#and because I'm running out of quotes

[incorrect-clannibal]

Jack: Report on Lecter? Clarice: Dr. Lecter has been taken out. Jack: Very goo- Clarice: It was a lovely restaurant. We had a candlelit dinner. He proposed at the end of it. My last name is Lecter now.

[benevolenterrancy]

(Unseen Academicals, Terry Pratchett) I think Shang Qinghua and Ponder Stibbons should have tea and compare notes about somehow accumulating so much behind-the-scenes power by doing menial jobs no one else wants that they could basically run the show if they wanted...

meanwhile we have Shen "meh good enough" Qingqiu

[starpros-sunshine]

Eichi gives away the mask so easily because it was never meant to be an "engagement ring" like you delulu wataeis imagined it to be lmao. It was wataru saying that he will continue playing tsumugi clown role in fine and won't leave it for hokuto's mother troupe after graduation. Do you dumb fucks even read the stories? Eichi didn't even understand tf that mask meant when wataru gave it to him and wataru referenced fucking tsumugi in his "proporsal". I dunno why the f you think it's ok to lie about "! EnDiNG wItH wAtAeI EnGaGeMEnT" when the chapter it happened wasn't even close to the end of ep:link. Cope

PS: how do you live with the fact that Eichi clearly admitted to never being in love in his life and Wataru said that even though Eichi likes him, he still can easily discard him for the sake of his objectives?

I love you anon thank you for giving me a nice reason to ramble again beautiful ask 10/10 I'm sorry this is probably not how you hoped this would go but this is such a funny block of text delightful really thank you for the enrichment please marry me

But okay yes now to get down to the actual ask just to disclaim I am solely relying on translations seeing as I do not speak japanese well enough to understant the original text so if anyone has anything to add to this or to correct me on please feel free to do so.

Now to get started I'm not sure if one could say Eichi gave away the mask "So easily" seeing as he claimed that it was "a hard choice to make"? Which, as one might know, implies unease with an idea and pondering and debating and a general amount of thinking behind a decision so? I know this isn't really the main focus of this ask but I'm just a tad miffed with the semantics of it is all. And in either case giving the mask back to Wataru while expecting it back still shows a certain degree of trust in their relationship it wouldn't have been such a big deal for him (as it apparently was) if the mask didn't have a lot of sentimental value to him (the both of them really if we look at the whole exchange).

Now to the claim that the mask was "only" Watarus promise to stay with fine and "continue playing Tsumugis clown role". This is not entirely incorrect. Regarding the acting troupe and staying with fine bit at least.

I'm assuming this bit in EP:Link Deadend/7 is what you are referencing, and I see where you're coming from. But the bluebird line

from literally three dialogue lines further down, which references this line of dialogue (notorious Eichi line everyone should be familiar with)

kind of somewhat really recontextualises that? Because you see this is a reference to a fairytale about a pair of siblings and they get sent out by a nice fairy to find the bluebird of happiness for her sad daughter to make her happy again so they both go on an adventure and travel far and search and search but they can not find the bluebird of happiness and then when they return home again, disappointed because they couldn't find the blue bird, they realise only one night has actually passed and the journey was probably just a dream. But then their eyes fall upon their pet dove in it's cage which appears blue all of a sudden and so they gift it to the fairies sad daughter which becomes happy again and sets the bird free. The real bluebird of happiness is a dove. At least in the version of the story I'm familiar with but I mean everyone sees the symbolism right? It's. very hard to miss.

And then dropping this?

I'm not sure how to say this properly but in the overall context this makes it pretty clear that Tsumugi has nothing to do with this anymore this is Fully between Wataru and Eichi. And I am the last person to dismiss Tsumugis significance in the course of Wataeis relationship as characters I will be among the first to protest when someone dismisses the importance of Tsumugis and Eichis relationship in favour of some image they have of Wataei but he has nothing to do with this one.

Yes Tsumugi gets namedropped but - again - I don't really see how that would lessen the sentiment Wataru is triying to convey here? Because. Yes. Why wouldn't he mention Tsumugi?

The entire conversation pretty much boils down to "Yes I was initially only in this because I thought I could replace Tsumugis role in your life and then I wanted to leave but we have spent so much time together that I realised that that is definitely not working out because I really do love you. I love you as a teammate; I love you as a friend; I love you as a person and I am very angry at myself for not managing to get that into your head. So please allow me to stay with you for as long as you'll have me." And then also Eichi not understanding because he has the emotional self awareness of a very emotionally unaware loaf of bread and also because he hates himself that is a very big thing about his character huge part of his character arc actually that he. you know? Hates himself? And feels guitly for his actions during the war? And doesn't think he deserves love and companionship? Which is why Wataru wanting to stay with him for him and not for some twisted form of revenge is such an alien concept to him? Because he is projecting his insecurities onto Wataru? As one is wont to do when they hate themself? "EiChi Didn'T eVen UnDErStanD WhAt tf ThAT Mask MEAnt" Yeah. That's. That's the point? So he can think about it and come to that conclusion himself which works as a keymoment in his characters journey from hating life and himself to enjoying being alive and wanting to live on because of the people he's surrounded with? He literally explains why he didn't immediately understand the mask during the EP:Link Epilogue/4

And to get back to the "I dunno why the f you think it's ok to lie about "! EnDiNG wItH wAtAeI EnGaGeMEnT" about which I have two things to say:

"Lying" implies further intent and an effort. Neither of which exist in this case.

He literally went down on one knee while making a big proclamation of offering himself to Eichi with a very personal item that works as a symbol for their commitment to each other on a starlit rooftop. The comparison writes itself.

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joke

And then I expected there to be a proper reason given and instead you proceed to follow that up with "when the chapter it happened wasn't even close to the end of ep:link". I know the shame is on me for expecting something sensical from an ask which has been near constant in it's lack of correct statements but such is human nature I suppose. And you are not wrong. Deadend/7 isn't very close to the end of EP:Link. That is true.

But do you know what Is very close to the end of EP:Link? The Epilogue Chapters 3-5.

Do you know what the content of those chapters is? I do. Very well actually :)

(Eichi literally explains why he didn't get it)

So if this answers your "Do you dumb fucks even read the stories?" questions, Yes. And I think I'm a lot better at it than you. So I'd say I'm coping quite well over here :p

PS: Regarding your PS, I take the "I've never been in love before so I wouldn't know" comment with a lot of humour actually as an aroace person who's emotional self awareness also ends at "good" and "Not good" I think it's very funny all things considered especially because he mentioned the loving Wataru thing several times before that and I'm generally of the belief that actions speak louder than words and also am in a happy long term relationship with the concept of "Reading Subtext". So please excuse me for not breaking down in tears everytime someone reminds me of that one singuar line of text in one of my favourite all time enstars stories that came out three years ago which also brought us the single best card set in the entire game

as well as absolute banger dialogue such as

Among others <33

And there are soooooo many other examples of wataei dialogue that simply make me swoon but I have already had to take out so many of the one's I wish I could put here so this wouldn't get "Do you love the colour of the sky" long

And also, regarding your "Wataru said that even though Eichi likes him, he still can easily discard him for the sake of his objectives" I'll just say that no he absolutely could not. I mean he'd say that and if pull comes to shove and he has no other option then he might seriously consider it but may I mention that Wataru was gone for a few days at most but really not that long of a time during Sanctuary and Eichi stopped considering being a normal rational person that doesn't leave helpless 17 year olds in the midst of a construction site. Very different situation but I feel like it's worth mentioninh here. Another example is Eichis almost not being able to go through with the war because of Wataru. Wataru had to actively come and tell Eichi to go through with it. Wataru isn't the reason Eichi started the war, that is wrong, but he is the reason Eichi almost didn't finish it. and during the war era that was his Main objective. Again I'm part of the fraction "actions speak louder than words" Show don't tell and all that, but even the words are pushing it.

And that concludes my essay :)

[nobodysdaydreams]

🌹

Thank you so much!

Garrison could still hear the broadcast playing in the room behind her. That at least would buy her time. Curtain clearly loved the attention he was getting from these interviews, and he never passed up an opportunity to talk about himself and would often do so for a considerable length of time. Garrison knew from experience that the broadcast would likely give her at least three hours, maybe more.

But still, it might not be enough time. She had to hurry.

[drop--pop--candy]

talked (read: had an argument) with my mother again. i'm going to start killing <3

[joycrispy]

One thing I love about Crowley --never stated, but consistently shown-- is that he is, at heart, an engineer.

I have a few different things to say about that. Let's unpack them.

As the Unnamed Angel, we see his designs for the Pillars of Creation are millions of pages long, comprised of cramped text, footnotes, diagrams, schematics, etc. It's very...Renaissance polymath, in the way it implies a particular intersection of artist and inventor.

Also: in the naked romanticism with which he views his stars.

We already knew he made stars, but in s2 we learn that he did NOT sculpt each of them by hand. He designed a nebula ("a star factory," he says) that will form several thousand young stars and proto-planets, and all --aside from getting the 'factory' running-- without him lifting a finger. We also learn that these young stars and proto-planets stand in contrast to those made by other angels, which are going to come 'pre-aged.'

...I'm reminded of Hastur and Ligur's approach to temptations. Damning one human soul at a time, devoting singular attention to it over the course of years or decades, and how that stands in contrast to Crowley's reliance on, quote, 'knock-on effects.'

Ligur: It's not exactly...craftsmanship. Crowley: Head office don't seem to mind. They love me down there.

Hm.

I'm also reminded of the M25.

The M25 may not be as grand as a nebula (sentences you only say in GOmens fandom...), but LIKE his nebula it's an intricate, self-sustaining engine that does Crowley's work for him, many times over. Again.

That's some pretty neat characterization --and so is the indication towards Crowley's disinterest in victimizing anyone tempting individual people. It takes a considerable amount of planning and effort (and creeping about in wellies), but in accordance with his design the M25 generates a constant stream of low-grade evil on a gigantic scale.

Cumulatively gigantic, that is. Individually? Negligible.

But no other demon understands human nature well enough to parse that one million ticked-off motorists are not, in any meaningful way, actually equivalent to one dictator, or one mass-murderer, or even one little influential regressive. That's the trick of it. Crowley gets Hell's approval (which he NEEDS to survive, and to maintain the degree of freedom he's eked out for himself), and at the same time ensures that any actual ~Evil Influence~ is spread nice and thin.

It's some clever machinery. And he knows it, too:

The Unnamed Angel and Crowley are both proud of their ideas.

(musings on professional pride, Leonardo da Vinci, the crank handle, and 'the point to which Crowley loves Aziraphale' under the cut)

In the 1970's Crowley gives a presentation on the M25, projector and all, to a room full of increasingly impatient demons. Maybe the presentation was work-ordered; the 'can I hear a WAHOO?' definitely wasn't.

Before the Beginning, the Unnamed Angel can barely contain his excitement about his nebula. Aziraphale manages a baffled-but-polite, "....That's nice... :)"

11 years ago, Hastur and Ligur want to 'tell the deeds of the day,' and Crowley smiles to himself because (according to the script-book) he knows he has 'the best one.'

(Naturally, his 'deed' has nothing to do with tempting anybody, and everything to do with setting up a human-powered Rube-Goldberg machine of petty annoyance. Oodles of 'Evil' generated; very little harm done.)

Hastur and Ligur don't get it, of course. That's also consistent.

Nobody ever knows what the hell he's talking about.

It didn't make it on-screen, but, in both the novel AND the script-book, Crowley was friends with Leonardo da Vinci. The quintessential Renaissance polymath. That's where he got his drawing of the Mona Lisa --they're getting very drunk together, and Crowley picks up the 'most beautiful' of the preliminary sketches. He wants to buy it. Leonardo agrees almost off-the-cuff, very casual, because they're friends, and because he has bigger fish to fry than haggling over a doodle:

He goes, "Now, explain this helicopter thingie again, will you?" Because he's an engineer, too.

