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dresshistorynerd · 11 months

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How to see through the greenwashing propaganda of the fashion industry - 1

In the light of the Shein brand trip nonsense, I was thinking about how literally every clothing company now engages in greenwashing, even when it's such obvious lie like with Shein. And while most people are not fooled in such blatant cases like that, most cases are not as blatant. To see through the less obvious propaganda often needs a lot of knowledge of the clothing industry, which the average person doesn't have, yet the average person still needs clothing. So instead of trying to expose every company for their bad practices, I thought it might be more helpful to make a post on how to detect greenwashing. I'm going to use four examples, all in the different levels of honesty and responsibility, Shein, H&M, Burberry and Tentree. First I will go into frankly unnecessary amount of detail on Shein, because I fell into a horrifyingly fascinating research rabbit hole and I think it's excellent example on how companies can get away with blatant crimes (allegedly of course). In this first part we will just look into Shien, it's propaganda and reality behind it.

But before I go deeper into this, I want to stress one thing: this is not to say that you can never buy from any brand engaging in dishonest greenwashing, because then you couldn't buy almost any clothing, and you do need clothing. Though I will say, please don't buy from Shein if you in any way can afford not to. There is levels of how bad business practices can be, and they can't be much worse than Shein's, and even beside that, even when super cheep, it's not worth your money. There are other cheep options too. Though I won't hold it against anyone if they buy individual pieces from Shein from time to time, but I would implore at least to considerate, if they really need it and if it might be possible to get something similar from somewhere else. But my point in this is not necessarily to help you make better consumer decisions, because consumption will not save us, but to see through the corporate propaganda and not become complaisant after hearing comforting lies. The corporations are doing everything they can to make you believe they are already fixing the problems within the industry and there's no need for government intervention pinky promise, just keep consuming. But that's all bullshit and government intervention is exactly what is needed.

Before taking a look at our cases, I'll outline the key things I think are good to look for, when presented with sustainability PR.

TRANSPARENCY - Companies are not required to publish much of the information about their practices, but as it has become clear to everyone that the whole fashion industry is a massive problem, opacity has become rightly seen as suspicious. It has become also a sort of marketing method to disclose any evidence of good practices, so when a company is not doing that, and missing out on well working marketing, it raises the question, what are they hiding. Companies may try to give the appearance of transparency, without actually disclosing information. They might write in an easily accessible page about all their lofty goals, promises and achievements in a very vague language, they might talk about being transparent and publishing their data, but that data might be buried somewhere, where it's not easily accessible. Good sign on the other hand would be for example providing supply chain information for a product in the product description.

RELIABLE INFORMATION - Usually it's safer for a company to be vague or silent than to lie, because that might lead to legal consequences, but by cherry-picking and subtly twisting data, it can be turned to be flattering for them. Small companies might provide raw evidence of their facilities and supply chain, like photos, locations, contractor names etc. to give proof for their word. For bigger companies this is not of course possible as their supply chains might be massive and they might have thousands of facilities. However, there are many different independent and governmental organizations that give different kinds of certifications. The certifications are meant to give some reassurance of quality and/or accurate information. However not all certifications are made equal. Most reliable certifications don't have ties to the industry (aka are actually independent, not just in name), have governmental oversight and are given access to the data, from which they do the research themselves.

SUPPLY CHAIN - Giving the origin country of the final product is nowadays standard information to give, as it's required by law for example in EU. It's a red flag, if it's produced in a country, that has lacking environmental or labour laws, poor oversight and/or little protections for people. However, this does not mean that all production in those countries is unethical or questionable, but the risk for that is higher and the need for evidence of the working conditions is also higher. This is however just one part of the production. Before clothing can be sewn, the raw material for fiber must be made/acquired, that material must be turned into fiber, which must be turned into yarn and then the yarn must be woven into fabric. All of these steps in the process need workers, who deserve good working conditions. And depending on what fabric is in question, there's potential for major environmental issues in the different processes. This is why it's important to know more than just the country where the clothing was sewn. There could be certification for ethical sourcing of the fabric for example. With supply chain it's also better if the materials are sourced as locally as possible, to avoid a lot of extra carbon emissions from transportation. Best case scenario would be if the company manages the supply chain themselves locally, so they can know for sure where their materials come from and also avoid middlemen.

BUSINESS MODEL - The reason why it's often so hard to get information on the supply chain is that many companies, especially the large ones, outsource as much as possible. This might seem unintuitive, as the middlemen make production less efficient and costly as everyone takes a cut. However, they do it to outsource risks and responsibility. They don't have to invest into factories or raw material production and they have plausible deniability, if and when there's issues in their supply chain. The complexity of the supply chain provides opacity that is impossible and unreasonable to monitor, which allows the company to buy materials that are unreasonably cheep, while feigning ignorance of worker exploitation. How much the clothing cost can also give some idea on their business model. If it's super cheep, the only way for it to be that cheep is if workers are not payed enough and everything is poorly made. Cheep is always a red flag, though, if it's fairly cheep and I mean basic clothing is not much more than 100 eur (little more in USDs) but not much less than 50 eur, it can be okay or even good quality and with proper pay for workers, if the company doesn't take massive margins and don't have a ton of middlemen in their supply chain. However, expensive is not insurance of quality or good pay for workers. Many expensive brands take massive margins while their production has little difference to fast fashion and their products are poor quality.

CASE STUDY 1: SHEIN

Let's start with the propaganda. In Shein's About Us page, they say:

"SHEIN is a global fashion and lifestyle e-retailer committed to making the beauty of fashion accessible to all."

You see, their goal is to make fashion accessible to everyone, not just privileged few. They back this up by informing how they work in 150 countries, have very wide variety of clothing, are one of the most popular shopping apps, connect with the customers on where they are - social media - and, of course, have ridiculously low prices. Their team of nearly 10,000 employees (of which 58% are women for your information) loves to serve their many many customers, who are most important for Shein. They use "cutting-edge technology" and digitized agile supply chain to track sales and demand and adjust their manufacturing in real time. When they notice a new trend, they immediately put something trendy on sale, make prototypes and order small batches from factories. This is how they keep their inventory waste low and get products quickly to their customers. In their own words:

"By developing proprietary logistics and ecommerce technology, we are disrupting the fashion space and improving outcomes for manufacturers, suppliers and consumers."

We will see, if the "outcomes" are really "improved".

Shein group's website has very extensive information about their sustainability goals and efforts, giving the impression of transparency. It's pretty clear this is in an effort to combat all the allegations towards them. To make their business sustainable in addition to their reduced inventory waste they are "accelerating their transition" to use recycled polyester, promoting their "peer-to-peer resale platform" for Shein products, "eshtablishing" a recycling program for end-of-life products, tracing the material supply chain through their own material tracking platform and conserving forests by replacing viscose with "next generation fibers".

Most of the information they provide is fully meaningless corporate speak and should be taken with the biggest bucket of salt, so let's ask some questions.

DO THEY PROVIDE SPECIFIC DATA ABOUT THEIR PRODUCTION? Surprisingly Shein is much more transparent than I expected. (Though of course the info is in different website than where the average consumer would go.) Shein hasn't taken the standard route, which is to provide as little information as possible, and keeping it vague too, se they could just keep feigning ignorance. As I said, I think it's pretty clear they are providing this much information because their reputation is so bad. Their lack of transparency has been taken as an admission of guilt, so it's not working anymore, and they have taken a new approach into maintaining their plausible deniability. In their website, they provide a sustainability report from years 2021 and 2022. I took a look at the latest one. In it there's a lot of fluff, but they show actual numbers of how many code of conduct violations have been found in audits to supplier facilities, the carbon emissions of their supply chain and the amounts of different fabrics they have used during 2022. That's not nothing, so we have a relatively good start here.

WHO DID THE RESEARCH? The research is not at all independent, but done in-house. They have all the financial incentives to cherry-pick and frame their research in a way that shows them in the best possible light, even if we assumed they would not tamper with their own evidence, which I don't think we can fully assume either. There's an attempt though to convince us to believe the data they are showing:

"We have reported with reference to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) 2021 standard for certain sections of this report. Selected information in this report was assured, to the limited assurance standard, by an external independent assurer as per ISAE 3000."

Emphasis by me. So even if they did the research themselves, they did get it independently audited to get an assurance that they did follow the GRI standards in their reporting and that it doesn't contain lies. However, the "certain sections" and "selected information" with "limited assurance" does not give me much assurance, in fact, my assurance is very limited. To understand what does this actually mean, I did a bit of googling and delved into the annex of the report.

ISAE 3000 is a standard for auditing financial information issued by International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board, which an independent body that has governmental oversight. Financial information can get either reasonable assurance or limited assurance. Reasonable assurance is the most assurance this standard allows. Limited assurance is given, if the information provided to the assurer, time or extent of the procedure is lacking, but from those limited resources the assurer doesn't find anything that suggests "the subject matter information is materially misstated" aka that the company is lying. GRI is the most used reporting standard for sustainability for businesses and other organizations. I'm a bit suspicious of how effective their standards are, if they are most widely used, since most companies are absolutely terrible about sustainability yet they all claim they are great with it. So I decided to check who is in the board. Unsurprisingly it's mostly representatives of massive corporations, including Coca Cola and DuPond, a professor of accounting, national research director of Australia's Mining and Energy Union and one (1) environmental scientist.

The annex revealed quite interesting details. The only information that was AssuredTM (in a limited manner) for accurate information was the data on Shein's emissions and that of code of conduct violations. Only the report on emissions was AssuredTM (in a limited manner) to follow GRI standards. Shein got to select and prepare the relevant data for the audition, which was according to it, lacking. Crucially the audition report states that they didn't verify the results of supply audits or any potential violations of labor law found in them, rather they just checked that the math on the grading of the audits matched with Shein's stated criteria and that they actually did the audits. So if you really think about it, the (limited) assurance is that they graded themselves like they promised they would, not that their reporting of the amounts of violated labor laws or even just their own code of conduct was accurate. Additionally assurance of the accuracy of the emissions was only of Shein's own facilities, which do not produce any of their products, but not of their supply chain. 99,7% of their emissions come from their supply chain. So keep all this in mind when we look at the data itself.

WHAT ARE THEIR CARBON EMISSIONS AND HOW ARE THEY CALCULATED? Shein's emissions were 9,17 million tonnes of CO2, or 9,22 million tonnes if we don't count them purchasing Renewable Energy Credits. To put it into perspective that would be around 7-0,3% of the estimation of the annual emissions of the whole textile industry. Now that would be pretty low. In fact, suspiciously low. The fact that they got their own emissions auditioned, but not the emissions of their supply chain, suggests to me that perhaps, their numbers don't hold up to scrutiny. They also don't disclose their methodology for the numbers of the supply chain, like they do with their own facilities. Of course their response would be to say it's so much easier for them to calculate their own emissions than their suppliers. But I say that's not a bug, that's a feature.

