#Vendor Self-service

[kabeerconsulting-blog]

Vendor Self Service Portal - SAP Business One

[d-dantes]

⛏ ─── • 𝐇𝐮𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫 𝐏𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐬

Pairing: Gyuutaro Shabana x F!reader 

Warnings: Modern au, mostly gyuutaro pov, self-depricating thoughts (gyuutaro), use of petnames (baby, pretty thing, pretty girl), 'brat' mention, male masturbation (non descript), mild dry humping, fingering, oral (m+f receiving), messy blowjob / face / throat fucking, panty stealing, praise, mention of breeding, biting, idk lotta plot with some porn

Wordcount: 16.6k

Notes: Please don’t look too hard this is just a giant self-indulgent love letter to this man. Not thoroughly beta read, be gentle 🥹

He hates this job, he really does. The flood of faces day in and day out, the monotony of the same insipid meaningless pleasantries exchanged against his will lest his plucky little barely twenty one year old party animal manager tries to scold him for being ‘unfriendly’. It’s infuriating, to say the least, and he simply isn’t paid enough for it despite the obscene amount of hours he takes up because his boss (that never even sets foot into the independently owned store) refuses to hire anyone extra. 

Gyuutaro barely makes rent either, he’s thankful his roommate covers it without complaint when he can’t even though he hardly ever expresses any gratitude for it; he’s hardly ever home with how much shit he has to take care of. At this point the apartment was just proof of address because good luck getting a job when you’re homeless; he should know. 

Plus, why should he thank the striped asshole anyway? The room dedicated to him was only a fulfilled favor from the man’s brattle girlfriend and self-proclaimed sister of sorts but Gyuutaro didn’t refute the statement either. Hakuji wasn’t exactly a welcoming man but he’d do anything for his little ‘princess’ so his headache is Gyuutaro’s gain, for what it was worth anyway. 

He’d probably save more money if he didn’t send nearly every dime he had to his biological sister to ensure she never went without. A weekly ritual of scraping together what he can to give Ume as an allowance for whatever she so desired, things her scholarship doesn’t cover because he’ll be damned if his pride and joy would ever go without.

Even if that meant pinching pennies and skipping meals often to do so. It’s worth it to him, knowing she’ll be able to pursue her dream in clothing design and not have to take up a part time job to split her attention between. It’d be such a shame for her flawless face to bear the same dark circles that decorate his under eyes.

Thoughts like those are what get him through the doubles he pulls and minimal days off without killing anyone. Though, Gyuutaro swears he’ll hear the shrill ringing of cooler alarms along with the wretched chime of the convenience store doors opening and closing constantly in his sleep. He’ll probably hear it long after he quits, if he ever does. 

Maybe the job wouldn’t be so bad if he didn’t have to perform so much customer service; chatty elderly, rude and entitled soccer moms with their unruly little brats at six in the morning, burnouts that think they’re slick when they’re asking for cash back the second they walk inside and buy ninety-nine cent rolling paper. He hates it all, hates never being able to reach his boss and being expected to make judgement calls that are well above his pay grade like he gives more than a singular shit. Vendors and sales representatives coming and going with information on ads that he forgets the second they leave. 

All but one; one rep that comes in never dressed in any uniform the company surely provides. 

You always come in dressed casually where nobody would think you were working unless they’d seen you regularly. Black jeans because you “hate the work pants” with a plain black tee and a snapback hat that has your company’s logo embroidered professionally on the front with your hair pulled through the hole in the back while the fringe too short for the ponytail hangs from the sides, framing your face that you try and hide. You shake it up sometimes by wearing a company-provided jacket but only when it’s cold out or wearing your hair down entirely so it forces your hair to frame your face a little more than usual but he definitely prefers it like that. You always come in with a smile too, a sort of cheery that Gyuutaro would usually sneer at and waving to him behind the counter while making a beeline to the storeroom, grabbing a clipboard to sign in as proof that you even showed up in the first place even though he tells you often it didn’t matter. Gyuutaro was the only one ever here and if the teenager worked she’d call him a million times for questions she could figure out for herself but you flash him a playful little smile and tell him, “me signing in give her one less reason to call you on your day off.”

It didn’t though, the airhead would ask him where the sheet was despite it never moving from the same spot it’s always been in but he keeps that to himself.

You’re nice, that’s what he would say about you and probably the first and only kind word he’d used for anyone besides his sister for the first time in his entire life.

And it’s an objective truth, you’re incredibly friendly in a professional sense, he guessed anyway. Overly considerate as well. You asked about his day each time you spoke to one another but not in the obligatory way of menial conversation. You’re probably the only rep he even bothered to remember the name of, you’re the only one he’s ever taken the time to say more than two words to. Pretty too, objectively speaking of course, nice to look at so maybe that’s why he didn’t mind interacting with you more than the average person he was forced to deal with.

That’s the reasoning he gives himself anyway as Gyuutaro takes a second to look around the parking lot from the window, seeing if anyone else would come in before hopping over the counter and wandering over to the store room. It’s just to help you with whatever you’re doing, he’ll just see if you have any questions about inventory and then get back around to count the cigarettes or something; nothing more, nothing less.

You’re tapping something into your phone whenever he rounds the corner to the backroom, leaning against the doorframe with his hands shoved into the pouch at the front of his hoodie, the weight of them dragging the baggy material downward and giving him more space around his throat before clearing it ‘innocuously’’ to let you know he was there, sparing you from a fright. You look up for a second, face scrunched into a concentrated scowl that quickly melts into your usual soft look as you flash him a quick smile then get back to whatever you were doing on your phone. 

“Yer kinda early today, huh?” kicking off from his perch as he ventures further into the room as you glance over all the inventory. 

You’re scowling again whenever he gets closer, a short silence falling between you before you turn to him; nodding after heaving a bereft sigh after tucking your phone into your back pocket, “Yeah, reset guy called out so I’ve gotta do it instead because corporates breathing down our necks about the completion rate being so low. Boss told me he’ll cover anything else I have today but hey, I’ll get to bother you for a while.” 

He can’t help but chuckle at the way you stick your tongue out at him as if you lingering for an extended amount of time could ever be a bad thing, continuing to babble about what you’ll have to do and what’s happening with all the products in the store. It sounds like a lot, obviously it is since your schedule was essentially cleared for it. 

“You gonna’ need any help?” The question falls from his lips reflexively, surprising himself because he was never one to offer assistance to anyone, much more likely to make their lives harder and enjoy their suffering in the meantime.

The chime to the store's entrance doors rings when you open your mouth to answer, closing it quickly as you wave him goodbye with an apologetic smile as Gyuutaro rolls his eyes with a snarl to his lips. Pulling one hand from his front pocket and putting two fingers together at his temple paired with an exaggerated but muted explosion sound as he backs away from you to tend to the customer but he earns a cute, tinkling giggle from you over the semantics. He leaves you to your work while he helps the customer with whatever it is he’s needed to do. Put x amount on pump whatever, buying a ridiculous amount of junk food, vape stuff; whatever it is he’s not really paying attention while they’re talking to him and he pushes buttons on the register as that melodic sound plays on repeat in his head until you emerge from the back, his eyes on you instantly. 

It’s obvious he’s staring at you, too, watching while you walk back and forth from the storeroom and between the aisles and displays of different products. Pushing standees around as kicking stacks to certain spots and bending over every so often to rotate perishable stock with a few choice words over the delivery drivers performances but it drains out quickly as Gyuutaro drinks you in. 

And your shirt that usually drapes down to your ass rides up to reveal just a peek of lacy panties, making a pervert out of Gyuutaro quickly. Warming his chest with wandering thoughts that stray too far and end up carrying the heat in his veins until he has to shed the oversized hoodie. 

Customers come in sporadically after that, keeping him tied to the register as he yells responses across the way to you the few times you poked your head around to ask him something. It’s about three hours whenever he’s finally able to actually move away from the counter and meet you in the storeroom where you’re tidying up, bent over yet again and his eyes instantly drag downward to enjoy the view but you sense his presence quickly enough. 

Standing up just as quickly as crystalline hues flit to meet your gaze, saliva gathering on his tongue with the way you greet him so warmly like he weren’t just ogling you for the umpteenth time today.

“Hey!” chirped as you toed at the neat stack you were tending to when he’d appeared, “I’m just about done, I’m sending back all this junk in these boxes.” You could’ve told him the sky was green and he wouldn’t have questioned you, let alone the shit to do with this building he prays burns down. You’re typing away at your phone again at a system he never bothered to learn after explaining all the changes he may actually retain simply because it was you who said it. 

Gyuutaro rubs at the back of his neck while you finish your professional spiel, biting at the skin on the inside of his cheek, “sorry I didn’t get t’help ya any, shit timing I guess,” but you smile at him nonetheless, waving your hand and dismissing his apology. 

“It’s not a big deal at all, promise. You looked like you were ready to jump over the counter and throttle someone anyway,” he likes the way you giggle at your own comment, how it lights up your whole face and makes him need to swallow a little more. Thinks it’s cute, thinks you’re cute and he’s actually pretty annoyed he didn’t get to speak to you more the one day you’re at his store longer than an hour. Scowl marring his perfectly imperfect features as he slouches and scoffs as he recalls the faceless nobodies that kept him away from you.

“Everyone’s pretty fuckin’ annoyin, like they don’t have a shred of sense. We were busier than normal today too, should’ve just traded you jobs for the day,” to which you only gave him a sympathetic pat to his forearm in response. 

It makes him feel warm, a comfortable heat in his chest, with how you always laugh at whatever he says or are just so genuinely enthused to speak to him and that you feel inclined to be near him or touch him. He scratches at the slope of his throat in a subconscious bid to fight the unfamiliar feeling you evoke, flicking the scythe earring that dangles from the tunnel in his stretched lobes while he thinks of what else to say; never one to actually desire for conversation to carry on.

“Uh, so, you gotta order more overpriced shit or?” Was all he could come up with, his cheeks heating rapidly when you look up from the small handheld clutched in your hands and nod before returning to whatever it is you do. Thankful for the dark marks he’s had since birth that spreads from his right cheek to just below the center of his left eye for once in his life as it disguises the blush that probably tints his pale skin. Sighing as he gives up on finding something to say and leaning against the doorframe again while peeking over your shoulder as you add and subtract god knows what to the store owners bill. Jarring him from his stupor when you shift from one foot to the other on your feet before you exhale heavily.

“Alrighty, ’m all done here now, you got much longer today?“ 

He groans long and low before he nods, scowl deepening  and scratching noisily along his sharp jawline, “yeah, Imma be here pretty late, gotta’ work a twelve today because my boss is a dick and the brat he made manager has an important college party she can’t miss. Ya can only tell me yer dyin to have a train ran on ya in so many ways.” 

That makes you frown, genuinely disheartened for a reason Gyuutaro can’t really understand yet, eyebrows scrunching as you chew at your plush lower lip for a second. The next moment you’re whipping your phone out of your back pocket and clicking several different apps before you turn it towards him and he sees the add contact screen, “Put your number in, I get off after I head back to our office to clock out and wouldn’t mind coming by to help.” 

“To bother me, you mean?” quipped in jest as he takes your device with a raised eyebrow and crooked smile that makes you squirm minutely under his gaze, tapping in his contact information and sending himself a text with a playful little middle finger and scythe emoji in it to save yours before handing it back to you. You laugh at the text, rolling your eyes with a nod while tucking your phone away and moving toward the door with Gyuutaro hot on your heels, “Bothering you is an obvious given, you should know that.” 

Playfully shooing you out the door in mock annoyance in response, hanging in the doorway as he sees you out to your car and for once the blaring chime doesn’t annoy him as it screeches in his ears.

The days don’t drag on like they used to after that, probably due to the fact that he spends all day on his phone now texting you. He’s in a better mood too, smiling more (at his screen but smiling nonetheless) because the conversation doesn’t feel forced or stagnant and you’re always engaging in one way or another and if you can’t think of anything to say you you send a meme or a picture of another location that you’re at for the day. 

‘You’d never do this’, your text bubble highlights, which makes him roll his eyes, tapping at his screen in between mindless tasks he can’t focus on. 

‘Probably would if it made you have to be here awhile longer,’ Gyuutaro smirks while he types it, lopsided grin splitting his face as he wonders if you’ll fluster over it or at the very least read it in his tone. He’s gotten a little more bold with you in the weeks you’ve been texting; mostly not so subtle hints of his attraction, telling you you’re cute for simple things and complimenting you in ways that couldn’t be considered platonic. You’re animated in the ways you respond too, displaying how what he says makes you feel with caps lock and unintelligible key smashes and Gyuutaro takes it as a good sign. The awkwardness of flirting with you had long since gone away because of it and he's learned you’re the incredibly nurturing type.

Displaying it overtly and subtly all at once with questions like, ‘Did you sleep alright? Have you eaten today? I’ll be in the area today do you want me to pick up lunch? Have a good day!

The more receptive you are to him the more he does it, always toeing the line of borderline sexting without plunging into it just yet.  

For now he’ll just enjoy the mutually casual flirting, he thinks it’s flirting anyway, that’s what his roommate's stray of a girlfriend (and his bonus sister, he guesses) says when she snatches his phone from his hands or reads the screen from over his shoulder. Taunting teasingly ‘serial killers got a girlfriend’ before they end up rough housing as he wrestles for his phone back until her man came to separate them and toss her over his shoulder.

Gyuutaro couldn’t say he was opposed to the notion, however, you’d creeped your way into his personal life instead of lingering at the doorway of his professional life only. You both text one another as often as you can, but he feels the times where he has to wait, keenly aware of every agonizing minute as he drums his fingers along the counter and clicks through apps on his phone; he even hears a phantom chirp of your text notification every so often and cringes at himself if he dwells on that feeling of desperation too long. 

Lets his mind wander in fleeting distraction when there aren’t customers to busy himself with. Gyuutaro thinks of how his roommate has made fun of him for checking his phone so often just yesterday, recalling the scene vividly in his mind's eye. 

Hakuji watching the lanky man waking his screen or unlocking and locking it back more times than he can count. His legs growing restless as he did so, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he lounges in the living room of their apartment. 

Pots and pans clatter as the bulkier of the two searched for the correct cookware as he commented from the kitchen, “y’know Shabana, it's pretty refreshing seein you this hung up on someone that isn’t your sister.” 

The heavily tattooed man doesn’t realize the connotations of his phrasing, or maybe he does, Gyuutaro could never tell when Hakuji tried his hand at banter. The response was the same regardless “fuck off, stripes.” 

His roommate puts his hands up in front of his torso in mock surrender, “just saying, seems like yer really into her, princess said the girl sounds into you and could be a good thing going.”

Gyuutaro didn’t respond further, simply sneered before retreating to his sparsely decorated room with his brows furrowed in thought over how the both of you interact and if the chemistry was really that palpable that people on the outside looking in could notice it too. 

Returning to that line of consideration now as he waits, ruminating on it and if there were different attempts Gyuutaro should make but it’s abandoned quickly when an eagerly anticipated response wakes his screen and your name graces the notification bar on display.

‘Miss me?’ He reads it in your voice, a sweet sound that rattles around in his head more than he’d willingly admit to anyone aloud. Lips curling up around jagged teeth as he goes to tap out a reply before the door swings open dramatically enough that it agitates Gyuutaro. Growl rumbling from his chest only to die in his throat when he sees you standing with a beaming smile before you hold up a plastic bag with two containers of takeout while you laugh at him. 

“Gotcha!” Exclaimed between your erupting giggle fit as you place the food on the chipping countertop as you make your way around the counter to him, “you should’ve seen your face you were about to lose your shit.”

The snarl he wears is significantly less menacing and off putting than any other that he’s adorned but only because it’s directed at you, “didn’ tell me you were stopping by pretty thing, didn’t even get time to make myself look all nice.”

You scoff as you lift yourself onto the adjacent counter facing the window, your back to it after you’ve laid out your respective meals, “always look nice, now eat, I know you haven’t since I came by yesterday.”

Gyuutaro doesn’t miss how you quickly slip in the compliment but you give him no time to refute it, chuckling himself as he shakes his head while grabbing his plate of food and the utensils that came with it. An upwards quirk lingers on his lips even as he takes a bite and lets his lids slip shut to savor the moment rather than the food itself, a pleasant heat pulsing softly behind his sternum as he realizes you’ve been subtly learning about him too. That you’re at least well versed enough to know how quickly he’d refute your genuine response to his sarcastic jab at himself. 

Instead he lets you have this win, enjoys the fact that you genuinely find him appealing instead of the nagging urge to mock you for it before you could mock him because there simply isn't a singular instance where that would transpire. You were too good for that, too good for him he knows but Gyuutaro is a selfish man that takes what he wants and unfortunately (but oh so fortunately despite how unaware of the fact he was) for you, you and your affection was what he had his sights on. 

‘I’m on vacation starting tomorrow,’ you break the rare silence that had blanketed the space after swallowing your own bite of food. Gyuutaro pulled from his musings with a confused sound muffled by his mouthful as he urges you to continue, “I’m not doing anything special. Staying home all week.” 

You want to squirm over his expression, still clueless with a thin brow quirked high on his forehead hidden behind long fringe that hangs in his face. Waiting a moment in case he just needed the time to process what you were saying but once he continues to miss the point you finally sigh and ask him outright, “Do you want to hang out with me sometime during the week?“

Only for an impish grin to spread on his devilishly handsome face that makes your throat, ears and cheeks burn with heat, “thought ya’d never ask. Just lemme know when ya want me.”

Illıllııllıllııllıllııllıllııllıllı

You’re relatively busy the rest of the week after you inform him of your time off, tying up loose ends so you don’t run the risk of being contacted during your vacation and leaving notes for whoever will be filling in for you. Too dutiful in Gyuutaro’s opinion considering all the times you’ve ranted to him about your coworkers screwing you over as he thumbs away frustrated tears when you’ve reached your breaking point over the added workload. Always telling him that it’s easier for you in the long run if you just take care of things ahead of time but you ignore him when he reminds you of how you pick up everyone else’s slack but they don’t allow you the opportunity to do the same. 

It doesn’t sit right on his tongue and weighs heavy in the pit of his stomach but he lets it go when you ask him to; offering him placating words as if he were the one that felt overwhelmed. 

So he just opts to make you laugh because apparently Gyuutaro’s ‘so good at cheering me up’ and he ‘always knows just how to put a smile on my face’.

But your relief come the end of the week is palpable even without the several texts to him in all caps about how you’d completed all your tasks and written out all your emails for the ‘team’ so you’re ‘home free.’ You’re so ridiculously cute Gyuutaro can’t even stand it, embarrassed about how his heart skips a beat when you ask him his schedule and if he’ll want to come by this Sunday before he could even respond to your joy. He takes a moment to calm himself, exhaling slowly as you coordinate a short back and forth and commit to a plan.

Excitement making his stomach twist with a different sort of hunger than he’s ever suffered from before. Fuck, was he in love with you?

He wished he’d never asked himself that question, at least not before he was going to spend time with you outside of work. The first time he comes over is somewhat awkward, being alone with you in private, nevermind the fact that it’s in the sanctity of your home at that, surely would’ve been. 

The space is tidy, he notes, like you like to keep things neat and orderly the same way you do at work and he honestly isn’t surprised; demonstrating his assumption by holding out your hand for his keys as you toss them into the little bowl on the entryway table that houses your own set. Busying yourself as you move around the space before disappearing into the kitchen that wafts the smell of dinner throughout your home and makes him salivate.

“Dinner’s almost ready,” you call from the other room but Gyuutaro only coo’s a cool ‘kay’ as he seizes the opportunity to explore his surroundings as he meanders to your modest dining room table that doesn’t look like it can seat more than two people at any given moment.

There are only a few scattered pictures on the wall, family he presumes, mostly you and who he guesses is your mother as well as a few that are of people that bear no resemblance to you at all that Gyuutaro gathers must be your friends. Closest to the archway that leads into your kitchen is a singular ornately designed analog clock and some painted canvas’ on the opposite side that lead down the extended hallway that make him smirk to himself, a little pleased to learn on his own that you like to paint and you aren’t half bad at it either. 

