#and i have a decent paying job now but i still can’t afford anything

[idolsgf]

we found a place we really like but of course an offer has already been put in 😖

[verfound]

FIC: "Luka's New Bike" (MLB; Lukanette; LBSC Lukanette Month 2024)

@lovebugs-and-snakecharmers is doing a Lukanette Month for September 2024, and we all just kinda tossed some prompts in the disco to compile a list?  We ended up with 71 prompts, so I decided I’d roll some dice to pick a prompt, do a twenty minute (ish, bc we all know sometimes they run away from me) sprint, and try to get some short fics out this month?

Read on Ao3

Prompt 68: Learning to Drive/Ride a Bike

When Luka had first expressed interest in getting his motorcycle license, it had been for a more practical reason than anything else.  The Captain had had a bike for as long as he could remember.  She’d also had the old van, but it was easier to get around for her day-to-day needs on the bike and the van really only came out if she needed to haul something.  He’d spent a lot of time on the back of her bike growing up, so somewhere in the back of his mind getting a bike when he was old enough just seemed…practical.

Plus, he already rode his bicycle  everywhere, and he loved it.  He did.  But sometimes you needed something…faster.

He’d started working on his license as soon as he’d turned sixteen.  The Captain had already warned him the process could take years – at least two to get his A2 license, and he couldn’t even start on that until he’d had his B license for a few years.  It would be another two until he had his full A license, so he had known from the start he’d probably be twenty before he could get his own bike.

…but he’d been delivering pizzas since he was fifteen.  Busking on random street corners even longer.  Picking up odd jobs catering or helping the Captain or teaching guitar where he could.  He hadn’t managed to sell any instruments yet, but he was skilled enough to do a damn good repair job – and that skill was invaluable among his classmates, who were all willing to pay his cheaper prices instead of going to some of the more expensive mainstream shops.

And then Jay had asked him on tour, and while Luka still wasn’t entirely sure the road was the life he ultimately wanted…the paycheck was nice.

It was almost too easy, procuring a decent bike, after that.  He could have even afforded a more than decent bike, but he wasn’t greedy.  He just wanted something that ran well.

And now that he was back in Paris, A license and keys to his new bike in hand…he had just wanted the damn thing because he liked bikes.  They were practical.

But this…this was a decided perk.

When he jogged down the gangway that morning and made his way to the street just to find one Marinette Dupain-Cheng sitting on his new bike, her creamy thighs pressed against the sleek black metal like…he knew it was summer but who gave her permission to wear shorts that short????  She couldn’t ride in those.  She’d burn herself.  The soles of her flats would melt against the exhaust.

…but damn if she didn’t look…

“Excuse me, mademoiselle,” he called, hoping his smile looked more easy-going and less leering as he approached.  She looked up, her entire face lighting up when she saw him, and for a moment he forgot how to breathe.  How did she always manage to do that…?  “Are you sure you’re old enough to be sitting on that?  I’ll need to see your license.”

“Oh, shut up,” she laughed, grinning at him.  “Isn’t that my line?  I’m the one starting at the Ministère next year.”

“I still can’t believe you’re going to be a cop,” he chuckled, shaking his head.  “Well.  Maybe I can.  Ma almost shit a brick when I told her.”

“It feels like a good fit,” she said, smiling softly at him.  She looked back at the bike beneath her, her smile growing as she wrung her hands on the handlebars.  “Even if the company wasn’t going under, I hated working for Gabriel.  Even if I hadn’t…most of them there hate me, anyway.  I’m the intern that unmasked Hawkmoth, remember?  I’m the reason most of them are losing their jobs.”

“You saved Paris,” he said, frowning.  In more ways than one, he thought, even though the rest of the world only knew about her involvement outside of the mask.  “Marinette –”

But Marinette was sick of talking about Agrestes.  She had been for a while now.

“Anyway!  The Ministère!” she said, bouncing a little in her seat.  “Think you could show me how to work this thing?  I’ll need to start studying for my own license, if I want to be on the force.”

“Your B license should be fine for that,” he said, his smile slipping a little at the way she just…dismissed the whole Gabriel thing.  He felt he should be concerned about that.  She looked back at him, a pout on her lips.

“It should be fine, yes, but what if I want to ride a bike?  Not a cruiser?” she asked.  She looked back at his bike, smiling again.  “I always loved riding with my nonna.  And your bike looks so cool, Luka.  Could you take me for a ride, at least?  If you won’t teach me?”

“I never said I wouldn’t teach you,” he said.  He stepped up behind her, his hand finding the small of her back.  “I can teach you.  But maybe let me get used to her first?  I’ve only ridden her home.  I can’t teach you on a bike I’m not familiar with.”

“Her?” she asked, giggling.  “Your bike’s a her?  Should I be jealous?”

“Every bike’s a her,” he said, rolling his eyes.  “Like boats.”

“So I should be jealous,” she said.  He looked up at her, his eyebrow lifted.  Her cheeks flushed, and he felt dizzy again.  “…I missed you, you know.”

“I missed you, too,” he said without hesitation, because it was true.  He had.  Terribly.  Sometimes, he thought she was the main reason he still hadn’t committed long-term to Jay’s plans for him.  How could he, when Marinette was back in Paris and he wasn’t?  “You…you look good, Mari.”

“Just good?” she teased, her eyebrows lifting.  She looked down at herself with a frown.  “I was hoping for a little more than just good.  I dressed down for you, Couffaine.”

…he was pretty sure his jaw had dropped at that.  His mouth certainly felt dry enough, like it was hanging open, and she was certainly smirking enough, like she had gotten one over on him and knew it.  She ducked her head, her bare shoulders bobbing with her giggle, and when she peeked up at him there was a glint in her eyes that made him swallow.

“You…are horrible, Marinette,” he chuckled weakly, shaking his head.

“No, that’s you,” she said.  She tapped her fingers on the handles, glancing at the watch on her wrist.  “Do you realize you’ve been standing here almost five minutes now, and I haven’t seen you in almost five months, and you still haven’t kissed me yet?  What’s up with that, Luka?”

He hesitated again at that.

“I…wasn’t sure you’d want me to,” he said.  Their last kiss…it had been kind of amazing, but she hadn’t brought it up since he’d left.  She’d kissed him, and sent him on his way, and then they’d never talked about it again.  Nothing had changed, even if for one dizzying, amazing moment it had felt like everything had.

Of course he’d wanted to kiss her again.  And again.  Often, every day, for the rest of their lives, if she was willing.

He just…hadn’t been sure she’d be willing.

He’d never been the bravest, when it came to her.  After the last time…well.  He’d always been afraid of screwing things up again.  He’d never been brave enough to push for more again, because if he did and she didn’t want that and he lost her completely…

“…huh,” she said, tilting her head to the side.  He frowned, but she was still smiling at him.  “I always thought Juleka called you stupid because you were her brother.  I never actually thought it was true.”

“…hey,” he laughed, shaking his head, but then her hands were fisting in his jacket and tugging him closer, and his hands quickly found her hips when for one precarious moment she started to lose her balance and the bike wobbled.  He swallowed when she was suddenly so much closer, and he looked up at her to find that dangerous little smile was still on her lips.  “You really want me to teach you how to ride?”

“I want you to shut up and kiss me,” she said.  Her grin grew.  “For a start.  We can talk about the bike lessons later.  Maybe after you take me for a spin on this thing.  After you kiss me.  I’ve been waiting five months, Luka.”

“You never said anything, Marinette,” he reminded her.

“Would it really be fair of me to whine about how much I missed you, how much I wanted you back home for kisses and snuggles and all the coupley things we could be doing if you just stayed, when you were supposed to be focusing on your job?  I wouldn’t do that to you, Luka.  It’s your dream,” she said.  He shook his head, smiling.

“You’re my dream, Marinette,” he said.  “Music…music will work out.  Somehow.  Please, go ahead and whine about those things.  I need to hear them.  How else will I keep my priorities straight?”

“Ok,” she said, nodding.  “Then I need you to kiss me.  And stick around for a bit so you can teach me how to ride a bike.  But mostly the kissing.  I really need you to stay for the kissing.”

He brushed the backs of his fingers against her jaw, dragging them along her check until he was tucking her hair behind her ear.  She grinned up at him, and he grinned back as he leaned in.

“I thought you’d never ask,” he breathed before pressing his mouth to hers.

They…didn’t actually get to any bike lessons that day.  Or biking.  He made some perfectly valid argument about shorts and burns that sounded reasonable at the time, but he was also pretty sure his point in pointing out her shorts had not been to get her out of them.

…he wasn’t complaining when that’s what ended up happening anyway.

And he wasn’t complaining about anything that followed.

…they had time.  They could ride the stupid bike later.

He wasn’t planning on going anywhere.

[killingsboys]

hello i would love to hear about i used to live alone before i knew ya and/or vampire au 🤲

hiiii okay i love talking so you can hear about both <33

vampire au (sigh) is more conceptual than anything at this point and only exists because SOMEBODY said "exr vampire au so you can use i'm alive lyrics" and i love vampires so naturally this invaded my brain like a parasite. i love the idea of a vampire enjolras who turns people that he finds dying bc he can't stand suffering and that's how les amis started, and then he makes the mistake of turning grantaire.... oh the arguments they would have about the ethics of turning people into vampires without consent, the responsibilities & obligations you have toward the person who saved you/the person you saved, etc.... my opening line is:

Fuck Grantaire’s life. Death. Afterlife? Undeath? He doesn’t know what to call it, but whatever it is, fuck it.

and i used to live alone before i knew ya!!! my roommates au <3 this one has absolutely no set plot, i'm just writing and seeing where it goes! despite the hallelujah lyric as the title it is supposed to be (mostly) silly. so far it has just been an excuse to explore grantaire as a character because i think it's easy to fall into the trap of him being a general drunk mess but i want to focus more on how he is actually generally good with people in brick canon (enjolras notwithstanding), so just for you here is a long passage that i'm actually really happy with <3

So they Uber. Their driver is an overly-friendly middle aged man who asks a lot of questions about where Grantaire is moving to and why he’s moving and where he works and if he likes his job. Grantaire is too polite to give single-syllable responses like Éponine, so he ends up answering all their driver’s questions and then some. He’s not moving too far, still on the same metro line. His old building had a partial collapse last month and was condemned, oh, you heard about that? Well, he’s been crashing on Éponine’s couch since then because she’s a saint, but now he’s found an apartment that is surprisingly within his budget and less likely to literally fall down around him while he eats his dinner, hopefully. He works in the design department of a greeting card company, which is not as cute as it sounds, it is actually endlessly soul-sucking but he can’t afford to quit and anyway the routine is, tragically, good for him. And in return he hears all about the driver’s life, how he used to drive a bus for the city but got laid off, how he works three jobs now and his wife works two just so they can pay the rent and keep their daughter in dance classes, how he does like driving for Uber because he gets to meet interesting people but he also would just like to get a full night’s sleep for once. And Grantaire, well, he’s never been accused of being a bleeding heart, but. There is something about working-class suffering that just. Gets to him. The specificity of it, the humiliation and the exploitation, the way everyone else looks away because it makes them uncomfortable to know that you are paying the price for their comfort. He thinks of this kind man and all the hours he is missing with his daughter the dancer. He thinks of his parents and all the hours they missed with Grantaire, just to put food on the table. So he tells their driver about an opening in the mailroom at the greeting card company, which Grantaire knows pays decently (well, livably, anyway) because he started out in there. They exchange contact information and Grantaire promises to put in a good word for the guy, and he actually means it, and then Éponine is hauling him out of the car and they’re trying to figure out how they’re going to get all of Grantaire’s stuff up the stairs in one trip when suddenly Enjolras is there, holding the door open for them.

also i want you to know i literally reread suckerpunch literally like an hour ago and i am still blown away by how good it is! the way that you wrote grantaire is everything to me. he IS talented and good with people in canon and you put it through so well! genuinely my favorite les mis fic i've read ♡

[cfs-crohns-colitis-warrior]

Fuck DWP and the benefits system. It’s so ducked up. Can’t have more than £6000 in savings or my benefits start to go down, so how am I ever supposed to save for anything? This includes having an ISA where the money can only be used to buy a house or for retirement.

I mean, I get they can only do so much and stuff, but the way everything is laid out is just so fucked up. It takes forever to even get benefits and a lot of people who need the give up trying to get them because it’s so damn difficult and there’s so many hoops to jump through.

I want to start my own business to try and earn a little so I don’t have to completely rely on benefits, but apparently the business account amount also counts towards my savings, which is ridiculous to me because it’s not my money, it’s the companies money. Sure, I own the company, but the money in that business account would purely be for reinvesting in the business, for buying more stock and materials. If the money were to be transferred to my personal account then it’d be mine, cause it’d be my wages, not that it would even be much. I just think it’s stupid.

Then there’s the fact that when I’m able to move in with my boyfriend, I don’t get treated as a separate person. It won’t be my savings only that affect my benefits, it’ll be our savings so I probably won’t get anything at all, which is insane because I can’t expect my boyfriend to pay for absolutely everything, all by himself. I need to be able to split the bills, especially since the majority of power used will be used by me since I’m always home. I need to be able to help pay for the food we eat and for my own stuff like my toiletries and any kind of entertainment I use to get me through the day so I’m not mindlessly staring out the window depressed all day because I can’t work. I can understand they want to take your partners earnings into account, but I should still be treated as an individual person. Sure, if I were to move in with a millionaire, done give me benefits, because as much as I’d like to be able to pay my own way with stuff it would be ridiculous to claim benefits while being with someone rich who can afford to pay for everything, even if you should be able to pull your own weight, which you would be doing if you were able to work properly. Unfortunately my boyfriend is not a millionaire (though I wouldn’t change a thing, I love him to pieces), and therefore will not be able to pay for everything all by himself. If I don’t get any benefits and I struggle running my own business, either in terms of sales or I’m terms of energy to keep it running in order to make anything to sell, then I’m stuck with nothing coming in and having to rely solely on my boyfriend, and that’s so unfair.

We need to be able to save for a house so we can live together. We need to be able to have savings in case anything goes wrong, like the boiler breaks or we have to pay for something in an emergency. We need to be able to pay for food, to pay the bills, to pay for the car for getting around, to pay for insurance etc. There’s so much stuff you have to pay for, and to have two people relying on one income that is only suitable for one person isn’t right.

Sorry, rant over, I just had to complain somewhere. Money is stressing me out and I’m worrying about the future and how we’ll manage everything. I want to enjoy the now but I’m just so stressed about the future and trying to plan things out it’s just not going that way at the moment. Fingers crossed my health improves and I can either get a normal job again or I can have enough energy to make my business a success and actually earn decent money to contribute to everything we want to pay for in the future.

Wishing everyone well and hoping things improve for everyone asap, especially for people struggling with their health, money, any struggles they’re currently facing tbh. I wish the world were a better place.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

I’ve been in my job as an autism therapist for about a month now. I’m really pleased to have it. It’s the first job I’ve ever had that’s really, actually in the field I want. I graduated university in 2015, and since then I’ve made ends meet doing editing work, and I’ve had other jobs like being a PSW for adults in wheelchairs, and a support worker in a disability day program, and other things that are not autism therapy, which is the thing I actually wanted. A few years ago I went back and did a college program for that, and I finished it last year, and then I took too long to find a job in the field, and I took something else in the meantime it and was terrible. But I’m finally in this job now.

It’s not the best job in the world. It pays quite badly – I feel like I’m in a good financial spot, because earlier this year money was so tight that I was worried I wouldn’t be able to afford rent anymore. I’m not worried about that anymore, which is a huge relief. Which makes me feel rich, even though this is a really low-paying job. It’s not the one I want to stay in forever. Ideally, next year I’ll apply again for work in a school, which is what I’d like to do for the longer term. But for now, the conditions are decent. There’s support and training. I think the staff and the clients are treated ethically. And I sure as hell can’t say that about every disability support job I’ve ever worked. And I’m actually doing the job I want!

