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batboyblog · 3 months ago

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Don't just protest, remember to VOTE!

Yesterday's Hands Off protests were great, thousands of people in thousands of cities and towns across America turned out to wave flags and signs and chant and generally say "fuck this, fuck Trump!" Which is lovely. However it's just one step, if those people don't organize and show up to vote it'll be sound and fury representing nothing. And you don't even have to wait till next year to vote to show Trump, Musk, and the Republicans what you think of them, there are important elections this year, some in the coming days!

Virginia

Virginia will be the single biggest test of Trump's popularity and the biggest chance any group of people in 2025 have to reject him. Right now all 3 of Virginia's statewide offices, Governor, Lt. Governor, and Attorney General are Republicans and that is a disaster. As Musk is laying waste to the federal workforce thousands of whom live in Virginia their governor is cheering not fighting back. This November is a chance to change that

Governor

Former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger is the Democratic nominee. Spanberger flipped a red seat in 2018 and defended it in 2020 and 2022 in some of the toughest races for Democrats, a consistent critic of Trump, a supporter of pro-choice, and LGBT rights she has campaigned hard against Trump's mass firing of federal workers. The Republican his current Lt. Governor Winsome Earle-Sears who refers to herself as "Trump in Heels" if Earle-Sears is elected Virginia will get one of the most Trumpy and crazy governors in America.

So if you're in Virginia make sure to vote, of course, but if you went out protesting Yesterday, get your ass in gear and volunteer to take your state back, and anyone anywhere can donate this is most likely the most important race in the nation this year.

Attorney General

Across America Democratic Attorneys General have sued the Trump administration over its illegal and insane orders, and won. But the emergency injections pausing Trump's orders, including the mass firings of workers only apply to states that sue. Since Virginia's AG is a Republican federal workers living in Virginia unlike Maryland or DC have NO voice in court. Indeed Republican AGs including Virginia's Jason Miyares are filing briefs supporting Trump in court. If every day Virginians want a voice in court against Trump, want emergency court orders to apply to them not just their neighbors, they need to WIN this.

the Democratic nominee is likely to be Jay Jones, a former state rep and candidate in 2021, If you're in Virginia sign up to help him today, if you're anywhere in America and care about fighting Trump in give him a dollar

Lieutenant Governor

Virginia's Lt. Governor is a lot like a Vice President, doesn't do a lot, but like a Vice-President its a set up to be governor, Virginia governors Douglas Wilder, Tim Kaine, and Ralph Northam were all Lt. Governor and of course the current Republican Lt. Governor is trying to use it to launch herself into the Governor's office. Also winning all 3 statewide races would send the clearest anti-Trump anti-Republican message. There are a number of people running check them out and figure out who you like

Ghazala Hashmi Babur Lateef Aaron Rouse Levar Stoney

Virginia State House

All 100 seats in Virginia's House of Delegates are up for election. In 2017 Democrats holding onto the Governor's seat was a big deal, but flipping 15 seats in the State House even in deep red territory was the first big sign that Democrats were on the march against Trump. Today Dems hold a narrow 51-49 majority in the State House and defending and expanding that is so important. A strong majority will allow a Governor Spanberger to marshal the resources of the state to combat the damage Trump is doing, and send a clear message that Virginia is fed up. I believe there's a Democrat running in all 100 districts, so if you live in Virginia sign up to help

If you live in Virginia, or in Maryland, DC, Delaware, southern Pennsylvania, the border areas of West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, or North Carolina, please please PLEASE some time before November give a weekend of your time to Volunteer knocking doors and wherever you live in America you can phone bank and donate nation wide mobilization made all the difference against Musk's sea of money in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race

New Jersey

Governor

Like Virginia New Jersey has a statewide election this year. Lots of people think of New Jersey as a blue state, but it wasn't that long ago that sometime Trump friend and whipping boy Chris Christie was governor, and in 2021 Democrat Phil Murphy was only narrowly re-elected so New Jersey take it Seriously! A Republican Governor would empower Trump, and work in lock step with him to hurt people in New Jersey particularly trans people, but really teachers, federal workers, racial minorities, women, immigrants etc this is too important to sit out or sleep walk through. There are a number of candidates so please sign up now to volunteer for the nominee when thats decided in June. And check out the candidates maybe there's someone you feel strongly about volunteering in the primary

Ras Baraka Steven Fulop Josh Gottheimer Mikie Sherrill Sean Spiller Stephen Sweeney

State House

Like Virginia New Jersey's state House is up for re-election, all 80 seats. Democrats are running in every single district and if you're in New Jersey please please sign up to help them

Electing a Democrat by a strong margin and growing the Democratic majority in the State General Assembly will send a strong message and better enable New Jersey to resist Trump and mitigate the damage. So if you're in New Jersey don't make the mistake America did and sleep walk through this election, Volunteer get involved Donate and for everyone outside of New Jersey if you know anyone in the state, friends, family etc call them, text them check that they know whats up.

Pennsylvania

Supreme Court Retention Election

Supreme Court Justices in Pennsylvania are elected to ten year terms and when a term is up face and up or down vote, a retention vote, on if the voters want them to have another 10 year term or to call a special election to replace them. This year 3 Democrats on the court face retention elections and like in Wisconsin Elon Musk will pour money into these races like water to try to unseat the Democrats and then elect Republicans in the special elections that follow. If Musk were to be successful, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court would flip from Democratic to Republican control. This would put abortion rights and LGBT rights on the chopping block. In 2020-21 the PA Supreme Court proved a key stop to Trump's attempts to steal that election and a Republican majority paid for by Musk would likely roll over for Republican fraud claims.

The Democrats are

Christine Donohue Volunteer Donate

Kevin Dougherty Volunteer Donate

David Wecht Volunteer Donate

Mississippi

Redistricting elections

10 State Senate and 5 State House elections are going to be held in Mississippi in November after a federal court ruled that the state was illegally discriminating against black voters and needed to increase the number of black majority districts in the state. A lot of people discount Mississippi as a deep red state, and it is, but in 2019 and 2023 Democrats Jim Hood and Brandon Presley got amazingly close to winning the Governorship, Republican Tate Reeves is literally the least popular governor in America. Even in Mississippi Republicans are in trouble and if you live down there you can get in some Good Trouble. So Volunteer with the Mississippi Democrats

US House Special Elections

The two House special elections in Florida got a lot of attention but there are two more coming up. They're both in deep blue districts but strong turnout and wider than normal margins send a message and getting involved now is good practice for the future

Arizona's 7th

Called to fill Congressman Raúl Grijalva seat after Grijalva passed away last month it'll be held on September 23, 2025. I normally wouldn't endorse but someone I've followed and liked for a long time is in the race, Daniel Hernández a Mexican-Jewish American, former state rep, former aid to Congresswoman Gabby Giffords who saved her life during the 2011 shooting, he's a good egg, if you're in Arizona please support him

Texas 18th

Texas 18th needs a new Congressperson after Freshman Congressman and former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner passed away after just a month on the job. Turner himself stepped in to replace Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee after she passed away in late 2024 after already being re-nominated for the seat. Since it's a safe blue seat thats largely black and hispanic Republican Governor Greg Abbot is just refusing to call a special election, with House Democrats and Texas Democrats threatening to sue if he doesn't soon. Any ways I also have a candidate I've followed for a long time, 26 year old Isaiah Martin, who was a senior aid to Congresswoman Jackson Lee and briefly ran for the seat before Jackson Lee decided to run for re-election. He's a loud voice attacking Trump and is running an aggressive campaign all about standing up to Trump and bring the fight to the Republicans, Please Support Him

State Special Elections

there are state legislative special elections coming up in 15 states and some as early as this month!

Alabama

California

Connecticut

Florida

Georgia

Iowa

Massachusetts

Michigan

Minnesota

Missouri

New Hampshire

New York

Oklahoma

South Carolina

Washington

Finally wherever you are there is almost certainly a city, town, county election going on many states hold those elections at weird times in June or September check out Run For Something for young first time progressives running for local office near you

Run For Something 2025 Candidates

#politics #political #US politics #american politics #elections #vote #voting #Virginia #new jersey #mississippi #pennsylvania #Texas #arizona

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redlenai · 2 months ago

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So I've seen this circulating around, and anyway, here some yapping that prob none of you will care about.

Sorry to that person for disrespecting their Proship DNI but its important:

Several donation campaigns from different individuals and families are not going to look high in numbers compared to a single campaign. Like really, sum every Gaza campaign and lets see how different those numbers are.

This take is disrespectful to all the people, from individuals to especially content creators that have made campaigns and donathons to provide food, medical aid, Sim chips, money and more to help citizens in need.

Of course, as we are all disperse, we are all aiming to different campaigns, helping different individuals or groups, is not going to be very visible for you, is not going to be that noticeable, but those numbers you see in AO3 are nothing compared to what people have been doing

And a lot of people have been trying to be surpportive, even when there are scammers lurking and attempting to take advantage of others's tragedy, Tumblr is full of bots pretending to be people from Gaza, tagging people in campaigns we don't know for sure are genuine. Receiving anonymous or from recently made accounts requests to donate or spread campaigns that again, we cannot confirm entirely if are genuine. there is people being supportive, there is people donating, others working hard or going out of their way doing freebies to help. And yet that donated money could probably have gone towards someone faking this whole time but since you don't see that number competing with the evil red site, nah, it must be we are all a bunch of [assumptions and projections].

If you really took part on this, you'll know this, you wouldn't need to be told this. Sorry to make this assumption, but sharing some links begging others to donate is not the same as actually donating and helping people

And with that said, to everyone else:

Make sure that donation campaigns can accept money without credit/debit cards, a lot of people from certain countries don't have international ones, just paypals or virtual wallets so please make sure its as accessible as possible to donate

And just to be clear, I'm POC, I have been donating money to causes since I was 17 when I started making comms, Local and internationally. I don't brag often about my good deeds because I don't have a need to look like a good person, I don't seek praise nor headpats. Because I've learned from a young age that if you give a hand there is one fucker grabing your whole arm, torso, and dragging you into falling with them as well.

I'm anti censorship, that doesn't mean I love everything that is made, but goddamn I don't go out of my way sending anonymous death threats, targeting people, harassing others or using that as an excuse to be racist, xenophobic, sexist or whatever. Because surely I received that treatment from the lovely morally superior fighters of the pure, sane and acceptable.

And please, READ this, process it, before coming to conclussions like a strawpage gimmick I received after making this post on a tweet saying "OH SO YOU THINK IS OK TO DONATE TO A ZIONIST PLATFORM JUST SAY YOU'RE RACIST" I didn't talk about it, read again where is my focus: - Learn to fucking count - Know the difference between several different targets instead of a focalized one - Make donations as accessible as possible and don't water down other people's efforts

#AO3 #the same discourse all over again #Palestina #Gaza #Aboutb the donation campaigns #antis of course making this about AO3 instead of focusing on the MVPs that are doing all the leg work #but they think they did oh so much for just sharing a link after bitching about something

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canary3d-obsessed · 2 years ago

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Restless Rewatch: The Untamed, Episode 38 part one

(Masterpost) (Pinboard) (whole thing on AO3)

Warning! Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

OK But Why?

This tale-within-a-tale is excruciating, yeah? So let's start off by considering why it even exists. Yi City feels like, if not a fully separate story, a pretty complete arc that can play as its own little movie. And it's incredibly sad, in every direction. While it may have begun life, in its originally-written form, as a different story exploring some of the same themes, MXTX placed it in the novel deliberately, and the producers of CQL included it deliberately. Why? Other than the, you know, catharsis of a well-wrought tragedy?

I think the answer is that it tells a set of parallel stories, alternate versions of the stories our main characters inhabit, with different outcomes driven by the character's choices. There's an obvious parallel between Lan Wangji's grief and Song Lan's, and another clear one between Wei Wuxian's core donation and Xiao Xingchen's eyeball donation.

And there's an important comparison to be made between Xue Yang and Wei Wuxian, two demonic cultivators. They share some formative experiences, but have followed radically different paths, shaped, at a key moment, by another person's choice.

Overall, the Yi City story illustrates how choices made in a moment affect not just an individual life, but ripple outward into other lives. So be prepared for me to point out parallels even more than usual, as we go through these episodes.

Empathy

We start off learning about Empathy and how it’s sooper dangerous, which means of course Wei Wuxian is totally down for it and probably invented it. He gathers the kids around and assigns Jin Ling to be the person in charge of supervising and deciding when to pull him out of the matrix link.

Jin Ling is surprised and reluctant so teacher’s pet Sizhui jumps forward and volunteers.

Wei Wuxian asks Jin Ling for his Jiang clarity bell, which is on a tassel that used to be Jiang Yanli’s.

(more behind the cut!)

Once the bell/tassel is out of Jin Ling’s hand, however, he changes his mind and snatches it, and the responsibility, back.

It seems like Sizhui might recognize this tassel?

It’s like the one Jiang Yanli gave Wei Wuxian when they met up before her wedding, which means Wei Wuxian would have had it with him during their year in the burial mounds.

Jingyi disapproves of Jin Ling’s mind-changing, which is a little unfair since JL didn’t actually say “no” prior to Sizhui putting in his oar. (Sizhui is entirely loveable, but he is also a pushy brown-noser just like Lan Wangji was at his age. He just does it so sweetly that nobody minds.)

Sizhui, also like his Lan dad, has made it his life’s mission to manage a loudmouth hothead’s temper for him.

Heading into empathy with A-Qing, we get flashes of bits of the story that we're about to see in depth. Then we jump to "ten years ago" which, given the way this series does math, probably means seven years ago.

Side note: A-Qing has managed to keep her hair looking pretty cute despite being 90% dead.

Splish Splash

This particular section of the Wuxia River of Sadness is reserved for people who are contemplating the total mess they have made of their lives (gifset here), but A-Qing didn't get that memo, so she's having a nice time splashing joyfully without a care in the world.

A-Qing isn't about drama or being depressed, even when things are pretty difficult. She has found a big rock to sit on and is having a nice day hanging out on it.

Then she goes skipping along singing "la la la la" (which is the same sound in Chinese as we make in English when we're singing and don't know the words, incidentally). Ok, show, we get it, she's happy and carefree. I sure hope she doesn't get involved in any weird relationships.

Grifting

She sees a couple of women walking on the path and she starts pretending to be blind. In the book, this pretense was facilitated by her having completely white eyes, but in the show she has normal brown eyes, until she actually is blinded by Xue Yang. So her entire pretense of being blind is to unfocus her eyes a bit and wave her hands around...

...with frequent intervals where she thinks no-one is watching her, and she acts 100% like she can see. Somehow she is almost never busted for this.

The ladies give her a steamed bun and whisper loudly to each other about how pitiful she is.

Then she heads into town for a little grifting, picking a wealthy douchebag as a mark. She bumps into him and steals his money bag, which he doesn't notice because he's too busy creeping on her.

She's annoyed and disappointed that he doesn't have a lot of money.

Hey Pretty, Don’t You Want To Take a Ride With Me

Next she bumps into (and robs) Xiao Xingchen, who is actually blind, so he doesn’t notice her noticing how extremely pretty he is.

He does notice that she has robbed him, however.

Did you know if you have your eyes removed or even just damaged so you can't see any more, your eye sockets and/or tear ducts will bleed pretty much forever? Yeah, me neither.

Xiao Xingchen immediately takes charge of A-Qing, telling her to walk more slowly and then telling her - kindly - to return his money purse. Before she can answer him, the rich douchebag comes back to yell at her and try to hit her. Xiao Xingchen stops him and smooths over the situation, and then lectures Ah Qing about stealing and how it's bad. But he tells her to keep his money, so - mixed messages, bro.

She calls him gege and says that since he's blind and she's blind, she's going to follow him forever. He’s like, okey dokey, and they walk off together. Is she really the first person (since Song Lan) who’s had this idea about him? He is *very* pretty, after all.

It's unclear to me if she's calling him gege in the sense of “orphan girl who wants a family,” or in the sense of “mostly-grown-up woman who would like to Hit That.” Xiao Xingchen appears to take it as the former; he is too gay virtuous for the other option.

