#but they’re just tied down to this non-operating company

[bomnun]

the news abt the girls in the park’s company no longer being operating made me go back and relisten to their discography again and it’s coming back to me how much I used to like them :( (I still like them lmao but as they hadn’t been active in over 18 months they weren’t at the forefront of my mind that often) all of them are so fun and their discography is definitely in the top 5 kpop discographies that tickle my brain the most. they had/have such good chemistry and energy, and omg seoryoung… still love how extra she is on every track and her gorgeous voice. I went on a bazooka and puzzle moon stage rewatch and ahhh they’re so fun… why did we have to (half) lose them so early

[navierdeservestheworld]

sun rising, birds chirping

A/N: A small fic that focuses on Navier with hints of Heinrey/Navier. Just something that I made to get back into writing. Oh, it’s a Modern AU again.

Navier sighed in relief as she heard Laura and Artina shuffle into the plush apartment and the door click shut. She didn’t need to worry about the paparazzi in the privacy of her dwellings. Or at least, she thought so, as the possibility of their invasion into her space crept into her head. After all, this apartment had been vacant for a couple of years.

“Artina,” Navier called out to her bodyguard as she carefully tossed the keys onto a counter, “sweep the apartment for bugs, please.”

“I’m already on it.” She felt her mouth tip upwards at that. No surprises there. Artina was always steps ahead of Navier when it came to Navier’s own safety.

“It looks exactly as we left it.” Laura surveyed the apartment, and so it did. Navier hadn’t visited this piece of her family’s real estate since her marriage to Sovieshu. Navier had always been a bit uptight. She was aware of the fact. However, there was a certain freedom to her spirit in the years she spent in the apartment as a university student.

Navier hummed in response as she ran her hand over the furniture in the living room - not a speck of dust since her family always kept their property in prime condition, regardless if inhabited or not.

“Exactly as we left it,” Navier repeated as her eyes caught sight of a picture on the mantle.

It was a picture of her with Sovieshu in their high school years - back when they were best friends and knew that they were destined and content to wed for the sake of their families. They were both dressed in their uniforms, Sovieshu’s arm around her waist with confident smiles on their faces.

“You want me to set that aflame?” Navier withheld a very unladylike snort at that question from Laura. Normally, Navier would dismiss the very suggestion, however, maybe the university days-apartment brought back the lost little recklessness that she had.

The picture reminded her of everything that went down with Sovieshu - that any happiness that they could have had was a lie. Rashta. Sovieshu almost landing Kosair in prison with false accusations to stop him from airing his affair to the media. Ergi taking up the case as a favour for Heinrey of Western Co. who took interest in it for less than noble reasons. Ergi representing her in her messy messy divorce whilst she and Heinrey worked day and night together to tip the balance in their favour. He would visit her at one of her parents’ estates to discuss the cases, with a different variety of tea each time because he knew how much she loved tea.

It reminded her of everything Heinrey and how Sovieshu ruined that with his insistent slander in the media - how she had been the one to cheat first with Heinrey. It ruined Navier’s inclination to be receptive towards Heinrey’s own obvious feelings. It caused her to reluctantly cut ties with him before she left for abroad to distance herself from the media frenzy and render her legal services to a little-known non-profit.

She remembered wondering if he had moved on as quickly as the media liked to portray. She knew that Heinrey cultivated his womanizer persona for a reason. But how much was truly a persona?

Navier mentally shook her head out of the memories. She wasn’t here for Heinrey, and that was a ship that sailed two years ago. She was here to help expand the non-profit’s operations whilst she sat on the board of her father’s company alongside Kosair.

She flipped the frame around and delicately retrieved the picture from the inside. “Burn the picture,” she said mildly, “and any others of the such in here. Leave the frames though, they’re vintage.”

Laura snickered and accepted the flimsy picture from her. Navier knew that she would find relish in the task.

Navier turned to the long glass windows as she was left alone by Laura and Artina. Dawn was only approaching since Navier had been careful to arrive in the city with the dark as her cover - less chance to be ambushed by the paparazzi that way. Only four people in the city knew of her return - Kosair, her parents, and an exec at the non-profit.

Navier decided that she missed this. She used to watch the sunrise in university since she was an early riser. Sunrises were so full of warmth and hope and new beginnings - everything that Navier needed in her life at the moment - and the chirp of a bird just added to the mystique that filled her.

She froze. Chirp of a bird? Navier stood in an apartment twenty floors above the ground in the middle of a city where there were little to no trees in sight.

Navier heard it again, and her heart stopped when she realized that it came from her pocket - a text alert she customized as a joke for someone she hadn’t spoken to in years. She reached into her pocket to pull out her phone, and was disgusted to realize that her palms were sweaty.

Navier rarely sweated.

She unlocked her phone and felt her heart start and a smile split her face as her eyes fell onto the notifications.

Welcome home, my Queen.

How do you feel about blueberry tea?

[scarletwitching]

just curious, why aren’t u reading comics anymore? Is it cause wandas not in anything?

So, Ike Perlmutter... is bad.

This is hard to explain, not because I don’t know why I quit but because I cannot recall why I didn’t quit earlier. I guess it was the Spiegelman thing that did it, though that’s confusing because I remember quitting in July, not August. (2019 was 87 years ago, so who knows.) Sina Grace’s post had gone up that same summer. There was other stuff too. Things built on each other until I felt like I couldn’t justify it anymore.

It was probably inevitable. Or at least, it feels inevitable now. I considered it after the Northrop Grumman incident, but that was cancelled so fast that I didn’t even have time to process it. Things like that kept happening. I’d get mad about something, then it would whoosh by. But it was all chipping away at me. And it chipped and it chipped until one day, I was done. What’s that quote? Liking falling asleep, slowly and then all at once.

A couple of months after I quit, there was some internal role shifting that I don’t understand fully to this day, but was treated as “Feige is in charge of the comics now.” There was a lot of relief in the fandom at the time, and I remember thinking this should make me want to reconsider, it should make me want to at least wait and see if things changed. But I never seriously entertained the idea. Well over a year later, I couldn’t tell you what, if anything, changed.

Regardless, some things aren’t going to change. Did you see that photo of the guy storming the US Capitol holding zip ties? He had a Punisher logo on his chest. I’m not gonna argue about the political implications of that character or how much Marvel could actually do to put the genie back in the bottle. I’m more thinking about how, as superheroes have come to dominate pop culture, conservatives and liberals have both started adopting their iconography more and more. Remember that Dan Crenshaw ad? And the ICE tweet? I hate that shit.

The thing people love to do in this situation is insist everyone who disagrees with them is “misinterpreting” the characters and stories, but I don’t know how tenable that position is. I won’t pretend I don’t know why fascist insurrectionists love these characters. On the flip side, I can’t imagine an argument for why the person I saw call Amy McGrath “the real life Captain Marvel” is missing the point. I’d say they’re bang on the money, and I don’t mean that as a compliment. The white nationalists who think they’re vigilantes are obviously the worst (by several magnitudes). I’m not saying the cheesy liberal shit is the same as fashy right wing shit, just that I’ve grown exhausted with the way that society at large engages with these characters.

Is that the reason I quit reading Marvel comics? No, but it is a reason I haven’t started again. This stuff has become so obnoxious and omnipresent that it has tainted my feelings about the source material. Maybe part of my annoyance is that I know so much about the history of this meaningless nonsense that when I see people oversimplify it in order to slot them neatly into their own political views, I know it’s bullshit. Because it’s never as clear-cut as people make it out to be. No, Magneto was not based on Malcolm X, but yes, the Avengers kind of are ICE. But only that one time. (Fucking Hickman.)

It’s not just the general audience either. People in the supposedly enlightened part of this fandom downplay and excuse (and make snide jokes about) actual, non-fictional US war crimes under the guise of defending a fictional character. Do some people around here have any self-awareness about how embarrassing they are? It is vile the shit some of y’all will say with your whole chest, as if it’s completely divorced from the real world. The level of historical revisionism, the literal neocon talking points I have seen trotted out and presented as antiracism. I am begging certain people to PLEASE talk to an Iraqi. One (1) Iraqi. Any Iraqi. (Okay, maybe not any Iraqi.)

Actually, forget that. I don’t want to burden a single victim of US imperialism with some of y’uns, especially since you have proven time and again you cannot be reasoned with. Does that stuff affect my willingness to to buy Marvel comics? Yeah, it does. The fans may not be the company’s fault, but this attitude that real people’s suffering is just an exotic backdrop that doesn’t need to be seriously engaged with came straight from them.

More than anything, I’ve been thinking a lot about Capitalism (lol, of course, I have) and how I engage with this awful system I am forced to live in. Disney sucks. We all know it. The comic industry is exploitative. We all know it. How much do I really want to support them instead of giving my money directly to independent creators? How much more watered down, neoliberal, “more female drone operators” art do I need to experience in my life?

I’m not calling for a boycott or whatever. I don’t pretend to know how other people should live their lives. I’m not even sure how I should live my life. I just know that it’s been good for me to step back and evaluate what I spend my money on and how I feel about art that doesn’t live up to my values. Will I come back into the fold with a healthier attitude and more insight than I had before? Dunno. Will I eventually want to catch up on Immortal Hulk? Probably, but I’m guessing I’ll get it from the library when I do.

[msclaritea]

Climate change appears to be high on the agenda for tech billionaires like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates but some are questioning whether they’re focusing their efforts on the right areas.

Broadly speaking, the three richest tech billionaires — who rank in the top five richest people on the planet — are all trying to develop new technologies that can reduce the world’s carbon dioxide emissions.

Musk is largely focused on funding carbon capture technologies, Gates is particularly bullish on nuclear energy, and Bezos has created a dedicated “Bezos Earth fund.” All of them believe that technology has a major role to play in tackling climate change and they’re doing their utmost to ensure they’re pushing the boundaries when it comes to climate tech.

“They basically think in the ‘Iron Man way,’ which is that we can build the technology to innovate ourselves out of it,” Christian Kroll, the founder and CEO of search engine Ecosia, told CNBC on a video call, adding that they should be focusing more on planting trees.

“No technology will ever get there,” he said in reference to trees. “And on top of that, you’re getting so many things for free. You’re getting fertile soil, you’re doing something against the biodiversity crisis, and you’re helping the water cycle so you have less droughts and less floods.”

Global carbon dioxide emissions have soared over the last 100 years, leading to unprecedented global warming and climate change.

It’s widely known that trees are among the most efficient carbon-capture machines on earth. They remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through a chemical reaction known as photosynthesis where they turn the gas into energy that they use to grow. Empress trees, for example, can absorb about 103 tons of carbon a year per acre.

Twelve of the top 20 climate solutions relate to either agriculture or forests, according to climate non-profit Project Drawdown, which is based in San Francisco.

Last week, Britain’s Prince William underscored the importance of investing in nature to tackle climate change and protect our planet.

“We must invest in nature through reforestation, sustainable agriculture, and supporting healthy oceans, because doing so is one of the most cost effective and impactful ways of tackling climate change,” he said.

“It removes carbon from the atmosphere, helps build more resilient communities, tackles biodiversity loss, and protects people’s livelihoods. This is crucial if our children and grandchildren are to live sustainably on our precious planet.”

Jack Kelly, the founder of Open Climate Fix and a former researcher at Alphabet-owned AI lab DeepMind, told CNBC that a mix of approaches is required. “I think we need a wide range of interventions, both tech and reforestation,” he said. Open Climate Fix announced Tuesday that it has raised over £500,000 ($689,000) from Google.

Dave Waltham, a professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at Royal Holloway, University of London, told CNBC that “natural climate solutions” like tree planting can be viewed as “emergency first aid.”

“They buy us time to develop permanent solutions,” he said. “New forests, for example, absorb CO2 for 40 years or so and then reach an equilibrium. Buying time this way is immensely valuable as we still cannot produce completely climate-neutral food, steel, energy, and concrete.”

Trees and reforestation, however, are relatively low down on the tech billionaire agenda list, according to Kroll.

While the tech billionaires wouldn’t necessarily be able to “solve” climate change by planting more trees, they could have a “massive impact” if they dedicated more of their capital to the matter, he said.

According to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, Amazon founder Bezos is worth $197 billion, Tesla founder Musk is worth $181 billion, and Microsoft founder Gates is worth $145 billion.

Representatives for Musk and Gates did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment, while a representative for Bezos declined to comment.

Forests or fusion?

There’s no denying that tech billionaires are becoming increasingly interested in climate change.

In January, Tesla CEO Musk pledged to invest $100 million in new carbon capture technologies. Carbon capture is the process of trapping waste carbon dioxide either directly from the air, or just before it gets emitted from factories and power plants.

His investment in new carbon capture technologies dwarfs the $1 million he spent on trees in 2019 when he gave YouTuber Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson a donation to help him reach a $20 million tree planting target.  

Musk’s stance on climate change is complicated, however. While he runs a relatively green electric vehicle company, he has also been criticized for his love of bitcoin, which is now one of the world’s biggest CO2 emitters.

Meanwhile, Gates thinks nuclear energy is the future and his TerraPower company, which he founded in 2008, is aiming to build a fully functional advanced nuclear reactor.

In his new book “How to avoid a climate disaster,” Gates doesn’t seem to be convinced that trees are worth investing in.

“It has obvious appeal for those of us who love trees, but it opens up a very complicated subject ... its effect on climate change appears to be overblown,” he writes.

Gates argues that the most effective reforestation strategy is to stop cutting down so many of the trees we already have and says that “you’d need somewhere around 50 acres’ worth of trees planted in tropical areas to absorb the emissions produced by an average American in their lifetime.”

The Microsoft mogul clarified his stance on trees in a podcast interview with New York Times journalist Kara Swisher in February.

“If you’re going to fund for 10,000 years constantly replanting it, then that’s a legitimate offset,” said Gates. “If you’re just planting one generation of trees, it doesn’t get you much. You know, I’m not saying it’s a mistake or anything. But that will not make a significant dent in this problem.”

Gates, who is now the largest owner of farmland in the U.S., added: “The idea that there’s a place to plant a trillion trees, that’s just wrong.”

Elsewhere, Bezos created the $10 billion Bezos Earth Fund last February to provide financial support to scientists, non-governmental organizations, activists and the private sector.

So far, the Bezos Earth Fund has issued grants to several organizations that focus on reforestation including Eden Reforestation Projects, The Nature Conservancy, and The Natural Resources Defense Council.

Amazon, however, has been criticized for increasing pollution with its planes and vans, and for using excessive amounts of cardboard when packaging its products. Amazon says that its packaging is 100% renewable and that it doesn’t use plastic clamshells and wire ties.

Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud computing behemoth, and Microsoft also operate energy intensive data centers around the world.

Turning profits in plants

But Kroll thinks the tech billionaires are still relatively “obsessed” with dreaming up new technologies to take on the problem.

His company, Ecosia, has made tree planting a major part of its identity.

Headquartered in Berlin, Ecosia donates 80% of its profits to charities that focus on reforestation. Essentially, if a person goes on the Ecosia search engine and performs a search, almost all of the money that the company makes from digital ads will be used to plant trees.

The company has partnered with over 60 tree planting organizations who have planted over 123 million trees, Kroll said, adding that they’re mostly in developing countries in the tropics.

“Through our tree planting, each search is removing around 1kg of CO2 from the atmosphere,” said Kroll. “I’m doing dozens of searches every day so thousands of searches every year. That’s a few tons of CO2 removed from the atmosphere just by searching.”

Kroll suggested that people should only be classed as billionaires when they remove a billion tons of CO2 from the atmosphere.

“All the others are just dollar billionaires,” he said. “That’s boring. We don’t need that in a 21st century anymore.

[kisskissbanggang]

The Sabotage of Simkung House pt. 5 — The Finale

[Stray Kids Multi Fic - 40Min Read/11.2K Words - Bang Chan x Female Reader - Non-Idol!au, Variety!au - NSFW/Smut, Plot - Reverse Harems, Variety Shows, Unfolding Plot, Suspicion, Scheming, Hostages, Overstimulation, Playing Pretend, Camboys, Secret Hook-Ups]

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Masterlist | Feedback

>>I’m watching the raw feed did I just see you leave?

>>If you don’t want to get us in a mountain of trouble you need to get back to set NOW. 

You sighed at Felix’s berating on the screen in your hand, shifting uncomfortably in your heels where you stood in the cool night on the sidewalk. The house was only a block behind you. Looming. You took stock of what you had on you. You had the clothes on your back, your phone, and your apron balled up in your first, with your panties still shoved in the pocket. As if you hadn’t been thinking on your feet most of this time already, you needed to come up with something fast. You kept walking. 

>I had to leave. You saw what happened back there. 

>>NOW. 

>I walked off in such a frenzy that I’m lost like a complete idiot. Please come get me. I don’t want to get in trouble. 

You weren’t lost. You remembered a cute cafe that might be open late a few blocks away. If you hurried you could get there with enough time to look like you were waiting. 

>Please Felix? I need you. 

You paused on the sidewalk now. If Felix didn’t get back to you, you would need a new plan. 

>>Okay. Tell me where you are and stay put.

Somehow, Felix took longer than expected to come get you, but the reason became apparent as a company car rolled up. For some reason you had been expecting him to come by himself instead of in a company car with a driver. Felix didn’t roll the window down, instead beckoning you inside with a curt wave of his hand. You looked grateful as you sat beside him and let out a giant sigh as the car lurched forward. The time on your phone let you know you’d only been out of the house for an hour. Felix was dressed casually, still in a buttoned shirt with jeans. You could imagine him back at his place, languidly watching the raw feed after an already long day of work. 

“Thank you, really,” you gushed, “I was freaking out.”

“Me, too,” Felix exhaustedly laughed. He reclined limply against the back of the seat. “What happened, exactly?”

“It was stupid,” you sighed, and you weren’t exaggerating now. “Hyunjin and Jisung got into a fight. Over me. It was so childish.”

“Well, then, congratulations.” 

“Congratulations? Is that sarcastic?”

“Nope,” Felix shook his head, “you may have lost 60 million each since they found out about each other, but you remember that secret prize level I told you about?”

You gawked at Felix, leaning up against your seatbelt. “That’s cruel.”

“That’s true,” Felix grimaced. “You got 70 million won each because they fought over it. It’s cruel, and it’s true, and you signed up for it without asking more questions.”

You sank back against the seat, miserable. “I wonder why Jeongin didn’t intervene.”

Felix shrugged. “He was probably being careful.”

“Is that part of why the boys don’t know who Jeongin is?”

His shrug renewed. “He really is only there for you and the equipment. The boys are taken care of.”

You had to think quickly if you wanted more answers, better answers, answers that could help stoke this fire that was burning up under you. The questions that had been stacking up had to tip over at some point and you were resolved to find out what you could, however you could. As for right now, the most pressing issue was how the hell anyone in this supposedly on-the-level production let you sleep with Jisung under the impression that he wasn’t a virgin. You felt taken advantage of, but Jisung was flat out exploited. No first-time performer knows what they’re getting into as is, and Jisung knew even less. You wanted answers, and you were going to get them. You sympathetically put a hand on Felix’s. 

“How about you? Are you taken care of? I appreciate you coming to get me.”

“I’m just doing my job,” Felix shook his head as he eyed your hand. “I would do anything for you.”

The car pulled up to the front of the house. You checked the time on your phone and took a solid, confident breath before you pulled on a sweet smile. “Do you want to come inside? The boys are all going to be asleep by now. I still have my mic pack and I don’t want to go to the attic by myself in the dark.”

“Er,” Felix bit at his lip, considering you as you opened the car door and waited, “no problem.” He took your offered hand and let you lead him up the steps to the front door. 

As quiet and dark as the house was, you still didn’t expect to find the attic completely silent as you opened the door. In all the excitement, Jeongin must have taken the opportunity to leave and try to find you. You closed the attic door before taking Felix by the hand and leading him to a small couch in the corner that the assistants and writers normally lounged on during downtime. Felix watched you carefully, even as he let you seat him on the couch. His breath cutely caught in his throat as you sat beside him, leaning into his space and letting him get the idea as your lips ghosted over his. It was almost sweet, nearly innocent, with how he instantly grew hard from your hand just resting high on his thigh. 

Felix almost squealed as you roughly grabbed onto his erection, only silenced by your hand clamped over his mouth. He stared at you wildly in the dimly lit room, his whimpers muffled by your palm. 

“What the hell kind of gonzo operation are you running here having me sleep with a virgin without any prior knowledge?” You hissed. Felix bit into your hand and slid out from under you. He landed on the floor with a thud and you quickly pounced on top of him, wrestling him around until you got a hold on him. You whipped Felix’s belt out from his jeans and lassoed it around his wrists behind his back before manhandling him up, grunting as you shoved him onto a chair from in front of the control console. With a confrontation like yours and a response like his, there was no way this was some huge misunderstanding. 

“Who’s a virgin?” Felix panted. 

“Jisung,” you growled, eyes narrowed. 

“He never mentioned that to us,” Felix shook his head. 

“Right, and none of them watch porn,” you scoffed. Felix shrugged helplessly. You spied another cord to bind Felix’s tied wrists to the chair backing. Finding two more in the grip’s toolbag, you were able to bind his ankles as well. He wasn’t even struggling, but you couldn’t be too careful. “I have more questions, and I’m sure I’m not the only one,” you warned, when you heard a buzzing emanating from Felix’s pocket. You reached forward, digging into his jeans for his phone. It was a text from Jeongin. 

>>I could’ve sworn I was on her trail. 

You eyed Felix and he stared you down, challenging you and ultimately unable to stop you as you began typing. 

>It’s fine. I found her. I don’t see your stuff at the house so I’m guessing you took it. Get some rest and I’ll deal with this.

>>Are you sure?

>Yes. I got it. 

“You stay put,” you warned.