Though looking at the methodology of the emissions from their own operating sites, which includes warehouses and offices, they don't take into account at all any emissions from building anything. They grew massively between 2021 and 2022 and I find it hard to believe they didn't built any of the new offices or warehouses they gained. Certainly they would have bought a lot of new equipment even if they moved to existing buildings. But none of this is taken into account in their calculations. And I must assume, it's not taken into account in their supply chain calculations either.

Even if we took them at their word, by their own admission, their carbon emissions have grown from 2021 to 2022 52%, which is alarming. (Interestingly they use the 2021 numbers in their actual website, which I think is so misleading that it's basically a lie.) They write it off as just side effect of their massive growth in production volume, which had 57% increase during the same time frame.

"We are at the beginning of our mitigation journey and began implementing decarbonization programs at the end of fiscal year 2022."

So they first scale their business as fast as they can, having absolutely no care of the environmental effect, so that when they have massive market share, and they reduce their massive emissions slightly, they can be like "oh look we did something!" They can then moan and wail how hard and time consuming it is to reduce the emissions of an existing supply chain, when they were the ones who decided to not take that into account from the start. Their "science based goal" (which they repeatedly stress in their website) is to reduce their emissions 25% by 2023. It's nothing. Less than nothing. They scaled without care their production in a time, when our ecology is collapsing, and then they claim that it's just science we possibly can't do anything about it. Apparently it's a natural law that they just have to make more and more money, like gravity.

WHAT MATERIALS DO THEY USE? Last year 64% of Shein's clothing (measured in weight) was polyester. Production of polyester is estimated to count for 40% of all carbon emissions of the textile industry. It's also a plastic made out of oil, so we have to take into account the fracking and refinement of oil and the eventual release of the CO2 from the oil that would have been secured in the ground otherwise. This most certainly is not counted into the supply chain emissions. Shein loves to pay lip service to the idea of circular economy, but they don't actually think about it. Because if they did, they would have taken into account the microplastics polyester fabric sheds when it's washed. When microplastics get into the soil and freshwater, they get into the organs of animals, including us, and they don't easily come off. Already it has been shown that they have led to the decrease of small soil fauna, which are very important for the fertility of the soil. Over time microplastics also break down further into nanoplastics. There's already evidence of nanoplastics being small enough to pass through veins into the brain, and that causing behavioral changes in fish. We don't know the long term consequences off this micro and nano plastic pollution yet, and we're just seeing the effects they have on small animals, but as they built up over years and decades inside our organs, we well likely see much larger effects.

Important for the lifecycle thinking is not just focusing on how much burden the production puts on the environment, but also how long it lasts and how can it be reused and eventually the impact of the end of it's lifecycle. If you remember from the beginning, Shein claims to take all this into account by having a resale program, somewhere in the future establishing a recycling program for unusable old clothes and increasing their share of recycled polyester. This is nothing. Again it's less than nothing. Polyester is not only bad fabric because of the things I've already said, but it's also just as a material for clothing very weak. It's not warm or breathable, which makes it at the same time sweaty and cold. It has no anti-bacterial qualities at all (which basically all natural fabrics have at least to small extent), so when you get easily sweaty in it, it starts also smelling very easily, and so needs washing very often. On top of washing releasing microplastics, it also weakens the fabric, because polyester gets weaker when wet (unlike plant fibers, like cotton and linen, which get stronger when wet). Polyester is also very hard to dye effectively and has bad color retaining properties, so it needs chemical treatments and strong industrial dyes, all of which adds to it's carbon footprint. Bad color retaining properties though also mean it looses it's color quite easily when washed. All of this makes it's life span significantly shorter than natural fabrics. I mean with some natural fabrics like wool and silk we are talking about multiple decades, with polyester it's easily in the low one digit years. These are inherent issues with polyester, but Shein clothes have repeatedly got complaints of their poor quality in general. This makes the resale program frankly meaningless.

On the surface the recycling program for polyester sounds good, right? You don't have to use more oil and use as much energy in making of it (according to Shein themselves, which again not a trustworthy source, it saves up to 70% emissions). Shein has promised to increase their share of recycled polyester to 31% of their polyester usage by 2030. Currently less than 1% of their production is recycled polyester. This is however a terrible solution. It still sheds microplastics and it's even worse as a fabric than virgin polyester. It is weaker and stiffer, making it impossible to use on it's own in fabric but when mixed with other fibers in a fabric significantly shortens it's life span. When we take into account the lifecycle of a clothing, the length of it and it's lifetime emissions become much more important than the production emissions. If you have to produce from scratch new clothing three times, in the time you could be using another clothing, it doesn't really matter if the emissions during the production were somewhat lower. (There's little reliable and comparable data available on production emissions of different fabrics, so I don't know how exactly recycled polyester compares to different natural fabrics.) Especially when we take into account the consumer use emissions, which in the case of polyester are 30% of it's lifetime emissions. And wast majority of it comes from washing, which you have to do more with polyester (how much more depends on what fabric you compere it to). Any responsible disposal of polyester at the end of it's lifecycle, especially any attempts at recycling it, cause additional emissions, unlike with natural fibers, which naturally degrade.

WHERE ARE THE SUPPLIERS? Shein boasts having fully integrated digital supply chain and with it they can track the whole supply chain of individual product. However they don't reveal any of that information publicly. Or rather only thing we know is that their factories making the end products are in China. But the question is, where does their fabrics come from? There's no countries listed in their report in any capacity and none of their products have any information of their origins nor the origins of the fabrics. This is very suspicious in my opinion. We can get no indication on how fibers might have been produced and made into fabric from the labor and environmental laws and practices of different countries. However, there is an interesting bit in the report about cotton:

"For cotton products, to further enhance our compliance with US laws, we request that our manufacturing suppliers only source cotton from Australia, Brazil, India, the United States and other approved regions."

This sentence is there pretty obviously because they have been caught selling clothing with cotton grown in Xinjiang in US markets, which US has banned. This is because Xinjiang, the Autonomous Uighur region, where 90% of China's raw cotton is grown, has been accused of genocidal oppression of the Uighur population, including having massive forced labour camps for Uighurs. Because of the police state nature of Xinjiang, there's no reliable numbers on how much of the cotton is produced with forced labour, but presumably most of it. Moreover, China limits the imports of cotton, which is why only 20% of cotton used by the textile industry in China is imported. Shein claims they know exactly where their fabrics come from, but the wording of the sentence above makes it clear they don't even plan on enforcing any policy to use imported cotton by their suppliers. Cotton is just 10% of fabric they used last year, but given their massive production volume, it's still a lot. This gets us to our next question.

IS THERE PROOF OF GOOD WORKING CONDITIONS? Shein reports doing in total 2 812 audits into 1 941 of their 5 400 contract manufacturers. According to them it accounted for 84% of their Shein branded products (so not their other 10 brands). This information, if you remember, was given limited assurance, by the audition into their numbers. However, we are to trust Shein alone that their the reports of their auditions are accurate. I'm not really willing to trust them, but let's sustain our disbelief for a moment to look at their findings. From their report:

"A: 90 points and above: minor flaws. Continued improvement is advised. B: 75 to 90 points: some general risks. Continued improvement is advised. C: 60 to 75 points: 1-3 major risks. Corrective action is required. D: below 60 points: >3 major risks. Corrective action is required. ZTV: Zero Tolerance Violation detetected. Immediate corrective action is required."

Even without knowing what do these things mean in practice, I don't think this paints a pretty picture. Only 4% of their manufacturing facilities had minor flaws and 82% of their facilities have major risks or worse? Does that mean none of their manufacturers fully comply with their Code of Conduct? They try to make it sound like it looks this bad because they have tightened their criteria and still the numbers are better than last year, but even with all of that, this is imo unacceptable. But it gets worse.

The report shows the amount of each ZTV found in the audits. This was explicitly not assured in any way by an independent party, so considering this information is given despite the lack of oversight and the interests of Shein, it's grim. Most of the 11% of ZTVs were gross safety violations. For example 4,2% of the audits, which means 118 facilities, found lacking emergency exits. However, they also found child labour in 6 facilities and forced labour in 3 facilities. So according to their own reporting, their manufacturers have used child labour and forced labour. And just to remind you, this is covering just 36% of their contract manufacturers. What I found interesting (read disturbing), was that violence or sexual misconduct against workers were not among Zero Tolerance Violations. I know it's not a situation, where they don't consider it violation of Code of Conduct, but rather just calls the police and let them handle it, because the violations counted here are based on their CoC, in which there's an item 7 named "No harassment or abuse of employees", which explicitly forbids physical, sexual, mental and verbal abuse. They don't however reveal other definitions of violations, than ZTVs, nor do their reveal how are they graded, so there's really no way to know what the 71% of their manufacturers have done to warrant their low (C or D) grading.

Would you at this point be surprised, if I told you it gets worse? Yeah, their so called Zero Tolerance Violations are not very zero tolerance after all. You might think zero tolerance means, that if manufacturers are caught doing it, their contract is immediately terminated and they are reported to authorities? Well, let's look what is the "immediate corrective action" outlined in their Responsible Sourcing Policy. Among the ZTVs they define even more zero tolerance violations, let's say negative tolerance violations. These are 1. forging documents, bribery or refusing to get assessed 2. child labour and 3. forced labour. Surely these lead to immediate contract termination and reporting to authorities?

So if Shein encounters slavery or probable coverup of it in their facilities, they stop placing new orders until the enslaved people and children are taken somewhere else or otherwise their contracts are fixed (at least for now), so there's no more slavery in sight, when someone comes back to assess them again and decides it's all good to continue business as usual. They have 30 days to make everything look like there's no issues, which sounds pretty easy task, and after that they can grab the kids and the slaves back there like nothing happened. Also notice how they didn't say they demand stopping the work entirely in the facility, just that they'll stop placing orders? Yeah, they don't stop production even if they find literal children or enslaved people producing them. Gotta get those dresses to the customer.

