#but instead of doing anything substantial with it

[mightymizora]

Was talking to a Real Life friend about BG3 and they asked if I write about Astarion and I said no, and realised as we were talking that it doesn’t come from a point of liking or not liking the character, but instead a feeling that they did everything I wanted them to do with the character. I just have nothing to add! He doesn’t really have a link to the main plot (probably because Cazador’s involvement in the upper city was going to be more substantial at conception, fine, but even still) so everything kind of hinges on what we see during the game. And we get it! We get a man who hinges on the moment completely. Whereas I think a lot of the other companions being connected to the central plot brings weight to the decisions of their pathways, his really is the fantastic question of:

Do I want to break the cycle, knowing that this model of freedom from it brings immeasurable personal cost, or do I want to seek power, knowing it will make me the very thing that destroyed me?

and Gale and Shadowheart obviously have this too, but they also have family, and a real yearning desire to connect and be better. Their decisions around devotion to a Goddess or finding free will are more complex.

What I really like about Astarion is that his spawn ending is insanely inconvenient to him. He doesn’t want to form an attachment! He doesn’t want to be a better person! He is dragged kicking and screaming towards it because he knows it is going to be a life of immense sacrifice and he doesn’t wanna! And do you blame him? Literal centuries of torture, why would he want anything but power?

But we got all of the plot beats I personally could want at release. We got the catharsis. We got the dread horror of him ascending. We got to see all those little moments of him learning how to connect again, to take autonomy over his own body and decisions. I have nothing to add to that!

[tardxsblues]

[lamortwrites]

I deserve to go back to bed

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

.

[kii2me2ii2]

omori's inclinations towards self isolation is so realistic and similar to my own it's almost disturbing and very nearly triggering... very. nearly.

[jade-curtiss]

I think the only weird thing I have with (c)afab people that makes me unable to really connect is when they take for granted I can relate to their experiences given what they assume my assignation to be...and then...they project an experience I can't relate to even if I tried. Experiences so foreign to my reality I couldn't even try to pretend I can 😑

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Paying consumer debts is basically optional in the United States

The vast majority of America's debt collection targets $500-2,000 credit card debts. It is a filthy business, operated by lawless firms who hire unskilled workers drawn from the same economic background as their targets, who routinely and grotesquely flout the law, but only when it comes to the people with the least ability to pay.

America has fairly robust laws to protect debtors from sleazy debt-collection practices, notably the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), which has been on the books since 1978. The FDCPA puts strict limits on the conduct of debt collectors, and offers real remedies to debtors when they are abused.

But for FDPCA provisions to be honored, they must be understood. The people who collect these debts are almost entirely untrained. The people they collected the debts from are likewise in the dark. The only specialized expertise debt-collection firms concern themselves with are a series of gotcha tricks and semi-automated legal shenanigans that let them take money they don't deserve from people who can't afford to pay it.

There's no better person to explain this dynamic than Patrick McKenzie, a finance and technology expert whose Bits About Money newsletter is absolutely essential reading. No one breaks down the internal operations of the finance sector like McKenzie. His latest edition, "Credit card debt collection," is a fantastic read:

https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/the-waste-stream-of-consumer-finance/

McKenzie describes how a debt collector who mistook him for a different PJ McKenzie and tried to shake him down for a couple hundred bucks, and how this launched him into a life as a volunteer advocate for debtors who were less equipped to defend themselves from collectors than he was.

McKenzie's conclusion is that "paying consumer debts is basically optional in the United States." If you stand on your rights (which requires that you know your rights), then you will quickly discover that debt collectors don't have – and can't get – the documentation needed to collect on whatever debts they think you owe (even if you really owe them).

The credit card companies are fully aware of this, and bank (literally) on the fact that "the vast majority of consumers, including those with the socioeconomic wherewithal to walk away from their debts, feel themselves morally bound and pay as agreed."

If you find yourself on the business end of a debt collector's harassment campaign, you can generally make it end simply by "carefully sending a series of letters invoking [your] rights under the FDCPA." The debt collector who receives these letters will have bought your debt at five cents on the dollar, and will simply write it off.

By contrast, the mere act of paying anything marks you out as substantially more likely to pay than nearly everyone else on their hit-list. Paying anything doesn't trigger forbearance, it invites a flood of harassing calls and letters, because you've demonstrated that you can be coerced into paying.

But while learning FDCPA rules isn't overly difficult, it's also beyond the wherewithal of the most distressed debtors (and people falsely accused of being debtors). McKenzie recounts that many of the people he helped were living under chaotic circumstances that put seemingly simple things "like writing letters and counting to 30 days" beyond their needs.

This means that the people best able to defend themselves against illegal shakedowns are less likely to be targeted. Instead, debt collectors husband their resources so they can use them "to do abusive and frequently illegal shakedowns of the people the legislation was meant to benefit."

Here's how this debt market works. If you become delinquent in meeting your credit card payments ("delinquent" has a flexible meaning that varies with each issuer), then your debt will be sold to a collector. It is packaged in part of a large spreadsheet – a CSV file – and likely sold to one of 10 large firms that control 75% of the industry.

The "mom and pops" who have the other quarter of the industry might also get your debt, but it's more likely that they'll buy it as a kind of tailings from one of the big guys, who package up the debts they couldn't collect on and sell them at even deeper discounts.

The people who make the calls are often barely better off than the people they're calling. They're minimally trained and required to work at a breakneck pace. Employee turnover is 75-100% annually: imagine the worst call center job in the world, and then make it worse, and make "success" into a moral injury, and you've got the debt-collector rank-and-file.

To improve the yield on this awful process, debt collection companies start by purging these spreadsheets of likely duds: dead people, people with very low credit-scores, and people who appear on a list of debtors who know their rights and are likely to stand on them (that's right, merely insisting on your rights can ensure that the entire debt-collection industry leaves you alone, forever).

The FDPCA gives you rights: for example, you have the right to verify the debt and see the contract you signed when you took it on. The debt collector who calls you almost certainly does not have that contract and can't get it. Your original lender might, but they stopped caring about your debt the minute they sold it to a debt-collector. Their own IT systems are baling-wire-and-spit Rube Goldberg machines that glue together the wheezing computers of all the companies they've bought over the last 25 years. Retrieving your paperwork is a nontrivial task, and the lender doesn't have any reason to perform it.

Debt collectors are bottom feeders. They are buying delinquent debts at 5 cents on the dollar and hoping to recover 8 percent of them; at 7 percent, they're losing money. They aren't "large, nationally scaled, hypercompetent operators" – they're shoestring operations that can only be viable if they hire unskilled workers and fail to train them.

They are subject to automatic damages for illegal behavior, but they still break the law all the time. As McKenzie writes, a debt collector will "commit three federal torts in a few minutes of talking to a debtor then follow up with a confirmation of the same in writing." A statement like "if you don’t pay me I will sue you and then Immigration will take notice of that and yank your green card" makes the requisite three violations: a false threat of legal action, a false statement of affiliation with a federal agency, and "a false alleged consequence for debt nonpayment not provided for in law."

If you know this, you can likely end the process right there. If you don't, buckle in. The one area that debt collectors invest heavily in is the automation that allows them to engage in high-intensity harassment. They use "predictive dialers" to make multiple calls at once, only connecting the collector to the calls that pick up. They will call you repeatedly. They'll call your family, something they're legally prohibited from doing except to get your contact info, but they'll do it anyway, betting that you'll scrape up $250 to keep them from harassing your mother.

These dialing systems are far better organized than any of the company's record keeping about what you owe. A company may sell your debt on and fail to keep track of it, with the effect that multiple collectors will call you about the same debt, and even paying off one of them will not stop the other.

Talking to these people is a bad idea, because the one area where collectors get sophisticated training is in emptying your bank account. If you consent to a "payment plan," they will use your account and routing info to start whacking your bank account, and your bank will let them do it, because the one part of your conversation they reliably record is this payment plan rigamarole. Sending a check won't help – they'll use the account info on the front of your check to undertake "demand debits" from your account, and backstop it with that recorded call.

Any agreement on your part to get on a payment plan transforms the old, low-value debt you incurred with your credit card into a brand new, high value debt that you owe to the bill collector. There's a good chance they'll sell this debt to another collector and take the lump sum – and then the new collector will commence a fresh round of harassment.

McKenzie says you should never talk to a debt collector. Make them put everything in writing. They are almost certain to lie to you and violate your rights, and a written record will help you prove it later. What's more, debt collection agencies just don't have the capacity or competence to engage in written correspondence. Tell them to put it in writing and there's a good chance they'll just give up and move on, hunting softer targets.

One other thing debt collectors due is robo-sue their targets, bulk-filing boilerplate suits against debtors, real and imaginary. If you don't show up for court (which is what usually happens), they'll get a default judgment, and with it, the legal right to raid your bank account and your paycheck. That, in turn, is an asset that, once again, the debt collector can sell to an even scummier bottom-feeder, pocketing a lump sum.

McKenzie doesn't know what will fix this. But Michael Hudson, a renowned scholar of the debt practices of antiquity, has some ideas. Hudson has written eloquently and persuasively about the longstanding practice of jubilee, in which all debts were periodically wiped clean (say, whenever a new king took the throne, or once per generation):

https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/24/grandparents-optional-party/#jubilee

Hudson's core maxim is that "debt's that can't be paid won't be paid." The productive economy will have need for credit to secure the inputs to their processes. Farmers need to borrow every year for labor, seed and fertilizer. If all goes according to plan, the producer pays off the lender after the production is done and the goods are sold.