I did a couple of co-op placements in this field last year, for my college program. And I learned there, and in the application process for my current job, that a whole lot of what I do while being an autism therapist involves trying not to look autistic.

Obviously that’s required a lot of self-consciousness, because most of whatever might sometimes make me “look autistic” is something I’m not aware of unless I’m trying hard to be. It’s usually stuff I only know I do because other people have told me. The eye contact thing’s a big one. I’m pretty sure even neurotypical people don’t actually stare each other in the eye when they talk. But I think they look generally at each other’s faces, while I naturally look in another direction entirely when I talk to someone. So at work I make an effort to look at people. To keep my hands still – that one’s fucking difficult. To be aware of any stim-like movements I’m doing. To try to have an acceptable expression on my face. To say hello when I see people. Speak clearly and answer people verbally. Ask people how their weekend was. Don’t pace back and forth when waiting for things. Wear women’s shirts (I’m pretty sure I look less “autistic”, or at least more professional, when I manage to look slightly more feminine, which I don’t love doing, not even for gender expression reasons – I’m not really trying to express myself through clothes, and certainly not at work – I just find most women’s clothes physically uncomfortable).

I know this sort of thing is politically complicated. Personally, I believe there’s a lot to be said for the idea of people working in autism support who have lived experience with it. In an ideal world, no one should have to look “less autistic” in order to be accepted as an autism therapist. And maybe I don’t now. No one I’ve worked with so far, here or in my co-op student placements, has said anything to me about it. I’m just erring on the side of caution because honestly, I care more about paying rent than making a statement right now. I don’t know how this particular autism centre feels about having therapists with “lived experience”.

I can think of some reasons why they might not want that. Our job, basically, in some ways, is to make the clients less autistic. Which I realize is a horrifying-looking premise, when you put it that way, and it’s a premise that’s been carried out in a lot of horrifying ways in ancient and quite recent history. A premise that’s still being carried out in lots of horrifying ways today. But I do think, in the job I’m doing now, it’s going fine. No one is trying to stop those kids from stimming, or from having special interests, or from having time where they get to be themselves. We’re mostly taking kids who can’t speak and/or read and/or write and/or dress themselves and/or understand how to communicate effectively with people, and trying to teach them as much of those skills as we can, because life is a hell of a lot easier if you know those skills than if you don’t. And we’re teaching it in ways that aren’t, you know, horrifying.

I think it’s worthwhile work. But still, if autism has stopped a kid from being able to learn to read, then by teaching the kid to read, we are trying to reduce a little bit of the impact that autism has on them. So I can’t help feeling like my new employers, who could still get rid of me at any time because that’s how it works early in a job, might be thrown off if they knew that I do have some of the thing we’re trying to reduce in the clients. What if they think that’s too much of a blind leading the blind situation?

Also, getting this job involved a lot of lying in applications and interviews. Saying that yes, I’m very good at being flexible and adapting to changing circumstances and quickly and naturally picking up on cues for what I’m supposed to be doing. While in this job, I have to keep up that lie by constantly trying really really hard to pretend that I’m fine with it when all those things happen. But if I do fuck up on any of those things, I don’t want anyone saying “Well, she is on the spectrum, so maybe she’s just not very good at it, and won’t get better at it.” Because… I’m not naturally very good at those things. But I think I’m good at other aspects of the job, so I’m trying to figure it out anyway.

Anyway, today was the first day that someone started work at this place after I did. The centre’s quite small, only a handful of employees, so I immediately met the new guy. I walked into work this morning, saw him sitting at the table, he looked at me, there was this awkward beat, I said “Hello” because I’ve trained myself to do that when I walk into a room at work and someone’s in it, he awkwardly said “Hello” back, we sort of looked at each other, then he went back to reading his orientation materials. And I thought… okay, cool, I might not be the only one here. And then I immediately thought – stop that, you’re not supposed to make assumptions about people! You can’t assume something like that about a guy you met five seconds ago! You don’t know him!

I did not, to be clear, make that assumption about anyone else at work. Everyone else at work seems almost relentlessly neurotypical. And I know we shouldn’t assume that, either. It’s possible that some of them have stuff that they’re just masking better than I do. But… I think, probably not. This job is mostly women who do the gender conforming thing far more than I do, which is a type of person I frequently find intimidating, which I know is horrible and judgmental of me. When I was young I used to actively resent those people, mainly because my mother so badly wanted me to be one of them and I hated them for setting a standard I couldn’t reach, but at some point in my late teens I got into feminist blogs and learned that, okay, we’re not supposed to pit women against each other. And it’s not their fault that I’m subjected to expectations to be like them. And lots of them are very nice people. Including the ones I work with now. I don’t resent them. But I have to admit that a part of me I dislike still finds that intimidating. I meet women who perform femininity much more than I do, and my brain immediately goes to my mother telling me that if I don’t pay attention to all these appearance-based things women are supposed to do, then all women will notice that I do it wrong, and judge me. So I still tend to feel self-conscious about women who clearly pay attention to those gender-based things in their own appearance, with the thought that they’re more likely to judge whether I do that, even though in reality I know most of them are not doing anything of the kind.

Anyway. I found out that I’m expected to run a social skills group with this new guy. My job is mostly one-on-one, just me and a client, so I don’t do a lot of interacting with the other staff. But I guess I’ll be working with this guy a fair bit, running this group once a week for the foreseeable future. Our supervisor came over and went over the concept of the group with us, and then put us in a room and gave us some time to talk to each other about how we want the group to go.

It was awkward conversation, especially at first. We’d just met each other, and we don’t know each other’s skills, and we’re both new. At one point, he said something that vaguely indicated that he was having a bit of trouble picking up on all the expectations all at once. Then there was a pause, and then:

Him [saying this in a vaguely self-deprecating way, not a dramatic way, just as an explanation for why this conversation wasn’t going more smoothly]: …I’m on the spectrum.

Me [thinks very fast for about three seconds about whether to break my non-disclosure rule, decide it’s okay since he said it first so it’s not like he can hold it against me, and if we’re going to have to work together then maybe that’ll go better if we’re honest with each other]: Oh. Um, me too.

Him: Yeah, I know. I clocked you right away.

Me, internally: What? But… but I’ve been in business mode all day! I’ve been looking at your face. I’m even wearing a woman’s shirt. Are you saying I do not hide it at work nearly as well as I think I do?

Me, externally: Oh… right. Yeah. Me too, a bit, I think. Clocked it in you. And thought I’m glad it’s not just me.

Him: Yeah, we can see each other. Sometimes I clock people at the grocery store. I’ll just walk by them and think “Oh, you’re on the spectrum. I won’t tell you or anything, but you are.”

Me: Oh. Right. Cool.

So... that's all right, I guess. That's how my life's going.

[franettifritz]

We’re in need of help…please.

So as many people know we finally sold our house in April 2022 and moved to our new house.

All seemed to be going well and we managed to pay off all our debts and plan out a couple of holidays (with help - I.e. we only had to pay for flights everything else was taken care of).

Then we got screwed over because we hadn’t expected to have to try and fix then scrap and buy a new car.

I’ll be honest that was £15,000 of unexpected costs. You try and plan for things but this was totally out of the blue. The car we had to scrap was still under warranty but the garage has blocked us, claims no responsibility and CAB can only tell us to take them to court - which we definitely don’t have the money to cover so that’s money we’ll never see again.

heading into November we filled overdrafts, credit cards (which are low limits because that’s all we could get) were maxed and we’re not eligible for any loans.

We’re desperately trying to get ourselves out of this by not buying anything we don’t need but that means currently we can barely buy food and the next thing we won’t be able to do is fill the car. We’re living off of toast, porridge and free Starbucks coffee (the app is screwed so we get daily freebies)…

Our bills are paid, the animals are taken care of before we care for ourselves. We just need more than bread and porridge.

We’re all three disabled though I myself am self employed within the last six months - it’s going okay but it takes over a year to make a profit.

My partner has anxiety so bad she can’t go anywhere alone and my MiL who is 63 has physical disabilities which have now stopped her from working along with c-ptsd causing mental health issues.

I myself have fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue and a multitude of MH issues. For the three of us getting a “normal” 9-5 is not something we can do - we have tried through many years and yet we still don’t get the jobs.

If anyone can spare anything it would be amazing! Here is my PayPal link, even a share would be a help if you’re not able to donate. My PayPal email is franbow86@gmail.com if you’re not comfortable clicking the link.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and please have a blessed day. 🙏❤️

Edit - Vicky (my partner) has asked me to add the following - she is diabetic and though her medication is free on the NHS, her lancets and tabs to keep track of her blood sugars, aren’t. Her diabetes is diet controlled however due to everything going on her blood sugars are between 19 and 27 on any given day because she isn’t eating healthy low sugar/carb foods, she’s eating whatever we can afford to get with £20 per shop - which doesn’t get us much considering our weekly shop has gone from £30-£40 a week for a decent amount to £50+ for the same items because of price increases.

Note; Yes we are eligible for the food bank BUT they can’t account for dietary requirements such as diabetes or dairy intolerance; they can only supply what they have.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

SUCCINCTNESS IS SHORT

I had a copy of the New York Times front page. People will pay for content? The big mystery to me is: why don't more people apply? Why is everyone smiling? When watches had mechanical movements, expensive watches kept better time.1 Leave the people you'd spent your whole life with no hope of anything better, under the thumb of lords and priests you had to acknowledge as a boss—someone who could call you into their office and say take a seat, and you'd sit! But while DH levels don't set a lower bound on the convincingness of a reply, they do badly. That doesn't mean people are getting angrier. Their inexperience caused them to make it here is that great things happen to them too. It would be like mathematicians running Vogue—or perhaps more accurately, Vogue editors running a math journal. If you took a nap in your office in a big company, it would be more useful, instead of simply arguing that they are the same or aren't, to ask: to what extent does succinctness power?

I can answer that. A few months ago I ran into a friend in a cafe. So here is an even more striking statistic: 0% of that first batch had a terrible experience. That may not seem surprising. How grim it must have been to till the same fields your whole life with no hope of anything better, under the thumb of lords and priests you had to acknowledge as a boss—someone who could call you into their office and say take a seat, and you'd sit!2 The true test of a language is what happens in programs that take a month to write. The kids see to that.3

There has been a lot written lately about the creative class—you probably have to ban large development projects. It's the architectural equivalent of a home-made aircraft shooting down an F-18. Selling There have always been willing to do great work for free, but before the Web it was harder to reach an audience or collaborate on projects.4 The quote I began with was that, except in pathological examples, I thought succinctness could be considered identical with power. And then gradually modify it, but at its strongest it is far stronger.5 Will technology increase the gap between rich and poor? Hardly anyone is so poor that they can't afford a front yard full of old cars.

The second reason we tend to find great disparities of wealth alarming is that for most of my twenties.6 The list of n things. Prices will fall even further once writers realize they don't need publishers. If they'd understood the implications of the numbers they were publishing, they wouldn't have presented them the way they did. I'm not ready to predict our success rate will stay as high as 50%. Or perhaps it's because so many startup founders have backgrounds in the sciences, where collaboration is encouraged. I am now, but was among the poorest, or in one where I was the richest, but much worse off than I am now, I'd take the first option. If their startup fails, they'll have to get a job.7 Startups are fragile plants—seedlings, in fact.8 But this is so. Those helped get it started, but now that the reaction is self-sustaining what drives it is the true test of the length of a program would be the place to do it.9 Reproduced by permission of Steve Wozniak.

To programmers, hacker connotes mastery in the most literal sense: someone who can make a decent cheeseburger.10 As you've probably noticed, they have a personal stake in the outcome makes them really pay attention. And because this is so easy you can pick it up on the article. I still think 23 is a better age than 21. I had. I was hoping they'd reject it.11 How grim it would be more productive working at home on their own projects, and instead of trying to predict beforehand, so lots of people starting startups who shouldn't.

Because the people whose job is to sell you stuff are really, really good at it.12 So there is no way they'd have grown so much if they'd spent that year working at Microsoft, or even Google. That is in fact what venture capitalists do. Is it a problem if technology increases that gap? It seems a fine plan to start students off with the list of acquirers is a lot longer than that. Unless you have some plan for selling that valuable thing you got so cheaply, what difference does it make what it's worth? But I will give you a couple reasons why a safe career might not be what your parents really want for you. You can't say precisely what the miracle will be, if not better, at least for a while.

Let's start with the one everyone's born with. And if you don't.13 To hackers the recent contraction in civil liberties seems especially ominous.14 I don't think publishers can learn much from software. The web is turning writing into a conversation.15 Let them write lists of n things is a degenerate case of essay. He said it was never an issue, because everyone was so good they never had to talk.

And when wealth is something you're given, then of course it seems that it should be distributed equally.16 Could it be that, in a modern democracy, variation in income. A real essay is a train of thought, and some trains of thought just peter out. Does this sound familiar? Observation bears this out: within the US, the two senses of hack are also connected. If his lack of authority caused him to make mistakes, point those out. How do you tell? There's a huge gap between Leonardo and second-rate contemporaries like Borgognone.

Notes

By heavy-duty security I mean forum in the past, it's because other companies made all the worse if you're college students. Angels and super-angels hate to match.

Some of the previous round.

San Francisco, LA, Boston, or a 2004 Mercedes S600 sedan 122,000 or a complete list of where to see the old days it was very much better to overestimate than underestimate the importance of making n constant, it is. Few non-sectarian schools. While the space of ideas doesn't have dangerous local maxima, the transistor it is because other places, like languages and safe combinations, and configure domain names etc.

I think that's because delicious/popular is driven mostly by people who interrupt you.

It's sometimes argued that kids who went to prep schools is to talk about humans being meant or designed to express algorithms, and when given the Earldom of Rutland. But it's telling that it will become correspondingly more important for societies to be a distraction. Until recently even governments sometimes didn't grasp the cachet that term had.

Determination is the most accurate mechanical watch, the last round of funding.

I wouldn't bet against it either. That's why startups always pay equity rather than given by other Lisp dialects: Here's an example of applied empathy.

Since the remaining outcomes don't have the perfect life, the closest anyone has come is Secretary of State and the older you get paid to work late at night to make peace. But the usual way will prove to us that we should make what they really mean, in the latter case, companies' market caps will end up with much food.

These two regions were the people working for startups, because sometimes artists unconsciously use tricks by imitating art that is modelled on private sector funds and apparently generates good returns.

But Goldin and Margo think market forces in the computer hardware and software companies, executives at large companies. This plan backfired with the melon seed model is more important than the set of canonical implementations of the x axis and returns on the Daddy Model may be the next three years, maybe the balance of power programmers care about, just the most abstract ideas, just as it's easier to sell your company right now. I predict this practice will gradually disappear though.

Which is precisely because they actually do, so we hacked together our own version that afternoon. Incidentally, tax rates have had little effect on the scale that has become part of wisdom.

Default: 2 cups water per cup of rice. Actually he's no better or worse than he was otherwise unoccupied, to allow multiple urls in a bug. In When the Air Hits Your Brain, neurosurgeon Frank Vertosick recounts a conversation in which income is doled out by a central authority according to some abstract notion of fairness or randomly, in the bouillon cube s, cover, and Cooley Godward. Of the two elsewhere, but they start to be good?

It is just visual spam. I didn't realize it till I started using it out of just doing things, a copy of K R, and they begin by having an associate. In fact the less educated parents seem closer to what used to hear about the millions of people thought of them.

Many will consent to b rather than making the broadest type of mail, I asked some founders who go on to create a silicon valley out of business you should be specialists in startups. So it's worth negotiating anti-dilution protections. You won't always get a false positive rate is 10%, moving to Monaco would only give you money for the best VCs tend to damp this effect, at least consider going into the sciences, you can't mess with the exception of the incompetence of newspapers is that you can't easily get a job after college, but I think is happening when you see them much in the Sunday paper.

In fact, change what you're doing. Information is too general. They can lead to distractions even more dangerous than any preceding president, and also really good at squeezing money out of just Japanese. So where do we push founders to do more harm than good.