Two seconds after they decide to stay together, they encounter Xue Yang lying injured by the side of the road. A-Qing pretends she didn’t see him, and almost successfully wangles a piggyback ride out of Xiao Xingchen.

But then he hears Xue Yang and immediately decides to rescue him, like the do-gooder Xue Yang despises him for being.

Xue Yang gets the romance-tropey piggyback ride that A-Qing was hoping for. Girl, the time to stop trying to seduce your gay male friend is 5 minutes before you started, ok?

So...why was Xue Yang lying by the side of the road with a stab wound? Who gave it to him? If Jin Guangyao was sick of him, he would have stabbed him 100% fatally, and he wouldn't have let him hang on to Tiger Seal 2.0. And presumably Xue Yang wouldn’t think of him as a friend any more. It’s a mystery.

The new throuple decide to go to the creepiest abandoned walled city that has ever existed, and head past all the regular houses to set up camp in the morgue, for some reason. Not even inside one of the buildings; just out in the courtyard with a bunch of possibly-occupied coffins. Xiao Xingchen is so fucking weird.

Each Unhappy Family is Unhappy in its Own Way

Xiao Xingchen gets to work patching Xue Yang up, and Xue Yang wakes up and recognizes him. A-Qing explains that they are blind and tells him not to be rude about it.

Xue Yang takes a second to process the situation, and then decided he’s going to hide his identity and make nice with Xiao Xingchen. Proving that found family can also have hideous toxic dynamics.

Xue Yang is very careful to keep XXC from touching his hand, since that would give away his identity. He has a...prosthetic finger? He wears a black glove and keeps his pinky finger straight so we know it's a replacement, or injured, or something.

I think this is a concession to Wang Haoxuan having ten functional fingers and the show having a limited CGI budget. In a real sword-based society, missing a finger is probably not particularly uncommon, and he would probably just rock the nine-fingered look without having a special glove.

At this point, the complex interactions of the trio get rolling. Xiao Xingchen is honestly kind, Xue Yang is fake-kind, A-Qing is fake-unaware with Xue Yang and is unable to make Xiao Xingchen understand the problem, and Xiao Xingchen is genuinely unaware of everything.

We spend a fairly large amount of time with Xue Yang and Xiao Xingchen playing happy families. As part of his false persona, Xue Yang adopts a coy and whiny tone when talking to his pet white-clad cultivator, remarkably like another demonic cultivator we know.

I’m pretty sure Wei Wuxian has never managed to cop a feel while his sweetie climbs up a ladder, however.

Then again, neither Lan Wangji nor Wei Wuxian has ever needed a ladder to get onto a roof, so maybe it’s just a lack of opportunity.

This relationship, on the surface, is cute and sweet, which just makes the reality of it more disturbing. It’s super uncomfortable to watch, but there’s more than manipulation happening in these interactions. As Xue Yang flits around doing domestic tasks like patching the roof of the crappy outdoor shelter that they absolutely do not need to be using, he tells Xiao Xingchen various true things about his early life, and we begin to see what shaped him.

Xue Yang (like OP) is obsessed with candy. In Xue Yang’s case, he was a hungry street kid who loved candy but couldn’t usually have it because of poverty. We learn that he has skills in patching up inadequate housing because he did it growing up.

And we learn that he was beaten a lot.

So he and Wei Wuxian have these things in common - except now Wei Wuxian gets his sugar from alcohol, not from candy. And Wei Wuxian’s handyman skills are used to make a home for his former enemies in the burial grounds, while Xue Yang’s are used - also in a cemetery, of sorts - to manipulate and trap his enemy.

I Want Candy

In classic predator form, Xue Yang uses candy to lure A-Qing into coming within stabbing range, because he thinks she’s faking her blindness and wants to test her.

I find him super attractive right here in spite of his evilness. I’m pretty sure it’s because he’s offering candy. (OP goes and gets a jolly rancher out of her purse).

After calling her over, he draws his sword with a super-loud "sshshk" noise that she inexplicably doesn't notice, and she bravely walks up to, and nearly on to, the point of the sword.

This shocks him and convinces him that she's really blind. He sits her down with apparently sincere gentleness, and gives her candy, while quizzing her about her hot gege.

A-Qing tries to warn Xiao Xingchen about Xue Yang being a bad guy, pointing out that he's a cultivator and won't tell them his name. (She can’t say “also he tried to stab me” because she’d have to come clean about being able to see.) Xiao Xingchen, because he is a condescending prick--albeit a very sweet one--pats her on the fucking head and laughs off her extremely useful warning.

Xiao Xingchen came out into the wider world with a set of ideals that he lives by, apparently without examining them. He’s humble, kind, frugal, and wants to eradicate evil. He also believes that the majority of people are good like him, and that detecting evil is simple--as simple as following his sword toward it. He doesn’t allow A-Qing, who is experienced in the wider world, to teach him anything, preferring to keep his ideals untarnished.

Contrast this with Lan Wangji, who also starts his journey into the wider world with a set of ideals (codified as rules), but does not make the mistake of assuming that other people shares his beliefs. Once he’s away from the Cloud Recesses, he follows Wei Wuxian’s lead when dealing with new people, rather than insisting on doing things the way he did back home. In general, he is open to having his beliefs challenged, even when it makes him upset or uncomfortable. As a result, he grows into a righteous man, not a naïve one, and he’s fully capable of identifying enemies even when they appear to be friends.

Bonus:

In this brief long-distance shot we learn that A-Qing sleeps in a coffin, which is some next level goth girl shit.

Soundtrack: 1. Hey Pretty by Poe 2. I Want Candy by Bow Wow Wow 3. Cheap Thrills by Sia

#the untamed #the untamed gifs #restless rewatch the untamed #yi city #yi city trio #canary3d-original #ep 38

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marigoldbaker · 2 years ago

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i'm not going to be posting this to ao3 until i know what i'm going to do with it, so for now, have it as a special tumblr preview: xander and sonia's first meeting in the 'verse of what you make!

(for those who would like to read this without the larger context, all you need to know is that this takes place post s7, and xander is working for a new iteration of the watchers' council in a slayer-locating capacity.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The girls he met reminded Xander of Buffy in a way that made his chest hurt a little. Though their responses to their calling varied widely, they were always remarkably unremarkable—always concerned with how this would impact their homework, their time with their friends, their bid for Prom Queen—and it always made him think about how Buffy had looked, holding those pom-poms with her chin jutting out. She had been so determined to still be normal, not yet knowing how hard the world would make it to just be.

They were trying to make it better for the girls. They were. But the New Council was still in its baby stages, and the loose framework they’d set up wasn’t always enough to convince the girls that they wanted to join up. Most of their fledgling resources were being devoted to making sure that the little Slayers weren’t going to be walking demon magnets, whether or not they were actually planning to take a stand against said demons. And the worst part was that Xander couldn’t even blame the girls for not wanting this kind of a life. Who would?

Well. Him. But he’d chosen, and they hadn’t. Buffy had wanted to give the girls a choice, and that was what was happening. Two girls of the seven he’d met had chosen, and done so with youthful exuberance that had torn a little at Xander’s heart. More often than not, excited optimism about a calling like this one was a recipe for disaster.

“Are you here for anything?” said the secretary archly.

Xander blinked, shaking his head a little to clear it, before giving the secretary his best winning smile. “Can you, uh, call Sasha Rivera up to the office?” he asked.

The secretary gave him a thoroughly unimpressed look. “No, I cannot, uh, call Sasha Rivera up to the office,” she said. “For one thing, it’s the middle of the day. She’ll be in class. For another—”

“Yeah, see, I’m here on business,” said Xander, flashing his official Council ID in the secretary’s direction. “Our organization wants to recruit Sasha for—”

“What organization?”

“We’re a lot like a Gifted and Talented program.”

“Are you a lot like a Gifted and Talented program, or are you a Gifted and Talented program?”

“Look, I talked to the principal on the phone,” said a bemused Xander. “He said he’d be fine with me sitting down and talking to Sasha about some of the opportunities our organization offers. Is there some kind of a problem?”

Before the secretary could answer, a well-dressed older guy rounded the corner, bustling with cheerful importance. “You must be Alexander Harris!” he said, clapping Xander particularly hard on the back and smiling with unctuous importance. “Welcome, welcome! And thank you ever so much for your charitable donation towards the restoration of our gymnasium! Not that money is tight here, of course it isn’t, but we can always improve upon the existing infrastructure, can’t we?”

“Uh,” said Xander. The secretary was still staring daggers at him for some reason. “Yeah?”

“Splendid,” said the guy, who Xander was now starting to recognize from the briefing packet that Willow had sent them. Principal Tom Sanders. Kind of an asshole, interested primarily in the care and keeping of money, possibly embezzling but nobody had been able to make charges stick just yet. The important thing was getting him to let Xander have a conversation with Sasha, which had been pretty concerningly easy the minute that Xander had made a “charitable donation” to the school. This really wasn’t helping Xander’s feelings about principals in general. “Sophie, why don’t you call Sasha up to the office?”

The secretary’s lips pursed. She stabbed a few buttons on her phone with particular violence, then spoke into the receiver. “Would Sasha Rivera come up to the front office, please?”

“Try to smile a little while you do it, why don’t you?”

“Oh, hey, that’s really not necessary,” said Xander uneasily.

The secretary looked up at Xander and smiled—all teeth, and particularly unpleasant. Xander’s heart flipped over. “Thank you for your charitable donation to Silverfish Middle School!” she said, making charitable donation sound like extremely contagious butt rash. “Sasha will be with you posthaste. Will anyone be looking into making sure she has access to the lesson plan for the time she misses in class?” she added towards the principal.

“Why don’t you ask me that when you’re not on the clock?” said the principal pointedly. “There’s gotta be a separation, Sophie. As my secretary, your job is to make sure Mr. Harris here is able to meet with Sasha Rivera, and frankly, it’s hard for me to see why you wouldn’t be over the moon about her having an opportunity like this.”

“An opportunity a lot like a Gifted and Talented program?” said the secretary.

“Sophie,” said the principal.

Clearly there was something going on here that Xander was missing. He was just about to ask some kind of clarifying question when a girl stepped into the office—tall, gangly, dark hair in two big poofs. “Is everything okay?” asked Sasha Rivera, holding herself in a way that was somewhere between anxiety and defensiveness.

“Sasha, you’ve got a visitor!” said the principal brightly. “This is Mr. Harris of—what was it?”

“The New Council,” said Xander.

“The New Council!” said the principal, clapping Xander on the back again. Xander lurched forward and almost rammed into the wall. “He’s here to talk to you about an amazing academic opportunity that he believes you’re perfect for.”

For some reason, Sasha’s eyes flitted to the secretary. “An academic opportunity,” she said, drawing out the words. “That I’m perfect for. Me.”

The secretary pinched the bridge of her nose.

“…Do you mind if we use your office?” Xander asked the principal.

“Oh, no, go ahead!” said the principal jovially. “Anything at all for such a generous—”

“Great!” said Xander. “Thanks. Sasha, could you come with me for a second?”

“Okay, you know what, I am at my limit,” said the secretary, standing up at her desk with fire in her eyes. “Tom, my name is Sonia, not Sophie, and this is not the way you run a school. Do any of us have any idea who this man is or what his program is espousing? Just because he hands you a big, fat check, you’re willing to let him come in off the street and spend some time behind a locked door with my sister? How is that remotely safe in any way?”

The principal’s smile went all plastic. “Sophie,” he said, “I think you and I can have this discussion later, and not now, especially not in front of—”

“Oh,” said Xander, who had somehow, finally, put two and two together. “No, uh, Sonia, if you want to sit in on this, you definitely can. I didn’t know you guys were sisters!” That did not sound like a thing a Professional Scholarship-Giving Man would say. He tried again. “I mean, look, I can’t really get into the academic stuff until this guy isn’t here—”

“This guy?” said the principal, a little testily.

“Whose office, time, and patience I am very grateful for,” Xander added hastily. “Obviously. I just mean that this is something I want to run by Sasha first, and if Sonia is concerned, as a family member, I can completely accommodate—”

“Now, hold on,” said the principal. “Sophie’s on the clock. I’m perfectly fine if you’d like a meeting with just Sasha, but someone needs to man the phones—”

“Well, if someone needs to man the phones, couldn’t you do it?” said Xander before his brain caught up to his mouth.

Sasha snorted. Sonia pressed her lips together, but her eyes were sparkling with mirth. “Mr. Harris,” said the principal. “I think you should remember that I am allowing you a meeting with one of my students when she should be in class, not suggestions as to how I should run my office.”

“Got it,” said Xander, holding his hands up. “Sonia—”

“Sophie is not a part of this conversation.”

“No, she’s not,” said Xander, not missing a beat. “I was talking to Sonia.”

“You’re a regular little wise-cracker, aren’t you?” said the principal, still with that plastic smile. “Listen, Mr. Harris, that donation of yours doesn’t go far enough to cover my secretary’s salary. If you want to talk to Soph—Sonia outside of school hours, you can, but—”

Ignoring the principal, Xander leaned over the desk, warmed by the fact that Sonia was no longer looking at him with outright antipathy. “I’m obviously not gonna get into the details in front of Principal Moneybags here,” he informed her, his heart doing a funny little twirl when her mouth twitched, “but I would like to talk to you. Both of you. I don’t want to exclude you; you’re involved in this as much as Sasha is. Most of the time, we come to the school, we talk to the girls before we talk to the family, because the girls are the ones who need this information the most. But if you’re receptive to listening, this is definitely a conversation that it would be okay for you to be there for.”

“Mr. Harris,” said the principal testily, no longer sounding quite so friendly.

Sonia looked up at him—gorgeous eyes, Xander thought, as dark as the night sky—and said, simply, “Okay.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They met at a café a few blocks away from the school, Sasha cheerfully guzzling down a hot chocolate while Sonia delicately sipped black coffee. “I hope I didn’t jeopardize your job there,” Xander started uncertainly, eyes on Sonia even though they probably should have been on Sasha.

“No, it’s fine,” said Sonia tiredly. “I’ve been thinking about quitting for a while now. He keeps calling me Sophie and asking me to handle all the Black History Month stuff because I’d know more about it than him.”

“Which is racist,” Sasha chimed in. “He’s a stupid old racist.”

“Definitely do not say anything uncomplimentary about your teachers within their earshot,” said Sonia, fixing Sasha with the same terrifying Older Sister Look that Buffy had perfected. She looked back towards Xander with a lopsided smile, took another sip of her coffee, and added, “But yes. He is a stupid old racist.”

“…Uh,” said Xander. Usually, the talks with the girls were pretty straightforward. He did tend to fuck something up in the process, because he wasn’t always good at tapping into his inner Confident Xander, but this was the first time that talking to one of the baby Slayers also involved talking to someone this intimidating. And pretty. Intimidatingly pretty. That described this situation very well. “So. Look. I have something I need to talk to Sasha about.”

“Really,” said Sonia.

“Soso, don’t be mean,” said Sasha reprovingly, setting her own hot chocolate down. “Mr. Harris—”

“Xander,” Xander corrected.

“Really?” said Sonia.

“Again,” said Sasha. “Don’t be mean.” She turned expectantly to Xander. “Xander. What kind of academic thing am I up for?”

Now came the hard part. “Not an academic thing at all, actually,” said Xander carefully. “More like…” He hesitated. “Sasha, have you been experiencing anything unusual in your day-to-day life as of late?”

Sonia stiffened. Sasha’s gaze went down to the table. “So, what is this, some kind of X-Files investigation?” said Sonia, defenses up all over again. “You’re zeroing in on my sister with your perfect suit and your effortless charm and you’re going to cart her off to a government institution to do experiments on her?”

“Okay, first of all, if you want to cover up the weird happenings, you might not want to accuse me of being an undercover government operative,” said Xander, not sure whether he should be amused or concerned. “Second of all, if I was a government operative, I’d be the worst government operative ever, because I did just invite you guys out for coffee. And third—” Something caught his attention. “Effortless charm?”

Sotto voce, Sasha said, “My sister likes dorks.”

“Stop that,” said Sonia to Sasha.

