#She needs coverage daily

[tianalaurence1]

[velvetvisionsaurora]

Alpha ATEEZ x Assistant Omega Reader

Warnings: omega reader, alpha ateez, scenting, heats, ruts, slow burn, eventual smut, forced command, more to come!

When Y/n accepts a position as assistant to alpha K-pop group ATEEZ, she's prepared with professional skills and scent blockers to hide her omega status. What she's not prepared for is the immediate, inexplicable connection she feels with all eight members—a resonance that defies her careful boundaries.

As Y/n becomes eerily attuned to their needs, her suppressed omega nature begins to emerge: purring for the first time in years, responding to alpha growls, feeling safe in ways she never has before. When a protective incident reveals the depth of the members' attachment to her, Y/n must confront the possibility that what binds them together is something ancient and profound.

Author’s Note: okay so this fic has received so much love! I’m opening the Taglist back up!! Let me know if you want added! 💜

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Masterlist Ko-Fi☕️

Chapter 7: Ripple Effect

The day had passed in a blur of activity, each hour packed with tasks from your meticulously reworked schedule. The morning vocal recording had stretched into early afternoon, followed immediately by dance practice where you'd watched from the corner, tablet in hand, coordinating with the production team via text while the members perfected their formations. The concept meeting had run later than planned, necessitating quick rearrangements for tomorrow's photoshoot.

By the time you all returned to the house, exhaustion hung heavy in the air. Dinner had been a quiet affair—takeout ordered on the way home, everyone too tired for much conversation. Even Wooyoung's usual animated energy had been subdued, his head occasionally nodding as he fought to stay awake at the table.

"Early night for everyone," Hongjoong had announced, his leader voice brooking no argument. "We need to be fresh for tomorrow."

You'd retreated to the guesthouse after helping clear away the takeout containers, intending to review the next day's schedule before sleep. But after thirty minutes of staring at your tablet, the words blurring together as fatigue weighed on your eyelids, you'd made a decision.

What you needed wasn't more work. What you needed was to clear your head.

The pool that connected the main house to your guesthouse had been tempting you for weeks now. You'd admired it daily but never found the time to actually use it, despite San's occasional reminders that it was there for everyone, including you. Tonight, with your muscles aching from tension and your mind still racing despite your exhaustion, a swim seemed like the perfect solution.

You put on the waterproof tape over your blocker an changed into the black bikini you'd brought from your old apartment but hadn't yet had occasion to wear. The simple two-piece was modest by most standards but still revealed more skin than any of the members had seen from you before. For a brief moment, you hesitated, wondering if you should opt for more coverage given the complex dynamics that had emerged recently.

"Don't be ridiculous," you muttered to yourself, dismissing the thought. "It's just swimming. They're professionals."

Besides, the house lights had been dimmed when you'd left, most of the members presumably already retreating to their rooms for the night. Chances were good you'd have the pool to yourself.

With a towel draped over your arm, you stepped out of the guesthouse into the warm evening air. The pool area was illuminated by soft underwater lights that cast rippling blue patterns across the stone deck. The sight of the still water, glowing invitingly in the darkness, confirmed you'd made the right decision.

You dropped your towel onto one of the loungers and approached the pool's edge, unaware that your solitary moment was about to be interrupted.

---

Wooyoung had been rummaging through the refrigerator, searching for the last yogurt drink he was certain he'd hidden behind Seonghwa's vegetable containers. His quest had brought him to the kitchen at precisely the moment you stepped out of the guesthouse and into the pool area visible through the large glass doors.

He froze, yogurt drink forgotten, as he caught sight of you walking toward the pool.

Seonghwa, who had been wiping down the kitchen counters before bed (a nightly ritual that the others teased him about but secretly appreciated), noticed Wooyoung's sudden stillness.

"What's wrong?" he asked, following Wooyoung's gaze toward the glass doors.

Wooyoung's voice came out strangled, barely above a whisper. "Hyung, I'm trying to be respectful, I promise, but Y/n is walking to the pool... in a bikini and—oh my stars, she has a spine tattoo. I think I'm going to pass out!"

The soft landscape lighting illuminated your figure, revealing the black bikini and, more startlingly, a delicate tulip tattoo that ran down your spine, its stem following the gentle curve of your back.

Seonghwa's immediate frown of disapproval quickly dissolved as his own eyes moved to the pool area. He had opened his mouth, presumably to chastise Wooyoung, but whatever reprimand he'd planned died on his lips as he caught sight of you by the poolside. A flush crept up his neck despite his best efforts to maintain his composed facade.

"We shouldn't be watching," he managed after a moment, though he made no immediate move to look away. The elegant line of the tattoo trailing down your spine had caught him by surprise—somehow both delicate and striking against your skin.

"Guys, have you seen my phone charger?" Yunho's voice preceded him into the kitchen, followed closely by San and Mingi. "I thought I left it—" He broke off as he registered Wooyoung and Seonghwa's frozen poses by the window. "What are you looking at?"

Before either could respond, Wooyoung gestured silently toward the pool, his expression a mixture of awe and something more intense. The three newcomers moved to the window as if drawn by magnetic force.

"Oh," Yunho said softly, his tall frame going perfectly still as he caught sight of you.

San let out a low whistle that earned him a sharp look from Seonghwa, though the eldest's reprimand lacked its usual conviction given the flush still evident on his own face.

Mingi said nothing at all, but his sharp intake of breath was audible in the suddenly quiet kitchen. His eyes followed your movements with an almost predatory focus as you tested the water with your toe.

"What is everyone looking at?" Jongho's curious voice joined the group, the youngest appearing in the doorway with Yeosang close behind. Neither waited for an answer before following their gazes outside.

Yeosang's usually impassive face registered genuine surprise, his eyes widening slightly before his natural reserve reasserted itself. Beside him, Jongho's reaction was less guarded—a visible gulp before he quickly averted his eyes, a deep blush spreading across his cheeks.

"This is inappropriate," Seonghwa finally said, though his voice lacked its usual authority. He looked to Hongjoong for support as the leader entered the kitchen, drawn by the unusual gathering. "We shouldn't be—Hongjoong!"

The sharp call of his name was necessary because even their leader, typically the most disciplined among them, had become momentarily transfixed by the sight of you slowly descending the pool steps, water rising around your waist as the blue lights illuminated your skin.

Hongjoong snapped back to attention at Seonghwa's call, his eyes clearing as if emerging from a trance. "Everyone back to what you were doing," he ordered, his voice low but commanding. "Now."

The alpha authority in his tone was enough to break the spell, sending most of the members reluctantly dispersing—though not without backward glances toward the pool.

"But hyung," Wooyoung protested, "I was just thinking I could use a swim too..."

He took a step toward the door, still fully clothed in his loungewear, but was immediately intercepted by Seonghwa, who grabbed his arm firmly.

"Absolutely not," Seonghwa hissed, pulling him back from the door. "She deserves privacy."

"I wasn't going to—" Wooyoung began indignantly.

"You were," San countered with a knowing smirk. "We all know you were."

Wooyoung deflated slightly, his mischievous grin acknowledging he'd been caught. "Fine. But can you blame me? Did you see that tattoo? A tulip! Right down her—"

"We all saw," Hongjoong interrupted, his voice carrying a warning edge that silenced Wooyoung immediately. "And now we're all going to respect her privacy and go back to our rooms."

"Some of us need to go take very cold showers," Mingi muttered under his breath, earning a sharp elbow from Yunho and a suppressed snort of laughter from San.

Seonghwa, having successfully prevented Wooyoung's pool expedition, turned to herd the remaining members out of the kitchen. "Go on, all of you. Early morning tomorrow, remember?"

As the others reluctantly filed out, Hongjoong remained by the window for a moment longer, his expression unreadable as he watched you swim a smooth lap across the pool. There was something almost pained in his gaze—a conflict between desire and restraint that echoed the complexity of the situation they all found themselves in.

"You too, Hongjoong-ah," Seonghwa said quietly, returning to find the leader still watching. "Whatever this is between all of us... we need to be careful."

Hongjoong nodded, finally turning away from the window. "I know. It's just—" He paused, struggling to articulate the feeling. "It's getting harder to remember why we're being so careful."

Seonghwa understood the sentiment all too well. What had begun as an inexplicable connection with their new assistant had evolved into something far more profound over these past weeks—a pull that defied professional boundaries and conventional explanation.

"Because she works for us," Seonghwa reminded him gently. "Because we don't fully understand what's happening. Because eight alphas and one beta is a complicated dynamic no matter how you look at it."

Hongjoong gave him a strange look at the word "beta," as if he wanted to say something but thought better of it. Instead, he simply sighed and moved away from the window. "You're right. Goodnight, Seonghwa."

As the kitchen emptied, silence settled over the main house, though the ripples from your simple decision to go for a swim continued to spread through the minds and hearts of eight alpha idols, each trying to process their reactions in the privacy of their own rooms.

---

The water felt heavenly against your skin, cool enough to be refreshing but not cold enough to be uncomfortable. You swam lazy laps, feeling the day's tension gradually melt away with each stroke. The silence of the night, broken only by the gentle lapping of water against the pool's edge, was exactly the reset your overstimulated mind had needed.

After fifteen minutes of swimming, you floated on your back, gazing up at the stars visible through the Seoul light pollution. The peaceful moment was interrupted by the distinct sensation of being watched. You tilted your head toward the main house, but the kitchen windows showed only darkness, the lights having been turned off at some point during your swim.

Shaking off the feeling, you decided you'd spent enough time in the pool. Tomorrow would be another full day of comeback preparations, and despite the rejuvenating effects of the swim, you still needed proper rest. You climbed out of the pool, water streaming from your skin as you reached for your towel.

As you dried off, you couldn't shake the lingering sensation that had prickled at the back of your neck—that brief, certain feeling of multiple eyes on you. Had the members seen you in the pool? The thought sent a flush of heat through you that had nothing to do with exertion or temperature.

You wrapped the towel around your waist and gathered your hair over one shoulder, wringing out the excess water. The night air felt cooler now against your damp skin, raising goosebumps along your arms. You hurried back to the guesthouse, suddenly self-conscious in a way you hadn't been before entering the pool.

Inside, you showered quickly to rinse off the chlorine, your mind still caught on the possibility that some—or all—of the members might have seen you swimming. What would they have thought of the tattoo? Most people were surprised to discover you had one, given your typically professional appearance. The delicate tulip that trailed down your spine was a reminder of your mother, whose favorite flower it had been. You'd gotten it on your twentieth birthday, a private symbol of connection to her that was rarely visible to others.

As you changed into your pajamas, your phone chimed with a message. You picked it up, expecting perhaps a schedule update from Minwoo, but instead found a text from.

Hongjoong: Everyone's meeting at 7:30 tomorrow instead of 7:00. Extra half hour of rest before the photoshoot. Make sure you take advantage of it too.

The thoughtfulness of the message warmed you, but you couldn't help wondering about the timing. Had he seen you at the pool and decided everyone needed more rest? Or was it simply his leader instincts kicking in after a long day?

You typed back a quick response:

I'll let everyone know. Thank you for the consideration.

After a moment's hesitation, you added:

The pool was perfect tonight. I should have been using it all along.

You hit send before you could overthink the addition, then immediately wondered if it was too obvious—if it somehow acknowledged the sensation of being watched that you couldn't quite dismiss.

Hongjoong's reply came faster than you expected:

Glad you enjoyed it. It's there for everyone to use. Sleep well, Y/n.

The neutrality of his response gave nothing away, but something about it still felt charged with unspoken meaning. You set your phone aside, trying to dismiss the overthinking that threatened to undo the relaxation your swim had provided.

As you settled into bed, you couldn't help but imagine how the members might have reacted if they had seen you—Wooyoung's dramatic commentary, Seonghwa's attempt at propriety, Mingi's intense gaze. The thoughts should have embarrassed you, but instead, they sent a flutter of something else entirely through your stomach—something dangerously close to anticipation.

Your hand drifted to the scent blocker behind your ear, the habitual gesture grounding you back in reality. Whatever was developing between you and the eight alphas under your care, it existed within boundaries—professional, practical, and self-protective. The blocker was a physical reminder of those boundaries, of the essential truth you kept hidden from them.

Yet as sleep began to claim you, your last conscious thought was to wonder how much longer those boundaries could hold against the tide of connection that grew stronger with each passing day.

---

The next morning

"Did anyone ever get me a coffee? I feel like I asked for coffee hours ago. Or was that in my dream?" Wooyoung's dramatic complaints filled the kitchen as you entered the main house at precisely 7:30, tablet in hand and ready for the day's packed schedule.

"If you want coffee, the machine is right there," Yeosang replied dryly, not looking up from his own mug.

"But it tastes better when someone else makes it," Wooyoung whined, before his eyes landed on you in the doorway. For a split second, something flashed across his expression—a reminder of whatever he might have seen last night—before his usual playful demeanor reasserted itself. "Y/n! Good morning! Have I mentioned lately that you're my favorite person in this household?"

"Not in the last twelve hours," you replied with a smile, setting your tablet down and moving toward the coffee machine. "Let me guess. One sugar, extra milk?"

"See?" Wooyoung exclaimed to no one in particular. "She remembers! This is why she's the best!"

You felt other eyes on you as you prepared Wooyoung's coffee—subtle glances from the members scattered around the kitchen and dining area. There was a different quality to their attention this morning, a heightened awareness that hadn't been there before. You mentally replayed your swim from the night before, wondering if the pool area was more visible from the house than you'd realized.

"Sleep well?" Hongjoong asked casually as you handed Wooyoung his coffee. The leader was reviewing something on his phone, his posture relaxed, but there was a careful neutrality in his tone that piqued your suspicion.

"Very well, thank you," you replied, equally casual. "The extra half hour was appreciated."

Seonghwa entered from the pantry with an armful of breakfast ingredients, his eyes meeting yours briefly before sliding away, a faint color rising to his cheeks. "Good morning, Y/n. Breakfast will be ready in about ten minutes."

"Can I help?" you offered, moving toward him.

