#that is mostly caused by corporations!

[cent-scratchnsniff]

here together

[d1gnan]

hii fight club nation i made these for u

jack playlist tyler durden playlist

[katyspersonal]

[neokatt]

update: im now on day 14! got some tips with Porcubuss so i got them mostly unlocked and now i got Safety Team!

the two undiscovered abnos is Flesh Idol in Safety and Judgement Bird in Training cant deal with getting Judgement Bird's stuff just yet since nobody has pale damage resistance but i plan to work on em later

[scham-wcan]

Winter, on the phone in her car: Good morning, Weiss! I’m on the way to pick you up for tea!

Weiss: Oh, shoot, is that today? Sorry, Winter I won’t be able to make it, Ruby’s baseball club has a game today and I said I’d be there to support her.

Winter: O-oh, that’s great! I hope you have fun!

~~later~~

Winter curled up on the floor by Cinder’s desk: sHe’S StOLeN mY SiSTEr!

Cinder: There there, we can go get tea together

Winter: It’S nOT thE SaME

Cinder: Well okay that’s great for my esteem but come on let’s go

[seilon]

say what you will about tumblr’s inside joke-based ad campaigns, but due to them being only understandable to such an insulated community rather than focusing on trying to make a profit from luring in/ pandering to new users and whatnot, they’re keeping the site comparatively safe from corporate and influencer takeover and showing pretty decently that they’re actually paying attention to their userbase, it’s culture, and it’s preferences

[do-you-have-a-flag]

there is a lot to say about the ethical problems and blandness of AI art but also just as someone who likes digital art because it’s low maintenance low cost to pursue, i think that it’s INCREDIBLY BORING to look at ai art because the creative process is lost

like people might gripe that digital art isn’t “real” art because of the difference in craft 

but ultimately i think each individual artist shapes their workflow to suit their needs and some people are able to do a lot of design work using presets and filters and photo-bashing and generative tools in ways that are creative and using a process that takes thought and problem solving

and personally i like the process of high effort art in traditional mediums and that reflects in my digital drawings, i love painting to render texture and light to an image for example, while i do use brushes and other tools overall i think the actual act is soothing and fun

and i think the creative collaboration when working with someone else’s prompts (a process that can be immensely frustrating when one-sided) is also a valuable experience as people can ask questions and negotiate concepts you might not have thought of on your own. the immediacy of output with ai, the way it flattens composition to the most common plagiarised components, it’s fun as a what if or a starting  point but it is a creatively incomplete endeavour specifically because the ai is communicating nothing and the person creating the prompt is almost entirely removed from the creative process. one sided intentionality without the meat of creation

ALSO for contrast i was thinking about the tradition of fractal art/fractal flames dating back to the 80s but more specifically being boosted in popularity alongside the world wide web thanks to one person’s algorithm in 1992. that guy now works in AI generation but back in the 90s he created an open source code that took mathematical iteration and translated it into graphics in common software applications that anyone could use. as a result i saw so many cool abstract almost mandala-like spacey images in the 2000s on deviantart and people are still making them today. it’s an artform that can only be successfully executed thanks to computers, it i complex in the process of execution but thanks to computers the process of creation is quick and seperate from human effort, the output is also very nice to look at. 

Why do i like this form of generative computer art and not so called a.i?  Because the algorithm for fractal art is pure mathematics translated into imagery, while generative a.i/neural networks datasets inherently require an input of other people’s work. a process that requires ethical consideration in ways that mathematical inputs do not. both use data to create images but what do they feed on? how are they applied? does their implementation say anything about their process or output? 

because as far as i see it, technology is neutral and usage is where the good and bad emerge, the process of generative images is a marvel of technology and how we as people love to create. but the way that these tools synthesise what they are given is a process so seperate from the people inputing prompts i really feel like it’s people losing the most fun parts of art (emotion, communication, and participation) and receiving the worst results of commodification of art (plagiarism, formulaic content, aesthetic cowardice, narrow perspectives, exploitation)

[illdothehotvoice]

Idk I miss older movies so fucking much. We were watching older Marvel movies last night (Spiderman 3 and Captain America) and like damn I miss that! I miss that! I miss when it was obvious it was a movie!! We need to stop oversaturating our movies with special effects I miss practical effects and obvious green screens and real costumes and makeup so so so much ouuugh

[doubleca5t]

"weird" really is the perfect descriptor for modern conservatives because I would argue the defining feature of the current american far right is that they exist purely in their own bespoke media ecosystem that is both highly conspiratorial and mostly untethered from the truth. this is a group of people whose belief system has been debunked and disproven so many times by legitimate sources that they've resorted to just telling each other increasingly absurd lies in order to justify those beliefs. the upshot of this being that the minute you remove any of those lies from said bespoke media environment, there's really no appropriate response other than some varient of "bro, what the fuck are you talking about?"

