#stealing from corporations is one thing but stealing from an actual person who dropped a item for literally seconds is another and fuck you

[xx-k1tsun3-k1d-xx]

big fuck you to the person that stole my airpods case in town today i hope u enjoy the like £20 or whatever you get from selling a old used first gen airpods case im going to enjoy the 300% increase in autistic + anxiety meltdowns esp in the run up to christmas because i cant afford another fucking £20-30 to replace the fucker and i need those so i dont get over stimulated and can acctually function acctually go suck an entire festive dick i hope a reindeer eats you

[i-yap]

Hi there! LOVE your thoughts on Jason like truly i <3 clingy Jason!!!!! What do you think a relationship would be like between Jason and a corporate baddie? Like she's serious, career-driven, and almost viciously ambitious, but for him? a total softie!! Like they just melt for each other despite the fact that they both put up a tough exterior to others!!

Omg i love that , here are my headcanons -

Jason todd x corporate baddie!y/n

I think the time schedules would be a mess. She works 9-5 and he 'works' 9pm-5am. But since she is a really career driven woman, I can see her sort of completing her extra or personal work/ international calls etc from the time that jason is vigilanting and therefore cutting her shift from like 9-3 or something similar. Since she gets all her work done, no one can say a word and honestly no one would dare to either way. Relstionship is about compromise and I think jason will cut down his vigilante time to get home to his stressed worker bee.

Jason prolly cant sleep without her so while she is at her job, he is working out or doing his other stuff. They catch up on sleep after her shift . This means afternoon cuddles !!( Ofc I am firm believer that jason should with time leave crime fighting and become an English professor )

I also love how most of her coworkers thinks she is prolly dating a Submissive type of guy or like a really serious professional dude cause she is so scary and strict . But then Jason- 6 feet something, huge asf, leather jacket, tattoos(maybe) and motorcycle dude walks in bringing her lunchbox( that looks so tiny in his hand). Yea now they're even more scared.

And I think everyone from jason's side also assumed that he'd either get a super cute-sy girl that will "fix him" or another vigilante girl that'll " make him worse". But he walks in with this poised, smart hardworking no nonsense woman and everyone's like DAMN

Damian loves you probably. He doesn't get how todd wooed you, like he thinks todd is a doofus. For once you are a normal (non crime fighting) girl that his brother is dating who is this career driven and also treats his brother properly. He loves talking business with you ( there was this scene where he figures out who is stealing money by looking at the finances at wayne enterprises) . and for once someone doesn't take him for a kid and actually wants to listen to pointers that he has. Tim prolly also loves talking to you about business cause he is a CEO too same thing for bruce.

Power couple fr.

but once you too get home...yea no one recognizes you.

Jason loves the fact that you show your soft side only to him. He has never been someones first choice in anything and this makes him feel so much more loved and cherished. and vice versa applies to you

he loves taking care of you after your long ass workday, helping you just be vulnerable and drop the whole tough act and be human. you do the same for him once he comes back at night. Just taking care of each other the way you guys need.

And you can bet jason knows how to be your biggest supporter. big raise? promotion? or just a good presentation?? He is genuinely excited for you.

Will give you back rubs when you've been sitting on the desk the whole day

will cook you brunch/snacks for when you come back and you will cook him breakfast/dinner for when he does .

it will take some compromise and adjustments but its all worth it and no price at all for loveeee.

[kdinjenzen]

On the whole SE thing, I have a question because I agree with you fully about the AI crap, but I have been full hyperfixation excited for Rebirth, which is saying a lot because life has been soul sucking shit and mustering enthusiasm for anything has been an uphill battle. Where is the line for supporting a cause you firmly believe in, and self indulgence that contradicts that for the sake of personal pleasure? It feels like I either stick to the fight and let something positive to me go or ignore it for myself, which just feels selfish and wrong. This has been eating at me since that news dropped and I don't know if there is a right answer or if any of this even makes sense outside of my own mad rambling. Any input?

13,000+ people were laid off just within the video game industry last year. All the big corps who did those layoffs said “no, Ai won’t replace anyone” and then announced heavy dealings with Ai generated writing, art, animation, etc.

Over 13,000 people… and that’s just in video games.

That’s not counting other branches of the entertainment industry which have also said “no, Ai won’t replace anyone” and then also announced they’d be dipping into Ai generated writing, art, animation, etc after doing massive layoffs.

And if you’re thinking “Ai isn’t that far along” - Disney used Ai generated content for the intro to one of its Marvel Disney+ series last year, SE already has Ai artwork in their games and in their promotional materials, and Valve now allows generative Ai (artwork, animations, assets, voices, etc) developed games on their platform.

The only thing businesses, corporations, CEOs/Owners, etc understand is money. If you talk big talk on social media and can’t back that talk up by not buying a thing, they’ll just use the money you gave them to prove you wrong.

The generative Ai companies have already shown their whole ass by having massive lists leaked of artists, animators, voice actors, musicians, etc that they’ve stolen from. You can’t even pretend “well maybe it’s actually ethical and they asked permission” when there are lawsuits from artists of all kinds, bug and small, trying to take these generative Ai companies down for outright stealing their work to train their Ai program.

There’s a whole world of games, movies, books, etc out there to enjoy that don’t steal people’s works and cut people’s jobs to make “quick and easy content for cheap” - find something different to enjoy.

But, quite frankly, anytime I speak my piece about ethical treatment of workers I’m either ignored or harassed so it honestly feels like it doesn’t matter what I say despite dealing with shit like this from multiple sides of the industry and from people for 17 years.

So you do what you wanna do, you’re a whole person yourself and can make your own choices and draw your own line in the sand.

However, not only was I one of those affected TWICE by layoffs because of this, but countless of my friends and colleagues were also let go in favor of building cheaper things with Ai.

[chaoskirin]

What AI Art is NOT

I keep seeing people refuting points from REAL ACTUAL ARTISTS using these talking points. So here’s a sort of FAQ of what I’ve seen.

Q: Isn’t AI Art is just a tool?

A: Tools include grids, perspective lines, rulers, apps like Sketch Up which place assets that are pre-designed and cannot be altered, et cetera. Tools are NOT: apps that draw the whole picture for you. If AI datasets were tools, then artists would also be tools. Artists aren’t tools. 

Q: AI Art isn’t stealing art. It’s just like a collage. 

A: I really want you to think about what a collage is versus the kind of art an AI dataset spits out. Are those things the same? Collages are derivative and generally fall under parody law, so long as the person creating them isn’t taking credit for the parts of the collage they didn’t photograph or draw. You cannot sell a collage of other peoples’ work without express written permission from those people. The elements of a collage are each separate and identifiable as such.

AI art is not a collage. The elements of an AI art piece are not separate and identifiable. They are combined into one single piece, where each piece cannot specifically be traced. AI art does not fit the definition of a derivative or parody work. 

Q: If someone puts their art on the internet, it’s fair game. 

A: Copyright law specifically disagrees with you on this point. 

Q: If it’s not a collage and one can’t see the pieces of the art, doesn’t that make it an original work, and therefore, it’s not theft? 

A: AI isn’t generating a new image. It’s taking pieces from many originals and “claiming” to make a new original piece. However, AI cannot generate these things without knowing what they are (IE skimming tags and allowing users to tell the AI what’s in the picture) Without the input of original artists, an AI would not be able to create anything, which is why most datasets include millions of pieces of art “scraped” (AKA stolen) from the internet. Currently, these pieces AI makes are being sold, and the owners of the datasets are charging for their use. This means that people who did not actually create the art are being paid, whereas the original artists are not. 

Q: AI art can’t replace real artists. You’re fearmongering. 

A: AI art has already replaced real artists. Shortly after Kim Jung Ji died, someone fed all his artwork into a dataset and “created” several new pieces that were almost identical to his style. Cosmopolitan magazine released a cover “drawn” by an AI and blatantly stated on the cover “and it only took 20 seconds to make.” A magazine article in The Atlantic used AI art to generate a photo of Alex Jones surrounded by papers. Someone submitted AI generated art to an art contest and won. Several anecdotal stories (not verified, but reliable) on Twitter state that small companies have fired their graphic designers or cut their work force. Commissioned artists have reported dropping sales numbers. 

Corporations (and most people) will ALWAYS favor a cheaper option. If it’s good enough, it’s usable. The Cosmo magazine cover and the article header image were TERRIBLE, and they still went to print. Everyone should know by now that corporations will ALWAYS screw people over when they’re able to. If AI art becomes acceptable and commonplace, in-house artists will be replaced. This isn’t theoretical. It is already happening. 

Q: It’s going to happen anyway. You can either embrace it or reject it. (Yes, this is real. Someone actually said this to me.) 

A: Yes... Exactly. I’m rejecting it. Without laws to protect artists, I will fight AI art whenever and wherever I can. It might be fun and convenient for you, a non-artist, but it is terrifying and heartbreaking for artists. Websites like Deviantart and Clip Studio Paint who said “well it’s going to happen anyway” should have been the first line of defense against the creep of AI art, but they failed. It can only take over if people let it. Stop letting it.

[simpforsix]

how i think the garde and co would act if they worked in a restaurant

maybe this is a niche post but i’ve worked in a restaurant for 3.5 years and i have opinions

John: He’s the nicest person in the restaurant, He’s always checking in on other staff, helps everyone out as much as possible, and picks up every shift he can. Of course, he doesn’t want to be a burden so he always insists he’s fine until he’s in the weeds, at which point he has a breakdown in the fridge. Everyone knows that if there’s a rush, he’s the one to listen to, since he tells everyone exactly what to do in order to get through it. He burns himself out trying to help everyone.

Five: He is not allowed to interact with customers, so he works in the kitchen. He gets along well with the kitchen, since none of them take any bullshit. One of his favourite things about working in the kitchen is getting paid to use many different long and sharp knives, and everyone can tell his mood by how violently he cuts the food. He tried to organize a rebellion against corporate, but got reprimanded after he handed out flyers saying it was a “coup”. Nobody knows how he hasn’t been fired yet, especially after he bragged about stealing money from the till.

Six: She is girlbossing her way to more tips. Men are stupid and think she’s into them, and she gladly takes their money. Six prefers comfortable, practical clothing, but the second she found out that wearing a low cut spandex shirt got her cash she jumped on the opportunity. There have been customers who have crossed a line though, and have found their cars to be mysteriously drained of gas with three slashed tires. She doesn’t seem very friendly to her coworkers, but all of them like her because they know she has their backs. 

Marina: People think she’s sweet and innocent, but she’s got the longest track record of fighting customers. She likes her coworkers and genuinely cares about them, but with customers it’s a whole different story. She has “accidentally” sprayed someone with peroxide, dropped hot pasta on someone, spilled a drink on someone, etc. Many of the kitchen staff speak Spanish, and she frequently goes to the kitchen to rant. They are the only ones who know that those “accidents” weren’t really accidents.

Eight: Literally the epitome of “laugh or else you’ll cry”. He’s the only person who actually enjoys talking to customers, provided they aren’t douchebags of course. He is known for breaking into a dead sprint across the restaurant, and somehow avoid dropping any food while doing so.

Nine: He has mastered the art of flirting with customers to get tips. The regulars love him and think he’s interested in them, but he doesn’t actually know their names. When he gets stressed he sometimes yells at his coworkers, but always apologizes for it by the end of the night. They can tell he’s genuinely sorry because he offers cigarettes as a peace offering, the most precious item a restaurant worker can have. He also holds the restaurant record for most plates dropped, both in one night and in total.

Ella: She’s not old enough to serve, but she’s a damn good host. She is not afraid to deny people service if they are rude to her or her coworkers. Her customer service smile is terrifying, and she can turn it on and off instantly. The rest of the staff view her as the baby of the restaurant, and insist on protecting her no matter how many times she tells them she can protect herself.

Sam: After being bullied his whole life, he can’t handle when customers are rude to him in a way that reminds him of that. He is the one who introduced all the staff to the concept of crying in the fridge, since he basically spends all his shifts alternating between that and smiling at customers on the floor. He’s super helpful to his coworkers, but a lot of them don’t appreciate him since they think he’s “weird”. Still, he makes good tips since old ladies find him endearing and tables of alt kids think he’s cool.

Adam: He is the perfect customer service worker, since he is already dead inside. Nobody has ever seen him cry, including when a customer screamed death threats at him and he just responded by smiling. He communicates the most directly out of everyone, and never raises his voice even when he gets overwhelmed. However, he will give everyone who doesn’t help him a withering stare that is honestly worse than getting yelled at. He’s like a well-oiled machine, but as soon as he gets home he has a breakdown.

[tsunflowers]

au where the ensemble square is a loose federation of spacefaring groups who all extremely want to absorb the others and steal their resources but they’re bound by a treaty

starting with cospro

obviously mika is a robot shu rescued from the trash and rebuilt to his specifications. it’s shu’s fault mika has odd eyes bc one of mika’s eyes was damaged and shu couldn’t find a replacement in the same color that was of sufficiently high quality. everyone is like “it’s so gross that shu made this robot boyfriend who’s obsessed with him” but actually mika is fully jailbroken and thinks for himself and is still obsessed with shu which is maybe even grosser

the twins are from an alien species that reproduces by mitosis so they used to be one being and then split into two. they’re always threatening that they could do it again and ibara wouldn’t be able to tell them what to do bc they would outnumber him. actually they can’t do this bc the first division took so much out of them and it was hard for them to establish their separate personalities at first but no one else needs to know that. probably close with rei bc he was one of the first nonhuman aliens they saw live comfortably among humans

nagisa was genetically engineered by godfather to be his successor and grown in a vat. potentially godfather was going to upload his brain into nagisa’s body when he died but that didn’t happen. he was fed a lot of knowledge in the vat but has very little practical experience bc he grew to adulthood in there. ibara is basically the same but he wears glasses with mini computer screens in them. hiyori is still old money. the spaceships they use were probably built by the tomoe corporation. cospro is based out of a space station and its people rarely go planetside but hiyori is one of the exceptions, he grew up on a planet and frequently returns there. jun I don’t know about. I think maybe he was an enhanced person who dropped out of the training program but hiyori picked him up bc hiyori liked him even though he wasn’t a perfect military fighting machine

rinne’s basically the same but instead of a village the amagis control an entire planetoid. probably they were the type you see in scifi where early settlers get cut off from other space exploration efforts and develop their own culture that people who reconnect with them find regressive. nikis dad was experimenting with nanobots for waste removal but he had a big oopsie and the bots went in niki so if he doesn’t consume enough they start eating him from the inside. he can even eat things that aren’t food as long as he can swallow them. theoretically his parents are searching for a cure but they mostly just want to escape this huge fuckup. himeru is a shapeshifting alien and he hates tatsumi bc tatsumi was part of a peaceful exploration team that visited his planet for the first time and accidentally brought a pathogen that got his brother sick. he’s not pretending to be his brother he’s just pretending to be human. but his universal translator device doesn’t work and it makes him always refer to himself in the third person. instead of the suou family using the oukawas as assassins they sent them to colonize a planet first so kohaku has spent his life breathing limited oxygen and fighting space beasts. he still met aira online by sneaking out to the one computer in the base camp every night

oh crazy:b are basically space pirates that ibara hired and he’s like “it doesn’t violate the treaty bc none of them are official cospro residents :)”

[talenlee]

Lysen Co.

