#best secure messaging apps | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

dragonnarrative-writes · 1 year ago

Text

Transferrable Skills Part 2

Transferrable Skills Masterlist

You don’t often use your MyFet beyond finding a group or conference to attend. You periodically clear out your messages, just in case an acquaintance wants to reach out. So you almost delete the message from the anonymous profile on autopilot, but the subject line intrigues you.

Interested in Distance Play, No Punishments - 14 Hrs Ago

Intrigued, you open it because… at least they read a little bit of your profile.

I noticed your profile because of your self-rope pictures. The rest of your profile is very interesting to me - specifically your engagement in solo play and dislike of punishment. I liked the post you made about obedience as an ongoing active choice.

I’m a man in my 30s with a classified job. I travel a lot, and I’m looking for someone to have a strictly long-distance arrangement with. I’m interested in: non-restrictive rope, obedience, behavior modification, praise. I’m sure there’s more, but I’ve written this message six times. Please let me know if you’re interested in discussing.

Well, that’s refreshingly straightforward and devoid of unsolicited smut. You read the message again, then click into his profile. G_987654321_ It’s… pretty bare. But if he’s got a classified job, that makes sense, right? Location: Antarctica. His age is listed as 33, and he’s listed himself as dominant and seeking acquaintances and play partners. Not interested in hookups, interested in casual nudity, obedience, praise. Hard limits of degradation and humiliation.

It’s not much more information than the message itself, but it’s more than some of the men who have asked if you want to meet up in private. You review his original message and bite your knuckle. Worst case scenario, he’s some troll who will call you a range of slurs and waste your time, and then you’ll block him. Best case scenario… he means what he says.

What are you looking for? Who, What, When, Where, and Why?

You send the message and log out of the app before you can chicken out. Your inner voice is grumbling (stupid stupid stupid), but that’s normal. You let yourself watch two and a half episodes of your latest show, and then make a hearty dinner.

You’re surprised when you pick your phone back up. One new message.

The whole time you’re cursing the app for glitching and logging you out and forgetting your password, you’re sure it’s not him. Most likely, it’s an event announcement from a friend or a bot. But you like going to events, so it’s worth it.

It’s a message. It’s from him.

Who: You and Me What: Praise-based, goal-oriented obedience play When: Twice weekly when we’re both available, but I won’t always be available. Sometimes weekly, sometimes a greater time between meet ups. Where: Virtual meetings. Video preferred, audio-only acceptable. First couple of discussions will be text based until I can get secure video set up. Why: Mutual relaxation and well being. Sexual connection preferred, but obviously not required.

Having a guide was helpful. Thank you.

Well… That’s something.

—

You follow Simon towards the fighting, which is not where you wanted to go. When you point this out, he barely acknowledges except to say “You don’t want to go the other way.” So you keep low and stay quiet and breathe like he told you to.

He leads you down a few halls and you don’t bother trying to remember the route. He seems to know where he’s going. One or twice he has you stop while he checks around a corner, but eventually, he herds you into a small conference room. You freeze when you see three men, but Simon drops the muzzle of his gun to the floor, so you must not be in too much danger.

“Who’s this then?” A man in tactical vest and boonie hat steps forward, and you sidle behind Simon before you know your feet are moving. He gives you a considering look before looking to Simon.

The man in question fishes you out from behind his and plants you in front of him with a heavy hand on your shoulder. “Found Bambi wandering the halls.”

Boonie Hat’s eyebrows pop up. “Bambi?”

“’Bout scared the piss out o’me,” Simon confirms.

“Well, that throws a wrench in things,” the other man says. “But there’s nothing for it. Stow her for now, we’ll keep her safe.”

Simon’s hand guides you to the other side of the large table and pushes you gently into a plush rolling chair. He puts his huge body between you and the others, who look at you curiously,

“Eyes up, li’l fawn,” he intones.

You aren’t sure how well you hide the flinch when you see the skull covering his face, again. He’s quiet as you look between his eyes, clasps his gloved hands in his lap so you can see them when you look over him.

There’s a lot of him to look over.

Now that you’re not moving, you can see the brown spots on the edge of his mask, flecked on his tactical vest. His thighs spread a bit beneath his black pants where they meet the table. His biceps bulge, which is a whole different experience in person than it is online. Theres a gun on his hip, and a knife. Two knives. Three. How many knives does a man need?

Enough for everyone’s throats. You have to bite back terrified giggles.

“You’re gonna stay ‘ere,” Simon tells you, interrupting your musing. Your horror must be plain on your face because he shushes you, again. “Shhh. Easy. This wing’s secure. Can’t keep you safe if I’m wonderin’ where you’ve wandered to. Acknowledge.”

“What if something goes wrong?” you blurt.

“You follow Price if you can't see or ‘ear me. ‘e's the Captain, outranks me,” Simon answers. He points to Boonie Hat, then to the black man, who smiles at you, and a white man with a mohawk, who looks at you like you’re the most fascinating thing he’s seen all day. “This is Gaz, that's Soap. You can't find the Captain, you sit tight and wait for one of them to retrieve you."

“But-!”

“Acknowledge, Bambi.”

You swallow back tears. “Please don’t leave me alone.”

“’M goin’ where the guns are,” he answers. “’S my job to take care of you, right? Acknowledge.”

It’s hard to get the words out, but you do. “Acknowledged. You have to take care of me.”

“’M not always going to be able to do that the way you want. Acknowledge.”

“Acknowledged. Not always the way I want.”

“’M gonna keep you safe as I can,” he says. “’Nd it’s okay that you’re scared. But this is my job. ‘S not a scene. So I can’t negotiate. Acknowledge.”

“It’s your job,” you say, taking a deep breath and letting it out. Unfortunately, you can feel the day catching up with you, and your eyes start to prickle. “It’s not a scene, we can’t negotiate right now. Acknowledged.”

The one called Gaz approaches from the other side of the table. “Ghost, we’ve got to get moving.”

Before you can integrate the realization that Simon is apparently called Ghost, the other one, Soap, peeks around Simon’s shoulder with a raised eyebrow. “This your bird, LT? Le’s get her tucked away, aye?”

Something about the way he asks if you are Simon’s bird, his girl, flips a switch in your brain. Because you’re not Simon’s girl. You’re not even supposed to have ever met in person. You’re an online sub, a weird, awkward, anxious person who couldn’t find an in person connection. And yeah, Simon-Also-Called-Ghost is an online Dom but apparently that’s because he’s running around Europe rescuing people from hostage situations!

It’s a little much.

You suck in a breath through your mouth as everything gets blurry with tears. Your whole body shakes with the sob that you try not to let out. You simultaneously want to lock every muscle in place and curl up on the ground to die.

A hiccup shakes you hard enough that you almost fall out of your chair.

Simon’s gloved hand grips the back of your head, and you’re guided to press your forehead against his thigh.

"Shhhhh," he whispers, and you can almost pretend that you’re listening to him in your ear from thousands of miles away. His pants are tough and scratchy, nothing like your pillow, but the steady pressure of his hand is so steadying. "It's okay. I know this isn't a scene, but the same rules apply. You feel overwhelmed, don’t know what to say, you hold up 4 fingers. No punishments for feeling something. Show me."

Holding up 4 fingers feels familiar. The way his hand cups the back of your skull doesn't. But it's still nice.

Sooner than you’d like, Simon guides you down off the chair and under the table. You can’t pay attention to the others, though you can see their boots on the other side of the room. Instead, you keep your eyes on his his right hand, stuck on the inane detail of skeleton themed gloves. Your dom wears skeleton gear to work. His work is killing some people and saving others.

That hand cups your chin and makes you look up into his face. His eyes are dark, piercing. His voice, when he speaks, sends shiver down your spine. “Stay. Acknowledge.”

You’re already about as low down as you can get, but you still duck your head as much as you can while keeping eye contact. “Acknowledged. Stay.”

His thumb caresses your cheek for a long moment. And then he’s standing. Chairs are pushed in to surround you, and four pairs of heavy boots dash from the room.

You curl up, hug yourself, and let the tears fall.

You wake up with a start. Your whole body hurts, shoulder and neck and hips tight like they haven’t been in a long time. And of course they are. You’re on the ground, lying under a conference table. Why the hell are you under a conference table? You’re not in college anymore, you’re too old for this shit.

And then you see a pair of huge boots round the edge of the table and remember.

Your heart is in your throat as two chairs are shifted away and a huge form drops into a crouch. A part of you flinches back from the mask, the tactical clothing, the blood you almost can’t see shining on his boot. But then you see those eyes and think, Oh. You came back for me.

#dragonnarrativewrites fanfiction #transferrable skills #simon ghost riley #simon riley x you #kink fics #manic pixie dream ghost #I love this story so damn much #and i am so moved and honored and full of so much love i could burst that so many people have told me they love this story too #there's so much more of this already written #(so so so much more wow)#i genuinely forgot to post because i've been so excited to write it

573 notes · View notes

delayed-affection · 10 months ago

Note

hi! new to the blog but really love it :) could you do a Joe Burrow oneshot where reader shows up to a game wearing someone else’s jersey by accident and he gets a little jealous <3

Wrong Jersey

Joe burrow x reader

Oneshots Navigation

Warnings: none?

Word count: 1.5k

You were in a rush when getting ready for one of Joe’s games. Having just got off of work it was hell trying to get ready and leave when you needed to.

Joe made a special request for today’s game and that was for you to wear one of his jerseys.

So you did… Well you thought you did.

When you on your way out you just pulled out one of the many jerseys that he owns. Based on the color you thought it was his LSU one but it was Ja’marr’s.

You didn’t notice until you got to the stadium and someone complemented it. Making you do a double take on the jersey number on your chest.

You think about heading to the team store but it was packed with people. Sighing and head to your seat in the box with his family.

When you finally sit down your phone chimes.

Pulling your phone out of your pocket and unlocking it, opening your message app you see Joe’s name at the top of your screen.

It’s probably just his usual pregame message I think, which usually just consists of wish me luck and I love you’s.

Opening the text, The message reads…

‘Hey babe, I have a small favor to ask.’

You quickly send a message back, ‘Yeah, what is it?’

You watch as the three little dots come up and disappear.

‘So when you got dressed today, you grabbed a jersey, right?’

Fuck, you think to yourself before typing, ‘Yeah, why?’

Already having a feeling that he’s going to ask for a picture.

‘Can you send me a picture of you in the jersey?’

You take a deep breath unsure of how he will react to you having the wrong jersey on. Lifting up your phone you take a quick pic for him.

Snapping a photo and hitting send. Almost instantly he replies.

‘Is that Ja’marr’s jersey?’

You could see the three dots at the bottom of the screen to indicate that he was typing again.

But they disappear and no text comes through.

You try texting a quick apology just in case you had upset him.

‘I’m sorry, it was an accident I’ll triple check next time.’

Sending the text only for it to be left on delivered.

A few moments later the game starts.

Joe is out on the field stretching with the rest of the boys not looking very happy.

The first half of the game, Joe was on fire, making incredible plays and leading the team to a comfortable lead. None of his passes however going to Ja’marr.

Joe heads into the locker room for halftime.

By this point, you’re starting to worry if he’s genuinely upset with you.

After a while, he hasn’t replied to your text message and starts feeling a little bad.

A few minutes later the team comes out of the tunnel and takes the field once again. The game continues with Joe playing even better than he did in the first half.

He’s running more or doing more handoffs, anything but throwing the ball to his right hand man.

Joe was playing incredibly well considering the fact that he hasn’t even thrown a pass in the direction of his usually primary receiver.

The boys manage to secure a 42-21 victory by the end of the game.

The team gets off the field and heads into the locker room while the crowd of Bengals fans and away fans filter out of the stadium.

Unsure if you want to go down and see him or head home and wait for him there.

You sit in your seat for a while until friends and family clear out of the box you’re sitting in. Leaving you alone in the now nearly empty box suite for a few minutes.

Joe still hasn’t replied to your text or even acknowledged you since he saw you in the wrong jersey, leaving you worried about his reaction to seeing you after the game.

After waiting for a while you eventually decide that you’ll start to make your way to the parking lot to head home.

Maybe getting out of the Jersey before he sees you is the best decision of all.

You head over to your car and climb into the driver’s seat. Sitting there for a moment, you pull your jersey over your head and put it into the passenger seat.

You start up the car and begin driving home.

You drive home in silence, listening to the radio on your way there. It’s a quiet drive home, almost eerie.

After pulling up the car in the driveway and turning it off, you get out of the car and head inside.

You enter the house and toss your keys on the counter. Shutting the door behind you.

Knowing you have some time before he gets home you decide to put on an actual shirt and order some of his favorite food.

You change into a simple shirt and put your order in.

Taking a seat on the couch in your living room and trying to relax your nerves in the silence.

Waiting for him to get home.

After a while of quiet, you start to hear noises from outside.

You hear his car pull into the driveway and the engine shut off.

His car door shut followed by the sound of the front door opening and shutting behind him.

Joe walks into the living room and sets his keys and wallet on the coffee table. He does everything but look in your direction.

He finally looks in your direction.

He sees you sitting on the couch and he immediately looks down at what you’re wearing.

“So, you changed.”, he says gruffly.

“I did.”, you nod speaking softly.

He walks over and takes a seat in the chair across from you. There’s a slight tension in the air.

“You know, I thought I made it pretty clear that I wanted to see you in my jersey.” He says with a slight tone of annoyance.

“I know, it was a mistake. I put it on without looking at it, I was in rush.” You explain to him.

Joe sighs and rubs his forehead, the irritation showing on his face, “You didn’t even notice that you had on the wrong jersey?”

You shake your head, "Not until I got to the stadium."

"So you're telling me that you walked into that stadium with a jersey that had Ja'marr's name on the back on and you didn't think that it might upset me just a little?" His voice carrying a tone of jealousy.

"It was a pure accident, Joe, I'm sorry." You tell him, “I wouldn’t have done it on purpose.”

"You're sorry?" He asks, lifting his head up.

"Do you know how badly it ticked me off to knowing that you were walking around with that jersey on? You might as well have had one with Mahomes on it."

He let's out a small huff and crosses his arms, "Do you not understand that I wanted to see you in my jersey, not his?"

"I-..." You sigh and stand up, marching over to the bedroom.

He stands up and follows you.

"Where are you going?" He asks, frustration evident in his voice.

Opening the closet and taking out one his jerseys, making sure this one has his last name and number on it.

You slip off your shirt and pull on the jersey.

Joe stands in the doorway as he watches you pull his jersey over your head. He glances up and down, looking you over.

"Is this better for you?" You huff motioning to the jersey.

"It's better than the last one, yes." He says with a slight nod.

He can't deny that seeing you in his jersey didn't make his heart start to beat faster.

It wasn't even a sexual thing, seeing you wear his clothes just made him happy.

He wanted to claim you, he wanted to make sure the world knew that you are his and only his. And you wearing Ja’Marr’s jersey definitely did not get that message across.

He walks over to you and steps closer, towering over you, looking down at you, "Do you understand why it bothered me seeing you in another man's jersey?"

He placed a hand on your shoulder and gave it a slight squeeze, "Because you're mine and I don't want anyone else thinking they have a chance with you."

His hand glides up to your chin and gently lifts your face up, forcing you to meet his intense gaze.

The look on his face has changed, the irritation has been replaced with a combination of lust and possessiveness.

The sight of you in his jersey, looking up at him with those innocent eyes, it's making his mind go into a frenzy.

He leans down and plants his lips on your neck.

He kisses up the sensitive skin to your ear.

"You look good in my jersey." He whispered in a low tone, his breath hot against your skin, "Let's keep it that way."

#joe burrow x yn #joe burrow x reader #joe burrow #joe burrow imagine #Joe burrow oneshot #ja’marr chase #cincinnati bengals

366 notes · View notes

konigofmyheart · 4 months ago

Text

ten star ride

(fluff, fem!reader + friends, drunk silliness)

⋆⭒˚｡⋆☾

as long as könig’s home, you’ve no need for booking a ride after a girls night out. why would you when you have a 10 star driver already at your disposal?

he’s happy to serve you, his cheeks tinged pink with each compliment your friends supply from the back about how they can only pray to find such a good man. one of them pipes up with a giggled “i’m surprised you still even join us on nights out! if i were you i’d have been cuddled up with my man”, at which könig gives you a playfully pointed look as if to say “she’s right, you know”. you laugh and tell him to keep his eyes on the road, he’s got precious cargo after all, and that he does: you’re the light of his life, and so your friends are also vips by extension. he’s forever grateful that they keep you company when he has to be away for work, so this is a way for him to pay them back. he’s got little snacks packed, keeping track of which snacks make the group of you cheer most, and of course a bunch of waters, declaring each of you will have at least one bottle, no arguments. hydration is key after nights like this.

you mention wanting fries, and suddenly the back of the car is a chorus of pleas for fries and burgers and nuggets, and you’re turning your best puppy eyes on könig, but it’s entirely unnecessary because he’s already turned in the direction of your fav fast food place minutes before. he knows how y’all get, downright ravenous like a pack of lionesses. he’s ever patient as he jots down everyone’s cravings in his notes app before ordering, having to redirect the conversation from gossip back to the matter at hand a couple of times. he covers it, shaking his head and laughing at the overly loud thank yous shouted from the back, one of your friends even bursting into tears because “that’s so nice! isn’t he so nice? like, the way kindness still exists in the world is so beautiful!”

although, don’t think he doesn’t like the gossip. as you’re waiting for your giant order he’s intently listening to you and your friends yapping, viewing it like a game to unravel each slurred and choppy story supplied. “ja, he’s a total jerk for that. what was he even thinking saying such a thing?” “maybe give him some time? if he’s not back in a couple of days, cut him out.” “if he wanted to, he would. i message my liebe even when i’m in the literal trenches”

yeah, he’s great with your friends, dropping each of them off at their houses, waiting til they securely shut the door to drive off until it’s just the two of you on your way to your home. your chatting fades out as you slowly nod off, but he doesn’t mind one bit. he pulls into your driveway before going over to the passenger side, oh so gently scooping you up, pressing soft kisses to your hair as you stir and cling to him, his scent and the feeling of his strong arms around you making you sigh softly. you smile drowsily, eager for the rest of the usual night out routine: he’ll carefully remove your heels, peel off your dress, reverently bathe you as you doze off in the warm bath, then bundle you up like a precious present as he pulls the covers up around the two of you. you mumble something about being so lucky to have him, and he laughs softly, correcting you:

“i’m the lucky one, schatzi.”