“What’s stopping me from calling for help?” Felix smirked at you, unimpressed until you casually unfurled your apron, dropped in the scuffle, and pulled out your used panties. You stuffed them in his mouth before you found a roll of gaff tape.

“I saw a roll of packing tape over there,” you taunted, “tell me how many cameras and mics are in the house and I’ll use that instead.”

Felix’s knee bounced nervously as he stared at the gaff tape in your hand. He pathetically spit out your panties. “Your show doesn’t have any dedicated mics, only the on-board audio on the cameras. Three each in the common areas and your room, one in each hallway, one in each bathroom pointed away from the toilet, one in the laundry room, and one in each bedroom.”

“Night vision?”

Felix shook his head defeatedly. 

“That’s such shitty coverage,” you smirked, “and here I was thinking there were more I hadn’t noticed.”

“Nope,” Felix grumbled, “just a tight budget.”

“You stay put,” you directed as you strolled over to the table on the other side of the room and grabbed the roll of packing tape, “and you stay quiet.” 

You shucked off your heels and softly clicked the attic door closed behind you before you navigated your way through the dark house. Thankfully, being here and getting so familiar with the set over time helped you know where everything was, every jutting edge and squeaky spot in the floor. You didn’t predict that your paranoia would make every creak of the house unsettling, though. 

Chan was bleary-eyed and bruised as he opened the door, and nearly exclaimed when he realized it was you. You pressed a serious finger against his lips as you pushed him back into his room and shut the door behind you. He watched curiously as you looked around his room until you came to his desk. You surreptitiously knocked over a wireless speaker while reaching for the lamp and quickly dropped a blanket onto the fallen device, adding a pillow for good measure. 

“Did you know there was a camera hidden in your room?” You asked. In the light you could see Chan was actually still icing a bruise on his chin from the brawl earlier. He stared. 

“Sure, but I was told the crew would always let me know me when it’s on.”

“Apparently not,” you shook your head. “I need your help. I have a problem.”

“Anything,” Chan eagerly said as he stepped forward earnestly. You stepped back away. He winced, almost as if he was burned by an iron he didn’t realize was still hot. 

“I need to know what you know. I need to know I can trust you.”

Chan bit at his lip before he tiredly sat on the bed. He reached for his hoodie and pulled it on over his bare chest, zipping it up and snuggling into it. The sigh he let out felt preparatory. “I thought you looked familiar on the first day,” he began carefully, “but I wasn’t sure. I’d only ever seen parts of your face at once, you know? And I had to lie through my teeth and scrub my portfolio clean to even get this gig, like I already graduated two years ago, but I still said I’m younger in case they wanted younger. The big thing they sold me as the hook was that there was going to be a staff member casted to try and trip us up during the show. I thought that was exciting. And everyone thought it was the cook, because of course they did. And, I don’t know…”

“You thought it was me?” You smirked. The cook was outrageously villainous-looking, with severe features and a ridiculous mustache to boot. 

“Yes, I thought the cook was too obvious,” Chan admitted shamefully, drawing his hands up into his sleeves before burying his face in them for a moment. “So I kept my distance. That morning you joined us for yoga, I knew it was you, and you were plotting something, I was so sure of it. Later that night I went to go see if I could find anything out and—“

“Me and Changbin?”

“You and Changbin,” Chan rubbed his face in his hands again. “And I knew for sure that I recognized you, because of, you know… your moaning. I at least know how you sound. It was unmistakably you, but I couldn’t tell you I’m me. I thought it was a crazy coincidence, being here with you, but I was afraid of anyone finding out and me getting kicked off the show.”

“So you knew it was me. What then?” You asked patiently as you pulled out the chair for his desk. There wasn’t a ton of time, but you had time for this.

“The next morning we had that challenge right at dawn. And we all had hints planted for us when we woke up, and you remember Minho had the red herring?”

You shrugged, vaguely remembering something along those lines earlier in the series. Chan charged on. 

“The hints could’ve only been planted overnight, and you were, er, busy. You went to bed and I didn’t hear you come out before I gave up and went to sleep.” 

You watched, almost touched by how clearly Chan was upset with himself, refusing to look at you as he fidgeted with his fingers, the zipper of his hoodie, your necklace he was still wearing.

“Originally, when Changbin was first wondering about you, I made up that thing about you wanting more screen time. I just didn’t want him to flirt with you. I didn’t want your big break to be filled with guys being creeps.”

“How ironic,” you mused. 

“The more I saw you flirting with the guys, the more weird I felt about it. Something felt so off, and I was so on edge and paranoid, that I started to wonder if maybe you were that person, maybe you did want extra screen time or something. I had the brilliant idea to confront you in the attic, but I didn’t expose you or anything, I was only making an ass out of myself because I knew you were telling the truth as soon as you said it. I knew I was wrong. I was just being an asshole.”

A thought suddenly came to mind. “So the other night? When you were listening in on me?”

Chan flopped back into his bed in exasperation. “I was trying to see if it was a good time to talk, hopefully apologize.”

He sat back up, his head falling right back into his hands. You gingerly leaned forward to pick his head up. You’d imagined this, something like this, innocuous touches like this. It was odd to think just a night ago you didn’t know you’d actually be doing this with someone you’d known for years but never met. 

“I’m so sorry,” he lamented as he leaned into your hand, “I hope I didn’t ruin acting too much for you. I’m an awful friend.”

“No,” you sighed, and you meant it. “I wanted to expand my acting resume, sure, but you knew I’d been wanting to try expanding my AV career more. I took the gig mostly for that.”

“What do you mean?” Chan stared blankly at you, head lifted from your hand. You stared back. 

“What do you mean?”

“What does this show have to do with your AV career?”

You shook your head, flabbergasted. “It doesn’t have anything to do with it. At least, your show doesn’t. Mine entirely does.”

“Your show?”

Chan leaned forward as you leaned back, both of you with your lips parted in grand-scale confusion until you realized. And then you were furious. 

“I told you I have a problem. You need to come upstairs. Right now.”

You pulled Chan along by the sleeve in the dark hallway and back up the stairs to the attic. He almost yelled when he saw Felix tied and gagged in the chair. You shut the door behind you. Chan was frozen, hand over his mouth in surprise. This looked bad, you realized. You took out your phone and played an audio clip. Felix’s voice crackled out of your phone, explaining how much money you’d won for inspiring the fight earlier that night. Chan’s face was cryptic. 

“Do you know who this is?” You asked him. Chan barely shook his head as he still tried to process everything. “He knows who you are. Felix is the assistant to the executive producer of my show. Maybe yours, too. I have no idea, since I’ve never met either of them.”

“What exactly,” Chan murmured, “is your show?”

“Simkung House,” you sighed, arms folded. You felt so tired, so sore. “One lucky housekeeper has to try and seduce five young bachelors during a show they’re filming, without them finding out about each other.” You peeled off Felix’s gag and pulled your panties from his lips to drop them on the floor. “And tonight I fucked a virgin without my knowing.”

Chan watched the deep frown etching into your face. You could see his fists clenching by his side. “Who—“

“Jisung, apparently,” Felix rasped with a weak smile. “Tonight’s episode is yesterday, so tomorrow our paying audience is going to watch you take that nice right hook to the face he gave you.”

The slap Chan landed across Felix’s cheek reverberated in the attic before you could stop him, pressing your hands into the rough rise and fall of his chest as he seethed. Chan still elbowed past you and grabbed Felix by the collar of his shirt, pulling him against his bindings. “I have some questions,” he growled, “the first being why you didn’t get talent that actually fucking do porn.”

“Nice guard dog,” Felix laughed meanly as he looked at you, “does he do any tricks?”

“Yeah, I know a pretty fucking good one,” Chan gritted as he cocked his hand back into a fist this time. 

“It wasn’t my fucking idea,” Felix spat, “but performers like her cost too much. The execs decided it was easier to hide clauses in your contracts.”

“Oh,” Chan scoffed, “so I could’ve gotten more money if you pricks were on the level.”

“Felix,” you stepped in, “what’s the bigger reason for you to use no-names and actors who never did AV’s? It can’t just be for authenticity. There’s too much liability. They don’t know how this all works.”

Felix wriggled in Chan’s grip as he eyed you warily. “Liability isn’t an issue if you sign it all away. Control and authenticity, that’s what we wanted. You were the most knowledgeable of the cast aside from maybe him and even then you both didn’t check all the clauses closely enough. Liability was defined as consequences and results of the show, and we’re absolved. None of you have good management, if any.”

Chan dropped Felix back into the chair, roughly enough that he tipped onto the floor with a crash. Neither of you paid him much mind as you leaned back against the console table with your arms folded. Chan was fuming as he paced with his hands on his hips. “You used her, and you used us, so give me a good reason why we shouldn’t walk right this second.”

“Because of your contracts, idiots. If you talk or walk, no one gets their winnings, on either show, and the producers have the right to sue for damages.”

“Winnings? We’re mostly getting tuition and grants,” Chan retorted.

“Not her,” Felix grinned. “She has 500 million won on the line.”

Chan’s head whipped toward you, slack-jawed. You nodded. In comparison, it was insulting. You looked up at Chan, who stopped his pacing to look at you. “You ever bundle up a bunch of blankets to look like you’re still in bed and then sneak out?” 

“Sure,” Chan said, distracted by clearly wanting to beat up Felix still turtled on the floor, “why?”

“The cameras don’t have night vision. I’ll cut the lights in case anything is still on, and you get the boys. Don’t use your flashlights. We all need to talk.”

You walked over to the breaker box on the wall and opened it, flipping everything off but the attic. Chan nodded, giving Felix a wary look before creeping downstairs. 

Felix let out a disgruntled sigh below you. “Didn’t you slap the shit out of him earlier? I saw it in the raw feed. I thought you hated him.”

“No, I’m just mad at him,” you grumbled. 

“Hyung, it’s three in the fucking morning,” Changbin tiredly groaned as the boys filed in behind Chan. He had his arms crossed over the thin tank top barely shielding him from the cool air of the attic. Minho was still wearing a sleeping mask, pulled up onto his forehead. Hyunjin was sporting a dark bruise on his cheek to mirror the one on Jisung’s. Both the younger cast members looked particularly hurt, but in different directions — Hyunjin’s contempt versus Jisung’s heartbreak. All four boys froze as they took notice of you standing over Felix tied up on the floor. 

“Apparently,” you sighed, “we’re not all on the same page. This is Felix.” You looked down and matched his nasty look. “Explain, dirtbag.”

Felix muttered under his breath before grumbling out the story as you all understood it — who he was, you were, the separate shows, the shady contracts, and your exorbitant prize at stake. You and Chan filled in the other pertinent details. The hurt in their eyes was heartbreaking, realizing they’d been played when they thought they each had your attention all to themselves. Bruised egos and hurt feelings and fear all around. They’d all shot porn without knowing it, and most of them had already had their scenes broadcasted. The boys all stood astounded and silent as Felix finished his story until Minho finally piped up, towards Chan. 

“Hyung, they told you there would be a saboteur and you still didn’t think it was the cook?”

“It was too obvious!” Chan reeled, “and none of you knew?”

The boys collectively shook their heads.

“We were trying to make sure you would take the lead in the show, but we didn’t predict you to make it interesting by being stupid,” Felix sneered up at Chan, cut off into a yelp as he kicked at the chair. 

“So if any of us walk, we all lose everything?” Changbin asked. 

“Fine,” Jisung muttered, “you all do what you want, but that’s what I’m doing.” He turned to walk down the stairs and the remaining boys exchanged looks. 

Chan folded his arms. “I think it’s the best thing to do, too. We’ve all been used.”

“No,” you shook your head, “we may have all been used, but I think the best thing to do then is wring these monsters dry. I’ll split the prize money.”

“Is that all?” Hyunjin glowered before Changbin shushed him. 

“If you can all last today and finish the show, then I can, too,” you assured them. “I’m sorry for everything.”

“It sucks,” Minho shrugged, “but we understand. I do, at least. You were playing the game. You just didn’t know you were playing by yourself. I’ll stay.” Changbin and Hyunjin grumbled in reluctant agreement. 

You gave Minho a grateful smile. “We should get some rest then. I’ll talk to Jisung.” 

The boys sleepily trudged back downstairs but Chan hung back and detached Felix from his chair. Felix spilled onto the floor, wrists still tied. Chan rolled him onto his stomach with his foot before dropping down to sit on his back, trapping Felix against the hardwood. 

“I know your plan now,” Felix grumbled into the floor. “What’s keeping me from outing you?”

“Because you’re just an assistant,” you pitifully shook your head at Felix as you lowered to squat down in front of him. You spoke in plain English now. Felix was the first to fixate on your multiple languages, and you’d always assumed it was at least partly spurred on by his own. Chan’s eyebrows quirked at the switch. You reached forward and grabbed Felix’s bound wrists, pulling them up and away from his back enough to make him grunt in discomfort. Chan watched, half curious, half goading as you kept a firm hold on him. “You’re just an assistant, Felix, and we’re not the only ones held hostage by this show. You’re such a good boy for the Big Boss that the moment something goes wrong, he’ll pin everything on you.”

Felix struggled hard under Chan’s weight and your hold. “Fuck you! I’ve put a lot of time into this—“

“Exactly, Felix,” you chided. You did drop his wrists now but lifted his chin to look at you. His English was cute. It was too bad he was a creep. “You put so much time into both these shows. You helped with casting and keeping production on time and within budget, you probably helped with costuming and product placement and location scouting and writing. You have your hands in a lot of pots. What I have are multiple texts of you being a flirty creep. And I have you recorded saying you would do anything for me and even come into the house with me.”

“Pig,” Chan shook his head disgustedly as he lifted Felix’s wrists behind his back himself this time, straining him until Felix cried out and you slapped Chan’s hands off. 

You brought Felix’s chin up to look at you again. “If you’re proud of your work, then let us finish the shows. You’ll get your credit. If this ever does come to a head, I’ll destroy the recording and say I was encouraging you to flirt with me from our first meeting. But if you rat on us, the Big Boss will throw you to the wolves when we tear this down and there will be no help for you.”

Felix looked hard into your eyes, the pain of his choice apparent as he reluctantly nodded. You waited patiently for him to say something. 

“Fine.”

You reached forward to untie Felix and motioned for Chan to let him up. Felix cracked his neck and massaged his wrists. You found yourself fixing the collar of his shirt as Chan carefully watched. “Thanks, Felix.”

Felix held his hand out expectantly and you thought he meant for you to shake it before you realized you were still holding his phone and belt. You placed them back in his hand, hoping the deadly look in your eye reminded him how serious you were. He sighed miserably, looking between you and Chan before silently turning to walk downstairs. 

Now it was just you and Chan. You collected your panties from the floor before you walked over to the breaker box and flipped everything downstairs into the proper place. Your feet were sore as you slipped your shoes back on. 

“I know I said we should walk,” Chan said as he gathered the bungee cords and put the chair back in its place, “but I admire you splitting the money.”

“Could’ve had more to split,” you tersely shrugged as you took the cords from him and put them back where you found them. You gave him a pointed look. Chan winced as you breezed past him and down the stairs. 

You could’ve checked Jisung’s room to find him, but your feet brought you down to the study. Sure enough, there was Jisung, looking over the books on the shelves. 

“You going to miss it?”

“Sure,” Jisung shrugged, “it’s my first show. Just last month I found out about the audition after my improv show one night, and now I’m being humiliated in front of a paying audience.”

“Jisung,” you lamented as you set a hand on his shoulder. He regarded it warily. 

“I know you were just playing the game as you understood it,” Jisung sighed, “but my pride is hurt. All those people are going to watch me lose my virginity and get into my first fistfight.”

“That was your first? You don’t punch like it was your first,” you gave a light smile, and he eventually returned it. 

“If you’re giving me a performance review, did I seem like a virgin?”

“Not at all,” you shook your head, “you’re great. You keep surprising me.”

“Thanks,” Jisung said quietly. 

“Help me make this work,” you pleaded. “It’s not enough, but we’ll take home some extra money for our trouble. Please stay, and then you can forget about me and the show forever. I’ll leave you out of the aftermath as much as possible.”

Jisung meditated on it for a moment. “What if I don’t want to forget about you?”

“Then I’ll come see you when you go back to doing improv, maybe sit in on your campaign back home,” you reasoned sweetly, and it made him give up a wider grin. 

“I’ll stay, then,” Jisung decided. “After all, it’s just acting.” You let out a thankful sigh and cautiously drew Jisung to you, careful that he might still be cold to you, and gently hugged him close. As he eventually returned the gesture, you softened and kissed his cheek goodnight before heading downstairs. 

A glint in the light of the basement caught your eye as you neared your bedroom. Chan’s necklace hung on the doorknob. You held it in your hand, the light material heavy with the events of the day. There were still DM’s from Chan you hadn’t even read yet, and you eyed your phone suspiciously from where it sat on your blankets as you changed for bed. Finally, you allowed yourself to look through your notifications. You felt oddly bashful as you scrolled too far, up to the video he’d sent you the other night. Words were escaping you, attached to feelings that hadn’t even picked a shape to form into. However, you knew something needed to be said.

>I may have been too mean up there. I understand why you were being a dick for the most part. 

>>I have been such an asshole. I’ve been out of line since day one.

>You were playing your own one-sided game, too. And with an extra obstacle thrown in. 

>>Thanks for not saying anything to the guys, by the way. 

>Too many surprises for one night. Do they even know you speak English?

>>Do they know YOU speak English? They know I’m older than I said, but I don’t think they know I’m older than you. They don’t know my real name. 

>Well I know you speak English, and I know you’re older than me. Do I get to know your real name?

>>Chris. 

>I like that. It’ll be weird to get used to, though. 

>>How about Chan is an asshole, but I’m Chris. 

>Nice try. Get some sleep. 

>>I should’ve told you the moment I was sure. I’m sorry. Goodnight. 

🎥🖤🎥🖤🎥🖤🎥

What little sleep you’d received couldn’t even be bolstered by the incredible amount of coffee you swallowed the next morning. You caught Chan doing the same over the lip of your mug and he choked on his coffee, ears reddening as he went to finish getting ready. The other boys looked just as puzzled at Chan’s outburst. Minho was quiet as he slid up next to you at the counter in the kitchen, letting the rest of the room talk over him. 

“Porn, huh?” He wasn’t judgmental, he wasn’t rude. He was simply curious. He watched you carefully nod into your mug. “It’s good? You enjoy it?”

You nodded again. “Do you mind?”

“No,” Minho smiled, “I’m a little jealous, but that’s not your fault. I’m just glad you didn’t sleep with Hyunjin just because you wanted to. He’s been so dramatic about the whole thing.”

You tried not to laugh too loudly, settling instead for another helping of coffee. 

“Who was best?” Minho smirked at you. “Objectively speaking, of course. Was it Channie-hyung?”

You did laugh now, but tried to keep it down. You shook your head. “I didn’t sleep with Chan.”

“Ah,” Minho smiled, “so I was probably the best.”

The two of you shared a snickered laugh between you before you set about the rest of the day. Truly, it was a bizarre experience. You and the boys all shared looks like you all knew something was running in the background. They were hyper-aware. Some of their actions and banter seemed stilted, distracted. Jisung had to run a line five times because his mind was so firmly somewhere else. Not to mention Minho and Changbin would not stop looking at you, and Chan was back on his trajectory of nervously avoiding you altogether. 

Chan also happened to be where you were the most lost. You were still hurt, of course, that hadn’t changed, but you were conflicted. Here was this guy, this friend, this confidant that you’d known for so long, but now an unexpected series of events put a strain on that relationship, on that trust. You were confident that guy was still in there, but you couldn’t quite make an estimate on when you would be open to returning to that. Despite all logic saying otherwise, you almost hoped it would be soon. However, if he kept avoiding you, whether for shame or shyness, you wouldn’t get it in the near future. 

You were still keeping up appearances, even so close to wrapping the show, taking care of the odd chore here and there and helping the boys pack. You were heading to Jisung and Hyunjin’s room to fix the beds when a hand shot out from the bathroom and grabbed you. Changbin held a finger to his lips as he did the same to yours while Minho leaned over and turned on the shower to its hottest and hardest setting, quickly filling the room with steam and the minor roar of running water. The three of you were huddled by the toilet, with Changbin letting you go so he could sit up on top of the tank and Minho leaned against the sink. The boys signaled for you to be quiet until the door opened again. It was Hyunjin. All three boys reached for their mic packs to turn them off and Hyunjin crowded in beside you. 

“You didn’t sleep with Channie-hyung,” Minho said quietly as he eyed the camera, apparently hidden in a vanity light over the mirror. 

“Yeah,” you ogled, “so?”

“So, noona,” Changbin explained, “that puts us in the odd predicament of—“

“We want that money,” Hyunjin blurted. 

“We want that money,” Minho confirmed.

“What?!”

All three boys pounced on you to quiet your outburst. 

Minho was the first to pipe back up. “Noona, you said it yourself. You want to wring these monsters dry. We’re not exactly doing that if you don’t run away with all the money you can. Don’t you want to win?”

“I am not sleeping with Chan,” you laughed tepidly. 

“Why not? He’s crazy about you,” Hyunjin reeled, “at least, I hope he is with how he acts about you. Otherwise he’s a lunatic.”

“Well I’m not crazy about him,” you insisted. 

“Then it’s work! It’s work like you were hired to do in this stupid game,” Changbin persisted. “What did Chan-hyung ever do to you?”

“Aside from being a creep?” You deadpanned. The boys all looked a bit guilty. You knew they were right, but you hated how much personal bullshit was in the way. “Besides, what would you even be doing with your shares? Hyunjin, you’re fucking rich.”

“And I’m very fucking close to being cut off by my parents when they find out where I’ve been this whole time,” Hyunjin retorted, “which is not at a couple conventions for school like they currently think.”

“Jisung isn’t rich,” Minho pressed, “he wants to open a game bar with his friends and needs a starting investment. I’m not rich either and while I would appreciate tuition to finish culinary school, tuition won’t help me move to Japan to keep training.”

