#also it is a very firm no ghost policy

[drdemonprince]

Hi Dr Price! In your recent Instagram story you described some of the bad-faith engagement and outright abuse you've recieved as your platform has grown. I was wondering if you'd be willing to talk a little about your journey with navigating abusive responses to your work? I'm very keen to start publishing essays online, but I don't know how well I'd cope with cruel responses or escalating threats. On my best days I have a thick skin, but I've always been sensitive and my emotional armour is easily chipped. Is it primarily a matter of building one's tolerance for discomfort, as you described in your essay on disobedience? Do you have any more advice specific to this issue?

Distress tolerance certainly helps, but you really do need to develop self-control and a firewall of sorts when it comes to not exposing yourself to more negative feedback than you can handle or than is helpful.

My comments are turned off for many reasons, but largely because I have decided I don't want to platform any old random message from any random person who I do not know, cannot vouch for, and who might not have even fully read the essay or post to which they are responding.

Comment sections are a tool for generating advertiser revenue for social media platforms by creating conflict and distraction in the name of "engagement." It is a game I do not play, and I believe that a culture of constantly commenting upon things when we don't have relevant expertise and haven't thought our ideas through actively makes the world worse. Not having comment sections also means I don't fixate on the moment-by-moment reactions of other people to my work. I post and ghost.

I don't read reviews of my books, I don't name search myself (except for the occasional look for new posts on Reddit), and on all socials I have all notifications turned off except for people that I already follow and trust. If someone is in my mentions having a tantrum I don't ever see it (thanks to Philosophy Tube for inspiring this policy). I get my information from books, peer-reviewed articles, and outlets that I have already vetted, as well as from conversations with friends and engagement in my actual community.

I do have a firm grounding in myself, and a strong belief in both my ability to think and my ability to change and revise my point of view, and I don't see other people's feelings or thoughts about me as a reflection of my value. Their feelings about me are their problem. so I don't worry about the fact others disagree with me at times. In fact, after a certain degree of public exposure, one must accept that people are going to think and say all kinds of nonsense about you, and that you do not have the capacity as a single human to take all that data in.

I think getting comfortable with being disliked is probably the highest hurdle for most people. The book The Courage to Be Disliked is pretty great in that respect. But I'd also just say that, you know, if you dont know anything about a person and you have no reason to trust anything they have to say, why should their opinion matter to you? most of its junk data or worse.

[zmediaoutlet]

I love when you do answers in dean or sam!! So fun to read! My ask from your list would be 14,29,38,43!!

14. Have you ever been interrupted during sex? Who or what interrupted you?

DEAN: How's this for a buzzkill? You're pants-down in the kitchen of your own house with your dick getting taken care of by a very enthusiastic giant with an oral fixation when the door swings open upstairs and your mother is surprising you with a visit, when she was supposed to be five states away hunting a banshee. SAM: I thought we agreed-- DEAN: If I have to remember that, so do you. I thought I wasn't gonna be able to get it up for a year after that. But we managed, huh? SAM: Go us.

29. Is there a real life friend you would like to have sex with?

SAM: [snorts] DEAN: Uh. Well -- there's -- look, the short answer is yes. But there's a... pretty big roadblock. SAM: Our friends all know who we are. Most of them wouldn't be that understanding about the whole 'brothers' thing. At least -- I don't think so. And it's probably best not to ask. DEAN: We've got some enemies who wouldn't mind. SAM: Don't remind me.

38. What’s the worst possible time to get horny?

DEAN: From experience, middle of a shifter's nest when you've got a couple teen girls still to save and you don't know where the damn thing's hiding. First of all, way too much goop. Everywhere. Why do they collect it? Second, when all the blood's gone south you're not exactly at your most agile, and then you might step in goop. Also from experience. SAM: How the hell were you horny in there? DEAN: He had that postcard from Topeka. I remembered we worked there -- that motel with the buffalo theme? -- and you made me -- SAM: Oh. Yeah. I guess that'd do it. DEAN: What about you? When would Sammy be thinking about cold showers? SAM: When you're hunting vampires. Elevated heartbeat, they'd be more likely to find you. DEAN: You are the biggest nerd I know.

43. What was the weirdest place you’ve had sex?

DEAN: Heading this off right now: I have a firm 'no banging on the job' policy. SAM: You can't really concentrate when a ghost might appear and choke you to death. DEAN: Plus it's just damn unprofessional. You know, there's a job to do. Any hanky-panky you do on your own time. SAM: Hanky-panky? DEAN: Shut up. That said: we did nail in a haunted house one time. SAM: Oh, right. In -- Arkansas? Right, there were reports that it was an actually-haunted haunted house but it turned out their PR was just really great. So we waited all night in that little utility closet where they ran the lights and watched the cameras and nothing happened, and all the employees went home, and at dawn no one had gotten killed, and you were bored and, quote, had seen 'too many slutty costumes not to do something about it'. DEAN: That chick was dressed up as slutty Freddie Kreuger! How do you make that sexy? Well, she managed. SAM: She... did. So. On the gross dusty floor of a cardboard rent-a-haunted-house where a bunch of kids had pissed their pants, right next to the dismembered farmer display. Memorable. DEAN: Don't pretend like you weren't hot for it, Mr. Serial Killer Fetish. SAM: I'm just saying, we could've moved to the ghost room and then I wouldn't have been washing corn syrup blood out of my hair the whole next day.

[iwrotesomeofitdown]

If you worked in a large law firm in 2006 and aggressively told a young research assistant to „not let it happen again“ after they had already apologized for using your personal coffee cup in the communal kitchen, fuck you very much.

Not only was your cup mixed in with all the other non-personal cups, there was no labeling or a separate shelf. I was taken on an „introduction round“ on a Monday morning with 3/65 people on my floor actually present.

None of you even asked my name, instead you stared into my office every time you walked past (mandatory open door policy, yay) and made eye contact with zero acknowledgment and whenever I came to the kitchen for coffee you would INTERRUPT YOUR CONVERSATIONS UNTIL I LEFT AGAIN and stare at me silently until I did.

You also left me off of memos so I stepped out of my room onto a completely empty floor while very, very faintly hearing everyone in the far reaches somewhere singing „happy birthday“ behind closed doors.

You assholes.

Shoutout to the only person to acknowledge my existence, who came by every morning on his way in to say hi, forced me to go home when I got too sick to keep working, and forced you to buy me flowers and sing me happy birthday on my last day. That guy was just a decent person.

I hope the rest of you were dying inside from the awkwardness through the whole song, after you pretended I was a fucking ghost for the 3 months my project took. Longest 3 months of my life

[maximumkingdomdonut]

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[cupcakemolotov]

You reblogged a myth and legend post about taking care. Do you have anything you believe in, or any stories about things you couldn't explain that happened to you, to add?

I grew up in pretty much bum fuck nowhere, so I’d be surprised with myself if I didn’t have a healthy suspicion of things in the dark. Where I live now, my flat occasionally has ghosts visiting (thankfully they just pass through, were really close to crossroads and have apparently an excellent hallway for moving through). But I have a very firm no ghost policy unless it’s the Ghost Cats, they can stay. Which is probably a good thing because I keep bumping into them (like my vacation to London…) But other than the one ghost we had to deal with for far longer than I enjoyed, it’s actually my twin who has come the closest to running into something.

We lived in the middle of the country, and she and her BFF where driving to Texas to visit her friend’s family. The particular stretch of road they were driving was flat, and I don’t know how familiar you are with Texas, but some parts are just open. Flat and open and a straight fucking line forever or until you hit the next city. They knew exactly how long it would take them to get from point C to point D, because they were driving at night. They’d been driving for the entirety of the evening, and at 10pm there isn’t much traffic (see: possibly any) on the roads.

Now, when you think of highways, you think of four lane road monstrosities. But you also have to remember in rural areas two lane roads are also considered major road ways. It just depends. Sure, Dallas is a nightmare and so is I-35, but Texas is a big fucking state.

They leave a perfectly respectful town and they stopped for gas and snacks before they have to head out into the giant blank space between this town and a major city in Texas. They get a few miles outside of said town and they see it.

There is a house on the side of the road. I was told it was fucking impossible to miss because it was lit up like the sun. There were what could have been multiple spotlights directed solely onto the house, illuminating it to the point of it been near daylight. It was so well lit there were no shadows, just light everywhere. It was a beacon. An invitation. And it was so, so wrong.

The twin being a reasonable person, tells the driver to floor it. And the BFF, being the person that she is goes, yup. So there they are, cruising down this road and they just keep driving. And driving. And driving. They realize something is shit is still wrong because they should have already reached this giant city according to their timelime but they can’t even see city lights yet. They check the map on their phones multiple times to make sure they didn’t actually divert somewhere else on accident even though it is a straight line to where they are going and there are no other roads. Nope. Right on track. A to B. A single road going in a single direction.

At this point they both agree that under no circumstances will they stop until they hit a town.

They finally hit the next town, and then the next, and they arrive at their destination two hours later than they should have. Driving the road they were at that time of night, it was physically impossible to have lost two hours. They call it the Bermuda Triangle of Texas now and they don’t take that route to visit family anymore.

Fun fact: they did take the same route back home a few days later. They are suspicious people (bless them for not getting eaten) so they time it. The trip back is two hours shorter than the trip going and there is no house with the sun to be found anywhere. They know exactly what it looks like and roughly where it should be but during the day it just didn’t exist.

[bluetooththepirate]

Pitch: A Parks-and-Rec-style workplace comedy about small-town government, but it stars now 31-year old Kim Possible as the newly-elected mayor of her hometown.

K.P. was a hotshot pseudo-progressive congressperson and semi-retired globetrotting heroic do-gooder, but she lost her congressional seat when her district got gerrymandered to hell and she moved home, disillusioned with federal electoralism, deciding that maybe she can fix one city and that might be enough to start changing the world into one that can save itself. She's a lifelong overachiever but also kind of burned out after a couple decades of going 24/7 and it wears on her in a very former-child-star way.

She abolished a lot of police functions in favor of mental health crisis intervention, public housing, poverty relief, and just straight up getting in martial arts battles with the rare violent criminals herself like she's Mike Haggar: occasional roundhouse kicks out a window but no guns. It's working, and the powers that be can't have that.

Ron became a YouTuber in 2009 while Kim was learning internationally on full-ride scholarships and he was finishing an online degree from a shady private college and racking up a monster student debt. He tried let's plays, vlogs, trick shots, pranks, social experiments and got in a boxing match with Adrena Lynn, before settling on his cooking show Snackage with Stoppable where he makes high-concept bad food. He now gets 15k a month from Patreon and has a nice rowhouse in Middleton with a custom kitchen studio setup and his own line of pans, but he's also picked up an anarchist streak, a beard, an adhd diagnosis, and a podcast. He helps found worker co-ops and push for unionizing. Martin Smarty is now his nemesis. He and Kim were estranged but she was between places when she moved home and she ended up locking down with him, and now it's...cozy. Never had any kids. At time of writing.

Rufus is elderly but still going, he retired on a naked mole rat farmstead with his wife, her six other husbands, and their innumerable descendants on a community garden plot in Middleton. They ranch worms. It's gross and awesome.

The very second Wade was old enough to be tried as an adult every intelligence agency in the country tried to blackmail and/or recruit him, but he was wise enough to skip town. He still does his thing from the back room of an undisclosed embassy in an undisclosed world capital and hasn't left his room in years. Suits him fine. He leaks a lot of stuff.

Hana Stoppable is now 14 and has her own zoomer teen-hero thing going on. She's a transracially-adopted Jewish Japanese girl born with mysterious ninja powers and raised in middle America, so she has very conflicted opinions on transnational adoption, hair dye, gender roles, and orientalism, but very firm opinions on these new fascists that appear to be everywhere (she's opposed.) The Stoppables are as ever a bit neglectful (they're on a long-term international cruise, this was their way of telling her) so Ron is the default dad figure and they get along great until they don't.

Motor Ed had a revelation about climate change. As it turns out The Shore, Coney Island and the Atlantic City boardwalk are all next to the ocean! The Atlantic's going to eat the shore, Drew! Where am I going to get my hoagies! Seriously! Now he's Electric Motor Ed, and he proposes various stupid electric vehicle schemes as a panacea for carbon emissions and periodically calls people pedophiles online. He has incredibly annoying fans and still isn't over Lemmy. Seriously.

Doctor Drakken ran for president in 2016 as part of a scheme to get access to cheap aluminum but accidentally won, and he subsequently ruined and/or revealed fundamental underlying truths about America. Basically the whole villain roster had cabinet posts. Martin Smarty is now also HIS nemesis (among several, there's a list.) He tried really hard to throw the 2020 election and almost failed to do it. There's still conspiracies circulating around him that he has nothing to do with and he finds it all very frustrating and confusing.

Shego jumped at the chance to be effectively the first lady and the chief of staff at the same time, with a free license to steal and get in fights while setting US policy and ordering around the military. She grifted the everloving ass out of the country the whole four years. She ghosted Drakken after he left office but odds are good she'll be back, she always is eventually.

Mr. Barkin is basically Ron Swanson.

[vintagedolan]

hands to yourself (gbd)

ethan is sick of the pda and challenges you and grayson to a 3 day no touching bet. but what happens after 72 hours is a different story...

word count: 4.9k

warnings/tags: smut (it’s about damn time ladies), angst, lots of sexual teasing, lets have some fun shall we

feel free to send in requests! and check out my masterlist if you wanna :)

Many things happened when you were making out with Grayson. Getting clocked in the side of the head with a pillow was not usually one of them. 

“Will you two keep it in your pants for two fucking seconds,” Ethan grumbled, obviously the perpetrator of the flying pillow that had connected with your face a few moments prior. He had good aim, you’d give him that.