⋆⭒˚｡⋆☾

also, i promise i’m working on part 2 to long way down <3

#don’t tell but he also covered practically all of you and your friends drinks #he stays sending you money for any silly thing you could want #idk i just thought this would be so cute #könig cod #könig mw2 #könig x reader #könig x you #cod x reader #könig #könig fluff #daisy original #könig fanfiction #call of duty #könig headcanon #konig mw2 #cod fluff

124 notes · View notes

moody-alcoholic · 6 months ago

Text

The pick up

I wanted to write something Ghoap related. Why not continue this weird hurt/ angst kick I've been on.

CW: attempted date rape, non-con drugging, alcohol, violence, blood.

A guy in a bar attempts to 'pick you up' the best boys Johnny & Simon come to the rescue.

Merry Christmas/ happy holidays. <3

You’re mad, she said she wouldn’t do this again, leave you alone at a bar while she went home with some stranger. But here you are yet again alone finishing on your 4th? 5th? drink. Who cares, you signal the bartender over for another.

The fresh gin and tonic went down like a treat numbing your anger and making you relax. You pull your phone out getting ready to send her a long 'fuck you' message. You’ve only just started typing when someone comes up on the stool next to you.

“Hey, can I buy you a drink?” You frown looking up at him. He’s cute black hair, nice casual suit, kind of gives you a sleazy salesman vibe.

“I’m good, thanks.” You say going back to the text.

“C’mon, what is it, vodka tonic?” He asks, you look back over at him almost rolling your eyes. He’s not that bad looking. You sigh, not responding for a second. You don’t want to have to owe this guy. ‘It’s just a drink’ your drunken brain tells you ‘don’t turn down a free drink.’

“Gin and tonic.” You correct him. He smiles, waving the bartender over. You finish your short angry text to your friend and put your phone back in your bag.

“I saw your friend leave earlier.” He says paying for the drinks. You pick yours up and he signals for you to cheers with him. You clink your glasses together before taking a sip.

“Yeah, she went off with some guy.” You say a little more bitter than you wanted to.

“Shit, think she’ll be coming back?” He asks, sipping his drink, coke and something.

“No fucking clue. Probably not.” You sigh.

“Shame, at least the drinks are cheap.” he jokes. You smile at him, getting a better look at him. He’s skinny, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

“So you from round here or not?”

“No, only here to see my friend. It's her birthday tomorrow.” You say.

“Wow so she ditches you the day before her birthday for some twink?” He chuckles.

“Yeah.” You scoff, he was a twink. There’s the sound of a crash behind you, a woman screaming. It pulls your attention as you look at the commotion playing out behind you. Two men are squaring up to each other with smashed glasses on the floor. It’s not long before security are running over them, pulling them apart.

The incident has your blood pumping and adrenaline rushing through you. You look back picking up your drink and finishing it off to quell your nerves.

That’s it you’ve had your last drink you should go home.

“Thanks for the drink.” you say to him as you jump off the stool.

“Leaving already?” He asks. You nod. He reaches out and grabs your arm. It makes you uncomfortable and you freeze.

"Yeah. I have to get back to my hotel.” Shit, you shouldn’t have told him that.

“Oh, I can walk you if you want?” He asks.

“No, thank you but I'm okay.” You pull your arm out his grip walking away. The adrenaline from the drunken fight is still pulsing through your body.

“Well take it easy.” He says as you walk away, you turn back, smile and nod at him as you leave.

There is still a line outside to get back into the club as you leave it must not be that late. You pull your phone out to check where you need to go. You’re not used to the busy London streets. You must have drank the last 2 drinks a little too fast as your head feels particularly foggy.

You’re turning down streets using your phone’s maps app to guide you. Your mouth goes suddenly dry, your head swimming more than normal. You sway all of a sudden feeling unsteady on your feet. You stop looking at your phone looking ahead of you trying to regain your balance.

It doesn’t help and you lean up against a sign at the corner of the street. Maybe you’re going to be sick, you drank the drinks too quickly and now you’re going to pay for it.

You retch but nothing comes out, your throat feels dry, your head swims as your legs give way. You fall to your knees. Panic comes over you, this is not a good place to be doing this.

You curse under your breath, you’ve clearly had way too much to drink.

Hands land on your shoulders, the grip is strong then the hands slip under your armpits. The person pulls you to your feet, you try to talk but it just comes off as a slur as your body is pulled into a private parking area behind some bins.

You’re not sure what’s going on, your vision is fuzzy, your breathing picks up. You can feel someone trying to pull your jacket off you, maybe you’re being robbed. You try to talk again but nothing comes out. You try to grip your jacket to pull it back on you but whoever it is, is stronger than you.

You feel someone grip the waistband of your jeans. Panic overwhelms you, you get enough energy to push the person off you. It doesn’t last long before there is a sharp pain on your face. You yelp as your face stings.

“Stay. Still.” A voice says through gritted teeth. You whine trying to build up srength again but nothing happens.

Silent tears run down your face. You hate this, you hate what’s happening. Your head is swimming, you close your eyes still fighting with the hands on your waist. Suddenly the person is gone, your body falls to the floor slumping against the industrial bin.

New hands land on you pulling your jacket back around you. You try to push them off but they grab your wrists.

“Hey lass, it’s okay, you’re okay.” You don’t know what accent that is but it’s not English, maybe he’s Irish?

“Take it easy, what's your name?” He asks, you stop fighting, looking up at him. He’s tall even though he’s crouched down in front of you. He has a mohawk, and even in the dark you can see his deep blue eyes. You’re not going to tell him your name. You stay silent.

“Okay, you don’t have to tell me. We’re going to get you somewhere safe okay?”

We’re?

You look past him, you can see another hulking figure holding someone up by their collar. You see fist meet skin, it makes you gasp. The man-Johnny-pulls your attention back to him.

“How you feeling? You look a little worse for wear, think you can walk?” He asks. You nod and he helps you to your feet. You sway against him but he supports you holding you up as you walk out the parking alcove.

There’s another man, and one on the floor groaning. You see blood, you can smell it in the air. More hands are on you now. You look up at the tall man standing next to you. You feel sick, your head throbbing, your vision blurring. Your legs give way again as your arms start to tingle.

“C’mon lass, can you hear us?” The dark haired man says as you collapse fully to the ground.

“Yes,” You try to say but it just comes out as a slur, it’s barely English. You don’t care, you suck in one last breath of air before everything goes black.

298 notes · View notes

ririleil · 10 days ago

Text

biker suna takes you out on a ride

you stepped outside of the classroom with a heavy sigh. that sigh wasn't a sigh of defeat exactly, it's more of like… a sigh of uncertainty.

finals week is over and the semester has closed its final chapter. you should be glad— relieved that hell week was finally over and that you could finally rest and do whatever you want.

you thought you did well. you studied, crammed, barely slept your usual minimal hours of sleep, and sacrificed your whole week just to secure passing marks (that includes any quality time with your very patient boyfriend) but still, a tiny part of you couldn’t let go of that uncomfortable, gnawing feeling that you might’ve missed something in the exam and got some or majority of the items wrong. or that your efforts weren't enough to pass your exams at all.

you checked your phone with tired hands, already bracing for a flood of group chat messages asking about what answers people got for question 14 and 32. but all you got was one notification that awfully stood out.

ejp's no.7: im by the school entrance. come meet me here. i feel lonely :(

you blinked.

what the hell?

your heart stuttered a little after reading that message and you immediately picked up your pace. you didn’t even respond to his message. you just shoved your phone back in your pocket and practically weaved through the thick crowd of students pouring out of classrooms who were laughing, complaining, or looking like they were about to cry from the exams. you weren’t sure why he was doing here and you two didn’t even make any plans for today. he also knew you had back-to-back exams for the whole entire week and you didn't even ask him to pick you up today.

so why is he here?

you stopped your tracks once you reached the 3rd floor staircase of the building. you looked down and there, he was.

by the parking lot reserved for motorbikes just across the building was suna. black leather jacket, black shirt, helmet tucked under one arm, and phone in one hand. leaning on the bike parked nearby, his muscled and defined figure stood sleek and relaxed under the purple and orange colors of the late afternoon sky. he looked completely out of place like he came straight out of a movie but in the best way possible.

he looked so good, maybe it's because you haven't seen him for more than a week or so but he looked totally handsome and irresistible. and based on how people were glancing at him (double-taking even) you weren’t the only one who thought so.

you took your phone out, opened the camera app, zoomed in just a bit to get a really good angle, and snapped a photo.

grinning to yourself, you typed down a message:

You: looking lonely all by yourself, handsome?

and with the picture, you hit send.

from your spot, you waited to watch him read the message. his expression didn’t change at first, but then his eyes widened slightly. he looked up, scanning the building to search for you.

and when his gaze finally landed on you, his neutral expression melted into something soft, warm, and familiar. the corner of his lips tugged into a small, gentle smile, the kind he only ever gave you when you caught him off guard in the best way.

you smiled back at him and carefully made your way down the stairs. once your foot hit the stone pavement, you walked up to him quickly, heart light and giddy.

“what are you doing here?” you asked, slightly breathless from your previous quick movements.

he straightened up and tucked his phone away. “taking you out, obviously.”

“but we didn’t plan to do anything for today.”

“i know.” he shrugged and without missing a beat, reached for your bag. “but hop on. let’s go somewhere. i'll get you something to eat too, my treat.”

you blinked as he removed your bag from your shoulder and slung it over his, wearing it across his chest like it was nothing. “won’t that get in your way?” you asked.

“nah,” he said, already swinging one leg over his bike and putting on his helmet. “i want you to enjoy your ride back there.”

you scoffed, but the smile on your lips was impossible to fight off.

“show-off.”

“only for you,” he said, voice muffled under his helmet but you could practically hear the smirk as he handed you the spare one.

you slipped it on and climbed behind him, wrapping your arms around his waist. the moment you leaned into him, placing your face against his back, you could smell his cologne— faint and grounding. you felt your exhaustion starting to peel away, like layers being stripped off by the wind.

“ready?” he asked, glancing back at you and placing his left hand over your thigh as means of reassurance.

“yeah. let's go.”

suna revved his bike and off you both went to the highway. you assumed he'd take you somewhere familiar, maybe that food bazaar place you both visited at your last date that you liked. or that outlet place by the sea that the locals love to go strolling, shopping, and dining. but instead, he took a turn. then another. then another still. before you knew it, more than twenty or thirty minutes—you weren't sure— had passed.

you didn’t ask where you were going.

instead, you soaked it all in, losing all track in time.

the sky was a brilliant stretch of purple, dotted with streaks of orange clouds. the wind whipped through your hair, cooling off the nerves and the mental exhaustion you felt from the exam hall. suna drove up roads you didn’t recognize, past the quiet neighborhoods and winding hills that eventually opened up to views that overlooked the entire city. you could see the way sunset passed through the clouds and glazed through the city.

and every now and then, suna would glance back at you slightly— not enough to speak, just to check if you were still there with him, holding on.

and you were. tightly.

you didn’t say anything for the longest time and neither did he. both of you fell into a comfortable silence, an easy one. eventually as minutes passed, after passing a particularly breathtaking ridge, he slowed the bike down by the side of the road and parked near a small, quiet lookout that provided an overview of the entire city. you were in awe. despite living in the city for years now, you didn't realize there was a place and a view like this even existed.

you pulled your helmet off, placed it on your lap, and breathed in the fresh air deeply.

“okay,” you finally said, smiling at him as he turned around to look at you. “what was that all about?”

“you looked tired,” he replied, eyes squinting slightly at you. he pulled off his helmet and his hair stuck out unevenly. it was cute— a little shaggy and a little too tempting. you had the sudden urge to mess it up even more, just because you could.

“and i missed you. you ignored me for a week, after all.”

and with that statement, your heart clenched.

you moved closer, resting your chin on his shoulder from behind.

“i'm sorry... and thanks,” you whispered against his ear. “i didn’t know i needed this.”

“i did,” he said, patting your hair. “you go too hard on yourself sometimes.”

you kissed his shoulder and neck softly. “and you spoil me.”

he hummed, lazily tilting his head back toward you to give you a kiss on your temple. “let me.”

and so, you let him — on that unexpected and spontaneous drive, under the late afternoon sky, with the stress of finals slowly fading into something softer.

something almost like freedom.

temp. m.list

dividers: @/cursed-carmine

#haikyuu #haikyuu x reader #suna rintarou #suna rintarou x reader #sunarin #fanfic #I NEED BIKER SUNA

86 notes · View notes

roosterforme · 2 years ago

Text

The Younger Kind Part 27 | Rooster x Reader

Summary: You should be finishing your school work so you can ace your finals and graduate, but Bradley coaxes you to take a study break at the Hard Deck. While there, Bradley realizes just what life is going to look like with you by his side, and he takes a minute to remind both of you who you belong with. And then he helps you study the way only he can.

Warnings: Angst, swearing, fluff, smut, and age gap (18+)

Length: 5200 words

Pairing: Single dad!Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x babysitter!female reader

Check out my masterlist for more! The Younger Kind masterlist.

On Friday morning, when Bradley got to work, he walked right over to Nat where she was sipping a coffee in the hangar. Her eyes were wide, clearly anxious to hear some more details about Meredith, but Bradley just walked right into her arms and hugged her.

She kissed his cheek and whispered, "What happened? Aside from the glorious fact that Merebitch has to fuck off now!"

"I'm being deployed."

"No!" she gasped, hugging him tighter as she set down her coffee. "Will you need help with Noah?"

"Nope," he said with a smile as he pulled away from her a few inches. "For once, I got that part covered."

She listened as he told her all about Wednesday in the courtroom and how you agreed to stay at his house the whole time he was deployed. He was in the process of adding you as a temporary guardian for Noah. He was also going to add you to his credit cards as an authorized user, but you were definitely going to protest. If he had any way of getting your social security number, he would have already done it behind your back.

"Oh, I see," Nat replied with a smirk. "Your babysitter is going to be staying with Noah? For six weeks?"

"Girlfriend, actually," Bradley replied smoothly.

Nat looked pleased. "I still maintain that you have me to thank for that. If I hadn't downloaded that dating app on your phone, none of this would have ever happened. Now tell me I'm the best."

Bradley rolled his eyes and sighed deeply. "You're the best, Nat."

"Yes," she agreed. "And I'll help your girlfriend with Noah while you're away. Make sure you tell her to come to me if she needs anything. Anything at all."

"Thanks, Nat," he mumbled as he reached for his helmet. But Bradley knew you'd be just fine. Nat would be a safety net in case you needed something, and that helped put his mind even further at ease.

After a morning of training exercises, Bradley headed inside to eat lunch and check his text messages.

My Princess: Daddy, I'll be on campus until at least 6. Kind of panicking over how much work I still have to complete before graduation.

He knew this was partly his fault. He was the one who hadn't let you return to your little rental so you'd have some peace and quiet away from him and Noah. But you and he both seemed incapable of being apart now. The way he knew how your body felt tucked against his chest in the middle of the night had him desperate to keep you in his bed. And the way Noah was so attached to you, Bradley was convinced he'd start calling you mommy soon.

As he carried his lunch to one of the cafeteria tables, he texted you back to remind you that he'd help you finish up with your school work this weekend. But he also knew you needed to take a break tonight, so he texted someone else as well.

------------------------------

You were exhausted by the time you got back to Bradley's house on Friday evening. The Bronco was already parked in the driveway, and you noticed that the boys must have played with some sidewalk chalk. As you made your way up to the door, there were pictures of dinosaurs, and Bradley had written We love Princess next to the front porch.

Quickly, you unlocked the front door and called out, "It's me!" Noah came running toward you from the kitchen, and you caught him in your arms.

"Daddy's making dinner," he informed you, and you rushed for the kitchen to investigate.

"Hey, Baby," Bradley said, smiling at you over his shoulder.

You set Noah down on one of the chairs where the table was covered with his coloring books. "You're cooking," you said in shock. "Do you want me to take over?"

"No, I got it," he replied, and you peeked in the pan to see he was making chicken stir fry. "The sexiest woman I ever met taught me how to cook this."

"Oh really? Where is she? I'd love to meet her," you said sarcastically. You were rewarded with Bradley's big hand smacking your rear end before he pulled you closer to him.

He kissed you while the food sizzled on the stovetop, and he murmured, "You had a long day. Let's go out after we eat."

You let his lips linger on yours, enjoying the rough feel of his mustache before he pulled away to focus on what he was cooking. "You want to take Noah out to see a movie or something?" you asked, reaching to pull out some plates. A movie would be really fun, but you also hated the idea of Bradley paying for your ticket along with everything else. He was no longer paying you to babysit Noah. And now that school was ending and you weren't being paid by the college for your work study, you had no income. "Or we could just do something fun here instead?"