"No need," he replied quickly—perhaps too quickly. "I've got it under control. You should sit and review the day's schedule with Hongjoong."

You nodded, returning to where you'd left your tablet, but not before catching the subtle glance Seonghwa exchanged with the leader—a look laden with meaning you couldn't quite decipher.

As you took a seat at the island, San sauntered in, his hair still damp from a shower. His eyes lit up when he saw you, a mischievous smile playing at his lips. "Good morning! Did you have a nice swim last night?"

The direct question confirmed your suspicions, heat immediately rising to your cheeks. So they had seen you. The question now was: how many of them, and how much had they observed?

"I did, actually," you replied, aiming for nonchalance despite your flushed face. "The pool was perfect after such a long day."

"I bet," San said, his smile widening as he caught Mingi's warning glare from across the room. "Water looked... inviting."

"It was," you confirmed, now certain that at least some of them had definitely watched you swimming. The realization should have mortified you, but instead, you felt a strange thrill at their collective attention—at the knowledge that they had seen a different side of you than the professional assistant they were accustomed to.

Jongho and Yunho entered the kitchen together, both pausing almost imperceptibly when they saw you before continuing to their usual seats. Jongho couldn't quite meet your eyes, a tell-tale blush coloring his cheeks despite his attempt at composure.

"The car for the photoshoot will be here at 8:45," you announced, deliberately changing the subject to safer, professional territory. "The concept team sent over the final wardrobe selections this morning, and they're excited about the underwater theme for the second set of photos."

"Underwater theme?" Wooyoung repeated, his eyes sparkling with barely contained mischief. "How appropriate, considering—"

"Considering the comeback concept focuses on transformation," Hongjoong smoothly interrupted, shooting Wooyoung a pointed look. "Water being a symbol of rebirth and change."

"Right, right," Wooyoung agreed, not looking remotely chastised. "Transformation. That's exactly what I was going to say."

You bit back a smile, focusing intently on your tablet screen. The dynamic in the room was charged with a new energy—playful but intense, like a shared secret hovering just below the surface of normal conversation.

"Before I forget," you said, remembering a detail from your morning emails, "the stylist wanted to know if anyone has a problem with using temporary tattoos? They’ll be featured in the concept photos. Apparently, they've adjusted some of the styling to include more revealed skin than originally planned."

The question landed in the room like a stone dropped in still water, ripples of reaction spreading visibly across eight alpha faces. San choked slightly on his orange juice. Mingi suddenly became intensely interested in the ceiling. Wooyoung's mouth opened and closed without producing sound.

"I don’t believe so," Hongjoong replied after a beat too long, his voice carefully controlled. "I think we’ve all suddenly become a fan of tattoos."

Yunho let out a frustrated groan and sat on the couch, earning a glare from Seonghwa. 

"Interesting choice of question," Yeosang observed quietly, his perceptive eyes studying your face. "Any particular reason you're asking about tattoos this morning?"

The deliberate prod confirmed what you'd already suspected—they had all seen you last night, including the tulip tattoo trailing down your spine that was normally hidden beneath your professional attire.

Two could play at this game.

"Just being thorough," you replied with an innocent smile. "After all, sometimes what a person shows to others might be different than what they truly feel. Best to be prepared."

The double meaning hung in the air, acknowledged in the slight widening of Yeosang's eyes and the muffled laugh Yunho tried to disguise as a cough.

Seonghwa, ever the peacekeeper, cleared his throat loudly. "Breakfast is ready. Everyone should eat quickly since we have a tight schedule today."

As the conversation shifted to more mundane topics, you caught Mingi watching you, his dark eyes intense in a way that sent a shiver down your spine—right along the path where your tattoo bloomed against your skin. When your eyes met his, he didn't look away. Instead, he held your gaze with deliberate focus, a silent acknowledgment passing between you.

They had seen you. All of you—not just the professional assistant who managed their schedules, but the woman beneath the polished exterior. The woman with a tattoo trailing down her spine and enough confidence to swim alone under the stars.

And judging by the charged atmosphere in the kitchen this morning, none of them would be forgetting the sight anytime soon.

As the meal progressed, Wooyoung cleared his throat dramatically, drawing everyone's attention. "I've been thinking," he announced, as if sharing profound wisdom.

"Dangerous," Yeosang muttered, earning a glare from Wooyoung.

"As I was saying," Wooyoung continued pointedly, "I think our Y/n needs a nickname."

Your eyebrows rose, immediately suspicious of where this might be heading. "A nickname? I think my name works just fine."

"No, no," Wooyoung insisted, his eyes twinkling with mischief. "We all have nicknames for each other. It's part of being in the group."

"I wasn't aware I was 'in the group,'" you countered, though the idea sent a pleasant warmth through your chest despite your wariness.

"Of course you are," San chimed in, clearly catching on to whatever Wooyoung was planning. "You've been with us for weeks now. You're practically family."

Wooyoung nodded enthusiastically. "Exactly! And I've thought of the perfect nickname for you." He paused dramatically, his eyes locked with yours. "Tulip."

The simple word hung in the air, its implications immediately clear to everyone at the table. Heat rushed to your cheeks as several members suddenly became very interested in their breakfast. Hongjoong shot Wooyoung a warning look that went completely ignored.

"Tulip?" you repeated, your voice impressively steady despite the flush spreading across your face. "Any particular reason for that choice?"

Wooyoung's smile widened, the picture of false innocence. "They're elegant flowers. Delicate but strong. They have... interesting stems." His gaze flicked momentarily to your back, making his meaning unmistakable. "It suits you."

You could see his satisfaction at having flustered you—at the blush you couldn't control and the awkward silence that had fallen over the table. He thought he'd won this little game, pushing the boundaries of your professional relationship with his playful teasing.

But two could play at this game.

Something shifted in your demeanor as you made a split-second decision. Leaning forward slightly, you rested your chin on your hand and fixed Wooyoung with a gaze you knew was far from your usual professional look.

"Tulip," you repeated softly, letting the word roll off your tongue in a way that was almost a purr. "I like it. Especially coming from your lips, oppa."

The deliberate honorific coupled with your sudden shift in tone had exactly the effect you'd hoped for. Wooyoung's triumphant smile froze, his eyes widening as the tables turned. Around the table, you heard a few sharp intakes of breath.

Not stopping while you had the advantage, you continued, your voice dropping to a tone that walked the line between playful and seductive. "Are you saying you liked what you saw last night? My... interesting stem?"

Wooyoung's mouth opened but no sound emerged. The flush you'd been sporting moments ago was now mirrored on his face, spreading rapidly down his neck. From the corner of your eye, you could see Mingi gripping his chopsticks so tightly his knuckles had whitened, while Jongho seemed to have forgotten how to breathe entirely.

With a soft laugh, you broke the spell, rising gracefully from your seat and gathering your tablet. "Tulip it is, then. I think it has a nice ring to it." You glanced around the table, enjoying the collection of stunned expressions. "We should leave in twenty minutes if we want to arrive on time for the photoshoot. Don't be late."

As you walked out of the kitchen, you couldn't resist glancing back over your shoulder. Wooyoung remained frozen in place, his breakfast forgotten as he stared after you, looking like he'd been struck by lightning. San was doubled over in silent laughter beside him, while Seonghwa appeared torn between disapproval and reluctant amusement.

Hongjoong's eyes met yours across the room, something dark and appreciative in his gaze that sent a shiver down your spine—right along the path of the tattoo that had started this whole episode.

You left the kitchen with a smile playing on your lips, oddly invigorated by the exchange. Every time they thought they had you figured out, you found a way to surprise them. Professional assistant? Yes. But perhaps a bit more complex than they'd initially assumed.

Behind you, you heard Yunho's voice break the silence: "I think Wooyoung just short-circuited."

"Worth it," came San's delighted reply. "Totally worth it to see his face."

"Tulip is officially the most dangerous person in this house," Mingi added, his deep voice carrying an unmistakable note of admiration.

The new nickname—and what it represented—marked another shift in your evolving relationship with the eight alphas. Whatever game you were all playing, the rules were changing by the day, boundaries blurring even as the connection between you deepened.

Today's schedule would be demanding, the comeback preparations intensifying as the deadline approached. But beneath the professional responsibilities and practical tasks lay something deeper—a current of connection that continued to pull you all toward some unknown destination, one revealed truth at a time.

Next>>

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[mostlysignssomeportents]

“The Fagin figure leading Elon Musk’s merry band of pubescent sovereignty pickpockets”

This week only, Barnes and Noble is offering 25% off pre-orders of my forthcoming novel Picks and Shovels. ENDS TODAY!.

While we truly live in an age of ascendant monsters who have hijacked our country, our economy, and our imaginations, there is one consolation: the small cohort of brilliant, driven writers who have these monsters' number, and will share it with us. Writers like Maureen Tkacik:

https://prospect.org/topics/maureen-tkacik/

Journalists like Wired's Vittoria Elliott, Leah Feiger, and Tim Marchman are absolutely crushing it when it comes to Musk's DOGE coup:

https://www.wired.com/author/vittoria-elliott/

And Nathan Tankus is doing incredible work all on his own, just blasting out scoop after scoop:

https://www.crisesnotes.com/

But for me, it was Tkacik – as usual – in the pages of The American Prospect who pulled it all together in a way that finally made it make sense, transforming the blitzkreig Muskian chaos into a recognizable playbook. While most of the coverage of Musk's wrecking crew has focused on the broccoli-haired Gen Z brownshirts who are wilding through the server rooms at giant, critical government agencies, Tkacik homes in on their boss, Tom Krause, whom she memorably dubs "the Fagin figure leading Elon Musk’s merry band of pubescent sovereignty pickpockets" (I told you she was a great writer!):

https://prospect.org/power/2025-02-06-private-equity-hatchet-man-leading-lost-boys-of-doge/

Krause is a private equity looter. He's the guy who basically invented the playbook for PE takeovers of large tech companies, from Broadcom to Citrix to VMWare, converting their businesses from selling things to renting them out, loading them up with junk fees, slashing quality, jacking up prices over and over, and firing everyone who was good at their jobs. He is a master enshittifier, an enshittification ninja.

Krause has an unerring instinct for making people miserable while making money. He oversaw the merger of Citrix and VMWare, creating a ghastly company called The Cloud Software Group, which sold remote working tools. Despite this, of his first official acts was to order all of his employees to stop working remotely. But then, after forcing his workers to drag their butts into work, move back across the country, etc, he reversed himself because he figured out he could sell off all of the company's office space for a tidy profit.

Krause canceled employee benefits, like thank you days for managers who pulled a lot of unpaid overtime, or bonuses for workers who upgraded their credentials. He also ended the company's practice of handing out swag as small gifts to workers, and then stiffed the company that made the swag, wontpaying a $437,574.97 invoice for all the tchotchkes the company had ordered. That's not the only supplier Krause stiffed: FinLync, a fintech company with a three-year contract with Krause's company, also had to sue to get paid.

Krause's isn't a canny operator who roots out waste: he's a guy who tears out all the wiring and then grudgingly restores the minimum needed to keep the machine running (no wonder Musk loves him, this is the Twitter playbook). As Tkacik reports, Krause fucked up the customer service and reliability systems that served Citrix's extremely large, corporate customers – the giant businesses that cut huge monthly checks to Citrix, whose CIOs received daily sales calls from his competitors.

Workers who serviced these customers, like disabled Air Force veteran David Morgan, who worked with big public agencies, were fired on one hour's notice, just before their stock options vested. The giant public agency customers he'd serviced later called him to complain that the only people they could get on the phone were subcontractors in Indian call centers who lacked the knowledge and authority to resolve their problems.

Last month, Citrix fired all of its customer support engineers. Citrix's military customers are being illegally routed to offshore customer support teams who are prohibited from working with the US military.

Citrix/VMWare isn't an exception. The carnage at these companies is indistinguishable from the wreck Krause made of Broadcom. In all these cases, Krause was parachuted in by private equity bosses, and he destroyed something useful to extract a giant, one-time profit, leaving behind a husk that no longer provides value to its customers or its employees.

This is the DOGE playbook. It's all about plunder: take something that was patiently, carefully built up over generations and burn it to the ground, warming yourself in the pyre, leaving nothing behind but ash. This is what private equity plunderers have been doing to the world's "advanced" economies since the Reagan years. They did it to airlines, family restaurants, funeral homes, dog groomers, toy stores, pharma, palliative care, dialysis, hospital beds, groceries, cars, and the internet.

Trump's a plunderer. He was elected by the plunderer class – like the crypto bros who want to run wild, transforming workers' carefully shepherded retirement savings into useless shitcoins, while the crypto bros run off with their perfectly cromulent "fiat" money. Musk is the apotheosis of this mindset, a guy who claims credit for other peoples' productive and useful businesses, replacing real engineering with financial engineering. Musk and Krause, they're like two peas in a pod.

That's why – according to anonymous DOGE employees cited by Tckacik – DOGE managers are hired for their capacity for cruelty: "The criteria for DOGE is how many you have fired, how much you enjoy firing people, and how little you care about the impact on peoples well being…No wonder Tom Krause was tapped for this. He’s their dream employee!"

The fact that Krause isn't well known outside of plunderer circles is absolutely a feature for him, not a bug. Scammers like Krause want to be admitted to polite society. This is why the Sacklers – the opioid crime family that kicked off the Oxy pandemic that's murdered more than 800,000 Americans so far – were so aggressive about keeping their association with their family business, Purdue Pharma, a secret. The Sacklers only wanted to be associated with the art galleries and museums they put their names over, and their lawyers threatened journalists for writing about their lives as billionaire drug pushers (I got one of those threats).

