#block wifi signal

[coolllb0]

It turns out that the anti-radiation fabric can really prevent radiation!

Many people believe in the function of radiation protection fabrics, and think that there is no radiation around them, so they don't need it, but there are many electrical appliances around us that contain radiation.

Therefore, some professionals have studied radiation-proof fabrics, hoping to isolate the damage caused by radiation.

[silastheshort]

at&t, why in the hell would i be car camping if im looking to watch a movie? and howd they pop that popcorn? on a campfire? how long did she have to wait to be able to hold the bowl? did they use another bowl? it looks like theyre "glamping," and, kids, ill be honest- that car looks like it has the back seats up, so i highly doubt they've got enough space to hold supplies enough for glamping, let alone extra popcorn-popping bowls or dishwashing means. and, yes, the car has to be running for the wifi to work. i mean, are they just gonna let the car run all night? are they sleeping in there? are they just here for one night? could whatever theyre watching not wait one day?? so many questions, and "mobile hotspot" answers approximately 0 of them.

better for long drives, when your passengers are a bunch of gamers. LAN party on the go, baby. i mean, i guess who the fuck knows? one of them probably likes to drive while the other just wants to game. from their faces, looks like shes over there like "bro, isnt audry hepburn just the baddest of bitches??" and the dudes like "my wow team is raiding tonight, and im missing it. but sure. audry hepburn's a babe. (christ, the things you gotta do for love...)"

overall, 9/10 image. leaves ya wondering. point taken off because that man is holding the beer with his hands like he wants to warm it up. are his hands too hot? is he trying to hide the logo, or something? probably that one, because he's embarrassed that its a shitty beer.

NOT TO MENTION THE-

jesus fucking christ. i must be stopped.

[neuvillettes]

me at work rn impatiently waiting for it to be 5 so i can talk to people on disc

[neilperrystypewriter]

my modern “if the poets went on a roadtrip with mr. keating” headcanons:

- mr. keating: drives like a bat out of hell (this man is literally airborne on the interstate)

- neil: in the passenger seat trying to teach mr. keating that google maps is easier than an actual map + has to turn down the volume of the music constantly bc mr. keating can’t hear anything (“you take a left up here-“ “WHAT?” *cranks music down* “YOU TAKE A LEFT UP HERE, CAPTAIN”)

- todd: got left at the gas station (they did turn around and get him but he just stares out the window behind the drivers seat the whole time in silence—still upset)

- charlie: behind the passenger seat on the aux and playing the most god awful music you’ve ever heard in your life (i feel like he would play a lot of underground music that no man has ever heard before except the artist that created it)

- knox: in the back complaining about the bad WiFi signal bc his awful selfies won’t go through to Chris (she definitely blocked him)

- meeks: in the back as well + binging on the snacks he brought with and watching a movie from the screen on the back of a seat (let’s be honest, he’s watching oppenheimer)

- pitts: “LOOK IT’S A COW” every 5 minutes (also in the back)

- cameron: locked in the trunk somehow?? (mr. keating isn’t aware bc they told him cameron was busy that day)

[writingsfromhome]

Dos and Don’ts of H Styles

A/N: this story was literally born out of the wifi incident happening to me. It was a weird experience lol but of course it inspired me to write a story around it. Basically you used to work for Harry as a PA and your life was hell. You bump into him in the present but before it unfolds we need to know what happened in the past.

Part 1 / 2 / 3 / 4

——————————————

I watch as Winnie types into her phone the number of the guy who’d just hit on her.

“And that’s with a y?” She looks up at him with doe eyes.

“Yea,” he falls for it. He was cute, and she worked a lot I didn’t blame her for taking who she could get. His accent also helped. “What’re you doin’ now?”

“Well,” her eyes slide to me. “Hanging with my girlfriend here.”

He nods at me and I smile, holding up the almost empty glass. “We were just about done for the night though.”

“We were?” Winnie checks in with me.

“Mhm,” I give her an encouraging nod.

Both Winnie and I were employed by musician-turned-actor Oretta Smith. Winnie was her nanny—or childcare companion as she called it, and I worked as Oretta’s executive assistant. It was full-time and demanding as hell but ever since Oretta had her first child a couple months back I’d gotten a lot more breathing room as she minimized her public life and stayed close to home.

This long weekend Oretta was staying with her in-laws and asked us to take it off. I’d already requested the weekend off knowing we were in London but being off at the same time as Winnie was impossible so we’d gone out to celebrate and let loose—9pm and only 2 drinks in, both of us had already started talking about the comfort of our beds. Until flirty dude came up to Winnie.

“What do you say?” Winnie’s new date asks her.

“Aw shucks alright,” Winnie flashes her beautiful smile and hops off the stool. I don’t even see her drop the bills onto the table as she hugs me goodbye and leaves until it’s too late. She’d covered for both of us. Well I’d get her back next time.

I finish the rest of my drink, eyes flicking to the reruns of tonight’s soccer game. This wasn’t the fanciest bar—it was quite homely compared to the ones Winnie and I often found ourselves at. But it was one I used to go to when I worked in London just over a year ago. Being back in the city, despite all the awful memories, pulled me towards the nostalgic comfort of it.

I remember the many dates with my now-ex, the random nights I’d actually get off, and drown myself in drink to forget about my awful employer. Or the birthday and milestone celebrations—especially the ones I started to miss near the end.

I consider walking the few streets over to my old flat. Coincidentally the job I’d gotten wasn’t far from home. The upside was that it made dealing with “emergency” texts from my employer a lot quicker but the downside was it grouped all the traumas I experienced in this beautiful city to a few blocks. I didn’t miss it.

I cut my memory lane rabbit-hole short and decide it was time to order an Uber and get out of here; I had an early train to catch tomorrow.

The bars on my phone flicker up and down as I open the app and continue to refresh it over and over. But my signal remains unstable.

“Stupid phone,” I mutter. I had to update my provider while I was here asap.

“‘Scuse me?” I wave down someone serving drinks. “Have you got wifi here?”

“Yep we do!” She smiles. “Name’s The Violinist and the password’s capital p….”

Her voice grows far away as my blood runs cold and I stare at the list of available wifi networks. I feel myself nod a thank you when she stops talking and she leaves taking the password with her while I’m stuck staring.

My networks:

🔗H’s iPhone

I want to duck down and run away, not spend another second around anything to do with that era of my life. But I also want to hunt him down and show him how much better I was doing after him, despite.

The second instinct wins. Kind of.

I don’t hide away. I scan the dimly lit room and try to spot the familiar head of hair but it’s on the third try that I spot him. And it’s probably because his hair is barely an inch long.

He must’ve cut it recently, I’m surprised. Him without his hair was like Harry Potter without his scar.

The feelings are instantaneous though. The loathing and the need to cry. My heart continues to race as I burn a hole into the side of his head.

He was the devil incarnate and I had thought about him for a second too long just now. And now here he was. What the fuck was a guy like him doing here?

I remember the awful times; the casually cruelty and the late nights he would make me work. His constant criticism. The way my life fell apart because of him. The way I could wring his neck with very little incentive at any given moment.

He had turned my whole life upside down. He ruined me.

Harry Styles wasn’t the sweetheart everyone painted him out to be.

And yet, a flash of a feeling, a fleeting memory I try to keep locked away pushes to the front of my mind.

“Fuck no,” I tell myself. There was no room for fondness when it came to the devil.

About 2 years ago:

I straighten out the blazer, wondering if I should be chic and roll the sleeves up a bit or just keep them down. My reflection shows a nervous mousy girl that’s trying too hard. I throw my hair into a ponytail instead and feel a more like myself. Just as the elevator doors ding open.

I’m in the penthouse suite I would be working out of for the next however long; it was my first day on the job and I was still sorting out my nervous to excited ratio.

After looking for months, I’d landed a PA gig for up-and-coming rockstar Harry Styles. It was a dream come true and everyone was ecstatic for me, most of all my boyfriend who’d helped me land the role.

My boyfriend, Grayson, was a personal trainer to a lot of big names and he’d been keeping his ear to the ground for me. We met a few years ago at the gym of course, I’d still been a student and he worked part-time at the student gym. Back then he was still working to get a better client list.

We’d clicked pretty quickly and Grayson, who was anything but shy, asked me out. Soon after he was telling me he had feelings for me and I’d felt them echo back the same. He was my biggest supporter and when I told him I wanted to take this career path seriously he’d been the first to show me what steps to take to get there.

My true dream was to become a publicist and work with celebrities, but fresh out of post-grad everyone told me I’d need to dive head first and get my hands dirty. And I’d have to do that by finding a PA role for a publicist or an industry person.

“Y/n?” My name interrupts my thoughts. It comes from a disembodied head peeking out from a doorway. “You are y/n right?”

“Yes!” I hurry over. “Nice to meet you.”

“Yes. I’m Mr. Styles’ exec assistant, I’m only here for the next,” he looks down at his watch. “Half hour perhaps? So let’s get you sorted before I head out.”

“Oh okay. Sure,” my ears ring, I was going to be alone on my first day. I didn’t even know he had an executive assistant. What was the difference between him and me? What if I screw up and this guy was part of the fallout plan? Shit. “Is Mr. Styles in?”

“Not at the moment, he’ll be in before noon. He has a few appointments this morning. Typically you’d be going with him but he left before you arrived so…next time. Make sure you get any paperwork he received from the appointments and file them in here-“ he points to a room with a filing cabinet. Like an actual cabinet. This was a tight ship. “You sound American. Are you American?”

“Yep,” I debate whether to tell him I stayed after doing my degree here but decide to keep the yapping to a minimum.

I continue following the EA—who I should get the name of, as he points out rooms and overlaps it with info about Mr. Styles’ schedule and routines. A lot of info. My brain felt like it was barely holding on.