“Do you not like dorks?” Sasha gestured to Xander. “Is he not totally your type?”

Xander decided to change the subject. Effortlessly. “HA HA HA ANYWAY,” he said, hoping to God that he wasn’t blushing. “UNUSUAL OCCURRENCES?”

“Why do you wanna know?” asked Sasha. It wasn’t as defensive as Sonia, but there was something of a warning to the question.

Relieved by a topic of conversation that wasn’t whatever the hell had just happened, Xander transitioned back into the usual Slayer spiel. “There’s a lot of stuff I’m gonna tell you right now,” he said. “Pretty much all of it is going to be hard to believe. When I’m done, I am going to show you categorical proof that my word is good. If you don’t want proof, or if you think I’m a total nut-job, that’s fine, but you need to understand that burying your head in the sand is going to put you in more danger than you’re already in right now.”

“Danger?” Sasha repeated skeptically.

“Danger,” Xander confirmed. “So listen up.”

#fic #never mind the years of wasted time #xander x sonia #why not????#anyway xander as a grown-up is more adorably james bond than he realizes #he has not yet clocked that he's actually a pretty cool dude at this point #sonia has tho.#SOMEDAY this will be a full length fic. but it isn't rn. so.

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hawkpartys · 11 days ago

Text

So a lot of people have expressed confusion about what this entails or have misunderstood so a few quick clarifications

First: This does not have anything to do with images, your images are safe.

Second: Giving feedback has a real chance of convincing them to course-correct. iNaturalist is not a profit driven entity and thus more beholden to the whims of the community and not shareholders

Third: At the moment there is no need to delete your account. By all means fill out the form and make your feelings heard, but don't delete for now.

I'll also copy-paste my main forum reply here, since it breaks down the problems with the situation into a bullet list and has analysis from my perspective as a power user and tech worker. most of it will be under the cut because it gets a little long

------

To head a few things off at the pass: I slept on this and spent the last day or so mulling over my thoughts to ensure I wasn’t being "reactionary or “kneejerk”, and that this doesn’t come from a place of technological illiteracy. I am a computer engineer and thus speaking from that perspective

1)) Community: iNaturalist is entirely dependent on its userbase, even moreso than a typical site. Users upload the observations, users identify them, users donate and create projects and choose taxon photos and moderate the site and the taxonomy. I understand some of the reactions are “it doesn’t matter if the community doesn’t like it”, but my point is that it does. If iNaturalist alienates substantial amounts of its userbase, that can only end badly, since unlike other websites iNaturalist does not utilize paid moderation or paid/sponsored content creators.

While the “silent majority” may or may not be indifferent to this change, the silent majority is just that: silent. The people who care, who spend their time and effort and money providing free labor because they believe in iNaturalist and what it stands for are also the ones who are here voicing their concerns. If you bend to a silent majority, you are going to have a silent site.

For better or worse iNaturalist is a website with a specific ideology behind it, one that is built around human, individual contribution. If you want to push work that is fundamentally at odds with the ideology you represent, then you have to be okay with people choosing not to volunteer their time and money for an entity that doesn’t represent their values.

If iNaturalist wants to eschew volunteer and donor support in favor of more stable big tech funding, then that is their choice, but it’s not a path I feel comfortable following them on.

2)) Priority. iNaturalist is a site that already has an astounding amount of tech debt, pending features, and a very small dev team. I usually do not hold this against them, because I understand better than most how hard it is working with legacy systems the size of iNaturalist, but if this is how they decide to spend their limited manpower, then I think I will start to hold it against them. Users have been very clear about what we want, even despite certain feature requests being disallowed because there were too many for specific features, but instead of prioritizing quality of life improvements for active users, iNaturalist has chosen to prioritize something that nobody has asked for and many actively dislike.

It is, in my opinion, a phenomenal waste of labor and time(and money, but I suppose the grant makes that irrelevant) from a website that already has so much in need of fixing. It’s eroded my confidence in the ability of iNaturalist to dedicate resources to what’s important

3)) Misinformation: Explanation begets authority and the spread of misinformation. In the current state of things, if CV misidentifies an observation, which it does often, then that mistake is limited and easily fixable by identifiers. Since it doesn’t provide reasoning, people aren’t going to spread misunderstandings outside that one observation.

However, if the new feature provides the tip “All red tailed hawks have white heads and no other hawks do not”, then that user, who presumably trusts iNaturalist as a source, will internalize that. They may decide to then go on and provide a dozen identifications to other observations based on that reasoning, creating a much larger mess for experienced identifiers to clean up. And you can’t control how the misinformation spreads beyond that too.

And while I know that requiring human verification is one way to offset this, I think it is maybe not the smartest idea to demand additional labor from people who you have already alienated in order to fix a feature that they did not want.

3)) Site reputation and morale: Like it or not, and regardless of its truthfulness, GenAI currently has a reputation for outputting “slop”. Anyone who has plugged in questions about their specific field of study into ChatGPT and seen it confidently return utter nonsense knows it. iNaturalist has a fairly good reputation for data quality because people know that humans are involved, double checking data and providing expert opinions.

On top of that, I don’t think this kind of thing will be great for identifier morale. I have contributed ~84k observations to this website, a solid amount of which have additional reasoning, entirely out of passion and belief in the cause. However, the knowledge that iNaturalist may just scrape the entirety of my contributions to feed into a LLM makes me feel, for lack of a better word, used. However irrational it may be, it makes it feel like my effort and expertise were worth nothing more than to make content to feed a million dollar glorified chatbot, which doesn’t really make me want to continue to offer my time. I would gladly contribute to a community managed wiki, because it would be my choice and my words, as opposed to my words being used to train an LLM with no credit or collaboration. People generally don’t want to use sites that make them feel bad, so we circle back around to the alienation problem.

4)) Scalability: I am concerned about this systems ability to adjust to updating taxonomy. Say a species has a feature X, which is diagnostic of species Y. However one day species Y is split into species Y and Z, which both have feature X, so it is no longer diagnostic. What happens to the genAI model, which has been trained on all of the identifications that cite feature X? It has to be retrained, except there is a lack of new data to train it on since the split is recent. So does it have to be taken offline until enough people have commented about that feature that you can retrain the model? After of course you’ve cleaned the dataset of all the old comments that reference feature X, but not the old comments that reference other features that are still valid.

Compare this to the situation with a user contributed wiki, where all that needs to happen is someone edits the line to say “both species Y and Z have feature X, so identifiers should use features A and B to differentiate them” and then cites a source. Much less effort, and it didn’t even cost 1.5 million dollars

5)) Failure to communicate: This is less of a problem with the feature and more of a problem with how its being handled. As the initial post says, it was posted exclusively on bsky, with very little detail. There was no announcement that this was even on the roadmap for the future, no transparency when iNaturalist applied for this grant or even a vague hypothetical “what would you think of iNaturalist and genAI” survey. We aren’t shareholders, we don’t have voting rights, but in the past I would have said that iNaturalist at least cares enough to be straightforward with the community and ask for our opinion. Clearly though, now that isn’t the case. If this is how you communicate something as controversial as this, how are we supposed to trust in iNaturalist’s communication in the future?

5)) Liability: This one is more of an aside, but there have already been hospitalizations from AI generated mushroom guides and lawsuits over AI content scraping. Big corporations like Nvidia and Amazon can weather issues like this, but can iNaturalist? I am worried that this opens up a huge can of worms that could risk the site in more ways than one

At the end of the day, this isn’t my decision, it’s iNaturalist’s. But I can say, as a long time extremely active user that it would really sour my opinion of the site and may make me reconsider my usage. I truly do not want to delete my iNaturalist account. I am proud of the work I’ve done here, the friends I’ve made, and what I’ve learned. This site means a lot to me. But there are paths that I am not comfortable going down, and iNaturalist seems to be at one mouth of one of them. I hope you guys listen to the community feedback given here

iNaturalist has opened up a feedback form for their poorly received genAI proposal. Go make your feelings heard

here is a forum thread regarding all of the problems the community has with it, including a very length response by yours truly if you want more information

#hawk talks

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heloisedaphnebrightmore · 4 years ago

Text

Play with me [Billy Russo x Reader] - Requested [15+]

Title: Play with me Pairing: Billy Russo x Female!Reader Word count: 3.3k Published: 13 June 2021 Author: Heloise Daphne Brightmore Notes: There's no smut in it, but it is quite suggestive so I think it deserves the 15+ rating. Warnings: Suggestive phrases, mention of alcohol and drinking Summary: Once again you find yourself dragged to a fancy event as part of your work by none other than Billy himself. Your boss seems to be enjoying your discomfort, finding entertainment in your grimaces and sulking comebacks. That is until you decide to turn his little game against him. Request: [x] Prompts requested by @sunrisefairy for my celebration event.

Billy Russo x Reader Fluff #19 - “It’s not a double date. We’re just third and fourth wheeling.” Spicy #20 - “Are you flirting with me?” Spicy #39 - “I’m a little drunk and a little horny.”

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You've never been big on attending all those fancy events your company has been hired to work at, but Billy always said it was a good way to build connections. Not once have you found yourself in a pretty little ballgown, following your boss around with a stone-cold expression, silently trying to suffocate him with your murderous gaze. You were hired to be a security agent not a peacock, but Billy didn't seem to mind the invisible daggers your eyes shot at him, if anything, by the smug grin across his face, he appeared to be enjoying the situation.

Just like many times before, this event was organised by one of his clients as well and he had been invited, along with a plus one to your utter disappointment. Though it sounded like you were supposed to be guests, in the end the man made it clear that he wanted Billy to have his back and his people to be blended in the crowd. Therefore, most of the night, you and Billy have been following around the old man, some no name politician you couldn't even recognise with his wife on his arm, smiling like a wild beast.

"You know, if you think about it, this could be our first date," Billy smirked as his eyes scanned the room. "It's like a grand double date," he smirked, earning an annoyed huff from you.

"It's not a double date, I wouldn't even go out with you if you were the last person on this planet," you groaned. "We are just— third and fourth wheeling for the sole purpose of their security," you nodded towards the couple in front of you.

"If denial makes your sensitive little heart feel better about your attraction towards me, who am I to object," he chuckled. "Though I have to admit, that silk dress on you makes it very hard for me to focus," he scanned your body, his gaze studying every single inch as though he could see through the thin material. His eyes dwelled longer on the high cut design that ran up to the top of your thigh, exposing your bare legs. His intent gaze burned your skin, your ears feeling as though they were on fire before realisation hit you.

"Hold on a minute, are you flirting with me?" You asked incredulously.

"As smart as you are, I'm surprised it took you this long to realise," he replied with his smug grin growing wider.

"Wipe it off," you scoffed at him as he grabbed your arm, rougher than you expected and linked it with his, patting the back of your hand. You walked around the ballroom with him on your side as he shook hands with all kinds of men, each seemingly interested in every breath Billy took, almost as though he was more important than the old man in front of you.

"Why? If it wasn't for your distaste in all these events, you'd be drooling over me by now," he chuckled playfully, offering you a subtle wink, before he turned back to the sea of people with his head held high, his body straightening in an authoritative manner.

"You are delusional," you hissed, teeth gritting in frustration.

"Right, I guess you just love staring at me then. Though I'm not surprised, I'm certainly good to look at," he huffed.

"No and No," you scoffed with a grimace. "And remove that shit-eating grin from your face already," you retorted as Billy clicked his tongue.

"Pretty lips, but such a dirty mouth," he let out a low, throaty laugh as he leaned closer, his lips brushing your ear, his warm breath sending a shiver through your body. "You know, I have a couple of ideas what you could use that mouth for," he replied in a suggestive tone, arching a single brow as he pulled back.

"Oh, do you now?" You offered him a playful smile as your eyes looked him up and down before your gaze met his again. "Unfortunately for you, I'm not interested," you shook your head, trying to act as though his offer didn't affect you, as though his body so close to you didn't force your heart into a dangerous pace. Though mostly you found it easy to ignore his teasing, you had to admit a part of you was indeed inclined to know more about where his mind was wandering off to.

"Ouch," he placed a hand in front of his chest, acting as if he was indeed in pain before he rearranged himself. "Your loss, I guess," he shrugged nonchalantly, earning an annoyed eye roll from you.

As the night went on, you tried to ignore the music in the background and focus on your work. Your eyes scanned the gigantic room as you shimmied through the sea of people dancing in pairs whilst Billy followed right behind you, clearing his throat. Looking back over your shoulder, you realised his eyes weren't on the people surrounding you or establishing eye contact with the rest of the team. His gaze fell lower, lower than you expected.

"Do you like the view?" You asked, arching a brow as he finally stopped staring at your backside and lifted his gaze, running his tongue across his bottom lip.

"What can I say that dress seems to enhance your beauty in all the right places," he smirked, earning a scoff from you. "Hey, can't I compliment you?" He raised his hands innocently, but you didn't fall for it, his proud grin spread wider as he ran his eyes all over you again.

"Pig," you spat as you finally reached the end of the crowd and stole a glass of champagne from a tray one of the servers walked around with.

"You are not supposed to be drinking," he gave you a cold look.

"I can't handle you sober," you chugged the content of the glass in a swift movement, earning a loud huff from him.

"That's not very professional," he replied as he stepped closer and placed a hand on your waist, tugging you closer in his side.

"Well, screw professionalism," you huffed as you felt the alcohol hit you. It was already warm inside, but with the alcohol, you felt your cheeks flush. Your eyes wandered to your side, where his big palm cupped your side, his touch radiating further warmth into your already heated body. "Is it just me—," you asked as you met his gaze, "or your hand seems to wander way too carelessly on my body tonight," you squinted suspiciously.

"I'm just making sure you are safe," he shrugged nonchalantly.

"I'm not the client, you know that, right?" you huffed as you grabbed his hand, took it off your waist and walked towards another room, searching for the old man, before you heard a voice in your earpiece, letting you know about his whereabouts. Heading to his position, you felt Billy's presence right behind you again. You halted your steps and turned around, folding your arms in front of your chest.

"You were not supposed to be drinking," he repeated himself with a stern expression across his face, one that told you this time he wasn't playing around, he was indeed unhappy with you. But instead of apologising or acknowledging his presence for that matter, you simply ignored him and looked around the room. "Do you even realise that I'm your boss?" He frowned, looking at you with a questioning gaze. "I feel like I have been way too lenient with you," he groaned as you stared him down. You caught sight of a waiter heading your way, so you quickly snatched another glass from his tray and gulped down the champagne.

"So? What are you going to do about it?" You asked in a mocking tone, smirking at the man as he chewed on his bottom lip. The words escaped your vocal cords before you could even protest. In normal circumstances you would have never dared to say them out loud, but the alcohol in your system, the two glasses of champagne seemed to do the trick. As you weren't big on drinking and barely had any alcohol, it hit you harder than someone who was used to its strength.

"I could fire you in this instance," he hissed, his tone low and warning. You took a step towards him, barely leaving a couple of inches between you as you looked up at him.

"Then why don't you?" You asked, arching a brow, waiting for a reply. "Come on, why don't you, huh?" You taunted him. "What did you expect? That I'm going to beg you to let me keep my job? Humour me, Russo," you huffed, this time wearing the same shit-eating grin he wore before.

"You are playing with fire," he spoke through gritted teeth as he sneaked an arm around your waist and pulled you flush against his chest, forcing you to lift your head higher to be able to look up at him. "I don't appreciate that tone," he continued in a low, dark voice, one that made your knees buckle, the air stuck in your lungs. "If you want to get my attention, then you can stop, you have had it for a while," he growled as he brushed his lips against your earlobe, his breath fanning the sensitive skin behind your ear. "But if it's for the sole purpose of pissing me off, I advise you to cut the bullshit, because I don't like your stupid little game," he squeezed your side as he pulled back, his jaw clenched.

To be fair, you weren't sure why you were taunting him, but there was something about him when he was frustrated, when you knew he was just a push away from snapping. You never dared to cross that line, nor did you want to do it now, but that borderline dangerous look in his eyes made you feel weak, his strong arm around you rough and warning, still you couldn't stop yourself from poking the sleeping lion. "So, you can play with me, but I can't do the same? Don't you think that's hypocritical?" You scoffed, folding your arms in front of your chest, creating even more space between you. There was a moment of silence as Billy studied your face, trying to decide if you were serious or you had gone completely mental.

