#i mean the reasons more than the quantity

[coimbrabertone]

Closing the Doors is Bad for Indycar

Today, Indycar has announced its charter system.

On face value, I see the case for this being a good thing. The likes of Ganassi, Rahal, Coyne, Andretti, and Penske themselves have been in the sport for decades and I see this as a way of giving back to them. The teams that have been in Indycar and contributed to its great moments and iconic races deserve some sense of security and a financial safety net should they choose to cash out.

I mean, the fact that such historic names as Newman/Haas and Forsythe are completely gone from Indycar racing is pretty sad.

That part is good, however...the problem I have with the charter system is the numbers.

There will be 25 charters.

Of these, 22 charters will receive leader circle money.

Additionally, 27 grid slots will be the norm outside of the Indianapolis 500.

I disagree with every single one of these numbers. 25 charters is an arbitrary number and it has caused a 3-car limit to be instituted in Indycar, leading to Chip Ganassi Racing having to cut two cars and fire a whole bunch of people.

2024 Rookie of the Year Linus Lundqvist looks like he'll be out of a job for 2025.

2023 Rookie of the Year Marcus Armstrong is getting farmed out to Meyer Shank Racing, which will have a technical alliance with Ganassi for 2025.

Meanwhile Kyffin Simpson, who is 21st in points in the same team that won the championship with Alex Palou this year, is expected to take over the chartered CGR #8 because his father owns Ridgeline Lubricants which is a major sponsor of the team.

This is what the charter system is for? Getting people fired and ensuring a paydriver keeps his seat? Ridiculous.

And three of these charters not getting leader circle money...quite frankly this rule only exists because of Penske Entertainment being cheap and not wanting to spend more money than they already do. It makes absolutely zero sense to have chartered cars not getting leader circle money.

The purpose of the charters is to give back to the teams that have made Indycar what it is? Well, only giving money to the top twenty-two doesn't do that.

And twenty-seven grid slots at races outside of the Indianapolis 500...this part arguably pisses me off the most, because there is no reason for this rule.

Garage space at Mid-Ohio? There were thirty-six Craftsman Trucks at Mid-Ohio in the 2023 O'Reilly Auto Parts 150 last year, you can find a couple of extra pit stops.

Toronto has a weird pitlane ever since that hotel got built? Move it. Hell, a few years ago we had a pileup, and the pace car took the cars under the Princes Gate and onto a closed road over there, make that the pitlane! How cool would that be? Cars peeling off underneath a neoclassical arch to get into the pits.

You can make more than twenty-seven cars work.

Indycar just doesn't want to.

They want twenty-five charters and the two Prema cars for next year, that's it.

Furthermore, it sounds like the plan is to decrease that limit to twenty-five cars total, so every car left will be chartered.

This rule, along with the money for the top twenty-two, makes me think that the plan is for Prema to eventually force out and buy out a Dale Coyne or an Ed Carpenter Racing.

So much for protecting the owners, huh?

Thus, this rule isn't really about protecting the owners, it's about producing artificial exclusivity. The same kind of shit that Formula One has pulled to Andretti, and now the series that Andretti races in wants to do that as well. It's cynical, it's hypocritical, and it's not good for the sport.

Zak Brown of McLaren has said a lot of good things when it comes to Indycar's future, but one thing he said that really irritated me is that idea that quality is better than quantity when it comes to racing.

First of all, quality and quantity are not mutually exclusive here.

Second of all, quantity sure spiced up the show at Milwaukee with the amount of lapped cars that the leaders needed to negotiate, providing for constant drama and always giving chasing cars the opportunity to close in.

Third of all, Indycar is not Formula One, and it should not try to be Formula One.

Indycar is great because it races on so many disciplines: road courses, street circuits, short ovals, superspeedways, all of it. But another thing that makes Indycar great is how open it has been in comparison as well.

Formula One has limited teams to running two cars, Indycar has traditionally allowed teams to run as many cars as they want. Some teams ran one, some ran as many as five or six, and that's beautiful. It's given teams the flexibility to expand and add a car if they want to, meaning that it was always theoretically possible for a big team like Penske, Ganassi, or Andretti to pick up your favorite driver.

That's going away.

All the teams in 2025 will run either two or three cars, with the small teams generally running two and the big teams generally running three. That's not fun.

And with this charter system capped at twenty-five and more inclined to shrink rather than expand, it doesn't give any flexibility for the future.

Ed Carpenter Racing could sell tomorrow to the infinite money glitch that is the Saudi Public Investment Fund, and they'd still only have their two cars available, with limited options to ever acquire a third.

Limited options to ever climb to the level of Penske and Ganassi.

Thus, it only serves to reinforce the stale duopoly that has dominated modern Indycar.

I don't want to be negative about Indycar. I want to unconditionally love this sport, I want to be excited about seeing 235 mile per hour laps at Michigan, Pocono, and Fontana, I want to see drivers cutting through the streets of Surfers Paradise and Vancouver, I want to see a classic photo finish at a Chicagoland or a Kansas.

I want to see Arrow McLaren taking the fight to Penske and Ganassi, I want to see RLL get better and bounce back on the ovals, I want to see Andretti Global come to the Indianapolis 500 with an armada of five or six cars like they used to.

I want to see competition between chassis manufacturers and engine manufacturers, I want to see cars that look fast and innovative but can still bump and bang side-by-side or protect a driver in a high-speed crash. I want a series that doesn't tuck its tail and run away the moment football season starts.

Instead, Indycar wants to be aging cars that look like crap racing around street circuits in Dallas and Denver (for the third time) with one of Will Power, Josef Newgarden, Scott McLaughlin, Scott Dixon, or Alex Palou winning.

And you don't even get the benefit of running an ancient formula because of this arbitrary limit on the number of cars. There are 60-65 Dallara DW12s in current service amongst the teams, more if we count older chasses, show cars, and rebuilt tubs, so why on Earth are we insisting on only racing twenty-five of these goddamn things?!?

I could understand if there was a new car in limited quantities, but this car is old and there are a lot of them out there, so if we can't get a new car, at least, at least, let us experience the benefit of this 13-year-old car but running as many of them as possible every race weekend.

But we don't.

The series continues to make the most mediocre decisions possible while hoping that great racing can make us forget about all their mistakes.

That doesn't really work when you have an offseason from September to March full of your bad decisions.

In other news, MotoGP made me happy with a tense battle between Jorge Martin and Enea Bastianini in the closing stages of the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix at Misano ending with Bastianini barging his way through to take his second win of the season. While in F1, Lando Norris dominated at Singapore and even managed to lead the first lap from pole position.

Baby's first good race start...I'm so proud.

NASCAR at Bristol Night also happened, but uhh...yeah, the less said about that, the better.

[mariacallous]

Milton Orr looked across the rolling hills in northeast Tennessee. “I remember when we had over 1,000 dairy farms in this county. Now we have less than 40,” Orr, an agriculture adviser for Greene County, Tennessee, told me with a tinge of sadness.

That was six years ago. Today, only 14 dairy farms remain in Greene County, and there are only 125 dairy farms in all of Tennessee. Across the country, the dairy industry is seeing the same trend: In 1970, more than 648,000 US dairy farms milked cattle. By 2022, only 24,470 dairy farms were in operation.

While the number of dairy farms has fallen, the average herd size—the number of cows per farm—has been rising. Today, more than 60 percent of all milk production occurs on farms with more than 2,500 cows.

This massive consolidation in dairy farming has an impact on rural communities. It also makes it more difficult for consumers to know where their food comes from and how it’s produced.

As a dairy specialist at the University of Tennessee, I’m constantly asked: Why are dairies going out of business? Well, like our friends’ Facebook relationship status, it’s complicated.

The Problem with Pricing

The biggest complication is how dairy farmers are paid for the products they produce.

In 1937, the Federal Milk Marketing Orders, or FMMO, were established under the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act. The purpose of these orders was to set a monthly, uniform minimum price for milk based on its end use and to ensure that farmers were paid accurately and in a timely manner.

Farmers were paid based on how the milk they harvested was used, and that’s still how it works today.

Does it become bottled milk? That’s Class 1 price. Yogurt? Class 2 price. Cheddar cheese? Class 3 price. Butter or powdered dry milk? Class 4. Traditionally, Class 1 receives the highest price.

There are 11 FMMOs that divide up the country. The Florida, Southeast, and Appalachian FMMOs focus heavily on Class 1, or bottled, milk. The other FMMOs, such as Upper Midwest and Pacific Northwest, have more manufactured products such as cheese and butter.

For the past several decades, farmers have generally received the minimum price. Improvements in milk quality, milk production, transportation, refrigeration, and processing all led to greater quantities of milk, greater shelf life, and greater access to products across the US. Growing supply reduced competition among processing plants and reduced overall prices.

Along with these improvements in production came increased costs of production, such as cattle feed, farm labor, veterinary care, fuel, and equipment costs.

Researchers at the University of Tennessee in 2022 compared the price received for milk across regions against the primary costs of production: feed and labor. The results show why farms are struggling.

From 2005 to 2020, milk sales income per 100 pounds of milk produced ranged from $11.54 to $29.80, with an average price of $18.57. For that same period, the total costs to produce 100 pounds of milk ranged from $11.27 to $43.88, with an average cost of $25.80.

On average, that meant a single cow that produced 24,000 pounds of milk brought in about $4,457. Yet, it cost $6,192 to produce that milk, meaning a loss for the dairy farmer.

More efficient farms are able to reduce their costs of production by improving cow health, reproductive performance, and feed-to-milk conversion ratios. Larger farms or groups of farmers—cooperatives such as Dairy Farmers of America—may also be able to take advantage of forward contracting on grain and future milk prices. Investments in precision technologies such as robotic milking systems, rotary parlors, and wearable health and reproductive technologies can help reduce labor costs across farms.

Regardless of size, surviving in the dairy industry takes passion, dedication, and careful business management.

Some regions have had greater losses than others, which largely ties back to how farmers are paid, meaning the classes of milk, and the rising costs of production in their area. There are some insurance and hedging programs that can help farmers offset high costs of production or unexpected drops in price. If farmers take advantage of them, data shows they can functions as a safety net, but they don’t fix the underlying problem of costs exceeding income.

Passing the Torch to Future Farmers

Why do some dairy farmers still persist, despite low milk prices and high costs of production?

For many farmers, the answer is because it is a family business and a part of their heritage. Ninety-seven percent of US dairy farms are family owned and operated.

Some have grown large to survive. For many others, transitioning to the next generation is a major hurdle.

The average age of all farmers in the 2022 Census of Agriculture was 58.1. Only 9 percent were considered “young farmers,” age 34 or younger. These trends are also reflected in the dairy world. Yet, only 53 percent of all producers said they were actively engaged in estate or succession planning, meaning they had at least identified a successor.

How to Help Family Dairy Farms Thrive

In theory, buying more dairy would drive up the market value of those products and influence the price producers receive for their milk. Society has actually done that. Dairy consumption has never been higher. But the way people consume dairy has changed.

Americans eat a lot, and I mean a lot, of cheese. We also consume a good amount of ice cream, yogurt, and butter, but not as much milk as we used to.

Does this mean the US should change the way milk is priced? Maybe.

The FMMO is currently undergoing reform, which may help stem the tide of dairy farmers exiting. The reform focuses on being more reflective of modern cows’ ability to produce greater fat and protein amounts; updating the cost support processors receive for cheese, butter, nonfat dry milk, and dried whey; and updating the way Class 1 is valued, among other changes. In theory, these changes would put milk pricing in line with the cost of production across the country.

The US Department of Agriculture is also providing support for four Dairy Business Innovation Initiatives to help dairy farmers find ways to keep their operations going for future generations through grants, research support, and technical assistance.

Another way to boost local dairies is to buy directly from a farmer. Value-added or farmstead dairy operations that make and sell milk and products such as cheese straight to customers have been growing. These operations come with financial risks for the farmer, however. Being responsible for milking, processing, and marketing your milk takes the already big job of milk production and adds two more jobs on top of it. And customers have to be financially able to pay a higher price for the product and be willing to travel to get it.

[azumetapraline]

No offence, but I do not understand why everyone is going into “ship mode” because of the Mario movie trailer (I have just finished watching it)

And it kinda rubs me the wrong way, not gonna lie 😅

[pibsboots]

I've always had chronic fatigue. I remember being twelve, and an adult mentioned how I couldn't possibly know how tired they felt because adulthood brought levels of exhaustion I couldn't imagine. I thought about that for days in fear, because I couldn't remember the last time I didn't feel tired.

Eventually I came to terms with the fact that I was just tired, and I couldn't do as many things as everyone else. People called me lazy, and I knew that wasn't true, but there's only so many times you can say "I'm tired" before people think it's an excuse. I don't blame them. When a teenager does 20 hours of extracurriculars every week and only says "I'm too tired" when you ask them to do the dishes, it's natural to think it's an excuse. At some point, I started to think the same thing.

It didn't matter that I could barely sit up. It was probably all in my head, and if I really wanted to, I could do it.

When I learned the name for it, chronic fatigue, I thought wow, people that have that must be miserable, because I am always tired and I cannot imagine what it would feel like if it were worse.

Spoiler alert, if you've been tired for a decade, it's probably chronic fatigue.

Once I figured that out though, I thought of my energy as the same as everyone else's, just smaller in quantity. And that might be true for some people, but I've figured out recently that it absolutely isn't true for me.

I used to be like wow I have so much energy today I can do this whole list for sure! And then I'd do the dishes and have to lay down for 2 hours. Then I'd think I must gave misjudged that, I didn't have as much energy as I thought.

But the thing is - I did have enough energy for more tasks, I just didn't go about them properly.

With chronic fatigue, your maximum energy is obviously much smaller than the average person's. Doing the dishes for you might use up the same percentage of energy that it takes to do all the daily chores for someone else.

If someone without chronic fatigue was to do all the daily chores, they would take breaks. Because otherwise, they're sprinting a marathon for no reason and it would take way more energy than necessary. We have to do the same.

Put the cups in the dishwasher, take a break. Put the bowls in, take a break. So on and so forth. This may mean taking breaks every 2-5 minutes but afterwards, you get to not feel like you've run a marathon while carrying 4 people on your back.

Today, I had a moderate amount of energy. Under my old system of go till you drop, I probably could have done most of the dishes and wiped off the counter and then been dead to the world for the rest of the day.

Under the new system, I scooped litter boxes, cleaned out the fridge, took the trash out, cleaned the stove, and wiped off the counter and did all the dishes. And after all that, I still had it in me to make a simple dinner, unload the dishwasher, and tidy the kitchen.

It was complete and utter insanity. Just because I sat down whenever I felt myself getting more tired than I already was.

All this to say, take fucking breaks. It's time to unlearn the ceaseless productivity bullshit that capitalism has shoved down our throats. Its actively counterproductive. Just sit down. Drink some water. Rest your body when it needs to rest.

