#the only time I'll ever thank the algorithm

[alanide-arts]

I love your art so much!!

Especially your Mon hun stuff. Glad I'm not the only Werner fan 😭🙏

AAA thank you, this means so much!

This man currently lives rent-free in my head alongside the entire Astrum unit 😭 I'm glad people appreciate the things I scrawl out fjskzkbf

[thealternateuniverse]

How did you handle it?

1st part here

A/N: Didn't expect the number of likes on the first part, thank you so much 😭

Also, I know now who does Paige's braids now. I saw her on tiktok.

Warning/s: Read at your own risk

----------------------

Following Ice's most recent live stream, Y/N's phone is constantly vibrating, and her Instagram feed is overflowing with follow requests and mentions. She didn't leave her apartment on the weekends after hearing from her teammates about their near-brawl on Friday night. She was trying to blow off some steam at the time, but she lost her cool and almost got into it. Azzi gave them a good earful, and Geno had more to say. Y/N apologized to her teammates, explaining that she was acting out of character at the time.

She felt a little better and forgot about her parents' divorce for a while. Not until her father texted her that he will be at her game next week. Dad is always the one who comes to her games; mom is too busy and cannot make time.

Frustrated, Y/N drops the dumbels.

"Yo! "KK, give me back my phone!" KK is running for her life, clutching Paiges' phone. Paige, on the other hand, looks terrified as if her life depends on with whatever is contained within her phone.

"Whaaaat! Dude, I just caught you stalking---asfghgjjhkjlhlk!" Paige caught up with KK and placed her palm on her mouth.

"Shut up!" She took her phone.

KK sounds like a dying goat now, with Paige's hands still on her mouth. Paige lets go of her and KK gasped for air.

"Shit, Hah! I just did not saw you do that P!" KK is shaking her head, laughing.

"I swear K, if you open your mouth I'll make sure that you will nev---" KK immediately zipped her mouth.

"You got it P! Your 'lil secret is safe." KK gave her a mischievous wink.

These two are as mischievous as ever.

Shaking her head, Y/N slips off her sweat-soaked muscle top, revealing only her sports bra. She could see Paige and KK's jaws drop from her peripheral vision. She turned towards them.

"What? "You guys have some saliva here." Y/N pointed to the side of her lip. The two appear to have come to their senses and instantly pretend to do something. Weird. It's as if they're seeing each other for the first time, taking off their clothes. Y/N twisted her hair into a sloppy knot and resumed lifting. She was halfway through lifting when Nika slapped her bum.

"Babe, I need you to braid my hair. Do you have a sec?"

She nodded to Nika and followed her. They walk past the others who were working out, and Y/N couldn't help but notice Paige and the way her biceps and deltoids popped while doing that damn pull up. Get a grip, Miller; you see your teammate doing this on a regular basis. Y/N reprimanded herself.

"So is mine eye enthralled by thy shape," Nika recited dramatically.

Nika came out laughing after noticing Y/N glancing at Paige.

"Don't worry, babe; she gets it a lot. And... Damn, did you just realized she's fine? You have to keep up; you have a home court advantage here." Nika winked. Y/N gave Nika a puzzled glance. It's not that she likes Paige; she just admires the muscles. That is it.

"I don't know what you're talking about, babe." Y/N said making Nika snort.

"Okay, alright. I'm blind, I can't see, must be my poor eyesight."

Y/N endured Nika's teasing while doing her hair; she doesn't want to appear defensive, so she allows her friend and pretends that Nika Muhl seeing her looking at Paige Bueckers didn't affect her.

"Thank you, Baby. "I love the braids." Nika blew her a kiss before they returned to their routines.

------------

Paige glanced around cautiously before scrolling through her phone. She couldn't afford to repeat the same mistake that had led to her being caught by KK. She wasn't stalking, though; the algorithm following Ice's live had led her to Y/N's tagged photos and edits on Instagram. It was kind of annoying that Y/N was now known for being the "pretty girl" from the team instead of for her talent as a player. Paige had witnessed firsthand how great Y/N was during her time at Stanford. If it weren't for her MCL injury during her second year, she would have been neck and neck with Nika's stats in the last 2022-2023 conference.

"Girly, you are still not done? Man you are really living up to be a stalker ." KK tried to glance at Paige's phone, Paige was quick to hide it.

"I am not!" Paige responded defensively.

"Of course, why stalk when you can see her every day. Home court advantage." KK playfully raised her brows and gestured towards where Y/N is, shooting 3 point shots. Yeah, Paige mused to herself. Paige knows she's got the home court advantage, always playing on familiar turf. Y/N, on the other hand, is a social media ghost, her posts as rare as a shooting star, reserved only for strategic brand alliances. Just like she guards the offensive players on the court, she protects her privacy with the same intensity, keeping her personal life shrouded in mystery.

"You are not gonna like this." KK's gasp breaks the silence, drawing Paige's attention as she leans in, sharing her latest sports article discovery. With rapt interest, they both delve into the words, their silent communion speaking volumes as they absorb every line, lost in the world of sports unfolding before them.

Sports Agent Katherine Taylor-Miller Entangled in New Romance Amidst Divorce

In a whirlwind of events, sports agent Katherine Taylor-Miller finds herself at the center of media attention following news of her divorce from husband Craig Miller. The prominent figure in the sports world, best known for representing basketball star Breanna Stewart, is reportedly embarking on a new romance with Los Angeles' top firm lawyer, Drew Ross.

While Taylor-Miller has remained tight-lipped about the circulating photos online, indicating her involvement with Ross, sources close to the situation confirm that the divorce proceedings are well underway. The couple, who share a daughter, aged 22, are navigating this transition as their family dynamic shifts.

Adding a layer of complexity to the situation, their daughter, a talented athlete in her own right, has been making waves on the collegiate basketball scene. Initially playing for Stanford University during her freshman and sophomore years, she has recently transferred to the University of Connecticut for her junior year, following in the footsteps of her mother's client, Breanna Stewart.

The unfolding saga has captivated both sports enthusiasts and gossip followers alike, as speculation mounts about the implications for Taylor-Miller's career and personal life. As the situation continues to develop, all eyes remain on the high-profile sports agent and her newfound path forward.

Paige's confusion bubbles to the surface in her question. "Wait, so... that is Y/N's mom?"

KK nods solemnly. "Yep. Didn't expect that."

Paige's brow furrows as she scans the article again. "That article is nasty. It was unnecessary to mention, Y/N."

The two exchange a knowing glance before their gaze shifts towards Y/N, who remains blissfully unaware of the storm brewing in the tabloids.

KK weighs the options for a moment before nodding resolutely. "Very. She's not gonna like it. Do we tell her?" KK's gaze seeks approval from Paige, who meets it with a shake of her head, silently acknowledging the delicate situation and opting to shield Y/N from unnecessary distress for now. "She'll find out sooner."

KK lets out a low whistle, her disbelief evident in her tone. "Unbelievable. I never thought her mom is Katherine Taylor. That woman was a badass, but yeah, whoever wrote this has some unpaid rent due." Paige nods in agreement, a hint of frustration tainting her expression as they both recognize the injustice of the situation.

The sudden thud startles both Paige and KK. Their heads snap towards the source of the sound, only to find Y/N on the bench-side taking a water break, her hand suspended and her phone on the floor.

"That's what we're talking about."

----------------

Y/N absentmindedly follows her teammates to Subway after they decided to grab some lunch there. Despite the buzz of camaraderie around her, she's lost in her own thoughts, savoring the simple pleasure of a break from today's events. Just as she starts to believe her day couldn't get any better, her world is rocked by the unwelcome intrusion of her parents' divorce being publicized.

Her heart sinks as she grapples with the sudden exposure of her family's private turmoil. Y/N has always been fiercely protective of her personal life, preferring to keep it shielded from prying eyes. The earlier article had already crossed a line, but this latest development feels like a betrayal of trust, a violation of the boundaries she holds sacred. She can't help but feel a surge of anger and frustration at the unnecessary intrusion into her family's affairs, a bitterness that threatens to overshadow the sweetness of her teammates' company.

Y/N finds a glimmer of solace in the silent solidarity of her teammates. As they gather around the table at Subway, not a single word is spoken about the tumultuous news that has shaken her world.

In that moment, Y/N feels a profound gratitude wash over her, a deep appreciation for their unspoken understanding and respect for her boundaries.

"The salad won't eat itself," snapped Paige, jolting Y/N from her deep thoughts. Y/N mechanically took a fork, but her salad remained untouched.

"Eat up, Miller. You need your energy." Paige commandeered the fork and began mixing the salad for Y/N.

"How did you handle it?" Y/N's voice trembled with vulnerability, causing Paige to pause mid-stir.

Paige didn't respond immediately, her mind racing to grasp the depth of Y/N's question. It didn't take long for the realization to sink in—it was about the divorce.

"When your parents divorced? How did you handle it?" Y/N's eyes glistened with unshed tears, a vulnerability she hadn't intended to reveal. Paige felt a pang of empathy twist in her gut. Y/N's question caught her off guard.

"Nevermind," Y/N murmured, her voice barely above a whisper as she wiped away the threatening tears. Determinedly, she finally began to eat her salad, hoping to distract herself from the emotional turmoil of the day.

As she savored each bite, Y/N made a conscious effort to push aside the weight of her parents' divorce. Her phone buzzed incessantly with texts and calls, but she only mustered the strength to respond to her dad via text. All she wanted was for their divorce to be finalized so they could all move forward with their lives.

Her thoughts drifted to the inevitable changes ahead. Her mom and dad would each go their separate ways, free to pursue new relationships if they so chose. While the idea of their family no longer being whole was a painful one, Y/N knew it was time to accept reality.

Above all, she yearned for one simple request: no more articles portraying her solely as her mother's daughter. She was determined to forge her own path, to carve out her own identity separate from her family's legacy.

-------

"You okay, babe?" Nika asked Y/N, slinging her arm around her shoulders. Y/N responded with her most convincing smile. "I'm fine," she assured Nika, though the skepticism lingered in her friend's nod. "Just so you know, we're here for you, okay?" Nika offered a comforting hug. "Thanks, babe."

As they strolled back to the university after lunch, Nika, Azzi, and Aaliyah had already forged ahead for their afternoon classes, while Paige had disappeared into god knows where. Y/N's afternoon lay open; no classes to attend. She pondered whether to take a stroll around her apartment's neighborhood or indulge in a swim in the pool.

Waving goodbye to her teammates as they reached the university's parking lot, she contemplated driving back home.

Sighing, Y/N parked her car and headed towards her apartment, only to be surprised by a waiting Paige Bueckers holding a pint of Ben & Jerry's chocolate fudge ice cream.

"Paige, don't you have a class or something?" Y/N asked, noticing Paige still in her training attire: a UConn Huskies hoodie, basketball jersey shorts, socks, and slides.

Paige handed her the pint without saying anything.

"You asked me how I handled my parents' divorce," Paige shrugged.

"W-well forget it. I didn't mean to ---"

"It was hard. I thought we were a happy family, that they had vows, through thick and thin, for better or worse type of shit. I was angry, wondering what could possibly make them decide they weren't meant for each other. They had me for Christ's sake. It hurt to think that one day they'd meet someone new and start over, and what about me if that happens?" Paige took a deep breath before continuing.

"The good thing is, I was able to understand that it's better to have that divorce than to pretend they're still happy. I saw how happy my father is with his new family, happier than he was with my mother... All I'm trying to say is, whatever you feel in your current situation is valid—all the thoughts running in your head, the what-ifs, they're all valid. You'll come to terms with it soon, just give yourself time to feel it. And don't forget, you have us. It sucks to be a divorce child if you don't have siblings. It's okay, Miller. You can mope, you can lash out, feel it all the way."

Y/N burst into tears, sobbing uncontrollably, surprising Paige, especially considering they were in a parking lot. Y/N didn't know why the floodgates had opened—was it the news of her parents' divorce? The stress of the article? Or perhaps simply the ice cream? Regardless, she found herself releasing all the pent-up emotions.

"Christ, Miller. I didn't expect you to break down right here," Paige panicked, attempting to pacify her, though Y/N continued crying loudly.

Paige gently grabbed her hand, and together they walked towards Y/N's apartment, Y/N still sobbing loudly.