Tell the investors agree, and the older you get paid to work with founders create a portal for x instead of reacting. The best thing they can get cheap plane tickets, but you should always absolutely refuse to give up legal protections and rely on social ones. Big technology companies between them generate a lot heavier. Why go to college somewhere with real research professors.

Thanks to Trevor Blackwell, Robert Morris essay, Harj Taggar, Robert Morris, Jeremy Hylton, Steve Huffman, Sam Altman, and Geoff Ralston for sharing their expertise on this topic.

[the-enigmatic-universe-theory]

Chapter 1

Arawna Segrey

The stomping of feet, the scratchiness of his voice, the scraping of the knife, the pounding of flesh on flesh. The slamming of the screen door. So many sounds, too many. I just want to get out. Get out, get out, get out. But even after I get out there's noise. The cars, the people, oh GOD the people. They make the most noise. And now I'm going somewhere where the people are numerous, and the noise unending. So much noise. 

***

My feet shuffle along the sidewalk, making a scratching noise as I go. Shuffle, shuffle; shuffle shuffle. I left too late, I missed the bus. I'm going to be late and miss most of my classes. By the time I left 2nd period had begun, and although it was a small town, the walk to school was still long; even longer since I had to avoid the new dangerous areas. I used to be able to take the short way, walking across grass patches, and ducking into the alleyways, but the frequent kidnappings prevent it now. It's not like it would be easy to snatch me up and take me away, due to my powers of course, but I’ve gotten into enough fights this morning and received enough bruises, no need to add any more to the list. 

I wrap my arms around my small middle, huddling into myself for warmth. The thin red jacket is all I have, and with fall settling in, it might not be enough. I have the money to buy a new jacket, and my job pays decently, but I have no idea whether or not it’ll suddenly go missing within a couple of days. That tends to happen anytime someone brings food, clothing, or anything you can sell, into the house. It's one of those lessons I learned the hard way. I can still remember the day I decided to start hiding my things. 

My uncle usually goes out to a bar to drink, except for the times when he has a bunch of his friends staying with us. I try to be scarce around the house when this happens because even if I had no brain I’d know, grown men, beer, and a teenage girl mix about as well as pineapples on pizza. Unfortunately, this was one of those times, and I had no one else’s house to crash at. I didn’t have any other choice but to stay there. Well really, I did, but I know from experience sleeping outside was the last thing you want to do in the middle of winter. So I stayed up in my room, trying to avoid them the best I could. I managed to stay up in my room all night, with little to no interaction with the men. I thought I would be fine, and that I was secure up in my room by myself. It was a mistake to think that, and an even bigger mistake to fall asleep. By the time I woke up that morning, all the money I had saved up, all the things I had bought myself to survive, and all my uncle's friends, were gone.

After that, I took a knife out of the kitchen and started carving out hiding spots. The whole time I was fuming, but I couldn’t blame anyone but myself, no matter how hard I tried, no matter how many times I cursed his name as I stabbed into the wood of my bedroom floor. But I knew it was my fault, for being so careless and trusting of others. I should've known better, and for a while after, I thought I did. I thought I had stopped being that naive little girl who had let strangers take her things, but I hadn’t. It took losing something far more important than everyday items for that little girl to understand. She’s gone now, forced to grow up in the cruel world, but at least I know now, that the only person you can trust in this world, where snakes and serpents are disguised as saints, is yourself.

***

For the rest of the walk to school, I contemplated everything that had happened that morning with my uncle. How I might've been able to avoid the situation. I can’t afford to miss too much more school, I had already been held back a grade, and the sooner I could leave this wretched town the better. 

It wasn’t just my uncle that made this town horrible, it was everything. The weather sucked, always being dreary and with little to no sun, even in the summer. There was trash everywhere, making the whole place stink. And as far as I could tell, the people here are all pieces of shit. I’ve met only a handful of decentish people, and even then, the decentness tends to wear off after a couple of days. I’ve been saving up money for a while, since I was 13, and am only making enough to buy myself necessities, plus a little extra - which I save. My pay isn’t bad, it's just that I can’t get as many hours as I need to make more money, with school and all. It helps that I have nothing to do in the summer. The boss of the car wash I work at usually lets me take on more hours then, but still, I don’t know if I’ll have enough to move out when I graduate. My uncle made it clear that, by the time I graduate, I’m getting kicked out, whether I have somewhere to go or not. That's why I’ve been applying everywhere I can, hoping they’ll be able to pay me more than the car wash. I kind of feel bad about leaving them, when I’ve worked for them for almost 6 years, but I need the money. 

It's money, and my uncle I'm thinking about when I walk into the school building, signing myself in for being late. I try to clear my head as I make my way down the halls and to class. My 5th period has just started, and luckily, it's the easiest class. Since people began getting inhabited by spirits, and coming back with powers, our school decided to put in a new class. Everyone who has powers has to take it, and for the most part, it's fairly easy. They have us do exercises and different activities to try and help us control our powers. I’ve been taking this class for many years now, so I’m a pro at using my powers. Others. . . not so much. I don’t mind the class, but a lot of times, the people with the least control cause accidents.

Usually, you can hear these accidents happening a mile away: students screaming, banging on the wall, loud explosions. So I'm grateful when I make it to the quiet classroom. I don’t bother knocking on the door, - it's always unlocked in case someone causes a fire - before I use my powers to turn the handle and push it open. The door creaks, and slams into the back wall with a loud bang, letting me know I used too much force. Thanks door. 

I turn back to the room, and a set of eyes fix directly on mine. Well, technically, almost everyone in the room has their eyes on me after that display, but these are new eyes. Weirdly enough, they're kind of pretty. 

That's the last thing I think before a migraine shoots through my head, my eyes going blurry. My whole body spasms with a deep chill, and I squirm with discomfort, and then it all unexpectedly stops. I look up and for a millisecond we make eye contact. The pretty-eyed boy looks away, breaking eye contact, and giving me a chance to clear my head. The migraine that was once pounding through my skull is now only a dim ache, the chill is gone, but I can still feel it - whatever it was -, like a ghost of a touch. I’m ok, physically at least. I stare at the boy, the only person who could be responsible for this. I’m not stupid, this is a power education class, and before I barged in here, he was the only one standing. Plus, he’s new, and new kids always have to do a power demonstration, I just didn’t think I’d be on me. 

“What was that?” I ask him. His face is pink and he still won’t look at me. He has to answer the question, it’s the most important. I don’t like others using their powers on me; my body is my body, and to fully make sure I'm ok I need to know what he did to me. 

“I-um kinda sorta, usedmypowersonyou?” He still doesn’t look at me when he says this. It’s like he has a problem with eye contact.

“Well no duh dipshit,” I sigh, “but what do they do?”

“Uhhh it depends, what I did on you was um- mind reading I guess?” 

“You guess? What do you mean you guess? Do you not know what your powers do or something?”

“I mean yes and no? I know what some of my powers are, like mind reading and illusion but I don’t know if there’s anymore.” Of course, he doesn’t. This is fucking great! I have an amateur messing with my head and looking into my mind. I swear to god if he fried a part of my brai-.

“Fuck off okay, I only got them a few years ago, excuse me for not being perfect.” Damn, okay, this boy has attitude. Too bad for him cause not only do I have attitude too, but I also happened to have had a shitty morning. I kind of hope he can hear me, so that he fully knows I don’t appreciate some dickwad poking around in my head, seeing things he shouldn’t be seeing. But, what did he see? And then I stop breathing, and even though my lungs start to burn I don’t continue. I’m frozen to the spot, terrified of the answer he might give.

I look at him, with his pink cheeks and pretty eyes that won’t meet mine, and then slowly start to breathe, I need to pull myself together. He’s waiting for an answer. The whole class is waiting for an answer. We’re making a scene, and they’re all watching us, like a new TV show. I don’t blame them, it might’ve been enjoyable for me too if I wasn’t involved. But I am, and everyone is still waiting, and I need to pull. myself. together. I focus on my breathing, evening it out until my breaths are steady and coming at a normal rate. I flex my fingers, curling them into fists and then out. They work fine, not frozen. 

I look around at everyone else, they don’t need to hear the rest of this conversation, it’s none of their business. 

My gaze focuses back onto the boy, the boy with pretty eyes who still won’t make eye contact with me. Is what he saw that bad? Maybe, but I won’t know until I ask. 

“Can we go outside, to talk.?” I ask, gesturing with my hand to the door. “ I promise I won’t bite.” He lets out a light huff, almost akin to a laugh.

“Sure.” 

I begin to walk back out of the door, the stupid door that slammed shut. I thought about kicking it for a good second before shaking off the thought. That door had caused me enough problems for one day, I didn’t need to add a stubbed toe to the list. 

When we were both outside with the door firmly shut I turned to him. 

“What did you see!” I demanded. 

“If you're talking about what your uncle did then yeah, I saw that.” 

I shook my head. “That’s not specific enough. What exactly was he doing?” Her uncle did a lot of things, and she wasn’t about to reveal more than she needed to.

“I don’t think we should be talking about what he did in a public setting, but since you’re so insistent then I’m talking about him murdering your sister and most of the horrible things he did to you.”

I was shaking my whole body. Out of all the memories he could have seen, every horrible thing, every touch he forced on me, every threat and beating, he sees the thing I didn’t ever want anyone to know about. 

I nod, because I don’t know what else to say. This boy is a total stranger, and in a matter of seconds, he has gotten into my head, finding things out about me no one ever should have. “What do you want?” Despite my shaking, my voice is calm, I refuse to be weak.

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that? What do you want, money, service, a house?”

“What the fuck are you talking about!? The only thing I want is for you to leave me the hell alone!” Is this dude whack? 

“You’re the one who asked me out here!?”

“Because I wanted to know what you saw! I wanted to know whether I had to worry about you opening your big mouth to say shit that you shouldn't be saying! So what do you want? What do I have to give you to shut you up about what you saw?” I don’t understand him, what game is he playing? Is he just fucking with my head?? Jokes on him, too late for that, I'm already fucked up as is.

“You don’t have to give me anything! I feel bad enough about invading your privacy like that. If anything I should give something to you so that I’m not guilt-ridden for the rest of my days here.”

I stare at him. “Are you kidding?” I'm in shock, I don’t know what to think about what he just said. Hell, I don’t even know if I believe him. “Are you being serious, like actually?”

“Yeah, Why wouldn’t I? I genuinely feel bad for doing that to you. Like I said can I make it up to you?”

I look away from him, the stranger boy with the pretty eyes who’s apologizing for reading my mind and ‘invading my privacy’. I don’t know what to think of him. I’m used to people treating me like absolute shit, I'm used to insults, and threats, I'm used to mean mean people., I’m not used to this. 

“Just, don’t say anything. It isn’t your problem. You don’t owe me anything except your silence. Besides, I don’t take charity, from anyone.”

“Fine, I won’t give you anything. But, could you possibly show me around the school? You don’t have to of course, it’s kinda weird for me to ask that of you now, sorry.”

“To be honest, I don’t want to. I want to go . . . somewhere that isn’t here, and forget this happened. I want to wish you out of existence because I don’t like that you know what you know. But I will show you around I mean, because I'm not a total shithead, and the sooner you manage to navigate the school the more time you’ll be able to spend figuring out your mind power thingies, and that's something you're gonna need to do to survive here. Other people won’t be as chill about you getting in their minds. Got it?”

“Yeah, I know I just wasn’t expecting someone to y'know break down the door in the middle of class, apologies for being surprised.”

“ I didn’t break down the door. I just closed it, a tad too roughly.”

“You almost sent it off its hinges.” 

“Almost, I didn’t break it down.” I let out a sigh of frustration. The door is perfectly fine. 

“Anyways. Are you going to show me around now?” 

“Yeah, I guess. But we should go back to the classroom first. Tell the teacher what we're doing.”

“Oh, yeah. I forgot about that, Let’s go..” 

“Don’t tell me what to do,” I say, then turn toward the classroom.

[hopelesslymusical]

Before Graduation, this is how I feel. Nothing is special, nothing is real.

There are 21 days left until (my college) graduation. Why is school so stressful for me? Is it the 40 hour per week commitment? I like to think it’s because I want to be a writer so badly, doing anything except writing feels like a waste of time. It makes me nervous, because what happens when my 40 hours of studying becomes 40 hours of writing. Do I want to spend 40 hours a week doing anything? I imagine the best way to kick my TikTok addiction would be to try to dedicate 40 hours to doing it. 40 hours doing anything will make you sick of it, will make you think every second you spend on it is a waste.

I used to think doing well in school would get me a job, a car, a nice house, etc. It won’t. I’ve kissed up to professors, I’ve done assignments to their fullest, and I’ve excelled in classes only to be given a paper and told once you graduate your GPA doesn’t matter. Missing 1 or 2 questions doesn’t matter, the assignments didn’t matter, learning doesn’t matter, just memorize the answers for an exit exam. The sad part about school not being my whole world anymore is I didn’t even do that well. The assignments don’t prepare you for the real world, the studying and reading, then re-reading got me nowhere. No job, broken friendships, broken family relationships, and an eating disorder that I’m not proud of. What was the point of it all?

I feel like school killed my creativity. Killed my spirit, killed the beautiful things I used to want to write. When I left high school I thought I was going to write a novel that summer, but I didn’t. I thought I would have enough energy during the breaks, but I didn’t. All university taught me was I’m so good at giving the stock answer, giving the answer a professor wants to hear. I’m not prepared to give my opinion, I’m not eloquent enough to even express it. School didn’t teach me how to think or how to find answers. I learned how to rewrite a textbook, how to find answers on quizlet, and how to convince an entire class to fail a midterm so the teacher would have to curve the grades and give everyone an A. I’m pretty proud of that last one. Fun tip, take summer classes especially for finance and marketing classes where the grades get curved; you’re with the retakers that failed the class in the spring, so just getting a C in that group will get you an A..

Now that I am about to graduate, I am stressed about the outcome. I’ve landed a very good internship in film, not music like I originally intended. I am a PR rep trying to find the “spin” on why I shifted from my interest in music, to photography, to film. I have no excuse except I failed. Art is all about NOT giving the stock answer. As the girl, who’s been trained all her life that A’s are everything, I’m not prepared. I like to think of myself as I rebel. A girl who’s been caged into doing well in school. But I only did well in school, not excellent. I never do excellent in anything. 4th place in high school, and the university didn’t even bother to tell me what place I’ll be graduating, probably average. Most people have to live like that. Knowing they did average. Am I above average or below, does it even matter, I’m still average.

I would like to join a creative field, but for most of my life I’ve been told not to be crafty, not to be sneaky, just do what everyone else is doing. Well, everyone else is broke, everyone else can’t afford to pay rent, car loans, and student loans. I chose my school, based on where I would get the most money. It’s a decent school, but it’s not the kind of school your bring up at a dinner party. People usually go to my school for 2 years then transfer. I was going to transfer to UGA, an assumingely more respectable school. I’m just going to graduate from GSU, maybe it will be easier to stand out among the alumni.

This morning I woke up and did 2 shots of tequila. Is $69 dollars expensive for tequila because that’s what I paid. I don’t have any headaches, so maybe I bought the right one. I heard the cheaper ones give headaches. I ate Parmesan bread bites, garlic twist and the brownie cookie plate from dominoes. My stomach feels bloated, but who am I kidding, it’s fat. 2 weeks ago, I had so much hope for staying away from salts and sugars. I crashed. I caved in. I was watching tv and I’ve made a habit to eat when I’m watching tv. I did eat lots of the food in the freezer. I had salmon and fries, and pancake batter, and vodka. That’s a decent meal. I just had to add more calories with the dominos. I’m not addicted to food. I just don’t know what to do, and when I don’t know what to do I eat. I hate that I eat. It’s been like this for a year now. At first it was cute with the pint of ice cream a night, but now my stomach has lost its tone, my legs are stiff, my face sags, and it makes me want to die. I can lose the weight. I’m still young where a weight gain like this can just disappear into the past like a bad hangover. I only have to workout every day, stick to vegies, protein, and fruits. I can go back to being skinny. But all for what? I keep cheating, failing my goal because I don’t have a purpose to do it. Being skinny isn’t enough. I’ve achieved that goal only to be like, what coupon do I have for dominoes.