There will still be days where there is nothing to do but rest, and days where half a load of dishes is absolutely the most I can do. But this method has really helped me minimize those, which is so incredibly relieving.

[feeder86]

Saint Scott

It was around Thanksgiving when Ben first had his suspicions that Scott wasn’t quite the angelic figure that he appeared to be. A face of porcelaine and a fine, toned body of a guy who had clearly never struggled to turn heads, Scott had been a favourite amongst every single group within the dorms. He was kind, thoughtful, dependable and caring. He never swore, nor had a bad word to say about anyone. It was no wonder that he had gotten away with it so well.

Scott’s girlfriend, Marie had clearly suffered, surprisingly rapidly, with the Freshman Fifteen. Even Ben, who had no interest in girls whatsoever, had noticed just how swollen and large the girl’s butt had become, almost overnight. Everyone had assumed it to be accidental and a consequence of college life. However, it was Scott’s hands that gave him away. Ben had stood behind them at a party and seen the way the saintly boy’s finger drifted and caressed those blubbery glutes. He’d spoonfed her ice cream and indulged her in any way he could. Then, when Marie had become conscious of her increasing size and joined the netball squad for exercise, Scott had finished with her within the week.

There was no doubt in Ben’s mind. Saint Scott was a feeder. All the evidence was there, despite the fact that Ben would often try to convince himself that he was wrong. After all, he was more interested in the world of feederism than most. It was the reason he had travelled so far away to go to college. For as much as Scott seemed to be harbouring a secret, so was Ben himself…

Ever since Ben could remember, he had wanted to grow his own fat belly. He didn’t know where the urge had come from or why it appealed to him more than anything else. It was the pinnacle of eroticism for him and something he knew he could not live his life without. Waiting until after high school had been a no brainer. There was no chance of him packing on any excess weight back at home. Ever since he was little, he had been ferried about from one extra-curricular sports club to another: basketball, swimming, karate, to name but a few. He had even taken on a couple more in the last year, knowing that his suddenly more sedentary lifestyle in college would be the perfect excuse for why people would start to see his transformation away from the fit jock he had always been.

Ben had started the moment he arrived in college. His first trip to the supermarket had been the cathartic moment he had dreamed about for months. Downing a carton of whipped cream upon his return to the dorm had made his dick harder than he had ever felt it and he came, gazing upon his fit physique bloating in the mirror. Since then, it hadn’t been as easy as he had hoped. The pounds had trickled on slowly and his quest to develop the appetite of an obese guy hadn’t been as automatic as he had hoped. Although his abs had been stubbornly difficult to erase, he did appear thicker in the middle and in his face. His pants had been growing tighter and so he knew that his butt and thighs had been swelling up. 

However, with a shirt on, Ben felt like he had made no progress whatsoever. The guys who had heard of his sporting achievements were still nagging him to sign up at the Athletics Union and, despite the vast quantities of beer he had consumed on nights out, his stomach had still yet to pop out in the way he longed for.

“I hear Vimran is close to getting you to join the swim team?” Scott had teased Ben.

“Not a chance!” Ben had laughed back, throwing a beer down his throat.

“Why not?” Scott had asked in his usual, polite manner. “You don’t fancy being seen in just your swim trunks at the moment?”

Ben’s jaw had dropped. Had the tediously polite and wholesome Scott really just subtly fat-shamed him? His first ever comment about his additional pounds and there it was, rolling out of Scott’s mouth so carelessly. Ben felt a spark of energy captured in his lungs. This was every bit as exciting as he had imagined.

“What I mean is…” Scott fumbled, seeming to recognise his faux pas; his mind working a mile a minute. “...It’s winter, you don’t want to be getting into a cold swimming pool and freezing yourself to death.”

Ben smirked, It was a decent enough recovery, but he had decided to have none of it. “It’s all right,” he chuckled, patting his beer bloated middle. “I guess I would be a little more conscious in a speedo right now,” he smirked, lifting his shirt up to reveal his less defined stomach. “The Freshman Fifteen are definitely catching up to me,” he laughed, taking another sip of his beer and diving his hand into his bag of potato chips. He’d masturbated thinking about it later: his first time being called out for getting chubbier. However, one thing stood out more than anything. Once again, Scott was in the middle of it all.

Pants start to fit very differently once your butt gets some additional heft to it. Ben found he loved the way his sweatpants clung to the new shape, emphasising the fact that his slender, tight, glutes were undergoing a transformation. Once his six pack had been taken over, he could feel the beginnings of softness starting to form at his sides. He could take his fingers to them, poke and pinch, never failing to get himself aroused. This was happening. He was actually doing this, no matter how slow the progress was!

After the winter holidays, Scott had started dating again. Unsurprisingly to Ben, he had chosen a girl from his course: short, large-chested and with a butt at least as chubby as Marie’s had been before she cut down. People had raised their eyebrows in surprise, silently evaluating everyone and deciding that this new girl, Sam, was nearly not hot enough for a guy like Scott. Once again, Ben saw Scott’s drawer in the freezer start to fill with ice cream and sickly treats beginning to clog up the shelves of the refrigerator. The feeder was back to his old tricks, enveloping a naive Sam with his love, affection and pampering. 

Ben often wondered just how Scott did it so effectively. Every pound Ben had gained had been hard fought for as he battled against his fast metabolism, yet Sam’s face seemed to be filling out in a matter of weeks. People began to complain about Scott’s absence, with the guys only ever seeing him at sports practice or when he was on his way to a class. Then there was Sam, who had never had many fans around the dorm, starting to take on even more criticism behind her back, just as her waistline began to thicken.

Ben had to admit that he was disappointed in himself. Although he was proud of the slight paunch he had obtained, he had to conceed that he had expected it to be larger by now. He wanted a real belly on him, not just a bloating that made it look like he was bulking for a muscle gain. He was still going on dates, still being lusted after by the other gay guys on campus. Life had yet to alter in the way he secretly longed for.

It was hard not to feel jealous when Ben saw Scott with his arm draped over Sam: her little swollen tummy pushing out as if she didn't realise a half shirt was not a great look for a girl as obviously overweight as she was now. The pounds had seemed to pour onto her body with breathtaking speed. Scott always seemed to be complimenting her or suggesting places for them to eat, his hands hardly off her all the while. It was then that the fantasy started for Ben. Sure, he’d had a crush on Scott before, but seeing him being so openly horny for his dumpy girlfriend was stimulating his imagination no end. Just what did the guy do to get his girls to grow like this? Just how kinky was all this for him? If it hadn’t been for the fact that Sam had failed her first year in college and was shipped back home by her domineering family, Ben could imagine that she would have continued getting fatter and fatter as the months went on. As it was, she appeared to have had a very lucky escape.

Ben had decided early on that he wasn’t going home for the summer. He’d pushed all year for a less than thirty pound gain. Heading home wouldn’t only stunt his progress but was more than likely to reverse it. He’d been successful in his application to stay in the dorms and had picked up a job at a burger joint to help bring in the extra cash. Whether it was just the cheap material they used, Ben didn’t know, but he’d never felt more portly than when he slipped on his work uniform and strolled out with a confident swagger. It got hot working the cash register by the kitchen, with not a single pound of his new fat being hidden as his shift ended. He noticed people starting to look at him differently and speak to him with a bluntness that he was less used to. It spurred him to eat and consume, determined to make the summer months his most productive yet, even with the torturous humidity that lingered for weeks.

Scott arrived back in town a couple of weeks before the start of the new semester as he moved into a frat house with some of the other athletes. He’d popped in and fist-pumped Ben during the quieter mid afternoon, failing to stop his eyes from noticing the additional fifteen pounds Ben had added since he’d last seen him; now encircling his waist, filling up his thighs and at last forming a slight double chin under his jaw.

“This seems like a pretty sweet deal!” he smiled, looking around at the relatively quiet surroundings after learning of the generous rate they were paying per hour. 

“We also get free food each shift and sodas whenever we please,” Ben grinned, sipping from a large bucket-like drinks holder. 

Again, Scott’s eyes slipped down to Ben’s middle. “You know, you and I should hang out more,” the jock declared, pulling out his phone to get Ben’s number now that they would no longer be living just down the hall from each other. “Being single, I have a lot more time on my hands,” he smiled, slyly checking out the monstrously overweight lady who usually appeared at least a couple of times a week.

A couple of nights later, Scott had made good on his word, inviting Ben out for a few beers; just the two of them. With a good trust fund behind him, Scott was never shy of putting his hand in his pocket to buy in the drinks, although he didn’t appear to be drinking quite as much as Ben had been enabled to. They’d gone back to the dorms carrying pizzas, with Scott wanting to see for himself just how creepy the place felt being so devoid of other students.

“Bro, are you back in the gym?” Scott asked, spotting a couple of large container of protein powder hidden underneath his bed.

Inebriated as he was, Ben merely laughed and shook his head. “No way, man. I’m done with all that shit!”

Scott looked from the protein powder and back to Ben. “I don’t understand then,” he chuckled innocently.

Ben shook his head. “Trust me, buddy, you don’t want to know!” he joked.

“Except, now I really do want to know,” Scott smiled playfully back.

“Let’s just say, the protein powder helps me get in plenty of calories,” Ben offered.

“So you are trying to bulk up,” Scott nodded, deciding that his earlier assumption was correct.

“Not bulking… no,” Ben shot back, realising that he didn’t want to speak in riddles anymore. Scott was his friend, so what if he knew? “Fattening is what I’m doing. I’m growing my belly out. Hence why I just devoured three quarters of all that pizza you just bought as well.” With that, he patted his stout, swollen stomach proudly.

Scott didn’t say a word. His mouth agape, his eyes fell onto Ben’s thicker stomach as if he could hardly comprehend what he was hearing.

“Don’t act like you’re so naive about all this!” Ben chuckled back, entirely relaxed and loose from the many beers he had consumed. “I’ve watched you with Marie and Sam, quietly overfeeding and fattening them up.”

“I did what now?” Scott laughed back; highly amused and not in the least bit offended.

“Oh come on!” Ben sighed. “Stop acting like such a good boy. I saw you! You could hardly keep your hands off Marie when her butt blew up, and the same was true of Sam once her belly started coming in. You’re into fat girls!”

Scott simply continued smiling at him. He sighed, shaking his head and ran his hand through his beautiful hair. “So that’s your theory, huh? That behind the nice guy exterior I’m actually some kinky little feeder-type?”

“I know you are!” Ben smiled, nodding emphatically.

“So what does that make you then?” Scott played along. “Some little fat boy wannabe?”

Ben laughed even more. “Definitely!” he nodded, lifting his shirt and slapping the stomach he had been trying to develop for almost twelve months now. “Having a big fat gut is all I have ever wanted.” Despite the tautness of his skin from the overindulgence, he still revelled in grabbing a little of it and jiggling. 

Scott watched on, continuing to chuckle and admit to nothing. The beers flowed and Ben realised he must have nodded off, waking up and seeing that Scott was now gone. Had he gone too far? Opened up too much? Made an idiot of himself? Possibly. But those questions could wait for the morning when his head was less muddled and confused. For now, all his body needed to do was rest and turn the vast amount of calories in his stomach into pure, irreversible blubber.

Ben saw Scott the next day, squinting his eyes as the hangover hit him hard at work.

“How’s the head today?” Scott asked, taking a pause in his morning run to pop in and see his friend.

Ben groaned, rubbing his eyes. The last hour had been pure torture.

At that, Scott laughed, stretching his quads as he stood at the counter so that he didn’t seize up. “Any nice fat girls in for me today?” he teased, making light of the accusations Ben had thrown at him last night.

Ben groaned once again. He thoroughly believed with all his heart that Scott was a feeder, but had he really been that blunt last night? “Take your pick,” he mumbled back, fighting the polite urge in him to take it all back and apologise.

Scott chuckled at that, taking a little look round nonetheless. “I’m busy the next couple of nights, but do you want to head out for beers on Thursday?” he asked.

Ben raised his palm to his head and sighed. “Ask me again when my head stops pounding,” he groaned.

“You’ll survive,” Scott smiled. “I’ll message you later,” he bounced enthusiastically, taking off to continue his run.

It surprised Ben that they had gone almost two hours into their drinks that Thursday without the awkward conversation about Ben’s revelation rearing its ugly head. Scott hadn’t told anyone else. Of that, Ben could be sure. Scott was so charming and laid back, even the most antisocial of people could lose hours simply chatting to him about almost nothing at all. However, something had caught Scott’s attention as they were speaking and Ben turned around to see that Scott’s ex, Marie, had walked in with some of her friends. The place had been slowly filling up with more returnees all week as Freshers’ Week got closer.

“You want to leave?” Ben asked thoughtfully.

Scott considered the question as if weighing up pros and cons. “Sure. Why not?” he finally declared, throwing back the one beer he had been nursing the entire time.”I think it’s time we got some food anyway.” 

“If it’s any consolation,” Ben smiled, checking Marie out at the bar as she had her back to them both, “I think she looked a lot better when you were going out with her.”

Scott’s eyes fell onto the girl’s butt, now deflated and more toned. He smiled and laughed as if their minds were in sync. “I think I agree with you!”

It was no surprise to Ben that the pair of them ended up heading back to the dorms, pizzas, chicken wings and sodas in hand. Beer never failed to give Ben a good appetite and he set about eating at a good pace, even with the company there. Late night eating such as this never failed to give him a boost on the scales the next morning.

“Wow! It’s almost all gone,” Scott noted, rolling the only remaining protein powder container out from under the bed.

“I know,” Ben nodded, still trying to keep a good pace before he got too full. “I need to get some more this week.”

“Well, I can’t fault your commitment,” Scott smiled, taking his third slice of pizza and nibbling incredibly slowly.

A strange silence hit. “You’ll have to give me some tips,” Ben joked, after slurping down his soda.

“Let me guess… Because I’m the expert when it comes to making someone fatter, right?” Scott joked back mockingly.

“Damn right you are!” Ben retorted. He’d made his position clear. He wasn’t going to retract his comments about Scott being a feeder, no matter how evasive and belittling the jock was towards the accusations.

“You know, no one else has ever told me they thought my behaviour amounted to being a ‘feeder’ before,” Scott shot back, still with that playful smile on his face.

“That’s because everyone else is an idiot!” Ben replied sharply. “They believe your pretty boy smile and all the bullshit charm that spews out of your mouth. But I see you for the kinky little fucker that you really are…”

Scott’s eyes danced with mischief, enjoying their playful back and forth. “Is that so, huh?” he laughed. “It’s a good job you’re here to call me out on it then,” he joked. “Having a feeder on campus sounds pretty concerning!”

“Don’t you worry,” Ben smiled back, doubling up the pizza slices. “I’m not going anywhere!”

