#legal deadline management

[mylegalsoftware]

Successful legal practice begins with establishing a successful attorney-client relationship. Read this article to know how can you strengthen the attorney-client relationship. Visit us now.

[sixofravens-reads]

been really liking Drunk on All Your Strange New Words, however work went Badly this week and now I'm really not in the mood to read about an employee trying to solve her boss's murder, even if her boss is an absolute saint compared to mine.

[savingcrxws]

EYES ON FIRE | maybe someday

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synopsis. you and carmen just keep bumping into each other.

word count. 4.3k (gah damn)

warnings. language, hardly proofread again i'm sorry its an addiction

authors note. thank u guys so much for the support in these previous chapters! it’s really amazing to me that u guys enjoyed it so much! i would recommend listening to maybe someday by the cure for this chapter!

“Yeah, Sugar. The appointment is booked for Thursday, the reps will probably be coming in at like…three o’clock,” you mutter, flipping through the manila folder absolutely stuffed with documents and sticky notes. 

You pursue your lips at all you had to get done within this week alone–sign installation permit, permit to replace the hot water heater, permit to fix the ventilation systems, reapply for occupancy capacity signs because of the restaurants lack of other permits, and holy shit…

You completely forgot to schedule the follow-up appointment with the BACP consultant. 

You groan, slamming the thick folder into your forehead, the papers thwacking against your skull. Natalie sounds startled on the other end of the phone, no doubt hearing the sound on her end of the call. She questions if you’re okay, and you only respond with a gentle hum before tossing the folder back down on the office table. 

“Hey, Suge, do you think I can call you back later? I need to schedule a follow-up consultation with Raquel before another rep hops on my ass about the boiler replacement.” 

“Of course, hun, call me back whenever you can,” Sugar starts and you can hear some papers flicking in her side of the call as well.

You had managed to convince her to work from home more often, worried that all the stress from the demolition inside would affect her pregnancy and her overall wellbeing. After some back and forth, she had begrudgingly agreed to spend two days working on the project from the comfort of her own couch. 

And even though she complains still, you know she appreciates she has a little bit more time off of her feet. 

“Don’t work yourself too hard, okay, Bug?” 

You nod, even though you know she can’t see you. “Same for you, Bear.” Sugar hums once again before you both give your goodbyes and end the call. 

You expel all of the air out of your chest in a large puff as you slide down the office chair.

After signing onto Team Bear, your new home-away-from-home had been this tiny office in the back of the restaurant. For the most part, no one came in and disrupted your work, which allowed you to have your head shoved into piles of paperwork, be stuck on phone calls, and be forced to reread legal jargon for hours on end with little interruption. 

Well, as little interruption as there could be with the restaurant quite literally falling apart around you. 

Thankfully, everyone was very respectful of your work in helping the developing business. You were practically putting every ounce of knowledge that you learned from both college and the real-world experience (including connections within the industry) to help push the restaurant closer to the deadline. All the while still dealing with your other commitments to other businesses that you had prior to signing on to this project.

Staying at The Bear for eight hours a day had its benefits, though.

For example, there was always something entertaining going on in the background. Like last Tuesday, when Fak had decided to send a sledgehammer directly into the only remaining wall of the office–sending bits and pieces of drywall onto your clothes.

Another benefit of being stuck in that office chair is that you had an excuse to ignore everyone around you. And by everyone, you really mean Carmen.

After the awkward office run-in last week, the two of you hardly spoke to each other. Sure, there was the ‘hellos’ and ‘goodbyes’ that you threw to each other and the words you exchanged when you caught him up on the status of licensing, but you two had yet to have an actual conversation.

It was clear that the both of you were still walking on eggshells around each other—and everyone could see it. But you had an inkling feeling that Carmen had been wanting to say something, judging by the short glances you sometimes catch him throwing in your direction.

Kinda similar to the one that he’s giving you right now.

You feel the heat of his stare on your face before you see it. He’d been staring at you for a couple moments now, long enough for you to no longer consider it an inquisitive glance.

You peek up from the folder and make solid eye contact with Carmen through the hole in the wall. The man flushes almost immediately, the red color sinking past his collar. You purse your lips and give a small nod of acknowledgment and he stutters in his spot.

And then he’s turning away.

Like he wasn’t the one just staring at you a moment ago.

You roll your eyes and turn back to your original position in the seat. Picking the folder up again, you flick to the papers listing the requirements for the next fire suppression test.

“Men,” you mutter, before picking up your phone and making a phone call.

Three days later, the office is completely demolished and your work revolving around The Bear has been moved to a family-owned coffee shop two blocks over.

In the short span of time, all of the walls in the store had been busted down and the restaurant had practically turned into a hazardous wasteland. And since construction was too far out of your pay grade, you decided to leave the heavy lifting up to everyone else.

“Alright, permit done!” You throw your hands up in the air, your theatrics catching the attention of a couple next to you. You could hardly care for the stares, though, you had been working on getting that permit for the past four days straight. Slamming your laptop shut, you pack up your bags and head off to the cash register to buy another coffee before you go.

While you wait for your drink, you decide to scroll aimlessly through your phone to kill some time.

“Oh shit,” you hear a voice utter behind you, and you barely have time to process the word before something ice cold is running down your back. “Fuck, I’m fucking sorry, I didn’t even see you—“

You gasp on reflex, taking a step forward and shivering. The person who spilled their drink on you is stuttering out apologies. The liquid seeps into the jacket you were wearing and you pull it off immediately.

“Yo, what the fuck, dude,” you curse, watching the large stain of coffee spread even farther across your jacket. “Watch where the hell you’re walking—”

In the middle of trying to give the perpetrator a piece of your mind, you failed to recognize the familiar sound of the voice that was spewing apology out of apology. But in a second, your eyes met a recognizable set of blue and you halted your words.

In front of you stands Carmen Berzatto. In his signature colored sweater and a half-spilled cup of coffee in his hand.

And he looks petrified.

It seems he didn’t realize just who was the unlucky victim to his americano attack either until you turned around. His mouth agape, he utters out a jumbled apology, glancing back at you, your stained jacket, and the cup in his hand like his brain was still trying to understand what just happened.

“Uh-uh, fuck, sorry, I swear this wasn’t on purpose,” he rambles, placing his cup on the counter behind you and grabbing some napkins right after. He steps back towards you and shoves his hand of napkins to you. “Here, shit, I’m so sorry.”

You sigh, taking the napkins from him, noting the slight tremor that persisted in his hands as you did so. Taking in a slow breath, you close your eyes and count to ten before responding. “It’s okay, Carmen. Don’t worry about it.”

And even though you tried to maintain your peace, you can hear the annoyance seeping out of your words. Carmen glances around the counter before looking back at you and your soaked jacket. You know he probably wants to apologize some more, but honestly, one more apology might land him with a punch to the gut. 

Just as he opens his mouth, you raise your free hand, silencing him immediately. You shake your head in dismissal before taking the napkins offered to you and blotting the coffee out of the fabric of your jacket. Carmen simply stood in his place, watching you, seeing if he could do anything to redeem himself in this situation. 

However, after they called your name for your drink order, you dumped the used napkins in the trash, took your drink and hightailed it out of the café without one more word to the man. 

After the coffee shop incident, you swear that you started to see Carmen everywhere. 

You needed a quiet place to plan outside of your house so you went to one of the local libraries. Guess who’s walking outside the building?

You need a late night snack and decide to hit up the corner store. Guess who’s in the refrigerated section?

Hell, you decide to stay late at The Bear for some last minute checkups? Guess who forgot to grab a few things before leaving that night?

You swear that before you hopped on The Bear train, you never even saw a glimpse of the man. Sure, you lived relatively near the restaurant, but Chicago is fucking huge, there’s no way you would run into one of the few people that you’re trying to avoid. 

Absolutely not, apparently. 

Finally finishing up the weekly budget report and estimate for the following weeks till open, you decide to take a step away from work for a second and give your brain some time to breath. 

“Hey, Syd, if anyone needs me, I’m outside taking a smoke break, ‘kay,” you yell across the restaurant, receiving a thumbs up from her from the other side of the room. “Be back in 15!”

Reaching into your bag, you pull out a pack of cigs and a lighter before heading to the back entrance of the restaurant. You place the cigarette between your lips and head to the backdoor. Stepping out and around the alley to the designated smoke corner, you fiddle with the lighter switch, hearing the light sizzle but seeing no flames emerge. 

You groan, flicking the lighter again and again and still no lig–

“Umm, uh, you need a light?”

You scream, your heart almost skipping a beat and falling out on the concrete below you. In your alarm, both your cigarette and the lighter drop on to the ground. "Shit," you mutter and throw a glance over at whoever had scared the living shit out of you and, surprise suprise . . .

There was Carmen, standing in the alley a few feet away from the door. One leg was kicked up to rest his foot against the wall behind him and a cigarette hung loosely between his fingers. His eyes trailed across you for a second, then he glanced at the cigarette on the ground before taking another draw from his own and staring out the wall in front of him.

If you had half of the energy, you would tell him off for scaring the shit out of you and book it out of the enclosed space.

Lucky for Carmen, however, you really needed that cigarette.

Reaching back into your bag once more, you pull out another cig and walk slowly over to the man. Your steps gain his attention once again and when your eyes met you gestured to the lighter hanging out of his cooking apron.

He grabs the lighter and hands it to you. As you reach out to grab it, your fingers brush against his knuckles. Some quick thought in the back of your head wishes that that physical interaction lasted a little longer, but you're quick to shoo that away into the deep recesses of your mind.

Lighting your cigarette, you hand the lighter back to him before taking a drag. Blowing the smoke out, you slid down the wall until you could lean back into a squat against it.

The two of you just stand there, in complete silence aside from the occasional cough from an improper pull. This quiet isn't nearly as awkward as the first run-in the two of you had. Maybe it's because of the nicotine or maybe it's because continuously running into Carmen over these past days had subconsciously made you a little more comfortable with his presence.

. . .

Nah, it definitely had to be the nicotine.

You glance up at Carmen, who continues to smoke even though his stick had turned into a bud a while ago. You make note of the new tattoos that run down his arms and hands, eyes stopping at the rose flower tattoo on his left hand.

You remember when he got that one done with you at the parlor for his eighteenth birthday.

Subconsciously, you rub at the matching rose on your thigh before sighing and focusing back on your cigarette. Young, dumb decisions, you think.

Above you, Carmen watches your focus retreat back and purses his lips. In all honesty, Carmen usually never finishes a whole cigarette, but he really needed an excuse to stay out here longer with you.

These past couple of days had been tormenting him just as much as it had been you, albeit for different reasons. Everytime Carmen ran into you, whether it be in that cafe or that random grocery store that one early morning, he was plagued with memories of everything that he had fucked up.

Not just the relationship that he had fucked, but the happiness that he had stolen from the both of you.

And he had so desperately been trying to apologize, but every time you saw his face, you would get that look on your own. That dread, the anxiousness, that annoyance. That anger.

Whenever he saw that expression on your face, he would get too choked up to say anything of significance. A simple 'hey" would be all that would leave his mouth. Either that or he would stutter like he was a fucking kid again and embarrass himself in front of you like he seems to be doing constantly lately.

Carmen sighs, taking a final hit from his cigarette before stomping it out on the ground. By all previous experience, Carmen would book it out of the area by now, but something in his gut was telling him to stay this time.

Glancing down at you once more, he sees that you have taken to scrolling through your phone to kill the time. He bites the corner of his lip and decides to sit against the wall like you.

Instinctively, you toss him a questioning glance but when he didn't make any move to speak or gesture towards you, you shook your head and went back to whatever video had popped up on your feed.

Fuck it, he thought.

"I'm sorry."

You halt in the middle of your smoke, nearly coughing on the fumes but managing to swallow it. You look over at Carmen inquisitively, wondering where the hell that apology came from. The dirty blonde was wringing his hands, mouth opening and shutting as if he was trying to get the words out.

"Sorry for the, uh," he mutters, casting a quick glance in your direction to assure himself that you were listening. "Sorry for the, for uh-You know I didn't-I don't know how-"

"Yo, Carmen," you interrupt the world vomit that he was spewing, tossing your cigarette down before snuffing out the light with your shoe. You center your focus back on the man next to you, who seemed to only have you in his attention. "Just say what you want to say. No bullshit."

Your blunt words seem to ground Carmen long enough for him to gather his thoughts. He nods his head rapidly in that way he does when he's clearly overwhelmed before he clears his throat. He takes in a large inhale and clears his throat, ready to speak again.

"I want to apologize. For everything. For how much of an jackoff I was back then, and for how much I am right now," Carmen stars, eyes staring solidly into yours to show just how serious he is. "I didn't deserve you, and you did nothing to deserve the way that we ended."