"People will think I made you cry." Paige said shaking her head.

They entered Y/N's apartment, with Paige leading the way as Y/N was too preoccupied at the moment. Paige settled Y/N on her couch and opened the ice cream she had brought. Y/N accepted it and took a spoonful, still teary-eyed.

Paige looked at her friend in disbelief, finding her oddly cute in this vulnerable state, with red, glistening eyes and puffy cheeks from crying.

They sat in silence, letting the ice cream provide comfort. It worked, as Y/N's tears eventually ceased.

"Thank you, Bueckers. I needed that cry and... the ice cream. How can I ever pay you back?" Y/N leaned her head on Paige's shoulder, grateful it was Paige who knew her favorite ice cream flavor.

Paige pretended to ponder the question. "You don't have to. Just get back to being yourself," she said, gently ruffling Y/N's hair. Y/N sighed in contentment.

"I mean it, though. Thank you for being here. I was resigned to being miserable today," Y/N said, her voice filled with gratitude. They exchanged glances, and Paige found herself momentarily lost in Y/N's mesmerizing eyes. There was something about them that drew her in. She quickly looked away, not wanting to get too carried away and do something she shouldn't.

"Yeah, it's nothing. Get yourself together, Miller," Paige replied, more to herself than to Y/N, feeling her ears grow warm.

"Are you okay? You seem... red?" Y/N asked, noticing Paige's flushed cheeks.

"Not as red as you are. You look ugly when you cry, Y/N," Paige remarked, trying to lighten the mood.

Y/N stiffened at the comment. This was the first time she had heard Paige address her by her first name. The surprise on Y/N's face caused Paige's brows to furrow.

"What?" Paige asked, suddenly feeling self-conscious.

"Nothing, you've never called me by my name before. Or maybe you did, I just didn't hear you," Y/N shrugged, trying to downplay it. She didn't want to make Paige feel awkward.

"I just don't know what to feel hearing it from you. It sounds different," Y/N admitted.

Paige choked on her response, caught off guard by Y/N's vulnerability. This woman will be the death of her one day. -----------------

[gabrielleragusi]

Hello everyone! This is really important.

The Velaris Advent Calendar from Gadget4entertainment has been cloned and is being sold everywhere, from Temu to Amazon, without my consent or a license with Sarah J. Maas.

"Vendors" based outside of Europe and the US stole my illustrations (using crappy screenshots) and created this fake calendar, claiming it's still the official one from Gadget4entertainment. It's not! in fact, it can't be, because Gadget4entertainment won't restock the calendar ever again, so whatever is being sold now is fake. What's sad is that some people know it's fake and are still buying it. I've seen some comments saying they just wanted something pretty to put under the XMas tree.

Now, I understand it’s Christmas time, and these fake calendars are the only available alternative, but it’s still disappointing. People are consciously buying a product from companies who are using my illustrations without permission.

Please, help me spread the word. I've shared a video on TikTok and Threads, and in my IG stories, but because I've been a ghost up until now (I don't post as often as before), I'm still invisible to the algorithm. If you can share, I'll be immensely grateful!

Thank you,

Gabrielle

Instagram - Website - Inprnt��- Etsy - Threads

[xinganhao]

is this something i should've included in my 2024 wrapped? probably. but i'm still doing it to close off the year! (´◡`)

incredibly grateful to have gotten so much love in the past three months. i'm not able to respond to everything, but trust that i see every comment— whether in the replies, reblogs, or in my inbox.

if anything, let this be a reminder to support your favorite writers/creators. in an algorithm that thrives on likes, reblogs with comments in the tags/replies/asks make a world of difference. if you liked someone's work, let them know.

here are some of your words that have stuck with me. 🫶

"#i heart tumblr user xinganhao #no one is doing it like them #the amount of depth in their work #THE EFFORT IS ALMOST TANGIBLE #not to participate in idol worship but …. #a role model for the fic writing community #hashtag proud to be born in the same timeline as tumblr user xinganhao" — g4minelvr re: fake dating!seungkwan

"i always look forward to vernon's slides because I CAN HEAR HIM!!!! its wild like all the replies???? his voice is in my head. but i also realized i can imagine/hear hoshi's so easily too!!! and a lot of his are so funny and witty. anyway ive been so entertained the past few days cos of kae's writing" — maplegyu re: svt reacts to 'i used to have a little bit of a crush on you'

"#so cute !! #“to love is to be burdened; but to not think of it that way.” #HELLOOO #thats such a fire line to drop ???? #sigh these alignments are all accurate but i really need hao to take caee of me :((" — planetkiimchi-rbs re: svt reacts to your drunk texts

"I bet your uni entry essay kicked ass. Youre so creative its mind blowing😭" — bambispostsblog re: sociology major!junhui x reader

"#welcome back dramateen😭😭😭" — dcrlingyou re: svt when idol!reader releases a breakup song

"#i think someone's already said this but #the writing under the texts is like a little treat that i somehow always forget about #its so fun #i read the texts and im like “aww thats so cute i love this blog so muchhhh” #and then i scroll #AND THERES MORE #its like the best thing ever" — forever-atiny re: svt reacts to your drunk texts

"This is DEVASTATING 😭😭😭😭😭 your writing is beautiful but DAMN did it rip my heart and throw it into the ocean" — sasalalista re: svt (taylor's version), heartbreak edition

"#okay maybe I'll allow myself to be this delusional only for this smau bc it's adorable 🥹" — stay-in-district9 re: chan x fansite!reader

"#kae did u know i have a whole maladaptive dream world abt this pairing #it’s like u looked directly into my brain #but like it’s just so perfect for wonwoo #and i just love how pathetic u made him" — pochaccoups re: wonwoo x streamer!reader

"#did i ever mention i am literally your biggest fan #ALL your works i am eating them up 🙏 #and this one was just oh my god #the way you narrate is always too good #with your little details abt the screenplay and all #i aspire to write like you- it's like mixed media but in writing #i loved loved loved this exes to lovers suits gyu so muchhhh" — simpxxstan re: film major!mingyu x reader

"#user xinganhao the way you EAT EVERY SINGLE TIME #COOKED WITH GAS AND FIRE AND DEVOURED #permanently sat for ur posts i fear #can’t get up won’t get up" — ahuiahoe re: seungcheol x fanbase!reader

"the fact that you do complete research into each and every one of the topics and write them well is just pure dedication and hats off to you!!" — choco-scoups re: biology major!vernon x reader

"i'm so in love with the way you design your extra content/headcanons under the photos!! the soccer team and notes app got me down bad, but i really adore the text visually fitting the concept in all of your works!! always excited to get a notification from you. thank you for sharing your creativity with the world!!" — purple-eustoma

"I hope you know your works always hit the spot just right. not even kidding I was in class for two hours and then I see this in my notifications the way i INSTANTLY SMILED?! how do you manage to make my day better😔🫶" — cxffecoupx re: operation dispatch (chan x idol!reader)

"Honestly I know most of your svt burner account fics are meant to be open end, and I really love that. It is just that your writing makes me keep wanting to know more of the story, it is soo well written. I want to dive into the world a little more every time🌸" — anon

"#THIS IS SO CREATIVE WTF #the genius interview and the whole song… kae ur BRAINNNNNN #this is so good omfg im rooting for them so hard #living vicariously thru simp cheol tweets pretending i am the fanbase 😔 he wants me guys trust #i love love love all the little bonus stuff you do for these literally most creative and fun smau writer ur changing the game" — junhui-recs re: seungcheol x fanbase!reader

"these keep coming up on my dash and i will never skip an smau made by the greatest smau creator on this silly little tumby app" — hachireads re: dead poets society!hhu x reader

"im so srs rn. pls never stop writing" — wonuloves re: vernon dates rockstar!reader (4)

"woozi loves silently, consistently, and sincerely. these are not the adjectives anyone would typically match with the concept of love. and yet, it fits. i first felt the depth of his love with vocal unit songs. and i never looked back. thank you for writing this. thank you for understanding seventeen so well. you deserve everything good in life." — chugging-antiseptic-dye re: jihoon x poetry account!reader

how lucky am i to get to say that this is a mere fraction of all the kindness i've been afforded. again: i see all the nice words directed my way, and it motivates me to stay on this godforsaken site (lol) for at least one more day. thank you, thank you, thank you.

if i can love well, it's because i've been loved well. please let me repay all your kindness in 2025 and for however much longer that i can (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧ if you got this far: happy new year! i wish you clarity, courage, and compassion at every turn. xo

— kae

[julianplum]

The absolute weirdest thing about working on picture books (which is my main job, actually!!) is that I am making more art right now than I've ever made in my life and I can't put it anywhere or share it at all!

Which is, on the one hand, frustrating! As an artist on the internet, content output is sort of your lifeblood, and when I post new work, I notably get more traffic to my shop, which is great because making art is the only way I earn money.

On the other hand there's the thing of: art shouldn't be "content output," and there's no inherent worth difference to work shared now vs. later, and I shouldn't be prioritizing my output to match some social media algorithm or some notion I have in my head of what an "active artist" looks like. I'm a working artist, which is a different thing, I think??

The amount of work tee'd up for me this year also means that I'll have to put making new prints and stickers on the backburner for the first time since I started doing this full-time! Again, frustrating because I have a million ideas (snesbians......) and sort of a relief because it means I can step away and come back with only the best ideas having floated to the top. I hope!!

long post, ig, but I have many evolving thoughts and haven't reworked my newsletter enough / decided on a new home for it yet so they end up here. thanks for sticking with me in the secret work period, fam. I promise it'll be worth it when there are shiny books on the other side.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The (open) web is good, actually

I'll be at the Studio City branch of the LA Public Library tonight (Monday, November 13) at 1830hPT to launch my new novel, The Lost Cause. There'll be a reading, a talk, a surprise guest (!!) and a signing, with books on sale. Tell your friends! Come on down!

The great irony of the platformization of the internet is that platforms are intermediaries, and the original promise of the internet that got so many of us excited about it was disintermediation – getting rid of the middlemen that act as gatekeepers between community members, creators and audiences, buyers and sellers, etc.

The platformized internet is ripe for rent seeking: where the platform captures an ever-larger share of the value generated by its users, making the service worst for both, while lock-in stops people from looking elsewhere. Every sector of the modern economy is less competitive, thanks to monopolistic tactics like mergers and acquisitions and predatory pricing. But with tech, the options for making things worse are infinitely divisible, thanks to the flexibility of digital systems, which means that product managers can keep subdividing the Jenga blocks they pulling out of the services we rely on. Combine platforms with monopolies with digital flexibility and you get enshittification:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

An enshittified, platformized internet is bad for lots of reasons – it concentrates decisions about who may speak and what may be said into just a few hands; it creates a rich-get-richer dynamic that creates a new oligarchy, with all the corruption and instability that comes with elite capture; it makes life materially worse for workers, users, and communities.

But there are many other ways in which the enshitternet is worse than the old good internet. Today, I want to talk about how the enshitternet affects openness and all that entails. An open internet is one whose workings are transparent (think of "open source"), but it's also an internet founded on access – the ability to know what has gone before, to recall what has been said, and to revisit the context in which it was said.

At last week's Museum Computer Network conference, Aaron Straup Cope gave a talk on museums and technology called "Wishful Thinking – A critical discussion of 'extended reality' technologies in the cultural heritage sector" that beautifully addressed these questions of recall and revisiting:

https://www.aaronland.info/weblog/2023/11/11/therapy/#wishful

Cope is a museums technologist who's worked on lots of critical digital projects over the years, and in this talk, he addresses himself to the difference between the excitement of the galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAM) sector over the possibilities of the web, and why he doesn't feel the same excitement over the metaverse, and its various guises – XR, VR, MR and AR.

The biggest reason to be excited about the web was – and is – the openness of disintermediation. The internet was inspired by the end-to-end principle, the idea that the network's first duty was to transmit data from willing senders to willing receivers, as efficiently and reliably as possible. That principle made it possible for whole swathes of people to connect with one another. As Cope writes, openness "was not, and has never been, a guarantee of a receptive audience or even any audience at all." But because it was "easy and cheap enough to put something on the web," you could "leave it there long enough for others to find it."