I think about the man I was now working for, the one who came into the interview for a brief 10 minutes. Surely that laid-back guy wasn’t the anal mystery man I was getting all these instructions for.

The interview itself had gone pretty smoothly apart from the fact that I nervous-laughed a few times too many. I had gone silent when The Harry Styles had walked into the office. He’d sat beside me at the round table, slouching slightly and flashing me a reassuring smile—I had felt my shoulders dip down immediately.

“So it’s y/n right? I’m pronouncing that correctly?” He’d said in his perfectly charming accent.

“Yes, it’s so nice to meet you officially.” I had to tamp down every urge to gush over him. I was a professional. I was zen.

“So y/n,” he says my name so casually and yet I feel myself lean closer to hear him say it again. “I’ve seen a couple of you come in here for the PA role. What makes you different then?”

Think think, just be calm and think!

“Well I’m a very passionate person so I put my all into everything I do. That would include this job, and in turn you’d benefit by getting peace of mind knowing I’m tackling whatever behind the scenes items that need to get done to get you where you need to go.”

“Well said,” he says with a smile that says he knew he was very good looking. “Now trust is a big factor in this relationship.”

As he talks I forget his manager is even in this room. I’m swept up in the hazy green of his eyes.

“We’ve done the background checks and all that—right?” He looks to his manager who was interviewing me and gets a nod. “But how can you reassure me. My staff gets approached by the media daily for any info on me. What’s to say you don’t sell out.”

“I would never,” I didn’t even think of that being an option. “Confidentiality and trust is the biggest pillar of this role and I take it very seriously. You’re like, the biggest celeb of the last year but I know you’re also a person and I wouldn’t betray that. On a person level.”

“So even if you had a really bad day, say I had gotten you to do some impossible tasks. And you’re heading out head full of steam and you get approached by a reporter. £5k for an exclusive.”

I shake my head. “As tempting as it would be, professional ethics reign over any of that.”

“I believe you y/n,” his eyes flicker down to my file. “Good references. We’ll be in touch.”

Now my eyes roam around the small room I’m meant to work out of. It’s the size of 1.5 supply closets with half the walls filled with shelves and cabinets. There’s a small desk but I wasn’t sure how often I’d be sitting at it. All the PAs I’d ever connected with always complained about the amount of time you spend on your feet. That’s why I’d opted to buy myself runners when I got the job.

“Any questions—mind you I have 1 minute for them before I’m off? There’s a suit I have to sort out.” The EA turns to me when we circle back to my office/supply closet.

“Oh,” a million race through my mind. Nothing that would fit in a minute. “I um, I guess I didn’t catch your name?”

He seems surprised at that, and then he laughs. “Oh you’re a doll. This place is gonna eat you alive. I’m Riley and tip for you—don’t be so eager to please. Do your job. Do it well. But you’re not here to be liked or make friends alright?”

He laughs again when he looks at my face. He hands me an iphone and tells me it’s programmed with everything and everyone I needed, then waves goodbye leaving me in a confused spot.

I wasn’t naïve, I knew what working in this industry was like but I was could swear I’d landed a good gig with Harry Styles. And meeting the man himself in the interview had confirmed it.

Maybe Riley was just jaded by too many long hours.

My phone vibrates in my pocket. A text from Grayson: good luck on your first day babe. let me know how it goes.

I only have time to heart it when I hear the elevator open in the foyer. I rush out just for Harry to brush past me and his manager following, chattering away about something.

I follow from behind and watch as he heads to the kitchen. Riley had shown me what he laid out on the island and how I should do it going forward. And like two magnets Harry reaches for the exact bottle Riley mentioned. He downs the smoothie and then collapses onto the barstool.

“But don’t forget what she was saying about the single needing to be global. Sure your fanbase would love it but would the people who hate you have to admit it’s good.”

“I make it for my fans not for the wankers that hate me,” Harry says and his voice is rich like caramel.

“You know what we mean.” His manager suddenly turns directly to me. “Can you contact the studio and let them know to push Harry’s 1pm to 3?”

“Oh,” I didn’t even know they knew I was here. They gave no acknowledgement until now. “Of course. Um, could I just get the paperwork from this morning too? The appoint-“

“Yep,” his manager unhauls the items in his hands. The whole time Harry stares out the window. I’m handed a stack of papers and I carry them to the office.

My hands are shaking when I put them down and I feel a lump in my throat. What was wrong with me? Why was I reacting this way?

I find the studio contact in the phone Riley gave me and let them know. They’re suspicious at first but accept the reschedule. I leave the paperwork for later, figuring I might be needed now.

But the rest of the morning I’m unacknowledged save by a few requests from Harry’s manager. I spend some time looking through the calender in the phone that’s pre-programmed with Harry’s entire life. It’s packed except for this Sunday. I wonder if it was actually free or just hidden from me since it was my one day off.

“You’ve got a passport haven’t you…?” It’s the first time Harry’s spoken to me. He’s changed into a hoodie and shorts, his manager is nowhere to be seen, and I’ve just bitten into a granola bar—the first thing I’d had since my morning coffee.

“Y/n.” I try to swallow the bite whole but at the last minute push it to the side to try to answer. “Erm yeah. I haven’t got it on me though.”

“Right. Y/n. Start carrying it. I’ll need you with me on Thursday I have a morning meeting in Léon and since Riley’s going to be sorting out something for my New York trip in a couple weeks he can’t make it.”

“Yes. I will. Do you need me to prepare anything else for the trip? I’m not sure if you’ve packed or-“

“It’s just a meeting.” He cuts me off. He pulls out his phone, dismissing me.

I swallow the knot in my throat once more.

I go with Harry to the studio since his manager is meeting us there. Alone in the car with him, the silence feels stuffy.

“I never got the opportunity to say thank you by the way,” I try to open up a conversation. All he was doing was looking out the window surely I wasn’t interrupting anything.

“What?” He stares right through me.

“Um, I’m just saying thank you. For the job.”

He nods.

I stay silent for the rest of the ride.

The studio is quiet, which makes sense when I think about it but upon entering an actual room I change my mind. The noise assaults my ears and I nearly jump at the volume but my hand gripping the doorknob keeps me in place.

People swarm around Harry.

“I need my tablet and my notebook,” Harry says amidst the small chaos.

What the fucks was he talking about. “Sorry?”

“My tablet and notebook,” His face darkens and so does my mood. Nobody told me! But maybe I should’ve asked oh my god.

“I don’t have it,” I say lamely.

“Any time I’m in the studio I need those two things. You need to get me my tablet and my notebook.” He speaks like a robot.

“I-I’ll head back,” I get my bag again. “Tablet and notebook, is there anything else?”

He looks angrier than I thought. He sticks his hands in his pocket, shuffles something in his hand before handing it over. “You may as well get lunch. Keep that card on you for business costs.”

I open my mouth to ask what he might want but he turns away as soon as I take the card and I’ve already fucked up royally so I decide to wing it.

In the car I consider googling what Harry Styles ate for lunch and instead will the ever living shit out of myself not to cry.

I scroll through the phone, debating if calling Riley for help would be a mistake. Going through every app for help I realize the countless notes in the app.

Morning Routines, says one. It lists things I should do when the mornings were spent at home, in studio, abroad, in a hotel, or if I walk into a “morning-after” morning. Jeez.

Another has checklists for what to do when travelling, how-to for routine appointments I should be booking, routine people I should be calling.

Why didn’t I look at this before. Right there is one called Studio Days and in bold it says what to bring.

I was an idiot. A big fat idiot.

I try my luck and search lunch. Sure enough a note with possible lunch places in cities across the world pops up.

It was a How-to guide for Mr. Styles.

Whoever put this shit together was an angel. I owed them my life.

I decide to be proactive, sorting lunch out to be delivered to the studio while the car drops me off. I run to the room Riley had said was the home studio. Sure enough I spot the tablet and a few notebooks, I grab all 3. I also grab the charger and ignore the bag of weed chilling on the arm of the chair.

What to do when he’s too drunk / What to do for Interview Days / What to do when he won’t answer the door or the phone / Day-off checklist / Social media checklist.

The dos and don’ts go on and on as I scroll through on the ride back. This was going to be my homework and by the end of the week I was gonna be a genius.

I swipe away and check if I had missed any folders containing precious info. Just the trash.

Out of curiosity I open it and there’s only 1 sitting inside: the donts of working for Harry Styles

I open it:

-don’t let one nice day fool you into forgetting he’s an arse and your employer

-don’t expect any gratitude from a narcissist

-don’t fall for his charm

-don’t shit where you sleep. no matter how tempting

-when he pisses you off which he will, don’t mouth off. what happens next is worse than being fired. which he won’t do because he’s the devil and he will want to keep you around after treating you like shite

-don’t think he’s chill. he’s anything but. follow the checklists and the rules.

-don’t have a life. actually this is a CAN’T. YOU CAN’T HAVE A LIFE WORKING FOR THE DEVIL. LEAVE AS QUICKLY AS YOU CAN UNLESS YOU HATE YOURSELF

I close the phone immediately, my heart thumping in my chest like a steady bass in the background of a song. What the hell did I get myself into.

***

It’s 8pm by the time I head back with Harry. The car is once again silent.

I had spent the day reviewing emails and the checklists, fielding calls and texts. His personal chef had texted to tell me dinner was prepared and in the oven to be re-heated so I figure that’s the last thing I’d do before I head home.

I’d eaten lunch standing while watching Harry sing background vocals to the album he was working on. It was hard to deny how intoxicating it was to see such a talented man work his magic. And it really was magical seeing how a song got put together.

That is until he’d sent me to get tea for the room and I’d nearly spilled half of it on myself getting enough back to the room. I was getting an electric kettle next.

I made a new note then: Reminders to do so you don’t get fired

The notes were my saving grace.

“My head is killing me,” Harry groans.