how am I supposed to respond to someone who says that Democrats are running a satanic cult where they ritually sacrifice children to harvest their adrenachome - a theory that is not only insane, but is also a throwaway gag from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. what do you expect me to say to someone who says that trans women are dominating in women's sports, and when asked to give examples responds with a list of non-white cis women? How am I supposed to take someone seriously who thinks that wildfires are caused by space lasers controlled by the Rothschilds or that schools are installing litter boxes for children who identify as cats or that most large corporations are "Marxist" because they have mandatory diversity trainings?

like sure I can take them seriously as a political threat but how am I supposed to have any respect for them as *people*. because as people they are just deeply fucking weird. we should be able to dismiss them out of hand because it's not like they'd care about whether or not we're making a reasoned argument

[lobautumny]

So like, the Reddit strike going on right now, yeah? I've been seeing a lot of people comment on how they appreciate the protest and then go on to say that this has the notable downside of them constantly looking up questions and not being able to easily find the answers because all of the easily-findable answers are exclusively on Reddit. I am not sure if most of the people making this observation are within the line of thought of "man, maybe this protest isn't such a good idea after all" or "man, it really sucks that we've let the internet get so consolidated," and I'm really hoping its the latter.

Like, all of this? This right here? Reddit making a shitty, anti-consumer grab for money and control over how people are allowed to access the information on their servers, and the website going dark in protest causing tons of people to not be able to access important information? This is exactly what people mean when they say that it's bad that the internet has shrunk down so much and is mostly comprised of, like, 10 websites. It's a fucking problem that one company making one bad decision and causing their website to crash and burn can jeopardize so much of humanity's cumulative information.

This two-day glimpse into the internet without Reddit is the warning shot. Imagine what will happen if Reddit actually goes down for good for one reason or another one day. Imagine what will happen if/when Discord or Fandom bites the dust, or gets rendered practically-unusable without paying an ever-increasing premium because they're owned by blood-sucking corporate leeches.

Another big thing is Twitter clamping down really hard on your ability to DM people if you don't have Twitter Blue. If this goes through, it'll put a ton of artists and sex workers who rely on Twitter DMs for their business operation into a shitty situation. Now, obviously, it's not gonna be the end of the world for them, but once again, it feels like a warning shot to me. Twitter is a sinking ship, and unless something changes and it starts to course-correct, I worry that it'll go under and all of the creators who rely on it will suddenly be in an extremely precarious situation.

These are the sorts of things that we, as the users of the internet, need to seriously think about as time goes on, and if we don't find an adequate answer sooner, we're going to pay for it later. I still hold that the best solution is to start making and using more individual, niche websites. Things like Twitter, Reddit, Discord, etc. have their place, of course, but I seriously think a lot was lost through the death of things like individual forums and the existence of many different wiki-hosting sites.

We need a concerted effort, not just on the side of larger creators, but on the users themselves, to stop exclusively using these larger websites and support the creation and growth of smaller, more niche websites, and prevent a catastrophe before it actually happens. I simply hope that people with larger platforms than my own pick up on all this and start talking about it and swaying people to act sooner rather than later. I know it's possible to correct the problem of the mysteriously tiny internet before a modern Library of Alexandria moment happens, I just don't know if that correction will actually happen in time.

[luulapants]

Existential despair is so common in a person's twenties, I think, because up until that point, we've had a pretty clear road map for what's expected of us and we haven't had much reason to question that map. There are still a few milestones outlined for us (start a career, get married, make babies) but more and more young people are entering the post-school world and realizing:

A) that career thing just isn't happening like they said it would

B) I'm not ready to get married/I don't want to get married/marriage isn't the sort of life-altering event that it used to be

C) I'm not ready to make babies/I don't want a baby/I can't afford to raise children right now (see point A)

And in the absence of these milestones to shoot for (which one could argue weren't the promise of fulfillment they claimed to be in the first place), what we're left with is this aimless abyss of "the rest of our lives" sprawling out ahead of us with no indication of how it will go or what we should be doing to shape it. Young people start their first jobs, find they hate them, and think to themselves, "Is this it? Am I just supposed to do this job until I'm too old to do it or die first?"

Which is, yeah, really fucking depressing!! So here's my best attempt at an alternate roadmap for young people that don't vibe with the old model. Please feel free to add in your own suggestions!

Learn how you work and what you want out of a job. Unless you've been in a job-specific training program that gives you hands-on experience, your first jobs should be experiments. Learn how a full-time job feels for you, what elements are more or less difficult. Different workplaces have different cultures and expectations - what do you need out of a job environment? Do you need to find fulfillment in your job or is it enough for it to pay the bills and leave you time to find outside fulfillment? Do you want to climb a corporate ladder or are you content to hunker down as long as your bills get paid? This period of experimentation is exhausting and may feel like it's consuming your whole life.