Welcome to your new position of Commisioned Human Resource Dispensation here at Lysen Co Food Technologies! We trust that you’re going to do your best for the betterment of all mankind as represented by the correct and accurate construction of optimal ‘tiger team’ panels for the full-time distribution of actualised test partners! Don’t worry, we know you’d never let us down – no member of our employment family ever has!

Okay it’s card game design. It’s a trick taker game too. It’s modelled on a Corporate Stalinist vibe, with untrustworthy operators in a Monsanto-style food company that is doing hinky stuff and where people can get disappeared for bad culture fit reasons.

Gameplay Loop

Play goes in a series of round, and starts with that round’s Team Pro-Partner. The Pro-Partner chooses a card from their hand, and places it in the centre of the table, face-up, showing the number on it and the type of card it is. Then, each other player plays a card face-down into that pile.

This pile represents Team Formation, where the Team Pro-Partner is setting up a Team to address one of Lysen Co’s latest Pro Partnership Quarterly Operator Projects or whatever funny name I devise for them later. When every player has played a card into the pile, the Team Pro-Partner chooses up or down, and then takes the face-down cards maintaining their order, and lays them out face-up in order of the players who put them into the pile. The Pro-Partner then counts this list out, and ‘sorts’ them.

In Lysen Co, we value it team fits very highly. So for that, we use a proprietary sorting method that is perfect for its efficiency. Starting with the Team Pro-Partner’s card, go through the list in order, and counting up or down, as per the Pro-Partner’s choice, they discard each card that’s out of order per its Comunal Operation Number. So for example, if the Pro-Partner chooses ‘down,’ and reveals like so:

(Pro-Partner’s Card) 43, 42, 16, 44, 41

Then 43 counts down to 42, then to 16 – and 44 is out of order, so it’s discarded. 41 is also out of order, so it is also discarded. Just like that in one swift sweep, the team is formed!

By comparison, if before flipping the cards, the Pro-Partner chose counting up, then you start at 43. Then drop 42, then drop 16, then 44 is included, and 41 is lower than 44, so it gets dropped. Only two people in the team get formed, but hey, there’s the team!

If more than half of the potential teammates are recruited properly, the Pro-Team’s card does its job, and that player gets the associated power. If half or less than half of the potential teammates are recruited, then the Pro-Team’s team doesn’t fire. Then, in order, each player’s whose card remains in the team gets their power, obtains any currency as appropriate. Players keep their cards that fired, face-up in front of them, representing their team history, and then all the dropped cards get put into a discard pile, and the next round begins with the next Pro-Partner.

Goals

I can think of a few basic player goals that can be built into this design:

Card combos. If a player can get a certain number of sabotage cards set up, the business fails, and they can be the sole winner.

Money, direct advancement. Some cards may give you a payout in terms of money, which can be either a simple matter of score, or it could be a currency that’s independent of cards. If it’s independent, then players can steal it from one another, or spend it.

Brown-Nosing. Being immune to some cards because you’re the Boss’ Favourite, that kinda thing.

Actually Doing Work. Some kind of stat that the person with the least of it gets disappeared.

Office Dullard! Maybe you can foist a card like this on someone and it reduces the overall value of their tableau

Tertiary (for the strong bad reference) Assets: Black box security crew. If you have one of these lurking in your tableau, the next time someone ‘disappears’ you can take them and add them to your tableau?

Mechanical Space

In any given trick you need n cards for each player, and even if the players’ hands deplete over time, you need to make sure that their hand is never so small their final hand is a non-choice. There need to be a fairly large number of cards to ensure that there’s room between the numbers so players can try and make ‘safe’ guesses about what order their cards show up.

I am thinking that maybe this game needs to be just a single deck of cards, with one single card back, and then can use tokens and counters provided by the players for currency. That in a standard deck is 52 cards strong and we love 52. That’s a number with some factors, and it’s very close to 48, a number with a lot of factors going on.

Origin

Okay, what gave me this idea, and why this aesthetic and vibe?

Content Warning: Alright, I’m going to reference Stalin here, and I mean Stalin. Not communism or socialism, things that I regard very differently to most of the way people use them when they refer to Stalin. This is going to involve mentioning and referencing ways that Stalin was, in fact, a pretty rotten dude, who did some things that suck. If your delicate sensibilities aren’t here for watching an anarchist talk shit about a dude who did fascist things in the name of communism, maybe just walk on.

At some point I started learning about different types of algorithm for sorting things. This is a thing computers do all the time, and because they do it all the time, doing it slightly better means a lot of better use of resources over time. To simplify, your sorting algorithm wants to be efficient how many operations it has to do on your data. It’s a tiny program, so the simpler that program is, the faster it can run repeatedly. This means that tinier sorting algorithms can often be efficient in different ways.

One of these very efficient, tiny sorting algorithm is the Bogosort. A bogosort is famously bad but also very efficient. Bogosort randomises your entire dataset, then checks to see if it’s sorted, and if it’s not sorted, it randomises it again. To present as a human search method, you grab a deck of cards, you shuffle it, then you flip it over and check if anything is out of order – the first two cards being out of order is all you need to know to test that – then shuffle it again and check it again. The actual instructions of a Bogosort are very small and efficient. The sort itself is absolutely terrible.

The existence of the Bogosort leads to other, equally unhelpful but ‘technically useful’ solution algorithmic sorting methods. One of them answers the question: Can you make an efficient sorting method that generates a sort in the fewest possible parses through the data? And the answer is yes. The Stalinsort. The Stalinsort is the method described above in the game rules: You go through the data set in order, and any time you find something out of order, you drop it out of the data.

What this means is that by the end of the sort, you will have all your data in order. You don’t even need to check! You could have almost all of your data destroyed, but you do have the data in order.

I learned about a Stalin Sort from this Youtube Video, but there’s no source I’d refer to as a reference document. Apparently a common thing is to rename the sort based on what particular leader you want to cite. I’m a little bummed about Stalin Sort being seen as the name for this and associating it with hammers and sickles, because the symbolism of workers is pretty cool and the dude Stalin sucks. But on the other hand, just changing the name of the sort to some other leader I dislike isn’t really doing justice to the metaphor of the sort. After all, it is meant to make the data go away because it isn’t important. It evokes the way that Stalin disappeared people, getting rid of them but also refusing to acknowledge their previous presence.

Also calling it a Maosort just feels kinda racist coming from me.

Needs

A bunch of card designs, and some test art to have a sort of Soviet Corporate Shittiness art style and font choices. Oh maybe I’ll put in a backwards R in the logo so I can watch someone annoyed at me about stylisation of English text.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[ink-tank]

The Prospero Praxis

All eyes are on me as I hit the catwalk. That's not an exaggeration; it's a fact, as recorded by the optical implants of everyone in the nightclub, and displayed in graphical format in my peripheral vision.

The music's a steady 126bpm. My form-hugging minidress pulses from steel-grey to burnished gold, more vivid with every electronic beat. I'm half way down the runway when the chorus starts and the synthsoprano soars to a note that no unenhanced Earthling could ever achieve. My dress unfolds like impossible origami into a floor-length gown, horizontal bands of every colour spiralling upward from the hem to the halterneck.

Category is: wired straight into your optic nerve. Digitally-enhanced extravaganza. Final round of judging. Head to head.

On the parallel runway is Shader Lovelace. Her name's a carcrash of puns that probably doesn't mean much to the crowd of mostly young, mostly gay, mostly basic Earthlings and Uranians. She's wearing a silver kimono. Pretty simple, but the fabric moves uncannily, like she's submerged in water or dancing in zero-gravity. It's a nice little effect, and the pie chart in my heads-up display registers that she's stealing the attention of the audience. The eyes of the people filling the space between us are turning towards her. Away from me.

But when I reach the end of the runway my transformation is complete, and I'm a living pride flag. One thing I've learned from walking in countless competitions like this: stick a rainbow on it, and they eat it up. Pandering, moi?

I glance down, expecting to see two thumbs-up in front of a darling bowtie and a corporate-slick haircut, but Felix isn't where he promised to be. He's not at the bar either, making sure that there's a bottle of something fizzy ready to celebrate my win. He's not even in the section cordoned off for the digital phantoms of sick and housebound people who couldn't make it to the club in person.

The beat drops and the brassy bass roars, but I'm searching the room and miss the moment.

Shader Lovelace doesn't. She dips right on cue. Leaps high and lands flat on her back. Her kimono shatters like glass. She's on the ground, writhing erotically in her underwear. Shards of pseudo-mirror bounce up then hang in the air like someone pressed pause.

No, not pseudo-mirror: a realtime mirror effect. I catch a glimpse of my own astonished face reflected back across the room. The amount of processing power it must be taking is nothing short of opulent.

She hits a perfect one-hundred percent on the graph.

I activate my own showstopper moment, reaching out my arms and spinning on the spot. The rainbow bands unfurl like tentacles, which pixelate at their extremities and become beams of concentrated prismatic light. But I've blown the spot. I'm too late, and off the beat, and the graph doesn't lie when it says that nobody's watching.

Her mirrors twinkle in my reflected rainbow lights.

She kips up onto stiletto heels, which isn't even a digital effect. The bass thunders as the song reaches its climax. My rainbow weaves and plaits itself into my pouf, but I know when I'm defeated. I'm supposed to be the best digital couturier in the House of Aphrodite, and I'm being laced at our own pageant in our own nightclub. It wasn't meant to go like this.

The music stops. The club echoes with applause, but it feels like it's all directed at Shader.

Mother, sitting at the centre of the row of judges at the back of the stage, holds up her hand. The crowd falls obediently silent. She's Venus Aphrodite, mother of the House of Aphrodite, and in this club she is the undisputed monocrat in a fuchsia gown and ruff collar. She shoots me a benign, disappointed glance, but it's entirely too much like a look my actual mother might give, and I instinctively lower my eyes. Under the oppressive heat of the spotlights, a bead of sweat works its way from my wigline down my forehead.

“Shader Lovelace of the House of Hack,” says Mother, “as the visiting queen you are judged first. Your kimono shattered just like the mirror I made the mistake of glancing in before putting on my makeup this morning. That's seven years of bad luck for me, but for you it only brought good fortune. You get a ten.”

One of the other judges follows suit, and Shader pantomimes being all humble and surprised. The third judge awards her an eight-point-five, and Shader gives a cute little shrug, like what are you gonna do?  It's not much, but that 8.5 is a narrow window. If I could score a couple of perfect tens, I could still be in the game. It's a faint sparkle of hope.

“Hero of the House of Aphrodite,” Mother continues. “Your rainbow display made us all feel proud, but, even though you're a friend of Dorothy, the dreams that you dream of aren't coming true tonight. Seven point five.”

The point-five's a charity half.

I don't wait for the other judges to lay down their scores. I burn off the gown in a shower of embers, leaving behind only the charcoal-grey cocktail dress that was under the effects, and hop down from the far end of the runway. As I leave through the front door, so many people suck air through their teeth at once that it sounds like an airlock cycling.

Sure, everyone will think I'm a diva, but being a gracious loser is the quickest way to becoming some jobbing nobody, or, gods forbid, what's euphemistically called the enhancement talent. Honestly, I'm better off a bitch.

(The Prospero Praxis)

[phantomrose96]

Old Wounds

Danny’s secret is not a secret anymore.

The lines between Fenton and Phantom have long since blurred. And it’s a common occurrence for news reporters to trip over their tongue when flagging him down, mid-transformation, for a post-fight interview. “Phanton.” “Fentom.” So often that, to most now, he is just Danny.

When Danny wants upgrades to his gear, he comes to his mother. When Danny learns a quirky new element of Ghost Zone lore, he brings it to his father. When the Amity Park Ghost Alarm is raised, he’s first on the scene with the Fenton RV right on his non-corporeal heels.

When he’s injured, Danny comes only to his friends and sister.

Jazz notices the pattern. How it is only her, or only Sam, or only Tucker who receives the late-night knock at the window glass, with her brother on the other side, corny sheepish smile on display and arm or leg or shoulder held up in explanation.

Jazz notices how hushed Danny remains, day or night, when he comes to her for first aid. How he speaks in that same hesitant muted tone as he did when all of this was still a secret. How he quiets himself in the way injured prey animals do.

Jazz doesn’t feel it’s her place to ask. Not yet, at least. Eventually. But not yet.

The window is open. Honeysuckle-sweet gusts of late-spring air swirl through Jazz’s room and tease away the sheen of sweat that has collected on her brow. She cannot wipe it away herself, not with both hands meticulously occupied in tweezering out the singed fabric from her brother’s arm.

Danny winces, and hisses, and Jazz frees another thread from its embedded hold in Danny’s burn wound.

“It’s kind of like… summer vacation when we were kids and we’d get splinters visiting Aunt Alicia’s lake house,” Jazz remarks with another careful tug. “…If we can call it a lake house.”

“Lake shed,” Danny replies, grinning through the sweat shining on his pale face. “And I think every part of that dock was an OSHA violation.” He laughs through another wince.