Ben couldn’t put his finger on what exactly had happened, but it was as if his body had finally clicked as to what it was supposed to be doing with all the calories he was pushing into it. In a matter of weeks his nipples had begun to point and jiggle when he walked. His cheeks had swollen and his toned arms had finally softened with a coating of fat. His thighs and butt had puffed up even more and, most excitingly of all, his new belly had folded over his belt as he sat down, almost resting on his crotch. It wasthrilling, feeling his body transforming, with new fleshy areas to discover on a weekly basis. Even as the colder weather hit, Ben proudly strutted about in his t-shirts that had become incredibly poor fitting, enjoying the coolness underneath his new belly where the chilly air had immediate access.

“Where’s that cute girl who works in the kitchens sometimes?”  Scott asked, popping into the burger joint as he often did during the quieter hours of Ben’s shifts. Having friends hanging about was usually frowned upon, but there were plenty of admiring women here to ensure that no one ever made a big deal about the pretty, charming boy who visited so often. He’d even been offered a job there more than once.

“Jodie?” Ben asked, having thought a few times that Scott had developed a bit of a crush on his oversized colleague. “She quit last week. She got another job working with her girlfriend.”

Scott sighed in disappointment. He’d been more open in recent weeks about checking out larger women, however it had surprised Ben that the guy had remained single for so long. It had become a frequent joke in his frat house that, apart from the odd one night stand, Scott was getting the least sex of all the boys. 

“You know, you’re never going to get a chubby girlfriend unless you actually put yourself out there,” Ben had advised him. “There are loads of bigger girls on the campus.”

“Yeah, but it’s not just about that for me though, is it?” Scott had replied, clipping the boundaries of how far he was willing to openly admit his interest in feedism.

“Well, if you want a fat girl with a good appetite, you just need to hang around here a little more. I see hundreds of them every day!”

Scott sighed once more. “Want to get some beers later?”

“I can’t tonight. I’ve got an assignment due,” Ben replied. “How about Thursday, as usual?”

“Sure,” Scott nodded, shuffling away with the melancholy demeanour that had seemed to overtake him recently.

Thankfully, Scott’s mood had lifted by the time they met for drinks that week. Ben had learned that although his shirt looked large enough as he stood and gazed at his reflection in his mirror, it didn’t necessarily follow that it would fit so well when he sat down in the bar; his stomach bloating with beer, stretching the buttons angrily. Even for his most exhibitionist tendencies, this felt like a step too far; straying into the positively indecent. He’d now fattened into the 250lbs range for the first time, and every inch of it was showing.

Scott had been animated and chatty, never leaving the table for more than a couple of minutes, despite how many of his other friends came in and wanted his attention.

“Do you mind if we head back?” Ben had finally asked, genuinely concerned that his shirt may blow if he had another beer.

“Sure,” Scott agreed enthusiastically. “Want to come to mine for a bit?”

Ben frowned. He’d never been invited into the frat house before. Somehow, in his current state, he couldn’t think of anywhere he belonged less than in a house filled with athletic heterosexual boys. The pair of them picked up Chinese and entered the house, largely ignored by some of the others who were rowdily watching a movie on the couches. 

As they made their way into Scott’s bedroom, Ben rolled his eyes at how neat and tidy the whole place was; his well dusted sports trophies decorating the shelving above his clear and organised desk. He sat himself down on the boy’s bed, lying back against the headboard, pleased to ruffle the neat and crease-free sheets, kicking his shoes off as Scott rolled his desk chair out to sit alongside him. 

“Things are really speeding up for you now, huh?” Scott asked a few minutes later as, even lying down, Ben’s buttons still threatened to explode as he pushed the noodles into himself.

Ben rubbed his belly proudly. “Still not quite fast enough for my liking,” he replied honestly. “I’m tall enough. There’s no reason why I couldn’t be more than 400lbs if I can push my appetite enough.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that. I’ve seen the way you eat. Four hundred would be easy.”

Ben smiled, always appreciating how supportive Scott was of him, despite being such a fitness freak himself. “I got a little winded walking up some stairs the other day. That was pretty exciting.”

“Really? That does it for you?” Scott asked interestedly. “Becoming less fit?”

“Of course!” Ben nodded back. “Becoming fat, sluggish, lazy and slow. It’s a big reason why I started all this in the first place.”

Scott chuckled and nodded his head. “I can’t argue with that. I’ve never met anyone like you before; someone who actually wants to get fat. My exes, Marie and Sam, they just complained bitterly when they started getting heavier.”

“Well, that’s because they didn’t realise they were dating a feeder,” Ben shot back, knowing that one day Scott would have to admit that it was true. He paused for a moment, sensing that Scott felt more comfortable in his own surroundings. “How did you do that by the way? How did you get them so chubby so fast?”

Scott raised his eyebrows then smirked ever so slightly. “Appetite stimulants,” he stated frankly. “I told them they were vitamins and made sure they took them daily.”

Ben nearly dropped his chopsticks. For months he had been trying to tease out a confession from Scott and, all of a sudden, there it was, as if it was the most casual thing in the world.

“They worked better on Sam than they did Marie. Then again, she was already a little fatter anyway. Then it was just a case of feeding that appetite through any means I could.”

Ben laughed aloud. “I can see why you’ve kept that to yourself for so long,” he smirked. “That’s some proper kinky shit! Secret appetite stimulants?”

Scott nodded, seeming to understand how far off the path he had strayed by using the pills. Then the smile returned. “They worked though. You saw Sam’s tummy. She absolutely ballooned! She used to eat like such a fat pig some nights!”

Smiling and nodding, Ben could hardly argue. He was uniquely aware that Scott had just shared a part of himself that no one else on the entire planet had seen before. “I knew you weren’t such a fucking goodie-two-shoes!”

“Far from it!” Scott smiled. He seemed buzzed to have finally spoken about it all out loud and he shifted restlessly in his chair as if he wanted to say much more and continue the excited feeling inside of himself. “It’s all just so fucking hot though!” he rambled.

Ben smirked. He’d never heard Scott swear before. The guy must have been seriously horny just talking about this stuff.

“I got so turned on watching them eat, knowing exactly what I was doing. I couldn’t believe how easy it was. You’re still the only one who ever noticed! Can you believe that?”

“Like I said, people are idiots. They don’t want to believe that the pretty little star athlete is actually a devious, cunning and manipulative devil!” Ben nodded. “So, out of interest, where exactly are these appetite stimulants?”

Scott rolled his chair and gladly opened his drawer where, tucked inside an innocuous pair of sport socks, sat a little bottle that had been concealed there for months.

“Ready and waiting for your next little piggy, huh?” Ben joked.

“You know it!” Scott smiled wickedly. “I want you to try one for me,” he declared.

“Sure,” Ben shrugged. “But I’m almost out of food anyway. I don’t think I need it.”

“I’ve got more downstairs,” the jock replied, tipping the container up regardless and pinching one into his fingers. “This stuff is super expensive. I’d like you to experience first hand what they can do.”

Ben couldn’t deny that he was turned on by the idea. He went to take it from Scott’s hand until the boy shook his head and insisted on dropping it onto Ben’s tongue himself. Swallow.

“Now just wait half an hour, then you’re going to have the most ravenous appetite of your life!” He spoke slowly, as if all this was the height of eroticism and the pinnacle of his sexual fantasies.

“I’d best take my shirt off then,” Ben joked, until he felt the hands of Scott assisting him; his fleshy stomach and nipples entirely on show in front of Scott for the first time.

“I’m just going to get it all ready,” Scott announced, jumping out of his chair. “I won’t be long,” he exclaimed, throwing the TV remote into Ben’s hands and racing off with a sprightliness that was alien to Ben these days.

As Ben sat there watching some boring sitcom, he tried to calm his body down. He had to remember that Scott was straight and that, although he was indulging in their kinks right now, the last thing he would want to see would be the epic hard-on that Ben could feel rising up in his crotch.

Scott arrived back about twenty minutes later, carrying a discrete cardboard box that, when emptied, contained several different items of highly fattening treats. Ben realised then that this had all been planned from the start. Had he microcraved the ice cream to make it so gooey? One of the tubs was practically liquid!

“Are you feeling it yet?” Scott asked, sitting down and switching the TV off in favour of music. Generic, sweet love songs played out, no longer fitting alongside the exciting, wicked kinkiness Scott had concealed for so long.

“What am I supposed to be feeling?” Ben asked, placing a cushion over his crotch as he realised he was fooling himself if he thought he could stop his dick from getting hard.

“Hungry!” Scott replied excitedly back, picking up the cushion and throwing it away over his shoulder.

“Please!” Ben panicked. “I need that! I can’t promise not to get turned on if I’m going to be eating this much.”

“Good!” Scott grinned. “I’m already there.” He pointed into his crotch, where a massive, thick and pumped erection had slid itself down the side of the left leg of his pants. He slipped his large hand onto Ben’s fattened middle and rubbed, making both of them moan. He leaned in closer, assessing just how much Ben would submit to him tonight. Then he grinned, leaning in to kiss Ben in a way that was at odds with the violent jiggling his hand was forcing upon Ben’s stomach fat. ”Give it another five minutes to let the stimulant do its work,” he whispered, leaning in for more kisses and undressing both of them before the time was finally up.

Having Scott’s hand on his dick felt like no sexual thrill Ben had ever experienced in his life. Through his masterful stroking, the handsome jock had fully asserted his dominant nature, leaving no part of his true self now hidden.

“Are you going to be a good piggy for me?” Scott asked, his face deadly serious as he anticipated the exciting spectacle that was to come.

Ben wasn’t sure where he stood on being called a pig, but out of Scott’s mouth, it felt like the perfect, sexy fit. “Yes,” he nodded; his hand clasping Scott’s hardness in turn.

“Because that thing you said about being 400lbs…” Scott continued. “That’s not going to be enough for a fat boy like you, is it?”

Ben sighed with relief. It was like something from his dreams. Scott was right: four hundred was never going to be enough for him. However, saying it out loud was something he had never dared before. But how did Scott know that so instinctively?

Even without the appetite stimulant, Ben felt he would have made great inroads into the disgusting amount of supplies Scott had carried up to feed him with. However, wth the stimulant working its magic, Ben was surprised by just how much he was getting down. It wasn’t hunger he felt exactly, but all the usual tightness that came from overeating just wasn’t happening tonight. His stomach seemed to have an endless capacity, both of them ejaculating over the tremendous, distorted ball his gut had become by the end of it all.

Ben didn’t go back to the dorm that night. Scott’s sweet nature had returned as they lay in bed together, entirely naked. In the morning, Ben enjoyed breakfast in bed and was introduced properly to the guys in the house, all of whom looked on in confusion at the small ways Scott appeared so unashamedly affectionate towards him. He wanted to hold hands as they made their way back to the dorm and it suddenly dawned on Ben that he was now taken. Scott had claimed him as his own. He was the fat pig the kinky boy had desired for so long; their destinies now very much entwined.

“You know, honey, I really think we should give that diet another go,” Scott cooed three years later as they both went over to stay with Ben’s folks for a weekend during the Fall. Despite being no strangers to seeing their son slowly fatten up, they had been shocked by just how extreme it all was now Ben was over 460lbs. His stomach was so enormous, the fat on his thighs and hips sometimes throwing him off-balance and the enormous sacks of fat under his armpits pushing his elbows out wider. Even after all these years, Scott was still getting away with it; no one believed, even for a second, that Ben’s incredible obesity and appetite were being caused by him. Everyone loved Scott, including Ben’s own stern father, who had sold his beloved classic car to Scott for a pittance the moment the charming boy had shown an interest. It was simply the way Scott sailed through life, people bending over backwards to help and please him; sensing a goodness in him that, although very real, didn’t eclipse the wicked deviousness within.

By the end of the evening, Ben had solemnly sworn to his concerned parents that he would try to lose a few pounds. He and Scott had come upstairs to the small bedroom Ben had inhabited most of his adolescence, dropping the mattress onto the floor given that he had broken the bed the last time they had visited. Ben’s father had refused to fix it out of protest.

Ben knew what was coming next as they both undressed. He had seen the subtle boner in Scott’s crotch the entire time his parents had been nagging him about his weight; spurred on entirely by Scott himself.

“You actually brought the funnel?” Ben exclaimed, sitting up obediently as it was automatically strapped around his fat head.

“Of course I did, Piggy!” Scott cooed; his personality changed behind the closed door of the bedroom. He shook up some of the instant calorie shakes they sometimes bought when they were away and unable to make their own. “You agreed to twelve thousand calories a day for the next week, remember.”

With a hose in his mouth, Ben could do little more than grunt in acknowledgement. Still, his hardness was pressing its way through the fat that was engulfing his groin. Five hundred had never felt so close!

“I promised your mother I was going to help you with this diet, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do!” Scott chuckled, pouring one fattening carton after another into the funnel. He’d always throw in a couple more if Ben got him horny enough; which was why, alongside his swallowing, Ben sat there trying to rub his sweaty palm over Scott’s concrete boner and make him climax. This whole scenario was something that turned him on more than anything: the quiet, blameless ways Scott fed and encouraged him behind people’s backs. The face of an angel. A man who could never even dream of such a thing as this!

“Drink up, Piggy!” demand the feeder, staring down at him with a devilish glint in his eyes. “Every last fucking drop!”

[sagaduwyrm]

Something that interests me about Girl Genius is the way that the Heterodynes are consistently portrayed as the worst of the worst despite being pretty reasonable by Spark standards.

This is not to say that they are reasonable by normal people standards, or that they were anything approaching decent people. This is pointing out that compared to other sparks, who figured out they could conquer places and immediately started the Long War, the Heterodynes have had little to no large scale negative effect on the world.

Evidence: Zumzum

While in Zumzum Agatha finds out that the Heterodyne raids rolled through the town "every four years or so, sure as the moonrise" (Agatha H. and the Clockwork Princess). Despite this the town is, though small, prosperous. They have a fully staffed guard and enough spare income that the circus was initially planning to remain for three days.

Compare this to the numerous dead towns noted to be littering the wastelands. Sparks regularly render towns unlivable or dead. The Heterodynes, however traumatize them and steal their stuff, but still leave the towns they raid capable of functioning. From this we can assume that, despite what we are told, the Heterodynes are not only capable of self-restraint, they're good at it.

Evidence 2: Heterodyne Creations

The Heterodynes left an enduring legacy in the form of constructs, clanks, and the castle. Many of these are hundreds of years old and yet have little trouble functioning. This means that the Heterodynes not only build to last, but their descendants are willing to put in the time for upkeep rather than get distracted and focus on the next big thing.

The Heterodynes are the only sparks with so many creations still running around. Other sparks, like Van Rijn, do have some creations that have lasted the ages, but nothing compared to the sheer quantity of the Heterodynes.