You feel something burn the back of your throat at the mention of the end of your relationship. The total radio silence from him for the days prior, and just when you had managed to gather the courage to ask the question of just what the hell are we doing, Carmy, you were cast aside like nothing.

He was right, you didn’t deserve that.

Pushing back the feelings bubbling up in your chest, you nod your head to signal that you were listening.

"I-I, it's no excuse, but I was really going through some serious shit. And I really felt that if I cut everyone out of my life, I could actually get a second to breathe you know," Carmen pauses and you open your mouth to speak, but he continues. "I-I just know you deserved-you deserve better. But seeing you in this restaurant day-in and day-out, working away to help my sister, my crew--help me? I just felt even more like a piece of shit."

He turns fully towards you now and you can see his eyes turning red from the emotion he was clearly holding behind his words. "You didn't deserve what I did, and you definitely don't deserve to be cleaning up my messes now."

"You deserved the world, and I'm sorry I couldn't give it to you."

His last words send a sharp pang into your chest. Here you two sat, sitting next to each other, the distance between you two seemed to be filled with words unsaid. You stare into his eyes a little longer, at a loss for what to say completely.

On one hand, you wanted to reject his apology, tell him to fuck off and leave him alone in this alleyway. He would deserve it after everything.

But he has that familiar kicked puppy-dog look in his eyes and he's chewed his lip red, and he's actually sorry.

You sigh, leaning your head back to rest against the wall behind you. Staring up at the sky, you trace the shapes of the clouds above as you collect your thoughts.

"Yeah," you start, nodding your head to yourself. Carmen tenses up at the ambiguity behind both your words and your tone. He would have to have his own head shoved up his ass if he didn't realize that you had every right to refuse his plea for forgiveness. Frankly, that's exactly what he was expecting you to do.

"Yeah, okay. I can forgive you, Berzatto."

Carmen's heart sinks into his guts, mouth slightly agape in pure shock. "You-you can?"

You give a small smile, turning your head to face the man. "Yeah, Carmen, I accept your apology."

The dirty blonde opens his mouth again but you put a hand up in the space between you, effectively shutting him up for a second.

"But," you trail, "I'm gonna forward you that dry cleaning bill from that cafe, asshat. I've been trying to get that shit out for days now."

Carmen flushes a bright red at the mention of the coffee shop run-in you two had, a broken chuckle leaving his mouth at the obvious teasing tone in your voice. You were joking with him, for the first time in years, you two had managed to glimpse at the level of comfortability that you once shared.

Carmen chuckles again, running a hand through his curls. "Yeah, well, can I raincheck that until after the restaurant starts making money? I'm kinda flat fucking broke right now."

You giggle at the honesty behind his words. "Yeah, I ran those calculations by the way. Have fun being flat broke for at least three months after The Bear opens."

"Shit," Carmen mutters, a grin still on his face.

"Yeah, shit." You nod in his direction before pushing yourself off your crouched position on the ground. "Anyway, I'm gonna head inside to get back on that shit. Fak's fucking electric guy keeps flaking on us."

Carmen's eyes follow your form as you stand, holding eye contact with you when you glance back down at him. "Yeah, yeah, I should probably meet up with Syd for the chaos menu anyway."

He hurriedly stands up, wiping his hands on his work pants. After he finishes, he looks at you once again, noting the small smile on your face. For a second, he swears his heart skips a beat.

"For the record, Carmy," you play with the nickname on your tongue, having not said it in quite some time. Carmen flushes before nodding for you to continue. The small on your face falls for a second as you look at him. "You pull that shit with me again, I'm sicking the dogs on your ass. Seriously."

Carmen clears his throat, straightening up at the more serious tone of your voice. Although you were not nearly as angry looking at him as before, he knew that you were serious. There were no more apologies after this, no more fuckups.

You look at him expectantly, waiting for some form of acknowledgment.

He nods. "Yes, chef."

After the conversation outside The Bear, you and Carmen seemed to flow together much easier than before. Granted there was the occasional stray glance casted in your direction from the man, but overall, the two of you were on much more agreeable terms.

The rest of the crew seemed to notice the absence of uncertain tension between the two of you. You explained to Tina, Richie, and Sugar that you two had simply talked it out and were no longer on "spiteful ex" terms.

Richie, being the annoying man that he is, insisted that something else must've happened--to which you responded with a firm shoulder check and yet another middle finger.

Overall, the two of you seemed to only talk about business stuff, which made it easier for conversations to flow. Less personal, more concrete talks.

"Alright, Carmy, we got that certificate of occupancy, right?" You question, running down the legal checklist once again. When you heard no response, you asked again, only to be ignored again. Finally looking up from your screen, you glance up at the man, trying to figure out what could have possibly distracted him this time.

He's glancing, moreso glaring, down at his phone, watching it ring but making no moves to pick it up. He's spaced out almost, like he's lost in his thoughts.

You clear your throat and decide to try his name again. "Carmen!"

He shoots up a little and looks at you, muttering an apology out as he clicks his phone off and slides it into his back pocket. "What were you asking?"

"Umm, I was trying to see if you got that certificate of occupancy from Cicero mailed in," you raise an eyebrow at him. "You know, the one we need to get that other big, shiny certificate that shows that we can legal conduct business in the state of Illinois? That certificate?"

"Uhh, yeah, yeah. Mailed it in the other day, yeah."

You squint at his weird responses before shaking your head and diving back into your work. "Well, on another note, I've been speaking with a liason down at the office and he said we can have our second fire suppression test in two weeks instead of the project four."

Carmen walks up to the foldable chair you were sitting in, peering over your shoulder to look at your screen. He rests his hand against the back of your chair unconsciously and you can feel the heat of his body radiating off of him. You clear your throat and lean forward a little to get some distance between the two of you.

"Who's that going to?" The man points to an email that you are in the middle of drafting. Your eyes follow and land on the email you were writing to one of your school buddies. "Oh that? I'm just messaging one of my old classmates from college about an idea I had about our issues with that retail food license thing."

Carmen humms, peeking down at you as you explained the process you were thinking of going through. Though your eyes were stuck on the screen, clicking through different documents as you continued your explanation, Carmen's eyes were glued to your face.

To him, this all felt like some weird dream that he was having. His former high school sweetheart, sitting in his restaurant, talking all kinds of smart talk that he could barely understand, practically pressed against him. Although he didn't move over to your chair with the intent to press against you, he definitely noticed the proximity that you two shared.

Life had been a whirlwind these past weeks, but he felt that when he was near you that a lot of those anxieties he often has screaming in his head quieted down a little. He tried to chalk it up to the confidence that he had in your skills, but even though you are incredibly talented in your work, he knew that it was something more than that.

Something that he had to swallow down.

"Carmy, you motherfucker, are you even listening to me?" You call out, turning more in your chair and fixing him with an annoyed glare. Carmen swallows before nodding his head. "Ye-yeah, you have a plan to get that retail food license and alcohol seller's license at once right?"

You hum, giving him a once over again before turning in your seat. "Exactly. I think that my buddy Stephen can help us with that fire suppression test, he knows a thing or two--"

Carmen's eyes trace down your eyes, nose, and lips, noting the signature bite marks you left on your bottom one. He runs a tongue across his own before carding a hand through his hair to collect himself.

He was so fucked.

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if you would like to be added to/removed from the taglist, just tell me below! thank you so much for reading!

*if ur @ is striked thru, tumblrs being a pain and not letting tag, imma keep trying tho!!

[aces-and-angels]

IMPORTANT UPDATE FROM SHAHED:

Note : this post is a repost of @appsa update on Shahed's campaign with updated infos on the current amount of raised funds.

I am so grateful to everyone who shared and donated, i really do count it as a miracle that we were able to reach the goal at all, never mind that it happened within the deadline we set. Your support has felt like a blessing in a truly wretched time, especially after all those baseless accusations were made.

Unfortunately, as is the norm with these fundraisers, it seems that shahed has run into some problems with the bank while withdrawing the funds she raised from this campaign. Apart from the unexpected $3.5k cut gfm took from the total amount, it seems the american bank her campaign manager using to send the money will also take a tax of $2k.

This has left her short of $5,500 from getting the full amount she needs to evacuate her whole family.

And it seems because the amount the campaign initially raised is so large, the campaign manager cannot afford to officially increase the target on the gofundme campaign page itself without putting himself at risk of having his bank account and its funds frozen.

As you may know already, there are lots of roadblocks when it comes to transferring funds from western countries to countries of the global south but especially gaza right now. People having their accounts frozen for sending money to gaza and having to go through legal hassles for it is not anything new.

Shahed doesn't want to put the campaign manager, who is their family friend, at risk of legal troubles like that, especially given the hostile political climate towards palestinians in the USA right now.

So i want to make this clear:

Shahed is currently unable to increase the target on the fundraiser on the gofundme itself, but she still needs to raise another 5.5k to cover the tax cuts taken by both gfm and the banks.

The goal on the fundraiser may say $80,000 is the target but the new one we have to aim for is actually $85,500 now

She is currently at $81,525 / $85,500

Believe me when i say that no one is more disheartened by this development than shahed herself. The morning we had reached the goal of $80,000 she told me that she felt she was the happiest girl in the world, and had bought and distributed sweets to the kids at the camp she was at to celebrate despite how expensive it is in Gaza right now.

She had also begun plans to help boost other fundraisers of palestinians, so that no one would have to feel the hopelessness she felt during those months where her fundraiser had been stagnant and had already gotten started on that barely a day or two after she'd completed her campaign.

Shahed was very nervous to tell me about this, especially after this whole racist hate campaign that was led against her so recently. She does not want her and her family to be accused of lying about their torment a second time. Especially when the violence has begun to ramp up once again even after her recent displacement, she can't bear it. Frankly neither can i.

Please know that she would not increase amount again unless times were desperate.

Please do NOT punish her during this difficult time by ignoring this. We have seen time and time again how gfms from gazans have to increase their goals even after they have been reached because of various issues, so this is not unprecedented. I've said it before- the goalposts will always be changing because they are going through a genocide.

So i urge you to please be kind and show her your solidarity and urgency once again, because the deadline is still the same. The raffle still hasnt ended so please check out the link above, and partcipate.

PLEASE HELP HER REACH $85.5K WITHIN THIS WEEK. THIS CAN'T WAIT.

current total: $81,530 USD

[saetoru]

#TOP OF THE CLASS! — GETO SUGURU.

「 SYNOPSIS 」 ⋮ geto + virgin killing - your TA is nice, and more importantly, handsome. accidentally sending him nudes makes you realise he's also inexperienced

♱ kinktober ⋮ find the masterlist here !!

♱ pairing ⋮ college TA! geto suguru x student! reader

♱ length ⋮ 5.5k words (she tried okay. she did)

♱ contents ⋮ nsfw and 18+ content, fem! reader, college! au, TA! geto, student! reader, med! student shoko, forging of legal documents (shoko forges you a doctor’s note lol), mentions of drinking + being under the influence, unprofessional relationships, explicit photography (taking + accidentally sending nudes), virgin! + inexperienced! geto, semi-public sex (in a campus office), teasing, humiliation, mentions of male masturbation, handjobs, blowjobs, nipple play, fingering, riding, praise kink, unprotected sex, creampie, multiple orgasms, overstimulation

♱ notes ⋮ here is the first kinktober post i hope you all enjoy and HAPPY OCTOBER ITS MY FAV SEASON

the first rule of being a college student is having good time management. that should’ve been something you remembered before saving this paper for the last minute—because now you’re beginning to regret overestimating your ability to finish all the research and the required components and hit the word count. and then you have to cite your sources—which is a pain, and the clock isn’t slowing even a little as it ticks away closer and closer to the deadline. 

you’re doomed, finished for the semester before you could’ve even fully begun. you’re counting your moments to failure for a class you absolutely need to graduate. this paper is thirty percent of your grade—how could you have been so careless as to leave it so last minute?

“it’s useless,” you moan woefully into your phone, making shoko snort as you hear her continue to type away on her keyboard. it hits you that if shoko of all people is further along her paper than you—the same shoko that cheats on everything—then you’ve really let yourself go. “i’m never going to finish this on time,” you mutter. 

“i told you to get started earlier,” she says matter of factly, almost with enough i told you so energy in her voice that you’re two seconds from storming over to her apartment and smashing her laptop to bits. but shoko has a point—even if you refuse to acknowledge it since…well, it’s shoko, after all. 

“i’m not on call with you to lecture me,” you grumble, “i’m on call with you to help me find a solution. you think if i offer the TA a blow job, he’ll give me an A?”

shoko snorts, pausing her typing as if she’s actually contemplating the idea. “maybe, honestly. you know he’s our age, and he’s like years ahead of us? probably too busy with school to get any bitches,” she laughs, making you roll your eyes as a smile tugs at your lips no matter how hard you try to fight it. 