“Dad was the king of tweezers. I think he got out every splinter that dock ever gave me.” Jazz pauses. “I wonder why that was. Think it’s the needlepoint?”

“It’s definitely the needlepoint,” Danny agrees.

Jazz hesitates on the question lingering behind her tongue. Just a little too long. Just a little too obviously.

“What?” Danny asks.

Jazz’s hand falters. She puts the tweezers down. “Danny, I will always always be happy to help you like this. Same goes for Sam, same goes for Tucker, I know. I’m positive. But I wonder why… not Mom or Dad?” Jazz eyes the tweezers, glinting in the moonlight. “I’m just… I’m thinking how much cleaner this might be if you got Dad to do it. And Mom’s got like, wilderness survival level first aid expertise. I can’t help thinking I’m hurting you more by it being… me, you know?”

Danny looks at her, and looks past her a moment. His grin slips a fraction into discomfort as his eyes leave hers. “Maybe I just like the excuse to invade your room.”

“Danny…” Jazz waits until he looks at her again. “Are you afraid they’ll make you stop if they realize you’re getting injured?”

Danny lets out a puff of air from behind his lips. “No, never. I mean, maybe if I got really really injured they’d say something. But just getting a little roughed up? I think it’s about on par with a kid coming home from football practice with a few scrapes, at least, in their eyes. They get more banged up than me these days. I’m not worried.”

Jazz reaches for the bottle of disinfectant. She unscrews the cap to a biting alcohol smell. “…So will you tell me why?”

“Why what?”

“Why you won’t ever go to them with injuries? Ever?”

Cotton swab, pure silver under the moonlight. Jazz douses it gently, a muted glug-glug from the bottle.

“…I’m that obvious about it, huh?”

“You’re obvious about most things. This’ll be cold.” Jazz applies the swab to the open wound, and Danny hisses in turn.

“Yeah. Cold. And stingy. Cold and stingy.” After a few seconds, the tension eases out of Danny’s body. He droops a little, shoulders slumped, and Jazz pulls the cotton swab away.

“Are you ashamed of your injuries?”

“No.”

“Are you worried Mom and Dad’ll make them worse?”

“Nah. You said it yourself, those two are weird, unconventional medical experts.”

“Then why not?”

A beat of silence follows. A moment of trepidation. Awash in moonlight, Danny looks up at her, and the glow in his green eyes has a life of its own. “I don’t want them to see the injuries that have already healed.”

“Why would that be a problem?” Jazz looks again. Danny’s suit covers most everything, save now for the one sleeve that’s been rolled back. She sees what she already knew was there – what isn’t obvious to the eye not searching – threads of white ridges, puckers of skin, a faded rashy texture of what had once been an ectoblast burn. Old injuries. Long healed. Faded and fading further. “Those are all healed now. Just some scars, right…?”

Danny hesitates.

“I don’t want them to figure out how many of those scars they caused.”

A gust of wind steals the antiseptic smell from the room. Jazz sits with the silence. She thinks, and she processes.

“Oh…”

Danny straightens. “They kind of… live in this world where hunting ghosts is all fun and games, you know? Like it’s a sport, like they can just get into go-mode and jump into the fun. I don’t think they’ve figured out yet that they can—could—did …cause damage.”

Danny adjusts himself on Jazz’s bed, one leg pulled up, body angled to face her directly. He doesn’t let his eye contact wander now. “They both apologized. Definitely. Like that definitely happened, back at the start of this. But it was kind of like ‘We must’ve given you so much trouble Danny! How’d you come home every day and not bite our heads off over that?’ Like. Again. Like it’s a game. Like they’d been knocking my chess pieces over for a year and not—”

Danny falters. He raises his uninjured arm and tucks the hair away from his face. “And I don’t… want it to click for them. What I have right now with Mom and Dad is so nice… It’s so much better than I even imagined. I want it to stay like this. Forever, if possible.”

“Danny…”

“And even that actually—maybe I’m actually wrong about that. Completely wrong. About their reaction, I mean. It’s possible maybe they’d see everything and just go,” Danny deepens his voice, “‘Wow! We did a number on you, huh? Man Danny I don’t know how you didn’t just smack us over the breakfast table every morning.’ you know? Like that. Like this was all just always a game. And they—and I-- …I like how relaxed ghost hunting is with them. I actually like that it feels like a game. I don’t ever want to go back to feeling how scared and afraid and unsafe and hurt I was that first year. ...But I’m afraid of how it would feel to know that maybe they’d see that, look at it all, everything they did and the scars like the actual proof and it—if it wouldn't ever be real to them. If they'd never get that it was like that. If they still wouldn’t realize—you know? That they—if they—I don’t uh…” Danny drops his eyes, and he shrinks in on himself. “I don’t know how to explain it…”

“No I—Danny I know what you’re saying. Don’t worry. Danny, I—”

“Either answer. Any answer. I don’t want to know… I don’t actually want to know.” Danny angles himself away again, feet dropped over the side of Jazz’s bed, staring down at the hands in his lap. “If it would horrify them, then I’d be ruining all the good things I have with them right now. And if it wouldn’t horrify them—” Danny falls quiet. The breeze has stilled. The room is colder now. “…then I think I just don’t ever want to know.”

Jazz nods, and nods harder.

“I get it. I get it. That’s a good enough answer for me, Danny, I promise. I’m your first aid person, okay? I won’t ask again. Thanks for… thanks for telling me, Danny.”

"Can always trust you to bring up the difficult conversations huh? Of course that's always been your thing. Talking to you is--well I'd say it's like pulling teeth, but maybe it's more like pulling ecto-demolished hazmat suit fabric out of a burn wound."

Danny offers a sheepish grin - it's an olive branch, a request to lighten the mood. Jazz meets it with her own small grin that does not touch her eyes.

"Yeah yeah, I'm your older sister. It's my job to be a pain. Now sit still, I need to be more of a pain if we're gonna de-hazmat suit your injury."

She picks the tweezers back up. The silence rings with an echo in her head now. Jazz focuses her attention back on her task, and she finds something she was wrong about before:

There is nothing faded about the scars that web up and down her little brother’s arm. They are stark streaks of lightning, glowing silver under the moonlight. And Jazz wonders how many others—how many that flaked away and melded back with healthy skin—how many of those might still be living, lingering, a permanent part of her little brother, buried well beneath the surface…

[queen-haq]

Fic: A Woman Scorned - Part 13

Fic: A Woman Scorned - Part 13

Pairing: Billy Russo x Reader

Rating: R for language and smut.

Words: ~3000 words.

Summary: You’ve been sleeping with Billy Russo for a few months now. Knowing his aversion to emotional commitments, you’re satisfied with your clandestine arrangement until you catch him having dinner with Dinah Madani one night. Then it finally dawns on you. It’s not that he doesn’t want to commit, he just doesn’t want to commit to *you*.

Billy may think he knows you, but he has no idea what he’s just lost...

Part 1  Part 2  Part 3  Part 4  Part 5   Part 6   Part 7   Part 8   Part 9  

Part 10   Part 11   Part 12

gif credit: @bilyrusso

Part 13

It was 8 in the evening and you were still in the office. You hadn’t accomplished much work today, your mind mostly focused on Billy. You were surprised by how quickly he’d been able to make the funeral arrangements for his mother. Yesterday you had driven over to the nursing home and by the time you reached there, Carla Russo’s body had already been picked up. You’d signed a few papers for Billy and picked up the remainder of Carla’s things before you returned home. Everything of hers was packed into a small suitcase and sitting in your living room. You wanted to call him, ask him how he was and offer your support, but he seemed determined to do everything on his own when you’d talked to him last and you didn’t want to intrude.

You gave yourself a mental shake, reminding yourself to concentrate. This workday had been a wash. When you weren’t distracted by thoughts of Billy, you were putting out fires in your team. At least the personnel conflicts have been temporarily resolved, but now you needed to work on a slide deck that you’d been tasked with presenting to the executive leadership committee later in the week.

An hour later you were halfway done with your presentation when your phone rang. You glanced down at your screen to find Billy’s name on the screen. “Hi.”

“Hey.” He sounded exhausted. “You still at work?”

“Yeah. How did you know?”

There was a pause. “You give off the workaholic vibe.”

You smiled to yourself; at least he was okay enough to crack jokes. “How are you?”

“You mean am I grieving over a goddamn dead woman who preferred meth to her own fucking son?” He sighed. “No big loss. I’m fine.”

Anger and hurt saturated his voice despite his attempts to sound unaffected. Your heart hurt for him, you wished there was something you could do. “Do you need anything?”

“The funeral service is tomorrow.” A beat of silence followed. “Do you want to come?”

“Sure. What time?”

“2pm.”

“I’ll take the day off. Do you need my help with anything? Maybe I can call some of her friends?”

“When I found her she was living on the streets, barely alive but still hooked on meth. I doubt she’s got any friends.”

“What about the people in the nursing home? Maybe they want to come?”

“No, I don’t want anyone else there. Just you.”

Not liking the warmth that spread through you upon hearing his words, you reminded yourself he was probably feeling unusually vulnerable. This wasn’t typical of him.

“Do you want to come over?” he asked.

You exhaled a heavy sigh. “I would but I have so much work to do. I’ll be here for another hour at least.”

“Come over after you’re done.”

“It’ll be really late.”

“That’s fine. I can wait.”

“I can stop by my place to pick up your mom’s-.”

“No, it’s okay.”

You realized he wasn’t quite ready to go through Carla’s belongings yet.

“Bring your stuff with you.”

“Stuff?”

“Overnight bag, clothes for tomorrow, whatever.”

“Oh. You want me to stay over?”

“Yeah, might as well. We can drive over together for the service tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

Despite the conversation coming to a natural end, he wasn’t hanging up. It seemed as if he was reluctant to be alone, probably because that meant dealing with the complicated emotions for his mother. You knew exactly how that felt. “If you want, I can leave now. I can work from your apartment instead of the office.”

“You’re not worried I’ll be tempted to spy on Valiant stuff?” he teased.

You smiled. “As if I’d let you see what I’m working on.”

“Guess no corporate espionage for me tonight.”

“Still going to keep you away from my laptop.”

He chuckled. “Just get here. I promise not to bug you while you work.”

“Okay. I’m leaving now.”

“See you soon.”

After you hung up, you started gathering your things together.

***

An hour later, you were at his place. When he opened the door, you immediately grew concerned at how tired he looked. Traveling back and forth from Vegas plus dealing with the news about Carla’s death within the last few hours meant he was absolutely exhausted.

“Hey,” he greeted you, smiling as he took the overnight bag from your hands.

You removed your heels while he took your bag inside his room and then made your way to his living room. While his penthouse suite was much bigger than yours, you actually didn’t like it very much. Despite the high-end finishes and the beautiful interiors - Billy had obviously hired a designer to make the place look good - it always felt very cool and inhospitable to you. It was too perfect and you always felt out of place inside the suite.

“You hungry?” he asked, coming up behind you. “I ordered dinner for you.” Arms encircling your waist, he dropped a kiss on the back of your head as he maneuvered you to the kitchen. He’d laid out the food for you on the dining table, and from the take-out containers you knew it was from one of your favourite Indian restaurants. The thoughtful gesture surprised you, you weren’t used to that from him. Noting that he’d only set the table for one, you turned around to look at him. “You’re not going to eat with me?”

“I ate already. I was starving. Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” You cradled his face with one hand, your eyes roving over his beautiful face as he placed a kiss on the fleshy part of your palm. “You look exhausted. Did you even sleep?”

“No” He leaned back against the kitchen counter, weary. For a moment he closed his eyes, simply holding still, and you found yourself wrapping your arms around him in a hug. You didn’t understand why you’d even initiated the embrace – hugs were never your thing – but seeing him so beaten-down you were desperate to comfort him. He leaned into you, his body flushed against yours, and you held him tight. Stroking the nape of his neck, you placed a soft kiss on the center of his forehead. “Why don’t you take a nap while I work?”

“You don’t mind?”

You smiled up at him, running your fingers through his hair. “At least I don’t have to worry about you stealing my company secrets while you sleep.”

He smirked. “You’ll be here when I wake up?”

“Yup. Probably still working away.”

Billy grazed your temple softly before dropping a tender kiss on the tip of your nose. “Okay, but eat first.”

You nodded your head, watching after him as he sauntered out of the kitchen and disappeared down the hallway.

Sighing, you went to the sink to wash your hands before eating.

***

It was after midnight and you were still working on your slide deck when you heard Billy puttering around in the bathroom. Soon he slowly made his way towards you, dressed in a t-shirt and black boxers, his hair all messy. He yawned lazily, falling onto the other end of the couch.

“I thought you’d sleep through the night,” you remarked.

“Are you still working?” he asked.

“Almost done.” You saved the file and shut off the laptop before slipping it back inside your bag.

Suddenly he pulled you closer and you found yourself tucked underneath him on the couch as he glanced down at you from above. “You work too hard.”

You smiled up at him. “They don’t pay me the big bucks to sit there and look pretty.”

A slow, incandescent smile curved his lips. “I would. If I ran Valiant, you’d be my personal stress relief. You’d be in my office the entire time and do nothing but look pretty and service me.”

“That’s sexual harassment.”

Billy shrugged his shoulders. “Whatever. I’d make it worth your while.”

You laughed, angling up to kiss him. “Your breath is all minty fresh.”

“I brushed my teeth for you.”

“Wow. Be still my heart.”

A warm grin covered his face as he shifted down your body to nuzzle your neck. His weight was heavy as he rested atop you, but you liked the solid feel of him on you, the way you felt all safe and warm. You stroked his hair while he drew lazy circles on your chest, the silence between you two comforting.

“No one knows about her. Not Frank, not Curtis, no one.”

Those names were familiar to you because Billy had mentioned them in passing a few times. Of course he’d never shared any other info, but you being you, you’d dug around and found out more about them. You knew they’d served with Billy and he considered them his closest friends.

“When I found her three years ago, I put her in that home and forgot all about her.”

“You visited her every week,” you reminded him.