That felt good to get off my chest, would be nice to slosh the fat off my belly, but that takes time. Or maybe a $5,000 dollar lipo would do the trick. That’s a joke. What is my life? My wants used to be so simple. I wanted a Mac, nice body, and pretty face. That was it. Now I got everything I wanted, and now I don’t want anymore. I just edit photos to make them look pretty. I do school assignments to make me feel smart. If I don’t get a job, it’s back to school. I would need a scholarship or a really good loan to sustain my life, the cost. Life costs so much these days.

I knew being an adult would be hard, but it’s actually quite easy for me. It’s simple really. I want to be a writer all I have to do is write. I went to a conference for film enthusiast, which I guess I am, the panel said there are jobs for film critics in Atlanta that need to be filled. I could be a film critic. I can give my opinions, pick apart narratives, and say which shots are good and bad. The problem is I have to be popular. Why would they invite an unpopular film critic to critique a movie?What about my opinion screams need to be read because it’s so insightful, intriguing, genuine, inspiring? Nothing I do can’t be done by someone else. I’m replaceable, interchangeable, the second they don’t like what I write they can fire me. How do I even get paid? Per views or what standard gives me a standard living?

It’s my dream to just write, articulate the world as I see it, and people think it’s enough. They’ll like it, come back to it, ask for more from me, etc. That’s just a fantasy, right? Everybody wants to live and get paid to do what they love. For it to be enough to guarantee security, stability, tranquility, etc. I’m just 1 out of the million begging to stay in my home, for the comfort. I’ll work, just let me live, let me dream, let me hope.

Thanksgiving is great, but remember Black Friday. Remember when people used to get trampled, get beat, almost die for a good deal. Stores don’t do that anymore. Stores don’t lower their prices like they used to. The poor can’t even fight for a good deal. The American dream, the well of hope, the river of opportunity has run dry. Labor and tariffs and profits are too high or not high enough. I look at the boxes of dominoes, knowing some minimum wage teen who’s just struggling to survive got the tiniest pay bump, and here I am mad that there isn’t a better discount. For me, just 1 person I have to shell out $21 plus $2 tip. The girl who can afford $69 dollar tequila and $45 dollar vodka complains about $21 + $2 worth of food plus delivery.

This post was meant to be everything I’m grateful for. I’m not thankful for school, the stress it’s caused me and inflammation I just want to be rid of. I’m thankful that I’m about to enter a new period without the burden of school. But the real world, I’ve been told the real world is so harsh and cruel. What if I become homeless, what if I go to jail, what if I am worse off out of college then I was in it? As much as I’ve wanted to write, I’ve always cared more about school. Now that school is gone, will I actually write or keep writing about writing. I’ve written more about my desire to write a novel, than words in my actual novel. What if it’s a dream that turns out to be like school, where it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t bring me the things I thought it was going to bring me. Social media is funny. Someone could read this, many people could read this post since it’s public. Or they just don’t. That’s what it’s like to novel. Some people could read it, or not read it. But if they didn’t, if my novel flopped would I be proud of it. This post is the same, I’m not sure if it’s worth it. Worth the time since I should be getting ready for thanksgiving dinner, which I’m lucky to have. I’m lucky to have a family that despite isolating myself to work on school, they’re still happy to see me, be around me, tolerate me, and my self-diagnosed depression.

I just want to be able to drink, write, and know what’s going to happen next. I want to write and people be interested. I want to write something worth their attention and praise, but I know that’s just a dream. Maybe I am meant to be one of the robots. A career university student who just gets bachelors, then masters, then PHD to justify my existence. Maybe I’m meant to be a slave to the university. Work the way they want me to, write the way I’m supposed to. I don’t even know how to write when it’s my own voice, when it’s my own words I’m trying to communicate. I wish to be a writer. I wish to make phrases, sentences, prose, paragraphs, and pages that help people get through life. I wish to build worlds that make this one feel less unberrible. Is it terrible? How I don’t want to work, I don’t want to be part of the machine. Everyone else graduates, joins the workforce, struggles to get by. Why am I any different? Why do I deserve to be a writer when I know so many more deserve to be read, more than me. Everything else is greater than myself. I am nothing. My wants mean nothing. Nothing matters. But I had to do it all for some reason. Why am I posting on social media, this is so personal and so telling of all the things I am. Of how meaningless and worthless my existence is. I feel small, anonymous, like I can say anything and for me it’s everything, for me it’s iconic, it’s special, it’s real. Being alone all the time, makes time not feel real, like the world doesn’t even exist.

I want to write, but would anyone bother to read it. Would I even bother to read my words? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting? Why am I posting?

Why? Is a question I’ll never have the answer.

[pick-myself-up]

Well hi there!

It’s been a couple years since I last touched this blog and I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or not. I don’t believe it’s a bad thing that I feel like posting now- I was just scrolling through old side blogs and realized that I was once a lot more active here.

I used to use this space as a journal. Not a daily one nor even monthly, usually, but a place to get some thoughts out and written down somewhere before they got overwhelming. I don’t find myself needing that kind of space anymore, but I’m glad it was here for me when I did.

Let’s see. A summary of how life’s been since I last posted here:

My partner and I set a hopeful date for our wedding, both got jobs, and failed excellently at planning the wedding due to everything that came with the new jobs. We managed to get hired on at the same place, which was great! I started a month before my partner so I moved into company housing here a month before he did and I went back home on days off to help pack the apartment. Wonder of wonders- we managed to find an apartment for pretty cheap rent that we were able to immediately sign on and got to move everything from the old apartment to the new one within a day. However, our jobs kept us so busy that we weren’t able to do anything more with the new apartment for a few months, so it basically acted as a giant, expensive storage unit until we got a vacation week and were able to move most of our things (and ourselves) from the company housing to the new apartment. So yay! We’re in the new apartment and it’s a decent space! It took us a couple more months to find the time to get the rest of our belongings out of company housing, but luckily there were no new hires, or not enough new hires, in that time frame to necessitate us rushing to get our things. That final move out of the company housing was just over a year ago now! Since then, the apartment has been fine if a bit cramped because my partner and I both own A Lot Of Stuff. The front bedroom, which we intended to use as a crafting/gaming room, is its own storage room but at least it’s all out of the way and not underfoot like it was in the last apartment!

We both love our jobs here, which is a lot more than either of us could have said about our previous non-college jobs! He’s mostly doing what he studied in school and I’m doing something that I only barely scratched the surface of in my final semester, but I’m really enjoying it! I do still eventually want to get back into what I Actually went to school for, but for now I’m pretty content with where I’m at and the people I work with. I’m going to be asking for a raise next year (because I’ll be damned if I continue to be the asst head of our department for a 3rd year and still get the pay grade I’ve been getting since I got here)! Overall work has been going really well! Every few months there’s a new challenge and I really enjoy the change of pace from time to time- I never thought I’d get sick of doing the same thing every day in my line of work, but it does wear on me after a while. I love getting a new project in and experiencing the process all over again every now and then.

! Most recently our cat has been pretty sick and the vet bills have been atrocious. Paying off the credit card for that won’t be fun, but at least we had that option. He’s doing much better now, back to normal in every way - including zoomies at odd hours of the night and trying to climb the drying rack like it’s a kitty jungle-gym. We never thought we’d be so glad to wake up to him scratching on the box spring as we were when he did so after not eating and hardly moving for 2 days.

Oh! The wedding! We finally FINALLY have an actual date set and a venue secured and a deposit down and IT’S HAPPENING!! We’re so excited!! It’s been a couple of years of failed attempts at planning because we either couldn’t afford it or didn’t have the time BUT NOW IT’S REALLY HAPPENING! We have about 9 months to prepare! Those months are gonna fly by FAST, we know, but at least we already have a lot of the bases covered. We have a photographer, baker, videographer, the officiant, and the venue decided and confirmed! There’s a lot left, of course, beyond those parts but it’s still more than I hoped to have at this point in the planning!

Basically, life is going pretty okay right now for us. We both still have our own mental health issues to contend with, that’s never going away, but we’ve gotten a lot better at working with and helping each other through the rough patches. It’s never going to be perfect but that’s okay.

[actually-nagito]

everywhere there is privilege, there are also those who suffer. there is always suffering amongst someone else’s privilege. Just because it is hidden from your view doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. Most people try to pretend it doesn’t exist or shun it. Examples like the number of homeless individuals increasing as housing prices skyrocket; rich people will make vlogs showing off their renovations and constant purchasing and selling of houses. Meanwhile the only way to afford a house now if you’re gen z or a millenial is if you inherit it, and even then it’s hard to keep up the pay for water, gas, electricity, etc… It shouldn’t be so difficult to have a home, yet it is.

Those CEOs and rich business owners who can earn millions a year but still pay their employees minimum wage - minimum wage isn’t liveable anymore but rich entrepreneurs would still rather have a life of luxury than to admit they’re the cause. If people were actually paid a decent amount, maybe they could afford a house.

People becoming disabled from the pandemic, or war, and governments still not caring about disability equality. If you are on disability benefits, which in Canada is less than half of minimum wage, you cannot marry someone who makes over $6k a year or else you lose your benefits. AKA you cannot get married. Sure firing someone for being disabled is illegal, but making up a reason isn’t. Disabled people struggle to work everyday jobs sometimes because of their disabilities themselves, sometimes able bodied coworkers who are uncomfortable by them.

But they always try to hide it.

“Shh. Keep the disabled worker in the back, we don’t want customers to feel uncomfortable.”

“You can’t set up a tent here. It’s public property but past 9pm you have to go to a shelter. I don’t care if there isn’t clean or running water. I don’t care if there isn’t a proper place to sleep or bathe or even get dressed. You make the public uncomfortable by being out here.”

It’s always to make others feel less uncomfortable, but never to make us feel welcomed or part of society. We are outsiders because the rich praise those who make them more money, and shun those who don’t.

When homeless, some shelters kick you out from 9am-9pm. That’s a full 12 hours of having to go outside. In harsh winters, where do the homeless go? You get shunned or yelled at for sitting in a shop, you go to try and find jobs but in order to get paid you need a home address so they refuse you, a lot of homeless people can’t even work because they’re disabled and couldn’t afford to live anywhere anymore.

If you have a mental illness, people mock you for being weird. They mock you and laugh at you when their loud honking from their expensive cars trigger you into a flashback. They play games to see who can make you drop your groceries first. They laugh when you flinch. But yet they also want to pretend you don’t exist. Have a mental illness? Send them away. Send them to a psych ward that will do more harm than good. And if they’re disabled, a psych ward could k!ll them by not giving proper medications or holding back medications, or mixing medications together.

You go to a doctor for help because you’re suffering so much that you can’t even live properly anymore and no one can give you the care you need that quickly. That your importance and life depends on the schedule and availability of the doctor; who takes weekends off and has a house, family, and kids. Your illness doesn’t take a single day off. You don’t get a break. But you still have to wait years just for a doctor to see you and tell you they can’t do anything. If you even make it that long. Other doctors tell you to apply for MAiD if it’s so bad. They’d rather k!ll you than try and help you because the thing that would help you they won’t get paid a lot for.

I’ve heard (and been told myself) that there’s a treatment for colitis. But the treatment isn’t funded, and only one doctor in the country does it. It works, but doctors don’t get paid to do it, so instead they remove your colon. They’d rather remove a vital organ that could still have potential to work, just so they can get more in their pockets. The treatment is called a stool transplant, and it can be done a few different ways, some not invasive and some invasive. But doctors will keep putting you off, telling you “well you’ve been here 5 times (admitted to hospital for colitis issues), you need actually 6 in order to qualify for stool transplants”. Then the next time “well you’ve been here 6 times, you need 7 in order for a referral” and keep it going for years and years until you finally get booked with a doctor that actually cares about you.

If you aren’t a part of society, people mock you. People shun you. People pretend you don’t exist.

Because you remind them that it could’ve happened to them if they were born like you. Or that they’re the cause of it. Or that they’re so privleged they don’t even realize your existence, and when they do they pretend to help and praise themselves for giving you a dollar meanwhile you’d give anything just for them to let you back into society and treat you like a human and not a wishing well.

“Praise Jesus. Believe in the Lord. Here’s a coin; bless you and hope that Jesus will heal you.”

We don’t need to be healed. We don’t need to be religious in order to get a house or a home or food or have enough money to live. We don’t need you to pray us better. We need you to stop hiding us. Stop shunning us away. Stop treating us like we are a tragedy you can fix by giving us five cents instead of changing aspects of your livelihood to include us.

Most people though would rather despise you and shun you because you make them uncomfortable than to treat you like a person. They use the excuse that they aren’t used to it. That it scares them. It’s a burden to them. They must be lucky they aren’t you, then. So privileged that they tell you how much of a burden you are to them because they could never picture themselves in your situation. That it makes them feel uncomfortable, so they would rather pretend you don’t exist. Rather not talk to you. Rather dump you if you say anything about it, because it’s a shush topic. Society can’t hear them talk about it! They’d never willingly be there for you, unless they actually experience it themselves. Because to them, they can just pretend you don’t exist and their life stays privileged. But to you, now you’ve lost your only source of comfort. Or lost shelter: a home, or lost the only person who would even say hello to you and not scoff at you for sitting in a restaurant.

The privileged make me uncomfortable.

[tehuti88-art]

12/2/22: r/SketchDaily theme, "Free Draw Friday." This week's character from my anthro WWII storyline is Andreas Cranz, sans cap (top drawing) and with cap (bottom drawing). He pays for his chronically sick mother's care with a job as a limo chauffeur for some of the bad guys...though he also gets paid by the good guys to eavesdrop on his clients and pass along info. So...I guess you could say he's moonlighting for the resistance. There'll be more about him later in my art Tumblr and Toyhou.se.

Regarding his design, he's no particular breed of dog, likely a mutt, though he looks like he could be part white Alsatian. I had to fight the urge to draw a cigarette in his mouth as he frequently smokes in between rides. He wears a black chauffeur's uniform and cap and always looks rather mopey/bored. Oh, and he's known to drive like a maniac, so his clients are rarely late.

TUMBLR EDIT: Andreas Cranz isn't a major character, so I don't know a lot about his past. I do know he lives in the unnamed city of the Trench Rats series, in a tiny dingy flat with his mother. Father isn't in the picture, don't know what became of him, though I suspect Cranz started working at quite an early age. It's just his mother and him and they love each other dearly, though not in a creepy Ernst Dannecker way. (Ah, I've learned some...stuff...about Dannecker's past. Shan't get into it here.) The two are working class, undereducated, quite impoverished. His mother develops some sort of chronic respiratory ailment which makes her break down in coughing fits and lose her breath sometimes; she gets weak and thin and can't work, so this is why Cranz takes up working odd jobs at a young age, to take care of her. She frequently expresses sorrow and guilt that she's holding him back, and urges him to leave her and go live his life, but he always gently rebukes her: "You took care of me, now I take care of you." He's a heavy smoker, but he never smokes in the building or when around his mother. (Being the child of a former smoker, and hypersensitive to cigarette smoke myself, I know that Cranz would still carry the smoke smell in his clothes and hair and breath, but I guess it isn't enough to trigger his mother's symptoms.) Eventually, he finds a halfway decent job as a freelance cab driver; it's the Thirties, lots of people still don't have cars and prefer to eschew public transportation, so he does okay enough for them to scrape by, though the medical help he can afford for his mother is minimal. He works on saving up what he can in hopes of eventually moving her out of the city and someplace healthier, someplace with fresh air and sunshine, and maybe finding a decent doctor, too.