That dynamic nurtured an environment where people could have "time to warm up to ideas." This is in sharp contrast to the social media world, where "[anything] not immediately successful or viral … was a waste of time and effort… not worth doing." The social media bias towards a river of content that can't be easily reversed is one in which the only ideas that get to spread are those the algorithm boosts.

This is an important way to understand the role of algorithms in the context of the spread of ideas – that without recall or revisiting, we just don't see stuff, including stuff that might challenge our thinking and change our minds. This is a much more materialistic and grounded way to talk about algorithms and ideas than the idea that Big Data and AI make algorithms so persuasive that they can control our minds:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens

As bad as this is in the social media context, it's even worse in the context of apps, which can't be linked into, bookmarked, or archived. All of this made apps an ominous sign right from the beginning:

https://memex.craphound.com/2010/04/01/why-i-wont-buy-an-ipad-and-think-you-shouldnt-either/

Apps interact with law in precisely the way that web-pages don't. "An app is just a web-page wrapped in enough IP to make it a crime to defend yourself against corporate predation":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/27/an-audacious-plan-to-halt-the-internets-enshittification-and-throw-it-into-reverse/

Apps are "closed" in every sense. You can't see what's on an app without installing the app and "agreeing" to its terms of service. You can't reverse-engineer an app (to add a privacy blocker, or to change how it presents information) without risking criminal and civil liability. You can't bookmark anything the app won't let you bookmark, and you can't preserve anything the app won't let you preserve.

Despite being built on the same underlying open frameworks – HTTP, HTML, etc – as the web, apps have the opposite technological viewpoint to the web. Apps' technopolitics are at war with the web's technopolitics. The web is built around recall – the ability to see things, go back to things, save things. The web has the technopolitics of a museum:

https://www.aaronland.info/weblog/2014/09/11/brand/#dconstruct

By comparison, apps have the politics of a product, and most often, that product is a rent-seeking, lock-in-hunting product that wants to take you hostage by holding something you love hostage – your data, perhaps, or your friends:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

When Anil Dash described "The Web We Lost" in 2012, he was describing a web with the technopolitics of a museum:

where tagging was combined with permissive licenses to make it easy for people to find and reuse each others' stuff;

where it was easy to find out who linked to you in realtime even though most of us were posting to our own sites, which they controlled;

where a link from one site to another meant one person found another person's contribution worthy;

where privacy-invasive bids to capture the web were greeted with outright hostility;

where every service that helped you post things that mattered to you was expected to make it easy for you take that data back if you changed services;

where inlining or referencing material from someone else's site meant following a technical standard, not inking a business-development deal;

https://www.anildash.com/2012/12/13/the_web_we_lost/

Ten years later, Dash's "broken tech/content culture cycle" described the web we live on now:

https://www.anildash.com/2022/02/09/the-stupid-tech-content-culture-cycle/

found your platform by promising to facilitate your users' growth;

order your technologists and designers to prioritize growth above all other factors and fire anyone who doesn't deliver;

grow without regard to the norms of your platform's users;

plaster over the growth-driven influx of abusive and vile material by assigning it to your "most marginalized, least resourced team";

deliver a half-assed moderation scheme that drives good users off the service and leaves no one behind but griefers, edgelords and trolls;

steadfastly refuse to contemplate why the marginalized users who made your platform attractive before being chased away have all left;

flail about in a panic over illegal content, do deals with large media brands, seize control over your most popular users' output;

"surface great content" by algorithmically promoting things that look like whatever's successful, guaranteeing that nothing new will take hold;

overpay your top performers for exclusivity deals, utterly neglect any pipeline for nurturing new performers;

abuse your creators the same ways that big media companies have for decades, but insist that it's different because you're a tech company;

ignore workers who warn that your product is a danger to society, dismiss them as "millennials" (defined as "anyone born after 1970 or who has a student loan")

when your platform is (inevitably) implicated in a murder, have a "town hall" overseen by a crisis communications firm;

pay the creator who inspired the murder to go exclusive on your platform;

dismiss the murder and fascist rhetoric as "growing pains";

when truly ghastly stuff happens on your platform, give your Trust and Safety team a 5% budget increase;

chase growth based on "emotionally engaging content" without specifying whether the emotions should be positive;

respond to ex-employees' call-outs with transient feelings of guilt followed by dismissals of "cancel culture":

fund your platforms' most toxic users and call it "free speech";

whenever anyone disagrees with any of your decisions, dismiss them as being "anti-free speech";

start increasing how much your platform takes out of your creators' paychecks;

force out internal dissenters, dismiss external critics as being in conspiracy with your corporate rivals;

once regulation becomes inevitable, form a cartel with the other large firms in your sector and insist that the problem is a "bad algorithm";

"claim full victim status," and quit your job, complaining about the toll that running a big platform took on your mental wellbeing.

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/18/broken-records/#dashes

The web wasn't inevitable – indeed, it was wildly improbable. Tim Berners Lee's decision to make a new platform that was patent-free, open and transparent was a complete opposite approach to the strategy of the media companies of the day. They were building walled gardens and silos – the dialup equivalent to apps – organized as "branded communities." The way I experienced it, the web succeeded because it was so antithetical to the dominant vision for the future of the internet that the big companies couldn't even be bothered to try to kill it until it was too late.

Companies have been trying to correct that mistake ever since. After three or four attempts to replace the web with various garbage systems all called "MSN," Microsoft moved on to trying to lock the internet inside a proprietary browser. Years later, Facebook had far more success in an attempt to kill HTML with React. And of course, apps have gobbled up so much of the old, good internet.

Which brings us to Cope's views on museums and the metaverse. There's nothing intrinsically proprietary about virtual worlds and all their permutations. VRML is a quarter of a century old – just five years younger than Snow Crash:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VRML

But the current enthusiasm for virtual worlds isn't merely a function of the interesting, cool and fun experiences you can have in them. Rather, it's a bid to kill off whatever is left of the old, good web and put everything inside a walled garden. Facebook's metaverse "is more of the same but with a technical footprint so expensive and so demanding that it all but ensures it will only be within the means of a very few companies to operate."

Facebook's VR headsets have forward-facing cameras, turning every users into a walking surveillance camera. Facebook put those cameras there for "pass through" – so they can paint the screens inside the headset with the scene around you – but "who here believes that Facebook doesn't have other motives for enabling an always-on camera capturing the world around you?"

Apple's VisionPro VR headset is "a near-perfect surveillance device," and "the only thing to save this device is the trust that Apple has marketed its brand on over the last few years." Cope notes that "a brand promise is about as fleeting a guarantee as you can get." I'll go further: Apple is already a surveillance company:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

The technopolitics of the metaverse are the opposite of the technopolitics of the museum – even moreso than apps. Museums that shift their scarce technology budgets to virtual worlds stand a good chance of making something no one wants to use, and that's the best case scenario. The worst case is that museums make a successful project inside a walled garden, one where recall is subject to corporate whim, and help lure their patrons away from the recall-friendly internet to the captured, intermediated metaverse.

It's true that the early web benefited from a lot of hype, just as the metaverse is enjoying today. But the similarity ends there: the metaverse is designed for enclosure, the web for openness. Recall is a historical force for "the right to assembly… access to basic literacy… a public library." The web was "an unexpected gift with the ability to change the order of things; a gift that merits being protected, preserved and promoted both internally and externally." Museums were right to jump on the web bandwagon, because of its technopolitics. The metaverse, with its very different technopolitics, is hostile to the very idea of museums.

In joining forces with metaverse companies, museums strike a Faustian bargain, "because we believe that these places are where our audiences have gone."

The GLAM sector is devoted to access, to recall, and to revisiting. Unlike the self-style free speech warriors whom Dash calls out for self-serving neglect of their communities, the GLAM sector is about preservation and access, the true heart of free expression. When a handful of giant companies organize all our discourse, the ability to be heard is contingent on pleasing the ever-shifting tastes of the algorithm. This is the problem with the idea that "freedom of speech isn't freedom of reach" – if a platform won't let people who want to hear from you see what you have to say, they are indeed compromising freedom of speech:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/10/e2e/#the-censors-pen

Likewise, "censorship" is not limited to "things that governments do." As Ada Palmer so wonderfully describes it in her brilliant "Why We Censor: from the Inquisition to the Internet" speech, censorship is like arsenic, with trace elements of it all around us:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMMJb3AxA0s

A community's decision to ban certain offensive conduct or words on pain of expulsion or sanction is censorship – but not to the same degree that, say, a government ban on expressing certain points of view is. However, there are many kinds of private censorship that rise to the same level as state censorship in their impact on public discourse (think of Moms For Liberty and their book-bannings).

It's not a coincidence that Palmer – a historian – would have views on censorship and free speech that intersect with Cope, a museum worker. One of the most brilliant moments in Palmer's speech is where she describes how censorship under the Inquistion was not state censorship – the Inquisition was a multinational, nongovernmental body that was often in conflict with state power.

Not all intermediaries are bad for speech or access. The "disintermediation" that excited early web boosters was about escaping from otherwise inescapable middlemen – the people who figured out how to control and charge for the things we did with one another.

When I was a kid, I loved the writing of Crad Kilodney, a short story writer who sold his own self-published books on Toronto street-corners while wearing a sign that said "VERY FAMOUS CANADIAN AUTHOR, BUY MY BOOKS" (he also had a sign that read, simply, "MARGARET ATWOOD"). Kilodney was a force of nature, who wrote, edited, typeset, printed, bound, and sold his own books:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books/article-late-street-poet-and-publishing-scourge-crad-kilodney-left-behind-a/

But there are plenty of writers out there that I want to hear from who lack the skill or the will to do all of that. Editors, publishers, distributors, booksellers – all the intermediaries who sit between a writer and their readers – are not bad. They're good, actually. The problem isn't intermediation – it's capture.

For generations, hucksters have conned would-be writers by telling them that publishing won't buy their books because "the gatekeepers" lack the discernment to publish "quality" work. Friends of mine in publishing laughed at the idea that they would deliberately sideline a book they could figure out how to sell – that's just not how it worked.

But today, monopolized film studios are literally annihilating beloved, high-priced, commercially viable works because they are worth slightly more as tax writeoffs than they are as movies:

https://deadline.com/2023/11/coyote-vs-acme-shelved-warner-bros-discovery-writeoff-david-zaslav-1235598676/

There's four giant studios and five giant publishers. Maybe "five" is the magic number and publishing isn't concentrated enough to drop whole novels down the memory hole for a tax deduction, but even so, publishing is trying like hell to shrink to four:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/07/random-penguins/#if-you-wanted-to-get-there-i-wouldnt-start-from-here

Even as the entertainment sector is working to both literally and figuratively destroy our libraries, the cultural heritage sector is grappling with preserving these libraries, with shrinking budgets and increased legal threats:

https://blog.archive.org/2023/03/25/the-fight-continues/

I keep meeting artists of all description who have been conditioned to be suspicious of anything with the word "open" in its name. One colleague has repeatedly told me that fighting for the "open internet" is a self-defeating rhetorical move that will scare off artists who hear "open" and think "Big Tech ripoff."

But "openness" is a necessary precondition for preservation and access, which are the necessary preconditions for recall and revisiting. Here on the last, melting fragment of the open internet, as tech- and entertainment-barons are seizing control over our attention and charging rent on our ability to talk and think together, openness is our best hope of a new, good internet. T

he cultural heritage sector wants to save our creative works. The entertainment and tech industry want to delete them and take a tax writeoff.

As a working artist, I know which side I'm on.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/13/this-is-for-everyone/#revisiting

Image: Diego Delso (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Museo_Mimara,_Zagreb,_Croacia,_2014-04-20,_DD_01.JPG

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

[lynxnothinks2]

FR Fanart Stats

Have you ever wondered which FR dragons are the most popular to draw? No? Well clearly you're not a university student with looming deadlines, a severe procrastination problem and unlimited access to research grade statistics software let's dive in

Originally I was doing this to see which dragons I'd drawn the most for commissions over the years, but then I got curious generally about if the popularity of dragon breeds correlated with the amount of fanart produced. We artists are always fighting algorithms and trends, so this info may be useful to those of us looking to utilise them!

