#how have we not solved this problem yet. as a society

[coquelicoq]

need to kill 8 minutes until my chorizo is done AND the song of all time cry to me by solomon burke comes up in the playlist. and i've already done the dishes. what else even is there

[feminist-space]

Cat in the Hat:

"The German Health Minister gave an important update on the Covid situation yesterday.

I’ve written up the section of his speech from the video below for easy reading.

It’s immensely refreshing to see a government minister warning of the harms of Covid in such a transparent way."

https://x.com/_catinthehat/status/1732092683508678954

Prof. Karl Lauterbach

Health Minister, Germany

4 December 2023

"This second (long Covid) round table was very interesting, lasting three and a half hours. It serves as a unique forum for dialogue among scientists, researchers and those affected by long Covid, facilitating the exchange of ideas.

There are many new findings about long Covid. Not all of them are good news. One piece of not-so-good news concerns the fact that long Covid is actually still a problem for those who are newly infected. One estimate that has been put forward is that the risk of contracting long Covid now, even after vaccination, is around 3%. Now you may say, "that's not such a big risk" , but there are tens of thousands of people who are repeatedly affected in a short period of time. And so, the long Covid problem has not yet been solved.

We have also established that there really are many subgroups of long Covid and that we do not yet have a cure. And it was clearly pointed out that we are also dealing with problems here that will challenge society as a whole, because vascular diseases often occur after long Covid. Throughout Europe, we are currently seeing an increased incidence of cardiovascular disease in the middle-age group - from 25 to 50. This is associated with the consequences of Covid infections.

We also very often find cognitive impairment in older people. And one participant pointed out that it may well be like the Spanish flu, where 20 years after the Spanish flu there was a significant increase in Parkinson's disease and probably also dementia.

This is something we must pay attention to, as the past infection afiects how the immune system in the brain functions, as well as the brain's blood vessels, potentially increasing the long-term risk of these major neurodegenerative diseases. This is why we need to conduct very intensive research. This research has played a major role.

What is the overall assessment of the situation now?

We have to be careful. Long Covid is not curable at the moment. We also know that over 40% of those who have several manifestations of long Covid, for example, five or more, still have symptoms after 2 years, so it doesn't seem to heal spontaneously. We also know that those whose symptoms are more pronounced at the beginning are less likely to heal.

So some of what we know from the demographics of long Covid has been confirmed, and we now know more precisely which mechanisms in the brain, but also in the blood vessels and the immune system, are responsible for this. Professor Scheibenbogan will explain this briefly later.

At this point, I can only say the following - this is particularly important to me:

First of all, long Covid is a disease that stays with us and that we cannot yet cure. And we are seeing an increasing number of cases as the waves of infection continue to affect us.

Secondly, Covid is not a cold - with a cold, you don't usually see any long-term effects. You don't see any changes in the blood vessels. You don't usually see an autoimmune disease developing. You also don't usually see neurological inflammation - these are all things that we see with long Covid. Therefore, one should not assume that Covid infection is just a common cold. It can affect brain tissue and the vascular system, and we still lack an effective treatment, making these studies crucial.

Significantly, we know that the risk of long Covid decreases when you're infected but have been vaccinated. That's why it's concerning that only 3 million people have been vaccinated with the new, adapted vaccine. That is a very bad result.

Please protect yourself from severe infections.

Please protect yourself from long Covid.

Currently, the danger posed by Covid is indeed being underestimated. Nothing is worse than infecting someone at Christmas who then becomes seriously ill and may not fully recover."

Alt text is included in all images of this post.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The Coprophagic AI crisis

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in TORONTO on Mar 22, then with LAURA POITRAS in NYC on Mar 24, then Anaheim, and more!

A key requirement for being a science fiction writer without losing your mind is the ability to distinguish between science fiction (futuristic thought experiments) and predictions. SF writers who lack this trait come to fancy themselves fortune-tellers who SEE! THE! FUTURE!

The thing is, sf writers cheat. We palm cards in order to set up pulp adventure stories that let us indulge our thought experiments. These palmed cards – say, faster-than-light drives or time-machines – are narrative devices, not scientifically grounded proposals.

Historically, the fact that some people – both writers and readers – couldn't tell the difference wasn't all that important, because people who fell prey to the sf-as-prophecy delusion didn't have the power to re-orient our society around their mistaken beliefs. But with the rise and rise of sf-obsessed tech billionaires who keep trying to invent the torment nexus, sf writers are starting to be more vocal about distinguishing between our made-up funny stories and predictions (AKA "cyberpunk is a warning, not a suggestion"):

https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2023/11/dont-create-the-torment-nexus.html

In that spirit, I'd like to point to how one of sf's most frequently palmed cards has become a commonplace of the AI crowd. That sleight of hand is: "add enough compute and the computer will wake up." This is a shopworn cliche of sf, the idea that once a computer matches the human brain for "complexity" or "power" (or some other simple-seeming but profoundly nebulous metric), the computer will become conscious. Think of "Mike" in Heinlein's *The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Is_a_Harsh_Mistress#Plot

For people inflating the current AI hype bubble, this idea that making the AI "more powerful" will correct its defects is key. Whenever an AI "hallucinates" in a way that seems to disqualify it from the high-value applications that justify the torrent of investment in the field, boosters say, "Sure, the AI isn't good enough…yet. But once we shovel an order of magnitude more training data into the hopper, we'll solve that, because (as everyone knows) making the computer 'more powerful' solves the AI problem":

https://locusmag.com/2023/12/commentary-cory-doctorow-what-kind-of-bubble-is-ai/

As the lawyers say, this "cites facts not in evidence." But let's stipulate that it's true for a moment. If all we need to make the AI better is more training data, is that something we can count on? Consider the problem of "botshit," Andre Spicer and co's very useful coinage describing "inaccurate or fabricated content" shat out at scale by AIs:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4678265

"Botshit" was coined last December, but the internet is already drowning in it. Desperate people, confronted with an economy modeled on a high-speed game of musical chairs in which the opportunities for a decent livelihood grow ever scarcer, are being scammed into generating mountains of botshit in the hopes of securing the elusive "passive income":

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/15/passive-income-brainworms/#four-hour-work-week

Botshit can be produced at a scale and velocity that beggars the imagination. Consider that Amazon has had to cap the number of self-published "books" an author can submit to a mere three books per day:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/20/amazon-restricts-authors-from-self-publishing-more-than-three-books-a-day-after-ai-concerns

As the web becomes an anaerobic lagoon for botshit, the quantum of human-generated "content" in any internet core sample is dwindling to homeopathic levels. Even sources considered to be nominally high-quality, from Cnet articles to legal briefs, are contaminated with botshit:

https://theconversation.com/ai-is-creating-fake-legal-cases-and-making-its-way-into-real-courtrooms-with-disastrous-results-225080

Ironically, AI companies are setting themselves up for this problem. Google and Microsoft's full-court press for "AI powered search" imagines a future for the web in which search-engines stop returning links to web-pages, and instead summarize their content. The question is, why the fuck would anyone write the web if the only "person" who can find what they write is an AI's crawler, which ingests the writing for its own training, but has no interest in steering readers to see what you've written? If AI search ever becomes a thing, the open web will become an AI CAFO and search crawlers will increasingly end up imbibing the contents of its manure lagoon.

This problem has been a long time coming. Just over a year ago, Jathan Sadowski coined the term "Habsburg AI" to describe a model trained on the output of another model:

https://twitter.com/jathansadowski/status/1625245803211272194

There's a certain intuitive case for this being a bad idea, akin to feeding cows a slurry made of the diseased brains of other cows:

https://www.cdc.gov/prions/bse/index.html

But "The Curse of Recursion: Training on Generated Data Makes Models Forget," a recent paper, goes beyond the ick factor of AI that is fed on botshit and delves into the mathematical consequences of AI coprophagia:

https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.17493

Co-author Ross Anderson summarizes the finding neatly: "using model-generated content in training causes irreversible defects":

https://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2023/06/06/will-gpt-models-choke-on-their-own-exhaust/

Which is all to say: even if you accept the mystical proposition that more training data "solves" the AI problems that constitute total unsuitability for high-value applications that justify the trillions in valuation analysts are touting, that training data is going to be ever-more elusive.

What's more, while the proposition that "more training data will linearly improve the quality of AI predictions" is a mere article of faith, "training an AI on the output of another AI makes it exponentially worse" is a matter of fact.

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/14/14/inhuman-centipede#enshittibottification

Image: Plamenart (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Double_Mobius_Strip.JPG

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

[beatrice-otter]

The Other Half of the Social Model of Disability

Lots of people in fandom are aware of the Social Model of Disability, which is a direct contrast to the Medical Model of Disability. Problem is, most of those people only understand half of the Social Model.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, the "in a nutshell" version is that the medical model views disability as something that is broken and which needs to be fixed, and little or no consideration is given beyond trying to cure it (and little or no consideration is given to the needs and wishes of the person who has it). The social model of disability, on the other hand, says that the thing that disables a person is the way society treats them. So, for example, if someone is paralyzed and can't walk, what disables them from going places is buildings that are not wheelchair accessible. (Or possibly not being able to afford the right type of wheelchair.) Inaccessible spaces and support equipment you can't afford are choices society makes, not a problem with the disabled person.