There's plenty of good reasons to be anonymous – if you're a whistleblower, say. But if you ever encounter a corporate executive who insists on anonymity, that's a wild danger sign. Take Pixsy, the scam "copyleft trolls" whose business depends on baiting people into making small errors when using images licensed under very early versions of the Creative Common licenses, and then threatening to sue them unless they pay hundreds or thousands of dollars:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/24/a-bug-in-early-creative-commons-licenses-has-enabled-a-new-breed-of-superpredator/

Kain Jones, the CEO of Pixsy, tried to threaten me under the EU's GDPR for revealing the names of the scammer on his payroll who sent me a legal threat, and the executive who ran the scam for his business (I say he tried to threaten me because I helped lobby for the GDPR and I know for a fact that this isn't a GDPR violation):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/13/an-open-letter-to-pixsy-ceo-kain-jones-who-keeps-sending-me-legal-threats/

These people understand that they are in the business of ripping people off, causing them grave and wholly unjust financial injury. They value their secrecy because they are in the business of making strangers righteously furious, and they understand that one of these strangers might just show up in their lives someday to confront them about their transgressions.

This is why Unitedhealthcare freaked out so hard about Luigi Mangione's assassination of CEO Brian Thompson – that's not how the game is supposed to be played. The people who sit in on executive row, destroying your lives, are supposed to be wholly insulated from the consequences of their actions. You're not supposed to know who they are, you're not supposed to be able to find them – of course.

But even more importantly, you're not supposed to be angry at them. They pose as mere software agents in an immortal colony organism called a Limited Liability Corporation, bound by the iron law of shareholder supremacy to destroy your life while getting very, very rich. It's not supposed to be personal. That's why Unitedhealthcare is threatening to sue a doctor who was yanked out of surgery on a cancer patient to be berated by a UHC rep for ordering a hospital stay for her patient:

https://gizmodo.com/unitedhealthcare-is-mad-about-in-luigi-we-trust-comments-under-a-doctors-viral-post-2000560543

UHC is angry that this surgeon, Austin's Dr Elisabeth Potter, went Tiktok-viral with her true story of how how chaotic and depraved and uncaring UHC is. UHC execs fear that Mangione made it personal, that he obliterated the accountability sink of the corporation and put the blame squarely where it belongs – on the (mostly) men at the top who make this call.

This is a point Adam Conover made in his latest Factually podcast, where he interviewed Propublica's T Christian Miller and Patrick Rucker:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_5tDXRw8kg

Miller and Rucker published a blockbuster investigative report into Cigna's Evocore, a secret company that offers claims-denials as a service to America's biggest health insurers:

https://www.propublica.org/article/evicore-health-insurance-denials-cigna-unitedhealthcare-aetna-prior-authorizations

If you're the CEO of a health insurance company and you don't like how much you're paying out for MRIs or cancer treatment, you tell Evocore (which processes all your claim authorizations) and they turn a virtual dial that starts to reduce the number of MRIs your customers are allowed to have. This dial increases the likelihood that a claim or pre-authorization will be denied, which, in turn, makes doctors less willing to order them (even if they're medically necessary) and makes patients more likely to pay for them out of pocket.

Towards the end of the conversation, Miller and Rucker talk about how the rank-and-file people at an insurer don't get involved with the industry to murder people in order to enrich their shareholders. They genuinely want to help people. But executive row is different: those very wealthy people do believe their job is to kill people to save money, and get richer. Those people are personally to blame for the systemic problem. They are the ones who design and operate the system.

That's why naming the people who are personally responsible for these immoral, vicious acts is so important. That's why it's important that Wired and Propublica are unmasking the "pubescent sovereignty pickpockets" who are raiding the federal government under Krause's leadership:

https://projects.propublica.org/elon-musk-doge-tracker/

These people are committing grave crimes against the nation and its people. They should be known for this. It should follow them for the rest of their lives. It should be the lead in their obituaries. People who are introduced to them at parties should have a flash of recognition, hastily end the handshake, then turn on their heels and race to the bathroom to scrub their hands. For the rest of their lives.

Naming these people isn't enough to stop the plunder, but it helps. Yesterday, Marko Elez, the 25 year old avowed "eugenicist" who wanted to "normalize Indian hate" and could not be "[paid] to marry outside of my ethnicity," was shown the door. He's off the job. For the rest of his life, he will be the broccoli-haired brownshirt who got fired for his asinine, racist shitposting:

https://www.npr.org/2025/02/06/nx-s1-5289337/elon-musk-doge-treasury

After Krause's identity as the chief wrecker at DOGE was revealed, the brilliant Anna Merlan (author of Republic of Lies, the best book on conspiratorialism), wrote that "Now the whole country gets the experience of what it’s like when private equity buys the place you work":

https://bsky.app/profile/annamerlan.bsky.social/post/3lhepjkudcs2t

That's exactly it. We are witnessing a private equity-style plunder of the entire US government – of the USA itself. No one is better poised to write about this than Tkacik, because no one has private equity's number like Tkacik does:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/02/plunderers/#farben

Ironically, all this came down just as Trump announced that he was going to finally get rid of private equity's scammiest trick, the "carried interest" loophole that lets PE bosses (and, to a lesser extent, hedge fund managers) avoid billions in personal taxes:

https://archive.is/yKhvD

"Carried interest" has nothing to do with the interest rate – it's a law that was designed for 16th century sea captains who had an "interest" in the cargo they "carried":

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/29/writers-must-be-paid/#carried-interest

Trump campaigned on killing this loophole in 2017, but Congress stopped him, after a lobbying blitz by the looter industry. It's possible that he genuinely wants to get rid of the carried interest loophole – he's nothing if not idiosyncratic, as the residents of Greenland can attest:

https://prospect.org/world/2025-02-07-letter-between-friendly-nations/

Even if he succeeds, looters and the "investor class" will get a huge giveaway under Trump, in the form of more tax giveaways and the dismantling of labor and environmental regulation. But it's far more likely that he won't succeed. Rather – as Yves Smith writes for Naked Capitalism – he'll do what he did with the Canada and Mexico tariffs: make a tiny, unimportant change and then lie and say he had done something revolutionary:

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/02/is-trump-serious-about-trying-to-close-the-private-equity-carried-interest-loophole.html

This has been a shitty month, and it's not gonna get better for a while. On my dark days, I worry that it won't get better during my lifetime. But at least we have people like Tkacik to chronicle it, explain it, put it in context. She's amazing, a whirlwind. The same day that her report on Krause dropped, the Prospect published another must-read piece by her, digging deep into Alex Jones's convoluted bankruptcy gambit:

https://prospect.org/justice/2025-02-06-crisis-actors-alex-jones-bankruptcy/

It lays bare the wild world of elite bankruptcy court, another critical conduit for protecting the immoral rich from their victims. The fact that Tkacik can explain both Krause and the elite bankruptcy system on the same day is beyond impressive.

We've got a lot of work ahead of ourselves. The people in charge of this system – whose names you must learn and never forget – aren't going to go easily. But at least we know who they are. We know what they're doing. We know how the scam works. It's not a flurry of incomprehensible actions – it's a playbook that killed Red Lobster, Toys R Us, and Sears. We don't have to follow that playbook.

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/2025/02/07/broccoli-hair-brownshirts/#shameless

[hoahoahoahoahoa]

New Moon au where Bella leaves and Edward stays… even though Bella’s still the one getting dumped

Edward breaks up with her in the woods and skedaddles, same as canon. But instead of curling up in the woods, Bella's mind kinda snaps and she decides she, too, is leaving.

She tries to follow Edward, same as she does in canon, and just... keeps going. Maybe she tries to track the Cullens down at first, because even if they can run stupid fast, they do settle down for years at a time. They're not actually moving targets. After however long she realizes the futility because she has so little to go on and they're very good at disappearing when need be (and mega rich enough to move to some remote chalet in Norway or whathaveyou).

Ironically, Bella couldn't convince Edward to stay with her words, but her leaving has the whole family essentially stuck there. When she decided to not go home, Alice got visions of search parties, missing posters and tv coverage, and a lot of suspicion on her boyfriend and his strange, reclusive family. To minimize the scrutiny, the Cullens returned to Forks. Edward has to pretend that he never tried to leave her (disappearance after a break-up means more suspicion of foul play), but he doesn't need to pretend he's appropriately aggrieved over Bella's disappearance.

Eventually, Bella gives up on doesn't so much give up on her search for the Cullens as she lets herself go numb and embraces the anonymity of leaving her life and identity behind. She pulls a Buffy Summers and gets a job as a waitress under a false name at a diner so generic that Alice can't pinpoint where the hell it is from her visions. In fact, Bella's derealization and disassociation are so thorough that she becomes a blank spot in Alice's sight altogether. Sam's participation in the search parties messes with her scent trail in the woods. Tracking Bella becomes just about impossible.

Edward knows she's smart and resourceful, but as far as anyone can tell she never came back for her wallet and truck, never packed a bag... if she didn't die within days from exposure or a bear, she's living a very hard life in a big dangerous world, all on her own. And it's not like her to not call and tell her parents that she's okay, at least.

So yes, Edward Anthony "Paranoia" Masen Cullen is fully convinced she's dead, and fucking off to Volterra about it will bring too much scrutiny to his family, so he can't bring himself to do it. He drops out of Forks for "homeschooling" because he simply cannot do high school anymore (he doesn't know which thoughts are more agonizing: those believing he killed her himself [he agrees with them, more or less], or pity over his grief). Occasionally he'll parade himself around town just to be seen, but otherwise he curls up in the woods. <Possibility.mp3>

I can't really decide where it goes from there:

-Maybe Bella eventually comes back of her own volition. A little hardened, better-traveled, she's learned a lot. Most importantly, she's learned that even at her lowest, she can still get by on her own. When Edward catches wind of it (literally, he catches her scent when he's out for his daily mope around the woods behind the Swan house) he wonders if a dead man can have a heart attack

-Once Bella has healed enough, Alice can see her again and manages to piece together where she is. The right thing to do would be to tip Charlie off, but she's an adult and doesn't appear to be in danger, so do they respect her apparent choice to disappear? Enough time has passed that Edward can leave Forks to track her down, but can he bring himself to ruin the little bit of peace she's carved out for herself once he finds her? (spoiler: he can't resist, but he just watches her for a while at first, and he's not as sneaky as he thinks, so she thinks she's just hallucinating him)

-???? help

[imagining-in-the-margins]

Sunscreen & Statistics (S.R.)

Summary: Reader asks for Spencer’s help putting on sunscreen (and washing it off after).  Request: Spencer lecturing Reader on the statistics of wearing sunscreen, but his mind going blank when reader needs him to help put it on. A/N: This is my (first) entry to my Summer Sunshine Challenge! Couple: Spencer Reid/Fem!Reader Category: Smut (NSFW, 18+) Content Warning: Spencer POV, so much sexual tension, mutual pining, heavy petting, fingering, rough sex, unprotected penetrative sex, coworker relationship, so many statistics (showers, skin cancer, sunscreen, sex), schizophrenia mention, Reader wears a bikini Word Count: 5.6k

MASTERLIST

It was a beautiful day—the kind that artists had attempted to capture through many mediums. The summer sun was relentless, stretching its rays across every inch of the region. Even the shade hardly seemed spared, with bits of bright light slipping between green rustling leaves.

This seemingly idyllic set of circumstances offered the BAU a wonderful excuse to stay behind on the sunnier coast. Everyone was quick to buy new bathing suits and Rossi had already begrudgingly extended an invitation for everyone to stay at his favorite luxury hotel (on his dime, of course, or none of us would’ve made it).

The celebrations were already in full swing, and everyone was blissfully happy. It was, after all, the perfect day to hang out by the pool. So, they did. Each and every one…

Except for me. I stayed inside.

I wasn’t trying to ruin the fun. I had my reasons. Some were more reasonable than others.

Others were scary and slightly embarrassing. They wore a smile so bright it would rival the sun and managed to make me turn red even quicker than the star could. The kind of reason that turned me to nothing but a blubbering mess of a man.

I should’ve known better than to try to avoid her, though. Because that reason, that very important and tempting enchantress of a reason, always seemed to find me at the most inopportune time.

“Are you still hiding in here?”

I nearly jumped through my skin at the sound.

“No!”

I turned to find her staring back with an entertained, albeit disbelieving stare.

“Sort of. Maybe,” I felt compelled to continue.

When she still didn’t believe me—for obvious reasons—I finally conceded, “Yes.”

To my joy and eternal shame, she laughed like it had been an intentional joke.

“Well, I got banished back inside because I forgot sunscreen, so I’m trying to figure out where JJ left her bag,” she sighed.

Thankfully, that had been something I could help with. Despite everyone’s enthusiasm when they’d tossed the bags into the center of the suite lobby, I had managed to determine who owned which brightly colored pattern.

From my seat in the center, I reached over to pull JJ’s bag from the fray.

As soon as (y/n) spotted the motion, she was quick to exclaim, “My hero!”

Immediately, I felt the blood rush to my face.

I suppose there were worse places it could have gone.

“How did you forget sunscreen?” I asked.

“I hate the way it feels, so I almost never wear it unless forced,” she shrugged. Then, she turned to me, pointing the bottle like a weapon as she explained, “Plus, it always feels like they’re trying to trick me with all the numbers. I don’t know what SPF is. They could just be lying to me.”

“Well, the good news is that even a weak sunscreen is helpful,” I tried to reassure her. “Regular daily use of at least 15 SPF can reduce your risk of squamous cell carcinoma and melanoma by up to 50%.”

“Is that right?”

“Yeah. I can tell you more about this product specifically, if you want.”

When I held out my hand, she was quick to hand me the bottle. I was, in turn, very happy to have an excuse to look at something other than her before all the blood left my brain.

“Okay, so, this one is an interesting formula. It offers a decent coverage and—,” I started, but my voice died just as soon as I looked up.

Because there she was, pulling her top over her head to reveal the barely-there bikini beneath it.

I knew I only had a few seconds to shamelessly ogle her before she would find out, and I greedily accepted the sight of soft curves that all consisted of and led to her.

My eyes traversed her body the way I wished my hands could until I was left practically trembling.

The blood wasn’t in my face anymore. It wasn’t even anywhere near my brain. To the point I’d barely even noticed she’d already taken her pants off until her voice snapped me back to reality.

“And what?” she said.

“What?”

“… You stopped talking.”

“I did?”