If they find any other ZTV, they come back in 30 days, and if the violation continues, they give a warning, come back again in 30 days, and if still the issue is there, then they stop placing orders. After that it continues like with child or forced labour violations. If after another 30 days it's not fixed, the contract is terminated. If a supplier gets two ZTVs within two years, they go straight to the even less than zero tolerance model straight away. If they get three ZTVs in two years, then their contract is immediately terminated. Nothing different happens though, if you get caught doing child or forced labour two times in two years, so you can just get caught once a year as long as you always pretend to stop doing it. But even if you do get caught third time in two years, or fail to pretend you fixed it, it's fine, you'll just have to do other stuff for the next year, and then you can apply again to work with Shien. Also the policy does not at any point require reporting these alleged crimes to authorities. If they at some point stop placing orders for a supplier (for example because of child or forced labour), they have to just sent all the files and documents of the goods that are produced by that supplier during the time they aren't giving them new orders to the relevant tax and customs authorities.

To answer the question I started this section with, sounds like Shein provides more evidence of bad working conditions in their suppliers' facilities, than they provide evidence of good working conditions. They even give evidence that their monitoring of those conditions is just a joke, and they have no mechanisms to actually get rid of suppliers who have inhumane working conditions. Elsewhere they try to give very weak evidence of good working conditions. The influencer brand trip to their facility in China was a PR stunt like that. However, it's easily dismissable, as the facility was not at one of the factories, where their clothing is made, all of which are third parties, but Shien's own facility they call Innovation Center. There they innovate new technologies, train their suppliers to use their new technologies and consult their suppliers on how to make new factories, which I assume means they have factory templates to give to their suppliers.

However, independent sources give much more reliable evidence of terrible working conditions in their factories. Like when undercover operation into one of their factories found employees working 18 hours a day earning 2 cents per item. When asked for comment, they answered: "Any non-compliance with this code is dealt with swiftly, and we will terminate partnerships that do not meet our standards." This is not severe ZTV, so what they mean by "dealt with swiftly" is "told to stop breaking labour laws, given some time, given warning, given more time, stopped giving new orders, given even more time and if after three months they have not stop then they gotta go". Because yes, they do terminate those who don't meet their standards. Their standards are just in the gutter.

HOW IS THE COMPANY STRUCTURED? While falling down this rabbit hole I came to the realization that Shein is the Uber of fashion. It's just the gig economy all over again. Let me explain. Unlike traditional fashion companies, Shein has outsourced even the sewing of the clothing. Shein itself is an app company, like Uber, though they technically do design their own clothes. I say technically because they have been repeatedly accused of copyright infringement to the point where they are now sued for racketeering. Allegation from the lawsuit:

"Shein has grown rich by committing individual infringements over and over again, as part of a long and continuous pattern of racketeering, which shows no sign of abating."

It relates to the other reason why I say their only technically design too, because a huge amount of their designs are also outsourced. In their sustainability report, they boast about how their SHEIN X program is meant to "empower" young designers to get their business off the ground, by taking their designs and using them for their clothing productions. This sounds a lot like SHEIN X designers are gig workers. They are basically just designers for Shein, but oh no they are not workers, labour laws won't apply! Shein specifically targets young designers, even students, so it's clear that they really just want impressionable people desperate for money and work experience. Obviously they won't get much money for their designs, since there's such a massive flood of products and designers, Shein says they have 3 000 designers in SHEIN X, and the products are so, so cheep. It's the exact same thing as with Uber and the like, they put their "workers" into competition with each other. To tie it back to the lawsuit, they use these third party designers as fodder against accusations of copyright infringement. They did not steal the design from the independent artist, they are just the platform provider.

This is also exactly how they operate with their factories. When their massive production is spread across all the 5 400 small separate suppliers, they are forced to compete for scraps. They can't organize together to demand better pay or better working conditions, and Shein can act like they have no part in them. Moreover, due to their extremely low prices, Shein has to offer only really low rates for the production of their clothing. On top of that because of the contractor structure, the actual fanctory owners taken an extra cut from those low rates, leaving extremely little for the actual workers. The prices are so low, they demand inhumane working conditions. It's impossible to sell clothing in the prices Shein does and pay well for the workers, especially with their business structure. All the talk about technological innovation is also bullshit, because this gig economy competition model ensures that most of the gig workers (in this case factories) will stay poor, so they can hardly invest in the new technologies.

This model is also what Shein holds as their most significant sustainability claim, because it allows them to cut most inventory waste. Traditional fashion companies always have a significant overhead, because their supply must always be higher than demand, otherwise, they would loose customers to their competitors. Because Shein orders small batches from large amount of factories, they can change their production in real time, adjusting to the demand much quicker than any competitor. Yes, it means they have minimal inventory loss, but it's not actually efficient. Or rather not efficient in any other way than for maximizing profits. There is a massive amount of overlap of facilities, machinery, organization structures and bureaucracy, if we look at Shein's whole production, because the small factories are all producing same things, but because Shein drives them to compete with each other, they don't have to pay for that overlap. More than that, it's extremely inefficient way to maximize people getting clothed while minimizing materials. And I don't mean producing as much clothes as possible while minimizing materials, because that is what they are doing, but the goal shouldn't be as much clothes as possible, but maximizing everyone having enough clothing, which is much less that what we produce today. And if clothing was made to last instead of making as many of them as possible, even less could be made and still everyone would have enough clothes.

Shein's extremely quick rise to the top of fashion markets was due to how effectively they managed to use the pandemic for their advantage. During the lock-downs around the world, people spend increasingly more time on their phones and social media, which Shein managed turn into their profit. They utilize social media and influencers effectively for marketing. Their platform also uses many of the same psychological tricks social media uses to keep customers scrolling and consuming. This is on itself is not at all new, but because of their business model, they turned attention into sales and sales into more attention. All that combined with their ability to response in real time to new trends and scale production extremely quickly, turned any new trend in social media into hype and micro-fashion cycles, which they would burn through increasingly fast. Their competitors wouldn't even have the time to get into that trend before it would be replaced with a new trend. Then all they needed to do was to contract new small factories, they didn't even have to spend time and money to built them, and they could take over the fast fashion market.

Shein's effect won't stop there though. Their competitors will and are already starting to adapt their methods. It means quality of clothing will keep getting worse, the whole industry will keep increasing their carbon emissions and the working conditions from cotton farmers to designers will get worse as gig economy spreads in the industry. I'll talk more about this in the conclusions of the second part, but to fix this, there needs to be government intervention. It's good that there's a lawsuit over their wider practices, not just a singular act, but it won't be enough. If they don't face significant consequences, every other company will take note that they can profit off of (allegedly) systematic crimes.

IN CONCLUSION Shein as a company is a glorified optimization algorithm which only real function is to drive up consumption and in exchange take all the profits from everyone else's labour. They use the modern classic Uber model to take the neoliberal principle of outsourcing risks and responsibilities to it's logical conclusion. Their extremely exploitative business model only works if their designers and factories and other gig workers break laws. They do the absolute bare minimum to comply with law and (allegedly) not even that when they believe they can get away with it by blaming others, which is fucking bad indictment of those laws, since my god they are terrible. Their greenwashing propaganda is honestly laughable, it's a joke and they must know it. It feels more like gaslighting than propaganda.

#this is not exactly what i usually write about but one of the reasons i care about historical fashion is because i care about sustainability #fashion #sustainable fashion #environment #climate crisis #shein #fashion industry #shein clothes #fast fashion #slavery mentioned #genocide mentioned

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itsabouttimex2 · 4 months

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Mei is doting in a very ‘big-sister’ sort of way, rough and tumble protectiveness meeting an honest (if obsessive) love for you.

So much of your relationship with Mei consists of doting touch. Her hands are always on you whenever she finds a good enough excuse for skinship. A tangle in your hair? Mei brushes it out and makes you sit down so she can check through your hair for more. Your clothes are skewed? Hold still and let her fix them. Hungry? Hop on her bike and wrap your arms around her waist- she’ll take you somewhere!

Speaking of which, she takes you on bike rides whenever the chance arises. It can be a simple ride to a nearby arcade, or a trip out to the countryside to camp out and stargaze. She opts for the latter more often, given that it allows you both to be alone for days on end, isolated from the world, from anyone who would take your attention and presence away from her.

She involves you in a lot of her livestreams, in the most flattering light possible. Lots of ‘Look what my bestie can do’ or ‘Y/N making their famous home-made cookies’ videos- short and fluffy content that her viewers praise for being heartwarming. In this way, she ‘shares’ you with the world, allowing her viewers to marvel over you like a glittering relic.

Lots of showing you off, actually- like a proud dragon flaunting a cherished treasure from her hoard. Mei also uses her money to keep you dressed and presentable, in the same gold and white that she wears. Several of the outfits in your closet were custom-ordered for you, with the excuse that she won them in a giveaway, but weren’t to her personal style. Then you can accept them without guilt or the need to repay her.

Each expensive outfit is specialized just for you, to fit your tastes and preferences while still being in her own colors. If you like to frolic around in sundresses, she adds in wide-brimmed hats to keep you from getting burnt. Do you wear skirts on all occasions? Mei throws in high-quality tights to keep you modest and leggings to suit the weather. You have autism and can’t touch rough fabrics without discomfort? She skips over cheap swathes of spandex and wool, opting to have silk used instead.

Matching jewelry, too- the only difference between her bracelet and yours is differing birthstones. (MK has one too, obv- her obsessive feelings probably extend to him, albeit on a much less extreme scale.) An immediate #twinsie posts, Mei’s fingers wrapped around yours as she takes the photo. She’ll admit that she bought these glittering bands, but point out that MK already accepted his, so you have to take yours too- and you do, but with the promise that you’ll make something tasty to repay her.

Mei comes over whenever you bake or cook, bringing trendy drinks along to share with you. And, if you have no important responsibilities for the next day, then our upbeat dragon girl is hellbent on a sleepover. Same bed, bestie! Mei wraps around you tightly, clinging with her powerful arms and legs to keep you close. (I like to imagine that dragons share warmth in little cuddle piles- it’s too damn cute to not think of.) Her draconic aura surges out sometimes, wispy green trails illuminating the dark bedroom around you. A pair of leering xanthous eyes stare down at you, adoration etched deep into every glowing inch of yellow.

Sometimes she drags MK along to these little slumber parties, both your heads resting on her chest, an ancient warmth pulsing with each beat of her heart. She holds you and him tight to herself, her arms bringing her beloved friends as close as possible. To Mei, the two of you are the closest to ‘perfect’ that the world gets. If she has you both in her her arms, then everything is good and just and right.

And god forbid anyone try to take that from her.

#Platonic Yandere #Yandere Lego Monkie Kid #Yandere LMK #Yandere Mei #Mei Dragon #MK #Yandere Friend #Yandere Headcanons

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woncherie · 2 years

Text

anon asked: Ok but imagine the strawhat pirates trying to prepare luffy for his first date

genre: fluff, gender neutral reader

im currenrly reposting a few old stories i wrote some time ago from my old blog!! REQUESTS ARE OPEN!!

the strawhat pirates preparing luffy for his first date:

Ok so first things first every single member probably thinks you are nuts for agreeing to go out with their captain, but when they saw how happy you and Luffy were when you agreed to spend some time together they just couldnt help but smile, trying their best since they know how dense their captain can be.