What to carry at all times: #4 paracetamol and #2 water

Checkmarked after going to the pharmacy while he was in the studio. I’d created an emergency makeup bag with essentials I could throw in my tote. I considered it a win today.

I hand the painkillers to him and he seems surprised. He replaces them with his phone.

“I don’t want to look at a screen for the rest of the night.”

“Okay.” I leave his phone beside me and try not to think of everything on it.

It vibrates a few minutes later and I leave it, not wanting to invade his privacy but he glances at me.

“Well?”

“Oh!” I lift it but it’s locked.

“1021.”

I type it in. “Um, Jeff wants to know if you’re still at the studio-“

“Reply to him.”

I do as I’m told.

“Um Mitch wants to know if you’re-“

“If it’s scheduling questions you can probably answer them without bothering me about it.”

I look up and he’s tipped his head back, eyes closed. Right. Of course I could.

I go through his schedule and find his studio time on Friday and relay it to Mitch. I respond to another text from someone asking if he was going to a gala in a couple months—his schedule said he was in LA so no. I wondered if I would also be in LA in a couple months. I wonder what Grayson would think.

Grayson, I’d had a short call with him a few hours ago and tried not to cry hearing his voice. It felt like home when the whole day felt so foreign.

I stare at the final text. The contact photo is the side profile of a gorgeous woman.

“Kimberly wants to know if you want um,” I feel my cheeks burn. “If you’re inviting her in tonight because she has a party she really wants you to go to.”

“I can’t be arsed for a party I feel like shite.” Harry says, eyes still closed. “Tell her to be at mine after 10.”

“Ok.” I type the words with a racing heart. I remember the morning-after checklist for this exact scenario. It wasn’t going to be weird soon I guess.

I heat up dinner for Harry while he showers and leave letting him know what time I’d be in tomorrow. He doesn’t even say goodbye.

I get home around the time I reckon Kimberly gets to Harry’s. The first thing I do when I see Grayson is shed a waterfall and he holds my exhausted body tight against him.

“Are you sure you want to keep doing this?” He whispers to me in bed after a shower and sandwich—I couldn’t stomach anything more.

“I need this job Gray. It’s gotta get better.”

“I reckon but it’s a steep learning curve,” he says as he traces the curve of my nose.

“I know,” I snuggle closer to him and yawn. I don’t know what he says next as I tip into sleep.

***

If the notes app manual with the dos and donts of being Harry Styles’ PA was a physical thing, imagine me swallowing it.

Every spare second I had—which I didn’t get a lot of, I was reading that thing. My fingers searched tirelessly before every scheduled and unscheduled event. And yet, I’d fucked up so many times.

It was Saturday and I was looking forward to my day off.

He had been hot and cold all week but ever since getting back from Léon he’d been nicer and I’d actually been getting home before 8.

Maybe things were going well, despite the fact that the learning curve was like climbing mount everest.

“What’s my morning look like?” Harry asks. I was sitting at his kitchen table trying to book a dinner for him next week with a friend that was in town. A friend who also happened to be big back where I was from—I hoped to catch a glimpse of her myself.

I glance up and look back down just as quickly. After a week of seeing Harry in all sorts of undress I should be used to it, but my face still flushes. Today he stands at the table in running shorts.

“Pulling it up,” I say and scan his schedule even though I had it memorized. “You’ve got a meeting at the bank in about 40 minutes and lunch with Michael.”

“Can’t my accountant take the bank meeting?”

“She’ll be there. She’s meeting you downstairs to discuss the meeting on the ride over. You need to sign off on some stuff.”

“Stuff,” Harry repeats.

I look at him, careful to train my eyes on his face. I couldn’t tell if he was annoyed at my lack of elaboration or just teasing me.

“Documents.” I correct, still unable to tell.

He look amused. “Great. Documents. I thought I’d be signing body parts.”

Was he joking? He was joking…I think.

“Right. No, we’re saving that for the tattoo shop booked for 6.”

He raises his brows, a slow smile spreading across his face and like the sun coasting over the horizon he looks brighter and prettier.

“That’s mad, that people would get a random man’s signature tattooed on them isn’t it?”

It’s inevitable really, my eyes skim over his torso brimming with tattoos. He notices and laughs. It’s a wonderful laugh.

“I meant they don’t really know me.”

“They admire you and it’s a piece of you,” I shrug. “At least it’s not a portrait of your face.”

“I’ve seen that floating around the internet actually.”

“Really?!” Now that was mad. I pull it up on the laptop and cover my mouth.

“I know.” He hangs his head and we laugh. God, things were finally getting better. This was the kind of relationship I thought Harry would have with his PA.

I scroll through comments and it’s impossible to wipe the smile off my face. I’ve considered myself a fan for a lot of artists but tattooing their face…that was another level of commitment I couldn’t do.

I look back to Harry who has grown quiet. His eyes are on me.

“What happened to your blazers?”

I’d decided to wear a skirt today, it was my lucky skirt—the one I had been wearing when I got the call that the job was mine. It being the last work day of the week I thought it might make me feel good.

I’d paired it with a tank top and a comfy cardigan. I’d finally felt like myself compared to all the button ups and blazers I’d been parading in. But apparently Harry had noticed the wardrobe difference. Shocker because he barely acknowledged me this week.

“I thought I’d dress for a Saturday?” It comes out meeker than I’d hoped. Ugh. “I hope that’s alright. If you want me more professional-“

“That’s alright,” his eyes roam down my body and I feel hot all over. Oh god, I shouldn’t have worn this. “It looks good.”

“Thanks,” I cross my cardigan over my body and try to get back to work but he doesn’t let it end there.

“Did you make that yourself?”

He continues to surprise me, “I did actually, is it obvious?”

“Yeah there’s a big hole down the back,” he teases. I know he is because his eyes are smiling, light.

“Damnit,” I relax a little. He was only interested in the sweater. “I’d finished it late it looked okay in the dark.”

“I have a friend, she made one of those for me. With the patches. Very comfortable.” He’s weirdly intense while looking at me and I feel like squirming again.

“It is. Very stretchy.” My vocabulary seems to shrink.

He leans over to touch the fabric and I feel like a cactus has been stabbed into my neck, I feel hot and prickly. Jeez, I had to chill out. My employer was just interested in my sweater. Super interested. Maybe I should just give him the damn thing. It would definitely fit him.

“Wool,” he smiles. He’s basically perched above me and I think I’m going to have a heart attack. I went from complaining about the fact that he acted like I wasn’t in any room he was in to not even being able to hold a conversation when he did.

I’m caught looking up into his unfairly gorgeous eyes and he looks at me like I’m the only person in the room. Which I was in this instance, but still.

I’m saved by a loud voice coming out of the elevator.

“Harry you car is waiting downstairs.”

Like a book slammed shut, his expression retreats until all that’s left is the cover page with no summary. The friendly Harry from before is gone.

“Oi Harry! I had to come all the way upstairs because I’ve been sitting in that stupid car waiting! Do you not pick up your phone?”

“Lee,” Harry says as he walks across his living room. “If you can’t reach me you call my PA I’ve told you a million times.”

“And I’ve told you a million times not to keep me waiting. We have a lot to cover before we get to this meeting and I need every minute. God why are you shirtless go put on something appropriate!”

Harry miraculously does as he’s told—given I had already laid out an outfit for him. He’s ready in no time. His accountant, Lee? Simply smiles at me and goes back to typing on her phone while we wait.

“Why is that so wrinkled?” Lee judges Harry who walks out in a completely different outfit.

“I don’t have time to change again do I?” Harry bristles.

Lee looks over at me and I’m not sure if she’s accusing me of something or looking for support.

“Mr. Styles I did leave an outfit out for the m-“

“I don’t wear silk.” He cuts me off and walks out ahead. Lee shrugs my way and follows him. I trail behind, feeling worse than ever.

For a miserable hour and a half I sit in one of the most uncomfortable chairs of my life, organizing Harry’s life while I wait for his meeting to end. As hard as I try to concentrate, I keep agonizing over what I might have done wrong to flick his switch. I swear things were going better. And I know I’ve seen him in silk before. Why the hell else would it be in his closet? Why couldn’t I go a single day without screwing up?

I finally spot Harry walking out of the office and gather my things quickly to meet him. I trail behind as we walk down the hall into the lobby, Lee is nowhere to be seen.

A gasp catches my attention and suddenly a girl younger than me rushes up to Harry.

“Oh my…Harry Styles?”

Harry’s face morphs briefly into annoyance, his gaze flicking my way, before pasting on a smile for the girl.

What to do when a fan approaches H (in the wrong moment): be the bad guy, divert, get Harry to wherever he needs to go to and do it quick.

“Hi,” Harry smiles sweetly at her and the friendliness throws me off guard. But this was unexpected and I should get him away…I think.

“Oh my god could I get a picture? My mate is never going to believe this. She loves you so much, so do I-“

“We really have to be going.” I say and the girl looks at me, surprised to find me there. I look around and spot and older woman watching us. Must be her mum.

“Could I just get a picture?” She glances between us.

“I don’t think Mr-“

“It’s fine,” Harry hands me her phone. “Get a photo of us.”

Just another layer of humiliation to add to the rest of the day. The rest of the week. God was I just awful at reading cues?

I snap a couple and then we’re walking free.

He doesn’t say anything. The car ride to his lunch date is spent in awkward fucking silence and I hate myself more with every second I spend in it.

When the car stops at his destination he holds his hand up when I go to open the door for him.

“Listen -what's your name again?" He asks.

Shame and humiliation drip over me like blood on Carrie’s prom night. I repeat it for him. Just like I had daily since I was hired.

“Right. Y/n. You came highly recommended from a friend so I trust you know how to do this job. This job, is to keep my life organized and keep me on track. Make sure I'm not distracted or side tracked by anyone. Including you. It’s not to be my publicist or my fashion advisor or my personal security. Let's stick to the job description okay?"