People then take this to mean that the only problem with disability is the society that surrounds it, and therefore in some utopian future where capitalism is no more and neither is ableism or any other form of bigotry, all problems disabled people have will be solved.

Except that what I've just described is not actually what the social model of disability says. Or, rather, it's only half of what the social model of disability says.

The actual social model of disability begins with a distinction between impairments and disabilities. Impairments are parts of the body/brain that are nonstandard: for example, ears that do not hear (deafness), organs that don't work right (e.g. diabetes), limbs that don't work (paralysis), brain chemistry that causes distress (e.g. anxiety, depression), the list goes on. The impairment may or may not cause distress to the person who has it, depending on the type of impairment (how much pain it causes, etc.) and whether it's a lifelong thing they accept as part of themselves or something newly acquired that radically changes their life and prevents them from doing things they want to do.

And then you have the things that disable us, which are the social factors like "is there an accessible entrance," as described above.

If we ever do get a utopian world where everyone with a disability gets the support they need and all of society is designed to include people with disabilities, that doesn't mean the impairments go away. Life would be so much better for people with impairments, and it's worth working towards, but some impairments simply suck and would continue to suck no matter what.

Take my autism. A world where autism was accepted and supported would make my life so much easier ... and yet even then, my trouble sleeping and my tendency to hyperfixate on things that trigger my anxiety would still make my life worse. I don't want to be cured of my autism! That would change who I am on a fundamental level, and I like myself. My dream is not of a world where I am not autistic, but a world in which I am not penalized for being autistic and have the help I need. And even in that world, my autism will still sometimes cause me distress.

There are some impairments--conditions that come with chronic pain, chronic fatigue, etc.--where pretty much everyone with that impairment agrees that the ultimate goal is a cure. But nobody knows how long a cure will take to find (years? decades? centuries?), whereas focusing on the social things disabling you can lead to improvement in your daily life right now.

In conclusion: the social model of disability is very valuable, and much superior to the medical model on a number of levels. But: please don't forget that the social model makes a distinction between disability and impairments, and even if we reach every goal and get rid of all the social factors that disable people, some impairments will be fine and cause no distress to the people who have them, some will be a mixed bag, and some will still be major problems for the people who have them.

Also on Dreamwidth

[drdemonprince]

Despite how popular and effective body doubling appears to be, empirical research has not tested it as an intervention for people with ADHD at all. It’s a shockingly simple way to address a variety of problems, from a child struggling to complete his homework, to a grown adult who can’t tackle the massive pile of used clothes on her couch. Doctors prescribe stimulants to ADHDers facing “executive functioning” difficulties like these all the time. Yet no clinician has ever examined whether prescribing a body double would be an effective treatment — despite the fact that anecdotally, it addresses the problem more directly than meds do, and it doesn’t come with the risk of building up a physical tolerance or any unwanted side-effects.  To understand why body doubling is so neglected by professionals, we have to look at the flawed way that psychiatry and psychology conceptualizes the ADHDer’s experience. Professionals largely view ADHD as a disorder of motivation and attention, a disability located inside the mind that must be solved on a solely individual level. This framing makes it impossible to understand the ADHDer as a unique, neurodivergent social being interacting with a broader cultural and economic context.  Every feature of ADHD, as it is clinically described, is one of pathology and lack. ADHDers are “time blind”: they don’t have an instinct for what hour of the day it is, or how long a task takes. Nevermind that humans have relied upon time-keeping technologies for as far back as recorded history goes, suggesting that none of us approach time by instinct.  ADHDers lack focus, except for when they don’t, in which case they’re suffering from hyperfocus, and that’s actually a problem too. ADHDers are emotionally volatile — but they’re also too spacy. They dissociate from reality too much, but when they take steps to address this, they are guilty of needing too much stimulation and being too active. And they’re lazy — except for when they’re staying up very late at night working, being most productive during the hours society tells them they ought to be asleep.  If the many complex features of Autism can be best summed up by saying that we have a bottom-up processing style in a world built for top-down processors, then the best way to summarize ADHD is this: people with ADHD are highly socially motivated, but they live in a world where independence is prioritized. 

Read the rest of this essay for free on my Substack!

[mell-150]

"Anarchism is not a set of answers. It’s a set of tools with which to find answers. The answer to “how would anarchist society handle the following,” is “we will organize in such a way that those who are most capable of answering that question will be able to get together and answer it.” I don’t mean this as a vague platitude, I mean it concretely. When workers control a factory, for example, rather than the stockholders, efficiency is increased, pay is increased, working conditions improve, and hours are shorter. In an anarchist society, the people who know how to make and distribute medicine will be able to meet and discuss how to produce better medicine more efficiently, and there would not be the monetary barrier between a patient and her meds, nor the national barrier between a researcher and her peers.

When we say “we don’t know what an anarchist society would be like because we are not yet in one,” we are not being vague or evasive. We are saying that societies ought to be constructed by the people in them. Anarchism is a set of tools and principles with which to construct societies that value freedom and cooperation. We actually do have examples of what those societies can look like, but where we are at now, and where we will be in the future, is not revolutionary Catalonia, Ukraine during the Russian Civil War, or Korean Manchuria. We should not expect to reach the same answers as they did, even if we apply similar problem-solving methods to our problems.

We draw from history–not just from the history of self-styled anarchists like those examples above, but the lived experiences of people who are from cultures that are not traditionally state societies or capitalist. We draw from history to write our present, and to prepare to collectively write our future."

— Margaret Killjoy, "Anarchism and Its Misunderstanders".

[matan4il]

I have actually seen people suggesting "Why don't you stop being Jewish?" as a "solution" for antisemitism. No one suggests that Muslims stop being Muslim as a solution to Islamophobia. No one suggests that Christians stop being Christian as a solution to Christophobia. Yet for some reason it's totally fine to suggest that when it comes to Jews and Judaism.

You're right, Nonnie. No one suggests that Muslims or any member of any other religious marginalized group (and yes, as someone who's a friend of Christian Palestinians, they're very much marginalized and persecuted in the Middle East, as non-Muslims) should convert away from their religion as a "solution" to the hatred against them. I'm thankful I haven't personally come across someone suggesting this "solution" to a Jew, but my first thought was... "Do these people even realize that we can't!?" Literally. Most of us are born as Jews. We are genetically Jewish, and even if we were stupid enough to think conversion would solve all of our problems with antisemites (we know from past experience that it did not, even at the best of times for "assimilation," people like Heinrich Heine noted with bitter disappointment that converting to the majority religion of Christianity did not unlock the gates of European society to them), in DNA / ancestry / racial terms, we literally can't stop being Jewish.

I think this hits on another reason why erasing the fact that Judaism is NOT a religion, it's an ethno-religion (a native identity composed of multiple elements that were only separated into distinct ones centuries after Jews came into being), is harmful to Jews.

Thank you for sharing this, and I sincerely hope for everyone here they never had to figure out how to respond to such an ignorant, offensive, harmful suggestion... Take care! xoxox

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[fazedlight]

Why am I obsessed with the rift?

From my first fic to the many many many many season 5 fics I've written, to the fic where the whole thing could've been averted in season 2, to my no-villain-era-for-Lena in season 3 (twice) and season 4 fics......... I seem to have developed a bit of a rift pattern.

A reasonable person might ask: Why?

There's something that itches in my mind: I think either woman would've been fully justified in walking away from their friendship, and yet they ultimately didn't.

It starts with Kara, who is ultimately a fractured person. She deeply values the truth, and yet she's forced to live with various lies, unable to be her full self.

Her identity is in the in-betweens. She feels adrift between two cultures, she knows her alien state while reaping the privilege of passing, she hides core aspects of herself on a daily basis. I'm sucked into the rift, in part, because of who she is and how she struggles to put it all together. I think her frustration will resonate with anyone who's stuck in the in-betweens.

Kara's struggle for identity plants the seed for the rift. The bigotry of society meant she had to have a secret identity in the first place, and keeping the secret from Lena was certainly reasonable for a time.

We can debate endlessly about when Kara should've told Lena - I think it's really hard to find the line between "too soon" and "too late" - but it ultimately doesn't matter. Because it's Kara's kneejerk reaction to Lena's kryptonite that forms the first sort of betrayal, not the secret itself.

Kara screws up - she says something she regrets, she doubles down when threatened and scared. These are common mistakes... but we have super-level circumstances, so we get super-level consequences. And the engine she has inside her that fears loss (which she's suffered to a level that is unimaginable to anyone on Earth) kicks in. She can't lose another person she loves.

But who is she holding onto?

In the series, and in flashbacks, we watch Lena's progression from idealistic techie to cynical recluse. While she's experienced loss and isolation, that's not the cause of her shift.

It's in experiencing her idol and protector become the madman who kidnaps her. It's in realizing her best friend has betrayed her by taking the one thing that could've saved her brother. It's in moving to a new city to start over, and meeting a mentor who uses her to start a global invasion. It's in her partner in scientific discovery being a pawn to her brother, colluding behind her back.

And then there's the final downfall. Her new best friend - her trusted confidant, her hero, the one who made her feel not so alone anymore - is the super who denigrated her, maligned her, spied on her. Lena had two important people in her life at that point, and she sacrificed one for the other... only to find out the other was a lie.