Learn how to make time for things outside of work. Adapting to a full-time work environment often leaves you feeling so drained that you can't do anything but go home and collapse on the couch every day. That's fine - for a little while. But it can also become a habit. You need to learn how to do things after work or you'll go crazy. Go to a trivia night. Start an exercise schedule. Take a class in your community. Find volunteer work. Join a band. You will find that putting more things into your day makes you feel like you have more time, not less.

Find a community. Making friends as an adult can feel impossible. Where do you find these mysterious friends everyone seems to have?? This goes along with #2, though. As you start regularly attending the same activities, you will find that repeat interactions with the same people turn into friendships or at least friendly acquaintances. Say yes to invitations. Get involved in your local community. Strive to be connected enough to bump into people at the grocery store.

Unlearn bad lessons. We all internalize some messed up things when we're growing up. As you start off your adult life, that's the time to actively work at unpacking the things you've brought with you from childhood and deciding which things are helping you and which things are harming you. This might mean therapy or joining a spiritual group or reading new things or just making special time to be in your own head.

Learn the lessons you missed. In this, I mostly mean practical things. "Adulting." Areas of your day-to-day practical life that are causing you extreme stress are probably related to a knowledge or experience gap. Do you hate cooking and cleaning or were you not taught how to do it properly? Are you afraid of making medical appointments or is it just something new you're not used to? Does money make you queasy or do you need to learn how to make a budget?

Find something fulfilling. This can be your job. It can be volunteer work. It can be faith. It can be a hobby. It can be creating things. It can be challenging yourself physically. It can be activism. It can be going for walks in nature. Everyone finds fulfillment in different places. If you're not finding it where you are, look somewhere else.

[allstrangeandwonderful]

So I'm reading for an art history class, and Baudrillard is talking about the trends in colour usage from generation to generation (mostly in interior design, but there's definite spillover into fashion, architecture, etc.), and how every new colour movement is a direct rebellion against the previous one, like how the bright colours of the 60s/70s were a direct response to the austerity and seriousness of the WWII/postwar era, and how a shift back to organized, moralistic neutrals were a direct rejection of 60s/70s gaudiness, etc., and that all makes sense, people find their parent's style tacky, sure

But he goes on to observe how we've now been stuck in a lull of pasty tones and naturalistic finishes for some time, and I'm thinking yes, he's so right, but that's weird, because its been hanging around for so long, like what is it rebelling against anymore? What is it answering to? Well all I had to do was be patient because lo and behold, Baudrillard provides the following sentence, which caused me to completely wig out:

"...except of course, for the spheres of advertising and commerce, where colour's power to corrupt enjoys full rein"

And I'm like ooohhhhHHHHHH, so this colourless minimalist wasteland of a design principle:

Is maybe hanging on so stubbornly because this corporate hellscape:

is assaulting all of our eyes, inside and outside of our homes, every waking second, and is tainting the very concept of colour into something we can't relax around in our living spaces.

EDIT: The reading was The System of Objects by Jean Baudrillard, 1996 Ed., Part A, Section II, Subheading "Atmospheric Values: Colour" (p. 30-36 in my copy). Even if this was a passionate spur-of-the-moment post, omitting this was pretty silly; my bad.

EDIT 2: I was trying to be chill and leave this one alone, cuz I know most people in the notes are talking to themselves and their followers and not actually me, but 11,000 notes in it's starting to get to me - yes, I am aware that decreased homeownerhship/increased renting/landlord specials/hyperfocus on resale values, are all very direct causes of this too. I totally agree. For me, those were the obvious answers; I think we all get why the owning class is serving this to us. My epiphany moment was about understanding the flip side, the psychology of the consumers who keep accepting it, and even seem to enjoy it. That's what I couldn't understand before, but now I suddenly do. (And for those of you saying such people don't exist, no one actually wants to live without colour - check the notes, bb, they're everywhere. Not everyone has the same brain as you. We all deal with the horrors of capitalism differently.)