"We're going out to the bar," he informed you easily as he turned the stove burner off.

You laughed and put your hands on your hips. "And what about Noah?"

"Got it covered, Princess."

"We actually do need to find him a new babysitter," you reminded Bradley as you glanced at where Noah was quietly folding up construction paper.

"I already did," Bradley promised, kissing your cheek and carrying plates of food to the table. "Amelia Benjamin will be here in about thirty minutes. I wouldn't trust her with Noah for six weeks or anything like that, but I'm sure we can get away for a few hours. Just you and I." He was looking at you intently, waiting for a response. You were honestly surprised he'd managed to set this all up today. "Baby, you need a little break, and Amelia is out of school for the summer," he added softly before he started to blow on Noah's dinner to cool it down.

"I really need to finish my school work," you reminded him as you sat down and tasted his chicken stir fry. It was pretty good, and he smiled as you took another big forkful.

"We have tomorrow and Sunday to work on that. I'll help you."

You were quiet for a moment as you ate. And then all you said in response was, "This is delicious. I can hardly believe you made it."

Bradley set his fork down and took your hand in his. "Come to the bar tonight. Now that I took you out to lunch yesterday, all I can think about is showing you off all the time, okay? Nat will be there, and I kind of already told her we'd be there, too."

"Fine," you said, agreeing with his plans. "But the rest of the weekend, I'll be working."

Bradley's smile held steady through dinner, and when Amelia arrived to watch Noah, he was still excited to be taking you out. You were promised that the evening was casual, so you changed into some jeans that were a little baggy on you and a button down shirt that you tied in the front so it was cropped a little bit. Bradley was in jeans and a colorful floral print shirt, and when he led you out to the Bronco, you offered to drive your car to the bar instead.

He opened the passenger side door of the Bronco and kissed you. "Don't want you wasting your money or gas or anything on me, Princess." And you climbed inside with the realization that you were in a very adult relationship here, and maybe you were in over your head.

--------------------------

Bradley tried to brace himself ahead of time. You were a headturner. Fucking stunning, even in your jeans and beat up Sperrys. But even though you had your fingers laced through his as he led you inside the Hard Deck, you drew the attention of at least half the guys in the place. So he withdrew his hand from yours and slipped his arm around our waist which did essentially nothing to stop the looks he was getting.

"What do you want to drink?" he asked, and you looked up at him with such innocent eyes. He pulled you snug against him, and your hand came to rest just above the waistband of his jeans. His cock throbbed for you and that trusting look on your face. You just knew he was going to take care of whatever you needed, and it was going to make him hard if he didn't get control of himself now.

"A beer," you told him, and he leaned down to kiss your cheek next to your ear.

"I see Nat over by the pool table. Why don't you go wait for me over there while I get us some drinks." He squeezed your ass as you turned to walk away from him, earning him a heated gaze over your shoulder. And then he noticed that your eyes caught on something by the bar before you turned back to look at him briefly before you walked to the pool table.

When Bradley turned toward the bar, Helen was there, watching you walk across the crowded room with a scowl before she said, "Rooster," in a bland voice.

He had somehow managed to forget that Helen would be here tonight. Great. "Hey," he said awkwardly before he ordered two beers and watched her expertly pull two pints and slide them across the bar.

"I'll start a tab for you," she said, barely meeting his eyes. "You know, I'm surprised you brought her here. She looks like she's barely legal. And I don't mean that in a nice way. She's probably going to get into some shit." And then Helen turned to help the patron next to him as Bradley's eyes found you.

"Fuck," he grunted. You were leaning back against one of the posts as Harvard and Yale closed in on you. Yale was leaning close enough that you tried to pull away, only to end up pressed against Harvard.

"How old are you, Angel?" Yale asked as Bradley got closer.

You rolled your eyes and said, "I'm twenty four, and I'd appreciate it if you stopped touching me."

Harvard and Yale laughed at the same time, and then Harvard told you, "Maybe you don't know this yet, but girls fight over the chance to come home with us. We're roommates. And we're really good about...sharing."

When you glanced up, your expression was one of extreme annoyance before you met Bradley's eyes and smiled softly. "Then you can share each other," you said before stepping into Bradley's open arms, careful not to bump the beers.

"I see you met my girlfriend," Bradley said, his voice loud and deep as you wrapped your arms around his waist.

He kept his eyes on you while Harvard muttered an excuse and Yale repeatedly said, "Sorry, Rooster," until he was too far away to hear.

"Friends of yours?" you asked, reaching for one of the beers.

"Not really," he replied, watching you take a long sip. "I thought I told you to go wait by Nat."

You licked your glossy lips and said, "And I thought I'd never have to see that flower stealer ever again." You tipped your head toward Helen and held your chin high.

"Flower stealer?" he asked with a smirk.

"I could call her a wannabe homewrecking bitch, but we're in public," you deadpanned, and Bradley actually started laughing.

"Let's go," he said, taking you by the hand as he chuckled, leading you toward the pool table. He watched Nat light up and start asking you a million questions about Meredith and the court appearance even though he had explicitly asked her not to. And of course Jake was here, trying to discreetly check you out.

Bradley wasn't really sure why he had expected this evening to be a nice break for the two of you. He was constantly having to physically touch you in some way, otherwise you got cornered by someone. "Everyone here is so friendly," you remarked after your third beer. Bradley pressed his lips to the sheen of sweat on your pretty neck just as Omaha looked like he might be getting some ideas in his thick skull.

"Yeah," Bradley mumbled. "Or maybe you're just a smokeshow, Baby."

You giggled and asked, "Will you let me go get the next round? I kind of want to see what my buddy Helen has to say to me."

"Go right ahead. Get whatever you want, and put it on my tab."

"You want anything, Daddy?" you asked, rubbing your hand along his abs again, clearly feeling a lot looser than you were two hours ago. He thought about taking you to the bathroom and fucking you as your fingers tucked inside his white undershirt and found his bare skin.

"I want you to go get your drink and get back here quickly," he replied, his voice raspy. "That's what Daddy wants."

He watched you shuffle away after promising him you'd be right back. Then he felt a hand on his shoulder. "Rooster. My man. Where did you pick her up from?" Omaha asked, leaning past Bradley to get a good look at where you were standing at the bar. You had no idea how appealing your ass looked in those jeans, otherwise Bradley was pretty sure you wouldn't be standing like that.

He turned back toward the other aviator and said, "I didn't pick her up from anywhere. She's my girlfriend."

Omaha had the audacity to whistle before he said, "Shit. How long you been hittin' that, old man?"

Bradley felt his hand at his side clench into a fist. He didn't mind the reminder about his age when it came from you, but when it came from someone else, he wanted to start swinging. When you called him old, it was because he couldn't figure out the settings on his phone, something you assured him you found charming. And you weren't a child. You were a capable adult, smarter than pretty much anyone else he knew. But he still just wanted to protect you, even though he knew he didn't have to. The sting of Greyson and Meredith was still too close though, and Bradley had to work at loosening his hand once again.

He was about to tell Omaha to fuck off when he saw you out of the corner of his eye. You were reaching for your drink just as Bradley saw Cyclone of all people reach his hand out to stroke one long finger across the perfect curve of your cheek. You were saying something to Cyclone, and you didn't look too happy. And now both of Bradley's fists were clenched as he watched you duck away from his commanding officer and head his way.

"Oh my goodness," you muttered, sloshing some of your beer onto your hand. But Bradley's gaze was fixed on that of Admiral Beau Simpson as the other man nodded in his direction. "That guy at the bar insisted on buying me a beer as well as a glass of the bourbon he was drinking."

That's when Bradley noticed you were holding two drinks. "Which guy?" he asked, even though he already knew. You turned to look at the bar and nodded toward Cyclone.

"The older one," you muttered before you looked up at Bradley. "He asked me if I was single and insisted on getting me the drinks." You held out the bourbon to him, and he took it.

"What did you tell him?" Bradley asked, fingers tightening around the glass as he felt the weight of your gaze and Cyclone's on him as well.

You licked your lips and said, "I told him I'm here with Bradley Bradshaw, and that he should stop pawing at me."

"Good girl, Princess," Bradley muttered, wrapping one big hand around your waist and pulling you close as he sipped the expensive bourbon courtesy of his boss's boss. Beau Simpson wanted something Bradley had, and the idea of it was enough to make him feel giddy.

"I don't really like this bar very much," you said, an edge of annoyance lacing your tone of voice as you sipped your beer. Bradley let his hand slide down lower and grip your ass, and you did nothing except snuggle in a little closer to him.

But then Bradley tipped the glass of bourbon toward Cyclone and nodded his head in thanks. When Admiral Simpson nodded before letting his gaze dip down along your body, Bradley smirked and downed the rest of the amber liquid. Then his lips were on yours, still wet from the drink. He wanted to mark you, brand you as his own. He wanted to do the filthiest things to you in front of everyone else.

You moaned against his lips, and Bradley took the beer out of your hand so you could wrap your arms around his neck. "What's that for, Daddy?" you asked when his lips found the side of your neck. "Oh, god," you whined as he sucked on you there.

Bradley knew you liked Daddys, and Simpson was older than him. Hell, half the guys at the bar who were looking at you were older than he was. Bradley wanted to make sure everyone knew who you were here with. Maybe he especially wanted to remind you.

So he let you finish the beer from Cyclone while he stood behind you, his big hand splayed across the bare skin of your belly. He kissed the side of your neck and praised you for being a good girl. And if Cyclone happened to be looking in this direction as Bradley's fingers dipped down into the front of your jeans, then so be it. Let him watch. Let everyone else watch as Bradley got his tipsy, twenty four year old girlfriend whining for his cock in the middle of the Hard Deck on a Friday night.

"Daddy," you moaned, grinding back against his erection, back arched as you set down your empty glass. "You're teasing me."

Bradley unbuttoned your jeans as he suggested, "Let's go outside?"

You smiled and bit your lip as you asked him, "Are you going to take me home?"

"Something like that," he replied, leading you toward the bar so he could close out his tab. And if that meant that both Helen and Admiral Simpson got a good look at the way you were coming apart in Bradley's arms while he signed his credit card slip, then that was just fine with him.

---------------------------

You stumbled out into the parking lot while Bradley unzipped your jeans. "Take me home?" you asked before his lips clashed against yours again. He tasted like that free bourbon, and you moaned into his mouth. You were so horny, you'd probably never make it back to Bradley's place at all.

"You want me to take you to my house, Princess? You gonna start calling that home?" he asked, scooping you up in his arms and heading for the pitch black corner of the parking lot where he'd left the Bronco.

"Daddy!" you whined, rubbing your lips all over the scars on his neck. "Take me home to your bed," you demanded, really quite tipsy. You'd never behaved like this before, ready to go in a parking lot, but apparently Bradley could read you like one of your nursing textbooks.

He deposited you next to the Bronco, your feet meeting the ground just a fraction of a second before he spun you to face the passenger side door. His hands felt rough on your body as you reached for the door, your palms braced against the window. Bradley yanked down your jeans and underwear, and you cried out as the cool, night air met your wet pussy.

"Bradley!"

"Shh," he whispered next to your ear. "You want me to fuck you right here, Princess?"

You felt almost ashamed as you gasped, "Yes," but you were so turned on for him, it didn't even matter. He bent you at the hips a little more, and then you felt Bradley thrust inside you in one quick motion. He filled you up so fast, the sensation took your breath away. He didn't give you time to get used to the stretch or to accommodate him before he was fucking you. It felt like he was teaching you a lesson as you tipped your head back and let him suck on your neck.

He nibbled on you before soothing you with his tongue, and you tried to look around, tried to make sure you were alone, but you would probably beg him to keep going even with an audience at this point. He felt that good. The cold glass against your palms was the only thing keeping your body from hitting the Bronco as he fucked you harder.

"I can't believe you're letting me do this," he rasped next to your ear. His voice combined with the sounds of his thighs slapping against yours, the sounds of filthy sex, as you started clenching around his cock.

"Daddy," you whimpered, unable to slow down your building orgasm.

"I'm your Daddy," he growled. "Just me. You're so fucking hot, you know that? Sinful looking. Can't leave you alone for a goddamn second."

"Ohhh," you keened, getting louder for him. He did nothing to stop you.

His words just made you clench harder as he said, "Every guy in that bar wishes he was me right now. Dying to be buried in this tight pussy. They all wanna look at you and touch you, but you're mine." He fucked you harder as he softly said, "You're my Princess."

"Oh!" you gasped, cumming on his cock as he continued to fuck you until you were a moaning, writhing mess. Your legs were shaking, and you felt like you had just wet yourself, but Bradley kept going. He didn't stop until he filled you up with his cum and let it drip down your legs. Then he spun you around and kissed your lips so softly as you leaned back against the door, your head swimming with satiated pleasure.

Bradley's hot cum cooled on your inner thighs, sending a chill through your body. He took his time pulling your jeans back up, and then he was helping you onto the passenger seat with the promise that he'd take care of you again when he got you home and sent Amelia away for the night. And the thing was, you'd definitely let him keep that promise.

-----------------------------

When Bradley woke up to an empty bed and a quiet house on Saturday morning, he was instantly alert. He'd slept in, and something didn't feel right. He jumped out of bed, and when he rushed to Noah's bedroom door, he found his son's room was empty.

"Noah? Princess?" he called out, continuing to the kitchen in just his underwear.

"Hi, Daddy," Noah said, looking up at him and spilling a forkful of scrambled egg onto the floor. Bradley contemplated getting a dog just to clean up the food messes Noah made, but a pet would only be something else he had to worry about when he was deployed.

"Hi, Daddy," you echoed from the seat across the table. You had your kid friendly playlist going, and you were reading from one of your textbooks, but you glanced up at him and smiled. You looked tired, and now Bradley felt bad for keeping you up half the night with his cock buried inside you. The Hard Deck had been a massive wakeup call for him. He was going to have to work hard to keep you. That much was obvious now. But you also needed the rest of the weekend to get yourself organized, and that was something he could help with.

He kissed Noah's forehead and then yours. "You want some coffee?" he asked you softly, and you nodded in response. He would take care of anything you needed, but he knew you wouldn't let him provide for you. Hell, you hadn't given him a real answer about moving in here, even though he'd asked and dropped hints. He wanted you here all the time. He couldn't stop thinking about what it might be like to get you pregnant ever since the idea was planted in his head on Wednesday.

As he worked the coffee maker to get you a vanilla latte just the way you liked it, he watched you cut some of the fruit in Noah's bowl into smaller pieces. And when Noah climbed into your lap, you didn't make a fuss that he was interrupting you.

"I'll take him out for the day, maybe do some grocery shopping while you work," he told you, his tone apologetic. "And then tonight, after bedtime, I'm all yours, Princess. We'll get everything done."

You kissed Noah's cheek and said, "I made you a grocery list. We're almost out of Skittles already. You boys can go to the store while you're out, and then I'll make dinner later."

Bradley wanted to protest, he really did, but he also wanted to eat one of your homemade dinners. So he got Noah dressed for the day and took him to the playground and then on a nature walk and then to the grocery store. He kept him out of your hair for hours and hours, and when he got home that afternoon, he carried a napping Noah into his bed.

You were sitting at the kitchen table wearing Bradley's gray sweatpants and one of his shirts, and you were typing away on his computer. He found himself entranced by your purple nail polish and calm exterior. He didn't disrupt you while he unpacked the groceries, he just set one of the many bags of Skittles he purchased on the table next to you. "Love you," he whispered, and you looked up at him with a little smirk as you opened your snack of choice. "You don't even have to share that bag with me."

"Thanks, Daddy." And that was all you said to him until you stood up and stretched a few hours later and started to make spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, because Noah started bugging about it.

"Let's give Princess a break, Bub. I'll make the ants on the logs today, and you can help me." It took Bradley just as long to cut up the carrots and spread the peanut butter as it did for you to make an actual meal, but as he watched Noah decorate them with raisins, Bradley felt a certain level of accomplishment.

He knew how to cook now, kind of. He could make healthy snacks that Noah actually liked, sort of. And most importantly, he had managed to start a relationship with a woman who not only loved him, but loved his son as well.

"Here you go," you announced, setting plates of dinner down in front of both of them.

"Yay!" Noah cheered, and Bradley had to stop him from reaching for the hot food.

"Listen," Bradley said between bites of food. "Early bedtime tonight after a nice bath. And then tomorrow night we'll have a family movie night. We can go to the theater that serves dinner at your seat so we don't have to cook anything here."

"But that place is expensive," you protested. "And I still have to finish studying for my final on Monday."

"We'll study tonight," Bradley promised. "And the fancy movie theater isn't too expensive for my family."

----------------------------

You insisted on being the one to put Noah in bed when he finished his bath. After working for twelve hours straight on school assignments, you needed a little break, and some hugs from Noah really did the trick.

Once he was tucked in, you knew you needed to study for your anatomy final, but all you wanted was a glass of wine and a hot shower with your hot boyfriend. You found him in the living room, rooting through the drawers underneath the stereo system that must have belonged to his parents.

"Oh my goodness," you teased, gasping as he looked up at you. "Are those cassette tapes? Are you sure you're only thirty six?"

He rolled his eyes and got to his feet, pulling you toward the couch. "Almost thirty seven, actually. You know, I was going to play something I thought you might like while we study, but nevermind."

"Wait, I take it back, I take it back!" you protested, wrapping your arms around his neck. "Play it for me. Please?"

