#their love for simon is being transmitted

[yi3248]

happy birthday simon ghost riley

all the joy and love for you, simon

[siriusleee]

i. hidden caches

Zombie Apocalypse AU | SIMON RILEY x f!READER

↳ SUMMARY: The world is trying to knit itself back together after fracturing apart. You're trying to put yourself back together with it; Simon Riley is just trying to stay alive. ↳ WORD COUNT: 2.2K ↳ TAGS: mentions of cannibalism, mentions of shooting things, mentions of dying. smut to come. canon typical violence to come. additional tags to come as the story progresses. female reader. no mentions of "your name". reader is given a nickname later on. nc-17. ↳ AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thanks to the lovely anon who asked for a scene from an apocalypse au, and this idea was born. If you'd like to donate to my Ko-Fi (my bed frame broke this week and a new one was $200 I didn't have), I would appreciate it. ↳ TAG LIST: There will not be a tag list for this story, as Tumblr has issues with letting me tag people. To get notifications of updates, please subscribe on AO3 or turn on notifications for my blog.

additional chapters | ao3

The ending had come quicker than anyone expected. The epidemics and endemics and pandemics of the years past had given false confidence to everyone. We survived the last thing, the news reporters had said, gray building beneath their eyes, and we can survive this. Behind them images of towns being devoured played. 

Bodies can decompose in as little as nine days. The first to go is the soft tissue: the eyes, the tongue, the soft flesh of the cheeks. When bacteria and insects are introduced, the flesh breaks down faster. Bones take longer - sometimes years to fully wear away into the dust that collects underfoot. But these things - whatever turned them kept them covered in a thin layer of adipocere to protect them from the elements. They kept shuffling along long past the time when they should have reverted back to a primordial soup where they lay.

But they still decomposed. The trick was to stay ahead of them, away from the gnashing teeth that transmitted the virus, away from the hands and feet that never seemed to tire. So few people could. Whole towns and cities were decimated, felled beneath the hordes of horror that ambled slowly past, swallowed up by the feet that didn’t stop moving until they wore themselves down to stubs, which were them pulled forward by hands and knees that never tired. 

But yours did. The familiar path towards the north was more overgrown this year than in the past. For a few years, there had been wary companions, eyes that lingered until the snow and frost rolled in to freeze the Biters where they stood. But as the years wanned on the crowd grew smaller and smaller until you only caught hints of others moving north: horse prints, trash left behind, the occasional Biter left decomposing in the bushes. 

This year there was nothing. Either you had moved too early or there was no one left. The latter is too terrifying, so you push it away and think about whatever groups may wander through here after you.

The woods loom tall above you, the snow that fell earlier in the morning just barely dusting the branches above your head. None of it had reached the leaves that are too waterlogged from recent rains to crunch beneath your feet. A blister is rubbing itself raw at your ankle; you know that if you don’t stop to treat it, it will be unbearable tomorrow, but you brush the thought off. You need to reach the marker before nightfall.

The markers had appeared between one trip north and your trip back down. 

West Village - 20km

The first year it had appeared left the group you were with in a tizzy. The group had fractured down the middle. If all of you found each other, how hard was it to think that a larger group had finally banned together? Civilization needed to rebuild eventually.

You didn’t trust the shaky scrawl that printed the words, so you had been with the group that refused to go. The next year there was another marker tacked to the first.

Body snatchers. Beware.

It was amazing to you: how well rumors could start and spread without phones or the internet. For months, every person you and your group came across would give the same warning, and ask you all the same questions. Have you seen the body snatchers? Are you the body snatchers?

Humans turned cannabolids. Farms where people were forced to reproduce. Spits with babies roasting above the fire. You wanted to think that it was the stuff of fiction.

In the third year, there was another argument. The group cleaved in half again when the promise of civilization reared its head. Your group had divided again at the markers, disappearing into the thick woods. 

Almost no one survived the winter that year. You’d held the hands of all the dying and covered them under a thick blanket of snow before dividing their possessions up between the remainder of the group. In the end, there were just three of you. And when the winter rolled away you all broke apart, whatever ties that held you all together broken by the cold. 

The next year you were the only one in your camp. 

The markers had become a sort of prayer to you, that one day you’d meet someone else on the road - some scream and shout that there were others out there even if you were too wary to speak to them.

But it’s been two years - the crude paint of the West Village sign fading, the body snatchers warning falling to the earth unceremoniously. The wood started to rot. 

And you were utterly alone. Around you, the sound of nature getting ready for the winter fills in the ever-present silence that usually surrounds you. It’s been weeks since you’d last seen a person: a lone traveler moving in the opposite direction as you. And you’d hid from them, worried that they were the sort of feral people turned into when they were alone for too long - a body snatcher. Worried that you were that kind of feral. 

You know the markers when you approach them like your body’s memorized the number of steps it takes to reach them. Your chest thumps as you approach the spot where they should be nailed to a tree, growing taller into the air each year. Your boots falter against the wet leaves as you approach the place. 

The markers have been repainted. Or at least the West Village one has. This time it’s nailed to a post in the ground; you bend down to inspect the dirt around the post. It’s packed underneath a thick layer of loam - whoever put it up must have put it up much earlier in the year. The thought sends a shiver down your spine. You wonder if any members of your former group are still there. 

For half a second, you think about following the arrow, but before the thought can fully form in your head, you let your feet carry you forward on the path. Just ahead is the rest area you’ve always used. Your tree, one with branches high enough that the only things who can see you are the birds whose nests you disturb, erupts from the ground ahead of you.

You climb up like you were taught; throwing your rope onto the first branch you can physically reach and lash it to yourself. It’s more difficult to climb the tree with your pack and bow, but you don’t want to risk leaving it behind for anyone who may come through after you. When you reach the point where the rope reaches the tree, you pull yourself onto the branch. The blister on your ankle is screaming, but you don’t pause until your hammock is secure and your harness is wrapped around you. The cool wind cuts through the thin fabric of the hammock, but it’s not too cold as you peel back your socks to reveal an angry raw spot crawling across your ankle.

Too tired to do much more, you slide your other boot off, tying them together and then to your pack. The gentle sway of the trees makes your eyelids heavy, and you let yourself drift off into the first good night's sleep you’ve had in a while. 

The bitter cold wakes you up, the wind moving your hammock back and forth gently. The darkness spins above you, clouds backlit by the moon. Not for the first time you think about how easy it used to be, curled up with another warm body beneath the thick blankets - how easy it was to switch on the percolator in the morning and wrap your hands around a warm cup of coffee, how easy -

You press the heel of your hands into your eyes and try to press away the thoughts that are racing through your brain. Remembering the before drives people crazy; you’ve seen how it can eat people up and you refuse to let it eat at you. So you pull your thermal blanket closer around yourself and try to get some sleep.

But the sun rises earlier than you expected and extra sleep never comes. 

It doesn’t take long for you to pack what little you have back in your pack and descend back down. At the bottom you dig out the little bit of jerky you still have saved from the summer months; it’s disgusting, but it’s enough to push you forward to the next place. 

You walk the entire time with your bow in your hand, waiting for some animal to run out in front of you and meet its mark, but the forest is silent today as you push towards the next stop in your journey north, a small nameless village secluded away from the rest of civilization - just good enough to sleep in for the night. 

The sun has just started to sink below the treeline when the village finally springs into view. The blister on your ankle has popped, and you think you can feel blood rushing into your sock, but you don’t dare stop and check; you don’t want the scent of fresh blood to attract any Biters that may be hidden away for now. Your fingers cramp around the bow and your stomach growls. You’d picked a smooth rock up from the ground hours earlier and popped it into your mouth to try and trick yourself into thinking you were eating something, but it hadn’t worked. If anything it made your hunger worse.

There was salvation coming - on your second year coming through here you’d snuck off from the group and buried a cache. Each year you did your best not to touch it unless it was to refill something inside of it, but this year you knew you’d have to empty it. 

You crunch over tire tracks that crisscross over each other on the main road into the village; they’re dry enough that you know whoever managed to scrape up enough gas to drive in and out was gone, but the thought of someone driving up on you made you nervous, and make your steps quicken. If people were driving through here then you needed to be gone before sunlight tomorrow. 

Weary, you push yourself towards the back half of the village to a little two-story you know well. It had been the same house your group, and then yourself, slept in each year on your way to the north camp; in the back, beneath an overturned chair that was slowly rotting with time, your little cache was stored. 

You shoulder your way through the half-rotted back gate and freeze. The chair is tossed to the side, rusted parts puzzle pieced across the ground. And directly where your cache had been buried is a hole, smoothed over from time and rain. 

You could cry if you had any water left in you to cry. So instead you walk numbly into the house - habit making you click the lock on the door even though it’s long since stopped working. The same thick dust that was here last year is still across the floor, so thick your steps don’t even disturb it. You pass through the living area and up the steps. On the landing, you don’t pause - to the left of you is the nursery that’s always been empty. The first few times you’d stopped here the sight of the broken-down white crib and sage walls made something ache inside of you, and you’d learned not to look. It’s better to just let things alone and try to stifle your imagination.

The attic ladder swings down with ease and you test your weight on the rungs before climbing up - any broken bones and you may as well just shoot yourself where you lay. It creaks ominously beneath you but keeps as you clamber through the hole. You let yourself collapse on the floor beside the ladder after pulling it up, and wrapping a rope around the ladder to keep anyone from pulling it down in the night. All at once, hunger and exhaustion pull you down towards the floor. 