[qqueenofhades]

i registered to vote for the first time ( i feel old) now that im an adult but my state has closed primary elections which i was wondering if you have an opinion about. my initial thought was that its bad because i had to register democrat (rather than my states green party which represents my beliefs more) just so i could vote between democrat candidates, which feels like being pressured into supporting the weird pseudo two party system we have. but then i looked it up and apparently a reason for this is so that people from opposing parties wont purposefully mess up the votes just so that their preferred candidates have an easier time winning, and i think that makes sense too. but is that actually the reason theyve closed it or is it just to force us dem/republican?? cause it feels strange

Okay, look. I respect the fact that you're a young person, and I appreciate that you have not only registered to vote, but plan to vote in the primaries, so I don't want to lecture you too much. That said: I am taking you out for coffee, I am sitting you down, I am looking into your eyes, and I am urgently telling you the following:

The Green Party is a scam. It is a scam. It has existed for decades in American politics as an empty shell corporation weaponizing the good intentions of young people like yourself, because all it theoretically stands for "it's good to save the planet maybe." Which is not something that any non-insane person seriously disagrees with, but there is no world in which that cause is actually furthered by registering/voting Green (you mentioned that you did vote for Democrats, which -- good, but listen to me here, youngun, okay?) It ran Jill Stein in 2016 to siphon more votes from HRC, and this election it plans to run Cornel West, a pro-Russian tankie who positively equated Bernie and Trump, as another spoiler candidate. It does not stand for "protecting the planet" or America in any real way. It has never elected a single senator or congressman, let alone a president. It stands for empty performance/grievance political theater by those people who feel too morally superior to vote for/affiliate with Democrats, often because the internet has told them that it's not Cool or Hip or Progressive enough.

If your main priority is climate/the environment, you're doing the right thing by registering as a Democrat and voting for Democrats. (Also: the adjectival form is Democratic. It is the Democratic party and Democratic candidates, otherwise you sound like the Fox News host who wrote a book literally entitled "The Democrat Party Hates America.") They are the only major party who has in fact passed major climate legislation and have made environmental justice a central tenet of their platform. As opposed to the Republicans, whose Project 2025, along with the rest of its nightmare fascist prescriptions, openly pledges to completely wreck existing climate protections and forbid any new ones, just because we weren't all dying fast enough under their death-cult rule already. That's the main logical fallacy I don't get among both the Online Leftists and the American electorate in general: "the Democrats aren't doing quite enough as I'd like, so I'll enable the active wrecking ball insane lunatics to get in power and ruin even the progress we HAVE managed to make!" Like. How does that even make sense?

On a federal level, the Greens have contributed nothing whatsoever of tangible value to American or international climate policy/legislation, environmental justice, or anything else, because as noted, they don't have any elected candidates and mostly focus on drawing voters away from Democrats. There might be plenty of good candidates on the local or city level, which -- great! Vote away for Greens if they're available, or the only other option is a Republican! But on the federal/primary level, please understand: once again, they are a scam. There is no point in affiliating yourself with them. You're welcome to register Green and vote Democratic, if that makes you feel better or if you prefer having another label next to your name, but once again, I'm telling you in my position as a salty Tumblr elder that they have done nothing but harm to the causes they claim to care about, because "environment" is such a nebulous priority and has demonstrably been hijacked to stop the American government entity, i.e. the Democrats, that is actually working to improve on it.

As for your question: nobody is "forcing" or "pressuring" you to vote in primaries. By your own admission, you made a conscious choice to register as a Democrat in order to vote for Democratic candidates. If you were just a regular registered voter of whatever party affiliation, you would vote in the general election for whatever candidate the primary process produced. But if you are sufficiently vested and committed to that process that you would like to have a say in who is running under that party label, it is not unreasonable that you would register as a member of that party. Nobody has twisted your arm behind your back and made you do so; you are taking a considerable level of initiative on your own. Likewise, open primaries can be both a good and bad thing. This falls under the "the political system we have is flawed, but we can't magically pretend it doesn't exist and act according to our own fantasyland versions of reality" thing that I keep saying over and over. So yes, if you want a role in shaping the Democratic candidates who emerge from a Democratic primary process, you will usually register as a Democrat, and nobody has forced you to do that. It's that simple.

Likewise as a general programming note: I'm trying to cut back on politics a bit right now, because I don't have the spoons/bandwidth/mental health to deal with it. I apologize. So if you've sent me a politics-related ask recently and haven't received a response, I'm not deliberately or maliciously ignoring you; I just am not able to handle it as much as usual and will have to put it on pause. However, I feel as if this is important enough to be worth saying, so, yeah.

[seilon]

god I wish I could rip Instagram apart with my teeth I hate it I hate it I hate it

[diejager]

Hiii I wanted to know if you could do a ghost x hybrid!bunny reader?

Where she’s unaware she’s going through her heat cycle (her first) an she’s giving off a dandrufflike sex pollen, so she goes around the base trying to find him. The recuites are following her like dogs an eventually when he finds her (cause she got lost) he realizes that’s what’s going on and helps her out with her problems ☺️

And honestly if you could do anything with ghost x hybrid!bunny reader I would love love looove it 💗💗

Thank you so much for writing! 💗🐰

Bunny

Pairing : Simon “Ghost” Riley x Bunny Hybrid! Reader

Cw: non-con drugging (unintentional really), sex pollen, heat cycles, bunny hybrid reader, Wc: 1.4k

Fun Fact! Bunny was originally and still is a British term of endearment for girls and young women.