“Well?” You looked at Changbin, exasperated. “Go on, then, tell me the awesome thing you’re doing with your share.”

“It’s a nest egg for my physical therapy doctorate,” Changbin admitted. 

You let out a thorough groan. “Well, I can’t do it,” you flippantly explained, “and even if I did, I don’t have a plan.”

All three boys beamed at you, but Minho looked particularly proud. “We do.”

🎥🖤🎥🖤🎥🖤🎥

Finding Chan wasn’t difficult once you figured out his game. Whatever his reason was for avoiding you, you at least knew he would be doing his laundry again before he finished packing. You listened carefully in your room, waiting for footsteps to travel from his room down to the basement. This lined up with how you were sure you caught him coming down here earlier in the day. You stepped lightly, trying not to let your heels click on the floor as you let yourself in. Sure enough, there was Chan, oblivious as he finished loading his laundry into the dryer. It took him shutting the door to the machine to finally see you still standing at the doorway. You quietly pulled the door closed behind you. 

Chan stood, surprised and silent while he waited for you to do something, say something. His eyes were on your fingers, watching as they gathered at the top of your blouse and plucked open the top button. Chan gulped. His throat apparently ran dry. 

“What’re you—“

“Oppa,” you said clearly as you eyed the camera in the back of the room, “I’m sorry for yesterday. I was so intimidated when you revealed your age to me, but I know you only told me because you want to trust me. I want you to know you can. I trust you, too.”

It was cheesy and ridiculous and entirely unsubstantiated, enough so that Chan was bewildered as he checked the settings on the dryer and surreptitiously scanned the room to find the camera you were clearly acting for. He found it, nestled amongst the detergents and cleaning products on the shelves lining the back of the room. Chan rigidly turned back to see you undo the next button on your blouse. He visibly swallowed again before he started the dryer, the machine instantly broadcasting a solid hum as he warily approached you. 

“What’re you doing?” He asked quietly as you worked at the third button. His ears burned crimson when you switched off your mic pack and drew him close, sliding your hands around his waist and doing the same for his, flicking the tiny black switch. 

“I trust you,” you breathed, “do you trust me?” Chan nodded timidly. You looked up at him, your gaze meeting his and you could swear you could hear your heart thumping. Maybe his, too. You leaned forward first. He hesitated. His fingers swept your hair back like they had the previous night, only cautiously now. The pouty lips that inspired his username were parted, almost as if Chan wanted to say something, but instead closed the gap between your mouths as he finally kissed you. 

You’d pictured this more than a few times, being kissed by Duckie — Chris — Chan — but you still hadn’t predicted how passionate this would feel, how he would groan low in his throat the moment you reciprocated as if he’d been craving it. 

“Are you sure?” Chan murmured. He waited for your shallow nod before he kissed you again, his firm hands gently pressing you against the door and his parted lips grazing your neck. “Any rules?” 

“Yeah,” you smirked, “make it look good.”

“Got it,” Chan laughed quietly, but even then he was surprised as you pushed him back and started working at the buttons of his shirt. He charged ahead and pulled off his blazer and shirt for you, dropping them to the floor and you found yourself suddenly confronted once again with this chest that you were very familiar with. You attempted to convince yourself that you were just making it look good, but you knew damn well that the camera could not see as you took a moment to run your hands over him, letting your fingers roam the dips and planes of his body. It was a surreal experience, walking your fingers along the lines of his arms, his torso, his hips, previously only committed to memory from pictures and videos. Chan capitalized on your distraction to take over in finishing undoing the buttons of your shirt, but even then his hands hesitated to open your blouse more until you finally came back around and did it for him. 

If Chan was going to be as gentle as you predicted, you’d known you would have to wind him up. You had reviewed the entire Rolodex of mental notes you’d taken since knowing him before even coming in here, and hopefully it would pay off. Mostly, you’d hoped it would successfully rile him up, but you had to admit you mostly wanted to see his focus set entirely on you. Your hands swept up his arms to his neck to pull him close for another deep kiss, the speed of the gesture making you fall back against the door with him in tow. Chan instantly grunted at the move, especially as your knee rubbed up against his thigh. His hands were quick to respond, and you gasped as he grabbed your leg, wrapping you around him so he could press against you. He paused as he felt the garter holding up your stocking, intrigued by the discovery. Chan leaned away, enough that you could see his impressed smirk. You’d tried to remember every piece of lingerie, every hairstyle, every nuance of your makeup he’d ever complimented, just in case he’d needed any extra convincing, but that apparently wasn’t so necessary as he dropped your leg and pulled you along to back you up against the washing machine. 

You were excited to see if Chan could think on his feet as much as you had been, and he didn’t fail to surprise you as he hazarded a quick glance at the camera to make sure you were both positioned at a good angle for coverage before he reached forward and brazenly unzipped your skirt. He watched with satisfaction as the garment fell to the floor, better revealing your garters and the panties that smartly complemented your bra. His gaze wasn’t just hungry, it almost looked affectionate, and you didn’t even know what to do with that realization before he thankfully interrupted it by easily picking you up and pushing you on top of the washing machine. Chan swept your hair back before he kissed you again, his hands gliding over around your waist and behind you to unclip and slip off your bra. You let out a content sigh as his lips trailed over your neck and shoulders, only stopping as he caught you unbuckling his belt. Chan kicked off his shoes and slacks, but suddenly put a hand on yours as you dipped your fingers into the waistband of his boxer briefs. 

“I swear to god,” he laughed into your shoulder as he kissed you there again, “do not make me get naked on this show.”

You couldn’t contain your giggle and Chan quickly stifled you with another kiss to your lips, planting a trail of kisses down your chin and throat, down between your cleavage and down over your stomach before his warm breath ghosted over your soaked pussy. He tugged your panties off and let them drop to the floor before he grasped at the straps of your garters on your thighs, spreading you open and slinging your legs over his shoulders as he finally placed a kiss to your soft pussy lips. Your groans echoed each other as his tongue explored you, getting to know you on this new level as his hands hungrily grabbed onto you, rubbing affectionate little circles into your thighs with his thumbs. Somehow, it almost seemed like Chan also remembered some notes of his own as you felt his fingers probe against your entrance. He wasn’t fast with the thrusting digits, just like you liked it, as he slowly scissored them in and out of you in contrast with his quick tongue.

Chan held you down as you writhed against his mouth and fingers, easily making you sit and take it while he worked you into a breathless mess, and you could feel the seeds of an orgasm being planted. You quickly dismissed the thought; getting too caught up in the idea would put too much pressure to finish, especially with him. This, however, didn’t seem to be an issue that occurred to him as he continued to goad you into cumming, his other hand snaking up your belly and between your breasts to gently grip your throat. He didn’t squeeze, he really only placed his hand possessively around your neck — just the way you wanted it. You might’ve casually mentioned that to him, once, months ago, and that realization was what sent you over the edge into a shuddering orgasm, whining and whimpering as you threaded your fingers into Chan’s hair and tugged since he still wouldn’t let you grind your hips against or away from his tongue. 

Chan finally pulled back, chin glistening and a satisfied smirk on his face as he came up for air and stood to straighten his back out. You caught your breath while you looked him over, his flushed cheeks apparent even through his light makeup and still contrasting with the pretty shade of pink that had spread through him, down to his chest and further down still to Chan’s rigid erection still concealed in his boxer briefs. From prior knowledge, you were sure his length was blushing as well and fit to leak precum at any moment. You caught each other’s eye, exposed in ogling each other and inexplicably bashful from it before you broke the tension and sat up on the washing machine to hop off onto the floor. Chan watched, patiently curious as you switched places now and pushed him back against the machine. His pupils were blown wide with arousal, taking in the sight of you pulling out his cock into your warm grip and, sure enough, it was cutely red and leaking the moment you felt it bare in your hand. Chan choked out a shivered moan as you gently stroked him. 

You leaned up now, meeting his gaze before you kissed him deep, your tongue languidly swiping against his before you pulled back, just enough to make a show of letting a single drip of saliva fall from your lips and onto his cock in your hand before massaging it onto his length — just the way he liked it. Chan leaned forward, resting his head on your shoulder as you firmly stroked his cock, his moans almost pretty and restrained as he clenched his fists. He apparently didn’t want too much, his head leaning back once as he let out a thick groan before he grabbed your hips again, now impatiently bending you over the washing machine. The soft, slick head of Chan’s cock pressed up against your sensitive pussy lips before prodding into your entrance. You could hear him let out a steady breath, punctuated with his gripping fingers on your hip as he teased the length inside you. He bottomed out with a content sigh and, with the angle figured out, he pulled at your elbow to hold you back against his chest as he finally fucked you. 

Chan was precise as you felt his fingers slide down your torso and between your legs to toy with your clit and you gasped, a sharp tingle of overstimulation shooting straight through your hips. 

“Wait, wait,” you gasped, “too much—“

“I know,” Chan murmured as he dragged his lips along your shoulder and up to your throat, “I want to try something.”

Your nails dug into his arm as he softly stroked your clit, still soaked from his tongue as he fucked you. You knew exactly what he was trying. Again, ages ago, you had told Chan about the first time a guy got you to cum twice and you didn’t have to fake it, and it was by doing exactly this, fucking you from behind as he played with your clit. Chan almost growled against your neck as he worked you over, his turgid length hitting you at the right angle where he had you stood up like this so he could rub up against your most sensitive spot. You knew this had to be loud as hell, Chan groaning and you whining as his cock rammed into you, but you found it hard to worry about being heard when all that currently occupied your thoughts was white noise. The only thing you could focus on was Chan and fucking Chan, and fucking Chan while he intently worked to make you cum again. 

“You feel so good,” he panted behind you, and it wasn’t a revelation, it was a confirmation. You wondered, for a moment, if he’d been thinking of this just as often as you had, if he casually thought about it every once in a while as you had for years now. 

“You feel so good,” you gasped, even more so as his other hand moved up to gently hold your throat again. It hadn’t even occurred to you that another orgasm was actually building in you again until that pot boiled over, and Chan cursed and moaned out loud as you whimpered through your climax on his cock, the depths of your pussy contracting around and constricting his length. 

Chan gently slid out of you and turned you around in his arms so he could lean you back against the washing machine to regain your composure. You allowed the exhausted kiss he pressed to your temple. He caught his breath as well, but he seemed preoccupied as you clung to him, your arms around his waist. It was for support, sure, but actually experiencing his presence like this was still a little surreal. His cock, streaked in your juices, was nudged up against your thigh as he held you. He raised a curious eyebrow as you lifted your leg and wrapped yourself around him as he had you do earlier. His eyes silently implored you as you reached down between your bodies to guide his slick erection back inside of you. 

He hesitated. Really?

You nodded. Yes. 

Between you still recovering from both orgasms and Chan still working on getting his, you both struggled out a moan as he rocked into you again, his persistently hard cock dragging along your sore walls. You were both a mess of tangled hair and perspiration. Chan held fast onto you, one arm around your waist and a hand still holding your spread leg around his hip, so intent to chase his peak that he wasn’t even opening up for the camera anymore. An odd sense of intimacy raised the hair on the back of your neck; it was just you and him right now. You reached for him, your fingers cupping his face and drawing him close for a shaky kiss. It was apparent from his eyes shut in concentration, his breathy gasps, his stuttered moans, that he wasn’t going to be able to hold back much longer, but you knew you wanted to be the one to push him over the edge. 

You leaned back just enough that he could sense you looking up into his eyes, but still staying close enough that you could speak to him under your breath. He gazed at you under his heavy eyelashes, his eyes soaked in infatuation to the point of intoxication. 

“I want to try something,” you grinned exhaustedly. Chan couldn’t even muster the stamina to say something; he only nodded. Your fingers curled into his hair and drew him close, and your breath tickling his ear made him shudder. 

“Cum.”

Your one-word command seemed to send a shock through Chan as he gritted and groaned through his orgasm, starting at his hips and emanating through to his fingers clutching onto you as his weight collapsed against you. His hips stuttered as he rode it out, your exhausted pussy still responsive enough to throb and milk his cock of every drop of cum he probably ever saved for you. 

You held him like that, still dazedly stroking his hair with your fingers as he gasped for air where he was deadweight against your shoulder. Finally, Chan seemed to gain enough wherewithal to let himself slide out of you and finally grab his pants, digging out his phone to check the time. His eyes grew comically wide, blinking back to life as he realized he needed to put himself back together in time to film the formal finale when he was distracted by your fingers on his wrist. He looked pointedly at your hand there before his eyes followed your arm back up to your eyes, trying hard to make sure you wouldn’t forget this. His tense shoulders softened and he stopped where he stood, about to snatch up the rest of his clothes, and switched tracks to instead pull you close again. Chan stroked your hair back away from your forehead and kissed you gently on the lips when a crash came through the laundry room door. 

You both jolted as Minho came clambering into the doorway of the small room, dragging Hyunjin by the collar of his shirt. They were both interrupted by the sight of both of you, practically naked and still embracing each other. 

“You whore!” Minho theatrically denounced. He was aghast as he tugged Hyunjin to attention, who was currently distracted by your exposed form. “I was going to ask you why the hell I found your underwear in Hyunjin’s luggage while I was helping him pack, but I can see you’re a bit busy.” Minho even brandished the offending garment for effect. 

Chan warily eyed the boys and then you before the pieces locked into place. He surreptitiously shoved his cock back into his briefs before he marched forward. You watched as Chan snatched the panties from Minho’s hand and quickly wheeled around to confront you. 

“I’m sure there’s something I’m not understanding here,” Chan insisted, “I’m sure Hyunjin just stole these from you, right?” 

You were suddenly very glad you were mostly turned away from the camera in the back of the room as Chan’s sudden dramatics nearly made you crack. Thankfully, Hyunjin saved you before you could be caught laughing. 

“No, stupid,” Hyunjin sneered, “she let me have them after we fucked. Why do you think Jisung got all pissy with me last night? He fucked her, too.”

“Hyunjin, you fucked her?!” Minho reeled. Chan stepped forward, squaring up against Hyunjin in the doorway. 

“When?!” Chan interrogated as he dramatically balled his fist into the collar of Hyunjin’s shirt. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Hyunjin giggled, his shit-eating grin wide before Chan beat his other fist into the door of the laundry room. The three of you silently alerted to Chan’s outburst, feeling a touch more genuine than the rest of the charade. Admittedly, the finer details of when and where you slept with them all was a bit glossed over in your impromptu meeting the previous night.

“Tell me, you little shit,” Chan theatrically pushed him, getting back on the level, “you get one last chance to say you’re lying.”

“Chan, I—“ you piped up behind them. All three boys glared back at you and you nearly broke into a fit of laughter again. Chan turned his attention back to threateningly cocking his fist back. 

“You better admit you’re lying,” Chan warned, before Minho clapped a hand onto his fist. You quietly tried to grab your clothes as the boys hashed it out. 

“What good is that going to do? I slept with her too,” Minho admonished. Hyunjin and Chan turned to gape at you in disbelief. 

“Besides, I don’t need to tell you anything,” Hyunjin laughed as he turned his attention back to Chan, “she knows I was better anyway.”

“Or she pitied you,” Chan retorted. This was all so much more exaggerated than you’d imagined, and doubly so as he apparently struck a nerve with Hyunjin, who proceeded to headbutt Chan directly in his nose. He rocked back on his feet, a hand clapped over his nose as he cursed. You and Minho both gasped, unable to stop Chan as he reacted with a swift punch to Hyunjin’s stomach and sent him crumpling to the floor. Minho squared his shoulders against Chan as you sneakily began to get a little more dressed. 

“You fucking brute, I’ve had it with you—” Minho barked, and Chan got in his face. 

“Don’t be mad at me because I fucked her, too,” Chan shook his head, when Hyunjin got back to his senses enough to tackle into Chan’s knees. Chan dragged Minho down with him, and all three boys were suddenly in a scuffle on the floor, blocking you from leaving the laundry room. 

It didn’t look like it could get much worse until Changbin strolled downstairs, supposedly unaware of all the commotion. 

“Hey, we’re going to be filming soon—“ and Changbin was cut off as he witnessed all three boys wrestling and scrapping on the floor, with you still half-dressed behind them. Even as Changbin tried to break it up, the three boys accused him of sleeping with you as well and he was promptly dragged into the fray. 

It was getting out of hand fast when Jisung finally arrived down to the basement. He stood, paused at the bottom of the stairs, and you again nearly burst into a fit of laughter at how preposterous this whole thing became. Now as Jisung entered the conflict, the boys all slowed to a stop to regard him. Comically suspicious looks were cast all around, from the boys tangled in a bruised heap on the floor, to Jisung pulling off what was probably the best performance of his life looking utterly destroyed, to you as you did your best to look as guilty as you had been. To top it all off, Jisung quietly shook his head before silently retreating back upstairs. It was a scene straight from a drama. 

Seungmin came bounding down the stairs then, no doubt trying to find the cast and looking shocked at the scene he stumbled into. The boys all looked downtrodden, eyes shooting daggers as they untangled themselves and sulked back upstairs. Each of them caught your eye as they headed up, the small looks you caught ranging between bemusement to trepidation of if this would even work. Chan raised an eyebrow at you as he was finally able to grab his clothes. You were tempted to reach out, to try and tend to his nose still spilling blood, but he pulled away, seemingly in disgust as he gingerly pawed at it. 

“Holy shit,” Chan laughed quietly as he turned away from the camera, “I didn’t know they had it in them.”

The finale itself seemed like such small stakes after the brawl in the basement. All the boys had a quiet intensity to them, especially after the fit the production crew threw after they had shown up bruised and beaten. They refused to tell the staff what exactly they were fighting over, so now they just sat, bandaged and extra made up, while they waited to film. 

You had your own role to play, of course, the finale following some ridiculous plot where the ominous ‘headmaster’ had sent an inspector to expose a saboteur amongst their care staff. There was a chance for you, the chauffeur, and — of course — the cook to make your cases. You looked over all the boys as you stood before them, trying to decipher all their indecipherable looks. 

“I wish I didn’t have to prove my innocence to you,” you told them, and it was like the cameras and crew weren’t even there as you were all assembled in the dining room, “and I’m sorry if I ever made you doubt me or distrust me. I care for all of you.”

The line girl behind the camera was bewildered at your admission, entirely improvised from what was on the script, but the director waved to signal that you were alright. Each of the boys all seemed to soften, to relax a little for the rest of the scene. Chan had a guilty smile until it agitated his nose (which had apparently been dislocated and needed to be reset before filming, much to Hyunjin’s pride and chagrin.) Minho looked pleased, either with you or himself, while Changbin still looked a bit concerned and nervous. Hyunjin was just bored by now, his ideas of acting completely thrown into perspective by all this. Jisung was harder to pin, and you still felt ultimately responsible for whatever he was coping with. 

Obviously, the inspector spouted out a ton of exposition and off-screen reasoning before revealing the cook. Everyone looked the appropriate amount of scandalized before the cook was carted off by the inspector. The rest of the finale went just as smoothly, but felt so insignificant now. The boys looked humble and excited as they received their prizes and accolades, but everything was run through a filter. Did the staff see it like you did? The farewells after wrapping the show didn’t even feel final. Each embrace from them lingered, sharing meaningful looks that promised you would find them again, if only to make sure they got their cut. 

Felix arrived then, the red bruise on his cheek contrasting humorously with his blue suit. Seungmin, the other staff, and even the director gave him a previously unseen gravitas, greeting him and sucking up as if he were the Big Boss himself and not just his assistant. Felix curtly congratulated the cast for wrapping the show and offered them company cars for rides. Everyone exchanged glances before tersely declining. Felix nodded, understanding, and all five boys exited with looks back over their shoulders to you as they left you in the house. You heart thumped, almost in pain as you watched them go. 

The crew began to clear out as well, and soon it was just you and Felix, eyeing you suspiciously. The turnover was fast, a new crew rolling in right away  to set up. Jeongin cheerily greeted you before helping light the living room. Felix was still staring you down. You approached him warily. 

“Your face is going to get stuck like that,” you mused. 

“I can’t believe what I saw in the raw feed today,” he glowered. He waved over a gofer and asked them for a coffee before turning back to you. “You’re greedy, you know that?”

“You’re going to be fine, Felix,” you scoffed. Felix paused as a coffee was promptly placed in his hands and he regarded it, disgruntled.  

“I just have no clue what I’m going to do if I lose this job. I love my job.”

“Yeah, well,” you raised an eyebrow, “your job exploited some pretty great guys.”

Felix sighed, still gazing into his coffee cup. You took one step closer to him. 

“You were exploited, too, Felix. I’m sure you’re great at your job. Don’t waste it on these people.”

The sigh in Felix’s chest renewed. He hung his head before he finally looked at you again. “You look good, by the way.”

“I know,” you deadpanned.

You sauntered away in search of Jeongin, hoping he’d be the one with your pages and a breakdown of the finale. It was certainly less fanfare and a lot less setup than the boys’ finale had been. 

A host you’d never met before arrived and introduced himself, saying he loved working on your show as he shook your hand. Your finale was really an interview, where you got to pretend to be super proud of yourself and comment on the different cast members. The host’s questions were vacuous and no less exploitative than the rest of the show, and you spied Felix beyond the lights looking thoroughly miserable. 

Your finale felt meaningless as well, just another step towards washing your hands of this forever, and you were grateful when you wrapped and went to change. The only significant part of your farewell was seeing your bedroom emptied of your belongings. A soft footfall at the door alerted you and you turned, finding Felix there again. 

“I’m entirely on the wrong side, aren’t I?”

It wasn’t much of a question from him. You turned, now changed into a comfortable pair of jeans and a hoodie before you approached him. You set your luggage down, raising your hand to gently cup his face and careful to avoid the bruise Chan had slapped into him. 

“You’re on the wrong side,” you agreed, “but you can choose to be better. Maybe I’ll run into you again someday.”