You’ll have to shoot something tomorrow and check the well for fresh water. There are still to many miles before you make it north enough to be safe for the winter, and you won’t make it without water and food. 

You try to distract yourself from the cramping of hunger and how little water is left in your jug by peeling your boots off. As you’d thought, the blister had split and bled, but thankfully your sock had caught most of it. 

You clean up the best you can in the dusty light filtering in from the little window that looks out the back garden and wonder who could have known the cache was there. An old group member who spotted you checking it in the past? Or was it a lucky guess, someone who came through after you and spotted the freshly disturbed dirt and came to the right inference?

You try to tell yourself it doesn’t matter as you pull your thermal blanket from your pack and lay down, but you can’t quite convince yourself of that lie. 

[putnamcapital]

Queerness and power in YR / why the best comparison is Normal People and not Heartstopper

It’s a big week for Heartstopper - Young Royals comparisons and i’m not on here to throw any shade on Heartstopper. I haven’t even watched all of S2 yet and i know i love it! But thanks to the absolutely stunning, spell-binding work of fiction called the Normal People AU, i’m more and more convinced that Heartstopper and YR have …. not really that much to do with each other — aside from being tremendously good stories, amazing performances, stellar cinematography and direction etc.

Lisa Ambjorn and the team behind YR have been frequently heard saying that they didn’t want to make a show about homosexuality, where the queerness of the relationship between W&S was “the problem” that drove the plot. Heartstopper, on the other hand, is very much a story driven by the tensions and joys of budding queer and non-conforming relationships, sexualities, and identities. But does that really mean YR isn’t about queerness? I think it’s still about queerness, but with a framing that has kind of been lost from view in the post-AIDS crisis / post-gay marriage era.

I didn’t really appreciate this until I thought through the intense parallels with Normal People - as the author of Obviously has so powerfully drawn out. Normal People is about power; and if you’ll forgive me the short-cut, once upon a time, queerness (in modern global North society) was also about power. In NP, the anchoring drama, and the elemental wound, that both Marianne and Connell face rests in power structures that oppress them - in Marianne’s case, the emotional and physical abuse in her family, in Connell’s case, the abuse that capitalism inflicts on him and his family as the working class. They both seek to become who they are in spite of this power structure - while at the same always being molded by it. There is not so much a core identity to either character that seeks to ‘set itself free’ or ‘reveal itself’ by overcoming power but rather a character who comes into fuller awareness of themselves while being shaped by their contexts. For example, in that scene by the fountain in Italy, where Marianne/Wille acknowledge they have never had to think about money, and Connell/Simon says winning the scholarship has changed his life so that there are things he no longer thinks about - and then between them, they bring to the surface that Marianne/Wilhelm’s mother has been paying Simon/Connell’s mother dirt wages for years, and Marianne says out loud how she knows that there is this basic harm in the way they came to know each other - a wound that is not of their doing, but from their class positions, and yet could never be forgotten as part of their story and part of who they became as a couple. The scene is not - we can run away from all this or i see the ‘real you’ behind all this - but, we can love each other and be who we are and yet still be where we come from, with the consequent constraints on our worldview and possibilities for action. “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances listing already, given and transmitted from the past.”

Basically i think that in YR, Lisa is giving us back a much more Marxist / power relational form of queerness - where queerness is refracted through and emergent from material conditions, as opposed to being purely about declaring identities [“i was born this way”] and thus essential truths or essential desires, but about the ebb and flow between people, where that ebb and flow is mediated by the power structures in which we cannot help but experience our lives. For Wille, the power structure is obvious: the Crown. But it’s there for everyone. For Sara and Simon, it’s three-fold: the power dynamics around class and race, and the power dynamics from an abusive household / childhood trauma. For the other characters, too, it is not far away. August’s struggles are with his family’s expectations, and with a drug addiction and eating disorder that speak to the pressures of hegemonic cis-het masculinity. For Felice, she deals with racial bias and the pressure to be the perfect image of a woman her (thin, white) mother wants. It’s true for all the students at the school - the scene on parents’ weekend as all these parents swarm in is utterly stifling, as every student feels the structure they are meant to conform to. BTW it’s a subplot, but YR seems also to be saying that capitalism and class structure harm even the rich. People - everyone - experience their gender and sexual identities through and in between all that power - it’s necessarily shaped by it.

To me, this is the root of what is so intoxicatingly liberating about Young Royals (and by extension, Obviously) - that i just don’t feel watching HS, or even reading the canon NP - of the possibility of emancipation. It comes about not principally through outward facing revolt, though there is some of that, but catalyzed by a kind of relational self-growth: the characters grow into themselves as a result of their relations with others. It’s not at all about Wille walking this road alone - despite what Simon says he must do in S1/E6. It’s actually about the characters growing together, in a kind of solidarity against the power structures they rebel against. After all, it is Simon’s confession in the cloakroom, and then the look he gives Wille from the choir stand when August is about to give the speech, that compels Wille to his feet to claim his power, on his terms.

It’s a profoundly ‘class consciousness’ form of identity formation and self-actualization - like they become who they are through their struggle in concert with others. It feels utterly foreign and refreshing to me, because it’s just not the dominant discourse for queerness in popular culture, and it helpfully puts the power struggle back into queerness - it recenters the feeling of community, of joint struggle, of solidarity, and yes, of resistance.

This is how it is. This is how i feel.

[cordeliawhohung]

Pet!Au anon endeared by Johnny from yesterday!

Absolutely that’s how it feels reading the series, one minute you’re absolutely aghast by Bonnie’s entrapment and suffering. The next minute you’re reflecting on Johnny going crazy for Bonnie saying his name during, or blindly adoring Simon over breakfast and thinking - shit why do I feel so guilty about slightly caring for Johnny too!

The horror is spot on. Also I admire the anons saying that they would fight back or be clever. I like to think I’d be strong - but I think what makes Bonnie so relatable is that she’s just trying to keep above water in an unsafe environment!

Also I feel like unconsciously I’d be trying to make myself as small as possible, just like Bonnie kinda is. The cameras all over the house were such a gut wrenching observation. There is no safe place to plan your escape!

As you can tell I love your writing! 💘

it's easy to care for johnny because he has a personality. he loves his silly drawings and he loves being loved. which is what he's sorta twisting a lot of Bonnie's interactions into; so far gone it's like you sorta feel bad for the man lmao.

as for the fighting back thing, i've been getting an overwhelming amount of people saying that and it's... interesting haha. had Bonnie not been taken advantage of in the way she was (drugged, kidnapped, etc etc) she certainly would have tried to fight back at first. she wouldn't have gone willingly at all. but that's not what happened. she was so far into the muck that she was surrounded by the time she finally got the chance to even catch her breath. a lot of people say they will fight in certain situations, even in real life. i will fight if xyz happens. there are lots of studies that show that's not the case with a majority of people. people who have said they would fight more often than not freeze. Bonnie isn't freezing though, and she's only fawning a little bit, and i wish she'd be given a bit more credit for surviving the only way she can afford to haha so i'm glad you pointed that out too! and yes! the making yourself small! trying to be small enough to become unnoticed while she plots and learns and devises! the cameras make it extra difficult (especially since they transmit audio.......)

anyway i could ramble about these freaks all day. so glad you're enjoying!

[hoursofreading]

I often imagine my life as that of a tree. Slow and steady. Patient and full of intent. The greatest potential from the smallest seed. What is a tree like? What does it need? The most important thing is: Trees go slowly and cannot be rushed. This helps me, because when I interact with others or myself, and I get impatient, I remember that there is no point to yell at a tree for fruit. At the right time, the tree gives its fruit away by itself. You can’t tell a tree what to do, but the tree can see what you need, and will give you everything it has. Trees are actually quite competitive. A tree living in another tree’s shadow will always stay smaller. Some trees like that, some don’t. That’s why space is important. A tree needs a good home to grow. A tree in unhindered growth will reach just the right size and then stop growing. It knows what is enough. Unceasing is the tree’s work. A tree is working all the time. It is always communicating with the other trees and beings, managing resources, and making the air around it more breathable. While the tree is working, it looks like it’s still. Yet, on the inside, it is always in motion productively. A tree doesn’t change location much (trees can’t walk) and therefore like to be in good company. A tree and its friends are for life, and they grow together slowly and strongly. The shade and the canopy of the tree can also be pleasant for little friends and playmates, and friends are the joy of the tree’s life. Together with them, the tree gains in spirit and ability. If the friends allow it, they take pieces of the tree to foreign places. As the tree travels alongside with them, it can see through their eyes, tap into their senses, and experience their motions. The wind and the tree belong together. The wind helps the tree to talk, in the quiet language of rustling leaves. Those who are still and patient can hear many stories. The wind brings questions, and the tree rustles answers. The spring is next to the tree, carrying the waters of constant renewal. Her wavy whisper washes the tree of all that is old and not needed, and connects it to a steady flow of newness and nourishment. The bird is a good friend of the tree. He likes to talk a lot! He brings songs from the skies to the tree. Together with the wind and the bird, the tree can fly and see. The bird and the tree often say hello and goodbye to each other. The bird likes to wander the world and the tree must remain with the earth. The mushrooms help the tree with communication and supplementation. Through their mycelium, the mushrooms transmit tales from the earth and the underground. These stories are not always beautiful, but they are always true. Thanks to the mushrooms, the tree knows everybody in the forest and the fields. Whenever someone or something needs help, the mushroom messengers carry information and provisions through the network to the required destination. The monkey helps the tree to move its old branches and stretch its bark. The monkey’s able hands massage the wood and keep it supple and strong. His swinging and climbing are a joy for the tree, just like the tree’s fruit is a joy for the monkey. The tree can’t get enough of the laughter of the monkey, and the monkey finds safety in the big treehouse. The dog likes the tree and the tree likes the dog. Pee is ok. Especially from god, I mean dog. There are many other little friends. The cat, the bee, the deer, the bear, and countless others. The tree loves all beings. It wants them to share what they have, and take what the tree has to share.