For someone who’d joined Price’s TF for months now, you still couldn’t find your way through these winding halls and sharp corners that made the British base. It was like a maze to your twitching nose and droopy ears, always sending you down the wrong hallway or turning the wrong corner simply because they looked identical, and there wasn’t a plan for the whole base. You’d know, you had asked Price for one after getting lost trying to find the Mess Hall and having the fortune of stumbling into Gaz after wandering the halls of your temporary base.

You, once more, got lost on your way to the gym, the last place you had to search to find Ghost. You had searched the armoury, jumping between soldiers (mostly recruits who’d been sent to your base to train. Most sergeants and higher-ranked soldiers were given their small batch to overwatch.) while looking for your lieutenant, ignoring the dark stares the recruits sent your way. Their pupils dilated and face flushed when you walked past them, bumped shoulders and talked to them. 

While your search for Ghost in the armoury had been fruitless, the other - as equally flushed as the recruits when you spoke to them - sergeants and corporals about him, they advised you to look for the gym and training grounds, knowing the lieutenant would be there if he wasn’t in his room, his office or the armoury. With a grateful nod, you skipped down the corridor, having randomly chosen a path while completely lost. In your small, dazed mind, body heat skyrocketing, skin perspiring and cheeks flushed, you were oblivious to the longing stares people gave you when you walked past them and the number of recruits that had followed you.

They marched in synchronisation metres behind you, acting like a single-celled organism composed of many that followed its prey or another of their kind. Their hands were clammy, their skin heated to a burning red on their ears and cheeks, their hairline stuck to their skin, and their eyes were wide like lost puppies following a treat. 

You lost your way, having to stop and catch someone for directions. Coincidentally, a fellow operator was heading towards the training area, having to meet a teammate for their next briefing. She led you down a familiar hall (was it? Every wall looked the same to you, every spot and crack looked the same on every wall, it had your head spinning in every direction. You were still confused as to why others easily found their way around the whole base.) and pointed out some rooms for you to use as checkpoints when you travelled these halls alone. You thanked her profusely when you found the wide doors to the area you were trying to reach, grasping her hand and giving her a sweet smile, ears flopping at your optimistic movement.

When you reached for the door, you peeked your head through the door, squeezing out when you saw how crowded it was. Ghost preferred solitude and quietness, such a busy and filled room would be a nightmare for a reserved man. He dreaded interacting with people unless he had to (or unless you were part of his loving Task Force 141). Your scent streamed into a wide area, urging heads to turn your way, glazed eyes landing on your head, nose twitching and ears framing your face. They fleeted the room when you left, head tilted towards your scent, ripe and sweet.

You turned to look for the gym, remembering that it was on the other wall, the words gym displayed in bold letters on the door’s sign. You smiled giddily, practically jumping towards it, knowing it was the last place you had to look at. You found him the second you pushed past the door, his broad back standing out around smaller figures around the room even if he seemed to curl into himself on his place on the bench. You went straight his way, the soles of your boots thumping on the slick, shiny floor. It gave you away to the lieutenant who’d heard you walk towards him.

“Ghost,” you smiled, stopping beside his turned body, his sinfully slim hips twisting his skin-tight shirt that stuck to his abdomen like a second skin. “I was searching for you, L.T.”

He muddled silently at you, dark chocolate eyes wandering over your body, over your plush thighs, your round hips, your small stomach, your pressed breast, your naked collar and your face. He flickered to the men that filed in after you, a group of hungry, happy trigger recruits after someone way higher than them. He reeled in the need to growl, watching the way their eyes craved you, fucking you in their mind in every position possible. 

Then his eyes rolled back to you, seeing your flushed cheeks, dilated pupils and sweet grin. The scent that fell from your body was downright delirious, a sickeningly sweet musk that rolled off your body in waves of thin particles of your scent. The stare in your eyes was dazed, dream-like in the way that you gazed at him. It riled him, made him hungry and predatory. 

”You’re in heat, bunny,” he greeted back, voice coming out deeper and raspier than he intended, the low vibration in his chest appearing by itself from his restrained hunger.

He couldn’t fault the recruits that followed you like lost, hungry pups. You were delicious in the haze of your heat (the first one you’ve ever had, he thought. You’d spoken to him once about never having felt the full brunt of heat, they were supposedly painful and made the hybrid needy from what he’d learned. That scared you.), your scent enveloping you in a cocoon of arousing odour, pheromones that attracted males of your kind of human males to satiate your needs.

