#please stop acting like you are allowed to demand content and then passively consume it

[messrmoonyy]

- of smoking and dancing

Tess servopoulos x reader

Request- I know smoking is bad but seeing gifs of Anna smoking made me desperate to see Tess smoking it’s so hot somehow 😭😭 flirting and sharing a pack? Ahhhhhhh! ‘ combined with a bunch of requests for some kind of fluffy follow up to this drabble here

Warnings- I guess slightly ooc Tess. Shes a little awkward. A little soft. ( WC- 2.2k )

A/N- don’t smoke kids lmao. I really didn’t feel like posting this tbh. Some of my tess readers have been VILE in my ask box lately. Pls remember I am a human being. And not a word machine ready to churn out fic as you demand it.

Tess masterlist

“ you are a hard woman to find “ Tess tensed slightly as you spoke behind her, her hand loitering a little awkwardly half raised between her mouth and her side, cigarette balancing between her fingers. She collected herself quickly, bringing it back to her lips.

“ maybe you just don’t look hard enough “ that made you laugh a little, the small quiet kind meant to be shared between two people only. The kind that meant you weren’t trying to draw attention.

In all honesty she liked to think she was a little hard to find. Prided herself on her ability to go unnoticed when she chose it, slip around and keep herself to herself. She didn’t like company much. Not really. Yours though… she didn’t mind that. On the times she allowed herself to have it.

“ didn’t know you smoked “ you mused moving to stand beside her, tucking yourself into the shadowed spot behind the Bison that Tess had secluded herself to. She’d only left her house in the first place because Joel had asked, making stupid comments about you as he did. Acting like some burly Texan Cupid. Ass. But she had slipped away as soon as she’d seen the opportunity to. Not that she’d gone very far.

She didn’t quite know why she hadn’t just gone home. Or maybe she did. Maybe she knew exactly why she had chosen to hang around a little. Smoke the pack of cigarettes she’d been slowly making her way though since she’d found them. As if by some miracle they’d make her pluck up the courage to well… do something.

“ I don’t “ she didn’t. Not really. It’d never been her thing. She preferred the burning warmth of liquor than smoke. But she wanted an excuse to be outside and not look like some creeper loitering in the dark. And maybe they didn’t have the stress relieving factor of a glass of god knows what Tommy had been brewing. But they did have a little. And didn’t come with a free headache.

“ funny that… can I? “ Tess shrugged, half expecting to see you reach out and take it from her hand. But instead your leant forward a little, lips parting slightly in a way that made Tess’ skin flush. She placed it between your lips and watched you smile as you leant back, taking it from her fingers “ smokings so gross “ you sighed, blowing out a steady cloud of smoke “ specially these. How fucking old are they? “

“ I’m not forcing you to take the damn thing “ that made you smile again, tipping your head to the side to watch her light up another “ also… I don’t know. Found them in a house in the town by the creek trails “ you hummed a response, nose crinkling a little as you blew out some smoke and turned your wrist to look at the stale thing in between your fingers.

“ why you hiding away out here anyway? “ Tess shrugged leaning her arms down on the fence in front of her. You moved to stand beside her and she knew you were looking down at her without even needing to see your face. Could feel it.

“ just wanted some air “

“ sure “ you scoffed, holding your hand out over the fence to tap away the ash “ I always see you you know. How you turn up at these stupid things, hang around a little then slip away “ Tess shrugged again, glancing up at you. You flicked away your cigarette half smoked and turned to lean back against the fence, something clearly going on inside your mind that she could not figure out yet.

“ I don’t really like crowds “

“ I figured that much “ you said with a smile, glancing back down at her again in a way that made Tess’ skin flush “ you might like it if you involved yourself a little. Even just danced some “ it was Tess’ turn to scoff and she too tossed her cigarette and straightened herself out, resting her hip against the wood.

“ I don’t dance “

“ so you won’t dance with me? “ it was the first time you’d asked since she’d rejected you the last time. In the months in between you hadn’t seemed deterred by it. Had taken it on and acted as if it had never happened, continuing to try spend time with her and Tess had been trying her best not to push you away.

In fact she had been trying her hardest to actively try and be… friends. But sometimes those weird hopeful feelings would surface within her and she terrified herself. Would take two steps back from the one step she had taken forward. Not that you ever seemed particularly put off by it.