(It is 1519 at the latest, in this scene. Why the FUCK would Crowley know about helicopters, and be able to explain them, comprehensively, to Leonardo da Vinci?

...Well. I choose to believe he got bored one day and worked it out. Look, if you know how to build a nebula, you can probably handle aerodynamics. And anyway, I think it's telling that this is his idea of shooting the shit. 'A drunken mind speaks a sober heart,' and all. He probably babbled about Aziraphale long enough to make poor Leo sick)

Apart from Aziraphale, Leonardo da Vinci is the only person Crowley has any keepsakes or mementos of.

Think about that, though. Aziraphale's bookshop is bursting with letters, paintings, busts, and personalized signatures memorializing all the humans he's known and befriended over 6000 years (indeed: Aziraphale has living human friends up and down Whickber Street. He's part of a community).

Crowley doesn't have any of that. It's just the stone albatross from the Church (for pining), the infamous gay sex statue (for spicy pining), the houseplants (for roleplaying his deepest trauma over and over, as one does), and this one piece of artwork, inscribed, "To my friend Anthony from your friend Leo da V."

To me, at least, that suggests a level of attachment that seems to be rare for Crowley.

...Maybe he liked having someone to talk shop with? Someone who was interested? Someone engaged enough to ask questions when they didn't immediately understand?

...Anyway.

There's also the matter of the crank handle.

This thing:

This is one of the subtler changes from the book. In the book, Crowley knows Satan is coming and, desperate, arms himself with a tire iron. It's the best he can do. He's not Aziraphale; he wasn't made to wield a flaming sword.

The show, IMO, improves on this considerably. Now he, like Aziraphale, gets to face annihilation with what he was made for in his hand. And it's not a weapon, not even an improvised one like the tire iron.

He made stars with it.

[both gifs by @fuckyeahgoodomens]

If you Google 'crank handle,' you'll get variations on this:

Crank handles have been around for centuries. Consisting of a mechanical arm that's connected to a perpendicular rotating shaft, they are designed to convert circular motion into rotary or reciprocating motion.

Which is to say they're one of the 'simple machines,' like a lever or a pulley; the bread and butter of engineering. You'll also get a list of uses for a crank handle, archaic and modern. Among them: cranking up the engine of an old-fashioned car... say, a 1933 Bentley. That's what Crowley has been using his for, lately. But he's had it since he was an angel and he's still, it seems, very capable of it's angelic applications.

Stopping time. For instance.

(This is conjecture on my part, but, I like to imagine that Crowley has the ability to stop time for the same reason I can --and should-- unplug my computer before I perform maintenance on it. Time and Space are a matched set, after all, and in his designs in particular, one feeds into the other.)

I know everyone has already said this, but: I REALLY LIKE that when he needs to channel the heights of his power, he does so not with a weapon but with a tool. Practically with a little handheld metaphor for ingenuity. One from long-lost days when he made beautiful things.

(And he loved it. Still loves it --he incorporated that metaphor into the Bentley, didn't he?)

Let Aziraphale rock up to the apocalypse with a weapon: he has his own compelling thematic reasons to do exactly that. Crowley's story is different, and fighting isn't the only way to express defiance. And if you've been condemned as a demon and assumed to be destructive by your very nature, what better way than this?

He made stars. They didn't manage to take that from him.

Neither Crowley nor Aziraphale are fighters, really --they have no intention of fighting in any war. They'll annoy everyone until there's no war to fight in, for a start. But between the two, if one must be, then that one is Aziraphale. Principality of the Earth, Guardian of the Eastern Gate, Wielder of the Flaming Sword... all that stuff. Even if he'd prefer not to, it's very clear that Aziraphale can rise to the occasion, if he must.

Crowley was never that kind of angel. He wasn't a Principality. He doesn't have a sword.

...And yet.

It's Crowley who protects. He's the one who paces, who stands guard, who circles Aziraphale and glares out at the world, just daring anyone else to come near.

In light of everything else I've said here, I think that's interesting.

Obviously part of it is that Aziraphale enjoys it and, you know, good for him. He's living his best life, no doubt no doubt no doubt. But what about Crowley? What's driving that behavior, really?

Have you heard the phrase, 'loved to the point of invention'? Well, what if 'the point of invention' was where you started? What if where you end up involves glaring out at the world, just daring anyone else to come near? What is that, in relation to the bright-eyed thing you used to be?

What do we name the point to which Crowley loves Aziraphale?

...Thinking about how an excitable angel with three million pages of star design he wants to tell you all about...becomes a guard dog. Is all.

[wannabe-skinni-qween]

TW!! 111 harsh wl quotes

nothing tastes as good as skinny feels

eat for the body you want, not the body you have

it may be a difficult process, but quitting won't speed it up

fat lasts longer than flavour

a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips

stop rewarding yourself with food, you're not a dog

30 minute workout, or 30 extra pounds?

whatever your problem may be, the answer is not in the fridge

you can't out exercise a bad diet

an imperfect body reflects and imperfect person

hungry to bed, hungry to rise, makes a girl a smaller size

what you eat in private, you wear in public

suck it up and one day you wont have to suck it in

you get what you work for, not what you wish for

it's better to resist than to regret

if you eat what you've always eaten, you'll weigh what you've always weighed

eat wise to drop a size

junk food you've craved for an hour, or the body you've craved for a lifetime?

every time you feel like giving up, remember why you started

every taste adds to the waist

this month's choices are next month's body

don't stop when it hurts, stop when you're done

summer bodies are made in the winter

if you're tired of starting over, stop giving up

in two weeks you'll feel it. in four weeks you'll see it. in eight weeks you'll hear it

just because you don't read food labels doesn't mean the calories don't exist

if you don't see the calories on the label, you'll see them later on your hips

every time you say "fuck it, i don't care" and eat that cookie, there's a 100% chance you'll care later

your stomach isn't growling, it's applauding

don't stop until you're proud

someone busier than you is running right now

when you lose all excuses, you'll find results

one day or day one

use food as fuel, not therapy

if you can't handle the fat jokes, lose the weight

overeating is always a decision, nobody forces the food into your mouth

suffer the pain of discipline, or suffer the pain of regret

follow your plan, not your mood

do what is right, not what is easy

you can't expect to succeed if you only put in work on the days you feel like it

i'm not starving, i'm perfecting my emptiness

not eating light makes your clothes tight

sacrifice is giving up something good for something better

if it was easy, everybody would be thin

craving is only a feeling

skip dinner, wake up thinner

the difference between want and need is self control

a cat says "meow meow" a dog says "woof woof" a pig says "i'll start tomorrow"

it's easier to workout than to wake up every morning and not like what you see

hunger hurts, but starving works

don't give up what you want the most for what you want in the moment

you've come too far in life to take orders from a cookie

thin is beautiful, even thinner is perfection

a month from now you can either have a month's worth of progress or a month's worth of excuses why you didn't

if you can pinch it, you can lose it

eat to live, don't live to eat

you can never be too rich or too thin

perfection is reached not where there isn't anything to add, but when there isn't anything to take away

respect yourself, put down the fork

when you resist the pain of hungry, it means you're not a slave to your body

every time you say no to food, you say yes to thin

empty is pure, starving is the eure

it's the mind that makes the body

there is no try, there is only DO

pain is temporary, pride is forever

thinner is the winner

if you don't fight for the body you want, don't cry for the body you have

imagine having one life on this earth and you spend it as a fat fuck

would you rather be at the gym covered in sweat, or at the beach covered in clothes?

until you're being accused of having an ed, you have a couple more pounds to lose

"i'm so fat" you say, taking another bite

eating won't kill you, but not eating will make you thin

aren't you tired of making the same excuses over and over again?

i don't even think you need to wear oversized clothes, your amount of body fat is oversizing you enough

you'd look so much prettier 20 pounds lighter

you don't want to embarrass him do you? then lose weight

you already know what it tastes like, so why eat it again?

you're fat. i'd sugarcoat it but then you'd eat that too

you binged? that's ok! somebody has to be the fat friend

if you have a skinny friend just remember, they probably use you as fatspo

skinny privilege is real

your morning skinny is someone else's evening bloat

if you can find the time to eat, you can find the time to workout

food is made to provide you with energy, not to fucking entertain you

if you treat food like an addiction, you're destined to fail

junk food is not a reward, it's a punishment

work out for 1 hour and feel amazing for the next 23 hours

if you're tired of starting over, stop giving up

if you want it, work for it

somebody else's starting weight is your goal weight

stop being jealous of her body and start doing something about yours

the fact that you aren't where you want to be should be motivation enough

it's all fun and games until your jeans don't fit anymore

need motivation? just sit infront of the mirror naked

making excuses burns zero calories

don't let the weekend become your weak end

three months from now you will thank yourself

imagine the weight you are losing is going to the person you hate

do not use your stomach as a trash can

you are what you eat. eat shit. feel shit look shit. or, eat good. feel good. look good

make it happen girl, shock everyone

so you can sit down and still have a flat stomach

losing weight is hard. being fat is hard. choose your hard

no matter how many mistakes you make or how slow you progress, you're still way ahead of everyone who isn't trying

a little progress each day adds up to big results

if not now, then when?

you are what you eat, so don't be cheap, fast, easy or fake

look down at your plate and ask, "is this going to make me feel good?"

i am powerful enough to resist temptations

you're not hungry, you're just bored

look in the mirror. that's your competition

this took a long time so please enjoy xx

[xenosagaepisodeone]

"vacations are good for people watching" is as obvious an observation as they come, but I've found that vacations are good in particular for observing the distinction between families who travel for mutual enrichment and families who simply do not. There are families who travel simply because hiring a babysitter would make an affordable vacation unaffordable. There are families who travel out of habit, aware on some level of the dwindling returns each trip brings but unwilling to confront what that means. There are families who travel because they believe that furnishing their lives with what amounts to a checklist of experiences will give the impression of roundedness and authenticity to their otherwise vacuous middle class living. There are families who travel because theyre running out of time and believe that "going away" will give them something they have otherwise been unable to fill their own lives with. There are families who travel to "get away" but ultimately cannot escape what they are. It's the Tolstoy quote about unhappy families but with the cumbersome social politics of 19th century Russia laid over an all inclusive resort. There is an Anna Karenina beneath every brunch buffet table, and its protective amber shell is being chipped away by "I'm hot and tired and bored" and "I don't like the food here"

[inkskinned]

so while i was writing the book, i became violently suicidal.

this was mostly due to the fact that i had a very bad reaction to some meds and my brain stopped producing any serotonin. also i was in the last semester of grad school where it's actually illegal to feel anything but dread. so it wasn't going well.

somewhere in the fog of it i became aware i needed help. nobody was taking clients or my insurance. i didn't want to do inpatient care - it wasn't right for my needs. there's not really an "in between" stage between "inpatient" and "no care," but i was trying to do the right thing. i was trying to activate the chain of command that was my emergency plan. i knew i needed help now.

i used betterhelp.

i know, i know. i'm a straight-A student and so smart and so clever, how could i ever use something so blatantly bad. to be honest with you, i didn't feel particularly keen on it from the getgo - things that seem too good to be true usually are. also, if something online is free, the price is usually your privacy.

the thing is that there was kind of a global pandemic happening at the time and i worked 5 jobs alongside of being a fulltime student and also like writing a book on the side. it is a miracle that i even thought about getting help. i would love to tell you i had the mental wherewithal to like, process whether this was the right choice for me. mostly i was desperate. i was so suicidal that i was trying to find a reason to stay inside of fortune cookies. i was the kind of suicidal that looks like splatterpaint. i hadn't been that bad in an entire decade.