Also, consider the jägerkin. The jägers are some of the most important Heterodyne constructs, and have acted as the core of their army and their honor guard for more than half a millennia. Despite this, they don't have levels of speed or strength much beyond average, at least as far as spark constructs go. Instead, they're noted for their remarkable survivability. This again suggests that Heterodynes prioritize longevity to a remarkable level for sparks.

Evidence the Last: Europa still Exists

I repeat myself, after two centuries of off and on spark warfare, significant amounts of Europa is unlivable. The Heterodynes had ten centuries and Europa was fine. Do the math.

However, despite this show of consistent reason, the Heterodynes are constantly described in story as evil incarnate. I'd like to posit that this suggests both that in-story lore should be taken as unreliable, but also that the most dangerous sparks aren't the flashy, fire and brimstone assholes. It's the consistent, intelligent ones who know when to back off and when to press that are the real danger, and it's for this reason that the continent fears Heterodynes. Not because they're uniquely capable of destruction, but because they know when not to destroy.

The Heterodynes are the oldest dynasty in Europa. To everyone with the slightest understanding of how sparks work, this is terrifying.

Also, here's a post that tries to answer why the Heterodynes are uniquely like this. You should read it. It partially inspired this.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

“Carbon neutral” Bitcoin operation founded by coal plant operator wasn’t actually carbon neutral

I'm at DEFCON! TODAY (Aug 9), I'm emceeing the EFF POKER TOURNAMENT (noon at the Horseshoe Poker Room), and appearing on the BRICKED AND ABANDONED panel (5PM, LVCC - L1 - HW1–11–01). TOMORROW (Aug 10), I'm giving a keynote called "DISENSHITTIFY OR DIE! How hackers can seize the means of computation and build a new, good internet that is hardened against our asshole bosses' insatiable horniness for enshittification" (noon, LVCC - L1 - HW1–11–01).

Water is wet, and a Bitcoin thing turned out to be a scam. Why am I writing about a Bitcoin scam? Two reasons:

I. It's also a climate scam; and

II. The journalists who uncovered it have a unique business-model.

Here's the scam. Terawulf is a publicly traded company that purports to do "green" Bitcoin mining. Now, cryptocurrency mining is one of the most gratuitously climate-wrecking activities we have. Mining Bitcoin is an environmental crime on par with opening a brunch place that only serves Spotted Owl omelets.

Despite Terawulf's claim to be carbon-neutral, it is not. It plugs into the NY power grid and sucks up farcical quantities of energy produced from fossil fuel sources. The company doesn't buy even buy carbon credits (carbon credits are a scam, but buying carbon credits would at least make its crimes nonfraudulent):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/31/carbon-upsets/#big-tradeoff

Terawulf is a scam from top to bottom. Its NY state permit application promises not to pursue cryptocurrency mining, a thing it was actively trumpeting its plan to do even as it filed that application.

The company has its roots in the very dirtiest kinds of Bitcoin mining. Its top execs (including CEO Paul Prager) were involved with Beowulf Energy LLC, a company that convinced struggling coal plant operators to keep operating in order to fuel Bitcoin mining rigs. There's evidence that top execs at Terawulf, the "carbon neutral" Bitcoin mining op, are also running Beowulf, the coal Bitcoin mining op.

This is a very profitable scam. Prager owns a "small village" in Maryland, with more that 20 structures, including a private gas station for his Ferrari collection (he also has a five bedroom place on Fifth Ave). More than a third of Terawulf's earnings were funneled to Beowulf. Terawulf also leases its facilities from a company that Prager owns 99.9% of, and Terawulf has *showered * that company in its stock.

So here we are, a typical Bitcoin story: scammers lying like hell, wrecking the planet, and getting indecently rich. The guy's even spending his money like an asshole. So far, so normal.

But what's interesting about this story is where it came from: Hunterbrook Media, an investigative news outlet that's funded by a short seller – an investment firm that makes bets that companies' share prices are likely to decline. They stand to make a ton of money if the journalists they hire find fraud in the companies they investigate:

https://hntrbrk.com/terawulf/

It's an amazing source of class disunity among the investment class:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/08/money-talks/#bullshit-walks

As the icing on the cake, Prager and Terawulf are pivoting to AI training. Because of course they are.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/09/terawulf/#hunterbrook

[frankieunscripted]

My reasons to hate Drake

First things first, I'm the reales- wait, wrong theme. First of all, I would like to say this is NOT an unbiased recap, this is literally just me listing things I've hated about Drake for years. You might as well join in on the hate train. Go watch some YouTube video essays on this if you wanna know more!!! You'll find plentyyyy

Certified Pedophile ("allegedly"): Texting teen girls until they're of age and then go and date them. ew.

Cosplay Gangsta: disrespecting the culture as a whole, but especially what hiphop is about. Flexing money, cars, girls, drugs, clothes bc he never understood hiphop was never about flexing, but about being heard bc you're oppressed, about revolution. Now we got his die-hard fans running around acting like this is true rap. no. "You don't know nun bout dat!"

Culture Vulture: jumping from trend to trend in order to make it "his own", faking accents that he has no business playing with and dropping them as soon as he's done with this specific type of genre bc it's not trendy anymore. Adapting whole "personas" around this, instead of just merely collabing with other artists. Jamaican and African accents are just 2 examples here.

Blackness: Drake never really got out of his acting career. Back on DeGrassi he was acting as a high school jock. Now he's acting like a tough black guy who's from the streets and knows what it's like to be down bad, when this was never his life. Lil Wayne warned him to never change and act tough just bc he would sign to Weezy's label where the rappers were predominantly "gangsta type dudes". And what did Drizzy do? He's acting all tough and "outta dem streets". He's clearly overcompensating for not feeling black enough (I've already reblogged 2 posts about this, pls see these for further context). Drake's mad for not being referred to as a rapper who speaks on being black, when in reality the black experience was never of topic in any of his songs. He also doesn't give back to the community.

Lil Wayne: Drake had relations with fellow rapper Lil Wayne's gf (she actually was of age, ayoooo!) while Wayne was away in prison. Wayne got word of the fact his gf was cheating on him with the young guy he signed under his label and was pissed. Drake, in an effort to smooth out the situation, got Wayne's face tattooed on his arm. Say what you will about portrait tattoos, but this story is just so fucking typical Drake. How the fuck do you think this is gonna help anyone?

Validation: Drake donates money in the music video for God's Plan, only to earn more money with that video/song than he donated in the first place. He felt good about donating and then never did that shit again.

Numbers: As a great man once said: "Crack fiends bought 10 million rocks, that don't mean it's good. It don't mean nothing." (As you can imagine, that man was 2Pac). And with that I say that proving your worth in the industry by numbers don't mean a lot. It means you and your team figured out the market and started producing stupid, vapid, but terribly long albums to maximize streaming numbers, automatically bumping up your place in the industry. This is about quantity, not quality - good rap/ hiphop was never about that. Drake actively validates his music and status with his fame, money and streams and neither him nor his fans seem to get that says nothing about the artistic value of his music. "Numbers lie too, fuck your pride, too!" (I mean really, Baby Shark has 14 Billion views on YouTube - you think that's REAL artistry, Mister Aubrey?)

Cocky Ass Bitch: I would be okay with a lot of his music if Drake just knew his fucking place. He went pop ages ago, but still people (including himself) refer to him as a rapper - no even, as THE rapper, placing him in the Top 3. Sometimes I feel like y'all do this, just to piss me off personally. Apart from everything else wrong with Drake, there's nothing wrong with liking music like his persé. Not everyone likes conscious/ deep stuff and sometimes, when you with the homies, you just wanna chill and listen to something "mindless" - MIND you, I'm not looking down on "non-conscious" rap, I'm just saying not every artist has to be woke/ deep all the time and some "empty" party anthem about girls, fashion, cars and alcoholism is fun at times. These party anthems deserve their place. And a child actor turned rapper turned POP STAR is valid in my books - just not if it's Drake. Apropos cockiness: The dude compares himself multiple times to Michael Jackson and while that got a few good lines out of him, I believe it's close to fucking blasphemy. Drake and MJ on the same pedastal. I mean sure, questionable stuff happening with kids, both of them wildly successful in their industry (mind you, streaming like today wasn't around back then and many of the numbers cannot be compared), but one of them a real talent and the other one some guy who more or less made it as an industry plant. "I can dance like Michael Jackson? / I'd argue your skills really lack, son!" (okay sorry, I know, that was corny as fuck xD) Dude is flexing with numbers instead of poetic abilities -

About the art itself:

Ghostwriters: "What poetic abilities?", I hear you ask - Yeah, don't think I forgot! Best believe I been cooking this one. There's evidence for Drake having ghostwriters - which on its own is fine, don't believe every star writes every single bar on their own. My problem with this is, that Drake keeps his cocky attitude, even though many of his hits aren't really Aubrey-written and also many ghostwriters never get their credit (this is why they're called "ghostwriters", I know that this is not something specific to Drake, but slapping one more name on the credits ain't that hard, when you're worth a billion bucks already). This is the rap equivalent of flexing your homework when you know DAMN WELL copied it off of your best friend and did nothing for that success. I guess his song Right Hand wasn't about a romantic interested after all, but the dudes who been writing it!

STOLEN SHIT: Why in hell is no one mentioning this on here? Drake is KNOWN for stealing other artists' verse metres (referred to as "flows", y'all tumblr, idk how much you guys do know, okay?), melodies, whole beats, samples or verses in general. In no other studio would you see mentions of a "reference track" concerning songwriting. They take a song as reference and build around it as they construct a beat. There's PLENTY of evidence for this happening, one story really had me baffled, where a young indie-rapper met Drake in the early 2010s, gave him his CD to listen to and a whopping 5 years later the indie-rapper realizes Drake just fucking stole his entire song (a really personal one at that) on his latest album back then. Being indie, of course the guy had little to no means of fighting back with lawyers or anything, man's was working a 9to5 job and had other stuff going on. Before you wanna argue with me though: YES. There is a difference between stealing and paying hommage. One famous example is Drake biting Eminem's Superman flow on Chicago Freestyle: "But I do know one thing though/ Bitches, they come, they go/ Saturday through Sunday, Monday / Monday through Sunday, yo/ Maybe I'll love you one day/ Maybe we'll someday grow". The only good thing Drake ever did was changing Em's "Bitches" to "Women" on his song. Other than that: exact same few bars. This is a hommage. Why? Because Eminem, that's why. You can pay hommage to great, well-known artists with good bars. It takes a common ground of knowledge from artist to audience to make a hommage like this work. That can go well. Kendrick copies the flow of a Kanye West song on HiiiPower and it works just fine because you listen to either of the song and think: "Ah yeah exactly, that one part, okay, I see you." You don't pay hommage to a small, unknown, indie-rapper by copying his whole verse about his Mom, when you would never say stuff like that on your records before. You don't, because it wouldn't work. None of your listeners would understand the innuendo at all, because no one ever heard of the "great guy you'd be paying hommage to". So shut up.

Music: It's just not that good. Like yeah, he had a few bangers, but let's not exaggerate. Artistically Drake does not offer anything. If he ever did, he probably left all of that on the first few albums he still rapped on. His delivery sucks, his singing voice sounds like he's tryna be The Weeknd at times but isn't. The lyrics aren't special. What the fuck?

Euphoria: Even before getting deeper into hiphop, I've always hated the way Drake presents himself. When Kendrick said: "I hate the way that you walk, talk, dress" I felt that. I hate the way he "raps", the way he drags his words, the way he laughs, the way he "sings". Just a whole lotta shit I dislike about the guy.

Sneak Dissing: If you want beef then get in line, don't just kinda allude to it, you weak ass bitch

SENSITIVE ASS BITCH: I love a man who's in tune with his feelings but Drake being the cosplaying gangsta clown he is, acts like he's all tough when in reality, you can't really say shit to him, cause he "can't let this shit slide, ay".

Kendrick's Control Verse drops - a verse calling out multiple rappers saying Kendrick will come for them in friendly competition for the crown of being the best. Drake was mentioned. Everyone thinks it's kinda cool and goes along. Drake is mad. In an interview he basically said he found it fake because the next time he saw Kendrick "it was all love" and that he wanted it "to be real. Let it be real then". Okay crodie, next time you get called out in a fair rap competition, best believe I'll sock you in your fucking throat, I gotchu.

The Weeknd doesn't sign to Drake's label OVO after working with Drake for a while. Drake is mad again and feels betrayed. Why you gotta be like this?

Kendrick says that he doesn't wanna collab with Drake because their music is too different, not because of anything personal. He just doesn't see it happen in the near future because it would not match artistically. Drake gets mad.

Drake stopped beefing with Pusha T back in the day. Probably because he exposed his son. But still, if you want beef, then clean up your plate, bc you eat what you order and dont't just start to "let this shit slide, ay"

("allegedly") being involved in XXXTentacion's passing back in 2018 over beef. This beef started because of the flow of X's popular song Look at Me!, which Drake stole shortly after letting X know his management would contact him about a possible collab. As you can imagine, X was never contacted by Drake's people. The kid was 20 years old, man. He said some outrageous shit at times, but no one deserves to go out like he did.

Also, the famous DMX ("Y'all gon make me lose my mind!") once said in an interview that he'd like to punch Drake in the face and I support that. Kendrick and his homies laughed at the clip - as did everybody else, cause it's hilarious if a beast and a legend of hiphop hates Drake. Drake was mad at Kendrick laughing about it and not taking it seriously. What did he expect? Should Kendrick have went after DMX and made him apologize for what he said about lil Aubrey? How old are you? 5?

Drake gets mad at a lot of shit - bottom line. I could go on and on, but I've been writing this for hours, it's half past 3 am and I wanna sleep after uni and work, y'all.

DURING THE DISS-ERTATION: this section is about shit Drake did during the beef with Kendrick.

Saying Kendrick's Like That verse was weak af. That's your core response? Someone flames you and people are already throwing ass to the mere sound of it and you think: "Huh, that sucked anyway." Pathetic.

Calling Kendrick short (over and over and over again) as if his height is under his control/ his fault? - as if that takes way from Kendrick's skill, Kendrick's allegations againt Drake! - as if that means ANYTHING AT ALL to people over the age of like... 12?

Going after anybody's family in the first place. I know nothing is really "off-limits" in a rap battle like this, but please have the fucking decency. Don't mention my Momma, my kids, my dog, my fam, my friends who ain't got nothing to do with the fact that I hate you. I will say I am not proud of Kendrick for getting down on that level himself - but I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy Meet The Grahams and the sheer panic it induced. And sometimes I gotta be a little childish and yell "But Aubrey started ittt!"

Hitting on Whitney in The Heart Part 6. Don't go for another man's treasure, you absolute dog. Accusing Whitney of being unfaithful. My friend, this beef is about us (the Culture) hating you and the things you do. Stop trying to shift this into something it is not.

Reacting to diss tracks via instagram stories and memes, like he's that one popular girl in 7th grade who's gotta clap back to something someone said in school on her IG. Shut up.