"Fine," he groaned, running his hands down your sides and bending to kiss you. "But only because I'm in a good mood." Then he started to play the tape, and you noticed that he already had your textbook and a fresh bag of Skittles waiting on the couch.

"Thanks for doing this," you whispered, watching as he settled down and patted his thigh.

"Come here," he coaxed as the mellow rock music played softly, and you were surprised to find you knew the band. "I like studying with you," he said with a grin as you settled onto his lap, straddling his thighs.

As he tore open the bag of Skittles, you reminded him, "I'll be looking for a job soon. No more studying."

"Gotta make this count then," he replied, pulling a red Skittle out and feeding it to you. "Fifty percent of the Skittles are mine. You can earn your share by answering questions correctly from your study guide."

You scoffed and ran your fingers through his hair. "I should get a more generous share of the goods tonight. As a reward for all my hard work."

He grunted and rolled his eyes. "Fine. You can have sixty percent. But just for tonight. Tomorrow we go back to a fifty/fifty split."

"Deal," you whispered, kissing his lips.

And it was all so gentle, the way Bradley fed you a yellow Skittle and then a purple one as he went down the study guide, his thumb rubbing soft circles against your thigh through the gray sweatpants. Anytime you needed an extra minute to consider your answer, you pulled your fingers through his hair and down his neck as you contemplated.

"You know this one, Princess. I know you do."

Every time he encouraged you, giving your hip a little squeeze, you got the right answer. And then you got a Skittle. And then you got a kiss.

"Will you come with me to my exam on Monday morning?" you asked him softly, your head coming to rest on his shoulder once the candy was all eaten. "I don't think I can do it without you there."

He kissed your forehead and held you close. "Sure you can, Baby. You'll ace it. Besides, I have to meet with Tracy and get everything settled. You don't need me at all."

But that was a lie. You did need him. You needed him. And Noah. "I do," you whispered, your lips brushing his neck. "I need you, Bradley."

"You already have me."

--------------------------

Cyclone, you dirty dog. Inching closer to this deployment. Hope you enjoy your fic, @beyondthesefourwalls And thank you @mak-32 !

PART 28

@hotch-meeeeeuppppp

@swthxrry

@chassy21

@yaboid19

@solacestyles

@avoirlecoupdefoudre

@daisyhollyxox

@throwinsauce

@awesomebooklover17

@wintercap89

@whosyourgnomie4

@rosesinmars

@blog-name6996

@bcon24

@wishfulwithwine

@backinwonderl4nd

@tetragonia

@gingerbreadandpaper

@emptyloverofmine

@chaoticassidy

@missmirandafe

@changlingkhat

@sugarcoated-lame

@avada-kedavra-bitch-187

@katiebby04

@marantha

@averyhotchner

@abaker74

@andycanbeemotional

@heli991113

@k-k0129

@noz4a2

@tallyovie

@shanimallina87

@starlightstories

@teddyluvs2sing

@little-wiseone

@ccbb2222

@lilyevanswhore

@o-the-o-grim-o-reaper-o

@xoxabs88xox

1K notes · View notes

fragileporcelaine · 6 months ago

Text

౨ৎ ˙⋆.˚ brothersbestfriend!rafe saves you from a tragic date

you decide to download some dating apps due to your non-existent love life, after swiping left at some weird matches until a guy catches your eye ethan baker you swipe right intrested at his profile, minutes later a message is sent.

" Hey! your really beautiful " he types

you smile at the sweet message and type back " aw! thank you, your not too bad yourself " a few messages turns into you and ethan constantly messaging for 3 days straight until ethan decides to make a move

" I really do enjoy speaking with you, so would you like to go on a date with me? " you grin because you really do like him you quickly type back " of course! how about that really nice restaurant that just opened in figure eight on friday? "

friday finally comes around and you put on a short jean skirt, red floraly scandalous shirt, you hear a knock on your door and know its ethan.

" hey ethan, its nice to finally meet you! " you say with a cheeky smile on your face, ethan leans down and kisses your cheek.

" hey gorgeous, same with you, the reservation is really soon, we really have to get going " he holds your hand and leads to towards his car, ethan walks straight to the drivers side expecting you to open the passenger seats door yourself, you brush off this one mistake thinking in your head " hmm, maybe its not that serious to him "

" sorry is it okay if i put my headphones in, just nerves you know " you look at him hoping it doesnt bother him

" yeah of course i'd rather talk when we're at the restaurant too not good at multitasking " he says nervously laughing

you eventually get to the restaurant and your about 15 minutes into the date, you like ethan, you have a good feeling about him until you dont.

" how did your last relationship end? " you ask curiously

" oh, well she broke up with me due to my "misogynistic views" she called it apparently saying her job should be cleaning is misogynistic? " he said rolling his eyes

you immediately have a weird feeling in your stomach but brush it off. another 15 minutes go by.

" hey so after this we're going to mine, i have some wine" he confidently says expecting you to agree.

" could you excuse me, i need to go to the bathroom " you stand up and walk away fidgiting with your hands, " i need to get out of here " you think to yourself. you message your brother hoping he responds

" please pick me up this dates going horribly " you rapidly message him. he responds as soon as the text goes through " can't. "

you look through your contacts wondering who else you can message, rafe cameron your brothers bestfriend, you sigh knowing you and his friendship isn't the best, but he's your last resort " please pick me up, this dates tragic and i feel really unsafe " you type hoping he responds, 2 minutes go by, no respond. you walk back to the table tragicly hoping you somehow get out of this. 3 minutes later you hear a slam coming from the entrance.

rafe cameron.

rafe walks towards you plopping his motorcycle helmet on your head " we're going " he says nonchalantly. ethan stands up " who the fuck are you " he says in an agressive tone stepping towards rafe. " one inch closer and your leaving with your nose broken. " ethan steps back almost in fear. you feel your face getting warm as rafe grabs your hand and leads you to the front door holding your hand softly.

rafe hops onto his motorcycle holding your hand making sure you dont hurt yourself, he takes your hands and put them around his waist making sure your secure and safe,

" thank you so much rafe. " you say breaking your silence, rafe doesnt respond and starts speeding away to your house. after a very silent couple of minutes you get to your house and rafe leads you to your front door.

" hey do you want to come in for a second? " you ask rafe hoping he agrees, to your luck he nods and steps inside, you both walk towards the living room and you fall down onto the sofa in relief.

you start rambling " listen im so sorry i know its a friday night and i just took you away from whatever you were doing like im just so sorry and i should of waited and i could of messaged my brother again and like- "

" stop speaking. " rafe says in a soft tone

" excuse me? " you say almost confused.

" i said stop speaking, do you want to know what i was doing? "

you nod waiting for him to continue

" i had a bunch of friends over. "

" oh my gosh im so sorry "

" stop speaking. " he says with a rougher tone " i saw your text i saw you felt unsafe i saw you needed me, i grabbed my helmet i grabbed my keys and i left. i didnt say anything i just got on my bike and i got to you, because i will choose you over everyone else every time. "

you furrow your eyebrows, again waiting for him to explain what he meant. rafe steps towards you looking down at you sitting down.

" what are you- what are you saying? " you say knowing your face is turning red

" i will choose you. "

" okay but what about my brother " you say almost laughing thinking this is a joke

" over your brother every time. "

" what does this mean? " you say feeling something you've never felt before.

rafe crouches to get to your eye-level " i'll show you what this means " rafe kisses you on the lips for a second. " but i'll show you on a different night, when you havent just came back from a shit date. "

rafe walks towards the door not allowing you to get out another word. next thing you know you hear the engine of a motorcycle driving away.

#fragileporcelaine #rafe obx #rafe outer banks #rafe x reader #rafe cameron #outerbanks rafe #rafe imagine #obx

103 notes · View notes

fabaulti · 2 years ago

Text

I think most of us should take the whole ai scraping situation as a sign that we should maybe stop giving google/facebook/big corps all our data and look into alternatives that actually value your privacy.

i know this is easier said than done because everybody under the sun seems to use these services, but I promise you it’s not impossible. In fact, I made a list of a few alternatives to popular apps and services, alternatives that are privacy first, open source and don’t sell your data.

right off the bat I suggest you stop using gmail. it’s trash and not secure at all. google can read your emails. in fact, google has acces to all the data on your account and while what they do with it is already shady, I don’t even want to know what the whole ai situation is going to bring. a good alternative to a few google services is skiff. they provide a secure, e3ee mail service along with a workspace that can easily import google documents, a calendar and 10 gb free storage. i’ve been using it for a while and it’s great.

a good alternative to google drive is either koofr or filen. I use filen because everything you upload on there is end to end encrypted with zero knowledge. they offer 10 gb of free storage and really affordable lifetime plans.

google docs? i don’t know her. instead, try cryptpad. I don’t have the spoons to list all the great features of this service, you just have to believe me. nothing you write there will be used to train ai and you can share it just as easily. if skiff is too limited for you and you also need stuff like sheets or forms, cryptpad is here for you. the only downside i could think of is that they don’t have a mobile app, but the site works great in a browser too.

since there is no real alternative to youtube I recommend watching your little slime videos through a streaming frontend like freetube or new pipe. besides the fact that they remove ads, they also stop google from tracking what you watch. there is a bit of functionality loss with these services, but if you just want to watch videos privately they’re great.

if you’re looking for an alternative to google photos that is secure and end to end encrypted you might want to look into stingle, although in my experience filen’s photos tab works pretty well too.

oh, also, for the love of god, stop using whatsapp, facebook messenger or instagram for messaging. just stop. signal and telegram are literally here and they’re free. spread the word, educate your friends, ask them if they really want anyone to snoop around their private conversations.

regarding browser, you know the drill. throw google chrome/edge in the trash (they really basically spyware disguised as browsers) and download either librewolf or brave. mozilla can be a great secure option too, with a bit of tinkering.

if you wanna get a vpn (and I recommend you do) be wary that some of them are scammy. do your research, read their terms and conditions, familiarise yourself with their model. if you don’t wanna do that and are willing to trust my word, go with mullvad. they don’t keep any logs. it’s 5 euros a month with no different pricing plans or other bullshit.

lastly, whatever alternative you decide on, what matters most is that you don’t keep all your data in one place. don’t trust a service to take care of your emails, documents, photos and messages. store all these things in different, trustworthy (preferably open source) places. there is absolutely no reason google has to know everything about you.

do your own research as well, don’t just trust the first vpn service your favourite youtube gets sponsored by. don’t trust random tech blogs to tell you what the best cloud storage service is — they get good money for advertising one or the other. compare shit on your own or ask a tech savvy friend to help you. you’ve got this.

#internet privacy #privacy #vpn #google docs #ai scraping #psa #ai #archive of our own #ao3 writer #mine #textpost

1K notes · View notes

metalheadsagainstfascism · 5 months ago

Text

I've been doing some research on the most secure messaging apps, and the best I got is Signal. It's not owned by Meta. When subpoenad by the Supreme Court all they give is vague Metadata (which basicallymeans they got nothing). It's got end to end encryption (which basically means the data can't be read from one end to the other).

If you're an android user and you're texting an iPhone user, your messaging data is not secure.

If you're like "I WANT TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT WHAT'S GOING ON BUT I WANT TO MAKE SURE MY COMMUNICATIONS ARE SECURE." This is how you do it. Just be sure you know that you trust whomever is in you're group messages.

-fae

#secure messaging #fuck trump

58 notes · View notes

woniverse-writes · 2 years ago

Text

"MOTH TO A FLAME (part 3)"

Bada Lee x Fem!Reader

part 2 ⟵ part 3 ⟶ part 4

series masterlist

summary: y/n l/n is the youngest team member of Jam Republic, competing in the second season of Street Woman Fighter. she’s got the sweetest smile and the most vibrant personality, but she also may or may not be the biggest hothead on the show when it comes to defending her teammates. apparently that’s attractive to Bada Lee.

word count: 9.2k

warnings: swearing, suggestive at times, both Bada and reader are idiots practically already in love, reader is described as younger and small a lot, sometimes isn't very accurate to swf's actual plot, also this isn't proofread so... sorry for any mistakes lol- lemme know if I missed anything!

All teams had gone their separate ways to begin discussing which company they were going to aim for. The only two teams securing the company of their choosing were Wolf’Lo and Lady Bounce- meanwhile Bebe, TsubaKill, and 1 Million all go for JYP; and Jam Republic, Mannequeen, and Deep N Dap all go for Hybe. When Bebe had walked into the room to 1 Million in there as well, they knew it would be interesting- then even more so when TsubaKill entered. And even though none of them outwardly said so, all of Bebe was secretly glad they weren’t going up against Jam Republic.

Jam Republic on the other hand- wasn’t worried at all when they saw Deep N Dap enter the room. In fact- when Kirsten had reported the information back to the team as they were preparing, Emma and Y/n couldn’t help but smirk and snort at how easy it would be.

So all teams began preparing their choreography to battle against each other. Everyone was working hard and staying focused, ensuring they put out their best work to secure the company of their choosing. Bada had stepped out briefly, leaving the rest of Bebe to start choreographing. when she came back, they had yet to start anything, only having collected ideas. It frustrated the leader beyond words, yet she still tried her best to express the dissatisfaction she was feeling to her teammates.

“You guys know I’m not the only person on this team, right?” the eldest member sighed passively with her eyes shut in frustration. The others all stood in silence, too ashamed to speak up.

“Every time we go out there, everyone calls us “Bada and her students”- aren’t you tired of that?? I’m tired of it, so why aren’t you?” she started raising her voice. Bada looked around at her teammates and felt disappointed, but was also starting to feel exhausted.

“I’m not competing by myself here… let’s get started” she sighed and everyone fell into a clump behind her, ready to follow her instructions. They begin working and eventually develop a pretty good routine, except everyone is on edge and they all keep making little mistakes.

The Bebe members take a break and Bada grabs her phone and her water, walking out the door to get some air. She can’t help but criticize herself, wishing she was able to lead her team better- lead them in a way where they felt confident enough to work on their own. But no, Bada is still learning, yet not giving herself a break. She almost feels pathetic when she opens her messages app and her and y/n’s texts are already pulled up. She sighed reading over the last few messages they were talking about, which happened to be from the night before after they had all picked their groups. Bada had been saying how she was kind of glad their teams weren’t directly against each other, and y/n replied with something along the lines of how she agreed- saying it would’ve broken her heart. Bada types out a quick ‘how’s it going?’, not expecting a response right away but still hoping for it anyway. The leader was starting to accept the fact that the younger dancer was becoming a safe space for her, and she had a feeling that said dancer felt the same.

In the meantime- Jam Republic is having a blast coming up with choreography, their teamwork is impeccable, and the ideas flow like water. After about three hours of non-stop motion they take a longer break. Y/n sprawls out on the floor and Audrey comes to lay on top of her, causing them both to laugh- until Emma also comes to lay on top of them, and suddenly Audrey was dying laughing and y/n was groaning about how it’s not fair for the smallest to be on the bottom. The older three members sat back and admired their playfulness- Latrice began recording the chaos and Kirsten started snapping pictures. After a few minutes of messing around, Emma rolled off the two and Audrey followed, leaving y/n dramatically breathing with her eyes closed and head tilted- pretending like she was dying. Ling made her way over to the youngest with her phone and water in hand, passing them off to her as she sat up.

“Thanks Ling Ling” the younger girl appreciated with her eyes still shut, but a sweet gentle smile on her face. y/n opened her phone as she took a sip of her water to see a message from Bada. It was sent a couple of minutes ago simply asking ‘how’s it going?’ wot which she quickly replied with ‘pretty good! We’re getting a lot done and it looks pretty good too🫣😋’ totally unaware of how tragic the Bebe practice is going.

Right as Bada is about to put down her phone and start the practice back up, she feels it buzz and looks down to see it light up with a new text notification. She immediately opens it to see y/n’s reply, and smiles, happy to know at least one of them is doing well. She typed out ‘that’s great! Wish I could say the same haha… but it’s okay- I feel more motivated now after hearing that your practice is going well🩵’ and pressed send before waiting a few seconds to see if she’d get a response right away- which she did.

‘Oh no! I’m so sorry to hear that love :( I hope it gets better- just remember to keep drinking water and DON’T overwork yourself! It’s important to do your best but you also need to make sure you’re in your best state of mind as well’ was the text Bada had received and truth be told, it made her a little emotional. She hearted the message and began typing again. ‘Let’s get something to eat after the battles tomorrow, okay? On me’

Y/n felt her face heat up and a smile began to take over as she read the latest message from Bebe’s leader. She made sure to heart the message and respond quickly with an ‘of course!! That sounds great!’ before putting her phone down and getting back to practice.

Bada felt relieved at y/n’s acceptance, sending a heart emoji then turning her phone off to head back to practice- now with a much better attitude. Her change in mood seemed to bring up the team's morale as a whole, seeing as how every member was bringing their a-game now. They finished choreographing and ran their routine into the late hours of the night before deciding to turn in and get some rest for a few hours. They came back the next morning and rehearsed a bit more, but ultimately they felt confident and were ready to compete.

As all the teams filtered in, everyone was sharing their nerves and excitement among themselves. Jam Republic was up first to battle and their three youngest members were beyond excited to take the stage. They showed their choreo, and even though they were only given a short period of time to work on, they blew everyone away with how energetic and clean it was. Audrey and Y/n once again received immense praise for their facials and explosive stage presence. The performance ended and while the other members were trying to catch their breath and process how they did, the two youngest members were skipping back to their seats giggling over how fun it was and how they hoped to keep HYBE so they could do it again

After watching Mannequeen, y/n was excited about how good it was but felt a little nervous after seeing her leader's tense expression

"Hey, let's try not to worry too much, we already danced and did our best, and we did amazing! Let's just try to enjoy the other dances right now" the youngest member softly states after putting a gentle hand on her leader's shoulder, giving her a bright youthful smile.