they took my data. i gave them it freely. somewhere out there, they have a dossier on me. on everything i survived. my story in little datapoints, scattergraphed beautifully.

the first woman told me that really i should be grateful, because (and this is a direct quote): "at least you're not anne frank." i said that i felt that statement was antisemitic, as anne frank's life and experience shouldn't be compared to like, a nonbinary lesbian in western massachusetts. the therapist said that i should try to use lucid dreaming to try to picture myself in an actually scary situation, like running from nazis.

i applied for another therapist. i was willing to accept the possibility that there was a bad apple in the bunch. the next therapist and i even laughed about how inappropriate that statement was. and then, in our next session: the new therapist said if i was struggling with body image issues, i should just work harder on my appearance. she spent 3 sessions in a row talking about how she was grieving, and made me memorize facts about her grandmother so "she can live on through my clients."

i am a three's-a-charm kind of person. okay, so what if the last person made me uncomfortable. i figured it was just a misunderstanding of priorities - she had felt she was sharing with me, i had felt like i had to take care of her. i applied for another therapist.

the last woman asked me to help her pray. she bowed her head. i stared at her, frozen, while she said: lord, i beg you: cure her. take the pain of being gay away from her.

i spent somewhere between 2.5 and 3 months on betterhelp. in that whole time, i was not getting the professional help i so desperately needed, even though i was fucking trying.

in the end, i survived this because i finally could get off the meds that were literally killing me. a request for a real therapist finally went through. i survived because my friends saved my life. because nick let me sob myself dry in his arms. because maddie took the razors out of my room when i asked them to. because grace slept over in my bed for like 3 weeks in a row since nobody trusted me not to hurt myself when i was alone. i survived because i got fucking lucky. because even when i was desperately suicidal, i was too old and too self-aware to take "you need to be prettier" as good advice.

the thing is that there's a 19 year old me who isn't like that. who would have heard "just think about how grateful you should be" and said - oh, i see. i would have assumed that is what it means to be in therapy: the same thing my abusers used to tell me. that i am just pretending and lazy. that i am ugly and unworthy.

betterhelp positioned itself to take advantage of an incredibly vulnerable community. it preys on desperation. it knows it is serving people who are not doing well mentally. it saw that there is a huge need for real, immediate, compassionate mental health care: and then it fucking takes your money and privacy.

i still get their ads on instagram. last night i watched as a woman in a pool pretends to talk to a different woman. they discuss her anxiety.

there's a 19 year old version of me, and she didn't survive this. she was too tired, and drowning. i almost fucking died. this thing almost fucking killed me.

in the ad, the woman playing the therapist takes a note on a clipboard and then nods once, sagely.

i have to admit it's a pretty scene. the steam and light coming off the pool water lands on the actresses. like this, it almost looks baptismal, holy.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The Google antitrust remedy should extinguish surveillance, not democratize it

I'm coming to DEFCON! On FRIDAY (Aug 9), I'm emceeing the EFF POKER TOURNAMENT (noon at the Horseshoe Poker Room), and appearing on the BRICKED AND ABANDONED panel (5PM, LVCC - L1 - HW1–11–01). On SATURDAY (Aug 10), I'm giving a keynote called "DISENSHITTIFY OR DIE! How hackers can seize the means of computation and build a new, good internet that is hardened against our asshole bosses' insatiable horniness for enshittification" (noon, LVCC - L1 - HW1–11–01).

If you are even slightly plugged into the doings and goings on in this tired old world of ours, then you have heard that Google has lost its antitrust case against the DOJ Antitrust Division, and is now an official, no-foolin', convicted monopolist.

This is huge. Epochal. The DOJ, under the leadership of the fire-breathing trustbuster Jonathan Kanter, has done something that was inconceivable four years ago when he was appointed. On Kanter's first day on the job as head of the Antitrust Division, he addressed his gathered prosecutors and asked them to raise their hands if they'd never lost a case.

It was a canny trap. As the proud, victorious DOJ lawyers thrust their arms into the air, Kanter quoted James Comey, who did the same thing on his first day on the job as DA for the Southern District of New York: "You people are the chickenshit club." A federal prosecutor who never loses a case is a prosecutor who only goes after easy targets, and leave the worst offenders (who can mount a serious defense) unscathed.

Under Kanter, the Antitrust Division has been anything but a Chickenshit Club. They've gone after the biggest game, the hardest targets, and with Google, they bagged the hardest target of all.

Again: this is huge:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/boom-judge-rules-google-is-a-monopolist

But also: this is just the start.

Now that Google is convicted, the court needs to decide what to do about it. Courts have lots of leeway when it comes to addressing a finding of lawbreaking. They can impose "conduct remedies" ("don't do that anymore"). These are generally considered weaksauce, because they're hard to administer. When you tell a company like Google to stop doing something, you need to expend a lot of energy to make sure they're following orders. Conduct remedies are as much a punishment for the government (which has to spend millions closely observing the company to ensure compliance) as they are for the firms involved.

But the court could also order Google to stop doing certain things. For example, since the ruling finds that Google illegally maintained its monopoly by paying other entities – Apple, Mozilla, Samsung, AT&T, etc – to be the default search, the court could order them to stop doing that. At the very least, that's a lot easier to monitor.

The big guns, though are the structural remedies. The court could order Google to sell off parts of its business, like its ad-tech stack, through which it represents both buyers and sellers in a marketplace it owns, and with whom it competes as a buyer and a seller. There's already proposed, bipartisan legislation to do this (how bipartisan? Its two main co-sponsors are Ted Cruz and Elizabeth Warren!):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/25/structural-separation/#america-act

All of these things, and more, are on the table:

https://www.wired.com/story/google-search-monopoly-judge-amit-mehta-options/

We'll get a better sense of what the judge is likely to order in the fall, but the case could drag out for quite some time, as Google appeals the verdict, then tries for the Supreme Court, then appeals the remedy, and so on and so on. Dragging things out in the hopes of running out the clock is a time-honored tradition in tech antitrust. IBM dragged out its antitrust appeals for 12 years, from 1970 to 1982 (they called it "Antitrust's Vietnam"). This is an expensive gambit: IBM outspent the entire DOJ Antitrust Division for 12 consecutive years, hiring more lawyers to fight the DOJ than the DOJ employed to run all of its antitrust enforcement, nationwide. But it worked. IBM hung in there until Reagan got elected and ordered his AG to drop the case.

This is the same trick Microsoft pulled in the nineties. The case went to trial in 1998, and Microsoft lost in 1999. They appealed, and dragged out the proceedings until GW Bush stole the presidency in 2000 and dropped the case in 2001.

I am 100% certain that there are lawyers at Google thinking about this: "OK, say we put a few hundred million behind Trump-affiliated PACs, wait until he's president, have a little meeting with Attorney General Andrew Tate, and convince him to drop the case. Worked for IBM, worked for Microsoft, it'll work for us. And it'll be a bargain."

That's one way things could go wrong, but it's hardly the only way. In his ruling, Judge Mehta rejected the DOJ's argument that in illegally creating and maintaining its monopoly, Google harmed its users' privacy by foreclosing on the possibility of a rival that didn't rely on commercial surveillance.

The judge repeats some of the most cherished and absurd canards of the marketing industry, like the idea that people actually like advertisements, provided that they're relevant, so spying on people is actually doing them a favor by making it easier to target the right ads to them.

First of all, this is just obvious self-serving rubbish that the advertising industry has been repeating since the days when it was waging a massive campaign against the TV remote on the grounds that people would "steal" TV by changing the channel when the ads came on. If "relevant" advertising was so great, then no one would reach for the remote – or better still, they'd change the channel when the show came back on, looking for more ads. People don't like advertising. And they hate "relevant" advertising that targets their private behaviors and views. They find it creepy.

Remember when Apple offered users a one-click opt-out from Facebook spying, the most sophisticated commercial surveillance system in human history, whose entire purpose was to deliver "relevant" advertising? More than 96% of Apple's customers opted out of surveillance. Even the most Hayek-pilled economist has to admit that this is a a hell of a "revealed preference." People don't want "relevant" advertising. Period.

The judge's credulous repetition of this obvious nonsense is doubly disturbing in light of the nature of the monopoly charge against Google – that the company had monopolized the advertising market.

Don't get me wrong: Google has monopolized the advertising market. They operate a "full stack" ad-tech shop. By controlling the tools that sellers and buyers use, and the marketplace where they use them, Google steals billions from advertisers and publishers. And that's before you factor in Jedi Blue, the illegal collusive arrangement the company has with Facebook, by which they carved up the market to increase their profits, gouge advertisers, starve publishers, and keep out smaller rivals:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi_Blue

One effect of Google's monopoly power is a global privacy crisis. In regions with strong privacy laws (like the EU), Google uses flags of convenience (looking at you, Ireland) to break the law with impunity:

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

In the rest of the world, Google works with other members of the surveillance cartel to prevent the passage of privacy laws. That's why the USA hasn't had a new federal privacy law since 1988, when Congress acted to ban video-store clerks from telling newspaper reporters about the VHS cassettes you took home:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Privacy_Protection_Act

The lack of privacy law and privacy enforcement means that Google can inflict untold privacy harms on billions of people around the world. Everything we do, everywhere we go online and offline, every relationship we have, everything we buy and say and do – it's all collected and stored and mined and used against us. The immediate harm here is the haunting sense that you are always under observation, a violation of your fundamental human rights that prevents you from ever being your authentic self:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2013/jun/14/nsa-prism

The harms of surveillance aren't merely spiritual and psychological – they're material and immediate. The commercial surveillance industry provides the raw feedstock for a parade of horribles, from stalkers and bounty hunters turning up on their targets' front doors to cops rounding up demonstrators with location data from their phones to identity thieves tricking their marks by using leaked or purchased private information as convincers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/06/privacy-first/#but-not-just-privacy

The problem with Google's monopolization of the surveillance business model is that they're spying on us. But for a certain kind of competition wonk, the problem is that Google is monopolizing the violation of our human rights, and we need to use competition law to "democratize" commercial surveillance.

This is deeply perverse, but it represents a central split in competition theory. Some trustbusters fetishize competition for its own sake, on the theory that it makes companies better and more efficient. But there are some things we don't want companies to be better at, like violating our human rights. We want to ban human rights violations, not improve them.

For other trustbusters – like me – the point of competition enforcement isn't merely to make companies offer better products, it's to make companies small enough to hold account through the enforcement of democratic laws. I want to break – and break up – Google because I want to end its ability to bigfoot privacy law so that we can finally root out the cancer of commercial surveillance. I don't want to make Google smaller so that other surveillance companies can get in on the game.

There is a real danger that this could emerge from this decision, and that's a danger we need to guard against. Last month, Google shocked the technical world by announcing that it would not follow through on its years-long promise to kill third-party cookies, one of the most pernicious and dangerous tools of commercial surveillance. The reason for this volte-face appears to be concern that the EU would view killing third-party cookies as anticompetitive, since Google intended to maintain commercial surveillance using its Orwellian "Privacy Sandbox" technology in Chrome, with the effect that everyone except Google would find it harder to spy on us as we used the internet:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/googles-trail-of-crumbs

It's true! This is anticompetitive. But the answer isn't to preserve the universal power of tech companies large and small to violate our human rights – it's to ban everyone, especially Google, from spying on us!

This current in competition law is still on the fringe, but the Google case – which finds the company illegally dominating surveillance advertising, but rejects the idea that surveillance is itself a harm – offers an opportunity for this bad idea to go from the fringe to the center.