Your home is dimly lit as well, curtains drawn for privacy and it blocks out a significant amount of natural light but it's rectified with lamps that cast a softer yellowish glow to illuminate the area. Overall you decorate pretty simply, modestly, keeping mostly essentials with the occasional knick-knacks placed sporadically so the space doesn’t feel so empty or bland. 

Pulled from his reverie when he catches sight of you preparing the plates for both of you, snarling his lip because like fucking hell you were going to do more than you needed to especially on your vacation, especially over something like this.

Broad palm and lithe digits with knobby knuckles take the ladle from your hands with ease, sucking his teeth at you when you go to protest with a cute whine but he stands firm. Taking your dish and holding it higher so you couldn’t try and snatch it from his hands as he spoons the steaming food onto the ceramic. You relent easily enough though, but not without any complaint as your shoulders slumping animatedly in exaggeration as you let him finish up making both plates instead, “I could’ve done it ‘taro.”

“Ya cooked,” short and to the point as he hands you your food, jerking his head backwards because if he acknowledges the cute nickname for him he doubts he could contain he already barely concealed desire for you, “I’ll serve it. How it works.”

Nevermind he’s never served another soul in his life that wasn’t blood related to him. What had you done to him? Will you keep doing it?

He hopes so as you retreat from him, exhaling slowly to calm himself before he follows you into the next room to find you already comfortably sat at your table; waiting for him to join you before you start eating. Something Gyuutaro never let Ume do while they were growing up, always wanting to make sure she’d had her fill before he’d even consider eating.

But food was plenty when it came to you, he knows how to pick his battles as well, Gyuutaro didn’t think he could get away with strong arming you with something simple like this again. Sliding into the cushioned seat next to you as he digs his spoon into the hearty stew after only a moment's pause. Puffing out a disbelieved chuckle when you make no move to start eating yourself as you stare expectantly at him. 

He rolls his eyes but take a decent spoonful and shovels the meat and potatoes into his mouth without even blowing on it to cool it off with little reaction besides a hum of satisfaction. Pointing the dirtied utensil at you when he swallows and lets the taste warm his belly, “s’great, now eat lil brat.”

The deliverance was a little curt but not insultingly so as you beam at him, rolling your lower lip between your teeth as you nod before finally tucking into your own plate with a playfully flippant, “was gonna, just needed to let it cool down.”

You do love your technicalities, Gyuutaro’s learned, “lucky yer cute, liars never are.”

Nudging at you with his elbow before the meal continues in amicable silence, interrupted with light conversation and Gyuutaro getting up to make himself a second bowl halfway through while you sit with him as he polished that one off as well.

This was probably the longest either of you had taken to eat any meal before, Gyuutaro never one to eat very often which was apparently in the way his skin clung to the bonier areas of his body; you because you bite off more than you could chew in other areas of your life and used the excuse of ‘never having the time to stop and eat.’

But this meal was enjoyable, one you both wanted to savor that didn't pertain to the food at all. Lingering at the table as you both idly chat a little bit more than you would when you see him at work or over text. You’d known about his sister of course but it’s more enjoyable getting to watch him talk at length about her more, have him detail to you about her personality quirks and cherished memories from their childhood that you’re sure she would be utterly mortified to know that he’d regaled them someone she hadn’t even met yet.

He was more like a proud dad than a loving older brother but you admire that about him, adored it rather. There weren’t many men like Gyuutaro that would accept that sort of responsibility over their sibling at such a young age, it shows you how good of a father he’d be one day before you nip that train of thought in the bud. 

You hadn’t even met the most important person in his life yet, nevermind that you weren’t even dating or discussing the prospect of it, what did you think you were doing with mental images of him cradling a precious little swaddle of a newborn that looks like a healthy mix of you and–

“Ya feelin alright?” his voice has you careening back to the present from a future you imagine a little more than you should, looking somewhat stupified then shocking at the cool feel of the back of his palm on your heated cheek, “feel warm.”

Your fingers wrap around his wrist thoughtfully before pulling it away gently, patting it assuringly only to chirp out tightly, ““m great! Soups n’stews just warm me up a little too much.”

You’re aware that that sounds less than convincing but you breathe a sigh of relief when he shrugs his shoulders with a smirk before figuring now was as good a time as any to start clearing the table. It makes you frown though, reaching for him quickly and grasping onto his baggy shirt, “you don’t have to do that, I’ll get it.”

Gyuutaro casts a glance over his shoulder to scold you lightly over this as well but his words die in his throat when he sees your crestfallen expression. His cleaning up feels like their time together was already coming to an end and you’d be lying if you said that wasn't more than disappointing. 

So he stops, stands less slouched than normal as he turns to you and lets his index finger hook beneath your chin to earn your gaze, “we’re gonna watch a movie yeah? What kinda asshole would I be if I dined n’ditched?”

His tone is so low and gentle paired with his touch as well as that soft expression on his face that he pulls off flustering and pacifying you in one fell swoop but you do the same to him in turn. Facilitating that pleasantly uncomfortable heat in his chest like a flickering flame that has smothering ash kicked from it’s core the moment your crestfallen expression melts from the warmth of your relieved smile.

This much of a change in mood so quickly, all because he said he’d be staying with you for a little while longer? If you’d told him weeks ago Gyuutaro alone was capable of that he’d have cackled maniacally in your face. 

Well, maybe not your face specifically, but still the sentiment stands, the notion would’ve been unfathomable to him. Gyuutaro favored souring people's moods and leaving a bitter taste in their mouths but the thought of doing that to you in any capacity makes his stomach twist in familiar discomfort.

He doesn’t realize you’re still within his grasp until you reluctantly pull yourself from him, reaching for the stacked dishes in his other hand only for him to shift it further out of your reach, “What did I say earlier?”

Your arm flails slightly, trying in vain to take the bowls from him before you huff in momentary defeat and fix him with a defiant pout, “that I cooked so you made the plates, not a thing was said about cleanin up.”

“It was implied.”

“Implied where, in your imagination?” Wrestling with him playfully as he gives you his back before your arms slip between his own but still only come up short thanks to his lanky limbs, “I can clean up two plates, seriously.”

“Didn’t ask,” purred with his back to you as long legs carry him into your kitchen with three easy strides, maneuvering about the area like he belonged there as he crouched to the cabinet below to grab a new sponge on assumption alone. You protest a bit more, knocking your hip into his in a weak attempt to bump him out of the way only to be quietly humbled over how he doesn’t even budge. Averting your gaze and pouting with warm cheeks when he glances at you with that shit-eating grin of his before leaning against your counter with your arms crossed in an exaggerated huff. 

Tapping your foot quietly against the hardwood floor as the sound of running water and the gentle clink of ceramics and metal fills the tranquil moment; simply watching Gyuutaro work comfortably in your kitchen and enjoying the delusion of domesticity until your heart races. Inhaling audibly and collating his curiosity as you scoot slightly away from him, patting your thighs because you’ve been too idle for too long.

“Actually.. Since you insist on not letting me clean in my own house, do you mind if I grab a shower? I don’t like taking one super late,” a habit even when you’re on vacation, trying to give yourself as much relaxation time before you finally decide to wind down for bed far too late in the night for how early you always seem to wake up. 

Gyuutaro gives a simple nod, resuming his self-assigned task but not without an internal scoff to himself and a smirk that fights it’s way onto his lips with the passing thought of his roommate being wholly aghast at Gyuutaro in this moment considering he never even so much as looked at the sinkful of dirty dishes back home.

Glancing over his shoulder again when he catches the motion of you awkwardly shifting your weight on the balls of your feet as he quirks his brow. Tilting his head for the dip dyed ends of his mop of wavy locks to shift out of his eyes, “Need somethin else? Or was that an invitation?”

You stiffen and he almost thinks he’s overstepped and completely misread everything between the two of you up to this point before he watches you press your palms to your cheeks the same way his sister does when she’s trying to calm herself down. Attempting to stammer out a response but you can’t even meet his gaze and as relief washes over him he taps his foot near yours and shoots you a damning wink, “m kiddin, take yer shower or I’ll start the movie without ya.”

“Don’t you dare,” scowling exuberantly, recovering from your momentary malfunction in a way that has Gyuutaro grinning, “make yourself comfortable when you’re done, swear I won’t take long.” 

He only responds with another nod, giving you an easy smile as he returns to the task at hand, grabbing a few of the stray tableware and cups while he was at it. He can feel you lingering though, feels your gaze on his back and it fleetingly makes the nape of his neck burn but he doesn’t resent the feeling. Another sensation only you stoke in him, one he doesn’t question because subconsciously he knows the cause even if he teeters between delusion and denial. 

You almost look in a daze from what he can glean from his peripheral everytime he sets a dish into your drying rack, snapping you from it as he flicks soaked digits in your direction, “doubt this is an efficient way to shower pretty thing.”

The way you squeal and giggle louder as he flicks more water at you before you race off down the hall to your bathroom makes his (now full) shrunken stomach do a flip, fluttering in another of many foreign yet familiar sensations he continues to amass from your presence. Drying his hands as he smirks over the dull thuds of your feet and the door at the end of the hall shutting hastily as Gyuutaro calls out, “can’t blame me for using all the hot water either yaknow.”

Surprisingly satisfied with what he accomplished he moves to linger in your living room idly with nothing to do, glancing about and opting to occupy his time by familiarizing himself with the dwelling after shedding his hoodie when he rounds the couch. Picking up your scattered candles and appreciating the sweet smells that recognized the times they clung to your skin or clothes before wandering further into your home. Hoping to gain more than a shallow glimpse into your life and how you live it outside of the small window he knows you from on a week to week basis or walls of text messages exchanged for hours on end could ever offer him.

Returning to the kitchen first, concocting a flippant excuse of having a sudden sweet tooth should you emerge from the corner without him noticing, not that he’d really need one for some innocent perusing. 

Starting off simple as he rummages through the fridge to see what you like only to find a random assortment of ingredients and a case of water. Frown marring his features with a slight growl, sucking his teeth because why the hell were you worrying about his eating habits when your fridge looked this barren? He’s a hypocrite for certain as he tells himself to get on your case about it later while straightening his spine and shutting the heavy door with an indignant scoff. Unsatisfied with his snooping yet as he opens and closes every cabinet in the room and stares into the pantry, growing bored before long and settling to just lounge in the living room.

Resolving to actually behave and respect your privacy.. That is, until he hones in on the sound of the running water of your shower trying and failing to muffle the sound of a melody sung in an impossibly sweeter tone than he already thought you’d had. Stalling mid stride, staring blankly down the hallway and at the simple door your voice emanates from.

A siren song for certain the way it draws him to you, craving to hear it more clearly as he closes the gap; allowing only the inch thick distance of the particle board and the few feet between it and your shower to separate you both. Leaning against the structure carefully with his ear pressed to the surface, almost holding his breath as he enjoys the sound of you. Arms folded over his chest with a ghost of a smile on his lips as his lids slip shut as if you were serenading him explicitly. Jarring when you a loud clattering of several things follows your cute little yelp, and he pauses to see if you’ll whine in pain, untensing when the sound never comes nor does the captivating cantical. 

But that’s fine for now, something else has stolen his attention anyway as he carefully pushes away from the bathroom door to push open another. Knobby knuckle nudging open the already already ajar entryway to the room across the hall.

Your room.

And he shouldn’t slink in, knows he shouldn’t slither through the marginally larger gap he created but, the lamp on your bedside table casts such a warm and, like everything else about you, inviting glow. Call Gyuutaro a moth to a flame if you wanted, vying for just a little bit more of you in any way he could get his greedy little hands on. 

Even for something so insignificant and inconsequential as the areas you dwell in, but there was an aspect of intimacy associated within the sanctity of where you seek solace and Gyuutaro has always been a man starved of many things. and since he’s met you you’ve only ever fed him more and more. He’s thankful you’d never taken the lesson to never feed a stray to heart. 

Because he wants to invade every fiber of your very being, infect your life slowly like the plague he saw himself as. Praying to any god that only ignored his pleas until Gyuutaro finally stopped asking and dolled out misery that he’d be terminal for you but in a softer, more affectionate way. 

The feeling festering in the space between his ribs as he stands in your sanctuary. Your room is as simply decorated as the rest of the house aside from a marked amount more pictures and tchotchkes that tell him more than idle chit chat ever could. 

Even silence is a conversation, easy to glean desired information so long as you were willing to look for it. 

Like that you loved deeply and cherish the moments you get to spend with those so fortunate enough you afford the affection if the candid moments immortalized in photos and preserved in protective frames are any indication. Friends mostly, some from your childhood, most from recent years alongside a lone photo of you with a woman you bare a vague resemblance to. Parental problems maybe? May you and Gyuutaro be kindred spirits. 

Perhaps that alone validates his next assessment. Where he grew callous and cold you chose to be kind and warm, obvious enough, to him, that you crave comfort as his eyes rove over the abundance of plush creatures of all varieties, stuffed foxes, cats, a pink fawn as well as a rotund bat plush that looked specifically tailored to cuddle artfully arranged around strawberry shaped pillows. 

Your bed itself reminds him more of a little nest with how it’s tucked into the corner of your room to accommodate the comforts artfully arranged around strawberry and heart shaped pillows along with the fluffiest comforter Gyuutaro has ever seen with another blanket folded at the foot of the bed. He wants to lie in it on the worst of days with you in his arms, curling around you protectively. Burns to bury his nose into your hair after kissing your crown as the smell of your shampoo, the sound of your breathing and the feel of your skin against his lulls him into the most restful sleep he’s ever gotten in his rotten life. 

Gyuutaro has to take a few steps back, berating himself over the faithless fantasies from his wicked and treacherous heart while staring at your empty bed. The longer he lingered the more likely he felt he’d be inclined to stay and for once he didn’t want to intrude or invade, not without your explicit invitation. 

Though he bumps into another piece of furniture on his exit, the rounded edge of the sturdy wood stabbing just below his shoulder blade causes him to hiss in pain. Pivoting on his heel with a snarl that quickly fades into benign curiosity as his hand strokes along the lip of your dresser.  

Drumming his fingers against the material as he purses his lips and quirks a thin brow. Weird place to put something like this, in his opinion, rocking on his heel and as he does he can catch a glimpse of the bathroom just outside of your own room. Easy access, it must be here for when you forget your clothes to spare yourself the shameful shuffle in the starke nude despite living alone. 

The thought makes him laugh, the scene a domestic one he’d never imagined of anyone as his hand rests over the top. Drumming his fingers against the hardwood as serenity turns salacious in his ever working mind. 

It’s shameful, he knows this already, but what wasn’t when it came to Gyuutaro? If he were a kinder, more compassionate man, the kind of man you deserved, the wherewithal to not violate your privacy like this would be a nonissue.

But he wasn’t, never even considered to be and doubts heavily he ever would; in this life or the next. 

So the drawers are already quietly opened with a practiced ease. 

And of course they’re all organized. Jeans, skirts, shorts, leggings and sleepwear in the bottom two drawers. The one above those holds all your shirts, long and short sleeves alike with some camis and tank tops and he chortles over the realization that you’ve sorted the storage's contents by the placement on your own body for the most part. 

Gyuutaro opens the top drawer last, he can hear how heavily he swallows as it creaks open, pausing with a scowl at the shrill sound. Is there any real reason for him to open the final drawer? No, not really, but there wasn’t any valid justification for coming to your room in general either; so, why should he stop now? Guilty is guilty, is it not, he’s always been punished severely regardless of his transgression anyway. It’s why he selfishly prioritized his own pleasure where he could and you being his currently coveted prize was enough justification to slide the drawer open further. 

Just enough to revel at the assortment of bundled silky and lacy underwear alternatively. He should be ashamed of himself, feel disgusting for how he cards through the variety of styles with a lidded gaze and lazy smile, but he doesn’t. 

Doesn’t still as he conjures images of you clad only in the pretty black, lacy pair with a precious little pink bow on the front while you stand between his spread legs with your hands on his shoulders before you climb to straddle him. Lashes fluttering over the daydream as he fists the fabric with a white knuckled grip before he forces himself from his reverie. 

Heaving a bereft sigh as his cock twitched and threatens to throb if he doesn’t leave now, quickly but carefully closing the drawer after he’s pocketed the lingerie before finally fucking leaving your room and just in time for him to hear the steady stream of water to stop. 

He’s in the living room again when the bathroom door opens and the humidity accumulated billows out. You're toweling your hair dry as you pad towards him, wearing a satin red camisole and dark dolphin shorts but you might as well be dressed to kill.

“Sorry I took a little bit, I just know after the movie I’ll want to go to sleep as soon as it's over,” there’s a ringing in his ears that almost drowns out everything you’d said to him. The sound blaring as crystalline hues quickly give you a once over as you cross in front of him  

Gyuutaro croaks out a tight ‘s fine’ as he sits sprawled on your sofa, one arm draped over the back of the couch as he slouches lower. Cursing inwardly as he folds his leg in a way that keeps his swelling cock from tenting the material of his jeans. Gritting his teeth and subtly tensing every muscle in his body to will blood flow anywhere else but you (always unintentionally and jn the best of ways) make his life harder. Plopping down into the plush cushions with a saccharine suspire that will fuel his fantasies later before leaning your head on his shoulder while clicking through several apps before settling on Hulu. 

So sweetly handing him the remote with a chirped ‘you pick’ like he wasn’t fighting for his life right now. He couldn’t be fucked to actually choose a movie so he chose some suggested horror flick and hoped for the best.  

It takes about fifteen minutes into the movie before he’s finally calmed enough to let his arm fall from its perch and drape around your shoulder and tuck you into his side properly. It’s criminal how easily you adjust into him too, shifting your weight more into your hip as your head tucks into the crook of his throat and your hand splays just over his diaphragm after you’ve pulled the throw blanket over you both. 

He doesn’t absorb anything from the movie, not that he’d really been attempting to anyway. Mentally occupied by how well you fit against him, how warm you are as well as committing the fragrant notes of your shampoo and body wash to memory. Mind wandering to anything else, though any and all thoughts still pertained to you, to stave off the dread of the movie ending because the last thing he wanted to do was to go home alone tonight. 

Until he notices how you grip onto him for dear life, whole body tensing before you flinch and fist the material of his hoodie tighter; all normal reactions to a horror film. Gyuutaro almost wants to chuckle over your reactions until you whimper and hide your face, trembling over the gory and frightening scene that has him hastily fumbling for the remote to pause it. 

You opt to hide in his throat when he does until his broad palm cups your cheek after a long moment and coaxes you to look at him, nose nudging against your own when he rests his forehead on yours. Cooing at you in the softest tone he could manage when you apologize for no reason while trembling in his hold, thumb swiping over the apple of your cheek as his fingers caress the hinge of your jaw. 

Your eyes are pretty when they’re glassy with tears but he doesn’t think he wants to see them this way ever again, not from this circumstance anyway. There were probably less selfish ways to comfort you but he tells himself he isn’t a selfless man as Gyuutaro closes minimal gap between you, sealing his lips over yours. Chaste and tentative at first, testing until you whine approvingly and press closer. 

It’s all the permission he needs to do what he does best; take. 

His hand slides to the curve of your skull to press you closer to him, leaning into the contact as he tilts his head with a hum. Your lips are as soft as he thought they’d be, softer maybe but he won’t get too lost in those details. Not when you return his fervor by weaving your fingers into his loose locks, blunt nails scraping deliciously at his scalp and how you barely break the contact to take a breath. 

It’s more than encouraging to him, slightly emboldening Gyuutaro as his tongue swipes along your plush bottom lip before you grant him entry. Your muted moan swallowed by him as he shifts you into his lap for you both to be more comfortable. 

He figures it to be a safer bet than pressing you into the cushions and climbing on top of you. ‘Easier to hold back this way,’ Gyuutaro inwardly assures himself while staring directly at pure temptation with a lustful gaze. Chest heaving as you lean back just enough to adjust and sit comfortably in his lap before chasing his lips once more. 

Broad palms finding your natural waist as your thick thighs frame his narrow hips and you cradle his jaw as if he was your personal treasure. Nipping at and gently pulling his own kiss swollen lower lip before you tug the hair at the base of his skull for him to tilt his head. 

Eyes glinting with mirth paired with a mischievous little smile that he mirrors as he palms the nape of your neck, “feelin better?” 