Calling The Weeknd and his manager gay. Are we not over homophobia yet? Being queer is not an insult. Also falsely "accusing" people of being gay is uncool as fuck - but oh "You don't know nun bout dat!" bc false accusations are basically everything you do - and also possibly outing someone like that is fucking hurtful as shit. I know the people involved are probably not queer at all, but if they were - period.

Using AI in a song at all. Drake, you already proved you suck. Don't force it down our throats. What part of you thought it would make you look good? What part said it would be good to do in a diss track, when the world knows diss tracks are even more a show of capability than other songs. Nah, you go and use AI. Idc about your "mind games": Using AI Snoop Dogg is just weird as fuck cause the Doggy is still well and alive - if you want him to feature on your song, call the legend and ask hi- oh wait, you knew he woulda said "Aww hell nah!" cause everyone hates you? Huh. Snoop probably woke up one day, hit a blunt and asked "When the FUCK did I collab with Drake?". Anyway, using AI 2Pac is straight up disrespectful, when you know damn well the guy would've hated you if he knew who you'd become. Just doing this because it's 2Pac, because you can and not even asking for permission of Pac's people is crazy. Glad the shit was taken down anyways.

The 8 Mile "Airing Out Your Dirty Laundry"-Trick before the big battle does NOT invalidate future claims on you diddling kids. No. Not even if 2Pac says it first. Nah.

His Damage Control Effort in post to make it seem like/make us believe that he's in control, when Kendrick has been bodying him is hilariously embarrassing. Anyone can claim the mole was fake "all along" after it happened.

Making fun of Kendrick for his verse on Taylor Swift's Bad Blood is just stupid. Look at all the features Drake does. Rihanna, BadBunny, DJ Khaled, Future, PartyNextDoor, Lil Wayne, Diddy, Nicki Minaj, Wizkid, ..... the list is so fucking long (I'm just picking at random songs at this point, cause I do not want my browser/spotify history to be associated with Drake's music. I don't wanna go out of my way to say he NEEDS these people to stay relevant but let's face it: His discography and his success would be different if it weren't for them

Acting like he's so great for "finally making Kendrick rap again" - Sir, you don't write your shit on your own, stfu. You don't invest time and effort into your vapid albums. YOU should be thankful for Kendrick destryoing you, giving us the best few lines out of you in a long time.

Not addressing important shit. We been over the allegations, I will not repeat them in this post cause this is already long enough. BUT y'all on the same page as me, aight? Instead of addressing EVERYTHING, he just responds with diss tracks that aren't terrible but really not THAT good, yk? Not going into the shit that we want to se addressed.

Acting like disstracks need replay value. Idk if this is a Drake or a fanbase problem, but people really act like Drake's tracks were better, bc you can listen to them more casually. "Kendrick basically made a whole song about Drake" - THIS IS WHAT A DISS TRACK SHOULD BE! Notice how we don't call every song containing a diss immediately a "diss track"? That's why. Diss tracks were meant to hit your opponent in the stomach with witty bars, double entendres, nice delivery and good production. Diss tracks weren't meant to be club bangers - bonus if they do end up being some though, looking at you, Like That and Not Like Us.

Not reading into stuff properly or just not listening. This is a small one, but ngl I hate the fact they got the Mother I Sober reference wrong (The song is NOT about Kendrick being abused, BUT about Kendrick not being abused and his Mom NOT believing him and passing her sa trauma onto him, even though he didn't experience that). Also Kendrick explicitly says "DOT, the money, power, respect / The last one is better" on Like That and Drakes response (again) is "Huh, I have way more money than you and in the industry, I'm way more powerful than you. Also, you so short tihhihi." BITCH he SAID respect was the most important of the three and you disrespect him, not by calling him out by his wrong doings but by picking on physical features the man cannot change like a 5th grade bully.

Anyways. phew. If you made it this far... wow. I'm impressed. I'll keep updating this. Thanks for coming to my beef talk.

EDIT: Thank y'all for the positive reactions on this post. If you seek more info/ want me to further explain stuff/ have even more dirt on Drake, let me know and we can work something out. -Frankie out

[elfwreck]

I have a friend who isn't anti-porn but it makes her sad that fanfic has a reputation for being porny and usually not very good. I'm fine with both those things and my views mostly align with that of AO3. I disagree with the idea that porn and badness are treated as equivalent, but for most people that's just how they think. But I was wondering if youve ever written something about this?

There is a lot of smut at AO3.

There is a lot of bad writing at AO3.

There's a lot of badly written smut at AO3.

...None of those are problems except for the people who think there is something wrong with those existing, or that there needs to be some external value that "balances" those that make those acceptable to exist as unwanted side-effects of "the good stuff."

The badly-written smut is also "the good stuff."

It's part of the reason AO3 exists. It's not intended to be an archive for "the high-quality fanfic that could be published if it weren't about characters that someone else wrote first"; it's an archive for "what fanfic writers want to write." That makes the terrible writing and the tacky porn and the badly-written tacky porn part of the reason the archive exists.

Tangent 1 (I'll connect these points later): Theodore Sturgeon said "90% of everything is crud." He was more-or-less referring to the science fiction field in the 50s, but it definitely extended to politics, business, and writing outside of science fiction.

...He was talking about published books in the 50s. Turns out, a lot more than 90% of writing is crud when there aren't any gatekeepers between it and the readers. But also:

Tangent 2, from the book "Art and Fear":

[A] ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot — albeit a perfect one — to get an “A”. Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes — the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

You don't get to "quality writing" without going through a lot of crappy writing.

That doesn't mean the crappy writing is garbage to be thrown out. If you make 50 pots or bowls or vases, and only one of them is The Good One... most of the rest are okay. Maybe not sale-quality good, but your-kitchen-table quality good. Maybe some aren't that good and are kids-toy-in-the-sandbox level good.

Bad writing has a purpose for the writer: they can use it as practice to get better. It has a purpose for the reader: It can serve as inspiration ("I can do better than that") or grammatical instruction ("that...does not work; why doesn't that work?") or just as entertainment ("eh, so it's missing a few commas; I can still understand it").

Smut and porn writing works the same way. It's of some value to the writer, and some to the readers.

It's not of value to everyone. That's what tags and filters are for, and why there's a summary and list of stats (like word counts)--so you can figure out if you're one of the readers for whom this piece of writing is useful or interesting.

But AO3, like any library, is not there to take the top 5% of Excellent Writing and provide it a showcase. It is absolutely for all 50 lbs of pots.

If your friend wants to read the good stuff, there are rec lists and collections to help her find it.

If she already manages that, and is just annoyed at how much of the not-good stuff (however she defines that) exists... she's picked the wrong battle. She's arguing with the ocean that it has too many kinds of fish and some are poisonous a lot of them are ugly.

[cobragardens]

The Colors of Crowley

Black is the color Crowley uses to cover himself, red is the color that represents Crowley to himself, and yellow is the color that represents Crowley to Aziraphale. What each color symbolizes and how it's used give us important information about Crowley (and to some degree Aziraphale) and about the ineffable relationship.

I feel kind of dumb writing this post because I'm sure it's glaringly obvious to everyone else, but there's this Metro UK article of all things (the Metro is owned by the hardcore rightwing Daily Mail, btw, so please don't link to it) that mentions the red stitching on Crowley's gloves in 1867, and it made conscious some details I had only subconsciously noted, so fwiw to anybody else, here are my notes on the colors associated with Crowley in Good Omens and their significance in the context of the way each one is used.

I don't think we need to cover black-as-evil in Western color symbology. [And yet here's a long-ass paragraph about it anyway! --Ed.] Light:dark::good:evil has been a thing with Christianity since before Christianity was even Judaism. The Israelites picked it up from the Zoroastrians way back before YHWH had subsumed El as 'God,' which may have been before they were Israelites as well; I mean it was a LONG time ago. Good Omens has been using black and white to represent Hell and Heaven, respectively, long before the show. In the UK, the book was published in paperback with a choice of black or white cover with an illustration of the contrasting character in the contrasting color: Crowley illustrated in black, Aziraphale in white. The current hardcover is grey.

Crowley wears black, and the Bentley is black. At the metanarrative or authorial level this is obviously for the purposes of the black/white demon/angel contrast, but on the intra-narrative level, the Watsonian level, it's interesting to note that Crowley doesn't have to wear black. He's obviously not free to choose from the full color palette, but Furfur's shirt and sash are is dark emerald green, Dagon is in ultramarine (as befits a marine Elder God), and Shax has only been on Earth for four years before she's wearing head-to-toe oxblood. When she shows up later in battle dress she's got a lot of oxblood there, too. And yet Crowley wears black.

Authorial reasons aside, black suits Crowley for a couple intra-narrative reasons. For much of history, black was the most expensive color to dye and maintain in clothing, and as a result it has always been fashionable. And for several centuries in Christendom, wearing black was also a sign that you were in mourning, which was a social and religious obligation when someone close to you died. Whether you could wear other colors with it depended on how long ago that death had occurred.

Again: black is what Crowley chooses to cover himself, and as there is a sharp distinction between how Crowley presents himself to fulfill his obligations and who he thinks of himself as being, there is likewise a distinction between the colors that represent those two quantities as well.

Red is the color the show uses to represent Crowley to Crowley. The most obvious reason is his hair. This is another change from Book Omens, where Crowley is described as having hair that is "dark." A lot of fans in the UK hated the change when S1 came out because fans hate change and the British have a thing against gingers, but Crowley's red hair suits him better than dark imo because the Mother of Demons in Jewish religious literature, Lilith, is traditionally depicted with red hair. Red hair has been associated for more than a millenium in the Middle East and England and Wales with sorcery, witchcraft, demonic influence/possession, and satan-worship.

Crowley wishes his mom was this cool with snakes.

A good case can be made that Crowley genuinely likes the color red in addition to considering it demonically appropriate. I say this for three reasons. Firstly, because when he has a (limited) choice of (again, demonically appropriate) colors, he always chooses red. The marble of the desk in his apartment is not green or grey. He can have any color stitching on his gloves or lining of his jacket collar he wants, but it's always red. Secondly, it's not only red he chooses, it's almost always bright red.

We know Crowley's red isn't supposed to represent blood or violence, because we have another demon character whose use of red represents just that, and it's not the same red:

Compare Shax' oxblood and burgundy to

and

and

and

Crowley's red isn't just red, it's lipstick, cherry, crimson red. And in case we weren't sure that we should read this red as symbolizing passionate, romantic love:

Romantic symbolism aside, bright red is also the color of passion (romantic or otherwise), optimism, heat, vitality, life, (hell)fire, and warning.

Red and black says don't fuck with Jack.

The third reason I think we can safely say that Crowley actually likes the color red is that he hides it. It's always tiny little touches, some of which you have to look for to see. (I still don't know where they snuck in the red on his Elizabethan habit, e.g.) And we know this color is a risk for him, and that he is right to hide it, because Ligur, who doesn't approve of any of Crowley's less-than-fully-demonic embellishments and may share Hastur's opinion that Crowley has gone native, comments on one of Crowley's more noticeably colorful items.

And I think the red tells us one more thing about Crowley, too.

Bright red is the colorest of colors, you know? When we can choose only one color to represent all colors, to represent colorfulness itself, we choose bright red (even in cultures where red symbolizes other meanings than it does in Western art).

Remember how Aziraphale gives Crowley's jacket a tartan collar when he swaps bodies with Crowley and impersonates him in Hell because Aziraphale feels the need to maintain some small secret token of his identity, some tiny unremarked sign of something he loves and thinks is beautiful, when he is down there alone in the gloom among enemies?

Crowley is down there alone among enemies every second of every day and night, whether he's in Hell or on Earth. And he's already had his identity stripped from him once. If you were someone who said

about this

and then you got recruited by the fash downstairs bc the fash upstairs threw you out for not being fashy enough and you had to start wearing nothing but dark colors and more importantly had to hide everything that made you feel warmth or softness or joy, and that was it, that was the deal for eternity, but you could add one (1) little touch to everything you wore to remind yourself that there is some beautiful part of you left, something you loved once, that no one has yet been able to steal or brutalize out of you...what color would the stitching on your gloves be?

Lastly, Yellow represents Crowley to Aziraphale. I'm going to skip the chain of evidence for this bc I think it's obvious, but the way it's used also lends itself to some inferences supported in other areas in the show.

Here's where I think changing Crowley's hair to red from Book Omens' dark is a good decision in another way. Crowley always has red hair, and if he has any color in his clothes it's going to be red. Red is eye-catching; it always stands out, but it doesn't stand out as demonic. And yet the color Aziraphale associates with Crowley and calls "pretty" isn't red.

I suspect that when Aziraphale says he can make Crowley an angel again, Crowley hears "You're not good enough for me to accept you as you are, let me fix you" because these are words Aziraphale has said to him many times, and has meant some of those times. But

tells the audience differently. The color Aziraphale associates with Crowley, the color he calls "pretty," is the color of Crowley's only overtly demonic feature. Aziraphale doesn't love the angel he knew who isn't Crowley, he loves Crowley, the demon, the person he is now, his yellow demon irises.

Yellow appears in three other places in S2, and they're all symbolically significant, and in fact serve to establish another symbolic significance to the color yellow in addition to that of Yellow Is the Color of My True Love's Eyes.

One of them is a feather duster:

Crowley reacts to a feather duster like a cat confronted by an unfamiliar object

The other three are private conversations between Aziraphale and Crowley:

The walls that surround Crowley and Aziraphale when they speak openly about their situation and how they will handle it are drenched in yellow, and that is super interesting, because in Western color symbolism yellow is the color of fear. The archangel of whom Crowley and Aziraphale are both (rightly) terrified wields a tool the color of fear. The color of fear saturates the backdrop of conversations between Aziraphale and Crowley when they have to discuss their situation and their actions openly.

Remember how Aziraphale's voice shakes here?

Crowley realizes the crows have just handed an angel evidence the angel can take to Hell and use to have Crowley killed

Even the Bentley, that clear sign of Aziraphale's love for Crowley, is also a yellow coffin enclosing him. For Aziraphale, thoughts of Crowley are always entangled with fear, because Crowley is not just Crowley, he is also Crowley's Fall.

And I think fear is what Crowley's eyes themselves represent. For Crowley, fear is now a fundamental part of his perception, his nature, his identity.

The angel Aziraphale once knew is not Crowley, and yet from what we've seen, the chiefest difference in character between this sweetheart and this mischief-maker--

--is that the Starmaker does not know yet that he should be afraid, and the Serpent does. That knowledge and its fear has, shall we say, colored his view of the world.

Aziraphale learns that fear early by observing others rather than Falling himself, and knows enough that by the first time we meet him in the Before, he is already afraid.

Pink was once symbolically equivalent to red; in modern Western color symbology it is a color of innocence, youth, beauty, and first love. Hashtag just sayin'.