If that happens, look out.

Take "attribution," an obscure bit of ad-tech jargon disguising a jaw-droppingly terrible practice. "Attribution" is when an ad-tech company shows you an ad, and then follows you everywhere you go, monitoring everything you do, to determine whether the ad convinced you to buy something. I mean that literally: they're combining location data generated by your phone and captured by Bluetooth and wifi receivers with data from your credit card to follow you everywhere and log everything, so that they can prove to a merchant that you bought something.

This is unspeakably grotesque. It should be illegal. In many parts of the world, it is illegal, but it is so lucrative that monopolists like Google can buy off the enforcers and get away with it. What's more, only the very largest corporations have the resources to surveil you so closely and invasively that they can perform this "service."

But again, some competition wonks look at this situation and say, "Well, that's not right, we need to make sure that everyone can do attribution." This was a (completely mad) premise in the (otherwise very good) 2020 Competition and Markets Authority market-study on "Online platforms and digital advertising":

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5fa557668fa8f5788db46efc/Final_report_Digital_ALT_TEXT.pdf

This (again, otherwise sensible) document veers completely off the rails whenever the subject of attribution comes up. At one point, the authors propose that the law should allow corporations to spy on people who opt out of commercial surveillance, provided that this spying is undertaken for the sole purpose of attribution.

But it gets even worse: by the end of the document, the authors propose a "user ID intervention" to give every Briton a permanent, government-issued advertising identifier to make it easier for smaller companies to do attribution.

Look, I understand why advertisers like attribution and are willing to preferentially take their business to companies that can perform it. But the fact that merchants want to be able to peer into every corner of our lives to figure out how well their ads are performing is no basis for permitting them to do so – much less intervening in the market to make it even easier so more commercial snoops can get their noses in our business!

This is an idea that keeps popping up, like in this editorial by a UK lawyer, where he proposes fixing "Google's dominance of online advertising" by making it possible for everyone to track us using the commercial surveillance identifiers created and monopolized by the ad-tech duopoly and the mobile tech duopoly:

https://www.thesling.org/what-to-do-about-googles-dominance-of-online-advertising/

Those companies are doing something rotten. In dominating ads, they have stolen billions from publishers and advertisers. Then they used those billions to capture our democratic process and ensure that our human rights weren't being defended as they plundered our private data and put us in harm's way.

Advertising will adapt. The marketing bros know this is coming. They're already discussing how to live in a world where you can't measure clicks and you can't attribute actions (e.g. the world from the first advertisements up until the early 2000s):

https://sparktoro.com/blog/attribution-is-dying-clicks-are-dying-marketing-is-going-back-to-the-20th-century/

An equitable solution to Google's monopoly will not run though our right to privacy. We don't solve the Google monopoly by creating competition in surveillance. The reason to get rid of Google's monopoly is to make it easier to end surveillance.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/07/revealed-preferences/#extinguish-v-improve

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

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

[astonmartinii]

girl, so confusing | max verstappen social media au

pairing: max verstappen x fem norris!reader

will "norstappen" will work it out on the remix?

note: obvs everything here is hearsay and all a big fat joke i am just venting my frustrations with whatever the fuck lando just said after that race

MASTERLIST | TIP JAR |

- part of the brother's best friend series -

yourusername

liked by charles_leclerc, oscarpiastri and 783,049 others

tagged: maxverstappen1

yourusername: we don't just let people by because we have a big lead in the championship (that's actually how you end up with a big lead) btw.

view all comments

user5: WELCOME BACK OUTWARDLY BITCHY Y/N I'VE MISSED YOU

user6: the atmosphere shifted, my skin has cleared and the birds are singing

user7: i didn't think it would be against her own brother BUT WE'LL TAKE WHAT WE CAN GET

maxverstappen1: can you do all my media for me - you give a lot better sound bites than i ever could

yourusername: all my sound bites would be completely unusable

yourusername: cause if they thought you had a potty mouth oh boy they have another thing coming

danielricciardo: it's true i was around her when she stubbed her toe once, it was like shakespeare but concerning

alexalbon: or that one referee against chelsea, i've never heard so many creative insults

maxverstappen1: okay but my thoughts exactly

yourusername: twitter would cancel me baby

maxverstappen1: everyone wants cunty f1 back until i make contact and you ... open your mouth?

user8: not like all of lando's friends either being in the likes or the comments

user9: bro is fighting for his life in the GC after that press run

user10: i think y/n got all the sass cause lando that was not the diva statement you thought it was

landonorris: before you delete i already sent it to mum

yourusername: i'm not deleting it you big baby you gotta stand on your words bro

landonorris: nuh uh

yourusername: i can feel you pouting YOUR 24 YEARS OLD

landonorris: but i'm still your baby brother

yourusername: not with this PR strategy

landonorris: MAX WAS IN THE WRONG

yourusername: 1. i watched the ten laps before lando i'm not dumb 2. i support his rights and wrongs 3. you still won driver of the day and i thought that's what meant the most to you

user11: oh she gagged him

user12: can we get a rupaul's drag race reading challenge in f1 but it's just y/n reading the drivers PLEASE

charles_leclerc: literally all you have to do is spend 10 minutes with her in the paddock

maxverstappen1

liked by charles_leclerc, yourusername and 1,304,599

tagged: yourusername

maxverstappen1: still got my favourite norris on side and that's all that matters

view all comments

user13: someone check on lando cause DIVA IS DOWN

user14: diva is dead and buried at this point

user15: they're dancing on diva's grave

landonorris: DO YOU PEOPLE MIND ???

maxverstappen1: who is this random fan in my comments?

landonorris: i'm definitely not a fan of yours after this weekend

maxverstappen1: oh then let me add you to my block list

charles_leclerc: i thought unfollowing each other after a race in austria was our thing max :(

maxverstappen1: yes that's why i'm going to block him not just unfollow

charles_leclerc: oh good 😊

yourusername: and that's why i'm ready to get rid of the name altogether

maxverstappen1: i think you suit verstappen so much more anyway

yourusername: i'm ready when you are

landonorris: really? ENGAGEMENT TALK ON A POST THAT DISSES ME

yourusername: a diss? you don't want your sister to be happy? or am i not your sister anymore since max isn't your friend anymore?

landonorris: IT WAS ONE QUOTE LIKE TEN MINUTES AFTER BEING CRASHED OUT OF THE LEAD

yourusername: * second-place

landonorris: STOP IT

yourusername: don't dish it if you can't take it buddy

user16: not this brocedes era for max and lando

yourusername: @lewishamilton @nicorosberg i am so sorry they're minimising your trauma like this

user17: so real of you

yourusername

liked by alexalbon, maxverstappen1 and 934,098 others

tagged: maxverstappen1 & landonorris

yourusername: when you forgot that you invited your boyfriend to stay at the family home before the british grand prix and arranged a big family dinner and the flight back to england and your boyfriend and brother decide to try and kill each other in the race and have now 'ended' their friendship.... relatable!

view all comments

user21: the footage... GIVE IT TO ME, SHOW IT TO ME RACHEL

yourusername: most excruiting three hours of my life boys are so dramatic

user22: shock horror mad max and norrif are holding grudges

yourusername: IF i didn't have the patience of a saint i would've gone mad max on their asses and mclaren would've been down a driver

user23: out here threatening the victim and not the aggressor

yourusername: now why would i attack my trophy husband?

landonorris: i didn't make the plane ride awkward HE MADE THE PLANE RIDE AWKWARD

yourusername: we tried to nap but the heat from your death glare kept us up

landonorris: THAT'S NOT MY FAULT

yourusername: it's kind of expressly your fault, you could've taken your anger out on a pillow or a 12 piece wing meal like a normal person

landonorris: max's jet doesn't offer wings

maxverstappen1: get your own jet then

yourusername: @ryanair we have a new customer for you

landonorris: NO I'M SORRY

maxverstappen1: finally

landonorris: just for your jet not having wings, you're still the one in the wrong overall

user24: i fear lando may not see his sister back in the mclaren garage for the rest of the season

user25: i mean she looks better in blue anyway

liked by maxverstappen1

oscarpiastri: can we please move on lando your attitude is stinking up the gaff

landonorris: 1. wtf osc you're meant to be on my side 2. where the fuck did you learn that

oscarpiastri: while you've been sulking in your childhood bedroom i've been taking in the normal norris hospitality

yourusername: he'll get over it he did this all the time when we were younger - he'll come back and join when dinner is finished

landonorris: TELL MAX TO APOLOGISE

yourusername: i guess you don't want any of these profiteroles then ...

maxverstappen1: i'm eating them all lol

landonorris: FINE GOD DAMN

landonorris

liked by yourusername, maxverstappen1 and 1,674,099 others

tagged: maxverstappen1 & yourusername

landonorris: i think i just got gentle parented (brought matching jellycats) into forgiving max

view all comments

user28: about fucking time

user29: baby had his first real dose of wheel to wheel racing for a win and wanted to throw away a friendship

user30: good thing his sister never knows when to shut the fuck up and humbled these men cause lord knows without her lando would still be chatting shit in the media

yourusername: someones got to make sure lando doesn't embarrass himself (idk where his PR department went but mclaren need to run me my money)

maxverstappen1: girl, so confusing when you literally forget all about it as soon as we got you the jellycat you wanted

landonorris: i am a little brother first and foremost

yourusername: hard on the little you've been acting like a whole ass five year old

landonorris: have you ever thought that maybe i'm acting out because i miss you now you've moved in with max and wanted matching jellycats so we always have a part of each other??

yourusername: awww really???

maxverstappen1: that's actually kind of cute

maxverstappen1: and a hunk of BULLSHIT

landonorris: FINE I'M PETTY BUT I WANTED TO WIN SUE ME

maxverstappen1: well i also wanted to win so that's not the serve you think it is

yourusername: you only 'forgave' him because you saw that max was playing padel with charles

landonorris: umm yes obviously, i can't let lestappen be a real thing

yourusername: why not that's literally my dream threesome

yourusername: WHAT WHO SAID THAT

yourusername: lando i think your comment section is haunted

charles_leclerc: well i'm ... flattered

landonorris: you can have lestappen you weirdo

maxverstappen1: @charles_leclerc stop being flattered i don't share

yourusername: heheheheh

landonorris: that much is obvious... you couldn't let me win once?

maxverstappen1: no!

yourusername: no!

fin: here's a lil quick one today cause i had some free time! i am working on guilty as sin p4 but i'm so so so busy and i do be going to silverstone on wednesday xx hope you enjoyed !!!

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

I am not the asshole, and I think this whole thing is stupid, but I was promised that if I sent my side of things to this blog I could pick the hotel for our honeymoon, and I am marrying a man who once tried to take me BACKPACKING of all things, so this ask has become a necessity. In light of that:

AITA (I'm NOT) for planning the seating for our wedding in a logical way?

I got engaged in June, apparently in part because of my partner writing in to this blog (I don't know how to find or link to his posts, but I'm the man who got the cat to bite him, if that rings any bells?). At any rate, for the past ten weeks, I've been in the beginning stages of planning our wedding with my fiance, whom I have been secretly attempting to remove from the planning process as much as possible. I have ALREADY been given a list of his must-haves, and I AM incorporating as many of them as our budget allows. This has NOTHING to do with the emotional side of the event, and EVERYTHING to do with the fact that this is an idiot with no real planning experience or taste who thinks he knows more than me.

For the most part, this has worked very well. I'm the one who's been collating all the contact information for things, so I just replaced all the emails for the tacky companies with false addresses, responded to his inquiries as the companies to say the date was already booked or the price was outside our budget, and let him filter his way to the ones I DO like on his own. I also made a fuss about being "willing to compromise" on the few things he's picked I'm completely fine with in the hopes I can use it to make him compromise later, and have been humming portions of the songs I want on the playlist in the hopes he'll think he came up with the idea to include them himself.