“Maybe,” giggling as your thumb swipes at the corner of his lips, “not sure yet.” 

Dipping for another kiss as a chuckle vibrates his chest, reverberating against your own as your tongue swirls around his. Gasping in pleasant surprise when your clothed slit brushes over his throbbing cock, chasing the sensation by grinding down after he slouches lower in his seat. 

It feels good, you feel good, even through the layers of clothes like this; it still makes Gyuutaro groan. His hands slipping lower and palm the fat of your ass to pull you closer as he presses further into the plush couch. Whimpering in turn when you repeat the motion with more confidence, rolling your pelvis into his only for him to rut upwards somewhat awkwardly until he falls into a comfortable unspoken rhythm.  

Gyuutaro’s in trouble, mind racing with the desire to pull the thin, flimsy material of your shorts and panties to the side to glide his cockhead through your sticky folds. Gripping your hips with a bruising force that you seem to more than enjoy if how they jerk in his hold was any indication before tap your fingers on his wrist. It gives him pause, swallowing thickly thinking he’d done something wrong when you lift your ass and reach between your bodies to fumble with his button and zipper before he grabs both of your hands in one. 

‘Wait, fuck, don’t wanna—“ he can already see you start to deflate at perceived rejection whenever he grabs your chin gently. Carefully cradling your jaw when you try and shy away from him to force eye contact, “nah don’t do that, believe me pretty girl, I fuckin wanna, but not on the first date. You’ll think I’m easy.” 

He winks with a Cheshire grin that makes you giggle, relaxing against him as your thumb swipes affectionately over the marks he thinks are ghastly. 

“Movie was shit anyway,” shifting you to sit in his lap with your back against the arm of the couch and your head tucked into his throat, “I’ll head home a little later. Put something on ya like.”  

You nod but don’t detangle from him, only adjust enough to where your legs are kicked over one side to sit comfortably in his lap. Spending the next hour letting YouTube autoplay comfort videos with one another’s hands laced together in your lap and even still, when it’s time for him to head home, it feels too soon. Lingering in your doorway after he grasps at his discarded hoodie and helps you into it to see him off after demanding he text you he’s made it home safely with a petulant pout he wouldn’t dream of denying. 

And true to his word he sends a concise ‘home’ after you’ve tucked yourself away in a bed that now feels too big with just you in it’s confines. Breathing a sigh of relief as you reply with a heart and telling him goodnight before you shimmy lower into your thick comforter. 

On the cusp of slipping into a dreamless sleep when your screen wakes that does the same for you in turn when you groan to see what disturbed you. 

A text from Gyuutaro that read “how bad I wanted to, btw” after resorting to fucking his fist with your pilfered panties pressed to his nose. A picture attached of him that’s cut just above his toothy, satisfied grin to just below his toned abdomen where you can see sticky white stain pale skin.

ıllıllııllıllııllıllııllıllı

It’s safe to say the proverbial ice had finally been broken, the shift in your relationship with one another unspoken and the nature of it is still undefined but you’re both certain (at the very least) that you're on the same page. 

From the time he wakes up to the time you fall asleep you’re in constant contact with one another, texting between chores around your households or having extended phone calls during his shifts at work. Conversation feels impossibly easier than before, lighter, uninhibited and lacking any gnawing desire to fill any silences that fall between you often.

The week carries on doing simple activities, seizing any opportunity to see each other again any chance either of you get. Gyuutaro doesn’t collect nearly half as many of his usual hours because of it and he already knows his paycheck will suffer dearly for it but he can’t say it was any real loss. The lack of monetary gain is more than accommodated for with your loving laughter and welcoming warmth; tipped a gratuitous amount of unmitigated tenderness and unconditional care.

Paid in your panoply of both subtle and unsubtle displays of affection like sending him to work with a home cooked meal every day, for instance. Packed up nice and neatly in glass containers tucked away into a branded lunch box he’s never once seen you carry around. Always placed into his hands when he reluctantly kisses you goodbye for the night though it does hold an endearingly innocent ulterior motive on your part, hinted at with your ‘firm’ demand for the containers return the next day. Creating an excuse (besides the desire to keep his belly full consistently for the first time in his life) he doesn’t realize is just so he’ll have a built in reason to come over again, not that he ever needed one but it felt easier than outright asking him to come see you every day of the week.

Until the weekend before the end of your holiday arrives and Gyuutaro can see the telltale signs of trepidation that threatens to ruin one of the best weeks you’ve had in a long while. 

The shift in you has Gyuutaro the slightest bit clingier, more doting in his own unique ways and subconsciously caring for you in the way you like to be loved despite having never been told how. He asks if you need groceries just to volunteer to drive you there, adding to it by insisting, “n’ if yer a good passenger princess I’ll take ya on that bike ride you’ve been beggin me for, maybe we’ll get that too sweet coffee ya like too.”

Treating the chore like an exciting excursion, playing dirty by sweetening the deal plus that damning lopsided grin of his is infectious and it only splits wider when you pout bleeds into a tentative smirk. Agreeing to his terms but with an added stipulation, “passenger princess needs her gas pumped and control of the radio.”

He slouches with a quirked brow and faux scowl before hooking his index finger beneath your chin, tipping it upwards to seal his lips over yours in a fleeting press. Muttering a graveled ‘deal,’ acquiescing to ‘staunch’ demands as if the exchange didn’t go exactly in his desired direction, heart warming as you giggle gleefully in victory before gathering your things to leave.

You hated shopping alone but with Gyuutaro it wasn’t nearly as nerve wracking and hard to focus. Wandering down the emptier aisles at a leisurely pace with him at your side and comfortingly placing his hand at the small of your back to guide you through the more crowded ones. Your basket gets filled with far more items and ingredients than it ever has for either of you separately, discussing dinner options and planning meals for certain days so he’ll have leftovers for lunch. Neither of you comment over how domestic the entire process is for the nature of your still undefined relationship, just enjoy the feeling and ease of it all.

Though if you asked Gyuutaro, regardless of if you were around or not, he’d proudly and possessively proclaim that you were his and he was yours. 

He knows you better than most anyone else at this point too, bagging the groceries how you liked to have them sorted without even needing to be told. Gently kneeing your thigh when you try and carry a single bag out to your car and again when you try to do the same whenever you get back home.

“Don’t piss me off brat,” sniped with a notable lack of malice as he shifted his loaded down arms out of your reach, giving you his back as he crossed the threshold of the front door. 

“Or what?” You taunt daringly only to give him little trouble, though not for a lack of serious trying. Looping your arms around his tapered waist and dragging your feet to slow him down to no avail before resorting to swiping uselessly at the bags before they’re all placed onto your countertop. 

He only sucks his teeth at you in response for now, rolling his eyes when you snatch at a bag he reaches for to unpack and stick your tongue out at him for good measure. Repeating that process for each bag as it devolves into a harmless game, tricking one another with twitching hands and sudden jerks when reaching for what’s laid out on the countertop until there’s nothing left. The whole process of the menial task breezed through with your antics, simpering as you bump your refrigerator door closed with your hip. Turning to gather the discarded bags while Gyuutaro faces your pantry, humming as you flatten and fold the plastics before a startled yelp rips from your throat. 

Broad palms placed onto the countertop cage you in as Gyuutaro’s chest presses against your back, the surprise makes you shrink lower but he grabs at you when you squirm, “where’re ya goin?”

His voice still playful but a silky pitch lower than what you’ve heard before, almost purring in your ear as Gyuutaro cups at your jaw, pads of his index finger and thumb pressing into hollows of your cheeks when you whine. He chuckles at you, the sound vibrating against his ribcage as he nips at your ear to elicit more of the enticing sounds from you; breathing you in as he lets his hands rove over your body. 

Periodically pawing at the parts of you he knows are sensitive just to watch you try and drop to your knees to writhe from his hold fruitlessly until you giggle and gasp, “alright alright, let go of me taro.”

Just the response he was hoping for as he handles you with absolute ease, brushing his lips over the slope of your throat as his arms tighten around your natural waist. Hoisting you up just enough so your toes just barely graze the flooring as you flail in the short distance he walks from your kitchen to your living room. Stopping at the furniture placed in the center of the room before he corals you once again, growing bolder by pinning your hips to the frame on the back of your sofa. Lips to the shell of your ear as he shudders out a breathy exhale when you arch your back and the swell of your ass brushes against his crotch, “or what?”

He takes a sick delight in how your eyes widen but leaves no time to dwell on the notion before deft digits make quick work of your button and zipper. He works both of his hands into your pants, massaging at your hips and palming the sides of your thighs as he shimmies the dark denim lower until it pools at your knees. Taking the time to knead appreciatively at the exposed flesh as they crawl higher, cupping your mound and pressing the pads of his middle and ring fingers over your clit as Gyuutaro slouches around you. 

Your breath hitches at the contact but the lack of tension in your body tells him enough that it isn’t unwanted. Encouraging Gyuutaro further by turning your toes inward as he pulls the lacy material to the side to feel you uninhibited, eyes rolling when you twitch in anticipation but he won’t leave you wanting. Parting your folds to play in the quickly gathering slick and he can’t help but think about how much warmer you are than he thought you’d be; warmer than what he’s fantasized about since the end of the week previous. 

He moves almost reflexively, swirling his fingers around your pert bud in firm circles, growing in confidence when your head lolls forward and you brace your forearms on the back of the couch. Ass brushing against his crotch as you go slack in his hold, dipping lower as you spread your legs just a bit more for him, rewarding Gyuutaro with a throaty sigh as he tests out what makes you feel good. A learning experience for the both of you as the sound of slick clicking and shushed suspires mingle in the space between you. 

Working you up after a few testing pressures and motions, guiding you to your climax while his breath dampens the skin of your throat and the sound of him warms the blood in your veins. The coil in your lower belly tightening with intensity as your thoughts race, all of them about him and how he makes you feel, how you think he feels about you. Focusing on how he praises you, encourages you, the feel of his cock prodding at the curve of your ass and the more he coos at you the warmer you feel. 

Clutching at the cushions of the couch for dear life and finally, finally tipping over the edge when he nips at the lobe of your ear and husks, “cum for me baby, show me how good I make ya feel.” 

Shuddering in his hold and your voice breaks on the syllables of his name as you reach rapture, arching your back and he supports you with his free hand as he overstimulates you with the other. Cupping your throat while you moan his name so sinfully while his fingers swirl in lazy circles over your puffy clit, hips twitching and bucking uncontrollably into his hand until you have to grip desperately at his wrist for some reprieve. Heaving a heavy sigh of relief when he relents and occupies himself with littering the slope of your shoulder up to the hinge of your jaw in gentle nips and caste kisses. 

Slowing his affectionate assault, Gyuutaro takes a moment to bask in the afterglow of your orgasm, marveling slightly over the pleasure he provided for you. Drinks in how you slack in his hold, leaning into him because the tremble in your legs betray you. He didn’t think it possible for you to look any more beautiful but your blissed out, satisfied expression and the softness to your features that follows proves him wrong.

Letting the moment linger until you regain your bearing before he helps you straighten up by fixing your hair and step completely from your pants after voicing you’d wanted to change. Lovingly kissing your temple with a soft apology for getting carried away but not without a swift smack to your ass and a wink, repeating coyly, “told ya not to piss me off pretty girl.”

He starts dinner while you get comfortable before coming to help cook and you equally split cleanup duty afterwards. Gyuutaro all but corrals you into the living room as soon as he’s done with the dishes, drying his hands on the decorative towels before quickly grabbing at your waist before you had time to notice. 

Eager to get situated on the plush furniture and fluff one of your many throw blankets over you both. Cuddling on the couch soon after, again, with you in his lap and his chin resting on your crown as time ticks by watching all the updates to the shows you’ve taken to enjoying with one another until he checks the time and sucks his teeth.

“Gettin late,” he grumbles as he all but tosses his phone onto the couch cushion beside you, “should probably head home so I can drag my ass outta bed for work tomorrow.” 

You almost visibly deflate, relaxed features devolving with dejection as you reluctantly move from his lap for him to stand. You watch as he rises to full height and takes the time to stretch but you grab at his wrist reflexively before he can move to put on his shoes, releasing him when he turns to you with a quizzical look. Turning fully and squatting down to your eye level when you pull your feet up onto the couch and bring your knees to your chest while you fidget with your fingers the way you always do when you’re working up the nerve for something.

Glancing away quickly when he brings his palm to cup the side of your head, stroking along it soothingly before you groan dramatically. You surprise him with the sound, making his brow quirk and he leans back slightly when you drag your hands down your face before resting your forehead on your knees with another groan. Mumbling something that’s too quiet to be understood but too loud for you to be talking to yourself so he leans closer to you, comically cupping his ear with one eye open wider than the other. 

“Hah?” Scoffed slightly and though he can’t see it you roll your eyes, “that a mouse I hear squeakin at me?”

“I said,” you shoot up with a scowl on pretty features, “why don’t you just stay the night instead.” Rushed out in one breath, like you’d lose the nerve if you’d attempted to deliver the sentence in any other way. 

Your shoulders slack again, tilting your head to lean your cheek on your knee as you fix him with this unintentionally hopeful look, “If you wanted to anyway, you don’t gotta of course. It’s just that it is kinda’ late and I can just bring you to work tomorrow but, you absolutely don’t have to. It's just that you live across town—“ you stumble through your sentence for him to, thankfully, cut off your rambling. 

“Ya had me at ‘I said’ pretty thing, why the hell wouldn’t I wanna stay?” Gyuutaro teases as he leans forward on his haunches, pressing a kiss to your forehead before he flops back onto your sofa, pressing his back into the arm of it. He reaches for you, hand encircling your wrist with ease as he pulls you between his legs and into his arms, “plus ‘m not gonna say no to a night away from my roommate and his girl bein’ loud as shit.” 

“You could’ve just said yes,” you scoff as you reach for his phone and the remote previously tossed to the wayside, handing both to him after you’ve woken the screen to check the time, “one more episode? Then we should head to bed.”

You’re telling rather than asking him, batting long lashes up at him as your chin rests on his sternum as if Gyuutaro could ever really deny you anything you desired but that doesn’t mean he won’t put on his own theatrics. Pulling a giddy little giggle from you when his head lolls back and he heaves an exaggerated sigh but powers on the tv anyway.

But ‘one more episode’ turns to two then four because ‘they can’t just leave it on a cliffhanger like that!’ Until Gyuutaro inevitably has to be firm when he tells you at nearly midnight that, “ much as I’d love to pull an all-nighter with ya, I do have the early mornin shift baby.”

Halfheartedly you pour at him, certain he won’t relent this time but you’re beginning to grow accustomed to asking just the slightest but more of him. He’d say he’s rubbing off on you, secretly he’s happy to notice it even as his thumb and index grab at your plush lower lip as he tuts. The sound of your petulant whine is music to his ears as he cackles before tapping suspiciously closely to your ass. 

“Fine, fine, I guess you win this time,” you groan playfully as you detangle yourself from. Standing and stretching as you hold out your hand to guide him to the bathroom as if he hadn’t spent every day of the week in your home. 

Gyuutaro’s brow quirks high and a ghost of a smile tugs at the corners of his lips when you push into your bathroom with him in tow. Blood ready to thrum in his veins simultaneously with elated and nervous energy as you yank open the shower curtains.  

Though he deflates quickly with a burning heat stinging the nape of his neck that forces him to grip it to abate the burn when he realizes you’re just preparing the shower for him. He clears his throat as you slip past him in the small space with a cute, “oh one sec,” as you all but scurry into your room. 

The lanky man tails you like the stray he calls Hakuji’s girlfriend and the one he always has been. Standing and yawning as he slouches in your doorway, debating minutely if he should just crawl beneath your cozy looking comforter and force you into his arms with the excuse that he could just shower in the morning. Swaying forward with intent when he’s pulled from his reverie by the sound of your searching. He leans like he’s going to help you in rifling through your drawers before gasping in satisfaction. 

You produce clothes from your dresser that he doesn't remember seeing whenever he snooped through their contents last week, heart skipping a beat and his fists clenching, hidden away by his pockets before you explain without prompt.

“They’re my brothers,” you add quickly, like you couldn’t bear the misunderstanding, “he’s nowhere near as tall as you, though. They’ll probably look like capris but I doubt you’ll want to sleep in jeans. Turning the nozzle up on the shower makes it hotter, down is colder and in is off kay?”

He showers quickly, he has to, as much as he’d like to stand under the spray and let the warm water soothe tight muscles he’s ready to lay down with you in bed. The thought is lame to him, but it’s been on his mind since he’d come over the first night; since he stood in your room and familiarized himself with it just in case he didn’t get the chance to. Groaning to himself as he slouches forward and the water streams from his wet mop of unruly locks and into his face, off his nose and blurring his eyes before he snarls. 

It was too good of a day to let his self-deprecating tendencies ruin it, finishing up what should’ve been a relaxing experience by using a modest amount of your body wash, shampoo, and conditioner. Thinking idly as he steps into just the pair of joggers alone that you liked the same sort of scents his sister liked to use, maybe just a bit sweeter where her preferences are more floral. 

He’ll have to introduce you soon, if you were up for that anyway. It was a miracle he hadn’t mentioned you to her yet with how much time he was spending with you; cautious in case this (like everything else in his life) blew up in his face when whatever deity harbored a grudge against him in particular decided they needed some entertainment.

Gyuutaro finally emerges from the bathroom as he tugs the spacious hoodie on over his head and discards his worn clothes into the hamper with your own. Brow quirking in confusion when he sees the bed still made, no you sized lump beneath the thick comforter. 

“Babe?” Called as he spins on his heel but you scurry hastily from the hall. Tucking your hair behind your ear as you step into the room and close the door behind you.

“Sorry, sorry,” huffed as you cross the room hurriedly as tug your covers back, “thought I heard something. Then I saw I forgot to turn off the oven and then I was making sure the front and the back doors were locked.”

Gyuutaro should be more than alarmed at the mention of forgetting to turn off the oven. Should question if you do that often and if he’s going to need to remind you or check himself before he can rest. 

He should be, he likely will the following day but for now he’s far too captivated by you. Adam’s Apple bobbing as he swallows thickly when sky blues rove over your body. Drinking in how you don nothing but one of the hoodies he’d left here with only panties underneath. Overtly ogling you, letting his eyes linger on your pillowy thighs before they’re hidden from view when you crawl beneath the covers. 

“Gonna sleep standin up taro?” Cooed cutely as you tap the empty space next to you, “pretty sure this is more comfortable though.” 

You’re so cute to him, every positive descriptor he could use for a person comes to mind when he looks at you. Alluring without trying to be, or maybe you were with the way you pose yourself even beneath the thick comforter. Adorable with the way you smile at him, however impish the expression may be at times. You make Gyuutaro’s mind race but externally he looks calm as he crosses the room to join you even as he retorts, “maybe not with yer popsicle feet.” 

Proving him right instantly as you cling to the warmth of his body, blade of your foot working up his joggers up just enough for your skin to touch his and earn a hiss. A curse from his lips hangs in the air but he resents none of what transpires as you squeal and giggle while Gyuutaro wrestles to return the favor. Gripping at his hoodie to let his cold hands rest at your waist before you offer a truth he’d rather label a concession. 

Finally settling down with your back to him, scooting back into him until you’re contoured to the curve of his body. Finding an acceptable position to cuddle and be cuddled when his leg settles between yours with Gyuutaro’s arm thrown around your torso to keep you close. 

Not that you’d dream of moving away, shimmying lower with an excited energy moments after you’ve both quietly settled together. And you were tired, honestly you were, whenever you’d initially got ready for bed. 

Until Gyuutaro came out of the shower and you fully registered he’d be staying the night. 

You’d cuddled plenty before, all during the week you’ve crawled in his lap or curled comfortably on his chest. You weren’t particularly that shy about anything with him either, not entirely anyway; more bold than you’d certainly ever been with all the times you’ve straddled him and held his face in your hands to kiss him as much as you pleased. 

Going to sleep together was comparatively one of the more innocent, albeit just as intimate, moments with Gyuutaro. 

