has an ad-blocker, a stat that Doc Searls pithily summarizes as "the biggest boycott in world history":

https://doc.searls.com/2015/09/28/beyond-ad-blocking-the-biggest-boycott-in-human-history/

Zero app users have ad-blockers. That's not because ad-blocking an app is harder than ad-blocking the web – it's because reverse-engineering an app triggers liability under IP laws like Section 1201 of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which can put you away for 5 years for a first offense. That's what I mean when I say that "IP is anything that lets a company control its customers, critics or competitors:

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

I predicted that apps would open up all kinds of opportunities for abusive, monopolistic conduct back in 2010, and I'm experiencing a mix of sadness and smugness (I assume there's a German word for this emotion) at being so thoroughly vindicated by history:

https://memex.craphound.com/2010/04/01/why-i-wont-buy-an-ipad-and-think-you-shouldnt-either/

The more control a company can exert over its customers, the worse it will be tempted to treat them. These systems of control shift the balance of power within companies, making it harder for internal factions that defend product quality and customer interests to win against the enshittifiers:

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

The result has been a Great Enshittening, with platforms of all description shifting value from their customers and users to their shareholders, making everything palpably worse. The only bright side is that this has created the political will to do something about it, sparking a wave of bold, muscular antitrust action all over the world.

The Google antitrust case is certainly the most important corporate lawsuit of the century (so far), but Judge Amit Mehta's deference to Google's demands for secrecy has kept the case out of the headlines. I mean, Sam Bankman-Fried is a psychopathic thief, but even so, his trial does not deserve its vastly greater prominence, though, if you haven't heard yet, he's been convicted and will face decades in prison after he exhausts his appeals:

https://newsletter.mollywhite.net/p/sam-bankman-fried-guilty-on-all-charges

The secrecy around Google's trial has relaxed somewhat, and the trickle of revelations emerging from the cracks in the courthouse are fascinating. For the first time, we're able to get a concrete sense of which queries are the most lucrative for Google:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/1/23941766/google-antitrust-trial-search-queries-ad-money

The list comes from 2018, but it's still wild. As David Pierce writes in The Verge, the top twenty includes three iPhone-related terms, five insurance queries, and the rest are overshadowed by searches for customer service info for monopolistic services like Xfinity, Uber and Hulu.

All-in-all, we're living through a hell of a moment for piercing the corporate veil. Maybe it's the problem of maintaining secrecy within large companies, or maybe the the rampant mistreatment of even senior executives has led to more leaks and whistleblowing. Either way, we all owe a debt of gratitude to the anonymous leaker who revealed the unbelievable pettiness of former HBO president of programming Casey Bloys, who ordered his underlings to create an army of sock-puppet Twitter accounts to harass TV and movie critics who panned HBO's shows:

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/hbo-casey-bloys-secret-twitter-trolls-tv-critics-leaked-texts-lawsuit-the-idol-1234867722/

These trolling attempts were pathetic, even by the standards of thick-fingered corporate execs. Like, accusing critics who panned the shitty-ass Perry Mason reboot of disrespecting veterans because the fictional Mason's back-story had him storming the beach on D-Day.

The pushback against corporate bullying is everywhere, and of course, the vanguard is the labor movement. Did you hear that the UAW won their strike against the auto-makers, scoring raises for all workers based on the increases in the companies' CEO pay? The UAW isn't done, either! Their incredible new leader, Shawn Fain, has called for a general strike in 2028:

https://www.404media.co/uaw-calls-on-workers-to-line-up-massive-general-strike-for-2028-to-defeat-billionaire-class/

The massive victory for unionized auto-workers has thrown a spotlight on the terrible working conditions and pay for workers at Tesla, a criminal company that has no compunctions about violating labor law to prevent its workers from exercising their legal rights. Over in Sweden, union workers are teaching Tesla a lesson. After the company tried its illegal union-busting playbook on Tesla service centers, the unionized dock-workers issued an ultimatum: respect your workers or face a blockade at Sweden's ports that would block any Tesla from being unloaded into the EU's fifth largest Tesla market:

https://www.wired.com/story/tesla-sweden-strike/

Of course, the real solution to Teslas – and every other kind of car – is to redesign our cities for public transit, walking and cycling, making cars the exception for deliveries, accessibility and other necessities. Transitioning to EVs will make a big dent in the climate emergency, but it won't make our streets any safer – and they keep getting deadlier.