(3) The Tree Manifesto - by Simon Ohler - The Time Is Now

[havnblog]

No, Apple — you’re not the main reason I buy Apple Products

In the court cases against Epic, this round of regulatory scrutiny from the EU, and other more, Apple has made their sense of entitlement abundantly clear. Every piece of business that happens on their platforms, is to their credit. And developers are lucky to be able to pay them almost a third of their revenue for the privilege of being on their platforms. If Apple understands that their relationship with developers is reciprocal, they hide it well.

I like all my Apple hardware. Heck, I even love some of it! I also like the operating systems, the general focus on privacy, and the way the different parts of the ecosystem work together. But I think I could enjoy a Framework laptop, Asus phone and some Sony earbuds as well! The things Apple makes and does isn’t the main reason I keep buying Apple products. It’s all the fantastic third-party developers, mostly indie, who make great software for the Apple platforms.

I know that Apple makes some great tools, APIs and frameworks to make this happen — so I’m not saying they shouldn’t get anything for their trouble. But this idea that it’s a one-way street, where only Apple gives other companies business, just feels so wrong to me.

So even though I know neither Tim Apple nor any other Apples, will read this post, I feel the need to give shout-outs to some people Apple is at the mercy of.

Great third-party software

Most of these apps are what I would call indie apps — but not all of them. 1 And I think most of them are only available on Apple platforms currently — but they might be available on, or on the way to, other platforms. I’ve tried all of them, but don’t necessarily use them regularly — but I do use many of them! I’ll also try to give social links to the devs I know — but you are welcome to contact me if some are missing or wrong!

A stock Mac, without utilities like these, feels broken to me:

Bartender, by Surtees Studios, keeps my menu bar tidy and good-looking, and Default Folder X, by St. Clair Software upgrades my open and close dialogs.

My trackpad becomes much more useful thanks to BetterTouchTool by Andreas Hegenberg of Folivora.ai, and all my keyboards do the same through Karabiner-Elements by pqrs/Takayama Fumihiko and Keyboard Maestro by Stairways Software.

Paste, by a small team based in Denmark, is my favourite clipboard manager — but Tapbot’s Pastebot, is also great. (Give Paul, Mark and Todd a follow!)

But I would probably be able to live with just using the integrated clipboard manager in Raycast, an outstanding launcher with a rich extension ecosystem. But Alfred, by Andrew and Vero Pepperrell, and LaunchBar, by Objective Development is also good! I do use Raycast for window management, though. However, if I didn’t, I would’ve been well served by things like Magnet (Crowd Café), Moom (Peter Maurer and Rob Griffiths of Many Tricks), Rectangle (Ryan Hanson) , Amethyst (Ian Ynda-Hummel) or Yabai (Åsmund Vikane)! (And John Siracusa makes some apps for the particular of us.)

Noodlesoft’s Hazel keeps my files tidy, Anybox holds my bookmarks, my board game collection is in Classifier by App Deco, and my digital games are in GameTrack. Menuwhere (Many Tricks again!) makes sure the top menu is always within reach.

PopClip by Nick Moore and SnippetsLab by Renfei Song help me manipulate text, Photomator manipulates photos, and what the geniuses over at Rogue Amoeba can do to manipulate sound, is simply remarkable (I especially like SoundSource and Audio Hijack!)

Some do wood working as a hobby — I do development

And even though I’m very far from being at a professional level, I really like the Zed code editor by the team behind Atom. Panic also has some great software, in Transmit, the Nova editor, and the new Prompt terminal. iTerm , by George Nachman is also good — but my favourite terminal app is Warp. And if I had coded more on my iPad, I probably would’ve used Runestone, by Simon Støvring, and Working Copy more! Oh, and my favourite browser, is Arc by The Browser Company — and if I’m there, in Safari or in Firefox, Jeff Johnson helps me StopTheMadness.

But there’s even more great ways to write notes and other texts

NotePlan, by Eduard Metzger is both my notes app and task manager, and I journal in Everlog by Wessley Roche. But I could very well have taken notes in Bear (Shiny Frog), Craft, Bike Outliner (Jesse Grosjean) or **Taio **(by the developer who also makes MarkEdit)! (Quick shout-out to Obsidian and Logseq as well — even though they are cross-platform.)

Text that I won’t save, starts in Drafts by Greg Pierce, while I write blog posts and more in Ulysses by a team based in Germany. (But MarsEdit, by Daniel Jalkut also supports Micro.blog!) And if I feel the need for a post-it note, I might jot something down in Tot, by Iconfactory, or do some calculations in Soulver by Acqualia Software.

(I’d love to be able to write my emails in Mimestream — but they have got to get on that JMAP support!)

There are also lots of great calendar apps and task managers

Since I have most my tasks in NotePlan, I don’t use other task managers as much. But I sometimes use GoodTask, as it uses the Reminders.app database, but gives a more powerful interface. Things 3, by Cultured Code and Omnifocus by The Omni Group is also great.

If you’re a calendar power user, Fantastical, by Flexibits, is where it’s at. I’m not, so I really like BusyCal, by Busy Apps, that sits somewhere between Fantastical and Calendar.app. I also have a soft spot for n.spektor’s Calendar 366.

Most of these have good mobile clients — but here are some other mobile favourites

Dark Noise, by Charlie Chapman, is a good noisemaker, and Callsheet by Casey Liss is what IMDB would be if it was made by someone who really cares.

His ATP buddy, Marco Arment, makes the app that’s active the most hours on my phone: Overcast And I check the IK Start og Arsenal scores with FotMob.

My favourite calculator, is the weirdly named SC-323PU by Thomas Öllinger., but PCalc by James Thomson is also great.

If I checked the weather in other ways than finding out when I step outside, I could’ve used apps like Carrot Weather by Brian Mueller or Mercury Weather by Triple Glazed Studios. (Here’s a pro tip from me: I use the Yr app, which is a weather app paid for by the Norwegian government — and it’s pretty great, and available in English!) And if I saved recipies, I could use Croutonby Devin Davies or Mela by Silvio Rizzi.

Silvio has also made a great way to experience RSS, with Reeder. NetNewsWire by Brent Simmons is another good option, while my personal favourite is Lire.

iOS also has some fantastic social media apps. I still miss Apollo, by Christian Selig, and Reddit’s policies have made me more or less quit the service. But Narwhal is pretty good if you still use it! Gluon, by Vincent Ritter is my preferred way to browse Micro.blog (also check out his Scribbles project!) For Mastodon, there’s an embarrassment of riches: Mona, Ivory (Tapbots), Mammoth and Icecubes (Thomas Ricouard), to name a few!

And that’s not even mentioning the cross-platform stuff that Apple’s platforms would be way less attractive without. (Looking at you, Vision Pro.) I enjoy YouTube Premium, my main music player is Spotify (testing Tidal currently, though), my main chat app is Telegram (by far the best user experience for personal and group chats!). While these don’t keep me on Apple platforms, the absence of them would’ve pushed away.

Again, Apple does deserve tons of cash and credit — but not all of it. People like the mentioned developers are the main reason I buy Apple products — and not Apple themselves.

And people’s definition of «indie» varies! ↩︎

[matildesimaoblog]

paris fashion week

September 25th - October 5th

When you live in Paris, there are many cultural advantages, especially when it comes to participating in events like the fashion week, which takes place at the end of September every year. If you know me at all, you know how much I love fashion. I'm fascinated by how designers create breathtaking garments, I enjoy seeing people's personalities reflected in their style, and I have a keen interest in fashion history because I believe studying the past is essential to understanding the present. Therefore, being in Paris during this time of year was a dream come true.

Like every fashion week season, I made a list of the shows I was most interested in seeing. In the past, I would simply watch the livestream, but this time I had the opportunity to attend the shows in person. The only challenge was figuring out the locations. Thanks to my friends, I discovered that people would usually post the addresses of the shows on TikTok. Until then, I had never downloaded the application. I had told my friends back home multiple times that I had no intention of jumping on the trend and consuming unnecessary 7-second to 1-minute content. However, the only thing standing between me and the chance to see actual celebrities and their impeccable outfits was downloading TikTok, so I did.

As you can probably imagine, during fashion week, there are fashionable people everywhere. Being a broke fashion girly, I tried to be creative with my outfits, but honestly, I'm pretty basic. I like wearing a white T-shirt with jeans, my Adidas Sambas, and occasionally adding a knit sweater if necessary. I don't know why, but I stood by this habit because I feel put together when I wear simple clothes like that.