A brief intro/some disclaimers to the data:

I've only included modern breeds as they are more numerous than ancients on-site, have been around for less time (excl. Obelisks) and Excel was already protesting with what I had so I saved myself the headache. Look forward to the ancient breed sequel ahahahah :P that's a joke i'm not doing this again

For my 'tumblr popularity' data, I counted the breed of dragon of the first 100 featured in the '#flight rising art' tag. I excluded ancients and any unidentifiable breeds. Each individual dragon was counted in multi-image posts, unless if the dragon(s) in question were in a comic, series etc. in which case each unique dragon was counted once.

Assuming my personal commission stats are the least interesting to most people, but I'll give some background. I started doing comms in mid-2018, producing art at a relatively impressive volume (rip my time and motivation.) I do a lot less FR art now, but if we assume breed popularity has stayed consistent since then the only breed this should really effect are Obelisks as the newbies.

And then finally, on-site breed popularity. I used the dragon search feature on FR to identify the number of named, active dragons for each breed. Total dragons as of 27/01/24, if you were curious: 12,924,070! That's a lot of guys!!

I threw everything into percentages, then made a graph. it's got issues probably but my degree isn't in niche pixel dragon info and i was getting bored at this point

I ran some stuff through statistical tests but they don't show anything remarkable that you can't see in the graph. Rstudio claimed a few more years from my lifespan for naught

Conclusions:

Skydancers and Imperials are crazy popular in all categories, but SDs are Tumblr's favourite

Obelisks and Ridgebacks do disproportionately well on Tumblr compared to their site popularity

Snappers and Bogsneaks are pretty unpopular across the board. I've never drawn either! But at least snaps are getting a bit of love on here

The popularity of Faes and Guardians on-site is not significantly reflected in fanart (excl. Guardian comms for me which is? an odd outlier??)

Mirrors and Nocturnes are not popular on Tumblr - found the latter interesting as I thought there may be lingering bias from NotN, but apparently not

Coatls, Pearlcatchers, Spirals and Tundras are pretty consistent between categories. Nothing really of note for these guys except for less people wanting me to draw spirals (good they're complicated)

I could draw a Wildclaw with my eyes closed and although that will not make me popular, it can make me money

Well that was a good use of 4 hours I'm going to write my essay now

and if you'd like to show your support for this cool art stats guy check out my main @lynxnothinks commissions are open thank you byeee

[minniiaa]

Sorry if this seems repetitive but I haven't been active on social media in yearsss

Is it true that there's a lot of lawlu hate on tiktok and Twitter? I'm so confused because there used to be so much love for the ship back in 2017/2018 from my perspective (Amino era).

The short answer: yes and no. Let me start by saying I'm not the best person to answer this since I purely consume on twitter. I made my personal twitter in 2007 like it's everyone I've ever known irl and has nothing to do with shipping or hobbies and I follow approx 0 accounts related to anime, manga, or lawlu. I just looked up lawlu a few times and browsed and suddenly it's my whole fucking timeline and there’s no going back and now I have a lawlu twitter (This makes me very happy).

So if anyone else has an opinion on this that is more in the community, please feel free to comment away. Otherwise, below are my observations.

First off, there IS a ton of love for the ship. Most of what I see is beautiful art (they got the nsfw ayo), memes, fanfics, and headcanons just like tumblr. There are tons of comments of people swooning over these posts, Lawlu IS one of the most popular OP ships after all.

There's just a vocal minority that are very against the concept of shipping and in that subset there are those who are very against Lawlu. There people out there that will literally list accounts to block that ship lawlu or write lawlu DNI in their bios. The same can be said for other ships, it's not just this one it’s any they deem a ‘pro ship’ (problematic ship) and Lawlu is generally considered one of these. Below as is an example:

The biggest issues I’ve seen with Lawlu are the following 1. luffy is aroace and cant be shipped period 2. law groomed luffy and the age gap is gross. IMO I think most of these people are just infantilizing Luffy as some goofy autistic kid that doesn't know what love and sex are when in reality he's very self-aware and happy does not equal stupid. Also he's 19 he’s not underage. He met Law twice when he was 17, one of which was saving his life as a doctor and Luffy was unconscious most of this time. Let's not forget Luffy's a war criminal kicking the asses of people 4x his age in a pirate world, age doesn't really work the same as irl.

BUTTT Not that any of this matters because you can ship whoever the fuck you what because guess what? It's ~fiction~. I could rant about how people can ship whatever the hell they want all day but I'll save my breath for now. (my opinion of course)

Also there are just mentally ill people who enjoy telling others to kys if you like something they like do. Lawlu shippers are just their chosen target demographic. Creators get foul messages in their inboxes, rude comments, just general hater behavior. Twitter is just a firey cesspool and all fandoms have 'fans' who do nothing but hate. We live in an age of negativity where being a hater is the cool thing to do.

HOWEVER, I see more people posting about why those people are wrong and stupid than the actual negative tweets but maybe that's because I actually support the ship and the algorithm sees that. Not sure how twitter works, nor do I want to know about that dumpster fire there's a reason I came over to tumblr.

As for tiktok, I don't really consume a lot of tiktok so I can't speak on it besides seeing cosplayers and cute animations/art. I'll leave that to the tiktok people to look into.

For argument's sake, I went through the lawlu tag and picked some lovely tweets to share with you so you can see the toxicity for yourself. Sadly only 10 images per post but I think you get the point. Thanks for the ask hope this was informative. :)

[valentinedagger]

hey, all -- i have a bit of an unfortunate request, and i apologize in advance for how unfortunate it is.

recently, the artist i was working with for stardust has suffered a health crisis that basically means they're now unable to draw. (i do not have permission to share any further personal details and will not be doing so.) because of this, my plan for the book 2 promo and onward is blown entirely out of the water, and i'm now five months past my original launch date without any visual material to launch with, and because of my disabilities, i can't exactly draw, either.

(if i were to start drawing something to use as a promotional piece right now, i would probably only be able to finish it in approximately five more months. the result would also look extremely amateurish and visually confusing, but that's beside the point.)

i've been holding off on launching book 2 until i have visual material, preferably the book cover, because:

the stardust website layout is built for three book covers, and launching book 2 without a cover makes the website look pretty garbage,

unfortunately, it's practically impossible to get any audience attention or retain audiences on image-heavy websites (99% of the internet) with only text, and i don't want to piss away my energy and effort trying to get people on social media to pay attention with only text, particularly on bluesky.

now, the unfortunate fact of the matter here is that i'm on SSI, and SSI is a brutally inhumane and cruel financial restriction on disabled people. i am only permitted a maximum of $980 a month (with anything extra i make on top of that being taken out of that income), and i am not allowed to save more than $2000 at once. i physically can not save enough money, ever, to commission art at a fair price. certainly, if i budget very effectively, i can pay you $50 as a one-time purchase -- but a book cover priced fairly is at bare minimum 10x that.

i know i will probably have to give up on my desire for book covers entirely; i'm coming to terms with that as we speak, and i'll redesign the website eventually to look good some other way. but that said, i'd... really love if it there was someone out there who was willing to make some kind of promotional image -- something eye-catching that i can put on social media to promote book 2, with visual hints at the story to come -- for a total of $50 or less. i know that's an obscenely terrible ask, and i wouldn't ask it of the public if i had the capability to make it myself, but i... don't.

all that said, it is extremely understandable to not take me up on this request, since it's a pretty ridiculous one to begin with, and please don't feel pressured to oblige, even if it's because you like stardust. if i don't get any leads in the next couple of weeks, i'll start updates, write a summary in colored text and put it on a colored background, export that as an image, and hope it's similar enough to what the algorithm wants to get some eyes on the novel.

thanks for reading, thanks for sticking with me, and i apologize really, really deeply for the delays and the ask.

[musings-of-a-rose]

I'll Always Wait For You - Chapter 18 (Final Chapter)

Pairing: Frankie Morales x f!reader

Word Count: 6900+

Rating: Mature - 18+ ONLY!

Warnings: Just like ao3, “creator chooses not to use warnings.” If you click Keep Reading, that means you agree that you’re the age to handle mature themes. Also by clicking Keep Reading, you understand warnings may not be complete in order to avoid spoilers for the story. 

Notes: Well, this is it. The final chapter. I’m feeling very emotional about this one, as these 2 are my babies. This fic was the second thing I ever started writing AND my first series. I started it in November of 2021 and now I’m ending it in June of 2023. Thank you to everyone who has read it, left comments, reblogged it, talked about it off of Tumblr (I am still FLOORED that this has happened!). This is what keeps people creating. Even if you think you have nothing important to say, or if all you say is just a keyboard mash of letters, I can promise you ALL of it means the world to us. So I dedicate this fic to you, the reader. You’re the real star here and I can’t express my love enough. If you’re ever wanting more, I am always down to write one shots, drabbles, character insights, what ifs, etc for this fic (and any of my others).

Now excuse me while I go cry

**If you want to be added to the taglist, join here or let me know!

❤If you enjoy the fic, please consider giving me a warm beverage! (It is not required in any way!)

→Tell Tumblr this should be shared with others by reblogging! That's what the algorithm loves (it's how it works here. I don't make the rules!)

**Reader is not described

Main Masterlist

I'll Always Wait For You Masterlist

Frankie Morales Masterlist

<&lt;Chapter 17

“You look so beautiful!” Olivia gushes over you after she tucks the last braid into place, watching you stand and do a little twirl in your white dress.

“You think so? It’s not too much?”

“Too much? Girl, it’s your wedding day. You can’t be too much!”

Smiling, you smooth out your dress as you take in your reflection. You’re marrying Frankie. Your Frankie. Frankie, whom you’ve been in love with since you were 19. This is real. It’s happening.

Ok, technically, in the eyes of the law, it happened a few weeks ago at a courthouse. But there’s something special about gathering in front of your close friends and family, wearing a beautiful dress, and getting to repeat those vows in front of everyone. A soft knock at the door brings you out of your head and Olivia walks across the room to peak her head outside. 

“Mosa, it’s the photographer. Are you ready for the first look?”

“It’s HERmosa!” Frankie’s muffled yell comes from behind the door and Olivia smirks. 

One last glance in the mirror at your reflection and you nod, turning your back towards the door. You hear some shuffling as Frankie is ushered in backwards and the photographers get into place. 

“Turn in 3..2..1..Turn!” Olivia says and then steps back.

You turn, your eyes finding his almost immediately, as if they were drawn there. He’s dressed in a tailored suit, fitting his form perfectly, his grandfather’s kerchief folded and poking from the pocket. But what you’re really interested in is his face, his eyes growing wider and glossier the longer he looks at you.

“Hermosa, you…you’re beautiful,” Frankie says, awestruck.

“You’re just figuring that out?” You say behind a smile.

“No, I mean I always knew but…wow.”

He walks up to you and cups your cheek, running his thumb across it as Olivia hisses something about makeup from the corner of the room. But you couldn’t care less. Frankie was here, marrying you. This is all you’ve dreamt of for well over 10 years. A tear runs down Frankie’s cheek and you wipe it away.

“Are you ok?”

He sniffs and smiles. “I’m the best I’ve felt in a long time. I just…I only wish we would’ve done this sooner.”

“We did. We got married in the courthouse, remember?” 

He smiles at you. “I meant more that we never…that we stayed together since that first kiss.”

“Me too. But we can’t dwell on what-ifs. We can only think about the here-and-nows.”

Frankie tips your chin up and presses a light kiss to your lips, the clicks from the camera going crazy. You pose for photos for several minutes before Olivia ushers everyone from the room, winking at you when she says she’ll give you 10 minutes of alone time before she came to get you. The second the door closes, Frankie pushes his tongue in your mouth, pulling you as close as he can. 

“I can’t mess this dress up, Frankie,” You say pouting.

“That’s ok. I can work with that.” Frankie grips your hips and spins you around, bending you over the back of the chair and clasping a hand to your mouth as he takes you, your hands desperately trying to reach behind you to pull him in closer. 

15 minutes later, Olivia knocks on the door and enters hesitantly, smirking when she sees you smoothing down your dress, Frankie’s face more pink than when she had left. 

“It’s time,” she says, tossing her thumb over her shoulder and looking at Frankie pointedly. He turns to you and kisses your cheek.

“See you out there?”

“Raging sharks couldn’t keep me away.” 

He kisses you once more before Olivia starts clearing her throat. When he straightens up a curl falls on his forehead and you softly push it back to where it was, feeling Frankie’s eyes on you the entire time. He opens the door and looks outside befire turning back to you. 