"y/n since when did you get so mature? You don't seem fired up at all right now and it's kinda scaring me" Latrice commented from the other side, causing y/n’s smile to widen a little.

"won't you be upset if we get eliminated?" Kirsten asked seriously before the younger girl could respond to the initial question.

"Of course, but I'm so tired I can't even think that far ahead right now" she joked. The members all rolled their eyes and laughed. after staying up all night to perfect their piece, they could barely even process it when the votes came in and Deep n Dap was kicked instead of Jam Republic. But to be completely honest, they weren’t surprised at all.

They move on to the JYP battle section, meaning it’s time for Bebe, 1 Million, and TsubaKill. 1 million goes first and of course, y/n is hyping up her new friends- especially Redy, which Bada is absolutely not happy about. She hates it, it makes her more nervous.

y/n is even more excited while watching Tsubakill, cheering again for the member she’s closest with- Rena, but also fangirling over their leader, Akanen. This again makes Bada even more nervous- to the point where she feels like she's gonna pass out. She hated feeling jealous but she also hated how badly she wanted to please the youngest dancer from Jam Republic- and that paired with her already crushing need to succeed was tearing her apart.

"Bada looks really tense…" Latrice comments

"oh my god I feel like I'm gonna throw up- I'm so nervous" y/n replies with her hand on her chest. Kirsten puts an arm around her shoulder, the whole pink team now feeling anxious. Bebe goes and they do amazing. Y/n is cheering and screaming the whole time, over the moon excited to see how well the routine turned out. When they finished dancing and everyone was cheering all the members bowed and turned to the various teams. When Bada had turned to face Jam Republic, y/n was already standing up throwing her hands in the air.

“What were you even worried about?? That was fucking amazing!!” the young girl scremaed with a huge smile on her face, causing Bada to share the same expression before shaking her head and turning back around to await the results. Everyone votes and the results are announced, 1 Million will be moving to another section.

After all the teams are adjusted, it’s announced that the two teams of each company will have an hour and a half to decide who gets to choreograph each song, then they will all take a four-hour filming break for lunch, but teams were allowed to begin collecting ideas if they wanted to. Bada had already discussed with her team that they would be taking their break to relax and decompress as long as they had gotten to stay in JYP. similarly, Jam Republic had also decided to take their break if they got to keep their original group.

Bada came waltzing over to Jam Republic’s seating with a cool smile on her face, even though she was really trying to contain an accomplished grin. y/n hopped down and met the older girl at the bottom, her teammates trying their best not to be nosy, but failing miserably.

“So I’m thinking a quick shower and then we can go?” Bada had asked looking down at the shorter girl who just smiled and nodded at first, her cheeks a little flushed already.

“Mmhm! Sounds good to me!” y/n responded enthusiastically, even though her brain was still stuck on the thought of Bada showering- or rather them showering together. Bada held up her hand like she was waiting for y/n to shake it, which she did albeit with a confused look.

“Alright- see you soon then princess!” Bada affirmed, giving a final playfully aggressive shake to y/n’s hand, as if they had just sealed an important business deal, causing the younger of the two to burst out into giggles. After Bada is back with her crew, y/n turns around to see the rest of Jam Republic eyeing her expectantly.

“Soooo what exactly are you gonna be doing later, princess?” Kirsten interrogated with a teasing smile. y/n just laughed some more and her smile grew wider (if that was even possible).

“Nothing crazy, we’re just going to get lunch” she had explained, somewhat calm, not entirely believing herself when she described it as “nothing crazy”. They all nodded and hummed, pretending to believe her.

“Right… just lunch… nothing crazy!” Emma repeated sarcastically with a knowing smile.

“Just don’t come back with hickeys the makeup crew won’t be able to cover-” Ling teased quietly to which everyone shot her a wide-eyed look.

“what? The way that girl looks at her is definitely not television-appropriate seventy-five percent of the time!” she exclaims, trying to defend her comment, which causes everyone to chuckle and nod in agreement.

“She’s got you there y/n… you should definitely go somewhere public, so she doesn’t pounce on you.” Emma snorts out a laugh, finding herself to be the funniest person in the room. Audrey shoves her shoulder and scoffs.

“Leave her alone- this is exciting! Y/n isn’t as delusional as we all thought!” “No Audrey- she’s still delusional, her delusions are just reciprocated by someone even more delusional that’s just really good at hiding it.” All the members look over to see Lusher standing in front of them with a knowing smirk. All of their faces drop, now looking a little panicked.

“It’s okay- we’ve been having pretty much the same conversations with Bada.” the Bebe sub-leader reassures them with a subtle laugh and smile. They all briefly relax before turning their full attention back to the girl in front of them.

“Wait- what do you mean you have the same conversations? About y/n???” Emma excitedly speaks up, leaning forward ready for the tea. Y/n also leans forward hands resting against Emma’s shoulders, with wide eyes and a tiny curious smile.

“Well… yes… but I don’t think right now is the best time to explain.” Lusher draws out with a teasing smile, causing Emma and Y/n to groan, but the rest to shake their heads and laugh.

“Anyways- I actually came over to see if the rest of you would want to get lunch with us, seeing as our precious teammates decided to ditch us for a date.” The standing girl finishes off her offer by crossing her arms and landing her eyes on y/n with another teasing look.

“That sounds great!” Audrey gushes, smiling happily at the invitation before looking over at Kirsten for confirmation. The older nods her head and smiles.

“We’d love to, thank you so much.” Kirsten nods again gratefully, and Lusher smiles before heading back to her team. After the short break, all teams head into their battle rooms to decide who is going to get to choreograph a chunk of each song. Everyone else seems to have figured it out quickly, besides Mannequeen and Jam Republic, who ended up taking the whole hour and a half they had been given. After it was decided that Mannequeen would take “Dope” and Jam Republic would take “Eve, Psych, and the Bluebird’s Wife” they were finally able to go on their break. The rest of Jam Republic decided to head out and meet team Bebe for lunch right away, while y/n texted Bada to let her know she was just finishing up the decision process and that she was going to change quickly before the meeting.

Y/n rushed back to her apartment and showered before drying her hair and doing her makeup. She had kept it light but still pretty, tying the look together with her signature gloss. Her outfit was simple- well- simple for her. She had on a pink tank top paired with a khaki skirt and layered a white jacket on top. She finished getting ready and shot Bada a quick text letting her know she was leaving. They decided to meet at a cafe that was in between their apartments and happened to be really close to the studio. Once y/n had arrived she walked in to see Bada already sitting at a table looking at her phone.

“Hey! Sorry I kept you waiting…” y/n spoke up shyly as she approached the table. To which Bada looked up and shook her head immediately, signaling it was no problem.

“You didn’t keep me waiting, I actually just got here a few minutes ago” the older shared to ease the younger girl’s mind. She ‘ahh’ed and took her seat across from Bada. They exchange small talk for a moment over what they’re going to order and begin conversing more comfortably after that. Their food and drinks arrive as they continue their conversations about how each other’s day has been going. Y/n is currently retelling how the decision process went down between them and Mannequeen, and even though she's disappointed in losing dope she laughs about it openly because Mannequeen was surprisingly sweet and respectful about it (or at least most of them).

"Wait- so you’re telling me they blocked your door??" Bada asked in disbelief after taking a bite of her food, trying not to laugh.

"YES" Y/n openly laughed at Bada not fully believing her and took a sip of her drink. They continued to laugh about it for a little bit before going back to talking about how team Bebe had been doing.

“I’m just glad we were able to pull it off… I was really stressed.” Bada tried to laugh about it so she didn’t seem too troubled in front of y/n, but the younger girl still frowned and reached across the table to take Bada’s hand on hers, rubbing the back of it gently before nodding at her to continue.

“I felt horrible especially in the beginning, because it really seemed like I was the only one putting in work… but then I felt even worse after thinking about how it’s my fault that my teammates don’t feel secure enough or confident enough to lead themselves… I felt so selfish. Like I wasn’t fit to continue leading them in that moment…” the older girl continued quietly, looking down at the table. She didn’t want y/n to pity her, but it just felt too easy to open up to the girl.

“You’re too hard on yourself.” she spoke up, looking at Bada with puppy eyes. The young girl could feel her heart shattering into pieces while listening to the leader describe her stress. She just wanted to lean over the table and wrap her in a giant hug, and coddle her until she had no more negative thoughts about herself. Bada sighed and hung her head for a second before looking back up at the girl across from her.

“I know…” she began with a sad smile.

“I just feel like I have to always put out the best work- especially here. There are so many amazing dancers and choreographers, so many teams with such strong presences… I just want that for Bebe. I want them all to be strong and recognizable because believe it or not, I hate that everyone only sees me when they think of my team…” Bada finishes off her rant with her head resting in her hand that isn’t still being held by y/n’s.

“Bada-” the other starts

“You do always put out your best work. everything you do is amazing- whether it’s as a dancer, a choreographer, and especially as a leader. Your girls look up to you a lot for a reason. They wouldn't care so much about your opinion if they didn’t think you were deserving of leading them.” Y/n finishes off strong and the look in her eyes assures Bada that she means every word. She looks back down and smiles again, feeling pressure starting to build in her eyes- there is no way Bada will let herself cry in front of y/n like this.

“You did well. I’m really proud of you.” y/n smiled and nodded gently, squeezing Bada’s hand in reassurance and that caused a single tear to slip down the older girl’s cheek, sending the younger into a slight panic.

“Ah- don’t cry!” Y/n stood up and ran over to Bada’s side of the booth, sitting down next to her as she began wiping her tears with her jacket sleeve. The younger continued to do so until Bada had stopped crying. Y/n looked into Bada’s eyes with a pout on her face as she tucked a piece of hair behind the older girl’s ear. Her hands were still resting on her cheeks, caressing the taller dancer’s face, even though the tears had stopped flowing a while ago. The two sat there in silence, just embracing the close proximity. Bada’s breathing was shallow, still recovering from crying, but now feeling nervous after realizing how close y/n was. The younger of the two glanced down at the other’s lips and stared for a few seconds before hearing her gasp quietly, causing her to look back up. Y/n backed away slightly, to Bada’s disappointment, but only to give herself room to pull one of her hands away and kiss her thumb, before placing her hand back on the older girl’s jaw and rubbing said thumb gently across her bottom lip. Bada was so shocked by her boldness, she felt her lips part slightly and her face heat up. Y/n just smiled lightly at her reaction, once again staring at her lips. She looks up to make eye contact on her own this time, kind of loving the power she has over the older girl at this moment.

“Are you feeling better now” she whispers gently and Bada just nods in a daze. Y/n hums and nods also, rubbing her cheek one more time before standing and heading back to her own seat. Bada snaps out of her daze, still feeling dizzy at the interaction. She clears her throat and takes a sip of her drink. The rest of lunch goes on without another serious incident, but y/n’s eyes are filled with what could only be explained as “pure love and adoration” for the remainder of their time together. The two end up heading back to the studio together, sharing the backseat of a cab.

Bada really is shocked by how bold y/n has become with her- after they finish up their meal and pay for everything, their cab arrives. Bada opened the door for y/n, which she giggled about and joked that Bada was such a gentleman to her, causing the older to roll her eyes and smile before explaining how she simply was taking care of her princess.

“Her princess…” y/n couldn’t stop thinking about that as they drove back. Once the two had both gotten in the car, they started off pretty evenly spaced out with Bada on one side and y/n on the other. But after about two and a half minutes they were side by side, and eventually, y/n had her legs lying across Bada’s lap as they cuddled and looked at the pictures they had taken together on their phones. When they had arrived back at the studio, y/n swung her legs back over placing her feet onto the car floor, opening her own door this time. Bada had followed her coming out the way, making sure to close the door behind and thank the driver. The two walked right next to each other, shoulders bumping but neither of them being brave enough to reach out and hold the other’s hand. As they both reached the lobby, it was almost the end of their allotted break time.

“I had a really great time today… so thank you” y/n began with a shy smile and blush painting her face, as she looked up at the older girl. Bada shared a similar smile, also taking on the look of “love and adoration” that y/n’s been sporting for the last hour or so.

“Eyy you don’t need to thank me…” she began just as shyly

“I also had a great time- even if I did cry a little-” Bada joked halfway through, causing y/n to giggle and bump her shoulder.

“But I seriously love talking to you… I’m hoping we can do this again soon.” it wasn’t a question, but the younger girl’s eyes were immediately lighting up and she was nodding her head.

“Of course! I’d love to!” y/n started enthusiastically, but then she took a deep breath and continued

“I really love talking to you too” she thought she was gonna cry if she said anything else, so the younger girl just finished off with a smile and sparkling eyes, not believing what was happening. Her heart was pounding and her face hurt from how much she had been smiling. Y/n thought her stomach was going to explode from how many butterflies she was feeling- it was like a real crush now… not some celebrity crush or feeling of admiration for someone older that one looks up to… these were real romantic feelings and y/n was surprisingly ready to deal with them. And even if she wasn’t, the way Bada was smiling at her would definitely change her mind.

_______________

Rehearsals have been exhausting, especially after having learned their opponents' choreography. For some teams, it was an easy adjustment, but for others… it was definitely a challenge.

TsubaKill had thrown in a tough acrobatic skill that was tough for even some dancers with experience in that area. Tatter was struggling to stick her landing on the double front handspring, and it was definitely bringing down the team’s confidence. Bada tried her best to stay positive as their leader, but even the members could tell she was starting to get nervous.

They’re given a longer break and Bada takes a walk, not even realizing she ended up near Jam Republic’s practice space. The pink also seems to be on break and the Bebe leader stands outside debating whether or not to knock on their door.

“Y/n…” Latrice starts suspiciously. The younger girl hums while taking a sip of her water, looking over with wide eyes.

“I think someone’s looking for you.” she finishes off with a soft knowing smile, pointing in the direction of their doorway. The younger looks over and furrows her brows, immediately standing up to head over to Bada.

“Hey- what's up? Are you okay?” the youngest Jam member asks in a concerned voice, eyes expressing how genuinely worried she is. Bada’s expression isn’t doing much to help her feel at ease, as the older hesitates for a second before sighing and closing her eyes.

“I don’t know… this practice is going terribly.” She begins, laughing pitifully, trying not to cry. Y/n pouts and makes a noise expressing her sadness and understanding. She immediately wraps her arms around the taller girl's waist, securing her in a comforting hug. Bada huffs out a sad laugh and wraps her arms around the smaller girl's shoulder, resting her head atop of hers. They stay like that for a few minutes with y/n rubbing circles on the older girl’s back. The whole time Bada was wishing she could just stay there forever, thinking that she might even fall asleep if she let herself stay any longer. She let out a sigh and stood up straight, patting Y/n's head before reaching to hold the smaller girl’s face in both hands. Y/n still had her arms loosely around the taller girl and was forced to look up at her since Bada was holding her face softly between her hands. The younger girl’s eyes glittered as she smiled softly, tilting her head slightly to lean into one of the older’s palms, looking lovingly into her eyes. In that moment Bada felt herself let out an uncontrollable giggle.

“You really are a puppy…” she stated absentmindedly with a lovestruck smile, still staring into the younger’s sparkly eyes. y/n giggled girlishly and wrapped her arms tighter around Bada’s waist teasingly, causing the older girl to laugh and squish the smaller’s cheeks playfully between her large hands. Both were giggling and clinging to each other, and the rest of Jam Republic was either smiling endearingly at them or making fake gagging noises (Emma). Bada sighed and let go of y/n’s face, placing her hands on her shoulders instead. The smaller of the two finally let go of the other’s waist and stood there waiting for her to say something.

“I should probably let you get back to practice…” Bada pouted slightly, not really wanting to go back to her own practice.

“I mean, you don’t haaaave to…” the younger dragged out her sentence with a playful eye-roll, playing around still, also not wanting the older girl to leave. Bada huffed out a laugh and shook her head.

“Okay, well I definitely need to get back to practice.” she stated, trying not to sound too distraught by it. Y/n’s eyes softened and her face fell for a split second, almost unnoticeably, before a gentle smile took over her face.

“Just please don’t overwork yourself… or the girls. Take care of each other please, your health and mentality are most important…” the younger girl pleaded looking deeply into Bada’s eyes. She patted her head and ruffled her hair a little, causing her to whine slightly. Bada laughed again and nodded her head.

“I promise we’ll all take care of ourselves… but we’re still gonna work just as hard as before. At least until we get things right.” her face dropped a little and the somber expression was back.

“No. health first, Bada… you won’t be able to get anything right if you’re injured… so please take care of yourself.” and after seeing the pleading look in y/n’s eyes while she stood there with her arms crossed over her chest, Bada really couldn’t find it in her to argue. So she let out a sigh and nodded.

“Okay…” she nods again looking at the ground, feeling a bit emotional. Bada takes another deep breath and stands up straight, smiling again, causing y/n to smile again.

“Alright, well i’m gonna get back to practice-” the older states, and right as y/n’s about to reply, Bada places a quick kiss atop her head, and then struts off back to her practice space, leaving the younger girl with her jaw dropped and eyes wide as ever. Once she’s taken quite a few steps and put some distance between them, Bada turns over her shoulder and throws y/n a wink paired with a teasing smile. The younger can’t help but huff out a laugh of absolute astonishment and disbelief. As Bada turns the corner and is out of y/n’s sight, the Jam Republic girl doesn’t even want to turn around to see her teammates' expressions, knowing damn well she’s gonna have to answer a lot of questions.