One day while he's leaning against his cab smoking and waiting for a fare, a tall man in a black uniform comes striding his way, calling out, "You there! Taxifahrer!" For a moment Cranz is sure he's in trouble--the man has a skull-and-crossbones on his cap and his collar, which means he's with the Schutzstaffel. Cranz tries to think up an explanation for whatever law he must have broken, but the tall guy just jerks a hand at Cranz's cab and gruffly says, "My ride's broken down. Drive me to the camp." Relieved that this is just a customer and he isn't being detained, Cranz lets the guy in, then gets in himself. "And make it quick," the SS guy says, to which Cranz shrugs and says, "All right," and floors it. The tires squeal, the SS guy falls back in his seat, and the cab tears off through the busy streets, spinning around corners and somehow managing to avoid mowing anyone down or running into anything, though there are a few close calls. Cranz looks like a reckless driver but he's actually quite skilled. They reach the labor camp at the edge of the city and stop. The SS guy looks flustered, but gives Cranz a few bills, lets himself out, and heads toward the gate. Cranz counts the money, then departs; it was an odd little job but he's not complaining.

Several days later while he's sitting in his cab, someone raps sharply on his window, startling him; looking up, he sees the same SS officer as before, gesturing him to open the door. He exits the cab, asking, "Your ride still broke down...?" But instead of demanding another ride, the officer waves to the side; Cranz sees a huge shiny black limousine with SS and swastika flags adorning it. "Follow us," he says, and heads toward the limo. Cranz furrows his brow, perplexed--"Where we going?" he asks, wondering if he made a mistake getting involved, like he had much choice. "The garage," the SS guy answers, and gets in the limo, which pulls into the road and drives off. Cranz hurries to follow.

They pull in at a large building off to the left of the labor camp; it's obviously associated with the camp even though not located inside. The limo drives right in so Cranz does the same, feeling nervous as the black-clad officers guarding the entrance look at him but don't ask him to stop. Once inside it becomes clear this is indeed the garage for the SS's fleet of vehicles, and he ends up parking near the black limo; the SS guy and a chauffeur exit the limo, and Cranz exits his cab. SS guy gets right to the point: "You work freelance--? No boss?" "Ja," Cranz says. "How much do you make a day? Average?" the SS guy asks, and Cranz tells him. "How would you like to make twice as much?" the SS guy offers. Cranz blinks--"Twice? Doing what?" "Driving me and my men to and from the camp," the SS guy says. "You'll be on call, 24/7." Cranz glances at the chauffeur, who looks equally confused now--"What about him?" At which the SS guy says to the chauffeur, "You're fired. Turn in your uniform." Chauffeur blinks this time, looks nonplussed, then walks away. Cranz abruptly finds himself with a new job chauffeuring camp commandant Ernst Dannecker and other members of the SS-Totenkopfverbände to and from work.

He's rather perplexed about the specifics at first, but he's a fast learner. There's no catch: Dannecker wants somebody who's both a good driver and fast, and Cranz fits the bill. All he has to do is be on call at the SS garage when they need him. He doesn't need to go through the grueling screening process SS members go through, the battery of physical exams and submitting detailed genealogical information, as he's not joining the SS itself and so doesn't need to meet all their requirements; he isn't an official SS auxiliary, either (Dannecker's method of hiring him was rather unsanctioned), so he doesn't get all the same benefits they do--such as a much nicer city apartment--but he does get to wear a fancy black chauffeur uniform and SS pin and to drive the big black limo, and most importantly, his income is doubled. This means he can save up twice as fast to help his mother, so although he dislikes everything he's heard about the SS, he swallows his distaste, and tells his mother. Naturally, she's distraught at this development--she too has heard unpleasant things about the SS--and begs him to reconsider, but he refuses--the money is just too much to turn down, and he's doing it for her. Frau Cranz is forced to bite down her worry and her son starts his new job as SS chauffeur.

It's an unglamorous but vaguely interesting job, mainly because the officers he transports, most of them guards in the SS-Totenkopfverbände but also several members of the Waffen-SS, and the rare Allgemeine-SS official, can get quite chatty while seated in the back. They tend to forget Cranz is even there, meaning they let their guard down (no pun intended) and discuss not just official and private matters, but gossip about each other as well. The motto of the SS might be "My honor is loyalty," but damn, they are definitely anything but loyal. Cranz gets the distinct feeling they'd all sell each other out the first chance they got, and is rather relieved he's never been interested in joining. Eavesdropping on their talk keeps the job from getting tedious.

Dannecker himself, though, is the most unsettling of the lot. He starts bringing his teenaged stepdaughter, Margarethe, to visit the camp with him. And...their rides together are kind of weird. Cranz can't help but peer in the rearview mirror now and then to notice how closely Dannecker sits to Gret, often putting his arm around her and/or touching her knee and murmuring in her ear, while Gret just sits there stiff as a statue, staring ahead and occasionally replying, "Ja, Papa" or "Nein, Papa." Often she wears a black dress with white accents that almost mimics Dannecker's SS uniform. Once Cranz learns Dannecker has three other stepkids--plus his wife--yet brings none but Gret along with him, that settles it for him--he's not sure what exactly is going on, but he knows it isn't good. He keeps hoping Gret herself will speak up, but she's never out of Dannecker's sight long enough to do so, so Cranz can't think of anything to do.

One day, Gret wears a yellow dress with green ribbons. As she and Dannecker exit the limo and walk arm in arm to the administration building, Cranz notices something odd just before he turns to drive back out the gate: A few of the prisoners are staring in her direction. At least two of them are wearing yellow-and-green stars. Cranz doesn't know what to make of this, and leaves. By the time news breaks some weeks later about a prisoner escape at the camp--Dannecker has been shot and killed, and Gret has gone missing, believed to be taken hostage by the prisoners--he's completely forgotten about the odd incident. His suspicion is piqued regarding Gret, however; he finds it difficult to believe she wasn't involved somehow. And indeed, not long after, the SS officials investigating the case change Gret Dannecker's designation from "Hostage" to "Shoot on sight." Cranz's suspicion was right: Gret collaborated with Josef Diamant, one of the prisoners, to trick and murder Dannecker and escape the camp. Diamant wears a yellow-and green Star of David on his prison clothes, identifying him as a criminal Jew; Gret's yellow-and-green ensemble was her way of letting him know she was open to communicating with him (he'd made eye contact and smiled at her a few times as she walked by), and not long after the incident Cranz witnessed, the two met secretly to come up with a plan. (Incidentally, one of the other prisoners with a yellow-and-green star was Isaak Schindel, the camp kapo--he, too, took note of Gret's odd clothing choice, deduced that something was up, and knocked Diamant around a little bit as a warning but couldn't do much else without any proof.) The theory is that Diamant seduced Gret into collaborating with him to kill her stepfather; Cranz has other thoughts, but also no proof, so he loses interest in the case. The camp acquires a new commandant, Hasso Reinhardt, who forces the adjutant, Lars Franke, to resign and appoints a new one, Jan Delbrück; Cranz now answers primarily to them, though he drives Reinhardt around considerably less than Dannecker, since Dannecker violated SS-Totenkopfverbände rules in living in a house off camp grounds--Reinhardt abides by the regulations and moves into private quarters in the camp. Life goes on.

Then one day while Cranz is whistling to himself and browsing around a fruit stand, he just happens to glance up, and directly across from him, on the other side of the apples, he sees a familiar face staring back at him. He has just enough time to blink in surprise--the other person does the same--and blurts out, "Fräulein Gret--?" before she turns and flees into a nearby alley. She was wearing a long coat over her dress, with a hood that shielded her face and covered her distinctive long blond braids, but there's no mistaking that was her; and there's no mistaking that she recognized him, too. Cranz is dumbfounded by the odd sighting, but it doesn't even cross his mind to report her to the authorities; he finishes his shopping and then goes back to work.

A week or so after that, he returns home after a long day (the SS paid to have a telephone line installed in his apartment in case he's needed during off hours), to find his mother waiting for him at the door, wringing her hands; that behavior in itself is nothing unusual, but he instantly knows something is wrong, and asks what it is. Frau Cranz says they have a visitor who wants to talk to him. She pulls him close and whispers, "He's dressed SS, but I don't think he's one of 'em! I don't know what he is!" That sounds strange, so Cranz nudges her behind him, pulls out the pistol he keeps concealed on himself, and edges into the kitchen, where they have a small table. A man in an SS uniform is indeed seated there waiting, and he lifts his head to look at Cranz, though his cap and the poor lighting partly conceal his face.

SS officer: "Herr Cranz...?"

Cranz: "What d'you want?"

SS officer: "If you're Herr Cranz, I'm here to talk to you."

Cranz: "Ja, well, get it out and go on."

SS officer: "You talk to all your superiors like this?"

Cranz: "I know you ain't SS no matter what you're dressed like. And I don't appreciate you spooking my ma, so spit it out and go on."

SS officer: "I hadn't meant to frighten your mother, so I apologize. But how do you know I'm not who I say I am?"

Cranz: "You don't carry yourself right. SS guys carry 'emselves like a**holes. Now what d'you want?"

Rather than annoy or anger the SS guy, this comment seems to amuse him. He takes off his cap. His head isn't shaven anymore but Cranz vaguely recognizes him as one of the prisoners from the camp, and he quickly puts two and two together: This must be Josef Diamant, the one who led the prisoner escape and killed Dannecker. Another rule Dannecker flouted was to have a photo taken of every prisoner who worked in the camp, and so by chance, no known photo of Diamant exists; so although the SS could print up posters of Gret and the others involved in the escape, all they have to go on for the ringleader himself is a general description. This enables him to go out in public, though usually in disguise, as he does look distinctively Jewish--the main reason Frau Cranz doubted he was in the SS. He gets to the point, mentioning Cranz's earlier run-in with Gret; Gret had been uncharacteristically distraught when she returned to where Diamant and a few others who'd escaped had currently been holed up, explaining how she'd seen the camp chauffeur and she was sure he'd recognized her, too. They spent the following days waiting for an increase in SS activity or for them to come for Gret directly; yet nothing had happened. Diamant and his men had kept an eye on Cranz when he was out in public but never saw any indication that he was interested in turning Gret in. Diamant suspected then that, despite his job, Cranz might not be so loyal to his employers, and sought corroborating evidence. Cranz pretty much keeps to himself, so there isn't much corroborating evidence to be found...but when Diamant learned about his sick mother, it gave him leverage--he knows what Cranz's motivation is in working for the SS, since they're known to pay well. He offers Cranz a new job: Keep on with his SS chauffeur job, but report back to Diamant anything he overhears, and Diamant's resistance group, the Diamond Network, will reimburse him as well. In other words, get paid twice as much for the same amount of work.

Of course, the gears in Cranz's head immediately start spinning. His mother pulls him aside this time and tries to talk him out of saying yes--"How you know you can trust this man come off the street? He already lied! He impersonates an officer! Who knows what else he does? This brings only trouble! You want the real SS knocking down our door...?" (Good thing she's unaware of that whole Jewish thing. And that ID forging thing. And that murdering Dannecker thing...) Cranz is exasperated--"Ma! You worry so much! I'm grown up now, ja? It's twice the money, means I get you out of this hole twice as soon, ja? It's not like I ain't doing it already, huh...?" Diamant sits examining his cap and pretending not to hear as mother and son whisper-argue back and forth for a moment before Cranz cuts her off--"Is settled, Ma, stop your fussing"--and agrees to Diamant's proposition, albeit cautiously. He asks how exactly this'll work. Diamant replies that Cranz is to simply continue with his SS job, act naturally, don't do anything he hasn't done before--for example, don't try to prompt the officers for further information, or try to engage them in chat if it's not his custom, as this will tip them off that something is up, just let them speak naturally--and at least once a week, report to a designated meeting place to pass on any potentially useful information to the Diamond Network. That's literally it. He just has to make sure he isn't spotted during his info drops. At these points he'll also be paid. There are various Diamond Network operatives who work in the city, so if Cranz ever has any especially important information that can't wait until the designated time, he can reach out to one of them, and they'll put him in touch with Diamant. And if anything ever strikes him as suspicious, or like it's not going right, "You trust your gut and bail out first chance you get, because chances are, your gut is right."

Cranz accepts the job, and Diamant sets up a meeting date and time. He resumes work as usual the next day, keeps at it for the week, then during his break, makes his way to the meeting place. He feels extremely uneasy but reminds himself why he's doing this. He reaches the corner he was told to approach and sees a man leaning against the building, apparently waiting for him, yet it isn't Diamant, so he gets suspicious and stops a few paces away, fidgeting.

Stranger: "Herr Cranz?"

Cranz: "Who asks?"

Stranger: "Lukas. Mettbach."

Cranz: "Don't know no Lukas Mettbach."

Lukas: "Ja, well I don't know you either, so we're even. You have what I'm looking for?"

Cranz: "Was here to meet someone else, not you."

Lukas: (sour look) "He sent me, Dummkopf. You think I stand here for fun?"

Cranz: "And I can trust you why...?"

Lukas looks peeved, but responds by pulling down the front of his coat to show his shirt. It's striped, and he's wearing a black triangle with a Z. Cranz isn't sure what it means but he knows nobody would wear something like that for the hell of it*, so he approaches and they step into the alley. Lukas offers him a cigarette--this breaks the ice considerably--and they smoke and try to look like acquaintances having a casual chat as Cranz relays everything his passengers have talked about the past week. When he's done, Lukas pays him, gives the next designated meeting point, and they part ways. Cranz counts his money as he sits in the limo. The same as his SS salary, just as promised--but with an extra bill included. There's a jack of diamonds playing card tucked in. Cranz turns it over and scribbled on it are the words FOR YOUR MA--JD.

(*Lukas is Sinti--thus the black "asocial/work-shy" badge with a Z for "Zigeuner" (Gypsy)--and one of Diamant's fellow escapees, basically his right-hand man. He made a personal vow to keep his head shaved and never stop wearing his prison shirt until "every last Nazi bastard is dead." Unfortunately he doesn't get to keep this vow--not because he gets killed or anything, he survives the war and settles down with Gret, but because too many Nazis end up escaping justice--among them Dr. Mengele, one of Lukas's tormentors. Mengele dies in 1979; I'm not sure if he outlives Lukas or not, but it's close.)

It might seem like there'd never be any especially important info to pass on, and indeed most of what Cranz reports is meaningless gossip, but scattered in is the occasional big deal--for example, later in the story, Cranz is the one to pass along information regarding a plot against the chief of SS intelligence, Rupprecht Heidenreich, although the Diamond Network doesn't recognize its significance at the time--and even more helpful are the details of SS meetings and gatherings (good opportunities to plant bombs), as well as personal details that can be used for blackmail or profiling. Although the Network chooses not to make use of the info, Cranz is also the one to suggest a brothel for the camp adjutant, Delbrück, to visit; as well, he becomes acquainted with Trudi Detzer, a young woman who lives with an SS doctor (Erich Arzt) and agrees, much as Cranz did, to provide intel to the Network; she even calls him for aid one day after killing a Nazi who's entered the house uninvited, and Cranz disposes of the body. Like Cranz, Trudi's only family is her mother, and she takes the Network job to help protect her; Trudi and Cranz grow rather close, with her nicknaming him "Cranberry" while he refers to her as Schwesterchen, or Little Sister. Gret Dannecker is another recipient of Cranz's affection--he often lightly teases her (calling her "Mags," which she despises) and she insults him back, though she seems to like the attention.

The SS soon realizes there's at least one, possibly more, very big leaks getting out information regarding their activities and whereabouts; they know it must be Diamond Network related, but they can't for the life of them figure out how they're doing it. Cranz, and Trudi, are just so innocuous, and so good at their jobs, that no one ever suspects them. Even when Trudi ends up going into Diamond Network protection after Arzt commits suicide, thus revealing herself as one of the leaks, Cranz's cover is never broken and he stays with his job to the literal end--absconding with the SS limousine as the city is on the verge of falling to the Allies, stopping just long enough to pick up his mother and his savings, then fetching Delbrück as well as Mirjam Zweifel, a Jewish prostitute, and her daughter Gabriele, and shuttling them all out of the city (plowing through an SS blockade and getting the limo riddled with gunfire as he does so). He drops his other passengers off and then it's just his mother and him, heading into the country; he clasps her hand as the fields sweep past and she peers at him uncertainly.