Heaving a heavy exhale as you scoot ever closer into him, curling into yourself and writhing slightly as you adjust the position of your bodies. Wrapping your arm around Gyuutaro’s as it coils tighter around you, satisfied with the slight change before the sound of his voice sends a pleasant shiver down your spine. 

“Too much energy,” husked almost groggily from the gravel in his tone against the shell of your ear. 

You shift slightly, kissing his knobby knuckles in silent apology as you twist your body once again, “m tryin to get comfy, just a little restless.” 

“Ya sure it’s just that? Don’t really look like yer tryin to go to sleep baby,” voice a low tease as his other arm snakes between the mattress and your waist. Rough pads of fingers pressing into the soft flesh of your stomach as he slides lower, slipping beneath your panties to cup your mound with a sigh and, “need some help?”

You cast a glance in mock innocence over your shoulder at him, a pleading gleam in your eye as you slowly nod your head. 

Not that he was entirely waiting on a definitive answer, having received an explicit enough response when you’d spread your legs wider for him, but; he still had no intention to deny you as he slowly rolls his fingers over your clit until your hips. Testingly at first, varying pressure and motions while he watches what you respond best to until your hips are bucking into his hand and you sigh out his name so sweetly, breathily. 

He builds you slowly at first, basking in the way you respond to him but just when you’re on the cusp of euphoria he pulls his hand away, halting your high so abruptly you voice your frustrations just as Gyuutaro turns you onto your back. 

“Don’t whine,” as he lays you on your back, fingers looped into the band of your panties on either side of your hips before tugging them lower to slip them off your supple thighs to position himself between them. Wasting no time in burying his face in your cunt like a man starved.

You don’t get time to protest, gasping with a roll of your eyes as you arch from the mattress with his first languid stripe up your soaking slit. Gyuutaro lets out a low, rumbling groan at the taste of you that sends pleasant vibrations and shocks of pleasure shooting up your spine. Lost in you as he laps lazily as your lips, harding whetting his appetite like this before his fingers join the fray, calloused pads playing in the gathering slick before adding just a modicum of pressure to spread your sticky folds as he ducks his head lower. Lids fluttering and he relishes in how your hips twitch just before the tense with each lazy lap until his lips purse around the pert little pearl at the apex of your pussy for a kiss. 

Sweetly, affectionaly before sensually suckling at it in an adoring assault, alternating between rapid lateral flicks of his wet muscle and circling around it until your fingers thread through wavy locks.

Arching slightly from the mattress as your hips twitch minutely into his face, earning a rumbling chuckle from Gyuutaro and another kiss to your puffy clit. Softly sighing his name, broken by a muted moan and choked by a gasp when he resumes the motions he’d found you’d liked the most. 

Humming your approval to him as your thighs tremble around his skull and your nails gently rake along his scalp as he works you over generously. Fueled by every sound and reaction you reward him with, never liking the sound of his name more than how you gasp it as thick digits sink into your greedy cunt gradually.  

Gyuutaro’s middle finger first as he tests the motions and finds a rhythm. His ring finger follows second and it has you spasming without control, biting your lip to stifle the first debauched moan. Surely stoking his ego as you helpless rut into his face with babbled, witless whines of his name as you gripped the sheets beneath you like a lifeline. 

He enjoys watching what he does to you, delights in how helpless you are to the pleasure he provides as the taste of you turns saccharine on his tongue when the coil finally snaps. Exhaling a breathy, “fuuuck, oh ‘taro ‘m cumming,” as the tension bleeds from your body and the roll of your hips falls out of sync with him. 

Left reeling after he’s pulled his fingers from your convulsing cunt and climbing up your body, given no time to consider lamenting the loss as Gyuutaro cups your face for an impassioned kiss. Long tongue swiping over yours as he coos praises at you throatily between dizzying kisses but you’re too focused on the rigid length that pokes into the fat of your inner thigh. Leaky tip steadily staining his borrowed sleep pants as it soaks through his underwear, throbbing and left neglected while he enthusiastically tended to your own pleasure. 

Humming as your fingers thread into his unruly locks and your leg hooks on his hip before moving in one swift motion, flipping your positions to straddle him instead. Arching into Gyuutaro and giggling at the muted sound of surprise that you swallow in chasing kisses, resting your weight on the tops of your thighs. Hovering slightly as your hands splay out over his chest, body alight and still thrumming with the aftershocks of euphoria as you arch into him, hands sliding from his pectorals to his trapezius. 

Your thumbs swipe along the columns of his throat as your lips seal over his with a hum before reaching higher to thread into his hair. Blunt nails scratching soothingly at the curve of his skull as his arms wrap around you to pull you closer. 

His lips seal over yours with a sigh as his hands roam your body, groping intermittently with appreciative groans that grow in volume. 

“Fuck, I want you,” husked against your skin as his head dips to litter your throat with open mouthed kisses. Jagged teeth nipping pleasantly at sensitive flesh as you tilt your head to the side to grant him more access. Whining encouraging when Gyuutaro’s teeth testingly sink into the slope of your throat, moaning unabashedly when he adds more pressure. Not enough to break skin but enough to mark you as his, lovingly marr the unblemished space with the structure of his jaw. 

Every reaction to him fuels him, goads him further and fans the flames of desire even more so as you soak through the lacy garment you wear and his borrowed joggers. Finally reaching between your bodies to grip at the elastic band and pull it down just below his sac to run his leaking tip between your folds. 

“Wait, wait, ‘taro” muttered between hungry kisses, gently pressing your fingers into the planes of his chest, “do you have a condom?” 

There’s a glaze over Gyuutaro’s eyes, lidded gaze “never had a reason to carry one pretty girl,” nosing at your pulse point, lips brushing over the thrumming artery affectionately as he kneads at the juntures of your thighs, “do you?” 

“Um.. no? Was I supposed to?” 

“Nah, m’ glad ya don’t, jealous guy after all” winking as he squeezes at the fat of your ass again and gives you a fleeting kiss, “but if I sink you on my cock I ain’t gonna wanna pull out.” 

It is a little early on for him to even consider breeding you even though, in his shriveled little heart you’ve made room in, he’s certain you’re the one; he doesn’t want to risk scaring you off. Missing how your lips part in a soundless sigh at his comment, if he hadn’t you likely would’ve been pinned to the mattress with the entire length bullied into you in one stroke to feel that delicious burn of the sudden stretch.

Instead you give him a parting kiss that leaves him momentarily confused, subtly shimmying as you litter a trail chaste but loving brushes of your lips over every part of him that you adore. 

First to the corners of his lips that curl up with his devious grins, impish smirks and gentle smiles. Then to the inky black birthmark that decorates both edges of his mouth, dipping lower to his adams apple that always bobs distractingly and sometimes holds your gaze in the times there’s a lull in conversation.  

Your hands glide down his body to dip beneath the material of his hoodie as you straddle his knees. Hem of his borrowed hoodie pooling at your wrists as the pads of your fingers press into the toned flesh of his abdomen, firmer as your push upwards when Gyuutaro stops you. Broad palm and long digits resting on both of your hands to halt your ascent, jarring you slightly, ready to recoil in embarrassment thinking you’d misunderstood and were too forward when his free hand grasps at your chin to keep you in place.

“It’s not that baby, god it ain’t that,” he whispers, moving some loose hairs away from your face and running his thumb over your cheek, “just.. You don’t have to, ‘m not.” His voice softens and the sentence trails as his confidence wanes drastically with no intention to finish it, unsure of how he wanted to explain to you.

If he wanted to explain at all; especially something he thought he’d resolved and absolved himself of at a young age from cruel lessons hard learned. 

You cup his face as lovingly, as you always do, comforting him with touch alone in ways even he didn’t know he needed and Gyuutaro is ever grateful for it as he leans into your palm with fluttering lashes. He’s certain of one thing as you blindly offer him consolation, he’s that same sniveling coward he was as a child. 

He fears rejection but only from you, that it’ll take seeing him laid bare before you for you to finally feel the repulsion someone like you should’ve always felt towards a man like him. 

You’ve proved yourself gentle with his jagged edges though, a sanctuary for him to find solace, time and time again. 

“I want to, please?” your voice is barely a whisper, hand resting gently over his clothed cock, your index finger tracing the outline of his heady length. 

Gyuutaro swallows thickly, the hushed plea and how you palm him making him throb with a need that overshadows his cowardice. He concedes to you once again as he nods, untrusting of his voice to not embarrass or fail him should he try to respond. You flash him a dazzling smile, the same one that had him fisting himself in the shower or in his bed with a pair of your underwear balled to his nose the nights following his days filled with you. 

Would you laugh if he told you that all the simple things you did made him ache for you down to his bones? Probably not, because you’re kind like that, because you’re here with him right now, eager to please. 

His blood roars in his ears and rushes in his veins over the way your fingers dance along his abdomen, pushing up his oversized hoodie to expose the years of his neglect the months of your care could only dream of reversing. 

You can see some of his ribs but they’re far less pronounced than before he’d met you, though much less drastically and the crests of his hips still protrude a little too sharply for either of your liking. 

And even though you’ve never judged him once in the time he’s known you, Gyuutaro still can’t help but hold his breath when the fabric is completely tugged over his head and you run your hands back down his body with such caring adoration. 

You lean forward to kiss him then, a reassuring peck to his lips where your taste still lingers, another to his jaw, mapping a trail down his body to finally press another just below his navel as you untie the drawstring of his bottoms. You can feel his abdomen tense beneath plush lips when you hook your fingers into the material, urging you to press another kiss directly above the elastic band. 

“Lift your hips,” your voice is sweet, gently commanding as he complies with little delay and shimmies from the cotton blend. Your fingers tap up his lithe but densely corded muscled thighs, sliding over his rigid cock that tents the fabric of his underwear before you let soft hand linger over the straining material. His jaw clenches tightly, molars gnawing at the inside of his cheek while you rub your palm over the bulge, kneading coyly and swiping your thumb over the darkened fabric dampened by his leaky tip. 

Finally tugging his boxers down after a few agonizing minutes with a mischievously cute giggle but only just enough to free it of its confines and no lower. His engorged tip taps against his pelvis with a soft pap, saliva pooling on your tongue at just the sight of it, flushed and leaky. 

You ogle him for a long moment and his lips part after his tongue nervously darts out to wet the flesh when your fingers wrap around the base of him. Your palm feels cool compared to the heated skin throbbing beneath it, it makes him hiss reflexively and you flinch slightly but thankfully your confidence doesn’t wane. 

Moderately emboldened as you place your thumb and index fingers on his mons so the underside of his shaft rests in the web of your palm. Keeping his hard cock directly upright as you adjust closer to him, lying on your stomach between his legs. 

His heart could almost skip a beat at the sight of you, how focused you look, he can’t tear his gaze away from how you stare at him. As if Gyuutaro and the pleasure you’ll provide him is the only thing that’s going through that meticulous little mind of yours that he’s come to adore.

Leaning closer as you purse your lips around the mushroomed tip with unwavering eye contact just to tease Gyuutaro as he had earlier. Humming coyly as you pull back with a mischievous quirk to your lips as you take a moment more to appreciate the view. 

Memorizing the was his fingers fist the sheets and his pretty face dusts with a hint of red while his cock twitches in your hold. 

It’s long, just like you thought it would be, thick too with a slight curve and a prominent vein in the underside. The muscles of his abdomen tighten when you test different pressures until you think you’ve found one he appreciates, thumb tracing over the slit of his mushroomed tip to spread the pre that leaks from the tip next.

He lets out a hiss, chest rising and falling a little faster when you give him experimental kitten licks to the head down the underside of his shaft. Tip of your tongue tracing over the vein all the way down only to let the flat of the wet muscle caress his girth as you drag upwards again. 

Ending your teasing as you wrap your lips around the head of his cock, taking him in slowly, sensually.  Stretching your lips around it to form a tight ‘o’ before suckling gingerly in a way that earns you a beautiful sigh that has your lashes fluttering open to drink in just what you do to him. 

Only to meet the gaze eyes of clear blue skies now darkened into a stormy cobalt before his hips jerk upwards slightly into your pursed lips with a curse, “fuck baby don’t do that, I could cum just lookin at ya like this.”

You take more of him, hum giddily when he huffs a light “fuck”, threading his fingers into your hair to push the lose strands that fall into your face. It’s tender, the way he tucks some behind your ear and gently holds the back of your head as you bob on his length.

“You’re so pretty,” Gyuutaro whispers, hips thrusting slowly, albeit jerkily, into your mouth. Emitting an involuntary rumbling groan when you hollow your cheeks, taking him in to the base of his cock in tandem with his thrusts. 

You make him more vocal than you’d imagined he’d be, clenching your thighs to abate the throb to your clit from the sound of him. 

Gyuutaro can’t help the noises that escape him before long, jaw falling slack as his head lolls back onto your headboard while he rewards you with his pleasure. He apologizes each time you gag on him, each time he thrusts to the back of your throat that makes your eyes water but you can’t say you hate it, far from. You thoroughly enjoy the way he chases his climax helplessly, using you for his pleasure while still being so loving. 

His hands scratch lightly at your scalp, winding your hair carefully around his fingers, “Yer perfect, shit, yer amazin’— d-don’t stop baby please.” 

You bring your hand down from where you caress his hips, fondling his sac to aid him toward his climax. Humming as you watch his jaw set tightly and Gyuutaro can no longer manage the rut of his hips, fucking up into your face with abandon when the coil finally snap. He lets out a long, relieved moan whenever he finally cums down your throat with a stuttered curse and throaty growl as your only warning. 

He rides his high, fucking your slowly until he’s calmed down and you pull away with an audible pop. Swiping away the drool that dribbled down your chin, smiling to yourself as you appreciate the state you’ve left him in. 

Gyuutaro’s managed to regulate his bresthing when you crawl up his body, tucking into his side with a leg kicked over his own. He presses his lips to your temple after he runs his thumb over the corner of your lips to wipe away the bit of saliva you’d missed. You nuzzle into him, arms wrapping tightly around his torso, warmth radiating between you both, “feelin’ good?” 

“Yeah, feeling great. I think I’m gonna call out today,” he says after a long minute, lacing his fingers with yours over his chest, “it’ll be fine for one day.”

You hum tiredly in response, lifting your head slightly to rest your chin on his chest as a single digit twirls a lock of your hair mindlessly. Simply basking in the afterglow of everything and not just what Gyuutaro has done with you tonight.

He pulls your face to his in a tender kiss, one where you can’t help but smile at the affection, rolling your lip between your teeth when he cups the curve of your skull. 

 “Would ya wanna have lunch with me later? Want ya to meet my sister.”

[dnpanimationstudioclone]

I know some common critique about the hotel is that it only benefits sinners even though the hellborns could use help themselves & that the hotel doesn’t exactly properly help with redemption, activities r kinda childish most of the time & a lot of the actual development progress is outside the hotel/guidance(Angel & husk developing after leaving the hotel in ep 4, Angel standing up to Val in the nightclub that was used for the trial). Not saying they can’t have moments of stuff outside the hotel’s influence, that’s good. But it’d also be good to show the hotel having a more direct impact on their character/growth too. Show how the hotel has had direct & indirect ways, helping one heal/become a better person.

Way to fix that, have one of the things Charlie has the sinners do is Community service/volunteering. Charity drives, donation, picking up trash at the beach or park, keeping company at retirement homes etc! This way, hellborns could get some help through these contributions as they’re helping the whole community, plus it has the hotel clients do legit good for other people, give back to the community! This way, they’re also growing outside the hotel too, able to try out doing good outside of activities/lessons & for other people besides each other in the hotel.

Remeber how in Klaus, how the kids improved their community when they were told only nice kids get toys? Even if it started with self motivated goals, it had a good impact & motivated the adults to share goodwill! The sinners could start off just doing it for the sake of the assignment but gradually come to feel accomplishment/fulfillment from it, realizing the good they can do if they wanted/tried, and perhaps spread that good will around in Hell with the rest of the denizens!

My Charlie would def have the gang involved with community service/events 💖💖💖

What do u think? What ways do u think the hotel could improve or try to help the sinners redeem? I’d love to know💖

[lunastrophe]

About Drow Economy

From Drow of the Underdark (3.5e):

The drow economy consists of three separate yet inextricably intertwined systems of exchange, each of which is largely specific to a particular social and political caste.

Coins

When dealing with drow of a lower station, such as when a matriarch or priestess purchases goods from a vendor, the race makes use of coinage - just as do most surface dwellers. Gold, silver, and other precious metals have roughly the same buying power in drow communities as they do elsewhere, though the rate of exchange varies somewhat based on available metals, scarcity of resources, and the mood of the drow doing the shopping.

The drow rarely mint their own coins, preferring to make use of foreign monies brought in by outside traders or taken in raids on other races. On those rare occasions when they do mint coins, the results are exceptionally plain, either totally unadorned or stamped with the signs of Lolth and/or the house who produced them. The drow also use coins when trading with others, unless the foreigner has something of particular interest to sell.

Barter

Although one low-ranking drow might use coins to purchase goods or services from another low-ranking drow, the standard form of exchange between relative equals is a system of barter. A swordsmith might offer the neighboring baker a new blade in exchange for a few weeks’ worth of bread. A cleric might heal a wounded soldier, if the soldier in turn agrees to kill someone to whom the cleric owes a debt. A priestess might perform a marriage ceremony in exchange for several barrels of fine lichen wine and a potion of invisibility. At the upper levels of society, drow might trade slaves, individually or by the dozens, in exchange for exotic animals, valuable works of art, or access to a fertile mushroom farm.

Favors

The third practice, common only among the drow elite, is the exchange of favors. This system creates a web of debts and obligations that often stretches across the entirety of the house and church leadership, frequently binding drow to complete strangers by only one or two “steps.” A typical agreement of this sort might resemble the following: “If you ally with me to prevent the Matron of House Inlindl from gaining control of the northern trade route, I will owe you a great favor in exchange.”

The interesting thing about this system of boons is that drow actually prefer to pay off their debts as soon as possible. For a drow, having too many obligations hanging over one’s head is tantamount to political and social suicide. She cannot afford to directly challenge anyone to whom she owes a great favor, for fear of that favor being called in and ruining one of her ongoing schemes. Additionally, high-caste drow often trade favors to third parties, meaning that a matriarch might find herself suddenly obligated to someone with whom she would never willingly have cooperated, or even someone she doesn’t know.

One might imagine that the drow would simply ignore these commitments, but despite their selfish nature, very few actually do so. They know that if they refuse to acknowledge a legitimate debt, word will spread swiftly and nobody will deal with them in the future. They might even find the other houses turning against them, seeking to eliminate the threat to the system and the status quo.

Promise Tokens

Not even enlightened self-interest is always enough to keep the drow honest, so a wise dark elf making one of these deals often demands the exchange of promise tokens. These are small baubles or pendants, often made of silver, that are engraved with the symbol of the drow’s family or house. They are often also marked invisibly, such as with the arcane mark spell. If a drow refuses to honor a debt, the creditor might present the promise token as evidence of the arrangement when besmirching her name and seeking redress. Of course, it’s not impossible to fake a promise token, but their frequent usage does make reneging on a debt - or making one up - somewhat difficult.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The enshittification of garage-door openers reveals a vast and deadly rot

I'll be at the Studio City branch of the LA Public Library on Monday, November 13 at 1830hPT to launch my new novel, The Lost Cause. There'll be a reading, a talk, a surprise guest (!!) and a signing, with books on sale. Tell your friends! Come on down!

How could this happen? Owners of Chamberlain MyQ automatic garage door openers just woke up to discover that the company had confiscated valuable features overnight, and that there was nothing they could do about it.

Oh, we know what happened, technically speaking. Chamberlain shut off the API for its garage-door openers, which breaks their integration with home automation systems like Home Assistant. The company even announced that it was doing this, calling the integration an "unauthorized usage" of its products, though the "unauthorized" parties in this case are the people who own Chamberlain products:

https://chamberlaingroup.com/press/a-message-about-our-decision-to-prevent-unauthorized-usage-of-myq

We even know why Chamberlain did this. As Ars Technica's Ron Amadeo points out, shutting off the API is a way for Chamberlain to force its customers to use its ad-beshitted, worst-of-breed app, so that it can make a few pennies by nonconsensually monetizing its customers' eyeballs:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/11/chamberlain-blocks-smart-garage-door-opener-from-working-with-smart-homes/

But how did this happen? How did a giant company like Chamberlain come to this enshittening juncture, in which it felt empowered to sabotage the products it had already sold to its customers? How can this be legal? How can it be good for business? How can the people who made this decision even look themselves in the mirror?