Last summer, my dear old pal Ted Kulczycky got in touch with me to tell me that Talking Heads were going to be all present in public for the first time since the band's breakup, as part of the debut of the newly remastered print of Stop Making Sense, the greatest concert movie of all time. Even better, the show would be in Toronto, my hometown, where Ted and I went to high-school together, at TIFF.

Ted is the only person I know who is more obsessed with Talking Heads than I am, and he started working on tickets for the show while I starting pricing plane tickets. And then, the unthinkable happened: Ted's wife, Serah, got in touch to say that Ted had been run over by a car while getting off of a streetcar, that he was severely injured, and would require multiple surgeries.

But this was Ted, so of course he was still planning to see the show. And he did, getting a day-pass from the hospital and showing up looking like someone from a Kids In The Hall sketch who'd been made up to look like someone who'd been run over by a car:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/53182440282/

In his Globe and Mail article about Ted's experience, Brad Wheeler describes how the whole hospital rallied around Ted to make it possible for him to get to the movie:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/music/article-how-a-talking-heads-superfan-found-healing-with-the-concert-film-stop/

He also mentions that Ted is working on a book and podcast about Stop Making Sense. I visited Ted in the hospital the day after the gig and we talked about the book and it sounds amazing. Also? The movie was incredible. See it in Imax.

That heartwarming tale of healing through big suits is a pretty good place to wrap up this linkdump, but I want to call your attention to just one more thing before I go: Robin Sloan's Snarkmarket piece about blogging and "stock and flow":

https://snarkmarket.com/2010/4890/

Sloan makes the excellent case that for writers, having a "flow" of short, quick posts builds the audience for a "stock" of longer, more synthetic pieces like books. This has certainly been my experience, but I think it's only part of the story – there are good, non-mercenary reasons for writers to do a lot of "flow." As I wrote in my 2021 essay, "The Memex Method," turning your commonplace book into a database – AKA "blogging" – makes you write better notes to yourself because you know others will see them:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/09/the-memex-method/

This, in turn, creates a supersaturated, subconscious solution of fragments that are just waiting to nucleate and crystallize into full-blown novels and nonfiction books and other "stock." That's how I came out of lockdown with nine new books. The next one is The Lost Cause, a hopepunk science fiction novel about the climate whose early fans include Naomi Klein, Rebecca Solnit, Bill McKibben and Kim Stanley Robinson. It's out on November 14:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865939/the-lost-cause

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/2023/11/05/variegated/#nein

[fairycosmos]

my ex girlfriend died a month ago. i've always found a lot of peace and recognition in what you've written about your grief but especially now, losing someone so young and who's bound to you in a different way than anyone else you've lost has been hits different and i get that now. she was 24. sending you lots of love and know that your presence on here has brightened my current darkness

i'm so so sorry to hear this. the one thought i consistently have about grief is that there are no adequate words to describe or comfort it, but still, i'm so sorry. i know exactly how unbearable it is, especially when it's still all so extremely raw and fresh. you just have no clue how you're going to get through it, and honestly you don't have to. focus on getting through minute by minute. this must be so awful for you and everyone who knew her - 24 is really no age at all. you're right, it's a very specific type of mourning. it's the hardest thing in the entire fucking world honestly. nothing really helps but if you can talk about it - whether it's with a friend, a grief counsellor, whoever - or write about it, then that sometimes enables you to process things a little more clearly. and with a smaller sense of loneliness. i sincerely hope you have good people around you who can help you through this, and that with time you're able to come up with small ways to honour her memory and keep her presence alive. at the moment i'm working on trying to find more ways to keep my sister around - like dedicating a plaque on a bench to her, and trying not to numb myself to the memories i have with her. which is hard, because it's so difficult to remember her. but i'm trying to keep her here and let her be felt everywhere, and i hope you find your version of that too. your ex was incredibly lucky to have been loved by you and you by her, and i'm glad you got to experience that, even if the inverse of that love is this. if you'd like to talk about her or discuss some of your favourite memories with her when you're ready, or even just talk about something entirely unrelated to the grief/her, please drop me a message any time. i'm glad me being open about my own grief has allowed you to find some sense of recognition and catharsis. i'm going to leave some resources for you to come back to as far as daily coping mechanisms go - they may be useful, they may not be, god knows they're certainly not a cure to the immensity of what you're going through - but they'll be there for you if you ever feel like you're truly at your wits end. sending so so much love back your way. i will be thinking of you and your ex girlfriend and keeping you both in my heart. x

bereavement and grief self-help guide / coping with grief and loss pdf / coping with grief pdf / healthy vs unhealthy coping mechanisms for grief / strategies to cope with grief / death is nothing at all by henry scott holland (a poem i come back to)

[neurodivergentbraingoblins]

Story time about how being "inclusive" is often used as pretty jewlery to make workplaces seem less shitty than they are.