“Because I wanted her to regret abandoning me. I wanted her to see how far I’d come, I wanted to throw her mistakes in her face. But I don’t think she regretted safe-havening me, not even a bit.”

The bitter pain in his voice made your heart hurt for him.

“Maybe I should be happy she’s finally dead, or maybe I’m supposed to be sad or something.”

“How do you actually feel?”

“Nothing. I feel nothing.”

“Billy, I think that’s normal. There’s no right or wrong in this. All of your feelings are valid.”

“Even if her dying made me absolutely ecstatic? You wouldn’t think I was a fucking psychopath?”

“You are a psychopath but not because you have conflicting emotions about your terrible mother dying. You have the right to feel how you feel about her, whatever that might be.”

Eyes blazing with emotion, he hovered about you to meet your gaze. “Then what makes me a psychopath?”

You quirked your eyebrow. “The fact you want to torture my dates.”

“Not just torture, I want to kill them.” Eyes darkened, voice velvety-smooth, he covered your mouth with his and ravaged you with a kiss that left you thrumming and breathless.

“Only you’re allowed to touch me?” you asked through labored breaths.

“Yes.” His voice was a lustful rasp, his mouth leaving a heated trail as he sucked on the oh-so-sensitive corner of where your neck and shoulder intersected. Sparks of electricity ran down your spine. “Only me.”

You took his hand and guided it down your body, parting your thighs for him.

Like always, you were soon completely lost in the erotic pleasure of his mouth on you. Your legs hooked over his shoulders, your hands grabbed the back of the couch for support as he fucked you with his hands and mouth, sucking you, licking you, his tongue flicking over your clit until you were keening under him. Body arching off the couch, you moaned his name louder and louder until he drove you completely over the edge.

Then you felt a light slap on your cunt which immediately brought you back to reality. Opening your eyes, you found Billy perched between your legs, gracing you with the most wicked smile. “That’s one.” He slapped your pussy again, this time his long, lean fingers ever so slightly grazing your clit and your hips bucked, wanting more. “As promised.” His eyebrow quirked up. “Punishment.”

“Not fair,” you protested. “I’ll date who I want.”

He slapped you again, a little harder this time, but then he leaned down to place comforting kisses on the very spots he assaulted and you moaned with pleasure.

“All of you.” His tongue lapped over your clit, eyes locked with yours. “Belongs to me. I own you.”

“You don’t!” You squealed when he flipped you over unexpectedly, grabbing you by the hips so your ass was lifted of the couch. And then he squeezed your butt cheeks, biting them lightly before he started rimming you.

***

After sharing a shower the two of you were laying in his bed, your back pressed against his chest as you both stared up at the ceiling. His one hand was intertwined with yours, the other arm circled around your hips. The two of you didn’t have sex but you didn’t mind. You were both fatigued.

“I smell like you now,” you murmured, realizing the soap in his shower had left its scent on you.

“I know. I like it.” He squeezed your fingers. “I have a present for you.”

“I hope it’s not earrings again.”

He chuckled. “No, not earrings.”

“What is it then?”

“Jewelry.”

You turned back to look at him. “What? Like a necklace?”

“Something like that. Except I’m the only one who’ll see you wearing it.”

“Ah. And where is this gift?”

He kissed the top of your head. “Not here yet.”

You smiled to yourself. “People usually wait until they have the gift in hand before telling others about it.”

“I couldn’t wait. I’m excited to see you wear it.”

He stroked your hair, and your eyes grew heavy. Soon you started falling into deep slumber, feeling calm, comforted by Billy’s arms around you.

“What happened with your family?”

Your eyes flew open. Like always, any mention of your family unfurled anxiety within you. You didn’t like thinking about them letting alone discussing them. “They passed away.”

“They’re dead?”

“Yes.”

“Both of them?”

“Yes.”

He pulled you up so you were facing him now, his intoxicating gaze completely focused on you. “That day when I asked you about the pictures, you said you weren’t close to your family.”

“I meant my extended family. I don’t keep in touch with them,” you replied smoothly.

“What were your parents like?”

Irritation surged through you at his obtrusive questions but you had to remind yourself he just lost his mother. He was feeling out-of-sorts, working through his grief – even if he didn’t think so – and he was reaching out to the only person in his life that knew about his mother. “Normal.”

He simply stared at you for a long time, studying you, saying nothing. “Normal,” he repeated, finally breaking the strained silence.

You shrugged your shoulders, dropping your gaze to the base of his throat so you didn’t have to hold his piercing stare. “Yup.”

“How did they die?”

“Car accident.”

“You miss them?”

“Of course,” you lied.

He reached out to cup your face, his thumb stroking your cheek. “So you grew up with great parents, white picket fence and all that bullshit? Sounds like you had a fairytale childhood.”

“Can we talk about this tomorrow? I’m really tired.”

“Sure. I’ll add this to the list of all the other shit we’ll talk about someday.”

He sounded almost angry with you and you weren’t sure why. Before you could question him, however, he pulled you close so you were snuggled against his chest and the warmth of his body was enough to silence your brain and lull you to sleep.

***

It was a cold, crisp autumn day in New York. The outdoor service, attended by only you and Billy, was short and quick. Throughout it, he’d gripped your hand even though he’d been outwardly calm and collected. Even now as he stood a few feet away from you, impeccably dressed in a black suit, his dark eyes hidden behind a pair of aviator sunglasses as he stared out at the pond, you sensed he was a complete mess inside. You didn’t know what to say to him so you simply sat on the bench, both of you in an isolated corner of the garden. Eventually he came to sit beside you, taking your hand in his.

“I’d have given her the whole world.” His voice was filled with pain and longing as he removed his sunglasses and tucked them in the upper pocket of his suit. “I would have given her anything she ever wanted.” Billy’s eyes met yours. “If she’d just wanted me.”

You scooted closer to wrap your arms around him, breathing him in as he sunk into you. His hands caressed your back, his grip on you so tight you almost couldn’t breathe. After a while he rested his forehead against yours, his eyes holding you prisoner in front of him.

“Swear to me you’ll never leave.”

“Billy-”

“Promise me!”

“I can’t.”

“It wasn’t a fucking request, Y/N.”

You tried to pull away from him but he fisted the back of your hair, holding you in place.

The raw urgency in his voice played havoc with your emotions. If you closed your eyes, just for a moment, you could shut out all the doubts in your head and simply believe him - but you could only live the fantasy for a short moment before reality forced its way back in. “You don’t mean those words, Billy.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because you don’t feel that strongly about me.”

His eyes narrowed, glaring at you with hostility. “You’re gonna tell me how I feel?”

“I’m not what you want.”

“And what do you think I want?”

You gave him a sad smile. “The best of everything. Best car, best clothes, the most beautiful women in your arms. You want all that because you need others to want what you have.”

“Is that so wrong?”

You shook your head. “No, there’s nothing wrong with that – except I don’t fit into any of those categories. You want a woman like Dinah Madani. I’m not her. So eventually this thing between us will end.”

His jaw was set in a grim line, eyes burning bright with rage. “So you have me all figured out, huh?”

“Don’t get mad. You know it’s the truth.”

He yanked you closer, crushing you against him. “It’s been me against the world for as long as I can remember. But when I look at you.” His eyes softened, mouth parting as his dark gaze roamed over your face. “I don’t feel alone anymore.”

Your heart melted. The tenuous handle you had on your self-control disintegrated completely. You closed your mouth over his, kissing him frantically as he picked you up and straddled you across his lap.

He pulled back to look at you. “You’re my home. You’re all I need.”

Part 14

A/N - As always, all of your feedback, comments, asks, likes and reblogs are deeply appreciated. They truly inspire me to keep writing, so thank you from the bottom of my heart.

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[bixbythemartian]

I wanna tell y’all what happened in our tabletop game last night but to do it right I have to give a bit of context, so.

We’re playing Blue Planet, which is a future space game where you’re playing on world called Poseidon, which is much more water based than Earth. It’s an earth colony, and one of the things about this environment is that some cetaceans have been ‘uplifted’ and, with the use of mods and drones, can communicate easily with humans. You get killer whales who can hack computers, that kind of thing. It’s shadowrun-esque except there’s no magic (some characters have, like, ESP but that’s the limit). There’s all kindsa genetically modified humanoids. Our team has a doctor who’s a cat person and two ‘squiddies’, humanoids who are adapted to swim and have gills and so on. The only actual baseline human is our resident murder hobo.

Sections of the planet are corporate run, the government is almost entirely run through corporate.

My character is a bottlenose dolphin (I don’t remember whether or not bottlenose are actually some of the uplifted dolphin species but neither me nor my dm care) named Livya- I don’t remember her last name off the top of my head but she specifically gave herself a first name last name because she thought humanoids would find it more relatable.

I am gonna put a cut in here because this got super long but I really just want to write this all down

She’s a high level employee in the dolphin-run corporation, which is... basically the least evil one to work for. And again, this is not just a business, but also a government- she’s done a lot of translation and ambassador work. she’s a paper pusher, she does languages, she’s really good at her job.

the start of the game she was helping with a public outreach program to treat a disease common to anybody who lives most of their life in the water, and then someone blew up the building she was in and dropped it on top of her. She got evacced with two water adapted humanoids, a cat, an npc killer whale named Jet who is almost entirely jet black, and the aforementioned murder hobo. 

now I want to remind you that she is basically a high level paper pusher. she’s really good at her job! but there is nothing about her life that has prepared her to be launched into an intrigue plot in outer space. she knows what forms they need to fill out- but she can’t pilot, she doesn’t even have any of her drones with her (which are all specialized to communication). she doesn’t know anything worth knowing, even, she’s reliable and gets her reports returned on time and is pretty good at, like, translation work and getting people shuffled around where they need to go and, like, logistics of keeping buildings going and stuff like that.

but the game basically turned into a star trek away mission, where they got conclusive proof of ancient alien technology, as well as proof of a plot by a rival corp that is trying to steal their find and murder them all to death. and she’s just a dolphin who knows languages and is good at talking to people! she can requisition you supplies! she doesn’t know how to fly spaceships or deal with people who want to murder you when there’s not a marshall to bring in!

she was given, by the Boss (who is, essentially, the president, and also a dolphin) a drone named Good Boy. Good Boy is, by all appearances, a Black Lab, but he’s essentially a terminator dog- a skeleton made of heavy, durable metal under a fleshy exterior. He does have an autonomous mode- she can set him to go do things on his own- but she can also ride inside him.

(Like riggers from Shadowrun- she doesn’t have much in the tech side of things, other than what she needs to do her job, with the exception of running drones- because she uses drones a lot.)

They’ve been in space for weeks and she’s now got, inside her head, some of the most valuable information in the fucking galaxy, she’s way out of her depth and extremely aware of it.

With all that context, here’s the situation coming into last night- their ship, the Tillikum (yes, named for that specific Killer Whale by the DM, but tbh I can 100% see some future dolphin ceo ordering the commissioning of a ship by that name) has been attacked and damaged by another incorporate, who’s desperate to get the extremely valuable information they have. Their only chance to get the ship repaired enough to leave is to take the nearby base out of commission. The base is on a low gravity (very low g) moon with no atmosphere to speak of.

This is not the A squad. This isn’t even the B-squad. This is ‘well it’s this or sit here and wait for either our oxygen to run out or for them to blow us to smithereens’ squad. We’re poorly equipped but we gotta do something.

So our pilot took one of the stealth shuttles we completely stole from this incoporate from one of our previous raids on the ship and kinda accidentally dropped it through the barracks (he intended to land on top).

Fortunately for us, it depressurized the barracks and took a lot of their man power out in one fell swoop, but there’s an underground base with people hiding who were running drones.

Our hacker, Churro (a heavily tattooed orca) brought his hacking drone constellation, and Livya brought Good Boy, who does not require oxygen. The only weapons this drone has is teeth- if you don’t know that this is a drone, he looks like a black lab.

Churro grabbed their shuttle, which was attempting to flee- he hacked it and seized control. When they started trying to disable the ship, he just started shaking it violently back and forth and may actually blow the doors and start shaking them out (like the last penny in an oddly shaped jar).

Livya, inside Good Boy, broke into a machine shed, broke the knee on a four-legged walker drone, and headed down further into the base where she discovered a much larger base indeed. She knows she needs to take the drones out, and she’s gonna go to the source- the drone operators.

But it’s a maze of a base. So I ask the DM ‘hey, this is a place- it’s gotta be like a hospital or something, where there’s writing on the wall and lines leading places and so on. Is there any indication of that here?’

he goes ‘yeah, but it’s all in-’ and he stopped and looked at me. ‘you speak German.’

Yeah, Livya knows several languages, German is one of them.

And so he gave me a list, and I was like okay hang on, can I do a beaurocracy roll to figure out where the likeliest place the drone operators would be? from the perspective of I’ve probably seen plans for and requisitioned supplies for a base like this, and probably have some idea of where the drone op would be set up, this is me using my base knowledge as a corporate dingus to figure this out- one of my best skills.

Probably one of my favorite things to do as a player is to use the thing my character is good at in a way the DM didn’t expect but is absolutely valid. He knows I am going to succeed in some level on this roll- while it’s theoretically possible for me to fail it, it’s pretty unlikely- and he also knows that I have got every reason to approach it from this direction.

So he’s like- yeah, and I find them- and they are all humanoids. And like my dolphin self- which is like a quarter of a mile away from the drone- they are fully immersed.

They can’t hear the room they’re in, or perceive it in any meaningful way, they are jacked into various drones that are doing their level best to turn my friends into greasy red smears.

Good Boy has. Extremely sharp. Teeth. It is the only weapon on the drone but in a room full of helpless, fleshy humanoids- you don’t need much else.

anyway I like to imagine that their internal group chat (because they’re all on the comms in a way that combines voice and visual images and chat) looked something like this

Livya: hey I found the drone operators

Livya:

[mostlysignssomeportents]

FTC about to hammer Intuit

In most of the world's democracies, tax prep is really easy: the government uses its own employer-supplied payroll records to estimate your taxes, fills in a tax return for you and mails it to you.

If it looks good, you sign it and return it. If not, you amend it (or hire an accountant to do so).

But not in the USA: here, the tax-prep industry makes billions charging Americans to gather information the IRS already has and send it to the IRS (again).