During fashion week, I attended four shows: Givenchy, Schiaparelli, Coperni, and Vivienne Westwood. While most security guards considered waiting around for celebrities at the entrance of fashion shows a waste of time, I, like many others, saw it as my way of participating in fashion week. It's truly insane how many people are willing to wait just to catch a glimpse of celebrities (myself included). Furthermore, I wasn't expecting the organization to be so chaotic and often improvised. I would usually arrive at the location two hours in advance to secure a good view, and typically, the barriers were already in place. However, there were two exceptions. At the Schiaparelli show, they had put barriers only at the entrance, and on the opposite side, they had only put up plastic banners. It quickly became apparent that this arrangement wouldn't suffice, so they added barriers later when chaos was already in full swing. Additionally, because the entry was on a narrow street, they should have stopped the traffic leading into the street to minimize disruption, but they didn't. The other show that lacked organization — at least at the beginning — was Coperni. When I arrived, they hadn't even set up any barriers yet. It was remarkable to witness their uncertainty regarding the placement of the barriers as they kept changing their minds.

The highlight of my fashion week experience was probably at Vivienne Westwood. Firstly, I arrived early and had the opportunity to see Andreas Kronthaler. Secondly, I was front-row and able to watch the show outside the venue on a big screen that transmitted what was going on inside.

To end fashion week on a high note, there was a last-minute book signing organized by Jacquemus at one of their stores. My friends and I attended the event and got to see Simon Jacquemus, which was an incredible experience, primarily because he's one of my favorite designers!

[boylovesleathers91]

Simon and Luke part 5: Holiday in the Alps

Please enjoy this fictional erotic leather story about a very submissive Simon!

Simon and Luke enjoyed their open motorcycle relationship a lot. But life in the city was stressful and often, they hardly found any time for mutual rides - and sex. When summertime started, Simon mentioned the idea of going on Holiday together – of course with their bikes. Luke was in favor of this great idea, and Simon believed that Luke would get a surprise for him. Luke has always had the hottest sex ideas.

Finally, they came to a decision. They wanted to explore the Eastern Alps in Central Europe that weren’t far away from their home so they could go there using their sports bikes – as you may remember, Simon was riding a KTM 690 Duke and wearing his Dainese and Alpinestars gear, Luke’s bike was a black ninja. They really enjoyed the mountains, riding up and down impressive mountain passes several times. When they stopped, everyone was friendly – maybe the guys were impressed by their sports bikes and their shiny leather gear and the girls were ecstatic because of their masculine looks?

Once, they stopped for an overnight stay in a small village. “I met some horny guys from the local motocross club”, Luke told Simon. “They’d want to taste your sweet ass with their dicks. But they said it was important that nobody in this place can find out. They’re all in heterosexual relationships, you know. Therefore, they’d pay me so much money we could use for our holiday. I want you to do that.” Simon hesitated. He was used to take Luke’s orders as he played the submissive part in their relationship. But Luke had never asked Simon before to get fucked by other men. Somehow, Simon felt aroused by the thought of getting pounded by those athletic motocross dudes. At the end of the day, Simon agreed. The next afternoon, Luke guided Simon to the club house. Three young guys were already there, all wearing their full motocross gear. The youngest of the guys seemed to be barely above the legal age. The boy’s Alpinestars gear was full of mud and sweat, apparently, he had just had a hard training session. The guys didn’t introduce themselves, except the young guy whose name seemed to be Leo. “I’ve got a girlfriend, but I’m still questioning my sexuality”, he told Luke. The others also had their motocross helmets on so they wouldn’t be recognized.

Luke commanded Simon to lay down on a small bench that was situated on a platform, so that Simon was on all fours, with his ass in a comfortable higher position. Simon felt his bike leathers’ special backside zipper being opened, leaving his asshole free to the public. Wearing his racing gloves and racing boots, he was bound to the bench so he couldn’t really move. Some of the motocross dudes began to rub their dicks through their motocross pants. Simon couldn’t see them, as he was forced to look in the opposite direction. A well-trained guy of about 30 years who obviously was the club’s leader slowly approached Simon’s ass. “Stop”, shouted Luke. “As this hole has not been lubed yet, you will need to do some prework. Leo, come here and help your bike friend.” Leo was shy but finally did what he was told to. His older buddy unpacked his hard cock and showed Leo to suck it: “Make it as wet as possible, I’ll take care of that dirty hole”. While Leo was getting his master’s cock shoved down his throat, the older athlete started to lick Simon’s completely shaved asshole. Simon moaned enjoying the treatment. Soon, the older guy decided to start the next level. He kicked Leo away and positioned his cock’s tip right at the entrance to Simon’s well-prepared anus. Leo sat down; he knew he was last because he was the youngest of them. With a single thrust, the athlete shoved it completely into Simon’s ass. Simon took the older guy’s cock easily, since it was only of average size compared to Luke’s penis. The older guy didn’t have much endurance and shot his man cream into Simon’s ass. The dude was satisfied and left the place to go showering. The second guy, who observed the scene rubbing his stiff cock through his motocross pants, was next. His cock was also of average size, but it had a huge tip. When he fucked Simon’s ass gently, Luke also got a boner and rubbed it through his tight leather suit. Simon noticed that and showed him to come closer. Luke opened his leather pants and unpacked his cock, so Simon could suck it. Stuffed from two sides and getting his prostate massaged by the huge cock end, Simon’s own penis was soaking his tight leather suit with precum. At the same time, Luke and the other guy enjoyed their climaxes a few minutes later and shot their loads into Simon’s body. The other anonymous guy also left for the showers.

Now, it was Leo’s turn and he was right at Simon’s hole. Luke was surprised when the young dude unzipped his motocross pants, as his cock was even bigger than his own– about 24 cm long - and coated with strong veins. At the tip, a drop of precum could be seen. As he had learned from his colleagues, Leo positioned his giant cock at Simon’s lust hole and shoved it in with a single thrust. Simon screamed once as he wasn’t used to cocks of this size, but it was no big problem as his hole was well lubed with two guys’ cum. Simon soon began to enjoy Leo fucking him with slow but intense thrusts. Simon tried to position himself differently despite being bound quite tightly, so with every thrust, his wet penis was pressed against his tight leather pants. Leo really was well-trained and had a lot of endurance, he fucked Simon for at least forty minutes, both continuously moaning. Beneath his protective gear, Leo’s sweat was running down his motocross trained body into his muddy Alpinestars Tech boots. Simon smelled the young athlete’s scent and it made him even hornier. Accompanied by three loud screams, Leo pumped various loads of his boy milk into Simon’s asshole. Simon came as well and shot his load into his tight black orange Dainese leathers. They stayed in that comfortable position and enjoyed the moment. Slowly, Leo pulled out his still jerking massive dick out of Simon’s gaping lust cave. He kissed Simon’s leathered butt cheeks and closed the backside zipper. Together with Luke, they uncaged Simon who wasn’t far away from losing consciousness. “Awesome”, was the only word that came out of his mouth.

“Simon, your lust hole was way better than my odd girlfriend’s pussy”, Leo explained. “And you know, the other gays are just idiots, they only wanted to fuck your ass. But they wouldn’t ever tell anyone about this because they are stupid cowards. I really enjoyed this opportunity, and there is also an emotion in my heart I’ve never had before. Is it love? I don’t know! But I will break up with my girlfriend, I don’t believe that I’m loving her. However, being queer can be hard in the village! What do you think?”. Simon, who felt four boys’ cum including his own running down his thighs into his racing boots, answered “We will definitely support you. It’s important to be true to yourself and others. You’re old enough, so you can always leave this town. Maybe you would like to come with us? You seem to be a good biker!” At the end of the day, Simon and Leo exchanged their helmets, so they could inhale the other boy’s masculine scent every time they wanted to.

To be continued?

Did you like the story? Reblog it! 😊 What adventures would you want Simon and Luke to get into?

Please note that this story is fictional. Any resemblance to living persons is unintentional. Please also note that in real life, you should always be aware of informed consent and avoiding sexually transmitted diseases when you hook up with someone. Please also respect your local Covid-19 restrictions.

[luisjuanmilton]

i was so close to saying playful biting but that felt maybe a little TOO on the nose so... interlocking pinkies + george/nicky? 🥺👉👈

Ohhh I’d never written George/Nicky and I actually loved it so thanks Scottie 💛

George/Nicky + “interlocking pinkies”

Send me a prompt and a pairing if you want :)

“George… are you alright?”

George let out a shuddering breath, shutting his eyes tightly behind his visor to stop the tears that were already gathering around his eyes from falling.

He had been so close to scoring his first points, so frustratingly close.

“George?”

“I’m fine” he finally answered, cursing himself for the way he sounded so choked up “I’m so sorry guys, I’m so so sorry”

“Never mind that George, these things happen, you’ll get them next time”

Even if the team was as reassuring as always, their kind words only made him feel guiltier, and as he climbed out of the car and dropped down on the grass, he couldn’t bring himself to take the helmet off.

Before long the marshals came to escort him back to the paddock, and he reluctantly followed them even if all he wanted was stay on the floor and wallow in his own misery.

He tried to smile at every member of the team that came forward to express their condolences, but if the pitying looks on everyone’s faces were anything to go by, he knew that he looked as devastated as he felt.

There was nothing he wanted less than to face the media, but he somehow managed to get out of his racing suit and into some sweatpants and a white t-shirt and head out to the lion’s den.

Every interviewer he talked to was surprisingly kind to him, but much as it had happened with the team, their sympathy only made him angrier at himself. He would have much preferred to have people blaming him or screaming at him, because he felt like that was what he deserved.