None of this is the real problem. The PROBLEM is that he is deliberately ruining my seating chart, by moving our horrible friend's seat when I'm not looking.

The man in question dated both of us at one point in our VERY early 20s (both ended BADLY), is generally the messiest person we know, and will almost certainly get sloppy drunk and try to make a speech IF he does make an appearance. I'm banking on the fact that he won't, because he's also ridiculously wealthy, and will almost certainly send us some very lavish gift in lieu of coming.

He is SUPPOSED to be sitting beside my fiances aunt, at the same table as his grandmother, his work friend, and her girlfriend, because all four of these women are stone cold terrors who I believe are more than capable of keeping him in line on the slim chance he does come. My fiance INSISTS they won't be able to have any fun if they're running interference all night, and keeps moving him to sit at the head table instead. You know, where WE are. I finally caught him switching the label magnets on my planning board last night, and confronted him.

I tried leveraging how much I've been compromising already, that he's almost certainly going to RSVP no, and that I shouldn't have to deal with him on our big night. My fiance said he knew about all the fake emailing and such, and told me, and I QUOTE: "Look, the mind game shit was hot when it was just about the colour scheme or whatever, but I actually care about this. So you can suffer with everybody else, or you can do the normal thing and not invite a guy you hate to our wedding, you weirdo."

I said that if I did that, it would take out half his groomsmen, he called me an asshole and said I should go explain this to "literally any rational adult" so they could tell me I was in the wrong, and now here we are.

Would you recommend calling my fiance's bluff, since he doesn't want the man sitting near us either? Or should I focus on ensuring he'll turn down the invitation no matter what, so the matter of where he WON'T be sitting can be a moot point?

What are these acronyms?

Original post

The update

[queenklu]

Reading Frankenstein and we got to the part where "the creature" is created - always a good time bc Victor's immediate response to seeing his work come to fruition is "Oh. ..............Gross." and then he takes a nap.

Then of course when the creature wakes him up he flips out and runs away, which my students were Not Pleased With. (Because of Walton's desperate desire for a friend at the beginning of the book, many students have spent the first few chapters under the misapprehension that Victor is making himself a friend, quote, "Build-a-Bear Style" and finding out how badly he's quote, "mistreating his baby boy" is very upsetting for them).

So then in a fugue state "Vicky Frank" (another nickname from my students) just HAPPENS UPON his BFF Clerval, who is so very happy to see him, and Victor switches instantly into host mode:

Student1: YEAH MAN, I DON'T KNOW WHY HE WOULDN'T BE WHERE YOU LEFT HIM, HE IS A LITERAL 8 FOOT TALL CHILD

Student2: He didn't even babyproof his HOUSE! D:

But the part I wanted to talk about is actually this moment that I'd never noticed before, after VFrank gets Clerval inside his (miraculously) monster-free house, IS THIS:

I'M SORRY??????

HEY VICTOR??????

THE WHAT???????

[dwaekkicidal]

Idk if your asks are still open, but I have a recommendation...

Where it's like a poly with two of the members, and they're arguing over which fingers to use on you. (While actively demonstrating)

(Ex. One member is a firm believer of using Pointer/middle finger. While the other prefers middle/ring finger) idk if it makes sense lol

A possible quote "Who the hell told you how to use those fingers"

poly asks have my heart i need MOAR. thank u :3

VocalRacha x Fingering Argument

~500 words | warnings: fem!reader, fingering, (1) pvssy + thigh slap (im sorry i cant help myself), kinda meandom vocalracha, mentions of being tied up

So the first two who really came to mind were Seungmin and Jeongin. And it would SOOO start off as a random argument between them 😭 I won't write a full fic about it for this ask but I'll write a little drabble of sorts

❥ It would happen one of the times you leave them unattended at your apartment. Maybe you had to run out to grab food or wanted to run to the corner store on your own. You're gone for no more than an hour and they still managed to get on the topic of sex and fingering. (probably due to an nsfw meme one of them found/one of the boys found and sent to a group chat)

❥ Bombard you the second you walk in the door. "Jagi, which fingers do you prefer when we fuck you?" & "Puppyyyy~ Tell him I'm right. I know your pussy better than him, right?" Front door wide open and all lol

❥ They argue about it through the whole night until you inevitably get sick of it and just tell them it's all the same. Which, to your dismay, only ends in you in the bedroom with them both between your legs. If you think it's all the same then they feel the need to experiment.

❥ Minnie's most likely gonna be mean to both of you during the whole thing. Starts with a swift "Sit the fuck still or else I'll tie you down." to you and a "Who the fuck taught you that?!? Paboya." to Jeongin

❥ They'd try to do it by taking turns at first. Seungmin lets Jeongin go first and lets him try to "explain" why his way is better but gets fidgety and eventually pulls the other boy's wrist away from you. So Seungmin forces his turn like that and all goes smoothly while he tries to explain his way.

❥ All until Jeongin gets antsy and now they just go back and forth, shoving their fingers deep into your cunt while they bicker back and forth about whose way is better.

❥ They tried to get your opinion on the matter, but after 20+ minutes of them unintentionally edging you and accidentally bullying your G-spot, you're sort of zoned out. A little "fucked dumb" if you will

❥ Jeongin's fingers are still in you when they realize you aren't paying attention and he curves them meanly into your G-spot in an attempt to get your attention. When that doesn't work Seungmin will land a harsh slap to your folds and/or to your thigh

❥ When they find out that you haven't been paying attention the whole time they'll roll their eyes and tell you to focus because they "have no plans to stop until you give us an answer."

❥ At this point it's not so much about what fingers are better, they just want to be right no matter what. Which! Inevitably turns this a competition on who can make you cum faster with their fingers and/or them edging you until you tell them whose way is "better"

❥ You're having a whole lot of orgasms that night. Almost all of which are pulled from their fingers and, depending on how much you toss and turn, may or may not end with you being held down forcefully by whoever isn't knuckles deep into your cunt 🤭

Taglist:

@jiminssluttyminx @changisworld @juskz @linohumina @rylea08

@grandma143 @caught-in-the-afterglow @yaorzu-blog @jabmastersupriseee

[ms-demeanor]

making my own post because nobody needs my bullshit on their post:

OP:

Reblog 1:

Reblog 2:

My response:

The IRA blogs were here and they were active and they were quite popular; their posting patterns did not match normal tumblr users (i was followed by lagonegirl and followed back only to be put off by the account reblogging the same five or ten posts every hour for a day before selecting another five or ten posts to reblog hourly the next day - it was clear engagement bait).

Tumblr has never been as transparent about these accounts as both Twitter and Facebook were, but several of the accounts had shared names across platforms and you can find a significant amount of data that was released by both facebook (ex: ads purchased by the IRA accounts) and twitter (over three million tweets from IRA accounts). Academic researchers have published papers on the data released from facebook and twitter. Several papers. So many papers. Soooooo many papers. We have a LOT of direct evidence that you can explore for yourself that there were hundreds (possibly thousands) of IRA accounts that were created on Facebook and Twitter. Of those accounts, some shared usernames across platforms, and of those accounts, a few had tumblr accounts that posted the same content on twitter and tumblr.

To quote a buzzfeed news article from the time:

The Russian-run Tumblr accounts used the same, or very similar, usernames as the account names contained on a list of confirmed IRA accounts Twitter submitted to congressional investigators. In some cases, the Tumblr and Twitter account has the same profile image or linked to each other in their bios. Some IRA Tumblrs and Twitter accounts also cross-promoted content between platforms, further linking them together.

Current tumblr user @ alwaysbewoke (who I don't want to tag because I'm sure he's got better things to do) is interviewed in that article and talks about following one of the blogs identified by tumblr as an IRA blog that had a matching account on twitter identified as an IRA account but unfollowing when the left-leaning blog supposedly run by a black creator started rooting for trump in the election.

Dr. Jonathan Albright is heavily quoted in the article; the data review he collaborated on is one of the only reviews of this subject that includes data from Tumblr and Reddit.

One of the claims that I've seen is that tumblr just deleted funny black people, but these were blogs with thousands of followers on tumblr who never recreated, never popped up on another social media site, never started a reddit account after getting banned; nobody ever showed up saying "hey this is 4mysquad, I got banned on tumblr and twitter, follow me to pillowfort". These very popular blogs got deleted and, as far as I know, nobody ever popped up claiming to be a person who was deleted - and it's not like tumblr users haven't figured out how to evade bans.

What you are doing when you make posts saying that the IRA accounts on tumblr never existed is *absolving tumblr of guilt for their utter lack of transparency.*

Tumblr is not the only tech company that has tried to fly under the radar as its larger counterparts face regular scrutiny in Congress and in the press. Earlier this month, Reddit revealed it too had deleted hundreds of accounts with ties to the Internet Research Agency. A WIRED investigation found more than a thousand links to Russian propaganda websites are still live on Reddit, and unearthed two suspicious accounts that Reddit immediately shut down.

So should you believe what Tumblr says? No, because Tumblr has been functionally fucking silent on this issue and the information about this subject aside from the list of blogs has come from the hard work of data scientists, journalists, and researchers.

(For the record; some of those bot accounts that were recorded by Dr. Albright also had Google+ accounts in 2017 - there is every possibility that they had myspace accounts).

Now, the reason that I'm popping onto this post as an annoyed anarchist is that I was tracking a similar group of blogs for a while and was discussing them and I stopped precisely because of the galaxy-brained liberals who are now trying to dunk on communists for criticizing electoralism. One of the people who was following my project was one of the ones who started calling out the "joe biden kills dogs" posts as disinfo and I realized they were using some of the guidelines I'd written up to "identify" misinformation and that is very a rock fucking stupid approach to what was clearly a leftist making jokes and was horrified and realized there was no way that I could continue documenting what I was documenting without someone attempting to call actual leftists russian bots.

I've seen the post that OP is referencing [it's one where someone makes a very obvious joke about the democrat presidential ticket and people jump on to call them a bot and then someone tries to do the "AI tell me a story" thing and OP is just like "I don't want to :(", proving that they are in fact a person and not an AI] and have deeply enjoyed the humor of watching liberals a) not understand a very, VERY obvious joke and b) become the unwitting butt of a joke they were trying to make, but also I am so exhausted by watching normie dems call leftists AI bots after years of watching normie dems call real live actual leftists who hold actual political views that real people actually have, like prison abolition, russian bots.

But I am also so fucking tired of left conspiracism and how stupid it sounds when leftists dismiss a preponderance of evidence that is easily accessible and publicly available for analysis as "lol so you just trust everything tumblr tells you?"

No, dipshit, learn to click a fucking link or twelve.

[nnight-dances]

BEAUTIFUL MONSTER

PAIRING: yoon jeonghan x afab!reader

GENRE: angst, smut, fluff in that order of significance

TROPES: workplace romance, boss!jeonghan x associate!you, casual fwb situation but they're not friends they're coworkers, intense banter, nakamoto yuta makes a cameo, toxic relationship at some point but it gets better trust me.

"beautiful monster" because in private, jeonghan is nothing short of an angel to you – charming and devious, teasing but all in good faith, in faith that he was interested in you. but in public, he's monstrous with his cold shoulder, his indifference to you like you weren't in his bed every night, humming him to sleep.

PS: what are you doing with your life if you haven't listened to beautiful monster yet???? go listen to the gift from god called this man from jeonghan x wonwoo okay bye ily

"what makes you think you can prance into my office all prettied up and not even say a hi to me?" 

you look up from the stack of paper you're holding, and innocently tilt your head. "sorry, boss," you accentuate the last syllable with a smile, "just trying to be as resourceful as i can be." 