“Fuck off,” Grayson grumbled, but he detached his lips from yours, settling to lay on you instead. It wasn’t an unusual position for you to find yourselves in - Ethan in the chair, you and your boyfriend sprawled out on the couch while you watched a movie. Most times you’d be laying on top of Grayson, cheek on his chest, his hand running gently up and down your arm or back. Sometimes he’d lift your shirt some so he could scratch your back, skin soft under his fingers. Other times - like now - he’d be wanting the attention, scooting down and nuzzling up on your chest so you could play with his hair or trace shapes on his skin. 

Either way, it seemed to get under Ethan’s skin. 

“You fuck off, I live here too I don’t need to see you two all up on each other 24/7,” Ethan shot back, obviously annoyed. It didn’t usually bother you - he went through phases where he’d get lonely and be a bit more annoyed at the PDA - Grayson was quite handsy if you were honest. On the other hand though, it could get annoying sometimes. You would like to be able to make out with your boyfriend on your own couch without the comments from the peanut gallery. And it annoyed Grayson 10 times more than it did you.

“Chill guys,” you sighed, not wanting it to get any worse. 

“Nah, we’re about to take a trip in the van and I’m not about to wake up to you two fucking next to me cause you can’t keep it in your pants,” Ethan huffed back, movie long forgotten as he got heated. “You literally cannot keep your hands off each other, it’s gross.”

For some reason, that comment got under your skin a bit more than anything he had said prior. You were a mature adult who could control herself if she wanted to. And you could prove it too. 

“Bet.”

Grayson stiffened, lifting his head. He knew how competitive you could be - it was one of the many reasons he loved you - but combined with Ethan’s inability to lose, it got dangerous sometimes. Bets were never good when they were between you and his brother, and you could tell he was worried.

“What are we betting?” Gray murmured, not liking where the conversation was headed.

“Okay fine.” Ethan perked up a bit, loving an idea of a challenge and completely ignoring his twin. “One week, you all can’t touch each other when I’m around.”

“Absolutely fucking not,” Grayson immediately shut it down. You put a hand on his arm, calming him a bit. This was between you and Ethan now.

“A week is too long. I’ll give you three days,” you offered. Grayson turned to you, incredulous. 

“Absolutely fucking not?” He said it to you this time, but you squeezed his arm again, signaling for him to hear you out. 

“I can do three days,” Ethan offered. “But if it’s only three, then you all can’t touch each other at all. Like even when I’m not around. Strict no touching policy for three days. It’ll be a good cleanse for you horny fucks.” 

“Fine,” you agreed, narrowing your eyes at him.

“What?!” Grayson balked. You just grinned.

“But. If we make it the three days, you’re never going to say another snide comment about us touching. Ever.”  

Ethan paused at that, really considering what he would be giving up if you managed to pull off the bet.

“Fine. But, if I win, I get to say whether or not you can be all lovey dovey and shit, and you have to listen.” There was a wicked look in his eyes; if he won he’d be ruthless, no doubt. 

There was a whole lot at stake. But the prospect of being able to do whatever you wanted with Grayson, wherever you wanted, without Ethan’s commentary was too good to pass up.

“Deal.” 

“Oh, so I don’t get a say in it? Cool, cause this doesn’t affect me at all,” Grayson chimed in, obviously annoyed. 

“Okay, but how nice would it be if he couldn’t say shit about us,” you quirked an eyebrow at Grayson and he sighed, running a hand through his hair.

You were right, and he knew it. 

“Fine,” he conceded, knowing you’d get your way no matter what he said. “I’m in.” 

“Shake on it,” Ethan said, getting up from his chair and walking over to you. You reached out, giving him a firm handshake and a nod. When you let go, he turned his wrist, looking at his watch.

“Alright, it’s 11:35. Time starts now, disperse,” he grinned, gesturing to the two of you. Grayson moved off of you with a huff, scooting to the other end of the couch. 

As soon as he was gone, you realized just what you’d signed the two of you up for.

It was going to be a long 72 hours.

day one

It was only 9am, and tensions were already running high. Ethan wasn’t giving up any ground - he hadn’t even let you and Grayson sleep in the same bed the night prior. Which meant Grayson, being the gentleman he was, let you take the bed and he took the couch. 

So, feeling well rested and in a good mood, you headed for the kitchen. Grayson was there, as you expected, typical avocado toast in hand. But when he saw you, he immediately groaned, dropping his head to the counter as you opened the fridge. 

“What?!” You asked, laughing a bit. When he looked up, you could see the frustration in his eyes.

“Could you at least try to not make this any more fucking impossible than it already is?” 

“I’m just getting yogurt...” you said innocently, holding up the cup you pulled from the fridge only a few moments prior.

“Yeah, but you could at least wear a fucking bra,” he pointed out, eyes trained on your chest. You hadn’t really thought about it - you were in one of Gray’s shirts, which was oversized on you. But now that you looked, you could tell that the cold air of the fridge had made your nipples hard, the ghost of them obvious through the fabric.

“Bras are uncomfortable,” you countered, pointing your spoon at him.

“Yeah? Well so are blue balls.” 

His voice was so serious that you both just stared at each other for a minute, and then you couldn’t help it. You broke first, starting to giggle and then both of you were cackling like middle schoolers. 

Once you’d finally calmed down and wiped away the tears you were crying, you continued eating your breakfast, perched on the counter by the stove. Grayson’s eyes were on you, specifically on your tongue as you licked yogurt off the spoon. 

“You know, Ethan won’t be up for another few hours. He’d never know,” Grayson wiggled his eyebrows at you.

“Nah, we don’t cheat in this house. A bet is a bet.”

“Well this bet sucks.” His voice was garbled around the last bite of toast that he was chewing.

“I know. But hey, it’ll be worth it. Then we can do whatever we want, and he can’t say shit,” you reminded him.

“We’re gonna drive him nuts,” Grayson grinned, and just those words sent goosebumps rising across your skin. Stop. Stop that. You couldn’t let yourself get lost in a daydream, especially when you weren’t allowed to touch him - that would just be self torture. 

But it was too late. Now all you could think about was how normally right now, he’d be standing in front of you between your legs, hips pressed against the counter, his hands in your hair, lips on yours.

“Uh... babe? You good?” Grayson’s voice pulled you out of the image. His brows were furrowed, and you watched as he nodded to the floor, where a small dollop of yogurt had splattered. It must have slid off your spoon while you were lost.

“This bet sucks,” you repeated his earlier words, suddenly very much regretting your decision.

“Friendly reminder that you started it,” he grinned deviously. “Were you daydreaming over there?”

“No.” You answered too quickly. Dammit.

“Oh... well in that case, I guess I’m just gonna keep myself busy then. Might go build. Or lay out. Not sure yet.” That mischievous glint was in his eyes and you groaned. He knew exactly what he was doing - something about the focus he had when he was working on a project, with his tool belt low on his hips, sunglasses on and shirtless - it got you weak in the knees every damn time. 

And he knew it too. 

All you could do was glare at him as he got up and washed his plate before heading back to your room. Sure enough, 20 minutes later he was outside, carrying wood across the yard to where his saw was set up. 

You sat in the living room, watching him work while you drank your coffee. Watched his muscles ripple under his skin as he hoisted 2 by 4′s over his head, powerful arms doing it with no effort. He could hold you up with those arms, hold you up while he-

“Good morning, this just in from pining central-”

You turned at the voice, glowering when you realized it was Ethan with a smug grin on his face. 

“Shut the fuck up,” you grumbled, sticking your tongue out at him. 

“Ooooo, touchy,” he teased, reaching out and ruffling your hair. You reached back to slap his shoulder, but you were smiling. “Or... no touchy.” Ethan cracked the joke, obviously proud of himself.

“That was actually terrible,” you shook your head.

“You’re just mad cause you’re gonna lose this bet,” he said, raising his eyebrows as he headed back towards the kitchen to make his breakfast. 

“Not a chance in hell.”

day two

Sleeping on the couch wasn’t ideal, that was for damn sure. Not because it wasn’t comfortable, but because you didn’t have Grayson next to you. After his long day of building you knew that he was sore, and you’d insisted that he took the bed instead. 

But that also meant that he had slept in for once, making your morning mission a little bit harder than usual. You snuck into the bedroom, tiptoeing at first, then walking normal when you realized that he was still snoring. He was curled up on his side, shirtless and sleeping soundly, his left arm curled around a pillow that he was holding to his chest. It took you a minute to realize that this was how you usually woke up, with his arm wrapped around you before you turned over and eased him onto his back so you could cuddle. 

Stupid pillow. You pushed the thought from your mind as best you could, going over to your drawer and picking out a bikini to wear. It was beautiful out, the perfect day to get some sun. You changed quickly, grabbing a towel from the bathroom and your sunscreen before you headed out to the pool. It would at least help you kill a few hours. You were discovering that things were boring when you couldn’t make out with your boyfriend.

It was two hours later when you heard the doors open, signaling that someone was coming out of the house. You peaked over your sunglasses, unsurprised to see Grayson there.

“Did you just wake up?” 

“No. I’ve been awake.” His tone was short, and you frowned. 

“What’s wrong?” 

“Don’t play innocent,” he grumbled. You sat up further on the yellow lounge, confused.

“What?” 

“You’re doing this on purpose. Out here, all laid out in a tiny bikini when there’s nothing I can do about it. You’re a tease.” He sat down on the other lounge, staring at you. You could tell he was hard underneath his gym shorts.

“I just wanted to get some sun... But, two can play that game. You’re telling me you building all day yesterday was innocent?” You looked at him accusingly, expecting him to laugh. Instead, his eyes just darkened. 

“Oh, does me building do something to you?” He knew the answer to that. It fueled his ego that him doing something so simple could turn you on so much, and you hated that you had no control over it. “What exactly does it do to you, hmm?”

“Stop it,” you muttered, but your body was reacting anyways. Your skin was flushing just from his words. 

“Stop what? Stop making you wet?” 

“We can’t do anything about it, don’t make it worse,” you pleaded. He was right, you were wet, and you wanted nothing more than for him to fuck you right then and there. But you were more strong willed than that. It was only another 30 or so hours. You would make it.

“I’m going to shower,” you said, standing up and heading into the house. You knew his eyes were on your ass, and you were unsurprised that he got up to follow you, carrying your towel in wadded over his dick in case Ethan was out of his room. 

You tried to ignore him as you headed to the bathroom, taking your hair down and starting the water to give it time to warm up. To your surprise, he lifted himself up and sat on the end of the counter, giving himself a perfect view of the glass shower. 

“What’re you doing?” 

“Watching.” There was a heat in his voice that went straight through you. You swallowed heavy, turning to him. He got like this sometimes, where his dominant side would come out. Usually it was halfway through sex, when he was pulling on your hair, or when you had a particularly bad attitude and he corrected it quickly with a rough fuck. 

But there was an intensity to this that had your mouth dry as you started to undress under his gaze. You reached behind your neck, pulling on the string that kept your top together. When the bow came undone, the fabric began to fall, though it didn’t fully reveal your tits until you untied the back and it fell to the ground. 

Grayson said nothing, eyes unwavering as you moved to your bottoms. You shimmied out of them quickly, kicking them to the side. Unfortunately, they landed directly in front of him. You knew he’d see the wetness that had pooled in them; it was obvious. That wasn’t going to help matters. 

“We can call off the bet. If you want.” You blurted it out - until the last few minutes you didn’t realize how desperate you were to have his hands on you.

“No. We can’t. Now shower, before we run out of hot water.” 

You did as you were told, walking over into the water and letting it run over your skin. You kept your eyes closed mostly, but you could feel him watching your every move. As you washed your body, your hands lingered over yourself for just a moment, desperate for relief.

“Don’t you dare.” Grayson’s voice was deep and demanding, making your eyes snap open. He very rarely took that tone with you.

“Touching myself isn’t against Ethan’s rules,” you pointed out, knowing it would piss him off to hear his brother’s name right now. If he wasn’t already going to destroy you when he could, he definitely was now. 

“It’s against my rules.” 

Just those words were enough to almost make you cum right there.

Why, why had you made this bet.

day three

Getting out of the house was the only option, you couldn’t take it anymore. Especially after the pent up energy established yesterday, you couldn’t handle the stares and the constant need to have his hands on you. If you stayed too long, you’d break the bet. 

So, you treated yourself to a bit of a shopping spree for the day. You picked out new clothes from a few stores, even picking up a shirt for Grayson you knew he would love, and some shoes for Ethan. You went to lunch, taking your time, even going to get coffee later on. It was a nice break from the tension, though every time you looked at your phone and saw your lock screen - a picture of you and shirtless Grayson in the mirror - it sent tingles down your spine, reminding you of what you were finally getting back tonight.

Your final stop was a lingerie shop. It was always fun to look at all the pretty lace patterns and colors - usually you just window shopped, but you were trying to draw out the process as long as you could. An emerald green number caught your eye, laid out on one of the tables. It was lace and silk, delicate but sexy at the same time. On a bit of a whim, you bought it, adding the bag to those already on your arm as you headed home. You took the long way, happy to see that it was already 7pm by the time you pulled in the driveway. 

Four and a half more hours. That was it. Just four and a half more hours. Surely, you could do it.

When you came in, Ethan was eating cereal, and had already begun sulking. That lifted some of the tension that was hanging over the house, specifically coming from the direction of the living room where Grayson was practicing handstands.

“Awe, is somebody sad they’re going to lose the bet?” You teased, sitting the bags down and digging around for his shoes.

“Time’s not up yet,” he grumbled. 

“Well, I got you a pity gift,” you smiled, passing him the box. “Enjoy.”

“Thanks, I’ll need a distraction from you all sucking face constantly,” he rolled his eyes. You knew he’d be grateful for the shoes once he got over his loss. 

“Hey Gray, I got you something,” you called, heading to the living room with your bags. He was still in his handstand and he brought himself down slowly, a smooth landing. 