“you know what, you might be right,” you chuckle. you almost feel bad for joking at his expense—your TA is nice, he’s young and kind and understanding, he takes time to slowly go over things when people have questions, he answers emails politely and quickly no matter how stupid the reason, he and has sensible rules that aren’t too strict. and, if you’re being honest, he’s rather handsome. “i wouldn’t mind giving him a blow job though,” you hum, “he’s cute.”

“gross,” shoko gags, “geto suguru is not cute.”

“he is too,” you argue, furrowing your brows as you huff, “he’s probably one of the few men i’ve seen who make a man bun work. and i know he’s ripped under that sweater, he has to be. i saw him leave the gym the other day, and his arms were huge.”

“he’s probably just trying to get bitches,” shoko snorts, “i bet he’s a virgin.”

“shut up,” you laugh, and for a moment, your mind wanders to your stupidly handsome TA. 

you shouldn’t be thinking about him this way—fantasizing about anyone who grades your papers is a line you shouldn't really cross, but you can’t help it. your thoughts turn into what hearing his smooth, deep voice would be like if he moaned into your ear, or what his bangs would look like stuck to his sweaty forehead, or what his abs would look like clenching as he cums, or how breathless he’d sound as he whispers your name—

“wait, i just had an idea,” shoko interrupts your thinking with a gasp, making you shake out of your (very dirty) thoughts as you blink.

you clear your throat, trying your best not to sound flustered as you speak. “i’m scared to ask what the idea is—you’re not really known for having good ones,” you say warily. you can practically see her eyes roll without her being there with you—you’ve been friends with shoko long enough to know her like the back of your hand. and if you know her like you think you do, her idea is about to cause you a lot of stress.

“well, looks like i’m never trying to help you again,” she scoffs, “i could’ve written you a doctor’s note with a few of the copies i managed to snatch—but since you don’t want my help—”

“no, wait! you’re a genius,” you gasp happily, grinning wide as shoko huffs through the phone and mutters something faintly similar to ungrateful under her breath, “i could kiss you on the lips right now.”

“no thank you. you suck,” she hisses. you only giggle, relief flooding through your bones that maybe your grade is saved—and all thanks to having a friend who works in a doctor’s office. you silently send the universe your gratitude for having your best friend pursue a career in the medical field—the perks prove to be quite beneficial, it seems. 

“just send me a picture of it and make it seem like i’m too sick to work on the paper, and i’ll tell him i won’t finish in time. a one day extension should be enough.”

“where would you be without me,” she grumbles quietly, “i’ll send it to you in a second. now please let me finish my paper in peace.”

“okay. love you, you’re the best.”

“i hate you.” the line clicks and you giggle, happily celebrating that you most likely have a saved grade and a free night to yourself now that shoko has so kindly offered you a solution. and of course, you’ll take this as a learning curve and appropriately plan to give yourself enough time for the next paper.

it’s not long before your phone dings and shoko’s contact pops up on your screen with, sure enough, a doctor’s note with today’s date and reason for the visit. shoko has even taken the liberty to make you seem contagious—just so you can skip class tomorrow for good measure. beaming, you text a quick thanks bestie <3 in response—too happy to even care that she sends you an emoji flipping you off. 

and it doesn’t take you long to craft the email either, making sure to properly address him with a greeting, adding apologies for the inconvenience—and as the icing on the cake, a promise that it won’t ever happen again in the future. you click the photo to upload the doctor’s note, and without even a second thought, you click send. 

and then within the split second that the email sends, and you realize just which photo you’ve accidentally clicked, your life flashes before your eyes. 

“no,” you mumble, “no no no,” you chant as you quickly open the email you’ve sent, eyes wide and throat dry. 

the photo is not the picture of the doctor’s note shoko sent—instead, it’s the picture right under it in your camera roll. the picture that’s not very suitable for sending your TA. the picture of your tits, just barely covering your nipples with your arm. the picture you took through giggles while changing after getting a little tipsy the night before (you’d felt just a tad bit sexy in your makeup.)

you sit in silent shock as you register that you just sent your TA your nudes—and just to make matters worse, he responds almost instantly, making your heart drop as you stare at his emailed reply with a shaky hand holding up your phone. 

please meet me in my office tomorrow before class so we can discuss the above email. 

suddenly, your worries are a lot more complicated than simply failing a class.

———————————————

you barely slept the night before, if at all, to be completely honest with yourself. the worst-case scenario runs through your head the entire time you toss and turn in bed. geto is probably going to report this, and then you’ll get expelled, and then you’ll never make it with a successful career, and then you’ll never be able to show your face to anyone you know again. 

your feet are as heavy as lead as they drag along the walk to his room, and you contemplate turning back and never showing up to his office, maybe simply even just refusing to ever return to campus at all. maybe you can move countries and start over somewhere else—maybe you can change your name and make a new life for yourself. 

but instead, you take a deep breath and knock on the door, waiting until you hear a soft come in before you enter. geto is seated at the desk, typing away at his laptop before meeting your eyes as you walk in.

“uh…hi,” you start, standing awkwardly by the door.

“hello,” he says, eyeing you slightly before looking back at his screen. if he has any ill feelings about last night, he does a good job of hiding it—you can’t read a single emotion on his face. somehow, that makes things worse. “have a seat,” he gestures at the chair across from him on the other side of the desk, waiting for you to seat yourself nervously in front of him. 

you sit down, watching as he opens his mouth to start—but you begin speaking before he can. “look, i know that email was really inappropriate, and i’m really sorry—it was an accident, i swear! i meant to click on the picture above it, and i didn’t realize—”

“i understand,” he cuts you off as he holds a hand up, offering you a kind smile that makes you tilt your head in confusion, “it’s fine.” fine. fine? he’s…just fine with it? he’s just willing to let you off the hook? “i’m not much older than you,” he chuckles, “i’m not foreign to these things. i’m sure you’re active in…that aspect of your life.”

oh god—why you? why of all people did this have to be you? why is the world so hellbent on making your life miserable in every aspect?

you eye the coiled wires of the phone on his desk, and you contemplate strangling yourself with them before he can say something anymore embarrassing. but, you have to admit—this is far better than being told you’ve been reported to the dean for misconduct.

“i’m really sorry if it made you uncomfortable,” you fiddle with your fingers as you avoid his gaze, “i really did mean to send you a doctor’s note. i just didn’t realize i hit the picture under it.”

“like i said, it’s okay,” he reassures. calm. he’s almost too calm about this. too okay with it. almost like…like he didn’t mind at all in the first place.“but i wanted to make sure you’re aware of how fragile photos like that are.”

“huh?” you raise a brow. now, this is not where you expected the conversation to steer. you expected a lecture on how sending an educator your explicit photos is highly unprofessional, that it’s unacceptable and suggests other things—things that are completely against the rules and completely out of question to even consider. 

“i mean, photos like those getting into the wrong hands can lead to really bad predicaments,” geto continues, clearing his throat as he closes his laptop and meets your gaze. he looks you dead in the eye as he speaks his next words, “and i wouldn’t want sensitive content of you circulating around campus.”

“right,” you nod slowly, “it’s not like i send them around, or anything. i was just a bit drunk that night, and i was in my room bored, and my makeup was cute so i was feeling good about myself…and…and…yeah…” you trail off. 

why are you even explaining this to him in such detail? you silently curse yourself in your head, beating yourself up for running your mouth so much. 

“oh, that’s good to know,” he nods, “i’m glad to hear that. no one else has possession of these photos?”

you eye him slowly, “nope,” you confirm. “just you—by accident, of course.”

you’re not sure if you imagine it, or if the situation as a whole is making you overinterpret everything that’s happening—but you’re almost certain you hear his breath hitch a little. he’s no longer looking at you, no longer burning you under his gaze like he was just a minute ago.

“right, by accident,” he repeats. it’s slow, like he’s reminding himself, like he has to speak slowly to process the information. “well, i hope this serves as a lesson for being more careful next time. you don’t want young men to save such pictures of yourself for ulterior motives.”

geto suguru, your teacher’s assistant for intro to literature 1301, seems to be rather invested in your well-being—more than a TA really should be. if you didn’t know any better, you’d say he’s almost disappointed that you sent him a significantly revealing photo of yourself by accident instead of intentionally. and, if you squint just a little, it almost seems like he doesn’t want anyone else to have the pictures. not because he’s concerned for you—but rather, because he wants to be the only one who’s seen them. 

your thoughts from last night come flooding back, how he’s probably well built under his shirt, how shoko thinks he’s still a virgin, and especially how he probably looks and sounds when he’s overwhelmed with pleasure. and geto suguru might think he has you cornered like a cat would a mouse, but what he doesn’t know is that you’ve been the serpent the whole time, fangs ready to sink into him and devour him whole. 

“you know, you seem like you speak from experience,” you can’t help but grin slightly. 

now, logically speaking, this is wrong—this is pushing the kindness he so graciously showed you. by now, you should be fighting back tears as you figure out a way to break the news to everyone you know that you’ve had to receive an expulsion for sending your TA nudes. by now, your life should’ve been at an all time low, so you really shouldn’t be testing your luck. 

but geto has practically seen your tits, so you’re not really sure there’s any point in acting like an angel around him—and he’s so incredibly hot in that button up shirt of his, sleeves rolled halfway up his arm. plus, the thought of him being your inexperienced TA, one who lets you strip him of his innocence as you slowly taint his purity—it excites you a little more than it really should.

he clears his throat, not meeting your eyes. this time, yours bore into him through a searing gaze that almost makes him shift uncomfortably. 

“well, like i said, i am around your age, so i know how men’s minds work when it comes to these things—”

“so then tell me,” you raise a brow, smirking slightly as his jaw clenches, “is it because your mind works the same way?”

“now—”

“did you save my tit pics to your phone?” you ask bluntly. he hides the choked cough through a clearing of his throat—bingo, you think. almost instantly, the room shifts to him being nervous under your gaze as you eye him smugly. 

something about sweet, kind, successful geto suguru, young and ambitious with a perfect gpa and a flawless resume, being hot and bothered by your breasts makes you swell with pride—and you think maybe…maybe giving him a blow job might not be such an outlandish thought after all. 

maybe he wants it to be a reality just as badly as you do. 

“w-what are you implying—”

“did they turn you on?” you interrupt, watching as his cheeks heat up a slight flush of pink, “did you wish i’d moved my arm down so you could get the full view?” he clears his throat, opening his mouth to speak, but you don’t give him the chance. “was that the first nude you’ve ever been sent?”

“i think that’s enough,” he says sternly, but his voice is slightly higher in pitch—which tells you everything you need to know. and you’re enthused. “keep in mind, i could have every intention to notify the dean of these—”

“but suguru,” you pout, rolling his first name off your tongue so sweetly, he can’t help but be hungry for another taste of something so decadent, “if you tattle on me, you’ll never get a chance to actually see my nipples this time,” you giggle, “isn’t that what you want?”

“i—”

“i wonder,” you grin wickedly, “did you act like every other guy our age and jack off to a random girl’s tits?” 

you must hit close to home because he lets out a shaky exhale, jaw tight and fists clenched as his knuckles turn pale. he swallows thickly before finally meeting your eyes, face a deep shade of crimson as you grin at him widely. 

“i…i’m not…immune to things of that nature,” he finally admits, voice strained as your grin widens. almost instantly, you’re standing up, locking the door behind you and making your way over to his side of the desk without hesitation. the cards have been dealt in your hand, all that’s left is to play them—and you’re pleased to say that the game is heavily leaning in your favor. 

“wanna show me?” you ask with a sultry voice, “wanna show me how you fucked your fist last night? i’ll even let you see my nipples this time around,” you murmur as you seat yourself on his lap. 

geto scoots his chair back and makes room for you, breathing heavily as his pants strain with the tent already forming in them. his breath hitches when your hand rubs over his erection—and he curses himself for being so pathetic as to let a few words from you let him get riled up like this. but you’re so pretty—always have been. 

you sit in class and chew on the top of your pen, making it hard to avert his attention from your mouth. you tilt your head and furrow your brows so cutely when you’re confused, making it hard for him to concentrate on what he’s teaching. you laugh so sweetly out of glee when you do something correctly, and your voice shoots right through his heart—and sometimes, as ashamed as he is to admit it, straight to his dick too. 

and he’s well aware of how bad of an idea this is, but this is everything he’s ever dreamt about—right here under the palm of his hands. literally. so he grips your hips tightly, bringing you to rub over him through your own pants. the friction makes him throw his head back, moaning quietly as your clothed cunt drags along his length. you chuckle, palms gliding over his chest through his shirt and feeling the firm muscle under your hands. 