With betrayal after betrayal - Lex and Andrea and Rhea and Eve and Kara - she loses faith that anyone is above their worst impulses.

So she falls to her own.

How can good people do bad things?

There's a saying I heard around MIT sometimes: there are no technical solutions to social problems. It's easy to forget - when you're surrounded by people seeking to improve the world via science and engineering - that you can't solve humanity via technology or logic or rules. Lena forgot this.

Myriad marks a shift in the rift. Kara lied to Lena, antagonized her, spied on her - but her wrongs were directed towards Lena. Lena's initial response - the petty manipulation and the plan to out Kara - were directed back at Kara.

But then the rift fundamentally shifts.

At this point, Lena's wrongs are no longer just about Kara - she's trying to brainwash the world. She mindcontrolled Malefic and enslaved Eve. This went beyond the fallout between two friends.

It's clear that her intentions are still good here. She's not a megalomaniac like her brother, she's not forming an us-vs-them mentality like her stepmother. She's an anti-villain at this point in the story - desperate to find what's true, in a world full of lies.

It's a hard line to walk, acknowledging Lena's trauma and well-intentioned motivations while realizing she's still ultimately culpable for her own actions. But it's important to try to balance, because Lena is still redeemable.

But getting back to the relationship itself - Kara played a large role in pushing Lena to the edge of her trauma, which was entirely motivated by Kara's own trauma.

You hide things so you don’t lose people. I run from people who hide things. I guess we were bound to explode.

Lena says this in my first fic mentioned earlier, and it summarizes the rift as succinctly as I can put it. Their traumas were incompatible, and their relationship should've failed.

And yet.

Delving into how the CW screwed up the rift could be its own essay. They gave us a complex and layered situation, only to gut it with It's a Super Life (beloved/beloathed), the narrative retroactively justifying Kara instead of examining her foils, glossing over Lena instead of delving into her ethical blindspots. The rift was cancelled.

What does that leave us with?

Well, I guess it left me seeking the rift, over and over again. I'm certainly not the first author to do a rift fic, and I doubt I'll be the last. There seem to be a few different approaches:

Some authors delve into the nuance, having the two characters hash out what they've been through in a way that feels balanced and real. In particular, I love the @searidings fic with the birds i'll share this lonely view. I don't think I have the skill to pull off that type of story.

Some writers lean heavily on one "side" or the other, often with lots of grovelling. This never resonates with me, because at some point in a relationship there has to be the realization that it's "us vs. the problem", rather than "you vs. me". In my mind, these fics miss the layers of trauma that led to the rift.

Some authors make the rift not matter. If you put the characters through hell and back, the anger will lose its thrust, and they'll be left wanting to heal.

I fall into the last category.

There's a moment from permanence by @itllsetyoufree that I especially love, where - in the aftermath of season 6 - Eliza asks Lena why she forgave Kara. Lena can't answer.

We like to think we're logically driven. But in my experience, forgiveness - and a host of other emotions - never work that way. Sometimes "sorry" cuts it, sometimes it doesn't. A lot of times, forgiveness comes from the realization that someone genuinely wants to connect, and that the fallout was relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

Of course, when your fallout includes extra levels of gaslighting and a bit of global brainwashing, making it relatively unimportant requires something drastic.

That's where I end up landing. Putting my blorbos in Situations helps them see the other in a new light - see the other's genuineness, the other's fears, the other's love. Often times, this comes with the simultaneous threat to someone's life (though that's not necessary, especially if it's earlier in Lena's breaking point cutoff).

I do assume - and sometimes imply - that they're also having those discussions, working things out in the background. Because of what I put them through in my fics, I don't think those end up being explosive discussions. It's about figuring out the practical aftermath of what the heart already knows at that point.

Whether I deliver on that is ultimately up to the reader, but that's my approach. Because at the end of the day, love is about cherishing and understanding the person in front of you - flaws and and traumas in all. These stories are driven by loving both characters, and trying to see them the way they see each other.

The rift is a story about love and connection - how those things can't happen without embracing someone else's trauma and without understanding one's own imperfection. Because that's what's at the root of all of us.

And that's why I write the rift.

[decolonize-the-left]

When are we going to talk about how gen z and alpha growing up with lifelong access to tech didn't make them good with technology, it made them bad with people.

A lot of people, when Leave the World Behind was released, related to the youngest character. The daughter who's only priority and desire was to watch the Friends finale as the adults around her were crippled with anxiety about politics, current events, and the very real possibility a war was happening.

One of her most hard-hitting lines was about wanting nothing but the smallest of comforts in a world that guaranteed you none. So if she was gonna die, she was gonna die watching Friends.

She had little to no empathy for her parents or the rest world, which is key to her character's behavior throughout the movie.

"yes, okay the internet is out and there's a blackout and flamingos are in the pool in the USA, and you're terrified, but can you just please fix the TV for me?"

And yeah, I do think it was the damn phones. Because what she's doing isn't all that different from what a LOT of Americans and Gen Z are doing right now while genocides happen.

It's not that different from what a lot of us do. See something awful on our phone and at some point put the phone down like we didn't. Instead we make dinner, do laundry, go to work.

It's our routine.

But gen z and alpha were born into that climate, unlike the rest of us. They didn't grow up seeing the internet be built. They didn't grow up with friends who created forums or sites or were constantly finding new ones. All that already existed. The internet doesn't have secret corners to hide in anymore. Just shadowy ones you really shouldn't wander into.

The work that needed to be done was already done or being done by someone else. Markets and sites were already saturated. If I want to Google something right now, I know for a fact that someone already posted sources and a webpage for it, too.

So much was simply Provided to them. They're so used to the idea of Unknown Others solving problems for them.

Why would they make the effort to solve anything themselves when experience has shown they just have to Google it. Or that it probably already exists. And what difference would They make anyway?

Afterall they themselves are just another Unknown Other in someone else's life, aren't they? Someone nobody thinks about again after their avatar scrolls by.

Is it really that far of a stretch to say that doing this everyday or even just seeing it happen everyday has had material and tangible effects on us as a society?

That it's resulted in a generation of kids who not only undervalue themselves but the impact they are capable of having on their society. Who have resigned to simply Existing within the world instead of trying to thrive in it?

Can we talk about how millennials saying "the next generation will handle it" was nothing but entitlement? We wanted to stop fighting and tried to pass the torch onto a generation that hadn't even graduated high school yet.

And we made things worse by doing that. If we can refuse to fight for them, why would they fight for anyone else? And when parents hand their kids an iPad and send them off to occupy themselves why would they look for human connections?

We taught them not to.

The internet was and is the only consistent thing Gen Z and alpha has had that did not expect anything of them.

And now most of us would be content to doomscroll in the apocalypse in the name of our "mental health"

We've all seen the memes and jokes about it, don't backpedal now. Like I said, a lot of people saw Rose in that movie and made #me & #same posts.

Few would get up and try to cause the change to change anything. Which, in that movie and IRL is how change is made. Real people getting up and working together. Someone doing the work nobody else wants to because someone has to.

But what happens when you grew up thinking someone else was always gonna do it for you anyway?

And that if they didn't, that you were the least qualified because the internet is Full of people more capable than you, right?

The world is full of people more capable than you. Your phone told you that, didn't it? So there's no point in you doing anything.

Is there?

X

People need people, in case you forgot. People need you, in case you forgot.

You're not an Unknown Other in my phone. You are person, in case you forgot.

My tribe has this saying that I know is shared with other natives "be a good ancestor"

A reminder that not only are we the product of the people who came before us, but the people after us will be products of us and our choices, too. That time is linear and goes forward and that how we spend that time matters. Not just for us, but for every single person who will come after us.

A reminder that even though we may be one person in a very long line, we are never ever without the power to change our future. That we have a responsibility to our community and family to use the time we are given for good. A reminder that the life I have isnt just for me. It's for a we.

That I am not just some Unknown Other. I'm a community member, I'm a person, and as such I owe it to my community to be better and demand better for them.

I think a lot of people need that lesson.

You're not an Unknown Other that nobody thinks about. Youre a community member and I actually think about you all the time.

I think about everyone who has resigned to doomerism all the time and I wish y'all would wake up. You're like the depressed cousin on the couch who naps too much and this is me trying to snap you out of it again.

Wake up.

You're loved and valued and people need you. Get up. Be a good ancestor.

[codenamesazanka]

I might be delusional at this point, but i hope the bystander issue will be somehow addressed once shigaraki/tenko/whoever comes back. I feel like the jaku speech was such an important character moment that it has to be brought up again. saving the crying child might have only been the first step!

I'll be delusional with you, anon! There is indeed the fact that The Walk never showed up in the memories AFO showed Tenko/Shigaraki. And the problem wasn't just limited to Tenko - Hero Society did turn a blind eye to a lot of people and a lot of issues, and that pain is real.

But have this wild thought. What if the bystander issue is brought up again... but not quite in regards to Tenko?

So like. AFO is back and i know we all want him gone but—this is literally the last chance for the fact that HE WAS BORN AS A TRASH RIVER BABY BITTEN BY RATS to be addressed? That hey, people should've done something about that, back then, even when Heroes didn't exist yet.

I guess it would have to be Shigaraki who, as he's currently swallowed up by AFO, figures it out by seeing AFO's own memories and conveys it; and that's asking a lot of Shigaraki after what this guy did to him! ...But. Villains need a Hero of their own.