“Lemme see,” he smiled. The frustration he’d had yesterday was still there, but he was trying to be helpful, as were you. Spending the day apart had made it easier, and with the finish line in sight the both of you were in higher spirits.

“I can’t remember which bag it’s in,” you mumbled, starting to sit them down so you could look through them. Grayson picked one up, and before you could say anything his hand was in it, no doubt feeling the lace and silk. 

He froze, eyes darkening again.

“Is this for later,” he practically mouthed the words, barely speaking so Ethan didn’t hear him.

“It can be,” you whispered back, blushing. He only nodded, a wicked excitement in his eyes. 

After the teasing and tension yesterday, you were a bit worried that your new set wouldn’t even survive the night. He had a bit of a habit of ripping things when he got dominant. You supposed you could just buy another one if you had to.

You kept yourself busy after giving him his shirt, looking for distractions anywhere you could. You ate a quick dinner, then decided to take a nap.

“I’m going to sleep,” you announced to the boys, heading towards your room. 

“It’s 8:30,” Ethan said, confused.

“Well, I’m probably going to have a long night, so,” you grinned at him. Grayson choked, looking up at you. 

“Gross. Go to bed,” E grumbled. You obliged, heading to your room. You killed another hour or so on your phone before realizing that you might actually fall asleep. Not wanting to ruin the surprise, you changed into your lingerie, looking yourself over in the mirror. It was just as flattering as you hoped it would be, accentuating all your favorite areas.

Grayson was gonna lose it. 

You climbed back onto the bed, comforted by the feeling of the soft cotton on your exposed skin. You curled up, getting comfy and eventually drifting off to sleep.

The next thing you felt were two large hands on your waist, putting you on your back.

“What the?” 

“It’s 11:36.” It was Grayson’s voice, and it clicked.

The bet was over. Thank fuck. 

You were suddenly wide awake, and you couldn’t get your hands on him quick enough. His skin was soft and warm as you reached up to his shoulders, running along the muscles until you got to his neck. You pulled his face down to yours, crashing your lips together. You’d never felt anything so good in your life.

“We’re never doing anything like that ever again,” you mumbled against his lips, hands back on his skin, at his waist now, curling around his back trying to pull him closer to you.

“Agreed,” he said, kissing you again before he bailed to the side, reaching over and pulling you on top of him.  And suddenly you were touching everywhere. His thighs were against yours, and you could feel his dick against you, his torso wide and strong beneath you as his hands roamed down your side, over your hip and around to your ass.

“Fuck, you look so good,” he groaned, fingers toying with the fabric of your thong. Your hips bucked at the feeling of his hand on your ass, and it created a delicious friction against his dick that had you starting a rhythm in no time. He sat up then so you were on his lap, gravity causing more pressure as you kept grinding, both of your breathing picking up at the sensation. After the pent up hormones of the last few days, you were sure you could cum just like that, and you wouldn’t be surprised if he did too. 

He reached behind you, unclipping your bra with ease, pulling it off your arms and tossing it across the room. Then, his hands were at your hips, fingers digging into your skin, lips at your neck as you worked him over.

“Surprised you aren’t punishing me for being a tease,” you mumbled, then gasped at the bite that resulted from your words.

“Don’t tempt me, we’ve got all night,” he groaned, moving you a bit faster. You clung to him tighter, grateful that he’d decided to just focus on pleasure tonight. 

“Just wanna feel you.” His words were hardly a warning as he rolled over, putting you back on the bed. He reached behind himself, unlocking your legs from around his waist before he moved down the bed. His hands went to you hips, scooting you up a tiny bit before he hooked his index fingers into the waist of your thong, swiftly discarding it after it was off. 

“Look even better like this,” he hummed, crawling up to kiss you again. You chased his lips when he broke it off, only to gasp a bit when you felt him press a kiss to your collarbone. He moved down, cupping each tit and licking and sucking along your nipples until you were squirming. His progress down your torso was painfully slow, each little nip with his teeth making your whole body jolt. By the time he got to your inner thigh, you were begging.

“Please Gray, please fuck, give me something,” you whined, practically writhing underneath him.

“As you wish.” And then his mouth was on you. He knew you better than anyone - and he wasted no time. He worked you over like the expert he was, tongue flat then fast, with just the right pressure. You never lasted long like this, with your hands in his hair and his hands pinning your hips down to the bed. But this might have been the quickest - it couldn’t have been a minute before you were cumming, pulling on his hair as you let go. Your legs were actually shaking, and he pulled back, thumbs rubbing along your skin as you came down, catching your breath. 

“Holy shit,” you choked out, trying to swallow as you gasped. 

“That was hot as fuck. Didn’t even know you could cum that fast,” he grinned, obviously a bit proud of himself. You didn’t blame him - with that tongue he could have an ego as big as he wanted. He pressed kisses to your hips, then your ribs, the middle of your chest, giving you time to get your breathing back to normal before he caught your lips with his again. 

Now it was your turn. You reached down into his boxers, wrapping a hand around his dick. It was heavy and hard in your hand, but his hiss made you stop your movements. 

“Baby, I’m already not gonna last, don’t need you making it any shorter and bruising my ego,” he huffed, obviously trying to calm himself down a bit. You moved to the waistband of his boxers instead, pushing them down his thighs. He took them the rest of the way off, throwing them in the same direction your lingerie had flown earlier. 

You spread a little wider, reaching for him as he positioned himself over you, his weight on his forearms which were on either side of you. He dipped his hips, teasing you for just a moment, before pushing in. You sighed at the feeling, wrapping your arms around his shoulders, holding yourself steady so that he didn’t push you up the bed. When he was balls-deep, he kissed your forehead. 

“Missed you,” he whispered, and you could have melted right there. “You ready?”

You nodded - it didn’t matter how many times you did this - he was still big, and it always took you just a minute to adjust. Grayson always gave it to you, making sure he didn’t cause you any pain. 

He lowered himself down so that some of his weight was on you, and then he snapped his hips back, driving into you with a groan. He was everything you could feel and see, his chest against yours, bodies touching everywhere that they possibly could as he started a quick rhythm. 

“Fuck you feel so good,” he groaned, voice deep as he went deeper with every thrust, hitting the spot that had your toes curling, nails scraping down his back.

“Jesus fuck Gray, I’m gonna cum again, fuck,” you said, pleasure loosening your tongue. He moaned at that, burying his face in your neck, biting at the skin he found as he sped up his hips.  

“Fuck, fuck fuck,” you squeaked out as your next orgasm hit, every muscle you had clenching up in pleasure. 

“God,” Grayson moaned, somehow moving even faster, holding himself up with one arm while the other wrapped around your waist, pulling your hips up to get another angle. “Oh fuck,” he groaned. “Jesus baby, fuck.” 

And even in your blissed out state, you felt him cum, cock twitching inside you before his weight lowered onto you for a moment, arm still wrapped all the way around you. As soon as he could function, he rolled the both of you over so he didn’t crush you. You didn’t separate at all as you laid on top of him, weak and satisfied as he stayed seated inside you, both of you fucked out and content. 

You knew you were probably making a mess and you neither of you gave a fuck, not moving an inch other than Grayson’s hands wandering, fingers tracing patterns on your bare skin. Eventually he rolled over, sliding out of you gently with a kiss to your forehead before he got up and went to get a washcloth. He cleaned you up, as well as what was left on the sheets before tossing the rag in the laundry. He pulled his boxers back on before climbing back in bed.

“All good baby girl?” He gave you a soft smile as he laid down. You used the energy you had left to climb back onto him, unwilling to have any space between you at all after the last three days.

“I am now,” you sighed, content just to have his skin on yours. You just enjoyed each other’s presence for a few more minutes, and then you felt Grayson laugh a little bit underneath you, making you sit up just enough to look at him.

“What’s so funny?”

“I just realized that we won the bet. I kinda forgot, I was just ready for it to be over. But now we can literally do whatever we want and E can’t say shit,” he laughed, hugging you a bit tighter. 

“We could literally have sex in the living room and he can’t say shit,” you grinned, quirking a mischievous eyebrow.

Grayson just shook his head with the biggest smile, wrapping his arms around your shoulders and kissing the top of your head. 

“Nah. All mine.” 

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Big Pharma's vicious battle against universal covid vaccination

Last week, the Biden administration broke with decades of US policy when it supported a patent waiver on covid vaccines. It was the first time in generations that the US Trade Rep acted on behalf of the people, rather than corporate greed.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/10/comrade-ustr/#vaccine-diplomacy

Taking steps to make vaccines universally and immediately available isn’t just the right thing to do — vaccine apartheid is slow-motion genocide — it’s also the smart thing to do. Billions of unvaccinated people present quadrillions of chances for the virus to mutate.

Don’t listen to the unscientific claims that viruses “tend to become less virulent” over time. Remember, the mechanism by which super-lethal strains go extinct is that they kill all their hosts (that’s us, folks).

Likewise, ignore the racist lie — peddled by morally bankrupt corporate shills like Howard Dean — that brown people in poor countries can’t make vaccines.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/08/howard-dino/#the-scream

Making mRNA vaccines is miraculously efficient, requiring less than 1% of the capital and materials of conventional vaccine production and less than 10% of the time to retool for new vaccines:

https://coronavirus.medium.com/manufacturing-mrna-vaccines-is-surprisingly-straightforward-despite-what-bill-gates-thinks-222cffb686ee

The pharma industry knows this, but it’s willing to make a bet that it can outrun vaccine resistance, rolling the dice on the human race to further its shareholders’ fortunes. For months, they’ve been carpet-bombing DC with anti-waiver lobbyists.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/27/bruno-argento/#pharma-death-cult

When the Biden admin sided with human survival over profit, it sent shockwaves through corporate America. Even Bill Gates — who more-or-less singlehandedly killed every effort to make a universal, public domain vaccine — changed his tune.

https://www.geekwire.com/2021/gates-foundation-reverses-position-covid-vaccine-patent-protections-mounting-pressure/

But pharma isn’t done. They have redoubled their efforts to prevent the Global South from making its own vaccines, even if that means that the 2.5 billion poorest people on Earth won’t be vaccinated until 2023/4.

Writing in The Intercept, Lee Fang reports on leaked documents from pharma lobbyists and powerful lawmakers that show how influence-peddlers are going to war to defend the right of multinational corporations to risk our species in the name of higher returns to capital.

Take the memo that Jared Michaud of PHRMA circulated to colleagues on Wednesday, identifying Buddy Carter (R-GA) and Vern Buchanan (R-FL) as the chief water-carriers for the industry's agenda, describing a letter that uses anti-China rhetoric to oppose the waiver.

Michaud also suggests that Senator Tom Scott (R-SC) might be biddable and serve pharma’s interests in the Senate, “but this is not yet final.”

Michaud, meanwhile, laid out a set of talking points to circulate to lawmakers. These lean heavily on the idea that Chinese and Russian companies will gain unfair advantages over US firms and implies that China has tricked poor countries into fronting for its interests.

Another talking points memo, marked CONFIDENTIAL and identified in its PDF metadata as originating with PHRMA’s Meg Van Etten, makes a series of nonsensical arguments about vaccines depending on exclusive rights, conspiculously failing to mention billions in public subsidies.

Taken together, these internal PHRMA lobbying memos bear a striking resemblance to the letter GOP lawmakers sent to Biden. It’s a rare glimpse into the direct pipeline industry has into officialdom, whereby they get to serve as ghost-writers for our “public servants.”

The pharma industry spends $24m+/year lobbying Congress and is a leading source of campaign contributions. They have been on the wrong side of history since the AIDS epidemic, where they led the fight to punish Nelson Mandela for demanding access to anti-retroviral medicine.

The scariest thing about pharma’s influence isn’t how much money they spend, it’s about how kack-handed and infantile their action is.

I’ll never forget the smirk on the PHRMA rep’s face at WIPO when literature from public interest groups went missing and turned up hidden in the toilets.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/13/public-interest-pharma/#gates-foundation

Running around screaming “China! China! China!” is just…idiotic. I mean, some very smart people with doctorates in chemistry and related fields work for the pharmaceutical industry.

But clearly, when pharma sends people to DC, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending liars and cheats. They’re sending genocidal maniacs. And some, I assume, are good people.

[nautiscarader]

Gangbang - Zahra takes a simulation with five plixel Hectors (from episode 9 of S2)

(Ao3)

================

With somewhat trembling hands, Zahra Rashid opened the door to the large and empty simulation room in the Hinobi HQ. On one hand, she knew she had full permission to enter here now, as a senior employee.

On the other, though, she also knew what she wanted to do here...

Only a few blinking lights illuminated the room, giving it an eerie vibe, like most Hinobi control rooms. Zahra turned on the main system, and with beating heart she waited.

And she let out a satisfying sigh when she did not hear annoying voice of the helper she could now completely turn off. Zahra stepped back, made sure to lock the door and once she stepped onto the simulation deck, she ran the plixelisation program.

For the past weeks, ever since Nix has showed her how powerful plixelisation can be, she trained hard to master that skill tree. And while crafting weapons out of nowhere was fun, her motives would not exactly run along the company's policies...

Even though she knew very well what, or rather whom will she see in a moment, she couldn't help but feel giddy and ecstatic. Slowly, a crystalline, life-like figure of Hector Nieves appeared in front of her, greeting her with a simple wave of hand.

At once, Zahra got on her tippytoes and clapped her hands in response. But her smile turned positively euphoric when the engine continued rendering and four more Hectors appeared on the stage.

But now it was time for her program... she plugged the stick and ran it, her hands shaking slightly. The virtual window opened up, welcoming her with a few rudimentary settings - she was never good with UI elements, but those can be easily fixed later. Zahra set the mode to level 3 - "gallant" - and waited for Hectors to approach her and start treating her according to her desires.

Five men surrounded her, each giving her welcoming, gentle looks, to which Zahra replied with a nod and a warming smile, and only then the five Fives proceeded.