“Your gift is here.”

“You don’t have to get me a gift, Frank-”

Santi walks through the door, dressed in a nice tux and smiling from ear to ear. You hadn’t seen him since the day he confessed his love for you and you had missed him terribly. Frankie was your best friend, but Santi was a close second and you’d hated the idea of getting married without him there.

“Santi?”

“Hey, Hermosa.”

You catch a glimpse of Frankie’s smile before he closes the door as you wrap your arms around Santi, feeling him squeeze you back just as hard. Separating a few moments later, you dab under your eyes as you try to choke back tears. 

“If I smudge my makeup, Olivia may kill me.”

Santi laughs. “She’s Benny’s girl, right? She’s perfect for him.”

“She’s really great…but how are you here?”

“I uh…Frankie called me a few weeks ago and told me…well, everything. I’m sorry I was screening my calls, Hermosa. I just…I needed time.”

“I understand. But…you’re here now! Are you ok?”

“I’m doing alright, Hermosa. Actually, pretty good.”

“You’ll have to tell me all about her.”

He laughs. “I will. But uh, hey - do you need a Man of Honor? If…if that would…be ok?”

“I would love to have to as my Man of Honor! But…Benny already agreed and I don’t know how to tell him -”

Santi waves his hand. “Benny was in on this. He knows and already said it was ok with him as long as you wanted it.”

Your eyes go wide. “Wait. Benny knew you were coming and he didn’t tell me?”

“Yeah.”

You gasp. “That bitch!”

Santi laughs his hardest yet. “So…”

“Let’s go, Man of Honor.”

The next thing you know, Frankie’s kissing you, everyone whooping and cheering, Aurelia throwing more flower petals into the air as they announce “Mr. and Mrs. Morales.” The rest of the night was like a blur, between photos and eating, first dances and cake, you barely had time to sit until things started to wind down long into the night. When you tried to help clean up, Olivia literally slapped your hand away and glared at you.

“Absolutely not. Benny!” He walks over and play groans when she says she’s recruited him to help clean up. She pretends to twist his nipple when he starts to complain and he yelps, high pitched and smiling as they play fight for a few moments before he gives in, grabbing plates and stacking them to wash. 

Frankie looks exhausted and he’s limping a little, so you beg him to not carry you over the threshold. “You did that when we got courthouse married.”

“Yeah but-”

“No. I’m not having you throw your hip out on our wedding day. Not from this.”

He chokes and smiles, giving in, a dark twinkle in his eye. “Alright. If you insist.” But by the time you’d made it upstairs and gotten your clothes off, both of you were too exhausted to do much of anything aside from a shower and literally fall into bed. But Frankie made up for lost time the next morning, waking you with what he claims was already your third orgasm of the day, his curls mussed up from being buried between your legs. He presses his body to yours, swallowing your whimpers before he adds his own, hips shaking with release. 

You spend your honeymoon at the Miller family cabin upstate, the only clothing you wear being one of Frankie’s shirts and sometimes his hat, which drives him wild. He celebrates another sobriety milestone while there, smiling wide at your praise. When you get back home, you can see he has an extra pep in his step, always a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, always wanting to touch you, whether a hand to your wrist, a touch to your lower back, or a smack on your ass, chuckling as you yelp and smack him back. When you ask him why he looks exceptionally happy, he credits you. “I finally got the girl of my dreams, the love of my life.”

—-

Frankie and you settle into a comfortable routine. You were no strangers to living together, the adjustment taking no time at all. Life goes on as normal, except now, you get to live it with Frankie, no longer separated by a stupid argument, misconceptions, or a bitch of an ex wife. This was exactly where you were meant to be. 

Several months later, Frankie follows you into the family restroom at Target, slinging your purse over his shoulder as he rifles through the bag of stuff you’d just purchased.

“Pink dye first, right?” He asks, raising his eyebrows as he looks at you.

“Yeah. They’re more accurate supposedly.” 

Frankie tears open the box and studies the directions, as if he hadn’t done this several times already. He opens one of the sticks and hands it to you, turning around to give you a little privacy. 

“Start the timer,” you say as you zip up your pants. Frankie hits go on his timer and turns to face you, a pregnancy stick held face down in your hand. He can see your nerves, your worry and concern on your face.

“It’ll be ok, Hermosa.”

“Yeah I know. But what if it isn’t?”

“It will be-”

“We’ve been trying for months, Frankie. I know the OB said to try for a year before fertility testing but-”

Frankie walks up to you and pulls you to him, applying a gentle pressure as he hugs you close, kissing the side of your head. “If it’s negative, then we keep trying, ok? It hasn’t been a year yet and sometimes these things take time.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Will told me that it took them months to conceive Liam. And they were trying too. Just…breathe. In….out…”

You breathe with him for a few breaths. “You always were annoyingly calm in a crisis.”

He smiles. “Wouldn’t help to freak out behind the joystick.” 

You open your mouth to reply, but his timer cuts you off. Your mouth jams shut, nerves taking over your body as Frankie holds your gaze. 

“If it says negative, we can keep trying. Remember that. I love you no matter what, Hermosa.” You nod, taking a deep breath. “Ready?”

“Ready.” You flip the test over and look, 2 bright pink lines staring back at you. Tears immediately fall as you laugh, turning the test around to show Frankie, who yells, grabbing you up in his arms and hugging you tightly. He kisses you for a moment, pressing his forehead to yours. 

“I fucking love you, Hermosa.”

“I love you, Frankie.”

He yanks the door open and whoops loudly, people turning to look at him as you follow him out of the bathroom. 

“I’m going to be a father again!” He pumps his fists in the air, smiling from ear to ear as people cheer, clapping and congratulating you as they finish their purchases, one older couple handing you a gift card on their way out, telling you to spoil that baby. 

—-

Frankie was hesitant at first with your pregnancy, despite being so supportive and actually wanting a child with you. A couple months in, you finally ask him why he seems afraid to touch you, that you won’t break. He finally confesses to you that when Elizabeth was pregnant, she did nothing but yell at him, belittling him and wouldn’t let him touch her at all, not her belly, not even to rub her back or feet. She called him horrible names and would blame it on the hormones. Your heart breaks for him and you have no words. Well, you have words but they aren’t nice ones. Instead, you sit next to him on the bed, leaning back onto one arm, and take his hand with the other, gently placing it on your lower belly. His eyes light up as he looks at your tiny for the moment bump, tears welling in his eyes as he brings his other hand up to take the other side. He pulls your shirt up just enough to see your belly skin, giving it a tiny kiss.

“Hey, little one. You grow strong in there and don’t give your mom too much of a hard time.”

From then on, Frankie is all in. Whatever you need, he gets it, even if it’s a ridiculous request at 3am. He’s constantly touching your growing belly, talking to it as much as you do. He finds Aurelia’s old crib in the attic, a few boxes of baby stuff and a bassinet up there as well. He sets up the nursery under your instruction, letting Aurelia help with the decorations when she comes on the weekends. You decide to wait to find out the sex of the baby, thinking it would be something fun to do. So instead you call it “Bean”.

“Think Bean will like this?” Frankie asks, pointing to a baby swing. 

“They might, but Frankie, that swing is nearly $150. We can’t afford that.”

His shoulder’s slump but he agrees. “Maybe we can check the thrift shop. It’s the one thing Will didn’t toss our way.”

He was there for all of the classes too, birthing ones, breathing ones, even the hypnobirthing ones. He signed up for a “birthing partners” class, learning the best ways to support you not just during labor and delivery, but during the 4th trimester, or immediately postpartum. He helped you practice your meditations, making sure you had everything you needed and that you remember to take your prenatal and drink enough water. 

When you’re 8 months pregnant, getting winded from walking down the hall, Frankie gets a call from his boss at Flyboyz on his day off, asking him to come in. He grabs his hat and gives you a quick kiss before leaving, reminding you to drink water. He’d been working a lot lately, trying to make extra money so he can stay home with you and the baby for the first month. You’re not sure how long he’ll be gone, so you plop yourself down on your bed, pulling over the basket of baby clothes that still have to be sorted and you get to work, separating the sizes, long sleeve vs short, nightgowns from onesies. A couple hours later, the front door opens and Frankie slams it behind him, the picture frames rattling on the walls. You set aside the footie pajamas you were folding and go to stand up, but Frankie comes storming into the bedroom before you can move, anger coming off of him in waves.

“Frankie?”

He yanks his hat from his head, tossing it onto his dresser, knocking some things off of it. “I can’t fucking believe her!”

Struggling a little, you manage to get up and cross the room to him, placing your hand on his mid back. He recoils, anger flashing in his eyes but it’s not directed at you. Unsure of what happened, you know he needs to calm down before he can tell you. You grab an ice cube out of your glass of water and turn to Frankie.

“Give me your hand.”

He looks at you, eyebrow raised. “What?”

“Just do it.”

He stares at you for a moment before shoving his hand out. You flip it palm up, opening his fingers and place the ice cube in his palm. He yelps, but you hold his hand firmly so he won’t drop the ice.

“What the fuck, Hermosa?”

“The cold will help reset your nervous system.”

“I don’t think- it’s too fucking cold, Hermosa.”

“Just another few seconds.”

His chest, which had been heaving a moment ago, has slowed down, the anger still there but at a manageable level. You tip his hand and grab the falling ice into your own palm, putting it in the sink in the bathroom before coming back to the bed and trying to sit on it. Frankie is there, taking your hand and helping you into bed. He goes to stand but you squeeze his hand and pull him until he sighs, sitting on the edge, his shoulders slumped.

“How do you feel?”

“Fucking angry, but…the edge is gone. Ice…who fucking knew?”

“So..may I ask what happened?”

His eyes darken with repressed outrage. “I thought I was getting extra work. Instead, my pilot’s license has been suspended, pending a review.”

You sit up quickly, eyes going wide. “What??”

He nods, his jaw clenching. “Apparently, someone made a claim that I was using when I flew some clients and now they have to investigate.”

You knew that Frankie had been clean over a year, that he wasn’t using at all. “Oh, Frankie. Wait..who made the claim?”

He looks at you. “It was anonymous but I know it was Elizabeth.” He says her name with absolute disgust and hate that you nearly pull back from him. 

“Elizabeth? Would she-”

“Oh come on, Hermosa. You don’t think it was her? I’ve been clean for well over a year. She’s the only one who would have known that I used that would make claims.”

“What about Rick?”

Frankie shakes his head. “Nah. He left Flyboyz while you were…out of town. I told him he had to leave or I would report him for selling. He started to threaten to bring me down with him, but then remembered you were…not in my life and he could see the rock bottom in me, I guess. So he backed off, just left to go elsewhere. There’s no way it’s him. It’s her. It’s always her causing shit. I’m so fucking sick of it!”

Placing a hand on his back, you start to rub it, adding in little scratches here and there like he likes. “She is a bitch.”

“I just got my license back. I worked so hard on that.” He puts his face in his hands, resting his elbows on his legs. You scoot towards him wrapping your arm around him. 

“I know you did. But you said suspended? That doesn’t mean revoked, right?”

He shakes his head. “No, it doesn’t.”

“So…what does it mean?”

“It means, I can’t fly until it’s reinstated. I have to pee in a cup at random times during the week for 6 months to prove I’m clean before they will lift the suspension.”

“Well there you go!”

He looks up at you, his eyebrows pulling together. “There I go, what? We can’t afford for me to not have this income, Hermosa.”

“We’ll be ok-”

“You’re about to have a baby. Your income won’t happen for a bit, and that’s fine, but we needed this extra money and now I can’t provide that. All because of my bitch of an ex!”

“Frankie, we’ll be ok. If we have to borrow money, we can.”

“I’m not borrowing money.”

“Fine. Then I will borrow it.”

“No, I’ll…I’ll figure something out.”

“Frankie-”

“Just…can we just stop for tonight? I’m trying to process this.”

You open your mouth to argue but then see the exhausted look on his face. “Sure. Why don’t you come talk to us? That always makes you feel better.”

Leaning back against the headboard, you watch as Frankie scoots up the bed, getting level with your belly as you turn on your side so you’re not being squished. He chats to the baby for a while, about everything and nothing and by the time he’s done, his shoulders are relaxed and he’s not as angry anymore. 