His words land bitterly to my ears. Not personal. Just a job. Just a job. Just a fucking job. And yet it was starting to feel like my whole life.

“Yes of course.” I hear myself mumble. And like the big clown I had to be, I push open the door and get out so he can too. He walks to the restaurant without a goodbye and I crawl into the car, heading back to his place. Tears burn my eyes but I refuse to let them out. Refuse to admit just how badly this job hurt.

***

“I’m not doing this on purpose,” I hiss into the phone. “You know I’d be there right now if I could!”

“Babe I get it’s your job but you haven’t come to anything in over a month since you started your job!”

“That’s unfair,” I cup my hand over my mouth. “Gray c’mon I’m going to be there just late.”

“That’s what you said last weekend.”

Last weekend, one of our good friends invited a few friends for dinner in their new place and Greyson had had to go alone. Everyone had messaged me to say I was missed but Gray had been stony, pretended to be asleep when I got home and then given me the silent treatment until I wore him down the next day. It was exhausting begging for affection.

“It’s my job Grey I don’t know what else to tell you.”

“Me neither, you know my parents want us over for weekend roast some time but I’ve been avoiding giving them a date because I don’t want you to stand them up.”

“I-“ a shadow shifts in the corner of my eyes and I look up. Harry stands in the doorway. “I have to go we’ll talk later.”

“Whatever y/n,” Grey hangs up and my chest squeezes with all the hurt I was causing. But he saw the state I’d been in since I started this job a month ago and he knows this is just my life right now. Why was he suddenly acting like it was brand new information?

“Are you done your personal call?” Harry asks. He hovers in the doorway, I’d never actually seen him in this little office space. Then again, if he did step in there wouldn’t be much room for either of us to walk around each other.

“Sorry,” I hate myself for apologizing. Here and everywhere else in my life. But I have no other choice. “Can I do anything for you?”

“When are you heading out tonight?” He asks. His eyes glued to my face. I know my eyes are teary and I try to blink it away.

“Um, soon. In an hour or so,” blink blink blink. “Did you need anything from me before then?”

“Yes, I have a friend coming over tonight. Can you order us something for dinner. Something light. And get a bottle to chill for us—champagne. And can you push Monday’s cleaning service to tomorrow afternoon?”

“Consider it done.” I tell him, hoping he would just leave me alone in the dark here.

“Do you have evening plans?” He continues. Why did he never ignore me when I wanted him to!?

“Kind of yeah,” I try to keep it short. “A birthday.”

It was Grayson’s sister’s birthday. She had invited us to a local fave called The Violinist and of course I would only make it to the dessert course if I was lucky. These days, making it to dinner at all was a luxury. I lived off of sparkling water, leftovers, and coffee.

“Well best to finish up what you’re doing so you can head out.”

He leaves and I’m annoyed. Why couldn’t he be nice and just tell me to leave after doing what he asked. But here I sit folding fucking pamphlets for some idiotic pledge he had signed on for. Fuck me.

I’m miserable by the time I leave. I’d managed to finish everything in a half hour so I’d touched up my makeup and changed into a simple dress I had kept in the office closet on Riley’s suggestion.

“A simple black number that could be used for any last minute event.” He’d said. Unfortunately that now counted for personal events too.

“G’night Mr. Styles.” I call out as I walk to the foyer, just so he knows I was going out earlier than I said.

“G’night,” he answers surprisingly. He always ignored me but tonight he sits on the couch. He rises to see me off but I notice him pause and take in my outfit. “Fun night?”

“I hope so.” I unfold the blazer in my hand, suddenly wanting to disappear with his gaze on me.

His long legs walk to me and he takes the blazer I’m fidgeting with from my hands. He actually holds it open and if I wasn’t this exhausted my jaw would definitely be on the floor.

“Oh. Thank you,” I slip it on and turn to face him. As if helping me put it on wasn’t surprising enough, he proceeds to untuck my hair from the blazer.

“That’s alright,” he says in a low seductive tone. “You look nice. Are you dressed up for someone?”

The question is dangerous, toeing a line I’m not sure I want to erase. I try to ease things with a joke. “The birthday girl I guess.”

“A friend?”

“My fiancé’s younger sister.”

Was it just me, or does he bristle when I mentioned my fiancé?

“I didn’t know you were engaged,” he mumbles, glancing down at my hand. I wore a number of rings and I guess the small diamond Grayson had proposed with back when it was the most he could afford, blended in.

“Yeah, nearly a year now.”

“Wow,” he crosses his arms. “Have a date set?”

“Not exactly,” I smooth my hair behind my ears. “We’re thinking next year but we’ve just been so busy with out schedules-“

“What does he do?”

“He’s a personal trainer,” I say proudly.

“Oh,” Harry tilts his head back. “Oh. Now I understand. Now I get the connection. My mate Liam put in a good word for you when I needed a new PA, he said he knew you through his personal trainer. He never mentioned how.”

“I see,” I’d have to thank Liam next time I saw him. He’d been one of Grayson’s first big clients and had become a close friend to us. I’d have to thank him with dinner. If I got any nights off, that is.

“That’s who you were talking to on your personal call?” He asks, his hand tracing my shoulder seam down to my elbow. My heart races from the ghost of his touch.

“Erm yeah, sorry again. I had to take it since it was time sensitive.”

“Best to get going then.”

I take a step backwards and then rush to the elevator all at once. Once I’m on and the doors start to close I turn and catch a glimpse of his handsome face watching me go.

I let out a breath. That was weirdly heavy. And kind of intimate. But weird. That was weird.

I wonder briefly who he was having over tonight. If it was Kimberly, who I’d had the misfortune of meeting in her panties one morning. Or his other “friend” some brunette named Maya or Amaya something. I’d had the misfortune of meeting her when I dropped off a late package to Harry one evening. All were awkward encounters.

I shake away the thoughts and am grateful when Harry’s driver waves me down on the sidewalk. I guess Harry had told him to take me to where I needed to go. My heart is warmed ever so slightly, although I do accidentally nap on the 15 minute drive over.

I make it for the end of dinner and Gray looks relieved to see me even though his eyes hold a hint of something unspoken. I try to ignore it tonight.

“Oh you look beautiful!” I hug the birthday girl, and we sway from side to side. I used to see her a lot before she moved away for uni. “When did you stop being a baby, Josie Duran let me get a look at you.”

“Josefina tell her what you did for your 21st.” Gray says.

“Can you let it go!?” Josie scowls.

“What?” I whisper.

“Mom will kill you,” Gray warns.

“That’s why she doesn’t have to know,” Josie bites.

“Hey,” I put my hands up between the two. “No fighting with the birthday girl. Anyway. Josie, you look beautiful, I’m so sorry I’m late but it’s so good to be here.”

“Aw no don’t worry about it,” she goes in for another quick hug. “I’m just happy you got to come. Gray said the bloke you work for is a nightmare. Tell us do we know him?”

“Ah,” I wasn’t really supposed to talk about him according to my nda. “I dunno if you would. Anyway I’m going to try to steal some of Gray’s leftovers until dessert comes.”

I sit beside Gray where the seat had been left empty and smile up at him, hoping for forgiveness. He sighs and kisses my forehead, pushing his plate towards me.

“Go ahead, have you eaten?”

I had a banana and a yoghurt for lunch but I don’t tell him, just making a vague answer for yes and scarfing down what’s left.

“She got a tattoo,” he says in my ear later as the restaurant finishes singing happy birthday and a cake with sparklers is set down. He’d gotten tipsy and I can tell because he wants to talk about his upsets.

“She’s a grown woman Gray,” I know he was protective and a little traditional—that’s where half of their sibling fights originated, but I always told him he had to let loose a little. “She’s allowed to get it. If I remember you have some tattoos of your own.”

“It’s different y/n.”

“She’s getting older faster than we can keep up with huh?” I lean my head against Gray’s shoulder and let out a big sigh. It feels good, sitting with him here surrounded by friends. It had been a while.

Gray leans his head against mine and doesn’t answer. We watch her friends take pictures like proud parents, watching her cut and then distribute the cake. I should help, but I just could not lift a finger.

“Hey y/n, is that your phone going off?” Josie’s friend beside me points to my facedown phone.

“Is it?” I sit up, my heart doing a number in my chest.

I pick it up, 2 missed calls from Harry and 3 texts. Fuck.

“Leave it,” Gray must be looking over my shoulder. “You’ve gone home now just screw him.”

“I can’t,” I didn’t want Gray getting mad—I know he was kinda drunk and he could make a scene like this. I didn’t want to ruin Josie’s celebration. But I couldn’t ignore this. This is the first time Harry’s messaged me after I’ve gone home. “I’ll take it outside.”

On my way to the door I open the messages. A picture of a bucket filled with ice. A row of question marks. And then: call me

What? What was so urgent about a bucket of-

Oh.

Fuck.

I thought I did everything but I hadn’t. I’d filled the bucket with ice and meant to ask the Italian restaurant around the corner to deliver a bottle like they usually did for Harry but I hadn’t gotten to that part.

I feel like I’m going to vomit any dinner I just had.

I crouch down. Do I call him? Do I pretend I didn’t see this until too late? No. I had to face up. I fucked up.

Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

I call with shaking hands but it rings and rings and goes straight to voicemail. I try again.

I had to get back, get him the champagne. Fix my mistake.

“Y/N,” Grayson’s suddenly outside. “Aren’t you coming back in?”

“I can’t. I…” how do I explain this to my fiancé without it sounding minor as hell. “I forgot to mail some important documents and I need to get back-“

“It’s Saturday fucking night.”

“Yeah but-“

“And guess what?! Tomorrow’s Sunday! The mail’s going nowhere! Fuck that wanker and come back in.”