Naturally - this is America ca. 2020, after all - the tax-prep industry is highly concentrated, with a few megafirms capturing nearly 100% of the business, and when industries are that concentrated, they get to write their own rules.

They do that in three ways:

Concentrated industries are small enough that they can readily agree on a common lobbying position;

They extract monopoly rents and can mobilize these excess profits to lobby on their common position; and

They so dominate their industry that their own regulators are drawn from their executive ranks and/or hope to cycle out of public service and into the firms' executive structure

Big Tax Prep did all of these things - but at long last, it's catching up with them.

The worst offender of all is Intuit, makers of Turbotax, whose fraud is matched only by the company's weird culture, built on a literal personality cult around the company's longtime CEO Brad Smith:

https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-fight-to-stop-americans-from-filing-their-taxes-for-free

Smith didn't just orient the whole company around literal worship of his person: he also transformed the company's longtime opposition to free government tax-prep into the centerpiece of its political activity.

It was under Smith's leadership that Intuit convinced the IRS to kill plans for free tax prep and replace them with "Free File" - a program where Big Tax-Prep offered free tax prep services to low-income Americans.

Free File is an INCREDIBLE grift. Free File companies used deceptive tactics to make it virtually impossible to use, and they were successful. Almost no one has heard of Free File - and of the people who have, almost no one has successfully used it.

https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/6nhgol/144-dark-pattern

Instead Free File became a sales-funnel: low-income filers who tried to use it would get diverted into expensive for-pay alternatives.

That sales-funnel came in handy after the Trump tax plan eliminated the need for high-earners to itemize deductions - that when Intuit targeted elderly people, people with disabilities, and students to make up the difference.

https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-tax-law-threatened-turbotax-profits-started-charging-disabled-unemployed-and-students

How did they get away with this?

Bribery.

Intimidation.

Stealing IRS internal files.

You know: "business."

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-irs-tried-to-hide-emails-that-show-tax-industry-influence-over-free-file-program

But here's a Smurfs' Family Christmas miracle for you: thanks to relentless, deep reporting from Propublica, led by Justin Elliott and Paul Kiel, the IRS actually cracked down on Intuit and the rest of Big Tax-Prep.

Last New Year's Eve, the IRS and Intuit announced that Intuit was now banned from hiding its Free File offerings, and the IRS announced that it would drop a policy banning it from creating its own Free File competitor.

https://www.propublica.org/article/irs-reforms-free-file-program-drops-agreement-not-to-compete-with-turbotax

And the hits keep on coming! The FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection has been investigating Intuit's Turbotax scam for more than a year. In May, the FTC sent Intuit a wide-ranging subpoena, demanding both documents and sworn testimony from company execs.

Intuit sued to block the subpoena, but they just got their asses handed to them by a bipartisan vote of FTC commissioners:

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-ftc-is-investigating-intuit-over-turbotax-practices

The commissioners rejected Intuit's claim that handing over documents and giving testimony was "burdensome," in light of both the depth of the inquiry and the pandemic.

The FTC joins at least four states that are investigating Intuit:

https://www.propublica.org/article/turbotax-tricked-customers-into-paying-to-file-taxes-now-several-states-are-investigating-it

A group of taxpayers who were tricked into paying Intuit for "free" services are suing the company, having beaten its bid to force them into binding arbitration (where people are forced to argue in front of a corporate "arbitrator" instead of a judge):

https://www.law.com/therecorder/2020/03/13/judge-turbotax-users-who-claim-they-were-eligible-for-free-tax-filing-belong-in-court-not-arbitration/

Chances are you've already filed your taxes, but just in case, here's Propublica's guide to successfully using Free File. If you have simple taxes, you should never have to pay for tax-prep:

https://www.propublica.org/article/how-to-file-state-federal-taxes-free-2020#175169

Image: Phil Catterall (modified) https://he.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%91%D7%A5:Henhouse_near_Ganthorpe_-_geograph.org.uk_-_670026.jpg

CC BY-SA https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

[joshslater]

End of Shift

Similar stories and bonus material on my Patreon.

My life is over. I've been playing a high stakes game, and somehow landed on one side of the odds all the time, but my luck was bound to run out sooner or later. I guess I should be happy that it turned out to be later, but it sucks no less. I got sloppy. I was looking through the items near the cashier, as always, trying to mostly use reflective surfaces to see what was going on, as always. I need to be within 15 feet or latency becomes an issue. Some old lady still using the old wallet was buying KokaKola and a pack of Ziffs. This would be easy, as always. I discreetly pressed my watch as she was ready to make the purchase, activating my EM-swiper. I wouldn't take much, a few credits more. She probably wouldn't notice it, or think the store stiffed her, or think she bought two packs of Ziffs and lost one. I'm not stealing to get rich, just to get by.

As the EM-swiper went off a high pitched beeping starts behind me. I barely have time to turn my head enough to see the charging police officer, before he slams me into the side of a KokaKola fridge. Shit, I hadn't done a survey pass through the store as I always do. I could barely register what he was screaming in my ear. "Drop it," I realize, and let go of the magazine. He must have thought I had the EM-swiper in my hand. He told me to put my hands against the wall and performed a pat-down. It's only him, so he must be off duty or not on a real patrol. He empties my pockets on the cashier table. Nothing of value, and certainly not something incriminating. I may not have been fortunate enough to afford academy, but I'm not stupid.

"You are detained under suspicion of committing proximity fraud. Do you understand?" he asks me in that commanding yet bored tone of a laborer having to recite corporate bullshit, only in his case it is in the pretense of justice. "Yes," I answer him. He doesn't have anything on me or he would have arrested me right away. Probably. "Put this on to acknowledge you've read the Citizen Rights Act and agree to an investigation in this matter." He hands me a pair of handcuffs to put on. I hesitate for a second. He is behind me and in the way of the store exit. I can stall for time and tell him to recite the CRA, but that immediately counts against you, as it is your duty to know it. I have no choice but to put them on. It's the latest model. I haven't seen any up close before. Light, thin, all metal, no key hole. Probably opened remotely or only inside a police cell or some shit. I put them on.

"Turn around, pick up your stuff, and exit the store." I do as told, turn around and begin to pick up my stuff and put them back where he took them. It's an older police officer. None of them young, jacked up types. Perhaps he is one of the fair ones. But then I am the criminal, so what good would that do me? There's a small, black duffle bag by his side. So he is on his way home. Perhaps he is tired. Perhaps I can shake him. Have Leo remove the shackles and then stay low for a fucking long time. Or this just doesn't amount to anything more than a slap on the wrist. I walk towards the door, him behind me.

"Nice watch," he says, pointing at my wrist as I reach or the door.

He knows. Unless I can get away now my life is over. All I can think of is the monstrosities the state churn out as punishment. Equal part labor force and sadism. I open the door as little as possible and as soon as I am through I dash down the block. I don't dare look behind me, but I don't hear him in pursuit. Halfway down the block I swerve into the alley that cuts across the building and out on the block on the other side. If I can cross that block and then down south I'm in the park and there are plenty of places to hide there.

My hands are not on fire. This surprises me as I look down on my hands, screaming in pain. There is a high pitched sound coming out of the handcuffs, like capacitors charging, but it is continuous. The pain emanating from my hands is something unlike anything I've ever experienced before. My legs buckle. I know I need to move, somehow, somewhere. It's just so difficult to think of anything but my hands that are not on fire. It would probably be a good idea to not scream my lungs out, but I don't really have a choice in that.

Just as suddenly as it started it stops. I'm still writhing in pain, but my hands are not on fire in a much more comforting way. "The payment proxy is in your watch, is it not?" the policeman asks, standing a few steps away. I'm panting, I realize when I attempt to answer him. Panting and sweaty. I can't manage to speak. I just nod my head.

"The state vs. item RK-220553 finds the defendant guilty to breach of contract with the state, executed by judicial AI 5" he reads off his handheld screen. I'm confused to what just happened. "No trial?" I manage to wheeze out. "You entered into a cooperation contract when you put on the handcuffs, as you are aware of as you claimed to know the Citizens Rights Act. Disobedience at that point allows for immediate trial by AI as long as no forensic work is needed." He sounded like the same bored cop as he was in the store, reciting memorized text for the thousandth time.

I struggle to get up on my feet. Not only am I shaky, but having my hands locked together makes it surprisingly difficult to get up. "You know, this is bad timing," the cop starts. "I was on my way home and don't have all the standard gear. It's supposed to be a swift punishment, for deterrence, but there is really only one thing I can do." Why is he so apologetic? He opens the bag and pulls out a fucking tactical human transformer. I've never even seen one in person before. He turns it on, selects something on the screen, and points the device towards me. "No, I can..."

This time I am on fire, if only so briefly. There is a blinding light, a pulse of heat, and the smell of burnt plastic. As the transient heat subsides it keeps falling colder and colder. I'm naked. All my clothes have been singed from my body. My watch is gone. My shoes are gone. Underwear gone. And, I realize, my hair is gone. The cop keeps punching in selections in the menus of the devices. I manage to get up on my feet. "Stay on the ground," he tells me. Not so much as an order, but as an advice. I sit down again and he trains the device on me.

I don't know how to describe it. It's not pain exactly. There is something about rewriting the code and cellular structure of your body while your brain is engaged that makes it give up in disbelief. "This can't be what's actually happening," it thinks and gives you completely nonsense sensory interpretations. But it also gives up on all other tasks. Time becomes irrelevant. Critical thinking put on hold. When the device stops you are utterly confused for seconds. Possibly by design, but it makes sense that you can't rewire the brain in flight without some glitches.

"I want you to stand up," the cop says in a firm voice. "Who?" I ask, still dazed, just to make sure. "You. Get up on both feet. Take this." He throws an orange bundle to me, and I feebly grasp for it but my one arm yanks the chain to the cuff of the other arm. The bundle brushes by and lands on the ground next to me. He looks disappointed, more at himself for thinking it would work than on me for not catching it.

I look down at my hand and see something orange in my grip, but it is not the orange that interests my but the grip. My arms, thin from lack of food and nimble from grabbing P2 storage modules out of vendor racks. are enormous. Big, well defined muscles with popped veins going up and around them. They look longer than before and even the hands are larger than they used to be. I can see that not only my arms are different. My chest is all lean and strong-looking as well, the legs have these weird lines showing different groups of muscles under the skin, and I can almost bet that the ground is further down than it used to be. Orange! I'm holding something orange in my hand.

"I only have an emergency kit with me, so not very many options for you I'm afraid. If you had come with me I think they would have found some better use for you, but as I said, I didn't have much to chose from beside himbot," the cop said while putting some beat-up looking boots from his bag next to me. He grabs the chain between my cuffs, and both of them pop open instantly, and he folds them up and begins to place them back into the cuff holder in his belt.

There was something he said that was important. Like, really important. I feel cobwebs like I had just been awakened from a deep sleep. "Put on the jock," he tells me, and again I am confused, but of a different kind. It's like I urgently need to know what he means, somehow. "You're holding them in your hand." I again look down at my hand and see the orange piece of cloth, which obviously is what he meant. I flip it around in my hands and finds it to be an orange jockstrap with a generous pouch. Looking down I also see the reason for that, since my dick and balls are large. Much larger than I remember them to be. I don't want to keep him waiting, so as quickly as I can manage, with my balance a bit off, I manage to place one leg in each loop and pull up the jockstrap. It neatly collects everything in front into a large orange ball.

Himbot! That's what he had said. It's like the government robots but human. What was the I and M now again? Wait, those are just mindless sacks of muscles roaming around doing whatever menial task is available.

"Himbot?" I ask him. "Yes, you are a himbot," the cop answered. "Put on the shirt."

I immediately grabbed the orange bundle from the ground I assumed to be the shirt. To my delight I was right and with just a few tries I managed to get it on me. It isn't a real shirt, but one of those without arms, whatever they are called. Quite a lot of skin showed. The shoulders were bare, as were the sides and the nipples unless you positioned the strings just right. Stringers! It's called a stringers, or something close to it. I feel so tired thinking of words.

"And the boots"

I grab one of the boots. There is something missing, but I'm not sure what it is. I has something to do with the small holes, I think. Well, the large hole is missing a foot, so I put one in it. Then I put the other foot in the other boot, and looked at the cop to see if he approved. He looks about the same. Good enough I hope.

"Face me and raise your hands" I comply immediately. He is pointing the large gun at me again. I don't like it, but I must do what he says. He presses a few buttons and then there is a sharp headache.

"Who are you?" "Himbot 220553." "What is your assignment?" "Walk along path 228-red responding to requests." "What types of requests?" "Any type of requests."

[starshine583]

For the soulmate letter prompts, Felinette with prompt O please.

O: Opportune outfit (soulmates will eternally color coordinate, even if they have not met one another yet, and often times have similar patterns in their clothing)

(Thank you @symwinter and @desiiigirl for this ask! I had a ton of fun writing it, so I hope you enjoy!)

“We’re here live tonight at the Carrousel du Louvre where Audrey Bourgeois is hosting her biggest party yet! Celebrities of all kinds will be invited, including Jagged Stone, Gabriel Agreste, and MDC herself! Stay tuned to catch sight of these incredible fashion icons!”

Marinette drew in a deep breath to calm her nerves as her miniature limo drove up to the front entrance. She’d been to plenty of parties before hosted by celebrities, but none as big as this. There were going to be reporters everywhere who would hold her under a magnifying glass all evening and powerful, influential people that she would have to tip-toe around to make a good first impression. On top of that, this was going to be the night she revealed her exclusive designer’s dress that she’d kept a secret for the last six months! It was an extremely important event for her, and she didn’t want to mess anything up.

The limo pulled to a stop in front of the red carpet, causing Marinette’s breath to catch in her throat. She quickly checked her hair and makeup, then smoothed out the corners of her dress. 

“You can do this.” She muttered to herself. “You’ve already made it this far. Now, you get to show the world why.”