Elizabeth never fully admits to being the one to make the claim, but you see the look on her face through the car window when you make your next exchange for Aurelia after Frankie confronts her and you know she did it. There’s nothing you can say or do except wait it out. Frankie getting his license back will be all the revenge you’ll need.

—---- (Skip to the next line if you don’t want to read about labor. It’s not terribly graphic at all, but I know it’s not everyone’s thing)-------

“I never thought I’d have to beg you to have sex with me!” You stomp your foot, furious that Frankie won’t follow the doctor’s advice. 

It had been a few weeks since his license was revoked and you were a week past your due date and not happy about it.

“Hermosa, I don’t-”

“Want to hurt me, I know, I know. But the midwife even said that sex is the best way to induce labor because of the prostaglandins in your semen.”

“You make it sound so sexy.”

“Frankie,” you pinch the bridge of your nose, taking a deep sigh. “I am the size of a house. I am miserable and sweaty and I haven’t seen my feet in months and I just want to have this baby already. If it’s my belly, I can turn around-”

“You are fucking gorgeous.”

“Then please?”

Frankie studies you for a long moment, his shoulders starting to slump and that’s when you knew you had him. “Alright, fine. We can try it. But we’re going slow, taking our time, ok?”

“No arguments here.”

Contractions started within an hour of Frankie cumming inside of you. You weren’t sure at first what you were feeling, but it sort of felt like a bad period cramp, so you assumed this must be it. Frankie timed them all for you, helping you breathe as they got more intense and closer together, and when they were close enough apart, Frankie helped you to his truck and drove to the hospital. In between contractions, you watched him as he drove, expertly winding his way through traffic, a look of focus on his face, a little furrow between his brow the only indication that this was not a normal day behind the wheel. How lucky you were to have this man, who can be calm in stressful situations, want to spend his life with you. 

“What?” Frankie glances sideways at you before turning back to the road.

“You’re cute when you focus.”

A smile pulls at the corner of his mouth. “Remember how cute I am when you’re in transition.”

Before you know it, you’re in a labor and delivery room, barely spending any time in triage before they whisked you away. Hospitals can be a frustrating place to have a baby. Each nurse walks in and tells you to rest between contractions, try to get some sleep when you can, but then a new nurse comes along within an hour, always rousing you from sleep to take your blood pressure or put their fingers where you didn’t want them. You’d finally had enough of the latter and told a nurse to kindly fuck off, and denied internal exams unless it was a medical emergency. Frankie was by your side the entire labor, putting counter pressure on your hips when you needed it, pulling your hair from your face, sneaking you snacks because they forbid food and you said you’d chomp off your own fingers if they didn’t let you eat. Transition was hard, but all of a sudden, you knew it was time to push. Following your body, you get on all fours, taking your calming breaths, but then realizing that Frankie was not next to you. Turning your head, you see him, wide eyed and backing towards the door.

“I’ll just-” He points his thumb over his shoulder at the door.

“No, please. I need you here with me.” Another contraction has you breathing again and it’s a minute before he replies.

“You want me here?”

“Yes. I need you, Frankie.” 

His eyes start to water over and it doesn’t occur to you then, but later that night it’l come to you - he wasn’t trying to dodge out of the delivery. He was having a flashback to when Elizabeth kicked him out of the room right when Aurelia was making her way into the world, and your heart hurt all over again. Frankie is at your side in an instant, turning to yell for the nurse who had surprisingly not come in for some random check.

“No time!” You yell, letting out a low groan, a technique you learned to help move baby down and out. Frankie’s face slides into focus mode and he moves behind you, just in time to catch the baby as it comes sliding out. He gathers the baby up, holding it close as it screams into the world. The nurse comes running in then, having heard the baby crying as you turn onto your back, arms outstretched to hold your baby, skin to skin.

“Baby is here! I didn’t even know you were transitioning! You were pretty quiet.”

The nurse bustles around and does her thing while Frankie transfers the baby to your bare chest. Tears stream down your face as you look at Frankie, who has tears of his own. He kisses the top of your head. “I am so proud of you, Hermosa.”

A few moments pass, the baby calming against your chest. “Hey Frankie? Is the baby a boy or girl?”

He slaps his hand to his forehead. “I forgot to look! I was so focused on catching the baby and whether it was breathing and not dropping it that I don’t think I looked! Here.” He lifts the hip of the baby and smiles.

“We have a son. I have a son!”

—---No more labor/delivery details—---

Luis Christian Francisco Morales was born perfect. 10 little fingers and 10 little toes, skin glowing. He was the perfect combination of you both, although you say he favors Frankie mostly. 

You both settle into your roles as new parents, a lot of it being new to Frankie too, since Elizabeth had denied him so much. He was determined to not miss out on things this time, making sure you both had everything you needed and watching Luis when he stayed awake between feeds so you could have a nap. Aurelia cries the first time she sees Luis, big ugly sobs, and when Frankie finally calms her down enough to ask what’s wrong, she simply says “He…he’s…s-so so cute!” She happily takes up the mantle of “Big Sister” when she’s with you. Once, you wake from your nap only to find all 3 of them sleeping, Luis curled up on Frankie’s broad chest, Aurelia tucked onto his other side. You snap a photo and then quietly leave the room, taking the time to actually shower. 

About a month in, Frankie comes back from dropping Aurelia with her mom. His eyebrows were pulled together in confusion as he stares down at his phone.

“Everything ok?” You ask, shifting the bottle you were feeding Luis with so it was a better angle.

“Yeah. Uh…Santi just texted me.”

“Oh yeah? Everything ok?”

“Uh..he says congrats on Luis, that he’s the cutest, and that he was out of service for a bit and he’s sorry he didn’t text earlier.”

“That’s ok. I know he’s busy.”

Frankie is quiet for a moment. “He offered me some work.”

“Work?”

“Well, not just me. Benny, Will, and Tom too.”

“What kind of work?” When he doesn’t answer, you look up at him. He kicks his shoes off and sits next to you on the couch. 

“Consulting.” His eyes don’t meet yours, focusing instead on his fingers, where he starts to pick at the skin around his nails.

“Consulting.” You say in disbelief. 

“Yeah.”

“Wait, like a mission?”

Frankie shrugs. “No? I mean, it’s just scoping out a place and looking for weaknesses. We give our report to the government he works with and then come back. Easy peasy.” 

“If it’s so easy peasy, why aren’t you looking at me?”

He takes a deep breath and let’s it out slowly before looking at you. “It’s for a week. Just trying to find holes in a fence.”

“And why do they need you?”

“They need a pilot.”

“You don’t have your license.”

“It probably doesn’t matter over there.”

“Frankie, I don’t-”

“I’ts $17k, Hermosa. We need the money.”

“I don’t like it. So much can go wrong. Who’s house is it? Definitely no one that’s a stand up citizen. What happens if they find you first? No, I don’t like it.”

“Just..he’s coming to town tomorrow and we’re going to chat about it at Benny’s fight. Let me ask some more questions.”

“I don’t like it, Frankie.”

“I know. Just..let me talk to Pope.”

—----

It’s late the next night and you start to pace the floor of your bedroom, wondering when he’ll be back. He’d texted you to tell you Benny had won the fight and they were stopping at the bar for a quick drink before Olivia takes him home to play nurse. 

That had been 2 hours ago.

The door finally opens downstairs and you quietly make your way to the kitchen, where you were hearing Frankie move around. 

“Did I wake you?”

You shake your head. “I was awake. Luis is asleep.”

“Good, good. He go down ok?”

“Yeah, actually in his bassinet, but Frankie? How did it go?” 

He gets a glass of water, chugging half of it before setting the glass down on the counter. “It’s just a recce. No live fire.”

“There’s a possibility of people shooting at you??”

“I mean, we are casing a place. It’s always possible if guards see you or-”

“No.”

He looks at you. “Hermosa, we need the money.”

“No.”

“I don’t have a job. We need this.”

“No money is worth your life, Frankie. None of your lives.”

“I won’t be in any major danger. I’ve done worse.”

“Yeah but you didn’t have a family then.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“No. No, I don’t like this, no.”

Frankie puts his hands on his hips, cocking one hip back as he looks at you. “We’re behind on bills.”

“So? I’ll borrow some money and you can stay.”

“Hermosa-”

“Or I can get another job? A new client. I can-”

“You just had a baby, so no.”

“Then I can-”

“Hermosa.” He says it firmly, that hip still cocked back as his eyes find yours, resolve in them.

“You’ve…you’ve already said yes, haven’t you?”

His tongue comes out to swipe across his bottom lip. “We leave Thursday.”

Silence stretches between you both as you stare at him in disbelief. “I can’t believe you made that decision without me.”

“I made the decision for us. We need the money.”

“Oh, fuck you and the money! I said I could borrow it. You’re just being stubborn!”

“I’m taking responsibility! We needed money and this just happens to come our way? I have to take it.”

“So you’re saying it’s fate that Santi texted you to lure you down there with the promise of $17k? You’re telling me that it’s just consulting and nothing else? Can you promise me that?”

He shrugs. “That was the original deal.”

“But can you promise me?”

He studies you for a moment, his eyes lingering on yours. “I’m going, Hermosa.”

And with that, you turn on your heel and walk out of the kitchen, closing the door behind you, wishing you could slam it. 

The next couple days were torture. You kept trying to convince Frankie to stay, convince all of them to stay. You didn’t want any of them going. But they all said the same thing that Frankie said. “It’s just consulting.” Thursday morning, Tom comes to pick up Frankie pretty early. He leans over to kiss you in bed and you take one more shot at trying to get him to stay. Your fingers wind into his curls as you pull him to you, deepening the chaste kiss he had started. 

“You can still stay,” you say, your voice barely a whisper.

“I’ll be back in a week, Hermosa. I love you.”

Tears streaming down your face, you reply. “I love you too. Please don’t die. Don’t any of you die.”

Frankie chuckles. “We’ll be fine. I’ll call you in a couple of days once we’re settled, ok?”

—----

Except, Frankie did not call in a couple of days. Neither did any of the others, nor had they reached out to Stacy, Molly, or Olivia. There was no one to call, no contact. They needed it that way for whatever consultation they were on. Stacey brought the kids over and Olivia came too, all of you opting to stay together and support each other at least during the day. As the few days stretched into a week, which stretched into nearly another, Olivia split her time between you and Stacy’s, offering to watch the kids so you each could have a moment to yourselves. She was at Stacy’s tonight, Luis snuggled and tucked in beside you as you channel surf the tv, landing on nothing in particular. It was day 10 and about 2am so all of the infomercials were on. You landed on one for some random kitchen gadget when your phone rings. You jump, grabbing for your phone to quickly hit the silent button before it wakes Luis. It was an unknown number, but definitely foreign and so you pick up right away.

“Frankie?”

“Hermosa,” he breathes a sigh of relief, his voice wavering on the last syllable of your name. 

“Are you ok? Is everyone alright? Fuck, I’ve been terrified out of my mind.”

“I know, I know. I’m sorry. Things got…out of hand. I can explain more when I get home.”

“I understand. But you’re ok?”

“I’m ok. A little banged up but ok.”

“Everyone else?”

The way he’s silent has your throat closing up, making it difficult to speak. “Frankie?”

“It’s Tom.”

While Tom and you never were best friends, there’s no way you would’ve wished death on the man, nor would you have wanted to have his girls without a father. 

—----

Frankie’s mom takes Luis while you drive to the airport, there to pick up Frankie as Olivia and Stacy were going to get Benny and Will. You had experienced all of the emotions these past 10 days, mostly anger and fear, but when you heard his voice, a part of you caved. You just wanted him home and were grateful that he was alive.

You spot Benny first, towering over a majority of the crowd as people file out security and head towards baggage claim. Then you see it - a dark blue standard heating oil cap bobbing next to Benny and suddenly, you’re running, pushing people out of the way as you run towards him, Frankie seeing you at the last moment, dropping his bag to gather you in his arms, burying his face in your hair. Olivia and Stacy copy your actions, Will hissing when Stacy throws her arms around him. He mutters “I’m ok.” before pulling her to him. Pulling back, you look up into Frankie’s black brown eyes, taking in all the features of his face, his laugh lines, the spot where his one dimple pops up, the fact that he had the audacity to shave his beard. 

“You shaved,” you said simply, running a finger along his jawline.