To answer these questions, we must first consider the forces that discipline companies, acting against the impulse to enshittify their products and services. There are four constraints on corporate conduct:

I. Competition. The fear of losing your business to a rival can stay even the most sociopathic corporate executive's hand.

II. Regulation. The fear of being fined, criminally sanctioned, or banned from doing business can check the greediest of leaders.

III. Capability. Corporate executives can dream up all kinds of awful ways to shift value from your side of the ledger to their own, but they can only do the things that are technically feasible.

IV. Self-help. The possibility of customers modifying, reconfiguring or altering their products to restore lost functionality or neutralize antifeatures carries an implied threat to vendors. If a printer company's anti-generic-ink measures drives a customer to jailbreak their printers, the original manufacturer's connection to that customer is permanently severed, as the customer creates a durable digital connection to a rival.

When companies act in obnoxious, dishonest, shitty ways, they aren't merely yielding to temptation – they are evading these disciplining forces. Thus, the Great Enshittening we are living through doesn't reflect an increase in the wickedness of corporate leadership. Rather, it represents a moment in which each of these disciplining factors have been gutted by specific policies.

This is good news, actually. We used to put down rat poison and we didn't have a rat problem. Then we stopped putting down rat poison and rats are eating us alive. That's not a nice feeling, but at least we know at least one way of addressing it – we can start putting down poison again. That is, we can start enforcing the rules that we stopped enforcing, in living memory. Having a terrible problem is no fun, but the best kind of terrible problem to have is one that you know a solution to.

As it happens, Chamberlain is a neat microcosm for all the bad policy choices that created the Era of Enshittification. Let's go through them:

Competition: Chamberlain doesn't have to worry about competition, because it is owned by a private equity fund that "rolled up" all of Chamberlain's major competitors into a single, giant firm. Most garage-door opener brands are actually Chamberlain, including "LiftMaster, Chamberlain, Merlin, and Grifco":

https://www.lakewoodgaragedoor.biz/blog/the-history-of-garage-door-openers

This is a pretty typical PE rollup, and it exploits a bug in US competition law called "Antitrust's Twilight Zone":

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/16/schumpeterian-terrorism/#deliberately-broken

When companies buy each other, they are subject to "merger scrutiny," a set of guidelines that the FTC and DoJ Antitrust Division use to determine whether the outcome is likely to be bad for competition. These rules have been pretty lax since the Reagan administration, but they've currently being revised to make them substantially more strict:

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-and-ftc-seek-comment-draft-merger-guidelines

One of the blind spots in these merger guidelines is an exemption for mergers valued at less than $101m. Under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act, these fly under the radar, evading merger scrutiny. That means that canny PE companies can roll up dozens and dozens of standalone businesses, like funeral homes, hospital beds, magic mushrooms, youth addiction treatment centers, mobile home parks, nursing homes, physicians’ practices, local newspapers, or e-commerce sellers:

http://www.economicliberties.us/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Serial-Acquisitions-Working-Paper-R4-2.pdf

By titrating the purchase prices, PE companies – like Blackstone, owners of Chamberlain and all the other garage-door makers – can acquire a monopoly without ever raising a regulatory red flag.

But antitrust enforcers aren't helpless. Under (the long dormant) Section 7 of the Clayton Act, competition regulators can block mergers that lead to "incipient monopolization." The incipiency standard prevented monopolies from forming from 1914, when the Clayton Act passed, until the Reagan administration. We used to put down rat poison, and we didn't have rats. We stopped, and rats are gnawing our faces off. We still know where the rat poison is – maybe we should start putting it down again.

On to regulation. How is it possible for Chamberlain to sell you a garage-door opener that has an API and works with your chosen home automation system, and then unilaterally confiscate that valuable feature? Shouldn't regulation protect you from this kind of ripoff?

It should, but it doesn't. Instead, we have a bunch of regulations that protect Chamberlain from you. Think of binding arbitration, which allows Chamberlain to force you to click through an "agreement" that takes away your right to sue them or join a class-action suit:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/20/benevolent-dictators/#felony-contempt-of-business-model

But regulation could protect you from Chamberlain. Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act allows the FTC to ban any "unfair and deceptive" conduct. This law has been on the books since 1914, but Section 5 has been dormant, forgotten and unused, for decades. The FTC's new dynamo chair, Lina Khan, has revived it, and is use it like a can-opener to free Americans who've been trapped by abusive conduct:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

Khan's used Section 5 powers to challenge privacy invasions, noncompete clauses, and other corporate abuses – the bait-and-switch tactics of Chamberlain are ripe for a Section 5 case. If you buy a gadget because it has five features and then the vendor takes two of them away, they are clearly engaged in "unfair and deceptive" conduct.

On to capability. Since time immemorial, corporate leaders have fetishized "flexibility" in their business arrangements – like the ability to do "dynamic pricing" that changes how much you pay for something based on their guess about how much you are willing to pay. But this impulse to play shell games runs up against the hard limits of physical reality: grocers just can't send an army of rollerskated teenagers around the store to reprice everything as soon as a wealthy or desperate-looking customer comes through the door. They're stuck with crude tactics like doubling the price of a flight that doesn't include a Saturday stay as a way of gouging business travelers on an expense account.

With any shell-game, the quickness of the hand deceives the eye. Corporate crooks armed with computers aren't smarter or more wicked than their analog forebears, but they are faster. Digital tools allow companies to alter the "business logic" of their services from instant to instant, in highly automated ways:

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

The monopoly coalition has successfully argued that this endless "twiddling" should not be constrained by privacy, labor or consumer protection law. Without these constraints, corporate twiddlers can engage in all kinds of ripoffs, like wage theft and algorithmic wage discrimination:

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

Twiddling is key to the Darth Vader MBA ("I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it further"), in which features are confiscated from moment to moment, without warning or recourse:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/26/hit-with-a-brick/#graceful-failure

There's no reason to accept the premise that violating your privacy, labor rights or consumer rights with a computer is so different from analog ripoffs that existing laws don't apply. The unconstrained twiddling of digital ripoff artists is a plague on billions of peoples' lives, and any enforcer who sticks up for our rights will have an army of supporters behind them.

Finally, there's the fear of self-help measures. All the digital flexibility that tech companies use to take value away can be used to take it back, too. The whole modern history of digital computers is the history of "adversarial interoperability," in which the sleazy antifeatures of established companies are banished through reverse-engineering, scraping, bots and other forms of technological guerrilla warfare:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

Adversarial interoperability represents a serious threat to established business. If you're a printer company gouging on toner, your customers might defect to a rival that jailbreaks your security measures. That's what happened to Lexmark, who lost a case against the toner-refilling company Static Controls, which went on to buy Lexmark:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/felony-contempt-business-model-lexmarks-anti-competitive-legacy

Sure, your customers are busy and inattentive and you can degrade the quality of your product a lot before they start looking for ways out. But once they cross that threshold, you can lose them forever. That's what happened to Microsoft: the company made the tactical decision to produce a substandard version of Office for the Mac in a drive to get Mac users to switch to Windows. Instead, Apple made Iwork (Pages, Numbers and Keynote), which could read and write every Office file, and Mac users threw away Office, the only Microsoft product they owned, permanently severing their relationship to the company:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interoperability-reviving-elegant-weapon-more-civilized-age-slay

Today, companies can operate without worrying about this kind of self-help measure. There' a whole slew of IP rights that Chamberlain can enforce against you if you try to fix your garage-door opener yourself, or look to a competitor to sell you a product that restores the feature they took away:

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

Jailbreaking your Chamberlain gadget in order to make it answer to a rival's app involves bypassing a digital lock. Trafficking in a tool to break a digital lock is a felony under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright, carrying a five-year prison sentence and a $500,000 fine.

In other words, it's not just that tech isn't regulated, allowing for endless twiddling against your privacy, consumer rights and labor rights. It's that tech is badly regulated, to permit unlimited twiddling by tech companies to take away your rightsand to prohibit any twiddling by you to take them back. The US government thumbs the scales against you, creating a regime that Jay Freeman aptly dubbed "felony contempt of business model":

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/23/how-to-fix-cars-by-breaking-felony-contempt-of-business-model/

All kinds of companies have availed themselves of this government-backed superpower. There's DRM – digital locks, covered by DMCA 1201 – in powered wheelchairs:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/when-drm-comes-your-wheelchair

In dishwashers:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/03/cassette-rewinder/#disher-bob

In treadmills:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/22/vapescreen/#jane-get-me-off-this-crazy-thing

In tractors:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/08/about-those-kill-switched-ukrainian-tractors/

It should come as no surprise to learn that Chamberlain has used DMCA 1201 to block interoperable garage door opener components:

https://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1233&context=iplr

That's how we arrived at this juncture, where a company like Chamberlain can break functionality its customers value highly, solely to eke out a minuscule new line of revenue by selling ads on their own app.

Chamberlain bought all its competitors.

Chamberlain operates in a regulatory environment that is extremely tolerant of unfair and deceptive practices. Worse: they can unilaterally take away your right to sue them, which means that if regulators don't bestir themselves to police Chamberlain, you are shit out of luck.

Chamberlain has endless flexibility to unilaterally alter its products' functionality, in fine-grained ways, even after you've purchased them.

Chamberlain can sue you if you try to exercise some of that same flexibility to protect yourself from their bad practices.

Combine all four of those factors, and of course Chamberlain is going to enshittify its products. Every company has had that one weaselly asshole at the product-planning table who suggests a petty grift like breaking every one of the company's customers' property to sell a few ads. But historically, the weasel lost the argument to others, who argued that making every existing customer furious would affect the company's bottom line, costing it sales and/or fines, and prompting customers to permanently sever their relationship with the company by seeking out and installing alternative software. Take away all the constraints on a corporation's worst impulses, and this kind of conduct is inevitable:

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

This isn't limited to Chamberlain. Without the discipline of competition, regulation, self-help measures or technological limitations, every industry in undergoing wholesale enshittification. It's not a coincidence that Chamberlain's grift involves a push to move users into its app. Because apps can't be reverse-engineered and modified without risking DMCA 1201 prosecution, forcing a user into an app is a tidy and reliable way to take away that user's rights.

Think about ad-blocking. One in four web users has installed an ad-blockers ("the biggest boycott in world history" -Doc Searls). Zero app users have installed app-blockers, because they don't exist, because making one is a felony. An app is just a web-page wrapped in enough IP to make it a crime to defend yourself against corporate predation:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/27/an-audacious-plan-to-halt-the-internets-enshittification-and-throw-it-into-reverse/

The temptation to enshitiffy isn't new, but the ability to do so without consequence is a modern phenomenon, the intersection of weak policy enforcement and powerful technology. Your car is autoenshittified, a rolling rent-seeking platform that spies on you and price-gouges you:

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

Cars are in an uncontrolled skid over Enshittification Cliff. Honda, Toyota, VW and GM all sell cars with infotainment systems that harvest your connected phone's text-messages and send them to the corporation for data-mining. What's more, a judge in Washington state just ruled that this is legal:

https://therecord.media/class-action-lawsuit-cars-text-messages-privacy

While there's no excuse for this kind of sleazy conduct, we can reasonably anticipate that if our courts would punish companies for engaging in it, they might be able to resist the temptation. No wonder Mozilla's latest Privacy Not Included research report called cars "the worst product category we have ever reviewed":

https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/its-official-cars-are-the-worst-product-category-we-have-ever-reviewed-for-privacy/

I mean, Nissan tries to infer facts about your sex life and sells those inferences to marketing companies:

https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/nissan/

But the OG digital companies are the masters of enshittification. Microsoft has been at this game for longer than anyone, and every day brings a fresh way that Microsoft has worsened its products without fear of consequence. The latest? You can't delete your OneDrive account until you provide an acceptable explanation for your disloyalty:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/8/23952878/microsoft-onedrive-windows-close-app-notification

It's tempting to think that the cruelty is the point, but it isn't. It's almost never the point. The point is power and money. Unscrupulous businesses have found ways to make money by making their products worse since the industrial revolution. Here's Jules Dupuis, writing about 19th century French railroads:

It is not because of the few thousand francs which would have to be spent to put a roof over the third-class carriages or to upholster the third-class seats that some company or other has open carriages with wooden benches. What the company is trying to do is to prevent the passengers who can pay the second class fare from traveling third class; it hits the poor, not because it wants to hurt them, but to frighten the rich. And it is again for the same reason that the companies, having proved almost cruel to the third-class passengers and mean to the second-class ones, become lavish in dealing with first-class passengers. Having refused the poor what is necessary, they give the rich what is superfluous.

https://www.tumblr.com/mostlysignssomeportents/731357317521719296/having-refused-the-poor-what-is-necessary-they

But as bad as all this is, let me remind you about the good part: we know how to stop companies from enshittifying their products. We know what disciplines their conduct: competition, regulation, capability and self-help measures. Yes, rats are gnawing our eyeballs, but we know which rat-poison to use, and where to put it to control those rats.

Competition, regulation, constraint and self-help measures all backstop one another, and while one or a few can make a difference, they are most powerful when they're all mobilized in concert. Think of the failure of the EU's landmark privacy law, the GDPR. While the GDPR proved very effective against bottom-feeding smaller ad-tech companies, the worse offenders, Meta and Google, have thumbed their noses at it.

This was enabled in part by the companies' flying an Irish flag of convenience, maintaining the pretense that they have to be regulated in a notorious corporate crime-haven:

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

That let them get away with all kinds of shenanigans, like ignoring the GDPR's requirement that you should be able to easily opt out of data-collection without having to go through cumbersome "cookie consent" dialogs or losing access to the service as punishment for declining to be tracked.

As the noose has tightened around these surveillance giants, they're continuing to play games. Meta now says that the only way to opt out of data-collection in the EU is to pay for the service:

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

This is facially illegal under the GDPR. Not only are they prohibited from punishing you for opting out of collection, but the whole scheme ignores the nature of private data collection. If Facebook collects the fact that you and I are friends, but I never opted into data-collection, they have violated the GDPR, even if you were coerced into granting consent:

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/11/the-pay-or-consent-challenge-for-platform-regulators.html

The GDPR has been around since 2016 and Google and Meta are still invading 500 million Europeans' privacy. This latest delaying tactic could add years to their crime-spree before they are brought to justice.

But most of this surveillance is only possible because so much of how you interact with Google and Meta is via an app, and an app is just a web-page that's a felony to make an ad-blocker for. If the EU were to legalize breaking DRM – repealing Article 6 of the 2001 Copyright Directive – then we wouldn't have to wait for the European Commission to finally wrestle these two giant companies to the ground. Instead, EU companies could make alternative clients for all of Google and Meta's services that don't spy on you, without suffering the fate of OG App, which tried this last winter and was shut down by "felony contempt of business model":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/05/battery-vampire/#drained

Enshittification is demoralizing. To quote @wilwheaton, every update to the services we use inspires "dread of 'How will this complicate things as I try to maintain privacy and sanity in a world that demands I have this thing to operate?'"

https://wilwheaton.tumblr.com/post/698603648058556416/cory-doctorow-if-you-see-this-and-have-thoughts

But there are huge natural constituencies for the four disciplining forces that keep enshittification at bay.

Remember, Antitrust's Twilight Zone doesn't just allow rollups of garage-door opener companies – it's also poison for funeral homes, hospital beds, magic mushrooms, youth addiction treatment centers, mobile home parks, nursing homes, physicians’ practices, local newspapers, or e-commerce sellers.

The Binding Arbitration scam that stops Chamberlain customers from suing the company also stops Uber drivers from suing over stolen wages, Turbotax customers from suing over fraud, and many other victims of corporate crime from getting a day in court.

The failure to constrain twiddling to protect privacy, labor rights and consumer rights enables a host of abuses, from stalking, doxing and SWATting to wage theft and price gouging:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens

And Felony Contempt of Business Model is used to screw you over every time you refill your printer, run your dishwasher, or get your Iphone's screen replaced.

The actions needed to halt and reverse this enshittification are well understood, and the partisans for taking those actions are too numerous to count. It's taken a long time for all those individuals suffering under corporate abuses to crystallize into a movement, but at long last, it's happening.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/09/lead-me-not-into-temptation/#chamberlain

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

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

[groupchatbrain]

Kowloon Walled City (九龍城寨) in Hong Kong, at its height in the 1970s, was home to an estimated 30,000 to 50,000 people, all crammed into just 6.4 acres of land—making it one of the most densely populated places on Earth. Often referred to as the City of Darkness, it was a place where sunlight barely reached the ground due to the densely packed buildings that stretched skyward in a chaotic maze of makeshift structures.

People living there operated small businesses like fabric shops, hair salons, food vendors, and workshops. These were often run without licenses or official oversight, making it a largely informal economy. There was also a significant presence of illegal businesses, such as drug dealing, gambling, and prostitution, often controlled by the Triads. The residents were largely self-reliant, with local businesses serving the immediate needs of the community, such as food, healthcare, and other basic services. It was an environment where people had to find ways to make a living with little help from the outside world. This underground economy was fueled by the lack of governmental control. Kowloon Walled City existed in a legal gray zone, neither fully under the control of the British colonial government nor China.

For much of its existence, the area was lawless and ruled by the Triads, Hong Kong’s notorious criminal organizations. In the absence of government intervention, the Triads became the de facto authority. Ironically, despite its reputation as a lawless slum, Kowloon Walled City was remarkably safe—thanks to the Triads' influence, it had lower crime rates compared to other areas of Hong Kong. The tightly-knit community, though surrounded by chaos, developed a sense of security and mutual reliance, where, even though the environment was harsh, the people kept to their own and protected each other.

However, by the late 1980s, the city’s dangerous living conditions and lack of basic infrastructure led to mounting concerns. The Hong Kong government decided to demolish the Walled City. It was cleared to make way for the Kowloon Walled City Park, a public space that preserved some remnants of the original structures. By 1994, the area was completely transformed from one of the densest slums in the world to a green park.

Today, Kowloon Walled City is a symbol of both the resilience of its residents and the dangers of a society left unchecked by law. The park stands as a reminder of a place that, while controversial, was a unique, self-sustaining world that existed on the edge of civilization, governed by its own set of rules.

[alittlebitofloveliness]

@zvoiderror000 @sipping-wxterfalls @obsessingoverl This is the full fic that goes with the out of context snippet you all seemed excited about

***************

Darry hadn’t been sure it was even worth putting together the funeral. After all, few folks had loved Johnny Cade, and even fewer had loved Dallas Winston, and most of them were the five who remained, all but three of whom were unemployed. He’d managed to scrape together money for headstones, albeit cheap ones, but a funeral- even a joint one- so soon after mom and dad was more of a strain on the budget than Darry could realistically handle, even with Soda and Steve offering to pitch in.

Then the parents of all those little kids Johnny and Pony saved had contacted him out of the blue, offering to help cover expenses and for all his pride Darry didn’t have it in himself to turn them down. Johnny and Dal deserved a proper burial any way he could manage to make it happen, and if that involved taking a bit of charity, well, for once so be it. It sure as hell wasn’t like Mr and Mrs Cade were going to pay to make sure Johnny was properly laid to rest.

So he’d taken the money and made the same terrible phone calls he’d made eight months ago, contacted the same vendors, and booked the same small room at the same small funeral home, feeling sick to his stomach the whole time. Pony had helped, more than he had eight months ago, had chosen Johnny’s casket from the few they could afford and written a eulogy he refused to show to anyone until the service itself. Darry didn’t begrudge him, trying to tamp down the guilt that came with the relief that cut through him every time he looked at his baby brother. It felt wrong, planning the funeral of two of his best friends, knowing that if the universe had offered him any sort of choice, he'd have still chosen Ponyboy and doomed them both anyway, every time. It’s a hard truth, a horrible one, but Darry has grown used to confronting such horrible things as of late, even if he can only ever confront them in his own head. 