As soon as his PR manager gave him a thumb’s up, he excused himself from the media pen and headed back to the garage, already dreading having to do the post-race debrief and go over the accident that had been entirely his fault.

He absolutely hated the way the entire conference room fell silent as he walked in, and he kept his eyes trained firmly on the floor as he quickly made his way over to the empty seat next to Nicky and sat down.

After the debrief started and everyone’s attention was off him, he risked a glance up at his teammate, and he felt his shoulders relaxing slightly at the comforting smile the Canadian shot him.

There wasn’t any trace of pity in his kind brown eyes, and for that George was very grateful.

The Brit barely payed attention to anything that was being discussed in the conference, instead focused on replaying the incident over and over again in his head. He knew it wasn’t healthy, and that it wouldn’t help him at all, but he still couldn’t help but go over the endless what ifs.

“Alright, now let’s discuss George’s, um, incident” Simon’s voice broke through his thoughts, and George felt his face heat up as all eyes fell on him once more.

His mortification must have been plastered all over his face, because Simon was quick to reassure him that they weren’t angry at him and that it was just a racing incident, but he still couldn’t find the words to begin discussing what had happened.

Just as his anxiety was spiking up to dangerous levels, George felt something lightly touching his right hand. He was momentarily startled by the feeling, but as he turned to face Nicky he was met with that same comforting smile, and then he felt a pinky finger interlocking with his own.

George tore his eyes off Nicky’s face to look down at their joint fingers, and warmth flooded his chest at the gesture.

It was strange how such a simple thing could instantly make him feel so much more at ease. It almost felt like Nicky was transmitting his own calmness over to George through their interlocked pinkies, and he turned back to face him and give him grateful smile.

To many, it would seem slightly ridiculous, but George appreciated the silent show of support much more than anyone could ever imagine.

Nicky only tightened the grip he had on his pinky in response, and the gentle pressure was all George needed to ground himself, sitting up straighter on his chair and forcing himself to make eye contact with their team principal.

“First of all, I just want to say I really am sorry about what happened, rest assured I will learn from this unfortunate incident and I’ll keep working hard to get those points we deserve”

Everyone at the table smiled proudly over at him, and George finally allowed himself to give them a genuine smile, even if it was only a little one.

Nicky squeezed his pinky again, and George felt goosebumps rising over his skin and butterflies fluttering in his belly.

In the end, the discussion of the incident lasted only around five minutes, and when it was over George leaned closer to his teammate, just enough so he could whisper in his ear.

“Thanks Nicky”

They were now so close together that Nicky could lightly bump George’s shoulder with his own “Anytime George”

Although the worst had passed the two stayed in that same position for the rest of the debrief, their interlocked pinkies resting on top of Nicky’s knee and safely hidden away from any prying eyes.

[neshatriumphs]

VI. A Fair Assessment

Guess What Loves???  I got a soundtrack for this story: Here on Spotify

Simon was awakened by the sounds of trumpets, tubas, and… other instruments and he jumped out of his sleep, ready to fight. Was there a war starting? Was that a battle song? He reached for his personals and rushed through the curtains to see… what appeared to be… a parade? There were four massive, purple gorillas with instruments on the shoulders… or coming out of their backs. He couldn’t tell… and on a litter, being carried by them was a little girl. She was brown and had long wild blond hair, but there was a mask shielding the bottom of her face and leaves in her hair. She turned suddenly as the townspeople celebrated her arrival, and she looked right. At. Simon. He glared at her, feeling uncomfortably scrutinized. He couldn’t read the face that she was making at him, but her head turned and they held the stare down until the moment that her litter was out of sight. Following it was the biggest of the large purple gorillas, who glanced at Simon, but didn’t linger. 

Simon exhaled when they were out of eyesight, then glanced around at all the creatures and witches who had come out of hiding to follow the parade and head to the fair. He pulled his hood over his head and secured his bag around himself. The pendant was out for Amelia’s viewing pleasure and he began to walk in the direction that everyone else was going. He and Grace hadn’t been clear on what they would do today, so he presumed that she could find him whenever she wanted to. When a bird landed in front of him, he paused and stared. The bird took flight, and he followed. There was something about Grace and birds, so he just figured this was someone sent by her. The bird led him to Lucy. He groaned.

“I feel the same way,” she said. “Do you transmit?”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Do you travel elsewhere really fast or instantly?” she asked, annoyed.

“Like… teleport?”

She glared. “Yeah. Like teleport.”

“Yes,” he said. “We call it vaporing or vanishing…”

“Don’t. Care.” She handed him a black stone, carved into the shape of a bird. “Blackbirds represent beauty, intelligence, and wisdom. A good omen, representing protection and safe passage. This will lead you directly to the princess.” She turned around and was taken up immediately by a flock of birds. 

“Always trying to make me learn natural magic mythology,” he grumbled, moving his hands to cast the spell to make him vapor to the princess. Whenever he reached her, she was once again surrounded by children… and barefoot. She was going to ruin those sweet new feet! Wait… she had on sandals of some sort? No… They were footless sandals… basically just anklets that decorated the foot and latched onto the toe… They were pretty… She… was pretty. She was wearing pearls and crystals - the all white a bit abnormal for her, as he had gotten used to purples and pinks. But, she had bird accents in her hair, makeup and jewels on her face, and was adorned in jewelry and drawings that looked… sort of like runes, but were definitely some type of other design that he didn’t know and it appeared to be body paint, not tattooed. The children cleared away and she smiled at him, “You made it!”

“Yeah… I had a little birdy help me out.” He extended his hand to give her the blackbird, but she closed it in his palm and smiled.

“Consider it your first gift of the day.”

“First gift?”

“I told you… The fair is for us to come together and share our gifts. That’s part of my earth magic, bonded with my animal magic!” Grace got onto her knees. She grabbed his hand and pulled him down with her. He put her little blackbird away and watched her. She dug her gloved hands into the ground. He had just noticed that she still had on gloves, though they weren’t as long as her usual ones, and she shut her eyes and the dirt seemed to shift for her, digging and pulling something out of it. There was a crystal in her hands after the soil sifted through her fingers. She clasped it in her hand and light glowed from inside of there. When she opened it, there was another bird, this time made of the crystal that she had just called forth from the earth. “Blue Quartz. Amplifies healing, intuition, empathy and clarity, and it enhances clear and open communication. The bluebird is the harbinger of happiness. The earth told me that these were the gifts that you could use.” 

He was reluctant to accept it. “You just gave me that blackbird…”

“That one was in case you ever need to find your way back to me. This one is simply to help you find your way. You’re… very unhappy, Simon. Your aura is filled with tense energy, anger, sorrow, spite…” she slipped the bluebird into his left pocket, “I’m at least going to make your aura a little less messy for me to be around.” She was so close to his face that she could kiss him if she wanted to… and he sort of wanted her to. They stared at each other a moment, a longer moment than was comfortable. He broke the stare and got up. She sighed and followed, then grabbed his wrist and led him around.

There were witches and creatures exchanging things and showing off skills all over the place. Simon even spotted Lucy, laughing with a bunch of children as her swans put on a dance performance. He hated to admit it, but either the bluebird, or this place was making him relax and he didn’t like to relax, because that could leave you with weak spots… then again, the place felt so comfortable, he felt like for the first time ever, he was some place where there was nobody who might try to harm him. It made no sense. Because he was surrounded by the enemy. His nemesis had her hand wrapped around his fingers, and yet… complete calm in her care, in her presence. She felt like… home. 

What a stupid thought! She’s death. She is leading you through lies and would send you to your destruction. Never forget that! She hissed and pulled her hand away from him. She threw him a look and he was startled. “What is wrong with you?” She asked, irritated, shaking her fingers, as though he had somehow hurt her… could it be? That whenever he went into that calm state, touching her, she was susceptible to his harm, without her spell repelling him away from her? 

He smiled and grabbed her hand, about to try to check to see if she was hurt, but she snatched it back whenever he reached for her glove. “No. I’m good.” She held her own hand and he raised an eyebrow suspiciously. She was lying. He didn’t know about what, but continued, like nothing was wrong.

“Hang on, gotta stop to see Hazel, my oracle!” She cheered, with excitement. “You wait here, or like… mingle, if you want? The worship of the nymphs might be up to your speed.” She rushed towards a tent and he tried to follow, but was cut off by that huge monster of a gorilla he’d seen earlier. It roared at him and pounced and was about to murder him with the nearest boulder it could grab. 

“Tuba!” They heard a little girl’s voice say. The gorilla paused and set the rock down. 

Grace helped Simon up and glared at Tuba. “He’s a guest, Tuba.”

“He’s a conductor,” she corrected. “And one stained with the blood of my brethren.”

Grace nodded, “I’m pretty sure that they just have it everywhere around there. I don’t think he’s actually a murderer, Tuba. This is the Fair. We don’t attack unless we are attacked.” She turned to Simon and said, “And I told you to stay over there. You got into Hazel’s bubble. Tuba is sworn to protect her.”

“I don’t know any of that shit!” he complained. 

“That’s why I need you to trust me whenever I tell you something.” He glared up at Tuba who Grace bowed her head to and gave a pineapple. Tuba settled in front of the tent and ate the pineapple, staring at Simon as he waited outside of Hazel’s bubble, with his arms folded, wishing that Grace was back next to him, because without her, he suddenly felt extremely unsafe. He had a pain beneath his arm and he tried not to look too comfortable.