The driver opened her car door, and Marinette offered the reporters a bright smile as she stepped outside. Screams of delight and excitement swept over the crowds of people that were huddled on both sides of the carpet. Cameras were flashing everywhere, almost blinding her, but Marinette kept an elegant stride despite it as she signed a few autographs. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, MDC has just arrived at the gala, and may I say her dress looks absolutely dazzling!” A reporter to her left trilled. “The navy blue mixed with those silver dots and stars makes it look like the night sky! And the way the sheer fabric in sewn to the dress makes it look like the stars are trailing behind her as well! It’s truly a fantastic creation, especially with that diamond, crescent moon necklace to compliment it! Could this be that secret design that MDC’s corporation has been hinting about for so long?”

Marinette tried to contain her grin, but by the time she walked inside the Carrousel du Louvre, she was positively glowing. After spending many sleepless nights working on Starry Night- as her design was called - hearing the multitude of praises from the reporters was immensely satisfying. It made the whole project feel worthwhile.

“Oh, Marinette!” 

Audrey Bourgeois, having heard the commotion, waltzed over to the Louvre entrance to greet her. She seemed to be as fashionable and haughty as ever, and Marinette pulled an extra bright smile in an effort to please the woman. "Bonjour Audrey." She said politely. “It’s wonderful to see you again. Thank you for inviting me to your party.”

“Oh, think nothing of it!” Audrey replied, linking her arm with Marinette’s to guide her into the heart of the party. “I’ve been dying to speak with you about your latest designs, anyway. You’ve certainly made a name for yourself since the first time we met.”

A bit of tension melted from Marinette’s shoulders at the comment, and she felt a more genuine smile settle onto her lips. The last time she saw Audrey was when she’d been offered that job in New York, the same job that she ended up declining. It was good to know that Audrey wasn’t holding a grudge against her for that.

“Yes, these last two years have been quite eventful.” Marinette agreed. She’s managed to build a small company out of her designs that’s only continued to grow. The fact that she’d already designed things for Jagged Stone and Gabriel himself definitely helped her take-off.

“Indeed. Even my customers all the way in America have heard of you, which is why I wanted to propose a collaboration between us.”

“A collaboration?”

“Yes! Imagine how much popularity you’ll gain if we-”

“Audrey! Audrey Bourgeois!”

Audrey’s pleasant expression quickly soured when someone from across the room called out her name, interrupting whatever proposition she was going to make. 

“What is it?” The woman snapped. “I’m busy.”

A man stepped forward from the crowd, his countenance stern and unimpressed. “We were supposed to talk about the location of your next fashion show. Need I remind you that I have other business I need to attend to tonight?”

Audrey huffed and rolled eyes. “Fine, fine, we’ll talk then. Marinette, dear, do me a favor and stay put while I go discuss a few matters with M Laurence.”

Marinette nodded and took to idly surveying the room while the two strolled off to another corner of the Louvre. She wasn’t sure why Audrey would have to leave to talk about fashion show locations, but she supposed it also wasn’t any of her business either. Everyone had their own way of working, right?

The Carrousel du Louvre was an extraordinary place, especially with the gold and silver decorations lining the walls. Lights reflected off of the glass pyramid that dipped into the center of the room, making it shine almost as brightly as it would in the day, and the floors were polished so well that Marinette could actually part of her reflection in it.

The guests were no less remarkable than the setting too. Save for a scarce few, she could recognize every face in the crowd, be it through newspapers, magazines, movies, or heads of rival companies. A part of her almost miniscule in the presence of such greatness. Audrey certainly knew how to throw an enchanting party.

“Yo, Marinette! Is that you?”

A voice that Marinette immediately recognized yelled out to her, and she turned around with an eager smile to greet them. 

“Uncle Jagged! When did you get here?”

Jagged wormed his way out of the crowd with a wide grin. “I should be asking you the same thing! That dress looks great by the way.”

Marinette giggled and offered him a little spin. “Thanks! It took me forever to finish it. How have you been?”

“Oh, the usual. I’ve been rock and rollin’ to my heart’s content. Have you tried the food here yet?”

“Afraid not. Audrey told me to stay put until she came back from a meeting with somebody.”

Jagged scoffed and gently took her by the arm. “Audrey Shm-audrey. You’re an adult now! You can do whatever you want, like coming to try these over-priced cream puffs with me.”

Marinette snorted, but before she could reply, a cacophony of squeals tugged her attention to the front entrance of the Louvre. Someone new was joining the party, and it had the reporters quite excited.

“It appears that Felix Culpa has decided to come to the gala after all! There was speculation of him skipping out, but we’re happy to see him regardless!”

Annoyance swirled in the back of her mind at the mention of the actor, though she tried to hide it for the sake of civility. Ever since she started her small fashion business, Felix Culpa has been indirectly stealing her designs and wearing them without giving her an ounce of credit. She’s not sure how, since she’s jumped through who knows how many hoops to keep her projects a secret, but he does. Magazines, social media, behind-the-scenes pictures from his movies- anything he appears in, he’s wearing something of hers, be it a t-shirt or a tuxedo or a button-up shirt with jeans. It was infuriating, and no matter how hard she tried, she could not figure out where the leaks were coming from. No one was sending out emails, no one was going to visit him in person, and no one was posting any pictures of the working process online. And yet, he still managed to match his outfit with everything she created.

She couldn’t even sue him for copyright! Because, technically, all of the outfits that he’d worn so far had been made from a mix of his own wardrobe, and that, unfortunately, wasn’t a crime. 

Whatever, she thought to herself with a slight shake of the head. At least he can’t copy me tonight.

“What’s this?”  A reporter gasped. “Folks, I’m not sure if I’m actually seeing this, but Felix Culpa has just stepped out in a silver tuxedo with a navy, button-up shirt underneath that matches MDC’s outfit exactly!”

Marinette’s jaw had to have dropped to the floor when she heard those words. How was that possible? There was no way Felix could have coordinated his outfit with hers! No one even knew what she was going to be wearing! Unless this some insane coincidence?

“Oh, Look at that! He even has a small, diamond star clipped to his tie! Could Felix Culpa be dressed as MDC’s moon?!”

Marinette whirled around to face the entrance. This was most certainly not a coincidence. Even if he did decide to wear a silver tux tonight, nothing should have prompted him to wear a diamond star clip. Not unless he was trying to copy her designs again.

“Marinette? Are you alright?” Jagged Stone asked, noticing the sudden shift in her mood.

“I’m fine.” She said, forcing a leveled tone as she eyed the door. “I’m just going to go greet M Culpa, if you don’t mind.”

“ No problem! Come find me by the hors d'oeuvres when you’re done.”

Marinette didn’t bother throwing Jagged a tight smile as she stalked towards the door. Instead, she focused on how, exactly, she was going to call this esteemed actor out on his indirect theft without making a scene. This was a high class party, and she couldn’t afford to make a fool of herself. At the same time, however, she desperately needed to know how he’d been matching her outfits to a fault. 

Felix Culpa strode into Louvre a moment later, wearing the very tuxedo that the reporter had described. The silver jacket and dress pants matched the glittering stars on her dress, while the navy blue, button-up shirt underneath matched the main color of her outfit. Don’t even get her started on the diamond clip! It was like the thing had been bought as a pairing with her necklace! The only way he could have coordinated with her that well was if he looked at a picture of her dress directly, which didn’t make any sense. He couldn’t have seen her dress! It’s been in her personal apartment since she started working on it!

His eyes scanned over the room leisurely, stopping when they landed on her, and for a moment, Marinette felt her anger falter, because my gosh was he a gorgeous man. She’d seen pictures of him plenty of times, but they apparently didn’t do him any justice. His strong jawline and defined cheekbones were perfectly framed by his pale, blond hair in a way she’d never noticed before. Then, there was his slender figure that the tuxedo seemed to cling to..

Marinette shook her head slight. Focus! There was a reason I was walking over here!

She offered the man a smile as she approached him, so as not to alarm him towards her somewhat hostile intentions, and he returned the smile with a slight nod.

“I assume you’re MDC?” He said in greeting.

Marinette nodded, barely holding back a sarcastic tone as she replied, “What gave me away?”

A small smile graced Felix’s lips, and he gestured to her dress. “I believe I’m supposed to be your ‘moon’.”

Marinette swore she felt her eye twitch. Was he being smug about it now?

“Yes, it would seem that way.. If I might ask, what prompted you to dress that way this evening?”

Felix glanced over his outfit thoughtfully, before giving her a little shrug. “Nothing in particular, I suppose. I simply felt like it.”

Marinette bit her tongue to avoid scoffing. He simply felt like it? No one accidentally coordinates their outfit with a specifically crafted dress because they ‘feel like it’. That’s just preposterous!

“I would like to compliment your work, though. It is my understanding that you brought that dress to life yourself?”

“..I did.”

“It’s phenomenal craftsmanship. I’m afraid I’ve only heard of you in name alone, but the praise clearly wasn’t over-exaggerated-”

Marinette furrowed her eyebrows. Did he just say that he’d only heard of her in name alone? Meaning he hadn’t seen any of her other designs yet?

“-I couldn’t imagine stitching that many stars onto a single garment.”

“I’m sorry,” She politely cut him off. Did he expect to get away with lying straight to her face? “But did you just say you’d heard of me in name alone?”

He nodded. “I’ve been rather busy as of late and haven’t had time to check with things in the fashion industry.”

“Then how do you explain your other outfits?” 

A blank expression fell across Felix’s features. “I beg your pardon?”

“Your other outfits.” Marinette repeated, almost through gritted teeth. “I have proof that you’ve been blatantly plagiarizing my designs for the past two years. How do you explain that if you supposedly haven’t seen any of my work until now.”

Felix raised a brow, appearing to be genuinely confused. “Mademoiselle, I can assure you that I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”

This time, Marinette did scoff. How could he not know what she was talking about? If it had been once or twice, Marinette could write it off, but consistently matching her designs for two years? That’s no accident. How else would he manage to-

“Oh, there they are!” A reporter gasped. “MDC and Felix Culpa have already found each other! The moon and stars circling around each other as always. I’ve never seen such a fashionable pair of soulmates!”

Marinette froze, and from the looks of it, Felix froze too. 

Soulmates.. Color coordination.. Was that why Felix had been ‘plagiarizing’ her outfits all of this time? Was that why he claimed not to know anything about it even though it was glaringly obvious? Had she been obsessing over a mystery that had had a reasonable answer right in front of her face all along?

Her eyes trailed down to his suit, the suit that matched hers perfectly, and the realization that washed over her nearly caused her to face-palm. 

He hadn’t been copying her designs.

He’d been copying her outfit specifically.

Because they were soulmates.

“..What was that you said about my plagiarizing your designs?” Felix asked after a moment.

Marinette let out a defeated sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Well, I feel ridiculous now.”

A soft chuckle passed Felix’s lips, and she glanced up just in time to catch the spark of amusement dancing in his silver eyes. Gosh, this beautiful human being was supposed to be her soulmate now? How was she going to cope? How was she going to Alya, the person she’d been ranting to for a good year now, about this new development? Actually, did Alya know about this all along? She always did act strange when Marinette brought it up, with her sly smirks and mischievous smiles and-

Felix offered his arm to her. “I, personally, would love to hear about this ridiculousness if you don’t mind sharing.”

Marinette pressed her lips into a thin line, a blush creeping onto her cheeks, but she took his arm with a huff despite it. “I guess I might as well tell you. We’re probably going to be spending a lot more time together after this, anyway.”

“Whatever gave you that idea?” Felix replied lightheartedly, shooting her a smirk that made her heart skip a beat.

Marinette glanced away to regain some composure, but failed miserably as she only felt herself blush harder. Darn Felix Culpa and his stupid, breathtaking face.

She absolutely loved it.

(Send me a letter and I’ll do a thing!)

(The next one I’m going to be working on is J for Daminette!)

[tosikoarts]

GK modern AU HC [Shiraishi, Tsurumi, Usami]

Well, there are a lot of them so I decided to go with three random characters for that one. If you want to read about anyone else, feel free to send in a request. Enjoy, anon ♡  You can check tosikowrites tag for more.

Shiraishi

Moved to Sapporo a few years ago to escape people he owes too much money including some of his now ex-friends and tight-fisted yakuza. He has used different names in the past so now Shiraishi has a 2-second pause before introducing himself to choose the name for the new person. Real one? Fake one? New one? In the reality, Shiraishi gets in more trouble when he confused made-up names and messes up in front of the cut-throat. 

Either way sleeps in a small capsule inn with dirty mint-colored towels or right there, in the genkan, among the shoes in Sugimoto’s apartment. Shiraishi doesn’t have a red cent most of the time but all of the girls in Susukino know him. Especially one resentful cutie that he stole his embroidered bomber from. She managed to give the police a very detailed portrait for the facial composite. Put so much thought and love into it. 

You would describe Shiraishi as the sketchy guy that drinks too much beer and hunts for women out of his league while being permanently unemployed with a crazy high number of hours in CS:GO. It’s worth to mention he plays exclusively on Sugimoto’s laptop so you can imagine how much time he spends there. Saichi is still wondering how the hell Shiraishi gets inside. At the same time, Sugimoto is in no hurry to give him a spare key (why would he?): he wants to find out how Shiraishi pulls this trick off first.

Hangs out with Sugimoto, Tanigaki, Kiroranke, and (occasionally) Ogata in tiny ramen-shops where they occupy the entire bar counter and speak on abstract topics, no, they are mostly gossiping and brazenly discussing Tanigaki’s personal life or how good-looking he is. Either way, Tanigaki leaves their meet-ups red from head to toe.

Tsurumi

Slick devil from the huge-ass company that keeps his subordinates in their offices by a single meaningful look of dark slanted eyes. His costumes are from well-known brand stores as well as inconspicuous neckties that are so neatly tucked in the jacket cut. Tsurumi has long adopted a Western demeanor, although he is easily fit into Japanese society. Has a collection of quality leather gloves. Definitely has strong ties with the yakuza. 

Pretty big overall? It’s not uncommon to see his name in a newspaper or hear it on TV. Even people who have nothing to do with Tsurumi say his name with special respect, although, he is not particularly worried about the respect shown from those close to him. Of course, in an official setting, everything remains as it is but outside the white-collar pool, Tsurumi without problems switches to more frivolous speech, e.g. with Tsukishima or Koito. 