But even the most competent producer will eventually find themselves unable to pay. The best-prepared farmer can't save every harvest from blight, hailstorms or fire. When the producer can't pay the creditor, they go a little deeper into debt. That debt accumulates, getting worse with interest and with each bad beat.

Run this process long enough and the entire productive economy will be captive to lenders, who will be able to direct production for follies and fripperies. Farmers stop producing the food the people need so they can devote their land to ornamental flowers for creditors' tables. Left to themselves, credit markets produce hereditary castes of lenders and debtors, with lenders exercising ever-more power over debtors.

This is socially destabilizing; you can feel it in McKenzie's eloquent, barely controlled rage at the hopeless structural knot that produces the abusive and predatory debt industry. Hudson's claim is that the rulers of antiquity knew this – and that we forgot it. Jubilee was key to producing long term political stability. Take away Jubilee and civilizations collapse:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/08/jubilant/#construire-des-passerelles

Debts that can't be paid won't be paid. Debt collectors know this. It's irrefutable. The point of debt markets isn't to ensure that debts are discharged – it's to ensure that every penny the hereditary debtor class has is transferred to the creditor class, at the hands of their fellow debtors.

In her 2021 Paris Review article "America's Dead Souls," Molly McGhee gives a haunting, wrenching account of the debts her parents incurred and the harassment they endured:

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2021/05/17/americas-dead-souls/

After I published on it, many readers wrote in disbelief, insisting that the debt collection practices McGhee described were illegal:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/19/zombie-debt/#damnation

And they are illegal. But debt collection is a trade founded on lawlessness, and its core competence is to identify and target people who can't invoke the law in their own defense.

Going to Defcon this weekend? I’m giving a keynote, “An Audacious Plan to Halt the Internet’s Enshittification and Throw it Into Reverse,” today (Aug 12) at 12:30pm, followed by a book signing at the No Starch Press booth at 2:30pm!

https://info.defcon.org/event/?id=50826

I’m kickstarting the audiobook for “The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation,” a Big Tech disassembly manual to disenshittify the web and bring back the old, good internet. It’s a DRM-free book, which means Audible won’t carry it, so this crowdfunder is essential. Back now to get the audio, Verso hardcover and ebook:

http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/12/do-not-pay/#fair-debt-collection-practices-act

[bitterkarella]

Midnight Pals: Souper

[at unicorn fuck club] JRR Tolkien: tonight we've got a special story from everyone's favorite fantasy writer GRR Martin: CS Lewis: Peter S Beagle: Hans Christian Andersen: L Frank Baum: Tolkien: whoops shouldn't have said that ha ha Tolkien: i mean, you're all winners in my book

Tolkien: but when i say everyone's favorite fantasy writer Tolkien: i mean terry practchett GRR Martin: oh yeah that's fair CS Lewis: yeah fair Peter S Beagle: fair Hans Christian Andersen: yes yes of course L Frank Baum: that's fair

Terry Pratchett: hello unicorn fuck club today i've got a story about a wizard who is - get this - actually very bad at his job Tolkien: oh ho ho! terry my boy, you've done it again! Pratchett: there's also girl dwarves Tolkien: [suddenly stone-faced] i hate this

Pratchett: but first Pratchett: all this story telling is hungry work! Pratchett: do you happen to have anything to eat around here? Tolkien: are you talking about... Tolkien: having Tolkien: a Tolkien: feast????? Brian Jacques: [squeaking incomprehensibly in rising excitement]

Tolkien: why, terry, my boy, what an idea! Tolkien: instead of merely DESCRIBING a feast, we'll have one! huzzah! Martin: huzzah! Lewis: huzzah! Jacques: [squeaking] i use a mercury head dime as a serving platter!

Pratchett: no no nothing so fancy as that Tolkien: eh? Pratchett: i was more thinking along the lines of Pratchett: soup Tolkien: soup? Pratchett: yeah just a big bowl of heart soup right about now would just be the best thing Pratchett: oo i just love the sound of it!

Pratchett: think about it: no work... no worries... no failures... no waste... when you serve maggi homestyle soups, the finest money can buy yet priced reasonably within your budget Tolkien: interesting! tell us more Pratchett: maggi soup! es ist echt ausgezeichnet!

Pratchett: how often have you had this problem Pratchett: say, you're on a budget but you have to feed your hungry hungry boys Tolkien: oh man i have been there! Tolkien: more times than i can count!

Tolkien: but terry Tolkien: i need something substantial and nourishing for my hungry boys. can maggi soup satisfy? Pratchett: ahh jirt my friend, maggi soup does more than satisfy! Pratchett: as the good people at maggi say, "kartoffelsalat volkswagen fahrvergnugen lebensraum!!"

Tolkien: What's that sizzling sound I hear? Pratchett: Get up! It's soup and eggs, my dear! Martin: What can I cook without much fuss? Pratchett: maggi soup would tickle all of us! Lewis: What's a lunch that's good and quick? Pratchett: Hot Maggi soup mix does the trick!

Pratchett: mm mmm! i tell you, nothing's as good as a rich bowl of maggi soup! buy some today! eat it with someone you love! Neil Gaiman: something's not right here

Gaiman: of course the power of imagination is infinite, friends Gaiman: but in all the worlds in all the multiverses of possibility, i cannot imagine one in which terry pratchett shills for soup Pratchett: [sweats] nein, nein, ich bin der echte terry pratchett!

Gaiman: if you are in fact, the real terry pratchett Gaiman: and not an imposter Gaiman: like the imposter sandman hector hall in The Sandman, vol. 2: The Doll's House Gaiman: then you won't have any trouble telling a joke Pratchett: [sweats] ein witz? du magst ein witz?

Pratchett: [sweats] i mean ha ha of course i can tell a joke Pratchett: i am the real terry pratchett after all Pratchett: [sweating intensifies] and you all know me, i'm a real spaßvogel Pratchett: Pratchett: a-are you sure you wouldn't all rather just have some soup?

[fleapit]

hi. why is nobody talking about the porn ban in north carolina? the PAVE act is a bill that was passed back in september 2023 (came into law january 1st 2024) that effectively bans users from viewing websites hosting adult content without age verification. (link to the bill)

"-the act legally requires commercial ventures to verify users’ ages if a company “knowingly and intentionally publishes or distributes material harmful to minors on the internet from a website that contains a substantial portion of such material.”

In order to do so, North Carolina requires these sites to either use “a commercially available database that is regularly used by businesses or governmental entities for the purpose of age and identity verification,” or utilize “another commercially reasonable method of age and identity verification.” Companies are not allowed to hold records on any personally identifying information used to confirm users’ ages.

Additionally, North Carolina offers residents the right to a lawsuit if a site is found to record user identifying information, or if a minor’s parent or guardian finds that a website allowed their child to access a site purposefully hosting material “harmful to minors.”" obviously we don't want these websites having our IDs, but sites like e621 and pornhub just straight up aren't asking for them either- blocking their service to the state in it's entirety instead. even beyond the restriction of adult websites, obviously as the 'queerest place on the net' we can see how "material that is harmful to minors" is not just intentional vague wording, but a massive red flag. even if you dont care about the porn- which you should, this is a massive rights violation. how long until 'harmful material' is expanded to include transgender people? same-sex relationships? anything lgbtq? this is a serious fucking problem and it opens the door to hundreds of potentially worse bills that extrapolate on the same concept.

i have no idea what to do to fight it, but if someone smarter than me could add links to representatives or something, that would be awesome.

i'm also going to tag a few people to get this post out: @polyamorouspunk @safety-pin-punk @doggirlbreasts (i have no idea who else to tag, if any of you can think of someone who can help this post get out there, please tag them!)

[m0llygunn]

deathbed confessions (eddie munson x fem!reader one-shot)

summary: cold and flu season hits you hard but luckily you have your best friend eddie to take care of you. If the cold medicine makes you admit a few things... eddie sure isn't complaining.

contents: 18+, best friends to lovers, r is dramatically sick with a cold (talks about dying but it's just drama), fluff idk a/n: guys i am so sick help me i had to lay on the bathroom floor after braving a shower because i thought i was gonna die (but also i wrote this so maybe im ok) wc: 4.4k+

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

“Holy shit, did Halloween come early?” Eddie snickers from the door of your room.

All you can muster up is a low groan and that alone makes you feel like your head is on the brink of explosion. 

“Jesus, you’re really sick, huh?” he says with the huff of a laugh.

You answer with another groan. Yes. You are 'really sick'.

“Can I do something to help?” he replies, the first hint of empathy appearing in his voice.

“Put me out—” you interrupt yourself with a sniffle followed by a phlegmy cough. “—out of my misery.”

You were supposed to be seeing some double feature with Eddie tonight but yesterday, right before bed, you felt the slightest of tickles in your throat. By morning you were the living dead with everything from your big toe to your forehead aching in one way or another. You called Eddie and before you could even mention that you were sick, he knew from your stuffed up voice. 

No matter how many times you told him you’d be fine he was strangely insistent in checking on you at the very least. By the end of the call he’d quickly worn you down and you told him that he has the spare key and he can do whatever he wants but if he gets sick that's his fault— a little mean but arguing was the last thing you felt like doing.