__________

The next day arrives and it’s time for everyone to present their pieces to the other crews, as well as record their practice videos to send in for the artists to view. While all of Jam Republic is in a good mood and extremely excited to show off their routine, their youngest can’t help but feel a little anxious. Not for herself, but for the team sitting next to them, and more specifically for their leader.

Bebe was one of the first to go and it started off well. They seemed pretty relaxed until it came time for Tatter’s front handspring. She didn’t stick the landing and it threw everyone off, but the team didn’t falter, continuing on as if it didn’t happen. Y/n was cheering the loudest, especially for Tatter, letting her know it was okay. But when the blonde didn’t land her font walkover as well, y/n’s screams increased in volume tenfold.

“YOU’VE GOT THIS TATTER- LET’S GO GIRL” she’s screaming so hard that her chest hurts, and the small girl can feel tears starting to sting her eyes. At this point everyone else was cheering for the team as well, wanting to see them finish off strong. The second it was over, Bada was turning to Tatter and wrapping her in a tight hug. The younger member cried and cried, while her leader petted her hair and shushed her.

“Are you okay? You didn’t hurt yourself, did you?” Bada whispered to the crying girl in her arms, who shook her head and backed away to wipe her tears. The leader pushed some hair out of her face, and pulled her back in for another hug, leading her and the rest of the team back to their seats. Everyone continued to cheer for them as loud as possible.

“You did well, it’s okay. It was just a mistake. As long as you’re not hurt, that's what matters right now.” the blonde sighs, finally calming down and she lays her head on the oldest member’s shoulder, closing her eyes for a few moments.

On the other side of them, Jam Republic is holding back their own tears, feeling immensely sorry for the team they’ve grown so close to. Except for y/n who is freely letting her tears fall, as she hides her face in her hands. Latrice rubs her back until she calms down and is able to sit back up without crying.

A couple more teams take their turns before it’s time for Jam Republic. It’s safe to say that when they do their routine and everyone goes fucking crazy. Their ability to pick up Mannequeen’s whacking section and execute it as well as they did, sent everyone into a frenzy. On top of that, their energy and expressions were beyond praise, so everyone was just screaming.

Everyone is surprised to see that the team isn’t utilizing y/n more, or at least using her old choreography. The youngest member mostly shared the center with another member, yet was never the main focus. The only highlight she really has is after Audrey’s articulated arch, where she runs to lead the line for a brief second, her expressions and energy being what makes her stand out. The look in her eyes and the slight smirk make everyone go crazy over the visuals and stage presence.

“THAT’S MY GIRL” Bada is leaning over her teammates screaming the loudest anyone has heard her scream. Her teammates just give her the same side eye they always do whenever she starts openly fangirling over y/n. But they all have just learned to ignore it for the most part now. Jam Republic finishes their routine and are all breathing heavily as they bow and walk back to their seats. While everyone’s still clapping and the members are about to sit down, Bada discreetly lifts up her fist right when y/n is about to walk by. The younger just smirks, trying not to laugh at the older girl’s silly yet supportive action, and bumps her smaller fist against Bada’s.

The rehearsal finishes and the following day is the pre-recording and live performance. All the teams are once again getting their makeup done, this time sharing a room with their members.

“I can’t believe we’ve been here so long already and this is only the first mission we get to do together” Latriece states while getting her eyeshadow done. The others hum and some nod.

“It feels like we’ve been here forever, but it’s actually only been a couple of months…” y/n replies as her stylist applies a gemstone to her under eye.

“Only? I feel like these have been the longest two months of my life.” Emma exaggerates in return, causing a few of the members to hum more aggressively than before. They finished up with getting their makeup done and in typical y/n fashion, the first thing she did was start taking mirror selfies. At first, she was taking them by herself, and then of course Audrey joined… then Ling joined, and soon after that it was all of Jam Republic scrunched together trying to fit in the frame of one mirror. After that, Latrice offered to take more elaborate pictures for her, knowing how the young girl loves to pose and post. Once all that is done, they have a few minutes before having to head backstage for the pre-filming. Y/n doesn’t even think twice before opening her messages app and sending Bada a few of the selfies she took, along with some of the full-body pics Latrice had taken for her.

Bada’s finishing up in hair and makeup when she feels her phone buzz. Already getting her hopes up at the familiar hum of her text notification, she can’t help but expect a message from a certain Jam Republic member. Sure enough- when she unlocks her phone, she’s met with a series of selfies and other photos of the youngest member, dressed in pink and white with glittery makeup. Bada doesn’t even feel herself smile, she’s so lost in a dream over the pretty girl on her phone.

‘Absolutely stunning, Princess🩷’ she presses send without even thinking. Y/n hearted the message and sent the hand heart emoji right as Bada was about to be done with her hair. As soon as the stylists step away the Bebe leader is opening her camera and snapping her own mirror selfies, immediately sending her favorites to y/n.

‘Ugh how do you always look SO fucking good😩🩵’ was the response Bada got almost instantaneously from the younger girl, to which she giggled and covered her mouth with her fist trying to hide her smile. Hearing the soft sound Lusher looked over and sighed affectionately at her blushing teammate.

“Did y/n text you?” she asked, already knowing the answer. Bada looked over with wide eyes, a bit shocked forgetting that everyone else could still perceive her in the present moment.

“Oh- uhm…” the eldest tried to be cool and calm, attempting to avoid the conversation, but just as soon as her walls went up, they came right back down.

“yeah… she did” and she was giggling and smiling again, causing Lusher to burst out laughing at her leader’s openness. It was a relief to the younger girl to see Bada so relaxed and at peace, even though they still had to go out and compete in a few hours. Seeing one of her closest friends and now team leader act the way she did with and around y/n made her feel okay, knowing that there was someone to take care of her just like how she had been taking care of them.

___________

Before the pre-recordings start an announcement is played on the monitors. It’s a member or group of members from each company, declaring who they thought was the better team during their practice. Le Sserafim chose Jam Republic as the better team, meaning they got to choose whether they went first or second during the live show- they chose to go second after Mannequeen.

During the practice/filming period- everything started out well for Jam Republic. They were all laughing and having a blast watching the other crews. They all casually made fun of wolf’lo for their uhm… “hip-hop look”… and ended up delving into a slightly more serious conversation about how crazy it is that level of cultural appropriation is still going on in 2023- the durags were already too much... whoever was styling these girls needed to get FIRED. After Mannequeen had gone it was finally their turn.

The recording started off really well until all of a sudden Latrice was on the ground, unable to get up. Y/n was right next to her when it happened, watching her go down. She stopped dancing immediately to make sure the older girl was okay and to see if she could get up. After a few moments, the team realized Latrice wasn’t going to be able to get up on her own any time soon and she was rushed to the hospital. The members halted their filming and headed back to their hideout. The members are holding it together surprisingly well at first, mostly just in shock at the situation. Audrey is the first to start crying, and it hits everyone else like a truck. Y/n is by her side in seconds, cuddling and trying to soothe her. Ling is next to start tearing up and shortly after y/n even sees Emma shed a tear. The youngest is able to hold it together until she looks up to see her leader crying. That’s when y/n feels the tears start falling uncontrollably, as she tucks her head into Audrey’s shoulder and silently cries.

“Is there an option we just forfeit?” Kirsten asks the staff, wiping her tears. Once Y/n hears this she picks up her head immediately and the look in her eyes is one of heartbreak and the poor girl seems terrified by the idea of giving up. The staff explains that if they were to forfeit it would immediately put them in last place, meaning they’d be up for elimination. This news caused them all to fall back into tears, completely lost on what to do. After what felt like half a day, Latrice came back with a boot on her leg. The other members immediately rushed to her side and helped her sit down.

“Basically I just have to ice it for a few hours and then I’m allowed to dance on it for the performance, but after that, I’m gonna have to rest for a while.” she had explained to them, as her team all watch over her with worried eyes. She then began talking to them about how Redlic was also in the hospital at the same time as her. The others were amused but y/n just rolled her eyes.

“Of course she was” the young girl mumbled, not at all surprised with the show’s resident drama queen. Latrice looked over and shook her with a laugh, then proceeded to joke about how she was starting to see Redlic as her soulmate instead of her rival, which ended up making y/n somewhat emotional again.

After a few hours of recovery, Jam Republic quickly shot their pre-recording of the routine and went back to get some touchups done on their makeup as the audience started pouring in. After about an hour and a half of anticipation, the live performance began. All the girls could hear the audience from backstage, and some even from their dressing rooms. It made them all even more hyped to perform.

TsubaKill does their performance first and everyone is blown away by how aggressive yet clean they are with their movements. When it’s Bebe’s turn y/n can feel her nerves increase by two hundred percent. The girl was already nervous, but knowing that Tatter had been struggling intensely with a few points really made y/n’s heart hurt for the other team. But her nerves quickly dissipated as she watched the blond stick her double front handspring, in fact- she was up and screaming immediately.

“LETS FUCKING GO TATTER” is the small girl’s immediate reaction. She’s standing on the couch in her crew’s waiting room, screaming with the rest of her team. y/n briefly calms down for a moment and brings herself to sit next to and cling to Emma, who pats her head and laughs.

“I feel like I’m gonna cry I’m so proud of her.” and the excitement only increases as the performance goes on. There’s one moment where they all point at someone in the crowd, and when it happens the camera pans to Bada, charismatically pointing and smirking, which has y/n’s jaw dropping to the floor and all of her members immediately looking her way to catch her reaction. No one says a word until y/n looks around to meet eyes with all of them. She holds up her hand and closes her eyes, pretending to cry.

“Enough.” is all she says yet it has her members bursting out in laughter. Minah is the next victim of Jam Republic’s inhumane screams of support, when she does her jerky laugh move, once again sending them all spiraling. Especially y/n and Audrey who are now standing on the couch again, clinging to each other for dear life. And then of course, y/n pretends to faint when Bada does her peek through the other members before the end half of the song. Emma smacks her on the side of the head, asking her politely (sarcastically) to pull herself together. Bebe finishes their routine and all the members are standing in the middle of their room cheering and clapping like maniacs.

Shortly after the JYP match, Mannequeen went first during the Hybe competition and for the first time, y/n is actually nervous for herself to compete. The other team had done really well and even adjusted accordingly to the choreography Jam Republic had given them. When it was time for the pink team themselves to finally perform, y/n took a deep breath and put on her game face- ready to go. The music started and she instantly felt herself become immersed in their doll-like theme. She and Ling had taken the center for the intro, already bringing the story to life. The audience loved them and so did the other crews. Bada really did try her best to focus on the dance as a whole and was able to when y/n wasn’t seen on the screen, but any other time her eyes were focused on the youngest member.

“I’m really surprised they didn’t utilize y/n more…” Minah shares with her group after the performance ends. To which Bada explained that the girl told her how she had wanted to help mostly behind the scenes for this one instead of taking the spotlight, as she’s not the only one on Jam Republic that can look good doing kpop choreo. They all ‘ahh’ed and nodded, adding yet another thing to the list of reasons they all admire y/n l/n.

When it’s revealed that Jam Republic won y/n bursts into tears and collapses on the ground, but she immediately gets up and hugs Latrice and they’re just crying together. The rest of the teams compete and the day ends as a success for half and a learning experience for the others.

Not even getting a day to rest and recover, the first elimination occurs the next day. Everyone once again files into the fight zone, taking their seats and waiting for filming to start. The first two battles to be announced were SM and YG, resulting in 1 Million and LadyBounce securing their safety from elimination. Next was JYP- Bebe versus TsubaKill.

“There’s no way Bebe will be up for elimination…” y/n starts off although she feels her stomach turning. Her teammates hum and nod as they focus their eyes on the screen in front of them, awaiting the results. But they all gasp when the scores are revealed.

“I didn’t think it would be that bad…” Audrey whispers with sad eyes. All of the members slowly turn to catch TsubaKill’s reaction to being up for elimination. They were surprisingly calm, still smiling and nodding peacefully. Bada had spoken about how she was proud of her team for pulling through but got choked up at the end, wishing their opponent good luck in the final battle.

When it came down to Mannequeen versus Jam Republic everyone was just about ready to throw up because they were so nervous.

“I actually have no clue how this is going to go… I have such an awful feeling about this” y/n’s shaking her head and hiding her face in her hands. The screen reveals that even though Jam Republic had won the judges' votes, Mannequeen won the audience points, and the whole pink team tensed up. They all join hands and hold onto each other as they await the final score. When it came, their shoulder sagged and they all let out a heavy breath. Jam Republic wins by a hair.

As the final team score is announced, the host reveals the final ranking with Bebe in first and Jam Republic in fourth. TsubaKill and Wolf’Lo had the two lowest ranks, so now their teams were going up against each other for one final match to determine who was going home.

The first of what would be five battles began, crew versus crew. Y/n’s already fangirling over Tsubakill, especially Akanen

“She’s so mommy-“ “I need you to actually shut the fuck up” (yet another classic argument between Jam Republic’s designated Tom & Jerry duo, Y/n and Emma). Meanwhile, Bada is just as excited but is more in favor of Wolf’lo, really enjoying their classic hip-hop dance style. Tsubakill takes the first win and everyone flips, but the second battle between them has y/n heated.

“Why the fuck is she tripping her and getting all up in her space… that’s so juvenile” She was outraged when Baby Sleek won, always hating when dancers got too touchy with each other during battles, but especially when they were dancing at the same time and one of the dancers got too reckless- aka Baby Sleek.

The leaders battle next and Jam Republic is heavily rooting for Akanen, especially y/n.

“If Akanen doesn’t win, I’m leaving” the youngest member dramatically expressed with her arms crossed, tapping her food comedically, causing her members to laugh.

“Oh so you’ve moved on from one team leader to the next already?” Emma teases and causes y/n’s jaw to drop and her eyebrows to furrow in defense. The duo battle was another hard-to-watch experience for her, as she felt that Wolf’Lo didn’t deserve the win for simply rolling around on the floor. Then the final group battle happened. Y/n absolutely loved TsubaKill’s performance, but it upset her to say that Wolf’Lo’s was slightly more put together.

When wolf’Lo takes the final win y/n’s head immediately hangs in defeat. She’s able to avoid crying until Rena starts speaking and they’re both instantly in tears. Once they’re told to leave the fight zone, y/n rushes down the seats and runs straight to Rena engulfing her in a huge hug. The two had become close ever since the class battle mission, and it hurt to see such a talented and kind-hearted friend go so soon. After they had all said their goodbyes and TsubaKill went back to their hideout for one final time to pack up their things, the rest continued to cry and try to pull themselves together. After about 45 minutes, each team took turns going up to say goodbye to the red team, truly not ready to let go of the newfound friends they all had made. TsubaKill turned off their sign and left, then the cameras stopped rolling for the day.

Each crew was back in their own hideout now, just discussing the events of the last few days and how they could relax briefly since they all survived the first elimination. Jam Republic’s room was eerily quiet as the small team with such big hearts sat heartbroken still. Y/n didn’t look herself, eyes tired and face puffy, and oh how it made her members feel even more upset knowing their youngest member took every blow straight to the heart- yet she never let that truly impact her as a person, always taking on every new situation with a bright smile and open-mind.

“How’re you holdin' up mama?” Kirsten asked, gently rubbing the young girl’s shoulder. Her lip quivered and she started to tear up again before leaning forward and hiding her face in her hands.

“This is so much harder than I thought it was gonna be.” Y/n cries into her hands, shoulders shaking as she sobbed. Kirsten just continued to rub circles on her back until she calmed down. Once she finally did manage to stop crying, the younger girl sat up and ran a hand through her hair, suddenly seeming a tiny bit more alive than before. She looked around at all her members and stopped at Emma.

“Fuck this shit.” she declared confidently and the members couldn’t help but chuckle and shake their heads, forever impressed by how unpredictable the girl will always be. She throws her head back to rest against the back of the sofa in their room. A few moments of silence pass then there's a knock on their door. Ling, who is sitting closest to it, stands up and opens the door, revealing a slightly-somber-looking Bada Lee. once she realizes all eyes are on her, the tall girl’s eyes widen and she clears her throat. Before anyone can even say anything y/n is up and moving.

“Hey, what’s up?” she whispers as she meets the older girl in the doorway. Bada stutters for a second before taking a breath.

“I just wanted to come check on you… I know you take these things pretty hard.” she had clarified with a sympathetic comforting smile, causing y/n to smile slightly as well.

“Well thank you… how are you holding up?” she asked in return with her signature puppy eyes. Bada tilted her head for a second, thinking about how she wanted to word her sentence.

“I think I just need to keep moving. Of course I’m upset about it, but I feel for me personally I just have to keep working… there isn’t any time to rest-” she starts and sees Y/n take a deep breath, knowing the young girl is about to reprimand her for not taking care of herself.

“But-” she continues, holding up her hands in defense, causing the girl across from her to sigh and cross her arms expectantly.

“I actually want to take the time I have and enjoy it… maybe with someone?” Bada had finished her statement with a question, hinting that she very much wanted to spend her free time with the smaller girl in front of her. Y/n matched her cheesy smile and looked over her shoulder to see her teammates staring (per usual). Kirsten and Latrice looked at each other for a second, having a silent conversation, before looking back towards the two in the doorway and nodding with a thumbs up. Y/n looked back at the tall girl in front of her and smiled brightly.

“Are you free now?” she asked, and Bada held out her hand for y/n to take, which she did. The two already grinning like lovesick idiots.