“Maybe,” Felix nodded with a reluctant smirk. 

“Don’t stop being a fan, okay?” You grinned. Felix laughed before offering you a company car for a ride as he had with the boys. He wasn’t even offended as you laughed sarcastically and refused. You grabbed your bag and ascended the stairs. You walked into the living room. You walked into the foyer. You opened the front door. 

And you walked out onto the street. 

🎥🖤🎥🖤🎥🖤🎥

You picked a direction and walked. The house was only a block behind you, looming, when you found him. Chan sat atop his rolling luggage on the corner, flicking through his phone when he noticed you coming his way. He hopped off to greet you, only for you to breeze right past him down the sidewalk. Chan grabbed the handle of his bag and trotted after you. “Did everything go okay?” He asked as he kept up beside you. You nodded with a shrug. 

“Sure. Sorry I can’t talk long; I have to meet up with a friend.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” you nodded earnestly, “I need to return something of his.”

Chan watched curiously as you fished the pendant of his necklace out from under your hoodie where it hung. “Weird,” he smirked, “I had a necklace just like that.”

“Weird,” you agreed. “Who are you again?”

It was your turn to grin as Chan dramatically slapped his forehead. “Of course; I’m terrible with introductions.” He stopped you on the sidewalk and grabbed your hand in his to shake it. “I’m Chan, but my friends call me Duckie, and my really good friends call me Chris.”

You grinned as you shook his hand. “Ah, right, Chris. I thought you looked familiar. I have something that belongs to you.” 

Chan — Duckie — Chris — tried to restrain a bashful smile as you unclasped his necklace from around your neck and reached your hands up to clasp it around his. The moment it hung on him, his smile dropped. “I’m sorry again.”

“I know,” you nodded, “but you were there for me and I appreciate it.”

“I would do it all again if I had to,” Chris smiled softly. 

“What,” you mused, “take advantage of a sleazy production like this to run off with way more money than expected?”

Chris nodded heartily. “In a heartbeat.”

“Sure,” you giggled as you waved down a taxi, “and while we’re at it we can make our own show that’s actually worth watching.”

“I mean, I don’t see why not,” Chris retorted. He paused as he watched you load your bag into the taxi that pulled up to the curb. He looked like he missed you already as you pulled open the door and looked back at him. 

“Am I going to see you again?” He asked. 

“What a dumb question,” you laughed as you waved goodbye. “Call me next time you have to do some laundry.”

[theunvanquishedzims]

Calming my post-election anxiety with sweet sweet logic

So Trump is a wannabe dictator with crazy screaming fans who are headed toward violent armed meltdowns. What’s to stop him from going full dictator and refusing to leave office?

I’m glad you asked!

You see, the major difference between wannabe dictators and actual dictators is ALLIES. Dictators are surrounded with tight security, aided by the military, cheered on by media that they control, and are either helped, encouraged, or just ignored by other countries with the power to stop them.

Trump has charged the Secret Service money for the privilege of protecting him and his family since day one. You remember the first year, when his wife and son refused to move to the White House so the Secret Service had to RENT FLOORS in TRUMP’S BUILDING to be close to them? And how his extended family went globetrotting and the Secret Service had to accompany them? And when Trump himself insisted on hosting people at his golf club, he made the Secret Service RENT GOLF CARTS from TRUMP’S CLUB to follow him while he went golfing?

The end result was that halfway through the first year of his presidency, the Secret Service could not pay their own wages. Because half their yearly budget had gone straight to Trump’s pockets. And that’s just financially. I think we all remember how the White House came down with Covid and Trump still insisted on Secret Service agents driving him around to wave at people. He has not been kind to the people who are sworn to protect him. These people have had a front-row seat to his circus since 2016. When the time comes from Trump to leave the White House and Biden to take over, I doubt they’ll betray the country out of loyalty to Trump. If anything, they’ll be the ones to drag him out.

As for the military, Trump insulted and fired four generals from his administration staff. He said on multiple occasions that soldiers who get captured or killed are suckers and losers. He refused to visit a cemetery to honor the dead because it was raining. He tries to pander to the military by massive increases in defense spending, but that money goes to capitalists who make weapons and war technology, not the soldiers or veterans. (He also hypocritically accused military officials of being in bed with those same companies.) In a poll of 1000 service members 50% said they disliked Trump. Overall, he doesn’t act like a leader, and the way he skirts responsibility (like taking charge during the pandemic) doesn’t appeal to a group that functions on trust in their leadership.

A proper dictator would have spent the last four years cozying up to his generals and making sure they knew the financial and social benefits of answering to him personally, not the office of the President. And while Trump did adhere to the adage “find a foreign foe” to unite people against, he badly misjudged what most US citizens consider “foreign.” He hasn’t found a villain that we would root for the military taking down, and the people he targets (Latinx, Blacks, immigrants, and people in countries our military has already devastated) are not a minority he can turn the majority of the country against, especially with how many of the former two serve in the military themselves. When the time comes for him to leave office, the military might be the first to cut ties with the wannabe Dictator-in-Chief.

Now, the media. They’ve been treating him like a joke candidate since day one, but after he was actually elected and took office they’ve started to take him more seriously. He’s gotten his catchphrase “fake news!” to catch on, but that doesn’t change the fact that under his administration news reporters have been harassed, illegally arrested, and generally poorly treated by Trump, especially if they’re women. He’s trashed talked everyone, with Fox News being the last bastion of semi-legitimate news that openly supports him (and their credibility has taken a big hit over it.)

Despite this support, in recently months Trump has been increasingly dumping on Fox, even throwing the mediator they provided for the debate under the bus, and risking alienating them in the process. If his supporters listen to him and start considering Fox part of Big Fake News, it might possibly be the death of Fox, leaving most of his supporters adrift and isolated from their source of right-wing news, and sending the more extreme fringes into the arms of conspiracy theory websites. (I’m not saying this is bad, being cut off from Fox and its toxic stream of “information” can actually help rehabilitate the right.)

Honestly, I don’t think Trump ever had a shot at controlling the media like a dictator would, mainly because of social media. He’s in love with attention, and Twitter has provided him a nonstop stream of it. No other President has threatened, insulted, promoted, or hinted at war over social media the way Trump has, and he gets so much direct feedback and interaction with the public and the world as a result. He could have leveraged that by buying the company (through a shell corporation, obviously) and setting it up as The One True Source of Information, manipulating public perception of him and his administration by keeping a tight grip on what information he let out.

But he’s just. Not. That. Clever. He blurts out everything that crosses his mind, leaving his administration to play clean-up on his messes, put out fires he keeps pouring gasoline on, and claim he’s joking when everyone knows he’s testing the limits on what he can get away with saying. He took advantage of the direct communication with legions of supporters, but seemed to forget that his detractors had equal access and would absolutely call him out on things he definitely said, it’s right there on his Twitter account, they have the Tweet pulled up on their phone right now. Instead of operating a single state-run media outlet while crushing all free press and limiting internet access like other dictators, he’s mooned the world’s cameras and acted surprised when they put his saggy butt on tv. “Fake news! That’s not my butt! THIS is my butt! [image attached]” he tweets. “Twitter is so biased, they haven’t censored any of Sleepy Joe’s photos!” he later tweets.

And lastly. The key to a dictatorship’s success. To prevent outside intervention, the country a dictator runs must be unimportant and ignored, wealthy and well-connected, or scary and well-armed. Minor warlords are the former, Putin is the latter, Trump might have weaseled his way into being the middle. But at the end of the day, America’s whole thing is new leadership every four years. It was revolutionary to replace a lineage of kings and queens stretching generations with a non-royal elected leader who only held office for four to eight years, but we’ve stuck to that for 200 years and everyone’s used to it by now. It would take a charismatic and powerful person to move the American people towards abolishing such a basic tenant of our democracy, and despite the mob mentality that lead a small portion of his supporters to chant “sixteen more years!” in the heat of the moment, Trump is not that charismatic. He’s not that smart. He’s not that well-connected. He’s not that savvy. He’s not that good at politics. And he’s not that powerful.

(I was going to say something here about him being the laughingstock of the world’s leaders and shouldn’t expect any outsiders to help him stay in power, especially since his tax returns came out and showed he owes people a ton of money that he doesn’t have, but this post is long enough so let’s cut to the chase.)

Trump is a greedy, small-minded man that has clung to power by appealing to the worst in humanity and scraping away at the best. But he hasn’t succeeded. He’s a sad old man who will say anything to be loved, and I don’t think he even knows what love is, so he’ll settle for attention. He doesn’t have money, he doesn’t have an army, and the only allies he has are using him as a political pawn to further their own interests. They will cut him loose the minute he stops being useful.

Now, the bad part: crazy screaming fans. Fringe groups on the internet. Mobs chanting “sixteen more years!” Men with guns and bombs and kidnapping plots, men trying to get into voting centers to destroy the election, men driving trucks with black flags that say FUCK YOUR FEELINGS, TRUMP 2020 (available on Amazon for $11.99, I wish I was joking.) I have no idea how many people in this country genuinely love Trump. It is hopefully significantly less than voted for him. There are some big issues in this country that are make-or-break, and unfortunately by reason of running Republican Trump has aligned himself with some of them.

There are people who hate everything about Trump, but he put a pro-life judge on the Supreme Court so they’re voting for him. There are people who are uncomfortable with Trump, but they’ve forgiven their grandpa for saying worse at Thanksgiving dinner, so they’ll vote for him. There are people who don’t know a single thing about Donald Trump, but they see (Republican) next to his name on the ballot, so they vote for him. None of that means those people will side with him if he tries to make a move towards dictatorship.

Now there are people who love Trump. They’ve heard and seen the vile things he’s said and done, and are genuinely okay with it, because they are full of hate and rage and want to change the world to put themselves on top. I do not know how many of these people there are. I know they exist all over the country, not just in red states. I know some of them have guns and want a reason to use them, because they’ve been talking about it for decades. I don’t know if we can trust the police to side with us over them if fights start breaking out. (And I pray pray PRAY people de-escalate any fights, because monkey see monkey do, and one news report of a MAGA extremist shooting someone can inspire a hundred copycats can lead to full-on civil war like we've never seen.) I know we need to be careful the next few months, to take care of ourselves and watch out for the more vulnerable in our communities.

And above all, I know this: Trump is not going to keep this country. He got it through trickery and deceit and foreign influence and national indifference and people not taking him seriously. We’ve learned. We’ve grown. We’re taking him seriously now, and we will not let him take what we’ve already told him he can’t have. The election is over. He’s a loser. He’d better start packing his bags. Because he’s not staying in office.

[c-is-for-circinate]

Who wants a little Cinderbrush AU on this quarantine evening?

A while ago, @brightandshinynewstories and I were chatting about what would happen if the Cinderbrush four lived in Exandria (and also relatedly, if the M9 were Monsterhearts characters, but that is a digression y’all should take up with her).  We figured it would start, at least, a little like this:

There’s a phrase Sasha's history tutor used once, when she was thirteen or fourteen and didn’t have a way to stop her parents hiring all her tutors and arranging her schedule for her.  Her history tutor was a stuttery little halfling man fresh out of Vasselheim, and half of what he said was deadly boring, but he was less brutally awful than her etiquette and protocol tutor, which was probably why he got fired before she turned fifteen.  That one conversation, though, has stuck with her for all these years.

“Everyone thinks they live at the end of history,” he’d said.  They’d been talking about the end of the reign of Uriel Tal’dorei at the time, how his decision to abdicate five minutes before he unexpectedly died in a massive dragon attack hadn’t accomplished much of anything except for making life massively difficult for his son fifteen years later.  “This is it, the final form of the world.  All the aeons of existence have led up to this moment right now, and finally we’re living in the future.”

“Isn’t everybody always living at the end of history, then?” Sasha had asked.  “If you look at it that way?”

“Not...not quite,” Kempler had stammered, a little off-balance the way he always was when she asked questions she actually wanted to know the answers to.  “Usually it means more like..the idea that everything, societal structures, social mores, everything has fallen into place in such a way that it doesn’t need to change any more.  Does that make sense?”

“Of course,” Sasha had said, and let him go on talking about dragons and heroes and the politics of non-existent emperors and kings.  She’d thought about it all afternoon.

This isn’t quite the end of history, Sasha figures now, half a dozen years later.  If it were, there’d be a better way to work her way up in the government of Emon besides playing personal aide to Arbiter Ethna for the next ten years in hopes of getting appointed to a magistrate’s position someday.  Some kind of school for barristers and politicians, at least, instead of everything coming down to her parents’ names and polite tolerance for her existence.  Her advancement wouldn’t depend so much on this awkward noble apprenticeship system where she’s more tied to Ethna’s reputation than her own skills.

It’s got to be getting pretty close, though.  It’s 853 PD.  Emon’s a miracle of government and engineering.  Uriel Tal’dorei’s been dead for forty years, there haven’t been dragons around to ravage anything since Sasha’s parents were children, and every day law, order, and the modern age prove a little more how they triumph over chaos.

It’s good to live at this end of history, Sasha tends to think.  There’s just enough still to do in the world to give her a chance to do something really special about it.  Just enough wiggle room left to let her...bend the rules.  Just a little.

Nobody says arbiters and politicians can’t have a little magic on their side to...smooth things along, just a little.  Nobody says aides like Sasha can’t spend their free time however they like.  Nobody tells Sir Murasaki’s daughter she can’t go where she wants, besides Sir Murasaki himself.  If she likes to sit auditing classes in the back of the room at the Alabaster Lyceum--if she happens to enjoy practicing classical violin or running vocal exercises in her tiny little office behind Arbiter Ethna’s courtroom--well.  The bardic arts might be a relic of the past, when people had to go out slaying monsters and dealing with dragons every other day, but history hasn’t quite left them useless yet.  Anything can be a tool if you’re clever and charming enough to use it right.

Living at very-nearly-the-end of history might be the best tool there is.  The best thing about it, Sasha thinks, is the chance to make sure she’s the one who decides how it ends.

.

Sasha told Cam about her end-of-history theory once, some starlit evening on the rooftop balcony of his parents’ townhouse, looking out over the sparkling lights of the Cloudtop District and enjoying the quiet.  He’s not sure he’s smart enough to really understand it, but that’s Sasha for you.  There’s a reason she’s going to be on the Tal’Dorei Council someday, while Cam’s going to be...whatever Cam’s going to be, by then.

Probably running the family business, one way or another, if his dad hasn’t actually killed him instead of letting him inherit.  It’s basically fine, as life plans go.  Parts of it don’t suck.  That’s something.

It’s why everyone was so in favor of him courting around with Sasha in the first place, anyway.  The Murasakis are nobility and all, but they’re from some island in the middle of the Lucidian Ocean on the other side of Exandria.  The Solomons were nobodies, until they just happened to own the only still-operating stone quarry in a hundred miles in the wake of the destruction of Emon forty years ago.  Sasha’s parents have influence, Cam’s have money.  Even Cam knows putting that combination together is a recipe for power.

Real power, probably, not the magic kind.  Fewer rules.  Fewer restrictions.  Fewer demons, whispering in the back of your ear when you’re trying to sleep.

If this is really the perfect future that everything’s always been trying to lead to, then shouldn’t they have wizard magic or some shit that would just get the stone out of the ground without needing miners and overseers and crap like that?  And then, like, nobody would send some stupid human kid with no darkvision into the back end of the quarry just because he’s the boss’s son and some fucker thinks he needs to be hazed for “company morale” or whatever.  Just for example.

So maybe the world’s not getting better, it’s just that the bullshit that piles up a little deeper every year has just about reached a critical maximum.  That’s fine.  No wonder Sasha’s looking forward to the future so much, gets along with the world so well.  He used to watch her weave her own web of total crap every time she worked a room, catching eyes and shaking hands and making everybody fall in love with her as soon as they met.  It’s kind of the most impressive thing Cam’s ever seen.  He kind of hates her for it, right at this moment.

Cam’s just not built for that much shit.  He's charming, sure, people trust him, people like him, but he can’t talk his way out of any- and everything like Sasha can.  Probably that’s a nobility thing.  The Solomons aren’t nobility, everybody knows that, especially Cam’s dad, and he’s never let Cam forget it for two seconds in a row his whole life, so right, no wonder Cam’s useless in Sasha’s kind of world.  No wonder he lets himself get into such shitty situations sometimes.  No wonder he can’t get Anukirai to leave him--to leave Sasha--alone.

If that’s what he wants.  Which--it is, of course, it should be, it has to be, it’s just.  Hard, sometimes, when Cam’s father decides if he can’t be the normal born kind of nobility, he’d better just prove he’s the High Lord of All Assholes.  When Cam’s trying not to be the kind of guy who just up and punches his problems in the face.  When Anukirai starts making promises, and Cam--when Cam can feel the power behind them, the weight of thousands of years of lurking underground, lying in wait, full of so much more patience than Cam’s ever had himself.

He’s pretty sure he could Command his dad to do just about anything, once.  Just once.  So far he hasn’t tried.

The worst thing about living this close to the end of history, Cam knows for damn sure, is feeling the weight of all of it crushing down on top of you all the time.

.

Jamie’s heard about it, too, somewhere along the way.  Lunch with Sasha at the Lyceum is always interesting, one way or another.

It’s bullshit, of course, but it’s the sort of bullshit that always appeals to people like Sasha.  As though there are other people in the world like Sasha Murasaki.  Things don’t end, they just die occasionally, and leave stinking corpses of whatever they used to be there to entertain passers-by.  Witness the inside of poor Cameron Solomon’s head these days after that particular breakup, case in point.

But of course it’s enticing to picture the world as just half a step short of perfection, all the for pretty, perfect people who think they might just be that last piece of perfection Exandria’s waiting for.  That, at least, isn’t exactly an uncommon attitude around the Alabaster Lyceum.  Everybody thinks they’re going to be the next Allura Vysoren, or whoever it is they’re all idolizing these days.  Everybody thinks they need just that little bit of extra edge to get there.

Jamie’s done with that particular race, which doesn’t mean they can’t enjoy spectating it.  There’s a lot of benefits that come from staying enrolled as a student of the arcane arts at the Alabaster Lyceum of Emon.  Greg Wrenly keeps paying tuition, room, and board, for one.  There’s a handful of cantrips and a couple of halfway decent wizard spells in Jamie’s back pocket now, too, which is never a bad thing.  It’s always good to have options.

For instance: now the desperate, overachieving would-be wizards of the Lyceum don’t have to fight their way through years of arduous study and spend enormous reserves of magical energy to cast True Seeing.  A little bit of druidcraft, a couple of exactly the right mushrooms, and for a handful of gold coins Jamie can provide a direct line of sight to the Ethereal Plane with negligible side effects to follow.  Options.  They’re practically a public service.

Jamie prefers to keep as many options open as possible; gods know nobody in this fucking city seem to realize they have any.  That’s what needing to be the best will do to you.  If a quarter of their classmates realized how much power the average archdruid has at their command, there’d be a mass exodus of ex-arcanists desperate to be the next fucking Voice of the Tempest, every one of them desperate to live up to thousands of years of legends and heroes and complete fairytales.  Every single one of them would miss the entire point.

Jamie doesn’t need to be the best.  They just need to maintain their own, extremely specific skill set, market it in the right way to the right people, and not get caught up in everyone else’s everything.  Stay a minimum safe distance away from Sasha.  Enjoy Cam’s company without getting too invested in the pretty and the trauma.  Enough wizardry to mess with peoples’ heads and not be too bound to the whims of nature, enough druidry to keep in good supply and not be too bound to some fucking hand-scribed spellbook.  Enough alchemy to keep in business.  Enough business to make sure they don’t completely lose touch with reality, the way so many mages tend to do.

Of course it’s not exactly traditional, or historical, or Respectful of the Great Arts, or whatever the fucking line is.  What the hell would be the point of that?

The best thing about living on this end of history, whatever the fuck that means to anyone, is getting to pick and choose exactly which parts of it you want to keep.

.

Aff gets the whole history thing in pieces, in passing at first, but it makes more sense the more they think about it.  You can learn a lot slinging pints of ale in your dad’s tavern on a regular old Grissen weeknight.

It’s not like they’re friends with Sasha Murasaki of all people.  Aff hadn’t even known who she was until Amanda from the livery stable down the street explained it, and apparently there’s an actual member of a titled noble family on her way up the ranks in the Watchful Hall who comes out to Aff’s dad’s tavern, like, a lot, which is just crazy.  It’s just that sometimes when Sasha’s waiting for somebody, or she and her trio of Emon’s Who’s Who are bored or whatever, they invite Aff to sit down and talk for a while.  Cameron Solomon’s... whatever, he’s cool, Aff’s mom doesn’t live too far from his dad’s mine these days, so maybe they’d helped him out while he was puking in an alleyway once or twice before even moving to Emon, out in the countryside where being a super-rich merchant prince didn’t matter that much.  And Jamie...Aff doesn’t really get Jamie, but they’re in here a lot, alone at a table where a whole rotation of people sit down to join them and then leave ten minutes later.  You learn a lot about someone when they drink by themselves while they’re doing some kind of weird shady business in your bar at least once a week.  That’s all.

Aff doesn’t even really think any of them are friends with each other, either, anyway.  Sasha and Cameron used to come in on dates, a couple of kids from the Cloudtop slumming it in Diamond Liquor out in the Central District, but they don’t really do that any more.  The one time Sasha showed up when Cam was already here, he got up and left.  Sometimes Sasha goes and sits at Jamie’s table in the corner, and she’s usually there for a lot longer than ten minutes when she does, but she still always goes back to the rest of her crew and Jamie goes back to drinking alone.  Jamie and Cam have come in together a couple of times, and it seems like Jamie doesn’t even do business on those nights, but like, who even knows what’s up with that, right?