"oh, come on," jeonghan swivels dangerously in his hefty desk chair, all just to show you the little ridiculous hint of a smirk on his lips. "you're not really mad about that?"

"about what, sir? i'm just doing justice to my position in my short time here, after all."

"you know, quoting things i said back at me isn't as effective of an attack as you think it is, y/n," he tells you, but you can tell he's a little worked up because he shifts a little in his seat. "cut the fucking attitude, princess, what's wrong?" 

you narrow your eyes at him, more so at his audacity to pull out the private nickname in your shared place of work in broad daylight. and on a wednesday no less. "nothing's wrong, mr. yoon. i'm just reflecting on your incredibly insightful speech at the meeting earlier. seems like i don't know you all that well."

"well, you do know me all that well, which is why deep down, you know that whatever i said it wasn't addressed to you." jeonghan stands up and you have to swallow the smug look that threatens to spill out. 

yoon jeonghan, the star employee at his company, didn't get out of his chair, not even to greet the most valuable client. yet here he was, walking to you, hand on your elbow, dangerously unprofessional. 

"must be really deep down because i don't think the man i know would be that cruel to our newest hire," you bite back, shaking his hold over you, "and perhaps it would've helped me interpret you better if you didn't address your grand speech to every low-level associate in the room."

"low-level–? y/n, you know that–"

you don't let him finish, sure he'd find a way to spin his words and get out of being held accountable for the shit he spewed two hours ago. well, you weren't gonna let him get his way, not this time. you bow politely, "good day, mr. yoon. let me know if i can assist you with any work-related matters." 

god, you could be vexing when you wanted to, jeonghan thought to himself watching you stride off in your unbelievably well-fitting pants. he does wonder how you manage to never show up to work covered in creases, what with all the running around you do, from his place to yours every morning. okay maybe every other morning, but it was impressive, the way your white shirts were always crisper than the morning coffee you handed him on your way to your desk, and the way he'd never managed to see your lipstick a smudge out of place in all the time he'd worked with you.

"where'd jenna go again?" you question out loud when you return to find the new hire out of her desk yet again. she'd been the reason jeonghan had burst into his impormptu but condescending talk and though he had some fair reason to speak the way he did, you didn't appreciate the hierarchical intimidation it encouraged. 

"um, i think she just took her fifth bathroom break of the day," muttered seulgi with a grimace. "every time she does that the number of files on my desk goes up."

"send 'em over, seulgi."

"what? no, you have more than enough on your plate–"

"my research and writing skills are what got me hired, so i might as well revisit my roots once in a while. plus, it's gonna take a while to replace jenna, if we're trying to find someone this late."

"all right then, i guess i'll bring these over to you then," seulgi says in an apologegtic tone as she plops a fresh set of files on your desk, which has managed to stay clear of any such physical copies of documents since last year when you convinced joshua to make the firm go paper-free.

well, mostly. except for monkey jobs like this one which usually went to inexperienced hires. but given the unfortunate situation you find yourself in, you have no choice but to ignore your strcitly digital policy to pull out your wooden pencil for the first time in a while.

it takes you long enough to get through half of the stack that jeonghan's done for the day and you haven't moved an inch. he pauses in front of your desk, taken aback at the sight of you reading through a physical file. and then he notices the empty desk down the line, one that should've held the redhead called jenna. 

"and since when did you start doing unpaid labor?"

you look up with a start and sigh when it's jeonghan. "good night, mr. yoon." 

"wow, that's cold. can't a superior worry about his precious protege's wellbeing? y/n, you're overqualified for this work so why don't you put it down and go home?"

your mouth twitches with a bitter comment you barely hold in. "i'm the best person for this job till we find someone else to do it. i'm also the only one with the balls to sit down and finish it on top of my own workload. so i'm sorry but i won't be putting this down just yet. did you want me to call driver choi for you?"

jeonghan blinks silently at you, realizing you weren't gonna listen to a word he said, not even if he was the only voice of reason in your vicinity right now. he shrugs, "i can see myself out. just be here on time tomorrow, we have an important case to discuss."

"as you wish," you nod cordially and return to your work. 

– 

jeonghan's up till four that night, which is when he hears you shuffle into his condo. he silently thanks his past self who decided to drop a spare key to his place when your visits had become a regular thing. 

you're pulling your hair out of the tight ponytail you'd kept it in all day and throw the tie on the nightstand, almost screaming out of your skin when you see jeonghan looking at you, propped up on his shoulder. 

"what the fuck– why are you still awake?"

"why are you mad at me?"

you ignore his question and start untuck your shirt from your pants, unbuttoning them. 

"oh my god, is this the day you finally have mad sex with me–?"

you give jeonghan an unimpressed smile as you let the pants drop and throw yourself into the empty space beside him, closing your eyes with a weary sigh. "wake me up at 6."

jeonghan being the devious idiot he is, only worsens with every second you don't address his words directly. he rolls closer to you, hand finding his place under your shirt, on your hot stomach. "babydoll, i'm sorry you had to work so late," he whispers as he presses a kiss to your skin. "but if you don't talk to me, i can't make things right."

"you can't make things right, period, jeonghan," you tell him, eyes still closed. the man wouldn't get any more of your energy than you could help. "i'll be back to normal if you just let me sleep."

"you're being mean, baby, just let me make it up to you, okay?"

"jeonghan, unless you can change who you are as a very human being, i don't think there's anything you can do," you strain, shoving him away, "i'm not about to throw a tantrum so don't worry. let me sleep if you want to have your best associate working for you tomorrow."

that seems to get the message across because he doesn't say another word. or maybe he does but you're too busy slipping into the sleep you desperately need after a crazy work day. jeonghan wakes you up with a solemn look on his face and you sit up in a panic, thinking something's gone wrong at work.

but then he says, "sorry, i overslept. it's 7. you'll have to wear the spare pair of clothes you keep here to work."

"i hate you," you shriek as you jump out of bed, rushing to freshen up in his bathroom as he nods and starts getting ready himself. he does seem like he's keeping to himself because usually, jeonghan would've made a few too many comments about how cozy and domestic it is for the two of you to be using the same mirror to get ready as if his place didn't have any other mirrors to use. he even lets you fix his tie without a snarky comment, just a little kiss on your cheek that you barely tolerate without a shake of your head. 

he watches you put on the makeup you keep in your purse for emergencies like this, but can't help muse over how much he must hate to the idea of losing you at work to be acting this obedient. you smile a little to yourself, pleased at least at his respect for you, if not his love. 

truth be told, you often regretted being in this strange more than coworkers but less than lovers situation you had with yoon jeonghan, your direct superior at work. but you were too deep in it to back out, too down bad for the man's charms to turn your back to him. 

it had started almost as soon as jeonghan had laid eyes on you, his private conversations with you always consisted of one too many suggestive comments and he somehow always managed to flirt with you without you truly registering it. by the time you recognized the unprofessional nature of your relationship with him, you were five kisses too late. late nights at the office turned into late nights at his place, because it was conveniently much closer to the office than yours. 

somewhere along the way, though, you had to face the harsh reality that no matter how sweet jeonghan could be when he was flirting with you, he was always going to be something of a beautiful monster. because in private, jeonghan is nothing short of an angel to you – charming and devious, teasing but all in good faith, in faith that he was helplessly into you. but in public, he's monstrous with his cold shoulder, his indifference to you like you weren't in his bed every night, humming him to sleep.  

the harsh reality you face that very morning when he calls you into his office. 

"morning how can i–," you start and then make eye-contact with the man seated on the sofa across from jeonghan. "oh, morning, mr. nakamoto! i didn't realize you were in town!"

nakamoto yuta laughs loudly at your hurried greeting, crossing his legs as he shamelessly checks you out. "oh, come now, call me yuta like the good old days, y/n! and where were you this morning when i was all over the place trying to find the famous yoon jeonghan's office."

"ah, i'm sorry i was a little late this morning–" you spare a glance at jeonghan smiling in his chair, "my cheap excuse of an alarm didn't go off on time. i really should get a new one."

"if you'd come to work for me like i asked, you wouldn't have to work at the ass crack of dawn y'know?" yuta raises a brow at you with a small grin and you tuck some hair behind your ear bashfully, not forgetting to observe how jeonghan is stiff in his seat. as stiff as a slick bastard like him could get anyway because you could've missed the glare he shot you when he stands up and crosses the room to yuta. 

he pauses next to you, cold hand coming to rest on your arm, a possessive gesture explicit enough for yuta to muse over. "i didn't realize you came in here to declare war over my best associate, yuta, or i would've prepared harder."

the japanese businessman laughs wholeheartedly, "sorry, han, you know i can't help myself these days. it's getting harder to find familar faces in the industry these days, what with all the incompetence that's cropping up." he sighs then with a glance in your direction, "still mad you came to work for this asshole over me."

you chuckle, letting down your guard a little at the man's sincere comment. "what would've been the point of working at your company when you'd always be across the globe, vacationing in some fancy hotel every other week?" you question with a smile, "anyway, don't lose hope, maybe i'll change career paths mid-life, so don't delete my resume from your system just yet."

"all right, i'll take that as a promise," yuta winks at you as you take your leave from the office. 

an hour or so later, you're summoned to jeonghan's office again, with a brief, "y/n, please." you suppress the urge to roll your eyes, knowing there wasn't any real need for you to be in the room with them except for yoon jeonghan's egoistic need to fuck with your head. 

"how can i help you?" you ask with your sweetest business smile and jeonghan stands up from the sofa next to yuta. he gestures to the other man with a glint in his eye, "y/n, mr. nakamoto says he has the rest of the day to himself before he heads out. i thought it'd be a waste to just let him roam on his own, why don't you accompany him?"

you blink blankly at jeonghan, taken aback at his thoughtless request. treating you like just another associate who worked under him was one thing, but treating you like his personal assistant who'd entertain his friends' whims was entirely another. 

and you know he realizes this because of how closely he's watching you, lips set in a lilt because he loves seeing his stupid little scenarios play out. yuta stands up when he senses the tension, "ah, don't bother y/n, han. i'm sure she has a lot of work to do. i'll just–"

"no, no, i insist," jeonghan pushes, only glancing at the man he was so earnestly trying to please. "you don't mind, do you, y/n?"

you inhale, sensing the challenge behind his words. the way he said it, it was almost inappropriate for work, the smirk and the way his eyes were all over you. but honestly, you hated his guts for trying to get you down like this. so if a challenge was what he wanted, then that'd be exactly what he was going to get. 

"not at all!" you start, a cheerful beam on your face that catches both men off their guards and you continue, "please, i was hoping for some time to catch up with mr. nakamoto– sorry, with yuta, anyway, so honestly, thank you, mr. yoon. i'll just go grab my stuff and meet you in the lobby?"

"oh– okay, sure thing," yuta mutters, glancing between you and jeonghan uneasily. you don't spare your boss another look as you leave his office and furiously pack your things into your purse, slinging it over your arm. "i won't be back today, seulgi, so don't text me unless everyone starts dropping dead while i'm gone."

–

"so you don't show up at work all day and then you ignore all my calls? i am your boss, y/n, you can't just blow me off whenever you please," jeonghan's voice is muffled on the other side, and you're guessing he's in his car, on the way back to his place. 

you, on the other hand, had been home for nearly three hours now after your little date with yuta, the man who'd walked around the city with your for a few hours before taking you out to a late lunch slash early dinner at the nicest place you'd been to in a while. so yes, you were in a good mood and honestly, hearing how mad jeonghan is on the line only makes you smile more. 