.

Hazel gave Grace a smile and held her hand out to an empty space on the floor in front of her sitting table. “He seems nice,” she teased.

“I can’t figure him out. He says things that trouble me to my core. His aura…”

“A disaster!” Hazel said, nodding her head as she sat on the floor in front of Grace. “And yet, you can’t pull yourself away from him.”

“Is it THAT obvious?” Grace asked, blushing and trying to cover her face, like that would matter to Hazel, anyway. “He just.. From the moment I saw him, I was drawn to him and even though I should have already sent him packing, I haven’t. I can just feel that there’s something special about him… but I can’t be sure that isn’t my lady parts doing the feeling for me.” 

Hazel removed tea leaves from her hair and put them in a cup. “You want me to tell you about him.” She grabbed a kettle of hot water that was on the table and poured it into the cup. After tea, she looked into the cup and gave Grace a smile, “Your lady parts might be feeling, but you’re absolutely right about him. He’s your soulmate.”

Grace gasped and covered her mouth with one hand. “The One selected me another soul mate? Finally? But… why this one? Why would he send me a conductor to be my king?”

“Hazel shook her head, looking into the cup, “You’ve got it backwards. The One didn’t send you a conductor. The Conductor stole your soul mate.”

“Wait… So… He’s the last of the Laurents?” Grace asked, and nearly fell over, even though they were sitting. 

Hazel removed more leaves from her hair. They just manifested as she needed them, and she ground them and crushed them into a pipe. She handed it to Grace and Grace took a particle of wood, placed it to the small fire that heated the kettle and smoked the leaves in the pipe. She was transported into a smoke hazed vision. A boy crying in a crib. Amelia, hooded and deceptive. Her keepers coming too late to rescue him from her clutches. One of the witches transformed into a white cat and rushed off to find him. The smoke clouds became too dark for her to see anymore and she blinked and was back in the room with Hazel. “The Cat!” She said.

“You’re gonna be a little disoriented. That journey went back 16 years.”

“The Cat!” Grace said… “She was one of us. She knew me… She was with us…”

“All familiars come from natural magic, you know that, Grace. The Cat is bonded to the Laurents. Of course she would go with him.”

“But… why wouldn’t she guide him back to us? Why would she let the Conductor KEEP him?” She asked, frustrated to the point of tears. Plus, she was certain that she was extremely high. “Pbbbbrrrrrrr… We need to find her and bring her to justice for treason and treachery and kidnapping and almost crumbling the system of power as we know it!”

“Here,” Hazel said and gave Grace a loaf of lavender and chamomile bread, and the princess tore off chunks and stuffed them into her mouth. Hazel calmly explained, “There is something inside of him now, Grace. He belongs to the Conductor. She saved his life and she raised him. There was nothing that The Cat could have done to turn him from her, but she’s kept her loyalty and remained his familiar, and he is very attached to her. She’s probably the only person that he cares about.” She poured more water, to make them more tea. “But, he’s suffering. He needs his soul mate just as much as you do. You two were meant to complete each other. Your destinies are intertwined.”

“Well, I can’t not fuck him, then,” Grace said, a mouth full of bread. “Oof. I’m still under the influence. I meant to say…”

“You’re going to be drawn to him in that way, because you were destined to mate with him. He’s going to have the same proclivity towards you. But, there’s a blockage. Something is keeping him from you. Probably whatever magic was used to save him from his illness.”

Grace looked at her hands and wondered, “Could I remove that?”

“Maybe. She severed your spiritual connection. But, the magic inside of him - the magic that he was born with, his Laurent bloodline… it is trying to reach you. The magic is trying to do what natural magic does, connect the lifeform to what it needs to grow.”

“She put fake magic into his system whenever she stopped his illness.”

“Don’t call it fake magic. It isn’t fake. It works, and isn’t inherently bad. Alric didn’t abuse the forms of magic that he created. He simply found a way for those who weren’t born with natural magic to be able to utilize it. If one is willing to give and take, it works in a balanced manner. It isn’t as strong as natural magic, but that’s simply because it is younger and not yet fully incorporated into the universe’s magical ecosystem. In other words, it hasn’t had the chance to evolve yet.”

“Wait… So… that magic that the conductor uses is… valid?”

“No. The magic that the conductor learned is valid. But, she’s used it in such a way, taking so much and giving nothing in return, building a small empire that does the same… the ecosystem hasn’t been able to adjust. It needs a very powerful conductor to help begin to restore balance.”

“Is… that Simon?”

“I don’t think any other is more powerful than him except for Amelia.”

Grace drank some tea. “I don’t know what to do. Can you tell me what to do?”

“You’ll have to try to connect with him. Get his guard down and he’ll let that wall down. If he can turn away from Amelia and reject her ways, your touch may be able to both remove whatever magic is keeping him alive, and heal him, the way that you would have been able to all of those years ago if she hadn’t taken him.”

“If not?”

Hazel shook her head, and pointed at her divination table, “All that I can assure you of is bloodshed.”

.

It was a long time whenever Grace came out of the tent, but she could sense that Simon would be waiting on her. She found him sitting on a large rock, carving something out of redwood. She approached him, looking at him with brand new eyes and her heart beating furiously in her chest. This man… she was meant to… be with, for the rest of her life. He was concentrating hard as he carved the wood with his conductor’s dagger and she didn’t want to disturb him, but he must’ve felt her approaching, because he looked up and his tenseness smoothed away. His shoulders dropped and his eyes softened. “Took you long enough,” he complained, but she could tell that he was relieved that she was back. He stood up, blushing and sighed. “I made you this,” he pushed the gift towards her, offering her no explanation whatsoever. She wasn’t sure if he even knew himself why he made her that. 

But, it was made from redwood, a tree that symbolizes “forever” and he carved it into the shape of a dove… a bird associated with love. Grace cupped it in her hands, certain that no matter what happened between them, she would never get rid of this. She placed it into her sack, threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. She could hear several gasps all around her, as the princess was NOT supposed to do such things! But, she didn’t care at the moment. This was actually her rightful property and she could do whatever she wanted. Plus, his hands had moved to her waist and pulled her closer, deepening the kiss. He had to have felt it too… She paused to look at him and he looked like he was in a lot of pain, probably fighting it, like Hazel warned her about. But, he was at least content to be resigned for now. He rested his forehead against hers and they took a moment to gather their wits. 

Amelia ran her hand through her hair, glaring at the princess through the pendant. “She’s seen an oracle… Does she KNOW?” She wondered. 

“If she does, you’re in trouble,” Samantha said, hopping onto the table and looking into the basin. You know that if Simon falls in love with her, she’s going to be powerful enough to defeat you.” 

“YOU know that Simon took a blood oath. Whether he falls in love with her or not, if he doesn’t kill her; he will die.” 

“I know.”

“So, where do your loyalties lie, Samantha? With Simon, a boy you’ve raised for a family you served for generations? Or with the witches that have let you wander through enemy territory for nearly 20 years, alone, cut off, watching your own kind killed at the hands of the one who you love more than anything… I need a warrior witch, now. Simon needs her.” 

Samantha stepped off of the table and transformed into an elderly, but obviously strong and powerful woman with white hair and yellow eyes. “In Simon’s name, I need you to return home. He’s in danger there.” Amelia pulled out a conductor’s dagger and Samantha opened her hand to receive it, “In Simon’s name, I will do what I must to keep him safe.”

[carryonsimoncarryonbaz]

BITE DOWN

A new hurt/comfort, isolation, Snowbaz sick fic that wouldn't leave my head and that I cranked out in the last 24 hours. 

Baz and Simon shelter in place in London during the pandemic but they are not aware SImon has been infected until he falls ill. Baz does the care taking as Simon descends into illness and then Baz has some very difficult moments to face and decisions to make. Angst with a happy ending.

*trigger warning from frank descriptions of severe pneumonia and respiratory illness*

BITE DOWN

Day 1

Simon

Penny left this morning. Her mum wanted her home once the shutdown order came through and with her uni having gone all online there wasn’t much point in her staying around.

Other than for me, that is.

She wanted to but I told her that’s daft. She should be with her family. I’d never choose to cross Mitali Bunce and there’s no reason for Penny to, not for this.

I’ll be fine. My classes are all online. I can buy what I need at the corner shop and the curry place is staying open.

And I’ve got Baz. He’s staying too. Spouted some rubbish about not wanting to possibly transmit something to his family, seeing as they’re half-isolated as it is, way out where they are.

And don’t I know it. I made that jog from the road to their place more than once. Isolated doesn’t do it justice. It’s remote.

But I also know that’s not the real reason he’s staying here. I know he’s staying for me, the sappy git.

I tried to make him go. Tried to convince him he should be with his family.

He’d turned his sea-grey eyes on me then and said, “I am with my family.”

There’s not much I could say in answer to that. Not with words that is. I practically knocked him off the sofa in my attempt to snog him senseless. He says things like that and I . . . well, fuck, it makes me believe it’s all been worth it. All that came before.

No, I know it’s worth it. I’d give up my magic again in a heartbeat to have what I’ve got with Baz. Give it all to the Humdrum, fight mutant vampires in the desert, deal with that fucking Lamb character—I’d go through it all over again for him. Every moment of it, to be where we are now.

Together. In love and able to say it. Out loud. To each other.