Gray holds out his arms and I want to go back in but I need to fix this mistake.

I grasp his hand and he smiles, misunderstanding why I held it, “Gray I have to go-“

He pulls his hand away, a sneer on his face. It hurts when he looks at me that way, like I betrayed him.

“I showed up! I celebrated, I got here Gray I just have to-“

“You were barely here! Do you know how upset she was when I said you couldn’t make it?”

“Well why did you say that!?” I demand. “I told you I was only going to be late!”

“I can’t trust that!” He shouts and I try to pull his arm so he quiets but he doesn’t seem to care there are people around. “Your time is all his, every single fucking second! And when you’re not there your brain is going a million bajillion times over about him and his life. Even when you’re with me! What the fuck! What’s up with that!?”

“Gray I’m sorry look I’ll make it up to you tomorrow. I swear. I’ll make it up to your sister I-“

“I don’t care y/n,” Gray slips his arm out of my grasp. “Do whatever you want. Nothing I say matters anymore anyway right?”

“Gray,” tears streak my face as I watch the man I love go back inside without another look my way.

Fuck Harry.

I try to call him again but voicemail. Again. Fuck!

What to do when you make a mistake: admit to it—Harry appreciates accountability. FIX IT! As much as you can. FIX YOUR MISTAKES OR FACE CONSEQUENCES.

An alert that my uber was here pings my phone—I take the ride to the restaurant and grab an already chilled bottle. I book it to Harry’s building and ride the elevator up, every floor causing a further dip in my stomach.

The doors open to a dimly lit space. There’s music playing, something jazzy, and it smells like…vanilla? Vanilla roses?

“Hol-hold on,” I hear Harry chuckle. A head pops up from the other side of the sofa.

“Y/n?” He looks as confused as I am.

Oh my god, I realize as a giggle comes from the floor. They were on the fucking floor of the living room? They were on the floor of the living room f…what the fuck did I walk into?

“Just back with this,” I squeak, holding up the bottle.

“Harry did you invite someone else?” The voice asks from below with another laugh. He sighs, disappearing again. I hear a very distinct wet noise before he pops back up again, I look at the doors of the elevator trying even harder not to give in to the panic attack that was looking more and more tempting.

“What are you doing here?” Harry approaches me with a softened voice. Wearing a robe. A silk robe. I knew he wore silk.

“You called—the bottle I’m sorry it totally slipped my mind I-“

“I told you to call me?”

“I did, you didn’t pick up! I thought I should swing by-“

“I thought you had a party?” His forehead scrunches.

“I…” the pieces come together. Did I take this too seriously because Harry didn’t even look angry? Great. I was an idiot and proving to Harry I had no life. “It ended. Early. I…I wanted to fix my mistake and bring the bottle.”

He takes it from my hand, still confused. “Y/N.”

I wait for him to continue but he doesn’t. And lord, in this climate with him in just a robe hearing my name on his lips is not okay. I was going to pass out.

“I’ll leave.” I go back to the elevator but he starts talking again.

“I asked you to call me so I could ask-“ he stops when I turn back around to listen. He closes the gap between us again with a sigh, and I don’t realize my face was still streaked with tears. It was probably more noticeable in the elevator light. He takes his finger and swipes across my cheek, his brows furrowing.

“Sorry,” I swipe my cheek to remove the remaining evidence. “I’ll leave you to it.”

He clears his throat and takes a step back. “Thank you for coming back.”

I nod.

“If you’re going to leave early next time, make sure you finish everything I’ve asked you to do. Don’t skip out like this again.”

“Yes yeah of course,” I stutter, relieved to fit back into our usual roles. For a second there, I thought Harry was going to be kind. And that would have been way worse.

“Good night Y/N. See you Monday.”

“Good night Mr. Styles.”

Gray’s not home by the time I get back. I wake the next morning to his side untouched.

So I do the only thing that felt good these days, I curl up into a ball and cry.

***

Taglist - leave me a message if you’d like to join it :)

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

THTH 1

Warnings: non/dubcon, and other dark elements. My username actually says you never asked for any of this.

My warnings are not exhaustive but be aware this is a dark fic and may include potentially triggering topics. Please use your common sense when consuming content. I am not responsible for your decisions.

Characters: Ransom Drysdale

Summary: You have a secret, but what do you do when it threatens to come out.

Part of the Backwoods AU

As usual, I would appreciate any and all feedback. I’m happy to once more go on this adventure with all of you! Thank you in advance for your comments and for reblogging.

“Ugh, goddamn it,” you hiss as you reach your phone to the sky. The signal is shit around here. You watch the little circle, waiting for a check mark to appear; nothing.

Three days. The bandwidth has been in and out for three days and you haven’t been able to upload a single thing. Not even a message. This is dumb. You growl at your phone and toss it on your bed. It bounces and hits the wall.

You huff and cross your arms. It’s not fair. Those three days could’ve made you money. You can’t even leech off the library wifi because of the content filters. So ridiculous. You’re just trying to make a living.

A tap comes at the door and you flinch. You quickly scoop up your phone and go to the door. You tuck it in your back pocket and pull your shirt down to cover the top. You open the door and peek out at your mom.

“Everything okay?” She asks.

“Uh, yep, just dropped something.”

“Oh, nothing broke, I hope.”

“All good,” you smile. She chews her lip anxiously, as she often does. “I’ll be down for dinner soon. Smells good.”

“Alright,” she says, “it’s almost done. Your favourite; spaghetti and meatballs.”

“Mmm, awesome.”

You shut the door and roll your eyes. Spaghetti isn’t your favourite. It’s what she says is your favourite. Just like everything else, it has to fit within her rules. If she says you like yellow, well then, you like yellow. It isn’t worth the argument to have a personality.

You take out the phone again. You nearly squeal as the check mark turns green. It sent! Just a text post notifying your few followers of the unexpected technical difficulties. You’ll be fortunate if they don’t bleed off to the other girls. When there’s so much variety, you can’t expect horny men not to hop on the next page with a pretty girl in lacy underwear…or less.

You scroll down but the rest of the posts show the blank blocks, pulsing as they struggle to load. You check the menu. Signal’s gone again. Welp, at least that went through.

You go to your bed and hide your phone under the mattress. Your parents know about your laptop, that’s your alibi. You tell them you do transcription work online. That doesn’t pay enough so you have the secret phone for your real business; you.

It isn’t exactly a career but it’s a means to an end. You’ll save up enough and be out of Hammer Ford in no time. You’re almost twenty and running out of time. A gap year is expected, but two? That’s sad.

Besides, you’re done with this life. You need out of this house. You are an adult. Your parents can’t make you eat your peas or ban you from the romance section in the library. One day, hopefully soon, you’ll be free.

For now, you’re going to go downstairs and pretend your mother’s spaghetti and meatballs isn’t complete mush.

📱

Days pass as you stare helplessly at the flashing bars in the corner of your phone. Damn phone company. The data plan was supposed to be a backup, even if you could only afford the cheapest vendor on the market. You at least thought it would work!

You manage to get a decent signal up on Thunder Lane by the hotel. It might be worth it to just walk in and get their wifi. You don’t think they’d care much. There aren’t many guests passing through now, are there?

The only benefit of your forced break is how much time it gave you to create new content. You choose the set of photos you took with the bunny ears and the barely there white teddy. You quickly flick through the settings and set the paywall. At least you’ll have money coming in before…

Yep, no internet. You’re lucky even that went through. You roll your eyes and hop back in the family oldsmobile. Your mother doesn’t let you have it often but you told her you were going for coffee and would fill up the tank.

As you roll up to the sleepy main row of Hammer Ford, your phone vibes. You quickly put it back to silent and check the notification. Your data’s flickering as you see the first response to your post. That was quick. Turns out someone did miss you.

_ransom_ware commented: ‘welcome back, bunny’.

You tap on the bubble but the app won’t load. Damnit! At least you have automatic deposit enabled. His tip will hit your account in a couple days.

You get out of the car and cross the street to the bakery. You could butter your mom up with some tarts, maybe convince her to let you take the car into the city. That might be your best chance at catching up. You could schedule posts and not have to fight with the damn countryside desolation.

As you enter the bakery, it’s quiet. There’s one person at a table. You don’t recognise him. He has his back to you so you don’t think much of it. Probably just another lumber worker sating their repressed sweet tooth. Although, he is dressed a bit too nice for that. No plaid or denim? Huh.

You go up to the counter and order a half-dozen cherry tarts and a latte. You pay with the secret credit card you use for your online transactions and thank the girl behind the counter. As you turn, you find the man at the table turned in his seat. He glances at you as you carry out the tray of tarts and coffee.

You’re used to the stares. The men in Hammer Ford aren’t exactly subtle and your nights at The Horn have earned you a reputation, though those stories don’t make it past your front door. It’s just a little fun, you have a pint and tie your shirt above your belly button and dance. Nothing serious.

Your mom and dad are too chaste and pious to ever wander into the bar. It’s your escape, your safe space. Just for now. Just until you can get out of this hell hole.

[tealin]

McMurdo Internet

Internet service is supplied to Antarctica via a geostationary satellite. This far south, the satellite is only a few degrees above the horizon, and unfortunately for McMurdo, it's behind Mt Erebus. So the signal is beamed to a receiver on Black Island, about 20 miles away to the southwest, and bounced over to the sheltered alcove at the end of the Hut Point Peninsula where McMurdo sits.

The Chalet, administrative hub, with Black Island in the distance

The Black Island telecommunications infrastructure was installed in the 1980s, long before the internet we know and love today. It was upgraded in 2010 to allow more data transfer, mainly realtime weather data to feed into global forecast models. For this reason, it's probably the only place I've ever been where upload speed is remarkably faster than download speed – 60Mbps for outbound traffic, but only 20Mbps for inbound. Most regular internet use is receiving, not sending, so that's an entire base running on a connection that's only marginally faster than the average American smartphone. As you can imagine, this is somewhat limiting.