After Sanji finally calmed down and stopped crying because Luffy got a date and he didnt, he and Nami are willing to teach him how to fucking eat like a normal person (in case you are going out to eat) because the way Luffy just crams a bunch of food into his mouth is not quite pleasant, no matter if its in front of his crush or in front of them.

But lets be realistic, after one and a half hours both of them would just give up because there is no way Luffy will use a fork or spoon correctly.

Usopp is the one responsible for taking care that Luffy showers properly, even if it means he has to get into that damn shower by himself and scrub his whole body. I think its no secret that Luffy barely showers, because... water? and Luffy? Nope, not gonna happen.

Robin and Zoro are not really interfering, just watching the whole rigmalore in front of them and smiling to themselves. They both think there is no need to change the way their captain behaves since you agreed to go out with the huge dork, not with a forced gentlemen, but instead of calming them down they both just watch the whole crew make a fuss. Its kinda like Luffys friends are more excited about the date then he is.

Franky is already searching for the fake mustaches they wore at dressrosa in order to follow you discreetly, thinking that this will truely disguise them. Plot twist: It doesnt.

Brook and Chopper are trying to convince him to change in some more appropriate clothes, but there is no way Luffy would change. He is comfortable in what he is wearing and he probably doesnt even own anything different than his colored shirts and blue shorts.

At the end of the day every one of his crew members got exhausted because there is no freaking way their captain will change and will become a gentlemen in less then half a day. Thats probably when Robin finally speaks up and calms everyone down.

You are probably in your own room, not noticing how the other members harassed Luffy the whole evening over, just trying to get ready by yourself, already excited to explore the new island you landed on some hours earlier with Luffy. At some point Nami even barges into the room, looking quite exhausted, asking if you are 1000% sure to go out with the gummy boy. And you are just like... Yes?? You are sure. At least you think you are lol.

Nami is giving Luffy some extra money to spend on the island - which is a very very bad idea actually since he will lose it in no matter of time or spend it on complete bullshit. Thats probably the reason why she also gave you a bit more money than usually, knowing that Luffy will throw it out of the window and you have to pay for him, but you dont mind at all.

Five minutes after you both left the ship to go explore the island, Franky showed up with the beards and hats in order to follow you and take care that everything is going smoothly. But no way would Robin let them leave the ship, no matter how much they begged or tried to convince her. She would even use her devil fruit powers in order to keep the other strawhat pirates on their ship. She just wants to respect your and Luffys privacy.

No one of them knows how the date was. They just sat on the Sunny all day, wondering about all the scenarios that could happen.

After some hours they finally hear your and Luffys voices again, even though its just a muffled dialogue since you are currently talking in front of the ship instead of climbing up. Even Zoro became curious on how it went, every single one of them looking down and trying to peek on both of you, reading your faces. The only thing they saw though was how you gave Luffy a big smooch on his red cheeks, and him showing you the biggest gummismile he has, giggling slightly. Even you could tell how the tense atmosphere upstairs left immediately, everyone smiling down on both of you, happy it went well.

☆☆☆

i hope you liked it aaaa english is not my first language so it may be a bit hard to read,, i hope you still enjoyed this small fic <3

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agendabymooner · 1 year

Text

if not for you ! daniel r. x ofc (måneskin member! ofc) // toto w.

SPIN OFF for COLOUR ME YOUR COLOUR and RUSH

"there'll be no spring if not for this love of mine"

summary: posts and tweets exchanged between lester and others during the baku race weekend as she babysat toto and tilly wolff's children. OR chaos ensues in the paddock and the hospitalities as the wolff kids and an asshole ex-lover (is he really?) made their presence known to almost anyone

content warning: character-centric, mentions of questionable man, appearance of characters not yet shown in the series colour me your colour, toto wolff being canonically fashionable, use of explicit language, faceclaims used for the kids, danny is full on babygirl in the instagram comment section. f1 drivers being messy.

note: sorry for the awol guys, i was walking my fish. tomorrow is the start of the canadian gp 2023 and i am sad that i am not there. maybe next year when i have the money? or maybe when i work for pr. who knows. since i'm not there, i'm just celebrating and writing this.

ALSO!! should i do a blurb or something relating to lester babysitting the paddock kids- like the wolff kids? i've started on it but...

enjoy xx

masterlist

[first image dialogue: i don't normally look at the time because i dress faster than this. i even dress ren and tia for less than seven minutes and they're always dressed nicely for their music classes]

[second image: if they're dressed ten minutes after, that's not my doing; toto dresses them and he struggles a lot. he mostly gets them ready if he's taking them to work or if i'm off to a meeting in milton keynes]

[third image: we've made a lot of trips to ralph lauren and tommy hilfiger because he thinks that he can just mix and match the clothes that we got there for the bunch. said it's a "capsule wardrobe." that's what happens when you're married to a fashion expert, i suppose.]

[fourth image: you'll be able to know if he dresses them once you see the jumper/dress shorts/trousers combo or the dress/jumper combo. you'll know he did the preparing if tia's hair is put in place with a hair clip. she loves it when her papa puts in barrettes in her thin hair.]

tagged tillywolff, mercedesamgf1, redbullracing

view 32142 more comments

carlossainzjr ay, i didn't know they were running a barber shop! i need a haircut

tillywolff i don't recall buying that toy set for them 🧐

charles_leclerc maman said to get it for them so it can remind them of their mamé pascale

tillywolff thank you so much for taking care of ren and tia! i've been told they enjoyed being with their zia lori. maybe you can take care for adelmo next time? liked by loressandro

loressandro i will definitely set up a playroom for the next time!

landonorris thank you so much tillywolff for the best hairstylist ever 😇 i got the best trim in the grid right now and no one can outdo it

mercedesamgf1 boss is asking who's responsible for allowing one of the wolff puppies drink red bull? just asking for research purposes 😊

charles_leclerc maxverstappen1

lewishamilton maxverstappen1

user1 LMFAOOOO not lewis and charles snitching on their in-law 😭

charles_leclerc user1 i need to be in toto's good graces again.

maxverstappen1 it's a red bull water bottle 💀 stop trying to push me back at the starting level mf charles_leclerc

user2 those kids are so toto coded 🥰

user3 if you can survive lando, you can survive the wolff kids 🙌 liked by loressandro

danielricciardo if you can survive the wolff kids, you can survive our kids 😘 liked by loressandro

thomasraggi_ yeah but try surviving her kids 💀

ykaaar you're about to have the BEST years of your life, danny

ethaneskin alessandro-ricciardo kids bout to treat the tracks like mario kart deluxe 🤡

loressandro guys please... this is the only man who's willing to put up with me. stop scaring him away

danielricciardo i'm not scared, i am challenged 😎

landonorris danielricciardo mental health wise? bc same.

danielricciardo when are we having our little ricciardo??

loressandro depends if your swimmers are still working in few months or years. also if you stop laughing at your own nephews and nieces, dickhead

danielricciardo got it ma'am. anything just to have your kids <3

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writingforatwistedworld · 2 years

Note

hi! I love your blog, you have great ideas for Au's and writing the characters.

Could I ask for Idia, Azul and Vil's reaction to which reader is getting married but chooses to leave their partner standing at the altar and run away with them? it was an arranged marriage or something

(yandere au, please excuse my english, I'm using a translator)

Yandere x reader

I do not take any responsibility for you reading this no matter which age group you are from!

WARNINGS: Yandere themes, marriage, unhealthy relationship, kidnapping, imprisonment, illegal substances, manipulation, obsession

Azul Ashengrotto, Vil Schoenheit, Idia Shroud-Running away from an arranged marriage with them

Ok, first of all, how was it even able to come this far?

I mean, this man takes everyone out who just looks at you in a funny way

No matter how suave he is with everybody elso he is a huge manipulative softy around you and… now you are getting married?

Mhm great ok but why isn’t he the one signing those papaers??!

Instead there is that random stranger who, oh goodness, looks just like a fool who would accept even a contract from the most obvious scammer in this world

And would you look at that? It’s a contract! With the fools signature!

Having no other choice but to hand you over your guests and whoever you were forced to marry can now only watch as you to vanish into the sea

“You are shaking dear. Were you so afraid of getting maried to them? Don’t you worry, I will take care of you.”

Well at least you now have the option to escape whilst you were chained to some stranger in the earlier scenario…

But how was our local octopus sushi roll capable of getting that signature?

Of course Azul wouldn’t just waltz into the room and take you with him

He might, and the keyword is might, have used… legal and less legal substances to make your now ex-fiance agree to hand you over in exchange for a stack of money

Never mind the two danger noodles who were standing behind Azul and hovered over them whilst signing the papers

But hey! You are now having a home here! Under water! With chances as good as none to anyone ever finding you! More time for the two of you... yay?

Ok, Vil is, in theory and sense, rich from being so famous

And somehow the person who set this marriage up was able to push through with the preparations without problems?

Uh... is this some weird parallel dimension?

Despite his harshness whenever beauty (and how dry your hands looked) was presented in the discussions you two shared until now he is... in truth very tender whenever he is thinking about you

Rook being a menace? Show him a photo of you and he is silent once more

Epel didn't do his skincare routine again? Tell him something about you he didn't know and he is doing it for the young man

An assistant during a modeling gig spilled coffee over his clothing? Mention you and he is calm

Tell him that you are getting forcfully married off? Well then... oh uh... I think there is nothing there to stop him from breaking down the door

Epel and Rook also there, the first ready to snatch the cake and the second there to protect Vils “beau visage” (I can already feel the French going for my throat)

Yeah, that refined, cool mask is off and he is ready to burn the building to the ground, public image be damned!

Vil, sweety, I think you are stealing a certain faes role... TAKE THOSE FLAMES AWAY FROM ME!!!

But *ahem* back to them burning down buildings

Before you know it Vil is carrying you bridal style whilst scowling that things got this far

Oh? Happiness? Yes. You will experience that for a while... until you realize that you are trapped in a golden cage filled with skin care products and luxury brands... and oh! Almost forgot! With Vil Schoenheit himself, the legend, taking care of you

But how was he able to make sure no one found out about the incident?

Well, now there is a new kind of beef. Vil posted that there was a certain individual who had been harassing him and who wants to end his career with lies. Whoops! He also leaked their account!