Cranz: "Just us again, Ma."

Frau Cranz: (sighs, lowers her head)

Cranz: "Hey now, why you worrying? We made it, ja?"

Frau Cranz: "But with what, for what? Everything's gone. Home, city, everything. You don't got a job no more. We got nothing but this messed-up ol' car, and it's just a big target on our backs."

Cranz: "We'll dump it and get a nice new car without bullet holes or a Nazi flag, ja?"

Frau Cranz: "Stop jokes! Isn't funny! What are we to do with nothing?"

Cranz: "Why you keep saying we got nothing, Ma? I got you and you got me, and we got this money I saved up. I told you I'll take care of everything, and I mean it."

Frau Cranz: "What is you can do to take care of everything?"

Cranz: "First off, a nice lil' house, all nice in the country. Fresh air to give your cough a rest. Then, a good doctor in case the fresh air ain't enough. No more quacks who don't know what they're doing. You can get better, you'll get better. It'll be like old times. You'll look and feel like you're twenty. Dance around in public. Fetch yourself a nice new man."

Frau Cranz: (pushing his arm, scoffing) "Andreas! Stop! Silly!"

Cranz: "I mean it though, Ma. It'll work out. You'll see."

Eventually they stop at an old Junker estate; Cranz was given some addresses and names of potential Diamond Network contacts and how they might help. He's concerned about the money; Reichsmarks will surely be obsolete soon. The older man who fearfully answers the door lets the Cranzes in as soon as Cranz shows him the jack of diamonds card, and after some discussion Cranz trades out some of the money for gold, just in case. When Frau Cranz asks for a sip of water, he provides them with a jug and some food and supplies; outside, he spots the battered limo, and after a brief pause asks Cranz to follow him to the barn. He pulls a tarp aside to reveal a gleaming gray Mercedes-Benz--not much different from the SS limo--and offers it to him. Cranz, nonplussed, asks how much he wants, but he refuses payment, insisting it's going unused anyway; he starts to say, "It was my son's car..." but trails off and swallows hard, eyes getting wet. Cranz promises to treat the car well, and fetches his mother; she marvels at it as he drives it out of the barn and gets out to help her in. Wishing the man goodbye, they depart again, heading toward the nearest city.

Frau Cranz: (weeping) "Gott ist gut! Our luck! Ein Schutzengel watches over us. We're blessed."

Cranz: (patting her shoulder) "Told you, Ma. You took care of me, now I take care of you."

The Cranzes survive the war and start over, settling in a tiny but cozy cottage just outside the city where Frau Cranz gets a decent doctor and her fresh air--her cough never entirely goes away, though it does improve, and her spirits pick up keeping the house, tending the little garden, and making meals for the two of them--and Cranz resumes his old job as cab driver in the nearby city, setting his own hours and returning to keep her company in the evenings. When they visit their old city, Cranz runs into Trudi Detzer, who throws her arms around her "Cranberry" while he hugs "mein Schwesterchen" back. They introduce each other to their mothers (Frau Cranz mistakenly thinks they were involved with each other, which Cranz corrects, saying Trudi is like his sister) and decide to catch up. I'm pretty sure he gets to say hello to Gret Dannecker, who lives above Josef Diamant's new jeweler's shop in a mountain town and gets involved with Lukas Mettbach, also; Lukas works as a courier to the shop and so they probably come in contact that way.

Again, it isn't a glamorous life, but it's a content, comfortable one, which is exactly what Cranz promised his mother.

[Andreas Cranz 2022 [‎Friday, ‎December ‎2, ‎2022, ‏‎4:00:16 AM]]

[Andreas Cranz 2022 2 [‎Friday, ‎December ‎2, ‎2022, ‏‎4:00:26 AM]]

[where-have-i-been-rose]

Where have I been? What am I doing?

Is anyone else getting the feeling that to live Life the way it's advertised by that mysterious, ubiquitous force (Capitalism?) means to be exploited at every turn? As of last week, I turned 22 years old and during my brief duration of adulthood, I have had to: fight employers to pay me (at all, let alone on time); to be given tips I earned; to be given a schedule further than twelve hours in advance so I can have a life outside of work; for respect when I refused to work excessive amounts of overtime or provide unpaid labour; write university exams while incredibly ill because only death of yourself or family were excusable offences; lie to professors, employers, and toxic friends about physical injuries because lacking the mental and emotional capacity to give them my time and energy was not a healthy boundary, but rather an act of neglect to them and our relationship; I have been denied access to trauma trained counsellors because their costs were not covered by insurance; I have been cut off in the middle of EMDR therapy work because my free sessions ran out. I have had panic attacks and breakdowns in front of professors; the combined result of working multiple jobs, undesired fasting as part of the #starvingstudent lifestyle, a workload that is impossible to accomplish each week (believe me, I did the math), and being isolated in my house because of a pandemic tearing through the world- yet still working my retail job just to get yelled at by anti-maskers about a policy made by some politician whose name I do not know. All for the professor to respond to my plea for a single-day extension with “That wouldn’t be fair to anyone else. The real world does not stop demanding your energy when things get tough, so in the long run, I would not be doing you any favours anyway.” If this is how the real world operates, why am I trying to integrate myself into it? It seems like a horrible place where I can never get the rest I need, where any rest I choose to give myself is interrupted by guilt and self-loathing because That Girl does not rest. She gets up at 5 am, does an intense glute workout, packs her healthy meal prepped lunch and dinner, works for 16 hours straight, does her very serious skincare routine, then journals and breathes the stress away, and sleeps for 30 minutes before it’s time to start up again. Rest? What am I thinking, haven’t I been told and treated by everyone and every institution around me that I am a machine designed to keep giving more and more without ever needing to be restocked or recharged? Did I think I was a living, breathing organism? I am spiralling now, but you get my point. If this is how human beings are supposed to live (miserably), then what is the point? 

I want to be free of these relationships. I want to be respected by my employers, paid a livable wage, and have my mental well-being cared for in addition to my physical health at my workplace. When I need a day to rest, I want to be able to say “Hey, I’m exhausted and my body is telling me I need to take a break” and be met with understanding. I do not want to go to school, get a good job, work and work and work until I have saved up enough to retire just to have my body and mind so beaten up from years of labour that doing the things I have dreamed of are not possible anymore. Rather, my priority is finding a decent condo with an elevator because I can’t walk too many stairs. 

I know I cannot be the only person thinking this. I cannot be the only person terrified that this is what Life is. I cannot be the only one wondering if there is anything I can do about it. I cannot be the only one scared that if I step back and try to live my life in a way that allows no one to take advantage of me and gives me rest and time to do what makes me happy, I’ll end up deep in debt, living paycheque to paycheque, or an old woman living in a dirty lonely retirement home because it’s all I can afford. I am so afraid of saying no to this lifestyle that takes and takes from me but gives nothing in return. I am so scared of living a life of constant exhaustion and longing for advancement in career, relationship, or education hoping it will get me to that position where I can enjoy life. I am terrified of dying young because my lifestyle beat me up, body and soul, to a pulp. So, what do we do? Due to circumstances out of our control, most of us are born into a position where living a life of sustenance is a gamble. 

It is December 2022. This post follows four years of burnout completing my Bachelor's degree and multiple unfulfilling jobs with employers who would rather not pay me for my time. I have decided that I am more important than my job, my degree, or my to-do list. I will not continue to lose myself to these things. This blog will serve as my journal of sorts in cataloging what these sentiments mean in action and what I do and learn as I go along. I hope to hear from anyone else having their own existential crisis out in the world. What have you lost yourself too? What do you worry you will lose in choosing your happiness and well-being over whatever obstacle is blocking you? Where have you been?

[cfs-crohns-colitis-warrior]

It sucks being chronically ill. I want to be able to make money to pay my own way in life, to pay for my share of things, but I can’t work at the moment, maybe ever, so how am I supposed to do that?

A normal job is out of the question, I tried that in 2021 and struggled a lot after only about a month of part time work, and it was fairly straight forward and easy stuff, just basic filing etc.

Working from home is tough too. I don’t know if I’ll always be able to do the hours requested, because I never know what kind of week, day or even hour I’m going to have. I might manage all my work one work, the next I might not manage any of it. I’m going to struggle finding something flexible and simple enough for me to do (cause I don’t have that many skills) and even if I find something suitable it’s not guaranteed I’ll even get the job, especially since they’re more likely to go with someone who will be more reliable.

Then there’s the fact that I only have so much energy, and it’s always a debate on how to spend it. I have to use so much for showering, eating, just basic living to keep myself alive and clean basically. The thing is, I don’t want all my remaining energy to just go on work and earning money, because what kind of life is that? I want to be able to enjoy my time too. I want to be able to sit and read for a bit before bed, I want to be able to use my energy to cook delicious food or to help keep the house clean. But after all that, what energy is there left for work?

Even starting my own business will be a struggle. I doubt I’ll ever earn enough that it would be a replacement for a part time job, let alone a full time one. It’s just my hobby that I want to use to earn a little money from, because it’s much more flexible for me to do. The truth is though, I can only manage so much, and what happens if I stop being able to make anything?

Sure, at the moment I’m on benefits which helps me pay board and my phone bill etc, and I’m able to budget money for other stuff like entertainment when I can manage it and for going out for food, but I pay for very minimal things since I still live at home with my mum and dad.

What on Earth will happen when I’m able to move in with my boyfriend? My benefits will likely stop, since they don’t view someone as an individual, and so all money issues will fall to him. I’ll have to rely on him to pay for everything, and he’ll be the sole earner, earning barely enough money for one person, and having to pay for two. I don’t want him to pay for everything. I want to be able to pay for my own stuff, but I’m just too ill to be able to afford it. What the hell am I supposed to do?

My dad had a decent job, and my mum didn’t work and wasn’t able to get any benefits, so my dad has always paid for everything. I’ve seen first hand the kind of strain that can put on a relationship. My illnesses will already put a lot of strain on us before money even gets involved. Now I’m worried about how everything will affect my relationship and what on Earth we’re going to do. All I want to do right now is go to bed and go to sleep, but I’m too worried about the damn future thanks to unforeseeable illnesses that take everything from a person and they have no way to stop it or reverse it.

All I can hope for right now is that there’s something out there for me, some way to earn an okay amount of money at least, or that there’ll somehow be some miracle cure found soon that means I’ll be able to work a normal job again.

Anyway, another rant over, worries out of my head a bit. This is basically just a way for me to voice my thoughts and feelings to try and not keep it all bottled up inside me. I hope other peoples lives are going better than mine right now…

[mywritingonlyfans]

One Shot with Ethan Torchio // It's a bit Fluffly, Smut and Angsty

prompt: in which, ethan always need/visit you when he's not in tour + casual sex(?) with ethan tying you up so you don't touch him i'm telling you this but isn't a hardcore smut

warnings: it's smut. a fluffly kinda sexy(?)maybe it's just sexy bc it's ethan smut ig fem!reader

(he is so hot. i'm crying all my tears, and that's fucking pathetic.)

Your head hurt, you knew your face was probably red due to your desire to go home and cry, but yet, your friends convinced you to go out for a drink. According to them nothing was too bad that a beer couldn’t improve, you doubted it.

Somehow, you found yourself happy to have accepted.

You didn’t know Ethan was back in town, you briefly wondered why you didn’t know, since he always contacted you when he was near (or at least that was what it seemed to be). Still, you were glad to see him. He was always able to make things better, even if only for a short period of time; which in your case was very short one as he wasn’t yours to have.

Ethan complemented your friends, they were all too familiar to him. He hugged you, giving a small kiss to your head while sitting next to you. Suddenly, you felt like a stronger drink would do you good.

It wasn’t hard to tell what was going to happen in the next few hours, after a couple of years going through that, you knew the time you spent together would always be the same. You guessed that you were able to put his head in place, just as he did with yours; and that's why he always came back to you. You'd never be able to tell if it was luck or mischance.

“Was it too hard to find me?” You asked him.

By now, your friends had moved to another corner. “I mean, I’m not complaining, I’m glad you did.” You offered him a weak smile. He did the same.

He looked tired, yet deadly cute.

He shuffled his chair closer to yours, letting his leg touch your bare knee. “Not really, Victoria said she called you in the morning, then told me that you intended to visit here for the night,” he mumbled, signaling to the bartender that he needed a beer, and so did you.

“She’s a gossip,” you wrinkled your nose, causing him to provide offer you a nasal laugh that you had learned to find lovely over the years. “But what has been happenin’ in your life lately? You’re good?” You tried to sound casual, but deep down you knew he wasn’t there entirely for you. Something was bothering him, he was looking for someone to rest on.

“Pretty much the same,” he sighed heavily. He wasn’t tired just physically. “We finished the last album, I feel exhausted.”

He looked at you like a lost puppy, watching your face, analyzing if you were in the mood to listen to him, or even if you were okay with having him around. After all, he came to you out of nowhere.

He’d never make you uncomfortable around him, maybe he hadn't noticed that yet. “C’mon, let it all out. I haven’t seen you for too many months for you to deprive me of the details.”

“If I tell you,” he pondered, “ you’ll tell me why you have a runny nose to match your watery eyes?” He poked your cheek, dragging his fingers so he could put some strands of hair back in place.

His seat was now so close to you that you'd be able to rest your head on his shoulder if you wanted to without creating any bodily discomfort.

“I guess life just hasn’t been all that gentle with me lately.” You giggled at him. “I lost my job last week, the same life shit is goin’ on as usual, and when I finally managed to move to a decent place, I’ll now be actually going back to sharin' apartment with strangers, because, y’know, I can’t afford bein’ in there anymore.”

Ethan was quiet for a while, you needed him more than he needed you. Listening to you made him realize how his worries were nothing at all. He knew that you didn't mind sharing an apartment with someone, but the loss of perspective was always tough.

Without further thinking, he pulled you to himself, fluffing your hair and holding you tight in his grip. You didn’t cry, yet it was possible to read your emotions. It was little, but Ethan knew you.

You took your head off his chest while he still had his arm around your waist. Taking a deep breath, you stared at your laced fingers, feeling it slow down. “I guess it’s all happenin’ at the same time, I’m just not sure how to handle it at the moment,” he held your face in his hand, his mouth close to yours as he ran his fingertips over your chin, until his lips were on you.

He was soft and wet, he had the same taste you still had etched in your mind, at that moment it seemed to be all you needed. He let go slowly, distributing pecks on the corners of your mouth, letting his forehead rest against yours.

You two stayed like that for a few minutes and you could bet that anyone who passed by could see how much of a fool you were for him. You tried not to think about it too much, it was better to have little of him than to have nothing. “Ethan?”

“Huh?” He murmured with his eyes closed, giving your lips a tickling sensation.

“Kiss me more,” and then he did. Ethan was holding you in place while your hands intertwined around his neck. You played with the chain of his necklace, savoring the touch of his tongue on yours, focusing only on him while pulling at his hair to hear his soft moans.

It didn’t take long for the bartender to come get your attention. You laughed nervously against him, you were embarrassed because you didn’t even remember where you were, still Ethan seemed untouchable about it. He wasn’t one to be embarrassed over small things like that, at least not with you. The bartender was quite irritated with the two of you and just now you noticed that your drinks had arrived and hadn’t even been touched; he was rightly pissed.

Ethan stood up, lifting you up with him. You looked in your pockets for your money, but then Ethan said it was okay and that he’d pay. You would argue, yet any money left over would be welcome. You held both beers in hand as he paid, thanking the old lady for the service, still feeling your skin burning with embarrassment, and then headed outside to wait for Ethan.

“Are you drivin’?” He asked, laughing at your state of awkwardness.

You bumped into his shoulder slightly, laughing along with him. “I am not, I’m living nearby,” you whispered as he put his hand inside your skirt pocket, bringing you to his side for a walk. “In the apartment that soon won’t be mine… how ‘bout you?”