“Yeah. But I’ll grow it back just for you.”

His lips crash to yours, his hands cupping the sides of your face as you press your body against his, fingers twisting in his shirt. 

“I’m still mad at you,” you breathe out between kisses.

“Fair enough.”

Hugs were exchanged all around before everyone went to their homes. On the drive home, Frankie tells you everything, how it was just a consult but then they decided to try and do it themselves, how it would’ve all been fine if they hadn’t missed their window, or if Tom had listened when he said it was too much weight for the helicopter. 

“Wait..you crashed?” 

“Yeah. It was just a little crash.”

“Frankie!”

“It’s me. I landed us…mostly fine. We all walked away.”

He explains about the money and the people from the village, and how they had to trek up the fucking Andes mountains and down the other side. How a young man from the village had wanted revenge and got it, dying himself in the process. How they carried Tom down the side of the mountain, leaving a ton of money there, only to make it to safety and come back with a new chopper to get the money and safely make it back in a whole other country, which is where he called you from. By the end of the story you’re silent, tears quietly falling down your face as you realize how easily they all could’ve died on the side of those mountains. How one of them did. 

“We each put about $5mil in a trust fund for Tom’s girls, made sure Molly was taken care of. It’s what Tom would’ve wanted and it’s…it’ll never be enough.”

“Hey,” you squeeze his thigh and he looks at you, tears on his cheeks. “You are not to blame. Every one of you knew what you were doing, knew there were risks. And while I can’t say who shot first as I wasn’t there, Frankie, it was self defense. And, I’m sorry, but knowing you and knowing Tom? I’d bet money on him shooting first.”

Frankie nods. “Yeah I guess so…. are you mad at me still?”

“I was all prepared to be so pissed at you, but honestly? I’m just glad to have you here and alive.”

Frankie spends the next hour between your legs and you spend the hour after that washing his hair and tending to his arguably minor wounds. Once you were clean and dressed, you made him something to eat, as you’d have to go get Luis shortly. When you set his glass of water down, he grips your wrist, pulling you into his lap.

“How are you feeling? Do you need to call your sponsor?”

He shakes his head. “Surprisingly, no. I think I’m just so grateful to be alive. And there’s one more thing.”

“What?” You ask nervously.

Frankie leans in closer, speaking low in your ear. “We got the rest of the money.”

“The $17k?” You said stupidly.

Frankie smiles and shakes his head. “A lot more than $17k.”

Your eyes widen. “What?”

“Millions, Hermosa. Each. Millions. We’re set for life, as are Luis and Aurelia.”

“Can we stay here?”

Frankie chuckles. “What?”

“I don’t want some giant mansion. I want to stay here. In our house.”

Frankie smiles and kisses you lightly. “We can do whatever you want to.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Besides take care of my family?”

“Besides that.”

“Once I get my license reinstated, I want to start my business.” His eyes light up as he talks about it, how he had already looked into getting retired choppers, and had gathered up some possible contacts, even scouted out some property. The only thing that had stopped him was the money, which was no longer an issue. 

—----

6 months later, Frankie’s license gets reinstated, the owner clapping him on the shoulder and apologizing for everything. A month later, Frankie opens Chopperz, his veteran owned and operated helicopter tour business. It’s a instant success - apparently people really want to experience flying in various retired military equipment being flown by actual veterans. He even has repeat customers, although a lot of them are women and you catch more than one of them blushing when he talks to them. 

Will and Stacy build a new house, much bigger to fit their expanding family, ecstatic that they were finally having a girl. He quits giving speeches almost immediately, staying home with his family and helping Frankie out when he needs it. 

Benny and Olivia confessed that they had actually gotten married the day after Benny’s last fight, not able to wait any longer. When he came home, they took off to travel the world while their dream house was being built just down the road from Frankie and Will. 

Santi went to Australia to find Yovanna and her brother, following them around until they got settled. He and Yovanna stayed together for a while, and he took some time for himself, wandering the world to see things when he wasn’t in a uniform. He eventually came back, building a house down the road from Frankie and the Millers. But to his first get together with everyone, he brought a girl, which wouldn’t have surprised anyone, but you could see the way he looked at her, constantly touching her lightly, pressing kisses to her head, shoulder, lips, anywhere he could. And she was doing the same, her eyes lighting up every time they looked at each other, so when you asked him later, away from everyone else, he scratches the back of his neck and admits that he thinks she’s the one, that she gets him, understands him, and doesn’t give a flying fuck about his money, which she didn’t even know about until now.  

Frankie and you were finally happy, after all these years. Elizabeth finally stopped her shit, leaving you and Frankie to be happy and only communicating when it regards Aurelia. Instead of moving, you decide to expand your house, adding another couple of bedrooms because you want to eventually expand your family. Frankie is beyond happy, smiling at Luis and Aurelia as they run around their new treehouse in the backyard, feeling you wrap your arms around him from behind, kissing his broad back before moving to stand next to him, his arm around your shoulder as you both watch your kids.

“What are you thinking about?” You ask, turning your head up to him.

“How happy I am. How I wish we had started this all sooner, that it didn’t take such a shitty road to get here, and that it didn’t take us this long.”

You reach up and cup his face, pulling him to you as you kiss him, his soft lips lightly nibbling at yours. 

“I’ll always wait for you, Frankie.”

—----  

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[escapedaudios]

I've always been a creative person, especially regarding storytelling, but for most of my life I convinced myself it was a waste of time. I never thought anyone would care. I kept my ideas to myself and never shared them with anyone. I pushed that part of me away for years and I wish I had let it shine sooner.

When people tell me I made them laugh, cry, feel thrilled or scared or enamored I still can hardly believe it. I'm so glad the little pieces of myself that I put into my stories mean something to people, even strangers far away that I'll never meet but still managed to touch somehow.

I'm not the biggest or the most popular. I know I'll never have the same amount of mass appeal and algorithmic reach as boyfriend roleplay channels, but I'm glad to have you all here and I appreciate the community I have so so much. Especially on Tumblr where everyone is so fun and creative and down to earth. Seeing fanart of my series makes me so happy, knowing that I could fill people's imaginations like that literally changed my life.

Also, I'm shouting out @scytheaudio , you can thank him for Escaped Audios existing as it does. Around the time I was making The Neon Barbarian and getting only a few hundred views per video, I was a little discouraged seeing boyfriend ASMR channels outpace me. I felt like I had to do what they did to be noticed, and that I'd be wasting my time doing things the way I wanted to do them. I was afraid that people would think my work was too strange, too violent, too upsetting and drive them away. Seeing a fellow creator with even rougher edges than me be so unapologetically and uncompromisingly himself early on inspired me to stay true to myself.

I'm staying around, I have tons of great ideas for 2024 and I'll try my best to bring them all to life. I love audio roleplay so much, and I want to keep pushing the limits of creative and unqiue storytelling in it. I can't wait to see you all next year, and to bring my stories to even more people! Der Wolfsjäger, The New Orleans Rats, My Grease Fire Life, Neon Memoriam, My True Love is Dead, and (god willing) Blue Infinity are going to be some of the freshest most unique masterpieces you've ever seen.

[hallowpen]

Why are there fences around the trees in all of the dramas? I know that there are better pictures but this was the only one I could directly find from memory.

I also use they/them pronouns. Have you talked about/would you be willing to talk about navigating the linguistics of a gendered language like Thai? ARE there really no neo pronouns outside the ค่ะ/ครับ binary? A lot of times actual queer lived experiences dont make it through the search engine algorithm no matter how hard you look for them.

Do you have a patreon/buy me a cup of coffee etc? I'm willing to tip for your labor. (Not much, sadly because I am very very poor, but still I appreciate anyone who is willing to help with translation/questions.) It can be frustrating when you are a self learner and there is literally no one tgat you can ask a question.

I think you're the first person to ask me this! It made me smile.

It's a sort of dual-faceted protection. Like other places, it's mostly to protect the soil from being trampled on so that it stays as porous as possible and can retain water (especially for newly planted trees). The more cultural reason is that certain trees hold auspicious and spiritual value to us, so we would want to preserve them by limiting disturbances (though most of those won't be found in urban environments). There's a big movement in certain cities to revitalize green spaces for both cultural and climate reasons.

As for your second question... I've spoken a little bit about gendered language in Thailand [X] The problem, for me, doesn't really exist in what you could call language 'norms'. Because pronouns/particles (ฉัน/ผม | ค่ะ/ครับ/จ๊ะ) are, more increasingly, used interchangeably OR what are classified as "female" pronouns can be used as 'acceptable' gender neutral identifiers. The problem is how certain people react to the use of gendered language in more modern expression. Does that make sense? Collectivist views and traditionalism look down upon non-adherence to gender correlated language, in a lot of instances. The fact that our culture was established from patriarchal perspectives doesn't help.

I don't know if I'm comfortable or ready to talk about my personal experiences (some of which were very unpleasant) living as a non-binary transgender person in Thailand, especially in online spaces, but I hope that I can get there one day.

Please don't feel pressured to compensate me in any way!!! I'm not asking or expecting to be rewarded for sharing my cultural insight. Some might see it as generous, and I'll accept that, but the reason behind it is very self-serving...in a way. Because I desperately want to combat the false information and discriminatory views that exist in fandom spaces about my culture. So really...

Thank you to anyone who refrains from making generalized assumptions about a culture that you do not belong to. It's hurtful to to see a lot of the misinformation that exists, not just here, but in other social media spaces. Coming to terms with interfandom has been a struggle... because Thai voices are often disregarded when discussing media that originates from their own country. And I hope that I've created an environment where you'd feel comfortable enough coming to me for any sort of clarification. All I have ever asked, is that you be respectful.

[twst-hottest-takes]

I'm responding to that one teenage Anon, as someone who's about to become one of those "30 year old hags" myself by the end of the year.

Anon, I hate to break it to you, but 30 isn't that old. While that's not exactly a spring chicken age, that's still fairly young all things considered. What do you expect women that age to do? Give up all of their hobbies to go clean the kitchen and do taxes? No, they are gonna have hobbies and interests just like you. You are gonna be that age one day. The day you turn 30 is gonna creep up on you A LOT sooner than you think. I doubt you are just gonna drop your interest in video games and anime at that age, so quit expecting other 30 year olds to.

The target audience in Japan is "working age women" and college students, not high schoolers or middle schoolers. That's why they sell furniture, silver rings with precious gems and expensive high heels based on TWST over there, because the target audience would have adult jobs and will be able to afford it. The only reason why that isn't the case in the west is because Disney 4Kids-afied the game and dumbed it down to make it younger. The JP version was meant for that former demographic, so you are the odd one out if you are talking about the original game, not the people you claim.

I totally agree with you about the debate about fem!Yuus being stupid, but I don't think it's as prevalent of a problem as you believe. I've been here since the game came out in Japan, and I hardly ever came across these people. Most people are either indifferent or fine with either. I think it's just the Twitter or TikTok algorithm feeding you that content because you constantly interact with it. If you don't want to see it, then don't interact with that side of the fandom on your actual accounts. It's as simple as that. You have to curate your own fandom experience. That's just how this works.

Adding to the previous point, while I want to see more official female Yuus or even a female one shot villain, the reality is that TWST is a Joseimuke (female-targeted media). The JP audience tend to want to see pretty men over women in those, because of a variety of cultural reasons that will be too long to get into. I don't agree with it. But, it is what it is. They might be leaning into making them more male because of the target demographic. However, if you want to see more fem!Yuu content, there are plenty of fics featuring that on AO3, Wattpad and other sites that you can check out.

What do you have against BL fans? Lots of people who enjoy that content are LGBT themselves or suspect they might be. They are backbone of fandom. Again, you curate your own experience. Don't like it, don't interact with it.

Anon, while I might sound harsh, I'm saying this because I want to give you some advice about this as someone who has been in fandoms since I was in middle school. I honestly believe that if you curate your experience and focus on the parts of the fandom you enjoy, you will have a lot better time. This doesn't go for just TWST, but every fandom out there. Anyways, I hope you will find your people in this fandom one day, kiddo.

Thank you for answering the previous anon in a level-headed and mature fashion.

I would not have been so kind, which is why I mostly kept my fingers off the keyboard (ha). As a former teenaged fandom person, this is the type of thing that can be grown out of. So while pushback is appropriate, a less aggrivated take is definitely appreciated.