The cruellest thing this suggests to me is that, rather than rebellion or his propensity to ask questions, rather than the knowledge of good and evil, the Starmaker's Fall was caused by his innocence. it wasn't the questions that were the problem: it was that he didn't know any better than to speak them out loud.

Y'all, Crowley and Aziraphale do not suffer from communication problems. Despite both being male-coded and British, they don't even seem to lack emotional intelligence. What they do have is a universe of silence and fear they have to communicate within and around. What they lack is the safety to speak and love freely. The true color of Crowley is crimson, but someone gave him those eyes, and Aziraphale either watched that happen or knew about it, and now Crowley covers himself in black--which btw is also the symbolic color for mystery and secrets--and only lets Aziraphale see him as he really is now, because Aziraphale won't judge him for his yellow eyes (or punish and forsake him for his questions). Because Aziraphale carries that fear with him too.

[theghostkingisdead]

dpxdc - Neglected Child AU

As one of his first acts as Ghost King, Danny basically created ghost CPS. Mostly they help new spirits come to terms with the fact that they're dead, but situations like Danny's are a lot more common than the Observants had lead him to believe. People who come back from the dead or are exposed to large quantities of unstable ectoplasm often lead sad, short second lives. Either because they are unable to obtain the nutrients their new forms require, or because their communities turn against them in fear. This is a story about Jason Todd.

There was a lot Jazz loved about her job. She loved helping young ghosts find acceptance. She loved matching cases with foster Fraids. She loved meeting new people. She loved the rare excuse to travel dimensions. But some days, Jazz was intimately reminded of why this program was formed in the first place.

Knock, knock, knock.

Jazz looked up from her laptop. “Come in!”

Apple – the ghost of a dryad whose tree was chopped down two summers ago – poked her head in.

“Uh, Lady- I mean, Ms. Phan-, no,” Apple took a shuddering breath. Jazz smiled encouragingly. The girl had only been working here for a season, and already she was making excellent progress. “Ms. Jasmine, there’s a city spirit here to see you, uh, on behalf of a uh, potential client.”

“Thank you, Apple, you can send them in.” Jazz said.

Apple flushed green, closing the door with a sigh. Jazz guessed she had about two minutes before the impromptu meeting began. She used the time to sweep some papers off her desk and into a drawer. It had been some time since she’d had a walk-in like this. Jazz had a strict open doors policy when it came to her office, despite the technical fact that her door was often closed; it was just easier to focus that way! She had no idea why most ghosts preferred to submit claims by mail, really it was much better for them to speak with an officer in person.

Thirty years ago, Jazz would’ve had trouble describing the spirit that walked through the doors. Fifty years ago, even looking at it would’ve been painful. But Jasmine Duchess Phantom had been living in the Infinite Realms for almost eighty years now, and liminal senses reached out subconsciously, cataloging scents and colors that her mortal mind would have balked at.

The shape of a steel-colored skeleton peered out at her from a billowing cloud of grey smoke, which curled around its feet and seeped across the floor. Jazz tasted gunmetal and sugar, smelled stale urine and burned bread, felt desperation-fear-hunger-love crash violently against her. Like a cliff to a wave, Jazz stood her ground, letting herself be tested. This spirit was old and afraid; when it spoke, it spoke in a million overlapping voices.

“My apologies for barging in unannounced, Your Grace. I come before you with an issue of great import. One I have reason to believe our King may have a personal interest in.”

Jazz nodded, “My doors are always open, City Spirit. I’m always happy to help. But before I hear your petition, may I know who I am addressing?”

The skeleton did not move that she could see, but Jazz heard windchimes like chittering laughter.

“I am Gotham, Your Grace. My apologies for my rudeness. I have little reason to travel these days and am unaccustomed to necessary introductions.”

Jazz nodded, committing the name and its taste to memory. “No need to apologize, Gotham. Your situation is not unique amongst your kind. Have a seat,” Jazz gestured at the plush couch across from her desk. “What troubles you so, to bring you so far from home?”

There was more windchime tittering, and Jazz wondered if the spirit was laughing or just readjusting itself on a plane she could not see. A nervous tick, perhaps? Maybe she could send Apple for something to make Gotham feel more at ease. Bullet casings or chocolate chip cookies would be equally soothing to this entity, Jazz guessed.

Gotham folded into itself, form blurring slightly before reforming on the couch, leaned forward with elbows on knees. “Many years ago, a mortal man pledged himself to my service. I accepted him as a City Guard, my mortal Champion. This man has many children who have likewise pledged themselves to my protection.”

Jazz smothered the urge to interrupt. She loathed the idea of child Guards; the fact that this City Spirit was here now asking for help meant that this instance had gone just as well as it usually did.

Unaware of her internal judgement, Gotham continued. “The second child died and revived some seven years ago, I…” This time, the rattling sound emanating from Gotham shook the room with the force of a thunderclap. “You have to understand, I don’t claim kids as champions, so technically he was never even under my protection. And when he came back, he ran! I don’t have power outside the city, you know, so even if, well, it’s not like there was anything I could have done differently,”

Jazz was aware that she was frowning. She could only guess what her aura felt like to Gotham, whose smoky aura was rapidly thickening. A bird puffing itself up to look bigger. A cheap trick. If Jazz were in a more compassionate mood, she might have felt embarrassed at such a juvenile display from a spirit decades older than herself.

“You neglected a child, or-” she cut off Gotham before it could protest, “allowed a child to be neglected. For seven years. What changed? Why petition him now and not then?”

Gotham chittered, “Well, you see, he came back to me just over a year ago, retook his pledge and everything. And, well, things were rough, I thought the fraid was just readjusting itself, but, er-”

“Tell me.”

“Well, the problem is I don’t exactly know what the boy is anymore, but he’s more ghostly than not, and his fraid’s fully human. If this infighting between my Guards goes on for any longer, it’ll tear me apart. I figured The King might want to step in, considering this boy might be a halfa, maybe he could help him and the fraid get back to normal.”

Jazz grinned. “Rest assured, Gotham, The Crown will indeed be taking special interest in your case.” Words dripped from her lips, caustic even to her own ears. “Now, why don’t you go outside and give Apple the rest of the details. I have some visits to make.”

[magics-neptunes-things]

Ready, Aim, Shot

Hi! ♥ I hope you are all ok!

I have trouble finishing all the stories I started, but I’m working on it!

This one took me a little longer to write, I hope you like it. It is a little different from what I have written so far, but it is following a request from an anonymous:)

Summary: You’re a journalist and you were sent to a complicated place in the world. Will the attack you suffered prevent you from finding your girlfriend’s arms permanently?

TW: Angst, mention of war and bomb, accident, hospitalization.

PART 2 | PART 3

____________________________________________________________

Alexia is the only woman you fell in love with, and everyday you find yourself falling even harder for her. She was perfect for you. Caring, loving, loyal, attentive and sweat. Your bond is even more special than you ever dreamed before you became a couple.

However, things could have started more easily. You are a journalist/reporter and you know perfectly well that celebrities are not fond of this kind of profession, for good reason. When you found yourself following her for days for the report "Alexia: Labor Omnia Vincit", she was very professional at first. Like, really very very professional. But you lived with her for weeks, met her relatives and finally you found yourself covering her with heart eyes.

What you never imagined was that things could be reciprocal.

Shortly after announcing your relationship, at your friends and family only, you quickly settled together. Your cat met officially Nala at that time and you were spending happy days all four in Alexia’s apartment. I mean, your apartment now.

There are sometimes a few days during which you can't see each other, when Alexia leave for football or when you go in another country for a report. You go watch Alexia at every opportunity you have, enjoying to see her evolve in her element. And you know that Alexia reads or looks the articles or reports you participate in.

Alexia has already had a lot of trouble accepting that you go to eastern Europe last month for a report, so it's with a ball in the belly that you come home tonight. You have to tell her you’re leaving for another complicated place in the world and you know it’s going to be hard for her to accept.

You nervously bite the inside of your lip when you open the door of your apartment, immediately greeted by Nala who comes to rub in your legs, almost making you fall. You laugh gently and lift her off the floor to put a kiss on her skull before resting her gently. Your cat, for its part, opens an eye from its cat tree, long before turning and falling asleep again.

"Thanks for the welcome, Diabolo" you grumble.

You roll your eyes and hang your coat in the cupboard of the entrance before going in search of Alexia. Her sneakers at the entrance and a pleasant smell of food floats in the air, informing you that she’s home. Nala is ahead of you, running towards the kitchen, where you find your girlfriend.

The smile she gives you when you arrive takes your breath away and you accelerate the step to have her faster against you. Your face in her neck, you breathe her smell before putting a kiss, then several along his jaw to finish on her lips.

"Holà mi Amor"

She says to you smiling, passing both hands in your hair.

"Holà."

You let her kiss you again before taking a look at the stove to see what is in the pots.

"Did you finish training early?" You ask when you realize she’s had time to prepare all this and shower before you come home.

"No" she laughs softly "My mom came by to bring us what she cooked for her dinner with her friends tonight. Apparently she planned too big"

"Like she didn’t mean to"

You laugh too and Alexia throws you a smile and a amused look. You both know that she cooked huge quantities on purpose to be able to bring you some, Alba surely received her part too and you wouldn't be surprised to learn that your sister also received Eli’s visit with a tupperware filled with paella.

"Do I have time to shower?"

You want to get comfortable quickly, knowing the discussion you have to bring later. You think you’ll wait until the end of the meal though, not wishing to spoil your girlfriend’s appetite.

"If I had known, I would have waited for you" Alexia whispers, sliding her hands dangerously close to your butt.

"Alexia Putellas Segura, you are worse than a male teenager" you smile against her lips before kissing her tenderly. "I make it quickly."

After a quick shower, you go straight into Alexia’s clothes section of the wardrobe, choosing an old FC Barcelona jogging you love and one of her t-shirts with a Nike logo.

"It seems that you are wrong again on the side of the cupboard mi Amor" Alexia tells you with a knowing smile when you return to her.

"Oops."

********

After the meal, you sat on the sofa in the living room to watch the series that you started to follow recently. You still haven’t managed to talk about it, Alexia seems so relaxed and happy tonight that it breaks your heart to have to make this announcement.

However, your worry must be easily noticeable, since you feel Alexia’s hand on your fingers as you mechanically wiggle between them.

"Okay, what is it?" she asks you, slightly getting up to see you better.

"What?"

"You haven’t paid a single second of attention to the episode since we started it, you play nervously with your fingers and you keep biting your lip. What the hell is going on?"

You sigh softly and sit cross-legged on the couch, not finding the courage to look into her eyes. Beside you, you feel Alexia put herself in the same position. You feel her gaze on you as you speak again.

"I have to leave in three days for a new report" you finally confess.

"Where?"

"In the Middle East"

"No."

Alexia’s firm voice makes you look up and you can’t tell if her "No" is a ban she puts on you or if it's a form of denial to this information. Her eyebrows frown, her eyes are hard and you have to take it on yourself not to lower your eyes again.

"There’s no way you’re going. It’s too dangerous."

"This is my job, Ale" you point out lightly.

"I don’t care. You stay here, there is no fucking way that I let my girlfriend going right to death, your boss is completely crazy and irresponsible."

You watch her get up and go around in circles in the living room, talking while gesticulating her arms in all directions, scaring Nala in the same time.

"I’m not going alone, there will be my team with me."

"I. Don’t. Care."

********

Three days later, you find yourself at the airport with your team. By working together, they became your friends and Alexia knows them very well. And they know Alexia very well too. That’s probably why Lola asks you with surprise about the absence of your girlfriend to say goodbye.

"She didn’t want me to go"

You hardly swallow your saliva and thank Lola mentally for not insisting. Her compassionate smile is enough to bring some tears to your eyes, which you fortunately manage to stop.

Alexia is very mad at you. She tried emotional blackmail, anger, tears and pretty much everything in her possession to keep you close to her. The worst part is you would have preferred to stay with her, but you couldn’t refuse that warrant. You had already refused a report to manage Alexia’s anxiety a few days before and your boss warned you that it was the last refusal on your part that he accepted.

You don’t know if Lola passed on the information to the rest of the team, but they all show themselves to be particularly caring with you. Ben offers to check in your luggage and you gladly accept. You take a quick look at your phone and see that you have messages from your parents, your sister, Eli and Alba, but none from Alexia.

She left for her training saying goodbye of course, it was still out of the question to leave you angry. You can’t blame her, you know perfectly well that if things were reversed, you would react the same way. She too had tears in her eyes closing the door behind her and that didn’t help you leave your apartment earlier

"Well, look who’s here" Marta laughs.

Like the rest of your team, you turn to the point she’s staring off behind you. And you feel an electric current running through you when you recognize Alexia’s silhouette. She hasn’t seen you yet and you can see her look through the crowd with a desperate air, as if she were afraid of having arrived too late. Fortunately not, with the amount of material you have, boarding always takes forever.

Without hesitation, you split the crowd and she finally sees you. A few seconds later, you are in her arms and it's only now that you see Mapi over her shoulder. The tattooed one winks at you before getting away to give you some privacy.

"I thought I was too late"

Alexia’s voice came to you in a muffled way, her face being buried in your hair while she hugs you against her with all the strength of her arms. You give her back her embrace, certainly with much less force, but this embrace brings you the comfort you needed.

"Thanks for coming" you mumble back.

One hand in her hair and the other in the hollow of her back, you breathe deeply for the first time in three days. You stay like this for a few moments, before Alexia lets go of you with one hand to search in the pocket of her coat.

"I have something for you."

You watch her do and after a few seconds she show you a necklace with a pendant hanging. You would swear that something is hidden in it, but before you can question her on the subject, Alexia resumes speaking.

"You’ll open it on the plane, okay?"

You nod and let her hang the necklace around your neck. Her fingers make you shudder and you hurry to get back against her when she’s done. You don’t care if you’re being watched or even if someone recognized you. In any case, it’s been several weeks since edits of you two started appearing on the Internet. Alexia doesn’t seem to care much either since she’s the one who initiates your kiss.

"Promise me you’ll come back"

"I promise"

Her forehead leaning against yours and her look in yours makes you forget the rest of the world around you. The place where you fly is dangerous, you are perfectly aware of it. And Alexia too. She doesn’t make you make those promises every time, but only when she knows there’s a risk.

"I hate your job."

Her remark makes you smile softly and you replace a lock of her hair behind her ear before resuming speech.

"I think this is the last time I leave"

"What do you mean?"

The surprise forces Alexia to take off her face from yours to be able to better observe you. Her hazel look plunges into yours when you shrug your shoulders.

"It gets too complicated for both of us and I don’t have the same pleasure doing what I do anymore. I’ll talk to my boss when I get back, but I’m thinking of resigning"

Alexia’s face becomes perfectly smooth under the shock of the information and she blinks several times before responding.

"I- I never asked you to quit" she stutters, making you smile.