Pulled off a scheme stealing a ton of money from under Hijikata’s nose and now sits on a cleverly woven web of deception, patiently waiting for other unwary victims. His work is his essence since it’s the only place Tsurumi can use his talents in full force. Nobody knows a thing of a man behind the corporate mask, nobody knows if there is anything at all. 

Usami

Obviously part of yakuza, to be precise, of Yamaguchi clan’s branch in Hokkaido. Not a big shit, just a common dekata (kind of a common gangster who does the deeds) or a shatei (higher rank than dekata but still like low rank commander) in a gang. He has all the chances to grow up big but at the same time, his unhinged nature doesn’t contribute to fast climbing in the hierarchy. Anyway, Usami enjoys his role, his body covered in traditional tattoos, and his ability to do something to the detriment of the world.

If we talk about relationships, Usami has a favorite police officer to bully on a regular basis. Kadokura doesn’t really know about Usami’s affiliation (because who is oblivious? Kadokura is oblivious) and writes off everything as an inevitable downfall of the modern generation. Oh, before I forget, Usami actually passed his entrance exam to the National Police Academy. However, after few months he got extremely bored and annoyed and dropped off without any hesitation.

Likes to mess with people online. Bet he has at least one account where he posts cryptic messages and links to weird-ass videos as if Usami is a part of Cicada 3301 puzzles. It doesn’t stop him from running another blog where he thirsts over celebrities or anyone, really. Stalks dozen of people too and can find information on anyone in less than 15 minutes down to the name of person’s second cousin grandmother’s cat.

[smolbeandrabbles]

Innocence - Andrew ‘Pope’ Cody x Reader (Animal Kingdom)

@mandy23b​ @wltz-bby​ @happyskywhale​

GIF CREDIT: X

‘This is gonna be one hell of a night, I know you want it...’ ~ Kim Petras, There Will Be Blood.

Author’s Note: Basically, this is a fic in response to #ThatOneFic on AO3. I got a little bit of ‘if you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em.’ syndrome and then decided I was better than that.  Could have written the one that’s in my drafts, but doing my Director’s Cut and then talking to everyone about it really got me like... 

Why not start some probably not very good smut with murder, after all? 😉

Can I disclaimer myself? The notes for this (written, as tradition states at like, 3am) are just pure filth. And I was horrified reading them back. So yeah, you’re not... getting that, but you’re getting remnants of what it could have been...

Added 800 words during the editing process because he needed it. I’ll fight for my vision of Andrew one fic at a time...

Innocence - Halestorm

Disclaimer: AK nothing to do with me / Part inspired by my own Director’s Cut analysis of Andrew & further fic research / lyrics & gif not mine

Small ‘need to know’ info: David is a policeman, and readers oldest brother.

Premise: When a drugs deal goes awry on the wrong side of town, and the police on the case, Andrew has one place to go. You’re used to this behaviour, but there is something about that dangerous side of him you just can’t resist - and you don’t want him to hold back...

Words: 5639

Warnings: Swearing / Sex / Sinday/Sunday Smut / Drugs references

____ You see it from the outside You're running toward the wall Swinging from your blind side But you don't know me at all I've been here too many times before And your tears don't mean a thing I only come when you scream Is this what you wanted Did I make your dreams come true? You're sitting in a corner Wondering what you got into And you ache for things you don't understand That your tears don't mean a thing And I only come when you scream, I told you Child, don't follow me home You're just too perfect for my hands to hold If you choose to stay, you'll throw it all away And I just want to take your innocence There's no such thing as fate Only yourself to blame You never walked away Child, don't follow me home You're just too perfect for my hands to hold If you choose to stay, you'll throw it all away And I just want to take your innocence

---

The scent of bleach filled the apartment; opening the front door gave you nothing more than an instant headache. You were lucky it didn’t make you gag, and you stood blinking for a few minutes – surely the feeling of your eyes stinging was only phycological?! Slipping your bag from your shoulder you exhaled deeply, followed by an inhale you instantly regretted, groaning and dragging a hand over your face. There could only be one culprit. What the hell had he done this time? He was probably long gone by now, tidied away and back home ��ANDREW!” This was certainly more a cry of frustration to yourself; it wasn’t like you’d actively get mad at someone so volatile. This time you were met by an answer, coming from vaguely the direction of your bathroom. “Okay. But it wasn’t my fault this time.” You jumped immediately, dropping your bag, hand to your heart. “Geez! Are you incapable of giving me anything other than a heart attack!?!” Instead of being verbally answered, the man himself appeared; the white shirt and black slacks were ill fitting. Like he’d just grabbed the first possible thing he could from some shelf or other. Judging by the sizing, they were likely your brother David’s. Your eyes instantly narrowed; only one reason Andrew wouldn’t be wearing his own clothes. “What the fuck did you do?” He held both his hands up, the attempt to stop you from jumping to conclusions clearly not working by your unimpressed face: “Got caught in the crossfire, that’s all.” You folded your arms, daring him to pull the other: “Oh yeah, my whole apartment smells like bleach because you got caught in the crossfire.” His face was deadly serious: “You can’t expect me not to retaliate now, can you.” Your body’s instant reaction to that was to move away from him, but your jerk away was not followed by a step back, “So you did kill someone.” His eyes flicked over your shoulder for a split second, “Not exactly.” “Andrew!” “Would you rather I was dead?” He touched his hand to his chest, immediately making you defensive. “Don’t say things like that--!” Of course not, you never liked thinking that it was a distinct possibility. The corporate world of the men you used to date – of the man you almost married – was a million miles from the one standing in front of you right now. Andrew turning up here unannounced was not unusual, but it usually meant something had pushed him here. It was that thought that prompted your next question; “What happened?” “Drugs run gone wrong.” Too blunt. You opened you mouth, eyes going point a-z - you weren’t really looking at anything, you just didn’t want to look into his eyes when you knew all they’d show was how deadly serious he was – “You know, sometimes I wish you’d be just a little more subtle with me, Andrew.” You shook your head “But, I know that’s not your strong suit.” He gave a shrug, “You asked. Usually you don’t want to know.” “Yeah well, now I wished I hadn’t.” You indicated to your bathroom, “What state is it in?” “It’s fine.” You pushed passed him with a huff; “I’ll be the judge of that!” You couldn’t actually stand in there for more than a few seconds at a time, but when finally you deemed it safe, you couldn’t help but conclude that he was right. Even if he was on thin ice. “How much damn blood was there for you to need that much bleach?” Andrew gave you a single slow blink; “I like to be thorough.” There was an edge to his voice that sent a shudder up your spine that wasn’t entirely unpleasant. Yeah, you knew that. “Did you come all the way up to my apartment in blood stained clothes?!” “Not exactly.” “This I don’t want to hear.” “I know there’s cameras. I know the blind spots and trust me, no one saw me.” That was about the only thing he’d said so far you did trust. Andrew was far too good at this – if he said no one saw him, then no one saw him. Or they were already sworn to silence. “And your clothes are where?” Because if they weren’t in a dumpster about 6 miles away, you’d throttle him yourself. “Oh no, you-” “It better not have been a shirt I liked!” This blink meant nothing, and his face remained stoic. So it probably was, now doused in someone else’s blood. Vital evidence, of course. You sighed and stepped towards him, “The police?” “Drug land wars. It’s gonna look like exactly what it was.” “Promise me this isn’t traceable?” “It wasn’t our side of town. But you know that means nothing.” “A…Andrew…” You took his face in your hands, beneath your fingertips the tiny litter of scars you could still feel, but not see. His body was littered with such marks – you doubted he’d ever consider healing properly before he was off to the next big ‘adventure’. “Tell me you’re gonna be okay?” He placed his hands gently on your waist, but shook his head, “I can’t. You know that.” Andrew would stretch the truth, perhaps even lie by omission; but never blatantly. Not to you – not to someone who cared about him in the way you did. You shook your head, fingers holding him a little firmer before you placed your forehead to his: “I’m just glad you’re safe.” It was all you could say, but you meant it. It could have been his blood all over someone else’s clothes, with their significant other now holding them the way you were holding him. Instead they were likely getting news that the person they loved was dead, and you got to feel Andrew Cody breathe. He wasn’t holding you like a man who loved you, you weren’t even close. You weren’t about to unpick his feelings right this second, but you knew exactly what that meant.   “You can’t stay, can you?” He shook his head again, slowly, detaching himself from you. “Not today.” Not I’m sorry, not I love you, just not today. His brothers were at the scene, but Andrew was the one that was in trouble. You wondered if that meant he should be staying – or if he thought staying would put you in danger. This was meant to be his safe house… then again, maybe he needed to get back to his family. Andrew had a knack for disappearing by coming to you – for exactly that reason, no one would think to look for him in this part of town – if the Cody’s didn’t know where he’d got to, they’d be facing chaos. You weren’t about to tell him that his presence god-knows-how-long later dressed in someone else’s clothes probably would only add to that. “If you need me…” “I’ll come back.” He only gave a single nod, those blue eyes telling nothing but the truth. Andrew let you steal a single kiss before he was heading toward your front door, he opened it without a word, pausing only to half raise his hand to say goodbye. You wanted to tell him you loved him, it didn’t seem like an appropriate moment, and with a last lingering look your apartment door closed, leaving you alone. You let out another breath, this time loud as it built into a groan, hands running into your hair: ‘What the fuck am I doing!?’

***

You weren’t exactly in the know on this type of thing, and living across Melbourne in your apartment, you saw Andrew by arrangement, or when he chose to see you. Crime in Melbourne didn’t interest you until it had to – and half the time it was only because he forced your hand. A shoot out on the wrong side of town attracted the attention of the police. The Cody’s weren’t in favour with the police at the best of times, so this only made the cops go haywire. You were none the wiser, but the boys knew it. The law would be all over them – Baz was surprised that they weren’t already, and to counteract this, quickly managed to set a plan in motion. Although it was enacted with an air of panic. “Alright! This time we take no chances, its lockdown. We can’t go anywhere; we move slow and cautious and don’t do anything.” Baz stilled and thought for a moment before turning to his friend, the most likely candidate to get into the wrong kind of trouble. They’d all been there, sure, but it was Andrew the police would come down hardest on. “If we do, we gotta stay put – if necessary, hide. Pope, that means you-!” Craig and Darren immediately began arguing about “How can the house be safe!?” and Baz had the job of reasoning about alibis and how they usually got out of this with help from Ezra, commonly - without evidence - nothing went anywhere… and trying to knock some sense into their panic. Andrew wasn’t hearing any of this, instead he just sat calmly, eyes on a fixed spot – staying here wasn’t his only option. In fact, it was an option he’d rather not take. He stood, wandering off to his bedroom, exiting barely a minute later with a bag. At this point the others realised that he was in fact, leaving, and their yelling after him didn’t cause a turn back. Andrew Cody left without a word. “Andrew!! POPE! Where the HELL do you think you’re going man?!” Baz was too preoccupied with his friend to bother holding the other two back, and yet they didn’t attempt to chase their older brother. He knew the answer that Andrew wouldn’t give; “Y/N.” Darren turned to him with wide eyes; “Is that even safe-!?!” Baz thought that was doing you a disservice as a head strong city girl, you knew what you were getting into. You knew who Andrew was. “Man, I don’t even know where she lives. It’s perfect. After all, who is gonna ask a girl - who barely knows the names of three drugs - where the hell Andrew Cody is. She’s the last place you’d think to look...”

They all heard the car engine start, and as it pulled from the drive they were left in silence. “Should we stop him?” “Nope. It’s not worth it. Pope’s made his choice, best he lay low and out of it for now.” Craig tipped nearly his entire body as he mused his thought; “How did he even get her anyway!?!” Baz frowned, “It’s not about how he got her,” Although he was sure he knew the answer to that,  “it’s about how he’s keeping her.” “Fear?” Baz was almost worried that that was Darren’s gut answer and shook his head firmly. “No. No that’s not it. Pope wouldn’t hurt her.” “You sure about that. He’s got pretty violent tendencies...” This particular incident was a case in point. “No. Because she really WOULD leave.” Unless it was truly accidental; you’d kicked him out for drugs – he lay a hand on you (in a way you didn’t like; he’d seen the scratches and bruises that often adorned your hips that you seemed to like showing off sometimes) Baz wouldn’t think you’d be incapable of calling the cops yourself. That wasn’t a thought he liked. “Oh, she loves him, dearly…” “So what is she to him?” There was a tone of disgust in Craig’s voice, Baz gave him a significant look, “At the very least, a safer space than he’ll ever have here.”