But my dear, don't you worry about that. All you need to do is to stay in your little golden cage, stand in still like Snow White did in her coffin and just enjoy the presence of your beloved. No need to think about someone who will be hunted down soon by an angry mob after all...

You would be pardoned to think “Idia is a shut-in. No way he will blow that marriage up!”

I said pardoned, not being correct

You see, he might not be able to so much in person but that doesn't mean he behind a screen can't

No, seriously, take that PC away before he ends them once and for all

Also, you can ruin someone without a huge following on social media

Just be someone who can hack and is able to manipulate someone's data in their files

Suddenly police is storming the room, screaming at your fiancee to raise their hands slowly

Mhm, that was Idia

So still standing there in shook you didn't even notice the younger Shroud brother guiding you to his sibling

And that was where the awkward silence began

I mean, you were his sun, Hades Olymp, so close and yet so far away...

So how could he ever bear seeing you with another person?

Probably the best one to end up with of these three. He will not force affection upon you (being too shy himself), give you too much direct attention (only looking at you when you are distracted) and will even create a simulation of the outside world just for you

But why does the air feel so tense? Why does it feel like you have entered into a place beyond return, as if you are trapped in the Underworld?

Wes it his staring whenever you slept, catching him whenever you woke up and barely opening your eyes? Or were it the little touches of fingertips whenever he gave you something, feeling as if you had been burned

But no need to worry! They are gone and you are free! In his own, small world...

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peanutbutterwrites · 3 months

Text

My Good Looking Boy - Part Four

warnings for series: angst, struggles with self worth and self esteem, issues with appearance, childhood trauma, and mentions of death and murder.

summary: taking place after the southern raiders, zuko and katara finally learn to understand each other a bit more and long held on to feelings come to the surface. the gaang go and watch the ember island play and chaos ensues with katara's feelings.

part one - part two - part three - part four - part five

author's note: and here comes part four! this is where the story really starts to take a turn, so thank you to all your patience, here is zutara and where she finally starts to (maybe?) understand her feelings. part five might take me a bit longer, i lowkey ran out of motivation so I haven't started it yet, but hopefully not too long. as always, please let me know what you think and enjoy!

also thank you so much for all the notes and reblogs on this story, I really appreciate all of it! <3

word count: 2.1k

Katara made her way downstairs fully dressed and hair tied neatly into a half top-knot. Her red two piece consisted of a tight, cropped tank top with flowy and breathable pants she had managed to snag from the old clothes left here. It was clearly designed for the frame of a teenage boy, so Katara chose to ignore what or rather who they were made for in favor of just enjoying the freedom they allowed.

She knew it would be her job today to gather what was necessary to feed the group, along with multiple other things, so she wanted to get that particular job done as soon as possible. Over the last few days, the comments made about her in the play affected her less and less. Yes, she did talk a lot about hope, isn’t it important to have hope during such a difficult time? And yes of course she did the housework, who else would? Pushing aside what had been on her mind, the conversation with Aang, she grabbed the basket next to the entrance and dug through the makeshift wallet to see if she could afford to go into town today and continue to save. Zuko and Toph were only able to save so much money, and Katara absolutely refused to let the kids continue with scamming people; it had turned out rather horribly for them in the past. With her nose to the wallet, her visibility was severely impaired and she slammed into a rock hard surface.

“Ow!” She yelped as she fell backwards, but she felt a hand grab her wrist and yank her back upright.

“Oh, sorry.” Zuko murmured, still holding her wrist.

“S’ok.” She whispered right back, frozen in place. He noticed that he was still holding on to her and flushed as he slipped his hand behind himself. In doing so, he examined her full outfit and his flush turned into his full face overheating. He recognized those pants quite easily after all.

“So, uh, where are you off to?” he choked out.

“Oh, well, the market. I think we have enough money to get some actual food.”

“That’s good.” It was painfully awkward. They stood there, each shuffling in place debating on their next words.

“You know-”

“I could-” They both began at the same time.

“Uh, sorry, you go first.” Katara mumbled, looking anywhere but the boy in front of her while a light dusting of pink covered her cheeks.

“I was just thinking, I’m done training Aang for today. I could come with you.” Opening her mouth, rejection her go-to response, she closed it, opting to think for a moment instead.

“You know what, why not.” She half-smiled up to him and he let his own hesitant smile crawl its way up. Walking side-by side they made their way down the dirt path towards the day market that was no doubt in full swing by now. “About the other night,” she began, “I never got to thank you. I’m sorry you had to see that but, uh, thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me, Katara. I told you before, I’ll always be there for you. No matter how big or small the issue is.” She smiled softly at him.

“And I’m sorry for assuming your childhood was, well, privileged.”

“I mean you’re partially right. I never had to worry about food or clothing, nothing money could buy anyway.”

“So then what was it? What put the idea in your head that you’re worthless Zuko.” Silence fell over them and the only sound noticeable was the crunch of the dirt and gravel beneath them as they continued to the village. “Oh, I’m sorry. I overstepped, didn't I?”

“No, you didn’t. It’s just hard to talk about. I don’t like to talk about it either.” Katara nodded in understanding and gently grasped his right hand in her left. Zuko dropped his eyes to look into hers, shocked she was finally accepting him and willing to listen. It was the first time he didn’t feel pity or condensation in someone’s gaze when this topic came around.

“Well, I’m here for you too, you know.” Silence. After a few minutes walking, he began.

“I spoke out of turn.” She turned to him and squeezed his hand as they kept walking to give him support. Tilting her head to the side, she made it clear she was listening. “A statesman, one with many years of service and honor, wanted to use a young squadron as a decoy. He wanted to sentence them all to death just so we would get the advantage in a battle with a surprise attack. I argued against it. I was only thirteen at the time, but it seemed like a perfectly logical thing to do, to speak for those boys who were unable to speak for themselves. But in speaking out of turn, I disrespected him, threatened him. He challenged me to an Agni Kai to learn respect.”

“An Agni Kai? You’ve mentioned that before.”

“Yes, it’s a battle between two firebenders. It’s meant to be life or death.” Katara tensed as anger began to rise in her.

“But you were so young.”

“It didn’t matter to him. I insulted his place of authority, so foolishly I agreed. I knew I could beat an old statesman so it didn't bother me.” He gripped Katara's hand harder as he continued. “But it wasn't him I had to fight in the Agni Kai. When I turned it was my father.” Katara’s breath hitched in horror. “He claimed by arguing in his war meeting I disrespected him more than the statesman.” He softly shook his head as he continued, “I refused to fight him, he thought that I was weak, a coward. So he gave me this.” He looked at her in the eyes and her own widened in horror. Her teeth ground as Katara felt rage like she’s never felt before. White, hot, outrage. The fact that Zuko had been burned was something she could make her peace with, everyone had their scars, visible or otherwise. But for a parent to do that to their child? She wanted to scream out in anger, to march into the palace at this moment and kill that man. But she knew Zuko didn’t need that right now, she knew he would only end up comforting her instead.

“I, I’m so sorry, Zuko. I never imagined.”

“I know, it's okay.” They began walking again in silence, but Katara’s hand never left his.

“I’m sorry I didn’t heal it, I don’t have the spirit water anymore otherwise I wouldn’t hesitate.” He hummed softly and rubbed his thumb over the top of hand.

“It's fine Katara, it wouldn’t fix anything. Just make me a little more easy on the eyes.” Katara stopped in the dirt road and Zuko only paused when he felt her hand leave his. “What’s wrong?” He frowned, turning to look back at her.

“You, don’t think you’re attractive?” He flushed in embarrassment and crossed his arms defensively over his chest.

“Well I mean, isn’t it obvious?” He left out a humorless laugh.

“I think you’re beautiful, Zuko.” It was just a whisper, but to him it felt like so much more. She was looking him dead in the eye, no hint of embarrassment or lie. He felt himself stop breathing. Not bearable, decent, hot, but beautiful. She thought he was beautiful. And for some reason this word shook him. His gut flipped nervously and he had to swallow down his tears that threatened to unleash at any moment.

“Well, thank you. Katara.” He said, his eyes still piercing into hers that kept their intensity. She simply nodded and gathered his hand back into hers as they continued their walk into town.

They were able to haul a decent amount of food back, as surprisingly Zuko was pretty good at haggling with the older merchants who ran the stalls of the day market. Even after such a heavy topic, Katara found herself watching him with pride. His ability to live and forgive, to be kind after suffering such horrific actions against him made her eyes twinkle with emotion. He carried the heavy basket all the way back and offered to help her with the cooking as well.

“I think you are officially the most helpful member of the group, Zuko. Thank you!” Katara spoke cheerfully as they boundered into the entrance of the summer home. Zuko smiled after her and gave a small chuckle.

“I think that’s my favorite title I’ve earned yet.” He put the woven basket down in the kitchen, he began unloading their haul into their proper places as Katara let out a breathy laugh and went to gather the new laundry. Thankfully, the rather large fountain on the property made it easy to wash all the clothes. The next thing she knew she was bending water into the dirty clothing and Zuko was bringing out the tea set the house had been equipped with. He placed the pot out on the edge of the fountain and began brewing her tea as Sokka and Suki came down from their bedroom.

“Good morning! I guess you guys went to the market huh? Couldn’t find you anywhere.” Suki mentioned and Katara nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, and Aang’s lesson with Toph should be over soon so I thought some tea would be nice.”

“I’m sure your hot leaf water will be greatly appreciated, Zuko.” Sokka teased and Katara frowned.

“You do realize he has helped more today than you’ve in the past two weeks, Sokka.” Sokka froze and Suki let out a loud and exuberant laugh.

“Since when are you defending him?!” He said with a high-pitched voice crack and Katara had to fight with herself to stop from laughing outright.

“I’m not defending him, it's just the truth Sokka! And even if I was, it doesn’t matter.” Sokka’s mouth dropped in shock.

“I think she’s right, you guys really need to help out more. She’s always doing all the housework.” Suki mentioned as she took a small cup of piping hot tea from Zuko. Sokka let out multiple gargled and disgruntled sounds with a small “you don’t help either Suki!” while she yanked him down to sit and hushed him.

“Oh hey sugar queen, sparky.” Toph joked as she and Aang returned from their earthbending practice.

“Oh tea! Thanks Zuko!” Aang cheered, after a long morning of practice he must be exhausted and grateful for the break.

“Here, Aang.” Katara reached over to grab some bread she had been able to get at the market. “Relax and keep your strength up, we still have our lesson.” she smiled down at him and his apprehensive smile brightened quickly. Katara knew she couldn’t let personal issues get in the way of her teaching Aang, the world being at stake was of far greater importance than her confusing feelings. Zuko took a seat next to her and handed her a cup of tea, to which she smiled warmly at him and thanked him for.