"oh, sorry, i didn't realize you were bipolar like that," you say in a pleased voice, "because last i remember you basically begged me to babysit your client for you."

"client?" jeonghan scoffs,  "you make it sound like you weren't sleeping with that guy for almost five years before i came along."

"well, i'm sleeping with you now and you don't hear me calling you anything but my boss to anyone."

"you're a real piece of work sometimes, aren't you?" the man snaps and then after a solemn pause, "what did you do with him all day, anyway?"

you chuckle softly, "can't disclose private matters like that i'm afraid. besides, i'm having real trouble understanding why you sound pissed at me when all i was doing was following your instructions."

"huh, that's funny, you want to get rewarded for running around with another man while i was banging my head at the wall all day today? don't ever try to pull shit like this again or–"

"or what, jeonghan? you're gonna fire me?" you ask, "how about you stop treating me like i'm the dirt on your shoe as soon as you're done using me for sex? i'm not your personal assistant that you can just order around to wet your friends' cocks whenever you fucking want, okay? or i'll be the one considering yuta's offer seriously." 

before jeonghan can have a chance to respond, you hang up on him, breathing deeply to calm yourself down. you take in your apartment, somewhat of an abandoned mess with all the nights you'd spend at jeonghan's. you felt guilty for own behavior, ignoring your own needs for so long that you'd forgotten what being respected really felt like. maybe what you needed was a real relationship.

–

"that's always been your problem, y/n," rina groans, "you always forget that there's men other than the ones you work with."

"ouch! you make it sound like i've only ever fucked my coworkers–"

"worse, your bosses–"

"okay, so it happened like twice! you're forgetting all the wholesome moments i had in high school," you warn her across the table with a fork. 

"you mean how you rejected any decent guy with genuine feelings for you in favor of chasing older men who didn't know your name?"

"i'll have you know i chased those old men because they were the ones who could get me the job i have today, so i won't apologize for doing what i had to do to have the career i wanted."

rina sighs, "that's not the problem. you could've networked with the people working in the industry and had a healthy relationship with someone your age. but you always got so emotionally attached to anyone who offered you advice that you didn't have time for anything else."

you stare at your coffee dejectedly, swallowing the hard truths your oldest friend was hurling at you. cruel as she was, you knew she wasn't going to sugarcoat things for you, not when you dragged her all the way across town on a saturday to have lunch with you when she had a million other things lined up with her upcoming wedding.

"i don't know how you do it, rina," you mumble, "you've a stable job, a beautiful home, and a doting fiance. god, that's like three worlds apart from the dump of a reality i live in."

"okay, now that's just untrue, y/n," rina scolds you softly, shaking her head, "plus, you have the first two things on that list."

"i have a job, but my place is far from home. i don't even sleep in it most days, plus, i think the last factor on the list kinda trumps everything else by a lot."

"well, who is that on anyway? it's not like you're undesirable or fucked up, you know?"

you groan, "what should i do, rina?"

"find someone who doesn't work the same 100 hour work week as you might be a start? maybe then you can stop treating your boss like a god."

"rina, you don't understand," you complain, "i know i make it sound too good to believe, but he's the smoothest talker you'll ever see and god, don't even get me started on how good he is in bed–"

"y/n, it's not the man's dick that matters, it's his heart," rina interrupts and when she doesn't burst out laughing like you do, you stop with a questioning look. "i'm serious, dude, you're not gonna be in it for the sex like 10 years down the line when everything hurts, inside and out. trust me, the minute you meet even a remotely normal man with reasonable expectations from life, you'll know what i mean–"

"that's the problem–" you start to explain your own beliefs when a head in your periphery catches your eye. "fuck me," you groan immediately when you realize who's sitting about two tables away from you.

"come on, y/n, i just talked to you about this, you can't be thinking about–"

"no, no, listen, don't look right now, but…" you trail off in disbelief and then force yourself to finish, "but my fucking boss is sitting to our left."

"you mean the fucking boss… you're… fucking?"

"yeah, that one…"

a few beats pass as rina slowly takes a look at the man across from you, hair down from the low ponytail it usually found itself in. at the perfect timing, jeonghan laughs at something the lady across from him says, hair bouncing to reveal his flawless features. 

"wow, he looks like nothing like you've described him as–"

"what, i've been going on for hours about–"

"about his charm, not how drop-dead gorgeous he is! i've been imagining some greasy old douche, not this tall glass of water…"

"first of all, your lack of trust in my taste in men is truly offensive… and–"

rina interrupts you, for the nth time in every conversation that you've ever had with her. "–it's worth mentioning that your taste in men is walking toward us as we speak–" 

"what…" you look up all too suddenly to find the man a few steps away, sly smirk in place as he approached you. 

"hello there, ladies," he starts in a low amused smile and god, if you could strangle him or yourself into silence just there you would've but instead you match his smile. 

"oh– hi, mr. yoon, i didn't expect to run into you here," you laugh it off with a pointed look at him, hoping he'd have the common decency to fuck off when you were clearly with a friend on one of your only days off. 

but you should know better because jeonghan will never give up a chance to open his mouth, especially in front of a stranger he hasn't had the chance to charm yet. 

"and neither did i! but here i am, with my lovely coworker and her…" his eyes dance over to rina who flushes under his gaze by the slightest, "gorgeous friend?"

you roll your eyes at the question and don't think it worth mentioning, especially when you're too busy choking yourself over his description of you as a 'coworker'. yeah, right. 

"right, we were just–"

"talking about the guy who's interested in y/n!" rina chimes in, her grin saying she thinks she's helping you but you kick her under the table, warning her to cut it off. 

"what–"

"huh, what's that again?" jeonghan asks, smile momentarily faltering at rina's comment. 

"ah, you know, y/n's just been so popular with guys since i've known her but she's never had time to settle down. but this guy's just been dying to meet her and when she called me to lunch today, i thought she'd finally be ready to meet the man of her dreams."

"the man of my dreams?" you choke yet again over a strangled laugh, "rina, you're really funny. you know i have nothing of that sort–"

"oh, come on," rina brushes you off with a scrunch of her nose and turning to jeonghan who seemed immersed in the bullshit your best friend was spewing. "she's just too shy to talk about it but– she told me, too drunk off her ass to remember, she'd only want to marry a man who was desperately head over heels for her, gives up everything to be with her, just to see her smile–"

"rina, i think–"

"and oh, what was it that you said? he needs to be able to think what i think before i've thought it? i'm not even looking at him if he doesn't worship the ground i walk on?? wow, y/n, you were full of it back then, weren't you?"

you redden, out of words at this point, half-mad she was yapping and half-mad at yourself for actually having said all the shit she was yapping. yes, god knows you did say everything she was saying, and there was a blurry video on your phone proving it somewhere. rina'd known you wouldn't believe a word without proof, so she'd recorded it without you realizing.

jeonghan's looking at you when you look up from your lap and rina cuts in again, "but you can't be to blame, now, can you? your parents always treated you like a princess, and your brother basically acted like your bodyguard until you moved out… i'd be full of myself too if i grew up like that."

you inhale deeply as you glare at rina, slowly standing up, "um, i think we should go soon or we'll miss the movie. right, rina?" you force your words out so rina can recognize you're not kidding. 

"y/n, can i talk–"

"sorry," you cut jeonghan off, too, head reeling too hard to respond to anything that man's got to say to you, "i really have to rush but if it's something urgent, why don't you just leave a voicemail? i'll get to it on monday."

"ooooh, that was hot," rina whispers into your shoulder as the two of you pay the bill and head out. "god, did i love torturing the two of you in there. and honestly, serves him good–"

"what the fuck was that?"

"what the fuck was what? i was just showing that bastard what you actually deserve," rina snaps, eyes wide, "you might not remember what you're made of, y/n, but i do and i'm not gonna watch as you let that asshole use you. he can realize what your standards are or he can find someone else to fuck with. not my best friend."

"...rina," you stop in your tracks, rina's words finally starting to make sense in retrospect, "you're—"

"okay, please don't get emotional on me, i have a movie to catch and you know i can't focus if i'm tired."

– 

that very night, you come out of the shower to your phone blowing up, stifling a smile when you see jeonghan's name plastered over your notifications. after a thought to it, you pick up.

"what?" you take on your most indifferent tone.

"wow, that's cold," jeonghan's voice is clear this time. he's at home. "you can really be a stranger sometimes, baby."

"it's not hard, i just pretend i'm you at work," you tell him with a petty smile he can't see but most definitely hears because he immediately scoffs.

"listen, i didn't call to fight you, okay? i just want to talk. i–" he stops abruptly as if out of breath and then, softly, "i'm sorry."

that's a first. 

"i didn't quite catch that, mind repeating what exactly you're sorry for?"

you hear his sigh loud and clear, "y/n, let me make it up to you. i'm sorry i've been an asshole to you, especially at work. won't you come over?"

"no, i won't. i have some beauty sleep to catch up on."

"then, i'll come over. but please, let me in. and i don't mean into your place, i mean into your mind. i know you want a grandiose dream man but i can't read your mind just yet, so just let me… let me understand you better." after a beat of silence, he punctuates his words with a "please?"

"...you know where i live?"

"wasn't born yesterday, princess. give me 10 and i'll be there. make sure you're wearing clothes."

he hangs up on you and you barely have a moment to yourself to calm your intense hearbeat and equally chaotic thoughts after what jeonghan just said. i can't read your mind just yet. just yet? did he intend to??? intend to what, become to man of your dreams???? 

as much as you internally cringe at the thought, your cheeks are flushed when you let jeonghan that night, watching carefully as he took his shoes off, wearing a strangely casual grey hoodie and sweatpants. somehow you'd only ever seen him in his suit. or without it. 

he looks at you for a moment too long, and then his hand comes to carress your hair gently, "hmm, never seen you with your wet hair down."

"what do you want, jeonghan?" you cross your arms.

"you know sometimes i think i prefer you call me mr. yoon over jeonghan. you sound like you're going to kill me in my sleep when you say jeonghan."

"or i could just kick you out of my apartment. my landlord takes break-ins very seriously."

"alright, alright," jeonghan backs off, keeping his hands to himself, "can i at least have some water first? nervous to be all alone in your place with you."

you narrow your eyes at him and when he just shrugs, you gestures to the kitchen. "you can figure out how to pour yourself, can't you?"

"y/n, i–" he takes a gulp of the water, and then sighs, "i want to take you out. like a proper boyfriend."

"that's crazy because unfortunately, i don't have any time to be going out with anyone right now."

"if you're going to lie about your work committments, maybe don't do it to my face? our schedules are basically married so i know exactly when you're free."

"oh, i see what's happening," you throw yourself on your couch with a mirthless laugh, "you're blackmailing me into dating you, aren't you? don't worry i won't go around spilling the tea about your kinks in bed if you just leave me alone, mr. yoon."

"okay i lied, it's infinitely worse when you call me that. how about just calling your sweet angel, han, huh? no, okay? listen, y/n, i'm serious. i want to be more than your toxic boss who you have mindblowing sex with."

"you are–"

"i'm not saying this for any of the ulterior motives you're trying so hard to think of. believe it or not, i'm into you, y/n, and when you left me hanging for like three days straight, i couldn't stop thinking of you. and well, i did miss the sex, but what i missed more than anything was hanging out with you. spending time with you." 

"...what if i'm not into you like that?" you ask with a quirked brow, not quite satisfied with the case he was presenting. he stood still across from you at your kitchen counter, breathing shallow though you weren't certain why.