Endgames is a mess and a very smart friend told me before I shouldn't use logic. But Shigaraki has a pattern: Stain stabs him, but he learns from him anyways, used his name to continue to topple the status quo like they both wanted. Overhaul kills Magne, but Shigaraki preserved the bullets and even spared a thought to him at Jaku. ReDestro kidnapped Giran and tried to kill him and his League, but Shigaraki didn't kill him and included the MLA into his destruction plans.

Like, he no doubt would be glad to see AFO gone - kill the guy himself! - but point still stands. AFO fucks with his entire life... and Shigaraki aids in his defeat... but he thinks being a River Trash Rat Baby is pretty sad and unfair. So he demands the Heroes to address it. He wants to address it himself.

Villains need a hero of their own.

We know Shigaraki now has access to AFO's memories. AFO gave it to him to hurt him, sure, but the pathway is there. And right now he thinks Shigaraki is gone, so maybe Shigaraki is defused deep within him enough to go through any barriers between him and the memories. (However mindscape physics works, it made sense in my head, okay.)

This would be one way for the bystanders problem to come back to be addressed, should that ever be addressed 🙏🏼please🙏🏼begging horikoshi please🙏🏼. I had felt, after getting AFO's backstory, that AFO was a bit like Tenko during The Walk, but without the sympathy framing. But also just in general, like how AFO tried to recreate his own Hand trauma thing with Shigaraki. How AFO's motivation turned out to be 'intending on ruining every because he was ignored.' So they aren't as different in some of their feelings.

Finally, AFO's last thought before he rewound out of existence was that he wanted to be remembered by the world. Eyes on him, forever. He also wanted someone to just have cared about him, in a way. That's so sad, and should it be fulfilled (in that he's remembered as a cautionary tale), that's incredible kindness that he doesn't deserve... but that's what heroes do. They reach out and give some relief, even if the other person might not deserve or want it.

(or if you want, frame it as a fuck you to AFO. solve the problems of society, and you never need to worry about another AFO. forget AFO because that he and his tale becomes utterly irrelevant.)

This is far fetched. But here is one thought that's stuck with me.

Thanks for the ask!

[macleod]

While I would say the bot problem on [tumblr] has gotten substantially worse (and more real-on-first-glance), I would have to say that the bot problem everywhere has become untenable. The "Dead Internet theory", the once-conspiracy (but no longer) theory that the activity and creation of bots has likely supplanted a vast majority of internet usage, has absolutely taken over. This effect didn't start with LLMs such as OpenAI, but they certainly exasperated the issue. This can be seen as a benefit, where as more people realize that this is how it will be moving forward with no end, the more people will stop using the internet as a scapegoat of activity as a 'cure' for boredom. There is a human need for human-created activity, and when you see beyond the veil that more and more activity and comments, and replies, and posts are automated, you will likely feel less 'included' in any culture, and become more of an independent person outside of the internet.

As less naturally created culture is produced, the less people will use the internet to solve their boredom issues, the more they will focus inwards and create art that isn't tied to artificially increased activity metrics. This is where the positive of a dead internet is created, that less consumption of other material due to the addiction created matrix and prison of analytics that has sequestered a large portion of the entire human race as a species within the last twenty years.

Funny enough, the amount of time to imprison the entire populace of human civilization into services that demean their value as an independent agent took less than an entire generation. Looking at it from afar, that is truly astounding.

The major upside to this, is that this will transform the internet from a model and service engine from an analytical prison for the individual, back into the original intent of the internet, as a superhighway for data transportation. This helps the internet turn itself back into a utility, and not as a toy to relieve momentary boredom.

The downside to the emboldened dead internet is that there is now a distinct possibility that culture is dead, that the usage of bots that can number in the hundreds of thousands at creation with distinct generated personalities will lead to an increased paranoia of 'reality', and lead to more disenfranchised real thought from real people, and relinquish thought control and idea propagation to a handful of powerful observers who game the system. If this sounds familiar, that's because we are already living within that system. Both of these are happening, both of these will continue to happen, and there really is no path forward without either of these happening.

To put simply, the creation of the dead internet, is likely a net-positive to the destruction of the individual (artificially inflated) data analytic creation prison, but equally is a negative to the destruction of any sense of democracy as a culture, and relinquishes control of original propulsion of ideas to unknown actors.

The other benefit is that this will result in the internet at large to become less 'social' and more as a utility, something that I believe could be a major net positive for the development of humanity towards a post society defined less by walls and more towards inward individualism and local community creation. This can be a benefit, but this can also be its own problem by disconnecting individuals from others of similar natural ideas, disenfranchising minority experiences, and yet again the problems repeats back to an increased paranoia of "what is real", "who is real", and what is a "universal experience" if so many 'bots' can supplant the vast majority of activity.

[infernalodie]

𝐃𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐮𝐥𝐚 || 𝐍𝐚𝐭𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐚 𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐟𝐟

“𝘊𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘯𝘰𝘸, 𝘺𝘰𝘶'𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘸𝘪𝘮𝘮𝘪𝘯' 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘱𝘪𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘞𝘢𝘵𝘤𝘩 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘱, 𝘺𝘰𝘶'𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘵𝘵𝘪𝘯' 𝘰𝘯 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘦 𝘈𝘪𝘯'𝘵 𝘮𝘺 𝘧𝘢𝘶𝘭𝘵 𝘪𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘢𝘯'𝘵 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘭𝘦𝘨𝘴 𝘋𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘢, 𝘩𝘦'𝘭𝘭 𝘱𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘊𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘯𝘰𝘸, 𝘐'𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘺 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳“

Inspo: Labrinth - Dracula Cigarettes After Sex - K.

Pairing: Vampire!Natasha Romanoff x Black!Fem!reader

Summary: There was always someone or something that had been watching you...

Warnings: Angst, sexual tension, smut, dumbification, fingering, mommy kink, and blood consumption.

Words: 3648

DNI IF YOU’RE YOUNGER THAN 18!

When Jennifer told you to not delve into the underworld, you really should’ve listened. Maybe that was because of the lack of hours of rest or the constant blabbering your boss did whenever you gave him more evidence and leads to the case you had been working on since you joined the police department. But you knew it was the fact that you wouldn’t dare walk the streets at night. Not down a dark alley, not down a well-lit street–nowhere. You wouldn’t risk it after the things you’d seen happening right beneath your feet.

“You want to make my client testify for–your words exactly, ‘A vampire society living under our city’?” Jennifer questioned, staring at the paper you’d given her. Looking back up at you with an incredulous look on her face, eyes squinting. “Did you smoke something before you wrote this-”

“Jen, this is real!” You exclaimed, grabbing the paper from her hand and slamming it on her desk. “This is fucking real and I am scared!”

Hearing that come from her best friend, a woman who never backs down from anything, scared of some myth surprised her. You became a detective to help solve problems others didn’t have answers to. And an extension of that, you were willing to put your life on the line to do the right thing. But this was something that kept you up at night. A constant whisper being spoken into your flesh, making you shiver despite the multitude of blankets that you hoped would protect you. Yet, no matter what you did, no matter how much divide you created from what could lurk in the dark, you still didn’t feel safe.

So, seeing this altered side of you irked with Jennifer, who rose from her chair and stared at you, concerned. “Y/n, maybe you need to take some time off from work,” she suggested. “We can book a flight to Tahiti once I’m done with this case-”

“Fuck-” You groaned, running your hands over your face. “Jen, this fear just doesn’t go away. I know what I’ve seen and I know what is happening. For all I fucking know, they could be watching and listening!”

Upon saying that, you finally realized your mistake. Looking at Jennifer with wide eyes as you snatched the paper from her desk and made your way to the door. “Y/n, where the hell are you-”

“Get security, Jen! Do whatever you have to to keep yourself for the next few days!” That was all you left the famous lawyer before you were sprinting out of her room and through the firm. Out to do god knows what, which left an unsettling feeling in Jennifer’s chest.

Grabbing her pen, about to look down at her table, she saw the reflection through from her glass desk. Staring at two glowing red orbs before they glowed brighter with a face becoming apparent. The person’s lips twisted into a foul and sinister grin, causing Jennifer’s blood to run cold with the puncture of something slowly pressing deep into the side of her neck.

“My pet is coming home.”

Traversing your way down those familiar alleys that were populated with people searching for the same thing, but with different reasons. Peace, fantasy, change; whatever it was that drove them to look for the Underground, you didn’t care as much as you should. If they wanted to be used as blood bags, then so be it. You were going to bring this entire thing down to the ground and if that meant killing, then you would.

It wasn’t hard to find that obscured entrance near the old docks in Harlem. A large set of oil drums were stacked around it, hiding that huge hole that had a flimsy piece of wood covering it. The hardest part was removing all the oil drums before getting to the entrance without drawing any unwanted attention. And with the already noticeable paranoia, it took you a bit to build up the courage to just enter.

The tunnels had lamps hooked along the right and left corners. One repeating after the other after 5 feet of distance to keep the consistent light in the dusty tunnel. Wooden beams keep some support from the dirt above your head and prevent the tunnel from collapsing. Gun in hand and phone in the other, you carefully made your way forward. Always taking cautious glances behind you, hyper-aware that you were once again entering the territory you didn’t belong in.