Not that Aff’s being creepy or anything.  They’re the bar...not-maid.  Bartender?  No, that’s their dad, ruling over the land of kegs behind the actual physical bar.  Bar...server?  Is that a thing?  Whatever, it is now.  Aff’s the bar-server, they hear things.  They notice things.  That’s all.

Like Sasha talking about the end of history, which, it took Aff a couple of different conversations to realize she didn’t mean the end of the world, which is probably good.  Aff’s pretty sure she means the fact that they live now, in modern times, which don’t really have dragon attacks or cool heroes or crazy adventures any more, because all the cool heroes already went on all the crazy adventures and killed the dragons so that modern times could happen in the first place.  Which is great!  Right, that’s totally for the best, dragons are definitely bad news.  Aff’s seen a couple of places where Emon got rebuilt forty or fifty years ago after half the city...melted, they guess?  So like, it’s good that that’s not happening nowadays.  That’s a good thing.

It’s just...

Look, Aff’s a good bar-server, or whatever you want to call it, and they like living here with their dad, and Emon’s not a bad place to be, it’s just.  Hard, sometimes.  It’s hard, when they get so angry they just want to hit something, again.  Like, a lot.  Again.

If there were still adventurers and dragons and shit, then maybe Aff would have a use for all that pent-up aggression or whatever.  Maybe they could, y’know, kill monsters or whatever, and it would make them a hero instead of a fuckup.  If it were still the old days like that, maybe Aff would be good for something.

If this really is the end of history or whatever, Aff thinks that maybe the hardest part is feeling like they got smacked down in the wrong part of it.

.

The trouble, of course, is that history is nowhere near through with them.  Or with its own twists and turns, which is how history tends to work, really, even when you think it’s all just about settled down.

The third week of Fessuran is...confusing, more than anything.  Everything happens so fucking fast, in a blur of blood and fear and sleep-deprivation, washed over with a little extra haze from Jamie’s very good berries, and a couple of days go by in either about two hours or two weeks, and this is never going to make a good story to tell any kids they ever have, if they ever survive long enough to have kids.

Half a dozen people are very dead, that’s very clear, well beyond the help of any cleric or reasonably-ethical necromancer.  Amanda from the livery stable down the street from Diamond Liquor was pale and streaked in blood, breathing shallowly and barely alive, last time they saw her.  That might be worth something, if they could figure out or agree on what.

The four of them are not dead.  They are not under arrest.  They’re not in Emon any more, either, but since staying away might be the only chance they have to keep being not-dead and not-arrested, that’s probably a win, too.

They look at each other, hollow-eyed and dazed, across the table at the only inn in the tiny nowhere town of Cinder Hills, where they didn’t dare sleep last night and had better leave the minute they finish breakfast and also decide what the hell comes next.

“What,” Cam says, speaking for them all, “the fuck?”

.

“Look,” Sasha says.  “It’s fine.  We just…go to another city, and wait for things to die down.  Come back when it’s all over and pretend none of it ever happened.  Nothing to do with us at all.”

It’s fine.  It has to be fine, because if it’s not then Sasha’s lost everything.  Jail isn’t the only way to be trapped.  Freedom costs so much.

“You cannot possibly think that’s going to work,” Jamie says scathingly.  “You think there’s anybody in Emon who doesn’t know who the great Sasha Murasaki is?  We run, and we do not come back.”

Fuck Jamie, fuck them, just…fuck.

She’s spent years building herself a future in Emon.  Years, fighting to make herself a place in history.  Scrounging for every fucking scrap her parents would let her have, every fraction of respect or freedom that couldn’t just be taken away on a whim because she didn’t lower her eyes enough on any random night.  And now she’s going to lose it to this?

“Um,” Aff says.  “I have family in Emon?  I’m not just going to disappear on my dad.  And like, what about Cam’s dad, or Sasha’s family, or–”

“I can’t see my dad right now,” Cam interrupts quickly.  “Leaving actually maybe sounds good.”

“Oh, and leaving where, Jamie?” Sasha demands, because she’s ignoring Cameron right now until she can handle looking at him.  “Are we all going to stay with your little forest friends?  Sleep on leaf mattresses and learn to be druids, then?”

Jamie snorts.  “I’m not taking any of you within ten fucking miles of any druid circle I’ve ever met.  You, they’d eat alive,” and he gestures dismissively at Aff, “and you, they’d never forgive me for.  Luckily the world’s pretty fucking big.”

“So, what, you just want to–what, get on a ship and go to Wildemount?” Cam asks, interrupting Sasha again before she can get started on what even she knows is going to come out sharp and bitter and useless.  “Never come home?”

“You can do whatever the fuck you want.  I’m going to Kymal as soon as I can get on the fucking road, to see if I can rebuild even a third of what I just left behind.” Jamie says, like it’s just…that easy.  “Maybe Westruun, eventually, depending on how that goes.”

Sasha cannot start over in fucking Kymal.  She can’t.  She’s going home.  She’ll get this straightened out.

Everybody knows who her parents are.  They could smooth the whole thing over, probably, if she went down on her knees and begged hard enough.  If she agreed to let them ship her off to whatever cloister or rich husband they chose, and lost everything to spending the rest of her life under her mother’s thumb and her father’s commands anyway.

Fuck.  Fuck.  It feels like the walls of this tiny shitty tavern room are closing in on her already.  Sasha is so fucked.

It was supposed to be perfect.  She was almost done.  She was on her way.  It was going to be perfect.

“We should probably stay together,” Cameron says worriedly, looking between Sasha and his precious Aff and Jamie fucking Wrenly.

“Westruun,” Sasha says.  It’s too small to build anything worth having and it’s too far away from everything she’s ever built so far and it’s too big for her to matter at all and it’s too close for her to really be safe.  Westruun’s nothing.  But at least it’s better than fucking Kymal.  “We can go to Westruun.”

Or Vasselheim.  Or Rexxentrum.  Or Ank’harel.  Or Port Damali.  Sasha’s a little afraid to start running.  She’s a little afraid that once she gets going, she won’t be able to stop.

.

Notes on Level 2:

Sasha, human bard 2 Cantrips: Message, Prestidigitation L1 spells (3/day): Charm Person, Sense Emotions, Disguise Self, Comprehend Languages, Detect Magic

Cameron, human warlock 2 Patron: Fiend Cantrips: Mage Hand, Friends L1 spells (2/day): Command, Charm Person, Hex Invocations: Beguiling Influence, Devil’s Sight

Jamie, human wizard 1 druid 1 Cantrips: Friends, Mind Sliver, Minor Illusion, Druidcraft, Infestation L1 spells (3/day) : Cause Fear, Color Spray, Silent Image, Charm Person, Sleep, Identify, plus any druid spells prepared that day

Aff, human barbarian 2 Rage (2/day): +2 damage

[puddygeeks]

Wᴇ Cᴏᴍᴇ Rᴜɴɴɪɴɢ - Tʜᴇ 100 Bᴇʟʟᴀᴍʏ x OC - Cʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 18: Tʜɪs Isɴ'ᴛ Wʜᴏ Wᴇ Aʀᴇ

Masterlist

Episode: Contents Under Pressure

Rating: Mature

Summary: During her time in the Skybox, Indigo formed a precious friendship with fellow outcast Octavia Blake, the girl under the floor. At first they thought their departure from the oppression of the Ark was a blessing, but quickly came to rely on Indigo's keen survival instincts. The 100 struggle to meet the challenges of Earth whilst Bellamy strives to lead the wavering teenagers and his irresponsible attitude fuels constant conflict with Indigo. Their only shared interest is in protecting Octavia and Indigo beings to suspect that there is a deeper cause to Bellamy's seemingly irrational choices. As the consequences of his actions mount up around him, he finally begins to confide in her and she discovers more than she ever bargained for. 

Fandom: CW’s The 100

Pairing: OC x Bellamy Blake

LONG TERM ONGOING PROJECT :)

My writing is entirely fuelled by coffee! If you enjoy my work, feel free to donate toward my caffeine dependency: will work for coffee

Warnings: Mature content. Non-consent, language, sex, self harm, suicide, anxiety, helplessness, torture, captivity/confinement, alcohol/drug use.

Chapter Eighteen

“Bellamy!” Octavia cried in a relieved tone.

I turned to face the door and was relieved to see Bellamy enter, closely followed by two figures. As I approached, I realised it wasn’t Jasper and Monty as I expected, but two of his usual crew. Before I could even open my mouth to question this, my gaze caught on the large heap that they were carrying as they threw it to the ground, revealing it to be the beaten and tied grounder that held Octavia captive. She jumped down from the ladder she had been climbing and stormed over to meet Bellamy, who towered over the grounder menacingly. 

“What the hell are you doing?” She asked with an expression of disbelief.

“It’s time to get some answers.” Bellamy answered, squaring his shoulders to seem more authoritative.

“Oh you mean revenge?” Octavia retorted, firmly planting herself in front of him, her frustration plain to see.

“I mean intel.” He defended, and I could tell from his movements that he was preparing to justify himself. “Get him upstairs.” He ordered his men without taking his eyes from Octavia and I quickly stepped into their path to block them. I wasn’t prepared to let him steamroll through the room without a fight.

“Bellamy, she’s right.” Clarke turned from the operating table and approached him with a sensible manner. She opened her mouth to reason with him, but was abruptly interrupted by the crackle of the radio.

“Clarke, honey, we’re ready. Can you hear me?”

Bellamy stared over in the direction of the radio in the bewildered manner, a glint of terror in his eyes as he processed what he was hearing. I watched him as his focus stayed rooted to the radio, even as Clarke spoke and I knew in my gut that she had already lost him to his own agenda. 

“Look, this is not who we are.” She added carefully.

“Clarke?” The radio sounded again and I cursed each new sound from it, feeling it threaten Bellamy with every word. From what I’d seen of him so far, the more threatened he felt, the more recklessly he behaved. I held my position with gritted teeth although the two men glared down at me. Bellamy finally looked back at Clarke, but his expression was one of betrayal and carried the weight of a thousand words that were left unsaid. 

“It is now.” He spat coldly. He stepped toward the men who carried the grounder and at last noticed that I was blocking the way. “Move Indigo.” He ordered firmly, and I crossed my arms, glaring at him in an indignant fury.

“You don’t order me Bellamy.” I growled, holding my position and feeling aggravated that he even dared to speak to me in such a way. His expression faltered for a moment as he considered me, but he quickly returned to looking stern. 

“This is happening. Move.” He stated. His words were sharp and I felt like they weren’t meant for me.

“You’re a goddamn idiot Bellamy Blake.” I spat, feeling anger pounding in my ears. I stepped closer to him, ensuring that he couldn’t get past me. “And I’m not about to stand by and let you make this mistake.” I answered with a determined tone. I almost lost my balance with the force that I was pulled back by. A set of hands suddenly grabbed my arms and forced them behind my back, momentarily restraining me. 

“Bellamy said move bitch.” All in a matter of seconds, hot breath tickled my ear as a deep voice growled from behind me and the men carrying the grounder moved past, starting to transport him upstairs. I struggled against the containment, leaning forward as far as I could against the restraint of my arms before slamming my head back into my unseen attackers face with all the force I could muster. I heard the telltale crack of a broken nose and he cried out, immediately releasing me. I flipped around to face him but only saw Bellamy’s large form gripping him by his shirt. It seemed he lunged for my ambusher at the same moment that I fought back. 

“Put your hands on her again and you’ll be dealing with me.” Bellamy threatened, holding the smaller man alarmingly close to his furious face, before throwing him to the ground. Bellamy turned to face me, his expression no longer stern, but simply tired. “Let it go Indigo.” He sighed, following his goons as they carried the grounder away without a backwards glance.

I paced the room whilst Dr Griffin gave instructions and waited for Clarke to ask me to do something. There was a small scuffle in the waiting crowd and I jumped between it, separating the troublemakers. Clarke glanced over in a stressed manner, seeming as if she was struggling to concentrate. 

“This is ridiculous, you need to be able to focus. Everyone upstairs!” I announced and most people simply stared back at me. “Are you deaf? Get out!” I yelled in frustration, which finally seemed to get some movement. I focused on emptying the space whilst Raven and Clarke concentrated on the instructions from the radio.

By the time I had cleared everyone out, I could hear commotion from the top floor and Octavia’s voice yelling at someone to get off of her. I glanced over to Clarke, who nodded at me reluctantly and took this as permission to leave. I climbed the ladder as hastily as I could and as I reached the second floor, the hatch to the top floor slammed closed. Octavia stood at the bottom of the ladder with a furious expression; I rushed over to her side in concern. 

“I heard you yelling, are you okay?” I breathed as I checked her over and scanned the room for any threats.

“They kicked me out. They’ve got him tied up like some kind of animal, and who knows what they’re going to do to him.” She ranted, sounding exasperated and I widened my eyes at her words.

“They’re out of control. “ I sighed. “As per usual Bellamy thinks he’s doing what needs to be done. This is going to be difficult to stop.” I thought aloud, watching Octavia pace around the room. A flash of blonde hair caught my eye and I noticed Clarke charging from downstairs. 

“Hey! How’s Finn?” I asked eagerly, feeling a pang of guilt for leaving them.

“He’s fine, I think he’s out of the woods for now. Everything okay up here?” She looked at Octavia in an assessing manner before turning back to me. I nodded sheepishly. “Any idea what’s going on up there?” She indicated to the hatch in a frustrated gesture.

“Nothing good.” Octavia replied, crossing her arms. “They’ve got him tied up and they threw me out for the heinous crime of even suggesting they might be wrong.” She added in a sarcastic tone. Clarke seemed surprised at this and I had to admit that I was surprised that Bellamy was allowing his crew to treat her like this. 

“Alright, I’ll try talking to him. Bellamy might be stubborn, but maybe I can convince some of his crew to help. Raven is downstairs with Finn. Indigo would you mind sitting with her, just in case?” She viewed me with a pleading expression and after previously abandoning them, I didn’t feel that I could decline.

“Um, sure.” I replied in confusion, but made my way down the ladder as she went up towards Bellamy and the problem crew. As I descended into the bottom floor, I saw Raven sitting beside Finn, watching him in fearful anticipation. “Hey, sounds like you two saved the day down here.” I smiled, approaching her carefully so as not to startle her.

“It was mostly Clarke, I just watched...and swore.” She replied with a heavy exhaustion in her voice, and as she gazed at me, she blinked slowly in an attempt to stay awake.

“Don’t sell yourself short, she couldn’t have done it without the radio, which is 100% your skills.” I chattered lightly, standing beside her as I watched Finn’s chest rise and fall with more strain than usual. It was difficult to see him looking so vulnerable, and I could hardly imagine how she must be feeling. “How’s he holding up?”

“He’s still alive, that’s more than I dared to hope for.” She answered, not taking her eyes from him as she spoke. I couldn’t blame her for it, she seemed to be coping exceptionally well with all things considered.

“Alive is a good start.” I chuckled. I grabbed a box from the other side of the room and dragged it over to Finn’s bedside, opposite Raven. “Fancy some company?” I tried to sound casual, but I wasn’t sure that I was successful. She shrugged in disinterest, and so I dropped myself down onto the box. We sat in a concerned silence, both keenly watching Finn breathe and it was clear that we were worried that he may stop at any moment. 

“What’s the deal with him and Clarke?” Her sudden question startled me from my daze and I looked up to find her intensely staring at me.

“I’m sorry?” I asked, in a stunned voice, unsure if I’d even heard her right.

“I’m not an idiot, I know something happened before I got here. I just...I need to know what it was, whether it was serious.” She fidgeted with her hands and when she returned her gaze to me, I could see the hurt in her eyes. For once, I found myself at a loss for words. I had never been interested in drama, and I certainly didn’t want to be involved in theirs. I wasn’t sure how I’d ended up in the middle of the camp love triangle. I considered my answer for a moment and I decided to simply tell the truth. 

“I honestly don't know any more than you do , I sense the same vibes but I haven’t heard anything.” I answered, feeling that sharing my suspicions was not beneficial. She needed to hear the truth, not fireside gossip. “ If you think what you’ve seen in your time here is bad, you can’t imagine the shit storm it’s been since we landed. I’ve had plenty on my plate with the people I care about.” I added, hoping to justify my disinterest. I’d almost lost Jasper and Octavia, we had people dying every day it seemed and we were constantly challenged with finding ways to survive simply our basic needs, like food and water. We’d had a murder, a suicide, a rape. I could honestly say that I didn’t care enough to know who was sleeping with who.

“Of course. Not your business right? You don’t know about anyone else.” She sighed, and her tone was one of frustrated disbelief. I squirmed awkwardly, uncomfortable that she thought I was lying. “Alright, tell me something you do know, what’s happening with you and Bellamy?”She spoke with an accusing tone to her voice this time and  I practically choked on my own saliva as I stared back at her in wide-eyed surprise. 

“What?” I breathed, hardly able to get the word out.

“Are you fucking or not? Cuz you definitely seem like you are, but he seems to be fucking several other girls and you don’t come across as the kind of girl to be part of a harem to me. Or do you just hate each other and I’m reading it as sexual tension?” She crossed her arms and raised her brows at me expectantly. I blinked back in disbelief, processing what she had just said. 

“Neither! He’s my best friend's brother and also a massive pain in the ass which makes things complicated.” I rambled, feeling hot and flustered. It was unlike me to lose my cool, but she’d caught me completely off guard. I barely knew Raven yet and even if I did, these weren’t the kind of topics I was good at sharing. She looked at me in an amused fashion. 

“Hmm, so you’re not a liar, you’re just completely oblivious. I’m stuck here with you all now. I know I missed a lot since you first arrived. Of course I chose you as my source of information.” She rolled her eyes at me and I looked back in confusion.

“Why do you even care?” I asked curiously. I could truly say that I didn’t care what anyone else was doing, and I’d never been able to understand nosy people.

“My boyfriend, who is likely cheating on me, is sitting here dying whilst I’m stuck in this hellhole with a bunch of criminals and no supplies.” She replied, all traces of humour gone from her tone as her exhausted expression showed momentarily. “You want to keep me company? Pointless bullshit gossip is the best distraction I can think of right now. Unless you have a better idea?” She asked, leveling me with an intense stare and I shrugged in defeat. We sat in empty silence for a few minutes, with only the sounds of the storm outside and Finn’s labored breathing filling the space. Raven cleared her throat to break the silence, before speaking in her teasing tone again. “Here’s the thing I don’t get about you and Bellamy, clearly the tension is there, it’s obvious. Why haven’t you gone there? I mean, I get why you wouldn’t want to commit, I’ve barely been here a few days and I can already see that he’s a steaming pile of chaos. But if we’re being real? He’s hot and the way he gets in your face...I’d have climbed him like a tree by now.” She winked at me and I couldn’t contain the sudden snort of laughter.

“Raven, ew!” I laughed. “Well, don’t let me stand in the way of your tree climbing adventures. I don’t need any more stress in my life thanks and things with the two of us are messy enough as it is.” I answered thoughtfully and she shrugged at me. 

“That’s fair. Hey, if Finn chooses Clarke over me, maybe I’ll take you up on that.” Raven tried to sound comical, but the hurt was clear in her words and I viewed her with sympathy. 

“Come on Raven, you know he’d be a fool to-” Before I could finish my sentence, Finn started to shake and we both jumped to our feet. In moments, he progressed from lightly shaking to fully seizing up and we could hardly keep him on the table. “Shit, get Clarke!” I yelled, trying to block Finn from falling to the ground. Raven ran to the hatch and yelled for help, quickly returning to his side.

“What do we do?” She cried, blocking him from falling from the other side of the table as we struggled to keep him on between us.

“I don’t know, I’m not a goddamn doctor!” I replied, looking down at Finn in a panic. “Okay, put him in the recovery position, we need to turn him so he doesn’t swallow his tongue.” I reeled off information from somewhere in the back of my mind and we battled to contain his wiggling form.

“Now what? He’s not stopping!” Raven’s desperate eyes were filled with tears as she watched with a pleading expression. 

“That won’t stop him, it’ll just keep him safe in the meantime. We might have to ride it out. Where the hell is Clarke?!” I yelled and openly sighed in relief as I saw her boots emerge through the hatch. “Finally! What do we do Clarke?!” I called out to her. 

“He was fine, then-” Raven started to stutter in her panic.

“Get my mother on the radio, now.” Clarke answered, as she ran to take Raven’s place holding Finn in the recovery position. She pushed her out of the way, but Raven simply stayed frozen on the spot and watched in shock. “Raven, now!” She yelled, trying to shock her into moving. Clarke’s screams finally seemed to shake her back into action and she ran around the desk to join me. 

“The radio’s dead! Interference from the storm.” She stated, before falling back into an emotional state as she stared down at Finn. “Please don’t let him die.” She muttered in a small, pleading voice.

“Raven, the radio, do I just press the button and speak?” I asked, and she nodded back. “Take my spot, help Clarke and I will keep trying to get us help, okay?” I grabbed her arm and pulled her into my place to spur her into action and she quickly took over. I ran wildly to the radio and dropped myself into the seat, struggling to get the headphones on as my hands shook. “This is Indio Sloan. Calling Ark station. Please come in!” I glanced back to see Raven and Clarke still struggling to hold Finn and the terror in Raven’s face only grew as the seconds passed. “This is an emergency! Can anyone hear me? Ark station come in.” I tried to contain the panic in my voice, but I suddenly understood the enormous pressure on Raven’s shoulders as the radio operator.

“Okay, it stopped.” Raven muttered and I felt like I could breathe for the first time since Finn started to shake. “What’s that in his mouth?” She gasped. I turned to look over my shoulder in response to her question and saw Clarke turning him further onto his side. 

“Quick, help me get him on his side!” Clarke ordered and Raven stared at him in a stiff position as if she were going into shock. “Raven! There is fluid in his lungs, he could choke, quick!” She yelled as she tried to plead with her to act. I watched as together they rolled him over and Clarke quickly checked his temperature with her hand. “He’s burning up.” She stated with a worried expression.