“No seriously Katara, did something happen? Cause I swear, even after your guys’ trip you weren’t this buddy-buddy.” Sokka finished with Suki elbowing him in the side and him huffing out an exasperated “what?” to her. Zuko tensed up, his grip on his tea strained and contemplated grabbing Katara right then and there to stop her from saying anything. But she made her decision before he could.

“Oh be quiet, Sokka. We aren’t ‘buddy-buddy’, and nothing happened. Gosh, would you give it a rest?” She huffed and crossed her arms in an irritated fashion. Zuko visibly relaxed and took a long sip of his tea, shooting Katara a grateful smile. She knew he would tell the others in his own time and resolved to let it happen naturally versus forcing him to have that conversation right now.

“Karara!” Aaang, called out after gulping down most of his tea. She perked up at his voice, “Let’s start training now.” He smiled and she nodded in response, promising she’ll be back in time to cook dinner.

#zutara #atla #zuko x katara #zutara imagines #avatar the last airbender #zuko #katara #zuatara fanfic

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onbearfeet · 4 months

Text

Bloodstone Manor Location Masterpost

Okay, since the next bit of Monster Mash is gonna have to happen at/near Bloodstone Manor and Ted needs to go for a walk in the woods nearby, where do we think it is? The US and UK are the leading candidates in the fandom, but I need to pick a spot so my characters can get the fuck out of Ohio. My money is on the US, but I'm open to counterpoints.

Things to bear in mind:

1. Ulysses had a British accent. Elsa's accent is posh British. Verussa had an American accent, with some Broadway Mid-Atlantic that could suggest fancy New England OR just putting on airs. It's entirely possible one of the couple moved to be with the other, but that doesn’t settle which side of the ocean it happened on. Elsa's accent could be from a UK childhood OR a UK boarding school OR a choice to emulate her mother and annoy Verussa.

2. The house is old--or at least full of old stuff--but there's something of a history of Europeans bringing their weird-ass shit across the Atlantic and building absolutely batshit mansions in the US. Probably because there's more open space for it here.

3. The establishing shot of the rotunda shows it in hilly or mountainous terrain, with what looks like pine forest around it, and it sits on a parcel that is either big enough or far enough from neighbors that no one expects any outside response to roars, screams, explosions, etc. Either there's no one around to hear it or people REALLY mind their own business.

4. Of the hunters who make it to the funeral, one has a Scottish accent, two have American or Canadian accents, and one has what sounds like a South Korean accent (although apparently the actor was born in Argentina and moved to the US in the 90s, and I'm going off the many Korean-American voices I've heard at work, so "Korean-American" might be a better descriptor). Those are the people with connections to Ulysses and the time, resources, and motivation to show up to wherever this is. That suggests the location is most accessible to these people and not others. (Yes, I know, I've left out Jack's accent, but he was going to travel to wherever Ted was anyway; he had enough motivation that distance alone wasn't going to stop him.) North America has the numbers here; it's more likely that one Scot got on an international flight than that two North Americans did.

5. The guards are wearing "tacticool" BDUs and carrying some kind of zappy sticks or stun batons. The lack of guns is interesting and may indicate a location with stricter gun laws than the US ... or just that Verussa didn't want to accidentally kill her captive and that a lot of monsters are bulletproof anyway. The guards look and move a hell of a lot like an American tactical team and sound vaguely American when they're screaming. Would Verussa import guards, or hire local muscle? My money is on the latter.

6. Ulysses was old as balls. In the comics, he was positively ancient, and the opening narration implies he was old enough to be wearing pre-20th-century clothes in a flashback. He's definitely old enough to have gotten his hands on a nice piece of property in the UK, but also rich enough to have just bought a mountain in the US. He was also around for the last century-plus of history, and that may have affected his choice of headquarters. If the original Bloodstone Manor got bombed out during World War 2, for example, he might have moved to a less bomb-filled location.

7. Corpse Muppet! Verussa found somebody willing to turn her husband's remains into a Cryptkeeper animatronic. I have no idea whether that's a thing in the UK, but there are definitely enough weirdo taxidermists, puppeteers, and general pieces of work here that someone would take Verussa's money to do it. There are even subcultures here that traditionally sit the corpse up at the table for the wake, so it might not even be that weird to the right professional.

8. Flaming Tuba Guy is available for the funeral. Real Flaming Tuba Guy is American and takes his flaming tuba to Burning Man. I have no idea whether the UK is also a likely place to find a dude with a flaming tuba, but I have difficulty imagining a smooth process for getting a combination brass instrument/flamethrower through customs. I don't think there's a lot of international Flaming Tuba action unless private jets get involved. Wherever Flaming Tuba is from, I'm betting that's the jurisdiction where Bloodstone Manor is.

9. Jack makes it to Bloodstone Manor. Now, I've talked before about his being highly motivated and distance not being an obstacle for him, but if we assume he didn't use a magic portal or something (big if, I know), he had to go by land, sea, or air, and that takes time, no matter how motivated he is. Jack is centuries old, has a history of involvement with violence, and speaks with a Mexican accent. Wherever the Manor is, a dude matching that description was able to get there in time without setting off a ton of international alerts. The fact that Jack is as old as he is AND unknown to the hunters despite being a werewolf suggests that he prefers to keep a low profile, and by now he's practiced at it. He wouldn't want to leave a paper trail, especially when he's on a rescue mission that he knows will likely involve killing people. (I know he doesn't WANT to kill anybody, but the odds of him and Ted getting out of there with a zero body count were always slim. And he brought a bomb in his pocket.) Between his money and his accent, Jack would have an easier time moving around undetected in North America; he could reach a North American Manor by car rather than having to smuggle himself on a boat, charter a private plane (with a flight plan!), or go through customs at Heathrow or wherever. Not that he wouldn't risk getting on SHIELD's radar to save Ted, but if the hunt happened soon after Ted's capture, Jack would be more likely to physically reach the Manor in time if it were in North America.

10. Ted! Ted is at the funeral, obviously. In the comics, Ted canonically lives in the Everglades and honestly that's the best place for him. Verussa would have to have Ted transported from Florida to wherever the Manor is. All the logistical problems of moving Jack across an ocean are magnified in moving TED across an ocean. Again, it's much easier to move him within North America, which I'd consider a point in favor of a North American Manor. If the Manor were in the UK, wouldn't Verussa have gone for a victim based closer to home?

11. Sushi. "Let's do sushi; I owe you that." Apparently Jack and Ted have a history with sushi. I have absolutely no idea how common sushi restaurants are in the UK, but on the west coast of North America, you can pretty much throw a stick and hit one. (I know this because I moved last fall, and one of my first priorities in the new place was Find The Good Local Restaurants. Google was like OH, YOU WANT SUSHI?! HERE ARE TWENTY PLACES. Seriously, it's almost as common as pizza, at least in California.) I assume the boys aren't heading into a major urban center for food after their escape, so wherever Bloodstone Manor is, Jack thinks he can find a rural, exurban, or suburban sushi restaurant within a couple hours' travel (close enough that he can go, pick up their order, and make it back to Ted before raw fish goes funky). Sushi restaurants, at least in the western US, tend to be run by East Asian immigrants--part of the larger culture of immigrants starting restaurants within the first or second generation of arriving here. For stupid racist reasons, most East Asian immigration to the US took place after 1965, so there are a lot of sushi restaurants here that were established in or after the 1980s. Sushi restaurants also tend to be more common in coastal regions here, presumably because REALLY fresh ocean fish get more expensive and harder to acquire farther inland. Jack proposing sushi, if he and Ted are sitting on a log in the US, suggests they're somewhere near a coast, in a region with a sizable post-1965 East Asian immigrant population. (BTW, the reason I keep saying "East Asian" instead of "Japanese" is because a LOT of these restaurants in my area are run by Korean families, more rarely Chinese or Vietnamese ones. I've been in exactly one sushi restaurant here that was run by a Japanese family, and it was 40 years old.) Of course, I don't know shit about the takeout culture of the UK; maybe Yorkshire is full of sushi restaurants or something.

Conclusions.

Between the geography, the accents, the material culture, and the logistics, I think the balance of probability suggests that Bloodstone Manor is in North America, most likely the United States. There are multiple hilly or mountainous regions with pine forests near coasts, close enough to centers of East Asian immigration that the boys can reliably get their sushi.

So with all that in mind ...

#fanfiction #monster mash #werewolf by night #bloodstone manor #a fun thought exercise #seriously what's up with flaming tuba guy #damn now i want sushi #long post

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agaypanic · 9 months

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I'm not really good at requesting stuff but can you do more malcom smut stories kinda like the ones you did with reese

Stop Talking (Malcolm Wilkerson X Reader Smut)

Masterlist

Request Something!

Summary: Sick of your boyfriend’s complaining, you make an offhanded comment about his mouth. He takes it seriously.

A/N: i have another malcolm request for a first time smut, so this one’s gonna be malcolm giving reader head bc i dont have any other smut ideas lol btw characters are of age obvi and also kinda ooc malcolm i think ?? idk man

CW: oral sex (fem recieving), fingering, slight praise kink, edging, begging

***

Malcolm was always one to run his mouth about anything. Whether it was about some new book he was reading or some new problem he was having. You learned it was best to just nod along and hum in understanding, even if you didn’t have a clue what he was saying. Most of the time, Malcolm wanted an ear more than advice.

But sometimes, your ears would get tired.

“Reese is being such a dick!” Malcolm ranted, pacing around the room while you lay in bed, staring at the ceiling.

“Uh-huh.” You said tiredly.

“He’s always wrecking my stuff, and he doesn’t even care. And no one does anything about it!”

“Very true.”

“Mom and Dad should’ve sent him to military school instead of Francis. It would’ve been less of a waste of money.”

“Reese probably would’ve unionized the cadets in a week.”

Malcolm turned to you, looking betrayed and angry. If you weren’t growing annoyed, you probably would’ve laughed.

“Malcolm, baby, you have got to learn to loosen up. Look at yourself; you’re working up a sweat over Reese breaking your pencil when any other day he would’ve broken your face.” You sat up, staring your boyfriend down. “Plus, I’m getting sick of this rant of yours. I’ve heard it hundreds of times.”

“Oh, so you’re on his side?” Malcolm asked incredulously, putting his hands on his hips and tilting his head. You whined, tossing yourself back onto your bed.

“Oh geez, suck my clit, Malcolm. It’d be such a better use of your mouth.” You shut your eyes, clearly done with the whole conversation. Malcolm didn’t say anything, so you assumed it was the same for him. Finally, you had peace and quiet.