So I used to work for a place that did workers compensation claims. I was a data entry worker - essentially my job was to processes all incoming and outgoing documents and make sure they digitally got attached to the correct claim so other people could do their job.

I had been working at this place for about 6 months, and we had a MASSIVE turnover in people. Like over half my team/coworkers quit. Well, I just happened to be really, really good at data entry work. My pattern recognition skills and OCD compulsions were a perfect fit for this job. Even management constantly would say how impressed they were with the amount of work I could get done.

Here's the problem - the 2 other people who didn't quit during the turnover were my superiors. They had problems with the way I communicate (AuDHD). So instead of dealing with it, they openly harassed me in group chats. Our boss would see the chats and then call them out on it and tell them to stop.

Fast forward a few months later. Shit is getting crazy for our company as we were expanding. I'm getting harassed constantly by all my "teammates" and from higher ups. I go to HR about the concern and they decide to have me just directly report to our boss. But the problem wasn't solved. I still had to work with and ask questions to the team who obviously hated me. Simply because I communicate and work differently than I do. I was always willing to help them get caught up on work, but never the other way around.

So I've been at this place for about a year now and I'm testing a brand new method of cataloging data to the correct files. (Example- adding medical records for a specific person to their specific digital file so the adjuster assigned to the claim can review it). Turns out something broke with the process and over 700 files were lost.

So I get pulled into a very sudden meeting with me, the 2 teammembers who were my superiors and my boss. They are freaking out trying to figure out how to fix this. When I could finally get a chance to speak I told them I had backups of most of the files. They all went silent and just stared at me.

I explained that the way the process worked gave me anxiety because of this very potential issue. Once the files were uploaded to the claims, they were deleted from the storage location. Gone permanently. I didnt want to be the one responsible for losing important documents if something when wrong, so as a precaution (and a newly developed OCD compulsion) I would save most files to a different folder as a backup (usually just the files I had to convert from one format (ex: word doc) to a PDF).

Turns out I ended up saving the company thousands of dollars and thousands of work hours. My boss literally said to my face "your OCD saved the day! You're a hero!". The very next day everyone was back to being upset at me for how I did my job 😅

Well, over the course of my year there, management put together a COMPANY WIDE MANDATORY meeting about inclusivity and anti-discrimination. Of course I attended and I was having to hold back tears and laughter as everyone made all these promises to not judge people and to be open to "other working styles". The meeting was a 5 hour long meeting with different games and activities. You could tell the company execs were so proud of themselves for the meeting.

The very next day I received the perfect example of what NOT to do from my own boss who helped lead the company meeting! Essentially she heard a rumor that I was setting up meetings with other departments to work on things that hadn't been approved through the proper channels. She pulled me into a virtual meeting and, I kid you not, lectured me for 5 minutes straight about how that wasn't allowed. When I finally got a chance to speak I calmly told her I'd never done anything like that before. I admitted that occasionally I would ask someone else questions in a random email here or there when it related to what we were talking about. But I had never done any of the things she just accused me of and lectured me about. She was "assuming the worst and the negative instead of something positive" which was one of the core values we had spent almost an hour on at the meeting the day before.

I immediately went to HR crying. What was the point of that ridiculous mandatory meeting if the company superiors were still going to discriminate against me??? Well after a year of putting in hard work for them, fighting against all the harassment they threw at me, and doing my best to advocate for myself I ended up quiting. It was an amazing paying full time (40hr) job that fit my skills perfectly. But I had to quit because I couldn't stand listening to them say "we love your OCD and it really helps the company, but you need to stop doing things that way. It is really annoying and takes too long. Plus your coworkers don't like it. But keep giving us those same results! You really are our best worker!"

My OCD was turned into a joke. Something that was only okay when it benefitted them, but a disgusting trait to hide away when it didn't.

Tldr: I gave a year of my life to a company that outwardly toted being "inclusive" while simultaneously being harassed for my OCD and AuDHD symptoms. All while being told my "OCD saves the company money but like, can you please stop doing things that way? Thanks!"

[jccatstudios]

Hiiii!! Still can’t get over how amazing the SOC comic turned out, very great job!! 🫶🏼🫶🏼 I have two questions: I was very curious, what were the differences between the originally posted version and the final pdf version? Aand secondly, is there a theoretical possibility to obtain your comic physically some day? Would loove to add it to my Grishaverse collection 🦦

Thank you so much!!! To answer your questions...