“does that feel good?” you ask, making him stifle a whimper as you glide over his nipples through his shirt.

your hands move to unzip his pants—and the best part? he lets you. he sits back and lets you free his aching cock from its confinements, he lets you wrap your fingers around his thick girth and squeeze gently, and he lets you pull the soft, low moans you’ve fantasized of hearing from his lips as you smear his pre cum along his shaft and stroke him slowly. 

“f-fuck,” he grunts, hips bucking into your hand, lips tugging between his teeth as he pants harshly with every squeeze at the base of his cock. and because you really can’t help it, you lean down to kiss along his jaw, making your way to his neck and nibbling at his skin. he groans, whispering your name—it makes your thighs squeeze together as a dull ache forms between your own legs. “feels…feels so good,” he mumbles breathlessly, “so different when you do it.”

you giggle, watching him carefully so as not to miss a single reaction. “oh yeah? you know, shoko said you were probably a virgin,” you purr against his ear, making his hands clutch onto your hips tighter, “you seem to be proving that theory right.”

“d-don’t stop,” he pleads when your hand slows, making his hips thrust sloppily into your fist and try to keep your earlier pace going. but you’re mean—just a tad bit cruel, and you wanna see him ooze with shame. so you squeeze on his cock, stilling the movement and making him rasp as he buries his head into your neck with a whine. 

“are you a virgin, suguru?” you hum, stroking his hair soothingly—but it contradicts the teasing tone of your voice. 

his face burns in your neck, “yes,” he mumbles quietly, like the admission stings. 

“how cute,” you pout, “so no one’s ever sucked your dick before?” he shakes his head slowly into the crook of your neck—but it’s not nearly as satisfying when he’s hiding, so you pull his face away despite his initial protesting. “i want to hear it,” you say firmly. 

“fuck—no,” he groans, his face an even deeper shade of red than you thought was possible, “no, no one has ever…you know…”

“sucked your dick?” you grin.

“stop,” he whines. you chuckle quietly before climbing off his lap and sinking down to your knees before him, looking up at his shocked face with a smirk. 

“wanna know something?” you hum, “i’ve thought about sucking your dick.” 

“thinking about you TA like that?” he huffs a chuckle—but whatever semblance of composure he had, he loses as soon as you press a gentle kiss to the tip of his flushed cock, reddened and swollen at the head as beads of pre cum leak from the slit. 

“just like you jack off to your student,” you shoot back, “you want it, suguru? do you want me to make you feel good?”

“god—yes,” he hisses, “get on with it,” he says as he’s throwing you a glare when you snicker up at him from in between his legs. you run your tongue along the tip, humming as you take in the taste of him before wrapping your lips around him and taking him down your throat. 

the reaction is instant—geto slumps back against his chair, gasping as you swallow around him, bobbing your head up and down his length. you loosen your jaw, fucking him with your mouth, letting your tongue drag along the thick vein running across the underside of his cock. his hand falls to the top of your head while the other grips the armrest of his chair, skin turning white over his knuckles as he tightens his hold with each time the warmth of your mouth swallows around him. 

“oh—g-god, shit that’s it,” he grunts, hips bucking into your throat as you pick up your pace. “feels fuckin’ amazing—oh, fuck.”

your hand wraps around the base of his member, pumping what won’t fit in your mouth so no part of him is left neglected. and when your other hand reaches for his balls, rolling the sensitive sacs in your hand and squeezing gently, he rewards you with a whine, voice lilting off to a high pitched moan as his hips thrust up instinctively. your nose brushes against his pelvis, and with a few more swallows, you feel him twitch in your mouth. 

“fuck, fuck, ‘m c-close,” he pants, chest falling and rising erratically. you look up, watching through teary eyes as spit and pre cum dribble down your chin, taking in the pretty sight of his face flushed and his skin damp, bangs clinging to his forehead just like you imagined them to. “don’t stop—’m gonna cum…gonna…gonna make me cum,” he rasps. 

you moan around him, and the vibrations send him over the edge, hips raising as he groans loudly. hot, thick ropes of his cum paint your mouth, seeping past your lips and dripping down your chin as you try your best to swallow what you can. geto sounds better than you expected—voice deep and raspy, but still the same smoothness it always holds even through the cracks as he brokenly calls your name. 

the sound of his voice as he moans your name makes your walls clench around nothing and your clit throb. you let him fuck himself into your mouth through his high, riding out the last waves of his orgasm as pleasure burns through every nerve and every inch of him. when he finally slumps back into his chair, breathing harshly, you pull off of his cock, wiping the mess from your chin on your sleeve. and before you can open your mouth to tease him some more, you’re pulled back onto his lap, his mouth on yours, kissing you deep. 

“this’ll have to be a secret,” he mumbles, “for both of us.” 

for someone who’s never done anything like this before, geto rids you of your clothes almost expertly, lifting your shirt over your arms and sliding your pants off in an instant. he groans when his fingers trace over your clit—which you’re happy to know he can find—and feels the wetness of your slick drooling over the fabric. 

“c’mon, suguru,” you hum, voice edging on a little impatient, “go ahead and touch a pussy for the first time.”

he huffs, yanking the fabric to the side before sinking his ring and middle fingers into you, knuckle deep as this thumb runs circles along your clit. you whine, grinding your hips down on his hand, impatiently waiting for him to move. 

“for someone who’s experienced,” he grins, “you’re awfully impatient.” 

you open your mouth to respond, but as soon as you try to retort, his fingers thrust into you, hitting the sensitive spot of your walls with ease and making you cut yourself off with a moan. he scissors his fingers, stretching you open as your head falls to his shoulder with soft whimpers, feeling him curl his digits deep into you. you whine as your clit hits over his palm, feeling the slow build up of the coil in your belly reach the snapping point.

“keep going,” you encourage, “‘m close, k-keep going—fuck, suguru!” 

“god, you’re so pretty,” he breathes, watching as your head tips back and your mouth parts with a silent sob, watching as you break—all because of him. your walls spasm around his fingers as they bully into you and ride you through your orgasm, and your lips are slightly swollen from biting on them, eyes crinkled as you screw them shut, skin damp and glistening as sweat coats your forehead. 

perfect—you look perfect, and suguru has fantasized about this image in his head for so long, he can hardly believe it’s a reality before him. 

your hands find his long hair, tugging and twisting at the strands that slip between your fingers as the last few waves of your high crash over you. 

the rest is a blur—somewhere through rough and sloppy kisses, through rolled hips and soft groans as you grind against each other, geto has managed to unclasp your bra, letting your tits bounce freely. his hands immediately cup around them, squeezing gently before his lips pull away and his eyes fall to your chest. 

“fuck, they look better in person,” he grunts, rolling his thumbs over your pebbled nipples before pinching them lightly and rolling them between his fingers. you squeal, and your cunt is dripping—smearing your slick along his bare thigh as he teases over the sensitive skin. “feels good?” he mumbles.

“so good—don’t stop,” you moan, making his breath hitch in his throat. grinning, you open your eyes, hazy with lust, meeting his own unfocused gaze, “doing so well, suguru. making me feel so good.”

geto likes praise. you can tell that much alone from his hefty list of accomplishments on his resume. he’s beaming with pride the first day your professor introduces him in class while explaining how capable he is at his young age. he does a good job of staying humble, but you never fail to notice the twinge of excitement in his eyes when he’s praised for his impressive work ethic. 

there’s no exception now either—his eyes search yours for every hint he can find that he’s doing a good job, that he’s doing well and giving you exactly what you want. you swear his cock twitches when you say the word good—and he seems to notice it too because there’s a shaky breath against your neck as he groans. 

“fuck,” he breathes, hands falling to your hips and gripping tightly, desperately, when your hand grabs his throbbing cock, still hard and leaking pre cum from the reddened tip. “want to feel you,” he groans, “please.”

it’s all it takes for you to sink down on him, forehead pressing to his as you both moan against each other’s mouths. he’s big—long and thick, curved at an angle that makes him sink against your sweet spot almost perfectly, almost like he was made for you. it’s a shame he’s your TA, a small part of you almost feels a twinge of disappointment he can’t fully be yours. 

“fuck, suguru,” you gasp, “so big, feels so good.”

he whines, helping lift your hips up and guide you down on his cock, your hips rolling against his, the sound of your moans and the slapping of skin filling up the small office. you’re sure anyone passing by could hear and figure out what’s going on—but it only thrills you more, making you slam down on him faster. 

“so tight,” he grunts, “g-god, so fucking tight, i can’t—” 

his hands are everywhere, they dig into your hips, glide up to cup your tits, and find the back of your neck to pull you close and meet your lips. he’s panting, sweat making strands of hair cling to his forehead as his skin flushes a deep shade of crimson. his hips buck up into you, meeting you halfway with desperate thrusts, trying to feel you deeper. 

your head is spinning—not just from the way his thick girth splits you open, or from the way his tip slams against your spot so perfectly, but from the way his touch seems to light your skin up with every drag of his fingertips. and then he brings one hand down between your bodies, rubbing his thumb against your clit in harsh circles. 

“are you gonna cum, suguru? cause i am,” you moan, “wanna be good and cum with me? fill me up nice and full?”

“sh-shit,” he lets out a shaky breath. he does want to fill you up—wants to cum deep into you so you’re dripping as you walk out of his office. so that when you sit in class and stare at him as he teaches class, you can’t help but think of the way he was buried to the hilt inside you just hours ago. “yeah…yeah, ‘m gonna cum. gonna fill you up, baby,” he groans, “stuff you full of my cum. want it?”

“wan’ it so bad, suguru,” you whine, “look so pretty when you cum, wanna see it again.” 

and with a few more rolls of your hips, the squelching sounds of his cock slipping in and out of you all but drowned out but your pants, you fall off the edge—geto not far behind. you can feel his cock twitch as he shoots rope after rope of his thick cum into you, angling his hips up to fuck it deep into your pussy. it’s a mess, your slick mixed with his seed dripping along your thighs and coating your skin, but you can’t find it in you to care. and you also can’t find it in you to care that you’ll have to leave after this and see him again as you sit through his class. and you certainly don’t have it in you to care that you could both get in serious trouble if anyone realized this was happening.

instead, you cup his cheeks with a gentleness that makes his breath hitch in his throat with a strangled whine, and you kiss him, hard and deep. 

“f-fuck, fuck—ngh, shit,” he gasps, against your mouth in labored pants. it’s never felt like this—cumming into his fist is one thing, but cumming into your tight walls, feeling them squeeze around him in sync with his high is something he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to forget. he thinks you’ve ruined touching himself for him, thinks he’ll never be able to go back to being fine with just his hand to keep him company when he’s aching between his legs.

after this, geto isn’t sure how he’s supposed to just forget this happened—or about you. his hands don’t stop guiding you onto his cock, hips not ceasing to fuck up into you until you’re both whimpering from sensitivity.

it’s too much—but somehow, it’ll never be enough.

you slump over him when he finally slows down to a stop, bodies a sweaty heap against each other on his chair as his arms wrap around you and his lips find your damp forehead for a soft kiss. you turn your head, pressing a kiss to his jaw in return.

“so,” you wriggle your brows, “can this count as extra credit?” you ask cheekily, feeling his chest rumble with a low chuckle as he pulls you tighter against his chest.

“sure. i’ll even give you enough extra credit opportunities to be top of the class,” he grins.

© hanmas do not plagiarize, repost, translate to other sites, or recommend on platforms outside tumblr such as tik tok

[creative-caramel-coffee]

Late night’s studying

Summary: reader pushes herself too far for university and work. Scarlett and Lizzie look after her.

Tw: fainting, overworking, stress, assignments

Words: 3.2K

A/n I might be projecting … once again lol

Lately you hadn’t had time to do much other than work and study. Being the youngest on set was great sometimes but it also really sucked.

Lately you had been swamped with assignments, you had been extremely stressed trying to get it all done before the university deadlines. You had already applied for one extension, but it didn’t seem like enough.

You spent long hours filming scenes over and over, but your mind was anywhere but where it was meant to be.

Being the youngest you didn’t want the others to know you were still getting some form of higher education. It’s not that you weren’t proud of it, no not at all, it was more you didn’t want them to see you as anymore of the child they all treated you like. You were legally an adult but being the youngest made you the baby of the marvel set.

On screen your character spent a lot of time with the scarlet witch and black widow meaning you shot lots of scenes with Elizabeth and Scarlett. They had been very nice and invited you to join them at the cast parties and dinners that various actors on set hosted, but you had always politely declined much to their dismay.

On set and off set Elizabeth and Scarlett had practically adopted you. Yet whenever you were done filming for the day you disappeared to your trailer.

As the weeks wore on your work was piling up with unfinished tasks you simply hadn’t had time to get to. You were almost three weeks behind in your deadlines now and it was majorly stressing you out.