But whatever you did, there was a calling to it. Unspoken words echo in your head with an unrecognizable voice being accompanied by them. Perhaps it was the case and how deep you were in it or just the fear of what you’d uncovered. But there was an unaltering fear that would subside no matter the time you spent away from the case. And running away from it might just make things worse.

So here you were, going deeper down the rabbit hole and being able to hear the pounding music that shook the ground beneath your feet. The multiple scents of candles being burnt gave floral scents that assaulted your nose unapologetically. But once you made it towards the exit, the warm lighting of candles was enough to reveal the horrors that kept you up at night.

Sprawled out on couches were vampires and humans. Drinking, eating, and sucking away the men's and women's blood. Balancing a delicate line between life and death with how pale they were. It was voluntary from what you guessed but didn’t change the fact that there were indeed vampires and they were living with the humans. And if they were peaceful, you might give up the chase, but you also knew that these same vampires that were smiling, laughing, talking, there were a few that had murdered humans that were innocent. That’s how you got started on this case and ended up finding this place. Murders that had an abnormality to them raised questions that needed answers.

Holstering your pistol, you carefully moved through the bodies of people walking to private rooms or in the public scenery of the hideout. Gripping your phone tighter by your side as you took multiple pictures. The first time you came down here, you were in too much of a state of shock to even think about gathering evidence. But now with the threat of Jennifer’s life now at stake, you needed to gather all the evidence you could before bringing it to your chief who could properly conduct a plan to raid the hideout.

“You must be her.” The sudden silky smooth voice made you flinch. Swallowing the lump in your throat as you turned to find a blonde woman standing with her arms crossed, a glass with a red substance staining the inside of it. From all the other women you had seen, she wore a pair of black slacks with a black suit jacket to match. Features are soft and seem to be etched to perfection just by the beauty and natural glow she gave. Her pale skin beneath revealed with only a black lace bra covering her breasts from your eyes. Her eyes burned a fiery orange that placed you in a sliver of a trance, hypnotized by the glow they produced. They looked you up and down with judgement, setting your smaller frame ablaze.

But after a few moments, she hummed with a nod, almost confirming her previous assumption. “Yeah, you’re definitely her,” the woman spoke, a hint of a smile on her lips as she stepped closer. Her lips parted to reveal her pearly white teeth, tongue pressing gently to her right canine that was razor sharp. Too afraid of causing a commotion or making your goals known, you stayed planted when the woman stood mere inches from you. Having to anchor your head to keep her gaze.

Her freehand found your waist, nails gently digging into the denim. Pulling you closer, a silent order that you followed and was acknowledged with a hum of approval. “Why she decided to have you to herself I will never understand,” she muttered. “There’s enough of you that we could share. You would be a treat to have in my bed tonight.”

Swallowing the lump in your throat, trying to maintain a strong front, you sniffled. “Where is she?”

The woman tilted her head, smiling slightly. “Not going to tell me your name, love?” She inquired. “Mine’s Yelena. And the woman you’re looking for isn’t of your concern.”

As Yelena was beginning to close the distance, the sound of footsteps behind you alerted her. Lifting her eyes past you, nose twitching before she pulled away. “But it seems like our fun has been cut short. These men will take you to her.”

Without so much as a whisper, you were taken away by the two men who you guessed were guards. You were still spiralling trying to figure out how they knew you and how they knew you would be here. But that also meant that they’d been watching. Worsening the regret of even talking to Jennifer about this case that was becoming worse and worse the more time went by.

Being escorted through the dark corners of the main lounge, you were then sent down a hall that had luminescent lights on the ceiling. Casting a faint light aqua on the plain black walls as the sound of the men’s dress shoes bounces off the walls with loud clicks. You were suffocating, strangled by the sense of fear and deprivation of hope. If they knew what you were up to, then you might as well be dead. And if they knew you had evidence, well, you might as well be locked up and used as a personal blood machine. Now, you would shoot yourself before that ever dared to be the case. But there was a tinge of curiosity that tugged at the strings of your mind, wanting to learn and maybe find a reason to turn away from this place and take that well-needed vacation Jennifer had suggested to you.

Stopping at the end of the hall, the two men stood on either side of you. An expectant look in their eyes as they motioned with their heads towards the door that stood in front of you. There was no other sound beyond; only the booming music coming from behind you. Letting out a shaky exhale, you carefully grabbed the door handle and pushed it open, entering the room.

The first thing that hit you was the warm aroma given off. A strong timber and homely scent invades your nostrils and slowly slips deeper into your body. It wasn’t like the harsh candles in the lounge, this was nicer and warmer. Then you were quick to notice that the room wasn’t lit as well as the hallway or lounge, plunging most corners of the room into darkness. Only thing to be seen was a desk that held the source of light with books and papers sprawled across the top. A bottle of blood standing just a few inches from a chair that was turned away from your vision.

Your trance was broken when the door to the room slammed shut, causing a gasp to fall from your lips. Looking around and finding that same feeling of being watched become apparent. There were very few things you could see through the darkness. And with the light aiding your vision, it prevented your eyes from adjusting and telling things apart in the shadows.

“Uh…” There was a pause, pursing your lips and brows creasing. “I heard you were looking for me?”

“That would be right.” The sudden voice made you swing around with your pistol levelled in that direction. A spark of a flame igniting with the faintest features being revealed. Lips, jaw, and eyes that glowed a bright crimson red. Cigarette resting between the woman’s lips that she sparked before waving the match out.

The sound of her shoes alerted you to her approach as she finally revealed herself, and you couldn’t contain the widening of your eyes. The woman stood a good foot above you, without added inches from her shoes. Same as Yelena, her features were soft and sculpted for perfection. If vampires and books related to reality, then you guessed aging hadn’t taken effect and left her in a time period  Her long luscious red hair held a natural shine to it as it fell over her shoulders. Body broad in its structure, which you guessed was muscle hidden beneath her clothes. Almost exactly like Yelena, the woman wore a dress jacket and slacks. The only difference was there was no bra to hide your curious gaze. Just one lift of her arm or sway of the jacket and you were given a peek of what was beneath.

You had to hold back the shiver that ran down your body being under this woman's dark gaze. All she did was slowly stop right in front of you. Her hulking figure towering with her free hand cupping your jaw and gently turning your face. Red chapstick lips tilted into a grin as she inspected your features closely. “You look a whole lot better in person than from a distance, darling.”

“Who the hell are you?” You muttered, glaring at the woman. Even if she may be overwhelmingly attractive, you wouldn’t let it show.

But sadly, the woman only continued to smile down at you. “Natasha Romanoff,” she answered. “And you are Y/n. Detective for the NYPD and well-known for solving all her cases. But here she is, searching for something to shoot her into stardom, right?”

“That’s not it.” You moved your head from her grasp, which made her snicker.

“Of course, it isn’t.” She moved past you, still continuing to puff on that cigarette. “You have a moral compass that was made before your father died–By the way, you were a cute kid back then.” Natasha collapsed in the leather chair, eyes rolling up and down your body with a glazed thought on the precipice of her eyes. “Sexy now-”

“You knew my father?” You questioned, silencing the vampire that let her eyes flicker up to yours.

Sniffling, she grabbed the bottle and took a swig. The sight of her adam’s apple bobbing with each gulp made you inhale deeply, constricting your air supply as you looked away. Waiting for her to let out a breath to signify she’d stopped. When she did, you looked back to find stains and droplets of blood running down her chin with a few being lost on her lip. “I knew your father because we worked together for a few years,” she said, wiping her face with a napkin. “Now, you were too young and I avoided alerting you of my presence. But I was there and I’ve always been there, Y/n.”

A chuckle slipped past your lips, running a hand over your face. “Ok, so you want me to believe that my father worked with you? A vampire?” You questioned, scoffing in disbelief. “You must think I am stupid to believe.”

“No, you’re a brat that I have to tame till you understand that we’re inseparable,” Natasha stated. “Did you ever wonder why you have that birthmark in the center of your hand? That was when I first saw you. The first time I saw your future and knew what would come to be.” She stood to her feet, slowly making her way around the desk. “Everything up to this moment has been played on repeat in my head for the years I’ve watched you grow into this beautiful woman that was sworn to be mine.”

“You’re fucked up,” you told her, an incredulous etched on your face.

Natasha shrugged, stuffing her hands in her pockets as she leaned on the end of her desk. “Or I am a lonely woman looking for something that might bring some light to my life,” she replied simply. “I know you better than you know yourself, Y/n. I know your schedule, I know the way you like your eggs, I know the way you like your hair done–Fuck, I know the way you liked to be fucked.”

That made you inhale sharply, trying to contain the warmth that nestled under your skin. Finding her staring at you amused, lips matching the same emotion. “And I also know that since you walked in here and saw me, there has been a specific scent radiating from you.” She pointed her finger to the apex of your legs, tongue pressing to one of her canines. “From there.”

You stepped back, slightly embarrassed. Again, there was no doubt Natasha was attractive. But all her previous statements, all her knowledge about you created this flame in your chest that felt unnatural and different from everything else. No guy or woman had been able to give you this and it frightened you honestly. And something about the way that she showed love from a distance and watched you do so many things that could’ve thrown her over the edge, making her presence known to you, was intoxicating to dream about.

“It’s getting stronger, darling.” Her words made you blink, swallowing the lump in your throat. “Get a handle on yourself or I’ll do it for you.”