She still hadn’t answered you and gave a small sigh.

“ one dance. And if you absolutely hate it then you can run off back out here, hide away in the dark like some little cave troll and smoke your stale ass cigarettes and I’ll leave you to it “ the smile on your face as she spoke had her mind made up before she could even truly decide that she did or did not want to go back inside.

“ one “ you beamed at her as she said, truly a utter ray of sunshine on her moody and miserable self.

She tucked her cigarettes and matches down into her jean pockets and followed you back inside. As the night was wearing on it seemed a little less crowded than when she had first arrived, which she liked. Less people to look at her. Less people to talk.

Though Joel and Ellie clocked her the moment she stepped back inside, Joel looking incredibly smug watching you grab a hold of her hand and lead her out into the empty space that was serving as a dance area.

“ I think- “

“ don’t back out on me now Tess “ you said in a challenging tone, smile so cheeky she wanted to kiss it right off of you. And wasn’t that one of those terrible two steps back kind of thoughts.

“ I don’t know the steps “

“ no one knows the steps you just.. go with it. Just hold my hand I got you “ but before you could so much as twirl around the music switched from the previous upbeat song, to something slower. Her eyes darted over to where the music was coming from and she narrowed her eyes in annoyance.

Her eyes found Maria who looked incredibly proud of herself, even with Tess giving her a glare that could kill the woman she was sure. She froze as your arms looped around her neck, eyes leaving Maria to look at you instead.

“ this is better, no steps to this kinda song “ she felt like an awkward teenage boy at his first school dance, with no idea how to even look at a girl never mind dance with one.

But it felt nice. To have you holding onto her like that, standing so close there was barely an inch between the two of your bodies. She hesitantly wrapped her arms around your waist and you smiled.

“ see “ you said “ easy “ she could feel Maria’s eyes on her. Joel’s. Ellie’s. But it almost didn’t annoy her as much as it had at first. Because of the way you were looking up at her, the at you were so close together she could smell the shampoo you used. She was hyper aware of every part of your bodies that touched, skin burning and prickling at the sensation.

“ I don’t think you can class this as dancing “ you laughed a little and shrugged.

“ hmm maybe not. But it’s nice right? “ you were talking softly, directly to her and not for the prying eyes or ears of anyone around you.

She mulled over the question. Of course it was nice. It was beyond nice. It was what she had spent months pining for and moping around about. Hating herself for wanting you close and hating herself for how far she seemed to be from the woman back in Boston she had shaped herself into.

“ it’s nice “ you smiled warmly, arms tightening a little around her.

“ you’re doing me a favour too you know. Some guy from farming rotation? Been asking me to dance all night. Think he’ll get the picture now “ that made her chest tighten a little. Some stupid worry that, had you only asked her to dance to scare off some guy? “ I only really wanted to dance with you though “ you said silencing her fears before she could ever even dream to make them vocal.

The slow songs continued to play. And you both stayed there in that gentle swaying embrace, occasionally speaking about random things and fess listening diligently to everything you had to say to her. Eventually the crowd grew bored, demanding something a little more upbeat. And as much as Tess hadn’t particularly wanted to be there with you at first, she now didn’t want it to end. But unfortunately it had to.

You sighed as the song changed, taking a step back from her and rolling your eyes. Tess felt awkward again. And annoyed at herself for feeling awkward. She was ready to flee back outside and hide but you took her hand.

“ do you wanna go get some air? “ you asked her. She wondered if you sensed her discomfort, could feel the heat radiating off her “ kinda hot in here huh? “

“ yeah “

It was chilly outside. The temperature having dropped a lot since she had gone inside with you. But it was a nice contrast on her overheated skin, a nice break from the noise too. There were a few people lingering around, a few kids running around and playing with sticks as if they were swords. It made her smile.

“ I love being outside at night“ you mused, sitting yourself down on one of the benches outside. She slotted herself in beside you, chill escaping her as you shuffled close to her “ pretty. Calm “ Tess noticed you still hadn’t let go of her hand that you had grabbed to lead her back outside

Tess said nothing. Instead tried to internally process the entire situation. The night as a whole. How much she had enjoyed allowing herself to be in your company.

“ oh oh look. See him over there? That’s the one I told you about “ you said and nudged her with your shoulder, nodding over to a man leaving the bison looking a little worse for wear.