My therapy appointments are down to once a month now. Baz and I have one together every few months. I was surprised when he started seeing someone, a few months after we came back. After everything had finally settled down.

Fiona found him someone she trusted.

It made it easier for me to do it, once he started. Sometimes I wonder if that’s why he did it. But there’s never been a point in asking him that. It doesn’t serve a purpose. He wouldn’t have kept going if it wasn’t something he needed as well. So why he started doesn’t matter. All that matters is that he did.

And I did.

And we’re here now, better than we’ve ever been.

Well, other than this pandemic shit.

I don’t think it’s going to be as bad as they say. They’ve shut the whole damn country down. Hospitals and clinics at ready. I think it will take time, but it’ll pass.

It’s done a right number on all of our plans, I’ll say that.

Last year of uni for Baz and Penny. I basically fucked away my first year so I’m a bit behind, but still. We’re all moving forward, not looking back.

I hope this doesn’t fuck up Baz’s graduation. He’s top of his class here too, the swot. I want to see that. See him graduate.

I didn’t get to see him give his leavers speech at Watford.

Baz says he’s not fussed about graduation. What he’s fussed about is possibly having to cancel his graduation gift from his parents. They’ve sprung for a two-week vacation on the Continent for the both of us.

I’m part of the gift, it seems. Daphne came right out and said it like that, when they told Baz about it. I thought I was going to go up in flames right there and then.

It’s right embarrassing sometimes, the things she and Malcolm say. I call him Malcolm now, as if that doesn’t take the bloody cake. Took me long enough. (It’s still awkward as fuck, but he likes it so I try.)

It was bad enough when they assumed we were shagging and we weren’t. Yet.

Now they’re even less inhibited. Sending us away on romantic weekend trips. Buying us matching gifts. Asking us when we’re going to move in together (yes, we’ve talked about it) (probably this summer) (or we were planning to, before this bloody thing started) (just hadn’t told anyone but Penny yet.)

But this. This is like some wedding planner’s ideal honeymoon trip. Paris. Venice. Barcelona. The bloody Amalfi Coast.

It’s as if Daphne looked up every romantic location on Pinterest and added it to the itinerary.

Every bloody romantic proposal location, I mean.

That’s what it feels like to me.

Because I’d been thinking to ask him, after graduation. And I’ll be good god-damned if I don’t get to do it first.

Knowing Baz, he’d probably try to get the drop on me, just to be a competitive arse.

No, he wouldn’t actually. Not for this. He’d want me to be sure, he’d want to know I was the one who really wanted it.

And he’d want to see me try to set up something romantic. For him. He’s such a sappy git. I think he’d be just as thrilled if I did it in the Tesco car park as the Eiffel Tower at sunset.

Which is where I’m currently planning on asking, when I let myself think about it. Paris, that is, not the Tesco. Although last week it was a gondola in Venice. And by next week it may well be somewhere else.

It’s not as if I’ve bought a ring or anything yet. I was waiting a bit. Getting comfortable with the idea rather than just letting myself daydream about it.

Not that I’ll be getting any ring shopping done anytime soon.

Not even online, not with his meddlesome self looking over my shoulder when I’m on my laptop, now that he’s going to be here every minute, not just a few nights a week.

He’s here more than a few nights, to be honest, has been for a while. Unless he’s got a big paper or some sort of group project and I’m too much of a distraction.

Baz basically moved in at the start of the fall term. I mean, he still has his place in Camberwell. He’s just rarely there anymore. His clothes fill my closet, he’s got a colourful array of spare pants in the dresser, his toiletries on my sink and in my shower—not travel sized versions carried back and forth in his knapsack anymore.

There’re orderly pints of blood in the fridge and cold vampire feet in my bed every night.

I’m not complaining one bit. It’s taken us long enough to get here.

And so here we are, our coursework done for the day, curled up on my sofa watching Derry Girls again, my head resting on his shoulder.

I’m feeling all right. None of the symptoms they’re blathering on about in the news updates and emails from the uni health centre.

And Baz . . . well, he’s being Baz. Calm in the midst of the anxiety that’s overtaken the city. Meticulous about his personal hygiene and bloody annoying about mine.

Like now.

“Go wash your hands, Simon.”

“I just did, when I went to the loo a bit ago.”

“You just touched your nose. Wash them again.”

“Bloody hell, must you watch me every minute?”

“Not about to change my habits now, they’re ingrained.” He’s smiling, the prat.

“Don’t I know it.”

His eyebrow goes up. “Someone has to, you’re an absolute menace to cleanliness as a rule.”

“Piss off.”

But I love him for it, so I go and wash my hands. I know why he does it. I know it’s out of concern.

I’m being careful. I am.

I’ve not been out other than for a run, not since uni shut down. I mean other than to go to the corner shop for snacks a few days ago. And to the curry place for some samosas yesterday.

Baz has put a stop to all that now though. Said he’s doing the shopping and the food runs from now on. I watched him empty the shopping bags earlier—wouldn’t even let me help, the tosser. He’s stocked up on paracetamol, thermometer covers, zinc throat lozenges, throat syrup, and whatnot.

“Didn’t you get any crisps? I thought you were going to get more crisps?” We’re not going to make it long without crisps.

He just rolls his eyes at me. “We’ve got bags of them, Simon. We’ll be fine.”

Baz

I’m trying not to let on to Simon how worried I am.

I’ve seen the projections. It’s not looking good. This government has bollocksed the entire situation from the very start. Even my father is appalled at the Tories and has not been shy about saying so, which is unprecedented and not doing anything to dampen my anxiety about all this.

It’s end times when my father is to the point of vehemently condemning a Tory government.

I don’t know what Simon and Penelope were thinking. They’ve not stocked up on much other than toilet paper and crisps. I had to purchase the bare necessities today and it took me to two Tescos and one Boots to find any paracetamol.

I do know what Penelope was thinking—that a few well-cast spells would sort it.

She sorted Simon when I thought we’d lose him. I can understand her confidence but it’s wildly misplaced.

This isn’t like that.

This is, for lack of a better term, insidious. Fuck. I hate that word. I can’t use it and not think of the bloody Humdrum. That leads to thinking about the Mage and Simon’s magic and then I’m off on tangents that make me want to rage.

I know it’s been years now. I know he and I have both talked through it, with each other and with Simon’s therapist.

But at moments like this, in the middle of this fucking plague, all I can think about is how much easier this would be, how much safer, if Simon still had his magic. Not that it made him impervious to injuries or illnesses. It didn’t, I know that first hand, from all those nights he’d drag himself up the steps to our turret, bruised and battered and a bloody mess.

But he had a capacity to heal, to bounce back, without needing to be coated in spells. He’s not got that anymore.

But he acts like he still does.

Like he did in America. Like he’s acting now. Like somehow, he’s resistant to it all, that he can barrel through as he is and still come out relatively unscathed.

I’ve put a stop to all that. No more trips to the corner shop or the curry place. No unnecessary activities outside of the flat. None. I’ll be damned if we’ve made it this far only to have some rogue virus destroy it all.

I’m the one who’s impervious. I’m the one who will still be standing at the end of the day, when this is all over. And I want Simon at my side.

I need him to be.

He can content himself with sitting at home, on the sofa, watching the telly. I’ll even buy him some cider, if he’ll just bloody well stay inside.

Here I am, wishing that Simon Snow would just lie the fuck down on the sofa and not argue about it. Who would have thought we’d come to this? Crowley, the world is upside down.

At least now I get to lie down with him.

READ THE REST AT AO3! 

https://archiveofourown.org/works/23287240

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Private equity firms should be abolished

In his latest BIG newsletter, Matt Stoller (previously) relates the key moments in the history of private equity, from its roots in the notorious "leveraged buyouts" of the 1980s, and explains exactly how the PE con works: successful, productive business are acquired through debt financing, drained of their cash and assets, and then killed, leaving workers unemployed and with their pension funds looted, and with the business's creditors out in the cold.

Private equity's story begins with William Simon, "a mean, nasty, tough bond trader who took no BS from anyone" whose idea of child-rearing was the douse his children with buckets of ice-water to rouse them from bed on weekend mornings. Simon was given senior Treasury appointments under Nixon/Ford, then became America's energy czar during the oil crisis. He was pro-austerity and blocked the bailout of NYC in 1975.

Once out of government service, Simon set about to create a Republican "counter-intelligentsia" to swing the party to the right. He ran the influential far-right think-tank the Olin Foundation, and dispersed money to fund law and economics scholars who were devoted to discrediting the New Deal and the idea of any limits on corporate power, all cloaked in "scientific" rhetoric.

The darlings of this movement -- Henry Manne, Milton Friedman, Michael Jenson -- promoted the idea of "shareholder capitalism" and the notion that managers have a single duty: to put as much money in the pockets of investors, even at the expense of the business's sustainability or the well-being of its workers. They joined forces with Robert Bork, who had set about discrediting antitrust law, arguing (successfully) that the only time laws against monopolies should be enforced was when monopolists raised prices immediately after attaining their monopolies -- everything else was fair game (Bork is a major reason that every industry in the economy is now super-concentrated, with only a handful of major firms).

Simon's policy prescriptions -- massive reductions in capital gains taxes, deregulation of trucking, finance and transport, and a move from guaranteed pensions to 401(k)s that only provide in old age if you make the right bets in the stock market -- were adopted by Carter and the Democrats, flooding the market with huge amounts of cash to be invested.