The limits to one's internet access actually begin before one even reaches the Ice. At the orientation in Christchurch, one is directed to a URL from which one must download and install a security programme from the U.S. government. It may feel like a hippie commune full of nerds, but McMurdo is an installation of the American state, and as such its computer network is a target of whatever disgruntled conspiracy theorist decides to hack The Man on any given day. Computers that are allowed onto this network (such as the one on which I am typing right now) have to have an approved firewall and antivirus service installed, then this extra programme on top of them. I am not sure what it does. For all I know the CIA is spying on me even now. (Hi, guys!) But you need to install it to get on the McMurdo Internet, such as it is, so I did.

To be honest, I was rather looking forward to a month cut off entirely from the hyperconnected world, so I was a tiny bit disappointed that quite a lot of day-to-day communication is done by email, and I would need to be on my computer a fair bit to get it. Had I known just how important email would be, I'd have installed an email client that actually downloads one's messages instead of just fetching them; as it was, the cycle of loading an email and sending the reply, even in Gmail's "HTML for slow connections" mode, took about five minutes, not counting the time it took to write. Tending one's email was a serious time commitment; sometimes I felt like I was spending more time on the computer in Antarctica than I did at home.

Crary scientists waiting, and waiting, and waiting

In a way, though, I was lucky, because I was technically a scientist and therefore had access to the one building on base with WiFi, the Crary Lab. And don't think you can just waltz into Crary with your laptop and poach the WiFi – in order to access it at all, you have to get set up by Crary IT with your own personal WiFi login. If you do not have Crary access, your portal to the Internet is one of a handful of ethernet cables in each of the dorm common rooms, or some public terminals in the main building. You can hop on, download your emails, maybe check the news or Google something you needed to look up, and then leave it for someone else. When most online time sinks are either blocked or too heavy to load, it’s amazing how little internet time you actually turn out to need.

Things that we have come to take for granted in The World are not a part of McMurdo life. Social media is pretty much out – the main platforms are bandwidth hogs even before you try to load a video or an animated GIF. There is no sharing of YouTube links, and no Netflix and chill. Someone was once sent home mid-season for trying to download a movie. Video calls with family and friends? Forget it. People do occasionally do video calls from Antarctica, often to media outlets or schools, but these have to be booked in advance so as to have the requisite bandwidth reserved. Jumping on FaceTime does not happen – not least because handheld devices have to be in airplane mode at all times for security reasons. Your phone might be secure enough for your internet banking, but not for US government internet!

It is, unavoidably, still a digital environment, it just gets by largely without internet access. Nearly everyone has an external hard drive, mostly for media that they've brought down to fill their off hours. If you want to share files you just swap hard drives, or hand over a memory stick. When the Antarctic Heritage Trust wanted some book material from me, I dropped it onto an SD card and ran it over to Scott Base on foot – a droll juxtaposition of high- and low-tech, not to mention a good excuse for a hike over The Gap on a beautiful day. It took half an hour, but was still faster than emailing it.

There is also a McMurdo Intranet, which includes a server for file sharing. Emailing someone your photos will take ages, but popping them into a folder on the I: drive and sending them a note to say you've done so (or, better yet, phoning them, or poking your head into their office) is much more efficient. To conserve space, this informal server partition is wiped every week, so you have to be quick about it, but it's an effective workaround, and also a good way to get relatively heavy resources to a large number of people in one go.

The telecommunications centre on Black Island is mostly automated, but like anything – perhaps more than some things, given the conditions – it needs to be maintained. There is a small hut out there for an equally small team of electricians and IT engineers; Black Island duty attracts the sort of person who might have been a lighthouse keeper back in the day.

Towards the end of my time on the Ice there was a spell where they needed to shut off the connection overnight, to do some necessary work. Given that most people's workdays extended at least to the shutoff time at 5:30 p.m., this meant essentially no internet for a large portion of the population, and some amusing flyers were posted up to notify everyone of the impending hardship.

Someday, faster, more accessible internet will come to Antarctica.  It's more or less unavoidable, as communications technology improves, and everyone's work – especially the scientists' – depends more and more on having a broadband connection at all times.  It will make a lot of things more convenient, and will make the long separation from friends and family much easier.  But I'm pretty sure that many more people will mourn the upgrade than celebrate it.  One can, theoretically, curtail one's internet use whenever one likes, but even before the pandemic it was almost impossible to live this way with the demands of modern life: I know from personal experience that opting out of Facebook alone can have a real detrimental effect on relationships, even with people one sees in the flesh fairly regularly, simply because everyone assumes that is how everyone else communicates.  Being in a community where no one has access to assumed channels, and is more or less cut off from the rest of the world in a pocket universe of its own, levels the playing field and brings a certain unity.  The planned (and, unarguably, necessary) updating of the physical infrastructure of McMurdo will wipe out a lot of the improvised, make-do-and-mend character of the place; how much would free and easy access to the online world change it in a less tangible way?

I'm sure the genuine Antarctic old-timers would shake their heads at the phone and email connections we have now, and say that no, this has already ruined Antarctica.  It's not Antarctica unless your only link to the outside world is a dodgy radio.  It's not Antarctica unless you only get mail once a year when the relief ship arrives.  Doubtless the shiny new McMurdo will be seen as 'the good old days' by someone, someday, too.  Change may happen slower there than elsewhere, but just like the rust on the tins at Cape Evans, it comes eventually, regardless. 

For my own part, I'm glad I got to see 'old' McMurdo, such as it was, all plywood and cheap '90s prefab.  The update will be much more efficient, and tidy, but yet another generation removed from the raw experience of the old explorers.  My generation is probably the last to remember clearly what life was like before ubiquitous broadband; to some extent, Antarctica is a sort of time capsule of that world, just as the huts are a time capsule of Edwardian frontier life.  I hope they'll find a way to hang on to the positive aspects of that. 

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to waste an hour mindlessly refreshing Twitter ...

If you'd like to learn more about the Black Island facility, there's a lot of good information (and some photos!) here: https://www.southpolestation.com/trivia/90s/blackisland.html

And this Antarctic Sunarticle goes into greater depth on the 2010 upgrade: https://antarcticsun.usap.gov/features/2114/

[homestuckreplay]

john egbert is dead, long live john egbert????

(p.248)

So, I guess this is Act 2, and already everything is different. First of all, we're in the future. It is no longer John's 13th birthday :( We get no hints about how many years have passed, as all we can see is the sand, the sky, a vague city skyline in the distance, and a solitary figure.

First off, I love the aesthetics of these new panels. We've seen this lineless, block color art style before in outdoor scenes, like on p.195, p.237 and p.246. I really like this style and how it's used to add texture to objects - the meteor in the animation on p.246 looks so three dimensional, and the sand piles here are the same, plus the sky looks like swirled ice cream. Homestuck panels do a lot of cool things, but these are the first ones where 'nice to look at' feels like a primary goal. I'd put these on my wall.

I'm wondering if this creature is John, somehow? He looks like he could be wearing some sort of mask or helmet, like the air isn't safe to breath anymore - very likely after a meteor strike, and the sky is a different color compared to act 1. If he survived the blast by eating the apple at the moment of impact but his neighborhood was destroyed, he could be just now waking up in its ruins. The city in the distance is untouched, but all its surrounding suburbs have been destroyed, because that's what the game is targeting for some reason.

waywardVagabond also fits the pattern of a chumhandle. It's hard to imagine there being a good wifi signal out in that desert, but it's the future and who knows what kind of technology has been invented.

I'm also curious why the six 'records a stuttering step' panels were linked from p.248 instead of being a few sequential pages. It makes this figure seem harder to control than John or Rose have been so far - the vagabond isn't receiving commands from the player, and their actions are more separated from the main narrative. In fact, this strip is placed on the same level as the Homestuck Beta and the 'put the bunny back in the box' clip from Con Air, which are linked in the narrative text from p.22 and p.20 respectively. I don't know what this means, but that little guy sure is making good progress through the desert.

[doodle-pops]

Love Cures Anything

Beleg x human! reader

Request: Hi Mina! Hope you're having a lovely day today!!! Sending lots of hugs!!! If you're comfortable writing this I was hoping to possibly request some Beleg x reader! I was hoping for a fic where he takes care of reader who catches colds often and awkwardly asks him to help out! If this isn't comfortable or if you have too many requests already then I'm really sorry, I did look to see if you're requests are still open and what characters you're doing but I'm always just a little bit anxious that my stupid phone won't load the correct information... it's really old and I have the worst wifi in like all of Canada 😅 but first and foremost I want you to be comfortable and happy!!! And I just really like interacting with you! You're a lovely person with a beautiful mind and amazing ideas!!! Hugs!!! - @mcwentfandomtraveling

A/N: A little Beleg cures the soul and makes everything better. Enjoy!

Warnings: fluff, sick reader, vomiting, the whole shenanigans when ill, a surprise at the end

Word: 2.5k

Synopsis: When illness befalls during your anniversary with your beloved Marchwarden, you choose to avoid and evade him. However, he had plans to keep you at his side forever.

A violent sneeze shook your body and rattled your bones as you lay curled up in your small makeshift bed on the sofa. The groans signalled the quake your bones were experiencing from the roasting fever and vibrations from the endless shivers. Eyes teary, nose stuffed, sore throat, head pounding and nausea, you suffered the epitome of the flu on one of the worst days and weeks possible. It was your one-year anniversary with your beloved Beleg, and you were most pleased and excited to share a custom from your human traditions with him. He had no idea about celebrating anniversaries for courtships, so like you, he was ecstatic to celebrate a memorable milestone with you.