“ he seems… nice “ you laughed at that and snuggled a little closer to Tess “ you cold? “

“ hmm little “ she hesitated for a moment before freeing the arm trapped between you both and looping it around your shoulders. She felt you physically relax against her, sighing softly. The feelings were creeping again. And the fear that came alongside them. The fear of being vulnerable. Of letting someone in.

“ so you don’t. You don’t like him? “ she spoke in some attempt to derail her thought process.

“ I don’t like him “ you said immediately, not even a second thought “ I like someone else “ her chest hurt. A pang deep down that she couldn’t ignore if she tried.

And she hated it. She hated it so much. That she had allowed herself to feel. To strip back the layers of scary Boston Tess, leave herself some silly little crush and let herself be vulnerable.

“ I’m sure they’re very lucky “ she practically whispered.

“ they don’t even realise “

You turned your head slightly, cold nose brushing against her neck. She suddenly felt warm again. An anxious warmth radiating from her chest in a way she was unfamiliar with. Her old self would be laughing at her.

“ have you told them “ she felt you smile, felt the way your cheeks lifted and a small laugh vibrated past your lips.

“ the signs are obvious “ your face lifted from her neck and was suddenly incredibly close to hers. She licked her lips nervously. She wanted to kiss you. God did she want to kiss you. Old Tess would’ve. Old Tess would’ve kissed you months ago.

But that wasn’t her anymore. This was her. Sat with her arms around a girl that she liked. But didn’t like her. She was a fool. Really she was.

“ you’re a very smart woman Tess “ you started, voice low. Soft “ But fuck you’re oblivious as hell sometimes “ and then your lips were against hers, kissing her softly but with a quiet determination. She froze at first, unsure on how to react. But then she was kissing you back, hand reaching up to cup your cheek. Your hand twisted into the collar of her sweater like you didn’t want her to let go.

And she didn’t plan on it. Kissing you softly, slowly, savouring every single moment in case you decided you regretted it and she’d never get to kiss you again.

It seemed to last forever, so sensual and slow and she forgot where she was. Forgot about everything other than how incredible it felt to kiss you, to feel your cold hands in the collar of her sweater. To feel your cheeks flush with warmth under her fingers. She could taste the smoke, smell the fruitiness of your hair, the softness of your skin.

She didn’t want it to end. Didn’t want to stop.

But all good things must eventually come to an end.

When you did finally pull away it was barely a few centimetres, brushing your nose against hers before pressing your foreheads together. Her thumb was brushing softly across your cheekbone, reluctant to let you go.

“ you should’ve let me do that a long time ago “ you whispered, a smile tugging at your lips.

“ maybe I should’ve “

[antivirusprogram2020]

I am an antivirus program (2020)