He couldn't, doesn't mean he wouldn’t because he would. He was faulting them for staring at you so shamelessly, eyes hungering for you. He wasn’t a perfect man, he was far from it, he was the worst kind to be deemed a perfect model. He was imposing, dominating, possessive and deadly, he was a ghost, the dead that came back alive, having no name or face to call his own. Just like the recruits, he wanted you, to take you for himself in the privacy of his dark room. He wanted to bite into those, soft, fluffy ears of yours, always drooping around your face, but never restraining you in combat (you fared surprisingly well, nearly as merciless as him, in combat, tearing down men twice your size with a knife if needed. You were ruthless to your enemy or those that aimed to hurt your little TF.). He wanted to make you cry, to grab your round tail and yank on it until you begged him to stop. He wanted to bite into the scarless skin of your neck, a perfect place for his mark. 

Bunnies liked marks, no? They loved affection and being taken care of, didn’t they? Although you were a hybrid - mostly human with some bunny genetics in your body - you still had some rabbit-like behaviours. He’d seen how you preferred veggies over meat, though you did eat meat on occasion to keep up with the growth of your muscles. He’d seen how you liked soft and smooth things, you had many blankets and personal items you were gifted or bought. He knew you liked jumping and scouting, a bunny's natural curiousity made it peek from beneath the tall grass at things that caught its attention. 

He, however, hasn’t seen how you act in the throes of painful heat, would you submit to a needy, aroused bunny that would ask anything of him; or would you jump him and demand attention, using him as you like. He stopped himself from wandering down that dark path, or at least for now until he got both you and him to his room for privacy. 

“C’mon bunny, let’s go,” he stood up, bag slung over his shoulder while his other hand rested on your lower back, the dip of your vertebrae and the start of your jerking tail. 

He glared at the cowering recruits as he moved between them, they has separated to form a path for you and Ghost. Black-painted skin, dark eyes and a skull-drawn balaclava made them flee, tails tucked between their legs. He held you closer to him, your hip flush to his as he led you to his quarters. That would teach them who you belonged to (perhaps you would show them who he belonged to).

[lovebugism]

“I’m not the easiest person to talk to, or be around. It’s… hard for other people to love me. I get that.” with Eddie? Maybe he and reader are sorta rivals or frenemies?

here's an unsolicited part 2 to this fic! hope you like it :D — eddie knows you like him now, so you find it extremely hard to be normal around him accordingly (enemies to lovers, grumpy!reader, more succession references, 2.3k)

You walk into the Hideout behind Steve and Robin, hands trembling and sticky with sweat. 

The humid air of the overcrowded bar and the overwhelming stench of cheap beer do little to quell your swirling stomach. The too-loud music and bustling bodies are hardly more than a harsh reminder of the last time you were here — pouring your heart out to Eddie Munson in the form of anxious word vomit, only to be hopelessly turned away. 

Not quite rejected but hardly embraced, which is somehow more embarrassing. 

“You alright?” Steve asks once you’ve ducked into the dim hallway of the backstage area. 

The music and muddled chatter are mostly stifled now, but the walls continue to pulse with life — riddled with chipping paint and dubious stains that only add to your unease. You try to swallow down your distant ennui, hoping it isn’t as obvious as it feels. (It is). Your loud feelings are too big for your body, and it’s got your face softly screwed together like you’ve tasted something sour.

The concerned glint in Steve’s eyes makes you cower. “Yeah. I’m peachy,” you deadpan with an unconvincing shrug. “Why?”

“‘Cause you look like we’re leading you to slaughter,” Robin scoffs.

“You’re asking me to be nice to Eddie Munson for two hours,” you grouse. “So, excuse me if I’m not the most chipper.”

The brunette girl flashes you a look over her shoulder, ocean eyes smudged with dark liner. “Scared you’ll spontaneously combust?” she jokes with her hand wrapped around the rusted knob of the faux greenroom. It feels more like her chipped maroon nails have grabbed your heart and twisted.

“Terrified,” you monotone just before she swings the door open.

The tiny, windowless room smells like sweat and grocery store cologne. It’s crowded with vanity mirrors, plastic folding chairs, and suitcases — hardly big enough for a heavy metal band. 

The three of you run into Gareth and Jeff on your way in. The two look nothing like themselves as you shuffle past them in the doorway, sharing fleeting glances and awkward greetings as you go. A couple of D&D nerds in leather and eyeliner feels almost uncanny.

It’s the same with Eddie, sort of. Curls drenched with sweat, eyes smudged black, tanktop damp around the neckline — a total rockstar. You’re not sure if it’s the raucous outfit stirring your stomach or the body wearing it.

“Oh, shit— You assholes actually showed!” Eddie beams at the sight of you. “And you dressed for the occasion, too.”

The boy in all black and silver stands before the three of you, still dressed in corporate attire after working late shifts. Steve and Robin look at least mostly normal without the Family Video vests and branded name tags. You, however, look like one of those businesswear catalogs brought to life — glaringly out of place. 