Their firm, but delicate fingers touched her, and she let out a gasp, as shivers ran down her spine, in expectations of the things to come. Hector in front undid her chest piece, while the two helped her lift her arms to remove it. The other two took care of her utility belt and the dress-like lower armour.

Zahra let out another girly giggle when two Hectors took a knee in front of her, and took her kneepads, while two more did the same with her gloves, gently sliding them from her hands. It was then when her skin was covered with goosebumps, as her palms received two simultaneous, gentlemanly kisses.

Zahra shivered when one Hector faced her and brought his hands to the hem of her underarmour. Without even thinking, Zahra lifted her arms in gesture of defeat and submission, and in a single move, she was disrobed, standing now in her multicoloured bra.

Then came the problem of her leggings, but to combat that, two Hectors joined their hands and effortlessly lifted Zahra as if he was a queen sitting on a throne, just so a third one could take her boots and leggings off, revealing her smooth, long legs.

She spun around, giving her five admirers the sight of her underwear, a matching set from last SuckerBox lootcrate, depicting Slide the Ferret and his companions. She knew Hector would love them...

But as much as she would like for him - or rather them - to admire her taste in geek clothing, Zahra preferred if her lovers took interest in what they were hiding from plain view.

She let out a soft murmur when she felt one of Hectors fumbling with her bra. Of course, they normally wouldn't have a problem with them, so she added a randomised timer, to simulate a real boy's struggles... Six seconds have passed before her breasts were freed, and she felt four hungry stares ogling them.

But that wasn't enough for her, and soon she was properly moaning when two Hectors joined forces to caress her nipples, circling them with their lips and fingers, utilising a fair more unpredictable algorithms to trace all sort of shapes, whose randomness drove Zahra wild.

She threw her head back, and at the same time her whole body was tilted, once more by two Hectors, who still had one piece of her clothing on her lower body to remove. Fifth Hector dragged his hand over her belly, making Zahra lift her head and stare into his eyes, as he dragged her panties down.

Zahra spread her legs, giving her lover enough space, and when she felt the material around her ankles, she knew they have done it. The Hector that disrobed her ventured between her thighs and gently kisses her underbelly, sending a wave of pleasure across her body in a taste of what was to come.

But still, there was one last piece of attire, the one covering her hair. And only she could undo it. As she slowly undid her hijab, she watched as her lovers became seduced by her long, raven-black hair that flowed freely.

She took a good, long look at her five admirers, and gathering all the strength not not fumble her line, she asked them a line she always wanted to say.

- Wanna play some multi?

In one second, the layers of clothing covering Hectors were disabled, and Zahra lost air in her lungs at the sight of five naked bodies of her crush, all surrounding her.

She gasped as five skinny, but muscular young men gathered around her, proudly showing how excited they were at the prospect of being with her. Her eyes moved from one crotch to the other, as if expecting to find some differences - she must remember to add tiny variations next time...

She was once more brought into the air, and one by one, each part of her body was subjected to Hectors' delicate lips. Her legs, ass, breasts... and finally her lips, when Hector Nieves kissed her, making her close her eyes and let the bliss she has dreamed about consume her. For a while, she wondered in how much trouble would she be if she passed out and was found here by her boss...

But she was brought back to reality - or rather a half-simulated one, at least - when one brave Hector ventured between her legs and took a long lick across her folds, letting her juices drip onto the floor. Another one joined him, concentrating on her clit. Ten fingers and two tongues worked their way around her sex, overflowing with her lust, while her back arched every few seconds in response to new wave of pleasure that rocked her body.

Meanwhile, the two other Hectors covered her breasts with kisses with meticulous precision - and she made sure of it, as their tongues followed a space-filling fractal curve to ensure every point of her mounds would be caressed.

Her hands weren't idle, though. As her kiss and caresses continued, she ventured down the chest of her lovers, until her fingers coiled around their cocks, and she shivered, feeling his texture and rigidity in her palm, as she pumped them.

At this point, hovering her clearly became too awkward for a love-making position, and Zahra had to postpone taking care of her lover to push a few buttons and plixelise a more practical solution.

A bed was rendered, though even from her distance, she could count the individual pixels on the low-res texture, as opposed to crisp rendering of Hectors. But it didn't matter, after all the bed, an asset borrowed from another game, was the least important part...

She hopped on it, and at once was welcomed in the cradle formed by two of her lovers, in a way so that their cocks would fit right in her holes. And with satisfying giggle, Zahra lowered herself, feeling as two crystaline, fake dicks slide in her ass and pussy at the same time. And the fact that she was facing Hector made her forget that the entire thing was an illusion, especially when he kissed her again...

Two pairs of hands closed around her waist, and the three began rocking back and forth like a well-oiled engine, generating moan after moan from her with each alternating dive. Zahra stretched her hands to caress her other lovers' cocks, fondling their testicles, and listening to their groans.

But there was a fifth Hector, and he soon reminded her of himself, where her kiss was interrupted. She felt his hand on her cheeks and gently turned her head left, only to be met with a well-modelled head of his cock, inches from her lips.

Zahra did not wait, and claimed him as his, throwing away any pretence and any shame she might still have. She wished the simulation could produce taste and smell... she was sure she would be light-headed now, with his masculine musk filling her mouth and nostrils. Sadly, she only got the texture and warmth that still gave her some impression of him. After all, she smelt his cologne just this morning...

But Zahra was eager to try something new this time. Though she revelled in listening to their moans, and would love to stay between them, she had to interrupt them, just so she can command them.

- Okay, I-I want both of you here and here!

And she reached her hand to open one extra window and unticked a few checkboxes.

Her lips curled into a wide smile when she saw that it has worked. One of the Hectors from the side reached for the place where the front one was sitting... and effortlessly passed through him, as if he was a ghost. Same happened to the one behind her. But when she reached between their legs...

Zahra giggled. She still could feel their lengths, proving she disabled correct collision layers. But of course that was just half of the challenge, arguably the easier one. She swallowed loudly, and let her lovers push forward.

At first, she thought she would feel pain, but the knowledge of what, or rather who was stretching her walls turned it into a bliss, one she couldn't have quite imagined. She threw her head back, getting caught by the fifth Hector and given another taste, for lack of better word, of his cock, and the five resumed their play by filling her with five cocks at the same time.

With each inch deeper, her climax was coming stronger and stronger, and when Zahra came, she welcomed four mouths kissing her and soothing her shaking and thrashing body, together with eight arms sliding across her entire skin...

But there was, of course one last thing to do. A feature borrowed from every sex simulator ever, the orgasm-meter has been blinking for some time, highlighting the "Cum" button.

And without a moment to spare, Zahra slammed it.

Her eyes bulged when fake liquid entered her mouth and warmed her insides with each pulse that flooded her. Pulse after pulse, five Hectors supplied her with their fake potent seed, emptying themselves in her ass, mouth and into her womb...

She tried swallowing some of it, but soon realised that it was a bit much, even for her... She quickly dismantled her lovers, and on shaky legs fell to the floor, but that didn't stop them, giving her occasion to see the fluid rendered in action.

At this point, she realised she must have added another 0 to the amount of cum in the while loop, but truth to be told, she did not care, and it was too late to fix that.

Streams of warm, gooey fake cum covered her legs, breasts face and of course her hair, adding to the seed that already have poured out of her pussy, ass and mouth. Zahra was sure she climaxed again just when that happened, adding to the craze and depravity she put herself through.

Basking in the simulated warmth and stickiness, Zahra flicked what would be layers of seed from her eyes and looked up, at five of her crushes. Adding to the visual obstruction, her mind was still hazed by the pleasure, but she slowly recovered, and grinned at the six figures towering over her...

At that moment, she knew she was in trouble.

Because one of the figures wasn't as tall as others, and wore a much different expression than them. A mixture of surprise, admiration, slight disgust and oddly enough triumph, all painted on Miko Kubota's face.

- M-Miko?! - Zahra spoke, trying to close her arms and legs, as if that was the most offensive part of her new visage. - Well, well, well... - a sly smile appeared on her face - Guess the cat is out of the lootbox, you really DO have a crush on High Five!

Zahra could taste the sarcasm dripping off her voice.

- Lucky for you... you're not the only one. - she said and approached the console - So let's see who's a bigger fan of our boy Hector here?

Zahra was about to protest, but Miko's fingers touched the buttons. At once, five more naked Hectors appeared, and as Zahra looked at Miko again, she watched her playing with tenderness setting.

The notoriously glitch-happy girl punched the down arrow three times. From 3 to 2, to 1, to 0...

Zahra let out a gasp, choking on fake cum still in her throat. She knew what was going to happen next. She planned 10 to be the maximum, but that limit was only hers...

With another press of an arrow, the counter rolled back... to 255.

At the same time, all ten limp cocks sprung back to life, and something told Zahra they will stay that for a long time.

She supposed she should be happy it wasn't 16 777 215.

[benbeckmans-blog]

How One Piece Of Hardware Took Down A 6 Trillion Stock Market

How One Piece Of Hardware Took Down A $6 Trillion Stock Market (Bloomberg) -- At 7:04 a.m. on an autumn Thursday in Tokyo, the stewards of the world’s third-largest equity market realized they had a problem.

A data device critical to the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s trading system had malfunctioned, and the automatic backup had failed to kick in. It was less than an hour before the system, called Arrowhead, was due to start processing orders in the $6 trillion equity market. Exchange officials could see no solution.

The full-day shutdown that ensued was the longest since the exchange switched to a fully electronic trading system in 1999. It drew criticism from market participants and authorities and shone a spotlight on a lesser-discussed vulnerability in the world’s financial plumbing -- not software or security risks but the danger when one of hundreds of pieces of hardware that make up a trading system decides to give up the ghost.

“Exchanges are a crucial part of market infrastructure and it’s unacceptable that trading opportunities were denied,” Finance Minister Taro Aso told reporters in Tokyo. “You’re dealing with machines so it’s always possible they will break. They need to create the infrastructure with that possibility of a breakdown in mind.”

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https://eustascaptainkids.wordpress.com/2021/05/15/elon-musk-the-innovative-man/

 The TSE’s Arrowhead system launched to much fanfare in 2010, billed as a modern-day solution after a series of outages on an older system embarrassed the exchange in the 2000s. The “arrow” symbolizes speed of order processing, while the “head” suggests robustness and reliability, according to the exchange. The system of roughly 350 servers that process buy and sell orders had had a few hiccups but no major outages in its first decade.

Read: Tokyo Stock Exchange to Resume Trading Friday After Outage

That all changed on Thursday, when a piece of hardware called the No. 1 shared disk device, one of two square-shaped data-storage boxes, detected a memory error. These devices store management data used across the servers, and distribute information such as commands and ID and password combinations for terminals that monitor trades.

When the error happened, the system should have carried out what’s called a failover -- an automatic switching to the No. 2 device. But for reasons the exchange’s executives couldn’t explain, that process also failed. That had a knock-on effect on servers called information distribution gateways that are meant to send market information to traders.

Disappearing Data

At 8 a.m., traders preparing at their desks for the market open an hour later should have been seeing indicative prices on their terminals as orders were processed. But many saw nothing, while others reported seeing data appearing and disappearing. They had no idea if the information was accurate.

A minute later, the bourse made its first communication, informing systems administrators at securities firms that there had been an issue. At some brokerages, that didn’t immediately filter down to befuddled trading desks.

At about 8:05 a.m., Twitter -- often used by traders to communicate outside of more official communication channels monitored by compliance -- began to buzz with rumors of an issue. Traders described a growing sense of confusion as few answers came from the bourse.

“We didn’t know if it was our system or the exchange,” said Masaya Akiba, a broker at Marusan Securities Co.’s stock-trading department. “We only confirmed it when the exchange put out a release.”

At 8:36 a.m., the bourse finally informed securities firms that trading would be halted. Three minutes later, it issued a press release on its public website -- although only in Japanese. A confusingly translated English release wouldn’t follow for more than 90 minutes.

It was the first time in almost fifteen years that the exchange had suffered a complete trading outage. The Tokyo bourse has a policy of not shutting even during natural disasters, so for many on trading floors in the capital, this experience was a first.

Historic Decision

Some market participants fumed at the closure. Others, with nothing to do, occupied their time by reading research notes or trading commodities.

“I didn’t think much of it at first,” said Kiyoshi Ishigane, the chief fund manager at Mitsubishi UFJ Kokusai Asset Management Co. in Tokyo. “Previous outages were quickly resolved so I assumed orders would just be delayed.”

In 2012, after the switchover to Arrowhead, the exchange had quickly resolved limited issues. Many expected the bourse to do the same this time, too.

But as the hours passed, Hajime Sakai, the chief fund manager at Mito Securities Co., grew increasingly uneasy.

“I really couldn’t pay attention to much else,” he said. “I wasn’t like, ‘Open the market!’ It was more like, ‘whichever it is, make your call on it, fast.’”

The call was a daunting one. After the failed switch to the backup, the exchange had manually forced a switchover to the No. 2 shared disk device. At this point, the administrators had a choice: they could seek to restart trading, but this would have entailed a full reset of the system -- shutting down the power and rebooting.

Data for orders already received from securities firms would have been lost, without having been canceled. That would have led to anarchy, securities firms told the exchange. After speaking with market participants, the exchange made its decision: trading would be called off for the entire day.

Many in the market say they were relieved. A call to resume trading would have been chaotic, said one worker at a Tokyo-based brokerage, with no way to tell which existing client orders remained active, while also trying to process new asks and bids.

Technical Discussion

At 4:30 p.m. local time, four TSE executives, including Chief Executive Officer Koichiro Miyahara and Chief Information Officer Ryusuke Yokoyama, faced journalists at the exchange to explain the outage. In a briefing that lasted about 100 minutes, they bowed in apology in front of the crowded room before going into a detailed technical discussion of the breakdown.