She reached forward and grabbed the bottle from my hand. If she’d noticed the way I had been looking at her, she didn’t say anything about it. She just sort of… smiled.

“Are you alright, Doctor?” she asked.

“Yes,” I lied.

I might’ve been able to answer honestly if it hadn’t been for the way she dumped the contents of the bottle into her hand and began lathering it over her legs.

“A-Anyways,” I tried to continue. With a wavering voice and wandering eyes, I rambled, “to maximize protection you should really use about an ounce of sunscreen with an SPF of 30. Anything over 30 is, well, like you suggested, sort of a scam.”

All the while, there she was, smoothing over slick skin that smelled like summer.

“An ounce, huh?” she hummed as her hands traveled between pillowy thighs to coat skin the sun could rarely reach. “Feels like you could make it a drinking game with enough motivation.”

“Drinking alcohol actually dramatically increases your risk of sunburn, so you should definitely wear more sunscreen if you’re drinking,” I muttered absently while my eyes stayed firmly fixed between her thighs long after her hands had abandoned the area.

“Noted,” she said, the end of the word tinged with a little bit of amusement.

I looked up at her to try to understand what had excited her, or perhaps annoyed her.

Or at least, I tried to look at her face. My eyes made a few involuntarily stops along the way. Once they settled safely back on her smile, however, she was quick to get my blood pumping in a different way.

“So, will you help me?” she asked.

“With what?”

She scoffed, then laughed.

“… the sunscreen? Duh.”

Despite my best efforts to make any sense of the request, I was, once again, a hopeless, lovesick idiot.

“W-What?” I babbled, “You… You want me to put it on? You?”

“I can ask JJ if it makes you uncomfortable.”

“No!” I blurted out with both hands raised in opposition or surrender.

Didn’t seem to matter which.

I tried to explain it away, but my attempts to bolster my good character seemed even less convincing than the sudden outburst.

“N-No, no it’s fine. I-It’s… why would that make me… uncomfortable? I’m fine. I can do it.”

“Wow. Convincing,” she teased.

And that is what it was. There was no anger in her tone; not even a hint of resentment. She laughed, and I did, too.

“Okay, I admit that wasn’t very convincing. But seriously, I can do it. Promise.”

She spoke through her teeth when she muttered, “Whatever you say.”

When she tossed me the bottle back, we were both surprised to find that I’d caught it.

My hands, still shaky, were quick to close the gap between our bodies. The sunscreen felt nearly frigid compared to our skin, but she didn’t seem to mind.

In fact, she rewarded the sensation with a dreamy sigh and a slight arching of her back.

That motion, however small, felt like fire to an already ruined man. I tried to stay focused on more innocent areas. I worked my hands over knotted muscles in her shoulder and tried to free her of those burdens, too. With each swipe of my thumbs, she would let out the most delicious rumble that made me want to do it again.

Each time that I pulled away to add more, I came back a few inches lower until my fingers nearly slipped beneath the top of her bikini bottoms.

At that moment, with her arched lower back pressed against my palms and my fingers brushing against the little fabric between us, she shivered. Silently, I watched as the goosebumps covered her skin like a sheet.

Reaching forward to grab hold of the couch in front of her, she arched her back once more. The movement seemed intentional, closing a couple inches of the distance between us until there was almost nothing.

With more speed than I’d intended, I stepped back and nearly fell.

“O-Okay, I-I think that’s it!” I said with a squeak.

To my dismay, she stayed exactly where she was for a long moment. In fact, she deepened the stretch and fell forward with a sigh before she whined, “Shame.”

I tried to calm my fast beating heart while simultaneously trying to run from the thoughts that continued to chase me the longer she stayed bent over. My hands were still buzzing from the contact, and I felt almost lightheaded from the strength of the unrelenting erection still struggling against compression shorts underneath my pants.

(I had been right that I would need them if she was going to be there.)

And there she was, finally standing and stretching her arms over her head. They dropped back down and I couldn’t stop myself from admiring the effect of physics on her chest.

“It felt nice to be touched like that,” she sighed.

I couldn’t respond to that without making a complete fool of myself, so I tried to distance myself from the moment, instead.

“You’re actually supposed to wait 30 minutes after application to go into the sun, but, y-you can probably just sit in the shade and wait.”

“Did you already apply yours?”

“I’m not taking off my clothes so I could do it myself,” I explained.

I should’ve known better than to doubt her ability to get whatever she wanted—which, at the moment seemed to be my catastrophic defeat.

“Well, that’s not fair,” she whined, “I want to return the favor!”

“I-I mean… I’ll probably have to reapply it to my face soon, but I doubt you want to—.”

“Awe! Fun!” she cried before I could finish the thought, “Gimme!”

“Oh… um, okay.”

I handed her the bottle and whatever I still had of my heart. With expert fingers, she spread the chilly contents over my cheeks. We were both smiling, the expressions growing wider and more genuine as she started to play with pliable skin.

I involuntarily joined in on her laughter. Her hands and eyes were so warm, I couldn’t help but melt into a puddle in her palms.

The moment ended far too quickly. I missed her immediately, but she made sure that my smile didn’t fade.

“There. You’re only sort of pasty now,” she sighed contentedly before adding, “Mostly red, actually.”

“Gee, I wonder why,” I grumbled back. The sarcastic tilt to the sound wasn’t lost on her.

I realized in that awkward, somehow lonely quiet that I loved her more than I’d thought.

I almost wanted to tell her. I’d even opened my mouth, ready to spill the contents of my soul and hope for the best.

I never got a chance, though. Because before I’d uttered a single syllable, she jumped with her own realization.

“Oh, I forgot the most important part!”

“What?”

She turned away from me and dove her attention into the pile of bags without further explanation. I watched as she dug through clothing and whatever else she’d stuffed into her tote until she stood triumphantly with a closed fist.

“What?” I asked again.

She held up a single finger in reply.

I followed her instruction, waiting patiently as I watched her uncap a small tube of chapstick and use it to thoroughly coat her lips. Once again, I was left to shamelessly stare at a beautiful woman as she dutifully cared for herself in a way I’d wished I could.

Swallowing the lump in my throat that carried heartfelt confessions, I spoke again.

“What am I waiting for, exactly?” I teased.

Her eyes narrowed with what seemed to be a playful warning.

“Sunscreen application,” she explained flatly, “Duh.”

I paused. My head cocked to the side and my face twisted as I struggled to find any explanation for why she’d needed me for this part.

“Wha—?”

Then, just when I’d started to speak, it hit me all at once.

And by that, I mean she kissed me.

With both hands cupping already-reddened cheeks, she pulled me forward until I could taste flavored lip balm and her.

Her lips opened, sliding against mine with an undeniable affection that made my whole body tense. I tried to hold her, but it all happened so quickly that by the time I raised my hands to her arms, she was almost gone.

“There!” she said happily, “Now we’re ready.”

For what? I wanted to ask.

But before I could make myself speak, she was already gone.

I spent the next several hours outside.

The rest of the team seemed both surprised and not surprised about my decision to join them. After all, everyone knew I didn’t particularly enjoy pools or any body of water, and, despite my Vegas origins, the sun and I didn’t quite get along.

But they also knew I liked her.

It had never been more obvious than it was that day, when I emerged from the safety of darkness with freshly kissed lips and an expression filled with utter confusion.

(Y/n) was quick to greet me in her usual manner. She said nothing about the kiss.

Part of me had even started to wonder if I’d hallucinated the whole thing. Maybe the doctors had all been wrong, and I was already waist-deep in psychosis that manifested purely through happy memories of her.

It would be an odd presentation, sure, but at the time it somehow felt more likely than her returning my affections. But as soon as I started to convince myself, she would flash me a glance that set my already overheated body on fire. Even as she peered up at me from the edge, I could still see her smile under the water.

She wore that same look in her eye she always did when we were alone. It was a slightly unnerving but mostly flattering feeling. It felt like being wanted by a beautiful woman.

I’m definitely losing it.

That was the only reasonable conclusion to reach. Because when she emerged from the pool, I could’ve sworn she paused before to make sure I was watching.

Of course, I was watching. I made sure that my flawless memory captured damn near every droplet as it caressed her curves. I stared, practically worshipped the sight of her lips parted with a relieved exhale that I could see leave her chest.

The blood was gone again. I was doomed.

“You’re still hiding, huh?”

I was too afraid to answer until she took the seat closest to me.

“No, not hiding, just… staying safe,” I explained through my typical awkward smile.

I pointed up to the umbrella above me, but she didn’t look. Her eyes stayed glued to me.

“It’s probably time for me to reapply, huh?” she laughed.

I liked the way it sounded, so, I laughed, too.

“Yeah, to be honest, you really should’ve done it a couple hours ago, but I didn’t want you to think I was… a wet blanket or a pervert.”

She snorted at the suggestion. Her eyes squinted, playful as always and carrying some meaning that evaded me.

“It’s very interesting that those were the two options that came to your mind,” she said.

I panicked.

“I don’t know, it’s weird, isn’t it? Me insisting you should let me touch you?” I rushed, “I’m not crazy, right? It’s… weird! It’s…!”

She sighed.

At first, I mistook the sound for annoyance. But when I looked into her eyes, I knew that wasn’t right.

Because she looked… like she had been caught in a dream. A melancholy fantasy of something she felt was just beyond her reach.

She was looking at me, I realized, exactly the same way I looked at her.

 “You’re not crazy, Spencer,” she said with a smile, “Just a little oblivious.”

My lips twitched as I fought a smirk that came through, anyway.

“I can accept that.”

She seemed pleased, as if I’d given the right answer.

“Well, the good news is I’m done with the sun for the day,” she announced.

Her eyes finally left me as she once again stretched her arms over her head and left me to ogle her like an idiot. Then, when I was thoroughly distracted, she glanced around like she was checking to see if anyone could hear her.

“They don’t seem to be calming down, so…” she said, much quieter now, “any statistics on what I should do with sunscreen when I’m finished with it?”

“No statistics, per se, but you definitely should wash it off. It can be pretty irritating for skin,” I answered matter-of-factly. “Not to mention the salts and chemicals from the pool.”

“I see,” she laughed.

Then, when she realized that I was, in fact, a hopeless, perverted fool with no blood in his brain, she made her intentions much clearer.

“Will you help me with that?”

Not clear enough for me, though.

“What?” I asked.

“With the sunscreen,” she answered simply.

“Uh—.”

Even that eloquent thought couldn’t make it through a parched, tightening throat. With each passing second and every syllable uttered, my voice got higher and even more unstable.

“I’m sorry, are you—what—w-what are you asking me?”

That’s when she took my hand, bursting with laughter as she dragged me from me seat with the most terrifying, alluring, and magical answer.

“Come on, pretty boy.”

I followed her without question but many concerns—the largest of which was the fear that she was actually leading me to my demise by humiliation.

Those worries grew tenfold when she yanked me over the threshold into her private room.

I stumbled forward and practically fell into her arms. But she was waiting for me, seemingly anticipating the clumsiness. Her hands were still soft, still soothing on boiling skin as she guided my lips to hers for the second time that day.

That time, I was prepared.

My hands covered her sun-kissed cheeks and pulled her even closer than she’d done to me before.

She tasted like salt and sugar from summer fresh fruit. I gave her every breath that I had, panting hopelessly against her lips each time that we broke apart.

Her hands were gentle when they found mine. I was reluctant to leave her until I realized that she was simply repositioning them to less innocent areas.

Still, I hesitated to go any further. I let my hands rest softly against her hips while I struggled to express my relief.

“Thank god,” I laughed, “I was sort of worried you were going to beat me up for staring at you all day.”

Her eyes locked onto mine with a hunger that seemed almost insatiable.

“No, I like it when you look at me like that,” she stated so simply it hurt. “In fact, I think I want to thank you.”

Before I could ask her how she intended to that, she made her intentions very clear by grabbing my dick through the fabric of my pants.

“So, tell me… any statistics on why we shouldn’t have sex in the shower?” she asked.

I don’t know how she’d expected me to think clearly. It actually seemed like she was purposefully trying to make it harder for me to form any words at all.

“It’s actually—,” I started just to stop when she started stroking the full length of me with devilish fingers.

“It’s actually really dangerous to try to have sex in the shower,” I tried again.

That time, she began applying a cascading pressure through playful fingertips. I spoke faster, trying to finish any thought before I truly lost my mind.

“There is a—fuck—a 44% chance of injury,” I forced out.

Her hand stopped. She cocked her head to the side with a brilliant smile and asked, “Is that right?”

I was almost relieved. Almost.

“Yeah, and…”

Then she started taking off my pants.

“A-and it can be quite uncomfortable for a woman without additional lubrication,” I said while shaking my head.

Even my subconscious knew I was speaking against my own self-interest, that I could’ve just accepted her question as rhetorical. I could’ve just shut up and go along with whatever she wanted because I would always be happy so long as she was happy.

She dropped down as she pulled my pants to the ground and revealed a second set of bottoms. I couldn’t be sure of it, but she seemed vindicated when she realized how hard my body was struggling against the compression shorts.

“The movies make it look so fun, don’t they?” she hummed as she stood back up. “I guess it is pretty dangerous. And inconvenient.”

“Yeah, but also, I sort of wish I hadn’t said any of that,” I responded immediately, “Let’s do it anyway.”

Thankfully, she found my eagerness charming and not pathetic (or perhaps those were the same to her). Her fingers sneaked past the band of the compression shorts, but she didn’t make the move to remove them yet.

Instead, she used her free hand to lead mine straight to the knot holding her bikini bottoms together.

My fingers twitched. She leaned closer, her cheek pressed against mine and her breath hot on my ear as she said the most beautiful words.

“We can shower after, then.”

“Thank you god,” I cried.

Practiced fingers untangled the knots within seconds, and I fought the urge to stare at her newly exposed skin by kissing her instead.

Her skin, still wet, was chilled enough from the cooler air that she barely reacted when I backed her against the ceramic countertop in the bathroom.

She leaned back, groaning with relief when I finally undid the knots of her top.

Again, I shamelessly admired the wonderful world of physics as it was displayed before me. With each breath, her chest lifted and came closer to my own.