You had been pulling ultra late nights in an effort to meet due dates where you could. Settling for half effort when you really just wanted to sleep. You had barely managed four hours each night for the past week being awake well into the early hours of the morning.

You knew you weren’t the only one staying in your trailer overnight, so you had to be careful not to arouse suspicions towards your sleeping habits. The amount of coffee you had been ingesting was somewhere between ungodly and criminal. Makeup covered your racoon eyes and as like the night goblins that roamed the neighbourhoods you felt like trash.

You rubbed a fist at your eyes looking up from your laptop to glance at the time. 3am, sighing you saved and closed your work. It was time for bed. You had to be up soon anyway for early morning filming.

Setting your alarm and collapsing into bed you snuggled up praying the coffee you had wouldn’t keep you awake and rob you of the precious hours of sleep your hectic schedule allowed.

You woke up to a fist banging on the door.

“Y/n, get your butt out here filming starts in thirty minutes and you’re keeping hair and makeup waiting.” Alyssa your manager yelled.

“I’m up.” You called back springing out of bed and almost falling over as your tired body protested.

“You better be.” You heard her grumble before she moved away from your trailer.

You found your costume hung where you had left it over the back of a chair and slipped it on. Inspecting the damage of the previous late night under your eyes and slapping on some concealer. The lady who did your makeup never commented that you were always already wearing some, you appreciated that she never mentioned it in front of Scarlett and Lizzie.

After throwing a hoodie over the costume you slipped out the trailer shivering in the cold. You headed for hair and makeup and stifled a yawn as you stepped into the slightly bigger trailer.

Scarlett and Lizzie were already there and halfway done with their costumes as you flopped into a seat next to Scarlett.

“Tired already Y/n/n?” Scarlett laughed.

You shot her a smile which came as more of grimace. “Yeah, I guess.” You said with a hum and a dejected chuckle. You were too exhausted to see the worried looks Scarlett and Lizzie exchanged beside you.

“You know if you ever need to talk about stuff, we’re here for you?” Lizzie said recognising your anxiety as you fiddled with your rings.

“We’ll always listen honey.” Scarlett said placing her hand on top of yours and looking into your almost half hooded eyes.

“Um… Thanks, but I’m ok.” You said looking away as your tongue darted out to wet your dry lips.

Scarlett seemed to deflate as you rejected her help, and she patted your hand twice before returning hers to her lap.

You didn’t say much throughout the hair and makeup process. Once more the kind women didn’t mention your copious amount of concealer that was hiding your secret honorary racoon status as a member of the sleepless night club.

Scarlett and Lizzie kept an eye on you but eventually had to leave to shoot some scenes together before they needed you on set as well.

The two women had noticed you pulling away more than usual and your quieter than normal behaviour. You had stopped having lunch with them and after a while of you rejected their offers, they were close to giving up on asking.

“Do you think somethings going on at home?” Lizzie asked Scarlett as they finished a scene.

“No. I’m not sure what it is but i don’t think it’s that.” Scarlett said watching you out of the corner of her eye as you shuffled onto set and sat down in a chair, zoning out staring at a stain on the wall.

“I’m worried about her.” Lizzie said.

“Me too Liz, but we’ll just have to wait for her to come to us. We just need to not let her push us away.” Scarlett said as the director called for the scene to start.

Feeling a hand on your shoulder you jumped slightly turning to see your manger standing there with a slightly worried look in her eye.

“Y/n they’re waiting for you.” She said nodding to the set where Scarlett and Lizzie stood talking to the director.

“Oh.” You said dragging yourself upright.

As you stood your head swum, your vision went fuzzy, and you were too focused on staying upright than trying to listen to what your manager was saying.

You tried your best to downplay it and as your vision returned you nodded at what she had said, hoping it was something you were meant to agree to. Based on the small downturn of her lips you may have been wrong. You gave her a small smile to compensate, and she eyed you closely before nudging you towards the others.

you stumbled for a second despite the nudge being lighter than air. You regained your footing and went over to join the others to shoot the scene.

The filming was going well until you were up to filming a certain scene.

The scene was nothing awful, after a cut from a fight scene where your character gets knocked down Scarlett or the black widow had to help you to your feet and keep fighting. Because the scene uses your face you at least needed to be pulled up off the ground before the stunt double could take over.

Normally this would be easy but with how tired you were any sudden movements like standing too quickly made your head spin and you knew it wouldn’t just be one take.

You got into position on the ground with Scarlett above you and Lizzie watching from the side as she wasn’t needed in this scene but was in the next.

Taking a deep breath the director called for them to start rolling and Scarlett offered you a hand. Taking it she pulled you to your feet. Immediately your head felt like it was in a washing machine. The world spun and you tripped over your feet as you over balanced. Scarlett was quick to grab you before you ended up on the floor again. Setting you back on your feet you didn’t hear the director call cut and to reset. Your vision was hazy as you waited for it to come back.

A soft hand landed on your shoulder making you jump as Scarlett’s words finally reached your ears.

“-u ok y/n/n?” Scarlett asked and you swallowed nervously and nodded your vision clear.

“Let’s go again from the top.” The director called and you gingerly lowered yourself back to the ground mentally preparing to do it again.

Scarlett looked at you worriedly but ultimately knew there wasn’t much she could do.

As they began the scene again this time you didn’t stay upright for long. As soon as Scarlett pulled you up your body had had enough. Still holding your hand and with the momentum of being pulled up your body collided with Scarlett’s. Your grip going limp as you passed out. Luckily Scarlett regained her footing and wrapped her arms around you before you went down yourself.

Lizzie ran over as Scarlett laid you down on your side.

“Oh god.” Lizzie said when she realised you were out cold. “Medic!” She yelled as Scarlett crouched down beside you, one hand holding your hand and the other tapping your face as she softly called your name. “We need a medic!” Lizzie yelled as she looked around.

A moment later a medic came over and begun looking you over.

“Is there anything i should know? Have either of you noticed anything different about her in the past few days or prior to filming this morning?” The young man asked as he took your pulse with two fingers on your neck and eyes trained on his watch to count the beats.

“She seemed a little out of it this morning and she stumbled a lot during the first take.” Scarlett said.

“She’s been more anxious as well and withdrawn more than usual also.” Lizzie chipped in.

“It sounds like sleep deprivation, do either of you know if she’s been sleeping enough?” He asked.

“I’m not sure, she’s been staying in her trailer on set most nights.” Lizzie said turned to Scarlett who also shook her head.

“I don’t know either sorry.” The blonde said.

“Ok, well there’s one way to know but we need to take all this makeup off.” He said turned to look at the director stood a few feet away watching. He nodded his assent.

“She’s not going to be working for the rest of the day now anyway.” He said. “Not after passing out on set.” He added under her breath.

The medic nodded and took a wipe and begun to remove your makeup. Lizzie held in a gasp as how pale you were and how it contrasted with the dark purple smudges under your eyes.

Just as Scarlett took the cloth from his hand and finished removing your makeup with steady and tender hands you screwed your nose up, eyes fluttering as they stayed closed.

“Y/n/n?” Lizzie called taking your hand as she knelt beside you. You let out a small groan as you came back to life and exhaustion pummelled your weak body.

You smacked your lips and frowned eyes still closed. “My mouth tastes bad.” You mumbled and Lizzie laughed despite looking like she was about to start crying. Scarlett smirked and your very in character response to just passing out on set despite her mounting worries for you.

“God, Y/n don’t ever do that again.” Lizzie said brushing a curl from your eyes. “I think you just took five years off my life.” She said and you opened your eyes blinking up at her and frowning.

“Sorry.” You said going to sit up when Scarlett placed a hand on your chest to keep you down. You frowned at her looking for an explanation.

“Absolutely not.” She scolded. “You are not sitting up, yet you just passed out for gods sakes. From sleep deprivation no less, Y/n you HAVE to look after yourself.” Scarlett said and you sighed.

“Sorry.” You said again just looking up at them.

“And stop apologising.” Lizzie said with a small smile.

“So, what now?” You asked licking your dry lips. Three sets of eyes turned to the brunette medic.

“Bed rest.” He said. And there it was your two lest favourite words. You had always hated staying still and unless you were injured or dying you hated bed rest it was too boring.

You opened your mouth to protest but Lizzie and Scarlett turned to glare at you.

“So, help me Y/n, if the words about to come out of your mouth are anything but ‘yes sir’ I will personally make sure you sleep myself.” Lizzie said and Scarlett scoffed.

“I think we are already past that. Y/n your coming home with me.” Scarlett said and you wanted to protest but she continued seeing the look on your face. “Y/n, you haven’t been sleeping.” She said in a stern voice. “You need to sleep. Lizzie is staying with me as well because i’m closer to set and we are not letting you leave until you have had at least ten hours of sleep. And before you say you don’t want to impose, I’m not offering, I’m instructing. Understood?” She said and you bit your lip staying silent for a second before sighing softly and nodding.

“Right let's go then.” Scarlett said leaning down and scooping you up. A small squeak escaped your lips as you blushed furiously.

“I can walk.” You said indignantly.

“Not after that stunt you're not.” She said. “Plus, the doctor said bed rest.” She winked playfully as she carried you off set with Lizzie trailing behind.

“He’s a medic not a doctor.” You grumbled under your breath and Scarlett smirked.

“What did you say?” She asked pretending to not have heard your sarcastic quip.

“Nothing.” You huffed.

“Your glad your cute. If rose pulled a stunt like that she would be in time out for a week.” Scarlett said and you groaned.

“Rose is a child. I am an adult.” You huffed.

“An adult who acts like a child and has the self preservation of a toddler.” Lizzie teased and you glared daggers at her making her chuckle as you moved on to pouting petulantly in Scarlett’s arms to the amusement of both older actresses. As you arrived at the car and Scarlett put you in the backseat with Lizzie you begun to regret not putting up more of a fight.

“Come on Y/n/n, it’ll be fun. We’ll have a movie night.” Lizzie said switching her approach to a softer one.

“Is rose attending this movie night?” You asked and Scarlett nodded as she adjusted the rear-view mirror.

“Probably.” She said and you groaned loudly.

“I am NOT watching frozen again.” You said sliding your hands down your face in defeat.

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic, you love it.” Lizzie teased elbowing you in the ribs.

“Not when it’s the millionth time watching it.” You shot back.

“Sure, thing L/n.” Lizzie said sarcastically. You rolled your eyes and leant against the window closing your eyes.

You were out like a light before Scarlett could park the car. Leading to you once more being carried around in Scarlett’s arms as they decided not to wake you up just yet.

Rose was still at school and Colin was in the studio with the writers today meaning for now it was just you three.

Scarlett laid you down between the two of them in the day room as she tucked a blanket around you and switched on the TV flicking through to find something was watch.

You stirred slightly as the two of them got comfy next to you. Scarlett had an arm around you protectively while Lizzie’s shoulders were pressed gently against your right chest as she had burrowed into your side.

Your eyes fluttered as you yawned, opting to not move from the warmth and comfort of the two women.

The events of the day slammed into you as you realised you still had three essays due soon and countless homework tasks.

You must have subconsciously tensed as both actresses turned to look as you. The sound of some rom com playing in the background.

“Hello sweetie.” Scarlett said with a smile. “Feeling any better, you must be exhausted.” She said and you nodded staying silent.

Lizzie eyed you closely taking note of your quiet demeanour. Reaching out and taking your hand in hers she gave it a soft squeeze.

“Talk to us sweetheart.” Lizzie said softly. “I can see somethings bothering you. Tell us what’s on your mind, it may help you feel better.” She said and you drew a slow shaky breath as the dam broke. You let out a choked sob as you curled into Scarlett’s side, Lizzie curling against your back and rubbing a hand up and down your arm as you trembled with silent sobs.

“I have so much work to do. I didn’t want the cast to treat me as a child, so I didn’t tell them I’m still at university.” You said as Scarlett gently ran her hands through your hair.

“So, you’ve been juggling acting and uni full time and none of us knew?” Lizzie said and you sniffled nodding as you turned to look at her with your teary gaze.

“Honey you must be so stressed. Is this why you have been sleeping? Too much to do and not enough time?” Scarlett asked and you nodded again biting your lip to stop it trembling.

Lizzie softly reached out to remove your lip from your teeth with her thumb. “None of that honey.” She reprimanded softly.

“Well now we know, you won’t be doing it alone we’ll help you. You can stay here with us and as well as making sure you sleep; we can help with any work you have.” Scarlett said.

“I did graduate from NYU after all, I’m not just a pretty face.” Lizzie joked and your lips curved into a small smile.

“There’s that gorgeous smile.” Scarlett said as she rubbed your arm. “Now it’s time to rest, your exhausted and you are doing nothing other than rest for the foreseeable future okay?” She asked.