"You are drunk, you are not making any sense," he scoffed as he got hold of your arm and started dragging you towards a closed door. As he opened it, you found yourself in some sort of a lounge with a sofa on the opposite wall of the room, an armchair on each side and a small coffee table right in front of it. The dim light and empty room created a rather welcoming feeling after the loud ballroom. "Sit down and take a minute for yourself, I will be back in a second. Hopefully by then you will make more sense," he threw the words at you as he left and closed the door behind himself.

You didn't attempt to take a seat and lounge around, you didn't want to sit down and do nothing, though the slight dizziness you felt urged you to do so. For a second you debated if you should listen to your instincts and indeed rest your tired limbs, but you shook yourself out of the thought and instead wandered around the room, looking at the paintings on the wall. Each art was of the same man— the one you were supposed to be protecting— wearing the finest of clothing you have ever seen. Rich folks, you scoffed at the thought, but before you could have dwelled on them any longer, the door opened. Without looking over your shoulder, Billy's cologne filled your nostrils. "Did you come back to police me?" You said without turning to look at him.

"It seems I didn't give you enough time to clear your head," he mused.

"My head is completely clear," you shot back at him, stumbling a bit as you felt slightly lightheaded. He stood in front of the closed door, hands tucked in the pockets of his trousers as he casually leaned against the wooden panels.

"I can see that," he scoffed, this time with a tiny smile in the corner of his mouth, running his eyes up and down on your body, his gaze darkening.

"I'm not drunk," you pointed at his chest as you walked up to him in haste, halting your steps right in front of him, leaving a barely visible gap between the two of you, feeling the heat radiate from his body.

"And I believe that," he replied in a mocking tone. "Though it leaves me with a question. It seemed you had some difficulty standing on your own two feet just a minute ago. What was that about that then?" His smug grin grew wider, knowing he was right. Indeed, there were some side effects to the alcohol you have consumed.

"Fine," you replied, jaw clenched in anger, teeth gritting as you held yourself back. "I'm— I might be— a little drunk," you cleared your throat as though admitting it caused you physical pain.

"Okay, now we are getting somewhere," he said as he lifted his hand and brushed his fingertips along the curve of your shoulder, slowly following the path down to your wrist. "So, why did you drink then?" He asked, with a slight amount of curiosity.

"You pissed me off," you shrugged nonchalantly, earning a chuckle from Billy as he kept repeating his movements, running his fingers along your arm, causing goosebumps to appear on your skin, which he did not miss.

"That's not very professional, is it?" He asked, teasing you as his strokes moved from your shoulder to your collarbone, forcing your breath to turn shallow. He lifted his eyes, meeting your lustful gaze, only to caress his ego further. "If I didn't know you better, I'd say you are not only drunk, but that smart little head of yours might just be filled with some very— very dirty thoughts," he chuckled as you swallowed nervously, his palm cupping your face, running his thumb along your lip.

He wasn't wrong though. There were thoughts that you wished never to voice, thoughts that had him standing in front of you naked, completely exposed, your hands running across his toned chest, his mouth nipping at the soft skin of your neck. You licked across your lips as the thought became even more vivid, his grumbling tone forcing you to draw your thighs together, needing some sort of a friction. He arched a brow at the movement, a cocky grin spreading across his face. "It seems I'm right once again and you are not even trying to deny it," he breathed as he planted his other hand on your waist and drew you closer. "Tell me, where is that pretty head of yours wondering to?" He let out a low chuckle, but you didn't answer, you didn't dare to say it. "Let me guess," he leaned down to your ear, tickling your neck with his beard, causing a knot to appear in the pit of your stomach, your breathing turning ragged, "are you horny?" He let out a low chuckle as he bit your neck, earning a silent squeaking sound from you, his actions 'almost' sobering you up. 'Almost', because within seconds you find yourself leaning into his touch.

"I—," you tried to reply, but your throat seemed too dry, your heart was beating so heavily, you could hear the drumming of your own pulse in your ears. "I maybe— just maybe a little horny," you breathed as he ran his lips along the curve of your neck, forcing your eyes to flutter shut. Before you realised your own actions, you cupped his cheeks and pulled him away from your neck, pressing your lips to his, stunning him for a mere moment, before he returned your advances. The kiss was hungry, teeth tugging at lips, tongues fighting for dominance, but that was what you needed. You pressed your body against his, closing any remaining gap between the two of you, earning a low growl from Billy. He grabbed your hips, holding onto you as though he was trying to ground himself, keeping himself sober in the haste of that heated kiss.

"I think we should stop," he breathed as he finally found his strength to leave your lips. A deep frown spread across your brow as you studied him.

"Why?" You asked in confusion, knowing— feeling his body's reaction to you.

"Think whatever you want of me, I can be a lot of things, but I like to think that touching someone without their consent is wrong. I believe we have already done more than we were supposed to," he cleared his throat as he tried to push you back gently, but rather firmly and you obliged.

"I'm giving you consent, Russo," you replied in disbelief.

"You are drunk, so I'm not sure you are," he shook his head. A loud huff left your lungs as you walked up to the sofa and sat down, placing one leg over the other, crossing them as you sunk deeper into the cushions.

"Okay," you scoffed. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I said I was a little drunk. You see little is the key word here," you tilted your head, hoping he would understand where you were going with this. "As you can see, I'm capable of talking, walking, thinking and I'm certainly not crawling on the floor, am I?" You arched a brow, watching his expression turn contemplating. "I will make this easy for you, Russo," you continued, your tone inviting. You lifted your leg from the other and spread them just enough, so the opening of your dress fell between your legs, the high cut design revealing your bare thighs. Seemingly it was enough of an encouragement for Billy to tense up and swallow visibly. "So, what's it going to be?" You asked as a mischievous smile grew wider across your face just as you slowly started closing your legs. Before he could even stop himself, he pounced on you, kneeling between your legs, stopping you from closing the gap as he pressed his lips against yours, ready to take you up on your offer.

His mouth attached to yours hungrily, grabbing your thighs as he pushed you further into the sofa. You busied yourself with his clothes and started untying his tie and unbuttoning his shirt, impatiently trying to pull the material out of his trousers. You threw his tie on the floor, soon followed by his shirt, before you pushed him down beside you and crawled into his lap, earning a groan from him. "You little beast," he grinned at you as he grabbed the back of your neck and pulled you down to meet him halfway in a heated kiss, his hands grabbing your ass, pulling you further down onto his lap, his kisses trailing down to your neck, leaving you panting, whispering his name in your half-clear state of mind.

"Just so you know, I still hate you," you breathed against the crook of his neck as you returned the satisfying attention he was giving you, nipping on the sensitive skin, earning you a throaty groan from him.

"Yeah, I can feel it," he chuckled as he bucked his hips, causing a gasp to erupt from your lungs. "Let's discuss that after you stop screaming my name in pleasure," he replied through gritted teeth as grabbed your hips and with a swift movement changed your position, throwing you on your back, hovering above you. He studied your dishevelled look with a smug grin across his face, before he pressed his lips to yours again, his hands exploring every part of your body that he didn't have the chance to before, forgetting about everything and anything about the ball on the other side of the safely locked door.

Notes: If you enjoyed reading this little piece, please don’t forget to leave a like, comment and reblog. Your opinion matters and gives us motivation. Thank you ^^

If you enjoy my stories, please consider donating and supporting me on Ko-fi. Of course, it’s completely your choice, I will continue updating for free anyway :) Thank you <3

Taglist is in a reblog from now on.

#billy russo #billy russo x reader #billy russo x you #billy russo x yn #billy russo x y/n #billy russo x female reader #billy russo fanfiction #billy russo fanfic #the punisher #ben barnes #ben barnes x reader #billy russo imagine #billy russo one shot #battle of swords celebration event

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rantrambles · 4 years ago

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Ever get so upset you make a Tumblr account to vent?

I haven’t even listened to The Penumbra Podcast yet but it’s on my list because it’s insanely popular and the cosplays I’ve seen are hot as hell (A+ to all the cosplayers I’ve seen you’ve done great work). Now, with the recent news surrounding the podcast, I’ll wait till it’s done if I ever do get into it. I’m Asian and part of the LGBT community but I’m not nonbinary so I can’t say much about the trans represention in the art but I wanted to add my two cents on the matter as a person of color and someone examining the situation from the outside. Also, before I get deeply into it, I’m not the only person of color with opinions on this matter so if people have their own frustrations and criticism with the racism in The Penumbra Podcast and/or the new artist they hired, definitely listen to them too. These are my own personal opinions, and I’m sure other people will disagree and that’s fine. We’re all going to have different views on this so bear that in mind. Also, feel free to correct me or add anything if I’ve missed some information. Here’s a great breakdown of the whole situation for those that don’t know what happened. Finally, I was very hesitant to post this, but I felt it was important because I make a statement at the end on how race should be presented in a podcast format so if you are interested in making a podcast and want to have a diverse range of characters, please skip to the end to read those thoughts.

I’ll start off by saying, I’m not even that upset with the new artist that The Penumbra Podcast hired. I know that statement alone is controversial but I don't personally know them, and I’m not going to judge who they are as a person by a few pieces of art they’ve made. They are the least of the problems that I have here. Since the announcement and the backlash, I’ve been scrolling through the artist’s Instagram account and I can tell why people find the designs offensive, but I’m also comparing the designs to the artist’s other work, and I honestly believe that’s just their style. They’ve exaggerated the features of just about every character they’ve made, regardless of race or gender. From what I’ve seen the sharp angles and overly round curves in the anatomy that make some of the character’s features more jarring are how they prefer to draw. I’m sure they’re capable of drawing more realistic proportions but for the most part they’re art aims to call attention, be bold, and create distinguished features. Not inherently a bad thing on its own.

And yeah I’d understand the issue if this were a scenario where the artist heard how these characters acted in the podcast and thought “hey, obviously this character is a black woman because they are super strong and therefore must have big muscles, no other woman could look like that” or “hey, this character has to be Asian because they act super seductive sometimes better draw them as such.” But from my understanding the race was already decided by previous official artists and a general description of the characters were already generated by the audience, similar to how The Magnus Archives leaned towards drawing scrawny Jon with black, greying hair and dark skin. The new artists couldn’t really change those features even if those features aren’t described in canon because a depiction that strayed too far from popular fandom interpretation would make the character’s unrecognizable to the fanbase.

I think the reason this became such a big issue for most people is because the new Penumbra artist used their exaggerated art style when making these characters and people of color and nonbinary folks already see themselves drawn as these exaggerated caricatures all the time (with those images being used to further discriminate against them). I’m sure the artist didn’t mean for their art to be offensive, but that of course doesn’t change how it was received.

According to some, the poses and expressions the artists chose did not fully represent the characters entirely and only served to further perpetuate harmful stereotypes, and I’ll have to take their word for it because I still haven’t listened to the podcast so I have no idea how the characters act. But again much of the criticism is based on the one line-up and doing a deeper dive into the artist’s work I managed to find artwork that was much less offensive. Here some art where Vespa is depicted in a non-violent pose and one where Vespa is in a threatening pose but not an overly violent one. Here is Peter drawn in a non-seductive pose. Hopefully, the artist truly does keep the criticisms in mind as they work on the new official art. I’m just not the type of person that wants to get the pitchforks out and cause this particular person to lose a job they seemed really excited about over their old character line-up, especially when that person is also part of a marginalized group.

Again, that’s just my opinion on that particular artist. Those who are offended by their art are still valid in how they feel, and the artist should absolutely take their criticism to heart to better how they represent the characters.

What I’m more upset about is that I think The Penumbra Podcast should never have released official art for their characters in the first place and that’s their mistake that they refuse to own up about. They have made it clear that the story was never meant to portray characters of colors, a fact emphasized by the fact they hired mostly white actors from the start. They only started releasing art of the characters to get a profit. And the thing is they know what they did was wrong. All I had to do was search Penumbra Podcast racism and there is a note on their website saying that they archived some old official art.

“We have discontinued all Penumbra merchandise that uses the original character designs, and in the meantime, any profits on the sales of that merchandise will go to the For The Gworls project. We also realize that the depiction of these characters as POC, while not appropriate for us to use in our marketing and merchandise, has nonetheless become personally meaningful to many POC listeners. For that reason, and because we do not wish to distance ourselves from our mistake, we are keeping these images on our website for archival purposes. Though we do want to make it clear that many of the main/featured voice actors are white and that we did not write the characters to represent any specific POC experience, you are, as always, free to imagine these characters in any way that you like.”

I went to their shop and they still sell posters and pins with the character’s faces on them, but they are donating it to a good cause so hopefully that stays the same. However, I still find it a little uncomfortable that they are still selling character merch and have plans to continue selling character merch. They have no right to dissuade the fans that already found representation in the characters, but they also have no right to profit off the representation that was built, regardless if they made the story.

Let’s compare this to another piece of popular media. I love Avatar the Last Airbender and, I liked the ATLA voice actors just fine but there should have been more people of color doing voice acting behind the screen too. The voice actors for that show were mainly white too, however, the creators knew that they would be making poc characters. That’s what makes the difference. Did they still choose to go with mostly white voice actors? Yes. Could they have done better and pay more people of color? Also yes. But I’m not as furious at them because they did their research on the cultures they were basing the ATLA world off of and intentionally gave us a show where Asians could see characters that looked like them represented on the screen. The Penumbra Podcast did not do any of that. Again, they openly admitted that it was never their intention to make the character’s people of color when they made the podcast so that goes to show no research was made to properly represent specific cultures. The color of the character’s skin in their official designs therefore became more of aesthetic choice rather than representation, and it wasn’t even their aesthetic choice to begin with!

Race isn’t a color you can just throw onto the character because you feel like it. So I want this to be a lesson to anyone that wants to make a podcast: if you want to include poc characters please do some research into the cultures you plan to represent the way you would with any other form of media. Just because the audience can’t see the characters and just because it’s harder to smoothly introduce the character’s appearance doesn’t mean you’re allowed to be lazy on how you present the characters. Do research before you start writing the first episode and take the time to hire poc actors. Hiring poc actors is actually the least that can be done to show representation. Also, since the audience cannot visually see the race of the characters on a podcast and it can’t typically be described the way you would in a book, you’ll have to be creative. It’s not my job to say how, but my suggestions would be, before the fans come up with their own image of the character, you need to establish race in the first few episodes or release character profiles on a website so that the fans know you canonically intended the characters to be of a certain race even if you aren’t able to mention it in the actual podcast. If you are unwilling to do any of these then the best route is to avoid stating race at all and allow the audience to build their own representation into your form of media. However, once this happens, you are not allowed to profit off popular fan interpretations. You lose all rights to create official art or images of the characters. You cannot use “we have a diverse cast of characters” when you market your story. It doesn’t matter whether you created the content or not, you did not create the representation for those minority groups.

It’s one thing for fans to build their own inclusivity into a form of art like a podcast, but it’s another thing for the creators who never worked to make the representation happen to take advantage of the representation that the listeners built for themselves. Thank you for attending my TedTalk.

#the penumbra podcast #podcast #race #the magnus archives #diversity in podcasts #diversity #tpp #tpp fanart

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hansoulo · 4 years ago

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lay back in cloying sin

part three of “Pillar of Salt”

Pairing: Boba Fett/Princess!Reader (she/her pronouns, no Y/N)

Warnings: NSFW-ish; references to marks and bruises, kissing, probably inaccurate descriptions of ballroom dancing, fluff, mentions of alcohol consumption

Word Count: 3.3k

Gif Credit: (x) by @/ktfhett

A/N: boba & reader: [tyler the creator voice] oh no i hope i don’t fall

༓ series masterlist ༓

Dinner was a tedious affair, filled with hollow pageantry. It was one last hurrah before the send off of the honored guests, one of which you’d never talked to and the other who was nowhere to be found. The former, Lord Vader, sat at the head of the long table and made for very unamusing company. You had the distinct impression that he’d rather be anywhere than here, having to listen to his uniformed subordinates squabble in grating voices and your father simper about mining collectives. That made for two of you.