If the bourse was criticized for its communications earlier in the day, it won praise for how it handled the press conference. The executives answered questions from the media with relative ease, discussing areas such as systems architecture in highly technical terms. They also squarely accepted responsibility for the incident, rather than trying to deflect blame onto the system vendor Fujitsu Ltd. It bore little resemblance to gaffe-filled briefings by other Japanese firms in the past. On Twitter, the Japanese public voiced its approval.

“Management explained very clearly during the briefing last night,” said Megumi Takarada, a senior analyst at Toyo Securities Co. in Tokyo. “The briefing provided some reassurance that management clearly understands the issue.”

Later in the evening, the announcement came that the bourse would restart trading Friday. While that passed without issue, many questions remain unanswered. The Financial Services Agency has ordered the exchange to issue a report on the outage, according to local media, which may give further insight on some of the issues.

But one of the biggest is whether the same kind of hardware-driven failure could happen in other stock markets. For one strategist, it almost certainly could -- but that’s not something to worry too much about.

“There’s nothing uniquely Japanese about this,” said Nicholas Smith of CLSA Ltd. in Tokyo. “I think we’ve just got to put that in the box of ‘stuff happens.’ These things happen. They shouldn’t, but they do.”

(Updates with FSA ordering report on the outage in 25th paragraph)

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

[froggycatvest]

Title: There’s a cafeteria? Words: 2000 Ships: None, but this part here is the hopefully cute moments between Benrey/Tommy, and where Benrey has his little feelings for Gordon Warnings: None Characters: Benrey, Tommy, Gordon Part 3 of ? Part 1 HERE, Part 2 HERE

This is a story where they find a cafeteria. No dangers, just lighthearted interaction here, I think. Some people just want to hold hands here.

---

When everyone joined Gordon at the table, Benry silently returned to the room to explore what he couldn’t before. What caught his eye was the serving area on the far side. As he approached, he noticed it was completely empty. No heating trays filled with the menu of the day. No pots containing self serve soups or stews. The chill boxes with the clear doors had no ready made sandwiches or salads or desserts. 

Hm. Just like home. 

He had just started to climb up on the counter for fun when Tommy’s friendly voice sounded near him.

“Benrey, there are so many soda fountains here.” Benry could hear him smiling. “They have all your favorite flavors.”

He hadn’t noticed, but when he looked to the far wall, he saw there were also dispensers for milk, coffee, tea, juices, and water.

“Yours too.”

“Mine, too.” Tommy nodded, before pointing at the machines. “I’m--I’m gonna get some drinks for everyone. Do you wanna help?”

“There’s nothing to eat here.” Why wasn’t there food?

Tommy took his answer in stride. “I think everyone went home. It’s late.”

Benry looked around for a clock. The only time he really cared about was when it was time to finish work. And it was beyond that. At least with their jobs, they were used to working late and not always being able to eat at scheduled breaks. 

He stepped away from the counter, staring at Tommy. “Hey you haven’t eaten in a long time have you?”

Tommy’s shoulders fell. “Yeah...”

Benry moved in close to him. “We should do something. Let’s find something for you,” he said, continuing to stare right at him, and Tommy brightened up. 

“Okay!” But he took a quick glance at the others at the table. “I’ve got the--the, uhh, the...We’ll get the drinks later.”

After he followed the other’s line of sight, Benry straightened up and started to stalk towards the group. But he came to an abrupt halt when a hand caught his, and his eyes flashed to Tommy’s worried expression.

“He shouldn’t be here,” Benry explained. “The cafeteria’s closed.”

He really wanted to say that to him, to hear what he had to say, to argue with him a bit. But Tommy shook his head. 

“Mr. Freeman said he needs a moment to calm down.” 

“I don’t think he’s ever calm Tommy. When is he ever calm?”

“When he sits down he is,” Tommy insisted. “We’ve sat a lot.”

Benry glanced back at the table, eyeing Gordon Freeman who was facing away from them. He looked like he was having a conversation, his arms gesturing widely. 

“...Why does he move them so much? Why does he do that?”

No one else did it that often. Gordon Freeman moved his hands with every sentence, was always pointing or waving them around, was always reaching out and touching everyone. 

Tommy watched for a bit, but answered like he already knew. “It’s how he talks. Everyone talks in a different way. Just like you and your Voice.”

Benry stared blankly. Huh. Maybe that’s why they didn’t understand each other. They spoke differently.

There was a tug on his wrist, Tommy leading him back--which Benry didn’t mind--before letting him go--which Benry did mind. He liked being physically close to others, liked casual affection, and he knew Tommy enjoyed it, too. 

“Hold hands again please?”

“Okay.” Tommy didn’t hesitate to reach for him. “But we can’t have food if the cafeteria is closed.”

“We can have food.” They were allowed to be here. They worked here. 

This time, Benry led the way and they both pushed through the door that led to the kitchen. Same as the other room, the prep areas were spotless. 

Benry huffed, glaring at the refrigerators and freezers. “Nothing here.”

“Ohh, it can be a game,” Tommy said in wonderment upon realization. “First to find something good.”

Benry yanked a few cabinets open nearby eagerly. If there was one thing they both enjoyed together, it was a race. But every cabinet above and below only contained pots, pans, trays, and plates. “Who does this?”

“That’s how kitchens are,” Tommy said, matter-of-fact. “You gotta check the pantry.”

Another door led to an enclosed area filled with shelves and storage containers, Tommy disappearing inside. Benry followed, but there was nothing already made or easy to eat. 

“We should get takeout. We should order delivery.”

Tommy looked up at him from where he was crouched searching through numerous cans on the bottom shelf. “I think that’s against company policy.”

Breaking company policy sounded great. Getting food delivered sounded better.

Benry’s voice rose, excited at the thought. “Get on the phone.”

Another voice cut through from the doorway, a bit smug, a bit reprimanding. 

“Didn’t you say something about how you never walk off?” Gordon stood there, arms crossed and head tilted, and when Benry didn’t answer, he grinned at Tommy. “Hey, Tommy. What do you got there?”

Tommy stood up with two of his findings, one in the crook of each arm. “Look how large these cans of soup are.”

“That’s like, the size of a bucket,” Gordon said, impressed. “I bet that could feed us all. You want to go heat that up? I’ll come and help.” When Tommy slid past him, Gordon patted him on the back in a friendly manner. 

“I’ll be right there. You coming, Benrey?”

Benry’s eyes narrowed. Gordon Freeman really did just touch anyone whenever to convey some type of message and no one seemed to mind. Benry had stepped away half of the time it happened to him, usually because Gordon was being sarcastic or rude at the time. But with the others, he was nice or encouraging...or sometimes a bit desperate to get a point across--which was funny to see.

Most of the time Gordon seemed to lay a hand on him lately was to hit him across the room. Not that it hurt, but it was mean. Gordon Freeman was only mean to him and Benry wanted nice touches again.

He must’ve been thinking for a while, because Gordon began to shift, coughing to get his attention. “Hey, come on. You can talk, you know. I kinda prefer it. Feels a little weird when you don’t.” He began to ramble on. “Especially since you never seem to blink and you’re standing in a tiny room that’s not very well lit. You know like in those horror stories, where there’s that one ghost or demon just standing there not moving and--”

Benry found himself tuning out and he stared down at his own hands. Tommy said Gordon Freeman spoke differently, used his hands to communicate. Maybe if he tried the same way…

He strode up to him, Gordon cutting himself off from whatever he was saying to give him a confused look. He firmly placed his hand on the other’s shoulder, maintaining intense eye contact. Not that he meant to--he was trying to focus instead of blanking out again. Every time he did that Gordon Freeman walked off.

Instead, Gordon waited patiently for a response, and prompted when there was none. “Dude?”

Benry’s eyes widened a fraction. 

Oh shit he didn’t know what to say. He didn’t think this far. This didn’t quite feel the same as when he held hands with Tommy, or sat close by Dr. Coomer, or played games and chatted with Bubby. This felt stiff and cramped and--

“You speak weird.”

“You know,” Gordon started off, surprisingly not irritated in the slightest at his insult. “Everything you accuse me of, you do yourself, did you know that? Like your weird light show when you aaa,” he said wiggling his fingers around for emphasis. “That’s speaking weird.”

Benry didn’t understand how it was weird when Gordon was the one who tried to mimic his Voice. He tried to learn what it meant and he tried to make the sounds. Benry heard him compliment it multiple times. And it was...nice. It was nice that he liked it.

“You said it was beautiful.”

Gordon’s voice squeaked like he was caught. “I did? You heard that?” He was flustered for just a moment, but he composed himself easily, words firm. “I’ve...gotten used to it. You could just use words to communicate instead. Well, actually, I don’t understand you most of the time when you do that, either, but…” he trailed off, eyes sweeping to the hand still on his shoulder.

“Why are you doing this anyway? You’ve never done this before.”

It’s not that he sounded accusing, and he knew he was changing the topic, but Benry automatically threw it back at him.

"You’re the one doing things no one does. You touch people’s faces and you think you can get away with it.”

Gordon sputtered out a laugh, clearly not expecting that. “Okay, yeah. I guess you’re right. That’s a little weird. Are you mad about when I did that to you? That feels like forever ago now that I think about it.”

Benry remained quiet at first. He was expecting an argument, for him to deny it or get defensive. Arguing and denying things was fun. People agreeing with him was even better. But Gordon Freeman was laughing and seemed relaxed despite Benry’s attempts to aggravate. 

“Are you calm now?”

Gordon blinked at that. “Are you asking if I’m okay?”

Benry just stared at him. 

“Like, no joking around? You’re not going to insult me if I answer, are you?” Gordon grinned like he was playing around, like no way he believed this was serious. “I cannot imagine how it would be if you--you--actually showed some concern towards me.” 

Benry stared harder at that. 

“Life would be so easy if you...” Gordon stopped in realization. He looked at the hand on his shoulder. “Are you…?” He gestured. “Wait. Is this…Are you trying to comfort me?”

Benry didn’t answer.

It took a while of mutual unsure staring, before Gordon’s expression softened. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m good. What about you?”

Light orbs fell from Benry’s mouth. 

“Benrey,” Gordon sighed as he rolled his eyes towards the ceiling, which usually meant he was ready to move on. 

Benry was, too. The hand communication worked, but his own way was easier. And everything would have been fine, if Gordon Freeman’s fingers hadn’t wrapped around his wrist right then, because having a gentle touch reciprocated made all the difference.

It still felt stiff and cramped, but suddenly everything went warm.

His eyes narrowed at the touch as he inspected it closer. “You’ve uh, you got something to say, then you should say it. Use words to communicate.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but,” Gordon pushed at Benry’s arm, “I’m gonna assume those colors you blew out meant you’re okay, too.”

Benry pulled away without any resistance, muttering and mumbling noises under his breath. “You were trying to hold hands. Is that it?” 

He held his hand out, offering it to him, because that’s what he wanted, and because he was being kind and trying to help by doing things Gordon’s way. But Gordon somehow didn’t understand, and his attention went from Benry’s hand to his face with a scoff.

“You trying to make jokes again? Hand jokes? Come on, man. That’s old. Unoriginal.”

“I don’t make jokes about that. I’ve never--”

Gordon made a whole bunch of noises, waving his arms around in an attempt to shush him. “Please. Stop talking.

Benry side-eyed him, unamused. Gordon Freeman had no right to get mad when Benry insulted his intelligence, because the man was dumb and slow and noticed nothing. But he kept quiet as Gordon continued.

“Let’s go eat. I don’t think I trust the others to heat up a can of soup between them without some sort of collateral damage.”

[undeific]

@batoushoujo​ SAID:  discreet but reversed i think   ✚   MEME: whore memes   ✚   send a MESSAGE?

Boredom is a disease. Once it sets in, it is terminal. An ever-mutating plague that reemerges at the worst opportune moment, boredom haunts him like a ghost, infects him, taints him. Sometimes, he thinks he can feel it in his blood, rotting his cells. If he could treat it like some physical thing, find where it was located, he would carve the capacity for boredom right out of his body, never mind the mess. He would use one of his favorite knives. When it was outside of him, he would drop it, fleshy and quivering and ugly, into the garbage disposal and listen to it die in the drain. 

Chin in hand, he half-listened to his employer — a politician who wanted dirt on another politician, nothing new or interesting there — while his other hand rests lazily on Tem’s knee. Both parties brought their “wives” (Izaya, of course, brought Tem, while the politician brought his mistress) to dinner while they discussed the job. 

He’d been hoping it would be more fulfilling work, but he knew better than to reject a job from someone in a high place: a favor would be owed, and blackmail could be utilized. He was nothing if not clever in his business practices. He may not get anything out of it now, but perhaps later… 

Still, he wasn’t enjoying himself. An idle glance at his companion told him that she wasn’t either; in fact, she appeared to be in a battle with herself to conceal her already barely-veiled disgust. He couldn’t blame her; one could practically smell the sniveling, weaselish corruption radiating from this man — but, even still, she needed to cooperate. He knew she was capable of self control, knew she cared how she was perceived. She needed to work with him. 

He squeezed her thigh — too firm to be affectionate, too pointed to be friendly. A reminder, a warning. Play along. 

In response, she kicked his leg under the table.

The politician was in the midst of congratulating himself for his own (terrible) policy beliefs, looking for approval. Izaya heartily agreed with him, honeyed voice thick with insincere flattery. Tem, seemingly having gotten the point, echoed his sentiment, smiling sweetly, transforming herself into the epitome of feminine generosity and goodwill. Izaya could tell that she hated every second of her own performance. He was satisfied.

The politician’s companion stood, saying that she was so sorry, but she needed to be excused to use the restroom (which, with a single glance, Izaya translated to “do expensive cocaine”). When she disappeared, the politician leaned in and made some impish, crude comment about her body, the way her ass looked as she walked away.