And for the first time tonight or since you picked up this case, there wasn’t fear. You met the source of all those uneasy feelings you felt in the dark. All the whispers on the back of your neck. The feather-like touches on your legs when you slept. The safety and protection in public or in any case that had your life in the balance. You stood in front of it and you felt no fear, only connection.

That’s why when a hint of a smile appeared on your face, Natasha finally had you.

“Try me.”

You couldn’t think.

You couldn’t breathe.

You couldn’t speak.

But, God, you loved every single moment of this.

Natasha had promptly laid you across her desk. Not even attempting to pamper you with some loving touches or her lips where you needed her. Instead, she ripped your pants off and made way for her fingers to glaze over your drenched heat. Getting her fingers nice and soaked before she pressed her fingers past your fluttering cunt where you cried and whined.

The burning contrast of the warm desk versus Natasha’s cold hands put you in a hyper-aware state. Trying to shake the shivers from your ebony skin whilst trying to feel the tiniest bit of heat. From her one hand grabbed at your breasts, while the other was lost between your legs, fingers deep inside of you and never failing to make you cry out in bliss.

You were on cloud nine. Trying to focus on every touch and sound that came from Natasha, but her fingers sucked the soul out of you. Leaving nothing but a brainless and powerless toy she could have her way with.

“Looks like I broke you, love,” she laughed watching the drool slip from the corner of your parted lips. Eyes rolled back with breathless moans unapologetically filling the empty space of her office. Your ebony skin is covered in the marks of her red lipstick from her kisses to somehow enhance your orgasms. But now, it seemed like you were on the brink of going numb, and she liked it that way.

There’d been too many times she’d seen you be a brat and she needed to change that sooner than later.

“M-M-Mommy!” You cried, nails digging deep into the vampire’s sides as your back arched off the desk from the specific curl of her fingers, triggering that fast approach of your orgasm. But the tittle stirred something in Natasha, igniting her crimson eyes to brighten in their colour.

She leaned down, beginning to pant with her eyes focusing on your pulse point. She could see the glow beneath your flesh and how it flashed with each rapid beat of your heart. Natasha swallowed the lump in her throat, salivating as she leaned in closer. “Can I have a taste?” She inquired, feeling your hands finger her hair. Gently tugging her away, not enough that could remove her fully create distance, but she could feel the desperation building in her stomach. You were practically dangling a toy in her face, tempting her with bliss. “Please, let me have a taste.”

Almost like your goal was to make her beg, you pulled her closer and she latched on. The pain grounded you for a few moments, sobbing out before her fingers curled again, slicing the knot in your stomach and making you climax. Both the pain and orgasm sent rapid waves of emotion through your body as you whined, quivering beneath her large frame. Legs curled around Natasha’s waist as you felt the energy in your body slowly be sucked away. Able to let a small smile appear feeling Natasha shake slightly, whimpers muffled from your flesh.

By the time Natasha pulled away, you were panting, your body pale and weak. She stood to her full height, tilting her head with those beautiful crimson eyes staring down at you. How you looked was absolutely perfect, but what you saw might just be better. With the candle lighting, you were able to faintly see the features of her face above her lips. Her eyes shone through the darkness like a beacon of hope. But her lips were drenched in your blood. Her teeth were stained with droplets running down to her chin where they dropped and hit her sensitive body. And even through all of this, that same damn dress jacket was worn.

She smiled, humming with her tongue flicking out, running across her lips. “Mommy has a new treat.”

[caw4brandon]

WWDITS: Demystifying The Supernatural

It would be a crime to say < What We Do In The Shadows > is just a mockumentary about Vampires. In [Documentaries Part 1] I touched on how WWDITS both references and makes fun of the library of Vampire shows and movies. The lore about them and the secret society of the other monsters that lurks in the night.

Today, I want to cover how < What We Do In The Shadows: The Series > demystifies the idea of the world of the supernatural. But before that, let's talk vampires.

- Hope and Compassion is Gone -

When you Sold Out your Dream to the World

A crew of documentary cameramen has been granted access to a highly secretive society. They wore crucifixes and were guaranteed protection by the subjects.

In an undisclosed location in Staten Island. We follow Guillermo de la Cruz. Familiar of the vampire; Nandor The Relentless with married couple; Laszlo Cravensworth and Nadja of Antipaxos as well as Colin Robinson.

The crew documents the lives and hijinks of the Vampires. Watching as situations unfold. Revealing the many secrets of this once secretive and dark society of the supernatural.

The series is based on the world of the film. With cameos of vampires from other popular shows as well as the original trio in the movie. Viago, Deacon and Vladislav.

- This is My Hunting Ground -

Aside from showing the established world of the film. WWDITS introduces us to an ever expanding world of the universe in a natural way. The show introduces us to the Witches, Trolls, Werewolves, Zombies, Ghosts and more. Honoring their lore and tying their interactions loosely as a part of this dark community.

Such as Laszlo's cursed hat being tied to a witch, Colin dealing with an online troll being a real troll and the werewolves being in a relationship with a human who also has a vampire lover. Twilight style~ Each tie in is not just a fun cameo, but it also brings the other dark beings to life in this ever expanding world of creatures.

The world also introduces a new concept. The Energy Vampire via Colin Robinson. Without going into spoilers, Colin's breed looks human and shares a fraction of the strength found in vampires but bares no weakness as of yet. Energy Vampires feed by boring and enraging its victims. Thus, sapping the energy of the person.

What the show does brilliantly is showing the believability of this new breed. Colin feels like an actual person who existed and can actually be a threat if he wants too. His ability to selfishly make vampires and humans bored or enraged makes him a frighteningly real creature that humans have actually met in real life.

- My Tummy Feels Weird -

From a narrative perspective, WWDITS provides several different arcs for the characters respectively. One highlight that I'd like to mention is Guillermo's development as a familiar and as a person.

Over the first season, he went through this one-sided admiration and blind servitude towards his master to charting out a big twist of his real identity. The show displays the unglamorous side of his duty as a servant and the unfairness of the power dynamic.

For every familiar, their servanthood is paid with the promise of immortality and Guillermo is no different. At a young age, Guillermo dreamed of being a vampire but he is often mistreated or is ignored when he pressed the request to Nandor.

The show also displays a deeply rooted sadness through the vampires. For being creatures of immortality. All they ever do is distract themselves with killing, sex and fun. When left alone to their own devices, the vampires are hopelessly directionless.

The show also touches on the topic of how the old ways just don't fit in with everyone anymore. Such is with Nandor's problem solving skills via killing and total conquest or how the vampires as a whole have gotten soft with how they hunt.

On a progressive note, the show never openly declares the characters as queer or any of the sort. Despite being married. Laszlo and Nadja are open to being involved with other people or other vampires sexually.

The show displays the act of debauchery and cheating at its finest with shameless pride but also strengthens the idea of loyalty and love.

Nandor for example, used to own 37 wives and husbands but is actively looking for a true partner who cares for him. As the season progresses, we see that he actually cares about Guillermo as master and as a friend. Nandor's action could suggest that he wishes to not fulfill Guillermo's promise to save him from the torment of the curse.

What the show does well is, it breaks the mystique of the vampires as a bunch of incompetent idiots with no drive. Thus, becoming sloppy, outdated and all too roundabout about things that is both infuriating but charmingly hilarious.

- They have No Use for Your Song -

I gotta say though, for a show that mocks the existence of these creatures. WWDITS is a fun trip through and through. It adds to the development of this community but makes the darkness a lot more silly with how its subjects are down to their last braincell.

None of the vampires are good at keeping this world a secret and in fact, the idea that they would allow a documentary crew to follow them is a fallacy itself. Still, there's a certain charm to how they interact with each other and to the "crew".

It felt like seeing a dysfunctional and fun band of mates just taking the piss out of each other but is also being the most loyal helpers in times of crisis.

There is something for anyone who is interested in this show of the macabre in a critical but fun way and with 5 seasons strong. They don't seem to be slowing down anytime soon. But be warned;

They're Dead and Out of This World~

[chronicbitchsyndrome]

something to keep in mind while reading: i experience psychosis, i am professionally diagnosed with a variety of extremely stigmatized mental health diagnoses, and i identify strongly with the label "borderline."

sooner or later, the ~mental health awareness~ and ~neurodivergent awareness~ movements as a whole are going to have to reckon with the fact that mental health diagnoses are labels put on classifications of behavior patterns, and those behavior patterns can be actively harmful to other people. and what i mean by that is that classifying people's behavior is not identifying ontological attributes of people's personalities or biology; it's loosely grouping different behavior patterns into categories and slapping a label on them. there is no difference between "having borderline personality disorder" and "enacting a behavior associated with borderline personality disorder;" the only criteria for the diagnoses are that you enact some or all of the behaviors associated with the label.

the idea of "these stigmatized diagnoses do not make you a bad person" is objectively correct, in that the label "bad person" is inherently not useful and erases the material factors behind someone's behavior. however, framing mental health diagnoses as if they are some ontological attribute of the self divorced from behavior doesn't actually serve to "destigmatize" mental health as a whole.