After a few weeks of planning, the day of the funeral seems almost underwhelming. Soda and Ponyboy are once again dressed in the outfits they wore to mom and dad’s funeral, Ponyboy somehow looking twice as lost as he did then for all he’s grown almost half a foot taller. Soda is a shadow of his usual self, drawn in behind the careful mask he dons when he doesn’t want anyone to see what he’s really thinking, but the cigarette in his hand is enough to give Darry a good idea of his tenuous mental state.

Pony climbs the steps of the funeral home in the same dreamlike manner he’s adopted since the night of the rumble, the same cloak of oblivion he’d shrouded himself in for months after mom and dad passed, the one he’d only just started to lift off himself before Darry ruined it all with his temper and that slap. Sometimes he thinks he will never truly be able to undo the damage he caused that night, all the consequences of one despicable rash action.

Soda loiters near the stairs, Steve a supportive, grim faced pillar beside him, their shoulders pressed together and pinky fingers linked in a way they probably think is subtle. Darry wants to tell them they’re too close, warn them yet again about being in public and what people might think, but today he doesn’t have the energy. Besides, it’s not like there's anyone coming. All of them, from Two-bit to Ponyboy, know the only folks this funeral is for is them, the gang. If anyone else shows at all it’ll be a miracle. So he leaves Soda and Steve and the obvious, secret love that could kill them both by the door, and goes inside to check on Ponyboy.

His younger brother hasn’t stepped into the small chapel yet, instead he’s sitting with his back against the wall and his legs sprawled out, half hidden behind a small side table. The picture of Johnny that is supposed to be beside the guest book is clutched in his hands, and silent tears are running down his face, his tiny form shaking violently with suppressed sobs. 

Shit. The sight of it chips another shard off of Darry’s thrice broken heart. This poor kid. This sweet, sweet kid, who’s been through more in the past year than most people go through in a lifetime. Darry can’t help but wonder if his baby brother is ever again going to know a life without pain. 

“Hey little buddy,” Darry’s knees crack as he kneels down beside him, tossing an arm around his brother's shoulders, “how’re ya doin’?

It’s a stupid question, and they both know it, but it startles a choked off, surprised laugh out of Ponyboy, and it feels like a bigger win than winning the state football championship back in high school.

“M’alright,” Pony glances around as if making sure they’re alone before snuggling into Darry’s side a bit. He’s been awful cuddly since he got back home, but fourteen and a greaser is still fourteen and a greaser, and Darry knows Pony would die before he let anyone outside the gang find out about his newfound clinginess. 

“You sure?” Darry tightens his grip on Pony and drops a kiss on his gelled hair. Today is gonna be a hard day for all of them, but things like this always hit Pony worse, and he’s worried about him. He’s still so young, only fourteen. Darry himself had seen some rough stuff by the time he was fourteen- you couldn’t grow up in their neighbourhood and not see some stuff you wished you hadn’t- but back then he’d had dad to talk things through with and mom to lie to him and promise everything would be okay. Compared to that, Pony has nothing, just two brothers who love him but can’t protect him, and now a dead best friend to mourn on top of his parents.

“No,” Pony shakes his head, letting out another watery laugh, this one verging on hysterical, “no, I’m not okay. Sometimes I think I’m never gonna be ok again.”

“Baby…” Darry doesn’t know what to do. He isn’t cut out for this, isn’t meant to be a guardian or a parent or whatever he’s become, and he’s never been good with emotions anyway. It’s always been Soda’s job, since their parents passed, to deal with the feelings while he deals with the bills, but Soda is his little brother too, has decided not to feel today so that he can cope, so Darry is once again all Pony has. He wishes he could be enough, or at the very least think of something to say, but he isn’t and he can’t. Instead, all he can do is rock Ponyboy as he cries and wish the world wasn’t so horrifically cruel. At the very least he wishes he could reassure him…but Darry doesn’t like to lie, and the truth is that lately he isn’t sure Pony will be ok. Lately, his brother seems uniquely broken in a way Darry isn’t sure he can fix. 

Johnny would have known what to do. He and Pony would have gone for a smoke on the porch and talked in low voices, and somehow whatever he’d said would have brought Ponyboy back to himself. But Johnny is gone, isn’t coming back, and Pony might just stay this empty shell because of it. The thought makes something dark and cold creep into his chest, but Darry is a realist and learned a long time ago that ignoring uncomfortable things does not simply make them go away, as much as he might wish they would. Johnny is gone, and Pony is different, and things will never be the same as they were. That’s that.

“I just…” Pony manages once he’s cried himself out, “he- he was the only person who completely knew me without me havin’ to tell him. I’m never gonna find anyone like that again in my whole life I don't think, and that…that’s terrifyin’.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Pony nods fervently, almost begging him to understand, and fuck it, Darry is trying because he isn’t Johnny and he isn’t Soda but he’s still trying his best, “I miss Dal too, of course I do, but losin’ Johnny is just- different. He dug me and I dug him and I just-I’m really gonna miss him. “

“Sometimes,” Pony’s voice breaks, but he soldiers on, “sometimes I wish I coulda died in his place. Or Dal’s. That way we’d at least be together.”

“Don’t say that!” Fear so cold it burns flashes through Darry, and he squeezes Pony tighter, as if the mere thought is a blow he could shield him from, “Please baby, don't ever say that, I couldn’t survive without you. Soda would go clean crazy I-”

“Cool it Dar,” Pony shakes him off, “I know that. I ain’t stupid and I don’t got a death wish either. I just miss him and I…wonder, sometimes. That’s all.”

“Well quit your wonderin’,” Darry scolds. He can hear himself getting harsh, the way he always gets when he’s worried, and tries to even out his tone, “that sort of wonderin’ does more harm than good. I wouldn’t trade you bein’ here for the world and I know for a fact Johnny and Dal wouldn’t neither. Savvy?”

Pony looks at him for a moment, and there’s such fear in those eyes, such grief, and yet so much trust it makes Darry’s heart ache in a completely different way.

“I savvy.” he says at last, and Darry internally sighs in relief. This conversation isn’t over, and Ponyboy has never been one to let things go, but at least, for the moment, he is safe.

The door opens then and Soda and Steve reappear, flanked by Two-bit with his mom and sister. Darry climbs to his feet, pulling Pony up beside him and they take a deep breath and all enter the chapel together.

For a second he stands there frozen, completely caught off guard, heart swelling with an odd mixture of gratitude and something else that isn’t quite grief, but has the same bittersweet tinge. 

There are more people inside than Darry expected, which is to say, there’s people there at all. He’d fully believed the only ones who’d bother coming to Johnny and Dal’s funeral would be the gang and Two’s family, but Tim Shepard and a few of his guys are clustered near the back door, looking uncomfortable, and Sylvia Devares is as cold eyed and sour faced as ever, but present nevertheless, sitting in the second row of chairs, glaring at Dally’s casket as if she expected him to sit up and start cussing her out any second. There’s no sign of Mr or Mrs Cade, but there’s a dark haired girl probably a year or two younger than Ponyboy sitting next to a tired looking man in his forties that Darry remembers Johnny staying with sometimes when he was really little, before Mrs.Cade cut her family out of her life for good. It’s strange, Darry thinks, seeing the love people don’t express until it’s too late. It has to have been nearly a decade since Johnny last saw his uncle and baby cousin, yet here they are, waiting to say their goodbyes.

Darry speaks quietly with the funeral director and the service begins, some local pastor kicking things off with a short sermon. Darry knows Dally probably would not have chosen a clergyman to speak at his funeral, but he also probably would have told them to have a beer in his honour and chuck him in the ground; and knowing how much Johnny had liked going to church with Pony, the sermon seemed appropriate. If he’s being quite honest with himself, Darry isn’t at all sure heaven or hell exists, but he also isn’t willing to gamble when it comes to Johnny and Dally’s souls. If a qualified preacher putting in a good word with the big man could get them a chance at eternal happiness, Darry would gladly sit here for fifteen minutes listening to him talk. If Darry’s being honest, if Dally’s gonna get into heaven, his soul needs all the help it can get.

It’s after they’ve all said a final amen, but before Pony has managed to start the eulogies, that the door creaks open and one final mourner slips inside. She’s clearly trying to be inconspicuous, but the timing of her arrival and the fact she clearly isn’t from around here make it so every eye in the room turns directly on her the second she gets through the doorway.

The first thing Darry notices is how skinny she is. He’s known a lot of folks in his time that are somewhat underfed, but this woman is better described as emaciated. The second thing he notices is how sick she looks, with her pale face, puffy eyes, and hunched posture; and the third is her white blond hair and pointed ears, two features he’s only ever seen on one other person.

“Who’s the junkie?” Tim Shepard sidles over and murmurs in Darry’s ear as the woman takes a seat in the second row of chairs, and Ponyboy clears his throat and starts Dally’s’ eulogy.

“Hell if I know.” Darry murmurs back, and it’s true. Dallas never mentioned anything or anyone from his past, and the gang had always respected that. He has no idea who the girl might have been to Dallas, just figures there must be some sort of familial relation.

“Well damn. Mighta been useful to know he had family who like smack,” Tim shrugs, “coulda got her a decent price at least.”

Darry glanced at the girl’s slumped posture and the way she kept scratching at her arms, and winced. Drugs are an aspect of the east side he’d always found particularly unsavoury, simply based on how visibly they could destroy someone. There were slower poisons, yes, like booze and gambling and hate, but drugs were simply more obvious. There were plenty of addicts that bummed around the train tracks or out near Brumly territory, and much as Darry hated to admit it, Tim’s assessment of the blonde was spot on. She was clearly hooked on smack, and from the looks of it, had been for a while.

Pony finishes the eulogies, voice shaky but more composed than Darry would have expected, but he barely hears him. All he can see is the back of the girl's blonde hair and the points of her ears. For some reason it had been easier to grieve Dallas when he felt like one of the only people who could mourn him properly; but this girl has clearly travelled who knows how far to attend this cobbled together funeral, and now some part of Darry feels like maybe he should have publicized it wider, spent some time really looking for Dallas’ next of kin. Not that he would have known where to look, but maybe it was selfish to just assume their ragtag pieced together family was truly the only family Dallas had. After all, everyone comes from somewhere, right? Maybe he should have tried to learn more about Dallas’ somewhere. 

A voice in his head that sounds suspiciously like Dallas himself tells him not to be stupid, that Dallas was a kid who’d left where he came from and never looked back once, a kid who had died after losing the only person he couldn’t stand to lose. This girl may be here now, the voice says, but whoever she was clearly meant nothing to the person Dallas was when he died. It still does little to assuage the guilt slowly curdling in Darry’s heart.

The funeral director smoothly wraps up the ceremony without Darry having to do anything, mentioning the refreshments in the other room and reminding everyone to say their final goodbyes as they’d be closing the caskets in half an hour before moving to the graveyard. There’s a part of Darry that’s grateful that making the announcement didn’t fall on him, and a larger part that dreads the next half hour but dreads the minutes after it even more fervently. 

A line at the caskets forms quickly, the scant mourners each taking a turn to say their own goodbyes, and it would be almost sweet if it wasn’t so grim. 

Mrs. Mathews and Susie go first. Neither one of them glances at Dally for long, but Darry can’t really blame them for that, considering they hardly knew him. Both women linger longer next to Johnny, and Susie drops a tootsie roll into the casket with a sniffle. Those two were buddies, Darry knows. Johnny used to crash at the Mathews’ place almost as much as he crashed at their house, and Johnny and Susie’s matching gentle souls had bonded them quickly.

Tim and his guys go next, and they linger longer beside Dallas. None of them say much really, but there’s a tightness in Tim’s jaw that speaks more to regret than anger when he finally mutters an ‘asshole’ under his breath and stalks away, his gang following behind. Darry doubts he’ll show up to the cemetery, but can’t exactly begrudge him for it. It was good of Tim to come at all, mostly because if the roles were reversed and it was Tim lying there instead, Darry isn’t at all sure Dally would have done the same. 

Sylvia goes next, and her glare doesn’t waver, but whatever rant she’s murmuring to Dallas seems heartfelt for all of its rage. She doesn’t even glance at Johnny on her way out, and it should make Darry’s blood boil, but it doesn’t, not really, because everyone knows Sylvia Devares doesn’t care about anyone but herself, so if Dally meant enough for her to show up at all then she really must have cared as much as she could. Those two were a dumpster fire even at their best, and nothing about them ever gave the impression they were in love, but Darry knows better than anyone that you don’t need to be in love to love somebody in a way that could destroy you. 

Johnny’s uncle and cousin step up the small dais, and the old man says something in the language Johnny’s mom stopped letting him speak the same year she stopped speaking to her family, the one Johnny tried teaching to Ponyboy just to spite her. Whatever he says, it’s a blessing meant only for Johnny, but Darry can feel the weight of it, the love, the regret, the pain, just from the man’s tone. Johnny’s cousin glances once more over her shoulder as they leave, black eyes twinkling just the same as Johnny’s used to, and for a second it’s hard for Darry to breathe.

Now it’s the hard part. Ponyboy, for all his evocative words and stubborn strength, has not looked at Johnny’s body since he stepped into the room, and the second he does he lets out a horrible sound, something between a choked off whimper and and a sob, before darting from the room like something is chasing him. Maybe something is. Darry knows all about how memories can be specters. 

“I’ll go,” Soda stops him from following after Pony with a hand on his shoulder, “you say your goodbyes.”

Dary almost protests, almost tells him to say his own goodbyes while he still can, but there’s shadows in Soda’s eyes, and a strickenness to his face. Suddenly, Darry remembers the way Soda had panicked back when they closed the caskets on mom and dad, how his face had turned white as harsh breaths forced their way through clenched teeth, and he realizes that maybe this is Soda trying to save himself; so he nods and offers him the closest thing he can manage to a smile before Soda turns and follows Pony out the door, leaving Darry with Steve and Two-bit.

Two-bit is blubbering where he stands in front of Dally, and Steve is misty eyed beside him with a hand on his shoulder. Darry knows he should comfort them, play big brother to the brothers who are still his, just not by blood, but there’s something about watching the other people who cared say goodbye that is healing a piece of him, and he can’t bring himself to move. Not yet.

Eventually, Two-bit’s sobs give way to hushed murmurs and begging, Steve’s solemn facade cracking a bit as a single tear finally traces down his cheek. Darry swallows against the lump in his throat, wishing there was a way to make this easier for them and knowing there isn’t. This is one of those things they’re just going to have to feel.

“We’ll see you out there, Superman,” Steve claps Darry on the shoulder as he guides Two-bit out to the parking lot, the redhead already in the process of lighting a cigarette. Not for the first time, Darry is inordinately grateful for Steve Randle and his unmatched ability to be supportive without ever being overbearing.

He steps up the dais, steps muffled by the cheap carpet of the funeral home, but seeming to echo nonetheless. Johnny and Dally are arranged side by side, cleaner and more put together than they ever were in life. Darry hadn’t had any nice clothes to send for them to be buried in, but they wouldn’t have wanted them anyway. They’re both in jeans, Dally in a black t-shirt, and Johnny in a blue one, his jeans jacket pressed and arranged neatly around his small frame. There’s the same uncanny wrongness in their corpses that there was in mom and dad’s that make it impossible for Darry to be able to pretend they’re sleeping or any other such platitude people try to lie to themselves with. Dally’s skin, while pale in life, is now so white it’s waxy, seeming even more stark against the contrast of his shirt. Johnny’s unnatural stillness is so unlike his constant fidgeting it’s almost startling, and his face so peaceful is eerie. Jumpy, gentle, fierce Johnny Cade never looked so calm in life as he does in death, and the realization is a whole new kind of sickening.

A presence at his shoulder is the only thing that keeps a tear or two leaking out. When Darry looks over, the blonde girl from earlier is standing quietly a half pace behind him, her sunken eyes fixed on Dally with such sorrow it’s hard for him to look at. 

“You knew him.” Darry says. It isn’t a question.

“I did,” The girl agrees, “or at least I used to.”

When he was alive, even after years in Oklahoma, Dally’s voice always kept a burr of the yankee accent but this girl is full Brooklyn, and the oddness of it to his country bred ears almost has Darry laughing, despite the seriousness of the situation. Luckily, the girl doesn’t seem to notice, her eyes still locked on Dallas, for all she’s conversing with him.

“How?” Darry wonders. “How did you know him, I mean?”

“Does it matter?”

“I guess not.” Not anymore, at least. Not that it had mattered before, but he’d always been curious about Dallas, the only one of their gang whose background was a true mystery.

Silence reigns for a minute. Darry watches a wasp buzz around the flowers on top of Dally’s casket. 

“He’s- he was- my brother,” the girl admits, voice breaking, and Darry can’t keep the shock off his face. He’d thought, based on the resemblance, that she might be a cousin or something, but a sister? 

“My baby brother,” the girl repeats, almost to herself, and Darry’s heart clenches. It isn’t just the bone deep anguish comprised in those three words, it’s the way they force Soda and Pony to the forefront of his mind. Sure, Dally wasn’t anything like either of his hard headed, stupid, secretly sweet brothers, and it’s clear whatever relationship Dally had with his sister isn’t anything like how Darry’s own is with his, but this girl has still lost her baby brother. Darry had got a taste of what it was like to lose Ponyboy for a week, and it nearly killed him. He’d been lucky enough to get Pony back. Dally’s sister will never get him back.

“I..I’m sorry,” Darry chokes, “I didn't know. I would’ve tried to invite you or let you plan stuff, I-”

“Don’t.” She cuts him off, and for a second its Dallas glaring at him. Then he blinks and her glare has faded, and he can breathe again, “You did the right thing. There’s a reason he left New York. He wouldn’t have wanted me anywhere near the planning of this.”

She doesn’t say he wouldn’t have wanted her there. Darry figures it might be implied anyway.

They lapse into silence again. The air in the chapel smells like incense and cleaning chemicals, a stiff, heavy, artificial mixture that seems like a strangely fitting smog over the day.

“He wasn’t always like that, y’know?” Dally’s sister bursts out, like she’d been trying desperately not to say it and been unable to keep silent anyway.

“Like what?”

“Like..he wasn’t always the way he was when he left. The way he was when he found you guys. He didn’t always hate everything.” 

Darry tries to picture it, a Dallas Winston who wasn’t jaded and callous to the point of cruelty sometimes, a Dallas who lived instead of just surviving. Try as he might, he can’t quite manage it.

“What was he like? Before?”

“Quiet,” The barest trace of a smile tugs at her chapped lips. “Smart. Kind, before he forgot how to be.”

“He didn’t forget,” Darry tells her, thinking of the million and one ways Dally had helped out the gang, refusing any and all thanks for it, “he just wished he could have. But he was still kind. In his own way.”

“Well that’s something, I guess,” the half smile fades and she sighs, gazing down at Dally’s still face with so much regret Darry could drown in it. “He deserved better.”

“They both did.”

“Before he left I mean. He deserved a chance, and I…I couldn’t give it to him. Not since that first hit.”

“Oh,” For a second Darry thinks she means an actual physical hit- then he realizes, “oh.”

He’s never been good with words, and right now is no exception. He doesn’t have a clue what to say. Luckily, she just gives him a sardonic grin and keeps talking.

“I was ten when Dally was born. His mom left when he was like, two, and our dad is a fucking asshole, so I kind of raised him. I had to. But I was ten. I didn’t know what I was doing, and he always wanted to know.”

She shakes her head ruefully. 

“‘Raya,’ he asked me once, ‘how come everyone else has a mom and I don’t?’ I didn’t know what to tell him. Then it was ‘Raya, how come Joey’s dad never hurts him like dad hurts us?’ and ‘Raya, what’s in dad’s cigs that make them worse than yours?’ and on and on until he stopped asking because I never had a good answer. Then he started going out by himself, and getting mixed up with the wrong people and then it was too late. He was, what, seven? maybe? the first time he got jumped, and he wasn’t even the littlest kid in our neighborhood it happened to. He never really had a chance. And then I went to that party, and-and I-I couldn’t…and he left. And he never came back.”

“Sorry,” she sniffs, wiping her eyes, “I didn’t mean- I just- I think you were good for him. Better than I was. You and your friends. I saw the pictures of you in the paper, after the fire and the shooting and everything, and there was one…he was in it, with this one,” she nods to Johnny, “and the other little one, and he was smiling. He didn’t smile much, even when he was real little. I figure anyone who could get him to smile and who bothered to plan a funeral must have been good for him.”