Izaya, seeing an opportunity for some sort of stimulation — cheap and slight as it may be — let out a small sigh and leaned his head on to Tem’s shoulder, languid and feline. He batted his eyelashes. “Yes, she’s very beautiful,” Izaya said. “But I didn’t notice any of that.”

Her shoulders tensed. He could sense that she was suppressing an eye roll. Once more, he tightened his grip on her thigh. 

“Yes, yes. You two look very happy. What a sweet couple you make. How long have you been married?” 

“Hmm… A little more than a year, I believe?”

“Ah. I see — it all makes sense now. Enjoy this while you can. That spark fades, you know,” the man said, trying to sound wise but simply sounding smug.

Izaya’s eyes sharpened. His smile widened. His face took on a sly, predatory quality as he sunk his talons in: “You seemed to have plenty of spark for your wife just now.”

“Oh, you and I both know she’s not my real—”

“Well, neither is she.” Izaya released Tem’s thigh for a moment to grab her chin, shaking her head around slightly. Before she could jerk her head away in annoyance, his hand found its way back home to her leg. “But she also is.”

The politician blinked, confused. “...Engaged?”

Izaya did not answer. Beneath the table, he traced his hand higher up her leg, dipping past the hem of Tem’s skirt and up her inner thigh. “We won’t be losing any sort of ‘spark’ — we just love each other so much, don’t we, Tem?”

A light caress between her legs. 

For a moment, Tem’s face went blank, and it looked as though she may respond to him — but an instant later she shoved him away and slammed her legs shut.

Izaya laughed, the politician continuing to look on in confusion.

[legendoftheghost]

Hi! If its ok could you do 10, 12, 22, 25/27? Really love your writing!

42 character development questions! || accepting

10. What energizes and drains them most? 

Jin Sakai is energized by having quiet, structured time to work towards his goals and visions. In turn, he is drained by being in noisy, bright, over-stimulating environments. These kinds of places force his attention outside of his mind and trigger his inferior sensing function, which can result in stress, overwhelm, and anxiety over time. Other things that exhaust him include dealing with nitty-gritty details, working with illogical people, or being around individuals who are wishy-washy or undependable. It is especially exhausting to Jin if he has to spend a large amount of time with people who are unwilling to look past his own emotions and personal experiences to see other possibilities or perspectives.

12. How are they bodily expressive? How do they use nonverbal cues such as their posture, stance, eyes, eyebrows, mouths, and hands?

Jin is definitely a stoic person, and prefer to keep his emotions to himself. He isn’t always the most outwardly expressive person, since that sort of emotional display does not come naturally for him. Jin Sakai’s own thoughts and feelings are extremely internal, since he has such active inner mind and takes on frequent introspective reflections. He does best keeping these things to himself, and thus, naturally appear stoic to others. Sometimes when Jin even seem angry, but that is just because he is being pensive. His stoicism can sometimes be misunderstood by others, but it simply comes from the fact that he has so much going internally, which isn’t expressed easily. Despite these facts, Jin Sakai’s emotions tend to ooze rather expressively through his eyes, and when he is overwhelmed with anger, fury, and frustration, he will readily show them outwardly, regardless of being alone or with a company. They are mostly expressed through the depths of his eyes, which has high propensity to convey more than he is intending to express. 

22. How do people respond to them, and why might these responses differ?

The Ghost tends to draw paradoxical reactions with people. There are people who adore, revere, and even idolize him, there are even those who are attempting to follow his footsteps, as they cave into the idea of repressed fury and vengeance towards the Mongols with their respective loss and facing unjustly death. The Ghost’s presence enlightens and unfetters people to break out of the norm and the idea of feudalism, which makes him a revolutionary and a rebel. On the other hand, there are people who fear the ghost, because he induces terror and chaos. He is unpredictable, impassioned, merciless, and ruthless. There also are people who believe him to be a figure of a Legend, a ten-foot Devil with eyes of bloodthirsty red. But Jin Sakai’s temperaments are kind, compassionate, tender, and nonjudgmental. He will do his best to take into every consideration, before condemning their fate as traitors and deceivers to his own kin. 

25. What do they need and want out of relationships, and how do they go about getting it?

He has thought carefully about what he wants in a relationship. Jin isn’t often interested in flings or one-night-stands but are looking for something that will last a lifetime. Usually, before he embarks on a relationship, he will have carefully ensured that the person fits certain criteria so that he doesn’t waste both of their time (or anyone else’s). He’s not likely to “fall in love” in a heat of passion or spur-of-the-moment feelings; it has to be done over considerable length of time. While he can be extremely romantic, it takes time for him to feel safe enough to divulge his feelings. 

Jin Sakai, naturally, is a very deep, thoughtful individual and he looks for the same in a partner. He wants someone that he can discuss possibilities, theories, and meanings with. He enjoys someone who is imaginative and passionate. He will naturally be more at ease with another intuitive partner. The reason for this is that they will both be interested in ideas, theories, and concepts and usually enjoy similar topics of conversation and areas of interest. There will be a natural flow that comes from two intuitive or two sensor types being together. Because Jin is very honest and direct, and he wants a partner who is showing him his or her true self, he will most likely be honest and direct also in revealing his feelings. For insincerity and phoniness are likely to turn him off very quickly. He can take blunt honesty, as long as it’s not a manipulated personal attack. So with Jin, honesty and authenticity is always going to be the best policy. He likes to develop intimate relationships slowly and build trust as they gradually share their experiences, as he doesn’t want to be pushed to share all of them. 

27. What do they strongly like and dislike, in any category? Why?

Jin mostly dislikes the incompetent power-holders who seems undeserving of their position. Because he himself values brilliance, self-confidence, and the ability to make firm, effective decisions, he abhors to see those on a high pedestal only thinking of themselves and filling their bellies. He is also not inclined to play anything by ear, and he hates uncoordinated activities. That being said, Jin’s hatred for all unplanned things can result in master plans, as he has a set agenda he wants to achieve in a day, and when he feels like he came in short, he will get extremely frustrated and annoyed. He doesn’t like to become stagnant and undeveloped, for he always seeks for the ways to improve himself and become a better person and the vessel to sacrifice himself for the people of Tsushima.

Jin strongly gravitates to someone who is honest and straightforward, since it means that he doesn’t have to deal with someone who isn't trustworthy. He is drawn to a direct person who is capable of being sincere with them. He likes adventures, unexpected events in life that could break away from routines and structured life of the Ghost. He also takes huge interest in reading, writing haikus, doing independent activities such as running and meditating, and will develop an inkling to trust likeminded people who hopes to follow his path. 

[treenahasthaal]

Hi! For the director’s cut thing: “Pinned, belly down, Luke watched his breath ghost against the polished marble of the floor” to “He stared up at Vader and smiled as oblivion took him.” for chapter 16 of Dark Times? (Sorry if someone’s already asked it!)

My sincere apologies for not replying sooner. Life has been hectic and I’ve had to work ridiculous hours with not many days off. Also, this is a helluva difficult scene to talk about! 

Wow... 

Okay, a few things. My husband died, very suddenly and completely unexpectedly, on our 14th Wedding anniversary, 26th September 2011. He walked to the local store for a few items and collapsed and died on the sidewalk. I was called and rushed round. He took his last breath as I reached him. I started CPR... 

What followed was the most difficult time of my life - and I’ve had few heart breaks before and since, but nothing compares to that day and the following weeks and years. 

I had a severe writers block from about 1995 to 2005 and in 2011 I was still writing. 

Dark Times was initially started in 2004. (I think) I am not a quick writer. Never have been - I sweat over every word. 

After losing David I was left to bring up our kids alone and I had (still have) a very intense, emotionally draining, pretty fraught, career. 

I turned to my writing and poured every ounce of my grief into my stories. They became darker than ever. 

Born In Fire and Blood is an example of how dark.

Dark Times: Absolute was written during my grieving period (I’m still grieving) and I poured every ounce of feeling I had into that chapter of the story. I vividly remember sitting down to write that court scene (the appeal for innocence) and looking at the page thinking “I can’t do this,” That gave me the mind set for Luke.  The “I can’t do this...” with the “too bad, buddy, you have no choice.”  

That became my mantra of sort, for my own life, not just for Luke. I don’t want to attend his funeral - too bad, you have no choice.

I don’t want to get out of bed - too bad, you have kids, you have no choice.

I don’t want to work anymore - too bad, you have kids, you have no choice. 

The “stay up, stay up, stay up,” that was going through Luke’s head was also with me - I’ve gone through hell at work and I have had to stay up and stay standing for my principles. (I am the only female manager, managing a bunch of guys - yep, I don’t need to say much more, do I?).

Absolute is probably the most personal thing I have every written. It exhausted me emotionally. That court scene in particular was agony to write, I really didn’t want to write it, and yet I feel it is probably some of the best writing I have ever done.

However, you don’t want to know about that scene - you want to know about what follows. 

In comparison to the court scene this scene was easier to write, but I was very nervous about it. I wasn’t sure I could pull it off. I sometimes write without much of a plan and I just go with the flow and follow where the characters take me. Somehow we ended up with Luke bleeding out in snow fall being held by his father. 

This is hard! :D 

Lying on the floor, Luke is terribly afraid here, trying to keep it together. Not only is he back in Imperial custody, but he’s terrified for Leia and Han. He’s barely holding it together and here again (a theme in Dark Times) he thinks of his aunt. He is again, reminded of his childhood on Tatooine and the one constant person who never berated him, who gave him time, and solace and care. His main caregiver - Aunt Beru. 

Beru, a firm, solid attachment. :P 

Her memory is a grounding for him, so it was important to keep that in there. Of course, the Force has a role in this. 

And then, there is change within the hall way as they wait, a feeling of a shift within the Force and “hey,” things aren’t quite so bleak. 

I believe I was listening to Marillion at the time (When Fish was still their lead singer - he rocks! They were never the same after they split with him) and these lyrics were very important as I wrote:

“You’d resigned yourself to die a broken rebel, but that was looking backward, now you’ve found the light.”

“Childhoods End - Marillion.”

Luke learned Leia was safe and boy, is he buoyed to have one over on Vader. It really gives him a boost - what he doesn’t realise is how twisted his happiness is. He doesn’t realise how dark he is already becoming. I mean how could he really without any teaching?  

He’s almost... almost... giddy that Leia and Han got out, because he can do this now. He can go (as though he had a choice) with Vader and they can do what they want with him; his friends are all okay. 

He has a new found confidence and can really talk back to Vader and he knows, he feels, that with a battle coming up that he can feel a victory ahead. He might not know what it will be, but he knows... feels... that it’s there somehow - even if that victory is dying in interrogation without telling Vader anything (which he kinda doubts).

Of course the confidence slips when reality crashes in when he’s taken on the walk toward the shuttle. 

I wanted this walk to be anticipatory. Like a condemned prisoner being lead to the gallows, which in a way Luke was. Or a bride being escorted down the aisle. A line of troopers either side, lights shining, the dark shuttle (the alter?) waiting with the ramp lowering. The crunch of snow beneath feet as more flakes fell (confetti?) 

I wanted the reader to think, oh well that’s it, Luke’s getting taken and we’ll have more of the same. But I wanted to put some doubt there that maybe something else was going to happen. So, yeah, I wanted to build anticipation. 

Did it work? I don’t know! You tell me! 

I wanted Luke to start losing that little bit of confidence. I wanted him on the edge again, his conflict, his absolute terror to start seeping through. On the edge of mental collapse as he has so often been throughout the story. 

(wee side note here. First Minister Teraten was based on the then First Minister of Scotland. I like the man’s policies and beliefs in an Independent Scotland, but I personally don’t like the man himself) 

At the end of corridor of soldiers, the aisle, is Thecla and of course Luke knows why she is there. And, I’m not sure if anyone notices, but Luke echoes Palpatine. Echoes what Palpatine told Thecla at the start of Absolute:Chapter 8 because of course Thecla was the holograph figure he spoke, too. 

“Do it.” 

(A phrase that has become a meme since!)

And Thecla does it.

And of course Anakin panics. That’s his boy that’s just been shot! This, this, is the really the first time that Anakin reacts... not just Vader with a wee bit of Anakin Skywalker thrown in for good measure. 

This whole end scene was pure Anakin. In agony. And he lets it slip without truly meaning to.

“Stay with me, my son.” 

He’s tender, desperately so, gently wiping away the blood that keeps dribbling from Luke’s mouth. All Anakin.

Luke is dying. He knows he’s dying. He asked to die and.... 

What? 

What?

Son? 

My son?

Again his aunt, memories of his aunt, of the vision that has arisen since he hung helpless on the end of that corded durasteel line. Home... It all rattles through him (life flashing before his eyes type thing) and understanding swiftly follows.

This is his victory over Vader. 

You know what, dad? 

I win!

The scene exhausted me in a different way to the court case. This scene killed me and I wept writing it.  Not just because I killed Luke Skywalker, and he died in the arms of his father, but because I had been Anakin and my husband had been Luke. I cradled my David, I begged him not to leave me, to stay - and being the mother of two kids I can imagine the pain of losing a child (I’ve had plenty of nightmares about it). 

So.. @spell-cleaver I hope I have fully answered the ask and again my apologies for not answering sooner. And it gives me the excuse to use this beautiful art work from @sskywallker again. 

[bustedbernie]

A great read about Social-Fascism. Very apt to our current political situation. I’ll include an opening excerpt below as well as some quotes that are very apt and could very much have been written by a “Bernie or Bust” supporter in their “Biden and Trump is the same” mantra or their just as concerning “Trump will accelerate the drive toward a proletariat revolution.” 

But I would be less than candid if I did not confess that I was moved to look back at social-fascism because it is no longer of merely historical interest. In its original incarnation, it helped to bring about such a vast and shattering catastrophe that it once seemed such ideas could never again be revived on a large and dangerous scale. Yet this is exactly what has been happening. The term itself has not come back into general use, but the thinking behind it again has its devotees.