Seemingly sharing the same thoughts, she reached forward and practically tugged my shirt off of me.

As soon as I could, I held her naked body as close to me as I could. My hands covered her lower back and drifted further down her hips, seeking every inch of cold skin that remained.

“God, you’re beautiful,” I whispered. I couldn’t see most of her, but the memory from mere seconds ago was as vivid as it would ever be. “Words don’t exist that would ever do it justice.”

She pulled back, still toying with the tops of my shorts with that insatiable look in her eyes.

“I’d say take a picture, but I think your memory might rival a camera,” she giggled.

“I’ll never forget this,” I promised her, “I’ll never forget you.”

But there were so many other ways I’d yet to see her. So, after carefully loving each inch of her hips, I turned my attention to the burning heat between her thighs. 

At the same time my finger slid through slick folds, my lips found hers once more.

“I wanna make you feel good,” I slurred.

Her lips parted in a broken gasp as I tried to do just that. I inched eager fingers between tight muscles and didn’t even bother fighting the urge to moan into her mouth.

She swallowed that desire and returned her own with a growing enthusiasm. My fingers grew faster, sloppier in their gentle beckoning for her to fall apart.

“That’s it. Good girl,” I reassured her when her breathy moans became pitchy. “Oh, you deserve to feel so good, sweetheart.”

That spark in her eyes had turned into a wildfire further stoked by my praise. I leaned into it; I became more confident in my loving her. Her walls were tense and insistent, seeking something more than what my hand could give them.

I withdrew them despite her immediate protests. She recanted any complaint as soon as I moved drenched fingers to the small pearl at her center.

Her moans became shameless, and I accepted them as an imminent victory. She rocked her hips against my hand, riding it to find her elusive end.

All the while, her eyes were locked onto mine. She refused to look away, forced us both to acknowledge that I was the one who brought her here. To the edge of the abyss, to the ultimate euphoria.

“That’s it, pretty girl,” I said through a smirk, “Come for me.”

She followed the direction with the utmost enthusiasm. She fell forward, favoring me to the cold countertop. I caught her but continued my relentless efforts to please her.

I kept going, kept cherishing her until she whimpered from my touch. Then I held her. I pet her damp hair and laid a gentle kiss atop the crown of her head.

“Good girl,” I assured her.

But I wasn’t finished yet.

“Now turn around.”

She perked up the second she’d heard the order. Although she’d barely caught her breath, she turned on shaky legs without question.

My hands found her hips just like they had before. Except this time, there were no bikini bottoms. There was only pillowy flesh and the strong muscles of her backside pressed firmly against my dick.

Barely moving away from her, I finally freed myself from the confines of compression shorts. I groaned with relief and noticed how the sound made her back arch further.

When I lined myself up at her entrance, she rewarded the action with a dreamy sigh.

It wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to see the look on her face, to hear the desperation in her voice before I gave her what I’d fantasized of from the moment I met her.

My hand knotted in her hair. I pulled her back from her comfortable position braced against the countertop. I held her up so that I could whisper in her ear the same as she’d done to me earlier.

“This is what you wanted, right?” I asked, as if her whimpers hadn’t been answer enough.

“Yes,” she moaned, “please.”

The sound of debauchery on her tongue sent shockwaves through me. My cock twitched involuntarily, bumping against satin skin now dripping with desire.

I barely resisted the urge to slam into her with full force. Instead, I stayed there, with just the tip of me inside of her as I groaned.

“Oh, I’d give you the whole world if you asked me like that.”

“This’ll do for now,” she giggled.

Her hips began to sway as she rocked on her toes. She chased even just a half inch more of me and rewarded me with beautiful sounds when I finally started to sink into her.

“That’s it…” I sighed.

Her confidence was quickly shaken, though, as my pursuit continued. Not even half of my dick was inside her when I felt her start to tremble.

“You can take it,” I assured her.

She responded by tightening her muscles even further, resisting the gentle stretch of her body as it accommodated my own.

“That’s my girl,” I groaned. The blinding heat of her demanded my full attention to the point that I was barely coherent as I slurred, “You’re doing such a good job, sweetheart.”

But all it took was one word to unravel my best efforts.

“Spencer,” she whimpered.

Any hesitance I had vanished without a trace. I thrust my hips forward to the hilt with so much force that she scrambled to stay on her feet. Manicured nails struggled to find a grip the ceramic before my next motion.

I took my time pulling back, and I watched her struggle with the fullness that was our bodies come together. I reveled in the sight of her heaving chest and clouded eyes.

That time, I didn’t fight the urge to slam into her. I even pulled her back as I did it, bringing our bodies together over and over again with a blissful type of violence.

With each thrust, I watched her reaction in the mirror. I made sure that my mind captured each second of her pleasure. Each time her jaw dropped open with whines and praise in the shape of my name.

“Please, Spencer,” she keened with a white-knuckled grip on the edge of the counter.

I hadn’t been sure what she was asking for, so I continued to love her the same as I always had.

But she only became more frustrated, sobbing with pleasure the next time my hips crashed into hers.

“Harder,” she cried out.

And I tried. I tried to follow her instruction, to grant her the release that could only be found in the fullest expression of years of repressed passion.

The problem wasn’t my unwillingness to give my everything to her. Rather, it was the siren’s call of resistant, relentlessly desperate muscles.

“You’re so fucking tight,” I ground through clenched jaw. 

Then, with a small and wavering voice, she insisted, “I can take it.”

Every atom of my being burned with a suffocating desire. It felt nearly feral; fully free to show her just how badly my body ached to be with her.

She began slamming back against me with a similar fervor and I almost made myself stop.

“Fuck, I’m so close, but I don’t want it to end,” I begged her.

But that beautiful, evasive, brilliant star of a woman just giggled. I could practically feel myself leaving bruises in the shape of my fingertips and she couldn’t have been happier.

Through the mirror, she looked at me and reminded me of the full, unrelenting power of the sun.

“Don’t worry,” she purred, “we can do it again later.”

That was all it took. With just a look, she practically brought me to my knees.

“Fuck!” I choked as I slammed into her with my full force. We both nearly collapsed against the counter, but I managed to pull her hips down harder against me just as I found my release.

The blissful heat of her grew to new heights as I filled her. Each wave of pleasure caused her to shiver with sheets of goosebumps.

I watched through half-lidded, lust-clouded vision as she accepted every inch and every drop of my desire with a euphoric smile.

“Sorry,” I said while trying to catch my breath. Even when I managed to capture some breath, it escaped me with a laugh as I explained, “I… I wasn’t expecting you to say that.”

“Don’t apologize,” she slurred.

I might’ve thought she was just being merciful if she hadn’t immediately followed, “That was fun.”

It was so obviously sincere, but I was so ridiculously stupid that I had to be sure, anyway.

“Yeah?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she laughed.

The sound was even more beautiful when I could feel the vibrations from within. I groaned from the thought of how it might feel for her lips to be wrapped around my cock. It twitched inside her, and she responded with a small whimper.

My hips bucked one more time, forcing me to the hilt before I withdrew in one quick motion.

I stood there for a moment, holding her hips steady as I watched the evidence of what we’d just done drip down her thighs.

My stomach was filled with butterflies doing flips and there was no accounting for the blood that still hadn’t made its way back to my brain.

(Y/n) was patient as ever with a pitiful man.

“Come on, pretty boy,” she chuckled as she took my hand, “help me get clean.”

Despite my best efforts, there were significantly less attempts to get clean in the shower than I’d expected. It was only thanks to her self-preservation that we didn’t end up having sex in the shower, although we came pretty close.

I could never tire of kissing her, but I realized I could love her just as much with lather as I could with my lips. My worship shifted as I dutifully cared for her the way I’d always wished I could.

When it was over, I didn’t give up. I followed her into her bed and she made no attempt to stop me.

In fact, she moved closer to me until my arm could reach around her waist and her head rested on my chest.

“Any other statistics you want to share?” she mumbled, now sleepy from the sun and… other activities.

“Always,” I answered. “Like, did you know, I have now joined the 54% of people who have slept with a coworker?”

“Fascinating. Was it worth it?” she chuckled, having already known my answer.

“Yes,” I told her, anyway. But the way I always did when it came to sharing statistics, I couldn’t stop myself. “Although, there is a smaller subset of that group that’s even more interesting.”

She gasped, quickly pressing her fingers to my lips to stop me from ruining her moment.

“Let me guess—at least half of them fucked in the office,” she said.

And in that quiet, private moment, the only thing more beautiful than her hopeful smile was the fact she’d gotten it right.

“You are, without a doubt, the most attractive woman I’ve ever met in my life,” I confessed.

She gave her wholehearted admission that she felt the same in the best way she could.

With a cheeky smile and the utmost sincerity, she asked, “What are the odds of that?”

(Tell me what you thought about this fic here!)

Looking for another mutual pining summer-themed fic? Check out my 11.2k oneshot Lost Time, where Reader and Spencer spend their mandatory leave taking the Spring Break Spencer never got to have. 

Reid Taglist: @mrs-dr-reid , @dreatine , @hopefulfangirl24 , @laurakirsten0502 , @dontcallmekittens , @rintheemolion , @andreasworlsboring101 , @imsuperawkward , @wentz2005 , @lovejules888 , @dashneydanger , @materialisthicc , @violetspoetic , @mslowlife , @conniesanchor , @trippol-threat , @will-byers-needs-a-hug , @poo-tay-toot , @bookobsessedfreak

Complete Taglist: @cynbx , @emsma11 , @mediocre-writer , @fightingdragonswithwho , @andiebeaword , @jayyeahthatsme , @pepperthealien

Thanks for reading!

[stele3]

I know that a) I literally just included this link in the Destiel Daily Digest and b) the discourse doesn't give a shit about any humanitarian disaster that isn't Palestine, but SERIOUSLY GUYS YOU NEED TO START PAYING ATTENTION TO SUDAN.

Sudan is facing a famine that could become worse than any the world has seen since Ethiopia 40 years ago, US officials have warned, as aid deliveries continue to be blocked by the warring armies but arms supplies to both sides continue to flow in. With much of the world’s attention focused on Gaza, the scene of another human-made famine, Sudan is already the worst humanitarian crisis in the world and is slipping towards a humanitarian disaster of historic proportions, with far less media coverage and global concern. A UN humanitarian appeal for the country has received only 16% of the funds it needs.

...

The Ethiopian famine killed a million people between 1983 and 1985, according to UN estimates. Thomas-Greenfield said that in a worst-case scenario, a famine in Sudan could become even more lethal. “We’ve seen mortality projections estimating that in excess of 2.5 million people, about 15% of the population in Darfur and Kordofan – the hardest hit regions – could die by the end of September,” the ambassador said. “This is the largest humanitarian crisis on the face of the planet. And yet, somehow, it threatens to get worse,” she added.

[b1asho]

A bunch of random people from what's widely considered to be the most dangerous and uninhabitable area on the planet have been asked to pose for a camera.

Some rambling:

Masks and goggles are a lot more popular in the SEZ due to high likelihood of particulates in the air (while the habitable zones have been deemed, well, habitable, there’s still a chance that rust, dust, and worse can blow in over the walls.) Daily weather updates are advisories are in place to keep people updated in case there’s a bad air quality day. Kixeli are particularly affected by this due to their permeable and sensitive skin, which is why many wear more coverage in the form of “wetsuits” that both protect them and hold moisture when outside of their communities. Wetsuits are found outside the SEZ too, but don't normally do fullbody coverage. Potentially hazardous conditions are also the reason behind many SEZ resident’s fashion sense including a lot of protective suits and gloves, though that’s also because many of the people there work as dredgers (where that’s the uniform standard ). Muttreazik and Conduits are a lot more common, with many intentionally flocking to the SEZ from the neighboring DRSS to get away from isolating and negative views on them.

From the top left:

A bunch of Kixeli show off a fish they caught. Due to the encapsulated and contained nature of current Kixeli communities in the SEZ, they can only really be self-sufficient to a certain point and often need to look to the outside for certain resources. This normally puts them in a difficult position where they need to interact with the outside with money that they dont actually use within the community itself. To solve this, many try to barter as much as possible rather than giving/getting money for their goods.

A group of dredgers, two Flickers (denoted by their yellow jumpsuits with an orange diamond) and one of their agency’s mancers (dressed in red to show their propensity level.) they prolly just got back lol.

A lone Dorest just kinda staring at the camera. Probably running an errand for his unit.

The Cerest-host muttreazik who’s next is a spear fisher. Cerest-host muttreazik are a rarity to see anywhere, both due to the small population of Cerest outside of the Empire and also their high host- rejection rate (aka they’re often kicked to the street or taken out as eggs). There is relative cultural freedom found in the SEZ resulting from the sheer amount of weird stuff going on in there, you just have to accept it at some point. As a result, you can find all sorts of muttreazik there who would not be around elsewhere, as well as a lot more non-congruent muttreazik whove ended up there as a refuge. Side note, ,weapon laws are veryyyy strict in the DRSS for anyone that isn’t law enforcement/military. The strongest thing the average civilian is allowed to have is a taser (and a weak one at that.) this spills over into the SEZ, but due to high crime rates and the general dangers of going out into the Wreck, many people in the SEZ are allowed to carry weapons that someone in the DRSS would not be allowed to have (such as a knife or bow, real gins are still a no no). That speargun is considered a tool, tho.

Another dredger, this one older. She’s a type 3, which her agency shows with her green uniform color and patch. Scarring, loss of limb, etc is a common trait for many Conduits (in general and in the SEZ, due to the nature of their affliction and many of their more dangerous jobs) but her arm has been like that from birth.

On a related note, next is a Rossetian who’s somehow lost most of his tail. It’s also worth noting that everyone has just gotten out of a period of warfare, which is another reason behind injury aftermath being a common sight worldwide.

This next guy is an alius-class with a human host, on their way to class. In the DRSS, the Tank system (where muttreazik are removed from hosts and grown artificially) usually limits traits that would make a muttreazik alius (such as the significant changes to the human body plan shown here) so they’re pretty rare. When they do happen, they have a very hard time living in their host society (which is why they might come to the SEZ instead).