Until you were suddenly yanked down your mattress by the ankles, stopping when your legs were hanging off the edge of the bed. Your eyes shot wide open, coming face to face with your boyfriend.

“What do you want me to do?” Malcolm asked. His hands left your ankles to drag up the length of your legs, stopping at the sides of your thighs to squeeze at the flesh. Based on the tone of his voice, it was like he was challenging you.

“Excuse me?” You asked. But then you noticed his expression. Malcolm had a slight smile, and despite the color being icy blue, there was a certain darkness to his eyes.

“Say it again.” You’ve had sex with him before, but you’ve never seen Malcolm like this. Maybe it was the anger that had been boiling inside him, and you saying what you did was pushing him to relieve that anger differently. “Say it again, and I’ll do it.” Malcolm kneaded your thighs as he waited for a response, and if he wasn’t kneeling on the edge of your bed in between your legs right now, you’d clench them for some relief.

“Please.” He tsked in response, shaking his head slightly.

“Gotta say it, Y/n.”

Part of you was embarrassed to do so. Saying it as a joke or little insult was one thing. But saying it as a request, especially while Malcolm looked down at you like this, was so much harder.

“Suck my clit.” Malcolm kissed you deeply in response, an arm moving to hook under your waist while the other pulled a leg to wrap around his hips, making your skirt ride up. You eagerly returned the affection, moaning into Malcolm’s mouth as his growing erection grinded against your clothed clit.

Malcolm’s lips left yours, kissing down your neck and chest until he reached the bunched-up fabric of your skirt. His fingers went to slip under the waistband of your panties, pulling them agonizingly slow down your legs as if he knew the anticipation was killing you. When the fabric was completely off of you, Malcolm started kissing up your thighs, stopping at the apex where he ghosted over your eager core.

“Malcolm, come on.” You begged, wiggling your hips towards him. He gave into your plea, burying his face into your pussy and dragging his tongue through your slit before circling your clit. You jolted at the delicious contact, letting Malcolm manhandle your lower half so your legs were now dangling over his shoulders.

Your back arched off the mattress as Malcolm sucked on your clit. You were entirely correct; this was such a better use for his mouth. You two would probably do this every time he wanted to unnecessarily complain, but then you’d never come out of your room.

“So good, Malcolm, you’re so good.” Malcolm quickly became drunk off your mewling praises, gently nipping at your bud before sucking again. You planted a hand in his hair, pushing his head even closer, if that was possible.

Your grip had him groaning into your pussy, vibrations coursing through you while you tried not to squeeze his head with your thighs. Sensing you were quickly getting to the edge, Malcolm released one of your thighs to ease a finger into your quivering hole. Then he added a second, making you try to rock your hips in time to the quick thrusts of his digits.

Right when you were about to come, Malcolm pulled his mouth off of you and slowed his hand’s movements. You whined.

“Malcolm, please.”

“I dunno, Y/n. I don’t think you deserve it; you were pretty mean to me.” He was teasing you and enjoying the hell out of it. Malcolm gave a quick lap at your clit, not enough to send you over the edge but enough to make your breath hitch, wishing for more. “Maybe you should beg for it.”

“Malcolm, please, I’m so close.” That wasn’t enough for him, as he shook his head in false disappointment.

“Oh, come on, Y/n. You can do better than that.” He pressed up into that spongy spot inside of you, making you moan loudly.

“Please, fuck, please lemme come, Malcolm. I promise I’ll be good. Just let me come.” You ground yourself down on his fingers, hoping that that plus your words would be enough to convince him. It was, and in a flash, Malcolm was licking and sucking on your bud again, finger moving at what felt like lightning speed.

He didn’t let up as you climaxed, instead riding you through it while your eyes rolled back and you made incomprehensible noises. He continued the rough pace until you came down from your high and started jolting from the oversensitivity. Then he slowed to a stop, giving your clit one last kiss that made you shutter before coming up to be face to face with you.

You kissed Malcolm, tasting yourself on your tongue. It almost made you want to shove his head back down. But you pulled away, feeling something hard against you. You looked down and smirked before looking up at your now rosy-cheeked boyfriend.

“Want me to return the favor?”

#malcolm wilkerson x reader #malcolm wilkerson #malcolm wilkerson x reader smut #malcolm in the middle x reader #malcolm in the middle #agaypanic

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ridestomars · 11 months

Text

LAST CHANCE ON THE STAIRWAY – S. HARRINGTON HEADCANONS

𖥻 summary: fake dating old money!steve. 𖥻 pairing: old money!steve harrington x fem!reader. 𖥻 warnings: no mentions of y/n, not proofread - we die like men here.

💭 liv's thoughts: it's been a long time since i've written something, so i decided to make my big comeback with a concept that is very dear to me <3

DO NOT INTERACT WITH THIS WORK IF YOU'RE UNDER SIXTEEN.

♡ㆍWhen Steve comes up with (as he called it) a "miraculous, failproof" plan, he wouldn't stop trying to persuade you to join in. It will get to the point of being annoying, because being the brat that he is, this boy can't take a no.

♡ㆍAnd that is why he is doing everything in his power to make you take up on his offer, which means that he is showering you with useless gifts just for the sake of you saying yes.

♡ㆍBooks, cassettes, clothes, vinyl records… heck, even a brand new Walkman. He is truly going all in – and the plan hasn't even begun.

♡ㆍThe thing is: Steve is one stubborn guy, and when he makes up his mind about something, he is going to get it. And he has decided that instead of getting a girlfriend the way normal people do, he has to have you as his fake girlfriend.

♡ㆍYou could argue that it's because you're one of his, erhm… less fortunate friends, but deep down, Steve knows that this is his only shot at getting you as his girl.

♡ㆍTo him, it's like you're this very unattainable girl, someone who's so different from everyone he's known his whole life. You do things for yourself, and you're so ahead of him in so many ways that Steve thinks that you'll never give him a real chance. So, he has to make do with this fake shot at getting to your heart.

♡ㆍAnd boy, does he grab that chance by the horns.

♡ㆍEven though you made it very clear that you were still very much friends, and you didn't want this to get too close to comfort, Steve is already thinking about your matching clothes for his parents' annual gala, and planning a romantic date on the golf course at the town's club. Only because his rich friends will be there to witness you playing together, and you "gotta make this relationship seem believable!" His words, not yours.

♡ㆍSo, of course, he's going to bring you to his favorite rich-boy activities.

♡ㆍThe first, which is his most dear, is shopping. And it's something, as you found out, that he does pretty much daily –– spending one hundred bucks like it's absolutely nothing. But, hey! Steve was never known for being responsible, was he?

♡ㆍHe takes you everywhere, slowly finding out your personal tastes and favorite stores, and you're pleasantly surprised with how much you enjoy shopping with him.

♡ㆍSteve is all for the silly antics: picking out a dozen clothes and making a ridiculous fashion show in the fitting room's small hallway, or wearing clothes that are the wrong size just to hear you giggle and tease him.

♡ㆍIt's nice to have him there for support since he always encourages you to try things you wouldn't have otherwise. Steve is not one to be afraid of making a bold fashion statement, and he wants you to feel secure enough to do the same if you want to.

♡ㆍSo, if you see something that shows a little more skin than you're used to, or maybe a bright color you have never tried before, he is going to be your number one supporter. It does help that he finds you absolutely beautiful no matter what you wear.

♡ㆍShopping with Stevie also means that you are coming home with a bunch of shopping bags, but don't worry! He will carry all of them for you, even if it covers his whole arm, because he doesn't want you to ruin your fresh manicure.

♡ㆍBut besides shopping, Steve always invites you to go to the club to play golf, or tennis with him… even though you have no idea how.

♡ㆍSteve is convinced he is a good teacher, though. And that is what opens the door for opportunities for him to hold you tightly against his body, his big hands holding your arms as he explains how you should grip the golf club, or the tennis racket.

♡ㆍHe keeps telling you that it's good to be close to you like this to show you off to his friends, but with time, the excuses fade as you both discover that touching is good, and that there's nothing better than to be in each other's arms.

♡ㆍThose lingering touches, small smiles, and longing stares are almost like an unconscious thing that happens between the both of you, and you find yourself enraptured by them, completely forgetting about the boundaries you had set to avoid getting too caught up in this fake relationship.

♡ㆍBut it's difficult when Steve is the best fake boyfriend you could ever ask for. If you thought that he was just a good friend, man, you're in for the most delightful ride of your life… because if you feel like you're getting the lines between your real emotions and your fake relationships blurry, Steve had already jumped headfirst in it.

♡ㆍHis attentiveness just triplicates, and it's like he just wants to please you all the time. But it all happens so naturally that you start to wonder if dating him was supposed to happen sooner or later in your life; it just feels like the next step, really.

♡ㆍAnd what surprises you the most is that you could complain about his intensity or his blatant crush on you, but you don't want to.

♡ㆍIt's just needless to say that you're in big, big trouble.

♡ㆍBut let's talk about the good stuff, shall we?

♡ㆍHaving so many gorgeous outfits, it's only natural that he will help you pick out great combinations for your nights out, especially when you have to attend his parents' events together. Trust me, he's gonna make sure you go either with matching colors, matching fabrics, or matching designers.

♡ㆍYou are the only reason why those types of gatherings get bearable for him, honestly.

♡ㆍLike I said in a previous post, the Harrington family is renowned and known all over America, so that means that hearts will be crushed once Steve appears on the cover of a gossip magazine with his hand over your waist, holding you close as you two pose for the camera.

♡ㆍWhich takes us to why he made this whole plan up in the first place: he just wants to escape the madness of having people speculate about his dating life all the time and the crazy gold-digging mothers that practically throw their own daughters in his direction. Having a serious relationship keeps the craziness of being the country's most eligible bachelor, and it shuts down his parents, too.

♡ㆍHe loves to take you out dancing at those parties, even though they're very conservative when it comes to their music; it's either soft jazz music, or some old classics that no one your age has heard of before. But you make your own choreography, pretty much mocking how the other very square couples are dancing.

♡ㆍIt's literally the Laurie and Jo scene from Little Women (iykyk).

♡ㆍAnd please, he absolutely loves to get shitfaced at those parties! There are two things he really enjoys about those gatherings: the food and the neverending champagne. And he certainly savors every glass and those fancy finger foods – once, he almost took a whole tray of those.

♡ㆍTipsy-Steve is just a ray of pure sunshine, and a ball of energy. He loves to dance like nobody's watching and to talk to everyone, including those he claims to dislike. It's funny because his cheeks get so red, and even his way of talking changes a little: his voice gets squeaky, and he merges his words together because there's just so much going on through his head.