“Fluid in his lungs? Does that mean the knife hit something?” Raven’s voice was panicked and I flashed her a look that said she could do this.

“No, this isn’t blood, it’s something else.” Clarke was beginning to sound panicked now too. “I did-I did everything she told me!” Her voice raised in pitch and she began to breathe rapidly, before inhaling sharply. “I’ve seen this before! Shortness of breath, fever, seizing - it’s poison!” My stomach dropped as she thought aloud.

“Clarke, you sterilised everything! I watched you do it.” Raven argued, becoming increasingly agitated. Clarke looked over to the tray of instruments. 

“Not everything.” She stated before grabbing the knife that he was stabbed with. “Stay here.” She ordered as she stormed toward the ladder.

“Clarke, where are you going?! We need you here!” I argued, but she climbed the ladder faster than I’d ever seen her move. I turned back to Raven, who was watching her go with a look that implied she was struggling not to follow. “No!” I snapped, which drew her attention back to me. “You stay with him! I’m gonna keep trying the Ark and I’ll need your help if I can get Dr Griffin back.” I ordered in an attempt to break through her focus on the hatch. 

“You’re not gonna get through to the Ark in this storm Indigo.” She sighed in an exasperated tone as she looked down at Finn with a hopeless expression.

“I have to try! Look no offence to Clarke here but we need a doctor, a real doctor. We’re flying blind right now.” I replied assertively. “So you just keep him on his side and make sure he doesn’t choke and I’ll worry about getting that doctor back.” I turned back to the radio. “Ark station, please respond! Can anyone hear me? This is Indigo Sloan, I’m one of the 100. We need your help!” I repeated the message several times over, keeping my voice as clear and even as possible, but couldn’t hear a single sound in response.

“Screw this, I’m going up there.” Raven was already at the ladder by the time I turned around and I felt that I was rapidly losing control of the situation. I was terrified of being left alone with him, I didn’t want to be solely responsible for keeping him alive. 

“Raven stop! I need you down here” I shouted, as I pulled off the headphones and ran to the ladder but she was already out of my reach.

“Keep an eye on Finn!” She called back down and I growled in frustration. I moved to Finn’s side and felt his boiling forehead. I busied myself with finding some rags and water and held a cold, wet rag to his forehead in an attempt to bring the fever down. “Don’t you die on me spacewalker, as much as it pains me to admit, we need your voice of reason here.” I whispered, dabbing at his face gently. I was distracted as the curtains over the door blew open to reveal Jasper and Monty, who were drenched and looked exhausted. “Oh thank god! You’re alright!” I breathed, rushing over to embrace them both in my relief.

“Well, that’s a nice welcome.” Monty teased and I smiled.

“Look, there’s a lot going on and I don’t have time to explain. Monty, the radio worked earlier but the storm is interfering now. Can you work your magic? If you get an answer, ask for Dr Griffin and shout to us. Jasper, keep Finn on his side and use the damp rags to keep him cool. If he starts seizing or anything changes with him, shout for help. I’m sorry I have to go deal with this!” I ranted and ran to the ladder before they could object, but was pleased to hear them running into place behind me.

The others had been on the top floor with the grounder for a while and no one had emerged yet. As I rushed up the second ladder, I could hear screaming and various other bizarre noises that I couldn’t identify. As I flipped the hatch open, the lights flickered on and off and violent hollering filled the room. I pulled myself up to my feet to see Raven electrocuting the grounder whilst the others watched. 

“What the fuck is going on? Raven, what are you doing?!” I screamed, pulling her away from him despite her viscous resistance.

“He’s all I have!” Raven howled in desperation, trying to fight me off. I threw her to the ground, putting myself between him and everyone else.

“What the fuck is wrong with all of you? Why didn’t you stop her?!” I looked around the bewildered, uncomfortable faces around me until I settled on Bellamy, who simply stared back at me in uncertainty. I was disappointed with every person involved, but I could feel a deep fury burning in my stomach for him. I couldn’t comprehend that he was capable of something like this, and the fact that he had been the one to bring him here made me shudder.

“No more!” Octavia growled, storming over to stand beside me, and I was glad to have her with me.

“He’s letting Finn die!” Raven struggled back to her feet and Octavia and I banded together to block the grounder from her reach. I knew that if this came to a fight it would be difficult, we were badly outnumbered. 

“It’s enough Raven, you need to stop! We’re not letting you get to him again. We need to think, not act like animals!” I argued, staring her down and trying my best to diffuse the situation before it reached violence again. Octavia winced to my side and I looked over to see her arm bleeding. 

“Octavia no!” Bellamy cried and my eyes widened as I noticed the grounders knife in her hand. It was the same knife that Finn had been poisoned with and my thoughts raced with the consequences of this action 

“What are you doing?” I gasped, grabbing her arm to look at the wound and feeling my stomach drop. I had already felt terrified enough when Finn broke into seizures, I couldn’t deal with the idea that she could be doing that soon too. 

“He won’t let me die.” She insisted, staring directly at him. I looked at her in bewilderment, struggling to understand where this unshakable confidence in the strange man who kidnapped her had come from. I took a deep breath, realising that the damage of the knife had already been done and knew that I had to trust her to take this risk if we were to gain anything from it. I nodded reluctantly and allowed her to move closer to him. As she approached the grounder, Bellamy reached out to intercept her. 

“Octavia, what the hell did you-” She dodged out of his reach, with a fleeting furious look at him, before dropping to her knees on the floor in front of the grounder.

“Trust her for once Bellamy.” I approached him and pushed him back from her slightly to give her some space to work. He met my eyes and I looked up at him firmly, keeping my hand on his chest to hold him in place.

Octavia laid out a line of small glass bottles from a small leather pouch that clearly belonged to the grounder and put the knife to each individually. After a few tries, the grounder finally tipped his head to the left. She held up the last bottle to the left and he nodded at her. She handed it straight to Clarke, who rushed to the hatch with Raven right behind. Octavia started to wrap her arm as Bellamy reached out to touch her shoulder. 

“Don’t touch me!” She snarled, and I jumped forward to help her up instead.

“Come on, let’s make sure you get some of that antidote too.” I spoke gently and although she flinched initially, when she looked up to see that it was me, she relaxed enough to let me help her. “You first, let’s go.” I guided her to the hatch and paused as she started to struggle her way down. I turned back to Bellamy, who was still frozen to the spot, shocked from Octavia’s reaction to him. I cleared my throat and he looked up at me. “This isn’t over, we’ll talk about this.” I spoke firmly and maintained the look until he couldn’t meet my eyes anymore.

[ggmanreviews]

GGMan's Weekly Video Game Recommendation #5

I play a lot of games. Some, everyone has played. Others, not so much.

I'll be listing one game per week, that I have played and believe it deserves more attention. If you have already played it, then that's great! If you haven't, then you might as well. The bigger the game, the longer the review due to the amount of content.

Name: Company of Heroes Genre: Real-Time Strategy Developer: Relic Entertainment Publisher: THQ (Sega from 2013 till present) Engine: Essense Engine Length: Over 100 Hours Singleplayer? Yes. Multiplayer? Yes. Release Date: September 12th, 2006 Platforms: PC

Reviews: Steam 9/10, GameSpot 9/10, Metacritic 93%, IGN 9.4/10

Now, where do I start? Company of Heroes shall forever be one of my all-time favourite games. It's not the oldest one I've played, but it was the very first one that introduced me to, back then, the rising industry of video games. You might recognize the franchise by its sequel that came out in 2013, which was also the last of the franchise as Relic was bought by SEGA, later that year, & THQ (not to be confused with THQ Nordic) filled for bankruptcy in 2012. Company of Heroes had managed to redefine the staple of real-time strategy games as it won numerous awards including two game-of-the-year titles from IGN & GameSpy.

The game takes place within the European Theatre of World War 2, as it covers not just individuals but, companies from specific armies and they're efforts throughout the Invasion of Normandy. From the heroic landings of Omaha Beach to the famous encirclement of the retreating German 7th Army within the Falaise Pocket, you control Able Company as a detachment of the U.S. 506th Infantry Regiment and basically re-live their experiences amongst some of the most pivotal battles of the war.

However, if American campaigns do not interest you, then you may be entertained by their standalone DLC's. Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts allows you to take control of the British 2nd Army in their conquest for Caen, and the German Panzer Lehr Divison with their perspective during Operation: Market Garden. Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor does not follow after its predecessors with specific campaigns throughout the war, but instead, it allows you to re-live three episodes, from the war, depicting individual soldiers or groups at their finest hour; Tiger Ace SS-Hauptsturmführer Michael Wittman, the 82nd Airborne Division, & a unit of Waffen SS-Panzergrenadiers.

If you're a history fanatic, like me, then the premise of the game's story alone would already have you keen to try the game out for yourself. However, if you're not really a fan of World War 2 based video games, then maybe the gameplay would manage to catch your attention. Unlike your old-school strategy games such as Starcraft, Warcraft, & Age of Empires, Company of Heroes introduces the mechanics of, for example, economic gathering, sectorial management, dynamic cover, command powers, destructible environments, real-time physics (get that Fortnite sh*t outta here) and I could go on. Combat wise, you control one of four different armies, two from the allies & and two from the axis, which deploy squads of soldiers or individual tanks each with their own pros and cons. You use a combination of the multiple varieties of units available to you in whatever method of attack or defence that you want to do.  

Do you want to charge over 70 units of US riflemen, armed with the BAR & sticky bombs against a division of German panthers? Of course, you can! Do you want to launch a rocket at a single British officer running for his life? Go ahead! This game lays down the groundwork through historical maps, battles, events, and basically hands over an immeasurable amount of freedom to choose how YOU want to play.

If you have completed the campaign without much of a challenge, then you may dive into the multiplayer as you, obviously, battle other players live to each their own choice of playstyle, and even against the game's computer-based AI which, depending on the chosen difficulty, it could either be a walk in the park or your complete and utter annihilation.

Graphics & Immersion? Who cares! As a game from 2006, using a (now) dead engine, this game takes the cake when it comes to the bare bones of the pixel by pixel details. For a real-time strategy game, you have realistic looking weapons, uniforms, tanks, maps, explosions, faces, voice acting ("EAGLES! SCREAMING ON JERRY!"), destructive action, rockets, more explosions, tiger tanks, cartoonish animations, physics, fires, airstrikes, buildings, and did I mention explosions?

In my honest opinion, Company of Heroes isn't just a game that deserves more attention because let's face it, the attention is already there from way back in 2006. This game is a must-play for any RTS fanatic out there.

System Req (Minimum) OS: Windows XP / Windows Vista Processor: 2.0 GHz Intel Pentium IV / AMD Athlon XP Memory: 512MB Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 3 Series / ATI Radeon 9500 Sound: DirectX 9.0 Storage: 9GB (Steam says 1GB for some reason)

System Req (Recommended) OS: Windows XP / Windows Vista / Windows 7-8 (10 has some initial compatibility issues from my experience) Processor: 3.0 GHz Intel Pentium IV Memory: 1GB Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Sound: DirectX 9.0 Storage: 9GB (Steam leaves this blank for some reason)

Side Note: On Steam, there's the normal version & the legacy version, which are given to you upon purchase. The legacy version is the most updated version of the game by Relic Entertainment but, access to multiplayer is extremely troublesome as it's not supported by Steam servers. Play the non-legacy version for little to no issues.

Price (USD): $16.18 (Main Game + Legacy Edition), $29.43 (Main Game + Legacy Edition + Both DLC's) [PC] Disclaimer: this is a direct conversion of my local currency via Steam because Google is being dumb. In my opinion, it's worth the full price.

[bradleycabotlowell]

Happy Birthday

October 1989

There had been girls, of course. Bradley was a good-looking, clean-cut boy from a good family. It only made sense that he’d already had a couple girlfriends by the time he reached his sixteenth birthday. Nothing too glamorous, of course—usually just somebody’s mom dropping off the awkward couple at South Shore Plaza or the movie theater for a few hours after school. As awkward as dating was without a driver’s license, though, a kiss here and there from a pretty girl kept him sufficiently satisfied. Kept his mind from wandering to places he was afraid to explore.

That is, until the new kid in school came along.

Luca Bresciani had just started at Milton Academy that year in Class II, the same class as Bradley. His father was a wealthy Milanese businessman who had moved to Boston for a year to expand the company’s American operations. Bradley had learned all of this on the first day of school, when he had been assigned to show Luca around campus. Though Luca had been on the periphery of his social circle for the past month and a half, Bradley had, puzzlingly, no idea how to talk to him. Seeing him and entering into conversation always tied his tongue in knots like no one else could.

There was something bewildering about Luca. Something that set him apart. He wore a leather jacket. He wrote poetry. He wore his jet black hair long, down to his shoulders, in some sort of shag or mullet style. He had big, earnest dark eyes with long eyelashes, and when he smiled at Bradley, it was such a soft, gentle smile. He looks like someone breathed life into a Caravaggio painting, he once thought, extremely heterosexually and without a hint of pretension. Imagine being close enough to try and count his eyelashes. There was a meanness to Bradley, or perhaps just an aloofness. But he couldn’t bring himself to treat Luca cruelly. He completely, utterly fell apart around him.

Thinking about Luca made every cell in Bradley’s body ache. And that terrified him.

As October drew to a close and the days grew ever shorter, Bradley reached his sixteenth birthday. That day, as the non-boarding students prepared to go home, Luca cornered Bradley in the hallway, biting his lip and not making eye contact. Bradley’s heart lurched. “Hi, Bradley. I heard that today is your birthday. I made you something. I hope you do not dislike it.”

Bradley stared, wide-eyed, as Luca shoved a small package into his hands. “I…uh…thank you. How do you say, ‘happy birthday’ in Italian?”

A tiny, wavering smile. “Buon compleanno.”

Bradley returned the smile, unable to hide his own nervousness. “Grazie.”

He practically ran home, the present from Luca burning a hole in his pocket. Without saying hello as he came in the door, he bolted straight up to his room and locked the door behind him. His parents could never know. They’d never approve. His hands trembled as he tore open the wrapping paper, revealing a cassette tape. The label read, simply “To Bradley From Luca – Oct. 1989.” There was no track listing.

Perplexed, he popped it into his tape player and pressed play. Luca’s mixtape began with The Smiths. A solid enough start, even if they weren’t necessarily the kind of music Bradley tended to enjoy. But, as the mix continued, his heart thudded up to his throat. These were all love songs. Every last one. He continued to sit on the edge of his bed, petrified, as the last song on the second side of the cassette faded out. What was he going to do?

“BRADLEY! SUPPER IS READY.”

“I’LL BE RIGHT DOWN, MOTHER.” He jumped up, ejected the tape from the player, and stuffed it into his pillowcase. They couldn’t know. Nobody could know.

With Bradley’s older brothers and sister away at college, only Bradley and his parents sat down to dinner. Father seemed to be halfway through a story when Bradley reached the table. As Bradley listened, the gist of the story seemed to be that a colleague of his father’s had just been revealed to be gay—a fact that only came to light because of a recent AIDS diagnosis. “Ed’s a smart guy and a good worker. Such a shame he’s going out like this.” Mother mumbled something in agreement, and Father continued. “I mean, you have to pity people like that, but on the other hand, this wouldn’t be happening to them if they didn’t choose to live their lives that way. You know what I mean?”

“Of course,” Mother intoned flatly. She turned to look at Bradley, who was determinedly staring into his mashed potatoes. It was far from the first time Mother or Father spoke this way. They talked this way about gays a lot. But why did it have to be today? “How has your birthday been going so far, Bradley?”

Bradley shrugged, wishing he could either die in a hole or never feel a single emotion ever again. “Oh, can’t complain.”

“That’s good. Please pass the peas.”

As he picked at his dinner and, afterwards, his birthday cake, Bradley reflected upon the mixtape and Luca and how it all made him feel. He couldn’t feel this way. He couldn’t be this way. There was no way he could while living the life he was supposed to live. A life with Harvard and a trust fund and a well-paying job and garden parties and yacht club memberships couldn’t happen without his parents’ support. It couldn’t happen if he openly indulged in his true nature and his parents knew about it. It was like his father said: he could choose not to live his life that way.

In the following weeks and months, Bradley tried to avoid Luca at school. At first, Luca looked at him hopefully from across classrooms and courtyards. Honestly, the hope lasted longer than Bradley thought it would. Then, by Christmas, the hope withered away into sadness. Both the hope and the sadness broke Bradley’s heart to see, but he was utterly determined not to listen to his heart anymore. Not about this sort of thing. Luca had softened him for a brief glimmer of a moment, but he’d softened him far too much.

The school year ended. Luca Bresciani moved back to Italy. Bradley Cabot Lowell put the mixtape away somewhere and tried to convince himself that he didn’t care. They never spoke to each other again.

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

October 2019

Bradley spent his 46th birthday cleaning out the attic. As he reorganized some of his high school and college things, his hand brushed against something small and plastic at the bottom of the box. Pulling it out, he saw something he had not seen in thirty years.

“To Bradley From Luca – Oct. 1989.”

Curiosity got the better of Bradley and he got his phone out. Swiping over to Facebook, he searched for Luca there for the first time. Sure enough, a Luca Bresciani appeared in the results. He listed his location as “London, United Kingdom” and he and Bradley shared some mutual friends. He looked older now, of course: his hair was short and graying and he had a few new lines on his face. Luca had an arm wrapped around another man, equally handsome and happy-looking, in his profile picture. Bradley noticed their wedding rings. Opening the profile picture, he saw a few comments, in both English and Italian. “You and Steven look so happy together,” and things to that effect. He closed the profile picture and hovered over the “Add Friend” button for a good ten seconds.

Shaking his head, Bradley exited the app and returned his phone to his pocket. He went looking for a cassette player instead.

He felt the old ache again, but different now. Had it been worth it to hide yourself away, Lowell? Wife you despise, kids you resent, and all the money in the world? Had it all been fucking worth it? Another sullen thought occurred to him as he found a cassette player, dusted it off, and plugged it in: He probably doesn’t even remember me. Internally at war with himself and trying to repress this sudden groundswell of emotion, he made matters worse by popping in the tape and pressing the play button against his better judgment.

Take me out tonight

Where there’s music and there’s people

And they’re young and alive…

[loretranscripts]

Lore Episode 33: A Dead End (Transcript) - 2nd May, 2016

tw: gore

Disclaimer: This transcript is entirely non-profit and fan-made. All credit for this content goes to Aaron Mahnke, creator of Lore podcast. It is by a fan, for fans, and meant to make the content of the podcast more accessible to all. Also, there may be mistakes, despite rigorous re-reading on my part. Feel free to point them out, but please be nice!

When the trucker pulled up to the toll booth on Route 895 in Virginia, it was the middle of the night, and the look on his face was one of confusion and fear. The toll booth attendant listened to the man’s story and then sent him on his way. The state highway there is referred to as the Pocahontas Parkway, so maybe the man’s story was just a play on the name’s motif, but when the highway department received more than few phone calls that night from distressed motorists, each telling essentially the same story, the authorities began to take notice. What the trucker saw, what all of them claimed to have seen, was a small group of Native Americans standing in the grass between the east- and west-bound lanes of traffic near Mill Road. The trucker described them as standing motionless in the grass, each one holding a burning torch. He assumed they were picketing, of course – after all, the parkway is rumoured to cut through land that’s sacred to local Native American tribes – but the middle of the night didn’t seem like the right time for a peaceful protest. So, it didn’t sit well with him, or the others who claimed to see the very same thing. The Times Dispatch caught wind of the story and soon people were flocking to the Mill Street overpass to see if they, too, could catch a glimpse of the ghosts. And that’s what it all comes down to, isn’t it? We all want to see the ghosts, to witness history press it’s face against the glass of the present, to cheat reality, in a sense. Each year, thousands of people around the world claim that they, too, have seen a ghost. They tell their stories and pass along their goose-bumps like some communicable disease. But the reality is that, for most of us, we never see a thing. History is often nothing more than a distant memory. In some places, though, that history floats a bit closer to the surface. I’m Aaron Mahnke, and this is Lore.

 When the English arrived in what is now Virginia way back in 1607, they found the land heavily populated by the original inhabitants of the region. The English called them the Powhatan, although that was just the name of their leader. If you don’t recognise his name that’s understandable, but everyone certainly remembers his daughter, Pocahontas. Before Richmond was… Richmond, the land where it now stands was an important Powhatan settlement. In 1607, a party from Jamestown travelled inland and claimed the location as their own. Possession of the land bounced back and forth between the Native Americans and the English for years, but it was finally in 1737 that the tribes lost, and Richmond was born.

Early on, Richmond played host to important figures in the American Revolution against England. Patrick Henry, the man who shouted: “Give me liberty, or give me death”, did so from St. John’s Church, right there in Richmond. And in the middle of the Revolutionary War, Thomas Jefferson served as the governor of Virginia out of the city. Less than a century later, Richmond became a key city in the Confederacy, as the American Civil War tore the country apart. From its munitions factory and railroad system to the seat of the new government under Jefferson Davis, it was a powerful city, and rightly so – and at the centre of it all is Belle Isle. It sits right there in the James River, between Hollywood Cemetery to the north and Forest Hill to the south. It’s easy to overlook on a map, but far from being an afterthought, Belle Isle is actually home to some of the most painful memories in the history of the city.

Before the English arrived and Captain John Smith stood atop the rocks there, Belle Isle belonged to the Powhatan. Shortly after the English took control of it late in the early 1700s it was a fishery, and then, in 1814, the Old Dominion Iron and Nail Company built a factory there. Positioned on the river with the strong current never tiring, it was the perfect location to harness the power of the water. As the ironworks grew, so did its footprint. The factory expanded, a village was built around it, and even a general store popped up to serve the hundreds of people who called the island home. But they wouldn’t be the only ones to live there. In 1862, Confederate forces moved onto the island and began to fortify it. Their plan was to use the isolated island as a prison camp and began to transport Union captives there by the thousands. Over the three years it was in operation, the prison played host to over 30,000 Union soldiers, sometimes over 10,000 at a time. The crowded space and resentful feelings between Confederate and Union ideals led to deplorable conditions.