people labeled as mentally ill are put in this catch-22 where we either admit that some of our maladaptive behaviors associated with diagnoses can be harmful to others (and thus are used as rhetorical supports for how mental illness labels are describing an ontologically bad and evil category of person), or we push the party line that "mental illness doesn't make you a bad person" and divorce any harmful behaviors entirely from the mental illness label of the person performing them (thus further stigmatizing those of us who have maladaptive and externally harmful behavior patterns associated with our diagnoses, as of course these can't be "because" of our mental illness--ignoring the fact that the mental illness label does not exist outside of our behavior to begin with).

it's a well-documented fact that the DSM buries the role of trauma and other material factors in shaping the behaviors it categorizes to begin with; the desire to divorce the label from any materially harmful behaviors it ascribes to itself is yet another case of ~mental health awareness~ pushing the responsibility of reshaping society and interacting with trauma onto the individuals suffering under these systems of oppression and systemically enabled trauma. in order to actually do the dirty work of addressing material harm, we need to get down into the weeds of why someone enacted that harmful behavior to begin with--what environment that maladaptive behavior arose from, and what material factors need to be addressed in order to solve that behavior and redirect it into healing and positive interactions.

like... that's the problem, at the end of the day. in order to address harm, you need to humanize and understand the person doing harm. shoving people off into more and more categories of "bad person" does nothing to actually, materially address the harm caused, and further enables more harm in the future. mental health labels, if used in a lateral and non-oppressive way, should be used as shorthand to refer to a category of behavior in order to more fully understand the material factors that go into shaping that behavior, in order to better promote healing and a functional community. there should not be a stigma around admitting that a label could describe someone who commits actions that are materially harmful, and that label is applied directly because of their behaviors--to say otherwise is just shifting who the group it's okay to oppress is, rather than trying to agitate for collective liberation.

(note: plenty of behaviors associated with mental health labels are not harmful to begin with. we could also do a lot better by examining how we conceive of "harm", because "someone existing with an emotion that makes you feel uncomfortable" or "someone doing something you think is weird" is not it. but that's not what this post is about, so i am choosing not to address it in-depth.)

[noahsresources]

incorrect quotes prompts (2/?)

taken from this generator & this generator! triggering themes & nsfw topics may be present!

❝ schrödinger's cat is overrated. if you wanna see something that's both dead and alive you can talk to me any time of the day. ❞ ❝ if the thought of something makes any of you giggle for longer than 15 seconds, you are to assume you're not allowed to do it. ❞ ❝ dracula had it right. sleep all day, live alone in a castle, and explode into bats to get out of all social situations. ❞ ❝ i'm a multitasker: i can disappoint fifteen people at once. ❞ ❝ i'd make fun of your height but there isn't enough to make fun of. ❞ ❝ as someone who has a long history of not understanding anything, i feel confident in my ability to continue not knowing what is going on. ❞ ❝ does anyone know how to relax? asking for a friend. ❞ ❝ if looking good was a crime, you'd be a law abiding citizen. ❞ ❝ the next time i open up to someone, it'll be my autopsy. ❞ ❝ well, well, well ... if it isn't my old friend: the dawning realization that i fucked up bad. ❞ ❝ do you ever think? because i do not. ❞ ❝ i dunno if i'm ready to process the ramifications of this bullshit. ❞ ❝ my expectations were low but holy fuck. ❞ ❝ why do i always try to tell people we're cool? we are so very uncool. ❞ ❝ the last time i went to an urgent care clinic, i checked off 'excessive crying' on the symptom list, and then the nurse got really confused and said that was meant for babies. ❞ ❝ i was born for politics. i have great hair and i love lying. ❞ ❝ i am so horny and angry all the time. ❞ ❝ i have been tricked, i have been backstabbed, and i have quite possibly been bamboozled. ❞ ❝ if you see me talking to myself, go away! i'm self-employed and we're having a staff meeting! ❞ ❝ i've never encountered a problem that can't be solved by a spontaneous musical number. ❞ ❝ god has let me live another day and i'm going to make it everyone's problem. ❞ ❝ i just realized that every person is living a life as vivid and complex as my own. i feel so bad for them. ❞ ❝ quitting! it's like trying, but easier. ❞ ❝ with great power comes great need to take a nap. wake me up later. ❞ ❝ i came into this earth screaming and covered in someone else's blood and i'm not afraid to leave the same way. ❞ ❝ we always used to do the wordle rather than take notes in class, and to stop us the teacher would always threaten to tell us the answer if we didn't pay attention. ❞ ❝ the only thing keeping me from running away and hiding from society for the rest of my life is spite. i could disappear forever, but there are some bitches whose downfalls i have yet to witness, and i wanna be around when that happens. ❞

[fleshbarbie]

the truth - robin buckley x reader

contains: secret relationship, angst, TW: abuse from a parent (reader’s), protective!steve(?), happy ending. - word count: 3.6k.

-

robin loved you, she really did. over the past six months the two of you had been together she had fallen for you hard, she had never felt like this before and it both amazed and terrified her. she finally understood what steve was talking about when he spoke to her about his feelings for nancy, that ones that hadn’t quite died down yet despite it being years since they had broken up.

she found herself sat around, daydreaming about your future together. where you’d be in ten years, hopefully living together, possibly even engaged or married if times had changed and people woke up to the fact that two people of the same sex being in love was not a bad thing. she imagined you two growing old together, getting a few pets, maybe even adopting a child together. yes it had only been six months since the two of you had officially gotten together, but she was head over heels for you.

there was only one problem, one she wished she could overlook or solve but unfortunately, she couldn’t.

you had requested that in the beginning of your relationship that you two remain a secret, you didn’t want anyone knowing about the two of you being an item which robin respected at first. she was in shock that she actually had a chance with you in the first place, usually the girls she previously crushed on were either straight, in a relationship or just didn’t like her back so this was practically a miracle, she wasn’t about to turn you away just because of one condition.

you had spent the last six months growing closer and closer. going on dates (most of which were in the privacy of each others rooms), sharing stolen kisses, getting to know everything about each other and the more time you spent the more hooked the teen was. but still, the nagging feeling returned in robin’s chest when she thought about how you still weren’t ready to go public with her.

she understood to a certain extent, of course she did. it wasn’t exactly easy for people like the both of you to be out and proud in the society you lived in, she’d seen it once or twice, women and men who had came out with their sexuality only to be berated and looked down on by other members of the community. of course they weren’t all like that, take steve for example, he had been nothing but to supportive towards robin when she had came out to him that night in the starcourt bathroom, after he had gotten over the initial shock of course. and she was certain that as long as you were both together, you could handle whatever was thrown your way.

but still, you weren’t budging and it was beginning to upset robin.

“i just don’t get it (y/n) ... why can’t we just tell everyone? i mean, they’ll get over it eventually right? there’ll be a new drama next week that’ll distract them from us.” she ranted, her hands moving as she spoke.

you sighed, sitting down next to her at the edge of your bed where she had planted herself when she first entered your room.

“it’s not that easy robin, you know that.” you told her, fiddling with the bracelet she had gifted you last month.

“which i get, really, i do! but-“ she huffed and turned her body so now her knees were touching your thigh. “wont it be worth it? when i can hold your hand in public, kiss you whenever i want? give you a hug without having to worry about being caught?”

her blue eyes stared back at you with a sadness you hated to see on her, it was even more difficult to endure when you were the reason for that negative feeling, even if the reason couldn’t be helped.

“come on robin, you know i’d love nothing more than that. really ... but i can’t.” you closed your eyes and ran your hands through your hair, tugging at the ends slightly.

the room was silent for a moment, and you were half expecting to hear a few sniffles sound from beside you which honestly, was something you would’ve preferred as awful as it sounded. but instead, she stood from the bed with her back turned to you.

“i’m sorry (y/n), but if the only time i can be your girlfriend is behind closed doors then ... i don’t think we can be together at all.” she still had her back turned, though from what you could see her head was pointed towards the floor.

your heart broke as the statement registered in your mind, it was almost instant the way your eyes filled with tears as you shook your head and rose from you bed just as robin had. “what? please robin, i don’t want this to end. i just need you to be patient with me.”

she turned her head, her eyes now glossy with her own tears and her brows furrowed. she shared a look with you, as you both held back tears that were threatening to fall any second.

“i’ve been patient, okay? it’s been six months!” she huffed a laugh, as if she was in disbelief. “how much longer do you want me to wait? a year? two? five?”

you shook your head and grabbed ahold of her hand, squeezing it fearing that this was the last time you’d get the chance to have her this close. “you don’t understand robin, if people know about us then-“ you paused, biting back what you really wanted to say and robin frowned at the abrupt pause. “then, they’re all going to look at me different. okay? it’s going to ruin my reputation. i-i can’t risk that.”

she pulled her hand from yours with a scoff, a tear running down her freckled cheek as she stared at you with a look of disbelief. you hated it, you hated the way she looked at you as if she was disappointed of you, but you couldn’t tell her the truth.

“well i’m sorry but if your reputation is that important to you, then there’s definitely no chance we’d make it very far together. you wouldn’t want me dragging you down.”

she grabbed her bag from the floor and spared you one last look, before shaking her head and exiting your room. you heard her footsteps getting further away from you, the stairs creaking lightly as she walked down them and then the familiar sound of the front door being slammed closed.

you winced, hoping it wasn’t too loud. you didn’t need him waking up now, you couldn’t handle receiving any type of punishment now, not after the girl you loved had just torn apart your heart. but then, the creaking sounded again and your whole body tensed up as you awaited your father to reach your room, praying he was too out of it to do something that’d have you aching all over when the sun rose.