Crying out as tears flowed from your eyes at the pounding headache, you snuggled deeper into the blankets pile, hoping the softness would provide some relief. You felt the world spinning as the fire from within grew and the migraine increased. It didn’t matter what herbs or tea concoction you brewed; your pain wasn’t subsiding. The only thing you could do was to sleep it off and pray to whatever higher powers were responsible for healing to ease your discomfort, and you hope it would disappear today so you could meet with Beleg. It wasn’t every week the Chief Marchwarden got time off to return home and spend time with you— it was a blessing he got time off around your anniversary.

Shivering and shutting your eyes as the headache travelled from your temples to the forefront and settled in your sinus, you cried out, “Please, please, please, go away!” Your hands had risen to gently cup your head and rub your sinus while you chanted your mantra for it to disappear. “I ha-…have important things to do today…” you whined while slowly shifting in your spot to face the back of the couch. Over the past two days, you became a fruit bat and resented the light; you even threw up extra sheeting over the curtains to block out any that slipped through the cracks.

Though, your motion, no matter how gentle it was urged your headache to activate your nausea and prompted your stomach to churn. Forgetting that your head was thrashing and your body aching, you leapt off the sofa and bounded for the washroom. The horrid sounds of your stomach emptying echoed throughout the little hut you called home— it was home thanks to Beleg throwing it up for you upon your arrival and acceptance into Doriath. Your stomach heaved as you brought up all the contents you had consumed since the day started until there was nothing left and your throat became sore. You were vomiting air, coughing and choking at the same time with the inclusion of the nauseating headache searing. If only you could remove your brain and rest it down for the entire duration and not have to deal with the annoyance it brought.

“Dammit! Ah— would you just stop hurting for one minute?” you swore.

Silence fell when you ceased your last heave and shut the pail's lid. Squatting beside the bucket, your head drooped against the cupboard door in agony. The distance sound of the birds singing and squawking, folks passing in front of your house, metal clanging and wood being sawed sounded like an alarm blaring beside your head. Even the bothersome knocking against your front door followed by the call of your name sounded like it was near your ear. Wait, knocking? Your name? …Beleg!

His voice was muffled by the mahogany but still seeped through the cracks like sweet music to your ear. Immediately, your pain and worries slipped away, and warmth enveloped your body. Alternating your inelegant body through the house and fighting to arrive at the door in one piece, you fumbled with every structure for stability. Pulling the blankets around your frail body, terrified that when the door was opened, the chilliness of the air would send you into a frenzy. You were saying a solemn prayer from the washroom to the front door, “Dear whoever-is-in-charge-of-removing-this-flu-that-I’m-suffering, please do not let the wind knock me down.”

Arriving at the door at last, the final knock resounded before you coughed a calm down which caught the attention of your eager lover on the other side. Reaching for the knob, you cringed at the coldness before using all your strength to twist the knob and crack the door open just a few inches. Refusing to show your face, you spoke from the shadows, “…mae govannen meleth-nîn.”

You were met with silence on the other end. Beleg stood quietly as he analysed your voice, it wasn’t normal as far as he understood, and it wasn’t…right. Blinking a few times, he readjusted his posture and shuffled lightly on his feet before placing his right hand on the door and giving it a gentle push, calling out to you, “Meleth? Is everything alright with you? If something is wrong, you know you can inform me, I wouldn’t judge?” Attempting to apply more pressure against the door to widen and allow him to slip in, you shouted out at him to stop.

“Wait!” your throat burned at the exclamation, forcing you to cough before resuming, “I’m…I’m fine, just a little…” but you never finished your words as a sneeze snuck up and sent your body stumbling backwards, leaving the door unguarded for him to make entry.

Standing tall and vigilant, he scoped the room for any signs of threat while shutting the door without a hint that it was closed. Eyes falling on your mountain of blankets, loose rags on the floor and haphazardly thrown sheets over the curtain, he turned to glance at you in the furthest corner of the room holding your head. Unwell. Hanging his head with a shake, he removed his boots and placed the bouquet of carnations and lilacs on the table before strolling over to embrace your shaking figure. “Meleth,” he quietly chastised in his motherly tone, “why didn’t you tell me you were unwell?”

Unable to answer, you nuzzled into his chest and found comfort in his presence as the pain alleviated. All the slow creep in your sinus and temples were retracting and your aching bones were lighter. You had heard and experienced the wonders of elvish medicine before, but this was an entirely different form of treatment you were beyond fortunate to experience. Softly whining a series of unfathomable words, he still understood what you were attempting to project and did not hesitate to reach down and lift your body. Walking you over to your bedroom, he cautiously carried you as though you were a baby and delicately placed you onto the bed. With a quick fix and tidy, he adjusted your body to lay among a fortress of pillows and blankets.

Within half an hour of his arrival, Beleg tidied up your house and made a fresh batch of herbal tea and soup. Sitting on the edge of the bed with your body propped against the headboard, a spoon or flavoured water and vegetables were being held to your mouth. “I’m not hungry Beleg,” you croaked.

“Not buying it, your stomach is singing right now…and it’s not happy songs. Now open…say ah,” he counterreplies with a snicker.

Feeling like a child, it didn’t matter how much you fought against his command, you ended up obliging with a scoff and a roll of your eyes before opening your mouth. The moment the liquid touched your tongue it had no taste; your buds weren’t picking up any flavour at all. Rearing your head back to stare flabbergasted at your lover, your frowned, “Um…did you forget to add salt, or herbs to season the soup?”

“What do you mean? I added more than five different herbs including thyme and rosemary,” lifting the spoon to his mouth to sample, he nodded once the flavours hit his buds, “hmm, there’s flavour. Maybe your taste buds aren’t working right now…with the fever and all.” Still lifting the spoon with a fresh batch of soup and veggies, he brought it to your mouth for you to consume.

Making a face at the tasteless food, your appetite wasn’t kicking in the direction to consume anything, but the melody your stomach was playing took away your will to refuse. You were left to close your eyes and silently eat his hearty meal with much gusto. With every spoonful, you were hoping to taste at least a bit of salt to kickstart your taste buds, but all you did was devour bland food much to your disappointment. Though, as bland as it was, you still managed to sense the love and dedication behind the preparation of your meal. It was just like everything he did, with utmost care and affection. Perhaps you understood why his presence affected you to the extremities from the simplest action to the most ostentatious. Beleg was a simpleton elf, and yet everything he did in his power when it came to you was miraculous and extraordinary. This little moment shared between you both was a core memory for you, just seeing how engrossed he is with caring for your little mortal self, brought images of your future.

It was impossible to imagine an elf falling in love with you despite your mortal status and being an old, wrinkled potato one day. Here he was showing that it didn’t bother him, not even your runny nose or vomit would make him run for the hills. He had seen and faced worse than something natural as your illness. To him, this was a joy; showing you indirectly that he would care for you until your last.

“You know, I’m grateful for you,” you squeezed out before inhaling deeply, “I don’t know what it is about you and your…presence, but you make me happy after all these m-months. Just being here with me, not judging or being scornful…just loving me.” You gave him your best thousand-watt smile at the end of your confession, even though you felt a dry cough creeping up your oesophagus. The tears were already blurring your sight from the sentimental gesture.

Bowl in hand and spoon frozen midway, Beleg was astonished. Many words had been exchanged between you both over the many twelve months gone by, but this was new and beautiful. You were grateful for having him in your life, and those were the best words anyone could be told in their entire existence. His emotions were everywhere all at once, he didn’t know if he were to cry or jump and kiss the moon or run around Doriath like an insane person. “What…made you say so? Not that I’m displeased, but more curious. I’ve never heard you express…so openly,” he questioned calmly with a loving smile and a light chuckle. It tinkered through the air and blessed your ear, filling you with love in your heart.

“…this that’s happening right now. It just feels so different from every other moment we’ve shared,” you shrugged with a nonchalant laugh, “makes me realise that you don’t have a problem seeing me as some old, wrinkly potato one day.”

Raising a brow at your words, his eyes never left yours as he reached over to the nightstand and placed the bowl and spoon down before turning to give you his full, undivided attention, “Who said I wouldn’t see you as an old, wrinkly potato?” his finger lifted to bop your cold nose, “you’re my potato.” He joked knowing how much you always complained about getting old and becoming unattractive before his eyes. Growing saggy and helpless, needing to depend on others, he understood how much it bothered you through your humour, but never to him.

Rolling your sore and reddened eyes at his forever and ongoing reply, you watched as Beleg excused himself from your bedside with a ‘dawn of realisation’ look upon his face and left your room. He was silent as he departed, leaving nothing for your ears to discover as he picked up the bouquet of flowers and returned. Standing in your doorway with the red roses behind his back, you observed as he cleared his throat with a hint of nervousness in his eyes. For the first time, you saw Beleg’s figure shake and tremble. Taking a deep breath, he ushered to stand again before your bedside.

“I know that this may seem sudden in your culture but not to mine…and I couldn’t let an opportunity like this pass when the moment is perfect, so here we go… From the day I met you, not a day went by where I didn’t spend every hour, minute and second thinking about every little thing you do— it brought joy to my life. I knew you were the one for me and your race never once hindered me from loving you. If anything, it made me love you more and there is nothing you can do to change how I feel about you…even if you turn into an old, wrinkled potato, you are still engraved into my mind, heart and soul. So here I ask you, my love,” he shuffled one foot forward and knelt before you, revealing the roses and silver ring decorated with small vines, “will you marry me?”

Silence settled in the room where a pin dropping could be heard. Your calculated breathing was the only sound heard as you processed his words and question. “…Are you being serious?” you asked breathlessly.

“As I’ll ever be.”

Your smile slowly crept onto your face from one end to the other before covering your entire aura, creating a glow that came once in a lifetime. A light that represented unconditional joy, love and mutual support. He was typically sneaky when it came to impressing you with elvish traditions or culture on your dates, but this was the last act you envisioned he would whip out on a day like today, let alone while you were unwell.