> CHAPTER 2 The new human type cannot be properly understood without an awareness of what he is continuously exposed to from the world - Theodor Adorno. Minima Moralia, 1951 We can not change the medium as the medium is predicated on the message (use my square space code for a 10% discount)- we are fixed in this web 2.0 and the control of knowledge will be met with the streamlining of UI and UX design. Design tools like the adobe programs will continue to increase their premium and their monopoly hold on the design space - to be a designer is to be implicated with this process, regardless if you pirate software or notThis is where I raise flags against the tepid conglomeration of blog sites and web in general, the astroturfing of the internet has only amplified the feedback of Graphic Design. You’d typically call this commercial design. Commercial design fits the criteria of an evolving media world, “It is important to note that this ultimate stage of pictorialization was a reversal of pattern. The world of body and mind...was not photographical at all, but anonvisual set of relations”1. Commercial Design started to drive an efficiency science behind it’s aesthetic - you make the access mode immediate and your engagement success is far higher, and you do this through the pictogram, and when photography came about, that too was made into a design appendage. “To understand the medium of the photograph is quite impossible, then, without grasping its relations to other media, both old and new. For media, as extensions of our physical and nervous systems, constitute a world of biochemical interactions that must ever seek new equilibrium as new extensions occur.”1 This is potentially a valuable understanding of media, and thus design, presented by media theorist Marshall Mcluhan, commercial design (and all art and design in a sense) are schizophrenic presentations of the world, they accumulate meanings outside the presented scope of an advertisement, or typography - they link the relational experience of the mass media consumer, as Mcluhan states. However, this is not all, he states an ‘equilibrium as new extensions occur’ - in my context now this weighs with a great importance, we know the new extensions already, something that Mcluhan unfortunately didn’t get to experience fully, and that’s the web, the modern computer, the pocket mobile device. These are in their own rights mediums, your OS (operating system) is a computer language medium that dictates other program mediums, the access mode to the rest of the systems of design, websites contain live feeds and streams to distant realities, it’s all so lucid but at the same time it feels like an astral projection. At times this can feel nauseating, that collapsing feeling of ‘space’ and ‘time’. This presents a wider problem with modern design, technology has embedded itself into the core of the practice since the dawn of paper and pen, stone and chisel etc. The problem being that while technology has stopped gapped connectivity, it refuses to go further - refuses to return the creativity of a design practice unless commandeered. This has led to the necessity for the designer to code, and script, to kit bend and utilise AI - once again “fragmenting” the work role. “Under conditions of electric circuitry, all the fragmented job patterns tend to blend once more into involving and demanding roles or forms of work that more and more resemble teaching, learning, and “human” service, in the older sense of dedicated loyalty.” Graphic design namely has done well to adapt and reshape, showing its versatility in the age of digital design. Not only that, it hybridizes aesthetic models much like a fashion season generates new styles, which keeps design itself fresh and alive, while sometimes slipping into the contrived and over-saturated. But is the “human” service really what Graphic Design is becoming? It certainly hints to this with the proactive design studio model. Interaction and Bureaucracy, it’s an efficiency tactic. All design requires hierarchy even if that hierarchy is to not have one. I see the office space, I remember the spider plant, I see the shore line, I see the whitecaps. The workers space is a micro-territorial space of capital politics and a grab for faux socialism in most cases, in some, it is an honest attempt to form comradery - the cafeteria is an effective grounds to reinforce or detourne this thinking. People like artist Olafur Eliasson effectively install a commons space for the studio team to interact and communicate, job roles are made equal in that space. “The studio, as much as we don’t like it, means working in your own little departments, compartmentalised. And there are hierarchies even though everyone’s a part of the democracy. The kitchen is a nice leveller.” It’s a universal ideology that falls into a majority of Eliasson’s work that provides an effective future-proof for how the operations of studio practice should be carried out (see the Auteur myth). My cynicism is only symptomatic of the consumerist prerequisite that allows design to exist in the first place - a degree in the topic definitely is met with a careerist sentiment, to be financially viable within a milieu of art and design subjects. Graphic Design should not try to divorce itself from this grouping, it stands stronger with the complex wovings and multitudes that allow it to bloom as an individual practice that arranges the practice of others. The efforts here are a concern with the design practice no less, and how ethics and politics are sequestered by a shifting responsibility of effects, how and why Graphic design mutated into the corporate virus that it is now. ”All media work us over completely.”8 This is Mcluhan’s sentiment from his writings in the 60’s, and It stands up true to this day, more so than ever. Algoration (the use of data algorithms to curate a web feed) are notorious and globally implemented into most ‘social media’, but outside social media, it’s used as predictive data. This is the “reversal pattern”, Graphic Design puts a face to this slippery coded underbelly. The automation of design media has become an efficient business strategy to overmine its user base data, and subsequently requires illustration. To be concise, the study of the Graphic Designer is in part the study of Media, the study of media is the lens of relational activities and connectivity. And this is the permitted virus. Adversely, the antivirus program is a research protocol invested in studying the autonomy available to a Graphic