From the time you hung up to now— which has only been a handful of hours, you’ve gotten substantially worse. Earth shatteringly worse. So terribly worse that the simple task of opening your eyes has been too much effort. Your whole body feels like it’s on fire, and your lungs are just begging for salvation. That’s why when Eddie called twenty minutes ago letting you know he was on his way you told him no. It would have been wise if he listened to you but instead he replied ‘too bad’ and abruptly hung up the phone. 

Cut to twenty minutes later he was at your door, letting himself in. He was willingly walking into his very own death sentence. He clearly thought it was more of a joke than anything.

You hear Eddie’s tell-tale gait as he walks further into your room. You assume that he’s standing over your bed, maybe a hand on the back of his neck, maybe a hand on his hip. Mustering the efforts to confirm your suspicions would take too much of your very limited energy so you continuing laying in your bed, not doing as much as opening an eye.

You hear the ruffle of his hair and he definitely is rubbing the back of his neck as he gauges what to do. 

“So…do you want, like, medicine then?” he asks. 

“A gun,” you croak, earning a deep belly laugh from Eddie.

“At least your humour’s still intact, that’s good to know,” he says, sitting down on the edge of your bed.

You try to shuffle over to make room for him, but that effort alone makes you wince.

“Call an ambulance,” you whine, sniffling pathetically. 

“Really?” he asks, a genuine nervousness creeping into his voice. You feel his hand tug at the blanket you’ve cocooned yourself in, revealing your face for him to see. If you were more cognizant maybe you’d care about Eddie seeing you like this, but you’re too far gone to think about that. 

“No,” you answer, nodding your head up and down in contrast to your answer, earning a huff of relief from Eddie. 

The blanket slackens from his pull and the bed dips deeper as he leans in further to get a better look at you. Once again, if you were more cognizant you’d probably rather he didn’t, but you wouldn’t have the will to fight it anyways.

“Did you take anything?” he asks. 

“It’s been a few hours.”

“Did you eat?”

“Yeah, whipped up a quick 4 course meal earlier, michelin approved of course,” you mumble. You contemplate cracking an eye open to see his reaction but you don’t. 

“Right, so no food.” 

“No, surprisingly not that hungry when you’re on your deathbed,” you say, sniffling.

“Tell me you’ve at least had water,” he says and from his tone you know that he already knows the answer. 

“I had water until the bottle was empty, then I decided I’d rather succumb to death than get out of bed,”

“Funny, funny girl,” he says dryly, obviously not impressed by your answers. 

“Tombstone quote,” you say weakly, hoping that Eddie gets what you mean. He laughs softly and you consider that enough of a success. 

You hear the slightest bit of shuffling, not Eddie getting up but more like he’s looking around your room. Whatever state it’s in, you couldn’t even work up the courage to care. 

“Do you want a movie on or something?” he asks, breaking the lull in conversation. 

“Would you do that?” you ask, tilting your face towards him despite not opening your eyes. 

“Oh yeah. I’m giving you the mortally ill special— the deathbed works, if you will,” he says, and you can tell he’s smiling. You do your best to smile back but it’s weak and probably looks more like a grimace. 

You feel shuffling before the bed rises from Eddie standing.

“Okay, so I’m gonna get you medicine first. Then movie, food, and whatever else, deal?”

Your lower lip pouts out appreciatively for the boy you’ve called your best friend for forever now. If you weren’t deathly ill, you’d kiss him.

“Thank you, Eddie,” you whisper, voice getting caught in your throat for an entirely different reason than your cold this time. 

He mumbles back some version of ‘don’t worry about it’ before he’s off, leaving you in the quiet of your room with only your breathing, coughing, and sniffling breaking the silence. It’s barely a few minutes before you hear his footsteps and the edge of your bed dips again. 

“This is what you took right? The cold and flu medicine?”

“Mhm” you hum.

“You have nasal congestion?”

You sniffle loudly and nod.

“Right. Nasal pain, sinus congestion, and sinus pain?”

You hum again, catching onto the fact that he’s reading the symptoms off of the box. 

“Chest congestion?”

Weakly you swat your hand out trying to find Eddie. When you do, you give him the weakest of taps. “Too many questions,” you muster. 

“Well, I know you’re joking about dying but I don’t want to actually kill you,” he says. You hum again.

You hear him fumbling with the cardboard before fumbling with the plastic pill packaging.

“Do you wanna sit up?” he asks.

“I want to die,”

“Well you can’t do that so I’m gonna help you sit up, okay?”

Eddie starts tugging at the blanket and you let your weakened limbs go limp, undoubtedly making the task much harder for him but he doesn’t say anything. Eventually, he pulls you up by your underarms, propping you up against your headboard. 

When you feel his cool hands on your forehead, pushing your hair back and out of your face, you open your eyes for the first time since Eddie got here. 

“There she is,” he laughs lightly, still pushing back the disheveled mess that is your hair.

“Your hands feel nice,” you whisper, focusing on the coolness on your skin. Before you have a chance to really absorb the relief of his hands on your skin, he pulls away, grabbing for the water he had set down on your bedside table. 

“Yeah, you’re really hot,” he replies, passing the water to you.

“Tombstone quote,” you say, catching his eye, making him laugh again. With a shaky hand, you take the water.

“Funny and hot, that’s a killer deal.” He hands you the little cold and flu pill and you place it in your mouth, swallowing it down with small sips of the cold water that feels like ice going down your throat. 

You redirect your gaze to Eddie, “you’re gonna get sick, that’s the real killer here,” you say. 

“I’ll be fine,”

“You don’t want this cold, trust me,” you say, taking another sip of water before holding it out to Eddie. 

“I’ll be fine,” he repeats as he takes the water, putting it back on your bedside table. 

You nod. You appreciate Eddie’s help more than anything. Fending for yourself wasn’t exactly going so well— clearly.

“You had this with your other stuff, do you want it?” he asks, holding up the vicks vapor rub.

When you felt the cold coming on you went to the pharmacy and picked up a few things just in case. The vapor rub was on sale and you bought it on a whim but haven’t tried it yet.

“Do you think it really works?”

“Wayne used to put it on me, I guess it does?”

“Where do you put it?”

“On your chest or back,” he answers, looking at the fine print of the packaging. “Yeah, it says chest, throat, and back.”

You open your mouth to reply but instead feel the creeping up of the tickling in your throat. Turning the other way, you do your best to not cough all over Eddie. Sucking in a deep breath, you only trigger another cough that divulges into one of many coughing attacks that you’ve had today. When you’re finally done, you drop your head to the back of the headboard in defeat. 

“C’mon, let’s try it on your back for now,” he says, putting a hand on your shoulder encouraging you to lean forward. You move how he wants you without protest.

“I’m just gonna lift up your shirt a bit, okay?” he says, you nod but he pauses, fingers just barely slipping under the hem of your shirt.

“Eddie, with the way I’m feeling, you could see me butt ass naked right now and I could not care less,” you say. 

He snorts a laugh before his cool fingers trail up your spine giving you tingles that make you shiver. “Sorry,” he hums but you shake your head. His hand makes contact with your upper back, rubbing the ointment on your skin and it honestly feels incredibly soothing. Whether it’s the rub or the physical contact, you’re not sure, but you’re not questioning it either.

The noise that comes out of you could have been a moan had you not been congested. Instead it comes out like a low, stuffed up groan— not unlike a movie zombie. 

Eddie rubs a few more circles on your back before his hand travels back down your spine. 

“How’s that feel?” he asks, helping you sit back up straight.

“So fucking good and like I need you to rub my back like that again,” you say, resting your head back against the headboard. Maybe you put a little too much conviction in your words but that truly felt amazing.

The room is silent and you blink open your eyes to see Eddie holding the tub of rub in his hands, paused halfway through closing it. It takes a moment for him to look up at you but when he does, he smiles softly.

“What movie do you wanna watch?”

Had you not been distracted by your sickness, you might have noticed the faintness of a blush spreading across the tops of Eddie’s cheeks. Coughing and forcing air back into your lungs takes up every ounce of your consciousness though, so you don’t notice. 

You shrug your shoulder taking a deep breath, “anything, I’ll probably pass out from the medicine anyways,” you reply, turning away again to cough. 

Eddie hums before he’s moving to your dresser opposite your bed, angling the TV for you to see it better. 

“Sixteen Candles, Children of the Corn, Gremlins, Teen Wolf?” he says, listing off the titles of the different tapes you have sprawled next to the vcr. 

“Any.” 

“Gremlins seems kind of relevant,” he says, pulling open the clamshell box.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” you ask. Eddie turns to you, smirk spreading across his lips.

“Nothing,” he sings lightly. He turns away from you, pushing the tape into the player and then pressing the combination of buttons to get it working. 

“You better not be implying that I look like a gremlin because—” you interrupt yourself with another cough that quickly divulges into yet another coughing fit— worse than the last. 

With each cough being so strong it makes your head pound. You don’t notice Eddie crossing your room or him settling back on the edge of your bed. You only notice his presence when he’s encouraging you forward, hand rubbing your back again. 

When your coughing finally calms down enough for you to take a good breath, Eddie brings the glass of water up for you to take a sip. You take the cup in your hands, guiding it to your mouth. At the same time, Eddie never fully lets go of the cup, making sure it doesn’t spill. You take a drink, nodding when you’re done and he sets it back down, hand still running up and down your back. 