But the cavernous banquet hall was always beautiful, if a bit ostentatious, and the food never disappointed, so you consoled yourself with a loosened corset and the promise of a second dinner by servants who pitied your forced small portions.

You floated into the large room, shuffled through by the compounding procession before an older man offered to help you into your seat. The ornateness of your evening wear made you grateful for the help, watching in sincere thanks as he pulled out the high-backed chair.

“Thank you, um…” the color of his robes and the softness of his hands signalled high rank and you chanced a guess. “Duke...?”

“Sagcock,” he finished for you. “Jovron Sagcock.”

He has got to be joking.

Evidently, he wasn’t.

If the man saw you choke on a laugh, sputtering it into a hiccup as you sat down, he pretended not to notice. After all, princesses knew better than to be unbecoming or crass or know why any part of that exchange could be fodder for humor.

Fighting down one last cough, you attempted to regain some sense of decorum. What a wonderful start to the evening.

The arrangement of persons on this particular night was strange though, even disregarding the title of the man now seated beside you. There were more people than usual filling out the hall tonight, all fancily clad and buffed to shining. Boba wasn’t anywhere to be found.

The supposed importance of the occasion probably necessitated a shuffling of seats to soothe egos and encourage conversation, but you weren’t used to being so close to the head of the table, near parallel with your mother. Usually your elder sisters sat higher and provided you the benefit of distance. Of course, they were all gone now. Your brother was still too young to be at evening dinners, so there was no buffer between you and your parents’ ire.

Maybe this was the Maker’s way of getting back at you for your tiny tryst. Maybe they all knew about what happened in the garden and were just waiting for the shoe to drop, branding you as a harlot and finally letting you free. Vader’s static words travelled down the table and mingled with your father’s but you were too busy entertaining worse-case scenarios to understand conversation.

People were observing you, you realized partway through the first round of courses. Watching you with strange eyes as if you were the last scrap of halfway-spoiled meat for imperial officials and all the nobility that had come to pay their prostrate respects. No one had really given half a damn about you before, which made it all the more strange.

A heel foot softly kicked at yours underneath the table, breaking you out of your glazed thoughts. The fork you had been mindlessly moving across your plate stopping mid-swirl. Looking up, you met the quiet glare of your mother and cleared your throat.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” you asked. Your question was punctuated with a smile too large to be genuine. The queen’s head jerked towards the grizzled man seated to her right and you turned towards him at her behest, face open in trained invitation. “Oh, hello, General.”

General Enes, current commander of the army of Quas Killam. Not strictly Imperial, but aligned close enough to have him in the king’s good graces and to reside permanently at court. He was also a Duke and probably a cousin thrice removed, but who was counting?

“No need to stand on pleasantries, your Highness,” the gray-haired man assured you, one large hand resting over his stomach as servants replaced the dirtied plates in front of you with new ones. You only sipped delicately at your algarine as he chortled and remembered, “It seems like yesterday that you were running around the palace with your sisters. A little sprite of a thing, weren’t you?”

Was he drunk already? “Yes, I remember,” you tread pleasantly; carefully.

The general settled and let out one last chuckle before his eyes grew hawk-like again, trained in the jewelry and accoutrements that signified your being old enough to marry but young enough to have not yet been taken. Like a prize. Or a charity donation. “You’ve grown into quite the young woman, you know.”

So that’s where this was going. You resisted the urge to roll your eyes and tried to look gracious. “Thank you, sir. That’s a high compliment.”

“How old are you again, dear?”

Masking your surprise at the forwardness of the question, you supplied your age to a nod of approval from both him and your mother.

“A good age, I’d say. ‘Round the same as my youngest.”

“Yes, I’m aware,” you shot a look down the table and caught a glimpse of cropped flaxen hair, its owner sitting enough seats down to prevent any shared conversation. You counted your blessings for it and smiled, tight-lipped. “Your son and I shared company when we were children.”

“Well that’s very nice,” the queen interjected quite loudly and looked around the long table with a light laugh but cold eyes. “Isn’t that nice?”

Your father looked at you for the first time all evening as if on cue, boring a hole into your face with the words he seemed to be telepathically trying to put in your mouth.

The taste of bitter wine on your tongue made your thoughts fevered, though not borne out of alcohol so much as the memories of someone else’s touch in the same places. “Yes,” you repeated vaguely. “Very nice.”

Darth Vader apparently didn’t remove his helmet. You wondered why he came to dinner at all.

The remaining evening hours had been whittled away by dessert and drinks. Everyone who cared to stay shuffled into the ballroom, a behemoth of a thing filled with inky windows and sparkling artifice. It was a blur of waltzes and predetermined couplings with boys you’d been ignoring since you were old enough to kick them in their shins, but you didn’t care enough to go to pains to avoid it. They broke up the monotony of introductions, at least, and let your mind and body be somewhere else for a while.

All compounded, the night left you flushed and tired. You needed alcohol. Or air. The latter was probably the more reasonable choice of the two.

Being in the midst of ballroom theatrics allowed for an easy enough escape, and a side entrance to a balcony overlooking the palace grounds became the object of your attention.

The tall double doors lay open in their glass encasings and spilled out lamplight refractions on the guests’ gaudy clothing and gaudier jewelry, everything sparkling and warm. But you were far enough away from it to still be chilled by the night air, a balm for your flushed cheeks and fizzling temper.

Usually guests ignored it in favor of staying indoors, so you were fairly confident in the promise of solitude and an undisturbed breeze.

But someone apparently had the same idea as you.

“Hello,” you ventured out a greeting to the silhouette not yet fully in your vision. You stepped closer and the heels of your shoes echoed on clay tiles. “I’m sorry, am I bothering you?”

Royal Highnesses shouldn’t really care about whether or not they were disturbing strange party guests, you could make them leave if you felt so inclined, but something in you was feeling magnanimous tonight. You tried not to think about why.

The figure didn’t turn back towards you, still facing out towards the blurry glitter of urban lights far off in the distance. It looked pretty this far away, all glowing masses and amorphous buildings that scraped the sky. You’d never been close enough to see all the dinge and smog that made its home in places not populated by princesses. Marble felt more familiar than metal.

The man wore metal too, and his voice scraped at your chest when he answered. “You’re not bothering me, princess.”

Oh.

You ventured cautiously towards the balcony’s edge, next to the man you now could recognize as Boba. The thick stone railing was cool to the touch. “Hello.”

His helmet tipped to the left, which was probably his way of saying it back.

“I didn’t see you at the dinner,” you noticed quietly. Would it be presumptuous to assume he was avoiding you? Intellect said yes, but ego didn’t listen. You leant forward, the speckled marble digging into your elbows as you mirrored Boba’s sightline out into the city. “You know, you wouldn’t have needed to make conversation. Lord Vader was the guest of honor and all he did was sit there.”

“I don’t like crowds.”

“Ah.”

A silence lapsed between you, awkward as if you were strangers. You were though, weren’t you? Strangers. Not friends. Not lovers. Not really.

But if he asked you to crack yourself open for him, you would. You would rip apart every satin petticoat and snap the boning in your corsets until your hands were raw if it meant he would touch you; skin to skin. You’d run away and cite a hidden fountain as the reason why.

You didn’t know what he’d give up for you, if anything. Boba didn’t seem like the type to have much in the first place. Either by choice or by necessity.

The garden afternoon nagged at you after having time to form coherent thoughts, and the fizzy shine of palace lights reflecting off his helmet reminded you of what you’d been meaning to ask.

Night made you softer-spoken. “Why did you let me take off your helmet?”

Night made his edges sharper. “Why did you want to?”

“I asked first,” you volleyed back as reason enough to get an answer first.

Boba wasn’t a Mandalorian in the true sense of the word, at least that’s what gossip told you, so it didn’t really matter if he took the helmet off or not. But he kept it on in front of everyone else.

The hunter gave you visor-silence and your impatience made you concede. “I just wanted to see you,” you breathed out, still not looking at him. The admission sounded much more naive than you intended.

His words held their characteristic aloofness but were edged by gentle teasing. “What if I said the same?”

That he wanted to see you?

You still didn’t understand half of why he did what he did and what he wanted, but you turned to face him head-on anyway. Cold moonlight fell on your neck and the air cracked with fever. You tried to reply in jest. “Then I’d say that you were being stupid.”

“You’d be right.”

A swallow bobbed in your throat. He always seemed to take up your vision; fill it and suffocate you with seemingly no effort. “And then I’d ask you to do it again.”

“Do what, princess?”

He knew. He just liked seeing the words come out of your mouth.

“Let me take your helmet off.”

This time, he guided your hands up himself. They were slow and almost careful running across your palms, placing them on the mechanisms your fingers found in quick memory. Set on the balcony railing, the helmet seemed to be a prop. An upside down bucket filled with all the things you had yet to say to each other, spilling out onto the ground in a fog.

“I like you better without it,” you decided when he turned back towards you, his weight still resting on the railing with one cocked hip. Everything about the way he looked was dark: inky black curls and scarred brown skin and eyes that pushed the air in your lungs with a stall and a catch. They looked even darker next to tan clothes and green armor.

His voice wasn’t entirely lacking in humor. He did that. Humored you. “Do you now?”

“Mhm.” you nodded with fake seriousness, slightly giddy and slightly too brave. You blamed it on an excess of wine and good company. “Better-looking.”

He only scoffed, a flash of pearl-white canines serving as one half of a smile. A smile that had been wider when it was against your collarbones, your neck, your mouth. A smile that you wouldn’t mind being in other places.

You nudged Boba’s shoulder with your own when a waltz kicked up in the background, faint through the open ballroom door. “There’s music,” you implied, half-joking and half-expectant. There had been this whole time, of course, but acknowledging it now seemed better than never. “You should ask me to dance.”

“I’m not one for dancing, your Highness.”

The title made you roll your eyes, a commonplace formality that you usually insisted on but now found overly facetious. Coming from him, that is. “Clearly not,” you almost snorted. Pushing away from the marble ledge with a finality that seemed almost comical, you held your hand out and waited, eyebrows raising and fingers beckoning. Well? your face seemed to say, Are you coming?

His sigh was bone-deep and settled in your chest like chunks of black plaster, but it felt good. “You’re not going to let me leave, are you?”

“No, I’m not,” you replied, as if it’d be ridiculous to expect anything else. Princesses danced with men at parties. You were a princess. Boba was a man at a party. In a roundabout sort of way. “It’s easy, I promise,” you assured, wrapping your hand around his wrist and pulling him away from the balcony. His glove slipped down a bit; just enough that your thumb could press one soft circle against the tan skin over bone.

Uncomfortable wasn’t really the correct word for how you thought he felt. You doubted Boba could ever be uncomfortable. No. No, the right word would probably be… bemused. Like he was in a menagerie watching a creature, something exotic and pretty, with mild interest while it still had his attention. But you did have his attention. That was something.

“You put your right hand on my waist,” you moved to reposition the large fingers more accustomed to blasters than they were to bodices. Boba smirked, almost boyish, when you caught his hand wandering someplace else. “Not that low,” you chided with quiet exasperation, placing your palm atop his and guiding it back up.

The pale leather was warm underneath your skin and you bit down a smile, almost awe-struck at how strange your hand looked next to his. Yours was polished, weighed down by heavy gold bangles and softened by years of idle play. His, you suspected (for you didn't actually know; hadn’t yet actually seen), was anything but.

“That’s good,” you supplied lightly. “And then I do this,”your other hand reached to rest on Boba’s shoulder. “And then- no, no you give me your left hand. Hold it out- good.”

Still looking down, you were careful not to trip over your skirts or his boots. “And now we just-” you breathed out and glanced up, surprised to find his expression strangely careful. Almost tender. You gulped down the quiet notch in your throat. “-now we just um… sway. Like this.”

You eschewed complication in favor of a simple rhythm, just letting your feet fall wherever they liked so long as they didn’t tangle in themselves. Now wasn’t the time for anything laborious; you didn’t have faith enough in Boba’s footwork. But he actually wasn’t too bad all things considered. A bit stiff and a bit gruff, but those were part and parcel. It was a bit like dancing with a tree trunk. A very handsome, very broad, very taciturn tree trunk. It was easy to let yourself sink into it a little with how solid he felt.

The man arched an eyebrow when your fingers stretched to thread together with his. “Just sway?”

“You’re welcome to do a jig instead if you’d like,” you replied wryly as your weight shifted from foot to foot. The hand around your waist stiffened at the prospect and a grin escaped your face.

“Nevermind.”

The amusement that had previously only been in your throat escaped in a quiet laugh. “Thought so,” you whispered, victorious. Tension, bunched up in your shoulders and collected in your bones, melted completely when he pulled you closer and let your head fall against the space of his neck. Sinew fit against silk like puzzle pieces and warmed the quiet moment that followed. Neither of you spoke for fear of disturbing the fresh peace.

You found yourself dwelling more and more on hypotheticals. Unrealistic and stupid, you knew, given who you both were. But still you dwelt, unable to fathom a reality outside of the last nine hours and inside a reality within which Boba was gone.

Would he fit here, with the stucco and plaster and ivy? With all the sheltered society of an insignificant court? With you?

You wondered if he dwelt on hypotheticals, too.

Swallowing cold air as Boba thumbed the collar of your dress, you felt the light scatter of broken blood vessels from hours before smart again. Your cheek pressed against the pauldron of his beskar, but neither of you were really dancing anymore. “I- I wanted to talk,” you began quietly. “About earlier.”

“Did you not like it?” Did you not like me?

“No! No, I…” you shook your head, trying to rid yourself of his assumption. The crystals hanging from your headpiece tinkled with every soft movement. “No, I… I liked it. I like…” The lump in your throat seemed to travel down back into your stomach. “You,” you finished, swallowing the final word and leaving all its implications to settle in the night.

He could feel the rise and fall of your chest; delicate and airy and resigned. You spoke again. “But you’re leaving tomorrow and... and we could’ve been caught. And the more I think about it the more I really am not looking forward to the idea of some court scandal or being cloistered up like a nun because I—”

He called you your name.

He’d never used your name before.

You lifted your head off his shoulder, desperate-eyed and looking for answers you both knew he couldn’t give. “Yes?”

“Kiss me.”

You barely breathed out an okay before the arm around your waist tightened, crushing you against cold metal and a warm body.

He kissed you how a lover would. Like how a first kiss should’ve been.

It was gentle. Warm. Tender-mouthed and aching, placing promises down your throat with a soft hand and closed eyes. It was… It was…

It was broken up far too quickly.

A voice called out your name from somewhere far-off, regally accented and not at all welcome. It called your name again, first middle and last with all the titles in between with much less patience. Your mother, queen consort.

The groan of displeasure that escaped you was muffled in Boba’s mouth and swallowed up before it could give either of you away. He recovered much faster than you did, peeling back from your body with eyes already alert and scanning the shadows for passersby. There were none. For now.

“It’s my mother,” you whispered, letting your eyes roll seemingly out of your skull. “They’re probably doing some send-off for Vader’s entourage.”

Neither of you mentioned the fact that Boba was part of that entourage too.

Your last words were rushed before the footsteps became too close and the mercenary pulled away. You didn’t really want to stay to hear the answer. “Will I see you again?”

Boba Fett, you’d come to learn, wasn’t the kind of man to offer more than what he knew he could give.

The helmet went back on. “I don’t know.”’

#boba fett x reader #boba fett/reader #boba fett fanfiction #boba fett x you #boba fett imagine #boba fett oneshot #star wars fanfiction

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aliensunflower-fics · 5 years ago

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The Liar Trap: A Lila Salt Prompt

You expect me to believe that after Lila gets Marinette expelled that Marinette would just leave that alone? Marinette the girl who made a tamper proof DIARY box?? Yeah I don't think so years of Chloe messing with her and her things, Lila proving to be the same kind of bully, and then of course the added paranoia of hiding Tikki and a secret identity everyday should mean that Marinette is some kind of bully prepper from hell. So I present to you my idea:

Lila’s first attacks were when Marinette was unprepared Chloe had been getting soft lately choosing words over playing dirty the change had been brought on partially by Adrien and partially because Chloe and Sabrina were tired of falling prey to Marinette’s traps. And with the threat of Chloe diminished Alya and others had been able to convince Marinette to disarm her many safety precautions. But then sure enough along came Lila to exploit those weaknesses and exploit them she had! Marinette had been EXPELLED and even if the issue was eventually cleared up Marinette was back on the warpath!