“For you I am.”

note: sorry this part took so long!! i hope everyone enjoys it- next part is gonna be the pool party episode omg yay lol

taglist (open): @tinybada @angel-hyuckie @violetinferno @jesuschrist2006 @1luvkarina @uwulyn @justandloyal2961 @deadgirlwalking3 @heeheemich @squidvoldyvoid @vivzyo @ouhaika @jksjx @ocyeanicc @marianamartinsthings @jxrdxnh @luvjanexx @lorenztired @khjssss @heavenlycloud @loisje123 @starchasermyloves @zhivaxo @grinnwolph @notyourd0lly @stinkbvgs @nermandiiiii-blog @abllucena @arujee @idontknownemore @thatgayinsomniac @l-a-u-r-a--b @fruitr0llup @cgriffin9797-blog @woooooya @kaaylvst @ssc7514 @astoreea @linda-botello @kpopgirl-97 @erikook @majookim @okjaeminn @misszoldyc

#moth to a flame #street woman fighter 2 #bada lee #bada lee x reader #street woman fighter x reader #bada x reader

852 notes · View notes

warningsine · 2 months ago

Note

what is the best way to get safer/more anonymous online

Ok, security and anonymity are not the same thing, but when you combine them you can enhance your online privacy.

My question is: how tech literate are you and what is your aim? As in do you live in a country where your government would benefit from monitoring private (political) conversations or do you just want to degoogle? Because the latter is much easier for the average user.

Some general advice:

Leave Windows and Mac operating systems and switch to Linux distributions like Fedora and Ubuntu (both very user friendly). Switch from Microsoft Office or Pages/Numbers/Keynote (Mac) to LibreOffice.

You want to go more hardcore with a very privacy-focused operating system? There are Whonix and Tails (portable operating system).

Try to replace all your closed source apps with open source ones.

Now, when it comes to browsers, leave Chrome behind. Switch to Firefox (or Firefox Focus if you're on mobile). Want to go a step further? Use LibreWolf (a modified version of Firefox that increases protection against tracking), Brave (good for beginners but it has its controversies), DuckDuckGo or Bromite. You like ecofriendly alternatives? Check Ecosia out.

Are you, like, a journalist or political activist? Then you probably know Tor and other anonymous networks like i2p, freenet, Lokinet, Retroshare, IPFS and GNUnet.

For whistleblowers there are tools like SecureDrop (requires Tor), GlobaLeaks (alternative to SecureDrop), Haven (Android) and OnionShare.

Search engines?

There are Startpage (obtains Google's results but with more privacy), MetaGer (open source), DuckDuckGo (partially open source), Searx (open source). You can see the comparisons here.

Check libRedirect out. It redirects requests from popular socmed websites to privacy friendly frontends.

Alternatives to YouTube that value your privacy? Odysee, PeerTube and DTube.

Decentralized apps and social media? Mastodon (Twitter alternative), Friendica (Facebook alternative), diaspora* (Google+ RIP), PixelFed (Insta alternative), Aether (Reddit alternative).

Messaging?

I know we all use shit like Viber, Messenger, Telegram, Whatsup, Discord etc. but there are:

Signal (feels like Whatsup but it's secure and has end-to-end encryption)

Session (doesn't even require a phone or e-mail address to sign up)

Status (no phone or e-mail address again)

Threema (for mobile)

Delta Chat (you can chat with people if you know their e-mail without them having to use the app)

Team chatting?

Open source options:

Element (an alternative to Discord)

Rocket.chat (good for companies)

Revolt.chat (good for gamers and a good alternative to Discord)

Video/voice messaging?

Brave Talk (the one who creates the talk needs to use the browser but the others can join from any browser)

Jami

Linphone

Jitsi (no account required, video conferencing)

Then for Tor there are various options like Briar (good for activists), Speek! and Cwtch (user friendly).

Georestrictions? You don't want your Internet Provider to see what exactly what you're doing online?

As long as it's legal in your country, then you need to hide your IP with a VPN (authoritarian regimes tend to make them illegal for a reason), preferably one that has a no log policy, RAM servers, does not operate in one of the 14 eyes, supports OpenVPN (protocol), accepts cash payment and uses a strong encryption.

NordVPN (based in Panama)

ProtonVPN (Switzerland)

Cyberghost

Mullvad (Sweden)

Surfshark (Netherlands)

Private e-mails?

ProtonMail

StartMail

Tutamail

Mailbox (ecofriendly option)

Want to hide your real e-mail address to avoid spam etc.? SimpleLogin (open source)

E-mail clients?

Thunderbird

Canary Mail (for Android and iOS)

K-9 Mail (Android)

Too many complex passwords that you can't remember?

NordPass

BitWarden

LessPass

KeePassXC

Two Factor Authenticators?

2FAS

ente Authenticator

Aegis Authenticator

andOTP

Tofu (for iOS)

Want to encrypt your files? VeraCrypt (for your disk), GNU Privacy Guard (for your e-mail), Hat.sh (encryption in your browser), Picocrypt (Desktop encryption).

Want to encrypt your Dropbox, Google Drive etc.? Cryptomator.

Encrypted cloud storage?

NordLocker

MEGA

Proton Drive

Nextcloud

Filen

Encrypted photography storage?

ente

Cryptee

Piwigo

Want to remove metadata from your images and videos? ExifCleaner. For Android? ExifEraser. For iOS? Metapho.

Cloak your images to counter facial recognition? Fawkes.

Encrypted file sharing? Send.

Do you menstruate? Do you want an app that tracks your menstrual cycle but doesn't collect your data? drip.

What about your sexual health? Euki.

Want a fitness tracker without a closed source app and the need to transmit your personal data to the company's servers? Gadgetbridge.

#anon

34 notes · View notes

thehighladywrites · 1 year ago

Text

— “ You really don’t know about him?”

pairing: professor eris x reader

summary: who are your kidnappers and why do they want you? Eris enlists a secret weapon to find you and help him retrieve you back and get revenge on those who kidnapped you.

warnings: kidnapping, murder, torture, light angst, fluff, suggestiveness

amara’s note: this is so mid but pls enjoy💔 it’s not my best work but atleast the next chapter will have crazy smut bc eris teaches reader how to use a gun and there will be gunplay👀 also sorry that this was updated so late😭💗

Eris was trying to stay calm, using his rational thinking but he couldn’t do it. There was no rationality left in him. He just wanted to know if you were safe, even though the chances were slim.

Eris's heart sank as he checked the app Feyre had mentioned. It revealed that your phone was at the lake near the school—a clear sign that it had been discarded before you were taken. His mind raced with worry, realizing that you were indeed taken and not missing.

He took a deep breath, allowing himself a moment to feel the last bit of his emotions before shutting them off and assuming his role. His worried eyes hardened, his chest steady, and his demeanor shifted into that of a commanding presence.

Feyre watched as Eris fished out his phone and, with a cold voice, instructed Shadow to track you down.

She was worried and didn't know what was going on. Who was Shadow, and where were you? How was Eris so calm? Wasn't he more worried about you?

Eris noticed the concern in Feyre's eyes and approached her with reassurance.

“Don't worry, Ms. Archeron. I'll find her. Brandon here will escort you to one of the rooms for safety while I locate her. It's not safe to be alone right now.”

Before she could ask any more questions, he turned and headed into his office. While he appreciated Feyre for being such a good friend to you, there was no time for conversation when you were missing.

Inside, Eris approached his bookshelf and pulled on the book you had taken from him—or rather, its replacement. With a soft click, the entire shelf moved, revealing an opening to his secret room.

Eris's mind was on autopilot as he descended the stairs and used his thumbprint and voice recognition to access the mechanically locked door at the bottom of the stairs.

Inside, the room was filled with high-tech gadgets, weapons, and screens. The warm light bathed the space, giving it an inviting glow, despite its purpose. It resembled a massive closet, with weapons carefully displayed on expensive velvet walls, their deadly potential disguised by their beauty.

Eris approached the weapons, securing a harness to his shirt as he loaded every compartment with hidden knives and guns. He then put on his coat snd gloves, getting ready to get you back no matter ehat.

His phone suddenly buzzed with a message from shadow,

Found her. Warehouse by the marina. Aprox. 35 men outside and 3 inside.

Eris pocketed his phone, silently praying for your safety as he got ready to retrive you.

—

Drip.

Your brows furrowed as you slowly regained consciousness, annoyed by the consistent dripping of water. Your vision was hazy, your head pounding, and the cold made your teeth chatter. You tried to rub your temple, but your hand met resistance.

Panic surged through you as you realized you were chained up, unable to move freely. You kept pulling, foolishly hoping the steel chains would break. Your heart raced as you took in your surroundings. You were on your knees, hands bound, with your entire body aching and your arms feeling numb. The sound of the chains rattling grew louder as you struggled against them, desperate to break free.

Fear gripped you as you recalled being taken by a stranger. Your stomach churned with nausea, and you fought back the urge to vomit as the memories flooded back.

No, no, no.

This wasn’t happening.

Panic flowed through you, making it difficult to breathe. You attempted to stay calm, but the tears welled up in your eyes, and your body shook with fear. Alone in a huge and empty room, the air heavy with the scent of salt, you felt utterly helpless and started sobbing, head hanging low.

The sound of heavy metal doors creaking open pierced the air, causing you to lift your gaze with apprehension. Three men entered, their fiery red hair immediately catching your attention. The man in the middle crouched down to your level, a smirk playing on his lips as he tilted his head, his gaze examining you.

“Finally awake from your little nap?”

You looked at him, then shifted your eyes to the other two, one of them smirking, the other stoic.

“Why am I here? Who are you? I haven’t done anything.” Your voice was hoarse and broken.

His demeanor shifted instantly, his previous amusement at your situation replaced by disgust. His smile vanished, and his eyes darkened with disdain. He straightened up, towering over you, and looked at you with a look of disgust and hate, as though you were nothing but dirt under his shoe.

“You are here as leverage. You see, my cousin killed my father and I can not let that go unpunished, right?”

The two behind him snickered and shook their heads.

Your brows furrowed again, what the hell had this to do with you at all? No one you knew could possibly be involved in something like this. And you didn’t care how rude you sounded, these fuckers kidnapped you.

“So? That still doesn’t explain why the hell i’m here. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The guy in the middle, Sirius the others called him, narrowed his eyes at you, a smile creeping onto his face.

“You really don’t know, do you?”

Anger surged within you, and you were just about to snap at his cryptic words, not in the mood for riddles.

“Your little fuck buddy Eris did a very bad thing when he killed my father. He made me loose a lot of money and he needs to pay for it. Now, my cousin is a very hard guy to shake down, so imagine my surprise and delight when I discovered he had a pretty little thing hidden away all to himself. The perfect negotiation piece.”

You felt like throwing up. He couldn’t be serious. Eris, the man you love, the one you thought wouldn’t hurt anyone, had done something so terrible that these men were here to punish him for it. The shock of the discovery left you confused and disoriented.

“He killed someone?” Your words were nothing more than a whisper, struggling to make sense of the situation.

Sirius chuckled darkly, his eyes glinting with malice. “Oh, he has done things much worse than that, sweetheart. But don't worry, you'll get to see for yourself soon enough.”

Realizing that Eris might be walking into a trap, you summoned your courage and flashed them a defiant smile. “Well, if that's the case,” you said, “then you're fucked.”

The big one in the back, named Aiden’s expression grew even darker, his eyes narrowing at your boldness. “And why do you think that?” he demanded.

You shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant despite the fear coursing through you.

“If what you say is true, then I assume you’re not stupid enough to try to actually lure him here. If he really did kill your father then you know how dangerous he is. And not to brag,” you added with hint of more confidence,

”But the man loves me and will most certainly kill all of you for taking me away in this pathetic attempt at a kidnapping. Listen, just let me go and I’ll make sure he doesn’t kill you.”

You watched helplessly as they approached, totally ignoring your words, their movements calculated. Ignis, the scrawny one, grabbed a length of rope from a nearby crate, his expression cruel. “You’re good. I can see why he is so infatuated with you. But you’re not going anywhere.” he said coldly, his tone leaving no room for argument.

Before Ignis could make a move to bind you even more, a sudden gunshot echoed through the warehouse, causing everyone to freeze in place. Ignis stumbled backward, clutching his chest, blood seeping through his fingers.

“Shit!” Aiden exclaimed, reaching for his weapon but he was shot in the head aswell

Sirius lunged forward, a gleaming knife pressed against your throat. His expression was twisted with anger and desperation as he snarled, “If you move an inch, I’ll slit her fucking throat, Eris.”

Your heart raced as you felt the cold edge of the blade against your skin, a sob breaking from you as you realized Eris was here.

You cried, carefully breathing as to not get your neck sliced open. You watched as he carefully came out of the shadows with smoking gun and a deadly calm expression on his face. Eyes dead as his lips pulled into a smirk.

“You signed your own death when you kidnapped my girl.”

His cold and emotionless words made you shiver. He was was so different from the warm Eris you knew.

All your thoughts halted as Sirius pressed the blade harder to your throat, making you whimper in pain. You felt warm, wet liquid run down into your ahirt and you realized he had knicked you.

“You had my father killed and it made me loose millions. If you think i’m letting you or your whore get away-”

The blade on your throat dropped to the ground, as did Sirius’s body right next to you when Eris fired the gun straight into his arm. Eris stepped closer and shot both his hands, arms, legs, feet and just smiled.

“You don’t deserve a quick death. Normally, I’d handle you myself handle you but I’m on a bit of a time crunch, so I’ll leave you with him.”

With arms still bound above your head you coughed and then vomited at the feel of warmth of Sirius’s blood seeping into your pants.

Eris hurriedly made his way over to you, his hands steady as he ripped the chains from your arms, pulling you close to him. You collapsed against his chest, trembling with fear and relief as he whispered soothing words to calm you down.

After what felt like an eternity of tears and sobs, you finally managed to compose yourself, sitting up straighter and backing away slightly from Eris's embrace. Your voice was shaky as you spoke, the reality of the situation sinking in.

“So... you’re in the mafia or something? I mean, you just murdered three people in front of me, so I guess yeah.”

Eris's expression hardened, his features becoming stoic as he took in the gravity of the situation.

He glanced at you, his gaze softening as he reached out to gently touch your cheek, his thumb wiping away a stray tear.

“We need to get out of here,” he said firmly, his voice tinged with urgency. “I'll explain everything later, I promise. But right now, my priority is your safety.”

With a sense of determination, he helped you to your feet, keeping a protective arm around you, carrying you as you both made your way out of the warehouse, leaving the horrors behind you.

A man approached you both, dark haired, tall and blank look on his handsome face.

“I’ve secured the scene.”

Eris acknowledged the man with a nod of gratitude. “Your payment will be made in five minutes, good job. Sirius is in that room, I’ll leave you to it,” he said, his tone businesslike yet appreciative before leaving him to finish up as he carried you to the car.

At home, Eris helped you undress and get into the bath, staying nearby as he washed off the stress of the day. He was quiet but attentive, ensuring you felt safe and cared for throughout.

After you finished bathing, Eris handed you a fluffy towel and wrapped it around you gently, pressing a tender kiss to your forehead. He scooped you up in his arms, carrying you back to bed as if you were the most delicate thing in the world.

You snuggled closer to Eris, feeling a mix of fear and fascination about his involvement in the mafia. “I want to understand more about what you do, Eris. How did you get involved in all of this?”

Eris sighed, his expression growing somber as he recounted his family's history. “It's been a part of my family for generations,” he began, his voice tinged with resignation.

“My father was deeply involved in it, and his father before him. It's like a legacy that's been passed down, whether we wanted it or not.”

You raised your eyebrows in shock, “You’re telling me professor Beron was a mafia boss?”

Eris nodded gravely. “Yes. He built our family's empire from the ground up after my grandfather nearly lost it all. But he also brought a lot of danger and darkness into our lives. I did not have a happy or safe childhood. None of my siblings did because he always made us turn on each other and make us betray each other. It was always a scheme or plot going on because he wanted to pass the business down to someone worthy in his twisted mind.”

“And now I've brought that same misery into your life,” he says, his voice heavy with regret. “I should have left you alone. You don't deserve this. You deserve better than me. Someone who can give you the life you deserve.”

“You're wrong,” you respond firmly, looking into his eyes. “I choose to be with you, Eris. I know who you are now, and I believe in the goodness in you. It was scary, yes, but you didn’t kidnap me, they did. And now they’re gone, you protected me. Listen, I love you but if you ever suggest me being with someone else, I’ll punch you.”

Eris's eyes soften as he listens to your words, a mixture of relief and gratitude washing over him. He pulls you closer, holding you tightly against him. "I love you too, and I promise I'll do everything in my power to keep you safe. Never again will you go through what you did today. I will make sure of it." he whispers, giving you a kiss with tenderness.

You break the kiss when a brilliant plan come to mind. “You know if you gave me a gun, i’d be protected forever.”

Eris chuckles softly, his fingers tracing soothing patterns along your back. “Yeah,” he says with a teasing glint in his eyes, “you'd look pretty fucking hot with a gun. I’ll teach you how to use one of the simpler ones.” He leans in to press a gentle kiss to your forehead, his love for you evident in his actions.

“Perfect, I want you teaching me tomorrow, please.”

Eris smiles warmly at your enthusiasm. “Of course, I'll teach you everything tomorrow,” he promises. “But for now, let's focus on getting some rest. Tomorrow is a big day.” He tucks the blankets around you snugly, ensuring your comfort before leaning in to press a tender kiss to your forehead. “Sleep well, my love.”