“You sayin’ The Gap isn’t proper Hideout attire, Munson?” Steve quips, holding his arm out for a friendly (only slightly awkward) side embrace.

Eddie slaps the back of the boy’s collared shirt with a ringed hand. “Claire’s is more metal than The Gap,” he teases, then turns to hug Robin. “At least Buckley looks halfway normal.”

“And by normal, you mean hot, right?” she jokes, voice deep and gritty and effortlessly sultry.

He scoffs. “Obviously.”

Eddie has no trouble greeting Steve and Robin but loses most of his cool when he turns to you.

The not-so confession at Benny’s Burgers seemed to change more things between you than the heart-felt one you shared here not too long ago. He feels a bit weird, knowing now that you meant what you said — that you actuallyliked him, and that it wasn’t just some cruel joke. 

He feels like he’s got cool points to win with you now. And it makes him achingly aware of when he inevitably loses them.

“Look at you,” Eddie grins, tossing his chin back to shake wild curls from his face. A few chestnut strands cling stubbornly to his sticky forehead. The milky white tendons of his neck shine with sweat, too. “You look like an actual human person.”

“Wow. Thanks, Eds,” you monotone, unsure of whether or not to take his words as a compliment. You cross your arms over the chest of your fitted turtle neck and joke, “I’d say that same, but… you look like a poodle that just washed up on shore.”

Robin mumbles your name through gritted teeth, flashing you a look and poking you on the shoulder. She scolds you like a parent, as though to say be nice without actually saying the words out loud.

“What?” you shrug.

Eddie only chuckles — a low and honeyed sound he presses to your ear when he brings you suddenly in for a hug. His lean body meets yours, soft and strong and slightly clammy. His skin smells like deep cologne, minty aftershave, and very faintly of boy. You tense when his hands cradle your back.

“Oh,” you mumble in surprise, floundering at the affection as you attempt to hold him back. “Okay.”

“How’s the nine-to-five?” Eddie asks after he parts from you, sounding almost like he cares. “Boring the absolute shit outta you?”

You shrug with an air of nonchalance and hope you don’t look as flustered by his attention as you feel. “Oh, you know… Burying the bodies, counting the cash.”

“Gotta picture of me in your little cubicle?”

“Tons,” you answer. “It’s basically an Eddie Munson shrine.”

His smile widens to show all his teeth. His chocolate eyes glitter with mischief, too, like he knows what he’s doing to you. 

Eddie gives you a break from his suffocating stare and looks to Steve and Robin standing on his other side. You feel like you can finally breathe. “I told Greg at the bar to give my friends free beer tonight— just show him your ID or whatever,” the boy tells them.

“Oh, my god— I could kiss you right now,” Robin mumbles.

Eddie’s plush pink lips curl into a half-smirk when he turns to you again. “So try not to run up your tab tonight, alright, sweetheart?” he quips and pats you on the arm. It’s easier to joke that he hadn’t mentioned you at all when your name was first from his lips. Which is totally a joke you would’ve made.

You flash Steve and Robin a wide-eyed look of annoyance, jaw clenched to contain all the insults you instinctively want to spew. “He got us free beers,” the former cautions with a sympathetic shrug. “Don’t ruin it.”

You roll your eyes and hear them leave behind you — not even trying to pretend like they didn’t swing byfor the beers. Eddie’s stupid grin widens when you stay. “You heard the man. Means you gotta be nice to be all night.”

“Right,” you scoff like it’s funny. Steve The Hair Harrington doesn’t exactly scream figure of authority to you. Robin Buckley, maybe. But definitely not Steve.

“Think you can do it without spontaneously combusting?” he quips.

You hate that he knows you so well. “Not particularly,” you deadpan.

Eddie tilts his wild head to the side and sends you a pretty, tight-lipped smile. “Well, you’re doing a great job already.”

His praise is sarcastic. You know this already, so you’re not sure why it has your stomach doing backflips. “Thanks…” you mumble, inherently shrinking inside yourself as you attempt to make small talk. “How, uh— How was the show?”

“Fine,” the boy hums, shrugging his pale shoulders. “Same set from last time. Same crowd of drunks.”

“Sorry I missed it.”

“Eh. Don’t be. You’ve actually got important shit going on— Don’t worry about me.”

“Your shit’s important, too,” you argue without thinking, perhaps more shocked by your sincerity than the boy ahead of you. You follow quickly and much more harshly, “I guess.”

Eddie smiles wordlessly. You start to squirm in place. He watches you grow suddenly uncomfortable in your own skin as you seem to look everywhere but back at him. The pink expression ebbs into a more concerned one. “You okay?”

You hate the question more the second time. 

“Fine,” you monotone, hardly convincing.

He squints. “Then why aren’t you looking at me?”