A new revolutionary generation has raised questions that are not altogether new. Who is the “main enemy”? Are “reformists” more dangerous than “reactionaries”? Is liberal democracy nothing but a “mask” for bourgeois dictatorship or even some form of totalitarianism? Is it necessary to provoke violent confrontations in order to unmask this type of liberalism? If a revolutionary minority strives to destroy a democratic, even a “bourgeois-democratic,” order, is it necessarily going to be the main beneficiary—or even avoid the fate of the democratic order it has helped to pull down?

Answers to such questions made the difference between life and death for millions of people a few decades ago. In what follows, I have tried to restudy and reconstruct the earlier experience as a historical phenomenon that deserves to be better known for its own sake and that presents us with some large and difficult problems of special interest today.

[...]

The lesson would seem to be that it is dangerous to use the term “fascism”—or today “totalitarianism”—too lightly and too indiscriminately. The problem is how to preserve a very sizable margin of difference in order to make room for the full enormity and horror of fascism in power. To reduce this margin is to make fascism more familiar, more tolerable, more domesticated. By making fascism cover all the ground from Müller to Hitler, the Communists demonized the inoffensive Müller and humanized the demonic Hitler.

[...]

Soon the Communists had their wish. Two elections were held in 1932, on July 31 and on November 6. In the latter, the Social-Democrats lost ground, from 133 Reichstag seats to 121, and from a total vote of 7,959,700 to 7,248,000. The Communists gained almost as much, from 89 seats to 100, and from 5,282,600 votes to 5,980,200. For the first time in four years, the Nazis fell back, from 230 seats to 196, and from 13,745,800 votes to 11,737,000. Between them, the Social-Democrats and Communists still managed to hold well over one-third of the total vote. The Nazis were slipping, and a real Social-Democratic-Communist united front might conceivably have blocked the way to Hitler's power.

But the theory of social-fascism held firm. In its post-election statement, the Central Committee of the Communist party of Germany declared: “The decline of the Social-Democratic party in no way reduces its role as the main social buttress of the bourgeoisie, but on the contrary, precisely because the Hitler party is at present losing followers from the ranks of the workers, instead of penetrating still more deeply into the proletariat, the importance of the Social-Democratic party for the fascist policy of finance capital increases.”39

Ten weeks later, on January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler gained power.

Twenty-one years later, Walter Ulbricht, the present master of East Germany, admitted that the Communists had concentrated their main fire on the Social-Democrats, not on Hitler, Brüning, Papen, or Schleicher, “without sufficiently distinguishing between the Social-Democratic leadership and the Social-Democratic membership.”40 In all those years, Ulbricht could think of nothing else that had been wrong with the theory of social-fascism.

[...]

For this purpose, I have made up a little anthology that takes the subject into 1934. The various items require little comment, and I have merely grouped them under appropriate subject headings. All of these quotations have been taken from the most authoritative Communist sources and spokesmen for a period of over a year after January 1933.

_____________

The Revolutionary Upsurge

“The fact of the Hitler government coming into power enormously accelerates the maturing of the revolutionary crisis in Germany. Germany is on the threshold of a revolutionary crisis (italics in original).”41

“The fascist dictatorship is not only incapable of solving the social and national conflicts, but it is also incapable of really consolidating its political rule.”42

“In spite of the most ruthless and bloody terror, a revolutionary upsurge is growing among the working class, which is completely deprived of all rights by fascism.”43

“After the establishment of the fascist dictatorship, the revolutionary mass movement is experiencing a fresh upsurge.”44

“The revolutionary uprising of the German working class—that is the perspective in Germany.”45

“The present stage in Germany, in Austria, is no longer simply a period of struggle to win over the majority of the working class, but a period of the formation of a revolutionary army for decisive class battles for power, a period of the mobilization of such cadres as are prepared to make any sacrifice in order to destroy the existing regime, in order to lead the proletariat to victory.”46

The Usefulness of Fascism

“The establishment of an open fascist dictatorship, by destroying all the democratic illusions among the masses and liberating them from the influence of Social-Democracy, accelerates the rate of Germany's development toward proletarian revolution.”47

“The bourgeoisie is compelled to abandon the democratic façade and to put the naked dictatorship of violence in the foreground. This development makes it easier for those carrying out a correct, united front, anti-fascist policy to overcome the illusions, which have been fostered by Social-Democracy for decades, with regard to the role of the State, and with regard to economic democracy and the policy of the ‘lesser evil.’”48

“Even fascist demagogy can now have a twofold effect. It can, in spite of the fascists, help us to free the masses of the toilers from the illusions of parliamentary democracy and peaceful evolution . . . ,”49

“The rapid fascisation of the capitalist governments naturally confronts us with added difficulties, but the bitterness of class antagonisms and the complete bankruptcy of the Second and Amsterdam [trade union] Internationals offer us tremendous new possibilities” (italics in original).50

“The present wave of fascism is not a sign of the strength, but a sign of the weakness and instability of the whole capitalist system. . . . Germany was and remains the weakest link in the chain of imperialist states. . . . That is why the proletarian revolution is nearer in Germany than in any other country.”51

“Fascism does not only make the struggle of the working class more difficult; it also accelerates the processes of the maturing of the revolutionary crisis.”52

The Main Enemy

“The Social-Democracy proves once again that it is inseparably allied with capitalism, that it still remains the chief buttress of the bourgeoisie, even when the latter go over to measures of open violence, including repressive measures against Social-Democracy.”53

“If the fascists are persecuting Social-Democracy as a party, they are beating it as a faithful dog that has fallen sick. They are beating it because they know that it is incapable of resistance, that, when it is beaten, it will come forward all the quicker to the service of the bourgeois dictatorship, even in the open fascist form.”54

“The complete exclusion of the social-fascists from the state apparatus, and the brutal suppression even of Social-Democratic organizations and their press, does not in any way alter the fact that Social-Democracy is now, as before, the chief support of the capitalist dictatorship.”55

“History now offers a real possibility of liquidating the mass influence of the Social-Democratic party, which is responsible for the victory of fascism and which is the main support of the bourgeoisie, and the possibility of establishing the unity of the labor movement.”56

“Social-Democracy continues to play the role of the main social prop of the bourgeoisie also in the countries of open fascist dictatorship.”57

“In spite of all their disagreements, the fascists and social-fascists are, and remain, twins, as Comrade Stalin remarked. . . . There are no disagreements between the fascists and the social-fascists as far as the necessity for the further fascisation of the bourgeois dictatorship is concerned. The Social-Democrats are in favor of fascisation, provided the parliamentary form is preserved.”58

“Even after the prohibition of its organization, Social-Democracy remains the main social prop of the bourgeoisie. . . . The present situation [December 1933] in the German labor movement offers us the possibility of destroying the mass influence of the SPG [Social-Democratic party of Germany] and of reestablishing the unity of the labor movement on a revolutionary basis.”59

“Every revolutionary must know that the path toward the annihilation of fascism, the path to the proletarian revolution and to its victory can only be the path that leads via the organizational and ideological abolition of the influence of Social-Democracy.”60

“It is, therefore, necessary above all to make a clear stand in regard to Social-Democracy, and first and foremost in regard to ‘Left’ Social-Democracy, this most dangerous foe of Communism” (italics in original).”61

“We must destroy the Social-Democratic influence on the working masses and we must not tolerate any vacillations in our ranks in the struggle against the Social-Democracy as the chief social support of the bourgeoisie.”62

_____________

I hope the reader has not skipped too quickly over this collection of seemingly quaint, musty quotations. Not so long ago, men paid for them with their lives, Communists and Social-Democrats alike. In March 1933, the “mask” was finally torn from the Weimar constitution. A newly elected Reichstag voted, 441 to 94, to give Hitler dictatorial powers. All 94 negative votes were cast by Social-Democrats (the remaining 27 Social-Democratic deputies and all 81 Communists could not vote, being already in exile, in hiding, or under arrest). The Communist party was officially outlawed on March 31; the trade unions were smashed in May; the Social-Democratic party was banned on June 22. Thereafter, Hitler made no distinction between Communists and Social-Democrats; he took their lives, cast them into concentration camps or, if they were lucky, drove them into exile, impartially.

Don’t let Bernie or Bust type folks lead you into this dangerous and toxic form of thinking. Don’t let them divide us at this moment when we must come together to protect ourselves and our liberties. Take a page from history and learn from it. 

[theclanscript]

the five keys to im changkyun

⋈ pairing: changkyun x reader ⋈ word count: 4,361 ⋈ genre: fluff/mild angst ⋈ notes: happy birthday, changkyun. i love you endlessly ♥

1.       He has a strict No Bullshit Policy

Im Changkyun was intimidating.

Or distracted. You weren’t sure. He was staring directly at you, his dark eyes piercing into yours, but you couldn’t tell if he was looking right through you or straight into you. He didn’t smile much, hadn’t really all night except for when you had walked into the restaurant and he had waved from where he was waiting for you. You figured this wasn’t a good sign for a first date, but right now you felt like you knew nothing, neither about dating nor about Changkyun.

The date had been set up by mutual friends, so of course you knew the basic details – age, occupation, the fact that he had spent some of his life abroad. You knew his name, obviously, and that, according to your friends, he was hardworking, funny, and nice enough (their words, not yours).

Now you could put not very talkative onto the list.

He asked short but pointed questions, somehow getting you to talk about yourself and your life nonstop without even realizing it. You had told him everything about your school, your job, your hobbies, your family’s dog. Except for the dog and your preference for dark and eerie stories nothing seemed to have piqued his interest. Meanwhile, you felt like you were forgetting if his name was Changkyun or Changkyeon because of how little he was revealing about himself.

You glanced at your watch. Only twenty minutes had passed since you had arrived and it seemed like you were already running out of first-date-topics. You also realized that a movie about your life would most likely be a rather short film.

“I’m sorry, are you in a rush?”

Your head snapped up and your eyes met Changkyun’s unchanged stoic gaze. You felt yourself blushing.

“N-no. It just seems like I’m the only one talking and I felt a little bad.”

“Don’t.” The corner of Changkyun’s mouth twitched. “I’m just trying to get past the surface so we can talk about the important things.”

You blinked, taken aback. Too confused to feel your own nervousness anymore, you sat back in your chair, crossing your arms, and stared at him.

“Care to elaborate?”

“Sure.” Changkyun leaned back the same way you just had but his hands remained on the table between you. “I don’t care about your school or your work.”

“That’s nice,” you snorted sarcastically.

“What I mean is,” he continued, completely undeterred, “of course I want to know what you do, but that’s not what I want to talk about to get to know you. I won’t fall in love with you because of what you do. I want to know who you are.”

“But isn’t what I do part of who I am?” you argued, trying hard to ignore the way your heart had fluttered at his last sentence. Mentally, you were still adding to the list: a little complicated, but cute.

“Interesting.” Changkyun grinned at you. “Please demonstrate.”

“For example, it could tell you that I love books.”

“Most people love books, or will claim that they do.”

“Or what my goals for the future are.”

“But I won’t know if you’ll achieve those goals until that future comes. It doesn’t tell me much about who you are now.”

“It tells you that I have dreams.”

“It tells me that you can afford to dream.”

You were stunned. Not because of the way he obnoxiously shot down every point you made, but because you were starting to see his. A little begrudgingly you added quick-witted and blunt.

“Fine.” You gestured to the waiter to get you another bottle of soju. “Since you want to talk about the important things, how about you start asking the important questions.”

You thought you saw surprise flash across Changkyun’s face before his grin grew wider.

“All in?” he asked and you nodded.

“All in.”

“Okay. What do you think is the worst thing you can do to a person? Aside from obvious things like murder and violence and all that.”

You used the time it took Changkyun to fill both of your glasses to think about your answer. You clinked your glass to his and emptied it in one sip.

“Leaving someone hanging. You know, leaving them wondering.”

Changkyun set his glass down, obviously intrigued. “How do you mean?”

You shrugged and reached for the bottle, smirking when you could hear him chuckle.

“Well played.”

“I mean just disappearing out of someone’s life suddenly,” you explained while pouring another round. “Not gradually, especially if it’s mutual. And not even if it’s someone you’ve only known a couple of weeks or whatever. But when you’re close and the other person is trying to get in touch and you just ignore them, making them wonder if it was them or you or what.” You looked up at him. “Or if you just died.”

Changkyun made a sound somewhere between choking and laughing. “So, ghosting?”

“I guess,” you said, although it felt deeper than that.

“You been ghosted then?” Changkyun lifted his glass and you hit it with yours, hard.

“One too many times, my friend.”

“It’s a wound that doesn’t heal easily,” he agreed and watched you take your shot before drinking himself. You pointed at him with your glass still lodged between your thumb and middle finger.

“Wounds can only heal once you stop bleeding. Hearts can only heal once you stop wondering.”

Changkyun looked at you quietly, intently, differently, as if he had lost the ability to look past the barrier right behind your eyes. As if just five minutes ago he had thought that a map of you had been lying in front of him for him to study freely, but with just a few words from the deepest, darkest corner of your soul, the map had been set aflame and now all he could do was stare at the ashes.

“Did you learn that in school or at your job?” he asked challengingly once he had recovered from the shock of breaking through the surface.

“I already took your point so stop mocking me,” you replied, maybe a little harsher than you had intended. Changkyun nodded softly and leaned forward, his hands moving as well, moving closer to yours. Somehow this made you nervous again, made you feel like he was closing in on you, made you realize that no version of you – the versions you were around friends, family, employers, classmates – would be able to make it through this date. Changkyun required a new version, a rawer, more straightforward, more vulnerable version of you. There was no room for white lies and shallow emotions, no space for anything that wasn’t completely and unadulteratedly you.

You poured both of you another drink.