That's when the leveraged buyout industry was born. In 1982, Simon convinced Barclays and General Electric to loan him $80m to buy Gibson Greeting Cards from its parent company RCA. Once the company was theirs, they looted its bank account to pay themselves a $900k "special dividend," sold off its real-estate holdings for $4m, and took the company public for $270m, with Simon cashing out $70m from the transaction (Simon's total investment was $330k).

This was the starter pistol for future leveraged buyouts, through which companies like Bain Capital and the Carlyle Group buy multiple companies in the same sector and transmit "winning strategies" between them: new ways to dodge taxes, raise prices, and avoid regulation. PE owners suck any financial cushion out of companies -- funds that firms set aside for downturns or R&D -- and replace it with "brutal debt schedules." The PE owners benefit massively when this drives up share prices, but take no downsides when the companies fail.

Under PE, companies have emphasized firing workers and replacing them with overseas subcontractors, and amassing "brands, patents and tax loopholes" as their primary assets. PE firms specialize in self-dealing, cutting in the banks and brokers who set up the deals for a share of the upside. A company bought by a private equity firm is ten times more likely to go bankrupt than one with a traditional capital/management structure.

Elizabeth Warren has proposed some commonsense reforms to private equity: making PE investors liable for the debts they load their companies up with (including an obligation to fund workers' pensions); ending special fees and dividends; and reforming bankruptcy and tax laws to force PE companies to operate on the same terms as other businesses. Stoller calls this "reunifying ownership and responsibility": making the people who assume ownership of these productive companies take responsibility for their liabilities, not just their profits.

As Stoller points out, critics of Warren's plan say that this would end private equity investing as we know it ("Unfortunately, Warren’s fixes for these problems... would pretty much guarantee that nobody invests in or lends to private equity firms" -- Steven Pearlstein, Washington Post), but of course, that's the whole point.

But centrist Democrats love private equity, as the firms are major political donors, and many's the politician who cycled out of public office and into a cushy job with a PE firm.

Stoller discusses this further in his new book Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy.

https://boingboing.net/2019/12/16/capitalisms-grave-diggers.html

[bettsfic]

THE RAINNNNNNN ! just randomly remembered how much I'm looking forward to your thoughts, on the latest season, in the middle of my shift.

just finished watching it! 

first of all, i’m really (not actually) surprised how hard it was to find on netflix. the algorithm should have shoved it front and center on my homepage, but i scrolled around for a long time looking for it and it was nowhere. then, when i went to Search, i had to type in the ENTIRE TITLE. netflix really didn’t want me to see that this show had a new season.

for a while i was baffled, and then i realized it’s a show about an apocalypse brought on by a virus that’s transmitted through water droplets. 

spoilers under the cut!

i was actually pretty disappointed in this season. i thought the pacing was slow and not enough happened. i didn’t buy simone and rasmus’ motivations at all, and when they went to kill each other i just couldn’t get on board. they’ve spent two seasons working together and protecting each other, and then they have a disagreement of ideals that doesn’t even make sense and suddenly rasmus is marching to kill simone. i know it’s like the virus talking or whatever, but i still don’t buy it. 

the ending was too easy and not at all satisfying to me. i knew martin was going to die and so i was prepared for it, but it still pissed me off. it just felt very unnecessary and like the writers were just looking for a way to hurt us because there were no other stakes to keep us invested.

so many threads were dropped from previous seasons that it didn’t feel like a final or culminating season at all. what happened to the capsules? the strangers? rescuing the survivors? and then in episode 3.1, simone finally gets out only to find the entire world is basically dead? after spending 2 seasons trying to get out of the zone? what a fucking bummer. and then simone spends the rest of the season trying to “save the world” but there’s nothing to save!! it’s all gone!! why bother!!

anyway. here’s what i did like:

queerplatonic fie and patrick raising a baby together!!

daniel just being a solidly good-aligned character like simone + terrible fashion sense

jean being set up to be an antagonistic force but he’s actually just sad and has no purpose in the plot whatsoever, and also doesn’t die

the two super romantic scenes we get with martin and simone, even if it wasn’t enough. even though i didn’t like the ending, that relationship remains one of my favorite canon romances of all time

the performances!! specifically lucas lynggaard tonnesen (there are some letters in his name that my keyboard doesn’t have but he’s the guy who plays rasmus) who just really stepped up to being a commanding badass in a convincing way, given how little the writing supported it 

i continue to love that at the foundation of this premise lies the belief that people are ultimately kind and compassionate but flawed and when put in bad situations, sometimes have self-serving interests

what this season did particularly well was show that it just takes one guy to build an army. i love how even though all the virus-takers were kind of hive-minded together, they still showed hesitance to hurt anyone. it really skewed the perception of good vs. evil and kept everyone very human

especially the scene in the locker room where olivia is supposed to kill daniel, kira, and jean, and she just doesn’t want to/can’t. and it ends up being a teenager who shoots her with a flaming arrow, because that’s the only life that kid knows

in the first few episodes, i loved seeing martin just be an unstoppable badass in pursuit of simone. god what a dynamic. 

the fic fodder! martin being connected to rasmus via the virus. the badwrong possibilities there are endless. 

i went back and read the fic i had started writing, which was an alternate ending where everyone escaped the zone and it was 5 years later, and martin was going back in to retrieve the survivors before burning it all down. i only had 2k written with no notes on how to end it, so i’m not sure i’ll pick it up again, but i hope eventually to use their dynamic as inspiration for something.

[dumbwaystodeviate]

How about some more android Perkins. He deviates at Stratford after hearing Markus' speech and help Simon escape

You are after my heart (like I am after Perkins’ coat) XD I love you for being such an enabler and letting me write more android Perkins. Thank you!

Watching the alleged mastermind behind the hacking and broadcast make an impassioned speech should have left Perkins utterly untouched. It was a machine, like himself, only this one had Class 4 malfunctions and a ego the size of Texas to boot. Only, it didn’t leave him cold and unfeeling. Looking into the mismatched optical units, Perkins found himself captivated. Viruses and malfunctions couldn’t be transmitted through sight alone and yet there he was, seeing the android red behind the colours and falling through it. Jerking, Perkins took as step back and looked around, satisfied that nobody had noticed his predicament.

He was in a dangerous position now. The deviant hunter was only down the corridor, blocking his exit. The infiltrating androids had to get off the roof somehow, he hoped to find an escape from there too.

“I’m checking out the roof,” he snapped and, as expected, nobody made a move to follow him, too used to being bullied out of the way of the high and mighty FBI.

Taking the stairs, Perkins noted the thirium splatters on them, one of the deviants had been injured. Out on the roof, he looked around and spotted the abandoned bag. Inside it was a parachute and he scoffed. Either they brought a spare or someone didn’t escape. Just as he thought that, there was the sound of a foot scuffing against metal.

“Who’s there?” Perkins called out. He should have been alone on the rooftop. There was no reply but he began to scan and found the thirium trail. It led to a disused circuit box and flinging it open brought him face to face with the muzzle of a gun. The android hiding looked at him wide eyed.

“I won’t hesitate to shoot.”

They were brave words from a deviant but to prove him wrong, Perkins twisted the gun from his hands in two short moves.

“Try again,” he spat, “maybe a little more friendly this time.”

He didn’t expect a defiant tilt of chin and refusal, even when the gun was pointed at the deviant.

“You’re a spunky one, aren’t you? Yet got left behind by your friends.” Perkins’ eyes trailed over the android and saw the problem. A gunshot to the leg. It would have made running or even walking difficult. Landing with the parachute would have been deadly.

“I will live and die by my principles,” the PL600 replied evenly.

“You,” Perkins pointed. “I like you. Come on.”

Not waiting for consent, he crouched down and picked the injured android up. Depositing him on the ground next to the parachute, he looked over him again.

“Fucking pathetic,” he grumbled. “Couldn’t even organise a piss-up in a brewery.”

Continuing his disparaging commentary while shrugging the parachute on, he ignored the PL600 looking at him.

“I’ll never tell you anything,” he said.

“Good, I wouldn’t want you to anyway.”

Behind them, the door opened and people began to file out. They took one look at Perkins and the android before guns were being raised.

“The one time they’re organised and responsive, I swear to rA9, ridiculous.” Perkins scooped the other android up and took a running jump off the building amidst gunfire. They fell at an alarming rate. “Pull the chord! For fuck’s sake pull the bloody chord!”

After a few fumbles, the android in his arms found the release string and the parachute unfurled above them.

“You guide, I’ll land,” Perkins growled.

Together, they drifted gentle circles until they landed with a little less grace than Perkins had hoped for in an abandoned parking lot. All through the descent he had muttered about idiots and sticking together and partnerships being about working together. Picking himself up off the ground, Perkins shrugged out of the parachute and dusted himself off before offering a hand to pull the other android up.

“I’m not going to carry you but you can lean on me, nameless one.”

“Simon. My name is Simon,” came the quiet words. “And thank you.”

“Don’t mention it. I was saving both our asses. I’m Richard Perkins but most people prefer to call me after me personality, Dick.”

That earned a laugh from Simon and he took a hobbling step to start them off on their way back to Jericho.

“And,” Perkins followed up, “I think I have a lot to teach your merry band of misfits about teamwork. Leaving you behind like that, what were they thinking?”

Simon let Perkins grumble away on their way back. After all, he was pretty pissed off too, now that he knew it was entirely possible to have two people use one parachute.