Another muttreazik up next, this one doing a fun trick with a bunch of silverware he has for some reason. Reds like him can’t really do a lot more than that, but the control exhibited here may mean he’s trying to progress to orange.

Lastly, a Prectikar and his son (or just some other middling from his family, as Prectikar households are pretty much exclusively multigenerational). Luckily he’s more or less capable of hauling whatever that is by himself, since getting a personal vehicle is very hard and they don’t make many in kar size anyway. The piercing in his speaking nostril is for aesthetics and to help him speak human languages better (often known as a tongue or tooth piercing depending on the shape.) the speaking nostril only really has the “lips” and a bump at the middle to control airflow for speaking, and their mouth’s layout also isn’t super good for mimicking humans (the tongue/lips are very long and relatively clumsy, and they can only do short bursts of very low, hard to control sound from the air sac. ) this works just fine for their own languages, but greatly affects their communication if they’re trying to switch away from one of the ‘bridge’ dialects everyone uses to talk to each other) With the piercing, the muscular upper wall of the nose channel can be trained to press the piercing against the sides or bottom to produce more humanish noises. To avoid compromising or blocking the airway, these are normally minimal in size etc (which also makes them different than a cybernetic vocal implant, also since there’s no electricity involved lol. )

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

I can’t stand what Ted Sarandos is trying to do. He’s trying to make Meghan happen. Meghan’s fans also like to flatter themselves with the fact that Meghan always gets scrutinized. They always say the British Media is obsessed with Meghan because she’s so relevant. They like to think of the notoriety as proof of how big Meghan is, acting as if Meghan herself isn’t feeding the machine because of her own thirst for relevance. I can’t stand it. When do you think will the Daily Mail stop scrutinizing everything Meghan does so her fans can stop getting off on the attention?

Sarandos is just playing the market to ensure the ROI is decent. That's all it is - just business. He needs to make Meghan happen because they sunk some good money in her brand. No, it's not the $100 million her PR said, but it's not a paltry $2 million either. It's a decent chunk of change that, at the end of the day, likely wouldn't hurt the actual budget but would definitely affect his reputation in terms of credibility.

The Daily Mail will stop scrutinizing Meghan when there's no interest in her. That means people not reading their stories about her, people not commenting on those articles, and people disengaging from their content. Same with every other publication out there. If there's no readership, they won't print it. But people keep engaging with it so they keep writing about it.

I will say that if you don't go to the websites that feature Meghan prominently (e.g., the Daily Mail) and you set up your social media to block or filter out everything Meghan- or Sussex-related, you don't actually see much coverage and when you don't see the coverage, it's less power to her fans and less attention for her.

[lorata]

iris & bb adessa

ok @penfoldx asked about iris (bc i've only ever mentioned her) so i scoured my files and found an ANCIENT prompt fic that i started writing for @sweet-suzume TEN YEARS AGO and never finished

shad adwater from Whoever Needs Charity

The boy on screen turns his blood-smeared face to the camera, wide eyes shimmering with damp in the green-tinted night vision. Below him the final tribute gurgles and twitches as the blood leaks out too slowly for a quick, clean death, but Shad Atwater of District 4 appears not to notice, wiping blindly at the tears and muck that coat his cheeks.

Adessa stirs, and Iris glances down at her Victor, barely a year out herself and glued to the recap after having been denied the daily coverage. Onscreen the blood is black under the odd lighting, shining like an oil slick, and it’s been months since Iris caught Adessa in the woods examining the insides of squirrels trying to discover the future in their livers as she’d read in a book sometime, but this is more death and suffering than the young Victor has been permitted near since her own win.

“This isn’t right,” Adessa says. She sits primly as always, but now her knees twitch upward as though she’s fighting the urge to draw them up and hug her legs. The final tribute thrashes, exhales a final, shuddering breath as the boy from Four inhales one of his own, and at last the cannon fires. “This shouldn’t have been allowed to happen.”

Adessa is the first of them raised to volunteer from her earliest memories — her parents helped to found the Program and worked to recruit weapons-masters from all through the district and the veteran forces from the Capitol — and she never wavered in the Arena, not once. Iris hoped to avoid this, but it’s one thing to cause death and feel a modicum of control; it’s something else to watch it happen and see the brutality for what it is. This twitching, tortured child would be enough to turn anyone’s stomach.

She clicks her teeth hard, and Iris readies the speech she’s practiced since this year’s Reaping — about honour, and sacrifice, about their necessity whether it’s pretty and noble or not — except that Adessa cuts her off, voice unsteady. “He won’t stop crying. It’s — shameful, it’s not right. He’s the Victor, why is he weeping? Why did they allow this?”

Iris closes her mouth and studies Adessa truly. Her posture is tight and she’s actually fidgeting, which for Adessa is tantamount to near breakdown, and she draws her lower lip between her teeth and chews on it despite that being a forbidden mannerism in front of cameras or audiences. And yet it is not the death that has unsettled her, not the blood soaking the concrete and pooling sluggishly around the body; no, it is the tears of this year’s Victor that have peeled back her armour.

“Everyone wins differently,” Iris says as the recap ends and the cameras turn to Shad Atwater in the flesh, sitting onstage with his head; in his hands, shoulders trembling violently.

Adessa presses her hands flat over her knees to hide her shaking fingers. “They should let him go home,” she says decisively. “This isn’t appropriate viewing. No one should have to see this.”

Iris sighs and shuts off the television. “Come on,” she says, and Adessa springs to her feet with too much energy, muscles coiled tight. It will be a rough match today, but honest blood and solid violence is what her Victor needs. “Choose a weapon and let’s head outside.”

Adessa picks a curved dagger nearly the length of her forearm, lovingly turning the blade over in her hand, and Iris chooses a short sword. Soon Shad Atwater and his tears are forgotten in the clash of metal, and they do not speak of it again.

[twopoppies]

Re: Melissa Nathan: she's the sister of Sara Nathan, EIC of Page Six and "has worked at The Sun, the Daily Mail, DailyMail.com and People. British-born, Nathan’s beat spans royals, Hollywood and celebrity. Her most recent exclusives include stories...Florence Pugh's fall-out with Olivia Wilde and all the “Don't Worry Darling” drama..."

What a fucking web the 1D guys were/are up against with Simon. The BL paperwork also mentions that Sara let Melissa know JB was about to get exposed. (not)coincidentally, P6 immediately started tearing BL apart. It seems unlikely this is the first time Sara uses her platform to protect her sister's clients. I wonder how much of the Liam coverage highlighting his drug use and the hotel negligence is there to bury the concerns of kids on talent shows and exploitative contracts.

I think you hit the nail on the head when you bring up the “web” the guys have been dealing with for almost 15 years. Simon Cowell used Simon Jones PR and Dan Wootton in very much the same way.

The entertainment industry (including Hollywood and all the correlating businesses that support the entertainment industry) is full of the most morally corrupt people you can imagine.

Obviously, not everyone, but in order to keep yourself free of becoming one of those people, it seems you need to have some of those people on your side to fight off the ones who plot against you.

It’s like medieval kings. But more sinister.

I’ve said for years that I think Harry and Louis (and really, all of the 1D boys) have had to work really hard to be successful without losing their moral compass. I do think that’s part of the reason Harry has the Azoffs around. The can gleefully do the dirty jobs and he can keep himself out of it. I’d imagine the others have similar people on their teams; they’re just less famous.

I’m always reminded of the show, Entourage, when I think about the Azoffs. The agent character, Ari Gold, wasn’t a caricature—these people really exist. And many are way worse.

[filtheopathic]

dusa now that I have seen your credentials (makeup slayed in those pics) I feel I should ask if you have any sephora sale recommendations? I want to get more into makeup but it’s kind of overwhelming

i’m so flattered that my credentials have made the cut for this question bc i actually love to talk about makeup 🙂‍↕️

truthfully for as long as i’ve been wearing makeup (and i became an adult during the 2010s era full glam bake your concealer and do a whole cut crease just to go to the frat party…) i’ve only just recently gotten more into high-end makeup. my holy grails have always been drugstore!! so i don’t actually have that many recs BUT i do think all of these products are worth the money:

(disclaimers: my skin type leans dry and is not sensitive. i’m fair olive with neutral undertones so shade matches are notoriously difficult for me. i’m about to turn 30 so the way things settle into lines etc matters a lot to me. and i prioritize longevity and how well something looks after 8+ hours of wear)

haus labs foundation. i know you’ve probably seen this being said a million times but they’re all telling the truth. it became my holy grail like 2 years ago and has not been dethroned. it wears beautifully, it’s buildable, the shade match on me is PERFECT both in my winter and summer shades. i can wear it on lighter makeup days or build it to a full beat and it looks great either way. it’s the foundation i was wearing in those pics and it still looked flawless after 8 hours of partying. i’m telling you though i was so scared to invest in it bc i’ve always been a drugstore foundation girl (maybelline fit me 4ever) but the haus labs is worth your mf coin.

i also use the haus labs concealer and i do really like it so i’ll include it in this list, but i’m sure there are others that are more worth the money that i just haven’t tried yet. i’m currently on like a concealer hunt specifically bc my under eyes have become an area of concern so i’ve been trying a lot of high end concealers and so far this one has stuck with me, but i have a feeling i’m gonna find one i like more.

saie slip tint. now look, i have long standing beef with skin tints. i hate. HATE. when everyone is talking about how good a skin tint is and i buy it and it’s heavy like a fucking foundation. if i want medium+ coverage i will just wear foundation!!! if i wear a skin tint it’s bc i want it to be lightweight and just make my skin look nicer. but also!!! i don’t want it to be so lightweight or dewy that it disappears in 2 hours. anyways, the saie skin tint is the first one i’ve found that is perfect. lightweight and looks great, dewy but actually stays on my face, the shade match is good, it has spf and skin care benefits blah blah blah. it’s my daily wear for work. i already have it in my cart to restock during the sephora sale, i love it that much.

huda beauty powder. now look, remember when i said i’m from the 2010s makeup era? even so i neverrrrr tried the huda beauty powder until literally like a month ago. and i was dumb for that honestly. WELL. ok actually it’s just that i really didn’t need to think hard about my powders until now, since my skin is not as young as it once was 🙂‍↕️ anyways, it’s so worth the hype it’s not even funny. i always thought it would be too cakey or drying for my dry skin but i was soooo wrong. i use it on both light and heavy makeup days and it looks good regardless. huda is that girl, and she always has been i’m just late.

nars soft matte concealer. it’s THE spot concealer. if you’re covering blemishes and whatnot it’s just the best of the best. and one pot will last you like the next 5+ years dead ass, it’s worth the money.

and honestly that’s it!! there are other things from sephora that i love and i use often but if i’m being real, you could easily get away with the drugstore/affordable version of those products and be perfectly fine. so i won’t recommend spending your $$ on them, especially if you’re not a big makeup person to begin with.

i think where high end is really worth it is complexion products, like foundations and powders, especially if you’re ✨getting older✨ but for everything else you definitely don’t need sephora.

[coochiequeens]

This year's recipients are Vivian Salama, Margaret Brennan, Francesca Chambers, and Elisabeth Bumiller.

Written by Damare Baker and Kate Corliss | Photographed by Magdalena Papaioannou | Published on April 21, 2025

Print Journalism Vivian Salama Wall Street Journal

Vivian Salama’s two-decade career reporting on foreign policy and national security has taken her to more than 85 countries across five continents. Since relocating to Washington in 2016, she has unearthed major scoops for the Wall Street Journal, CNN, NBC News, and the Associated Press–from President Trump’s awkward first call with Mexico’s president in 2017 to his initial interest in buying Greenland. After a stint as a national-politics reporter, she’s returned to the White House beat to cover Trump’s second term.

Where she grew up: New York City suburbs.

How she got into journalism: “I was a biology major [at Rutgers University], but about halfway through, I took a communications class that leaned heavily into journalism. A light bulb went off and I realized this is exactly what I want to do. Then I did a series of internships at WNBC in New York, and I fell in love with broadcast journalism. Especially TV newsrooms and the cameras and the lights and the excitement and the action and the speed at which it happened.”

On her decision to attend law school: “I applied to [Georgetown’s evening program] in 2016. I never really intended to practice law. I just always believed that the disciplines of journalism and law are very similar in terms of the way you build a story or case. The writing styles are different, but the way you collect information to support your reporting is the same as gathering evidence to back up your case.”

How she’s navigated the transition between broadcast and print: “I have switched between broadcast and print my entire career, and it has shaped who I am as a journalist and how I view stories. As a print journalist, I consider myself very visual in the way that I want to tell stories and in the way that I ask for photos and videos to be paired with them. You can’t really specialize in one or the other, the way it was when I was getting into this business. Given the nature of the internet, melding print and broadcast together is just a daily occurrence.”

On managing the emotional challenges of covering war and political upheaval: “Like so many of my colleagues, I used to brush aside questions about my mental health and safety, because we really just wanted to get the stories. It’s very competitive, especially if you’re a freelancer. [At the Wall Street Journal] I have an entire news organization behind me, supporting me, helping to protect me, and giving me the logistical support that I need. In the early days of my career, I didn’t have that and we didn’t talk as much about mental health as we do now. You have to pace yourself and remember to take care of you along the way.”

Broadcast Journalism Margaret Brennan CBS News

For the past seven years on Face the Nation, Margaret Brennan has spent Sunday mornings moderating conversations with America’s most consequential political players. Brennan, who has been with CBS since 2012, has won an Emmy for her coverage of the 2018 Parkland, Florida, school shooting; done extensive global reporting as the network’s chief foreign-affairs correspondent; and moderated the 2024 vice-presidential debate. This year, she landed the first post-inauguration interview with Vice President JD Vance.

Where she grew up: Danbury, Connecticut.

Her first onscreen gig: “My first on-air pieces had to do with philanthropic giving—this segment that aired at 5 am on Fridays on a financial-news program on CNBC. I was probably terrible, but it was good experience to start doing things in front of the camera.”