“It’s probably just the rub working, getting all that nasty stuff out,” he says softly. 

You nod again, letting your head fall to rest on Eddie’s shoulder. It’s probably not the smartest idea to be so close to him because you're pretty much sentencing him to his demise, but with how terrible you feel you’re desperate for anything to make it better— and right now the only thing making anything better is Eddie. 

“The medicine’ll kick in any minute and you’ll feel much better, okay? I’ll go get you something to eat and then I can rub your back some more. How’s that sound?” he says softly, brushing the edge of your face with his chin as he tilts his face downwards towards yours. 

Your lower lip pouts out again and you feel your eyes water behind your closed lids. Maybe you were already hyper emotional from feeling so sick, but Eddie being so sweet is also doing a number on you.

“Sounds really nice,” you whisper, sucking in a breath.

“You’ll be okay,” Eddie whispers, hand switching from rubbing up and down your back to rubbing circles at the top of your back. “I’ll take care of you, I got you.”

Before the tears in your eyes have a chance to breach your waterline, Eddie’s shifting beside you, leaning you back against the headboard with the promise of being quick while he gets you food. Only once he’s gone and you’re left alone in your room do you notice Gremlins has already started playing. Opening your eyes, you spare a few glances at the screen that distract you from your teary eyed state.

As Eddie promised, he was pretty quick in his return. You could hear him the whole time, kitchen utensils clanking and cupboard doors closing. Maybe all concept of time is lost on you right now, but it seemed like barely any time had passed before he was taking slow, careful steps back towards your room.

“Alright— got that soup you like, got crackers, and got you some juice,” Eddie announces as he situates the dishware on your bedside table. “I even made sure not to warm the soup too much so you can eat it right away,” he says.

Eyes closed again, you don’t know what you expected him to do but him manhandling you took you by surprise. A hand slid behind your back and another under your upper thighs, he was sliding you right over on the mattress.

“Just giving myself some space here,” he says absentmindedly as he fixes your blanket around you. He quickly settles in next to you before grabbing the sleeve of crackers and settling them in front of you and grabbing the bowl of soup.

Sitting with his legs stretched out next to yours, you let your head dip to his shoulder again, this time like a silent thank you where you cozy your head against him, not unlike a cat.

“For the record, you’re more like Gizmo,” he says, a tease intruding in his voice.

“Hm?” you hum questioningly.

“You don’t look like a gremlin, you’re cute like Gizmo,” he says.

You sink your face further into the crook of Eddie's shoulder, lip jetting out once more. He’s done nothing more than call you a cute gremlin rather than an evil gremlin, yet you feel yourself turning misty eyed yet again. This time you squeeze your eyes shut, closing them on purpose, hiding your sickness induced emotions.

“Soups gonna get cold,” Eddie says, twisting his neck to look at you again. “C’mon, it’ll be better for you if you eat it warm,” he says, using his free arm to move you.

Once you’re finally propped up again in an appropriate position to eat, you feel Eddie’s hand on your cheek— no doubt becoming aware of your tears.

“You okay?” he asks softly, thumb rubbing under your cheek.

“You’re being so nice to me,” you explain, sniffling back your need to cry.

“Just taking care of you. Want you to feel better,” he replies, keeping his voice quiet. 

“Thank you, Eddie.”

“You don’t gotta thank me, just gotta eat your soup, okay Gizmo?” Eddie says, making you snort out a snotty laugh before sucking it all back in with an apology that he quickly dismisses. 

You take a few breaths, getting your tears under control. Shifting your focus to the soup, Eddie holds the bowl close to you while you slowly feed yourself spoonful after spoonful. 

“Crackers?” Eddie offers.

“Maybe one.”

“How ‘bout two?” he replies, peeling back the plastic and pulling two out for you. You nod softly before taking them from him. 

You feel yourself running out of energy and it’s exasperating that all it took was lifting a spoon to your lips a measly few times. When you let the crackers sit in your lap for too long, Eddie turns to look at you, resting the bowl of soup down in his lap. 

“Y’okay?” he asks.

“Tired,” you answer. 

“Just finish those and you can be done, okay?” he says, meeting your gaze. You shake your head.

“Can’t,” you reply.

“You can,” he says, turning his torso to put the bowl of soup on the table. He turns back around, reaching for the crackers in your hand. “Know you can,” he repeats, bringing the crackers to your lips.

“Eddie—” you try to protest.

“Bite,” he says, cutting you off and nudging the cracker into your mouth. 

You bite, giving into him. It feels weird being hand fed. It’s probably even weirder when two bites in you close your eyes in an effort to conserve your energy. Regardless, Eddie doesn’t say anything besides positive affirmations about how good you’re doing which you really, really appreciate. 

“How about you drink some of this,” he says, reaching for the glass of juice as you chew the last bite of cracker. “Then I’ll help you lay down and I can rub your back s’more?”

“You don’t have to if you wanna go home, you've been here a long time,” you say, swallowing the dryness of the cracker down. 

Eddie lifts the cup of juice to your lips, tipping it back for you to sip at. When you take more than a few drinks, you lift a hand lightly pushing the cup away. Blinking your eyes open you look at Eddie as he returns the cup to sit with the other dishware on your bedside table. 

“I’m serious, Eddie. You can go home if you want,”

“Don’t want to,”

“You’re gonna be— you interrupt yourself with a yawn this time. “—gonna be so sick,” you say groggily.

“Just let me cuddle you, you know you want it,” he says, a teasing tone hinting in his voice. You blink open your eyes again to see a genuine smile as he looks at you—one that shouldn’t be there considering how gross you feel and are sure you look. Despite that, it’s there and you do want cuddles so you nod softly, making a weak, sad attempt at getting closer to Eddie.

Eddie meets your attempt by gently pulling you down the mattress. He maneuvers you to have your head resting on his chest while his arm snakes around you, rubbing circles on your back. With the sleepiness settling in and your cold symptoms dialing back due to the medicine, you can’t help but hum happily. 

“Feels good, doesn’t it?” he says quietly.

It feels beyond good. Good is an understatement. Having him take care of you like this is making you feel mushy and only highlights your feelings for Eddie. In combination with your partially delusionally, sleepy state the only thing on your mind is expressing your feelings, all of them true no matter how far out of it you are at this point. 

“Eddie, if I die, just know that I love you,” you mutter into the fabric of his shirt. 

“That’s just the cold medicine talking,” Eddie laughs softly. You find the energy to shake your head.

“Nuh-uh, love you,” you repeat. “Love you so much.”

It’s faint, maybe he whispered it or maybe it’s the fact that you were slipping into sleep but you heard it. 

“I love you too,” he says quietly. 

As if those words gave you a short lived second life, it had you perking up, desperately needing to clarify just in case he didn’t understand. 

“But Eddie I love you as my best friend but also more than that— I love you so much.”

He leaves you in silence but you don’t have the clear consciousness to overthink it, you just keep talking.

“I don’t even care if you don’t like me like that, I love you Eddie.”

“I love you too. Love you a lot, but I think we should talk about this when you’re not tired and on cold medicine, okay?” he whispers softly. 

As your thoughts start to drift, you focus on the first half of Eddie's sentiment. He loves you— and he loves you a lot. With that on your mind, intermixed with the comforting friction of his hand on your back, you fall into the deepest and most comfortable sleep of your life despite being so sick. Eddie loves you. 

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Arguably, the best thing that came out of your cold was your confession. It was bound to happen eventually and although it did sort of seem like a deathbed confession at the time, it was genuine— that of which you clarified for Eddie. To your fortune, he also clarified that his reply was true as well. Beyond that, you were still sick and neither of you had done much more than just sharing those little words that one night. So yes, arguably, that's the best thing that came out of your sickly state; however, in your opinion, you think the best thing that happened was that you got Eddie sick too. 

It was less than a day after you started feeling normal again that Eddie was running a fever. He ended up staying at your place for the majority of your sickness but he had left once to get some things for himself. Since he had his stuff here already, you offered for him to stay over at yours while you returned the favor of playing doctor. 

Eddie took on a much different position as a sick person than you did. Undeniably, you both were on the dramatic end of things but while your cynical humour came out during your time being sick, Eddie was much different in how expressed himself.

Normally, a very touchy feely person, his affectionate side heightened tenfold while he was sick. He was all grabby hands, wanting you closer to him. Maybe it was because the two of you had broken the touch barrier while you were sick or maybe Eddie just turned into a touch deprived baby when he was sick, you’ll never know, but you didn’t deny him of the cuddles that you so dearly appreciated while you were under the weather. 

The most interesting part— which shouldn't have came as a surprise, was that not only did he appreciate holding you, but he intensely appreciated you holding him, whether that be hands scratching his head as he rested it on your stomach, or your arms wrapped around him from behind making him the little spoon. Additionally, he was also incredibly affectionate with his words, constantly telling you how grateful he was for you and how much he appreciated you. 

Your favourite confession came late one night, probably at the peak of his sickness. Fairly similar to your deathbed confession, but a moment to remember regardless.

You had just finished helping him eat, similar to how he had done for you, and were cuddling with him, smoothing your hands over his side as he rested his head on your chest. 

The medicine was kicking in, making him drowsy, eyes fluttering shut as he let sleep take him over. He had kept babbling random thoughts but as he got more and more tired he was eventually reduced to heavy breaths. That was, until he titled his face up to yours. You looked down at him, meeting his sleepy eyes.