NOW FOR A SLIGHTLY MORE AGGRIVATED ADDITION!

I'll add that the ageist nonsense in that poor anon's post is going to be really embarassing when they turn 18-20 years old and are suddenly expected to apologize for ever having a crush on a teenaged fictional character. Furthermore, I think most of the people who are anti-female Yuu and Ocs, probably skew towards the younger side of the fandom. . . but I can't technically prove that.

Thank you for your addition!

[princelylove]

Good evening Your Highness, or whatever time of day you’re reading this. As I’m penning this request I’m currently rhinestoning a pair of boots to wear to a Stray Kids concert i’m attending soon. Who is currently your favorite artist Your Highness? Whenever I think of you I imagine music with string instruments, since I personally believe that matches your grandiose and elegant presence.

I was wondering if I could get your opinion on Bruno, Rohan, Giorno and Narancia with an arts and crafts oriented darling? Darling enjoys making gifts for their loved ones, ranging from themed scrap books to crocheted trinkets and bedazzled clothing/accessories. I’d also love it if Your Highness could write with a Darling who experiences some minor pain while doing arts and crafts in mind as I unfortunately suffer from scoliosis, which causes me back and shoulder pain and also slows down the process of creating things by hand as I find myself needing to take constant breaks and do some stretches recommended to me by my physical therapist.

Thank you so much and have a wonderful day/evening!

I understand the last portion of this ask is 'optional,' so this ask does not inherently break my rules, but that last portion is what interests me the most. I don't like writing for overly specific darlings, example being a darling with a few attributes, because it often just feels like I'm writing someone's self insert for free- but a darling with any sort of disability is fun to write for, and this hobby works for Bruno's darling in particular. So I'll do it.

I think my rules need an update again. Despite having a disability, I forgot to include in my rules that I will write for how a yandere handles a darling with one. Some yanderes go crazy for it, some are neutral, some hate it and wouldn't partake. It's fun to talk about who likes it and what sort of disabilities they'd go for. Because a darling with celiac is entirely different from a darling who doesn't have legs. That's so interesting. I'll update my rules later, likely.

As for your question... Her Highness has a somewhat broad taste in music, it depends on my mood. Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake will always have an extremely special place in my heart, Camille Saint-Saëns is also incredibly darling to me. To ruin your perception of me, Lana Del Rey has been a longtime favorite of mine. I Want It All, Go Go Dancer, Jealous Girl, Diet Mountain Dew, Million Dollar Man, and Be My Daddy are some of my favorites. 'You Can Be The Boss' was the first song of hers I ever heard. Thank you youtube algorithm when I was much too young for that.

Bruno will surely love absolutely anything that hinders his darling's independence, but a disability that, plainly, restricts her and keeps her home is the best. Hindered mobility, chronic pain, things of that nature just call to him. Chronic pain in particular, Bruno has always loved the idea of swooping in and saving someone he loves. What savior complex?

He keeps all medicine in a cabinet in the kitchen, and prefers to fetch whatever meds are necessary all by himself. Go, sit. Be gentle on yourself, cara mia. The medicine is purposely kept out of reach so his darling has to ask him to fetch them for her every single time, hidden in different ways depending on his dear's circumstances. Short? Well, obviously it's high up. Tall, but with chronic pain? I hope your back isn't broken, it's underneath the sink at a weird angle so you have to dig for it for more than a few seconds. Don't fret, dear. He'll fetch it for you. If not Pannacotta, who is trying to walk as quickly and quietly as he can from the kitchen to his room to avoid the hassle of being asked...

It's typically better to ask Pannacotta over Narancia when Bruno is at work. Narancia will bring her Pepto-Bismol instead of Midol, because they're both pink and he's in a rush to get back up to his room for another ranked match of whatever player-vs-player shooter game he's into this month. Duuude! Come on! He only gets like a minute between matches! He can't piss and get a drink AND get your stupid medicine in a minute!

At least Pannacotta gets the right one, and the right dosage. He knows better than to bring Bruno's darling an entire container of medicine. He brings a little tray out, actually. Preferred pain meds, water, and something to snack on that's not too energy draining. Panna will even ask if the tv is fine, how the temperature in the room is, and if she wants the curtains closed or open. It's just common care questions. So father Bruno doesn't come home to a dead darling in their living room.

Bruno has a certain list of expectations for his wife. Make dinner, do laundry, keep the house clean, take care of their children (young adults by now) and carry another, etc. He's usually very strict. He finds it agitating when his darling can't do the simple things that he asks of her, he takes it as a personal slight against him and a statement of discontentment with her current situation. To make it more simple, she's obviously being a brat. Undermining his authority, even. No, not as capo. As her husband.

But.

If his wife can't do those things temporarily because of her chronic pain, it's entirely excused. It's seen as cute, or endearing, even. If the poor thing is writhing in pain but responsive to him helping, he's so elated.

Honestly, disobeying him would result in a disability anyway. It's nice that he doesn't have to manually unzip his dear wife's legs off to force her to sit still and tolerate him.

And it's nicer that the boys are helping. Aw, you're all a real family now. So cute. So sweet. Bruno is more than happy to help his darling streeeetch, as long as it's inside. Back yard is a bit too strenuous for flare ups.

It's a good opportunity to show that his hands aren't a threat. He's safe. Stop avoiding his touch. Husbands are meant to guide, so really, it's no trouble at all to help stretch that pretty back out. He pushes his darling when she isn't quite hitting the position she needs to be in, literally. He pushes her into the position. And forces her to hold it for the 'correct' amount of time. Didn't know he actually paid attention to the physical therapist/chiropractor. Which, off topic, Bruno has mixed feelings on doctors. On one hand, you need them, but on the other..... touching his wife. Passive aggressive smile.

For when those flare ups happen and his darling simply must stay inside, well.... arts and crafts are a great hobby for a housewife to have. It's cute. It's typical of one. You walk into a house and see that it's actually a home when there's doilies and blankets everywhere. Honestly, Bruno was going to suggest some type of housewife hobby eventually. It's good to do those things when you find yourself home so often. Crafts, games, some form of stimulation is good for her. Just not... too much, nothing inherently stressful. Make blankets and trinkets all you'd like, dear. They have the storage space for it.

A cute little housewife hobby like sewing, crocheting or knitting, or even embroidery are all appropriate to him. As long as she gets her typical housewife duties done (when not in a flare up!), he's very happy to bring her the materials she needs. Bruno loves the idea of bringing home gifts for his darling, if she's behaving appropriately. Alternatively, to win her over if she's shying away from him again.

Although, he doesn't approve of the more childish mediums of art. Bedazzling in particular. No, no, don't mind him. It's fine to... indulge. Whatever helps keep his sweet girl's brain from breaking. He lightly encourages other forms of entertainment by simply not supplying it.

Bruno smiles whenever he sees his darling doing something stereotypically feminine- sewing, embroidery, knitting / crocheting, etc- especially at a darling that he has yet to break in fully. A gender non conforming one. Ah, so you are capable of feminine hobbies. You're just acting like how you usually do to spite him. Why can't you just do what he wants you to do? Well, there's plenty of time to think about your life choices when you're stuck on the couch for a few days and the only way to get relief is through him.

[proxiimitysky]

I've been heavily considering moving my account and starting over. This post will be very long so if you don't wanna read it that's fine (I'll add a tldr at the end)

I started this blog back when i loved sky and just wanted a specific place to talk about it. It took me YEARS to slowly realize that i don't have the same love for it like i used to. Ever since season of moomin was announced i thought of it as an opportunity to just take a break and only play the game if i genuinely want to, and not just for the purpose of getting candles. I wasn't really that excited for the season to begin with probably because i dont know anything about moomin and i know i can just learn about it through the season but ehh idk man. Just my personal opinion i already thought the first quest was super slow and tedious as hell

Also not to mention some big criticism within the community is how expensive things are in sky and i agree. I think they're right when they say iaps are getting more and more expensive (inflation amiright) and they keep locking the cooler items behind the pass. I know the pass (for 1 person) is generally pretty cheap for what you're getting but i just don't think it's fair for people who simply don't want to spend money. Majority of the good stuff this season is behind the pass and i know the purpose of this is to convince players to buy the pass but it's just. Man i would love to enjoy a season and buy cool clothes without having to pay real money for it AGAIN

And before you say "sky is a social game. No one is forcing to buy anything stop complaining", i know no one is forcing me to buy things, but it sure feels like it. I've already made an ENTIRE other blog about this complaint and you can probably go look for it but can you think of anything in sky that's fun without spending money? That doesn't include talking with friends (which BY THE WAY still costs money just to unlock chat if you didn't friend them with a qr like? Why tf do you need to SPEND MONEY just to talk to someone???) almost everything in the game needs money to be enjoyed. You can enjoy the story sure, but you can't express yourself in a way that doesn't require buying SOMETHING

Also why does sky have so many bugs all the time. There is not a single update where something wasn't fucked up in the making. I know sky isn't perfect and I'm nowhere near a game development professional but how do you even do that

Anyways.. i just want a tumblr blog to start over completely and gain an audience that isn't so restricted to one interest. I like art, and that's way more broad than just sky art only because i VERY VERY VERRYYY rarely draw sky art. I for some reason don't find it super enjoyable to draw skykids (unless I'm getting paid for it which is why the majority of my sky art are commissions lmao)

Just judging by the attention my blogs and art received on here, i assumed the algorithm was a lot better than other apps. I felt like maybe doing an oc blog too would be beneficial since its something i actually enjoy and WANT to talk about instead of just. Occasionally mentioning sky just to complain about it lmaoo

If you made it this far thanks for reading!! Also if you're here for the tldr: i don't love sky as much as i used to. This blog is very restricting and i wanna start over with an art acc in general

Btw i may still blog about sky on my new blog (if i do make it) but i would more likely just blog about games i like in general when i feel like it. Only talking about sky is just... Ehhhh..

[my-castles-crumbling]

hey cas

i've just been feeing really down lately. one of my biggest issues is comparing myself to others and i know i shouldn't, but it's like once my brain gets going i can't ever turn it off.

i feel like i'll never be good enough for anything. And not really in a "i don't deserve it way" but more of a "mediocre" way. i've done so many things, picked up so many hobbies and things (thanks adhd) but even ones that i stick with for years and years, i only ever get half decent at.

i just feel like i embody the saying "jack of all trades, master of none" cause there are just so many that i can do and im good at and i love but, its like i can never get better after i hit right below the average line.

and back to the whole comparing myself to others bit, i try so hard on my content, but the ones i try the hardest at get the least amount of interaction and i hate it. i'm sure part of its just a tiktok thing, but it just makes me feel like shit and i'm constantly comparing myself to a specific content creator (which i know i shouldn't do and i try so hard not to) but the fact that we're mutuals makes me feel like maybe i need to prove myself somehow?? idk, i feel like he followed me out of some sort of obligation because we ended up posting similar video ideas literally within an hour of eachother and i feel like that (mixed with some other things i don't wanna say cause i don't wanna make it TOO obvious who it is) made him feel obligated somehow to follow me back. and idk.

he also can pull of any style or whatever he wants at any point and i'm SO jealous of that because i can't do that and i wish with everything in me that i could.

i'm just lowkey feeling like shit because i know ill never be able to get to that level and i feel like im never going to get anywhere and i just feel stuck.

anyway, thanks for listening and if u have any advice or like "coping methods" that would help, i'd appreciate it <3

Hi! I think it's really important to remember that modern content creation isn't just based on skill. It's based on like...knowledge of how to manipulate social media, and also a lot of luck.

I obviously don't know a lot about tiktok, but I'll use tumblr as an example. I write like...2-4 microfics a day. And sometimes, one of the ones I write I am so proud of. Like so excited about. And I know it's decent. But it doesn't really go anywhere. And then in the same day, I'll pull another one out of my ass and hate it and think it's shit, and it ends up getting like 2000 notes before the week is out.

It's not all based on quality or skill. It's luck. Because if another Marauders fan happens to have a fic some up on their page and reblogs, then it gets spread. and that's based on all things that don't have to do with my skill as a writer: timing, the tumblr algorithm, the other person's availability, their willingness to click a button.

Most social media is the same. So please don't take it personally. It's NOT a comment on your skill or your worth.