Most challenging part of her job: “I think a fully informed electorate is essential to a well-functioning democracy, so it hurts my heart when I hear people say they turn off the news because they can’t stand it—because they’re taking themselves out of participating fully in our democracy.”

How she handles criticism: “You try to have a tough skin and realize that some of this is just a tactic and it’s not personal. But this moment is unique, and it’s not just like, ‘I’m gonna go do yoga and take deep breaths and I’m gonna get through.’ I think we need to talk about it more. I think we need to acknowledge that this is not the kind of environment, information-wise, where you want to raise children.”

Work she’s proudest of: “I feel it’s a great accomplishment, in the news environment we’re in, when you can get someone to really listen to what you’re trying to say and understand and empathize and, even if they don’t agree with the speaker, just understand where they’re coming from. I think we did a great job at the vice-presidential debate because we were able to have a civil, contextualized conversation around a really heated and ugly political moment.”

Best part of her job: “This is really a platform where we strive to be as informed and responsible as we possibly can in this environment. Because that is so needed in this moment, it is a great privilege. But it’s a hard job.”

Star to Watch Francesca Chambers USA Today

For more than a decade, Francesca Chambers has been reporting on the Oval Office and the race to occupy it. Since 2022, she’s been a White House correspondent at USA Today, where her work has focused on foreign policy, the 2024 election, and, lately, President Donald Trump’s transition. Before joining USA Today, Chambers covered the White House for McClatchy.

Where she grew up: Paola, Kansas.

What drew her to journalism: “When I was in middle school, I had a teacher who said that I was inquisitive and liked asking questions, and that maybe journalism was a career I should consider because I also liked to write. It really stuck with me.”

First journalism job: “Working as a web editor for the Washington Examiner, when it still had a newspaper printed every day. Now it’s a magazine, but it used to have a daily paper. There were a bunch of local newspapers, sadly, that don’t exist anymore in Washington.”

How she became a White House reporter: Daily­Mail.com “approached me when they were going to launch their DC-politics coverage. I was a young, hungry reporter who really, really wanted to cover the White House, but those jobs are so hard to get. So I asked them, ‘Is this something that you think would put me on that track?’ And because I was the first political reporter they were hiring, they essentially said, ‘You can cover whatever you want.’ ”

Most challenging part of covering the White House: “You have to be really agile. You have to be comfortable throwing out your entire plan for the day and focusing on breaking news, whatever that breaking news may be.”

How she stays sane: “I do yoga. Lots of yoga. I’m practicing every day right now.”

Work she’s proudest of: “My first trip abroad with a President was to Cuba with Barack Obama. This is my favorite part about the job: being able to be in the room where it happens, when the President is having conversations with world leaders that can change the trajectory of US history.”

Hall of Fame Elisabeth Bumiller New York Times

For almost a decade as the New York Times’ Washington bureau chief, Elisabeth Bumiller guided the paper’s coverage, much of it during the turbulent Trump and Biden presidencies, amid a global pandemic and widespread disinformation. Her nearly 30-year tenure at the paper has included stints as both a White House and Pentagon correspondent, and she recently returned to reporting as a writer-at-large focused on Trump’s second term. Before joining the Times, she reported for the Miami Herald and the Washington Post in locations ranging from DC to New Delhi.

Where she grew up: Born in Denmark but moved to Cincinnati at age three.

How she ended up in Washington: “I went to Columbia [University] for a year [after working at the Miami Herald]. As I was about to graduate, I got a note in my mailbox to call Sally Quinn. It turned out [the Washington Post was] looking for a party reporter, and they thought, ‘Let’s go find somebody young and ambitious and willing to do it, because nobody wanted to cover parties, really.’ My name was recommended because I had gone to the assistant dean to ask for money to throw a party at the beginning of the school year.”

Best journalism advice she ever received: “Reporting, reporting, reporting. It’s good to be able to write well, but reporting is what carries us. Never hesitate to make that last phone call, because the reporting is really what makes the stories.”

On covering the White House: “My first day as the New York Times White House correspondent was September 10, 2001, so I was not prepared for what happened on September 11, as none of us were. The White House beat is hard because you end up covering everything in Washington. Everything goes to the White House—national security, foreign policy, healthcare policy, congressional relations, the environment, economics, so it’s a huge beat to get your head around.”

Work she’s proudest of: “When I was on the Pentagon beat, I did a series of stories on 40 female Marines who were a part of a female engagement team. This is when it was an experiment the Marines were doing during the surge of American forces in Afghanistan. The idea was that these women would be able to go into villages where men couldn’t go and talk to women. I’d been covering policy in Washington about the war, but it was a privilege to be on the ground watching how this policy was being carried out.”

[kafus]

while we weren’t talking to anyone yesterday and we had no energy to do anything, i played so much ultra moon q-q

getting the mawile was fine but getting the 5IV extremespeed HA dragonite took… so long… even with the usage of kiki’s friend safari in X (thanks kiki)

i built these two to help me out with the battle royal dome since i needed ribbons from there (i’m doing the gen 7 part of kiki’s RMs for fun), and i did get them all yesterday, but in the process i found out that i’m loving the mega mawile and i’m more iffy on dragonite. i might need to bump up its speed EVs and give it thunderpunch - as it stands, mawile only does neutral damage into water types, and most of them have ice coverage which is bad for dragonite. being able to outspeed some of the bulkier water types and hit them with thunderpunch would make it a lot more consistent, i think. i am also considering expert belt over choice band but i’m not sure yet

oh yeah, and i had to wait a couple days for my dailies to come back because kiki changed our 3ds clock for that convention booth she ran a bit ago, but they finally came back and i instantly got lucky in the lottery

so that’s nice. i have a nice collection of bottle caps and pp ups going just from daily lotteries and stuff, instead of grinding them ever (i even have a 5 star general store in my festival plaza and i often buy the once-a-day PP up)

[transpondster]

“Who cares? It doesn’t matter anyway.” I’ve come to expect these words in my social media replies to my own work, and elsewhere in response to other journalists doing critical reporting on the abuses of the Trump regime.

And these aren’t just a few social media responses, they’re expressions of a much broader resignation I’m seeing on- and offline: That caring is somehow naive. That documenting the truth is pointless. That hope is for fools.

Let me be clear: It fucking matters. Truth matters. Documentation matters. Fighting corruption matters. That accountability seems out of reach right now doesn’t change that. When we internalize the belief that nothing can change, we stop demanding change. When we accept corruption as normal, we stop fighting it. When we dismiss documentation of wrongdoing as pointless, we give wrongdoers exactly what they want: permission to continue unchecked and with no record of their actions.

I understand the despair in these kinds of responses. We’ve all watched impeachments fail, courts falter, institutions buckle, and politicians repeatedly trade away democracy for their next campaign check. But giving up on the very idea that truth and morality matter is not just cynicism, it’s surrender.

Without a commitment to documenting truth, all that’s left is propaganda. And we’ve already seen this play out in what were once some of the most respected publications

_________

We all have a blog or newsletter we believe isn’t getting enough respect or traction or attention. For me, the #1 person who fits that definition is Molly White. She started out with a blog called “Web3 Is Going Great”, about all the scams and thefts and lies associated with crypto and blockchain and big tech, including daily in-court coverage of the Sam Bankman Fried trial (remember that?). She still covers that beat on her “Citation Needed” blog, but she’s also been writing extensively about the crypto grifting of the Trump family and White House staff. I’d recommend her newsletter to anyone.

[h-l-v-kennedy-blog]

mariage de convenance (V)

pairing: john f. kennedy x oc (dr. helena radcliffe) word count: 3,699 series synopsis: she’s a doctor, he’s a congressman. she needs money, he has it (his father’s). she’s a caretaker, he’s constantly ill. her name brings social capital, and next to his, it’s perfect. he’d have a politically well-timed marriage, and she’d have financial security. he’d live in washington and she’d stay in new york. both at their jobs. her as a diagnostician and him as a congressman. a marriage of convenience. clinical, without needless emotion or romance. correct? a/n: bad habits, a new addition and jack tries to cook dinner. tw: infidelity, pregnancy, etc.

Any good diagnostician would catch the first signs even in herself that something was off, but damn, it took her a month to seriously understand what was wrong. Helena had missed her period, twice now since November.

Now a month into 1953, she felt ill, especially in the mornings and her appetite was off. A quick consultation with a doctor at Mount Sinai during a momentary respite from solving medical cases, confirmed her thoughts. She doubted it was a good thing the firs thing she thought was: Oh, fuck.

It was too early, but goddammit…she was pregnant. She told Janet first. Her only truly loyal friend and closest thing she had to a sister. Janet, always one to look for the brightside, tried to give her pros, but saw quickly how to Helena this was a con. She knew she couldn't be a doctor while pregnant, knowing Mount Sinai's policies, she would be very politely asked to hand in her resignation. And her days as the hospital, at least as a doctor would be over.

A chapter of her life would come to a close, and she doubted how with a child, she could ever work her normal hours again. She had naively thought that she had a little more…time. That she and Jack weren't together that often, things would not slip past. But no.

She knew the pressure she was under daily would not do any good to the baby and she was sure her mother and Joe knew, that even as the ground work for her marriage to Jack was being laid, that her career was reaching its sunset. The cordial "If you can manage all these aspects, why should you stop".

Still, a housewife, she would not become. No. She'd find a way to fill her days different to that of a wife confined to the same four walls and a screaming baby while the husband goes past all respectable office hours.

To go about telling Jack the news, she decided to get it out of the way quickly. Sitting by the window, on a dark blue chez long in her bedroom, in the John Kennedys apartment on Park Avenue, New York. She held the powder blue handset to her ear, breathing softly into the microphone as she waited to be connected to, first Jack's secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, then to Jack's inner office phone. Her eyes watched the rain drops fall against the cool glass, cloud coverage heavy over the city in the winter of 1953. The room around her was decorated in shades of blue, not unlike the telephone in her hand. The phone crackled and Jack's voice was slightly breathless. She didn't wonder for too long "why?".

"Hello, Doc. Surprised to hear from you." She was surprised how easily humor came to him.

"I haven't said anything yet." Her tone slightly at a lower pitch, with a spec of melancholy.

He seemed to hear that little hitch in her voice, and his voice turned from casually humorous to a more approchable quality: "You usually don't call…that's new, Helena. You're normally at work around now."

She knew he was right, she was never the one to call or comment when he didn't.

"Yes…but I…I got off early." Morelike, packed my things up, after correctly assuming I would no longer be asked to come in. "I…I no longer work at Sinai."

"Wha-why?"

"My situation has changed. Hospital policy dictates, well, unofficially-"

"Your situation?" If she could see his face, she knew he would be looking at her with that slightly confused to look that reminded her of a puppy.

"Jack, I'm pregnant." Helena heard his breath catch. "So, you see why…I called."

Then she heard on the other end of the line. "Senator, I can't do my best if you're like this…so stiff…" Barely audible, but Jack's breathing was quiet enough and the…assistant's voice loud enough.

Helena rolled her eyes at the realization. By now, she'd seen it more often than not of her husband leaving her stranded at parties, charity balls and even at mutual friends dinner parties. She'd caught on quick enough, he wasn't slick or very good at hiding.

"I see that I've called at an inopportune time. I'll let you…gather yourself and we'll discuss the new developements over the weekend. The cocktail party for Inez Cob, dinner for Colonel Atkinson at the Statler, and the reception for the Honorable and Mrs. Farrington at the Congressional Club?" Her air had shifted to that very clinical, almost sounding like how she spoke with her patients. Closed off, direct, and cold. (she wasn't known around Mount Sinai for being a warm and pleasant doctor, but a quick and correct diagnostician)

"Hel-Helena, I…" It seems he knew he was caught. Was he trying to cover it up or catch her before she hung up?

Either way: "Tell, Miss Whatever-her-name-is, to speak in more dulcet tones or her voice will be heard in New York City. I'll see you Friday." With that setting the handset down on the switch hook. Her skin tingled with heat, so she leaned her forehead against the cool window pane. Eyes falling shut, listening to only the sounds of the world outside and the downpour. Breath in, and out.

Her left hand creaped up to rest on her stomach, knowing what was beyond the fabric of her clothes and inside her. There nothing much to feel yet, but the thought was enough. She would become a mother. She prayed to God, nothing like her own.

-Change of POV-

Jack Kennedy didn't embarass easily. Or so he'd led himself to believe. Now he doubted what he even knew anymore. That…that whole phone call and Miss Quinton, had been…deebly mortifing. He usually brushed of any and all such occurences. But now, he didn't know what to feel.

He was going to be a father. Him, Jack Kennedy, a man who's fatalistic life led him to believe he wouldn't live past 45, was now, well, more like in over half a year, becoming a father. 

And his wife had heard the voice of another woman over the phone just as she'd delivered the news to him. He heard the barely-open latch of a new room in their lifehouse, slam shut. That removed delivery, of reciting their scheduled joint appearences, took away any chance of him explaining away the voice of the woman kneeling at his feet, the fly of his trousers open, and her hand on him. It was intentional, he got that. To not let him even try to lie.

Suffice to say, Miss Quinton would be finding other employment elsewhere. She wasn't discreet.

He was going to be a father.

God, he didn't even have a chance to feel joy over the news. He remembered he didn't feel any hint of happiness in Helena's voice either as she told him.

"Aren't we a merry pair?" She had rhetorically said at their wedding reception, her tone in deadpann. 

Merry, indeed.

"Mrs. Lincoln, can you clear my schedule for the rest of the day? I'm going out."

He liked his daily schedules packed, but he needed to ruminate and reflect for more than just a few moments before an inevitable second wave of news would hit.

"Yes, Senator." Mrs. Lincoln answered, in a dutiful manner. Although Jack noted her slightly raised brow. His shoulders more hunched and his coat slung loosely over his wirethin frame. Scarf haphazardly covering the column of his neck.

He headed out, leaving behind the Senate Office Building.