“But … but my assignments.” You said looking up as her.

“Shhh leave it to us, and everything will be sorted.” Scarlett said as she guided your head to her chest. “Rest honey. Go to sleep you need it.” She said and you curled into her. She was warm and cozy and at some point, Lizzie and Scarlett had changed as you were also in comfier clothes than your costume. Not that you minded.

You let out a small sigh sandwiched between the two. Your head resting on Scarlett’s chest as she played with your hair, your body half in her lap. Lizzie was spooning you from behind with her head resting on your shoulder to watch the movie you had all been ignoring.

You finally felt relaxed for the first time in what must have been months thanks to them.

Maybe you weren’t sleeping well on your own, but when Scarlett and Lizzie were there, you felt protected and safe enough to sleep, no long worrying about your studies which as they had said, could always wait for you to be healthy again.

[opencommunion]

"Al Mezan’s latest investigation reveals that since the onset of the genocidal military campaign against Gaza, Israeli forces have detained at least 3,000 Palestinian residents of Gaza, including women, children, elderly people, as well as professionals such as doctors, nurses, teachers and journalists. This aggressive detention campaign is unparalleled, with detainees subjected to multiple forms of cruelty, torture, inhuman and degrading treatment from the moment they are arrested and continue throughout their detention at interrogation centers. This occurs without any judicial oversight or legal protection, in blatant defiance of international humanitarian law and international human rights law.

Based on its firsthand documentation and available information, Al Mezan has estimated that around 1,650 Palestinian residents of Gaza are interned in Israeli prisons under the Unlawful Combatants Law. This figure represents a substantial increase compared to previous reports. These detainees are held in total isolation from the outside world at Nafha and Negev (Ketziot) prisons. A ruling from the Israeli judiciary prohibits the release of information about them, and they are denied the right to appoint lawyers or receive legal representation.

The ‘Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law’—introduced in 2002 and lastly amended in December 2023—grants the Chief of the General Staff of the Israeli army the power to incarcerate individuals without charge based on suspicion of them being 'unlawful combatants.' This law deprives detainees of any meaningful judicial review and due process rights. ... Detainees held under this law are neither granted the status of prisoners of war under the Third Geneva Convention, nor afforded the protections of civilian detainees under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

An additional 300 Palestinian residents of Gaza, including 10 children, who are not currently detained under the Unlawful Combatants Law, are being held in Ashkelon and Ofer prisons pending investigation. The Palestinian Commission of Detainees Affairs reported the deaths of at least 13 Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons since 7 October 2023, while the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported the death of 27 Gaza detainees during the same period.

Over the past six months, Al Mezan has been actively monitoring and documenting arrest operations by the Israeli military in Gaza. Recently, Al Mezan lawyer managed to visit approximately 40 detainees in Ashkelon and Ofer prisons. This visit occurred after the Israeli Public Prosecution had exhausted all legal deadlines preventing lawyers from visiting detainees. The testimonies provided by these detainees to Al Mezan unveiled harrowing accounts of torture and inhumane treatment from the moment of their arrest. They were forced to strip naked, wear blindfolds, and have their wrists tied. They were also brutally beaten, deprived of sleep for several days, denied food and deliberately starved as a form of torture and collective punishment.

A 19-year-old detainee told Al Mezan lawyer that he was tortured from the moment he was arrested. He described how three of his fingernails were removed with pliers during interrogation. He also stated that investigators unleashed a dog on him and subjected him to shabeh—a form of torture which involves detainees being handcuffed and bound in stress positions for long periods—three times over three days of interrogation. He was then placed in a cell for 70 days, where he experienced starvation and extreme fatigue.

The detainee described the conditions within the detention rooms, stating that there was nothing in them but mattresses, which were brought in at 10 pm and removed after four hours. He stated that detainees were forced to shower in cold water and that food provisions were meager, with a breakfast of ten slices of bread and one small labneh container for the 12 detainees in the room. The second meal of the day consisted of three tomatoes and a plate of rice and the third meal of either one egg or one can of tuna for the entire room.

Al Mezan lawyer reported that all detainees suffer from acute emaciation, fatigue and back curvature due to being forced to bend their backs and heads while walking. They also bear marks from handcuffs on their wrists. Additionally, detainees are experiencing starvation and difficult psychological conditions, with many unable to even recall the names of people present in the room. The lawyer remarked that in his more than 20 years of working with detainees, he had never encountered conditions as appalling as those observed at Ofer prison. He noted seeing one detainee who, six months after his arrest, had become skeletal, with bruises on his face.

... Issam Younis, Director General of Al Mezan, stated, 'The evidence and testimonies gathered by our lawyer reveal a level of reprisals and torture that lacks any semblance of humanity. What Israel is doing to Palestinian detainees forms part of its genocide against the Palestinian people. It is imperative to halt this genocide and ensure accountability for those responsible for heinous genocidal acts.'"

15 April 24

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Don’t Be Evil

Tonight (November 22), I'll be joined by Vass Bednar at the Toronto Metro Reference Library for a talk about my new novel, The Lost Cause, a preapocalyptic tale of hope in the climate emergency.

My latest Locus Magazine column is "Don't Be Evil," a consideration of the forces that led to the Great Enshittening, the dizzying, rapid transformation of formerly useful services went from indispensable to unusable to actively harmful:

https://locusmag.com/2023/11/commentary-by-cory-doctorow-dont-be-evil/

While some services have fallen harder and/or faster, they're all falling. When a whole cohort of services all turn sour in the same way, at the same time, it's obvious that something is happening systemically.

After all, these companies are still being led by the same people. The leaders who presided over a period in which these companies made good and useful services are also presiding over these services' decay. What factors are leading to a pandemic of rapid-onset enshittification?

Recall that enshittification is a three-stage process: first surpluses are allocated to users until they are locked in. Then they are withdrawn and given to business-customers until they are locked in. Then all the value is harvested for the company's shareholders, leaving just enough residual value in the service to keep both end-users and business-customers glued to the platform.

We can think of each step in that enshittification process as the outcome of an argument. At some product planning meeting, one person will propose doing something to materially worsen the service to the company's advantage, and at the expense of end-users or business-customers.

Think of Youtube's decay. Over the past year, Google has:

Dramatically increased the cost of ad-free Youtube subscriptions;

Dramatically increased the number of ads shown to non-subscribers;

Dramatically decreased the amount of money paid to Youtube creators;

Added aggressive anti-adblock;

Then, this week, Google started adding a five-second blanking interval for non-Chrome users who have adblockers installed:

https://www.404media.co/youtube-says-new-5-second-video-load-delay-is-supposed-to-punish-ad-blockers-not-firefox-users/

These all smack of Jenga blocks that different product managers are removing in pursuit of their "key performance indicators" (KPIs):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/microincentives-and-enshittification/

We can think of each of these steps as the outcome of an argument. Someone proposes a Youtube subscription price-hike, and other internal stakeholders object. These objections fall into two categories:

We shouldn't do this because it will make the product worse; and/or

We shouldn't do this because it will reduce the company's earnings.

Lots of googlers sincerely care about product quality. People like doing a good job, and they take pride in making good things. Many have sacrificed something that mattered in the service of making the product better. It's bad enough to miss your kid's school play so you can meet a work deadline – but imagine making that sacrifice and then having the excellent work you put in deliberately degraded.

I have been around Google's orbit since its early days, going to the odd company Christmas party in the early 2000s and giving talks at Google offices in cities all over the world. I've known hundreds of skilled googlers who passionately cared about making the best products they could.

For most of Google's history, those googlers won the argument. But they didn't do so merely by appealing to their colleagues' professional pride in a job well-done. For most of Google's history, the winning argument was a combination of "doing this bad thing would make me sad," and "doing this bad thing will make Google poorer."

Companies are disciplined by three forces:

Competition (the fear of losing business to a rival);

Regulation (the fear of legal penalties that would exceed the expected profits from a given course of action);

Self-help (the fear that customers or users will change their behavior, say, by installing an ad-blocker).

The ability of googlers to win enshittification arguments by appealing to the company's bottom line was a function of one or more of these three disciplining factors. The weakening of each of these factors is the reason that every tech company is sliding into enshittification at once.

For example, when Google contemplates raising the price of a Youtube subscription, the dissent might say, "Well, this will reduce viewership and might shift viewers to rivals like Tiktok" (competition). But the price-hiking side can counter, "No, because we have a giant archive, we control 90% of searches, we are embedded in the workflow of vloggers and other creators who automatically stream and archive to Youtube, and Youtube comes pre-installed on every Android device." Even if the company leaks a few viewers to Tiktok, it will still make more money in aggregate. Prices go up.

When Google contemplates increasing the number of ads shown to nonsubscribers, the dissent might say, "This will incentivize more users to install ad-blockers, and then we'll see no ad-revenue from them." The pro-ad side can counter, "No, because most Youtube viewing is in-app, and reverse-engineering the Youtube app to add an ad-blocker is a felony under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. As to non-app viewers: we control the majority of browser installations and have Chrome progressively less hospitable to ad-blocking."

When Google contemplates adding anti-adblock to its web viewers, the dissent might say, "Processing users' data in order to ad-block them will violate Europe's GDPR." The anti-adblock side can counter, "But we maintain the fiction that our EU corporate headquarters is in the corporate crime-haven of Ireland, where the privacy regulator systematically underenforces the GDPR. We can expect a very long tenure of anti-adblock before we are investigated, and we might win the investigation. Even if we are punished, the expected fine is less than the additional ad-revenue we stand to make."

When Google contemplates stealing performers' wages through opaque reshufflings of its revenue-sharing system, the dissent might say, "Our best performers have options, they can go to Twitch or Tiktok." To which the pro-wage-theft side can counter, "But they have no way of taking their viewers with them. There's no way for them to offer their viewers on Youtube a tool that alerts them whenever they post a new video to a rival platform. Their archives are on Youtube, and if they move them to another platform, there's no way redirect users searching for those videos to their new homes. What's more, any attempt to unilaterally extract their users' contact info, or redirect searchers or create a multiplatform client, violates some mix of our terms of service, our rights under DMCA 1201, etc."

It's not just Google. For every giant platform, the threats of competition, regulation and self-help have been in steady decline for years, as acquisitions, underenforcement of privacy/labor/consumer law, and an increase in IP protection for incumbents have all mounted:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

When internal factions at tech companies argue about whether to make their services worse, there's a heavy weight tilting the scales towards enshittification. The lack of competition, an increase in switching costs for users and business-customers, and broad powers to prevent users from modifying the service for themselves all mean that even when a product gets worse, profits can still go up.

This is the culprit: monopoly, and its handmaiden, regulatory capture. That's why today's antimonopoly movement – and the cases against all the tech giants – are so important. The old, good internet was built by flawed tech companies whose internal ranks included the same amoral enshittifiers who are gobbling up the platforms' seed corn today. The thing that stood in their way before wasn't merely the moral character of colleagues who shrank away from these cynical maneuvers: it was the economic penalties that befell those who enshittified too rashly.

Incentives matter. Money talks and bullshit walks. Enshittification isn't due to the moral failings of individuals in tech companies. It's possible to have a good internet run by flawed people. But to get that new, good internet, we have to support technologists of good will and character by terrorizing their venal and cynical colleagues by hitting them where they live: in their paychecks.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/22/who-wins-the-argument/#corporations-are-people-my-friend

[thosearentcrimes]

Me for the past week: Damn I really need to focus on writing this paper about revolutionary self-perception in 1789-1794 France. No distractions, just relevant stuff, deadline's coming up.

Instead:

Maria Edgeworth's 1817 novel Harrington contains a vivid evocation of the Gordon Riots, with two unsympathetic characters taken for Papists and finding refuge in the home of the rich Spanish Jew, the father of the young Jewish woman at the centre of the love story.

huh never heard of her I wonder what was up with her

She held critical views on estate management, politics and education, and corresponded with some of the leading literary and economic writers, including Sir Walter Scott and David Ricardo.

that David Ricardo? from economics?