So you do, in the comfort and safety of his warm embrace.

🏷️: @danikamariewrites @daycourtofficial @teenageeggscissorslawyer @jeannineee @natashachelsea @candyjaypoppins @honeysuckle-daydreams13 @acourtofbatboydreams @nocasdatsgay @cyrygher @amara-moonlight @fell-in-luvs @hanitastic @culiehua @daughterofthemoons-stuff @itsphoenix0724 @vanserrasswife @rowaelinsdaughter @redbleedingrose @acourtofwhatthefuck @clairebear08 @hieragalbatorixdottir @rromani-witch @vellichor01 @mischiefmanagers @i-am-a-lost-girl16 @icey--stars @alysena2 @loneliestluvr @meshellexplosionmurder @whatthefuckshappeningrn @thelov3lybookworm @eminvelaris @v3lv3tf0x

279 notes · View notes

sonyaheaneyauthor · 3 months ago

Text

Trump’s team are behaving like reckless rednecks

Past Republican presidents understood America’s true interests. The incumbent woefully fails to grasp them

This week’s revelation in The Atlantic magazine that President Trump’s National Security team shared and discussed secrets about Yemen air strikes over the Signal messaging app reveals that the United States yet again fails to grasp that one of the first rules of intelligence is “need to know”. It also demonstrates an attitude befitting a bunch of rednecks swapping stories around a bar.

Supposedly these “guys” think military operations are trivial enough to put at risk in the cause of gossip and bravado. Never forget that the real casualties of vice-president JD Vance and defence secretary Pete Hegseth’s banter are brave men and women of the US armed forces who risk their actual lives to protect US interests. It demonstrates quite how ignorant the National Security team are of such operations. Firstly it is highly probable that the strikes were a team effort.

Intelligence from Gulf partners is likely to have been used. Such strikes involve a range of nations, not just the United States.

And secondly, what Team Trump clearly doesn’t understand is that upholding the freedom of navigation principle matters. If the West doesn’t, then China will assert itself completely in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait; Russia will seek full control over the Northwest Passage.

In that scenario the US economy really will suffer. The isolationist Maga crowd just seem unable to comprehend that in today’s world everything is connected. Every shift by the White House creates a ripple felt across the farthest oceans. Every weakening of resolve encourages every adversary.

Having observed Trump 2.0 these last 50 days, it is becoming abundantly clear that those in leadership roles really have not travelled very much. I would be surprised if many of them have a passport. They seem blindly ignorant that we live in an era of a globalised world. It is a world governed by the very rules the US and the West crafted after the Second World War; a world that embraced free trade. Those rules weren’t just about trade but about morality and democracy. The United States embraced its leadership role and prospered from it. But Trump 2.0 seems to want to reject all that and feed the electorate’s grievances.

“A patriot loves his country. A nationalist hates his neighbours.” That best sums up the Trump Administration. But that great Republican president Ronald Reagan called it right: “We should beware of the demagogues who are ready to declare a trade war against our friends – weakening our economy, our national security, and the entire free world – all while cynically waving the American flag”.

The 1991 book Trumped! by John O’Donnell, one of Trump’s Atlantic City Casino bosses, tells us a lot about the President and his early days in business. His obsession with wearing suits, his conviction that the world was “ripping off” the US. A business agenda driven by personality politics, not commercial sense, goes back decades.

Every foreign diplomat should read it. The author’s experience is a good guide to who is now leading the free world – or not as it turns out. Donald Trump’s Atlantic City casino ventures eventually ended as rubble. This might explain why the Israelis are sceptical about his plans for another seaside resort. When assessing the current US administration, we should not let ourselves be distracted by our sympathies for the war on woke. Those policies might be good red meat to many of us but they are not the core functions of any government.

The war on woke is the easy bit. Building an economy, future proofing social policy and securing a nation’s defences are the hard yards. Anyone can demolish a building but few can build one.

When I heard Steve Witkoff, Trump’s envoy on Ukraine and the Middle East, speak earlier in the week about Putin, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. It was yet another step away from the US’s moral leadership.

Standing at Pointe du Hoc 40 years after D-Day President Reagan stated “There is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest.”

The ex-real estate chum of Trump said Putin was not a “bad guy ”, who “could be taken at his word”. He then went on to parrot Kremlin lines on Russia’s legitimate claim to parts of Ukraine. The leaked texts of Trump’s security team reveal who they really are. They think bullying is leadership, allies are customers and trade is warfare.

That may play well in roadhouses of the Midwest but in the minds of our enemies it is an opportunity.

Rt Hon Sir Ben Wallace served as Secretary of State for Defence

#us politics #russian invasion of ukraine #maga morons #donald trump #fascisim #boycott america #russia #trump #jd vance #ukraine #current events

40 notes · View notes

mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year ago

Text

How to design a tech regulation

TONIGHT (June 20) I'm live onstage in LOS ANGELES for a recording of the GO FACT YOURSELF podcast. TOMORROW (June 21) I'm doing an ONLINE READING for the LOCUS AWARDS at 16hPT. On SATURDAY (June 22) I'll be in OAKLAND, CA for a panel (13hPT) and a keynote (18hPT) at the LOCUS AWARDS.

It's not your imagination: tech really is underregulated. There are plenty of avoidable harms that tech visits upon the world, and while some of these harms are mere negligence, others are self-serving, creating shareholder value and widespread public destruction.

Making good tech policy is hard, but not because "tech moves too fast for regulation to keep up with," nor because "lawmakers are clueless about tech." There are plenty of fast-moving areas that lawmakers manage to stay abreast of (think of the rapid, global adoption of masking and social distancing rules in mid-2020). Likewise we generally manage to make good policy in areas that require highly specific technical knowledge (that's why it's noteworthy and awful when, say, people sicken from badly treated tapwater, even though water safety, toxicology and microbiology are highly technical areas outside the background of most elected officials).

That doesn't mean that technical rigor is irrelevant to making good policy. Well-run "expert agencies" include skilled practitioners on their payrolls – think here of large technical staff at the FTC, or the UK Competition and Markets Authority's best-in-the-world Digital Markets Unit:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/13/kitbashed/#app-store-tax

The job of government experts isn't just to research the correct answers. Even more important is experts' role in evaluating conflicting claims from interested parties. When administrative agencies make new rules, they have to collect public comments and counter-comments. The best agencies also hold hearings, and the very best go on "listening tours" where they invite the broad public to weigh in (the FTC has done an awful lot of these during Lina Khan's tenure, to its benefit, and it shows):

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/events/2022/04/ftc-justice-department-listening-forum-firsthand-effects-mergers-acquisitions-health-care

But when an industry dwindles to a handful of companies, the resulting cartel finds it easy to converge on a single talking point and to maintain strict message discipline. This means that the evidentiary record is starved for disconfirming evidence that would give the agencies contrasting perspectives and context for making good policy.

Tech industry shills have a favorite tactic: whenever there's any proposal that would erode the industry's profits, self-serving experts shout that the rule is technically impossible and deride the proposer as "clueless."

This tactic works so well because the proposers sometimes are clueless. Take Europe's on-again/off-again "chat control" proposal to mandate spyware on every digital device that will screen everything you upload for child sex abuse material (CSAM, better known as "child pornography"). This proposal is profoundly dangerous, as it will weaken end-to-end encryption, the key to all secure and private digital communication:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/jun/18/encryption-is-deeply-threatening-to-power-meredith-whittaker-of-messaging-app-signal

It's also an impossible-to-administer mess that incorrectly assumes that killing working encryption in the two mobile app stores run by the mobile duopoly will actually prevent bad actors from accessing private tools:

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/09/04/oh-for-fucks-sake-not-this-fucking-bullshit-again-cryptography-edition/

When technologists correctly point out the lack of rigor and catastrophic spillover effects from this kind of crackpot proposal, lawmakers stick their fingers in their ears and shout "NERD HARDER!"

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/01/12/nerd-harder-fbi-director-reiterates-faith-based-belief-in-working-crypto-that-he-can-break/

But this is only half the story. The other half is what happens when tech industry shills want to kill good policy proposals, which is the exact same thing that advocates say about bad ones. When lawmakers demand that tech companies respect our privacy rights – for example, by splitting social media or search off from commercial surveillance, the same people shout that this, too, is technologically impossible.

That's a lie, though. Facebook started out as the anti-surveillance alternative to Myspace. We know it's possible to operate Facebook without surveillance, because Facebook used to operate without surveillance:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3247362

Likewise, Brin and Page's original Pagerank paper, which described Google's architecture, insisted that search was incompatible with surveillance advertising, and Google established itself as a non-spying search tool:

http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/papers/google.pdf

Even weirder is what happens when there's a proposal to limit a tech company's power to invoke the government's powers to shut down competitors. Take Ethan Zuckerman's lawsuit to strip Facebook of the legal power to sue people who automate their browsers to uncheck the millions of boxes that Facebook requires you to click by hand in order to unfollow everyone:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/02/kaiju-v-kaiju/#cda-230-c-2-b

Facebook's apologists have lost their minds over this, insisting that no one can possibly understand the potential harms of taking away Facebook's legal right to decide how your browser works. They take the position that only Facebook can understand when it's safe and proportional to use Facebook in ways the company didn't explicitly design for, and that they should be able to ask the government to fine or even imprison people who fail to defer to Facebook's decisions about how its users configure their computers.

This is an incredibly convenient position, since it arrogates to Facebook the right to order the rest of us to use our computers in the ways that are most beneficial to its shareholders. But Facebook's apologists insist that they are not motivated by parochial concerns over the value of their stock portfolios; rather, they have objective, technical concerns, that no one except them is qualified to understand or comment on.

There's a great name for this: "scalesplaining." As in "well, actually the platforms are doing an amazing job, but you can't possibly understand that because you don't work for them." It's weird enough when scalesplaining is used to condemn sensible regulation of the platforms; it's even weirder when it's weaponized to defend a system of regulatory protection for the platforms against would-be competitors.

Just as there are no atheists in foxholes, there are no libertarians in government-protected monopolies. Somehow, scalesplaining can be used to condemn governments as incapable of making any tech regulations and to insist that regulations that protect tech monopolies are just perfect and shouldn't ever be weakened. Truly, it's impossible to get someone to understand something when the value of their employee stock options depends on them not understanding it.

None of this is to say that every tech regulation is a good one. Governments often propose bad tech regulations (like chat control), or ones that are technologically impossible (like Article 17 of the EU's 2019 Digital Single Markets Directive, which requires tech companies to detect and block copyright infringements in their users' uploads).

But the fact that scalesplainers use the same argument to criticize both good and bad regulations makes the waters very muddy indeed. Policymakers are rightfully suspicious when they hear "that's not technically possible" because they hear that both for technically impossible proposals and for proposals that scalesplainers just don't like.

After decades of regulations aimed at making platforms behave better, we're finally moving into a new era, where we just make the platforms less important. That is, rather than simply ordering Facebook to block harassment and other bad conduct by its users, laws like the EU's Digital Markets Act will order Facebook and other VLOPs (Very Large Online Platforms, my favorite EU-ism ever) to operate gateways so that users can move to rival services and still communicate with the people who stay behind.

Think of this like number portability, but for digital platforms. Just as you can switch phone companies and keep your number and hear from all the people you spoke to on your old plan, the DMA will make it possible for you to change online services but still exchange messages and data with all the people you're already in touch with.

I love this idea, because it finally grapples with the question we should have been asking all along: why do people stay on platforms where they face harassment and bullying? The answer is simple: because the people – customers, family members, communities – we connect with on the platform are so important to us that we'll tolerate almost anything to avoid losing contact with them:

https://locusmag.com/2023/01/commentary-cory-doctorow-social-quitting/

Platforms deliberately rig the game so that we take each other hostage, locking each other into their badly moderated cesspits by using the love we have for one another as a weapon against us. Interoperability – making platforms connect to each other – shatters those locks and frees the hostages:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

But there's another reason to love interoperability (making moderation less important) over rules that require platforms to stamp out bad behavior (making moderation better). Interop rules are much easier to administer than content moderation rules, and when it comes to regulation, administratability is everything.

The DMA isn't the EU's only new rule. They've also passed the Digital Services Act, which is a decidedly mixed bag. Among its provisions are a suite of rules requiring companies to monitor their users for harmful behavior and to intervene to block it. Whether or not you think platforms should do this, there's a much more important question: how can we enforce this rule?

Enforcing a rule requiring platforms to prevent harassment is very "fact intensive." First, we have to agree on a definition of "harassment." Then we have to figure out whether something one user did to another satisfies that definition. Finally, we have to determine whether the platform took reasonable steps to detect and prevent the harassment.

Each step of this is a huge lift, especially that last one, since to a first approximation, everyone who understands a given VLOP's server infrastructure is a partisan, scalesplaining engineer on the VLOP's payroll. By the time we find out whether the company broke the rule, years will have gone by, and millions more users will be in line to get justice for themselves.

So allowing users to leave is a much more practical step than making it so that they've got no reason to want to leave. Figuring out whether a platform will continue to forward your messages to and from the people you left there is a much simpler technical matter than agreeing on what harassment is, whether something is harassment by that definition, and whether the company was negligent in permitting harassment.

But as much as I like the DMA's interop rule, I think it is badly incomplete. Given that the tech industry is so concentrated, it's going to be very hard for us to define standard interop interfaces that don't end up advantaging the tech companies. Standards bodies are extremely easy for big industry players to capture:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/30/weak-institutions/

If tech giants refuse to offer access to their gateways to certain rivals because they seem "suspicious," it will be hard to tell whether the companies are just engaged in self-serving smears against a credible rival, or legitimately trying to protect their users from a predator trying to plug into their infrastructure. These fact-intensive questions are the enemy of speedy, responsive, effective policy administration.

But there's more than one way to attain interoperability. Interop doesn't have to come from mandates, interfaces designed and overseen by government agencies. There's a whole other form of interop that's far nimbler than mandates: adversarial interoperability:

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

"Adversarial interoperability" is a catch-all term for all the guerrilla warfare tactics deployed in service to unilaterally changing a technology: reverse engineering, bots, scraping and so on. These tactics have a long and honorable history, but they have been slowly choked out of existence with a thicket of IP rights, like the IP rights that allow Facebook to shut down browser automation tools, which Ethan Zuckerman is suing to nullify:

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

Adversarial interop is very flexible. No matter what technological moves a company makes to interfere with interop, there's always a countermove the guerrilla fighter can make – tweak the scraper, decompile the new binary, change the bot's behavior. That's why tech companies use IP rights and courts, not firewall rules, to block adversarial interoperators.

At the same time, adversarial interop is unreliable. The solution that works today can break tomorrow if the company changes its back-end, and it will stay broken until the adversarial interoperator can respond.

But when companies are faced with the prospect of extended asymmetrical war against adversarial interop in the technological trenches, they often surrender. If companies can't sue adversarial interoperators out of existence, they often sue for peace instead. That's because high-tech guerrilla warfare presents unquantifiable risks and resource demands, and, as the scalesplainers never tire of telling us, this can create real operational problems for tech giants.

In other words, if Facebook can't shut down Ethan Zuckerman's browser automation tool in the courts, and if they're sincerely worried that a browser automation tool will uncheck its user interface buttons so quickly that it crashes the server, all it has to do is offer an official "unsubscribe all" button and no one will use Zuckerman's browser automation tool.

We don't have to choose between adversarial interop and interop mandates. The two are better together than they are apart. If companies building and operating DMA-compliant, mandatory gateways know that a failure to make them useful to rivals seeking to help users escape their authority is getting mired in endless hand-to-hand combat with trench-fighting adversarial interoperators, they'll have good reason to cooperate.

And if lawmakers charged with administering the DMA notice that companies are engaging in adversarial interop rather than using the official, reliable gateway they're overseeing, that's a good indicator that the official gateways aren't suitable.

It would be very on-brand for the EU to create the DMA and tell tech companies how they must operate, and for the USA to simply withdraw the state's protection from the Big Tech companies and let smaller companies try their luck at hacking new features into the big companies' servers without the government getting involved.

Indeed, we're seeing some of that today. Oregon just passed the first ever Right to Repair law banning "parts pairing" – basically a way of using IP law to make it illegal to reverse-engineer a device so you can fix it.

https://www.opb.org/article/2024/03/28/oregon-governor-kotek-signs-strong-tech-right-to-repair-bill/

Taken together, the two approaches – mandates and reverse engineering – are stronger than either on their own. Mandates are sturdy and reliable, but slow-moving. Adversarial interop is flexible and nimble, but unreliable. Put 'em together and you get a two-part epoxy, strong and flexible.

Governments can regulate well, with well-funded expert agencies and smart, adminstratable remedies. It's for that reason that the administrative state is under such sustained attack from the GOP and right-wing Dems. The illegitimate Supreme Court is on the verge of gutting expert agencies' power:

https://www.hklaw.com/en/insights/publications/2024/05/us-supreme-court-may-soon-discard-or-modify-chevron-deference

It's never been more important to craft regulations that go beyond mere good intentions and take account of adminsitratability. The easier we can make our rules to enforce, the less our beleaguered agencies will need to do to protect us from corporate predators.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/20/scalesplaining/#administratability

Image: Noah Wulf (modified) https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thunderbirds_at_Attention_Next_to_Thunderbird_1_-_Aviation_Nation_2019.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

#pluralistic #cda #ethan zuckerman #platforms #platform decay #enshittification #eu #dma #right to repair #transatlantic #administrability #regulation #big tech #scalesplaining #equilibria #interoperability #adversarial interoperability #comcom

99 notes · View notes