- Back to Helena's POV-

—

It was late in the afternoon, when Helena arrived in a taxi on O Street, holding a suitcase while the driver took out the second. Fancy dress frocks took up more luggage space, and still it surprised her everytime, warranting the second suitcase. The gray stone steps up to the house weren't slipper like the street had been. Little bits of stone chips, sneaked into her boots.

Jack wasn't supposed to be home until late, ordinarily. Helena reached for the door handle when it opened and there was Jack, clad in blue cashemere sweater and grey trousers, out of his daily suit of choice.

Would she be unkind if she thought she didn't want to see him there, looking like he'd waited for her arrival. After their tumultous phone call, she wasn't exactly pleased to see him. But he took her suitcase out of her hand, and picked up the other one by her side.

With his back, she doubted these moves were doing him any favors. "I was fine with-"

"It's freezing, get inside." He stopped her. The quality of his voice faint, gentle even. "I can take these upstairs while you take your coat off."

Wrinkles formed between her brows, with one brow tilting upward at the soft command in his timbre, as he did head upstairs to their bedroom, though looking to be a bit unsteady on his trek.

She hung up her coat on the coatrack, removing her brown boots, sock clad feet touching the cool wood floor. Then a strange smell reached her nose. Burning.

So, going against her original plan of being a silent partner that evening. "Jack, is something burning?" Her head directed toward the staircase. She heard a string of curses as her husband came barrelling down the stairs toward the kitchen. Huh? Following him, arms behind her back.

And for the first time, to her recollection, she saw her husband attend to something inside the oven while another thing (she wasn't sure what this scene she was witnessing was about) was overboiling on the stove top. "Where's Adeline? Jack, what's goin-"

"Damn!" And deep grey smoke left the open oven door. Helena got closer to see something in a cake tin, looking like a pit of cole. Turning off the stove and opening a window while Jack, cursed again and Jack disposed of the burnt specimen. The room smelt as burnt as the thing in the tin looked.

The cool January wafted in, with a wintery breeze joining in. Helena leaned her elbows on the window sill as she observed the zone in the kitchen. Jack having the bin open, trying to remove the overroasted thing from the tin, the pot no longer over flowing, but remanants of it streaked the sides of the steel dish, a large salad bowl with half cut greens strewn in with a cutting board next to it. There was flour on some counters, and on the floor. Containers open and laid out acroos the moss green countertops. A recepie book on the small breakfast table in the not-so-large space.

"This looks like warzone." She made him chuckle. She didn't know how to feel about that. "I'll ask again, where's Adeline?"

"Home with her boys. I told her that I'd be…fine."

"You were trying to cook?" Her eyes widening, arms crossing over her stomach. Never had she thought he'd. "And it's been going swell."

"Don't mock." He smiled, fading quickly from his features. "I…I upset you."

"I didn't think you'd notice." Sharp like a razorblade, he looked cut by her words.

Helena knew by now he prided himself on his obersvational skills, it just in her opion lacked in the department of their strange and unusual marriage.

His eyes avoided hers, gaze drifting away to the messy stove and not his messy marriage, voice low. "I did." He looked to accept her. "I'm not…good with…this." Making up or talking about an issue, Helena finished the sentence in her head.

"And you're not good at cooking." She added.

He huffed, a flash of amusement crossing him. "Don't make me laugh when I'm being serious."

"But you're not." A pause. "I'm not either. At this." She gestured at the four foot long gap between them, in-earnest.

"We're good on camera, but away from the lense, we're out of focus."

It was her turn to huff out a laugh. "I get it, you're a writer. No need to wax poetic to me. Jack, face it, we're far from being a husband and wife, aside from signing the paperwork and sharing spaces and last names."

"And a child." His green eyes lingered on her middle.

She'd almost forgotten. "Yes, that, too. But we don't…behave like one." She almost used the word "act", which was reserved more to their public personas. "I have never given you a reason to behave…unlike yourself and neither have you."

"I would never want you to." He had abandoned the tin and crossed the kitchen floor to stand directly in front of her.

Her eyes were downcast. "We're atypical in a typical structure."

He reached for her, then pulled back. She felt the warmth radiating from his skin, and the cold as he stopped himself.

The unspeakable was put aside. Neither knew how to face that part of their relationship. So, something more immediate came to mind.

"I wanted to to do something new. Adeline left me a checklist and recepie. But looks like I'm not that good at following instructions." He spoke, still in gentle tones with a sincere smile. "I'm a politician, not a chief."

Tugging at her mouth was a smile, as she looked at him. "What was it meant to be?"

"I asked what your…your favorites were." He seemed to become shy, almost boyish, hand reaching up to scratch the back of his neck.

"You did? Why?"

"I…for you and the…the baby."

"Oh." An oddly sweet gesture, and new.

"But as we can see, we'll have to go without dinner, since this was obviously a fuck up." He sighed.

"Well, maybe we can salvage…something. Or just order a pizza?" She offered, moving past him to look under the lid of the pot on the stovetop. Just as she made her way there, Jack's fingers lightly grazed her side, like a subtle breeze. It was there and then it wasn't. Removing the lid, she found some very…um…cooked (?) vegetables, the only problem was that they seemed to be stuck to the bottom. She gently put the lid back on. "Okay. I'll go make a call. I'm sure some place is still open."

She felt Jack's gaze burn on her skin and she met his eyes. His mouth opened. "Thank you."

She shrugged her shoulders. "I'm eating for two, I can't miss dinner."

In a casual setting in their living room, the John Kennedys had dinner. With tissue paper around the slices of pizza as to not stain any furniture or the rug. Somethings were ignored and others celebrated.

"Jack?" Helena wiped her mouth with a tissue.

"Yes, Doc?" Jack swallowed a bite of his slice.

"There's no use in me living in New York anymore, since I won't work there…"

"Mhm."

"So, I think it's logical that I move here. It is our house. And for the baby."

Jack nodded again, sensing there was "but".

"But I won't stay at home forever, become traditional wife with an apron and up to her sleeves in flour with three children running around. I still need to do my own thing. I haven't figured it out yet…but that I know."

"I wouldn't have it any other way."

She shouldn't have been surprised at his answer. He had never been the one to deny her anything, it was more his father and her mother. He wasn't like either of them. She supposed, she should've known that by now.

–

Helena picked up a shift in Jack ever since she packed up the apartment in New York and arrived in Georgetown. He hovered around her at first. A month would go by, the longest stretch either had spent together in one shared space. Then two.

A social functions, he would keep an eye on her. Even going so far as to hold her by her waist or her hand sometimes.

However, as much as things change, as much stays the same. He would still stray away on occasion with a pretty woman, leaving her behind. It wasn't all too often. But enough, for her to notice.

They didn't talk about it, Helena for the reason she didn't want to sound like nag and like one of those insecure wives, when she was neither and their marriage hadn't stemmed from love. So, she couldn't act jealous or behave in at all in that manner, so she believed. She didn't blame herself for these discrepancies, but the callous and obvious manner, ticked her off, a smidge.

–

"Helly. Hey!" Bobby's reedy voice nearly made Helena jump out of her skin. Standing on the porch of the big house, looking out onto the lawn, she hadn't heard Bobby coming up to her. A sheen of sweat coating his skin - fresh from playing touchfootball with Ethel, Jack, Eunice and Sarge (Eunice's fiancee).

It was a warm May day, Helena having less than two months to go before the baby was due. Her clothes no longer fit her, and wearing a loose dress was what she wore most in the sweltering months of late spring and early summer.

"What, Bobby?" Turning her head to look at him.

"You looked to be off in another world. You shouldn't be standing out in the sun so much. You might get heat stroke." Bobby also acted differently ever since Jack and her announced her pregnancy. Bobby was always attentive toward her, but especially now, in her more delicate state.

"Bobby, I'm fine. I can't stay sheltered away in the house. I need vitamin D." She smiled, good-naturedly.

"Bob, come on, let's go play a round of tennis!" The ever cheerful Ethel called out to her husband a few feet from the porch. Eunice and Sarge had decided to go sailing, and Jack had gone inside to lie down (having again, fallen on his back and not hiding his pain). "Helena's a doctor, she knows what to do."

"See, Bobby, listen to that wife of yours." Helena gestured to the fellow blonde, whilst Bobby chuckled.

"It's just…" His voice could really be meager and small. That was an endearing quality of his.

Helena put her hands up in surrender: "I'm all right. But if I go back inside, will that set your heart at ease?"

He nodded, forelock of hair falling over his forehead, he pushed it back. "Thank you." Speaking to Ethel. "I'm coming, Ethel." And going after his wife.

Leaving Helena on her own on the porch. The air was cool and the sun hot. The sounds of waves and birds was soothing. She liked basking in the sun for a bit. The child inside her, kicked her softly, reminding her of what she had promised to Bobby. "I know, hon." She whispered, hand resting on her bump under the baby blue cotton of her dress. "I'm going inside."

Windows open in their bedroom, Jack lay on the bed looking up at the ceiling, his head going up way to quickly as Helena came in. Uttering a soft, almost in audible "ow" with his hand going to his neck.

"Hi." Her voice was gentle as she closed the door after her.

"Hi." He returned the greeting. "Bobby sequester you indoors, again?"

"Yes. He did." She said. "Mind if I join you?" She gestured to the bed.

"Knock yourself out, Doc."

Taking off her sandals and slowly laying on her back, head on a fluffy silken pillow. Closing her eyes, feeling everything around her, with every sense. A warm hand touched her middle, slowly drawing patterns over her bump. Peeking open her eyes, she saw how Jack had lightly turned his body to his side and was looking at her with a look of wonder, childlike even.

"Crazy that a person is growing inside you."

She chuckled. "Yeah, a bit."

The baby kicked where his fingers had been. His eyes would widen every time it had occured. This point must've been a high point in there marriage of times he'd willingly been touching her, affectionate with her, if that was possible in their relationship. She had thought the chances of them becoming close very slim.

"Does it hurt?" His palm against her, as the baby kicks against his open hand.

"Not too much, it's more just…oh I don't know how to explain it…but she's strong."

"She? How do you know that?" He raised an eyebrow.

"I have a feeling." She stated.

"So no medical explantion, doctor?"

"Nope, just a feeling."

His grin was brighter than a lightbulb. He'd never looked at her like that, for that long. Saying…"I know you" with those green eyes of his. The unreadable still curled between colorful flicks in his eyes, a puzzle still not solved.

–

On June 24th, precisely 10 days before her scheduled arrival, Esther Beatrice Radcliffe Kennedy, made her entrance into the world. Painfully and ardously for her mother, but quickly enough, her cries would fill the room.

It was clear love at first sight with Jack and Esther. Helena had shut her eyes to rest after the birth, only to hear her daughter's cries and then the soft-spoken tone of her husband saying "Shh, your mother is sleeping" and the babe silenced instantly.

Strange that in a matter of hours, Jack and her had become responsible for a whole human being, small and fragile, and theirs. Jack had taken to sitting with Esther as much as he could, holding her like she was the most precious thing (he'd at first been worried he'd drop her, but a midwife showed him the proper way to hold her and then it became all he wanted to do). Pride shone from him like rays of sunlight.

He sat on Helena's bed with Esther in his arms as the couple took to admiring this little bundle, innocent to the world, sweet and untarnished. Jack couldn't take his eyes off his daughter. Helena couldn't take her eyes off Jack. He didn't catch her staring. She didn't mind, knowing what was blooming inside her would need to stay there, tucked away.

It wasn't the time or place. Love…

(the end for now...)

[dropletsofmuses]

Sometime down a timeline where Onpu became a Necroma…

It’s been a few days since Onpu’s willing… transformation into a Necroma. Needless to say, it’s really hit the girls hard. Her body being found after Momoko destroyed the Necroma felt pretty lucky, but now that the media has classified her as being dead, some of the paparazzi for her has moved towards the girls in hopes of getting some more coverage on why this all happened.

Momoko, being the only one to bear full witness to her transformation, seemed to have taken this the hardest. She thought she would’ve fully ran out of tears to shed after having broken down into a mess right in the labyrinth but even as the days went by, more tears always seemed to find their way into jumping out of her eyes.

She felt like she practically regressed to how she was back during her first school day, shy and hardly talkative… except on another level. It wasn’t just a case of school stage fright this time, this now extended to a bunch of her daily life. She’s holed herself up in her room for the past few days, not coming to school and barely even wishing to step outside and when she has to, she’s very quiet around people. She hasn’t gone to Maho-Dou in a good bit.

She’s practically let her thoughts take control of the wheel. When she wasn’t talking to her mom, she was confiding in both her dreams and her daydreams with the Majo Monroe in her head, trying to take herself away from the harrowing events that kept playing in her mind… and yet they’d always find some way to come back in her head and make her feel miserable, telling her things she could’ve or should’ve done to try and save the fallen Onpu.

Today, after a dream she had where she conversed with the Majo Monroe in her head, she convinced herself into thinking she was fine enough to go back to school. In fact, she promised herself that she would to her.

She woke up very early from the dream too, the Sun had only just come up an hour ago and she had already went out the door and was coming up on the road to the school. She was dead-set on seeing everyone again.

She looked up at the school in the distance, her legs moving closer and closer to the school…

…Yet… she felt her stomach turn just trying to get any closer to the school than just seeing it from a distance. Being put in a setting where she might have to talk to more people than just her closest friends so soon… the sorrowful eyes that are going to stare at her and Doremi… the likelihood of being unable to pay much attention to the lessons…

She felt like there was a chance that she was going to break down at her own table… She’d look so incredibly pitiful…

…She felt like she was going to vomit… she’s becoming quite like Kayoko, how ironic…

She… she couldn’t stay here… She looked stupid just standing here anyway.

The road very slowly began to trickle with students making their way to the school, one or two coming over many minutes apart from each other. At least one of them was an actual classmate of hers.

She decided to take this chance… to just walk away. No, she’s not going to walk back home. She just needs to walk… somewhere… anywhere… away from here…

She was breaking her own promise doing this, but right now, anything was better than this sickly feeling she had right now.

…She’ll make a new promise at least… she’s absolutely making sure that she goes to the Maho-Dou when school’s over.