After Honora died in 1780 Maria's father married Honora's sister Elizabeth (then socially disapproved and legally forbidden from 1833 until the Deceased Wife's Sister's Marriage Act 1907)

wait what

The Deceased Wife's Sister's Marriage Act 1907 (7 Edw. 7. c. 47) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, allowing a man to marry his dead wife's sister, which had previously been forbidden.

ok yeah that's pretty much what it says on the tin

The 1907 Act did exactly what it said and no more. It was amended by the Deceased Brother's Widow's Marriage Act 1921 to allow a widow to marry her deceased husband's brother.[36][37] This was a response to First World War deaths to encourage remarriages, reducing war widows' pensions and increasing the birth rate.[37]

the war really did do a lot for gender equality didn't it

anyway what was up with Maria Edgeworth, let's catch up with her

When passing through the village, one of the party wrote, "We found neither mud hovels nor naked peasantry, but snug cottages and smiles all about".[10] A counter view was provided by another visitor who stated that the residents of Edgeworthstown treated Edgeworth with contempt, refusing even to feign politeness.[11]

Ireland moment

Following an anti-Semitic remark in The Absentee, Edgeworth received a letter from an American Jewish woman named Rachel Mordecai in 1815 complaining about Edgeworth's depiction of Jews.[45] In response, Harrington (1817) was written as an apology to the Jewish community.

imagine if Graham Linehan had responded this way to criticism of his transphobic IT crowd episode :)

Rachel Mordecai married widower Aaron Marks Lazarus in 1821, and moved to Wilmington, North Carolina, where she lived for the rest of her life. The Lazaruses had four children together, three daughters and a son, M. E. Lazarus, in a household that also included Mr. Lazarus's seven children from his first marriage.

oh the lady had a son who she named after the author she liked who turned out to be willing to not be anti-semitic, that's nice

Marx Edgeworth Lazarus (February 6, 1822 – 1896) was an American individualist anarchist, Fourierist, and free-thinker.

oh well that sounds nice enough

Lazarus was a practicing doctor of homeopathy

ehhhh

Through his adult life, Lazarus tried to cope with apparent mental and physical disturbances, in particular what seemed to be chronic nocturnal emissions, a condition that at the time was labeled "seminal incontinence" or "spermatorrhea," believed to be detrimental and even fatal to the mind and body. Lazarus sought treatments through homeopathy, hydropathy, and electromagnetic treatments that seemed to bring some temporary relief. He also discussed the condition in his 1852 book Involuntary Seminal Losses: Their Causes, Effects, and Cure," where he suggested that the total sexual abstinence that he had tried to practice might be one of those causes. In 1855, Lazarus shocked some of his fellow Fourierists and free love advocates by marrying a 19 year old woman from Indiana, Mary Laurie (or "Lawrie).[1]

oh... a libertarian...

By the mid-1850s, social movements like Fourierism were in decline, and Lazarus's later life seems to have had less focus. When the Civil War broke out, most members of Lazarus's extended family lived in Southern states and generally supported the Confederate cause. In 1861, Lazarus, was staying with relatives in Columbus, Georgia and joined the local City Light Guard when war broke out, later serving as company physician for the Wilmington, NC Artillery.

on the one hand, obviously very bad to enlist in the Confederate army right, but on the other hand a semen retentionist doing homeopathy to them can't really be classified as "aiding" them can it

After the war, Lazarus continued to practice his areas of medicine and contributed articles and comments to various publications.[5] By his last years, though, he had become a disenchanted recluse known as the "Sand Mountain Hermit" of Jackson County, Alabama.

most normal libertarian

I wonder what those articles and comments are, and what kind of website they're hosted on. Oh.

[kaibacorpintern]

tips and tricks on writing the kaibacorp environment

yes, this is pedantic. but more than that, YES i love small background details that lend a greater sense of accuracy and structure to a fictional world. this is not a complete or exhaustive list. (you are, of course, free to ignore and do whatever you want.)

Kaiba Corporation does not have "clients" - Kaiba doesn't do project work for hire; he's not an attorney or a consultant or an architect, he doesn't do billable hours. his meetings are most likely with his investors or business partners like Pegasus, with his board or c-suite executives (e.g., his chief technology officer, his chief legal officer, his chief human resources officer, etc.), various departmental meetings he might find interesting, and so on. Kaiba Corporation does have customers (the people who BUY the duel disk)/consumers (the people who USE the duel disk) but people who go to Kaiba Land will probably be referred to as visitors or guests. his primary responsibility, as the CEO of a publicly-traded corporation, is creating (financial) value for his shareholders and investors. (whether or not he gives a fuck about this responsibility is up to you.) .

Unless it's something he is responsible for, like quarterly earnings calls and shareholder calls, Kaiba doesn't have to finish or work on reports; he has very few deadlines he himself has to meet; he is not reviewing anything except the most important documents. Even then, as the CEO/president, someone is probably writing the most important documents FOR him and then handing it over for him to present or read off later - which he might revise/adjust as he likes. Kaiba's workdays most likely consist mainly of meetings where people report on how things are going to him, setting business strategy with the c-suite, meeting with the more heavy-hitting investors (for the drama: 'we will withdraw our investments unless you do X,') and writing a bajillion emails. .

Kaiba and Mokuba do not do any hiring or interviewing except for c-suite positions, because those are the people they work with most directly every day, and the people they most need to know are capable, qualified, and competent. they are way too busy to sit down with each one of the 38783 entry-level candidates Kaiba Corp combs through every day. for positions like their executive assistants or chief of staff, who might manage day-to-day schedules and do things like order lunch, an HR manager narrows the field to several qualified candidates and THEN Kaiba would make the final decision on who he wants to hire. .

No one is getting past the front desk at a place like Kaiba Corp without an appointment or a badge. Any given visitor X has to check in at the front desk - the front desk receptionist will look them up in the appointment register, give them a badge, and then let them through. For the c-suite level, or anywhere Kaiba takes his most important/official meetings (like his own office), there might be a second lobby/second desk controlling access. .

Some important dates on Kaiba's and Mokuba's calendars, when the pressure is on and they might be working much harder than usual (for the stress and the drama): - end of quarter/EOQ (4x a year) - end of fiscal year/EOFY. may not be aligned with calendar year - for example, the end of fiscal year might be march 30 - quarterly earnings call (4x a year) - yearly earnings call. Kaiba himself, or someone very high up, like a c-suite exec or a VP, will lead these calls - for things like duel disks, the months leading up to the holiday retail season (when they're preparing for greater demand on consumer product goods) and the holiday retail season itself - for things like Kaiba Land, the summer vacation season, but largely dependent on where their parks ARE (southern california when the weather is nice year-round? tokyo when you have colder weather in the winter and slightly lower attendance? etc.) .

VERY IMPORTANT: Kaiba has an office minifridge. imagine whatever you want in here. his executive assistants or office managers will keep this well-stocked. .

Kaiba, or Mokuba, might lead the quarterly "all-hands meeting" - which is an internal meeting for all employees. for a place like kaibacorp, which KT said has ~2,000 employees, this might be held in a large hall/auditorium. things that might happen at the all-hands meeting: hiring updates (we hired 300 new people in the EMEA region), new mission statements, reiteration of core company values, sharing the company's progress on various OKRs/objectives & key results or key targets (duel disk 2.0 released this year to great acclaim and we made 34.5 billion dollars! suck it nintendo!), public (and potentially anonymous) question-and-answer session at the end, where Kaiba or Mokuba might field employee questions. .

Kaiba or Mokuba might also be responsible for a weekly or monthly all-staff email keeping the entire company apprised of announcements, new partnerships, new business ventures, progress on whatever, new investments, etc. again, someone else (like a marketing manager) might write this for them and send it over for their review/adjustments, but the email officially comes from them. i personally like to imagine Kaiba writes some absolutely bonkers staff emails

[goldenpinof]

curious about your perspective – what do you think is the primary reason for the current comeback, and for the large scale of it (daily videos, new heavily marketed merch, etc)? are they trying to make up some monetary loss? is it true revitalized passion? the influence of the new management? lead-up to a major project/announcement? i'm guessing there's an element of at least the first three, but interested in your opinion as a noted non-cynical cynic (compliment btw)

under the cut because that's a lot. and it's not even all of my thoughts, unfortunately.

no one is gonna read it. but if you are, i'm sorry in advance.

ahaha. about merch. did you notice how they just continue to promote the calendar and the catboy sweater even though the initial release and promo had a deadline aka till December 1st? this is a fishy marketing right there. and i would love to know: why they did what they did (i'd assume they printed more calendars than people ordered by Dec 1st, but that's not our problem as customers. we shouldn't have been put into a framework in the 1st place if there was a chance for this shit to go south. this theory goes against the "pre-order" with a start of shipping in 2-3 weeks); why their managers allowed it (from a legal perspective); and why dnp didn't say anything. anyways.

i do think that Dan is trying to compensate for wad losses. and i know that he was "joking" about not making money or making negative money on tour. but i saw ticket sales a day before each show (only public information, not the inside official data from venues), it's still on my blog. and the sales didn't look good. so, how much of it was a joke? and compensating by making content that we and they enjoy isn't a bad thing, btw! i also think that he feels guilty for leaving us and the dnp brand behind for so long without actually giving us anything in return. thus so many comments on this 5-year hiatus and potential future ones. blame youtube originals, i know. not really his fault, but his choice of (the lack of) communication is his fault. and again, i always come back to wad. something fucking clicked in his head when he saw not as many people as he hoped for (or expected), how dedicated were some of those who still supported him during wad, and also he realised that without stronger managers he was not gonna make it solo. and he dragged Phil along because they do everything together and only then it works the best, and also dnpg's return in full force needed new energy for the amount of sponsorships they decided to do (i think, it's mainly Phil's pushing, because he is pro-sponsorships, they just need to be more careful with it on dnpg because Dan (hopefully) has principles when it comes to this. which is amazing. you go, girl!)

i'm very suspicious of dnp's new management right now. so idk. i think, again, most of it comes from Phil, because Phil thrives on their gaming channel, and that's basically the only easy way to survive on youtube and make money right now (for him). i'm glad dnp separated dnpg from their solo careers at least on the management and content levels. it gives Phil the room to use dnpg as a brand to pitch and fund his ideas/projects if it's ever needed. and now, after we survived the hiatus, they can pause dnpg for a couple of months to focus on their solo projects without losing the majority of the audience because technically we would know the reason and also we grew a thicker skin.

i do think that Dan is using dnpg to later help himself with a stand-up special or tour or some sort of series (danisnotokay). i also think he will use it to promote wad dvd (which is good. i will be disappointed if he doesn't use dnpg. like, bitch, why are we even here then? those who went through wad with him, i mean). i wonder if Inter Talent (i'm separating their name intentionally at his point because they piss me off) was smart enough to announce Dan and Phil's signings 2 weeks after UTA announced Dan to just make us pay attention to Dan's solo career again. as a hint of something coming our way. you know what i mean? i wonder if it was intentional. like UTA made a huge announcement, Dan retweeted it and posted it on instagram stories. it was a big deal. meanwhile, dnpg began thriving again and our eyes were on Dan anyway, so of course we noticed that solo career was on the maps again. Inter Talent was basically silent as another representative of Dan (and Phil), despite having them on the website for at least a month. and now 2 weeks after UTA's announcement (which was on November 22, 2023) Inter Talent was like, "hello? do you remember we signed Dan? and also Phil, and their joint channel?" Dan said wad dvd is almost cooked. wouldn't it be genius to stir our interest up step by step? (a part of me still thinks that Inter Talent's social media managers are just slow as fuck though. also they don't even care to check facts about their clients. UTA didn't fuck the announcement up like that, btw. and i doubt Inter Talent realises how nosy dnp's audience is, and that we are very likely gonna notice and spread even this stupid announcement. maybe they are dumb and it's me who is a fucking genius planning steps to present wad dvd to the masses, ugh. when will Dan pay me, like for real.)

i'm surprised you don't think it's heavily connected to new projects. i would bet my kidney it does. Dan will fuck off the moment he needs to focus on danisnotokay or someone offers to sponsor another tour (which, please, someone do. i need to see him for professional reasons). the question is, fuck off for how long and if it's gonna be communicated thoroughly or not. i'm not saying he will leave for 6 months without giving us something in return to balance things out. no, no, no. i don't think he would dare. but 3-4 weeks, maybe 2 months? sure.

is it true revitalized passion? well. *nervous laughter* i'm gonna defend Phil like i'm a phillie, even tho i'm not. he wanted it just as much as we did. so i believe it's a true revitalized passion at least on his part. i hope he fights for it if it's necessary, i hope he asks us for help if needed. i hope he threatens Dan with an actual divorce and forever home if needed. like, bitch, if there's a chance to keep dnpg alive without Dan actually losing his will to live, we should use that chance. Dan's stubbornness and delulus are not the reason to kill the most fun and profitable thing they ever created aka dnp brand. let it exist, even if alongside solo projects, even if it's 2-3 videos a month. damn, even 1 video (i don't mean during pauses made specifically for the peaks of solo projects). i do think Dan enjoys the attention, money, and possibilities their returned audience can give him. he also enjoys working with Phil. he certainly does not enjoy promoting their videos. and he is lucky he has Phil for that. is it a true passion for the gaming channel and joint branding solemnly? i genuinely don't think so. now, this dnp brand puts Dan into a framework, unfortunately. and i understand his desire to grow as a "strong independent Dan", and i wish him the best. i will root for him no matter how much of a floppy-ding-dong it can potentially be. i want him to fulfill his dreams and have a team that will fight for his interests. and i hope to god, UTA and Inter Talent are the ones. don't fucking tempt me with your unprofessionalism. but do i think Dan's head and heart belong to dnpg or dnp brand? no. i'm happy that he is at least trying. a part of me doesn't even care about the reason. i'm curious, but in hindsight, it wouldn't matter or change anything.