In 1882, after living with memories of the prison camp for nearly two decades, New York cavalry officer William H. Wood wrote to the editor of the National Tribune with his observations. “Many froze to death during the winter,” he wrote, “others were tortured in the most barbarous manner. I’ve seen men put astride a wooden horse such as masons use, say, 5ft high, with their feet tied to stakes in the ground, and left there for an hour or more on a cold, winter morning. Often their feet would freeze and burst open.” He also wrote of their lack of food. “A lieutenant’s dog,” he wrote, “was once enticed over the bank and taken into an old tent, where it was killed and eaten raw. Your humble servant had a piece of it. For this act of hungry men, the entire camp was kept out of rations all day.” There were only a few wooden shacks to house the prisoners, so they lived out their days completely exposed to the elements – blistering heat, freezing cold, rain and frost, and all of it contributed to the suffering of the men who were held there. Estimates vary depending on the source, but it’s thought that nearly half of those that were brought to the camp – that’s close to 15,000 – never left alive.

Today, Belle Isle is a public park, but it’s haunted by a dark past, and by those who lived and died there long ago. You can’t see their ghosts, but you can certainly feel them. It’s a heavy place. Those who visit the island claim to have felt its dark past in the air like the stifling heat of an iron forge. But there are other places in Richmond that are said to be haunted. Unlike Belle Isle, though, these locations aren’t in ruins, or nearly forgotten by the living. They’re right in the middle of everyday life, and each one has a unique story to tell. They have their own past, and according to those who have been there, it can still be seen.

 Technically, Wrexham Hall is in Chesterfield County, just south of Richmond, but when you speak to people about the city’s deep, haunting past, it’s always brought up as a perfect example of local lore, and while it doesn’t have a large number of stories to tell, what it does offer is chilling enough. The house was built at the end of the 18th century by Archibald Walthall, who left the home to his daughters, Polly and Susannah. It was Susannah who later sold her childhood home, but because there was always risk that the property might be used for future construction, she required that the new owners at least preserve the family graveyard. Time and the elements, though, have allowed the site of the burial ground to slip from memory, and according to some, that’s why Susannah has returned to Wrexham Hall, perhaps in an effort to make sure some piece of the past is still remembered.

Many years after her death, the home was owned by a man named Stanley Hague. He and a handful of other men had been working in the field near the house when they looked up to see a woman in a red dress sitting on the front porch. They all saw her, and even commented to each other about it. It was hard to miss that bright red against the white home. Later, when Stanley headed home from work, he asked his wife if her mother had been on the porch that day. No, she told him, she’d been away all day in Richmond.

In Hollywood Cemetery, just north of Belle Isle, there are other stories afoot. The graveyard was established in 1849 and is the final resting place of a number of important figures – former US presidents James Monroe and John Tyler, along with Confederate president Jefferson Davis. There are also two Supreme Court Justices buried there, along with 22 confederate generals and over 18,000 troops. The soldiers are honoured with an enormous stone pyramid that reaches up beyond the tree tops, and even though no one is buried beneath it, there have been several reports of moans heard coming from the stones. Others have claimed to have felt cold spots near the base. But it’s really a grave nearby that’s the site of the most activity there. This grave belongs to a little girl who died at the age of three from a childhood illness, and standing beside her tombstone is a large, cast iron dog. According to the local legend, the dog once stood outside her father’s grocery store, but when she passed away in 1862, it was moved to her grave to look after her. That might not be completely accurate, though. In the early 1860s, many iron objects were melted down to be used for military purposes, so the dog was most likely moved to the cemetery as a way of protecting it, but that hasn’t stopped the stories – stories that include visions of a little girl playing near the grave, or the sound of barking in the middle of the night.

Nearby, on Cary Street, is the old, historic Byrd Theatre. It was built in 1928 and named after the founder of Richmond himself, William Byrd. The space inside is enormous – it can seat over 900 on the lower level and another 400 or so in the balcony, and it’s up there that some of the oddest experiences have taken place. When the theatre opened its doors in December of 1928, Robert Coulter was the manager, and he continued to serve in that role all the way up until 1971, when he passed away. For over four decades, he was a permanent fixture in the theatre, often found sitting in his favourite seat up to one side of the balcony, and if we believe the stories, Robert never left. The current manager has been told by a number of people that they’ve all seen a tall man in a suit, sitting in the balcony at times when no one else was up there. Others have physically felt someone pass by them while operating the projector. The former manager has even been seen on more than one occasion by employees locking the front doors at night, as if he were coming out to help them. The stories that are whispered about places like Byrd Theatre aren’t alone. There are dozens of locations across the city that claim unusual activity and equally eerie stories, but none can claim to have played host to a flesh and blood monster. None, that is, except for one.

 In 1875, the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway Company was looking to connect some track in Richmond to another spur 75 miles to the south. Newport News was down that way, and that meant ocean and shipping. It was a gamble to make their railroad more profitable in the wake of the Industrial Revolution and its increasing demand for things like coal, something mined in western Virginia. Part of the new railway line would cut through Richmond, near Jefferson Park, and it was decided that a tunnel would be constructed for the track to pass through. Trains would enter on 18th Street and then exit 4000ft later on the eastern end, near 31st Street. It was one of those ideas that sounded perfect on paper. Reality, though, had a few complications to throw at them. Richmond sits on a geological foundation of clay, as opposed to the bedrock found in other parts of the state. It’s the kind of soil that changes consistency depending on the season and weather. Rainy months lead to more ground water, and that swells the clay. Dry months cause the opposite. As you can imagine, it’s difficult to build on ground that constantly changes density. Even during construction, there were a number of cave-ins. Between the project’s inception in 1875 and its completion six years later, at least ten men died while working in the tunnel. Even after it was open, water had a tendency to seep in and cause problems, something that went on for decades.

Around 1901, though, alternative routes were created, and the Church Hill Tunnel was used less and less. But when the railroad wanted to increase capacity in 1925, they remembered the old tunnel, and began work to bring it up to modern standards. Maybe now, they thought, they could do it right. By the autumn of 1925, the tunnel was playing host to a crew of brave men, supported by a work train powered by steam. They were slowly making their way along the length of the tunnel, making repairs, improving the engineering and hopefully making the tunnel safe for future use. But even after claiming so many lives decades before, the tunnel didn’t seem to be done just yet.

On October 2nd, while doing what they’d been doing for weeks, dozens of men were working inside the tunnel when the ceiling collapsed. Most escaped, but five men were trapped inside, buried alive. And to make matters worse, the steam engine exploded from the weight of the debris pressed down on it, filling the tunnel with steam and dust, eventually contributing to even further collapse. According to the story as it’s told today, something did, in fact, walk out of the tunnel – but it wasn’t human. They say it was a hulking creature, covered in strips of decaying flesh, with sharp teeth and a crazed look in its eye. And because witnesses reported that blood was flowing from its mouth, many have since referred to it as the Richmond Vampire. No one could explain why the creature was there. Some suggested that it had been attracted to the carnage and had come to feed. They say that’s why the early rescue attempts only found one of the five missing men, still seated at the control of the work train. There was no other sign of the other victims of the tragedy, though, so some suggest that perhaps the vampire had something to do with that. Witnesses say that the creature fled out the eastern end of the tunnel, past the gathering crowd of workers, and then made its way south to Hollywood Cemetery. Some of the workmen who had managed to escape the collapse and witnessed the creature’s getaway were able to make chase, following it through the graveyard for a distance. Then, they claimed, it slipped into one of the tombs, the final resting place of a man named W. W. Pool.

Pool, it turns out, was a relatively unknown accountant who had died just three years prior. According to the local legend, this made sense – the blood on the mouth, the jagged teeth, the return to the mausoleum. All of it pointed to one, undeniable fact that quickly spread across the city as one of the premier legends of Richmond. Pool was, of course, a vampire. It’s said that people returned to the cemetery for many nights, each one eagerly waiting to see if the vampire would emerge from its hiding place once more, but there were no other stories to tell us what happened next. If the Richmond Vampire had been active before the Church Hill tunnel incident, it seems he had gone into retirement immediately after it. Like many tales of local lore, this story ends on an unsatisfying note. Just as the mysterious creature’s trail from the collapsed tunnel finally ended in the shadowy doorway of a cold mausoleum, the story of what happened seems to end in shadows as well. Much like the tunnel itself, it was now nothing more than a dead end.

 A funny thing happens somewhere between real life events in the past and the stories we tell each other around the campfire or dining room table. Much like the true and tried telephone game, where the message is passed from person to person through a long chain of possession, these old stories shift and change. The change is never visible. They adapt to a new culture, or take on elements that are only relevant to a particular generation, but after decades, sometimes even centuries, these stories stand before us transformed, which is the difference between history and folklore, after all. History, there’s a paper trail, a clear image of the original that time and distance has more difficult time eroding. Folklore is like water, forever shifting to fit the crevice as the rock breaks down. Richmond is an old city by the standards of most Americans. Yes, there are older places on the east coast, but it has a storied history that makes it feel almost timeless – Jamestown, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War and the Confederacy. American history would be lacking something essential without the role Richmond has played through it all. Some of that history is unchanged, but some, it seems, has undergone deep transformation over the years, and a prime example of that is the story of the Richmond Vampire.

The collapsed tunnel and the train inside are all fact. There have even been modern day efforts to rescue the train car inside and clear the rubble, but the tunnel is now flooded with the same ground water that made it unstable in the first place. The events that happened on that dark, October day in 1925 were real, though – at least to a degree. A lone survivor did crawl from the wreckage, as the story tells us. His teeth were sharp and his mouth was bloody. Even his skin, hanging from his body like wet linen bandages, is documented fact. But the survivor had a name – Benjamin Mosby. He was a 28-year-old employee of the railroad and was described as big and strong. At the moment of the accident, he’d been standing in front of the train’s open coal door, shirt off, covered in sweat, and shovelling fuel into the fire. When the tunnel collapsed, the boiler burst under the pressure, washing Mosby in a flood of scalding water. But he somehow survived, crawled free from the rock and twisted metal, and walked to safety. He died the following day at the local hospital, and it was his appearance, with bloody, broken teeth and skin boiled from his body in ribbons, that fuelled the story we still whisper today. It’s almost cliché to say it, but it’s true – sometimes the real-life events that birth the legend turn out to be more frightening and horrific than any folktale could ever be.

[Closing Statements]

[artisticgryfess]

Stormlight Modern AU - Worldbuilding

I’m never gonna write this but if anyone sees this they should feel free to!!

It’s a lot so it’s going under a read more

Each of the princedoms is a province of Alethkar

Each province has an army, which are used much the same way as they are in the canon books (i.e. against each other trying to get more land and by the king, working for the benefit of alethkar as a whole)

Each province has claim over one major thing in terms of running the country, although they must accede to the king should he make a decree

Kholin has War (the most important and highest ranked general)

Sebarial has Commerce (regulates trade)

Sadeas has Information (spies, criminal justice, policing forces)

Slavery works the exact same, except while most singers are slaves, they have the same legal rights as human slaves

Highprince is still an official title and has the exact same station and meaning, but they are elected, for life or til resignation. While it is usually passed down in families via the sons/daughters being the only one running, it is fully possible for an outsider to run and win. It is a very rare occurrence, though.

Kings are also elected, but no one from outside the family has ever run against members of it and won

Gender roles are more expectations than societal laws; there are a few male scholars and a few female soldiers, although neither is extremely common and all of them face some prejudice

Safehands stopped being a thing long ago, and everyone is literate, not just women (the literacy fight was the harder one)

Spren are still a thing, and while it is well-known amongst the scientific community that if you record any singular measurement for a given spren, that individual spren maintains that measurement possibly for the rest of time, even if it varied before it was written down

There are scientists who devote their life to studying spren, but they cannot really learn what spren actually are, due to the lack of Elsecallers, Lightweavers, or Willshapers.

Someone did once propose the hypothesis that they are living ideas, but she was ridiculed and laughed out of the sprenologist community

Jasnah has studied her proposal

There is no mention of Shadesmar made anywhere but ancient documents, and there is no real reason to associate those with spren

Spren are widely regarded as the most mysterious phenomenon in the world, and while generations of scientists have been studying them, they will likely remain so

There are plenty of references to the Desolations, the Heralds, the Knights Radiant, Stormlight, etc. but there are few documents that actually explain them

After electricity was invented, people stopped leaving their gemstones out in highstorms - after a while, it became a folk tale, then a true myth, then disappeared from the minds of the non-historians entirely

There are historical mentions of it originating from pretty much everywhere in Roshar, even a few (though only a very few) from Shinovar

Shardblades are either buried beneath lots of rock, sitting in museums, or on display in rich people's’ mansions

Shardplate was tried in combat, but has fallen out of use due to its lack of effectiveness against bullets at first, and later the lack of how to recharge gemstones and thus regenerate shardplate

Same for soulcasters

Technology is modern level - and people have caught radio waves from Scadrial from a hundred or so years back.

There is ongoing research on the origin of these waves, how old they are, and what any of it even means (language barriers yo!)

Jasnah is a historian at a college in Kholinar, but doesn’t teach - its just her main base of operations for her research

She’s studying the ancient civilizations of roshar, she’s currently trying to figure out what soulcasters were used for + what stormlight was

She’s found mentions of Stormlight all across Roshar, and knows that the highstorms renew it.

She believes that if she could find the right reference from Shinovar, she could learn just what it is - unfortunately, if such a record exists, it has not been found yet.

Shallan is going to the same college on a student visa, convinced Jasnah to tutor her

Kaladin was a soldier in Sadeas’ army, serving under Amaram until one day he killed a high-ranking enemy officer and refused the boon Amaram offered him - so Amaram killed all that was left of his squad and sold Kaladin into slavery. He is currently working construction on a new building in the university in kholinar, the very place he had been hoping to go

He’s still very skilled with the spear, but learned it as a hobby sport in his teens and has never wielded one in actual combat

He’s still 19 - signed up to pay for med school, and for Tien’s school

Shallan is a citizen of Jah Keved, going to college in Kholinar on a student visa

She’s majoring in Art and Ecology, and considering a minor in history after Jasnah pointed out just how much there still is to learn there and how little she personally knows

Lived a sheltered life on her father’s estate - he owned a small company

Going to college in the hopes of finding a way to continue to maintain it, possibly by selling some of Jasnah’s research?

Parents die same way as in canon, pretty much

Dalinar is Jasnah’s father, highprince of war, and highprince of the province of Kholin

One of the king’s most trusted advisors - its said that if he decided to run for king, he would be the first outside of the royal family to be placed on the throne

His house has the closest familial ties to the throne, but they’re still pretty distant. They no longer share the same last name, due to various women holding the throne

Adolin is Dalinar’s eldest son, and the most likely successor to the Kholin throne

He’s a very accomplished duelist

greatsword is his preferred weapon, second is longsword

Romantic activities much the same

Unsure what he wants to do with his life, but guesses that he’ll probably end up being on the Kholin throne or going pro with his dueling

Doesn’t really want the former, thinks he’ll have to do it anyway

[megaexplorerthings-blog]

Numerous times failed but get Padma Shri Nomination for 2019 - Rajatkumar Dani founder of The Dani Groups

Rajatkumar went from a college dropout, to be the Founder & CEO of Founder & Managing Director of The Dani Groups & Cosmagen – A multi-service groups of company and Research firm built for the modern-day. I had the pleasure of interviewing Rajatkumar, Here’s what he had to say!

Rajatkumar: Growing up, the school wasn’t a choice for me. It was mandatory. I was always reminded by my friends, peers, coaches, parents of the cliché “Go to school, get good grades, play sports, train for the scholarships, and then get your degree so you can get a well-paying job.” This never sat well with me. I never really knew what I wanted to do, but that was just about the last thing I was interested in. Interestingly enough though, that’s exactly what I did.

I quickly found out that the education system was not the platform that would teach me the proper principles of high success. I looked around and compared the habits of college students and teachers against the habits of those who had already attained high performance and success, and (not) to my surprise, I found massive differences. College is sort of like pre-school for adults. No matter how similar to the real world it may be, it’s just not the real world.

As you may be able to tell already, I think very differently than a lot of people. Instead of going out every night, I stayed in my dorm room to work on research projects and theories on Space science & Astrophysics. The work I was doing pushed me to cultivate high-performance skills and put me in a position to build key relationships. In a few months’ time, I realized if I don’t go after my passions, I’ll be stuck at a desk job paying bills for the rest of my life. So I left.

My vision to encourage successful associations with youth and Young Researchers and Non-Researchers, youth-drove associations and youth developments to additionally fortify comprehensive youth investment in the basic leadership forms. To give instructive assets, Research Team, administration openings, and a worldwide system to the up and coming age of world pioneers. There was one problem. In India, you need a license to show your talent in front of the world. But nothing stopped to change the world and I change my everything and  I fell into bad habits, bad routines, and left room for complacency in my work.

I longed to know the answers to the age-old questions of “why am I here?” and “where do I come from?” Those questions were probably not as understandable in my mind as they seem when I recount them here and now, but they gnawed at me, just the same, on some primordial, undefined level of my genetic make-up.  Within every cognitive, rational human being lies that dark unanswered fog that rises to the surface every so often, want to have answers. And, yet, most of our lives, we move with slow through the years, totally unaware that those desires smolder deep down inside. We subconsciously suppress any wild, weird thoughts that there just might be answers beyond the domain of what we think we already know and accept. Human Beings walk around this world feeling absolutely unconnected to the greater world and universe around them. As a race, we have forgotten how to make this connectivity, and this ties into all aspects of how we recognize ourselves, our loved ones, our politics, our jobs and careers, our deities, our personal spiritualities, our place in the Order of Things.

Sure, like many kids growing up in India during the late ‘11s and 2012s, I asked my sir who knows about Hebrew Bible and I attended him at my uncles home and he taught about the Origins of Man from a Genesis-Chapter-One perspective. But I am not agreed on some points and I am thinking about his words. And for many years of my life, that was the only source point to which I subconsciously recognized. It was as if the stories of creation were settled long ago in that unquestioning little child’s understanding of How Things Work. The curiosities and questions that rose later in life from the mental depths were somehow summarily crushed by the teachings that had been put into my head so many years earlier.

But little did I know – for it was something that was never taught, but always skipped-over, avoided, misinformed or never mentioned – that the very book from which we dogmatically drew our genesis, held secretive, mysterious, encoded messages about origins, visitations and beings not of this world.  What was once accepted without question as to the mystical, magical, miraculous stuff of ancient biblical stories, suddenly took on a very different perspective once I opened myself to the idea that there was more to those stories that I had been told, and much more brewing under the surface of what I had been taught.

Remove yourself, for a moment, to a place somewhere in a more dark past, before the days of modern psychological discipline and scientific advance. A time when we, the human race, believed that our life’s fortunes, illnesses, pains, and serendipitous events were strongly rooted in the spiritual and the supernatural. As we evolved our technology and sciences, we learned more and more about the mind and body, universal expansion and entropy, geological tectonics, and the movement of our solar system around a somewhat smallish star that burned in the Milky Way galaxy. Along the way, we dispensed with our trust on the astronomical, casting aside our need for gods, devils and every cast of angel, demon, and spirit in between. We corporately tuned-out our hearts, and turned our minds to the methodological pragmatic, allowing Science and skeptical thought to successfully supplant faith in that great “Something-Bigger-Than-Ourselves.” Quantifiable Fact became the inevitable surrogate for the misty stuff of myth and legend. And while we may not have totally thrown out the baby with the bath water, we have successfully become a culture that discounts anything that cannot be measured by the Scientific Method, casting dispersions on experiential faith and even the slightest adherence to anything that smacks of an older spiritual belief system.

The supreme effort that occupies most of the recorded history of the Human Race – after the history of War, that is (which, sadly, seems to be synonymous with the History of Mankind) – is the great quest for discovery: the seeking-out of the whos, whats, wheres, whys and hows of our existence. And yet, while attempting, on that quest, to adhere to strict, quantifiable sources, we have let go the Spiritual; the innocuous, insubstantial, airborne flotsam that, when you actually look for it, seems to permeate every facet of being, down to the very spark of life, itself.

I wanted the real, raw, non-simulated experience of being punched in the mouth, and having no choice but to work my ass off to get the results I wanted. I was jolted awake by the stark reality that if I continue to allow my surroundings to dictate my actions, I would never achieve any of the goals I set for myself.

I will continue to grow and scale my agency to a National Space Agency, and hopefully, impact others on the way. I want other people to understand that we only have one life. Only one. If you don’t ever take the risk to chase your dreams, the probability of you living out that dream goes down to basically 0. So don’t be afraid. What’s the worst that can happen?

Wow! Amazing story, what are two things you wish someone told you when you first started?

80% of the obstacles you put in front of you are from yourself, and they’re fake obstacles. Just do the work.

The more time you think or strategize about what you’re going to do, some else is out there already doing it.

What sparked your journey towards entrepreneurship?

Rajatkumar: The idea that we only get one life, so we might as well make it the best life we’ve ever dreamt of. Research embodies that idea. Through massive pain and adversity, you’re able to live a life of total control and add tremendous value to other People’s lives at the same time. The most successful people live in comfort because they operate in a world of chaos.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? What lesson did you learn from them?

Rajatkumar: I’ve learned from a multitude of people. From  Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawkings, etc. The list goes on. I never had a direct mentor, but I surrounded my mind with positivity. I listened to successful people online, I listened to their podcasts, I invested me to learn new things, I read their books – and then I act on that information.

[p-aralian]

Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami

Men Without Women is a collection of short stories so I feel like I should review this both by their individual stories and as a whole.