Designer, and an extended hand to all fragmented sectors that require a similar reclamation. Language dictates media – media manufactures consent, therefore language manufactures consent. A small quibble no less, that the Graphic Designer goes to bed with media every day. And in the morning they arise with vast spawns of editorials, emailing lists, content posts - lots of fucking content posts by content creatures. The homogeneous sprawl of media is a compounded expository of new design conditions. “Today, the mass audience can be used as a creative, participating force. It is, instead, merely given packages of passive entertainment.”8 The passive entertainment is reflexive of its audience, an audience that is content on not being challenged when engaging and consuming media, not being challenged when creating and releasing it - the language logic is a false preposition - things don’t have to occur in the forefront of our percepts, media can be a stealth operation for critical theory or a dog whistle for nazis. Even a glass of milk is steeped in meaning. “The photograph is just as useful for collective, as for individual, postures and gestures, whereas written and printed language is biased toward the private and individual(s) posture.”1 Mcluhan and designer Rapheal Roake seem to fit perfectly in collusion with one another here, “All design is a political act”, this fits Mcluhan’s collective principle for the photograph precisely, as this explicitly gives backing to the relational dynamics of media itself, it sits in the collective sphere - the global village. It all begins to feel like a fever dream, the spectres of Helvetica, Comic sans and Papyrus jumping on your chest as you’re paralysed in a waking dream. Blink and you’ll miss the horses head 144hz refresh rate. The grid settings of your life are closing in tighter and tighter as you cant kern in a moment for peace, please adobe I’m plugged in to your creative cloud let me use my kettle already, yes dear, they’re wacom tablet plates, we threw out the cutlery and replaced them for tote bags and ironic panel hats. The decoherence of the 21st century is here and it’s got anthropocene smeared all over its lips. Everyone wants to fuck their OLED displays, the screen is constantly flirting with me, it bulges and writhes along with it’s circuitry like an obscene Cronenburg slide show, and with a tilt of the hinge, it rips my hands straight off the bone. It’s simultaneously psychosexual and completely meaningless, but there doesn’t seem to be any Big Other alternative, can you see the demons wearing the guise of post-modernity, and where they emit a solar flare? Just tryna game the system can’t you see, if I shake it at just the right moment, at the right angle, I’ll get an additional diet coke. You don’t understand how fucking much I like diet coke. A man who finds himself among others drinking diet coke is irritated because he does not know why he is not one of the others drinking diet coke. I have graphic design Stockholm syndrome, what do you mean you don’t know who Gerrit Noordzij is? At this point going outside will trigger my flight or fight response, I’m afraid of being swooped by seagulls while I’m bound on a rock, I sleep in a bed with a faraday blanket, I’m absolutely glowing, washed in sunlight. “As for the anticipation of reality by images, the precession of images and media in relation to events, such that the connection between cause and effect becomes scrambled and it becomes impossible to tell which is the effect of the other” These collective postures translate into all modern media and are littered with effects. One is singular and rhizomatic in any given instance of engagement towards media and the invisible hand of the ‘designer’. And on the contrary the medium is an assemblage of arborescence and is later politicised in the factory line assembly - a by-product of ‘essential’ capital labor. The capital fiction is overwritten by the post-market mythos of a company and it’s figureheads, it’s in-house publishing team use individual members to feature in nice magazines. Effects, we are overcome by so many different effects daily, to the extent that we become desensitized to the potential the subsequent causes and effects, modern reality makes sure to compound these consequences of media to a sensory overload of hysteria, the neurotic ones take to pinterest to organise themselves. We like to order things, It gives clarity and comfort within the dysphoria and entropy of our lives, pinterest, tumblr, are.na, instagram are all negentropical solutions in an overstimulated digital environment. “Instant communication insures that all factors of the environment and of experience coexist in a state of active interplay.”8 To understand this I need to clarify that the medium, the message, the photograph and all subsets of visual and nonvisual information are communication - it goes without saying - but this establishes the politicised and astroturfed space of Graphic Design, a designer is expected to make commercially viable work to thrive, and usually this is achieved by co-opting styles to any degree appropriate to a brief. This results is the parody, the hyperstition and hyperobject - an overly ironic and self aware ventilation apparatus that keeps the gimmicks of Graphic Design alive. The overtures of a design piece can appear stark placid and regurgitated. It’s very much easy to default to a ctrl-c, ctrl-v automation process. Reinforced no less by an autodidact push of some educational institutions - more concerned with juggling design briefs than focusing their teachings on a core design system (despite their ever love for the Bauhaus - yes huni the library is open). Of course, with the new emphasis on a technology dominated world we are expected to rely and reinforce the techno-dependent designer (work smart not hard). And we are yet to catch up to this mutation in design, where design was once a phylogeny of different features that collected to assume a physical medium, centrered on type, constrained by fibres and ink and oil - these components have congealed onto the Macbook, the ergonomics of physical/digital unbound the Designer from the difficulties of a physical medium. So why do we remain in the realm of rehashing typefaces and conventional media, why are we tied down to the revolving doors of design trends - surely now than ever we have all the components, all the tools to produce new design movements, this can’t keep up “When the circuit learns your job, what are you going to do?”8