The differences between the two versions are pretty small. Here are some of the edits I made:

moved speech bubbles to fit within printing guidelines

made character designs more consistent (ex. Inej's hair ties and knife belts, got rid of Geels's ring, got rid of the fastener on the back of Kaz's coat, etc)

updated faces of the main characters whenever I thought I could draw them better

updated backgrounds for consistency

got rid of a panel on comic page 29

changed the size of some things

expanded the art to fill the bleed for print (can't see that in the pdf though)

slight changes to dialogue

overall clean up of the art, especially in the beginning pages

I worked with a few of my professors on the edit passes, and they really helped me out with these subtle tweaks! Soon, I will be updating the tumblr pages to match the final pages, but you'll still be able to see the old pages on places where I can't edit photos, like insta and twitter.

As for the second question, while I will be doing a print run of Chapter 2, it will only be for people I know or people who are able to meet me in person. I went into my reasons a bit more here, but long story short is that the comic is too close to the source material to sell (in my opinion) and it would be too expensive to ship.

Also, I am 100% cool with people printing out the pdf and making their own copy! I've seen some people put it in a binder with plastic sleeves, but I also think you could just make a stapled copy too. I know that's not as nice as a perfect bound version, but that's a good way to have a physical copy.

[voidedaurora]

Sorry if this is annoying. But I've always known you as Mel's close friend, what happened between the two of you to prompt a seperation? I read the part where Mel apparently falsely accused you of pressuring her into yknow. But where's the proof of her accusing you of that?

Sorry if this sounds like i'm defending her or that i'm skeptical of your story. I'm just extremely confused, feel free to ignore this. (I have a bad experience with Mel too sooo TT)

I haven't actually spoken publicly about the circumstances of why our friendship ended (mainly because she'll cry and piss herself saying it was meant to stay private) but in SHORT, Mel and I's friendship ended because of me venting to friends about her (in simple terms), The venting admittedly did get into pretty spiteful territory at times but it was only that bad because mel had been treating me like garbage for the past few months, swapping back n fourth from treating me like her best friend in the world to completely ignoring I existed. Aswell, not that this EXCUSES anything I was saying but I do have really bad BPD and one of the main triggers for it was whenever mel would ignore me randomly, I let her know time and time again that it was a trigger and that I couldn't handle her doing that and she'd reassure me, but ofc she never accommodated for that but expected me and everyone else to work around her own issues. Additionally I'd like to mention from early April (4th) until the day she left (04/30/2024) I'd been on narcotics, these really didn't mix well with my BPD but I needed them since I was in horrible pain from the surgery, they made me quite emotional, irrational, "out of it", and generally just got rid of any filter I had up

The friendship was honestly doomed to fail with her refusing to communicate EVER, she likes to talk about how she has communication issues but there's a difference between an issue and refusing to do it period, I tried time and time again to talk about any problems we had with us or just our friendship with her but every time she'd either brush me off, make excuses, ignore me, or get mad. To get back on topic, The venting or "shittalking" became a huge problem when the 2 ex friends I'd been venting to decided I was evil or something and went to go show mel all of what I'd been PRIVATELY venting about and frame everything to be that I hated her or something, obviously once I caught wind of this I tried my best to talk to her about it, apologizing, etc. But she simply ignored me, Shortly after all of that the two Ex friends had cut me off, preaching how "shittalking is horrible!! ur mentally ill and that's a crime" . It's notable to mention that throughout the whole thing if any of the two were uncomfortable, thought I was doing/saying too much, etc. they could've communicated and told me so. After the two Ex friends left ,Mel stayed around to get her Pastel VRchat model from me (since I was the one who'd set the thing up for the most part), then she ignored me for a while longer before dropping me after I'd dmed her to ask to just talk about everything. She then apparently went to her friends trying to convince everyone I was some psycho?? aswell one of the Ex friends was cherrypicking screenshots and tried to frame me for blackmail? (as in they were trying to say I was trying to blackmail Mel)

Obviously I have my parts in contributing to our friendships end but alot of it is on mel and her refusal to communicate with me, I didn't even touch on the way I'd been treated very deeply either. 🧡

And with that other part asking where she accused us of pressuring her, It's stated here "Mel felt she was repeatedly asked to engage in sexual interactions with Clovxr & Voided." Which in fancy words is her saying she felt pressured

I'm just going off of what's publicly available since she wouldn't talk to me about it herself, though do remember she didn't actually write anything in the PDF I'm using the screenshot from, It was written by her "unofficial lawyer" aka Gaia