“I love you,” he said. “Love you so much.”

“Love you too, Eddie,” you replied, smiling.

“But I love you so much,” he said, voice returning to its babbling cadence. “Love you so much I wanna kiss you and love you and—” his babbling started to slowly fade as his head got heavier on your chest. You couldn’t help but laugh softly as your heart swelled.

You smoothed a hand over his face, brushing back his hair as you stared at him with nothing but love for your very, very sick boy. Like you had given him a second wind, his babbling started up again. 

“Wanna marry you. Love you so much wanna marry you,” he said, words slurring.

“Think you’ll have to ask me on a date first, cutie,” you replied quietly, partially under the impression that he was already asleep. 

“I will. Love you so much, I will,” he mumbled and with that, he was out like a light. 

From there, the rest was history. If curious minds were to inquire, you would say that Eddie’s always been very good at keeping his promises, and mindless babbling or not, he meant every word that he confessed in his sickly, drowsy state. 

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

thank you! <3

[dragonpotter]

i find it funny how allicent says that viserys is "blind" when it comes to rhaenyra's sons and rhaenyra in general. of course he is not blind, he knows very well how his daughter is, he knows her son's aren't laenor's, he just doesn't want to punish her. does alicent really think that viserys would exile her, kill her for having bastard sons? what kind of father would do that? not one who loves his daughter like viserys does. and alicent doesn't understand being loved unconditionally, she doesn't understand how someone can just be loved for who they are, their flaws and mistakes combined. all her life, she did everything by the book, everything just right and that still didn't make anyone love her. and for her, it's rhaenyra's fault, because she is loved, even though she broke several of those "rules". and alicent, instead of realizing that maybe those rules are kind of stupid actually, just blames rhaenyra instead of admitting to herself that she is jealous. she envies rhaenyra for being free, and being loved even though she doesn't follow the stupid rules that alicent does.

alicent says that viserys is blind about rhaenyra but i actually think he is way more blind about her. she has been plotting treason (telling his children that aegon will be the king), spreading rumours about rhaenyra's sons, threatening rhaenyra and her sons with a knife???? and viserys never did anything substantial to make her stop.

the most ironic part of them all is that she complains about viserys being "blind" to criston cole of all people, who i have NO IDEA why was never punished. he KILLED a man in the royal wedding and nothing happened to him. and when harwin strong beat criston up, he was removed from his post as commander of the city watch, but criston beats a man to death in a royal wedding and nothing happens?? let's not forget that when the king explicitly forbade that luke's eyes be taken out after, criston still tried to do it, he only didn't do it because daemon stopped him.

viserys wasn't blind about rhaenyra. he just loved her the way that she was and wasn't going to do anything stupid to harm her. like a father who loves her daughter unconditionally would, but alicent wouldn't know anything about that, would she? and for her, it's rhaenyra's fault that she is loved unconditionally, not otto's fault for being a shitty father.

the irony is that i believe viserys was in fact blind about alicent. about her ambition for her sons and bitternes towards rhaenyra. he was also blind about criston cole, who murdered a man in her daughter's wedding and wanted to take his grandson's eye out, but didn't get punished for any of it.

[carriesthewind]

The IA's "Open Library" is Not a Library, Yesterday's Lower Court Decision does Not "Hurt Authors," and the Planned Appeal Is (Almost Certainly) NOT a Good Way to Try to Change Bad Law (In Fact, It's More Likely to Make Bad Law Worse)

Ok, so a day later, I'm still mad about this. If anything, I'm even madder. I'm going to write this as a response to the Internet Archive's "The Fight Continues" blogpost, but before we begin, let's get some facts straight:

Copyright law in the United States, especially the law around digital lending, currently sucks. It's really really bad, and anyone with a stake in the game - except the big publishers and e-book services that profit from it - hate it.

That said, copyright law exists as a thing. As I said in a previous post, you *can* try to change it through court cases, but there are certain things you cannot change. And there are certain things you can try to change, but it will be an uphill battle to change them in a positive direction. And notably, as bad as digital lending law is in the U.S., it still could always get worse! And one general rule of impact litigation: if you are trying to change the law, you want to make sure you have the best possible facts. Because the worse your facts are, the worse your case is likely to go.

Yesterday's district court ruling DID NOT CHANGE ANY SUBSTANTIVE COPYRIGHT LAW IN THE U.S. I cannot emphasize that enough. Regardless of whatever you think of the ruling, it was applying already existing law to the facts.

This is because the Internet Archive's "Open Library" absolutely violates existing copyright law. It just does! They broke the law, they had plenty of notice they were breaking the law and harming authors (more on that below) and just think the law shouldn't apply because they don't like it.

The Internet Archive's "Open Library" is not a library. Some big ways it differs:

While it pretends to have a one-to-one owned-to-loaned ratio, as the opinion granting the publisher's motion for summary judgement notes, IA concedes that it allows "partner libraries" to add books to its collection and then doesn't check (and has no way of checking) if the book is out of circulation at the "partner library" at the same time it's being "checked out" of the Open Library. In other words, it's like if you took a book, scanned the pages, and then gave the scans to your friend who then loaned the scans out to other people but totally promised they were only lending the scans to one person at a time so it's basically like there is still just one copy! And meanwhile you still own, are reading, and lending out the physical copy of the book. Except instead of one book, they were doing this on a massive scale. NO, THAT'S JUST THEFT.*

Speaking of which, the "Open Library" didn't keep that promise! Their "Emergency Library" just let everyone borrow as many copies at a time as they could! Again, THAT'S JUST THEFT.

Like I'm sorry if you don't like the idea of copyright at all: right now, we live in a capitalist system where authors need to be paid for their work in order to, like, not die. If you take their work, scan it into your computer, and give it away for free to anyone and everyone, THAT'S JUST THEFT.

Also, most authors love libraries! Libraries allow more people to access their books while not substantially impacting their revenue and not impacting their rights! AUTHORS - not just publishers, authors - DO NOT LIKE AI'S "OPEN LIBRARY." Why haven't authors sued to stop this before, why is this the publishers suing? From the above letter: "Even simple copyright lawsuits must be brought in federal court, and often cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. A challenge to the Internet Archive could easily cost millions." Publishers have deep pockets that authors and authors' groups don't. Also, authors who object to AI stealing their work are frequently subject to harassment.

If IA won this case, the new law that would be made is this: it would be legal to steal an author's works.

*I'm using "theft" and "steal" instead of "piracy" throughout this write-up to make it clear what this is. "Pirating books" is just stealing them.

So to sum up the facts above: copyright law in the U.S. sucks, but it exists. Attempting to change it for the better through the court system would be very difficult. Even then, changing the law for the better would likely require a case with good facts. Unfortunately, the law could also change for the worse. Yesterday's ruling did not change any law. The facts in this case are very bad, because the IA absolutely violated copyright law. That is in part because the IA's "Open Library" is not a library; they just steal books. Many (if not most) authors and author's groups don't like that IA is stealing from them. If IA won this case, that victory would mean that anyone was allowed to steal an author's works.

*deep breath*

Ok, let's turn to the IA's statement, "The Fight Continues":

"Today’s lower court decision in Hachette v. Internet Archive is a blow to all libraries and the communities we serve."

The Internet Archive is not a library.

No it's not. It is a blow to the Internet Archive, specifically, because you broke the law and it ruled you broke the law. As stated above, it does not change anything with regard to copyright, including digital copyright, law in the U.S., and therefore does not impact libraries or the communities they serve. If you appeal this ruling, as you have stated you intend to, and the law does change for the worse (which is always a risk of appeal, and a risk that gets worse when you have bad facts), THEN libraries might be affected.

"This decision impacts libraries across the US who rely on controlled digital lending to connect their patrons with books online."

I mean yes, in the sense that "controlled digital lending" isn't normal e-book lending. It's the thing you made up where you steal books and illegally redistribute them.

This genuinely sucks for libraries and communities that don't have other ways of accessing digital books because the current copyright scheme sucks so bad! Real libraries are doing things to try to help, and not just steal from authors! More on that below!

"It hurts authors by saying that unfair licensing models are the only way their books can be read online."

OH GO FUCK YOURSELVES

Ok this line, this line right here? That is honestly why I wrote this whole thing.

How DARE you cloak your theft in the real struggles authors face with unfair licensing models. How DARE you pretend you are on the side of authors when you are stealing their works, and they have made it quite clear that they would like you to stop, please. And how DARE you frame it in this "for exposure" bullcrap that ignores the real struggles that authors have to eat, to get healthcare, to get any sort of fair pay and wages for their work, and instead pretend that all authors should care about is whether or not their books can be read online.

And bluntly? If you - not IA, YOU, tumblr user reading this - if you shared this bullcrap statement and told people to donate money to the IA because of this? If you told people they should steal more books in response (because it's the publishers fault, ignore the real authors who are actually harmed)? How DARE you. How DARE you pretend to be on the side of authors and writers.

"And it holds back access to information in the digital age, harming all readers, everywhere."

Except for those readers who are also authors, and need to eat.

And readers who want to read books that will never get written if authors can't write (because they need to eat).

And also, no it doesn't, because it doesn't change the law. It just applies the law that already exists to you. Because you are not above the law.

"But it’s not over—we will keep fighting for the traditional right of libraries to own, lend, and preserve books."

You are not a library.