♡ㆍBut Drunk-Steve is a whole different person. He can barely keep his eyes open, and he has to spend the rest of the party sitting down somewhere because he gets too lazy… and now his words start to slow down, and he begins to feel a little more sentimental. So, as soon as the bubbly champagne takes its toll on his brain, he still can't stop talking, but most of his words are sweet compliments for you.

♡ㆍIt's like he feels a growing and unstoppable need to be a total sweetheart to you, praising you for just reaching out to brush his hair out of his eyes. And his clinginess just goes through the roof, wanting to be near you, even though you had just spent the last three hours together.

♡ㆍIt's in one of his drunken spurs where you get to know his actual feelings toward you, because he simply can't keep his mouth shut. He goes on extensive rants about just how great he thinks you are, and that you just might be too good for him… and Steve has such a heartbreaking puppy face, pouting as he tells you all about what goes on in his heart, that it's hard to feel anything but a sense of growing affection for him.

♡ㆍIt's funny, because one night he's pouring his heart out to you, and the next morning, he doesn't remember anything that he had said. And you don't say anything either. Maybe at the next party… or until your deal is over. There's always time, right?

LIKES, REBLOGS AND FEEDBACK ARE APPRECIATED! steve masterlist | main masterlist | navigation ── hey! wanna talk? leave me a message after the beep. currently accepting requests for steve and eddie.

𖤐 taglist: I AM RESTARTING MY TAGLIST! if you want to be added to my taglist, just click here.

#back at my loving steve hours #this is not my best but hey i can write more about it later #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #steve harrington headcanons #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington #old money!steve #old money!steve x reader #old money!steve harrington #headcanons #liv talks about stevie

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honorary-knight-of-favonius · 1 year

Text

Truth - Kaeya

Summary: You finally find the one

Warnings: crush!Kaeya, Fem!Reader, Multiple orgasms, cuninglings, fingering, living room sex, roommate!kaeya, collegestudent!reader.

I groaned rubbing my temples, I had been staring at this book for hours and nothing is being processed in my brain and it doesn’t fucking help I have a project due in less than twelve hours. As I was staring at the book the door to my room opened and in came my roommate and friend, Kaeya.

“Yo, so you might wanna wait to shower, I might’ve used all the hot water.” I groaned in response, Kaeya came over and looked at my materials.

“You’ve been on the same page since I got home, which was two hours ago.” I sighed and looked at Kaeya.

“Thank you Captain Obvious!.” I said condescendingly.

I heard a hum then I was lifted from my seat and carried out of my room and the only thing I felt was relief and warmth. Kaeya brought me to the living room and sat me down on the couch and he held me in his arms to make sure I didn’t try to get up and go back to that self-made prison.

“I’m hungry, wanna order?” Kaeya asked, I looked back and at the perfect moment my stomach rumbled.

“B-but money.” I whined.

“I didn’t ask if you had money, I asked if you were hungry.” I nodded and Kaeya smiled and pet me, “What do you want?” He asked

“Can we get Indian food?” I asked, Kaeya nodded and pulled out his phone and ordered the food, while we were waiting for the food Kaeya turned on some historical looking romance movie and made sure I was into the movie before leaving the couch. When he came back it was with a giant tortilla blanket, my favorite stuffed animal and some comfier clothes. Kaeya changed my jeans to fluffy pants and took off my shift and bra putting me into an oversized shift I was pretty sure I stole from him, and then he wrapped the blanket around me and handed me the toy before a knock echoed through the apartment and he went to go get the food and then handed me my food and finally sat back down.

“Is that why you like historical fiction?!” Kaeya asked as a certain explicit scene showed, “I mean I get the appeal but that’s. . .wow.” Kaeya said, I giggled.

“I know it’s so enchanting isn’t it! It’s like he already knows her body without ever having to touch her!” I rave, Kaeya chuckled.

“Oh. . .No I get that part, I mean take you for example. You hate when the top of your thighs are touched, but melt when the sides are caressed.” Kaeya said, I choked a bit before I looked back at him confused at home. He knew that and all I saw was a shocked expression almost like he exposed himself, “I-I, I didn’t mean that I meant-”

“How much do you know about my body?” I asked, Kaeya swallowed harshly before putting his food down on a tiny end table and bit his lip.

“A lot more than you think.” Kaeya said.

“. . .explain.” I urged.

“Well. . .shit I need an area.”

“Chest.”

“Shit, ok, you’re really not holding back. . .Um. . .You hate when people put their whole hands on your. . .boobs and just move them around, you like when they're worshiped or when your,” He coughed, “your nipples are stimulated.” He finished.

I looked at him dumbfounded, “How the fuck do you know that!” I asked

“W-well. . .when you're horny and unsatisfied with a certain dude you tend to. . ."rant.” Kaeya said, “Most of the time it’s to Lisa and if I don’t hear it Lisa tends to tell me because well because she tends to vent about your choices is lays.” Kaeya said, I looked at him and saw color rising to his face.

“Just. . .how much do you know?” I ask

“I know you like when guys take their time to eat you out, how you like foreplay, how to hold your body, how to get your legs shaking with ease, and I also know you like to kiss and makeout. . .Oh! And aftercare and I know a bunch of ways to arouse you too.” When he realized what he said he covered his mouth and even more color rushed to his face.

“So you know everything about my body.” I whispered, Kaeya quickly went to take me in his arms.

“I-I’m so sorry! I am really sorry! I- I didn’t mean to say all that!” Kaeya rushed.

“H-Have you told anyone else?!” I asked

“W-what?! No, no way! Why the hell would I tell the competition your preferences when I could try to use them myself?” Kaeya once again covered his mouth and got up and moved away from me, “Shit Kaeya you and your big mouth.”

“H-have you tried to. . .”Kaeya looked back.

“No! No way! I-I mean I wouldn’t be opposed to using that knowledge on you, but I’ve never intentionally tried, not that I haven’t wanted to, but I-” Kaeya shut up the moment he saw my face, “Shit Kaeya you're not helping yourself.” He scolded, hitting his head.

I looked away and covered my face. It almost sounds like Kaeya is confessing to me. Like he’s telling me he’s in love with me that he wants me and no one else. I looked back to Kaeya how he was trying to hide his anxiety, but he was failing. I got up and went close to Kaeya taking a hand and placing it on my hip and Kaeya quickly moved it to my waist and hugged me.

“I-I. . .if you want what I think you want you’ll have to tell me. B-because otherwise I really need to get my hands off you, I-I really don’t want to ruin our relationship so. . .please, tell me.” I looked at Kaeya and put my hands on his bare chest and whined.

“You’re thinking right.” Kaeya swallowed harshly, “Please, show me what you’ve learned.” Kaeya picked me up by the backs of my thighs and carried me to the couch when he laid me down before he got on his knees on the floor.

“Are you sure you want this?” I nodded and he began tugging off my pants while removing my shirt. Kaeya started by cupping and caressing the side of my thighs just the way I liked before he bit my inner thighs as well as sucking some hickeys on them too. When he got to my cunt he blew twice before licking a long stripe up and diving in, he used his tongue to focus on my clit then wrapped his lips around it making my hands go to his hair. He began humming and the vibrations made my head all fuzzy, when he managed to slip his fingers in I closed my thighs around Kaeya and he welcomed me to squeeze his head and continued to use one hand to caress my thigh and I began grinding against his face my moans getting higher and my that knot was unraveling and the moment it was undone I arched my back rolling my eyes back. I took a deep breath and my body relaxed.

Kaeya pulled away and moved his hands to my hips before he hovered over me, “well, did I pass Mistress?” Kaeya purred out like a kitten. The way the mistress came out of his mouth was perfect, like he was made to say.

“Y-yes~ with flying colors.” I said, Kaeya moved to face my tits, and made sure to place his hands in a way that caressed them without grabbing them like an apple. He kissed the valley between and then moved his mouth to the left side while the right side had the nipple pinched, and twisted. I whined and arched my back, Kaeya took his mouth away and went to kiss and suck a hickey on my tit before returning his mouth to the nipple, I felt his teeth graze the skin and I tangled my fingers in Kaeya’s hair.

“K-kaeya, you’re doing so good, so fucking good~” I praised, He smiled and grazed my nipple again. I felt the knot forming and then Kaeya switched his hand and mouth and the knot grew tighter and tighter and I managed to grind against his stomach and with all the stimulation I came undone going limp on the couch.

“It seemed like I managed to scratch that itch.” Kaeya smirked, “How are you doing?” Kaeya asked, cupping my face. When I didn’t answer him he moved to get the toy he’d brought out, “Be a good girl and touch Nellie if you still want to continue.” I touched the toy and he smiled.

“If you want a break, touch Nellie.” I did so again, “Ok, you must’ve needed that huh?” I nodded, Kaeya kissed my cheek, “you’re doing so good, so fucking good.” After a few minutes I pulled Kaeya into a kiss. He hummed and placed a hand on my waist allowing me to meet his hips.

“There’s no need to be impatient, Mistress. Just order me to serve you and I’ll be a good boy and do just that.” I smiled and pulled him closer.

“Then be a good boy and fuck your Mistress.” When I felt the slight movement on his pants then I felt his hard and ready cock on my desperate cunt and he looked at me.

“If I hurt you tell me,” I nodded and he slipped in and I dug my nails into his shoulders and he stayed still before he began moving but his pace was slow but he was deep and rough, shit he even knew how I liked being fucked. Why didn’t I notice his lusting gazes or kind praise, or the sad smiles he gave when I told him I was going on a date? Why didn’t I notice them sooner? I should’ve noticed them so much sooner, I don’t need him as my bestfriend, I need him as my fucking boyfriend!

“C-close~ I’m so close~” I whined, Kaeya went to my tits and worked their magic as I screamed, my orgasm washed over me and I felt Kaeya going to leave and I locked myself around him making it so he had to cum inside which he did and laid in my chest before looking up at me.

“S-shit, shit, shit! I can’t believe I just came in you, I came in you! Oh fucking hell, I can’t believe that, I’m so fucking sorry, I-I’ll take responsibility if anything happens, shit.” Kaeya freaked out before I spoke up.

“I-I have an implant.” I say, Kaeya looked confused but then it clicked and he grabbed a tissue before he pulled out making sure to clean me and once I was I had the oversized shirt put on and then cuddled on the couch with Kaeya.

“So. . .Um. . .I know you know how I feel about you. But. . .what about you?” He asked

“Kaeya.” He hummed, “Would you like to be my boyfriend?” I asked, He smiled brightly and nodded before peppering my face in kisses and snuggling into my hair.

#genshin x reader #genshin impact smut #genshin impact #sub!reader #favonian archive #dom!kaeya #genshin imagines

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