Unable to contain the happiness of a thousand suns radiating from within, you ignored any aches your body produced and threw yourself into the arms of your patiently awaiting beloved. He caught you with ease but allowed himself to tumble back onto the floor for dramatic effect. Your voice chirped in his ear, screaming yes enthusiastically hundreds of times over and over again. Your shorter limbs were snaked around his body, holding him hostage to your physical affections of kisses and deadly hugs, but Beleg recognised no pain or discomfort. In fact, there was no longer pain and discomfort within your aching joints. His actions were enough to dissipate your illness.

“You have no idea how happy you’ve made me. My original plan was to propose by the waterfall, but you got sick, and I didn’t want the opportunity to be missed,” he chuckled before leaning down to plant kisses across your forehead, leading down to your lips.

“You are too sweet meleth,” you cooed as you leaned in to nuzzle his nose.

“As are you…bess,” he replied with a dazzling grin at the new title you would soon-to-be addressed as.

“Well, I hope you know I’m no longer feeling unwell. My body is no longer aching, so we can do something to celebrate,” you beamed as you pulled away from his lips and fought the urge to suppress a cough, but he saw right through it.

“Hmm, I agree, we should do something…like staying indoors and cuddling because you’re still unwell. Now back in bed sicky,” he commanded while he snatched your body in his arms, bridal style, and carried you back to bed.

“Put me down, I am not sick!”

“Your dry cough and runny nose say otherwise.”

“That’s rude!”

Masterlist

Taglist: @eunoiaastralwings @noldorinpainter @ranhanabi777 @spidergirla5 @lilmelily @someoneinthestars @mysticmoomin @aconstructofamind @starborne0661 @floraroselaughter @singleteapot @the-phantom-of-arda @rain-on-my-umbrella @asianbutnotjapanese @ilu-stripes @justellie17 @justjane

[coolllb0]

The danger of radiation is so great!

According to a news reporter, a pregnant woman was born deformed due to the long-term influence of radiation. For this reason, professionals have developed a special anti-radiation fabric for isolation. So for the safety of your family, act quickly and protect the safety of pregnant women by isolating radiation with radiation-proof cloth.

[nekosareticklish]

Could you please write some armpit tickles? Like maybe very teasy? I am missing tickles so much my body is tingling right now. Thank you if you do (I need a lover so bad ugh)😔

You know, my dear anon, tickle monster prefers to attack in bed, looking for feet that hangs from bed's edges, but if the poor victims is extremely careful, the tickle monster could become easy more subtle.

It could start to creep into the walls of your house, and look where you go, what you do, how you dress. It could get lucky if it's summer, and you go around the house with a simple top that leaves your shoulder uncovered, or shirtless if you're a boy. It'd wait the moment you lean toward something, or even better, when you get eepy on the couch and you decide to have a nap, stretching your arm over your head to let the most skin as possible breath.

It knows that you care for your hygiene, so that you keep your armpit smooth and nice, without any trace of hair, ready for its claws to sink into your poor pits.

The moment you notice it's touching your bare armpit is too late. You can close your arm, twist your torso or frantically try to stand up. The tickling feeling won't go away, and the nice couch where you're now is your torture chair. It has blocked you by your shoulders and your neck. It's claws feel like dozens of little pins and feather scavenging every inch, every pore of your skin. You can feel them swirling under your arms checking for which place makes you laugh and beg and cry the most.

Only when your words start to sound muffled, it decides to brush your nipples as well. It has already explored the side of your chest, maybe had also counted your ribs, making twist your body and desperately kick your legs in the air. But, at the first stroke on your nipple it stops to tickle your armpits, it focuses only on your more and more bulging nipples. You can feel it it's caressing your pits, but if your now starting to cry it's just because of your nipples, and you don't know why. This sends you crazy.

"What's going on? You hoped I continued to scratch your little armpits? You're craving so much for this? I could tickle your neck, your ear, you could move a bit down and make you feel good. But you want this right? You want your tiny, bright armpits wrecked by my merciless fingers. Do you feel them, making slowly circles on your pits? Do you want them to tickle you? Are you so desperate, such a tickle slut? Say it, beg for it."

You swear you'll never say it, but the tickle monster doesn't stop speaking in your head, and its words become an irresistible chanting: "I'm a tickle slut, please tickle my armpit, say it."

"AHAHAHAH I WILL J-JUST STOP TICKLING ME FOR A SECOND...I-I AM"

"SAY IT!"

"AHAHAH A-AHAHA TICKLEHEHE SLUT"

"AND?!"

"PLEASE TICKLEEHEHE MYAHAH ARMPITS"

You start to feel the poor skin of your armpits melt, as the tickle monster covers them with its dreadful fingers. You laugh, cry and just utter confused mumbles, asking yourself when this predicament will finish and whether if you really want it to ever stop.

'##'

Anon I'M SO SORRY IF I TOOK MY TIME TO REPLY, yours was such a cute request, but unfortunately I'm finding less and less time to spend on my phone. I've moved to a new house, there's no WiFi and signal reception is shit, plus I work during the day and drink with colleagues at night. This is also the reason why I won't translate this piece rn, I must go to sleep. Maybe tomorrow evening. Hope you'll continue to send me requests when you feel it! (I must say, I unconsciously started NNN and I could keep up thanks to my new schedules, but these requests put me against greater challenges, it's actually very funny and kinky 😂.

[banamine-bananime]

depserately pawing at the door to discord as the state park wifi blocks it and the whole park is out of signal range but the block lets notifications so i can see friends through the window but i can’t get in. Scratches at the door and wails again.

[alias-milamber]

It's been a bit of a strange day, and I just got home. It started off not bad for my first day back, I brewed up some coffee with cinnamon and hickory and a drop of honey, and read a chapter of my book over breakfast. For some reason the internet was out, and resetting the router didn't help, so I resolved myself to a fate of working from the office today, and - suited and booted - set out for the day.

The first hint that today wasn't going to be my day was that the floor of the lift was caked in something slick and smooth with a crust that broke easily under my boot. It smelt kind of familiar, but it wasn't until we got to the the ground floor and a lake of molten butter rose over my toecaps that I recognised what it was. The ground floor of the block of flats was apparently flooded with it, and it became both more and less understandable when I discovered the entire tower block had been subsumed into a seventeen story stalk of steamed asparagus.

The city had again slipped into the Fae overnight, for reasons I'm sure I'd find out when I could get a signal. The tower next door was a mushroom, and the cap was shading both the buildings from the glass blue sky in a way that felt a lot like the light levels of a british winter, which explained part of why I hadn't noticed, but observation before coffee was never my strong point. I sighed, started a timer for my commute so I could claim back gelt for the inconvenience from the embassy to the courts, and walked down the street to where I hoped my local coffee shop still was.

It wasn't. In its place was a generic Starpucks, with some alacritic humanoids behind the counter, cheerfully serving lattes precisely as ordered. A basket of home made fudge smelt delightful on the counter, but with the "Free" prefix to "Samples" carefully folded behind the display. I took a photo and sent it to the embassy's entrapment division with a note, mentioning that the person with a stoat for a head doing the washing up in the back indicated that this was almost certainly an active trap.

I bought my coffee and a pastry, declined any "free" extras, and exchanged a trinket for the wifi password. VPN very carefully engaged, I checked the news and local transport sites to see if there was a viable route to the office today. There was, but I wasn't going to like it.

I have never ridden a giant ladybird before. The last time they'd replaced the bus network, I'd been able to take a work from home day, but today I wasn't quite so lucky. They were relatively docile, and the harnesses well-fitted, but I'm far to wary of heights to be able to give a good description of the transformed city from above due to the overwhelming amount of "down" it contained. What it lacked in normality it more than made up with speed, however, and I got to the business park in record time.

The agency who run the business park were hastily putting up flower circles around the buildings, indicating they'd reached an agreement with the local gentry. My building was still only 80% complete, however, so it was with trepidation that I swiped my pass through the gates.

Apart from the building floors being now named after russian authors, everything seemed to be fine, and it was with a misplaced optimism that I got in the elevator to Tolstoy.

A bright light and enormous heat greeted me when the doors finally opened, and I looked out over the expanse of our newly open plan office that was very clearly on fire. Once I realised that the floor was lava, I pressed the button to return to Checkov, and from there back home by ladybird.

I'll try again tomorrow.

(This is a "Down the Rabbit Hole" short story in honour of the birthday of creepy Victorian fantasist Lewis Carroll)

[devilrose]

The Gifts of Darkness - Update: Chapter 20, pages 11 to 16 -

Over one of their usual breakfasts, Val and Adrien agree on something quite unusual...

Today's update is the first that I'm posting from the new house in Italy. I don't yet have the wifi installed, so in the meanwhile I'm using my phone's internet, but the walls of this house are extraordinarily thick stone, which block signal from most points of the house, so I'm posting this update from the place with the best reception: the rooftop terrace. Because this house has a rooftop terrace. I feel like I'm at a fancy restaurant, but I actually live here now? Unbelievable.

Read this update on the comic site… ►

[lucifers-golden-bitch-apparently]

So tea as to why I'm not active on discord

My school blocked any phone signal

We are to put our phones in our bags at all times, no exceptions. Outside, Bathroom, Nurses, Bus, etc? Still banned

Laptops are to monitored the minute it connects to school wifi, blocking any unnecessary website. Including Emails, Gmail, Outside School resources like science articles and even the yearbook compilation website. So no yearbook making

You can be recommended for expulsion if you are caught with your phone at any time more than like 5 times in a school YEAR

I- WHY DO THEY GOT YALL LIVING LIKE YOU'RE A PRISONER OF WAR😭😭😭😭