“Sounds to me like you did the best you could,” Darry tells her, because hell, he does the best he can and fucks it up, and so does Tim Shepard, and so does every older sibling who has ever had to be a parent when they themselves were still a child, “I think you were good for him as much as you could be.”

“Maybe,” Raya says, “maybe not. It doesn’t matter now anyway.” 

“It matters,” Darry says, because he’s seen too little love to not know how important even the imperfect kind can be, “you loved him, so it still matters.”

Apparently it was the wrong thing to say. Her lips purse, causing her sharp cheekbones to stick out even further.

“I need a smoke,” is all she says, casting one last look at Dally’s still face before turning on her heel and stalking out the door without looking back.

Darry doesn’t follow her, even though it feels like maybe he should. He’ll see her when they end up at the graveyard and if he doesn’t, well, he’ll have known she’d said her piece. 

He turns back to the caskets, taking in one unloved boy and a boy who wasn’t loved enough. Boys he’d loved like his own family. Boys he’d let down, no matter how hard he tried not to.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, and it isn’t enough and it never will be but what else is there to say? “I tried.”

He stays there until the funeral director comes, shutting the coffin lids, locking two more of Darry’s family away from the world that never treated them right.

He squares his shoulders. Takes a deep breath. This day isn’t over, and his surviving family still needs him. 

Darry Curtis goes back to trying his best.

[writingoddess1125]

Barefoot and Bruised

ALL ABOARD THE ANGST AND DEPRESSION TRAIN! TOOT TOOT MOTHERFUCKERS

Buggy + OOC/Reader

⚠️ Warnings ⚠️ Depression, Character Death, Saddness, Angst

Support me of Ko-Fi

Back to Masterlist <-

Art Belongs to Vamos_MK on Twitter. Check them Out!

"You can't do this to me Captian!" You sobbed out, Rage in your eyes as you stared at who you thought was the love of your life. There standing on the tiny life boat with all your stuff that had been pulled from your quarters as the crew, once thought to be your family leered at you and cackled at your pathetic state.

You had been with Captian Buggy in what you had thought was a loving relationship. You gave him your heart, your body- and this is what he does to you... sees you experiencing what could only be morning sickness and has you thrown out like a stray.

Standing there still in his sleeping shorts that he had worn when he fell asleep next to you the night before.

"Oh? The Cabin Whore things she can tell me what to do?" He laughed, the crew joining in as you felt your skin burn with embrassment.

"Y-You were the only one I was with" You choked out, Buggy's eyes not meeting your own.

"And with how easy it was- Would be surprised if half the crew was with you at this point. A few nice words and you fell in a mattress like a slut" He sneered. Your heart shattered then and there- he had been the only man you gave yourself too.. and he called you a whore?-

"B-But it's yours!- you know this" You pleas, but the clown waves you off. Instead reaching into his pockets to pull out a necklace- payment for your services..

"Could be anyones- But I'm not heartless. This should suffice as payment" He said cruelly throwing the necklace.

You sobbed as the jewlery hit you and fell to the floor of the boat. Looking back up at Buggy as fat tears rolled down your face- His cocky persona staring back at you.

"P-Please- You'll kill us" You said softly, Buggy laughing at this as he waved you off.

"If it truly is mine then- It will live!" He said with a laugh, the crew also laughing at you as the boat was lowered into the ocean. You sitting in the tiny dingy and staring up at Red Top as you floated towards the islands that Buggy had chosen to abandon you at-

Your eyes locking onto him as he stared down at you- sailing away.

That imagine would haunt him for the rest of his days.. watching you sail off with that heart broken and shell-shocked look on your flushed face. Wearing the shirt he had worn the night before and nothing else-

Cruel heartless bastard.. That's the only thing he could call himself after that day.

His own ego had done this- His pride in wanting to be a famed heartless pirate had made him throw away the only person he loved. The only person who loved him. He had regretted his actions, knowing you couldn't have cheated on him nor were you a whore- but his own insecurities more willing to think you'd betrayed him rather then being the father of your child.

He had wanted to find you- searching the East Blue were he hand abandoned you, hoping to see your face and drag you back with him.

But for 6 years he had failed- Growing in his status as a Pirate but he hadn't cared for it... the alcohol no better then vinegar and the food like ash on his lips. The success wasn't worth it- Non of it could quench his hunger like you did..

So jovial men a hardened and angry mess- Willing to burn everything to the ground with a simple hope of feeling anything again that wasn't self-hatred.

It acted as a tradion of sorts for him- Buying something from a vendor as a token of what it once was- before burning the village to the ground and ripping away all its valuables... Wasn't like he wouldn't get his money back at the end of the day anyway-

Today was no different, having his crew stop on a random island on the East Blue. He always went first, going into the village to search for you and when he failed, buying some trinket to add to visual representation of his failures.

As he walked, the world no better then to be in Grayscale thinking of which place he will destroy first a flash of blue caught his eye, craning his head to follow it quickly.

Buggy stared at the starving child- A feeling of pain hitting his chest as he stared at the miserable little thing. Her feet cut up and bare red from exposure with tried blood on them, Her skin which reminded him so much of your own was dirty, ashy and covered in deep blue bruises that seemed to paint her whole form. Which was only being covered by what was once a dress and now a tattered patchy mess- A breeze most likely ready to rip it and leave her bare to the horrors of the world.

The Clown watching as the blue was matted hair, sticking up and dirty from lack of washing. Attacked to it, a equality dirty little girl digging through a trashcan in an alleyway and pulling out bread that even in his reasoning wouldn't be suitable for a bug to eat let alone a little girl.

"What are you looking at Mister?" The little girl said defensively snapping Buggy back to reality as he saw ger holding the bread like he was gonna take it from her- it would have been funny if she didn't look so damn awful.. he look in her feature, trying to track why they were so familiar to him. A twisted scowl that hung low on her rounded race, a normal nose buttoned and high however tinted red like she had a cold- But it was her eyes.. oh those sad little eyes that told him all he needed, Shaped just like yours but with his unique color. The mop of matted blue hair also cluing him in-

But he could see on her face, despite how thin, the perfect mix of you and him- it damn near took his breath away to see her. In most cases he would even call her the most beautiful being in this world..

How could you let them be on the street? Let them walk around half starved and beaten so terribly?

Stepping closer to the alleyway that she was standing in, he looked over to see only trash and a wooden box- which he assumed she'd been staying in. Confused and hurt at not seeing your face as well.

Was she by herself?

"Where is your mother kid?" He scoffed anger biting his tongue, staring at matching ocean eyes like his own. The little girl glaring up at him apprehensive of him rightly so, clearly his words hitting a nerve in her little body.

"Shes Dead-"

Her words knocking the wind from Buggy's lungs and his anger turned to himself once more...

"Oh.." blinking back what felt like tears in his eyes he glanced away for a few seconds. The burn of her words echoing in his brain as guilt began to fill his hallow heart.

"How?" He said a bit sharply, seeing the child's body language grow a bit hesitant and defensive as she took some steps back.

"She was robbed and murdered for her necklace" She said truthfully. Buggy staggering at hearing this- remembering the gold necklace he had tossed at you when he left you on that damn boat. He had ment for you to sell it.. why hadn't you sold it!? You could have lived- He could have apologized to you, grovel at your feet and begged for forgiveness!

The child continued to stare at him- clearly able to tell he was in his own mind. It took him a few seconds to recollect himself, meeting her eyes again as he kneeled down to be more eyelevel.

"What happened to her body?" He asked calmly.

"Why should I tell you?" She shot back, almost pulling a laugh from the man. She had his attitude it seemed.. poor thing-

"Fair enough-" He mused "You're a rough kid" He said calmly. Staring her down- part of him wanting to reach out and take her in his arms, cry into her dirty hair and beg for her to forgive him for leaving her and her mother.. Grovel before this begging child- However his fear of her running away was stronger. If he did that she could escape and would have to rip this village apart to find her.

"...H-How do you feel about working kid?" He said softly, his voice wavering at his own words. The way he eyes shined at hearing the opportunity for money reminded him of his own- hungry.

"Really?" She said loudly, Buggy reaching into his pockets and pulling out a 10000 beri note. Holding it out to her which she greedily took- the note looking massive in her tiny fingers. He could practically see her counting how much food she could get with the bill.

"There is more, If you agree to work on my ship as an apprentice" He said calmly, The little girl holding the note highly in her little fist and looked at his skeptical. "That and I feed my crew really well. We do circus shows too and wear whatever costumes we want" He pitched with his kindest and most performance voice, watching her eyes light up at the idea. A grin stretching across her face and he damn near wept- The same smile you had.

"I accept Mister!" She said loudly, Buggy giving a stiff nod and holding out the small bag he had been holding for her to carry- figuring she would be suspicious if he didnt have her do something for her new job. That and he would most likely give the trinket to her anyway- along with anything she could ever desire.

"Whats your name?" He asked, watching her proudly take the small bag to carry. As well as getting a better look at her arms- so thin he could see the joints of her elbows.

"Aoko" She said proudly, Buggy damn near rolled his eyes- 'Blue Child...very funny (Y/N)' He though, Standing back to his full height and waving her forward towards the pier.

"Alright. Aoko.. Let's head to your new home" He said calmly, watching her skip forward with the bag. Unaware of her Father staring right behind her, as tears rolled down his panted face finally.

[mariacallous]

A United States Customs and Border Protection request for information this week revealed the agency’s plans to find vendors that can supply face recognition technology for capturing data on everyone entering the US in a vehicle like a car or van, not just the people sitting in the front seat. And a CBP spokesperson later told WIRED that the agency also has plans to expand its real-time face recognition capabilities at the border to detect people exiting the US as well—a focus that may be tied to the Trump administration’s push to get undocumented people to “self-deport” and leave the US.

WIRED also shed light this week on a recent CBP memo that rescinded a number of internal policies designed to protect vulnerable people—including pregnant women, infants, the elderly, and people with serious medical conditions—while in the agency’s custody. Signed by acting commissioner Pete Flores, the order eliminates four Biden-era policies.

Meanwhile, as the ripple effects of “SignalGate” continue, the communication app TeleMessage suspended “all services” pending an investigation after former US national security adviser Mike Waltz inadvertently called attention to the app, which subsequently suffered data breaches in recent days. Analysis of TeleMessage Signal’s source code this week appeared to show that the app sends users’ message logs in plaintext, undermining the security and privacy guarantees the service promised. After data stolen in one of the TeleMessage hacks indicated that CBP agents might be users of the app, CBP confirmed its use to WIRED, saying that the agency has “disabled TeleMessage as a precautionary measure.”

A WIRED investigation found that US director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard reused a weak password for years on multiple accounts. And researchers warn that an open source tool known as “easyjson” could be an exposure for the US government and US companies, because it has ties to the Russian social network VK, whose CEO has been sanctioned.

And there's more. Each week, we round up the security and privacy news we didn’t cover in depth ourselves. Click the headlines to read the full stories. And stay safe out there.

ICE’s Deportation Airline Hack Reveals Man “Disappeared” to El Salvador

Hackers this week revealed they had breached GlobalX, one of the airlines that has come to be known as “ICE Air” thanks to its use by the Trump administration to deport hundreds of migrants. The data they leaked from the airline includes detailed flight manifests for those deportation flights—including, in at least one case, the travel records of a man whose own family had considered him “disappeared” by immigration authorities and whose whereabouts the US government had refused to divulge.

On Monday, reporters at 404 Media said that hackers had provided them with a trove of data taken from GlobalX after breaching the company’s network and defacing its website. “Anonymous has decided to enforce the Judge's order since you and your sycophant staff ignore lawful orders that go against your fascist plans,” a message the hackers posted to the site read. That stolen data, it turns out, included detailed passenger lists for GlobalX’s deportation flights—including the flight to El Salvador of Ricardo Prada Vásquez, a Venezuelan man whose whereabouts had become a mystery to even his own family as they sought answers from the US government. US authorities had previously declined to tell his family or reporters where he had been sent—only that he had been deported—and his name was even excluded from a list of deportees leaked to CBS News. (The Department of Homeland Security later stated in a post to X that Prada was in El Salvador—but only after a New York Times story about his disappearance.)

The fact that his name was, in fact, included all along on a GlobalX flight manifest highlights just how opaque the Trump administration’s deportation process remains. According to immigrant advocates who spoke with 404 Media, it even raises questions about whether the government itself had deportation records as comprehensive as the airline whose planes it chartered. “There are so many levels at which this concerns me. One is they clearly did not take enough care in this to even make sure they had the right lists of who they were removing, and who they were not sending to a prison that is a black hole in El Salvador,” Michelle Brané, executive director of immigrant rights group Together and Free, told 404 Media. “They weren't even keeping accurate records of who they were sending there.”

The Computer of a DOGE Staffer With Sensitive Access Reportedly Infected With Malware

Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Governmental Efficiency has raised alarms not just due to its often reckless cuts to federal programs, but also the agency’s habit of giving young, inexperienced staffers with questionable vetting access to highly sensitive systems. Now security researcher Micah Lee has found that Kyle Schutt, a DOGE staffer who reportedly accessed the financial system of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, appears to have had infostealer malware on one of his computers. Lee discovered that four dumps of user data stolen by that kind of password-stealing malware included Schutt’s passwords and usernames. It’s far from clear when Schutt’s credentials were stolen, for what machine, or whether the malware would have posed any threat to any government agency’s systems, but the incident nonetheless highlights the potential risks posed by DOGE staffers’ unprecedented access.

Grok AI Will “Undress” Women in Public on X

Elon Musk has long marketed his AI tool Grok as a more freewheeling, less restricted alternative to other large language models and AI image generators. Now X users are testing the limits of Grok’s few safeguards by replying to images of women on the platform and asking Grok to “undress” them. While the tool doesn’t allow the generation of nude images, 404 Media and Bellingcat have found that it repeatedly responded to users’ “undress” prompts with pictures of women in lingerie or bikinis, posted publicly to the site. In one case, Grok apologized to a woman who complained about the practice, but the feature has yet to be disabled.

A Hacked School Software Company Paid a Ransom—but Schools Are Still Being Extorted

This week in don’t-trust-ransomware-gangs news: Schools in North Carolina and Canada warned that they’ve received extortion threats from hackers who had obtained students’ personal information. The likely source of that sensitive data? A ransomware breach last December of PowerSchool, one of the world’s biggest education software firms, according to NBC News. PowerSchool paid a ransom at the time, but the data stolen from the company nonetheless appears to be the same info now being used in the current extortion attempts. “We sincerely regret these developments—it pains us that our customers are being threatened and re-victimized by bad actors,” PowerSchool told NBC News in a statement. “As is always the case with these situations, there was a risk that the bad actors would not delete the data they stole, despite assurances and evidence that were provided to us.”

A Notorious Deepfake Porn Site Shuts Down After Its Creator Is Outed

Since its creation in 2018, MrDeepFakes.com grew into perhaps the world’s most infamous repository of nonconsensual pornography created with AI mimicry tools. Now it’s offline after the site’s creator was identified as a Canadian pharmacist in an investigation by CBC, Bellingcat, and the Danish news outlets Politiken and Tjekdet. The site’s pseudonymous administrator, who went by DPFKS on its forums and created at least 150 of its porn videos himself, left a trail of clues in email addresses and passwords found on breached sites that eventually led to the Yelp and Airbnb accounts of Ontario pharmacist David Do. After reporters approached Do with evidence that he was DPFKS, MrDeepFakes.com went offline. “A critical service provider has terminated service permanently. Data loss has made it impossible to continue operation,” reads a message on its homepage. “We will not be relaunching.”

[duckprintspress]

hey, i'd like to just throw this out to you, since you're a press so i have a feeling you might know. if i was seeking to publish a book but i didn't want it to ever be sold through amazon, what would my options be?

Hiya!

I'm assuming you mean you're interested in self-publishing? If yes, then yeah, I can give you at least some information about your options. :D

If you don't want to use Amazon, you definitely still have some options for self-publishing a book. I can sympathize with this sentiment; we hate Amazon and I've done what I can to keep our works off there (and, ultimately, failed, but still kept it to a minimum).

There's two overarching questions you'll need to consider when deciding how to proceed:

What formats are you selling? Are you doing e-book only or e-book + print or print book only? What about audiobooks? Which will influence your choices.

Are you mostly interested in direct sales (as in, you personally sell the book to the customer) or sales-through-an-intermediary (as in, a bookstore sells your book to a customer) or distribution (as in, you list the book with someone who acts as an intermediary between you and other vendors)?

As briefly as I can, first, here's what Duck Prints Press uses:

Ingram - e-book (and, once we have one - we're working on our first! - audiobook) distribution. Ingram is the biggest book distributor in the US and has a virtual monopoly on distribution. Even places that aren't technically Ingram, such as draft2digital, usually use Ingram. Because they're a near-monopoly, Ingram has a lot of ability to, well, screw people, and one way they've tried to screw people is they keep making it harder to get into their better services, pushing people to their much-less-supported service IngramSpark. I managed to get the Press grand-fathered in to Coresource, which is their e-book and audiobook distribution system, even tho we don't meet the current minimums for number of titles for that product. I CAN'T get into Lightning Source, which is their better-supported print book distribution service, because we don't have enough titles (we'd need 30, we currently have 10ish). If I wanted to use IngramSpark, I'd have to ditch Coresource, and I don't want to do that because Coresource works great and has good customer support, and so I had to settle on a compromise I don't love until we meet the minimums for Lightning Source - I use Coresource through Ingram for e-book distribution (and don't distribute to Amazon), which is...

draft2digital - print book distribution. This was my work around for not losing Coresource in the name of getting Ingram print on demand (pod), and it came with a price: d2d doesn't let me opt out of Amazon, much to my irritation. So the three titles we currently have pod on ARE on Amazon.

our webstore - e-book and print books, directly sold to the public. Our website lets people download e-books; I package print book orders made through the webstore myself and mail them myself.

in-person sales - I started vending at events last year; this year I'll be doing about a dozen.

All of which goes to show, even trying to publish while avoiding the most evil places is really hard and a source of frustration. If anyone knows a good option for ethical publishing distribution, I'm honestly all ears. Competing with Ingram is extremely David vs. Goliath (see also the recent death of Small Press Distribution).

So: remembering that Amazon is easily the worst but that there's still basically no ethical consumption or production under capitalism...

Ingram

Of the places I'm familiar with, the best-known option with the widest reach for self-publishing distribution is IngramSpark. As mentioned, I don't use Spark, but Coresource lets me completely customize which of Ingram's partners (vendors, wholesalers, libraries, etc.) I actually distribute with, and I've assumed that other Ingram products are the same. I believe IngramSpark is currently free per title; they get paid by charging fees per sale and because they get better listing deals with partners than an individual would get (like, Ingram might get charged x per title they list with, idk, Barnes and Noble, whereas you as an individual would get charged y, where y is larger than x, and Ingram pockets the difference).

I know a lot of people who use IngramSpark and my impression is that when it works, it works really well, but when it doesn't, getting help/customer service can be a nightmare. Virtually everyone I know who has used them has stories about late titles, support taking a week+ to reply, that kind of thing. I believe they have an option to pay for better/more rapid responses from customer support, which I feel kinda tells you everything you need to know about IngramSpark.

Draft2Digital

Another option is draft2digital. They use the Ingram distribution network, but again they can do so cheaper than an individual can because of their bulk sales through Ingram. They also offer e-book, audiobook, and print distribution. I use draft2digital for print and I've been quite satisfied with their customer support, but their print distribution doesn't allow opt-out of Amazon. HOWEVER, I believe their e-book distribution does. At minimum, there's a checklist on d2d about "steps you have to take to distribute e-books through d2d" and I'm assuming if you just. didn't do that checklist. then you obviously wouldn't get your books distributed through them. The other big thing I don't like about d2d (which may also be true of IngramSpark, idk) is that they charge after the first revision. Which is to say: you put together your book, you upload your book, you get it all set... and you notice a mistake. Okay, fine. You fix the mistake and re-upload. Re-uploading uses a "change token." You only get one free change token per title per six months. So, you notice another mistake you feel you have to fix a few days after that first? That'll cost $25. I've personally just kinda... tried to find all my mistakes right off and fix them, and anything I spot after that, I keep a log and will update all of them at the six month point. (I understand why they do this, btw - they have actual humans doing set-up on their end, so if you revise eight times in a week, that's a lot for an actual human, and charging for the tokens forces people to be careful, helps ensure people submit books that are actually ready in good faith, and helps keep costs low. That doesn't mean it's not annoying, though.)