** Weekends alone were nice. You liked waking in someone’s arms, you liked wasting your time on nothing, maybe you’d be treated to a walk somewhere, but it was likely that if Andrew was staying the weekend, you’d not leave your apartment. But alone you could very nearly sleep the whole thing away, eat whenever you wanted – maybe do a grocery store snack run, see your friends at all your favourite Melbourne coffee bars, take your car up to your parents for the weekend to see the kids… but staying under the covers with nothing but your dreams was the priority.   And given that the smell of bleach was finally completely dissipating from your apartment, tonight was the best you slept in days. However, when you woke this morning you weren’t alone. Which was fine either way, your boyfriend had a key and this behaviour wasn’t uncommon, but he was not beside you in bed. Rather, standing at the foot of it staring at you. Andrew Cody wasn’t even blinking, and the only thing that would indicate that he wasn’t a statue, was the rise and fall of his chest for every breath he took. He’d been here for a while, simply observing your sleeping form, your movements and your breathing; Andrew didn’t want to wake you when the dreams seemed good. He didn’t scare you, or make you jump. If anything his presence made you feel a little safer, but by the indication of your clock it was nearly midday… what was he doing here? You flattened yourself out onto your back as you stared right back at him, but his eyes didn’t hold yours very long, raking themselves down your body. The fluctuation of his breathing changed, and you could read that like a book. This man was clearly DTF. And although you couldn’t possibly believe that Andrew would make the journey across the city just for that, it wasn’t out of Andrew’s remit. “What?” Your voice was still soft as you pushed yourself up with your arms so you sat. “Andrew? Baby, what?” Your pulse was elevating to meet the look on his face, the hunger in his eyes. Clearly your body was more than happy to read the signals of his and be roused from its dreams to give signals of its own. Your tongue danced across your bottom lip as you lowered your gaze to the rest of Andrew’s body. You couldn’t deny that you could feel the rise in your arousal and this time, as his eyes came up to meet yours again, your body tingled under the weight of his stare. You wanted him right now too. “C’mere.” You encouraged him, tipping your body back to rest on your hands, head inclined. Andrew didn’t need more than that invitation, crawling onto the bed, hands either side of you. You could hear his breathing now, and he was close, but still not touching you. You continued watching the way he was still staring at your body, the change to the colour of his eyes – he was putting too much thought into this and it was torture. Andrew inhaled you, and you could almost feel the heat coming from him. For a moment you realised you’d been forgetting to breathe, and as you did so your body gave a throb, stomach knotting deliciously. The scent of him covered you. With Andrew this close you didn’t think there was any going back from that. “Do you want me? Andrew? Babe? Do you want me? You can say it...” He still wasn’t looking at your face, and although his head movements were neither confirmation or denial, they were indecisive. With no verbal reaction, but consent certainly needed in order to continue, you closed that gap, grazing your lips to his cheek you nudged his head back just enough to ghost his lips. “I want you, too. Baby, I need you.” If he wouldn’t consent verbally, you would simply let him know you did. He immediately let out a growl, pushing you back into the sheets. Even if you expected kisses, you didn’t expect them to be this harsh and it was very nearly shocking – was Andrew only trying to hold himself back? He pinned you down; knees by your hips, feet between your legs. But you didn’t struggle against him, hands shooting to his shoulders and through his hair – Andrew didn’t pin your wrists. You could feel your hips widening for him – knowing immediately that you wanted him to do whatever the fuck he wanted to you. Shifting himself so that you were still pinned, Andrew pulled your underwear down your legs, discarding them. All the while his lips were still on yours and he wasn’t affording you much breathing room. Some would say this was too close, but this was just where he liked to be. His hands ran smoothly back up your thighs and your hips wiggled underneath his, looking for anything. Andrew answered you sooner than expected, clearly he wasn’t in the mood to wait for this, and slowed his hands to part your thighs just that little more. You immediately moaned into his kiss as Andrew ran his index finger teasingly through your folds. You knew he wouldn’t stop there, and you had to leave his lips in order to draw enough breath to whine as he circled your clit slow. Andrew freed you from being pinned just so you could feed your legs into a more comfortable position whilst still giving him access to you; already flushed, you knew he wouldn’t have to do much to work you up. Dipping his fingers into your arousal as he brushed his thumb across your clit, it wasn’t long before he pushed a finger inside you and even shorter before another joined it – widening you for him. You weren’t even sure you were fully awake yet and your mouth to brain filters hadn’t kicked in, hands shaking as you undid the buttons on your own shirt. “Fuck baby, I need you inside me. Oh, baby please, fuck me, hard. Harder. Edge me, tease me, make me yours.” Clearly neither of you were quite sure where that had come from by the look on his face, but if Andrew thought that was what you wanted, that was what he would give you. Andrew knew what the way you were talking was doing to him as he undid his belt and jeans; it was weird to hear out of your mouth sure, but you were only succeeding in turning him on even more. He removed his fingers from you and thrust in with more force than you expected – causing you to cry out again; not entirely in pain. He growled, lips to your neck as his nails dug into your hips, you pulled his body closer, locking your legs behind him. You drew Andrew deeper; but that was exactly where you wanted him. Here we go with another set of bruises I luckily never have to explain… No trips to the beach for another week, then. If this was back at his, if he’d have called you and asked you to come over – which wasn’t often but it did happen - then this would have to be quiet, and you got the feeling that he was going to be so rough with you that it would be impossible to be silent. But also Andrew liked it when you weren’t – he liked hearing the sounds that he was capable of drawing from you. For just a second he placed his head against yours, and that single kiss was gentle; you thought you were already breathless, perhaps in anticipation, but still managed to say it: “Baby, I will be as loud as you want.” It didn’t take long before you were blissfully sighing his name, moaning and arching you back into him and the travel of his hands. You had to admit you were insanely turned on, but also, in your house you could turn the volume to 10, because that’s what he enjoyed. Andrew didn’t hurt you when you had sex, it wasn’t something that occurred to him; sure he held you tight enough to leave marks and scratches, but he wasn’t actively hurting you. So him being this rough was an unusual experience. But Andrew also didn’t usually talk, beyond the occasional phenomena of his own quiet sighs, and his whispers of your name. So, you weren’t sure if you had unlocked or awakened something in him that was always there, but he never knew you wanted, or Andrew was simply playing into your request – but the threatening growl in his voice as he spoke basically had you doing as he commanded on the spot, “I’m gonna make you cum over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and then when you can’t take it any more I’ll finally cum for you.” You whimpered your ‘what!?’ in such a way that it didn’t even sound like a word – your fingers clinging onto him and tangling into his shirt for dear life as he continued his reckless rhythm inside you. You felt too high on the feeling of him fucking you, but you would take him at his word – that was exactly what Andrew was going to do, unless you told him to stop. And he would, if he didn’t want to hurt you, he would. He'd be out the door faster than he could apologise if not. Did you want him to stop, was the question? Instead you responded in kind; “Fuck me Andrew. Do whatever you want with my body, it’s yours.”

Andrew didn’t say anything unless it was worth saying, unless he meant it (at least sober) - that was like an unwritten rule. Although maybe with you like this he wasn’t entirely sober, ever. But it felt so heat of the moment and foreign to him - what he was telling you wasn’t calculated… it wasn’t even truly blunt information but it turned you on. And that clench of your muscles around him was something that he could feel. The same way he could feel your pulse under his fingertips, and your warmth: that was your life, your heartbeat and it jumped with your excitement. The sound of it with the ticking of his watch; everything was suddenly so sensory to him. It ran wild the harsher he was with you and the harder you panted; desperate to take on more air. He didn’t have to associate that sound with life, either, he knew that noise when taking it. Andrew wasn’t sure if he was supposed to find that sexy or not; but he thought he did.

Every little sign of your body was all he needed; Andrew could pay attention to that minutia of detail, whether it be the sounds you made, or the shake that you fought so hard against, the movement of your body under his, how it felt to have your fingertips glide over him, for your lips to press into his skin, smaller tensions of resistance… but also how it felt to be inside you - how being a little rough and talking a little dirty seemed only to make you wetter, a little tighter, a lot more desperate for him - as if suddenly all your senses had heightened too. Maybe this was just something you both needed. But all of this was bringing you pleasure - that’s what mattered most. That Andrew was bringing you something positive; HE was doing this to you. He didn’t know why you stuck around; he gave you plenty of reason to leave. But you proved a point, even if really you knew you were only proving it to yourself; that Andrew Cody could make a positive impact on people’s lives. You wanted nothing more than to desperately confirm to him that he wasn’t just some tool his family could use for violence without mercy. Andrew could be this for someone; a life partner, needed, wanted, loved... And it wasn’t just you - but the way your whole family felt about him; Andrew deserved a real family.

He watched the sweat dance on your skin for a minute, acutely aware of the way your nails were digging into him; “Andrew, PLEASE, give me more-!” You weren’t just a someone though. You were you. You of all the damn people in this city, let alone the world. You could have anyone you wanted - you almost got married. Whether that man be long gone or not, occasionally it crossed Andrew’s mind that if it wasn’t for him coming into your life, your absolute fascination with him, the fact that this was practically an affair… you would be married right now; in some extravagant mansion in some fancy part of Melbourne. But you weren’t, you were with him - having loud rough sex in your apartment in a moment where you were thinking things didn’t get much better than that. Andrew proved to you that you didn’t have to settle for what you thought you wanted - but you could just as easily find what you really needed, even in the most unexpected of places. For Andrew, he couldn’t help but admit there was an excitement about the potential of corrupting someone not from his world, nor should have ever crossed the line into it. And yet here you were, beneath him.

He didn’t go back on any of his growled promises; and every time you came it felt different. Because this wasn’t just about one thing – not just the physical act; it was how you were feeling about him, and how Andrew felt for you. How he listened intently to what your body was telling him and changed it up - how you vocalised what you liked (and maybe when he got a little too rough). Emotions might have been hard to find in Andrew Cody but they were buried there somewhere, and they were real, and sometimes he gave you a glimpse of them. Even if it was just the look on his face right now, as you came for him again, and again, and again… The slight sympathy in his features as you begged him to cum for you, in short sharp breaths that he could really barely register as a sentence: hot and flushed and sweaty and spent… but his; completely his. Heart, Body, Mind and Soul. And Andrew didn’t need to look at the marks across your skin to know it.

By the time he did finally come undone inside you, your energy was completely drained, body shaking beneath his. You were both drenched in sweat and breathing hard – but every second had been worth it – and your body was singing from every single high you were still on. You couldn’t be sure you were even down from the first yet. You weren’t sure if your mental note should be: we should really do this again, or, we really should never do this again! So you’d put a pin in it for now, far too tired to do more than sift your fingers through his hair as he lay quietly on your chest listening to your heartbeat. Whatever that decision would be, you couldn’t help thinking on the fact that you wanted this more often, you would keep Andrew here if you could… If you thought that was ever possible. One day you’d work up the nerve to broach him moving in, for now you lay still and quiet. Now wasn’t the time… Now you just wanted to get lost in the way he made you feel. ** You had barely left the bed all weekend, if only to shower. (Which hardly ever turned out as innocent as it sounded). Usually exhausted, but hardly something to worry about. Andrew took good care of you. But he really had worn you out and after he’d set you on the sofa, so that he could change your sheets and tidy up, Andrew returned to your sleeping form. He tilted his head to watch you; remnants of that afterglow remained, smile on your face as your body curled up. Although you were tired you looked content, no worries.  Exactly how Andrew wished he could keep you. You were with him though, so that certainly wasn’t easy. He stooped, arms under your body as he pulled you into him. You groaned gently as he tipped you, head against his chest. Andrew gave pause again as you immediately sought the warmth of his body with a sleepy hum. His head gave an involuntary little shake as he carried you back to your bedroom. Depositing you back on your bed to curl up once more, Andrew stopped in the doorway only to make sure you had settled, before he closed the door on you and continued his tidying. *** Andrew thought about simply leaving, maybe it would have calmed down at home, maybe he could find somewhere else to lay low… But, although you’d talked this weekend you’d never quite broached the subject of why he was here. It wasn’t something important to you, he supposed, it wasn’t something you’d ask probably because usually you’d get a blunt answer. You didn’t need to know. And yet maybe this time you did. You were still sleeping when he re-entered your bedroom, and Andrew settled on the bed to watch you this time. However, your body didn’t stir, as it had when he’d arrived; you were relaxed and peaceful. Andrew knew you enough to know that you slept pretty light usually, but you seemed a lot deeper in this time around. He was right, you were exhausted. Through good things, at least. He placed his fingers gently to your neck, searching for the run of your pulse… when he found it Andrew applied increasing pressure, it changed under his fingertips; manipulated by his exertion on you – but when he did this, he could feel it stronger. That was your life under his fingertips; something that he could so easily take from you. And that thought almost scared him, you walked a razors edge - balanced constantly - and yet never seemed to let it faze you. You stood up to him without fear that he could turn around and kill you, even though Andrew knew how aware you were of that possibility. Andrew supposed you just never let it cross your mind. That you wouldn’t allow yourself to believe that your relationship could ever end that way. He would keep it to himself, of course, but Andrew had an uneasy feeling this relationship would only end when one of you was dead. Uncomfortable with the applied pressure, your body woke you; Andrew withdrew his hand fascinated with the way you took on more air as you awoke. It really would be that easy… You stretched slowly and turned to him, “Oh… my god. I-” you glanced to the clock, “…I’m sorry.” “You needed it.” Andrew gave a nonchalant shrug. “I thought you might leave.” “I considered it.” He was still being blunt, you weren’t all that sure Andrew would recognise the difference and let you down softly: “…I might need to overstay my welcome.” You pulled yourself up, taking his hand in yours, “You are always welcome here. What happened?” He would take his leave, if there wasn’t a reason he couldn’t return home. “You know.” “The same as before? So the police are after you?” You said it with an undertone of ‘I told you so’. “Appears that way.” “And you’re gonna tell me what it’s about?” That was a rare event. “…I told you.” He indicated, “But-” and shuffling over to his things he presented you with a large polished wooden box. You were immediately unsure you were going to like this, and opened the lid cautiously, only at the last second realising now your fingerprints were on this thing. ‘David would scream at me!’ You blew out a breath at the contents, unable to quite raise your eyes to his. The entire box was filled with drugs, of various types, surely you couldn’t name them all, but pills, needles and powder were all present in various shapes and colours. Spoils of war? The darker patches of brown you could see around the edges of the box were saying blood to you. You were silent for a long while, before you said the first thing you could really think of, “This... is a lot.” A lot for me. “I know.” You weren’t sure he let your sentence settle enough for him to really know. You became sad for a minute, fingers dancing across the surface of the box as you closed it, unsure of what to do. What you were supposed to do with this information now. Andrew continued, deciding to take the leap of: “I can’t be what you want me to be.” You raised your head, with a blink and looked at him; clear and true, dead in the eye: “I don’t want you to be anything.” You had never wanted him to be anything, you knew exactly who he was. “You might be what they say you are, Andrew.” Not that you would know, being so out of the loop. But you’d seen enough, in your opinion far too much, “But that is not ALL you are.” I know you... I. Know. You. You could think of nothing else than to gather him to you, you didn’t care if he reciprocated or not – it was something you needed to do. Even if it was only for yourself. You buried your head in his shoulder, lacing yours fingers with his. Andrew wasn’t looking at you, he wasn’t even really giving you anything back. But he wasn’t pulling away from you either – and that was just as important. You rubbed his arm affectionately, running up to his collar. Those blue eyes trailed to yours; and you held him there. Your voice was gentle, voicing the only thing that really mattered to you in this moment – his own safety. “Stay as long as you need, we’ll get through this, we always do.”

You always would.

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