“I am looking at you,” you argue just to argue, giving him a measly glance before turning away a moment later.

“No, seriously,” Eddie chuckles, reaching out to touch you. “What’s going on?”

His ringed hand caresses the outside of your elbow. You jerk back on instinct, more aggressive than you mean to be. 

“Nothing!” you huff, looking so far away from him that he can only see your profile. You grumble like a storm cloud, “You just— You make me go all weird. As you know. And fully intend.”

“That’s what this is all about?” Eddie chuckles. “You got a little crush on me?”

He reaches out for you again, this time digging his fingers into the junction of your neck. You swat him away with a harsh hand. You hate the way his touch makes your skin buzz. 

“You’re such a dick,” you groan before spinning on your heel. Your slacks swish around your ankles as you walk the very short distance to the door. Eddie’s footsteps sound much heavier in comparison as he rushes behind you. 

“Hey, hey, hey! C’mon. I’m just kidding,” he assures, still laughing as he slides his body between you and the exit. He meets your glare with a crooked smile. “It’s okay. I got a crush on you back— you know that.”

You hate how easily the words spill from his mouth, how cool he is about all of it compared to the time bomb you’ve become — tick tick ticking away as your anxiety builds. You figure this stupid crush (or whatever he wants to call it) must mean more to you than it does to him. So again, you turn away.

Eddie knocks his worn sneaker against the toe of your pleather boot. “Just because you don’t believe me doesn’t make it any less true, you know?” he tells you, quiet and suddenly serious as he tilts his cheek to his shoulder. “Doesn’t make me like you any less, either.”

His confession makes you feel funny. It makes you giddy and fills you with dread all at once. “It’s just… It’s weird,” is all you can think to say, after several long moments of silence.

“Why?”

“‘Cause I— I’m not— I don’t know,” you groan, bringing your hands to your face to hide behind your palms. “God, I did not intend to talk about this today.”

“Well, too late. We’re talking about it.”

Eddie takes a step away from the door, moving impossibly closer to you. He ducks his chin to meet your sheepish gaze, dark eyes sparkling with visible concern. 

You step back from him on instinct and talk wildly with your hands. “No! Tonight was supposed to be about you— about you’re fucking show— not about me!”

Brows raised and hidden behind his sweat-drenched bangs, he monotones. “Say it.”

A stubborn sigh puffs out your lips. “I just… I know I’m not the easiest person to talk to. Or to be around. I know that,” you confess. “I know it’s hard for people to like me, but… you do, and I really don’t fucking get it, okay? It just feels like you’re playing a big, dumb prank on me.”

Eddie stays silent for a moment, chocolate gaze unwavering as he ponders your words. 

“Wait, so…” the boy trails off, eyes squeezed shut in concentration. “You’re mean to me, but I like you anyway, and because I can see through all the— faux bitchiness or whatever— You have a hard time… being around me?”

Your eyes flit to the ceiling for a moment. You look back at him and nod. “Yeah, that’s… That’s pretty much the gist of it, yeah.”

Eddie beams before he can help it, filling the dingy room with golden sunshine. “Well, you know how we get past that, right?” he wonders and scrunches the bridge of his nose.

You get the feeling he’s teasing you still, but you entertain him anyway. “What?”

“Us being boyfriend-girlfriend—”

“Eddie,” you groan with your head tilted back, only partly pretending to be annoyed. You don’t step back from him when he inches closer to you this time, though. You don’t jerk away from his touch when his hands caress your forearms, either. 

“I know you wanna…” he lilts, pulling you closer with ringed fingers wrapped gently around your wrists. Your shoes scuff the carpet as you stumble into his chest. “It’s why I make you go all funny, right?”

You squint up at him, with hate in your eyes and your heart in your throat. “You’re so annoying,” you deadpan.

“Okay, how about this? We can just go on one date, alright?” Eddie offers, smoothing his guitar-string calloused fingers up your shoulders. “Nothin’ fancy, I promise. Just bottomless breadsticks at Enzo’s at seven. And you, bottom-less at my place at eight.”

Your knotted stomach does a backflip at his words, but you keep glaring at him anyway. “And who says you don’t know how to flirt?” you squint.

Another chuckle spills from his plush, pink lips. His tongue darts out to wet them a second later — mouth desperate to be kissed. “‘Kay. Fine. How about we just makeout in my van after closing? And I try not to be a total idiot and ruin it like last time?”

He’s much more serious now. You can see it in his very expressive button eyes. He’s borderline pleading now, for a second chance he never needed to ask for. 

You cave, far quicker and with a lot less fight than he expected. “Fine,” you shrug with an unenthusiastic huff.

Eddie smiles so big, it’s like you’ve just told him you loved him or something — all his teeth on display — so wide and full of adoration it almost hurts.