Bookvault

Bookvault is a UK-based print-on-demand option (so NO e-book distribution, just print) that has recently started offerings in the US too. They currently have a relatively limited distribution network, but they're growing, and especially for UK-based people they're a strong alternative. I've heard a lot of positive reports about their printing in a FB group I'm in (Kickstarter for Authors - do recommend, lots of great info there), but I'll own my personal experiences weren't great and I've decided not to keep using them for now. However, if what you primarily want is print books as print-on-demand, and some limited distribution choices, they're a good choice, and they can help with option five below.

Do It Yourself Lite

A fourth option that's a LOT of work is...you add it everywhere yourself. Most places will let you. For example, here's how to sell on Barnes and Noble.com. When I self-pubbed a book a few years back, before I ran the Press, I submitted my work by hand to several different options (B&N, Kobo, Amazon because I still used them then, Smashwords, to name a few). However, doing this isn't the same as distribution - it only will sell through that specific vendor - and as far as I know there are no options for doing print-on-demand those ways (I THINK, tho I'm not sure, that Amazon is the only place you can set up both e-book and pod through a single vendor - it's not something I've researched tho, cause with the Press, doing single-title-at-a-time entry across so many different vendors is simply not realistic).

Side note on this: I don't believe there's a way to list self-pub books on Bookshop.org, but don't quote me on that.

This method also doesn't work well if you want to get your title in with libraries. I researched this a bit well over a year ago now, so I don't recall all the details, but before we signed up for Ingram I DID try to see if there was a way for us to publish and get in libraries especially without involving them, but there...wasn't really. Places like Overdrive that handle e-book-to-library distribution don't really have a way for individuals to submit; I have this vague memory I found a way to do it that involved paying per title but tbh I can't even find that now (though while I was looking I did find this decent-looking article about how to get your self-published book out in the world, echoing a lot of what I say here).

Do It Yourself Difficult Mode

Your fifth major option, and what we originally did as a press, is: do it all yourself. You can get your own storefront (ours is through Woocommerce + Wordpress). You can do your own crowdfunding. You can run your own newsletter (I use Mailerlite), do your own advertising, etc. You can do your own printing (we currently use Booklogix and I'm quite happy with them, their customer service is A+++). You can vend at events, you can market to local bookstores, sell through bookstores that do consignment, etc. You can learn to format your own e-books (I use a combination of Affinity software and Calibre, with an assist from Daisy to improve the accessibility of our e-books). You can get access to stock images and vector art to make things look nice (I use vecteezy). There's a LOT you can do entirely on your own. And that's what I did for myself before I ran the Press, and what I did for the Press for the first couple years we operated.

The reason I changed how the Press handles things? I hate to say this but the sad truth of publishing is that not using Amazon is utterly crippling to a publisher. As of 2 years ago, Amazon represented 67% of all book sales in the United States. Not selling through Amazon means accepting you'll simply be completely unable to reach more than half of the people reading works in English all around the world (works not in English may be different, I don't know that market since I publish in English). And for myself, alone - for my works? I could make that choice. But the Press currently works with well over 100 authors, and I ultimately felt I couldn't make the same choice to them. I tried so so hard not to compromise this, but refusing all distribution, when we were also avoiding Amazon, meant completely hamstringing the ability of authors we work with to market and sell their books. It meant, to work with us, people would have to sacrifice so much of their ability to earn money from their words, and it just didn't feel right to continue in that avenue as we grew. So, I was forced to compromise: first to use Ingram, which I did on the condition that I'd be able to reject Amazon specifically, and then by having to use draft2digital, including their goddamn Amazon print-on-demand, at least until I qualify for a better option, which as soon as I can do? You bet your butt I'll be switching and opting out of Amazon again.

The current climate makes these choices really hard, and I didn't make them lightly, nor did I make them alone - there's about 20 people on the DPP staff, and they all contributed opinions and voted on the final decisions I implemented for the Press in these regards.

(and sorry, I know "what DPP does and why" is a bit to the left of your actual question, but I felt like it'd be weird to make a list of recommendations without including the decisions I've personally made and why - like, why would I recommend you something I don't do myself with the books I publish? So sorry for the info dump.)

The TL:DR of all this is, as far as I know, and as I've been forced to accept as part of the realities of running a small press in the modern world of publishing, is that avoiding one Big Evil (Amazon) with any hope of achieving even a modicum of success basically requires partnering with at least one other Big Evil (Ingram especially). It's a very hard game to win.

HOWEVER, you are doing this FOR YOURSELF, NOT for all the people involved in a business larger than just you. If you're willing to put in the extra work to figure out a lot on your own and manage your own marketing, you can theoretically build enough of an audience to go it alone without Amazon OR Ingram OR places like Kobo/B&N/etc. You'll have to outlay more out of pocket - things like webhosting cost money - and you'll have to be a lot more careful - if you're running your own website instead of using someone elses, you gotta go above and beyond making you're in compliance with privacy rules and such - but it can be done.

And if you don't want to go that route, and your only real "to avoid" is Amazon specifically... use IngramSpark.

Sorry I'm long-winded. I hope this helps! Good luck with your publishing goals!

(and if others reading this have some other advice and resources, things I may not know about, please do weigh in! I bet the asker would like to know, and I'm always eager to learn about new options too.)

[girderednerve]

Low quality books that appear to be AI generated are making their way into public libraries via their digital catalogs, forcing librarians who are already understaffed to either sort through a functionally infinite number of books to determine what is written by humans and what is generated by AI, or to spend taxpayer dollars to provide patrons with information they don’t realize is AI-generated.

With Hoopla, librarians have to opt into Hoopla’s entire catalog, then pay for whatever their customers choose to borrow from that catalog. The only way librarians can limit what Hoopla books their customers can borrow is by setting a limit on the price of books. For example, a library can use Hoopla but make it so their customers can only borrow books that cost the library $5 per use.

“Investigating these authors, their book covers, their social media, etc takes A LOT OF TIME, especially with the volume of questionable material increasing month to month (and that's not including the sheer amount of legitimate books published each month in adult fiction that I'm looking at),” one librarian who asked to remain anonymous so she could talk openly about her job, told me. “Is it the best use of my time doing this work on top of my other duties when customers may or may not care? And with the rising multitudes of AI generated content, will there come a point where it just ‘is what it is?’”

This type of low quality, AI generated content, is what we at 404 Media and others have come to call AI slop. Librarians, whose job it is in part to curate what books their community can access, have been dealing with similar problems in the publishing industry for years, and have a different name for it: vendor slurry. While the term now encompasses what seems like AI-generated content as well, it predates the rise of generative AI, and also refers to the glut of low quality, often self-published ebooks or book “summaries” that are common on Hoopla. As some librarians told me, the sheer quantity of books in Hoopla’s service makes it seem more valuable because it offers such a large number of books, but in reality that number is misleadingly inflated by this slurry.

Several of the librarians I talked to said that they are worried about discussing [the problems raised by Hoopla's weak, unclear selection policies, including the 2022 inclusion of explicitly white nationalist texts,] because of the growing hostility towards libraries and groups like Moms for Liberty demanding that books about LGBTQ rights, race, and ethnicity be removed from libraries. One the one hand, librarians want to curate their collections and make sure their patrons are getting access to quality information. On the other hand, they don’t want people to think that they are trying to censor what materials patrons can access in way that’s comparable to what organizations like Moms for Liberty want. None of the librarians I talked to suggested the AI-generated content needed to be banned from Hoopla and libraries only because it is AI-generated. It might have its place, but it needs to be clearly labeled, and more importantly, provide borrowers with quality information.

[kabeerconsulting-blog]

Vendor Self Service Portal - SAP Business One ERP

[cityofruinrp]

Port Leiry! Join us for the Baliol Springtime Street Fair on Sunday, March 16th from 12pm – 12am. Write up by Jam (@retrospectral)!

Come celebrate local businesses and help us welcome back the Retrocity Arcade with their grand reopening. The Baliol Springtime Street Fair will temporarily close nearby streets to car traffic so that everyone can enjoy a walkable public space. Bikes, skateboards, and roller skates are allowed. Free public parking is available at the Redondo Boulevard structure two blocks south. Free live music and family activities available, as well as dozens of vendors and food trucks. See you there!

Baliol Street Sponsored Vendors:

Bookends – Meet local authors and enjoy 50% off used books! All proceeds will go to the Baliol Street Mutual Aid Group!

Earshot Records in collaboration with PNW Video Nasties – Browse a collection of classic and cult horror films, monster movies, and other thrifted media. DVDs, Blu-rays, VHS, cassettes, and vinyl crates to explore!

Little Mysteries Tarot and Occult – Shop crystals, incense, candles, and other occult goods. Free one-card tarot draws during select hours, with more involved readings available for a fee.

Pawed Leiry Animal Adoptions – Meet rescue dogs and cats from a local shelter that are available for adoption!

Re. Lax – Shop small-batch handcrafted bath products and self-care supplies, with samples and product demonstrations available.

And more! Meet local businesses from all over Port Leiry and get to know your neighborhood. Full vendor lineup available online on March 13.

Food:

All Greek to Me – A Mediterranean themed food truck with hard-carved gyros, dolmas, and more.

Bun Intended – Delicious sliders, hot dogs, and fries from Bun Intended’s new food truck operation!

Doughfellas – Grab piping hot pizza and calzones to go from PL’s favorite quick service pizza place!

Hacienda Del Norte – Tacos, burritos, and other Mexican favorites prepared fresh. Try their popular quesabirria tacos!

Just Grilled Cheese – Why mess with a classic? This food truck offers variations on this all-time classic lunch option.

Oh the Veganity – Plant-based diner-style favorites and cruelty-free food options.

Polly’s – Pescatarian paradise with fish tacos and other trendy eats, including burrito bowls and fresh crafted slushes!

Sweet Tooth – Desserts including mochi ice cream, parfaits, and bubble waffles.

And more! We have a wide range of food options and offerings to suit anyone’s taste.

Activities:

Enjoy free live music from local artists. Full main stage lineup/schedule available online on March 13.

Free face painting, hands-on craft activities, and Drag Queen (sponsored by the Port Leiry Library Association) story time for kids of all ages.

Carnival Games – for a small fee, try your hand at skill-based classic carnival games for the chance to win a prize!

And more! Entertainment subject to change, check online for latest updates.

Retrocity Grand Reopening:

Help us welcome back Retrocity, featuring the same classic style arcade fun with new refurbishments! The store will have special event hours running the duration of the Street Fair afternoon. Owner Morgan Moss will be on hand to speak at the noon opening ceremony, after which time Retrocity will open its doors to the community after a few months away. Enjoy newly carpeted floors, refurbished fixtures and games, as well as a few new additions to the arcade attraction lineup.

Notable additions include:

2x Taiko no Tatsujin drum game cabinets. Imported from Japan, challenge your rhythmic skills with this beloved taiko drumming skill game!

MaiMai Pink Plus. Imported from Japan, this energetic touchscreen-based game challenges players to tap out music rhythms to the beat!

Marvel vs. Capcom 2. A classic beat-em-up cabinet featuring your favorite heroes and villains from Marvel and Capcom franchises. Who will win?

House of the Dead. A horror classic for up to two players, fight off hordes of the undead with your gun in this aim-based game!

Terminator 2: Judgment Day. A classic gun-based arcade game, stop Skynet and take down Terminators with your aim and fearless resolve!

Jurassic Park, Stern Pinball. A family friendly pinball table where players must rescue scientists and recapture dinosaurs on Isla Nublar. Widely regarded as one of the best modern pinball cabinets.

Gachapon dispensers. Enjoy six different machines stocked with capsule balls containing unique toy prizes from Japan! Special gachapon tokens available for purchase at the front register.

Additionally, in honor of its reopening, Retrocity will set several of its most popular cabinets to Free Play mode. Enjoy complimentary rounds all day on: Dig Dug, Donkey Kong, Frogger, Mario Bros, Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, and Space Invaders. From 3pm to 5pm, there will be a buy-in Street Fighter II Champion Edition tournament. See Morgan at the front desk to sign up. Entry fee is $5, with cash prizes for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places in a bracket style tournament. Games to be broadcast on the screen above the register, viewership is standing room only.

Retrocity will be closed Monday, March 17 as usual and normal operation hours resume on Tuesday, March 18.

At this time, the Altered Beast and Burger Time arcade cabinets are not available.

[vxnus-seraph]

STARS ALIGN — weekly selfship appreciation post ! ✦︎ a self ship service featuring a random id registered under us every monday, making them the star of the week! if you wish to be featured, register today!

🏻 the stars of teyvat have aligned to shower light on @puppetgearing!

. . . AIR THICK WITH INCENSE REMINISCENT OF JASMINES AND ROSES, heat comes in sweltering waves of varying frequencies; easier under the moon's watch at night, but taking on a vibrant and dangerous intensity by morning. it reached its peak along with the sun, becoming almost health-threatening by twelve in the afternoon.

at this hour of the day, the bazaar seemed more a mourning ground than its usual lively self. even nilou and sethos, who were known for their bubbly natures and notable presence in the bazaar's lively atmosphere, contributing well to its charm, turned towards the coolness of their homes at these hours; choosing instead not to challenge the elements and seek polite respite from the summer heat.

it is not very surprising, thus, when nahida desires to refresh herself with perhaps coconut water, cucumber or even a fresh fruit but it is certainly surprising when wanderer himself chooses to 'execute the task' as he prefers calling it, repeatedly citing his promise to serve the dendro archon; highlighting his purpose in this new life, and entirely refusing to accept it as anything else at all, especially not care for the goddess.

it is also not very surprising when a foreigner, quick-eyed, with a robotic contraption by his side, irascible by nature and intensely troubled by the extreme heat passes through the bazaar in the desolate atmosphere, with nothing to entertain the eyes except for the architecture, a few vegetable and fruit vendors and the calls of toy-sellers with their vibrant flutes and balloons.

'sire, you look troubled! why not buy a coconut to relieve your thirst?'

niko's eyes still on the vendor, scanning the coconuts lined neatly on his cart before his companion spoke. 'indeed you must niko! they look rather refreshing. sumeruans love these in the summers!'

if niko noticed the way his robotic companion's voice cracked suggesting malfunction, he chose to ignore it for the sake of his own sanity, not finding any motivation to gather the energy to check what was up.

💐which was a mistake, by the way. wanderer, from the background: stop foreshadowing! 💐🍒🌟 (collectively): 🤨😒 ( s i m p )

at the suggestion, niko moves towards the cart, beginning a bargain with the vendor.

'it should be 50 mora, at most. 100 is too much!'

'nothing is too much for a refreshing drink in the summer!'

'100 mora is. and whether or not it is refreshing is up to me—'

another vendor chimed in from the side- 'oh ho! why not calculate the cost using the weight of the coconut—?'

and then niko fought, and the coconut vendor fought, and the fruit vendor chimed in; and both niko and the man decided that the fruit vendor was too much, and both thought collectively: 'holy lord, if this man says another word i'm going to throw the balance into his face.'

but both missed the loud robotic chiming over their collective shouting, aggressive bargaining and glares. eventually the chimes became louder, slowly taking on an aggressive beep and—

'mister can you please stop that thing—'

and for various reasons all at once, perhaps the heat, the foreign sounding 'mister' which meant the vendor was treating him as a careless foreigner, and his referring to his companion as a 'thing', niko suddenly exploded, pointing an accusative finger—

'why mister, so you think i am but a mere fool from outlands but i must remind you that i, nikolas dumont, am—'

bang!

a loud crash followed, drowning wanderer with smoke leaving him hanging in the middle of the air as he glared—with whatever little remained in his sight after the robot covered his face, anyway—at niko, gaze unamused and carrying patronization.

'i realize that it was a great mistake from my side to not have installed heat-resistant software to my companion, archon of dendro but i greatly regret—'

nahida's voice carried both worry and comfort, coming gently yet with an air of worry. 'it's alright niko, mistakes happen you could not have known. i'm sure wanderer has forgiven you as well, haven't you wan—'

both turn towards him, wanderer retaining his aura and glaring harshly at niko, appearing more like an injured cat than 'menacing' in any way. nahida smiled awkwardly, 'of course, it'll take some time but i'm sure he'll come around...'

but under the shade, dying sunlight filtering through the window as it illuminated both of their features with a warm glow, they wonder with yearning if the other was truly as luminous as they appeared, or if it was simply a trick of the dying sun and of the sweltering heat messing up their minds.

[itsmeglycine]

Your art style is so pretty and you are so talented!! I love all of your Stardew fanart!

Do you take commissions? If you're okay with OCs x character shipping I'd love to commission you :3

Thank youuu! I'm flattered!!

Yeah I have no problems with Stardew OCs and self-shipping stuff. As for art commissions, I've only thought about it, but have not set up any. I could use the money actually... but there is this devastating payment issue.

Long story short, I can only receive payment via Steam digital gift cards. If it's not too troublesome...

More info under the cut. ↓

-About Payment

I am from Mainland China, and the only mainstream payment service that supports our region is PayPal, HOWEVER- Due to complicated bank policies and such, I will not be able to withdraw money from it, and I will not be able to spend the money via PayPal where I'm from. It will just remain numbers in my account, unless I go to some shady withdrawal third-parties that ask for too much of my personal information, and could very much be scammers...

We use Alipay and WeChat in China, but I cannot receive cross-border transfers when I'm not a registered vendor, and even if I did, I could still get into trouble.

There is one workaround I can think of, which is having you add me on Steam and send me digital gift cards, so the money will be automatically converted to my currency when I redeem it. If anyone is actually willing to go through the trouble... please leave me a reply to let me know?

-About My Art & Pricing Ideas

I am not professional, and have inconsistent styles and quality, as you can tell from my posts. I also do not have enough sample art. This makes pricing tricky.

I have, however, taken a few "name your own price" commissions from friends, which were paid after they evaluated the final result. Basically, I have no quality control and don't do revisions, so you can pay however much you think is a fair price. If you trust me enough with my skills, we can discuss more details in my DMs here.

Thank you for reading through all this!

[lorbanery]

Privately judging and laughing at every first year event with the nerve to charge vendors $300+

Listen

To all you first-time event coordinators out there

Yes, okay, the vendor fee is, in a literal sense, meant to help pay for the space

BUT

It also a promise to all of your vendors that they will make at least that much money in sales during your event.

No matter what they sell, how niche, how small, how cheap. Whether they're selling $2 stickers of state birds, or fully framed fine art paintings.

Because here's the thing! Vending is a huge investment! Not just financially, but also an investment of time and energy. You have to make/buy stock, loading up their vehicle, traveling, unloading the vehicle, setting up displays and stock and sometimes tables and chairs (oh you better be providing a table and at least 2 chairs for $300), you have be in customer service/salesman mode for anywhere from 3 to 10 hours at a time, if it's a multi-day event depending on the venue you might have to pack up your stuff every night and set it up all over again in the morning, then of course there's the load out and traveling home.

It's a lot! And on top of that there's also just the financial cost of traveling, because even if you're local you still need food and are probably using gas to get to the venue with all your stuff. But if you're traveling from further away there's also tolls and hotel and parking fees!

Vendors just aren't gonna come if they can't be pretty confident that they're going to make those costs back. And $300 is also a lot for the kinds of self-employed, small businesses, individual makers who usually vend at these events!

So if you're charging $300+ you better have a solid idea, an experienced event organizer, a sure customer base, and a KILLER marketing strategy.

Because for a new event? Folks are only gonna give you one chance, and if they don't even break even? Especially if they're communicating with other vendors and hearing that a lot of vendors didn't break even? Not only are THEY not coming back? They're also warning folks in their circles away from your event. 'Cause none of us wants any other small business/maker essentially throwing that much time, energy, and money right down the drain.