By next monday her old traps were back up and new ones were being drafted. Everything from her bag to her sketchbook to her special art room locker had been fortified and prepared. Marinette had no doubt Lila would lay low for a while but eventually she would coil herself to strike again and when she did she would be caught in Marinette’s traps. Until then all she had to do was prepare and take lessons on composure and remaining calm reacting harshly to Lila’s lies would serve only to bury her; she needed a cool head to deal with the liar. And luckily Kagami was an amazing teacher and a devious friend with many suggestions of her own on how to handle Lila effectively now all Marinette had to do was wait.

It took Lila 2 weeks to make her next move the plan was simple enough, the liar had snagged Alya’s phone and planned to wait until Alya was frantic before ‘helpfully’ pointing out she'd seen it in Marinette’s school bag hopefully the whole thing would build tension between the pair and distrust for Lila to feed on. Only that never happened, stage 1 acquiring the phone was easy but it was during stage 2 slipping it in Marinette’s bag during class that she hit failure as her thin thieving hands were suddenly met with a SNAP upon entering Marinette’s bag. The trap was simple, a design loosely based on your everyday mouse trap only softened so it didn’t hurt QUITE as much after all Marinette didn't need Lila actually getting hurt. But still it hurt enough and was shocking enough that the little liar screamed disrupting class.

Now it was time for Kagami’s lessons to come into play. As Lila revealed her hand and wailed about Marinette’s bag attacking her, the baker keeps a calm head amid the confusion and accusations and “what the heck Marinette!” She explains that after being framed for cheating on the last test and her PAST experiences (At that everyone glances at Chloe) she decided to make her bag tamper proof. Lila is quick to accuse Marinette of bias against her as she tries to save face but Marinette just hides a smirk as Alya and everyone are quick to assure Lila that it isn't her but someone else (Chloe) that Marinette is accusing with the class firmly on her side Marinette frees Lila’s hand and tells the italian that next time she needs to borrow a pencil she should simply ask first. Furious Lila reveals her last card, Alya’s phone! And how it was in Marinette’s bag! Instead of an uproar or Marinette scrambling to defend herself Alya hugs Marinette and thanks her, apparently the blogger losing her phone is a common occurrence and its standard protocol for someone in class to pick it up and give it to her later. Score One: Marinette.

In the following weeks similar incidents occur. Lila manages to break into Marinette’s locker thinking the flimsy looking lock was the only thing holding her back only to find herself covered head to toe in cheap sticky glitter paint! Lila throws a fit and Marinette feigns concern that the art supplies she brought were so precariously placed she apologizes and kindly offers to make Lila a new outfit and then makes a point to ask in an innocent and confused tone that EVERYONE can hear just what Lila was doing in her locker in the first place? Lila gets her paws on Marinette’s sketchbook dreaming of stealing the girls designs and framing her? Tough luck she opens the sketchbook to an artfully crafted pop-up mocking her failure and every other page is empty! She goes after Marinette’s precious designs in the school art room? This time it's latex paint that falls on her. Dump coffee on Marinette? Somehow everything important is in waterproof cases and now the cutest guy in school (yes even cuter than Agreste) is offering Marinette his sweater so she can finish up the school day without an emergency home visit and hey is she free for the school dance? Steal her purse? Strangely enough, she gets seemingly cursed with bad luck and ends up caught red handed by Alix and Max and getting a REAL sprained wrist!

And during every single incident Marinette is calm and forgiving and understanding and apologetic. She has answers for every accusation and is quick to turn whatever she can around after all why IS Lila looking in her locker? Why is she in the art room alone going through Marinette’s stuff!? Why does she clearly have one of Marinette’s sketchbooks in her bag? That’s the third thing she spilt on Marinette this month! The final piece is Marinette’s purse and the plague of bad luck it brings Lila the moment she snatches it suddenly everyone is a LOT more suspicious, because before? Well it could just be coincidence or bad luck or any of the other many excuses Lila had come up with but this time was different and Alix and Max were witnesses. Now everyone is keen to keep an eye on Lila, and with them paying closer attention they start to notice how easily and how often Lila is to blame Marinette for things, or how she casually and ‘helpfully’ (accuses) points out that Marinette of being a bad friend, or a ‘bully’.

Now how does Lila get exposed? There are options, maybe she gets caught red handed by the now observant classmates and this time she cant lie out of it. Maybe after all her failures to destroy her at school Lila tries to lie her way into the bakery only to learn the traps in Marinette’s room are worse. Maybe she gets careless in her frustration. Maybe Tikki’s residual bad luck from when Lila snagged the purse follows Lila ruining her. Or maybe now that everyone has a closer eye on Lila they realize how she targets Marinette how her friendly advice is needlessly harsh how her honey laced words don't sound QUITE right so eventually they all treat Lila like a friendly acquaintance but never trust her words eventually Lila snaps in frustration or maybe she just moves on. But no matter what happens the class apologize to Marinette and they work to be better friends the kind of friend Kagami turned out to be during the entire Lila ordeal, loyal trusting relying on honest communication to work through hardships.

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#my fic #ml salt prompt #ml salt #lila salt #lila salt prompt

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mitigatedchaos · 4 years ago

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On Having “Whiteness”

(~2,200 words, 11 minutes)

Summary: A metaphysics of “Whiteness” has overtaken actual sociology in the Democrats’ popular consciousness - blinding them to racial interventions that might actually work and taking them off the table of political discussion.

-★★★-

Donald Moss - On Having Whiteness, Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association (emphasis mine)

Whiteness is a condition one first acquires and then one has—a malignant, parasitic-like condition to which “white” people have a particular susceptibility. The condition is foundational, generating characteristic ways of being in one’s body, in one’s mind, and in one’s world. Parasitic Whiteness renders its hosts’ appetites voracious, insatiable, and perverse. These deformed appetites particularly target nonwhite peoples. Once established, these appetites are nearly impossible to eliminate. Effective treatment consists of a combination of psychic and social-historical interventions. Such interventions can reasonably aim only to reshape Whiteness’s infiltrated appetites—to reduce their intensity, redistribute their aims, and occasionally turn those aims toward the work of reparation. When remembered and represented, the ravages wreaked by the chronic condition can function either as warning (“never again”) or as temptation (“great again”). Memorialization alone, therefore, is no guarantee against regression. There is not yet a permanent cure.

So both @arcticdementor [here] and @samueldays have linked me to this allegedly “peer-reviewed” article. The Federalist has a bit more context, but it doesn’t really make the situation better.

Race Theory Problems

Obviously, this is a work of sloppy thinking. The categorization of “white supremacy culture” or “whiteness” used by people like this is vague handwaving that describes being bad at management as “white supremacy culture,” and which in general labels universal human problems, like organizations being resource-constrained, or people being impatient, as somehow uniquely “white.”

But this sort of article is really what I mean when I say that social justice’s approach to “whiteness” is about “spiritual contamination.”

Samueldays called it “the ‘I’m not touching you’ of inciting race war,” and I may cover more of his response to it later. Suffice it to say, it has the same general kind of problems as “stolen land” arguments (where an entire present population’s living area becomes undefined), unbounded “reparations” arguments where no amount of transfers by the designated oppressor are considered to clear the debt, and so on.

This is exactly the sort of material that conservatives are seeking to remove government funding for and prohibit from use in employment training. This is the kind of material that the Trump Anti-CRT executive order prohibiting racial scapegoating was meant to cover.

Race Theory Definitions

This kind of stuff is, of course, not really defensible, so usually at this point people will argue that 1), “that’s not real critical race theory,” and then 2), “it’s just a few weirdos.” For those, I would say...

1) If it’s not real “Critical Race Theory,” then what is it?

We can’t measure or disprove Moss’s proposed “Whiteness,” and this malevolent psychic entity said to “deform” white people obviously isn’t based on a comparison with other human populations or historical periods. When it comes to “insatiable” appetites, one study argued that the Mongol invasions killed so many people that it showed up in the carbon record.

At best, it’s sloppy race science as practiced by an amateur, like twitter users idly speculating whether whites have ‘oppressor epigenetics’ - but with the veneer of official status. And it has similar risks to proposing that there is such a thing as biologically-inherited class enemy status, and other collective intergenerational justice logic.

Presumably, the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association is intended as a journal of science, or at least serious scholarship, and not of bad racist poetry with no rhyme or meter.

Moss provides a relatively pure example of whatever-this-is. I need to know what it’s called, so we can get rid of it.

Race Theory Prohibitions

2) If it’s just the product of a few race-obssessed weirdos, then it won’t hurt to get rid of it. So get rid of it.

The actual text [PDF] of the Trump Anti-CRT order does not ban teaching about the Trail of Tears, or Jim Crow, and so on, and both of those topics were taught in school before this recent wave of whatever-this-is was popularized.

Trump’s order banned teaching that any race is inherently guilty or evil due to the actions of their ancestors, and the level of resistance to this has been bizarre.

These teachings don’t seem to provide gains in relatively objective metrics like underrepresented minority test scores (or at least that’s not something I’ve seen - and the continued opposition to standardized tests suggests proponents do not expect it to), so it’s unclear just what of value is going to be lost here.

Collateral Damage

Samueldays wrote,

Because right now the conservatives talking about "critical race theory" as they fire in the direction of Moss et al. are very important in preventing another race war and you have a moral duty to help them aim, not throw smoke for Moss.

Right now Conservatives are assessing just how much stuff they’re going to have to rip out to make “standardized tests are racist” and “it’s impossible to be racist to white people” stop. While this may not be the message that Liberals are intending to send, it is the message that many people are receiving. (I discuss problems with both, and some alternatives to handle them better, in another post.)

Liberals need to get out in front of this. Sooner is better.

If Conservatives think that they have to gut hostile work environment law in order to avoid their children being taught that they’re permanently morally contaminated by their race, and Liberals have no means to actually close race gaps within a 4-8 year period (and right now it’s slim pickings on that front), Conservatives are just going to gut hostile work environment law.

Aether

From their perspective, why not?

Everything in the world is only six degrees of separation from something racist. Anything in the world can be tied to something racist. (So can anyone.)

But nowhere in this pervasive atmosphere of tying things to racism are there solutions. There are guesses based on correlations. Proposals. But usually when you reach out to grab them, to really get a grip on whether it’s correlation or causation, they dissolve in your hands. The few that do have any solidity to them are moderate in their success (such as Heckman’s involvement in the Reach Up & Learn study in Jamaica) - and don’t appear to be based on the same style of thinking as shown by Moss and others.

It isn’t just that trying to turn combating an invisible, non-measurable, unfalsifiable, parasitic psychic force into an actual political program would inevitably be oppressive and totalitarian. It isn’t just that articles like Moss’s are an in-kind donation to the 2024 DeSantis Presidential campaign for that very reason.

It isn’t just that unfalsifiable Metaphysics of Whiteness content like White Privilege Theory has been found to lower sympathy for the poor, and that present diversity training doesn’t work...

Race Content Crowding

This stuff is crowding out legitimate scholarship. I don’t just mean in terms of funding, tenure track positions, or high-flying magazine coverage - all limited by their nature. I mean among the base. I have been interrogating Democrats on Twitter for months, and not a single one has been able to cite a strongly-demonstrated intervention that’s being held back, or even a past one that was conclusively demonstrated to be effective. They can often recite a list of racial grievances on cue.

Tucker Carlson could run boomer_update.exe on a list of every educational failure since the 1970s, and they would be reduced to sputtering accusations of racism against people who increasingly don’t care. He could do this tomorrow. The only thing that prevents this is Tucker Carlson’s conscience.

I discovered the Reach Up & Learn program through Glenn Loury - described as a ‘conservative.’ Scott Alexander, attacked by the New York Times crew, brought some success with multivitamins to my attention. When I first heard about the Perry Preschool program, I believe it was from someone well to the right of him.

About the only one brought to my attention by the Democratic establishment constellation proper was lead removal, and the gains on that are probably getting tapped out. The frame it was proposed in was not Critical Race Theorist, as this was likely in 2012.

As it stands, I’m more likely to find something that works from someone the New York Times would disapprove of than someone they wouldn’t. Or, as Wesley Yang wrote,

Reality has been contrarian for a while.

Succeed Early

Even if we suppose that Conservatives are inherently racist, Liberals have a duty to support interventions that work. In fact, the more that Conservatives are a seething, undifferentiated mass of uniform racial hatred, the more important it is that Liberals stick to racial interventions that work, because nobody else is going to fix the problem if Liberals get it wrong.

It isn’t just a matter of resources per year. It’s also a matter of time.

From Heckman’s website,

Although Perry did not produce long-run gains in IQ, it did create lasting improvements in character skills [...] which consequently improved a number of labor market outcomes and health behaviors as well as reduced criminal activity.

Even if we propose an unlimited amount of funding (which is not the case), people and politicians only have a limited amount of time and attention each year. Newspapers only publish so many issues with so many pages each week. Television programs only cover so many hours for so many viewers each day. Even the dedicated can only read so many books in a year.

Even though the Perry intervention was imperfect, and the sample size was not as large as desirable, every second Democrat I talked to should have been able to answer the question “can you name an effective intervention?” with “what about Perry Preschool?”

Every year that we have entire cottage industries working on and popularizing contentious, ineffective, and backlash-provoking Metaphysics of Whiteness content, based on oversimplified oppressor/oppressed binaries, or theories in which power is held collectively by races as monolithic blobs (rather than modelling power as a network of relations between individuals, in which an individual of any background might be destroyed by the racialized relations in their environment), is another year we haven’t spent that energy on finding or implementing something that actually works.

This isn’t just an individual failure by Democrat voters, who typically have day jobs to focus on - it is a failure by the institutions who are supposed to inform and guide them. This institutional failure likely contributed to the popularization of Metaphysics of Whiteness content in the first place.

Okay, now what?

Donald Moss is a crackpot. Metaphysics of Whiteness content is unfalsifiable. The idea that there is a psychic parasite of “Whiteness” is not a legitimate field of study; it’s parasociology. The idea that “a sense of urgency” is “white supremacy culture” isn’t much better. [1]

We already tried isolating this content to obscure corners of academia, where individuals with high racial attachment could write about it. It leaked out.

We need to get this stuff out of the popular consciousness to make room for stuff that might actually work. The best way to do that may be to cut off the source. Since Donald Moss is a crackpot, perhaps it’s time we started treating him, and everyone else like him, as what they are.

People involved in Metaphysics of Whiteness content, like Donald Moss, need to be (figuratively) grabbed by the shoulder, and firmly, but politely, told to stop. Society has been recklessly handing out race-colored glasses to the general population since around 2014, resulting in a rise in amateur race science, of which both right-wing Twitter users memeing about Italians and Metaphysics of Whiteness participants like Moss are examples. If they do not stop, they must be stripped of institutional authority. Metaphysics of Whiteness content is unfalsifiable and we should not be certifying it.

If institutions refuse to reduce the authority of Metaphysics of Whiteness practitioners, those institutions must have their accreditation penalized, and their government funding reduced or eliminated, just as if they insisted on producing study after study on magic or ESP which failed to yield results. If they do not comply, they must be replaced.

It’s possible that Metaphysics of Whiteness content might have had some obscure, niche function in terms of the exploration of the idea space.

However, as it has displaced popular knowledge of interventions that might work, and the attention given to them in the political system, Liberals should seek to surgically remove it, at the very least until some more effective interventions see the political light of day.

If not, Conservatives will attempt to remove it with a bludgeon. "They described an entire race as ‘voracious, insatiable, and perverse,’ and here’s the citation for the exact page where they did that,” is perfect material with which to abolish entire departments.