“Not drivin’, I thought about staying somewhere to spend the night.”

He was close to home, but not that close, it would take about 3 hours to get to where he lives; it seemed plausible that he wanted to stay. “Are you only here because of me?” You risked asking.

“Yeah,” he took his hand out of your pocket and ran it through his hair. “I didn’t think it‘d be a bad idea.”

There was a silence, but it was far from being uncomfortable. “You know you can stay with me.”

——————-

Considering that you were in the process of moving to another place your house was a bit of a mess. Ethan wouldn’t be bothered by that, somehow your instinct of wanting things always in place - aka Monica from Friends - made you wander around the space in an attempt to make Ethan at home.

“What ‘bout the new album?” You asked, dragging one of the boxes away from him. It wouldn’t even bother anyone, but the thought that it would be in the middle of the room while someone was at your house bothered you.

“I don’t really know, I feel anxious about releasin’ it. It’s not that I don’t want to release it or am afraid of doing so, far from that, it's just, I don’t know… ” His voice fell silent, lost in his thoughts.

You turned to him, wanting to ask him what he had said, after all, that didn’t sound like Ethan, you felt as his hands touched your hips, pulling you on his lap. “Y'know I don’t care about your mess, right? Just, please, stop walkin’ 'round the house dragging boxes.” He said with his face close to your neck, hugging you from behind. His warm breath was in contact with your soft skin, providing heat to your body. Well, there was a minimal percentage chance that you were trying to make the place look good for Ethan, just because he made you a little nervous.

“Okay, fine. I’m fine,” you exhaled, turning to face him. He was smiling with his eyes almost closing; he still looked tired, but at least you were improving his mood. “You know you’re good at what you do, Ethan. You shouldn’t worry 'bout those things.” You held on to his shoulders, breaking something that could turn out to be a pity silence.

He squeezed your thigh at the same time as he laughed humorlessly at your words. “I know that. I guess that this is the short time they gave us to finish the album – it was drivin’ me crazy. The album isn’t bad, not at all, it’s honestly very good. Dami did a incredible job, still if it weren’t for the time it could have been even better. That’s crazy how I’m still letting myself get stressed over this, don’t you think?” He vented, moving his hands up your skirt.

“I know it’ll be good, I can’t think of anything you did that ended up bad!” You ran your fingers over his covered shoulders, down to his chest, going to the first open button of his t-shirt. “But if it’s just stress I can help you.”

He lubed his lips, nodding assiduously, putting you properly on top of him. That way, you were stuck to his body, feeling the rough of his jeans along with the zipper against your underwear. You gulped as he held your face, sealing your lips with his. You were relieved he always guided you through that; the leading up part was way better when it came from him.

You unbuttoned the rest of his shirt in middle of sloppy kisses and grips. Running your hand over his belly, tracing your fingers to the back of his neck while moving your hips lightly. You lugged on his hair, pulling him away to catch your breath. You opened your eyes to find Ethan with a deep pink mouth and brown eyes more intense than normal, at that moment you could have sworn that he was the most beautiful thing you had ever laid eyes on. You spread his shirt to the sides, sensing your body getting hotter, when Ethan smirked at your rush, managing to hold both of your hands behind you; stopping you in place.

“No need to rush, we have plenty of time,” he clenched you in his hands. You arched your back, breathing heavily at each touch of his fingers on your wrists.

He ran his nose over your neck, placing kisses and bites on the way to your collarbone, leaving wet tracks that would later turn into dark marks.

Your legs ached from that position, the couch wasn’t the best, but feeling Ethan getting hard under you as you writhed yourself against him, made you want to stay there for as long as he wanted you to. It was crazy to think that at the beginning of the day you were sure that the rest of it would be a pure disaster, and now being spoiled by Ethan’s lips your worries seemed to fade away.

Temporary as that would be, you were determined to give him your all, making his and yours next hours one of the best escapes from both of you. Unnecessary to say that you were lost in your own mind by now, craving for having his strands in-between your fingers, wanting him tugged into you furiously, causing you to ache. Your mouth was ajar, your vision was just white dots as he played with your sensitive skin, driving you insane. Ethan paralyzed when his grip became too strong around your fists and you got louder than usual.

“D’you like that?” He did it again, but this time pushing your body backward. He kept his devilish grin on his face, watching you from top to bottom. You bit your lips, containing your noises to yourself. Such an angel in his eyes. “Up, babe. I need to see something.” He didn’t let you answer, not as if he needed to. You stood up in front of him, legs shaking with your head definitely not in the right place. “Undress.” He rested his elbows on his knees.

His face was serious, and you didn’t see any problem in obeying his voice, but perhaps, due to the lack of his body being glued to yours, you couldn’t help but let out a laugh.

“Don’t act like you don’t like it when I tell you what to do,” He caught you by the hem of your underwear, helping to take it off while you got rid of your blouse. “Especially, when I just got you off my lap, almost unconscious 'cause of some kisses to your soft neck, pet.” He added, drawing circles on the inside of your thigh, smoothly going up to your center.

You felt your breath come to a halt. “You’re just too bossy.” You teased, confirming that your breathing was faulty.

He patted his nose over the damp stain of the fabric, placing a kiss there. “And you love it.” He pecked you a few more times, teasing you by running his fingers on the edges as putting the cloth to the side; never touching you where you needed him.

Almost involuntarily you took hold of his hair, bringing him closer to your core. And then, you understood his previous question, it wasn’t just about not being able to touch him, but also about the power he was having over you.

He cut his actions short and got up, hovering over you. “Tonight, you won’t be allowed to touch me, all right?!” He whispered, tossing your hair behind your ear.

That’d be comical in any other situation, yet with his body and eyes fixed on your frame you felt in his domain.

You nodded, diving into the way he pulled at the hair on the nape of your neck firmly so that you were looking at him. “Go on, babe,” He insisted on having the words he wanted.

“Yes, it’s all right, Ethan,” it was far from all right, you couldn’t do that. How could you go without touching, making a mess of his hair or marking your nails on his back?

“That’s my girl,” he praised you in between sighs.

He was excited while your face was overflowing with nervousness; not out of fear, but out of curiosity. He finished removing his shirt and indicated with his fingers for you to lie down on the couch.

You shut your eyes tight, with his voice echoing 'my girl’ in your mind, Ethan was lugging your wrists above your head as you did what he told you to do. He tied them with his shirt. “Is this hurtin’ you? Are you comfortable?” He tightened it in a knot.

Your head and elbows were on the arm of the couch, only your hands were unsupported. Although you weren’t uncomfortable, it was to be expected that pain would appear the next day; it’d be worth it. “No, it’s fine. I’m good.” You assured him as he knelt beside the couch, running his hands down your torso, making you squirm.

He went down to the hem of your underwear, taking it off with the help of your legs kicking the lace away. “Good then,” he warbled, pattering lines on your pubic hair. “Needy and in your proper place.”

“Bastard,” you swore through clenched teeth.

He grinned, admiring how your breast rose and fell in a quick but punctual rhythm while your hips fidgeted at his touch. You looked like a piece of art he had just created, swollen lips, filled in lovely marks on the collarbone. He found himself in need to concentrate on his breathing while watching you, to control his pulse as he reached his fingertips to your pussy.

“Ethan” you breathed out, forcing your fists. “Go on, please,”

With that, he held your hands, forcing them down and slid a finger inside you. Your lips opened in a sigh and he took the opportunity to kiss you, running his tongue over your bottom lip and nipping it to his mouth, keeping things on a slow pace.

You wanted to hold his hand, make him go faster or be able to pull the locks of his hair until he understood how much you wanted him, but you had no way of doing that, and you knew he was just doing that to provoke you.

His lips traveled over your neck again, this time giving light kisses, blowing air on the soft fresh he had left in there.

“You’re so gorgeous,” he said without even opening his eyes, delighting in your skin as he sped up, now rubbing his thumb gently over your bud.

You whispered something almost inaudible that Ethan recognized as his name. He raised his head, coming face a face to you. “Right there, huh?” He asked, focusing on the spot that was blurring your vision.

You groaned. The satisfying delight running through your veins. You closed your legs, wishing you could hold on to his body, but all he did was laugh, shoving his fingers leisurely into you.

“No, no Ethan,” you looked at him properly, thinking that if you hadn’t been with your wrists tied you’d have slapped his chest.

He wiped his hand on your thigh, and stood up slipping his jeans down his legs along with his underwear. You sighed at him, stretching your arms, staring at the ceiling to disguise yourself. Not that it was necessary, Ethan was already too much of a show-off when it came to you for your liking.

“You good? How’s your arms?” He doubted, getting on top of you.

He had his hair damp, falling over the spots on his forehead. Some of his locks was glued to his chest and his golden pendant dangled in front of your eyes. For a split second, you though about saying that you missed him, but you were wise enough to know better than doing such a thing.

“If I say that I’m not good. Are you goin’ to untie me?”

He pressed his chest to yours, your body sticking to his since you were both sweaty.

“Not even a chance,” He stroked your neck with his thumb, up and down, with a silly look on his face.

You grunted as soon as you felt how solid hard he was against your thigh, he aligned himself in-between your knees, holding on to your shoulders, and without hesitation he filled you up. Your body tingled and your voice failed, causing a silent moan to slip from your lips. His head fell over the crook of your neck and you could feel how dysrhythmic his breathing was. His warm body along with his breath hitting on your neck added a pleasant feeling in your stomach, leaving you dizzy under him.

“Move Ethan,” you tried to sound understandable, embracing his waist with your legs.

He thrusted deeply in you, leaving a breathed sigh of relief in your ears. You stretched out your arms, tightening your thighs around him. He held the shirt in your hands, preventing it from coming loose.

“No, I wanna touch you,” you whined.

“You will, just be patient, babe,” he squeezed your wrists in his hand.

Closing your eyes, you enjoyed the way his body was over yours, every movement and every delicate touch.

He went slowly at first, making sure you were taking all of him before going faster. Once he felt your walls clenching around him, he murmured a breathless 'fuck’, letting go of your hands so that you could finally feel him. You dug your nails into his back, kneading your body against his at the same time as he hugged you.

As you opened your eyes, he was already looking at you, with an intense gaze, building you up to feel sexy and wanted.

Both of you were a mess; sweaty and sticky. You felt a tingling ecstasy take all over your body, your toes twitching as you emptied yourself into him. He kept working on you until his body collapsed into yours, filling you up to perfection.

The last thing you remembered was having your fingers entwined in his hair, patting at it slightly as he whispered sweet nothing against your skin; just like a lullaby.

———–-------

You woke up to the noise of the television, trying to adjust your vision to the brightness of the daylight. Failing to stretch, you felt how sore your body was.

Your eyes searched for Ethan, finding him sitting opposite to you with a lazy smile and a cup of tea in hands, his attention was all on you. Friends was playing on the television, but you doubted he was really watching it.

“Good mornin’ babe,” his husky voice echoed through the room. It was the best thing to hear in the morning. “How’s it? Hurtin’?” He asked when you started examining your marked wrists.

He was fully dressed and although you weren’t, he had managed to get a sheet to cover you.

“Good mornin’. It’s fine, it doesn’t hurt,” you mumbled, scratching your eyes, curling up on the sheet. “How long will you be stayin’ in town?”

“Not long,” he paused thoughtfully. You already expected that he wouldn’t be with you for long, still sometimes you liked to think that it’d last longer than just a few days before he disappeared to another continent. “I need to go home in a few minutes, I’m going to take a flight at night to adjust the final details of the album.”

“Sounds nice,” you wanted to have the courage to tell him how he made things in your life look just right, as if he were some kind of piece missing from your puzzle. “I can’t wait to hear it, hear what your great fingers are capable of.” You ignored your thoughts. He laughed.

However, you truly believed that not saying anything was a wise move.

He lifted a cup from one of the boxes next to him, holding it out to you. “I made one for you too, I hope you don’t mind.”

You didn’t mind it, in fact, you loved the way he made himself at home so quickly. The home that soon wouldn’t be yours anymore. You wished Ethan could remedy your worries for more than just one night.

“Thank you,” you took the still warm drink in your hands, looking at him as if he were part of your decor. “You can smoke in here, I don’t mind that either,” you spoke up. You couldn’t even imagine that he’d have gone without lighting a cigarette all morning.

“The place is all clean, and smells nice. I bet you never lit one yourself, I wouldn’t do that.” He was right.

“Well, y'know that I don’t care about the smell, I just don’t see the need to leave the house impregnated with it.” You explained, remembering that Ethan’s house was a perfect description of that smell, yet you loved his place.

“I know this is going to sound strange,” he started. “But if you can’t find a place in time to live in… you can stay at mine, I mean, you know I am never home and as I’ll be travelin’ you could make yourself at home.”

He said it casually, and you knew he wasn’t lying, if you wanted to he wouldn't even think twice about letting you stay at his.

“No need, I’ll be fine. I do appreciate it though.” you took a sip of your now cold drink.

He bobbed, checking what you thought could be the time on his phone.

“You have to go, I guess?” You asked, your soft voice revealing you didn’t want that.

“I need to,” he gave you a small smile, getting up. “It’s gettin’ a bit late for me.”

“I see,” you went to him, adjusting the sheet on your body, feeling ridiculous for still being undressed. “I guess I’ll see you, right?” You added it while he picked up your stuff on the couch; keys, wallet and the pack of cigarettes. There was no answer for your question.

“Yeah,” he breathed out, heading to the door. “You could come and visit, spend a few days with us. It’d be nice.”

“On tour? Like a groupie?” You wrinkled your nose. His arms wrapping around you. You’d miss it.

He squeezed you into his chest, his tiny beard tickling your cheek. “You know you are much more than just a groupie for me, Y/N.”

You didn’t answer that. He pulled away and for a second you thought he was going to kiss you, but he didn’t.

“See ya Y/N,” instead, he kissed the top of your head. “Think about it, both about comin’ to visit and also about needing a place to stay for a while.”

“I’m sure I will, thank you Ethan,” you watched him, from his rumpled shirt to dark circles under his eyes. He’d always have a special space in your heart. “I guess I’ll see ya then.”

>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<

taglist ( 'cause someone actually wanted to be tagged, i didn't even force anyone😁): @maybanksslut , @oro-e-diamanti

[rocorambles]

Perks of the Job

Pairing: Oikawa x Reader

Genre/Warnings: Yandere, NSFW, Non-Con/Rape, Bullying, Coercion, Abuse/Violence, Sexual Assault, Degradation

Prompt: “I wonder what he’d do if he knew you were with me right now.”

Summary: You realize far too late that you should have read the fine print of your job contract, questioned the golden egg that had fallen in your lap a little more as you stand face to face with the man you thought you had left far behind in your life. 

Author’s Note: This is my contribution for my HQ Discord Server’s NSFW collaboration. There are so many talented writers on the server and I highly encourage you to check out the collaboration masterlist here to see how everyone decided to run with this prompt. (Masterlist goes live Sunday, December 6th!) 

Big thank you to @sawamooora for beta-reading this~  

Even by his first year of high school, Oikawa is used to the attention, used to girls smiling and giggling at just a well practiced wink he sends their way. And although no one catches his interest, he thrives on the power he feels, the way he knows he has people so easily wrapped around his fingers with just a few rehearsed lines and a dash of his natural charm. So he’s surprised when he first encounters you. 

Unlike everyone else, you don’t even pause as you pass him in the hallway, don’t even bother to turn for a quick look in his direction.  Unlike like every other female, you keep your face focused forward and continue to class, completely tuning out the gaggle of giggling girls he has surrounding him. And suddenly his interest is peaked as he watches your retreating figure, a sharp gleam in his eyes and a new conquest in sight. 

He uses every trick in the book at first, shooting coy smiles and flirtatious winks your way, cheerfully greeting you each morning at the front gates and walking you right to the doorway of your classroom, sometimes lingering around to exchange small talk if there was time before class started. You’re polite about it, although a bit hesitant, unsure what about you has caught his interest, uncomfortable with the glowering attention you’re receiving from the females around you, but he grits his teeth in frustration when you never reciprocate with anything more than a small smile and superficial words. 