—

you wrapped your arms around you figure a little tighter as the wind from the outside world blew a little harsher, the bitterness of the cold swept across your cheeks sending a shiver down your spine. you continued your journey down the streets of hawkin’s, sending a kind smile to any passerby’s as you grew closer and closer to the familiar store you usually couldn’t wait to get to after a stressful day at school, but today you were nervous to reach your destination.

you were going to family video, knowing robin was on shift tonight and this was probably the best chance to catch her. it had been three days since that night, and the heartbreak you felt when robin left still laid heavy on your chest. you missed her, a lot. she had been giving you the cold shoulder since, whenever you passed eachother in the hall at school and each time it broke your heart a little more. you missed the smiles, the secretive winks, the secret meet ups in empty classrooms. you missed robin. you needed her back.

so with a deep breath, you decided it was now or never, you had to come clean.

your father hadn’t always been the piece of shit he is now, not until your mother had passed away. being hit by a drunk driver on the way home from work was one of the cruelest ways to go, and unfortunately it had happened to your mom on the night you were all supposed to go out and celebrate her promotion. your dad was heartbroken, it had only taken him two weeks to crack under the grief and turn to liquor to cope. he drank everyday, you can’t remember the last time you had seen him sober and it hurt. because you were eight when your mother had died, and you were eighteen now.

ten years of dealing with a father who had not only neglected you, but physically and verbally abused you too. if you ever did something he didn’t agree with, whether it was something along the lines of getting a detention or as small as changing the channel when you thought he was out cold for the night, he was eager to give out what he thought was a well deserved punishment. a backhand to the face, a hand around your throat, a kick to the gut. it was usually only a small altercation, though there had been a few occasions where you had to stay home from school to heal from the injuries your own father had given you.

you couldn’t wait to graduate high school and leave him behind, you were done forgiving him everytime he woke you up sobbing and pleading that you don’t leave him. he didn’t deserve your forgiveness anymore, you were sick of him taking out his issues on you.

you eventually made it to the familiar store, the nerves inside you doubling when you caught sight of it across the street. you approached the counter inside the store, gaining the attention of none other than steve harrington, the only person who knew about your relationship with robin. and he didn’t look too happy to see you, no doubt robin had told him what happened, told him what you had said. you couldn’t really blame him.

“what do you want?” he didn’t bother with a greeting, and you were half tempted to back out and go home. but this needed to be done.

“is robin here?” you asked, resting your hands on the counter separating the two of you.

he rolled his eyes, “not for you she isn’t. you really hurt her, you know? she loved you.” he scoffed, before muttering a small. “probably still does.” under his breath.

you nodded, swallowing the lump that had quickly built up in your throat. “i know, and i love her too which is why i need to talk to her. please steve.”

he stared at you, his brown eyes narrowed as he observed your demeanour. he could tell the sadness that emitted from you wasn’t fake, you looked like you hadn’t slept in days and he couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for you. he had been so happy for robin when she had ran to him one morning, her hands banging against his chest as she cheered about a girl she had met who liked girls too and actually seemed to be interested in her. and when he met you, it was obvious you were both smitten for eachother he even couldn’t help but be a little jealous when he thought about his own failure of a love life.

so to have robin come to him nearing nine o’clock on a tuesday night, in tears as she told him about the two of you ending things, he was shocked. especially when she told him what you had said, your reason as to why you didn’t want to go public with your relationship. he thought you were better than that.

he sighed, his hands coming to rest on his hips whilst he stood looking deep in thought before he looked to you again. “she’s in the back. but honestly, don’t expect her to be happy to see you.”

the comment hurt, but you couldn’t really blame her. you nodded your head, sending steve an appreciative smile and a quick ‘thank you’ before you disappeared around the corner and into the back room where you had been in many times before.

there was robin, holding a vhs tape in her hand with that looked like crate full of them in front of her. you weren’t too sure what she was doing with them, labelling them? rewinding them? either way she looked incredibly fed up which you absolutely couldn’t blame her for, you had spent plenty of hours here with your girlfriend whilst she worked so you knew how boring and slow most days were for not only her, but steve too.

you admired her for a second, frowning as you realised she looked drained, drained and unhappy. a pang of guilt hit you at that moment when you realised that the reasoning behind that was probably you, she looked miserable because of you. you coughed, finally making yourself known which caused the mousy blonde to jump slightly at the intrusion, her eyes landing on you with a frown. she stared at you, and you watched a number of emotions pass through her. shock, confusion, anger, sadness.

“what’re you doing here?” she asked, quickly resuming to the task at hand as if she wasn’t phased by your presence, but you knew better.

you chewed on your bottom lip, taking a step past the doorway so you were now fully inside the cramped room with her.

“i’ve come to explain myself.”

“oh, there’s no need for that.” she laughed, though it lacked humour. “you made yourself perfectly clear the other night.”

you sighed, taking a seat in the empty chair on the opposite side of the table she had been sat at. her eyes flickered your way, watching you get comfy but she didn’t bother maintaining eye contact once you settled.

“no, robin. i’ve come to be honest with you, tell you the truth because i don’t want you to think that what i said the other night, is who i am.”

her hands stilled at that, and she finally spared you another glance. she placed the vhs tape down on the table and gestured to you with one hand, raising a brow as she did and you figured that was all you were going to get out of her until you spoke your truth.

“i want nothing more than to be public with you, rob. i wish i could tell everyone about us, tell everyone we’re together and happy and that i love you. i wish i could do all the things you talked about. kiss you, hug you, hold your hand in public ... but i can’t.” you shook your head, noticing the frown that deepened on robin’s pale features. “my dad, he’s-he isn’t exactly accepting of us, you know people like us? which ordinarily i could handle, you know? if we went public we’d have to deal with people like that all the time it’s just..”

you nervously began to fiddle with your bracelet, the same one you were wearing the night you and robin had broken up, the one robin had bought you. you still hadn’t taken it off despite everything.

“if he finds out, it’s gonna be bad.” you widened your eyes as you spoke the last word, hoping it would emphasise just how bad it would be. “not even like, being kicked out of the house bad. he’s gonna literally lose his shit and-“ you paused before you could say what you wanted to say next, yet another lump forming in your throat. they seemed to be never ending lately.

robin instantly sensed your discomfort, and was quick to scoot her chair over to yours and place a comforting hand on your shoulder, the gesture warmed your heart knowing despite everything she still cared for you and couldn’t leave you to suffer alone.

“he’s definitely going to get violent.” tears brimmed not only your eyes but robin’s too at the confession, “ever since my mom died all those years ago, he’s been a completely different person rob.” you paused to swipe away some tears that fell. “he just drinks, all the time, like it’s never ending. if he’s not drinking then he’s sleeping, if he’s not sleeping then he’s yelling at me for something and that usually always ends with a slap here and there. and if he found out about us, even if we didn’t tell him, he’d find out somehow, i don’t think it’d end well.”

you blinked a few times, wiping at the tears that fell once you did and turned to look at robin to say one last thing. “i love you robin, i really do but if you want to be together, i need you to wait. please. wait for us to finish high school, for us to get away from here and then we can tell anyone and everyone we’re together. that’s the only way it’s gonna be able to work.”

robin remained silent for a little while, though the comforting rubs on your shoulder didn’t halt as she processed the information you had just given her. of all the things she had expected to come from from this conversation, this wasn’t one of them. she had known that your dad wasn’t exactly the best, that he was very neglectful and didn’t seem to care much for the well-being of his own daughter. everytime she came to your house you had so shush her, explaining that your dad was sleeping and if he woke up he’d be in a bad mood and probably kick her out, but she assumed that it was just your typical parent stuff. maybe he’d come in and yell, tell robin she had to go home but that’d be the end of it. she never dreamed that it would lead into anything further than that, for you to have been suffering this long behind the scenes, left her speechless.

“(y/n), god i- i’m so sorry.” she gave you a look of pity, one that she couldn’t help. “how did i never notice? i mean, i’ve been with you almost everyday for half a year and i didn’t pick up on anything? god, i just .. i can’t believe it.”

you forced a small smile onto your wet lips, shrugging gently. “it’s not your fault really robin. i kept it from you on purpose, i hid it because i never wanted you to know which i guess was kinda silly of me, i’d have to tell you eventually, right?”

she hummed, nodding gently and her lips curved up just as yours had. “well i’m glad you told me, thank you.” she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around you, her chin resting on your shoulder as she rubbed your back in circles. “i love you. i’m sorry for pressuring you into going public, if i had known-“

“i know robin, i know.” you cut her off, knowing that if she had known the girl would’ve never started the conversation the other night.

“we’ll wait, until high school is over and we can get as far away from that piece of shit as we can. i can wait, for you.”

you pulled back from the hug but still held onto the slender teen, a brighter smile now reflecting from your face despite the wet streak of tears that still were visible on your cheeks. “thank you. i love you so much robin.”

she hummed in acknowledgement, using a hand to tuck some stray hairs behind your ear. “i love you more, way more actually.”

you rolled your eyes playfully at the comment, not believing it for a second but you let her have her moment. you were definitely going to marry this woman one day.