You were not (and are not) fighting for "the traditional right of libraries." Plenty of other organizations are fighting against bad copyright law in the U.S. This court case, however, was literally just about you stealing books.

Like I cannot emphasize enough that you were just stealing and you got caught.

"We will be appealing the judgment and encourage everyone to come together as a community to support libraries against this attack by corporate publishers."

You aren't a library.

Fuck you for borrowing the (justified) hatred of corporate publishers to paper over your bad actions.

Does "coming together as a community to support libraries against this attack" mean giving you money, as suggested by the calls to action at the bottom of this page? Because you aren't a library.

"We will continue our work as a library."

You aren't a library.

"This case does not challenge many of the services we provide with digitized books including interlibrary loan, citation linking, access for the print-disabled, text and data mining, purchasing ebooks, and ongoing donation and preservation of books."

First, and most important: these are all uncritically good and important things that the IA does! Despite the rest of this post, I am really really glad the IA exists, that it is doing these things, and I hope that it will continue to do this things!

You are correct that this case does not challenge those services! Because those services aren't just stealing books from authors, which is what you were doing, which is what this case is actually about!

I'm skipping the statement from Brewster Kahle because it's just more of the same. The statement then invites you to Take Action! by donating to IA and positing themselves as standing up for libraries! (They are not a library.)

But real libraries and librarians are actually fighting the good fight over lack of access to materials, especially digital materials and bad laws, and you can support them!

If you actually do want to "come together as a community to support libraries," and support digital access, may I suggest instead donating to The Brooklyn Public Library's Books Unbanned program?:

https://www.bklynlibrary.org/books-unbanned

While they aren't directly challenging bad copyright law, they are directly fighting back against laws that are much more actively and materially impact people's access to books, including providing free e-book and database access to everyone in the U.S. age 13-21. It's a great and important program, and your donations can really help!

[zebulontheplanet]

(ID in alt)

Was really frustrated with this, and debated on fighting with this person, but I’m not going too. Instead, I’m going to use it as a talking point.

Do y’all even seriously read my posts? Do y’all even seriously know the DSM5 criteria? Do y’all even talk to high support needs people?

You CANNOT be level 3 and live independently. That’s not how it works. You wouldn’t be diagnosed with level 3 autism. Now I’m not saying this person was never diagnosed with level 3 autism. A lot of people are diagnosed with level 3 autism and then later in life their support needs get lower. They were still diagnosed level 3. However, they no longer meet the criteria for level 3 autism and should be reassessed to be assigned a new accurate level. Some are even misdiagnosed with level 3 if they happen to be nonverbal/nonspeaking. That happens too.

I feel like y’all seriously do not even google anything. Level 3 is characterized by needing “very substantial support”. That means the person needs support, very substantially. They need support all day everyday. That’s level 3 autism.

Y’all don’t care about level 3s. Y’all don’t care about high support needs autistic people and it shows because if you did then you’d listen to them and do the research. You’d do the quick google search. You’d do the quick search in the DSM5. You’d listen to them!! Stop being pricks. Stop being stupid. Just listen.

Y’all don’t understand, and not even I understand what it means to be high support needs. When you need someone to wipe your own ass. When every caregiver and support worker knows every private thing about you. You don’t know that. Stop acting like you support them if you can’t even begin to try and understand.

[virtualreader]

under the stars

rickgrimesxfem!reader

summary: somehow the night watch shifts got jumbled, resulting in a maybe-not-so-forced proximity with the married, appealing leader of the group.

word count: 2,2k.

genre: smut, and a lil' bit of angst.

warnings: p in v, unprotected sex, masturbation, adultery, etc. (not proofread)

a/n: this was requested by an anon, I really hope it is what you wanted, enjoy!

+18 content below, minors dni, nsfw, please do not read it if you're uncomfortable with this topic!

The night sky laid before your eyes. It was the only thing that had improved with the outbreak. There were plenty of stars that night; they had always been there, but you just couldn't see them.

Contemplating the bright stars made everything seem right as if you were still enjoying summer nights in your backyard. But you were not. You were on watch.

The silence around you was only broken by the crickets and the occasional distant howling of the wind. The moon above shone brightly, casting eerie shadows around you, and the first dewdrops settled down onto the wisps of grass.

Suddenly, you heard a twig snap, and your heart skipped a beat. You turned around and saw Rick approaching you, his brows drew together as he asked, "Whatcha doing up there, y/n?”

“Watch duty,” you spoke simply.

Rick found it strange; he could have sworn that it was his turn tonight. As a matter of fact, it was. However, Glenn had asked for you to cover his shift, as they would not return until late into the night.

"Wasn't I supposed to be on watch tonight?" he asked, shifting his weight to his right leg.

You observed him from your perch atop Dale's RV. His hands rested on his hips, and a substantial amount of blood stained his clothes. His sweat-soaked shirt clung to his torso, highlighting the physical exhaustion he must have been experiencing.

"Were you?" you rubbed your forehead. "Glenn told me you couldn't make it here in time for your shift.”

"Mind if I stay?" Rick asked. "I won't be able to sleep a wink anyway, and I think you could use someone to talk to, don't you?”

After accepting his proposal, Rick climbed up the handrails to sit beside you. With your feet hanging off the vehicle, you felt the cold breeze hit your skin, but it didn't bother you as much as you thought it would. Instead, you welcomed the refreshing feeling, which provided a momentary escape from the tension and stress of everyday life in this new world.

You observed Rick as he took in the view, his expression softening as he relaxed, taking a moment to appreciate the beauty of the world around him.

As Rick sat beside you on top of the RV, you both found yourselves lost in a conversation that went on for hours. It was a rare moment of tranquility in a world filled with chaos, and you were grateful for it.

"You know what I miss the most from the old world?" he asked, breaking the settled silence.

You looked at him, nodding to encourage him to continue.

"Coffee," he said, a hint of nostalgia in his voice. "There was something about that bitter taste that just made everything better. It was like a warm hug in a cup, and it's something that you just can't replicate with anything else." He paused, lost in thought for a moment before continuing. "I remember how people used to line up for hours just to get their hands on a cup of coffee from their favorite shop. It was a social event, a way to connect with others over a shared love of caffeine. And now, it's just gone.”

You kept on talking for a while, exchanging memories from the time before the apocalypse. Although it felt like only minutes had passed since he arrived, you found yourself opening up to him, telling him about your life before the dead walked the earth.

You reminisced about renting movies every Saturday night, a ritual you followed religiously. You described dancing around the house with a broom in your hands, singing along to your favorite 80s songs. You explained how you would wander the neighborhood streets for hours with your dog, even on rainy days.

Rick's eyes drifted towards the horizon, and you could see the sadness etched onto his face. "I miss it," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "I miss my family, my friends, my job…everything. I miss everything."

You placed a hand on his shoulder, offering comfort. "We all do, Rick. We all do."

"Sometimes I wonder if it's worth it," Rick said, his voice heavy with emotion. "All the fighting, all the pain…for what? Just to survive another day?"

You turned towards him and rested your hand on his arm. "It's worth it, Rick. We have to keep going, for ourselves and for the people we care about.”

"You know," you began, hesitating as you tried to gather your thoughts. "I've been thinking a lot about the world we live in, and how chaotic and violent it can be. It's easy to feel lost and alone like we're all just struggling to survive. But then I look at you, and I realize that you make me feel safe, protected, and cared for." you said, voicing the thought that had been brooding in your mind. "And I believe I speak for all of us when I say we appreciate you as our leader.”

Your cheeks blossomed with red as Rick’s enlarged pupils bored into your soul as if he could read through you. His mere presence was enough to put you in a fight-or-flight mode, making you aware of an attraction you had not acknowledged before.

Rick Grimes was not chosen to be the group leader - it was a role that he fell into almost organically. His rise to leadership was not unexpected. He had always been a man of great integrity and his strong moral compass meant that he was a natural choice to lead the group. Rick's unwavering commitment to the group's survival and his ability to remain level-headed in times of crisis meant that he quickly gained the trust of his peers.

The graze of a hand in your tight startled you, averting your eyes from the sky that had you entranced, to Rick's face. He took advantage of the moment and reached out to gently caress your cheek. You felt a rush of emotions as your heart began to race.

You could feel the butterflies in your stomach as Rick leaned in closer, responding to the adulterous desire you had ignited within his heart. His breath felt hot on your skin, and you could hear the beating of your own heart as your lips met in a passionate kiss, finally acknowledging the feelings that had been brewing between you for days. Though the world may have been gone, at that moment, everything felt right.

As you embraced the married man, your heart was racing with excitement. You could feel his lips on yours and his arms tightly wrapped around you. But as you both pulled away, a sudden realization dawned on you. What were you doing? You were kissing a married man, and his wife laid just a few feet away, sound asleep. The guilt and shame crept up inside you, and you couldn't help but feel regretful for your actions. It was clear that this was anything but right.

“I-I’m sorry. I should not-” you breathed, your voice trailing off as you struggled to find the right words. You looked down at your feet, feeling a wave of embarrassment wash over you. You had always been good at thinking on your feet, but at this moment, your thoughts were scattered and disjointed.

"Don't do that," he said, his eyes narrowing as he spoke. You tried to look away as if avoiding his gaze would excuse your immoral actions. But the hand he had on the side of your face prevented you from doing so, gently forcing you to look at him as he confessed, "Don’t apologize for something we've both obviusly wanted for a while now.”