"I know"

You smile in front of her amazed air and kiss her tenderly on the cheek. You have been working for the same people for many years and have made a name for yourself in the profession. And even if a job change is turned down, you know you’ll find something else elsewhere.

You hear Lola calling you gently behind you, meaning it’s time for you to go. Alexia looks at you and your smiles are more like grimaces. It’s time to say goodbye.

"Take care of yourself and don’t let Diabolo eat too much."

"I will"

A new kiss is exchanged before you have to release her. You take a quick look in the direction of your team, most go up to the departures floor thanks to the escalator, only Lola is waiting patiently for you downstairs.

"Be careful, mi Amor. Think of me?"

"Every second of the day Cariño."

A few hours later, you are installed on your plane seat, window side. As if to better stick to your mood, the rain began to fall on Barcelona, drawing shapes on the porthole through which you look. Remembering the pendant that Alexia gave you, you gently take it in your hand to better observe it. You have no trouble finding the security to open it and inside you discover a rolled paper that you unfold. You smile and realize it’s a picture of you and Alexia. Behind it, she wrote a note.

"Forever with you. Te amo tanto. Alexia ♥"

********

Since your arrival, you have been able to exchange several messages and phone calls with Alexia. Things are going better than you both imagined, to your relief. You are not exactly in the middle of the conflict, the work you were asked to do being more focused on the population who decides to enlist in the army to defend their country. You are protected by soldiers who follow you like your shadow and you even feel safe.

It's the mind entirely turned towards the report that you climb in the jeep that brings you and your team where you have to meet several people to interview them. You have to go back to Barcelona in two days and your idea to resign is still on your mind. The more you think about it, the more you know it’s the right thing to do.

You are listening with amusement to Ben talking about his son’s latest mischief when something happens. A click, followed by the panic cries of the men around you. They express themselves in their native language that you don't master, or very briefly. A few seconds later, a heat wave lifts you off the ground and you are thrown out of the vehicle, unconscious, the mine you drove over blowing up everything around.

********

When Eli and Alba appear on the edge of the training field, Alexia knows something bad happened. The joke she was exchanging with Ona gets stuck in her throat and her face visibly pale. Jonathan accompanies them and beckons her to come to them. It's with tingling throughout the body that Alexia stands up and makes her way towards them.

"What happened?" she immediately asks, looking her mother in the eye.

"Y/N's team ran over amine. Half of them are still missing"

It's Alba who speaks, making Alexia look in her direction. Unable to open her mouth, she waits for further information.

"Y/N has been found, but it's not good Ale"

"What do you mean "it's not good?" "

Alexia gets upset, bringing their mother in the conversation for the first time. Obviously she fears the reaction of her eldest, knowing how attached you are to each other.

"Alexia…" she makes a soothing tone by grabbing her daughter’s arm.

"But just tell me! She’s dead, isn’t she?"

Alexia’s tone rises and she must take it upon herself not to push the physical contact initiated by her mother. Eli and Alba exchange a look before the first one resumes speaking.

"No, but she’s in a bad state. She was found unconscious and is on an official ventilator. They don’t yet know how badly she’s hurt. As we speak, she’s still in a coma and they don't know if she will make it."

********

The days that followed were a summary of hell for Alexia, your parents and your relatives in general. Due to the geographical distance, the news has reached them in dribs and drabs only by the interval of your team. Your boss got yelled at by Alexia, your father and Alexia’s mother. If you weren’t about to resign, there’s no doubt he’d demand you do.

After a few days of staying together at your parents', your loved ones have finally started their lives again. Your sister went back to work, but Alexia literally had to be taken out by force to agree to return to the training grounds. To make sure her daughter would go, Eli even asked Irene to come pick her up.

The information about you is vague but they know the main thing, you’re still alive. "She promised to come back to me" Alexia repeated several times, both to convince herself and to reassure others.

Even if she will never admit it, seeing her friends makes Alexia feel better. She strongly suspects them of doing everything to change her mind, but she is sincerely grateful. It changes her from the four walls of your parents' living room or yours, even if your animals also bring her comfort and affection.

Alexia is in the middle of a discussion with Mapi and Aitana when her phone rings from her bag. As always, she feels a mixture of feelings at the idea of dropping out, fearing bad news. But it’s usually your mother who gets calls from your bosses to give them news. It’s been three days now since they learned anything new.

Seeing that the call number is unknown, Alexia hesitates a few seconds before answering but ends up doing so. Normally, people with access to her phone number are allowed to have it. She has never had any problems with that.

"Holà?"

The silence settles on the other side of the phone and the Latin checks that she has picked up before putting the phone back against her ear.

"Is there anyone here?"

A new silence sets in. Just as she was about to hung up, Alexia finally hears a voice at the other end. The voice is barely higher than a whisper, as if the person were particularly exhausted.

"Ale? It’s me…"

The ground slips under the captain’s feet so abruptly that neither Mapi nor Aitana has time to catch her. Sitting on the floor, the one who had managed not to shed a single tear since the announcement of your accident melts into tears, alerting her two friends who are now convinced that something dramatic is happening.

Alexia let a flood of curses that you’ve never heard come out of your girlfriend’s lips when she realizes it’s you on the phone.

"I’m alive" you end up adding, not really knowing what to add.

"You had better" sobs Alexia before finally raising her eyes on Mapi.

Lost in her emotions, she didn’t realize that her reaction alerted almost the entire team. Ona, who had gone to take her shower, kneels beside Mapi, both leaning in the direction of their friend and captain while others stand in an arc around her.

"It’s Y/N. She did it."

********

Your parents had already had to detain Alexia so that she wouldn’t jump on the first plane upon learning of your accident, but this time it was even worse. With the injuries you’ve got, you couldn’t go home right away. The translation was sometimes complicated at first, until the Spanish embassy sent someone to do the translation. From there, you were able to recover your phone and thus be in contact with Alexia and your loved ones more easily. The connection is not always optimal, but having your girlfriend only a call from you does you a lot of good.

It's not in very good condition that you get on the plane to repatriate you to Barcelona, but you specifically asked to return as soon as possible, even if you were then hospitalized in Spain. During the explosion, it was mostly the left side of your body that was injured. In addition to a crumbling shoulder, broken ribs and a damaged knee, you find yourself with a head injury and a broken nose that fortunately had time to deflate. Thanks to that you no longer look like a boxer at the end of his career but it looks like you have two big cockroaches.

You learned yesterday that three of your six team members didn't survive the attack. Ben and Lola have already returned to Spain and it's with a hint of guilt that you leave Marta alone on the spot. But her family is coming in two days and she swore to you that everything was fine for her.

Exhausted by the journey to the airport, you slept all the way back and it is only when the wheels of the plane touch the ground that you open your eyes with a start. The person assigned by the embassy to follow you smiles kindly and you answer vaguely, before looking out the window. When you see the airport building, you feel your heart speed up. Alexia is waiting for you, a few hundred meters from you.

You tried to refuse to be moved around in a wheelchair, in vain. So it is with a sulky pout that you find yourself traveling through the airport, to the place to collect your belongings. The good news is that you had left almost all to your camp and so you were able to recover everything. Even the necklace offered by your girlfriend survived and did not leave your neck a single squad then you left Barcelona.

Your suitcase is much too long for your taste to arrive and you refrain from jumping on your chair of impatience when it is time to pass the security control of customs. Everything is going too slowly and you are convinced that you would go faster by limping with your crutch. But you finally arrive in the main arrival hall and it only takes you two seconds to spot Alexia, your eyes are attracted to her like a magnet. By the time she comes to you, you get up from the chair and two seconds later you’re finally where you want to be forever. In her arms.

The embrace is not very practical, your arm in sling prevents you from holding her as you would like and you clench your teeth not to flinch despite your painful ribs. You still feel that Alexia is doing everything she can to be delicate. She has not yet been able to truly realize all of your injuries.

But in the end you don’t care, because it’s all about her. Alexia feels like she can breathe completely for the first time in about ten days. You feel her coming off of you after a few minutes and you have trouble supporting her gaze. You know that you look terrible, even if you are not the type to wear kilos of makeup every day, there you are really far from being to your advantage.

"Mi Amor" she whispers tenderly, holding your face in her hands before as much delicacy as if it had been porcelain. Her thumbs caress your cheeks and you feel tears in your eyes. "It’s over. You’re home."

You nod and close your eyes, letting her kiss you tenderly before she takes you back against her.

Needless to say, the next day your boss received a letter of resignation from you. Thanks to what happened to you, you received a starting bonus, allowing you to have money set aside before embarking on your new project, writer and WAG. Because from now on, it’s out of the question to part with Alexia for more than half a day.

[onlymingyus]

Shut Up (teaser)

pairing; wen junhui x f reader (ft. xu minghao)

genre; smut (minor dni), angst, fluff

summary; You think you know about the world around you, but one day you find out you don't know anything. When you start to fall about it's your boss Wen Junhui who picks up the pieces and keeps you safe. 

content warnings; a lot of dark themes including: sexual assault, murder, guns, knives, beating, fighting, selling of guns, selling/using drugs, alcohol/eating, crying and dealing with trauma, mild dubcon. mob boss!junhui, second in command!minghao, security!mingyu, assistant!reader.

smut warnings; hard mean dom!junhui, sub!reader, dom!minhao. unprotected/protected sex, creampie, threesome, multiple sex scenes, rough sex, impact play, degrading, pet names, degrading names, dumbfication/objectfication to a degree, hand job, fingering, oral (m&f receiving & giving), crying/dacryphilia, innocence kink (no explicitly said), breast play, body worship. I am very certain I have left something out.

w/c; 35.9k and some change (1.2k this teaser)

a/n; this fic is for my @onlyhuis. thank you for not only editing this for me but supporting me every single word along the way. i hope you enjoy this one so so much my little huihui. with that said -- this fic is VERY dark and could be a lot for some of you to read. please be sure to read the warnings before reading so that you are prepared for what you are reading.

this fic will be released 5/15 at 3 pm est to read it now subscribe to my patreon and click here

“I literally don’t give a fuck. Get his ass out of my sight.” 

Your brows raise as you look down at the tablet in your arms when the sound of your boss's voice rings through the bar. Someone had pissed him off and you were just happy it wasn’t you this time. Wen Junhui was an important man to a lot of people and for a lot of reasons, most of those reasons you chose to ignore and just do your job. 

There were a lot of things in your job that you had to ignore in order to keep it. Things like money appearing in large quantities with little to no explanation and meeting someone only to never see them again after they opened their mouth just a little too much. 

Glancing towards Jun’s office, you watch as one such man is being pulled out by Xu Minghao, Jun’s second in command. You meet the desperate man’s eyes only briefly before dropping yours, but it’s enough to give him hope as he pulls against Minghao’s arms, trying to move back towards the bar where you were standing. 

“Hey! Hey, lady, pretty lady! I'm in here all the time. You ‘member me right?” 

Scoffing, Minghao shakes his head, nodding towards security at the front door for help. You watch under lowered lashes as Kim Mingyu takes one of the man’s arms, helping Minghao drag him towards the exit as he continues to ask you for help.

“I had the fuckin’ money! This is bullshit!” 

You let out a breath you hadn't realized you had been holding when Minghao walked back through the door, letting Mingyu shut it behind them. Wiping his hands off on the front of his shirt, the man lifts his eyebrows at you as you try to look busy with your previous task.

“You’ve been told not to look at trash when I’m taking it out. You don’t remember things very well to be so pretty, Y/N.” 

Sighing, you finally meet Minghao’s eyes as he leans against the bar in front of you. You knew what you had been told; it was just that it was easier said than done to ignore something kicking and screaming as they were being dragged out of a building. 

“I’m sorry. I should’ve gone to the back when I heard Mr. Wen ye–express his displeasure.” 

You watch as a smirk pulls at one side of Minghao’s lips when you correct how you talk about your boss and his best friend. He had a soft spot for you and he knew you were doing your best.

“‘Least you know what you should've done.” 

“Hao!” 

Looking back towards Jun’s office when his name is called, Minghao purses his lips and pats the bar with his hand before giving you one more lingering look. You watch him until he disappears into your boss’s office and the door is left cracked so that only a low conversation can be heard. 

You spent most of your days and nights at Moonlight Lounge. Since you had been introduced to Jun and taken on the unique position of his personal assistant, your life had changed dramatically. You were in charge of managing most of his personal accounts—but never his business accounts—and you were the one who kept his schedule to the minute. 

“Y/N!” 

Hearing your name being yelled by Jun wasn’t an unusual occurrence but he didn’t sound pleased, though that wasn’t a new fact either. You weren’t friends with your boss and you weren’t sure if you ever would be. 

Holding the tablet closer to your chest, you glance towards Mingyu, who grimaces at how your name was said before turning away as you turn towards the office door. Everyone knew that one moment could make or break how your day was going to go at the lounge, and you had caused more of a disturbance by looking at the man as he had been dragged out. 

Knocking on the door, you slip inside, feeling two sets of eyes on you as Minghao sits against a sidebar console on the right of Jun’s desk and Jun himself sits behind the large desk with a frown on his face. Lifting your eyes you try to skirt around Jun’s eyes but the man leans his head to catch your gaze before sighing and pushing his tongue into his cheek.

“Sit down. Jesus Christ…”

He was in a mood and there was nothing you could do to change it. Slipping into the leather chair, you clear your throat and rest your tablet on your lap, straightening your spine so that you feel taller and less small under Jun’s gaze. Lifting his hand, he pushes his glasses up his nose before reaching for the tumbler of whiskey in front of him, taking a sip and sitting it down hard. 

“Tonight we have some important guests coming to the lounge. I want to make sure we have some of the girls prepared to serve them but I want you to steer clear of that section.”  

Furrowing your brows, you give him a confused look when he doesn’t yell at you for what happened but instead goes to your task for the night. Glancing towards Minghao, you slide the pen from your tablet and stutter for a moment before opening the notepad to take notes. 

“I–wh–oh…sure. Do I know who the guests are? So that I can tell them? And so that I can make sure there are adequate refreshments for their visit.” 

Jun narrows his eyes at you before letting them move along your frame appraisingly as you switch into assistant mode and out of scared little kitten mode. You were stunning and when you wanted to be, you could be fierce. You had shown it on more than one occasion but Jun still had an urge to keep a close eye on you, like he did anything else that belonged to him. 

“They are…” Smirking, Jun looks over to Minghao, lifting his hands in a question before sighing. “Competition and nothing more, darling. Don’t give them top shelf; we don’t serve that to those who don’t deserve it.” 

Swallowing hard at the pet name, you make some limited notes as Jun watches you carefully. It wasn’t the first time he had called you darling or some other variation of a pet name, but it still made you nervous every single time. Rolling his eyes, Minghao crosses his arms and leans his head back as he watches Jun stare at you. He knew exactly what he was doing, even if you didn’t. 