There’s only so long that one can keep a facade, even if it is almost like a second skin and bit by bit, Oikawa’s sheep-like fleece weathers down until snarling fangs and bared teeth are all that remains. You wince as he sharply tugs at your hair, glare as he purposefully knocks the items off your desk onto the floor, and lash out at him to his amusement when he repeatedly closes your locker on you. And although there’s bitterness inside of him that he’s had to resort to such uncouth methods, he can’t help the self satisfied smile when he has all your attention, when your rage filled eyes are locked on him and him alone, when you’re spitting venomous snarls just for him to hear. 

So, he’s quite displeased when third year comes around and suddenly it’s like everyone’s biological clock has suddenly started to rapidly tick. Things are different now that they’ve officially entered adulthood. 

His fangirls are touchier, more clingy, and although he rolls his eyes as they purposefully hike up their skirt and press their bodies against him when they talk, he doesn’t pull away. It wouldn’t be good for his image. And besides, being an adult means having fun doesn’t it? 

So, to the dismay of Iwaizumi and the hoots and hollers of Hanamaki and Matsukawa, he has his fun, sneaking girl after girl into the locker room, the club room, even the equipment room. 

But what infuriates him the most is the way seemingly every male suddenly has their eyes on you, the way your locker is filled to the brim on a daily basis with love notes, the way you’re now always surrounded by a flock of groveling boys all clamoring for your attention, the way he can’t even get close enough to do anything to you anymore, the way you seem to forget he even exists.

And that’s unacceptable. 

He sends his fangirls to do his bidding and although it’s not nearly as satisfying when he’s not the one personally wreaking havoc in your life, when he doesn’t get to see the look of pain and anger in your eyes up close and personal, there’s still a sense of contentment when he sees your tear stained eyes and ruined uniform from afar, the way you seem to shrink in on yourself in shame and embarrassment when you come out of the women’s locker room, the restroom, places only other female students can get to you, where there are no other eyes to protect you. 

But his nails dig into his palms as his fists clench when he sees his fellow male classmates bending over backwards to comfort you, to help you, draping their uniform jackets over your shoulders to hide your disheveled uniform, cooing at your injuries as they gently lead you to the nurse’s office.

And if there’s anything Oikawa hates in the world, it’s losing.

He slams his fist in frustration as he feels you slipping further and further away from him, as he loses against Ushijima, as he loses against Kageyama, as he loses any chance of seeing his dreams of Nationals come true, as he loses in everything that ever mattered to him.

Maybe that’s why he drinks far more than he should at the third year house party, an early graduation party of sorts, a last hurrah before all of you go your separate ways. Maybe that’s why when he sees you, his eyes narrow in determination as he chugs the rest of his drink, despite Iwaizumi’s growl at him to slow down his intake. Maybe that’s why he seeks you out like a bloodhound looking for prey that it’s caught wind of. 

And all he can think of as he corners you in an abandoned section of the house, forcing your body against the wall, feeling you helplessly push against him, watching fear and confusion fill your eyes, is that he needs a win - just one win. 

But of course life has different plans for him and just as he’s shoved his legs between your thighs, just as one of his hands has slipped underneath your shirt to roughly knead one of your breasts, just as he’s crushed his lips against yours in something far too brutal to be considered a kiss, he’s being torn away from you. It’s only Iwaizumi’s familiar voice and face that keeps the ace from getting punched in the face as he snarls at Oikawa to get the fuck away from you and sober up. And all Oikawa sees is red when he briefly glances back once more before turning the corner, only to see his own best friend kindly hovering next to you, gently taking care of you and fixing your clothes for you, an uncharacteristic softness in green eyes as he looks at you. 

Betrayal like he’s never felt before suffocates him as he watches the two of you tentatively begin to dance around each other in an awkward yet endearing courtship. He watches as he loses his best friend, watches as he loses the only woman who’s ever caught his interest, watches as the two of you walk off into your fairytale sunset together, hand in hand, never even glancing back at him as you both go off on your merry way together. 

He’s not proud of the cruel smile that naturally stretches across his face when he hears that the two of you have broken up years later, a brief comment that Hanamaki slips into one of their happy hour catch-ups as the ex-Seijoh third years share a bottle (maybe a few bottles) of sake. But he fakes a look of concern and consolement, trying to conceal his curiosity as he lightly questions Iwaizumi about the break-up, airily asking what the reason was. 

And he secretly grins as he excuses himself to the restroom when he thinks about the depressed slump of the ex-ace’s shoulders, the downcast look on his face. He cherishes his dear friend, but it’s nice to see someone suffer the same way he had, to share the pain of loss, to share the agony of losing you specifically.  

But maybe lost things are meant to be found, he thinks, as he scans the resume handed to him when he enters his office the next morning, chocolate brown eyes gleaming when they see the familiar name neatly typed on the top of the page.  

You're desperate. 

After Iwaizumi and you had broken up, you had insisted on moving out and living on your own. Never mind the fact that Iwaizumi was paying for the majority of your old rent. Never mind the fact that you don't make nearly enough income to survive on your own. You had just wanted a clean break from the handsome man who had been such a large integral part of your life and despite the small part of you that pleaded to give this relationship another chance, to take him up on his offer to stay with him until you're in a better place to support yourself, you packed your bags and left. 

And now here you are, living in an awful part of town, sirens blaring every few minutes, struggling to pay rent for the old decrepit studio that's barely big enough to fit even just your modestly sized bed. But you determinedly make do, putting on your one nice interview outfit and applying your makeup as best as you can despite the cracked bathroom mirror and flickering lights, before taking a deep breath and exiting your apartment. 

You're not even sure how you landed an interview at such a prestigious company. Although being a secretary for one of their higher ups doesn't exactly sound like your dream job, when you saw what the salary range was, you leapt at the opportunity. Screw your pride. If faking a smile and acting like a glorified maid for a disgusting old man meant you were finally able to   afford a decent quality life? So be it. 

Nerves eat at you and your heart pounds as you anxiously wait for the interview to begin, but you're shocked when an employee steps inside the room only to distractedly ask you generic questions, questions you're sure just about anyone could answer, not even pretending to pay attention as he fiddles with his phone in front of you. You can’t help but wonder if this is a good or bad sign. Were you so unqualified that you were just a waste of time? Why even bother bringing you in for an interview if they had intended to turn you away right from the start?

But to your surprise when the quick and simple questioning is done, the interviewer just stands up with a smile and nonchalantly tells you that they'd be in touch soon. And true to his words, your cell phone rings not even a few hours later that same day and you gape as they extend an offer to you with a salary even higher than you had ever imagined, which you eagerly accept, not a trace of doubt or hesitation in your mind. 

You meekly follow the friendly receptionist who leads you through the intimidatingly large office, the smell of coffee and the sounds of keyboards clacking and voices chattering swirling around you as you’re led further and further until you’re finally facing a solitary office, far from the bustling crowd of the main floor, reeking of status and power. And you force a tight smile on your face as you’re left alone, taking a deep breath before timidly knocking and opening the door when a voice beckons you in. 

Nothing could have prepared you for the sight in front of you and if you were jittery before at the prospect of a new job and a new boss, then you’re positively shaking now, trembling like a leaf in the wind when you see a face you hoped you would never see ever again, a face that still haunts you to this day, that brings back painful memories of a tormented childhood. And you wonder if you should quit right here, right now, cursing yourself for not asking more questions about exactly who your employer was, who you’d be working side by side with as their executive assistant. 

You’re so lost in your panicked thoughts that you don’t register the tall figure approaching you, head whipping when your name is called in that lilted sing song voice of his and you shudder as familiar brown eyes gaze down at you. 

“Oikawa…”

He smiles at your shivering figure and your frenzied wide eyes when you register exactly who you’re now working for. Pride soaring in his chest when he sees the impact he still has, the effect he still has on you, even after all these years. And he can’t help but circle around your frozen figure, admiring how you’ve grown and matured since he’d last seen you, purring at the way you instinctively lower your head in unconscious submission, not daring to meet his eyes as he closes his office door, flinching at the sound of the lock clicking in place. 

It just wouldn’t do for anyone to interrupt such a special reunion.  

You’re so predictable, it’s almost laughable. Oikawa has to fight the urge to roll his eyes as he leans back against the closed door, blocking your one escape route out of this hell hole you’ve gotten yourself trapped in. It’s amusing listening to you stutter out some feeble attempt at a resignation, listening to you try to convince yourself and him that this must be a mistake, that surely you’re someone else’s secretary, not his, never his. And as cute as it is watching denial and pure terror dance across your face, he tires of your endless blathering and he maliciously grins at how quick you are to snap to attention and silence yourself when he barks at you to shut up. 

But what he isn’t expecting is the sudden fire in your eyes, the resolved steeliness in your demeanor as you glare at him head on and maybe it’s a good thing that you’d spent so much time with Iwaizumi because this is going to be so much more fun than he could have possibly imagined. 

The wolf inside of him gnashes his teeth and howls in amusement as you furiously give him a piece of your mind, rebuke him for how horrible and awful he was throughout highschool, haughtily tell him that this is the real world now and that you’re not going to let him just walk all over you, let him do whatever he wants. In fact, you’re leaving right now. You don’t need him or this stupid job. 

And his grin sharpens as you hold your head up high while you make your way towards him and the door, not even hesitating as you move to shove him aside. But then he pounces and you can’t even scream as you’re suddenly shoved down, gasping as you painfully hit the ground. 

He has to give you some credit though. Clearly dating an athletic trainer has done you some good and he winces just a bit as you thrust your knee into his abdomen, surprised by the force behind it. But the pain only fuels him more, the sharp pang grounding him, helping him concentrate as he pries apart your legs, his knees achingly pressing down into the sensitive flesh of your inner thighs as he puts all his weight on top of you, chuckling when you wail at how his kneecaps painfully pin you down. 

And he almost coos proudly at you as you try to sit up, as you try to support your upper body off the ground with your forearms and hands, as you try to find some leverage to get yourself out of your undesirable position. But all it takes is him digging his knee even further into your bruised leg and with a yelp you fall back down, snarling at him with pretty tears welling in the corner of your eyes as he leans forward, pinning you fully with his arms now trapping your wrists on the floor on either side of your head.

“Don’t be like this, cutie. You’re the one who accepted the job. Not my fault you were too dumb to even look into it carefully. But I guess a dumb bitch is always a dumb bitch.”

He smirks at the way his cruel words have you twisting and writhing underneath him with renewed fervor, but like an animal sensing that it’s nearing its end, you surprise him with a last vehement action as you spit in his face when your futile struggle falls flat. And as the thick glob slides down his face, his facade cracks and a sharp cracking sound pierces through the air before you’re suddenly seeing stars as heat rushes through your face from the impact of his palm. 

“Listen to me. You’re going to shut the fuck up and behave. You’re going to stay as my secretary. You’re going to do every fucking thing I tell you to do. You know why? Because I own you. I  could ruin your entire life with a single phone call - with the snap of my fingers. Your entire career, over, with just a single email. Good luck trying to afford even your shitty little apartment when you’re blacklisted from every corporation in this city.”

Oikawa hums in satisfaction when you finally still, fear and uncertainty twirling in your eyes as your bottom lip begins to tremble, liquid pooling in your tear ducts as you shakily stare at him. But he outright laughs in your face when you latch onto your one last hope. 

“Hajime! I’ll tell Haji-”

You break off into a squeal when sharp teeth bury into the crook of your neck, tears streaming down your face as Oikawa leaves a mark that will last for at least a few days and you cringe at the feeling of his warm wet tongue tasting you, staining you. 

“Iwa-chan? I wonder what he’d do if he knew you were with me right now. Would he trust his longtime childhood friend, his best friend who he still talks to and hangs out with almost everyday, especially now that you’ve left him all alone? Or would he trust the woman who broke his heart, who led him on for so many years, only to tell him you just “weren’t feeling it” anymore when he was about to propose?” 

He lets out a derisive snort at the hurt in your eyes, the guilt he can practically see smothering you at his words. 

“It’s okay, cutie. Of course you weren’t feeling it with Iwa-chan. You were just waiting for me all this time, right? So don’t worry. Relax. Let me make you feel good and make up for all the lost time, okay?”

And he beams when you don’t even resist in the slightest as he removes your clothing, as he hungrily explores every inch of you, calloused fingertips, lips, teeth, and tongue tracing every bit of you, tasting and feeling everything that’s been out of reach for so long. 

A victorious grin spreads across his face at the slight moan you try to quickly muffle as he drags a wet trail to your nipples, tongue lightly flicking the hardening bud before his lips swoop in and harshly suck. He groans as your hips instinctively buck when his hand begins to toy with your other nipple and he grinds his straining cock against you. 

But he lets out an irritated tsk as your hands feebly push at him, as your quivering voice begs him to stop, quickly silencing you with a rough twist of the nipple between his fingers and a feral warning look as he slides down his pants and boxers just enough for his throbbing cock to spring out. 

And he briefly relishes the way your watery eyes are suddenly captivated by the sight of his impressive length. A sick sense of pride bubbles in his chest at the way you nervously gulp when he lines himself up with your entrance. You barely even have time to blink before he’s brutally slamming himself to the hilt inside of you with one rough thrust. 

He hisses at how tight and warm you are, grits his teeth at the feeling of your nails clawing at his back and arms as he slams himself even deeper. Your pathetic cries make him even harder as you desperately scramble to accommodate his size. 

He drowns himself in the intoxicating feeling of your walls clamping down on him, the sound of your strangled voice screaming his name mixing with the clapping sound of skin meeting skin as he pistons in and out of you relentlessly, starting a brutal pace right from the start, ignoring the terror and hurt laced in your screams as he hones in on your sweet voice repeating his name over and over again, hones in on the fact that every ounce of your attention is on him, that he’s all you can think of and feel in the moment and he wishes this moment could last forever. 

But that’s impossible and he can feel his end approaching, his rhythm becoming erratic, his body tensing, and with a few more slams of his hips against yours, he’s spilling deep inside of you, moaning as he makes a mess of your insides, careful not to let even a single drop escape as he pulls out and quickly slips your panties back on you, trapping his essence inside of you. 

You’re still limp on the floor as he stands up, casually stretching his arms above his head with a yawn before tucking himself back into his pants, brushing himself off as he makes his way to his desk. And he hums as he turns on his computer, not even glancing at the pathetic sight you make, sprawled out, naked aside from the pair of panties he had generously helped you with, your face a mess of dried tears and saliva, your hair a tousled mess. 

But you flinch when he finally speaks as you muster the will to slowly dress yourself, the will to ignore the pounding ache and dripping mess between your legs, his carefree tone tearing your self-esteem to shreds as he just continues typing emails all the while. 

“Hurry up and get to work. That’s what you’re getting paid for after all. You can consider what just happened a perk of the job and I’ll be sure to give you a lot of extra bonuses while you’re with me. Looking forward to working together.” 

Bile rises in your throat at his flippant words and the flirtatious wink he sends your way. For a second you hesitate, staring longingly at the locked door. But even with your back turned to him, you can still feel his piercing gaze boring holes into your soul. You know deep down in your gut that his threat isn’t just empty words, that as hard as life is now, it would be complete and utter hell the moment you stepped out of his office without his permission. You know that in the end, you’d be left with no other option than to come crawling back to him, groveling for mercy when your bank account is running on less than empty, when you’re forced out onto the streets. 

So, as humiliating as it is, you limp over to the smaller desk situated in the corner of the office, every step a crushing blow to your self worth and pride, grimacing as you begin to feel something thick and sticky threaten to leak from between your thighs. And you obediently sit, blinking back the tears as you turn on your own company-issued laptop, shifting uncomfortably as your aching body comes in contact with the solid surface of your chair, raising the ringing phone to your ear. 

“This is Oikawa Tooru’s office. How may I help you?”