And as if he knew what was going through your mind, he added, "Please don't worry about Lori," his voice soft and comforting. "Our relationship had decayed well before you and I met, so don't beat yourself up. If anything, that responsibility rests on me." His words were like a balm to your soul, a soothing reassurance to your worries, easing the fears that had been gnawing at you.

As the night wore on, you found yourself ogling at Rick's physical appearance. You couldn't help but notice the veins on his arms or the way his shirt clung to his chest, and the feeling of desire for him was overwhelming. You knew that your actions were wrong, but in this world, who was there to judge? You leaned in to kiss him again, but this time, something was different. This time, you knew that there was no going back.

When he turned you over onto your back, your heart raced with anticipation. You felt his hands slide down to your hips, gently but firmly holding you in place. As your lips remained locked in a passionate embrace, you couldn't help but shiver from the cool metal of the RV's roof against your skin. You felt a deep connection as he looked into your eyes, his gaze burning with desire and affection. In that moment, you knew that this was more than just physical attraction, but a true emotional bond between two people.

"Don’t make a sound," he muttered pulling away as he placed a finger over your mouth, hurriedly getting free from his dirty shirt. You had to be indeed quiet as to not be heard by the rest of the group, especially his wife.

After struggling with the zipper, you finally freed yourself from your tight-fitting pants. As you did, Rick's mischievous grin grew wider, his eyes lingering on the laced panties that you were wearing underneath. The silky fabric felt smooth against your skin, and you couldn't help but blush as Rick's gaze lingered on you. The enflaming feeling of a light gust of wind grazing your cunt sending a shiver down your spine.

"God damn it," Rick whispered. "You look so good beneath me.”

Rick began exploring your body with his hands, savoring every inch of your skin. He slowly lifted your shirt above your braless chest. You let out a soft moan as he ran his tongue over your nipple, causing your back to arch lightly at the sensation. His touch was electric and you couldn't resist the urge to pull him closer, wanting to feel more of him against your body.

Your hands whirled in the back of his head, feeling the texture of his coiled hair in your fingers as they intertwined with it. You felt a rush of passion as your lips connected once again, savoring the taste of his. Your fingers fumbled with his zipper, your eagerness growing with each passing second. His tongue met yours in a frenzied dance, both of you desperate for more.

Once you’d made your way to his hard cock you caressed his bulge, feeling it grow with each passing moment, and you looked up at his face, anticipating his reaction. A muted growl escaped his mouth as he quivered under your touch. You continued to stroke him, your movements becoming more and more deliberate as you worked him closer and closer to the edge.

“Shut up, you’re gonna get us caught.” you ordered him after he moaned loudly , smugness emanating from you.

“That’s gonna be hard if your hand stays there any longer, pretty girl.”

His hands slipped under your panties, the circling movements of his fingers over your clit delivering shockwaves through your entire body. You couldn't help but gasp as you felt your walls tighten around his fingers, and the pleasure continued to build with each passing moment.

Rick's voice was hoarse as he leaned over you, his eyes dark with desire. "You are so ready for me," he whispered, his fingertips tracing a path down your body until they reached your entrance. The anticipation was almost unbearable as he teased you, sending shivers down your spine. You couldn't help but feel like a dirty girl as he continued his ministrations, but you didn't want it to stop.

He entered you slowly, his fingers teasing your entrance until you were begging for more. When he finally filled you completely, you gasped from the intense pleasure that coursed through your body. It was unlike anything you had ever felt before, and you knew in that moment that you were completely his.

The way he moved inside you was a dance of passion, each thrust taking you higher and higher until you were flying. You clung to him, your hands running over his back as you surrendered to the rapture that he was giving you.

As you both reached the peak of ecstasy, he crushed beside you, his body slick with sweat and his chest heaving. The warmth of his skin against yours was both comforting and exhilarating, and you couldn't help but snuggle closer to him, basking in the afterglow of your lovemaking.

As the night turned into dawn, the two of you lay entwined on the roof of the RV, the cool breeze of the night forgotten. The guilt that had been plaguing you had subsided, replaced only by a feeling of contentment and euphoria. It was a moment that you knew you would never forget, a moment that would forever be etched in your memory as a reminder of the beauty that could still be found in a world filled with chaos.

Perhaps the scintillating night sky was not the only great thing the outbreak bought into your life.

[kiwanopie]

aki threatening to make us housewives………. the way i physically gasped 😭. he’s the worst—one year as your senpai and he’s already decided you’re his.

it’s so vile too bc you want it, want him more than anything. want aki to cream your cute pussy ‘til you’re bloated. wanna hold up chunky lil babies that giggle and pull at their daddy’s topknot :((

the way i immediately opened my docs this ask sent my brain into overdrive

Glutton.

cw: car sex. breeding. dumbification. overstimulation. choking (aki wraps his hand around your neck) creampie. 1.1k

You already know he’ll name it after his little brother.

Or his mom. Whatever her name was? You’ve been chalking up ideas since he put it in your head and now it feels like you can’t remember a thing. Just your hope that if it’s a boy it’ll look like him and if it’s a girl - for her sake - she won’t have her mother’s tendency to misbehave.

You’re nothing if not a glutton for punishment.

You know, you’ve always assumed that Aki was a smart guy. I mean he’s team leader for a reason? He’s level headed in most cases, stalwart when it counts, a little demented but conscious of the things he does, and stubborn. He’d walk on a plate of fire just to prove a point - but it’s not a bad thing to stay true to your own ideals. This is a guy who keeps his promises. Every single one of them.

He’s too ticked off to put two and two together. “It’s like you like pissing me off.”

Aki’s heated breaths burn sear marks into the crook of your throat, just over the open wing of your collar and love notes left by his lips from earlier. Your brain’s too mushy to do anything but pant into the air, blowing thicker tufts of condensation that have already turned his car windows misty.

He’s fucking you like he means to turn your guts around, pistoning into your poor overstimmed cunt like it’s all he’s meant to do. Not even faltering when the acrylics of your nails tear shallow gashes into his button up - If you had the half of mind, you could even say he enjoys it.

Feeling you cling to him so desperately as he grunts in the crook of your shoulder, tighten when he curses at you. Maybe he’s too blissed out. Maybe he’s not as smart as you took him for. But you seem to be taking the repercussions of your misbehavior in stride.

“Did you think I wouldn’t find out?” Aki hisses in your ear. “You’ve got a lot of fucking nerve going over my head after what I told you.”

You croon when he lifts one of your legs and fastens it over his arm to get you at a better angle - a deeper angle. God, his seats are probably ruined.

You already knew you were in trouble when he offered to drive you home. You knew the look in his eyes, and you knew Makima was obviously gonna tell the guy overseeing you that you requested clearance to be contracted with a new devil, especially one so substantial. You even pulled the extra stop of shoeing in a compelling argument. ‘The life of a hunter is short anyway. Why not make it mean something?’

Like getting knocked up by your boss in the back of his Lincoln. “P-…Please forgive me, senpai! I’m- fuck, m’so sorry-“

“You might as well get used to calling me by my first name.” He grunts. “It’d be pretty fucking confusing when we start sharing my last.”

Aki lets out a broken curse when you tighten up again. “God, I can’t believe you. Were you even gonna tell me? Was I just supposed to find out when you…”

He doesn’t even finish the thought. Instead he blows out a puff of air against your pulse that makes you shutter. Lifts his head to look at you more directly and stares at you for a moment. There’s a lot of emotions behind his eyes that you’re not exactly cognizant to decipher. A way the tendons in his jaw tense - that seems less angry and more ‘something else entirely.’ But before you can zero your misty eyes on what exactly that could be, he’s already pressing his lips against yours.

A slow kiss. Not messy and unrestrained like earlier but savory. Sensuous lip smacking all the more sultry when he tilts his head to follow the current of the kiss. His loose hair falls freely over your face, lax from all the tugging you’ve been doing since he started turning your insides to bisque. But a kiss like this is the kind you give when it means something. Goosebump and butterfly inducing - You moan in his mouth and he swallows it heartily.

And then he deepens it.

That earnest passionance becomes lustful and raunchy before you can even realize he’s sucking on your tongue. Deepening his thrusts until you’re feeling him in your stomach and groaning down your throat when your fingers start to dig into his scalp. If you didn’t know any better you’d say Aki was hoping for this kind of outcome just as much as you were. Especially when he starts to angle his thrusts for the spot that has you gushing around him like he likes.

The kiss leaves a gossamer trail of his spit when he pulls back for another look at you. Your pretty doe eyes have gone teary.

“Don’t even worry about your resignation, I fired you as soon as I found out.” Aki grunts. “We’ll figure out the living arrangements later.”

Your eyes roll back when he settles for a firm grip on your throat. “I’ll have to get a bigger car. Oh fuck - And a car seat.”

You babble something that sounds like a cross between “So good!” and “I’m cumming!” but it’s more a jumbled mess of moans and overstimulated whimpers. He’s stopped counting the amount of times your pretty pussy has gone into the process of milking him for all he’s got. But even as he follows you over the edge does he continue to fuck you brainless.

Aki peers down at the mess you’re making on his leather seats. “S-Shit. Quit wasting it. I’m not stopping till I know it’ll take.”

“S’good, senpai! A-Aki-senpai! So good! It’s s’good!”