-★★★-

[1] If we go a bit farther out, scholars of “Decolonization” argue that the field is wholly unconcerned with “settler futurity,” a phrase not much less ominous than describing “whiteness” as “incurable.” It seems that their entire job should be to answer the very difficult questions they have decided not to.

#racepol #american racepol #critical race theory #social justice #racial justice #longpost #flagpost #black lives matter

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fortunefool · 2 years ago

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dohyun

he loosens his tie just enough to breathe easier and takes a sip of his drink. two and three-fourths. “are you coming to the party? i know that this—” his free hand comes up and waves vaguely, “—is already a whole night’s worth of entertainment, but we’ve got some pretty great stuff in store, too. wouldn’t want you to miss it.”

not extroverted per se, and not introverted either, there was no way for sera to miss such important events for their university. not like she even could if she wanted to, that would be a bad look, right? can't have an absent resident advisor. even with the limited timeframe between the two, replacing the formal attire for an informal one should not take that long. if it does, she's not one to shy away from manipulating her luck to make it on time.

with a drink in one hand, lacking in alcohol but not in taste, sera makes small talk with whoever approaches ㅡ a warm smile to freshmen, a nod to former group project mates, a tight hug for the ones she's grown close to.

but where there's friends, there's also foes, and she watches one of the latter parade around, guessing that he's trying to win over more students. it annoys her to be a witness, eyes preferring to watch the motion of the bubbles in her drink, swirling the glass. when her gaze is finally lifted, dohyun is much closer than she'd like him to be, to the point that she has to pick up the material of her dress to accommodate him. he's become an intruder of her space. she was too nice, she thinks, could've easily used her ability to avoid this situation.

there's not much for sera to do now that he's by her side. she only listens ㅡ faux smile, attentiveness a fraud. pathetic is the word that plays on repeat in her mind and it feels like she's been approached by a mediocre salesman who believes his sham as well. but sera plays, she bites, she feeds into his delusion that she's one of the many who can't see past the charming front.

"what did you donate? how much?" it's the last of her priorities, of course, and his answer won't change how she feels about him.

"i'll be there, of course!" but not for you goes unspoken. "what did you prepare for the party though? did you make it better than this?" it's just bait to see how foolish he can make himself look in front of her. sera uses this opportunity to shift just a bit closer to dohyun: not because she particularly wants to be close to him, but because of the shadow that's casted there. she hopes that it will be enough to conceal her eyes in case her ability decides to work on its own. she wouldn't be surprised, considering the strong dislike that she has for him.

he's tipsy, it's clear as day, and the thought of creating her own entertainment is tempting sera even more than usual. maybe she won't even have to use the luck manipulation after all. "would you like another drink?"

#⠀ ⠀ 𖹭 ⠀ ⠀ 유세라⠀⠀ ⠀ ›⠀ ⠀ ⠀ threads.#with dohyun.#pupils shake. lmk if u need more... need me to change stuff up....

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gumnut-logic · 4 years ago

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Fabio Blue Nose

Aaaargh, this was supposed to be a short, but it has demanded to be longer and I’ve run out of time. I did not want another WIP!

But anyway, here be Fabio Blue Nose, or a start of some kind at least. I hope you enjoy this random fluff so far.

Many thanks to @tsarinatorment and @janetm74 for their support.

It should also be noted that no sea shanties were harmed in the creation of this fic. Nor are their any sea shanties in it, despite there being an urge to add one.

Aaaargh, it is 12.45am. I gotta go sleep, damnit.

-o-o-o-

The first time was an accident.

None of the brothers owned up to it but chances were it was Gordon, no matter how many times he swore complete innocence.

Though, come to think of it, Scott was rather more compliant than expected, so Virgil threw a little unspoken suspicion his way as well.

But anyway, it happened and it was a good thing.

There was always press at rescues that they could reach. Scott was fully aware of the importance of the media, particularly where communication and, to a certain extent, promotions were concerned. But when they got in the way of a rescue, the commander was well known to be intolerant.

This particular time, however, the press was managed by the GDF who were also onsite due to the scale of the disaster and possible sabotage, so International Rescue didn’t have to worry about them so much while they dug fifty miners out of a kilometre deep hole.

All but John were on the rescue. All but John were dirty, sweaty and ever so tired. There had been a chunk of rock that had needed demolition charges to get through, causing enough headache that even Virgil had been heard to spit profanity over comms when one of the charges misfired and nearly took his head off with shrapnel in the tunnel.

Eleven of the fifty men didn’t make it and there was some body recovery after the far too many trips it took to get them all back to the surface. In short, it had been an ugly, hard day. All the Tracys just wanted to go home and disappear into whatever distraction worked best for them.

Scott had to liaise with the GDF regarding red tape and reporting circumstances in the mine...that they should probably go down and see for themselves instead of relying on a civilian rescue organisation to do their dirty work for them. But whatever the reason, Virgil, Gordon and Alan were left to pack up and wait while all the dots and crosses were applied to appropriate Ts and Is.

It took longer than expected.

Virgil, sporting an aching shoulder, was reduced to pacing the length of Two’s open hatch. He should just take his brothers home and leave Scott to tackle the GDF.

But Scott was just as tired as they were and he had only just returned from another rescue when this callout came in. His big brother was exhausted and Virgil feared that if he left him behind they might end up a few GDF personnel short before the sun went down.

And the press were watching.

It was probably at this point the photo was taken.

It was iconic, even Virgil had to admit it. Emotive and made a statement about who they were and what they did.

The shot was from a forty-five degree angle, using a zoom lens that caught every detail of Two’s open module. Virgil stood in the middle of the ramp, paused mid-pace and staring off at something, probably Scott, in the distance. The shadow of Two in the evening light had his head in shadow, adding a heroic seriousness to his expression.

That alone was dramatic, but behind him from the camera angle, sitting on the top of the ramp to one side of the open hatch were Gordon and Alan.

Gordon had his arm around his little brother as they both stared in the same direction as Virgil. All three brothers were grimy and exhausted, Alan’s head was resting on Gordon’s shoulder.

It must have been an extraordinary lens to capture the detail because the media were fenced off a considerable distance away, but there was enough clarity to see one tear track in the dust on Alan’s face.

Their littlest brother claimed he had scratched his cheek, but they all knew better.

So, yes, this photo was taken and thrown across the planet as an illustration of three heroes of International Rescue.

There were rave reviews. Whole swaths of text praising everything their organisation did, what had been achieved that day and what had been achieved in the past. Inevitably, the history of International Rescue did the rounds again, their father’s legacy and all that. An unfortunate reminder of both the parents they had lost in the process. Being proud didn’t negate the pain that came along with it.

But due to the quirkiness of human attention, none of the above was the source of the impact the photo finally had.

It wasn’t Thunderbird Two or any of the three brothers photographed that captured most of the public’s attention.

It was a teddy bear.

Virgil kept a number of cuddly toys on Two. Some he had knitted himself, or purchased, a few were donated, but all were kept and given to children and occasionally adults, who were terrified during a rescue or evacuation and found themselves secured in Two’s module.

Perhaps the bear had fallen out of its storage, perhaps one of the brothers had shoved it aside. Whatever had happened, in the iconic photograph of three hardworking Tracy brothers, right at the back, inside the module sat a dark grey teddy bear with a blue nose and shiny eyes that caught the setting sun.

Staring right at the camera.

And the world went nuts for this bear.

It took less than a day for the fame of the teddy bear to become enough to alert Thunderbird Five and, in turn, roust Virgil out of bed - it’s lunchtime, Virgil, time enough to wake up.

Virgil’s answer to that was clear, precise and rated for adults only.

John triggered the coffee maker in the kitchen to start working its magic before his brother busted up something other than the English language.

Eventually, Virgil made it down to Two and dug out the bear responsible.

It was still sitting on top of the storage locker, which added kudos to Virgil’s flying skill.

He was going to shove it back into the locker when John asked him not to. Apparently, the bear had a following on social media.

So, Virgil picked it up and took it back up to the comms room. He placed it beside him at their father’s desk and pulled up a search screen and typed in ‘bear’ and ‘International Rescue’. He could, of course, ask John to forward him whatever his brother had obviously found, but he didn’t.

The search results that sprung up made it very clear that the world was most definitely obsessed with that bear.

There were zoomed in pictures of the inside of the module – a fact that had Virgil a little worried regarding security until he realised that anything that could possibly be compromised was just that little bit blurred. No doubt that was Eos at work. Probably snared the original photo before it could perpetuate.

But even then it was obvious that the posters had no interest in the technology. Several photos had the bear circled in red.

Various comments attempted to give reasons as to why the bear was there. The explanations were rather fantastical in the majority. A few were actually disturbing and linked Alan’s tear track to the bear – Virgil threw that bit of information at Thunderbird Five and that line of thought suddenly disappeared from the results. Some suggested the photograph was posed, a few mentioned that Thunderbird Two did carry such things and that was followed by a wave of genuine thanks and admiration for what they did…and then completely ignored when more fascinating ideas were presented.

Virgil was quite frankly amazed at what people could concoct from a photograph of a bear.

Said bear sat and stared at him the entire time. Its nose was very blue.

But ultimately the outcome that had occurred somewhere between all four brothers making it home last night and the time John dragged Virgil out of bed, Fabio Blue Nose had become a mascot for International Rescue.

Yes, ‘Fabio’.

Some inspired person had mentioned ‘F.A.B.’ as IR’s callsign and it went downhill from there.

Fabio stared at Virgil almost accusingly. His curly fur was a shade darker than Scott’s baldric and his eyes as golden as Gordon’s. His blue nose shone in the sunlight.

They had a teddy bear with a fan base, fan art and a dash of fan fiction.

Virgil caught his own name in one of them and shut it down so fast the browser crashed.

It didn’t help that an hour later Gordon found the same story and promptly paraded it around the villa for all to see and hear whether they wanted to or not. Apparently, because Virgil was the pilot of Thunderbird Two, Fabio was his crewmate.

A very heroic crewmate at that.

Could a teddy bear really rappel down a grapple like that?

He shook his head and threw a lounge cushion at his brother’s head. He really didn’t need to know.

But in any case, they now had a mascot that wasn’t Alan.

Gordon was hit in the head again for that assessment.

So, Fabio found his way to being sat on Two’s dash and accompanying them out on rescues.

The second photo was more than they had ever expected.

-o-o-o-

TBC?

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds fanfiction #thunderbirds #Virgil Tracy #fabio blue nose #Gordon Tracy #I don't know what the hell I was thinking

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ginjointsintheworld · 4 years ago

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Your reply to the ask about Leyla needing to accept help is spot on and I really hope her personal agency is something she brings up in this episode. Intentions matter but so do actions and like you said, in this case intentions don’t absolve the action, they just explain them. I also think their circumstances when they got together adds another layer to this, as does their living and working together. Financial privilege isn’t everything and they are definitely on the same path emotionally(I would even say Lauren might be a bit stunted in that area in general) but in this case their class differences are so great, Lauren having a hand in things behind the scenes is a lot. And while she did have that moment of pause right before the phone call, I’ve never really thought about Lauren confessing during their celebratory picnic and Leyla deciding to take the position anyway, but now I wonder how that would have gone.m and if there would’ve still been a strain on their relationship from Leyla feeling her position was unearned or from her girlfriend also being her boss and the one to ‘technically’ get her the position. I don’t really know because I don’t even think she would’ve taken the position.

i hope so as well and i think it's important that leyla reassert her boundaries and make it clear to lauren that what she did was not okay and crossed their lines.

see, when I think about their lead up circumstance to becoming a couple and their dynamic now (of course... sans the 5th spot issue) I don't find it as unbalanced as I think some people do. it's pretty clear from what we do know of leyla that she's not afraid to push back against lauren and she's definitely not afraid of taking the hard way if necessary. so when it comes to things like their living situation, leyla accepted the offer to be roommates and she was fine not paying rent and she did so with full knowledge of the situation. those were leyla's choices and its important we as viewers shouldn't undermine her agency either. at work... well lauren pretty much gets out of her way and let's leyla do her thing but in cases where that's not so, we've seen leyla unafraid to push back and challenge lauren. lauren's "upper hand" in these instances doesn't make leyla afraid or reluctant to voice her mind or take action how she wants.

I also genuinely don't think lauren would be the vengeful kind and ever like... throw leyla out or retaliate at work. she'd sooner throw herself out. even in 3x10 when leyla was trying to leave, I really think even if lauren didn't return leyla's affections (which I'd also like to point out there, leyla kissed her first) she'd still be fighting just as hard to convince leyla to stay and that she doesn't have to leave because of what happened.

so imo where their class differences have really come into play is with the 5th spot and lauren who's usually fairly good at being mindful of the wealth she has at her disposal, loses all rational thought and does something that very, very, very, VERY few people have the luxury of thinking about doing let alone actually able to do on a whim. and to make a decision regarding that much money, for leyla, without consulting her, stands their glaring divide.

it's hard to game out how things would have gone had lauren told her about the spot in that moment because you're right, that still would have had it's own set of problems. this donation plot is a convoluted mess basically every way you cut it which is why as I really wish they had gone with a different storyline but here we are.

#anon #asks

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cafeinthemoon · 4 years ago

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The Founders with a s/o who’s a scientist during an outbreak

So this request was made by anon and it’s kinda similar to the previous one (you can read it here), but this time I’ll be back to the traditional list of hcs and we’re going to have all the Founders and not just Tobirama. Besides, as I wrote it, it slowly turned into some kind of AU, so I hope you don’t mind XD

I also want to dedicate this post to the anon who came to my ask box weeks ago to vent about their current circumstances and stress and requested hcs for the Grandpas wth a s/o who was going through intense burnout. I’ve made a little confusion and repied that the other request (Tobirama with a surgeon s/o) was dedicated to them, but I was actually talking about this one 🙈

Anyways you can have both requests dedicated to you anon 💜

Fandom: Naruto | Founders

Symbols: ◻ | 💗 | 💜 | 💛 | ▶

Hashirama 🌱

This is not the first time in your life that you face burnout, but it is the worst as far as you can remember

The decease has been spreading faster than you and your colleagues can work to develop a vaccine, and with all the demands from the population, the government and the media you feel like the weight of the world is all on your shoulders

You know that you’re doing a noble work and are sure that if you had to carry this all by yourself you would not have reached so far

But lucky you, you don’t have to: you have Hashirama

This decease is not a particular problem to him thanks to his supernatural healing factor, but the same cannot be said about you

And that’s why he worries about you every morning when you leave the house, and every night when you come back

Being the empathetic person he is, Hashirama keeps giving all his support to the scientific community by donating genetic material to some of the most important laboratories in order to accelerate the development of the medication

But to you, the best help he can offer is being by your side

He listens to you every time you say you can’t take this anymore

He cleans everything and runs you a bath when you are so tired you can stand on your feet

He does whatever can to keep you distracted during the few hours when you’re out of the laboratory, so you don’t lose your mind

You cannot think of something you could do to thank him for all he does 💜

Tobirama 🌊

Tobirama works in the same team as you at the Research Division, and to be honest he’s almost as exhausted as you with everything that’s happening

However he won’t admit as long as he can keep hiding it

This only changes when, after days without enough rest and time out of the laboratory, you start showing signs of burnout

You just don’t sleep at night, and feel nauseated when you sit on the bed by the morning

You don’t eat your meals at the right time, or don’t eat them at all

Your feet now fail you and your stomach hurts every time you get close to the front door: the idea of leaving the house and expose yourself to the decease became unbearable

Despite being tired and stressed, Tobirama is not blind to it: he sees how much this situation is affecting you

This leads him to sit down and talk to you

You know, things only work with him when you both sit and speak clearly about your thoughts and feelings, so you take the chance and open your heart to him

You feel divided: you can’t stand one more day working on this, bearing the demands of the whole society as if you were their only hope, but at the same time you cannot just leave it all behind when there are lives that can be saved thanks to your efforts

You just lost your ability to balance the time in and out of the laboratory

To your surprise, Tobirama says he’s feeling the same, and this frustrates him as the tidy and composed person he is

You thank him for being honest with you and explain that you’ve been noticing this for a while, but couldn’t do anything to help him until then

You say sorry for this, but he assures you, saying that in your current circumstances, none of you can do anything that actually helps each other, and that keeping things this way will not help the society at all