“I think that handles everything. Make sure they are happy, but not too happy. I want them to be jealous of what they can’t achieve. You get what I’m saying?” 

Nodding, you bite at your bottom lip, making Jun tilt his head as he watches intently. You mutter to yourself, writing down a few of the waitress's names along with your suggestions for how the guests should be handled before looking up to meet Jun’s eyes and feeling your cheeks burn at how he is looking at you. 

“Uh, yeah, I mean, yes, sir, Mr. Wen. I’ll take care of everything.” 

Gesturing towards the door, Jun smirks as you pop up out of your seat quickly, ready to leave. He knew he was intense and he knew you were crumbling under him. He wanted you under him in more ways than one, but he had patience and an inkling of respect about him. 

“Good girl. I’ll see you tonight then.”

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[marzipanandminutiae]

Marzi's Old House Supply Kit: A Non-Exhaustive List

So you've moved into an old house! Congratulations! No, no, look at me. Look in my eyes. Congratulations. You don't need smart lighting. You don't need paltry things like "showers that don't make ungodly noises if you set the water outside a very specific temperature range" or "logical staircases." Because those people who say They Built Them Sturdier Back Then is survivorship bias are wrong, lead paint is only a problem if you eat it, and your new home is basically a tank

also it might have stained glass. so basically you win

(no but seriously the Survivorship Bias argument is just like. tell me you don't live in a city with large quantities of remaining working-class 110-year-old buildings without telling me. I do. they're sturdier. end of.)

but you might need some things to make it a bit more comfortable. here's what I've found, over eight years of living in houses built 1920 or earlier

Power strips. Depending on the age of your house, it may or may not have had electricity originally. And even if it did, whoever lived there almost certainly had fewer things to plug in than the average denizen of the 2020s. There also may have been gorgeous wall sconces that some asshole heartlessly ripped out at some point, forcing you to use the hideous hateful Overhead LightTM or plug in a bunch of lamps. Either way, you're going to need to turn that single outlet in the room into several more. Hence, power strips.

(hey, I never said this list was free of my design biases. deal)

A Good Fan. You may live in a place where retrofitting with air conditioning was commonplace in the last several decades. I do not. So a good pedestal fan can make the difference between comfort and just not sleeping at all from late June to mid-September. Weirdly, I did once look at a place that was from the 1850s and had been retrofitted with central A/C, which is vanishingly rare in even urban Massachusetts. But I digress.

A stud-finder. "Marzi, you spent years of your life explaining to tourists that picture rails existed because trying to hammer nails directly into horsehair plaster and then putting weight on them did Bad Things." Yes I did. "What did you attempt to do the second week of living in your first house with horsehair plaster?" ...shut up. I used the Poltergeist Method to find solid wood- I don't know if it's actually studs or the lath or what; I'm not a builder -to hang my Lady and the Unicorn tapestry from, namely knocking on the wall until it doesn't sound hollow. You might want to go a bit quieter and more advanced. Or, if you have a picture rail, embrace the "long visible hanging wires" look. It is in fact there for a reason!

Window screens. You are actually required by Massachusetts state law to provide these to your tenants. Doesn't mean my last landlady did. And if you own your place, live in another state, or have a similarly laissez-faire building owner, you might end up needing to Bring Your Own Insect-Blocking Shield. Just make sure you've got them, one way or the other. Because see above re: fan vs. air conditioning in old houses.

WD-40. When's the last time those hinges were oiled? Potentially before television. And they WILL squeak. UPDATE I HAVE BEEN INFORMED THAT WD-40 IS NOT A GOOD LONGTERM SOLUTION. Find "actual oil." Not sure what the more specific name is. Good to know!

That's just what I've found needful so far, but I'm happy to update the list as required!

And you'd better believe, if I owned my own place, this would include "the name of a preservation contractor to undo all the unnecessary ~*MoDeRnIzInG*~ aesthetic bullshit the past owners did since the End of Mainstream Western House Beauty AKA 1920 (That Brief Rococo Revival In the 1930s Can Maybe Sit With Us)"

[headspace-hotel]

I am a dedicated water enjoyer but i have such a hard time believing that the "recommended" amount of water you are supposed to drink per day is legit ngl

According to google you're "supposed" to drink 125 ounces of water per day (almost a gallon). (I'm tempted to call this bullshit even just based on the fact that it's just one of several different answers.) At what point in the evolution of our species would this have been possible, especially in hot environments where you're out sweating in the sun and would need even more water?

Like okay, for one thing, drinking water by lapping it up or with your hands makes it a lot more time consuming to ingest a significant quantity of water. Furthermore, drinking from stagnant pools will give you illnesses that will kill you, and clean springs and mountain streams aren't exactly everywhere.

Did hunter-gatherers that spent their days tracking large game stop 8 times a day to guzzle down water? How did they have the fucking time to do this? Where were they getting it? Were they lugging gallons of water with them all the time in animal skin bags or something? Could they drink 4 standard water bottles' worth of water in one go whenever they found a water source? A lot of springs don't even produce water that fast??

Humans have lived in literal deserts for thousands of years!! Indoor plumbing is a new thing! Our culture is so water-centric that "around the water cooler" is slang for a casual social situation at work, most buildings have fountains specifically for dispensing drinking water, lobbies and hotels everywhere have vending machines that dispense beverages, and an important form of self-expression in public is carrying large, decorated water bottles. And yet somehow we're all chronically dehydrated and should be drinking more water??

Why would evolution adapt us to require more water than thirst can or will signal us to drink, anyway? Isn't that the reason thirst exists? 

(Also, has anyone who makes this shit up ever tried to drink that much water?? I used to drink 32 ounces of water over a 2 hour period, and I needed to go to the bathroom every 10-20 minutes to avoid pissing myself, like I would be in pain within minutes. If my body is getting rid of such insane quantities of water that my piss is basically water and I'm going to the bathroom every 20 minutes, that seems like a clear sign that my body does not want to have so much water in it.)

But I digress. At what point in time before the modern day would it have been possible for a human to ingest 8 glasses of water every day or 120 ounces or whatever is supposedly ideal??? If "dehydration" is the default state and has been for millions of years what does "dehydration" even MEAN?? Make it make sense...

[kk43mi]

good girl.┊ scaramouche

PAIRING ┊ perv!scaramouche x innocent f!reader GENRE ┊ pure smut. WC ┊ 1.8k+ WARNINGS ┊ he’s a perv , panty stealing , corruption , dub-con(?) , praise(if you squint) , not proof-read, cussing , scara just being gross!!! , lowercase intended!! SYNOPSIS ┊ coming back from your college classes and hearing your roommate making little grunts and moans, calling out your name, thinking he was in pain—but turns out, it was more than that. A/N ┊ written by kam , hope you guys enjoy ! (melody helped with the process !) first fic.

"anything that needs to be clarified?" your professor asked as he finished writing the formula on the board, turning around to face the class in front of him as he rest his arms on the lectern. a still silence preforms in the room, as the only sounds heard can be from other students taking notes, pencil moving in motion on the wooden table. finishing up your notes, your professor had now dismissed the class, signifying that the lecture was now finally over. wanting to seek solace in your comfy dorm and avail yourself of well-deserved respite after a long day.

a groan falls from your mouth as you now exited the lecture hall, stretching out your arms while walking towards the direction of your humble abode, where you share the room with a long-known acquaintance, scaramouche. scara—for short is what you liked to call him. "ah, im hungry...ill just eat some instant ramen back at the dorms." you exclaimed. soon enough, you were now in front of your dorm, grabbing the keys from your pocket to unlock the wooden door that was in your way.

twisting and turning the knob, you entered your abode, then taking off and carelessly throwing your shoes with the other pairs of shoes that were lined up nice and neatly, too drained out from the lecture to really care about any mess you make right now. walking and passing by the other rooms, you had to pass your roomies to get to yours. which you had no problem at all doing, until you heard faint groans and grunts coming from the other side of the door. "n-ngh...uh...fuck...y/n.." falls out of scaras lips. and there you hear a thud coming from the room.

you knocked on his door "ah-? scara, are you okay? i heard a loud thud! did something happened? are you in pain?" you asked in concern, pressing an ear against the blue tinted door to make out what he would say next. "y-yeah im fine. just go away argh..." he sounded annoyed, did you perhaps bother him? you didnt mean to, all you wanted to do was figure out what had happened. you stopped your thoughts as he hear his footsteps approaching the door, seeing his shadow beneath the creak of the door, slowly and subtly retreating from the door, your gaze meets scaras purple orbs.

his irritated look gives it away and you immediately feel bad. "im sorry if i bothered you.." you muttered out quietly as he let out a scoff, walking towards the bathroom. your eyes follow his before sighing. turning to walk to your own bedroom, before the corner of your eyes spots something out of the ordinary from his room. his room was usually just filled with neutral colors like white, grey, and black, but you spotted a pink cloth on his black bedsheet. out of curiosity, you enter the room, going closer to the object before realizing what it was.

"what the..? my underwear?" you looked in confusion, why would your panties be in scaras room? observing the undergarments a bit more, you spot little wet patches on them. and a weird smell emitting from it...maybe...this could explain the reason why the quantity of your panties had reduced. so scara has been the one stealing them?! you had lost your trance of thoughts after hearing a door slam shut behind you, making you turn around, "well, well look who we have here, y/n. figured it out hm?" he said, followed by with a menacing laugh, it sent shiver done your spines, waiting for your response as he leaned against the door with his arms crossed, looking down at you with a shit eating grin.

"you perv! youve been stealing my underwear!" you gritted your teeth, absolutely disgusted with your roommate. "and? what of it. not my fault youre wearing those kinds of underwear. i really cant control it yknow?" he grinned at you as he retracted his arms and took a couple steps towards you. the sudden instinct made you grab your garments, and throw it up at his face, but the quick motherfucker he was, he caught it. "well that wasnt really nice now was it?" he said before bringing the used panties to his nose, inhaling the scent of the soft pink undies, the smell of his pre-cum and your heat mixed in together brought him to heaven. his face turning red, eyes having hearts in them now, and breathing uncontrollable.

the sight of him smelling your panties had you tensed, as your eyes lowered to see such a noticeable bulge forming down. saliva forming in your mouth, to which you had swallowed. "do you see what you do to me..? for you to find out like this is such a shame, but whatever, its nice you know i crave for you now. every single part of your body. so please, allow me to indulge in this exquisite pleasure that awaits me." he bit his lips in excitement, his hand, motioning to touch his bulge, palming and shifting it around to reduce the pain, his other hand, still holding onto the precious sacred panties up to his nose to whiff at to get off to.

"uh..erm.." your face gave a look of confusion and hesitation. sure scara was a handsome boy, you never thought he viewed you that way, but you always had the thought of what it was like to be in the act of intimacy. but still, you werent too sure about this. "oh c'mon, you didnt even let me finish, im pent up. i just need one release." he grinned as he stepped closer to you, kneeling down to your height to harshly cup your cheeks with one hand, planting his lips on yours, giving a sloppy kiss. you pressed a hand on his chest, trying to pry him away, as his other free hand grabbed your wrist to stop your resistance. your eyes were shut closed, but you can feel a smile forming out of him. soon, you gasped and your mouth was left agape, the perfect opportunity for scara to insert in his tongue, exploring your inside, tasting and savoring every nook and cranny.

little moans falling out of your mouth, this...it was all new to you, never knowing or feeling the touch of another man. let alone, this kind. your resistance has stopped, knowing your strength wasnt compared to his. he may seem small, but he sure was the strong one. scara pulled back, a string of saliva connected from his mouth to yours, both of the individual breathing heavily, trying to catch up each others breath. a sickening smile appeared on his face again. "on your knees, c'mon." he commanded. as he sat on his bed. eyeing down on you. you just stood there in silence, just trying to comprehend everything that was happening right now. first the stolen undies, he likes you, then kissed you. just what was going on.

scara let out an annoyed scoff as he ran out of patience, pulling your arm to put you down on your knees, your face landing onto his pelvis, face dangerously close to his crotch. "oh? excited too? well then ill let you indulge in what you want of course~" his voice sounded high, as he unzipped his pants, his length raised up, the tip hitting his cloth stomach. he was girthy, and veiny in the right places, his tip, a pretty pink mushroom. its like it was perfect. you stared at his cock, intimidated already. your trail of thoughts were lost as you soon felt scaras hand grab your wrist, forcing your hands to touch the base of his cock. out of shock, you tried removing your hand, but he kept it in place. "dont be shy, i know you want this too. now move." you eyed up at him, a gulp forming on your throat, as you felt gross doing this. slowly moving your hands up and down, feeling his veins and stiff cock.

"f-fuck...this feels way better than that damn panties of yours...i always imagined it as your hand stroking my cock. now i finally get the feel of it. youre so good." he threw his head back due to the pleasure, moaning at the way your hands gripped his cock so tightly. "ugh..." you let out a disgusted sigh, it felt so slimy, and the stench was already hurting your head. "ah-shit im out of patience, open your mouth." a hand was placed on your head as his other supported his balance to sit up. "what..? why.." you meekly respond back. "hurry up and just do as a i say." he gripped a handful of your hair locks and it made you wince. as you obliged and open your mouth, without warning, his cock is shoved into the small mouth of yours. you gagged, both of your hands placed on his thighs for leverage and support.

"shit, your mouth is even better..." he fucked your face thru it all, tears that were threatening to spill down to your cheeks from the pain you were trying to endure. soft little cries and whimpers come from your mouth, hoping it would signal him into slowing down a bit. "tis hwurt..plese...stuop.." you were slobbering on your words...you couldnt say anything, not when he was thrusting his hips into your mouth so harshly as he was pulling your hair along with it. "youre such a good girl...taking me so well." it was like your pleas fell on deaf ears, as he just kept thrusting. "breathe thru your nose baby." as if it would make anything better. it hurts. you were gagging like crazy. saliva coated everywhere on your mouth, even dripping down onto the floor, creating a wet mess.

his thrusts were harsh and it made your mouth sore, you dont know how long you could keep this up honestly. "f-fuck gonna cum, you gonna take it all like a good girl alrigh'?" his pace fastened, and it left your eyes crying a river now. tears trickling down to your cheek and to your chin, mixing in with the pool of saliva down on the floor. "ah-! fuck, fuck, fuck..!" with one last harsh thrust, the tip of his cock touching the deep parts of your throat as his cum gushed out, forcing you to take it all, as some of it spilled out. he rides out his high by stilling himself in your mouth, taking in your warmth, before finally pulling out. which had you coughing out, mouth all sore as you laid on the wooden floor. trying to catch up with your breath. little bits of scaras cum still lingered on the corners of your mouth. a laugh falls from his mouth as he enjoyed the sight he was viewing.

"this is just the beginning. im not done yet. now be a good little girl and get on the bed."

"but you said you just needed one release...?"

"I said im not done yet."

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