other thoughts, because apparently i decided to vomit on a keyboard tonight:

i'm glad dnp took back a bit of control over the editing on dnpg. i hope they will try to edit more themselves when gamingmas is over. or they will teach their editors better. because man, we need to slow down with these cuts.

i do think that dnp brand will expand, and dnpg and merch aren't the only things we should expect. (twitch, podcast or liveshows, onlyfans or its equivalent, vlogging series not limited by ditl, and other things that i forgot). reaction videos are already a thing and it's very funny because it's what youtube wants, so Dan must feel amazing right now falling for it :)) it's good thought because it's fun and torture for all parties involved.

i think by these reaction videos they are trying to rewrite their internet history a little bit for those who are new. it's not gonna work with us but at least dnp can control the narrative in new people's heads (i wonder for how long though).

with new people, the phandom will become more generic and dnp will love that. it can actually help Dan with new projects i think. Phil as well, but we don't know shit about it right now.

i wonder if Dan returns to working with charities.

if they involve more phannies, not only artists, it's gonna be interesting.

in case i'm wrong, don't step on my neck, i don't know anything for a fact. half of it is alleged, the other half is wishful thinking <3

[satirates]

New QSMP rules and why they needed to exist

1. The areas protected by the Administration/Federation cannot be broken, do not take advantage of bugs.

Or the admins "very bad, not good event". For people who weren't there, there was an event on Thursday for the liberation of Cellbit and Felps from the federation. The players tried to break in and discovered that you can destroy protected blocks with the symmetry wand. They spent hours doing it, only for the admins to erase the structure from the map so they would stop. On top of that, fit managed to find a way to vandalize the protected church using a watermelon gun yesterday.

This rule is obviously for story purpose. You can't really hide any structure in minecraft, so they don't have any other choice than putting the building in plain sight. If the players keep breaking the protected blocks, it can affect the story by revealing things that are only supposed to come up later. I can imagine the admins weren't happy to see all their hard work destroy by something they didn't know was possible, hence the ban.

2. XP farms are allowed as long as the spawner was generated naturally.

I don't know anything about XP farm in minecraft, but it's nice that they clarify this. There was always a doubt on the server about XP farms, which one was legal and which one was not. At least now, players know.

3. The video options are allowed as long as the range isn't excessively big.

Fun fact, yesterday I had a thought about how long before the video/audio became illegal due to things getting out of hands. So many things happen to justify this rule: Forever putting way too many blocks in Cellbit castle, The very loud Pac e Mike song, the bird block that cover the whole main area.

It's only a question of time before things get dirty with these. It can be very inconvenient for players (and viewers) that have sensitivity issues. Or really annoying at least. By restricting it, you ensure that players don't interfere in the enjoyment of others. (I'm pretty sure there were complaints about the bird noises. It was pretty harmless, but imagine if Forever had put something worse, like a loud music. It would have made La France, Favela and Phil's house unplayable areas.)

4. Do not modify too much the spawn area.

No ideas why this rules had been added now specifically. My only guess is that there is a significant amount of players going there now because of the Sharestone. But yes, it's a logical rule to ensure the spawn isn't the target of a Prank. If any of you know if something happen at spawn, I will edit this section.

5. It is prohibited to import or move structures with the Create mod or any other type of mechanisms.

Ah, This was quick. Yesterday, Bad and Dapper move a big tower on top of foolish dragon using the create mod for a prank. The problem was, the tower gives mining fatigue, making it almost indestructible. This discovery basically allows players to move anything, even constructions that are not their own.

You can imagine why this one exist. I was on Foolish stream yesterday, and he genuinely looked distraught at the alteration of is structure. Allowing players to move buildings at will? Terrible ideas. Not only could they do that to prank each other, but also they could break up lore building. Also, yesterday show that it's not that simple. Dapper destroyed part of the tower by moving it. The superglue is destruction and drama waiting to happen.

6.The deadline to complete the missions are 12am PST, after that, the missions will reset.

Not the twitter admins won't have to wait for BadBoyHalo to go to sleep so they could post the egg statistic update lol.

7. The eggs cannot have more than 2 immortality totems

This one is probably the most controversial, but logical for me. To paraphrase what Étoiles told Pomme yesterday: "with everything you have, it's impossible for you to dies. At least if the code isn't cheating". And I believe he is right. With the stasis chamber, the gears and the totem, it's almost impossible to kill an egg if the players are being careful. And we know they are trying really hard to take Pomme last life so the story could progress. The attack will not be like the last one, it will not be as unforgiving. So, with Bad doing totem traffic on the server, they needed a way to give a chance to the code and restricted them. If not, all eggs would have 30 totems by next week. X)

I really hope it increases the chances to have epic battle for the eggs while not dooming them.

[alwaysteveswife]

Fake it till you make it | Steve Harrington, The Singer.

Warnings: Modern!Band! AU, Manager! Reader, Fake marriage.

Steve Harrington, the lead singer of Midnight, has decided to announce his engagement to his mysterious girlfriend, the problem? The girl disappeared overnight with the excuse that the public pressure was too big. Steve, nervous about causing a scandal affecting the band, turns to his new manager, who he begs for a solution to the problem, and what better way to keep the press under control than to pose as his fiancée?

"I beg your pardon?" muttered Steve with wide eyes, staring at the contract in front of him.

You sighed, taking a sip of your bitter coffee, knowing deep down that something like this could happen.

"I thought I said it clear, but I'll say it again" you set the coffee cup down on the table, your gaze fixed on Steve's dark eyes, "my proposal to solve your unnecessary drama is that we get married, you can think about it, but remember we have time on our hands."

"But..."

"I remind you that you were the one who brought the issue to light, Steven" you took a pencil out of your pocket, putting it down in front of him decisively, "and you asked me for a solution, here it is, do you accept?"

(The light blue ones are seen from your point of view, the black ones are narrated from Steve's point of view) this story was made for 1 year and a half (it was 36 chapters plus the epilogue and the prologue, but for extension reasons I agreed). After the epilogue there will be a description of the character that is with Steve and her name (this is because in the other parts of Midnight series the character appears and could be confused with the reader of that story) anyway, I will avoid as much as possible the important physical descriptions like skin color, eyes, hair, etc.

Prologue | The deal day.

December - January | Learning to live with you.

February - March | Heated kisses and camouflaged feelings.

April - May | The weight of loving you.

June - July | Legal loopholes.

August - September | Bonds beyond a piece of paper.

October - November | Deadline, will you sign the contract again?

Epilogue | A future by your side.

Midnight Masterlist.

[sngii1726]

What is the effect of Saturn in the 6th house?

The placement of Saturn in the 6th house of a birth chart can have several astrological effects, both positive and challenging, depending on various factors such as aspects, conjunctions, and the overall chart configuration. Here are some potential interpretations:

Work Ethic and Discipline: Saturn in the 6th house often signifies a strong work ethic, discipline, and reliability in matters related to employment, daily routines, and service to others. The individual may excel in professions requiring perseverance and attention to detail.

Service-Oriented Approach: This placement suggests a sense of duty and responsibility towards helping others, particularly in areas related to health, caregiving, or service-oriented professions. The individual may find fulfillment in roles that involve assisting those in need.

Health Challenges: Saturn in the 6th house can indicate a predisposition towards health issues or chronic conditions, particularly related to bones, joints, skin, or digestive system. However, it can also imply resilience and the ability to overcome health challenges through disciplined lifestyle choices.

Efficient Problem-Solving Skills: Individuals with Saturn in the 6th house tend to approach problems and obstacles in a systematic and methodical manner. They have a practical mindset and can effectively manage day-to-day challenges with patience and perseverance.

Conflict with Co-workers or Subordinates: There may be challenges or conflicts with colleagues, employees, or subordinates in the workplace. The individual may encounter authority figures who impose strict rules or limitations in their professional environment.

Organization and Time Management: Saturn in the 6th house fosters a structured and organized approach to managing tasks, responsibilities, and deadlines. The individual may excel in administrative roles or leadership positions that require efficiency and accountability.

Legal Matters and Litigation: This placement can indicate involvement in legal disputes, lawsuits, or conflicts related to work, health, or daily routines. However, with Saturn's influence, there is potential for a disciplined and strategic approach to resolving legal issues.

Service to Community or Society: Saturn in the 6th house encourages a sense of duty and service towards the community or society at large. The individual may actively participate in volunteer work, social welfare programs, or humanitarian causes.

It is important to consider the entire birth chart and use the Kundli Chakra Professional 2022 software for a comprehensive analysis of the effects of Saturn in the sixth house, as individual circumstances and mitigating factors can significantly influence the results.

[peacockbutch]

Help My Mum Fight Illegal Renoviction!

$800 needed urgently for July Rent

Two months ago, my mother's landlord said that he was kicking her and her roommates out of their house. My mother did not understand this required a legal document, and agreed to try to be out by July 1st. One of her roommates managed to secure new housing by the deadline, but her and the others did not. She finally reached out for help, and we contacted the Residential Tenancy Board who informed us that since they have never received a legal notice of eviction, they aren't required to leave yet. The problem is, since one roommate already left, they are short her share of July's rent.

We must get the landlord to issue a proper, legal eviction notice. If they cannot pay this rent in full as soon as possible, he can file for a 10-day eviction for non-payment of rent, rather than the four month notice for renoviction which they are owed.

You can send funds to paypal.me/sphinxRegalia or if you're in Canada, e-transfer to icarusAbstracted@ protonmail.com

Thank you so much for sharing & donating, and any advice u can offer, especially for finding an advocate or legal representation is most appreciated. i am helping my mum with this but both of us are sort of hopeless with paperwork and will need all the help we can get to fight this!

$0 / 800 as of 4th of July 2023

[timemachineyeah]

Please disregard if there's no way to answer this without it being invasive but... re: your recent post about your job supporting your fatigue and disabilities... would you mind saying what industry it is? I have a friend with disability/chronic debilitating illness who is trying to figure out how to envision a working life while managing ongoing pain, surgeries, fatigue, etc., and I think he despairs of any place ever being willing to accommodate him for a few hours a week. We google things plenty, but the difference between a helpful listicle and a real person's anecdote is everything.

sure. my job is kind of niche so I don’t know how easy it would be to go hunting for it specifically, and I do kinda worry about giving its title since afaict only one company uses it (though more than one does this same basic thing) and my job is very regional, but maybe describing it would help you somehow

basically I work for an archive / news service. technically, I’m a journalist, but realistically what I do is more akin to gophering and data entry. I work three days a week - two short days in my county and one long one in one of the neighboring counties. on days when I leave the county I get hours for my driving time and miles reimbursed.

I don’t get a lot of flexibility on how many days I work, but when I started the job I got to pick which three days I would work, so got to decide whether one long rest or two short rests would suit me better. On the days I work I have a deadline (5pm) but can work whenever I want to meet that deadline. Sometimes it’s 9am - 11am and other times it’s 1pm - 3pm. Sometimes there’s no new cases and work is 20 minutes from my couch.

And basically what I do is compile a list of potentially interesting lawsuits filed in the county, go to the relevant courthouse to read the actual legal complaint, summarize and log the ones that meet certain criteria in a simple sentence, and get scans of ones that meet even stricter criteria to upload to our archive, all of which gets sent out to our subscribers on mailing lists.

Then, journalists and lawyers pay to get these updates or access these databases for their own reporting or research. I often know local headlines a few days to a couple weeks early because I was the one reading the source material.

I work an average of 7 hours a week. My short days are usually an hour or two. My long day is 3-7 hours depending on which county I’m going to and how unique or complicated the filed cases are. It does not take long to do the actual work. Most of my hours come from driving rural highways and listening to podcasts.

It’s the kind of job there’s not a lot of. But while it’s the best I’ve found, I’ve found very part time work with lenient employers before. It is possible. You just gotta be specific about it.

I will say, while most jobs are not looking for employees that part time, those that are will thrilled to hear that’s enough hours for you. Employers who need one specific skilled task that only takes 7 hours a week often struggle with retention because, well, how many people are gonna take that as a stop gap until they get more full time work? And then all the rest are likely to be disabled people like me, who have retention issues for reasons of health. That being said I’ve worked this job for years now, and I’m not letting it go without, like, some other better guarantee. Because while I’m happy to provide hope that these jobs do exist, it is also true that they’re tough to find.