“So, how’s your heart been recently?” you asked and Changkyun seemed oddly pleased at your invasive question. He clinked his glass to yours and twenty minutes turned into one hour, and then two, and before you knew it night turned into day and the bright sunlight stung in your eyes as you and Changkyun exited the restaurant. He put his jacket around your shoulders as he searched the empty streets for a taxi to send you home in.

Well-mannered. Kind. Interesting.

“I really want to see you again,” he suddenly said and turned to you. “Can I call you?”

“Please do,” you smiled, pulling his jacket tighter around your body. The stench from the smoky restaurant mixed with his cologne and somehow you couldn’t think of a more comforting smell in the crisp morning air. Changkyun was still looking at you, his eyes devoid of all mocking and mischief.

“You’re a fascinating person.”

You gave a hollow laugh. “You’re probably the first person to think that.”

He stepped even closer. “It’s their loss for not getting to know who. you. are.” He emphasized every one of the last three words with a light touch of his index finger to your forehead. Then, his fingertips slowly wandered down the side of your face until his palm rested on your cheek, firm and warm. You could feel his hot breath on your face and his gaze still desperate to explore every corner of you, inside and out. You fell into him without hesitation, closing your eyes when his other arm readily caught you and held you close to him.

Honest. Caring. Broken.

A damn good kisser.

2.       You will discover many unexpected sides to him

“Babe?” Changkyun dropped his backpack in the hallway and kicked off his shoes. He listened into the apartment, and when there was no reply he tried again. “Baby?”

He let out a quiet hmph before thinking to check his phone for messages.

Stopped to get groceries on the way back, be there soon!

A sudden giddiness overcame Changkyun. He was alone. In your apartment. For the first time. It had only been about three months since you had started dating (117 days since he had kissed you on your first date – an app on his phone kept count of all your firsts, even though he would rather die than show you), and only two weeks since you had presented him with the code to your home. Just in case. You hadn’t specified what that case might be. Just in case you were running late, like today? Just in case he suddenly got the urge to see you in the middle of the night and didn’t want to ring you out of bed?

Just in case he was going to move in in the future?

Changkyun walked into the empty kitchen to get a glass of water, then he walked into the empty bedroom to get a change of clothes from the part of the closet you had cleared for him. He already was very comfortable in your apartment – it looked like you, smelled like you, felt like you. It put him at ease, made him feel safe, made him feel at home.

Everything about you did.

He shed himself of his clothes in the bedroom, leaving them in the hamper next to your closet. Then, he walked naked into the bathroom – a habit he had considered leaving at the dorm but so far you hadn’t complained. It did, however, tend to interfere with him – and you – going about your respective business way more often than it did at the dorm.

Changkyun put the change of clothes on the toilet seat and turned to the shower. He fleetingly remembered that you had had some issue with the hot water and briefly considered calling you to ask if it had been fixed. But then he noticed that he had left his phone in the bedroom and laziness took over – he would find out soon enough.

You walked into the door just as the blood-curdling scream echoed through all parts of Seoul south of the river. A little panicked, you dropped your bags and barely managed to get your boots off of your feet before stumbling into the hallway to start looking for its origin.

“Changkyun?” you called out, instinctively heading toward the bathroom. The door was unlocked so you just barged in, finding him standing on your bath mat looking like a drowned rat. He was trying to wrap himself into a towel and it only took one second for you to realize what had happened.

“Cold water?” you asked and he gritted his teeth at you.

“Freezing water.”

You opened your mouth to tease him a little, but a violent knock on the door stopped you. Giving Changkyun one last amused look, you trotted back to the entrance and opened the door to an alarmed lady who lived two doors down.

“Is everything okay?” she asked breathlessly. “I heard a woman scream.”

The corners of your mouth rose slowly as you processed the words.

“Yes, I apologize,” you replied, already dying to tell Changkyun about the exchange. “That was just my boyfriend. He forgot about the water.”

“Your boy-“ the lady started but then cleared her throat. “The water, yes. Yes.”

You watched her shuffle back toward her own apartment and closed the door. Changkyun was standing a few feet behind you, dressed in a hoodie and sweatpants, idly toweling his hair dry. From the look on his face you could tell that he had heard every word.

“Don’t you dare,” he growled. You laughed lightly, walked over to him, and kissed his ice-cold lips.

“Come on, lady screams,” you giggled and ushered him toward the kitchen. “I’ll make us a nice, hot stew.”

3.       He will never let you see him cry

It was past 2 am when the unrelenting vibrations of your phone tore you from a deep sleep. Behind you was a late shift at work that had kept you from your bed until well after midnight, ahead of you an 8 am lecture. And in between those two things was Kihyun’s name stubbornly claiming its place on your display. With a groan you accepted the call and put the phone to your ear.

“Someone better be dead.”

There was a short pause. “No.”

He sounded tired and solemn, and you sighed. He probably hadn’t even picked up on the fact that you were joking.

“What’s up?”

“It’s Changkyun.”

You sat up straight in your bed. Suddenly you were wide awake, your heart beating in your throat.

“What happened?”

You could almost hear the shrug through the line. “You know how he gets. I think he got some bad news from home. He just up and left without a word.”

“Did you try calling him?”

“Yes. His phone’s off.”

You were halfway out of bed. “I’m gonna go look for him.”

“And where are you going to start?” Kihyun countered, his voice strained with worry and exhaustion. You sank back against your pillow.

“Then why did you call me, Kihyun?”

“I- I don’t know,” he stuttered. “I just thought you should know. You’re his – you know.”

“His special friend?”

“Well, yeah, that too,” his voice reflected the soft, amused smile playing on his lips, “But more importantly, you get him. Also, it’s nice to know someone worries about him as much as I do.”

You chuckled. “I could never love him the way you guys do.”

“Shut up.”

There was another short pause. You could feel the pain spreading in your chest, the pain of not knowing, the pain of doubting yourself, the pain of love. Sometimes you still felt like Changkyun wasn’t opening up all the way, like he kept part of himself hidden. And you were afraid that it was because of you, that you were lacking in a way that made him shut you out. You weren’t naïve enough to think that you could ever truly and completely know someone. But you also knew that certain things that people tried to keep hidden for whatever reasons had a tendency to descend on a relationship with a vengeance – it was only a matter of time.

“Are you still there?”

“Yeah.” You swallowed hard. “Please let me know as soon as-“

You looked up when the bedroom door opened. Your heartbeat fastened for a second before you registered the thin, shadowy figure that had just slipped into the room was none other than your not-so-long-lost boyfriend.

“Kihyun,” you said in a low voice, “we’re okay.”

“Okay,” came Kihyun’s brief answer before he hung up the phone. You placed your own device on the nightstand and silently watched as Changkyun took off his sweater and jeans. Without a word, he crawled into bed next to you and pulled the covers over both of your bodies. Then, he wrapped his arms around your waist and buried his face in your chest, his breath warm against your skin through the cotton of your shirt.

“Changkyun?” you whispered eventually but only got a shake of the head in response. Knowing better than to push him, you found a comfortable position and draped one arm around his back while the hand of the other arm found his soft hair. You stroked his head gently, the utter silence in your bedroom only interrupted by occasional yawns and ragged sighs.

After a few minutes, you could feel the fabric underneath Changkyun’s face getting damp, his hot tears burning their way through your chest, drowning your heart. You held on to him tighter so he could feel you, so he knew you were there, knew that you knew. Knew that you would give anything to be able to absorb his feelings and lock them away in your own body so they could never torture him again.

You knew he would do the same for you.

“Changkyun?” you breathed, locks of his hair curled around your fingertips. “Can you look at me?”

“No. Not yet,” he replied, his deep voice muffled by your shirt and his restraint.

“Okay,” you said, and you truly felt like it was. There were things Changkyun was still keeping from you, for reasons beyond your understanding. But they were becoming fewer and fewer with every passing week, every passing day, every passing moment. There was still so much to learn about Im Changkyun and that was okay.

You had time.

4.       His love language needs no words

Words sometimes did not come easy for Changkyun. Lyrics flowed out of him like a mountain spring, as did the strings of curse words when he was losing to Minhyuk in some game or other. But there were things that he just could not say easily, or rather, they sounded empty in his ears and tasted stale on his tongue. He never said things like your hair looks nice or that is a pretty shirt. When he did use words, they were the kind that took you by surprise and shook you to the core. They were accompanied by passionate looks and, more often than not, painfully intimate gestures regardless of your surroundings. Changkyun knew how to make you dizzy with only a few words and a hand too low on your hip and his lips too close to your ear. You were aware that he usually did this to tease you, rile you up in public so he could take you home as soon as possible and let his body show you all the ways he appreciated you.

Changkyun was oh so good at expressing himself without words.

The way he kissed your cheek as a silent thank you or how he pulled you into a tight embrace when you came through the front door with a weary look on your face and slouching shoulders; welcome home, baby. You did great today.

When you helped him clean his studio, he would mumble an almost inaudible be right back, only to come back fifteen minutes later with take-out food and your favorite from the coffee shop around the corner. And although he claimed that he did not care for birthdays and their tacit requirements, he often came back from tour – or just from a trip to the store – with a book he knew you had been looking for, or a piece of jewelry with your birthstone, or simply your favorite candy from every country he regularly visited.

All of those things were small testaments to his feelings, sweet reminders that he cared and thought about you wherever he went. And you appreciated this, much more so than grand but artificial gestures whose impact was ultimately just as short-lived as the flowers that usually accompanied them. Changkyun’s style may have been a bit more muted and practical, but it was real, it was true, it was him.

And that was all you ever wanted.

“What’s wrong?” you asked when you noticed him staring at you from the other side of the sofa. You were both curled up underneath the same blanket watching a movie. He had just returned from Thailand early that morning and you had spent the entire day in bed, catching up on sleep and catching up on love. Now you were both in a weird state of exhaustion and relaxation, and neither of you was paying all that much attention to the TV, but that was okay because you were together.

“Nothing.” Changkyun sat up abruptly and less than a second later he was hovering above you, looking down at you with all the yearning, all the craving of the past few weeks. You smiled up at him and ran a hand through his hair.

“Hi.”

“Hi.” Changkyun chuckled and locked you into a tight hug, his weight pressing you into the soft cushions. You sighed contentedly and wrapped your arms around him, feeling his heart beat against your chest. He pressed his lips to the skin of your neck.

“I missed you,” you whispered against his shoulder.

“I love you,” he replied, his mouth finding yours.

You melted into the kiss, and even though they were nice to hear, Changkyun really did not need words to tell you how much he loved you.

5.       He will need you to never give up on him

Changkyun would never tell you, but his strategy for first dates had failed one or two (or maybe three) times before he had met you. The girls had been put off by his bluntness, his roughness, his prying questions and prying eyes. He wasn’t one to play in shallow waters, he wanted to dive deep and never come back up for air. And then you had come into his life.

And he had gladly drowned in you.

Changkyun never told you outright, but you were his anchor, his beacon in the night, the one to keep the demons at bay.

At least most of the time.

There had been occasions when he had neglected to text and call you on tour, when he had missed dates and other engagements because his head was stuck in his music and his body in his studio. There had been forgotten birthdays and broken promises, and more times when he had withdrawn into himself than he was proud of. He had seen the hurt in your eyes when he had shut you out, had heard the doubts in your voice when you had asked him questions he was not going to give you any answers to – was unable to give you answers to. He knew he worried you when he wandered around the apartment at ungodly hours or stayed out without calling.

He knew he had ruined quite a few of your days, and even more of your nights.

Changkyun knew how people felt about him. That his thoughts were bent out of shape, crooked, impossible to understand – many had told him as much in an attempt to fix him. But you had never tried to straighten them out; instead you had given them new names: unique, captivating, beautiful.

And for that he loved you. Would always love you. Had always loved you.

Even if it hadn’t seemed like it sometimes.

Even now, years after your first meeting in that small restaurant, Changkyun thought you were the most fascinating person he had ever met. Every day with you still felt like an incredible adventure; he was still exploring you, charting you, putting the specks of ashes back together one by one, and he loved every minute of it. He could spend hours trying to figure out why – despite all the pain he caused you, despite all the things he had done wrong – you were still with him.

And then he would spend even more time being petrified by the thought of you leaving.

He knew that his heart would never stop wondering.

Maybe the reason why the thought scared him so profoundly was because he knew that if he lost you once, he would not deserve a second chance. You were so much kinder and smarter, so much more wonderful than even you realized.

Changkyun pitied anyone who didn’t take the time to get to know who you were beyond your school and your job and all the things anyone with eyes could see. At the same time, he loved that he was the only one who knew you. He had witnessed all the versions of you, but the one you were with him was his favorite – raw and vulnerable and his.

Yet, the fear of losing you was haunting him way past the boundaries of the waking hours. Every so often, you would wake up to him mumbling your name in his sleep, tossing and turning in the confinements of a distressing dream. He would only settle down when your hand closed around his arm, your mouth close to his ear.

“I’m here, Changkyun,” you would whisper, gently, knowingly. “It’s okay, babe. I’m here.”

You smiled down at him when his head lulled to the side and his body followed to face you. At first the dreams had worried you, but soon you had realized that it was just another window into the soul of Im Changkyun. It pained you to know that he even had thoughts of losing you, and that they tormented him as much as they did. But it was nothing you couldn’t overcome, nothing to worry about. Things weren’t always easy with Changkyun, but you wouldn’t change a thing.

You loved Changkyun for everything he was and everything he wasn’t, and you loved him for the way he loved you, loved you for who you were, truly and completely. His fears didn’t trouble you; after all, all you had to do was stay by his side and show him how perfect and precious he was to you.

You looked down at the engagement ring on your finger; the thin silver band with your birthstone and the date of your first date engraved in it.

The day I started to fall in love with you.

And I haven’t stopped since.

You lay back down and marveled at his sleeping face. He looked so peaceful now, anchored by your presence, his demons out of sight, out of mind.

Yes, you were going to be okay.

You had time. You had love.

And you had Changkyun.