"that would be fair but i'm asking you to give us a chance because i know i've never had a connection with someone like i do with you. our stupid banter, your witty ways to save my life at work and outside before i can anticipate them, and of course, our amazing chemistry in bed– y/n, i never will find something like this again. and you can say i'm full of myself, but neither will you."

if you were slowly starting to doubt that it really was yoon jeonghan in front of you confessing his love to you, you don't anymore when he adds that last arrogant part in. "you're awfully confident for someone who was blowing my phone up an hour ago," you tell him, looking away, "but honestly, jeonghan, i'm getting old, okay? i don't think i have time to play your games anymore. i'm gonna find myself a decent man and settle—"

"you hearing yourself? you're gonna settle?" jeonghan's crosses over to you, sitting on your coffee table and before you can tell him off, he takes both of your hands in his with the tenderness of a man that you've never seen him capable of being. "i know i'm not the most promising prospect of a boyfriend, let alone a husband, but i'm willing to change. not even change, i'm just going to stop pretending to be a little bitch to you at work because honestly it was killing but i was doing it to protect myself from getting too attached to you. but it's too late. i'm down bad for you, y/n."

"and i may not be the decent man you're looking for, but i can assure i love you more than anyone on the market. because i know you like nobody else can, and i'm going to stick by you no matter what."

you take a breath and hold it just to test if you're dreaming but then jeonghan drops his head into your hand, letting your fingers into his soft hair. "just give me a chance, y/n. i'm… nothing without you." his voice is small now, his charming self who showed up to rooms full of busy people to give them a pitch of their life long gone. he was just a man right now, pleading you to let him in so you could both have a real shot at loving each other. 

you pull your hands out of jeonghan's clutch, watching his expression turn into one of panic but you silence him by bringing them to his face, gingerly guiding his eyes to yours. he blinks back, pure and solemn. "where was this guy when i was begging to be held for the past week?" you wonder, half to yourself, "and before you apologize, it's okay. i… haven't been a saint myself. it was unfair to not give you the short end of the stick when i'd given you the impression it was all good and fine until now."

"but you have to know how little i feel when you treat me without respect at work– not just because you're my boss, but because i care about what you think of me… as a person. i want to be with you, to love you. so if you can be real with me like this, i think we can make it work."

jeonghan kisses your hand softly, "i'm sorry. i– i will do better. and just to be sure, that was a yes?"

"yes."

"yes, you'll be my girlfriend, my one and only lover, the apple of my eye, the prettiest sight since the moon was revealed?"

"...yes. and flattery is not one the list of real qualties," you tell him despite the blush that colors you. 

"really? it's a good thing that i meant every single thing i just said then, isn't it?" he leans closer, breath hot against your already hot face. "can i kiss you then, love?"

the new nickname only makes you more dazed and you nod with a mewl, meeting jeonghan's lips halfway. he kisses you like he's never before — without a hint of urgency, like he could kiss you for the rest of his life and not regret a moment. he's slow and intentful, eyes fluttering and breath heavy, almost like his heart was wreaking as much of a havoc as yours was in your chest. 

you press a hand to his chest, reassured by the heat of beat that meets you, and he pulls away in surprise at your motion. jeonghan's flushed and speechless like he's never been, just watching you through his lashes, out of breath. 

you look down at his body, taking in his tall figure cramped in the little space between the two of you. his legs cage yours on either side, knees meeting your thighs, and his arms resting gently on your waist. it's like his body's swallowing you whole, and thought heats you up in a way that has you tearing up. 

when you hide your face in your hands out of the blue, jeonghan's large hands find yours, cooing them away. "what's wrong?"

"overwhelmed…" you tell him in a tiny voice, "i've– you never… you've never been so gentle with me. i feel like i'm going to break."

"that's ironic, isn't it," he asks softly but not mockingly. "you're so precious, i can't believe i haven't done this sooner. i guess i was always in such a hurry to feel your skin before time ran out… before it was too late… or something? either way, i'm here to stay now so let's take it slow."

"so you'll kiss me like that again?" you ask, looking at your intertwined hands. he squeezes back. 

"you liked that? let me see your lips again, i'm never not doing that again."

you giggle at his enthusiastic reaction, his lips already a breath away from yours, feeling your sounds in his whole being like he'd been starved. he kisses you again, not letting go till you pull away with a gasp. "god, i need air, han, you'll kill me at this rate."

jeonghan's too busy peppering your skin with more kisses, "good, you're back to calling me han. and as for needing air, we'll just have to do that a lot so you can build up a stamina."

—

"love it when you do that, god–" jeonghan's all over his own words, trying to get them out as soon fast as possible, "can you say it again? i'm gonna record it–" 

"han," you warn him in a stiff voice, "tell me you didn't just walk out of a meeting to come ask me to say– i'm not saying it, okay? so let go of my hand before seulgi comes back and you'll still have a reputation around here."

"no, you can't do this to me, babe," he's whining now and it'd be great for your ego if you couldn't see the room full of people waiting for him to get back so he could continue the meeting. "just tell me what you told rina about the dates i take you on and then i'll be out of your hair."

"first of all, you were never supposed to hear any of that," you push jeonghan away when he protests dangerously close to your face, "and second, if you want to have a girlfriend at the end of the day, you're gonna walk away from my desk and go back to your doing your job. okay, han? i can't do this now, let's talk at night."

"...fine. if you agree to sleep over at mine."

"done. now go."

"and you'll hold hands when we walk–"

"go."

he turns around obediently not before throwing a flying kiss in your direction and you truly have to wonder how he ever managed to act so uptight with you at work when he can be hopeless like this. 

"i'll have you know," he whines that night when you're coddling him in his bed, "that i'm that hopeless only because i'm head over heels for you. i love you, love, and i can't stop loving you, even if a bunch of suited assholes want to find ways to keep me apart from you."

"a bunch of suited assholes is your job description, angel," you laugh into his chest, "and god, you need to stop doing that at work. at least find a room if you want to be all up in my personal space, okay?"

"reserve a room just so we can make out? hmm, not a bad idea—"

"that is the exact opposite of what i was suggesting–"

"and yet here i am, with the great idea in my brain. noted, princess likes risky sex at work. thrill of getting caught? or is–"

"when did making out turn into risky sex?"

"you know i can never stop at just that once i've started," he says, kissing your forehead and you hit his face softly. "liar. big words from someone who refused to do anything but kiss me all night last night, and the night before that, and what about the time we went to dinner that time? oh, right, you didn't even kiss me."

"are you mad i'm being mindful of my pace?" jeonghan asks with a half smile, seriously concerned when you bring it up.

"no, i'm just shocked at the change up from when all you could think about was where and how we were gonna fuck."

"well, be assured that i still think about fucking you anywhere and everywhere at all times, but i'm more than that man now. i've got boyfriend worries now, 'kay? i want to savor every single thing we do, every date i take you on, and every small adorable thing you do. i'm not doing it the casual way. it's either all or nothing."

"you're scary when you're in love," you marvel with a sweet smile, "but full disclosure on my part, han, but i kind of need you to fuck my mind out because i'm literally dying here."

jeonghan goes still, pulling away to look at your face, amazed at the filth you could spawn with the purest smile on your lips. when he catches the glint of desperation in your eye though, he's switching control immediately, over to the jeonghan he'd managed to suppress so expertly to focus on treating you right. 

"damn it, you're gonna be the death of me, looking at me like that–" he's on top of you in a split second, his hair brushing the nape of your neck where he dives into your skin. "wasn't gonna ruin you again till i really had to, but fucking hell, woman, you know how to work a guy up."

"i can tell," you murmur, hands roaming all over his body, finding the hard bulge in his boxers all to familiar. "had to provoke you, y'know my fingers aren't enough."

jeonghan lets out an ungodly sound at your words, and you revel in the way he's coming undone, the way you've managed to push all the wrong buttons. to be fair, was it really wrong if it drove jeonghan to give you the best head he'd ever given you? 

when he rises from between your legs, you kiss him hard, tasting yourself on his tongue, and stealing his breath when you push him over so you could straddle him. "let me return the favor?" you lick your lips to really seal the deal.

"you–" he groans when you don't wait to pull his boner out of its restraints, smiling ever so demurely like he'd presented you with new clothes or a ticket to your favorite show. when you take a lick at his tip, he twitches, hands in your hair forcing you away from his dick. 

"--can't–" he's hardly comprehensible but he manages to get his request out, "can't take it for much longer. need to be inside you."

"thought you'd never ask, hannie," you gasp innocently and jeonghan swears he's already seeing stars from the nickname you only pull out on the verge of your orgasms. he's spewing all sorts of obscenities when you sheath him in your warm pussy, and you make sure you take in the sight before you. 

jeonghan's glittering with sweat, lips wonderfully swollen and eyes rolled back in his head with the height of pleasure he was feeling. he looked like an angel, even when he was so fucked out, chest deliciously hard against your touch and his voice contrastingly in its sweet chorus of your name. he was doing much of the work even though you were riding him, long fingers trailing from your boobs to clasp your waist so he could have perfect control of your body.

when he's close, he swallows a whine and you clench around him just to rip the sound out of his throat, the moan halfway between a scream and a song to your ears. that alone brings you close with jeonghan's thumb at your clit really bringing you to the edge. 

"come for me, hannie," you elicit another heavenly sound from him, "please, let me feel you inside me." 

"i'm coming, y/n, fuck!" he bites his own tongue and then gives up when you keep going, "fuck, fuck, fuck, i'm going to– fuckk–"

you both fall over with the wave of pleasure that hits your bodies, elevated ever more when each of you feels the others heat. it takes a minute of panting for you to feel your heartbeat in your chest and see jeonghan's limp body under yours. you roll over so your back can hit the cold sheets. 

you genuinely black out a little from the exhaustion because when you come to, jeonghan's between your legs with a warm towel cleaning you up. he looks up when you sit up with an unspeakable look in his eyes. he crawls over, voice hoarse as his lips meets yours. "i think you just changed my life, y/n, that was amazing."

"it was, i think i was on another planet for a hot minute there…" you say, oddly nervous with jeonghan's body touching yours as if you hadn't been all over each other a second ago. 

"you were… unbelievable. i've never been that gone before, y'know? you might've broken me… all that after i promised to be nothing but a gentleman to you." jeonghan sighs a little with a shake of his head.

"sorry, angel," you run a hand through his hair, feeling him relax under your touch, "i was pent up, what from fighting with you and then suddenly becoming all lovey dovey. for what it's worth, i think we just upped fucking game. and it's probably because we aren't lying to each other anymore."

"probably because you're all mine now," he says victoriosly, kissing your hand like he did the night he'd come to your place to beg you to take a shot at a life with him. you're so glad you did because you couldn't imagine another place where you'd feel this way, completely like yourself and nothing like yourself. 

"always have been," you assure him as you press a kiss to the back of his neck, throwing your hands around his shoulders. you liked to hug him to sleep, like you'd always yearned to every time you unwittingly fell asleep next to him. he shifts closer so your legs touch and you feel his lips graze your wrist lovingly, pressing kisses to the warm skin till you'd drifted into a deep sleep.

NOTE:

still not sane about that instagram update from jeonghan because those images of him have me feeling like this: 🤭🧍‍♀️😧🌀🥵😇🖐️🫦🙁 if you know what i mean. i will be crying about it for the next few days till i can think straight so that's that!

honest to god, somebody restrain me from writing and thinking about this man because i’m genuinely unwell about him. genuinely this is a cry for help. i told myself i wasn't going to write another jeonghan fic (see: the 50 wips i have waiting that involve not jeonghan) but here i am. speedwrote this in less than 2 days and took 2 hours to select the header icons and they still suck. self-indulgent content as always but anyway, i think i will die thinking about yoon jeonghan so here's my small contribution to anyone else who feels anything similar to me. i hope you enjoy and please i love hearing your thoughts so any reblogs and comments are appreciated <3