(1) Drive My Car

Okay so let me first just tell you that I read these short stories while I was actually in Japan. Prior to my trip, I didn’t exactly have much knowledge on Japan’s affairs, except pretty much for the Meiji Restoration, which I studied in IB History. But I digress; basically what I’m trying to say is that I had no idea just how bad the gender inequality is in Japan. Like literally, women are still seen as the traditional caregiver, not really meant to be in the workforce but rather fulfil the role of a respectful wife and mother. So I guess I shouldn’t really have been surprised at the sexism in this novel, but it was really eye-opening because I guess Murakami’s expression of people’s lives in the book must be an accurate reflection or depiction of how Japanese people actually live.

The story literally starts with the blatant stereotype that women are bad drivers. Apparently we just don’t know how or aren’t built to operate such heavy machinery? Jesus. Sorry, but it’s actually ridiculous how some men think or rather are brought up to think. Must be the whole Confucianism thing. Also, the woman driver he hired was like what, my age, and he was SEXUALISING her. Okay he was kinda doing the opposite of that, ie, saying that she had no breasts and looked like a man but STILL – why do those things even matter!!! Why are you, a like 50+ year old man, evaluating the looks of a girl, WHO COULD BE YOUR DAUGHTER’S AGE. Please. Just. Stop.

Anyways, that aside. I also didn’t really like the story because it was very strange – the guy knew his wife was having an affair and didn’t call her out on it? And befriended his wife’s lover after she died? Dude, you cray. Who does that? Also, story 1 – man without woman because woman died. But woman was a cheating bitch. So again, not the best impression of women.

- In every situation, knowledge was better than ignorance. However agonizing, it was necessary to confront the facts. Only through knowing could a person become strong. - The proposition that we can look into another person’s heart with perfect clarity strikes me as a fool’s game. I don’t care how well we think we should understand them, or how much we love them. All it can do is cause us pain. Examining your own heart, however, is another matter. I think it’s possible to see what’s in there if you work hard enough at it. So in the end maybe that’s the challenge: to look inside your own heart as perceptively and seriously as you can, and to make peace with what you find there. If we hope to truly see another person, we have to start by looking within ourselves.

(2) Yesterday

I liked this one. I don’t really get how this falls into place with regard to the underlying thread that is supposed to bind all the stories together – “men without women”. Honestly, I don’t want to go too deep into this story. Essentially it’s about two people that the narrator knew who could have been together, probably wanted to or were meant to, but didn’t. (Note: there’s a touch of a woman’s unfaithfulness in this one too). Anyways, I feel like it’d be better if I just shared my favourite quotes from it:

- I wonder if life should really be that easy, that comfortable. It might be better to go our separate ways for a while, and if we find out that we really can’t get along without each other, then we get back together. - Maybe going through that kind of tough, lonely experience is necessary when you’re young? Part of the process of growing up? … The way surviving hard winters makes a tree grow stronger, the growth rings inside it tighter. - I truly love Aki-kun, and I don’t think I could ever feel the same way about anybody else. Whenever I’m away from him I get this terrible ache in my chest, always in the same spot. It’s true. There’s a place in my heart reserved just for him. But at the same time I have this strong urge inside me to try something else, to come into contact with all kinds of people. Call it curiosity, a thirst to know more. More possibilities. It’s a natural emotion and I can’t suppress it, no matter how much I try. - Music has that power to revive memories, sometimes so intensely that they hurt.

(3) An Independent Organ

This one was my favourite. It really got to me. Like really got to me. Like I was crying for quite a while after I was done with it. The narrator was again talking about someone else’s life, a plastic surgeon and bachelor who had never been in a long-term relationship with a woman but rather preferred to have good conversations, good sex and no commitment. (Fair enough, I get that). So most of his women tend to be married because apparently a lot of women want the committed part of a relationship with their husbands but ALSO the company of another man who can remind them what it’s like to date and flirt and whatever, I don’t know. Anyways, this doctor falls in love, with a married woman. Surprise surprise. But no. He then has an existential crisis and then dies. He dies because he is lovesick and heartbroken and he dies at his own hands, condemning himself to a slow death by anorexia. He becomes but a shadow of his former self and just dies. Because of the bitch, who not only abandons her husband but also the doctor for, get this, a THIRD lover. Ok so, unfaithfulness again. But that’s not the point.

I feel it was a little melodramatic and unrealistic that he just gave up on life after this woman broke his heart (or maybe it isn’t, maybe because he was so set in his ways of non-commitment that falling in love with a woman and then being betrayed by her could be so heart-breaking that he wanted to reduce himself to nothing? I still think it’s a bit much but it’s not my place to comment on these things after all.) Nonetheless, it broke my heart. I can’t even begin to imagine what betrayal feels like – like he said, if she had told him that she couldn’t be with him because she wanted to keep her family together, he would have been fine, but it was solely the very act of betrayal that drove him to non-existence. Fuck.

My favourite quotes are as follows:

- I’ve been out with lots of women who are much prettier than her, better built, with better taste, and more intelligent. But those comparisons are meaningless. Because to me she is someone special. A ‘complete presence,’ I guess you could call it. All of her qualities are tightly bound into one core. You cant separate each individual quality to measure and analyse it, to say it’s better or worse than the same quality in someone else. It’s what’s in her core that attracts me so strongly. Like a powerful magnet. It’s beyond logic. - ‘Having seen my love now / and said farewell / I know how very shallow my heart was of old / as if I had never before known love – Gonchunagon Atsutada ... I’ve finally experienced what the poet felt. The deep sense of loss after you’ve met the woman you love, have made love, then said goodbye. Like you’re suffocating. The same emotion hasn't changed at all in a thousand years. I’ve never had this feeling up till now, and it makes me realise how incomplete I’ve been, as a person. - The more I get to know her, the more I love her. We’ve gone out for a year and a half, but right now I’m even more entranced than I was at the beginning. It feels like our hearts have become intertwined. Like when she feels something, my heart moves in tandem. Like we’re two boats tied together with rope. Even if you want to cut the rope, there’s no knife sharp enough to do it. - As long as it makes sense, no matter how deep you fall, you should be able to pull yourself together again. - Women are all born with a special independent organ that allows them to lie. It depends on the person, about the kind of lies they tell, what situation they tell them in, and how the lies are told. But at a certain point in their lives, all women tell lies, and they lie about important things. They lie about unimportant things, too, but they also don’t hesitate to lie about the most important things. And when they do, most women’s expressions and voices don’t change at all, since it’s not them lying, but this independent organ they’re equipped with that’s acting on its own. That’s why – except in a few special cases – they can still have a clear conscience and never lose sleep over anything they say. - Just as that woman likely lied to him with her independent organ, Dr. Tokai – in a somewhat different sense – used this independent organ to fall in love. A function beyond his will. With hindsight it’s easy for someone else to sadly shake his head and smugly criticize another’s actions. But without the intervention of that kind of organ – the kind that elevates us to new heights, thrusts us down to the depths, throws our minds into chaos, reveals beautiful illusions, and sometimes even drives us to death – our lives would indeed be indifferent and brusque. Or simply end up as a series of contrivances.

The paragraph on women born with the ability to lie really got to me. 

(4) Scheherazade

Lol. I had a friend called Scheherazade so this was very difficult to read without imagining her. Also because it’s a pseudonym for a Japanese woman, but I just wasn’t able to picture it that way?!!! Okay. I’m going to call her Schez for short. Schez is weird. She talks about her past, in which she describes having a crush on a guy in high school and sneaking out of school to break into his house and smell his things and god knows what else – not cool at all, in fact really creepy. Another thing is, she’s a caretaker who has sex with the dude. Is that a thing? I wish they’d say a little bit more about who the narrator was and why he needed such caretaking to begin with? It all just felt really misplaced. Also don’t get how this fits the whole men without women theme again. Oh and also, Schez was married and I really don’t think the sex can just be dismissed or classified as simply being part of her job – that’s total unfaithfulness as well. Please.

- Life is strange, isn’t it? You can be totally entranced by the glow of something one minute, be willing to sacrifice everything to make it yours, but then a little time passes, or your perspective changes a bit, and all of a sudden you’re shocked at how faded it appears. What was I looking at? you wonder.

(5) Kino

I like this one. Since I’ve been consistent in highlighting this fact, let me just start by saying – there’s unfaithfulness by a woman in this, AGAIN. But other than that, it was really mysterious which was a welcome change. Were the supernatural occurrences real or were they just manifestations of the narrator’s subconscious, forcing him to come to terms with how he truly felt about his wife’s infidelity? This felt like proper Murakami. The snakes, the vanishing cat, the rain, the knocking, I loved it.

(6) Samsa in Love

I have Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis somewhere. I think it’s in London in my brother’s house. I wish I’d read it before this. Maybe then I would’ve had a little more context for this story. But alas it’s not hard to figure. Metamorphosis. That’s pretty self-explanatory. Reviewers online say it’s an interesting take on Gregor Samsa. I don’t know, I don’t really have too much to say about it really. Also, don’t really see how it fits in with the theme again. You know what, that’s it. I got nothing.

(7) Men Without Women

“Men Without Women”. Repeated way too many times in one story. Okay so the narrator receives a phone call from his ex-lover’s husband to be told that she is dead. He thinks about her and their time together and also of how he imagines meeting her earlier in high school and stuff like that. I dunno. I just liked how she played a certain song when they had sex. In fact, you know what I love all of Murakami’s allusions to music and the power it has on people, on memories, on emotions. If I can relate to anything, hell it’s that.  

So I read in an interview with Murakami that he doesn’t analyse the images or thoughts derived from his subconscious which form the content of his stories, instead he merely records them. Honestly, I don’t want to over-analyse it either. These stories took me on a journey, gave me a peek into different worlds, some of which I could relate to more than others. I am glad to have read them and that’s that! 

[blockchain-council001]

Youtube creators can benefit from the Youtube NFT feature.

Non-fungible tokens are sometimes known as NFTs. They're gaining popularity by the day. According to NFT expert , NFT will become more valuable and widely used in the near future. NFT developer are working to make it more useful in a variety of industries. Youtube has added a new NFT feature to its platform as well. The advantages of using Youtube's NFT feature for a youtube creator are briefly discussed here.

What is NFT, and what is its significance?

A non-fungible token (NFT) is a non-transferable unit of information kept on a blockchain, which is a virtual ledger in the shape of a ledger. Digital assets, such as photos, movies, and audio, may be tied to NFT statistics units. NFT stands for "digital artwork," in other words. It contains information about the token's author as well as the token's legitimacy. Nobody will be able to duplicate the artwork.

NFT training will offer one more gifted concept, about equivalent to NFT token.

What are the advantages of YouTube's NFT?

According to an NFT expert, Youtube's ecosystem is continually developing. NFT can also benefit both the organisation and the creator as a creators' platform. A YouTube NFT can help its creators in a variety of ways.

NFT's popularity:

NFT has seen phenomenal growth over the last year. Some NFTs went for millions of dollars. Many art collectors are also willing to pay astronomical sums for digital artworks. The increased popularity of YouTube will be aided by the increased demand for NFT. Youtube will also benefit from NFT's assistance in expanding its reach. Youtubers will be able to show off their digital creations. They can accomplish this without changing their operating system. It is in the creator's best interests to sell their artwork for a fair price.

Keep up with the competition:

Many companies are now working on NFT as a result of its growing popularity. Currently, there are many NFT initiatives in the works. NFT technology is being developed by competitors of the Youtube platform in order to attract more users. The incorporation of NFT onto the YouTube platform will attract a larger audience. As a result, the creators' work will reach a wider audience. It will boost the number of people who watch their channel, as well as the number of people who will view their artwork. It will also aid in increasing the popularity of their channel over other platforms. It will also assist them in staying ahead of their competitors.

Cut down on content duplication:

Youtube's most serious issue is content duplication. The majority of content creators have their work stolen by other channels. It will reduce the number of people who watch their channels, and it will benefit some other media without them having to do anything. For all YouTube creators, this is a serious issue. Experts at NFT believe that NFT will be a valuable tool in combating content theft and copying. Non-fungible tokens are built using blockchain technology. It makes use of blockchain technology to provide benefits. Transparency, creator information, authenticity, and security are just a few of the features it offers. To put it another way, it prevents people from plagiarising other people's work. If somebody tries to copy it, it will display the creator's information and cease. The content copying will be nullified. It will also be quite beneficial to the developer of YouTube videos. Others will not be able to benefit from their work or ideas. It will also ensure the validity of the originator and the films' security. NFT developers are focused on improving this technology so that creators can benefit from it.

Reducing the number of false channels is a good idea.

Many fraudulent channels can be found on the Youtube platform. Many people use false media to spread bogus news and films. Many people build fake channels in order to make defamatory comments on other people's videos. These channels must all be turned off. However, there are millions of fraudulent YouTube channels. Moreover, simply eliminating the channels will not solve the problem. People should not be able to make phoney material on Youtube. NFT can be of considerable assistance once again. People will not establish false channels since NFT requires specific information and authentication before they can be created. In the end, it will assist the YouTube creator in eliminating bogus comments. It will also aid in the prevention of the spread of false news and movies.

Conclusion:

NFt is a fantastic technology that allows you to see the world of art from a fresh perspective. NFT can help them because movies, songs, drawings, and any other digital production can be considered art. This digital art is well-suited to YouTube. NFt, on the other hand, can be incredibly advantageous to the platform. The platform is being investigated by NFT developers. In the future, NFT will be available on this well-known platform. Additionally, this technology will assist creators. NFT training will assist you in better comprehending the advantages.

[mikegranich87]

OnlyFans’ policy switch is the latest victory in Big Banking’s war on sex

OnlyFans, the platform that allows creators to sell material directly to customers, will soon implement new restrictions on the publication of adult content. Starting in October, the company will ban the sale of sexually explicit content and depictions of sexual acts. The move does not cover all nudity, but says that specific rules will be outlined in an as-yet unpublished acceptable use policy. In a statement, OnlyFans said that the changes were prompted by “requests” made by its “banking partners and payout providers.” In short, the company’s arm has been twisted by the same big banks that have waged war on online sex work for years.

Big Business

The business can certainly attribute much of its success to enabling sex work and helping sex workers to get paid. Over the last two years, OnlyFans has grown from relative obscurity into a brand that is synonymous with adult content. Earlier this year, it boasted that its creators had earned more than $3 billion, and the platform was name-checked in a Beyoncé remix. It’s believed that the company, which had around 7 million users in 2019, has seen that figure reach closer to 130 million in recent months. And, on June 16th, Bloomberg reported that the site was looking to attract investors in order to raise more funding at a valuation of more than $1 billion.

here's OF full statement. nice of them to throw the transparency report in there. here's that too: https://t.co/xfFrfmX4Wppic.twitter.com/8WqjSGjLUk

— Samantha Cole (@samleecole) August 19, 2021

It is clear, however, that a number of people who both create content for, and use, the site feel that the impending adult content ban is a betrayal. In a statement shared with Engadget, Isaac Hayes III, founder of Fanbase — a social media site that lets users sell their content — summed up the general sentiment rather neatly. Hayes said that the move was “disgraceful,” and that OnlyFans had “made billions off that user base.” He added that dumping sex workers after becoming a household name was “exactly what these platforms do. Discard the users who make it popular once they get what they want.” And in this case, it does seem as if the twin aims of securing more money from investors and retaining access to banking is what prompted the move. It’s a story that we’ve heard several times before.

Deja Vu

The most recent example, and one that we covered extensively at the time, was the cultivation and subsequent dumping of a sex work community on Patreon. Before 2017, the site had passionately and publicly courted sex workers, encouraging them to use its platform. In 2016, it loudly defied PayPal’s longstanding ban on payments to sex workers, allowing users to support content creators through its platform. At the time, Patreon even criticized PayPal’s lack of transparency, saying that its opaque policy “impacts the lives of Adult Content creators.”

This attitude did not, however, last very long. On September 15th, 2017, Patreon raised $60 million from investors, and updated its content policy a month later, seeming to repudiate the sex workers it had previously courted. In subsequent interviews, the updated policy was described as not a big deal, with the company pledging to work with creators to ensure compliance. The general notion was that Patreon would crack down on content that was illegal or otherwise nonconsensual.

A year later, however, and the site would further toughen its rules, saying that any and all adult content — including the famous erotic art project Four Chambers — was no longer permitted. (Four Chambers, the name of a British art-erotica collective led by artist Vex Ashley, was long held as the canary in the Patreon coal mine.) Patreon said that it had stepped up “proactive review of content [...] due to requirements from our payment partners.” In short, the same banks that Patreon had battled so loudly the year before had tied the site in knots, demanding it hunt out any and all content that could be considered adult.

It's worth noting that swerving away from sex work doesn't ensure the future prosperity of a business. In 2019, Patreon CEO Jack Conte told CNBC that its business model was not sustainable, and in April 2021, the Wall Street Journal said the site was still not profitable. Tumblr meanwhile, which under Engadget’s parent company mass-purged adult content from its site in 2018 but left a wide variety of neo Nazi content on its platform, saw its valuation fall from $1.1 billion in 2013 to just $3 million in 2019.

Tangled up in Paperwork

Back in April, MasterCard announced that it would further toughen the reporting requirements around adult content. John Verdeschi, Senior Vice President, wrote that banks using its network would need to “certify that the seller of adult content has effective controls in place to monitor, block and, where necessary, take down all illegal content.” This includes rules requiring platforms to keep a record of the identity of every performer shown, as well as who uploads the content. In addition, all content would need to be reviewed prior to release, and all platforms need to run a beefed-up complaints resolution process to take down illegal or non-consensual material within seven days.

As TechDirt wrote back then, as reasonable as these policies sound, they seem intentionally designed to block all adult content, not just the illegal stuff. As it explains, “the new policy [...] makes it impossible for streaming platforms to comply with the new rules. Since they’re not able to prescreen streamed content, they’re [sic] just going to start blocking anything that seems like it might lead to MasterCard pulling the plug.” Mary Moody tweeted, upon announcement of the policy change, that “OnlyFans, MyFreeCams & more are in danger.” As with Patreon, MasterCard's reporting requirements appear to be such a burden that companies would rather avoid the issue altogether than attempt to comply.

Today MasterCard introduced a policy that will ban much of online sex work, especially live streaming. OnlyFans, MyFreeCams & more are in danger. We need @ACLU@RoKhanna@AOC@ewarren@RonWyden to investigate this financial discrimination immediately.#MasterCensorspic.twitter.com/DUR93QXCXQ

— OF SALE🌈Mary Moody in VICE, NBC, & BBC ✨ (@missmarymoody) April 14, 2021

This isn’t a new story, however, and in 2015 Engadget laid out in detail how banks were systematically withdrawing access for adult content platforms. This isn’t just prohibitions on working with select adult content sites, but a blanket-ban that impacted individuals beyond their life in the sex industry. JPMorgan Chase shut down a number of bank accounts owned by adult performers, and refused banking services to a company that makes condoms. This crackdown had an disproportionate impact on individual accounts held by women and LGBTQ people.

The Right

This crackdown is part of a broader alliance between banks, lawmakers, right-wing pressure groups and religious extremists. As The New Republic explained late last year, these groups have been able to use the cover of sex trafficking to push an anti-porn, anti-sex agenda. The movement’s most successful victory was the passing of FOSTA-SESTA, a US law designed to tackle human trafficking by neutering the safe harbor provisions of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act 1996. Despite contravening the first amendment, the move has not shut down many groups of human traffickers, but has closed safety services created for, and used by, sex workers, and even forced Barnes & Noble to purge its ebook store of erotica.

Naturally, OnlyFans became a clear target of those campaigners both because of its success and because it contradicted their narrative. By enabling individuals to sell their material to consumers without intermediaries, it was allowing people to make a living. You can also argue that sites like OnlyFans have enabled people otherwise excluded from the workforce — this report from Arousability explains that a person with chronic pain who can’t work a 9-to-5 job found that sex work offered them financial independence they couldn’t have found otherwise.

Alternatives

We are drawing together a list of resources for sex workers impacted by the OF ban. If you are a sex worker with experience of online work and you have a bit of time today to add any advice, tips or recommendations to it, please DM us or email mutualaid@swarmcollective.org

— SWARM (@SexWorkHive) August 20, 2021

While creators wait for OnlyFans to detail just what content will be allowed, in its brave new world, many may wish to take their business elsewhere. There are a number of platforms that occupy a similar space in the market, including AVN Stars, FanCentro, Unlockd and AdultNode. Just For Fans, for instance, says that it is a sex worker owned-and-operated platform, and that it will welcome any and all creators that OnlyFans has “abandoned.” Similarly, a number of in-progress projects to build more sex-worker owned and operated platforms are currently underway.

Our statement based on today’s news. pic.twitter.com/3PHKmkQ5qQ

— JustForFans (@JustForFansSite) August 19, 2021

It’s likely that this will be seen as another reason to switch to a blockchain and cryptocurrency-based system as a way of escaping the reach of big banking. There are several, including SpankCoin and Nafty, that offer sex workers the ability to sell content through their systems. And as more major platforms are picked off by a combination of payment processors and regulators, this space is going to grow. 

But there are inherent risks to switching, including currency fluctuations and the risk that a sex work-specific currency can still be excluded from mainstream exchanges. And then there’s the fact that if a platform gets big enough, it gets noticed — and targeted — by anti-sex advocates. Crypto can shore up the finances, but pressure can always be exerted on providers, hosts and platform owners wherever they may be. 

And that often forces creators to leap from platform to platform to keep one jump ahead of the people who want to strip them of their ability to make money. But every time they do so, they risk losing their user bases, and have to expend time and energy to recover the fans that they already had. Either way, until there is better political and corporate leadership who can handle the nuanced situation of online sex work, individuals will often be left with no choice but to keep moving, or sink.

from Mike Granich https://www.engadget.com/onlyfans-big-banks-war-adult-content-174041161.html?src=rss