You two decide to talk to your team the next day to explain that you both are going to take a few days off and to indicate two scientists of your trust to replace you during this period

You intend to take some rest and to trace new plans to keep your personal and professional life organized as much as possible in the current circumstances

You know how hard it is for him to leave his work aside for a moment, and cannot thank him enough for this. You know that when you will be in better conditions to work when you come back

For the first time in months, you allow yourself to feel hope 💚

Madara 🔥

If it depended on him and him alone, Madara would never let you leave the house until this decease is gone, or at least until a vaccine is developed and tested

And it’s not that he doesn’t understand the importance of your work or anything; he actually understands it better than many

But as a worker of the Security Division responsible for checking out who enters and who leaves the district a.k.a a worker of an essential service, he knows as much as you how serious is the situation

He’s also aware that every time he leaves the house, he’s exposing himself to danger. He wouldn’t mind if he lived alone, but he has you, and he cares about you more than about himself

You, on your turn, are working against time to save thousands of lives

However, the weight of this responsibility is taking its toll

It started with a difficulty to fall asleep and a general tiredness that resulted from it, but it quickly increased, turning into insomnia and chronic fatigue

You started to skip some of your meals, and now your appetite is almost null

And of course you couldn’t expect to hide all of this form Madara

One night, he comes home and sees you crying in front of a full plate. It’s clear that you didn’t touch the food

As fast he can, he takes care of himself and makes sure he’s not under the risk of contaminating you. Then he approaches and takes you away from the cold plate

He examines your vital signs, checks if you have a fever, etc., then leads you to the bathroom: a warm bath is going to help you feel better

He notices you left the TV tuned on a news channel and turn it off when you pass through the living room: it’s better to control the amount of information you consume in the current circumstances

When you reach the bedroom, he helps you to sit on the bed and gets a blanket for you

After making sure you’re comfortable, he leaves and then comes back with your favorite mug full of hot cocoa. He sits by your side and surrounds you with his arms

After drinking it, you start to speak. You takes everything out of your chest, your anxiety, your fears and your frustration

You had no idea of how good it could be just to speak about your feelings, but that’s exactly how it feels, so you asks Madara to speak his mind to you as well

He does, and you spend a couple of hours on bed, just talking until you fall asleep

The next day brings its own challenges, but you decide to keep close to each other as you’ve never been before

You believe this is the only way to assure you both will survive this 🤍

#naruto headcanons #naruto request #hashirama #madara #tobirama #hashirama x reader #madara x reader #tobirama x reader #naruto au

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heloisedaphnebrightmore · 4 years ago

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Important asset [Billy Russo x Reader]

Title: Important asset Pairing: Billy Russo x Female!Reader Word count: 3k Published: 22 April 2021 Author: Heloise Daphne Brightmore Notes: My first Billy Russo fic, I hope it's not that bad, I'm still trying to get a hold of his character :) Summary: [x] Being a former military personal gives you the opportunity to work for Billy’s company. Becoming a very important part of the company provides you with an even closer relationship with your boss. However, he seems to be deliberately dancing on your nerves, increasing your already built-up frustration.

Ben Barnes and Characters Masterlist

Masterlists | Marvel Characters Masterlist

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Working for Anvil felt like a safe place. After serving your country for years, coming back from your last tour turned out to be more difficult than you could have anticipated. Protecting important personals and working as security wasn’t something you wished to do, but after starting the job, working along with people who have been through what you have, your view of the company has changed. The job was different, but the people you worked with have given you more support than anyone, including your family, friends or your therapist for that matter.

Joining Anvil wasn’t easy, the requirement process raised some issues that you had to overcome. The physical part didn’t offer any difficulty, but the mental exam seemed to present some obstacles. It wasn’t until your second try that you have been approved and joined the team. That was when you met Mr. Russo, CEO and founder of Anvil. He was just as handsome as you have heard, and he had a way with words. He was confident and knew just how to use his charm. Even if you wanted to deny your sudden interest in him, you couldn’t have.

It seemed that even if he didn’t look at you as a woman, he certainly found your abilities interesting. You didn’t just become one with the team, a crucial member, but also became one of Billy’s most important assets. Having both good communications skills and excellent combat skills meant your worth in Billy’s eyes have grown and provided a great deal of opportunity for you to stay beside him. Officially you weren’t an assistant, but unofficially, Billy liked to give you a nice amount of work, keeping you close by from early morning to late afternoon or evening, sometimes past 10pm.

“Mr. Russo,” you called out to him as you walked behind him in a narrow corridor of the Anvil headquarters. Billy turned around, adjusting his tie with a confident smirk across his face. “I heard you were looking for me,” you added as you finally arrived beside him, glancing up at his handsome features, looking very professional in his expensive suit. You wanted to look feminine and pretty, instead of being dirty and sweaty, wearing a pair of tracksuits, but sometimes your work required you to look more worn out than you wished to be. He had a certain aura that kept pulling you towards him, but as confident as you were in your abilities to protect your country and your people, you were just as uncertain about your appearance when you appeared in front of Billy.

“Yes, I have. Care to explain why I can't reach you on your phone?” He asked, his features unimpressed with your lack of availability.

“I was training, I can’t possibly bring my phone with me everywhere,” you replied frowning, but you quickly adjusted your expressions, before he could have scolded you. It was clear that he wasn’t happy with your reply, but he dismissed it after all.

“Come to my office at 1700 hours. I have a couple things to discuss with you,” he replied in an authoritative manner.

“I have to train the new recruits at 4,” you explained, but he just shook his head.

“Ask someone to replace you,” he stated firmly, accepting no objection. But you took your job very seriously and even though Billy was your boss, often you found yourself going against his decisions just to spite him.

“I can’t do that,” you stated, lips pursed to emphasise your objection. “There’s no one to cover me,” you added. His firm stance and sharp inhale reassured you that he was anything but happy with your answer. He took a step forward, forcing you to take a step back and collide with the wall behind you. Your chest felt as though it was a small box, containing only a small portion of oxygen, its lack of tightened your throat, starting your heart off in a dangerous pace, pounding hard against your ribcage. Billy’s presence always made you feel as though you couldn’t breathe. A simple gaze in your direction, a confident grin, his low, deep voice calling your name made you weak at the knees and left your mind wandering to paths you should have never gone to, causing thousands of butterflies to erupt in your belly.

“I’m your boss and I can change your schedule whenever I want to. I want to see you in my office at 1700 sharp, or else—” he didn’t finish the end of his sentence, but you were sure his ideas were entirely different from yours.

“Or else—?” It escaped your mouth involuntarily, receiving a low growl from Billy, a threatening aura, still it didn’t frighten you, if anything it encouraged you further. “I think we both know you will not fire me, Mr. Russo. I’m a very important asset to your company. I am a very dedicated employee and therefore I will try to adjust my schedule to fit your request, but I cannot promise anything, unless you personally can provide someone to take over from me,” you replied in a challenging manner, earning a questioningly raised brow from Billy. Trying to read his face you couldn’t decide if he was actually considering helping you or he was planning how to murder you in the spot.

A heavy sigh left his lungs, but he didn’t back away. “I will send Simon to cover you,” he said between gritted teeth.

“That is absolutely brilliant, I’m so glad we are on the same page,” you exclaimed with a wide grin across your face as you turned around to leave the man behind. However, before you could have left, he grabbed your arm and pulled you back against him, your palms landing on his hard chest, feeling every inch of each fine muscle under your touch.

“Pay attention to your attitude because it has gotten out of hands recently and you are standing on a very fine line,” he whispered, his breath tickling your cheeks. Indeed, you have been rather free with your words and actions around Billy, and you knew you were playing with fire, but it seemed that was the only way to get his attention.

“I might be pushing some boundaries, but my only intention is for the company to work effectively, to produce people that do their tasks efficiently meanwhile wearing Anvil’s name with pride. If I neglect my duties and ignore my job, even if it’s for your request, what use am I to the company?” you asked with a certain pride. Whilst your intention was to object to Billy once again, to be somewhat bratty, every word that left your lips were true. Anvil has given you more than you could have ever wished for and not even Billy could stop you from making this company one of the most well-working organisations.

Billy took a sharp inhale, trying to decide whether you were just being spoilt once again, because you were indeed aware of your own worth, or if the company really took priority in your eyes. His nod reassured you of the latter as he let go of your arm.

“I like the way you are thinking, but it doesn’t excuse your attitude. You are an important asset to the company, but not irreplaceable. By the time you come to see me in the afternoon, try to get rid of it,” he spoke sternly, before he shook his head and offered you a cocky grin as he turned around and left you in the corridor. You couldn’t stop the tiny smile from appearing in the corner of your lips, his expression reassured you that you were anything but invisible in his eyes.

As you were leading a shooting session for your team, Billy interrupted your practice, clearing his throat whilst leaning against the doorframe, watching your people. You looked at your watch, afraid of being late, but according to your time, you weren’t even anywhere near the time you were supposed to be in his office.

“Keep practising,” you instructed them as you walked back to Billy, whose arms were folded in front of his chest, his eyes following every step you took towards him. “Is everything okay?” you asked as you stopped in front of him.

“Hmm,” he replied with a simple hum and a single nod. He seemed to have something on his mind, and you were sure he would soon voice his opinion. Biting his lip, he grimaced slightly. “Your team needs more practice,” he added nonchalantly. Your eyes widened and you quickly turned around to check on the targets. Indeed, there were some errors, but you were overall satisfied with their performance, they were former members of the US Armed Forces after all. Inhaling sharply, you turned back to him, staring at his expressionless face.

“Is this really why you came here?” You asked with a questioningly raised brow.

“I was just wondering how useful you are to the company since you have been walking around voicing your importance. Just like you did in the morning, if I recall correctly,” he shrugged casually.

“Let me see if I understand. After all I have done for the company and for you, now you are checking on my people and my progress, questioning how much we are worth to your goddamn company?” You hissed in anger. Billy seemed to be on a roll attempting to piss you off at any given time. Usually, you could keep your act together, but he has done nothing but insulted you that day and he was very close to reaching your limits. You stared into his eyes and in the lowest, most threatening tone you could manage, you continued. “Listen to me Russo, I can take a lot, I’m quite a resilient person, but I’m very close to walking out of here and never coming back. If you would like me to leave then say it, but if not and you would like me to keep working for you, then let me do my job and leave me alone for the rest of the day,” you exhaled sharply and after a deadly gaze directed at your boss, you turned away and joined your team. Your blood was boiling from the amount of anger he could bring out in you, as if he found your frustration entertaining. Although you expected him to come after you and give you a monologue about humbling yourself, by the time you looked back towards the entrance, he was long gone.

It was already 5pm and Simon was nowhere to be found. You instructed the new recruits to take a 5-minute break from the exercises you have given them as you rocked from one leg to the other trying to calm yourself, slowly exhaling and inhaling. Preparing for the scolding you were about to receive from Billy, your blood pressure had risen. You groaned as you saw Simon run through the door, heavily apologising for his lateness. Shaking your head, you walked up to him and instructed him about the details of the recruits’ further training. By the time you were supposed to be in Billy’s office, you were jogging across the narrow corridors of Anvil, trying to minimise the nagging Billy was about to give you for not arriving in time.

“You are late,” you heard his voice as you opened the door, grimacing at the harsh tone. Billy didn’t even look up from his desk, his eyes were attached to the paperwork he was signing off.

“Not my fault,” you added, walking up to the table and sitting down across Billy.

“I told you to be precise,” he groaned, unhappy about your lateness.

“Next time send someone who actually appears in time,” you retorted, feeling fed up with his continued scolding.

“Once again you have that attitude,” he cleared his throat in frustration.

“Russo!” You shot up from your chair, placing your hands on his paperwork, staring straight into his eyes. “I’m aware that I have a slight problem with my attitude, but I don’t think it’s fair that you blame me for something I had no say in. You have asked Simon to replace me, still at 5pm sharp I was still in the training hub alone with the recruits, because he was late,” you replied firmly.

“I don’t think I have asked for an excuse, so why do I have to listen?” He asked with a deep frown, slowly standing up from his chair, his stance projecting authority. But at that moment, you couldn’t care less. Your blood was rushing through your veins, your built-up frustration threatening to reveal itself. As if Billy’s mere purpose was to dance on your nerves. And he was successful.

“Billy,” you called his first name with clenched teeth. You have gotten used to calling him Mr. Russo or Russo, even though you were close to each other. However recently he has been deliberately annoying you and you couldn’t take it anymore. Indeed, you wanted to get some kind of reaction out of him with your brattiness, but receiving the same attitude didn’t seem that entertaining. You knew you were supposed to be professional when you were working, even though he made it his mission to piss you off, but you just lost your self-control. “I have done nothing for this company but work my ass off to help you. When you asked, I had to be at two even three places at the same time. I have no life, because every single free time and day off I’m supposed to be having, I have to spend here to help you. I don’t mind, because I love working here and I want to make this company a better place. But you are the one talking about my attitude, even though I have never asked for anything in return?! Have I ever asked for a raise even if you dumped hours of work on me? You keep me here from early morning to late evening and I’ve never once complained, still you dare to talk about my attitude? Please, tell me what your problem is with me, because recently I feel like it’s your mission to get on my nerves. At this point the only thing I can think of is that you want me to quit because that’s the kind of hostility that comes across from you,” you huffed releasing all your frustration on your boss.

“You—” he wanted to speak up, but you didn’t let him. It was your time to talk, and you didn’t even give him a chance to object.

“No, I’m speaking,” you interrupted him, earning a sharp inhale from the man. “I understand that I’m only a mere subordinate, and I know I should not have the attitude that I do take on sometimes, but I am still a human and I don’t have to deal with your moodiness on a daily basis,” you hissed. “Tell me honestly, is it your mission to get me to quit? Because at this point you are very close to forcing me to resign and—” you had no way to finish the sentence as Billy grabbed the back of your neck and pulled your lips against his, earning a moan from you. He only let go of you for a second to get around the table, his movements quick as though he was a lion hunting down his prey. He attached his lips to yours once again, pushing you up on the table and positioning himself between your thighs. He sneaked his arm around your waist, pulling you closer to him, his other hand firmly holding you close to him by the back of your neck, wanting nothing but to reduce the proximity between the two of you.

“Do you ever shut up?” He asked, breathing heavily against your lips. “I hear nothing but your continuous yapper,” he groaned as he laid his forehead against yours, massaging random patterns on your thigh. “Why on earth do you think I have given you so much job to do, you dumb woman? Can you be any more oblivious? I didn’t just dump all those random tasks on you and left you to do them, did I? I stayed behind with you, isn’t that, right?” he asked through gritted teeth. “You really know how to get on my nerves, and this certainly isn’t how I imagined this to come out, but you make it impossible for me to keep my cool,” he inhaled slowly, forcefully pulling you closer to him as he stood between your legs, making you moan at the contact. “I’m going to give you two options now,” he stated as he took a step back, giving you space to think. You can walk out that door, act like nothing happened and we will go back to being a boss and an employee. Or you can stay, and we continue what we started. But then there’s no turning back. I don’t just let go of what’s mine,” for a moment you ran the options through a logical part of your mind, that screamed for you to walk out the door. But you couldn’t possibly listen to the voice when you could finally be Billy’s after you have done so much for the man you longed for.

You grabbed his belt and pulled him between your legs, whispering against his lips. “Close that door,” Billy’s jaw clenched and without a second to waste he stood by the door, locking it behind him and getting back to you in haste, capturing your lips with his hands exploring every part of your body.

“So, have I become irreplaceable now?” You asked with a proud, overly confident grin as his hands tried to remove your shirt impatiently. His eyes darkened at your words, his hands stopping mid-air.

“Don’t get cocky with me,” he groaned, grabbing your jaw and connecting your lips once again, trying to get you out of your clothes. Whatever Billy called you for was long forgotten for the rest of the evening, you were busier with each other’s company.

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Taglist is in a reblog from now on.

#billy russo #billy russo x reader #ben barnes #ben barnes x reader #anvil #billy russo x reader fanfiction #billy russo fanfiction

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