He pulls your other leg up till you're folded in a mating press, groaning at the difference in angle. “You know - mhph - You’re even cuter when you’re all fucked out like this.”

His dick twitches at the way you start to drool. “Gonna be my pretty wife? Gimme some pretty babies?”

“Sso pretty…!” You slur. “G’nna make you a daddy!”

He gives you a blitzed smile that definitely says he’s as far gone as you are. “Yeah?”

Your mouth gapes as he bends over you, much too deep with your legs hooked over his shoulders and pressing his hips flat against your ass to grind in as thoroughly as possible.

“So stupid…” Aki skims his lips over yours. “You’re stupid if you think I’m done with you after that.”

He hums as he brings you into another kiss, briefly pulling away to murmur drunkenly. “Gimme a pretty family, baby.”

1 reblog = several Hayakawa babies

[marybeatriceofmodena]

What did Andrew Lloyd Webber do to make Patti Lupone upset? Sorry, saw your tags and i was curious

Oh.

Oh honey.

You sweet child.

Anyway, get ready for one of the most infamous showdowns in all musical theatre history, with the guy who writes the straightest musicals on Broadway (derogatory) and the one and only, the matriarch, the queen, two three-time Tony award winner Patti LuPone.

So, Andrew Lloyd Webber was basically kind of a boy genius in his prime - he met his future collaborator Tim Rice when they were 17 and 20 respectively, he wrote his first big hit, Jesus Christ Superstar, at 22, with Tim Rice writing the lyrics. And it was kind of a big deal at the time because the topic was controversial (you know, the Passion with rock music), but also because Broadway wasn't that far off from its golden age and let's just say the music and style were very different from, say, My Fair Lady. Or The Sound of Music. Or Funny Girl. It was basically the Rent/Hamilton of its time. (Yeah, Stephen Sondheim was around at that time, he worked on West Side Story which was revolutionary in of itself, but he's kind of an oddball in this case. You'll understand why later.)

Their real follow up (I'm not counting Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat for a variety of reasons) was a little musical called Evita, which you might know mainly because of a song called Don't Cry For Me Argentina. Or at least, your mom has probably heard it once at the very least. It's that song that's oversung from a musical while being out of context along with I Dreamed a Dream for Les Misérables. Or Memory from Cats.

Evita tells the story of Eva Peron, the wife of an Argentinian dictator, who basically screws her way to the top and ends up becoming the mistress of Juan Peron and the most beloved woman in her country through guile and deceit. Yes, I know the historical accuracy is very much debated but I know jackshit about Argentina's history except the bare basics so don't come at me. It was first produced in the West End in London, with Elaine Paige in the role, but because of Equity issues, she couldn't reprise her role for the Broadway production. So a Julliard graduate who was mostly starring in David Mamet plays got the part instead, and that was Patti LuPone.

Patti... did not have a good time during Evita, because the part is basically the kind of score where you can tell the composer is used to writing male parts, but most female singers have a two-octave range (yes, you got Julie Andrews who used to have a three-octave range, and many others, but they're exceptions), so she struggled a lot. That being said, if you listen to live recordings of her, you wouldn't be able to tell, and it got a lot easier later on. But she had this to say:

"Evita was the worst experience of my life. I was screaming my way through a part that could only have been written by a man who hates women. And I had no support from the producers, who wanted a star performance onstage but treated me as an unknown backstage. It was like Beirut, and I fought like a banshee."

This is from Patti's autobiography, which she wrote in 2007 - 8 years after shit with ALW went down. With all that said, she won a Tony Award for Evita, and she pretty much became a musical theatre household name from then on. She played Fantine in Les Misérables, Nancy in Oliver!, Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes. Meanwhile, ALW's next big hits were Cats (I'm not even kidding, Cats was a hit), and, you guessed it, The Phantom of the Opera, which he wrote in part to showcase his then wife Sarah Brightman's triple threat talents.

So, you need to understand before I continue that ALW, from my perspective, has always had a bit of an inferiority complex. He's basically associated to writing these commercially successful musicals that show a big spectacle but aren't ultimately substantial. I'm not sure I entirely agree with that, but I do think that if he didn't have Hal Prince, Maria Bjornson, Charles Hart and Gillian Lynne backing him up for Phantom, it would have probably been a Rocky Horror Picture Show knockoff people would have forgotten about pretty quickly. This is what I mean:

Yep, that was Phantom before any of the people I mentioned above (and Michael Crawford) were really involved.

Remember how I said Stephen Sondheim was an oddball? The thing with him is that his musicals weren't always commercially successful, but in general, in part thanks to being Leonard Bernstein's protégé, he was generally pretty well-respected and it was considered that his work was bringing musicals to a whole other level. Without Sondheim, you wouldn't have Jonathan Larson, and you wouldn't have Lin-Manuel Miranda. I am convinced ALW is resentful of that, and when you stop and think about it for more than 10 seconds, it's so obvious he REALLY wants to be Sondheim or at least command the same level of respect, but that's a story for another day.

So, after Phantom, ALW had other musicals that followed that either got a meh reception or outright flopped. Then there was Sunset Boulevard, which is based on the movie of the same name with Gloria Swanson. Despite all of her griefs for Evita, Patti LuPone agreed to partake in the musical as Norma Desmond, for its production in London, with the promise that she would transfer to Broadway once that production would open. And overall, after a string of flops, Sunset was actually doing pretty well.

HOWEVER. One day, while reading the gossip column of a newspaper, Patti found out that contrary to what she was promised, Glenn Close, who was meanwhile starring as Norma in the Los Angeles production, was to play Norma on Broadway. That was a complete surprise for her since no one on the production team had bothered to tell her it was happening - and keep in mind that for the news to come up the way it did in a gossip column, it probably would have necessitated a delay of a few weeks between the producers and the newspaper, which would have given them plenty of time to break the news to Patti. And Patti kind of needed the leg up because she was pretty bitter that a) Madonna was cast in the Evita adaptation instead of her; b) they actually lowered the key to fit Madonna's voice range, and she still had to expand her own to be able to sing the (lowered) score. And trust me, Patti is mad about it to this day.

So of course, she trashed her dressing room, the cast and crew weren't even mad about it because they were as shocked and angered as she was by the news. Patti sued Andrew Lloyd Webber for breach of contract, namely for 1 MILLION DOLLARS (yup, those are the real numbers), won, used the money she got from the lawsuit to get a swimming pool, which she called (and I SHIT YOU NOT) the Andrew Lloyd Webber Memorial Pool. Since then, Webber is dead to her, to the point rumor has it she had part of a building blocked during an event so she could get out of it without coming across Webber, because she hates him so flipping much she doesn't even want to be in the same building as the guy.

(There's also drama that happened with Faye Dunaway who was supposed to replace Glenn Close after she went from Los Angeles to Broadway, except they abruptly closed the show down after Close left, but that's a story for another day)

So with all the bad press, and with ALW forced to pay 1 million dollars for Patti's lawsuit, that led Sunset's productions to close earlier than expected. ALW has stayed around since, with... mitigated output, so to say. The lowest point for a lot of people is Love Never Dies, the sequel to Phantom, which some people love, and that's fine, but it didn't do well with either critics nor fans of the original show, which ALW is EXTREMELY BUTTHURT ABOUT. And like, there are so many stories I could tell about LND alone, but I will share my own crack theory about it, since it does relate to the ask.

Anyway, buckle up.

So. There have been jokes going around for years that the Phantom in LND is basically ALW's self-insert, where he displays to the world that he's totally not over Sarah Brightman leaving him (in part because making Phantom kinda ruined their marriage lmao), despite, you know, having married since. (Aaaaaakward.) So LND basically becomes this really uncomfortable therapy session where a man writes a self-insert musical about how his ex-wife made a big mistake of leaving a sensitive artistic soul such as himself. The characters from Phantom who appear in LND are all more or less unrecognizable as a result, and one who gets it worse (in my humble opinion) is Meg Giry, who was basically Christine's sweet and loyal ballerina friend who basically went into the Phantom's lair on her own to save her friend despite the danger. In LND, she's basically a bitter hag (because ALW hates women, guess Patti was right about that), who really likes the swim and even has a stripping vaudeville number about it, written in universe by the Phantom, no less.

For comparison, here's Don Juan Triumphant (the Phantom's opera in the original):

And here's Bathing Beauty (the vaudeville number):

Yeah, so... do you see why people hate LND already?

And that's not the only thing with Meg! She's also pining for the Phantom to pay attention to her and threatens to drown the Phantom and Christine's secret love child when he makes it clear that he's gonna love Christine for EVA AND EVA.

So, with everything we learned today about ALW, would someone like him view someone like Patti LuPone as some sort of crazy, bitter diva who's obsessed with him for whatever reason? Absolutely. Would he be petty enough to insert Patti LuPone into his self-insert musical, which gave us the version of Meg Giry we got in LND? Of course. Why does Meg love to swim so much and why does she drag Gustave out ostensibly for a swim? Is it a dig at Patti's Andrew Lloyd Webber Memorial Pool? Maybe.

I kind of hope we find out one day if that theory is true. And maybe start a kickstarter so Patti can add this painting from the 2004 movie in her collection.

Fun fact: during the process of casting for the 2004 movie adaptation of POTO, ALW allegedly suggested Patti LuPone to play Carlotta... only for Joel Schumacher to have to awkwardly remind him that they were not on speaking terms. The idea was therefore promptly dropped.